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As dusk begins to settle in outside my living room window, I start with the pancake makeup and the putty. I change my nose and cheekbones and put a brown hairpiece on under a green John Deere cap.
Then I sit on my new sofa and wait for the night.
Sometimes I get restless, you know, and I have to do something for fuck sake.
I’ve been out every night for the previous week. Drifting around town drinking and watching and trying to work up the courage to call Carole or Mike.
And arguing with myself over my inability to do so.
My two disguises, a farm dude and a skinhead, have allowed me to get closer to the inner core of the drug traffic. It’s not like I’m a newcomer to such environments, so it doesn’t take me long to recognize the players. Sometimes I ask myself why I’m doing this, and I don’t have an answer. Other than I’m bored and given to procrastination. It’s not like the Bay City drug scene takes me to any good places.
But, nevertheless, it appears that the majority of the crank traffic takes place in the country western bars and the heavy metal bars.
It’s a full-spectrum drug.
There’s a bunch of freaks you never see before eleven p.m., and then they all come out at once, as if Santa is handing out syringes full of crank. The zombie hordes show up almost every night at one or another of the hot spots.
Seems like most of the users are harmless, desperate losers who think they’ve found something to keep the pain at bay. Staying up all night on crank is their answer. Man, how I’d like to enlighten them, but time will eventually do it for me.
I’ve grown soft in my old age and I can’t build up any hate for these poor folks who are their own worst enemies.
Call me liberal, if you will.
I stare out my window at the fading day, the low sun turning the grass golden, and a little kid, about the age of my son Mike when I last saw him, runs by outside. Probably in a hurry to get home before the bogeyman comes along. And if he knew about me, I’d be the bogeyman. Precious few will ever believe that I’ve done the world some good in my days on the planet.
After watching darkness fill the sky, I get up and pull the curtain. I pick the Sig-Sauer, P226 nine-millimeter I took from the dead Seattle smack dealer off my new coffee table and shove it under my belt, feeling the metallic cool of the suppressor against my spine.
I go to the front hall and look in the mirror on the wall and check out the guy in there. I decide to put a Levi jacket on him. Now he’s just another rube from out in the county looking to score some crank and stay up all night chasing pussy.
I leave the house at dark and get into my newly purchased car, a dark green 1993 Buick Century four-door registered to Keith Thomas, East Bay City, Wisconsin. I’d read a magazine article stating it was a safe vehicle and a reliable used car buy. And that’s me nowadays, reliable and safe. Damn thing sure as hell blends in around here. Unobtrusive, you might say. I’ve got the Honda stashed inside the old, sagging garage behind the house.
I drive downtown to the edge of the nightlife action and park at one of many dark areas on Banks Avenue. There may be more streetlights now but they appear dimmer than they used to be. Maybe it’s my eyes.
I step out of the car pushing back old memories, take a deep breath, swallow hard and start moving in the direction of Tower Avenue.
Around midnight, I’m sitting at the Chug-a-Lug, a redneck bar on Tower, thinking I’m wasting my time and should call it a night. I’ve felt the filthy crank vibe everywhere. Everyone seems so pathetic and ridiculous to me. Mostly kids crazy from boredom and sexual frustration, just like I was at that age. But I’m still restless and decide to hit another bar.
The sidewalk is a minefield of crushed plastic cups and cigarette butts. The gutter holds empty liquor bottles and mashed paper bags. The streets don’t feel friendly and I reach behind me and feel the pebbled grip of my pistol, reassuring myself like an old man checking to see if he has his car keys.
I check for my car keys.
They’re in my pants pocket.
I keep going up Tower until I come to a large brick building with a sign above it announcing the Bourbon Street Bar. I’m about ten yards away from the double glass door entrance when a car comes whipping down Tower and jerks into a parking place directly in front of the bar.
Must be the Governor’s spot, I’m thinking, as I stop and watch the passenger door of the black Impala Super Sport open and two great-looking young ladies, a blond and a brunette, both dressed in bare-midriff tops and designer jeans, step out onto the curb.
I give them the eyeball and then get the shock of a lifetime.
Or at least tonight.
The driver steps out, closes the car door and walks around the front of the Chevy. I see his face and my head starts to spin. I stagger and stumble against the side of the building. My shoulder hits hard and I blink my eyes, trying hard not to believe what I’m seeing.
It’s me, circa 1980, after a dye job.
AKA “the mysterious blond stranger,” what the Madison, Wisconsin media was calling me when I was a person of interest in the Dana McGuire murder investigation.
Standing there on the sidewalk in a tuxedo shirt with the collar open, designer jeans and white tennis shoes, blond hair dropping carelessly over one eye, cigarette between the fingers, stoned smile on the full lips and just a hint of baby fat on the strong, young body, is Mikey.
And he’s all grown up.
I’d never considered that he might look like me now.
The kid has the face I used to have and his mom’s head of hair.
Shaking like a leaf, I look down at the sidewalk, avoiding his brief gaze as he waltzes into the bar with a girl on each arm. I can’t move. Can’t go in the place and can’t leave. I lean against the wall and fight down nausea while my head pounds in speed metal time. Sweat beads on my forehead and I shudder.
Then, like an animal escaped from the zoo, I run away. Run to the car and drive erratically back to my little house, searching for a way to disbelieve what I’ve just seen.
I lock the door, turn on the TV and grab the rum bottle from the kitchen. I sit down on the couch, take out the gun and set it on the coffee table. I hit on the rum and take off the stupid John Deere cap and fling it across the room.
Feels like a long night ahead of me.
I commence swilling. One blast after another after another until I’m in the bedroom falling face first on the mattress and sinking into swirling darkness.
I wake up some time later racked with nausea. I lift my head off the pillow. It’s getting lighter outside, but I have an instant need to yack, there’s no getting around it.
I stick my head over the side of the bed and heave, the torrent making a plopping sound as it hits the thin, old carpet. I spit and wipe myself with the bedspread, a new one I just bought, then roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. Fear and anxiety grab hold and I curl myself up in a ball and try to shut out the world.
Somehow, I manage to get unconscious again.
Later I wake up gasping for breath and soaked with sweat. The smell of vomit and stale booze fills the room. I stumble out of bed and bounce off the wall on the way to the bathroom.
I’m grinding too much to go back to sleep and I’m too sick to go out. All I can do is sit on the couch and stare blankly at the tube. One mindless, empty show after another fills me with dread. I let it all come into my aching, poisoned head. I’m trying to focus but I can’t settle down on any one thing. So many feelings and so many questions...
By six o’clock in the evening my stomach is trying to eat itself and I’m forced to move. I take a hot shower and wash my hair and get out and look in the mirror.
Who should I be today?
The skinhead?
The Gomer?
The old man?
Myself?
Who in the hell am I, anyway?
That is indeed the question. I can’t figure out whose foot to put forward, whose hat to wear. I go in the bedroom and clean the carpet while I wonder.
I really want to see Mikey but I’m not so sure I should. I’m thinking maybe it’s better if I stay missing. Stay just another failure, another pathetic man who couldn’t pay the price of fatherhood. Another weak, self-centered prick who didn’t have the guts to stay and make it work.
What good could I do the kid, anyway? Christ, it looked like he had it all going for him.
But an alarm bell is going off somewhere and I can hear the distant voices murmuring. The witches are dancing around the cauldron chanting something I can’t quite make out, but I know it’s about Mike.
I put on a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, Minnesota Twins cap over my close-cropped head and drive out U.S. 2 to the Riverside Café where I order steak and fries and a cold beer. The food hits my gut like chunks of concrete and the beer gives me a headache, but I feel better.
It’s odd, but my cancer symptoms seem to be receding somewhat as of late. Replaced by this mental state feels like the edge of madness: a whirlpool of doubt, frustration, fear and unfocused rage. And now it seems it’s coming to a head.
I guess I can live with that.
I leave a twenty on the $14.50 dinner bill and exit the café. On the return drive I get the urge to hit the bars downtown and maybe push down my second ugly head.
Back in the day I was just a peace-loving guy interested in getting along with people. You know, that “come on people now, smile on your brother” stuff. Make love not war. Peace, Pussy, Pot and Perversion... all those old slogans.
I guess they didn’t work for me.
Trying to be thoughtful and measured, disciplined and rational in my actions, I go home to the little box. It’s dusk and the street is quiet. Strangely, I have the thought that it might be a good neighborhood to raise kids. The air is cool, calm and dry.
I put on a worn pair of Redwing work boots and slip on a T-shirt with “Live Free or Die” printed on the front like someone wrote it with blood. I put the flannel shirt back on, leave it open and stick the gun underneath it at the small of my back.