I say: So you’ve been hanging around with Scott?
He says: See that cloud swirling up there?
He says: Man, rain’s really starting to come down.
I say: Maybe you should slow it down a bit.
The sky is grey, the rain blowing sideways in sheets, and when I look over to inspect the odometer, the needle’s stuck at 90.
I say: Pleeeeeeease. Sloooooooow. Doooooooown.
I say: How can you even fucking see?
He says: You’ll be all right. You always are, aren’t you?
I say: Just slow the fuck down, okay?
He slows down just a smidge.
I notice some blood on his shirt, shape of Florida, as a semi passes, all headlights and weight, one unhealthy motherfucker behind the wheel, skulking roadways for something to do come nightfall.
I say: What’s on your shirt?
I say: Is that blood on your shirt?
He says: Listen.
He says: I thought I already told you.
He says: I haven’t been hanging around with Scott, all right?
I nod and slide down into my seat, lighting a cigarette, alone, hoping the sky changes to pink to orange to light. But the storm only thickens, and a couple times I feel the truck hydroplane beneath me, all four tires skipping over the water like eroded stones — and I don’t even know where we’re going.
Therapy
When I was twelve or thirteen my parents made me see a lady, a black woman named Sarah, because they thought I was dangerous. I guess it was true. I was constantly getting into fights, I never fit in with anybody, and when it came to defense, I couldn’t control myself once I got started. The thing is: my folks were afraid I’d kill somebody someday. Me? I couldn’t kill anybody, not on purpose. I don’t know how many times I tried telling them that, but they wouldn’t listen. The whole time I was in counseling with this lady I never said a word, except maybe hi and bye. Otherwise I just sat there in silence, a respectful void between us. She was so patient with me. She’d just stare at me and wait until I felt comfortable enough to say something. I never felt comfortable. I went to see her every other week for a few months, and in all that time, we both materialized patience within one another unlike anything I’ve witnessed since. Even though I never talked to her, or very little, she helped me. I stopped hurting people, stopped fighting back when I was taunted. I took the abuse and turned it inward. I began hating myself instead of others. Then puberty came on like a plague. I started taking Prozac and listening to music that reflected my feelings through its feedback. I hid further inside myself, deeper in my guts, because I knew it would be nearly impossible for anybody to find me there. I felt comfortable in this sadness, alone, deep down in the void of myself, laid out on top of pitiful pillows in a dirty bedroom, where I never found any kind of useful sleep or even rest from the misery of being me.
Indian
My brother’s skinny friend, the Seminole who took PCP in my basement the night the redheaded dude showed us his shins, was always coming over late at night, sneaking in with a backpack full of booze, DVDs, CDs, and random magazines, and we’d all sit around drinking and sampling music, watching a mute TV screen full of fucked and flickering images. Movies: David Lynch, Harmony Korine, Werner Herzog, and David Cronenberg. Music videos: Richard Kern, The Nine Inch Nails VHS called Closure. Old Betty Page peep-show shit, a three-disc set, and serial killer documentaries on A&E. We’d listen to Pigface and KMFDM and Nick Cave and Ssab Songs and My Bloody Valentine and Leadbelly and Joy Division. We’d lower our faces and glower, knowing even with all of our combined musical ambitions and artistic visions we could never possibly dream of being so good. Different, yes, but come on, we were dealing with the greats here, weren’t we, and we barely had the right kind of equipment to get going on a cover song, let alone an original. Besides, my brother traded my guitar for an eight ball of meth, and he was nearly into his second week of no sleep, concocting ideas for all the songs he would write after he got his hands on another, “cooler” instrument. What about a bass? Seriously, what if I got a bass?
~ ~ ~
Fossils
I’m in my crib, screaming my little head off. It’s dark. Shadows are sneaking in through the window. I’m reaching out from my crib, standing. If I reach any farther, I’ll surely fall, but I don’t know that, it’s only a feeling. I can hear music that sounds spooky, voices that rasp and graze at my ears, little clips of dialogue. My mom peeks in the door, asks me to quiet down: Just lie back down, sweetie, and go to bed. The door closes. I stop shouting, but I’m left in the dark, still reaching out, and now the rose bush is scratching against the window. It sounds like a creaky door opening and closing, opening and closing. The shadows look like arms. I can see the dinosaurs on the wallpaper. I imagine them coming to life. I lie down and stare. I stare at the ceiling. And I think: The dinosaurs are coming to life — they’re coming to life. But I don’t think in vocabulary, it’s only a feeling. I should be scared. I’m not scared. I start laughing silently. I can’t stop. I still hear it. I’m trying to wake the world with it, and I’m not even making a sound, not a peep, it’s all inward, hidden away inside of me, a vacuum.
Hitler’s Mustache
Denise hadn’t even been at Maize High three months when the rumors began. I was in a mandatory physical education class, second period, the first time I saw her. She was in the class right after mine and we brushed shoulders in the hallway a few times. She was pretty enough, I’d say, with long wood-burnt hair down her back in waves and an olive complexion like a Greek. She was in the middle ground on fashion which told me all I needed to know about her life at home. I was in the same boat myself. My parents never could afford to make me a popular walkabout with their conservative clothing purchases. It’s like my dad used to say, You take what you can get. Then later, when you’re all grown-up, you’ll thank god you didn’t have enough.
It was after gym when Denise came walking by and tried talking with Joe Donnelly. Joe gave her the cold shoulder and said, Oh, wait, do I know you? Quick as machinery Denise sniffed her face into her head, sucked back her tears, washing away the few nice memories of the boy, and wiped her nose on her puke-tan cardigan. She looked suicidal, really. I tried to say something, apologize for Joe, but nothing came to me. If her head wasn’t destined for a noose, I thought, it surely is now. I felt rotten. But her hurt had no effect on Joe. In fact, he just kept walking — strutting, really. He left her in the dust, a backdrop — and, shamefully, so did I.
That was fucked, man. I had to pause a moment, process my guts. Jesus, I said, that’s just plain fucked-up, dude.
Joe laughed. Yeah, he said. It’s whatever, man. She’s old news. I banged her a week ago, right up against my dad’s T-bird. Pretty decent, but I’m through with her now — old news. He flexed his muscles, had a peek at those few smallish lumps before slinging his letter jacket up and around his shoulders. He laughed. Dude, that chick doesn’t know the first thing about grooming. Now, me, myself, I like it when it’s sheared. And usually, he said, stabbing both thumbs into his chest, in my experience, these chicks keep it that way, ready. But she doesn’t know the first thing about it. He paused, tightened some curls around his index finger, face puzzled, scrunched and abstracted by memory. It was like…like…it was like Hitler’s mustache or something. I swear to god, dude — I’ve never seen anything like it, he said. He shook his head and laughed a cold minute straight. And then he hushed into slow silence when he saw his girlfriend, Blaire Shepherd, crossing over from the bathroom to greet us.