Losing in Gainesville (9781940430331)

by Costello, Brian

  Back and forth they argued. None of Ronnie’s belongings had been moved in yet. Ronnie did consider driving back, finding yet another crap job in Orlando, waiting it out for another year until the money was in place, take the band to Chicago, take the writing to Chicago, where there would be no doubt as to the vast opportunities awaiting. But then again, he would have to be in Orlando for another year, right when he thought he had finally escaped Orlando. Could Ronnie Altamont possibly stand another year in Orlando?

  “I’m staying,” Ronnie said.

  “Now that’s the Ronnie Altamont I know and love,” Mouse said, arms outstretched to hug Ronnie.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Kelly muttered before they went back inside to not sign the nonexistent lease. “This is a chainsaw massacre waiting to happen.”

  Ronnie wakes up to a punch on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” Kelly says. “I feel weird and old, sitting around here like this.”

  Ronnie looks around at all the collegiates. “Yeah,” he yawns, “I feel it too.”

  “I grabbed a copy of the student paper here,” Kelly says. “Not much in the classified job listings, unless you want to go teach English in Prague.”

  “I don’t,” Ronnie says, standing up, brushing the grass off his jeans. “Maybe I’ll go back to school.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” They start walking in the general direction of Ronnie’s car, parked in a Boca Raton Subs parking lot on University Street.

  “I’m going to write and play music,” Ronnie says.

  “What music? The Laraflynnboyles?” Kelly smiles, almost forgetting about the sweat underneath the gauze, the welts on the tongue. “You’re not serious, right?”

  “I’m booking a tour. The novel’s almost done. I’m mailing it off to get published.”

  Kelly shrugs. “I need more ice. Don’t let anybody tell you different: Ant bites on the tongue are incredibly unpleasant.”

  “I believe you,” Ronnie says, sensing the chance to make the kill. “So is hunger.”

  They were back on the south sidewalk along University, off-campus, approaching the 13th Street intersection, the true center of town. A turtle-waxy blue Ford F-150 drives past with a UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA ALUMNI sticker across the back window coasts past, horn honking. Ronnie looks over. A rolled down window and an upraised middle finger.

  “Must be one of your many adoring fans,” Kelly says.

  Ronnie recognizes the truck, the middle finger, the person connected to said middle finger. “He was the Assistant Manager of that Textbook Store I worked at until I got fired for taking a two hour lunch break to, you know, get high, bang Maggie, play 18 holes of golf on Sega Genesis. Not sure why he’s still mad at me, I mean, all I did was call him ‘a stupid motherfucker who would rather masturbate to the sales figures in his office than do real work’ in my opinion column. No need to a hold a grudge, all these months later.”

  Kelly sighs. They cross the intersection. “I’m too exasperated to laugh. Let’s get real food, alright? My treat.” To that last sentence, Kelly adds an entirely unnecessary “Duh.” Past the corner gas station on the right, Gatorroni’s-by-the-Slice, where the punk rockers make and sell the pizza, wearing uniforms of black t-shirts, red bandanas, and tattoo sleeves. “You win,” Kelly continues. “You’re getting free food from me, but only because we’ve tried all other alternatives available.” From here, approaching the black iron railings around the perimeter of Gatorroni’s, Kelly shifts into a barely audible Flintstonish muttering—“Stupid Ronnie. Stupid broke-ass Ronnie. No money and unreachable plans.” He turns to Ronnie before they enter the restaurant. “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  Ronnie suspects he may be, and opts to say nothing that could in any way jeopardize his first real meal as a Gainesville resident.

  A BRIEF EXCERPT OF A DRUNK COMEDIAN

  PERFORMING AT GATOR GROWL WHO HAS BEEN

  ON THE ROAD A LITTLE BIT TOO LONG

  “. . . Yeah. Keep booing . . . and fuck you too . . . I mean, where the fuck am I . . . seriously, where is this? Lafayette? Lawrence? Columbus? Austin? Tallamuthafuckin’hassee?”

  [hearty boos from the audience]

  “Look, there’s no need to boo me, man . . . all I’m saying is that these college towns are all the same. You think you’re so smart. What is this, Eugene? Charlottesville? Athens, Ohio? Athens, Georgia? Wait, what are you yelling? Gainesville? Gainesville?!

  “Guess what: Same diff, assholes. Fuck you, I’m outta here.”

  SLACKIN’ OFF IN THE ’90s

  Maux (actually, in the caustic comic she draws for the school paper, she spells it M-A-U-X, signed at the bottom right corner in angry slashes like black blood dripping in a homicide) grabs a handful of limp ketchup-doused fries from the stack piled on the Burger King bag and throws them at the television. She laughs like she talks—like a twelve-year old boy on the cusp of a voice change—when three of the larger limper fries stick to the screen and gloop downward, leaving three red trails obscuring the movie Maux has deemed “stupid”—some piece of crap Philip (her boyfriend of the week) rented called Slackin’ Off in the ʼ90s, that one film that’s set in a large city in the Pacific northwest where these unwashed nonconformists in flannel shirts and shiny combat boots stand around listening to plodding rock and roll music while trying to date each other and avoid steady corporate employment.

  Philip, dough-bodied and prismatically hair-dyed, sits next to her on his old brown sofa, laughing between chomps of sweet-and-sour soaked chicken nuggets spread out across a JFK-era drink tray he found back home in a resale shop—a tray decorated with the outline of the state of Florida circled by drawings of oranges, orange blossoms, surfers, waves, the sun, a compass, palm trees, dolphins, with sweet and sour sauce smeared across the Space Coast. He laughs because, hey, it’s funny watching Maux get angry. “If you don’t want to watch this,” he says, patting his right hand on her left knee, “you can just tell me, I’ll shut it off.”

  She removes the hand with a graceless kick, leans forward. “Look at this shit,” she says, pointing to the television with its pinkish pixels glowing through the ketchup trails. On the screen, two “grungy”-looking men in their early twenties wearing flannel shirts and long-hair wigs sit on a couch in a slovenly living room. Posters for bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam hang haphazardly throughout the plaster-cracked walls. A 1959 black Les Paul is propped against the couch between Grunge Dude #1 and Grunge Dude #2. Grunge Dude #1 slouches and moans, “Aw maaaaaan. It’s like, I gotta get laid!” Grunge Dude #2 yawns, stretches, returns to his original hunched form on the couch and says, “Yeah, well, you go ahead. I’m too lazy to get laid. I’ll get laid later.” Grunge Dude #1 punches Grunge Dude #2 on the arm and says, “You’re such a slacker,” and punctuates the sentence with a conspiratorial stoner laugh. Grunge Dude #2 says, “Damn right. And proud of it too!” They high-five.

  “What? It’s good,” Philip says, egging her on. “It’s what it’s like for our generation. It’s true-to-life, ya know?”

  “I don’t know why we’re dating,” Maux says.

  “We’re dating?” Philip says, reaching to the remote control to shut off the movie, hoping the silent blue screen of the stopped VCR would keep her riled-up but not so riled up she’d throw more fast food at the television, yelling, ranting, trying to break his things and trying to kick the walls of this dingy duplex he would leave when the lease expired at the end of July, photography degree in hand, bound for anywhere-but-here. No, he didn’t want her so insanely rabid that sex—makeup or otherwise—was out of the question.

  “No, we’re ‘seeing each other,’ we’re ‘friends with benefits,’ we’re ‘sleeping together,’ we’re ‘fucking,’ we’re ‘madly in love and ready to exchange marriage vows.’ ” With each sarcastic label of their relationship, Maux makes “finger quotes” like annoying writers performing at readings. She turns away from Philip, huffs, curls up on the couch, gazes at the wall wh
ere he hangs all his matted glossy black and white prints from his photography classes—the inevitable photo major chiaroscuro of his ex-girlfriend (that bitch) in a black dress staring all gloomy-gothic in front of rows of dead orange trees, of straight rural dirt roads trailing off into the flat distance, of close-ups of grass blades, of faded Burma Shave signs painted on old barns, of steaming coffee mugs.

  Philip says nothing, steals a nice long look at her body—that body—indigo boots up to her knees, indigo skirt and blouse elaborately ripped and safety-pinned, shortcropped dyed indigo hair, and an emerald necktie. It’s sexy to him how she looks like the valedictorian of a Catholic school for wayward mutants. Without that body, Maux’s just a cunt—yes, cunt, that word people like Philip only use when prefaced with “Now I’m not one to use this word very often, but in this case, it fits, because that girl is such a total . . . ”—and Philip stares at her turned away and feels the half-chub against his boxers, and as always with girls like these (are there any other kind?) he reflects on the lengths he goes to ignore the obvious and compromise his common sense and sell-out his self-respect just to get a taste of that pale thin flesh contrasting all that sexy fucking indigo.

  Philip finishes the chicken nuggets, sweet and sour sauce now dipped and smeared from Daytona Beach to St. Petersburg. “So what are we doing then?” he asks.

  “Let’s go somewhere. Out. Drinks.” She uncoils from the couch, turns to Philip, picks up his beloved Florida drink tray. “Otherwise, I’m gonna fling this.”

  He grabs the round metal tray. They tug back and forth. Smiles and laughter. Philip releases his right hand long enough to titty-twister her left A-cup breast. She screams, lets go, laughs, calls him a shit. The half-chub grows. “Let’s stay here,” Philip says, holding the tray at arm’s length. “Don’t you want to see how Slackin’ in the ʼ90s ends?”

  “If it’s between that and getting drunk,” Maux says, standing, pulling down her indigo skirt, walking to the front door, “I think you know the answer.” She opens the door, says, “And if you’re not a total douche, you can stay at my apartment for a change.”

  Outside, Philip hears her car start. He looks down at his erection. “Oh, the places you’ll go,” he sighs before standing up and thinking unsexy shriveled thoughts of infanticide, cancer wards, and truck-crushed puppies, walks out, locks up.

  “You’re lucky to be graduating,” Maux says. They sit in a back booth during an otherwise empty Tuesday night at The Drunken Mick. The twelve televisions scattered around the room reflect strobe lights bouncing across the unoccupied bar as the bartender takes a white towel to the same already-clean pint glass, and the server is hunched over a crossword puzzle in a booth by the opposite wall, absorbed in finding a seven letter word for “Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World.” The jukebox randomly selects “Holiday” by Madonna. “You get to get out of here.” Propped between the edge of the table and her lap is her drawing pad.

  “Maybe you can come with me,” Philip says, yawning, hoping this gets the response he’s looking for.

  Maux laughs. Philip gets what he wanted. “Why not?” he asks.

  “Why?” Maux starts sketching, angry lines stabbed across the paper.

  “Because we’re in love,” Philip says. It has been almost four years since he was a Port St. Lucie dormkid, and everything around here was fresh and exciting and first time. Now, he finds amusement in riling up the easily riled, as Madonna pleads If we could have a holiday / it would be so nice!

  “We’re only together because there’s nobody else around,” she says, punching dots into the pad. “You’re the best worst option.”

  He watches her as she draws, those mean blue eyes—spiteful, hate-filled—a bitter grin. He hates her. He wants her. And at the end of July, he will leave her. If not sooner.

  “Here,” she says, sliding the drawing pad across the table. “What do you think?”

  He grabs the pad by its spiraled wires across the top, turns it, holds it. It’s a one-panel drawing of Philip, wearing a sundress in an open field, holding a bouquet of limp flowers in his right fist. Arrows point to his “ ‘krazy’ punk haircut!,” “t-shirt advertising some generic southern California pop punk band,” “totally individualistic wallet chain,” and “camera-for taking ‘artistic’ pictures.” He is surrounded by six speech clouds: “You look nice today,” “Let’s go watch a movie,” “I’m really starting to like you,” “This camera is like my soul,” “When can I see you again?” and “I miss you.” He remembers when he said each of these to her—early in their “relationship”—and the scathing laughter and bitter remarks they engendered.

  “C’mon!” she says. “It’s funny!”

  He smiles, to give a pretense of a reaction. He considers leaving, putting the last two month’s absurdity with her to rest already, finishing this pint of Fancy Lad Irish Stout (or whatever you call it) and walking home through the quiet of a Gainesville Tuesday night. Maybe go down to the Nardic Track or the Bubbling Saucepot and see if any bands are playing. Maybe find a porch where friends are sitting around drinking and talking shit. Anywhere but here, with her. But if he leaves, he leaves the indigo, and the emerald tie, and everything underneath. He doesn’t feel hurt or offended by the drawing, and he’s not sure if it’s better or worse that he simply doesn’t care.

  “You’re so ridiculous,” he throws out, to the empty space.

  “So you’re not mad?” She sounds disappointed.

  “Why would I be mad? It’s a beautiful rendering.” He slides the drawing pad back to her side of the table. “I’m flattered.”

  Maux rips the drawing out of the pad, crumples it up, throws it at his head. He dodges, it lands on the table of the booth behind him. “Let’s leave,” she says. “Even my apartment is better than this.”

  They finish their pints. She stomps out the door, ignoring the “Have a nice nights” of the bartender and server. Philip slides out the booth when the front door slams. He sees the drawing bunched up into the size of a softball, grabs it, planning on either keeping it or throwing it at Maux’s head in the parking lot.

  DANCING GIRLS

  Meghan sits in a wobbly wooden chair in Mouse’s living room, with that bobbed hair and the overbite and the lisp. She trills something flutey on the flute while Mouse rummages through piles of unwashed clothes and porno and emptied microwave dinner boxes for “The tape to record the song I want you to help me with, because I know, when you add what you’re going to add, and what you boys are going to add . . . ” (Here, Mouse points at Ronnie and Kelly. “Don’t patronize us, you charlatan,” Ronnie says, sipping from a foamy warm can of Dusch Light on the border of the kitchen and the so-called studio here in this filthy first floor of a rickety gray house on the eastern edge of the student ghetto, while Kelly sits at Meghan’s dirty green low-cut Chuck Taylors, oblivious to everything but the February 1996 issue of The National Review of Titties opened across his lap.) “. . .it’s going to be the best song ever, so . . . ” (And here, Mouse hums like a con artist about to con) “. . .doo dee doo dee doo. Let me try and find it here, and you keep doing what you’re doing . . . ”

  “Uh. Mouse? What is this?” Meghan says with that lisp through a retainer (At nineteen and everything! hums Mouse’s fevered, feverish brain, because, with the dark bobbed hair, the overbite, the lisp—well, it’s better than all the dancing girls jiggling at the tittie bar) as she reaches under the trash-covered table (a wretched uneven example of what you find piled at the end of driveways when the students reach the ends of their leases and upgrade to better homes, better furniture) and pulls out a magazine. On the magazine’s cover, a woman with frizzed out 1985 white-blonde So Cal hair, dressed in a pink bikini, only the bikini bottom is lowered to her knees to expose her long, semi-erect penis. The magazine’s title, in yellow lightning bolt lettering, is PSYCH!

  Ronnie laughs at this and Kelly pays no attention, enraptured by the pictures of breasts in all shapes and sizes. “Oh, hee hee,
that’s nothing, doo dee doo dee doo,” Mouse says. “It’s something I used for a flier, hee hee hee . . . ”

  “And what’s this?” Meghan says, laughing, pulling out from under the chair a . . .

  “Oh! That!” Mouse says. “Hee hee hee. Well, you see . . . ” (He strokes his long goatee.) “That’s all part of the nothingness too . . . ”

  “That’s a big strange nothing,” Ronnie says, stomach empty, behind on meals, feeling and looking underfed, empty enough to already feel the one beer he has finished. “No, really. Tell the nice girl what it is, Mouse.”

  Mouse’s smile grows a faint tinge of a sneer towards Ronnie. “Thank you. I will. See, Meghan, it’s just one of those, you know, giant dildos coated in insulation foam to use in some performance art I did at the Nardic Track about a knight in shining bologna?”

  “Oh!” Meghan laughs, holds the flute with one hand, swings the dildo onto the dusty living room’s no-longer-white carpeting like Roger Daltrey with a microphone, flinging it to the floor as it lands with a brittle crack.

  “I found the tape!” Mouse announces, holding it out for Meghan to see. “Now I’m going to put this in the 4-track, and we’re going to start recording, so before you play the flute, I need you to make up lyrics about dancing girls.”

  “Dancing girls?” Meghan says, the nervousness rattling around her insides, finding an outlet in the right side of her face as a random twitch.

  “Yeah!” Mouse sees the nervous tic, and it’s that same feeling like at the tittie bar.

  “I thought you’d want to sing about poop or jerking off or something,” Meghan says. Ronnie laughs at this. He is buzzed on a can-and-a-half of Dusch Light, unsure of what to say but smiling like a cretin.