“Jeezus, Johnny,” I giggled. “Now that’s a story.”
“You like that, eh?” He smiled.
My face felt puffy. “I know what you mean,” I said, and I went black. I tranced out, and when I came back I was saying. “I really had this thing with the stars. I wanted to be an astronomer. Jed even bought me a telescope and some books. Do you know what the Horse’s Head Nebula is?”
“No,” Johnny answered. I guess I had been talking to him for a while. He was sitting up, staring straight at me.
“Well, it’s a place where stars are born.”
“No shit?”
“Naw. No shit. It’s on Orion’s belt.”
“Who?”
“Orion, the hunter. He’s got this constellation.”
“Like the Big Dipper?”
“Yeah, ’cept it’s bigger. One night we’re having this meteor shower from the Horse’s Head Nebula so I took the pup for a walk—a puppy that belonged to Darcy—but I couldn’t see a thing because of the town glare—”
“Wait a minute,” Johnny interrupted, “you’re not making sense.”
I was too tired to stop. “The lights of the town dim the stars. So I took Darcy’s pup out along the back roads to where the dog teams are and I could see the stars really clear. The dogs were barking at me but that was okay. The puppy was really scared but I wasn’t, and then I seen the meteors flashing as they hit the atmosphere. There was ever lots.”
“Lare,” Johnny said, “hey, man. You’re freaking out.”
“Hundreds of them. Yeah, and I started hollering ’cause I could finally breathe ’cause when I wore my mask I could never take a full breath. I was always scared my nose would close up with all the scar tissue. I thought those meteors were angels falling to earth. I was howling with the dogs ’cause the dogs could see them too. I got so happy and excited I put that puppy down. I started to twirl and twirl and that puppy got too close to one of the huskies. By the time I realized what was happening that puppy was chewed up by the dogs. I mean, they tore her up. That puppy didn’t have a chance, and now I have allergies to puppies—”
“Holy shit. What are you talking about?!”
“Yeah, you said it. Holy shit. I was in big trouble. That was Darcy’s puppy, and I felt pretty bad. He was on vacation at the West Edmonton Mall. The fuckin’ huskies didn’t care. Darcy came home a few days later to pick up his pup and I had to tell him what happened. Jed was there in the kitchen in case anything happened. That was the last time Darcy or his mom came over to our house. We’ve been enemies ever since.”
“Larry? Helloooo, Lare, it’s me, Johnny. You okay?”
“I was going to spy on the grad bash, you know. I rode out to the golf course to see everyone. I was sneaking up with my bike and I could hear everyone having a good time, whooping it up, and who do I run into on the highway walking back to town ’cause his ride left him ’cause he was being an asshole? Darcy McMannus—you bet. And he’s meaner than hell when he gets drinking. I told you what he done to the Merciers. I said hello to him. It was the first time we’d spoken in a while. I thought we could talk or something, but he smoked me and I fell down. I thought he would stop and call it even, but he just kept kicking me with his cowboy boots. He was screaming at the top of his lungs about his dog and how I fucked everything up. I thought people would stop the fight but no one came. I can still hear his cowboy boots scraping against the pavement. I passed out; someone came and found me later on. What did the cops do? Nothing. I didn’t report it. I just told my mom I got rolled by a drunk. I told her it was too dark to see who it was. I had to go to the hospital and everything. Darcy knew I could have reported him but I didn’t... As you would say, we were even.”
Johnny was sitting up and moving back to the wall. I knew I was scaring him.
“As you would say,” I repeated, “we were even.”
I enjoyed it. Even though I was trancing, I knew what I was saying. “Yeah, well, I’m tired,” I said. “You’re not gonna be a dink and wake me up every fifteen minutes, are you?”
“Your mom asked me to.”
“Use your best judgement then. I gotta go to sleep. I’m tired.”
Johnny’s eyes had bugged wide. He pulled his blankets close to him, and I smiled.
I rolled over. “Thanks for talkin’.”
For once, Johnny was quiet. I loved it.
“G’night, Johnny,” I said softly.
He responded in a lighter voice: “Fuck, I want to go home.”
I had a really bad headache, but I was happy inside. The only thing that kept me from roaring with laughter was one question: What do I do about Juliet?
The last thing I heard from Johnny came in a whisper. “Man,” he said, “you are fuckin’ crazy.”
Laundry
It got cold out, but the days didn’t know what to do. It would rain and snow in the same day, only to melt and glitter the next. Some of the dogs in town lay down to pant like lions on the melting snow only to later freeze solid to the ground. They whimpered and whined as their owners tried to pull them free.
You could tell fall was pushing hard and you knew winter was eager too, but just at the last second—the one that determines if it’s great sex or an animal act—fall would pull out in a Thumper sort of way and it would all go straight to hell. Winter would be cold towards fall for a bit, but they’d eventually embrace and it would start all over. The days were a tease really, and we all went to bed frustrated.
Juliet still wore her jean jackets and I used the same jacket I had worn forever. Johnny and Donny got new parkas with wolf-trim hoods. Donny said their dad had sent them some cash. Both of them kept saying their dad was coming soon, that he was going to get work up in the diamond mines.
Four of us were standing in the laundry room: Johnny, me, Juliet and Kevin Garner, the slave-day auctioneer. There was a laundry room on each floor in Spruce Manor, and it was a great place to smoke up. We had two joints. The room was pitch black. Kevin was a pusher, and he had hammerhead fingernails. I had spied them when he unscrewed the light bulb so we would become invisible to hallway traffic.
I remembered vaguely that hammerhead fingernails meant tapeworms, so I treated Kevin like a leper. He also had snaggle teeth and greasy black hair. I didn’t want to stand next to him but had to, to be close to Juliet. To my right was Johnny. I wasn’t really stoned. Every time someone took a puff, I watched Johnny and Juliet in the cherry glare. He had been grabbing her ass all night. I wondered if he had seen us on the dance floor. I wondered if Juliet remembered our tongues, my hands on her ass and the way she had whispered, “Let’s go.” I knew it had all happened because my shiner was still pretty green where Jazz had cracked me. Johnny told me that Jazz would leave me alone now. We were even.
Johnny and I had put in ten bucks each for a gram of hash, but Kevin had been smoking most of it. In the black, I could hear Johnny’s frothy white swollen cow tongue suck and lather up Juliet’s mouth. To me, it sounded as murderous as a wet, bleeding arm stump pulling and popping back into its socket: schluck, schlucka, schluck. The joint came my way. I inhaled the fire and held it without coughing.
I was learning.
I dropped the joint to my right, where Johnny was. It blinked out, and he scrambled for it. While he was down, I grabbed Juliet’s ass. She rubbed me back. I smiled. I wanted to lean over and have her right there with Kevin and Johnny in the same room. I stuck my hand down her shirt, and she rubbed me faster. I got to feel her little lace bra!
Johnny said, “I found it,” and I backed off.
“What?” Juliet asked, “Who said that?”
“Me ... Johnny.”
“Oh...,”she gulped.
I guess she thought I was Johnny. Haha!
Kevin screwed the light bulb into the socket and the light blared on. Juliet was straightening her shirt and Johnny was trying to suck the joint back to life.
“Turn that light out,” Johnny scolded.
“Sorry, boss,
” Kevin said and unscrewed it again.
“The landlord’ll call the cops if he catches us in here.”
I was stoned and didn’t give a shit about the cops. The room was dark again. The only light came from under the door. I wanted Juliet so bad, but Kevin and Johnny were in the way. I turned my head and looked towards Juliet. I torched the lighter.
“Get fucked, get laid, mony mony ! ” I said, and everybody laughed.
I aimed the lighter at the joint but at the last second turned and caught the wolf trimming on Johnny’s hood. It threw a flash-fire trail all around his head. All we saw for an instant was Johnny’s mouth in an O. I shoved the lighter into Kevin’s hands and pushed him down. We all screamed and stormed out of the room. I was laughing hard as the white smoke bellowed out and Johnny was slapping away at the singed fur. He was screaming at the top of his lungs: “Holy! ... you sunova! ... I can’t believe ... !”
I grabbed Juliet and ran into Johnny’s apartment. I took her into the bathroom and propped her up on the sink. I kissed her wet and stuck my tongue in her mouth. She was slow in responding so I pulled her close and started dry humping her.
“Whoah, boy!” she said and pushed me back.
I stopped in mid-hump.
“I’m Johnny’s,” she said.
“What about the dance?” I could hear Johnny’s voice out in the hallway still cursing. I backed off and opened the door.
She looked at me and stood up. “What about it? I liked the song. I was lonely.”
I walked into the kitchen and slumped down on the counter. I lit up a smoke, breathing deep. Johnny came in all red-faced with his coat in his hands. He kept saying, “Fuckin’ black bannock, that fuckin’ black bannock!”
I guess Johnny was pretty stoned ’cause I didn’t know what he was talking about. He watched Juliet come out of the bathroom, then said, “He gave us our money back, Lare. Here. He says you lit the lighter.”
“Kevin’s full of shit,” I said.
I took the money and stuffed it in my shirt pocket. I grabbed my coat and blew smoke in Juliet’s face. She coughed. I slapped Johnny on the back, hard.
“I gotta go. Think I’m gonna listen to Jed for a bit.”
“Yeah,” he said, running water and putting his hood under it, trying to straighten out the blackened ratty fur. “Later.”
I looked at Juliet and said, “Yeah, see ya.”
I walked into the hallway, wanting to leave, wanting to get away. I was just about to run down the stairs when I heard Juliet.
“Larry,” she called. “Larry, just a minute.”
I spun around and held my arms to my sides, ready to spring them out like branches to hold her and carry her away.
“Larry,” she said, looking into me. “Listen, I was drunk at the dance.”
“Hmmm,” I grunted. I pulled the energy out of my arms and braced for the “let’s-just-be-friends” speech.
“Larry,” she repeated, “I want to tell you something.”
I waited. “Yeah?”
“You know about your allergies? You know, to puppies?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking. You have to buy a puppy for yourself.”
“What?”
“It’s all up here.” She pointed to her head. “You can get over your allergies. I read about it in this book. I want to be a psychologist.”
“Wow,” I said. The hurt washed from me and I looked at her. “Thanks, Juliet. Thanks a lot. A psychologist? You’ll do it. Good for you.”
“Larry,” she said, “I’m sorry about the dance.”
I pouted. “Well, I’m not.”
With that, she held out her hands and ran them through my hair. She brushed my neck softly and closed her eyes. She pulled me close and kissed me on the cheek. I tried to kiss her back but it was crooked, lost. I started to blush and look away. She caught me and looked into my eyes.
“You’re sweet, Larry,” she whispered. “I know you want to be my secret Santa Claus.”
I had an out-of-body experience. She let me go.
“I better get back,” she said.
“No,” I whispered.
She turned and started to walk back into the apartment. I watched her and I was alive inside. My eyes were watering and my knees were shaking. I half walked, half floated out of the building, heading for the potato field. So I was sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Didja hear that, you fuckin’ plague monkeys! Me! Larry! Sweet in the eyes of Juliet. I am the ambassador of love! Woo hoo hoo!
The plastic of my running shoes started to crack from the cold, so I stopped walking. I lit up a smoke and took turns stuffing my free hand in my pocket as I puffed and blew smoke to all the stars. From where I stood, I could see the light from the airport tower slicing the sky every minute or so. I had it all. I had the answer to my allergies, I had the words of Juliet Hope bathing me, straight from her pink, hot mouth—and the northern lights were out, for God’s sake! They were green and purple bright. They looked like thick warring wolves running across the sky. I could see Spruce Manor and the high school. Jesus, it had only been three months since I met Johnny. I took another long drag on the cigarette and knew I wasn’t the same. I thought of tongues, mothers, snaggle teeth and crimson-red gasoline. I started to shiver.
I flicked the butt when it got to the filter. I turned around and looked at the sky. I could see the rods and cones in my eyes. They were little pin-point haemorrhages. I was so happy I made up a little ditty. It went a little like this:
“Tapeworm, tapeworm
Spin it around
Look up your bum
And see what you’ve found !”
The moon was getting fuller and from nowhere the thought came to me: “Maybe the moon is God’s flashlight.”
Jesus Is a Gentle Place and Asses Are for Biting
When I got home, Jed was up. He was standing in his gonch with his big belly hanging over. Patsy Cline was wailing, “Sweet dreams of you.” Jed’s left hand scratched his bum and his right hand offered the phone.
“Partner!” he said. “Phone’s for you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Nice ass!”
He gave me the fish eye and waddled to bed. Jed had done the dishes—he always did the dishes when he was home—and the kitchen smelled fresh. He told me once the Slavey believed that if you went to bed with a dirty kitchen, your legs would ache when you got old.
“Hello? ” I said. I was feeling bubbly.
“Is this Larry? This is Juliet.”
“Hey, wow, how’s it going, Juliet?”
“Not bad.”
Jed always covered the plates and cups with a tea towel as they drip-dried. He told me you had to protect the dishes from spirits. I didn’t know about that. It just felt so great to be in my house!
“Not too shabby, hey?”
She sounded kind of sad.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Kind of.”
“Where’s Johnny?”
“He took off. We kind of had an argument.”
“Shit. Was it ’cause I kissed you?”
“No,” she laughed. “I didn’t tell him about that.”
“Good.”
“Larry? Johnny told me you were a good storyteller.”
I borrowed a classic Jed line and said, “I know a thing or two about a thing or two.”
“Well, could you tell me one?” Her voice sounded really distant. I thought maybe she was crying, or had been.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“Larry, just tell me a story, will you? Johnny said that you were kissed by the devil.”
I was quiet. (That fuckin’ Johnny)
“Yeah, he said one night you and him were talking, and that’s what you said.”
I laughed. “I was talking stupid. That was after Jazz used my head as a football.”
“Well, it had to have come from somewhere. Could you tell me? Come on, I told you about you having to get a puppy.”
“Are you sure you want to hear this story?”
“Yes!”
“First you have to tell me what you’re wearing—”
“Larry!”
“Well, just wait,” I said. “I gotta ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
I was feeling kind of daring due to the impact of her kissing me. “How does it feel knowing you have the best ass in town? I mean, do you lie in bed at night giggling ’cause you got the power? Do you wake up smiling knowing you’re breaking hearts with that ass?”
“Larry,” she said, “really, when you think about it, what’s an ass for?”
Fuck. Talk about crashing. She didn’t have to get all grim about it. I started crisis management. I had to save the night. I knew that this was my chance to completely give Juliet something that was mine so much that I would be nothing else. I closed my eyes and decided to let the story lead. I was just the voice, and I knew the story would tell itself. I began:
“Well, one time, long time ago, I guess there was a mother and her son. They were fighting. The boy had seen something and his mother knew what he had seen, but they didn’t talk about it. They were arguing and they were both drunk. They began to fight, push, yell and scream. The mother yelled at her boy because he challenged her, but the boy was right in what he had seen and said so. He knew it was wrong. So she banished him. She threw him out. He begged her not to. There was a snowstorm outside, a whiteout, and he had only a jean jacket, runners and a cap on. It was a long way to his cousins’, and he said, ‘Mom, don’t send me out. I’ll freeze. I’ll die.’
“She said, ‘You should have thought about that before you said those things about your father.’ The boy was thrown out. He walked by himself. He fell through ice and he died.
“His mother was so sad when her boy died that she sobered up, quit drinking. But she became haunted. She’d see him whenever she was around fire. If someone lit a match or had a fire going, she’d see him, and he’d be freezing, wet. His lips would be blue and she could see his breath. His hair was wet and his jacket clung to him. He was cold and shivering, and he’d be pointing at her from the fire. He’d be saying, ‘You ... you ... you.’ And she went mad. She stopped eating, she couldn’t sleep, and she stopped talking.
The Lesser Blessed Page 10