by Chris Vola
“Everything’s good,” I say, “stellar.” I walk past him into the kitchen.
Billy’s bent over, leaning one flabby arm on the countertop, already working hard on what looks like his third can. “Hey slapdick,” he says, “catch up.”
He tosses me a beer. I chug about half of it like liquid air. Breaded filets are sizzling and popping. A rush of happy. I take the baggies out of my pocket. “Your dad care?” I already know the answer, but it’s a courtesy thing.
“If you don’t give him any,” Billy says. The old joke.
He picks up the fish and heads into the main room. I follow, carrying the rest of the beers. My BlackBerry vibrates in my pocket. Billy’s old man winces into his seat, picking at the crotch of his jean shorts. I take Billy’s Little League picture down from the mantle, lay it on the table. I break up three fat lines on the glass, leave the capsules where they’ve scattered, roll up a twenty. Billy’s old man nods in appreciation, drops his own small bag of weed next to the blow, covering up Billy’s pre-adolescent smiling face.
We stab at the filets. I pass around beers and the picture. Billy washes the fish down, snorts, swallows. His old man does the same, scans the table with gleeful sunk-in eyes.
When the food’s gone, I take a mental survey of the night’s festivities – a gram-and-a-half spliff rolled with the remainder of Billy and his old man’s stash (unlaced), half an E pill shaped like Starscream of the Transformers, two small lines of stingy coke some Rican probably cut with a lot of speed or Ex-Lax, five or six beers – a perfect exercise in decadent moderation. The topic of conversation – if conversation is right – inevitably finds its way to pussy. New pussy, old pussy, pussy lost, pussy found, pussy long-forgotten. For a second I think about checking my BlackBerry.
Billy’s old man leans back, rubs a piece of his hairy gut, scratches at some scar tissue. He begins the famous tale of a whore in Da Nang who gave him a vicious case of elephant herpes or something, and who also turned out to be a twelve-year-old boy. Fake pussy. We’ve heard the cautionary story at least fifty times since middle school, but we let Billy’s old man go, float on the moment.
“And so I got that polluted gook’s miniskirt off, and Jesus –” Billy’s old man’s throat catches. His blood-worn eyes bulge. He tries to get out of his chair, collapses, crumples and pukes in slow-motion. First the fish, then the beer, then a stream of yellowish bile.
Billy’s out of his seat, shooting me this sideways sort of half-grin I’ve seen before, says he’ll see me tomorrow. He picks his old man up by the shoulders, drags him back to the recliner. I get up to help, knock my beer off the table. The pale liquid soaks into the stacks of paper, disappears.
“It’s fine,” Billy mumbles, “don’t worry about it. Call you, call you…tomorrow. Try to pick up once in a while,” he snaps, trying to be mean-funny, switch the vibe I guess. His old man’s gurgling now, coughing hard. “I could use some water, actually.”
I hustle into the kitchen, find a glass.
Real time, real time.
THE COLD DEW in Billy’s unkempt front yard soaks through my loafers, pricks me awake. The Audi’s dashboard, when I flick the key fob, transforms into a blur of warm light. The familiar four-block ride home is bathed in vague indigo, grotesque shadows and improbable specters, the twitch of neon.
My house – nearly invisible from the driveway, encased in stage-quality fog. I half-jog, half-crabwalk up the front steps. Key into lock after five or six tries, swing open the door. Moonlight through the large bay window in the living room.
I pass the bookcase, knock into it. The crunch of displaced picture frames.
In my room, I take my BlackBerry out of my pocket. The digital display, along with the laptop’s screen on the bed, illuminates a near-finished bottle of Maker’s, reading glasses, an Ambien salad. I squint, try to read the phone. Eight missed calls, same number. Lauren. I sigh, let the phone slip to the floor. A Google message box blinks orange on the computer, from an unfamiliar email contact:
MFKRASHTEST24 (08:53:17 PM): purpose is the commonest form of stupidity
17
Vola
THE TWO SMALL creases spread horizontally, ruin the otherwise elastic forehead. Pale Germanic skin, splotches of nose and cheek pigment. Three-day velvet stubble. Pupils dilated, two empty discs encircled by dull grayish-blue. It’s the wrinkles that bother me. Another reminder that life, at twenty-four, is almost thirty-two percent over, according to the current census.
Celebrate, imbibe, be thankful. Think of all the time!
No. It’s the most explicit evidence yet that the incubation process is complete, that for the next few decades I can look forward to a one-way, plastic-jammed superhighway of colonoscopies, catheters, white sheets, a false-clean hospital stench. And who can say if it’ll be a jog or a sprint, an extended scene or bristling montage?
Name: Joshua.
Joshua. Hebrew roots. The one who leads the Israelites to the Promised Land. Jewish for the Greek name Jesus – what he was most likely called by his contemporaries.
Josh: To tease, banter, trick in a good-natured way. A joke.
White, non-Hispanic.
Born: January 11, 1985. Hartford Hospital. 11:17 a.m., EST.
Five feet, nine-and-one-half inches.
One-hundred-fifty-one pounds.
Columbia University, Class of 2007.
Dies: August 25, 2068. Fort Lauderdale? Palm Springs ? TBD.
Cadaver #0019182734737.
Cause of death…
Stop.
I’m not listening to this anymore. It’s the hangover talking, more persuasive than usual. I put on my glasses. The cabinet below the mirror is open and I scan the rows of orange plastic. A gush of relief washes through me as I sing the names on the labels out loud to the tune of Sublime’s “Scarlet Begonias” – Tryptan, Ativan, Percocet, Xan-AX, Xanax, Adderall, Klonopin, ZO-loft!
I flip open the toilet seat, bend over, wait for the surge. Nothing.
THE KITCHEN IS stale. Growing heaps of dinner plates, puke-colored crud. Today’s menu – two half-empty Starbucks double-shot espresso cans, Lucky Charms soaking in half-and-half of a questionable age, Klonopin burger and Cool Ranch Doritos. Yummy.
My house looks a lot like Billy’s but newer, a two-story renovated summer cottage, right down the street from the beach. Automated climate control! Internet and digital cable ready! I rifle under the couch pillows, the coffee table refuse. No remote in sight. I scan the room – folk-art paintings of sea life and beaches, a framed Dalì print straight out of Dorm Life 101, a bookshelf with two knocked-over pictures. One of Lauren and me in Myrtle Beach a few years ago, college-drunk, faces flushed. The other is my parents at a formal dinner for the company where my father worked.
MY PARENTS DIED in a car accident two-and-a-half years ago, the second semester of my senior year at Columbia. They were coming back from a ski weekend at a friend’s condo in Vermont when a Ford Explorer in the next lane hit a patch of black ice and swerved into the passenger side of their Volvo (For many buyers, Volvo and safety are synonymous!), sending it skidding. Then a flip that wedged them upside-down against the median. Then the gas fire. Hank and Cynthia, parents of one…
The medical examiner said that the car’s roof had caved in after its first contact with the highway, that they hadn’t been in very much pain for long. The driver of the Explorer, an anesthesiologist from Worcester, lived. He’d had his seatbelt fastened but managed to rupture his spleen, shatter three ribs, dislocate his right thumb. As far as they could tell, my parents had had theirs fastened, too. It was just one of those things.
I CALL GRANDPA Phil. Two rings and the gravelly drawl of a black woman asks me what I want without a hello. I tell her who I am. A minute later, “…yes, yes, you wench, it was my sponge bath! Don’t think that you can just…” A few moments of undecipherable argument, then, “Hello, who is this? Well, what do you want? What are you trying to sell?”
“Hi Grandpa
, happy Father’s Day!” I say cheerfully.
“Timmy? Is this Timmy?”
“No, it’s Josh.”
“Not Timmy?”
“Grandpa Phil, it’s Joshua,” I say, slower.
“Not Timmy.” He sounds hurt. I should have played along, transformed into Timmy for the next fifteen minutes. Too late. He grunts in slow recognition. “Oh, Josh.” Frail, confused. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?” he asks, a little cheerier.
“It’s Father’s Day, Grandpa.”
“What grade are you in?”
“No, Grandpa, I’m –” I stop. “Tenth,” I say.
“Tenth already? Where does the time…” He pauses. “So, any girlfriends? Have you talked to Timmy?”
The conversation spins from current events – whether the Yankees and Royals are still battling for the pennant, something that probably hasn’t happened since 1987 – to possible explanations for the sudden growth spurt of the palm trees outside his window (“Haitian fertilizer!”) to the horrible perfume stench currently emanating from the “high-yellow” nurse’s sizable bosom. He doesn’t ask about my parents, and aside from his usual layer of gruffness, Grandpa Phil seems content in the 24-hour care facility where we dropped him off five years ago, at peace among the adult diapers and shuffle boards
I look at the kitchen clock. “Grandpa, I have to go.”
“Goodbye, Timmy,” he says, “and have a wonderful day.”
Sometimes I envy Grandpa Phil, sitting in a well-lit room in Fort Lauderdale, gently sinking under the faded ripples of an Alzheimer’s sunset, his memories only reappearing in brief, almost incoherent kaleidoscope bursts. Sign me up. I can’t think of one moment where I wouldn’t trade a little paranoia and mandatory sponge baths for a genuine tabula rasa.
AS THE ONLY child, I inherited everything. I put my parents’ house on the market and bought the Audi the day after the estate was settled, in one cash payment. When the paperwork was done and the inheritance tax was paid, I had plenty, enough for years, forty acres and a fully loaded, 420-horsepower mule.
Death, above all else, is a business. Funeral arrangements, flowers, finger food, lawyer fees. A prescribed mode, an expectation of mourning. Cry at the wake, cry at the service, wistfully accept homemade baked goods from former co-workers, greedily accept the coping mechanism recommended by the court-sponsored psychiatrist. After the first phone call, the initial numbing shock, I played the role perfectly, said and did all the right things. Because it had become an act. At first I felt awful about my lack of emotion; I tried to make the pain reappear. These two people gave me everything…life…loved me unconditionally…weren’t that strict in high school…paid tuition…you cold, heartless bastard! But I couldn’t bring it back, as much as I wanted to. They were gone, a prominent void, one I cemented shut with facts: In a normal year, more than forty-five thousand Americans die in car crashes. There’s about a one in eighty chance of dying from car-related injuries in an average American lifetime. More people die each year in car accidents than from lightning strikes, alcoholism, electrocution, drug overdoses, drowning, suicide, and firearms, combined.
It was just one of those things.
THE PARKING LOT of the Morning Glory Boutique. Two-story row house – second-floor shattered window panes replaced by squares of cardboard. A metal rod to the right of the front door suspends rows of sale items – Grateful Dead and Phish concert tees, tapestries – a forgotten hippie graveyard with the suspicious stink of commercialization. We lost our ideals but kept the weed… I thumb through a few items in the five-dollar section before going in.
A dim smog of incense, saturating my skin in Egyptian Musk, Apple Fantasy, or whatever’s Billy’s new favorite flavor. The throbbing bass, growling guitars and synthesizers, relentless syncopated drum smashes of a Disco Biscuits jam. I pass the shelves packed with belly rings, scented candles, bongs, thousands of misshapen pot-facilitating items. A customary pause at the sex toys – something called the Road Warrior that looks like a pink iPod Shuffle with furry insect legs. TV noises reverberate from a doorway in the back, partially concealed by a bead curtain.
“Billy?”
Nothing.
“BILLY!”
A heavy thunk and the clatter of glass or metal. “Back here!” he hollers.
Behind the bead curtain, Billy is sitting at a messy office desk, stacks of invoices, netbook open to what looks like a standard 9/11-as-government-plot website with anime skulls all over, absentmindedly slapping a bowling-ball shaped water pipe like a bongo drum. Flat-screen on the wall with the newscaster talking about a new technology that uses cameras to make tanks and soldiers invisible to enemy troops. A sand-colored tank in the desert, its treads kicking up a small dust storm. Headlines stream across a bar at the bottom of the screen. Report: Sadistic Killer Lesbians Shared Blood Lust. NYC Cops in Massive Search for Missing British Terror Expert Harold Blunderthal.
He grins. “Got pretty fucked up last night.” He studies my face. I avoid his eyes, self-conscious. “It looks like someone dragged a cheese grater over your face, bro.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Busy day around here, huh?”
“Sundays are pretty slow,” he says. “I think you’re the first person that’s come in today. Congratulations. Here’s a free gift courtesy of that little wizard-loving faggot.” Ryan – Billy’s teenage coworker – is on a nationwide tour of Harry Potter conventions with his girlfriend. Billy’s been picking up most of his shifts. He hands me a plate of gingerbread wizard hats, cloaks, and wands that more closely resemble the dildos in the front room.
“How old are these?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I found them under a pile of papers this morning. You don’t like them?”
“It’s probably slow today because of the holiday,” I say, putting the tray down. The cookies shatter into a pile of dust that smells like cigarettes.
“What holiday?” he asks. “Some Jewish shit?”
“Father’s Day.”
“Oh.” He turns off the TV, starts tidying up the desk. I notice a laminated folder with a gold eagle seal. In one claw the bird clutches a butcher knife. The other claw holds what looks like a noose. Across the top of the folder – WHITMIRE, WILLIAM in bold permanent marker strokes.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“That, uh…That’s nothing you need to concern yourself with, civilian,” he says in soldier-drawl. “Just Uncle Sam trying to mess with my shit again, as usual. Tough to hide from those bastards.” He looks at the clock on the computer screen. “I can close up now,” he says. “Let’s go.”
“What if some kid wants to buy a last-minute bong for his dad?”
“Fuck him,” Billy says. “Davis is at Jackson’s. I don’t know for how long. My truck’s in the shop. We have to go.”
Jackson Smith – my first roommate at Columbia after I transferred – lives at his parents’ place in Westport, a thirty-five minute drive down the coast. Davis is our drug dealer. I roll my eyes, pretend to look annoyed. Billy knows that my bathroom cabinet is already nicely well-stocked, that this trip (on my gas) is just for him. It’s not like I have anything better to do, but I’m not going to make this easy.
“Bro-oo,” he moans, “it’s not like we’re stopping in for two seconds and leaving. Jackson’s having a fucking barbecue and he invited us. You need to relax.”
“Can’t you call anybody closer?” I know he can.
“No, fuckface, I can’t. I’ll meet you out front.”
He limps up a staircase at the back of the room, vanishes before I can say anything. A skull on the website winks at me.
Billy drags a large metal crate across the parking lot. He opens the Audi’s back hatch, hoists it inside, adding fresh indentations to the immaculate interior.
“What is that and why do you need it now?” I ask, annoyed.
“You never know, Josh,” he says mysteriously, slams down the hatch with a sickening metallic crunch.
&
nbsp; “You’re nuts,” I mutter, let it drop.
BILLY FIDDLES WITH the satellite radio, stops on 720 JAMZ, throwback hip-hop, in time for Ice Cube to explain to us that life aint nothin’ but bitches and money! I switch lanes, pull up close behind a Dodge minivan with two bumper stickers. THIS IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL in big letters. The other one, older, says SEND BUSH TO MARS IN 2004. My BlackBerry vibrates in the center console. A text this time.
From: Lauren
WHERE R U???? we need to talk asap
Sun, Jun. 15 3:57pm
“Who I think it is?” Billy asks.
“Probably,” I mumble.
“When’s the last time you talked?” As in, Lauren is your girlfriend of what, like three-and-a-half years, you need to pick up your phone, dumbass!
“I don’t know.”
Maybe girlfriend is wrong. There’s still something, but I haven’t tried searching for an appropriate definition for a long time.
“You should call her,” Billy says, flicking a lighter he found under the seat.
“Thank you, Doctor Phil,” I say. I snatch the lighter out of his hand, toss it over my shoulder.
“That’ll be six hundred dollars.”
We’re driving parallel to the brown and gray tracks of the Metro-North railroad. Two rows of telephone lines undulate and crack in a continuous wave of black cable, splitting the cloudless, azure sky.
JACKSON SMITH’S HOUSE is at the end of a wooded cul-de-sac, the back of which forms a peninsula that slopes down gradually into the Sound. Jackson lives in Manhattan during the week and does investor relations for a small consulting firm on Perry Street. His parents – co-directors of three of the highest grossing indie documentaries twenty years ago – are in Indonesia filming some eco Web series sponsored by The Food Network and Exxon. They’ve been there for almost seven months.
