by William Poe
Axl rested his guitar against the wall and rose to his feet. He was thin but with taut muscles.
“Hey, dude,” Axl said with Ernie’s voice. “Have we met?”
“Not in this life,” I said, trying to remember the date Ernie had overdosed. Was it before this kid was born? Was Ernie looking at me from behind those eyes?
“How old are you?” I asked.
Axl shyly cast his gaze downward and said, “Seventeen.”
Close, but it couldn’t be—Axl was a baby when Ernie died.
Rudy put a chubby hand on my shoulder and said, “This boy needs a daddy.” With that, he left the room, shutting the door behind him.
“Want to do some coke?” I asked, seeing no point in small talk.
When Axl grinned, dimples appeared beside his curling lips. If he wasn’t Ernie, he was a Greek kouros.
“Rudy didn’t say you were into drugs,” Axl said, barely able to contain his glee. “I figured he was fixing me up with one of those trolls at the bar. You’re cool, man. You’re all right.”
I handed Axl a paper of drugs.
“Damn man! You are all right,” he gushed.
“Here, I have some ready to go.” I took out my bottle and loaded the chamber.
“You come prepared, don’t you?” Axl snorted the hit, then loaded the chamber and did another. “Wow. This is pure!”
“As pure as anyone gets in Hollywood,” I said. Axl’s eyes filled with instant devotion. He gathered his belongings, while I helped myself to a few hits. Setting a gym bag on the bed, he took out a spoon, a lighter, and a short glass stem that I had seen hustlers use to smoke coke.
“You don’t care if I rock it up, do you?”
I didn’t know much about the process, but I knew it required baking soda. “You don’t have everything you need, do you?”
“You’re right.” Axl considered the problem for a moment. “Can you go to the kitchen and get some baking soda? There’s a box in the refrigerator. Say you want a beer or something. Bring back a pinch, like about this much.” He used his index finger as a measure.
Rudy and Charlotte were sitting on the couch with Lane, watching a rented video. “You got a couple of beers that I can bum?”
“In the fridge,” Rudy said, his eyes on the TV. “Getting some action in there?”
“Something like that,” I answered. I went into the kitchen, took two cans of beer from the fridge, and poured a pile of baking soda into the palm of my hand.
Axl sat on the edge of the bed, holding his spoon. He had also taken off his gym shorts and covered himself with the sheet. On the side table was a glass of water from the bathroom.
“Put the rest on the dresser,” Axl said as he took some baking soda from my hand.
Axl mixed the ingredients in the spoon. I watched intently as he heated it with his cigarette lighter. After a few moments, Axl set down the lighter and tapped the spoon with his finger. The mixture coalesced into rock.
“Not much of a chemistry set, but it works,” Axl said, grinning at his success. He sifted the excess water from the spoon using his finger as a sieve. Then he dumped the rock onto the sheet to dry it off.
“I used too much baking soda,” Axl said as the rock broke into crumbs. “It’ll be harsh on the throat, but it’ll get us high. You want to join me, don’t you?”
“No thanks,” I said. “Snorting does me just fine.”
“Doesn’t it make your nose bleed?”
“Every once in a while. But I like the drainage when it pours down the back of my throat.”
“I know what you mean,” Axl said.
Axl was so young that the fuzz on his cheeks was like dust covering his deep tan. His chest was hairless. His entire torso was without blemish. Aware of my examination, Axl’s nipples grew hard. Goose pimples popped up around the edges.
I did a line while Axl prepared his pipe. I’d seen hustlers do it before, using a length of coat-hanger wire to push a wad of metal scouring pad back and forth through the tube to clear off any residue that had built up.
The drugs hit me hard. Sweat dripped from my forehead.
“Hey man, take off some of your clothes and cool off.”
I didn’t need any more encouragement than that. I stripped to my briefs.
“You got a nice body,” Axl said.
“Not really. Look at this.” I pinched some flesh off my stomach.
“Ah, that’s just because you’re sitting down,” Axl said. “Stand up.”
I stood up, facing Axl.
“Yeah, see, you’re trim.” Axl pinched the front of my briefs. “What’s this?” he asked playfully, pulling the elastic band forward and hooking it under my balls.
“At attention, sir,” Axl commanded, leaning forward to gobble me up.
His mouth made a loud pop as he pulled away. “How’d that feel?”
Delirious, I couldn’t answer.
Axl propped himself against the headboard and held the pipe to his lips. The rock transformed into what seemed like a form of liquid smoke. Axl held his breath so long, I was afraid he had forgotten to exhale. I touched his leg. The smoke poured loosely from his slack-jawed mouth. Axl was in a hypnotic stupor.
“Must be pretty good,” I said, anxious for him to say something. I couldn’t tell if he was conscious.
Axl turned his head sideways and grinned. Stretching out at length on the bed, his lips formed the word, wow.
I took the opportunity to study the work of art between his legs, kissing the tip and cupping the perfectly formed testicles in my hand as I tasted each one. Our eyes met in a kind of animal glare, and we burst out laughing.
“Simon! It’s late,” Rudy hollered, knocking on the door. “It’s after midnight.”
“Sorry, Rudy. Give us a minute.”
The simple act of dressing required more coordination than Axl or I could muster. Axl struggled with his sneakers until I laced them for him. Then I helped him into his gym shorts and slipped a jersey over his upstretched arms.
I carried Axl’s belongings, all stuffed into a duffel bag. He lugged the acoustic guitar he’d been playing when I arrived. Rudy said nothing as we passed through the front room. Charlotte was asleep on the couch. Lane, on the other hand, watched our every move. I was about to pull away from the curb when Lane appeared at the driver’s side window.
“Here man, you left this behind.” Lane placed the crack pipe in my hand.
“I don’t do the stuff. That belongs to Axl.”
“Whatever,” Lane said. “Rudy doesn’t like me to do it. Let me come over sometime and smoke with you guys. Rudy doesn’t need to know. Please?”
“We’ll see.” Images of a three-way flashed through my narcotic-addled brain. “What if you come now? Would Rudy throw you out?”
Lane slapped the side of the car. “Aw-right.” He looked up as if expecting to find Rudy looking out the apartment window. “Give me a minute,” he said. “Don’t drive away, okay?”
I wasn’t at all sure I would be able to drive, high as I was.
Minutes later, Lane hopped in the backseat. “Rudy thinks I’m going to the bar. I said you’d drop me off.” Then he let out a yelp, “Let’s party!”
“Okay with you, Axl?” I asked.
“Whatever, dude. Let’s get rocking.”
CHAPTER 22
Wally and the other producers whose films I sold were content with my efforts as long as I periodically sent a check. Sometimes I sent money to make them believe I was making sales. The reality was that I had slipped up on a number of deliveries, and a few clients had cancelled their contracts. My resources were fast depleting.
Instead of focusing on getting my business affairs in order, I began spending most of my time doing drugs with Axl. Rudy telephoned occasionally. He didn’t seem to know that Lane sometimes came over to my place. Scott was barely a part of my life, and only occasionally did I speak with Sandra. Because of Axl, I rarely thought about Thad.
The basement lair beg
an to look like an alchemist’s shop, filled with an array of glass pipes, hand torches, and special baking sodas that I bought at a store in Hollywood. A darkly magical transformation came over Axl when he smoked crack. He wasn’t used to drugs as potent as mine, and for the first time in his drug career, he began to have bouts of paranoia. Often, I would return home to find the front door barricaded with bar stools and sofa cushions. Once, he became convinced that the police were raiding the house. He thought he would escape by jumping off the balcony. The dagger-like fronds of the century plants would have impaled him, had I not caught his belt in the nick of time.
Axl never ate and was becoming a veritable wraith. In the weeks he had lived with me, he had lost his tan and was pale, as if drained of blood. I joked that I should examine his neck for puncture wounds.
My own physical condition wasn’t much better. I decided that we needed to escape for a while, perhaps vacation at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna-Niguel. I’d gone there before when I needed a break. Sitting on the patio that came with the rooms and looking over the Pacific Ocean was invigorating. The day Axl and I were to head out, he was feverish and didn’t want to get out of bed. I thought we should cancel the trip, but Axl insisted that he would be all right.
“My throat’s just raw from smoking,” he said.
I felt under his jaw. “Your glands are swollen. You should see a doctor.”
Axl pushed my hand away.
“Look at yourself!” I said, sitting him up so he could see his reflection in the dresser mirror. “You’re as red as a cranberry.”
“No doctors!” Axl said. He struggled from the covers and locked himself in the bathroom.
“I can wait out here as long as it takes,” I told him as I leaned against the door.
A few moments later he let me in. Axl had been throwing up in the toilet.
“That’s it, man. You’re going to a doctor.”
I put a wet towel around Axl’s neck and got him into the shower. Axl could not stand without support.
Hours passed before the emergency room personnel at County Hospital called Axl’s name. Axl foolishly told the woman at the admissions desk that he was seventeen and that I was not his guardian. The woman glared at me and said, “Without the permission of a legal guardian, we cannot admit this boy.”
“So, what does that mean? He collapses in your waiting room, and you let him die?”
“You’re being melodramatic,” the woman said. “I suggest you get in touch with his family and let them deal with the matter.”
Axl was nearly unconscious when I asked him to give me a phone number.
“That’s my mother,” he said, handing me a card from his wallet. “She lives in Maryland.”
I rushed to the pay phones and made the call. A commanding voice answered.
“Is this Axl’s mother?”
“Axl is my son. Who is this?”
So it was his real name.
“I’m a friend. Axl is with me at a hospital in California.”
Before I could continue, the woman interrupted, “Hospital? Has Axl overdosed again?”
“Nothing like that. I think he may have tonsillitis or something. I brought him to an emergency room. But, well, Axl’s under eighteen, so I can’t get him admitted. He didn’t want me to call, but I managed to get your number from him.”
“And who are you?”
“A friend. My name is…” I hesitated, “Mr. Powell.”
“Well, Mr. Powell, I don’t know what you are doing with my underage son, but I will get him admitted.”
I motioned for the desk attendant to come to the phone. As she spoke to Axl’s mother, all I heard was “um” and “oh” and “I see.”
“We’ll admit the boy,” she bellowed after she hung up. “He’s covered on insurance through his mother.”
So that was the issue: who’d be responsible to pay.
Axl’s mother had not asked to speak to him, and Axl didn’t ask what she had said. Soon, a nurse escorted Axl in to see a doctor.
“Are you sure you don’t want to admit yourself?” the nurse asked me.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine, I just need some rest. I was about to go on vacation.”
The nurse took that for an answer, but not without a warning that I should take better care of myself.
As I suspected, Axl had tonsillitis. The doctor prescribed antibiotics and rest. When I got Axl home, he collapsed in bed and only woke up when I came with medicine or a bowl of soup.
Without Axl as a distraction, I kept thinking about Thad—one minute wondering if he was happy with his marine boyfriend and the next minute hoping a shark had bitten off his penis.
I grew tired of doing drugs alone and was bored without Axl’s companionship. I decided to go shopping at the Beverly Center. A barking dog at a pet store caught my attention. At first, I thought it was a flashback to age thirteen. That was when Ernie and I had our falling out. Around the same time, I almost got a new pet dog. Somehow, the breakup and the dog were coupled in my memory of that time. Our neighbors down the road in Sibley had Boston terrier puppies for sale. By the time I saw them, all were taken except the runt. I thought he was the cutest animal I’d ever seen and begged Lenny to get him for me. I promised to take care of the puppy, saying that if I had to, I’d sell pot holders door to door (I’d gotten a toy loom for my birthday that year). Lenny wouldn’t budge. He didn’t want another “good-for-nothing dog” around the yard.
“If you want a dog, we can get a coon hound,” Lenny said. “Then we could hunt.”
As if he had ever taken me hunting.
Two weeks went by. One morning as I ate a quick bowl of Sugar Pops before rushing to catch the school bus, Lenny told me he’d get the dog. Vivian had interceded on my behalf. I shouted with delight and ran down the street to tell the puppy I’d see him after school. He was at the fence and only stopped crying when I reached through and let him lick my fingers.
When school ended, I ran home and rushed toward the fence to see my new dog. He wasn’t there. I ran home thinking Lenny had picked him up already.
“Where’s my dog? Did you get him?”
Lenny looked at me solemnly. “Before I got there, someone else had bought him.”
I figured this was Lenny’s way of getting back at Vivian for going against his will. He probably got one of his friends to call about the dog.
Now, so many years later, I heard the same bark coming from a pet-shop window. The Boston terrier puppy had the same markings, down to the identical white socks and shiny black coat, as the one I remembered from childhood.
“I want that dog,” I told the clerk, a schoolboy with orange-spiked hair.
“You’re taking Monroe?” The clerk seemed surprised. “That little fellow has been here for five months. Don’t know why no one’s wanted him.”
“It must be destiny. I came to save him from a life of being called Monroe.”
The clerk nodded. “Wasn’t my choice. That’s what his tag said when he arrived. Anyway, we’ve all wanted to take Monroe home, but no one could afford him.”
The name Cicero popped in my head, and that’s what I decided to call him.
Cicero, liberated from the three-foot square cage, explored every corner of the house and sniffed each piece of furniture. When he discovered Axl in the upstairs bedroom, it seemed as though Cicero had found his purpose in life. He stationed himself at Axl’s side. At first, Axl was irritated, but it didn’t take long for Cicero to win him over.
When he got better, Axl went immediately back to the pipe. Having Cicero as company had helped me stay away from the drugs, but now I started up again. Cicero sensed that Axl and I were harming ourselves. If I laid out a line, or Axl picked up his pipe, Cicero dashed under the bed.
I sometimes wondered what life might have been like if Ernie and I had become lovers. Would I still have joined a cult? Would we have joined together? Or would I ha
ve gotten into heroin with Ernie and died young also? Perhaps I would have met Tony anyway and been rejected by him, leading to the same place I was now. Is the plan already laid out, and is there nothing we can do about it?
“Don’t ever leave me,” I said to Axl one afternoon.
He banged out a minor chord on his guitar. “Long as there’s drugs, man.”
CHAPTER 23
Patricia wasn’t picking up her phone. I left messages until her answering machine tape filled up. I finally went to the Spotlight to see if she might be there. Twiggy had a drink ready by the time I took my place at the bar. He wanted to chat, but I had only one thing on my mind.
“You don’t know?” Twiggy said. “Patricia got deported. That silly señorita put an ad in Frontier Magazine and a vice cop answered it. She’s back in Peru. But I’ll wager a bottle of gin she’ll be back in a month. That girl is resourceful.”
Twiggy set down a shot of Boodles. “Are you all right? You seem distracted.”
The jukebox was playing something by Judas Priest, and it reminded me of some of the hustlers I’d picked up over the years. They loved that kind of music.
“Sure, I’m okay,” I said as my memories turned to one trick who had pulled a knife on me when I told him to leave. “Except that I really need to see Patricia. You know.”
Twiggy cast a glance around the bar. He nonchalantly wrote something on a napkin.
“That’s a mobile phone number,” Twiggy said. “The guy who’ll answer goes by different names. Recently, it’s been Valentino. When you call, say you got the number from me. He’ll ask how many ‘cassettes’ you want. If you want an ounce, tell him a box set. If you only want a gram, tell him you want a single.”
I put a hundred-dollar bill on the counter and slipped Valentino’s number into my shirt pocket. Twiggy picked up the bill and stuffed it into his pants pocket. “Don’t be a stranger, you sexy man,” he said, calling after me as I headed for the door.