by J. G Hayes
Why didn’t I ask him? You mean ask him where I knew him from? Because I’d been thinking about it all week, that’s why, two weeks. You don’t just blurt out with the Big Question first thing, you know what I mean? There’s such a fuckin’ thing as ahh, whatdyacallit, Diplomacy, my friend. That’s the first fuckin’ thing you learn on the streets of Southie. Then he started talking. To me.
I couldn’t believe their defensemen didn’t double-team you at the point after your first goal, he says. I had to think about that for a minute, I mean like I say he was like the brains of his team and he like saw all this shit.
Yeah, I know it, I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
I guess I was staring at him, staring at him this close and trying to figure out where I knew him from, he had like this small mole buried in his right sideburn I happened to notice and Jesus Christ I was like I know that too because I did, I did.
You really exploited their nickel defense when they switched there after the second period, he says.
I could tell he was a really nice guy.
I know it, yeah, I said, though I wasn’t really sure what he was talking about.
So I guess it’s our two teams next week in the playoffs, he says.
Yeah, I said. Yeah.
Should be a good game, he says. We’re still staring at each other and I could see Phil outta the corner of my eye coming in my direction so I knew it was time to go and I took a deep breath and heard myself say to him:
I hate it when people call me Lughead.
C’mon, let’s go, Phil said, catching up to me. Me and Dark Irish were still staring at each other. And then me and Phil left.
You’re awful quiet, Phil says when he dropped me off at my house.
I GOT MY LICENSE back that week. Monday afternoon when I got home from work my apartment was hot, it was end of spring now, May, right? So I took off all my clothes and flopped on the bed and I dreamed we were staring at each other after the game me and Dark Irish and in my dream I asked him what’s in the notebook and I pointed, and he looked to the right, looked to the left, but everyone was somewhere else. You could hear their voices but they were at the other end of the rink, and he opened his notebook, tightened his lower lip and opened up the notebook, and it was like all these complicated equations like theorems or whatever having to do with floor hockey and the positioning of people, but in the margins of the notebook there were all these quick sketches of me playing floor hockey. He started turning the pages and the notebook got bigger until it turned into this big art easel thing like, and the rustle of it as he turned each page, like the flapping of very very very slow silent huge angel wings, and with every page the theorems got fewer and fewer and the sketches of me got bigger and more elaborate, and then they started turning into sketches of other parts of my life, me Big Digging, me on the subway, me on the edge of my bed on all fours naked with my bare ass in the air looking out the window at the subway and all the people on the subway were him showing me the same sketch that he was holding up now, and then finally the last one, all in color and big like them paintings I used to guard that summer when I worked at the museum before I got the roofin’ job and it was me on the balcony playing my sax with a boner and the light on in the window down the street, but the important thing was that in that last picture there was also clouds in the sky, Spring happening on stars light-years away, and himself sitting opposite me on the balcony sketching me playing my sax. With or without a boner, I dunno.
I woke up and I’d shot a load, like I didn’t even know it til I got up and my dick was sticking to the comforter because it had like half dried. First wet dream I’d had in ten years, like since I was fourteen or whatever.
What the fuck, I said.
The room was so fuckin’ hot.
I took a cold shower, got dressed, took the bus downtown and came home with a brand new air conditioner. That was work, lemme tell you, luggin’ it up four flights.
I went out on the balcony that night and played, but my song was sad. No lights came on and at ten-thirty Mr. McGreevey slammed down his window and scared the shit outta me, cuz I guess I’d lost track of the time like. My mind was elsewhere. Lughead and now this. You know what I mean?
Tuesday after work I got my license back. At the registry this nice black girl says no mo’ partyin’ now when you drivin’ your ass ’round town as she handed it to me and we both laughed and then I said, did you see the clouds today ? And then I got a little scared she would laugh at me but she said, I know it, they’re beautiful!
Tuesday night I dreamed me and Dark Irish were talking after the game again and then all of a sudden it was very quiet and I turned around and all the other guys were standing behind us in a blocking semicircle, their arms crossed, listening and looking very pissed and I woke up wet again, but this time sweat, even though the AC was on ultra-cool.
Wednesday night I was out on the balcony playin’ when the light came on five houses down. Course I did man, boing and my heart leapin’ up like that. The guy walked through his door and off comes his shirt, tosses it, then for like the next half an hour he’s walkin’ back and forth, sometimes I’d see him, sometimes no, and he’s talking on this little cell phone. Waving his hand up once in a while. Came to the window once, leaned out, flicked a butt out the window and listening to me play for a minute, then back in again. ’Bout half an hour later he walks down his little hall naked, ass going back and forth like that. It’s funny how everyone’s ass is different. His bathroom’s right at the end of his hall and he leans over, turns on the water—was I hard? Man, I told you, soon’s that light came on whenever it did I got hard, didn’t matter who I saw or even if I didn’t see nobody—like whose dogs? Pavlov? Are they on the West Side? What’s so fuckin’ funny?
All right, I will tell the story if you’d quit fuckin’ interruptin’—
So where was I? Oh yeah, so he leans over, turns on the water in the shower, steps in—it’s one of them clear curtains—and he starts taking a shower, kinda very weird watching someone else take a shower, like the order they do things in you know, and then he’s like reaching up every now and again to somewhere I can’t see to get shit, like shampoo, soap, whatever, and then this one time his hand comes down and he’s got something in his hand, something I can’t see, holds it up in front of him looking at it and then he starts like moving it across his chest like, his head tossed back, eyes closed, mouth open, and then he turns a little and I go holy shit and it’s like the girl’s not there but she musta left her lipstick there or he brought it in with him or something and he’s drawn them circles around his nipples again, these lines down his body, and he’s got wood and then he’s slicking up his wood with it and playing with it and it’s like I’m him, he’s the music, I see it all again and ahh … we both ahh … like come at the same time and me not even touching myself again.
I can’t look down there no more, I said to myself at three in the morning, still couldn’t sleep. ’Fraid to sleep almost with the dreams I was having and Denise, how come you haven’t called all week? on the answering machine.
Thursday night, beautiful night, I walk over to the garage there on Monk Street I rent, and took the tarp off my truck and went out for a ride. Just up and down the Boulevard. To tell you the truth I was so used to not driving I didn’t really know where to go, but the whole time I’m thinking I’m like my boner now that first night I saw them in the window, like zero to sixty in zero seconds cuz my highs now are wicked high, connectedness and stars and Dark Irish and them down the street , but my lows are very low, Dark Irish and them down the street and dreams. You know what I mean?
Friday night Denise busted up with me. Yeah, hell-o, wicked surprise. I dunno, she was in a bad mood to start with, she’d got her hair cut and she thought they did a lousy job and it was all downhill from there. I even had flowers for her and everything. She said you just been weird lately. You go to places in your head and you won’t take me along.
You’re ri
ght, I said, I do and I don’t take you along. What the heck, she was right. I had to admit that to her. She left halfway through the meal. You never introduced me to your parents, I told her when she was leaving. She didn’t say anything but then she came back a minute later when I was sitting there slumped in the chair and people staring twirling my pasta with my fork and she said That’s cuz you’re a Lughead.
Yeah, it was a cheap shot, I thought. Fuckin’ lousy haircut and you get a cheap shot like that. Was I brokenhearted? I was relieved, to tell you the truth. I’d have more time now to think about my treasure chest of thoughts, but yeah, I was very sad and scared too, it was like I had crawled out onto this iceberg and it was connected to the land, but now it’d broken off from the land and I was like drifting away from everything I’d known before. You know what I mean?
I picked up a few sixes on the way home. Took off my shirt and socks and shoes and went out on the balcony. Played my sax. Beautiful night. I don’t know what happened. The last thing I remember is crying a little. When I woke up I was in the hospital. What happened? I asked. You’re all right now, they told me. My hand was all bandaged up. I didn’t do this, I said. It wasn’t me.
The neighbors called, they told me. Heard me going crazy, smashing shit around. Took three cops to get me even with the blood pouring out of my wrist. Honest to God I don’t remember doing it at all. The funny thing was, I felt really good when I woke up. Can’t say why, but I did.
I wanna go to AA, I said, when they sent the shrink in to talk to me. Nice guy. Never wanted to put myself in a situation like that again, where I couldn’t even remember trying to kill myself. We all agreed it was being so drunk, and Denise breaking up with me. I let it go at that. I knew there was more to it, it was this transition, like. Growing pains, whatever. That’s why I have this job now, talking to kids like you who tried the same thing. Come a long way since then, man. And if I can. You know what I mean?
So anyways, when I get outta the hospital I was hoping no one would know, but word like that spreads, plus like I had the big scar and bandages on my wrist. I told people I got hurt at work, but then someone bumped into someone from work and they were like, Oh no, he told us he had a accident at home. Well, what can you do. They said I had to stay there for a week in the hospital. It was nice, they were all calling me by my name, Mark. They felt good. I felt good.
Good thing about having a union job, you get the bennies, and they have to take you back no matter what. But people stayed away from me after that. Except for this one black dude. He was cool, but everyone else was like Oh yeah, how you doin’. I bought these new work gloves that like went up past my wrists, started wearing long sleeves. They all stared though like they could still see it.
Tuesday night we had the play-off game against that Lenny’s team, the team with Dark Irish on it. I drove up myself. I knew tonight I’d find out where we knew each other from. We’d talked already so I knew I could ask him tonight, knew at least that question would be answered.
Bad start for me. Like one minute into the game me and this other guy were fighting over the puck in the corner and I got his stick right over my eye. Naw, he didn’t do it on purpose, we were just like mixing it up in the corner and he caught me. I couldn’t stop the bleeding and the blood kept running into my eye. Blood stings, you know that? When you get it in your eye? I couldn’t play after that, cuz I could hardly see. But like I had to, like I say we only had enough guys to field a team and there’s nobody extra like sittin’ on the bench for us. I mean, I stunk. Lousy on defense, didn’t score any goals, and like it seemed to spread to the whole team and we got our asses kicked. Yeah, course Dark Irish was there, but I was so upset I couldn’t even look at him. After a while the guys started getting down on me, they couldn’t tell I’d cut myself cuz we wear these helmets, like lacrosse helmets. Lughead, what the FUCK! they started saying when I’d miss a man or something. I just started feelin worse and worse. And then like still I was reelin’ from the shock of what had happened to me last week. It all started ganging up on me.
After the game my team didn’t stick around. We all shook hands with the other team, then they left. I’d finally stopped bleeding like two minutes before the game ended. When it was my turn to shake hands with Dark Irish I couldn’t look at him, I was so ashamed of how I played and everything.
Hey, he said, but I wouldn’t look at him, we just shook hands. Then he went back to his teammates, they were all like whooping and celebrating and everything.
I went up in the stands and just sat there for a while. I’m telling you, I musta felt as bad as I did the night I slashed my wrist with the steak knife. Not that I’d ever do that again, never, but I felt pretty bad. I just wanted everyone to leave like.
Finally the place was empty. I got up and went into the locker room to get my stuff. I took my shirt and helmet off and I had like dried blood all running down my chest from the cut over my eye, so I decided I’d take a shower. I took my clothes off and went into the shower room there. Yellow tile, like ten shower spigots in there.
It took like ten freakin’ minutes for the water to get hot, I kept stickin’ my hand under but no, then finally. I washed the blood off my face and my chest, and it was like all watery-bloody running into the drain, and that kind of freaked me out cuz it made me remember how close I’d come the week before and me not even knowing or remembering. I really felt like crying, all the shit that had happened the week before and then me playing so lousy and always, always all my life that was the one thing I could always count on from myself, that I could kick ass in sports. Not that good in too much else, I guess, but I could always kick ass in sports.
And I hadn’t cried since after Dad’s funeral when I was a kid.
Then all of a sudden I heard, Hey.
I froze up. My head was down a little and all watery.
Hey, louder this time.
I turned. It was Dark Irish. He was standing at the edge of the shower room. He just had a towel wrapped around him. He had a great build, lean and muscley, not like a big gym guy but all lean and muscley like. I couldn’t believe he was there, but yet I could. You know what I mean?
What happened? he asked. He could see the cut over my eye, and I guess the hot water had made it start bleeding again a little.
I couldn’t say anything. I was staring at him. I gulped and it hurt. Blinkin’ fast to keep the shower water and blood out of my eyes. He set his thin lips again the way he did—it seemed like he’d do this when he had something brave or hard to do. He took his towel off and stepped toward me. He took the corner of his towel and wet it under the water, then he stood right in front of me. Our faces were so close. He started dabbing the blood off my face.
So that’s what happened, he said. I was wondering. You do this right at the beginning of the game ?
All I could do was nod, like yes, yes.
Oh, he said. I knew something musta happened.
His voice was so tender. I started sobbing. I couldn’t help it, it had to come out like. Big and echo-y in the shower room and all. Them kinda sobs that hurt? You know them?
Oh no, he said, lifting up my wrist and looking at it. Course I had to take the bandage off it when I showered.
Oh no no, there’s no need of that, he said.
Really sobbing now I was. Kinda embarrassing but I couldn’t help it.
It’s okay, he said. It’s okay now. Everything’s okay.
I really believed it when he said it. He made me believe it the way he said it. Like the Blessed Mother was sayin’ it to me.
He wrapped his arms around me. No one ever hugged me like that. I felt… . I felt …
Were we both hard? Yeah, course, I’d gotten hard as soon as I saw him because he was in my treasure chest with the two in the window and the balcony and it was all automatic now like the light coming on. Then he got hard after I did. But it wasn’t really about that, that was like incidental or beside the point or whatever.
It’s okay now, he
kept saying into my ear, holding me, kissing my ear so tender.
Boy, was I sobbing. Unbelievable. But now it felt good, wicked good. It’s funny how just one person’s hug can take away everything bad you ever heard about a thing.
We just stood there for so long, me still sobbing while he held me. When I started stopping he pulled his face back a little and we looked at each other. He wasn’t sobbing but his eyes were kinda red-edged, he was holding back a little. He had a little of my blood on his face and shoulder and I thought of the lipstick again and I got even harder.
How do I know you? I asked him. Where do I know you from?
I didn’t ever want him to let me go. Never been hugged like that. All slickity wet too and everything.
You don’t know? he said. I’ll tell you in a little while. Think about it, Mark.
When he said my name like that—like my name had always been Mark and no one had ever called me Lughead.
C’mon, he said, c’mon, leading me by the hand out of the shower room.
Where we goin ? I asked.
You live alone? he asked. You live with your girlfriend?
Yeah, I said. No, we busted up. Yeah, I live alone.
Good, he said. Then let’s go home; let’s go to your home.
He dried me off. Helped me with a fresh bandage on my wrist.
