Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp

by C. D. Payne

  “Did the judge let him out of jail?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I found out something interesting from the lawyers though.”

  “What?”

  “You know that cops are supposed to have probable cause before they can stop someone and search their vehicle?”

  “Right. Did they not have probable cause with Paul?”

  “No, Nick, they had it all right. Somebody phoned in an anonymous tip that Paulo might be carrying drugs!”

  “Really? Who would do a thing like that?”

  “Well, I have an idea. My father’s been going way out of his way to comfort Lacey throughout this ordeal. And he might have seen Paulo on a security tape smoking a joint.”

  “That’s awful, Connie. Could your father really be that big of a rat?”

  “Well, I don’t think he expected Paulo to get in this much trouble. Still, I can’t take any chances.”

  “You told Lacey?”

  “No way, Nick. But I’m siccing Mother’s lawyers on Paulo’s case. I think she can appreciate the logic of getting Paulo sprung as soon as possible—even if Daddy doesn’t.”

  We then discussed my upcoming surgery and my impressions of Mexico’s greatest surgical genius.

  “I guess he seems pretty competent,” I admitted. “How come his legs are so long?”

  “Well, they’ve been augmented, of course.”

  “What was he—a midget?”

  “Not a midget, but pretty short. Of course, you have to understand, Nick, they can’t add to a person’s chest or abdomen—I mean in length. So, naturally, the legs wind up a bit long in proportion to the rest of the body. I think he looks quite striking.”

  “You can say that again—like a human egret. Connie, this is all feeling pretty weird.”

  “It’s just pre-surgery nerves, Nick. We all get it. Just think what an advantage spectacular good looks will be in wooing Sheeni.”

  She had a point there.

  “Does it hurt, Connie?”

  “Hardly at all, Nick. They give you wonderful little pills. I know you’ll be thrilled. Just think about my breasts.”

  Sensible advice a guy can relate to—as I scrutinized my old visage one last time in the bathroom mirror. I shall now retire to my lonely bed and think about Connie’s breasts, Sheeni’s naked form, and the divinely curvaceous white-clad figure of Angel, Dr. Rudolpho’s heavenly nurse.

  FRIDAY, March 19 — (no entry).

  SATURDAY, March 20 — (no entry).

  SUNDAY, March 21 — Bandages off eyes. Can now see to type. Feel like survivor (?) of grisly car wreck. Like I went through windshield face first. Terrible sore throat too. Can’t talk. Where’s Angel with damn pills!?

  MONDAY, March 22 — Little pills wearing off too soon. Face feels like vicious sadists are tenderizing it with ice picks. Worse than 10,000 ear piercings. Doctors are such liars!

  TUESDAY, March 23 — Woozy from pain and little pills. Throat still sore, face very raw. Can’t talk. Angel changed bandages. Man (Joel McCrea?) came by and snipped out “first round” of stitches. Says I’m doing “very well.” Says kids my age “heal like earthworms.” Told me not to look in mirror. I sneaked a peek. Terrible shock. Look like star of “Night of the Living Dead.” Too depressed to write. Need more little pills!!

  WEDNESDAY, March 24 — Can now squeak out sounds. Not totally mute as feared. Lips still don’t move. Operation a disaster. Everything grossly swollen: black eyes, purple face, hideous blob of violet nose, lips from the black lagoon. Everywhere horrible scabs and Frankensteinian stitches. Monumentally depressed except right after gobble little pills. Angel remains upbeat. Says I’m doing great. Suspect she may be on pills too. She brought chicken taco in addition to mealy liquid dinner. Ate most of it. Wonder if carnivals still hiring sideshow freaks? Pills, I need more pills!!

  THURSDAY, March 25 — Not sleeping so much. Angel switched to different color of little pill. Watch TV, but very depressing. Vilest and most-heinous villains still much better looking than me. Hop up to peek in mirror every few minutes. A disaster! Only hope for future happiness is if Sheeni tragically should be struck blind.

  Señora Christina’s son Guadalupe knocks on door. I open a crack. He screams in terror and flees. One minute later: Señora Christina knocks on door. Tells me I have phone call. I put towel over head and follow her to office. Call is from despised agent of my misfortune, Connie Krusinowski.

  “Hi, Nick, how’re you doin’?”

  “Frrrrpp.”

  “Can’t talk, huh? Well, I got the whole story from Dr. Rudolpho. You’re doing great, guy.”

  “Hah!”

  “Good news, Nick. Mother’s lawyers persuaded the judge to overlook Paulo’s first prior because he’d been a minor at the time. The Deputy D.A. got intimidated by all the legal muscle brought in behind Paulo, plus she turned out to be a jazz fan. So she agreed to let Paulo cop a plea for possession only. It’s all over. The judge gave him a tongue-lashing and six months in the county jail. Pretty awful for Paulo, but he could be out in as little as four months. Guess who’s planning on visiting him as often as I can? The good news is Lacey and Daddy are virtually inseparable. If I’d known things were going to turn out this well, I’d have ratted on Paulo myself.”

  “Grzzz!”

  “Just kidding, Nick. Lacey let it slip to Paulo’s parents that you’d been staying with them. Did you know they really dislike her? So anyway, they totally flipped out and decided somehow that you were responsible for Paulo’s arrest. Isn’t that silly? What a relief to put them on a plane yesterday. They had to rush back to Ukiah because Sheeni got arrested.”

  “Huh!”

  “Oh, hadn’t you heard? I suppose not. Well, the cops up there had been watching your old house in case you returned. But you’d have to be pretty retarded to do anything that dumb. Anyway, they nabbed Sheeni sneaking into the house during school hours. The fellow who lives there now—what’s his name, Trint? Trant?”

  “Ent!”

  “Oh, right, Trent. It seems he doesn’t want to press charges, but his wife was pretty upset. Apparently, it wasn’t the first time Sheeni had shown up there uninvited. I told you you never should have gotten that guy married off.”

  “Grrrrr!”

  “Well, there’s no point in adopting that attitude. Have you told Sheeni you got your face fixed?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “Well don’t. It doesn’t make any sense to go through all that trouble and expense if she’s just going to dime you to the cops again. My advice to you is to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Grrrrr!”

  “Sorry, Nick, honey! As if you could possibly do anything else at the moment.”

  FRIDAY, March 26 — Some of swelling went down last night. My lips starting to move. Can mutter few words. Throat still hurts and voice very low. Look and sound like dead person. Dr. Rudolpho came and removed rest of stitches. Took some photos. Said I was healing even better than expected. Threatened to cut off future visits of Angel with little pills! Had prepaid week gone by already? Felt more like 12 years. Forked over additional $700 to prolong vital ministrations by lovely nurse with magic pill bag.

  Face starting to itch like mad. Dr. Rudolpho warned not to scratch, but said I could shave in a few days to lessen itching. Said it could take one full year for swelling to disappear completely and face to take final form. Why wasn’t I informed of this fact before? Cannot hide out in crummy Mexican hotel indefinitely. Fast depleting all funds and insanity threatens from tortuous tedium. Also developing obsessive fixation on care giver. Long to press disfigured lips against Angel’s luscious red ones. François making very brazen proposals. Nurse just laughs. Little pills responsible for inflamed libido? Even Señora Christina starting to look mucho foxy.

  SATURDAY, March 27 — Swelling and purple blotches starting to retreat. Nose no longer resembles rotting eggplant. Very odd to look in mirror and see this stranger staring back. No sign of old Nick in new countenance, except d
eveloping Twispian zit on expensive new chin. Seem to have plenitude of lips. Can this be right? Have more lips than Louie Armstrong. Horn-playing gigolos would kill for such lips. Brought up disquieting lip surplus with Angel. She said Dr. Rudolpho always makes his patients “muy kissable.” François demands immediate proof. She obliges. Gives sweet peck on lips. What a dish. Tight white uniform and little cap highly erotic too. Wonder if penalties severe in Mexico for rape? Angel laughs when asked about private life. Refuses to discuss possible boyfriends. Again declined François’s sincere offer of marriage. Changed my pills to yet a different color. I decide alcoholic fiction-writing is passé. Must keep up with the times. Now aspire to become modern drug-addicted author instead.

  SUNDAY, March 28 — Angel brought Mexican pastries and thermos of coffee for breakfast. Said I no longer need liquid meals. Bawled me out for scratching face. Again declined to fix firm date for marriage. Also declined François’s request for emergency sponge bath. Asked me if pain was severe. I lied and said yes. She doled out six little orange pills. Told me to take one every two hours. As soon as she left I gulped down four. Face doesn’t hurt, but boredom is excruciating.

  Loud banging woke me from mid-morning snooze. Heaved carcass off bed and opened door. Surprise visitor Connie Krusinowski swept in. Skintight black silk sheath dress matched her eyes.

  “Hi, Nick! Let me look at you, guy.”

  Connie took my face in her hands and studied it from all angles.

  “Very nice, Nick. Not a direction I would have gone, but you have to admire the boldness of Dr. Rudolpho’s vision. I told you the guy was a genius. Well, say something, Nick. God knows, you’ve got the lips for talking.”

  “Hello, Connie,” I rumbled.

  “Nick, you sound like a 92-year-old man.”

  “You should have been here a few days ago. I looked like one too—recently deceased.”

  “That’s why Dr. Rudolpho bans all mirrors from the patient cottages at the clinic. They’re too depressing. You get to remain blissfully ignorant of how frightening you really look. Don’t scratch, Nick.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Get your things together, guy.”

  “Why? Are we going somewhere?”

  “I came down in my parents’ yacht. We’ve come to rescue you!”

  “But I can’t leave!” I gasped. “I just paid for another week of nursing visits. I need those little pills!”

  “Let me see what you’re on.”

  I produced the two precious orange pills from my hidden stash.

  “Just as I thought, Nick. It’s only Tylenol.”

  Tylenol! I’m paying a hundred bucks a day for a continental breakfast and Tylenol!

  “You’re fine, Nick. Let’s go.”

  “But what about my $700?”

  “Chalk it up as a drug deal gone sour, Nick. Come on, let’s blow this crummy joint.”

  Since I had virtually no possessions, it took me all of 30 seconds to pack. Connie stuck a big straw hat on my head to keep the sun off my tender face and pushed me out the door. Parked outside was a little two-door car that looked like a miniature boat. It had simulated wood planking on the sides, a curving prow, a lethal-looking bowsprit, and cute porthole windows. Yachting pennants flew from gleaming metal poles fore and aft; matching brass hubcaps flashed shiny embossed anchors. The interior of the car was done up like the cockpit of a vintage cabin cruiser—all varnished wood, polished brass metalwork, and blue and white nautical upholstery. Connie tossed my stuff in the back seat and explained that her mother’s yacht always traveled with its own runabout car. She tooted the horn to scatter the crowd of curious gum-sellers, gunned the engine, and steamed out of the parking lot.

  “Did you get my $3,000 back?” I asked.

  “Dream on, Nick. The cops have probably blown it already on parties. They never followed up on your backpack though. Good thing there was nothing in it with your name on it.”

  “No, I made sure of that. But I would like Sheeni’s autographed photo back. Did you hear anything more about her?”

  “Not a word, Nick. But don’t worry. This separation is doing you good.”

  “How so?”

  “Because right now you’re what Sheeni cannot have. With any luck your absence is taking her mind off that married boyfriend.”

  I fervently hoped so.

  “Have you thought about a new name?” Connie asked.

  “I’ve decided on Nick S. Dillinger.”

  “Wrong. You can’t keep the same first name. And Dillinger sounds way too suspicious. You have to give the cops credit for some brains, Nick. How about Dick?”

  “Too Nixonian. And how would you like to walk around with the name Pussy?”

  “I see your point. OK, how about Rick?”

  “Rick … Rick I could live with.”

  “Good. What about Rick S. … Smith?”

  “Too boring. And it sounds made up. I need something manly. And to the point. Something suggesting a raw jungle passion.”

  “I don’t think Rick S. Tarzan would work. Hmmm … How about Hunter?”

  “Rick S. Hunter. Not bad. Not bad at all!”

  Rick S. Hunter—if that’s not the name of an oversexed bestselling author, I don’t know what is. I can see his handsome visage now, smiling out from thirty million dust jackets. Beloved by his readers, acclaimed by the snootiest critics, and wedded to the glamorous Mrs. Sheeni Hunter. Hey, that works nicely too.

  3:15 p.m. I got a job! I’ve been officially hired on as cabin-boy slave aboard the S.S. Plock, which turns out not to be a boat, but the biggest, most elaborately fitted-out motor home I’ve ever seen. A self-powered “yacht on wheels,” it measures nearly 50 feet long from stem to transom. One side motors out in fore and aft sections, virtually doubling the interior space. Like its little runabout car, the mothership was done entirely in a spare-no-expense nautical style. It must have cost a fortune, but Connie assures me that since it was built to demonstrate her father’s beefiest truck springs, the whole thing was tax-deductible. The grand yacht was moored less than 100 feet from the rolling surf in a nice private campground on a scenic peninsula a few miles south of town. Connie pulled in and parked behind it.

  “Plock, Bel Air,” I said, reading the elaborately gilded letters on its stern. “Shouldn’t that be Pluck?”

  “Everybody asks that,” Connie replied. “Plock is a city in Poland, Rick. It’s famous for giving the world generations of notable Krusinowskis.”

  Connie led me inside, where I oohed and aahed over the exquisitely crafted main salon, paneled in a lustrous tawny-brown hardwood.

  “What’s this wood?” I asked, running a finger over its satiny grain.

  “It’s mahogany, Rick. The real stuff—from Cuba. Very hard to get.” She led the way up a brass-trimmed circular staircase and through a hatch to a vertigo-inducing roof sundeck (no railing), where Connie’s mother and a wiry but muscular older man, flamboyantly tattooed and lacking a right hand, were seated on deck chairs and sipping large margaritas in the warm breeze. Each lap cradled a sleeping Chihuahua. Simultaneously, the tiny dogs snapped awake and snarled at me.

  “Ah, the surgery victim,” said Mrs. Krusinowski, putting down her embroidery hoop and lifting her sunglasses to scrutinize my face. She was a thin but paunchy fifty, with fading blond hair and still handsome blue eyes. “Well, young man, I hate to tell you this, but your efforts to become a Chinaman have failed miserably. And what’s happened to your lips?”

  “I wish I knew,” I muttered.

  “Don’t growl at me, young man,” she replied. “Connie, your friend sounds like an elephant in heat.”

  “His lips are still a little swollen, Rita,” Connie replied. “That’s to be expected. Rick has agreed to work as cabin boy. But everyone has to keep totally mum about his operation. And he won’t take less than $800 a week.”

  “What impertinence!” exclaimed Mrs. Krusinowski. “You’ll take $700 a week and like it. Dogo, get t
hat boy his uniform and show him how to make a proper margarita.”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. K,” the tattooed man grunted in a deep, blue-collar twang.

  He chugged his drink, passed the snarling Chihuahua to Connie, and led me back downstairs. I couldn’t help but stare at his stump, which was tattooed with a bloody dagger and the words “Hell’s First Installment.” A vividly mottled snake tattoo coiled around his other arm, ducked beneath his “Biggest Little Dog in the World” Chihuahua T-shirt, and wrapped its other end around his neck—the tip of its snake tail just tickling his left earlobe in which a large gold ring dangled.

  “Dogo Dimondo,” he said, extending his left hand.

  I fumbled to shake it. “Rick S. Hunter. What happened to your hand?”

  “Hydraulic press,” he replied, searching through large drawers under the mahogany chart table. He pulled out a wrinkled navy-blue uniform that looked like something an admiral of the fleet would wear to a Presidential inauguration. I had never seen so many brass buttons. “Too bad, Rick. Looks like it’s your size. She tried to get me into it, but I lucked out. My shoulders were too damn big.”

  7:40 p.m. I look ridiculous in my scratchy uniform, but for $700 a week I’m willing to indulge the fancies of the ruling class. Connie’s mother now addresses her two crew members as Dogo and Tojo (short for Admiral Tojo). She explained that she has given me an Asian name to assist my emotional recovery from “your surgical disappointments.”

  Besides being the chief mechanic, navigator, and driver, Dogo is also an expert cook. The way he slams saucepans around in the lavishly equipped galley, it’s hard to believe he’s doing it all with one hand. The man does amazing things with baby mussels and unsalted butter. I assisted with the dinner preparations by making the salad and keeping the blenders whirling. I served up an avalanche of margaritas, diverting some of the pale green froth into my own glass for quality-control purposes. Much tastier and more festive than swallowing pills. Perhaps I’m destined for celebrity alcoholism after all.

  Connie addresses her mother by her first name. That usually implies some heavy emotional gravy over the dam. I notice they don’t have much to say to each other, but no bloody flare-ups as with my mother and Joanie. Maybe rich people don’t feel as much need to scream at each other. Connie’s mother is a nut for embroidery; all the walls are jammed with expensively matted and framed scenes done in tiny cross-stitches. Many of them, I’ve noticed, involve painfully cute gamboling Chihuahuas.