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My old man, back when, on the run (stage right) in his Dodge Omni, headed with the boys to Mr. Loeffler’s one-room on Greenmount because they heard he’d let the kids drink his Mad Dog if they’d keep him company and listen to alternative rock music on his shitty radio and ignore the smell and the way he’d sit on his bed and hum and rub his stomach while they talked. They ignored it because that’s what you do when you’re on the run from something or another.
They went and he didn’t have a bathroom and they sat on his carpet that smelled like feet and they drank and talked about leaving Baltimore and heading west, and they talked about Joey and his straight-edge outfit, and about how (given recent events) Joey’s daddy was probably going to club Joey to death with a rock. They were drinking a lot and listening to something by the Replacements on the radio, and Mr. Loeffler was all dandruff and molars and ears, and he was sitting and listening. Roger used the word “floozy” twice in one sentence and told them he’s been sneaking his mom’s diet pills. He said he’s taking them and that when she runs out in two weeks maybe she’ll check her schedule book and realize there’s some three dozen missing. And that she’ll flip her shit and call poison control because she’ll be worried she took them in her sleep or that the Xanax is making her forget things again. He said he’ll laugh and laugh until his father beats him half-silly with a coat hanger, and when the boys said wait but like why are you up to that sort of thing anyway, with the diet pills, he got real quiet and had to think for a long time before he said his Ma don’t need no fucking diet pills.
Pops said real slow that there’s no shortage of people willing to throw out knees and backs for the rich man, and that’s why Joey’s daddy is going to club Joey to death with a rock, and his boys said hell yeah, and Pops said hell no and told Roger that he’s looking slimmer, at least. They turned to Loeffler, perched on bedsheets covered with like grease and also semen, humming and rubbing his stomach, and they said thanks for the booze by the way, and they asked him if he had a bathroom, and also what he thinks about all of this, naturally—this business of being alive. He said something but they forgot.
How the story goes is that at some point after dark a landline rang from underneath the bed, or maybe the couch. A bright and shrill ring, out of nowhere, and for some reason it startled my old man enough to make him cry and pick all the scabs off his hands and wrists. He cried and he said we can’t never go back. And Loeffler stopped rubbing his stomach and unhinged his jaw over his wire-rims. Pops dug his band-aids out of his backpack, and then Roger threw up all over the floor. The stains ended up looking like milk.
When I was still in school, Pops would start this story by telling me that you’ll never admire your capacity to tell stories more than when it occurs to you that your children will never be anything like you. After we started shooting junk together, he’d start with let me tell you why I hate landlines.
I remember seeing what I imagined were the same kind of milk-stains when I found the dad-in-question dead face-down in a puddle of his own puke, on the yellow shag behind the couch, and I wonder if he would’ve smiled at them or else known they were coming. I cradled his head in my lap and then I walked up the street to the Benfield House and got sober for two weeks.
And I remember, much later, seeing the same genre of puke running from milkshake cups, or from brown paper bags, or from the sides of flip-top trash cans—in any number of sallow house shows or venues on that same side of the city. In loving memory of my old man, I became something so much different. Never let anyone tell me I didn’t have purpose.
How this one goes is that I was drinking stale coffee I found under the bus seat, and I was riding the purple route and looking for a connection and also a bite, out looking for skinheads and only skinheads between 25th Street and Penn Station to give them a flyer for the show at Metro Gallery, which, according to my watch, had already started. Wads got Scrum Teeth to play and I was doing him a big favor by running flyers and trying not to look too strung out in exchange for free drinks and maybe a cheeseburger if I was lucky. It was half-past eleven, and it was dark out, and also cold.
I’d been on the ride for two hours, and I was finding no one and I was getting really hungry and bored. The bus was stuck on the return on East 22nd, and I badly wanted to smoke and the only other person on beside the driver was somebody’s grandma.
I’m hungry, is what I said aloud, and my two bus-bound companions didn’t stir. I said it again—I sure am hungry—and grandma-lady turned over her shoulder and said eat me, bum, and I said who’re you calling bum. She said you’re bum, and I said not on my honor. I said screw you anyway and tried to light a cigarette to the tune of the crank bus driver, who leaned to the right and shouted you can’t smoke in here, and I shouted back stuff it mister, and also why aren’t we moving, anyway, and he said I’m waiting for somebody, and I said that’s not how public transit works. He said if you don’t like it, then you can get off my bus. And I thought that was kind of an asshole thing to say, but at that point I was pretty sure I was seeing some slicks walking down-block, so I figured I’d just get off. I thumbed my nose at grandma-lady and grabbed my flyers and ditched my coffee and mooned the driver and jumped onto the street, into a puddle, and I hustled.
I ran after them with my legs and shouted hey wait up, and then I said I’ve got something for you, and as soon as I said it I realized they weren’t thumbs at all, just kids I was pretty sure I’ve seen around, with jackets and boots, wearing hats that looked misleadingly flesh-colored, and they were like hey aren’t you Leonard, and that’s when I knew I wasn’t getting any cheeseburger. I said that’s me, and a girl who I recognized, who was called Jackie I thought, was like this is Leonard, haven’t you seen him around, and I said that’s me. I apologized and said I thought you were somebody else, and that I could’ve sworn you were all bald. Jackie said where are you headed tonight, Leonard, and I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, because Wads told me I was supposed to connect with skinheads and only skinheads, and these were explicit instructions. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, and so for some reason totally inaccessible to me at the time, I said I was down and on the run, and that I needed to get out of here, to Philadelphia, or else to Newark, or Hoboken, or maybe just New York. And they said legally on the run, and I said spiritually on the run, and they laughed and clapped me on the back, and Jackie said isn’t he just the funniest guy, and I liked the way that made me feel. They said I should come with them to this house show up in Barclay, in Slim’s basement, and they didn’t wait for me to respond but just jostled me along. Jackie said what are those flyers in your hands, and I said something I can’t remember.
We were walking and it was still cold and the walk was longer, and I was still hungry, and when we got to Slim’s it was packed. You could hear the music down the street. There were a lot of people in and around Slim’s basement, which I knew wasn’t going to be too big, because Slim kind of lived on Greenmount right where my brother used to live. I asked if there was food and/or free drinks. Jackie told me that Slim got this band called Shitfuck or something to play for free, to celebrate so-and-so graduating from city college. It was very loud, and there was music. Shitfuck was supposed to be some post-hardcore band except none of them could play. She said you can eat in a second, let me show you to my friends.
And so we got off the street and into the basement, still walking, and I had this big head-throbber because I hadn’t even gotten to smoke yet and Jackie kept having us pass in front of the monitors to see new people, who all wore the same thing, always, and she’d grab my elbow and push me toward them and say this is Leonard, and we found him down near 22nd Street, and also Leonard tell them what you were up to when we found you. And I’d say I was on the run, and then Jackie would say like no tell them what you told us, and I would and they’d laugh and say you’re so funny, and that it’s so good to see you (me), and then they’d say don’t be a stranger and vanish into the throng. I asked Jackie if her friends were making fun of me and she’d make the sort of face that you make when you accuse someone of making fun of you, and she said of course not, and also they love you, and also I love you, and let’s get you something to eat and also to drink.
We went to the table behind the couch and I shoveled pizza into my mouth and Shitfuck started to make these bird noises with their instruments, and the drummer was so god-awful that he accidentally lapsed into double-time swing. I turned to tell Jackie that I was pretty sure they were playing something Mingus, but she was gone. I wasn’t alarmed, and I had a private revelation about how deliberately un-sexy everything around me looked and smelled.
Which was when this guy called Cheese sidled up beside me, deliberately un-sexy and also smelly, and he said you must be Leonard, and I said yeah, and he said you’re the guy who’s on the run, and I said yeah. And Cheese got real close so I could smell Cheese’s cheese-and-wine-breath and he said don’t you know that only basket-case fruits want to leave all of this behind. I said something like get out of my face, I’m trying to eat pizza here, which is really the only reason I’m here in the first place, if you think about it. Pizza or else a cheeseburger at Metro Gallery. And this slick said they don’t even sell cheeseburgers at Metro Gallery you freak—just drinks, and I said that’s rats because I’m sober, don’t you know.
Cheese, playing profound, said people like you never change, and I was like what’s that supposed to mean. He said being on the run is actually this terribly gauche thing, right, and I said you better watch your fucking mouth because you don’t even know me, and before he could even say anything back or hit me, some other guy was throwing up all over the couch.
Shitfuck wouldn’t stop playing, and at that point the lead was sounding more saxophone than guitar, and the whole assembly seemed to scramble and then orbit, momentarily, around this kid, skinny and black, puking all over the carpet—dense globular stuff that looked like milk. And smelled like pennies. Slim was there and his face was red and he was saying you’re cut off, you’re cut off, and somewhere around there I saw Jackie. She said oh there you are, and we watched the kid throw up and then dry heave. Jackie was wrinkling her nose like she thought it was gross. Nobody really wanted to see dry heaving, and the throng had already resumed prior thronging. I said these guys don’t stop for nothing do they, referring to Shitfuck, and Jackie said of course not.
Jackie said do you want to dance, and I told her I was feeling like I should hug him, and she said who, and I said Pukester McGee over there, and she said no way should you do that. I told her somebody should, and she said something I can’t remember, and I just started walking for the kid with my arms outstretched, like Zombie Jesus, and Jackie shouted don’t, and I said he needs this, and somebody else said he’s dry-heaving, and I said isn’t that just perfect for both of us, and that’s the last I remember from that place.
I can’t remember whether I got bored or whether I got hungry again and the pizza ran out, or whether Slim and his boys beat me up and tossed me out onto the sidewalk with the other slicks and junkies and said get out and get some air, for fuck’s sake, and also you’re weirding everybody out. Exactly what I was doing wasn’t clear. But eventually I got sick of that place and smoked Jackie and sort of left.
I remember falling into a puddle on my way up and out, and I remember jumping back at my boots and shouting I got my ass wet—with a real sibilant ass. On the street it was either raining or about to rain. Some bum trying to peek through the window asked me for a smoke and said hey brother what’s your story. I said it’s a cruel world where you can’t even hug anymore, and he said I could use a hug right about now, and I said okay that’s fine I guess.
Which is how I was kicking again, back out alone (stage right) on foot and it was cold and wet and dark outside, but my belly was full and that wasn’t nothing. I walked down-block Greenmount for some time until I found one of those idyllic payphones beneath an idyllic orange streetlight, and I said what the hell and decided to give the old man a ring. I drew little shapes in the condensation on the booth. He didn’t pick up, of course, but I’m not even sure what I’d say to him anyhow.
