Six Bad Things

by Charlie Huston

  He’s looking at me again in the mirror.

  —It’s about a ten-minute ride. Go ahead and take a nap. I’ll wake you.

  A nap. That sounds good. I close my eyes.

  SOMEONE IS pulling on me. I open my eyes.

  —OK, buddy, here we are.

  The cabby is tugging me out of the back of his cab. I jerk free and get out, almost fall, and he catches me.

  —I got ya.

  He’s leading me toward a rust-streaked, white and turquoise trailer. We’re in a trailer park. He helps me up the steps to a small porch and plops me onto a beat-up couch, setting off an eruption of dust. I cough. He points at the trailer.

  —OK, this is the place. Don’t look like anyone’s home.

  He’s whispering.

  —How can ya tell?

  —I knocked.

  He’s still whispering.

  —Just lie down.

  He pushes on my shoulder. I lie back on the couch and close my eyes.

  —Here’s your Christmas card back.

  Still whispering. I feel his hand shoving the card deep in my hip pocket. His hand grasping.

  I grab his wrist and lurch up from the couch. He takes a step back, my hand locked on his wrist, his hand still deep in my pocket. I jerk it out and it comes free; the card and a litter of my cash dropping from his fingers. He yanks his hand away. Both of us standing now, he sees just how big I am, how big he is not. I take another step toward him. His eyes are huge. He’s appalled at what he’s tried to do: roll a crazed drunk.

  —Easy, buddy.

  But I don’t want to be easy. I’ve been easy, now I want to be hard. Instead, I trip over my own feet and fall onto the porch. The cabby seizes the moment, runs to his taxi, and speeds away toward the entrance of the trailer park.

  I lower my head. The Astro Turf that covers the porch scruffs against my ear. I look across the flat plain of the porch at my scattered money, and the Christmas card a few inches from my face. I grab the card and roll onto my back. I take the card from its envelope and hold it up to catch the light from one of the lamps that illuminate the park.

  It’s a homemade job, worked up on Photoshop or something. It’s a still from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the part where Lucy is flirting with Schroeder, bent over his piano trying to get him to play “Jingle Bells.” The still has been altered. Charlie Brown is standing next to his director’s chair shouting “Action” into his megaphone. Schroeder is playing the piano, he’s naked except for blinders and a red ball-gag. Snoopy is dancing on the piano in front of Lucy, his big dog dick stuck in her mouth. The caption reads “EUGH! DOG GERMS.” Inside is another altered still that features Charlie and Lucy engaged in an act of coprophilia with the caption “Of all the Charlie Browns, you’re the Charlie Browniest.” Charlie’s face has been removed from this one and T has superimposed his own.

  Fucking T.

  I close my eyes.

  PART THREE

  DECEMBER 14–17, 2003

  Still Two Regular Season Games Remaining

  T was a quiet kid in junior high, one of the Dungeons and Dragons crowd that kept their heads down, trying to draw as little attention as possible. In the summer following eighth grade, his mom died, eaten from the inside by stomach cancer. He showed up the first day of freshman year with a brand new mohawk, safety pins in his ears, and a Clash shirt with the sleeves ripped off. The only punk in a school full of jocks, cowboys, and lowriders, he spent the next couple months getting gang-tackled and having his face stuffed in a toilet every time he turned a corner. Until he bit off Sean Baylor’s earlobe. After that, everybody decided the risks of beating on the school freak outweighed the pleasures.

  The only group that would have anything to do with him were the burnouts, and that was only after he started selling off his mother’s leftover pain medication. Then Wade’s mom died, and he and T started hanging out. By the time I came around, T was a regular in stoner circles. He was the guy that could get his hands on good weed, acid, speed, mushrooms, and coke from time to time. But that didn’t make him any less freaky.

  Going to T’s house to score an eighth was a roll of the dice. He might be zonked in front of his Apple II playing Zork, or he might be in the backyard, shirtless and frenzied, the Dead Kennedys screaming from the house stereo, bench-pressing a board with cinder blocks balanced on either end until veins bulged over his scrawny torso like swollen night crawlers.

  We didn’t talk much. He was just too strange for me to handle, and I was just the crippled jock tagging along with his pal Wade. He was the only guy in school who actually gave me a bad time about my injury. Hey, superstar, how’s the leg? Hey, superstar, race ya to the corner. Hey, superstar, that joint ain’t a talkin’ stick, pass it over here. My bad, I’ll come get it, you need to stay off your feet.

  Last time I saw T was at graduation. He had spent four years smoking, sniffing, and eating anything he could lay his hands on, alienating virtually every member of the student body, faculty, and administration, and he graduated with an effortless 3.9. Someone told me he had scholarship offers from the computer departments at Berkeley and Stanford. Instead, he did a quarter at Modesto Junior College, started dealing crank, and ended up taking a jolt in county, and later another for the state.

  —EASY, HITLER.

  I wake up shivering.

  —Easy, Hitler.

  Why is it cold in the Yucatán? Because it’s not the Yucatán maybe? Ass. Hole. Something growls.

  —Shush, Hitler.

  I open my eyes, and see a dog as big as a truck. It’s growling and showing me all of its teeth. It’s wearing a collar, but no leash. I tilt my head and look up. Elvis Presley is standing behind the dog. He’s about five eight, wearing pegged black Levis, black engineer boots, and a black leather vest over a white T-shirt, is beanpole skinny, and has sideburns down to his jaw and an oily black pompadour.

  —Who the fuck are you and why are you on my fucking porch?

  What am I doing on his porch? I start to sit up.

  —Don’t fucking move or Hitler’s gonna eat your face.

  I don’t want my face eaten by anyone, let alone Hitler. I stick out my hand to ward off any face eating and Elvis grabs the Christmas card that I’m clutching. He opens it.

  —What the fuck?

  He looks from the card to me, and does the best double take I’ve ever seen in real life.

  —Holy shit! Holy piss, shit, motherfucker, tits. Fuckshit. Holy fuckshit, fucking Christ. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.

  —Nice to see you too, T.

  He picks up all the money, drags me to my feet, hauls me into the trailer, and dumps me on a couch in only slightly better repair than the one on the porch.

  —Still havin’ trouble walkin’, huh, superstar?

  He takes the two guns from my pocket. The dog stands in front of me, teeth still bared, assuring that I stay put. No problems there. I close my eyes.

  —WAKE UP, superstar.

  I open my eyes. T is sitting on the coffee table in front of me, his left hand resting on top of the dog’s head. The dog is an English Mastiff, a light-coated two-hundred-pounder with a sad face. T snaps open a Zippo with an American flag sticker on its side, and holds the flame to the Marlboro Red in his mouth. I stop staring at the dog and reach in my own pocket for a smoke. The dog twitches.

  —Hitler, no!

  The dog eases back. Comprehension finally dawns.

  —Hitler is the dog.

  T nods.

  —Hitler is the dog.

  I take my empty hand from my empty pocket. I’ve lost my cigarettes somewhere. I point at T’s pack.

  —Can I have one of those?

  He nods, hands me a smoke, and lights it for me.

  —Didn’t think superstars like you were supposed to smoke.

  I take a huge drag.

  —Yeah, things change.

  He laughs.

  —Shit yeah, they do. Shit. Yeah. I mean, check this out. Me and you, we nev
er had much to say to each other, and yet here we are chatting. How’s that for change? Or how ’bout this? Last time I saw you, you were this kind of fallen, small-town golden child and I was a wigged-out school freak. And now? Wow. I may not have come far, but look at you. Now you’re a full-blown success story, an American celebrity. Must feel great to have all that thought-to-be-lost promise come to fruition. Yeah! Gotta admire a guy with that kind of drive. Can’t get to the top the way you planned, so just go out and blaze a new trail up there. Bang, bang, bang. I tell you, man, everybody back home is real impressed at what you’ve done with your life. Especially, you know who is especially impressed? Wade. Oh, I’m sorry, that should have been past tense, shouldn’t it?

  There are burn scars up and down T’s forearms. The smaller ones are dots the size of M&Ms, the largest are lines almost exactly the length of a cigarette from tip, to the top of the filter. T’s favorite game in high school was Cigarette Chicken. Two players press their forearms together and drop a lit cigarette lengthwise into the crease where their arms meet. First one to pull his arm away loses. I never participated. From the fresh pink of some of the scars, it looks like T is still an avid player.

  —I didn’t kill Wade.

  He stubs his cigarette out in an ashtray made from an old cylinder head.

  —No shit, numbnuts, no one said you did. Seems pretty fucking clear to anyone who can watch TV that that punk Danny Lester was to blame for that shit. One look at that guy on the tube and you just know he’s the biggest dick ever. A lying sack of shit, he is. But fuck, who cares, right? Wade is dead all the same, which believe me when I say I think is pretty fucked up, seeing as he was just one of the only people I gave a shit about in the whole world. And now here I come home from a late night of work and find you nodded out on my porch in a pile of money with the Christmas card I sent him in your hand. Which has to beg the question: What the fuck is your fugitive ass doing here, trying to fuck up my already legally fragile situation?

  I open my mouth, close it. Open it again.

  —I.

  I take in his bouncing knee and the way he’s furiously scratching Hitler between the eyes, and I realize for the first time that he’s thoroughly speeded up. He opens his red, jiggly eyes wide as they will go.

  —Come on, man, enlighten me.

  —OK, I. See. How much? Do you know much about New York? Or?

  Oh, Jesus, there is no way I can do this now.

  —T, I don’t think I can really.

  I open my hands, my jaw slacks helplessly.

  —I don’t even know where to.

  —Right. Right. It’s late and you’ve clearly had a rough night and would like to get some rest. We can take care of that.

  He opens his cigarette box, digs his index finger inside, and pulls out a little white tablet.

  —Take this.

  —Oh, T, no, that’s such a bad idea right now.

  He balances the pill on the tip of his index finger and holds it in front of my mouth.

  —Don’t be a pussy, superstar, this is a fucking diet pill. I deal harder stuff to the kids at UNLV so they can cram for their finals. Eat it.

  He presses it onto my lips.

  —C’mon. Here’s the train, open the damn tunnel.

  I haven’t popped a pill since my freshman year of college. But I don’t have the will or the energy to argue with a speed freak right now; especially not one with a monster dog at his beck. I open my mouth. He drops the pill inside, and it sits bitterly on the tip of my tongue. I dry swallow it down. T smiles.

  —OK, spill.

  And I do. I start talking, and soon enough, I couldn’t shut up if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. My thoughts crystallize into a lattice of narrative logic and I want nothing but to share it with T. I tell him the whole story, with illustrations and examples drawn from film, literature, popular music, and Greek philosophy, with sidebars on the topics of media politics, Superman vs. Batman, and Schrödinger’s Cat, with references to our shared history and revelations about a secret and mutual admiration, I tell him the whole story in every detail. I have never told the whole story before, not even Tim knows all the things I’m spilling to T.

  And now I sit exhausted and sleepless, sucking on my twentieth or thirtieth cigarette of the day, and looking out the window at the sky getting ready to go a brilliant desert blue. And I feel better. I feel better having told the story and having someone else know everything. No matter what else, I feel better.

  T goes into the kitchen and comes back with a small brown pill bottle. He shakes three pills into his hand, pops two in his mouth, and offers me one.

  —No, no way. I’m never gonna sleep again as it is.

  He shakes his head.

  —It’s a ’lude.

  I look at it. I don’t want to take it. I remember what it’s like to go on a speed jag, pills to get up, pills to get down. I don’t want to take it. But I know in my heart I’ll never sleep without it, and I need sleep now, more than anything in this world I need sleep. I drop it in my mouth.

  T nods.

  —C’mon.

  He starts down the hall. I get up and follow him, and Hitler follows me. T stands in an open doorway at the end of the hall.

  —Spare room.

  I look inside. There’s a worktable, a computer, masses of paper, and jumbled piles of disks. The walls are covered in thumbtacked rock and anime posters. In one corner is a foam pad covered by a dingy sheet and a rumpled blanket. T jerks his thumb toward the other end of the trailer.

  —I’ll be in the master suite. Holler if you need anything.

  I stumble to the pad. It’s the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in, so soft and mushy, just like my skeleton is soft and mushy. Whoa. Here comes the ’lude. T flicks off the light.

  —Night.

  —Night, T.

  He turns to go.

  —Hey, T?

  —Yeah?

  —What now?

  He is an angular silhouette in the doorway.

  —My dad died.

  —Sorry, I didn’t know.

  —Cancer got him last year. Just like my mom.

  —Sorry.

  —Being an orphan sucks. That’s what I’ll miss about Wade, knowing there’s a guy who knows how I feel.

  —Yeah.

  His silhouette shifts, he looks down the hall.

  —So we’re gonna find your buddy and your money and save your mom and dad from the bad guys. OK?

  —Yeah. Thanks.

  He disappears down the hall, followed by his huge dog. I close my eyes.

  —Superstar?

  I keep my eyes closed.

  —Yeah?

  —It’s kind of cool you came to me for help.

  —Didn’t have no one else.

  I hear him laugh.

  —Yeah, well, it’d have to be something like that, wouldn’t it?

  I WAKE up to the sound of Hank Williams singing “Mind Your Own Business.” My body is impossibly stiff and sore. The good news is that the needle-sharp pains, nausea, and confusion of the concussion seem to have receded. The bad news is that they have been replaced by a post-speed hangover made up of blunt trauma, general anxiety, and global-sized guilt pangs.

  I make it to the bathroom and look inside. T is standing in front of the mirror, combing globs of Murray’s Superior Hair Dressing Pomade into his hair, crafting it into a high pomp. He turns to face me and spreads his arms wide, smiling.

  —Morning, superstar! Ready to take a bite out of life?

  He slaps me on the arm and I flinch.

  —Hell, you need a pick-me-up.

  —I need a shower.

  He turns back to the mirror and flicks the comb through his hair a couple more times.

  —Well, it’s all yours, but I’m telling you what you need, and what you need is a pick-me-up.

  —Uh-uh.

  —Suit yerself.

  I step out of the way as he heads for the kitchen.

  —The
re’s something wrong with my water heater, so turn the cold on all the way and don’t touch the hot. Otherwise, you’ll burn your hide off.

  I close the door, turn on the shower, and peel Sid’s filthy clothes from my body. My right ankle is puffy and bruised, but I can move it. Steam is already pouring from the shower. I stick my hand in to test the water and just about sear the flesh from my fingers. I wait another minute and climb over the side of the tub. It’s way too hot, but I can take it. I let the water run over me, sluicing off the grime and sweat of the last couple days. The water soaks the crusty bandage on my left thigh and I strip it away. The wound has mostly scabbed over, but a slight ooze of blood is leaking out from a crack at the edge. I scrub my body hard with the bar of Lava from the scummy shower caddy. Slowly, tension eases from my muscles and the pain in my head recedes, but the anxiety and the guilt stay right where they are.

  I get out, find some Band-Aids under the sink, and stick a couple over my wound. I wipe steam from the mirror and look at myself. The cut over my left eye is closed up. I have bruises on my shoulders and ribs and a big one across my chest where the Monte Carlo’s seat belt caught me during the wipeout. My hands and knees are scraped up from all the falling down I’ve been doing.

  I look at the tattoos. They start on my left forearm, run up to my shoulder, across my chest, and down to my right wrist. When Dad saw them he made the same sound he made when he saw me light a cigarette. Mom kind of liked them. She touched the one that says Mom and Dad, shook her head at the naked pinup on my right bicep. Tears leaked from her eyes when she saw the banner on my chest with Yvonne written on it. I hold up my left arm and look at the hash marks. Still one short; got to get Mickey on there.

  I carry the trashed clothes to the kitchen, a towel around my waist. T is drinking a beer and eating a Hostess Fruit Pie.

  —Want one?

  My stomach is tight and empty, but I don’t feel hungry.

  —Pass.

  —OK, but there ain’t much else.

  —I’ll manage.

  He scarfs the last bit of crust and gooey cherry filling and washes it down with the dregs of his Bud. I hold up the clothes.