The One Percenters (5 page)

Jill Caine isn’t so bad either. “Ed and Jill Caine on a stroll down Lovers’ Lane,” we used to say. Well, she used to say it. It’s a bit corny for a man’s tastes. Jill called me Edward; I liked that she did. I once called her Jillian. She didn’t take to that so much. I never called her Jillian again, even during our very rare arguments.

She had two brothers. The younger of the two was named Iggy. Not short for Ignatious or anything
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punk like that. Just Iggy. He works as a laborer for a contracting company and speaks with an inexplicable light British accent. Damnedest thing you’d ever hear, and it comes on strong when he’s been imbibing. Not in the way that some people affect an accent to appear blue-blooded. This is real.

Iggy and I got on well. He was and is a simple man living a simple life. The man has a sink full of friends. He doesn’t take himself too seriously and is as funny as the day is long. He’s good people. I haven’t seen him since the funeral. My fault, not his.

Jill’s other brother is named Charles. I never met Charles. He was born with a mental blip, as I once heard it euphemized. He was “the other McIntyre.” He’s resided at Dayton Institution since he was quite young. He earned his room and board by burning down a public building, after which they were forced to retain him for, um, a while. People tend to get upset when you burn down their buildings, especially when people work inside of them. The employees did manage to get out in time, but Charles had used a decent accelerant, and the firefighters were a little tardy in their arrival.

Apparently there wasn’t much left of the place in the end. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I often wonder his intent in setting the fire. Maybe he was too smart for his own good.

Jill didn’t see Charles after she was ten, which must have meant he was pretty far into the next world.

I once overheard Jill’s dad talking to a friend about his elder son while having drinks. It seems his brain was deteriorating, and after a few months of being institutionalized, he qualified as human only in the barest terms. All rationality was gone, like with those children raised by wolves. I don’t know why nature is so cruel, but it sure makes the world more interesting.

To think of it, Jill had a pretty tough life. Between losing Charles to insanity or whatever you want to call it and losing her mother to a car accident, she had endured her share of pain and then some. This makes the fact that she was such a bright-shining person all the more remarkable. I like to think I had something to do with it, though I probably did not. I can only hope that her
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death was not too painful. She deserved a quiet exit.

I had hoped she would go as a silver-haired princess smiling in her sleep.

My apartment was looking dandy. I had stuck with the minimalist mentality, and my living room had only a rug, a television, and two beanbag chairs. Nice ones, though, not the kind where the beads fall out and make a mess. Those are for college kids who need a place to get lucky without fear of rug burn.

I would open the sliding glass door, and my apartment would suddenly feel like a cabana. I got the afternoon sunshine, which to me is the best two-word phrase in the English language next to Happy Hour.

My new oval rug was rather interesting too. It was black, with a zigzag of yellow tracing its edges, looking not unlike lightning bolts in the nighttime sky. The rug was soft and sweet on the ass. There are two things you should never skimp on in this world: carpeting and toilet paper. Your feet and ass deserve better, really they do.

Two months came and went like a shot. I was taking to my new town and was able to get through the day without once getting weepy. I now thought of Jill as being by my side, guiding me. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no spiritualist or séance-holding sage, and I wasn’t seeing ghosts. It’s just more comforting to think of someone you love in a good situation than to think of them as rotting underground. It wasn’t like I thought she was some sort of guardian angel or any of that horse shit. I’m aware that she’s fertilizer by now.

Jill wasn’t cremated. That was one thing we disagreed on. To her, the idea of the cemetery was a romantic one, which might sound odd. I guess she liked the idea of being buried with your loved ones and having the sun shine upon you. Maybe I’ll have myself buried just to make her happy. Maybe not. Something about bugs in my brain and maggots in my testicles.

For my money, cemeteries are the biggest and most selfish waste of space since golf courses. Or vice versa. I guess people have been dying longer than they’ve been golfing. Every time someone bogies, they should be shot on site and buried where they stand. We
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could kill two birds with one gravestone.

As it turned out, it was an hour’s drive to Binter.

I followed Cristen and her friends in my car while they rode in her pickup. They offered me what would no doubt have been a very crowded ride, but I politely declined. These people were new to me, and I wanted to be able to scram in a hurry if I wasn’t having fun.

Also, it’s nice to be able to stretch out in your own car.

My car wasn’t big, and I couldn’t really stretch out all that much, but it still made me feel better to ride alone.

I think it’s good to do things on your own—sink or swim—even if it just means driving separately once in a while. Otherwise you get weak.

We stopped at a drive-thru beer joint to get a couple of cases. They paid. I made a mental note to buy them something at the concert in return for their kindness.
Only to the kind doth kindness come
. I read that somewhere as a kid. Whoever wrote it needs a strong enema, I’m sure.

There was a cooler in the bed of the truck filled with hot dogs and snacks. Cristen’s friend Pat had brought along his charcoal grill to cook on. I wanted some mellow music for the ride, so I popped in a classical composer. One of the B’s, I think. I enjoy all types of music, but I am knowledgeable about very little of it. I like to let the magician keep his dirty little secrets to himself.

I was surprised by the size of Binter City. It’s a legitimate “city,” though it doesn’t get much press. It must be a sleepy town. We pulled onto Third Avenue and into the parking lot of the Sin Bin. I remember thinking it odd that we’d tailgate at a club. Normally I associate it with an arena-complex atmosphere. And normally it’s just a bunch of young hooligans, not a mixed group like the one at the Bin that day. What’s tailgating without painted faces and a couple of water bongs? I dropped my preconceived ideas when I saw the number of people out back drinking beer and cooking up dinner. What a waste of skin this all was. A bunch of slobbering drunks, slaves to the beast within.

The Sin Bin had a huge parking lot, though the
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club itself didn’t look all that sizable, contrary to my earlier assumption. I didn’t know how all of the people before me would ever fit through the front door.

My observation of the parking lot is the last thing I recall from that night.

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It was 9:30 am, and I smelled eggs. My stomach felt uneasy, and I moved slowly so as not to upset it further. The eggy smell certainly didn’t help, though it did make my stomach growl. I worked my way into a crawling position and peeked over the half-wall next to the sofa I was laid out on. I had no idea where I was.

Cristen tended to the stove, listening to music over headphones. I suddenly got a whiff of an odor far worse than that of the eggs. I looked to my right, too quickly. My stomach whined in complaint. There was a brown bag there that reeked of vomit. It was a wet, brown smell. The picture was starting to become clear.

I opened my mouth to speak, but found my lips and tongue were dried out. My head didn’t feel particularly good either, so I decided the situation was safe, and an explanation could wait. I put my head down on the pillow, and slept for two more hours. It wasn’t great sleep, but it helped.

“Ed. .”

“Ed. .”

“Edward. .”

Vague recognition. I opened my eyes to see two aspirin on the table in front of me, along with a towering blue glass of water. It might as well have been solid gold at that point. I reached for the glass. She had over poured, and the outside of the glass was wet with droplets. The cool water felt good against my hand.

“I thought you might appreciate that.” I turned my head to see Cristen. She wasn’t wearing the robe I saw her in earlier by the stove. She had showered and put her hair up, and she was now in a green shirt. The bottom was oranged by bleach and torn with age. I wondered how many men that shirt had known more intimately than me. Jill had men before Ed Caine, of course. I thought of them all in bed with her, naked. And all the women they had been with collectively. It would have had to have been a pretty big
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bed. It was a thought I wished to put out of my head immediately. I rubbed my eyes because they were still weak and cloudy. At last I gathered myself and spoke.

“I do appreciate it. Thank you.”

“No problem. Would you like something to eat?” I was starving, but I didn’t care to impose anymore than I had obviously done already.

“No, thank you. I take it this is your apartment?”

“Yep. We’re back in Clefton. I think you overdid it a bit last night.”

“I haven’t had a drink in six months. Kind of a promise I made to myself. Last night was the first time since then that I felt comfortable taking a sip.” Technically a lie. I had broken down two months ago and had a light beer. That doesn’t count though. Light beer is a ball game in a domed stadium.

“You must have felt damn comfortable.” She said it in a kidding, sprite-like way. She had a very pleasant voice. A mother has that voice—I’ll say it again. Like on the mornings when you wake up sick and can’t go to school and they serve you warm gelatin. Yeah, a mother has just that kind of voice.

“How much did I drink?”

“Between the lot and the club, probably fifteen.

I wasn’t keeping count though. I’m not your mother.”

“I haven’t blacked out like this since I was a kid.

I’m really sorry.”

She tossed me a smile and took a seat on the chair beside the sofa.

“Hey, no problem. You were really hamming it up last night, dancing with all kinds of people.”

“I don’t dance. My wife, um. .my ex. .Jill used to kid me all the time about it. It’s not in my blood.”

“Well, whatever. But you did dance. You had the whole place in stitches.” She paused, apparently aware that it was taking me a second to register. “How’d you like V.D.?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t remember seeing them.”

“Well, I’m sorry you don’t. My friends loved you though. Sandy thought you were witty. Quite the shit.” Sandy was tall and straight-bodied with
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muscular extremities. I remembered wondering if she played volleyball. Her forearms were bread loaves.

“How’d I get back?”

“We gave you a ride, though we had to leave your car there. I didn’t want to go fishing for your keys, you understand. They don’t tow since they close so late. I’ll take you to get it when you’re feeling up to it.” I had stopped listening. I was captivated by the small nubs poking at the front of her shirt. As a boy, we’re taught to like them big, but we come to find that the little perky ones are actually the best. They seem to smile at you. I was staring pretty good, too.

I wondered if Cristen sensed it. I wondered if maybe she was puffing her chest out a little in response.

The games we play, they’re so funny. Wrapping ourselves in polyester and suede, as if the parts beneath stop swingin’ and sweatin’ when we get on the subway or walk into the office. These days, all you have to do is remind a woman that she
is
a woman and you’ll elicit a smile. It makes them feel good to see that someone noticed. That’s how I got Alisha—the freak.

Ah, the three women in my life. The Angel, the Freak, and the Slut. Cristen was a slut; I could sense it. It sounds like some kind of twisted fairy tale or really bad joke. An angel, a freak, and a slut are in a bar talking about their best sex. The freak tells about a time in a bondage bar. The slut relates a story of once having had six men at once. The angel tells the others about an encounter on Cloud Nine. So the freak chimes in. “Sex on a cloud. Sounds dangerous. How do you do it?” To which the angel replies, “Ah, you just wing it.” I warned you it was bad, now, didn’t I?

Cristen rose from her seat and walked toward the refrigerator. She poured orange juice into one of the big, blue glasses. I really did admire those glasses.

I snapped back to reality. Her tits weren’t going anywhere.

“Look, I really appreciate all this. You could have just left me there. A lot of people would have.”

“It’s no problem, Ed. We all got to look out for each other, no?” She gave me a wink that left me unexpectedly excited.

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The morning progressed into afternoon, and I took a shower, for which I was grateful beyond belief.

The nozzle was high, and the water was hot and jetted with good pressure. The three keys to a good shower and thus a better life: heat, height, and pressure.

We jumped in the pickup to go get my car.

Normally, hangovers don’t go away fully until after your second night of sleep. For some reason, your body needs to go through two full sleep cycles to right itself.

That day, though, I felt better. It must have been the company, though the shower helped, too.