Monday, May 24, 2010

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 15

XV. A Puddle of Blood and Fresh Water


Wiley pulled into a dark ally and a million inhumane scenarios bombarded my mind. 'Here comes the rape and murder', I thought. Wheeler and Cait seemed less apprehensive. Cait smiled and hummed and could not have looked more care-free.
"What's here?" said Wheeler.
"Pickin' up my friend. Sit tight." He smiled and the jazzy rhythm of his voice resonated in the van when he closed the door and ascended the narrow wooden stairwell beside us. Cait picked up a pretzel from the ground and ate it, as though it was just a snack from a freshly opened bag.

In less than a minute Wiley jumped back into the driver seat. He scooted his chair even closer to the steering wheel. The sliding door to the back opened and a small woman jumped in. She looked like a number of races, and she hunched down and crawled like a dog to a relatively empty spot on the van floor.
"This Beatrice," said Wiley, looking back toward her in the rear view mirror.
"How do you do," said Cait.
She smiled up at us strangely.
"Hello," she said.

She was wearing a dull calf length green skirt and a white shirt. Her hair looked like soot in the light and she had an indiscernible amount of cracks in her face, from age or what have you. The distracting panel of cracks around her lips and eyes made her real features seem vague. She wore sandals and her toe nails were long and unkempt. I looked down on her and she looked up at me like a beaten animal, completely nerved.

She reeked of weed and I heard Wheeler inhale deeply in the front seat, like he smelt it and he wanted some. Wiley must have shared the craving. He bumbled into his jacket pocket and pulled out a joint and lit it. He must have been driving below the speed limit now, but the pretzels and the weed and the mut-like woman on the ground were plenty distracting from the world around us. Whatever street we were on or whatever neighborhood we were in was completely nebulous to me. Plus Cait's weight had put my legs to sleep and the buzzing blood pressure tingled and hurt slightly. The three of us smoked and we passed it to Beatrice, who retrieved it like a treat, then she sort of slumped down into the van mess.

The van was full of smoke now and Wiley turned up the music dial. A rhythmic jazzy-rap song played, and he turned down the volume for a moment and said, "You hear this? It's me. This my mixed tape." He turned it back up. Wheeler moved in his seat as though he liked it. It wasn't good though, not at all. The song was more or less about getting drunk under a bridge, at least that was the message I'd gathered. His voice was just a slightly more rhythmic version than his speaking voice. Everyone seems to be under the impression that they have sharable talent.

Wiley sang along to his own voice.

"Little worlds," Cait whispered to me.
"Yup."

The van jolted and we all became momentarily startled. Wiley slowed down and turned down the music.
"What the fuck was that?!" said Wheeler.
"I hit a cat," he said.
"Nooooo!" Beatrice yelled like it hurt.
"That's a shame," said Wheeler.
I looked behind me and the black cat was now just a dead thing, dwindling behind us as the van moved forward.

After a few minutes of silent mourning, Beatrice lifted her sad head from her folded arms and made awkward eye contact with me. I darted away from her stare but glancing back to her moments later, she had not changed her fixation.

"So. How do you two know each other?" I asked, like it really mattered, like I really cared at all how these two crazies began joy riding around the city together. I'm sure they'd met in some nihilistic hiatus of smoking and drinking. Probably under a bridge.

She said nothing, but continued to stare up at me like I was an apparition she could not believe existed. 'Okay then,' I thought, rolling my eyes back towards the direction of the windshield.

Wiley kept turning up the dial of his own song, which was now playing on repetition. We must
have been zigzagging through neighborhoods to not have reached the lake yet, and I began to get a bit paranoid that we'd been scooped up into this world for the remainder of the night. Cait and Wheeler had assimilated. They both sang and hummed. "Under the bridge is the bottle and the kid and I passed out in something brown," they sang. Beatrice continued to stare.

Wiley inhaled the last bit of the weed and the van hiccuped over a speed bump. "Fuck. Where'd it go," said Wiley, as he reached down onto the floor with his upper body. The van veered right as Wiley's hands were now both on the ground searching for the joint. Beatrice screamed as we neared the lamp lit curb. The loud shrill left us all suspended in the few remaining seconds before hitting a fire hydrant. I saw the incident happening, as I think we all did. Wiley and Wheeler flew into the deploying air bags. Cait repelled from my lap, hitting the back of Wiley's seat, then collided into me as we both propelled to the floor. Beatrice slid with the pretzels and the garbage like cargo. She continued to scream. The hydrant broke open and water exploded into the sky, then pelted down angrily on the van windows. Wheeler jumped into the back and helped Cait up. His forehead was bleeding and the blood trailed down his face while he lifted her off of me.

"We have to go, now," he said.

He opened the sliding door and the three of us trickled out sorrily. Wiley looked immobile on the steering wheel, and we hopped over Beatrice who cowered on the floor in shock. My bones felt like they'd disassembled themselves inside my skin. My right leg especially. We were right outside of a tall pink apartment building. The sidewalk was well lit and bystanders, traffic, time itself seemed to be halted around the scene. Smokers outside of a dive bar across the street speculated the accident noisily. We ignored them and pushed east.

Wheeler moved quickly ahead of us, and we limped behind him like shadows towards the lake. My right shoe was damp inside with blood, and our hydrated clothes made rhythmic squeaky noises.

We emerged onto sand bordered grass from the North Avenue underpass where loud waves and ceaseless traffic collide. We said nothing to each other. We did not revel over the spectacularness of the thing. We did not exchange any questions about our shock, about Wiley or Beatrice. There were no wows or whats... It was all already too palpable to be reiterated by words.

Wheeler left his sweater vest and slacks on the sand and dove into Lake Michigan naked. Cait followed in the same manner. Her skin glowed stark underneath the bright night sky. I waited behind them then slipped off my galoshes and flats, feeling the cool sand under my feet. I kept my dress on and walked into the water. I dove into a wave and the fabric of my dress felt weightless around me. The water pressure resisted me while I swam east.

I could remember swimming clothed with Lindy when we were little. It seemed more freeing, more rebellious to us than swimming naked. Maybe because wearing the wet clothes afterward permeated the event. Putting on dry clothes after skinny dipping kills the experience. I remember Lindy and I walking through our little downtown drenched from a clothed swim. All of the strangers watched us, wondering. We laughed; feeling rebellious, spontaneous... I thought of it vividly now. Those feelings resurfaced as though I'd traveled back in time 10 years. Beatrice and Wiley dissipated. I was 13, swimming in my dress with my sister.

I floated back towards the shore and laid on the sand, cold and refreshed. I felt like I'd drank the whole lake and it was working medicinally inside me to heal my sore body. Cait and Wheeler were now bobbing heads on the distant sandbar. I could see now that they were kissing. It surprised me, but I didn't care. I grabbed my shoes and Cait's purse and snuck towards the road to hail a cab, heavy with water and sand. My leg and head both throbbed in unified pain.

Whim Day was over. Not just this one in particular, but I felt done with the whole idea of the thing. On other days Cait and I had seen how despicable the world around us could be. On this Whim Day I could only feel despicable about my own contribution to the world. Waiting on the side of the busy road, I was anxious. I had an anxious need inside me. It was for goodness, for whole grains, for dry clothes, for order. I got in the cab and headed north, leaving a puddle of blood and fresh water on the sidewalk behind me.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 14

XIV. Jam Packed with Ado

After the novelty of dancing subsided, Cait looked blasé and depleted from all the Don-dipping. The song ended and she curtseyed towards Don, like "I'm done now." She walked over to us with slow bouncy steps.

"Who's this guy?" She said, looking at me.

"His name's Wheeler. I met him at Nihil the other night when you were break dancing. Remember?"


"Nope. What up." She winked at him.

"You've got some dance moves!" said Wheeler. He was a bit too loud and Cait and I exchanged a look, noting that it was so.


"What can I say? I'm an artist..." She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. She was now a true mess, after the gym and the jog and the twirling, but there was not an ounce of restrain in any part of her physical demeanor. Inhibitions were foreign to her, as exemplified now by her stomach hanging over the panthette shorts, sweaty and slightly heaving from post-dancing fatigue. Boasting over her own graceless form was the real art.


After explaining the concept of Whim Day to Wheeler, we decided to make a move to a new destination. While Cait gave an elaborate exposition of high school Whim Day and Gary Indiana, Panther Gym and the Polish woman we stalked, Wheeler listened intently. He had a way of listening that was so refined. Sure the content of her tangent was greater than ordinary small talk, but Wheeler had genuine listening skills that were more than admirable.


He looked at us both like he really meant it, like he really meant it that he was listening. His demeanor made everything she said seem more important. I've found that most people spend the majority of conversations seeking ways to turn the dialogue attention towards themselves. Wheeler didn't try to provide his own outlandish autobiographical bull to prove he was also unique or interesting, he just listened like he wanted to know. It was quite a remarkable thing, and while I watched him take it all in so nicely I questioned now, in comparison to the apex of his conversational attention, if any one else had ever really listened to me at all.

Cait looked at me, "So what do you think?" She said.

"What?"

"I said, you wanna change back into our dresses and get the heck out of this splinter?"

"Yeah, yeah."

We left Wheeler at the bar and went to the bathroom to change. When we came back he was leaning towards Don, talking loudly about whiskey brands and the neighborhood and the shifting businesses near Moon Saloon. He had ordered three shots of Jameson for us, two for the older ladies anchored to the other end of the bar, and he'd likely drank one by himself before we walked back out. He allocated them up and held his glass in the air.

"To all you fine people," he said.

The ladies clanked the glasses and raced their gulps. I drank slowly and it was warm and smooth.

"Thanks Wheels," said Cait, "Shall we?"


"Let's get the fuck outta here," he said. His right eye was getting lazy.


Cait blew Don a kiss.

"I'll see you Don Juan," she said.


Outside the sky was dense with cool fog, and the dark streets and ugly trees made the block seem far removed from the beautified city. I squinted up and could see a dim light, the only visible star.


"Where to?" said Wheeler, lighting a menthal cigarette. He handed one to Cait after she jabbed at his arm like a bum.

"Straight," She said. She started walking.

"Should we get a cab?"

"If one drives by."

The street was strangled dead and the road and block were nearly motionless, aside from a westbound breeze. The scant tree limbs looked like acrobat legs mid-flip. They shifted west with the wind, making high pitched leaf-whipping trills. Cait walked fast ahead of Wheeler and I, and we bantered nonchalantly about this and that; random conversational garbage. He looked at me sporadically with the same attentive leer, like he was listening so hard he could barely stand it.

He grabbed my hand. His palm was sweaty, and the contact between us felt blatantly platonic. I felt nothing, like I could have been holding Maddison's hand, or a bundle of leaves. A strong desire to remove my hand from his hand and wipe his sweat off of me bombarded my mind, and I could hardly follow his random enthused comments. My arm felt like a leash attached to an unpredictable dog. Wheeler bounced exaggeratedly, and our steps were out of sync. I kept thinking to myself, "Why the fuck are we holding hands," but I didn't have the energy to pull away and initiate some awkward impassivity between us. I hadn't exactly invited Wheeler, but it was clear that he'd be spending the evening with us.

"I really want to get out of this city," he said, "and maybe move somewhere like, Tahiti, or Guam. Guam could be cool."
"I've never really considered Guam," I said.
"As a place to live?"
"Considered it for anything, really."
"Oh you should! The Chamorro culture is jam packed with ado."
"Is it?"
"I'm confident that it is."
"I feel like that's sort of Shakespearean way to say it's full of shit."
"No no. Sans shit."
"Why are you such a Guam buff?"
"It's not exclusive to Guam....I'd say I'm just a 'buff' in general." His tone of voice made it seem like he had a ceaseless smile. In contrast I sounded like I had a ceaseless frown.

"I wouldn't consider myself a 'buff' in any category of knowledge really. In fact, I pride myself with not being sure of anything at all." I sounded humdum, but it wasn't a lie.
"You seem like a smart girl, I'm sure that's not true." He looked at me so often it was starting to make me uncomfortable. I wasn't sure of which part of our encounters had given him evidence that I was a 'smart girl', but oh well, I thought, I'd rather be given the benefit of the doubt than be considered an idiot right off the bat.

"Well thanks," I said.
"You ever just get obsessed with things?"
"No not really," I said. I wanted to change the subject but felt obliged to say, "I'm guessing you do?" I could tell it was what he wanted me to ask.
"Absolutely."
"What sort of things?"
"Anything. Theories, hobbies....words...Once on a 5 hour plane ride I wrote the word 'dichotomy' over and over and over again in my notebook. I don't know why really. Couldn't stop. I almost filled the whole thing."
"Your hand must have been bleeding after that."
"Yeah...it cramped a bit. So, lately I've been borderline obsessed with dualism. You know about it? Like philosophy of the mind?"

"What the fuck. Really guy?" I thought to myself, but didn't say it out loud because I couldn't disrespect his supreme listening skills by not reciprocating the favor.
"Semi familiar...Not a buff though," I said.
"Well I'll consider myself a dualism buff after more research, but I can't stop fucking thinking about it." He seemed frustrated over the fact.
"What sort of dualism?"
"Every sort. Mind and body, good and evil, motion and stillness, males and females, light and dark, fucking everything.. Literally everything has an opposite. I can't stop thinking about it. It makes me feel fuckin'...divided, you know? Like two people.." He was not remotely hum dum.
"Yeah I guess. I mean, I understand it, but why does it matter?" I felt like yawning but really didn't need to do so.
"You never feel like your mind and your body disagree?"

I felt like that all the time, including at that exact moment. My body wanted to repel my hand from the grasp of his sweaty palm, but my mind could not muster the courage to begrudge him. It wasn't novel to me or anything though. If our minds and bodies were in perfect unison at all times, we would be somewhat unstoppable. My body's laziness being discorded with my mind's ambition, or vise-versa, could really be the sole contribution to all of my categorical failures, come to think of it.

"Yeah..It matters. But what made you stuck on the topic?"
"You know when you get a song stuck in your head? Even if you don't like it? It's sort of like that, but with huge concepts, or just weird shit in general. Like... a few weeks back I couldn't stop thinking about pesticides."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Just because they're everywhere and they're good and they're bad."
"Which lead you to dualism?"
"Right."
"I bet you and Cait would get along really well." She was about a half a block ahead of us now.
"Nah. I hate dancing." He lit another cigarette, this time it was a Black and Mild.
"You always carry more than one type of cigarette with you?"
"I never buy packs. I usually try to bum a couple at a time off of random smokers. I save em' and keep em' in here." He pulled out a silver box. "I never know what kind I'm gonna smoke. I like the unpredictability."
"I love the way Black and Mild's smell.."
"Do you? Is it your favorite scent?"
"No. My favorite scent.... It's probably used books. I love that smell."
He laughed half-heartily.
"I like the smell of disinfectant. The odorless kind... My parents sent me to boot camp one summer and I spent a lot of time scrubbing toilets. It sounds like sort of a fucked up deal or whatever but it ended up being like, the greatest summer of my being."
I laughed half-heartily too.
"Why'd they send you to boot camp?"

"I dunno, I was just sort of a weird kid. I used to like, run away all the time, literally. Like we'd be at the grocery store and I'd just take off running like a bird busting out of a cage or something. I never really planned it or anything, it was just instinctive. I'd get this weird impetuous feeling, and I'd just run. One day I was in Sears with my mom. We were just walking normal down some aisle and I just took off running in the other direction. She was calling my name or whatever but I just kept going like I didn't hear her. They didn't find me until the next morning. A couple days later they'd signed me up for some boot camp. My mom was all a wreck about keeping tabs on me and she picked up all these brochures about some frickin' disciplinary camp in the middle of nowhere."

We started to walk a bit more in-sync but his hand was still sweaty and uncomfortable in my palm. Both my mind and my body were in unison on the contention.

"Where'd you go when you ran away?"
"I dunno... I was just hanging out in some park. I slept in some jungle gym. I didn't run away to get drunk or anything like that. Fuck, I was like 12 years old."
"That's.. odd Wheeler. It really is."
"I know it."

I kept walking through his Black and Mild exhales. It made the dense fog sweet and smoky. We immersed from the residential blocks and came to a better lit street. Traffic was light, but encouraging. Cait had stopped to wait for us.

"I dunno about you guys but I'm dying. It's fucking hot outside. I say we head towards the water, figure out our plan there," she said. She was waning with sweat.
"Sounds good let's get a cab," I said.
"Nah nah. I do this all the time. We'll get a ride," said Wheeler. He walked off the curb towards the street. A few cars passed, and Wheeler moved closer to the moving traffic. A boxy grey van approached and Wheeler raised up his arms and made big waving gestures. The van pulled over next to us and the driver rolled down the window, manually.

He was a skinny black man sitting uncomfortably close to the steering wheel. His gaunt face looked lighter than his neck and the inside of the van looked cluttered with hanging fixtures on the rear view mirror and hapless junk piled on the dash.

"You alright?" He said.
Wheeler walked over to his window. "Hey man, You headin' towards the lake?"
"Yeah I am. You need a ride?" His voice was raspy.
"That'd be great." He looked over towards us, suggesting we get in the van.

The man could have been all sorts of predator, but really none of us cared. We didn't even hesitate. It was still Whim Day and this man had offered us a ride. Cait and I both knew it was against our rules to turn down propositions from strangers, so we got in the van, naturally. A reclining chair was positioned in the middle of the back of the van.

"She's bolted down," said the driver.

The floor was cluttered with shoes and papers, garbage, a few thin bike tires, and pretzels, oddly, were in a mess all over the place. It smelled like ketchup and dust. Wheeler sat in the front seat and I sat in the reclining chair with Cait on my lap.

"Wheeler?" said the driver, with his thin hand held out towards the passenger seat, "I'm Wiley."
"Nice to meet you Wiley," he said, shaking his hand. "That's Paigebrook and her roommate, Cait." He pointed to us.
"So you just want me to drop you at the lake?"
"Yeah or close to it. Whatever's easiest," said Wheeler.
"I'll have to make a few stops on the way." His voice had a cool rhythm.
"No problem man."
"What are you gettin' into tonight?" asked Wiley. He leaned towards the windshield like he couldn't see.
"Oh you know. This, that.. we're thinking of going for a swim."
"It's a good night for it."

The chair rattled as the van sped up and slowed down at the traffic lights. Pretzels were sliding up and down on the floor with the movement, making quiet noises. Cait was heavy on my lap and her skin was sticky and warm.
"I think my bare butt is on your leg," she said.
"Brilliant."