Alter Boys (34 page)

“Thanks man.”  The Bird accepted, plainly, without fanfare, as if it were the most common of gestures.

To Demon, it was a milestone, a first
.  (Don’t be giving it away!  You paid good money for it!)
He brushed away the admonishment of his
mother’s
voice and lavished in his new found ability; his ability to give, to receive, to share.

“We better roll before that asshole clerk calls us in for loitering.”  The Bird blindly tossed his empty planters can into the back seat where it clattered noisily on Demon’s bike.  “Oops!”  He hunkered down sheepishly and countered it with a shit eating expression that decorated his face.  “Sorry man.  I just killed your ride.”

It deserved less, but Demon found this to be uproariously funny.  Blame it on bob.  Had there been anything more than a few remnants in his mouth he might have aspirated and choked.  Instead he lurched forward and brayed out particles of peanut and blots of chocolate saliva on his work pants.    

“See man, just like I told you.  That’s why I always carry an extra pair.  Better wash those good or the next time he sees you the bone man is gonna be on his knees licking your crotch!”

It was too much.  Demon embarked on a convulsing fit of laughter that could not be contained.  He blindly swiped at his pants, bobbed his head up and down and finally collapsed back into the seat laughing and moaning, turning his head from side to side and loving every minute of it.

It was as good a cue as any.  The Bird fired the Falcon and they headed toward Valley street.

Chapter 4

1

“Later man!”   The Bird deposited Demon and his bike unceremoniously in front of the house, and was gone.

Demon stood stock still, focusing on the receding tail lights while his peripheral vision spaced out on the silent sleeping neighborhood.  

He licked the inside of his mouth, wishing he had bought more than just the M & M’s, much, much more!  Munchies, the Bird had called it.  He had the munchies.

There was nothing on the level of munchies to be found inside his house, this he knew.  Still he turned toward away from the curb, and trundled his bike up the walk. 

Approaching the house; his minds-eye previewed what lay inside
621 South Valley street
.  It made him wince.  He feared not of his parents interrogating him about the late hour and where he had been, they were always asleep regardless of how late he got home.  But he still held a curious disdain for everything within.  It wasn’t just the lack of munchies, it was everything; even the once cherished television.    

Tonight he had discovered that it had all been a lie.  He had wasted the first part of his life in a shell.  But now, through the magic of pot (‘bob’ - his mind corrected) that shell had been laced with seam-line cracks in a few areas, and outright displacement of the exterior in others.

He was seeing out, which was enlightening.  But at the same time, the world could now see in
(
Don’t go there!  You don’t want to go there
!)
which was unnerving.

Having chained his bike, he entered the unlocked house and headed toward the bathroom.  The urge to pee, legitimate this time.  With his stance he addressed the bowl, his hands unclenched his belt, and his eyes he froze in alarm.

His fly was open.

The splatter of peanut fragments and brown spittle had decorated more than his pants, the exposed oval of his underwear had also taken a direct hit. 

Blood rushed up to his neck and face as he mentally retraced his steps seeking the origin of his error.

Hill 14.  He had stood in the weeds staring at the lights, the rotting farm, the stars, all the while with his works undone and his bladder unrelieved.  Then the Bird had said something and he…  snapped?  Buckled?  Zipped?  He couldn’t remember. 

Based upon what he was now observing, he had been successful with the first two but had omitted the third.

Leaving his fly open?  It was something that had never happened before.   Of all of the principle life skills, toileting was about the only one he had ever mastered. 

And now this.

He mentally scrolled ahead from hill 14.  The Bird hadn’t said anything, probably hadn’t noticed in the darkened car, but then they had stopped at 7-11.  Demon’s gorge suddenly swelled in his throat.  He saw himself standing at the entrance in full view of the clerk.  And hadn’t there been something about the way the clerk looked at him? 

The image disturbed him badly.  Demon tried to hide it away in that deep dark chamber reserved for such matters, but it refused to budge.  The pot made it all too real.

Anxious to move on to something else, anything else, Demon tugged at his underwear and positioned his penis.

Again, he couldn’t go.  The urge was there, he could feel the pressure of his bladder, but the stream simply refused. 

An odd sensation of being watched crept into Demon’s temples.  But no one else was in the bathroom and the door was closed.  The only one watching was him.  He became conscious of the silence of the room.  It unnerved him.  The splash of his urine in the bowl would create a sound…the sound of peeing.  A sound that he was afraid others (beyond the bathroom) could hear.

Again, like on hill 14, his mind willed himself to go, his body declined. 

Nothing.

He finally had to rely on an old option.  He turned away from the toilet, lowered his pants fully, and sat down.

Relief was not immediate, but the sensation that it would eventually arrive was comforting.   He turned his mind away from his straining bladder and diverted his attention to his lowered pants. 

A new discovery.  The legs and cuffs were covered with foxtail and bramble.  Again, hill 14.

He bent forward to pluck at the weeds but: “
Not in here!
”  Roared the voice of Boone the bone man Merrill. 

Demon snapped back on the toilet, a tiny jet of alarmed urine escaping his urethra. 

He shifted his focus back from pants to penis.  It would be best to solve things one at a time and in order of urgency.  With the seal now broken he felt he could compel the rest.  And that he did.  It took a series of starts and stops.  Each stop prompted by random images and feelings both recent and long forgotten and hidden.  He took extraordinary care to direct his stop-and-go stream to the silent porcelain and not the noisy water.

Eventually, his bladder signaled his brain, relaying the message that the job was complete.  His brain shot back ‘no, feel the pressure, the bladder is never completely relieved.’

Demon wavered.  He coaxed out four more drops, each plinking the water and creating a tiny ripple, and only then did he feel satisfied. 

He rose and re-did his pants, taking special note to zip and cover his candy-coated underwear.  He reached for the flush handle, but caught himself. 
Flushing
would signify that he was done in the bathroom.  He still had work to do.

The weed encrusted pants could wait.  Right now there was a siren song coming from the bathroom mirror.  Being stoned had changed how the world looked, and that would have included him.  He had to see himself in the mirror.

Demon moved into view not knowing what to expect; what he saw was abhorring.  Nesting in the corners of his mouth were peanut fragments, and his lower lip and chin displayed speckles of chocolate splatter.  An enterprising foxtail had lodged under his right arm.  His hair (although not greasy) was a disheveled mess.  But most abhorring of all, a clear ring of laughter-induced mucus framed the bottom of one nostril and was threatening precariously to graduate into a runner.   

The magic of the night evaporated and paranoia set in.

From the mirror came voices.  The Bird:  ‘Ha!  Fuckin’ A.  Tricked you Demon didn’t I!’  Had the Bird tricked him, let him
make a fool out of himself for his own pleasure?  No.  The Bird would never do that, at the prospector the Bird had helped him.    Still, there was a nagging hint of suspicion.  The 7-11 clerk.  He had seen the weeds and open barn door and then had smirked at him in a funny way.  ‘The munchies are over there.’  He knew.  Demon recoiled at the memory and vowed never to set foot in the 7-11 again.  

The siren song of the mirror had become sirens of panic.   The panic led to action.

Demon looked furtively for a washcloth, hand towel, even a rag to scrub his shame from his face.  The room was empty.  He re-scanned and again found nothing.  Finally, while contemplating the momentous task of exiting the bathroom to retrieve a wash cloth from the closet, he spotted a dried up rag on the edge of the sink.

Had it been there all along? 

He picked it up and turned the hardened mass over and over in his hands trying to puzzle out the disappearing/reappearing act just performed.

He reached for the hot water handle and stopped short. 

Water makes noise.  He had performed all of his bathroom duties tonight in exquisite silence.  Turning the tap would mean water splashing in the sink, the whine of water pressure coursing through the pipes, the pipes that ran through the house and could awake his parents and alert them that he was in the bathroom doing god knows what.

But a dry rag was useless. 

Carefully he eased open the tap.  The sound was tame to his ears but cataclysmic to his mind. 

He wet down the rag, bending out the brittle folds, until he had a flattened sopping panel of fabric.  Without looking, he scrubbed viciously at his face, the warmth of the cloth soothing, the awareness of what he was removing, humiliating. 

Finished, he gently snicked open the medicine cabinet, taking great care not to catch a glimpse of himself in the swinging mirror, and retrieved his comb.    

He dragged the comb through his hair and then dared a look in the mirror.

Better.  But not quite.  Some of his hair was just a little out of place.  He made the adjustment, but now the other side was off.  Another correction.  For the next five minutes, he combed and re-combed obsessively to find balance.  The fact that, in a few minutes, he would be in bed; his hair again disheveled, went unrecognized. 

As he combed, Demon began to observe dried specks of white on the face of the mirror.  Toothpaste; his mind prompted; my toothpaste.  One large white bubble in particular peered at him accusatorily. 

He dropped the comb into the sink and retrieved the rag.  He took to the white blob in deliberate earnest.  Rubbing a little, checking, then rubbing some more.  The middle of the bubble was easily erased, but the outlining ring took more work. 

Done.

Then a second stain, this time a streak the size of an eyelash.  Demon set to work.  And then he saw another and another.  As soon as he finished one dit, dot or dash he would discover more that needed cleaning.

With a paper towel and a few squirts of
Windex he
could have done the job in 30 seconds.  Or he could have not done it all, the dirty mirror having gone unnoticed for years.  But there was
something about the minutiae of the task he was performing that felt necessary.  He kept at it for 10 minutes, examining each section of the mirror and eliminating the marks one by one.  And if not for a rather sudden and loud creak of the house settling, he may have been there all night.

Startled, he dropped the rag into the sink and listened for footsteps. 

Nothing.