What We Do Is Secret (20 page)

“Not even. I just wished you’d tell your stories. You’d go off tricking big-time and come back like Santa Claus but you always said you’d forget what happened as soon as you told it and you wanted to remember so you could write it all down some day.”

“Kickboy style.”

“Yeah.”

“Smart and funny. Fuck the world.”

“I heard he’s moving to England.”

“With Philly.”

“You could take his place. At
Slash
.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s French. He’s got something to say. I’m American. I got nothin’ to say.”

He laughs.

“Except ‘That’ll be a bill up front and I don’t do anything, man.’ ”

“I scored a bill and a half off this dog groomer dude earlier.”

And he just busts up, he’s been there too.

“Forget Merv,
that’s
the video I want to watch, you of all people sitting there glued to the screen while old—”

He sneezes and rips a flyer off a utility pole to wipe his nose.

“I mean, it takes it to a whole—”

He sneezes again, then goes into a fit of that raspy deep echo-y coughing you hear downtown on Los Angeles Street, and Sixth Street, people waiting on the soup kitchens and the rescue mission handouts, but talk about lifers, they’re like career bums, and Animal Cracker can’t be what, sixteen?

“You okay?”

“Just a chill.”

“I got a shirt in a van down the block.”

“Dude! Stay the shirt shit! Fuck!”

“No, it’s a T-shirt, short sleeves, I don’t care, how could I? Just to be warm. It’s my—it’s a Sid Sings. And it’s like—it’s yours. I want you to have it.”

“What about you? You can’t go around like—”

We both get smileage out of that one. Then I tell him I’ve got a Circle One too, leaving out it’s Blitzer’s. But he’s still all, No no no till I say I told Blitzer I’ll be there and it’ll suck going back alone and be the only one not frying, waiting, and I hate waiting.

I guess it kind of evens it up for him charitywise or whatever. Maybe Animal Cracker’s the one drinking milk of amnesia, forgetting he rescued me. So we start walking and I say sometimes I wonder why he did it, nobody else even tried to get in Tar’s way.

“Dude, I came in and saw what I saw and just did it. I never thought it through before or after. You really think about it, this much later?”

“You fuckin saved my life. Sure I think about it.”

“Well, as long as you’re glad.”

I start to laugh but the way he says it spins down planet mirth even sooner than my hurts-when-I-laugh early warning system kicks in. It’s more than just completely serious, it’s, I don’t know, careful, one of those Carmen Miranda warnings. Like maybe a lawyer present might be a good idea, before we go any further.

Animal Cracker says, “I mean, cool. If you’re glad. Because . . .”

His voice trails off and I just act like I’m waiting for him to finish whatever he’s saying.

When really I’m.

Fuck.

Wondering, I guess.

“You are glad, right?”

I wonder where I learned that nodding doesn’t count as lying, not technically, not bad lying, some foster home maybe?

39

But talk about milk of amnesia. We’re moving in on hissin’ cousin close to the van when Animal Cracker stops finito Hirohito in his tracks you-see-’em and says not “Banzai!” but.

“I smell popcorn.”

Tim’s fairy tales.

Borne to you this midnight queer in the bang bang chitty chitty of David is a flamer, twice deplored.

And Animal Cracker hates fags like that. But it’s too late now to say anything much but treats are for kicks and tricks are for kids and before I can even wave those warning flags he says he’s starvin’ like Marvin, so it must be his imagination.

“It’s not,” I say.

“Snot?”

“Don’t be so nosy.”

He two-hand slaps me, upsides tandem.

“Don’t be so corny.”

I slap him tandem two-hand back.

“Don’t make me horny.”

He left slaps right slaps harder harder, left again higher, harder still then highest hardest right you R is for Rockets Red Square combs thirsting for hair.

He says, “I’m a taker, not a maker.”

My hands dive in, dart dart low, slap up from his belt loops, both sides slow.

“I’m Rhino, you’re mine-o.”

He around reaches round spanks sneak to cheek.

“Marked my territory.”

I seize a nipple four fingers twisting and notice how little he’s really resisting.

“My mark, wear it for me.”

He says, “Keep this up, you’ll wear me out.”

What he means I think is wear him down.

“Maybe I should.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.

But saying it he reaches for my chest, it’s the tiniest moment, grazing fingers here and where then gone but not forgotten no, not now not soon no, never, maybe.

Truce or dare.

Are we brothers, are we sons or is it sounds, true sons, true sounds, are we are we, are we suns, I can’t look it in the eyes and why because.

It’s just.

One-eyed.

It’s just.

A fuckin jack in the box now isn’t it.

We are sawdust.

We are stolen.

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the warden.

I hate lots of things.

“I want candy,” says Animal Cracker. “But I’ll settle for popcorn.”

How does it feel, to want.

They’re all chilling in back with the slide panel open, parked outside the double doors at the bottom of the backstage service stairs. First things first I do the brother intro and nobody says much back, or invites us inside either, then finally Siouxsie asks me what Blitzer’s up to, and Tim asks about Slade. Animal Cracker stands beside me, totally ignored, invisible, with liberally injustice from all.

Squid says, “I wondered if you were hanging with that cute kid from Huntington.”

“I’ve been hanging with nobody but this dude right here.”

Which leastways seems to wind Tim’s manners, he claps his hands and flows a Short Line squeal by his tall American standards, saying, “Animal Cracker!” like he’s hearing it for the first time now instead of five minutes ago, “What a great name!”

I guess total silence isn’t the absolute worst-case scenario. I mean, nobody disagrees. And Tim keeps trying.

“It’s so—”

Blamewise at least AC can lay it on them frying. I just hope he doesn’t ask for some too thinking it must be dyno dosage all right, might as well join the fun fun fun on the floor with the fucked-up four, listening to colors and channeling extraterrestrial messages about galactic unity through
I Love Lucy
.

“Edible?” Siouxsie says finally.

“Original!”

“The one and only,” Animal Cracker says.

“But it would be even better if you and Blitzer were brothers instead.”

“Why’s that?”

Animal Cracker more hollow-points it out than says it. Last year he started hanging with skinheads, not trendy fucks like Eugene but real ones, hard dudes, drinkers and fighters, and he picked up a whole new voice he uses with strangers, and tricks I guess too, but not us year one little babies except in company like this, mixed like a salad, fresh round at a leper, sir? Just say when and fire then.

“Cookies and milk!”

David giggles, but or-elsewhere not a tonsil tremors, and the only way it cons three dots for me is how Animal Cracker must take it too, you know, a sex thing, girls are to milk as boys are to rhymes-with-dream and make it a wet one, dudes.

“Full stop, buddy, ranking. One you don’t know me, two he’s not my type.”

His boot taps two beats on the sidewalk, then he growls out Lou Reed style, “Not at all.”

Tim gets midway through a shriek then stays it dry as July at the Sahara Club picnic and says, “Grrr! You
are
an animal, aren’t you? But we’ve gotten off—”

“No we haven’t,” David says. “Not yet.”

There’s a pause like after Blitzer asked AC about Rory’s room, but who knows, maybe we’re all autopilot tuned to the Atlanta frequency by now, because this one refreshes.

“Picked up the wrong pair of party girls, huh?” Animal Cracker says, in his regular voice though, and it’s like we’ve all been holding breath that’s finally finally out with a shout, from Siouxsie.

“Pear! I’m the papaya, at least.”

“Melon!” Squid says.

“Collie!” David says.

“Woof,” Tim says. “Would your favorite out of the box by any chance be Mr. Bear? But all I meant was reindeer milk. You know?”

Animal Cracker laughs and says now he gets it, but he thinks it’s Blitzen, not Blitzer.

I wonder if it’s his doing, Blitzer’s, the way I’m feeling, I don’t mean tired or stapled, I mean like I’m in over my head, in everything.

Just the facts.

Did it start with him finding the traveler’s checks, and me going along with it?

It’s like mind control.

If the answer’s yes, all I do is tell T and D what’s up and I want no part of it and just like that I’ll feel all better.

The Sergeant Friday method of mind control.

But the answer’s no. So the question’s still when, exactly.

If I know the facts, I’ll figure out the feelings.

“Earth to Rockets,” Siouxsie says.

Sid Sings balled-up hits my face.

“Cover up,” she says. “David’s got a sensitive stomach.”

I hand it to Animal Cracker, and he says, “Dude, thanks.” But he’s back to his skinhead voice, thinking he’s the cover-up target. And worse while he’s pulling it on Squid starts throwing a search party inside for a flannel she saw somewhere. So I wrap my own voice in sandpaper and say I’m just returning AC’s shirt and thanks but no thanks, he doesn’t need another one. Then I tell David sorry for causing his tummy trouble, and ask if he really puked inside the Vex.

He really did.

I say, “That is so punk rock.”

David says, “Climb inside, both of you. And you, Mr. Vicious Circle, give me a hug.”

He’s ice station Hebrew to the touch. But he says I’m warm. I say, “Just warm, huh?”

“You’re hot as ever.”

But I’m different to him. He doesn’t want me knowing, but I do. It’s not like on the sidewalk outside the Chinese. And covering up the staples won’t change anything. So when Squid passes Blitzer’s Circle One my way, I don’t. I just sit back cross-legged on the floor with my back to Tim in his captain’s chair, angled so I don’t face David so much as Animal Cracker, who’s conning the no shit Sherlock dot dot dots, every single bag—

“You dudes must be fiends for popcorn.”

“Adore it,” David says.

“Me too,” Animal Cracker says.

“Me three,” Tim says.

Animal Cracker says he could live on popcorn, he
has
lived on popcorn.

“If it wasn’t so stale, I’d offer you some,” David says.

“Oh, I like it stale.”

“Not this stale.”

“Stale’s the best.”

“You wouldn’t like this,” David says.

“Sure I would. I can tell from the smell. Ranking mackness.”

“Trust me. I wouldn’t feed it to a—”

Behind me Tim comes down with instant whooping cough, but when he lurches to his feet hacking like a saw in a jailhouse birthday cake he stays dry all water offers and reaches instead for a wide-mouth Hefty.

“Trust God, like the money tells you,” Tim says. “Don’t trust David. Here. Help yourself.”

I toss back a handful myself, just being brotherly, and for thirty sketchy seconds over Tokyo Rose from the Dawn of the Puking Dead I’m close as Thailand twins to adding first time I hurled twice in one night to my happy birthday grit parade. It goes down like kiln-dried Styrofoam, tastes like peanut-shell shavings and hibachi grill grime, it’s hackage, not mackage.

Animal Cracker says, “Mmm, good.”

And keeps eating to the beat rumbling down the stairwell, perpetual macking motion through “Abolish Government” and “World War III” till halfway into “Code Blue,” when Tim’s lyrics decoder screen lights up like Lost Vegas and he screams, “I wanna fuck the DEAD?”

Animal Cracker halts the hand-to-mouth flow and says, “Death rock.”

He downs a quart of water.

He says, “How trendy,” and downs one more.

When exactly.

Was it then, walking with Siouxsie on Santa Monica Boulevard?

Facts.

When she asked about my bruises?

Feelings.

“You’re more than welcome to as much as you like,” Tim says.

“And you’re welcome to ride over to Oki’s with us,” Siouxsie says. “You should, AC.”

“I have to wait around for Rory. He’s—”

“Rory?”
Tim says.

“
The
Rory?” David says.

“You guys know him? Rory Dolores?”

I say, “They don’t know him, just his name, from seeing him earlier.”

“Where?”

“On Hollywood.”

“We didn’t actually
talk
to him,” Tim says.

“Seems funny you’d remember his name like that then.”

“How could we
forget
his name? It’s the only
normal
one.”

It’s my boldface clue card to look Joe J sharp and spare change the subject and what better way than getting to the points. So I ask Squid if she can maybe spare a couple and accomplish my mission like nuclear fission, in the whiz of a bullet in the whir of a moment the olden golden silence rains all Flo and Mary, featuring Diana the boss.

Broken first by kernel-crunching, renewed for a reason. Then by darlin’ drawling, coy as a pond in Kyoto beyond.

“What
ever
makes you think I have any?”

“The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. told me.”

“Well, she must be mistaken.”

“Nope, there’s witnesses.”

“Who?”

“Jehovah’s.”

Squid says anything in there besides Bible tracts belongs to somebody else, before she remembers the Desoxyn I guess, she definitely sounds mix-thrilled when Siouxsie steps up lively as children of India to blue plate specials, claiming sole ownership of anything besides, and asks her to hand it over for inventory check. Then Siouxsie starts telling me she doesn’t think Blitzer—

“He’s not my dad. He’s got no say over me. Nobody does.”

“True. But after all that talk up—”

“I thought you were on my side!”

“I’m never on another.”

“Then just let me have a couple. Please.”

“Rockets, can’t you save
something
for another time? Does it all have to be tonight?”

“What fuckin difference—”

Animal Cracker says, “Stay the he says she says. They’re for me.”

I say, “And Blitzer told him, earlier—”

“Is Blitzer in this or out of this?” Siouxsie says. “Make up your mind.”

“Out, I guess.”

Animal Cracker says, “I already told Rockets if I was him I’d say no thanks ma’am when it comes to the slam. So I ain’t hitting him if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Siouxsie sighs.

“And I never would.”

She drums her fingers on the lunch box.

“You oughta know that.”

Sighs again.

“AC, have you ever thought of taking your own ad—oh, fuck it. You got a name in mind to tell the world that might get passed on to any cops or doctors who worse comes to worst start asking around who provided the means to your fuckin end? Besides mine?”

“Sure I do.”

“Whose?”

“Dr. Menard. This trick in the hills. It makes sense, he’s got points like cops have pieces.”

“You’d burn him?”

“In a factory second. Fuckin asshole.”

“Then close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“Well, if you want my professional advice—”

“Dude! That’s his words exactly last time I saw him,” Animal Cracker says. “But not about the Chinese rock. Not about slamming. Snorting. Poppers.”

“Poppers?” Tim says. “Are those considered drugs out here?”

“Not that I know of. But he’s got two butt-bitch patients, you know, big bathhouse papas, and in like the same week they both came down with some weird super-rare cancer that point-four of one person in all North America should get in a normal year, and he’s traced it I guess to poppers, both dudes practically breathe that shit. So he’s all, Poison, beware.”

“Are you sure he’s a medical doctor?” Squid says. “Cancer isn’t catching, everyone knows that.”

“Sure I’m sure. What other kind is there?”

“Veterinarians,” I say. “Didn’t you say your rig—”

“Different trick, dude, you got that fuckin dog groomer on the—”

He reaches over and flows me a head rub.

“Anyways, they didn’t catch it from each other. They don’t even know each other. It’s poppers, some gnarly chemical in poppers.”

“That is
too
scary,” Tim says.

“No worries here,” Animal Cracker says. “That’s one thing I’m clean of.”

Tim says not to be changing the subject, nothing like that, but he really is curious which one’s Animal Cracker’s favorite, out of the box, Cub Scout’s honor.

“I usually say the elephant.”

Long pause.

“It’s got that big trunk.”

We all cheer him on through an even longer one.

“So I really identify with it.”

It takes awhile, but the hoots and hollered to-dies finally fade away, and when they do the music’s faded too, upstairs.

“But the giraffe. Definitely. You hardly ever find it in one piece. Usually the neck’s broken. It’s too delicate. I guess I feel sorry for it.”