Here’s the first chapter of my next novel. I’m about 2/3 of the way done. Appreciate you taking a look if you have time. It reads pretty fast.
Phil, Horn Dog, Candy Man Extraordinaire
BOOK ONE
Good Samaritans
1.
I drive Stu home in his father’s beat up Chevy Caprice, taking the scenic route between the factories and the river, while Karen follows closely behind us in her Chevette. The play in the steering wheel is wicked, the brake pedal almost goes completely to the floor.
“Where are we going?” His voice is a bat skittering up from the depths of the back seat, attempting to escape through the window. “Take me to Karen’s.”
“I’m afraid we’re taking you home.”
“No!”
“It’s probably for the best.”
“Let’s get some beer.”
“It’s past two.”
“So?”
“Stores can’t sell past two.”
“Since when?”
“Like, since always.”
“Well, fuck me.”
We drive in silence until we thunder over the train tracks. The white orbs of Karen’s headlights violently bob behind us.
“Phil.”
“Yes?”
“If the blacks live on the North and South End. And the Mexicans live on the East Side. And the whites live wherever the hell they want, East Side, West Side, doesn’t matter—”
I pop a cassette into the tape deck. The effort required for him to initiate this conversation is proof of just how wasted he is.
“Don’t be a dick. Don’ cut me off.”
He repeats his assertions about the blacks, the Mexicans and the whites. “Then where do the Ojibwe live? Answer me that. Where do the Anishinaabe live? The Anishinaabeg.”
I turn onto his street and slowly cruise up the block beneath the halos and young silver maples before pulling into his driveway. There is an older although nicer car already parked there. Karen pulls up to the curb in front of the house and gets out to help while I get out and open the back door of the Caprice to assist m’ lord.
The interior dome light makes Stuart cringe.
“I can’t open my eyes.” He is bitching. “I’ll get sick.”
Stuart’s little sister meets the three of us.
“Hi.” I am grinning broadly. I am trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible in the sad yellow hue of the light coming from the bulb above the side door. “We’ll just throw him on his bed, if that’s okay.”
Despite this late-night interruption, the crickets are fierce.
“Why don’t you just throw him in the back yard?” She laughs at her gift for repartee.
“I will cut you,” Stuart mumbles.
We are ushered to his bedroom.
“Karen,” Stuart mumbles, tripping up the stairs. “Karen!” he hisses. “Don’t sleep with him. For the love of God, show some fuckin’ restraint.”
Stuart’s sister points into one of the three upstairs bedrooms. She is barefoot and wearing an over-sized John Stamos t-shirt. In the dim light, John Stamos’ face looks insane.
“There!” She is not concerned with waking anybody, not even the dead. The door opposite Stuart’s bedroom suddenly swings opens. A man in bright white underpants and a glowing t-shirt lumbers into the hallway until he bumps into me.
“Uh, hello, Mr. Page?” I am calling upon reserves of tact I did not know until now that I possess.
He pauses to scratch his belly. A vaguely recognizable disembodied woman’s voice calls from behind in the darkness of the bedroom. “Glenn, what is it? What’s going on?” She is clearly calling from the realms of the dead.
Stuart’s sister admonishes their father in the dark: “Dad, go back to bed! Get back in your room!”
I am smiling to beat all hell. I am actually very well acquainted with Stuart’s mother. We are coworkers. When I am not going to my creative writing class, or selling drugs at El Oasis, or at a hall show, I am usually managing a pizza shop. But now is not exactly the best time for exchanging pleasantries. Imagine me calling out to Stuart’s mother as she lies in bed in a sheer negligee more than thirty years old.
“Yoo hoo, hello, Margot. It’s me, Phil. Do you work tomorrow, er, I mean today?”
“What? Who?”
“Um, never mind. It’s late. You should be resting. This is really all a very strange dream—“
But it’s not.
Glenn comes to life: “Goddammit! What the hell’s going on?”
The hallway is only so wide. I am trapped. Fuck Karen. It is every man for himself.
“Stu’s drunk!”
“What?”
“Drunk, Dad. Drunk. The sonofabitch is trashed. He can’t even open his goddamn eyes.”
“Hey, young lady! Watch that mouth. Goddammit, I need my glasses.”
“Go back to bed, Dad.”
The door slams.
I can hear dresser drawers being ransacked, the mechanisms of plastic wheels on the metal runners of accordion-style closest doors in need of lubrication, and now I am thinking, “Oh, fuck. Guns.”
Stuart’s little sister says, “Throw him on the fucking bed. Jesus, what are you waiting for?”
“Are we about to get shot?”
Once in bed, Stuart gathers his blankets and tucks them between his legs. He giggles but does not recoil when Karen tries to pull off his shoes.
“Karen,” I whisper. “I think this is good. I think we’re done here.”
I notice in the darkness that Stuart’s bedroom is tidy and fairly empty. The walls, however, are plastered with posters of alternative bands, including Joy Division, New Order and the Cure. There are also posters of Black Flag, Suzanne Vega, Apollonia and Prince. I turn back to the two of them. Karen is sitting on the edge of the bed. Stuart’s voice is an invisible wave in the post punk gloom and doom of his bedroom. “You didn’t answer my question, Phil.” My knowledge of American Indian populations within the city limits, or the state, or the country, for that matter, is weak. They used to live on reservations? I mean after the colonists arrived and the government tried to exterminate them. I suddenly long to be in my own bed, with my own posters, stroking the sleek fur of Joe’s cat, Sid. Sid, who is the newest addition to the house on Stone Street, has taken a shine to me lately, which is more than I can say for Karen.
I am depressed. Any flirtatious progress made earlier in the evening with Karen between the synths and drum machines of bands like New Order and Front 242 has disappeared like a squadron of planes flying in formation over the Bermuda Triangle.
“Now what?” Karen had said out loud as we stared down at Stuart sprawled in a stall in the men’s room at El Oasis.
I shrugged. “Maybe we should check his pulse. See if he’s breathing.”
Using her hands to brace herself against the walls of the stall as she straddled Stuart’s torso, Karen had bent over to see if he was still alive.
“He’s warm.”
The offensive odor of the bathroom stall sits in stark contrast to my piqued horn dog awareness of Karen’s tight jeans. Even for a guy with incentive, it is almost all too much. Still, I have to say that the libido hangs in there. The libido clings to the distinct possibility that Karen might take me home. These thoughts are not exactly within the true spirit of performing charitable acts for friends at the end of bar night, but incentives are always right in front of us if we open our eyes. I am hopeful. I do not panic. I am of the opinion that having sex with Karen would be most enjoyable. As pleasurable as it gets. The guys pissing in the urinals are glancing over their shoulders to see what in hell the local recreational drug pusher is up to now. There is a girl in the men’s room. It cannot possibly be the first time for that. Water is running in the sinks. Karen has dyed her hair black this fall, has on this dark purple lipstick. Stuart uncorks like a maggot and rolls to his back, but does not open his eyes. His voice is a shank of jagged aluminum, a beer can torn in half.
“Did I miss last call?”
“Amazing. You almost have to admire such masochism, right?”
“Fuck my life,” Karen says.
“Stuart, are any of these philosophical one-liners in the stall yours?” I ask. It’s a fair question, and if I were to check Stu’s pockets, I would probably find a Sharpie.
Stuart used to tag the parking ramps and phone booths and alley dumpsters with pithy statements and poetry. His alias, Jim Nighshade, enjoyed a brief moment of notoriety, but all of his graffiti has been sand-blasted or whitewashed.
“Karen, punch him like yer always punchin’ me. Punch that sonofabitch in the arm—“
“Here, let me get in there,” I say. “Come on, Stu. Oops-a-daisy.” In the club, some of my customers have informed me that unless they have had some candy, a dreadful feeling settles in when the lights come on and the music stops playing. ‘Jane Says’ ends, the purple lights snap off, the amber lights spring on and one feels unhinged, totally shitty or ready to fight. Last call is almost as bad as waking up in bed with a stranger—that initial wave of terror. Eventually, the novelty wears off.
One develops bad habits.
We emerge from the men’s room with Stuart between us like a wounded athlete, but in the alley he insists on slipping to the pavement where he writhes and curls like a magnificent rolly polly bug.
“Don’t touch me,” he rasps, trying to blow little stones off of his lips. “Leave me alone. DON-huh-huh-owwwn-’t touch me.”
We are joined by my housemate, Joe, and an attractive girl I do not recognize, which is disconcerting. How did I miss her? She is hot. Others pass. I smile and scratch my head. Alternative Music Night is reduced to the odor of a fog machine. On Saginaw Street, the hip crowd is no doubt gathering outside the front entrance but I am out of candy.
“Who’s up for Thoma’s?” I am upbeat and optimistic. The night is not over.
The windows of the taller buildings are impenetrably dark. An orange haze generated by the lights of the factories near the Flint River blots out the stars.
O, lucky stars.
Joe is a sweetheart. “Hi, Stu, how ya doin’?”
“How does it fuckin’ look?” Stuart croaks.
I raise my eyebrows and mouth the phrase, “What the fuck?”
Stuart’s protests get weaker.
Joe says, “He would probably feel a lot better if he puked.”
“Puking is the worst,” Karen mutters. “I never puke. No matter what, I never puke.”
Joe raised his hand in resignation when I asked him to stay put for a moment. I have known him for a long minute. He is dependable. The alley is damp, exudes an aura of ripe, compacted garbage, which I can almost taste. When I got to the sidewalk, I turned back for a look before heading off to the Caprice. Karen had Stuart in an upright position then, and it appeared that he was taking off his shirt.
“Well, now,” Karen says, lighting a cigarette at her Chevette now that we have safely deposited Stuart onto his bed. “Do ya still want to go to Thoma’s?”
The neighborhood is quiet except for the occasional car passing up the street. “Why not? I mean it’s either that or heading home to listen to Joe and his babe having sex in his bedroom. The walls are pretty thin.”
It is more of a hint than the truth.
“Is that his girlfriend?”
Stuart’s sister presses her nose to the screen of an upstairs window and hisses at us. “Go away!”
Karen angles a funnel of blue smoke in her direction.
The AC Delco plant reminds me of an aircraft carrier in dry dock (while I have never seen an aircraft carrier in person, I have trawled on a pontoon boat on Silver Lake). The junkyard gives me the shivers. I imagine rabid raccoons slinking around the premises like thieves, stealing the forgotten relics of the glove boxes from the pyramids of crushed cars. The East Side is semi-quiet, awash in the distant rumble and droning of the parts plant, the cush of trucks on the expressway off in the distance and the constant escape of hot air rushing through convoluted ducts and vents toward freedom. Thoma’s, however, is noisy and packed. Club kids. Punks. Shop rats. East-siders. Bikers. Old-timers in flannel and shop clothes. Teenagers. Whites. Hispanics. A black couple. The short-order cooks are working their sizzling magic. The waitresses are pure and lovely and tough and real: mothers, daughters, girlfriends, grandmothers. I want to believe that what you see at Thoma’s is what you get here in Flint, and that if given the chance, these women could save all of us. One would never have to leave. What is it about these hard-working women that turns me on? Stuart and I have pondered this together. Older, younger, in between—it does not matter. They wield an attraction. Their plain, tired beauty is a tractor beam. And Thoma’s isn’t like a club or a spa where they have to wear skimpy outfits—there is none of that here. Their whispering polyester uniforms are like the uniforms of nurses. The sound of their tight polyester slacks is pure seduction.
Joe and his lady friend are sucking face in a booth in the back wing.
“Ya see what I mean,” I say to Karen, nodding in their direction. “I was not making it up.”
“Yes, they do seem a little preoccupied, don’t they?”
“They do.”
The waitress sets a plate of chocolate pie with a large wedge of whip cream before me.
“Let me ask you something. Can you balance all your orders on your arm? The coneys and hamburgers and fries.”
“Of course, hon.”
“And the plates aren’t too hot?”
“Not as hot as me, right?”
Karen snorts a straw full of Coca Cola out of her nostrils.
“Oh, hon! Let me get you a rag.”
The waitress sashays her intentionally syrupy sweet self away. There is a sense of community at Thoma’s, especially at night—a sense of floundering in a big, collective conversational bubble—but it can be deceptive if you aren’t careful. Every once in a while, I snap out of the hypnotic nesting of conversations and clattering dishes and sizzling hamburgers to find myself furtively looking around to pinpoint who is most likely to punch me in the gut in the parking lot and steal my leftover candy.
Our waitress returns to wipe up our table.
“Busy,” I say, smiling.
She winks.
Karen is smiling at me.
I am ever so slightly sliding in the grease beneath the table. The soles of my shoes skate in place like the puck on a trembling electric hockey table, never really completely touching the atoms of the floor, perfectly in alignment with the incomprehensible laws of physics.
“You’re such a doof.”
“Does that mean you aren’t coming home with me tonight?”
“Eat your chocolate pie, you doof.”
“I’m not sure if it’s real. I mean just what exactly is this? Would you like a bite?” I offer her a quivering, honking bite of gelatinous, mousse-like chocolate ectoplasm on a fork, which she leans across the table to accept. Our eyes meet. I search for myself in those huge blue irises. The eyes no longer complement the hair which used to be the color of tall, dead grass in an empty lot littered with mulched trash and dangerous shards of metal.
“Mmm,” she says.
“Good, hunh?”
“Stuart,” she sighs. “Stuart, Stuart, Stuart. I am so fucking tired.”
A hefty waitress bellows out, “I need three up, three fries, three chocolates!”