Random Acts of Love (Random #5) (24 page)

Having Darla leave...us...broke him in half. I resented him right now. A fuck of a great deal. He got to emote and I got to pick up the pieces. I don’t get to have my own feelings in this relationship.

What relationship? It’s over. Over.

She couldn’t do this, could she? Just decide unilaterally that we’re broken up? Where did she get off thinking she had all the power? We didn’t even get a chance to talk. To tear apart our ideas and analyze the truth of all this. She just blew up, stalked off, and flipped us the bird.

Then moved all her shit out and went silent.

That wasn’t fair.

I scrubbed my face with my hands, two days of stubble tickling my palms. What wasn’t fair was waking up with a rock-hard boner dreaming about Darla and Trevor and sex. That was the most brutal layer to all this. Not the feeling of abandonment. Not the sick sense of nausea and the tightening of blood vessels that came with the mourning for our relationship’s devolution.

It was knowing I’d never, ever touch her again.

When you start out with someone new there is this impenetrable wall between the bodies. It’s just air, and yet it’s so much more. You have your forcefield, and they have theirs. It’s a buffer, like a no fly zone, and with some people, it can be crossed. Kind of like going to Canada from the U.S. Bring a passport, answer a question, and bam—you’re in.

Canada is like the loose chick at a bar you just have to liquor up to get into her pants.

Then there’s Russia. You need a visa to go there. You need a reason. They give you a restriction of time. You pay a bunch of money and follow their very strict guidelines, cross all the Ts and dot all the Is, and if they like you, you’re allowed in. It’s a huge hassle, but that makes getting permission all the sweeter. You respect it more.

Darla was like Canada, too, when it came to ease of entry. But once we got in, it was like Russia.

And now my boner was even harder thinking about Darla and ease of entry.

Bzzz.

My phone vibrated to the edge of the nightstand. I grabbed it and looked. Meanwhile—

Bzzz.

My bladder fought for attention with the phone. Bladder won. I took care of business in the half-finished bathroom, peeling back the plastic sheeting Paul left. I did my thing and came back, throwing on some old soccer shorts and a ratty high school t-shirt.

My stomach growled. Not from tightness or sadness, but from good old-fashioned hunger.

And then—wham. The night’s fun hit my head. Hangovers are funny creatures. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they even have fur. But mostly they bite. And hard. This one came out of nowhere, a deep pounding of dehydration.

Time to water up. Mom was a freak when it came to clean water, insisting on some energy-infused electrolyte balance developed by secret Soviet engineers in the 1930s (I am not joking), so I gingerly walked downstairs, trying to match my footsteps with my own pulse, and grabbed a bottle of warm water from the cabinet where she stored it.

In BPA-free bottles, of course.

A half liter later, I pulled up a counter stool and slumped forward, elbows on my knees. My phone rested loosely in my right shorts pocket, buzzing madly, bumping up against my half-gone erection. It was like getting mild electroshock. None of my friends texted me this much.

Growl.

My stomach was king right now, demanding to be served. Mom left some organic frozen breakfast burrito thing in the freezer and I made it in the microwave. Mom insisted microwaves realigned your brain cells and that the food you ate was...something. I generally tuned her out when I munched on something I knew she’d find atrocious, like circus peanuts or Hawaiian Punch. She made food rebellion easy and rewarding. 

But dad put his foot down.

We had a microwave.

As I waited for the burrito to cool down, Gene walked in, sweaty and still wearing a bike helmet.

“You’ll rot your gut out,” he said, pointing. “That have beans in it?”

“Yeah. Mom on a campaign against beans now?” I flushed with anger. Who the fuck did he think he was? The guy my mom was cheating on my dad with. That’s who. 

“She says she can’t process legumes and is off them.”

“What the fuck does she eat now? Botox and gin?”

Gene grinned. “And coffee.” 

“The three major food groups for the menopausal crowd.”

His grin widened.

Bzzz.

“You getting a text or experimenting with a new sex toy?”

I just grunted. Gene would joke, but he never pushed it. He grabbed a pre-made green juice drink and sat next to me, shaking the bottle.

“You okay?”

“No.” My honesty shocked us both. I could always talk to Gene more than Mom or Dad, though. But in a pinch Paul was my go-to adult. Now I couldn’t even talk to Gene, because I wanted to hate him. 

“Want to talk about it?”

“Gene,” I said, turning to him with a serious look. “You ever have that ‘not so fresh’ feeling?”

Green juice sprayed me.

“Jesus, Joe,” he muttered, grabbing a kitchen towel and wiping me down like I was a swath of stainless steel. “Sorry.”

I laughed, the sound bitter and triggering my headache again. “My fault.”

I finished wiping up the juice. At least I knew what came next in my life. A shower.

Bzzz.

“Fucking phone. That’s the fifth time in a couple minutes.”

“You planning to answer it any time soon?”

“No.”

His eyebrows came together in a look of concern. “Whatever’s going on, you know you can talk to me. I’ll never pry, and I’m not your mom—I won’t hold your pet hamster hostage to force you to tell me anything.”

That actually happened when I was thirteen.

“But it helps to get it out. You’re a closed up kid, Joe.”

I bristled at the word “kid”. He was also the last person I wanted to talk to right now. Well, second last. Mom was last. 

“Man,” he said, correcting himself. He smiled, “You’re almost twenty-five, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And a huge success already.”

Then why did I feel like a miserable failure all the time?

“The band, Penn Law... you’re heading into the prime of your life.” He nudged me. “All you need is a girlfriend to round everything out.”

My heart seized.

“Right,” I muttered.

Bzzz.

I reached angrily into my pocket, pulled out the phone, and killed the power. I wanted a little slice of peace. I took an angry bite of my still-hot burrito, made weird choking sounds, and spat it out.

“Hot hot hot,” I said, running for the cold water in the fridge.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Gene said with a laugh. He grabbed his helmet, put the empty juice container in the recycling bin, and flashed me a contemplative smile. “Whatever’s going on, I hope it improves.”

“Thanks.”

“JOEY!” Mom screeched.

“I don’t think it’s about to improve,” I added dryly. He gave me a salute and slipped out the side door to his apartment over the garage.

“JOEY!”

“WHAT?”

“DON’T YOU SCREAM AT ME!”

“I’M REPLYING IN THE SAME VOICE YOU’RE SPEAKING IN!”

That made her stop dead in her tracks. “I sound like that?” she said in a more modulated tone. 

“Yes.” I lowered mine as well.

Her nose twitched. “Hmph.” That was the closest Mom ever got to saying,
You’re right
.

“What’s up?” I asked, regretting the question instantly.

“One of the chickens is missing.”

I stood in a panic, nerves on fire. Now, I was completely awake. “A chicken is missing?” I grabbed her arm, wild with focused concern. “Which one?”

She gave me the side eye. “Why do you care?” 

My mind exploded and spun at the same time. Trevor was missing. My phone had been buzzing like crazy suddenly. A chicken was stolen.

“Did you see a naked—” I cut myself off before I finished that sentence, mouth snapping shut like a nutcracker.

Mom’s side eye turned into eyebrows lifted so high on her head I couldn’t believe she had that kind of superhuman strength to surpass the Botox paralysis.

“Naked
what
?”

“Um, chicken.”

“
Chicken?
”

“Yes.”

“Chickens are naked by nature, Joe.”

“Not when you put diapers on them.” I narrowed my eyes. “Did you know that commercial diapers use thallium in the factory process?” I only knew that because of a legal case I’d been part of.

Mom’s eyes widened even more. At this point, she looked like a walleye. “WHAT? That’s a heavy metal. I’m making my chickens toxic? I’ve been eating those eggs. Maybe that explains my sudden multiple chemical sensitivity.”

“Why are they wearing diapers in the first place?” My feverish panic got put on hold for a moment.

“Because I don’t want chicken shit all over the house.”

“The chickens go in the house?”

“Of course! In the winter I can’t leave them outside.”

“Couldn’t you just get a chicken coop?”

“Yes, but then I’d be like those barbaric chicken farmers who leave them to freeze in pens. Free range chickens should be treated better.”

I half listened as I turned my phone back on. Twenty-seven messages.

“Holy fuck,” I hissed.

“Joey! Now, what about my chicken? Have you seen it?”

“Maybe a coyote ate it.”

She smacked my arm. “That’s not funny.”

I couldn’t tell her what I actually thought had happened.

Trevor must have stolen it.

She muttered something about rude sons and wandered off while I read my messages. Most of them included a You Tube link. My heart soared and my stomach sank at the same time.

What had Trevor done?

The party three nights ago flashed through my mind again. Trevor hoovering down my whole packet. His strip tease, taunting Liam and Sam to join him. The marijuana concentrates, peyote buttons, and the ’shroom-filled muffins. The beer, the wine, the vodka jiggers.

Joyce and her equal-opportunity passes at me and Trevor. How she passed out. Came to. And, later, her suggestions that we make a Joyce sandwich as she passed out yet again. 

A pang of craving Darla hit me like a ripple of need.

Push it aside,
I told myself. Deal with whatever Trevor’s done. I tapped the YouTube link and watched the video.

Trevor clearly held his cell phone up and took the video as a long selfie. There was Mom’s chicken, in his arms.

Oh, shit.

“Hey America!” he said. “I’m here in Nashua, New Hampshire at the Ted Cruz rally with Mavis the Chicken. We’re here to ask you to help get her campaign up off the ground. Mavis is running for President in 2016, and we think she’s got a great platform.”

Trevor’s pupils were the size of monster truck tires. “And Mavis’s running mate, Esme—”

No. God, no.

The camera panned to a half-deflated sex toy doll wearing a Random Acts of Crazy t-shirt.

“—want to make the world a better place. No corporate funding for campaigns. No payola. No wars. Legalize marijuana. Imagine....” his voice trailed off as he hummed the John Lennon song.

For three straight minutes, Mavis’s neck bobbed, weaving, until she pecked Trevor back to attention.

Was he...naked? The picture was cut off at the waist. Trev had a straw cowboy hat on. For no particular reason, my eyes floated up to the date on my phone.

This was the two-year anniversary, to the day, that Trevor found himself in Ohio and met Darla.

I groaned as Trevor said, “And to learn more, Mavis has a Facebook page! Go to
facebook.com/mavisforpresident
and give her some support. Chickens are people, too!” He gave Mavis a kiss on the... do chickens have cheeks? 

And the video went black.

I stood there and hit replay.

It was just as bad the second time around.

My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. More and more texts came in, but they had links to different videos. I watched a couple, all of them videos of Trevor shot by bystanders at the political rally. New Hampshire was the first primary in the country, so presidential campaigns kicked off there super early. Every weekend was one big political rally fest. Trevor had somehow found his way, with Mom’s stolen chicken, to Nashua, New Hampshire and recorded...this.

All of the bystander videos of him, Mavis and Esme showed a completely naked Trevor.

And then—the last one showed a completely naked Trevor being dragged off by the cops, Mavis flapping her wings and wandering off into the center of the common, a small child chasing it while Trevor screamed, “She needs Secret Service protection! You can’t do this to a presidential candidate!”

“Oh, God,” I groaned, picking up the phone and doing a search for the Nashua Police Department.

It looked like I’d have to go and rescue a naked, high Trevor again.

Except this time he hadn’t gotten as far as Ohio.

C
HAPTER 9

Darla

Josie dropped me off at the trailer without a word. Not one fucking word. I thanked her and she just drove right off, a bundle of fury.

I got it. I really did. She was coming home to a mama with a brain injury and facing her old demons, with her new life about to massively clash with the old.

Trust me.

I
got
that.

I stomped up to the trailer and did a double take. There was a porch light. Two, in fact. And
both
of them lightbulbs worked. 

The porch had a floor. A sturdy one, like a deck. The screen door opened properly and was fully screwed in to the exterior wall. It didn’t squeak.

I knew Mama had replaced all the plumbing under and in the house ’cause I’d sent her the money to pay for it after I got a big paycheck for the Island of Eden concert the band had done. But what I found was so surreal.

The furniture was the same. The scarred linoleum in the kitchen was the same. But all of Mama’s piles of winnings and junk was gone. You could walk a straight line from the kitchen table to the couch. You could see actual pictures of me as a kid on the bookshelves. And the bookshelves were all there; someone had carefully fixed all the diagonal, broken pieces and made it all line up nice and neat.