Devilcountry (2 page)

Her apartment was a spacious two-bedroom she
shared with a kleptomaniac roommate who wrote a singles column for
NUJU
.
 
A bold, new progressive rag for cool, hipster upstart
Jews looking for an alternative to the
The Jewish Journal
.
 The roommate would later be brought up on charges of attempting to steal
an entire fax machine by sneaking it out under her dress.

 
         
 
Rachel Abramsberg and I were in love that
night, but no night after.  She climbed on top of me, conquering me like
the dirty little boy I am as the middle section of
Aja
by Steely Dan
echoed mildly from across the room. Even with only fingers inserted, I still
almost blew my load during the sax solo.  It gets me everytime.  I
inserted two fingers and a low grunt from her came out.  I felt like James
Bond, my Walston PPK interrogating her.  She rode my hand and started
humming Deep Purple
songs, which was in stark contrast with the Steely
Dan vibe I had created.  But I didn’t think much of it.  She rode my
hand, not my weiner.  It was still an honor.  Next year in Jerusalem,
I kept thinking. She mumbled what sounded like lyrics from an REO Speedwagon
song and then grunted some more.
Even lower on the register
this time.
 
Very manly.
 For a
jewish
girl with a liberal arts degree from Brandeis, who
was also a classically trained violinist, her sexual musical tastes ran more
trailer-parky than normal.   Which was weird. But when you’re in love
you go for it.  “Cuz I’m as free as a bird no ... and this bird cannot
s...oy gevelt!!!”
She kind of muttered the last part.  Perhaps
she’d grown up in a Jewish trailer park.  Do they have those?
  I kept tuning her up but also tuning her out.  It was getting
weird for me. I could have been her vibrator for all she cared.
 “Mississippi queen...!”  A vision started to hit.  This wasn’t
unusual.  Visions had been occurring since as long as I could remember.
 It didn’t matter if I was having sex or brushing my teeth, when the time
was right, they came.

 
         
 
My eyes rolled back and my spirit floated
above and into the living room.    My grandfather was there.
 He’d been dead since 1970.  He was in his Russian army uniform,
pointing down at Daniella, the roommate.  He then picked up a pizza box
and exited through a wall.  Daniella was looking through the journal I had
brought so I could read poetry to Rachel. It was a collection of Haikus and
couplets that rhymed with cunnilingus.  Daniella reading it with my spirit
hovering over her kind
of
turned me on.  She picked
her nose as she read and began to laugh; she smelled her finger and looked at
it funny.  She took out a notepad and copied a bunch of what I had
written.  Which was oddly
flattering
as I
honestly believed I had no gift for verse.  It would later appear in her
first book of collected writings titled
Pussy Magnets,
which was a
robust collection of high glossy pictures of refrigerator magnets in the shape
of vaginas with words that rhymed with cunnilingus.  She made a fortune
and I didn’t even get so much as a thank you.

 
         
 
Daniella got bored and turned on the TV.
My spirit hovered then sat down next to her as we watched
Entertainment
Tonight
.  It all seemed to have a ‘waiting room’ kind of feel to it.
 If my spirit could have picked up a spirit issue of
People
magazine,
it would have.  I guess going down on Rachel Abramsberg wasn’t the hot
steamy porno moment I’d anticipated.  Connie Selleca had broken up with
John Tesh and was now staging a comeback with
The New Charlie’s Angels.
 It was a sit-commy one-hour action-adventure that dealt with the whacky
goings-on of three hot models turned secret agents who lived in SoHo. “Good
Premise”, I mumbled as Rachel Abramsberg started to climax above me.
 “Hold on loosely!”

 
         Maybe
we weren’t in love.

 
         Finally
she flopped forward, more grunting, panting and lyrics from a Marshall Tucker
Band song, and she was through.  She collapsed in my arms, her back beaded
with sweat.  I sat there quiet.  My spirit put down the
People
magazine
and returned to me.  Sometimes the visions are more pragmatic than
prophetic, unfortunately.

 
         
 
“Oh, God, Craig, that was great! Your
hand is phenomenal!  Your fingers are…
beshert
!” Which is the Hebrew
word for “destined”.  I guess what this meant to her was my hand was
destined to be up her snatch.  Her voice trailed off for a moment.  
My weiner begging for attention.
 She stared at my
package, but then her eyes looked up and around the room, as if to say, “Get
him out of here.”  She took her hands away from my person and rubbed her
chin.  “We shouldn’t be doing this.  
There’s
so many diseases, AIDS, herpes, rickets.  One time I got chlamydia from
Dennis Hopper.  He was my pet rabbit in sixth grade.  Don’t ask!
 She smiled a bit and then her face went blank.  There was an awkward
pause.
 
The blueish bulge in my
half- unbuttoned pants began to grow soft and mushy.  And stop we did.

 
         
 
Her mood changed, she became all business
as she sprang up from the bed and searched for her bra.  “I have to be up
in the morning.  I have an early
Torah
study.  It’s totally
inappropriate for you to stay over so you’re going to have to leave.” I stared
at her.  Disbelief fell over me like a soiled
Tallit.
I was a
rabbi’s dildo.

 
         
 
I crawled out of bed.  Still in love
but in too much physical pain to protest.  I gathered up my clothes for
the long exit out.  I walked into the living room where Daniella had
fallen asleep on the couch.  
Entertainment Tonight
still blared.
 I grabbed up my book of verse, exited the apartment, threw the book into
the dumpster, and wished I could be in the dumpster with it.

Rachel Abramsberg and I never spoke again.
 I called repeatedly, knowing she would use me again, but not caring.
 I never got through.  I have no idea what happened to her. That
dumpster I fantasized about being tossed into became Mariano’s.

 
         
 
With every bite of a half-priced slice I
was reminded of Rachel Abramsberg and the “love” we had shared not twenty feet
away.  
My sweet Rachel.
 I felt like I was
working off some kind of love debt.  When I entered Mariano’s with her on
my arm I was in love.  I held currency.  But it was all bullshit, and
now I was at the bottom.  If I couldn’t have Rachel Abramsberg, I would
have Mariano’s.

 
         
 
I was now driver scum, and I reported to
manager scum.  His name was Mark, a bald, white, sniveling, physically
tiny asshole who cherished the music and acting career of Whitney Houston.
 He would constantly brag about sexual conquests with young “freaks” as he
deemed them: large-breasted African American hot mammas who would blow him as
they watched
Waiting to Exhale.

 
         
 
“I gave her something to exhale!”
 These were women we never saw.

All of us were paid two dollars a delivery plus
tips.  No hourly, no money for gas, no free food, no flirting with the
waitresses.  All of the drivers were Russian immigrants who needed cash.
 They were engineers, doctors, lawyers and refugees being exploited
because no other work was available to them.  All were welcome! I felt
like my Russian grandfather who had done back- breaking work in Zhitomere, in
the Ukraine back in the early 1900’s.  When he was in the Russian army he
fed prisoners he was supposed to guard
;
then he got
thrown in with the prisoners.  It was his honor that did him in.
 Finally he and his wife made it to Cleveland. Cleveland was the home of
Lew Wasserman, the genius behind every kind of visual entertainment imaginable
in the mid-to-late twentieth century.
 
Donnie’s dad, (a
regular at the Big Pizza) and my mother.
All geniuses
as far as I’m concerned.
 My mother’s dad, my grandfather, lasted
thirty years as a house painter; He and his wife followed their daughter out to
Hollywood.  
My mother driven to the west by some unseen
force.
 Bless her for it.  

I only lasted six months at Mariano’s.  It
felt like a fucking Gulag. Who knows how my grandfather made it out of
Russia.
 I could feel his honor.  It bled through
me, keeping me on task.  He made it.  And so did I.  
Until I got fired.

 
         
 
 
New Years Eve.
 I brought back a pizza that was to be delivered to the Roosevelt Hotel.
 It wasn’t my delivery.  It was some new guy.  A Russian.  
Completely in over his head.
 He was lost.  My
honor stepped up and decided to feed the prisoner.  To help someone in
need, regardless of consequence.  If this guy lost his job he’s done.
 I took the heat for the lost pizza.  I wanted out.  Bruce, the
owner, made
us pay out of pocket for all lost or mishap
deliveries
.  He was ruthless.  
A true
asshole.
 
He didn’t care if you got shot on a
delivery
,
he wanted his money
.  He was
huge, six-foot-four, over two hundred and fifty pounds. Sometimes he would say
nothing; sometimes he would throw drivers into the middle of the street.
  Nobody did shit back.  He was the meanest boss I ever had.
 I hope he dies badly, but until then he’s still good for a damn tasty
slice.

 
         
 
I brought the pizza back.  Bruce saw
me from the corner of his eye and came over to the cash register where I was
standing. “What the hell is this?” he yelled.

 
         
 
“The customer wasn’t there.”

 
         
 
“You’re paying for this!”  My heart
started to pound.  What would Grandpa do?  Honor!

 
         
 
Pause.

 
         
 
“I AIN’T PAYING FOR SHIT, ASSHOLE!”
 Everything stopped.  Customers looked up, cooks stopped cooking,
pizzas
stopped pizza-ing.  I held the floor.  I
went for it. I decided to do my jilted lover routine.  “I’m sick of your
shit, Brucey!” This was fun.  “Forget about going to Catalina this
weekend!  I want all of your shit out of my house! NOW!  Your
toothbrush, that stupid alarm clock! Your Jack Lord mask! I won’t wear it
anymore!  AND I’M NOT GOING TO HAWAII WITH YOU EITHER!  THERE
AIN’T NO RING ON THIS FINGER!”
 
I got
emotional
,
tears came easy
.  I thought
about Rachel.  “I just wanted it to work between us, but you were so
selfish!  I was just a tool!  YOU USED ME!!!!!”  I began to back
off and head for the door.  I looked to my right and my grandfather was
there, in his uniform, laughing his tits off.  Mark was speechless and if
I’m not mistaken, a little jealous. “WHEN I WALK OUT THIS DOOR, BRUCEY, I’M
GONE! GONE! AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!”

 
         
 
“Get outta here NOW!”

For a moment I thought he was going to come
after me.  But he just stood there.  He looked guilty.  I looked
over at Mark, whose jaw still hadn’t reset after dropping to the floor.
 “He’s all yours now you lucky bastard!”

They stared at each other.  I exited.
 Pizzas were piled up to the roof.  All the deliveries were
backed-up.  A good chunk of Brucey’s change was lost.  Nothing feels
better than costing bad people good money.  I shook every Russian driver’s
hand; even the new guy who had fucked-up was smiling and grateful. He was safe
for another night.  They all laughed and smiled for a bit.  I had fed
the prisoners and survived it.  I looked back and saw Rachel Abramsberg
waving to me through the
glass,
her form was
see-through and fading.  She sat back at our table, alone.

I drove home with my hand out the window taking
in the warm winter Hollywood wind.  Letting it flow between my fingers.
 I was safe for the night.
 
My Grandpa on my mind.

THE ICE MAN

The
next job I had
was
at a production company.
 Located on Sunset Boulevard west of Doheny, on the eighth floor of a
shivery office building.  I met Jennifer at Jew camp along with Rachel.
 I must confess I had several “wife and concubine” fantasies featuring
both of them.  Sometimes they’d switch off the roles, it didn’t matter so
long as I was the wine boy required to service them at will.  I never put
moves on Jennifer.  I wanted to.  I felt like since I was interested
in Rachel, I’d better stay on her.  I wasn’t a dog.  Besides,
Jennifer was way too hot, and made it a point to date one of the Mexicans who
worked in the kitchen.  He was savagely good looking, well over six feet,
from Columbia and had clearly wielded a machete earlier in life.  “If choo
hav to gate tru duh coca fields, to get out of Columbia, choo hav to do what
choo must do, Si, Mr. Craig?” He could kill us all.  Thank God he liked
me.  Jennifer was lost in his eyes.  They would wander off into the
mountains for hours.  
His machete in one hand, a stolen
bottle of Manischewitz in the other.
 Jennifer would return with
her hair tussled, the back of her shirt ground with dust and dirt, hand prints
all over her and a glazed look in her eye.  It was a good summer for her.