Recycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  Ramie pushes the tin pitcher toward me. “Just add more milk,” she says. “And by the way, New York is one of the safest cities in the world.”

  I fill my cup all the way to the lip, then lean over and have a tepid sip.

  “See?” she says. “It’s not so bad.”

  I shrug. I like my coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. With three sugars and a lot of cream.

  “Who knows?” Ramie says. “When Tommy comes back—”

  “If Tommy comes back.”

  Ramie nods. “If he comes back, he may not even recognize you.”

  I have to admit, there’s something appealing about that scenario.

  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Have you enjoyed the journey thus far? No? A little gloomy? A bit of a letdown with old Tommy Knutson? I hear you. But cut the girl some slack. She’s been a prude for a long time. I’m doing my best to inspire her with my feats of sexual daring, but old habits die hard.

  Anyway, on this end of the cycle it has been one heck of a ride since the day Jill found herself sprawled on the floor of the Karn Beach Yacht Club in a man’s suit and no idea how she got there.

  “Um, Ramie, um, is this, like, the prom?”

  I won’t lie. I had myself a guilty chuckle when I woke up and found that memory in the old thinkbox. Oh, come on, the girl had it coming. She “deeply” had it coming. But despite the poetical nature of that particular nugget of justice, I did not spend the summer wallowing in Jill’s pain. I had my own stuff going on.

  Lots and lots of it, in fact.

  Now, contrary to Jill’s complaints, I have not devoted my hard-won freedom exclusively to the sacred task of making sweet, sweet love to Ramie Boulieaux. All right, it’s number one on my agenda, but there’s been other stuff. Stuff like riding the roller coaster at Canobie Lake Park and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Have you ever swum in the Atlantic Ocean? With your own body and your own senses? Who knew it actually tasted like salt? I mean, sure I knew, but I didn’t know. You know?

  Novel Sensations. That’s what I’m about these days.

  Today’s first Novel Sensation is the disorienting feeling of waking up in a strange bed with the sound of traffic through the window and a ceramic poodle smiling down at me. Novel Sensation number two is rushing to my girlfriend’s bedroom for a surprise morning snuggle. And Novel Sensation number three is the sight of a one-armed mannequin standing guard over her otherwise empty bedroom.

  A quick scan of Jilltime reveals that Ramie’s in class today from ten to four, so I lie down in her bed for a few seconds to absorb her residual aroma. Then I mosey into the living room for an inspection of my new home. It’s small. It’s dark. The dominant design motif is duct tape. But you know what, it’s mine. Well, ours anyway. There is a locked door that leads to the outside world, and I have the key.

  Just to be sure, I turn all three metal locks and peer into the hallway. I could run up and down those stairs in my underwear if I wanted to. Who’s going to stop me?

  That’s when I feel Novel Sensation number four: total freedom. I take a big lung-expanding breath of it. Then I cough it back out because the apartment still smells of paint.

  I head to the kitchen and make a quick peanut butter sandwich. Then I sit on Jill’s bed to plan my day. Did I say Jill’s bed? I meant my bed. I’ve got to stop thinking I’m an intruder in Jill’s life. This is my life now. This is Jack’s bed.

  On the dresser is an envelope with my name on it, and inside are fifty bucks, a MetroCard, and a note printed on some insurance company’s letterhead.

  Jill’s always leaving me little notes like this, even though she knows I remember everything. Like I said, old habits die hard.

  “Hi, Jack,” the note reads. “I’ve registered with a temp agency and worked out a budget for us. The $50 I’ve enclosed is all you can spend. Sorry it’s not more, but things are really expensive here. We don’t have our own Internet or cable, but you can jump on the ‘NatBitch’ airport most of the time. Welcome to New York. I hope you like it. Be careful. Love, Jill.”

  I throw on some jeans, then stuff the money in my back pocket.

  Be careful? Is she kidding?

  It’s an overcast, sixty-degree September day. Forgive me, but I’m still wowed by the Novel Sensation of weather. When the sun bursts suddenly from behind a cloud, I have to stop at the corner to catch my breath. The feel of sudden heat on cool skin is bewildering and kind of sexual. I savor it for a few seconds, then follow the smell of cut grass. I am familiar with this smell, having experienced it on many occasions through my bedroom window in Winterhead. But it’s different when you can follow it like a road map to secret treasure. The sweet, fertile aroma leads me to McCarren Park, a green oasis that divides Greenpoint (all kielbasa shops and cheap shoes) from Williamsburg (hipsters, expensive coffee). The park itself is bigger than anything in Winterhead, with a running track, a kids’ playground, two dog runs, and three baseball diamonds. Right now it’s mostly empty except for some people jogging around the track.

  I head toward Williamsburg armed only with a vague plan to buy a coffee somewhere. Why?

  Because I can.

  I have an inkling that the world beyond Brooklyn is a great and terrible place, with even more wonders to behold than the squeak of playground swings or the mysterious flight pattern of pigeons. But the only way I can manage the brain-challenging bigness of it all is to take it one Novel Sensation at a time.

  After a few blocks, in need of a break from the sensorial onslaught, I slip into a dingy little bar called Spitfire. For no other reason than the fact that I have never done so before, I order a Scotch. The bartender doesn’t even card me. He just points to the door and tells me to come back in ten years.

  And I thought underage drinking was the nation’s number one scourge. That’s what the guidance counselors were always telling Jill and her classmates.

  At any rate, it would be foolish to spend my limited time allotment in a drunken haze. I need my senses working at full capacity if I’m going to cram a lifetime of stuff into four-twenty-eighths of a life.

  Wow. Four-twenty-eighths of a life. I have to stop for a second because that is one dark little mind burp. I mean when you actually do the math, it doesn’t add up to much, does it?

  This wouldn’t have bothered me so much when I was a prisoner in Jill’s bedroom. Back then, time moved with agonizing slowness. Sometimes it moved so slowly, I’d stare out that window and pray for oblivion. Now there never seems to be enough time.

  But you know what? I am not about spiraling into existential funks. Jill does enough of that for both of us. I shake myself out of it, then head toward Bedford Avenue, where, if Jilltime memory serves, the pretty, happy people are.

  Eventually I wander into this little joint called Dexter’s. I remember from Jilltime that Dexter’s is usually crowded at night with cool kids nursing cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon (ironically, of course), but during the day it’s only modestly populated by coffee drinkers. Plus you don’t have to be twenty-one just to enter the stinkin’ place.

  I order a coffee from the bartender, whose name is Joel and who is an aspiring screenwriter. He told this to Jill while serving her a ginger ale one night, and they bonded over the fact that they both have jobs they hate. Jill, the nitwit, didn’t even pick up on the fact that Joel was flirting with her. She’s still saving herself for Knutsack, the Arizona desert, and that howling coyote.

  Whatev.

  I take my coffee and find a seat alone at a small table covered with someone’s abandoned newspaper. As I glance around the place, with its clusters of twos and threes of people, I feel suddenly self-conscious about being alone. Then it occurs to me that the only people I even know, other than Ramie, are Daria (nice, but kind of a dingbat and nowhere near Brooklyn), my parents (total psychos who locked me in a room), and Tommy Knutson (need I elaborate?).

  I take a sip of coffee and come to the conclusion that I’d better get myself some friends. You know, people who can kee
p me entertained while Ramie’s in class. It’s possible, however, that my “upbringing,” if you can call it that, has deprived me of the necessary people skills required to make friends. But, I figure, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

  I scan the joint in search of possible targets. There are a couple of guys deep in confab over in the corner, a long-haired dude—who reminds me of Dad—slumped over a bottle of beer at the bar, and a smattering of girls. Then my eye lands on this guy right behind me, sitting alone at a big table by the window and scribbling in a notebook. He’s tall and scrawny, with messy hair, but he doesn’t look like a psycho. Plus he’s drinking a tall glass of orange juice, which speaks well of his attitude toward nutrition. I must be staring, because he looks up from his notebook and squints at me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” he says back.

  And we’re off.

  “What’s your name?” I say.

  “Larson,” he says. “Why?”

  “I’m Jack,” I say. “Jack McTeague.”

  He looks around and nods evasively. Then he returns to his notebook.

  “What are you drinking?” I say.

  “Um, dude, like, I’m not gay or anything.”

  “Me neither,” I say. “What are you writing? Is that homework?”

  “Kind of,” he says.

  I keep staring at him.

  He sighs. “It’s for a comp class.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Composition?” he says. “Like writing?”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “I’m supposed to keep a journal.”

  “About what?”

  He looks around nervously. “Like, life?”

  “Your own?”

  He nods.

  “Sounds fun,” I say. “Can you lie?”

  “Um,” he says. “That’s kind of defeating the purpose. I’m supposed to write for half an hour a day without taking my pen off the page.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Did I just mess that up for you?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Sorry.”

  Larson sighs, then closes his notebook. “It’s all right,” he says. “It’s a gut class. All I need is a C. Are you a student?”

  I shake my head. He keeps looking at me, presumably in anticipation of a more data-rich answer. I’m tempted to improvise a story about being an entrepreneur or an import-export guy, but I’m a bad liar, and anyway I don’t know what either of those things are.

  “I’m kind of … between jobs?” I say. “I just moved here.”

  “Where from? Wait, don’t tell me. Midwest?”

  “Massachusetts.”

  “Damn,” he says. “I’m usually good at accents. I’m majoring in linguistics.”

  Wow, I think, that sounds unbelievably boring. “Mind if I join you?” I say.

  He shrugs. “I’m meeting some guys in a few minutes, but sure.”

  I take my coffee over and sit across the table from him. “So,” I say, “what guys are you meeting?”

  He laughs.

  “What?” I say. “Am I being too nosy?”

  He keeps laughing. “No. It’s … um …”

  “What?”

  “You’re kind of strange,” he says.

  “You don’t know the half of it, pal.”

  “Really?”

  I nod, but I don’t elaborate, because mystery is cool. “So what do you do for fun around here?”

  “Fun?” he says. “Um, I don’t know. Meet girls. Get drunk.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “What do you do for fun?”

  I take a sip of my coffee. “To be honest, Larson, I’ve spent the last two months mostly screwing my girlfriend.”

  “Really?”

  I nod. “I’m getting really good at it too. She can’t keep her hands off of me. I’m kind of a love god.”

  All of a sudden, a shadow is cast by this little blond string bean who stands at the edge of our table. “Who’s the love god?” he asks.

  Larson looks up. “Yo, Perm. What’s up?” They do a funky jive handshake.

  I extend my hand to him. “Jack,” I say.

  He doesn’t shake my hand. He just stares at me with squinty eyes. The bits of yellow hair poking from beneath his little hat are bone straight and obviously bleached.

  A few seconds later a tall black dude wearing an old Journey concert T-shirt slides into the chair next to me. “Hey,” he says. “I’m Alvarez.” He shakes my hand, then clings to a large cup of coffee.

  Perm remains standing at the edge of the table, looking down on me as if I were a turd dropped from the heavens. “Larson,” he says, while looking at me. It’s a neat trick. Very menacing. “You’ve got the chart?”

  Larson looks at me sheepishly. “Anyway,” he says, “these are the guys I was talking about. It was nice to meet you.”

  I nod for a few seconds before I realize he’s asking me to leave. So much for making friends, I guess. I grab my coffee and head back to my solitary table.

  Is it my baggy jeans? I wonder. My non-ironic T-shirt?

  When I sneak a glance at their table, Larson is shrugging and rolling his eyes as Perm gesture-queries him as to the meaning of my apparently unacceptable intrusion into their important meeting.

  Fine. Screw them. I’ve got half a coffee left and the ability to amuse myself by myself. Trust me, people, I do not require the company of others. I’ve spent plenty of time on my own. Who says a guy needs friends? Maybe some of us were meant to go it alone, like lone wolves. Besides, I have Ramie and a torrid sex life. What do I need other dudes for? To be honest, that Perm guy smelled a little.

  So there I am, minding my own beeswax, when the conversation at Larson’s table starts to filter into my awareness.

  “I’ll give you Tilda for that waitress,” Alvarez, the black dude, says.

  Some tense mumbling ensues, followed by laughter.

  To mask my eavesdropping, I start pretend reading the newspaper somebody left on the table.

  “Naja’s out,” Perm, the blond guy, says. “Take her off the board.”

  They appear to be either trading horses or organizing a girls’ sports league, softball perhaps.

  “Yeah,” Alvarez says. “That number is pushing thirty and looking for a baby daddy.”

  The others suck their teeth in fear.

  Baby daddy?

  That doesn’t appear to be relevant to the organization of a girls’ softball league.

  “Yo, punks,” Perm says. “You got to put up or shut up. I be carryin’ yo asses all summer.”

  Alvarez shakes his head. “Cuz,” he says. “You do realize that you’re white. Right?”

  I chuckle to myself. I don’t like Perm. I don’t like his fake yellow hair or his scrawny, freckled arms. I don’t like his name either or that pretentious little hat. I think I’m chuckling too loudly, however, because Perm turns around and glares at me.

  “Something funny?” he says.

  “Huh?” I put the newspaper down and point to their table, where they’ve got a chart spread out with four names written across the top (Rez, Perm, Larson, and Sasha). About ten girls’ names are written down the left-hand side. “Are those softball teams?” I ask.

  A tense silence ensues.

  Then Alvarez—or “Rez,” as I assume he’s called by his close friends—laughs sharply. “Softball?”

  I look at Larson because we go way back, Larson and me. But Larson has developed an intense fascination with his cuticles.

  “You just moved here,” Alvarez says. “Right?”

  I nod. Alvarez is the only one with any charisma. Plus, he’s neither as scrawny nor as scruffy as the other two. I wonder how they all became friends. I point to the chart again. “What is that?”

  “It’s a chart,” Alvarez says. “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like a chart,” I say. “What’s it for?”

  “That is strictly for the members to know
,” Alvarez says.

  “Yeah,” Perm says. “And I don’t see your name here.” His glare takes on an edge of pure menace. Sadly for him, it fails to inspire fear. He’s too tiny to be threatening. I could fold him in quarters and stuff him in my pocket.

  “What’s up with your name?” I ask him. “Is it foreign, or are you named after a hair treatment?”

  Larson breaks his nervous silence to mutter, “Please don’t ask that.”

  “Lars,” Perm says. “I didn’t come up with the name. It was bestowed on me.”

  “Let me tell the story,” Alvarez says, all excited.

  Perm puts on a show of resisting but ultimately acquiesces. He obviously likes being talked about, and Alvarez, the P. T. Barnum of the gang, likes to talk.

  Alvarez pushes his chair back from the table and puts his arm around a vacant chair to take up some space. “So Daryl here,” he says, gesturing toward Perm, “goes back with this girl, right?”

  “Back where?” I ask.

  “To her apartment,” he says. “Where do you think?”

  Perm points to the name Alicia on the board.

  “And after the deed is done—” Alvarez says. “You do know what I am referring to by the deed, right?”

  “Um.” I let my eyes wander to the ceiling. “Are you talking about sexual intercourse?”

  “Yeah,” Alvarez says. “I didn’t know if you were one of those virginal Christian types.”

  “Do I look like a virginal Christian type?”

  “You look like a man who keeps interrupting my story.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So Daryl’s heading to the door for a speedy exit,” he says. “Right?”

  Perm purses his lips in distaste. “Worth one. But not two.”

  “Yeah?” Larson says. “So why’s she on the board, then?”

  “Because some of you losers like fat chicks.”

  “Can I finish this?” Alvarez says.

  Everyone quiets down.

  Alvarez glances around the room. Whether it’s to ensure that no one is listening or that everyone is listening, I can’t be sure. “So Daryl’s looking for a way out that won’t totally humiliate this girl, because he’s a decent human being, right?”