Me & Mr. Cigar

by Gibby Haynes

  A PLEASANT SURPRISE IS STILL A SURPRISE

  Wow, that’s the friendliest, sort of upbeat Rachel I’ve heard in a while. Kind of nice. Oddly. Sure doesn’t sound like she’s almost being kidnapped. Our last forty-eight hours have been crazy even by crazy standards. Now I’m starting to think the big finale is going to be kind of a letdown. I mean, anything compared to dope dealin’, amputation and grand larceny is going to look mellow, but this feels as if it might actually be fun. People and music and stuff like that fun. You never know. A pleasant surprise is pleasant . . . nonetheless still surprising.

  Walking our bikes up the hill toward the jogging path, we go through a tree tunnel of what appear to be giant oaks. Immune, I think, to their sound (like living near a train track), I pause and accidentally listen to this huge green room, tap Lytle on the shoulder and point upward. He says, “What, dude?” then looks up.

  “Listen.”

  “Oh yeah, man, I didn’t notice ’em either. Funny.”

  MOUTH FROM THE SOUTH

  They’re actually loud as shit. Didn’t know they had cicadas in Central Park. Referring to Brood X of the magicicada periodical cicada, of course . . . apparently alive and well in New York City . . . and indeed ready to party for their big and only summer. For seventeen years, these babies have been underground. Hands down my favorite insect. Big Texas male appeal. Large and loud. Can’t say enough! You tie a four-foot length of thread around their little insect necks, toss ’em in the air and they skitter around like airborne trout. Or, sadly, they will instinctively grab onto a firecracker. So you hand them a black cat, light the fuse and let ’em go. They fly surprisingly well despite the added weight . . . for like three seconds. Then things get elliptical. Not exactly in line with the teachings of the Buddha. But less cruel, methinks, than the Oscar-style fate of another childhood bug . . . The firefly. Or in Texan, lightning bug. What one does is: mash their little glow-in-the-dark butts in a circular motion on the underside of a Frisbee . . . then enjoy a poetically demented light show while tossing a flying disc on a beautiful summer evening. Or you can just smush one directly across your sister’s forehead on a beautiful summer evening . . . when you’re eleven years old and it’s her birthday.

  And there’s the roly-poly, aka the pill bug. In my neighborhood, it’s a roly-poly. A favorite insect for me because they’re not really an insect. They’re a terrestrial crustacean . . . commonly found on decaying corpses. Darkly FYI. When stressed, they roll up into tiny black armored balls. For sport? You agitate them into the ball state and flick them around with leaf stems like you’re playing a miniature game of hockey. The goals are the little sand pits the antlion makes. Antlions rock. Their nomenclature bears no geographic assertion. There are antlions everywhere, I presume. (Given the fantasy they conjure as lion-sized ants, Texans are likely to believe antlions came from “up north” and began terrorizing the south soon after the war.) Ant-sized lions are just as scary but way more funny. A 250-pound ant is one thing, but lions one-sixteenth of an inch long . . . Really takes the fun out of the old stomping-on-a-giant-nest thing. Plus, you need a handful and a quiet moment to hear ’em roar.

  In human scale: You are walking along, minding your own business, and tumble into a thirty-foot sand pit . . . Every time you crawl to the top, just as escape seems possible, you are hit by sixty pounds of well-delivered rocks. You fall back to the bottom, and this process continues until you are exhausted, badly beaten, lying at the bottom of the pit. Then a giant pair of scissors cuts you in half. That’s the basic antlion experience . . . in human scale. That’s only the larval phase of this creature. The innocent child of the species. Logically, then, the adults of the species should become evil brain-eating skin peelers. But no. This wicked child-sect becomes a slender, sort of elegant, flying creature. Think dragonfly. Maybe Lytle and I are just a couple of crazy bugs trying to cope with those “difficult larvae” years, and we will become elegant flying creatures . . . Someday. It definitely feels like we’re becoming something. Whatever . . . feels great?

  HORIZON ZERO

  Out the south end of Central Park, we head back to the parking garage. We cross Central Park South, once again a beautiful event. The titanium-stingray metal-flake happy-dog . . . alone in the tube . . . totally shacked!

  Downtown toward Fifty-Fifth, we pass Carnegie Hall.

  “The birthplace of intelligent dance music,” offers Lytle.

  Hee-larious.

  Parking costs like $3,846. Oh well . . . This is New York City, after all.

  Back in the truck on the mean streets of the Big Apple . . . tourists, cops, people in suits and a guy with a Barbie doll woven into his hair. We stop in search of Dr Pepper and a bag of Fritos. No such luck. The dude behind the counter points down the block, and in a heavy Indian accent says, “We do not have this ‘Fritos,’ but you might try the new deli across the street.” Lytle cracks up . . . I chuckle, and the guy behind the counter laughs harder than both of us. A few minutes later, we’re in Times Square. Visually visual. A splash of neon, standstill traffic, horns honking and hordes of people horde-ing the sidewalk. For a New York neophyte, just approaching Times Square at rush hour is like whitewater rafting a turbulent section of the Snake River in the spring. The canyon walls of Manhattan, both nauseating and claustrophobic, rise sharply from either side, then at Forty-Seventh Street disintegrate into the gut feeling of going to the basement in a really fast elevator . . . dramatically revealing an overwhelming landscape of dancing lights, naked cowboys and Statues of Liberty.

  “Ah, Little Tokyo,” Lytle muses. “There must be a billion lights.”

  “At least, man. And for every light on Broadway . . . a broken heart.”

  I laugh, then we’re both laughing . . . at things that are there and really shouldn’t be. And things that should be but actually aren’t. Times Square is a jarring experience, even unadulterated. Additionally, a not-so-vague trail of lights (with any movement of my eyes) makes things extra fresh, if not slightly entertaining. Testimony, undoubtedly, to my recent experience. I swear; DJ Mike must have given me a tablespoon of that shit. Almost three days later, I still feel like I’m tripping. But maybe Times Square always feels like an electric box of crayons from which there is no exit. You don’t really leave. You escape. We manage the escape . . . unscathed.

  But I can’t help feel like I’m not out of danger. There is something going on . . . like an extra layer . . .

  Layer of what, though? Secret fucking sauce?

  Encroaching destiny?

  It’s hard to tell. I have no frame of reference. I hate McDonald’s . . . for political reasons.

  A series of perfectly staggered green lights plunges us into an obstacle course of buses and taxis.

  Then traffic thins out a bit. The windows are open, and Mr. Cigar noses the breeze downtown to Rachel’s apartment.

  This is my first time driving an automobile in New York City. I’ve taken a few cab rides, but, despite what one hears, driving is way easier than expected. Surprisingly not as bad as North Dallas at rush hour. Twenty degrees cooler, same angry drivers and actually fewer cars. Rachel’s apartment is in the SoHo section of town. We get to her street, and it’s a short five blocks to the crib. SoHo is a funny part of the city for the first-timer. You’d think it would be the Theater District, like the Soho area of London, but no, that’s Broadway here. SoHo, in NYC, is a combo name that stands for “south of Houston.” Meaning south of Houston Street. Extra odd if one is a first-timer from Texas. To a Texan . . . Galveston is south of Houston, not a part of New York City. Odder even, up here it’s pronounced HOW-stun not HUGH-stun. Don’t ask why. Nobody knows, and they’ll probably mention that it’s like the way they pronounce “Rodeo” in Los Angeles. Which is “row-DAY-owe.” Sacrilege to any true Texan. Rachel’s street is similar to a lot of streets in the city. A bunch of ratty (literally) redbrick buildings with garbage flying around, homeless
people and drug addicts. It’s a nice area. The crappy neighborhoods are basically the same but instead of garbage flying around it’s bullets. Like an American high school . . .

  Lytle pulls into another parking garage—easy but expensive. We walk the half block to my sister’s, punch in the access code. Seconds later, we’re on our way up.

  I’m trying to call Rachel, but there’s no service in this ancient elevator, and it rises about an inch a minute. Not only that but it’s carpeted, making for a claustrophobic cotton-in-your-ears type of experience. If nothing else, the tension is rising as Lytle, me and Mr. Cigar stand side by side staring straight ahead, our gaze only slightly angled upward. Typical elevator posture . . . but on high alert. A bell anounces the arrival to each successive floor.

  Finally, Lytle, right around bell number ten, chops the moment in half and says to no one in particular, “Buddy Rich Little Stevie Ray Charles Manson Family Affairs of the Heart of Darkness at the Edge of Townes Van Zandt.”

  All I could manage in response was, “Wow.”

  The elevator doors open into a small box-shaped room. I can hear music through the walls. Cigar’s ears stiffen. I glance at Lytle. He pushes through the room’s metal door, revealing a huge tiled rooftop, with potted plants, tables, chairs and couches arranged in various hangout areas. There’s even a little kitchenette with a grill and refrigerator. Kind of sweet.

  But there’s no bartender. No party people. No snacks.

  SPOCK, HELP ME

  The door behind us makes a resounding slam shut.

  Cigar starts barking. Lytle winces. I pause for a moment, surveying the layout. I round the corner to see the rest of the roof . . . There’s Rachel, looking a little older and stressed, sitting on the couch beside a Euro-looking dude I’ve never seen before. But that’s no big deal . . . I don’t know what a lot of her friends look like . . . actually, none of ’em.

  The Euro-dude is looking at us with wide eyes in obvious (but weird) anticipation. He taps his iPhone, and the music fades.

  “Hello, Oscar! You must be Lytle. And, of course, Mr. Cigar . . .

  “We’re having a little party.”

  Cigar keeps barking, acting super jumpy. Lytle slumps a little in the realization that this isn’t the party I know he was looking forward to. But I don’t mind . . .

  I knew it wasn’t going to be a giant blowout. Certainly not an “Oscar and the clown” party. I’m actually relieved. We’ll do this money thing and get it over with. After that . . . maybe Rachel invites us downstairs and we order Chinese food and pass out in front of the TV. I am sure Lytle and Cigar would be on board with that plan. It’s been a long, strange trip. We’re kind of tired—

  “O-o-o-o-scar?” Rachel suddenly says (asks?) with a distinct oops, I did it again feel to it.

  Only then do I notice her eyebrows are scrunched up. Like a lightning bug got smeared across her forehead (on her birthday). She’s waving her stump in the air. No doubt shooting somebody “the finger” with a nonexistent hand. She seems to be staring right through us; scared, angry or both. Cigar now barks it up a notch as Lytle and I turn.

  She says my name again, elongated: “O-o-o-o . . . scar.”

  Then . . . fucking Colonel Sanders . . . Nostril Man, in the flesh, appears from nowhere.

  ROCK 'EM SOCK 'EM ROBOTS

  OMG. I can’t believe this setup . . . Fucking Teeter and Acox two-point-oh. As he, himself, launches fiendishly from behind the rooftop elevator room. Right at us. A cartoon version of a Fed: Suit and tie with aviator shades. Highly polished black non-shoes. Angle-eyed and crazy as a shit-house rat . . . Brandishing a long dog-catcher pole with a noose at the end.

  Toe to toe. Gas trapped in a skirt. Something’s got to give.

  I whirl around. “Rachel? What the fuck?”

  “Oscar,” she says for the third time. The way she used to say it when we were kids. “All he wants is the dog.”

  Lytle cries: “Du-ude!”

  “That thing is government property, son.” Nostril Man is jockeying left and right, noose poised.

  Cigar, growling savagely, jumps in front. As something grabs me from behind, I instinctively whirl around, expecting someone to be there, but no one . . . Reaching back defensively, I feel an invisible hairy chest then slide into an even hairier armpit. Ooh, ooh, Dude.

  “Oh no, I touched his junk,” I hear Lytle lament.

  Nostril Man continues his approach, centering his noose while saying: “How long have you kept the animal? Have you ever seen it molt?” Bobbing left, weaving right. “Have you seen the creature? Where did the creature go?” It’s like a thousand-mile-an-hour blur.

  Mr. Cigar is furiously leading the charge while both Lytle and I are being pushed from behind by a seemingly invisible force. Our eyes meet, and we realize these guys have the IBC video net technology.

  Lytle looks absolutely disgusted and confused . . . being pulled/pushed backward by an invisible force . . . grasping a hot dog–shaped object in his right hand while Rachel is repeating, “Oscar, it’s the dog; it’s the dog!” I scramble beyond grasp . . . vaguely making out the silhouette of a naked invisible man . . . Kind of easy to spot with Mr. Cigar biting at his feet and Lytle’s slow-motion death grip on somebody’s invisible fireplace tools. I’m almost laughing and rolling right then, standing up at forty-five degrees to Nostril Man, the dogcatcher’s pole and the edge of the roof. He’s really kind of scary face-to-face. Especially when he’s thrusting a noose on a stick and jabbing rapidly . . . first at me and then at Mr. Cigar, who is like a pie-slice serving of a hurricane, attacking everything in front of him but me, Lytle and the airplane overhead. Zero to mayhem in three and a half seconds. Love that guy! Actually, both of ’em.

  THE DEAF SCHOOL

  For some reason, while this is exploding I can clearly hear my sister rising above the action. “They have this weird machine, Oscar . . .” Obviously, she’s referring to the video net technology . . . Nostril Man probably gave her a light show earlier. Nonetheless, I swear, as my sister talks, everybody pauses and has a collective huh? moment . . . including Lytle and the invisible man, who are basically in midair falling backward together.

  Everything is in slow motion. Nostril Man zeroes in on Mr. Cigar’s back legs.

  Almost diving to my left and grabbing the end of the dogcatcher’s stick with both hands, I plant my feet firmly and pull back, leaning as hard as I can. Nostril Man, standing two or three feet from the edge of the roof, arms outstretched, makes one giant pull of the pole. I hear Lytle say, “Dude!” Cigar barks twice. I am definitely no match for Colonel What’s-His-Name as the stick immediately comes out of my hands . . . snaring my left wrist in the process.

  OH TWENTY-FOUR HUNDRED!

  I get knocked from behind. For a quarter of a breath, I have a tiny bit of leverage. I dig in with my everything, then—bam—basically fly toward Nostril Man, who has now rebounded slightly. I impact him high- to midchest. He stumbles slightly. We hit the edge of the roof—which is granite block and a little shorter than my hips. Both of us fall forward/backward and tumble. My feet go to the sky as I see the traffic fourteen stories below—actually, thirteen stories, because this is one of those buildings that doesn’t admit to having a thirteenth floor. Apparently bad luck.

  —SNAP—

  I’m eight years old, lying in bed. Dad is reading to me. I hear his voice like a familiar bell. “’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals givin’ drink to poor damn souls, and I’ll get a swig in hell from . . .” Staring up at the ceiling trying to visualize the words, I don’t see my father’s face, but I can feel him. It feels so safe.

  —CRACK—

  Rolling over into the void, I’m looking up at the sky with upside-down Lytle and Mr. Cigar peering over the edge. Panic in Lytle’s voice: “Oscar, n-o-o-o!” Their faces are lit golden by the advancing sun. It’s happy hour, and everything is highly
detailed, crystal clear, with a blue, blue sky.

  —CRACKLE—

  Tami Ross, the little girl down the block, drags me into the evergreen bushes to show me how little girls wee-wee. A small price to pay for seeing how little boys do the same.

  —EARS RING—

  Totally out of body. I can see my own face close-up, mouth open, frozen as if in surprise. I’m in seventh grade, walking away from the baseball field after quitting the team in the middle of practice, all my teammates pointing at me, chanting, “Pus-sy, pus-sy, pus-sy.” As I’m wordlessly leaving the diamond, our coach calls me a faggot, and I’ve never felt so confidently victorious in my whole fucking life. Ringing now is an oddly static tone. I can still see my face, but it’s getting farther and farther away. I feel sorry for that guy. Finally, he disappears into the nothing. BLACK.

  NOTHING SADDER THAN A SLOW AMBULANCE

  It was raining cats and dogs near Mount Pleasant, Texas—about ninety miles inside the border, just shy of Sulphur Springs. Lytle Falstaff Taylor and a jumpy Mr. Cigar are westbound on Interstate 30. Exhausted, forlorn and miserable, on an endless Monday afternoon.

  The storm was so intense they couldn’t see their own windshield wipers and had to take refuge under a random farm-road overpass. Free of the rain. In fairly safe vehicular position.

  Mr. Cigar is outside the truck barking nervously, and Lytle, standing beside him, crying his eyes out.

  This day was easily the worst of young Lytle Taylor’s life.

  He might see worse. But this was definitely the topper so far. His best friend, Oscar, had died three days before, and it had only gotten sadder since. Who knows? Lytle mused. It may be even more horrible tomorrow.