The Taste of Penny (14 page)

Down the hall some crazy was beating on a door. It was violent-loud, like it was his own door. Seen you, fuck, the crazy said. Know you there. James put his ear to his own door and it rattled against his head. It
was
his own door. He moved away, sat down by the drawer where the bat and his underwear lived. Uniroyal Tiger Paw Freedoms, the guy said, pounding. Uniroyal Tiger Paw Freedoms.

James stood when the hinge screws groaned. He turned the lock and the door flew open. This hand took him by the ear and pulled him down the hallway and out the door and into the
parking lot, where he got his first look at the guy. He laughed out loud the guy looked so much like Mr. Kleen. Mr. Kleen slapped him on the back of the head and pointed at the slashed tires on a red pickup truck, some Chevy.

That funny, Jack? the guy said.

James, James says.

A police car rolled into the parking lot with its lights going but no sirens. James fingered his ear, thinking maybe he was just not hearing them. The ear seemed to be working. He turned to go back to his apartment, and Mr. Kleen took him by the neck.

Here he is officer, the guy I called you about, Mr. Kleen said. Fucker cut my tires. I caught him. He squeezed James's neck and released him.

You hauled me out of my apartment, James said.

I saw you duck away, slink like a low moment through the back door. Should've run t'uther apartment, not your own.

I haven't left my apartment in forty hours.

You look distressed, sir, the cop said to me. Are you distressed?

I'm having a crisis, yes, James said, but it does not involve slashing this man's tires. That is not the kind of blip I need on my problem-radar right now. Yet it's fair to count me distressed, I'd agree with that statement, sir. There are other blips.

James wondered if this was one of the cops who shined a flashlight in his sleeping face after the peeing. If so, it couldn't be good. They might try and say he'd slashed the tires in his sleep. He could be blamed for everything from here on out that occurred during a period of time in which it was believed he slept.

The cop squatted to look at the tires and both his knees popped. He ran the back of his knuckle along the frayed rubber.

What'd you call these? the cop said.

Uniroyal Tiger Paw Freedoms, the guy said. One day young.

They good or something?

It's shabbier.

The cop pushed James into the truck, kicked his legs apart, then pulled his right hand behind his back.

My apartment is 10D, James said. I've been in my apartment for at least two days with a number of creatures I'm uncomfortable with. I have nothing, not even a sharp cutting instrument. Except I have some One Man Show cologne that I found in the apartment when I moved in, a couple Mountain Dew. That's it. Maybe a safety pin, drawers.

The cop pulled James's other hand behind his back. James thought he was giving him a hand massage, that it felt rather good, human touch, even a kind like this. He was amazed how relaxed he was, almost asleep.

The cop let him go. Nope, the cop said. That's not your man.

I seen him, the guy says. Seen him golem away.

Can't be. His hands are dirty, in bad need of washing, probably for some time. But no tire marks. See. The cop turns his own hands over and shows us his black knuckles. I just barely touched and you see what they did to me. That's a sign of maybe you didn't get what you paid for. Now were his hands freshly washed, a character like this, we'd had something. I'll take a report, but that's not your man.

The cop went back to his cruiser and sat down in the air conditioning.

It's all right, the guy said. I'm living right next door to you, fool. I'm zeroed-in to every whimper you whimp.

Do you have those drawers in your walls? James asked.

Watch the mouth.

James shut up, but he couldn't really understand it. How was it possible that the walls separating their apartments were thick as drawers? And if they were, were they as thick as two drawers so that the guy had drawers in his apartment too? Did the backs of their drawers bump together? Did they share bats? Because it was one thing a bat crawling through his own underwear, but through his and Mr. Kleen's, that colored the situation.

Mr. Kleen signed a couple forms and then James signed one. Mr. Kleen's name was Ezekiel Rubottom. The statement stated that James had been questioned in connection with the slashing of Ezekiel Rubottom's truck tires, four Uniroyal Tiger Paw Freedoms, which the cop had characterized as
some Pepboys brand
. Ezekiel Rubottom tried to argue with that, but the cop refused to adjust. James should not leave the county.

Back inside his apartment, James tore his copy of the police report into shreds, which he chewed into spitballs and tucked in the cinder block pores of the north and west walls. He kicked the underwear drawer all the way shut, moved the kitchen table against it. He found a centipede scaling his ankle and flicked it off. He reapplied the One Man Show. He crawled under the table and listened at the drawer. No sound. He knocked. Hollow. Nothing.

 

James's only light bulb blows. He tries to steal one from the hall but the glass covers are bolted on. He thinks about how he could smash the glass without breaking the light bulb inside when he notices two girls standing in an open doorway watching him. There's music coming from the room and the girls are drinking beer.

He waves, and they hold up their beers in his direction, and that is all James needs.

You ladies partying? he says.

Getting there, one of them says.

My girlfriend left me and all I got was this weed, he says, fishing out the film canister from his pocket. James looks into the apartment, where there's six or so people hanging out. He notices a lamp on the table with a light bulb in easy reach.

What was her name? the one says.

Who? James says.

Your girlfriend.

Mattress.

Mattress? they say.

Like box spring? the one girl.

Something other. It was her middle name. I can't say any of them though. She was Hungarian.

I wouldn't like that, she says.

What to expect, James says.

One of the girls smiles. He figures that will be the one he tries to make. She has long black hair and a plastic blue skirt.

Fire it up, this one says to him.

Hold on, he says. He goes back to his apartment and gets the Mountain Dew can. When he returns the girls are gone from the doorway, but the door's still open and he goes in. It's the exact same layout as his minus the panel board wall and the accompanying drawers. Here, cinderblock all around. He puts his ear flush to the west wall and knocks on the cinder block.

He nods to some people and heads for the kitchen where he hears the girls.

A guy turns the corner and holds up a high-five.

Budrow, he says. Who you?

New neighbor, 10D, James says, mind if I drop something on you?

Long as it ain't heavy, Budrow, the guy says.

James changes his line of questioning mid-thought. He decides he doesn't want to think about drawers in walls anymore today. The whole idea of it starts to remind him of Chinese tunnels in Mexicali which he heard about on TV in Mattress's parents' house. He also doesn't want to consider further the idea of one bat, the idea that the bat that lives in his underwear is the sole bat. Much easier to imagine—what do you say, flocks?—of bats in between the walls, but then there'd be more than one showing up in his underwear drawer. He could deal with a flock of bats much easier than with one.

Instead James summarizes the recent ouster from Mattress's parents' place.

I was stone cold when they shined the flashlight in my face—can I get a brew off you?—and they declared me the guy, he says.

Out of control, hombre, Budrow says. Out of control.

James looks around Budrow at the girls who are passing a whiskey bottle between them. The plastic skirt of the one reminds him of a water hose.

Wouldn't it be cooler in here without the lights? James says and pulls the switch on the little table lamp.

Wait a minute, Budrow says. I'm not sure you have anything even to worry about, dogbrother. I'm not exactly sure a crime was committed there. Unless it's a crime to miss the bathroom.

A solid point, James says. Don't they do that for jellyfish stings?

If you were dreaming her head was sucked on by a jellyfish, and let's face it, everyone accepts that we can at least argue the nature of dream-reality versus wake-reality, your move could be considered heroic. Some mothers might say, courageous.

Budrow puts his hand on James's shoulder and pushes
off, walking through the little crowd to the closet, where a couple people have crouched down under some coats because the room is filling up. Definitely not a crime, he says, turning back and shooting James double finger-guns.

James senses that this is already the second time tonight people have slinked away from him. He knows this, and it bums him out but he doesn't want to leave the party without the light bulb. So he takes position at the table in the corner of the kitchen and fires up his Mountain Dew can.

 

James offers the girls the can. The one he plans to make takes it from him and passes the whiskey.

You live here? James asks.

They nod. We've got a double, they say.

I'm scared to go home, he says. But I'm trying to think of something other than that.

The girls suppose that this is the beginning of James trying to come home with them. They hand him back the weed and reclaim the whiskey and then ignore him. They debate the taste stamina of dried versus liquid bouillon in chili. James leans against the table and unscrews the warm light bulb from the table lamp and puts it in his shorts pocket.

Then Ezekiel Rubottom, his head reflecting the hallway light, appears in the kitchen and wraps both girls' faces up in his armpits. He didn't notice James in the dark.

My chickee babes, he says.

The girls say they've been waiting for him. They say they're going skinny dipping in the creek out back later. He should join them. He says he might, but he might not. They rub his bald head. James didn't know there was a creek out back.

James goes back to his apartment. He screws the stolen light bulb into his fixture and lies down on the cheese moldy
rug. The bat is not out and nothing is dropping out of the plugged-up holes in the cinder block. The room seems absent of movement for the first time. He stares at the cinder block wall on the graveyard side. He makes sure his head is lined up with the crosses and puts his arms at his side then he thinks he heard somewhere that you bury people with their feet to the gravestone and does a one-eighty.

A little while later he hears a puffing sound and sees what looks to be a mitten growing out of his underwear drawer. And then, two pair of skinny legs cross his window. He leaps up and sees the girls going around the side of the building.

Just two pair, which means no Mr. Kleen.

James knows it could be bad news if he shows up, but he decides to chance it. He turns off his new light bulb and douses himself with some more One Man Show. He winds around the building past his own window and graveyard and into the back.

There it's a whole other thing. There's a creek wide as an avenue, some lily pads but other than that the water is crystal clear with a smooth rock bottom. He hears some giggling and his eyes follow the creek to a little waterfall, which he cannot believe. He gets a view of the graveyard, sleeps alongside dead bodies, and the folks out the back watch a waterfall draped in kudzu and morning glories. Underneath, a perfect little ledge and two naked girls.

They can't see him yet because he is still in the shadow of the building, but in front of him is a little clearing where the moon shines like a spotlight. He knows he needs a bold move here. He steps into the clearing. He drops his shorts but has to bend over to get out of his underwear.

James was never comfortable with his nakedness, and he plans to get himself in the water straightaway. But the night plays tricks on you. He expects to sink up to his waist, walks
high-kneed. He steps in and finds the water and that smooth rock bottom only about ankle deep, the moon bright on him.

He steps again and again, his big toe probing for the drop-off. If anything, it shallows. And once in the middle he sees clearly this is a creek in the true sense of the word. He doesn't know what to do, hadn't quite prepared himself to approach them at this level. He catches the glint off their whiskey bottle and keeps his eyes on the water so maybe they'll think he's hunting metal or crawfish.

The girls see him but they can't tell who he is. By his hair they know not Rubottom. They guess maybe it's their fat neighbor from the second floor.

James turns so he's sideways to them, then reconsiders and turns with his back. Stuck there, his courage drains away. He can't move forward or backward. He stands like that until a bald head shining like the moon rounds the corner, and James thinks, All that is left of my glory.

WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO BE DOING IS TAKING James to the bank and having him sign an Affidavit of Responsibility for the three thou in phone-sex bills he charged up on my girlfriend's phone. She wants no more dealings with him so it falls to me, his best friend. The Affidavit of Responsibility is something that can clear her credit if James doesn't pay up. James is supposed to be paying up, but he doesn't appear to be doing that.

What he appears to be doing is test-driving mopeds. He appears to be sweet-talking the sales guy, and when we get the keys to two spanking new Vespas we appear to be going around the block when what we are doing is stealing them and cruising the streets in search of a new Laundromat.