Adios, Nirvana

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  “Dragons.”

  “Ahh,” David says. “Let’s make this our first rule: absolute honesty. There’s a fresh pillow around here somewhere. And that recliner is very comfortable. Catch yourself forty winks. I’ll guard against those dragons.”

  “No thanks.”

  This throws him. I sense he’s used to being in control. Well, that ain’t gonna happen with me.

  “How old are you, Jonathan?”

  “Almost seventeen. How old are you, David?”

  “Almost eighty-eight.”

  “Pretty damn young,” I say, “compared to Agnes.”

  “Yes, I’m a spry youth compared to her.”

  She’s crazy.

  “We’re all a little crazy, Jonathan. If we weren’t, life would be pretty dull.”

  “All she talks about are lutes and dark swimmers.”

  “Yes,” David says. “I’ve heard about those dark swimmers.”

  “But, hey, dementia might be kind of cool. You wouldn’t have to remember.”

  “True,” David says. “What are you remembering now?”

  “Well, since we’re being absolutely honest, man, I’m remembering how much I don’t wanna be here. Because you’re nothing but a sick, blind old man.”

  My words stab.

  “Sick, yes,” he says, finally. “Old, yes. But no more blind than you, Jonathan.”

  I flip the switch. The light bombs me. David Cosgrove doesn’t blink. His eyes don’t even pinpoint. He sits gnarled and cancer-tanned in his wheelchair.

  I stand. “Been nice knowing ya, dude.”

  “Jonathan, I’d like to offer you a job.”

  “Hey, you don’t get it. I don’t wanna be here.”

  “I think you need to be here, Jonathan.”

  “Oh yeah? And why do you think that?”

  He taps his head. “Old man’s intuition.”

  He points to a door in the corner of the room.

  “Inside that closet, you’ll find a suitcase. I want you to take it home with you.”

  I open the door to the closet. Inside are some hanging pajamas, a faded Mariners ball cap, fresh towels. In the back is an old leather suitcase. Scratched and scarred. It’s blazed with the stickered glory of old travels: the Maldives, Patagonia, Wake Island, Tahiti. Nobody has suitcases like this anymore. It’s right out of an old movie starring Humphrey Bogart. I grab the leather handle and lift. Jeezus, it’s gotta weigh seventy-five pounds.

  “Study everything inside,” David says. “If you have questions about how we operate around here, ask Katie.”

  “Katie?”

  “Your new friend.”

  “You mean—?”

  “From now on, we’ll meet twice a week, every Wednesday and Sunday afternoon. That will give me time to rally my memory. Charge my batteries. Now I’m tired. I must ask you to leave.”

  His hands fumble for PEE-buddy on the bedside table. The bottle elf winks at me.

  I drag the suitcase into the corridor. Shut the door.

  Damn! What am I doing? I don’t even want this job.

  And I forgot to ask about pay. Now I’m hauling a heavy suitcase, with not a penny to show for it. Once again, I’ve been exploited.

  Passing the reception counter, I snap my fingers at Dreadlock.

  “Live short,” I say. “Die young.”

  She glances at the suitcase. Gives me a pirate smile. Glinting cutlass.

  “Next time bring your lute, Jonathan!”

  “Adios, Katie!”

  Chapter 12

  I hop a southbound 128. At the Junction, I lug the suitcase into 7-Eleven and buy a four-pack of Red Bull and a bottle of NoDoz. Maximum strength. Waiting for the No. 22, I pop three NoDoz and guzzle a Bull.

  By the time I get home, the caffeine and taurine are kicking in. A hole is forming in the dark circus tent of my mind. I see patches of blue.

  In my room, I make a stack of all my schoolbooks. Tell myself I’ll spend half an hour on each subject. That’ll cover a lot of ground fast. I’m a good skimmer.

  David Cosgrove’s suitcase stands on my floor, on a pile of dirty clothes. I study it. One sticker says MURCHISON FALLS, UGANDA.

  “Murchison,” I mumble.

  I grab Ruby Tuesday. Strum a ditty:

  Hey, Murchison, how’m I gonna do it?

  Get it all done?

  Hey, Murchison,

  How’m I gonna get the battle won?

  Then I remember another ditty. Something I’ve been messing with for a few weeks. I reach into my pick jar and grab a light one.

  The ditty starts high on the tenth and twelfth frets, then hops down, two or three frets at a time. Then I plant a simple A chord, which sounds really nice juxtaposed with everything else. Then an E chord, because they work well together. Stitch it with a bass run—E, F#, G.

  My pickin’ becomes a strum, something a little funky, which I semi-mute with the butt of my palm. Then I play a haunting chord—I think it’s an F#7—and balance it with a punkie chord, god knows what that is. But those two chords are like poetry. Side by side, they clash perfectly. Jagged glass and butterfly. Light and dark. Chiaroscuro.

  For a ringing moment, the whole world stands on the arched bridge between F#7 and that mystery chord.

  It’s a good tune, all my own. Captures Telly, his sweetness and complexity. A strawberry dipped in balsamic vinegar.

  Pretty soon a half hour’s past. The stack of schoolbooks stares at me.

  “Two minutes,” I say.

  I fire up my laptop. While waiting to log on, I pop another Red Bull and glug it down. Ahh, sweet taurine.

  But while the taurine is cleansing my mind, the glucose and sucrose are making my teeth ache.

  On YouTube, I google Gupti’s band, Pinky Toe, plus the song “Crossing the River Styx,” and find pages and pages of versions, some by Pinky Toe, but others by a circus of characters: a sexy pole dancer, a ten-year-old piano virtuoso, the cartoon character Eric Cartman of South Park, even the Michigan Marching Band.

  I click on the image of Pinky Toe performing “Crossing the River Styx” at a concert in Englewood, New Jersey.

  Fade to the keyboard player. He’s an old rocker with—gulp! Is that a toupee? Jeezus, he’s gotta be sixty. His sweaty forehead shimmers under the stage lights. He sings in an almost-falsetto:

  I’m crossing the River Styx.

  From Charon I wrest the oar,

  To speed my soul to the Plutonian Shore.

  I lean close. Nose right up to the screen.

  ’Cause I’ve got to be free,

  To lie upon the breast of Persephone

  In the land of Nevermore . . .

  Slowly, I push myself back.

  When he zips it up—tickles the final ivories, turns his expensively tanned, fashionably aged rock ’n’ roll forehead to the camera to shimmer one last time—I notice that I’ve crushed the Red Bull can. Now it’s a flat metal cookie. Sweating inside my palm.

  Congratulations, Pinky Toe! You have single-handedly written and performed the PUSSIEST song in music history.

  It’s not that “Crossing the River Styx” sucks a thousand percent. It’s sort of catchy, in a sugary way.

  But it’s fake. Untrue. Unlived.

  Words scrawled on paper, set to music, with no bleeding to back them up.

  You can’t make up pain. It has to be real.

  There’s no way I can do this song.

  Not in front of the whole frickin’ school community.

  Sorry, Gupti.

  Cross the River Styx with somebody else.

  I’d rather flunk. Graduate with Nick’s little brother in ten years.

  My schoolbooks stare up at me from the floor. I grab Integrated Math and fling it at the wall. Look for the ding, find a dent shaped like a crescent moon.

  One by one, I fling my books:

  Main Currents in Physics—bang!

  Through the Eyes of Monsieur Talleyrand—bang!

  Spanish III—bang!<
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  Last is Birdwell’s text—The Art of Poetry and Fiction. I rip off both covers and pitch it. A burning fastball.

  Bulked on steroids.

  Strike three!

  This leaves just me and Murchison.

  David Cosgrove’s suitcase is too big to throw against the wall. So I kick it. It topples over. Damn if both the latches don’t spring open.

  I tuck my toe under the top and flip it back.

  Now I see why the suitcase is so heavy. It’s stuffed with framed pictures, photo albums, bundled letters, notebooks, journals. All tinged yellowish or brownish with age.

  At the bottom is a dark suit of clothes. A uniform. The sleeves have two gold stripes. Brass buttons, tarnished. A squashed officer’s hat.

  The odor of musty mothballs and ancient wool fills my nostrils.

  I’ve opened a door in time. Back when old people were young. And light was different—more innocent and sorrowful.

  One framed picture is of a young dude in a Navy uniform. Same two stripes. I wonder if it’s David O. H. Cosgrove II, but the face is so bland it’s hard to tell.

  I page through a photo album. Picture after picture of Navy scenes.

  Sailors in white uniforms lining the deck.

  Sailors standing beside big antiaircraft guns.

  Sailors playing softball under palm trees. Wearing T-shirts and dog tags.

  Plus battle pictures. Pinpoints in the sky that must be enemy planes. Puffs of smoke. Sinking ships.

  I study the captions:

  “Pearl Harbor, 4 Jan. 1942. The day I board the Gabriel Trask.”

  “Coral Sea, 7 May 1942. The Lexington has been mortally wounded. We threw down nets and hauled in eighty-two men. Many badly burned. Lost seven in the first hour.”

  “Santa Cruz Islands, 26 Oct. 1942. Antiaircraft shells fill the sky above the Enterprise. She lives to fight another day, but the Hornet didn’t make it. We can’t afford to lose any more carriers.”

  “En route to Wellington, NZ, 29 Nov. 1943. Looking forward to first shore leave in six months.”

  And so on.

  I drag the suitcase over to my bed. Pull the light closer.

  Then I grab a stack of photo albums. The paper is brittle. I flip carefully.

  After a few pages, I reach for another Red Bull. I’ve got the whole night ahead of me. Just need to fuel myself with taurine.

  I can do my homework later. Like around four a.m.

  I’ll write after that.

  But first I want to hang out with Murchison. Take a little trip back in time.

  To Pearl Harbor.

  And the Coral Sea.

  Chapter 13

  It’s Wednesday morning. Between NoDoz and Red Bull, I’m getting close to my no-sleep record. Not counting catnaps and glazed trances, I’ve been awake for three days and nights.

  And I’m not even sleepy. Just the opposite—I’m buzzed.

  Brain firing on all cylinders.

  I wrote a poem last night, “Image of the Sea.”

  That just warmed me up for the two hours I spent polishing “Tales of Telemachus.” Writing is the best feeling, except for sex, which I’ve never had. Except with myself. I practice for the big day practically every day.

  I’ve practiced four thousand three hundred and twelve times.

  I practiced at four a.m. this morning. Reading about the French Revolution got me thinking about Marie Antoinette, who got me thinking about Lotus LeClerc, who sits two seats ahead in Mr. Maestretti’s class. That got me thinking about Lotus’s mom, who picks her up in a Dodge Durango, who wears gypsy skirts and has a very nice ass.

  Perfect blend of tight and jiggly.

  I used to be a breast man, but I’m becoming an ass man.

  They say, as you get older, you become an ass man. It’s a higher form of evolution.

  If so, I have somehow evolved without ever sampling a single breast.

  Or ass.

  When taurine meets testosterone, and you add artificial flavors, you think these thoughts.

  I thought about Dreadlock, too. But I pushed her away and focused on Lotus’s mom’s gypsy ass.

  That’s all it took.

  Later, I skimmed my homework and pumped in the minimum amount of knowledge I need to stay afloat. To uphold my bargain with Gupti.

  As for Pinky Toe . . .

  Hopeless.

  Down in the kitchen, I build a bowl of Special K in the image of Mount Rainier. But it starts looking more like a milk-engorged breast. I slice a bruised banana on top, for the potassium.

  Cap it with C&H Pure Cane Sugar from Hawaii.

  I wolf the cereal, and as I’m slurping the dregs, my phone burps. Kyle has arrived.

  I scoop up my backpack. Then I shoulder Ruby Tuesday. Been a long time since I’ve packed her up.

  Today, she’s traveling.

  Yippee-aye-oh-cuy-ay.

  When I open the door to the Volks, Kyle says, “Why the guitar?”

  “Ain’t no guitar, man. It’s a lute.”

  I jam Ruby in back with Nick, who’s busy texting and doesn’t bother to look.

  Kyle says, “What the hell’s a lute?”

  Nick says, “Medieval stringed instrument.”

  Kyle says, “Mid-evil?”

  Nick says, “Court guys played them for Henry the Eighth.”

  I say, “Court guys in pointy, turned-up shoes.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kyle says knowingly. “I think they played some lutes in Braveheart.”

  Through the hole under the gas pedal, the world is a slushy gray blur. The Volks’s engine grinds deafeningly.

  Kyle is eyeing me weirdly again. “Man,” he says, “you sleep in a coffin last night?”

  “Didn’t sleep.”

  “How come?”

  “Too busy discovering stuff about myself.”

  “Like what stuff?”

  “Sleep gets in the way.”

  “Of what?”

  “Everything—art, life, truth.”

  Kyle shakes his head. “Another day in paradise, dude.”

  The bell is ringing as we pull into the lot. Nick and I tumble out and push the Volks over the speed bump.

  Then I suck it up and face the day purely, which means I either doze or swagger through all of my classes.

  But I’m there.

  Only eighty-two more days of this.

  Thank you, Gupti. Thank you very much.

  Chapter 14

  Normally, I don’t show myself in public with a guitar. It’s so cliché. Every seventh grader and junior popcorn salesman struts around West Seattle with a guitar on his shoulder, thinking he’s Jimi Hendrix Jr.

  But today, Ruby is a lute. So I don’t mind toting her onto the bus.

  Soon I’m wandering down the corridor of the Delphi. Swimming through that Sargasso Sea, where death lurks below, nibbling your toes.

  But something’s different today.

  Dreadlock is sitting behind her counter, as usual. Her hair isn’t dready or clowny, but long and straight. Beyoncé brown. She looks half girl next door, half pop princess.

  Because she’s wearing glasses, she also looks half sexy librarian.

  The look is jarringly pleasant. But I try not to stare. Because I figure that’s the point.

  Still, I’m thinking, Show us your real hair. Don’t be fake. Fakery is the path to soul desolation.

  The residents in the TV lounge pay no attention to me. And they pay no attention to Drew Carey jabbering on The Price Is Right.

  Because today the price isn’t right.

  Just ask Death. He’s walking down the corridor, a gorilla-shaped guy pushing a stainless steel gurney.

  Rolling closer and closer.

  Everybody senses him. They hold their heads at a funny angle.

  On the gurney is a human being. Once alive.

  Now in a gray zippered bag.

  The centrifugal force of this fact slams me against the wall. I’m suddenly cold. I can’t move.

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nbsp; Death rolls closer. At the reception island, he turns and takes the side exit into the parking lot. He struggles with the door.

  Dreadlock rushes over and holds the door for Death. She goes outside with him and the gray zippered bag on the gurney. When the door shuts, the centrifugal force is neutralized. I take a deep breath and follow them outside.

  Death is opening the back of a van. In the gray light of day, he’s smaller. Less imposing. His hair is orange. His face is freckled pink.

  He runs the gurney at the fender and the whole thing collapses, slides neatly inside. Like ramming a grocery cart into its home chain.

  The former human being inside the gray zippered bag is now resting comfortably inside the van.

  Death shuts the doors. Wipes his hands on his hips. Lights a cigarette. He’s a Marlboro man.

  “Thanks, Katie.”

  “Thanks, Gary.”

  Death gets in and drives off.

  “Anybody I know?”

  She kicks the slush. Shakes her head.

  “What’s that?” she says, pointing to Ruby.

  “It’s a lute,” I say.

  She smiles, sadly.

  The TV is flickering silently in Agnes’s room. Dreadlock draws the shades closed. She pushes a button, and the hospital bed raises Agnes to an upright position.

  “Well, Agnes, he finally brought his lute,” Dreadlock says. “Just like you prophesied.”

  Agnes comes into focus. Beams at me. “Float a turd,” she says.

  Ahhh!

  This statement is so irrelevant that it crosses some invisible line and achieves relevance, in a poetic way.

  “Same to you, Agnes.”

  Dreadlock takes a brush from the side table and runs it through Agnes’s hair. The old woman sighs sumptuously. For an instant, I see who she might’ve been. Just erase a million wrinkles. Add a few teeth. Turn that hair dark. Tap her with a wand.

  Eighty-five years ago, some long-dead farm boy hiding behind a tree in some apple orchard must’ve drooled over her.

  Time ravages, but it doesn’t totally hide. Not if you look closely.