The Book of Joe (23 page)

“Hey.” I pull myself up and then squirm forward on my belly until I'm safely on the ledge. “How's it going?”

“Swell.”

I take the cigarette and roll into a sitting position next to him, our feet dangling precariously over the side of the building. “Why don't I remember this being so dangerous back in the day?”

“Because we used to be immortal,” Wayne says, still staring through his feet at the action below.

“That must have been it.” I take a perfunctory drag on the cigarette. The smoke tastes stale and stings the back of my throat. “So,” I say. “What's going on?”

Wayne nods as if he's been waiting for the question. “I woke up feeling especially strong today,” he says. “And something told me that this very well might be my last day of being independently mobile. You can't begin to imagine what that feels like, knowing that this is my last day to simply climb out of bed and see the world, the sky, feel the ground beneath my feet, the wind against my face.” He pauses to take a small, almost childish puff on his cigarette. “So, to make a short story even shorter, I took a walk, and here I am.”

“I can't believe you managed to climb all the way up here,” I say.

“I know, right? I wasn't sure I would make it.”

“And how were you planning on getting down?”

Wayne leans forward and looks between his toes at the crowd below and then turns back to me, smiling ruefully. “Shortcut.”

“Wayne, man.” I'm at a loss. A couple of gray pigeons land to our right on the ledge, the jade green flecks in their plumage glinting like sequins in the sun. I've never thought of pigeons as colorful before, and I watch, fascinated, as they putter around for a few seconds in a quick, jittery ballet before flying off in a noisy burst of flapping wings.

“I'm tired, man,” Wayne says. “I'm so fucking tired of getting up every day and putting on a brave face, trying to make it okay for everyone else that I'm dying.” He grinds out his cigarette violently, his eyes welling up with angry tears, his dry lips trembling as he struggles to swallow the rage and terror frothing inside him like a witches' brew. It seems somehow incongruous that someone so near death, so desiccated, should still produce so many tears. “I'm fucking dying, man, and you know what? It is not okay. It's a fucking tragedy. I'm way too young to die. And I just can't keep cracking wise and acting like I've made my peace with the whole damn thing.”

“Who says you have to?” I say just to say something.

Wayne fixes me with a droll look. “Come on, Joe. It's in the manual. Young people with terminal illnesses develop a whimsical, slightly sarcastic sense of humor about it to put everyone else at ease and to serve as shining examples of grace in the face of colossally fucked-up events. Don't you ever watch Lifetime, man?”

“Not really.” I point to myself. “Not gay, remember?”

Wayne laughs. “Sorry. I forgot.” He flicks his butt between his feet and over the ledge and we watch it fall. “I guess you could say I'm having a mid-death crisis. I mean, what the hell will my death actually mean? I was born, I got older, and now I'm going to die, and what the hell do I have to show for it? No kids, no significant other, no people I've enriched, no accomplishments. What am I leaving behind? I'm scared of dying, I won't bullshit you about that, but more than that, I'm immensely pissed at the realization that my entire existence has actually had no real purpose except maybe to serve as some sort of cautionary tale to others.”

“Well, there are two possibilities,” I say thoughtfully. “Either there is an afterlife, or there isn't.”

“How profound.”

“Fuck you. If you wanted a priest, you should have climbed up onto the church.”

“Touché,” Wayne says with a grin. “Please go on. I'm dying to hear this.”

“As I was saying, if there is an afterlife and this world is but a waiting room, then the fact that you feel like you haven't done anything is really irrelevant, since there's more living to be done, albeit in a state we can't comprehend.”

“And if there's no afterlife?”

“Then we're all headed underground anyway, just on different schedules, so what does anything matter?”

Wayne gives me a bemused look. “So what you're saying is, if there is an afterlife, then nothing here mattered, and if there isn't an afterlife, nothing here mattered.”

“That's a gross oversimplification of a complexly stratified theological treatise.”

“But that's it in a nutshell.”

“I guess so. In a nutshell.”

“So what does matter?”

“The little things,” I say. “All that stuff you said to me the other day about me and you and Carly. Those moments are what matter. Don't you even listen to yourself when you speak?”

“I
was
stoned,” Wayne says with a shrug.

He lights up another cigarette, nodding thoughtfully. We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the ebb and flow of the swirling crowd below. From our vantage point, we can see drivers stopping their cars to gawk and people walking briskly through the streets toward the school. Nothing much ever happens in the Falls, and when it does, no one likes to miss it. More news vans arrive, as well as a handful of photographers. The quick flickering of flashbulbs makes the crowd sparkle like a diamond. I look for Carly, but we're too high up for me to spot her. I feel immensely sad, but also strangely liberated, as if I've been trying to feel sad for a long time but haven't been able to until now. “So,” I say. “Are you going to jump, or what?”

“Nah.”

“Why not?”

“I'm just not the jumping type.”

“I agree. Can I help you down now?”

Wayne leans back and looks down at the crowd. “A few more minutes, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Is Carly down there?”

“Somewhere.”

“Joe?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't want to go to a hospice.”

“So don't.”

“I was thinking maybe I should move in with you. You know, into your dad's place.”

“That's a great idea.”

Wayne nods. “I don't want my friends wiping my ass and stuff. I don't need to be remembered that way.”

“I hope you won't be hurt when I tell you that we're not exactly lining up to wipe your ass. I'll get you a nurse.”

“It'll set you back some.”

“I can always sell my car.”

There's a scraping sound and then a pair of hands appear on the ledge, followed by Jared's head. “Hey,” he says with a grin. “What's new and exciting?”

From below there are cries from the crowd, and I realize that Jared's legs are dangling over the side of the building. “Will you get up here!” I say, pulling him onto the ledge.

“Who's this?” Wayne says.

“Jared Goffman,” my nephew says, extending his hand for Wayne to shake.

“Brad's kid.”

“That is my privilege,” Jared says. “So, what are we doing up here, besides sitting on decades' worth of bird shit?”

“I thought I told you to wait by the stairs,” I say.

“I'm a kid, I bore easily.” He sits down against the cupola next to Wayne and lights up his own cigarette. “You're pretty sick, huh?” he says earnestly.

“They don't come any sicker,” Wayne says.

“What are you, thirty?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Damn,” Jared says sincerely. “That's a real big bite out of the shit sandwich.”

Wayne appears genuinely tickled by the idiom. I flash him a mock apologetic look. “You know what they say,” I say with a sigh. “Youth is wasted on the young.”

Wayne nods. “And life on the living.” He turns to Jared. “Tell me one of your favorite things.”

“What do you mean?”

Wayne looks out at the sky. “Tell me one of life's little treasures, a simple, thoughtless pleasure that you enjoy and then forget about.” He fixes Jared with a grim look. “Keep in mind that if you say blow job I'll throw you right off this ledge.”

Jared sucks thoughtfully on his cigarette. “Sometimes I pour some orange juice into a plastic cup and freeze it, like ices, you know? And then when you're sucking on it, you basically suck all the juice out of the ice, so that all that's left is this fairly tasteless chunk of ice. But some of the juice settles on the bottom of the cup, and as you work your way down to the bottom of the ice, every so often you can tilt the cup and get a swallow of pure, ice-cold juice, and it's just really sweet, you know?” He looks at us sheepishly. “Anyway, I know it sounds stupid, but you asked.”

Wayne smiles and closes his eyes. A cool breeze blows against us, making him shiver noticeably. “That was perfect,” he says. “What about you, Joe?”

I think about it for a minute and then say, “Phoebe Cates.”

“Phoebe Cates,” Wayne repeats skeptically.

“Who's Phoebe Cates?” Jared asks.

“She's an actress,” I say. “Every guy my age was in love with her at one point.”

“Because of the topless scene in
Fast Times at Ridgemont High,”
Wayne says.

“Oh,” Jared says, nodding. “I know who she is.”

“It's got nothing to do with
Fast Times.
There's just something very pure about her. When I was a kid, she represented everything you'd ever want in a girl, and I would picture this whole incredible life I could have if I had someone like her. And now, whenever I see her on TV, I get this inexplicably happy, hopeful feeling, like all the dreams I ever had as a kid are still out there and can still be realized.”

“Yeah,” Wayne says. “But Phoebe Cates? I just don't see it.”

“I don't see it either,” Jared says, shaking his head.

“Well, you're gay, and you're a generation too late, so in the interest of time, I'm going to change my answer and go with the blow job,” I say, and we all laugh. “So, are we going to get down now, or what?”

A comical hush falls over the crowd as the three of us stand up and make our way precariously off the ledge of the cupola, Jared going first and then helping me to guide Wayne down. Once we've made it to the safety of the roof, the crowd breaks into rowdy applause, cheering us like we're a rock band.
Thank you, Bush Falls! Good night! God Bless!

Mouse is waiting for us at the top of the stairwell with another deputy and two paramedics. The paramedics step on either side of Wayne and usher him carefully down the stairs. The deputy pulls out some handcuffs, and Mouse arrests Jared and me for disorderly conduct and obstruction of government administration, since we'd apparently interfered with a police rescue.

thirty-two

Carly has accompanied the ambulance to make sure Wayne is okay, so there's really no choice but to hang out in the holding cell of the Sheriff's Department with Jared until Cindy shows up to take him home. She stands outside the cell in jeans and a navy polo shirt that would fit a five-year-old perfectly, glowering at me while Mouse unlocks the door. “I'm sorry about this, Cindy,” he says as he slides the cell door open. “They were interfering in front of a large crowd of students, so I couldn't just let them go.” He looks at her obsequiously. “Would have sent a bad message to all those kids, you understand.” Mouse's nervousness is palpable, and I realize that like many men his age in the Falls, he's grown up worshipping Cindy, and apparently still does. Even now he can't stop his gaze from repeatedly wandering from her face down to where her breasts are formidably outlined under her tiny shirt.

“I understand,” Cindy says, still staring coldly at me. “It won't happen again.”

I follow Jared to the door, but Mouse blocks it the minute Jared has passed him. “Where do you think you're going?” he says to me.

“Home?”

“I don't think so. You haven't been processed yet.”

“You've got to be kidding me.”

Mouse flashes me what is no doubt supposed to be a superior, predatory grin. “We're letting the boy off the hook,” he says, closing the cell door again. “I haven't decided what to do with you yet.”

“This is bullshit,” Jared says.

“Shut up, Jared!” Cindy snaps at him, her voice low and trembling.

“We helped the guy down, Mom. We didn't do anything wrong.”

“You interfered with a police rescue,” Mouse says.

Jared looks down at Mouse coolly and says, “No one's talking to you, fuckface.”

“Jared!” Cindy shrieks, grabbing him by the arm. “Not another word.”

“Maybe you'd prefer it back in the cell,” Mouse says, his face turning crimson.

“No!” Cindy says quickly. “We'll be going now.” She yanks Jared down the hall toward the front offices, and Mouse follows behind, his eyes fixed intently on Cindy's ass. A moment later she returns alone and faces me through the bars. “Why are you still here?” she demands.

“Mouse isn't through fucking with me.”

She frowns at the evasion. “Why haven't you gone back to New York?”

“You know,” I say, stepping right up to the bars, “I've been asked that by just about everyone I know over the last few days. A less secure person might start to feel unwanted.”

Cindy grins humorlessly, an ugly expression that thoroughly mars the flawless beauty of her face. One of the liabilities of such pristine beauty is the ease with which the slightest gracelessness shows, like muddy footprints on white carpeting. “You are unwanted,” she says. “You've never shown any interest in this family before, and now the best you can do is act like a juvenile delinquent. Jared gets into enough trouble on his own. He doesn't need his big-shot, good-for-nothing uncle encouraging him.”

“Wayne was up on the roof, and I went to help him,” I say hotly. “Jared showed up on his own, and I told him to get lost.”

She waves away my words with disgust. “You stayed away for seventeen years,” she says, her voice lined with steel. “Do us all a favor and take your drugs and your condescending attitude and just go home already. You don't belong here.”

Let the record reflect that I do not watch her ass as she turns abruptly on her heel and storms out of the room. I'm too busy trying to figure out if what I'm feeling at that precise moment is righteous indignation or just self-pity with a vengeance.

         

Carly shows up at around three and talks some sense into Mouse by threatening him with a series of editorials concerning the Sheriff's Department's questionable practices and apparently numerous inadequacies. By this point I'm in a deep funk, feeling supremely alone and universally despised. “How's Wayne?” I ask her as we walk down the steps of the Sheriff's Department. She's still dressed as she was this morning, but somewhere in her travels the barrette has been discarded and her hair now hangs in loose disarray over her shoulders.

“He's resting at home,” she says, and then gives me a sideways look. “Did you two discuss his moving in with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I hope you were serious about it, because he's planning on doing it soon.”

“Good,” I say absently as we come to the corner. “Where's your car?”

“Still at the high school,” Carly says. “Where's yours?”

“At home. You picked me up, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. God, that seems like forever ago.”

We begin walking aimlessly up the block. “Time, in general, has been behaving oddly since I got here,” I say.

“How so?”

“Well, I've been here for just under a week, but it feels like months already. And the days when I lived here, way back when, seem so much more immediate to me now than they ever did before, whereas the last seventeen years seem to have been reduced to this tiny area on the map of my life. Just a little yellow shading on the legend to mark my time away from the Falls.”

Carly flashes me a funny, tender look that lasts for a few seconds. “You've been very unhappy, haven't you?”

“Not really.” Then I think about it for a moment. “And by that I mean I guess so. Yes.”

She turns to me and puts her hand gently against the side of my face, a gesture so loving and wholly unexpected that I nearly buckle under it and break down, but instead I just tremble quietly as the feeling washes over me. When my shaking becomes even more pronounced, Carly has to steady me with her other hand, placing it on the other side of my face. She cradles my head like that for a minute, staring at me intently as if she's taking measurements of my soul through my eyes. Then her own eyes mist up and she says, “Oh, shit,” and her hands slide down my face in a caress as she steps forward and puts her arms around me. “Shit,” she says again, crying softly, almost imperceptibly into my shoulder. I open my mouth to say something and then close it decisively in a rare display of restraint, not trusting myself to preserve the moment. Instead, I just bury my face in her hair and hold on to her as if my life depends on it.

         

We walk back to my father's house in companionable silence, our private thoughts mingling tangibly around us as we go, our bodies close enough to build up an electrical field that tingles like a bug zapper every time our stray limbs inadvertently touch. This thing between us, this invisible ball of anger and fear that's been floating ominously there ever since I arrived in the Falls, seems to have finally been vaporized, and in its place is a warm emptiness waiting to be filled. Given my recent success rate, I'll be damned if I'm going to be the first to attempt filling it.

Once we get to my father's house, we drive my battered Mercedes to the high school to get Carly's car. I pull up alongside her Honda and throw the car into park. School has already let out for the day, but a handful of kids are still hanging out in small clusters on the stairs or in nuzzling, groping twosomes perched on the hoods of cars. “God,” I say. “Remember high school?”

Carly smiles. “Every day, lately. I have trouble remembering specific events, but I totally remember what it felt like to be so full.”

“Full of what?”

“I don't know. Full of promise, full of dreams, full of shit. Mostly just full of yourself. So full you're bursting. And then you get out into the world, and people empty you out, little by little, like air from a balloon.”

I think about her analogy for a few seconds. “So what, you just go through life being emptied of all vitality as you go, until none is left and then you die?”

“Of course not. You try like hell to fill yourself up with fresh air, from you and from other people. But back then”—she nods toward the kids outside—“it was so damn effortless to feel full, you know? All you had to do was breathe.”

“I know,” I say, nodding. “Even though my life in high school pretty much sucked until you came along, I still woke up every day with the strength to get out there again, as if I believed at any moment things would change for the better.”

Carly sighs, long and deep. “Oh, well.”

We just sit there for a few minutes, watching the teenagers in front of us as if the windshield were a television screen, the two of us resting easy, buoyed by each other's silence instead of drowning under it. “This is nice,” I say.

Carly combs the hair out of her face with her fingers and turns to look at me, her lips pressed together in an unintentional pout, and says, “You should kiss me now.”

         

“I need some help,” I tell Owen as I drive slowly back toward my father's house, still replaying Carly's kiss in my mind, running my tongue over the inside of my lips and cheeks to savor every last trace of her flavor, like the aftermath of a succulent candy. It's amazing how perfectly I've preserved the memory of her taste, making it feel as if it's been only days since we last kissed, instead of years. The minute the kiss ended, I was tempted to start another one immediately, but I managed to stop myself, somehow getting that making out wasn't called for here, that Carly required an attitude of careful restraint from me, even if I didn't fully understand why.

“Admitting you need help is the first step toward recovery,” comes Owen's jocular voice over the phone.

“Seriously,” I say, and then tell him that Wayne will be moving into my father's house with me.

“I understand. What do you need?”

“A nurse and a hospital bed for starters.”

“I'll take care of it. What else?”

I realize that I have no idea. “I'm not sure. I've never really taken care of anyone before.”

“Me neither.”

I consider for a moment the sad fact of two intelligent, successful men so clueless in matters of charity. “Are you thinking that we're a couple of empty, selfish pricks?” Owen says, and I have to smile.

“Nah,” I say softly.

“Me too.” He clears his throat. “Joe.”

“Yeah.”

“You're a good person.”

“I'm an asshole.”

“That notwithstanding.”

“Well, do you think there's someone you could call about what else I'll need?” I ask him.

“This is America,” Owen says. “There's always someone to call.”