New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  Chapter 20

  That one Sunday morning—just a week before high school graduation—began with a ringing telephone. Those bells sounded almost exactly the same way they did that day I’d learned my grandmother had died. I stumbled out of bed, grabbed the phone.

  It was Mr. Gigliotti. “Is Jimmy there?”

  Still rubbing sleep from my eyes, I croaked: “No. Why?”

  In his exhausted and cigarette-thrashed voice, Mr. Gigliotti told me Jimmy was gone. He continued explaining how just the day before he and Jimmy had been home watching Mr. T. At one point Mr. Gigliotti fell into one of his coughing fits, and coughed up some blood into his handkerchief. That alone was bad. But what he told Jimmy next was far worse. In a choked-up voice, he repeated the same thing to me: “Son, I have cancer.”

  The Big C plus Jimmy’s dad: death. My life minus Jimmy’s dad: far worse than a head-on crash with Satan’s Tree. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Could already feel myself becoming just another shadow in my already way too ghostly home.

  “You there?” asked Mr. Gigliotti.

  I felt my lips say yeah, but I could barely hear the words. Then, fearing the worst, I asked: “What kind of cancer?”

  “Lung. Stage one.”

  With all my power plant research, I’d learned a little about cancer. Stage One was confined to the lungs. As the numbers grew, so did the risks. Stage Two: the cancer has spread to the chest. Stage Three: add bigger, more invasive tumors. Stage Four: the real killer. That’s when the cancer has spread throughout the body. If Mr. Gigliotti had to have the Big C, Stage One was the place to be. And while removing the cancer from the lungs didn’t guarantee its total elimination, it offered him at least another five years if the Gods of Life were on his side.

  Feeling a bit more hopeful, I asked: “What next?”

  “Before anything,” said Mr. Gigliotti, “we gotta find my boy.” Then, in an even more choked-up voice, he added: “All the years Jimmy tried making me quit those coffin nails. And now look at me.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “Maybe it’s not just the—”

  Before I could even complete my thought, Mr. Gigliotti was all over me. “There you go again with your conspiracy theories. It’s like I’ve tried to tell you—” He tried to say more, but launched into one of his coughing fits.

  Whether or not he wanted to listen, I knew Blackwater had the highest cancer incident rate in all of Jersey. And despite the power plant’s multiple safeguards and backup systems to prevent meltdown, it sometimes leaked radioactive poisons into the air, including cesium-137, iodine-131, and strontium-90. Once entering the body, the cesium went for the muscles. Iodine attacked the thyroid gland. Strontium marauded the bones. Had Mr. Gigliotti been healthier, I would’ve argued the facts. Instead, I said: “I’m sure Jimmy’ll come home soon.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Gigliotti. “He was pretty scared when he left.”

  “But graduation’s coming up,” I said.

  Starting junior year, then into twelfth, as his dad’s health had fluctuated so had Jimmy’s grades. One report card: B average. The next: D. On Mr. Gigliotti’s insistence, Jimmy had attended summer school, and had received endless hours of after-school tutoring. I’d even pitched in with extra help in English and History. It had all been enough to get him back up to a solid, steady C average.

  “I’d like to think Jimmy’ll be back,” said Mr. Gigliotti. “But I got a bad feeling about this one, son.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll find him.”

  I did my best to keep my promise. I dumped a few quarts of oil into the Vega, zoomed past Mad Man’s, the Dump, the cemetery, all three lakes, you name it. Everywhere I went—no Jimmy. That’s when I began worrying bigtime. I sped home. Sought out advice from higher sources—prayed to the St. Jude statue Mom had left behind. Even dug out my Ouija board, laid it out on my bed. Instead of giving me that same cryptic message it had in the past—E-A-T—all the board did was sputter to L, then U, then stalled out. I flashed on some possibilities: lunch, lunatic, Lucifer. No help at all. My two Bruce posters offered no assistance either. They just stood there, barely looking at me—striking poses of toughness and cool so beyond my ability to mimic or embody. I paced the halls, muttering other possible Ouija clue words: luggage, lucid, lullaby. Those words only dragged me further from Jimmy. Luggage got me recalling Mom. Lucid: Grandmother. Lullabye: Callie. The thought of Callie got me bolting back to my room, rummaging through my dresser. Good to her word, she’d written a number of times since settling in Tucson. I grabbed her very first letter—the one where she’d said she’d always love me and hoped that I’d one day leave Blackwater—and shoved it into my jeans pocket, then rocketed back down the hall into the living room.

  The first thing I spied—an acrylic painting Mom had left behind, something she’d once created at a church-sponsored weekend art class. It depicted a crude two-sailed pink sailboat on a placid teal sea. Above, the birdless, sunless sky was all colors of the rainbow, with hints of blacks and grays swirling in from the right. Whenever Jimmy had visited for sleepovers or to do homework, we’d always joked about that crappy painting; we’d say a blindfolded, Benadryl-dosed kindergartener could’ve done a better job. Mom, however, had her own take on that artwork. She’d said it represented how life’s joys were fleeting and that sooner or later everything led to trouble. Whatever the interpretation, screw that painting. I swiped it off the wall. Just as I was about to send the huge monstrosity sailing like a Frisbee, the phone rang.

  It was Jimmy.

  “Where the hell are you?” I said. “Your dad’s worried sick.” As soon as I’d spoken those last four words, I regretted having said them the way I did. But I don’t think Jimmy noticed.

  His voice was scraped raw. It machine gunned me with hysterical sobs. “I-I-I…d-d-don’t…w-w-want…” Between all his tears and gasps for air, I could just make out that he didn’t want his pops to die. Said he’d kill himself if it happened. It was all so chaotic right then, the way he’d choke out random words—seagulls, windows—and me trying to hastily assemble them into a clear picture. And when Jimmy wasn’t sobbing or speaking, I was listening for environmental clues that might reveal his location. There was a long sustained BOOM, like wind rushing into the phone receiver. There was the roar of passing cars. An occasional honking horn. High-pitched squeals like brakes going bad, or maybe kids laughing. Then there was Jimmy sobbing: “I don’t want my pops to die…”

  I told him it wasn’t going to happen; his dad would be around for a good long time. Then I asked: “Where are you?”

  More fits and starts of choking and sobbing. It was all such an emotional Morse code I couldn’t completely translate. Then, click. He was gone.

  Standing with the dead phone in my hand, I racked my brain, trying to determine his location. Right away, I knew he wasn’t with a girl. And since I hadn’t spotted him in any of our hangouts, it was clear he’d left town. But that one confused me. Unlike me, Jimmy had never been a big fan of getting out. Then I flashed on some of those clues—ones he’d stated, or ones I’d picked up on my own: windows, seagulls, wind, children, L-U. That’s when I realized that my Ouija board had been spot on. Unlike that jinx we’d suffered as kids—when all our pets were croaking left and right—Jimmy was now with the one-and-only friend that would never die on him. Lucy the Elephant.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  About my trip.

  On that hazy, humid mid-June day, where gray mixed with blue to create an anemic-looking sky, I cruised along Route 9—past the Little Red Dollhouse, the Dump, and the power plant. With each mile, the heady aroma of pines, swamps, and cranberry bogs whipping in through the open window lessened. All the things I’d ever loved and hated about my little town grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

  I continued driving.

  Through Waretown and
Barnegat, I studied the world around me. It was a lot like Blackwater, with gun shops; bait and tackle shops; muscle-bound dudes in John Deere caps and flannel shirts; teenage girls, sporting tattoos and hickeys, halter tops and short shorts. In a week, with high school diploma in hand, and eighteenth birthday just around the corner, I’d be kicked out into that world.

  Once there, I’d have no idea what to do next. College, JC, scoring some shit job, it was all a toss up. And whether that coin landed heads or tails, every option seemed a big, fat loser. Granted, leaving Blackwater didn’t guarantee a sure win either. I could easily end up out in LA not so much a bong loader to the stars, but a gas jockey to the washed-up and lonely.

  Fine, I thought. I’d take that risk. It was like the wise words Mad Man had once offered, regarding my life in Blackwater. Quoting the Clash, he’d said: “If I go there will be trouble. And if I stay it will be double.”

  As I sailed down through Parkertown and Tuckerton, I did my best to keep that mantra going strong. But once I reached Smithville my brain began entertaining all kinds of strange scenarios. What if Mr. Gigliotti died sooner than later? What if I couldn’t find Jimmy? Worse yet, what if he’d Code 10-51’ed himself? Then what? Would I return home to help take care of Mr. Gigliotti, or just keep driving?

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I eventually found Jimmy’s Ranchero parked in the gravel lot beneath Lucy the Elephant. That made sense. Ever since he’d first heard how that nearly hundred-year-old, sixty-five-foot-high wood and sheet metal pachyderm had survived fires, storms, and renovation after renovation, he was hooked. Through the years, Jimmy had occasionally taken a bus, or had his old man drive him down to visit the elephant whenever life got him down.

  I rapped on Jimmy’s driverside window.

  He didn’t respond. Real or legendary, Jersey has had all kinds of odd creatures roaming about—Big Red Eye, the Hoboken Monkey Man, and its most popular beast: the Jersey Devil. After the night he’d had, you could add another to the list: Jimmy. Since he’d spent the last twenty-four hours smoking and driving non-stop, his posture was slouched and stiff; his big brown eyes wilder and sadder than usual. Decked out in that photocopy outfit of his pops, he resembled a younger, more ragged, and spaced-out version of Mr. Gigliotti. He just kept taking drag after drag off a joint, the smoke cloud around his head growing bigger and bigger. Through that cloud, he just kept staring up at the gray wood and sheet metal elephant with drippy, gooey eyes—marshmallows that had been roasted too long at a Dump bonfire party.

  I knocked again.

  Jimmy rolled down the window. Smoke spilled out and was immediately escorted away by the fresh, clean ocean breeze. He didn’t utter a hi, or howdja find me? As he’d later agree with me, our friend magnets were so highly tuned to each other’s frequencies, it was really only a matter of time before I found him. He went back to smoking and staring at Lucy.

  It made sense he’d put himself through so much grief for his dad. Mr. Gigliotti was the best. He’d never smacked me or berated me. Had never smacked or berated Jimmy. He’d always made his home my home. As for my own home, all I had back in those days was my old man. My attitude used to be that if he were sick or dying, I wouldn’t run away or contemplate suicide. I’d just party. Equally jealous as sad, I asked Jimmy: “Want some company?”

  He shrugged.

  I hopped in the passenger seat, noticed the ashtray—filled with smoked and unsmoked joints. As for the car, the stench of rank BO and mindbomb weed had the interior reeking like a Grateful Dead concert. I kept my window down.

  Once Jimmy polished off his joint he reached for a fresh one. He took a nice, long drag, then exhaled. The smoke sailed over the dash, slinked up the windshield, then separated into two thin ghosts, one drifting out of Jimmy’s window, the other out of mine.

  “You should take it easy,” I said.

  He just kept smoking. The more he did, the duller his eyes grew.

  I reached into my jeans pocket, the one not containing Callie’s letter. Inside was Grandmother’s ring that I’d begun carrying with me everywhere. Whenever I’d get worried or anxious, I’d touch that ring. It would calm me. Set my head on straight better than any drug, or smack from my old man. Once I’d touched that ring, I snatched the joint from Jimmy and snubbed it out in the ashtray.

  Jimmy collapsed back into his seat, motioned toward the salt air–weathered elephant: “She’s different.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Since the last time I was here. She’s not as big as I remembered.”

  “She is,” I said. “Look how happy she’s making everyone.” Laughing children scurried beneath Lucy’s feet. Up in the riding carriage perched high atop her massive frame, a few tourists stood, excitedly pointing toward the ocean.

  “So what,” Jimmy huffed. “She’s making me feel like shit.” He reached for the keys in the ignition.

  “What’re you doing?” I said.

  “Whudya think?”

  I placed a hand firmly over his, tight enough so it couldn’t move. “Where? Home?”

  Jimmy struggled to turn the key. Grunted: “No way.”

  I tightened my grip, grunted back: “What about your dad?”

  Jimmy called truce. I released my grip on him. His spaced-out eyes grew clear. His slouched posture: now erect, shoulders back. So weird and sudden, that calmness and clarity. I figured he’d stumbled upon some revelation concerning his dad he was about to share with me. Instead, he reached over, popped open my door, and insisted: “Out.”

  I slammed the door shut.

  He tried opening it again.

  I seized his arm, executed the reverse wristlock—that useless move I’d used on my old man back when we’d gone out shooting. It had barely worked then; the same could be said for Jimmy.

  He jerked free. “Is that one of your bullshit Bruce Lee moves?” He slumped back into his seat, only moving occasionally to shake off the lingering pain from his wrist, elbow, and shoulder.

  I slumped back into my seat, glanced up at Lucy. I recalled that age-old pet jinx Jimmy and I had shared. When I was seven, I won a goldfish from the Wilbur Brothers Family Circus. Before I’d even gotten it home, the doomed fish had already gone belly up in the plastic bag. The following year, I used three weeks worth of allowance to buy a rabbit. It soon died of monkeypox. When Jimmy was eight, he had a pet garter snake die of mouth rot. When he was nine, wet tail got his hamster. Then, when Jimmy and I were ten, his dad brought us down to Margate to visit Lucy for the very first time. Now, some eight years later, I motioned toward that elephant. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Fuck that,” said Jimmy, rolling his shoulder, still trying to shake the leftover pain from that reverse wristlock.

  “C’mon,” I said. “It’ll be like the old days.”

  “No way. She ain’t like that no more.”

  “Give her a chance,” I said. “If you do I’ll buy you your weed for a whole year.”

  Jimmy’s right hand, feeling much better, flipped me off. Then he said: “I grow my own, you douche.”

  “Whatever. I’ll buy you a new bong. Or a real grow light.”

  After what seemed like hours of deliberation, and the final moments of shoulder rolling, wrist flicking, and elbow massaging to send off the last bits of pain, Jimmy finally said: “Deal.”

  We headed over to Lucy. After I paid the four-buck admission fee, we were assigned a tour guide. She looked to be pushing thirty or so, tanned and weather-beaten to an almost leathery red. Sported a blue windbreaker, screaming-yellow Bermuda shorts, squeaky-clean white sneakers, and a baseball cap squashed over an afro perm.

  “I’m Jean,” she said. “How’re you boys?”

  I didn’t respond right away. Instead, I marveled at her entire presence. Her face: big and round. Her torso: thin. From the waist down, everything got big and stayed that way. The mo
re I studied her, the more she resembled the inside of my old lava lamp. How those falling blobs of liquid wax used to get really thick up top, then slender in the middle, then all blobby again down at the bottom. And because she so reminded me of that lava lamp, I liked Jean all the more.

  “I’m great,” I beamed. “I’m Mark. This here’s Jimmy.”

  “Well hi, Mark and Jimmy,” chirped Lava Lamp Jean. “Ready to see Lucy?”

  I nodded like my stupid head was about to fall off.

  All Jimmy did was stand there, sullen faced, staring at his checkered Vans sneakers.

  Jean glanced back at me. “Seems your friend forgot to take his happy pill.”

  I shrugged. “He’s had a rough couple days.”

  “Well all that’s gonna change,” said Jean. “Let’s go, boys.”

  She led us through a doorway into the elephant’s hind leg. After traveling up a spiral stairway, we found ourselves in a large open area.

  Forget the plywood floors, the angle irons holding the walls in place, and the exposed ceiling air ducts. I was completely mesmerized. There I was, once again, deep inside the massive beauty of Lucy the Elephant. “Wow,” I said. That’s all I could say: wow.

  “Darn right ‘wow,’” said Jean. She went on to tell us all kinds of facts about Lucy, facts Jimmy no doubt already knew, but I’d never been aware of. Like how back in 1881, inventor and real estate mogul James V. Lafferty had originally built Lucy as a way to lure potential buyers to his properties. And how the elephant was later converted into a summer cottage, after that a bar. She told us how Lucy’s ears were seventeen feet long, ten feet wide, and each weighed two thousand pounds. How a million pieces of lumber, two hundred kegs of nails, and four tons of bolts had been used to build her. The elephant had even once been raised with special house jacks and moved from one part of town to another.

  Jean pointed at one of the many windows built into Lucy’s massive frame. “Know how many she has in her?” she asked Jimmy.

  Even though he knew the answer and then some, all he muttered was: “Who cares.”