Home Land: A Novel (9 page)
“Yes,” said the woman, “you are a jealous man. It’s easy to tell these things. You are also a handsome man, but you know that already. What are you looking over there for?”
Bob Price was near the DJ booth, about to procure the bounty of the marginal economy. I figured I’d get my drugs and send Bob
packing, go back to Beret’s place. Fuck three-ways. Fuck my take-home wad. We could have a good life together, me and Beret. Hard, but good. Our children would have rich cultural legacies.
packing, go back to Beret’s place. Fuck three-ways. Fuck my take-home wad. We could have a good life together, me and Beret. Hard, but good. Our children would have rich cultural legacies.
“I’m just looking over at my buddy,” I said.
“You mean acquaintance. I can tell these things.”
“No, he’s my buddy.”
“You lie to yourself,” said the woman. “Sad for such a handsome man.”
“Look where we are,” I said. “Aren’t we all lying to ourselves?”
The woman took my hand, kissed it.
“I never lie,” she said. “What is your name?”
“Lewis.”
“Luis. My brother is named Luis.”
“They also call me Teabag.”
“Why do they call you that?”
“Long story.”
“Do you like to be called Teabag?”
“Usually not.”
“Why don’t you tell them to stop?”
“It’s too late.”
“Yes,” said Beret. “It’s much too late. Your so-called buddy is calling you.”
Bob saluted from the corner of the room. He stood there with the stringy-haired guy. The soil samples had been collected. It was time to board the surface module, head for the home globe. I kissed the woman’s hand, made for the door. A big kid with dazzling neck gold scoped the corner through the door slit, shoved us streetward. The night sky was moonless over the warehouse roofs.
“This is Zev Kwan,” said Bob. “We’re going to his place to listen to some old hardcore.”
Bob caught me gazing back at the steel door of the bar.
“Something wrong?”
“I was into that chick,” I said.
“What, the coke whore?”
“She’s a person.”
“We’re all people. She’s a coke whore person.”
“Then what are we?”
“White fucks,” said Zev Kwan.
“Where’s the hope?” I said.
“It’s in my pocket,” said Bob.
We went to Zev’s place a few blocks away, did a hundred dollars worth of what was probably baby powder in about seven minutes. The stuff worked wonders for a while. Maybe it was real blow, after all. Zev hauled out his prizes, first pressings of forgotten hardcore pioneers: Painful Discharge, Containment Theory, Semblance of Order. I believe he had some Anal Jihad, too. Zev wept recalling his first show. He was eleven, his father just dead in a car wreck.
“They poured beer on my head and kicked me in the chest and loved me,” he said.
Bob and I tendered warm nods. Then Bob started talking about his literary career, lambasting this or that critic, or some jealous colleague he suspected had nixed him for a fellowship. It was a bit hard to take, not least of all because I’d never heard of these people and Bob went on as though they were household names.
“Maybe in ten, fifteen years, people will get what I was up to, Miner. But not if these idiots are still around. The gatekeepers, the fucking gatekeepers. That’s why I write for the dead. And the unborn.”
“What are you up to, exactly, Bob?” I asked.
“Excuse me?”
“What is it the gatekeepers don’t get?”
I didn’t hear all of it due to the grinding of my jaw and what I took to be an impending heart attack. Zev had wandered off and now he returned wearing a tie-dyed union suit, a Cub Scout scarf knotted at his throat. He said nothing and began to whack away at his record collection with a field hockey stick. Black shards flew the painted floor.
“Fuck analog!” he said. “Fuck the warm sound!”
“We’re out,” said Bob. “Zev’s gone odd.”
We booked out of there, Catamounts. It was sunup and the streets were full of vampire interns slithering home to change for work. No coffin sleep in the new-old-new economy.
“Take care,” said Bob, hailed a cab, ditched me in the poison dawn.
There was something fallen about Bob, but I’d still like to track him down, buy him another beer.
We were buddies one night.
IT WAS TOO EARLY for coke bars, Catamounts. Besides, I had a feeling Beret had long quit the scene. I caught an afternoon bus back across the river.
I waited for Gwendolyn to call, waited for days.
I wandered my rooms eating gherkin-and-butter sandwiches, drinking beer, radios going in every room. There was news about the war, news about the news. There was news about some dead celebrity’s head. It had been frozen for future news.
I called Gary but he wouldn’t pick up. I pictured him with Mira in his peppermint panties. Catamounts, was that so wrong? Maybe if I concentrated long enough I’d sense when he’d spent himself, the way people sometimes feel the sudden death of a far-off friend shoot through them, suddenly.
I FONDLED MYSELF to fruition eleven times in one day, matching a personal best I’d set in the ninth grade. Sex addiction? Boredom? Despair? They say there is nothing beyond language, and mostly they’re right, save the spunk-stiffened balls of paper towel beneath my bed.
Old mark matched, I twitched for a time in semiwaking dream. The hero of my sleep was called the Kid, the best professional masturbator in the East. The Kid took the night train to Kansas City, checked into a grand hotel. He dropped his valise on the bed, snapped it open: jars of fancy pomade, a stack of elegantly monogrammed jerk-off towels. There was a knock at the door. A boy stood there, a neighborhood boy.
“They said you was here.”
“Here I am.”
“Teach me,” said the boy. “My pa taught me some, but he’s dead. Teach me what you know.”
“First you’ve got to put a picture in your head. And not your ma.”
“Never knew her.”
“Good then. Get a picture. You got a picture?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” said the boy. “Now what?”
“Never mind now what,” said the Kid, tossed the boy some coins. “Go get me some sandwiches. Come back with my change and I’ll show you the rest.”
“Thanks, Mister!”
The Kid lay back on the bed, loosened his belt.
“So tired,” he whispered at the wall.
Maybe it was time to settle down, buy that land by the river bend, woo Wilhelmina, the schoolteacher.
How much whang could a man spank in this world?
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, in a room above a barbershop, the Kid’s only rival, an enormous man named Buttercup, stropped a borrowed razor. His mother would be coming soon to shave him down.
THE PHONE RANG, the showdown postponed.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”
“Who is this?”
“My daddy used to get me up on Saturday mornings like that. Or else he’d say, ‘Drop your cocks and pick up your socks!’ Cocks plural, mind you. Guess you can take the man out of the barracks … anyway, I preferred the former.”
“Fontana?”
“How are you, Miner? Long time no update.”
“You bastard,” I said. “Don’t Miner me. How could you print that trash with my name on it? If I knew anything about the legal system I’d sue your ass. I’d have your ass in some kind of judicial sling.”
“Calm down, Lewis. You need to get out more.”
“Or maybe buy a mule harness.”
Fontana let that one settle.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you,” said Fontana. “Don’t think I didn’t see you boys out there, either. Thing is, I don’t give a damn. You were the one in the bushes. I was the one having fun. Remember that. There’s nothing they can do to me now, anyway. I’m calling you for two reasons. One is to let you know that I’ve resigned as editor of
Catamount Notes.
”
Catamount Notes.
”
“You’re kidding me.”
“You can send your screeds to Stacy Ryson from now on.”
“Stacy Ryson?
“I think she’s going to throw it all up on the worldwide net or something.”
“Well, maybe I’ll have better luck with her. New times, new blood. Fresh voices from the edges of experience. Of course, she’s sort of rearguard in her way, but maybe—”
“Lewis.”
“What?”
“Do you have a job?”
“If you’d ever read my updates you’d know the answer to that question.”
“Fair enough. But really, man. This is an alumni bulletin we’re talking about.”
“I know what we’re talking about. It’s the principle, principal.”
“Fair enough.”
“Stop saying fair enough.”
“Stop writing updates. For your mental well-being.”
“I’ll consider it. What was the other reason you called?”
“I need to ask you something. Do you know Hollis Wofford?”
I told Fontana I didn’t know any Wofford, but Hollis was a name I’d heard. It was the same Hollis, Catamounts, Gary’s sponsor, the coke-dealer phrenologist and Friend of Bill who still maintained loose ties with Satan. Now that Fontana has resigned his editorship, I figure it’s your job, Stacy, to worry whether the truth I’m about to divulge—that it was Hollis who jumped Fontana the night he staggered into Brenda Bruno’s—belongs in
Catamount Notes
. The beatdown wasn’t a matter of cash or powder, either. It was a love deal gone sour. Triangular, or Mexican, with Jazz Loretta at the hinge.
Catamount Notes
. The beatdown wasn’t a matter of cash or powder, either. It was a love deal gone sour. Triangular, or Mexican, with Jazz Loretta at the hinge.
“Christ, I love her,” said Fontana, and I was beginning to feel my old affinities for the man, his respect for the heart’s ordeal.
“I don’t blame you,” I said
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we’re talking about Loretta,” I said.
Dearests Jasmine, Brie, no offense, but Loretta was always the kindest and most radiant Jazz Lovely. Her leg warmers were handknit, too. Gathered in the gym for your recitals, we Catamounts always knew that in Loretta we had the female equivalent of Mikey Saladin, somebody better than us, sent down maybe to guide us, or else to teach us not to wish past our gifts.
Fontana swore he’d never touched her in her school days. He
hadn’t seen her for years, forgotten all about her. Then one morning a vision of pure light in a denim dress waltzed out of the Sprout Master with fresh carrot juice, and though this fantasia seemed oddly familiar, he rolled up curbside in his Datsun, announced he was new to town, asked for the way to the Nearmont driving range.
hadn’t seen her for years, forgotten all about her. Then one morning a vision of pure light in a denim dress waltzed out of the Sprout Master with fresh carrot juice, and though this fantasia seemed oddly familiar, he rolled up curbside in his Datsun, announced he was new to town, asked for the way to the Nearmont driving range.
“Jeez, Principal Fontana,” Loretta said. “That’s a killer line. No wonder you have such a reputation.”
“What reputation is that?”
“Melancholy, kind of tragic. Failed poetlike.”
“That’s just my act. I’m really a drunk. And all poets are failed poets. Get in.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“So you can tell your friends about your weird day. Creepy old Fontana gave you a ride.”
“I don’t think you’re old.”
“Prove it.
They drove laps around the block while Jazz Loretta sipped her juice. It was one of those exquisite May mornings, Fontana said, azaleas in the plaza blooming, the sky nearly Caribbean. Fontana was a prince of suburbia in his lime green jeans. They drove and talked and Fontana soon discovered that Jazz Loretta was not pure light, after all, just pure person. She had a real estate license, a kid. The bad marriage was behind her. Hollis had beaten her during and between his binges. Now he was clean and eerie and court-restrained. Loretta had a new life, a gym membership, a book club. She still liked to dance, do other stuff Fontana probably wouldn’t know about.
“Try me.”
“Horseplay.”
“Roughhousing? Like what I used to have to break up in the cafeteria?”
“No, I mean bridles, saddles. You know.”
“What do I know? I’m fifty-five years old.”
“Oh.”
“Well, maybe I do,” said Fontana. “I’ve often wanted to pull a plow. Be a beast of burden. A water buffalo, something like that.”
“We should start a farm,” said Jazz Loretta, sucked up the last of her carrot juice. Or maybe she slurped it. Or maybe she’d already drained the damn thing. Fontana never specified.
Fontana did admit he’d been seeing Loretta off and on for a few years since that day. Now Hollis looked to be wedging himself in again. He’d called Loretta, said he had money for the kid, told her to swing by Brenda Bruno’s, where he was closing a sale. She knew that meant he was working the bar with his little packets. Loretta was wary and Fontana volunteered for the pickup. Soon as he climbed out of his car, Catamounts, Hollis fell upon him with his war mace, his Ostrogoth Express. The blow would have caved Fontana’s head had he not ducked, some vestigial shirk from a stint mentoring manboys in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Still, the mace grazed Fontana enough to drop him on the blacktop in a heap of throb and blood.
“You think I’d give that bitch another red cent?” Hollis shrieked. “You’re more of a fucking idiot than I figured. You’re also a raging alcoholic. A fucking active. I hate actives. Look at your head, you old pickled twat!”
There was more but Fontana missed it from the roaring in his ears. Hollis blazed off in his huge tinted car. Fontana stood somehow, stumbled into the club. That’s when Gary and I had steered him out again.
“You were calling for Loretta,” I said. “But you’d come alone.”
“What is this, kiddy detective hour? I got creamed in the head. I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Where’d you go, though? You just took off.”
“I’m not sure. I woke up on my sofa covered in mud.”
“Nice.”
“Look, I’m sorry about the ‘Teabag Speaks’ thing.”
“Whatever.”
“No, really. It was wrong. I do stupid things like that. It’s sad. It’s just me trying to prove I’m appropriate. They’ve relieved me of my duties, they’ve got an acting principal in there, and still I want to prove to the school board that I’m appropriate. I want everything difficult to just go away. But it’s me. I’m the fucking difficulty.”
“It’s okay.”
“Listen, will you keep an eye on Hollis for me? Just give me a heads up if he starts doing war dances. I have a feeling he regrets not finishing me off.”
“I guess so.”
“You’re a good kid, Miner. I always liked you. I know I’ve been erratic. It’s this Loretta situation. I just have to calm down. I’ll see you at Don Berlin’s Party Garden.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The reunion. Five years of classes. Didn’t you get the mailing?”
“No.”
“Oh, right. I scratched you off the list in a moment of spite. Your buddy Gary, too. I’ll tell Stacy to send some out to you guys.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Why not?”
“I’d never go.”
“Come on.”
“Fuck that.”
“I’m the MC.”
“Have a blast, dude.”
“Dude. I don’t cotton to dude. I’m still your principal. I’ll always be your principal, no matter how chummy we may get.”
“Copy that.”
THERE WAS MUCH to ponder here, Catamounts, and there still is as I type this update. I’m worried Stacy Ryson may prove an even worse prude than Fontana,
Notes
-wise. Also, I’m not so certain I
want in on this Hollis mess. The man has an Ostrogoth war mace and a severe beef with Byzantium, so to speak. News of this impending reunion bothers me, too. Updates, the occasional run-in with an ex-classmate, that’s one thing, or, if you must get technical, two things. A full-on Catamount clusterfuck is a possibility I’d rather not even consider. The only thing worse would be a class party at the Moonbeam. Thank God for Don Berlin, his entrepreneurial mastery over Daddy Miner.
Notes
-wise. Also, I’m not so certain I
want in on this Hollis mess. The man has an Ostrogoth war mace and a severe beef with Byzantium, so to speak. News of this impending reunion bothers me, too. Updates, the occasional run-in with an ex-classmate, that’s one thing, or, if you must get technical, two things. A full-on Catamount clusterfuck is a possibility I’d rather not even consider. The only thing worse would be a class party at the Moonbeam. Thank God for Don Berlin, his entrepreneurial mastery over Daddy Miner.
Better not to panic until I finish the next batch of FakeFacts. Penny Bettis has been riding me hard for new material. I delivered her some a few weeks ago with a note apologizing for my comment regarding the size and holiness of her organ, received this curt reply: “Send more FunFacts, but also please go to Hell.”
The new batch includes some corkers: Charles Manson kicks back with a freezer-cooled bottle after a Spahn Ranch orgy, composes a song on his acoustic guitar called “The Pigs are Alright.” Senator Joseph McCarthy pours some cherry-flavored over ice and notes a troublesome reddish tinge. Former Councilman Glen Menninger sips nervously from a liter of New Diet the night he plots his embezzlement of nearly 2.3 million dollars in Eastern Valley development funds.
This last bit may not fly with Penny Bettis. Glen Menninger is not what they call in the ad world a life-form, nor is he, as far as I know, a thief. But he is a politician, so you’ve got to figure he’s done something horrific. That’s my theory, anyway. Besides, when Glen was editor of the school paper he killed an expose I wrote accusing Superintendent Murnighan of torching the field house for the insurance payout. Glen wanted proof, like we were real journalists or something. It was just the damn school paper, for God’s sake. Fuck Glen Menninger. That’s a theory of mine, too.
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