“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the way she’s been looking at you.”
“No way,” Rick said. “Marigold’s Christian’s girl. They’re getting married.”
Of course, Christian was back in Jennifer’s bedroom, fucking her. It wasn’t a long shot to bet that the wedding was off. But I didn’t point out the obvious. I said, “Is that why she kept playing cards while Christian was back there fucking Jennifer? Is that why Marigold didn’t lose her temper until after she was naked?” I gave Rick enough time to think about this, but not enough time to answer. “This is all an act,” I said. “It’s all for you, Rick. Step up to the plate and take a swing.”
Rick looked like he was trying to think it over but like thoughts were hard to come by this late and after this much drinking. He finished his beer, grabbed a new one from the cooler, took a long pull off it, and staggered into the kitchen on two sleeping legs.
He leaned against an ancient gas stove and paused. I worried he’d lose his nerve, but he didn’t. He said something to Sophie and Marigold. I watched the three of them chat in the kitchen: a normal sight made bizarre with the nudity and candlelight and hurricane. I closed my eyes and listened to the storm, the whispers, the vague traces of sex in Jennifer’s room.
When I opened my eyes, Sophie was standing above me. She had a fat, orange candle in one hand and Jennifer’s cassette player in the other. “Let’s clear out, Danny,” she said. I stood and followed her into a bedroom. She shut the door and locked it behind her. I could barely see around the room. Clothes were scattered in lumps and piled on the bed. The candlelight flickered. I looked around three times to make sure, then said, “There are no windows in here, are there?”
Sophie said, “There’s no closets, either. It’s probably supposed to be, like, a dining room or something.” She handed me the candle. “Maybe you could pick out some music?” She walked away from me and sat Indian style on the middle of the bed. I held the candle up to the cassette racks. The cassettes were arranged alphabetically. I didn’t recognize most of the bands. When I saw the double whammy of New Edition and New Kids on the Block, I gave up my search. I couldn’t imagine liking anything in those racks.
I walked over to the night stand and set the candle down. “I have a better idea,” I said. “Let’s listen to the storm.”
Sophie blew out the candle. We lay beside each other on the bed. Destruction surrounded us, muffled through the walls, pounding on the roof. “Are you tired, Danny?”
“No.”
“Promise you won’t fall asleep on me?”
“Yes.”
“Then try this,” Sophie said. “Listen real closely. Don’t pay attention to the air on your skin or the beer aftertaste in your mouth or Jennifer’s roommate’s smelly clothes or anything you can see. Just listen.” She stopped talking and took four deep breaths. “What do you hear?”
“You breathing. Me breathing. The mattress creaking.”
“Exactly,” Sophie said. “First, you hear what’s closest to you. Keep listening. What do you hear next?”
Sophie stopped talking. I listened for about thirty seconds. I said, “Rain on the roof. Bare feet on the hardwood floor. Angry knocking. Marigold must be going after Christian.”
“Don’t worry about them. Stay with me. Listen. Tell me what you hear. Only what you hear.”
“Glass bottles falling… yelling… wind through hollow places… trees breaking up.”
“Exactly. Did you notice that you always move from what’s right in front of you to what’s far away? From your head to the world outside as far as you can hear? It’s weird, isn’t it?”
I nodded. I realized Sophie’s eyes were probably closed, just like mine, so I said, “It is weird.”
“Now come back,” Sophie said. I listened to the screen door crashing. Voices. Jennifer and Marigold yelling. The lid of the cooler slamming. “Come closer,” Sophie said. She exhaled through her nose. My heel scraped the blankets. The bed stand groaned. “Come closer.” To the white noise inside my head. Muscles in my neck straining. Blood flowing. I opened my eyes but still listened. Sophie only breathed.
“Open your mouth,” she said. I don’t know if she hypnotized me or put me under a spell or what. Whatever it was, I was ready to do whatever Sophie said. I opened my mouth. “Stick out your tongue.” I stuck out my tongue. She placed a tiny scrap of paper on it. It tingled. I braced myself for the trip. What followed flowed naturally, like big wave riding on a longboard: all grace and power.
We groped for matches and lit the candle and watched the flame. We chatted for a bit about nothing. Sophie nuzzled close to me. Her nipple grazed my bicep. I immediately got an erection. Sophie reached down and grabbed it. “Look what we have here,” she said, straddling me. I reached between her legs. She was already wet and ready. I slid right in.
Afterwards, Sophie found a Replacements cassette and we listened to the whole album. Sophie sang along. I watched her mouth and listened to the guitar. The album ended. We listened for the storm, but it was gone. The others in the house had long since passed out.
Sophie and I walked out into the breaking morning, the sun shining through the eye of the hurricane. No birds flew around. The fronds that still hung off palm trees hung loosely. Jennifer’s yard was covered in torn shingles and shutters and a Big Wheel that would never ride again. Not even a light breeze blew. The air was wet hot like a jungle. Sophie and I started toward the beach.
The streets were deserted. Fences had been ripped apart. We passed a house without a roof. A broom handle was stuck in a palm tree, half in and half out like those gag arrows we used to wear on our heads as kids. We walked through the wreckage of the day. Everything sunny and wet and ominous. The storm was only half done.
We walked all the way down to the beach, where we caught the first glimpse of the second half of the storm. Rain clouds stampeded from the east, fast and angry and climbing over themselves. The ocean frothed white and rabid. We started back for the shack. The rain pelted us from the side, as if it were being shot out of a low flying fighter jet. A baby doll flew past Sophie’s head.
The house was only a hundred yards away. I could’ve sprinted to it in seconds. But not without Sophie. Sophie walked. A palm frond nailed me in the back at fifty miles an hour. It left a welt. I grabbed her hand and made her run with me. Sophie ran.
10
Knucklehead Chronicles
ITINERARY FOR FINDING A PAD IN COCOA BEACH
1:30 P.M. Stop daydreaming about Sophie. Either it won’t happen or it’ll be a bad idea if it does.
1:31 P.M. Walk back to Janie’s house. You’ll see Taylor on the way home. She’ll flip you a bird. Wave back.
1:43 P.M. Get to Janie’s. Nod when Janie says, “I’m fucking serious, Knucklehead. You have to be out of here by 5:30.”
1:44 P.M. Nod again when Janie says, “Are those my husband’s baggies you’re wearing?” Stop nodding when she adds, “You little shit.”
1:45 P.M. Take a shower. Notice the granite walls of the shower. Wonder when your sister got so rich. Tell yourself, “I didn’t want to stay in this bourgeois pad, anyway.”
2:01 P.M. Leave Janie’s house. You will have a few ideas as to where to go, but none of those ideas are good ones. Just start walking.
2:12 P.M. Get to Woodland Avenue. Pay attention to everything you’ve come to associate with Woodland: weedy lawns, concrete apartments built in the sixties with names that celebrate the ocean or the Space Center north of town, scattered duplexes in the shadows of these apartment buildings, junk cars in carports or on the weedy lawns, rusty beach cruisers locked to skinny palm trees, a big kite surfing kite stretched across a live oak, yellowed surfboards behind the screens of front porches, stained mattresses by the dumpsters, the detritus of blue collar lives in trash bins as people upgrade or downgrade from one block apartment to the next depending on the winds of the local economy. Everything about this neighbo
rhood screams out Danny McGregor. It’s your old neighborhood. A wave of optimism will build on the horizon. You’ll paddle for it, but you won’t catch it.
2:13 P.M. Begin an hour of up and down Woodland Ave. Notice that there’s a new library at one end of Woodland. Remember when there used to be a movie theater there. A draft house. The place that would sell you beer when you were only fifteen years old. The place where you could go see stoner movies after midnight and make out with Rosalie while everyone else slept through the last hour of Tommy or The Wall.
2:59 P.M. Knock on the front door of a duplex. Your friend Rick used to live here. When an elderly woman answers, understand that Rick no longer lives here.
3:13 P.M. Knock on the last front door that used to belong to a friend. Find a third stranger opening the door. Decide to give up.
3:21 P.M. Pull up a stool at Sullivan’s Tavern. Order a screwdriver. You may not feel like drinking, but the bartender will actually squeeze fresh orange juice into your drink. That alone will make you feel better.
3:22 P.M. Think about your brother Joe. He was a regular at Sullivan’s. Raise your drink to Joe. Ignore the strange look from the bartender.
3:27 P.M. Stop thinking about Brother Joe. Notice that there’s an arcade basketball game behind you. Don’t turn to look at it. Just listen. Someone will be playing the game. Listen to ball after ball sink into the net. Hear the computerized voice repeating, “Three, three, three,” for ten seconds. Realize that the guy playing just won a free game. Listen to his next game. A minute of balls dropping into a hoop. Remember your old buddy Bart Ceravolo, the hometown basketball star. Remember when Bart had been the next white hope, playing Division I college hoops at the University of Tennessee, only six foot tall and slow, but with a killer outside shot and enough three pointers to make the all-SEC team two years running. Wonder what’s become of Bart. Wonder if he’s still drunk and broke and homeless like he was when you left Cocoa Beach. Wonder whose couch he’s sleeping on tonight.
3:29 P.M. After listening to two more games of arcade basketball, ask yourself how many basketball stars Cocoa Beach has produced. How many of those basketball stars became drunks? How many of them would be in Sully’s at 3:29 in the afternoon, playing an arcade basketball game and winning so many free games that he can play all day on three quarters? Decide to turn around.
3:30 P.M. See that it is Bart playing the arcade basketball game.
3:31 P.M. When the next game ends, stand behind Bart and say, “Look at you. A man your age. Drunk every day by noon. Why don’t you get a job?” Hope he gets the Barfly reference you’re making.
Bart will say to you, “I got a job: killing the cockroaches in that place of yours.” Understand that Bart did get the reference, but wonder for just a second if you and Bart are still friends. He’ll turn from the basketball game with a serious look on his face. He’ll ask you, “What’s up, Danny? Are we cool or what?”
Remember that things were left shaky with Bart. There’d been a lot of backstabbing and sleeping with the wrong people. You were implicated. So was Bart. So was Sophie. And, of course, Helen. But that was four years ago. Too much shit has gone down since then. You can’t worry about all that. Give Bart a smile. But not a fake smile with all your teeth showing. A genuine one. The kind that starts on the left side of your face and stops halfway to a grin. The kind of smile that says, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Let the smile do your talking.
Recognize the look in Bart’s face. He’s either gonna be macho and punch you in the arm or he’s gonna be open and hug you. You’ll root for the punch. Bart will opt for the hug. Don’t be surprised. Or be surprised, but don’t let it show.
3:32 P.M. Withstand a barrage of questions, like, “What are you doing back?” and “Where have you been?” and “Have you talked to her?” and “Have you heard from him?” and “Did you know this or that?” The questions will come at you fast. Don’t worry if you don’t answer them. Hold tight until Bart asks you, “Where are you staying?”
Tell him, “Nowhere, yet. I was thinking about getting a hotel room tonight.”
Bart will recognize that you’re bluffing. He’ll recognize that you’re too proud to point out to Bart that he slept on your couch for an entire summer, rent free. He’ll appreciate that you don’t bring up the jobs you hooked him up with and the several hundred dollars you loaned him five years ago, both of you knowing that neither of you expected it to be paid back. Bart will not need to be reminded of this. You’ll know that, if Bart has room, he’ll take you in. Bart will say, “Don’t be crazy. Stay at my place.”
3:35 P.M. After Bart plays his last two free games, clear out of Sullivan’s. On the one-block walk to Bart’s, gather three important bits of information: 1.) Bart had been living with a girlfriend. They had a two bedroom apartment. She left him three months ago. Rent was cheap enough that he didn’t move out. The second bedroom is yours, if you want it. 2.) Bart works for Space Coast Medical Services, a medical transport company. Part of his job requires him to drive mentally challenged adults to and from a care facility. He’s on break right now. He’ll leave soon to drive them home. 3.) At nights, Bart picks up dead bodies. This is the other half of his job at Space Coast. He gets a pager and he’s on call from 10 P.M. to 6 A.M. If someone finds a dead body outside of the hospital during that time, Bart picks it up and brings it to the Medical Examiner. He gets paid eight bucks an hour the whole time he’s on call, whether he picks up a dead body or not.
3:40 P.M. Be sure to get an apartment key from Bart before he changes his mind.
3:41 P.M. Bart will sing a line from a Dead Milkmen song: “Boring day, got nothing to do? Get a load of retards, take ‘em to the zoo.” Then he’ll convince you to go with him on his short bus route.
3:42 P.M. Ride to Janie’s house with that Dead Milkmen song stuck in your head. Sing with Bart, “Wooo-oooo-ooo, take ‘em to the zoo. Wooo-oooo-ooo, take ‘em to the zoo.”
3:53 P.M. Pile all your earthly possessions into the front seat of the bus. You will have with you your backpack, your old Rainbow surfboard, one box of records, and one box of books. For a fleeting moment, you’ll feel like things might work out after all.
3:54 P.M. Slowly realize that you’re riding around in a short bus with one of the problems you fled Cocoa Beach to escape.
11
Adventures on the Short Bus
So there was Bart cruising along in his short bus, singing “Takin’ the Retards to the Zoo.” All my worldly possessions rode in the seat directly behind him, and I rode in the other front seat. Bart stopped singing and pointed to a shoebox full of CDs that was under his seat. He said, “Dig through that box there. I’m pretty sure I’ve got Big Lizard in My Backyard in there.”
Big Lizard in My Backyard is the album with “Takin’ the Retards to the Zoo” on it.
“You have that album in the bus?” I asked, though I didn’t need to, because there it was, right in Bart’s shoebox.
“Of course,” Bart said. “The clients love that song.”
“Who are the clients?”
“My short bus riders.”
“The mentally, uh…” and I couldn’t think of what to say, what the proper term was now. If they were mentally retarded or mentally challenged or whatever. Bart solved it for me.
He said, “The retards, yeah.”
“You don’t call them retards, do you?”
“No,” Bart said. “I call them short bus riders.” He reached into the pocket of his white and blue striped work shirt. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes. In all the years I’d known Bart, I’d never known him to smoke a cigarette. I was pretty sure he hadn’t started. And, sure enough, he opened the pack and pulled out a joint. “Wanna smoke out?”
“No,” I said. “I’m good.”
“Not me,” Bart said. “I got a little buzz on. I shouldn’t have had that fourth beer at Sully’s.” He lit the joint and inhaled. I handed him the CD. He slid it in the stereo and let it start from the
beginning.
I knew this CD well. I knew where we were and what our route was and it didn’t take much math to know that the short bus riders would be riding when the “Takin’ the Retards to the Zoo” came on. I said, “What do the short bus riders think of that song you were just singing?”
“They love it. They sing along to all the wooooo-ooooohs. It’s fun.”
“They don’t get offended.”
“Hell, no,” Bart said. “They’re fucking retarded.”
I let the subject drop. Bart smoked his joint. A cloud of silence floated around the short bus. It had nothing to do with what to call Bart’s clients. It had nothing to do with Bart’s drinking or the joint. It had everything to do with the last time Bart and I had hung out: the night when Sophie stabbed me. And really, it had everything to do with the year leading up to the night when Sophie stabbed me. Because there was that shit that would always be between Bart and me. That shit that comes from friends dating the same girl. And here was the crux of the problem:
I was dating Sophie and getting sick of her. Bart was heavily lusting after Helen. Helen didn’t dig Bart. She did dig me. Sophie and I broke up. I started dating Helen. Bart started dating Sophie. It all seems logical and clean, but there’s nothing logical and clean in the affairs of the human heart. And here was our problem. From Bart’s perspective, I should’ve stayed away from Helen. I knew he was infatuated with her. From my perspective, though, I knew that he didn’t have a chance in hell of dating her. Besides, he didn’t even ask her out. I mean, Jesus, you have to shoot if you want to hit something, right? Not for Bart. He just sat at her bar and drooled over her and got nowhere. So when I saw my chance, I took it. I don’t see that as a betrayal. Bart does. This led to the Sophie situation.
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