Ziggy, Stardust and Me

by James Brandon

  7:15. Ch-click. 7:16.

  Maybe he’s lost. I don’t know. I have no idea where he lives, so I drew the map from school for him to follow.

  Ch-click. 7:18.

  I’ve never had to give directions to my house before. I’ve never had anyone over before. God. What was I thinking? Stupidstupidstupid idea. Where’s my marker? Hurry up, scratch a black hole in the shag, disappear to another epoch of time.

  Ch-click. 7:20. Doesn’t work.

  Pink Floyd wavers through the floor from the record player in the living room. The Dark Side of the Moon album. Patchouli incense perfumes the air. It’s the only kind I could find behind the bar. I stashed the boobie-covered ashtray there, too—and Dad’s assorted other girlie paraphernalia—and plugged in the still-hanging Christmas lights.

  Ch-click. 7:23.

  It’s no big deal, Collins. You’re just friends. That is all. Dr. Evelyn says, “Good friends are good force fields,” and that’s exactly what he is. Yeah. Maybe I should call Starla to see if she wants to come over and—

  Doorbell rings.

  He’s here.

  * * *

  —

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  We stare through the screen door.

  Web, in his usual uniform: white ribbed tank, bright blue jeans, and beat-to-hell Chucks, but draped with a shiny black windbreaker like a magic cloak. On it, a white pin, with the silhouette of an American Indian morphing into a peace sign and the letters AIM stamped in red. Web, emptying a bag of sour-cherry candies in his mouth, his lips the color of the red sea. Web, a piece of sun caught in a cage. Web—

  “Hey, man, can I come in?”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry—” I rub my wrists together.

  He walks past, smells like burnt toast and honey. “Whoa, this is your house?” He saunters down to the living room like he’s perusing an art museum.

  “Yeah, I guess.” I’m still standing at the screen door. Dumbstruck, possibly, that he’s actually here. I check the neighbors’. No old pickles peeking through curtains, no lights on at Starla’s, no lights on anywhere, actually. I’m thinking he sucked up every light he walked past. He’s the frigging Star of Bethlehem in my living room. It’s blinding.

  “So I guess you’re rich or something?” he says, brushing his bare feet through the shag. (He flicked off his Chucks the second he walked in.)

  “Not really. I don’t know.” I pick his shoes up and line them by the door. “It’s all stupid anyway.”

  He laughs. “Says the white guy with all the money.”

  “Oh . . . that’s not what I—”

  “We’re used to it. White people take everything from us—”

  “Oh, sorry, I mean—”

  “It’s all good, man. ‘What goes around, comes around . . .’” He lifts a bottle of Jack Daniel’s behind the bar, fiddles with the Christmas lights. “We may not have a lot of money, but we’re richer in spirit than any white guy I’ve ever met—no offense.”

  A burst of thunder cracks through the clouds, followed by a pattering of rain. I jump, grab my chest. Jesus. Relax, Collins.

  “Who’s this?” Web turns to the painting above the fireplace. Some neon paint splotches left over from Dad and Heather’s lovefest the other night stain her dress. Effing alien lovers.

  “That’s Grandma,” I say. The painting was finished days before she died seven years ago. She sits, holding a red rose to her lips, looking into her vanity mirror in her favorite dress—the blue-gray one dotted with yellow peonies. Her white-blond hair, the same color as mine, perfectly scooped, coiffed, and sprayed.

  “She’s beautiful,” he says.

  “Yeah. She is.” She turns her head and winks.

  “She looks like you,” he says, peeking over his shoulder. His eyes sparkle, and then: He dimple-dimple smiles.

  “Want something to drink? A Coke, Tab, Bud?” I ask, darting to the kitchen.

  “Water’s cool,” he says, swaying to the music. “Pink Floyd, man. Right on. Such a good song. MONEYYY . . .”

  I run back. He’s still singing, but on his knees now, flipping through the records. I sit by him on the steps.

  “Intense collection,” he says.

  “Music’s my church!” Yup, said that out loud. Forgot about the whole can’t-control-thoughts-escaping-my-mouth-when-he’s-around thing.

  “Really?”

  I mumble something that’s supposed to sound like “Yeah, whatever,” but instead it comes out, “Shubbuddudba,” so I shove the glass of water in his hands, close my eyes, and start swaying to the music like him.

  “Far-out. Never thought of it like that, but yeah, I can dig it—OH, NO WAY!” My eyes spring open. “This is my A-bomb heaven right here, man!” He’s holding Tapestry by Carole King.

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah . . . a tumb-a-lin’ down . . .” He sings this while shaking his chest back and forth. He flips his hair back and curls his tongue.

  I laugh. “You know you look like Cher, right?”

  “Uh-huh. BAZOW!” He busts out a Sonny and Cher album. Damn. Thought I hid that one. “So, does that make you my Sonny?”

  “Oh. Uhh . . .”

  “Just kiddin’, man. I dig these guys. Little folksy for me, but you know—OH, NO WAY.” And he’s gone again. It’s fun to watch. More than a kid ogling candy in a window. He’s in the frigging chocolate factory swimming in the cocoa stream and bouncing on gumdrop flowers and licking whipped cream mushrooms—

  “Hey, I got some grass,” he says, snapping me back.

  “Oh. Okay.” Secret: Never tried it before.

  “We don’t have to, though, whatever you want.”

  “No, no, it’s groovy . . . man.” God, seriously, when I try to sound cool I sound like Jiminy Cricket.

  “So, okay . . . got a light?” He holds the joint up.

  “Oh yeah, sorry, yeah.” I duck under the bar.

  “Hey, you sure you want to do this? Really, it’s no big deal.”

  “Yeahyeahyeah.”

  “Ever smoked?”

  “What? Oh, uh, yeah, uh-huh, lotsa times.” God. We have eighteen thousand lighters and now I can’t find one. “Here you go,” I say, like a rabid puppy.

  “Oh.” SweetBabyZiggy, it’s the silver one shaped like a penis and the flame sparks out of the hole. Yes, really. “Wow. Okay, then.”

  “Flibbityboops.” Actually comes out of my mouth.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Never mind. I—”

  He lights the joint. “Don’t make me laugh.” His voice sounds strained. He’s inhaling so deep, he sucks up all the oxygen in the room. God, does it hurt? Are his lungs exploding? “I put some tobacco in it. Better that way.” Probably why it smells a thousand times better than the usual skunk spray. But seriously, how is he still breathing? Is he dying? I’m suddenly regretting not paying attention to the CPR lecture in health class. I just kept looking at that dummy’s mouth and seeing the Ancient City of Germs—

  “Here,” he says, handing me the joint.

  Okay, yes, alright, my turn.

  I don’t move.

  He smiles. “So gently suck on it like you would a straw getting the last drops of a yummy milkshake.”

  He actually says this. Okay, alright, yes, I can do this. I inhale. Oh, holy whoa, oh, no, oh—

  “Good, man, now take another quick, deep inhale like this, but don’t cough.”

  I do. And SH-BOOGIE-BLAMMO it chars my lungs. WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, COLLINS? Stupid stupid stupid. Don’t cough, don’t cough, don’t cough. Why don’t you cough? Coughing’s good. Coughing’s good when HOLY HOT CHARCOALS ARE DRIBBLING DOWN YOUR THROAT and—

  “You can let it out now,” Web says.

  I do. Along with a Cyclone
Cough that spins us to the Land of Oz, and I think my lungs are on fire and HELP—

  “Herestopletmehelpyou.” He tries to pat my back but I’m running around the room looking for a bucket of ocean to swallow.

  “JONATHAN. STOP. HERE.”

  He hands me his glass of water. I gurgle, cough, spit . . . all over his face.

  “Oh . . . Whoa,” he says.

  That image—of Web flicking water from his eyes and brushing away hairs stuck to his cheeks—makes me laugh so hard it sweeps me away to another dimension, and I’m going,

  going,

  gone.

  Dots of starlights on either side of me blast into hyperdrive and we’re sailing, sailing, sailing through a Carl Sagan wormhole. To boldly go where no man has gone before!

  Redorangeyellowgreenbluepurple redorangeyellowgreenbluepurple light waves splash against my flailing body. The blue-green star planet now just a teeny dot I see every 360 degrees. Flying so fast. In an ocean of nothing. In a black sea of everything. I have no spacesuit. No helmet. No breath. Nothing. Choking, gasping—

  “HEY.” Web slaps my back. “Hey, man, look at me.” He grabs my face. My head feels like it’s going to flop right off or float away like a big red balloon. His eyes: two whirling galaxies. His skin: glittery dust. I make a wish and blow on him to see if he floats away.

  “HEY.” He slaps my face.

  “OW. What’d you do that for?”

  “Look in my eyes.”

  “I AM.”

  “No. Stay with me. You’re breathing funny. You okay?”

  Wait. I am? Oh crap, I am. The trapped breath: gnashing at my lungs, steeling to get out.

  “What do I do?” Web yells.

  “PeterPaulandMary,” I wheeze out.

  “What? What are you talking about? The record? JONATHAN. Stay here. Look in my eyes. I’m right here. Right here for you.”

  “Behind bar,” I say. “Inhaler.”

  He darts up and flashes back in two seconds, I swear.

  “Here,” he says.

  “Jesus.” Poofpoofpoofpoofpoof: My superhero elixir springs my lungs back to life, and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I fall back on the shag.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes.

  “Man,” he says. “You scared the shit outta me. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks . . .”

  “Peter Paul and Mary? What the hell, dude?”

  I shrug. “Inhaler’s so boring. Like, ‘’Ello. I’m an inhaler. I help you inhale.’” I say this with a British accent. I have no idea why.

  He laughs. “Right on.”

  “Also, I named it after Grandma’s favorite group. After she died, I got asthma. This way, she’s still living in me.”

  He stops laughing. “That’s beautiful, man.”

  Our eyes meet.

  “I think I should sit up now,” I say.

  He pulls me up, and, whoa, okay, I am most definitely, without a doubt, one thousand percent, stoned out of my gourd. I’m guessing that’s what this is anyway. We’re back in my living room but everything’s moving in hyper-color overdrive.

  “Wuh-owww,” I say.

  “Yeah, wow . . .”

  “Damn, this really is a good song.”

  “Oh man, yeah. ‘Brain Damage’ is so bitchin’. Pink Floyd gets it.”

  “Yeah, they totally get it. Oh! I have an idea.” I drag over two yellow beanbag chairs that were stuffed in the corner. We plop down, squish ourselves in, and look up at the ceiling. “That’s better, right?”

  “Yeah, man. So much better.”

  We sway to the music, our hands doing some synchronized-swimming-through-the-stars thing. “I’ll see you on the DARK SIDE . . . OF THE MOON . . .” we belt to the heavens at the same time—surprising each other—and burst out laughing.

  “It’s fun seeing you like this,” he says.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. At school, you’re so . . . quiet.”

  “Oh. And you’re not all ‘’Ello, me name’s Web and I live on Desk Island, where no one can talk to me and I won’t talk to anyone.’” Seriously what is happening with this British thing?

  “You are so weird.”

  “Different, you mean?”

  “Yeah, man . . . different.”

  “Best part about me,” I say, from out of nowhere. Who is this guy? I like this guy. I feel like I’m carbonating. Like I just downed three bottles of Fizzy Lifting Drink.

  “That it is, Jonathan. That it is . . .”

  My hands still soar through the air. “Not as weird as you, though.”

  “You think I’m weird?”

  “Well, not weird, exactly . . . Mysterious.”

  “Mysterious, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You like mysterious?”

  I smile.

  “Anyway. It’s totally different for me,” he says.

  “How?”

  “Because, man, I don’t fit in here.”

  “And what, you think I do?”

  “Well, yeah. For one, you’re white.”

  “Uh. What about Starla and, like, I don’t know, all the other black kids at our school? That means nothing.”

  “It means everything.” The word flings from his mouth; I drop my hands. “You can’t know what it’s like . . .” he whispers.

  “Sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

  The record ends. Needle clicks back to starting position. Player clicks off. We lie in silence.

  “And if you tell me to navigate the negative, I’m going to tickle you to death.”

  So I do. Just to see if he means it.

  He does.

  “WEB! Stop! Oh my God! Stop!”

  “I warned you!” He straddles my waist. A spark zips through me.

  “OW. STOP. Seriously, stop! I can’t breathe.”

  “Oh. For real?” Starman looks down on me. Christmas lights twinkle all around him. Black hair flows like a stormy sea.

  “I mean, no. Not like that. I mean— We need music.” I spring up, flipflipflipping through the records, like someone pressed Fast-Forward on my tape recorder. Trying to find the perfect song right now. “Ugh. Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Roberta.”

  “Who’s Roberta?”

  “Roberta Flack.” He shrugs. “You don’t know Roberta Frigging Flack?!” He shakes his head. “She is the Supreme Soul Goddess of the Universe, The Mother of All That IS. Her voice drips honey and slathers you with kisses and you just roll around in its sticky sweetness for the rest of your life forever glued to her heartbeat, because DAMN, that girl will take you on a rocket ship to your dreams and never return.”

  He stares at me. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah. Whoa is right,” I say, flipping through the albums again.

  “So I guess you like her?”

  “What?” Where’s her album? I hear Web laughing behind me, which makes me start laughing, and the album covers soon join in. Diana Ross might be right for this moment, or Carole King could be good, too, OH OH, Aretha Franklin? No but yes but no—

  Oh. Dusty Springfield’s The Look of Love. She’ll do. I start the record. Then plop back on the beanbag of sunshine. Oh yeah, she’ll do just fine. I close my eyes. I know he’s looking at me because I can smell his sour-cherry-candied breath.

  “Our friendship doesn’t depend on things like space and time,” he says eventually.

  “What?”

  “The quote Mr. Dulick gave us from the seagull book. For our presentation?”

  “Oh. Right. Forgot about that.”

  “‘If our friendship depends on things like space and time,’” he says again, “‘then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overco
me space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.’”

  I look over. “That’s the quote he gave us? You memorized it already?”

  “It’s deep stuff, man. Beautiful.”

  He tucks some hair behind his ears and has a grin stretched across his face. He looks like a cartoon. I start giggling.

  “What?” he says.

  “I don’t know. Guess we should work on the presentation or something—”

  “Yeah . . . guess so.”

  “It’s hard to concentrate . . .” I say.

  “Sure is . . .”

  “Your eyes are so—I don’t know—they do something weird to me . . .”

  “Yeah? Yours do something weird to me, too, Jonathan . . .”

  “I know. The Apes make fun of them all the time—”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “God. I just thought of something,” I say, sitting up.

  “What?”

  “The Apes. And Scotty. He’s been sick. We haven’t seen him since that night at the lake and— Oh man, they’re going to have a field day with us up there, they’re going to think we’re so gay or something and—” I stop myself. Damn. Said that out loud, too. I study him, waiting for a reaction: a nervous tic, flinch, anything.

  Nothing. He just stares back.

  “Why?” he finally asks.

  “Because . . . I don’t know—”

  He lifts that dimpled smile. “Who cares what they think?”

  I close my eyes. Dusty Springfield purrs in the background and I just now notice my wrists and thighs are burning. Screaming. Oh man. “I . . . feel like I’m on a rocket ship to the moon . . .” I whisper, pulling whatever thoughtstring I can find. Because I do.

  “Me too. There’s a starman waiting in the—”

  “Holy sh-boogie YES!” I jump up.

  “What? What happened?”

  “Of course. That’s it.”

  “What? What’s it?”

  “Come on. I want to show you something.” I duck under the bar, grab the two black lights, and start to lead him up the stairs. “Wait. Grab those.” I point to the beanbag chairs.

  He does, plunks them on his head. I giggle.

  “What?” he says.

  “You look like a snow cone,” I say.

  “What?”