Russo

It was late. Damn late. The thought of my mother waiting up had me fighting back tears. The recent occurences had me wondering. Was I ever here before? What could have brought me to this place I’d never expected to be? All these thoughts were racing through my head, interrupted briefly by a spook here or there. Nights like these made me wish I’d gotten to a ophthalmologist sooner. I can’t make out a goddamn thing and my heart is beating fast so I pedal the bike faster. I check my watch. It’s two in the morning. The rest of my life is depending on whether anyone got up and realized the car was missing. I can ditch the bike in the creek out back and...

I feel myself lifted up over the handlebars, my ass is over my head and my back is on the ground. Everything is covered in freshly cut wet blades of grass. I’m alright, just had the wind knocked out of me. It’s happened before. But this is the first time in the last hour I’d been given a moment. I look up at the sky through the tree branches. The pain in my back suddenly hits me and I start crying.
Before, when Russo and me would go out at night, my mother would sit in the living room watching Lifetime movies until I got home.
“I don’t like him. Or his family.”
“He’s alright, Ma.”
I’d tell her and bolt out the front door. With lightning footwork, I’d jump off the sidewalk, over the azaleas and into Russo’s big grey Pontiac. It was a big loud monster that he’d gotten from his older brother Richey. The thing had an exhaust that’d smoke like you wouldn’t believe. In high school, Russo was your typical renaissance jock. Varsity football, weightlifting, track, these were his trades. He didn’t get the grades but the principal always had his teachers fixing the books.

“The guy’s leading us to State, not graduating Harvard.”

Russo had this billowing laugh that followed his twisted sense of humor and swept over me and the other guys like a gas that silenced doubt. We were quiet when he told us about the girls he slept with. I think it was the laugh that scared us the most. Probably because we knew he found his sick stories so amusing. He told us about one girl who got it particularly bad. Michelle. She was tiny, skinny, a pretty face but wasn’t in with the same crowd as Russo and the rest of us. So, it goes without saying the school didn’t know about the two. What’s the use in publicizing another adolescent drama? Anyway, turns out one night they had a terrible fight when she got home from a party at Clarissa Davenport’s crummy boyfriend’s place in the north-end of town. They screamed back and forth over the phone for a little while. Kicking and cursing and crying they broke each other down. He called her a slut and she called him a psychopath. Russo dropped the phone, drove that grey bird over to Michelle’s house and beat the shit out of her in her own front yard. We didn’t see Russo for awhile after that, between court dates and juvenile detention, it wasn’t until a year later we heard this story. Michelle we never saw again. I hear her and her parents moved out west. Somewhere in Arizona maybe.
Russo and his family weren’t the most reputable neighbors. Quintessential suburban black sheep. They had money, but they didn’t waste it on rosebushes and sequined patio-parties. They were the kind of family that settled their differences on the front lawn. From the big bay windows in our kitchen, I’d watch Russo and his pops wrestle, spitting and throwing punches.
“Savages.”
My mother would say when she’d catch me watching the brutes scramble around in the dirt patch out front of their house. She’d tell me to go upstairs to my room, where I’d masturbate thinking about some of the girls from my class and fall asleep.

I was dreaming about my father again. It always bothered me when he’d show up in a dream. He was never who I remembered him being in real life. Always slightly different. His voice would be somebody else’s. He would be shorter than I remember. Or skinnier. Sometimes he wasn’t my father at all, but every time, I called him dad. This time he was the exactly as I remember. It was nice seeing him healthy and normal again. But he wouldn’t talk. He was dropping me off at my grandparent’s because I had the day off from school and he had to work at the shop. The radio was telling us that the military would be testing nuclear bombs a few blocks from where we were headed and I should expect showers all day. They man on the radio sounded like my father and said testing would continue throughout the day, so I should stay inside. He said if I absolutely had to go outside, I should wear my blue Washington Wizards windbreaker.
When we got to my grandparent’s house, the testing had already started. The sky was red and black and grey and it cracked the way an old painting does. He walked me to the front door and kissed me on the cheek. His beard was scratchy and he smelled like cigarettes but when he left I cried for him to pick me back up and take me back home. My grandmother came out, took my hand and brought me inside. We played Parcheesi and watched The Price is Right until she fell asleep on her recliner. I knew she was fast asleep because of how loud she snored. After a few minutes, I wanted play outside but I didn’t want her to know so I left one of my walkie talkies next to her and left.

Outside the air was warm and smelled sterile. It was raining now and I could see my grandparent’s neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Foreman standing on the railings of their porch. I shouted to them that it was too dangerous, but they stepped off together, holding each other’s hands all the way down. I looked around at the other houses, Mr. Walt, Mr. and Mrs. McGregor and Mrs. Kojak were all laying facedown and motionless in their front yards. I walked past my grandparents house and into the neighbor’s yard. I’m standing over Mr. Kopalchek. I watch a stream of army ants carrying Goulash from out his mouth. They are so depraved. Is there nothing they won’t do for their insidious queen? Where is the line? I was crying and the rain had me soaked. The skin around my eyes burned and my nose was running so I wiped it with the sleeve of my blue Washington Wizards windbreaker. I could hear my grandmother’s snoring overhead but my concentration was interrupted by a faint ringing in the walkie talkie.

It was 10 o’clock when Russo called me. I grabbed my authentic Kermit the Frog phone off the nightstand. The receiver was this plastic Kermit the Frog lounging back in his chair while the yellow handset hung on his feet. A pretty genius idea for a phone I thought, but I hid it in the back of my closet anytime I had friends over. It was my father’s back when he was my age and I remember seeing it in our living room growing up. Now it was mine but I was too embarrassed to let any of my friends know about it. I forgot to hide it once when Russo came over to watch Monty Python and he called me a faggot. I didn’t say anything. That prick was always saying shit like that. I don’t know if he knew how ignorant it made him look.

“Hello?”
“I’m leaving, Mark”
“What’dya mean, man?”
“I’m skipping town.”
“Where’re you gonna go?”
“Richey is out in Oakridge, I’m gonna stay with him while I get things straight. Then, I’m thinkin’ Miami, maybe further south.”
“Are you sure about this? Is it about whatever you and your old man were fighting about?”
“It’s about a lot of things, but right now I need you to give me a ride.”
“Aw man, it’s late.”
“I’ll pay you, man.”
“I just got my license,”
“Just hop out your window and take the car. Your mom won’t even know you were out.”

I dropped the phone back on Kermit’s legs and rolled out of bed. I put on my Dickies jacket and searched around in the dark for about five minutes looking for my wallet. I knocked my knuckles on the dresser and found it in my change dish. The keys to the car were in the kitchen so I had to creep past the old lady’s room. I held my breath while I tip-toed down the hallway listening to my heartbeats play call and respond with my footsteps. When I made it back to my room I let out a heavy breath of
relief and felt my heart try to jump out with it.

“I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

I opened up the window and climbed out. The ground was a good six feet below the window so I sat myself on the windowsill and jumped into the flowerbed under me. I landed on my feet and crouching, but the mulch was so soft I fell forward and rolled into the backyard. I wiped the dirt from my hands off on my jacket and walked around the front of the house. The moon lit the front yard and everything beyond in this great blue hue. I felt like the world had been frozen in the chaotic mess I’d found it in. In the next second, Russo was walking across the cul-de-sac toward me.
“What’s up dick flinch?”
“Let’s just do this man, I wanna get back as soon as I can.”
“Alright, we’re meeting Richey on the Nickel Bridge.”
“Let’s do it,”
“But drive slow, I don’t want any attention.”

He reached into the pocket of his tan Carhartt and pulled out a small, black pistol. I felt the blue stillness from before shatter into a million pieces falling to the ground in a loud, sharp cacophony. I was scared. I’d never seen a gun before and I was always on edge about Russo anyway. I’d known him since his family moved across the street from us eight years ago but I knew what kind of guy he was, and I wouldn’t trust him for a minute with a gun. He was suspended in middle school for bringing a knife to class. Somebody told a teacher about it and when they found it in his bag he said he was just holding it for protection. The day before that, he told me it was for this black kid he saw kissing a girl he liked. He said a beautiful girl like her shouldn’t be getting into anything with those people.

“What the fuck is that about, man?”
“I’m takin’ it with me! You want me out there without a piece?”
“Whatever man, just keep it in your jacket. I don’t wanna see it. And if I see you even put your hand back in that pocket, I’m leaving you on the side of the road.”
“Deal.”
He says, with that shit-eating grin of his. It's that same grin women find irresistable. We get in the car and drive off down the street. It’s a pretty suburban part of town where we live. On a Monday night like this the neighborhood is desolate. We get out to the highway and wait at a red light...

“So what’s this about man?”
“You don’t wanna know. It’s better if I just don’t tell you.”
“Is it about Michelle?”
“Who the fuck is Michelle?”
I was stunned. He didn’t remember her. He cracked her ribs. He busted out her teeth. He left her scarred, physically and emotionally. Me and the guys would give our right nuts for a shot at any one of the chicks we've seen around Russo’s arm. What an asshole. Even if he never did any of those things, he was in love with her. How can anyone forget that? I’m thinking all this and I look at Russo. He’s fidgety. He’s sloped in the seat next to me and with every set of headlights that pass us, his eyes jump along the bottom of the window. Watching him, I felt any sympathy I had for the guy slip away. The light turned green and we drove on. I was still tired from waking up so late, the yellow dashes on the road hypnotized me, but the disdain I had for this guy was just overwhelming. I couldn’t keep focused so I turned up the a/c and rolled down my window. The night air will help, I thought. That, coupled with the constant duh-dunk, duh-dunk of the tires rolling over the little notches in the road, woke me up to the realization of what I was doing.

When we got to the bridge I drove slow. Russo told me to slow down and pointed to a car in the distance with its headlights on.
“That him?”
“Yeah, that’s Richey. Pull over here.”
I pulled off on the shoulder and got out. Richey was smoking a cigarette and leaning against the hood of his car. A real James Dean. Richey was Russo’s older brother who’d gotten kicked out before we started high school. Sometimes he’d by Russo cigarettes and alcohol and we’d hang out in the creek behind my house. I remember one summer the homeowner’s association posted signs around the neighborhood.

“Attention! Drought regulations are in effect! Please conserve your water and be careful of open fires.”
Laurel Branch Homeowner’s Association

Russo smoked the cigarettes because I wasn’t big on smoking. I really dug the alcohol though. I liked the way it left a small, searing tail in my throat and settled in my belly, immobile but influential. I enjoyed the numb feeling in the back of my brain, the way my worries and inhibitions melted away. Once, I felt obliged to let Russo know how I really felt.

“Russo, what do you think about the girls you date?”
“What do you mean, man?”
“I mean, do you like them or are you just using them? Are you really that guy? That nail-and-bail high school jock?”
The words were spilling out of me. I felt them well up in my mouth like alphabet saliva and dribble all over the place. Russo had a look I couldn’t distinguish.
“I dunno, Mark. Why don’t you tell me who I am?”
I felt my heart race. It was thumping in my throat and catching fire with the rest of my body. But the alcohol was already working on me and I felt that beat fade further and further into a place deep inside of me.
“You’re a fuckin’ jerk man. You treat people like shit and you laugh about it to their faces. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you? I’m seriously curious as to how somebody like you can live with yourself. I mean, you joke around about kicking people’s asses and call us names and we’re afraid of you. Nobody is really your friend, we’re just afraid of you.”

It was as if I’d woken up to find my heart in my throat. My brow was sweating and I was contemplating running or standing my ground. I kept my eyes on Russo because I didn’t want to miss whatever it was he was planning next. He flicked his cigarette and marched toward me. He got really close to my face and I could feel him shaking. This homicidal maniac wanted to hit me. I couldn’t let him hit me. He would be hitting people his entire life. It’s better if he realizes his mistakes when he’s young. He took a swing anyway but I ducked it. He was standing on the bank and the soft pebbles gave way. He fell into the stream and I laughed. I was laughing so hard I didn’t notice when he started mumbling and pointing behind me. His face had terror in it and I sick in the pit of my stomach when he shouted,
“F-F-F-Fuckin’ fire, man!”
I turned around to see a heap of brush completely engulfed in flames. We must’ve been too heated a second before to realize what was happening. Now it seemed that the more we stared into the fire, we became suspended in time. Our bodies were frozen in terror and confusion. I wasn’t allowed out with Russo for a few months after that stunt.

Richey was leaning on the hood of his car. The way he was normally seen in public, smoking cigarettes, wearing his aviator shades so he could watch the young jail bait walk by without being detected. I got out of the car first and waved at Richey.

“Is that Markie? Damn, I haven’t seen you in a minute. How’ve you been?”
I fucking hated that name. No matter how much older I got, anyone from my childhood could call me it and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Russo had gotten out of the car now and was searching around in the back of the car for his bag. When I looked back, I could see him through the front windshield struggling with his duffle bag and the strap to another bag. I decided I’d help him out though I’d swore this was the last time I’d helped this creep do anything. I opened the rear driver-side door.
“What the hell are you doing?”
His bag is stuck around some mechanical bits under the seat. His hand is clawing and tugging at the strap to his bag but it won’t come loose. He’s grunting and cursing and I tell him to give it a rest. He’s all worked up and as he’s yanking the strap I see the pistol slipping out of the pocket of his tan Carhartt. Before I could say anything a white light filled the back seat and I could smell gun powder. My ears were ringing and when my eyes could finally focus, I was looking at Russo laying in my back seat. When my hearing came back, I faintly heard myself screaming,
“Russo, what the fuck was that?!”
I was panicked and angry but this subsided when I heard Richey running down the bridge toward me. I realized Russo wasn’t responding so I turned him over and saw the enormous wound in his face. I was so scared I stumbled back a little and looked away from the car. I caught my breath and turned my back to the car. I looked out at the river, the stars dancing in it like dragonflies. There were no cars this time of night so all you could hear was the whooshing of the water underneath us. Watching the water, I almost forgot where I was and thought if I turned around everything would disappear.
“What the hell was that? What’s going on in…”
Richey paused when he saw what was in the backseat. It must’ve been any combination of the smell, the sight or the silence around us that made Richey puke immediately. I was resting my head on the hood of the car. My head was spinning and I had to look of the other side of the bridge briefly to collect myself. After he was done throwing up, I heard Richey mumble something. I turned back around to ask what we should do but he was already walking back to his car. Still muttering something when he opened the door and jumped in the driver’s seat. His door slammed shut and he spun the car. Back towards Oakridge I supposed. It wasn’t as dramatic an escape as I’d thought he’d make it. James Dean would’ve done it better. I wondered what he’d been saying. I wondered if he was going for help. These questions were suddenly interrupted when I realized I was alone with my friend’s corpse in mother’s car. I covered my mouth with my shirt and walked closer to the door to check it out. I watched Russo’s body lie motionless for about twenty seconds and looked around at the rest of the car. The ceiling was completely red. The back windshield had streaks of his blood running down it and a pool was forming in the crease at the bottom. I couldn’t stop wondering what the fuck I’d gotten myself into. But I knew that time was over. I needed to collect myself and fix the situation.

I thought about Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. I thought there must be someone that can fix something like this. But I’m not John Travolta or Samuel L. Jackson. This is my friend’s dead body in my mother’s car. There’s no cleaner. There’s just me and a choice. I take one last look at Russo. You fuckin’ asshole, I’m thinking. I’m not cutting this guy a break even if he’s our dearly departed. I walk around to the other side of the car. The side where half of his dead body is hanging out onto the road. I gather my nerves and shut down my emotions. I hoist him up by the waist and pull him out of the back seat. My legs are shaking and it takes everything in me not to drop him and start bawling my eyes out right there in the road. I think about every little thing he did. I think about Michelle. I think about the way my dad beat the shit out of me after we’d gotten that fire put out. I think about my Kermit the Frog telephone and how much it meant to me and how awful it felt when Russo called me a faggot. I was so busy thinking about these things I almost forgot the dead dumb fuck was dislocating my shoulder. I came to the edge of the bridge and laid him on the rail. I said good riddance and pushed him off. I watched his body falling toward the water below but turned around to look out at the other side of the I heard the loud splash and laughed when I imagined his heavy body floating down through the water like bait for the weird fishes below.
After a few minutes I almost believed I was calm and collected. But I still had the car to worry about. I couldn’t bring it home in that shape. Maybe, if mom hasn’t woken up to find the car missing and me along with it, I could play like it was stolen. So I started walking. And thinking. I thought about hitchhiking after a few cars passed me but I didn’t feel like explaining why I was out at midnight on a Monday night. My mother frequents the local church circuits. She knows a lot of people around town. What are the chances one of them are out this late. Probably slim. Mostly murderers and rapists out now. Drunk drivers on their way home from cheating on their wives to kiss their children with whiskey breath and five o’clock shadows. I wonder if one will clip me while I’m crossing the street. I think if I was hit by a car I’d be ok with it. And when Mr. Infidelity comes around to the front of his Mercedes or Lexus and start panicking I’ll tell him,
“It’ll all be a-ok. Thank you.”

A few miles into the hike I stopped thinking so much about Russo and the car and focused on my heart. I thought it might explode if I didn’t stop. I could feel the muscles in my legs begin to seize up so I took a seat on a bus stop bench. I wished my dad were next to me. On that bench. Not the way he was in my dreams. The way I remembered him. I started to cry. I was almost home. A few more miles and I’ll be in bed and I’ll play dumb to the entire thing. I look down the street. I see a white cat walk into the street, stare at me, and turn back the other way. I remember thinking,
“You don’t want anything to do with this. Trust me.”

I look up at the streetlight. My eyes are so tired I stare into it for a minute before realizing what I’m doing. Madison. I knew a kid that lived on this street. He was homeschooled because his mother wouldn’t put him in our school. I saw him sometimes. Outside mowing the lawn or working with his mother in the garden. He wore a prosthetic mask that covered his forehead and the left part of his face. A pair of thin glasses reached across the mask. Covering one beautiful twelve-year old blue eye, and one painting of an eye that didn’t exist anymore. There are stories about a gun. There are stories about his enraged father throwing a glass vase across the room. A gesture meant for the Mother but ultimately exploding in an innocent child’s face. There are stories about a ravenous hog let wild back home in Arkansas. There were stories about his bike. About his father sending him these gifts every other week from some far off city. Of course, these were all stories. None of us in the neighborhood really knew why he wore the mask.
Last Halloween Russo bought a phantom of the opera mask and painted a blue eye on it. He bought a pair of thin wire glasses and large overalls just like we’d see this kid wearing outside.

“Come on man, don’t do this. Don’t fuck with the guy.”

I told him to lay off but he just smiled that stupid grin and told me to keep the car running. Before I could ask why, he was out the car and walking up the sidewalk. He rang the doorbell and stepped a few feet back. I heard him whistling Enter Sandman the door creak open. I felt the silence between Russo and our masked neighbor from the car. In a split second I watched Russo knock the orange and black bowl of candy to the ground and barrel toward the car. Behind him I heard terrible screams. Something painful and primal echoing out into the air around us. I fight to look past Russo and out the driver side window where the boy is frantically scavenging the porch on his hands and knees. The shrilling only stops when he finds the orange and black plastic bowl and holds it to his face. In the car, Russo is in hysterics when he tosses a prosthetic mask into my lap.

I’m staring at his house. The boy with the mask. I’m in the same spot out in the street I was a year ago on Halloween and I can hear his screams calling back to me from that night. I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to be five again playing Batman and Superman in his room watching Cartoons. I want to be his friend and never have even met Russo. I walked up the sidewalk. It was dead silent tonight except for the quiet buzz of the streetlights and I heard the game of call and response start up again with my feet and heart.
“My heart won’t take anymore of this tonight,”
I thought. I was breathing heavy and feeling like I’d never get home. I sat there on the grey painted wooden stairs leading off the patio. I contemplated ring the doorbell. But I knew there would be time for that. Russo was gone now. I can make amends for him later. I walked around to the side of the house, I trudge through the flowerbed of hostas and azaleas and whisper a little apology to his mother. There, around the back, leaning up against a white picket fence is the bike only a desperate father could afford.
Frigid gusts of wind pelted me like ghosts. All shrieking as I pedaled madly down Sycamore. Down Birch. Down Poplar. Giant oaktrees pierced me with daunting eyes on their twisted faces. On either side of the street, they reached down with their mangled hands, ready to grab me, eat me alive.

Fin.Gers.

I have a hemorrhoid. And my girlfriend tells me to see a gynecologist about it. I ask her if gynecologists see men. She says she doesn't know. On my way to the car I glance at a little black girl with braids laying face up on the sidewalk. A boy is standing over her with a stick. They notice I'm watching them and run off. Observations. These are observations. What good are these to the reader?
On my lunch break Vanessa sits across from me eating a sandwich. She has short curly orange hair. I wonder for a moment why they call women with orange hair "redheads", or why redheads have orange hair. It must be my hypothalamus receding. I think she can tell.
"What are you writing?"
She's speaking to you.
"I'm sorry?"
"What are you writing in that book?"
She takes a bite of her sandwich. Her legs are crossed and her skin is the pale eggshell color of the table. From where I'm sitting I can imagine the table reaching up with its dainty white hand to feed Vanessa another bite.
Say something clever.
"Things."
She's smiling at you.
"What kind of things?"
Say something clever.
"Literary things."
Now she probably thinks I'm a writer. Nobody likes writers. They are all pretentious and think they are the greatest writers of the new century. They scribble notes on Awful House napkins and soak their cigarettes in mud. She probably thinks I'm boring. She’s probably right.
"Really? I love to read. Have you read Bosworth?"
Pretend you have.
"Yeah, I have. I really liked his delivery of dialogue."
"Kate."
"I'm sorry?"
"Kate Bosworth. She wrote the Never Again series."
Lie.
"Oh, I think we're talking about two different people."
If you keep lying like this you'll lose the reader's trust. What little merit they have invested in you is definitely lost among these inner monologues. Nobody likes a narrative. Especially not boring narratives such as this one. This is a terrible character. There's no development.
When I look back Vanessa is getting up from the table. She walks to the door and tosses a Ziploc bag in the trash. Her legs are long. And beautiful. I imagine what she would look like naked. Sweating Porcelain. She runs her fingers through my hair and along the right side of my face. She tells me she's in love with me and kisses my left cheek. My stomach is making noises again. I've gone to the bathroom five times this morning. Maybe six. I’m falling apart. What would Vanessa think if my face fell apart. She would probably think I’m boring.

A Telegram from Perth Amboy to Dr. Quentin Hayes

Dear Dr. Quentin Hayes,

I only just recieved your postcard. I hope the Poconos are treating you well. As for all those people you've mentioned, yes, I know them. They have done little to mention my notoriety in the states among the decades. What will you do now? Your family has disowned you and I can be found in the Village with Maria. I sing songs now, Quentin. Or should I say General? The Gulf is quite a place for inconsistencies. I appreciate your inquiery in my affairs, but please leave the inquieries for the media. They have a grasp on that sort of thing.

Your Friend,
Perth Amboy