Chicken (14 page)

 

E
ASTER MORNING
I wake up with my head full of chain saws and out-of-tune violins, while my dead brain cells are getting a twenty-one-gun salute. My hovel has never looked so squalid. I have no memory of Saturday night after a tequila-drinking contest with a red bloated ex-sailor who had a tattoo of Popeye on his forearm he could make dance by wiggling his muscles. The drunker we got, the funnier Popeye danced.

Thank God my motorcycle helmet is on the floor near my bed. Thank God my head's not in the helmet, rolling down an off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway.

I try to get up. Big mistake. Whole new levels of pain bells ring in my head, my chest, and all the way down to the balls of my feet. The effort overwhelms me, and I land back on the too-thin mattress that barely functions as my bed.

I manage to drag myself into the all-fours position, and pause here for quite some time, although time is particularly relative now, agony extending seconds like dripping hungover stopwatches. I'm exhausted and I haven't been awake five minutes.

Easter. Kristy. What time is it? Shit. I look for my miserable little clock, but I can't find it, and it hurts too much to keep looking.

Ever since the orgy I've felt compelled to hang at Immaculate Heart College playing Frisbee and Ping-Pong with people I don't even like just so I can be with other kids my age who aren't sex technicians. So Easter with Kristy's parents looms ahead like Mecca just past the Valley of Death, hope and longing lurking skittishly with the dread that they'll see me for the whore I am. And I've already created a waking nightmare for myself by sheepdipping my head in cheap liquor last night.

The phone rings. My first impulse is that it's Kristy, and I'm late. I'm supposed to be at her house at noon, and God knows what time it is. I rush, or try to get somewhere near the speed of rush, through the cold oatmeal I seem to be stuck in, still fully dressed in last night's alcohol-drenched nicotine-stenched clothing. Arid and parched, I cross the vast expense of livingroom desert and throbbingly grab the phone.

‘Hooo-ie, how you doin', bay-bay?'

It's Sunny. Of course. Who else would it be?

‘I'm good, man, what time is it?' Sour's in my mouth, I need to pee and possibly shit. And shower. Soon.

‘“Leven,” Sunny coos.

I breathe easier. Got a little time.

‘How you doin'?' manages to mutter out of me.

‘Cool as a cucumber up a Eskimo's asshole.'

I chuckle. Big mistake, as a cranial ache pulsates.

‘Par-ty, bay-bay! Ah got me a new bonnet with awll the frills upon it, an' Ah'll be the finest fay-ree in the Easter Parade!'

I hear the drums beating the call of the wild.

My mom hurricanes around the house, fixing her huge bouffanty frosted helmethead, roasting beef, making tetties and Yorkshire puddings, preparing my brother and sister for presentation, straightening the house.

As a four-year-old I remember thinking how strange that is. To straighten the house. I see our crooked, crippled house, and my mother desperately trying to straighten it.

My mom's all sweetness and light as my dad gets home from work and we sit down for dinner. We say the grace we always say:

‘God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food.'

I'm bothered by the fact that ‘good' and ‘food' don't rhyme.

‘Thanks, man, but I got a date.' I'm firm in my hungover resolve to choose life.

‘Ohhhh, you gotchoo some nice coed pussy – well, ain't that sweet? Bring 'er awn over.' Sunny coos.

Kristy, these are my wacky child-prostitute friends. Cruella, say hello to my lady.

‘Naw, I don't think so.' I'm firm.

‘Well, hell, cum awn by when you done gittin' pussy-whupped, and you can have some of my chocolate aiggs.' Sunny almost makes you believe life really is a cabaret.

‘In your dreams, baby.'

‘They'z gonna be some Easter bunnies with some tight li'l baskets for your ass,' Sunny hisses hypnotically.

Visions of 3-D overflowing with freaks and friends and a sweet baby for me dance like sugarplum fairies in the pin of my head.

Now wait a minute, hold on one goddam second here, you are not jumping down that hole. Barbecue, watermelon, cornonthecob, Mom, Dad, Dog, Sis, Kristy's Easter Sunday, end of discussion, case closed.

This is your ticket out of all the shit, boy.

‘Thanks, man, but I, you know, got this thing I gotta do …' That's as firm as it gets for me right now.

‘Aw-ite, but just in case you change your mind, Ah'll keep a bunny warm for ya. Oh, an' Ah got a real nice job for you Mundee night – easy money, boy, five hunnert. An awll you gotta do is act natch-ally.'

Sunny's the master carrot dangler.

I start to turn the job down. The words from in my brain and travel all the way to my mouth. I just can't get them to come out.

‘You hear me, boy?'

This is not the response Sunny wants.

‘Yeah, absolutely. My roommate was just talkin' to me –
Yeah,
I'll take care of that
– uh, sure, job Monday, that's cool, five hundred, yeah …' I'm shaky, I can hear I am.

‘You aw-ite, boy? Somethin' botherin' you?' Sunny sounds like a fight doctor whose prizefighter has just taken a shot to the head.

‘No, I'm cool,' I lie. Ever since the Judge I've been snappish, brittled, fraying, ready to bite someone's head off. Not cool at all.

‘An' Ah almost forgot, that goil Jade's gonna be here tonight, she told me she like to git together whichew.' Sunny knows where every button is, and he's pushing them all.

Jade invades my brain and I feel her in my belly. Jade in a slinky kinky dress, with those sleepy almond eyes dancing to the music in her head.

No. You're going to Kristy's parents', you're going to be the perfect boyfriend, and I don't wanna hear one more word about it.

‘Tell her to give me a call.'

I'm proud I could say no.

‘Aw-ite, well, good luck, boy, you gonna need it. An' remember, when you git tired of awll that prissy pussy, you come awn down, and we tighten your wig for ya.'

Sunny chuckles. Then he's gone.

Something's off at the dinner table. Way off. Even as a four-year-old I can see that. My mom's pissed my dad off, and there's an edgy terror to everything. He's not speaking to her. He babbles on about how much wind he broke at work, but not a word to my mother.

Not one word. Not a nod or a wink. Nothing.

My mom wrings her hands and itches the psoriasis breaking out in red patches of anger on her elbows and scalp.

My head hurts worse when I hang up the phone. Who am I kidding? Kristy's folks are gonna take one look at me and give me the bum's rush. I'm going to Sunny's.

No. Stop. Get in the shower, get your shit together, walk out
the door, get on the bike, go over to Kristy's parents' house, and nicely be her Easter boy.

But as I shower and dress in my blue button-up shirt and my green corduroys, I can't get around the fact that getting dolled up and acting normal for Kristy and her folks sounds like dental surgery. Her parents are probably uptight prigs. Hey, I don't have to perform like some trained monkey for Kristy and her dumbass daddy and mommy.

Whereas if I go to Sunny's I can just be a whore.

And Jade is gonna be there. Jade asked about me.

There are moments in all our lives when we're faced with choices that make us who we will become. This is now for me.

Kristy vs. Sunny.

But first, before I choose anything, I must have a nervous breakdown. And to do this I need something to focus all my fury on.

My keys.

My dad doesn't speak to my mom for three weeks. Just cuts her off cold. Breakfast, dinner, weekends. Will not speak to her.

The message is clear. This is what a husband does when he's mad at his wife: deepfreeze her.

The reason my dad wouldn't speak to my mom for three weeks, I found out recently, was that she'd had a washing-machine accident and flooded the basement, causing some water damage.

Where are my keys?

‘Does Braddy love Mommy?'

Flabby Judge wobbles in grotesque rapture.

Tinkerbell floats away forever.

Change the record, Cheesehead.

It's getting so I can't find a happy record with a beat you can
dance to. All my records seem to be soundtracks to my personal horror movies.

I look in the mirror and a harrowed haunted teenager looks back at me. I'm my own portrait of Dorian Gray, and my sins stare me right in the face.

I can do this. Go to Kristy's. Get myself out of this nasty life. Maybe her Old Man can get me a job. Move in with her. Yeah, that's a good thought to hold on to.

Now all I have to do is find my keys.

In the pocket of my blue-jean jacket, there are no keys. The old roadkill door I found and transformed into a desk by propping it up on plastic milk crates is so overflowing with detritus I can't even see any tabletopdoor: pens stolen from banks with the chains still attached; little bits of paper with names, numbers, song lyrics, philosophical treatises, rants and raves; a left-over cake container and a dead pint of ice cream; soiled coins, dark wadded dollar bills; a pair of glasses with eyeballs attached to slinkies that shake around and wobble when you put them on and move your head.

But no keys. Shit. I always leave my keys here. This is where I leave my keys. Damn. Look at all this pitiful useless shit. This is my life?

Stop. Where was the last place I saw the keys? Actually, I have no memory of my keys. Do I even have keys?

Stop. Keys. A pair of shorts on the floor. Maybe they're in there. Loose change, pack of matches, Tootsie Pop.

No keys. Shit!

In the living room I look on the Salvation Army foldable card table, and in plastic milk crates that are doing time as end tables.

No keys.

Into the bathroom. Maybe I swallowed them and they came out when I took a shit.

No keys.

Not in the shower. Not on the floor. Not under the rug.

Into the kitchen. Where are my keys? Keys, keys, keys. Not on the floor. Not in the sink. Under the sink? Who knows, I was stone
drunk, it's possible. I bend down, open the cabinets, and poke my head into the dark under there, soaking in the Clorox ammonia potpourri.

No keys.

I back out.

Bam!
My head hits the sink with a thick thud.

Motherbitchdickfacebastardpussyassshit!!!

The head was just starting to feel normal after being in the Battle of the Bulge all morning, but the hurt bounces around inside now like a pinball of pain—

TILT! TILT! TILT!

I'm a hopping madman holding my throbbing skull. I punch the kitchen wall with my fist. I expect to break a hole in it with my fury, but it doesn't give at all, and a whole new pain takes a bite out of my knuckles, cranking up the volume knob in my head. The hurt humps its way up my arm and into my spine before it rattles down into my ass.

‘Sonofadogsuckingdickwadbitch!!!'

Totally out of my mind, I smashmouth off the walls down the hall, pissed-off radiating out of me like plutonium.

Where are my goddam keys?

Suddenly I'm back in my hovel, picking up fistfuls of desktop crap and flinging them against my stained rug walls as hard as I can, scattering my worthless crap to the four corners of my miserable little universe.

Splat! Splatter! Whack!

Then I pick up my shitty granddad roadkill chair, raise it over my head, and smash it down as hard as I can. It hits the floor with a satisfying crack, and explodes, transforming instantly into kindling.

It's unclear how smashing my chair was going to help me find my keys, but at the time it seems like exactly the right thing to do. Plus it feels so good.

I pick up the doortabletop, hold it over my head, and ram it hard into a hanging mirror, and oh, man, that bastard shatters into a million jagged sharp shards that rain down like confetti in hell.

The smashed glass makes me take a step back. I take it all in. My little hellhole looks like it threw itself on a grenade to save the rest of the platoon. When I get my breath back I collapse onto my nasty slagheap mattress, horrified and impressed, a postcoital wrungout calm balming over me.

Hey, maybe I should have a wee little nap.

Then I'm asleep.

I wake up floating in the debris of my life. The thought of even calling Kristy now makes me shrivel like a spider on a hot plate, and in one swift instant I dismiss the thought.

When I realize I no longer have to go to Kristy's, my head clears like the midday fog off the Golden Gate Bridge, revealing a beauty of a bluesky day, and I have a burst of energy as my hangover vacates the premises.

I straighten and organize my room slowly, reconstructing my deconstructed self by bringing order to the chaos that is my room.

When I'm done I fondle my cash stash like a long-lost lover. Maybe I should ask Sunny if he wants to go in together, get a nice place, start a serious business where we can make the Really Big Money, have a nice room of my own, fix it up, help get Jade out of the junk jungle, and be one big happy family.

I can see it so clearly.

I've done something bad. I can't now remember what it was, but it was bad. My father grips the steering wheel of the van, his gnarly knuckles snow white, jaw sprung shut like a bear trap.