by Jason Myers
Huh, is the only thing I can say.
And Cliff goes, “It just makes you wonder.”
About what?
“About what we could get away with if we wanted to.”
My throat tightens.
Cliff says, “Probably all kinds of stuff.”
I feel nauseous.
Smiling, Cliff says, “Probably anything.”
10.
IT’S AFTER FOUR IN THE morning when I stumble into my parents’ house. My sister and Amy are sitting on a couch in the living room watching the second season of the OC on DVD, bottles of Boone’s plastered on the floor around them, and they really don’t even acknowledge my existence until I plop myself in between them, asking them if they’re feeling all right.
“I feel so good,” my sister moans, petting her arm with a pink feather. “Cliff is like totally the raddest.”
“Yeah he is. And he’s supercute,” Amy smiles. “But I’m kinda scared.”
“Why, darling?” my sister asks slowly.
“Because I think I might like this a little too much,” Amy tells her, craning her neck toward the ceiling.
I sit up and tell them I’m going to bed, and my sister starts laughing. She says, “Have fun up there,” and then Amy starts laughing.
Climbing the stairs, the only thing I can think about is Laura.
Laura, fucking that dickdrool Bryan.
Laura, kicking me out of her parents’ house.
Laura, refusing to leave my mind.
It’s really starting to get to me and I’m not sure how to handle it because I can’t remember ever letting anything get to me before. I can’t remember ever feeling this fucking vulnerable.
Opening the door to my bedroom, I find Katie lying on my bed in her underwear, smoking a cigarette, watching videos on MTV2.
She sits up. “You finally made it.”
You shouldn’t be in here.
“Don’t be silly,” she says, stubbing her smoke out. “I want you inside of me like now.” She undoes her bra, and gets to her knees and crawls to the edge of my bed, her tiny tits firmly perking up.
I stare at her.
“Come over here,” she smiles, motioning me to her. “What are you waiting for? You can do whatever you want to me. Anything.”
And for a second, all of the things that I could do to her, things I’ve done to girls in the past, it all slams through my skull and makes me feel gross and sick. So instead of standing there any longer, I turn around and go to one of the guest rooms and end up passing out to some shitty Maroon 5 DVD that my sister gave me for Christmas.
Even though she knows how much I really don’t like that band.
11.
KYLE CALLS ME A COUPLE of days later and asks me if I can pick him up from Emily’s pad on Eighteenth and take him to Michael’s band rehearsal space to drop off a package for Michael and Dave. Kyle tells me that his car is being worked on and that he’ll make it worth my while if I’d like, and I tell him that it doesn’t matter, and Kyle tells me, Oh. Huh. Okay.
Jumping into my Eclipse about twenty minutes later, Kyle bumps my fist and I ask him where exactly Michael’s space is.
“It’s right there on Redding and Taylor, jammed in between some of those abandoned buildings.”
Sweet.
Kyle pulls out a blunt. “For your troubles,” he tells me, then drops it into the glove compartment.
You don’t have to do that, man. You don’t have to pay me off for my help.
“Right,” he nods, squinting at me. “Wait. You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Yeah, dude.
“Shit . . . well just keep it anyway.”
Isn’t it sorta early to be making a delivery? I ask him.
“Dude, those two have been going at it since last night. They bought like three grams from me and went to the studio, and I guess the whole band’s there for practice now, so they need to keep it going.”
How much coke are you selling them?
“I’m not selling them any coke. They asked me for two grams of glass, which I normally don’t do, but Michael knew I’d picked some up on the side ’cause a few of my regulars have turned into hardcore tweakers.”
Part of me sometimes wonders how it’s so easy for Kyle to take all that money from his friends and keep them just fucked up enough to take more money. But then again, I guess if the demand wasn’t there, then he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing. And it wasn’t as though he was being secretive about any aspect of how he made his money. Everything was always up-front. Here’s the price. Here’s the deal:
—I won’t spot anyone anything.
—I’ll only shave the price for close friends.
—I won’t do the deal if you actually mention the words “blow,” “coke,” or “gram” on the phone.
—And if I don’t answer my phone after four in the morning, then don’t call again, otherwise you’re cut off.
I slow the car to a stop at a red light and Kyle’s cell starts to ring.
“Hey, baby,” he says, answering it.
I turn my head to the left and look out the window toward the developing skyline of the city. At the high-rise buildings, one huge panel of glass after another, and listen to Kyle talk, saying, “Yeah, Travis just picked me up from your place. . . . No, I’m going home to shower and change after we’re done. . . . For sure. . . . Really. . . . I’m totally into that. . . . Well swing by when you get off and we’ll pick some stuff out together and I’ll shut my phone off. . . . Okay, you too. . . . Bye baby.”
He shoves his phone back into one of his jean pockets.
Emily? I ask.
“Yeah.”
How long have you two been together?
“Since New Year’s Eve, when Claire introduced us.”
I swing my eyes to Kyle.
You’re fucking glowing, man. I’ve never seen you like this.
“It’s ’cause I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I fucking love that girl.”
Up to that point, I don’t think Kyle had ever used the word “love” to talk about a girl. In fact I don’t know if I’d really ever heard him say anything nice about a girl.
Here are a few other things about Kyle:
His mother bailed on him and his father when he was eight. His father got remarried, and two years after that Kyle’s stepmother filed for divorce and won everything in the settlement, including their house, which forced Kyle and his father into a very small apartment where his father still lives.
And Kyle says, “It’s like when I’m with her, all the shit from my past doesn’t even matter. Nothing does. I don’t think about anything but her.”
Whoa.
“And she’s so fucking cool, Travis. I’ll be up all night dealing with assholes and she doesn’t go crazy about it, ya know. She’ll be like, ‘I’m gonna go home, call me later,’ and she leaves.”
Behind us, a car starts honking and I look at the traffic light and notice it’s turned to green. I hit the gas and tell Kyle that I’m stoked for him.
“It’s nice to feel happy,” he says. “There’s nothing else like it.”
• • •
Graffiti covers the entire building where the Lamborghini Dreams and about twenty other bands practice. I follow Kyle up a flight of stairs, the sounds of deluded drumbeats and guitar riffs coming from the different studio rooms, and into the space where Michael’s band is.
They’re in the middle of a jam but stop when Kyle and I walk in.
“Thank god,” Michael says, rising from his drum set. “I was about ready to pass out.”
The room is pretty dark, and equipment cases and empty forty bottles and food wrappers cover most of the floor.
Kyle says what’s up to the two guys in the band I haven’t met, so Michael introduces me to Thomas, the lead singer. He’s a heavyset dude with a beard and a Melvins T-shirt on. He’s older, almost twenty-seven Michael tells me. And then Michael introduces me to Rodney, their lea
d guitarist. He’s like twenty-four and black and is wearing a short-sleeve plaid button-up shirt, tucked into a pair of brown slacks.
“And you already know Dave,” Michael says.
Dave plays a note on his bass and nods at me.
“You ready to do this?” Kyle asks Michael.
“More than ready,” Michael snorts, pulling out a handful of twenties.
Kyle holds up two baggies of crystal meth.
The two trade and then Michael grabs a set of keys lying on one of the chairs and goes around to each of his band mates and gives them a bump up each nostril, then does two himself, before offering me some, but I’m like, No way, dude, and he’s like, “Suit yourself, brah.”
“You guys gonna stay for a jam?” Thomas asks.
We can do that.
“Awesome,” says Michael, who looks absolutely strung out and beat-up. “Let’s play ‘Electric Vampire.’ ”
The other three sorta nod along, and then Michael takes his seat and counts off and they start playing. And to my surprise, they don’t sound that bad. They actually sound pretty damn good.
Like Helmet meets the Melvins meets High on Fire meets Vaz.
And the lyrics, at least to this song, are pretty awesome:
“Electric Vampire, you are my new best friend. . . . Electric Vampire, I do not intend to hurt you. . . . Electric Vampire, your teeth aren’t so sharp. . . . Electric Vampire, you’ve stolen my heart again. . . .”
When the song’s over, Michael goes, “What’d you think, Trav?”
Fuckin’ destroyed, man.
“Right on,” he says.
Then Kyle turns to me and goes, “I need to split. I need to meet Emily.”
Let’s stay for another jam.
“No, dude. Let’s go. I really wanna see my girl.”
That bad.
“That bad, man.”
12.
THE THREE MOST POPULAR THINGS to do during the Freedom Festival are:
1. Get loaded.
2. Get really loaded.
3. Wave a flag.
It’s the day of the city’s third annual Freedom Festival, which is supposed to be like the Fourth of July, except it’s like a week before the fourth and it’s in June.
My father walks out back holding two bottles of Corona and hands one to me, then sits down on the piece of patio furniture beside mine.
Already drunk, the first thing my father tells me is that he’s just closed a huge business deal on the eighteenth green. He slurs, “Let this be a lesson to you, son. The only thing I had to do was miss a two-foot putt. That’s how this world works. To get a lot, you have to at least give a little. You have to make a concentrated effort to let it be known that you’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead.”
Pause.
My father takes a drink from his beer while I stare at him.
Smirking, continuing, he says, “Once you accept this fact of life, you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do and have anything you want to have.”
I close my eyes and tilt my head back.
“I expect big things from you,” he snaps, and my eyes pop open.
Pulling a business card from his wallet, my father goes, “I think you should talk to this guy. He’s a friend of mine. I think he might be able to help you.”
Help me with what?
“Getting motivated, Travis. Getting organized. He is a very good friend of mine.”
I take the card from my father and pretend to look at it before attempting to hand it back to him.
“What are you doing?” he laughs.
I don’t want this.
“What?”
I don’t need to talk to any of your friends. I don’t need that kind of help, Dad.
“The hell you don’t. I think that’s exactly the kind of help you need.”
But it’s not. If I can just get everything back the way it was before I left, then . . .
“Then what?”
Everything else will follow.
My father stands up, planting himself in front of me. He goes, “That’s impossible, son. What are you even saying?”
That I don’t need your help.
“You don’t need my help, huh?”
I didn’t mean it like—
But my father cuts me off. He snags the card from my hand and goes, “You ungrateful piece of shit!” Then he pulls a fancy, gold-plated Zippo from his pants pocket and sets the card on fire.
You didn’t have to do that, Dad.
“You shut your mouth!”
“Lance!”
My mother storms out of the house. “Quit talking to your son like that.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. This is my house. I built it. This is my city. I built it!”
My mother grabs him by the arm and tries to calm him down, but he shakes her loose and whips his Corona bottle to the pavement, sending shards of glass and beer everywhere.
“You have some nerve, young man,” he snaps at me before charging into the house.
My mother stands there, her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “Do you always have to push his buttons like that?” she asks.
I wasn’t trying to, Mom.
“Then what are you doing?” she asks.
I’m, ya know, I’m just sitting here, doing nothing.
My mother sighs and goes back inside the house.
I smoke a cigarette and finish my beer and walk to the utility closet and grab a broom and begin to sweep the glass until my sister walks outside holding the telephone.
“Here,” she says, extending her arm. “It’s for you. It’s Laura.”
Don’t lie to me, Vanessa.
“I’m not. Take the phone.”
I grab it from her.
“But don’t take too long,” she grunts. “I’m expecting a call on that line.”
I wait for my sister to leave me alone before putting the phone to my ear.
Hello?
“Hi.”
Pause.
I take a deep breath.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
Sweeping glass.
“Wait. You’re working?”
Kind of.
Pause.
So what’s up?
“I’ve been thinking about what you told me the night you showed up at my house, about why you deserved another chance.”
I take another deep breath and then another and then I rub my face.
And?
“I don’t know, Travis.”
So you called me to tell me that you don’t know what to think about me asking you for one more chance.
Pause.
Quit playing games with me.
“Don’t yell at me, Travis.”
I’m sorry.
“You should be. You show up at my parents’ house out of the fucking blue and then you call me and leave me a message about how you’re going to keep doing that kind of shit.”
It’s just hard for me. Knowing you’re with someone else and wanting you back. You were my girl, Laura.
“Until you fucked it up.”
I don’t say anything.
“Travis,” she says.
It may not have always been the best between us. But it was better than it is now.
Laura sighs into the phone. “I just don’t know,” she tells me. “I don’t know if I can go through it again. So much has happened. So much is different.”
We could fix everything.
“Do you really believe that?”
We could try.
This time there’s a very long pause.
And Laura goes, “I have to go.”
Don’t.
“Don’t what, Travis?”
Don’t go.
“I have to,” she says. “Bye.”
• • •
Around eight, I drive to Claire’s to meet her. The plan is to slam some drinks and then go to the Lamborghini Dreams show.
Walking into her loft, the first thing I hear is the n
ewest Depeche Mode CD, and the first thing I see is Claire, dancing around by herself with a cocktail in one hand, wearing a black halter top and a very short white skirt with black polka dots on it.
When Claire sees me standing there, she slides over, grabs my hand, and goes, “Come dance with me.”
I shake my head.
No way.
“Don’t be afraid,” she shrieks. “I’m the only one who can see you. I’m the only one here!”
I’m not a dancer, Claire.
“You are if you want to be. Come on! Please!”
I still don’t want to at all but there’s no way to resist her.
It’s fucking Claire.
So I dance.
And when the song ends, Claire turns the volume down, and asks me what I’d like to drink.
What are you drinking?
“Vodka cran.”
Then a vodka cran I’ll have.
“Just one moment, sir.” She pecks me on the cheek and walks into the kitchen, returning moments later with my drink.
I take it from her hand.
Cheers.
“Cheers,” she says, clanking her glass against mine, sitting down next to me on the couch.
“I’m already kinda wasted,” she grins.
Don’t get too drunk too early.
“Okay, Dad,” she laughs. “Come on, dude, how long have we been getting fucked up together?”
A long time.
“I can probably outdrink you now.”
You probably can.
“I know I can, actually,” she says. “So don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
I open a new pack of cigarettes and slide two out and hand one to Claire.
I light it for her, then mine, and then I tell her about Laura calling me earlier.
“Do you really want to get back with her that bad, Travis?”
I need to get something back.
Pause.
“What the fuck happened to you while you were away?”
I don’t know what happened.
“Where?” she asks, leaning into me.
I don’t know, Claire.
“Travis,” she moans. “Whatever’s eating at you, whatever’s hurting you so bad that you completely disappeared from everybody’s life for five months . . . whatever that is, you’re going to have to talk about it eventually.”