Boys of Life (31 page)

I couldn't stand the thought of going in that trailer. "We've got to be pushing on," I explained. Though Monica went inside—she had to use the bathroom.

"Disgusting," she reported when we were back in the car. "Worse than a Texaco station."

I told her I didn't want to hear about it.

"Well, at least I got to see where you grew up," she said. "I never believed lr when you said you lived in a house trailer. Are you upser your mom wasn't there?"

I didn't tell her I was relieved.

□ PAUL RUSSELL

"Donald Nolan," he introduced himself that first time. He shook my hand. "You can call me Don," he said.

I wanted to say, "Well you can call me Tony," but I didn't.

"Billboards," he told me when we'd settled into those big white armchairs and Monica's mom had served both of us mugs of beer on B tray. Don was in the middle of this big fight—in fact, the whole five years I knew him he was in the middle of this right to keep his billboards.

"They don't know it, but we're doing this city a service." he explained to me. I was trying hard to be polite, but I also kept yawning away in spite of myself. I'm sure he noticed, but I think he was used to people yawning when he talked to them. "We're getting products out there so people can see them. That's what you've got to <\o. People don't know about it, it don't sell. It's simple as that. You got to tell 'em about it if you're gonna distribute the merchandise."

For an instant I thought about what Carlos would've said it he'd been sitting there in that white living room. But it'd only have been something rude. He'd have started talking about dildoes or race riots

>mething. I put Carlos out ot my head. Anyway, he'd arranged his

whole lite so he'd never have to Sit in a white living room and talk to iebody'fl parents.

Then I thought — that's where he's wrung, that's where he's miss

ing out. Sometimes Carlos seemed like the most depressingly selfish person in the world, not to be able to lit in a living room and listen i parents talk about whatever they wanted to talk about

I could m good job of pushing him out ot m\ head in

u was .i skill I'd developed.

a Memphis," Mr. Nolan told me, "Memphis is the disttihu

r.il oi America. I oca oi products go through here on theii wv\ else. I Hd you know that?"

I didn't

"And so u poet hand in hand tribution, adh Vou

t tell me .i tew si ruin this city, ["his to America, ■

h the Intel ild hardli

ill the hillho.u

he s.iul, "I'm nm iiM .»ui tin profit You (an ii

immunity I Ins List c hrtotmas, foi example, I put • he holl

n the h« i I while tl

D

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Brinu hack memories of old-time Christmases. Now who's going to complain about that? And tor Fourth of July 1 pur up this beautiful sign with a flag, to make people proud ahour being Americans. I'd say you've got to be pretty much oi a spoilsport nor to like a billboard with a tlag." There was a picture of Monica's brother, Gary, on the little table

next to mv armchair. He had those same high cheekhones like Monica, bur his hair was darker and his lips fuller— they were almost poury they were so hill. He was sort of a great-looking kid, in his way, and now he was dcA^l. I tried to fathom all that, while Monica's dad talked on about billboards, but I couldn't.

1 could hear Monica and her mother talking away in the kitchen, and I wondered what they were talking about. I had this fantasy Monica was .iskinu her mother about sex, whether there was more to it than what she and I managed to do. I had this fantasy her mother was telling her to get me to put it up her butt sometime for a change.

"There's lots of future to this business," Don was saying. "We could get you in at the bottom. Work yourself up."

"I appreciate that," I told him. "I'll think about it. Let me take some time to think."

I knew immediately there was no way I was going to work for Monica's dad.

"Well," Don said when Monica and her mother had finished their little talk in the kitchen. I think he was pretty relieved for our conversation to be over. They never liked me all that much, Monica's parents. They were just glad to have their little girl back in Memphis, and it I was what it took to get her back there, then they were ^oin^ to be grateful to me.

u think about it," Don told me. "Son, it was awfully nice to meet you." He shook my hand like I'd passed some kind oi test.

"Nice to meet you too, Hon," I told him. I guess I emphasized the "Don" a little more than I should have, because Monica gave me this little warning glance. Even though she wasn't crazy about her par-she always thought I was making fun of her if I made fun of them, so I pretty much had to toe the line. I dearly wanted to have called him "Mr. Nolan" just to see what kind of distance rhar would've put between us. But Monica had said it they liked me. they'd probably help us our. 1 guess I've always wanted people to like me, which is probablv mv downfall.

Actually, I have to say this about Monica. Even though she didn't think she liked bet parents verv much, really she liked them a lot. She

□ PAUL RUSSELL

spent all her time trying to make them happy, which I guess is a good thing to do if you don't have anything else. They'd had a hard time of it. Monica told me her dad was never the same since Gary died. He got the skitters, was what she said—meaning everything had been going along just tine, and then his life had hit this patch oi ice and went into a tailspin. He'd never gotten over that. He kept waiting for another patch, and no matter how long he went without hitting another, or how many billboards he put up, you could see he wasn't ever going to get his confidence back.

Monica's mom had her problems too. She was one of those teetotallers who'd have been a better person if she drank, but she wouldn't because she was terrified of becoming an alcoholic. She was forever telling Monica how, if you were a latent alcoholic, even one sip of liquor would have you hooked, so you'd better not risk it. Beer she thought was okay—she didn't drink it herself, but Don did, and she'd serve it to him without making a fuss. Anything stronger, though, she completely disapproved of. Which I always thought was something of a hoot, since Monica once told me her mom couldn't sleep at night without her dose oi this stuff called Nyquil. I don't know whether vou know about Nyquil—it was something I was acquainted with in Owen, when I'd buy it at the drugstore it 1 couldn't get anything else to drink: if you look at the label, you'll see it's basically straight alcohol with a little cough medicine mixed in. 1 can tell vou, u'^ pretty potent iti ir even comes with this plastic top that's like a shotglass, which 1 guess showi mewhere has a sense oi humor.

Maybe I should've gotten a job in billboards and been some son that family, bur 1 didn't. Instead I got this |ob working ailed Mad |oe's. You might've thought its name tneai but it just meant he was mad as m angn

mgr) tli< nist bad mood angn l^ 1 " that

I could live around M.ul |oe's being mad. I've always I

.thlt mi. .m.itu pilot and ,in\

there's not much t' 1 selling a not like* hustling kids at Port

It u.is amazing ho* quickly I put that whole Port Authority thing hole life nt iltua

i and d Pve always |ust put them

• ilent 11 hi .i while •

his and work shin baseh.ill id. and I'd catch myself siting him

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up, thinking how Carlos would really go tor that one. Rut I felt ashamed

when I did that. I told myself, you've put .ill that behind you now.

You've closed that door.

Monica always called sex "the wild thing," and I think tor her it really was the wild thing. That depressed me. It only she knew about the really wild things. But I never told her about any ot the wild things

I'd done. Maybe I hinted I'd had to do a little hustling when 1 first got to the City, hut she wasn't too shocked by that. She knew how guys

could get taken advantage ot -it was one ot the thmus she had against

New York, all those queers out hustling kids who didn't know any hetter. She had her own set ot Standards, and I'm positive she never

involved in any stufl like that. She told me Matt from Valve Lash was the only guy she was involved with in New York, and all thev did was tool around. Whatever that means. I think whatever 1 might've told her about myself—it was way hack when we were hrst getting to know each other—she just totally put out of her head and forgot. Which was something she was always good at, especially when it didn't fit into her stor\ ot things.

1 don't think we were ever very good at the wild thing together—

I'd teel sorrv tor anybody who thought we were. Though Monica never

seemed to notice how had it was; or it she did, she never let on. "You're

:nver," she used to sav to me all the time, which I always

thought was meant to he some kind of compliment.

The only nights it was ever any good between us was when I'd take a bottle out to Tom Lee Park after work, and sit on the bluffs and think about stuff. I mentioned this earlier. I never wanted to he with anybody when I drank, I just wanted to he .done to practice that old

cise Carlos told me about the very tirst day we ever met: "Try to think hack farther and farther and see if you can follow one single

thought .ill the way hack to its beginning.' 1 He was right, too—1 could

learn all thing! lust hv doing th.it one thing. I'd Stay out there

a long time, sometimes till two or three in the morning.

I was always honest with Monica and told her ahout the river bluff— that I went out there to think—hut I don't think she ever quite believed me. I think part ot her WCHlld've almost preferred me to he trinL' on her with some other woman—at least that'd he something she could understand. Rut sitting with a bottle *'t whisky and just think-inu ahout tin frightening f<> her. She just didn't know where

that sort of thinn miyht end up taking me. I think somewhere dvcp m she knew that even though tO everybody else if looked like she

□ PAUL RUSSELL

had me, she really didn't have me at all. She could never put her finger on what it was—and I never gave her any clues, because whether she had me or not didn't really seem to me to make much difference, since I was there with her anyway.

Gradually we fell into this joke about an imaginary woman I was having this affair with. It was less scary than thinking about the river bluff—maybe for both of us. My woman was a waitress at a barbeque joint, she was forty-five years old and chain-smoked—Monica claimed she could smell it on me when I came in. She had three children, and a husband who was a truck driver, and we'd check into the Alamo Plaza motel to do our version of the wild thing. When I think about it, the whole thing was a little weird. We'd go on and on about this woman—Monica had decided her name was Velma, and I think in some way we both knew exactly what we were doing, and how we could get in some kind ot high spirits making things up about her but underneath all that there was something else, some kind of (right.

Monica didn't play her guitar much anymore—only when she was waiting up for me. That night at CBGB's was the hi^h point ot her music career, and once we were back in Memphis she gave up on her ambitions—I guess those songs she wrote me back in New York did her in, and once the music was used up inside her, th.it was it. It wasn't >.'inething we ever talked about. When I think about it now, 1 realize we never talked about much ot anything. We JUSI kept railing into one pattern after another, sort oi like the wav we tell in with each other from the Mart. She'd spend Thursday evening and .ill day Sunday M her parents' house, or fthe'd go OUl to the malls with this mousey high

ol friend oi hers, Lisa, who I couldn't itand to be around; I'd jd

home from work and, especially it I 1st wai there, which ihe was i lot,

,f to the shed to m mv hand at .1 little carpentry, 01 it 1 u.»s

reall ed I'd ail on my workbench and (erfc ofl and watch how

mv '.dust on the Boor. And then there were the

md find myself In I om I ee Park mil' flu- rivei roll In,

Usually Monii 1 had fallen asleep on 'he- A linsi

eat oi the 1 I 1 would In- In hei lap, and fbui 01 fivi

hcsidc i he door would Wake her. s he could

iwim •• a ■\\r\ suit 1 smile and W) In this bi

it with S'«ui i;u I .1

lit I lure was D 240

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no resisting her. We broke one of the motel beds and had to pick ourselves up and move over to the other one."

She'd shake her head. "Men," she'd say.

"Women," I'd tell her.

1 guess it was some way o( reminding ourselves of something. She'd grab mv leg and wrestle me down to the floor, which I always kind of liked —I'd let myself go down without much oi a fight, and we'd tussle there on the rug in tront ot the sofa, giggling like little kids because we were both drunk—we'd both gotten drunk in our own separate ways so this sort ot thing could have a chance to happen, and she knew that as much as I did. We'd wrestle each other out of our clothes, and by that time I'd have a walloping hard-on—which was something I had a little trouble some of the time finding my way to with Monica. Those were about the only nights the wild thing got halfway wild, and I guess for Monica it was often enough to keep her going.

I have to admit I used to feel this tremendous relief when I got back home those nights, like there was something I'd just barely escaped. I'd cling to Monica for dear life, this totally crazy fear that I was being swept down the Mississippi River and hanging on tight to one of those tree trunks I'd sometimes see slamming along out in the current, their roots looking like they'd been torn right up from the ground in some terrible flood somewhere.

i

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urdays going to yard sales. Personally, 1 can't think of anything more depressing—] hated seeing all some family's junk piled up tor sale in their front yard. It you don't want it, just throw it away, I always thought. There was something indecent about going and selling it. Maybe that sounds strange tor somebody like me to say, but it's

what I always felt. I'd take one look at those old books and records, and clothes, and toys, and a lamp or a bookcase—and I'd feel like I knew way too much about the people who owned them. I didn't like knowing so much about total strangers. And 1 didn't like bringing their lives into our apartment, which is what I telt like was happening every time we bought another coffee table orr ot somebody's front lawn.