Boys of Life (5 page)

We brought the buckets back from the field and set them in front oi the shack the way they'd been last time.

Carlos was talking to the black woman, whom he called Verbena. She was breathing hard. "Hoo," she told him, "I ain't that young no more." Up close, she had the worst teeth in the universe—four or five scraggly stumps in the front of her mouth and that was it. But she kept smiling this big smile, even when Carlos put his arm around her and told her the bad news: she had to do that stunt with the pickup truck one more time. "And you're not supposed to fall out of the truck," he told her.

"I know I'm not supposed to fall out of the truck," she said.

"Then don't do it."

"I got carried away," she told Carlos. "Maybe I'll get carried away again."

"I'll kill you," he said, "if you get carried away again. I'll drive the truck right over your body."

Carlos had forgotten all about me—there was nothing to ^\o except watch. Somebody was splashing gasoline on those buckets o( weeds we'd brought up from the held, and somebody else moved in with a movie camera while Verbena tugged at her dress that'd gotten twisted on her body, the way some little ^irl might go squirming and tugging,

and then what happened next was the most amazing thing. I couldn't

believe it.

Verbena walked over to those buckets. She hiked up her skirt and squatted down. She took out a cigarette lighter, and held it around behind her, where her hutt was sticking out, and she flicked it. Whoosh!

(>tjr came this humongou* fan like a cannon. It ripped right through tli.it huh' like .1 flamethrower, this long tongue of fire that went

licking "ut over all th.isr weeds In the pots till they blazed right up. Verbena let out this yelp and ran ovei and lumped In the truck, and

r

e I ept I \) as hi out o( the < ab

■li one hand and yelling and shouting and

lull the truck went round and round and the fire

( limbed up the tall» of tl I ill you i ouldn't see the m

the fire

B O Y S O F L I F E □

The camera was getting it all down, from start to finish. And my heart, I have to tell you, was beating like no tomorrow.

Nobody knew it at the time, naturally, especially not me, but rh.it

movie they were making was the one that'd make Carlos famous— Ur, which when they showed it in New York at this him festival goi a lot

of attention from everybody, and I still have the photo from Time magazine of Verbena hanging out of th.it truck with all those weeds on fire.

But that was all a couple of years down the road, and it von ask, Did any of us know we were doing something that would be famous one day? I'd have to honestly say, No, we didn't. Except maybe fof Carlos, and I know even Carlos was kind o\ surprised when he got to be famous—I mean, famous in the way he did. He worked Mich a long time with nobody paying any attention to him, he figured it was always going to be that way. And he didn't care—he'd already made his pi with that a long time before I ever knew him.

The take Carlos finally ended up usin^, by the way, was the one where Verbena fell out of the truck. Somehow, once you saw it on him, it looked totally inspired.

After the last shot, nobody seemed to know what to do. Verbena'd drifted down to the weed field, and now she was walking around in circles, sort of dazed and farting these big watery tarts I don't think she thought anybody could hear, but they were really loud, like explosions.

The big burly guy who'd been operating one of the cameras handed me a beer.

"I'm Seth," he said.

"Tony," I said.

"Get drunk," he told me and walked off. Which was a little strange, but at least I had a beer. Nobody else seemed curious about me or anything, and that was fine. I just leaned against a tree trunk and drank my beer.

After a while Carlos showed up, totally involved m leafing through that spiral notebook he'd had in the Nu-Wav.

"Oh Tony," he said. "Stay tor supper. You can do that, can't

■> *» you:

"Yeah," I told him, "I can d(^ that."

"Then go help Sammy," he said. He never looked up from his notebook, he just nodded over to where this little old man w.is cooking something on one of those kerosene Stoves like hunters use. He was wearing this funny-looking cap, and this T-shirt with kill the bastards

□ PAUL RUSSELL

Stenciled on it. He had tiny little thin arms. I thought it was pretty funny, what his T-shirt said.

"Kill what bastards?" I asked him.

"Kill the bastards," he said, like he meant it.

"Okay," I said. "I was just trying to make conversation."

"Make dinner instead," he told me. "Slice those potatoes over there. Here's a knife."

"Are you French?" I asked him. I'd never met a foreigner before, and he had this accent like you never heard. Plus he was wearing th.it funny little hat.

"And you, you are perhaps a schlemiel?"

"A what?"

"Never mind. Peel the potatoes and don't talk to me. I got things to do."

I pointed to his hat.

"A Hungarian Jew invented the beret in the eleventh century, long before you were born," he told me in that high-pitched little voice of his. "Now I'm busy," he said, and he turned his back on me like I'd none and offended him.

1 -at down and started to peel. There're worse things than peeling ltoes, I ^uess, especially if you don't know what else to Ao with yourself.

Before 1 knew it be was standing over me be was about as tall

ling up .is I was sitting down -and be was si reaming. "No, no, no,

no, no," be screamed, and each time be said no be raised both bis tists up f<> the level of bis ears, and then dropped them again. He looked like a little wind-up doll tbat'd run down it it went on very long. "What's up.'" I asked.

I ; 1, slur." He made s|u mg motions with bis hand iliu of bis other.

"I vs.in peeling them fi

uth thinl ire not health}'" he said. "Vitamins/ 1

elled at n Better j pie than you have made whole

I In elf. 1 lis weird little eu ( ent

laugh. Plus he really I. the waj >ple

tally upset ovei little things like that ■

ii othei foi i minute then .ill inkle in I

B O Y S O F L I F E □

there was some little joke between us. It lasted fol about B seCOfld, and then he went back to whatever he was cooking in that big pot of his.

When I finished with the potatoes, 1 decided it might be best just to rest out ot harm's way. I went back to nn tree And sat down with my back up against it.

I wasn't there but a tew minutes when Seth came over. He squatted down beside me and took a loitg swig from his beei >u're Tony," he said. Which I'd already told him was my name earlier.

"Tony," I said. "That's right."

He was this big ape of a guy, greasy black hair all tucked up in a red kerchief and this huge black beard. He studied me like I was something the cat dragged in. I could tell he was sizing me up, which is a thing that always makes me bristle when people do that to me.

"Hmm," he said. "So how tall are you. 7 "

It was sort of an odd way to start up a conversation. I didn't like him much.

"Why?" I said.

"Tell me how tall you are. Five nine, rive ten.'"

I shrugged. "I don't go around measuring myself .ill the time," I told him.

"You're still growing," he said—not like it was a question, but something he just knew about me.

How was I supposed to know if I was still growing? I didn't say anything, and he rubbed his beard with the palm oi his hand. These big flakes of dandruff fell out of it. I could see them raining down, they were so thick. He took another big swig ot beer.

"You know what causes that. 7 " he said.

"Causes what?"

"Dandruff." He rubbed his beard again, and again it started to snow.

I had to shrug one more rime. I never liked tests, 1 was never very good at them.

"Deficiency of zinc and selenium." he said. He swigged from his beer again. With his sleeveless denim jacket and anm boots, it was like he'd taken me prisoner in some kind ot jungle battle, the way he was crouching in front o\ me and me with mv back up against that tree. I practically expected him to come out with the bamboo torture instruments any minute now.

"Do you know," he said, "what causes i deficiency oi tilK and

□ PAUL RUSSELL

selenium in the human body?" He looked at me like this was something any idiot's supposed to know.

I just looked back at him.

"You jerk off too much," he said. "You lose zinc and selenium through your semen. Now isn't that interesting? I bet you didn't know that." All the time he kept peering at me, pinning me to that tree trunk.

"There's lots I don't know," I told him. Anyway, he was the one with the dandruff, not me. "Are you trying to tell me not to jerk off too much?"

He laughed his bear laugh. "Consider it a friendly warning," he said. "Take me as an example."

"Yeah," I told him. "You and my gym teacher."

"Fair enough," he said. "We all got vices. You smoke?"

I shrugged again—sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. I used to smoke when I was around Wallace, because he did. Kools, which I always thought tasted pretty grim.

"Well—either it's yes or no," he told me. Suddenly it was like he was angry with me for no reason. "I guess that means the hell no," he said.

I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be saying to him. But just then he took out this joint from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth.

I never smoked dope. I knew my way around booze like a pro, but I'd never touched any dope. I knew what a joint looked like, but rh.u was basically from TV. Believe it or not, even though it was N79 there

n't a whole lot ot drugs in Owen, Kentucky—even the homegrown kind.

He went ahead and lit up right there in n Then he blew

smoke at me. It smelled smoky and

"Tl Ked.

: him. This treatment me

irh <>ne I I nn he.id. rhen tO

ni»hr, these two split-second moves so t.isr I hardly h.id nn

him. Ir

pick a rmhr.

But he only smi

hill bell.

Okay, I remember telling myself. Fine. You're just har._ you can get up and walk awav from this any time you want. Beca was pretty rattled. It was sort of the same . felt with Carlos in

the laundromat—how somehow this guv I'd n . met before knew

all these things about me. Things I didn't even know. I wondered if he could tell just by looking at me how I jerked off too much.

It never occurred to me Carlos might've been talking about me to these people. It never occurred to me one bit.

In the field on this side of the shack were some tents set up people milling around. There was Carlos's orange VW van, and a pickup truck with an old homemade camper on back and this ancient church bus painted sky blue with the words rising zion hardshell baptist on the side. Hardshell is right, I remember thini-

It was getting dark. That whole scene started to look like some kind of strange movie I was making in my head. Sammv in that kill the bastards T-shirt of his over there stirring something in a and Verbena still down in the field walking around in circles and farting. Nobody there knew they were in mv movie right then, but tor a minute they were. Which was weird—I'd never looked at anything like it was a movie before. But it sort of worked.

Everybody was gathering over where Sammv'd started dishing out food. I looked around for Carlos, but I couldn't see him anywhere. I remember thinking—of course he was going to go off like this, and all these strange people around. But I couldn't leave—and I guess I didn't want to. I stuck my hands down in mv pockets and wandered over to where everybody was sitting around in a circle on the ground. There were bottles of wine, which cheered me up, and everybody was talking and laughing.

"Come on, shy girl," Verbena said. "Sit yourself down. We don't bite round here."

I sort of had to laugh. But I sat down anyway. Verbena poured me some wine into a paper cup, and I took a big swallow.

"Watch you don't lose your head on that stuff," she told me.

"I'm okay with it," I told her, and with another swallow I finished off the cup. I was pretty nervous, and I needed some calming down. "Fill her up again," I told Verbena. 1 held out mv cup to her.

"This boy," Verbena told Seth, "he's a regular gas guzzler.*'

"He's okay," Seth said. "He's just frisky."

I didn't like Seth. There was something about him th.it bullied

37 D

□ PAUL RUSSELL

me. And I kept watching all that dandruff flake down his chest. I tried not to imagine him jerking off—it was too gross.

Finally Carlos showed up. He sat himself down next to me but he didn't say anything—he just patted me on my thigh to show me he was there. Carlos, I wanted to say—but then I didn't know what'd come next. So I didn't say a word but just dug into that stew Sammy'd made, which actually wasn't bad if you liked that kind of thing.

Carlos wasn't eating anything. I noticed that in a minute—my spoon was scraping the bottom of the bowl and he was just sitting there studying everybody, watching all of us eat like it was the most fascinating thing. He could've been taking notes in that spiral notebook of his and it wouldn't've looked any stranger.

All of a sudden, like it was something he'd just remembered, he said in this loud voice that interrupted everybody else, "This is Tony. I haven't introduced him the way I should, but he's a very good friend of mine and I want everybody to like him, okay?"

Not the greatest way to introduce somebody, I thought—telling everybody else they have to like him.

Everybody in the circle sort of nodded at me, except Sammy, who I felt really disapproved of me for not knowing to leave the peels on his stupid potatoes. They all seemed a little stressed by having me there, which I could understand, since I was a little stressed by being there.