The Excess Road
By Joshua Lee Andrew Jones
Copyright 2010 Joshua Lee Andrew Jones
The Wisdom of Excess
by William Blake
Exuberance is Beauty.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings
Chapter One: All at once upon a time.
Wessex College
Virginia
May, 1994
Hallucinations suck.
Hallucinations in the shower suck worse.
As I soak under the warm spray with my head down, hair in my eyes, everything gets heavier like gravity got stronger around me and nowhere else. This is a warning and there’s nothing I can do. My fist cocks back and I punch through the column of water. Below the showerhead, my scarred knuckles meet the wall and the thud rumbles through the empty stalls. Blood drips down the tile.
Before the change, I looked forward to showers where the world fell away down the drain. No murders, no cops, no Rascal, no Professor Campbell and no red dots appearing right before my eyes. A shower was a shower, safe and warm, but now it’s not safe.
Nowhere is safe.
The spray narrows with a quick spin of the metal knob that’s hot to the touch. It squeaks to a halt and the shower head cuts off the stream. Pruned hands cover a face that I don’t recognize and then glide over the top of my head to swipe away the excess water. The empty shampoo bottle and sliver of green soap are abandoned by the drain.
Outside of the stall I expect to hear random conversations that only college guys can have about sex or back hair, but a thin silence hovers like the steam. Water drips from the showerhead with the rhythm of a slow heartbeat and the stall door creaks shut as I step out under the flickering of the florescent lights. One last clean towel hangs uneven on the wall-hook and it tumbles off with a weak tug. Soaked toes slip over tile and grout.
The vent fan in the changing area hums with a slow suction but the windows above the steel frame are fogged up with a grainy mist. I walk off and sling the plush towel over my shoulder. The mirrors above the sinks are fogged up too. Didn’t think I was in the shower that long.
“Hello. Anyone there?”
No reply.
The scent of bleach burns my nose as I take the corner and pass by the urinals fresh with blue cakes. The bathroom hasn’t been this sterile since before the first day of classes.
Half-way down the hallway, I wrap the towel around my waist after leaving a trail of slick footprints behind on the recently polished floor, polished to a high shine. With each step, spotty moisture evaporates and cools my bare chest and back.
The Southern air hits me as I cross the threshold into my box of a room. The single window is open to air out the accumulated scents of my freshman year. One swollen hand grips the terrycloth and the other slams the thick window shut to keep out the muggy air. With a short yank of the chord, the plastic blinds zip down to the windowsill and banish the night from my dorm room.
Almost everything is packed and ready to go for tomorrow’s last goodbye but next to the closet in my cubbyhole sits my guitar string ring, the copy of Less Than Zero I’ve been trying to read all year, and the unopened letter from her. I should toss it. Nothing she could have written will make me forgive her for killing him. I pick up the coiled ring and spin it on my finger.
The smell of stale pizza lingers around the stack of dead pizza boxes in the corner so I chuck them like Frisbees out into the white hall.
In this fragile space, problems surround me and I can’t feel the things I’m supposed to feel. The only person who can understand is gone and he isn’t coming back. Wish I could just start over but not here in the sticks. I mean Appalachia is pretty in spring, thick greenery rolls for miles, buttercups and violets have been resurrected from the dirt, but the numbness lives here in the foothills.
I want out.
When I stepped on campus a little over eight months ago, I thought it’d be no task to find a girlfriend, and that’s really all I wanted, but Wessex College isn’t what I thought. Hell, I’m not who I thought. I think I’m Joaquin Chandler but I can’t be certain of that anymore. Oh well. Ninety-four has been one insane year so far. I look at my digital clock resting alone on the floor.
It’s 8:30 PM.
Time to head to the parties.
I scan over the thin carpet blotted with angry brown stains and look by the suitcases for the garbage bag with a red twist tie that holds my half-clean laundry. The tie gives a good fight but with a final hard spin, loaded with spite, it surrenders and I rescue a black t-shirt from the compacted mass of clothes. It slips on without dragging the wet off my shaggy hair but the collar rides too close to my throat. With a hard stretch, it releases and gives me slack. Wearing all black makes things easy.
Still damp, I leave my vacant dormitory behind and trek uphill across the main campus that is groomed as well as any English garden but braids of looping sidewalks knot up the lush lawn dotted with stone benches. The contours of the night sky above are flat and fuzzy circles of stars flicker on the surface. As I pass by Donner Hall, a set of twin towers where a dream almost came true, the slow groan of the Appalachian breeze is overtaken by the putter of a golf cart getting louder and louder. I look over my shoulder to see a security guard racing toward me.
He pulls out in front and jams on the brake. As he approaches through the deep twilight, I can see the sweat stains under the arms of his white shirt. The uniform chokes back his roundness.
“What you doing here?” he asks.
“I am a student,” I say.
My ID card slips out of my pocket and I show him.
“Oh, shouldn’t you be gone?”
“Tomorrow morning,” I say.
“Fine. Good night,” he says and putters off.
At least there’s no trouble and I really don’t want any trouble tonight, but I’m sure Justin is out. Doesn’t matter, I must find Elyssa. Might not survive this and my brassy nerves are uncoiling just thinking about telling her how I feel. The guitar string ring spins with a few flicks of my thumb.
Pushing through the humid wall of evening, I make it off campus and walk over to the collection of maple lined streets nicknamed Fraternity Row. Under dim stretches of streetlight I stalk the party where I hope she’ll be. Maybe telling her how I feel will exorcise the demons? The anxiety attacks and hallucinations are getting worse.
I can’t believe this happened to me.
Fraternity Row is dead. Most under-classmen left but the summer heat arrived in this part of Virginia born of early May. Cigar and cigarette smoke tinted with weed cascade by in the damp air as I turn the corner. A charged crowd gathers outside the Victorian home that was transformed over the neglected years into a party house for college kids. I bounce around the edges and head up the walkway.
Strange, there is no music.
I continue my push up to the porch and inside is packed body to body. The smell of sweat mixed with beer envelopes me. I don’t see Elyssa but my adversary throughout the year stands in my path, the only path, within the riotous space. Justin sips a plastic wine glass bubbling with champagne and is surrounded by his posse of thick necked frat boys. He sees me, an eyebrow lifts, and he shakes his head. Tufts of dirty blonde hair brush across his forehead with each short shake.
I drift through open pockets of space between people and avoid a group of trashed seniors singing cheers to graduation. A girl with tear smeared mascara crosses my path and sniffles. People cry for different reasons I guess, but I can’t cry at all now. Wish I cou
ld but everything inside is wound up too tight. In a blue bin filled with gray water, cans of cheap beer bob through the ice. I swipe one and crack it open.
My freedom is nowhere to be found.
Through the bustling crowd, a blur of blond hair zigzags towards me. They are not the locks I’m looking for, but I’m glad to see them nonetheless. Luke with his Manhattan swagger pops through, puts his hand on my shoulder, and leads me back out to the front porch where empty beer kegs clutter the corners.
The scent of apple blossoms drifts by.
“I’m graduating kid,” Luke says.
“Yes, I know,” I reply.
“I’m sorry about Tim. I know you guys were buds,” he says.
“Yeah, we were.”
His eyes tear up and sparkle in the thin street light. He wipes his face with his Phillies Blunt t-shirt.
“It’s just madness man. You find anything new out about it?” Luke asked.
“No. Pretty sure the cops are closing the case. I know some people think a drug dealer killed them but we all saw the fights they had,” I say.
“Yeah, I saw Erin smack him at that party. Vicious. But on a positive note, I’m happy you stayed to party with old Luke one more time,” he says.
“Me too, have you seen Elyssa?”
“No Joaquin, I haven’t. I wanted to say…” bass beats from the stereo inside blast through the house and shake the porch so he yells, “I just wanted to say if you need me, call me. You have my home number.”
“Thanks.”
“I know it’s hard for you to celebrate but let’s get shattered before the cops shut this place down,” he says.
“In a minute,” I say, force a grin and watch him nod to the music as he slips back inside.
I slide down onto an empty wine crate below the window, rub my sweating face and wonder where she could be?
“Hey Joaquin,” a male voice comes from the front door and I swivel to see Justin, no posse, staggering toward me.
“I do not want any trouble,” I say.
“No, no trouble. Besides Elyssa and I were a fling. No hard feelings?” he asks.
I envision punching him in the face so hard his teeth crack.
“No hard feelings,” I say.
“Sorry about your bud Tim. He was a good dude. Can’t believe she killed him like that,” he says and sips his champagne.
“Me either. Have you seen Elyssa?” I ask.
“What? No, she was going to stay but left,” he says and sips his champagne.
“Oh.”
“Later dude,” he says, chugs the rest of his drink and walks back inside to be consumed by the party.
The beer burns my tongue and the foam sets a ring around my mouth. My stomach clenches up. The air is thick and it’s hard to take a deep breath. I gaze at the cones of light flickering from the lamp posts down to the street glazed with ancient asphalt. My stomach muscles cramp and send shooting pains through my chest. An attack is coming and as I blink away the humid night the impish hallucinations, the little red dots, appear and cover the deck.
There is only one way to deal with the flashbacks. I get up, ram my way through the party, take as many beers as I can carry and shuffle out to the backyard. I drink. I drink faster. I drink them all. A pile of cans sits at my feet and I wait for fuzzy headed relief.
The eager call of nicotine whispers into my ear. With shaky hands, I try to light a smoke under the seething canvass of evening. The lighter flicks but will not come to life. I hold my breath and the flame ignites. The cigarette burns as the comforting smoke slithers away in the breeze. Spinning the guitar string ring with my thumb soothes me as the trembling moments soon fall away into the night.
I failed once again.