Tales of the Madman Underground (37 page)

So I didn’t notice Paul and Marti sitting at the very back table till I got there. That wouldn’t have been much of a surprise, since I knew they had a date, and there wasn’t anyplace else to go in town anyway, but they were there with Bonny, Cheryl, and Squid, all the Madmen except Darla and Danny.

I tried not to let my mouth hang open, and just play it cool. “And what’re you kids gonna have? I betcha got them munchies from all that mary-jew-wanna you smoke. Don’t try to fool me, I read
Newsweek
, and I know all about you youths. And don’t try to get away with no rio-tin’ or no protestin’, neither.”

“Well, I think we can elect him mayor,” Paul said, “if he’ll stop being such a intellectual egghead.”

“A vote wasted on me is a vote you didn’t waste on somebody else,” I agreed. “Actually I gotta run, so let’s get the order.”

“Cheeseburger, fries, Coke, and apple pie after,” Marti said. “God, I feel so Middle American I could just puke.”

“Don’t do that, Karl has to mop,” Bonny said. “Uh, same for me.”

Turned out it was all-round. I couldn’t resist saying, “Hey, maybe I can get Philbin to call that the Madman Special.”

They all laughed at that, much more than I expected. I shot off to tend three more tables, hung up the orders, and started delivering food.

Note to Philbin
, I told myself,
ketchup on every table for the night crowd, that’s the third one I’ve had to go get.

I wondered about everyone being seen out in public, together, like that. At the Denny’s in Maumee, thirty miles away, sure. But we’d always been so careful; now it was going to be obvious that they were a clique. So somebody had decided something. Probably Paul had.

Finally the last plate had landed on the last table, and since Philbin’s was pay-at-the-counter, and we were full with nobody waiting, Philbin closed the grill and hung out the CLOSED sign, hollering to everyone to stay as long as they liked, he just didn’t want any more coming in.

It looked like it would be calm for a minute or two, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and the stack of remaining tabs to put out on people’s tables as I went back to the Madman table. I couldn’t sit down, in case anyone needed anything, but at least I could say hi.

“So these two are so hot they need three chaperones?” I asked. Marti stuck her tongue out; from the way Bonny and Cheryl rolled their eyes, I could tell it was an exceptionally dumb joke, even for me. Confirming that, Squid laughed.

“It was just kind of an idea we came up with after you and Cheryl left, at Denny’s, last night,” Bonny said. “Marti said everyone really knows who the therapy kids are anyway. I mean
we
know who’s in the other groups, you know? And we all get teased sometimes, and Gratz practically announces it in class every other day. So Marti said, why not just be friends in public? So here we are.”

Squid nodded slowly. “We figured, since you’re gonna be stuck working here Saturdays, that we’d be kind of . . . you know, the Saturday movie gang. We know you don’t drink no more, and we ain’t gonna road drink any time you’re out with us, so now and then maybe you’d want to, you know, come along with us after you get off work? Or you’n’me can always go up to Toledo and stand around on a street corner with our purses, even if the rest of the group don’t want to come.”

“Hey, Mister Social Chairman, there are matters needing your attention,” Philbin said. “Mister Social Butterfly, to the cash register please.”

I turned and saw three tables waiting in line at the register, and scooted to take care of that. By the time I looked back the Madmen had all gone; they left an okay tip, for high school students.

 

 

The Philbins and me cleaned the place as much as it needed—on Sunday evening the regular cleaning people would come in and do the heavy stuff—and Philbin declared it good enough, and we locked up. “Your friends,” he observed, “are exactly the kind of business I was hoping to get. And this place really was full. We did two normal breakfast shifts’ worth of business in forty minutes. I think you have a job here for a while, Karl, and I sure hope people keep going to see old movies once the novelty wears off. Kind of thing that gives me back a little faith in poor old Lightsburg.”

“You get faith easier than I do,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it’s more fun than getting a cold”—he glanced to see that Mrs. P wasn’t standing too close—“but not as much fun as getting laid.”

Going out the door I thought, well, if I can catch one stupid cat, and get over being a sissy about what Darla wants me to do, I can find out about getting laid. Who knows, I might even get faith.

I turned the corner and Paul was standing there. “Oh, shit,” I said.

“I didn’t go out with the rest of them,” he said. “I wanted to talk.”

“Walk with me,” I said, and took a step.

After a block he said, “When we had that fight I was really hurt.”

“I’m sorry I called you a faggot. I know you’re not.”

“But I am.” He kicked a pop can, a neat little side shot right into a storm drain. “I mean, I . . . well, like, I love the way Marti’s eyes shine when she’s with me, and how excited she looks. Whenever I’ve gone out with Cheryl I like the way she glows and it’s like I can picture her getting dressed for a party, her in her evening gown, me in my tux, in our perfect big house up by the marina in Per rysburg, and helping her get her makeup just right . . . and it’s great, I love being out with girls. It’s just at the end of the evening I want to drop them off with a peck on the cheek, and go find a nice man who’s hung like a horse. You know how that is?”

“No, actually.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know you don’t. Wanting one, I mean, not being one. You know what I mean.”

We walked maybe half a block more, and finally I said, “You’re not—um, you don’t want me like—”

He sighed. “I do, but it doesn’t matter. You’re straight as an arrow, Karl, I know that, and I love you and you being a straight guy is part of you. If that makes any sense.” I thought he might be crying and I tried not to notice. “That isn’t what I stayed to talk about.”

Another damp, rain-smelling block, both of us hunching a little against the chill. I was just glad we weren’t fighting. I wondered what he had to say.

Finally he just blurted out, “So Gratz let loose with his thing on Marti, and right then I realized I couldn’t give the Madmen up. Couldn’t. I mean . . . been through too much together, love everybody, all that shit. Couldn’t stop being a Madman, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I hope this doesn’t sound too weird, but when Gratz yelled at me, I felt
good
, because I knew it was going to be Madman fucking
legend
, the maddest tale of the Madmen ever, all of us walking out on Gratz. Even Darla did, you know?”

“And I didn’t.”

“And you didn’t. And I thought maybe I’d fucked up the friendship so bad you wouldn’t ever really be my friend again, and I thought maybe you really had sold out to Gratz and I’d been wrong about you all along, and I thought maybe even you were jealous about Marti—”

“
What?
Why would I be jealous about Marti?”

“Sometimes for the guy I love the most in the whole world you are the stupidest son of a bitch ever born.”

Okay, obviously we were friends again, I got that much. So I asked, “If I put an arm around you, you gonna rub wood on me?”

So there we were hanging all over each other, laughing and crying, slapping each other’s backs and calling each other assholes.

Car headlights swept over us and stopped. Realizing that we were two guys hugging with tear-stained faces, and this was still Lightsburg, we pretty much flew backwards, each acting like we had no idea where this other guy came from.

I caught a glimpse of the car as it rounded the corner and sped away. I started to laugh, and laughed harder and harder until I was bent over with my hands on my knees, just trying to get air.

“I guess that was a really funny car,” Paul said.

“It was Stacy,” I said. “Stacy Hobbins.”

“Other than holding the unbreakable record for dumbest social, what’s so funny about her?”

“She thinks Cheryl is cheating on Bret with me, and I’m cheating on Cheryl with Darla. Or she
thought
that. God
knows
what she thinks now.”

“Gotta be a story in there.”

“Not much of one,” I said. “After Denny’s last night Cheryl and I took a walk-and-talk around the tar pond, and we surprised Stacy just when poor old Steve was about to finally get his finger wet. Then this afternoon Stacy saw Darla was humping my leg.”

“Why would Darla do
that
?”

“Well, to hump my arm she’d have to jump too high, I guess.” This was so old times; I could always make Paul beg for a story, and the longer I made him wait the more fun it was. “Hey, are you still locked out?”

“I don’t know if it’s cool to go home yet. I slept in Marti’s car in her driveway last night, and then hid in her garage. When her folks went out to the liquor store this morning, I got a shower and Marti phoned my house and faked her way past my dad to talk to Kimmie. Kimmie brought over some clothes for me, and took my drum major outfit home. I don’t know how I’d survive without her. Hey, I know why you’re not in love with me, Karl, but why aren’t you in love with my little sister?”

“I’m afraid of who I’d have for a brother-in-law. Well, look, all I was trying to find out was whether you needed crash space. If Mom hasn’t locked me out, we can probably crash you in my basement, legit and all. Come on.”

Paul and me walked close, like we always had. The wind blew cold wet spray off the streets and lawns into my face, but the storm seemed to have passed over for real this time, and there were some stars peeking through the black boiling clouds. A few leaves on the sidewalk slipped under my boot soles. Looked like they were going to hold fall this year, too.

“Marti sure joined the group in a hurry,” Paul said. “Already hiding other Madmen, already been locked out herself, it’s like she’s always been here.”

“She’s really changed the group,” I agreed. “But I guess it needed changing. I kind of like her knack for upsetting things.”

“Well, she can upset the shit out of Gratz,” Paul said. “No wonder I’m in love.”

“How
does
that work, with being gay and stuff?”

“I don’t know, it just does. Probably make my life easier because some football players will decide I can’t be gay if I have a girlfriend. Definitely she’s cool to go places with.” He hesitated as we turned a corner, and then rested his hand lightly on my sleeve. “She talks about you a lot, Karl. It makes me jealous. And I don’t even know which one of you I’m jealous
about.
”

“Hah,” I said, thinking fast because if he stayed on this subject he’d work himself up into an even more major hissy-fit. “If I can just catch a cat shitting on my bed, I can lose my cherry to somebody with
boobs
.”

“That’s gotta be a story, let’s hear it.”

I told him.

“Wow,” he said. “Little Karl, knocking off a piece of Spooky Darla. All because he’s an insane cat killer.”

“Well, I
am
insane. I might decide to kill
one
particular cat. But that’s not the same thing as being an insane cat killer.” We argued about that distinction the rest of the way to my house. Like I said, very old times.

The door was unlocked. When I turned the lights on I saw a folded note taped to the door to the upstairs:

“I guess she’s plural when she’s that excited,” I said to Paul, showing him the letter. “Or she’s decided that’s a cool pet name and it’s her way of telling me to start using it.”

“So is Bill really wonderful?”

“Lying sack of shit and a complete bozo,” I said, “but a lot classier than Neil and all the other just-outta-jail crowd she’s usually with. I guess I’m less worried than I usually am—he’s not gonna beat her up or anything.”

Paul had a beer and I had some orange juice, and we washed our glasses neatly; the kitchen had now been clean for almost eighteen hours, a record since Dad had died.

“Thing that worries me,” I admitted, “is that when Mom gets to feeling really good, especially about a guy, she always crashes really hard. Every time. So since I know he’s a lying bozo—worse yet an
English professor
for fuck’s sake—and she’s obviously crazy about him, I foresee a major crash about to happen.”

We both took quick showers so we could both have it hot; I put Paul’s clothes into the wash and loaned him sweats and a T-shirt, which fit him like a tent. We didn’t want to stop talking, so we flopped down on my bed side by side, still dressed; after a minute Hairball nosed his way in, jumped up on the bed, and stretched out, purring between us. “I feel so much safer ever since I got my antihomo cat,” I said. “Guard, Hairball.”

“Hah. I happen to know this cat is gay. He just wants to protect me from your psychotic queer-bashing ass.”

Old times again. I remembered that when one of us got back from camp, back in grade school, Dad would have to clump up the stairs and yell at us to shut up, like, six times before we went to sleep.

Tonight we talked about everybody and everything till one of us fell asleep, and the other went out like a light right after. I don’t know that that was even separate events; with Paul and me, there was a lot of stuff you just couldn’t separate.

PART FIVE

PAUL AND ME got up about eight and goofed through making fun of the religious programs while we ate Cap’n Crunch. If I’d felt any happier I’d’ve wet myself, I can tell you that. In between we told each other all the stuff we’d been meaning to last night, and got the rest of the way caught up on our stories. I made a pot of strong coffee and we drank that while Reverend Billy Bob Bighair ranted on about the Apocalypse-uh Which-uh Biblical-uh Prophecy Un
ques
tionably Proved-
duh
Would Come-uh By 1980. He didn’t say you’d get your money back if it didn’t.