As for Marlene’s friend, Susan, she continued drinking. With each swig, she drunkenly eyed Jimmy’s room. With the exception of Mr. Jeepers, a brand-new copy of Bella Donna, and a new Stevie Nicks poster to replace the one Mr. Jeepers had torn from the wall, that room hadn’t changed much over the years. There was still Rhiannon; the ceramic gnome, chipped red hat plastered back to his head; the tower of milk crates containing albums, bongs, board games, and family photos; the messed-up pool table; the grow lights shining down on two of Jimmy’s latest pot plants—Samwise Gamgee and Legolas Greenleaf, both characters from Lord of the Rings. There were also the poster-covered cinderblock walls, The Dark Side of the Moon, and the maze of overhead copper and PVC pipes.
“Jeez,” Susan said, not quite loud enough for Jimmy to hear. “This party sucks.”
Sure our impromptu soiree didn’t live up to Dump parties I’d attended where there’d been raging tunes blaring from parked muscle cars, dreamy-eyed stoner girls sporting jean jackets reeking of pot and wood smoke, seemingly endless bottles of booze, and joint after joint being passed around a massive bonfire. “It’s not bad,” I said. “I’ve been to worse.”
I glanced over at Jimmy. He’d just locked Mr. Jeepers in his cage, and was staring at Marlene with big, dopey eyes.
Marlene had that coconut bong trophy in her hands. Over the warbly Sears and the chimp’s occasional hooting and screeching, I heard her say to Jimmy: “Would you like to show me how it works?”
He looked over at me, flashed a troubled look: What now?
Part of me wanted to say: “Step aside and let Grand Master Party Flasher show her how it’s done.” Instead, I flashed him a look: What’re you waiting for, dumbass? Go for it!
He escorted Marlene to his bed. The two sat cross-legged on the lumpy mattress.
Between hits off the hubble-bubble, Jimmy relayed to her the most recent shoe fact he’d learned at Sole Survivor. How in the Middle East heels were added to shoes to lift the foot from the burning sand. Then, in all earnestness, he said: “You’re that heel. And I’m the foot. You save me from the burning sand.”
Clouded over in pot smoke, Marlene screwed up her face, smiled. “In a weird way,” she said, “I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.” She kissed Jimmy on the cheek.
Me, I gave the tip of my joint another kiss, then considered the situation. With all my heart I wanted Jimmy to be happy. I also wanted Marlene to be the one to make him happy. But then there was Marlene and me. I got so lost in those thoughts that I’d completely forgotten about Susan. She leaned into me, hiccupped in my face. In that napalm cough medicine voice of hers, she said: “You’re kinda cute.”
That night I was on top of my fashion game. For a change, my face was well washed, zit free, my mess of hair combed. I sported strategically ripped acid-washed jeans, along with my Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band T-shirt—the one where Bruce is leaning into Clarence Clemmons while he’s wailing away on sax. That whole ensemble was topped off with a few squirts of Calvin Klein’s Obsession.
Maybe it was that Obsession, my clothes, or something else. Whatever the case, Susan grabbed my right hand, guided it beneath the back of her blouse, up toward her bra strap. “Go for it,” she slurred. Then she slammed her lips against mine, got me deep-docked in liplock. Her tongue went Code 10-30, assaulting the inside of my mouth.
I jerked away, gasped for air, wiped at my lips. “Let’s take it slow,” I coughed.
“Whatever,” Susan huffed. She got up from the couch, polished off her schnapps. Then she started in on the Jameson whiskey I’d bagged from my old man’s liquor cabinet.
Still woozy from that brutish kiss, I sat slumped on the couch, unmoving. I glanced across the room, spotted Mr. Jeepers. He sat squat in his cage, looking right at me through his prison bars. He appeared as sad as he was when I’d first spotted him at the circus. That got me considering his new home. Sure Jimmy and I had given him fresh food, loads of love and attention, exercise, and hadn’t given him sedatives like the circus had probably done. That meant something, I figured. But really, all Jimmy and I had basically done was switch the chimp from one cage to another. I got up, released Mr. Jeepers. Then I slapped “Spirit in the Sky” onto the Sears.
Like the night before, the chimp went ballistic. He made a beeline for his play area, right by Jimmy’s bed. He bounced around; grabbed handfuls of hay, twigs, and leaves; tossed them in the air, then gathered them back up again as Jimmy and Marlene looked on in amazed delight. Once bored with that, the chimp seized an old Playboy Jimmy’s dad had offered up as visual stimulation. Mr. Jeepers flipped through the magazine, all the while hooting and grunting. Once he’d gone through it forward and backward, he began ripping up all those beautiful bunnies, gleefully hollering and smacking his lips as he gathered up the shredded bits to add to his play area.
That’s when Susan changed into a total ice queen, far colder than The Dark Side of the Moon. She flashed Jimmy and me a look as unwelcoming as crime-scene tape. She slurred loud enough for everyone to hear: “Chuck Norris and Stevie Nicks posters. A monkey. You guys are fucken idiots.”
Mr. Jeepers stopped what he was doing. He glanced over at Susan, let fly a loud screechy cry, then shot a stream of diarrhea, barely missing Jimmy’s bed.
I could totally relate to how the chimp was feeling right then. It would’ve been one thing for a true-blooded Ivy League girl to say something like Susan had said. But she was just some rude, Cabbage Patch Doll–looking, plastered-off-her-ass Blackwater girl. I got in her face, launched a Webster’s slam I’d put together from the J, K, L, and M words. “Listen, Susan. You’re nothing but a kerosene libidoed Judas hole meandering through a mackerel sky of morphiomania.”
“Good one, dude,” Jimmy cackled.
Mr. Jeepers jumped up and down in his play area, imitating that cackle.
Susan snorted a laugh. “That don’t even make sense. None of this makes sense.”
“You’re dead wrong,” I shot back. “Consult the dictionary and you’ll see.”
With that, Susan said: “I’m outta here, Marlene.”
No one argued with her. That’s what we did in Blackwater. We drove drunk. We let our friends drive drunk.
Marlene glanced over at me. With lipstick smeared well past the city limits of her lips, she said: “Sorry. She gets like that sometimes.”
“No problemo,” I said. Then I said we needed some new tunes to liven things up.
When I asked what they’d like to hear, Jimmy said: “Whatever.”
Of course he’d say that. All he needed was Marlene and his hubble-bubble and he was set. As for me, another thing I’d learned from all those K-Tel Records ads I’d seen when I was younger was the importance of playing the right tune at the right time. Take that Kinks song: “Give the People What They Want.” It got girls’ libidos moving faster than a Corvette engine flywheel. And another: Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” It was great for wooing slinky stoner chicks. Aerosmith’s “Toys In the Attic” could tame the most rebellious, feather-haired rocker babes. ’Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry” was an instant leg-spreader.
Once I’d cued up that ’Til Tuesday record, I cleaned up the chimp shit. Then I placed Mr. Jeepers back in his cage. Afterward, I just stood there, right by the BB-cracked window—the wild and bright full-moon light spilling in all over the place—wondering what to do next.
Marlene glanced over at me, flashed her adorable bracey-bright smile. “Wanna join us?” She gave the lumpy mattress a pat.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Join us.” When Jimmy spoke those words, he didn’t have his hands on his hips signaling aggression, insularity, or frustration. Didn’t even have his elbows propped atop his knees and head in hands signaling frustration, sadness, or the desire to be left alone. Instead, he was sitting in a relaxed way, his back against the cinderblock wall, his legs s
tretched out across the bed.
All in all I took that as a sign to join them.
Marlene sat between Jimmy and me. Her light peppering of perfume had grown muskier, less flowery as the night had progressed. “Here,” she said, handing me the fuzzy bong. “Go for it.”
It was an exceptionally killer batch of Jimmy’s mindbomb weed, a new strain he’d appropriately titled Across the Universe. With each hit, my head grew lighter. The room tilted and hummed. Sparkled and shimmied. I handed the bong back to Marlene.
She sparked up, then said: “So, guys. Now what?”
Jimmy shot me a quick look. Code for: Holy shit, dude! Does she mean what I think she means?
Regardless of what she’d meant, or what Jimmy was hoping for in that moment, I was picturing my own possible scenario. It was pretty kinky. We’d continue smoking, drinking—anything and everything to further blur our awkwardness. Next, shy kisses between Marlene and Jimmy. Then between Marlene and me. Kisses would lead to the three of us groping one another. Clothes would fall away. Naked bodies would intertwine, becoming a complex puzzle of desire. Eventually, a puzzle piece would fall away: Jimmy. That made sense for a number of reasons. And while that remaining picture of Marlene and me would look pretty cool, it would only confuse Jimmy even more. “I should go back to the couch,” I said.
“But you just got here,” said Jimmy.
“Yeah,” said Marlene. “You just got here.” She gave me a good long look.
I gave her one back. Though I was weed-whacked, that’s when I realized what she meant to me. Her goofy, yet adorable eighties outfit, braces, and those ears a little too big for her face killed me. But not in the way you’d think. With time, she’d shed the mouth metal for straight white teeth. Her fashion sense would develop. She’d grow into her body a little more. Become a woman. And in the process, hopefully remain innocent and undamaged. Sure it was all a long shot, I thought that night. But it was possible. Anything was possible. That was the thing I wanted to touch, taste. The thing so sorely lacking in my life: possibility.
I whispered that word in French—possibilité—then kissed Marlene on the cheek.
Mr. Jeepers must’ve sensed something was up because he rattled his cage bars, sounded a series of low grunts.
Which caused Marlene to giggle.
Jimmy giggled, too. Then he kissed Marlene’s other cheek.
As for that kiss I’d given Marlene, it hadn’t equated into tasting possibility. It hadn’t even meant I was firing off the starting gun for a threesome. The reality of the situation was that all I’d done was kiss a very stoned girl, and had misled my best friend in the process. “Shit,” I said. “I’m sorry. Lemme help.” I wobbled over to the Sears, slapped on Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog, cued up “Love Hurts.” Then I clicked off the lights. The only illumination: that full-moon light spilling in through the BB-cracked window. I grabbed Mr. Jeepers, the bottle of whiskey, and plopped back down onto the couch, directly across from Jimmy’s bed on the other side of the room.
While I could only faintly see them, I could feel Jimmy and Marlene looking at me, both wondering what to say or do next. I just sat there in the near dark, comforting the chimp, and taking swig after swig off the bottle.
Jimmy and Marlene continued taking hits off the hubble-bubble. All those hits led to making out. Signal sounds of kisses and faint delighted moans.
I flashed on Jimmy’s dad right then. Figured him to be where he usually was as of late—crashed out in his easy chair in the middle of his quiet jungle. Bathed in the TV’s dull blue flicker, he’d be wearing his oxygen mask, and pulling one raspy breath after another off the tank. And while Jimmy and I had our own drugs and diversions to help us escape the real world, Mr. Gigliotti had his own to help revitalize him—Cyclophosphamide, Adriamycin, and Cisplatin to ward off cancer tumors; Compazine and Benadryl to beat the nausea; Coumadin to dispel heart attacks.
Jimmy and Marlene’s make-out session grew more intense. Shoes were kicked off. Shirts were shed. Their dark shadowy figures cast even odder shadows against the wall behind them. Part of me wanted to continue watching and listening, but another part of me wanted to shut my eyes and ears to all of it.
Mr. Jeepers knuckle-walked over to their pile of clothes. He swiped Jimmy’s Sex Pistols shirt, dragged it across the room, and back onto the couch. He balled it up and placed it beneath his head like a pillow.
With a quizzical look, he lay there studying me as I took a few more hits off the Jameson. When the room began to spin a bit, I sat the bottle on the concrete floor, right by the couch. Then I lay down next to Mr. Jeepers, making sure to keep one foot planted on the floor so those basement spins wouldn’t get any worse. I gently scratched behind the chimp’s ears. He picked random basement debris from all over me. It was no small job, but he kept at it until it was complete. Then he slung an arm across my chest, and lay there, making small, wet lip-smacking sounds. Despite a case of the spins, all my worries slipped away. The only thing left: the music, Mr. Jeepers, and me. Each and every one of Nazareth’s bluesy and dreamy guitar riffs, each and every little hoot and hug from the chimp lifted me higher and higher out of Blackwater. Somewhere along the line, however, I drifted off a little too far.
Chapter 33
Had my few hours of drifting been a math word problem, it might’ve gone something like this:
A tightrope of three feet is tied to Mr. Jeepers’ cage at one end, and Mark’s ankle at the other. Mr. Jeepers walks along the tightrope toward Mark, who at the same time is floating away at three feet per second. Assuming that the tightrope can be stretched infinitely long, will Mr. Jeepers ever reach Mark?
That word reach would’ve led me to stars. Stars to Callie. Then, gone. Grandmother. Mom. My old man. Gun. Terry. Biting taste of gunmetal. Heavy Metal. Blue Cheer. “Summertime Blues.” The Blues Brothers. The Wilbur Brothers. Mr. Jeepers.
Before I could drift off any further, I was yanked back to earth by Marlene’s screams. I sat upright. My head was pounding, stuffed full of cotton balls and wrecking balls. The basement: still spinning. I rubbed my eyes, focused in on Marlene. She was bathed in a swirl of shadows and moonlight. Had a blanket wrapped around her tilt-a-whirling bare body. Her eyes: pinned open wide. Her hand that wasn’t clutching the blanket: pointed in my direction. That’s when I spotted Mr. Jeepers on the floor by the couch. He was vomiting and shaking. Next to him: my empty whiskey bottle.
I stumbled to standing, gathered the chimp into my arms. Did my best to keep him calm and still. Kept telling him everything would be okay.
Marlene rousted Jimmy from bed. He threw on his clothes, bolted upstairs, shook his dad awake. Jimmy’s dad promptly phoned Doc Morton.
Then Jimmy, his dad, Mr. Jeepers, and I crammed into the pickup. During the whole drive to the vet no one spoke. No Bessie Smith on the stereo either. Just a series of fleeting fever-dreamed snapshots: black-and-blue bruised night with glimmers of cadaver-white along the horizon. The wide-open arms and scraggly fingers of Satan’s Tree. Wolf-howling winds rushing in through open windows. Passing cars’ headlights bleeding blazing streaks across our windshield, as Mr. Jeepers lay trembling in my lap.
Once we reached Doc Morton’s office, I scooped the chimp into my arms, rushed toward the door. Suddenly, time slowed to a Vicodin crawl. Milliseconds stretched into minutes. Minutes expanded into lifetimes. Mr. Jeepers’ shuddering paused, or at least that’s what it felt like in those creeping moments. His wandering and unfocused eyes: crystal clear, but cracked with panic. Those pleading eyes seemed to ask: What happened? Why am I here again?
Had I been straighter, I would’ve told him that I would’ve gladly traded places. Let him have his old life back while I was the one getting poked with needles, hooked up to drips and machines, all the while knocking on heaven’s door. Instead, all I could do was to keep running for the vet’s door as time rushed back to real-life speed.
Doc Morton ushered us into the exam room. Since Jimmy’s dad had only been able to offer minimal details over the phone, the vet needed more specifics. And fast.
“What exactly did he get into?” Doc Morton asked.
Before I had a chance to offer that it was my booze, and probably all my drinking that had prompted the chimp to do the same, Jimmy piped in: “We had a party. Somehow Mr. Jeepers got into some whiskey.”
I glanced over at Jimmy. He briefly looked at me, then looked away.
Doc Morton continued speaking. But I was only able to catch bits and pieces of his plan of attack. He said something about an IV to ward off organ collapse. Said he’d also have to induce vomiting, which is what I felt like doing right then, too. The vet’s lips kept moving, but I couldn’t catch all his words. But I did hear him mention something about blood tests to see how badly the chimp’s kidneys were hurt. Next thing I knew he was whisking Mr. Jeepers down the hall to the procedure area.
That left Jimmy, his dad, and me in that examination room with sunshine-yellow walls, photos of happy animals, and Korean War memorabilia. While we’d been there just a couple days prior, it felt like it had been aeons.
Later Jimmy would confess that he hadn’t gotten laid at the party. He wouldn’t say much more than to offer that it didn’t feel right. Said he couldn’t get it right. That’s how I felt that night at the vet. Slumped in a chair, I kept shaking my head and apologizing, saying I’d fucked up massively; the whole thing had been my fault. Then I made the mistake of glancing up at that cork bulletin board sporting all those happy photos—a beaming woman, one arm curled around a grinning Golden Retriever, the other arm wrapped around a fat, serene Calico cat; a weathered, trucker cap-toting, snaggle-toothed, smiling Piney with his wrinkle-faced bulldog by his side. The sight of those happy pets and owners, and more, made the wrecking ball in my head swing wilder. I closed my eyes, felt the room drift. I gripped the sides of my plastic chair, planted my feet firmly on the dull floor. But that wasn’t much help. I opened my eyes. Again, that damned bulletin board. More mental wrecking ball busting my brain to bits. At the time, I couldn’t come close to figuring out why that bulletin board had disturbed me so much. Later, though, when I was straighter and saner, I’d get it. For most of my life when people had left me it had been for reasons out of my control. All I could do was down more booze, pills, weed, and go another shade of numb as I witnessed person after person leave in their different ways. With Mr. Jeepers, though, his record had been spotless in that regard. Not only had I been the one to instigate his leaving from the circus, I’d also been the one to instigate his leaving from Jimmy and me. Never would the three of us be as happy as all those pets and owners in those photos. Never. And though I couldn’t understand the situation so clearly in the vet’s office that early Sunday morning, I could still feel there was something about all that happiness that was completely alien to my way of life. In fact, it was all so strange and unnerving that I reached for a nearby garbage can and puked into it.
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