The Nirvana Blues

by John Nichols

  “I won’t. It’s all right, Diana. It’s over.”

  A tear seeped from the corner of that tough little cookie’s tightly shut eye.

  “I’m really sorry.” The sensation for Joe was of having violated something truly precious. “If I had known … but I couldn’t tell from the way you act. You seem so tough.”

  A wry grin broke through her tears. “That’s me: the toughest scared-shitless kid on the block.”

  “Have you made love much?”

  “Are you kidding? I hate it. Now I’m going to live in terror until I get my period.” Sitting up, she reached into a wrinkled paper bag and removed a bottle of Maalox.

  “I didn’t come. Honest.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s like, if I got pregnant, I know I wouldn’t have the guts for an abortion. But I couldn’t stand to have a kid, either. I don’t ever want children. I don’t like any things you can get attached to. As soon as you start loving something, it gets taken away, or it dies.”

  “That’s not always true.”

  “It’s true enough.” She unscrewed the Maalox and guzzled down a generous amount.

  Joe said, “If you don’t want kids, I mean, this is the modern age—there’s a million styles of contraception. Rubbers for me, diaphragms, the pill, foam, an IUD.”

  “Everything you mentioned for me, except the diaphragm, is dangerous or detrimental. And with a diaphragm, you never know.”

  “Haven’t you ever enjoyed making love? Or just being in a relationship?”

  “I don’t know. Once or twice maybe. But it always falls apart. I don’t know how to handle love or make it work out. I’m not tough enough. They always wind up exasperated, beat the stuffings out of me, and take off. Now I don’t really want anything with any kind of so-called love in it. Because love is a bum rap. All love means is sooner or later I’m gonna get it. I thought you were going to beat me up and rape me tonight.”

  “Never.”

  “They always say ‘never.’ If I hadn’t given you a green light, you would have wanted to kill me.”

  Not him, he was different. Joe had a brief fantasy: He would tame this hardened child, teach her to make love voluptuously, look forward to it, adore her own body … they’d make a child. Blossoming into a rare beauty, she would come to cherish and revere him with a loyalty and trust he had never known.

  (For the purposes of the fantasy, he would forget that to cultivate her into such a superlative being he would have to abandon a loving wife and two beautiful children who’d cling frantically to his clothing like kittens about to be drowned as he left them!)

  Rousing himself, Joe wandered barefoot into the back field, and took forever urinating, his head thrown back, admiring the stars. How could so few, who had so much, be so miserable? The sky was so clear he could almost hear the constellations sizzling. Diana Clayman was beautiful, healthy, sexy, intelligent, and a basket case. Bright moonlight on the mountainsides defined each individual pine tree; the silvery sheen on their branches made it appear as if a warm summer snow had frosted the somnolent hills.

  Back in the tent, when he stretched out beside Diana, something hard and uncomfortable lodged against his back. Reaching underneath the blankets, a bathrobe, and some clothing, Joe latched on to a revolver, a six-shot, double-action, .22 pistol. It was loaded.

  “This is your gun?”

  “I always carry a weapon. I don’t think I would be afraid to use it.”

  Joe inspected the piece, frightened by it.

  “I’m the only guy in this town I know who doesn’t own a gun,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe I’m the only person in America without a piece. But please don’t tell anybody.”

  “Why not?”

  “I guess because then, if the word gets around, a whole bunch of robbers, muggers, and other assorted riffraff will lay siege to my house, knowing I couldn’t kill them.”

  “Why don’t you have a gun?”

  “I’m scared. I doubt I could shoot somebody, even if my life depended on it. I figure, too, that if they know I have a gun they’ll come after me with guns. Beyond that, one of my kids could find the pistol and accidentally blow his or her brains out. Heidi and I might have a terrible fight and in a single insane moment of emotional uproar one of us might grab the betsy and do a job on the other. Finally, every now and then I sink into almost suicidal depressions, and that’s no time to have a weapon handy.”

  She hugged him. “If you’re going to be in the cocaine racket, you better learn to carry a gun.”

  “I keep three large stones under the table beside the bed,” Joe said sleepily. “I can throw very accurately.”

  Diana murmured and began drifting. Unable to dehorn himself while pressed against her, Joe rolled away, tucked up his knees, and awaited sleep. Instead, he barely sagged under the surface and was accosted by unnerving dreams: lyrical, sexual, unintelligible. Little sparrows flitted through his hands, but he couldn’t grab them. Sometimes his fingertips touched their feathers. Diana was a business secretary in a typical office. Joe traipsed in and out, seeing her about indeterminate things. Eventually, he summoned enough nerve to touch her: she didn’t mind. Then he lured her outside, onto a stairwell landing, and awkwardly hugged her, intensely conscious of great feelings of love.

  When he surfaced his heart was pounding uncontrollably. He was covered with goosebumps and unable to breathe. Carefully, on all fours he crawled outside. Chilly night air reinforced the goosebumps. Stepping awkwardly over pebbles and twigs, terrified he would awaken Eloy’s flocks, Joe reached the truck, located a bottle of auxiliary pills in the glove compartment, popped two, and returned to the tent. Until his breathing returned to normal, he sat upright, willing himself to calm down.

  The bottom line in all of this was that he had no idea how to cope with sexual freedom. After twenty years of avidly (and surreptitiously) thumbing through Playboy, Joe was no closer to understanding from where those jocks, studs, and slimebags derived their smug self-assurance. Hadn’t he longingly daydreamed a million times about strolling through life with a pipe in his mouth, a superior sneer, and a bevy of Lainie Kazans and Jayne Mansfields clinging to his muscular arms? “Buenos días, Heff, how’s it going? I was just down in the sauna balling Miss October. Now I’m headed for the solarium where Miss July and Miss December are waiting. Why hello there, Miss February … what’s that? Sure, be delighted … I can probably fit you in right after five … eh? Oh, of course, by all means, bring your whips. Say, Heff, loan me a little of your Borkum Riff, would you?—I’m all out. Thanks. And by the way, could you give me a lift to the Cannes Film Festival in the Big Bunny—you can? Swell. Bye-bye…”

  Puerile fantasy! And one that had competed with another heavy daydream also featuring himself, although this time as a balding and toothless, yet dignified old bloke posing respectfully beside a seventy-eight-year-old Heidi for their golden-wedding-anniversary photograph. Despite his years, Joe positively glowed with health and pride, having just returned from Oslo after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. He had earned it for his distinguished career as a world-renowned radical leader who, after seventeen years of heroic sacrifice with a small band of faithful radicals high in the Rocky Mountains, had descended onto the Great Plains, leading America through the fantastic upheaval that had established an egalitarian Marxist-Leninist State which had finally created liberty and justice for all. History had appointed Miniver, at long last, to select a governing junta made up of women, blacks, Chicanos, Catholics, and Puerto Ricans! His name was more revered than that of Castro, Allende, Camilo Torres, Luis Turcios-Lima, Eugene Debs, Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon, and Ernest Hemingway. And all because of an exemplary life in which he had been a model husband and father, a tireless revolutionary, a compassionate humanitarian, a nonsexist, nonchauvinistic, totally unselfish (not to mention visionary) human being.

  Diana twitched, emitting little squeaks and groans. Joe thought about his family. No doubt Heather had already moved in to sleep with He
idi—she always did whenever Joe spent a night away from home. Heather needed a bed the size of a football field to sleep on, she thrashed about that much. She never bothered Heidi, though: his wife loved to cuddle, she enjoyed Heather’s octopus appendages flung around her. The few times Joe had let Heather sleep with him when Heidi was elsewhere had been dramatic failures. In her sleep, she would literally kick him out of bed. Relentlessly, he kept shoving her away. But two minutes later she would return, grinding her teeth, elbowing him in the ribs, kicking him in the balls. In exasperation, at 3:00 A.M., Joe would end the experiment by carting her back to her own bed, shaking her awake, and ordering her never to sleep with him again.

  Seated upright, Joe reflected on things almost until dawn. He felt so sad, tragic, beautiful. He tried to think about selfishness, narcissism, lust, the general preoccupation with narcotics, and the absurd difficulty of buying land and a house. Then he nestled beside Diana, quietly circled his arms protectively about her, and fell asleep vying for the title of Loneliest Man On Earth.

  4

  TUESDAY

  Six at the beginning means:

  He gets his tail in the water.

  Humiliating.

  “Hey, Dad,” Michael shouted. “Are you in there?”

  Diana tapped his shoulder, blew softly in his ear. “Your kid’s calling, Joe. Hey, meshuggeneh, wake up.…”

  “Mrmph?” Joe opened one eye, disoriented. Then, as the gist of her message sank in, he awoke, alarmed. “Who? Which one?”

  “I think his name is Michael.”

  Hoarsely, Joe called, “Hello?”

  Michael said, “Hi, Daddy.”

  “What time is it?” Joe groped in the refuse for his Timex. “Where’s my reloj?” he grumbled. And in a louder voice: “Michael, how come you ain’t in school?”

  “We’re going. But my bike got a flat tire. Those two dogs charged us, and we had a crack-up in the ditch. I don’t know how it happened, but the tire is flat.”

  Would he ever, in his life, know the luxury of sleeping late? It seemed there hadn’t been a single day, in the last thirty-eight years. when he had not been summarily aroused by alarm clocks, parents, or kids long before the sun had even halfway accosted the eastern horizon. If they got divorced instead of buying Eloy’s land, Joe thought, then while his share of the coke boodle allowed for inactivity he’d make it a point to sleep until noon!

  “What’s the matter with the bus?” Locating the watch, he fumbled to attach it.

  “We missed it,” Michael admitted, without bothering to lay on much contrition. Heather added, “Mommy had an eight o’clock appointment with Nikita Smatterling.”

  “Is that Heather out there with you?” Joe gravely pulled on socks, then buttoned up his shirt.

  “Who didja think he meant when he said ‘we’?” Heather’s snotty voice asked.

  Joe grimaced at Diana and gestured comically: See what I have to put up with every day? Ain’t you lucky—you’re single!

  “Who are you in there with?” Heather added.

  “None of your business. A friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Hey, Heather—” Joe tugged on a sneaker and fumbled with the laces. “Do me a favor, don’t worry about it. You got time enough to be a yentah when you grow up.”

  “Are you in there with ‘her’?”

  “I mean it,” Joe threatened. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  Michael asked nervously, “Are you gonna give us a ride?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Joe leaned over, kissing Diana good-bye. “Only this is the last time I ever give you two slobs a lift when you miss the bus, y’unnerstand? I’m sick and tired of your inability to dress, eat, and get out the door in the morning. It’s very inconsiderate to me and your mom.…”

  His standard rap, one he’d recited, almost without variation, ever since Michael metamorphosed into a professional lollygagger five years ago. Did they even hear it now?

  Heather complained, “It wasn’t my fault we missed the bus.”

  Michael begged to differ. “Yes it was. If you would’ve just eaten your Cocoa Puffs faster we would of gotten out there in plenty of time.”

  “Cocoa Puffs?” Joe howled.

  Heather’s self-righteous goody-goody smarmy-bitch voice answered: “Mommy bought us a box yesterday.”

  Holy Toledo! Absent two days, and the entire moral structure of the family collapsed! “How could she do something like that?” Joe turned away from Diana, facing the tent flap like a Christian about to confront the arena. “She knows I don’t allow that poison in the house. Each box contains a grand total of five thousand calories and one vitamin. You eat that stuff you’ll die of malnutrition in a week!”

  “They’re neat,” Heather teased. “I’m glad you don’t live with us anymore. Mommy said if we’re good she’s gonna get us some Nestlé chocolate tomorrow.”

  “If she does, I’ll murder her!” Touching Diana’s thigh good-bye, Joe plunged into the sunshine. “She knows damn well we’re supporting the Nestlé boycott, and why!”

  Both kids were a mess. Michael’s shirt was filthy; his knobby knees poked through shredded bluejean fabric; he wore one blue and one red sock; and mud-caked sneakers. Heather’s pink jumpsuit seemed to have been laundered in vomit; 2,001 knots decorated her frayed laces. Obviously, during these past traumatic days, they had blown the laundry run. With heartrending vividness, Joe pictured the kids scrabbling madly through the hamper, searching for something—anything—to wear. Why was it the children of rich folks always looked like ragamuffins, whereas poor kids always seemed spick-and-span?

  Neatly wetted down, except for the cowlick, Michael’s hair, at least, toed the line. Tied by fluorescent green yarn, Heather’s locks hung in dual ponytails. They both chewed gum.

  Gum? “Where’d you get that gum?”

  Heather shot right back: “It’s Trident, Daddy. It’s sugarless, and you allow us to have that.”

  “It better be Trident. Because if it isn’t—” Then he noticed Heather’s grotesque fingernails and gagged. She had Magic Markered them every color in the rainbow. Joe bawled, “What in Christ’s name did you do to your fingernails?”

  Heather pouted, inspecting her hands. “Get off my case, Pop.”

  “What are you trying to do, grow up to be the dreamboat of every male chauvinist pig in America? When are you gonna learn to play soccer? Next thing, it’ll be Barbie and Ken dolls!”

  “All my friends say my fingernails look pretty.”

  “All your friends got their taste in their assholes. Now come on. Leave the bike here, Michael, we’re already late.”

  Eloy Irribarren was seated in a sunshine-flooded chair beside his door, smoking a cigarette. He waved. “Buenos días.”

  “Can’t stop, Eloy. Gotta rush the kids to school—they’re late.”

  “I’m gonna turn over my garden today,” the old man called. “This is perfect weather.”

  My garden? Joe’s heart sank. Maybe on his way back from school he should stop at the county sheriff’s office and beg one of those irresponsible thugs to drive over on Monday morning two minutes after the closing to evict the old man (and his dying dog, and his dying horse, and the rest of his ancient barnyard charges) before Eloy got the impression Joe was a soft touch who’d let him and his herds, flocks, and gaggles stick around ad infinitum.

  Even contemplating a move that vulgar gave Joe the willies. Every winter newspaper across the nation published gruesome stories about how a ninety-year-old woman named Mildred Polinski, living alone and on welfare, froze to death during a cold snap because the landlord kicked her out, or the gas company turned off her supply. This summer, AP and UPI would run stories featuring Joe Miniver, the Beast of Chamisaville, who kicked a sick, eighty-three-year-old man off his property. And that man (a member of an oft-exploited minority group) was found two days later in a ditch, dead of (a broken heart and) exposure. Militant Chicanos (allied with AIM, the SCLC, and the NAACP) wou
ld publish Joe’s mug shot in all their newspapers: “Here’s the honky who done it, bros!” When the Socialist revolution triumphed, his photograph (or wax replica) would be installed in the Bigots Hall of Fame, along with George Wallace, Sheriff Rainey, and George Lincoln Rockwell.

  “Hey,” Heather exclaimed, “there’s a note on your windshield.”

  “I’m not blind, I’ve got eyes.” There were two notes, actually: Joe stuffed them into his pocket without taking a peek.

  In a hurry?—trust the Green Gorilla not to start. It had not been cold last night, but that made no nevermind with the cantankerous vehicle. If even a slightly chill mist had settled on the hood, Joe was in trouble.

  He cranked over the engine for a minute—the battery immediately threatened to conk out, so he swung into phase two. Locating a can of Quik Start in the glove compartment, Joe banged open the hood, removed the air cleaner, gave the carburetor a double squirt of the pressurized ether, jumped into the truck, and she coughed right up. He depressed the accelerator for a moment, warming it up, then tumbled out, replaced the air filter, slammed down the hood, returned to the truck, and only then remembered that he had no reverse.

  Heather cared little if she never got to school. But Michael nervously twitched his fingers and licked his lips. Little sores festered around his mouth; everybody always cautioned him not to lick his lips. Of course, the more you asked him not to, the more self-conscious he grew, and the sores multiplied.