Ribbons, a novel -- Chapter Six

Ribbons

SIX

“TO GET BACK MY YOUTH I WOULD DO ANYTHING IN THE WORLD, EXCEPT TAKE EXERCISE, GET UP EARLY, OR BE RESPECTABLE.”

--EXCERPT FROM THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, BY OSCAR WILDE

#
(THROWING COMPUTERS)
         The drive to work was always one of the highlights of my day, especially once my driver’s license had been reinstated--the first time, that is.  It was a lovely, forty-five-minute trip that allowed me to sort through important and trivial issues, collectively and respectively.  I rounded the last, sharp turn between myself and the hotel and shifted into fourth gear.  It was late October, and the leaves on the trees had done about as much changing as they were going to do.  The autumn air was cool enough that I kept the windows up, save for a crack to ash my cigarette.
         I arrived at work with a good buzz on.  The Dodge had been leaking gasoline for a few months at this point, but it had never much bothered me.  Even so, there was no mistaking the fact that I was often pretty high at work for the first half-hour or so.  It was really quite amazing that I hadn’t blown myself to pieces, considering how much I smoked while driving the potential firecracker.
         I parked and stepped out of my deathtrap onto the pavement.  My first task would be to avoid any of my superiors while clocking in, as I was uncharacteristically late.  After that, all I had to do was find Joshua and get busy looking busy.  I did not succeed in this.
         “Just the man I wanted to see.”  My boss, Mr. Watson, was a nice enough guy, at least on paper.  But I did not cherish the opportunity to chat with him at twenty minutes past shift-change.  “Go ahead and clock in.  Then meet me in my office.  Okay?”  I hoped for a quick death.
         I inserted my time card into the slot and punched in my code.  “At least the foot up my ass will be on company time,” I thought.  I stalled as long as I could, reading the customer comments and event orders.  I even perused the equal-opportunity statement that the hotel, by law, is required to post in a conspicuous location; I wanted to double check and make sure I hadn’t been discriminated against before walking into Mr. Watson’s office.  To my disappointment, I’d been treated completely fairly.
         I stopped by the front desk and talked to one of the girls there.  She, like most of the front-desk girls, was very cheerful, very attractive and very blonde.  This, most assuredly, was no coincidence.  Dave, my friend in the maintenance department, stopped by to change a light bulb.  I chatted with him about the falling temperatures.  We concurred that summer was indeed over.  I grabbed a radio from the counter and did a position-check with Joshua.
         “Banquets to Josh.”
         “This is Josh.  Go ahead,” the radio managed in pops and clicks.
         “What’s your 20?”
         “The North Lawn.”
         “Right.  I’m walking into the Lion’s Den.  I’ll see you on the other side.”
         “What?”
         “Nothing.”  Everyone in the vicinity within earshot of a radio expressed mild amusement.  It was a small consolation.  I had postponed the inevitable long enough.  I headed for Mr. Watson’s office.
         “Have a seat,” he began.  Mr. Watson’s office was the largest in the hotel.  He was good at his job and deserved it, though he rarely could be found in it.  He was a hands-on type of manager and could usually be located in the trenches with the rest of us drones.  Everyone was fond of him, so long as things were running smoothly, but avoided him like death itself when things went awry.  He was, after all, a redhead.
         An unfamiliar gentleman stood by the large window to my right looking out at the state park on which the resort was built and talking on a cell phone.  The conversation seemed to concern large amounts of money.  The stranger was dressed in an expensive-looking, navy-blue suit and large, green, Kermit-the-Frog slippers.  Normally, this would have struck me as funny; but I was still feeling the effects of my trip to work via my petroleum-based bong-on-wheels.  And so, my immediate reaction was to assume that I was being set-up.  Oh, paranoia!  How many great laughs you’ve stolen from us all!  The stranger ended his call and turned to face me. 
         “Hello.  I’m Doug.”  He shook my hand.
         “Mr. Gordon,” interrupted Mr. Watson, always the fan of formality, “has just purchased the hotel.”  Doug gave me a knowing smile and a wink.  Mr. Watson continued, “And we would like your help in changing its image.”
         I had no idea where the conversation was going.  I had entered the office in fear of termination and was now being offered a privileged opportunity, apparently, to do, well, something.
         “Mike, here, tells me you’re an artist.”  Mike Watson’s face recoiled ever so slightly, but I noticed.  He truly hated being referred to as anything other than “Mr. Watson.”  I had always imagined that even his wife respected those boundaries.  Even at home.  Even in bed.  It wasn’t that he was a hard-ass; he was just particular about nomenclature.  “We’d like for you to help us alter the atmosphere a bit.  Spice things up.”  He gestured toward Mr. Watson.  “We’re gonna’ give this place a makeover.  Just like on Tyra!”
         Not knowing how, exactly, I should react to this, I said what anyone who found himself unintentionally high and just wanted to remove himself from such a situation would say:  “Okay.”  My plan, however, did not work.  The two men spent the next, two hours going over two-million, detailed ideas for converting a stuffy, business-oriented place of temporary lodging into a hangout where any drunken, Jimmy Buffett fan would be happy to hang his thong and flip-flops.  I was disgusted; but I was also broke and happy to find myself still employed.
         “Sounds great,” I said, “I’ll work on some sketches tonight.”
         “Why don’t you go ahead and work on them now?” replied Doug.  “Head on home, have a couple of beers and throw some ideas together.  We’ll clock you out at, say, eleven-thirty?”  I could see Mr. Watson’s head attempting to break free from his neck and do back-flips.  “I’d like to get going on this as soon as possible.  So that it’s finished over the winter months.  While business is slow, anyway.”
         “Even better,” I answered.
#
         I arrived at home and did as I had been instructed.  I stole a beer from the refrigerator--a Red Stripe, Jamaican for authenticity and accurate mood-manipulation--and a bottle of rum from the kitchen counter, also Jamaican, as I have always strived to go above and beyond.  Being one who would never knowingly possess an album by Jimmy Buffett, however, I had to make do with a Bob Marley CD I’d found while cleaning the coat closet one afternoon.  “Tropical is tropical,” I reasoned aloud.  Cranking the heat up to seventy-eight degrees, I put on a pair of cotton shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt.  I took two shots of the rum and a swig of the beer and stared at the blank page of my sketchbook.
         What now?
         I decided to begin with a simple collage of everything Caribbean through the stereotypical eyes of a Midwesterner.  Images of palm trees, seashells, pelicans and fishing boats came easily enough.  “Gaudy,” would be my word of inspiration, and, “Over the top,” would be my phrase.  Before long, I had a handful of ideas for murals that I was sure any sunburned parrot-head would appreciate during a one o’clock, mid-bender brunch on any given Sunday.  Especially a sunburned parrot-head living in Southern Indiana. 
         It was nearly eight o’clock when the doorbell rang.  I opened the door to find that a strange man in a brown, leather coat and khaki pants, with a pen and a notepad and a bulbous, red nose was standing on the front porch.
         “Can I help you?”
         “Yes.  My name’s Detective Peterson.  I’m looking for Mr. Clinton Small.  Is he home?”  Detective Peterson did not wear an easy-going expression.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen Clinton in several days, which was not all that unusual.
         “No, I don’t believe so.”
         “You don’t believe so?” he echoed.
         “No.  But I haven’t been downstairs yet.”  I’d been fighting a battle with the booming, band practice taking place in the basement fairly successfully with commercial, Rasta music since I‘d been home.  I invited the detective into the living room while I ran downstairs to see if Clinton might be listening in on the practice session, or if Parrish and Bailey might have any notion as to why a detective was looking for him in the first place.
         “Hey!” I shouted, trying to penetrate the force-field of music surrounding my two roommates and their two accompanists.  Parrish smiled at me and nodded his head, but continued pounding and crashing and tickling his drum kit.  Bailey couldn’t even muster an acknowledgement, as he was busy turning some dials and flipping some switches on amplifiers and other various doohickeys and making, to my ears’ collective opinion, absolutely no difference whatsoever.  The other two, band members just stared vacantly in my general direction--a look I’d seen from them so often I’d come to regard them as slightly retarded.  If they were ever going to decide on a decent, band name, it would have to come from either Parrish or Bailey; the other two were barely capable of tying their shoes.  I proceeded down the wooden flight of stairs to the light switch where I got everyone’s attention by temporarily blinding us all.
         “Hey,” I began again, “there’s a detective upstairs looking for Clinton.”  Looks of confusion darted back and forth between each of them, as if they were watching an invisible, tennis match.
         Finally, in unison, they responded, “A detective?”
         “Yeah.  Where’s Clinton?” I asked.  The tennis match resumed.
         “I haven’t seen him in at least three or four days,” stated Parrish.
         “There’s a detective upstairs right now?” questioned Bailey.
         “Yes.”
         “Now?” piped in Eddie, the indifferent bassist.
         “Yes.  Now.”
         “What’s he doing here?” asked the bassist in a blasé manner that annoyed me a little.
         “He’s listening to I Shot the Sherriff, dickhead.”
#
         “So, no one has seen Mr. Small for nearly a week?” reviewed the detective.  We each stared at Detective Peterson with varying degrees of inebriation.  It was the truth, but we could tell that he wasn’t buying it regardless of that fact.
         Finally, Parrish asked, “What’s this all about anyway?”
         Ignoring the question, the detective pressed on.  “Mr. Bailey?”
         “Yes?” Bailey responded mawkishly.
         “You are still employed at Mr. D’s Gas N’ Go, right up the block, correct?”
         “Yes.”  Bailey took a nervous pull from his cigarette.
         “Mr. Small was also employed at Mr. D’s, wasn’t he?”
         “Yes, he was.”
         “But he quit, just a few weeks ago?”
         “Yeah, he got a new job--” Bailey paused.  “I can’t remember where.”
         “Did he ever visit you while you were at work?” asked the detective, taking notes.
         “Yeah, he stopped by all the time.”
         “Any visits this week?”
         “He stopped by a few days ago.  That was the last time I saw him, actually.”
         “And what did you talk about?” he asked, not unkindly.
         “Not much, really.  He bought a pack of cigarettes.  He was with a friend.”
         “Cigarettes.”  He jotted it down.  “Anything else?”
         “No.”
         “Did you know his friend?”
         “I’d seen him before.  But I didn’t really know him.”
         “What was his name?”
         “I-- I’m not sure.”
         “One last question, Mr. Bailey: Did Mr. Small ever get behind the register that day?”
         “No.  He bought a pack of cigarettes and then walked outside with me to empty the trash.”
         “He and his friend?”
         Bailey thought for a moment.  “No.  His friend stayed inside.”
         “Okay.  Well--”
         “Am I in some sort of trouble?” asked Bailey, feverishly.
         “No, Mr. Bailey.  I’m a private detective; I’m not with the police.  But it appears that your roommate, Clinton, may very well be in trouble--and a lot of it.”  We all waited for him to elaborate.  He lingered a moment, as if to draw out the suspense, before continuing.  “Ten-thousand dollars in money orders were printed up and taken from Mr. D’s last Tuesday evening.  None were larger than five-hundred dollars, so they could be cashed, one at a time, at different banks without immediately putting up any red flags.  None were cashed by Clinton Small.  However, according to the tellers we talked to, the checks were presented for payment by two men in their mid-twenties, one matching your roommate’s description.”
         None of us quite knew how to respond to the detective’s allegations.  I reached for a cigarette, but could not tear my gaze away from the stare of Detective Peterson.  So, there was a lot of fruitless patting about the shirt- and pant-pockets while I stared blankly ahead.
         “I’ll leave you gentlemen a card.  You can reach me anytime, preferably before nine, should you be contacted by Mr. Small or remember anything that could be of use.”  Parrish accepted the card and handed it immediately to Bailey as if the card was carrying the Ebola virus.  “By the way, you guys sounded really good.  What’s the name of your band?”
         Parrish and Bailey glanced at each other, then, back at the detective.
         “Oh, it changes everyday,” replied Bailey.
         “‘It Changes Everyday’--that’s a great fucking name.”  Detective Peterson put away his notepad and pen.  “You boys have a good evening.”
         We sat side by side on the rust-colored couch for a while in complete stillness.  Bailey’s silence spoke the loudest, as he was undeniably much closer to our missing roommate than Parrish, and infinitely so compared with me.  The other two, band members, apparently sensing the deflated mood of the household, decided to leave.
         “Call me later,” said Eddie to no one in particular, saluting us with two fingers.  We watched as the two exited through the backdoor and then faced one another.
         “You want to go through his room?” suggested Parrish.
         “Yes,” replied Bailey.  I followed them upstairs.
         The door to Clinton’s room would barely open wide enough to squeeze through.  Luckily, we each were fairly malnourished individuals, capable of passing through small cracks like wealthy politicians through a general election.  Clothes were piled high in all four corners of the room.  Large boxes filled his closet, stacked three- and four-high.  Behind the door, nearly pinning it shut, were trash bags filled with shoes, books and empty, cough-syrup bottles.  On the window sills were rows of empty, cough-syrup bottles.  And, in the trash can, another mound of empty, cough-syrup bottles.
         On his bed, amongst various other items of curious purpose, was a sheet of paper with barely legible writing on it.  Words like, “gas,” and, “hotel,” could be identified if carefully examined.  Mostly, however, the page consisted of numbers and figures and calculations.  And at the bottom of the page, circled several times and underlined several more, preceded by an “S” with a vertical line through its center, was one, particular number of significance: 10,000.
         Still in relative shock, we began going through our missing roommate’s boxes.  The first few boxes contained arbitrary, electronic equipment--telephones, a digital alarm, small speakers, wires and cords--all old and mistreated junk.  Beneath those boxes, though, we discovered a more interesting cache of goodies.  We found Clinton’s porn stash.  It wasn’t the fact that he possessed pornography which amazed us--it was the amount of pornography!  Hundreds of videos and magazines, all in alphabetical order and all of disgustingly poor quality.  “If you’re that into pornography,” I thought, “at least go for something with a higher production-value.”  We waded through the ocean of titles with absolute shock and repulsion--each title an innuendo somehow worse than the last--wanting, but unable, to turn away.  No one spoke until Bailey, at last, offered a summation thusly:
         “Who the hell is this guy?”  Referring, of course, to Clinton and not to the uniquely proportioned fellow on the cover of Mr. Bo Dangles.  Bailey was markedly upset, and rightly so; he had developed a tight friendship with Clinton, reaching out to the often awkward newcomer with the guidance of an old hand.  “And where did he get all of these computers?”
         I had not even noticed. 
         There, in the back of the closet, behind the stacks of boxes, were six, slightly used, computer monitors and their accompanying hard-drives.  Out of heightened frustration, Bailey threw his Zippo lighter at one of the computer screens.  It cracked the glass surface about two inches in the upper-right corner.  Then, after a brief pause and an angry grunt, Bailey stood and seized the monitor, raising it to eye level, and chucked the thing at Clinton’s solid bedpost.  It crashed to the floor violently. 
         “Motherfucker!” he screamed.
         Taking a cue from Bailey, Parrish lifted one of the bedroom’s second-story windows, grabbed the now-defunct monitor and tossed it with all his strength straight out into the darkness, sending several, empty, cough-syrup bottles tumbling with it into the night.  The sound of a small explosion echoed off the neighboring homes and apartment buildings.  In a gesture of brotherly support, I, too, seized a monitor and hurled it through the open window.  Another loud crash rang out as it hit the cement walkway.  It all happened very quickly, instinctively almost.  We three, typically reserved, young men looked at one another and smiled.  We laughed and pointed at each other and at the open window.  Then, Bailey grabbed a baseball bat from one of the several heaps of clutter on the floor.  He smiled again and headed downstairs for the back porch.
         If nothing else, we had at least restored a spirit of unity to our home.  Feeling a bit celebratory, I decided afterwards to pay Lilly a visit.  My mood was elevated and the wounds on my back barely hurt at all.
#
#
(SATURDAY NIGHT--TWO DAYS LATER)
         Bear’s Place was hopping.  An up-and-coming comedian had just finished his set and everyone busied themselves trying to retell his jokes between pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea.  I was slightly annoyed that we’d missed the performance, but pleased to have missed the cover charge.  A man I knew, whose name I could never remember, waved me over toward the bar.  I was relieved when someone he knew, whose name he could probably never remember, stepped between us and engaged him in conversation.  I took Lilly by the hand and swiftly retreated to a side booth where the occupants were gathering their jackets and divvying up the bill. 
         “I’ll be right back,” said Lilly, as she handed me her purse and pushed her way through the crowd, choosing her route like a running back through a defensive line, in the direction of the restrooms.
         I took a seat at the booth, assuring its previous inhabitants that their tip money would reach its intended destination.  My buzz was all but gone, having been drained by the walk over from Lilly’s apartment.
         “What a strange twist!” I said aloud to myself, chuckling, as I packed a fresh box of cigarettes against my left palm.
         “Give me a square, bitch,” a familiar voice demanded as a hand calmly grasped my right shoulder.  I turned to see my friend, Apples, smiling down on me; his eyes were glazed like two Krispy Kremes.
         “Oh, are they letting people like you in here now?”  I stood and embraced my neighbor.  It had been a few days since we’d spoken.  The last time I’d seen him, we were both doubled over in laughter from having just accidentally interrupted his cousin’s attempt at getting a girl to watch a porno with him.  It was awkward, to say the least, as it took the two of us a few minutes to realize what was going on.  Apples’ cousin was sitting on a couch, a blanket over his lap, while the girl looked straight ahead, frozen.  Her thinking, apparently, was that as long as she sat perfectly still, we wouldn’t notice her.  Like we were dinosaurs or something.  Our plan had been to ask his cousin for twenty dollars so that we could buy some weed.  So, we plopped right down on the cheap couch--partly held together with duct tape--and attempted to open some quick conversation en route to our main objective.  However, once we realized that the image on the television was not your typical, poorly-acted B-movie, we excused ourselves with eyes closed and breath held.  Exit stage left.
         Good times.
         “Seen any good movies lately?” Apples asked, mock-punching me in the chest as he grimaced and bared a shiny, gold tooth.  “You here by yourself?”  I proceeded to tear the cellophane from my cigarette pack and produced two cigarettes, handing one to my friend. 
         “No, I’m with someone.”  Lilly reappeared just then, as if on cue, with a rejuvenated glow in her expression and, I noticed, a curious, white residue on her upper-lip.  “This is Lilly.  Lilly, this is Apples.”  Apples seemed momentarily taken aback as he held out his hand.
         “How’re you doing?” he offered.  Lilly disregarded his gesture, deferring to me instead.
         “Have you ordered?” she asked.  A bit confused, I attempted to redirect her attention to my comrade.
         “Apples, here, is my neighbor and a close friend,” I asserted expectantly.  “He wakes me up every morning with a blunt and a gold-toothed grin.”  But Apples, understandably offended, cut off my extension.
         “Hey, man, it’s good to see you out.  Stop by sometime this week, okay?  I got the real sticky for you.”
         “Alright.  Well, hey, I’ll talk to you later, then, I guess.”
         “Alright.  It was nice to meet you, Lilly,” he added, placing emphasis--which could be roughly translated as, “Fuck you”--on her name.  He turned partially to walk back into the blackness of the tavern, his eyes lingering bitterly on Lilly.  Once he’d left, I turned to confront her.
         “What was that?” I began.  I was interrupted.
         “Can I get you guys something to drink?” the tall waitress asked.  She was strangely pretty with shoulder-length, brown hair done up in pigtails and wearing a red-and-white, vertically-striped shirt.  Below, she wore cut-off shorts and lime-green socks pulled up to her knees.
         “Two scotches,” ordered Lilly, who had taken a seat and picked up a menu in the two seconds since Apples had made his exit.  She looked up at me and smiled as if we’d just made a down payment on our first home, or gone-in halvsies on a minivan.
         “Okay.  I’ll be right back,” said our server with a polished pep in her young voice.  She whirred around, grabbing the cash from the table and making some strange expression that involved the pursing of her lips and raising of her eyebrows.  Having no idea what message I was supposed to obtain from this, I exhaled in bewilderment and took my seat opposite Lilly.  The evening seemed to be taking on the characteristics of a boring roller-coaster, occasionally threatening to do a loop or eject its passengers, before giving up and remaining on its perplexingly ho-hum trajectory straight ahead.  The scotch, it occurred to me, was our only hope.  While we were waiting for it, though, I decided to try to extract some clarification from Lilly.
         “Why were you so rude to him?” I asked, obviously discouraged.
         “Sweetie, that was a girl.”
         “No, not the waitress.  Chris.”
         “Who’s Chris?”
         “My friend.”
         “I thought you said his name was ‘Apples.’”
         “It is.  But I call him ‘Chris.’”
         “You call Apples ‘Chris?’”
         “Yes.”
         “So, his real name is ‘Apples?’  That’s kind of odd.”
         “No.  His real name is Chris.  But everyone calls him ‘Apples.’”
         “Then, why do you call him ‘Chris?’”
         “It’s my nickname for him.”
         “You use his real name as a nickname?”
         “Yes.”  I paused to check the logic for myself.  Finding none, I pushed the matter aside.  “Why were you so dismissive toward him?”
         “He’s black.”
         “Yes, he is.”
         “Well--”
         “‘Well,’ what?” I followed, not following--or at least hoping I didn’t.
         “Well, I don’t like black people.  I would think that to be obvious.”  She calmly took a cigarette from my open pack on the table and lit it.
         “Oh!”
         “‘Oh,’ what?”
         “That’s racist!”
         “So?”
         “So, you’re a racist?”
         “So?”
         “‘So,’ I don’t like racists,” I explained.
         “Well, that’s prejudice.”
         “That’s what I just said.”
         “No, that is prejudice.”
         “Exactly.”
         “What?”
         “Huh?”
         Lilly then proceeded to explain to me that deciding not to like someone simply because they are racist is, in fact, prejudice.  I was appalled, but had to admit there was a certain logic to her argument, despite its absolute ridiculousness.  Nonetheless, my mind was made up: I did not like Lilly.  I simply had to find another reason not to like her, in addition to her racism, to satisfy my intellectual propensity for not being labeled as prejudice toward racists.  I was not completely clear why, but my idiosyncrasies are often fairly absurd.  Besides, if nothing else, the occasion was bound to lead to some interesting conversation.  Moreover, we had drinks on the way.