I nestled into the green vinyl of Willie's couch, my head gently tilting into the back-rest. My awareness was caught in a wave of morphine and it slowly ebbed away from my surroundings, withdrawing to some unknown part of my mind, leaving my subconscious to deal with the messy world. A fog of intertwined pot and tobacco smoke dissolved into billowing clouds aflame in the orange light of sunset. The drab white walls melted into a sky blanketed in yellow gradually blending into orange then red then purple and finally a sliver of blue midnight peeking over the horizon.
It was a fragment of a memory long since broken like cheap glass by time, drugs, stepfathers and cops. It was my twelfth summer, nothing special. A brief moment of reprieve with my grandparents after watching my mom take a beating from her second husband. I lounged in the quiet of my grandparents' yard that day, reading "A Wrinkle in Time" and drinking grape juice until the sun set behind the brick buildings rising above the trees on the other side of the river. The moment awoke an unfamiliar feeling somewhere in my chest. Those clouds, those colors - they called me like a voice from some unknowable place. There was something wonderful and magical out there in the world, if I could only find it. As the sun slowly sank behind the distant trees, I was left feeling at once joyful and melancholic. That feeling yanked me back into the ratty den of Willie's home.
Bunt was sitting on the floor, his legs crossed. Willie was still at the end of the couch, keeping company with the Mossberg and trash bag filled with pot. Travis sat in a chair next to me and from the adjacent kitchen, Samantha, Josie and Willie's wife filled the air with incomprehensible babble.
Travis' head contorted into something that looked horribly painful, "Man why do you do that shit? You just sit around like a zombie all the time, fucker." Travis often used the word "fucker" the way others might use "man" or "dude."
I could only muster the willpower to spit out a weak, "Chill out man."
"Yeah, dude. Quit trying to kill his buzz." Willie lit up another expertly-rolled joint and passed it to Bunt.
"So hey man," Bunt said, rubbing his war-wounded arm. I was never clear what the cause of the injury was, but it looked pretty gruesome, as though a large chunk of flesh had been scooped out of his forearm. Above the wound was some sort of faded Marine tattoo. Bunt's arm always reminded me of the ape in "Donkey Kong" when it climbed the ladder at the beginning of the game - kind of furry and misshapen. He exhaled a blue cloud of pot smoke and passed the joint to me, "What's up with your trial now?"
A loud snort blurted from Travis' sinuses. He had been having some sort of allergy problem the entire evening.
I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to revive enough to hold a conversation, "Uhhh," I tried to think, "it's in a couple of months. I don't know what my lawyer's doing. Other than stealing my money."
"Don't worry about it man..."
I couldn't imagine what gave Bunt the impression I was worried about anything.
"I called and talked to the prosecutor."
A rush of adrenaline coursed through my body. My heart rate doubled to eighty beats per minute and I coughed out my hit of pot smoke, "You what?"
"I talked to the prosecutor. I told that sucker you're a good kid and they should leave you alone."
I could only imagine that conversation. I suspected the prosecutor and judge were warming up the electric chair for me by now. I shook my head futilely, "What did he say?"
"He said not to worry, man. You'll be okay."
I relaxed back into the couch, having learned many times over that Fate would have her way no matter what feeble attempts anyone made to change her course. Better to just ride the waves and keep afloat. Fuck wasting energy on trying to swim against the current. "Cool." It was my way of saying "whatever" without being rude.
Travis twitched and snorted again. I wondered if this was another new manifestation of his Tourette's. His tics changed frequently. I eyed him glassily, "Man, are you alright?"
A loud rain of mucous clattered in the murky cavities hidden beneath his face. His jaw stretched out in an uncontrolled jerk, "Sure. Fucker."
Bunt pulled himself to his feet, "Ah, man, he's okay. All he needs is a job. Listen, I gotta split. The old lady's waitin' for some lovin'."
Not even the morphine could have weakened my stomach as much as the mental image Bunt had just implanted in my mind so carelessly. Dee was enormously overweight. I imagined her glistening body lying like a beached whale on Bunt's waterbed, rippling in synchronization with the mattress - it would be impossible to tell where it ended and Dee began.
Bunt held his hand out for me to shake - grasping each other's thumbs in old hippie fashion. I was always wary of that hand, having seen the places it had been, but shook it anyway, "Catch ya later dude."
"You kids take care now!"
Bunt shuffled out the living room and through the kitchen, stopping to kiss Samantha's hand before making his way outside.
"That old man's crazy."
Travis snorted deeply in response. Suddenly, I felt a thick tension congealing in the room.
Willie examined Travis for a couple of moments, his eyes half-open and glassy, "Dude, why don't you blow your nose?"
I looked over at Travis, his eye gleaming with a look I'd seen before. Most recently, around the last fourth of July. He had taken an old flute of Bunt's and shoved some sky rockets in his back pocket, with one mounted inside the flute. He then, for no discernable reason, chased down a neighborhood kid, yelling in a crazed voice, "I'm gonna get you fucker! I'm Rambo!" The kid ran down the street screaming in a terror I couldn't imagine with Travis lumbering behind him. Finally, Travis lit the rocket and it whizzed past the boy's leg before slamming into the concrete road and exploding in a ditch.
Travis didn't have enough sense not to provoke someone sitting next to a shotgun. He held his finger against his right nostril and blew forcefully out of his left nostril. A large glop of mucous plopped onto the carpet. My jaw dangled in shock while I watched the disaster unfolding before me in slow motion.
Willie sat forward, grasping the arm of the couch with his massive hand, "What the fuck is your problem? You come around here calling everyone 'fucker' and then you drip snot on my fucking carpet?"
Travis stood up. I wanted to run. I was either too stoned or too shocked to do anything. I just sat there uselessly watching a volcano exploding five feet in front of me. Willie's wife was now standing in the doorway to the living room and the kitchen was completely silent. Travis pointed at Willie, "Hey fuck you! Junkie! Fucker!"
Willie rose, "Get the fuck out of here before I blow your fuckin' head off, retard!"
Travis stood trembling, Willie stood bristling and I sat frozen. Willie's wife broke the stalemate, "Why don't you both calm down. Travis, you better go home."
Travis twitched his shoulder. It was always amusing the way he used his Tourette's so expressively, "Fine. Come on Darren."
My heart slowly decelerated to its normal forty beats per minute. I looked at Willie, at the empty vials of morphine and bottles of painkillers strewn across his table like rubble after a nuclear detonation. I looked at Travis, trembling and in need of the only real friend he thought he had in the world. I made my choice faster than my brain could even realize it, "Nah. I'm gonna hang out a bit."
The last look I would ever get from Travis was one of complete betrayal. He thudded out of the house and my life forever.
I sat on the couch in silence with Willie for a half hour or so before awkwardly announcing my departure. As I made my way through the kitchen, Samantha pinched my butt.
"Thanks."
She smiled at me with sparkling blue eyes filled with mischief, "You crack me up. You always look like you're about to say something but then you don't."
I wasn't sure if that comment would have made sense even had I been sober, "Hmmm. And what would it be that I want to say?"
She grinned at me, her eyes dropping to my feet and slowly moving back to hold my gaze, "I'd bet you can think of something interesting."
I smiled at her, politely. She was so cute. But I hadn't seen her in that richly colored cloudscape, "Later, Samantha."
Posted by DevilMonkey at 10:54 AM