The Spider Inside (15 page)

They walked around Carpinteria until they found a nice
little Italian place and had dinner, then walked over to the movie theater,
which was old and looked a little decrepit but was showing
Casablanca
.
The kid that sold them the tickets also tore them, then walked behind the tiny
snack bar and sold them popcorn and a drink. They went into the theater, the
smallest one either had ever seen. They laughed in the dark and fed each other
popcorn and when the movie started there was only a few other people in the
theater with them. Cherry settled in to her seat, holding Jim’s hand and
leaning her head on his shoulder.

It was getting dark when they walked out. They stopped at a
liquor store and got a bottle of wine and had to turn around when they were
halfway back to the hotel when they realized they didn’t have a corkscrew, so
they bought one of those and back at the motel they watched TV and laid in bed
and drank the wine from the plastic cups on the bathroom counter that you had
to tear the cellophane off of. They had drunk sex and afterward Cherry was a
little embarrassed about how loud she’d been but Jim told her he liked it so it
was okay and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

In the morning they woke up early and took showers, rubbed
sunscreen on one another because of how pale they had become, existing as they
had as primarily nocturnal creatures for the majority of the last few months,
and walked back down to the beach. It was already getting hot, but the beach
was not yet crowded, as it was a weekday, and most people, Jim assumed, were
probably at work.

They laid out their blanket beneath the shade of a palm
tree. Jim lay on his stomach watching Cherry at the water line, wanting to swim
and dipping her toes in but coming back and pronouncing the water too cold for
now.

They smoked a joint and some cigarettes and watched the few
other people on the beach. There was a fat old man who was wandering back and
forth across the sand with a metal detector. He had a huge gut, wore trunks
that were too small, socks and sandals, and no shirt. He had a khaki-colored
fishing hat on his head and oversized sunglasses. His nose was white with zinc.
His shoulders were lobster red. Every now and then he would stop walking and
the breeze would carry to them the little beep his machine had made, and he
would kneel down and start sifting through the sand. As Jim held smoke in and
blew it out he kept wondering why the man took the care to zinc his nose but
then let the rest of himself get burnt to shit.

A girl jogged by, holding a bright blue leash. Running next
to her was a Golden Retriever. Her skin was a deep bronze that made Jim
self-conscious about the fish-belly pale color of his own skin, and how thin he
was. He put his shirt back on. Cherry looked great though. She was naturally a
darker color than Jim, but was still pale...but it suited her. She looked as
though she was exactly the way she was supposed to be.

Jim had never seen her in a bikini before and got halfway
hard looking her over. The breeze had blown some of her hair loose and it blew
across her face. She tucked it behind her ear and smiled at him. She took a
drink from a water bottle and bent down and he propped himself up and kissed
her.

Her lips were wet and cool and soft; she ran a hand through
his hair and slipped him just a little tongue and then a little more and just
when he was thinking they needed to go back to the motel she laughed and ran
off down the beach, jumping and flipping into the first big wave to come and
greet her. He lay on the blanket and watched her swim and splash and she’d
never seemed happier. She almost seemed like a different person and he realized
that if they weren’t spending an increasing amount of time spun out of their
minds, if they were straight, it would be like this all the time. It could be
just the two of them. They could get out of L.A. and maybe come up here to
Carpinteria, or even a little further north. They could find a decent little
place and both work part time and spend the rest of their days with each other...endless
days on the beach watching her swim and tasting the salt of the ocean on her
lips when she came running back up to the blanket and he kissed her, as he was
doing now. It tasted just how he thought it would, a mixture of sea salt and
the cherry lip gloss she was using and then she rolled him over to his side and
cuddled up next to him, shivering. The water on her body was cold and he held
her tight, he could feel the twin stiffness of her nipples poking at the cloth
of her bathing suit and she buried her head in his chest and took the warmth
his body had to give.

This could be it, Jim thought. This could be our life.

They packed up their stuff and walked to the motel and
dropped everything inside the door and she pushed him against it and started
kissing him, her hands all over his body, in his hair and scratching his thighs
and going up under his shirt to his stomach and chest and he pulled her top off
and felt her nakedness against him, felt her nipples poking into his skin and
she went down, kissing his lips and then his neck and he took his shirt off and
she kissed his chest and then his stomach and pulled his shorts down and then
she had him inside her mouth and he swallowed hard, he couldn’t let her do this
for long but maybe for a little longer and when he was about to come he lifted
her back up and she took her bikini-bottoms off and he stepped out of his
shorts and she laid on the bed and he went down on her, rubbing and licking and
her pelvis started to move with his tongue and her hands pulled at his hair and
he came up and then he was inside her, their two bodies rocking together slowly
and forever like the give and take of the tides and he played with one of her
nipples and she dug her fingernails into his back and wrapped her legs around
him and when she came she bit his shoulder and then he came, too, inside of her
and this could be it, Jim thought again.

This could be the rest of my life, if only I’d get clean.

And it was the rest of his life, at least, the next two days
of it. They slept eight to ten hours a night and ate three solid, healthy meals
a day and swam and took walks on the beach and around town. They drank a little
more wine and smoked a few joints each day but that was it. The deep ache in
Jim’s nose that had seemed to become a natural part of him abated and went
away. He put on a little weight and got a little bit of a tan, not much, but
enough to where he could walk around on the beach the last day they were there
and not worry about blinding anyone.

When Cherry gained weight and when she lost weight it was
always first from her boobs and then from her ass, so as she too gained a
couple pounds she looked even better, and they made love twice or sometimes
three times a day.

The morning came for them to leave, and Jim didn’t want to.
He wanted to live in the motel with her for the rest of his life and walk down
to the beach every morning. After his shower he wiped the steam from the mirror
with a towel and took a long look at his naked body. He looked better. Much
better. He was still a little on the skinny side but he always had been. He
thought he’d filled out a little and that, plus the beginnings of a tan, why he
looked better than he had for over a year, and all it took was four days of
sleeping well and eating right and not doing any crank.

At the thought of it he got a tingle in his nose, in the
same place that ache had been and wondered if it was supposed to be this easy
to quit. He still had a little bit stashed at his place and knew Cherry set
some aside too, she always did, so they could maybe do that and then take
another break, for good this time. He would have to cut himself off from all
his other friends but if he thought about it too much he didn’t know how good a
friend Tattoo Nik was. Could he really be anyone’s friend? Jim wasn’t sure.
Soup was okay, though he seemed to be growing distant lately as his habit got
incrementally worse.

The hardest would be Two Step, because he’d known him so
long, since back before he was Jim and when Two Step was just Bobby. They’d
been to the wars of grade school together, just everyday life, and had come out
stronger for it so far and still in each other’s corner.

But Two Step was getting worse, too. He was hanging more and
more with Soup, which was obviously the natural thing to do since they were
roommates. It wasn’t just that though, Jim used to think he could go a year
without seeing Bobby and when they finally hooked back up it would be as if
they’d just hung out the day before, but now he wasn’t so sure. Jim seemed to
know him a little less. Two Step was acting a little more like Soup every day,
as
his
habit got worse.

But I can’t worry about him, Jim thought. Bobby’s gonna do
what Bobby’s gonna do and he always has. I can try and talk to him, but he
never did respond to that kind of thing too much. His parents had tried an
intervention with him a few years ago and he’d just gotten worse, it almost
seemed as if he got worse to spite them. No, you couldn’t really tell Bobby
what to do. No one ever could.

But that didn’t mean Jim had to let himself get drug down,
too did it? If he was ready to move on and Two Step wasn’t there was not a
whole lot he could do about that.

Jim had to look out for himself, for him, and for Cherry.

Jim finished getting dressed and the two of them packed
everything up into the car and checked out. They drove the block to the beach
and just parked as close to the sand as they could and facing the water and sat
in the car, smoking their last joint and watching the water. When they were
done, Jim put his hand on Cherry’s thigh.

“Thanks for coming up here with me,” he said.

“I needed it. We both did.”

“I feel better though, don’t you?”

“You always make me feel better,” Cherry said, and kissed
him. Jim breathed deep the clean sea air and then started the car back up, and
they were on their way.

They stopped again in Ventura at that same place and had a
nice breakfast. On the outskirts of L.A. Jim decided to refill Jenny’s car, it
was the least he could do. He would never call her Carmex again. If it hadn’t
been for her generosity they might not have found a car and would not have been
able to take their trip, and Jim was worried what might have happened if he
hadn’t gotten out of Los Angeles, if only for a couple days.

Pulling into the gas station Jim saw an old blue car that
was vaguely familiar. He parked and gassed up and Cherry waited for him and
when they were done with the gas he re-parked the car in front of the store
because some hick in a truck was waiting to use the pump they were at. They
both went inside and mindlessly roamed the aisles a little, just enjoying the
cool of the air conditioning but mostly because there was only one bathroom and
they both had to go. Finally there was a flush from inside and they both
happened to be back by the drink section and heard it so they stood in line to
hold their places, as a group of six or seven people, most of them kids, had
just came in. From the bathroom they heard running water, the pump and rip of
the paper towels.

Cherry stood closer to the wall and a middle-aged woman
walked out. Her hair was mostly gray though she didn’t look old enough to have
it, and she carried a huge leather purse.

She ignored Cherry as she walked by, and gave Jim only a
tiny glance, then kept going. Cherry was used to this, to the straight
community ignoring them like trash on the sidewalk.

Jim stared after the woman, and then started walking after
her. Cherry just watched, not having ever been in this situation. Jesus, Cherry
thought, is he gonna chew this chick out for that crusty look?

“Ma?” Jim asked.

The woman kept walking. Jim caught up with her and put his
hand on her shoulder. The woman jumped a little and turned around, eyes wide
and staring.

“Ma?” Jim said again.

She looked at him closely. This was a moment Jim had thought
about often but had never really expected. He waited for recognition to dawn on
his mother’s face and for a big smile to follow, there would be hugs, she would
cry which would make him cry, he would promise to get clean, then he would get
clean, and...

Recognition did cross her face then, but not the kind he’d
hoped for. It was the expression of someone who knows the cancer has come back
and is only waiting for the doctor to confirm it.

“Your father’s dead,” she said, in a quiet voice.

“Uh, h...how?”

“How do you think?” her voice was louder now, more angry.
And the tears were filling her eyes, but he knew he was not allowed to share
them. “He’s buried next to your brother. Since April.” She looked him up and
down and for a moment, just the shortest moment, her eyes softened and the
tears came and she put her hands on either of his shoulders and squeezed them.

“You’re so thin,” she said. “So thin.”

“Mom...just...let me...”

“I can’t Sunshine,” his mother said. “I buried your brother
and now your father but I can’t be mad at them, they didn’t have a choice. But
you. You wake up every morning and you
choose to die
a little more.”

“No, I--”

“You’re already dead,” she whispered. “And there’s nothing I
can do about it.” She dropped her hands and turned and started to walk away.

“Wait, Ma...Ma!”

She didn’t wait. She kept going, her head down, and Jim
followed her out into the sunshine. Cherry came out after him, watching the
middle-aged woman get in the light blue station wagon with the faux-wood
paneling on the side, remembering a story Jim had once told her about it, and
childhood. A story about sitting in the back, facing backwards when she drove,
trying to keep his balance on the curves without using his hands or leaning
against anything, and how he could almost always do it until they hit the last
turn to their house, and how at that last turn he’d always fall.