Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility (31 page)

When I was a kid, mattresses were like the last thing my family thought about. Probably because mattresses are the hardest things
to move in and out of a house, and since we were always moving in
and out of houses, we usually just left ours behind. My mother was
always into beds that served other purposes, too, like her "trundle
bed" phase. A trundle bed is actually two twin beds, one on top of the
other, with the upper one acting as a sofa of sorts, while the lower one
awaits underneath it on wheels, so it can pop up and surprise visitors
with a rest area that is as comfortable as a pit full of chips collected
from the Petrified Forest.

The only problem is that we never had guests. So these wondrous
conversions inevitably became our actual bedroom furniture, at first
just until we could replace our real mattress, but since we always moved
again before that could happen, we eventually dropped the pretense. My
room had the "corner unit" as my mother liked to call it, an L-shaped
thing that was joined at the bend by an end table that also served as an
alcove to stash the front half of each cot. It did not have fitted sheets,
but rather upholstered pad covers made from that bristly, orange synthetic 70s material spun from volcanic magma or whatever.

Sleeping on that overnight thoroughly stippled my skin, so that for the first two periods of class I always looked like I was fighting a
flea-allergy outbreak. Complain as I might, though, my sister Kim
had it worse. She got the sofa bed. The mattress on that was half as
thick as the kind they provide criminals in the county jail. Worse, it
was a "love seat" sofa bed, which means it pulled out to provide less
width than the backseat of our Fairlane.

But hey, when it closed up, it automatically converted her room
to an additional den, or "salon," a term preferred by my mother, who
envisioned dinner parties after which women would retire to the salon
to compare curtain patterns so the men could sit in the living room
and belch among themselves. I think my mother was always entertaining thoughts of entertaining people, that one day we might live in
one place long enough to have, like, guests. Our home seemed to be
in constant preparation for that, all our rooms ready to convert into a
network of seating areas to welcome company that never came. Looking back, I wish for her sake that we'd had some.

So I was in that mind-set as I drove around aimlessly, fuming
about Keiger, only it wasn't so aimless because all of a sudden I was
pulling into his driveway. I just miss him so much, I miss how his arms
enclose me and fold me all up in him, converting me into something
that can stand another day like the one I just had. I miss his hands on
my face, and the way he murmured in my ear. "Don't you worry," he'd
say, "you're strong." Ha! So strong that here I am, staring at his door.
Who's the mattress now? But still I stood there, because he was inside,
all alone in that stupid big-ass bed, and I just don't want the people I
love to hope for company that never comes anymore.

I NEVER KNOCKED ON KEIGER'S DOOR I turned around, went back
to my car, and went to The Local instead. Just because Keiger and I
don't date anymore doesn't mean I can't continue to go to The Local
and act like I own the place. I was there the other day, telling everyone
everything was on the house. I really enjoy doing that. People are so
grateful to me, and then put off by Keiger when he swoops in afterward to make them pay anyway. I always leave feeling like I've done a
service to society.

"Everything's on the house," I was hollering, but the only person
to hear me was Grant, who works there. The bar was empty, but it was
early yet. I'd called beforehand to warn Keiger I was coming in. "I'll be
there in a few minutes, so if you're gonna leave, do it now, because I
don't want you humiliating me by running out the back door the second I show up." Not that getting dumped isn't humiliating enough.

Surprisingly, though, Keiger did not leave when I got there.
Instead he stayed put and complained about how, seven months ago
when we broke up after he failed to call me for five weeks straight, it
wasn't all his fault. "You could have called me, you know," he said.
"What kind of relationship is it if I have to call you all the time?"

"Keiger, just for the record," I sighed, "you don't have to call me
all the time. But you do have to call me more than never again."

Anyway, the real reason I was supposedly there was to talk to
Grant about Lary, whom we hadn't seen in some time. Earlier, over
breakfast at the Majestic, we'd concluded that Lary's behavior super definitely matched all the warning signs of meth addiction this time,
as we figure we're still very attuned to these signs ever since we staged
that intervention for our other friend. We hear she's doing really well,
and she might even get her job back. This outcome of course makes
us think we're experts on what's best for people.

Now it seems Lary has totally withdrawn from us, which is a
symptom. Sure, he says he's working all the time, but addicts lie. And
the last time I saw him, he looked like he'd been scraped off the bottom of a boat. Of course, that's par for Lary, but his teeth, I'm telling
you, had the makings of total meth mouth if you ask me. He claimed
it was just griddlies from the overtoasted bagel he recently ate, but I'm
not so sure.

"Obviously, it's time that we break into his house again," I told
Grant. He agreed, of course. If there's one thing I respect about Grant,
it's his concern for his fellow friends.

THE FIRST THING I NOTICED ABOUT LARY'S PLACE was that his trailer
was not yet on top of the warehouse where he lives. One day years
ago, after he had combined the effects of alcohol and crane operating,
he'd awakened to find a truck on his roof. After that he decided he
liked things on his roof, and started putting all kinds of crap up there,
including, but not limited to, an entire life-size plastic lawn nativity
scene, various tires, birdcages, a herd of feral cats, and, on and off, that
same truck.

Next he concluded that he'd like to put an actual trailer up there
as well, because it would make a nice second-floor conversion. He
says all he has to do is drill a big hole in his ceiling as well as through
the underside of the trailer, then bolt one of those wrought-iron spiral
staircases into place, and voila, an economic upper wing. I have to tell
you, if he pulls that off I will be so jealous my head will hemorrhage.

"Please put it on my roof instead," I begged him. My house is
much more suited to sit under a trailer, if you ask me. First of all, it's
hardly bigger than one, so it would serve as the proper understated
pedestal and not detract from the magnificence of the Airstream.
Lary's dilapidated old warehouse, on the other hand, is so huge and
its roof so high that an Airstream on top of it would just sit there like
a silver boil and probably hardly be noticeable, especially considering
all the other stuff that's up there.

"The roof is where I put all the stuff I really value," he says.

Remember that Lary is an event rigger by profession, and not just any rigger; he's like the master Jedi rigger that other riggers bow
before. Whatever you need done, Lary can figure out a way to do it,
including, but not limited to, probably time travel. This is why huge
companies pay him tons of money to accomplish the impossible at
their conventions. For example, if plans call for a Ferris wheel suspended over a lake in the center of a previously lakeless sports arena,
Lary is the one they finally approach to get it done once everyone else
says it can't be done.

"Get the hell out of there," Lary bitched to us over the phone,
because of course we couldn't break into his house without calling him
to report on our progress. He was in Hawaii, or said he was, working
a job. "What's this crap in your freezer?" I asked. "I don't knowfood?" he replied. Like hell it is, I thought. For one, it was green and
pasty. "Is this food?" I called to Grant, but he was busy in Lary's bathroom stealing all his cotton swabs. I checked the pressure cooker, and
there was nothing inside but the entire supply of Latin Xanax he got
from me for helping me haul my trailer out of the irrigation ditch that
one time. Finally we had decided to leave, concluding that Lary's real
drugs were too well hidden for us to find-besides, I don't even know
what crystal meth looks like (is it green and pasty?)-when suddenly
I caught sight of some thongs hanging on the branches of a plant by
the bed.

"What the hell are these thongs in the plants?" I asked Lary.

"They're mine," he insisted.

"Like hell they are," I said. They looked like they were made to fit
a hipless Romanian gymnast, not Lary, who has the passable ass of an old rock guitarist. Then Grant and I investigated further and found all
kinds of curious feminine amenities tucked away in drawers and medicine cabinets and such. Oh my God. I realized. It turns out Lary isn't
addicted to drugs. It turns out he's kind of in a quasi-relationship.

I couldn't believe it. Who knew Lary was capable? I would have
punched him affectionately right then, but he was in Hawaii staying
at the Four Seasons, probably with his new girlfriend. Evidently word
of his patented brand of rigger madness had reached the people with
real money, and he'd been hired to simulate a giant-scale, authentic
volcanic eruption or something for some huge convention out there.
Of course the idea of making his own magma was irresistible to Lary.
"It's incredible, like the earth is violently puking," he says. "I can't wait
to see it happen with a real volcano." He says that last part like he'll
have some say in it, which, knowing Lary, he probably will.

I should have known better than to doubt him. I remember I
scoffed at him when he said he was going to steal a billboard from the
freeway once, and the next time I went to his place to water his plants,
there it was: a massive highway sign that read JESUS WAS A VEGETARIAN taking up most of his warehouse. The billboard pissed him off,
he said, and it had to come down. He must have climbed an edifice
twenty flights high to pull that off.

So if Lary says he's going to put a trailer on his house, he probably
will. I'm especially looking forward to the part about the wroughtiron spiral staircase. I know those things are easy to put up and take
down because my mother once stole one from one of our many rented
residences. They're not much more than twisted ladders, really, and all it took was a good shaking and it practically popped right off the
brackets into her hands. It probably helped that my sisters and I used
to hang and climb on it like on an upended monkey bar, loosening it
to a good degree. That was a big heist for her. The last I saw of that
staircase was decades ago in the shed she kept in back of the trailer
she'd bought just north of the Tijuana border. That shed is where she
kept all the stuff she really valued.

It turned out she never needed any of it. If she had known Lary,
though, he could have put all the pieces together to make her a home
of her own. He can rig anything. He can make the impossible possible. He can put a trailer on his house and then turn around and ask
me if I'd like one on mine.