some headlong habitués

        by free man jung

 

 

“Damn, dude— that’s your house?" the kid asked.

The three-bedroom house was comfortable but by no means opulent; Tomás had done most of the work himself— cement columns cast by hand and estuco meticulously spread over the whole façade rendered the place a clean, earnest blanco. He labored meticulously to maintain the virginal integrity of his brilliant white. The land had been cheap once, when they had decided to settle down. No one from the city or even from a respectable town would have thought much about the neighborhood; but  the villagers held a mystical reverence for the ‘upper canyon,’ never failing to exclaim with wonder at how luxurious the two-story stucco appeared.

        “My grandparents,” I explained, “I’m just chillin’ here. They’re out of town right now, tho,” I said with a wary glance as I unlocked the heavy wooden door the color of coffee. The house had been broken into once, before I lived there & the door had been damaged beyond repair. This door—the replacement—was solid & had leaves & flowers carved in it by an artisan jalíscero.   E-Flo and his friends followed me inside.

        “Y’all want somethin’ to drink?—soda? beer? liquor?”

        "I just want some water, man," came E-Flo's reply & he smiled at me. I didn't really know him all that well, but from what I could tell, he seemed to live and move and have his being on a plane of reality completely disparate from the one commonly accepted to be true. The rest of them I had never met before.

        “I’ll have a beer,” Georgia proclaimed. Her hair was short, blond & she wore a smile that reminded me of a pixie, or— with a certain toss of the the head, wiggle of the nose— Elizabeth Montgomery (with short hair, of course.) She was not very tall, but made up for it in stage presence— animated by a charming electricity, she commands the audience' full & rapt attention.

        “You want one too, man?” I asked the kid. He was looking down at his boots—perhaps he thought it impolite. He looked up & nodded quickly before looking down again. His boots were tucked into the starch-blue stovepipes of his wranglers; a red cotton shirt was tucked into the other side. He wore a cap with a wide bill and the name of a trucking company silkscreened on the front. He sat down on the long leather sofa & Georgia sat next to him, very close.

        “How 'bout you?” I asked Amber, “beer?—or I could fix ya a cocktail.” She was tall &, tho slightly brash, came off as almost classy in a 1920s-rouge-your-knees-&-turn-your-stockings-down—take-two-aspirin-&-a-mint-julep kind of way.

        “—but when I did, I liked martinis.”

        “Mmm,” she hummed, but then admitted, “I’ve never had one—are they strong?” as though she were of weak constitution. I'd seen this scenario play out a thousand times, or at least so I thought.  I smiled at her comfortingly.

        “A martini is straight liquor—just gin tinged with vermouth & an olive, so— yeah.”

        “I like olives.”

        “How about a gin & tonic?—you can still have the olive.” I went out to the garage to grab the beers & a couple of frosty glasses from the deep-freeze. As I tilted the first glass & poured the cheap wheat brew down the dry steaming-cold side, I could hear them laughing from the other room. As I poured the second glass, Amber came to join me in the kitchen. I smiled at her & crossed in front of her with the beers— she countered & waited for me in the kitchen as I served her friends. Coming back through the doorway, I grabbed a lime from the counter & quickly procured a wedge using Abuela’s úlu.

        Then, I went to grab a rocks glass—hesitated—glanced at Amber—reached into the cupboard above instead; I took a rocks glass from amongst Abuela’s best crystal. The lead oxide in the glass sparkled with such immaculate and pristine liveliness that the object itself became subsumed by its form. It ceased to be this glass & became simply a glass-- every glass-- a prototype.   I carefully filled it with ice & affixed the lime wedge. I free-poured an ounce & topped-up the tonic.

        “Let me know if it’s too strong,” I said. She sipped the drink & shook her head violently, from side to side.

        “It’s good!” she shouted.

        “I put it in my Abuela’s fancy crystal 'cause I could see you’re a woman of refined tastes,” I said in a playful tone of voice, masking my true intentions for making the statement beneath the thin veneer of an empty complement.

        “Thank you, my good man,” she said in a husky, faux-British accent, “Cheers!”

        “Cheers,” said I & ‘dropped the rock,’ as they say, against her rocks glass & smiled. She practically drowned herself—downing the drink in one gulp & handing the crystal back to me she said,

        “You can definitely make the next one stronger,” winking & turning on her heel—returning to the living room. Tall & lanky—there was still something very sexy about her—& her friend, for that matter. I poured nearly two ounces on the same ice—a former life as a bartender had made me pretty good at freepouring—finished with another lime & more tonic. When I came back into the living room, Georgia was practically sitting in the guy's lap & I could see that amber was ready for her refill. I handed it to her.

        “Lemme grab that ghanj,” I said, grabbing the bannister & clearing two & three steps in a stride; I was more than halfway to the balconey when i finished my sentence, “I'll be right back!”

I kept the herb in a little round yellow tupperware; the pipe fit conveniently inside. I hurried downstairs.

        Georgia pried her mouth off her boy’s neck & smiled at me; Amber crunched ice between her teeth—the crystal glass sat empty on the ground, near her feet.

        “Is that a real sword?” Georgia asked & pointed with her pursed lips the way it’s done in México. Neither of the girls looked Hispanic—especially Georgia, with her blonde curls & clear blue eyes – it must have been a coincidence.

        “Yeah, it’s from Mexico,” I don't know why but I pronounced it the bolillio way—with an English ‘x’ sound & a very tidy little ‘o’ sound at the end; with most, I probably would have rolled the name off of my tongue with a proud, aspirant ‘x’ & a short, pure ‘o’, like the beginning sound of the syllable ohm, “The shield, too—Abuela got them in Oaxaca—she’s a scholar of native folk culture.”

        I crumbled the bright green leaf between my fingers & gave thanks for the sacred plant. I handed the glass piece to Georgia who smiled broadly & even giggled a little bit.

        “Thanks,” she said, & lit the bowl. She drew the smoke quickly, without hesitation—held it for a hot minute—then let the purple smoke curl around her vermillion lips, caress her upturned nose & disappear as gossamer halos around her head. She handed the pipe to the guy.

        “That’s some real dank shit—what is that?”

        “ ‘Sour Diesel’ is what he said,” I told her.

        “I can’t wait!” Amber shouted, but what she really meant to say was, “Pay attention to me!” She seemed anxious, & I wondered, briefly, just how well E actually knew these kids. He had completely dropped out of the group and was tranced out inside his headphones.

        “What do you do?” Georgia asked, leaning towards me, & redirecting the group dynamic as the boy in the red plaid shirt with pearlized plastic snap-buttons puffed upon the pipe & passed to Amber who looked impatient—she really couldn’t wait, just as she had announced.

        “ I teach at the middle school,” I answered & the three of them laughed.

        “I bet you're the coolest teacher ever.”—the first words he’d uttered since he told me his name— I could not remember it. There was an awkward pause and then I returned to the previous topic of conversation.

        “I’ve been trying to get some schwag around here since before Christmas,” I said, “I met this dude yesterday who seemed cool & said he could get me an O. He showed up later on for the cash—I even gave him fifteen for gas since he had to go all the way to the downs-- waited up all nite for 'im”

Amber handed me the pipe—it was almost cashed—I tamped it with the back of the Bic & took a small, resiny hit before sucking ash through.

    “He burn ya?” Amber asked.

    “Yeah—never came back, took the money.”

    “Fuck!”—  This time it was Georgia who was shouting. I crumbled some more green into the glass pipe and carried it with me as I went to fetch another beer for the cowboy. He was looking intently at the boots on his feet & was steeped in a sort of inwardly-focused angst.

        “It must really suck working at the school here,” Georgia said to me as I returned from the garage.  Handing the frosty can to the guy whose name I had forgotten, he returned only a nervous, uncomfortable-looking glance. We held one another’s gaze for a moment.

        “What do you mean?” I asked her in response.

        “The schools here are just so shitty!” Georgia said with a breath of profound & soul-wrenching boredom after the word ‘are,’ & a deliberate pause after the word ‘so’ & then another long breath, this one even more sublime in its anxiety after the word ‘shitty.’

        “God!” Amber interjected before I could even respond, but then hesitated as tho she had forgotten her friend’s name, “Georgia!—you’ve just like insulted his whole profession!”

It was extremely awkward—was she trying to defend me? It wasn’t even an especially logical statement; Georgia wasted no time,

        “That’s fuckin retarded! He probably didn’t even choose this place anyway." Either of them could simply have asked me, but they chose, instead, to discuss it amongst themselves— in elevated voices. The discussion was so embroiling, so personal in its nature, that it was evident there was a history between these two with which one was better off not getting involved.

        “You’re fuckin retarded!” Amber snapped back at her. From the plush leather armchair, E-Flo giggled a deep & gutteral giggle & grinned at me.

        “Amber,” Georgia began in a tone so dilated that one could only expect her next words might very well shut the other girl down for good, “I’m from California, so I actually have other schools to compare it to—have you ever even left this boring little town?” She rolled her eyes as tho to punctuate her sentence with sarcasm.

        Suddenly, & quite without any provocation, the boy who had been quietly sitting underneath Georgia tipped her gently to the floor, stood up & addressed me,

        “Lemme be strait wit' you, brotha,” the parlance, unexpected, came clumsily from his lips, but I could sense the profoundest sincerity in his voice, “This ain’t the first time I was at this house,” he said in a slow, remorseful tone, “I come up here last night with my brother, I drove him in my truck—” I already knew the rest of the story, “—said ‘ers some rich boy we could bite & I’d make fitty bucks off the deal. Hell—I didn’t know you then, but I wished I didn’t do it now, cause your cool, man. I dunno what to say. I wished I could git your money back, man—I do. I already spent my fitty but I’m 'onna tell my brother he otta give you back at least some of it.”

        “I ain’t rich, man,” I began, offended by the accusation, “& neither are my grandparents—Tomás worked hard for this place & even built some of it himself. Anyway, I don’t believe in money, so it really doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m sure your brother really needed it then,” I added.

        “Wow!” Georgia said with a gasp.

        “May I have a word with you outside,” Amber asked abruptly. From the look in her eye, I had a profound sense that she was not well. I couldn't have prepared for what was to come.

        “Of course,” I said. She went ahead of me & when I stepped out onto the patio, she had struck a pose & was holding it as tho she were waiting for a spot-up to begin her monolog. She ran her spindly fingers thru her short, dark hair & looked up at me with pensive melodrama worthy of a telenovela. She shifted her weight from left foot to right by ever so slightly bending her knee.

        “These— people,” she began in a halting, theatrical delivery that must have been rehearsed, “are not— what they seem, they—they make you— so many promises & you—you think that they’re—” she paused & touched my chest as tho it were just a part of the blocking & we’d already run this scene a dozen times, “I can see—“ she sort of waved her finger in the air at me, “—I can see what you think of them.”

        “What do I think of them then?” I demanded of her.

        “O!—can’t you see?—can’t you see!” She had dropped a line somewhere—the dialog wasn’t flowing—she was just throwing out lines frantically, trying to find her place in the script, “They’re con-artists—they’ll take you for everything you’ve got!” I leaned slightly to peer in thru the screen door. Georgia & the guy who had driven the car last night were making out & E-Flo was spaced out with his headphones thumping.

        “Now hold on just a second!” I said. the scene was spinning out of control & I felt it was my duty to lasso her back to reality,         “What exactly do you think that I think of them anyhow?—I’ve only just met them—& you for that matter.”

“They make you so many promises, but they just want to steal from you!” Hadn’t she delivered that line already?

        “No—you missed it—his brother already stole from me—last night—the only ‘promise’ was that he would talk to his brother.” & then I added, “I don’t expect anything, & it’s not like I’ll be giving him any more money so he can’t steal anything else.” I stopped talking. Her eyes were glassy as she stared into some unseen oblivion.

        “Look,” I said, “Let’s just go back inside.” She shrugged her knobby, bare shoulders & followed me.

        “This is nice, where is it from?” Georgia always seemed to have questions planned & waiting for me when I returned. Amber never sat down, but picked up her purse and went back outside. I glanced about the room in silent inventory.

        “I dunno,” I replied, “I’m sure South America somewhere.”

        “Your—“ she stumbled over the word, “Abuela has nice taste!” and she smiled an uncomfortably sweet grin, first at the boy in whose arms she sat, then at E-Flo, who didn’t even notice, finally at me.

        Amber came back inside.

        “Forget somethin’ out there?” Georgia said, obviously picking on her.

        “Junkie,” the boy underneath her added, under his breath. I glanced at Amber’s arm—what he had said was true.

        “Fuck you both okay!” she shouted at them, “I’m smart—I’m fuckin’ smart!” She stood up a little out of the chair and I knew I had to say something as the situation was steadily escalating.

        “Could everyone please stop shouting!” I finally said,”you're all welcome to stay, but I’d like y'all to be civil!” E-Flo smiled and put his headphones back on.

        “I’m sorry,” Amber said quickly with the earnest whine of a puppydog.

        “It’s okay,” I told her, tho in truth I was growing tired of my new "friends." I took the crystal rocks glass from Amber and went into the kitchen to fix a dummy drink of just tonic and lime.

        “I’m very fuckin’ smart I’ll have you know!” from where I stood in the kitchen, I could hear Amber in the living room, beginning to rant once more. She was bragging to them about how she’d scored in the ninetieth percentile in her high school on some standardized test. She was enumerating to them about just how smart that necessarily proved her to be. Part of me wanted to march in there and declare that I’d scored a 1360 on the SAT and a 29 on the ACT, and that furthermore she should just shut up because standardized testing doesn’t really mean anything anyway. Instead, I found satisfaction in serving her a blank tonic with lime. She thanked me and added, “I was just tellin’ them—”

        “I heard,” I said cooly; then, turning to look at the leather sofa, “Georgia—”  I said, and it took her a second, as tho she’d forgotten her own name.

        “Mmm?”

        “Another beer?” she shook her head,

        “No thanks—I’m good.”

        “How ‘bout you, man?”

        “Naw, thanks, bro,” he replied. I didn’t even bother to ask E-Flo—the hard-hitting thump thump of tekno which so engulfed him was audible to everyone else in the room. I went upstairs to fetch more weed, so that I could finally relax. Downstairs, the two girls were shouting once more, and that's when I heard the front door slam.

        “Who left?” I called as I raced downstairs; I already knew the answer.

        “Stupid bitch,” Georgia said as tho that were her name.

        “Went to go shoot up,” the cowboy muttered.

        “Where’s the crystal?—did she take her drink with her?”

        “Yea,” Georgia said, “she just got up and ran out of the house!”

        “Damnit!—that was Abuela’s best crystal!—she will absolutely cry if anything happens to it.”

        “I’ll get it back for you, brother,” the boy in the trucker cap tilted Georgia from his knee and stood as tho this were his honor-bound penance unto me. He hurried out the front door, returning again, only moments later, with a dejected sort of look on his face.

        “She broke it,” he said and plopped down on the leather sofa. We sat a second or so in silence before Amber returned—giddy and elated.

        “Oh—my—God!” She spoke slowly and in a strange & swaggering sing song, “This house is so high up!— I can see the whole village from your front yard!—it’s steep & rocky, too—I almost fell down like a bajillion times!”

        That’s when I announced it was really nice of them to visit, but I really oughta get some work done; I began to help everyone with their coats & things. Georgia took the glass from which she had been drinking to the kitchen and even washed it out for me. E-Flo, who hadn’t spoken the entire time—just grinned and, headphones still thumping, stood & gave me an awkward hug—'chucked da deuce' and headed out the front door.

He walked past Amber who had taken up residence on a little pink diván that faced an identical one in the entryway, near the front door. She looked deflated, as tho whatever surging enthusiasm had driven her noisy return, only moments earlier, had flared up & burnt out—leaving her withered and used like an ashy little carbon stub on the end of a matchstick— still smoking from the sulfuric eruption. The odor of brimstone was a garland in the brittle western air.

        She would not look at me, but clutched at her head. She had been crying. Her face was blotchy and swollen—any remnants of lovliness drained—every fragrance of the flower of youth, plucked; she looked terrifically repulsive. I am now ashamed to admit it, but she disgusted me & I had to look away; my peripheral vision brushed lightly the horrid track marks on her forearm as my gaze swept down and away.

        “Everything’s fucked!” she blurted out suddenly and began once more to sob. Georgia, who was walking thru the front door gave me a look as tho she & I were on the same page and, as we were such good friends, would discuss the situation presently, in private, as sisters.

        “Life fuckin sucks!—There’s nothing left here thats good anymore—for anyone!" She shouted between sobs, with the hoarse, raw moan of desperation which one so seldom hears in polite company.

        “Listen,” I began, “If this is about the glass you broke, i don’t even—”

        “I didn’t break your glass!” she protested. This was beginning to get annoying.

        “Yes you did, but it doesn’t matter.”

        “No I didn’t break any—” she stopped as Georgia’s boyfriend passed thru the doorframe. I held my finger in the air to command his attention and then pointed at Amber. The boy shrugged his shoulders, shook his head slowly and then pulled the door closed behind him. I realized at that moment that he wasn’t going to wait for her; that they planned to drive down the cañón and leave her sitting on Abuela’s diván, crying and swearing.

        “Listen—Amber!” I tried in my most demonstrative tone, “It doesn’t matter about the glass, but right now, your friends are leaving, so you’d better—“

        “I did break your glass!” she cried out like a sow or a beast of burden; her eyes were two empty black pits of sinister and unfathomable emptiness. She was salivating, slightly, at the corner of her thin aubergine lips. She put a hand to her neck and looked, not at me, but thru me and into the profound depths of infinity such that I felt a peculiar chill in my spine just to look at her—a wraith—a mere shadow of living flesh.

        “Oh God,” she said in a softer voice, “What have I done?—That glass was special—  crystal—you said so yourself!” She cried some more and I put my hand on her back—a minimum of discomfort and effort on my part.

        “Listen, that crystal don't mean nothin'—right now your friends are leaving, so you’d better—“

        “They’re not my friends!” she sobbed louder than before.

        “Okay then, your ride—your ride is leaving.”

        “Let them leave,” she said. I heard the engine start up and I ran outside—the car was backing up.

        “Wait!” I called out & ran up to the car, “Y’all can not leave her here.”

        “Bitch can walk,” Georgia said cruelly, “we’re ready to go.”

        “Five minutes—“I said to the boy in the trucker cap who now sat behind the wheel; he nodded his assent. I returned back inside.

        “—I’ll be dead soon anyways.” Amber had held the end of her sentence until I returned.

        “That’s—” I began, but couldn’t finish.

        “I’ll be dead in a few months,” she said, with resolve & now there were no more tears—finding a hidden center, she paused as tho gathering the scattered bits of broken lead-glass and spoke again, “I don’t know where you’ve been,” she pushed a loose, limp strand of dull hair behind her ear, “I don’t know what you’ve seen, but needles are real—AIDS is real! when I am dead, no one will come to my funeral—my mom & dad gave up on their baby-girl a long, long time ago!” I remembered then, that she had asked for an olive in her drink and I had served it with a twist.

           The car horn honked & without thinking, I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her, bodily, off the diván & onto the front steps. Rows of plaster-cast columns lined the steps & in the ember light of the evening they were painted rose-color, tho I knew them, in truth, to be perfect white.

She leaned all her weight into me, which wasn’t much—she could barely stand. Her head tilted back and then lurched forward as tho her neck were an unsteady fulcrum; for just a moment I thought she was going to throw up.

        “I don’t have much time left, and I have so much to tell you—” the car jolted forward & I heard Georgia scream something; E-Flo jumped out the car and stepped in long strides towards us.

        “I’d be happy to talk to you some other day, you know where I live” I said in a calm, low voice, with as much compassion as I could muster, “but right now your friends are ready to—”

        “I won’t ever come here again!—you insult me!” and then, she kissed me. On my neck, below my right ear—a damp, cold, desperate sip, before E-Flo pulled her away.

        “Sorry, man,” he said and took her up, towards the car. As they ascended the scène, she reached out to me, entreating of me; their forms seemed to rise— glorious— billowy— towards the horizon and up as tho they meant to leave via assumptio. Amber did not struggle, but kept her arms outstretched in a gesture of desperation and never broke eye-contact, not for a moment. Even as the car door closed & they drove away, she leaned out the window,

“You’re a writer, write this down so no one else ends up like me!—ya hear?— write this down so no one forgets!-- AMBER THOMPSON!—donever forget my name!—AMBER FUCKIN THOMPSON!

And with that, the car rolled downward until it was lost amongst the ponderosas, junipers & piñons.