Stoner & Spaz (11 page)

She shrugs. “They’re little.”

“No. They’re perfect. They’re great.”

“Now show me your arm.”

“You have to close your eyes.”

She crawls right up to me, bringing a kind of haze of cigarettes and patchouli. She smells blue. Not blue as in sad, either. Azure. That blue. “I’ll help you.”

The next thing I know my Ralph Lauren shirt is open. She tugs it out of my khakis, pulls the left shoulder down.

“Colleen, don’t.”

“Shut up. You want somebody’s eyes closed, close your own.”

I feel the cool air on my stomach and chest.

“Huh.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘huh.’ As in, big fucking deal.”

“It’s not ugly?”

“A little, but so what? Bodies are really interesting. All the shit that happens to them, and they just don’t quit.” She takes my good hand. “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?”

“Pittsburgh.”

I tug at her until she stops. “Look, when we get in the bedroom, don’t pay any attention to my bad side, okay? Just concentrate on the good side.”

On the way I manage to get part of my shirt back on. Colleen, however, steps right out of her shorts, peels off her tank top, sits on the edge of the bed, and slips out of her underpants.

“Hey, why am I the only one with her clothes off?”

“Nobody,” I say, “has ever seen me naked. I don’t look at myself naked.”

“Come over here, and I’ll help.”

I shake my head. “No way. You’ll look.”

“Probably.”

“What if you turn your back and I undress and get into bed?”

“You’re kidding.”

“I know. It’s like a Doris Day movie, but . . .”

“If that’s what it takes, fine. We’ll do it your way.”

I hobble around to the other side of the bed. “This is going to take a little while.”

“Should I go get
Moby Dick
?”

“Just don’t look.”

I struggle out of my clothes. It feels weird to just drop things on the floor. Grandma hates that. But I do it, anyway.

I ask Colleen if she’s looking.

“What do you care? You’ve got your back to me.”

“Are you under the covers?”

“No.”

“Are you going to get under the covers?”

“If you are, Doris.”

As quick as I can, I pull back the Navajo-print comforter. Colleen slides over beside me.

“Jesus, Ben. Your feet are freezing.”

“I’m scared.”

She kisses me on the forehead. “Honey, relax. The rest is easy.”

I reach for my khakis, fumble in one pocket, then hold up the condom. “I’ve got this.”

“That’s cool.”

“I, uh, think it takes two hands to, you know, install it.”

She grabs the condom, tears the foil with her teeth, then puts it on with alarming dexterity.

“There you go,” she says. “All dressed up for the party.”

“What now?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not totally.”

“You’ve never seen an X-rated movie?”

“A couple.”

“Well, that’s how we do it.”

I turn to face her. “But those people are getting paid. They might not even like each other. Isn’t it different if you like the other person?”

She leans over and kisses me. “You’re gonna be fine. It’ll be fine.”

“What’s Ed like?” Boy, that jumped out by itself.

“In bed? Do you really want to know?”

“No. Yes.”

She frowns like it’s a hard question on a test. “Ed’s relentless. And kind of industrial, you know?” She moves one arm like a piston. “Sex was never really my thing, anyway. I like getting high.” She lies back. “There’s one cool thing about it, though. And that’s how you get to go to sleep afterward.” She tugs at me. “So c’mon. Let’s do it, and then we can take a little nap.”

I GET INTO THE SHOW at the Centrist Gallery, which is great, but it makes me so nervous I keep fine-tuning the movie. I’m on my way to Marcie’s house for the nine-thousandth time when a guy on a bicycle zips past. He’s cutting in and out among the big SUVs and making everybody blow their horn.

When he shoots by me, our eyes meet. I watch him slow down, turn, and pedal back. It’s Ed, riding a bike so stripped down it’s nothing but a frame, wheels, and handlebars. When he slides to a stop right in front of me, I blurt, “Where’s your car?”

“I totaled it.”

“And you just walked away?”

He lifts his T-shirt. There’s a blue-and-yellow bruise as wide as a banner. “I had my seat belt on, but Bobby didn’t. He’s in ICU with clamps in his head.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry. I interviewed Bobby.”

“For your movie, yeah. Which reminds me. Why didn’t you interview me?”

“Are you kidding? I’m scared of you.”

Ed likes that answer. “You live around here?”

I point across the street. “You?”

“El Serrano. Ever heard of it?”

“Sure.”

“Crappy, huh.” It isn’t a question. “Got any brothers or sisters?”

I shake my head. “Have you?”

“Had an older brother. He was one tough son of a bitch.”

“Is that where you learned?”

Ed leans on the handlebars and his triceps jump. “Probably. When it got to be winter, we’d take off all our clothes, go out in the backyard, and see who could stand it the longest.” He glances up at me. “You ever do anything like that?”

“Get serious.”

“Your folks died, right? That couldn’t have been easy.”

Ed keeps nudging the bike forward inch by inch, moving me onto the lawn. So I push back, using my good arm to grip the handlebars, letting him run right into my bad leg. That foot is always half-turned anyway, so it makes a perfect brace. I put my knee against the knobby tire.

It’s like some anti-tug-of-war, because if I lose I won’t just fall back on my butt. He’ll run over me.

Ed grins up at me. “I’m probably not going to graduate.”

My leg is getting tired and starting to quiver from the strain. When he backs off a little, I do, too.

“What are you gonna do then?”

“My dad’s so pissed about the Camaro he says I’m goin’ in the army.”

“I thought you were gonna be a drug kingpin and live large.”

“Not many drug kingpins on bicycles.” Ed lets himself be pushed back a foot or two. “You got your pants dirty,” he says.

I take my right hand off the cool metal and shake some feeling back into it. “That’s okay.”

Then he looks at me, squinting. “Does it hurt?”

“You mean my hand or all of it?”

“All of it.”

“Sometimes.”

“It hurts just to get your ass out of a chair, doesn’t it?”

“It’s more clumsy.”

“But it never gets easier?”

“No.”

“You’re a tough little fucker. I couldn’t handle it. I’d kill myself.”

Then we just stand there. He leans on the handlebars. I put my hand in my pocket.

Then he asks, “How’s Colleen? I hear she’s clean and sober.”

I point. “See that house? It belongs to a friend of ours. Colleen and I go over there a lot. We study and help in the garden and if we don’t cook we order pizza and watch a video.”

“Sounds great . . . till she shows up loaded.”

“She won’t.”

“If you say so.”

Then he pedals away, sitting up straight, arms out.
Look at me, Ma. No hands.

THE NIGHT OF THE SHOW, Marcie finds a parking place just half a block from the Centrist Gallery. That means we get to walk on Melrose Avenue: tourists, panhandling kids, and a shirtless guy with his boa constrictor — five bucks to pose for a picture, his arm around Aunt Martha.

Marcie and I flank Grandma — worker bees protecting the queen. We lose Colleen in the first fifty yards, when she runs into somebody she knows. From the old days.

“Look at this!” Marcie points to the gallery window. There’s my picture. And nineteen others: black guys, Hispanic girls, Chinese guys, Vietnamese girls — it’s a regular UNICEF card.

I look for Colleen’s leather jacket, but she’s talking to a girl with blue hair.

I don’t know why I’m nervous. I mean, I’m in the show. Nobody’s going to boo and throw things. If there is a review, it’ll be about two inches long in one of the alternative newspapers. And they’ll probably get my name wrong. Ben Boombox.

I take a big breath and let it out before I step through the door. There’s a pretty good crowd. Lots of black, like a Young Morticians’ Convention. Marcie stands out in her paisley overalls. In my chambray shirt and khakis, I could work for Southwest Airlines.

“You okay?” Marcie asks.

“Would you like peanuts with your in-flight beverage?”

“You look fine. C’mon, let’s say hello to the guy who runs this place.”

Josh turns out to be about thirty. He’s wearing a pair of five-hundred-dollar pants. Grandma compliments him. He likes her Ferragamo shoes, and suddenly they’re best friends.

I look for Colleen, catch her eye. She’s got a glass of white wine, which she lifts in a toast. To me, I hope.

Marcie links her arm through mine and we start at TV number one, where a big trout lectures a small one about water pollution. Marcie makes a face. “One down and nineteen to go.”

We watch a few minutes of
Nihilism,
which seems to be somebody howling. But it’s dark. All dark all the time. I like
Lipstick,
where a girl starts out kissing her boyfriend kind of playfully but won’t stop and his face ends up completely red. And I’m crazy about
Roach Coach,
this documentary about the guys who drive those big silver snack trucks.

High School Confidential
is number nine, and I think it’s a good sign there’s a little crowd around my TV. Actually not that little. So we decide to check out the others and then come back.

A couple are really good. Better than mine. Surer, if that makes any sense. More confident. We get something for Grandma to eat so her blood sugar won’t plummet. We find her a place to sit. Then we go back to number nine.

“Is Colleen okay?” Marcie doesn’t take her eyes off the screen.

“I don’t know.”

She grabs my arm. But nice. She’s just excited. “I love this part.”

“I was with some people,” says Oliver. “We’re at this Thai restaurant on Sunset, and a family comes in: mom, dad, and two kids, okay? A boy and a girl. A perfect family. And my friend says, ‘Breeders!’ loud enough for the dad to hear. And he just leaves. Turns around and takes his family with him. Everybody at the table, my table, I mean, is happy. We chased them out. We showed them.

“But I felt really shitty. Okay, I didn’t say
breeders,
but I didn’t not say it, either. I just sat there ashamed of myself.”

Marcie grins at me.

“What?” I can’t help but grin back.

She just points again.

Debra’s not in the cafeteria this time, and she doesn’t have her baby. We’re out in the hall, down at the end where all the offices are. I can pan over to a sign saying
COUNSELOR
anytime I want.

“You expect a lot, Ben. You don’t think I know a big word like exploitation? You’re just a white boy with a camera who’s lookin’ to do himself some good. Do you really think we’re going to tell you anything that’s in our hearts?” Then I fade out, and when I fade back in Debra’s saying, “Molly thinks she’s better than me because she’s got light skin. She all the time lays her baby right by mine like we’re shopping for paint and she’s got the right color. Did you know she’s got some Vietnamese in her somewhere? That’s all she talks about. Now she wants to take a class, wants to go to Vietnam and talk to her brothers and sisters. Me, I’m all of a sudden too black for her.”

Marcie sighs this big satisfied sigh, like she just had a tall glass of cool water. “How many times did you talk to her?”

“About a million.”

“I am so proud of you.” She turns around and hugs me.

I let her. I want her to. My C.P. doesn’t matter to her. It never has. She puts her arms around all of me. So I tell her, “I couldn’t have done it without you. I mean that.” And I do mean it. I’m totally sincere. I just also happen to be looking for Colleen while I say it.

“What are you going to do now?” Marcie asks.

“I get the feeling that’s kind of up to her.”

She smiles. “I meant what’s your next film project.”

“Oh. Well, I’ve kind of been thinking about those lonely people at the Rialto.” I turn to look at her. “They used to be me. Some of them still are.”

Marcie nods but says, “Here comes your grandmother. I wish she wasn’t so hard on Colleen.”

“I know. That doesn’t help.”

Grandma touches my shoulder. “It seems you’ve caused quite a sensation. I’ve heard several people say that your film is one of the best things here. Congratulations, Ben.”

“Thanks, Grandma.”

“Film is a wonderful hobby for a young man, isn’t it, Marcie?”

“It’s more than a hobby, Mrs. Bancroft.”

That wasn’t the answer she wanted, so Grandma puts one hand to her sternum. “I know you want to celebrate, but I wonder if you’d mind dropping me at home first; it’s been a tiring evening.”

Marcie waves to someone. “I’ll just say goodbye to a few people.”

Grandma points. “And I’ll be over there on that rather unforgiving couch.”

I’m looking around for Colleen when somebody says, “Ben?”

A girl about my age with hair shorter and blonder than mine smiles at me. She waves the bio sheet with our digitized pictures on it. “I’m Amy. I wanted to tell you how much I liked
High School Confidential.
”

I hold out my good hand. “Not the most original title.”

“No, no. It’s perfect. I made
Roach Coach.
”

“Really? Oh, man,
Roach Coach
is good. How’d you get those guys who drive the trucks to open up to you?”

Amy shrugs. “I speak a little Spanish. And then I always bought something to eat and that helped. God, I gained about fifteen pounds making that film.”

“No way. You look great.” Then I blush.

She leans in and I smell soap and Dentyne gum. “Where are you going to film school?”

“Actually, I don’t know if I am.”

Amy looks genuinely concerned. “Oh, you’ve got to.”

“Where are you going?”

“USC.” She points. “It’s, like, right over there. You’re good enough to get a scholarship, probably, if — you know — that’s the problem.”