Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

Karl is on the couch, fresh out of the shower. He sits there all big and clean and shiny.

“Hey, bro. Good morning. Merry Christmas,” he says. He motions me closer with a finger, checks over my shoulder to make sure Judy’s busy.

“I want to get your old lady something,” he whispers. “You gotta drive me.”

A kind of sureness that infuriates me has appeared in his tone. “That’s not necessary. Forget it,” I reply.

“No, no, really.”

Judy and I should have worked out a signal beforehand. We should have been a lot smarter about this whole thing. Now it’s all up to me.

“Dear,” I call out. “Do we have time to go down to the Boulevard? Karl wants to see the footprints.”

Judy looks up from a cookbook, pushing away a strand of hair from her face with the palm of her hand. “Do you know how long these things have to roast?” she asks. “Stop at the store and pick up some whipped cream.”

Karl slaps me on the thigh and grins. My head starts throbbing again, the pain sneaking right past the aspirin.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS COIL like red and green snakes around the streetlights on Hollywood, and Santa and his elves fly from one side of the Boulevard to the other on banners stretched between the buildings. We join the Mexican families dressed in church clothes who are strolling past the souvenir shops and lingerie stores and the cheap restaurants with menus in five languages taped to their windows. I point out one to Karl, a burger joint where all the homeless punks gather to preen and tweak, and tell him that rumor has it you can fuck them for a corn dog, but he’s more interested in the sidewalk stars, calling out the names he recognizes as we step over them.

“Lucille Ball! Bob Hope! Michael Jackson!”

A line of tour buses idles in front of the Chinese Theater. Despite the holiday, the forecourt is packed with tourists taking turns posing next to their favorite actors’ and actresses’ hand- and footprints. Japanese, Germans, Frenchies. Karl wades in among them, a white trash Gulliver. He stops at John Wayne’s slab and stares down at it like he’s all alone somewhere, in a church or a cemetery. With great solemnity, he places his tennis shoe over the impression left by Wayne’s boot. “Will you look at that,” he says, not to me, not to anyone, and I wish Judy were here to see him, although on second thought she’d probably find a way to twist it into something charming.

I walk out to the curb for a cigarette. I don’t know how people do it, live this life. It seems incredibly difficult to me today, incredibly annoying. A few years ago, when the city spruced up this neighborhood, they mixed something sparkly into the asphalt used to repave the street. When the sun hits it, it looks like broken glass, like you’d cut yourself if you stumbled. And they wonder why there are so many lunatics around here. Even the ground beneath their feet seems to have turned against them.

THERE WASN’T MUCH open because of the holiday and all. We went into this place that had like posters and T-shirts. Junk. It wasn’t what I had in mind, but my bro’s like, “Fuck it, man. I got a headache and she doesn’t give a fuck what you bring her, so just pick something.” Whatever, right? Merry Christmas. I found this teddy bear wearing a little shirt that said LOVE, and when I showed it to him, he just smirked. I didn’t care, though, because it wasn’t for him, it was for his old lady, and she was good people.

This is a weird one, dude, I warned you. As we were walking back to the car, he asked me if I’d stolen anything from the store. I thought he was fucking with me, you know, ’cause that’s how he was, so I said, “No, man, boosting’s your trip, remember?” giving it right back to him. “Well, I don’t know. Best check your pocket,” he said. So I reach into my coat, and I’ll be damned if there wasn’t one of those little plastic things that snows when you shake them. That cocksucker must have slipped it in when I wasn’t looking.

He started laughing, but I was pissed. Motherfucker was toying with my freedom. I say, “They could send me back for that, you know. I’m not even supposed to be in this state.” And out of nowhere he goes off about didn’t I want to go back because I missed my boyfriend so much, and by the way, how does it feel to take it up the ass? Without even thinking, I slammed him against a wall, whereupon he came at me, kicking and screaming that I was out to fuck his old lady. Dude had some serious problems. I mean, he was my bro, but for him to pull that shit. And he would not let up. He wanted to throw down right there on Hollywood Boulevard. I gave him a shot to the head to calm his ass, and he started yelling for the cops, so I gave him another that dropped him and took off running, just left him laying on the sidewalk. Broke my heart.

JUDY IS SETTING the table when I get home, with the good china, which has been buried in a closet for years. She’s such a sport. I forget to acknowledge that sometimes. The radio plays Christmas carols, and the smell of food cooking almost gags me. I put my hand over my split lip so it doesn’t startle her, but there’s not much I can do about the blood on my shirt, so I walk quickly into the living room.

“That’s that,” I announce.

She turns to me with a smile. “What?”

“We don’t have to do this anymore.”

I pick up the tree. Ornaments and fake snow go flying. As I’m carrying it to the front door, Judy moves to block my way, and I don’t understand the look on her face.

“Wait,” she says.

“He attacked me. I caught him stealing something from a store, and when I confronted him, he went crazy.”

I push past her and carry the tree out. More blue glass balls are dislodged, and they pop like balloons when they shatter against the stairs, collapsing into nothing. The cold yellow smear of sun in the sky is not even bright enough to give me a shadow. Down in the street, I toss the tree into the gutter. Maybe some poor family will drive by and pick it up. It might make their day.

Judy waits at the top of the stairs, arms crossed over her chest. She tenses as I climb toward her. I see all her muscles tighten at once.

“Spencer,” she says.

“I’m fine. He just grazed me. Gave me a bloody nose. It was nothing.”

“You’re not making sense.”

She follows me into the apartment, back to the kitchen. I snatch up a dish towel and open the oven. The turkey’s just turning brown on top.

“Where do you want to go to dinner?” I ask. “I’m buying.”

“Stop it,” she says.

I slide out the rack and lift the foil pan with the bird in it. The towel isn’t thick enough to stop the heat, though, and my fingers are on fire. I drop the pan onto the door of the stove, and it tips over onto the floor. The turkey hits the linoleum with a fleshy pop.

“Spencer!” Judy yells, retreating to the hallway.

“I’ll clean it up. Relax.”

I go to the refrigerator and grab a cold beer to stop the burning in my fingers. When I try to walk over to calm Judy down, I slip on something, turkey grease, and fall on my ass, my head smashing into the cupboards. There is a moment of glorious darkness before the pain begins. I’d like to lie here for a while, but Judy is freaking.

“Stop crying,” I snap as I struggle to my feet. We’ve somehow gone out of alignment. Things are rattling, shuddering, threatening to come apart. I pick up the turkey with the towel and stumble out the front door and down the stairs again. Steam is rising off the bird as I drop it into the blue recycling bin. An ice-cream truck passes by, playing “Jingle Bells.” I wave at the driver, and he just stares at me. What a mess I’ve made, trying to get everything back to normal. I almost laugh. The blisters rising on my fingertips begin to throb.