"I need a half an ounce."
"I'm gonna' be a little busy for the next few days," I say. "Call Alan."
"Alan's out too. The city's pretty dry."
"Listen, unless you want to meet me out on the highway tomorrow, I can't do anything for you."
"Where on the highway?"
…he was serious.
"Fine… meet me out by the south perimiter highway tomorrow. Let's say noon."
"Noon? Cool. Thanks Chuck, I owe you one."
…I hate it when people call me 'Chuck'. Well, I have shit to do.
Deal with the Grow House tomorrow.
TWO: THE OIL AND THE GOLD
The rumble of The Lincoln's engine conjures up an image of a giant ball studded with razor blades rolling down the street. Roaring down the street. Impossible to stop – not that you'd want to try.
It comes to an easy stop in front of One-Oh-Three Dunkirk Street. The Blue House. Uncle Steve's place.
I hop out and make my way up to the front door.
Dinnnnnngggggg donnnnngggggg.
It's less a house than a mansion.
Uncle Steve opens the door. His skin-and-bones frame barely filling out the golf shirt. Uncle Steve with his straight priorities and healthy eating habits and sensible haircut and 2.5 children. Miserable Old Perfect Uncle Steve.
"Is Alanna here?"
He just looked me up and down.
"You're that fuckin' stoner boy of Jerry's."
"Yes Sir, I am," I grin. He's not impressed. I think I'm clever. "Would you like some?"
"I'll be fucked if I'm letting my daughter hang out with the likes of you."
"I thought she was your stepdaughter," I remind him. Cousin by marriage.
He goes to shut the door. "…fuckin' stoner." Slam.
Dad had told me stories about Uncle Steve. Steve was a closet alcoholic in university. I hate hypocrites. I walk over to his shiny PT Cruiser and let the shiny air out of the shiny tires as I star-sixty nine the cell phone and call his shiny daughter. I was out front. Would she and Madeline like to join me?
Uncle Steve's roars of disapproval weren't quite enough to stop Madeline and Alanna from slipping into The Lincoln with me. His vows of police action weren't enough to stop me as I pulled out of the driveway and cruised away.
And the women were laughing. They are slumming with me. I am a vacation from their big houses and SUVs and gentlemen of great expectations. And I am their new summer home. I am their dirty little beach house, splattered with oil that ruins the beach and slaughters the ecosystem from the tanker that perverts the sunset over the stagnant lake. I am not shiny. I am their vacation.
"What're we doing tonight?" Madeline asks me from the back seat. I want to muck them up.
"Something dirty," I say. I want to strip away all their make-up and their political correctness and remind them the world is cold and dark and nothing you want to smile for.
I drive us to the Quarry.
The Quarry is an old stripmining operation about a half-hour outside of town. Now it was abandoned by the big companies – taken under the wing of some conservationist society bent on reminding people how precious nature is. How important this unique ecosystem is. How special and important and special specialness it is.
I park at the edge of one of the man-made cliffs and turn off the headlights. The imperfect, near-full moon reflects off the makeshift lake below, the rain collecting in the rock of the quarry and having nowhere else to go. It shines up on us and gives our faces a pale glow. I smile to Alanna in the gentle light of the dashboard.
Perhaps it was that I was so tired, or just the dim light. The imperfect near-full moon. Her shiny high-life face a little spark of special unique specialness in all this shit.
"What are we doing here?" she grins, as if she doesn' already know. When you're golden everything glows.
I don't answer. I get out of The Lincoln and hop up onto the hood and light a joint.
Soon enough they get the clue and follow suit. Alanna to the left of me, Madeline to the right.
"…here I am, stuck in the middle with you…" I sing to myself. And the women are laughing.
Soon enough I'm laughing too. Soon enough I've taken the time to actually look at Madeline.
Madeline, with her brand-new pre-faded jean jacket. Tight khaki-coloured capri pants. Little tank top with her little breasts. Madeline, with her thick-rimmed glasses and shy smile. Her curly dark hair. Her little nose and hundred-watt smile. When you're golden everything glows.
She kisses me, breathing THC-laced smoke into my mouth as she does, and rolls the joint back onto my fingers, smiling a little fifty-watter as she leans back and looks out to the Quarry.
She says she can feel the past. She says she it's the ghosts of the things that used to live here. Before it got stripmined. She says they want her.
"Madeline's a lightweight," Alanna explains as I roll the joint over to her. But I don't think so. I think Madeline's in touch with something Alanna' can't find yet. She's close.
"Your problem," I say to Madeline, "is you don't see how unimportant you are."
The women laugh.
"You're an asshole," Alanna says to me. I'm stoned now. And she's gorgeous.
"No one's important. Nothing is," I tell them.
"Then what's the point of anything?" Madeline says.
"There is no point," I say. "Nothing. Nothing we do is important. Nothing we want is important. Not your fuckin' pre-faded jean jacket or your father's SUV or your university or your life. We're all dead. The world will keep on spinning, even if you're golden." I take another hoot. I smile to myself. I think I'm clever.
Madeline kisses me again. I breath smoke. And she smiles. I kiss her back.
"Maybe," Madeline says, "your problem is you don't see how special you are."
I've got a half-hardon. I'm beginning to want to agree with her. I wonder how far the gold would go if she were placated.
"This thing's almost toast," Madeline says. And do I think I could get another hoot off it?
I do, and lean in to my cousin my marriage. She's unsure for a moment.
"I'm not special," I tell her, and kiss her full on. She freezes, then loosens as I breath the smoke deep into her. She inhales, and breaths out a light steam, grinning a hundred-twenty watts.
I lay back on the hood and look up at the imperfect near-full moon. Madeline stretches out next to me, and soon her curls are resting on my shoulder, a hand on my chest.
"I think you're special Charlie," she says. She kisses my cheek. I remain still. I want to see how far she'll go. My hardon is disagreeing with me.
"What if he's right?" I hear Alanna say. "What if nothing's important?"
I don't answer. I light a cigarette. The acrid smoke hits the back of my throat and slips past to my lungs, and my high lunges higher.
"Then Doug doesn't matter," Madeline answers. Her fingers slip between the buttons on my shirt and lightly caress my chest. They're freezing from the night air, little slips of ice dancing over my skin. But my dick presses harder against my pants. I wonder who Doug is.
Madeline undoes the top button on my shirt.
"Madeline…," Alanna says. Alanna doesn't understand. Madeline needs to forget about her GPA and her nifty little sports car. She needs to remember how unimportant everything is.
"I'm not special," I say again. The pot and Madeline's hands have moved me off the hood of the car to somewhere better. Somewhere with a perfect full moon and night air that doesn't stink of the factories a half-hour away. Somewhere golden.
And I can feel someone stroking my cock. I hadn't noticed them open my fly. Madeline is kissing me, and I feel the weight on the hood shift. Alanna has removed herself. I hear the car door slam behind us as Madeline's tongue slips past my lips and touches mine.
The car's engine roars to warm life beneath us and jazz suddenly comes on the speakers in the car. And Madeline is jerking my cock. I hear the distant "shink" and "foomp" of a Zippo, and I smell the sweet first plume of smoke from Alanna's cigarette. She just wants to get out of here.
I am aware. Madeline's hair falling around my face smell of fruits and is heavy with the scent of hair pomade. I finally move, letting a hand run through her curls and holding her to me as we kiss. And Madeline is jerking my cock. I pull off her pre-faded designer jean jacket and she grins until I toss it over the edge of the quarry into the lake below. She looks at me like I just shot Kennedy.
"Nothing's special," I tell her. She tears off my jacket and tosses it in with her coat. I smile. Her tank top, her special little capri pants fly off the edge of the abyss. So far down we can't hear the splash over the jazz Alanna's using to drown us out.
Soon I'm standing beside the hood with my face buried in her crotch. Her perfectly trimmed and styled bush is matted and scraggly as my tongue methodically spells out the alphabet on her clit. A hand grips her slim ass and another holds her stomach down as she bucks against my face.
"Oh fuck…" she yells out.
The jazz music gets louder.
"Don't… don't… oh fuck…" her tiny hands grip my mess of hair and crush my face into her pussy. "Don't you… don't you… Jesus Charliiieeee!" She screams out something. I don't know if it's a word. It's just a noise. She bucks wildly against my head as her juice pours down her thighs and my throat, and suddenly goes slack. She breathes heavy. Her tiny tits heaving up and down, her nipples peaky in the cool night air. Her perfect curls a mess over her perfect face. Her perfect skin mottled red with passion. A perfect hundred-watt grin on her face. The woman was laughing.
