We weren’t given the time to agree with her.
“OK, OK we’ve treaded the waters of philosophy enough for one day. As much as I’d like to keep you three here I’m almost sure your classmates would not be very happy if we stayed late. And whether or not altruism exists, I would sure like one of them to save me from a river if the need ever arose. So, until next week,” he ushered us out. “Oh and don’t forget to read chapter five and review the material on neuropsychology.”
I liked Shoddy from that day on, even though for the first two months our discussions were strictly in-class. But when he barged onto my drunken Twister orgy, that boundary was crossed for good.
“Dude, we went out and got shitty tonight. We were so shitty we got shibby,” he mumbled. It took him a while to notice the two girls in pajamas entangled on my floor. Lindsey and Emily didn’t know what to make of him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Twister, my friend. Drunken Twister.”
Shoddy got up off the couch.
“You know what’s better than drunken Twister? My nipple!” he squealed, and in one swift motion whipped up one corner of his t-shirt and flicked the aforementioned areola.
Drunk and cackling, still hoisting up one corner of his t-shirt, Shoddy spun on his heel and marched out the door, assumingly to go pass out a few doors down.
The girls never came to my room again to play drunken Twister, but Shoddy and I became close friends anyway. We drank together, ate together, hit on girls together and, if the flirting went well, went home separately. I started calling him Shoddy in sort of a brotherly mocking manner. It was partly a subtle jab at his well-known, sloppy character but it was also homage to the fact that Marcus could down more shots of whiskey than Jack Daniels ever intended.
The boy drank like an Italian ate and the hours of booze, broads and fun were healthily balanced with curiously in-depth conversations about literature, life and even love lost and longed for.
He was always there when I needed him. And on the flip side, I always had to be there when he needed me. He was happiest just driving around in my car talking about Othello or Hamlet or the latest Chaucer work he just finished (we were both English majors and we pledged to write a play or a novel together someday). Dorks? Yes. Sophisticated? Maybe. Fun? Always. It usually flowed from the car to the lunch table, to the hallway, to the dorm room; basically any type of conversation in any type of atmosphere was all right with us.
We chatted about the girls we had, the girls we wanted and the girls we could never attain but we did it so that anybody around us would understand that we were really just a couple of normal guys: normal in the sense that we were atypical college students. Shoddy and I were two branches on the same tree: the guy that got drunk frequently with his best friends, passing out cold on a frat house floor at 5:00am on a Tuesday morning and the guy who got drunk but carried home his drunker friend, preventing him from being found passed out cold on a frat house floor at 5:00am on a Tuesday morning—or sometimes worse places. All the while, inebriated or not, our highfalutin conversations confused other friends, acquaintances and passers-by. Many of our contemporaries couldn’t understand why, in a world full of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, Shoddy and I would rather discuss Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan. But that didn’t mean we didn’t keep a stack of Maxim magazines on our dorm room coffee table or each obsess about the Boston Red Sox. There were a time and a place for everything—Shoddy and I just didn’t agree with everyone else on the time or the place.
Some people called us arrogant: many of them our friends. But others were more correct in calling us assholes because we just did not care what they thought. Shoddy would flip off a nun if she demeaned his character, but that’s just the way he was.
Complimenting personalities are rare. Two personalities that bring out the absolute best, and the absolute worst, in each other are next to impossible to not only find but to keep meshed together. Shoddy and I weren’t that different. But the little differences weighed a lot. They were what drew ire towards Shoddy from most everyone else around us and cause some girls to say to me, “Why do you hang out with that kid? You’re a nice guy.”
I paid those girls no attention, unless they were naked in front of me. And if they were naked in front of me, they hopefully weren’t talking about Shoddy.
He would say what I was thinking. Sometimes it got him in trouble since his restraint on public deviance was much weaker than my own. But others’ views about him didn’t really amount to more than a splinter in his finger.
A splinter, however, when not taken care of can become an infection.
A few months before our senior year spring break road trip to Florida, I confronted Shoddy about his drinking. He was missing class more than usual, sleeping all day and staying awake all night. By this time he had given himself a crew cut, sick of blowing his own hair out his face. Combined with the unusually short temper he developed, he started looking and sounding like a drill sergeant.
I told him I thought he drank too much. I told him he needed help. He took a swing at me.
A week later he apologized, gave me a manly hug and said he understood why I did what I did but that I needn’t worry. He was fine. His grandfather, a World War II Marine hero with whom Shoddy was very close, had died. Apparently the man helped raise him, taught him about being a man. Shoddy didn’t tell any of us because he didn’t want the sympathy. His grandfather taught him to be strong. The inevitable condolences and hugs from the girls just irked him so he wallowed and mourned alone. I told him I wished he confided in me; that I lost a grandfather and could have helped him through the grief. I regretted not being there for him. He meant the world to me as a friend, as an intellectual, as a brother.
He was strong enough to deal with me no matter what the situation: physically, mentally and emotionally. His loyalty never faltered, he was always faithful.
My time with Shoddy would almost be over when we got back to campus after our spring break Florida trip. We graduated two months thereafter. After four years of companionship, we would both be alone again. In honor of his grandfather, Shoddy joined the military.
He would leave for the Army’s Basic Training the day after graduation.
Chapter 15
“Shut the fuck up,” said Shoddy.
I had just told him I killed Duncan. Then I told him I killed Lily. The fluorescent orange bulbs hummed on the Mo’s gas station lamps around us.
“You’re fuckin with me now, Shaw,” he continued. “And to be honest, it’s not funny. Even with my sick sense of humor.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said as truthfully as I could.
Shoddy was visibly upset. He kicked the Red Bull cans from the oil puddle then picked up the sopping bag and tossed it underneath the “Mo’s” sandwich board sign.
“Seriously man, stop it. I could believe the Duncan thing, as far-fetched as it seemed. I mean, come on, you killing someone? But this is just mean.”
He pushed past me and nudged my body away from the Explorer. He started replacing the gas cap on the car. He slammed shut the little gas tank door and started walking around the car to the driver’s side.
“If you’re done with your stories, I’ll drive from here,” he yelled from the far side when I couldn’t see him anymore.
I wiped my bloody hand on my pants leaving a dark smudge. I followed Shoddy’s path around the car to the driver’s side.
“No,” I said loudly, “you’re not driving.”
“Like hell I’m not. You’re obviously fucked in the head; all that shit you were spouting over there. I’m not getting in a car with a nut job behind the wheel.”
“I wasn’t kidding, Marcus.”
He stopped short of the driver’s door and whipped around. He came at me, his nose scrunched up, lifted by anger. His eyes wide under a v-shaped pointed brow and tightly pursed lips. His hand shot up from his side, clenched. I stood my ground. This must be the bad part of commandme
nt number five, the part where I’m vulnerable for being honest.
Shoddy’s fist stopped centimeters short of my face. He opened his hand, stretched his fingers a few times and dropped it back by his side. He took a step away.
“You know what, Shaw, I don’t believe for a second you did anything to Lily. You loved her. Talking about her like you are right now isn’t going to make what happened any better. You can blame yourself but we were all to blame. Don’t you dare take that from the rest of us. We all have to live with it. We all should have known better.”
My headache began pulsing. Anger I had never felt towards Shoddy percolated inside.
“I gave her those drinks, not you!” I exploded. “I kept pushing the booze down her throat. Just one more, just one more. Not you, Marcus. You were off doing whatever the fuck you were doing.”
“You selfish prick. You really want to carry this burden on your own, don’t you? Well I’ll let you in on something, she was drugged Shaw. By who, it’s anybody’s guess. Just know that it could’ve been in any drink she had that night. One you gave her, one I gave her, maybe Lindsey or Em too. We all did it, Shaw. We all killed her.”
I wished he had followed through with his punch and knocked me out. It would’ve been easier to take than to keep reliving Lily’s death. The ripple effects it caused would follow me forever. This altercation was just the beginning.
I leaned against the back of the Explorer, suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed by the searing pain in my head.
Shoddy walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, get in the car,” he said. “Try and get some sleep. We have a long drive home to Providence and you aren’t gonna make it in this state.”
“No, I can drive.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Well you certainly can’t. I saw you pop some sleeping pills at McDonalds. And you’re probably still hung-over. Plus you dropped your energy drinks.”
“I’m fine, Shaw. I slugged two of those things while I was waiting for Bobbo to wake up and come check me out.”
His face was as sincere as ever.
“Fine,” I relented. “But don’t let me sleep too long.”
“Sure. And Shaw, whatever you did to Duncan, just forget about it. Seriously, just bury that one deep down. Nobody else knows anything. I don’t even know anything. All I know is I was with you all night and I will never say we were behind Primal bar.”
He gave a sort of half-nod, half-wink.
I had no response for him. What had happened to Duncan was already buried deep down. Except now a confession had begun. I couldn’t stop it now. It was off the rails and everything had to be exposed. There was too much interweaving, too much interdependent cause and effect. Lily died because of Duncan. I killed Duncan because of Lily.
I pushed myself off the back of the Explorer and climbed around to the rear passenger side seat. Shoddy was adjusting the mirrors and changed the setting of the seat. I cringed a little. I always did when someone changed my settings. But I let it go and asked him to turn the radio on low.
“What station?” he asked.
“Station? No, put on the CD that’s already in there. You’ll like it. Just turn it down low.”
The backseat was warm from where Shoddy had been sleeping. Emily was still leaning up against her window, snoring. Lindsey the same in the front passenger seat.
As we pulled out of the gas station and back onto the empty, dark backcountry road leading to the highway, I felt my mind falling into darkness. The seatbelt strap that ran across my shoulder was a comfortable hammock for my head. I shifted to lounge against the window, intending to remain awake for as long as possible. But Shoddy was smooth and steady. By the time we reached the interstate I was comfortable and my eyes felt like mercury.
We merged with the shadows onto the highway. Shoddy stayed three miles over the speed limit and never changed lanes. The wheels hummed a tune on the pavement, something I hadn’t notice from the driver’s seat. The soothing noise washed over me and mixed with the soft music. The result was a strange, hypnotic, almost monkish drone.
“Oh, hey, Shod, just stay on this highway, keep going north,” I said sleepily, a yawn squeezing out with the ‘north.’
“Gee, thanks Magellan. I would never have figured out which way to go,” he retorted. He turned the radio up slightly.
“Pink Floyd, I love this album,” he said.
“Yup, Animals,” I replied.
Track one ended and moved on to track two.
“Great stuff,” he whispered. “But I was always more of a Dark Side of the Moon guy.”
I barely heard him. In my semi-dream state of exhaustion the lingering, ethereal, psychedelic guitar riffs and Lindsey’s snores pulsed in a calming rhythm. Tension oozed from my muscles. Memories began springing up but I tried to guide my mind away from all that and towards sleep. Sleep was inevitable.
Images zoomed through my head, out from behind the wall. Lily and Duncan, Lindsey, Shoddy, Emily. Years of fun and alcohol, sex and studying. All the good and all the bad.
The big picture came into focus.
I had done evil things, illegal things. I had to confess to someone other than my best friend. There would be reality to deal with.
Number five. Live by the code.
I would confess in earnest upon return to Providence. Honesty came with consequences. I could handle them.
Would the people I was to confess to have mercy? Would my friends understand? Shoddy was a guinea pig and that test was inconclusive. Would the others accept the consequences? Would the authorities see it without blinders? Would I ever be able to forgive myself? If forgiveness rose with the sun, then the consequences did not matter.
I pulled at my eyelids, a last attempt to remain awake. I debated starting the confession there in the backseat. A pen rested on a pile of Shoddy’s books sitting next to me. I was cheating sleep with each second and could cheat it even more by writing down what I would say later to the police and to my parents and to Lindsey.
I turned away from the pen, its presence magnetic. Instead I stared in a daze out the window.
The highway swirled away underneath and the shadows drifted by. When I was sitting in the front seat, through the windshield the darkness brimmed with detail. Black on top of black. Outlines of anemic trees and cold steel guardrails punctuated the black canvas. But in the backseat, they were washed away. The dark scene through the tinted window was like a much-smudged chalk drawing, with blacks and grays swooping past my retinas at high speed.
I don’t remember closing my eyes—the scene was similar in both states—or when sleep actually took me. But I let it take over. My mind succumbed and slipped more and more into darkness. I fell, tumbling and rolling into the grays, blacks and shadows of a dream.
Chapter 16
I floated in dark ether for what seemed eternity, before eternity ended and the dream plopped me on a ground that really wasn’t there. In the dream, my body rolled down an embankment away from a train’s dining car. I was bloody, battered and bruised. My eyes were closed but I could tell it was sunny outside.
A wheezing voice said, “This train don’t carry no gamblers.”
A dreamy memory flashed. It reminded my dream-self of the first moments when I stepped into the train car. The tables were covered in cards and chips. It was dusty and smelled like my grandparents attic. The conductor slipped the money I handed him into his coat pocket and simultaneously locked the door behind us and pulled down the shades to all the compartment windows.
A heavy-set man wearing a fedora relaxed quietly at the far end of the train puffing on a cigar. To his left sat a large man, slightly smaller than himself. To his right were two more of these cookie cutter stooges. At his feet yawned two fierce Dobermans attached to chains looking almost benign in their boredom.
While I took in my surroundings the large man in the fedora motioned to the other large men. I was instantly surrounded at the table b
y a blur of gray and black pinstripe suits. The only primary color in my vicinity was now the bright red baseball cap that sat on loosely on my head. The conductor must have gazed on us with amusement: a wiry, blonde run-down and exhausted young man with a bright red hat sitting at a table with men whose authority system is based on the size of their waistbands. I knew I was out of my league, not to mention engaging in a highly illegal gambling ring that could get me killed at the drop of a hat.
It did not bother me. Of course nothing bothers you when you are broke and desperate, except of course being broke and desperate. Besides, I was the best poker player I had ever seen and my pride balanced out my intense need for cash. This all combined into one great reason to join an illegal game in the back of a broken down train car parked behind a dreary waterfront station.
Why, then, does a man with so much confidence end up lying outside an abandoned train station covered in bruises and mud with an empty wallet? Probably because I thought I could cheat criminals. Probably because I thought I could get away with cheating criminals. I learned that nobody cheats people who cheat for a living.
As I lay there outside the train car, half conscious of the rumbling yells coming from it all I could think of was how my entire life was just tossed into the mud. My wife back at home with my son would never speak to me again if I did not come home with a paycheck. My girlfriend downtown would never sleep with me again if I did not buy her another pearl necklace. Their faces swirled in the blackness of my inner eyelids mocking my impotence and failure.
More yelling came growling out of the train car. I could make out something about payments and chains. Resorting to gambling with criminals was all I could do to fix my life but in all of this I never realized desperation.
Suddenly it all disappeared. The faces stopped swirling and my senses clicked back on as if someone flicked the switch. I could feel a hot, pungent breath weighing down on my face like a smothering pillow. I slowly opened my eyes to see a long black snout bearing ivory daggers dripping with saliva, rumbling under a long, slow growl.
Stone Angels Page 11