Chapter Fourteen: Thirty minutes more or less
I followed James to a late night party and that was all I recalled. All must have gone well since I woke up before three the next day and wasn’t covered in blood or urine. A mild headache curled up in my skull and pounded my temples as dryness grated at my throat. As I stood, the headache went from mild to spicy. Food was needed so I went to Tim’s room to see if he wanted to order some.
I knocked on the door stone cracking hard. He was in his boxers with one eye slanted open. His face was clenched in a painful stare. His oily fine hair flopped as he waved me in.
“What’s up man? Have a seat,” he spit it out as he fell back into his faded rainbow sheets.
“Buddy, you look worse than I feel. Are you okay?” I asked.
He lifted his head up and said, “Just trying to recover from last night or this morning or whatever. I went to bed around seven. Do you have a smoke?”
He turned on his side and raised the sheets above his waist. I grabbed a half pack from my pocket and knelt down beside his bed and gave him a limp cigarette. A wagging finger pointed to orange seashell ashtray on the floor with matches propped up on the edge. I rested the receptacle below his bed. A stable blaze banished the nicotine craving and my headache went to shallow status.
I hunkered down.
“Last night was a total nightmare until Erin came down. I didn’t get to sleep until seven this morning,” Tim said with a puff.
“Yeah you just said that. What the hell happened?” I asked.
“Oh man, we came back here to fool around but she hit the top and it scared the shit out of her. Breathing all hard and holding her chest. I knew I was in for a babysitting job,” he said.
A demented sort of pride squirreled across his swollen face.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It’s a long story,” Tim said.
“Give me the short version,” I said.
“Okay but don’t tell anyone, but before I tell you I’ve got a question,” he said.
I took a prolonged breath.
“Ask away,” I said and worry sliced my stomach.
“It’s late you want to split some delivery?” he asked as he sat up in his bed.
Relief sealed my wound.
“Sure man. That is why I came here. Pizza place or sandwich shop?” I asked.
“Sandwich. I’m done with pizza. They taste like cardboard and greasy fake cheese. Call and I’ll pay with plastic. You get it from the downstairs. Get me a ham and cheese,” he said.
I called information for the number and set the order.
“The sandwich place said about twenty-five minutes,” I said and he kicked the sheets off his feet.
“Turn on the TV and hit the volume so I can hear. That piece of shit never works with the remote,” Tim said.
A long gray ash fell off his smoke into the shell. I held the small TV balanced on three milk crates in the corner and pushed the on button.
“Well what happened with this babysitting?” I asked while reaching for the floor as I sat.
“Okay,” he said and crashed back into his pillows with a dead smoke between his lips.
“Like I was saying before, she was holding her chest and panting like a dog. I told her to calm down but she just kept saying ‘I’m going to die’. Same thing happened to my cousin when we tasted together for the first time. He was hypersensitive too but he could drink beer pretty fast and it brought him down, but Erin ain’t a chugger,” he said, looked cross-eyed at the unlit smoke and began again, “she said she was hallucinating. Seeing black streams across the floor and hearing kid’s voices. Never saw shit on Meth so I think she might have been making it up. You know for sympathy. I don’t know but I was hard wired so time flew. She cooled out about three when I heard you guys come back. I think somebody, you perhaps, pounded on Jack’s door. You don’t remember that?” he asked.
“Guilty, go on.”
“After a few beers, she calmed her down. Then it got weird. She all of a sudden goes from death’s door to horny co-ed porn star. Man she mauled me like a grizzly. I was actually worried about whiskey dick before but didn’t happen. We went at it a few times and she left. I fell asleep and the next thing I know you’re here,” he said as he ground his cold cigarette butt in the bottom of the shell.
“Yup, that was the short version,” I said and he tapped two fingers to his lips indicating he wanted another smoke.
I flung him one.
He put his arm behind him and rummaged around in a milk crate under the bed. A blue lighter flicked to life.
“There you go. There’s a lot more but that’s all you’re getting. Dude, go wait for chow,” he said and put his hands behind his head.
Woozy and wobbly, I held the hand railing as I clopped down the stairs to the main entrance. The heavy fire door scuffed the floor as it opened. I was there for only a nano-second and a deliveryman came to the double doors to be buzzed in. The place was empty besides the microwave oven, the vending machine, the couches and the front desk. No one was on duty. I hit button on the yellow box to buzz him in. He entered carrying an insulated pizza bag. With his head down, he wiped his feet on the bristled doormat. He asked me, “You getting these two pizzas and the two liter?”
“No, I am waiting on something else,” I said to the man reminiscent of a Neanderthal.
I walked across the room, braced myself on the armrests and then lowered myself into the squishy cushions of the yellow couch. Silence separated us.
“Damned college kids thank yur sooooo special. Snobby little shits always fucking make me wait like my time ain’t important and I’m some sord of foo. I tell you what, I’m gonna get the manager ta stop delivering and then y’all be sorry,” he said at me.
“Dude, calm down,” I said as he looked at me as if I came from an entirely different universe and slammed the bag down on the front desk. His thick arms went to his sides.
“Who in the Hell do you think yur talking to? Me? I’d smack ya round if you ernt all protected by this skoo,” he said in a huff.
“Chill man, I got no gripe with you. Back off or I am getting security,” I said and fear rumbled in my glassy stomach.
Then two girls from the fifth floor, both wearing blue sweaters, walked through the door from the East wing and he was silent.
“That’s ours isn’t it,” one of them said in a perky voice.
“I guess so ma’am,” the deliveryman blurted out with a pleasant tone. He said nothing else but, “Thank You” as they left and he went out the door.
I looked both ways and snuck up to the bay window overlooking the courtyard below the Greek columns and smacked it. He turned around and I flipped him the bird. He waved his fist in the air, gave me the finger and hopped into his jalopy. College kids can be huge assholes but so can deliverymen.
My delivery person came ten minutes later. She was cool and I gave her all my cash as a tip. I walked back to the room, sandwiches swing in their plastic bags, and was excited to eat, but more excited to tell the tale.
Tim was on the phone as I opened the door, so without interruption I placed the food down on the floor and began unwrapping. I caught the names Erin and Elyssa out of the air.
As I munched on a large meatball, Tim hung up the phone and was upon the grub like locusts. I finished and had a smoke in the hall. He finished and hurled the paper on the floor near his Hulk garbage can as I entered and left the door ajar. I coughed and asked, “What was that about? Heard you mention Elyssa and Erin.”
I threw him a smoke.
“Erin is staying in tonight. I called to see if she was okay. She is and Elyssa is coming by to pick up the rest of Erin’s loot. You know, I think Elyssa is going to be a good customer. She’s coming by to get more Speedy Gonzalez,” he said.
“Dude sell her coke not that Meth shit. I might have a shot with her and do not want some crank wank girlfriend,” I said and cleared my throat.
> He burst into laughter like a toddler who was being over-tickled by its mother.
“You silly fuck. What? You think last night was her first time? She’s been hounding me since she found out who I was. She’s an old pro,” he said and looked at me as I leaned back on the wall.
“Fuck! Dude don’t look so sad. Listen to me. Erin told me she’s has been sleeping with Justin for a while now, and face it. She was getting friendly with you because you’re my friend. Sorry I had to tell you like this,” he said.
The blood drained out of my lower back. My heart halted and dried in the light of truth. I was blinded and felt like I was going to sink through the floor, dissolve into simple molecules, and disappear. Salvation came to me as I bit down on my tongue. Real pain would not let me disintegrate. The cold of the wall burned as I slumped down.
“Sorry to break it to you, but it’s better than going out and being led by your dick. Don’t worry, you’re not the first or last man to get played but now you can screw with her head,” Tim said.
“I am letting her go,” I said.
“She’s coming over here now so you can bail or stay. I’m going to fire up some ganja in a little. You’re welcomed to join,” he asked with his shoulders shrugged.
I decided to stay and see what would come. Tim and I watched the small television with poor reception.
The door whooshed open as the light of the hall dragged behind Elyssa in a pair of jeans to big for her, guy jeans.
“Hey, what’s up?” she asked, eased her way over to the other side of the room and sat at the foot of Tim’s bed.
He got up, locked the door and grabbed the dirty green towel to block the gap between the door and the outside floor. It was late afternoon, the smoking hour for potheads.
“Can I get Erin’s stuff and my batch? I have to get back,” she said.
“You don’t want to smoke up before you go? Joaquin and I were just about to toke and you are welcome to join us,” Tim asked and then paused to wait for a response.
Her eyes rolled up to the left, her cheeks bulged a hard smile and she nodded.
I spun my ring and then grabbed a smoke.
Tim slithered to the perilous drawer, extracted the merchandise and a held out a plastic mini-water pipe.
“How are you feeling Joaquin?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Here, this is what she had left and this is yours” Tim said and handed over the baggies.
She handed over a roll of bills. A satchel of herb was pulled out of the drawer and he began to pack the mini-waterpipe as he sat on the couch. I picked up the shell, Tim held out his lighter and I fired up another cigarette to fume block the illegal smoke. Tim turned his gaze towards me and asked, “What were you trying to tell me before?”
“Shit brother, I buzzed in a psycho deliveryman by accident. The guy was one bad tip away from the Nut Shack. After I let him in, he started saying shit about how college kids are snobs because they make him wait. Shit, he goes off on me so I stand up to him and tell him to calm down. This pisses him off even more but I mention security. Then some of the girls from upstairs come to get their pies and he acts all nice and polite. He called them ma’am like they were Southern Belles sitting around drinking watered down scotch. I gave him the finger through the window when he left,” I said in a puff of smoke.
A slurping whistle came from the water pipe as Elyssa sucked it.
Tim snagged the blow-tube from under the couch to mask the smell and handed it to her. The cardboard tube from a roll of paper towel stuffed with sheets of fabric softener worked great. The smoke came out the other end of the smokestack smelling like the laundry room. The soapy smoke spiraled away in a vortex with every exhale. He toked on the pipe.
Held it, and, released.
“Only to you man,” he said as he blew out.
I didn’t know if he was referring to the deliveryman incident or Elyssa, or both.
The warm rush from the first hit went through me like a copier’s light going over a piece of paper. Bravery embraced me.
“Elyssa, are you going out with your friends or with Justin and his buddies tonight?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m going over to Justin’s after this. Might see you two out later though,” she said and I thought liar liar as I said, “Cool”.
My attentions focused on the TV until we finished the session and I wrenched op the window to vent the smoke.
“Thanks for the buds. Have to go. See you later okay. Bye, bye,” she said and left like the fumes.
“Told you. Man, looked like you’re going to cry there for a minute but good catch,” he said and propped his feet up.
“No dude, smoke got in my eyes,” I said.
I flipped the channel and watched golf like only the stoned can.
Couldn’t tell how much time passed but George popped his head in and told us what was going on that evening and I left to get ready. As I walked to my room, I thought to myself that will never happen again.
The party scene was like any other night. The beer flowed, inhibitions fell, frats fought outside and naked coeds were cheered on as they streaked through the houses. The parties converged into a blur spread across the lost night and I didn’t care anymore. The disease had infected me. I could feel it spreading. It would bring change.