Joe's Black T-Shirt (14 page)

“They never married. Joe said marriage was a one-time deal. I’m kinda glad they didn’t. They mostly fought when he was around. I haven’t seen him in years.”

“I’m Joe,” I said holding out my hand.

“I know who you are. I’ve known you all my life. That’s why I came here today.”

He pulled me into a spontaneous embrace, which I did not resist. He was trying not to cry and I held him until his insecurity passed. When we were finally able to separate ourselves, he formally introduced himself.

“I’m Brian, your brother. Illegitimate, but all same. It’s good to finally meet you.”

We talked non-stop for the next two hours, ignoring everyone else, filling in each other’s life with our father’s memory. He certainly had more to say, and I cherished every word.

After excusing himself for the restroom, Aunt Rachel sat next to me, rubbing her hand up and down my back as to soothe me.

“I was hoping you two would find each other. I hope you’re not mad.”

“No, why would I be?”

“It was a secret my brother insisted on keeping. I promised him I would never tell. He always thought you would hate him if you knew.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Men are stupid. The secrets they keep.” She stopped, wanting to say more, to elaborate on the idiocy of the opposite sex but refrained. “What will you do now, Joey?”

“Brian and I were talking about going out. Maybe getting to know each other some more.”

She patted my knee and stood up. “Come with me.”

I walked with her past the guests, holding her hand oblivious as to where we might be going. When we came into the sanitary kitchen of chrome and marble, she released me and asked that I would wait. For a moment, I stood alone, armed with my father’s picture and letter. The knowledge of his other life, of my half-brother and aunt, this entire family I did not know, yet belonged to began to disconcert me.

Before I could panic and leave, Aunt Rachel returned. She closed my hand into a fist as she placed a set of keys in my palm.

“In the garage, bubula. It was your father’s pride and joy. The one thing, no matter how desperate he got, he wouldn’t sell. When he needed peace, he would go to it, never taking it out of my garage.”

I kissed her on the cheek and promised I would come back soon to visit.

I found Brian and together we went to the garage. Next to a piano-gloss black Mercedes, sat a cherry red convertible Stingray Corvette with the top already down.

After cleaning the out empty beer cans and liquor bottles, making sure to put them into their proper blue recycling bins, we slid over the doors, down into the custom bucket seats. The super-charged motor roared to life when I turned the key. The rumble transferred through the chassis with and erotic vibration reminiscent of a quarter-fed motel room bed.

“Where should we go?” Brian asked.

“I know a good tavern,” I said.

###

Walking Uphill

The doorbell rang, and I wasn’t ready yet. Either Danny was early, or I was extremely stoned. The later was probably closer to the truth. I peeked at him through the blinds and signaled that I needed one more minute. He shrugged his bony shoulders and sat down on the ledge to roll a joint.

I had worked all morning writing a new song. The first few parts had come quick and easy. It had a solid chorus with a sharp hook that I knew would grab people’s attention.

The song was about a regretful band of musicians. Guys who had achieved what they had always dreamed of only to find it was all lies. Fame did not mean happiness, money did not equal success, and sex was not love.

Finally getting my shoes on, I joined Danny on the porch. The sun was at our backs, still steadily rising in the east. The torturous heat of the sun was still a couple of hours away, but the humidity already made the air sticky.

The stillness at eleven in the morning was beautiful and rare. An occasional empty school bus or the sounds of distant lawn mowers were all that disturbed the peace.

Danny had recently dyed his hair blacker than a concert T-shirt. It gave him a sickly look that accentuated his pasty white skin, making him look ghoulish. Underneath his black hoodie with a white fanged skull decal on the back, I knew he was wearing a Zeppelin, Sabbath, or Doors shirt underneath. Those bands were immortals to us. We felt obligated to offer our undying tribute to them twenty-four seven.

We sparked up the skinny heater Danny had rolled. Our friendship was based upon three things. First and foremost was the music. There was nothing we did that wasn’t in the hope of becoming better, more successful musicians. Second was weed. We smoked it, sold it, and simply couldn’t imagine life un-high. The third thing, albeit odd, was the only thing we actually did based in reality. We walked.

Miles upon miles we tested ourselves to see how far we could go out. We always made it back home, although there were times I wondered if I was going to make it.

Once, we must have walked at least fifteen miles. No water, no money, and hotter than hell. By the time we made it home I was seeing black spots. Danny, however, was a rock. While I sat high on Vicadin and weed, drinking gallons of Gatorade the next day, he walked. He had done a five-miler to stay loose. I told him I had ate an entire large Imo’s deluxe by myself and we both laughed at the insanity we called our lives.

Taking the nubby remainder, I smoked the last hit and tossed the roach into plastic ashtray to die out. It would be there when we got back, then we could add it to our hard times collection. It was stoner insurance against the future when we would be to broke to score.

Danny and I began to stretch out our calves using the concrete stairs. I used the upper set while he did his on the lower. We never talked about where we might go, we would just start walking. Danny had been doing this far longer than I had and had dozens of different courses laid out his mind. Secret maps he alone knew and shared only when we walked. I trusted him unquestioningly as my guide.

We didn’t calculate by distance as much as by time. Three hours was his norm and generally my max. The asphalt streets, the grassy overgrown empty lots, the immaculate graveyards, and the never-ending sidewalks of south St. Louis disappeared under our worn shoes. The idea was to stay in constant motion. Why, I didn’t know, but it was a rule I never questioned.

Danny stuffed his hands into the marsupial pouch of his hoodie. “You ready?” he asked.

My calves were stretched and loose, prepared for coming fatigue. I welcomed it, and the endorphin rush by which no drug could compare.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Within ten minutes we were damn near to Carondelet Park. Danny only walked this fast when something heavy was bothering him. I knew better than to ask what. He would tell me if he wanted me to know.

“George and me are going to the Pageant Thursday. Kidz Without Eyes are playing. Supposed to be a killer show. You coming?” I asked.

“No. I don’t think…” Unable to complete the sentence Danny lied. “Band practice.”

“Right,” I said. “I forgot.”

I lied too. In my whole time hanging out with him a show always trumped anything else. Your father’s wake, your brother’s wedding, your sister’s graduation all came second to going to a show.

“So you guys are practicing on Thursdays now?”

“Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You always practice Mondays and Wednesdays.”

“Are you my mother now?”

“No man, I was---”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

“Sorry, dude.”

“Whatever,” Danny said. He pointed his black nail-polished finger south by southeast. “Cut across,” he ordered.

Obedient as a dog, I followed his command. In a light sprint, despite the lack of traffic on Loughborough, we left the park much earlier than usual. Before we slowed we were at the crest of a long downhill slope that lead to a spillway dubbed River Des Peres.

By the time we came to the bottom, my shins were on fire. Germania Avenue was one of the few stretches in the city absent any sidewalks. Any time of the day, the road was busy. Forced to walk in the uneven, pot holed ledge, the noise and wind of the cars constantly passing by made it impossible to talk.

I didn’t mind though, it was a beautiful day. The forced silence gave me the leisure to think to myself without distraction. I seriously considered how much longer I was going to be able to keep playing the rock star. My wife had given birth to our beautiful baby boy almost a year ago. By next weekend, every relative we had would come to fill our one bedroom, one bathroom house to celebrate the fact.

After the cake was cut, and all the cousins were done fighting over the new toys, it would begin. Somebody would ask how work was, and I would say fine trying to appease their morbid curiosity. It was never enough. Then it was “do you like it?” and “any hope of going full time this year?” and “don’t forget you have a family to think of now”. It wasn’t ever “how’s the band?” or “write any new songs lately?” or, God forbid, “you’re band is so awesome!”

I was thirty now and beginning to doubt my life choices. When I was twenty-something, with no responsibility outside of self-indulgent habits, I had grandiose visions of being in a world famous band. In a new city every night, worshipped by thousands. I dreamed of staying high on primo Amsterdam grass and groupies who wanted nothing more than to make my every deviant fantasy come true. So far, I hadn’t even been close.

I had sacrificed countless hours at the altar of rock-n-roll. So much wasted time I could have been in college or building a career. Many of my friends now had nice homes in the county. They drove to soccer practice in lavish mini-vans that were more like rolling homes. Whereas I had held a succession of brainless, labor intensive jobs, they had become responsible adults with careers. At best, I had only grown older in a chosen profession that equivocated success with youth, good looks, and occasionally talent.

The grass causeway finally gave way back to the comfort of the sidewalks. We walked side-by-side with me always next to the street. Danny had, in my opinion, an irrational phobia of a car leaping the curb and crushing him to death. The idea of dying didn’t really bother me as much as living did. Besides, if it did, we were both dead meat anyway.

We ditched the street and headed down one of the nameless alleys we knew were safe. While Danny took a pee behind a dumpster, I rolled a generous finger-thick joint. After we smoked half, we resumed the walk.

Danny and I stuck to the interchange of alleys for awhile. I wasn’t sure of where it was all leading, but I was contentedly stoned. Happy enough to feel the sun on my face and the ground melt away under my shoes. The song I had been working on so diligently before Danny came over played in a continuous loop in my mind. I was close to finding the elusive chords to the bridge when Danny interrupted my thoughts.

“Little Lisa is pregnant,” he said.

“So what,” I said. Danny had been especially quiet so far. It figured now, when I was starting to find a groove, he wanted to gossip. “She’s a slut anyway. Half the bands in St. Louis have screwed her. It was only a matter of time before some poor schmuck drew the shortest straw.”

“That’s cold blooded man. She’s a human being.”

“She’s a cum dumpster. I feel sorry for the baby she’s gonna have, and more sorry for the dumbass who didn’t have brains enough to wear a rubber with her.”

We cut left out of the alley and found the sidewalk again. Great oaks shaded the street and the immediate climate change was refreshing. The alleys were the quickest route to anywhere by foot but offered little in the way of scenery. I loved to walk here passing the evergreen lawns of the perfect homes. I imagined that someday all my hard work would lead me here. In the basement I would have a recording studio with every electrical device imaginable. My kid would go to a private school and my wife would have friends who drank wine to the pass the time. A pipe dream that connected to all the other broke plumbing that was my life.

“You’re wrong about her,” Danny said.

It took me a moment to register he had even spoken, much less what he had said. I was becoming frustrated with his one-track mind on the subject. We had some of the best conversations on these walks. Philosophy, art, music, television, movies, religion, and countless others to forget the pain in our legs or the subconscious desire to sit down.

“So what if I am,” I said. “So what and who cares? You’re acting like it’s your problem.”

“It is. Sort of.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The street dumped out abruptly to a main artery. We stood on the corner and waited for a break in the noonday traffic. The smell of McDonald’s French fries mingled among the car exhaust and made me ravenous. When I got home, I was going to nuke a bowl of nachos el hoosier dumping salsa over Doritos topped with sliced American cheese. I would eat until my stomach ached in bloated tension and forced me to sleep until Cheryl came home. She wouldn’t care as long as there was a fresh bowl packed in her pipe and she could unwind a little before the band showed up for practice.

She had been hinting lately that maybe we could start to practice over at George’s. It worried her that the volume wasn’t good for the baby’s ears. He certainly couldn’t sleep until we were done. I wasn’t mad at her though. Cheryl was never what I would call a bitch or a nag. It was rare she ever had an opinion regarding my musical ambitions at all. This, however, was about the kid and change was inevitable.

The simple pleasure of hearing our footsteps smack in the minor echo of garage doors and chain link fences comforted me. This alley was the road home. No more turns, just a straight and steady grade that, practically put us on my front door step.