I recognize that there are at least two possibilities here. Either there is a natural process that is triggered by devastating environmental perils, one by which various of the imperiled are forced along a fast evolutionary track, crocodiles evolving into men, men into…some speculative form; or else my subconscious has constructed this entire scenario as a mechanism of penance and punishment for my self-perceived crimes, and the patch of fiery, cataclysmic red—to which I draw nearer each Saturday—promises the ultimate in transformations. A rationalist would favor the second possibility, but then of all humankind, rationalists are the most vulnerable to the effects of magic, the most confounded by the magical expressions of nature. As for me, I have no opinion. I am content to wait and learn, to have patience, to ask no questions, to accept what comes. For though you may not understand how this story ends, whether love is disproved by death, whether truth is revelatory or merely deductive, whether life itself is an elastic energy, a pure informality with the infinite potential of a charm, or a sad interlude enclosed by black brackets, one way or the other, I will soon know for certain.
HANDS UP!
WHO WANTS TO DIE?
Shit happens, like they say. You know how it goes. The cops are looking at you for every nickel-and-dime robbery they can’t solve, and the landlady hates your guts for no reason except she’s a good Christian hater, and everything in the world is part of a clock you got to punch or else you’ll be docked or fined or sentenced to listen to some ex-doper who thinks he has attained self-mastery explain your behavior as if the reasons you’re a loser are a mystery that requires illumination. Otherwise it’s been a kicked dog of a week. The boss man’s had you stocking the refrigerator sections of the food mart, leaving you alone in the freezer while he sits and swaps Marine Corps stories with the guy supposed to be your helper, so you come off work half froze, looking for something to douse the meanness you’re feeling, which could be a chore since you’re a piss and a holler from being broke and New Smyrna Beach ain’t exactly Vegas. Well, turns out to be your lucky night. Along about eight o’clock you wind up with a crew of rejects in a beach shack that belongs to this fat old biker, snorting greasy homemade speed, swilling grape juice and vodka, with a windblown rain raising jazz beats from the tarpaper roof like brushes on cymbals. There’s a woman with big brown eyes and punky peroxided hair who’s a notch on the plain side of pretty, but she’s got one of those black girl butts sometimes get stuck onto a white girl, and it’s clear she’s come down with the same feeling as you, so when the rain lets up and she says how she’s got an itch to sneak onto the government property down the beach and check out what’s there, when everybody tells her it ain’t nothing but sand fleas and Spanish bayonet, you say, “Hell, I’ll go with you.” Ten minutes later you’re helping her jump down from a hurricane fence, risking a felony bust for a better view of those white panties gleaming against the strip of tanned skin that’s showing between her jeans and her tank top. She falls into you, gives you a kiss and a half, and before you can wrap her up, she scoots off into the dark and you go stumbling after.
It don’t take more than that to get shit started.
“Hey,” I shouted. “Come on back here!”
She glanced at me over her shoulder, her grin shining under a moon fresh out of hiding, then she skipped off behind some scrub palmetto. I was trying to recall her name as I ran, then a frond whacked me in the face and I slipped to a knee in the soft sand. I spotted her moving along a rise, framed by low stars. “Hell you going, girl?” I said, coming up beside her.
She slapped at a skeeter on her neck and said, “Lookit there.”
The land was all dips and rises, an old dune top gone nappy with shrubs and beach grass, but down below was a scooped-out circular area, wide and deep enough to bury a mini-mall in. Dead center of it stood a ranch house with cream-colored block walls and a composite roof and glass doors. If it was a giant banana, I couldn’t have been more startled.
“I heard about there was a house here,” she said. “But I swear I didn’t believe it!”
We scrambled down the slope and tromped around the house, peering in windows. Some rooms were empty, others were partly furnished, and though I wouldn’t have figured on it, the sliding door at the back was unlocked. I shoved it open and she put her hands over her head and got to snapping her fingers and hip-shaked across the threshold. A big leather sofa stood by its lonesome in the middle of the room. She struck a pose beside it, skinned off her jeans and showed me what I wanted. Wasn’t long before we were sweating all over each other, grunting and huffing like hogs in a hurry, our teeth clicking together when we kissed. The cushions got so slippery, we slid off onto the floor afterward and lay twisted together. The moon came pale through the flyspecked glass, but it wasn’t sufficient to light the corners of the room.
“God, I could use something to drink,” she said. “I know there can’t be nothing in the kitchen.”
My carpenter’s pants were puddled at the end of the couch. I undid the flap pockets and hauled out two wine coolers. “What you want?” I asked. “Tropical Strawberry or Mango Surprise?”
“I can’t believe you carrying ’round wine coolers in your pocket.”
“I hooked ’em off a truck when I was coming outa work.”
We unscrewed the caps, clinked our bottles and drank.
“My name’s Leeli, she said, sticking out her hand. I’m sorry but I forget yours.”
“Maceo.”
“That a family name? It’s so unusual!”
“It’s for some guitar player my mama liked.”
“Well, it’s real unusual.”
She seemed to be expecting me to take a turn, so I asked what a house was doing out there setting in a hole.
“Beats me. Government bought up all the land ’round here years ago. To keep people away from the Cape…’cause of the rockets, y’know? But I never knew nothing was here. My ex, his friend runs a helicopter tourist ride? I guess he saw it once.”
“Maybe they opened it up for development,” I said. “And this here’s the model home.”
“Y’know, I bet you’re right!” She gave me a proud mama look, like My-ain’t-you-smart!
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I went to loving her up again. She started running hot and came astride me, but before she could settle herself, she let out a shriek and crawled over top the couch. I rolled my eyes back to see what had spooked her, said, “Shit—Jesus!” and next thing I was hunkered behind the couch with Leeli, my heart banging in my chest.
Two men and a woman were hanging by the glass doors, nailing us with a six-eyed stare as clear in its negativity as a NO TRESPASSING sign. The men were young, both a shade under six feet, dressed in slacks and Tshirts. A blond and a baldy. They had the look of fitness sissies, like they might have pumped some iron and run a few laps, but never put the results to any spirited use. The woman wore cutoffs and an oversized denim shirt and carried a bulky tote bag. She was fortyish and big-boned, with wavy dark hair, and her body had a sexy looseness that would still draw its share of eye traffic. Her face was full of bad days and wrong turns, the lines cutting her forehead and dragging down her mouth making it seem older than the rest of her. Way the men tucked themselves in at her shoulders, you could tell she was queen of the hive.
Leeli clutched at my arm, breathing fast. Nobody said nothing. Finally I came out from behind the couch and tossed Leeli her panties. I stepped into my pants and feeling more confident with my junk covered, I said, “Have yourself a show, did ya?”
“Have yourself a show?” the blond man said, mocking me, and the baldy sniggered like a kid who’d seen his first dirty picture.
I pulled on my shirt. “Y’know this here’s government property? Y’all be in deep shit, I turn your asses in.”
“You saying you the government?” The woman’s voice was a contralto drawl made me think of a dollop of honey hanging off the lip of a jar. “You the first government man I seen got jai
lhouse ink on his arms.” She turned to Leeli, who was tugging the tank top down over her breasts. “How’s about you, sweetcheeks? You in the government, too?”
Leeli snatched up her jeans. “You got no more right being here than we do!”
The woman sniffed explosively, like a cat sneezing, and the bald man said, “You can’t get much more government than we are. Government’s like mommy and daddy to us.”
Leeli piped up, “Well, whyn’t you show us your ID?”
The flow of feeling in the room was running high, like everyone was waiting for a direction to fly off in.
“Screw this,” said the woman. “We was just going for a drink. Y’all wanna come?”
I was about to say we’d do our own drinking, but Leeli said, “It’s Margarita Night over at the Dixieland!” and soon everybody was saying stuff like, “Looked like you was gonna fall out” and “God you scared the hell outa me” and telling their names and their stories. Though he didn’t seem up to the job, the blond man, Carl, was the woman’s husband. Her name was Ava and she owned a club in Boynton Beach where the bald man, Squire, worked as a bartender. I knew a kid name of Squire back in high school who was accused of having sex with a neighbor’s collie. Much as I would have enjoyed bringing this up, I kept it to myself.
We piled out through the glass doors, both Carl and Squire heading toward the water. “Fuck you think you going?” I asked.
“Ava got her four-by-four parked down on the beach,” Squire said.
I was staring at Ava and Leeli, who were still back at the glass doors. Leeli had her head down and Ava was talking. Something didn’t sit right about the way they were together.
“Government don’t care what goes on at the house no more,” Squire said, apparently thinking I was off onto another track. “We been partying here for years.”
• • •
You know that kid’s toy ball you can bounce and instead of coming straight back to your hand, it goes dribbling off along the floor or kicks off to the side? My expectations of the weekend had taken just that sort of wrong-angled bounce. After Leeli and I broke in the leather couch, I assumed we’d be heading over to my place, maybe coming up for air sometime Sunday. A shitkicker bar had for sure not been part of the plan.
The Dixieland was down on A1A, a concrete block eyesore with a neon sign on the roof that spelled the name in red and blue letters, except for the N was missing, which might have accounted for the gay boys who occasionally dropped in and left real quick. All the waitresses were decked out in Rebel caps and there were Confederate flags laminated on the table tops. The Friday night crowd was men in cowboy hats who had never set a horse and women with flakes of mascara clinging to their lashes and skirts so short you could see the tattooed butterflies, roses, hummingbirds and such advertising their little treasures whenever they hopped up onto a barstool. Some country & western goatboy was howling on the jukebox about the world owed him a living, while a few couples dragged around the dance floor, Ava and Leeli among them. Their relationship appeared to be deepening.
Carl fell in love with a digital beer display behind the bar that showed a bikini girl waterskiing. I was coming to understand the boy must have some empty rooms in his attic. He stood gawking at the thing like he was stoned on Jesus love. That left Squire and me alone at a table, sucking on our margaritas. Shaving his head probably hadn’t done for Squire what he hoped. It made his face resemble a cream pie somebody drew a man-in-the moon face on, but he tried to sell the look as being the front door into the world of a badass individual with secrets you would want to know. It was kinda pathetic. He threw a couple of insults my way and when that didn’t get a rise, he went on about how tight he was with Carl and Ava, how they’d been partying for two months solid, saying me and Leeli needed to get on board the party train, they’d sure show us a time.
“Two month vacation must get in the way of your bartending,” I said and he said, “Huh?” then got flustered and came back with, “Oh, yeah…hell, I just work when we’re there, y’know.”
The juke box played the Dixie Chicks. Leeli squealed, clapped her hands, and did this slow, snaky hula, dancing like she was on stage at a titty bar and using Ava for the pole.
“We ain’t hardly ever there, though.” Squire said this like it was super important for me to understand. He started to spout more worthless bullshit, but I told him to hang onto the thought. I walked over to Ava and tapped her on the shoulder and said, “’Scuse me, buddy. Believe it’s my turn.” She flashed a condescending smile and backed off. Leeli kept her eyes closed like she didn’t care what was going on, she was so lost in the music, but when I put my leg where Ava’s hip had been she said, “That was rude!”
“Yeah she was,” I said.
She punched me in the chest, but didn’t leave off dry-humping my leg. “Just ’cause we did the deed, don’t you go waving no papers at me.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
She didn’t hear and I said it again louder.
This ticked her off. “Just what is your intention?” she asked.
“I got a friend in Lauderdale lets me use his beach house. I thought we could drive down next weekend and see how it goes. But hey, you wanna fuck the old skank, do it.”
“Well, maybe I will!” She looped her arms about my neck and smiled me up. “Or maybe I’ll wait ’til after Lauderdale.”
I thought the two of us were back on track, but when Ava decided to hit another bar, Leeli said in a cajoling voice, “I’m having so much fun! Let’s not go home yet!” Wasn’t until we wound up in a Daytona Beach motel on Saturday morning, sleeping in the room next to Ava’s, that I realized somewhere in the middle of all those tequila shots, we’d climbed aboard the party train. I remembered telling everybody about the beach house. From that I guess the idea had developed for Ava to drive me and Leeli to Lauderdale, making frequent stops for refreshment, with Ava paying the freight. They weren’t going to welcome me back at the food mart when I turned up a week late for my shift, but that world was spinning me nowhere and I thought I might take a shot at separating Ava from some of the money she’d been throwing around. I worried about her going after Leeli, though. We’d only had us the one night, but Leeli and I seemed to recognize each other’s zero score in life as only folks do who’re born in a neighborhood where the most you aspire to is a double-wide and sufficient loose change to afford a couple of cases on the weekend. We’d both worn out our craziness to the point where we saw we might have us a nice little run and maybe avoid killing each other at the end. Once she loosened up and that sick-of-it-all waitress hardness drained from her face, I saw a sweet seam in her no one had bothered to mine.
I left Leeli sleeping and smoked in the breezeway of the motel, watching two rat-skinny children splash and squeak in the pool, while their two-hundred-pound-plus mama, milky breasts and thighs and belly squeezed into inner-tube shapes by a lemon yellow bathing suit, lay on a lawn chair and simmered like a dumpling over a low flame. The drapes of Ava’s room hung open a crack and I had a peek. All I saw of her was legs waving in the air and hands gripping onto a headboard. The rest was hidden underneath Squire. His pimply butt was just pumping up and down. Sitting straight in a chair beside the bed, like a schoolboy being taught a lesson, Carl was looking on with interest. Well, come get me Jesus, I said to myself. With Carl and Squire both bagging Ava, she wouldn’t have much time for Leeli. I had to admire Squire’s stamina, but he looked to be doing push-ups on a trampoline and if I was the boy’s daddy I’d have advised him that women tend to enjoy some rhythmic variation. He finally fell off his stroke and rolled onto his back. Ava came up flushed and sweaty, hair sticking to her cheeks. She had a sip of water, spoke briefly to Carl, then straddled Squire and began more-or-less to treat him like he’d been treating her. I’d been feeling about ten cents on the dollar, but watching her work cleaned the crust off my brain. Being the gentleman I am, I decided to buy Leeli coffee and a Krispy Kreme before checking out the rest of
my parts.
• • •
I hated Daytona, and not just because I was born there, though every time I drove through Holly Hills, redneck purgatory, and saw those little bunkerlike concrete homes with cracked jalousie windows and chain link fences and Big Wheels with faded colors buried in the front yard weeds, my wattles got all red and swollen. I also hated the beach, the kids who cruised it eight and nine to a convertible or rode around in ten-dollar-an-hour rent-a-buggies, the bikini girls with their inch-deep tans and MTV eyes, the boys in Hilfiger suits with an old man’s dream of financial security stuck like an ax into their brains at birth. I hated the fucking piped-in circus music that played along the boardwalk, sounding like it was made of sugar beets and red dye number seven. I hated the goddamn carnival rides and the heavy metal curses shouting from the arcades. I liked the ocean all right, liked the blue-green water inside the sandbar, the creamy ridges of foam the tide left along the margin, and the power of the combers, but I wished they rolled in to no shore. I hated the burger joints with their fried onion stink, their white plastic tables and chairs on a concrete deck, and walk-up windows manned by high school geeks with connect-the-dot acne puzzles on their foreheads, because it was at just such a joint I committed the error in judgment that earned me a nickel in Raiford, sauntering up to the service window so wired on crank, all I could smell was the inside of my nose, pulling a fifty dollar pistol, and before I could speak the magic words, two plainclothes cops who were drinking milkshakes at the time snuck up behind me and said to turn around real quick, they’d like that, and later in jail, Sgt. John True, a man apparently fascinated with me, visited my cell, the first of our many nights together, and said, “When I was a kid Is just like you”—meaning, I suppose, he no longer considered himself a dumbass hillbilly—prior to beating me unconscious. I carried a lot of anger relating to Daytona, and that afternoon while we were sitting at a white plastic table on a concrete deck, staring at baskets of onion rings and fried shrimp so heavily breaded, eating one was like eating a hush puppy with a flavorless crunchy prize inside, I let angry out for exercise.
Eternity and Other Stories Page 14