One day as I was absent-mindedly whacking the trunk of an apple tree with a large stick, I noticed Kelli whispering something to Gina. They both giggled (I was sure they were laughing at me), then Kelli slithered from the pool, approaching the wall – and my tree-whacking spot. I felt like hundreds of rats were scurrying around inside my limbs, all racing toward my guts, where they began viciously fighting. Dripping wet, the deadly-dangerous teenage girl bobbed up on her toes to rest her arms on the wall, smiling at me. I almost dropped my stick. She asked my name, which I told her in a voice reminiscent of Bobby Brady's (I mean,
Alvin?
How else can you say it?), then she suggested (so
casually!
) that the three of us should hang out sometime.
Which led to the Tickling Incident.
I struggled for a few moments to recall just what Gina looked like. Kelli was easy, of course, but a solid mental image of Gina was harder to dredge up for some reason. I remembered her as having an inordinately hawkish nose, but couldn't for the life of me decide if her hair had been brown or black. Even her body, the sweetening flesh of which had driven me to the point of madness on more than one occasion, seemed to be lost in a fog. I remembered that she wore cut-off jeans most of the time, only because of one moment of real daring that had overwhelmed my traditional crippling fear.
My dad was at work the afternoon of the Tickling Incident; my mom didn't have a job, but was not at home, for whatever reason. I was loafing around my bedroom, either watching
Gilligan's Island
or poking through comic books or any number of other things that helped create the bubble of isolation that enveloped my teenage years – but then, what I was doing wasn't the important thing. It was what happened after the knock at the door that was the basis of this eminently cherished memory.
I swung the door wide to find both Kelli and Gina standing there in T-shirts and shorts, grinning like delightful monkeys. They were inside and headed for my bedroom before I fully realized the impact of what was happening. As I followed their smoothly swaying bottoms down the hall, I wished I had stopped to look in the mirror before answering the door, that I had worn cooler clothes (not that I owned any cool clothes, but anything would have been better than my
Kung Fu Karate!
T-shirt), that there was anything about me that could be considered dashing, or, at the very least,
interesting
.
My stomach was like a blender overburdened with thick sludge as the girls explored my room, led as if by some preternatural force to the discovery of every goddamn piece of nerdy junk in my possession.
Ha ha!
they'd cry, holding up my Spider-Man Web-Spinner as if displaying the ear of a fallen enemy.
See!
one of them would shout, giggling as she offered the other a chance to peruse the latest issue of
Famous Monsters of Filmland
magazine. Stimulated as I was by being near the girls, I almost couldn't wait for them to
leave
.
Their giggles and snorts of laughter seemed to increase in volume, the sound becoming an almost tangible manifestation of everything I had ever feared about girls. I wanted to run, get the hell out of there before they
really
caught on to what a dork I was. Before I could react, they were upon me, closing in like a pair of shrieking succubi, bent on my complete humiliation —
And then they shoved me back on the bed, tickling me like mad. Howling with laughter, I twisted and squirmed, feigning as if to get away while at the same time praying that my sudden erection wouldn't be spotted – or worse yet, nudged. It was the most action I had ever had – and from
two girls
at once
, for crying out loud!
I made a few hesitant return-tickles, poking at Gina's ribs, jabbing at the back of Kelli's bare knee. It was an event of orgiastic proportion in my young life, and I was extremely disappointed when the girls seemed to tire, their innocently directed sexual energy spent.
Which was when I made my one-and-only (to that point, anyway) bold move. With a girl lying on either side of me, my eyes fell upon Gina's upturned bottom, packed tightly into those cut-offs. Without even thinking about what I was doing (another first, considering how prone I was to over-thinking everything), I slid my hand into her back pocket – only for a moment, after which I withdrew my mitt as if I had laid it on a hot stove — but in my mind, I had gone for the brass ring, gripping it like Arthur raising Excalibur above his kingly head.
Then my mom came home. The mood suddenly shifted to one of discomfort and embarrassment, on both my part and the girls', and they didn't stick around for long. However, before they left, Kelli paused at my desk, where she scrawled her phone number on the battered wooden surface.
It took me two years to work up the nerve to ask her out.
Although we dated off and on for awhile, I never slept with Kelli. She had wanted to do it bad, too, but for some reason – either fear or stupidity or lack of a decent place to perform the act – I had never managed to acquit myself manfully with the girl. And at the time we started going out, she was so hot I could hardly stand it. What the hell was I thinking?
How had I gotten off on this tangent? I hadn't seen Kelli for what – fourteen years now? Thinking back on it, the whole thing felt like a story someone else had told me about their own life, rather than one of the high points of my existence. Dismal, I softly banged my head against the window, then backed away in alarm, afraid that I might somehow attract the attention of the cute Asian girl despite the fact that she was nowhere to be seen. I brushed my unshorn locks out of my eyes (a haircut didn't seem like a necessary expenditure at the moment) and waited nervously. All I needed was for her to realize what a scumbag voyeur her neighbor was and never again step outside to wash the car. My financial situation being what it was, I probably wouldn't be living here much longer anyway, but why take chances?
I felt weary, useless, unable to contribute anything to the world other than perhaps to never be heard from again. In an unprecedented move, I went to the refrigerator for a third bottle of Wally's Hard Squeeze. I was going to the hoop tonight. As Emeril wrapped up his oyster-bacon pie with a spirited
Bam,
I sensed a filmy awareness of some sort of game plan hatching; a way to fix what the idiocy of my movie-sodden upbringing had done to my life.
Impaired reasoning can be a very dangerous thing indeed.
2
"Albuquerque or LA?"
Yipes. This was why I hated to travel. Invariably, I found myself seated next to some guy who, if not currently the subject of a manhunt, no doubt would be soon – and they always wanted to
chat
. In movies, the creepy serial killer-types never talk, they only brood and furrow their brow menacingly as they contemplate the tasty meat or fashionable skin of their next victim, but in the real world, brother, those weirdos love to gab.
Boarding the plane, I was pleased to find that the seats next to me were unoccupied, but I knew I was doomed the moment I spotted the giant coming down the aisle; straining Wranglers spattered waist-to-cuff with questionable and ancient stains, black Def Leppard T-shirt barely maintaining a grip on the firm, distended belly that appeared due to birth something roughly the size of a full-grown German Shepherd, and topping it all off, a snarled dollop of hair that might've been present for the wreck of the
Exxon Valdez
.
No-no-no-no-no
, my brain chanted as the man lurched towards me, his carry-on bag clubbing innocent passengers along the way. I felt no surprise, no anger, only a sense of bitter resignation – perhaps like Evel Knievel might have felt when he knew he was going over the handlebars
yet again
– as the man paused, looked curiously at me, squinted at his boarding pass, then began the slow process of shoehorning his bulk past me and into the window seat. Settled, he began wheezing as if a kazoo were stuck in his throat.
Afterwards, I had deliberately, painstakingly, avoided any eye (or otherwise) contact – anything that might encourage conversation – but now, an hour-and-a-half into the two-hour flight, it had happened.
"Uh ... excuse me?" I asked.
The act of speaking forced me to inhale a choking gulp of the man's cheese-like smell. I was sporting a little funk of my own, I admit – though it was nothing as abusive as the cloud surrounding my gasping seatmate. I hadn't exactly been conscientious about bathing recently, and while my clothes were significantly cleaner than some I could mention, they wouldn't pass the sniff test in the average college dorm. My stubble had gone from the cool Spaghetti-Western-cowboy look directly to alcoholic panhandler, and my hair flopped loosely in front of my eyes, try as I might to keep it pushed back.
"I
mean
, you coming or going," the man asked with a sort of ferocious geniality, as if determined to gain a new pal before the landing gear was lowered.
I wish I knew
, I almost said, before realizing that such a response would surely lead the conversation into territory I didn't want to explore with a man who undoubtedly ate soup from a human skull.
It was sort of astonishing, really, how fast things had happened. While still in the throes of my three-lemonade-induced drunken scheming the other night, I had phoned my mother.
"You sound awful, Alvin," she said, mistaking my slurred, nonsensical speech as a symptom of the depression she knew had been devouring me for months. "You worry me so much. Every time the phone rings I'm afraid it's going to be someone calling to tell me you've blown your brains out."
"I don't own a gun, Mom," I said soothingly.
"You could borrow one."
For a second, I thought it was a suggestion. I was having trouble remembering the reason I had called her in the first place, and didn't want to get off on some other path.
"Have you been drinking?" Mom was finally starting to catch on.
"Naw, no ... I'm just sleepy. You know I haven't been sleeping well...."
Get to the point, the point!
the functioning portion of my besotted brain was hollering. A man on a mission, I cut my mom off as she started to offer some advice she had heard on Regis about keeping my feet warm. "I wanna come visit. See everybody. Maybe that'll ... do something for my state of mind."
When Mom called at noon the next day to tell me she had bought my plane ticket, I barely even remembered having discussed it. Now, a mere two days later, I was wedged into a seat next to this foul-smelling behemoth who wanted to know my story.
"Both, I guess," I mumbled, finally responding to the man's question. "I live in LA but I grew up in Albuquerque."
"Just going back to visit, then." This was followed by a shrill, arduous intake of air.
I muttered something in the affirmative and hoped like hell that would end the conversation, but the man forged onward.
"Business was my reason for being in LA – I'm a Burque boy." He punctuated this by producing a business card from his pocket and flicking it towards me between two fingers.
I stared in shock at the unwavering hand holding the card in front of my face. It was fucking
huge
, as if the man had his wrist crammed into the cavity of a whole chicken. Stippled with ground-in crud, the gigantic meat hook was encrusted with scabs, abrasions and calluses. I stole a glance at the man's other paw, which was equally large and battered. Tongue thickening in my mouth, I hesitantly took the card, careful not to make contact with the rugged digits that held it.
Boone
Butters
, it read,
Improvements
. There was a phone number at the bottom.
How scary is that?
I thought. And what the hell with that "Burque" business? I had lived in Albuquerque pretty much my entire life and never once heard anybody refer to it as "Burque," other than the writers – most of them out-of-state transplants – of a local alternative newspaper. I started to mention it, then realized that would be like inquiring as to the health of a little old lady on the bus or asking a
Star Trek
fan to name his favorite episode of the original series. Sleeping dogs, as they say.
Only this particular dog was refusing to cooperate.
"I do contract work," Butters grinned. "Sort of a freelance rogue, ha-ha." Another wheezing intake of air followed.
His smile revealed yet another bizarre defect – a tiny, perfectly round
hole
through his right front tooth, about the diameter of a toothpick. Was there no end to the horror? What kind of "improvements" could this shambling piece of human wreckage possibly offer? A television commercial for Butters's services began airing in my head:
Do you have an unwanted corpse that's troubling your sleep? Well now you can rest easy, friend, because here at Boone Butters Improvements, we can sever the head and limbs, knock the teeth out with a hammer, destroy any and all traces of forensic evidence in your home, office, car or boat, and spread the body parts over at least three states all for the low low price of –
Suddenly, the plane hit a wicked pocket of turbulence, lurching like a mechanical bull in a cowboy bar. Pitched in my seat, I rebounded off of Butters's ham hock of a shoulder, the impact releasing a thick whiff of the big man's stink. A few startled shrieks echoed throughout the fuselage, then, as quickly as it had happened, the plane settled into smooth flight once again.
"Whoops," came the pilot's voice over the P.A. system.
One or two passengers chuckled nervously. My heart thudded in my chest so hard I could feel each jet of blood pulsing upwards through the veins in my neck as if someone were slapping me. I swallowed hard and my mouth fell open to release a little gasp, or sigh, or something – all I knew for certain was that it was a pretty humiliating sound to squeak out. Butters's rancid odor settled over me like a radioactive cloud. My face became flushed; I felt like my head was inside a balloon that was rapidly deflating.
Abruptly and agonizingly aware of every sound on the plane – the drone of the passengers' nervous chatter, the rush of forced air circulating through the cabin, Butters's strained breathing – I flung myself from my seat and raced down the aisle to the bathroom. I tugged futilely at the handle, then anxiously glanced back at Butters, who had his cinderblock of a head poked out into the aisle, a puzzled expression on his face. I checked the sign –
unoccupied
– then tried the knob once more. This time, the door sprang open and I hurled myself inside.
Quickly locking the door behind me, I dropped the lid of the toilet and planted my ass on the plastic, my head lolling back to thunk against the wall. I stayed that way for several moments, eyes closed, gulping air; then, as my frantic heartbeat finally began to return to something approximating normal, I realized the embarrassing move I had just made. I didn't know what else to do, though – I only knew that I couldn't be around the passengers, around Butters, anymore. Besides, the sheen of cold sweat that slicked my torso was a pretty good case for my need to escape. I should've driven to Albuquerque; that way I wouldn't have had to inflict myself on other people.
I looked around the tiny room. The flight was almost at an end, anyway – maybe I could just wait it out in here.
What a mess I'd become. Although, to be honest, I had always been a mess – Alison just cleaned me up, helped create the illusion that I was a solid citizen, a good guy, relationship material. When she had left me (for
Chango!
– or whatever the fuck his name was, for God's sake), the facade had come crashing down, the tumbling debris of True Love Lost gouging an even deeper hole in the foundation than had existed previously. Over the past six months, I had delved into new depths of Loserdom, deficiencies within myself I never dreamed existed. I earned less money than the teenage girl who bagged my groceries at Ralph's and spent more hours than I'd care to admit sitting on the floor in my closet amidst a pile of dirty laundry and smelly shoes, weeping over photos of Alison. I went for walks but stuck to the side streets, feeling like all of Los Angeles somehow knew how inadequate I was – both in the arena of love and the Hollywood game; whenever I made eye contact with someone, I was certain they knew how much better off Alison was in her new improved life and that I was a miserable failure in every way the term could be applied. And worst of all, I couldn't shake the idea that Alison and her new fella were
out there,
on the town, balling it up with the beautiful people and having a better time together than two people had ever had in the entire history of having a good time.
Everywhere I went people seemed either fabulously successful or fabulously attractive (and many times both). I just kept losing weight and becoming more antisocial and timid. More out of desperation than anything else, I forced myself to wangle a few meetings with development execs around town – although agentless, I still maintained some tenuous contacts – hoping that I'd land an assignment and score not only some quick cash but a boost to my devastated ego. Those meetings only worsened my anxiety, and ultimately my misery as well. I'd go in, find out what the project was, go home and agonize over my take on the material, return to pitch it to the exec, then fall into a nervous fit of sweaty torment while I waited to hear whether or not I'd landed the job. Each disappointment sent me tumbling further down Hell's greasy shitter, any status I may have once had as a worthwhile human being (not to mention dateable individual) completely savaged. After one meeting wherein I delivered my stunningly pathetic approach for the American-language script on a Kung Fu movie the company had bought called
Fist of the Mystic Schoolboy
, I actually stooped so low as to purchase and burn several candles rumored to bring good luck. However, my Spanish not being the best, I didn't realize the instructions on these candles explicitly stated that they were not to be blown out until they had burned down completely, so I subverted the mojo by snuffing them before I went to bed. Needless to say, the assignment went to someone else.
As the plane rocked through a much smaller pocket of turbulence, I checked out my surroundings. I'd never been in an airplane bathroom before. The last time I had flown had been with Alison. We went to Cincinnati to visit her friend Katrina. I couldn't remember much about the trip other than that Katrina was really cool; in fact, outside of Alison, she was the coolest girl I had ever met. Her CD collection was full of 70s power pop and Iggy and the Stooges and all kinds of stuff that sounded like the Velvet Underground. She was also a huge fan of Lucio Fulci's
Zombie
, one of my favorite movies. The other thing I remembered was that Alison and I were only able to have sex one time during our visit – and that was cut short by the death of Katrina's dog.
We had been in Cincinnati about four days and it was making us nuts not being able to perform the deed. We were sleeping on an old mattress tossed on the living room floor and both felt a little weird about running wild and free in the middle of somebody's living room when that somebody and her boyfriend were up seventy-five times every night to pee, or have a snack, or get a drink so they could pee more later.
Finally, the urge became too much for us to bear. That night, we waited for the bedroom light to go out, then began ripping at each other's clothes like starving wolves turned loose in a pit full of rabbits. We proceeded with somewhat nervous abandon, alert for Katrina's familiar waking-up-to-pee cough or the sound of the bedroom door squeaking open, a sense of terrified urgency gripping both of us – probably very much like that felt by the man in shark-infested waters mere feet from the arms that would pull him to safety, sure that the frightful jaws would clamp down on him at any second.
We're going to make it
, I allowed myself to think as we pulled into the home stretch,
We're gonna pull this off.
Then, from the bedroom, the snorting began.
Wretched, thunderous, as if a pig the size of a buffalo were going into labor. Alison and I both nearly leapt from our skins, untangling like a hose had been turned on us. Sweating and panicky, we cowered in the dark, clutching the blankets to ourselves. At first, I attributed the god-awful racket to Katrina's boyfriend, but as the bedroom light came on and the sound of agitated voices reached us, I realized it was something else.