Boys of Life (28 page)

Idenly I saw how maybe she was right. What I said earlier— about it not bothering me, what I was doing with those kids at Port Authority—] guess that's not completely true. It did bother me. It both' ered me how Carlos was using those kids and then unloading them, and even though I bought it when he said how u wasn't hurting them any, snll it was a lousy thing to be doing. How was I going to tell somebody like Monica I was into stuff like that? That I was part of the

problem. 1 When what 1 wanted, light now. was ro he on the other side

of it. where she u

I liked sitting there talking to somebody my own age tor a change.

.ehodv normal, who wasn't into kids jerking oft or conjuring or the Loch ghetto or anything like that. I didn't want to ruin it by telling her I was a movie pimp.

We'd finished our Rolling Rocks, and Monica ordered us another round. "Sometimes," she said, "1 wonder why I ever left." While she talked, she tore the label off the bottle in little shreds. I saw how she'd bitten her fingernails down to nothing. I liked that about her. "I mean home," she said. "Why I left home. See. I really love mv mom and d.\d." It could've been the bottle she was talking to, but I knew it IS just her way of talking to me. "I just ran our on them," she said. "They needed me And 1 just ran out. 1 couldn't deal. 1 couldn't deal with what they were uoin^ through."

"I'm not totally following von," I told her. All the while I was

thinking, if fiuures —sit down with some stranger in New York and

U know it you've got an earful of trouble. I thought mavbe I

should'vt n playing pmhall without saying a word. Not let any

• touch you—that'd been m\ motto tor a while. "I had this brother, Gary," she said, "and then he died." She didn't say anything more. She fust kept peeling little strips oi

paper otl the Rolling Rock label.

rybody I knew seemed to have a dead brother. (:,irlos had uld believe what he said, and >ammv'd lost both his brothers in the ghetto, and now hete WSM Mot

"I'm s ( ,rrv." she said. "I get all u; f this. I don't tall

• it. I came away to New York so I could be with people who didn't know anything about ir. and now here I am telling vou all about it hrsr thing

"Tell me about it." I said. "You can tall

□ PAUL RUSSELL

I didn't totally mean it, but I never know what to say to things

like that.

"He was the greatest brother," she said. "He was so much tun. I always wanted to be his brother instead of his sister. Does that sound weird? But then we could pal around together. Everywhere. He was a

year older. I wanted to travel all over the country with him—that's what we were planning to do. He'd even bought a motorcycle. We

were iioing to go to New York. Or he was—1 never told him how I was planning to come along. I never got a chance to."

There was this long pause. Somebodv was going to town on my pinball machine, and it was making a racket in the background.

"What happened?" I asked her. I didn't know it that's what 1 was supposed to ask or not. For some reason all this was making me shake, like I'd got a chill from it.

She kept tearing at that label with her bitten-down nails. "It was Starting to rain," she said. "He went around a curve too fast, 1 Liuesx, And he spilled. It tore him all up—they wouldn't even let US sec him, he was so torn up."

Nothing terrible like that had ever happened in mv lite. 1 didn't

have anything to say. I always felt a little in awe oi people like that

u'n what I telt whenever 1 talked to Sammy, or even that night C'arlos told me about his brother, Adrian. 1 always thought those peopk

rent ftom me. They're better, because terrible things've happened to them. 1 don't know why I thought that, but 1 did.

I looked at Monica. She was Studying the little pile the torn-up

label had made. She didn't know 1 was watching her. or maybe she did

know—but the look on her face WW terrible. 1 thoughl this is what

always looking tor In his movies, one mi^Ic instant like this,

the look on Mom And HO* here it's happening m some dark

httl. lot'll nevei go. It's happening,

th, theie'l r* ttlj me. I'm the onl\

It ro make it somehow ^ ount.

If mad flunk th.H

"hi • hei I ^"A I rea

• hei hand; 1 let m\ hand Ik on top "t hen fbi a mm

bring ill tb.it up. ' me. and

A..s smilii, think I'm .i total m talking like d

■ li ild s.i\ u ■ Mid I was

I alios s.m ihuu.'s I'd

□ PAULRUSSELL

anv audience. In between songs they kept lifting up their sunglass they could see, and looking out at the empty room. But nobody else came in after me, I guess because of the rain. Or maybe people had heard them betore and that's why they stayed away.

Valve Lash was this thing to do with car engines, Monica'd told me earlier, but since I didn't know anything about car engines it didn't mean much to me. The lead guitarist, Matt, was the one who thought the name up. But it was Monica who did everything else: she wrote all the words and all the music, which sounded just like country music to me, even though she'd told me she hated country music and wanted to be a rock star. I've never paid that much attention to music, 1 can take it or leave it, so I never could tell whether Valve Lash was as terrible as it sounded, or whether it was supposed to be good. Not that I'd have said that to Monica in a million years, even it she asked me to be honest—which, fortunately or not, she never one single time asked me to be.

There was something that got to me. though, seeing her up there

singing her heart out with nobody listening. She was putting everything

she had into it. She'd hold the microphone in both hands and sort ot

n into it, country-style—it sent chills up your spine, not that that

•a hat she wanted, but that was what happened And it wai \ er\

rive. You telt, here was this person who was hurting from loneliness

and calling out and there was nobodv there tor her. 1 could identih

with that. I felt that way most o\ the time giving everything 1 had.

whether it was Carlos m a movie oi somebody I'd just picked up tor

the night in Some bar. and then feeling like nothm nne hack

home to me.

Maybe 1 u.is just pitted o£ at the \\a\ (he guyi in the band were linglaSSeS. I he\ didn't care it nothing came back to them.

Monica deserved bitter than that

Sh< to see me it made mi- glad I'd gotten com

pletel) drenched. She wanted to hug me.

I smell like SOfAC d^\l" "I like dogs," she said, and threw hei ITTIU UOUfld me I could I m\ ^ h,

ke if I wai • I didn't "11 i«." '" he said, putting hla arm

i hail I sort <>f i

is i i .mid. ii in the room, but we got a little

B O Y S O F L I F E D

swallowed up m all that cmpt\ space. "In this city, nineteen hundred And eighty-three*" Matt told me, "von gotta have some hot chick like this up there. Otherwise you get a hunch of flags. It's a crying shame.

Who wants a hunch of faga

Monica swatted at him playfully.

"Fags," 1 remember saying. "Who needs them?" It was my idea

u>ke, sort ot. I didn't like Matt, hut tor some reason 1 wanted him to like me. 1 wanted them all to like me.

After we'd helped Matt load the equipment in the van, Monua and 1 went to her apartment. It had stopped raining—it was one ot those wonderful nights with sHek streets reflecting all the lights, and the air cool. She was starved, she said, singing always made her grow I her—which was what she always said when she meant she was hungry.

ire aping to think I'm plain crazy," she said, "hut there's this thing, I do it atter every gig. I don't know why—luck, I guess. See that Chinese restaurant there on the corner. 7 " There was this hole in the wall, wing fat chow said the yellow sign over the door. "I go in here .itter every gig and get take-out moo shoo pork." She laughed. "It's not even verv good. In fact, it's really salty and greasy and you get an MSG high from it. But I guess I always think if I don't go through this little ritual, then it'll he the last gig I ever get."

a're funny," I told her. "Anyway, that's fine. I'm growing together too. And I like salt and grease. It's what I'm made out of."

She was walking along swinging her arms in these big motions, like she was some little girl. I could tell she was really relieved to he through singing tor the night, though I could also tell she was pretty disappointed in the audience. But she was being brave, and I liked rh.it.

"I never told anybody except you. So now you're parr ot nn ^ood

"hirst time that ever happened," I told her.

"Stick with me and it won't he the last. Anyway, when we get Kick to the apartment, I have this little present to give you."

"But we only just met," I said.

Well, that's okay. I can still give you a present, can't I?"

• a minute I was nervous. Suddenly there was this little whine

n us. Vou could barely hear it, hut it was there, and I

didn't quite know wh.it t<> do about it. If'd been yean siltCC I USed tO

follow women around. Whatever it was I'd been looking tor in those

d away from me, and I never thought ah« >ut women any n

□ PAUL RUSSELL

Verbena was the only woman I had anything to do with, and I didn't exactly think of her as a woman. Women just didn't seem necessary— at least not to fuck.

But tucking wasn't what Monica had in mind. She let us into her apartment—there were about ten locks she had to undo to get in. and once we were in, it wasn't clear to me what she was afraid was going to get stolen. The place was tiny—a mattress and a chair and a heat-up dresser took up most of the room. The window raced right onto a brick wall.

"Let's light candles," she said. "I love candlelight." 1 noticed there were candles all over the room—stuck in beer bottles, or big tat ones the size of tin cans. I sat on the bed while she got them lit. Then she started pulling a guitar case out from under the dresser.

"What're you gonna do?" I asked her. I figured there'd been enough singing tonight.

She strummed a few chords, and cleared her throat. "Thia is tor you," she said. "This is what I saw when I saw you playing pinball in the V Bar." And she started to play.

It was this mournful song, like all the middle-ot-the-mght truckers' songs I used CO hear on the radio in Owen. This is tor me, 1 thought— not sure what to make o\ that, not SUIC at all.

"You wrote it.'" 1 said. "The music and the words and every

thing.'" I have to admit, 1 was impressed. And also a little alarmed, •eel Ball on a Roll,' " she laid. "Think it'll be a hit.'" "Catchy title." 1 said. "I can't believe sou wrote me a KM

"1 was thinking about you/' ihe laid. "It just sort oi came to me."

1 told her it sounded like COUntT) UlUSiC tO me. and 1 thought she hated country m "

Sh< | uned her hps. "it's not country music," ihe said. "It

has this special edge to it I hat's uh\ I COuld nevei gel I bleak in a

'.'. die rhey don't understand my kind of thing tl It the wa\ ihe laid that, because I could

SCC right then and then- h lling herself these stones so she

I n s)u- knew

cacti) K Is 1 like about people M pie probably

:ul total! ! t.ntU ,

go out iii her, and I D 2M

B O Y S O F L I F E □

thought it I could breathe on it, then maybe it\1 stay lit a little while longer.

Oi maybe I'm the one who's fairly good .it pretending about the reasons tor the things I do.

In any case, over the next tow weeks she wrote me a lot ot BOngS.

"You're my muse,' 1 she told me. "Tony my music muse.' 1 1 didn't really

know what to do—I kept wishing they'd stop coming to her, but 1 knew it made her happy tor them to be coming, and to tell the truth, 1 liked somebody to be crooning these sad sappy songs to me. It was always a big deal when she'd finished a new one she'd invite me over and light the candles and open a bottle oi wine. We'd sit cross-legged on her

bed. facing each other, both barefoot. She'd cradle her guitar that had a horse and a rose stenciled on it. I'd teel shy and watch her toes, how she'd painted them red, maybe to make up tor her fingernails that she

bit down to nothing. I always noticed that her second toe was longer

than her big toe. and even though I know a lot of people are like that, still I felt weird noticing it, like it was something a little freakish.

"You're not going to like this one," she'd always say, hefting her guitar and picking at some moody chord.

"Trv me." I'd tell her. She'd clear her throat, and hum a note, ■nd then she'd close her eves and start in. Only then would I look at her face—that thin high-cheeked bov's face that could've been Cher-it it wasn't tor the white-blond hail tailing down around it.

Her songs all sounded pretty much the same to me—country and

s.id.

1 guess it's a good thing I have this terrible memory tor music. If I didn't, I'd probably be hearing those songs in my head right now, and then I'd teel even more terrible than I already do. Though there's this OflC Song I keep hearing here in the Eddy. I'm never Mire where it's Tom, maybe from Earl's radio down the corridor; I keep mean* tO ask him but then I never do. It's a country music Station, and usually I can't he.ir it, it's just this hum m the background—but SOmedayS it's like B door's been left open somewhere, and I can hear it

really clearly. A mixed blessing, I guess you'd call it. It makes me homesick, a httle—but homesick tor where, I can't exactly say. Home* lomewhere I think I shouU've been, bur never was. The worst is how I keep imagining it's a song Monica wrote, how