Ivyland (13 page)

“Won't be for a while, folks,” Lenny said, smiling for the first time that day as he caught a drop of rain in his palm. “Say, you wouldn't mind helping out while you wait, would you?” He handed one of his bottles to the old man. “Gotta spray this whole area, uh, jitney stop, with disinfectant.”

The old man squinted.

“It's these kids,” Lenny added, eyes knifing toward the poppers he'd turned away. “No hygiene.”

The old man nodded knowingly, sniffing the nozzle.

*

Something like actual disinfectant hissed out of ventilation grilles and settled in clammy layers on the rest of Hecuba's passengers, who studied the skies as she ranted to herself. Too old. Too stupid. One condomless Tequila Tuesday fuck.

“Storm's a-comin,” wheedled some zombie woman. “My arm's swelling up.” Hecuba cracked her knuckles. Dopplerized wail as fire engines raced past, towing sheets of rain in their wake. Her next baby didn't have a gender but she knew it would be a girl, like young DH had always wanted. She touched her belly button with a pinky and flipped wipers and headlights on.

“Quite a rollercoaster,” a bifocaled thing behind her said, and it brought Hecuba back to school-bus days, when the kids, spurred at the sight of an appointed serpent-arrow sign, would daily begin their cultish chant:
roll
-er
coast
-er
, roll
-er
coast
-er … and Hecuba, laughing, would put her yellow monster through the S-curves near the wooded reservation at breakneck speeds, hugging concrete barriers like a bobsledder as the kids screamed, got thrown against each other and walls and windows, spilling into happy heaps in the aisle. They'd barrel down the other side of the slope, back toward town and responsible speeds. But for a blessed weightless moment, as they crested a sylvan hill that still belonged to deer and birds, they floated above their seats, free of Ivyland's gravity. Freed by turbulence and yes, the generous odds of spectacular death. Yet there persisted an agreement that the bus and its kids were together invincible, that Hecuba absorbed all risk.

She couldn't ruin another child, Hecuba realized, curtains of water melting her view. When things got this bad, she told herself Elvis-boy had taken her daughter far away; she imagined their honeymoon and the one-story glass house they had in the starry southwestern desert, nobody else around. But if she's divorced, diseased, dead, Hecuba thought, then I'm to blame.

“What the hell,” she sang. The old folks wanted a rollercoaster … she crossed the double solid strip and swung back again, horns streaking by. Crazy, but Hecuba sensed her daughter pitch forward inside her. The town bled light. Tracing a wave, running all stops, she gained speed so gradually that her passengers took no notice, except for the bifocaled dingbat—she giggled in Alzheimeric delight. The tires rose up on pillows of water. They lost the road. And the second before Hecuba's jitney hydroplaned into a streetlight, she asked aloud, but not bitterly, whether she'd had a choice in the matter. She saw a dark figure in the darker sky, falling.

AIDAN /// SANDPIPER, NEW JERSEY /// SEVEN YEARS AGO

I can practically smell the booze, hear the dim laughter it's unlocked. Regret ringing the doorbell soon as my finger slides off.

“Damn, I wish you haddina rung,” Henri moans, “I was just gonna suggest we bail.”

“Nothing better to do.”

We notice a clicking and turn to find Phoebe making careful progress up the wonky flagstone walkway. Weak waves all around.

“Swore I wasn't going to wear heels, then I did.”

“Well worth it,” Henri says, mustering all the elegance one possibly can while wearing an orange sleeveless tuxedo.

“Cannot believe you had the sack to wear that,” Phoebe admits, reaching out to hold the heavy lapel for a second. He fidgets with delight. “I'd say we dateless wonders managed to … well.”

“Make some memories?” I suggest.

“Always do,” DH suddenly there, leaning in the doorframe as he lights a cigarette and scratches at facial hair that underscores his advanced age. “Glad you made it, A-bomb, just getting started.” We stall in the foyer, letting him disappear into the back of a shore house rented under some disinterested or recklessly rich parent's name. Probably Ryan Danke's. “Can change in the bathroom there if you want,” DH yells from down the hall.

“I'm keeping this on,” Henri immediately warns. “I'm getting my money's worth.”

“Who's stopping you?”

“Society.”

“I'm changing,” I say.

“Me too,” says Phoebe.

“After you.”

The sounds of laughter and a spastic coughing fit beat against muffling walls while Henri and I wait. If you listen closely, you can instead hear Phoebe's simple red dress pooling around her ankles as she slides off the second strap, the silk stuff bunching in flowery folds. So needlessly good-looking, and in some stage of nudity, and right
there
. Bet she didn't even lock.

“Did you try the calamari?”

“I've heard your opinions on the appetizers.”

“But did you have the calamari?” Henri presses.

“I don't remember.”

“You remember.”

“Nope.”

“I remember.”

“I know you remember,” I snap. “I had it. It sucked. Too rubbery. The end.”

“You must not have had it with the sauce.”

Phoebe emerges at last. She's wearing tight,
tight
jeans with colorful patches she's sewn on herself and a dark blue jungle of magic marker doodles covering most of the denim. Black tank top. I'm a goner.

“You're changing, right?” Phoebe asks. How long have I been staring? I hurriedly nod and go in, locking the door behind me.

*

We venture into the den as though dragged there. Apathetic hellos directed mainly at Phoebe. Ryan Danke is already passed out in a corner, puke crusting his pillow. A spacey band I don't recognize is quietly issuing from a stereo.

“Sit,” DH says.

“Is he okay?” Henri bleats instinctually.

“Mm? O, no, no he's sleeping … drank too much, but he's sleeping now,” DH mutters, momentarily taken in by the unconscious pile of Danke. He laughs, remembering it all, eyebrows flexing as he inhales deeply, then blows air out. Phoebe tugs at her pocket. Henri clears his throat with importance. This kid Ed, sitting with DH on the clam-shaped loveseat, starts to talk, gurgles, giggles at his gurgling, and promptly goes blank once he's finished.

“I, for one, have not haven't … had … enough Belltruvin,” DH posits.

“Nice English, pillhead,” Jack snipes from an easy chair.

“Fuck you, douche cocktail.”

Everyone laughs, for different reasons. Somebody whose name definitely starts with a
B
, something nerdy—Bernard?—gives one sharp laugh and returns to near catatonia in a striking imitation of Ed circa thirty seconds ago.

“This guy,” Henri jokes, pointing to the blank B-named-kid, but I can tell he has no follow-up. Doesn't stop him. “He's like Buster Keaton, only the great
stoned
face!” Which is worse: the silent film allusion or the pun? The party teeters for one hushed second on the brink of cardiac arrest.

“What about a drink?” Phoebe maneuvers, prompting a chorus of agreement that zaps us back into functioning order. I grab a rank light beer for myself from an ice-filled garbage can. DH pops
Easy Rider
on for ambiance, and we're off.

*

“What'd they just take?” Ed, possibly more acned then when we arrived, asks with suspicion when the film reaches a fragmented sequence. In a shadowy corner, Henri and Phoebe are talking, sipping their drinks in unison. Phoebe laughs—a sound that should intoxicate, loosen you up. She's hot enough to make you deranged with other people's bad ideas, shoulder-length, darker-than-brunette-but-not-quite-black hair, hazel eyes flecked with
yellow
, for God's sake, and yes, I worship every inch of that perfection. But right now I'm not smiling.

“Acid,” DH reasons.

“DH,” Jack breaks from a conversation cluster to say. “Show us how you can shimmy all the way up one of those streetlights.”

“Not when I'm this gone,” DH laughs. “Not ever.”

Now Henri, slanting with inebriated confidence against the wall, laughs, chokes, then laughs at himself post-recovery. Phoebe pats him on the back, laughing along. Just having a fucking blast over there. The sliver of Phoebe's hip covered by neither shirt nor jeans is unfair. Henri's voice peaks elsewhere in my awareness, grandiloquently: “
Bibamus, moriendum est!
” he cries, fetching himself and Phoebe more beers.

“Hit this,” says B-name, passing me a bottle of Jack Daniels. I do my damnedest. “And your sights are set on?”

“Mean who am I …” eyeballs lurching back to Phoebe.

“I mean, college, work,” B-name mumbles, taking the whiskey.

“Ivyland College.”

“Dumb. All the jobs'll be gone in four years.”

“Yeah?”

“That's why me'n Jack and Danke and Ed got ourselves into police academy.”

“Really.”

“Cruising, shooting. Set for
life
.”

“In Ivyland.” But B-name is up on his feet, getting someone else's attention, leaving me to consider my own depressing plans. The trick with Phoebe is to say something you're too chickenshit to say, an unctuous inner voice whispers. Henri's still got her cornered by the kitchen. Can't hear what he's saying, but the man must be spitting game like there's a surplus.

“Henri,” I shout, holding up the bottle B-name left wedged in the couch cushions.

“Don't we have any mixers?” he whines.

“It's easy,” Ed is assuring someone, pulling on a cigarette, blowing a ring, and a smaller ring through that.

Holly, lately denied the title of Prom Queen (due to student council corruption is the rumor), makes a well-timed entrance. The party cobbles together one of those drunkenly smeared but jubilant “Eyyyy!” noises to acknowledge her.

“Talented man.” She finger-guns at Ed and his smoke rings.

“Pup-tent, Ed?” Jack shrewdly inquires, tickling the back of Ed's neck. The answer is a swift punch to the shoulder, Ed's other hand remaining a strategic groin shield.

“Rednecks,” DH says as two motorcyclists are shotgunned to celluloid heaven by some good ol' boys. The movie was about fifteen minutes long by my inner clock. Phoebe whispers in Henri's ear, and they're atwitter. He takes a massive swallow from the bottle.

“What's so funny?” I slur.

“Nothing,” Phoebe teases, pointing her beer can vertical.

“Damn, girl,” Holly admires. “Aidan, come here, I've got something to show you.” The words are replayed in my head, garbled, twice, meaningless. The DVD screensaver is too verdant to be true.

Phoebe's gone. Henri's gone. Shit.

“Dude, you made my life,” I can hear DH gushing somewhere, and then there he is, holding aloft a bulbous bottle half-filled with bluish fluid, jabbering lowly, a shine on his eyes.

“New Adderade cocktail,” he's saying, “best so far, this guy drops all sorts of goodies in there that're still prescription. Can't believe we ever tripped on cough syrup,” he laughs. DH starts passing the bottle around. It finds its way into my hand. I scan the room for Henri and Phoebe again and, coming up empty, allow myself a mouthful. It tastes like a shitty diaper, but I wash it down with more beer. I sink back into a beat-up chair that angelically appears at exactly the moment of need, then somehow vacate it, up again, forcing myself to stay in motion.

“Endless … fucking tight,” Ed says in a pained voice after he drinks the stuff.

“They made people who glow in the dark,” says Jack.

“Such a lie,” says a half-alive Danke from his pass-out corner.

“Why would someone
do
that?” Phoebe agrees. No, not Phoebe. Holly.

“Cause you can.”

“Cause they get off on it,” Danke says, suddenly part of the conversation.

“Come on.” An impeccable manicure meshes with my own ragged fingers, pulling me away. People knowingly snicker.

“Be good,” I hear.

“Any more Belltruvin?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

“Right here, big guy.”

“You guys ever tried gas?”

“Do I look rich to you?”

“Did you guys see the video of the Michigan bridge collapse? The Winnape or something.”

“Two in one month? And the same place …”

“I
know
.”

*

It's Holly who leads me. We wind round a spiral metal staircase. The world keeps spinning after the stairs. We're in a blandly nautical bedroom, lampshades with seahorses and anchors.

“Had something I didn't want to share,” Holly confides, reaching into an impractically small purse.

“Not a good sharer?”

She removes something that looks like a giant bullet, sleek and silver, and attaches a length of clear tubing with a valve to a nozzle at the top.

“Hallaxor? You … “

“Sit.”

She pats the covers. Her top is cut low, and if she doesn't notice me staring at her tits, she's blind by all definitions. She scratches me under the chin, calls me cute, puts the end of the tube in her mouth and opens the valve, sucking hard. The giant bullet comes to me and I imitate. She tips forward and rests her face on mine.

Her breath is wrong, polluted, not what I want. Not Phoebe's. We kiss, Phoebe's lips replacing Holly's. Same for hair. I clutch a shoulder and pretend, shutting my eyes, body charting the earth's rotation, falling through the sheets and the floor and the ground and everything below it. A knocking filters in, maybe imagined, so we don't respond. A click and a creak.

“Oop, sorry. Aidan?” says Phoebe.

“You guys were holding out on us!” Henri booms as he stampedes into the room, snatching the small canister. Phoebe, just as trashed but a smidge more tactful:

“Can we hang out here?”

Holly is more generous with a lungful of gas, and we all sit cross-legged on the bed, Henri's corner sagging.

“Whose room is this?” he wonders, but it's a rental house, so what a dumb question.

“You know what shotgunning is?” Holly asks the group. She takes another hit, then pushes her mouth against mine and blows it in. Henri is rapt. Phoebe watches the ruinous transfer in the corner of one eye.

“Now you do her,” Holly instructs, indicating Phoebe.

I give everything away. Phoebe's eyes dart in radiant shyness, the yellow firing out from hazel. I suck on the tube, and Phoebe comes in. Fingertips graze ribcages, trembling with mute gasps; I feel the small of her back heave under my palm, my shirt tighten as she clasps its collar and draws me in, unrepentant. I see only her closed eye and the wall beyond it, expanding and contracting with supernatural life, the floor cresting and breathing, dotted with wiggling amoebas locked in tailspin.

“Give someone else a chance,” Henri butts in, defiling everything. To my horror, Phoebe sucks gas and shotguns Henri for a split second. She's just that drunk. It's only a game. Lights are twinkling differently now.

“I feel it,” I mutter.

Lights are twisting. A funhouse of wild shifting angles. The bedspread is self-aware. The room sighs. Lights are goddamn twinkling differently, and I rotate my head to see the starry points of white spin back-and-forth, back-and-forth … they twist now, and are they doing that on their own? Stop rocking your head from side to side, but can't. Or I do, and the lights keep twisting.
Stay out.
What?

“What?”

“What what?” Holly asks, amused. Phoebe is prone … sleeping?

“Did you say something? I thought. Well, even so.” Senseless. “Didn't you say something?”

“I don't know,” Henri says.
Just the same.
As what?

“Aidan.”

“Hm.”

“I feel it,” Henri tries to say.

Blue, a blue muted but like diamond splinters that rocket through heads leaving holes and fissures, filling them with buzz till I look at my own should-be blue eyes in a bathroom mirror and see only wet black gaps yawning back, stains of ash, irises devoured by pupils that are islands in tired off-white oceans.

“You need to go home.”

“I can't,” says the mirror. I want to reach through and throttle him, the mirror me, steal his fucking easy life. All he has to do is comb is hair and brush his teeth, maybe floss, but only if
I
remember to. Rest of the day, he's asleep or soaking in the bath. Likes the water the exact same temperature as me, curls into the same position I do under the blankets.

“Fetal.”

“Stop saying everything that pops into your head,” the mirror says. The bathtub is melting and I can take it in stride by singing a little kid's playground rhyme: