The Octopus on My Head (3 page)

“Me? I can talk to anybody about anything at any time, fucked up or not. Worth talking to,” he cocked an eye my way, “or not.”

“Yeah, sure. You get loaded and talk. It's different with me. I don't know about heroin, but all I want to do when I'm loaded on most other things is come down enough to get back to work. I don't want to talk to anybody, I don't want to fuck, I don't want to eat. All I want to do is work. Think of me as boring.”

“No problem.” Ivy made a minute adjustment to the height of the flame. “When you say work, you mean play.”

“When I say play, I mean work.”

“Work or play or none of the above, you're talking misanthropy. So, now what's the difference between you and me?”

Ivy was getting under my skin. “There's a big difference,” I said, annoyed. “If I'm too loaded to communicate with the outside world, I'm doing something wrong.”

“Which reminds me,” he said. “Can you delete that number from your phone's memory?”

“Huh? Yeah. Sure.”

“Do it.”

“What's the—”

“Just do it.”

“It'll be the last one.” I retrieved the cellphone from its holster and paged through the calls. “Area Code 510?”

“Let's see.”

I showed him.

“That's it.”

As I was about to delete it, he said, “Show me how you do that?”

I showed him.

“Cool. Now. Where were we?”

I indicated the flame. “We were discussing misanthropy.”

He watched it flicker. “So we were.” He reinitiated the cadence with the knife blades on the stove top, then lost interest. “It's different with me, Curly.”

“I know that, Ivy.”

He persisted. “Smoking this shit is one thing. Who cares what happens to me? Shut up,” he snapped, before I could say anything. “I hated that life. The music sucked, the gigs sucked, dragging the kit from bar to studio and back to another bar sucked, and the money sucked, too. At this point, you know it better than I do.”

“It still sucks,” I agreed.

“So why do it?” He held one knife vertical, like a baton. “Don't answer that.”

“Why not do it,” I said anyway, “is more like the question.”

“That's not an answer. Good. Non-answers are what I want to hear.”

“You were good, Ivy,” I countered hopelessly. “Better than good.”

“And you're completely mediocre, Curly. How can you stand it?”

I enumerated three fingers. “It's all I've got, it beats a day job, and you haven't heard me play in ten years.”

“I don't need to,” Ivy said softly, as if kindly.

That really pissed me off, but I let it pass. People can change and I had, but they don't have to, too, and Ivy hadn't. Ivy had made up his mind about all this stuff a long time ago.

“As to the day job, who knows?” When he proudly smiled, I realized that a slight sibilance in his speech came not from loss of control due to the drug but because his teeth, not merely going, were mostly gone. “I don't.”

“I do. I've had plenty of them.”

“That's true. You were a Xerox clerk at an accounting firm, or something, when I first met you.”

“Law firm. Before I quit, they promoted me to proofreader.”

Without betraying a particle of curiosity Ivy said, “What's that mean?”

“They give you documents and you proofread them. Not even copy-edit them, just proofread for spelling errors and punctuation. That's it. Each line in the document is numbered. They run to scores and even hundreds of pages. It's all legalese; you couldn't copy-edit it if you tried
….
How'd we get into this?”

“In discussing how low I've sunk, we were casting about for a standard of comparison.”

“Fuck you, Pruitt. I'm the one who came up with ten bucks without stealing a radio.”

“Who the hell said anything about stealing radios?”

“You know what I mean, you ingenuous sack of shit.”

“Ingenuous?” Ivy drew himself up to his full height. “I've been called a lot of things, Curly, but nobody, and I mean not a single person, ever, has called me ingenuous.”

“I'm charmed and castigated.”

“Throw in mediocre and you got a hit tune.”

“Let me make an entry in my diary,” I retorted.

But Ivy's attention had been drawn back to his tarball, which had been languishing on the saucer. He picked it up between the blades of the two knives as handily as an egret employs its bill to pluck a tick off the hump of a Brahma bull.

“How are you making it, anyway?” I looked around the kitchen. “Your gas bill must be enormous.”

“Every day,” Ivy said, rolling the drug in the flame, “I get an old friend to feel sorry for me.” Abruptly he wheeled and held the fuming tarball directly under my nose.

“Son of a b—”

“You know all those sixteenth notes you hate to practice, Curly? The thing about this shit you're gonna like is it makes it feel like you got a whole bar to play each one of them.”

“But you don't have a whole bar, man, you—”

“We're gonna do it all, Curly,” he declared. “Breathe deep.”

I was just about to pass out when Ivy abruptly removed the apparatus from beneath my nose and positioned it under his own.

“Mmmm…,” he groaned, without opening his mouth. Thirty seconds later he laughed the peculiar, powerless laugh of the heroinated, exhaling not a wisp of smoke. “One part for you and two parts for me—wouldn't you say?”

As I was coughing little clouds like a preteen cigarette smoker, the room began to fill with uniformed police officers.

Chapter Three

S
AYS HERE IN THE PAPER,” SAID A GUY SITTING AGAINST THE
cold tile wall to my left, “that a tumor in your asshole can rupture your colon.”

“I got your tumor,” said the guy sitting against the wall to my right. When I turned to look at him he looked me back and said, “I got yours, too, motherfucker.”

“It don't say asshole in the
Chronicle
,” said a third guy, lying on his back on the padded floor against the opposite wall with his arm over his eyes. “The
Chronicle
is a family newspaper.”

“That's true,” the guy with the paper confirmed. “I was translating for the benefit of the rectally challenged.”

“Probably says chocolate highway,” said the guy on the floor. “¡Aieee! ¡No más! ¡No más por favor!” he begged enthusiastically.

“Nope,” said the guy to my left, folding his newspaper. “Guess again.”

“Oh, no,” said a fourth voice. “Don't get them—”

“Bung hole,” said the guy with his arm over his eyes.

“Anus,” said the guy to my left.

“Tropical paradise.”

“Quiver for the fun gun.”

“Birth control.”

The guy on the floor folded his hands behind his head, keeping his eyes closed, and said, “Sphincter Concerto.”

“
Culo
,” countered the guy to my left, but it took him a second to come up with it.

“Real sex,” came the immediate reply.

“Unreal sex,” came the fierce response.

“
L'usine de gaz
.”

“Waiting for martyrdom.”

“Mortar for the pestle.”

“Better than camel.”

“The priest's retreat.”

“Greek vacation.”

“Nether lips….”

“Watkins!”

“Cecum of devotion.”

“Curly Watkins in here?”

“Perineal fiesta.”

“Yo,” said I.

“The astomatous solution….”

When the turnkey opened the door, two or three men stepped forward.

“Prolapsed rectum.”

“Not a chance,” said the turnkey, shooing them back. “Get out here, Watkins.”

“Cyclops on toast….”

The door banged shut.

“Pirate's delight.”

“Prostatic epiphany….”

“¡Aieee! ¡No más! ¡No más por favor!”

Long story short, since Ivy and I had smoked the evidence, I walked.

They had some paraphernalia to test, but the rate of crime is sky high in Oakland, the rate of real crime that is, murder and whatnot. I was far too small a fry to prosecute. Besides, those were Ivy's table knives, not mine. Not to mention, Ivy had a record, and I didn't.

All the numbers in my cell phone checked out, as the one club owner, four or five musicians, and nine or ten take-out restaurants listed in its memory now had reason to know; a persistent cop with a yen for acting called every one of them and tried to score dope from whomever answered. I'm sorry I missed out on that aspect of the investigation, but as the years went by, I heard about these calls. Most of them, anyway. The “Curly said you'd hook me up” bit put two or three people off me for good. Ah, well. Push comes to shove, you can never tell what's going to break up a relationship.

The instrument case in the trunk of my car was clean, too, although how they figured that out without destroying the guitar inside it makes for an interesting question. Sort of. My record was so clean it was hard for the cops to believe I was in the music business. Statute of limitations, I assured them. And besides, who called it a business? Not like crime is a business. One of the cops said he played a little cornet now and then. Cool, I said, did you bring your ax? He blushed and said no. Good, I said with certainty, and the other cops in the room got a laugh at his expense. Maybe they'd heard him play. But he was a sport about it.

Meanwhile, the computer had turned up some prior beef Ivy had run out on in San Francisco, so they shipped him across the bridge and called it a day. That, plus the fact that as Ivy and I came out of his apartment in handcuffs, a squad car pulled up with the two Mexicans in back, which made it a pretty good haul. Why keep the consumer when you've got his connection? That's a good question, but we're not here to debate the Broken Window Theory; we're here to celebrate our freedom by claiming our Honda from the police garage.

Unfortunately, towing a Honda Civic backwards does something to the transmission, which costs about $250 to fix. I rode with the second tow truck over the Bay Bridge to the Unocal on Market at Duboce where Jim Zhong, who runs the place, was cool, as usual, about my Honda dangling off a hook again. He'd keep it on his lot and repair it as soon as I could pay for it. More than a square deal.

So it was late by the time I had trudged back to the one hundred block of Haight Street. In spite of everything I still had time to grab a jacket and take a bus to work, when but whom should I find chain-smoking on my front steps but Ms. Lavinia Hahn—“Auntie” herself.

“Hi, Curly,” she chirped, her eyes as miotic as they were bright.

“Oh, no,” I said, with feeling.

She dropped her cigarette to the pavement with several of its brethren and crushed it beneath the sole of her boot. “What's the matter, Curly? Blood sugar down?”

“How'd you know?”

“I used to own a massage parlor.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “Can I come in?”

“What if I say no?”

“I'll tie you up and make you watch my video until you say Auntie.”

“Auntie.” I gathered the mail in the front hall and led her up the stairs. Three flights later I opened the apartment door and stepped aside. “If you need to shoot up, the bathroom's on the right.”

“I'm cool,” she said, brushing by me, trailing the by now unmistakable odor of combusted tarball. Once you've identified the smell, you begin to notice it often.

“I always thought so.”

“Besides,” she said, appraising the apartment without bothering to conceal her disdain, “I don't carry weight when I'm working.”

Wearily I closed the door and stood the guitar case against the wall in the modest entryway. “What brings you to Hayes Valley?”

“You, of course.” She breezed through the living/dining/sitting/practice room and set about checking her makeup in a mirror that overhung the kitchen sink.

“You, of course,” I parroted. I noticed a blinking light on the answering machine and pushed the Play button. “I hear that video of yours is all the rage.”

“Rave,” she said past the tip of a lipstick. “Rage is for people who drive cars too big to park.”

“Curly,” growled the answering machine, “you asshole.” It was the voice of Padraic Mousaief, who owned a coffee house way out Judah, almost to the beach. “Today this guy calls me to score for dope and says you told him I can hook him up? What the fuck? Not only that, he had to be a cop. You think this is funny? Do you have any idea what it means to be an immigrant in this country?”

“You know what my uncle and eleven of his sons do for a living in the Bekaa Valley?” I muttered unhappily.

“Although,” Lavinia observed, “Talking back to your answering machine is symtomatic of rage, too.”

“I think,” Padraic continued, “is best you are canceled tonight and from now on, at least until you come to me with an open heart and explain to me why it is I should not deny employment to a man who peddles dope.”

“Who doesn't cut me in,” I added. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” said Padraic. Three beeps indicated that there were no more messages, and the machine turned itself off.

“Why is it,” I said to the wall, “that nobody calls a cell phone with bad news? What if I had gone straight from jail to my gig, instead of coming home to freshen up first?”

“They learned it from Hollywood,” Lavinia said from under an eyeliner brush. “You know what the second hardest answer to get in Hollywood is?”

“No,” I said, browsing through the mail for something that was going to get me out of this fix.

“That's right. Very good.”

“Flyers, postcards, and performance calendars from every bar or club or coffee house I've ever played in—wait. Here's one from a street corner I used to play on.” I culled the two phone bills—two phones, right?—and dropped the rest of the mail into the trash. “What's very good?”

“Your answer. It was correct.”

“I need a drink.”

“What,” Lavinia pursed her lips at the mirror, “no blowjob?”

I shook my head sadly. “I can't get it up.”

“You really know how to make a girl feel attractive, Curly. You send me, though. And how.”

“Not far enough, evidently.”

“Don't be so paranoid, Curly. I won't bite it off.”

“Why not? Because your teeth are still in a jar next to the coffin you sleep in?”

Not to be outdone Lavinia hissed like, presumably, a vampire; like, presumably, she would know.

“I could have been a bag man,” I said morosely, “or a stock broker. Numbers come naturally to me. I've counted sheep into the millions. But no. I had to become a bohemian. Not only that, I had to become a musician, too. My star must be an asterisk. Where's my beret?”

“You followed your bliss,” Lavinia suggested.

“I wish she followed me once in a while.” I squeezed past Lavinia into the kitchenette, covered a glass of ice with three ounces of vodka, and toasted her face in the mirror. “I never drink when I work.” I took a big swallow. “Hard alcohol, I mean.”

“Then take it easy, Curly. I came here for a favor.”

I perched on a countertop and watched her in the mirror. Lavinia was under forty, no longer looked it, yet still managed to remain attractive. While her complexion had the grayish pallor of freshly hung drywall, the bluish blush and mauve eyeliner and dusky rose lip-gloss she deployed only enhanced it. The considerable money she spent on facials and mud baths in Calistoga only served to leave her skin with the unwrinkled sheen of a glazed doughnut. The net effect was an artificiality, which, if
à la mode
, so belied her eyebrows that they looked applied rather than expertly shaped. The traffic-vest orange of her hair only accentuated the impression that her hairline wasn't a line at all, but a seam. For all the time she spent applying cosmetics, I might as well have been mooting existentialism with a clown in the green room.

Yet, and yet, Lavinia's carriage, her self-possession, her intelligence, and our erstwhile friendship, which predated her two disastrous years with Ivy Pruitt by five or six more years, disposed me favorably towards her.

“Ivy sent me.”

“Ivy's in jail.”

“They gave him a phone call.”

“You'd think they'd learn.”

“Guy's got rights.”

“Lavinia?”

“Curly?”

“How many times has Ivy been in the pokey?”

She permitted herself a little smile. “How many lesbians can dance on the head of a pin, Curly?”

“But aren't there theoretical limits? What happened to three strikes?”

“Curly, don't quote me, but you really got to fuck up to get three strikes laid on you.” Her eyes caught mine in the mirror. “It's like getting busted for dope.”

“How's that?” I sighed, feigning interest.

She turned around and stabbed at the floor with a 1963 Buick Riviera Purple eyeliner brush for emphasis. “You've got to try
really hard
to get busted for dope in Oakland,” she said with mock earnestness. “Almost as hard as in San Francisco.” She started laughing.

“No doubt my expression is caught between a smirk and a grimace,” I said ruefully.

“That little nocturnal mammal of your spirit spiked on the thorn of the moment by the shrike of your dignity.” Lavinia tried to smile, but her lower lip was slack.

“The leer of the sensualist,” I said quietly.

“The fuck you say.” She turned back to the mirror.

“That fact is, Lavinia, I need the job, I'm a very straight boy these days, and I'm decidedly uncomfortable with the position into which Ivy seems to have landed me with a mere flick of a couple of table knives. I'm more than uncomfortable. I'm annoyed and cornered. That dalliance cost me a job and some auto repairs, not to mention ten bucks, and I'm not exactly flush.” I took a sip of vodka. “More like flushed. Or about to be.”

“It cost you a job.” Lavinia continued with her makeup. “I've heard about that job.”

I couldn't help myself: “You saw that review in the
Bay Guardian
? About my gig at the Caffeine Machine?”

“Heard about it,” Lavinia said. “I also heard it pays you forty-five dollars a night.”

I nodded. “And all the coffee I can drink.” Of course she hadn't seen the review.

“Coffee keeps you awake.”

“Water, then.”

“Bottled water?'

“Hetch Hetchy; the freshest municipal water in the world. Plus a meal.”

“Tap water.” Lavinia fluttered her eyelashes at the rust-flecked mirror as if it were a camera.

“Yeah? So? It was a job. J-O-B. You remember what that is? Three nights a week, all year round, and whatever charts I felt like playing, they didn't mind.” I rattled the ice in my glass. “I was getting paid to practice.”

“With that and rent control,” Lavinia observed accurately, “a guy could tread tap water for the rest of his life.”

“Fuck you very much,” I said politely. I tried for another bracing swallow of vodka, only to get an ice cube against the incisors. I looked at the glass. It looked at me. “My vessel is drained of its essence.”