or
Ron Jeremy and the Nefarious
Betty Crocker
By
Neal
Bailey
Dedicated to bad writing, M, and Buk.
Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman. But sometimes, under that bridge, you find a familiar face with a bottle.
-Jacob Madly-
What is love?
The delusion that one woman differs from another.
-Unknown-
Look! Over
here! (Along the western highway of
Man, why do books always have to start with some obscure load of cryptic bullshit patently manifested and for the express purpose of turning the potential reader off? Is that some kind of law for the piece to be the kind of literature to entertain the educational elite?
Well, fuck that.
Give me a poet flipping a car, some punk kid lighting something on fire, or a maniac screaming coherent insane about idealism over realism.
Beyond that...well, I’ve got your attention.
This is an ode to losers that will go on for far too long and take up far too much of your free time. But you won’t be able to help yourself, see, because if you have the time to sit and read, and the time to sit and think, chances are you’re an artist, and chances are you’re a loser, too.
And besides, if all of the above and below is a load of horseshit, at least there’s a lot of sex, swearing, and other random acts of selfless antisocial perspective in the following:
CHAPTER
ONE:
NO RHYMING POETRY IN THE HOUSE OF MADLY.
1.
The Side of the Road.
Early in
the morning along the highway somewhere in southern
But as is often the case, fate had something more different, more interminable in store for me. A passing car must have spotted me lying there face down in the mud, because the damned thing stopped and this guy got out. Tall, straight-laced middle class.
God, I hate the middle-class.
“Mister?” he said. “Mister, are you all right?”
Mister? I’m fucking 21. What’s he? 40?
“Fine.” I tried to keep my face buried in the mud. Maybe he’d go away.
“Do you need a ride?”
“Yes.”
“Well hop on in.”
Son of a bitch thought I meant I needed a ride from him. People just don’t think logically any more.
I can’t say that it would have beat sleeping there in the mud. Regardless, I got up and trop, glop, slopped, kicked dirt off myself, tried to make myself presentable, or at least not tracking dirt.
He had a Neon. Hell. White bread moron, more than likely. I’d put money on two kids. He seemed the kind of goon not willing to sully his life too much with children. He probably cheats on his wife and works far too hard for what he has bought, which turns out to be bullshit designed to try and make him work harder. He defines himself by what he surrounds himself with. And he bought...that’s right. A Neon.
He thinks picking me up might make for him one of those random occurrences that define his character, so to speak. He thinks this is the kind of thing that, when, at the end of his life, he realizes he’s forsaken his wife, his children, and anything productive for a projection television and a piece of skank ass, will make him believe that he’s ultimately been a good, productive person and deserves reception by his warm, loving God he doesn’t really know exists.
I held this man in contempt. But he was giving me a ride, so I tried not to sweat it.
“Where to?” He started the car.
“Damned if I know.” This is so he can relate to the fact that I’m a rebel, even though I’m not. “Anywhere’s as good as anywhere else to me.”
“Fair enough.” He took off before I could even get my seatbelt done. He probably drives around with his two kids running around the backseat, not buckled in.
And then the odometer is up to seventy-five, and we’re going north. And here it comes. I’m expecting it, but it’s still unwelcome. “So, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“I thought
I’d go to
“What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
He laughed this cheesy little middle class laugh. The kind where you can tell they’re fake. The kind you hear again and again and again in the presence of these people. See, they hold back real laughter, or suppress it, and if they don’t laugh in an inane fashion roughly every thirty seconds over some positive middle-class thought or another, their heads would just explode all over their pretty Gap clothing.
“I mean,
what happened to you? People who set out for
Here I was tempted to pop him in the head. Instead, I found myself mimicking his laugh. Jesus. It was contagious. “Well, I kind of got dropped off by my last ride. I couldn’t see anything, because it was dark, so I just kind of curled up and went to sleep.”
“Well
that’s just horrible! But...if you’re headed for
“I’m not. Not anymore. I didn’t really want to go there anyway. I just wanted to find Buk’s place.”
“Ah,” he said, probably thinking that Buk is a friend of mine instead of the greatest poet of all time. Nobody’s ever heard of Bukowski. And if they have, they’re not picking up hitchhikers on the side of the road. They’re more than likely drinking or committing suicide. But anyway.
Hell. It’s my tangent. You’ve probably never even heard of Bukowski. They keep him out of all of the so-called GREATEST AMERICAN POETRY textbooks. If you haven’t read his stuff, by all means, drop this piece of shit (by comparison), go to the library, get four of five of them, and spend a good three hours. You won’t regret it.
“So what do you write, screenplays?”
“No.”
“Books?”
“No.”
“Poetry?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. What kind?”
“The not-rhyming.”
“There’s poetry that doesn’t rhyme?”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
That was it. Too much. Middle class TOO much.
I slammed my fists on his dashboard, began thrashing in my seat, tearing up the leather as best as I could. I pulled my pen from my pocket and started poking holes in the fabric.
“Hey! HEY!” the guy yelled, and the car started swerving.
He doesn’t see the car in the other lane until it’s almost too late, and he pulls the car hard left, towards death, then hard right, to life. However, this was a little too hard, life. Too bad the middle class never realize this, what for their televisions and secretaries. Hell, they never even often leave the middle of the road, for that matter, politically metaphorically speaking.
The car rolled twice and settled in the ditch. Having had my head meet in due fashion with the window, I decided to pass out.
There was a cold table, what looked like an X-ray, and doctors with other assorted goons, hovering and asking questions.
They made me take my clothes off, dizzy. I was being raped. I was being violated. Somehow I didn’t care. I saw the yuppie’s coat in the ambulance on the way in. I even saw one of the paramedics take his wallet. That’s when I decided to ignore them until I got at least the requisite two hours of sleep following a car accident.
“Name?” The nurse.
“Name?” she insisted. What, did she think that she was going to trick me somehow by asking me while I was drugged?
“Kill...Kilgore,” I said, half on purpose, half from the drug.
“Kilgore what?”
I ignore her. It’s fun.
“Kilgore what, sir? We’re about to set your arm, and we need your name.”
I’m on a bed, I realize. My arm is broken.
“Trout. Kilgore Trout.”
“Home address?”
“1313 Blue
Monday Avenue.
She scribbled it down. Good. She wasn’t catching my references. I might get out of this smart-assed and alive after all.
“Telephone?”
“None.”
“How old are you, sir?”
“25.” I can pass. Hell. I could pass for thirty, if I wanted to. Fucking life.
“All right. The doctor will be in shortly.” She started walking out of the room.
“Wait! Where the hell am I?”
“The hospital, sir.”
“Well, I figured. But where?”
“
“What state?”
A pause. “
“Great. Just great.”
She flashed a smile, realizing I’m joking.
“Just what were you expecting?” she asked, polite rather than mocking.
“
“Sorry. The crash didn’t throw you that far.” She smiled, nice, then left.
She had nice legs. I could tell even through the pink scrubs. Not bad hair, a bit short. That could mean angry, bitter woman, or it could mean liberated woman. Never can tell. NO. Escape first. Then women.
The doctor entered, brandishing a clipboard.
“How’s my seatmate?” My arm throbbed. Painful.
“Your dad?”
“Yeah. My...dad.
“
I nodded.
He scribbled a bit. “He’s fine. He hit his head, and he’s not exactly in a good, coherent mood right now, but he’s trying.”
Not good.
“Does he have any ID?”
“He did.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“I see.” Scribble, scribble, scribble. “Well...that was a stunt and a half.”
“I agree,” I said, smiling. Those drugs, those drugs...
He dropped some clothes on the table. My clothes. “You’ll have to put those on in a few minutes. Can’t have someone on the way to recovery unless they’re in the clothes of the living, y’know?”
“So I’m all right?”
“For now. Mild concussion.”
“Excellent.”
“Broken left arm. Nothing serious. We’ll set your arm and then you can go see your dad.”
“Oh. Good.”
“We also need some of his pertinent information. You feel dizzy?”
“No. Not anymore. Well, drug dizzy.”
“That’s to be expected. We gave you something for the arm. Any spots in front of your eyes?”
“No.”
“We’ll talk more about your loss of consciousness in a few minutes. There isn’t much you have to worry about, but there are some things to watch out for.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
A knock on the door, and the doctor says, “You ready to have your arm set?
“Will I ever be?”
“We’ll find out, now, won’t we?” He opened the door and the female nurse came over. This one was ugly, unlike the previous, and mean. I could tell before I even spoke with her. But I didn’t have to, really. She did all the speaking.
“Still.
“Sit still.
“Don’t move.
“Stop wiggling.
“Quit.
“SIR!
“STOP, SIR!
“SIT STILL, SIR”
SNAP!
“You bitch! OW, OW, OW!”
“SIR!”
My elbow, the uninjured right one, anyway, broke through and popped her a good one in the temple. She howled and cascaded down into the bed table. Shit flew everywhere. I felt kind of bad, but then again, I was having my arm set. I didn’t exactly apologize when she left the room holding her head.
I expected some kind of condemnation from the doctor, but the minute evil nurse left, he just kind of chuckled to himself. “We’ll never hear the end of that one.”
This caused me to laugh despite the pain. Whaddaya know? A cog in the gears. Good for him.
The doctor started putting a cast on the arm, taking his time. I could feel the cops around the corner, waiting to take me away on orders from Leon Trout himself. I couldn’t be in THAT much trouble, but I did lack identification and money. That combination could be bad. Very bad.
And then he got to the outer coating...
“Purple, green, blue, or yellow?”
“Got black?”
“We can do a roll of each color and see what happens,” the doctor hypothesized.
“Sure!”
Scientific method. Gotta love it. He started working. He rolled and rolled and rolled, and in the end we didn’t have anything but a colorful mess. He handed me a pamphlet on concussions and broken-arm care, outlined several strategies of recovery, then left, promising to return. Poor bastard. I’d miss him. He seemed all right.
Escape.
Given the approximate rate of return on a leaving doctor, I used trigonometric calculus and the fact that I was poor to conclude I had approximately 12 hours. I had to be quick. I threw on my clothes.
From the door, there was a drugged-out mother, the lady at the reception desk, and a five-year-old. Probably the child of the drugged-out mother. The kid smiled at me. I smiled back. I stepped out and moved for the hall, cautious.
The little girl smiled again. I gestured towards her, and she came over. I took her hand and walked a little down the hall, away from the emergency room towards the outside. We stopped at a candy machine.
“What do you like, kid?”
She laughed. “Candy.”
“Well, yeah. But what kind?”
“I don’t know.” She seemed truly perplexed. Pity. She should know five kinds of candy by now, at least. I popped a buck in from my pants pocket and pulled out something with fruit. Better that than chocolate, I guessed. I forked it over.
“Don’t worry, kid. Mom’s gonna be fine.”
Her eyes went wide. “How did you know about my mom?”
“I’m her angel kid. And I’m telling you. It’s all gonna be okay. Right?”
“Right!” she said, smiling.
“Now go over there, and be VERY good, okay?”
“Okay.”
She walked back, and I never saw her again. Too bad. Her mom probably died, and she’s most likely going to end up selling herself. But that’s life.
There was a taxi outside. The guy looked out, expectant. “You the guy?”
“Yeah,” I said, and got in.
“Where to?”
“Just downtown. A mall.”
I felt bad, but I had to do it. We stopped at the mall bank, and I told the driver to wait outside while I went in and withdrew some money. I walked out the back way and just kept walking. Not so nice a thing to do, but hell, I was desperate.
I looked at all of the things that I couldn’t afford. I looked at the clothes I didn’t want. I checked the bookstores for Charles Bukowski. None. Fuck mall bookstores.
Cops walked around, probably looking for me, but I shed one shirt and laid low. I’m not worth the effort. They soon disappeared.
And then a funny thing happened. I passed an electronics store, and inside, people were crowded to the televisions. Crowded and gazing upon the electronics like the cows they were. Except this...this wasn’t normal.
There were a hundred people in there. A hundred people, just sitting, sitting and gawking. I felt sick to my stomach, but I still had to see what was happening.
Walking over, I saw. I saw.
The World Trade Centers, falling again and again and again. And then I was one of those idiots, for a little while. I must have stood there for an hour or two, watching and wondering.
While I was getting my arm set by the evil nurse, thousands of people were dying. The world is certainly a strange place with absolutely no explanation. Something is definitely, undeterminably weird here.
I, on the other hand, am more than
predictable, and the only thing I could think of was food. I went to the pizza
parlor, ordered a pizza,
So many people dying, and all I could concentrate on was the long term. Ramifications. They were shutting down the airports. I envisioned a future filled with cameras, censorship of comedy, and even less free speech than we had now. With Ashcroft, with that Nazi Bush at the helm of the nation, evoking images of wars past, present and future, I worried a little bit. A little bit. There are more important things, though. Try life, and love.
This kind of war shit has been happening for all of eternity. We can just watch it on a television screen now. And at home. Finally. Someone might realize something.
I saw flags. I saw “patriots”. I saw people, morons beating the crap out of Muslims for what they looked like, and I took the muse’s position. I decided to observe, to chronicle, to fear, but not to take part. And that was all I ever had to do with that thereafter.
CHAPTER TWO: LINDA.
1.
Love, About as Fair as Uncomfortable Silences.
The day
drew on. It got rather dark. I was sort of full. That was a plus. But I had
nowhere to sleep. And I-5? Where the hell was I-5? I
had no idea where I was and no clue how to get back to the northbound road. So
I walked. I walked a ghost town of
My arm hurt. My feet throbbed. My head felt concussed. You really shouldn’t walk on that kind of injury. I realized this, more and more, but that only pushed me into driving myself harder. Poets are like this. All I wanted was some sleep, and even that eluded me. Fame? Hell. Money? Fuck it. But give me some sleep every now and again and I can go forever. And before me? Look! Over here! One more side of the road and one final, eternal darkness.
This is when she entered my life.
It was a nice car. A nice fucking car. Soot black, old, from the fifties. I was never very good with names of cars, but I’ll remember this one until the day I die...Ford Fairlane. It was a fifty-eight Ford Fairlane, tricked out to all hell and almost violated with black paint. Knight Rider had nothing on this bitch. She came roaring up to the sidewalk where I was walking and idled, coasting, keeping pace with me.
The window rolled down, and a female face looked out at me like I was some kind of animal in need of assistance.
“Need a lift?” she asked.
Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed. Not only was the woman at the handle of a fine looking machine and willing, so to speak, to give me a ride, but she was nothing to toy with. She had the leather jacket to match the trick, a tight shirt torn all to hell, punk bracelets, dyed hair, and eyes...
Yeah. I guess you could say, in retrospect, that it was love at first sight. But maybe I should have stuck with the car.
“Mom said I
couldn’t talk to strangers.” I threw out, waving her on. Nice ride, nice chick,
fuck that. Just leave me to my misery.
“You always listen to what
your mother tells you, asshole?” she threw back, then
revved the engine.
Holy crap, holy shit, holy jeans. She was a keeper, at least in the physical sense. One look left me irrevocably turgid.
Well, at least the attitude had promise. I smiled at her, tossed my bag into the backseat, and leapt in. I say leapt, because she kept the car in neutral, gliding on, as I attempted to find purchase. Perhaps a payback for my smart-assedness. A tit for a tat, or a tat for a tit. I didn’t care. I’d have done the same thing. For tits, anyway.
“What’s your name?” she asked, not looking at me.
“Kilgore Trout. And yours?”
“Well, should I give you a fake name too?”
She knew Kurt Vonnegut. Holy cocking fuck bucket shit monkeys.
“Lora, but you can call me Linda if you want to play charades.”
“Madly,” I said.
“That might result in some mimes with broken noses.”
“No. That’s my name. Jake Madly. My real name.”
“That’s a hell of a name.”
“Yours isn’t so bad either. I like Laura.”
“That’s Lora. L-O-R-A,” she corrected. “Less O, but more O, if you know what I mean. Lora Fox.”
“Interesting enough, I suppose,” I supposed.
“So what do you want out of life?” She had the window down, she waved her hand in the breeze. It was getting fucking cold in there.
“What do you care?” I pulled my sweater jacket closer. I could smell the mud in my clothing, but it was better than freezing to it.
“I don’t. Not really.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t
come from
“Neither do I. Do you smoke, Jake Madly?”
“No.”
“Well that’s good. I don’t want anyone smoking in this car.”
“Why?”
“The owner would kill me.”
“Oh.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me who the owner is?” She swerved the car back and forth on the road. I recognized the song on the radio. Blitzkreig Bop. Sucking shitballs.
“No.”
“I stole it!” She then proceeded to stick her pretty, asinine head out the window to emit: “WHOOO!”
It’s a well known fact that the only people who WHOOO are people on game shows, people in high school, or men in the throws of an alcohol induced stupor. I regretted getting in the car with this torrid wench, and considered taking out my pen to stab the upholstery again and again and again when it came to my realization that such an action would not be only irrelevant, considering this was not her car, but also implausible. I’d only just left the hospital. And besides, repetition only works in comedy or literature.
Things got abruptly quiet, and stayed that way for five minutes, so I pulled out my notebook and a pen. My fingers couldn’t hold the device and the bag, and the pen fell. Life with one arm. Get used to it, Madly.
“Fuck!” I smashed my hands on the dashboard. Stupid move. Ever hit the dash of a ’58 Ford Fairlane? It’s hard.
“What?” She pulled her head back in the window and looked at me with that same, piteous fucking look Middle-Class had sported back at ground zero.
“I lost my pen.”
“Oh shit! Oh holy shit! Did I pick up a poet?” Such childish overexaggeration. I liked it.
“Apparently.”
“What are the chances of finding a poet, beaten, broken, and sad, down by the side of the road with a broken arm and a sad look on his face?”
“Pretty damned good, actually.” Idealistic bitch. Maybe I liked her.
She turned her head and looked at me. Not at the road, at me. I mean, that look...there was this sly part of it, kind of hidden. It told me that I had to do a lot for it, but eventually, if I tried hard enough, I would get sex. I love that. It makes a hard life easier.
“Here.” She handed a pen from my bag at me. Definite plus.
And so I wrote.
Mine is an unpleasant writing style, to say the least. Grim and gritty, to the core, in character, and forgiving nothing in the name of honesty. Never does me wrong. I love it. And with this Lora? Already so many assumptions. Perhaps, perchance, a truth in some fiction? But what’s the use of that?
She didn’t say a single thing, didn’t ask a single inane question while I wrote. That’s the unspoken rule that no one’s ever learned...never interrupt a poet when he’s in the middle of something vital.
Only when I’d closed the book and put the pen in my pocket, safely, did she make a noise: “Was it about me?”
“Yes.”
“Can I read it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have to read it to you.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Okay. Please?”
“No.”
“Okay.
“Are you a muse?” I ask, out loud, on accident. Damn. Sentiment. Weakness.
She looked at me with that way again, that sexual way, then smiled and looked forward to the road again. “Hell yes. What did you think I was?”
I laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I just was thinking, I started out the day perfectly happy in a ditch, only to wind up in a car, then possibly chased by the police, then in another car, possibly being chased by the police.”
“You make no sense.”
“Who does?”
“Oh, come on. What happened?”
I related to her the story of Leon Trout and our misadventures at bearing 180.360. She seemed entertained.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes. You got in a car this morning, caused it to flip, escaped from the hospital and took to the interstate. It’s not so difficult to imagine.” Her face pondered: “Where in the world are all the cars?”
I thought about telling her about the Trade Centers. Then didn’t.
“Oooh!” She swerved, sending me into her. The car rocketed over an above, through some grass, and into a restaurant parking lot.
“PANCAKES!”
she bellowed, awfully, driving the black monster into a couple of parking
spots. Out of contempt, I refused to remove myself from her full upright
position until the car had come to a full and complete stop. Good thing the arm
was encased in some kind of evil, unyielding plastic. The head in the soft
underbelly, however, ah, ah, ah...
She
shrugged me off, left the driver’s side door open, and walked towards the front
door.
“Shit.” I lay halfway on the seat. “Haushinka.”
I went from horizontal to vertical, slid out the leather, and walked in to join her. She had a seat in a booth, overlooking the freeway.
“I respect the freeway,” I said, watching the cars pass by. People going somewhere, doing something, maybe not important, but with purpose.
“Aren’t poets supposed to hate technology?”
“A lot of poets are supposed to be a lot of things to a lot of people, but they never seem to be. Besides, I hate everything indiscriminately. Some things just shine every now and again. I respect that. Fool.” She smiled, then her eyes dropped down to the menu, where something consumable awaited her ravenous appetite.
The waitress came over and looked us over in contempt. “Drinks?”
“I’ll take a cola of some kind.”
The waitress turned to Lora. Lora just looked at the menu like a foreign object.
“Drinks?”
“Drinks?” Lora mimicked. “So much crap, so little time.”
I’d been thrown out of too many restaurants, lately, so I just kept shut.
“Do you want me to come back?”
“No.”
Seconds drew on. Moments became instants, instants became micro capsular encapsulars. Things went slowly. Very slowly.
“Do you have almond flavoring?”
“No. Are
you sure you don’t need a few more minutes?”
“Yes.”
And then:
“Bloody Mary.” She slapped the menu down and took her eyes off of it. “And two eggs, over easy, three more scrambled, ten strips of bacon, eight patty sausages, a side order of hash browns, plenty of ketchup, a side of blueberry sauce, a carrot, and the bill.”
Why a carrot?
The waitress furrowed herself, then her brow, wrote in a flurry, took the menus and was off without words.
God. This was starting to hurt. My stomach turned a little bit, not out of hunger, but a hunger, nonetheless.
“Boy. You’re steely.” Lora rolled her eyes.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“Oh. I have to pee.” She rose and walked towards the bathroom.
When she returned, I had a cola and a hard-on. I think she knew about one, maybe not the other. When she sat down, she said, “Oh. You got your cola on the rocks off.”
To this day, I remain confused. “I said, I love you.”
She looked at the table, not glum, just distracted. “I know.”
“I’ve never screwed in a Ford Fairlane.”
Her eyes locked on mine and stayed there. I didn’t move, for fear of being the first human being to spontaneously combust in a restaurant.
The waitress, in the periphery, flipped us both off with her eyes. But I don’t look at the eyes of the hollow. And now, Lora? Well, I didn’t know yet, but I had my hopes.
“You’d never love me once you knew me,” she pointed out.
“Exactly my sentiments. And vice-versa.”
“I’m an animal. I’m not a lady
in any sense of the word.”
“I like animals. They’re brutal enough to know that life is shit. I’m no lady either.”
“No shit. You’re at least half man.”
“I’m a homeless poet.”
“Homeless poets are reassuring to those of us with our heads on backwards.”
“All I do is put that straight. That’s not right. It’s still pretty bullshit.”
“All is pretty bullshit, boy. It all just depends on who’s hustling who.”
“Everyone is hustling everybody.”
“Except when it comes to love.”
“Love is the ultimate hustle, Lora.”
She was quiet. She looked uncomfortable. I’d managed to turn the tables. We broke contact. She looked away into the crowd, embarrassed. So I grabbed her by the chin, turned her to me, and smiled. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m at a loss.” I honestly was. I could kiss her. I could sit and steal bits of her eggs and meat products. “What do you want me to say? I can’t magically predict what you want. I’m not bullshitting you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I said I love you. I meant it.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Yes I do. I know everybody. I’m a poet.”
“What do I hate the most?”
“Men. Your father in particular.”
“What do I like the most?”
“Sex.” I risked. “Sex with strange, exciting, frightening, and wrong men, wrong in every sense of the word.”
“Men like you?”
“No. I’m too nice.”
“What is my age?”
“Twenty. You can’t order a drink legally, but a waitress would bring you one for fear of pissing you off.”
“How many men have I slept with?”
“Ten to fifteen. Most more than three years ago.”
“How many men have I slept with this year?”
“None.”
The waitress brought the food. She placed it, agonizing in her impetuous, slow mannerism, on the table, bit by saturated fat bit. She put the check on the table and vanished. No thanks.
Lora started eating, and I watched. I didn’t have the heart to eat. I’d probably lose it. Quickly.
“You’re right.”
“I know.”
“You listen.”
“Yes.”
“You watch.”
“Yes.”
“No one cares.”
“No.”
“I understand.”
I took a slice of bacon, smiled, and broke it in two. “I do believe you do.”
“Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me you’ll never tell me you love me again.”
I hesitated briefly. But:
“Deal.” I swore, shook her hand like a proper businessman,
and we went out to the car together, running from the waitress. The car tore
rubber and we ended up in the desert somewhere off of
I wanted a drink. I wanted my mother. I wanted to write, and so I did:
When life gives you what you want, always take it
With a grain of sand in the desert,
One can make mock inhibition in ecstasy,
But one cannot watch for the knife in bliss.
CHAPTER THREE:
COITUS AND ROLLER SKATES
1.
Back to the Mud. I Hate You. I Love You. Pizza.
Somewhere
out near
She started stirring around three o’clock in the afternoon. That had some intrinsic reinforcement value.
“Morning, sexy.”
“How are we going to get rid of this thing?” I gestured with my good arm.
“Just leave it, I guess.” She yawned.
“There’s about 3 million miles between me and my chosen destination, and I have no idea whether it jives with yours. We need a car.”
“So?”
“So.”
“So!”
“So.”
So.
“Yeah.” I tapped the door with my good hand. “Mind if I drive?”
“Don’t know. Can I trust you with her?”
“Could the owner?”
“Good point.”
“We’re going to be arrested, you know?” I’d been arrested before, and it wasn’t the best of things.
“Is this some kind of male power thing?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, are you wanting to drive because you’re the man and I’m the woman? You mention prison, and that’s all I can think of. Bull in heat.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked, popping the bitch into drive. “Of course it’s because I’m the man.”
I hit the gas.
“What’s your story?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
And it was true. The less of a mystery I became, the more and more the relationship we had, short
though it had been, would lose its luster. She would think me a loser rather
than a rogue. Obviously a weak person. A co-dependent person. A good ride, but at
what cost?
If
I didn’t watch out, she’d suck me dry in two weeks and I’d never be able to
write a poem again. To hell with that. I need the
money for lecturing tours later, after I’ve destroyed myself but produced
something of value that some three people read.
“Yes, I do.”
“No...you don’t. Promise.”
“Later?”
I was silent.
She leaned over and put her head on my shoulder.
“We’re driving in a stolen car. We’re going to be
arrested.”
“Don’t mock that! Getting arrested can ruin a good day,
especially if they’re homophobes with homosexual fascinations, like sticking
nightsticks up your ass, or beating you straight when you’re not even gay.”
“You’re a party pooper, Madly.”
“I’m a voice of reason.”
“Everybody has to get arrested every now and again.”
“I’d rather not prefer that.”
“Me neither, but what can we do?”
“There’s a town up ahead. Nednyl,
whatever the hell that means.” I pointed at the sign. “We’ll stop
there.”
“You sure? That’s kind of
small.”
“I’m not the one who chose the sore thumb here.”
“It’s a cool sore thumb.”
“Granted.”
I pointed to a large building nearby. “How
about that?”
“What the hell is that?”
I looked closer. Then I smiled. I double-checked, just to
be sure. “It’s perfect.”
And it was...
“...A roller rink!” she shrieked, reaching over for the
wheel and pulling us over.
She ran at life with uncharacteristic aplomb. Now all I
had to do was deal with it without getting run over. It beat loneliness.
Inside there were a lot of DO NOT signs. Really more of a
THOU SHALT type of deal. Inside the place we found a hundred kids, more kids
than one would ever expect to come out of such a piece of shit town where the
major field of study along with the major industry was God.
They pranced around playing little games of love right in
front of me, girls trying to get attention wearing shirts far too tight for their
young, undeveloped chest, boys pretending not to give a tin shit what the hell
these girls were doing. It was enough to get my groove on, enough to feel young
and strong despite good months of solid depression.
Things were really shining up, and I had no clue why. One
would think, given recent terrorist attacks, that the poor fools would be at
home sewing an American flag or praying or some other such numb shit that the
sheep of the world perpetrate and take solace in.
But here we were (translated):
Thou shalt not curse.
Thou shalt not kiss.
Thou shalt not taketh drugs.
Thou shalt not question.
Thou shalt not skateth backward.
Thou shalt not keep thine hands not to thine own self.
Thou shalt only walk,
Thou shalt only skate.
Well hell. You don’t hear enough of that. Why not?
At the front desk, Lora pulled a wad of bills out of her
purse. And even that failed, seeing that with the last of my money included we
were 23 cents short.
The owner of the place was a smiling man, a man with
wrinkles, a white beard, and some age on him. Obviously some
religion, too. I felt for the poor bastard. Seems he felt for us, too.
He looked at us. I looked at the sign on the wall
(translated):
Thou shalt be properly attired at all times.
Thy clothing shalt not be deemed offensive, or thou shalt
be given the boot.
But still, he smiled.
“Are you in love?” he asked me, looking at the two of us.
“In a manner of speaking. Yes.
Sure. Why not?”
She looked at me like I’d shit a grapefruit, but the old
man respected and admired my answer. “Okay, kids. Well then, I’ve got to pay
the love tax. It’s a state law that any couple that come in here obviously in
love gets in 23 cents cheaper than the rest of the crowd, kay? But remember,
this only applies on September 12th, so don’t push your luck coming in here
tomorrow asking for charity.”
I smiled. I didn’t want his charity, but I needed his
spirit. He waved us towards the skate counter, and I accepted the hand that
Lora slipped through my elbow. Female instant forgiveness.
We pranced together, watching the goons commingle and accept each other as
untouchable members of the middle school experience.
There were piles of clothes everywhere, on benches, under
them, on seats, against the wall, on the skate counter. Any
and all of these belongings, ours for the taking. Surely, in a community
this small and this rich, some of these kids were carrying forty, sixty, a
hundred bucks for their one night on the town this week...the one night they
might not be attending church or subjecting themselves to school’s
indoctrination.
“Be good.” I turned just in time to see the old man, arms folded watching me, wink.
“I will,” I promised. And I would. For twenty-three cents
under the right circumstances, you can bet your ass that I would forsake a
hundred bucks. Hell, given any situation, you might find me forsaking a hundred
bucks. But that’s just the nature of my beast. I hate money. I hate class. I
hate places like this.
I feel like Buk attending a concert, with all of these
rich morons around him, but shit, man, there’s a symphony going on, and besides
that, there’s the girl. And what a girl.
“You coming or not?” She already
had her skates.
“Size?” A matronly veteran of a
sixteen-year-old asked me.
“Ten and a half.” I plopped down
my holed sneakers. “Shaken, not stirred, please.”
“We don’t do half sizes.”
Now there’s a dilemma. Go small and get blisters. Go
large and fall a lot because of control issues. At least, that’s how I
remembered it from when I was just a kid. Long, long ago, before women, before
poetry.
But I hate control issues. “10.”
Over the rink, it was the couple skate. A good-looking
young lady was hugging her good-looking young man, she skating backwards, he
skating forwards. It was cute enough to make me sick. Almost.
And here, my own lady waited for me at the gate while I
laced up, like I could skate or anything. I was the master of falling, the
laughed-at kid. The one who always got the bigger size and on
the way to the rink landed on his ass. The kid who
sprained his ankle. The kid who requested a certain song from the DJ,
again and again, and got straight cold ignored.
I laced. I hobbled to the rink. It was just like I
remembered it. The balance was off, skating damn near impossible, ice a feared
enemy. Or synthetic ice. Or
whatever.
“Catch me if you can!” Lora giggled and took off. An obvious pro skater. Just my luck.
I used to ollie on a skateboard, but never learned to
roller skate. Just my life.
That aside, my broken arm felt like an anchor at my side.
I lacked balance. I lacked coordination. Keeping both arms tucked in helped.
I tried, tentatively, to creep out onto the ice. I went
too fast at first, and I almost fell onto the floor. My arms pin-wheeled, and I
could hear little sprite fuckers laughing at my apparent lack of progress,
despite my age. It must have been comical, given the cast. I lurched forward
again, holding my arms out and leaning forward a little more. And a little more.
I began putting my feet out to the sides instead of
panicking. I began to pick up a little speed. I hit the first curve,
pin-wheeled, almost fell again. More laughter.
The distinct advantage of age over youth is learning from
one’s mistakes. When I was five years old, the idea of a hardball coming at my
head was a frightening one, the idea of life without mother and father an
equally frightening prospect. Terrific. Drugs were
insanity, cops the law, and from five until fifteen, I couldn’t do the easiest
things...even skate. A perfect failure complex devised from perfect failures.
Then, entering and dropping out of high school, I developed. I caught the
hardball, and I threw it back harder. I left home and found that I could
survive perfectly well. I tried drugs. I lived insanity, madly. And the cops
were the renegades. Skating, now, in retrospect, is child play.
I began to pick up speed even more, to push myself a
little. My feet strayed farther out. My upper calf started to burn in the worst
and best way. The lights on the floor confused me a little bit, but the spirit
compelled me farther, faster, harder. I started getting smoother; I started
feeling the floor, developing a rapport.
Lora came up. I passed her. I began taking the longer way
around the rink and lapping her. Even the Backstreet Boys sounded good, so help
me God, and I really need a so help me God for that one. She coasted about,
tiring. I pushed. I pushed. I pushed. And I skated. I was skating. Where there
was laughter, there was now respect. I got admiring looks from
fourteen-year-old girls, and looks of challenge from their respective youthful
counterparts. Poor bastards. Don’t they realize the
girls go for the assholes, the guys with more talent? They ignore the fools who
cannot skate. Tough but true.
Lora came up behind me, latching onto my elbow like before.
I felt funky, lost, happy. I’d had a moment alone
after 24 hours with a complete stranger on the run from the law, and my
thoughts were more together, my hope more or less intact. I could take her now
with a grain of respect.
We were both exhausted, this much was evident. I handled
it a little better. She was more flamboyant.
“Shit,” she said, “I haven’t done that in a while.”
“Thou shalt not curse,” I pointed out. She looked, and
almost fell.
“You gotta keep speed,” I said. Then I shut up. I hate
assholes who tell you how to do things. You have to figure it out on your own.
“You’re one to talk. What’d you do, fall a couple million
times before you remembered how to skate?”
“I never learned how to skate.”
“Apparently. Keep up, fuckwad.”
She shoved me off.
The girl called me fuckwad. I hate her. Maybe I’m in love
with her. Ah, shit.
Besides, she was holding it in. From then on, I couldn’t
keep up with her, no matter how hard I tried. She had conned me. That brought
doubt into my mind where hope was, sure, but also a sense of begrudging
respect, a feeling of knowledge.
I grew a blister trying to keep up with her. She knocked
herself out and down with exhaustion. We both ended up standing on our
respective asses in front of the water fountain, trying to raid this piece of
shit town of its irrigation.
We failed.
2.
An Encounter with Nednyl’s Finest.
Sitting at the bench, a few minutes later, she lowered
her eyelids a bit to make the bedroom eyes, looked at me like I was going out
of style, and yet in malice, and licked her lips: “You know, Jake. I think,
given the benefit of the doubt, one could logically call this a romantic
situation.”
“Fair enough. But remember...I
don’t love you.”
“Never
say I love you. That’s right.”
The old man came over with a box in his hands. “You kids bein’ good?”
“Just like you told us to,” I said. “You’ve got a great
place here.”
“Thanks.” He put the box on the table. “You guys hungry?”
“Why?” From me.
“You just look hungry.”
But it was true. We looked hungry. Shit stained. Dead. Passing beyond civilized.
“I don’t know about him, but I’m hungry.” Lora eyed the
box.
“Well, I figured you guys might as well take this. It was
just going to get thrown away anyway.” He pointed to the box, then added a declarative: “Pizza.”
“Thanks!” I pulled the box towards my chest, opened it,
and handed half to Lora. The old guy sat down, pulled up a plastic chair. “You
guys okay? I mean, do you have a place to stay tonight?”
Lora started to talk, but I put my foot on hers and gently
applied pressure. She clammed. “Oh yeah. We’re just
passing through. My brother lives in the next town up, and I’m going to spend
the night there, then straight on to
“
“Yep.”
“All right. Well either way, God
Bless, and be safe, son.”
“Agreed.” I didn’t have the
heart to tell him I didn’t believe, and that would be a hard enough subject to
broach with Lora without the aid of a facilitated admission. She stomped back. Hard. I bit my pizza. He walked off with a rag.
He could have asked me the name of the next town, and I
would have been fucked. He didn’t. Good man.
We walked out into the parking lot, where the Fairlane
sat, surrounded by officers. I looked back, through the windows, to the man
behind the counter. His face expressed surprise. He hadn’t called. Someone else
had. Or maybe the pigs just happened upon it, in the natural course of things.
Lora looked at me. She reached into her pocket and pulled
out a pad. Opened it. Inside was poetry, small. Looked rhyming. She took a page, wrote some contact
information on it, and ripped it out, handing it to me. Then she looked at the
rink with her eyes, kind of telling me to go back inside. I just walked back to
the wall to watch.
She ran up to the cops, screaming and kicking. “YOU SONS
A BITCHES! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY CAR! THIS IS MY FAIRLANE, YOU CUM
MASTERS!”
Jesus Christ, I thought, is this Linda?
“PIG MOTHERFUCKERS! DIE! I’LL
KILL YOU ALL AND MAKE YOU SWILL YOUR OWN VOMIT, YOU WORTHLESS THIEVES OF
FREEDOM!”
They had to mace her to get her down, but then she was
screaming something about how she’d been traveling alone, minding her own
business.
Another stereotype, cardboard woman falls out of my life
before I get the chance to know her. What am I, Hemingway alive?
Well, after they carted her and the Fairlane off, I
started walking north again. Not much of a change from before, actually, but
the moon was out, and I could see a little better. Just around three-thirty in
the morning I found a nice little ditch and crawled into it. It was cold, sure,
but not horrible, and it was where I wanted to be.
I looked at the piece of paper.
I closed my eyes and thought about her. I swore to make
her a character, then throw the paper away and never see her again.
I started, then sat up. Shit.
My poetry notebook was in her Fairlane.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
I turned the contact information over. Scrawled in ink, a
piece of poem:
Madly, Madly, Madly,
The archetype of my life:
I love you.
What a horrible, horrible, cheesy, worthless, horrible,
horrible line that proved absolutely, horribly nothing!
Getting to her was going to be a real pain in the ass.