Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

“Deshawn saved. He was raised in the church.”

The owner finally gives up. His son takes his place on the counter. The kid jiggles the tube and twists it. His baggy pants slip down to his knees, revealing Harley-Davidson boxer shorts. His father tries to pull the pants up, but the boy slaps his hand away. While he’s distracted, the tube comes loose on its own and falls in slow motion, like a bomb dropped from an airplane. It hits the floor and shatters with a glassy pop, but none of this fazes Eightball’s dad. He’s deep into something about the Israelites. Saliva thickens in the corners of his mouth, and he grips the little red table between us like it might try to run away. I interrupt with a question.

“How long’s it been since you’ve seen Deshawn?”

“Deshawn? Four, five years. Five years it must be. His momma brought him up to Bakersfield to visit.”

“And what was the last time before that?”

The guy’s smile goes mushy at the edges. It’s the kind of reaction I was looking for. I’m fucked that way.

“All right then,” he says. “Enough of that.”

The Cambodian brings out a broom and begins to sweep the milky shards of the broken tube into a pile. Eightball’s dad suddenly turns to him and crows, “Jesus loves you, you know that, brother?”

“Okay, okay, good,” the Cambodian replies. He sounds like he’s had a bellyful of that shit, too.

“What’s your name?” I ask Eightball’s dad.

“Reggie.”

“You drink beer, Reggie?”

THE SUN IS useless for warmth at this time of year, but I like the feel of the light on my skin. Its gentle pressure keeps me from thinning into nothing like a drop of blood lost to the sea. Reggie thanks me for mixing him another beer and tomato juice, then reclines again on the webbed chaise and goes back to humming complicated tunes under his breath. He seems content to lie here and drink and watch the kids hard at their morning games on the other side of the fence. They don’t make him nervous at all.

Room 210 has been cordoned off with yellow police tape. Mrs. Cho can’t get in to clean up until the coroner certifies that the death was a suicide, so we live with the stink, which lingers one tiny step behind everything else. You fool yourself that it’s gone, but then the wind shifts and you get a snootful and almost puke.

A syringe floats in the pool, spinning in slow circles whenever the breeze ruffles the water. After a while, it strikes me how disgusting this is. Someone has stolen the long-handled net Mrs. Cho uses to scoop trash out of the water, so I have to strain and stretch and splash to force the syringe to the side of the pool where I can reach it.

“What you got?” Reggie asks.

“Nothing. A bug.”

There’s blood caked inside the cylinder, and the needle’s bent. I slip it into an empty beer can and toss the can into the Dumpster. Reggie pipes up again while I’m washing my hands in the pool.

“Deshawn should be here by now. I could of taken a later bus if I’d known. Been up since three a.m.”

I don’t tell him about the last time Eightball and Linda were supposed to get married, or the time before that. He’s removed his purple jacket, hung it on the back of his chair, and loosened his tie. Now he untucks his shirt and unbuttons it. He has a big old belly, and a dull pink scar puckers the center of his chest from the top of his breastbone to right below his rib cage. None of my business.

I slide into the chair next to his and pick up my drink. The children screech like wounded rabbits, and the beetle-browed motel that surrounds us declares with a groan and a fresh set of cracks that it can’t take much more of this. A junkie steps out of a room on the second floor. He flings his arms up before his eyes to protect them from the light and staggers along the walkway to the room next to mine, where it seems they’ve been expecting him. The door opens onto blackness, and he’s sucked inside.

Dear Simone. Dear Simone. Dear Simone .

Reggie reaches over and shakes my chair. I flinch so hard something in my neck pops.

“What you need to get for out here is a radio, put on some good gospel for these children. Some of that ‘Love lifted me, love lifted me.’ ”

Linda and Eightball slink out of the same room the junkie disappeared into. They know we’re here. Linda waves as they walk toward the stairs, but Reggie doesn’t notice. I don’t say anything. Let him be surprised. I light another cigarette and open another beer.

Eightball rattles the gate and shouts, “Yo, old man, you drunk already?”

“Little D. Lord, my lord.”

Reggie pads over to let them in, buttoning his shirt on the way. It looks like the wedding is still on. They’ve even gone so far as to dress for it this time, Eightball wearing a white turtleneck and an old suit coat, Linda a pale green minidress.

Reggie embraces Eightball. “Look at you,” he says. “My little man.” Then he turns to Linda and holds out his arms. “Come on, girl, we all in this together.” She moves forward and lets him hug her, too.

He drags more chairs over, arranges everything in a circle, and Eightball and Linda sit reluctantly. It’s too much for them, as high as they are. Eightball fidgets and Linda gnaws her lips. They lie shamelessly in response to Reggie’s questions. At first I’m impressed that they even make the effort, but then it becomes ridiculous. I laugh out loud when Linda claims she’s been offered a job as a nanny to some rich doctor’s kids.

Reggie wants to say a prayer. Linda bows her head, and I can see right down the front of her dress. The crack and speed have gobbled up most of what was there, but what’s left is right out in the open. Eightball catches me looking and drops his hand to the inside of his thigh to flip me off where his daddy can’t see, and I close my eyes and grin like that peek at his girl’s titties was the biggest thrill I’ve had in ages.

A flock of gulls descends upon the motel from out of nowhere. Some strut stiff-legged across the parking lot, running to avoid the kids, while others eddy overhead like trash caught in a whirlwind. They say this means a storm is coming, when they travel so far inland. Or maybe it’s the smell that’s drawn them, Room 210. It’s a fact they’ll eat just about anything. I knew a kid once who fed them bread wrapped around fishhooks. The hooks were tied to fifty or so feet of monofilament, which the kid staked into the ground. It was a neat little trick, practically turned those birds inside out. And the sounds they made. My fucking God! It’s like I used to tell Simone: You want nightmares, honey? I’ll give you nightmares.

I SAID I’D take them to the county clerk’s office, so I do. Reggie rides in front with me, and the happy couple slouches in the backseat. It’s good to be away from the motel. The freeway sweeps up out of the Valley and swings us past Hollywood, and the traffic zipping along in all four lanes makes me feel like I’m actually part of something that works. Reggie fiddles with the radio and tunes in an oldies station. “Rockin’ Robin,” stuff like that.

Eightball has the window open. He holds his hand out, palm down, fingers together. The hand banks and swerves like a jet fighter in the air rushing past. “Red Team Leader to Red Team One,” Eightball says, “prepare to engage.” He purses his lips and makes machine gun sounds, tapping his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

Linda watches, irritated, then finally says, “You’re trippin’, boy.” She imitates his make-believe plane, exaggerates it into ridiculousness, until Eightball yanks his hand back inside the car and rolls up the window.

We pass over the four-level interchange where the Hollywood, Harbor, and Pasadena cross, the very one Simone jumped from. It’s the first time I’ve been here since it happened, but, Okay, I think, I can handle this. I keep my foot on the gas and my eyes forward, away from the guardrail. I treat it like any other stretch of road. Simone’s not going to let me off that easy, though. We haven’t gone a hundred yards further when the car begins to shimmy and grind. I manage to pull over to the side of the freeway before it dies completely.