All the way from his house in the hills down through the river valley, Richard hacked and pointed his directions while beside him I listened and got us where we wanted to be. The streetlights were off but some passing cars had their headlamps on. Just south of town where the river widens and skinny young trees are all that remain after last year\u2019s clear cut, we pulled off in a wide gravel turnaround and I nosed the old Chrysler to the west. Through the bug-stained windshield, we watched the sun melt to fade out behind the shadowy knuckles of the mountains. Waxy purples and pinks flaring through thin clouds, wispy as fading ghosts. Richard lit another Parliament 100 and nodded while the light slowly seeped out of the world. Like he was in negotiation with what we saw.
\n On the radio, David Allen Coe was hating again. When the sun was all gone, I started the engine and Richard resumed instructing me as to where to go, what turns to take and which fire roads to follow up the mountains. I didn\u2019t think the Chrysler should be taking on such rough terrain, but this was Richard\u2019s car and he was calling the shots. We rumbled under redwoods with our headlights slashing wild shadows through the trees, then crested a bald summit. We had a clear view of some other little valley town and beyond that\u2014thick reds and yellows burning over the world\u2019s most lonesome blue\u2014the sun set for us a second time.
\n I took five bucks out of my pocket and told Richard to go fuck himself. Then I gave him the five bucks. But anyway, the money was already his. I was holding for him. The dollar lay right where I left it on his leg.
\n Neither of us said much of anything after that. I guess Richard just now and then would kind of laugh. Deep and wet in his chest. We\u2019d argued about this before but now we both knew. He was a wizard. <\/p>\n
You once told me that there are stars that shed no light. You told me, I was one of those stars. So I can\u2019t know if you\u2019d be surprised that I made it this far west. Winter came on hard in our northeastern city and suddenly living outside didn\u2019t seem like so much fun\u2014down in the tent-city, among the burnt out wreckage of the old harbor front, the snow piled deep in a single night, crowding against the naked poplars and the wandering haggard men all bleary-eyed with Thunderbird and the shock of being, their shambled lamentations rising in blue plumes from fetid, black-stained mouths\u2014and with nowhere else to go, I made up my mind to head south. A couple crust-punk kids I knew were going to hop cargo trains all the way down to New Mexico, and somehow they\u2019d found it in their hearts to invite me along, but I knew too clearly, in that kind of journey, someone was going to get hurt. Lose their legs or simply just die. If I was to be of that party, I knew: I\u2019d be the one who\u2019d go under. I think they understood this, too. To them, I\u2019d be the lucky rabbit foot that kept them safe. I\u2019d be the one to feed the rails. I respectfully declined their offer and left them with the uneasy job of sorting out who\u2019d be their charm instead. Then I scraped together what cash I could and bussed as far south as the lines would let me.
\n My plan might\u2019ve been to make a solid go of it down in Florida, eating oranges and sleeping on white sands, but I only made it as far as Georgia before things got kind of hazy. There were guys running crystal across state lines, which unleashed a fluttery moth of fear somewhere inside my solar plexus but then again, also afforded me an opportunity to get around and see some country. A New Year came and went while I played copilot in the South. Then one runner\u2014a self-styled greaser kid in an unlikely blue Gremlin\u2014decided he didn\u2019t need to make the drop, he\u2019s just keep going, make a fortune for himself somewhere else, and without even trying I found myself a quarter-share deep in the Carolinas. My logic at the time told me that this was too far north, so I sold the bulk of my stash in a fire sale and hitched west. I was hoping for some baked-clean desert but instead, I hit Oregon in shell-shocked confusion with my veins stripped and scoured. My last ride was from a trucker who hadn\u2019t slept in years, it seemed, and who opted to dump me at some reservation casino alongside the highway. My luck could\u2019ve been worse. I washed up in the bathroom and hung around the tables, thinking that if I looked like a gambler, I could maybe score some free drinks. But this was a dry casino. I frittered and grew antsy and I remember the ceilings seemed too far away, and at some point Richard saw me\u2014he was working over a black jack table, frustrating the dealer and making a fortune\u2014and after buying me breakfast and correcting my coffee with a flask from his jacket pocket\u2014and, more to the point, after arguing over the likelihood of the Celtics making it to the playoffs and if they\u2019d ever definitively get one up on the Lakers\u2014we struck a deal that cemented our friendship. I\u2019d help him get around and manage his self-medications and anything else he might need. In return for these services, he\u2019d put me up and keep me in whatever chemical haze best fit my predilections. I\u2019ve been living in his basement ever since.<\/p>\n
After our second sunset had passed, we drove back into our valley town and bought fried chicken in a bucket from a drive-up window, then went back to Richard\u2019s. While I fixed us drinks\u2014nothing special, just tall glasses of bourbon and water\u2014Richard took off his leg and got into bed. Then he called some girls. I really wasn\u2019t interested in all that, so I put some chicken on a paper plate and left the rest with the old man. His pipe was already smoldering with Ready Rock and ash, acrid smoke spinning dizzily in the air. On the TV, a derailed train puked fire somewhere outside Reno. Richard puffed and wheezed. I took my dinner to my room downstairs.
\n Long before all this, Richard had been an engineer at a GE plant outside of Troy, New York. He did that for twenty-five years. He had a wife and family I guess, but when he retired, he left it all behind. Maybe the transition from a daily purpose into infinite leisure made him crazy, but I don\u2019t know. These are just things I\u2019ve pieced together from living with him. Or maybe I\u2019m just projecting. Richard doesn\u2019t talk about that life very much.
\n From what I\u2019ve gathered, he traveled around for a couple years, then bought this place in Oregon, about twenty miles inland from the coast and a thousand miles from anything else. He says he loves the perpetual spring here. Always cool and misty and green with new things that are alive. But sometime soon after moving here, he wounded his leg doing something in his garage\u2014this part of the story always changes, which makes me wonder how much of it is of a truth\u2014and anyway, it didn\u2019t heal right so by the time he went to a doctor, it was too late. Now his right leg ends just below his knee. It was probably around that time that free-base became an interest for him. As for the girls, I imagine they\u2019ve always been a hobby.
\n Down in my room, I ate my chicken and drank my bourbon and watched a program about dinosaurs on TV. Having television was still a novelty for me. I\u2019d watch anything and be amazed. In those days, every aspect of normal life impressed me. Dishwashers and pay-per-view. The simple luxury of a bed. For too long, I\u2019d been absent from these things. I was still giddy at being invited back in. After watching a stegosaurus stomp around for a little while, the doorbell rang and I went up to let the girls inside. They were pretty the way these kinds of girls always are, which is to say, in spite of themselves. Behind them, a black car was parked on the street. Seeing it there made me think of hard-shelled ticks or those fish that sucker to the bellies of sharks with their mouths like cup-shaped razorblades. I knew it\u2019d stay there until the girls came out. I closed the door and pointed up the stairs but these girls knew the way. They\u2019d been here before. One of them I recognized but the other girl could\u2019ve been anyone. They tottered up the stairs on unsteady heels, calling Richard\u2019s name, and I ducked back in my room. I ate my chicken and finished my bourbon. It made me want another. I waited until I could hear them up there, then I sneaked into the kitchen and fixed another drink and drank that down quick. I hardly noticed the taste before it was gone. My eyes felt fuzzy but everything else rang sharp and cool. I was clarified. I trotted down the stairs and back outside.
\n Not that much time had passed but already, between letting the girls in and stepping out now, it\u2019d turned from dusk to full dark. And too: it was raining. The sound was like dust popping on an old record in the quiet parts between songs. Except for the lights in the houses around us, the night\u2019s darkness was a pure and living thing. It felt viscous. I knew the black car was still out there, but I couldn\u2019t see it. I wondered if the driver could see me. Blind and maybe unseen, I waved.<\/p>\n
I guess Richard must have once had a son. Back in his other life, back in Troy. Richard never mentions him, but there are pictures on the wall. Department store portraits. A boy at eight. The same boy at maybe twelve. Blonde hair and nice sweaters. The sort of pictures that tell you exactly nothing about a person. A whole life of imaginable potential. It\u2019s very much possible that his boy would be my age. Which I guess, in it\u2019s own way, might explain why I\u2019m around.
\n For my part, I\u2019ve never told Richard about you. The life I had and how it was lost. As far as he knows, I\u2019ve always been this way.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d said earlier that I live in Richard\u2019s basement, which points toward a certain image that I think is probably misleading. It\u2019s a finished ground floor with its back wall built into the hillside and most everything else above ground. There are windows. In the daytime, it\u2019s bright, and aside from one room Richard uses for storage, the whole downstairs is mine. I\u2019ve a bedroom and my own bath and another room I don\u2019t know what to do with yet. I can use the kitchen upstairs all I want and anyway, Richard and I hang out a lot. There\u2019s a chair next to his bed where I sit and watch TV with him on the days when all he wants to do is lie around naked and smoke crack. Sometimes we hang out on the balcony and look out over the valley, drinking and talking or maybe saying nothing. In a way, this whole house is kind of mine. But it still feels weird living anywhere again.
\n Coming in from the rain, I wandered among my few things for a while until I found a tablet of motel stationary and started to write a letter to you. I wanted to tell you about seeing the two sunsets today. Instead, I started right in telling you about Dummy.<\/p>\n
After spending the better part of the winter down South, I hitched around a bit and for a period of weeks found myself in Montana. It was springtime and kind of ghostly in those cool dim days of April, and the town I was in played along with this feeling. It\u2019d once been a copper town but the mine went bust sometime back in the early 80s so now all they have is a Superfund site. I guess most of the people there left when that happened. Now this pretty western town is almost empty. For me, in that season, it all just fit the mood. <\/p>\n I\u2019d fallen in with another group of men like me, guys who maybe once lived somewhere and did work for money but couldn\u2019t do that anymore so did this instead. I\u2019m sure we all had our reasons. At the edge of town was a half-built high school\u2014something that was started during the copper boom but then left incomplete when the mines closed and everyone split\u2014where me and the other guys slept most nights. It was clean and warm and empty in there with sheets of plastic flapping over the unfinished inside walls. It was a fun place to live. During the days, we\u2019d just kind of wander around town.<\/p>\n I know these are things you don\u2019t want to hear. They don\u2019t really fit the details of what a \u201cgood\u201d life is supposed to be. But these were okay times for me. For that little while, I was fine. And anyway, there\u2019s something I\u2019m trying to say. <\/p>\n For whatever reason, that season in Montana, I found myself often in the company of this guy we only ever knew as Dummy. He was young and gangly and looked an awful lot like a skeleton that couldn\u2019t understand what you were saying. I\u2019m sure Dummy was smarter than he looked, but that really isn\u2019t saying much. He\u2019d grown up somewhere raw and poor in the mountains of Kentucky or West Virginia. He liked to swear but didn\u2019t really know how. He considered himself a lady\u2019s man, though as far as we could tell, he was still something like a virgin. To match this image of himself in his head, Dummy liked to maintain what he considered a clean look. Often we\u2019d find him in one of the cavernous locker rooms\u2014the cold water, for whatever reason, still ran\u2014shaving his head with a played-out disposable razor. But he was bad at it. His head was crowded with scabs.<\/p>\n Dummy was a good guy but he talked a lot and some of the other guys hated him for that but he and I got along okay. He didn\u2019t have to tell me his story for me to know he\u2019d always had it bad. Someone else had made him this way. He could talk all day and it wouldn\u2019t bother me. It\u2019s not like I had anything better to say. <\/p>\n One time Dummy and I set out to find a ball because I wanted to teach him how to free throw and pass, but we didn\u2019t have any luck on that account. What we did find, though, was a kid\u2019s BMX bicycle abandoned down by the park. It looked like it\u2019d spent the winter in a snow bank, its chain all rusty and tires a little flat but it had pegs on the front and back. We could both ride at once. I peddled first and Dummy got on back and we rode as far as the tennis courts and then we just kind of stayed. Dummy was laughing like I\u2019d never seen or heard before. It was like when a dog discovers the moon and then that\u2019s all there is in the world: just the moon. He was hypnotized by the moon of his laughter. He couldn\u2019t stop. I peddled us in circles and figure eights around the courts and Dummy held onto my shoulders and laughed and howled and shouted and laughed. I could hear him echoing off everything. He was everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n I set down my pen and looked at the paper. I didn\u2019t want to say what happened to Dummy after that. What those other motherfuckers did. He was a good kid and didn\u2019t deserve what he got and I didn\u2019t want to think about finding him that way. So I reread the last thing I wrote and remembered him laughing while we rode together around the nets and between the painted lines. Then I told you that I loved you and found an envelope, licked the seal, and it was done. <\/p>\n Upstairs, it sounded like they were having lots of fun. I put on my shoes and stepped back outside where the rain had slowed a little but the dark was still indelible and thick. It took a long time to find the mailbox. I dropped in the letter and raised the flag and headed back up the drive but along the way, I saw the dome light glowing inside the black car. A large African man was sitting behind the wheel. Light shining off the smooth bald cap of his skull. He was reading. They were swinging this baseball bat around and laughing when I came down into the gymnasium. There were maybe four of them. They were taking turns. I asked if they knew where Dummy was, but they just kept on laughing. The bat was filthy. I got on our bike and pedaled out into the drizzling grey morning, and it wasn\u2019t too far away, along the edge of the access highway, that I found him. His legs were in the road but the rest of him was in the ditch. It kind of looked like his head was hidden in the marshy grass. I knew nothing was hidden down there. They\u2019d been thorough. I got off our bike, then I got back on. He was still holding half a candy bar. I peddled to a truck stop at the edge of town, where the state road meets I-90. It was the same place I\u2019d landed when I first found myself in this town. Everywhere I\u2019ve gone and every stupid thing I\u2019ve done since you sent me away, and only now as Montana gave itself up to rain did I feel like some vulnerable pink animal clinging to the face of a rock spinning through outer space. The only thing that\u2019d changed was my knowing it. I walked around until I saw the pay phone, but when I had the black receiver in my hand, it hit me that there wasn\u2019t anybody for me to call. Dummy didn\u2019t have anyone in all the world. And the cops likely wouldn\u2019t get up to anything good with his body. Maybe it was better he stay there, I thought. Like a dog that\u2019d been hit, or a raccoon. Some birds would find him. I thought maybe that\u2019d be okay. I hung around the truck stop for a while, then I found someone who\u2019d take me west. The truck stop had great coffee and was named Theriault\u2019s and the driver didn\u2019t say one word to me all the way to Oregon and it didn\u2019t hurt my feelings at all because I didn\u2019t want to talk anymore. Sometime much later, after we\u2019d all passed out wherever we sat or lay, I woke up to a knocking at the door. Not the doorbell: a knock. It was the African man. He wanted me to let him in. It isn\u2019t just yet but it\u2019ll be pretty soon. Richard will get dressed up in his powder blue suit and attach his metal leg and go back to the dry casino. He\u2019ll clean house. He\u2019ll walk out with pockets full. Before he leaves for the casino, I\u2019ll ask if he needs a ride and he\u2019ll say no, \u201cI\u2019m feeling lucky tonight,\u201d he\u2019ll say with his voice a smoky mess, \u201cI\u2019m going it alone.\u201d He\u2019ll leave and I\u2019ll wait and the night will get late and at some point, I\u2019ll know. He\u2019s waiting somewhere, biding his time, and I\u2019ll know. I won\u2019t linger too long once I figure it out. I\u2019ll pack my one bag and I\u2019ll head out into the night. All the way from his house in the hills down through the river valley, Richard hacked and pointed his directions while beside him I listened and got us where we wanted to be. The streetlights were off but some passing cars had their headlamps on. Just south of town where the river widens and skinny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[335,333],"tags":[337],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n Back inside, I headed for my room but Richard must have heard the door because he shouted my name and then the girls started in, too.
\n \u201cColeman,\u201d they yelled, then Richard said, \u201cColeman, get up here,\u201d and then the girls again: \u201cCome join us, Coleman.\u201d
\n I normally didn\u2019t hang out when there were girls around but tonight I was feeling funny, having thought about Dummy and thought about you, and I really wanted some company. It was nice of them to invite me up. In Richard\u2019s room, they were all in bed together and everyone still had their clothes on. They were just hanging out. It looked cozy. They were sharing a bottle of cheap red wine and passing around the pipe. They hadn\u2019t touched the bucket of chicken. On TV, kids were doing things with skateboards: they clearly weren\u2019t very good. The girl I didn\u2019t recognize smiled sweetly at me and told me to join them. She batted her lashes and everything. I stood for a moment near the door, then sat in the chair beside Richard\u2019s bed. They laughed.
\n The girl I recognized had been here a few times before and one time we\u2019d got to talking. She used to drive a school bus up in Juneau, she\u2019d said. Now she was here doing this. Just like the rest of us. Richard was sitting with a girl on either side and the girl I knew was the one nearest me, so she handed me the wine then handed me the pipe, then Richard offered his pack of long white cigarettes and even though I don\u2019t smoke, I took one of those, too. On the TV, a kid skidded off a railing and landed on his face. The girls were doing things now but Richard and I were playing it cool like nothing was going on\u2014we were arguing as to whether Rajon Rondo would ever statistically beat Magic Johnson in consecutive double-digit assists to become the best player alive\u2014but when the girl I recognized slithered between Richard\u2019s knees, I remember, like it was beyond his control, the bald stump of his amputated leg slowly rose from the sheets like a quivering hand raised in surrender. It was a little obscene but a little bit beautiful. In my lap, that sweet other girl was doing her thing to me. I was eating a leg of chicken.
\n \u201cHe\u2019ll never do it,\u201d I was saying. \u201cHe loses his cool too often. He\u2019ll get in a fight. They\u2019ll eject him from the game before the record\u2019s ever broke.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n That\u2019s the part I didn\u2019t want to tell you. But now you know. I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n
\n Standing there with each of us on different sides of the same open door, it occurred to me that he and I were engaged in the very same job. Each of us protecting the bodies with which we\u2019d been entrusted. The same way Richard was protecting me. The same way everyone is protecting and protected. All at once, we have power, and we are powerless. We only have to slip up once to fail. This man\u2014twice my size and of a world so much harder than mine\u2014could snap me in half if he wanted to. But this was my house. I told him he couldn\u2019t come in. I told him to wait here. Then I went upstairs to get his girls. <\/p>\n
\n But that night isn\u2019t here yet. I still have time. For a little while longer, I\u2019m saved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"