And Ronnie still considered himself and still wanted to be a writer. He thought of people he would never see again, of an Orlando that no longer existed.
This can’t last, Julianna said. Someday soon, we’re going to move on. We need to.
Why? This is fun.
You write. Your bedroom is full of scribbled journals and stacked pages. When I’m around you all the time, you do nothing but sit on this roof and drink and talk shit. It’s not healthy or right for you not to be writing. I’ve read what you’ve written.
No you haven’t.
One afternoon, while you slept off a late night, I grabbed the manuscript off your desk and read the first fifty pages while drinking coffee with Roger. I told him you were actually a pretty good writer. He agreed, didn’t understand why you weren’t trying anymore.
Cah-mahhhhhhn, Ronnie said in his best grew-up-in-Bridgeport-next-to-the-Daleys-accent.
I see you, observing all of this. You think it’s all one big Bukowski scene, and you’re Chinaski himself, but you ain’t that. No way. You’ve had it too good, overall. But you’re shifty-eyed, Ronnie Altamont, and I see you observing these places, this town, and I know you’re writing a book in your mind. And someday soon, you’re going to give up this farty-fart fartaround and get serious with it.
And if I do, Ronnie said, you’re getting serious with me. Move to Chicago.
What am I going to do in Chicago? Seriously.
No idea. Because they knew, when this floundering existence ran its course, when one or the other or both said Enough! they would drift apart. Ronnie even knew it would go down the way Julianna predicted. In upcoming weeks, months. He would move on, and Julianna would either stay on the binge and find another partner in the floundering fartaround, or she would move to a real city and get a real job. The only conceivable way Julianna could get serious with life right now was if she fell off the roof, or crashed her car, or when the proverbial sauce and the proverbial dressing did to her outsides what it was doing to her insides. The Floridian climate makes the easy, unchallenging life very comfortable, seductive, and it isn’t something you can simply change overnight, wake up and say Ok world, let’s get to work. Only when you run out of money does that happen, and Julianna had no shortage of money.
Let’s tour Florida! she said one fine hungover afternoon on Ronnie’s roof. I’ll drive. I’ll pay for everything!
The motherland? You wanna explore the motherland?
We’re taking a Gainesville timeout. Let’s dress like tourists and see what happens. We’ll go through the panhandle, both coasts, the Keys. Everywhere!
At the thrift store, they found a nice pair of sandals to go with Ronnie’s black socks. Swim trunks at the mall that looked like Bermuda shorts. A tan-gray short sleeved collared shirt with a penguin embroidered on the right breast. A light blue fishing hat with a navy blue brim. Flip shades for his glasses. An old camera necklaced over the front. Sticky Fingers by The Stones on cassette on a perpetual loop. (I’m sick of all this played out punk rock garbage, Julianna said. Me too! Ronnie hollered.) Singing “It’s just that demon life / gotchoo in its sway.” Maybe Julianna went overboard with it, too undeniably a native Floridian to really look like a tourist, so when she dressed in a pink Minnie Mouse long-sleeved t-shirt, tucked into tight khaki shorts, she looked like an alien from the planet Camel Toe. The purple cruiseship visor and the sunglasses permanently wedged behind into the bleach blonde hair was a nice touch. Perfectly new white Keds tennis shoes. It didn’t even occur to them to bring a change of clothes. Initially, Julianna drove her blue Honda coupe like a tourist, or like a retiree, sputtering down the Interstate at five to ten mph below the speed limit in the left lane, cutting across two-to-three lanes of traffic to hit an exit at the last second. But they grew bored with this, and it was too much work. Florida! Up and down the Atlantic coastline, where the past of seafood shacks, boiled peanuts, and neon motels gave more and more ground to the hot pink hotel skyscrapers. The old fort at St. Augustine, and the winding little walkways where the bars were filled with Conch Republicans listening to beach bums strum “Margaritaville” on nylon strings on beat-up acoustic guitars on tiny wooden stages. Across and down the peninsula, south of Orlando, driving through all the theme parks. A replica of the Bates Motel seen from the highway, on top of a hill, in front of a setting sun. Highway signs reading “HOLY LAND WET AND WILD/NEXT EXIT 2 MILES.” Everyplace, every sign, reading, in essence: WELCOME TO FLORIDA. GIVE US YOUR MONEY! Decorative palm trees, Seussian in their postures and presentations. Ferneries and grapefruit groves. And it’s the no-season of 70 degrees. The absolute miracle of the nature when it isn’t ruined by overdevelopment. The dreadful towns. The backwoods. The Born Agains. The pick-up trucks with “NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR BEING WHITE” bumper stickers. The feeling of being on what amounts to a narrow stretch of land, memories of Bugs Bunny taking a chainsaw to the Panhandle, pushing Florida away and proclaiming, “Take ’er away, South America!” Through Tampa, the glows of televisions visible in all the tiny shacks along the highway, no promises of anything worthwhile for a couple of pretend tourists like Ronnie and Julianna, no disappointments nor regret for driving straight through.
Stopping in St. Petersburg to check out the Dali Museum. Watching Un Chien Andalou several times, fascinated by how people get up and leave when the music has its triumphant finish though the film does not. Humbled and inspired to continue living, and that’s how it went with them when they found the few artistic statements humbling and inspiring in their semi-affected jadedness. Seafood and wine by the water as piped in Caribbean music steeldrummed all over the place. Yah mon, Gulf Coast irie, Ronnie said, and Julianna laughed. They checked into a hotel for the night, planning to drive farther down the Gulf Coast before cutting across Alligator Alley, check out Miami then drive all the way down to the Keys before the long return trip to Gainesville. It’s a search for what Florida’s all about, Julianna said. The Floridian Dream! Whatever, Ronnie said. They reclined in separate beds, drinking wine, watching late-night television, Ronnie flipping through the hip alternative weekly paper. Says here there’s gonna be something called The St. Petersburg Margarita and Ribs Blues Fest tomorrow afternoon. Oh really? Julianna said. I could do this, Ronnie said. We’ll check out of the hotel, go see what this is all about. I do love all three of these, but together? That’s madness. Yes, it is crazy, Julianna said. Maybe we’ll learn something of our Floridian motherland.
And—hoo boy!—here comes the gremlin, the weasel, the Joe Lieberman of destiny to mess up all their plans, even though they really honestly had no one to blame but themselves!
Downtown St. Petersburg, among the strange mix of the bank buildings and old man bars. The streets are closed off. The margaritas are cheap, too cheap, and the ribs don’t cut into the tequila enough. At first, this is enjoyable. Fat Floridian Rush Limbaugh-type guys looking like they just stepped off their yachts, faces smeared with barbeque sauce, spilling their ’ritas with every sway to the white man bluesbands singing “I went down to the crossroads” and so on and so forth on the stage draped in corporate sponsorship banners. Wristbands and handstamps. Clowns making animal balloons. Police. Ronnie and Julianna dancing like crazy, front and center, alone like Druncles at weddings, on their fourth, fifth, and sixth ’ritas, not as watered down as they should be.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Was it the ribs or the ’ritas or the bummer jams the whiteman blues bands were laying on their ears? It could be any or all of the above, as everything turned a little, then a lot, disorienting, sloppy, gross. How they didn’t wind up in jail is anyone’s guess. There were all these kiosks selling things like pirate hats and plastic swords and rainbow-lensed John Lennon sunglasses. Ronnie, bored and drunk, thought it was funny to shoplift everything that wasn’t nailed down, and through the audacity and total belief that nothing bad could ever happen to him on that day, he continued getting away with it, to the point wher
e he was walking down the street trying to speak in a Liverpudlian pirate accent. Oh, and then there were blackouts:
(Julianna making out with one of these Rush Limbaugh guys, one fattyass hand on her ass, the other fattyass hand holding a cigar.)
(Ronnie on the curb, singing a cappella Steely Dan songs like Michael McDonald for spare change that was not forthcoming.)
(Ronnie wearing dozens of colorful beaded necklaces, exchanging these for views of tits of varying size and quality.)
( . . . . . . . . . . )
. . . And then they’re in the car, on some back road between St. Petersburg and Gainesville, Julianna driving, screaming (screaming!) You’re a shitless piece of worth, Ronnie! You’re the worst! I’m pulling over at the next town, and you can get the fuck out!
What did I do?
What did you do? What did you do?! I don’t know what you did! You were running around screaming “Tits!” at the top of your lungs, and “Blues!” and “Tits Blues!” and it was all I could do to drag you out of there to break up the fight that was about to happen, the arrest that was about to happen.
He needed to remember to thank her for tapping into her sobriety reservoir when the going turned ugly. He could remember very little of this. You’re drunk too, he said.
Yeah, but we’re leaving. You’re getting out at the next town. I hate you Ronnie Altamont! Then, a ten minute tirade: You are a terrible writer, Ronnie, an awful musician, a lazy ass, no friends, no girlfriends. You destroy everything and everyone around you. You ruin people. You fuck up everything you touch, Ronnie. Everyone you touch. Jerk. Dick. Cock. Pussy. And on, and on, and on, Julianna broke out the big guns, so much so, Ronnie couldn’t accept it as anything more than Julianna too far gone on the ’ritas to be rational. Ronnie took out his wallet, tossed bills on the dash. Here’s gas money. Please drive me back to Gainesville, and that’s it. We don’t have to ever talk again. No! I’m pulling over now! She pulled over in the middle of Florida cracker ranchland—flat green earth and cattle only broken up by clusters of jungle. Aw, dude, Ronnie said. Please. Get out! No, I won’t! There’s my money. Take it. Just give me a ride home. And then, as the standoff in the heat and humidity was really about to start, Julianna calmly rolled down her window and barfed. Ronnie looked away, staring at the ranchland. Violent retchings. Splatter onto the dirt shoulder of the road. That smell. What does this all mean? What were they doing here? In the backseat, a gallon jug of water. Ronnie reached back, grabbed it. Here. Drink this, he said. She turned around, wiped the puke off with her ironical Minnie Mouse t-shirt. Ok. Three large gulps. The fourth a swish around the mouth and a spit out the window. I’m drunk, she said. I shouldn’t be driving. We’ll go to the next town. Get a room. Ok.
After twenty minutes of nervous silence, they find a motel, and of course, like most east coast motels of this type, it’s called The Sunrise Motel. It’s evening when they check in. One bed apiece. Squiggly color TV. Wood-paneled walls. Julianna orders a pizza before passing out. Ronnie eats a slice before passing out. Hours later, he wakes up. Julianna spooned in next to him. He pulled her closer. On the floor, their now-wrinkled, stained, and stinky thrift-tourist clothing. None of this makes any sense to him. It isn’t supposed to. It’s the end, isn’t it? he thinks. The end of the fartaround. Ronnie was wide awake when the heralded sunrise attacked the motel room window, as the A/C unit wheezed like an asthmatic. He kissed Julianna on the back of her blonde head before falling asleep again. They would wake up and leave minutes before checkout time.
Hungover.
The day of the week did not matter, but from the serious driving of the mail trucks and delivery vans, it was a weekday late morning. A little remorse, but no regret, and a lot of recovery in Julianna’s car. These low-energy post-mortems always put Jimi Hendrix in Ronnie’s mind, singing “I don’t live today.” How did we get to that hotel, exactly? Julianna asked. Ronnie shrugged. You drove. I did something to piss you off. You wanted to leave me on a ranch. What?! Yeah, you were screaming. Said I was awful. Really mean. Oh. Ronnie. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I don’t remember much. Yeah. Sigh. We should go back to Gainesville. Yeah. You’re right.
Two hours later, they were back up the peninsula entering Gainesville’s city limits. Ronnie marveled as he always did about how innocuous the place looked when you pulled off the highway. The world Ronnie lived in was hidden when you came into town like this. It was hidden. It always looked sad to Ronnie. Transient. Magical, but fleeting. Like Julianna, who would leave very soon. He would never forget the look when she dropped him off at his house, the unwashed touristy clothes and unwashed hair. But the eyes. So bittersweet. At the time, Ronnie would be too hungover, too exhausted, to give it too much thought, and he figured they would be on the roof this time tomorrow, laughing about their arguments, piecing together what they would recall of the Ritas and Ribs fest, and everything after. Wow. What happened? That was crazy! Yeah. I’m sorry, Ron. I already accepted your apology. We were drunk. Ridiculously drunk. It went too far. But I’ve never met anyone like you ever. I . . . no, I’m not going to say love, but couldn’t we try? Who else is there around here? Kids. And you know I’m not like them. I hope. We could try, right?
She would call Ronnie, on the fourth day upon returning from the ersatz search for the Floridian dream. I’m leaving for Tallahassee, she said. I’m going to take the GRE and get into grad school there, and, clearly, I can’t be here anymore. There’s no reason for me to stay here. What little I have is packed. I’m gone. Ronnie, flabbergasted, blubbering like the Big Bopper, uh whuh . . . whuh . . . will I whuh? He would think of all the right things to say in the upcoming weeks and days, but she left town more abruptly than she arrived, Lady Midnight, and Ronnie sat in his room, listening to the song “Days” by The Kinks, over and over again . . . “Thank you for the days, endless days, sacred days, you gave me . . . you’re with me every single day, believe me, although you’re gone, you’re with me every single day, believe me. ” Someone once described “Days” as the only heartbreaking song in which the person had no bitterness towards the person who split. “Days you can’t see wrong from right. It’s alright. I’m not frightened of this world. Believe me.”
And so alone, in his room listening to The Kinks, on the streets, at the parties, riding around the great space coaster aptly named The USS Great Lost Dickaround, Ronnie would think of Julianna, and half expect her to tumble into some dumb scenester party with a six-pack yelling WHAT’S UP NOW, SELLOUTS? WHO WANTS A WINE COOLER? But that Julianna wasn’t coming back, and Ronnie knew, somewhere in his head, that their connection was a brief bright moment, a mutual respite from the uncertainty of impending adulthood. But alone on the roof, looking northwest to Tallahassee, across the miles of Florida, he forgave and he loved and he thought of old Julianna, he thought of old Julianna.
FROM THE MYRRH HOUSE ANSWERING MACHINE
Looking south out to the ocean, Sally-Anne Altamont watches the blue-gray waves roll in and debates whether or not to call her son, once again, and leave an answering machine message, once again.
It has been two and a half weeks since they’ve talked, and even then he sounded distracted, depressed, short in responses, annoyed with the most basic questions of conversation. Answers almost grunted. Like the teenager he no longer was.
Speed dial. Three and a half rings. And there it is again, ten seconds of the intro to “Eighteen.” The worst thing about this is that she can’t even hear his voice, even speaking something as simple and generic as a “We can’t come to the phone right now, please leave a message.”
BEEEEEP.
Sigh.
“Ronnie. Call us please. This is the third message we’ve left with you. And do you think anyone will want to hire you with that Alice Cooper song on your answering machine? Yes, your mom knows who Alice Cooper is. Call us. We’re getting worried.”
Push the off button. Sigh. With no job, what could he possibly be doing?
It’s too c
old to swim—in the pool, in the ocean. Charley is at the driving range. Too early in the day for a drink. Maybe she should buy him a plane ticket for Thanksgiving. Get him out of there. Maybe let him stay here until he’s back on his feet. Maybe. Maybe? Maybe.
It’s a lot to consider. The ocean is God. The ocean is the Buddha. Ronnie is in the wilderness, and he must make his own mistakes, and learn from them, and Sally Anne, she stares at the waves rolling, listens to the surf, stares out to the horizon line and the gray-blue sky and the gray-blue waves and none of the world’s insights trump how much, on a pure emotional level, she misses her son, her son of today, and the son she used to have.
THE WHITE ROACH
The roach is cradling a crease in the white painter’s tarp spread across the living room carpet in the room Andy—no longer Professor Andy—has just finished. It is impossible to miss. Brown with black wings, concave, antennae pulsing in sick throbs. Andy was moving his equipment—paint cans, brushes, rollers, trays, ladder, and, finally, the tarp—into the master bedroom, when he spotted it there.
Andy approaches it, towers over it, shrieks like a little girl in a dodge ball game after he taps the nasty thing with the edge of his boot, and its wings sputter towards him in an ominous droning buzz.
The roach jumps two feet backwards, lands on a different bump in the tarp. Its body expands and retracts like it has giant lungs under its shell. Andy shrieks again, runs into the master bedroom, slams the door.
Andy waits for his pulse to return to normal. If he can find a can of roach spray, there’s a slight chance the thing will die. The property managers have their offices at the entrance to the apartment complex, in that trailer where all the red white and blue “WELCOME” flags wave around at the top of poles stuck in the dirt-grass every five feet. But he would prefer not dealing with them if he can avoid it. They are in late middle-age. Husband and wife. Overweight. Andy suspects they are swingers. Unattractive swingers. There’s nothing overt about their behavior when Andy interacts with them, and he knows he’s being a shallow and judgmental bastard when he’s forced to consider them, but it’s like they’re the kinds of people you’d expect to go off and meet similar-bodied enthusiasts in some exurbian hotel located next to a business/industrial park near the airport. The kinds of people you don’t want to see but are inevitably the only ones frolicking at the nude beach.
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