The Lonelies – Part Two – Fiction

The Lonelies

Part Two: Sunday Night

by Adam Haynes
illustrations by Dave Dawson

As Will hurried through the dark, freezing streets toward Abraham’s coffee he thought about the plan: Get the hell out of this town, marry Winona Ryder, and live happily ever after. All he had to do was write a book – the market was primed out of its mind for a trashy Generation X “Coming of Age” sensationalistic bestseller, and seeing as how he’d spent nearly the last two years of his life suffering in Portland where all the youth wannabes of Maine flocked, he had material in spades. Once it was published and dedicated solely to her, he would use the fact that he was only twenty as a way to further whip up the media circus, something that would increase his profits and – more importantly – get her attention. Winona Ryder’s favorite book of all time was Catcher in the Rye. Once she figured out that his book was the Catcher for the nineties, and that it was dedicated to her… well, a meeting would be nothing less than inevitable. Just like everything that would follow…

Will realized that he’d started skipping. Embarrassed, he looked around to see if anyone had seen him, but the street was empty. There weren’t even any cars.

The day after tomorrow was his twentieth birthday. Recently he’d come to the passionate conclusion that twenty was a magic number – whatever you were doing with your life when you hit twenty was essentially a dead-on indicator for how the rest of your life would be. Ultimately. Will freely admitted to himself that, at the present moment, he was nothing but a lonely, skinny, awkward young man, unemployed and trapped in the rotting hell hole that was Portland. If he started writing by his birthday, all of his future would fall into place. He would be saved.

But – and this had been the final technical problem which had stumped him until an hour ago – to write he was going to need some serious cash, a large purse of silver, monetary luxury. His present life conditions were unacceptable for trashy-but-great novel manufacturing: the sleazehound landlord kept the heat for his building locked down at 67 degrees, all he had to write on was a run-down Smith-Corona typewriter, his meager monthly compensation check left him with chronic low-grade hunger… it went on and on. If he had money, he could immediately hop a supersonic jet out to L.A. where everything was warm, bountiful, and bright. Get the hell out of Portland. Hook himself up with a little white bungalow, buy one of those new Apple Power Books. Man, with a set-up like that he’d turn into a writing machine and have that book minted in two, three months flat.

Then presto: Fortune! Fame! Love! DESTINY!

But how to get that cash… With time running out, he’d taken off all his clothes and laid back on his mattress and squeezed his eyes shut, pounding his fists against his forehead, forcing himself to come up with a solution. And it had worked, for it made him remember how the last time he’d seen his father – a prominent psychiatrist – he’d promised to totally set Will up. The only catch was that for some reason his father wanted him to be gay. Now how had he forgotten something as important as that?

Hoping to warm up for a second, Will jumped into one of those old fashioned telephone booths, the kind Superman used. Of course, it ended up being just as cold in there as outside, but it did do a good job of cutting the wind which whipped and whistled around the sharp sides. Will flipped absently through the moldy yellow pages then stared outside. Typical New England February bleak. The sky was the color of asphalt, and in the empty parking lot across the street, the plastic cover on a streetlight had come loose, and the wind was blowing it around, making the harsh fluorescent light within bob in and out against the side of the windowless building next door. Will pressed his nose against the cold scratched Plexiglas and shivered.

Since he didn’t have a gay bone in his body (naturally, since he was psychically bequeathed to Winona Ryder), he’d scam the bastard. There was no time. This was the only option. And to make this little scam work, he needed to find some bonafide homosexual – not a street hustler – who, for a percentage of the profits, would come with him to Brooksville tomorrow morning at the latest and pretend to be his boyfriend in front of his dad. Live flesh – who could argue with that?

After bragging about his conquest, Jonah didn’t have anything more to say to Bart, but he stayed for a while longer out of politeness and drank beer and listened to Bart’s poorly made up fishing adventures until he finally couldn’t take it anymore. He made a run for it while Bart was taking a piss. His watch told him it was around 11:15, which was still way too early to check out Hannah’s, so he decided to go hang at Abraham’s after he’d changed his socks which were always wet in the winter because Doc Martens basically sucked even though they sure were cool.

Back in his own pad across the hall, he felt a slight pang of paranoia. Forgetting about the lights, he stood in his darkened living room trying to think things through, figure out where the feeling was coming from. What if Mildred had loved getting shit on? What if she wanted to go out with him now, be with him all the time, get shat on all the time? This hadn’t occurred to him before, but now pressed down upon him with great uncomfortable weight. Did she know where he lived? It wouldn’t be hard to find out. What if she called?

He kept turning it over in his mind, the whole time staring blankly down at all the beer empties scattered across the small door on cinder blocks that acted as his coffee table. Getting more and more unsure, and feeling alone like that inevitable way he did in those ninety seconds after he’d come.

The phone rang, making him give an involuntary yip.

His first inclination was just leave it alone and be on the safe side. But there was always the chance that it was someone else, someone cool who was doing something outrageously exciting and wanted him to take part (Jonah was secretly of the opinion that there was always someone, somewhere, who was having a much better time than he was). It could even be Hannah, even though she always made him do all the calling. Shit, what if it was Hannah, telling him that she wanted to change their plans for tonight? If it was Hannah, she wouldn’t try him again. That was her style.

Shit, fuck. He had to answer it.

Jonah delicately picked up the phone, deciding that if it was Mildred, he’d just hang up, not say anything. Let her think maybe she’d dialed the wrong number.

“Hello, Jonah?” The voice on the other end was female, someone he didn’t recognize, making his paranoia flare.

“Hello, Jonah? Are you there? It’s Cindy.”

Cindy? What the fuck was Cindy calling him for? About a month ago, he’d gotten cranked out of his mind at some USM drama-fag party down on Danforth and ended up sitting in a stairwell with her, talking for hours. She was one of Portland’s many little girl runaway punk rockers. Not a day over thirteen with a little boy’s body. On top of that, she wore a toothbrush through the top knot in her hair that made her look like a gross imitation of Pebbles from The Flintstones. No thanks.

“Cindy, listen, it’s late, I’m…”

“Jonah, I know what you did to Mildred. She just told me.”

Every hair on his body started to tingle.

With an unnerving clairvoyance, Cindy said, “Hey, chill out. I didn’t call you up to harsh on you.”

“You didn’t?” he heard himself saying. He was getting the feeling Mildred was going to be cool and stay away. Thank the Lord. He put a hand on his forehead to wipe off some of the sweat that had appeared. “So why’d you call?” he asked her, still slightly apprehensive.

“Jonah…” Her voice was squeaky, two balloons getting rubbed together. “I wanted to tell you that I’m really turned on.”

There was too much hushed bad girl in her tone for her to be faking. “Oh,” he said, not exactly sure what else to say.

“No, you don’t get it man, I’m really turned on right now. I’m in my fucking bathroom and I’m so wet, I think I going to die or something. I want you to come over.”

“Uh…”

“Ever since we had that conversation at that party, I knew you were different from other guys. I understand you. You’re like me. And then after I heard what you did to Mildred, I don’t know, oh my GODDD!”

He couldn’t believe it, she was having goddamn orgasms over the phone! This was wrong, very wrong. “Listen,” he tried to think of a civil way of putting it, “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not into little girls.” Beyond her little boy body, there was also something, something he did remember from that party. It was this look she’d given him a few times. His mother’s look. One of the big reasons he’d come down to Portland in the first place was to get away from that look.

“Jonah, listen to me. There’s this fantasy I’ve had for such a long time. I never thought I’d tell to it to anyone, but now that I know you like it kinky too… you want to hear it?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It involves blood.”

“Oh c’mon!” he yelled. Shitting on someone was more like a prank, a little bad boy thrill – didn’t she get that? Blood for crying out loud… This was too much, way over the top. He didn’t understand today’s youth, he really didn’t.

“What? What?” she sounded shocked, hurt, not understanding why he was so upset.

“What do you mean ‘what?'” he barked at her. “That’s fucking disgusting. What the fuck are you telling me that shit for?”

“I, I…” her voice quivered, “I thought that you were a kindred spirit. After what Mildred told me and what we talked about that night at the party.”

Suddenly he was feeling very claustrophobic. “What the fuck right did Mildred have to spread my personal business all over town, huh? If she wants to talk to me, she can talk to me her fucking self!”

“Jonah, don’t do this, please.” She was making those hiccuping sounds girls do when they’re trying to swallow back tears. “Please Jonah, at that party you said…”

“What the fuck did I say? I wish you’d fucking tell me what we talked about that night so I could know what fucking lies I told you. I MEAN JESUS CHRIST, I’LL SAY ANYTHING TO GET INTO A GIRL’S PANTS, BUT I DON’T EVEN THINK YOU’RE CUTE!!!”

The line was silent; he couldn’t tell if she’d hung up or not. “Cindy?” he said. “Cindy?” cupping the receiver in both hands, sending the name out into black space.

An eternity later, a voice that was Cindy’s, only vacant and flat said, “You’re through.”

The line went dead.

Dropping the phone back onto the cradle, Jonah instinctively pulled down his pants, whipped the Beast out and started masturbating, using his own spit as lubrication.

As he rubbed his chubby fist back and forth across it’s wide shaft, he rewound choice moments on the Mildred tapes. Her taking the Beast into her mouth… the startled gagging sounds she’d made as his bowels opened up…

Getting more excited, his focus shifted to Hannah. Now there was some high class candy waiting to be gobbled up. There was a real piece of ass. She’d done swimming or something in high school, and she had a body just like one of those nympho Tinker Bells out of Heavy Metal magazine. He’d been working on her for a month and a half now and was sure that tonight he’d finally get some. He thought about what it would be like to finally get to slap her face with the Beast – the dazed and fluttery expression she’d have.

Then, just as he was about to come, his mind blitzed out, suddenly consumed with a strange image. A lake, he was upstate in the middle of Molasses Pond in an inner tube, all alone. Something was underneath him, down deep in the water, coming toward him. He couldn’t see, but he could feel it there. The Beast gave a mighty roar, lurched, then erupted a spray of hot semen the color of silverfish.

“Holy shit,” Jonah squeaked, pulling up his pants and hurrying out the door, completely forgetting about his wet socks.

“See, Nirvana created this thing called the Hidden Generation.” Temptation’s coworker, Dekkler, was laying down another one of his theories in his trademark monotone. Together, they stood behind the counter at the back of Abraham’s House of Coffee with their arms folded. The clock on the wall said it was 11:45 PM, which meant she’d been there five and half hours, though, as always, it felt more like five and a half years.

“Is that right?” Temptation said, not really listening, having heard all of Dekkler’s bullshit before. She stared past the few customers out the storefront window into the darkness, thinking hard about how the hell she was going to rope in a virgin to impregnate her ASAP.

With a baby, she would have been able to trade in this stupid job at Abraham’s Coffee for a sweet monthly welfare check and just hang out and play with the kid and never have to do shit again. No more work, no more going to thrift stores looking for L.L. Bean and J-Crew shirts to sell back, no more rolling drunks, no more stealing cigarettes from the Big Apple. Just her and the kid in some clean apartment – maybe on the West End – that didn’t always smell like cat spray and mold, with plants hanging in front of the windows and lots of cool posters of Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros. And no TV. She’d give up TV for good if she had a kid, and only go to the movies once or twice a month because that shit rotted your mind and made you a zombie if you over indulged in it. She should know after all.

“…People don’t recognize how drastically Nirvana changed the whole music scene,” Dekkler was saying, staring ahead like her and occasionally having a sip of the bad coffee they served.

“See, it was like there was this whole other culture going on. Back in the ’80s. Nobody called it ‘alternative music.'” Dekkler nodded to himself.

“I think Nirvana suck ass.”

“Right on, girl.”

Temptation’s thoughts had moved toward the personals. Did you have to be 18 to put an ad in? Would they even accept the sort of ad she wanted? Did you have to write it yourself? Just thinking about having to write anything made her groan internally. Too complicated. Screw that.

“You’re too young to really appreciate this, but before the fall of 1991… man, the scene was like totally different. The feel, everything. If you wanted to find cool music, you know like anything on Rough Trade or 4AD or whatever, you had to look. Hard, you know what I’m saying? There was only the bullshit on the radio and then the totally cool shit your friends copied for you. Nobody had fucking CDs, it was all tapes. The industrials, the Gothics, the hardcores – it was a real scene. And you know it’s scary man, after the fall of 1991, it became hidden under all that junk bullshit of Generation X and ‘alternative music.’ It doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“What the fuck are you talking about. 1991? You mean that Prince song?” asked Temptation.

Dekkler shook his head and whistled under his breath. “Youth is a scary thing… Listen, Nirvana came out with their major label debut, Nevermind in 1991. That tape killed cool music, made it way too popular. Turned it into a commodity. Yes,” he nodded again. “And it wasn’t even real. People say that Nirvana is punk rock. Fuck that, they were never punk. But whatever, they sure killed it dead.”

For the hundredth millionth time she thought, quit, just quit. If she wasn’t working, she could go to Zootz. When was the last time she’d been to Zootz on a Sunday? She couldn’t remember. All she did now was fuck around with coffee, or stand around bored out of her mind. The big problem with quitting was that her mother would kill her and stop giving her money. Temptation looked at the clock which said in few minutes it would be 12. Aw fuck it then, she thought to herself, and moseyed over to the little table by the wall next to the register where she always took her cigarette breaks.

At the meeting, Mildred was the last to share. “Let me tell you the story of my life,” she said, which was how she liked to start it sometimes. “I met this boy. So, right off the bat, I know he’s probably a loser – of course I know he’s a loser. But, you know, I still live with my adopted parents, and I’ve been a bag boy at Shaw’s since I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen and I have no self esteem… So of course I give him my phone number and stuff… and he calls, and he’s playing it Mr. Sensitive Man, giving me all these lines about how when he met me fireworks went off inside his head and he ‘just wants to be friends’ and he’s so happy because he’s never met anyone he’s felt like he’s ‘connected’ with so much. I know he just wants sex.”

Mildred let out two long sighs, trying to relax her clasped fingers which were grinding into each other. “So, even though I know better, I invite him over last night. and he brings all this really bad Goth poetry he wrote for me, I guess, because I’m Gothic or whatever. Really bad stuff, like, ‘The ill moonrays burn my tortured corpse.'” There were some laughs and Mildred allowed herself a faint smile. “And the pathetic thing is, it’s working… Because… because with me, flattery will get you everywhere – even when it’s insincere bullshit poetry.” She let out another long sigh, feeling the sad ache she both despised and loved pour into her. “I’m just so lonely, you know? At this point I’ve fucked over – literally – most of my friends, and the others think I’m a real drag. Which I am. It was crazy – last night, I got so depressed hanging around this guy, but I couldn’t do anything. It was like I was frozen. I just wanted to turn off the Joy Division, grab him and say, ‘Stop fucking around, I know you don’t care about me and I don’t care about you – so let’s just use each other’s bodies and get it over with.’ But, you know, I’m frozen… I guess there’s still a part of me that really hopes he will turn into the prince and everything will be happily ever after and all that bullshit.” She found that she was shuddering and gulped. “I guess that’s why I’m so fucking easy to take advantage of in the first place…” For a moment her mind blitzed out. What was she talking about?

“And to add insult to injury, I’d given him this expensive camera.” Don’t talk about the camera! Don’t think about photography! “But I also didn’t care because I knew I was going to get laid and that’s more important than anything else. So, he shows up, and now it’s over and I’m sure if I see him again, he’ll avoid me. I know I’ll avoid him.” Looking up again, she saw all those caring and concerned faces, everyone looking like they were in suspended animation or something. Mildred closed her eyes. “And like most of you know who’ve heard me before, that’s how it always happens. Every single time. Like a broken record. That’s the story of my life.”

After the meeting, she went out to Denny’s with her one meeting friend, Marcy, like she always did. Marcy was about twice her age and dressed like a biker with her hair combed in her face like Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. She was the kindest, nicest person Mildred had ever met, even though she never laughed or smiled or even so much as grinned.

“Tah-tah-tah tell meEEE ah, ah abOUT beh-beh-beh-BEH!!!”

Mildred took a little notebook out of her coat that Marcy sometimes chose to use.

Marcy shook her head. “About beh-being AH AH AH ADOPTeddd,” she finally spat out.

“Oh c’mon,” Mildred said. That was all they ever seemed to talk about. She chained a new cigarette and took a huge drag.

“Okay. For the thousandth time, I don’t think my adopted parents loved me that much. I’m not sure why they even did it. We don’t talk about it.” That eerie, possessed look was taking over Marcy’s poker face. “They were already so old when they adopted me, in their early fifties… and then my mother died – that was like three or four years ago – and my father remarried… to our next door neighbor whose husband also died, in a car crash – but you know how old people are. We haven’t had much to do with each other since she died. Not that we hung out a lot when she was around.” She thought about her father and stepmother, who were right now side by side in the living room, in their twin La-Z-Boy chairs, blissfully watching whatever came after Sixty Minutes. She never went into that room. It smelled like old bread and death.

The Denny’s waitress with hair like her neighbor’s cat, refilled their coffee.

“Fa?-fa?-fa?-FA-”

“My photography class?” She needlessly ashed her cigarette, feeling distressed heat flood her cheeks.

Marcy nodded her head and lit a Newport.

Fuck, she didn’t want to go into this. But there wasn’t any way out, Marcy had paid for the fucking class after all. She had a right to know.

“YE YE YE youuuu.. SE-SE-saID ye-YE-”

“Yeah, I gave away my camera.”

“Wa-EH-WHY?”

Mildred chained her cigarette, wondering how much to lie about. “I don’t know,” her voice involuntarily going up an octave, making her sound just like the lame little loser she was. “After the first week of class, I showed him my pictures and my professor told me they were too gray.”

“GRAY?”

“Uh huh. They were those ones I showed you, of the rusted-out cars in the snow? He said there wasn’t enough contrast.” She gulped down half her cup, her whole body turning hot and ill. “And I dropped the class. Shit, I’m sorry Marcy. You paid all that money for the class and helped me sign up, and I’ve totally let you down.” She was too ashamed to look at her friend.

Marcy took the little notebook and wrote something on it and then slid it over.

“I’m not mad, but I thought you cared more about photography than anything else???”

What could Mildred say? For years, that had been true. Other than sex, photography had been what had kept her going, and it was better than the sex because she didn’t have to worry about it. It didn’t leave her after she came. Right… but now that wasn’t the case. Now she couldn’t even think about it without getting sick.

Mildred tried to change the subject. “I don’t know, maybe if I just worked my program harder I wouldn’t be such a fuck-up. You know I’ve done that first step, admitted to myself and others that I’m powerless. That was easy, I’ve always felt powerless.

“But, you know, I also think it’s hopeless. This step two, admitting that there is a power greater than me that can restore myself to sanity. I keep hearing in the meetings that a higher power can be anything you want, but whenever people talk, it always ends up sounding like God to me. So even without all the Christian stuff, the higher power ends up being God, and I don’t believe in God.” She rubbed her hands together, inadvertently burning herself with her cigarette and pulverizing it into loose tobacco. “I want to, and it’s not like I can’t accept a higher power, that would mean that I somehow believe in one but I can’t. I’ve never believed in God. And I wish I did. Things would be so much easier if I just did.”

to be continued…