Mad Boys (6 page)

“Father,” I said, “you’re over thirty.”

He hit me with the flat of his hand, and my nose started to bleed. But I didn’t care. I just wiped the blood on my pants. A couple minutes went by when neither one of us said anything, and then Father said, “Let’s go,” and we got into the truck and went. We were out of Keene, on Route 12 headed home when I decided to find out everything else I could about my mother. What could he do but hit me again?

“Do you know where she is?” I said.

Father reached down into his crotch, where he kept a 16-ounce beer bottle as he drove, and took a drink. He put the bottle back and said, “Who?” I could tell he was still mad after hitting me, mad at me for making him mad at himself.

“You know who. My mother,” I said.

Father laughed. “I was a little out of my head at the time of your disappearance, actually a lot out of my head, so I can’t tell you exactly what’s what. But I know where you can find out. There’s a remnant commune, actually a cult. They called themselves Children of the Cacti in the desert town of Sorrows, New Mexico. They were into the Dead and entertainment, but nothing political. They wouldn’t have anything to do with a revolutionary like me. Maybe she’s still with them.”

“I’d like to find her,” I said.

“Why? She doesn’t want to find you.”

“How do you know?”

Father gave me a dirty look. “Would you like me to crack you across the head?”

“No, Father.”

“Then show a little respect.” His beer was almost empty.

“Okay, Father. I respect you,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. “What was her first name? She had a first name, didn’t she?”

“Not really. She was christened with a name, but she gave it up. We rejected everything that was part of the system in those days. Like the name they gave you.”

“What did you call each other?”

“I called her Woman.”

“What did she call you?”

“She called me Man. Whoever we were with at the time, we called The People. Everyone else we called ‘them’ or ‘the system.’
”

“Then you must have called me Boy.”

“Uh, that’s right,” Father said, but I could tell by the way he looked away from me that he was hiding something.

“What did she call me? Tell me the truth,” I yelled; I didn’t care if he hit me or not.

“It.”

I didn’t understand. “What?” I said.

“That was what she called you. She’d say, ‘It’s hungry.’ Or ‘it’s got a dirty diaper.’ Had enough truth for today?”

“Yes, Father.”

The next day I was working in our woods behind our school bus home, cutting some maple saplings. They’d grown up and shaded part of Father’s marijuana patch. It was awkward to cut such small stuff with a chain saw, so he sent me out to do the work with the bow saw. It’s a wonderful tool for cutting skinny wood and totally useless for fat wood. I liked it. It was quiet and simple.

Father was gone, having driven into town for “supplies.” Translation: booze. I had etched a mark on my saw to measure each piece sixteen inches long for our wood stove. I would cut enough pieces to fill a fabric wood carrier and then I’d bring the load to our “woodshed.” Translation: plastic over a pole lean-to. After five or six hours, I was tired but content from my labors. I was a little worried that Father hadn’t returned. The longer he was away, the drunker he’d be when he got back.

I decided to take a break, sit on the big maple trunk and feel the sunshine. I bushwhacked through saplings so when I came upon the carcass of the fallen tree it was all of a sudden. Side-saddle on the butt log, in the light, was Langdon, my guardian angel. The colors in his suit were like concentrated wild flowers.

He smiled at me, and held out his hands. As Nurse Wilder had taught me, I knelt on both knees in front of him on the hard, frozen ground.

“I’m with you all the time, even when you can’t see me.” Langdon’s words didn’t come through the air, but were spoken directly into my mind.

“God sent you to take care of me,” I said.

“Not exactly. I’m not even real in the way people think of as real. I’m just part of your mind. I have been sent by the Alien. I can only do so much here on Xi.”

“Xi?”

“Yes, Xi. You call this planet Earth. We call it Xi.”

“Like the name I made up, Xiphi.”

“Exactly. Xi, roughly translated, means strife.”

“Can’t God fix it?”

“Of course, but God does not interfere, because except in the most unusual of circumstances he refuses to override the free-will rule. The Alien who captured you and doctored you was trying to find a way of bringing Xi back into the communion of planets. That is why he studied you for five years.”

“I see,” I said.

Langdon verified my observations about God and the three persons within Him/Her/Them. God had a body somewhat like a human being, but with three heads. God the Father-head had a beard, and looked like a cleaned up Dirty Joe; God the son-head was a boy, just like me only without the nicotine vice and without fear; God the Holy Ghost-head was just what you’d expect, white-sheeted, eyeless, noseless, mouthless, faceless. I didn’t say anything to Langdon, but I knew that the Holy Ghost was really the female part of God. I knew that to fill in the features of that blank face I had to find my own mother.

I told Langdon that I didn’t have the feeling that a boy is supposed to have about the facts of life.

“That’s because you’re part angel,” Langdon said. “People have to do it to create more people, but angels don’t make more angels. Angels just are.”

“I see,” I said, but actually I didn’t see. Finally, I got the courage up to ask Langdon about what was really on my mind.

“Where is my mother?” I whispered.

“It has not been revealed to me.”

“I don’t believe you. Where is she?” I trembled as I spoke. I was suddenly aware of the forest, encircling me.

“The reason Xi exists is . . . the being. . . .”

A new presence. The Director, my first demon, dropped down out of a tree, fell, picked himself up, brushed off his hump, and then said to Langdon, “Cut! Cut! You got the line wrong. It’s too early for that.”

And the forest was silent. No birds sang, no branches clacked in the wind, no car tires whined on distant highways. I bowed my head so low that I could smell the ground, raw mung of dirty ice. When I looked up, no Langdon, no Director. I didn’t know any more now about my mother than before.

BURGLARS

The winter dragged on, and finances started to get tight. At first I was a little confused, because the firewood business was fairly steady and we didn’t need much money. Most of the meat we ate was available from the forest. There was no rent to pay for our housing. Beer was cheap in New Hampshire, and Father’s supply of home-grown marijuana would last well into the flowering of the next crop. The only major household expense we had was the upkeep on the truck. Eventually I figured out that what drained the budget was that Father had discovered a new drug, cocaine. Suddenly there was never enough money around. Father wouldn’t buy me new mittens—I had to get them from the Salvation Army. Father made do with an old chain on his saw, until there was no metal left to sharpen. We drove the truck on a bad tire until, worn to canvas, it just popped. Any income we had coming in just disappeared, down his throat and up his nose. Father had moments when he believed I was trying to kill him. He’d beat me, realize his own madness, and break down and cry. I would bring him a beer, and that would calm him down. Father said we were both hopeless cases, and I was inclined to agree with him.

Things took a turn for the better one day in early March. It had been a cold night, but during the day the sun was strong and the temperature had inched up into the forties. That meant something very important to Father and me: the maple sap was running. We’d hooked plastic tubing to spouts in our maple trees, and the sweet juice flowed down into a big tank in the sugar house. From there, I dumped it into Father’s evaporator, an aluminum jobber that we’d inherited from the hippies who abandoned this land. We burned slabs of hardwood to boil off the sap into syrup and maple sugar. Father loved this kind of work, because there was plenty of time to get drunked up. I liked it because of the sweets.

Father was complaining about the property taxes that he hadn’t paid when I heard the echo of a voice come cascading down the hill, “Langdon! Langdon Webster! Laygangdaygon Waygebstayger!”

I whipped my head around to see a kid dressed in an orange topcoat, striped, gray business suit, white shirt, black tie, and sunglasses sauntering toward us.

Father, who was screened a little by some hemlock boughs, hollered in a menacing tone, “Who goes there? Jehovah’s Witness? Mormon?”

“You old dope fiend! Royal Durocher goes there.” Royal’s voice had changed; he sounded almost like a grown-up.

“What do you want?” Father sounded mean and suspicious, but he didn’t scare Royal.

“I came to see you, Dirty Joe, because you are the man in our dreams.” Royal blew Father a kiss, then turned to me, “Daygeth taygo aygall aygadaygults.”

“I’ve seen you before,” Father said.

“Long time ago, Dirty Joe; long time ago when I was just a little boy.”

I turned to Father, “He’s my friend. He can help with the sugaring.”

“I’ll do more that. I’ll make you rich,” Royal said.

Father was confused, but he didn’t do anything but glower. Royal just ignored him.

A couple minutes later Royal and I were wrestling on the hard-crusted snow. Royal had grown a couple of inches since I’d last seen him, and he pinned me quicker than you can say Attila the Hun. “I give,” I said. Royal rubbed my face in the smashed bits of snow we’d made tumbling about, and then he let me up. I was glad to see him even if my vision was a little blurry from the beating. We lolled around the evaporator, talking, while we fed the fire and boiled off sap. Royal and I ate bananas dipped in maple syrup, and we smoked cigarettes. Father sucked down his brew. It was a relaxing time.

“How’d you get here?” I asked Royal.

“Parked my limo on the blacktop and hoofed it up your nasty hill,” Royal said. “I wouldn’t risk my dream mobile on your pitiful excuse for a road.”

“Town won’t plow it,” Father said.

“When it snows we just keep rolling our pickup over and over it to keep it packed down,” I said.

“It’s hell when it storms in the middle of the night,” Father said. Actually, in the middle of the night, driving to pack down the snow was my job.

“I pity you when mud season comes,” Royal said.

“It’s only a mile to the town road,” I said.

“Web’s an optimist. Reminds me of his mother,” Father said.

“Yes, his mother, quite the hot ticket, I bet,” Royal said.

“Where you staying?” I asked Royal.

“I don’t have an address at the moment,” Royal said.

“You can move in here,” I said.

“No, he can’t because I won’t allow it,” Father said.

“I’d die before I’d pollute my noble self by living in this hole.” Royal stared through his dark glasses into the reflection of Father’s eyes and fiddled with the knot in his tie. Then he stepped back and said, “I am currently residing in my vehicle. Unlike the squalor you live in, my condition is not permanent, and I want you to know that I have plenty of money. I’m putting the profits I make selling steroids into my gun-running business. Eventually, it’ll pay off, but right now I’m living like a pauper. This is called investment by some, sacrifice by others, but it amounts to the same thing: the future. It’s a lesson I learned from my old man that he never learned from himself, the bastard.”

The words “gun” and “running” got father’s attention, which was just what Royal had intended, and a few minutes later Royal proposed a deal. Royal was collecting handguns for the black market. He’d pay Father good money for burglarizing houses of people who owned firearms.

“So I’m supposed to break into somebody’s house in the off chance they might have a gun, preferably a handgun?” Father was sarcastic.

“I’m going to make it easy for you. With lists,” Royal said.

“What lists?”

“Lists of gun owners. Lists of vacationers. Lists of Bingo nights and recent winners. Let me show you.” He took out some papers from his inside jacket pocket. “These are the names and addresses of people in Cheshire County who subscribe to gun magazines. You follow me? There’s a ninety-percent chance a person on this list will own a gun. It’s only common sense. On this other list, procured with great cunning from a certain computer database, are the names of all people in the county with flight reservations. Lists—I have lists. You understand what I’m saying?”

Father nodded. “They’re out of town, they got guns; all you need is a man brave enough to break into the house. You’re a smart one, Durocher; I’ll say that much,” Father said with a sneer. He was just sick with envy, but he was willing to swallow his pride to make some money.

Royal gave Father a few names and the prices he’d pay for guns. Father tried to dicker for more money and more names, but Royal played it stingy.

“Dirty Joe needs Royal Durocher—I know about your drug habit—but Royal Durocher doesn’t need Dirty Joe,” Royal hissed. “I have a whole network of thieves working for me, people more reliable than you. I’m only doing this to help out Web. If you have a better deal lined up, well good luck, good-bye, and good riddance.”

That called Father’s bluff. He agreed to do business Royal’s way. Royal didn’t bother to shake Father’s hand. He said, “See you later Dirty Joe,” jammed his hands in the orange topcoat, and started up the hill. I watched him walk away wishing he’d take me with him. But he kept going and never looked back.

And so Father and I found ourselves in a new business—residential burglary. City neighborhoods were pretty risky for break-ins. For one thing, our truck was conspicuous, and if neighbors saw you prowling around a house in the middle of the night, they’d likely call the cops; for another thing, there wasn’t much cover to hide in; and anyway, Royal had given over those neighborhoods to other burglars. So Father and I stuck pretty much to rural routes. For a short while the good times returned. Or, as Father would say, “rolled.”