by Larry Doyle
The father had lived a colorful life, and had the stories and face to prove it. A boxer in his youth, he looked as if he had been beaten so badly so often that the swelling never went down. He had an elephantine lump of a nose, rosacean and pustular, save for the tip, which was missing, attributed to frostbite in Tibet, occasionally to leprosy in Nepal. His tales of his days as a mercenary and a missionary, often overlapping, enthralled J!m, reminding him of classic movies, sometimes quite specifically. J!m didn’t mind that the stories often digressed into parable and catechism.
J!m began attending Mass, drawn to the costumes and props, in particular the ciborium, the golden chalice that held the Jesus pieces, and the paten, the silver plate the altar boy placed under the communicant’s chin to prevent God from falling to the ground. One day J!m went up to receive communion himself, a gross impropriety, but Father Egan indulged him, perhaps hoping the irresistible paste wafer would convert him. Lately J!m had been going to confession as well, mostly divulging the sins of others.
Rising from the pew, J!m walked up to the altar, a venial, ran his finger along the top as he passed, mortal, and poked his head into the sacristy, not an official sin but also not done.
“Father . . .”
“Jimmy!” The priest was out of his vestments, in a sweat-stained sleeveless T-shirt and gray trousers so threadbare that his ample seat shone beatifically, giving the impression that his arse had a halo. He was rinsing the chalice at the sacrarium, a gilded sink that went straight into the earth, ensuring that any excess savior did not go into the sewers, where it might breed with the locals, and nobody wanted to pray to a Giant Rat Jesus.
“I can do that,” J!m offered, eager to get his hands on the magic cup.
“Do you offer to do surgery, too? Sit.”
J!m obeyed. Father Egan pulled up a chair and sat facing him, their knees touching.
“Listen, buddy. You can’t take communion anymore.”
Though they had discussed this before, as recently as six months ago, J!m took fresh offense.
“So much for Dei Vermin,” J!m said.
“Verbum, meaning the Word, wiseass,” their tatty repartee. “Look, we got rules here. And one of the rules of the Catholic Church is, if you want to take Communion, you gotta be Catholic.”
“When’d you start caring about rules?”
“When some old biddy—Mrs. Porter, I bet—reported it to Bishop Retardo, that’s when.”
“Well, just tell Bishop Retardo—”
“You don’t call him Retardo.”
“—tell the bishop I’m Catholic.”
“I ain’t lying to a bishop. About this.”
“No lie. I’ll be Catholic. Wave your wand.”
“Jimmy, Jimmy,” laughing, “do you remember when we discussed transubstantiation?”
“The permanence and adorableness of the Eucharist.”
“That the consecrated Host doesn’t represent the body of Christ; it is the body of Christ. Do you remember what you said?”
“I had doubts.”
“You said, ‘I’m sorry, Father, but that is horseshit.’ ”
“I may have.”
“Here’s the thing, Jimmy: if you want to be a Catholic, you have to buy that horseshit. And a lot more.”
J!m didn’t know what to say. He liked Jesus well enough, a little too nonjudgmental for his tastes, but the rest of the canon, the archangelic insemination, the miracle fish, the zombie Christ, yeah, that was horseshit. On the other hand, there was no one he could talk to like he did with Father Egan, not Johnny, not his mother, not Marie lately, and maybe never again.
“But Father—”
“Barry.”
The priest saw terror in the boy’s eyes. He softened.
“Son, I know you’re searching. But the answers we got ain’t to the questions you’re asking. You’re gonna have to look elsewhere.”
J!m, with extreme unction: “Where?”
“Up there,” Barry pointed, “out there,” and, thirdly, to J!m’s chest, “in there.” The priest made a face. “What do I know? I’m just a potato-eater.”
He rapped J!m’s leg. “What’s with the get-up?”
J!m wore a shirt with buttons, a tie and a tweed jacket, three levels higher dressed than he got for church.
“You got a date tonight?”
“I’m sharing one.”
Frowning: “You didn’t ask her.”
“I was going to.”
“You’re a jerk.” Father Egan knew more than he could divulge, and so he phrased his next statement carefully: “She loves you, you know.”
“So she says,” J!m answered morosely.
He got up.
“Can I still come to confession?”
“We can talk.”
“In the booth?”
“We’ll have coffee and I’ll turn the other way.”
Chapter 17
Explosive Drama ... Set to Rock’n Roll Tempo!
the mhs billboard zoomed, cross-dissolved, etc.,
MANHATTAN 6 SPRINGDALE 51
EAT AT GOOGIE’S!
HARVEST HOP TONIGHT!
DANCE, MUTANTS, DANCE!
as Johnny and J!m rolled by, the last to arrive. Johnny had been late to J!m’s house, every last Saturday of the month being his mother’s bath night, and this one becoming crevice intensive. Miw delayed them further, insisting on shooting viz of the two boys looking so cute, like they were going to court.
Johnny parked in the back, where they agreed to meet Jelly and Rusty, rejecting Rusty’s proposal that they all pick her up at her house like a real date, arguing that they did not want to. Instead, Jelly had shown up at the door in a green and orange checkered jacket and asked if his fiancée was ready. The general invited Jelly to sit, and proceeded in his affable manner to comment on how much Jelly reminded him of a situation he thought he had taken care of.
“Hey,” Johnny said, dismounting the bike.
“Yeah,” said J!m.
“I never woulda . . . if I’da known, I wouldn’t of called you ‘dickless.’ ”
Johnny had been calling J!m dickless for almost a decade, so often and so variedly that J!m hadn’t connected it with his actual lack of dick, and didn’t see the point of discussing it, ever. But the dickless thing had been bothering Johnny since last night, for more than one reason.
“No way,” Johnny said, “if I’da known you didn’t have a dick.”
“You’re all heart.”
Johnny was hoping he wouldn’t have to say what he meant.
“You coulda told me.”
“And tell me, Monkey: How would that conversation go?”
“Gosh, I’m sorry,” said Johnny. “Let me rephrase that: Go automate.”
“Now you’re rubbing it in.”
rusty toppled out of the pickup, protoplasmic goo all over her white tunic dress.
“If you ever do that again, I’m going to make you eat it!”
Jelly flowed out of the cab.
“I am scrumptious.”
Rusty slammed the door, cutting him off and in half. Seeing J!m and Johnny, she transformed into the innocent but available humanoid female from an idyllic planet that her toga was meant to convey. She sashayed over, the gold cincture bisecting her voluptuaries quite nicely, a sensual look that would have worked better if she had lowered her voice an octave and several decibels.
“Johnny! You were colossal today! After you left, Russ got sacked, like, eight times! So, you quitting the team?”
“Nah,” Johnny shrugged. “I like knocking people down.”
J!m cleared his throat, indicating Rusty’s tunic, where the Jelly stains had migrated into two camps, bilaterally symmetrical on her upper torso, forming puffy purple mounds that much improved the dress but perhaps overadvertised Rusty’s availability.
“Get the hell off me!” Rusty screamed.
The goobies blurbled gaily as they dripped off and returned to sender.
“neep nee
p, you hairless monkeys!”
Marshall the Martian was squat, fairly hairless and, for this low-paying appearance, costumed only from the shoulders up:
his face and head grease-painted baby-poop green;
black rubber tentacles sprung limply from his neck;
and a tiny silver cape safety-pinned to the shoulders of a cheap suit.
Anything more than that, he wanted carfare.
“Neep neep!” shouted Tubesteak back, feeling he had made a celebrity friend. He looked to Sandra Jane for affirmation, again failing to note how amazing her dress was or how strenuously her breasts were trying to escape it.
“Take off that stupid hat,” Sandra Jane said.
Tubesteak grabbed the porkpie he had chosen to offset his green sharkskin jacket and cocked it at her.
“That’s my personality, baby!”
Marshall waited out the parroting of the devoted, the neep neep’s and Prepare to be probed!’s and Die, puny Earthling!’s, all fully trademarked and printed on twelve thousand T-shirts sitting unsold in his garage, and went into his basic package.
“Are you ready to gyrate in a grotesque simulation of biological reproduction?!”
They were.
“Inoculators and incubators, collide your appendages for”—he demonstrated hand clapping for those new to the custom—“Chromium!”
Chromium, a quartet of slumming rhythm-and-blues musicians, launched into a serviceable version of a Davie Jones tune. The Martian exited, pursuing check.
Warm orange and amber spots swept the gym, traversing the center circle, where Russ was holding half-court. Toad and Ice arrived with drinks for the girls. Marie tasted hers, gave it back. It was pure grain alcohol, possibly sweetened with cough syrup. Sandra Jane sent Tubesteak for a second one.
I’m the Space Invader
I’ll be a Rock-’n’-Rollin’ Bitch for You
on cue j!m entered, Rusty attached, Jelly at his heels, and Johnny eventually, through an arch of overgrown Indian corn, leading into an elaborate harvest tableau, the centerpiece of which was the Mutant costume stuffed with straw, wearing overalls and crucified.
“It is finished,” J!m said.
“We just got here,” said Rusty.
J!m looked out into the darkened gym and saw the reflected whites of a hundred female eyes, angled down, betrayed and bewildered, unable to accept that the monster in his pants was simply monstrous. Brackish laughter erupted in pockets around the room, the schadenfreude of average boys.
J!m stepped back and into Johnny. “This’ll pass,” Johnny nudged him forward. “By Monday it’ll be something else.”
That wasn’t reassuring.
this whole evening was a mistake, Marie thought, sipping more cleverly spiked punch. She had nothing in common with Russ beyond a basic genetic blueprint, and she wasn’t even positive about that, and had only agreed to this setup because Sandra Jane had talked her into it, and because J!m hadn’t asked her, after thirty-two excruciatingly obvious openings, and she got miffed. Yes, Russ had looks, and a swell car, and would never make her feel shallow. And there was comfort in being part of the social mainstream for once, in being . . . normal.
So why did it feel so wrong?
“Your boyfriend’s here,” Sandra Jane said, wagging her pinkie toward the gym entrance.
He had worn a tie!
“I guess not ‘boy,’ though, huh? Itfriend.”
Marie handed Sandra Jane her drink, taking care to make the spillage seem accidental, and went to J!m.
as she got closer, J!m got the feeling that he had met this girl before, but she was not Marie. She looked strange and familiar, in that dress, with that hair, those heels, that face, not pretty but something else, dreamy and unreal: beautiful.
And all for Russell Ford.
J!m’s souring expression slowed Marie but didn’t stop her.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said, and in a show of good faith: “And you brought Rusty!”
“We couldn’t afford separate girls,” Johnny said.
Jelly, loudly: “It’s a gang date!”
“Stop saying that!” Rusty kicked him, the fourth time they had touched.
J!m smiled, and Marie relaxed.
“How’s your date?” he asked. “Are you popular yet?”
Marie had misjudged the situation.
“Excuse me.”
She pushed past J!m and rushed out the gym door.
Russ trotted up.
“What did you say to her, Missing Link?”
He followed Marie, with a passing attack at Johnny: “Coulda used you on the field today.”
The rest of Russ’s pack and their dates followed.
J!m looked around.
“This could be all right.”
a strangled sob echoed down the darkened hallway, more aching with each iteration. It spooked Marie, who didn’t recognize the cry as her own.
She heard footsteps and began to run.
Russ appeared in the hall behind her.
“Yo, . . .” and then remembering, “Marie!”
Marie turned, lost control of her heels and fell. She curled into a taffeta ball against the lockers.
Russ knelt beside her, ran a callused fingertip along the track of her tear.
“What did that blue bastard say?”
“Nothing.” Marie sniffed strongly, inhaling her hurt, not wanting Russ to have it. “We’re just . . . It’s complicated.”
Russ had a limited repertoire for dealing with upset girls, beyond not calling again. But he hadn’t closed this one yet, and had to come up with something. Borrowing from another heuristic, he rubbed her back.
“If you want,” he said, “I can beat the shit out of him. Or whatever comes out.”
The back rub had moved to the side back and was circling around to the front back.
Marie twisted away, saying, “No, thank you,” to his generous offer and what he was doing.
The launch sequence had been activated and there was no turning back. Russ opened his mouth.
“Hey!”
It was Tubesteak, et al.
“Wait for us!”
Marie was the only one who found that disquieting.
The group joined Russ and Marie, encircling them, too close for Marie, not part of the set but trapped inside it. Russ got to his feet and, tipped off by a look from Hel or Mil, offered to help Marie up. She took his hand, unaware that in doing so she had agreed to genital manipulation, at the very least.
The circle tightened and Marie feared a Paniscan Frisk, which required eight different kinds of genitalia, but such technicalities never stopped teenage boys when it came to sex.
The closing of ranks involved another sort of foreplay, however.
“Anyone in the mood,” said Bennie, disclosing a long, untidily constructed peach cylinder veined with rose, “for a mind ride?”
Tubesteak, after the Dick Moon hit: “Let’s Go Triffin’!”
Triff, a space weed long cultivated for its oil despite its habit of killing and eating humans, was banned once it was discovered that smoking the petals produced pleasurable sensations in the brain.
“You’re smoking triffid?” asked Marie, alarmed to be in such close proximity to illegality.
“Wake up, Marie,” Sandra Jane said. “It’s tomorrow.”
“That stuff causes brain damage!”
Bennie rolled his eyes as he lit the triff, his pupils never coming down.
“Sorry, brain.”
johnny, rusty and jelly sipped unadulterated, unentertaining punch. They hadn’t made it more than fifteen feet into the gym, remaining in the light of the entrance. They weren’t at the dance. They were witnessing it.
J!m paced in a small mental box he had created, trying to astroglide into the universe in which he had not said that to Marie, the one in which she kissed him and he turned into a prince.
Rusty fidgeted her hips. “Anyone care to ask me to dance?”
“Wanna
dance?” Jelly asked.
“Anyone?” asked Rusty.
J!m walked away. Johnny looked straight ahead. Rusty flushed, her freckles aflame.
I have only one-a burnin’ desire,
Let me stand next to your fire!
sang Jimi Marshall, the clean-cut and conked lead singer and guitarist of Chromium as well as King Kasuals, their R&B combo, and Foxy Lady, their wedding band. The song was an original. They weren’t paid to play originals.
The dancing few struggled to keep up with music that had more rhythm than their limbs were calibrated for. The rest waited for a song they could Bikini to without dislocating something.
Johnny pulped his cup and tossed it into Jelly.
“I am so sick of high school,” he said.
“It’s been six years,” Jelly commiserated.
Chromium finished their number. No one applauded.
“You’re too kind,” mumbled Jimi. “This next one . . .” He shielded his eyes. “Johnny?”
Jimi urged his friend to the stage. Johnny waved him off.
“Everybody,” Jimi shouted into the mike, “how about a hand for my favorite half-breed, Johnny Love!”
The crowd, confused, nevertheless clapped. Rusty prodded Johnny forward. He balked; this was not something he did here, for them.
And yet he was moving toward the stage. He looked down and saw a plasmatic carpet conveying him across the floor.
“Heeeeere’s Johnny!” the carpet bellowed.
The spread Jelly deposited Johnny at the riser. He surrendered, and stepped onto the stage.
Rusty watched, rapt. Next to her, Jelly’s clothes rose from a puddle, rejoining her. As Johnny strapped on a guitar, Rusty clutched her hands to her chest. Jelly illustrated her, spurting purple hearts out of his head.
With an aside, Johnny propelled the band into big and meaty rock and roll. He took the mike and snarled:
Honey, you know what I want
Baby, you got what I need
Come a little closer
Just a little closer
You gotta feed
The Beast in Me
Jelly held out his hand to Rusty. She had no choice, really.