Elvendude (6 page)

Today was no exception; two preteens, a boy and a girl, were pretending to be romantic in a corner booth. The boy had ordered espresso, the "strong kind," and Adam had to fight to keep from laughing when the boy nearly gagged on it. A group of five girls from a private school had left the bar, and Spence, the other bartender, was picking up the cups. Spence was a year older than Adam, but instead of going on to his senior year in the fall, he would be held back a grade. Adam wasn't sure why, as Spence's grades were not that bad, or good, but he'd decided not to pry. Where Adam was well-defined and muscular, Spence was tall and wiry, with a crown of kinky red hair that, when allowed to grow, became a full afro. Others in school had pointed out they looked like brothers, but Adam saw no resemblance; their skin tones were completely different. Adam had French Canadian ancestry, and Spence's was clearly Irish. But they did share some of the same allergies, oddly enough, caffeine being one of them.

That left Colin, the kid sitting at the bar. Spence cast uncomfortable looks at him as he picked up the cups. He'd already replaced the cup Colin was nursing once. The boy shook so much he barely kept his coffee from spilling. Adam put on some Enya, hoping that would calm Colin down, but it had little effect.

Colin wore boots, a pair of jeans with a leather motorcycle jacket, and no shirt. He reeked of gasoline and booze, leftover booze from the night before. Here on the quiet side of the Yaz were several bay windows looking over a patio and street, and beyond one of these at the curb Adam saw Colin's bike, a fast and scary Katana 750 that looked like it was doing 120 sitting still. But Adam knew the bike had nothing to do with the reason why Colin was so rattled.

"He's still there," Adam said to Colin, who had looked up as he walked behind the bar. "Still stoned, but there."

"And?" Colin asked. The ceramic cup rattled loudly against formica.

"If something's wrong, he doesn't know it," Adam said calmly. He pulled four limes out of the cooler, laid them out on a plastic cutting board, and began slicing them into eighths with a Ginsu knife.

"Weird," Colin said, sipping the coffee, this time not spilling any of it. "Maybe I should just . . ."

"I think you should just go on home. Or go to a meeting. Look, just because you got drunk once doesn't mean it's hopeless."

"But dammit, I had a
year,
" Colin said. He looked at the A.A. medallion hanging around his neck. "Thought I had it licked."

Adam didn't know what to say. Colin had just turned seventeen, had been an alcoholic since he was eleven, and had started going to A.A. meetings in his freshman year at high school. He might have been sober today, except that he'd gone to the same party at Steve's. Something happened, and he got drunk. And Colin was kicking himself all over the city today, first riding past Steve's house to see who was still there, then his sponsor's house, who he was too humiliated to visit, then a church where an A.A. meeting was in progress. He didn't stop anywhere except to ring the Wintons' gate, which went unanswered. Not wanting to be with the people he used to drink and drug with or the recovering alcoholics he knew in sobriety, he turned to Adam, who was neither, for an attentive ear.

At noon Adam opened the Yaz, and five minutes later Colin came in and told Adam he'd been by the Wintons' mansion. Ten cars remained parked in front of Steve's house, and short of breaking the gate down, he had no way in. Three of the cars belonged to friends who had to be at work that afternoon and had not yet shown up. The carpet cleaning people came and went, since no one answered the bell outside. Steve's parents were due at the airport at 9:00 P.M. And the house was a mess.

Colin is obsessed over everyone else's problems and afraid to do anything about his own,
Adam observed. But he had to admit the situation at Steve's didn't sound right. He understood why Steve would throw a party—because the parents were gone—but he also knew Steve would go out of his way to make sure all evidence of the party was cleaned up. Adam also felt a strong sense of dread, a black, evil feeling when he envisioned the Winton mansion. Nothing more. Just a feeling of danger and of . . . death.

Adam shook his head, his Ginsu poised above his index finger, a half inch from carving a good slice out of it.
Back to reality.
He finished cutting up the limes and put them in the well box with the other pretty trappings for dressing up cocktails without the alcohol.

"What the hell," Colin said. "Freedom Recovery Group meets in fifteen minutes. Guess I'll go there," he said, dropping a dollar on the counter and leaving.

Through the bar's window, Adam watched Colin mount the bike. He had a different air about him, like he had a real purpose now and wasn't just killing time.
Now it's time for Colin to deal with Colin's problems,
Adam thought.
Now what about Daryl's? Is that something I should even think about right now?

As Colin's bike screamed down the street, he caught a glimpse of Moira walking past, heading toward the front entrance of the Marketplace. She worked at a salon upstairs, a progressive shop called Skary Hairdos which catered to the Alternative music, Gothic and grunge crowd. She was evidently going into work, as she was wearing a black dress trimmed with leather and lace, large, frightening earrings that could double as shurikens in a pinch. She had big, tornado-proof hair that generated wind when she walked. She had been dressed more sedately with him last night when they went to Steve's party, more as friends than a true date, although Adam had recently taken a physical interest in her. She looked preoccupied with dark thoughts, as everyone seemed to be this afternoon. When she vanished from sight, Adam wondered what color, and how long, her fingernails were today.

He looked around the Yaz, mentally ticking off all the things he needed to do for Jimmy that day, finding that he'd accomplished everything except dusting the blinds. But that was a low-priority thing, busywork he saved up for when Jimmy was there.

Adam carried the Ginsu knife and a few other implements to the sink in the back, but before he got everything into the water he yelped as the Ginsu blade, which he accidentally touched, started
burning
his skin. The Ginsu clattered to the floor.

"You okay?" Spence asked, carrying a bus tub full of used coffee cups.

"Yeah, just touched metal, is all," Adam said, examining his skin where the blade had touched, leaving a slight pink patch. Spence picked the knife up by the handle and tossed it into the sink. If Adam had touched the metal any longer than that, it would have left blisters.

Spence nodded. No other explanation was necessary, as Adam's coworker was also allergic to steel. He didn't advertise the allergy to others, since he knew they wouldn't understand. His mother explained the allergy as a homeopathic ailment, a rare one which few people had, and even fewer doctors understood. His gut-reaction was to say nothing about it, except to others with the same condition.

He couldn't recall when he'd told Spence about the problem, and he didn't know when Spence told him about his. When they started working together, their mutual allergies seemed to be common knowledge between them. After a few months, Adam assumed he'd known Spence for a long time.

Perhaps something psychic connected us,
Adam had thought once, briefly, before the whole notion faded from his mind.

Spence carefully pulled on some black rubber gloves, the thick, industrial kind with almost no give, and began washing the utensils.

"Who died?" Spence asked, looking serious.

Adam frowned. "Am I that obvious?" he said, sorting out and separating the coffee cups. "You saw what it was like over there at Steve's last night."

Spence fixed Adam with steady gaze, as if trying to read more from his body language. "I told you how much he'd changed. His birthday party—his
eighteenth
birthday party—was guaranteed to be a drugfest."

Spence wasn't intentionally trying to throw the situation in his face, but that's what it amounted to. Adam had persuaded him and Moira to go over there last night, despite their suspicions it would not be an alcohol-only party. Adam knew he was feeling more embarrassed about it than was his due, but he couldn't help feeling remorse for dragging them along.

"At least no one got hurt," Spence said as he labored with the dishes. "I liked the way you bailed out of there before the drugs started going around."

"What else was I supposed to do? I don't like being around that stuff. And my mom's a cop. You all didn't have to leave. . . ."

"Yes we did, and you know that," Spence said. "Don't let it get you down. Daryl's an adult now. Daryl's responsible for Daryl."

"He's a
legal
adult," Adam corrected. "But he hasn't really grown up at all."

"Well, then, if you've done any maturing this last year," Spence said, his voice softening a little, "prove it by letting go of his problems and getting on with your life."

Adam shrugged, knowing Spence was right, but still feeling emotionally connected to his old friend's problems. "I wish I could. We grew up together, we've known each other since . . ."

He tried to remember when they had met, but could only go as far as junior high, when he was thirteen. And before that, well, he'd moved down from Winnipeg, Canada, after living with his father for a few years. Daryl was new to the school, too, also entering in midterm, and that automatically created a closeness between them. The friendship weathered a minor jealousy over a girl in their freshman year, but she ended up spurning both of them, and the whole thing didn't really amount to much.

"Why don't you go talk to Moira?" Spence suggested. "I think I can handle this place for a while."

As Adam entered the Marketplace, he remembered the bet they made last night, that they would smell pot within an hour of arriving at Steve's. He forgot who bet what, but the wager had irritated him because it showed no faith in Daryl.

But then, does he really deserve any?
he thought, taking the stairs to the top level of the Marketplace.

Adam glanced down at the arcade a floor below, the clanging and beeping of the games wafting up through the well. Just after lunch hour, the eateries were doing a bustling business with the suit and tie crowd, the downtown business district being only a few blocks away. On the top floor he passed the miniature golf course, the bar, several abbreviated eating places. He paused for a moment at The Future Image store, specializing in high-tech gizmos. Today in its front window hung a laser rifle, or what could pass for one. It looked more like an assault rifle wired for sound, or a light show.

Intrigued, Adam stepped closer to the window. The Ray Gun squirted a ruby red beam of light into a series of mirrors, angled to form a square around the toy, showcasing it. It retailed for three hundred and fifty dollars, and was recommended for children thirteen and older. Its blue steel surface looked like it could withstand an arc welding torch. The clip, which stuck straight down, was the battery that powered the Ray Gun. Then he saw the recharging rig, which had another clip in it. The Gun looked heavy, and Adam wondered if the average thirteen-year-old could hold it for very long, even with the shoulder strap it came with.

Stopping to window-shop was not something he did, particularly in a place he saw every day. Plus, gawking at a toy gun would not enhance the cool image he was trying to cultivate among his friends, who could happen along at any moment. But there he stood, transfixed by the weapon.

But it wasn't a weapon, it was only a toy.
Where have I seen this before?
he wondered. The Ray Gun was too small; he recalled something that was much larger, like one of those M50 rigs the Marines carried, and not as refined, almost like a prototype, with lots of exposed wires and components, itself a fragile instrument. . . . 

The image vanished, and he shook his head. Without really thinking about it, he pulled away from the toy, the window, and the store. And walked over to Skary Hairdos, two doors down.

Adam saw her hair before he saw her. Bobbing about energetically in the shop, her mane announced her presence before she could; he wanted to curl up in that glorious hair, maybe weave a hammock for the two of them, or arrange it around them in a nest.
She could smuggle a Mexican family, a priest and two nuns in that hair
, Adam thought.

Neon framed the store's entrance, with deep green neon spelling SKARY HAIRDOS in an electrifying scrawl, superimposed over an acrylic painting of a zipper that changed to a set of poorly done sutures. Adam passed a pair of girls, one bald except for a two-foot thatch of bright pink hair hanging over her face, the other with a military flattop, both seeming very pleased with their new 'dos.

He suddenly felt out of place without his leather bike jacket, which despite the warm weather appeared to be in style today. Even Moira kept one in the shop, though she seldom wore it in the summer. She was cutting the hair of a very young boy, maybe six, who was wriggling and screaming at the top of his lungs. The kid would have probably bolted altogether, except that Moira, or the mother who sat by impatiently, had tied the kid to the chair with a substantial length of nylon rope.

"This is about as good as it gets," Moira announced, the haircut apparently completed. She was perspiring; Adam had never seen her perspire before.

"I'm sure it's just fine," the woman said, but she started to look like a nanny taking care of a rich brat.

The boy cried relentlessly. Since he was still tied to the chair, Moira took a mirror and held it behind his head. "What do you think, Duane?" Moira asked, as the kid looked up. "I tried to leave as much length as I could. Shaped it up some."

The boy wailed in reply.

With the ceramic scissors, Moira snipped the nylon rope neatly in three places, and the bindings fell away. The nanny gave her a fifty-dollar bill and hurried the brat out of there.

"Please come again," Moira said, snipping the scissors at their retreating backs. This was a hostile side of Moira that Adam didn't get to see very often.