Terrible idea. Here came the bell, and the lost life of Demon playing out in front of me. All my former brothers running onto the field for practice, punching each other in the head in the carefree fashion of youth. I rifled the glove box for a Xanax to buy myself another hour on the wanting-to-stay-alive clock. Pulled the Impala to the far end where I could see her car but not the football field. She was practically the last one out, moving fast in her long skirt, carrying her big flat folder. I eased my car around and tapped the horn, causing her to jump. Then she recognized me, and I was her cake full of candles. She opened the passenger door and slid in, all smiles.
“Please tell me you’re coming back to class. I’ve got a folder of life drawings in here to grade, and they all look like they came out of bathroom stalls.”
“I can see you worked really hard on this, Aidan.”
She laughed. I could tell she wanted to lean over and give me a hug. My boyhood fantasies rearing to life, now that I was spoken for. “Damon. Just two more years. Is that impossible?”
“I’m not a kid. I have stuff to take care of now.”
She stared at me. Some motion behind her caught my eye, Clay Colwell in a red scrimmage vest running after a missed pass. My eyes started watering like they’d been poked. I told her she was a great teacher, and I was sorry I wasted her time. She said plenty of kids wasted her time, but I was a shooting star. Her words. “You know I don’t do this for the money, right?” She frowned a little. “Do you know that? That I’m not even paid full-time here?”
I’d thought a teacher was a teacher, period, but no. She said art and choir director were her only two classes, and you don’t get full salary for that. Science teacher was the same, only the two classes. “I’m not complaining, I get by on my art commissions and our band gigs.”
“And the ice cream truck in summer.” She and Mr. Armstrong traded off with that.
“And ice cream, right. What I’m saying is . . . What am I saying?” She tilted her head, the loopy earrings danced. “Okay, I like helping kids learn to see what they’re looking at. But really and truly? I always hoped one day a spark would come along, that I could fan into a flame. Some whole new vision that the world actually needs.” Supposedly, I was that spark. She said teachers spend years of their lives hiding out in the coffee room, trying not to give up hope on the likes of me being out there somewhere. It seemed like she might cry. Or if not her, me.
I told her I was sorry I let her down. But I’d come looking for her because I heard the sick pack of lies about her and Mr. Maldo, and wanted her to know I was no part of it.
She looked down at her lap, nodding her head slowly. “Normally I wouldn’t give it a thought. That kind of thing goes around like a stomach flu. You want to talk about superheroes, my husband is a man of steel. This stuff just bounces off of him.”
We both looked out the windshield at the last stragglers finding their cars, thinking our thoughts. Mr. Armstrong, rebel flags, all kinds of little uglinesses probably, that most of us never knew about. I’d lived long enough to know, that shit doesn’t really bounce off. She glanced back at me. “I’ll tell you something, the one I’m worried about is Jack. Mr. Maldo.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d forgotten his first name, if I ever knew it.
“It’s like walking through fire for him right now, just to do his job. Kids making gestures. I’m scared he’ll quit and lose his medical insurance. He’s not well. Maybe you didn’t know.”
“I noticed the hand,” I said, not sure there was anything you could take for such.
“You’re sweet to worry about Lewis and me, but we’ve been through this so many times. There will always be some people around here that think our marriage is their business.”
She said there used to be laws against the Black and white type of marriage, up till the 1960s. So, before any of us were born including her and Mr. Armstrong, but attitudes hang on. “Certain pitiful souls around here see whiteness as their last asset that hasn’t been totaled or repossessed.”
I wondered if the laws pertained to my people making their Melungeon babies way back when, or if we were too far backwoods for the higher-ups to give a shit. Age-old story, who gets to look down on who, for what reason.
I told her if it was any help, Mr. Armstrong was the MVP of grade seven. I told her how kids were always trying to get his goat, but then they ended up on his team.
She knew that. “Kids aren’t the problem. It’s parents. There’s this whole little Armstrong haters’ club that’s practically a task force of the PTA. They won’t admit to being bigots, so they want him fired for being a communist. Like they even know what a communist is!”
I said probably they were just scared he was going to put ideas in our heads.
She smiled. “Imagine that. A teacher, putting ideas in kids’ heads.”
She said the only person I needed to worry about was me. She knew I had pressures on me, and if I ever needed backup, I should talk to her and Mr. Armstrong. Whether I was in school or not, their door was still open. She started to get out of the car, but then looked back at me with a kind of twinkle. “Say hi to Red Neck for me. Tell him I like his perspective.”
I felt my ears burning. “What makes you think I know him?”
She laughed in my face. “Damon. I know your drawing the way other teachers know your handwriting. Why in the world are you not signing your name to those strips?”
I needed her to go on about her day, get out of my Impala. But she stayed, half in and half out, waiting. “It’s in the paper,” I finally said. “Out there all over the place. If it’s terrible, I don’t want them all saying it was me. And if it’s not terrible, I’d be bragging.”
“For crying out loud. It’s your work. Is it bragging if the guy at the garage does a good job fixing your engine and then bills you for it?”
I told her I didn’t see the connection. She pulled her butt fully back in the car.
“Nobody else is going to tell you this. But art is work. People get paid to do exactly what you’re doing. Guys a lot older than you, with less skill and very tired narratives.”
I told her thanks, but my little strip was small potatoes. Who outside of here would give a rat’s ass about the superhero that stayed in Smallville? She said, Don’t be so sure. There’s us, there’s West Virginia and Kentucky. And Tennessee. We aren’t any potatoes at all, small or large. She said if I was so keen to be a grown man, I should quit thinking like a potato.
I did what Angus said: went home to Dori and lived with it. I lived with dishes growing mold beards in the sink, trash bags sliding down in the cans, garbage mounting high. Jip running his victory laps around the house after every McMuffin wrapper or Jimmy Dean’s box he found to tear in a million pieces. As far as living in a garbage dump, Dori and I were on the par with Mr. Golly’s childhood. I was too busy to do much about it, between my Sonic job and the other shit that swallows you whole. Going into the clinic for our scrips. That man was not laying eyes on Dori again, and the sad part is, Watts didn’t even recognize me. The bastard that got me started down this drain. After scoring our scrips, I’d have the phone calls and drives at all stupid hours to meet this or that lowlife to get our shit bought or sold, bills paid, the beast fed.
Sometimes I thought of Miss Betsy and Mr. Dick, what they’d think to see me now. The words he’d sent up on a kite, wanting to be hopeful of me. Sad case that I was, false or cruel I wasn’t, if I could help it. And if hard work counts for anything, I was crushing it. Addiction is not for the lazy. The life has no ends of hazards, deadly ambushes lying in wait, and that’s just the drugs, not even discussing the people. If I was a fuckhead, I was one that knew how to apply himself. It’s what Coach had seen in me. He said discipline, I would use other words. Surviving. Giving it all up, day in, day out, from the very beginning. Keeping Mom in one piece, then outhating Stoner, then being fastest at whatever crap job was thrown at me, draining battery acid or topping tobacco. Football. I’d only ever lived one way, by devoting myself completely.
Probably that’s why I got so mad at Dori for stealing from Thelma. I had my own warped honor. She started with nonsense things, scissors and conditioning products. Then she came home with some gold jewelry and a Vitamix. I had to scold her like a child. Not just the morals of stiffing your friend, morphine supplier, and quasi-employer, but the whole getting-caught aspect of things. Part of being a mature person is knowing your skill set, and neither of us had talents for larceny. Maggot, another story. Ace shoplifter, mastermind of which pharmacies had hidden cameras and where, he’d leave you in awe. Whereas Dori and I were incapables. I started a cartoon strip in my mind, called The Incapables. Yelling at her would only lead to disaster. Dori crying, saying I hated her. It broke me to pieces. All she wanted in the world was to be loved. I had to think of her as my baby doll. You don’t blame a doll for slacking. You watch the pretty eyes open and shut. You tuck it under the covers at night.
She remembered my birthday was coming, and asked what I wanted. I could name a few things. The Impala’s transmission was grinding like nails in a bucket. But I said I only wanted my girl. Pretty as a picture and forever mine. She wanted to know did that mean getting married. I said why not. We were never getting married, we could barely pull our act together to buy a phone plan. But Dori wouldn’t remember this conversation. She’d shot a patch and was lying on the bed with her feet over the edge. I got down on my knees and kissed the little rings on her toes. A dot of blood stood like a jewel on the top of her pale foot. I touched it, thinking of Maggot and me in another age, pricking ourselves, sharing our blood to promise brotherhood. As if it’s only by hurting yourself that you can be true.
She was dipping out fast, all dreamy over our make-believe wedding. I was going out later, so I’d done a 40 and was letting the jangly ups and downs even out while I sat on the floor listening to her. Tommy would be my best man. Sweet. She wasn’t always kind about Tommy, due to all the time I spent over there. But with the juice in her veins, she was all love. Jip would be our ring burier. Thelma and Angus, bridemaids. Or Angus could be my best man, she said. Kind of confused about where Angus came into it. My best girl-man, she said. She described the dress she’d wear and how everybody would say what a beautiful bride. How young we were.
Once she was out completely, I took care to turn her on her side and prop her with pillows before I left the house.
51
Another week, another shit show. Monday night. Maggot wants me to pick him up from Mrs. Peggot’s and drive around. Fine, we’re two guys getting away from women, as far as I know. He gives directions to this sketchy house in Woodway to pick up a friend, and who should that turn out to be but Swap-Out. News to me, that they know each other. Next thing I know we’re behind Walgreens, they’ve put a cement block through the drive-through window and we’re watching Swap-Out crawl in that tiny hole. He climbs up and clears the top-shelf boxes and we’re out of there in under three minutes. I have to pull over on Duff Patt Highway to put my head between my knees. Maggot is skunked out of his skull, yelling that he’s the fucking Robin Hood of Sudafed. I drop them both back at Woodway and fly out of there.
Tuesday. Fast Forward calls, wanting to know if I’d like to take a ride for old time’s sake. Where to? He says Richmond. I tell him not on your life, give my regards to the Mousehole, and by the way, how is Emmy? He says he and Emmy have parted company. I hang up and call June to find out if she’s back home, which she isn’t. June wants to know why. Shit. This is bad.
