Wise Young Fool

by Sean Beaudoin

  Meatstick comes up behind me in the hall. I about leap out of my pants and he laughs. The other counselors, like Jimbo or Yunior or Lamont, you call them a name, they’ll smile and then later get you alone for a little talk about respect. But Meatstick doesn’t seem to mind.

  I couldn’t figure out why, until finally someone explained the name wasn’t an insult. Apparently the dude is known throughout the rehab/incarceration community for toting around thirteen inches of redheaded schlong.

  Now I know why he’s always smiling.

  “Sudden, you got a visitor.”

  “I signed the paperwork. I don’t want any visitors.”

  “Well, you got one. She’s waiting.”

  She?

  Ravenna?

  Meatstick walks me to the visiting area, which is this carpeted room with a couple tables and couches. There’s a place in back with a booth for a counselor to watch what’s going on, but it’s not like the movies, no phones or Plexiglas. I open the door, and there’s B’los with his family, a bunch of little kids running around, sisters and brothers playing with grimy plastic toys abandoned by the grimier kids who came before them. B’los is hugging his mom, head on her shoulder. His dad is holding his arm by the bicep, like he doesn’t ever want to let go. They hear the door and start to turn, but not fast enough. B’los moves away from his mom, looking down, wiping his eyes.

  Looper’s at the other table. I walk over and sit with her.

  “Loop. What’s shakin’?”

  She grins. “Don’t call me Loop.”

  “Right. Anyway, what are you doing here, Loop?”

  “Your mom really wanted to come.”

  “Yeah, huh?”

  “But it’s crazy right now, the shifts she’s working.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Plus, you know, this place. It makes her nervous.”

  “I understand. Ma’s real sensitive.”

  “No, it’s just that she’s—”

  “How did you get in, anyway? I signed a paper said I didn’t want to see anyone.”

  Looper blushes and then points her chin at Meatstick. “That redheaded guy seems to like me. I let him think he could give me his phone number.”

  “That’s smooth, Loop. You and Meatstick should go grab a pizza. Maybe bowl a few frames when he gets off.”

  “His name’s Meatstick?”

  “In here it is.”

  She makes a face.

  “Everything okay, Ritchie? I mean, are you, you know…?”

  “No, I don’t know. Am I what? Surviving? Yup.”

  Looper bites her fingernail. “Anything I can do?”

  “Yeah, actually, there is.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I need you to put some money in my commissary.”

  “Your what?”

  “The account we’re allowed to have. To buy stuff. Toothpaste, soap, cookies.”

  “You want to buy cookies?”

  “No, cigarettes.”

  “You’re smoking now?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Then what do you want cigarettes for?”

  Undercard flashes above her head like a neon sign.

  “Listen, Loop, can you just trust me on this one?”

  She stares at her hands, sighs.

  “I’m sorry, Ritchie, but I’m flat broke.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Rude has been cutting my shifts. Things are slow.”

  “Right, who can afford a clean pool these days?”

  “I’m serious. I might not make rent this month. And I’m not going to ask your mom to cover. Again. Since, you know, we’re saving and everything.”

  “For what, the United Lesbo College Fund?”

  Her eyes narrow. She’s about to lay into me, and I half want her to. I totally deserve it. But then she just sighs instead.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I stand up. B’los and his family are gone.

  “Thanks for coming, Loop. Really. But do me a favor and don’t do it again.”

  “Ritchie…”

  “Meatstick?” I say. “This chick is totally hot for some guard-on-citizen action. Just don’t count on going Dutch.”

  “I’m not a guard,” he says. “I’m a counselor.”

  “And I’m a ballerina,” I say, walking on through the door.

  Ravenna Woods comes up behind me in the hall and puts her arm around my waist. I about leap out of my pants, and she laughs. Her posse of friends laugh, too, standing in a line behind her, left to right, in descending order of attractiveness. Ravenna sweeps her hair around her shoulders in this slow-motion wave, like an ad for shampoo. Or bottled orgasms. She smells unbelievable. Like the slow, gentle union of a field of stamens and a meadow of pistils. I want to swallow her whole.

  “Ritchie Sudden?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  Her eyes are half closed. I am infinitely aware that every single dude in school is infinitely aware that Ravenna Woods is touching me. They’re probably already talking about it in the caf, arguing about it in the gym. Which means I have just acquired two hundred hardened, bitter enemies (comprised, essentially, of everyone at Sackville not currently being touched by Ravenna Woods).

  She hands me something, smirks, and then walks away. Her posse follows. The last girl in line turns, winks, waves.

  There is a tiny square of paper in my hand.

  I unfold it carefully.

  In the middle is written one word:

  SOON.

  Elliot comes up behind me in the hall but does not put his arm around my waist. He’s holding a poster he obviously just tore off some notice board, sticking it in my face instead. It says ROCK SCENE 2013, in a font made out of medieval-style daggers engulfed in flames.

  “No shit.”

  “Keep reading,” he says in Rock Scene Guy voice. “New twist this year.”

  “Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “Can you believe anyone still uses the word viral?”

  “Just read.”

  It says, WINNER GETS $1,000 CASH! It says, WINNER TO OPEN THREE GIGS FOR LOCAL ACT PÜRE VENUM! It says, WINNING BAND TO ALSO RECEIVE DELUXE FENDER STRATOCASTER PACKAGE INCLUDING STRAP, PICKS, AND CASE COURTESY OF JAZZBOX JIM’S!

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  I really, really want that guitar. I imagine holding it. Playing it. Plugging it into a huge stack of amps. Being onstage. The incredible loudness. The thousand volts of savage distortion at my fingertips. I imagine Ravenna standing below me, rapt, swaying to the beat as I knock out yet another effortless Hendrixian solo. In my mind I am making sweet, sweet love to a brand-new Fender Stratocaster and I am being very, very gentle.

  “I really, really want that guitar.”

  “Fuck the guitar,” Elliot says, giving me a backhand to the chest. It hurts. There’s zero humor in his eyes.

  “Um…”

  “Read the bottom.”

  At the bottom, in a tiny Surgeon General font, it says: WINNING BAND ELIGIBLE FOR SLOT IN REGIONAL BAND SHOWCASE, FROM WHICH BANDS WILL BE SELECTED ON NATIONAL LEVEL FOR POSSIBLE SCREEN-TEST TRYOUTS IN CONJUNCTION WITH UPCOMING REALITY TELEVISION SHOW REAL GODZ OF HOLLYROCK. ELIGIBILITY SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

  “We are so winning this, Sudden. You hear me?”

  El Hella’s teeth are frighteningly close to my teeth. I can practically smell his enamel.

  “Dude. Of course. That’s the plan.”

  “No, man, that was the plan. Glory and girls? Pocket some cash? Well, screw that noise.”

  “Can you actually screw noise? Because, if so, man have I wasted a lot of time alone in the bathroom.”

  He bunches my shirt and shoves me against a locker, up on the tiptoes of his steel-toes, whispering in my ear. “We are going to win this, and then we are going to blow Flog and Angelo off the stage, and then I am going to laugh in their fucking faces.”

  “We are?”

  “Greek style, homie. Right b
efore I kick their faces in.”

  “You are?”

  “I am.”

  His scalp is slick with sweat. His eyes are pinned.

  “Oh.”

  “They broke my guitar.”

  “I know. I saw.”

  “My first dad’s guitar.”

  “I know. I heard.”

  “We are going to win our regional slot. We are going to advance to nationals. We are going to be on television. I will accept nothing less.”

  “That is becoming clear.”

  “You and me, baby, we are the Real Godz.”

  “The Real Godz of Sackville?”

  “Vengeful gods,” he says, flashing the smile that’s not a smile. Then he pulls a pen out of his back pocket, spears the poster like a wiggling devilfish, and jams it into the wall. Hard. The pen snaps in half, entering his palm. Blood droplets fall to the tile in pairs. Elliot holds his hand up and licks it. There’s blood in his gums, blood in his smile.

  “You’re either on the bus or off the bus, Sudden.”

  I wonder, for the very first time, if maybe Elliot Hella isn’t just a tiny bit insane.

  “I’m so on the bus.”

  He pats my cheek, and then walks away.

  B’los comes up behind me in the hall. He does not put his arm around my waist.

  “You ready, Sudden?”

  B’los and I have been assigned to the library. It’s a cake job. Mostly because “the library” is really four shelves and a folding table. Almost no one ever comes in. We pretty much just alphabetize the books and talk while The Basilisk makes his rounds. Turns out B’los is pretty cool. He digs sci-fi. I told him about Stranger in a Strange Land. He knows I dig hard-boiled and told me about A Rage in Harlem. There’s not a ton to choose from otherwise, a bunch of religious stuff and moldy Westerns and self-help. And then pretty much every Lexington Cole mystery ever written. If you can call it writing. There must be a hundred of them, all exactly the same, but everyone wants to check out The Hypotenuse Crux because a rumor went around it was slang for pussy.

  It is so not.

  We’re sitting at the table sorting a box of donations. B’los has been quiet since the day in the visiting room. He doesn’t look up, pretending to be all busy with a half-destroyed copy of Still Life with Woodpecker that some genius figured he’d donate instead of throw away. A few pages missing? Hey, no sweat. You kids aren’t going anywhere soon, right? Just make the missing part up!

  B’los clears his throat.

  “That your moms? At visiting? She don’t look nothing like you.”

  I eyeball him, scanning for shit talk, but he’s just staring at his book.

  “Who, Looper? No, she’s not my mom.”

  Now he does look over. “Yo, man, is that your girl friend? She’s the bomb!”

  I laugh. I’m tempted to say, “Yeah, she’s one of them, anyway.” It would raise my profile about a mile and a half in here.

  “Nope, not mine.”

  “Then whose?”

  It’s my turn to clear my throat. “My mom’s.”

  He squints, trying to work it out.

  “So, she’s, like, your mom’s…”

  “Girlfriend.”

  “Like, they besties? Go shopping together and whatnot?”

  “Yeah. Also, she lives with us.”

  He drops the book, covering his mouth.

  “Wait, your moms is a dyke?”

  I look at him hard, but his expression is so comically astonished I know he’s not being a tool. At least not on purpose.

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don’t guess. She is.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t… mind?”

  I tear Still Life with Woodpecker in half and toss it in the garbage.

  “Well, my old man split. And, also, they didn’t ask my permission.”

  He crosses himself, sizing me up all over again.

  “That is seriously heavy, dude.”

  “Big time.”

  B’los is quiet for a minute.

  “Listen, about you seeing me with my parents the other day? I wasn’t… I was just—”

  “I didn’t see nothing.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “I’m telling you. I had a visit, room was empty.”

  B’los enters in two new paperbacks, stamping PROGRESSIVE PROGRESS on the inside cover. Then he glues an envelope and slides in a date card.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Right.”

  When I was little and Grandma on Dad Sudden’s side was still alive, she used to live in an old motel by the airport with a shared kitchen and TV room. Gramps died there on vacation nine years before and she refused to leave. Just never came back, not even to get her stuff. Dad Sudden sold off their house and all their junk and put the money in an account that she drew off of. She also called me a lot. To be honest I have no idea why—she never called Beth—but I liked listening to her stories. She would say how Dad Sudden loved me but had a hard time showing it. She said Dad Sudden didn’t know how to access his emotions on account of being spoiled, plus once dropped on his head. She admitted, even though Dad Sudden was her only son, he’d always been sort of a selfish cock. She also told me stories about the motel residents, walking to the deli for lunch, playing pinochle in the day room, and listening to the planes land.

  I loved Grandma.

  She was tiny and angry and wore a silver wig, but at least she was mine.

  Phone Call from Grandma

  A Poem

  by Ritchie Sudden

  I hear something; do you hear something?

  Has anything good ever come from that woman down the hall?

  There’s a light under her door.

  There’s scratching, and everyone knows she bites her nails.

  It can’t be her nails making that noise, can it?

  Sounds like a fan. It’s not hot. Not hot enough for fans. It’s a waste.

  She doesn’t mind wasting, not the food she leaves on the kitchen counter, or the dishes caked with rice in the sink. It’s take-out men coming up and down the stairs night and day, delivery this, delivery that.

  Is that a cry? A child’s cry?

  She could have been pregnant, who knows, she hardly ever leaves.

  Or maybe it’s a cat.

  We’re not supposed to have cats.

  It’s against the rules.

  I should call the manager, but he drinks.

  Also, something needs fixing, suddenly he no speekee English.

  Wait, is that a crash? Did you hear a crash?

  Whatever it was, it sounded expensive.

  I hear music. Singing. Is that music? It’s a pounding.

  A pounding and a laughing.

  There must be whiskey. There must be a man.

  I can practically smell him from here.

  Blond hairs come through my heating vent, Ritchie.

  Blond hairs come like messages and settle in the corners.

  They’re telling me to lock the door.

  They’re telling me to leave the light on at night.

  One time I knocked, said please keep it down.

  She asked did I want a cup of tea.

  I did not want a cup of tea.

  I did not want a cup of tea at all.

  Elliot’s late for practice.

  Elliot’s never late for practice.

  I pace around cursing, until the bell finally rings.

  “About hella time,” I yell, yanking open the door.

  But it’s not Elliot.

  It’s Looper’s boss, Rude. He’s tall and blond and bent and slack, eyes enormous, pale and loose like he needs a couple turns with a wrench.

  “Loop isn’t home,” I say, The Paul slung around my bare chest.

  “Not looking for Looper.”

  “Then who you looking for?”

  “No one.”

  I take a second to consider this.


  “I made my last payment. Even though that Saab barely runs.”

  “Not here for payment. You wish to bring back, bring back.”

  “I’ll keep it.”

  Rude wipes his nose. Fidgets with his keys. He’s wearing the same Irish cabdriver’s hat the guy from AC/DC wears to hide his bald spot.

  “Then what do you want?”

  He frowns. “I need date.”

  “Try the Internet.”

  “I go to DVD release party, but do not wish to go alone.”

  “Video Monster carries DVDs?”

  “Ha-ha. VHS is making comeback. You wish to join or no?”

  “Why me?”

  “Why not?”

  “What’s a release party?”

  He shrugs. “Studios hawk latest masterpiece, hold screenings for store buyers. They hope you to fall in love and order max copies.”

  “What’s the movie?”

  “Scream Me Up to Hell. Has Dolph Lundgren, Brian Bosworth, and blond lady is built like state of Kentucky.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “And free preshow buffet.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “And many attractive city women.”

  “Let me just go grab a shirt.”

  Upstairs, I call Elliot’s cell. No answer. I call the Hellas’ house. Lawrence answers. Mozart booms in the background.

  “Lawrence, this is Ritchie. Elliot’s friend?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you, dude, but Elliot was supposed to come to my place and he’s late. I was wondering if maybe he’s still there.”

  “No, I’m sorry, but he left.”

  “Already? Great, I—”

  “With a woman. Somewhat older than expected. His teacher, perhaps?”

  Angie Proffer.

  “She’s teaching him something, all right.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. Okay, thanks, dude, gotta go.”

  “Yes, we all do. Eventually.”

  I hang up. Shit shit shit. It’s official. El Hella is doomed. Spence Proffer is going to kill my one and only bandmate. Gut him like a twelve-point buck, lash him to the hood of a jacked-up Mustang, jam an apple in his mouth, and rumble around town showing off the carcass.

  Which, if nothing else, will seriously put a damper on our chances for Rock Scene 2013.