“The Hillites. The natives. Aborigines.”
“They’re a little a bit scary. The hip-hop rednecks.”
“Yeah—watch out for those fuckers. They still think it’s the Wild West around here sometimes.”
“But then the place across the street looks kind of…I dunno…middle class.”
Shred twisted his eyes at me a bit, like he didn’t quite trust me. “Well, it’s mainly Hillites, then you got the yuppos who live in all the renovated places, and then the people like us.”
“People like… ?” I smiled. For some reason I wanted him to admit he was the filthy outcast art freak that I was so infinitely superior to.
He bugged his eyes out and said, in this kind of Satanic dungeon voice: “We are the ones from the backwards electric netherworld called Yes-no. We walk the night and eat the brains of small children and live in your pants. We harken—”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I need to hit the sack.”
Shred pointed at me with two index fingers. “Breakfast tomorrow.”
“We’ll see.” I kicked off my flip-flops.
“We’ll see? I thought your interview wasn’t until four?”
“I have to—I have some preparation I have to go through first, might take a while. Law firm stuff.”
He looked at me like I was ridiculous. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, if you can fit it in, we’ll hit the diner. My treat.”
“Oh, no. You don’t have to treat.”
Now he looked pissed. Why did I say that?
“I mean, no, yeah,” I said. “That’d be cool. The diner.”
“All right, Jarvis. Sleep tight.”
“Goodnight.”
I saw a smirk on his lips as he shut the door. I guess I annoyed him. But I didn’t have time to worry about “Shred.” I sat on the edge of the bed and shut my eyes.
You insufferable worthless piece of scumbag.
No.
You tractor trailer full of disgusting scum.
God awful.
You crappy excuse for a human worm.
Oh, no. Hell no.
A pile of rotten dogshit is a better person than you’ll ever be, you disgusting degenerate pedophile ass face. Hey—that one was a great one. Hell yeah. Almost perfect. Write it down now, I told myself. But it was short so I knew I could memorize it.
A piece of dog shit is a better person than you’ll ever be, you disgusting pedophile ass face.
I said it again.
And again.
Got it. I turned the overhead light off and chugged the rest of my iced tea, then threw the comforter off to the side and got under the sheet.
Piece of dog shit is a glorious king compared to you.
Piece of dog—face.
You rotten piece of degenerate…
…and I was out
12
The smell of coffee woke me up. It was the Big Day. Biggest day of my life. And I was armed with an awesome zinger. Or so I thought. All I could remember was something about comparing him to dogshit. I pounded the mattress with my fists. Was the word “degenerate” in there? I couldn’t remember. Fuck!
“Fuck!” I yelled. Degenerate dogshit—what kind of zinger is that? Why didn’t I write it down! It was the absolute perfect zinger. “Shit!”
Someone tapped on the door. “You okay in there, Jarvis?” It was Shred.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Um…there’s coffee out here if you want. Cock-a-doodle-don’t.”
“Cool. Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute.”
I reached into my backpack and got out my cell phone. It was 11:37. I wondered how the hell I could have slept so late. There wasn’t much time.
It was hot as shit. Any air that began to move was immediately stopped dead by the walls of humidity. Searing sunlight hit the parachute posters and the glare was painful. I pulled a clean shirt out of my backpack and slid it on over the film of sweat on my skin. At least my beige cookie-cutter apartment had good a/c, not like this place.
Out in the living room, Shred was wearing this huge, blood-red terry cloth bathrobe with giant lapels. It was monogrammed “CM” in swirly white letters. Way regal. Kenny was sitting on the couch, smirking at the TV. He already looked high. The air smelled like burning plastic. The apartment looked much crappier in the daylight—plaster hanging off the ceiling, crooked window frames, old rough wooden floors with ship-sized splinters rising from them. But it had a kind of run-down charm I guess. Rustic maybe. In the bathrobe, Shred looked like a wealthy eccentric, the original bohemian.
I followed him into the kitchen and asked him what the “CM” on his robe stood for.
“Cantaloupe Master,” he said, very matter-of-factly.
“Where are the cantaloupes?” I started to look around his kitchen.
Shred pinched the lapel of the robe. “Thrift store find.”
“Oh.”
The coffee was stronger than is allowed by law. Nearly motor oil. Perfect. They didn’t have any half’n’half, but I didn’t care. Coffee at all seemed like a luxurious amenity in this bohemian death trap. For me, of course, I had to have it or my brain would fall out, so I wasn’t complaining. We sat down at his kitchen table.
“So what’s been new, there, Cousin Jarvis?”
“Oh,” I said. “Not a whole lot.”
“Gotta girlfriend?”
“We just broke up.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He started shaking his head. “Womens…”
“Yeah. You can’t live with ’em and you can’t, what is it…shoot ’em?”
“Oh, but you can,” he said. “I strangled her, though. Body’s still in the trunk.”
“Sure it is.”
We sat there sipping our coffees. The kitchen was somewhat normal looking. There was even a hanging basket of onions.
“So which law firm is your interview with?” Shred asked.
“Oh, you wouldn’t know. One of these Richmond firms.”
“Yeah, I know all of them from catering. Is it Barton Weil?”
“Um…I can’t remember right now. It’s written down in the car?” I felt my neck getting hot, test anxiety hot. My stomach was swishing. I threw back the rest of my coffee and burped. It hurt my throat.
“You have an interview at a law firm and you don’t even know the name?”
“I’m applying at a bunch of other ones, and I guess I’m getting the names all mixed up together.” I felt like the 800-pound idiot in the room.
Shred smiled. He could tell I was somehow full of shit, but he seemed more amused than offended. I thought maybe I should just tell him the truth, but I didn’t want the distraction. Plus I’d have to go into the whole story of the abuse and my quest for catharsis and everything. And I was pretty sure that Shred wouldn’t be able to relate. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be doing any of this. He seemed like he really knew how to let stuff go. Nothing bothered him. Shred and his crew were cutting edge mad artists, they knew how to roll freestyle and all that crap.
“Earth to Jarvis,” he said.
“Huh? Sorry.”
“You hungry?”
“Yeah. I’m starving, actually.”
“Gotcha covered, daddy-o.” He stood up and chugged the rest of his coffee. Then he smacked his lips and said: “Let’s go to Second Street.”
“Sounds good, Cantaloupe Master.”
I helped lift Kenny into the back of Shred’s rusting Dodge van. Thing was ancient. You could have fit a basketball through the rust holes. Kenny settled into a bean bag chair that seemed to have been set up for him, pillows and all. We cruised slowly. Shred seemed very conscious of bumps and potholes. Still, his van needed shocks.
“Fuck!” Kenny screamed. “Godammit—take it easy!”
I looked back at him and he sneered at me. What a jerk. After I helped lift him into the van he has to sneer at me. I secretly wished that Shred would drive through a series of cavernous potholes. I took a deep breath. Something smelled like rotten socks. Maybe it was rotten
socks.
Richmond was gorgeous in the daytime, big exploding trees and high cottony clouds. Aside from a couple of modern buildings and the cars and asphalt, everything looked way old. That red brick and the ornate iron work—it coulda been 1890. We pulled up to Second Street Diner, another old-ass place in between Shred’s hood and the downtown of tiny skyscrapers. Took us about an hour to get Kenny out of the van and into the place.
The diner was packed, a bustling summit of rednecks, yuppies, a couple of church ladies, a few black people and some art freaks. The pale hospital green paint job in there somehow worked. Maybe it was balanced out by the chrome-lined walls and quirky faux antique signs that were up everywhere. Signs like: Coca-Cola Beverage Department, Mom’s Home Baked Pie’s and a big one that said: Biscuits: 15 Cents. Its perfectly square pat of butter was just about to slide off the side of the biscuit. I was starving. All the smells in there, particularly the bacon, were killing me. Kenny took another three hours to get his leg situated in the booth. I hated him and his stupid leg in that moment. I had to admit, though, he was pretty freaking brave for jumping out of airplanes multiple times. Willingly. That’s mega-balls, no denying it. Then again, what I was going to do later was pretty damn brave. That’s right. I was no pussy. The reality that I was really going through with it was starting to solidify. It was making me nervous. My hunger was starting to give way to that old familiar feeling of rotten lagoon stomach.
Shred and I sat down across the table from Kenny. His cast was touching my leg. I wanted to die. We ordered coffee and all-American breakfasts from an artsy waitress with an array of pencils sticking out of her hair bun. She reminded me of a punker Audrey Hepburn. Shred called her “Alison.” This dude knew everybody. We sat there for a while not saying anything. The silence was making me uncomfortable.
“So, uh…” I looked at Shred. “Ever sold any of those paintings of yours?”
“Yeah, actually. I’ve done a couple of local shows, sold a few.”
“Really? How much did you make?”
He gave me an extended blank look. Kenny rolled his eyes. I guess it was kind of a superficial question. Not that I could ever see Shred turning down ten grand for one of his sideways cartoon canvases, though.
“I walked away with three million in cashier’s checks that night,” Shred dead-panned.
I almost said: Really?
“Yeah,” Kenny said. “Three million cents. Negative cents.” They both laughed.
“Three million cents would still be…let’s see…ten thousand dollars,” I said. “That’s not oh-so bad.” My comment was met with an Arctic silence. Kenny and Shred looked at each other. Then at me. I felt like the biggest mega-dork ever sprouted. A couple of people came over to the table to say whutsup. Some guy named Hatchet and another dude whose name I didn’t get. They asked Kenny how his leg was doing.
“It’s doing,” he smirked. “Still attached.” The one called Hatchet asked when someone named “Farns” was coming back to town, which I guessed was short for Farnsworth, but maybe it was a nickname. Seemed like half the people in this town had some nickname.
“This is my cousin, Jarvis,” Shred told the dudes.
“Hey, Cousin Jarvis.” Maybe that was going to my nickname. I could be Zing Master Cuz J for short.
The meat and eggs came. Slathering globs of butter on my goldish pancakes. Three huge eggs over-easy. Shiny bacon. Real Southern grease. I was stoked. We chowed. We chowed like men. I ordered and drank three coffees and downed them in rapid succession. Our waitress seemed both annoyed and impressed.
After a while, I said: “That girl Summer—I almost expect to see her around. This seems like her kind of place.” I said.
“They won’t let her in with her dogs anymore,” Shred said.
“She’s vegan anyway,” Kenny said. “Not much on the menu for her.”
“She eats their salad.”
“I like her,” I said. “She’s a righteous babe.”
Kenny’s eyes tightened at me. He looked like he was trying to bite his own teeth. His leg must have really hurt.
Shred chewed his bacon thoughtfully. “You know, JFK wasn’t the only president since World War II to be brought down by the Illuminati. They all were.”
“Uh-oh,” Kenny said. “Here we go again.”
“How so?” I said.
“Don’t encourage him,” Kenny said.
“It’s all a system. They prop them up as needed and then knock them down like ducks in a shooting gallery.” He paused dramatically, and added: “As needed.”
“Oh jeez,” Kenny said, smearing his face with a napkin.
“What about Reagan?” I said.
“They shot him in ’81. He was a stoned CIA zombie puppet after that.”
“Jimmy Carter? He wasn’t taken down.”
“Iranian hostage crisis. They used it to paralyze him.”
“So, who is ‘they’ exactly?”
Shred smiled at me like I was a fool not to know. “The evil secret government of the military-industrial corporate death masters. The Illuminati. The blue-bloods who really run everything.”
“What did I tell you about staying off the Internet,” Kenny said in a mock scolding tone.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Maybe it’s time to face the fact that you’re retarded with a capital D.”
“So,” I said, “how about Monica Lewinsky? She was like what, some type of FBI-planted robot?”
“An FBI blow-up doll,” Kenny said.
Shred looked pissed. “Come on, dude. Be real.”
“No, you’re right,” Kenny reasoned. “I agree. The Illuminati sucks butt.”
“Fine—you don’t want to know how the world really runs. That’s cool.”
“The world runs and I sit.” Kenny shrugged.
“Wouldn’t kill you to have at least a little concern for the hypocrisy that plays itself out every day, right in front of your face.”
“Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Kenny deadpanned, “but I can’t imagine them giving a shit either.”
I was trying not to laugh. Shred seemed to take this kook-job stuff pretty seriously and I didn’t want to be rude. So I looked around the place. Some rednecks at a table across the way looked like they were laughing at us, probably at Shred’s bed-head. Kenny was staring vaguely at the ceiling, like he was thinking about being somewhere else, maybe free-falling through the clouds with two mighty femurs under him, pulling his chute at the last possible minute for that extra blind rush.
We continued chewing in silence for a while.
“So Farns is coming back today?” Kenny asked.
“Today or tomorrow.”
“He’s the guy who drove his truck onto the sidewalk in front of Richmond City Hall to protest his gas bill, right?” I asked.
“Van.”
“And it was his water bill, not gas.”
“We had a hard freeze and his pipe burst,” Kenny said.
“That’s what she said.”
“Ha fucking ha.”
“Actually,” Shred explained, “the city did some work by his house and broke the line and didn’t realize it. Then they charged him for all the water on his water bill.”
“Something like that,” Kenny said.
“Farns isn’t one to take injustice lightly,” Shred said.
“No, he is not.”
They started discussing something I couldn’t follow at all. Then Shred made a random comment about a boat ride with Farns and they both laughed. So I asked what was up with the boat ride. He said that a couple of years back, Farns had just finished fixing up this boat of his.
“Nice one, too, “ Shred said. “A thirty-one foot Wellcraft Steplift with a blasting T-225 Evinrude. He named her Lava Neck, and Farns had her all ready to go. But there was a bad drought that year. All summer it had only rained like twice, so the water level was too low to take her out on the river. Farns had been promising everyone boat rides for
months. He couldn’t fucking stand it, so he gathered up a bunch of us, like nine people, and we partied in the boat while Farns pulled it around the roads of Richmond behind his van. There we were at three in the morning drinking beer and smoking weed in the back of a land boat, laughing and screaming. Still can’t believe we didn’t get caught.”
“Let alone killed,” Kenny said.
“Oh, check out Captain Safety here,” Shred laughed.
“Skydiving is way safer than getting thrown around in a boat being driven down the street by a drunken lunatic,” Kenny said.
“Ten-four. I admit the boat ride on the street was a mad hazard. Peg leg.”
I laughed, but I cut it short because Kenny looked at me like I wasn’t qualified to laugh at this.
“Farns lived to regret it, too,” Shred said.
“Yeah?” I said. “How so?”
“Trailer got fucked up somehow. Boy was he pissed. You don’t want to be around him when he’s pissed off.”
“He sounds like a real character,” I said. “A real hero type, huh?”
“Well,” Shred said, “he may not be a hero, but he’s, um…I’ll tell you one thing—sonofabitch is honest. Doesn’t candy coat anything.”
“Not a candy coater,” Kenny added, shaking his head.
“He’ll speak the truth, no matter how much it offends anyone.”
“He actually enjoys offending people.”
“Yeah, he does.”
They talked about him like he was some kind of rebel guru, their anti-establishment punk rock superman. Whatever.
“Speaking of skydiving,” Kenny said, “one time this guy crapped his jumpsuit.” He said it so deadpan that Shred and I both laughed for about twenty minutes. I almost choked on a length of bacon.
Seemed like we were at the diner forever. I may have killed twelve cups of coffee, which was a lot even for me in one sitting. I went to pee and when I came out, they were finally getting up to go. I walked over to the cake and pie case that ran along the counter and I stared into a decadent, lopsided German chocolate cake. Almost down to the wire and I still had no knock-out zinger. I was getting really nervous. My stomach felt like it was filled with drowning fish, flip-flopping around, gasping for water. What the hell was I going to say to him? I dropped my forehead against the glass case and it made a loud bonk sound. People were looking at me. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I didn’t exist.
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