A Piece Of My Mind

 

Then all of a sudden summer was over and school had started up again.  Ed and Andy couldn’t hang out as much.   They had normal lives with a Mom and a Dad and expectations to live up to. 

The Billygoat, on the other hand, was pretty much on his own all day.  During which time he couldn’t really be seen hanging out in public during school hours.  Thank God for the hideaway.  He was running late; he should have been behind the levee before now.  He jogged the last 100 yards to the foot of the bridge. 

He went over the side of the levee without hesitating, high tops sliding down the twisting trail.  As soon as he was safely out of sight of the road he felt his anxiety turn to annoyance. What the hell happened to his life?  A year ago he was a normal kid getting ready for the ninth grade; everything was just fine and dandy. But then his Dad took off. 

He reached the hideaway and flopped down on the grass.  He rolled onto his back and pulled the bag of dope out of his waistband. 

Overnight, things changed, she changed.  At first it had been cool to have a Mom you could hook a joint from every now and then.  But within a few months she’d quit even pretending to be a Mom.   He’d never been a great student, but he’d always gotten by if someone made him do his homework.  When that quit happening, he sloughed off.  If she couldn’t pay attention, then fuck it. 

He found his papers and started building a joint. 

Oh but then – then she proceeds to take up with a series of jacked up redneck losers, crank cookers, and most recently the crackhead Demetrius.  (He never before bothered learning their names, but this one was so ridiculous he took pleasure in saying it).  Anyway they were all worthless bastards who stunk up the place with their fucked up, half-assed meth labs and treated her like a whore, which he supposed she was.  She didn’t even notice when he quit going to school entirely. 

Nowadays, he spent most of his time under the bridge, laying on his back looking out at the water.  Like now. 

He sighed, lit the joint, and lay back in the grass.  He watched the river lick its banks as Dicks snored softly overhead.  There was a rhythm to it.  Snore, snore, snore – silence – SNORE, snore snore – silence – SNORE.  He turned around to look up at Dicks and he saw it.  It had been there all along, but he’d never taken note of it.  In a flash he was up and on his feet and climbing up the embankment toward Dicks. 

There was empty space under the bridge to the right of Dicks’ nest.  A mirror image of Dick’s space, in fact, separated by the reinforced concrete pylon supporting the center of the bridge’s mass.  Pulling himself up the last few feet, he swung his butt up on the lip of  the abutment.  He stood up and looked around.  It looked huge compared to Dicks’, but Dicks’ was full of crap the old goofball had collected.  This was like an empty room with one open wall, like a big concrete box formed by intersection of the walls of the abutment and the girders supporting the first span of the bridge.  Like Dick’s it was as wide as one lane of the bridge above, bigger than the living room of his mom’s trailer. 

Why not build his own nest?  He could take his time and cherry it out.  Plenty of old scrap lumber in the shed, and he thought some carpet too.   And then maybe start sleeping here whenever he couldn’t take the trailer anymore. 

Him and Dicks would be roommates.  He laughed out loud and relit the joint.   Over on his side of the pylon, Dicks paused mid-snore to roll over and fart, as if in agreement.  Giggling, happier than he’d been since his Dad left, he started to make a mental list of the stuff he could take from the trailer to build his new digs. 

*** 

By noon Billy could wait no longer and started up the path, headed to the trailer for the first load of supplies.  After a few minutes Dicks rose, stretched, and stumbled down from his nest and into the weeds to piss. 

He’d been awake a while, but hadn’t felt like talking to anyone.  Not that he didn’t enjoy the boys, it was great having them around. He’d been lonely for a long time.  Still, sometimes he didn’t quite feel up to the effort of being Dicks. 

He finished pissing and climbed back up to his nest to look through his provisions.  He had a half loaf of stale bread, a can of Spaghetti-Os, and a fourth of a bottle of Thunderbird.  He’d have to go into town after breakfast, which was not a prospect he relished. He pulled a slice of bread out of the bag, sat down on his pallet, and began to eat. His stomache wasn’t up to the Spaghetti-Os this morning.  Maybe later.  He finished the bread, washed it down with the warm wine, and pulled out another slice. 

*** 

When he got there she was sitting in the kitchenette with a cup of coffee, smoking a joint and waiting for her stories to come on.  She raised a sleepy eyebrow at him as he came through the screen door. 

“School let out early. Teacher in-service day.”  He went over to the refrigerator and pulled out the milk.  She went into a minor coughing fit.   He got a box of cereal and a bowl and sat down at the other end of the table.   She finished coughing and relit the joint.  He ate with his head down to avoid looking at her tits through her flimsy housecoat.  The Days of Our Lives theme sounded from the television. She took her joint and went to the couch.   Billy had decided that what he wanted first was the carpet in the shed. Any food he could carry easily.  Maybe a pillow. 

He brought the dish to the sink and returned the milk to the fridge, and then went back to his room without glancing her way.  He grabbed a pillow and the rest of his stash. Too bad he couldn’t carry more shit, but he didn’t want to be too obvious. He went back into the living room where Bo and Hope were sadly observing for the umpteenth time that their great undying live for each other just wasn’t enough to carry them through.  Mom was trying to roll another joint without taking her eyes from the screen, and not having much luck.   He walked out the front door with the pillow under his arm and went around back to the shed. 

There was the carpet remnant Dad had never got around to installing in their bedroom.  Well, thanks for the parting gift, Dad.  He spread it out flat on the ground and began looking for other shit to pile onto it.  A roll of duck tape.  Some shears.   A framed picture of him as a little kid, posed on the bitch seat of his Dad’s bike, all cherry and sparkling in front of the carwash.  A can of Off.  A pair of needle nosed pliers. 

He hesitated for a second and pulled the picture out of the pile before rolling the carpet and folding the roll to hold the loose crap in the bottom.   Tossing the bundle over his shoulder, he took one last look around the yard before heading down the lane to the levee.  Behind him, the shed door banged twice in the breeze and the picture lay in the dust where he left it.  Inside the trailer, Maggie was explaining to a tearful Hope that love was truly the only important thing.   Billy’s mom dropped her roach into the ashtray and wiped a tear of her own as they went to commercial.  She knew Demetrius was awake because she could smell one of his foul, first thing in the morning shits pouring  from the half-bathroom at the back of the trailer.   She thought about  getting up to get the Lysol, but then Days started again and she forgot about the smell. 

*** 

Dicks was shambling up Main St., thinking how much he despised this part of his life.  Even though it didn’t hurt anyone, and indeed seemed to help some, he found it demeaning.  More demeaning than being a bum named Dicks.  Then he saw her. Up ahead, sitting at a little bistro table right near the sidewalk, reading her paper as waiters bustled in and out cleaning up. 

He slowed, made respectful eye-contact, said “God bless you, young lady,” nodding his head as he trudged slowly past.  Her hand, darting out, squeezing his elbow, stopping him there. 

“Its really okay, isn’t it, sir?  Its been so long… You – I – you feel so… good.”   Her face crumpled, tears sprang onto her pretty cheeks and dropped onto her plate. She clutched him tighter, pulled him down into the seat beside her. 

“Yeah, its going to be okay, little lady. Whoa, now, Whoa. You hold on to that, now.” 

She was pressing money, all her money into his hands. He waved his over hers. 

“Maybe just that twenty? I could use a hot meal.”  She was sliding it towards him before he finished speaking. 

“You forgive me, don’t you?”  Her eyes were wide. She made no move towards putting her money back in her purse.  She still held his arm. 

Dicks slid the money into his coat pocket. 

“You are forgiven, honey. Believe that.  And listen, those things your folks are saying?  That don’t mean nothing. They’ll come around  Everyone will come around.” 

Fresh tears.  She grabbed him with her other arm and put her head his chest. He patted her on the back and tried not to think about his own daughter.  Fuck this.  He composed a mental shopping list while waiting a respectful period before beginning the exit dance.  

After he left, the girl sat in silence at the bistro table.  People shuffled in and out, nervous waiters hovered, and still she sat, aglow from the feeling of being with him.  It would last a long time.   

*** 

Billy found he had more than enough carpet to cover the floor of his nest.  He folded the leftover section and put it aside to give to Dicks. It was looking sweet.   Next he needed some furniture.  Even Crackmom would notice if his whole bed went missing, but maybe if he left the boxsprings there with the covers intact she would shine it on.  Maybe he’d hit that first thing tomorrow morning while they were still sleeping.  He heard gravel on the path down from the bridge and saw it was Dicks struggling up the rise toward the abutment with a grocery bag.  He looked even more cashed out  than usual. 

“Dicks, you look beat, man.  Need a hand?” 

The old man stood there panting, looking up at Billy’s nest. 

“You movin in?” he said finally. 

“Yeah. Cool with you?” 

“Cool.”  He picked up his bag and set it on the abutment on his side of the pylon.  “I got some Mad Dog.” 

“Good God, Dicks, that shit is going to pickle your liver.  I think I’ll stick to weed for now.” 

The old man reached into his bag and pulled out a pint. “Suit yourself.”  He took a swig of wine. “Nice rug.” 

“Yeah. Hey I got another piece, about 4 by 4, you want it?” 

“Sure.  Hey I got something else over here I think you can use, hold on.” 

He pulled himself up onto the abutment on his side and disappeared behind the pylon. A minute later he was back down below huffing and puffing and holding up a ratty old beanbag.   Billy took it and handed down the piece of carpet.  Dicks let it drop to the ground, sat down on it, and doffed his bottle in salute.  “Welcome to the neighborhood, Billygoat.” 

Billy threw the beanbag to the ground beside Dicks.  “Thanks, Dicks old bean, I’ll join you on the veranda.”   He took a step back and launched himself at the beanbag, landing on his butt with a loud thump and a flurry of styrofoam pellets.  Dicks flicked them from the front of his dirty coat and took another swig of Mad Dog. 

Billy fished out his bag and started rolling a joint.  For a few minutes the only sounds were the water and the occasional rumble of car on the bridge above them. 

“DIcks, you ever smoke pot?” 

“I used to. Not so much now, costs too much.” 

“You want to smoke some now?” 

“Sure, if you want.” 

The boy lit the reefer and took three big hits. 

“Dicks?” he said on the exhale. 

“Yeah?”  Dicks was holding the joint and looking at the burning end. 

“Where do you come from?” 

Dicks took a long hit, a huge hit, a real lungbuster.  To Billy it seemed like he held it in forever.  Finally he let it out and sat there with the joint still burning. 

Billy elbowed him and took the joint back.  Dicks sat looking out over the river. After another long pause he looked at Billy. 

“I come from another little town just like this one. Only shittier.”  He might have smiled, it was hard to tell with Dicks. 

Billy laughed and took another hit.  This was a good day.  Maybe things were finally going to get a little better.