Made to Break (13 page)

“Damn it, Lucy, let go of my head.”

“Just one tiny lick,” Lucille said.

Blankets rustled, springs groaned. “I'll do all kinds of shit,” Roper said as Lucille giggled, “but that's not one of them.”

“Since when was a big man like you afraid of a little blood?”

“I'm telling you,” Roper said. “I don't lick jam jars while the jam's still in them.”

Of course the next day I told Basil what I'd heard.

“
Lick my jam jar, Daddy?
” he said. “Are you serious?”

“I just about cried,” I said.

When I told Dinky about the incident he took the Blow-Pop from his mouth and whistled. This was before his head had swelled up like a snake-bit horse, back when he still had hair. “Isn't she the rambunctious little harlot,” he said.

That night we went to The Trophy Room. Dinky and Basil and I, and two chicks named Tina and Jimmy Sue, had set up camp near the pool table, waiting for Lucille to return with drinks.

“I don't believe you,” Jimmy Sue said to Basil. “I know Lucy, and, unfortunately, I know Roper, too. She just wouldn't do it.”

“Talk to Mr Jackson,” Basil said. “He was there.”

“I don't care if you heard it from J. Edgar Hoover. There's no way it's true.”

I cast a look round the bunch. “If I told you the shit I know about our friend Miss Bonnery, you'd run to the clinic for a shot in the ass and a couple of cartons of bug juice.”

Basil laughed so hard he coughed up his drink, right there on the table. Tina did her damnedest to freak me with her stink eye.

“Wait till Lucy hears this,” she said. “She'll claw your fucking eyeballs out.”

“She is the Hatchet Lady,” Dinky said.

Jimmy Sue tapped the table. “First of all,” she said, “Roper looks like Deputy Dog. Second of all, he's a fat greasy pig with a case of dandruff and breath like rotten chicken. I mean, the guy still wears tie-dye.”

“That's true,” I said, “every bit. But still.”

“Still nothing,” Tina said.

“I heard what I heard.”

“You're disgusting,” Jimmy Sue said.

“You think I like it? Cause I don't. I don't like it a bit. In fact, the shit's already a ghost.” I expected one of the girls to come back with some lip, but they only sat there huffing on their smokes. “Listen,” I said. “Once I had to take a crap in a public restroom, right? I've never done it before in my life, because next to a hippie, public toilets are about the filthiest, most repugnant things I know. And after you hear this little tale, you'll see why. The commode in question happened to be down at the Kabuki. It's Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray in
Ghostbusters
, fucking up the monster that looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy on PCP. But I have to pinch a loaf so bad I can't sit still. I do my best to stay, the flick is awesome, only to scurry from the scene like a clam. So there I am, doing my thing, praising the gods and their minions for not making me shit the bed—you can ask Basil
the details there—when by the TP hanger I see a hole in the wall. And I'm not talking about some pinhole here. This thing was big as a can. But of course that's not all, because inside this hole, like a picture in a goddamned frame, is a little pink cock with a little pink hand just whacking away, going at it like there's no tomorrow.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Anytime I ever told this story I got the standard communal howl. The table was absolutely cringing.

“That's right,” I said. “How do you think I felt?”

“I would've kicked that guy's ass so bad,” Basil said.

“And why is that,
mon frère
?” I said.

“Are you kidding? My space, man, my mind. The little shit, he invaded you. That's how he was getting off. Thinking about you watching him through that hole.”

“
Exactly
,” I said. “And now I've got this disgusting image in my head. That I'll never,
ever
be rid of. And every time I see a public restroom, that's what I'll see—a little pink hand jerking away at a pink little ugly cock.”

“That's all very splendid,” Tina said. “But what's it got to do with you lying about Roper and Lucy?”

“From now on,” I said, “I have to think about Roper with his head between Lucy's legs, trying to get away from her kooch. And every time I want some jelly on my toast, I'm going to hear Lucy's voice saying,
Lick my jam jar, Daddy, lick my jam jar
. Now if you think that's sick, so be it. All I know is I wish I hadn't been there to hear it.”

“I would've kicked his faggot ass so, so bad,” Basil said.

“The masturbation thing I get,” said Jimmy Sue. “That you couldn't help. But this other thing, it's your own fault.”

“What's a lad to do,” Dinky said, “when he's living with such a rowdy minx?”

“Keep away from her door when he hears noise behind it,” Tina said.

“Like you wouldn't've done the same,” Basil said.

“Bellissima!” Jimmy Sue said, and kissed her fingers. Lucille had returned with our tray of margaritas.

“You,” I said to Lucille, “are a doll.”

“Wait a minute,” Basil said, and paused very dramatically, a strained pinch to his face, studying Lucille's wares. “Where is it?”

“Where's what?” she said.

“
You
know.”

“No,” she said, “I don't.”

“The jam jar,” said my friend The Prick, taking us into uncharted lands. “You forgot the jam jar!”

Lucille would've dropped the tray had she not already placed it—her eyes had expanded like yawning mouths.

“Pardon me?” she said, Hatchet Lady on her way.

“He's asking,” Dinky interrupted, “why you didn't bring the
jam jar
.”

“You guys,” Tina said. “Don't.”

“Yeah,” Basil said. “Cause Daddy wants to lick it.”

A Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show-Type goobus at the next table over was busy doing magic tricks for his Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show-Type goobus friends, the three of them slouched in their booth with their dyed black hair and big black coats and tight black pants tucked into black Doc Martins and patent leather Beatle boots. They were all glopped up with lipstick and mascara, and Goobus #1, Lord Fascination, had a pink toy dinosaur, Barney, from what I could tell.

“How much do we owe you for the drinks?” I said.

Lucille's eyes were burning. “I thought they were on you,” she hissed.

“Did I say that?”

“That must mean you get to lick the jam jar!” Good old Basil. He'd seen my ploy to change the tune and was having not a jot.

“What is this crap, anyway?” Lucille said, playing dumb to the end.

“Come, come, Lucille,” Dinky said. “The time for charades has long passed. Andrew Jackson, your roommate, we might remind you, heard the goings-on between you and blubber boy last night.”

“Pardon?”

“When was it you forgot how to speak English?” Basil said.

“I heard him, all right. I don't think I understood him.”

“Don't even worry about it, Lucy,” Tina said. She held up a glass. “Who had salt?”

“Right here,” Jimmy Sue said.

“Me, too,” I said.

“All right, you bastards. Out with it.”

Jimmy Sue stirred her drink and licked a blob of salt from the rim. She wasn't looking at Lucille. “AJ said he heard you with Roper last night.”

“But we didn't believe him,” Tina said.

“You've got to be kidding. You're kidding, right?”

“Only a miserable twerp like AJ would make up a story like that,” said Jimmy Sue.

“It's no big deal really,” I said. “Just surprised me is all.”

Lucille stood back, her eyes hopelessly, frantically shifting. “You little runt,” she said. “You puny little runt.”

“Look at him,” Jimmy Sue said, pointing my way. “He's shit faced.”

“Take it back. Tell them it's a lie.”

Tina glared at me. “He's so full of shit.” She held up her glass. “Forget about it, Lucy.”

“I won't forget about it. What exactly did you tell them?”

“Mommy,” Dinky said in his best hot-to-trot vixen's voice, “wants Daddy to lick her jam jar. Please, Daddy, lick it.”

“
Maaaaa-mmmyyyy!
” said Basil with his hands out before him like a baby at the breast.

Lucille flicked her smoke into my eye, and then, to The Clash's “Stand By Me,” dove across the table screaming, “Liar! liar! liar!”

We fell into a wall hung with ribbons and trophies and pictures of athletes retired. The drinks went flying, in my hair and down my pants—Lucille even took a chunk from my face with her nails. I could see The Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show-Type goobs blurry behind the rest, with their capes and sneers, mumbling stuff like, “She's nothing at all like Pam Grier,” and “Violence is so mundane.” But Jimmy Sue and Tina got the biggest kick of all. Jimmy Sue's distaste for me I could understand. On a date a few months back, we'd quibbled over sushi at Ibisu, bickered to death the secret of great art, and snarled through choosing the show we'd hit, my pick Monkey Rhythm and The Plimsouls, hers The Misfits and a Sex Pistols wannabe act. When later she announced with a toss of her bob that
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
was the twentieth century's greatest book, I had to take her home. Tina, on the other hand, unless I could be blamed for having brought her into the Buddy mix way back when, six or seven months before the night in question, and whom I'd recently given a book of Diane Arbus photos for her b-day, hadn't so much as dandruff to put me down. I could hear the two of them cheering Lucille on as she pummeled away. “Fuck him up!” Jimmy Sue cried. “Yeah, Lucy,” Tina shouted, “get him!”

In the end some mondo bastard with a vest full of patches dragged us to the street. Next to the Kodak booth on the corner, an ancient bum was hollering at passersby. His old Schwinn bike, a masterpiece, really, had a banana seat and two-foot sissy
bar, and ape hangers, too, with long-tasseled grips. The guy was bedecked in leather, head to foot, and sported a helmet from Germany strapped with vintage goggles.

“Now don't spaz out over there,” he shouted when he saw us. “If you can't dance, don't start off with the funky chicken!”

The night may have gone sour, but that hadn't kept the gang from stepping out to the tune of
Hatchet Lady!
and
Oh Mommy, Mommy!
and
Daddy still wants to lick the jam jar!
The Trophy Room's neon bathed the street in sad pink light. I thought of Lucille's painting, the woman collapsed in her fruitless world. Her head hung low, Lucille was a spooky premonition.

“For whatever it's worth,” I said, “I'm sorry.”

Her eyes were mascara ruined by tears. “You didn't have to tell them that.”

“I'm really sorry.” I tried to put my arm around her, but she shrugged me off and turned away. “Look,” I said. “I'll tell them I was lying.”

“All you know is little and mean.”

“I'll make it up,” I said. “Just tell me what to do, and I will.”

“Go to hell.”

And with that she ran up the Haight, past the bowling alley, past the Mickey D's, and melted into shadows in the park.

“You may think you got over good,” Tina said, up in my face for added effect, “but Karma's going to get you.”

“You know what you guys are?” Basil said to the girls. “A couple a type-1 morons. Now that,” he said with a slap to my back, “was some kind of joke.”

“I told you not to tell her.”

“It was a joke,” Basil said, and slipped a lemon-drop in his mouth. “Forget about it.”

The old leather dude was still yammering at the passersby. “I ask you,” he shouted at one woman, “if Death Valley is below
LA or to the west of LA, and you don't know. You don't know anything. You're just Mrs Motor Mouth. And you're a messy housekeeper, too!” Then he saw me gaping and said, “You want to know a secret, pal?”

“What's that?”

“Dead men are heavier than Sunday afternoons.”

“Yeah?”

“Them and wedding vows.”

Dinky, gazing up through the gridlock of muni-wires, still hadn't said a word.

“Tell him, Dink,” Basil said.

“Tell him what?”

“That she'll get over it.”

“We must always remember old Tom's wondrous words of wisdom,” Dinky said, smiling. “
There's nothing wrong with her a hundred dollars won't fix
.”

AUGUST IN THE CAPAY VALLEY IS STRAIGHT-UP death. What water doesn't touch, the sun destroys, the nut trees droop under coats of dust, and the hillsides big with jim brush and sage fret with the shadows of buzzards, and hiding sparrows, and mice. And yet, even so, from a ruin of drought you can walk into corn so dense it might be a wall of scrumptious hair. With dusk the heat resolves—if only faintly, the sky's on you still—until at last night emerges and sleep becomes something you think could be real. That's the rattler's hour, then, time of the skunk, time of the owl, some Achemon sphinx with wings of blood-stained eyes.