by Chris Rush
“Only if you’re in danger. Chris, you’ve indicated that you take illegal drugs. Is that an accurate answer?”
“Yes. I do. Sometimes.”
“Mari-juana?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t mention anything else. I wished Donna were there to defend me.
“Well, that has to stop immediately. If we’re going to work together, I insist that you never take any illegal drugs again, whatsoever. No drugs—unless I prescribe them. All right? In my opinion—you’re a very sick young man.”
“Doctor, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep seeing you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And why is that?”
“I’m hoping to go back to art school. If I can convince my mother.”
“That’s not going to happen. Your mother mentioned this art school. I think that was part of the problem. Right now, you need the support of your parents. In my opinion, leaving the safety of home would be a disaster for someone in your state.”
“Less of a disaster than being killed by my father?”
“Why would you say that?”
“My father pulled a gun on me.”
“Is that another one of your fantasies, Christopher?”
Oz leaned forward and gazed at me through the smoke.
“Your mother told me about your delusions.”
* * *
I CONTINUED to follow the Ten Talents Bible cookbook, hoping to create health and order. Taking refuge in my mother’s hygienic kitchen, I would bake in the evenings. When Donna called late one night in February, I was making a cashew casserole. She told me she’d just got back from “a delivery.”
It was great to hear her voice. I told her about Mom and Dad’s ongoing war, but she didn’t want to hear it. Like Mom, Donna was an expert at changing the subject.
“I got high with Grace Slick!” she said. “I was at the Family Dog with Lu. She had on a policeman’s uniform. Some guy with long fingernails kept touching me, and Grace told him to fuck off. I really liked her.”
When I suggested visiting Tucson again this summer, she said, “Oh, we’re not in Tucson anymore. We’re in California now. With Lu and Jingle. We’re working from here.”
“You’re in California right now?”
“Yup—and guess what? I’m pregnant!”
I wasn’t sure why the news didn’t make me happy. “That’s great,” I said.
Donna thanked me for sending her money and told me that she’d just seen Flow Bear and that he had something for me. “He said he had a great trip with you last summer. Isn’t he a riot?”
When I said he drove naked, my sister exclaimed, “Such hairy balls!”
We laughed and exchanged our love. I wanted to tell her about the hospital and Dr. Hirsch. But I just hung up.
* * *
IT WAS a cold spring.
There were still patches of ice along the river, pink as stained glass.
Flow Bear called and said he needed to see me. I hadn’t talked to him since we’d driven back from Tucson. I wondered if he was naked while speaking to me on the phone.
That Saturday, when he pulled up in his old Chevy, I was waiting in the driveway. Like an emissary from a barbarian planet, his beard was long, tangled as smoke. From inside the blue spaceship, he nodded. I jumped in. We shook hands.
I was excited, wondering what he had for me.
“Let’s go for a drive,” he said.
I guided Flow Bear out into the Pine Barrens, the land slipping slowly from township to forest. I watched for a break in the trees, for a road to the creek, to a place I knew.
“Turn here! Turn here!” I screeched, and Flow Bear turned serenely, ever mindful of his magnificent car. In a clearing, between piles of garbage, Flow Bear parked with great care. He looked over at me, as if I could explain what we were doing there.
“This direction,” I said. “If you want to hike or something.”
He told me to lead the way.
I got out and found a trail into the brush—Flow Bear walking behind me in a bearish black coat. We walked along the edge of an old cranberry bog. An icy wind pushed against us.
At the broken dam, I stopped. “This is it.”
The creek was very high, surging against the timbers. We sat on an ancient plank, not far above the water. I got out my vial of hash oil.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Flow Bear said.
I told him it was the One—from Valentine.
“I know what it is. That shit is poison.”
I was confused. “Don’t you work for him or something?”
“No. Not everybody works for that prick. I work for myself.” He took the bottle from me and read from the label. “‘Made by Magician Alchemists … smoke the divine essence.’ This guy is so full of shit.”
I wanted to defend Valentine. “Well, I believe in God. I believe in … hope.”
Flow Bear turned to me, a huge grin on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re just adorable.” He laughed, putting his arm around me. He pulled closer and kissed me hard, his beard cutting my face. I coughed and spit, pushing him away.
He grabbed me harder, crushing my ribs. I screamed.
When he let me go, I felt both frightened and foolish. Isn’t sex what I wanted?
Flow Bear was already walking back to the car. I followed the shadow of his black coat in the falling dusk. On the drive back, I said I was sorry for screaming at him. I told him I hadn’t been feeling great.
“Stop smoking that crap, okay?” He patted my cheek. “If you ever feel like expanding your repertoire, you know where to find me.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about drugs or sex. I knew he did cocaine and lots of other weird drugs. In my parents’ driveway Flow pulled a bag of blue pills from his coat. “Your sister asked me to give you these. She’s on a run.”
I wanted to tell him again I was sorry. But before I could speak, Flow Bear licked his finger and stuck it in my mouth. I was completely freaked.
Smiling, he said, “Get out.”
* * *
BY SPRING OF ’72, Dad had slipped into some very deep sauce.
Old friends drifted away, replaced by folks who enjoyed vodka for breakfast. Dad was often found with Barton Tyson, a rich hick with orange hair and lemon leisure suits. Barton owned heavy equipment and various pinkie rings. The two of them were always blotto, a blur across the land.
I didn’t understand the appeal of alcohol. To me it seemed like a bogus high, briefly pleasurable, then clumsy and dull. And for some reason it made people mean. After a drinking binge, Dad always came home angry—very angry. He’d walk in the door ready to attack. And the more vicious he was, the less he remembered the next day. Do blackouts make him innocent? This philosophical question troubled me to no end.
That year, Dad terrorized the whole family, but the weight of his drunken rages usually fell on me. I was an easy target, the skinny freak in the basement.
Boy or girl? was his new question. Is he a fucking boy or girl?
Sometimes I couldn’t believe what he was saying. He called me a cunt.
One day, I remembered that we had a tape recorder like the one Dr. Hirsch had. In a flash of inspiration, I took it from the closet and put it inside a gym bag. At around six o’clock in the evening, I hid it in the corner of the kitchen—hoping that Dad would perform. He’d been ferocious for nearly a week.
Not ten minutes later, his car pulled in the driveway. From the slam of the door, I could tell he was drunk. I turned on the recorder and ran to the basement—locked my door. The moment my mother saw him, the bickering began.
Booze! Adultery! It was all on the menu.
And then the topic turned to me. My hair, my voice, the faggy way I walked. In the coarsest language, my father described various sex acts I performed—things I’d never even heard of.
“You know what, Norma? I ought to break his goddamn ass—that’s what he needs. Why don’t you come up here, you li
ttle cocksucker? I know you’re listening.”
At that, he clomped down the stairs and started kicking in the door. Mom was screaming, trying to push him back. I cowered on my bed, terrified. All I could think was: Please don’t let him find the tape recorder!
Then, as often happened, they both went silent.
I kept the lights on all night.
* * *
IN THE MORNING, Dad was nowhere to be found. I retrieved the gym bag and discovered that the recorder had captured his every word in perfect fidelity.
This frightened me, since I often doubted the reality of his rages. I’d see him the next day, sober, sipping soup at the kitchen table, quietly eating a saltine, and I’d think: It must all be a mistake. Look, he’s just a man sitting at a table eating crackers. He’s okay—isn’t he?
Now his madness was recorded—and undeniably real.
When I told Mom about the tape, I was careful. I was afraid she might become furious, might destroy the tape without even listening to it. I insisted my sister Kathy be present when the tape was played. I didn’t see Kathy very often, but I trusted her; she was loyal and old-fashioned—a mother and a housewife, on her second marriage. Our love for each other was neither complicated nor passionate; it was just a fact.
Kathy arrived at four, in a hot-pink pantsuit, her dark hair in a flip ten years out of style. She sat down with Mom and me out on the patio—a warm spring day. Kathy grabbed an ashtray, lit the first of seven cigarettes. Mom was so afraid Dad might suddenly show up, she could barely sit still.
“I feel like a criminal,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, Chris.” I could tell she was a little mad at me.
When Kathy pressed the on button, we didn’t have to wait long for my father’s voice to come out of the tiny plastic speaker. The sound was brutal and clear. On a sunny afternoon by the pool, his words seemed even more outrageous than they did the night before.
Kathy began to cry. Mom, too. I refused to shed any tears, but my whole body shook.
“He sounds insane,” Kathy said.
We listened to more. My mother covered her mouth, as if my father’s words were coming from her.
Kathy clicked off the device. After a while, she said: “Divorce the prick.”
Mom was crying in earnest now. “I can’t. If I do, I’ll have nothing.”
I wanted to say, Mom, you’ll have me—you’ll have me and Michael and Steven and Danny. I thought of the day the two of us had gone to New York City, waving and laughing from the deck of a ship as confetti poured down from the sky.
“You have to leave.”
I thought it was Kathy bringing up divorce again—but when I looked up, it was Mom, talking to me.
“You have to leave before he kills you.”
* * *
PLANS WERE MADE quickly, without my father’s involvement.
In a month, I’d be sent to California, to live with my sister. “You’ll finish high school out there,” my mother said. “I’ll send Donna money.”
I didn’t argue. But I marvel now at my mother’s naïveté, shipping me off to live with the ex-cheerleader turned drug smuggler.
When I went to say goodbye to Sean, I didn’t mention my father. I don’t know what I said—probably a lie about helping Donna or some art school out west.
Sean’s sister, Darla, barged in and insisted on doing my “cards” before I left. She lay out the tarot on Sean’s bed—pictures of colorful characters and cosmic symbols.
“Interesting.” She pointed to the center card. “Knight of Cups. Noble, romantic, intelligent.”
Was she flirting with me? “What else?” I asked.
“Well, this card means you’ll fall in love—tragically, though—but I wouldn’t worry because of this.” Her long nails clicked on the card that crowned the arrangement. “This is really the luckiest card. Number zero. The Fool.”
I laughed, said, “He’s walking off a cliff.”
“That’s true,” said Darla, “but the thing is he doesn’t know what’s up ahead, he doesn’t know there’s a cliff, so when he falls he won’t get hurt.”
“He’s sort of cute,” said Sean, studying the symbolic boy in golden boots.
Darla grabbed her tarot study guide and read aloud:
“‘The Fool is the vagabond, falling into the material world. Key words: faith, folly, innocence.’”
PART III
THE FOOL
18.
Marin
FATE IS A CRAZY BIRD, swooping down from heaven.
I’m in a helicopter—it’s inconceivably loud. Out the porthole, I see a blue bay and a tiny island. It’s Alcatraz, but I don’t know that. I barely know where I am. Across from me sits an angelic blonde woman, her lavender gown falling to the floor. On her lap rests a black attaché case and a Bible. She keeps smiling at me.
Why am I so afraid?
That morning, I’d left my mom crying at Newark Airport and flown to San Francisco alone. Bounding across the terminal, I boarded a helicopter for Sausalito. At any moment, my new life is scheduled to begin. I feel like I’m falling in space.
Vinnie and Donna are on the tarmac, waiting to catch me, crazy-waving as the copter touches down. In tears I run to my sister, throw my arms around her.
Then the lavender angel taps me on the shoulder.
“Don’t you remember me, Chris? I couldn’t speak to you while we were flying—all that noise.”
I recognize her now. It’s Lu’s wife, Jingle. She kisses me on the cheek.
“I can’t believe you guys were on the same flight!” Donna embraces her.
“It’s a sign,” Jingle says. “Arranged On High.”
She disappears into the crowd with her attaché case and Holy Bible.
It’s June 1972. I’m sixteen.
* * *
AS VINNIE DROVE toward home, I took in California—giant oaks lolling across the hills, like umbrellas in the sun. The heat was fierce, the air soft, the smell of the ocean riding on the breeze.
Jingle’s attaché, I learned, was full of LSD, fresh from a lab in San Francisco. Donna knew this because she’d be flying it back east. “A quick eighty thousand hits to Boston. Piece of cake.”
“But can you do it—like that?” I pointed toward her bulging stomach.
“With the baby?”
Vinnie said, “Dude, it’s the best disguise ever!”
I kept staring at the mound inside my sister’s peasant dress, big as a planet. She was almost seven months pregnant. What a lucky kid, I thought—to have such a great mother. Donna turned toward me in the backseat and showed me the bag of asparagus she’d bought for dinner. “Look how purple it is! Everything in California is so psychedelic!” Donna’s smile was a ray gun of love. I felt safe. I trusted her.
I trusted her asparagus.
* * *
OUR RENTAL SAT at the back of a tiny woodsy valley, a rambling maze of add-on rooms, homemade furniture, and junk.
“Wow,” I said. “You’ve got a lot of stuff.”
“Oh, most of it’s not ours.” Donna explained that the people they’d rented from had gone off on some adventure. “They just left everything where it was.”
“We didn’t need to buy anything,” Vinnie said proudly.
My room was downstairs, and dark—the lair of the owners’ teenaged son. I could smell him faintly in the blankets as I drifted off to sleep—the smell of pine and sweat. I slept well, that first night. No nightmares for once.
The next morning, Donna and I sat on a deck overlooking the friendly umbrella oaks. We drank lemonade and talked. The sun was already hot and Donna took off her top. Her breasts were huge. I was not yet comfortable seeing my sister naked—and pregnant.
She asked me how everyone was.
“Oh, fine,” I said, trying not to look at her. “Danny just got his first crew cut. He looks like Mr. Magoo. And Michael and Steve are on the same soccer team—rah.”
“And Mom and Dad—are they still on the sam
e team?”
I shrugged. “Did Mom tell you about the tape?”
“What tape?”
I felt hurt—knowing Mom had, of course, said nothing, wanting to protect Dad more than me. I wondered what she’d told Donna about my coming out here to live.
When my sister asked again what I was referring to, I said, “Oh, it’s not important.” She already knew enough: that there was trouble between me and Dad. She didn’t need the ugly details. I knew that Donna was like Mom; she didn’t like to talk about anything sad.
It was okay. Sitting there, among those trees, drinking lemonade, I thought to myself: California is the opposite of New Jersey. I knew that Donna understood this, too. When I glanced at her breasts, I burst out laughing.
She laughed, too. “So, Mr. Vegetarian, what do you like to eat?”
I told her I really liked bee pollen.
“Well, we can’t afford that.”
“Isn’t Mom sending you money to let me stay here?”
“Twenty-five dollars a month. Do you believe it? We’ll get some avocados.”
Vinnie came outside to stretch. He was naked, too. “We should go soon,” he said. “Lu wants to see Chris.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you’re part of the team, man.”
When Donna said “I guess we better get dressed, honey,” I was relieved.
* * *
THE HOUSE OF LU was just up the street. To get there we walked up 237 steps (I counted). It looked like a witch’s cottage. On a hillside, beneath a stand of thousand-year-old redwoods, the house stood in perpetual shadow—a shadow that smelled of mushrooms and chimney smoke.
Jingle answered the door in calico and clogs. She hugged my sister. “Darling girl, blessed with child! Come in. Come in. Vinnie and Chris!” Kisses were distributed. “Companions in Christ! You must rest after that terrible climb. In, in you go!”
Jingle guided Donna across the threshold as if my sister were crippled. In the living room Lu, the real cripple, was sitting with clients. He looked deeply drugged—though he was instantly up on his crutches.
