The Mentor (22 page)

“Whoa,” I
said and coughed, laughing myself this time.  “I thought there was no
swearing in the house.”

“Just
downstairs,” he said.  “That was the missus’ rule.  Still is.
 Up here, we be men.”  He popped his eyebrows and they looked like
two rabid squirrels locked in a mating ritual.

I noticed
that the bar holding his son’s clothes was actually an empty barbell, rested on
a weight bench.  There were several pairs of pants and shoes on a rack
which, I guessed, held some ancient weights.  Some of the good iron ones.

Earlier,
I’d seen the exercise bike.

“You ever
think of taking a tenant?”

Smokey
frowned.  “Not really, no.”

Gently, I
said: “Well, you need some extra cash.  I’m not home much and recently… I
really gotta clear out of my place.  Neighborhood’s gone to hell.”

“Son, I
don’t even know you.  And, honestly, being alone I can walk around nekkid
when I want to.”  Permanent house option: officially out.

I nodded.
 “All right.”

There was
no going back to my place.  Laura’s was probably out because The Mentor
obviously would know where she lived.  Pavan’s for the same reason.
 I had a strong feeling the prick knew everyone I might bunk with.

Where in
the world was I going to stay?  People I knew, they were out.  Who
would rent to a stranger, expecting no money up front?  The thought
crossed my mind about tapping into the savings, but no that wasn’t an option
that felt right.  At least, not yet.

So, what
then?  Where could—?

“I know
it’s a bit of a stretch, but do you have a computer, Smokey?”

“Sure.”

“One that
works?  One that’s got the Interweb on it?”

“I ain’t a
moron, Dexter,” he said.  “I got one for email, so I can write complaint
letters to the newspaper.  And there’s some good pictures out there if you
fiddle around with it.”  Frankly, I didn’t want to know what sort of
pictures he was looking at nor what the “it” was he was apparently fiddling.

From the
room upstairs, I heard a long, low moan.

“Think he’s
waking up,” I said.  “I better get him some water.”

“You sure
you ain’t gay?”

I stood up.
 “Would it matter?”

“A little,
I guess,” he said.  “Not used to that sort of thing.  I just don’t
want no funny business up here.  Male or female, frankly.”

“Don’t
worry about that,” I said, stretching my arms above me.  “I’ve got a
girlfriend, and she hates me.”

“Nah, you
wait till you get married,” he said, standing slower than I did.  “Then
you’ll know real hate.”

From the
kitchen, I got a glass of water for Pavan and brought it upstairs, but he was
still out for the count.  And it looked like some of the staples had dug
into the pillow—he wasn’t going anywhere soon.  Anticipating that, I’d
made most of the glass ice, just a little water, and left it on a dresser next
to the bed.

Back
downstairs, I saw that Smokey had put a couple jars of his brother’s finest out
on the table.  Luckily, I’m about a third Irish.  

Cranky-pants
was shuffling through the kitchen, and he pointed me to the computer.
 After ten minutes of fiddling with it, I came back in and sat down.
 We clinked our glasses, and I titled mine into my mouth.  When I
took the first sip— I tasted the liquid but frankly never felt it go down my
throat— I realized I hadn’t asked one very important thing about the man who
bought Smokey’s van.

“You had to
fill out the car’s registration, sign it over to the guy who bought the van.”

“Sure,” he
said and sipped again.

“You
remember the name he gave you?”

Smokey
slumped against the ancient fridge and it tipped slightly, but he didn’t seem
to notice.  He let out a big breath and shook his head slowly… then:
“Damn, nearly had it.  It was… a flower.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,
yeah.  He had a name like a—“

I asked,
“Was the name ‘Daisy’?”

He snapped
forward like he’d sat on a burr and growled excitedly.  “YES, that’s it!”
he said and slipped to the chair opposite me.  True concern seemed to
cramp his face for a moment, and he asked: “So you’re worried about this Daisy
fellah?”

Tired, my
head was beginning to spin just a little courtesy of the small jar in my hand.
 

“Yeah, you
could say that,” I said and tipped my drink toward my mouth, but found it
empty.  “You could say I’m a bit worried about the Daisy fellah.”

Chapter
Twelve

A few hours
later, Pavan finally came around.  After his second glass of water, he
mumbled something about heading off to work, and I said I’d better join him.
 That’s when he broke the news that wasn’t entirely unexpected.

“Mr.
Rainey,” he said putting down his third glass of water.  “He sorta let you
go.”

Just me and
him standing in the kitchen—Smokey had crashed early— my world suddenly became
a little more, guess you would say, untethered.  Even though it was a crap
job, it was something real, tangible in my life.  In effect, it dictated
when I went to sleep, when I got up.

That
probably should have felt freeing.  Instead, it felt... lonely.

“I’m not
surprised.”

“I shoulda
told you earlier, I know.”

“That
would’ve been good f-y-i, pally.”

“Just never
seemed like the right time,” he said and dug into his jean pockets until I
heard the tinkle of keys.  He shrugged an apology.

“Don’t
worry about it.  Gotta do some serious life evaluating while I still got a
life to evaluate.”  

I looked
around the cramped room.  There was a small collection of porcelain cows
on the kitchen windowsill next to the cupboards.  Well, not entirely
small.  The cows were piled up—some with bonnets, some with sweaters— as
if crowding the escape door after one of the ladies had made a panicked remark
she’d heard the sound of a butcher’s blade.

Around the
door that led upstairs was a bushy faux vine that came down both sides of the
molding, and at the top a wooden plaque read:
Friends are the family you
chose for yourself
.

“You really
sleeping here tonight?”

“Seems like
a good plan.”

He lowered
his voice.  “I don’t think I could.  Kinda creepy, actually.  I
wouldn’t be surprised if you find bones in the dude’s basement.  All
bleached and shiney and—“

“Pavan.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re
gonna give yourself bad dreams,” I said and opened the door to the garage,
pushed the button.  From the inside, the door’s motor was even louder, so
I had to yell over it.  “Tomorrow, before work, would you mind if we
headed to my place and grabbed the rest of my stuff.”

“Sure,” he
said and walked toward the yawning opening, the battle tank-door opener
preparing for war above his head.  Over the din, he yelled: “Dude, why’s
there staples in my hair?”

“You fell,”
I said and shrugged.

“Okay.”

“You should
be fine.  Just don’t try to board any commercial aircraft over the next
couple days, and it'll be fine.”

He turned
toward his grungy car with the crystal clear windshield and waved slowly.
 The driver’s door lock was busted, always has been, so he had to crawl
across the passenger seat to get to the pedals.   I sent the garage
door down on its return trip.

Smokey’s
pickle jar juice had given me a beginnings of a migraine and the only way, I’d
discovered a long time ago, I could keep it at bay was to keep sipping the
stuff until passing out or try to crash and sleep through the hangover.

I was ready
to lie down and it was the first time I’d been to bed
before
the sun
since grade school… but: new start, right?  Seemed apropos.

I lay on
the bed we’d put Pavan in but had to flip the pillow or risk possible tetanus.
 Smokey said I could spend the night.  I promised to be out in the
morning, and he promised to not walk around nekkid.  

The
batteries in the CD player were getting low, but I’d found another set in the
kitchen and put them in before closing my eyes.  My left ear was treated
to a biography of Thomas Edison.  None of it seemed very useful, but it
was interesting.

He didn’t
sound like he appreciated other people very much, except maybe to do a lot of
the grunt work.  I supposed after you invent the light bulb, movie
theater, record player and a thousand other things, the whole “99% perspiration”
bit was best contracted out to other people.

In the dim
light, an Army plaque hung on the wall.  It looked like some marker that
Smokey’s son had graduated and could now shoot people or something.

It struck
me that a few nights earlier, Allejo had let me crash in his dead uncle’s
house.  This night, my bed belonged to a dead son.  

Friends
are the family you chose for yourself
.

I said
aloud, “And, if you lose a family member, you can have a friend make good use
of their stuff.”  No, that seemed kinda bitter or pessimistic. Both of
those guys-- and, really, Abe the OTR Speeder-Chomping Guyanan, too-- they’d
been there when I didn’t or couldn’t rely on friends or family.  Either
the world’s usually like this, and I missed it, or I’d gotten pretty lucky
lately.

Maybe it
was time to give the world a second chance.  

Took a deep
breath and, damn it had been a long time, but once the weeping began, I
couldn’t stop it.  It was the first time I’d allowed myself to cry for
her, and I couldn’t stop it.

“I miss
you, Ruthie,” I croaked between selfish sobs.  “I’m sorry.  Your big
brother is sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I’m sorry.”

Chapter
Thirteen

Smokey was
pouring runny eggs into a couple small ceramic plates when we walked into the
kitchen.  Shoulders hunched, he looked toward me, concern hooded his eyes
and I did my best to give him an easy smile to lighten his mood.

Upstairs,
I’d clipped the CD player to my jeans and hit play.  As we sat for
breakfast, I discovered this morning’s audio entrée would be more stuff about
insects.  While it in no way seemed unimportant, I hoped this knowledge
wouldn’t become vital in the coming days and weeks.  Never a big fan of
bugs.

Pavan had
wheeled by and was at the table when I came down.  We chatted with Smokey
for about fifteen minutes over breakfast, simply enjoying each other’s company.
 Pavan nodded to the clock on the wall.

“All right.
 Time to pick up the wheels.  That is,” I said looking at Pavan, “if
your brother got the insurance card with my name.”

Pavan reached
back, picked a staple out of his hair and tossed it on the table into the dish.
 “Yeah, but there’s still the issue of two and a half bones, man.
 You’re not getting the Mystery Machine without paying that big guy with
the sausage fingers.”

The previous
night, I'd decided it was time to tap into the savings accounted fattened by my
sister's death years ago.

“Got it.”

“Got it?”

I nodded.
 He said, “Then let’s go get it.”

"YOU
KNOW, YOU'RE GOING to get about a mile to the gallon in this thing,” Pavan said
as we tooled in a wide arch around an empty parking lot.  We’d parked his
car to give the van a spin, see how it ran.  “Hey man… you wanna slow down
a little?”

“Want to
test an idea,” I said and took a wide right turn.  

“Hey, stop
doing that anymore,” Pavan said and gripped his seat belt like he was repelling
down a mountain for the first time..  “Feel like I’m lifting up here.”

“Doesn’t do
it the other way.”

“Because
you’ve got more lard than me, man.”

“Whatever.
 You’ve got a beer gut as big as mine.”

“Nah, I got
one of those high metabolisms.”

“Sure, like
a Chihuahua.  The ones that pee on the floor when the doorbell rings.”

“Chihuahua
es de Mexico, hombre,” he said and thumped his chest.  “Me?  El
Salvador.”

“Not many
Mexicans named ‘Pavan,’ right?”

“Not many
El Salvadorans either,” he said.

“Oh,” I
said, the biggest smile of the day spreading across my face.  “Oh, this is
going to be good.  Tell me, tell me.”

“Fine,
whatever,” he said.  “So, you probably already knew that I was like this
god or something.”

“Escaped me, actually.”

He waved me
off.  “Pavan is the name of a Hindu god. My mother had been calling me
Romero when I was in her belly.  But when I came out, my father said Pavan
was better.”

“You’re
father, not Hindu.”

“Correct.”

I turned my
head toward my friend and said, “You look like a Pavan.  Why’d he call you
Pavan?”

“Because
the first thing I did when I was born—I didn’t cry, I didn’t shiver, didn’t say
‘hey, gimme some milk, lady’, nothing like that—first thing I did, I let out
this huge fart.”

“That’s
horrible.”

“I’d been
holding it for months, probably.  Can’t let one fly inside of mama.
 That’s your mother, right?”

“Gross.”

He nodded.
 “So, Pavan is Hindu god of wind,” he said and looked at me, waiting for
me to react.  “Dad thought it fit better than Romero.”

I laughed,
but then was overcome as my eidetic audio recall pressed itself to top-of-mind.

Last time
I’d been in this van, I’d heard something by George Michael and the other guy
who nobody remembers.   

“
Everything
She Wants
,” I said out loud, recalling the track.

“What?
 Yeah, usually, but the name stuck.”

There was
no CD player, just a radio.  Whatever tune I’d heard before I’d gone into
the drink at the quarry was either bubbling up from my subconscious or happened
to be on one of the crappy Atlanta radio stations.  Had to be the latter:
I’d never hallucinate George Michael.  Not a guy that spent half his
teenage years in black Metallica shirts with the sleeves torn off.

“Pavan, god
of wind,” I said.  “I’ve known you for two years and that’s the first time
you’ve ever told me that.”

“Never came
up,” he said.

I slowed
the van and turned to him.

“Yeah,
but... you got pretty mad because I didn’t tell you about my listening recall.
 Like, you know, I was hiding something from you.”  He listened,
offered nothing.  “But you never told me that you were named after a fart
god.”

Pavan
looked out the windshield then back at me.  Sitting back into his seat,
his feet dangled a few inches from touching the floor.

“Hell, guy
like you, I thought you
knew
shit like that,” he said.  “Besides--
you know, you’re kinda, I dunno.”

“What?”

“You’re a
bit... different than before.  Now.”  

I listened,
offered nothing because I didn’t know what to say.

Pavan said,
“I’ve been your best friend, you tell me that sometimes, and I'm glad you say
that, right, but the truth is that you just don’t got a bunch of other friends.
 I seen you with like one or two other buds before, tops.  Me, I got
a ton of friends so, you know--”

“No, I don’t.
 You’re saying that I-- I’m not your best friend, then.”

Pavan sat
forward, shifted his weight, and said, “Well, no, but-- you know, sorta, but
that’s different now.  Seriously, I mean that.  You
are
my
best friend, man...
now
.  But before”-- he looked back out the
window-- “you were a bit of an asshole.  A friend, sure, some guys are
just like that.  Think they’re better than everyone else.”

I was
trying not to be hurt by what he was saying, but the overwhelming feeling was
that this was really hard for Pavan to tell me and that, a good friend, they
tell you these things because they’re important.

“You think
I believe I’m better than everyone else?  Better than you?”

He smiled,
nodded.

“But,
you’re different now," he said.  "Look the same, right, this spongy
white guy who looks like he cuts his own hair, but you are different with me
and even with other people.  Not so much, anymore, like...”

“An
asshole,” I finished and he nodded.  

Leaving the
vacant parking lot, I took a sharp corner testing the van’s weight distribution
again and the tires bit hard into the blacktop.  It was the momentum that
I worried about.

“Built like
a tank,” I said.  “I mean seriously, this thing weighs a ton.  Stable
but—“

“Heavy.
 Heavy metal, man.”

“Makes you
wonder,” I said, readjusting my earbud.  Thankfully, I’d left bug study
far behind and had been hearing something about small gas engines.  “And
the light?”

“Yeah,
yeah.  When I was down there headlights, horn, all that stuff dead.
 But the overhead dome worked.  Might be wired special.”

“What the
hell for?”

“Well,” I
said and checked the mirror for any cops.  “I think… maybe he was giving
me a chance to make it out.”

I hit the
gas hard and the engine roared but we didn’t accelerate very fast.  Still, the
torque of the thing felt like it was grinding your gut into the seat back.

“Dude,
don’t drag anybody from a stop light.  Seriously, it would be
embarrassing.  Hey,” Pavan said, turning toward me.  “You know how
this guy he’s always catching you off guard, right?”

“Always?
 Not always.  Two times.”

“Yeah, two
times too much.  But, what if he
planned
on you picking up the van?
 Maybe he’s following us.”  Pavan slinked into his seat and stared
hard at the side mirror.  

“Hell,” I
said.  “It was your idea to get the van in the first place.”

“Yeah,
since when do you listen to my ideas?  Take a look at how I live… I’ve
been doing my ideas for years—trust me, it’s not a good idea doing my ideas,
Dexter.”

“Fine,
fine.  We can check that out.”  I looked in the rear view mirror catching
sight of the interior of the vehicle.  “It’s clean at least.”

“Big space
back there,” Pavan said and his voice echoed.  “We should carpet it and
put a little bar set up in the rear.

“Now, I
don’t even have a license.  But…” I said, having just had an ID card for
years now.  The only way we’d gotten it out of the impound lot was to let
Pavan take the wheel.  “I’m pretty sure there’s something on the test
about
not
having a wet bar in your vehicle.”

We pulled
back up to Pavan’s car and he hopped out.  Standing next to my newly
acquired wheels, he looked down at his tennis shoes.

“I’m
actually sorta bummed that, you know, I won’t be driving you around so much.
 You ain’t going to need my piece of shit car no more.”

This was
what he’d thought of me?  I used him for his wheels, for rides.  But,
thinking back over the past couple years, maybe that wasn’t entirely untrue.
 I had been a bit of an asshole.

“The past
week or so, with you battling the weirdo-ninja Mentor dude, I’ve been kinda
like Kato, driving for the Green Hornet.”

“Always a
Green Lantern fan, myself,” I said.

“Lantern
wore a formfitting costume.  You’d have to do about ten thousand sit ups,
man,” he said, smiled and scratched his head, a couple little small silver
things fell from his mop, flashing in the sun as the dropped to the pavement.
 “I just don’t want to lose you as a friend, man.  Now that you got a
bit more cool to be around and all.”

“Just
because I got my own wheels doesn’t mean we won’t hang.”

He looked
toward his car.  “Well, you’re not at the theater anymore, either.”

“Dude,
trust me,” I said and he looked up, smiling.  “The moment I run out of gas
money, I’ll be right there back in your car again.”

He jumped
down onto the pavement and spun back.

“Just
remember you got something this Mentor
pendejo
don’t got.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he
said, closing the door to my van and backed toward his car until I could see
him out the open window.  “You got friends man.  Don’t forget you got
friends.”

I started
driving away and remembered something, pushed the button to bring the window
down.  

“Hey, man.
 If anyone asks you, you know, for a reference about me—just say I’m good,
reliable, trustworthy… that sort of thing.”

“Reference
for what?”

“Don’t
worry about that.  Just say nice things about your buddy if anyone calls.”

“K,” he
said and went to the passenger door of his car, crawled in and hopped into the
driver’s seat.  “But you know how I hate to lie like that.”

“Thanks,” I
said rolling away slowly.  “And, I do
not
cut my own hair, fucker.”

“Then you
got to get a different fag to cut it.  It’s terrible.”

I cringed.
 “Jeez, don’t say stuff like that.  Either way, I’ve got a real good
looking chick that cuts my hair.”

“NO, bad
idea,” he yelled as I pulled away.  “Get yourself a nice fa... gay dude to
cut your hair, trust me.  Never a woman because they take their boyfriend
shit out on you when they are doing the cutting.  And your girl?" he
added as I turned the corner to leave, "
Obviously
, he beats the
shit out of her.”

PAVAN HAD
BEEN MOSTLY right about my friend situation.  One guy, though, I had known
for years: Doc Drake.    

Doc was an
artist I met in the too-cool-for-you Virginia-Highlands section of Atlanta
about six months after I’d moved to Georgia.  When my
model-turned-model-who-didn’t-want-to-live-with-me
girlfriend left for New York, I’d crashed at his place for a couple months.
 

When I’d
met him, back then, he was working on an outdoor mural with a fellow painter.
 The two of them had been commissioned to paint an entire wall of this
tapas bar with Atlanta-centric highlights.

Of course,
one person’s “highlights” may differ from another’s.  Actually, very
likely, they will always differ.

So in
between the giant fuzzy peach and the
Gone with the Wind
house, Doc had
depicted downtown’s 1946 Winecoff hotel fire—the worst in U.S. history— with
burning bodies, lapping flames and weeping firefighters.  He’s got a thing
about buildings, I learned over the years.  Especially bad things
happening to buildings.  Probably some sort of phallic, Freudian
connection there, but I’ve never bothered with locking up too much gray matter
contemplating it.