Chapter Twenty-five: Home acrid home
The floorboards rumbled and I tried to pay it no mind but then I remembered. Anxiety encapsulated me with cascading cramps along my ribs and wasn’t sure who would be down stairs.
The bathroom, decorated with dried flowers, was lit by gray hallway light. I splashed water on my shaggy head face and saw patches of dull on the mirror’s silver. The pressure behind my eyes was relieved with a few hard rubs as the stairs bent under my weight. Mother dried her hands with a dish towel as she poked her head out the kitchen door. An apron fell across her cashmere sweater as she dropped the hand towel on the floor and opened her arms. The hug squeezed the blood to my fingertips. I made no sound.
“What’s wrong? You’re not sick are you?” she asked.
“I am fine,” I said.
“It’s nice you’re home. I didn’t think you would be in till later. But now you can help me prepare food for tomorrow,” she said.
I shrugged
A nimble blade chopped vegetables on a block of wood and she shredded stale bread for the stuffing while interrogating me. The prep work was stowed in Tupper ware.
My mother told me a new corporate client was being a pain and that she had to finish some work in her office so she hung the apron up and went to her office. An opportunity came so I took advantage and surveyed the liquor cabinet. The stock was tidy but there were only three Mexican beers in the mini fridge under the wet bar. I would have to try out the fake ID.
On tip toes, I crept into my mother’s den to grab my car keys but there were no keys. She set a trap and I went to confront her.
“Where are the keys to my car?” I asked from her office door.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I sold it. If you need a car take mine,” she said as she closed her file cabinet door.
Anger coursed but I said, “Oh well. You could have told me. I did pay for half.”
She looked at her computer screen.
“What will you do if you need a car?” I asked.
“I won’t. Keys are on the rack,” she said and looked down to a stack of papers on her desk.
My anger emptied out. However, I was concerned about driving a black Mercedes into car-jacking territory to buy beer. Every mile a solitary white boy ventured into the city of Bridgeport the odds increased for harassment or worse. I almost clipped a garbage can as I backed out of the garage.
The trees fell away as strip malls and apartment buildings loomed on the horizon. The car drove like a dream even when hitting a line of pot holes on Barnum Avenue. It was a nice city, a wide city, a shoreline city, the city of P.T. Barnum the namesake of the street I traveled. I never had trouble but I heard stories in high school about kids being held up when they drove down to buy weed.
Every light was red.
The sidewalks bustled with groups of kids in puffy yellow winter coats. Broken down factories met me every few blocks but around them parks were filled with kids playing basketball behind chain link enclosed courts.
I got to the package store, the only one I went to once in high school, and parked near the entrance. Two cars sat in the lot. As I walked by the front counter a white kid who looked twelve hauled a thirty pack to the front. The refrigerated case in the back let out a chilly cough as I released the beer from the wire rack.
No ID was needed.
The brown paper bag ripped as I shoved it in the trunk.
The gas pedal was touchy as I sped down Clinton Avenue. The streets were layered with cars and box trucks. Down a street bordered by three family houses, I bypassed a busy intersection. Pulled out with the flow of traffic and cruised along until congestion knotted up traffic. The light went red on stretch of road where a new line of stores, bistros and parks were constructed. At the light, a Japanese sedan pulled up to my right.
The tinted passenger side window rolled down.
Through my peripheral vision I saw two Latino guys. The guy in the passenger seat had a backward Yankees cap riding his cornrows. I didn’t look as I turned up the radio and nodded my head to the music. The guy put his arm out the window and slapped his door. I was ready to blow through the light. He yelled, “Yo man! Yo!”
I looked, but if they pulled out something I was going through the light. My foot was ready to stomp the accelerator.
“Fucking great car,” he said as the driver shouted, “Peace.”
The light went green and they pulled away.
I was a chump and needed a place to drink. The only places I could think of were old hangouts from high school so I pulled into hidden parking lot behind the one-way street near the train station where the town piled sand for the road crews. No souls stirred or showed themselves. I drank beer while listening to the sounds of the highway.
Darkness covered my street and when I got home not a light flickered. Victory was mine, all I had to do was hide the beer and I found a duffle bag in the garage. I opened the door without commotion and put the keys down on the kitchen counter. The floors didn’t squeak and I slipped into my room. The beers were stuffed under my bed.
Sleep couldn’t be denied.
I awoke to a hairy hand shaking me.
“Get off me,” I told the transgressor.
Half-naked I sprung out of bed ready to pummel someone. My mother’s boyfriend William retreated to the door. I wasn’t in the dorm.
“Sorry sport, your mother told me to wake you up. You have to get your uncle,” he said and I apologized by putting my hand up.
“Fine,” I said.
I got ready. Dehydration took its toll so I lapped like an overheated dog from the bathroom faucet and went down stairs. William flipped through a New Yorker and didn’t look at me.
My mother’s face was covered by the Times and she said, “Here are the keys that you left on the kitchen counter and hurry your butt to get your uncle. By the way, the keys go on the rack.”
Down the straight streets I went to the Inn where limos, vans refitted to carry eight people, dropped off people from the airport. The inn’s lot was crawling with travelers and sticking out like a clown at a funeral was my six foot five uncle cloaked in a bright Hawaiian shirt wearing Bermuda shorts. You could see his breath in the chill. A plain woman stood next to him.
“Uncle Randolph,” I shouted and waved my hand.
He bound over with long strides. The woman next to him did not follow, but a pretty lady did.
I was shocked.
Her face belonged in perfume advertisements and his face in ads for baked beans. My uncle strode up and crunched me with his bags hanging from his arms.
“Good to see you Keen. It’s been years,” he stated and I said, “Yes it has.”
“This is my wife Patricia, call her Patty,” he said.
I nodded and she stepped forward to introduce herself, “I’m glad to meet you. I heard so much about you, Hunter and your Mom. I feel like I’ve known you for years.”
She hugged me.
I was an opossum.
She stepped back.
“You can call me Auntie if you want,” she said.
I popped the trunk and the bags were placed snugly before I could get there to help. Uncle Randolph took the front seat and she got in the back. As soon as I backed up the car, he forced his seat back to make room for his large Birch tree legs. She opened the window stared out, face in the breeze, like a Yellow Labrador Retriever but no drool.
“So, how are you and Hunter getting along these days? You guys used to fight over everything,” he asked.
“I have not seen him in over a year,” I said and unrolled my window.
He looked at me as if I killed his pet bird and he said, “What happened?”
I rolled up my window at a stop sign.
“He left to find himself. Old news, but it still bothers my mother so do not bring it up. He calls sometimes,” I said.
My uncle leaned back and rubbed his knees.
Patty then propped herself up in between the front seats and said, “So, Joa
quin do you like high school? I loved high school but it went by so fast.”
“I am not in high school. I am in college,” I responded.
The spirit of confusion filled her.
“Wow, you must be really smart to be in college at your age,” she said.
The spirit then possessed me.
“What?” I said.
The spirit was becoming dizzy from jumping in between bodies
“You must be really smart to be in college at sixteen,” she said.
“I am eighteen, nineteen soon,” I stated.
“Oh, I thought you were sixteen. That’s what I was told, Randy!” she said and an open handed slap grazed the back of his head.
I pulled into the driveway and popped the truck. Loaded up with their bags like pack mule, I made it to the backdoor. They went in where my mother had been waiting. My shoulders slumped and the bags rolled off by the bench. On the balls of my feet, I skipped out up stairs hoping to be forgotten.
It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when cold drafts snuck under my door with roast turkey surfing them. An old guitar magazine on my nightstand beckoned me so I started to skim through it and three taps, like a cane knocking, snapped through my room. I leapt off my bed and landed with a stomp. With a yank, William stood in the hall with his arm frozen in mid air poised to deliver a blow with his pinky ring.
“What?”
“Your Mom wants you.”
The door closed.
I heard him descend the stair and I waited a minute before entering the swirling tempest called family plus one.
My mother was alone in the kitchen and had sent the others to watch football, but I couldn’t. They were entrenched in the couches with chip, dips and whatever beverage they wanted and I had to spoon stuff into bowls and gravy boats. My idiot uncle must have mentioned Hunter.
My mother’s face was blank.
I chose not to give any grief and helped with the green beans and cranberry sauce with mandarin orange slices.
Preparations ended an hour later and I set the table with the first round of dishes. The chandelier spit shards of starlight across the red wallpaper and white seat covers. I called the fickle flock to the dinning room. My mother sat at the head of the mahogany table as I went to get the turkey and carving knife.
I came back and William sat at the head of the table. My mother moved to flank his right. William waved for me to set the silver platter before him. I thought fuck him. Dump the turkey on him. The turkey wobbled on the tray like it wanted me to toss it. Slipping behind Patty I leaned forward and said, “Woah.” as the platter dipped.
The incident would be too much trouble so the turkey went in for gentle landing. I sat across from my uncle.
They said grace.
The clang and clatter of them groaning and eating made nausea rise and fall in my throat. I forced a nibble of each dish even the yams. Soon enough their belts went slack and tummies were rubbed. I bused the table and brought out the pumpkin pie. The hint of cinnamon rested at the tip of my nose. The ground below shook with their desire to attack the pie.
And they did.
I stole away with a bottle of blackberry brandy and latched the door. In a few tick of the clock, nutty cigars smoke came bellowing up from below. It would mask the scent of my cigarette so I pried open a narrow window in my closet, knelt down and lit up. Resting by my knees was my old cassette walkman with a Faith No More mix tape. It had juice. I slugged down brandy and sleep couldn’t be denied.
I woke up parched.
The sun was beaming through my drapes on to my easel. Scratching the top of my head, I ventured downstairs for juice. A commotion was coming from the dining room. I went over to the Dutch doors in the kitchen and swung them open expecting to see that a bird had some how gotten inside.
There was my uncle’s shiny white ass high in the air, his pants around his ankles. Patty, skirt up around her waist, was splayed back on the table. My uncle was in the middle of a painful looking move and didn’t see me but she looked at me and winked. I retreated with backward steps to my room and locked my door behind me.
My nausea rose.
They all went out later that day and I decided to do laundry. A hamper and a garbage bag accompanied me to the washroom. The clothes went in without a fight. Before I pulled the knob, I checked the pocket of my pants so I wouldn’t toss any money or drugs away. No drugs but a piece of paper fell out of my jeans into my hand. It was directions to Dawn’s house. She was having parties. The knob clicked to regular load and I proceeded back upstairs. The fine powder I packed was where I left it in my shoe.
I was jazzed and manufactured some tools. The delightful dust spread out in hills with the edge of a credit card. It was decent but not the most potent and would help me through the day. I figured I should be polite and call Dawn to tell her I was coming. From the second floor den’s phone I dialed.
Dawn answered the second ring, “Hello.”
“Hi. It is me Joaquin. I was not busy and thought that I would call,” I said.
“Hey, if you aren’t busy come on up. Having a few people over tonight around eight but you come over whenever,” she said.
“Cool, I will be there around six, later,” I said quickly.
“Cool. See ya,” she said and hung up.
I felt warm liquid running down my cheek and wiped it off. My nose was leaking blood like a dyke and my finger couldn’t plug the hole. I jumped into the bathroom and jammed a white wash cloth up my nose and waited for it to stop. Outside, a moveable feast of words were stretching thin through the neighborhood. I heard the front door collided with the wall.
The pack returned.
I jetted into my room and closed the door. Second after second passed as my nose bled, I couldn’t let my mother see. Tick tock, the sands of time burned to glass and my nose stopped.
No bothered me.
I surmised the group went out drinking at the local beachside bar as the doors to their rooms closed one after the other. I bundle up my bloody towel, threw it under the bed and went to investigate.
I found snores.
How was I going to escape the asylum?
How would I get the keys to the car?
I could take a cab but a sneaky thought snuck in. I would ask for the keys at my mother’s door and say, “Thank you.” Then I would write a note explaining my plans and leave it in an obvious spot. If she asked I would say, “I told you and even left a note.” She wouldn’t inquire further.
Five thirty came. A soft calm enclosed me as I put on a clean black oxford and the new Dr. Martin boots I never took to school. I swiped the keys from the rack and went to the foyer closet. In one motion, I pulled my gun metal gray over coat off the hook and skipped out the door. I knew Dawn’s house was in one of the uber upscale sections on the hill where long driveways and trees hid the mansions.
It was getting dark.
The elevated corners and switchback streets taunted the Mercedes but it didn’t falter. I climbed up hill and the yards got bigger and bigger. My mania was only amplified by the music from the only decent New York radio station that came in without diffusing into static.
I was vibrating.
Levitating.
Pulsing.
Panting.
Projecting myself forward.
Soon the trees hid the mansions and I almost hit a guy walking an otter hound. He piled into a stone rumble wall along the tree line. I was lost in the tangles of curves and swerves but the street sign for King’s Grant Road, the cul de sac of cul de sacs, ran at me.
At the end of the circle where a set of three mail boxes were clustered, I stopped. Posed with a quandary, I had three options so I turned off the radio and listened for life. An oak tree bordering the second driveway had a ring of paper cranes tied around it. The cranes fluttered in the breeze.
I turned in and the gravel driveway spat tiny rocks at the steel underbelly of the
borrowed vehicle as the stones ground and crunched under tire. The path was lined with thick hardwoods below the raised drive that bowed and slithered like a snake’s back. Two vehicles couldn’t pass each other. I drifted by an open pen for horses and a stable. A three story guesthouse the size of my house came up next.
The car glided by a Victorian mansion at the end of the driveway and I parked on a side yard next to six other cars. I kicked stones under foot as I sauntered up the snaking walkway.
The doorbell rung with round electronic chimes and Dawn swung the door open. Vanilla air drafted by as she said, “Hello” and leapt upon me.
I caught her.
I tolerated it since it was her party and still amped in a higher gear. She released her grip so I put her down and she stepped back, as her black pleated skirt, too short for the weather, rocked like a pendulum and asked, “Was it hard to find?” I shook my shaggy head and said, “No, not particularly.”
“I’m happy you came. You look good, black suits you best. Overcoat’s a nice touch, you should be strolling the theatre district in the city. I have some people for you to meet,” she said and led me through a hallway with recessed spaces where antique bronze statues posed at eye level.
We entered a vast open room with vaulted ceilings ribbed with dark wood beams. Two squat guys sat legs crossed on a tan couch bending around a TV set back in an armoire. They were playing video games.
“Bill and Ted, this is Joaquin,” she said as they looked blankly at the television screen, said “Hi” and continue their battle with the pixilated forces of evil.
The sweeping ceiling drew my attention and when I wasn’t looking she took hold of my hand. She led me by room that looked to me like a Shinto shrine I saw in a history book. One side was white sliding paper wall and the on the other side of the room hung pictures of three elderly Japanese people. In the center of the room was a bronze Buddha statue on an altar surrounded by charred sticks of incense. A drop leaf table underneath stuck out with a pile of paper cranes, blue, white, yellow and red. My heels pressed down and we came to a halt.
“What’s with the…”
“Shrine. It’s to my ancestors. My mom’s mom is Japanese. Sobo. She left after the war. My grandfather was a GI. She was great. Reserved and detailed to a fault. Taught me Origami to slow me down as my dad would say.”
“Cool, the origami is impressive.”
“Thanks. This place is free reign so go where you want but I don’t recommend going on the fifth floor. It’s attic. Don’t worry, my parents barely live here anymore after retiring to the city. My dad did some leveraged brokerage thing and liquidated some companies. I have no idea. Just don’t touch the cars in the garage, especially the Bugati, I think there are laser sensors or something. There are two refrigerators out there with beer and stuff in the garage. It’s connected to the house by the porte-cochere, uh, the raised hallway that goes over the courtyard and driveway. Might have seen it as you drove in. There’s a door marked on the second floor. Can’t miss it. But there’s a lot of beer and wine in the first floor kitchen at the other end of the house. Keg outside too,” she said.
Dawn trapped the blood at my fingertips with her determined squeeze and pulled me through the labyrinth. The museum part of the house, pristine and unlived, cleared away to a functional kitchen with polished stone counter tops. We skated out through the three season porch through a kitchen door. There five girls and two guys sat on wrought iron benches.
“This is Joaquin everyone. You might remember him from high school,” she said.
They looked away.
“Can I get a beer or something?” I asked.
“Follow me,” she said and opened the glass door to a set of stone stairs.
The frigid hilltop air tumbled in. The keg sat on a half-moon patio in a black tub trimmed with blue cups with white rims. The keg burped so I pumped the handle.
Dawn waited.
“Go inside. I am going to have a couple and catch up. Plus, I want a smoke.”
“You can smoke inside,” she said as her hair brushed across her granny glasses.
“No. I would rather smoke out here for now,” I said and her right arm crossed her body to rub her left shoulder.
Her chin tilted up to left and she said, “Don’t worry about what just happened. It’s an adjustment for them to see you since most of them were never got in to the parties your friends had.”
“I am not worried. Go,” I said.
She looked back at me as she opened the glass door.
I raised my cup and chugged. Then I chugged another. My teeth and gums turned to ice. Needed to get nicely numbed because I recognized the people inside and they didn’t like me.
The guys were in my high school AP physics or biology classes. They studied like rats in cages and I blew the curve but it didn’t matter because I was going to be a Rock Star. Every once in a while, it was nice to prove I was smart though.
A stone bench by the house invited me to sit. Four beers and two smokes later, I ventured inside as the impending frostbite chewed on my blue fingers. Plus, the scent of horse grew strong.
They were gone.
I wandered the corridors, grabbed two German beers from the kitchen and screwed them into my pockets. As I closed the refrigerator door, Dawn appeared behind it. She dragged me by the shirt sleeve to a door where stairs lead down to a basement. At the bottom, I looked to see a vastness that rivaled the upstairs. We passed by a teak and cedar wine cellar that stored a few vintages behind locked doors and a Swedish sauna.
The echoes of my steps bounced off the far end of the corridor. There a frosted sliding glass door glowed. It opened with the touch of a button. A glorious saloon style mahogany bar gilded with brass, three televisions set in the tan walls emerged. Leather couches crouched along the walls and a professional size pool table looked like match book at the other end of the room as the open space was broken by one central column. The seven couches were full and so were the bar stools. People were playing darts to my right and the pool table was surrounded.
Dawn told me the taps at the bar were off but there were bottles in the floor fridge. I recognized a face bent over to making a shot at the pool table. He was from Wessex. Dawn turned her back to the crowd and waved me on. I scoot waved her away and tricked a smile.
The guy who George called Gangly Joe finished shooting stick and saw me. With a nod he smiled and put his pool cue in the hanging wall rack. He grabbed a cup off the bar and moseyed over.
“Hey bro. Strange to see you so far from Sex C. What’s up?” Gangly Joe asked.
“Strange, I agree. What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I live in Easton and told Dawn I would come by. So, here I am. How’s the break treating you?” he asked and raised his cup.
“Bored. Just want to get back to school,” I said.
“Me too. My dad set a set curfew but I told him I was staying at a friend’s house. So, I’m staying here tonight. What about you?”
“Do not know,” I said.
“Your parent’s strict about drinking and staying out late?”
“I do not have parents. I have a mother and no curfew since I was fifteen. So to answer you, no,” I said.
“Really, you’re lucky,” he said and scratched above his ear.
“Lucky, no,” I said.
I grabbed a smoke and pull out my lighter. The flint was flicked and the flame glowed. The room turned and stared at me.
Anger twitched.
I wanted to bite people.
“What the hell are all of you looking at? Go back to your little conversations,” came out of my mouth.
A portly fellow with a receding hairline said, “Well, I don’t want a cigarette and second hand smoke causes cancer too. So I request on the behalf of everyone else who doesn’t smoke that you go outside forthwith.”
He tapped his index fingers together.
The irritation tickled.
I too
k a puff and blew at him. Dawn’s eyes sank.
“You are fucking serious? Dawn told me I could smoke inside so I am. Shut your fucking mouth or you might not be able to eat solid foods again. In your case that might be a good idea. Punk ass bitch. Avaunt!” I said and took another puff.
Not a peep, they sat silent like scolded children.
I grunted and left to get a beer at the keg outside.
Dawn followed me outside and I couldn’t face her. Still consumed by the anger, I grit my teeth with the shame that I couldn’t control myself.
“Please calm down. Reggie didn’t mean to offend you,” Dawn said.
“That fucker’s name is Reggie. He obviously does not get out much. I thought this was a party and not a youth group,” I said.
“More people are coming. It’s early. I’m sorry if they seem lame but they will relax,” she said.
“I am sorry. I snapped. Things sort of suck right now,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. Wanna jam later? I have two acoustics in the media room,” she asked.
“Maybe? It depends. Ask me in few hours,” I said and she claps her fingertips together and said, “Okay”.
She went in and I drank.
Gangly Joe came out to join me and said, “That was funny. Cheers!”
“Glad it was amusing,” I said and we raised our cups and finish them off.
Jello shots wiggled on the kitchen counter and guitars were picked up.
Darkness came.