“Dude,” he said, with a huge grin, “I just hooked with this chick last night and I snagged a bottle of Captain Morgan’s from her dorm room. You want a drink? You busy?” He held the bottle up. He wore a green sweatshirt and blue jogging pants and his hair feathered to the side. He didn’t look like the preppy Long Island kids around here.
I was busy shooting a BB gun at Old Milwaukee cans stacked in a pyramid on a milk crate in the corner of my living room. Tiny holes riddled the wall behind the still-standing pyramid. I hadn’t made any friends and getting out and meeting people proved not to be my strong suit. So it surprised me when a virtual stranger showed up at my door. “You think she won’t be pissed you took that bottle?” I asked.
He laughed. “Nah, man,” he assured me. “She was fucking butt ugly. She was waiting in a car while her friend was in the health center getting cold medicine or something and I was just walking by. On a Saturday night. So I started talking to her. She left her friend in the health center and walked back to her dorm room with me. I was like, what a loser.”
Gould’s story intrigued me, so I drank the Captain Morgan’s with him and he kept telling stories much like that about himself. He was part of a gang in high school and had to shoot at someone with a pistol once to prove himself. He didn’t kill anyone, only popped some punk in the leg. He’d filled a dumpster with gasoline and aerosol bottles and made a gigantic bomb that set a building on fire on the lower east side. He talked on and on, until he had told me even about his parents and his childhood, the sentencing and the overdose, the temporary custodies, the parties, the drugs, the chicks, some beautiful, some ugly. I figured a good bit of it all was made up. None of it seemed to matter that much to him, though, he just presented it all as the simple facts of his life, no particular drama or emotions attached to any of it.
I could tell he didn’t come from a world where everybody had everything they needed or wanted, something I didn’t feel was true of most of the people in my college classes. And while things are about as different as they can get between growing up in the slums of lower east side New York City and growing up in the pit of central New York State, I could tell we shared as much in common with each other as we didn’t with everyone else around us. He made no apologies for his background, I barely mentioned mine. We made friends.
Gould and I blazed through the underage student bars in Albany, and I started meeting other people through him. He seemed to know everybody at least a little bit. I found that so long as I drank my face off every night on cheap drink specials at the Jefferson Pub, and stuck close to Gould, I had something in common with everyone else around me, and that all other differences didn’t matter much, at least superficially. And things didn’t need to go much deeper than that.
Gould staggered up to me one night at the Jefferson, packed wall to wall with piss drunk students, a soaking, inverted pyramid dripping down from his crotch. We had ingrained ourselves in the community there by virtue of showing up nearly every night, and nearly everyone who ever hung out there had drank themselves to a disgusting level of embarrassment at one time or another.
Half-full shots of Goldschlager jiggled dangerously in his hands, four of them, one clenched between each of the fingers on his left hand. His right hand landed on me to help him balance.
“You look like you just pissed yourself,” I shouted to him over the reckless din of the party.
“I did,” he hollered back, the same wicked grin on his face that he had greeted me with the first day we met.
We left later that night and went to the apartment of some guy Ian from the crowd at the Jefferson and drank cans of Golden Anniversary while Ian weighed out a bag of pot. Gould threw down fifty bucks, a bit damp, no questions asked, something I could never have done, since I barely had enough money to consume well drinks and draft specials at the Jefferson with some regularity.
I realized quickly the difference between me and Gould was that he ruled every situation. He never felt like the underdog. And the difference between the two of us and all of the privileged delinquents around us was that circumstances were always against me and Gould, while everyone else didn’t really seem to have any worries. It probably all had to do with money, at the foundation, at least, but I learned from Gould that it was also an attitude about life and yourself and the people around you. While some of this chalked up to fate or chance, Gould showed me that changing circumstances had to be intentional. He didn’t have a better shot at anything than I did, but he certainly did a hell of a lot better at getting it, whether it was the free scholarship to school, the cash in his pocket, the number of people he knew, or the girls he constantly hooked up with. A lot of those people proved not to be close friends, the scholarship and cash flowed in only because of his unfortunate upbringing, and he didn’t much care what the girls looked or acted like. He didn’t attach much value to things, and he wasn’t afraid to go for them.
Gould had no sense of the sacred; situations were coincidence, not a natural result of things with meaning, and all of this could be easily manipulated, so long as none of it carried any particular importance.
Ian picked Gould’s cash up and added it to a pile of bills in a cigar box on his coffee table. “Hey, check out my plant,” he said, opening a closet door in his living room to reveal an almost fully budded marijuana plant.
I gave Ian my best grin, admiring his handiwork.
“A real Tom Thumb,” I said.
“Green thumb,” Gould corrected me.
When Ian wasn’t looking, Gould plucked a big bud off the plant and pocketed it.
Gould still stank of urine on our way home, from pissing himself hours before, his jogging pants stained and only mostly dry. We bought Hostess snacks, a lighter, a twelve-pack of Labatt’s Ice, and some moist towelettes in a Mobil as we stumbled back toward our apartment house, stinking of pot, piss, and good fortune.
30.
I was home on spring break my second year of college when Logan called me out of the blue one night. I had only gone back to Still Creek a few times since I started college, and only to visit my parents briefly, for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was surprised, because I didn’t know how he knew I was in the area, or even where I had gone. But Logan and my father always got along well. There are no secrets in small towns.
“What, you trying to sneak into town again without telling me?” he asked over the phone, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Hey, listen – my girlfriend’s house-sitting this weekend, and you should come over and hang out with us and her friend,” he suggested. “I haven’t seen you in forever, after you just disappeared. What the fuck?”
I hesitated, not sure I trusted him.
“Come on,” he said, a smile in his voice. “The girls want us to bring mudslides.”
There were girls, and they wanted to get drunk. Did it matter if I trusted Logan? After many frustrated months in college, of all places, I couldn’t afford to turn down any opportunities, especially after watching Gould constantly stumble and drag girls back to our house, while I disappeared into the basement apartment alone every night.
Buying liquor wasn’t hard in Still Creek even though we were underage, so Logan swung by and he picked me up and we grabbed the vodka and Kahlua and the Bailey’s using his fake ID.
“I missed you, man,” Logan said. “Sure is boring around here without you. How’s college treating you?” he asked, but didn’t really wait for a response. “So you’ve got to meet Emily. She’s taking classes up at Harvard on the Hill there.”
The community college was only about half an hour from Still Creek, if you took back roads, on the way to Riverside.
“She lives in the dorms with her friend but they’re house-sitting for a teacher tonight so we got the whole pad to ourselves. I only met her a couple of weeks ago but I’ve been nailing her every day since then. It’s great.”
Logan needed me to keep the friend company so he and Emily could spend the evening screwing. I saw what was going on now
.
Still, we showed up with smiles on our faces and bottles in our hands, our troubles quickly disappearing from memory. Emily let us in quickly as soon as we arrived, glancing around to see if any neighbors noticed us walking in. Logan had parked on the street. Emily was a cute petite blonde, glowing with excitement as we arrived. She pulled Logan’s face down for a long kiss as soon as he was in the doorway, leaving me to wander and find my own way into the house.
“Hey, how are you doing?” I asked as I drifted into the living room, where Emily’s friend sat flipping through channels on the TV, long curly brown hair falling around her face and shoulders.
She smiled up at me and glanced back at some story on Entertainment Tonight. “I’m alright,” she said. “Ready for some mudslides, though - did you bring them?”
“Yeah, we didn’t bring any ice, though,” I said. “We figured there’d be some in the house.”
“Let’s grab ‘em,” she said, flipping the TV off as the celebrity celebration ended, and led me to the kitchen.
Once Logan and Emily stopped making out in the doorway, and mudslides were poured for everyone, we settled down for some drinking games, sitting in a circle on the floor, Logan and Emily practically on top of each other.
“I guess we’re partners tonight,” I said to Emily’s friend as Logan took his hands off of Emily long enough to roll a set of dice.
“Anything’s better than being alone with these two,” she said.
“Hey,” I warned her, with a grin. “I hope I’m better than just anything. I can always still leave you here with them.”
“I’m just kidding,” she promised, mustering a smile.
But around the time we all started getting pretty drunk, Logan and Emily were making out practically non-stop, and I got more and more uncomfortable. It wasn’t much better for Emily’s friend. We shared a couple of awkward glances, tried to keep the game rolling, and shot plenty of coughs and sideways looks. By the time making out graduated to heavy petting, I was ready to leave. But Emily’s friend looked so horrified, I couldn’t just abandon her.
I slid over to lean my back against the couch, sitting next to her, so that Logan and Emily weren’t so much directly in front of us. “I’m sorry,” I said drunkenly, looking over at her. “But I don’t even know what your name is,” I admitted. “These guys are a bit too self-absorbed for introductions, and I never asked,” I apologized with a smile.
She laughed, and visibly relaxed, the tension lightening some. I could tell she appreciated the distraction. Logan and Emily must have too, because they slinked out of the room together almost as soon as I spoke.
“No kidding,” she said, her dark curls shaking around her head as she laughed. “I’m Besse.”
I liked the way her hair hung loose and free around her face and down over her shoulders, even though there was so much of it, just natural and unattended. “You’re very lovely,” I declared, hoping I sounded more sincere than drunk. “I’m glad those two finally left. I was about to start looking for a camera or something.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, grinning. “Logan said you’re going to college in Albany?” she asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing there,” I confessed.
She smiled. “I know what you’re talking about. That’s why I’m just taking classes here for now.”
“I mostly just had to get out of here, really,” I laughed.
“I guess that makes us opposites,” she said, smiling over at me. “I stayed because I didn’t know what else to do, and you left because you didn’t know what else to do.”
That seemed a fair way to put it. We relaxed and continued to pour drinks and talk and laugh. Logan and Emily never reappeared from upstairs, but we didn’t much notice, slouched on the floor, leaning warmly against one another. We were still talking when we finally had to just stretch out on the carpet next to each other, too drunk to sit up any longer.
The next morning, Besse and I woke up tangled together, mostly clothed still, on the floor by the couch, sunlight pouring through the uncurtained windows. Emily was walking down the stairs and it was her footsteps that woke us.
“Oh my God,” she announced with a giggle from the stairs, as Besse and I hustled to separate ourselves.
“You’re telling me,” Besse groaned, pulling herself onto the couch.
Emily turned and walked back up the stairs, shaking her head. I lifted myself into a sitting position on the floor, holding my head to quell the hangover.
Besse’s head leaned over a few seconds later, looking down at me. “Hey,” she said.
“Yeah,” I answered, not sure what she’d say, mostly because I couldn’t remember anything we had talked about or done toward the end of the night.
“Thanks for not doing anything I didn’t want to do,” she said.
“No problem,” I assured her, looking up at her smiling, white, perspiring face.
She never looked away, though, and I couldn’t help myself, and pulled her down onto the floor and kissed her all over her face and neck as she giggled and tried to squirm away.
Now, barely more than a year later, I was on the floor again, but by myself this time, and in the apartment Besse and I shared.
Besse and Duke were both up before I was and I awoke to the sounds of them banging dishes in the kitchen and drinking coffee and talking. Duke must have heard me rustle on the floor because he walked into hover over me, eyeing me coldly.
“Fumes any better at your place yet, Duke?” I asked him, groaning at the pains in my head and body.
“Don’t stink as bad as things around here do,” he growled at me.
“Then why don’t you go the fuck home?” I asked, rising up to my elbows.
He turned his back to me, an ugly cough gurgling in his lungs.
31.
Van was right, of course. I needed to get away from Besse and Duke, from the paranoia, jealousy, anger, despair, and hatred that plagued my life at home. I needed to go hang out with Van’s biker friends. For a long time now, I had spent every sleeping moment of mine next to Besse, and for a while leading up to that every waking moment too.
After that spring break, when Logan first introduced me to Besse, I came back and visited her, without telling Logan I was in town, actually just showing up unannounced at her dorm room late one morning.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, surprised, but not unfriendly, standing in her doorway. “Where’d you come from?” she wondered, looking around and past my shoulder like that might explain something. Or maybe to see if I was with Logan and Emily or something.
“Out of the blue, I guess,” I offered, with a half smile, assuring her I had, in fact, just showed up. “Want to cut class?” I asked.
“You’re a long way from class,” she laughed. “You did a little more than cut it!”
“What do you say then?” I pleaded. “It’s too late for me to turn back now, and I really need some lunch. I’m buying.” I still had some student loan money in the account and couldn’t think of a better way to spend it.
She just shook her head, smiling in disbelief at me. But it was a huge and beautiful smile. “Come in while I change,” she said. “I’m pretty hungry too.”
I sat on the corner of her bed in the small dorm room, pretending to stare out the window while actually just watching her reflection as she lifted her shirt over her head, her bare breasts bouncing free as she began yanking clothes out of her closet.
The scene had grown ugly in Albany before I had left to visit Besse that morning. It was part of my reason for leaving, actually.
Ian had accused Gould, and therefore me, of stealing buds off of his plant, which Gould had done several times by that point, and the crowd at the Jefferson Pub grew increasingly suspicious of us. At first we drifted to some different bars, but Albany proved too small to go where someone didn’t recognize us from once incident or another after a while. No amount of drinking helped me fit in af
ter that, and I coasted through the rest of that spring semester coming out of my basement almost only for my finals. Gould hung out with me sometimes, but I otherwise went back to shooting Old Milwaukee cans with my BB gun, and thinking about Still Creek and Besse.
I decided to move back from Albany for that summer, once classes ended, in order to see Besse again, and hopefully more often, and to disappear from the cold shoulder crowds down at the Jefferson.
I avoided everybody I knew in Still Creek, too, especially Logan, rarely returning phone calls and frequently not showing up when I’d promised I would. I spent more and more time with Besse, and eventually didn’t want to return to Albany and leave her, even as she geared up for her second year at the community college and my registration form got buried beneath clothes and beer cans in my bedroom at my parents’ house
I took a job at the coffin factory, and began looking for an apartment.
Logan suddenly broke up with Emily, after a summer of cheating on her with Michelle, right before she was supposed to return for school, and then she never showed up for classes. Emily and Besse had rented an apartment together for that fall, in Still Creek, to be near me and Logan, and Besse was left stranded when Emily bailed on her. I moved in.
“I don’t know if we’re ready for this,” Besse said nervously, as we picked up the key to the place from the landlord. “We’ve only been seeing each other really for a few weeks.”
“But they’ve been the best few weeks of my life,” I assured her with a warm smile.
We walked in through the front door, which opened right into the living room. It was empty, but cozy – small and intimate, warm even though still barren. We looked at each other and smiled, and Besse suddenly tackled me onto its scratchy carpet and rolled me over. I peeled her shirt off before she even had me on my back and the rest of our clothes soon followed.
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