“Is she coming?”
“Nah. Too preggers, I guess. When’s your birthday? So I can remember it, and make you feel bad about missing mine.”
“It’s pretty soon. June 18th.”
“Man, there it is again. That number.”
“What number?”
“18. I see it everywhere.”
“Oh. I see 37, a lot.”
“Really? 37? Did you know there are 37 miracles in the Bible?”
“No, I didn’t.” I’m actually feeling pretty dumb about the whole thing, right now. The idea that Donovan has a similar number thing going doesn’t sit too well.
“This calls for a birthday joint.” He takes a case from his pocket, and opens it. “Behold.”
“That’s a big one.”
“Duh. It’s a birthday joint.”
The front door opens behind me, and Casey comes in, with a guy I don’t know. Lesley-Jo gets up and kisses Casey. “Hey, babe,” he says.
“Um,” I say, and they both look at me. “Are you guys…?”
“Together?” he says. “Yeah, for a couple weeks now. Is there enough for me, there, Donovan?”
“It’s a birthday joint. There’s enough for everyone.” He passes it to Casey.
“You smoke weed now, too?”
Casey nods. “Gilbert suggested it. He figured it would help me relax. He was right.” He grins, holding up the joint. “Much better than coffee. Haven’t knocked over any old ladies in a month.”
Donovan turns on Street Fighter, and Casey goes over and challenges him to a match. I didn’t know he was a gamer.
More people show up during the next hour. A couple people ask when Gilbert’s coming, but no one knows. “The clubs all close at three, don’t they?” I say. “If we’re going, we should go soon.”
Donovan starts counting people, to figure out how many cabs we need. Trent, the new Grocery hire, speaks up. He says he’s never had a drink in his life, so he’s available to drive a vanload down. I’m out of beer, and while rides are being figured out I hunt in Donovan’s kitchen for something else to drink. Casey’s there, with the guy he came in with. “Hey, Sheldon, have you met Francis? He’s my roommate.”
“Hey, dude,” Francis says.
This must be the guy who refused to drive Casey to the hospital.
“Francis is a douchebag name,” I say.
Taxis start arriving, and Gilbert pulls up in his Hummer as the last one is driving away. I’m getting into Trent’s van along with Donovan, Casey, and Lesley-Jo. Gilbert gets out and walks toward us, carrying a brown bag. “Shit—are you guys going downtown already?”
“It’s almost one o’clock,” Donovan says.
“Damn it.” Gilbert takes a twenty-sixer of Jack Daniel’s out of the bag, unscrews the top, and chugs half of it. He screws the top back on and tosses the rest back in the Hummer.
Donovan takes shotgun, and Casey and Lesley-Jo sit behind him, in the middle. Gilbert and I sit in back.
“So, Sheldon,” Donovan says. “I hear you’re writing something new.”
“You hear true.”
“Can I read it, when you’re done?”
“Sure, man.”
“Nobody reads it before I do,” Gilbert says. “After that, we’ll decide whether we want to release to the general public.”
“What are you, his agent?” Donovan says.
“More like life coach wannabe,” I say.
We arrive downtown, and everyone who isn’t Trent piles out of the van.
“Where did everyone say they were going?” Lesley-Jo says once we’re gathered on the sidewalk.
“Who cares?” Gilbert says. “I need drinks.”
We all head for the nearest bar and order shots of whatever. While we’re waiting, Brent appears next to us—Brent, of Spend Easy ancient history. A casualty of the new cameras.
“Hey,” he says.
“Buy me this shot,” Gilbert says.
Brent nods. He seems pretty drunk. “Okay. Sure, Gilbert. What have you been up to lately, anyway, bro?”
“Nothing.”
“I hear you’re still running Frank over at Spend Easy. I was talking to Claude the other day. Nicely done, man.”
“Thanks.”
The bartender brings us the shots. Gilbert downs his and walks away without saying anything. Brent takes a 20 out of his wallet, watching him go. “Me and Gilbert, man,” he says to me. “We used to be tight. We got high together so many times.”
“Yeah,” I say, “because friendships are measured in joints, right?”
I turn to follow Gilbert.
“Hey,” Brent says, grabbing my arm. “How many times have you smoked him up? You fucking pansy.”
I pull away. “Piss off, man. You’re acting like his ex-girlfriend.”
I see his fist go back, but I guess I’m skeptical, because I just stand there. He hits me in the eye. I stagger back, covering it with my right hand. A few people standing nearby make protracted vowel sounds. Brent steps forward, the intention of further violence written across his face. I put up my left hand. The space around us is clearing.
Gilbert steps up, catches Brent’s hand midflight, and pulls it forward, tripping him with his foot. Brent goes sprawling onto the floor. Bouncers come over, pick him up, and drag him to the exit.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“I have a brown belt in karate. I’d have my black, but that comes with legal complications.”
We rejoin Donovan and the rest at a couple of stand-up tables on the other side of the bar. “You guys see that?” I say.
“See what?” Casey says.
“Never mind,” Gilbert says. “Hey, Sheldon. Check out that blonde on the dance floor. Red skirt.”
I look over. “She’s hot.”
Lesley-Jo rolls her eyes. “Must you constantly objectify women, Gilbert?”
“I’m not objectifying her. I recognize she’s a unique, beautifully complex individual who’s constantly blossoming into someone new. All I’m saying is she’s hot, and I wanna bang her.”
He approaches, and within short order they’re groping each other on the dance floor. I glance at Donovan. “He moves fast.”
“He’s a charmer, all right.” He holds up his glass, which is empty, and clicks it against mine—also empty. “You should get the next round.”
“All right.”
As I approach the bar, the bartender flicks an ice cube into the air with a metal scoop and tries to catch it in a glass. It ricochets off the rim and onto the floor, but the people on the other side of the bar clap anyway. I guess it looked like he caught it, from their angle.
That’s the definition of success. As long as other people are impressed, it doesn’t matter if you secretly screw up. The important thing is to look good doing whatever you’re doing.
10 minutes later, I still don’t have my drinks. It seems like the bartender’s serving every new person who approaches the bar before me. I take out a 20 and lean on the bar, holding the bill in plain view.
The guy standing next to me smirks, and reaches into his pocket. He takes out a 100, which he holds next to my 20. He glances from his bill, to my bill, to me. He raises his eyebrows.
I look back at him and raise mine.
The bartender comes over and asks him what he’d like.
*
“Where does Eric keep the Meat schedule?” I say. I’m recently home from my Saturday shift, which I spent very hungover. Gilbert’s here, and he’s lying on my bed reading the copy of “The King of Diamonds” I printed out for him. I’m sitting at my computer.
He lowers the sheaf of papers. “Why do you want to know?”
“Curious.”
“In a black binder, in the Meat room. I’d be careful, though. Eric doesn’t like people snooping around in there.”
“Think he might have something to hide?”
“
It’s possible to care about privacy without having something to hide. For example, I don’t conceal that I’m sexually active, but I still don’t want any Sheldon Masons watching.”
“Did you get with that blonde, last night?”
“A gentleman never pushes the boundaries of the Kama Sutra and tells.” He holds up my story. “This is going to cause a lot of trouble for you. It’s clearly about what happened with you and Cassandra.”
I turn my chair to face the computer.
“What are you doing?”
“Proving you wrong. I’m sending it to Donovan. See if he mentions anything.”
“That’s definitely a bad idea.” He looks down at the manuscript again. “Why does he lock his mother in the dungeon?” He tosses it on the floor. “Freud would have had a field day with this thing.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In high school, whenever I was rejected by a girl, Mom used to say that whoever it was would look back later in life and regret it. Lately, I’ve been picturing all the girls who ever turned me down, sitting in a room together and sobbing about letting me get away.
“What have we done?” they’d say. “How could we let failed writer Sheldon Mason slip through our fingers so easily?” Dabbing with handkerchiefs. “He’s quite respected, you know, at the local grocery store. Have you heard what an efficient fronter he is? Are you aware how many cases per hour he’s known to stock?”
I’ve taken a few more breaks with Theresa, and they’ve been fun enough. But I can’t discuss anything real with her—not while we’re at Spend Easy. I can tell from the way she shifts in her chair that it makes her uncomfortable whenever we stray too close to such topics.
She looks thin.
It’s Sunday, and Casey, Donovan, and Gilbert are at my apartment. It’s raining outside, and I’m definitely not motivated enough to walk to the shed. We’re gonna have to smoke inside.
Gilbert’s phone rings.
“Hello? Hi.” He listens. “Can’t. Busy.” He listens some more. “Mom. Your mothering is over. Mother’s Day is now purely symbolic. Dad’s going with you, isn’t he? There you go. Eat a wonton for me.” He hangs up, and looks at Donovan. “Wanted me to come to supper.”
“You should go,” I say. “We’re not doing anything important. You should be with your Mom.”
“We are doing something important,” Gilbert says. He points at Donovan. “Jamaican hot box?”
A Jamaican hot box, Donovan explains, entails turning on the shower as hot as it will go, stuffing a towel under the bathroom door, and smoking a joint.
“Not just one,” Gilbert says. “Several joints.”
“Or a really big one,” Donovan says.
“If you’re having a Jamaican hot box, you need to smoke a lot of weed. Otherwise, why bother?”
Donovan rolls one of the biggest joints I’ve ever encountered, using a quarter ounce of pot and multiple rolling papers. Then we go to the bathroom and turn on the light.
“The fan came on,” Donovan says.
“Yeah,” I say. “The light and fan are controlled by the same switch.”
“That won’t do. Do you have a flashlight?”
I search for one. Meanwhile, Donovan turns the hot water on and closes the door. “Hurry,” he calls.
I find the flashlight, and rejoin the others inside the bathroom. We’re about to close the door when Marcus Brutus starts sniffing around outside and meowing. “Has your cat ever been stoned?” Donovan says.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“We should get him in here. It’ll be hilarious.”
“Could that hurt him?”
“Nah, man. Cats love weed.” He picks Marcus Brutus up, rolls of cat fat bunching beneath his fingers, and brings him in with us, shutting the door. He stuffs a wet towel into the crack at the bottom.
We take turns smoking the enormous joint while someone else trains the flashlight on it. Whoever’s holding the flashlight periodically jerks the light away, of course, or shines it in someone’s eyes, or points it at the cat, who sits as close to the door as he can get, meowing constantly. It gets steamy pretty quick, and soon the flashlight’s beam reveals only hazy outlines.
The joint is almost a roach when Marcus Brutus goes silent
Casey points the light at him. “The cat is plotting something.”
Gilbert’s sitting on the edge of the tub. “So, Donovan. You read Sheldon’s story?”
“Yeah, finished it last night. It’s based on what happened with you and Cassandra, right, Sheldon?”
“Oh my God. No. It’s not.”
“It obviously is. She comes off as a huge bitch, too. It’s pretty hilarious. I forwarded it to Paul and Claude.”
“Why did you do that?”
Donovan shrugs. “Thought they’d enjoy it. Does it matter?”
“No. I just hope it doesn’t get back to her.”
“I thought it wasn’t about Cassandra.”
“It’s not.”
When we open the door, the cat gets down on its stomach and creeps out into the hall. We follow him into the clear, cold air of the apartment. Marcus Brutus paws at empty space. We laugh. He walks slowly down the hall, goes into the living room, and hides under the coffee table. We all sit.
“Now what?” Gilbert says.
“I have more weed in my car,” Donovan says. “We could roll it now, to smoke later.”
“Who’s gonna get it?”
“I will,” Casey says. He gets up and opens the door. “It stopped raining.”
Marcus Brutus darts from under the coffee table, past Casey, and out the door. “Shit,” Casey says. “He’s gone, Sheldon.”
I reach deep into myself and locate a final reservoir of energy I didn’t know was there. I get up and go to the open door. “Here kitty,” I call. “Here Marcus Brutus. Here Brute.”
Casey and I look at each other.
“He’ll come back,” I say, and return to the couch.
Chapter Thirty
Her last day in the psych ward, Theresa led me out into the fenced-off garden by the hand.
Seated side-by-side on the concrete bench, she said, “I think you need to talk about the reason you’re here, Sheldon. I don’t want to pressure you. But to get better, I think you need to start processing why you wanted to kill yourself.”
I didn’t answer, for a while. I looked out on the busy road beyond the chain-link fence, with cars hurtling past in both directions.
Then I told her about Herman Barry, the man who got drunk one day and drove down Foresail Road.
Even sober, human reflexes aren’t fast enough to operate cars. You get distracted for a second, by a text message or a pretty girl or whatever, and something dies. A squirrel, a dog. You. There’s a car-related death every 30 seconds. After my mother was hit, 137 other people died before I got the news.
I decided not to attend Barry’s trial. The chance to put a face to the name of my mother’s killer just didn’t appeal. I had no yearning for revenge. There were witnesses, and I was assured he would go to jail. That was enough. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
So when his wife knocked on the door of my new apartment and introduced herself, I was surprised at the anger that welled up, making my heart pound and my vision blur.
She couldn’t meet my eyes. Her son could—a boy of around seven, peeking from behind her right hip. She took a piece of folded loose leaf from her pocket and held it out. “Herman asked me to give you this.”
I unfolded it. “What is it?” I said.
Eyes lowered, she said nothing.
“Is this an apology letter? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I made a fist. The crumpled note landed on some grass growing through a crack in the concrete step.
“What’s your name?” I asked the boy.
He didn’t answer.
“What’s your name?”
“Herman,” his mother said.
“Do you love your mommy, Herman?”
“Your daddy took my mommy,” I said. “She’s never coming back. She’s gone, forever. Because of what your daddy did.” My voice cracked. “Do you understand?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I went back inside and closed the door. I took two steps, and then, slowly, I sank to my knees. I let myself fall over onto my side. I hated the tears that started and didn’t stop. I hated Herman Barry. And I hated myself.
I stayed there, curled up, crying, for what must have been an hour. Then I stood and opened the door. The letter was still on the doorstep. It was spread out again, with a stone sitting on top to keep it in place. I removed the rock and took the paper inside.
In his letter, Barry wrote about a childhood under the yoke of a chronically drunk father, who took pleasure in knocking him down, and knocking his mother down, and his sisters, and the dog. He wrote about having his first drink at 10, and about his struggles with alcoholism ever since. The AA meetings. The interventions. He wrote about his pride in never touching his wife or son, except with love. He wrote about divorcing his wife, and spending long, sober years trying to win her back. And, when he finally did, getting hammered soon after, and running a woman down in the street.
He wrote about how, when driving really drunk, you’ll steer toward things you’re trying to avoid. You concentrate so hard on the thing you don’t want to hit that you drive straight for it.
It helps, of course, when the thing you’re trying to avoid killing is also trying to avoid being killed. This, Barry wrote, was not the case with my mother. He saw her a few seconds before striking her, and she saw him. But she didn’t move. She didn’t try to get out of the way.
She saw him coming, and she just stood there.
When I finished reading, I found a lighter and burned Barry’s letter in the kitchen sink.
(The black marks are still there.) I decided that Barry was a liar. And I tried my hardest to forget what I’d read.
But over the following months, memories resurfaced that hadn’t seemed important before. Mom sleeping in more, and being reprimanded at work for lateness. Letting her bedroom become disordered. Eating less. Falling out of touch with her friends. Staring out the living room window, chin in hand—not reacting even when Brute rubbed against her calves, and cried.
Taking Stock Page 21
