He throws the bills onto the table with a flourish, trying his best to smile affably, but the look in his eye is closer to tears and I wonder if the pain is over departing with the money or because I’m such a colossal failure. Probably both.
I collect the bills and stick them in my pocket.
“Mr. Moneybags,” Trish says.
“He’s needy,” Dad says. “I’m thinkin Wendy’s.”
“Wendy’s is good,” Trish says.
Malinda rolls her eyes.
“What do you want? Taco Bell?”
Malinda smiles a little and says, “Yeah,” and in that moment I feel incredibly sorry for her.
“Fine. I’ll drive you through Taco Bell. We’ll just drive all over town until everybody gets what they want. But we’re goin there first. I don’t want my food gettin cold.”
What I want is to get away.
“You ready?” I ask Gus.
He seems slightly confused, like he thought we would be here longer. “Sure,” he says. And I remember this is a guy who has movie nights with his mom. He drinks with her. They talk about the same things we talk about. He can never understand. It also probably doesn’t occur to him Dad did not ask if we wanted to come along.
Dad probably ate like two hours ago and this is his way of getting rid of us. I show up. He has somewhere he needs to go. It’s been that way since Mom died. Dinner is just an excuse. Were I not there, he would never opt to spring for dinner for three, even if it was just shitty fast food value meals.
Gus and I get back in the truck.
“You ever find a place in the Springs?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “We found a little house in town.”
“Need help moving?”
“Hired movers.”
“Fancy.”
“I don’t have much but Tarot’s got a lot of shit.”
“You like her, huh?”
“She’s cool,” he says. “But, you know, we’re keeping things open.”
“That doesn’t . . . make you crazy?”
“No way. It was my idea. Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has cheated on me. Might as well accept it as an inevitable.”
I want to tell him this was before he looked like a Greek god.
“Plus,” he adds, “women have been throwing themselves at me left and right. I might as well make the most of it. We’ll throw a party when we get settled in.”
I tell him my Godwater bath failed, as if it isn’t obvious. I propose my new plan to him. He’s on board but it’ll have to wait until he gets back to work. He’s taking a week off to move because salary.
18
It’s Not You, It’s Me
Alice lies in bed. She has a cigarette in her right hand, a condom on each digit of her left, and is completely naked. Her laptop is closed on the floor next to her and she’s staring at the unmoving ceiling fan with a faraway expression.
I plop down next to her, fully clothed.
I take a deep, shaky breath and say, “I don’t think this is working out.”
I take one of her cigarettes and cradle it.
“What do we do?” she says
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not moving out.”
“Okay.”
“I hate you.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve hated you for a while.”
“I know. At least, I think I knew that. I had a feeling.”
“You’re super boring. Lazy. Spineless. Average-looking at best.” She glances over at me. “No. You’re actually somewhat unfortunate looking. I think you were better looking when we first got together. You’ve let yourself go. Let’s see . . .” She takes a drag from her cigarette and knocks some ash off in the ashtray. “You think you’re way smarter than you are.”
This type of banter used to constitute foreplay with us but it’s different this time. I light the cigarette I’d been rolling around in my fingertips.
“Why now?” she says.
The truth is the sex was the only thing making this remotely worthwhile and now, what with the rash making it an impossibility, it just doesn’t feel worth the psychic and emotional strain. But I can’t tell her this.
“I think you want something different. I think you deserve better.”
“I agree,” she says.
I become oddly emotional and choke back tears while I finish my cigarette. She’s already put hers out. She balls her bony little hand into a fist and hammers it down on my crotch.
I cough, stave off a wave of nausea, and slink out of the bed.
“I had to,” she says.
“I know,” I rasp.
“You owe me twenty dollars.”
“What?”
“Twenty dollars. You’re lucky. That’s the friend rate. We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. I just let you lay in bed with me and smoke a cigarette. It was a service. Like cuddling for voyeuristic nihilists.”
I reach into my pocket and separate one of the bills from the modest wad.
I place it on top of her laptop and say, “No tip.”
19
The Monarch’s Kingdom
I sit in my chair and open my laptop. My internet subscription hasn’t run out yet. I contemplate browsing for free porn and open up the history to wipe it. The last search performed on the browser was: “how far do i insert fingers in ass to clean it.”
I wipe the browser.
I do not search for porn.
I send Gus a text and ask if he wants to go to Easy J’s.
He texts back and says he’s too busy with the move and I sit in my chair and feel dejected and bored.
I think about using the money I have to replace the tires on my car but wouldn’t it just happen again?
I take an envelope, write Jen’s address on it, put the money in it, put a stamp on it, and take it to the mailbox.
The Monarch is shuffling around on the sidewalk in front of my house.
“Hey, man,” I say.
He makes a sound like “Rarraup” and I realize he’s way drunker at this hour than he is in the morning.
“You okay?” I ask.
He shuffles a little way up my walk, gestures wildly with a hand holding a plastic pint bottle of cheap whiskey and says, “I seen that guy. The one.”
“Which guy?”
He turns to motion to my car and nearly falls down.
“Oh, that guy. I think I know who it is. I’m trying to get it taken care of.”
“Seen him . . . leavin yer house!”
I figure he probably tried to ransack it. He wouldn’t have found anything of value.
“See a lotta guys comin and goin. Ol Mapes says she’s worth it.”
Mapes?
Gross.
I thought the Republican in the Cadillac was bad enough but Mapes would have to be an all-time low. I feel a momentary sense of pride that I had the balls to break up with Alice.
“How’s this work?” he says. “I pay you?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out money that looks like it’s been buried in dirt for a century.
“Put your money away,” I say. “It’s not like that.”
“People around here talk, ya know.”
“You need any help getting home?”
He shakily puts the money into his pocket and tries to regain his regal posture.
“I guess I wouldn’t mind some company. Got a houseful of people waitin on me.”
I was expecting him to say no. Now my vague sense of agoraphobia kicks in and I wish I hadn’t made the offer. I’ve never been beyond my driveway on foot.
The Monarch doesn’t walk so well. I don’t hold onto his arm or anything because we’re not dating, plus he smells kind of weird, like liquor and cigarettes but with some underlying odor like old mushrooms. I walk on the sidewalk. He staggers over the tree space between the sidewalk and the road. At one point he drops to his knees and vomits into someone’s yard.
He pulls himself upright, r
egains his poise, and says, “I feel a lot better now.”
We near the end of the street and I’m about to ask him which house is his, but I figure it’s the one with all the noise coming from it. It sounds like a house that should be lit up and, as we draw closer, I realize it probably is lit up but, since all the windows are boarded up, a casual observer wouldn’t be able to tell.
The Monarch staggers over to a dark-colored car covered in a fuzzy layer of mold, pats the trunk, and says, “Here she is. The old Monte Carlo.”
All four tires are flat and I think that, probably, the last good year the Monarch had was maybe 1986.
“Well, let’s go in and meet the boys.”
We walk up the few steps of the Monarch’s porch and now, so close to the house, it’s easy to tell where his underlying odor comes from—the toxic-looking black mold covering his front door, the outside of his house and, probably, I’m just guessing, the inside as well.
Not that you can tell.
Because as we enter the house, there isn’t a single surface of wall that’s visible. Hardly any of the ceiling. Definitely none of the floor.
Goat paths of compressed trash run through shelves teetering with books and records and less identifiable junk. This house is probably twice the size as the one I’m renting and the amount of shit stuffed into it is astounding. There are lights on in the house but the moldering heaps around us have a way of dampening them.
“The boys are probably out back,” the Monarch says. “They say it feels too tight in here for em.”
We take the goat path through the first room and enter what I suspect is the kitchen, mainly because of the table that has a mountain of old newspapers stacked to the ceiling and a collection of old plastic shopping bags stuffed under it. The back door at the far end of the kitchen is open, hanging by one hinge.
The Monarch inspects the disconnected hinge and says, “I’m gonna have to get that fixed.”
We descend the back porch steps into an overgrown backyard lit by a yellow security lamp.
A vine-choked, moldy wooden privacy fence runs around the perimeter of the backyard. It’s missing a number of slats and leans into the yard. I imagine the Monarch’s entire lot just one day falling in on itself and sinking into the earth, an instant landfill.
The Monarch leads me back to the garage. The door is propped open with 2x4s. Two boys who look twelve or thirteen sit on an old couch and work the controls for a video game on a large screen TV. They’re chubby and doughy looking, wearing ball caps, logo t-shirts, sweatpants, and puffy tennis shoes.
“Pete and Chab,” the Monarch says.
Two other boys, maybe a little older but dressed pretty much the same, are farther back in the garage, standing in a circular clearing. They each take a drink from a tall can of beer and set the beers on the floor. Then they face off, the boy on the right drawing back his hand and slapping the boy on the left so hard his hat flies off. I wonder what the point of this is until I notice the phone on a tripod, recording the antics, and think, “Views.” That’s the point, I guess.
“Beer’s in the barrel over there.” The Monarch gestures toward a rusty industrial drum.
I wonder if drinking anything that comes from that will give me tetanus or possibly even a weirder, more lethal disease but decide to throw caution to the wind. It’s been a few days since I’ve had a beer and my finances are in no state to turn down anything free.
I grab a beer and crack it open.
“Them’s Landon and Tyler,” the Monarch says. “They’re tryin to get famous. They got a MeTube series called Drink and Slap.” He pauses. “The title pretty much says it all. It ain’t too subtle.”
The Monarch strolls over to a beaten, lopsided recliner in a shadowy corner of the garage and collapses into it. I grab an old paint bucket and sit down on it.
The Monarch slits his eyes and stares at the two boys on the couch.
“The boys been comin over most nights for the past couple years. Sometimes they don’t all come. Sometimes they bring they’re friends and I have a real houseful. I used to have about twelve cats but they all run off. Still got a dog around here someplace. That tall one there,” he waves his whiskey bottle toward one of the upright boys, “Landon, he’s got a lot of brains. He’s already got his GED and everything. He’s the one put the idea together for the TV series. I think he’s really gonna make somethin of himself. Now Tyler just does everything Landon tells him. If he just listens to him and doesn’t get too full of himself, he’ll probably get to go along for the ride. But he’s already been in juvie a couple of times and’ll probably end up in jail as soon as he’s not a minor.”
A loud concussive boom shakes the garage. No one acknowledges it.
As soon as I can gain my bearings, I say, “What the hell was that?”
“I figure there are three possibilities.” The Monarch holds up two fingers. “Probably Wright-Patt. It’s all top secret shit, right? And they’re always testin out new stuff the public ain’t allowed to know about. The second reason might be someone’s meth lab blew up but you don’t hear about that as much as you used to. I think people mostly do heroin around here now. Makes sense. Can’t really sleep on meth. It’s like, uh . . . multiplyin the misery. Ain’t nobody around here wants to make his life three times longer than it is. Heroin lets you just drift away and forget about things for a while. And it’s pretty cheap right now.”
The Monarch falls silent and I imagine him thinking about heroin.
“What’s the third thing?” I ask.
“Oh,” he says. “That might be Wilmot next door. He’s one of them . . . What do you call the black guys with dreadlocks and shit?”
“Rastafarian?”
“Yeah, he’s one of them. Anyway, he has this big ol shotgun he likes to come out and wave around when he’s had too much to drink. Keeps sayin he’s gonna blow his head off. Maybe he finally went and did it.”
“Should I, uh, call somebody?”
“Wouldn’t do no good now, would it? Drink your beer. Get loose. Have a good time.”
I’m pretty sure I’m way too on edge to do that, even though I know it’s exactly what I need.
“Now them two boys there on the couch, I’m pretty sure they’re retarded or something.” He laughs a little. “They’ll set and play that game till they fall asleep. I usually gotta wake em up and send em home.”
I drink as much beer as I can as fast as I can.
The Monarch talks. I mostly listen.
He tells me how he used to work at a machine shop until getting laid off in the late ’90s. He talks about everything he wants to do: start a halfway house, convert his garage into a morgue because the county morgue has reached maximum capacity what with all the overdoses, start a food truck that sells sandwiches and cigarettes for the after bar crowd, get his car fixed, rent a storage space, get his house fixed, use his house as a storage place for other people for a small fee, maybe move somewhere where it’s warm all year long, buy up all the houses in the area so he can have a compound, and maybe start going to church.
Once they finish slapping each other, both of their faces bright red, Landon and Tyler stand around and drink and scroll through their phones.
The Monarch seems to drift off while talking.
I keep drinking, watching the other guys in the garage. I don’t talk to them and they don’t talk to me.
The Monarch snaps awake after a little while. He springs toward the boys on the couch and starts smacking one of them on the head.
“Everybody needs to get on home now!” he shouts. “Just get the hell away from me!”
I join the boys as we run through the backyard and out to the sidewalk. They’re all laughing. I’m slightly horrified.
“Crazy old bastard,” Landon says.
“The Monarch’s too awesome,” one of the younger ones says.
I head back to my house and they go in the opposite direction.
I get home and forget I’ve broken up
with Alice. The bedroom door is closed but I can see the light is on. There’s laughing and sex noises coming from the room.
I turn off the living room light and collapse onto the couch, asleep within a few minutes. Thank god for the beers.
20
Calls From the Past
I’m in the kitchen, staring out at the overgrown backyard, eating crackers and drinking water, and thinking I really need to go to the store.
My phone vibrates with a text.
It’s from Jen.
“Bart says the first installment has been made. I’ll need more in a week.”
I just put the money in the mail last night. I didn’t even know if it had run yet today. There’s no way she would have already received it.
Something else flashes through my mind.
The noises coming from the bedroom last night.
Did Alice . . .?
Then I have another thought.
I walk through the house and to the mailbox.
Damn. It’s gone.
Maybe Bart just took it out of the mailbox. Maybe that’s what Jen meant. Somehow that feels more comfortable than my ex-girlfriend giving freebies to my ex-brother-in-law to save me from further repercussion. I dismiss the thought. There’s no way Alice would do that.
I go back into the kitchen and finish my crackers, pulling my phone out to stare blankly at it.
I’d overlooked the missed call and voicemail received before Jen’s message. It must have come in while I was sleeping or brushing my teeth or something.
It’s from the unknown number.
I listen to the voicemail.
I hear nothing.
I imagine a sun-blasted bone white facade, the kind that hang onto the sides of mountains overlooking a sparkling blue sea in someplace like Greece. I imagine the warm breeze rippling the curtains as the caller stares out at the sea, waiting to talk and never saying anything.
I feel a surprising lightness in my soul and a heaviness in my heart.
This caller, she’s been there all along, and I’d been too blind to realize who it was. Or, at least, who I want it to be.
Callie.
Where is Callie these days? I wonder.
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