Behind Calvert Cliffs (4)
“It’s been six months.” “So, you told him about our little project yet, Alby?” “Nah, haven’t quite gotten around to it yet.” “Well then, let’s just go do it.” “Whoa, whoa—back it up a sec,” Rich interjected. “Before we get moving, what exactly are we doing here?” “We’re just making a quick drop-off… don’t sweat it kiddo,” replied Don. Albert glared at Donnie, who looked away. “Look, Rich, don’t sweat it. We’ll be back home in an hour-and-a-half. It’s no biggie.” “I’m not interested. Pop, what the fuck are you thinking? I don’t want shit to do with this.” “You won’t have anything to do with it, Rich.” He put his arm around his son’s neck again. “It’s just a quick drop off. No big deal.” “What the hell do you need me there for then?” “Relax, Richie. We just need you there to be a lookout. Besides, you know you’re my good luck charm. If nothing else, I need you there for that.” Albert smiled. “If this is gonna be so easy, what do you need luck for?” Albert sighed. “Look, Rich. You’re a big boy. If you don’t want to go, I’ll take you home now.” Rich stared at his father, biting his bottom lip, then looked out the window. “I just….” “What, Rich?” Rich rolled his eyes and chewed on his tongue. “Alright, fuck it. Let’s go.” “Atta boy!” * * * Jason knocked loudly on Jackie’s door. Waiting for about five seconds for an answer this time around, he turned the knob and it obediently gave way, allowing him to enter. Whereas in his first visit to Jackie’s room he felt nothing but overwhelming dread, in the several visits since, his steps now were smooth and light. “Hey there, Kemosabe. Welcome.” Jackie was sitting upright in her bed, propped up against a pillow which leaned against the wall. She wore a pair of thin rimmed reading glasses and had in her hands Camus’ The Stranger. “Hi.” “How are you doing?” “Pretty good… Do you always leave your front door open?” “Oh, what’s the big fuckin’ deal?,” she asked smiling. “What’s a burglar gonna do? The only thing worth anything in here is that big ass mural out there. And pawn shops don’t exactly pay for sentimental value.” “I guess.” “So you painted that out there, I guess.” “You sure do a lot of guessing. Yeah, that’s mine.” “It’s weird.” “I suppose it is. Can you do better?” Jason looked down at his feet. “No, I mean… I mean, I like it, it’s just different. That’s all. What’s it supposed to be?” “It’s not really supposed to be anything specifically I guess. It’s just something that grew out of my head.” Jackie stared out the window and tapped one of the rims on her glasses against her nose pensively. Jason grew uncomfortable with the silence. Finally, Jackie broke the quiet, asking, “Do you dream?” “Yeah, of course,” he replied. “Everybody does.” “What do you dream about?” “Depends… really I dream about all sorts of random, meaningless shit.” “Like?” “I dunno… Last week I had a dream I was an anchovie on a pizza that was being eaten by a giant. So, yeah, I dream about dumb shit like that.” “I dream about a lot of weird stuff, too. But I don’t think it’s totally random, like you put it. I think everything that happens in your mind has some meaning, that it’s all somehow connected to you and to your world.” “You think I transform into anchovies a lot?” “No, Jason,” Jackie said, rolling her eyes. “I’m just saying that anything that originates in your mind has some sort of basis in your life. Maybe you’re scared of things that are bigger than you, things you can’t control, things that overwhelm you. I have dreams like that. I also have wonderful, peaceful dreams, dreams about places I went when I was a kid, things I did where I felt free and vibrant and alive. That mural out there in my living room takes all those dreams, along with pizza-being-eaten-by-a-giant type dreams and concentrates them into one place.” “Oh.” Jackie smiled. “You crack me up, kiddo. So, what’s new in your life?” “Not much, just biding my time, waiting to turn 18.” “What happens then?” “I move away from my white trash mother and her camel-fucking husband and bastard mulatto child” “Tell me how you really feel about them.” “I hate them.” “I gathered as much.” “Why not live with your father.” “I’ve never even met the sonofabitch.” “Well, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you should love your mother unconditionally. God knows I hated my mom. But have you tried to get a long with your mom or are you just hellbent on being a rebel with your punk rock tee shirts and peacock hair-do’s?” “I’m not hell-bent on anything. I just …. I dunno. What’s the deal with you and your mom?” “You mean what was the deal with me and my mom. She disowned me back when I was younger than you. Fifteen in fact.” “Why? What did you do?” “We don’t know each other well enough for me to bring out skeletons that deep in my closet. Let’s just say that my mother was very devoutly Catholic and that I made several choices, one in particular, that did not agree with her religious sensibilities.” “Oh, sorry.” “Not your fault. You’re seventeen. What do you know?” “You’re right, what the hell do I know.” Jason nodded, then started back-pedaling toward the door. “Well, I’d better get going.” Jason started for the door. “Wait, kiddo, come back.” Jason stopped in mid step and turned back around. “I didn’t mean that, now come back over here and sit down.” “Sorry, it’s just… I dunno… you’re interesting.” “You really want to know?” Jason nodded. “Look, here’s the deal. I was dating my first boyfriend, this sophomore at St. Mary’s College, named Robert. I told my mother he was 17, of course and a Catholic who went to the church on the other side of town. Well anyway, of course, I thought Robert was the end all, be all. I was positive we were going to get married and have kids and the whole nine…. Typical dumb-ass teenager, no offense. Anyway, as with any twenty year old guy, this one was horny as hell and he starts hounding me about sex. I tell him no, obviously, because I’m a good little Catholic girl. So, again, being a guy, my no’s only increase his desire to deflower me and the frequency and intensity of his inquiries grows. I keep pushing him off and though it starts getting on my nerves, he still acts gentlemanly enough about it and is nice enough to me ninety percent of the time. Well, about nine months into our dating, he asks me to go to one of his school’s townhouse parties. I’m real nervous about it because I’ve never been to a college party, but I want to be with him and I don’t want some college skank seducing him when he’s drunk. So I go more to keep an eye on him than anything else. Well, he proceeds to get completely drunk that night; and when I say drunk, I mean he gets absolutely shit-faced. He’s drinking bottle after bottle of Natty Boh, shot after shot of Gordon’s and he’s absolutely smashed by midnight.’ ‘Well, eventually, I get fed up and I’m about to call a cab. When I tell him I’m about to leave, he starts hugging me and begging me not to go. I’m pretty pissed off, so I’m not hearing any of it and I’m trying to get to the phone, but he keeps hugging me apologizing; eventually, he even starts bawling tears. Well, this is more pathetic than I can stand, so I tell him I’ll stay a little while longer. He takes me by the hand and, again being the stupid 15 year old I was, I start following him upstairs. We get into his room and he locks the door behind him. I tell him to open the door. ‘Open that mother-fucking door!,’ I scream a couple of times. Well, either nobody hears because of the loud music or nobody cares, because nobody came up to see if anything was wrong. Anyway, he grabs me, ties a sock around my mouth and throws me down on the bed and proceeds to take my clothes off and rape me. I can’t go to the police; or, I should say, rather, I won’t go because my mother will disown me and I feel like I’m partially to blame anyway, so getting back at Robert isn’t an option. Three weeks later I find out I’m pregnant. I wrestle with my options. At first, I’m positive I’m going to have the baby. After all, I’ve been a Catholic all my life and had it embedded in my mind that abortion equals eternal damnation and hell fire. So, I spend a week crying and praying for an answer. I still can’t come up with anything. At the end of that week, though, I have a dream. I close my eyes and find myself sitting in the pews of my church, reading from the bible. It was a pretty big church. Nothing huge like you’d find in New York or Boston or some other big city, but it was big and it had the standard stain glass windows, big wooden doors and the whole thing. Anyway, as I’m reading, I look up at the nearly life sized plaster Jesus nailed to the crucifix above the altar. He’s suspended totally still from the cross like he always has been, his pale blue plastic eyes looking up at the ceiling, blood streaming from his hands and feet and his rib cage sticking out through his skin. Suddenly, his eyes shift over to his right hand and he strains to pull it out, grimacing as the nail slips through his hand. He then reaches with his right hand to the left, pulling that nail out in one quick motion. He bends down and pulls the nails out his feet and slides down the cross, crouching mechanically as he reaches the ground to absorb the force of the fall. He walks down the steps of the altar and down the church’s aisle. His footsteps echo through the church and I stare directly at him, trying desperately to draw his attention, to get him to come sit next to me and tell me what to do about my baby or at least give me some sign of what to do. As he walks past me, I yell out, ‘Help me! Help me!’ But he says nothing. So I begin screaming hysterically, ‘Help me! Please help me, Lord!’ But I get the sense he doesn’t hear me and doesn’t have the power of speech anyway. He walks out the door of the church without breaking stride and leaves me alone in the church.’ ‘I came to a conclusion at the end of that dream. Nothing really all that insightful I guess, but here’s what that conclusion was, and still is… I still believed that God exists and that God cares about this world. But I came to believe that He is not the God preached by Catholics. And He’s not the one preached by Baptists, or Jews, or Muslims, or Hindus, or anybody for that matter. In fact, I decided He may even very well not be a he. He might be more of an it; not human, not animal, just amorphous. The way I picture it is… I don’t know, without a body or shape… maybe just pure energy. I also came to believe that you can’t rely on what any organized religion says is the right path. I believe everyone has to find out for themselves what path God wants us to take. I think it’s the search for a path, not the acceptance of a pre-fabricated path that is what true spirituality is all about. Finding your own path is what’s important; otherwise you’re just an automaton living your life like you were following some ancient self-help how-to book, like “The Idiot’s Guide to Getting to Heaven” or something. And I found the right path for me. I believe the right path is to make the intention of minimizing suffering the main driving force behind any major decision we make. Suffering is the only true evil in this world and the right path, in my eyes, is to prevent it whenever it is in our power to do so. I knew that if I was to have that child, it would have caused nothing but suffering for that child and myself. My mother would have immediately cut me out of her life and refused any sort of support. I was financially and emotionally incapable of providing that child any semblance of a happy life. I also knew that having the child and giving it up for adoption would put it at risk of being bounced from one foster home to another, probably between people just looking for the steady check that comes out of the kid. In the end, I decided that the best decision for myself and for the child was to prevent its existence from ever coming into being. So, that’s what I did.” Jackie stared out the window, squinting in the light. “Do you ever regret that decision?” Jackie looked at Jason, smiled, and replied, “I can honestly say it was the best, most decent decision I could have made. Obviously, the smarter move would have been to keep my legs crossed in the first place. But, after the fact, the decisions I made, given the circumstances, I would not change for the world, even at the risk of hellfire and brimstone.” * * * Rich, Albert, and Donnie pulled up in front of the MCI Center about an hour after they left. “Alright, what the hell are we doing here exactly?” asked Rich. “Don’s got some strange friends is all. They’re cool though. No reason to get excited,” Albert responded. “Who’s getting excited?” “Here, put these on,” said Don, handing stage passes with neck bands to Rich and Albert. Donnie led them through a maintenance entrance in the side of the arena. They walked down a dimly lit hallway, past an elderly man in a yellow security guard jacket who glanced nonchalantly at their credentials. “Richie, me and Don are gonna go talk to his friends. You wait right here.” The two walked down a corridor. Rich rolled his eyes. He walked a few dozen feet to the end of the hallway and looked out into the arena. The air was pungent with the smell of an assortment of fresh manures from a variety of exotic animals. Colored spotlights searched the crowd and the floor, casting a strong glow over the otherwise dark building. The crowd murmured restlessly. Rich felt a rumbling behind his left ear. He looked over his shoulder to see a stampede of intense galloping black stallions piloted by ten railish girls wearing red sequined uniforms and feathery caps. He jolted back as they sprinted by, knocking his head against the concrete cinder block wall. The riders dashed for the center circle just twenty yards from his feet and began circling the inner edge of its perimeter. A numb rush washed over Rich’s skull from the impact. The crowd roared in approval, squeals rising up from the five thousand pre-adolescent children. The riders mounted hand stands atop the beasts’ backs, leapt to the ground, bouncing sharply off the hard packed dirt, rode standing astride parallel horses, and leapt from animal to animal. The horses exited and the acrobats entered a side circle and ascended ladders to the top of a huge metal apparatus with swings and nets. They vaulted stone-faced from their cabled batons, flipping, spinning, twirling, grabbing. When one latched on to another from one of the flying cabled batons and was flung to a third, they seemed like one majestic animal of a single mind. They wore skin-tight aqua blue leotards that contrasted strangely with their brown skin and skillet-black hair. With each twirl completed, they lapped up the applause of the arena, bowing deferentially. A white pickup pulled a huge metal sphere from the hallway about thirty feet to Rich’s left and toward the center circle. The driver got out and pulled a trap door from underneath that connected with a ramp directly below. The roar of a revving motorcycle engine pierced the air, sending rumbling vibrations up Rich’s legs. A rider on a black Harley came sprinting toward the center circle. The crowd roared and squealed. Some of the younger children began to cry. The rider did one lap around the sphere, kicking up a cloud of dust that engulfed the circle, popping wheelies all the way. He stopped about 20 yards directly in front of the ramp, idled for a moment, revved his engine louder this time, and made a dash up the ramp and into the sphere, circling, circling, circling. Two more engines revved from across the arena floor. Two more riders on Harleys did a lap around the sphere, then sprinted for the ramp and into the sphere. The driver closed the gate. The crowd roared, squealed, and cried. The riders engaged in a deafening, noxious, weaving dance, twirling deftly about the sphere. Rich grew increasingly nervous waiting for his father and Donnie to return and decided to seek them out. He walked down the hall, went around a corner, and came to a room with the door slightly ajar. He heard Donnie’s voice whispering loudly inside. “Just stick the goddamn syringe in that orange bitch’s ass. Do you want this money or not?” “Hey, fucko, be careful with that goddamn thing,” Rich heard his father say, also in a loud whisper. “And what the fuck are you talking about? Why are you pulling home more than me if I’m the one doing the real work? Besides which, I still don’t understand why we’re using a tiger instead of a gun,” he heard his father reply. “I dunno. This is how the kraut wanted it done. Don’t ask me how a queer’s mind works. As for the money, this is my deal, Alby. I’m the one who established the connection. I’m the one who… ya know, masterminded this whole scheme.” “Masterminded? Scheme? We’re sticking a fucking tiger in the ass with a syringe-ful of PCP. If that’s a… ya know, master plot, then…. then…. then… Fuck, I can’t think of a good analogy, but we’re splitting this thing 60-40 in my favor if I’m sticking that cat with this fucking thing.” Rich opened the door. “What the fuck are you two assholes doing?” “Richie, what the hell are you doing?,” asked Albert, clutching his chest. “Look, tell me what the fuck is going on, or I’m out.” “Alright, alright. Here’s the deal kiddo. This isn’t a drop-off.” “It’s more of a stick-in,” Donnie nosed in. “A stick-in?” Donnie jumped in, “It’s a hit, you stupid fuck.” Albert reared back and smacked Donnie in the face, knocking him to the floor. “Fuck, Alby. What’d you do that for.” “Look, Rich. All we’re doin’ is sticking this tiger with a little PCP. The tiger does all the work in two acts and we walk away with 15k.” “10k,” Donnie piped in.
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