The Language of Men (18 page)

"So serious," she said, as I climbed in. She took me back to our house, where she had a tuna fish sandwich waiting for me. She never asked me why I didn't want to stay in school for lunch, but she had to have known something was wrong. She didn't say anything, which was a relief. She sat with me and we talked as if we were two old girlfriends catching up. I could almost forget that I had to go back to school.

But soon I was glancing at the clock so much it seemed like the minutes changed each time I blinked. When she dropped me back at school, she waited in the parking lot until I walked inside. Sometimes I watched her from the window, not sure if she could still see me. I felt like I needed to make sure she didn't stay there for the rest of the day.

I looked across the library table at Mia. She bit into her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and quickly wiped the crumbs off her biology textbook. Then she pulled out her large three-ring binder, the one that was divided into two sections, spread it open in front of her and made notes too small for me to read.

I still had one friend left: Marlon. His mother held him back in elementary school—she might as well have locked him in the basement. So, luckily for me, our friendship operated outside of the Mia situation. He didn't hang out with my old friends; he had a whole different group. Marlon was that rare anomaly in high school—an art weirdo with thick black glasses and paint-splattered clothes who managed to transcend all social boundaries. Everyone liked him: jocks, nerds, band geeks, preppy girls and, of course, all the other art weirdos. More and more, I became known as "Marlon's friend."

Marlon's core group of friends were skaters, adrenaline junkies who seemed to know exactly who they were and didn't care if anyone had a problem with that. They had a look, an attitude, a natural confidence I hoped would rub off on me. They reminded me of my brother's friends: grungy and wild—kids who drank beer on the walk to school, got kicked out of class, started fights. Some of the high school teachers still remembered my brother and his friends, but they never seemed to make the connection between me and him. Perhaps they looked at the name, a quick flashback like a bolt of lightning, but took one glance at the quiet kid in the back row and dismissed any possible relation.

While Don was in California, we wrote each other letters. Sometimes they were four or five pages long. In each one, I found out some new detail about him that I hadn't known before. He wrote about so-and-so who lost her virginity in my bed, what nice tits she had, or how he and his friends used to score acid from a guy in Washington Square Park and bring it back to our house for parties. I thought about the secret trips my friends and I took to Stop & Shop for Jolt Cola and Doritos. He was way out of my league.

Don would also write to me about a cool new band, or the title of a movie he said I had to see, immediately. I sat in his old room listening to these strange bands—The Lemonheads, Jane's Addiction, They Might Be Giants. I watched the long, slow Jim Jarmusch movies he recommended. Often the actors in these movies—Iggy Pop, Tom Waits—were also the musicians he told me to listen to. It seemed to me that actors and musicians shared something, a mutual desire to do what the other was doing. I saw both as ways to escape, to get outside myself, to be someone else. Sometimes, late at night, I'd pull Don's old guitar out of the attic and pretend I was Gary Oldman pretending to be Sid Vicious.

I also found out from Don's letters that he worked at a porn shop in California. After that, my letters were filled with orders for me and my new friends for porno tapes and magazines, but he never sent any. Recently, I searched through an old shoe box in my mother's attic and found dozens and dozens of notes from Mia, but none of my brother's letters. At the bottom of the shoebox was a stack of blank paper, as if my brother had written his letters with invisible ink.

"COME OVER, DUDE. I haven't seen you in forever." Marlon inhaled sharply, then exhaled.

"I know, man. I know. I'm sorry." I stared at the letters on my phone, as if they'd spell out an excuse.

"It's that chick, isn't it? You and your fucking girlfriends."

"I've only had two."

"Two too many. Ditch her for one night."

I listened to him breathe into the phone and looked around my room. Remnants of my brother's high school life were still clearly visible, even though I had moved in several months before. The burn marks on the rug, the paint-splattered canvases in the closet, the faint smell of incense or patchouli. Marlon's words flowed out of the phone, coursed through the room, absorbing a strange power, as if saturating the dried remains of my brother's life, and finally soaked into my ears.

"Be there in ten."

I pressed the last digit of Mia's phone number and worked up some phlegm in my throat.

"Oh, poor baby, what's wrong?" Mia asked.

"I don't know," I coughed. "I just feel terrible."

She clucked, and let out a long sigh of concern. "I'll stop by with some chicken soup."

"No," I said. "Thanks, but that's okay. I just need to sleep it off."

"Okay. I'll be here if you need me."

My father was on the couch watching a Clint Eastwood marathon. I asked him if I could borrow his Monte Carlo to go to Marlon's house.

"Can't you just walk over to Brando's?"

"We were gonna go to the movies later."

My father dug through his bowl of peanut shells until he found a few that were still closed. He shook them in his hand like dice.

"Movies, huh?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Try to leave me with a little more than fumes in the tank."

I knew he'd say yes. If I had asked him to borrow his Chevy pickup, he would have looked at me like I was insane. He let me drive the Monte Carlo because it was our old family car. The first time my mother saw the Monte Carlo was when my father pulled it into our driveway. We drove it everywhere, until a different car caught my father's eye. My father couldn't completely abandon the Monte Carlo; he still washed and waxed it, scrubbed the dash and console with an old toothbrush, but it wasn't untouchable like his Chevy.

Marlon's basement was like an underground bunker, the place where he and his friends gathered to prepare for the night. The place where they got drunk before getting really drunk. The basement looked the same as when Marlon and I recorded our radio show. The walls were still lined with metal shelves crammed with hammers and screwdrivers and boxes of nails and broken telephones and skateboard wheels and a busted alarm clock. Open bags of top soil, one roller skate, piles of old keys, pieces of wood, empty cans of spray paint. In the middle of the room were stains of all kinds—oil or beer or vomit or blood (sometimes the night devolved into wrestling matches). Dozens of crushed cigarette butts sprinkled the floor. In the corner of the room, Marlon had arranged two old couches and a couple of cinderblocks for us to sit on and listen to music. Smoke rose from our mouths and hung in the basement with nowhere to go.

Two of Marlon's friends, Mike and T.J., were already there when I showed up. Mike had a reputation for drinking a lot, passing out and pissing his jeans. T.J. was the fat one of the group, but people knew better than to say that to his face. They were pouring cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon into a giant funnel. Mike had his thumb over the end of a long rubber tube. He ran his other hand through his long blonde hair. T.J. looked at him.

"Go, dude."

Mike wrapped his lips around the tube and the beer rushed into his throat.

"Yeah," Marlon whispered. "Suck it, you faggot." Mike ignored him, swallowing three PBRs in under a minute. He collapsed onto the couch. "Nice one," T.J. said.

Marlon sat on the other couch, carving something into the armrest with a nail file. I sat in the corner, sipping a beer, listening to their conversation.

"Is Jim coming out tonight?" Marlon asked T.J.

"I think so. Tommy and Will are supposed to pick him up."

"Cool."

Marlon's mix CD started to skip. He popped it out, spat on it, rubbed it on his shirt and dropped it back into his stereo. "Wait. Tommy's driving?" Marlon asked. "No. Will's got his mom's station wagon," T.J. said. "Will's overrated," Marlon said. "Stop with that shit," Mike said.

Marlon lit a cigarette, pushed his thick black glasses up his nose. "I just got no use for the kid, that's all. Pretty worthless if you ask me."

"Except when he's giving you a ride."

"Yeah, well, fuck you. I don't need Will's mom's station wagon. D'Aries has his dad's Monte. Anyways, I'm not even going out tonight." He nodded at me, the tip of his cigarette glowing brighter.

I had no idea who all these dudes were. Their names bounced inside my head like ping-pong balls. Aside from nodding when Marlon introduced me to Mike and T.J., we hadn't acknowledged each other in any other way. We spoke through Marlon.

"Stop with that shit," Mike said. "You're going."

Marlon was freaking out about tonight because we were going to a party at Jamie's house in Kings Park. He claimed to have narrowly escaped a beating in Kings Park, not too far from Jamie's house, though none of us were there to witness it. Marlon didn't care; he wasn't going back.

"I'm telling you, man, those guys know me."

After a few more beers, he said he'd come but he wasn't getting out of the car. He'd stay in the car all night and drink and pass out and that was it.

We piled into the Monte. Marlon sat shotgun and told me we had to make a few quick stops. By the time we were done, the Monte was packed with people and beer. Marlon slapped me on the back.

"D'Aries, everyone. Everyone, D'Aries." Hats and hoods and brown paper bags filled the rear view mirror. We nodded at each other. I shifted into drive.

Main Street in Northport looked fake, like you could peek behind the storefronts and see a camera crew. It was lined with antique shops, flower shops, bookstores. At the end, just before the street met the harbor, there was a diner and a tackle shop. Main Street in Kings Park wasn't much different, but it didn't feel the same. There was a big used car dealership in the middle of town. Some of the stores were boarded up. There were a few more bars. The train station was visible from Main Street in Kings Park, unlike in Northport, where the train station was tucked neatly away. Kings Park High School was massive, probably double the size of ours, and as soon as we passed it, we were officially out of Northport.

T.J. shouted directions. We turned off Main Street and entered a tangle of dark side streets. Left here, left here, right, now left. Our street signs in Northport were big, green and white. These were smaller, dark blue with white letters that barely reflected our headlights. I drove slowly, hunching over the wheel to read the signs.

We came to a street lined with cars. Packs of kids, all walking in the same direction, moved up the sidewalk. In the distance, I heard a beer bottle smash against the pavement. I looped around the block twice before I gave up and parked on the next street over. We all got out except Marlon. T.J. handed me a case of PBR. As I adjusted it under my arm, I knocked on the glass. Marlon shook his head.

"Fuck him," T.J. said and walked away.

Part of me envied Marlon. I wanted to stay in the car all night with him, safely sipping warm beer and laughing. Driving to the party was one thing. Going in was another. Marlon was right, "those guys" did know him. "Those guys" knew all of us. I turned back and watched the red glow of Marlon's cigarette bloom and fade.

The Kings Park kids were mostly jocks: sharp gelled hair, square jaws, oversized hooded sweatshirts and warm-up pants. I dressed a little grungier that night, old clothes my brother had left behind, so I'd fit in with Marlon's friends. The Kings Park kids stared at us as we cut through the crowd.

We followed each other around for the first half hour or so and then we somehow split up and worked our way into the different subgroups. I thought about Jamie's parents who were out of town. They had to know that the second they left, their home would be infested with drunken teenagers, turning their potpourri palace into a hazy bar. The furniture in each room was pushed against the walls; all of the lamps, vases, and glass tables were packed into the garage. It looked like Jamie was preparing to move.

There were people in all of the bedrooms, and in every hallway. Crowds filled up the kitchen, living room, dining room, and basement. People sat on the stairs and on the counters. Groups of girls hung out in the bathroom. A crew of guys stood outside on the patio, shifting the keg and pouring in more ice. Bloated cigarette butts floated in red plastic cups; beer bottles balanced on the window sills. I watched Mike take a few sips of his beer, then pour some on the carpet, take a few more sips and pour more on the carpet, while T.J. ripped leaves off a plant and stuffed them behind the couch. Everyone and everything was fair game.

I started playing cards with one of the dudes I drove to the party and a group of girls. He seemed to be fitting in pretty well, so I figured I'd just sit down and nod and smile and be polite. He was talking to a skinny redhead. Her eyes drooped at the corners and she had lots of freckles. She was sitting very close to him, looking at his cards. He'd catch her peeking, make a show of it, and she'd laugh and hold onto his forearm. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at the group of girls in the kitchen, as if to say,
Get your own, dude.
I got up and went outside.

Somebody ordered a stack of pizzas. Mike and T.J. had already finished one.

"It's Steve's birthday." A glob of tomato sauce was stuck in the corner of Mike's mouth.

"Who the hell is Steve?" I asked.

"You know, Steve."

"D'Aries says he doesn't know Steve," T.J. said with his mouth full.

Mike scoffed. A black lab circled the table.

"Here comes Steve now," Mike said.

"Hey, Steve, what's up?" T.J. took a slice and threw it on the ground. Steve chomped on it. We started laughing. I pulled up a chair and took two slices of pizza. I ate one and tossed the other to Steve.