Fall (21 page)

It was only a couple of weeks before the Christmas break. “Strange timing,” everyone said.

I
DRIVE LIKE
a dream on a pillow. No matter what I’m driving.

I like to think that you could only do this job if you were wise or really stupid. I know I’m not stupid.

There’s another old guy rides the shuttle on Thursday nights when there’s the free buffet at the casino. Most times he gets off the bus saying what would life be if you got what you wanted.

If I could see myself now when I was young and full of juice I would have stood in front of a train and smiled. Run me down. Blow me backward so I don’t have to be what I am.

But here I am, fat behind the wheel in a parking lot, and I’m telling you, young William, I’m glad you did what you were about to do whenever it was you did it. Sometimes.

I get mad. I get so goddamn mad and confused. There’s a skinny old William inside me who’s waving a stick and he’s still saying after all these years that there is a right way, there is a right way, and he’s looking tired and ugly but he’s waving his stick just as hard. I look out at all the kids with their headphones and think people just don’t want to know people, they want music and things on screens, and the cranky old fart with his stick could not be more right: the whole thing’s wrong, going wrong, gone wrong.

First letter I got from Julius was two years after I was fired. He remembered my address from when he stayed at my place and there were words I couldn’t read because he writes like a drunk on a bus. He said sorry a couple of times and I thought, that really is a sweet kid, all he’s been through.

And I was a little sorry for myself there, I’ll admit that. It was a plum job. Maybe. I was drinking from the bigger flask those days, though. Maybe I wasn’t laughing and smiling all day, but like I say.

I was pretty goddamn angry.

I liked his father. Never called him more than Mr. Ambassador, but if we were two naked guys in a jungle with no names we probably would have been buddies. Couple of the ambassadors before him wanted me to call them Your Excellency.

They flew him in an F-18 when he travelled. I couldn’t believe it when he told me that. If he was going on a trip to the north he’d fly in an F-18. You wouldn’t believe the speed he said.

The only way is up and out, I said.

I told him I’d driven a couple of stock cars. You could rent a NASCAR Dodge in those days out there for an hour of racing up in the track in the Hills. He knew I liked speed. We agreed on that. Before my post is up, he said, I’m going to get you in that plane.

Nice man.

Never happened.

He used to go up on the roof of that big house and smoke cigars he said. He told me not to tell Julius. It was the only place he could be in peace. Security wouldn’t follow him up there. He said I should come up there sometime and have a smoke. That never happened.

I truly liked going to all those embassy parties, though. Waiting outside with the other drivers. I remember there was a guy driving for the Spanish ambassador who was always sent out at night for chocolate. Always bitching about how the maids, nobody else ever had to buy chocolate. He always said, I took this job because I wanted some intrigue, international intrigue he said. Drive hoors to the back of the Russian embassy at midnight. But all I’m doing is driving around a bagful of Dairy Milk.

I miss those conversations. Looking back at it, I figured meeting a guy who was driving around looking for chocolate for a Spanish guy who loved chocolate—that was as good as life could get. I mean the meeting of him.

The driver who replaced me, Tom. He was a good-looking guy, if you like youth and hair and smiles. I always tell the ladies that my bald fat beauty is the kind that lasts. I bumped into Tom a while back and he says he picked up Julius one day from the hospital back then and there were bandages poking out from his shirt and he was limping. I didn’t like to hear that. Tom says he didn’t see much more of him before he left.

I got his first letter after a couple of years and I felt like someone turned the lights back on in some rooms I’d forgotten.

I was drinking in that wrong way. Sorry for myself for losing that plum. Taking the worst job because I thought I lost the best. You untie your rope and drift out into that lake of poison and you’re alone. If you’re lucky, someone hops into your boat out of nowhere—wakes you up—and you realize how much time has passed and that Time is crazier and crueller than your drunken mother’s mother. Tick-tock is the biggest lie of them all, there’s nothing regular about it. My mother’s mother put lipstick on at the age of eighty-two and walked out naked down the street saying Tell the filthy iceman I had to go to school. The truth about Time is that we aren’t where we are, and when we are where we are it’s when Time stands still—which is always the time we remember.

So Julius’s little letter hopped into my boat, Dear William. Nothing much to it, but I realized I had to write back. You can’t write about yourself without thinking about yourself. That first one I wrote was short, but I’ve gotten into the thing and I’m writing letters now that he’ll never have the time to read. And I figure I truly am wise.

You can’t get surprised when bad things happen. You make up all these things to pretend life isn’t what it is, and then you get surprised. The malls, the churches, the casinos. Or if you think about it a little, you think, well, if life is fuckin’ awful you might as well make something up like a God who makes it better or a jackpot that paints the dirt gold. If you believe in dirt in the first place, the surprises have to be sweeter.

What I myself try to settle for some days is a conversation, or the right night of beer, or one of those letters. Or, even better: a woman I’d never met who gets on the bus and says in her country, on the first day of spring, they put an orange in a bowl of water and wait for it to spin while the earth rolls on to somewhere new. I love a surprise from a stranger.

I remember talking to Julius’s dad about countries. It’s on my mind now because I think that woman was from Iran, if I remember, and I’m thinking there are probably thousands of guys like me, in the States or over there in Europe or wherever. Guys driving shuttle buses to casinos or something equally stupid. It doesn’t look to me like something worth fighting for.

His father told me a story about some politician somewhere who was asked, do you love your country? And this politician didn’t say yes or no or anything like that. All he said was, I love my wife.

I’m not completely down. Maybe there are some mornings I wouldn’t mind a bit of company. Lie on my side a little, let’s say, and someone could try to throw her arm around me. A few years back there was that nice lady, Rassy. Funny name. She held my tiny old joint from behind me one morning and said it’s all gonna be okay.

That was nice.

T
HERE ARE BETTER
things to do I say, but if he’s gonna throw aerosol into the room every night, let’s get him back.

We’ll flood him I say.

Let’s flood him says Noel.

I don’t know why I’m excited.

Hee hee.

Giggle.

Two little mice.

Tickle splish. Splish splish. We’re gonna fuckin soak him. These buckets weigh a ton.

Ho!

Hee!

Ya!

What the fu—!

Bang!

Assholes!

Hee!

Shit.

Aren’t you guys eighteen.

Yes sir.

I’ll talk to you in the morning.

Fuck me. Fuck’s sakessss. Fuck. Three fuckin weeks, you’re fuckin kidding. Cunt. Klunt. Fluck it. Fuckin idiot. I’m fuckin eighteen. I’m a fuckin idiot.

Kunt.

I read a book called pappiyon says Chuck where a guy’s in prison. All kinds of prison. And the advice he gets is don’t jack off. It wastes too much energy. If you’re in prison for three weeks, J, my advice is to meditate. Think about the universal peace that exists in the soul of every object and don’t count the days. Get to know yourself.

She blew out the candles and blew me.

She blew out the candles and blew me.

She blew out the candles and her tight little mouth.

Fur coat.

She’s in a fur.

Gya.

Hn.

I’ll sleep.

Dear J,

I miss you but it’s fun writing you notes, and I’ll see you by the tree at ten.

Can you smell my perfume?

 

  
Kiss,

  
F

Look mom. Have you noticed how good I’m getting at vacuuming. Did you ever vacuum this much.

Did you ever know a grown man who lived in a room like this, in a school. He says he has dates over sometimes, did you hear that. Would you date a guy like that.

Would you teach me the mysteries of women.

Would you vacuum under that couch.

Fuck that.

Well it’s just an interesting experiment about weeks I’m saying. It’s all in the head.

Good she says.

It’s three weeks but if I close my eyes to time. Chuck taught me this. If I close my eyes to time, and focus on what’s important.

Namely me she says.

Exactly. The time passes. Focus only on the important things is how I’m seeing it. I just close my eyes.

I see she says.

And I’m jacking off a really filthy amount but that’s my little secret I’m thinking.

You’re smart J.

Am I.

Come here she says.

I miss you.

J
ULIUS WAS UP
early on the Saturday but he didn’t seem to do much. I pretended to sleep and watched him carefully. He had a brown housecoat which he called “the animal.” He wore it on the rare occasions that he needed comfort or warmth. He was wearing the animal and sitting at his desk. He looked at a book occasionally but I could tell he wasn’t reading.

Ant and I went out. He let me sign out to his aunt’s place and we ended up in Hull. I was so grateful to be taken away from school that Saturday. “I don’t know where Chuck and J are tonight,” he said.

We went to his aunt’s place, a large apartment on the canal, and we drank and got ready to go out. His aunt was in Paris. She had a fully stocked bar and a vast array of Dresden ware which Ant ignorantly referred to as China. “Don’t go to China,” he said, meaning don’t break the dishes. We drank tequila, which I had never had before. I was wearing a white shirt, which I had untucked, and a pair of jeans.

Ant said that I should borrow a shirt. We went into his bedroom and he tossed me a red T-shirt that he said would look good on me. We got changed together.

“I don’t know what the big deal is with J’s fuckin’ girlfriend not showing up at school. He’s gated for weeks and now he doesn’t even want to go out. And Chuckie. Fuckin’ Chuckie’s like an old man suddenly.”

Tequila was a miserable thing, a bottled salt-pool where every sad herb had drained as it died. It warmed us both with bitter intent. “That shirt really looks good on you,” Ant said.

We took a cab to Hull, where I had never been. It attracted younger revellers across the river and was little more than a collection of nightclubs and bars. There was a cinema showing pornographic films.

We were early. Not many people were around. I let Ant be my guide and he took us to a bar. “This place is full of losers,” he said. “It’s really funny.” He said he always came here first, usually with Chuck, and they sat and drank and laughed at everyone else. It was a Greek restaurant, in fact, but it had a long bar. There was one waitress, but otherwise only men, and not many. “Not a lot of chicks here,” Ant observed, “but there never is. Tank up and we’ll hit the clubs.”

We drank beer, which enlivened the tequila in me. There was a group of slightly older guys wearing baseball caps, sitting at a table not far from us. One of them stared at me with a smile on his face. He was wearing a red cap. He said something to his friends, who turned to look at me and laughed. I looked across the bar and saw myself in the mirror. The red T-shirt which Ant had given me looked very tight.

“I don’t even think Fall’s that hot. Nobody at that fuckin’ school is truly hot. We’ll go to Chez Henri soon.”

“I hope you realize I don’t dance,” I said.

“You’ve gotta dance,” he said.

“Dancing is institutionalized vanity,” I said. “It’s about individuals losing their individuality; pretending to be individual while following socially delimited moves. I find it laughable.”

“Whatever. We can stay here all night if you want.”

“I don’t like those guys over there.”

We finished our beer.

It was still early. We walked a couple of blocks to Chez Henri, a nightclub with a bouncer at the door. His shoulders were no bigger than mine but he was tall. I felt instinctively polite toward him,
like I wanted him to be my friend, and then I quickly resented that feeling.

It was very dark and very loud in the nightclub and there were still not many people. Ant ordered some shots of peppermint schnapps. I found them a relief. He ordered more.

There was a group of single girls on the dance floor. Ant said they were all fuckin’ ugly. I was surprised that I wasn’t feeling drunk. Ant ordered more schnapps and I wanted to bite the glass.

I hated the music. I hated the way everyone danced. I liked that it was too loud to converse.

The place filled up. I went to the bathroom, pushing past hundreds of people. I saw myself in the mirror and I looked unfamiliar.

When I stood at the urinal someone came out of a cubicle, brushed by me, and said, “Nice shirt, sweetie.” I looked over my shoulder and it was the guy in the red cap from the Greek restaurant. He left the bathroom before I could finish urinating.