New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  “Holy shit,” I yelped, flailing my arms in a frantic semaphore. “Just cool it. Okay?”

  “Don’t tell me to cool it, faggot.” Terry cold-cocked me upside the head with the .44.

  At first I saw stars. Then I saw Baby. Dancing. Not dancing. Then I didn’t see her at all. All I saw was black. Black like the farthest-reaching night sky: heaven’s dark, dirty doormat.

  When I came to it was completely dark out. I was slumped over in the back seat. Wind rushed in through open windows. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” pounded through the stereo speakers. My head pounded, too. Like every thought was laced with glass. I touched the place where Terry had hit me, pulled my hand away. Spotted blood mixed with shadows and moonlight on my fingers. As for my piss-stained pants, they’d mostly dried, so the denim didn’t stick to my thigh when I sat up. They did, however, faintly reek. Think old shoes crossed with ammonia, volume turned down. “Fucken hell,” I said, my voice sounding worlds away. “I thought you were gonna let me go.”

  Terry continued driving. He was absolutely mesmerized by all the broken white highway lines speeding toward us. “I will,” he said in a voice there and not there. “I just don’t like partying alone.”

  “What’re you, serious?” I said.

  Terry snapped out of his highway hypnosis, caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “I dunno,” he said. “Maybe. Yeah.” He flipped open the glove compartment. Produced a palm-sized pot pipe. It was made of white glass. The stem resembled neck vertebrae leading to a human skull bowl.

  I leaned between the seats. “At least you’re gonna pull over, right? You ain’t gonna smoke while you’re driving. We could both of us get killed that way.”

  “What’re you nuts?” Terry spit back. “I ain’t gonna pull over and be a sitting duck for your old man. I’ll drive with my knees.” As he did so, he packed a bowl of cop weed, sparked up. The stash smelled like blueberries crossed with burnt rope and pine trees. Luckily, it was strong enough to drown out the smell of my pants. Terry took one hit after another. Very soon the car was consumed by a dark undertow of pot smoke and stereo.

  I collapsed back into my seat, rubbed my aching head. “This is nuts. I can’t believe you went through all this shit for weed.”

  “Weed, booze, pills, whatever,” said Terry.

  I knew what he was getting at. A sensitive subject, for sure. One I would’ve numbed myself to had I been in his shoes. On numerous occasions I’d witnessed Terry pummel guys for barely mentioning his dad. Still, I couldn’t help myself. “If you feel like talking about …you know…your past—”

  Terry flashed me a look in his rearview mirror, like he was ready to reach back, either with his fist or gun, and dust me. Instead, he just swiped a hit off the pipe. And another. Each hit took a little edge off his meth high, but did nothing to erase his hardened appearance, or haunted eyes. As all the broken white highway lines continued rushing toward us, he said: “I don’t know what it’s like with you and your old man, but with mine he used to get wasted all the time, and beat the shit outta me. Beat the shit outta my mom, too. Then the next minute he’d be all nice, saying things were gonna be okay, that he’d get a job, or lay off the booze, or be a better father and husband. Then BOOM. His shit would start all over again.” Terry took another drag off the pipe. He opened his mouth just enough so the smoke could ease out, drift momentarily through the car before streaming out the open window. He continued. “And if that’s not bad enough, then you wake up one morning to find your old man sitting in the kitchen with a gun to his head, and when you ask him what he’s doing, he can’t even look at you. All he does is pull the trigger. Next thing you know you’ve got his blood and brains all over your pajamas. Man, lemme tell you. No matter how much you can hate a motherfucker, shit like that still messes with you.” He took another hit, then held up the pipe for my inspection. “I keep thinking the more I smoke, the more I’ll forget. But it doesn’t happen. So I just keep smoking.”

  I had no idea how to respond, though I could feel that Terry was waiting for me to speak. I glanced out the back window. Saw fuzzy spinning headlights in the distance. If those lights belonged to my old man instead of my rattled mind, then our bond was stronger than I’d thought. Not only had he seriously bucked police procedure to hand over confiscated weed, but he’d also risked his life to save mine. And while we definitely had our share of problems, I was thankful my old man was alive, and that I was his son. I turned back around. “Hey, Terry. Don’t Bogart the weed. My head’s killing me.”

  He handed over the pipe, along with the plastic bag and Zippo. “Knock yourself out, faggot.”

  I pinched off some weed from the stash, packed the bowl. Then I cupped a hand over the pipe to block out the rushing wind, and sparked up. Hit after hit, I studied Terry’s reflection in the rearview. I wondered whether his hard-bitten appearance was due to partying, seeing his old man off himself, or from the power plant—where plutonium, the key element in nuclear waste, was so deadly that, if properly distributed, just half a kilo could cause cancer in everyone on Earth. I blew out a nice long stream of smoke, then said: “Why do you even work at Crab Creek? Surely you could get a job doing something else.”

  Terry popped his Doors Strange Days tape into the player. As the eerie strains of organ, thundering drums, and Morrison’s voice floated through the car, he said: “Like Jim here, and my old man, I guess I got a death wish.” He glanced out the window, watched our dumpy little town drift by in a blur. The more our town blurred, the more Terry seemed at peace.

  Ditto with me.

  That blur: that’s when Blackwater was at its best. When you were moving so fast that Satan’s Tree, the cemetery, and everything else was there and not there; like the whole town had swallowed a handful of Mom’s downers, and had sailed off into a peaceful, dreamy blur. But once we got stopped at a red light, that’s when all the dreaminess morphed back into the same old reality of the power plant, and billboards advertising retirement homes and funeral homes.

  Terry locked eyes with mine in the rearview. “Why’s a smart fucker like you still here?”

  “What the hell do you care?” I said.

  “Easy, faggot. I was just asking.”

  Right then, a Bruce Lee quote popped into my head: “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” I gave Terry the same old answer I’d always given myself: “I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

  “Well don’t think too hard,” said Terry. “All you gotta do is this.” He bashed the gas, barreled through the red light, barely missing an oncoming car. The speedometer climbed to sixty-five in a thirty-five mile zone.

  “What the hell’re you doing?” I hollered

  “Getting you out.”

  I didn’t buy it. It was the weed talking. Not Terry. “But I thought you hated my guts,” I said.

  “Maybe I owe you, faggot. For beating the shit outta you as a kid.”

  At the next light, he spun the wheel. The tires skidded, squealed. The car slid sideways. I braced myself against the passenger door. For a moment, my 33 ⅓ RPM life slowed to 16. Everything around me tuned in loud and clear. I heard the buzzing of the liquor store’s neon sign, every single chirp and grunt in that comforting cricket and bullfrog symphony. Could see all the stars in the summer night sky. Those stars were so luminous, so close that I could practically hold all that roaming silver in my hands. But then the Trans-Am tires bit hard and fast into road, and Blackwater sped up to 78 RPM. We zoomed down Route 9. The warm, fresh air rushing through the open windows temporarily cleared my stoned and aching head.

  “Where to?” Terry asked. “Seaside? Asbury? The Big Apple?”

  “How ’bout LA?” I said, flashing on the California roadmap in my back pocket. In addition to Grandmother’s ring and Callie’s latest letter, I carried that map everywhere.

  “Why not,” said Terr
y. “I hear LA pussy’s solid gold.”

  Whether it was the gun butt upside the head, the shock of being shot at, or my own stupidity, I actually believed him. Thought he’d changed from my lifelong tormentor into my liberator. I was ready to erase our dreaded past, start all over again clean. I imagined the two of us cruising Venice Beach and the Sunset Strip bars. I let fly a whoop.

  The speedometer climbed to seventy. Eighty. The glow of oncoming headlights and streetlights, like liquid pearls, streaked across the windshield, then were gone.

  At the edge of town, Terry skidded into the Dollhouse parking lot.

  “What the hell?” I said. “Keep driving.”

  “Relax, faggot. We gotta make a pit stop first.”

  “What about my old man?”

  “Screw him,” said Terry. “We gave him the slip. Besides, he ain’t gonna do nothing with this around.” He flashed the Bulldog. “Might have to use you as a body shield, bro.”

  I punched the back of his seat. “I thought we had a deal.”

  Terry howled over that one. “If you believed that, you’re not as smart as I thought, Bright Boy.” He jerked me from the car. Jammed the gun into my belly.

  Had he been packing a .22, I wouldn’t have been as freaked out. If he’d pulled the trigger, the bullet would’ve just rattled around in my belly. But he was packing a .44. Forget my vest warding off Death. Considering the closeness of range and velocity, the bullet would’ve expanded when entering me. In a flash, blast fragments everywhere. Massive tissue damage. Internal, external hemorrhaging. Acute respiratory compromise. Next stop: the pearly gates. I went weak kneed.

  Terry jerked me back to standing. “Make one stupid move in the club, faggot,” he thundered, “I swear to Christ you’re dead.” Gun trained on me, he popped open the trunk with his free hand, pulled out a gallon of distilled water. The plastic jug and cop weed he handed over to me. Then he snagged a three-foot-high, blue acrylic bong. It was a near doppelgänger for the red one I’d whipped across my room that day Grandmother died. Bong and gun in tow, Terry muscled me through the parking lot.

  Across the street I noticed a billboard for the Rainbow Casket Company. Right then, I said a silent prayer, hoping I wasn’t Mr. Delaney’s next customer.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Normally, the Dollhouse was a dancer’s cheap-wine breath in your face asking if you wanted some company, or if you had any pills, weed, or needles to share. It was Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” and dizzy swings around the stripper pole. Fingerprint-smeared mirrors lined the back of the stage, wadded-up toilet paper and gnawed-on cocktail straws littered the dingy red carpet. It was beer-bellied guys with faces more used-up than high school math erasers, and pale bands around their fingers from where they’d removed wedding rings, just before tossing crumpled dollars at a dancer’s feet. A cigarette machine you could fool with slugs, and junky girls slinking through the club like butterflies with wings pulled off. The Dollhouse was all those things and more. But due to my current condition—all weeded and whacked-out—I barely detected a thing. Just a swirl of disco ball light, along with the comforting thud of Springsteen’s “Brilliant Disguise” filling the room.

  Making no attempt to hide the bong, Terry shouted a hey to Jack behind the bar. As for the gun, he discretely jammed it into my back, and whispered: “Keep walking, faggot. No funny stuff.”

  We made a beeline for the bathroom. Terry had me load the bong with distilled water. In just a while, that water would cloud up, reek like weed. Right then, though, the water—smelling mildly of plastic—glugged from the white container, and sloshed down the bong’s long blue acrylic cylinder, crystal clear.

  From there, we ended up in the back of the club, just out of reach of the stage lights and swirling disco ball light. Bulldog still trained on me, Terry had me cop a squat in a horseshoe-shaped booth. The sound of Terry’s relieved sighs mixed with the creaking and scooching of vinyl as we eased into our seat. Once settled in, Terry sparked up another bong bowl of cop weed. Then another. And another.

  Once he’d polished off his fourth bowl, Baby took the stage. She was a flash of hot pink bikini bottom, and pale flesh wrapped in a swirl of colored lights. The way she moved, like she had ghosts in her blood. Ghosts in her hips and heart. No way did she resemble the tattoo on Terry’s arm: a clearly inked sex kitten, dancing wildly to the tune of Terry’s rage. This Baby, the one in front of me, was disappearing.

  Terry waved his gun in the air, and yelled over the music: “Yo, bitch! You gotta quit that junk! It’s messing up your moves!”

  After catcalling Baby, Terry made a big mistake—he flipped his gun on the table, just out of reach.

  That’s when I did something pretty stupid myself. I sprang to standing, gripped his three-foot bong like a baseball bat. Instantly, dirty water rushed from its massive base, down the long tube, and spilled all over my vest and pants.

  At which point, my old man emerged from behind a massive stereo speaker. Later he’d say he’d been there the whole time, just waiting for Terry to screw up, and take his gun off of me. “You see,” my old man said, his .38 pointed squarely at Terry’s head. “I told you I knew where you lived, dirtbag.”

  Terry was so stunned by my old man’s reappearance and my stupid bong move he didn’t know what to do. Glassy-eyed, he sat slumped in his seat, mesmerized by the swirling disco ball throwing bubbly shards of light across the walls.

  As for the few customers in the club, they were a stumbling rush toward the exit.

  The chaos brought Terry back to his senses. He lunged for his Bulldog.

  I brought that bong down hard on his gun hand. The bong didn’t break. But it sure did a number on his hand. Later I’d learn that I’d broken it in a couple places.

  Immediately following that bong hit my old man seized Terry by the throat.

  Terry tried fighting him, but was too wasted, and his right hand was hurting too much to properly battle my old man. That 16-cylinder rage machine kicked into overdrive, repeatedly bashing Terry’s head against the wall.

  Which tore Baby from her junky dream dance. She leapt from the stage, tried coming to Terry’s defense.

  My old man shoved her away. “Get that damn girl outta here,” he called out to Jack.

  The bartender struggled to hold Baby still. “Want me to call for help, Chief?”

  “Forget about it,” said my old man, now holding Terry in something far more crude and deadly than a police-approved chokehold. “I’ll handle this myself.” Then he looked to me. “Let’s go.”

  I followed him as he dragged Terry to the bathroom.

  Once inside the john, he slammed Terry up against the drab tiled wall. He punched him in the face. The sound was dull, thick. Nowhere near as bright and firecrackery as movie punches. Terry tried calling for help, but my old man crammed the .38 into his mouth. “You make one more sound, punk, you’re dead.”

  “Yeah right,” Terry sputtered.

  My old man cocked the trigger. “Make no mistake about it. I’ll blow you away if I have to. But I’d rather send you off to Rahway and let you rot.” Then he glanced over at me. “C’mon,” he said. “Take a few shots. We both know you’ve wanted this for years.”

  There I was, suited up in a bongwater-soaked lead vest and piss-stained jeans. Definitely not Bruce Lee-approved fighting attire. But I was ready.

  Just as I was about to respond, Terry spit blood and coughed out: “Your faggot son doesn’t have the guts, Chief.”

  My old man jerked the gun from his mouth, and said: “I wasn’t talking to you, Fonzie.”

  Terry shot back: “Well I was talking to you, Dirty Harry.”

  Reasserting his grip on Terry, my old man said: “Make it fast, Mark. We don’t got all day. What’s it gonna be?”

  No way would it be a fair fight with him holding Terry at gunpoint. “Only if you wait outs
ide,” I said.

  “Forget about it,” he said. “I’m staying right here. But I won’t help.” He holstered his weapon, took a few steps back.

  “Well?” Terry said, trying to shake off the pain from his right hand. “What’re you waiting for, faggot? It’s like your pig old man said. We don’t got all day.”

  I removed the vest, revealing my Hoboken Pest Control T-shirt with a big cockroach on front. I got into Terry’s mangled face. I seized him by his bloody shirt.

  He got me in a bear hug.

  For the second time that day, forget all the close quarters combat skills my old man had tried teaching me. I was so wasted, and everything was happening so fast with Terry, that I couldn’t recall a one. I just punched and kicked wildly.

  Our shoes skidded and squeaked across the piss and water-stained floor littered with crushed-out cigarettes and wadded-up toilet paper. We bounced off a couple tiled walls like full-tilt pinballs, then slammed into a john door. My back took the brunt of it. A blast of pain shot up and down my spine as we crashed through that steel door. Huddled over the toilet, we continued fighting. Sure there was the rank smell of shit and piss, but mostly what I smelled and tasted was my own rusty blood. Terry’s fists plus my face: black eye, busted lip. My fist missiles times Terry’s face: cauliflower ear, broken jaw.

  We blasted out of the stall, and across the bathroom. I shoved Terry against a graffitied wall. Barely flinching, he doubled his grip on me, hefted me off the ground, and brought me down hard onto one of the sinks. The porcelain basin and I crashed to the ground. From the busted pipe sticking out of the wall, water shot everywhere. I slipped and slid my way to standing.

  Strangely enough, the more I fought, the more I came to my senses. It was like those fists of mine were great big paintbrushes, and I wanted to keep working Terry over until no signs of life bled through.

  Good to his word, my old man just stood there, arms folded tightly across his chest, and back against the exit door so we couldn’t leave, while Baby—kicking and screaming on the other side, as Jack struggled to hold her still—couldn’t get in.