Jernigan (24 page)

I opened the card. Below the printed Bible verse (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16”), a handwritten message:

How many more years do you think you can count on before the Lord returns? And what bullshit excuse are you going to give Him for not seeing your old friends when you still had time? Call me instantly. You know the number. Now, schmuck
.

Love (not to mince words)
,
Your Uncle Fred

p.s. Now. Go to the phone
.

I got up and went to the phone. What time was it? Would he be in his office or out to lunch or what? Hell, what
day
was it? I reconstructed. Yesterday we went for the tree. So that must have been Saturday. So this was a Sunday. So he was home, if he was home.

Uncle Fred was 222 something. Somewhere along the way I’d lost track of my address book, so I ended up having to get the number
from Information. His phone rang twice, then gave a click and Jim Reeves sang, “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone.” Then Uncle Fred singing, in some other key, “And don’t forget to leave a mess-age at the tone.” I waited for the beep and said, “Uncle Fred. This is the wand’ring O’Jernigan. I got your card, and, uh, thank you for—essentially for doing what I should have done, except I didn’t, and, what can I say here, let me just leave you a number here where—”

A click and Penny’s voice.
“Peter?”
The phone began to howl. “Don’t go ’way, Peter, just let me turn this stupid thing off.” Another click and the howling stopped. “Hi,” she said. “So good to hear your
voice.”

“Hey,” I said, right back in the old ways. “Ditto mutual, hon’. How you been keepin’?”

“Uh,” she said. “Holidays.”

“Busy, huh?”

“Busy?”

“Cooking?”

“Cooking?
Peter, you were always a master of understatement.”

“Can still understate any son of a bitch in the house,” I said. “Listen, speaking of sons of bitches in the house, is that Uncle Fred around?”

“Sure is,” she said.
“Mikey?
Peter, when are we going to
see
you?
Mikey, it’s Peter Jernigan.”

“Good question,” I said. “Maybe we can reason it out.”

“Here’s the Fredster,” she said.

“Jernigan.” Uncle Fred’s voice. “Stand and give the password.”

“I can’t go on I’ll go on,” I said.

“I know that’s
something,”
said Uncle Fred. “I’m just too God damn
illiterate
to know what. How the hell are you?
Where
the hell are you?”

“Jersey still,” I said.

“Well either you’re coming in here or I’m coming out there. What are you doing this afternoon?”

“I can’t this afternoon.”

“Bullshit.”

“Seriously.”

“Right,” he said, “you’re seriously bullshitting me. What’s the big
deal this afternoon? Cleaning up a toxic spill in the old backyard?”

“Truly,” I said. “I’ve got stuff to take care of here. But let’s do it after Christmas, all right?”

“No chance,” he said. “Your Uncle Fred says today.”

“You’re a hard man,” I said.

“That’s what my—no, second thought, I’m not going to touch that one. My bride here gets chagrined when I talk dirty. Isn’t that right, dear? So you’re coming to our place, right? I hate fucking New Jersey.”

“In your will, my peace,” I said.

“Now you’re talkin’. I might not know what you’re
sayin’
 … So you bringing your sweetie along for inspection?”

“Pas de sweetie,”
I said. “She’s got to work today.” This was probably even true; wouldn’t she be going in every day now until Christmas?

“A likely story,” he said. “Where does this alleged sweetie work that she’s got to go in on a Sunday? Some top-secret chemical plant?”

“Department store,” I said. “She’s just working there over the holidays.”

“What’s her name? Glendora? Jernigan, how do I put this delicately? This sweetie isn’t, like,
inflatable?
Wait a second, my bride is telling me I’m terrible. So listen, whenever you can get here. You remember about the buzzer, right? Top floor, bottom buzzer?”

“What can I bring?” I said. You offer to bring something.

“Just your long-absent self,” he said. “Those shrieks of anguish you hear in the background is the fatted calf getting slain.”

And when you’re told you don’t have to bring anything you bring something anyway.

2

First order of business was to get the old enthusiasm level up where it belonged. That one cup of shit coffee didn’t have enough caffeine to lift me a psychic millimeter, let alone to fight off four Pamprins.

Christ, the way I talk you’d think these were real drugs I was taking, and not just Jernigan micro-managing his consciousness. So I went down to the kitchen, dick-swinging naked, and put on more water. (One thing I
will
say, Martha had managed to get it warm enough in there so the linoleum wasn’t unkind to bare feet.) If the kids were in the house—which they must be, right? since Martha had in fact come nearer when I’d asked her if she wanted the kids to hear us—and they came in and caught an eyeful, that was their problem, not mine. For a long time I hadn’t understood the story of Noah naked in his tent, probably because I was never sent to Sunday school, where somebody could have told me what to think about it. I didn’t get why the son had to be punished: A, his father was drunk, and B, he did his best not to look at his father’s quote unquote nakedness. I read about it, I must’ve been about twelve, in the Vulgate my father kept, ostentatiously, on a little decorative bookshelf in the front room on Barrow Street with
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
and J. Edgar Hoover’s
Masters of Deceit
. (His real books were floor-to-ceiling in the bedroom.) The story both outraged me and made me afraid my outrage was punishable, since God was so irrational about anything that had to do with sex or nakedness or authority. These days I could see it God’s way.

I put three good big heaping teaspoons of instant coffee in a cup and poured in the boiling water. After Judith, I’d stopped buying the French roast Colombian beans she’d kept in the freezer and ground fresh for us every morning: Medaglia d’Oro would be good enough for the likes of me. Martha had started me out on Maxwell House with cinnamon; she had an old plastic filter basket kicking around, though instead of buying paper filters she kept washing out and reusing the same piece of cloth. But now we’d moved down to white-label generic instant. And you know something? It did you just the same. By trial and error I’d found that three spoons to the cup was the upper limit of drinkable, provided you put a little milk in. Although I suppose three spoons to the cup defeated the purpose of buying cheap coffee.

So of course I tried to drink the stuff right away and burned my tongue. Then I put in some cold water, which defeated the purpose of using three spoons, though it didn’t really. I made that same mistake trying to think about gin a while back. I drank that cup, then drank
another one, then went back to the bedroom and picked my clothes up off the floor. Penny and Uncle Fred weren’t going to know they were the same clothes as yesterday—and the day before, come to think of it—and anybody else could go fuck themselves, meaning Martha. Save her some work, anyway. If you wore the same clothes for three days, it was the equivalent of having to wash a third as many clothes. In a way it cancelled out the coffee. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, then blew against my palm to check my breath. Still not great. I’d have to stop off and pick up some Carefree peppermint gum. That was my brand. Chosen for its name—one more way to grind in some cheap irony—and its sugarlessness. Then I looked my face over. I’d probably gone without shaving long enough now so it looked as if I’d started a beard. Another week would have been better, but. I got my wallet and car keys off the dresser and forced myself to look at Martha. Still on her side, mouth pouting, lower lip fat. Probably asleep. I felt my dick stir; so much for sexual disgust. It was as if a body inside my body and coterminous, my astral body I guess is what I’m talking about, were calling me back to life. Or simply living its own life in spite of me. I mean, getting not one but two erections out of Jernigan in a single morning? Had to be some kind of hoodoo. Mystics describe the astral body as silvery; it was as if I’d wounded that silvery thing yesterday, shooting it in its silvery hand, and it was taking action in its own defense at the same time the grosser physical body was cranking up its production of, what, white blood cells. This was the sort of shit Martha actually
believed
in, though it had taken a while to find that out; she was no longer gung-ho about it, but she still had the books around. Said she’d tried a couple of times to travel in the astral plane, but it hadn’t really worked. I told her, keep trying and maybe she could project herself right into the bughouse. Believe me, if I’d gotten a look at those books … Right, I’m sure that would’ve made all the difference.

I walked past Clarissa’s door and heard her going
Ooh ooh ooh
. Something in the air this morning, boy. Maybe it was just that winter was coming on. Last chance for life.

I bought a Diet Coke and a can of Colt 45 at the E-Z Mart on Hamilton Avenue. Back out in the car I popped the Diet Coke, took a good long pull for just a trace of extra caffeine, then poured the rest
out on the blacktop, refilled the can with Colt 45 and got rid of the Colt 45 can in the dumpster. This way I could drive and drink with absolute peace of mind. (Little joke.) Then off to New York! I felt so terrific what with the caffeine and the Colt 45 and about to see old friends and Martha not along that I dug out the Walkman. It still had the tape in it that Danny had been listening to. Something called Megadeth, and I figured why the fuck not. As the name promised, it was loud and destructive, and I was able to work it into my mood without thinking too much about what such music said about Danny. One way to think of it was just teenage hormones, so that’s what I ended up thinking.

I got off the highway before the tunnel and stopped at a gas station. The guy pumped as the law required, but I checked the oil myself: manly Jernigan. Since the slovenly fuckers were out of paper towels, it was either wipe the dipstick on my pants or use the cowboy jacket, which had ended up on the floor in the back. Fuck it: I hated the thing anyway. They had a pay phone mounted on the corner of the building, so I called 212 Information and asked for a Miranda McCaslin somewhere in the West 90s. What would make this day even greater would be to have a brand-new woman with you that you weren’t quite sure yet would go to bed with you. And bingo: an M. McCaslin on West 98th. I scratched the last four digits on the brickface with my ignition key—the 222 I could remember because of Uncle Fred—and dialed. Sixty cents, for Christ’s sake, just because of the fucking Hudson River. What I got was a guarded answering-machine message, just her voice (but it
was
her voice) saying what number you’d reached and please leave a message. “Miranda,” I said. “Peter Jernigan. Your fellow former—your former fellow Kelsey and Chittendener. Chittendenite. I was just in your neighborhood and I thought I’d give you a jingle to see if you were around. But I guess you’re not and”—I waited a few seconds for her to pick up the phone in case she was there listening, trying to decide about me. “Oh well. Another time. Hope you’re well, ta ta, whatever, I don’t know. Well, enough of this. Before I descend into total incoherence. ’Bye now.” I left the empty Diet Coke can on top of the metal cowl enshrining the phone, as an offering. The more I thought about it, the more I guessed I was actually glad her message was so unwelcoming: it would
stiff-arm lesser men. I was bound and determined not to let this little setback ruin a really up mood. Let’s hit it, I told myself, and no more fucking around.

Penny and Uncle Fred had the top floor of a brownstone on 102nd between Riverside and West End. Even though it was Sunday, when you’d think people would be out of town, I had to drive around and around and around looking for a parking place. Ended up on 105th or something. How I’d ever put up with this on a daily basis I couldn’t imagine. Not just the parking but all of it. Although if I was so much better off now, what was I doing with a bullet hole in my hand? I certainly hadn’t gone around shooting myself in the hand when I lived here, so therefore.

I pushed the bottom buzzer and Uncle Fred’s electric voice barked, “Stand and give the password.”

What was it I’d said before? It would be just like Uncle Fred to give me a bunch of shit before he got around to buzzing me in. Couldn’t remember. “I don’t know,” I said. “Allen Ludden.”

The thing buzzed and as I got the door open I heard him barking, “I’m sorry. Allen Ludden is dead.”

I stopped on the second-floor landing to get my breath. In addition to everything else, I thought, you really better try to do something about the shape you’re in physically. I patted my coat pocket to make sure I had car keys, and remembered I hadn’t brought anything the way you were supposed to no matter what they said. Well, look, they said not to and you didn’t, so really how wrong could that be?

Uncle Fred was waiting at the top of the murky stairs, standing in his open door, through which light was streaming. That corny effect where it slants through dustmotes. “Old Jernigan,” he said, giving me a one-armed lateral hug. “Income.” Uncle Fred had been saying “Income” for twenty years. From psychedelic sabotage of language to annoying mannerism to something you could count on.

3

Uncle Fred brandished a platter of tortillas backhanded, as you would a frisbee. “Better have some more eggs ranchers,” he said.