Ghouljaw and Other Stories (2 page)

Max took a long drag from the joint before passing it back over to Jerry. “So where is this place, exactly?” Max asked.

Jerry cleared his throat and blinked rapidly, apparently stirred from his own thoughts. “It’s in The Swamp, close to Creely Park on the southside, close to the city.” Max nodded, vaguely picturing the run-down neighborhood.

Max was comfortable with the stoned silence that had settled into the car and turned his attention out the passenger window. As he savored the haze of losing lucidity, he watched the subdivisions and manicured lawns give way to warehouses and streetlights. He looked out west, where the salmon pastels of sunset were being overrun by a mass of storm clouds.

Max registered his inebriation by the slow-motion quality of what he was seeing. Only recently, when Max’s mind began to drift, he saw the world as watery, peacefully listless; but the pleasant sensation would invariably be transformed into something uncomfortable, something foreign. His head would begin to throb and joints began to ache. In those moments, Max toyed with the impossibility of his skull—his bones—gelatinizing, turning into soft, malleable cartilage. In those moments, Max’s anxiety translated directly into the image of an agitated black eel, straining against the flimsy walls of his midsection. The worst was when he thought about it too deeply or too solemnly. And if he did either, he could almost coax the creature into reality.

The dark gray rectangles of city skyline eventually appeared in the distance. His thoughts turned to Amy, and it suddenly occurred to Max that he should firm up plans for later.

“Do you mind dropping me off somewhere after the party?” he said.

Jerry was now smoking an ordinary cigarette. He frowned, exhaling a long stream of smoke. “Where the hell at?”

“Downtown, just off Broadway. It’s only about ten minutes away.”

Jerry frowned for a moment before his expression changed, as if suddenly understanding. “Oh,” he said, “that
one
chick.”

“Amy,” said Max.

“Yeah—
Amy
,” Jerry repeated the name delicately, as if the syllables had a flavor. “Jesus, man, she’s fine. Smart too. I thought you guys were history.”

“Nah,” Max said, smirking. “She’s still in the picture.”

Jerry was silent for a long time before asking, “Does she still let you crash at her place when you get fucked up?”

Max’s grin faded slightly. He blinked a few times and looked out the window. “Yeah, she does.”

Jerry snorted. “Well, when you’re all done with her you can send her my way.”

For the first time, Max seriously imagined Amy with someone else—someone like Jerry. And for an instant, Max felt the flutter of something like homesickness. But it was for Amy, a
her
sickness. He shoved the feeling aside. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure thing.”

The party-house was at the end of a dead-end street, choked with beat-to-hell, rust-scabbed vehicles, reflecting the shabby, counterpart quality of the houses which gave The Swamp its namesake. Because the narrow street was so crowded with cars, Jerry had to park around the corner.

When Jerry pulled the key from the ignition he said, “If anyone asks who we know here, tell them you know Winston, or that you’re friends with Winston.”

Max had his hand on the passenger-side door handle.

“Sure. Winston who?”

“Winston Kolb,” Jerry said. The name sounded familiar to Max, and it took him a moment to register that this had been a guy from high school. “Winston’s the guy who invited us—well, me; I didn’t tell him you were coming with me, but it shouldn’t be a big deal. He says he wants to
buy
—he said there’s some people here who want a couple ounces.” And as if that were that, Jerry pushed open the door.

The two walked down a cracked and weed-spiked sidewalk. Dogs intermittently barked from back yards and from inside the dilapidated houses.
Dogs are like the deranged crickets of the city,
Max mused humorlessly.

The houses here appeared to have been, at one time, noble looking. Now they merely maintained accents and elements of their original refinement—the exterior moldings, the severely pitched dormer windows, the intricate stone work. Now, all the dwellings could have easily passed for a child’s idea of a haunted house.

The air was losing its humidity and the sky had darkened, both from encroaching nightfall and the approaching storm. The lavender tones of dusk were absent, having been replaced by thick, cobalt-gray clouds. Occasionally, they’d walk past a house with a large tree in the front yard—the leaves fluttering like shoals of fish, their pale palms twitching in pre-storm fits.

Max was beginning to hear the pulse of music now as they closed in on the cul-de-sac, and Jerry gestured toward a large two-story house.

A group of people were sitting on front porch, talking, their conversation falling silent as Max followed Jerry up the front steps. The darkness under the porch’s roof was dotted with tiny orange embers.

“What’s up?” Jerry said to the crowd. “Winston here?” Max thought Jerry sounded too smug for being an outsider.

Most of the heads turned toward a scruffy, hippyish guy sitting in a rocking chair—
the homeowner,
Max assumed—who was in the middle of passing a joint. “Who’re you?” he said, sounding uninterested.

“Jerry. This is my friend Max.” Max jutted his chin as a silent, collective greeting. The lethargic crowd appeared righteously fucked up.

The guy in the chair scratched his whisker-patchy cheek. “Jerry . . . Jerry,” he said to no one, scowling—but then his face lit up. “Oh, yeah—
Jerry,
” he said, pushing a thin lock of oily hair behind his ear. “Sure, man, go on inside. Winston’s in there somewhere.”

Max glanced around the group, who remained silent as the two young men stepped inside.

A variety of different sorts of smoke and the steady thrum of music permeated the crowded house, which—despite abuse and neglect, and not unlike the other façades here in The Swamp—still had some hallmarks of its original nobility: hardwood floors, high ceilings, wood paneling, and lots of corridors and rooms.

Max and Jerry shuffled through the maze of partiers, Jerry occasionally stopping to catch up with an acquaintance. Max recognized no one and was comfortably cavalier about his anonymity. Most people were milling around, grouped in small clusters. Many looked to have been partying for hours.
A party in The Swamp,
Max thought—
like a frat party for Nascar fans
. Eventually, Max and Jerry wound up in the kitchen.

Winston Kolb was standing with his back against the refrigerator, in the middle of telling a joke or a story, gesticulating with a beer bottle. Several people smiled, stared, and laughed at Winston.

Now, upon actually laying eyes on Winston Kolb, Max remembered this guy more clearly. They’d gone to the same high school together, Winston being two grades ahead of Max and Jerry. His senior year, Winston had not only been kicked off the football team but had been kicked out of school. As far as Max knew, the guy had never graduated. Max only heard stories after that, and Winston had apparently maintained his reputation as a brawler, a drunk, and all-around small-town asshole.

Max and Jerry moved farther into the kitchen, and Winston became abruptly unconcerned with the group he’d been talking to when he spotted Jerry.

“Holy shit, man,” said Winston, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Winston gripped Jerry’s extended hand and pulled the boy in for a half-hug, before hooking his arm around Jerry’s neck in a good-natured half-nelson.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it,” Winston said, grinning.
Horse’s teeth,
Max thought.
A bully’s smile
.

After a moment, Winston, with Jerry still in a headlock, trained his attention on Max.

“I didn’t know you were bringing somebody with you, Jerry.” Winston squinted and lifted his bottle, taking a long swig of beer and sloppily wiping his lips before speaking. “Do I know you?” he asked Max.

Max started to speak but Jerry cut in. “This is my friend Max—he’s cool, man.”

Jerry was saying something about the two having gone to the same school together when Winston interrupted, tightening his headlock on Jerry. “This guy looks like a fucking narc, Jerry. You a fucking narc, prettyboy?”

Max’s nervous smirk began to fade. He shot a quick, twitchy glance at the other people in the now-silent kitchen. Music pounded the walls of the small space.

Max’s stomach spasmed as he again paused on the notion of that tangled eel, struggling to squirm out of a ragged rent in his insides.
Fuck this,
Max thought—struck with the urge to turn and run. But Winston suddenly broke out in boot-stomping laughter. A few of Winston’s kitchen disciples chuckled, nervously mimicking their alpha male.

“Aw, I’m just fucking with you, man,” Winston said, letting go of Jerry’s neck. “We all know Jerry’s the
real
narc.” More nervous laughter. “What did you say your name was?”

Max blinked and tried to regain some casual composure. “Max . . . Max Kidwell.”

Winston nodded, turned and opened the refrigerator door, withdrawing a beer and extending it. “All right, Max, Max Kidwell. Want a beer?”

Max crossed the kitchen. “Yeah, I’d love one.” He closed his hand on the bottle, but Winston held firm.

Winston’s face had again gone wooden. “What’s the magic word?”

Several ugly thoughts snaked into Max’s mind. While he was several inches shorter and weighed comically less than the other guy, Max had the inebriated urge to attempt a joke himself—to say something about Winston’s horsey mouth or about his caveman brow or about the old rumor that he was a closet queer. “Please.”

After a moment of staring Max down, Winston switched gears again, smiling and letting go of the beer bottle. “Shit, I’m just breaking your balls, man. Help yourself, prettyboy.”

I intend to, asshole.
“Thanks, man.”

Jerry and Winston then began to catch up, their voices drowned out by music. After the two young men appeared to agree on something, Jerry began to follow Winston out of the kitchen but split away momentarily, stopping to talk to Max once more.

“I’ve got to go chat with Winston and a few of his friends. Are you going to be okay by yourself for a while?” asked Jerry.

Max was a little surprised he wasn’t invited to tag along. But aside from his recreational use, Max didn’t know much about drugs or drug deals. He didn’t know much about Jerry, for that matter. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just hang out.”

Jerry nodded, lightly bopped Max on the shoulder with his fist, and followed Winston out of the kitchen.

Max wandered around the party, moving from room to room and talking to strangers just long enough for them to offer him some of their dope. He’d take a few drags from their smoke, thank them and move to the next group. Max’s headache—
a skullache,
he thought—ebbed and flowed as he drifted down hallways and in and out of rooms. There were moments where the headache was more pronounced—moments where the pain, if he dwelt on it too much, became a solidly tangible thing, extending from his skull and spreading down his spine, along his ribcage and leading out to his limbs. It was a blackly numb thought-sensation, and Max felt as if his bones were being compromised, being replaced by some more malleable substance. He saw himself floating fluidly through the party—his arms and legs slipping and sliding with tentacle-smooth agility.

In a flicker of semi-lucidity, it occurred to Max that he was overdoing it. Another fevery thought:
I should have told Mom I was going with Jerry. If Jerry ditches me, I’m fucked. It’d be a hell of a walk to Amy’s apartment.

He was on the way to the front porch to get some fresh air when he noticed the dark-haired girl over by the staircase.

She was standing with her back against the banister, smoking a cigarette and talking to another girl who was seated on the landing near the bottom of the stairs. As soon as Max noticed her, he deviated his course slightly to get a better look. As he passed, the girl took a long, squinty drag from her cigarette, her eyes lingering on Max. She smirked slightly, exhaling a stream of smoke. Max glanced at the other girl sitting on the landing, her head down, hair hanging over her face, and she was intently using a pair of scissors to cut out pictures from a stack of magazines. Slivers and chunks of discarded paper were scattered around her.

Max snaked through the crowd, aiming toward the kitchen; he crossed to the refrigerator and retrieved a beer. He considered the girl for a moment, the thought of her both sobering and intoxicating. But the sobriety was superficial, just a formal sort of clarity as his mind prepared his mouth to speak to her.

Max estimated that she was roughly his own age, maybe a little older. Her olive skin and dark features, to Max, suggested a Mediterranean or Italian lineage—
exotic
was the word that drifted into his mind. Her black hair hung down just below her ears in a 40s-style bob. The girl was tall and thin—long, slender legs and arms. A physique Max often associated with both ballerinas and artsy snobs. But more than anything, what exhilarated and distracted Max was her uniqueness—her
out-of-placeness
. And once again, the black eel in Max’s stomach jerked, suddenly unknotting and twisting itself into a more comfortable position.

Max took a long swig of beer, reached into the fridge to grab another bottle for the girl, and started walking back to the corridor.

She was laughing at something when Max returned to the hallway.

Max slowed as he walked by the staircase, angling his attention down toward the girl on the landing—her face obscured by a brown, rat-tangle of hair—who was still cutting pictures from the magazines. He smiled as he came to a stop, feigning interest in her project. She was using a glue stick to paste the photos into different arrangements on a wide piece of posterboard. Max finally glanced up at the dark-haired girl, who regarded him with glittery, dark chocolate eyes.