The Lesser Blessed (6 page)

The next thing I knew, I was on the living room floor looking up at the crystal chandelier. Steve Perry’s voice wailed about a smalltown girl taking the midnight train going anywhere. On the wall, Elvis was singing into his mike. All of the disciples looked towards Jesus.

For no reason whatsoever, I remembered this joke I had heard once. I couldn’t remember how it went or who told it, but I stole the punch line and I started to say it. I started to moan, “Mommy, your monkey’s eating Daddy’s banana...” and then I started to wail, “Mother, your monkey’s eating Daddy’s banana...” and then I started to howl, “Mother, your monkey’s eating Daddy’s banana!”

After a while, I settled down and whispered, “I am my father’s scream.”

I guess I spooked everyone ’cause it sure got quiet. I looked out the window and I could see someone moving outside. I sat up and looked really hard into the frame. I could see a black man outside the
window. He had a smile on his face from ear to ear and he was laughing at me. Shamus?

“Wait a minute,” I thought, “just wait one goddamned minute.”

It was the Blue Monkeys of Corruption!

“Hey!” I yelled.

“Hey what?” Johnny yelled back.

“Time is it?” I yelled.

“Quarter to nine. What’s wrong?”

“Get the Blue Monkeys the hell out of here!”

“Who?”

“Blue Monkeys! You know, from India. They’re missing their hands and arms. They’re after the hash, man. They want the smoke!”

“Get off the dope, man!” Johnny yelled and I could hear laughing.

“No more ! ” I pleaded. “No more ! ” I was so scared that it got funny. Don’t ask me why, but I laughed until I was crying and then I laughed some more.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“Hey what?” Juliet yelled back.

“Time is it?”

“Five to nine.”

I thought an hour had passed. I laughed harder than the first time. The monkeys disappeared.

The next thing I knew I was sprawled out on the kitchen floor watching Johnny and Juliet kissing. AC/DC was on the system roaring on about the highway to Hell. Johnny had her on the kitchen counter. He was standing and her legs were wrapped around him. They still had their clothes on and Juliet was running her hands through Johnny’s hair. I knew something magical was in the air. Johnny knew I was watching and kept winking at me. I didn’t have the giggles but I just couldn’t stop staring. It was like a movie, only real.

“Let’s go check on the kids,” Juliet said. “I gotta go check on the kids.”

Then I blacked out and found myself in the bathroom. I was inches away from the mirror. I was looking into my eyes, trying to catch my pupils dilate as I turned the lights off and on, off and on. The door was closed and I was alone.

That was when I heard the water bed in the next room.

First I heard the slish slish slish and the stirring of bubbles and then I heard Juliet. Her breathing was heavy and excited.

I hopped into the bathtub and pressed my ear into the wall. I wanted to hear everything. My socks were wet and my head was ringing but I just had to hear Juliet.

The water bed became frantic. The wood frame was hitting the nearest wall and I could hear Juliet’s voice, the sweetest voice I have ever heard. It was a gentle shiver, the edge of a whisper, the tender shake of a leaf, it was now, here, and she was panting, “Oh Johnny, oh Johnny, come on, come on.”

She went on and on. I was so alive listening to them. My heart was pounding and my blood was pumping.
Juliet. Juliet.
I started to fill my mouth with water from the tap.

“JULIET!” a voice boomed out.

There was a thunderous pounding on the door that shook the house, shook the room, shook my little black soul. My first thought: My mother has come to castrate me. My second: Jesus has come to collect. And my third: It’s the cops!

“Juliet, you’re supposed to be watching the children. Get your clothes on and get out here!”

I froze. All I knew was that it was a woman’s voice and that I was in the bathtub stoned and hard. My mind was going a million miles an hour. I was a rabbit, choking in a snare. I was falling through ice. I was slamming the hammer down on my father. I was—

The pounding got louder.

“Juliet—now!”

I heard the water bed sloshing and Johnny tripping.

“Shit,” he whispered.

I heard the door open and Johnny step out into the hallway.

“Who the hell are you?” the voice yelled.

No answer. I heard Johnny walk down into the kitchen and into the porch.

“You stay right there, Mister ! I’m going to have the cops down here in two minutes ...”

Still no answer from Johnny. Now he started calling my name, wondering where I was.

“Larry? Lare? Larry?” I could tell he was heading outside.

“You get your ass back in here,” the voice called out the door.

“Fuck you!” he called back.

I got out of the tub and stopped at the door.

“Shitshitshitshit.” Panic. Total and absolute panic. My eyes bulged and my balls sucked back into my belly. I hunched and squinted, prepared for a beating. Who the hell was out there and why were they after me? What did they want with Juliet and Johnny? I just about pissed my pants. I got brave; I opened the door. There was no one there. I walked past the door to the bedroom Johnny had come out of. I looked in as I walked by.

I saw Juliet.

Juliet was sitting on the bed looking at me. Her shirt was off and I could see her breasts. I wanted to look but couldn’t. I couldn’t pull myself from those sad, sad eyes. It was like something was broken inside. It was like I had listened to something that wasn’t supposed to happen.

I stuttered a good-bye.

She didn’t answer. She just kept staring at me. She had the eyes of a fawn shot in mid-leap. The Blue Monkeys of Corruption laughed and howled, putting the rifle down. And like my mother’s gaze, I realized what it meant:

Slaughter.

I was the beast.

I was close to the beast.

He was running beside me.

I could hear the hoofs scrape against the pavement before the deliverance kick to a swelling face.

And there were scorch marks on the road where we danced.

Someone was screaming at me to kick

to scrape a face raw

the skin and slaughter

to sniff again

to scrape again through the window

to hear my cousins pop and burn

shards of glass in my back

screaming glass

to see my father fuck—

“Who in the hell are you?” the voice boomed. I jumped and turned to meet it.

IT WAS JULIET’S MOM!

I froze, my eyes wide.

Mrs. Hope looked me over. She put her hand on her hip.

“You’re Verna’s boy, ain’t ya?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I could hear Johnny outside still calling my name. I stammered for explanations. Everything was moving so fast. I walked past her and into the porch. The door was open and I could see Johnny. He was putting his shirt on and he had our shoes in his hands. He motioned for me to get my ass over there.

“You little bastards!” Juliet’s mom called out after me. “I’m going to call the police.”

“Whoopdeefuckindoo!” Johnny called back, laughing, “the cops!”

“Yeah!” I hollered. “Yeah, ya fuckinbitchcow!”

Johnny looked at me puzzled and mouthed, “Fuckin’ bitch cow?”

“I’m going to have Social Services here in two minutes!” Missus Hope called from the porch.

“Hoooly fuuuck!” Johnny and I yelled together and we began to
run. We ran down the paved roads in our socks. The ground was cold and I started laughing. Johnny started laughing too, and he handed me my shoes. I suppose we could have stopped to put them on, but it just seemed hilarious running down the back roads of town. We were sprinting and laughing, yelling and out of breath by the time we cut through the potato fields down by our street. We ended up by the track outside the high school. My lungs were burning and I was wide awake. My socks were still wet, caked with dirt and slush. I wasn’t buzzing any more, but I sure was anxious to hear what Johnny had to say.

“That was close,” he said as he put on his shoe. He was tipsy, so I let him use my arm for support. He was still giggling a bit, looking down. “Manohman, what a night. You get stoned, I get laid, we’re all happy and the cops are out looking for us.”

My feet were freezing. “Don’t forget Social Services, too,” I added, looking over my shoulder.

I didn’t think Missus Hope would call the cops. But I was scared she’d call my mom. Man, I’d die if my mom found out. I’d just die.

I laced up my shoes. “What’d you guys do?”

Johnny laughed again. “Oh come on, Lare, I made her and she made me. We had sex, skronked, humped, penetrated souls. We fucked ! ”

“What’s it like?” I asked. My mouth betrayed me. I wanted to take it back and act like I knew. But Johnny didn’t seem to notice. He straightened up and took a step forward. He leaned into my face and said, “A bit too bony for me. She did this thing with her hips when she was riding me ... man, that hurt. But other than that she was okay.”

“Did you use a condom?”

“Fuck no,” he said, “and if she gives me the clap, I’ll kill her.”

“Well, maybe you should take a shower or something,” I stammered. What a fuckin’ thing to say about Juliet. I remembered sex education and what the doctor had said: Fort Simmer is the STD
capital of the Territories. He said that a shower would get rid of some of the bacteria.

“I got a system,” Johnny whispered. “I use a toothpick.”

“WHAT?!”

“I stick it in the tip of my dick and scoop out all the jupe. That way no little disease gets me. No burning sensation when I urinate, no cheezy white discharge ... you know, no pissing fire.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s pretty smart.” (For a fuckin’ asshole)

“Damn straight!” he boasted. “Invented that little technique myself.”

“Right on.” (Fuck off)

We paused for a moment and I think it may have registered what had happened. Somewhere in the world, we had made the nervous fingers of rain explode into the white palm of snow, but here, in Fort Simmer, I could no longer see the Jesus in Johnny. We walked. Johnny said he had to go home and get some sleep “after the toothpick did its magic.” I nodded and walked home alone. I snuck into the house quietly. I didn’t even take off my jacket. I went into my room, undressed and went straight to bed.

It was about twenty minutes later when the phone rang. I snatched it up so my mom wouldn’t get it. Who was it? Social Services? Juliet’s mom? The cops?

“Lare!” Johnny yelled.

“What?” I whispered. He had AC/DC blasting and he yelled, “The Big Kahoona wants to know who the fuck the blue monkeys are and what the hell was that with ‘Ya fuckin’ bitch cow.’“

I heard him laughing before he hung up. What a guy!

Once I had Johnny for a friend, I didn’t hang around home much, just to say hi and do chores. My mom didn’t seem to mind. She was
studying a lot for her tests and we pretty well came and went as we pleased. She was happy ’cause Jed was coming to town and that was fine with me. I liked hanging around Johnny. He took good care of me.

There was this guy named Jazz at school. Jazz had failed a lot of grades, and he always used to make fun of me. It got so I’d be just about crying ’cause he was so brutal. I hate it when people laugh at me, and Jazz was the goddamned messiah when it came to making people laugh.

The only thing I can compare Jazz to is a jackal. He had a skinny little ass and no body fat. When he took his shirt off in gym class, it looked like he’d been pulled inside out. He could play the spoons on his six-pack. He had buck teeth and dark black eyes. He had black straw hair and always wore caps, usually ones that said “Arctic Cat” or “Polaris.” He wore Montreal Canadiens sweat bands around his wrists, and he had these skinny sharp knuckles that he rapped the desks with, usually acting cool, doing a drum solo. From what I’d heard, he’d always been an asshole. This guy called Rob Dupe told me that when Jazz was a kid in elementary, his folks couldn’t afford running shoes for him, so what he’d do was he’d go barefoot. He used to lick the bottom of his feet for traction, and he’d run laps all over the damn place. He was fast, too. Every few laps he’d stop, brush off his feet, lick ’em for traction and go at it some more.

Jazz used to tease me ’cause I’m pretty visibly native. “So, Larry,” he’d say, “you like the Arctic, eh?”

“Yeah,” I’d mumble. (You fuckin’ foot-licker)

Then he’d lean into me and say, “You zug-zug little girls to keep warm, eh?”

And everyone would laugh.

“Hey, Dogrib,” he’d say. I don’t know how he found out about me being Dogrib. I guess it was from his mom. She liked to gossip.

“They’re having a sale on Lysol down the street. I seen your mom passed out in a ditch. I fucked her for fifteen bucks.”

Man, it hurt to hear him say things like that. I know Mister Harris heard him too, but he never did a thing. Jazz had pushed a teacher through a pane of glass a few years ago, and he’d been cocky ever since. I was a nervous wreck each day before class, and I guess Johnny kinda caught on.

One day we were on a field trip to the Northern Lights Museum. Our whole home room was allowed to go because this Micmac writer, Lome Simon, was in town reading some of his stuff. Mostly we went to these things just to get the hell out of school. I was walking by myself, and Jazz walked up behind me. He had his giggle gang with him and he started in on me. I couldn’t see any teachers or anyone around who could help me.

“Lysol Larry, I got some warm piss for you to drink. You Indians drink anything, doncha? I got a forty-ouncer with a worm at the bottom. Bite the worm, Larry,” he said, and grabbed his crotch. I blushed and walked faster. He grabbed me from behind and said, “You gonna turn away from me, faggot? You gonna turn away from me?”

I could tell he was gonna slap me and I could tell he knew I knew. I just stood there. I guess my eyes were wide and he started to smile. He was winding up to crack me when a voice cut through the air.

“Jazz, you’re like a shit that just won’t flush.”