Vaux also tells me that she has only a handful of friends.
She tells me that a lot of people, well, they hate her.
Girls in particular.
Mothers, teachers, coaches, authority figures. All of them give her bad looks.
She says she’s not lonely. That she’s fine not having tons of friends. She says she doesn’t give a shit. She’s tough that way. Vaux tells me her dad trained her. She says, “That’s exactly the word for it, too.”
“How’s that?”
She says, “My dad was just so antiauthority. He was always giving the finger to the man. Calling out the establishment. Hippie stuff. At the dinner table, he’d go on these long-winded rants. Wind up hoarse from shouting. He told me to never shut up. To never stifle myself. Always express and never regret.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Only he was just outspoken. Didn’t ever act on any of it.”
I say, “Not like you.”
“That’s sweet.”
Vauxhall is silent for a minute and for that minute it’s just us and the whirl of the satellites above us. And then Vauxhall takes my hand and holds it in hers and she looks at me with eyes as wide as I’ve seen them and says, “The reason I hang out with Jimi is because he’s one of the most beautifully fucked-up people I’ve ever met.”
“And that’s attractive to you?”
“The things his mother did to him,” Vaux says. “She made him run for miles until his feet were blistered, she made him swim in an ice-cold lake until he was blue and shaking uncontrollably. I can’t let him deal with that alone. He needs me. Right now, he really, really needs me.”
“And what do you need, Vaux?”
She’s quiet. Breathes in, breathes out. “I just need someone to let me be myself.”
Vaux sighs, puts her head on my shoulder, and just keeps it there. The way I’m sitting, the weight of her head is pushing me back. Slow-motion toppling me over. But I stay, even with my head still kind of whirling from the hit I took in the bathroom, I stay. Eventually, my shoulder is numb. My hands are numb. Hell, even my back is numb. But I don’t dare move. I want her here.
The sun’s long been up when Paige yells up at us.
She tells us she’s been sleeping for like two hours and it’d be nice if we could leave. She tells us the house is just filled with passed-out people and she’s missing her bed. Paige says, “Doesn’t your ass hurt being up on that roof all night?”
Vaux and I clamber down from the roof and my ass does hurt.
Before I walk Paige back to the car, I tell Vauxhall I had a wonderful time talking to her only I whisper it because I’m hoarse from talking. I tell her that I’m anxious to see her documentary. Vauxhall smiles and waves good-bye, says, “When it’s done, I’ll be sure to show you first.”
We don’t kiss. We don’t even hug.
The most intimate relationship I’ve been in and we don’t even touch each other.
SEVEN
Just as we’re pulling out onto Grape, I see Vauxhall catch a ride home from Chris Hirata.
In the car, as they’re driving off, Chris has his arm around her shoulders. I can only imagine what they’ll be doing next. I do. And then I’m sick because I do. I’m so ready to go home.
Whole drive to Paige’s the both of us are super quiet. Almost comatose. At one point Paige asks me if I had a nice time up on the roof.
I say, “Yeah. Incredible.”
“And the Jimi thing?” she asks.
“True. Maybe a problem for the time being, but I’m not too stressed.”
“You look stressed.”
“Just tired. I’ve seen it all, remember. All good.”
When I drop her off, before she steps out of my car, Paige gives me a kiss on the cheek and tells me to take it easy. She tells me not to think too hard about it. She says, “You took a nasty hit tonight, Ade. If I were you, I’d just rest. Take tomorrow off, okay, champ?”
I shrug. “Okay, babe.”
A few blocks from my house, at a red light, I pull down the mirror on the sun visor and take a look at my jacked-up face. All the usual bruising is there. The usual cuts and scrapes. I’ve got a nasty welt on my forehead and it’s swollen out like a gourd.
I’m not ready to go home, so I just drive. The sun is blinding as it balloons up over the apartment buildings and McMansions near Wash Park. I drive past school and realize the reason I’m not ready to go home is because I’m thinking too much about Vauxhall. I’m jealous of Chris and Ryan. I want so badly to rewind time and kiss her on that roof. To convey that I can’t wait for it to just happen in its time. That she can be herself with me and me only. That Jimi isn’t special. That Jimi is just sick.
I need the Buzz again. I need it terrible.
Fact is: The future is just so damned addictive.
And cars are so easy to crash.
Used to be, only two years back, before I could drive, that skateboarding or biking or even just walking into things was the easiest way to propel myself into the future. But the collateral damage was heavy. Mostly broken bones and busted-out teeth. Looks seriously suffered. I wore helmets and even padding but still I’d come away with way more bruises and cuts than I’d hoped. Got so that sometimes, bad times, the high would be hardly worth it. And then came the car. Give me an empty street and a wall or a telephone pole or even a tree and I’m on my way to not-yet land. I’m very careful. Cars are big. Fast. What I do, it takes practice. To not really really wreck the car takes serious skill.
And this morning, at five to six, that’s just what I do.
There’s this spot just off Hale Parkway, back in a neighborhood, with a low wall and a telephone pole. I angle my car just right, just so, and I’m able to hit it going twenty. I’m adept at this, making it so I do minimal damage to my ’96 Honda Accord but ensuring that my head rebounds off the steering wheel like a basketball.
Only it doesn’t just rebound but it snaps back and in the hollow part of my skull, my brain goes bouncing and the blood starts flowing. I see the tunnel again. It looks the way Vegas would if it were rolled up into a tube. Walls of light, flashing and glowing. And in the walls are shapes and figures but nothing exact, nothing definite. The edges here are all worn down, the colors reduced to static.
Another concussion.
Another vision.
Actually the same vision. I’m back on the California beach with the storm crashing against the sky and the waves getting higher and higher as the sun glows dimmer and dimmer. Again, there’s a surfboard at my side. Again, the wet suit. Again, the salt water taste on my lips. It’s like I’m starting over again.
And what’s really crazy is I’ve never had this happen before. Of the barrels of visions I’ve had, I’ve never seen the same thing twice. Sure, I’ve been in the same place before but never at exactly the same time. What’s going on here makes no sense.
My feet in the sand, I’m assuming that wires were crossed.
Or maybe this isn’t the future but a memory of the last vision.
Maybe I’m not unconscious enough to throw my mind forward.
I grab my surfboard and stand up. Start walking to the waves. And as my toes hit the cold water, I start thinking that maybe this is different. The guy in the mask last time said that he expected me here. Maybe I try to surf these storm waves all the time. Maybe this is just another of one of my yearly trips to the coast.
But then again, maybe not.
Sitting across from me, on a big red towel, his head angled down, his eyes burning the air between us, is the masked man. He’s here, again, only this time the Mexican wrestler mask is red with flames all around it. He’s staring me down and with his index finger on his right hand, he’s motioning me over.
I walk to the edge of his towel and sit in the sand. What makes him stand out this time isn’t the mask so much as it’s the white suit he’s wearing. The guy is sitting cross-legged, he is filing his nails.
“Back again, huh?” I ask.
The man says, “Actually, I’d say you’re back again.”
“You’ve been waiting?”
“Not long. I had a feeling you’d be back and so I came ’round to see.”
I look up and down the beach. It’s lined with surfers watching the clouds and the waves. The sand is being whipped up down near a pier and it blows in little funnels. The sky is getting really dark.
“Cutting to the chase,” I say with my again deeper voice. “What exactly is it that you came here to see me for? Is there some sort of problem?”
“Yes.” The masked guy’s eyes narrow. “Big problem.”
“And?”
The suited wrestler pauses. “That’s the thing, you’re just not ready to hear what I have to say. And I don’t mean the you that’s here on this beach, I mean the real you. The kid you. See that storm?” The man looks over his shoulder at the black broccoli clouds.
“Couldn’t miss it.”
“The closer that storm gets, the more sense this will all make. I’m guessing that when it’s right on top of us, truth’s going to just spill right out and you’ll be ready to understand it all.”
My throat tightens. I’m confused. “Is this the future?”
“Yes, but I’m not in your future.”
“You’re not? Then…?”
“Ade, I’m in your mind.”
There is a flash like lightning’s hit the water near us but when the brightness of it fades away I’m no longer on the beach. I’m back in my car and the sun is scorching down. It’s flattening the whole world out.
Back to now. Return to regular programming.
I’m confused.
This future that I’ve seen now more than once, which is, in itself, totally bizarre and inexplicable, has got me shaken. Who is this guy with the mask? Isn’t he in the future? It certainly looks like he is. Could he really be in my head? I hope not. And how? That’s just fucked up. Maybe I’m dreaming him? Maybe in the near future I spend a lot of time on a beach tripping.
Fact is: I need to stop stressing and just enjoy the Buzz.
One thing I’ve learned after doing this so many times, after seeing what comes next so many times, is that no matter how strange the future seems, it pales in comparison to the present. This masked dude, whatever. This joker, I’m already over it.
And I need the Buzz so badly right now.
EIGHT
Sucks that I’m snapped out of it too soon by someone knocking on the windshield.
It’s my ex-girlfriend. Angry, I lean forward and my broken nose just lets loose like a faucet. Belle’s seen this before. Plenty of times.
She’s sitting on the hood of my car smoking a cigarette and wearing the very same outfit she wore when I first met her. The leather boots. Black skirt. White dress shirt. She’s got her blond hair slicked back and if it weren’t for the hastily applied makeup and the scars on her arms she’d be perfect for a sexy temp or a trampy accountant.
Belle watches me intently, takes a long drag, and then says, “Pop the trunk.”
I do, though the Buzz has my head fogged and I almost pass out reaching down for the trunk pop lever. Belle slips off the hood and comes back with my emergency med kit. She slips into the passenger seat and opens the box and pulls out some gauze and white tape and pours a little hydrogen peroxide onto the gauze. “Lean back,” she says. I do. She wipes my forehead and I can hear the peroxide foaming up over my left eye. Belle’s face very close to mine, her breath cool on my forehead, she says, quietly, “You didn’t say anything.”
“About what?” I ask, feeling a loose tooth with my tongue.
“About the girl,” Belle says. “It’s kind of a big deal, right?”
“Oh, right. Right.”
“I got a text. Everyone’s talking. Why didn’t you think to call me?”
I just shake my head.
“It’s six in the morning, Belle. On a Saturday. What the hell are you doing here?”
Belle smiles. “I followed you home from the party.”
“You were at Oscar’s? I didn’t see you.”
Belle laughs, more to herself than to me. “Yeah, what else is new.”
What Belle isn’t saying and what her eyes are is that she’s monumentally jealous. This is what I thought she was dreading. My fault, really, first time we ever hooked up I told Belle about my vision. I told her about the girl and it made Belle a bit crazy. Totally understandable. Frankly, it was pretty lame of me to mention it at all and not a bit surprising that every time we were together, at the movies or at Piggies at the Tivoli or at Paris on the Platte or INXS, she was always looking over her shoulder for the girl with brown hair and green eyes. The girl I told her way too much about.
Of course, I was looking for the girl too. We’d be making out in those leather chairs at the Cherry Creek Mall beneath the cylindrical elevators and I’d be hardly into it because my heart was racing thinking I’d seen my vision girl step into The Sharper Image. I can’t even tell you how many times I’d pause our conversations to chase after a shadow, how many times I canceled our dates or forgot to show up because I was sure, so freaking sure, that Vauxhall would appear at any minute.
Who in their right mind could put up with that?
Amazingly, she did. For a while she seemed okay with it. Honestly, it was like Belle was just that happy to be with me, just that happy to have found someone she could really bond with even if it was temporary. To be fair, when I wasn’t distracted, things were decent. We did have some nice conversations. We laughed a ton. Made out well together.
Then, October, Belle split. Shocking thing was that it wasn’t because of my future fascination, wasn’t even because of my being an emotional retard, it was something even I didn’t expect.
But right now what I thought was jealousy at first has grown into a whole different sort of animal. Far nastier. Far crueler. Right now, her face in my face, Belle says, “Funny name, Vauxhall. Is that foreign?”
I say, “I hear it’s a neighborhood in London.”
“Okay. So this is it, right?”
“I… I’m not really sure-”
Belle leans in and then tapes a folded piece of gauze on my head with the white tape. When she finishes, she takes a penlight from the kit and shines it in my eyes, one at a time. Then she sits back and says, “Of course this is it, Ade. The future never lies. You told me that.”
I shrug.
Belle says, “If I could charge you for the number of times I’ve bandaged your ass up, I could buy myself a new car. I’d be even richer if I got a dime for every single time I told you that you were sick. And dangerous. And messed up. You know that? That you are, right? Wonder if your new girlfriend knows?”
I say, “You’re just jealous.”
“Please. You’re an addict.”
“That what you think of me?”
“That’s what everyone thinks of you, Ade. Everyone but this new girl. She’ll come around soon enough. Seriously, I feel sorry for Vauxhall. Unless she likes being neglected and watching her boyfriend beat the shit out of himself for some impossible high, then she’s in for a lonely time.”
Fact is: Belle didn’t leave me because I was waiting for someone else. No, she left me because the future I was waiting for didn’t show up.
October and we were downtown walking the mall. It was one of those fall days when it feels like it’s about to snow, when the air is pregnant with frost. We had hot chocolate and were reading books at the Tattered Cover. She was acting distant. I asked her if there was a problem and she led me upstairs over to the self-help section, where there was a couch. She sat me down and laid it all out simple: “Nothing you’ve seen, not your vision girl or any of the other future stuff you’ve knocked yourself out for, has happened. I’ve got to tell you, Ade, you’re the lamest psychic I’ve ever met.”
I told her I wasn’t a psychic.
“Divinator, prognosticator, whatever. You suck.”
And it hurt. It hurt most becaus
e of what she said next: “It didn’t bother me that you were always drooling over your doodles and notes about some girl that you’ll probably never actually see and it didn’t bother me that you’re always passed out or barely there, what bothered me was that it was for nothing. You live the life of a rock star but you can’t sing, you can’t play guitar, hell, you’re not even a keyboardist. You suck, Ade, and I’m done wasting my time. I’m going to find the real deal.”
Today, in my car, she lights a smoke and repacks the emergency kit.
I ask her not to smoke. “Gives me a headache,” I say.
She laughs at that and then gets out and stomps out her cigarette the way she’d stomp out a spider. “This is pretty monumental, Ade. I’m shocked-”
“Yeah. Crazy, right?”
“Crazy.” And she says it like the word’s stuck to her tongue. Like it’s caramel.
And then she leans in and kisses me on the cheek. Then she puts a finger to her lips. She fakes embarrassment. “Can I still do that?”
When we were dating Belle was very conscious of kissing me. Any chance she could, any moment my mouth was free, her lips were on mine. Halfway through a conversation, my mouth full of food, trying to yawn, and Belle’s lips were on mine. Being in public not only didn’t matter, it spurred her on. On the leather chairs at the Cherry Creek Mall with moms pushing strollers past us fast. In the back of the movie theater with people shushing us, whispering, “Can you keep it down?” I’ll admit I wasn’t just sitting there letting it happen. My hands were everywhere. An hour with Belle left me exhausted, my lips chapped, my hands aching. There were times I’d get home at night and find my face smeared with makeup, lipstick smudges like slashes across my cheeks. I would find bruises in the oddest places, bruises that looked like fingerprints behind my knee, on my collarbone. And the hickies. Good God, the hickies.
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