Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

We listen to opera on the radio. It’s Friday, and everyone is in a good mood, getting ready for the weekend. The Witch Doctor stops by for the Racing Form . We ask him for a sure thing, but he just laughs at us. My lunch sandwich is especially tasty. “This must be made with love,” I say to Agna behind the counter. She gives me a free refill on my Coke. Walking back across the street to the stand, I have a vision of how normal things could be.

I handle the register while James rearranges everything according to a plan he got out of a trade paper. The automobile section moves to where the do-it-yourself mags were, and they displace hair and beauty. It’s all about guided focal points, he explains. Every month it’s something new. The parking lot attendant comes over, and I point at James so that he knows what’s up. He passes by the porno and buys a Mexican newspaper instead.

After work I go to a movie. It’s something about teachers and high school kids. There’s an actor in it I recognize from the stand. We have his picture over the register. Mostly, though, I watch the other people watch the movie. Lots of guys are there with their cute little girlfriends. I feel like I ought to warn them. The air-conditioning in the theater is cranked up so high I start to shiver, and I have to leave before the big showdown at the prom.

I BUY ONE of those disposable cameras on my day off. Twenty-four exposures.

1. The checkout girl at the drugstore, to see if the flash and everything works. “I have a cold,” she says. “Leave me alone.”

2. A police car speeding past with its lights and sirens on.

3. Pigeons on the steeple of a church.

4. The Hollywood sign, but I think I’m too far away.

5. A Mexican girl pushing a stroller. I tell her I work for a magazine and ask her name. “Maria,” I say, “I’m gonna make you famous.”

6, 7, 8. Two dogs humping in the alley behind Pep Boys.

9. A cactus with red flowers.

10. James at the register.

11. James again, because he says he had his eyes closed in the first one.

12. The parking lot attendant. He asks for a copy for his wife.

13. A stretch limo.

14. The sky.

15, 16, 17, 18. A girl who looks just like Lana. She won’t stop, so I have to walk backward in front of her while snapping the pictures. She tries to grab the camera, and I almost get hit by a bus, running away.

19. Jennifer leaning over the bar to hug Marty.

20. Me and Marty pretending to kiss (taken by Jennifer).

21. My shoe (a mistake).

22. The first car that follows me home.

23. The second.

24. The third, close enough to see the Vietnamese guy behind the wheel.

The clerk at the one-hour photo place claims that the camera was defective and that none of the pictures turned out. Not believing a word of it, I tell him I want them anyway. A while later he hands me an envelope containing twenty-four black prints and twenty-four clear negatives. I spend half the night going over them with a magnifying glass, but nothing reveals itself.

SOMEONE AT THE bar has put a sign-up sheet for a day trip to Catalina on the bulletin board by the restrooms. There are only two names on it, and the deadline is tomorrow. They tried to start a softball team once, too. The mirror in the bathroom, which was broken last time I looked, has been replaced, and a fresh coat of paint covers the piss blisters pocking the metal divider between the urinals.

It’s against the law to smoke in bars anymore, but the management here doesn’t pay any attention. Everybody’s puffing away, which is fucked, because the only time I crave one is when I’m drinking. I rest my forehead on the edge of the bar and stare down at my feet. Where was I last New Year’s Eve? I can’t remember.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep here,” Jennifer says, jabbing my arm with a long, red fingernail.

Any of these people would sell me out in a minute, and my suspicion is that one of them already has. Those gangsters are awfully familiar with my schedule. The door opens, and the setting sun roars in like a wildfire. A figure stands silhouetted on the threshold. Everyone turns to look, squinting and raising their hands to shield their eyes, and I think, When they finally come for me, it will be something like this, but today it’s just Robo, taking his sweet time.

“Hurry up, asshole,” Juanito yells. “All the dark’s getting out.”

“YOU’RE FUCKING WEIRD,” Marty says. I’ve made a whole production out of unveiling my painting for him, the beach scene on the brick wall. I sat him in the recliner and replaced the white bulb in the floor lamp with a blue one for a cool nighttime effect. I fixed him a rum and Coke and made sure everything was perfect before I raised the blinds, and “You’re fucking weird” is what he comes out with, then, “I gotta go.”

He’s drunk and belligerent. They shut off his phone today.

“Wait,” I urge. “Give it a minute. It looks almost real.”

“I gotta go. Lemme use your bathroom.”

Sympathy is like a gift, I know. You’re supposed to give it without expecting anything in return. But this guy owes me, goddammit.

“Did you sell me out, you fucking Judas?” I yell.

I WAKE UP with a headache. The sound of my own footsteps makes me wince. Someone has scrawled WASH ME BITCH and a swastika in the dust on the hood of my car. It’s Lana’s handwriting. I usually stop at AMPM for coffee on the way to work, but today I drive right past, because there’s a gas truck there, filling the underground tanks, and a spark could come from anywhere.

The night guy left a note asking me to restock the candy rack because he didn’t have time. I get the boxes out of the storeroom and square things away between customers. It’s a slow day. Everyone’s eyes are puffy and red, and there’s a haze that won’t lift. This geezer buying Variety and the Reporter tells me it has something to do with the government putting viruses into jet exhaust. The viruses drift down and infect us and make us easier to control. Then the fucker tries to pay me with a counterfeit twenty.

James shows up about noon to spell me for lunch. I can’t get anything down. When I swallow, I feel like I might choke. I sit in my car for a while, listen to the radio. Every song has the word love, fire, or angel in it. The headache is still there. It feels like somebody is kicking the backs of my eyeballs. I pull a rag from under the seat and press it over my mouth before I scream.

“Look, look, look,” James says when I get back. He holds up the new issue of the magazine they were taking pictures for that day.

He opens it, and there’s the stand, the models — Tina and what’s-her-name — but something’s wrong.

“At least you didn’t break the camera,” James says, pointing at the photos.

“That’s not me,” I reply, and I mean it. I’ve never seen that face before.

James ignores me, turning to show a customer. “Free publicity, right?”

The customer punches me in the arm. “Check you out.”

“That’s not me,” I repeat, but they don’t hear. I take a pack of Lucky Strikes from the cigarette display and step out to the curb to smoke. It was silly to quit in the first place, to torture myself like that, when waking up every day is painful enough.

I USED TO pick Lana up when she got off work at Jack in the Box because she hated riding the bus. She’d already wrecked two cars, her mom’s and the Nissan they bought her for graduation. We disagreed about what color things were, smells. I heard her tell a friend that I was a pervert. That’s what kind of bitch she could be.

I would have cut myself for her. I would have eaten shit. When she stopped answering the phone, I lost hope. The plans we’d made didn’t mean anything. I finally tracked her down, but whoever brainwashed her did a fantastic job. “Get over it,” she said. Suddenly I was the enemy. Her parents, the police. I backed off, but that wasn’t enough. She had to get vicious, with the gangsters and all.