Long Past Stopping (8 page)

Inside I found Jake in the kitchen getting ready to go to work.

“Well, look who it is. How'd it go last night? Did little Cranberry hook it up with what's her name?” he asked me.

“Mary,” I said, getting uncomfortable. I could bitch and moan forever about not getting laid, but when I actually did get lucky I always tried to avoid talking about it. My friends seemed to think I was just shy, but I thought of myself more as a celibate misanthrope. I just didn't like most people, but with women I sometimes didn't figure that out till after I slept with them.

“Yeah, her. Did you hook it up or what?”

“She was kind of weird,” I said, avoiding the question. “She kept referring to herself as a rad chick.” I was stretching the truth a little. She had actually only said it twice, and the second time was because I asked her to repeat it, but in my head she kept saying it over and over again like a film loop: “I'm a rad chick. I'm a rad chick. I'm a rad…” It bummed me out.

“Who says that about themselves?” asked Jake.

“She does.”

As soon as he left, I grabbed a piece of tinfoil and went to my room. Holy shit, I was tired. I smoked the dope, put the little bag of coke in an empty Altoids tin, and somehow had enough energy to go and straighten the place up for the shakuhachi player.

 

I
HAD HEARD LAWRENCE
was having some problems with his wife and kid. He had never mentioned it to me, but it didn't seem like a good sign that he was now coming over almost every night to get high. On the nights that I went out or was downstairs rehearsing, my roommate Betsy would tell me he came by.

“Hey, Oran, your creepy older friend came by again tonight. What's that guy's deal? I told him you weren't here and he insisted on coming in anyway. What the fuck? Finally I let him use the bathroom and he was in there for like twenty minutes. Who is that guy, and why is he so creepy?” she said, visibly getting a case of the shivers.

“Listen, I'll tell him he can't come in if I'm not around.” I was hoping to end the conversation.

“Okay, but who is he? Why is he here all the time? I don't like it.” She wasn't letting it go.

“He's an artist…or philosopher, or something. I know he's kind of creepy, but I like hanging out with him.”

“God. I just don't get it.”

I'm not sure I got it either. All I knew is that when he was around I felt relaxed and comfortable for free. I didn't have to go out and deal with those crazy people and give them my money.

I never called Mary, but I knew it wasn't going to be that simple. When she had told me she really liked me, she sounded like she meant it. Luckily, I had an excuse ready for when she asked why I hadn't called her last week.

“Hey. It's Mary,” I heard on the other end of the phone. “I got your number from Eli. I'm at the Casanova having a drink. You should come by.”

“Actually I'm totally exhausted. I really need to stay in tonight,” I said.

“That's fine. I'm just right around the corner. I can come over there instead.” I just wanted to be left alone, but I was all tongue-tied. I was expecting her to ask why I hadn't called, so I could use my prepared excuse. I hadn't planned anything for this scenario. While I was trying to come up with a way out, she said, “I'll be over in a few minutes.”

Immediately she tried to convince me to go buy some dope. It seemed easier than coming up with conversation, so I gave in. As tired as I was, I went out to see if the same guy I had bought from before was hanging around outside. He wasn't there, but some other kid approached me.

“Looking?”

I nodded to him.

“I think Javier is right around the corner. How many you want?”

“Just one,” I answered.

“Give me the money. I'll be back in a second.” I wasn't about to let this guy walk away with my money.

“Sorry, man, I got to go with you.”

“Have you ever scored off Javier before?”

“No.”

“All right. You can come with me, but I'm telling you right now, he's not going to sell to you unless he knows you.”

“What, do I look like a cop?” I laughed.

“No. You live right there,” he said, pointing to my door. “I'll vouch for you, but I'm telling you it's not going to work.”

This guy wasn't as annoying as the other one, but it seemed even more complicated. We found Javier, who looked me up and down and said something unintelligible to the guy.

“He wants to see your tracks,” he said.

“What?”

“Your track marks,” he said, rolling up his shirtsleeve. His arm was dotted with red marks and bruises. It was fucking gross.

I'm never using a needle,
I thought.

“Tell him I smoke the shit.”

He said something in Spanish, and they started arguing while Javier kept shaking his head.

Finally he said to me, “Listen, just give me the money and meet me at the corner. Then next time you can buy straight from him.” It didn't make any sense, but I reluctantly gave him the money and went to wait on the corner.

“Here, you owe me one for that,” he said, dropping the balloon in my hand. “I'm Frank, by the way. What's your name?”

“I don't really want to give out my name,” I said.

“What am I supposed to call you then?”

“That's the thing. You're not supposed to call me anything. I don't really do this shit. Just once in a while. I mean I live right here, man, I can't really have people calling out my name on the street. My roommates…”

“Okay, okay,” he said, shutting me up. “Jesus Christ, man. I just asked you your name.”

“Well, thanks again,” I said, walking away. I thought I heard him mutter “asshole” under his breath, but I wasn't sure. When I looked back, he was just staring at the ground. Christ, wasn't there a way to do this without hurting people's feelings every time?

“What took you so long?” Mary asked when I got back.

“Those people are fucking crazy,” I said, not really answering her.

“You got it though, right?” She sounded a little desperate.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? How often do you do this shit?” I was concerned about how determined she was.

“That night with you was the first time, I swear. It was so fucking good, though.”

“That's what I'm worried about.” I was hesitant to do it myself after who knew how many days in a row, but I just stopped thinking about it.

“Hey, how come you never called me?” she asked after we got high.

“I've been really busy,” I said without any hesitation. It was the line I had been waiting to use.

We didn't even bother trying to have sex this time.

 

O
RAN, NICE OF YOU
to show up. You know I called you a few times yesterday. Where have you been? I've got a client who wants to buy that Knabe,” Dietrich said.

“Sorry. Something came up. I couldn't make it in.” Mary and I had sat around smoking more dope the next day.

“Well, at least you could call me if you're not coming in.”

“Or I could just not come back at all, and you could find someone more responsible to sand your pianos for free.” I was cranky.

“Okay, okay…don't worry about it, but I need to get that piano done. This guy needs it for his daughter's birthday.”

“All right! I'll do it!”

Dietrich just looked me over and went back upstairs.
Where did that come from?
I never yell at people, unless their names are Sean or Eli and I play music with them. I started working on the piano, but I didn't feel too good.
I must be getting sick. It's been a rough week, and I'm not used to this kind of life. How does Lawrence keep it up? Thirteen years? I can't even last two days. And when is that motherfucker going to teach me to tune these things? Asshole. I can't believe I'm still doing this shit. And what's up with Mary? She seems like bad fucking news. I better stay away from her. I mean, I don't even have anything to say to her.

Nothing brings out the internal dialogue like sanding pianos.

 

I
BOUGHT SOME MORE
on the way home. Someone asked me if I was looking and I just blurted out yes and handed him a ten. I smoked a little before my rehearsal with this new klezmer band I had started playing with. The drum parts were the most boring thing I had ever done in my life. It was basically polka with more interesting melodies.
Um-pa, um-pa, um-pa
. If I ever tried to do a fill or hit anything other than the kick, snare, or high hat, they would stop and tell me in the nicest way possible, “Hey, Oran, that was cool, man, but this song doesn't really need that.” The only reason I had agreed to join was because they had said they were going to call themselves the Klezbians. They had just gotten their first gig at a café, and that night they told me that they had decided to change their name to the Goys instead.

“What happened to the Klezbians?” I asked. “That's the best name ever.”

“Well, we decided that we didn't want to offend anyone,” Adrian the clarinet player said. The band was made up of middle-aged parents except for the trumpet player and me. “You don't think the Goys is a good name? You know, a klezmer band with no Jews in it? It's funny, right?” Adrian tried to tell me.

“I'm Jewish,” I said.

“You are? How come you didn't tell us?”

“Because you didn't tell me it was called the Goys. Not only is it not that funny anyway, but there's a Jew in the band. It simply doesn't work.” I didn't care so much about the obvious contradiction. I just wanted them to change the name back.

“Shit. The thing is the show has already been advertised. Just don't tell anyone you're Jewish, okay? We'll change the name for the next one.”

“To the Klezbians?” I asked, but I already knew I was going to quit after this show.

 

T
HE KIDS WOKE
me up screaming out in the schoolyard the next morning. It caused a moment of panic before my brain turned on and told me it was just kids running around having fun, or dealing with whatever intense playground issues kids deal with. The panic subsided and was replaced by a cold, clammy feeling. I wrapped myself tighter under the blanket, waiting for recess to end, but it didn't help. Even when they got called back in for class, I couldn't fall back to sleep. I just kept tossing and turning, thinking that the last month of hard living had finally caught up with me, and I was coming down with the flu.

Then the panic came back.
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
I said to myself as I flashed through the last few weeks.
Lawrence, Mary, then on my way home from Mary's, the next night, the next morning, then Mary again. Has it been that long? When did Lawrence start coming by? A month ago? I can't even
remember, and it's been a blur since then. What the fuck were you thinking? It's so obvious. How could you be such an idiot?
I had read enough William Burroughs books to figure out I didn't have the flu. Even though I had never really understood at the time what he went through when he described withdrawal, his descriptions matched the way I felt now.
How could I let this happen? I knew Lawrence is full of shit. I didn't believe him for a second about not getting addicted in thirteen years. Motherfucker's at the house every night. But it's not as if I've been nodding out or anything. Actually, I've been getting a lot done. I'm not as tired as usual, not as anxious or depressed. Shit, it's only been one or two bags a day, and I don't even feel that bad. I can totally deal with this. If I don't smoke any of that shit today, I'm sure tomorrow will be fine.

I got out of bed, climbed down the ladder, took out my piece of tinfoil, and rooted around for the three little pieces of plastic I had thrown in the trash. There was a little bit of brown residue on each piece, which I scraped off with a pocketknife. I got enough out of it for a small hit, and within seconds I felt better.
You fucking idiot. You just said you weren't going to do this thirty seconds ago
.
Oh well. You already fucked up today.

There was a sinking feeling in my chest as I walked out of the house to get more. The feeling of impending doom. It went away when I got back to my room and smoked a little of it.
Fuck it. It'll be fine. I'll deal with this tomorrow.

E
D DROVE US FROM
Santa Fe to Taos, New Mexico, in his falling-apart Toyota Celica and dropped us off at a deserted Buddhist retreat up in the hills. There were a few people around, but no one paid any attention to us. We slept in a geodesic dome and spent our days jumping on yet another trampoline, a big round one that proved to be a disappointing, less bouncy substitute for the one back in Santa Fe.

Four days later, Wavy Gravy and his partner, Surya, showed up with their group of jugglers, acrobats, hippies, and clowns to set up for a month of Camp Winnarainbow. It was a traveling camp at the time, and they had just come from Woodstock. I hadn't juggled much while I was in Santa Fe, but I quickly got back into it and even started branching out a little with gymnastics and tightrope walking, neither of which I was very good at.

The camp's next stop was in Mendocino, California. Kyle and I tagged along with the hippie clowns, who were our counselors, and we slept in tepees with a new batch of kids for the next month. I was always nervous as hell around other kids, and I could never figure out how to make friends with them. But one kid in particular made me more nervous than I had ever been in my life. Her name was Jibz, and unlike me, she had no problem making friends. The first few days of camp were nerve-racking for almost everyone, but Jibz was running around on day
one as if she had already been there for a month. She seemed to be free of the ever-present, all-encompassing self-consciousness that made me do shit like practice juggling six hours a day in an effort to avoid exchanging words with other kids.

I didn't know what I wanted from her, but whenever I saw Jibz making crazy faces, or coming up with the most awkward dance moves I had ever seen in my life, onstage, for everyone to see, I would get a feeling I had never experienced before. The feeling was similar to my normal fear and anxiety, except that I wanted to run toward it, rather than away. I practiced juggling even harder. Since there was no way I could ever get the nerve up to approach her, I hoped that maybe, if I became the best juggler ever, she would approach me. After the first four weeks neither had happened, but I had learned to juggle five balls.

 

M
OM MET US
in California to explore the idea of relocating to the Bay Area. We lived with her temporarily at a hotel in Corte Madera, across the street from a strip mall and directly behind Highway 101.

We took day trips to Stinson Beach, Muir Woods, the Exploratorium, and Haight Street. Mostly we had fun, but I never understood why we kept going back to the Haight; it was crowded, the stores seemed to sell nothing but colorful junk, and everyone was always asking for money. “Spare change for some acid, man?”

Haight Street's only redeeming quality was its proximity to Golden Gate Park, the Double Rainbow ice cream store, and a place called the Holography Museum, which we had become fond of. The Holography Museum was actually a store, a dark, quiet room displaying three-dimensional portraits, a few space ships, and models of Saturn. As much as they intrigued me, I could only spend so much time looking at them.

Bob, a guy who volunteered a few days a week and made holographs himself, could spend hours explaining the science behind it, but it still made no fucking sense. Mom would pretend to understand him, and they would talk forever while Kyle and I stood out on the sidewalk, fending off hippies who seemed to think it was cute or funny or something to ask us for spare change.

“Spare some change for a bomb, little guys?”

“Sorry. I don't have any money,” I answered honestly.

“Come on man, even a nickel…”

“I don't even have any pockets,” I said, drawing attention to the black satin pants Mom had commissioned a woman at the dry cleaners to make
for me. I had to hide the occasional quarter I would steal in my blue-and-white-checkered Vans. Whenever I managed to get a dollar's worth of change together, I would go to the gas station by the hotel and trade it in for a bill. Walking around with more than a dollar in change in my shoes would start to hurt like a motherfucker, especially when a coin got stuck behind my heel. The bills were much more comfortable.

I suspected that Mom had a thing for Bob, especially when she asked us what we thought of him. She had a way of auditioning prospective boyfriends to us, even though I had never seen them lead to anything. Not that she waited for an answer.

“He's a cool guy, right?” she said. “I mean, anyone who devotes their life to holography has got to be pretty cool.”

Having no response to that line of reasoning, we nodded in agreement. We were focusing more on eating our It's-It ice cream sandwiches before they melted than on Mom's thing with Bob.

“Great, because he's agreed to let you guys stay with him and his wife while I wrap things up in Philly.”

 

B
OB, HIS WIFE,
Sarah, and their two kids, Vanessa and Andre, lived in what had once been a public elementary school in San Rafael. They had converted one of the classrooms into a living space and another one into Bob's holography studio. Kyle and I slept in another classroom that served double duty as a bedroom and storage space.

Mom had shipped my juggling equipment and unicycle from Philadelphia, and I was content to hang out in the former schoolyard practicing by myself, until one day when I heard Kyle get spanked by Sarah. It must have connected to something primal in me, because after I found the door locked, I started slamming my body against it as hard as I could to break it down. When that didn't work, I screamed about the merciless retribution that Mom was going to bring upon them when I told her they hit Kyle. The threats didn't work either, so I ran down the hall and reluctantly took off my shoes to put what little change I had into a pay phone.

Mom was furious. She had a million conditions when it came to leaving us with other people, but the only absolute rule, the one that she could 100 percent never excuse, was the condition that Kyle and I never be physically hit. She told me to pack our stuff and she would be there as soon as possible. After calling Bob at the Holography Museum and threatening him with cops, lawsuits, and prison, she drove straight to the airport and got on the first flight to San Francisco. I was still on the
phone when Kyle ran past me straight to the bathroom and locked himself in.

I didn't know what Kyle had done, or how bad he had been hit. He refused to speak to me through the bathroom door, but I was relieved to see the plate of food that Bob left out for him was gone. Kyle didn't come out of the bathroom until the next morning, when he heard Mom's voice in the hall raising hell. I got him and our bags to the car, while Mom and Sarah went nuts on each other. It looked as though it was going to get physical a few times, but Bob did a good job of keeping them apart.

We spent that night back in the same shitty hotel in Corte Madera. The next day we got in the car to “run some errands” and ended up at the San Francisco airport to drop off Mom and pick up Grandma Ada.

“Why, hello, boys. How was New Mexico?” she asked while pinching both of my cheeks and shaking my face around. Thirty seconds later, she finally let go and moved on to Kyle. “Now come on and give your grandma Ada a big kiss. Look how much you've grown. Such big boys.”

Grandma Ada rarely said anything that warranted a response, or even made one possible. When she did ask a question, it always led directly into some other train of thought.

“Would you just take a look at that,” she said as we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Overtaken by the majesty of it all, she wasn't paying any attention to the road. “The light is magnificent. Have you ever seen anything like the light reflecting off those hills? You never answered me about New Mexico, boys. You know that's where Georgia O'Keeffe did some of her best work. The sky is so much bigger in the desert, and the light is so different that it creates an alternate perspective for the artist. Isn't it amazing how the differences in regional climate and light can affect the art in that area? Oh, the colors Gauguin started using when he went to Tahit—”

“When's Mom coming back?” I cut her off, or she would have gone on forever.

“You should be excited to see your grandmother. Mom didn't tell you I was coming, did she?” This time she paused after her question. Mom hadn't told us anything about it. She probably thought we would have temper tantrums and refuse to get in the car.

“No. Why did she leave again?” I asked.

“Boys, your mother is going through some stuff right now, and I offered to come and take care of you until she gets it worked out. Isn't that exciting? Just us three getting to…”

“When is she coming back?” This time it was Kyle who cut her off.

“Well, right now we're going to the hotel, and…oh dear, you children must be starving. I'm going to make some ratatouille for dinner. Your favorite…I bet you didn't get ratatouille in New Mexico, did you? I started putting just a little bit of basil in it since the last time you guys came to Flori…”

“When is she coming back!” I yelled.

“Now, Oran. There is no need to yell. I can hear you perfectly fine. She'll call us when she gets home.”

Goddamn, that took long enough.

“What's wrong with her?” asked Kyle. I, too, had no idea what was going on.

“Oh dear. I've been asking myself that same question since she was seven years old,” she said to herself. “Your mother's a bit meshugenah is all. I don't know what happened to that girl. She used to be so cute in her little dresses; everyone loved her. You should have seen her back then…the way she'd play that piano. Ah,” she sighed, “I can still hear her doing Beethoven's Fifth from the living room as if it was yesterday. The proudest day of my life was seeing your mother play at Carnegie Hall when she was thirteen. Then…I don't know what happened. She changed. Arthur and I did everything for her. I don't know why she hates me so much.”

We had heard this too many times and we weren't interested in what Mom had done when she was thirteen. We wanted to know what was going on now. It was no secret that they had a tense relationship, but while Mom could go on hour-long rants about what was wrong with Grandma, Grandma usually just called Mom meshugenah and went into some cute childhood story or another.

According to Ada, all three of us were nuts, but considering that Kyle and I were living everywhere from Guatemala to New Mexico, going to hippie camps, and living with a holographer, of course we were bound to be crazy. What other outcome could there be? None of this would have happened if Mom had just married a nice Jewish boy.

How could she turn out so meshugenah when both Grandma and our grandfather, Arthur,
rest his soul,
had done nothing wrong? They bought Mom the right dresses and gave her the right education, played her the right music, and took her to the right museums. All the things Ada never got growing up. Her seven brothers and sisters had raised her after their parents died in a car crash, and as far as she knew, she was the last one standing. Arthur had died of cancer when I was a year old, and he was
one of the few people on the planet who Mom didn't have anything bad to say about.

Mom just didn't like cute little dresses, she didn't like the right music, and she absolutely hated art as a result of being dragged to countless museums as a kid, all so that she be cultured enough to meet a nice Jewish man, settle down, and raise a nice Jewish family. Instead she became a renegade-feminist-antiestablishment-intellectual-new age hippie psychologist who was against everything Ada stood for.

Mom was having trouble lining up new living situations for Kyle and me. After living with Grandma at the hotel for a few months, we moved to an apartment in Tiburon. We tried to make the best of it, but none of us wanted to be there. Kyle and I weren't settled enough to even think about going to school, and hanging out with Grandma twenty-four hours a day was tough, to say the least.

Fed up and stir-crazy, we somehow got ahold of a blow-up raft and paddled into the San Francisco Bay. Hours later, we washed up somewhere near San Quentin. It was already dark when, wet and shivering, we hauled our little boat over the huge black boulders onto the side of the road. We waited near the do not pick up hitchhikers sign, hoping that someone would pick us up and take us home. A woman stopped and was nice enough to drive us back.

After giving us endless big wet grandma kisses and then pinching our cheeks harder than ever, Ada promptly took out a knife and started stabbing the boat. Kyle and I grabbed a couple of steak knives and joined in.

Taking care of us, however, proved to be too much for the poor woman, and other arrangements were soon made. Mom couldn't find anyone to take the both of us, so Kyle went to a foster home with a nice Catholic woman named Pam, and I ended up going to live with Fred. Five months earlier, I had known Fred as Surya, the Sufi clown who ran Camp Winnarainbow with Wavy Gravy. He was one of my favorite guys, but he had since renounced his Sufi past and converted to born-again Christianity. Mom didn't seem so excited about my staying with them, but I had always liked Surya. The next decision was whether I should go to the born-again-Christian school with his kids or attend the public school near their house. I elected to go to the Christian school so as not to make any waves, but there was only one way Mom would allow it: she refused to sign the corporal punishment release required for admittance.

“Okay, honey. I want you to listen to me very carefully,” she told me after signing all the school's paperwork. “You can't tell them this, but I
didn't sign the release card. Most likely they'll just assume I did and won't even look. I absolutely cannot sign that thing, so if they find out, you have to go to public school.”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

“This is the important part. If they let you in and you do get in trouble, you need to promise me that you will scream and yell as loud as you can that your mother never signed the release, and she will sue them and shut them down for good if they ever lay a hand on you. Can you make that promise?”