Bud Smith - F 250

“You look like death,” she said sorrowfully.

“I feel worse than that.”

“Heard about your friend. I’m sorry.”

“Sure. Yeah. You didn’t do it though.”

I got up and let her in the back door. I hadn’t seen her in over a week. I led her back to my nest, the couch.

“What happened to Seth?”

“He did too much.”

“Too much…. I lost a friend that way. Rory. It hurts still.”

A fly buzzed around our heads. I didn’t swat it. June opened the window. It left. We sank into the couch.

“He’d won a bunch of money,” I said. “That was that. He got lucky. Imagine that.”

I just sat, unresponsive. She sighed and put her hand on my shoulder. “I was trying to figure out how to get in touch with you. A lot of things happened,” she said. “Me and K broke up. I got on a bus on a whim … but I didn’t make it very far.”

“How far?”

“Atlantic City. Blinking lights and nothing for me.”

“Not your kind of town at all,” I said. “Why’d you break up?”

“We had a fight. Kinda about you. But not your fault. I consider you an innocent party.”

“What a waste of a fight. But you’re back.”

“It was a good fight, I guess. Things came out.”

“Like what?”

“You don’t want to hear about this now …”

“Believe me, I do.”

“I used to lie too much,” she said. “Decided I’m not going to do that anymore.”

“Where’d you decide this?”

“Room 32 of a Holiday Inn. Just the other night. Didn’t sleep. Played all my records till someone knocked on the door and asked me to stop.”

“What kind of lies?”

“I’ve been with boys. I told Karen I hadn’t … ever. I was trying to impress her. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Karen, ha, that’s great.”

“Yes, Karen. K. Anyway, one of the boys I’d like to forget about forever … for bad reasons. The other was Rory. I’d like to forget him for other reasons. Good reasons. You can want to forget people for good reasons too.”

“I’d like my mind erased completely, please.”

“You know I’m stuck on her. I’d do almost anything for her. Maybe that sounds pathetic. You ever like someone that much?”

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

“What’s the nicest thing you ever did for a girl?”

“I drove a girl from Brooklyn to Philadelphia because she didn’t have money for the bus.”

“To get laid.”

“No, not to get laid. But that happened.”

“I told K I’d do something for her, and maybe I want to do it too.”

“Go with your gut.”

She hugged me. I was sweaty and on another planet. I didn’t think to hug back until she’d pulled away. The room was spinning.

“Lee, you look in the mirror anytime lately?”

“There’re no mirrors in that bathroom,” I said, “and I don’t go upstairs anymore. I will dwell in this basement forever.”

“Saw Trish last night at the boardwalk. She said you were here and could use cheering up. I can tell it’s true. So I’m gonna … cut your hair.»

“What logic,” I said.

She opened her purse. This wasn’t a negotiation.

“It’ll be good for both of us,” she reassured me.

In one hand she held a sharp pair of scissors. There was no light, but they were glowing. Then she put a straight razor on the glass table.

“You’ll slit my throat,” I said, ‘cause that’s what people are supposed to say whenever someone is giving an amateur straight razor shave. But I added, “and I don’t care.”

“Fine,” she said. I sat in a chair as she hovered over me with the scissors. Snip. Snip. I felt the scissors close at my ear. Snip. “Do you love K?” she asked.

“Not in the slightest,” I said.

“Then you get to live, fucker.” She laughed. “Take your shirt off.”

I took the shirt off. The hair fell off with it. She sat facing me, trimming my beard with the scissors. It was the oddest thing. She was just hacking it off. No care or concern. Like clipping a hedge that’d be ripped out with a pickup truck afterwards.

“You know what you’re doing?»

“I used to cut my mom’s hair. My dad’s too. They’re gone.”

“Gone. I’m sorry.”

“It’s sad when someone dies, of course. But it confirms what love is.”

“Never knew my dad. And I’m terrified of my mom being dead. I mean, she might be. I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know. If she is, you’d know.”

“She left me.”

“Left you where?”

“With Aldo, when I was twelve.”

“With Aldo? Why?”

“They were serious. Probably gonna get married. They had no business taking care of a kid. One night I got sick and had to go to the hospital. They took me but were too high to be in a hospital. You know what I mean. After that, he got clean … for me. She didn’t like it. She left. Florida. I went looking for her a couple years ago. I had a letter that she sent, eventually, from rehab … handwritten. I kept it in my wallet for a long time.”

“Where is it now?”

“It got destroyed by the ocean. The day I first saw K. I went swimming with it in my pocket. That’s not important. Letters get destroyed.”

“So then Aldo’s like a dad. Your dad.”

“I got through high school somehow, living with him above the bar. That was hard. We ate a lot of cereal together. Ha. Then I drove. First place I drove was to see her. South. South. South. Penis tip of the USA. To the place where the letter came from. But the rehab was gone. It was a strip mall. The rehab place was a place that sold tires. The tire people didn’t have an address for my mom. It’d been over three years since she’d been there. No-one had an address. I didn’t have the balls to contact the state. I mean, where would I start? What state?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Please stop saying that.”

“Okay, but is it any help if I tell you that it’s not any easier knowing where your parents are buried? We could get on a bus or hop in your truck and go look my parents’ graves. I don’t want to do that. I could never go and look. Is that a help? I’m rotten. I’m afraid. It embarrasses me how terrified I am of going to that cemetery. That’s a help, right?”

“It is.”

Before I was aware of it, I was sitting on the lid of the toilet. She was rubbing shaving cream all over my off-kilter beard, which was all different lengths now. Her hands felt soft and alien. They were gentle.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said.

“Like what? Ice cream? Fireworks? New Jersey?”

“K.”

“It’s weird with me and K,” she said.

“Sounds about right,” I said. “It’s always weird. Girl and girl. Boy and girl. Boy and boy. Man and kangaroo. Girl and horse…”

“Girl and horse!” The shaving cream on her hands got all over her own face as she touched it inadvertently.

“Boy and sock.”

“I took philosophy 101 last semester. And just so you know, the universe is always about wanting somebody more than they want you. That’s what the whole universe is about.”

“Been there, done that,” I said.

She put the straight razor against my cheek and said, “She’s never loved anybody. But I don’t blame her.” June drew the blade down, taking away the beard, taking away the shaving cream, taking away my hiding spot. “Probably nobody’s ever loved her.”

“But you,” I said.

She stopped.

“I keep trying. Somebody decapitate me, please.”

The girls were laughing, taking slugs, explaining college life to us.

“My art professors are scary people,” June said.

K explained, “I’m attending Brown to get on the path of world domination.”