I can drive! he suddenly shouts.
Anya goes, Ssshhhh, the baby.
Tell the little sucker to wake up and party! he yells.
Okay, look, I say.
I CAN DRIVE! he screams. I’LL SHOW YOU!
He tries to get up, out of his chair, thinking he has legs. He falls right down on his face. There is a crack sound when he hits the floor.
Oh, Jesus, Pete, Anya says.
Oh, he says, oh god.
My wife says to me: Don’t just stand there, help him!
I don’t want to touch him; I don’t want to be near him; I want him the hell out of my home and away from my family.
Help him, she says.
I help Pete back into his chair.
I’m okay, he says.
You’re not, Anya says.
I better go, he says.
No, Anya says. You can sleep here on the couch; sleep it off.
I look at her.
I gotta go, he says, weeping now.
You’re too drunk to drive, she says. I look at her.
He’s too drunk to drive, she says to me; he can sleep on the couch.
I know I can’t argue with her.
Okay, I can sleep it off a bit, he says, and then I’ll go, I won’t bug you anymore. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…
Anya gets some blankets and a pillow.
I’m not a happy camper. I let her know this when we go upstairs to our bedroom.
So what are we supposed to do, she says, let him drive, she says.
Why not, I say.
He could get in an accident, she says.
I want to say so what.
We could be liable, she says.
No we wouldn’t.
We would feel guilty, she says.
No, I go.
I would, she says.
I don’t like him here, I say.
I know.
I don’t want him here; I don’t feel safe, I say.
What is he going to do? she says. He can’t walk. He can’t do anything. He’s a sad…sad sorry version of the man he used to be, she goes.
The man you used to love.
She looks away.
Love, I say.
I don’t know what it was, she says; that was a long time ago.
Different days, I say.
Yes, she says.
I don’t like this, I say.
He’ll sleep it off, she goes, and then he’ll go and that’ll be that, she says.
I can’t sleep. Who knows what could happen. I tend to the baby when the baby wakes up and cries. I let Anya sleep, except when she has to feed our baby. Maybe I did sleep. Who knows what happens in those strange hours. But I don’t sleep much.
In the morning, I can hear the TV downstairs and it is loud, too loud—first Star Trek, then music, the channel is set to MTV or VH1 and the guitars and drums are loud, the male voices screech and remind me of being a teenager and playing my music loud in my bedroom and I not caring what my parents, siblings, or neighbors thought.
Anya gets the baby and we go downstairs. Pete has the remote. He is still on the couch, propped up, and he has turned on the TV, back to Star Trek and Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.
Morning! he says.
Pete, Anya says, shaking her head.
Turn that down, I say.
He just looks at me.
Please turn that TV down, I say; turn it off, please.
He hits the mute button.
I sure am hungry, he says. Scrambled eggs and bacon would be nice, he says. I bet Anya here is still a hell of a cook, he says. It’s a skill you never forgot, like sucking a dick, he says, with a sneer, and he says, You’re always good at it.
Anya turns around, holding the baby close.
She is upset and I am too.
That’s it, I say, Pete, let’s get you in your chair and get you out of here.
Don’t touch me, he goes when I move to help him; don’t you dare touch me, you bastard, he cries.
Fine, I say, you’re an independent man; do it yourself.
I push the wheelchair near him. He shoves it away.
I’m not going anywhere, he says. I’m staying right here and you’re going to take care of me, he says to Anya.
You’re crazy, she goes.
Crazy, he says. I always was.
You’re not staying here, I say.
Yes I am, he says.
No, I go, you’re not.
Not much you can do, he says; go ahead and beat me up, toss me out, throw me in the gutter. I’m a war hero. The police won’t like it. The newspapers and TV news people won’t like it. People won’t like it. You’ll be looked at as—as—as—a monster, treating a war vet, a crippled war vet, like that—I mean, I lost life and limb to protect your right to freedom; because of me, you creep, you now have this nice home with your beautiful wife and wonderful child. Because of me. Because if I never joined the Army, I would be married to Anya right now and that baby would be mine. She said if I joined, she wouldn’t wait for me, she would dump me. Tell him, Anya, tell him this is true.
I know the story, I say.
You don’t know jack, he goes.
Pete, I just said that to make it easy, says my wife. I was going to break up with you anyway. I knew you would join the Army no matter what, because of 9/11, so I told you that to make it easier for everyone concerned.
I don’t believe you, he says.
It’s true, she says.
Liar, he says.
No, she says.
She’s a liar, you know, he says to me.
I am close to exploding. He sees this.
You want to hit me, he goes, you want to hurt me.
You’re pissing us both off, Anya says.
The baby cries.
You’re upsetting my child, she says, you’re disrupting my home.
Home home home, he goes; this should be my home.
Get out, I say.
No, he says. Go ahead and hit me, throw me out, he says.
Anya looks at me, shakes her head.
Pete goes, This should be my home, my wife, my baby; this should be my couch, my TV, and so this is where I’m going to stay. I’m camping out and you’ll have to kill me if you want me gone, he says. Go ahead, he goes. Kill me, he goes. I’m dead anyway, he says.
He turns the mute button off and the loud sound of spaceship battles blare out of the TV speakers.
The baby cries.
Anya runs up the stairs with our child.
I’ll call the police, I say when we’re upstairs and putting the baby back in the crib.
No, she says.
He’s nuts, I say.
He’s hurt, he’s upset, he’s in pain, she says.
Don’t care, I say.
I don’t want any drama, she says.
This is already drama, I tell her.
I don’t want it to be any worse, she says; the police will make it worse. Just play along. He’ll give up and eventually go.
You mean just leave him there, I say.
He’ll get hungry, she says; he’ll have to go to the bathroom. He’ll go, she goes.
He doesn’t. He has the TV on loud still and he calls out for Anya. He says he’s hungry; he wants her to make him lunch, dinner.
Says he wants beer.
He screams.
He cries.
I’ll get him some food, Anya says.
I grab her arm.
Don’t you dare feed him, I say.
He’s hungry, she says.
I realize she still has residual feelings…
So what, I say.
We’re like prisoners up here, she says.
It was your idea. Let me call the cops, I say.
She groans.
She goes, He’ll leave soon.
For three days, we are indeed like prisoners upstairs. We sneak down, sneak out, when we are certain he is asleep. We come home, he yells at us—
I NEED FOOD! I NEED BEER! I NEED TO TAKE A
SHIT!
I’m at the local bar and having a few beers with my friend, Ed.
You won’t believe what has happened to my life, I say to Ed.
I give him a run down of the events. His eyes get wider as I tell him more.
You’re pulling my leg, says Ed.
Wish I was making this up, I say.
That’s just weird, he goes.
It’s something, I say.
It’s scary, he goes.
It sucks, I say.
And you’re here, he goes. Here with me.
I needed to have a drink in peace, I say.
Your wife, your kid, he says.
At her mother’s, I tell him; I packed them up this morning and got them out of there.
Good, good, he says.
We drink more beer. We’re getting sort of drunk.
The guy may never leave, says Ed.
I thought about that, I say.
He’s like a grunt dug in his foxhole, says Ed; he’s there, ready for war. He wants war, you know.
He wants his life back, I say; but he’s not going to get the old days.
What will you…
Don’t know.
You need a gun, he says.
Wish I had one.
I have a gun, he says, a revolver.
Really.
Do you know how…
I’ve fired guns at the range, with my stepfather, I say.
I live three blocks from here, says Ed. I know.
We can take a walk. I can let you borrow it, he says.
There are two things that give me courage when I go home: the alcohol running through my blood and the Smith and Wesson .38 silver snub-nose in my hand. I know he is still there. His van is still parked in front of the house. The TV is on in the living room. He’s there, in the dark, his half-body illuminated by the TV and the images of spaceships shooing laser beams at each other in outer space. There is a box of pizza and an empty twelve-pack of beer on the floor by him.
Hey, he says; there you are. I got to the phone and ordered delivery. I was getting really hungry there. Some pizza left if you want a slice.
I sit down in the chair across from the couch.
No thanks, I say.
He asks where Anya and the baby are. I don’t tell him. I ask him what he’s watching. Not sure, he says; but there are a lot of actors in make-up that are supposed to be aliens of some sort.
The gun is warm in my hand.
I have no idea what you must think of me but it mustn’t be good, he says. Now that I have some food in me I can think straight. I feel just horrible. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. If you can give me a hand, get me into my chair, I’ll be going now.
He sees the gun, I’m sure of it.
Or maybe he doesn’t.
I want to kill him right then and there. Instead, I help him into the wheelchair.
You don’t know how lucky you are, he says.
I think I do, I say.
I’m very sorry, he says.
I know, I say.
Well, tell Anya I said that—that I’m sorry, and tell her I hope everything is okay, and maybe we can talk later, some day, some day down the line.
Some day, I say.
Finish the pizza, he goes, it’s good.
And then he’s gone. He makes his way to his vehicle; takes him a few minutes to get his chair and body in. I watch him from the window, holding the pistol, ready for anything. He gets behind the wheel and drives away.
I sit down. I eat a slice of pizza. It’s cold but tastes great. I have a beer. I watch some TV. I would have killed him, I know this; I was ready to commit murder. That scares the hell out of me and makes my skin feel itchy. I take a shower. Violence is a funny thing, a weird part of life. I call Anya at her mother’s house and tell her she can home now.
Fishpole Pete
In the picture he looked normal, and this surprised me, the way I said it to myself, “He looks normal,” and wondering what I meant. He was a teenager in the photo, wearing a sly grin, posing for the high school yearbook. He didn’t have a worry etched into his face, not like in the other photos I have seen of my old friend, either holding a burning cigarette or a half-empty forty ounce bottle of King Cobra.
“Every time I open the King,” he used to say, “that snake comes out and bites me,” which meant several more bottles of the cheap malt liquor; he never knew when to stop, he drank until he passed out.
In the photo, he is not yet a father; both his kids would be born to his teenage wife before he turned twenty. In the photo, he is not worried about rent, bills, food, broken-down cars and the tax man at the door.
Remember well the day he decided to check himself into Rehab for the third time, the last time.
“Three strikes and I’m out,” he said.
He knew he had to dry out and get clean or else all the booze and crystal meth would kill him, and he had two kids to think of, kids who were now grown and about to make him a grandfather. Rehab wasn’t cheap.
“I have to sell my Gibson,” he said, “and the trailer out in the desert, and my car. I have to sell them to get back in.”
His Gibson guitar was a vintage 1961 Les Paul and worth at least $10,000. I knew how much he cherished the instrument; a prop when he talked about becoming a rock star. That was before he turned thirty. Now he was forty-two and all those rock’n’roll fantasies were just a lot of drunken banter of far-fetched dreams, the way aging actresses in the Midwest wonder what their lives would be like had they moved out to Los Angeles when they were eighteen instead of getting knocked up by the high school sweetheart.
Something always kills dreams.
The day before he went in, we decided to have one last memorable drunk. We hung out around the trolley station downtown, like we did ten years ago, where we used to drink and drink and wax poetic and talk about all the great things we would do and how one day we’d become famous and have our pictures on the cover of Time and Rolling Stone.
We had a case of Budweiser and a bottle of Teacher’s to celebrate the occasion. We toasted sobriety.
“My gravy days are around the corner,” he said.
“Our salad days are gone,” I said.
We bought a small piece of rock cocaine wrapped in plastic from a street dealer walking by and smoked that. It was cut with soap, but there was enough crack to get a decent buzz.
Another guy walked by, saw us, walked toward us. He was in his fifties, wore dirty overalls and carried a bucket and a fishing pole.
He said, “Can you spare a beer?”
Before I could say no, my old friend, whose name is Luke by the way, handed the guy a beer.
The guy’s name was Fishpole Pete.
That’s what he said.
He said, “I’m Fishpole Pete.”
“I can see that,” Luke said.
“I fish at the peer,” he said.
“Catch any trout?” Luke said.
“No trout in the ocean. I did catch a couple fish.”
We looked in the bucket: there were two fish, and they smelled like the ocean, they smelled badly of fish.
I’m allergic to seafood so I turned away and backed off.
“Can I have another?” said Fishpole Pete. He had slugged down that first beer in three gulps.
“Sure,” and Luke handed him another, and then a third.
Next, Fishpole Pete wanted a taste of Teacher’s. “That’s some fine bourbon,” said Fishpole Pete.
And then he said, “You guys got any money?”
This made me nervous.
Luke said, “Nah,” although in his jacket pocket was $23,000, from selling off his possessions. Rehab was going to cost him twenty grand, with three to start life over when he got out.
“Three grand for the beginning of The Good Luke Days,” he’d said. “Three K of gravy,” he’d said.
Fishpole Pete was not happy with that answer. “No money?”
“We’re broke,” I said.
; “You bought this booze.”
“Our last dime,” I said.
“We’re celebrating,” Luke said.
“Celebrating what?” asked Fishpole Pete.
“Sobriety,” Luke said.
Fishpole Pete laughed heartily at that.
“You two are funny guys,” he said. “I once tried sobriety,” he said, “right after I got back from Desert Storm. Didn’t last long,” he said. “Fuck sobriety,” he said.
“You were in the war?” Luke said.
“Rifleman in the Army.”
“Wow.”
“Fucken George Bush Senior and Kuwait,” he said and spat a huge chunk of phlegm onto the ground.
“What was it like?” Luke asked.
I wish he hadn’t. Fishpole Pete was waiting for a cue to go into his desert war narrative. He talked fast and there was no stopping him. He became violent, shooting air guns at us, grabbing one of us and shaking us and saying, “You know what it’s like to have a mortar blast ten feet from you? To not know if you’re being targeted with chemical or bio weapons? Do you know FEAR?”
I had a bad feeing about Fishpole Pete. I wanted to get out of the scene; this was not the play I had been cast in. I gave Luke a look, the “let’s bail” look.
Luke shook his head and continued to listen to Fishpole Pete.
Fishpole Pete whipped out a long knife and slashed at the air, telling us about all the Elite Republican Guard soldiers he killed.
“I’m out of here,” I said.
Fishpole Pete didn’t notice half his audience was leaving his theater. Luke kept nodding his head and asking for more details.
Here is the thing about my old drunken friend: he will befriend anyone, talk to anyone, listen to anyone’s story. In the past, this has gotten him into some trouble, as a number of psycho cases have obsessively proclaimed him their bosom pal.
It’s easy to fall in love with anyone who will genuinely listen to your life story.
I quickly made my way to the car, three blocks away. Underneath the passenger seat was a .45 revolver. Back then, I thought having such a thing in my car would protect me from the unexpected.
I drove to the trolley station. Fishpole Pete had Luke pinned to the ground, the tip of the knife pressed into Luke’s chest.
Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories Page 11
