Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

A stranger listens to my troubles. Antonio Alfredo Blah Blah Blah. Not to worry, he says, I can sleep in his toolshed. We seal the deal with decent tequila, but he’s nowhere to be found at closing time.

I spend the rest of the night cradling my TV in the doorway of a beauty supply store. The rain is still coming down. There’s thunder and lightning, and big black bugs emerge from the cracks in the sidewalk and scurry for dry ground. Even with all the booze in me, I can’t sleep. Right before dawn I see bats circling the streetlights.

I’m waiting for the bartender when he opens at six. The first drink warms me up, the second makes me puke. By noon I have just enough money left for bus fare and a phone call to Riverside. “Mom,” I say — the receiver shakes — “I’m coming for a visit.” I change my shirt in the bathroom, and the bartender treats me to one for the road. I’m teetering, I’m teetering, I fall.

I’M NOT GOING to fight the old fights this time. We’re a family; that’s all there is to it. It takes her a while to unlock the door. Her hands are hurting her again. I had a key, but I lost it. She hugs me around the neck, trying to smell my breath.

“You know the rule,” she says. “Not in my house.”

What did she do to her hair? Something funny. “It looks good,” I tell her. She’s put clean sheets on one of the beds, but my brother’s high school golf trophies are frosted with cobwebs. He and I shared this room forever. Mom hasn’t changed anything. It’s as if we died, and she’s honoring our memories.

I open a drawer filled with comic books, grab a few, and sit at the desk where I did my homework and built model cars. I swore it wouldn’t happen, but here I am again. My mouth is dry, my head throbs. The first twenty-four hours will be the worst. It takes time to get used to having a body again. I turn the pages. The Incredible Hulk bounds across the desert, covering miles with each leap, a soaring green cannonball.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS place makes me sick. It struck me when I was twelve, and from then on I was miserable. I don’t know what it was — the dust, the crowded church parking lots, the way any kind of decent plan fell apart. The one teacher I could stand in high school said that everybody hated their hometown when they were my age and that I’d grow out of it. But not me. Never. I left for the first time at seventeen, and I left running.

Hollywood, baby. I slept on the floor of a guy who had moved from Riverside a year earlier to start a band. He got me a job busing tables at the restaurant where he worked, and within a month they made me a server. I blew my tips on beer and ecstasy and dated a rich girl who lived in the Hills.

It’s hard to recall how happy I was. I don’t let myself get that excited anymore. Everyone I knew was on the verge of something big. And me, too — why not? You could see it in the double takes we got when we walked into the clubs. “It’s you,” said the music. “It’s you,” said the lights. “It’s you.”

MOM MAKES ME lunch. Tomato soup, grilled cheese, and a tall glass of milk. She washes dishes while I eat. The TV is blaring in the living room, one of those court shows people love so much. Mom’s robe is pink silk. Her toenails are pink, too. She keeps herself up, that’s what everyone says. I think she’s sixty, sixty-one. My brain can’t do the math right now. She was a schoolteacher for thirty years.

“So, the whole world’s against you, huh?” she says.

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“How do you look at it?”

“That way. Sometimes.”

Mom laughs, but if she wants trouble, she’s out of luck. I’m fading fast. I count the crumbs on the table, gathering them with a moistened fingertip. My headache has sharp spines that gouge me when I swallow. The tile is cracked, the wallpaper moldy. Mom spends all her money on clothes.

“Tell me again how it’s not your fault you were evicted,” she says.

I can’t even hear her. I’m too busy trying to keep my food down. She’s not being cruel; she thinks she’s funny. All her friends tell her she’s funny. All those friends of hers. She wasn’t around much when we were growing up. I feel so heavy, I have to use both hands on the tabletop to lift myself off the chair.

THE SHEETS BURN. I curl my fingers and toes, and my breath roars in and out. The shadows of the trees outside stroke the ceiling. I put all my faith in them. It’s not right for a grown man to be back in the bed that he wet until he was ten. Part of me wants to work on a plan, but the rest of me shuts down and bows again to the leafy shadows. We need sleep. A bird sings, and the sun slides lower in the sky. I’m losing another day.

I LOADED TRUCKS, I tended bar. I got my head shots done. Nothing happened the first year or the year after, but I still believed. People gave up and moved away, and new people arrived to replace them. There was always someone hopeful to talk to. “You’re dreaming,” Mom would say when I called, but what was wrong with that? It was a good life for a young man. The big thing wasn’t money, the big thing wasn’t cars or clothes.

And then — wow! One of the regulars at the club I was working at in those days was a half-assed agent named Rusty, who was always mouthing off about who he knew. I finally got fed up and said, “Rusty, you’re so full of shit. Why don’t you send me out on some auditions?” He did, and I got the second thing I was up for, two lines in a straight-to-video quickie.

We shot on the patio of a mansion in Malibu. The guy playing our boss paced back and forth, reminding us of the insults, the lies. He wanted us to make things right. He wanted us to go to war for him. “Can I trust you, Frankie?” he asked. “Absolutely, Vito,” I replied. The lights were hot on my face. The camera dollied toward me, and the assistant director pointed. “It would be an honor to die in your service,” I said. One take. One. The other actors said I was a natural. They had all been on TV and drove new cars. I felt like I’d finally turned a corner.

The glow lasted months. I took acting classes and went on dozens of calls. I spent hours at the gym — me and everyone else. Nothing came of it. Then Rusty went to jail, and I couldn’t get another agent to see me. Extra work didn’t pay the bills. I began to doubt myself, which is deadly in that business.

HULK IS IN love with a shapely green girl who’s just as strong as he is. Together, they defeat the bad guy. I’m missing the next issue, but in the one after that the green girl is dead, and Hulk is alone again. Mom busts in and whips open the curtains and the window. She wrinkles her nose at the smell. I’ve been lying here for days, but I think I’m over the hump now.

“I need help with the groceries,” Mom says.

It’s windy outside. Fallen leaves school like fish in the street, following each other from gutter to gutter. The mailman passes by, keys jingling. I carry the bags into the kitchen. Mom’s on the porch, all bundled up in a hat and scarf. She smiles at the bare trees.

“The most beautiful time of year,” she says.

We’re deep into fall. Nights are cold, and everything that dies is dead. I’m a summer man, myself.

SpaghettiOs, bologna, pot pies — all my childhood favorites. Mom’s proud that she remembered, but I haven’t eaten this shit in years. We put it all away, then watch TV. There’s a car chase on every channel. The driver makes a big loop, the police right on his tail, from the Hollywood to the Harbor to the Century to the San Diego. People crowd the overpasses to cheer him on. He waves and honks his horn. Mom and I split a box of macaroni and cheese.

“Your dad used to do that, the way you chew with your hand over your mouth. Do you remember?” she says.