Black Gum

FALLING BACK INTO IT

At one point my wife and I fell back into it. I called her and sobbed into the phone and she told me to come back over. The dog was happy to see me. When I walked back into the apartment I could smell who I was. She showed me her paintings and we listened to the songs she’d had on repeat.

All the old nicknames and shorthand came back. I was learning how to speak again. There are hundreds of tongues out there but you only really speak when you’ve invented your own language.

After spending the night together talking about everything, she left for work early the next morning. I lay in bed looking at the Christmas lights strung up along the wall and everything there was heavy. I thought about the bed. I thought about when I used to wake her up with a song and she’d stay quiet til I fixed the coffee and we went our ways.

I took a shower.

I left.

I lucked out. A friend of mine was out of a roommate. She offered to let me stay for a month without rent. She had four Chihuahuas. I sat on her couch and played with the dogs and slept on an air mattress in the guest bedroom.

I walked back into the hot dog restaurant. I filled out an application and the owner read it over and said, “You look familiar.”

I said, “I get that a lot.”

“You don’t look like you get that a lot.”

I said, “I’m ready to work.”

He said, “Well, we need a dish man.”

“I am your dish man.”

“Welcome aboard, dish man. Show up to work on time, and never fucking steal from me.”

“Okay.”

“If you steal from me, I’ll kill you.” He turned back to his laptop.

The steam from the dish pit left a layer of grime that I couldn’t shower off. I pulled the accordion hose down and sprayed the pots and listened to music on my phone and cleaned the rubber mats. I mopped the floors and joked with the cooks. We smoked cigarettes out back and they talked about their kids and wives. We talked about which waitresses we’d fuck and exactly how we’d do it. I would laugh and watch the snow collect on the chairs out on the empty patio and I’d go back in and spray more pots. I’d scrub them with a wire brush. It gave me time to think.

I pushed down the door to the dishwasher and I learned to enjoy the sound of the water moving.

After work I’d buy a six pack and walk home. One night I was in the corner store and a woman in a caftan was talking to the beer through the glass. “You’re so cold. Pretty. You’re so pretty and cold.” I grabbed my beer and she turned to me and adjusted her giant glasses and said, “I’m the heir to a concrete fortune.”

“Can I have five bucks?” I said.

She looked back through the glass. “It’s so pretty.”

Netflix and Chihuahuas till I passed out.

Then I woke up and did it again. For a time, it was exactly what I needed.

HALF

I met my mother at Chili’s. I brought her a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

We ordered our food and talked.

Every time we met, she talked about my father. She told me that she should have known better. That of course he wasn’t at the gym at that time of night. She told me about a swingers’ retreat he took her to. All the porn. She talked about how she’d take him back now, but it was too late. New loves, new lives. She missed him. Last time they met up he touched her hair. Now they hadn’t spoken in years.

When she talked about him, it filled me with a deep fear. Every young man fights the truth that he’s half his father.

I told her about my job and my place and her face lit up.

“I was worried about you.”

“I know.”

“You’re my boy. I can’t have my boy being so sad.”

I started crying into my fiesta chicken. She came around the table and gave me a hug.

FROG

A cook and I were on our break. We were smoking cigarettes out in front of the restaurant. Across the street, a bearded man in a suit fell off his bicycle. He cursed at it and picked it up and tossed it into the street.

The cook said, “Looks like Frog is back on the sauce.”

“Why do they call him ‘Frog’?”

“He hops from town to town. Is what he told me.”

I watched Frog kick the bike. Cars backed up and honking.

The cook said, “He comes in every day. Weird little fucker. Told me he had pills of weed. Panhandles enough to get a margarita and then sings songs and plays his harmonica.”

“I like harmonica.”

“You’re whiter than shit.”

“That is true.”

“A couple days ago he had that suit on and he had a Bible. Said he was going to church.”

“Looks like he missed church.”

“Looks like he went to church.”

Frog stormed off down the street. Bike still out in the road.

We heard a noise and turned to look into the restaurant. The college kids were tanked, and this was their last stop after the bar closed.

A brolic in a polo picked up a scrawny dude and bodyslammed him through a table. The cook and I recoiled and made a sound.

I turned back to him. Thought about it a bit. I said, “I need to go back to college.”

SHARA

I met a woman and for the first time in a while it felt natural. Her name was Shara. I asked her out like a normal human being and she said yes and we ate tacos and drank beer out of fishbowl margarita glasses.

I hadn’t spoken much to anyone in a long time, but when I talked to her I got my language back.

On our second date, she asked me about my wife.

“You guys aren’t divorced?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Just haven’t gotten around to it yet, I suppose.”

“Do you two still talk?”

I didn’t say anything.

“You can answer,” she said. “You’re still gonna get laid.”

After our third date we stripped out of our clothes and hopped the fence into the apartment complex pool and it was so cold but we held each other. Our lips turned blue and the groundskeeper kicked us out and so we went back to the apartment and played with the Chihuahuas and smoked with my roommate and fell asleep on my air mattress.

For our fourth date, I hung out at her place and she showed me an ayahuasca vine she’d ordered from the internet. We checked the internet for tips as to how to strip it and make tea, but we never did it.

I held her cats and my face itched something fierce, but I didn’t mind.

She’d check her phone and tell me, “It’s time for you to go. He’s coming over.”

I’d tell her we should fuck first.

She’d say, “He’s literally on his way.”

Then we’d do it frantically, quickly, and she’d shove me out the door with my pants still down.

The fifth time I saw her, I went to a party and we shared looks but said nothing. All the men at the party swarmed her.

We kissed behind a door quickly and she ran off.

Our sixth meeting, she gave me books to read. I met up with her and her man and their friends at a bar and we all laughed and carried on and I touched her leg under the table.

Seven was the park. We sat in the empty outdoor stadium on the stone steps and watched Renaissance Fair kids practice sword fighting.

Eight was when she told me that she couldn’t be in a relationship, and she just had a need to explore and find out what worked for her, but that she couldn’t tell her man because he wouldn’t understand. She was torn that way: there was a wild life that she wanted and then this gravity, this man with feet firmly planted. So she did both. All of it. When she wanted.

I loved that she was that way. I loved that when we were together, we were best friends, but that when I left, there was someone else to be her best friend.

Our ninth date, she took me to a greenhouse. She named the plants for me. There was a tree in the greenhouse from Africa that only needed a few drops of water a year. “Any more than that, and it will die,” she said.

We turned on music back at her apartment. We smoked a bowl. Laying in bed, she said, “We’re all our own. That’s all we can be.”

I liked that.

I liked her.

My steps were light.

I had found the track.

Shane texted me on our tenth date. Shara and I finished up a game of minigolf. I told her about what to expect. Her eyes went wide. “We can roll tonight?” she said. “Let’s fucking go.”

ARAGUIN

When we pulled up there were cars parked on the lawn. Bass rattling the house. Shara kissed me quick on the cheek and hopped out. I followed.

Charlie greeted us at the door.

“No Mustang,” I said.

“Yeah, I finished it,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s in much better shape, but the guy seemed happy. So whatever.”

He handed us beers.

I saw Shane sitting on the couch. I sat down next to him. Shara wandered into the kitchen to mingle with the hoodrats.

Shane nodded at her. “Nice, man.”

“Thanks.”

“How have you been?”

I chugged half the beer. “I’ve been good, man. You?”

“Better. Things have been better.”

Outside it began to pour sleet.

“How did all that shit go?”

“I paid them.” And that was all he said on that.

He reached into his pocket and brought out two pills. “One for you, and one for your girl.”

I examined the capsule. “It’s brown.”

“It’s some new shit. Super pure. I’m feeling great.”

I ate mine and got up and gave Shara hers and got another beer. Sat back down with Shane. He’d gotten more tattoos on his face. When he smiled they overlapped.

The pill kicked in.

We talked for a long time about this and that.

“So you wash dishes.”

“I wash dishes.”

“What’s that like?”

“It’s like. I don’t know. It’s like scrubbing pots.”

“Scrubbing pots, right.”

“And you?”

“I’m selling again. Back in my element.”

“Elemental being.”

“That’s me.”

The party kept up and two folks rap battled in the living room. We watched them. Shara hollered and threw her fist up and danced.

“She’s a wild one,” he said.

I nodded.

Shane told me, “I’m not sure if I’m ever meant to be happy. I thought a lot about what you said. About being the man who stops for stoplights. I started thinking about what we are here to do. And I think I know. I’m here to be a heathen. That’s my thing. I can’t be any other way. I’m on some howl-at-the-moon shit. I’m okay with that. But sometimes I wish I could get happy.”

“You could.”

“You could. You’re built to be happy. It’s just, the thing about people built that way. They don’t know what to do when that’s not the way it is anymore.”

“I haven’t felt happy in a bit.”

“I think you have. I think you just live with it. So it’s like, furniture. It just is. You don’t know.”

Shara sat down next to us. Shane said, “I can see your aura plain as day.”

She crossed her legs and stared deep into him. “Yeah?”

“Yep. You’re a bright red.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Passion.”

Charlie stumbled over to us and grabbed me by the arm and dragged me outside. We smoked cigarettes on the porch.

“So I’ve got this thing,” he said. “Where Starburst, you know the candy right, Starburst will pay me to have a Caddy here at my place. They wrap the body kit in Starburst shit and they pay me to drive it around. I have this thing.”

“That sounds cool.”

“It is.” He took his cell phone out. “Let me show you pictures of all the bitches I’ve fucked since I saw you last.”

He showed me for fifteen minutes.

“That many?” I said.

He nodded. “It’s been like a monsoon. But with, like, pussy juice.”

I peeked in the window. Shane and Shara were still talking. She had her leg draped over his lap.

I thanked Charlie for the smoke and went back inside.

I said, “Well, I think it’s about time for us to head out.”

They didn’t say anything.

Shara hopped up from the couch and took my arm and led me over to a corner.

“We’re gonna go back in his room.”

My guts turned. “All right.”

She touched my face. “Want to come, too?”

The drugs made my face hot. I said, “Sure.”

She went back to the couch and picked Shane up by the hand. She led us into the bedroom.

Shane stuck out his split tongue at me.

I smiled as best I could.

Shara kissed Shane, then she kissed me. Back and forth like that, and I measured the time between.

She got on her knees. Shane unbuckled his belt and his pants slumped to the floor. She sucked him off and I took my pants off and started pulling on myself, watching them. She pulled her lips off him and turned to me and looked up at me with these eyes and I wish I’d seen those eyes otherwise. She worked on me.

We got on the bed and Shara put me back in her mouth and Shane got in her from behind and we rolled like that. Her face turned red and Shane hit it so hard her forehead bumped into my stomach. She took some time to breathe and looked back at him and told him, “Holy fucking shit, yes,” and then got back to me. I looked up at the spackle in the ceiling. Shane said, “I’m gonna come all over this ass,” and then he pulled out and did it.

She looked back at the mess he’d made and arched her back and kissed him. She said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever been fucked that hard in my life.” I pulled her away and laid her on the bed. I began to sweat. Shane was catching his breath. She put her hand on my face and looked in my eyes and told me to come inside, but I pulled out and shot it over her belly.

We lay there on the bed, in the dark, smoking cigarettes.

They talked about this and that.

I stayed quiet.

We ate some more pills.

Shane stroked Shara’s hair. She gripped her chest and shook gently. I thought he spoke. I was sure he spoke.

“Let me tell you how to be happy.”

I was sure he said, “You’re already feeling the week’s death and rebirth on the horizon, and you wonder to yourself if this wasn’t going to become a problem, like get exponentially worse, like one day you’ll start mourning the death and rebirth of the day and then after that the death and rebirth of an hour and then maybe seconds and on and on. Seems like a totally not-chill way to live, right?”

I was sure he said, “Let me tell you how to be happy. Go outside and look up at the constellations and notice that there are two bees touching bright glowing stingers. Snap your fingers like ‘oh yeah!’ and go out to your garage where you keep your collection of bee stingers. Hopefully you’ve been collecting them steadily, as you are an adult, and have accumulated enough for the project at hand. Take a tube of superglue from the shelf and glue the stingers to each other, face up, until you form a little hollowed-out pyramid, about the size of a tent.”

While the others shouted in the living room, while they tacked up blankets to keep the sun from peeking through the blinds, he said there in the dark, “Throw the bee-pyramid into the back of your Jeep and drive out into the desert and set the pyramid on completely flat land, where the cracks in the dirt look like wrinkles in a brain. Take off all of your clothes and feel that cool night air. Do a dance, whatever dance you like, but while you do it look up at the bee constellation, right where you left it, and shout at it, tell it that you don’t want the week to die, that you’re worried that you can feel your skin getting older, that the weight of thousands of invisible signals is making your brain heavy and saggy, that you want an answer, dammit.”

While Shara breathed softly, while she arched her back and fought against the high, I was sure Shane said, “Retrieve the straight razor from the back of your trunk and cut out your tongue and let your mouth fill with blood, but do not break your concentration. You want answers, and now you’re speaking the bee’s language. Place your tongue in the middle of the bee-pyramid and continue to dance and inquire as to the nature of things until two bees appear before you, glowing radioactive green, their antennae touching. They will bend at the thorax and touch stingers and the stingers will meld together like two globs of paraffin wax in a lava lamp. At this point, the bees will begin to suck into each other, black eyes staring out in opposite directions, and if you wait until the two pairs of antennae connect and shrink like the last line of static stretched across a TV screen, disappearing to a point, if you wait until it gets to that point and you grab it, this floating green orb, and you put it in the dirt at your feet and spin a slow circle in the center of your bee stinger pyramid you will open a portal to the underworld. You’ll float down softly and you will never remember the constellations and you will slide down a hollowed-out femur like a straw cut length-wise into a pile of bones and you will meet the scorpion loa, the Baron Zaraguin, god of assassins, and you can ask him what’s coming, you can ask him but he won’t say a word, won’t read to you from the whiteboard hanging in the dark of his office.”

While Shara quieted on the bed, I was sure he said, “He’ll lower his stinger and you’ll wrap your arms around it and he’ll lift you up off the carpet of crushed bones to a green dot floating in the particle board of his ceiling, and you’ll forget what it means, this green dot, but it will remind you of the lasers that would shoot from the stage you stood on when you were in the dreams of a popstar from Tokyo, and you will reach out to the crowd and let them sing the lyrics to the songs you’ve written, but every audience member is only a lonely minstrel by a fire in the woods, and you’ll notice your hands, that they’re your mother’s hands, and that you are your mother, and you will meet your father as a young scared teenager and you will pass notes and you will walk home from the bus stop past the mailbox and then your head is through the green portal and you’re asleep in the desert in your bee stinger pyramid, with a brand-new tongue and a whole lot of happiness, under constellations you’ve only just remembered existed at all.”

They hollered and whooped out in the other room. They screamed and tore at their hair. But Shane just sat there in the dark with me. All the life was gone out of the space and the blinking clock on the nightstand, and I was sure the heathen said something.