Dead Boys

by RICHARD LANGE

  KATE KEPT THE urn on a bookshelf, high enough up that Monica couldn’t reach. I learned to ignore it after a while, but in the beginning I’d catch myself staring while we played cards or ate breakfast. I was afraid Kate would notice and start asking questions, and then the truth would dribble out, that it was just charcoal in there, not really old Bud. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, she probably would have laughed, but those kinds of things will come back to haunt you.

  One night soon after I found the dead woman, Kate and I were watching a DVD. I sat on the couch; she lay with her head in my lap. Monica was with her dad. The T-shirt Kate wore as a nightgown had climbed above her hips, and she wasn’t wearing panties. My hand was resting on her thigh when something about the way her ankles crossed reminded me of the corpse. There was the bluish glow from the TV, too, a color akin to morning.

  The chemicals began to flow, mixing and matching and doing a number on me. My chest filled with gravel, and each breath was like a finger down my throat. Kate’s voice worked its way through the muck. She asked why I was shaking. “It’s not me,” I wanted to say, “it’s everything else,” but all that came out was a cough.

  Denver again. Instinct urged me to flee. The shadows grew thick and painful, and I could have sworn someone was hiding in the kitchen. I fought the panic as long as I was able, but there wasn’t enough air in the room, and I didn’t want Kate to see me that way.

  She stopped me on the porch just by calling my name. I waited cramped and panting, one hand cradling my racing heart. The lawn shone silver in the moonlight, like a bed of nails. We sat back to back, the screen door between us, Kate inside the house, me out. I told her some things about myself that had been secrets before; I put some things into words for the first time. It felt good to get through it. My pulse slowed and my fists unclenched.

  “Running away’s a bad habit,” Kate said when I was done. “Have you ever tried to stand your ground?”

  “I will. I would. For you.”

  “I have a child. I have a life. Jesus Christ, man.”

  “Invite me back in. You’ll see.”

  She opened the screen door, and I stepped inside. While she made a pot of coffee, I started the DVD over again.

  HEY,EVERYBODY SAID when I dropped by the doughnut shop. What’s up? Where you been? Not much had changed. Ray Ray was trying to sell an old Buick, and Whitey had shaved his mustache. I told them about living in Downey, near Kate, and my new job at an auto-parts warehouse.

  José said, “Oh, shit. Bud’s got to be rolling in his grave, you with his daughter.”

  “You’re gonna thank me for that, right?” Whitey asked. “Who sent you out there in the first place?”

  We took our coffee to one of the outside tables, where we could smoke. The sun reflected off the bumpers of passing cars and sliced into us like laser beams, and the exhaust hanging in the air made everything taste funny, but nobody complained. That’s how it was with them.

  “I taught her to play chess,” I said. “She whips my ass every time.”

  “So it’s for real, then. You guys are a thing?” Ray Ray asked.

  Whitey laughed at him. “A thing? A thing?”

  Bill appeared out of nowhere. He didn’t recognize me right away. The guys all stared at their shoes and watches. His lips were cracked and bloody, and a black smear of something dirtied his forehead.

  “Do I owe you money?” he asked.

  “We’re good.”

  “Speak for youself.”

  “Okay, I’m good.”

  Bill laughed at that, spat on the sidewalk.

  He was more like me than most. I had problems staying put, and he couldn’t ever seem to get away. I tried to explain it to Kate that night, but back then I was just getting used to saying what I meant. I still felt like I was learning the logic of a brand-new dream. She listened to me fumble for words, then put her arms around me and told me she was proud of me. I could lie here forever, I thought.

  Long Lost

  THREE ASTRONAUTS ARE SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS AT THE mall, side by side at a long table next to Santa’s castle. A red, white, and blue banner behind them screams YOUR AMERICAN HEROES, but Santa is a bigger draw, with his fake snow and plywood candy canes. It’s Christmas, after all! Mommies in sweatpants and stained T-shirts drag their children past the table and into the castle, where an elf will snap a Polaroid to send to Grandma or maybe Daddy and his new wife, while the astronauts, ignored, sip from cans of soda and dream of Thai bar girls.

  One of them cups his ear whenever anybody speaks to him, an old man with a face like the end of an orange. He once walked on the moon — the moon! I watched it on TV as a kid. Fucked me up for years. I couldn’t wait to blast off. He must have some answers, the ancient astronaut. If I could muster the energy, I’d get up off this bench and ask him why my hands sometimes feel like they belong to somebody else. I’d sing along to the Christmas carols and take the See’s candy lady dancing. Or maybe I’d fill a bottle with gasoline, stopper it with a sock, and set fire to this circus. I don’t know.

  I MEET ANOTHER husband at the bar. He offers to buy me a drink, which is supposed to be a joke, because all the booze is free. He’s loosened his tie so that the knot hangs to the middle of his chest, and he can’t stop running his fingers through his hair.

  “Which one’s yours?” he asks, and I point to Judy. She has a good job, management, and this is her company Christmas party. I tried every way I could to get out of coming, but she put her foot down. She has that right, I guess.

  “Do you love her?” the other husband asks.

  Of course I do.

  “I love mine, too,” he says with a grin.

  Judy is talking to her boss over at the buffet. I watch from across the room as she smiles one minute, nods seriously the next, the transition so smooth and professional it seems almost rehearsed. She’s lucky that way. The seams never show. “All you have to do is try,” she’ll say when I ask how she does it, and every time she says it, my spit turns to battery acid and my head hurts for days.

  Mostly, though, we’re fine. We keep it simple. She likes strawberry daiquiris, silver jewelry, and anything with Gene Kelly in it. I know what kind of flowers to buy on her birthday, and we need about the same amount of sleep. I have heard her crying in the bathroom when she thinks the shower is drowning it out, but we’re still rolling along, and that’s better than most.

  The other husband’s wife joins us at the bar. She’s wearing Frosty the Snowman earrings. “So you’re Mr. Judy,” she says. “You’re in publishing, right?”

  “Is that how Judy puts it? I’m a proofreader.”

  “Proofreader,” her husband says. “What the hell’s that?”

  “A job. A bullshit job. Lots of people have them.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “So you’d rather be doing something else,” the wife says to me.

  “Not really.”

  She eyes me over the rim of her wineglass. I can tell she’s not going to back down. It’s these kinds of conversations that will kill me.

  “What are you two doing for the holidays?” she asks.

  “We’re not real big on the whole holiday thing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I answer with a shrug.

  “When you have kids it’ll be different,” she says. “They really make this time of year special.”

  Judy finally motions for me to join her. I excuse myself and follow her out to the patio of the restaurant.

  “Float me a smoke,” she says.

  Two men, coworkers of hers, approach us with their arms around each other. They are singing “Silent Night” and try to get Judy to join in, but she pats them on their backs and steers them inside.

  “Wash your hands,” I say. “This place is a hotbed of Yuletide cheer.”

  “Best behavior. You promised,” she says.

  People are dancing in the restaurant. The windows are beginning to fog. There’s a small blac
k spot on my white shirt. I can’t figure out where it came from.

  Judy takes her cell phone from her purse and dials our answering machine. After listening for a minute, she looks confused, then presses the code to replay the messages and holds the phone out to me.

  “Your brother called,” she says.

  “I don’t have a brother.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  SPENCER WRIGHT, THIS is your life. No, really, hey, my name is Karl Wright, and I’m your brother, half-brother, Whatever. It’s a hell of a story, but I tracked our old man down and he gave me your name and they had computers at the library. He said he thought you were living in L.A., so it was pretty easy. Do you know about me? He married my momma after he married yours. Anyway, I’m gonna tell you right off the bat, I’ve been away for a time, and where I was locked down they had a shrink who said a lot of my anger and stuff comes from not having family ties and missing out on that, so I’m doing something about it, or trying to anyway. I said back off, nigger! Sorry about that. I bet this tape’s gonna run out, so let me get to it. I’m in town, I’ve got a room down here at the Hotel Cecil, and I’d love to hook up with you for a few minutes, lunch, Whatever you can spare. Seeing your face and hearing your voice is all that’s important. Leave a message at the desk for Karl Wright. If I don’t hear from you, don’t worry, I’ll get the hint. Love you, bro. Already. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

  THE DESK CLERK sits behind bulletproof glass. All transactions are conducted via a sliding drawer, and one must be buzzed in through a security gate to get upstairs. The sign warning against drugs, prostitution, and firearms makes me smile. Have you never dreamed of such lodgings?

  The clerk is Indian. Turban, the whole bit.

  “I’m here to see Karl Wright,” I say.

  He checks the register and then the cubbyholes where the keys are stored.

  “Wright is out,” he says.

  “He told me to meet him here.”

  The clerk grabs a key and taps it three or four times against the thick Plexiglas separating us. “He is out, out, out. This is his key.”

  “What’s that music you’re listening to?”

  It’s a woman wailing over some kind of half-assed bagpipes and penny whistles dipped in mud.

  “Indian music. From my country.”

  “What’s she saying?”

  The clerk shrugs. “She loves him. He has robbed her heart.”

  I step back into the lobby. A few men are hunched on the spavined couches, rapt before a silent television chained to a shelf up near the ceiling. I take a seat and do my best to mimic their institutional quietude. These boys know how to wait, I think to myself while the audience on TV applauds us soundlessly. In one corner of the room, a small aluminum Christmas tree lists under its burden of twinkle lights and tinsel.

  The old guy beside me is wearing a blue polyester suit coat, the cuffs of which hang past his knuckles. He smells like yeast and mothballs. For a while he stares openmouthed at the screen, his tongue worrying his dentures. Then he stands and faces me.

  “Hit the road, punk,” he wheezes.

  “Say what?”

  “Time’s up.”

  “Sit down, you crazy fuck,” one of the other men shouts.

  “Yeah, asshole,” another chimes in.

  The old man’s chin trembles; his eyes shine with tears. He returns to his spot on the couch and sits with his head in his hands. I’d trade any ten people I know for one of him. His desolation is as beautiful as a broken mirror.

  My brother laughs. He’s been watching everything from an easy chair by the door. He’s handsomer than me, taller, more graceful as he strides across the lobby, muscular arms outstretched.

  “Karl?” I ask, knowing full well.

  He wraps himself around me. I feel his fists on my back, drawing me closer until my mouth and nose are pressed against his shoulder. I want to return the embrace, I should, but it’s awkward. I can’t figure out where to put my hands.

  “My bro,” he whispers. “My big bro.”

  We separate, and he wipes his eyes with the ball of his thumb. He’s wearing a denim shirt and a pair of tan chinos, and I wonder if these are the clothes the prison provided when they released him. Everyone in the lobby is smiling at us, as if our meeting has allowed hope to slice its way through the scar tissue surrounding their hearts. I don’t want to be responsible for that.

  A siren screams past outside, and Karl doesn’t even flinch. I reach out and tousle his hair like an older brother would a younger brother’s. He grabs my hand and kisses it. It’s one of those moments when you wish you weren’t always watching yourself from across the room.

  WE WALK TO a McDonald’s a couple of blocks off Skid Row. I suggest sushi in Little Tokyo or one of the Mexican places over the river, but Karl says no, no, McDonald’s is fine. The streets down here are something else. The sun never quite reaches them over the tops of the buildings, and those who have chosen to live in this constant twilight collide with those who have no choice and those who are simply, in one way or another, lost. On this cold, late December afternoon, it could be any miserable, man-eating place in the world. Cheap wine, crack, lies loudly told — these are the bonfires that keep the wolves at bay.

  OH, MAN, YOU really want to get into that mess? It makes me look stupid. Like a real idiot. But okay. Me and this fucker Edgar I used to hang with, we were heavy into downers. I was staying away from smack, but anything else, bring it on. This was in OKC, before the bomb and whatnot, and Edgar knew this guy who knew this guy who . . . well, if you were a serious pill popper and you got to thinking, “Hey, where do they keep all the drugs in this town?” you might come up with this, too — the hospital, right? So Edgar tells me about this buddy of his who shot himself in the hand with a twenty-two, then went to the hospital and told them it happened while he was cleaning the gun, and they set him up with a nice, fat scrip for Percodan or Darvon or some such wonder. We’re thinking right on, right. Voilà! You’ve got to be in pain to get painkillers! Neither of us had the balls to take a bullet, but we worked it out where we’d toss a coin and the winner would hit the loser in the head with a piece of pipe just hard enough to cut him and lump it up so it’d look like maybe he fell off a ladder, which is what we’d tell the doctor.

  A few beers later, we do the toss, and I lose. Edgar gets the pipe from under his mattress and I sit at the kitchen table and he fuckin’ nails me. I mean, he knocks me the fuck OUT! I wake up on the floor, blood gushing, my ears ringing, and Edgar zips me over to the emergency. Well, first off they shave half my head to stitch me up, then there’s all kinds of X-rays and Y-rays and Z-rays. I must have been in there four or five hours, crying this hurts and that hurts and doc, you got to help me, and after all that, do you know what I walked out with? Tylenol. Fucking Tylenol. Long story short, we drive to this dealer’s house and bust down his door and steal his stash. He ratted us out, saying we took his TV, and me being on probation already for some other rinky-dink beef, that was that. Your little brother hit the big time.

  THE MCDONALD’S IS all plastic and chrome and perfect and horrible. Karl lifts the bun of his hamburger to remove the pickles. He’s tattooed the letters of his name on the fingers of one hand, a sloppy, homemade job, the ink already faded to green. The one thing I see of myself in his face is its only imperfection, the bulbous tip of his nose. We can thank our father for that.

  “How long’s it been?” Karl asks.

  “Oh, hell, what, twenty-five years maybe. He dropped by on his way to Vegas once, when he still lived out here. He was with your mother then. She was pregnant with you, as a matter of fact. We’ve talked on the phone a few times since.”

  “You never missed having a daddy?”

  “My mom kept trying. There were always men around.”

  “But not your daddy.”

  I shift in my seat and fight off the exasperation his earnestness provokes in me.

  “We never had pets, either. Sho
uld I feel bad about that, too?”

  “You got an answer for everything,” Karl says, his smile a bit too knowing.

  “So what’s your story?” I ask.

  He shrugs, dips a fry in ketchup. “How old were you when he bailed?”

  “Three.”

  “I was barely a year.” His voice takes on a harsher tone, as if something inside him has suddenly cinched up tight and he has to force his words around it.

  “Momma did her best, but it was hard in Texas. Different from here, the people and all, how they treated us. Especially her family. They were too cruel half the time, too kind the rest. By the time I was fourteen, she’d had enough, so she gave herself up to cancer. And I’m glad, you know, because look at me.”

  He strikes himself in the chest with his fist and would do worse, I know — tear his guts out, take an ice pick to his skull. It’s the kind of self-immolating rage that drives men to decisive, if reckless, even destructive, acts, and I have often envied it in others, as the dead must surely envy the living.

  I sip my coffee and watch him seethe. He closes his eyes and exhales loudly, then rotates his head from side to side, his neck cracking and popping.

  “He had a house on a golf course out there in Florida, a boat in the driveway. A girl answered the door, looked like us, and there was a boy, too. Daddy wouldn’t let me in, though, didn’t want to upset his family, like I was somebody, I don’t know, nobody. So we walked out to the garage. What did I want, he wanted to know. I said, ‘Just to see you. You’re my daddy.’ ‘Are you sure?’ he asks. Are you sure? Can you believe that? I lost it. I got him by the throat and took him down to his knees.”

  “I’ve dreamed this,” I say. “I’ve killed the fucker in my dreams.”

  Karl pauses, derailed momentarily by my interruption — shocked, if that’s possible. He swirls his straw in his cup.

  “I had a pistol,” he continues, “but it’s when I reached for it, when my fingers touched it, that I lost my nerve. I slapped his ass around until he gave up your name and that you were in California and all, and then I got the fuck out of Dodge. ‘Son,’ he called after me. ‘Son.’ But I didn’t look back. He put another notch on his going-to-hell belt that day, that’s for sure. And me, I haven’t had a mean spell since.”