Ziggy, Stardust and Me

by James Brandon

  Our faces hover like a mirror image. Only he reflects back what I look like inside.

  “Let’s not talk,” I say. “I just want to be here. With you.”

  He nods, but doesn’t smile.

  I lay my satchel on the floor and lie on the bed next to him.

  “Jonathan?” he whispers.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going home.”

  I lift my head. “Tonight?”

  “We leave in the morning. Early. I’ve been waiting, you know, hoping you’d—”

  “Oh . . . I’m sorry I couldn’t get back here sooner. I—”

  “It’s okay. I know . . .”

  I nestle into his chest to become his pin, forever stuck. “I wish I could come.”

  “Me too,” he says. “Maybe one day . . .”

  “Yeah. One day. Maybe . . .”

  He kisses the top of my head. “There’s always the moon,” he whispers.

  “Yeah . . .”

  We hold each other tight. And I am safe again. My force field.

  I disappear in the water splotch on his ceiling, the black hole to an elsewhen.

  One day, I think. Maybe . . .

  I inhale fresh-cut eucalyptus leaves and a meadow of herbs. My breath slows to match his.

  I close my eyes, float away . . .

  * * *

  —

  My eyes flutter open. To the heat, the burnt herbs, my cheek stuck to his.

  I hear his grandfather’s soft snores in the other room. And a breeze whispering through the window. I do not know how much time has passed. Could be decades. Feels like it. Feels like we’ve been glued together for lifetimes. Web’s chest rises and falls with his steady breaths. A quiet peace we can finally share, together.

  I never want to leave this moment. I want to bottle it up in a jar or take a Polaroid and tattoo it to my face so I can always see it . . .

  But I have to go.

  Web still sleeps. I cannot wake him, or he’d never let me leave, especially if he knew where I was going . . .

  So I gently kiss his lips, and slide out from under his arms.

  55.

  I CREAK DOWN his stairs and hop on Stingraymobile. The rain has stopped. The clouds have rolled away. The almost full moon shines like a lighthouse, guiding me forward. My stomach churns with each wavering pedal. Man, even Stingraymobile’s resistant. Never thought I’d be going back here again. Never.

  The world is silent. Even the cicadas. The earth is holding her breath with me.

  Maybe I haven’t thought this all the way through. Maybe he won’t be home. Maybe when he sees me he’ll knock me out cold before I can open my mouth. Or worse. Yeah, I definitely haven’t thought this all the way through. Whatever. I keep going. There’s only one thing that matters anymore.

  The trailer’s eyes glint in the darkness, springing me back. A shadow zips across the curtains, zips up my spine. Music blasts. Zeppelin, I think. Could be Steppenwolf, I can’t tell. I stop just before turning the final corner. My nerves are afire, but it’s different this time. Not jangled in a jittery mess. Focused. Never felt so fiercely focused in my life. I am ready.

  Stingraymobile pedals to the shadows. Hal’s singing. If that’s what you want to call it. Squawking, more like. Definitely Steppenwolf. I look up. The moon’s brighter than I’ve ever seen it before, strangely iridescent, like I can see through to the other side. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, walk toward the trailer.

  Two shadows now. Definitely didn’t plan for that, didn’t plan for—Heather’s cackle cuts through the trailer. Of course. Perfect. I smell grass. And incense: the woodsy kind that Dad used to light. The curtain by the bed is slightly pulled back and for the first time I can see in.

  Heather swishes to the music—her hair’s frizzled in that rat’s nest ponytail—wearing pink hot pants and a cutoff Dennis the Menace T-shirt. A shirtless Hal lies on his bed in red athletic shorts and that red mesh hat, flipping through a Playboy, smoking a joint.

  Man, Web wasn’t kidding. It’s been nine days since that night, but he still looks thrashed: His left eye’s bandaged, circled in some crazy color I’ve never seen that spreads to his ear. His right eye’s a red mess. His entire face and chest: swollen. Splattered with bruises and cuts and dried blood like a trashed Pollock painting.

  “Where your cigarettes at?” Heather yells, scavenging through drawers. “Bernadette wants me to bring her over some.”

  “Check under the sink.”

  She flips him the bird, then looks directly at me. “Someone’s outside!”

  Dammit. Duck down, don’t move, don’t breathe.

  “Who’s out there?” Hal says, his voice vibrating the plexiglass.

  Heather trips, a few plates crash in the sink. Her hands slap against the window. “Who is it, Hal?”

  The trailer bounces. The door swings open. “Who’s there?”

  Oh man. Okay. Here we go. I fumble through my satchel to find my tape recorder and click Play/Record.

  56.

  “WELL, LOOK WHAT the cat dragged in. Heather, you gotta see this!” Hal wobbles down the steps, holding on to the door for support.

  “Who the hell is it?”

  “Just come out and see.”

  Heather steps out, wiping her hands on her shorts. “Jonathan? What the hell you doin’ here? You got a gun or somethin’?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Why’s your hand in that bag for?”

  “Oh. Just, uh, getting my inhaler . . .”

  “Freak.” She tries pushing past Hal, who grabs her shirt to stop her.

  “We thought we’d never see you again, Jonathan,” he says.

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “Hey, you freak—”

  “Heather, quiet—”

  “No. Let me go!” She slaps his arms off and charges toward me. “You and your Indian freak girlfriend.”

  “Leave him, Heather—”

  “No, NO, I won’t leave him.” She shoves me against the trailer. My head wallops back, but I don’t wince. I won’t let her see fear. “We ain’t ever told your daddy because Hal made me swear not to. No more. I’m gonna call your daddy—”

  “That’s enough, Heather—” Hal stumbles over, holding on to the trailer’s wall.

  “No! It’s not enough.” Her breath smells like dead animal and it takes everything in me not to hurl in her face. “Fine if your daddy don’t wanna never see me again. I don’t care. I’m still gonna call him and make him git rid of your sick ass once and for all—”

  “Go on down to Bernadette’s,” Hal says, clutching her forearm. “I’ll take care a this—”

  “Don’t push me! I’m goin’. You faggot freak—” She trips over Stingraymobile, smacks to the ground. “Stupid got-damned BIKE.” She kicks it, brushing herself off. “You holler if you need me, Hal. I’m only a few trailers down.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just go.”

  “I said I’m goin’! Damn.” She disappears in the shadows singing some Alice Cooper song.

  “Sorry ’bout her.” He leans against the trailer. This close he looks like he’s wearing a sewn-together Halloween mask: Frankensteinish. His unbandaged eye flicks back and forth, swollen and blistered red. “Awfully good to see you out of the hospital, Jonathan. Just couldn’t resist me, could ya? . . . Come on in, let’s have a beer.” His hand grips my elbow, jerking me forward.

  My heart pounds. “So, uh, Heather doesn’t know about . . . you know . . .”

  “What’s there to know?”

  “That . . . you know . . . you like boys . . .”

  “Who said I liked boys?” He clasps my arm, squeezing. So tight, my knees buckle from the pain.

  “Ow, I didn’t—”

  “FUCK YOU, QUEER—”

  “Sorry, I just thou
ght—”

  The jagged scar on his cheek lifts. “Just teasin’.”

  “Oh.”

  “I mean, you know. I don’t like just boys . . .”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Yeah . . . come on.” He pulls me into the trailer; I fumble up the steps. When he turns, I check to make sure the Record button’s still pressed down on my tape recorder, buried deep in my satchel. It is. “And no, she don’t know. She don’t ever have to know. What kinda beer you like?”

  “Oh . . . uh . . . whatever you got . . .” The second I step inside, my mind instantly flashes to the last night I was here. In that bed. With him snarling on top of me. I whip that thoughtstring out fast. “So . . . you don’t care . . . that I’m younger—”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  He corners me against the wall, lifts his hand. Is he going to hit me? Knock me out cold? Do not show fear. Do not show him fear. Instead, he rubs his fingers through my hair, brushing the swoop out of my eyes. “So blond. Always liked blonds . . .” He clamps his fist around a clump of hair, pulling my head back. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell—”

  “Please get off me, that hurts—”

  “I know you want it, like you did the other night—”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Yeah you did—”

  “No I didn’t. Stop!” I shove him off. He staggers back some, but it only makes his scar lift higher.

  “Oh, you like it rough, do ya?” He creeps toward me.

  “I saw him, Hal.”

  “Who?”

  “My friend.”

  “The Indian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They still here?” He flings the trailer door open.

  “NO. They left already. A few days ago.” Lying. But if he knew the truth . . .

  “Good. ’Bout time,” he says, still looking across the lake. “You sure they gone?”

  “Yeah, uh, hey—you messed him up pretty bad, Hal.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he says, peeking his head back in.

  “So, how’d you get so beat up?”

  “Why the hell does that matter?” He pushes past me, cracks open two bottles of Bud. “Drink.”

  I do. Still tastes like warm piss and almost makes me barf. “Tell me what happened—I wanna know—”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . I . . .”

  “Oh, you like the dirty talk, do ya? Little fuh-reak-ay like me?”

  “Just tell me.” I take another swig.

  “Well, I grabbed that Indian by his hair like this—” He lurches forward and throws my head back so fast, I think he sprained my neck. “Quit your whimperin’, that don’t hurt—this why you’re here, ain’t it? I know you like this shit.” He shoves me down on the bed. “I threw him to the ground and he was screamin’. Some Indian crap. And I whacked him across the jaw—BAM!” He punches his fist in his palm; I jump. “He screamed again. So you wanna know what I done?” He bends down, inches from my face. I smell tuna on his breath. My stomach coils. “I grabbed that sissy hair of his, held Joe’s knife to his throat—” And he whispers in my ear, “‘Don’t you fuckin’ move,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna make you into a real man.’ And I start sawin’ that hair to nothin’ . . .”

  He slides his clammy palm up and down my face. I feel tears, but push them back with everything I am. I stare him direct in the eye. I will not back down.

  “AND WHOA BOY,” he yells, leaping up. “You shoulda seen his face, Jonathan. So pathetic—” He laughs. “Jesus, he was pathetic. And so I spit in his face. Like it was my marker, my bull’s-eye, you know. And then—”

  “He beat the crap out of you?” I whisper.

  “What’d you say?” He snaps down, grabbing my cheeks with his hand. “What the hell you say, boy?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t—I mean—aren’t you scared?”

  “Of what?”

  “They weren’t doing anything to—”

  “They don’t need to be doin’ NOTHIN’, boy. They shouldn’t even be here, GIT IT?” He spits. His face flushes the color of the red streaking through his eye. “What the hell you fishin’ for anyway, huh? Huh?” He slinks down on the bed, pinning me against the wall. My satchel’s wedged between us; my tape recorder lodges in my groin. A sharp stab shoots through me, but I don’t let him see. One inch closer and he’ll know. He’ll feel the tape recorder and it’ll all be over. “I know you’re friends with him,” he whispers. “I seen you two that night . . . kissin’ . . .”

  “I’m . . . I’m not . . . I’m . . .”

  “You’re gonna learn one way or another, boy. You can’t be hanging out with them Injuns, you hear? You hear?”

  “They’re . . . gonna tell the cops—”

  He gasps, covering his mouth. “The cops? Oh no. The cops? Ooooooh noooooo. I’m scared.” He laughs, thwacks the side of my head. “You idiot. Cops won’t do nothin’. They got their quota to git them Indians in jail. That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell ya, stupid. You gotta stay away from them Injuns, or you’ll be right there in jail with ’em. I’m only tryin’ to help . . . We’re each other’s secret-holders. Remember?” He leans in, burrowing the tape recorder deeper into my groin. A tear leaps out. “Oh. Don’t you worry. I’ll protect ya. Imma keep beatin’ the shit outta them Indians until they all good and gone forever. You hear me?”

  “Yeah . . .” I clutch my stomach. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “Don’t be such a pussy—”

  “I’m gonna throw up.”

  He leans back. “You for real?”

  “Yeah, the beer or something . . . I don’t—”

  “Well, go outside.” He jumps up, thrusts me toward the door. “I don’t want that crap in here.”

  “I’ll go out to the bushes. I’m too embarrassed.”

  “I’ll be right here waitin’.”

  I run.

  Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m in the shadows. I jump on Stingraymobile and pedal for my life. Where is it? There. My tape recorder. Still recording. Hello? Testing? My name’s Jonathan Collins. I am seventeen years old. Today is . . . some day in July 1973. And I am okay. Scratch that, I am more than okay. I am . . .

  I am . . .

  I AM—

  57.

  “WELL HEY THERE, JONATHAN! Long time no see, son!”

  “Hey, Chester.”

  He stops cleaning a glass, still dressed in his pressed white button-down and black pants. Carole King croons. Alma sits at the same table, lost in nothingness, wrapped around a bottle. There’s a couple at the other end of the bar mauling each other, and some guy in an army jacket playing pool in the shadows, alone—not Uncle Russell, but I can’t see who it is—And no Dad. Huh.

  But man, like life pressed Pause here, while mine went whambamthankyouma’am FASTFORWARDSLAM.

  “You okay, son?” Chester asks.

  “Heya, kid,” Alma says, running over to me. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Man, I must look a sight.

  And I do. I catch myself in the mirror behind the bar. Oh man, do I ever. I don’t even recognize me. Aside from the tangle of leaves and twigs and Godknowswhat in my electric-static hair, and my face smudged with mud, my eyes are more vibrant. Clear. Like I unzipped my protective, extra-sanitized shiny space suit, and underneath is a scraggly wild mess of the real me. Finally free.

  “I’m fine. Really, I am.”

  “You run away from home? Your old man hurt you? Where is he?” Chester asks, his face wrinkling, quick-switching to the Godfather. He’s all of five feet tall, but I’d hate to be on the receiving end of his fury.

  “No no, I don’t know where he is. I thought he’d be here by now—But hey, remember when you said you’d help me out?” I ask. “If I ever needed it?”

/>   “Of course. Anytime. What do you need?”

  “You said your brother’s a cop, right? A good one?”

  “The finest in St. Louis.”

  “Good. Got a pen?”

  He hands me one. I pop the cassette out of my recorder.

  “What’s the date?”

  We turn to the Bud girl calendar behind the bar. She’s wrapped in an American flag and holds two bottles of Bud in her outstretched hands.

  I scratch on the label:

  HAL LOOMIS CONFESSION. JULY 13, 1973

  “Can you make sure your brother gets this?”

  “Hal Loomis? That good-for-nothing SOB who lives out by the lake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shouldn’t be hanging out with lowlifes like him, Jonathan.”

  “Just please make sure he gets it. And stay there while he plays it. You’ll see why, trust me. And you’ll know what to do then. That’s how you can help me.”

  He lifts his eyes to meet mine. They’re blue, but clouded, so they’re hard to read: I can’t tell if he’s actually going to do it, or if he thinks I’m crazy. He holds the tape against his chest. “I’ll guard it with my life.”

  “Thanks, Chester.”

  “Glad I can finally help ya.”

  “Yeah. Me too . . .”

  “I’ll call my brother right now,” he says. “Whatever he done . . . well, believe me, son, we’re going to take care of it.”

  “When Dad shows up, tell him I’ll be back for him later,” I say, walking toward the door. I smack into the guy playing pool. “Oh, sorry, man—Scotty? Scott, I mean? Sorry I—”

  “Heya, Jonny—” He fidgets with a pool stick, puffs some shaggy black hair covering his eyes.

  “I thought you were at camp—”

  “I was. Got kicked out.”

  “Oh. Okay . . . I gotta—”

  “Guess a baseball bat’s not for smashing windows or something.” He chuckles and looks down, clearing his throat. His Aerosmith T-shirt’s too tight.

  “Well, I’ll catch ya later—” I start to weave past him, but he steps in front of me, wielding the pool stick.