“You didn’t claim your ticket.”
Drew studied the distance to the money changing booths. “Doesn’t seem worth stumbling over there just to spill more liquor aimlessly on the floor.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Dominic grabbed the bottle back.
Drew whistled over for Aart, who ran up with the tray, offered snacks, which Drew declined. “Go spread this money across the board,” Drew said. “Put some on the horse of your choice as a gratuity.”
“You don’t have to tip me, sir,” Aart said, “I work for you.”
“That’s my mother talking.” Drew gestured dismissively. “Go on, you heard me.”
Aart bowed graciously, and darted off with the wad of cash.
“At this rate, you’re going to spend your inheritance by the end of the week.” Dominic absently squinted past the sun to see if the horses were queuing up yet for the next race.
“I’m going to spend my inheritance by lunch at this rate,” Drew confessed.
***
Ardel materialized beside Robin, slowly taking form until he was entirely corporeal, as was his style. It gave him a chance to see whose radar he might be popping up on, and if he disappeared while still in ghost form, someone would just think him a phantom produced by their eyes playing tricks on them. Though there were plenty of people at the racetrack sufficiently sauced up for the liquor to produce even better hallucinations.
He stared curiously at Waverly draped over Robin, pouring out his soul, then shook his head.
“Don’t get overly involved with people, Robin. It never works out, not for the likes of us.” In all fairness, Ardel, she’s come a long way since having her mind shattered by that madman Hartman. When first you checked in on her, she was driving away from his home, her mind in puny psychological pieces, thanks to a holocaust scene only a serial killer locked in a house with a bunch of college students could deliver. Who’d have thought she’d use the breakdown itself to pioneer new states of consciousness, and turn one erupting neurosis after another into tools with which to unlock the secrets of the universe? And when you last checked in on her, you materialized in her master bedroom’s bathroom with a knife wound, and she was naked in front of a full length mirror. Proof enough she had changed from male to female, in what was simply the next in line of major psychological uphevals. If she keeps going like this, she’ll likely push past every barrier in getting to exactly where you want her to go.
He watched his arm disappearing. “Shit, what’s this? I tell you, life is just one damn thing after another.” He clamped his hand just above the bicep in hopes of arresting the arm’s disappearing act, and returned his eyes to Robin. “You have to get tougher as you go along. So do me a favor, huh? And cut out this bleeding heart shit. What are you, the Wailing Wall?”
He grimaced as he lost control of his dematerialization from the waist down. “You want to control your abilities. Not have them control you. Trust me on this.”
And with that, he was gone.
***
Drew canvassed the crowd. “Where the hell is Chester?”
Dominic chuckled ominously. “He paid one of the owners to let him ride in the next race—I think more than he would have gotten to win.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“This’ll be worth a few laughs.” Dominic reached for the binoculars.
“He’ll get himself killed!”
“Nah, not that drunk. He’s way too flexible for a bunch of galloping hooves to do much to him. Now maybe if he was sober, I’d worry.”
“You have a point,” Drew conceded. “You have a hell of a scientific mind, Dominic. Have you thought of medicine as a career?”
“You want me to grow up and face reality? I thought you were my friend.”
Drew grabbed the empty bottle from him, tossed it aside, and reached into a brown paper bag for the bottle of Jack Daniels.
“I love how you mix a Long Island Iced Tea,” Dominic said, “using my stomach for a shaker.”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch. You sound like you’re ready for Robin over there.”
“Shit, here he comes,” Dominic sat up straight with the field glasses pressed against his eyes. Drew followed suit.
“That’s him in last place, right?” Drew focused the knob for a sharper picture.
“No, that’s him in third place, biting into the horse’s mane to keep from falling off and bobbing up and down like this was English horseback riding.”
“Well, it is England, you can understand his confusion,” Drew said.
“And down he goes.” Dominic maintained a respectful silence for a less-than-respectable length of time. “I’ll be damned, if he doesn’t have the luck of the Irish. He barely got stomped on.”
“Certainly nothing like his wife beats on him.” Drew set down his field glasses.
“I’m telling ya. Poor bastard. You know, he bet on himself to win. He’ll be off the martinis for months.”
“Yeah, nothing but Johnny Red. Did Red ever cure any of your depressions?” Drew’s tone conveyed he was strictly on a journalistic fact-finding mission.
“No, but you can’t expect charity with my inherent fickleness.”
Waverly reprised his whining from the next row down, “My father disowned me, you know? Couldn’t stand the thought of a dickless son.”
“Did you know his father disowned him?” Dominic sounded hurt for being kept out of the loop.
Drew nibbled at the caviar that Aart, recently returned from placing bets for him, held out on a tray. “No. His father’s got nerve. What’s his life amounted to?”
“He won a go-cart race in seventh grade, got a trophy for it, and lords it over Waverly every time he fails to live up to expectations. It works, too; that’s what gets me. What sane person would respond to blackmail like that? That’s why he’s such a mess. Probably bit off his own dick in Iraq so he wouldn’t pass on the accursed genes.”
“Shame on you.” Having about all the caviar he could take, Drew passed the rest to Dominic.
“I chewed off my own dick in Iraq so my children would never have to go through what I went through,” Waverly said, and sobbed into Robin’s ear. Frozen in catatonia, in her current pose, Robin seemed keenly interested in the race, and only vaguely paying attention to Waverly.
“I told you!” Dominic exclaimed. “I guess I expected it all along. What kind of self-hating wanker bites off his own dick? ”
Drew gestured enough with the hors d’oeuvres, already to Aart, who backed off. “Dude, we passed a blood alcohol level of three-point-nine an hour ago. We’ve been officially dead for two days.”
“I appreciate you getting me off my high horse.” Dominic’s tone suggested he hadn’t exactly climbed out of the saddle yet. “What really rankles me is the extreme flexibility needed for the task. That’s the part I can’t wrap my mind around.”
Drew advised, “Don’t let it screw with your head. You have being gay for that.”
“Don’t remind me. I’ve lived half my life in locker rooms and no one got that. But Robin saw it inside of five minutes.”
“She can be a little spooky,” Drew confessed.
“You have a healthy relationship despite everything.”
“She should be in an institution right now.” Drew eyed Robin, posed like a mannequin. “Instead, I’m using her to take the pressure off me of you wankers carrying on day and night.”
“I didn’t say it was perfect. Shit, nothing’s perfect.”
“My mother was a nun,” Waverly said. “My father stole into her convent, night in and night out until she couldn’t hide the pregnancy under the habit anymore. I was born in denial. What chance did I have? My own mother couldn’t acknowledge her own carnal needs. I suppose that’s where the penis-hating started, in the womb.”
“Did you know that?” Dominic sounded flabbergasted at what he was overhearing. “I’ve known the guy all my life, and I didn’t know that.”
“These ad
ult coming-of-age dramas are going to be the death of me.” Drew swigged his JD. “This age of revelations is going to be the death of me. No one is happy if they aren’t turning over some rock inside their heads every five minutes.”
“Being a drunk isn’t what it used to be,” Dominic admitted, taking the bottle from Drew. “Used to be one sad story would get you off the hook for a lifetime. Now people have to believe you’re buried under so much rubble you’ll never surface. Far easier to drink than fight the downward slide.”
“I don’t hear you carrying on so much,” Drew said.
“Every group needs one closet case who everyone assumes is the most messed up of all. They don’t want to know the details because, if they did, it wouldn’t be half as exciting as what they’re imagining. I was the magnet that pulled them out of themselves until Robin came along.”
“High times’ll be here again, my friend,” Drew said, grabbing his field glasses. “She never stays down long.” He checked out the horses at the front of the pack with the binoculars. “I suppose, with Waverly in earshot, it would be callous of me to shout ‘Go Big Woody!” even if he is out front.
“I ran over a woman one time and kept driving,” Waverly confessed, then sobbed into Robin’s ear. “The cop pulled me over, saw that I was dickless and bleeding, and assumed I was in shock, and just another victim of the true hit-and-run driver. The car I was driving was so dinged up, it was easy to imagine the other guy was to blame. I let him keep believing that until now. What does that make me, huh?”
“One seriously low-down shit,” Dominic said, answering for Robin.
“I can’t take any more of this.” Drew rubbed his temples. “Go pull him away from her before all the mystery is gone. I’ll have to drop him at the side of the road like a cheap whore I never want to see again.”
“I’m with you on that one.” Dominic left the bottle with Drew, bounded down the row of bleachers, and dragged Waverly away. “That’s enough confession for you for one day, big guy. Give some of the other sinners a chance.”
TEN
The joy boys planted themselves in the Lake District, the most famous national park in England, at the outskirts of Manchester.
They camped lakeside, skipping rocks across the water, and staring at the stars above.
Chester sprawled precariously on the sand, bandaged in casts and slings from his ordeal at the racetrack, and could barely move. Aart took care of him, poured whiskey down his pie hole, and held the cup for him to pee in, usually both at the same time, perhaps secondary to some nerve Chester had severed.
Drew watched Aart struggling with Chester. “I’ll see you get promoted to first footman for this.”
“Not at all, sir. Entirely all right,” Aart said.
“I should say not.” Drew clenched his jaw and walked on.
It was Dominic’s turn at bat with Robin. He poured his heart out as if his life had been building to penitence. Dominic used Robin’s frame as a recliner, his back slouched into her chest, his legs outstretched. His naked feet played with the lip of the water. Drew stood as much prattle as he could take before walking on.
He flopped down beside Waverly, offered him the bottle.
“No, I’m good.” Waverly smiled. “Getting high off the breeze, the pinks and purples of the setting sun over the water. Haven’t been this relaxed in a long while.”
“Great, from no-good Waverly to Saint-Un-Germane, all in one day. When Robin gets back from the dead, I’m going to send her to the moon. All expenses paid.” He drank from his bottle.
“She has scary magic,” Waverly said. “I’m cured. I’ll never touch another drop of whiskey so long as I live.” He skipped a rock across the water.
“Fifty bucks says you can’t get it to skip five times,” Drew said.
“You’re on.”
Waverly skipped the rock four times. Sighed. “Double or nothing?”
“Cured, my ass,” Drew said with satisfaction. When Waverly skipped the stone five times, he reached for the fifty dollar bill. “Double or nothing says you can’t make it skip six times.”
“You’re on. God, this is some relaxing shit,” Waverly said.
Drew felt mildly ashamed. What was it with addicts that as soon as one made even one step towards recovery, the others in the group had to do everything to bring him down, turning on him like a pack of vicious wolves?
Though he’d taken up the perch farthest from Dominic, his voice carried over the water, something Drew hadn’t figured on.
Sheltered in Robin’s arms, Dominic intoned, “I’ve been cross-dressing since I was six. Just so we’re clear, I have no desire to be a woman. It’s got nothing to do with gender confusion or any of that happy-horseshit they love to throw at you at the doctor’s. I just love the feel of women’s pantyhose on me, the chance to stretch stockings, and hear the clicking sound of a handbag opening and closing, the sensuous caress of lipstick on my lips.”
Drew imagined the eyes on the rest of the boys were popping as large as his were right now.
“When I’m not in women’s clothes, all I think of is sucking Chester’s dick. It’s weird, it’s like OCD. The drugging, the joking around, the ribbing one another, are all partial reprieves, at best. God, what a sorry existence. Of all the things to get fixated on. I remember the pre-Chester years. They lasted nearly a decade, during which time I was fixated on chrysanthemums. I spoke to a doctor about it, and he said it was healthy, just a symbolic stand in for the female vagina. He wouldn’t even prescribe any meds, the bastard. The only non-drug-pushing doctor in the world and I find my way to him.
“I’ve given up trying to diagnose what’s wrong with me. It’s just a short circuit in the brain. What more can I say? If it weren’t for my friends, they’d attach electrodes to my head and establish once and for all that I was brain dead, and just pull the plug. I mean, how much brain activity can there be when you spend all your time perseverating on one image? I don’t even have room in my head to get depressed about it. Tell me that isn’t messed up.”
Drew picked up his bottle and trudged back towards Chester, flopped down beside him on the sand. “This should make you feel less weird about Dominic fantasizing about you all these years. You heard the man, it’s a medical condition.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Chester said.
“Shit, I don’t even think that qualifies as homosexuality. I think some of the genes honeybees possess got reawakened in him. His entire personality is a quirk of fate.”
“I should pity him, but I don’t,” Chester said. “Doesn’t feel like anything I can get my mind around.”
“You’re preaching to the choir there, buddy. I guess all we can do is take care of one another.”
“Hey, Aart,” Chester said, “could you pour some of that whiskey I’m pissing out back down my pie hole. I’m not as well-healed as some of these rich bitch friends I pal around with.”
Aart looked at Drew to see if this was okay. Drew just shrugged his shoulders, “I got my trust fund to think about. If the guy wants to drink his own piss, I say let him. I won’t think any less of him.”
Waverly padded over and flopped down beside them. “How do you think she’s making out?” he asked.
“She’s a pig in shit,” Drew said, glancing over at Robin. “She gets to have deep thoughts about how to fix the world without distractions, and she gets to draw the poisons out of us as if she had her lips to the wound. Ordinarily, she has to do one at a time.”
“But when’s she gonna pull out of it?” Waverly’s tone didn’t exactly mask the terror welling within him.
Drew closed his fingers around a fistful of sand, watched it escape from him the more he tightened down. “Be careful what you ask for. The last time she opened her mouth after such long abstinence, it was like opening Pandora’s box.”
“You really think she’s having any lasting effect on us?” Chester asked.
“All joy’s gone out of drinking and drugging for me,” Drew confess
ed. “I’ve witnessed enough emotional catharses to know when I’m beat. You boys are on your own after tonight.”
“Woo hoo witchy woman…” Waverly sang, eying Robin, “see how she flies.”
ELEVEN
Spence shouted at Victoria as she stepped off the curb, “Hey!”
She halted her forward trajectory just one foot onto the asphalt, turned, looking more put off by his tone than he did. A car whizzed by that made Spence wonder if his anger hadn’t saved her from sudden death. That fact alone made him own the feelings she was determined to rob him of with her own indignation. With sudden fury, the genie held in the lamp all this time, rushed out of the bottle.
“You’re a raging cunt, you know that?” he said, grabbing her by the arm and refusing to let go. He wasn’t going to allow her to stomp off in the middle of his well-earned tirade. To accommodate channeling this much fury required he talk with his whole body, which meant he was unwittingly jerking her around, as if she were fighting more to get away from him than she was. “I’m done letting you take the epic love I have for you and trying to turn it into some short-shrift genre page-turner. What, unhappy because I can’t play by the formulas you’re written down for loving? So you go, melt into traffic, like a tasteless mirage generated by the heat off the asphalt. You were never any more than a tease meant to suck the last life out of me, while giving nothing in return.” He released her so forcefully he nearly pushed her into traffic. He turned his back on her and stomped off before she had a chance to get her shocked expression out of neutral and into the first gear of her backlash.
All he could think was, My, anger is clearly your muse. He was never that articulate, that intelligent-sounding, or that surgical and penetrating in his psychoanalysis. He treated life more like blunt-force trauma to the brain that left him dazed and confused. It was as if he were accessing regions of his mind formerly inaccessible. Only now, instead of breathing life into those moribund regions of his brain, he felt as if he had gone all dead inside. The sudden ripping of the umbilical cord between him and Victoria had triggered the withdrawal state. This was going to be worse than a heroin addict going cold-turkey. He knew, as bad as he felt, this was just the early-detox reaction. God help him through what would come next.
Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Page 91
