At the thought of insects living in my beard, I scratch my inner wrist.
“Have I told you about my rash?” I say.
“You have a rash?”
“Yeah. It’s spreading all over.”
I hold my arm across the table and lift up my sleeve. Even though it’s summer, I’ve been wearing thin long sleeve shirts to cover the unsightly blemishes and lesions. I fit in nicely with the heroin addicts in my neighborhood.
He moves his head closer to my arm.
“What is it?” he says.
“I don’t know. It’s a rash.”
“What’s causing it?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have it.”
“It’s probably bed bugs. Have you tried researching it?”
“I’m afraid to.”
“Are you going to the doctor?”
“I don’t really have the money.”
“We have insurance.”
“I don’t even know if I have money for the copay but I guess I’ll have to if it keeps getting worse. It’s driving me insane.”
“Maybe it’s stress.”
“Could be. If that’s the case, I think I’m stuck with it.”
“Don’t worry. Once we infiltrate the well you’ll feel a lot better.”
7
Infiltration Take Two
“You gotta see this,” Gus says.
He unties the strap holding the door to the bed of his truck closed. It’s dark on the narrow gravel road out behind the Well of Purity and it takes my eyes a second to focus on what he has reached back and slid out to rest on the door. It looks like a bag of shit tied to a cinderblock and smells terrible.
“What is it?”
“It’s a bag of shit tied to a cinderblock.”
“And . . .?” But I don’t really need to ask. I know what its purpose is.
“Don’t be a pussy, okay? We’re not going to make anyone sick. Think about it . . . there’s nothing covering the well. Do you know how many birds have shit in it? Shat in it. Whatever. How many dying insects and amphibians are in it? How many animals have probably fallen into it to rot? For all we know, it’s the contaminants that keep people coming back. It’s why it’s so damn popular. It’s like a tea made from rot and decay.”
“It’s popular because it’s the only local artisanal water around and everyone living in Twin Springs can afford it. Have you ever drank it?”
“No. You?”
“Can’t afford it.”
Gus struggles to pick up the shitterblock.
“I’m not helping you with that,” I say.
“I should be able to manage it.”
We have to stop twice so Gus can rest and smoke a cigarette before we reach the Well of Purity. We had once decided to acronymize Well of Purity but, seeing as we got ‘WOP’, we decided it was too racially insensitive to be a keeper so the most we ever shortened it to was ‘the well.’
Even though we’re both pretty sure Jolly is long passed out, we glance up at the sagging farmhouse before hopping the rusted tensile fence surrounding the well. The only light is the porchlight. We close the distance between the fence and the well. Gus exhaustedly sets the shitterblock on the low rock wall surrounding the well. He lights another cigarette.
“Can I get one of those?” I ask. “Ceremony.”
He hands me the pack and I pull one out and light it up.
Gus is still catching his breath in between draws and is less chatty than usual. I take deep drags and exhale the smoke, smelling the scent of damp grass and earth and hay mixing with it, looking up at all the stars in the clear sky. Ohio’s all right in the summer, I think. But that’s about it. And that’s only really in the rural areas. Where I live in Dayton, summer is just a cesspool of motorcycles and feral children and heated up dog shit and the barking of the dogs releasing that shit and morbidly obese people wearing not enough clothes.
Gus flicks his cigarette butt toward the well and it goes flying out in the opposite direction.
He bends down to grab onto the shitterblock and says, “This has to work.”
He lifts the cinderblock and, from down in the well, we hear: “Who’s there?”
A startled expression sprains Gus’s face and he quickly drops the shitterblock.
We both take off running toward the truck.
After only a few steps, Gus collapses to the ground and at first I think he’s tripped over a knot of grass or maybe even just his own feet.
I contemplate running but whatever remaining conscience I have stops me and I turn around to go check on Gus.
He’s not doing well.
He’s out cold, his head dented and bloody.
The shitterblock lies a few feet behind him.
I don’t know what to do.
I try to think if a falling cinderblock is enough to kill a person. It seems possible but I don’t really know physics or whatever. I contemplate bending to check his pulse but think it would probably be a bad idea to leave my fingerprints on him. I think about calling 911 but I’m trespassing and don’t think that will look that great. Plus, Dr. Jolly was presumably in the well and could be coming up on us at any minute.
I should just run but I feel paralyzed.
Then I see him coming through the darkness, naked and pale.
“Halt!” he says.
I’m caught.
This is not good.
“Who’s there?” he says.
I take a couple of steps toward him, my arms up.
“It’s me, sir.”
He squints as I move closer to him.
“Why are you raising your arms?”
“I don’t know. Because I got caught.”
He’s now standing above Gus’s prone body.
“This seems to be the bigger problem,” he says.
I put my arms down and move across from him to stare down at Gus’s body.
“What were you two doing?”
We are clearly trespassing. My best friend is currently lying facedown in the grass, his head bashed in with a cinderblock. To tell Dr. Jolly we were there to throw a cinderblock with a bag of shit tied to it into the Well of Purity—his pride, his life’s work, his reason for existence—seems overwhelmingly bleak.
“Sometimes we just like to look at it?”
“What? The well?”
“Yes, sir.”
He has spotted the shitterblock.
“It looks like you were trying to drop that into the well.”
“Um . . . that was Gus’s idea.” I figure if Gus is dead, it doesn’t really matter, right? The accomplice always gets off lighter than the perpetrator.
“It looks like you were trying to drop that bag of whatever into the well. And since it seems to be tied to a cinderblock, I have reason to believe you’ve tried it before to no avail. Am I correct?”
I clear my throat and say, “You’re not not correct.”
Dr. Jolly nudges Gus with his foot. “He’s been a faithful employee, hasn’t he?”
I guess. If you don’t consider habitually trying to throw shit (literally and figuratively) into the well.
“Yes, sir. One of the best,” I say.
“Let’s get him over to the well.”
“Shouldn’t we . . . call someone?”
“This will be a lot less messy.”
Gus is a fairly big guy and I’m pretty weak so I let Dr. Jolly do most of the heavy lifting, trying my hardest not to look at his cock and saggy old man sack swinging like a fleshy, hairy pendulum between his legs.
We get him over to the well. Dr. Jolly, who’s taken hold of his shoulders, is covered in blood.
“Can we set him down for a second?” I say.
“You’ll have to put him down anyway. I’m the only one who can throw him in the well.”
“We’re going to . . .?”
“Of course. What did you think we were going to do with him?”
We set Gus in the grass beside the well. I bend down and fish his wallet
, phone, and keys from his pockets.
“That all you need?” Jolly says.
I nod solemnly.
“Okay.” He bends down and grabs Gus under the arms. “Heave ho.” He lifts him up and flips him over the wall of the well.
I hear a splash.
“Do you have any more business here?” Jolly asks.
“No, sir.”
“Then maybe you should go. See you Monday.”
I walk back to the truck. I’ll drive it to Gus’s apartment complex and call Alice to come and pick me up. I probably won’t tell her what happened.
I then imagine me sitting in Gus’s truck in front of his mom’s house while repeatedly texting Alice with no response and then decide, fuck it, I’ll just drive his truck back to my house. I’m shaken and it’s hard to think.
When I get home Alice is already in bed. I find it slightly peculiar she works mostly during the day since hiring a cam girl seems to me like it would be mostly an impulsive, drunken late night endeavor. I lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling, hearing the sound of Gus hitting the water and digging at my irritated skin. I think it’s unlikely I’m ever going to fall asleep but have apparently underestimated my exhaustion and my capacity for apathy because the next thing I know I wake to the sound of Alice in the kitchen making coffee.
I’m momentarily confused but the previous night comes back to me all at once, the various eruptions about my body lighting up and screaming. It usually gets worse later in the day and the fact it’s already started seems exceptionally foreboding.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, half-expecting to find a message from Gus.
But of course there can’t be. I have his phone.
I get off the couch and move into the kitchen, scratching myself.
“Are you making breakfast?” I ask.
“Yeah. Toast and eggs. Coffee.”
I only eat breakfast on the weekends. This is what we have every Saturday and Sunday morning.
“Sounds great,” I say.
“I need to take the car today,” she says.
“Okay. I have Gus’s truck if I need to go anywhere.”
“Why do you have Gus’s truck?”
“Um . . . I had to drive him home last night.”
“You guys go out?”
“Sort of.”
“Sounds fun. I was stuck here all night.”
“You had the car. You could have gone anywhere.”
“With who?”
It’s true. Alice doesn’t have any friends. I should have probably seen that as some kind of sign.
“You’re right. I should have asked if you wanted to come.” I decide to go ahead and say it before she can. If she said it first then I would feel immediately defensive and it would inevitably lead to an argument.
“It’s okay. I had a couple of long sessions. Made a few bucks. Pussy’s kind of sore and I might have damaged my asshole.”
“Speaking of which,” I say. “Do you think there’s any way you could give me a little extra this month?”
By this I mean a little extra than the nothing she’s given me since moving in.
“I don’t know,” she says. “You know most of what I make goes right back into it.” By this she means the money she makes is mostly spent buying make-up, underwear, and clothes “to keep things new.”
“Whatever,” I shrug. “It’s just been a little tight. That’s all.”
“Maybe we need a roommate or something.”
I wonder how bad my rash would get if I had to go to work knowing Alice was home alone with someone else.
“That’d be a last resort,” I say before tucking into my eggs and toast.
8
An Anxious Weekend
It’s an anxiety-filled weekend. I do my best not to think about what happened to Gus but it’s always somewhere in the forefront of my thoughts, along with all the other things I typically worry about.
Alice takes the car out Saturday afternoon and returns in the early evening with a slight limp. I think about asking her about it, decide I don’t want to hear whatever weird lie she will tell me, and go out to mow the grass.
A thin older man with slicked back white hair reaching down to his shoulders watches me the entire time while smoking cigarettes and ashing them into what looks like an ashtray intended for a car he holds cupped in his left hand. He wears a racing t-shirt tucked into stonewashed jeans and is clearly white trash, as is everyone in my neighborhood, but conducts himself with an almost dapper elegance.
I finish and shut off the lawnmower.
“Excellent form, my friend,” he says.
The sweat and the sun have set the rash on fire and I’m scratching my damp arms vigorously.
“Uh, thanks,” I say.
He crushes his cigarette out in the car ashtray and takes a step toward me.
“I’m the Monarch,” he says.
It seems like a completely fitting name. I imagine him drifting around the neighborhood all day, the gracefulness of a butterfly, the haughty air of royalty.
If I had a nickname, what would it be? The Cuckold? The Asshole? The Used? The Discarded? The Worthless? The Bum? The Rash? The Anxious? The Depressed? The Misanthrope? The Poor? The Doomed? The Ill-Fated? The Neglectful? The Powerless? The Lazy? The Slump-Shouldered?
Instead I just say, “I’m Ryan,” and hold out my sweaty hand, who knows how much dead skin and blood under the fingernails, assuming he will find some reason not to take it.
He takes it anyway. It’s a perfectly royal handshake.
“I live there at the end of the street. You need anything, don’t hesitate to stop by.”
“Thanks, man,” I say.
He glances at the lawnmower. “You don’t suppose I could borrow that for a couple hours, do you?”
This man has just offered me anything—anything. How could I say no? Even if I’m pretty sure he lives in a house as small as mine and that house is probably filled with a hoard of broken, shitty things of absolutely no value to anyone. But that’s just me being judgmental and condescending.
“Sure,” I say. “Need me to gas it up for you?”
“Nah. I got gas. I’ll send someone for it.”
He pulls his pack of off-brand cigarettes from his pocket and lights one up. I notice they’re 100s and stop myself from asking for one.
“Nice day,” he says. “Nice day.” Then he turns and walks back up the street.
Mapes is open-mouthed and drooling in his front yard, his three dogs yapping and straining at their leashes.
The Monarch nods toward him and says, “Howdy do?”
Mapes must be really medicated today because he doesn’t say anything. Just looks down and focuses in real tight on one of his dogs’ assholes.
I go into the house and take a shower. It’s the first one I’ve had in a couple of weeks and I only take it because I think it might help with the rash. I make a dinner of tomato soup and Cheez-it for Alice and me and spend the rest of the evening sitting in my chair in the living room, scratching my rash and wondering what I’m going to do. The shower did not help with the rash. It’s almost like it just shined the rash up, making it glow in fierce red streaks.
The next day a boy who looks about twelve knocks on the door and tells me he’s returning the lawnmower. I go out and put the lawnmower in the garage, notice the Monarch talking to Mapes on his front porch. I don’t want to get embroiled in a conversation or anything so I slip back into the house without waving or saying hi.
I wait until it sounds like Alice is finished with a session and knock on the bedroom door to see what she wants for lunch.
She’s lying on the bed, her laptop open beside her, smoking a cigarette.
I notice the Rubbermaid tote I’d used to store my manuscripts in sitting beside the bed, the top removed.
I can’t help looking inside it.
It’s full of dildos.
“You burned my manuscripts so you could have storage for dildos?” I t
ry not to sound mad or heartbroken.
“Where else was I gonna put them? It’s not like I can just leave them laying around.”
“It’s not exactly like we ever have company.”
“Would you want to look at bottles of water all the time when you came home?”
She has a point. “I guess you’re right. What do you want for lunch?”
“I’m skipping it. I’m getting fat.”
I glance up and down her naked, lightly tattooed body. She is definitely not fat.
“You’re not fat,” I say. “You need to eat.”
“I’ll eat dinner.”
It’s pointless to argue with her.
I go into the kitchen and open a can of tuna—the cheap stuff—and eat it directly from the can. Then I wonder if maybe my rash is caused by mercury or something. After eating, I go into the living room and sit in my chair and mindlessly watch MeTube videos. Nothing specific. Mostly just normal people talking about stuff and it just makes me remember my one real friend might be dead.
That night I receive another call from the unknown number.
Again the caller says nothing.
I imagine the caller again as a female, quiet, dark-haired, maybe only a few years younger than me, very pale. Wherever she is, it’s earlier than it is here and today it’s clear, the early evening sunlight filtering through thin curtains and filling whatever room she’s sitting in. After thinking about it, I realize it’s like a dream room that serves no purpose. There’s nothing in it except the chair she’s sitting in, as though the room only exists for her to call strangers.
9
Gus 2.0
I take Gus’s truck to work on Monday morning and am greeted with the sight of the upper half of his ass staring at me when I turn into the filling room. I’ve never been so happy to see his ass before.
“Gus!” I say.
Failure As a Way of Life Page 3