Ziggy, Stardust and Me

by James Brandon

  “Life. As it does.”

  “You mean me.”

  “You, yes, and a thousand other pieces, sweetheart. He was breaking apart long before you came into the picture.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, honey. I guess some people just don’t want to play the game.” She lifts a compact, starts applying lipstick, each stroke careful and precise.

  “What game?”

  “You know better than anyone. Life’s hard sometimes.” She looks at me from behind the mirror, puckers her lips. “I see it as one big game. You take gambles, you take risks, sometimes you’re sent back a few spaces, sometimes you move far ahead of the pack, but always, always, you get to choose to play. Every moment is one big choice to play. And once you choose to play, at the end of the day, you always win.”

  She pop pop pops her lips together, kisses the mirror, clicks her compact shut, smiles. My mom.

  “You really believe that?” I ask.

  “You know what Al said the other day? ‘The universe is always conspiring for your greatest good. It’s up to you to see it that way.’ Had to write that one down.”

  “Who’s Al?”

  “Albert. Sorry. Einstein. He’s such a card, he—”

  “Wait. You talk to Albert Einstein?!”

  “Oh, sweetheart, we play poker every Saturday. Man’s a genius, it’s true, plays a mean violin. But let me tell you—” She leans in again, whispers, “Can’t play a lick of poker to save him.”

  We laugh.

  “I got his book from the library!” I say. “Have no idea what it says!”

  “Oh, he is a hard one to follow, but he’ll be thrilled. I’ll let him know.” She floofs her hair, adjusts her sweater, sits back.

  “I wish you were really here right now. Not in my stupid imagination . . .”

  “Oh, me too, Beetlebug.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t let’s waste your time on all that. Now, tell me, what’s all this talk about wanting to hide from Web? Love that name, by the way.”

  “You know why I can’t see him.”

  “But he’s so dreamy. What’s there to hide from?”

  “I don’t know . . . everything . . .”

  “Come on now, tell me. We promised. No secrets.”

  “I can’t let them know that I’m . . . I mean, I can’t let them see—I know I can’t be fixed because I can’t stop thinking about him . . . like that, I mean . . . and I don’t want to stop thinking about him, you know? And I’m afraid if I see him, well . . . I can push through the pain, all the shocks and everything—I mean they hurt but . . . God, I thought I’d at least convinced Dr. Evelyn—”

  “JONATHAN, TRAIN’S LEAVIN’! CHOO CHOO! LET’S GO.”

  I turn to the door. “It’s Dad. I have to go.”

  “Just play the game, sweetpea, and you’ll be fine. I’ll see you when you get back!”

  I kiss her cheek and hang her back on the wall.

  “JONATHAN, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

  “Coming!” I grab a few albums and my three force fields for added protection:

  1) The Aladdin Sane album

  2) The Polaroid of Starla and me on our bikes

  3) My Ziggy on the Cross pieces. Just in case. Arsenal complete.

  I’m leaving Mom here.

  To keep my dreams safe while I’m away.

  33.

  “JESUS. YOU WORKIN’ for the CIA now?” he yells from the car, toweling his face with his terrycloth shirt. “Why you gotta bring all that other crap for?”

  “Because if I don’t bring my record player and my albums and my tape recorder and microphone, I will drown myself in the lake before you can say scrumpdillyicious and haunt you for the rest of your lonely no-good miserable life. That’s why.”

  That’s what I wanted to say. Instead: “Because.” That’s all I say. I have a strategy: Talk as little as possible, do as little as possible, and thou shalt be saved. Off to a smashing start.

  For the record, even though every other nerve in my body is fried, my sense of smell is still working: Dad’s Brut knocks me unconscious the minute I open the car door. Probably trying to cover up the smell of the grass he just smoked.

  “Hurry up, son. It’s hot.” He slides his gold aviators on. I throw my two bags in the back seat and creak the passenger door closed with a heavy slam—

  And we’re off! Seriously. My head smacks against the headrest. I swear he thinks he’s Evel Frigging Knievel. I squeeze my stomach so I don’t hurl all over the seats.

  In between belting out lyrics to Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” Dad’s giving me the skinny on the week ahead:

  Dad: “Maybe tomorrow—Heather’s letting us stay in her brother’s trailer. He’ll stay in hers. And she’s gonna stay in her friend Bernadette’s place with her boy—the good Lord’ll take you away . . .”

  Me: “OKAY.”

  Dad, swerving the car while lighting a cigarette: “Wait’ll you meet Harry—Dream on, dream on, shabbalabbadingdongdoo—you’ll love him. That’s her son. I think he’s three or something . . .”

  Me, grabbing the wheel, deciding whether or not to swerve into the fields and bring a fiery end to it all: “CAN’T WAIT.”

  When we pull into their gravel driveway, I purposely avoid peering across the lake to Web’s house, but SWEETBABYZIGGY, I’m mustering every superpower I’ve ever learned trying not to look.

  I got this.

  I got this.

  Heather stands in between two trailers, wearing her DQ uniform and a bucket of makeup, holding a round hairless Tribble—excuse me, that must be Harry. She waves and whispers something in his ear. Probably: “We’re gonna take all their money and get out of this hellhole. Smile!” Because in that next second he does and flaps wildly in her arms.

  Dad honks and waves back.

  I clutch the Ziggy cross pieces in my pocket and pray I get out of this alive.

  34.

  I THINK I’M ACTUALLY breathing water, not air. Stagnant water in a landfill. No wonder the rats build their nests here. Where’s PeterPaulandMary? Poofpoof.

  Harry wriggles out of Heather’s arms, squealing, “Wee wee wee all the way home,” or maybe it was, “Wanna pway cowboy with Hahwee?” He bounds over to Dad, who starts chasing him around the trailers. Within seconds, Dad’s bent over coughing, trying to catch his breath. Harry jumps up and down pew-pew-pewing him with a fake gun, then runs down the path to shoot at some guys playing horseshoes.

  “How you been?” It’s Heather. I jump. She’s scratched her way over without me seeing. That’s the thing about rats: They’re fast.

  “Fine.” I grab my satchel and luggage from the back seat.

  “Haven’t heard from ya in a while. Ever since that night on the—”

  “Which trailer’s ours?”

  She’s rail thin with huge, feathered hair frizzed on her head and teeny features on her face, currently highlighted with streaks of powder-blue eyeshadow and bright pink blush. Like some kindergartner mistook her face for a Barbie styling head.

  She cracks a smile, twitches her nose. “I got your balls in my hands,” she says. Or it could be, “That one.” She points to the trailer on the left and leads the way. And I definitely do not look behind her across the lake, EVEN THOUGH I SEE MOVEMENT.

  I got this, I got this, I got—

  Dad pops up from behind the trailer, scaring us both. He sweeps Heather into his arms and she giggles. “Not now, not now, I gotta get to work!”

  “It won’t take that long,” he says, throwing her over his shoulders.

  “Make yourself at home, Jonathan!” she yells before being sucked into the trailer next door.

  Thanks so much for the kind hos
pitality! Will there be continental breakfast served or . . . ? Never mind. Okay, twenty minutes in, only 8,620 to go. I did the calculation before we left. Never going to make it. I walk inside.

  The good things:

  1) The trailer itself is pretty decent: a silver metallic Airstream, like I’ve always imagined driving to California. One day.

  2) . . .

  3) . . .

  Okay, the bad things: everything else. But just to name a few:

  1) The air on this side of the lake smells like rotten fish guts and I’m regretting not bringing Dad’s gas mask from the garage

  2) Everything in the trailer is covered in this thin layer of—I don’t know what—it’s not dirt or dust, more like grit-grime-getmeouttahere

  3) The interior’s wallpapered in Corvettes and Bud girls and the ceiling’s covered in Playboy centerfolds and their HOLYMOTHEROFGODS. How am I supposed to sleep at night with those things winking at me?

  Moving on.

  First things first: set up my record player. I plunk it on the fold-down table in the “dining area” and line up my three force fields in perfect four-inch spaces, then look across the water into Web’s—

  Movement. I think. YES, something definitely moved over there.

  Oh man.

  I can’t help myself. A pair of binoculars hangs by the door. I grab them and peer through. There’s a line of . . . twenty-seven kids jiggling their legs, waiting for Mr. Farley to give them an ice cream. Sweep to my right. Nothing. Everything looks empty, boarded up. No fires or flares signaling me to come rescue him, or Web holding a sign that says, COME BACK TO ME, JONATHAN! Nothing. No doubt, I imagined him. Okay, snapoutofit, Collins, you’re becoming a crazy Manson Family Stalker.

  Yup. Put the binoculars back, snap the curtains shut, and PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. I flip on my Ziggy album, skipping directly to “Suffragette City.” Perfect song to distract myself and drown out my noisy neighbors.

  Next order of business: not unpacking until I clean. I grab a towel, the cleanest one I can find, and start wiping everything down. Dad comes barreling in, breathless.

  “Turn that crap off,” he says. “We’re gettin’ a bunch of stuff for the barbecue. What do you want?” He wobbles over to one of two twin beds and wipes his man-sweat all over the sheets. Marking his territory, I guess. Noted. My bed is on the left.

  “Granola,” I say. The only thing I can think of right now. My brain’s still trying to compute thoughts into words.

  “Granola?”

  “Yeah. It’s supposed to be good for you.”

  He dries his face. “What else?”

  “I don’t know, maybe—”

  A pockmarked demon with a Cardinals hat appears in the doorway. Nope. It’s Hal. Forgot about him. Did he tell Dad he saw me that night? Oh man.

  “You remember Hal,” Dad says. “Heather’s brother—”

  I extend my hand. “Nice to meet you.” Stay calm, stay cool, you got this, Collins. He does not take my hand to shake it. Instead, he grins. A scar on his left cheek stretches to his ear.

  “You guys met,” Dad says.

  “We did?”

  “At the house a few weeks back?”

  “Right! We did! Yeahyeahyeah, sorry, silly me, I forgot.” Whoa. Reel it in, Collins.

  “All good, my man,” he says. “I forget things all the time.” He winks.

  My hand’s still extended like an idiot. He finally grabs it. Ick. It’s cold and supremely slimy. I try to pull mine away, but it’s stuck. Even though we aren’t shaking anymore.

  “You comfortable?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  “In here. Place okay?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Fine. Thanks.”

  “Good. Good.”

  It’s possible he’s slowly sucking up my soul, I can’t be sure. I finally wriggle my hand free and try to casually wipe it on my shorts.

  “We’ll be back,” Dad says.

  “See ya later, Jonathan,” Hal says, lifting a smirk. Holy heebie-effing-jeebies. This guy’s definitely been at the lake too long. I watch them drive off. Hal looks back.

  8,577 minutes to go.

  35.

  LATER, LONG AFTER the sun has been smothered by a quilt of stars and the mist from the lake has risen like a creeping fog and more newly hatched cicadas have joined in the eventide symphony, we’re sitting around a fire with Hal and the three men they based the movie Deliverance on. Gee. Zus.

  I’ll call them BillyBob, Porky Joe, and Five-Teeth Terry for all the obvious reasons, I think. Mostly because I don’t remember their names, but also because they’re the type of guys you want to try and forget anyway.

  “Nothing but trouble and then more trouble,” Grandma used to say. “You stay away from those Lakers. They bite off squirrel heads and use their bodies to beat you senseless.”

  I used to question Grandma’s authority on the subject, dismissing it as part of her flair for dramatic storytelling. Now, no question about it, it’s possible that legend was based on these three hillbillies.

  After endless rounds of beers, joints, and snarls that have been circling me for seeming hours, we sit in silence. The only sounds: the soft crunch of a plastic pail rolling in and out with the tide, and bits of barbecue from the makeshift rotisserie dripping on the burning wood.

  “What the hell you come out here fo’?” BillyBob says suddenly. I jump, and I think a little pee squeezes out of me. BillyBob’s the clear leader. He’s the long-bearded one in bib overalls who’s quite possibly eight feet tall and has a right eye that twitches every few minutes. And besides the eye-twitch thing he doesn’t move, his hands permanently folded on his lap.

  Dad throws his arm around my shoulder. His thirty-hundredth bottle of beer sloshes all over me. I do not wipe it off; I do not move. “We come here for some father-son time. Boy’s growin’ up. Becomin’ a man.”

  “You be careful with that pecker, boy,” Five-Teeth Terry says. “Don’t you go fishin’ in no ponds yet.”

  A boom of laughter. And they’re off:

  “Or if you do, make sure to put on your fishin’ vest.” Porky Joe.

  “Yeah, but don’t forget to take out the hooks and bait first.” Five-Teeth Terry.

  “Unless she like that kinda thing.” Joe.

  “And if she do, lemme know!” Terry.

  This is really happening. Who needs Johnny Carson. Dad’s keeled over in a fit of laughcoughs with everyone else. Except Hal. Who just sits and smiles across from me like some slimy snake from SuckYourSoulsville.

  I stare into the fire and bob my shoulders up and down so it looks like I’m laughing with them.

  “Ain’t you hot, boy?” BillyBob asks me after the laughter winds down.

  “No, I’m fine, thank you.” Did I mention everyone else in the circle is shirtless? It’s true. Perhaps some tribal man thing.

  “He’s so skinny we could use him as a spit for the next barbecue,” Terry says. This coming from a man who looks like he’s made out of five twigs tied together. Still, he scares the crap out of me. My bowels clench.

  “Gotta git some meat on them bones, boy,” BillyBob says. “He’s right. You’re skinnier than a got-damned girl. Here.” He cracks open another bottle of Bud and hands it to me.

  “No, thank you,” I say as Dad whispers in my ear, “Take the beer.” I do. Now I’m an art piece on display. They’re staring, waiting for me to drink, I guess. Part of the initiation? Or sacrifice? Gross. It tastes like warm piss. “Mmmm,” I say, wiping my mouth like I’ve seen Alma do at the bar.

  They laugh.

  “You boys could borrow my fishin’ boat,” Porky Joe says. He’s picking bits of meat out of his teeth with an unusually large knife. “She’s my baby, but don’t never really use her no more.”

  “Yeah, cuz you’d sink it the mi
nute you sat down,” BillyBob says. Terry howls so hard at this he spits his beer out, dousing some flames.

  Joe wobbles up, pulls the knife on him. “What’s so funny? You so damned skinny I could slice you in two with my eyes closed.”

  “Now, now . . . relax . . .” BillyBob says. “Sit yer ass down, Joe. We got guests.” He shifts in his lawn chair, looking at us. “Heat does some crazy things to yer head . . .”

  “Heh, yeah. We’d like that,” Dad says. “To borrow your boat, I mean.”

  Joe settles back, picking his teeth again. He has no neck. He looks like an angry Weeble. “Anytime.”

  “We’d like that, wouldn’t we, son?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How old are ya, boy?” BillyBob asks.

  “Seventeen.” I sound like a mosquito.

  “Wassat?”

  I clear my throat, lower my voice, try to be manly. “Seventeen.” Now I sound like a burping hippo. I take another swig of piss.

  “You ain’t one of them hippies, are you, boy?” Terry asks.

  “Nosir.”

  “‘Nosir.’ Boy’s got manners, he does,” BillyBob says. “Good boy.”

  “Yeah, I raised him good,” Dad says.

  “You stay away from them hippies, boy. All that love and peace and bullshit. Some sicko queers is what they are.”

  I stare hard into the fire; Dad’s grip tightens around my neck.

  “Nothin’ but sissy faggots is what they are,” Joe bursts in. “They don’t know what it’s like to live with nothin’. They act like that’s a good thing. Try gettin’ your supper outta the lake, then we’ll talk!” He’s yelling at the fire like it’s suddenly Public Hippie No. 1. “Goddamned government’s tryin’ to kick us outta here, but we’re stayin’ till they arrest us, ain’t we, Terry.”

  “Yep. This here’s our land—”

  “And it’s the best place on earth—”

  “’At’s right! Redneck power!” Terry throws his bottle in the fire.

  “And quit protestin’ a war you know nothin’ about,” Joe explodes. “These men comin’ back are heroes. And you screamin’ all over them, shovin’ your flowers in their faces and all that bullshit.” He’s slashing the air with his knife like he’s stabbing all the hippies of the world. Is he psycho?