New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  “You mean it?” said Jimmy.

  “Of course,” said Marlene.

  What I said next was a total violation of bro code. But I couldn’t help myself. “You should stop by tomorrow night, Marlene. You can meet Mr. Jeepers.”

  Jimmy flashed me a look that screamed: What the hell are you doing? I don’t know the first thing about making it with a girl!

  I continued. “And maybe Jimmy’ll make you one. You know. A hubble-bubble.”

  “Great,” said Marlene. “I’d love it.” As she spoke those last words she was looking mainly at Jimmy, but a little at me, too.

  Chapter 31

  Once we got back to Jimmy’s place, we immediately flipped on Rhiannon and the Sears. Then it was double duty in every department. When we weren’t assisting Jimmy’s dad with his needs; or I wasn’t rushing home to tend to my old man’s needs; or when Jimmy and I weren’t napping; or plowing through chimp behavior books; or setting up Mr. Jeepers’ cage by the basement window; or creating a play area out of hay, branches, and leaves that we’d set up by Jimmy’s bed; or looking for all the chimp-related shows we could find on TV, I was helping Jimmy make a hubble-bubble.

  We cut PVC pipe, copper tubing, and wire mesh. Wielded hammer, chisel, vice, and pliers. Drained milk from coconuts, matched drill bit sizes with tube and pipe dimensions. We calibrated the weight, balance, and airflow of each fruit to align with the strict demands of our party needs.

  After numerous hammer-whacked fingers and broken coconuts, Jimmy held up his first completed hubble-bubble. “Whudya think?” he asked.

  Leftover milk was dripping from the copper tubing he’d whacked into the coconut. The PVC-pipe mouthpiece was cracked from when he’d jammed it in the vice to saw it.

  The look on my face must’ve said it all, because Jimmy’s face grew dark as New York City during the ’77 blackout.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I know you can do better.”

  He gave it another go. And another. Eventually, with the last remaining coconut, he produced a hubble-bubble: no leaks, no cracks. It was perfect. Again, he asked for my opinion.

  “It’s totally prodigious,” I told him. Prodigious—another word I’d learned from Webster’s.

  “You think Marlene’ll like it?” Jimmy asked.

  I didn’t think she’d like it. She’d love it. Marlene had become Jimmy’s muse. Like Suze Rotolo had been for Bob Dylan back in the sixties when he’d created The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Jimmy hadn’t made just any old bong. He’d created his own version of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” And while I was happy for him, my only regret was that I wouldn’t have anything nearly as cool to present to Marlene. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re in like Flynn.”

  To celebrate, Jimmy and I gave the bong a test run on The Dark Side of the Moon. Sure it was all cold, shadowy, and cobwebby, but there was at least comfort in knowing that it was the farthest spot from Mr. Jeepers’ cage and play area.

  Since the hubble-bubble was Jimmy’s creation, I insisted he take the first hit.

  Fuzzy bong in one hand, he sparked up with the other. The Zippo lit up the cold shadows as Jimmy sucked in deep. The water inside the coconut burbled madly. Jimmy’s eyes grew wide. He took his lips away from the PVC-pipe mouthpiece, capped the opening with his hand. After a whoosh of a smoky exhale, he said with a greasy grin: “There’s that sound. Hubble-bubble.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. Then I swiped my own hit. While that spacey coconut was coarse and bristly to the touch, each hit off it was smooth and sugar sweet.

  With each following hit, Jimmy and I held the coconut bong as if it were a trophy. The trophy we’d never received in grade school, high school, or JC. It was better than any outstanding sporting or academic achievement award. It marked us as winners. Made us victors in the Stoner Olympics.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  That Friday evening, I discovered something that got Mr. Jeepers stoned off his ass: a song. I stumbled upon it completely by accident.

  Once Jimmy and I had finished all our rushing around—creating hubble-bubbles; setting up the chimp’s cage and play area; sweeping up stray hay, broken branches, and shattered bits of coconut—we chilled out. While Jimmy hubble-bubbled on The Dark Side of the Moon, I spun tunes. Earlier in the day, I’d played just enough Stevie Nicks to keep him off my back. Later, though, I mainly played stuff that I’d planned on spinning at our Marlene party the following night—everything from Springsteen to Lou Reed. Jane’s Addiction to Patti Smith. “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” to “Sowing the Seeds of Love.”

  Throughout all those tracks, Mr. Jeepers was out of his cage, roaming free. Either grooming himself in his play area, or wandering through the basement. In one hand: a baby bottle filled with apple juice. In the other: a skinny branch used to dig out stray ants and spiders from tiny cracks in the walls.

  But once I cued up Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” everything changed.

  As soon as Mr. Jeepers heard that fuzzed-out guitar intro, the bass, simple drumbeat, and handclaps, he froze. When that trippy beeping guitar riff began, his hair stood on end.

  And then Greenbaum’s voice kicked in:

  When I die and they lay me to rest / Gonna go to the place that’s the best / When I lay me down to die / Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky…

  Mr. Jeepers dropped his baby bottle and branch and knuckle-walked over to the stereo speakers. He squatted in front of one, cocked his head side to side. He reached out a thick black finger. Instead of jerking away, like he’d done the previous night when first encountering Rhiannon, he touched the speaker, placed a hand against it.

  I crept over to Jimmy, who’d just finished his last hubble-bubble hit on The Dark Side of the Moon. Referring to Mr. Jeepers, I said: “Check it out.”

  Once Jimmy observed the chimp’s absolute fascination with the song, his sleepy, doped-out eyes grew wide as two beer-bottle bottoms. “Wait,” he said. “Ain’t this song about death?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “It’s about other things, too.”

  Greenbaum continued singing:

  Prepare yourself / You know it’s a must / Gotta have a friend in Jesus / So you know that when you die / He’s gonna recommend you to the spirit in the sky…

  To the rhythm of the music, Mr. Jeepers bobbed his head, smacked his lips. Let fly a series of soft pants, grunts, and hoots.

  As for Jimmy, the combination of weed, lack of sleep, and all his pet jinx worries wouldn’t release their grip on him. “What if,” he began, “this is Mr. Jeepers way of…you know… making peace with death.”

  “Relax,” I said. “Maybe he just likes the beat.”

  That was the short answer. Because if Mr. Jeepers was anything like me, there were so many appealing things about that song—the trippy guitars, the Stovall Sisters’ high-flying background vocals, its elements of blues, folk, gospel, and psychedelic rock. Not only did it reference the afterlife, but also the idea of finding redemption, getting clean in this life. From the moment I’d first heard it, back when I was twelve, I could already hear it playing at my funeral. In his own way, maybe Mr. Jeepers was feeling all those things, too. Far better than that, though, perhaps he was hearing that song like I was hearing it that night in the basement. Why wait till I’m dead to go to the place that’s the best. I wanted to discover it while I was still alive.

  When the second chorus kicked in, Mr. Jeepers blasted off to the heavens. He leapt to his feet, bounced up and down, twirled in circles, rolled around on the floor.

  Jimmy and I didn’t budge. We just stood there on The Dark Side of the Moon, alternately nervous as hell and completely in awe, wondering what the chimp would do next.

  At the halfway point of the song, when the searing guitar solo and rolling drums kicked in, the chimp went ballistic. He screeched, slapped his han
ds against his thighs, and against the floor. Even rocketed over to his play area; repeatedly grabbed handfuls of hay and pillow feathers, chucked them into the air.

  And when the final verse kicked in and things got quiet, Mr. Jeepers got quiet, too. He plopped back down in front of the speaker, leaned his head against it.

  Never been a sinner / I never sinned / I got a friend in Jesus / So you know that when I die / He’s gonna set me up with the Spirit in the Sky…

  More soft pants, grunts, and hoots from Mr. Jeepers. Then, in the final forty seconds of the track, when that thunderous electric guitar kicked in, the chimp, once again, sprang to his feet. He bounded up and down the creaky wooden stairs. Bounced up and down on Jimmy’s bed. Swung wildly on the blanket secured to an overhead pipe.

  But once the song faded out, Mr. Jeepers came to rest in the middle of the basement. He sat staring at that stereo speaker sporting a sad, crushed look. Like his face was a balloon, and someone had let all the air out of it.

  That’s when Jimmy and I figured it was time to intervene. We bolted upstairs and snagged some of the fruit we’d bought at Shop-Rite—apples, bananas, and melons. We hid the snacks throughout the basement.

  Still again, Mr. Jeepers became enlivened. He knuckle-walked over to Jimmy’s crappy Sears, discovered a banana behind his favorite speaker. He bit into the top part of the fruit, where the stem met the yellow peel, then opened it pretty much like a human would. Once he’d finished it and had tossed the peel aside, he swiped one of the bigger branches from his play area. He cracked open a melon he’d discovered beneath the pool table. After he’d consumed it, he made a beeline for the portable TV with coat hanger rabbit ears. Playing on that TV was Bedtime for Bonzo, sound down low. But Mr. Jeepers wasn’t interested in Reagan and his chimp. He wanted the apple slices atop the set. Fruit in hand, he crawled onto the bed, right next to Jimmy. The chimp took slow bites off the apple. That fleshy, wrinkly mouth of his carefully worked the fruit until it was almost mush. He swallowed. Then he handed Jimmy a slice.

  What happened next I can only attribute to all the weed Jimmy and I had smoked, along with our lack of sleep. Over Lou Reed’s “Vicious” warbling on the Sears, Jimmy said all bitchily: “Looks like Mr. Jeepers loves me more than you. Just like with Marlene.” Then he took a teasing bite of that apple slice.

  I told him he was nuts. Said I’d been the one making Mr. Jeepers go ape shit on the dance floor. As for Marlene, I told Jimmy I had a turntable in my pants that could make her boogie all night long.

  Next thing we knew we were in each other’s faces.

  I threw a punch. Jimmy blocked it, threw his own. It caught my upper arm. Didn’t really hurt, just pissed me off even more. I got him in a headlock. He sputtered out motherfucker.

  Mr. Jeepers got so freaked that he zoomed across the room, swinging from one basement pipe after another, until he landed behind Jimmy’s sofa. He curled up into a tight ball, and began barking.

  For the chimp’s sake, Jimmy and I called truce.

  Jimmy scooped Mr. Jeepers into his arms, brought him over to me as I sat on the bed. “It’s okay,” Jimmy cooed into the chimp’s ear. “Mark’s our friend.”

  But Mr. Jeepers wouldn’t look at me. Only Jimmy.

  I coaxed, pleaded, even made the Play face. No dice. Finally, after more begging, and feeding the chimp a couple Jell-O Jigglers and some of Jimmy’s mom’s garlic and onions, we were friends again.

  After that, the three of us plopped down onto the couch. Mr. Jeepers crawled into my lap. His age-old brown eyes looked right into my eyes. He cleaned bits of trash from my arms and hair. Then he wrapped his arms around my neck, gave me a full-on hug.

  Suddenly, that clear sense of calm and joy I’d experienced the night before—when we’d first brought the chimp home from the circus—returned to me. I foolishly figured that easy feeling could spin on forever and ever, be the perfect soundtrack for my life. Very soon, however, I’d see how reality could be one cruel-ass DJ.

  Chapter 32

  Once Marlene and her friend, Susan, showed up Saturday night, the first thing Jimmy did was to extract that hubble-bubble from beneath his Sex Pistols Sex Pack T-shirt. “There,” he said, handing it to Marlene. The way he sounded: all the years of yearning for a companion were bottled up in that one syllable.

  Marlene’s lips puckered into a perfect circle. The circumference of those lips: bliss. “You’re so sweet,” she said. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.” She held the bong like she’d just received her own trophy.

  At that moment, no amount of onomatopoeias or literary references could’ve helped me. Erased Me. Invisible Man Me.

  “So now what?” Marlene asked, looking only at Jimmy. “You gonna show me how it works?”

  “Sure,” said Jimmy.

  The two of us led Marlene and Susan down to Jimmy’s toxic basement room, reeking of weed, mildew, Nag Champa, chimp shit, and pine-scented Glade.

  Jimmy sparked up Rhiannon and another stick of incense. I sparked up the Sears. Cheap Trick’s Live at Budokan warbled throughout the room.

  Once Marlene spotted Mr. Jeepers she abandoned Susan and rushed over to the chimp’s cage. “He’s so cool,” she cooed. “Is he friendly?”

  That’s when I committed my next two violations of bro code. The first: before Jimmy even had a chance to get to Mr. Jeepers, I was already at his cage, flipping the latch, and lifting him into my arms. I ignored Jimmy’s stink eye as I sidled up next to Marlene. “This here’s Mr. Jeepers,” I said. “Mr. Jeepers, Marlene.” I then committed my second violation by charming Marlene with the French I hadn’t spoken since Callie left town. With a slight bow, I said: “Tu es belle ce soir, mademoiselle.”

  Having also studied some French, Marlene blushed a thank you. Then she brushed strands of dark hair back behind ears way too big for her small, soft face. To Mr. Jeepers, she squeaked: “Pleased to meet you.”

  Mr. Jeepers turned away, burrowed his head into my shoulder.

  “Don’t be shy,” I spoke softly into his big fleshy ear. “Marlene’s a friend. Ain’t that right, Jimmy?”

  As Cheap Trick’s “Big Eyes” played over the stereo, Jimmy flashed his own eyes. That dirty look he’d given me earlier had escalated into throwing daggers.

  Unaware of the exchange, Marlene still had her own eyes on Mr. Jeepers. She was softly cooing his name, telling him she only wanted to play. Then she cautiously extended the top of her hand, wrist first, in a supplicating gesture.

  The chimp lifted his head from my shoulder. At first he only stared at her hand. His flat nose worked overtime: wriggling, nostrils flaring. Like he was taking in all of Marlene’s various smells—her light peppering of sweet perfume, her assemblage of sex pheromones, auxiliary steroids, and the rest—to see if they all added up to a trustworthy person. Those calculations must’ve come back positive because the next thing I knew Mr. Jeepers was hooting, cooing, smacking his lips. He leaned forward, touched Marlene’s hand, then licked it.

  She blushed, shivered. “Oooh, that tickles.”

  That’s when Jimmy whisked the chimp away from me, and said: “I think Mr. Jeepers wants to be with Marlene and me for a while.”

  I shrugged a whatever, grabbed a Rolling Rock. Popped it open, took a couple swigs. “Need Your Love” was up next on the Sears. On any other sound system, it would’ve been a massive wash of chunking guitars and deep swampy beat. On Jimmy’s system, however, it was the aural equivalent of biting into tinfoil. I gulped down more brew. Then I noticed Susan still standing by the basement stairs, right where Marlene had left her. She seemed vaguely familiar. Like someone I might’ve seen at the Third Lake and thought was kinda hot. As she scoped out the room, she had a dull look on her face. Like she was watching really boring TV. I went over to her, introduced myself.

  That bored look on her face barely changed as she told me h
er name.

  Her breath reeked of cigarettes and sickly-sweet peppermint schnapps—two strikes against her. But I couldn’t deliver the third. Susan wasn’t half bad. Had a sweetly dimpled, slightly chubby-cheeked face. Big, wide-open blue eyes behind super-slinky, cat-eye glasses, a beautiful mop of golden locks tied up in pink ribbons, and luscious 36Cs dwelling fitfully beneath a yellow blouse. She was a Cabbage Patch Doll repackaged: made sexier, sassier, drunker.

  The two of us made random small talk. Then we plopped down on the couch.

  Susan produced a small stainless-steel flask from her purse, and uncapped it. The schnapps smelled like Jimmy’s mom’s codeine cough medicine gone napalm. She took a swig, offered me some.

  I waved it away, told her thanks but no thanks. Then I swiped my California roadmap from my back pocket. I unfolded it in my lap, dropped some weed and a Zig-Zag paper onto it. The rolling paper covered LA. A big green bud of Jimmy’s homegrown lay atop Bakersfield. Seeds were sprinkled amidst San Jose, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Once I’d rolled the joint and sparked up, I offered Susan a hit.

  She declined, took another swipe from her flask.

  “You should take it easy,” I said. “That stuff’s a killer.”

  As Susan downed more schnapps, I spotted Jimmy, Marlene, and Mr. Jeepers across the room. Jimmy had the chimp cradled in one arm while his free hand held Marlene’s small freckle-splattered hand. Over Cheap Trick’s “Ain’t That a Shame,” I could hear Jimmy proudly display his poster collection to her. And I could hear Marlene respond: “Pretty cool. I mean my room’s different. I have Go-Go’s and 21 Jump Street posters. And I’m more into Harrison Ford than Chuck Norris. But that’s okay.”

  Recalling that night, Jimmy and Marlene were such polar opposites. Especially when it came to fashion. Decked out in well-worn jeans and that Sex Pistols T-shirt, stoner-eyed, basement-dwelling Jimmy resembled a hard-living, punk-rock roadie in training. Conversely, fair-skinned, freckle-splattered, clear-eyed Marlene sported a black-and-white striped T-shirt, a simple black skirt falling just above bare knees, and Doc Martens Mary Jane flats. She was a photocopy of the early ’80s pop bubblegum likes of Bananarama and Sixteen Candles. What Jimmy and Marlene shared, however, was that both seemed innocent almost to a fault—a rare and wonderful quality in Blackwater.