Mean Boy (22 page)

It’s bizarre and unnerving to realize how easy it is to hurt Jim’s feelings—I can only assume this is part of being a genius, one of the downsides. But it’s frustrating too—a pall has been cast over the evening, and it won’t get better unless I can snap him out of it. It feels as if it’s my responsibility somehow. I spent the last eight hours with
Schofield, after all. I heard him say myself how much he admires Jim.

“He was singing your praises to me all afternoon, Jim.”

“Oh horseshit, Larry, don’t you know when you’re being snowed?” Jim snorts this at me. “He was trying to get you on his side, trying to make me look irrational.”

“Maybe he’ll call you tomorrow before he gets on the bus,” I suggest, deciding to back off. For all I know, Jim’s right—I never read the review, after all, Schofield’s review of
Blinding White
. For all I know it will confirm everything Jim’s said about the man. Maybe Schofield is like Iago, Janus-faced—pointlessly evil.

“Who gives a shit,” says Jim, quickening his pace as we approach the corner of Scarsdale Holdings. Rory’s latest flag, a brand-spankity new replacement of the last one we pilfered, dangles there in the depleted wind.

“Flaaag!”
screams Slaughter, taking a run at it. It separates from the pole with ease, as if Rory isn’t even bothering to secure them anymore. Slaughter makes a show of trying to rip it in half, but the nylon is too strong. He goes at it with his teeth for a minute or so, and then finally settles on balling it up and wiping his ass.

“Hey, Jim,” I pant, trotting to keep up, and he grabs me around the shoulders again.

“Larry,” he says. “You’re my main man.”

“That’s me,” I agree.

“What would I do without you, kid?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Die, probably!”

“That’s right,” Jim agrees with an utter lack of humour. “I’d keel right the fuck over, my friend.” We walk in stride for long enough to make me feel self-conscious, but I would never dream of breaking Jim’s embrace. He speaks again only as we turn onto Station Street. A block away, we can see the lights of the Mariner flashing, cars pulling in and pulling
away, people standing around the front entrance, laughing and seeming to breathe fire, the way their breath plumes out in the cold. It’s the first time I’ve been here, and I can’t believe it. It looks to me like the biggest, most popular bar in town—a bar like you’d find in the city. You’d think the university crowd would be out here every weekend. I’m about to remark on this to Jim, but he speaks again, every bit as serious, every bit as grim.

“There are people in the world, Larry,” he tells me, “who know what it means to be a friend. And you’re one of them.”

I do my best to stare straight ahead at the oncoming bar, squelching my instinct to beam up at Jim like a child on Santy’s knee.

“Thank you, Jim,” I say, attempting to match his grim tone.

“And I am lucky enough to have you as a friend,” Jim adds. He gives me a squeeze and then bashes me twice on the chest with his opposite hand, as though trying to start my heart. “I am lucky enough,” he emphasizes, raising his voice so that Dekker and Todd and Slaughter can hear, “to count this fine young man amongst my friends.”

The night, I think, the night can do what it wants now. The night can take me anywhere it wants to go.

Inside the bar, everything speeds up in a disjointed kind of way. Is this because I’m high? I decide that when I stop asking myself if I’m high, that’s when I’ll be high, and abruptly resolve to forget about it. Inside the bar are bodies and smoke, a blue, apocalyptic fog looming over everyone’s heads. I push my way through assorted human limbs: arms and shoulders, backs and asses. It’s an apocalyptic scene in general, reminding me of those paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, the suffering sinners on Judgment Day—what my
grandmother’s daydreams probably look like. But nobody appears to be suffering much here. This, I think, is what the scene would look like pre-Bosch’s vision—before the divine shoe drops, as it were; before everyone finds themselves naked, writhing, and suffering. It stands to reason they’d be naked, writhing, and having fun.

Music blares. Jim is on a mission to find us a table—mission impossible, you might call it, as there is scarcely any floor space to be had from what I can see. He stations us by the bar and plunges through the wall of arms and asses.

“How you doing?” Todd screams in my ear.

The truth is, I’m dizzy from the sudden change in temperature, the bodies, and the smoke.

“Great!” I yell. “This place is pretty cool!”

“Yeah!” agrees Todd, spinning away to face the bar. I watch him, wondering what he’s up to. Something strange and over-eager in the
Yeah!
—the way he’s just negated it by turning his back. He’s not ordering a drink from the bartender—the bartender is completely overrun down at the other end. Todd is just standing there, looking down at the brass rail.

“Smiley’s tripping!” screams Chuck. Todd turns around halfway, eyes darting.

“What?” he says.

“You’re gone, man!”

Todd drums his fingers on the bar. “No, I’m not,” he says after a moment or two, facing away again. Slaughter grins at me, wiggling his fingers around his head to indicate the extent of Todd’s high. Doubtful, I look back at Todd, notice his shoulder blades jutting beneath his yellowed T-shirt. As I watch, he places his hands quite deliberately upon the brass rail. Grips it.

“Yeah, that’s right,” blasts Slaughter over the blaring horns. “Brace yourself, buddy. You’re in for a wild ride.”

At this point Dekker leans in to get our attention, not even bothering to try and be heard above the music. He simply waves a hand toward the crowd, from where it turns out Jim is beckoning with the vast gesticulations of his monkey arms.

“He’s got a table,” I marvel out loud, smacking Todd between the shoulder blades. “Smiley! Jim’s got a table.”

We’re about five steps away when I glance back to notice Smiley hasn’t moved. His yellow T-shirt glows under the lights, creating something of an aura. A strange compassion fills me at the sight of Todd’s glowing, motionless back. It’s odd to realize how unaware people are about the backs of themselves. An entire side of your body with which you are completely unfamiliar but which everyone else gets to see.

“Todd,” I say, sidling up to him, trying to catch his eye. “Jim’s found a table.”

Todd doesn’t look up. “I’m not sure,” he says.

“Pardon?”

Todd stretches his fingers slowly before resettling them into their grip on the rail. His fingers are stubby, like the rest of him, but he fans them like a concert pianist warming up.

“I don’t know,” he articulates, speaking louder for my benefit. “I’m just not sure, exactly.”

“No,” I yell. “He’s found one for us, it’s okay.”

No answer.

“Are you
high
, Todd?”

Todd winces a little at the word.

“I’m just saying,” he tells me, in a tone that’s either peevish or pleading, “I’m not
sure
. I’m a little bit apprehensive, here.”

The temptation to mock and mess around with Todd is, to my surprise, completely cancelled out by the helpless look he suddenly shoots me from beneath his brows.

“What are you apprehensive about?” I ask, leaning in so I won’t have to yell.

Todd licks his thick lips and wiggles his fingers some more against the rail. “I’m just a little bit concerned,” he explains, speaking more slowly than I think I’ve ever heard him, “about turning around.”

“Turning around?”

Todd nods, three times. It takes an eternity.

I don’t know what to say, so I turn around myself to see if I can gauge where Jim and the others have settled themselves. There’s no sign of them amongst the masses. The bartender finally appears and asks if either of us want a drink. Todd won’t meet his eye.

“Have a beer, Todd,” I encourage.

“No,” says Todd. “I’m too concerned.”

I hold two fingers up to the wired, wiry bartender, who nods and darts off toward the fridge. That’s all my money for the night. A night on the town with Jim and his impoverished acolytes is usually predicated upon an unspoken agreement that the profs will pay for drinks. I wonder if he would ever think to reimburse me. Christmas is coming. I have no money for gifts.

“Todd,” I try again. “It’s okay. You can turn around.”

Todd sighs as if he’s listening to an idiot. “I’m not
sure,”
he repeats.

“I know,” I say. “I know you’re not sure, but, really. Look at me.” I lean my back against the bar, resting my elbows on it like a gunslinger. When Todd glances up, I make a point of surveying the room, a look of supreme contentment smearing my face. Then I try to meet eyes reassuringly but he jerks his gaze back down at the railing.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s the bartender, whom I pay. I place Todd’s beer in front of him like a nurse doling out medicine.

“Just have a sip,” I say. “Beer’ll perk you right up.”

Todd squints at it. Yet another eternity passes. It must be one in the morning at least.

“I’m not
sure
,“ he emits finally.

“Oh, Jesus, Smiley, have a sip of beer!”

He removes one hand from the railing as if afraid he’ll lose his balance, then wraps it around the stubby brown bottle.

“Ah,” says Todd, as if refreshed by the mere feel of it.

“There,” I say. “Now sip.”

As I watch, Todd takes the weirdest sip possible. He keeps his head bowed, juts out his lower lip and upends the bottle at a ludicrous angle. When, involuntarily, he finds he has to raise his chin somewhat to keep from slobbering beer all over himself, Todd shields his eyes with his opposite hand. That’s when I figure it out. There is a mirror behind the bar.

“Todd,” I say. “Is it the mirror?”

Todd places his beer on the bar and now wraps both hands around it, swallowing.

“This is what I’m trying to figure out,” he explains.

“What are you seeing in the mirror? Is it the evil Big Bird?”

Finally a more recognizable expression passes over Todd’s features. Good old contempt. He even turns his head to make sure I take it into account.

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not
hallucinating
, Campbell.”

Losing sympathy, I fold my arms. “Then what’s the problem, Smiley? I’m not the one who’s acting like a freak here.”

Todd winces again. “I’m acting like a freak?”

“Yes,” I say. “You’re acting like a bit like a freak, I’m sorry to say. That’s why you have to pick up your nice beer that I was generous enough to buy you—”

“I’ll pay you back,” he interrupts.

“Okay, good,” I say, “because I’m pretty broke to be honest. Anyway, as I was saying, that’s why you have to pick up your beer now, and come and sit down at the table.”

The music changes, goes disco. The men growl and yell things, but some of the women yelp for joy and wave their bums around, which causes the men to settle down. I content myself with watching the bums as Todd deliberates, but this is getting boring, and every second that ticks past is a second shaved off the potentially wild night I could be having with Jim.

“Todd,”
I say. His shoulders jump.

“Okay, maybe just leave me here for a while,” speaks Todd rapidly, renewing his grip on the beer.

“Are you serious?”

“Maybe I’ll just stand here for a bit. People just stand at the bar, sometimes, it’s not weird.”

I rub my forehead, watching Todd’s knuckles whiten. Todd, I realize, is paralyzed with self-consciousness about how high he is. This strikes me as an appalling repudiation of everything I’ve ever heard regarding drug use. I immediately regret having swallowed the bird turds. The last thing I need is to be more self-conscious than I am now. Maybe, I think, I can get myself drunk enough to vomit up the bird turds before they take hold and have me staring at the railing alongside of Todd. Maybe, from here on out, as a poet whose responsibility it is to explore the depths of personality, to peer beyond the doors of perception, mushrooms won’t be my drug of choice. Maybe psychotropic isn’t the way to go. Maybe pot—
the tokes
, as my dad would say—would suit me better. My father harbours a great disdain for “the tokes.”
Wacky tabaccy
, he also calls it, which strikes me as strangely affectionate.

Meanwhile, Todd won’t budge.

“So you want me to leave you here then?” I say at last.

Silence from Todd.

“Yes?” I prompt.

“I
guess
,“ says Todd.

And now I know Todd doesn’t really want me to leave him here alone. I drink some of my beer, several swallows in a row. I’m hoping I can dampen my conscience by doing so. Drink myself into not giving a shit whether or not Todd wants me to stay. This is the last thing I want to be doing on a Friday night at the Mariner with Jim. I want to talk about French surrealism, I want to dance with older women in halters with upper arms like Brenda L. Maybe even with Brenda L. herself—surely Brenda must go out on the weekends, and I’ve never seen her at Quackers or the Stein. In Timperly, that only leaves one place—this place. I peer into the crowd.

“Hey, Todd,” I say brightly. “What if I were to go and get Jim? Would that help?”

Todd does some more maddening drumming with his fingers—thumping lightly away on the beer bottle. At some point, he seems to have swallowed quite a bit of it, and his drumming has a hollow, musical quality.
Tunka-tunka-tunk
. “I
guess
, “ he says at length.

So it’s clear he doesn’t want me to go get Jim either, but to hell with it—I resolve to play dumb on that front. I push myself away from the bar and stretch a little, just to give Todd some time to get used to the fact of my going. I can see his shoulder blades twitch.

“I’ll just be a second,” I yell, leaning toward him.

Todd nods tightly.

“Todd,” I hear myself saying, “do you just wanna go home?”

Todd swallows.

“I really, really do,” he says.

When I look around the bar, it’s meant as a gesture of despair and resignation. There is no utilitarian aspect to it—I’m not seeking anyone this time. Mostly I am just stretching my neck and coming to terms with the fact that my evening is ruined, my second wind wasted. I’ll have to escort poor,
stoned Todd back to his dorm, and by then I’ll be too tired and disgusted at Smiley’s neurotic half-assed high and my complete lack of one to do anything except trudge my anti-climactic way home through the snowbanks.