From Visions of Garleyville
Middle Town Birthday
"What
is with this cold?" I asked, my teeth chattering even though Hank had
turned the car heater on. His old dodge just didn't warm the air well enough
and in Winter, I usually refused to drive with him unless I'd brought extra
clothing.
But this wasn't Winter, this was May, and no
way should the temperature have dropped so low. I felt betrayed. We had planned
this trip north for over a month, a trip to get drunk in Middletown for my
birthday.
"The weatherman said a freak shift
brought in an artic wind," Hank said, his teeth chattering, too. Even with
four layers of clothing, Hank didn't handle the cold well. He kept stepping
harder on the gas to hurry us north, hoping to get to the bar before he froze
to death. I was wearing only a thin army
jacket with a t‑shirt beneath, and knew I would be sick before the
weekend was over. I put my hands where the heat should have been, but the waves
of luke warm air hardly reduced their numbness. I might have found better
results starting a campfire in the trunk.
"Slow down, Hank," I said.
"You'll get us killed driving this fast on a road this narrow." "We'll freeze to death if I go any
slower," Hank protested, though he eased up on the gas a little. I understood his need to hurry, and not just
because of the cold. I hated the length of time it took to travel up from New
Jersey, with flat expanse of land on either side, so lonely and depressed, grey
and crumbling farm houses looking haunted as we passed., and empty barn yards
even the live stock had abandoned.
I missed the city, the constant movement and
the constant light. I liked the idea of waking up in the middle of the night to
the rumble of a truck or the blare of a car horn. I liked hearing the snores of
upstairs neighbor or the bark of his dog, telling me that life went on around
me. I knew something must live in these dreary hills. But in the twilight,
under the illumination of the dodge's dim headlights, I could pick out nothing,
except the rare flash of frightened eyes, and they hardly helped to cure my
feelings of isolation.
Hank didn't say much either, which made the
trip seem that much longer. He looked scared, both hands firmly gripped on the
steering wheel, as if he expected another car to cut in front of us the way one
had a year earlier, when my nose hit the dashboard and he broke his neck. But
even in the dim light, he looks different, the usual girl‑hunting glint
absent ‑‑ though I know I'll have to yank him away from promising
females once we arrive, and know he won't like my wanting just to get drunk, or
even just sit with a beer and talk, about where we've been, and where we're
going, and what we can do to get there. Not to Middletown. But to Middle age. I
turned 22 today, but I felt like an old man, and wanted to know why, and I
didn't need Hank's lust for a girl to get in the way.
"Ut oh," Hank said, glancing up in
the rear view mirror. "We got company." "What is it?" I said and struggled
to shift myself straighter in the seat, half sliding down to the floor the way
I always had as a kid.
"There's a police car behind us."
Hank said.
"Oh Christ!" I said, twisting around
to look, but could only see the high beams of the car behind us, closing in on
us like a shark. "I told you to slow down. The last thing I need to
tonight is a hassle from the cops."
"I'm not carrying anything," Hank
said. "Are you?"
"No," I said. "But you forget
I'm on probation. I'm not supposed to leave the state. The cops check my identification,
I'll wind up sleeping in a jail cell."
Hank laughed. "It's your birthday, Kenny, no cop's going to put you
in jail on your birthday. And you do have to blow off steam. You've been so
grumpy lately, always snipping at me during work and telling you have to go
home early when we go out."
"You know why I'm moody," Kenny
said. "And besides, cops and probation officers have no sense of humor. If
they catch me out of the state, I will go to jail ‑‑ maybe for
years." "All right, I'll slow
down," Hank said, and eased his foot off the accelerator. The cop car
eased passed, the officer glancing over, green glow of the dashboard light
reflected off his eye glasses. Under the brim of the campaign style hat he
looked evil indeed. But he made no sign that Hank should pull over and after a
moment, his tail light faded into the darkness ahead of them. Kenny sighed, drawing more laugh from Hank.
"See! You're worrying was all for
nothing," he said.
"So you say," Kenny mumbled, and
shivered again. "All this seems crazy ‑‑ especially the cold.
We should have found a bar nearer to home."
"You say that now," Hank said.
"But once we get to where we're going and sit down in those high backed
chair with nice drinks in front of us and even nicer girls to talk with, you'll
feel different."
"No girls tonight, Hank," Kenny
said.
"What?"
"I'm not in the mood."
"You don't want to get laid?"
"I don't want the complications that come
trying to woo a girl into bed. I just want to sit down and drink and
talk."
"Talk? About what?"
"About where we've been and where we're
going."
"That's nuts," Hank said. "You
used to like girls well enough when we worked in the theater." "I still like girls, Hank. I just don't
want to socialize. Besides, the theater was another era, a much more simple
time. We didn't have to invent pickup lines, we didn't have play all kinds of
crazy games. I miss those days."
"Not me," Hank said. "We were
stupid then, always wandering around, bumping into things, getting lost in New
York. We made fools of ourselves."
"Yes, we did, and still are I suspect,
though we think ourselves so much wiser now, regular Casanovas, traveling from
disco to pick up bar trying to impress every woman we see. A few years from
now, we'll look back on what we're doing now and see it as a lot worse than
just getting lost."
Hank grunted, then pushed down on the gas
again. Kenny stared out at the bleak landscape that revealed itself in the
splash from the headlights, fence posts, empty farms, but no farm animals, and
no windmills. After the theater, Kenny and Hank did do foolish things ‑‑
Hank determined to pin down his place in the 1960s like Don Quote seeking his
place in chivalry, neither really part of the movement, though both thought
they were, and Kenny, playing Sancho Panza's part for Hank, following along,
allowing Hank to get them both in trouble, searching out the secrets from the
mists of their modern Avalon, Greenwich Village, in the end, coming away with a
tangle of feelings, none of them adding up to anything remotely making sense ‑‑
and yet, leaving Kenny with the idea that he was part of something greater than
either of them suspected, something passing before their eyes, something they
needed to grasp before it escaped ‑‑ and in the end, failing.
If he closed his eyes, he could see the
Lincoln Tunnel as they passed beneath it, still hear the echo of their
footsteps as they hurried through the Port Authority to catch the subway, still
feel the press of New York City smog on his chest as he emerged on the street,
still smell the pot and increase, still sense the swagger as he harmonized folk
songs as they walked the streets, Jesus‑freaks, bikers, hippies, winos,
tourists, prostitutes and cops glancing up, startled by this sudden rush of
fresh air coming at them from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. Now, all that was gone, and Hank now sought
some new experience north and west of New York City, seeking different kinds of
thrills among the college crowd in odd places like Middletown.
Around
them, the farm land vanished and cropping of small houses hinted of their
approach to the city, nearly empty condo developments still mostly new though
with ply board across their windows and for sale signs on their lawns, the
hopes and dreams of real estate magnet dashed by the closing of the Playboy
club and New Jersey’s refusal to allow gambling anywhere else but Atlantic
City. Even the college at Middletown could not attract the right kind of people
or the proper investment. Few were yet willing to make the long commute between
this neck of the woods and New York City, though Kenny’s uncles had told him a
day would come when people would commute from as far away as Pennsylvania,
seeking a reasonable quality of life while still maintaining their Wall Street
incomes.
American flags flapped from flagpoles on the
porches of the older houses, and Nixon reelection signs sat posted on their
lawns, left over from the previous November, some growing yellow in the windows
of the stores the car passed. But even the more impressive houses, the
buildings with plantation-style columns and two story windows seemed shabby and
spent, in need of paint and repair, with drive ways cracked and walls
crumbling, and as the car neared the center of town, its tires rumbled over potholes
most towns would have already fixed.
Seeing the place reminded Kenny of the ghost
towns he’d once passed through out West, during those years when he was hunted
by the police, dismal, dying places from which the children fled when old
enough and in which those too old to flee, waited for burial. Yet, as the car
passed the porches, most the rocking chairs remained unoccupied, the old driven
in doors by the unexpected drop in temperature. Only in the center of town did
Kenny find life, hot rods and pick up truck, crowding the curb sides as if part
of mid-day shopping. Clumps of college students moved along the sidewalk from
bar to bar, laughing loudly, drawing the stares of the drunken groups of
rednecks who’d come into town to get laid. Wolf whistles echoed off the stone
faces of the bank buildings, and when the women in short shirts and tight
blouse paid no attention to these, the rednecks resorted to obscenities.
AI don’t believe we came
all this way for this,@ Kenny said. AIf we’d wanted to mess
with rednecks we could have stopped at Sussex or Hamburg.@
AWe wouldn’t have found
women like these in Sussex,@ Hank said, who stared
as feverishly at the women as the rednecks did, his hands so tight on the steering
wheel, he almost didn’t turn with the curve, with a last minute shout from
Kenny keeping the car from side swiping a bus.
AWill you please watch
the road!@ Kenny snapped.
AI’m sorry!@ Hank said. AMaybe we should park.@
AYeah,@ Kenny mumbled, already
envisioning a night of distractions like this, of pulling Hank away from every
woman to pass him the way he had back in the good old days in New York --
though in 1968, the habit had seemed much less decadent. Now, Hank’s interest
seemed to border on disgusting, as if he and turned into a gawking dirty old
man at age 22, leering at and slavering over every young woman he saw,
attracted as much by their vulnerability as their gender -- most of these women
straight out of some relatively protected community upstate.
A sneeze erupted from Kenny as Hank pulled the
Dodge into a cramped space just off the main drag.
ASay, pal,@ Hank said. AYou sound like you’re
coming down with something.@
AI damned well ought to
be with this goddamn weather,@ Kenny mumbled, though
the illness he felt went deeper than a cold. A year after Louise’s leaving, and
he still ached to the bones. He couldn’t explain it exactly. She had left a
rent in him that needed longer than a year to heal. Sometimes, when he closed
his eyes, he seemed to drift, like some poor little cork let loose on a vast
river, coming from nowhere, going nowhere, praying for some situation to snag
him.
The cop car -- the same or another with a similar
looking driver -- coasted down the street before either Kenny or Hank could
climb out of the Dodge, the cop glancing at the car briefly, before being
distracted by yet more obscenities from the drunken men across the street, men
who with their gazes still locked onto the college girls, missed the arrival of
the police. The tires screeched as the cop make a hasty u-turn, the car’s blue
and red lights jumping to live, flashing across the startled faces of the
drunken men. None moved, and within a few seconds, the cop was out of his car
and pushing them against the wall, as a siren wailed and another cop car rushed
to the scene with yet more cops leaping out its two doors. An argument insured
between cops and drunks, and a moment later, the cops propelled some of the
drunks into the back of the two waiting cars.
AWell?@ Hank asked, apparently
oblivious to the action. AAre we going to sit here all night?@
AWhy don’t we wait for
all that to stop,@ Kenny said.
ACome on, Kenny. We’re
wasting time. The police aren’t interested in you. They have those assholes.@
Hank didn’t wait for Kenny’s answer, but
climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him, leaving Kenny to sit and
look obvious or join him outside. Kenny reluctantly climbed out onto the curb,
then even more reluctantly, followed behind Hank as he headed straight across
the street towards the cops. One of the police officers turns, eyes Hank, but
Hank only smiles.
AGood evening, officer,@ he said and passes on
towards the corner and the first of the man Middletown bars.
The officer frowns, but Hank and Kenny move
passed before he can say anything, and after a moment, one of the other drunks
draws his attention. But Kenny’s hands shake, the way they shook that November
night in 1969 when he had snuck down to his uncle’s safe and spun open stolen
combination, the way they shook when he reached in and pulled out the metal box
full of cash, the way they shook when he pushed bundles of bills in his pockets
and then fled. Then and now, Kenny hated being hunted, and was never so glad as
when he’d turned himself in, relieving himself of the fear that followed more
certainly than the police ever did, the watching and waiting, the expectation
of a bust that never came.
But now, with his hair cut shorter, he seemed
less the criminal type. Cops saw him here and in New Jersey as just one more
college kid out for fun, not a pardoned criminal violating the terms of his
probation. He and Hank had skipped out of the state before, Friday binges in
places like Greenwood Lake, where they drank and sought girls, knowing they
could skip easily over the New Jersey border. Maybe he should have learned not
to tempt fate when they’d nearly killed themselves in car crash on the way to
those bars, slamming into the side of some idiot who’d picked a blind spot in
the road to turn around, two underage girls sitting beside Kenny and Hank as
cars hit, moaning later, when the ambulance arrived, and the police -- the
crash site 20 yards on the right side of the New Jersey boundary. But here,
they had a half hour’s drive to get to New Jersey, and as he walked, the more
Kenny felt trapped, as if he couldn’t easily get back short of hitching a ride
on a flying saucer.
AHere’s the place,@ Hank said, stopping
outside the door of a small bar. The tinted windows made it difficult for Kenny
to peer inside, though he could see the fire place at the rear, flames
flickering madly with suggestions of warmth.
Hank did not wait, but shoved his way into the
bar, with Kenny hurrying in behind him, the sour smell of hops, cigarette smoke
and perfume curling up around him as he entered.
Patrons cluttered the bar and some of the
tables, but the room wasn’t as packed as Kenny had imagined it, not where near
as bad as the meat-market pickup joints Hank usually picked, where men and
women shopped for quick sex. In fact, the bar had a little texture, wood paneled
walls with portraits of mountains hung between the eclectic flickering flame
lights, an imitation of the real flames that roared in the hearth. Hank found a
table near the fire and sat, moving Kenny towards the closer seat.
AThis isn’t bad,@ Kenny admitted as he
sat, as the warmth rolled over him, defrosting those parts of him that had
become frozen during the ride, his toes and fingers first, then his legs and
arms. After a drink, Kenny felt light-headed and cheery, and his own laughing
sounded as innocent and foolish as it had during the days of their wandering
Greenwich Village.
Garrick used to talk about a small pub on the
West side, a place along Hudson Avenue where he used to take a girl named Geri
to contemplate the problems of their lives, finding solace in the endless
bottom of their glass, finding mercy in the warm flames of a fire like this.
Kenny had always envied Garrick that peace of mind, his ability to settle for
what life had given him, even when that seemed bad, the pain of his breakup,
the disappointment at his lack of career. Kenny had even asked Garrick once to
join them, but the large man had only shaken his head.
AIt won’t due dragging
you there,@ he said. AYou’d just get in the
way.@
And yet at this moment, after all the bullshit
of driving north to this utterly contemptible college town, Kenny felt as if he
had finally arrived, and wasn’t in the way. The heat and the low light, the
warmth and Hank’s murmuring seemed to help loosen parts of Kenny that the years
had tightened. After years on the road running away from his past, Kenny had
not settled everything by turning himself into the police. Certainly nothing
inside his head. He still feared shadows. He still worried over the hand that
might settle on his shoulder and drag him back to jail, not just because he occasionally
skipped over the border, but because he had kept things out of his confession
that others would condemn him for. He never told the judge how he’d used phony
names while on the run, or the full extent of his drug use, or how he had
tangled with some strange characters out west, people like the Hell’s Angels
and the Manson Family, associations that would have caused even the most
liberal court to revoke his probation. But now, a weary nostalgia came over
him, and in a vague way he missed his life on the road -- though he would never
seek to repeat it now that he knew what to expect. And he felt just a little
proud of his accomplishments, his there-and-back-again story that none of his
companions could match, he, the criminal wanted in 50 states, he the man who
had visited all the Western sites of the hip movement, from Hollywood Boulevard
to Portland, Oregon, visiting San Francisco and Big Sur along the way. He had
fled before the police in Las Vegas and Phoenix. He had escaped from Denver and
Albuquerque, and survived. And seated now before the fire, he felt like an old
veteran returned from war.
That’s when he noticed Hank’s attention
wandering, and the nearly plastic expression Hank adopted when he was about to
pounce on a girl, the unbearably disgusting look of a lounge lizard seeking a
victim. Only by twisting around in his seat did Kenny get a glimpse of Hank’s
target, three young college-aged women just then coming into the bar from the
street, shedding their coats in a slow strip tease that drew Hank up in his
seat.
AWhat the hell do you
think you’re doing?@ Kenny asked, grabbing Hank’s arm before the man
could rise.
AWhat does it look like
I’m doing?@ Hank said. AI’m going over there to
talk to those girls.@
ABut I asked you to skip
that stuff for one night.@
AYou mean you were
serious about not trying to get laid?@ Hank asked.
AYes.@
AWhy?@
ABecause I’m not in the
mood.@
AListen, Kenny,@ Hank said, leaning
close so that his beard nearly tickled Kenny’s cheek. AI happen to know for a
fact that you haven’t had sex in a long, long time. Not since your wife left
you. And you’re not going to try and tell me you don’t want to get into the
pants of one of those girls.@
Kenny glanced over. All three girls had their
attributes, an almost unreal sense of beauty Kenny sometimes caught in the
faces of models on the magazines at the supermarket check out, plastic images
painted on to attract men. None fit the image of the woman he had in mind.
AI am serious, Hank,@ Kenny said. AI don’t want to get
involved in some huge social scene. I just want to sit here and talk.@
ATalk? That’s crazy. I
didn’t come all this way just to talk to you.@
AFine,@ Kenny mumbled. AI’ll sit here and talk
to myself then. You go over if you want.@
AThank you,@ Hank said, clearly
angry. AI will.@
And just like that, Hank stood and strode
towards the women, adjusting his jacket the way he had countless time in the
East Side pickup joints or the other bars in Southern New Jersey where he
sometimes sang, drawing down a mask over his face that was so artificial Kenny
didn’t know this part of him. This was the same mask Hank wore when wandering
through the go-go bars of Bloomfield and Newark, dragging Kenny behind him like
a limp rag, gaining satisfaction from watching nearly naked women dance,
satisfaction Kenny did not, as if Hank could no longer stand contact with real
things, seeking other plastic people and plastic situations.
Kenny didn’t hear Hank’s come on to the women,
but he heard the giggled reply, two out of the three women finding something
funny in Hank’s opening gambit, funny enough to invite him to sit. Hank lifted
his hand, and for a moment, Kenny thought he was waving to him, then noticed a
waitress hurrying in the direction of that table. Kenny sank deeper into the
chair, and into the lazy warmth produced by the fire. He closed his eyes, and
listened to the sounds around him, a fm radio playing Rolling Stones as the
voices of the crowd grew more vehement with every drink. Hank’s voice rose and
fell, though the words did not reach Kenny. The girls giggled. The warmth must
have made Kenny doze, for in what seemed like only a moment, someone -- it
turned out to be Hank -- shook him.
AI want to introduce you
to Mary and Peg,@ Hank said, standing to one side of Kenny’s
chair with a girl under each arm. Where the third girl went, Kenny couldn’t
see, but these two giggling girls posed a big enough concern, one obviously set
aside for Kenny, while Hank planned wonderful things of his own with the other.
Without saying so in so many words, Hank was asking Kenny to choose which one
he wanted, determined to get on with his mission of sex before the night passed
and the girls had to leave.
Only Kenny didn’t want to pick and stared hard
at Hank, hoping he could press his message through the plastic flesh and
convince the man to take both girls away, to his car, to the moon for all Kenny
cared. But stare as hard as he wanted, Kenny couldn’t make Hank meet his eye.
ASit down, girls,@ Hank said, then
motioned for the waitress to bring more drinks, glancing in stealth at Kenny as
if to read from his face which girl he preferred. AWhat are you drinking,
Kenny?@
AI’m not,@ Kenny said, glancing at
his empty glass.
AYou have to drink or
they ask you to leave.@
AI’m already tired.
Another drink will put me asleep.@
ADrink hard alcohol,@ one of the girls, who
was Peg, said. AThat wakes you up for a while. I know. We pull
that trick all the time. Only we don’t always know when to stop, and we keep on
drinking to wake up, and then we find that we’ve had so many that we can’t
stand.@
AOh, poor girl,@ Hank said with a
twinkle of lust in his eyes. AI’ll bet you’re just a
bundle of joy when you’re drunk.@
AJust a bundle,@ Peg said and grinned
back.
Kenny stood up sharply. AI think fresh air will
do more for me than another drink,@ he said, and marched
towards the door over the protests of Hank, who tried and failed to pull him
back. And failing that, hurried after him, stopping him at the door.
AWhat the hell do you
think you’re doing?@ Hank asked in a sharp whisper, staring over
Kenny’s shoulder to make sure no one advanced on the table where the girls sat.
AGoing outside like I
said.@
AYou’re blowing this for
both of us, Kenny, you do realize that?@
This last, Hank shouted, drawing stares from
some of the other patrons, and an implied threat from the bartender who
presumed the worst, and shouted for them to take their argument outside.
AI don’t need no bar
fight in here tonight,@ the hefty man said.
AOh, we’re not fighting,@ Hank said.
AWell, take it outside
anyway. We don’t need no cops coming in here tonight.@
Hank pulled Kenny out to the curb, and started
to shout.
AThis is crazy!@ he said. AI didn’t drive all the
way up here to have you pull this shit on me. Leaving me at a go-go bar is one
thing, but walking out when I’ve found us two willing babes is a whole
different matter. I don’t intend to let you screw this up for us, Kenny.@
Hank’s shouting echoed off the sides of the
stone buildings around them, and drew the attention of passersby out here, too,
one of which was a beat cop making his rounds, a cop that paused a dozen feet
from them and asked if there was trouble.
ATrouble, officer?@ Hank laughed, shifting
his mask into something less than a convincing expression, trying to look
non-pulsed while his outrage showed. ANot at all. We’re just
trying to figure out which bar to go to.@
AWell, pick one,@ the cop said. AThis town doesn’t need
you shouting in the street.@
ANo problem, officer,@ Hank tells the cop,
though makes no move into the bar, in fact, his shoulders suddenly slump as he
notices his two women talking to two very handsome jock-type men.
ADamn you,@ he growls at Kenny and
grabs his arm, marching back along the sidewalk towards the car. AWe had it made with
those girls. They were aching to fuck us. And you blew it.@
AI didn’t blow anything,@ Kenny snapped back as
they walked, the streets now nearly empty, though all the bars bulged with men
and women on the make, a society of sex that Kenny could not find connection.
This was not love. This was not anything. Just a one-stop supermarket for sex,
just as Greenwood Lake had been, just as the go-go bars to which Hank went
were. And being here, associating with these places made Kenny feel unclean.
ADon’t give me that,@ Hank said, when they’d
reached the car again. AYou’ve been in this mood for more than a year,
complaining about how you’re not ready for love, walking out on me in places
because I’m normal and I want to get a girl even if you don’t.@
AWell, you don’t have to
associate with me,@ Kenny complained. AYou come around. You ask
me to go out. All the time you know how I feel about things.@
AI know how you feel and
I think it’s abnormal,@ Hank growled. AI keep hoping one of
these times you’re going to change your mind.@
AWell, this isn’t the
time,@ Kenny said.
AFine! Then we might as
well go home, because I’m not going to pick up any more girls so you can chase
them away.@
AStop blaming me, Hank.
Or you can ride home by yourself.@
AGet in the car, Kenny,@ Hank said.
ANo,@ Kenny said. AI won’t.@
AYou’re acting crazy
again. Get in the car.@
AI told you, Hank, I
won’t. Just leave me the hell alone.
AFine, I will,@ Hank growled, unlocked
his door, climbed into the car, started it, and then took off.
Kenny watched as the tail lights faded, his
anger evaporating almost the moment the car vanished. Then, standing shivering
in the cold, he felt a little foolish. This wasn’t Bloomfield or Newark. He
wasn’t within walking distance or a short bus ride of home.
AWhat the hell do I do
now?@ he wondered, and then shivered again, and
started to walk, half expecting to see Hank’s Dodge coming back. A few
headlights appeared, but proved only pickup trucks when they passed.
AI need some place warm,@ he thought, yet when he
looked into the bars, he saw the same plastic faces there, and heard the same artificial
talk seeping out under the doors with the scent of alcohol and the sound of
music, miserable, depressing talk he couldn’t stand to hear, each man looking
and sounding exactly the way Hank had, as if modeled after each other, thinking
this was the only way they could attract a female, each blustering up his chest
the way the pigeons did in the park, chasing women around the bar until one
wearied of pursuit and agreed to go out to the car.
AI guess I should find a
diner,@ he thought and moved on, wandering up one street
then down another, finding only more bars like the ones he and Hank had just
left. He wandered into the residential neighborhood, where a cop car slowed
down to observe him, and alarmed by this, Kenny turned back, haunting the
streets nearer to the center of town, until one by one the bars began to close
and the men left women under their arms, pickup trucks and four wheel drive jeeps
rumbling away in a parade of sexual victory.
AWhy is it so damned
cold?@ he wondered, and tried increasing his pace to
keep warm, but found this did not warm him, yet the cold was only part of his
misery. People seemed to avoid him, even on the street, stepping out of his way
when he came upon them, and the colder he got and the lonelier he became, the
more he curse Hank for going, cursed Hank for not being sensitive enough to see
why Kenny didn’t want to chase girls tonight, why he hadn’t recovered from
Louise’s leaving even after a year.
Couldn’t Hank see how little Kenny fit in with
all this bar glitz, how much Kenny had hoped to find something special here,
some small treasure of the past he could used to relive that era of innocent
singing. Middletown was only a few miles from Saugety, from where 500,000 music
hungry people had come to witness Woodstock, among whom Hank had been one.
Kenny had only flown over the site, missing the music for the sound of the
helicopter engine, failing to see the people because of his fright of heights.
Now, he craved that way of life, knowing that something fundamental had
changed, something he could not bring back, something he would miss until the
day he died.
Yes the newspapers still mentioned Vietnam
from time to time, but no one protested it, and the big event of the day were
the Watergate hearings on TV, grey faces growing greyer day by day as they
sought to burn Richard Nixon as a witch, but really helping to bury everything
Kenny considered good about his generation. And standing here, amid the last of
the leaving college kids, he heard not the echo of protest, but of laughter,
the high pitched squeal of people who ceased caring about anyone or anything
but themselves.
Shivering, Kenny found a deep store front
doorway where he could huddle for a moment and light his cigarette out of the
wind. He could not shake thoughts of Louise, and New York, and L.A. and all the
miles between the two that they had wandered together, pretending to be a vital
part of the scene, while around them the sixties faded, leaving their lives
meaningless -- except for their child. He missed both mother and child now, and
regretted those months when he had flatly refused to even look for a job.
AYou want me to work?@ he’d asked.
AWe have a baby now,
Kenny, you can’t go on acting like a damned fool all your life.@
ASo I’m a fool now, am I?@
AYou’re acting like one.
Or at least, like all those crazy people you call friends. None of you seem to
want to ever grow up.@
AIt’s not a matter of
growing up,@ Kenny argued. AWe just don’t want to
sell out.@
ASo in the meantime, what
do you do, starve?@
Her question made more sense now, a year after
her leaving, somewhere over those 12 months he had come to understand himself a
little better, and the basic pride men felt when bringing home a pay check.
Perhaps it was slavery -- with rent, taxes and utilities demanding payment
every month, despite his desire to drop out, tune in and turn on.
God! He could remember the last time he smoked
pot, and the few beers he had when with Hank, didn’t even get him high any
more, only weary. He was weary now, and sucked on his cigarette, cupping his
hand around its tip for warmth. Maybe if he could stay here until morning,
pacing back and forth, he might catch a bus into New York City, and then a bus
from there to home. All he had to do was last out the night, and yet, as late
as it was, it seemed forever, with nothing more than more loneliness waiting
for him when he finally did arrive home.
ADamn that Hank,@ he thought and crushed
the cigarette under his heal. AWhy couldn’t he just sit
with me and talk? Why did he insist on trying to pick up girls each and every
time he went out?@
AHello?@ a soft voice said from
the mouth of the doorway, and Kenny glancing up, saw a young woman staring in
at him from the street. ACould you do me a favor?@
Kenny actually glanced over his shoulder
deeper into the doorway, half expecting to find someone behind him to whom she
was actually talking. And when he realized she was talking to him, he felt his
face grow warm.
AA favor?@ he said. AWhat kind of favor?@
AThere’s a guy following
me,@ she said. AI work as a barmaid over
at the Lazy Susan. I saw you and your friend there earlier. You both seemed
like nice guys. I was just wondering if you would walk down the street with me
for a bit, just so this jerk thinks I’m with someone.@
AI guess I can do that,@ Kenny mumbled.
AIt isn’t far. I’m just
staying at the motel down the street until I can get myself an apartment. You
from around here?@
AAfraid not,@ Kenny said, stepping
out of the doorway, her arm slipping under his.
Down the street, a grey shape slipped out from
one doorway and into another, peering around the edge of the door sill to watch
the girl and Kenny.
AThat’s a shame,@ the girl said and
smiled, one of the weak and wearily smiles that seemed to reflect how Kenny
felt. AI could sure use company tonight.@
AWhere are you from?@ Kenny asked, detecting
a slight accent, though nothing so distinct that he could identify it with a
region.
AIowa,@ she said.
AYou’ve come a long way
just for a job,@ Kenny said, starting to walk with her, their
step slow and steady.
AI didn’t come east for a
job. I came to get married. But the son of a bitch I was writing to for three
years proved to be a jerk. He was married the whole time and just pulling my
leg with his talk of love.@
AI’m sorry to hear that,@ Kenny said.
She looked at him, studied his face. AI think you mean that.@
AI do. I’m just getting
over a bad romance myself.@
AAh,@ the girl sighed. AThat explains it.@
AExplains what?@
AWhy you weren’t hitting
on women in the bar the way your friend was.@
AIt’s my birthday,@ Kenny said. AI just didn’t want to
spend my birthday lying to get laid.@
AToday’s your birthday?@
AWell, not now, I
suppose,@ Kenny laughed. AIt’s after midnight.@
AYeah, way after,@ the girl said, and then
seemed to lose interest.
Under a street lamp, Kenny had a chance to
look at her face better. Thick layers of makeup ruined her face. She looked
like a bad copy of the plastic people she served drinks to in the bar,
something like the cheap molded toy soldiers Kenny had as a kid, the features
melting into each other, blurred into an incomprehensible mask.
So intent was Kenny in studying the girl, he
hardly noticed the cop car when he slowed down, the driver studying them as it
passed. For a moment, Kenny stiffened, and then relaxed, realizing that nothing
could be more normal than a boy and girl walking home arm and arm together
after the clubs had closed.
The police had many other more suspicious
people to divert their attention, the sad characters who stumbled home, victims
of their own campaign, scoring with no one and doubly lonely for the effort,
the way Hank was lonely on his long ride home, the way Kenny was lonely when he
sat up in bed at night and heard the sirens outside, and no one’s breathing in
the bed beside him.
AWell,@ the girl said after
another block. AThis is it.@
Kenny glanced at the small motel sign that distinguished
the house like building, which otherwise would have looked like a house.
AI suppose it is,@ Kenny said.
ALook, I’d invite you in,@ the girl said,
clutching his arm. ABut I don’t know you, and I’m sort of still a little
burned. If you know what I mean.@
AI know what you mean.@
AMaybe the next time
you’re up here, we can have a drink together. All right?@
ASure, the next time I’m
around.@
Her smile cracked her makeup and she fled into
the building as if he was the stalker and not the grey shape still lingering in
a doorway a half block away.
When she was gone, Kenny shivered, hugged his
thin coat closed around him and headed back the way he’d come, stopping,
however, at the first deep door way where he could huddle in the back, light a
cigarette and hope to stay warm.
AMay,@ he thought for the
hundredth time that night. AAnd I do believe it’s
getting colder. If the temperature drops much more, it might snow.@
But the temperature did drop and the doorway
did little but keep the wind from him, His teeth chattered the way they had in
the school yard as a kid, that mysterious sense of frigidity he’d not sensed
since before puberty, striking him as all wrong now that he was nearly an
adult. His chest tightened and the tickle at the back of his throat made him
cough and cough again, each making his throat feel worse.
AI need a cup of coffee,@ he thought, trying to
recall seeing a 24 hour diner on his way into town with Hank, knowing that he
can huddle there for an hour or two, at least long enough to take the chill
off.
So he eased back out onto the now barren
street, all the activity of the previous hours now dribbled off into silence.
No drunks staggered along the curb. No dirty old men hid in the door ways. No
young women hurried home. This was the part of the night Kenny always hated,
from even his time on the road, the hours when the world seemed to stop and he,
the lone human left on the planet, seeking truth and purpose among the ruins,
finding that the colors he had praised so much during his drug days had drained
out of everything so that street and houses looked grey and sad. The only movement
outside the echo of his steps came from the stray cats and dogs which popped
out of from the few front yards, their eyes glinting with surprise to find him
there among them. They stared at him, then flee. He regrets losing their
company, as if they couldn’t stand to be around him any more than Hank could,
screeching with their own sexual satisfaction from the back yard and front
yards as if sex and hunger were the only two important elements in this process
of evolution, each struggling to maintain itself and its kind.
AAm I that strange?@ Kenny wondered. AWhy don’t I want to seek
out anybody, get married and settle down? What is wrong with me anyway?@
Kenny missed the male collectivity he had
enjoyed at school, buddies doing crazy things, thinking crazy thoughts. He
missed Hank and wondered if he should find a phone and call the man, just to apologize,
not just for arguing with Hank over the girls at the bar, but for Kenny’s
refusal to change with the times, to adapt the new habits and new values that
the 1970s demanded, shedding the pointless protests and futile hopes with which
he had garbed himself during the previous decade. He needed to apologize to
Hank and the world for not turning Republican, for refusing to vote for Richard
Nixon, for not insisting on corporate greed as a means to salvation. Everything
about the beads and the bellbottoms seemed foolish now. Woodstock? What was
that? Just a farm in a place that was called Bethel -- the Hebrew name for AGod’s House.@
After blocks of walking, Kenny decided that
Middletown was hardly better than the villages through which he and Hank
sometimes traveled, villages that rolled up their sidewalks at night, with no
business open for truck drivers or wandering hippies, not coffee to ease the
pain of time or unnatural cold.
AMy fingers are going
numb,@ he thought. AIf I don’t find
someplace warm, I’ll catch frost bite. But where do I go? I can’t very well
walk up to someone’s house, pound on the door and demand they let me in.@
He tried to hard to think of someplace that
would be open, even in a small town, some place the town fathers could not
afford to keep closed. Then, in a moment of desperation, he thought: AThe police station, of
course!@
Doubt crossed his mind. He was in technical
violation of his probation. A judge could send him to jail, and yet, even jail
seemed more appealing than wandering the naked streets. Jail would be warm. The
police would have coffee. And he had taken notice of the police station during
his walk, heading straight across the town square towards the squat grey
building on the other side, climbing the stone steps, passing the stone
pillars, pounding on the steel door, the echo of his fist sounding just as
hollow inside the building as out.
No one answered.
AThis is crazy!@ he thought. ASomeone has to be here.@
Yet pound as he did, he could attract no
attention.
AI can’t even turn myself
in,@ he thought, and then -- staggered away, feeling
more drunk on cold and weariness than he would have had he gone beer for beer
with Hank all night, the same kind of haze falling over his eyes as he walked
so that he didn’t even see which way he went then, but found himself a while
later, above the downtown section, on some sort of a hill, in some sort of
small park -- a bench facing out inviting him to sit, and he sat. The haze faded
from his eyes. The sleepy town seemed less dark to him now, and the sky less
black. He had to stare for a few moments east to notice the subtle changes of
shade, growing greyer, then bluer, and then with the rising sun, a red so
bright his eyes stung. Somewhere below bells began to chime, low, dull but
growing louder as the sound spread from church to church.
Sunday morning!
Kenny teeth ceased their chattering as the sun
warmed his face. He nodded, then woke, stared down at the movement in the town
below, first a truck, then a station wagon, then more cars, and more people,
with small circles of people spreading out around the steps of each church.
Hours had passed, but Kenny hardly noticed, only now finding strength again to
stand, his limbs so stiff the joints give off a popping sound as he attempted
his first step. Slowly, he made his way back down the hill, remembering nothing
about how he’d come up, guessing which street led him back to the center of
town.
The glitter vanished with the bar lights.
Middletown has taken on that stony small town feeling again, the kind which
Kenny used to hunger for when watching 1930 films about life on campus, where
every boy wore button down shirts and sports sweaters, and every girl wore
pleated skirts, and the older generation rode with a kind dignified solidarity
from church to bakery and then to home. Some of these people nodded and smiled
at Kenny, as if the change of day had changed the population, gone were the
nasty night games played in the bars, gone were the wicked intentions. Kenny could
spend his life in a place like this, living from dawn to dusk, only to dread
the night. Even the police officers nod at him, acting now as crossing guards,
not Gestapo. Their Norman Rockwell faces
taken straight from the covers of the Saturday Evening Post, all red-cheeked
and grinning, they seemed unreal.
Kenny hurried on, heading for the bus station
he had passed during his wanderings the night before, a station that closed at
dusk with the rest of the legitimate businesses here, as if part of some vast
plot to keep anyone here who didn’t escape by sundown. In the station, Kenny
dug out some wrinkled bills, took his ticket, then sat on the bench to wait for
the bus that would take him home.