Moody Food (15 page)

YOU KNOW YOU'RE a regular when the bartender starts taking phone messages for you.

“Your boss, Kelorn Something, called,” Leone said, refilling my glass of Coke from a black nozzle behind the bar. “She said to tell you you left the lights on again.”

“Shit.”

“And that she had a couple complaints about the store not being open.”

“Shit.”

Leone spotted an empty draft glass and lumbered off to replace it with a swiftly poured other. With only one drink legally allowed per person per table at a time back then, one thing I'd learned for sure over the month and some we'd been playing at the Canada Tavern was that the number-one requirement for a good bartender was excellent long-range vision.

I sucked the brown glob of foam off the top of my glass, nose involuntarily wrinkling at the Coke's tickling fizz. It was incredible I wasn't immune to the stuff yet. Alcohol we had to pay for the same as everybody else, but Leone gave the band free refills on coffee and pop. Twenty-five cents down and I was set for the night, by the time we were all packed up and ready to go home was more jingle-jangle wired than Mr. Tambourine Man himself.

Which meant that even after putting in eight hours at Making Waves and nearly another five at the Canada Tavern, between the pep pills and the gallon or so of Coca-Cola I guzzled every evening, I was lucky to conk out before sun-up. I'd lie awake for what felt like hours staring at the ceiling of Christine's room, trying not to fidget around too much so at least she could get some sleep. Having to be up by nine in order to open up the bookstore by ten, I began to live in dread of the sound of the birds in her backyard beginning their first-light twittering,
their nauseatingly cheerful announcement of another way-too-soon morning.

But every show was better than the one before. Every
set
was better than the one before. No one actually said anything, of course. Christine and I locking eyes in a shared moment of deep, clean rhythm, Slippery and Thomas slashing back and forth competing but complimentary electric and steel-guitar runs, all three of them stacking their voices on top of each other in the soulfully raggedy country-gospel style Thomas had taught them, no one had to.

I heard the electric crackling of Thomas's guitar coming from the stage and emptied my pop. Break was over. Leone was back behind the bar and put the nozzle to the lip of my glass and blasted it to the brim.

HERE'S A RECIPE you shouldn't try at home: take one couple and one blossoming amphetamine habit, mix in a generous portion of mostly sleepless, mostly screwless nights, and then let not-so-gently simmer over a steadily smoldering early morning melee that begins with something really important, like:

“That's not what I said.”

“What did you say, then?”

“I don't remember my exact words, but—”

“You can't remember what you said, but you know you didn't say it. Huh.”

“I
know
what I said.”

“So I'm a liar, then? Is that what you're saying?”

“I'm not saying you're a liar. Don't put words in my mouth.”

“I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just repeating what you said.”

“No, you're not, you're putting words in my mouth.”

“No, I'm not, I'm just repeating what you said. That I'm a liar.”

“I didn't say ... Jesus Christ, I wish I had a tape recorder every time—”

“I wish
I
had a tape recorder every time—”

And when any argument gets to the I-wish-I-had-a-tape-recorder stage, it's probably just best to declare a ceasefire and aim to move on as peacefully as possible.

So, bursting through the front door of Christine's place, still sticking arms through shirt sleeves and plucking sleep crust from our eyes, we scurried together in silence down the street looking like a couple of those exercise nuts who aren't actually jogging but are doing something more than mere walking, like they've pulled the hamstrings in both legs but are in too much of a hurry to stop. Hitting Bay Street, all the shops busily peopled and every newspaper box already half empty, we didn't need the alarm clock back in her room to tell us that it was nearly eleven.

Kelorn wouldn't be real pleased to find out that I'd been an hour late in opening up the shop, but at worst she'd be disappointed in me, meaning I'd probably end up feeling worse about the whole thing than she did. Christine's boss was an entirely different kettle of capitalist fish. Just a month before, he'd canned one of her anarchist roommates, Kent, who'd gotten his job solely on her recommendation, because of chronic lateness. Unlike Kent, who not long after getting sacked inherited a couple of thousand bucks from a wealthy aunt and simultaneously came to the powerfully philosophical conclusion that “Working is, like, for fools, man,” Christine didn't expect to become an heiress any time soon.

At the corner of Bay and Cumberland, where I was supposed to go one way and she another, “Keep walking,” I said, “I'll be right back,” and raced off ahead of her.

“Bill, I don't have time for ...”

I ducked inside the first store I thought might sell something edible, a pharmacy, grabbed a Kit Kat bar from the shelf, and got in line behind an elderly woman buying a clear plastic bag of cotton balls, a
Happy Birthday to a Wonderful Grandson!
birthday card, and a bar of soap. Christine could get by without a lot of things—sleep, sex, her boyfriend's less-than-perfect memory—but got woozy and weird when her blood sugar level fell too far below normal. The ten cents' worth of glucose and fat weren't a fully balanced breakfast, but they'd get her through until lunch. And, incidentally, demonstrate what a selfless, considerate sweetheart I was after all.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, how much was that again?” the woman asked the man behind the cash, an only slightly less-antique-looking guy in a blue cardigan with black reading glasses hanging around his neck on a thin silver chain. The store radio played CHFI, the same station my parents listened to at home, Frank Sinatra's “Summer Wind” serenely blowing through the room.

The man carefully rested his glasses on the edge of his nose and stooped forward to peer at the till. “I believe I said two dollars and ninety-six cents, Mrs. Peters.”

“That's what I thought you said, but I wanted to be sure.” The old woman took out a small change purse from inside her regular purse and placed two crisp dollar bills on the countertop. Then poured out a clattering pile of change and began to count.

“Ten. Fifteen. Thirty. Thirty-five. Thirty-six, thirty-seven ...”

“Can I just pay for this?” I said, holding up the candy bar.

The old man looked up and the old lady tilted around like I'd just asked if I could camp out for a few days in my sleeping bag in the middle of the store.

“I'm sorry,
sir
,” the old man said, “you're going to have to wait your turn. Just like everyone else.” They both returned to the mound of coins.

“Now, where were we?” he said. “Ah, yes, let's see.” He picked up where the old lady had left off. “Thirty-eight. Forty-three. Fifty-three, fifty-four ...”

Christine rapped twice on the store window and pointed to an imaginary watch on her wrist. I plunked down the Kit Kat and my quarter.

“If that's all just going in your till,” I said, pushing across my own coin into the pile of theirs, “I'll just take back my change and—”

The old man brought his glasses down to his chest.

“Look, I don't want any trouble,” I said. “It's just that I'm running a little late this morning and my girlfriend—”

“I don't believe I want the business of such a rude young man as yourself,” he said, sliding my quarter back toward me. I watched it skid off the counter, bounce to the floor, and roll on its edge underneath a greeting card display case. Even then I wasn't really angry; more curious, actually, at how many coins over the years had been lost forever in that wasteland of dirt and dust and human hair particles. Then he snatched the Kit Kat out of my hand and things went white.

From that point on all I really remember is screaming at him about how if I had short hair he'd be singing a different tune and how now he owed me two Kit Kats and something I remembered one of Christine's roommates saying about how when the revolution came there wouldn't be enough room in the streets for all the blood that was going to get spilt. Then Mrs. Smith put her wrinkled hand to her mouth and screamed and the old man reached for something underneath the cash register and I snatched the nearest chocolate bar and tore for the door.

“Bill, what—”

I grabbed Christine by the hand and almost wrenched her arm from its socket.

“Run!” I said.

“Bill—”

“Run, goddammit, run!”

I dragged her behind me down Bay for a couple of full-tilt minutes until we hit a red light. We slammed on our brakes as traffic slowly rumbled by and tried to catch our breath. I finally let go of her hand.

“What's going on?” she said, rubbing her freed fingers.

I could still feel the adrenalin pumping through my veins. My arms and legs felt like rubber, my head like I was faintly high.

“Here,” I said, handing over the Crispy Crunch. The red wrapping paper was torn in a couple places and damp from my still-soaking palm. It looked like it'd barely survived ten minutes in the spin cycle of a washing machine.

“What's this?” she said.

“It'll hold you over until lunch. You've got to be careful about not eating.”

She looked down at the battered chocolate bar again; looked up at me.

“
This
is what that was all about?” she said.

“What do you mean
this
is what that was all about?”

“Do you have any idea how late I am for work?” Christine said.

“That's all you have to say? How late you are for work? I was trying to do you a favour, you know.”

“Don't twist this around, this isn't about you.”

“Yeah, it is, Christine. This is about me trying to be nice to you and you pissing all over me in thanks.”

“Oh, get a grip,” she said.

The same blizzard of fury I saw at the pharmacy came blowing in at a hundred miles an hour, and before I could grab my snow goggles I snatched the candy bar from her hand and
slammed it to the ground and jumped up and down on it until it was an even-sorrier mess of chocolate and wrapper than before. I crossed my arms like I'd really proven something. For a second or three, actually felt like I had.

Christine stared at me for a moment. In an even voice, “You should lay off the speed, Bill,” she said. Then she walked away.

I waited for her to turn around and let me have it, to give me her best parting shot, but she just kept moving away from me down Bay, eventually disapearing in the late-morning bustle. I kept thinking, Any minute now she's going to storm back here and really lay into me. But I was ready. I could feel my toes clenched tight like hooves inside my boots, my fists involuntarily tensed into hard balls at my sides.

She didn't turn around, though. I kept waiting, but she didn't.

MAYBE I'VE BEEN fibbing a little. Not lying, just exaggerating. Going by the dictionary, doesn't lying a little equal out to exaggeration? Which stinks a bit of a rationalization, I know, but it's not. Oh, hell, maybe it is. All right, it is. It is.

I liked the drugs.

Sure, between work and the band and everything else there were times when anybody could have used a pick-me-up. But I was twenty years old and still at that age when a good-night and good-morning rumble-tumble within the same 24-hour period wasn't the stuff of pure male fantasy. And besides, Christine didn't pop pills and she got by all right. Slippery, too, and he was double my age and then some.

I
liked
the drugs.

They say opposites attract, and it's as true for pharmaceuticals as it is for matters of the heart. I always had a vague suspicion that I'd been sleeping through my own life, and on speed I found out
just how right I was. Yeah, every time a car horn would send me up a tree or I'd lie awake at night twisting in my sheets or wonder why Christine and I never banged around the village or Kensington Market any more like we used to just holding hands and happy to be doing nothing and having nowhere to go, I'd tell myself I really had to cut down and get back to normal. But normal never had a chance.

As kids, when we'd be walking home from school and it would start to rain, without fail somebody would say that if you ran fast enough you'd never get wet. I never believed them, but I always wanted to. And I always ended up running.

THOMAS WASN'T GETTING much shut-eye, either. I'd figured that while the rest of us paid our real-world dues he'd be smart enough to sleep in late or lie around in the sun all day or make love with Heather until showtime. I should have known better. That's what I would have done.

Dropping by the studio one day during my lunch break to pick up the bottle of uppers I was hoping I'd forgotten there, I found him busy rewinding the tape machine he used to record all our shows and making notes in the spiral notepad he'd recently taken to scribbling in during breaks at the Canada Tavern.

“Buckskin,” he said. He looked surprised, but not unhappy I was there.

“How do we sound?” I said, nodding at the whipping wheels of the reel-to-reel. I was relieved to right away see what I'd come for and picked up the bottle from the table.

“You tell me,” he said, tape clicking to a stop. “Have a seat.” He removed a rumpled brown paper grocery bag from a chair to
the floor and motioned for me to sit down. The bag made a rattling sound like there were ten maracas inside.

“I've got to get back to work,” I said. “Besides, you're in charge of quality control. I trust you.”

He hit a black button on the machine and the two huge reels slowly started moving again.

“Hey, I was there last night, remember?” I said. “Whatever it is, let's talk about it tonight, okay? I was late opening up again and don't want to be too long.”

But it wasn't the previous night's gig; it wasn't even us.

A single electric guitar—not loud, not soft—chopped along in regular eighth notes right on top of an insistent backbeat kept with the heel of somebody's boot and the floor. In musical terms, instead of the guitar syncopating to the drums like it normally would, it doubled up the beat.
Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump.
It was like putting an amplified stethoscope to the chest of somebody who'd drunk way too much coffee. It made me nervous.

“I don't get it,” I said. I screwed the lid off my pill bottle and looked around for something to wash a couple down with.

“Hold on there,” Thomas said. He picked up the grease-stained grocery sack and pulled out his own bottle. He tapped out a single black capsule into the palm of his hand. “Try one of these.”

“What are they?”

“Desbutols.”

“Yeah, but what are they?” I said.

“What they are is what you get when you take the training wheels off and ditch those diet pills you're stringing yourself out with. These new pills are tools, Buckskin. They're precise, scientific. You want to work, you take one. You want to crash, you don't. I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm going home to bed right now.”

I briefly considered the cautionary tale of his slightly dilated pupils but took the offered capsule anyway. I think I was thinking that if just one of the Desbutols could take the place of everything else I swallowed and sipped over the course of twenty-four hours, maybe by the end of the day I could get a decent night's sleep. The logic of a burgeoning pillhead. You had to be there.

I swished around a Coke bottle sitting on the table. It was warm, more syrupy sweet than usual, but it did the job. The tape machine was still rolling, the guitar still grunting away. I still didn't get it.

“It sounds kind of ... nervous,” I said.

Thomas smiled. “Good.”

“That's good?”

“Sure. It's supposed to make you feel nervous.”

“It is?”

“Of course.”

I turned my ear back toward the machine's tiny built-in speaker. Maybe it was his partial explanation, maybe it was the Desbutol-induced concentration. Either way, no definite colours yet, but not just noise now, either.

“What's it called?” I said.

He sat down at the table and palmed out another two Desbutols, swallowing them both without bothering with the Coke. He rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his eyes very slowly and very hard. Even with the music playing I could hear the crunch of his eyeballs.

“Like I said before, these new songs I'm working on, they're different,” he said.

I couldn't stifle a laugh. “That's for sure.”

“Not just the way they sound. These past few weeks, it's like all I've got to do is stay awake and get in the right state of mind and there they are, everywhere I look, waiting for me to pluck
them out of the air and get them down on tape.” He grabbed at one that just happened to be drifting by at that very instant; caught it in his clenched fist and kept it captive for a couple of long seconds before opening his hand and letting it float away.

“But none of the words I write for them seem to fit,” he said. “Even the titles don't work. It's like ... I guess I don't know what it's like.”

“The colours don't match,” I said.

He looked up. “That's it,” he said. “That's exactly it.”

I felt wonderful. And it wasn't only the
mot juste
ego-stroke, either. Already I could feel the powerful difference between the pep pills and the Desbutols. Instead of merely jittery not asleep, every pore of my body seemed to ooze wide-awake calm.

Picking up the bottle of Desbutols, “Freddy?” I said. Freddy was Thomas's shadowy pill connection.

Back from his colour-coded epiphany, “You haven't met Chris T. yet?”

“The biker?” I said.

Chris T. was Chris Toulese, leader of the Vagabond biker gang that had squealed into Yorkville earlier that summer and rapidly established itself as the village's number-one source for all things illegally ingested. You couldn't miss them. They'd taken over the Upper Crust and parked their huge hogs outside in one long shining row of polished silver to let everyone know it. Some people thought they were just another version of our own countercultural middle-finger salute aimed squarely at the straight world; others—quietly, and definitely not within earshot of the Vagabonds—started to worry about rumours of back-alley ass-kickings and gang initiation rapes. As usual, I didn't have any firm opinion on the matter. Kelorn hated them.

“A great guy,” Thomas said, “I'll introduce you.” He nodded at the bottle in my hand. “You can keep those.”

I stuffed the pills in my jeans pocket and said I'd better get back to Making Waves. Thomas walked me downstairs to the street. We stood there for a sun-soaked moment watching the hippie parade drift by before he said he'd better get back to work.

“I thought you were going home to bed,” I said.

“The wrong colours. You said it yourself, Buckskin. You've inspired me.”

He slapped me on the back and headed back up the dark hallway.