New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  The whole drive from Baby’s place, everything was dead. The roads were empty. Duffy’s was closed. The darkened, empty high school was lonelier and more eerie than the cemetery. As for the decorations wreathing homes and businesses—lights out. I popped Deep Purple into the cassette deck. “Highway Star” seared through the speakers. My car swerved back and forth. I rolled down the window. The slap of cold air revived me enough to keep me on my side of the road.

  I recalled that final word Baby had said to me: leave. That’s exactly what I needed to do. What I’d needed to do for years. I hit the gas. Red lights led to green lights led to exits: Out. Of. Town. I zoomed toward the Garden State Parkway. Once there, I’d head south, then pick up 76 West. It was just like I’d seen in countless dreams since I was a kid. Only this dream was real. In a few days I’d be out in LA, cruising Venice Beach. Just like all those beautiful, carefree people.

  As I barreled down Route 9, toward the center of town, I leaned my head out my open window to get a blast of cold air and to glance up at the night sky. I spotted a brief, distant shimmer. It could’ve been Alpha Centauri, I figured. Or Venus. But it could’ve also been an alien spaceship. Even in my fucked-up state that night, I could still recall the Jersey lore I’d heard through the years, how UFOs had been sighted all across the state, even as far back as 1882. There were also those Bible passages from Revelations and Jeremiah that had confirmed alien existence. Also how alien technology had supposedly given rise to the Great Pyramids in Egypt. All that alien intelligence in the night sky—I wondered what those high-flying, super-minded beings thought of Blackwater. More specifically, what, if anything, did they think of me.

  That’s when I noticed my car heading straight toward Satan’s Tree. Maybe part of me wanted it to happen. Or maybe the hulking tree—with its far-reaching bare branches, like wide-open arms—was heading straight for me. Suddenly, all the downers I’d taken slowed things to 16 RPM. I could read every timeworn and weathered “I love you” and “I miss you” contained in the notes marking the tree. Could see Dawn Dixon’s face, along with the other faces of the deceased, their youth and innocence forever captured in the laminated yearbook and family album photos tacked into the scarred gray bark. I recalled those words from a Springsteen song: “…a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night, to say your baby died in a wreck on the highway…” I smelled the deep, smoky aroma of a distant maple-wood bonfire. Could distinguish between the night cold, and the deep chill of the nearby cemetery’s moss-covered tombstones. I heard the silences between each vocal growl, drum fill, and guitar riff blaring over my stereo. I wanted to be that song. Wanted to be that Highway Star. I flashed Satan’s Tree the finger. Yelled, “Fuck you.” Then I slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel, and did all I could to avoid it. But it was no good.

  Chapter 26

  The next thing I remembered was the harsh smell of antiseptic. Disinfectant. A blur of drab, blue-gray medical scrubs. Gurney with wings. Squeaky wheels. Fly-by ceiling lights. Muffled commands crackling over the intercom. All that and a flimsy white bracelet, bearing my name, strapped around my wrist. The doctor got me out of my lead vest.

  A sudden rush of sound and light hit my bare chest. Into my body rushed the noise and energy of the people around me: my old man, the Blackwater Medical Center attendants, the sick and healthy. It was all so much, so fast. My heart swelled. Not so much from pain, but joy. The sudden crush of the outside world now inside me felt good. I was relieved there wasn’t a lead vest shielding me from it.

  After a brief examination—some poking and prodding, checking my eyes and pulse—the doctor said: “The vest might’ve actually saved your life. It may have prevented your ribs from fracturing and puncturing your organs.”

  Before they got me into a hospital gown to run more tests, I managed to fish Grandmother’s ring from my pants pocket. I handed it over to my old man.

  “What the hell were you doing with that?” he said.

  All I could say: “Just hold it for me, please?” Then I reached for his hand, gave it a squeeze. “Promise I’ll be okay, dad?”

  He nodded. “You’ll feel better soon, son.”

  I told him thanks. He asked for what.

  “For everything,” I said.

  After that: blood tests, X-rays, MRIs.

  For once, the Gods of Blackwater were on my side. No head or back injuries. No rotator cuff tears. No fractured pelvis. Just a few scrapes and bruises here and there.

  The doctor hooked me up to some machines. Those machines beeped and whirred. Buzzed and blipped. It was all a crazy racket at first. Soon, the noise leveled out to a steady rhythmic song. Those singing machines—one administered a morphine drip.

  I drifted off. As I lay on the gurney, I couldn’t tell whether I was in my body or out of it. Couldn’t tell whether or not I’d truly survive. Then came a sign to let me know I’d remain among the living. From out of nowhere, in flew an angel. Not my guardian angel old man, but an angel nurse. That angel was equally as glittering and glorious as Grandmother’s ring. With hypo in hand, that angel took me by the arm. Said, “Your veins are smiling at me.”

  Chapter 27

  Just like how when Mom left home, it felt like ghosts and shadows had taken her place. That could’ve been my life following my crash. I could’ve become a puff of smoke, a patch of dust, an unexplainable creak or groan in a once sorta home sweet home. What really saved my ass, though, were all my angels. Sure there’d been that angel nurse and my guardian angel old man. But there’d also been other angels along the way. One had made his home my home. One had exemplified love. Another had given me her body, but then flew away. All those angels: I did my best to offer them thanks each and every day after my accident. But then there were those two other angels, my dark angels, the ones on the Heaven-Sent casket.

  On first glance, the Heaven-Sent’s natural brushed copper finish, welded corners and bottom seams, crushed velvet pillow and finely woven satin interior, adjustable bedspring and mattress for perfect positioning of the body, along with those two angels painted on the interior panel and exterior lid, made it seem like a bed in a rich kid’s home. But the more I stared at it, the less precious it became. Though barely bigger than a sneeze, that casket meant business. The sight of it alone broke my heart. I couldn’t imagine it with a body inside.

  In all my time at Rainbow I only had to sell one, to a woman whose eight-year-old daughter had been Code 10-16—hit-and-run—while riding her bike. Happened just a couple months after my crash. Standing before that heartbroken mother, I went numb, almost as numb as I’d gone with Dawn’s parents. Except this time, I could hear myself give my Heaven-Sent pitch, which I’d often practiced, but had hoped to never use—how it was made of 20-gauge steel. Had a half-couch or full-couch lid option. Was leak-proof. Its white exterior was accented with brilliant gold traditional corners and full swing-bar handles. The pitch went on and on. When I was finally done, that poor mother wrote a check for the Eterna-Lux—the child-sized Eterna-Lux.

  For the next few months, I couldn’t shake that numb feeling. None of Mr. Delaney’s jokes or Mad Man’s wise words could snap me out of it either. Not even those times when business was slow and Delaney had clocked out for the day, when I’d crash out in one of the coffins in back and read casket manuals and books on the stages of grief. On Mad Man’s recommendation, I’d even read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In it, I’d learned that, while in prison, the civil rights activist had copied the dictionary by hand to help set him free. Since that knowledge-equals-power formula had worked so well for Malcolm in such dire circumstances, I figured it could also help me escape in my own way. So on slow days at work I began cruising Webster’s. A word I discovered while on my travels: hubble-bubble. But unlike its namesake—that high-flying, space-minded telescope—this Hubble got you high and spacey in a different way. It was an East Indian hookah with a bowl made from a coconut shell. It was b
uilt in a way so that when smoke passed through the water, it made the noise for which it was named.

  While all that reading had offered its fair share of entertainment and illumination, none of it helped me to shake my numbness. It still felt like all those angels that had once served me so well, before and after my crash, had abandoned me. Or maybe I was the one that had abandoned them. Then, whether I was dealing with my old man at home, Jimmy and his dad, or customers at work, it felt like I was there and not there. A shadow, a ghost, an unexplainable creak or groan.

  Once that grim feeling set in deep, I began having nightmares. It was the same thing over and over. I kept seeing that little girl on her bike, so happy, so full of life. Next moment: nothing but a chalk outline on the road. Then there was my own crash: one moment I’m flipping off Satan’s Tree, then I’m just a weathered photo alongside Dawn Dixon. Through it all, I drank more in my off hours, thinking that might help shake the nightmares. All it did was achieve massive hangovers, the spins. Abruptly excusing myself from sales pitches to puke in the alley behind work. I’m lucky Mr. Delaney didn’t fire my sorry ass during that time. I guess my only saving grace was that, at the heart of it all, he must’ve recognized I was driven to serve the public. Still, it got to the point where every morning when I’d look in the mirror, all I’d see was a minimum-wage flunky doing the Grim Reaper’s dirty work. A low-life coffin-pusher buried six feet under in failure.

  Then came that night Jimmy and I went to the Wilbur Brothers Family Circus.

  Chapter 28

  By the time Jimmy and I had returned to his place with Mr. Jeepers, we’d already sung, sweated, and run off most of our high during our great circus escape. Gone were the weed and codeine wings we’d worn earlier that evening. We were back on solid ground. Senses rewiring. Disconnecting from the fuzzy electricity of drugs. Reconnecting with the clarity of the moment.

  After we’d fed the chimp some food from the fridge, we headed down to the basement. We sparked up Rhiannon, the crappy Sears, and some Nag Champa. Then Jimmy promptly headed back upstairs to continue searching for his dad.

  As for Mr. Jeepers and me, we sat across from one another on the clammy basement floor, right by Rhiannon and Jimmy’s bed. Up until that point in my life, I’d only hung out with primates of the Homo sapien variety—ones I’d argued with, partied with, loved, and lost. So I just sat observing the chimp.

  Beneath the bare overhead light bulb, Mr. Jeepers seemed slightly out of it at first. Like he was slowly emerging from a circus-tranq haze, only to discover himself in a strange new world. He did this slight side-to-side sway as if he were listening to a soft, sweet song. Eventually, he began working his tongue carefully over all parts of his hair, even the random bald and ashy patches, removing the remaining bits of circus mud and hay. Once he’d cleaned himself, he shifted so that he sat facing Rhiannon. The scene reminded me of that moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey when those great apes crowded around that monolith rising from the earth. Except Mr. Jeepers wasn’t going batshit crazy like those apes. He simply cocked his head side to side, completely mesmerized by the rumbling dryer. He sniffed it. Reached out a craggy black finger to touch the pulsating puke-green appliance, then quickly jerked away.

  “It’s okay,” I said. I scooted closer to Rhiannon, pressed my hands against her warm, tumbling hum. In the past, I’d often given Jimmy shit about her. Said the dryer was a complete waste of space and electricity. That night, however, her soothing song was medicine.

  Mr. Jeepers went through that ritual a few more times: touching Rhiannon, jerking away. Finally, he rested a palm against her, then the other. He bobbed his head, grunted softly. Regarded me with dozy, slow-blinking eyes perched beneath a hooded brow. His big ears stuck out from the side of his head like small radar saucers. His flat nose, fleshy bulging mouth, and black face were lined with intricate highways and bi-ways of wrinkles. That look of his—at once comical and sober—settled around me like the incense smoke drifting through the room.

  The chimp scooted closer to Rhiannon, rested his left side against her.

  I rested my right side against her so that I could face Mr. Jeepers.

  For a few moments, he was able to give himself over to the dryer’s warm vibrations, and tune out the sounds of the crappy stereo and Jimmy clomping around upstairs. The chimp’s eyes closed. His shoulders eased down from around his ears. His fleshy belly, dappled with random patches of hair, pulsed softly.

  Somewhere along the line, I drifted off, too. When I opened my eyes, Mr. Jeepers was looking right at me. Not in an aggressive, territorial way. Just observing me like I’d done with him.

  I sat up, stretched.

  Mr. Jeepers dittoed. Then he opened his mouth, yawned. I spotted places where he was missing some teeth. The ones that remained: dull, yellowed. He closed his mouth, settled his hairy arms into his lap. His jaw worked slowly, as if chewing food. He sniffed the air, let fly a series of soft hoots. Then he settled back into studying me with his intent, curious look.

  “My name’s Mark,” I said, pointing at myself. Then I pointed at him. “You’re Mr. Jeepers.” I repeated his name, letting each syllable claim its own turf in time and space: “MIS—TER—JEE—PERS.”

  I could’ve left things at that—just the two of us chilling by the dryer, discovering more and more about one another—until Jimmy returned. Instead, I made the boneheaded decision to reach for the nearby coat-rack gnome. I slid it between Mr. Jeepers and me. “Welcome to Jimmy’s world,” I said.

  The chimp picked at the silly cement fixture: its worn rose-cheeked face, red hat, white beard, blue jacket, green pants, and black boots. Once done, Mr. Jeepers flashed me a look. On a facial map, it would’ve been located somewhere between Boredom and Annoyance.

  I did my best to mirror his look.

  That one began pulling Mr. Jeepers out of his haze. He grunted, smiled a toothy smile. Then he slapped at the gnome. It wobbled, crashed against the concrete floor. The gnome’s red cap busted off; spun away. Mr. Jeepers bobbed up and down, grinned even more.

  I was so caught up in trying to make him laugh, that I didn’t even think twice when reaching for Jimmy’s prized Bella Donna record sitting within arm’s reach. I slipped the Stevie Nicks LP from its jacket, handed it over to Mr. Jeepers. He sniffed at the white paper sleeve. Worked a wrinkled finger into it, ripped it away, leaving only the black disc in hand. The record was dotted with fingerprints and scratches from all the times Jimmy had stopped the disc to play various sections in reverse to search out hidden messages. Mr. Jeepers tapped the disc against the floor. Tapped it against his forehead. He pressed it to his ear, held it there as if Stevie were serenading him. The chimp bobbed his head, wriggled his toes. Then, whether due to my body language, or the chimp tapping into some primal wavelength communicating my truest, deepest feelings regarding Jimmy’s musical tastes, Mr. Jeepers sat bolt upright, screeched, and whipped the record like a Frisbee. The disc sailed wobbly over the bed, nailed the concrete wall, right by Jimmy’s oddball poster collection. The record splintered into a few pieces, each one sailing off in different directions.

  That one cracked me up bigtime. That one cracked Mr. Jeepers up, too.

  Suddenly he had tons more energy. He leapt to his feet, grunted excitedly, stuck out his tongue. Then he slapped a hand against his chest, slapped a hand against the floor. But when he heard Jimmy upstairs, thudding around, calling out his dad’s name, the chimp got quiet. His hair stood on end. He whimpered, made a pouty face.

  I felt myself make a worried face, too. Wasn’t trying to mirror Mr. Jeepers. It was just odd that Jimmy’s dad was gone. Especially with his poor health. Surrounded by the wreckage of Jimmy’s busted record and trashed gnome, my mind spun off in different directions. I pictured Mr. Gigliotti crushed and bloodied in a totally wrecked Bessie. Or sprawled out dead at the base of Satan’s Tree. Maybe Code Blue at Blackwater Medical Center.

 
; I must’ve fallen too far into my worried look because the next thing I knew, Mr. Jeepers was plopped in front of me again, tapping me upside the head with a craggy black finger. He brought his face close to mine. I lurched back, afraid he might bite. Instead, he reached out a hand, curled and uncurled his fingers like he needed something from me.

  I scooted closer.

  Mr. Jeepers gently hooted as he fussed with some loose threads hanging from the knee area of my ripped jeans. When that lost its appeal, he latched onto my Who The Kids Are Alright T-shirt, pulled himself into my lap. He grabbed a fistful of my dirty-blond hair hanging down around my shoulder. It didn’t hurt. But it didn’t feel that great either. It took almost all my strength to pry his fingers loose.

  He wobbled back on his butt, settling once again on the concrete floor, right in front of me. He puckered his lips, hooted. I followed suit. He sniffed the air between us, slapped a hand against the floor. So did I. He sat bolt upright and shot off an excited grunt far louder than Rhiannon. I dittoed. Then, as if testing me to see how far I’d go, he stuck a finger up his nose. Picked it, ate it. I didn’t think twice. I did the same.

  That’s when Jimmy returned back downstairs. When he spotted his busted gnome and record, his worry flipped to its B-side: annoyance. And when he observed Mr. Jeepers and me huddled close, cracking one another up, that only cranked his anger. “What the hell?” he blurted out.

  I got up on my feet, grabbed Mr. Jeepers by the hand. His grip was firm, yet not overpowering. It perfectly matched my own strength as we tottered over to Jimmy. Referring to the record and gnome, I said: “Things got outta hand. I’ll replace them.” Then I told Jimmy I was sorry. And I meant it. While my dumbass antics had seemed hilarious at the time, it was clear to see I’d gone bungle in the jungle. Again I apologized, then asked: “Wanna go look for your pops?”