The Vast Fields of Ordinary (16 page)

Work the next day went by in a slow smear across my brain. It felt like I was stocking milk in the dairy for eight hours, but when I checked my watch, it had only been forty-five minutes. Thankfully, Pablo, Jessica, and Fessica weren’t working that day. Part of me wished Fessica was there so I could apologize.

I hardly spoke to anyone all day and other than a few customers, no one spoke to me. I was left with my thoughts of everyone that had playing a role in my summer so far—Alex, Lucy, Pablo, the Montana twins, Dingo. Even Vicki lurked on the edges of my mind, a smiling face in a photograph that stood for things too painful to think about. I ran through scenarios in which I impressed them all. I was a famous author being interviewed on a late-night talk show, and everyone was watching me from their homes. Lucy was pointing and saying, “That’s my friend! That’s my boy!” Pablo was scowling and jealous, but unable to switch the channel.

The imaginary host asked me what my book was about.

“It’s about the summer after my senior year of high school. Everything in it is true. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, because everyone in it is guilty. Especially me.”

I was eating a piece of pizza in the break room when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and there was Alex’s name on the screen. I felt a burst of pleasure in my chest.

“Hello?”

“Is Dade there?” There was noise in the background, like rushing traffic.

“This is Alex,” I said. “Crap. I mean, this is Dade.”

“Um . . .
I’m
Alex.
You’re
Dade.”

“Right,” I said. Shut my eyes and sunk in my chair. I wanted to disappear. “You’re Alex and I’m Dade. I think I got it.”

Alex laughed. “Good. So now that we’ve got that straightened out, how are you, man? What have you been up to?”

“I’m good,” I said. I tried to think what I’d been up to lately other than sitting around thinking of him. “Summer’s good. How are you?”

“I’m good. I’m calling because Dingo’s having a little get-together out at his place tonight. His band will be playing. There’ll be, like, eighty kegs. You in?”

“I’m totally in,” I said. I sat up straight. I was ready to go right then. “What time?”

“Come at ten?”

“Well, I’m at work now and don’t get off until ten.”

“No biggie,” he said. “Come after. Things should really be hoppin’ by the time you get there.”

I thought of Lucy. “Can I bring someone?”

“Um, sure,” he said a bit hesitantly.

“It’s my friend Lucy,” I said. “She’s cool.”

“Oh, word. Is that a lady friend? Someone you’ve got your eye on?”

It took me a moment to get the gist of what he meant, but when I finally did, I let out a laugh. “Oh, no, no. She’s just a friend.”

“Cool,” he said.

He reminded me how to get to Dingo’s place. I said good-bye and waited for him to do the same, but there was a click and he was gone. I immediately called Lucy.

“You have to go with me,” I told her. “I can already feel myself turning into a mess. What do I say? How do I act? I can’t do it on my own.”

She let out a dramatic sigh. “I’d love to be your wingman, but Aunt Dana is a bit peeved about me being out so late so many nights in a row. She’s forcing me to stay in for some quality time and watch the Grace Kelly DVD collection she ordered online. I told her that I loathe quality time, but that didn’t make things any better.”

For a moment I wondered how I would ever survive the evening alone, but then I realized I didn’t have a choice. She wished me luck before we hung up.

“You’re the best,” she said. “Don’t forget that.”

When I got to Dingo’s there were about twenty other cars parked in the yard and along the dirt road that ran in front of the little house, and every light in the place was on. Music blasted from inside and diffused into the evening. I parked in the yard in a space between two cars, one of which was Alex’s. The sight of it made my heart flutter.

There were a couple of guys around my age on the porch smoking a cigarette and passing a bottle of rum back and forth. They both had shaved heads. One of them kept running his hand over his and laughing.

“Hey,” I said. I noticed the caution in my voice and immediately hated it. “Is Alex here?”

“He’s around here somewhere,” said the other one. He looked me up and down with a coy smile. “Last time I saw him he was in the bathroom getting his head shaved.”

I slipped between them and went into the house. There were about a dozen shirtless guys in the living room, all with shaved heads. The Jericho Bastards record was on, all razor-sharp guitars and nonsense lyrics. People were pumping their fists in the air and yelling along with the music. I kept stealing glances at the shirtless bodies around me. The tufts of hair under arms. Adam’s apples and belly buttons. The vertebrae snaking up the center of muscular backs. It was then that I noticed my hard-on.

“Hey!” I saw Louis’s head bobbing in the sea of bodies. He ducked under someone’s arm and made his way over to me. He had to yell over the music to be heard. “So glad you could make it, man. Alex said you’d be coming. There’s tons of beer in the refrigerator. Band goes on in a couple of hours. Playing a ton of new songs. It’s gonna be
sick
, man.”

“I can’t wait,” I said. “Hey, do you know where I can find—”

He cut me off. “And remember how I thought Death Grip was a stupid band name?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, dude, I totally got them to change it.”

“To what?”

“We are now officially called Dingo and the Side Effects. Pretty cool, right? I’m Dizziness, Thomas is Vomiting, and if we get this dude that Dingo knows to play keyboards, he’s going to be Diarrhea. Genius, right?
Super
edgy.”

I told him it was and that I couldn’t wait to hear the band and that I was going to find Alex. I made my way through the crowded living room to the bathroom.

It was an expectedly tiny room with an unflattering fluorescent light and bright white surfaces everywhere. Dingo was standing in the bathtub wearing nothing but a red Speedo. He had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth and his hip jutted out a bit in a pose that was decidedly effeminate. Thomas was sitting on the toilet, and Jay from Taco Taco was shaving his head for him. Everyone else’s head was already shaved. The bathroom floor was covered with hair. Blond hair, black hair, brown hair, blue hair. There were even a few of Jay’s dreadlocks in there. Alex was perched on the rim of the sink with his shirt off. The sight of him hairless caught me off guard, but after a moment I was swept back into how handsome he was, something that was unaffected by whether or not he had hair. He noticed me in the doorway and turned up one side of his mouth in a grin. His smile sparked something in his eyes that made me feel like I was the only person in the room, maybe the only one in the whole wide world.

“Dude,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder and pulled me toward him. “Good to see you, man. Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting me. Glad I could make it.”

“Dade!” Dingo yelled, pointing at me. He was obviously on something. His eyes were narrow, almost closed, and his smile was flat and dumb. “I remembered your name!”

“Hey, Jay,” Alex said, slapping me on the back. “It’s our good friend Dade.”

Jay gave me a nod and went back to focusing on the task at hand. Thomas seemed too nervous and uncomfortable to pay any attention to me. Jay ran the clippers along his head, sending tufts of red hair lightly to the floor.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked.

“We’re having a party, man,” Dingo said.

“You want to get your head shaved?” Jay asked, not taking his eyes off Thomas’s head.

I had no desire to get my head shaved, but I was afraid of what Alex would think if I didn’t do it. I thought of my parents. My mother would kill me.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve never had a shaved head before.”

“It’s hot outside, man,” Alex said. “You should do it. Dingo did it and then everyone started doing it.”

“Yeah, I wish there was a bridge nearby so we could all jump off it,” Thomas mumbled.

Dingo said, “Thomas is a big pussy. And there is a bridge nearby, buddy. I’ll drive you there, Mr. Bad Attitude. You can go first, and then guess who will follow? No one.”

Everybody started laughing except Thomas. He looked like he was going to cry. I felt bad for him, but I didn’t know what to say. I looked over at Dingo. He seemed amused by how upset Thomas looked. I decided that Dingo was a dick.

“Yeah, you behind the wheel of a car,” Jay said. “That’d be rich.”

“I drive in a Speedo all the time!” Dingo yelled. “It’s what I do! It’s my thing!”

Everyone laughed again except Thomas. Jay finished shaving his head and gave him a good slap on the scalp.

“Don’t you feel freer now, Tommy?” Dingo asked. “Don’t you feel like all your problems have just melted away? Touch it. Rub your hand over your head. Do it. Give yourself some love.”

Thomas unenthusiastically rubbed his hand over his head. Dingo brought one foot out of the tub and kicked around at the hair on the floor.

“Look at all our problems,” he said. “All mixed up. Just one big mess on the floor. Start fresh. Start with nothing, man. Then work your way back. That’s my motto.” Dingo looked over at me. “Your turn, kid.”

“And take off your shirt, boy,” Jay said. “You look like a freak with it on.”

Dingo was looking at me so intently, with such crazy eyes, that I didn’t know what to say. At first I thought I would do it out of fear, but then I saw Alex’s head and Jay’s head and suddenly it didn’t seem scary anymore. I wanted to do it, to jump off that cliff. In fact, I took off my shirt with such enthusiasm that everyone began to cheer. I took Thomas’s place on the toilet. The music in the living room abruptly stopped and everyone out there groaned, but then the new Tomato Hoof record started and people started screaming along to the first verse. I made a mental note to download it the minute I got home.

After Jay was done, I got up and looked in the mirror. I looked like someone else. I remember thinking that the suburban boy with the mom-approved haircut was gone, although in retrospect it’s clear that he’d been gone for quite some time. I felt like an active part of everything that was happening around me. I was suddenly part of their genus, and everything was beautifully and terrifyingly new.

“Let’s get out of this cell,” Alex said to me. “We’ll catch up.”

They were getting ready to spark up a joint. Jay asked us to stay and smoke some of it, but instead Alex and I went into the kitchen. A few guys were playing cards at the table. The counter was still covered with empty bottles, and a garbage bin in the corner was overflowing with trash. Alex grabbed four beers from the refrigerator. We went out back and sat on the steps. There was an intense light over the door that attracted all sorts of bugs. Out in the yard, a headless flamingo stood perfectly erect, its hollow plastic neck pointing straight up at the sky.

“How you been?” Alex asked.

“Good,” I said. “Just working. Getting ready for school.”

“College,” he said.

“College,” I repeated.

“Are you going to get one of those shirts that Belushi wore? The one that just says ‘College’ across the front?”

I laughed. “I highly doubt it.”

“You should,” he said. “That’d be funny.”

All my nervousness had flown away. I found myself marinating in the now and enjoying the moment. Even Alex seemed different than he had the Taco Taco night, more relaxed and less surly. Maybe Dingo was right. Maybe all my problems had left with my hair. Maybe our hairlessness and shirtlessness were equalizers. We were aliens from the same planet.

“What are you going to study in school?” he asked.

“Probably English,” I said. I kept staring at his mouth. It was impossible to look at it and not think about how amazing it would be to kiss him. “I want to be a writer.”