All due respect issue 3, p.4
All Due Respect Issue #3, page 4
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MILK
BY JEN CONLEY
IT’S A SATURDAY EVENING, June ’92, and Michael waits on the narrow, long concrete porch, a cigarette in his mouth. He’s pacing in that edgy, tight manner that defines him, watching for his buddy’s El Camino to come rolling down the street. An old song circles in Michael’s head, ‘Tell it to my heart, tell me I’m the only one…’
Mike’s father appears from the road and trudges across the front yard, his bloated face reddish, grim in the light of the setting sun. He’s been at a neighbor’s house, shooting the shit, as he says. He’s an old-time guy, gruesome, cruel. Michael’s grown now, can hit back, but there’s a line of respect a young man has for his father.
“You need anything, Pop?” he asks as the old man approaches.
“Nope.”
Michael nods, takes another pull of his cigarette and watches as his father steps on the porch and passes by. The old man opens the screen door and walks through, but turns around.
“Bring home milk later. We need it for the morning.”
“Will do,” Michael says.
The old guy nods, growls like he does, then shuts the front door so the air conditioning doesn’t get out.
“We’re stopping in Toms River,” Donald announces as soon as Michael is in the car.
“Why?”
“’Cause I got a bone to pick.”
“Fuck,” Michael grumbles. He rolls down the window and spits through his teeth. “You and that woman.”
Donald rubs his large nose. When he gets older, it will bubble up, go gross like Mike’s father’s. But for now, Donald is at his prime. Twenty-four, pock-marked and narrow-eyed, he’s handsome in a beastly way. It won’t get better. He’ll marry Tiffany and they’ll buy a house and he’ll drink on the weekends and after the second kid, she’ll start screwing her best friend’s husband.
But for now, the night is spectacular, like those summer nights you hang out with a girl. Mike doesn’t have a steady girlfriend. He likes them for a little bit and then drops them. Gets bored easily. He had Andrea for a while but the story just depresses him. Why bother thinking about shit that’s done and over with? Because on this night, the air is warm with a touch of humidity to let the world know it’s June, that summer has arrived. It’s rolled out in front of you like life is the day you graduate high school. People in Southern California or Florida don’t understand June, Michael thinks. If you live with good weather all year round, June isn’t special. It’s just another month. But when you live in a seasonal state, you’ve got to grab June and slow down with it, savor the days, make them last as long as you can.
He smiles, impressed with his philosophical thoughts. They’re driving down Route 37 now and he closes his eyes, feeling the sweet wind from the open windows blow against his face. When they stop at a traffic light, Michael sits up, lights a cigarette and listens. Crickets sing in the woods.
Tiffany lives in her parents’ house. It’s a bi-level and she rents the bottom section of the structure. There’s even a side door and inside she’s sprawled out on the mauve-colored couch, her dark, curly hair pulled up in a loose bun. Michael finds her ridiculous. She has a large mouth and a mushy body. She’s not fat, just mushy. But it’s her attitude that bugs Mike—lazy, always telling Donald to get her a Diet Coke and whining that she’s hot, cold, tired, so on. The place is small, like super small, and before Mike knows it, the couple is arguing about some other dude Tiffany talks to at her job. Mike has to step outside because he hates the fighting. It reminds him of the days his mother still lived in the house with his father. The two of them would go at it but she was never a match for the old guy. He was wicked. Too strong.
He lights a cigarette and strolls around back, settling himself in a lounge chair, poolside. He doesn’t like to think badly of his father, of all that sadistic punishment he endured. Face near the electric burner on the stove, beatings with belt buckles and tools, countless backhands, kicks in the ass, locked out of the house for days… It isn’t worth dredging up old crap. He and his father are at a truce now. Mike is twenty-two. He works at Radio Shack, wears a shirt and tie and black pants several days a week. Some nights he boxes over at that shit gym up in Lakewood. A little Hispanic guy runs the place and calls him Bono because Mike has an Irish last name. Mike has no future in boxing, but those guys are cool and he likes blowing off steam.
And there’s also this: Mike dreams of going to art school. He’s applied to one in Philadelphia. At the moment, he awaits a reply, a possible request for an interview and a chance to show his work. (There isn’t much.) Each day he checks the mail, flipping through the white and brown envelopes, hoping to see his letter. It’s actually not a long-shot because Mike does have potential. Mr. Thurman, his freaky art teacher from high school, even wrote a recommendation. Mike had to go seek the man out in his dirty classroom and jog his memory with his sketch book and a couple of paintings. “Remember me? I was your student a few years ago. You said I was good.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” Mr. Thurman had said, running his hand through his brown beard, staring at one painting of a grayish brown cat resting on a concrete porch. “You’ve got an eye for the lonely.”
The comment was strange. It was just a painting of a scraggly, old cat that used to come around and sit on his porch. Sometimes Mike would give it a bowl of milk. He never thought it had another meaning. He was just trying to make sure the shadowing was right.
But now Mike knows what Mr. Thurman was saying. My talent might go deeper than just drawing or painting, Mike thinks. I see things, like a poet does. Like Bob Dylan.
Still, it’s not good to get worked up about some art school letter. Not tonight. Tonight he draws on his cigarette and studies the fading light in the sky, a sky that is clouding over. Mike assumes Donald and Tiffany are talking kindly to each other because he can no longer hear the muffled screams of her big mouth. He can hear kids playing in the street out front. He closes his eyes. Thinks about a girl he’ll meet tonight, someone pretty. He’s a sucker for pretty. This is good… this is good…
Tiffany doesn’t feel like going out so they leave her inside the mini apartment. Ten minutes later, Donald confesses she isn’t happy, that she believes Michael is a bad influence on him. They’re flying down 37 again, over the Seaside Bridge, onward to the night. Mike doesn’t care what Tiffany thinks. Neither does Donald, or at least not right now. Because as soon as they had closed the door to her place, both guys snuck into the pool cabana and did two lines of coke each. Donald is never without blow.
Once they reach the beach town, they go toward the strip, deciding not to park the El Camino on a side street, fearing its beauty will attract the envious and the shiny black car will get keyed. Donald settles on a dirt lot. The teenaged kid taking the money waits as Donald and Mike argue about the ten-dollar fee.
“I drove here so you pick this up,” Donald says.
“You owe me fucking fifty bucks,” Mike says, referring to the poker game they’d been in the other night. “Remember?”
Donald grumbles, leans back against the car seat and digs out a ten from the pocket of his jeans shorts.
When they get out of the car, a gentle sea breeze ruffles Mike’s hair. They’re only a block away from the boardwalk and the ocean.
“It’s gonna be a good night!” Donald cheers as they walk away from the El Camino. “A good night! The ladies are ripe for the picking. Right, my man?”
“Yep!” Mike answers and they high-five each other. But for Mike, there’s irony in the slap. Donald will talk this crap all night, but he’s bound to Tiffany like a marriage vow.
Soon they’re on the sidewalk of the strip, cars rolling by, music blasting from the windows, bass thundering. Then they’re in the bar, out on the patio, or sand pit thing, whatever it is. It’s all fenced in white cast-iron, like a miniature prison yard in Heaven. Big, swollen-armed dudes dressed in khaki shorts and white polos stand near the exits like sentries, their expressions lifeless. Girls in heels topple over in the sand. Mike is twitchy, tapping his foot, his eyes darting. Donald and he go to the bathroom and do more blow. All night this goes on, with the tequila, the pretty girls with their fake ugly nails, the beer, the loud boom boom de da dee music banging through the speakers. At eleven-thirty, Mike remembers the milk and drums it in his head—don’t forget it, don’t forget it. He lets out a breath and watches as Donald flirts with two girls in black sundresses. Maybe the dresses are dark blue or purple. Mike wants another line of coke but doesn’t understand why. He had hesitated earlier in the night, when he stood in the cabana, watching Donald do the first line. Mike isn’t a regular user of the drug, just when he’s out with Donald or someone else who has the habit. Coke makes the night last longer.
“You alright, dude?” Donald asks.
“Yeah, just bored,” Mike answers, lighting a cigarette.
“Bored? The ladies are here and the night is warm!” Donald says, stretching out his long, beefy arms. “We have it all! We’re young! Full of masculine vitality!”
“Masculine vitality?”
“Energy. Life! Look at all the women in this place!”
Mike scratches his ear. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m bored.”
They leave the bar. They wander down the strip, bump into some guys from Staten Island and argue about who bumped who. Donald takes a punch to the face. Mike hits the other guy twice, hard, like a professional. The dude goes down and for a moment; they all step back and stare at the loser splayed on the sidewalk, wondering if he’s dead. He moans finally and the enemies nod a sigh of relief at each other, then throw curses and insults out, but go separate ways. Everything is lit in bright lights but the black night hovers over the sky. No stars, no moon. It’s like they’re on stage, Mike thinks, or in a Caravaggio painting. He’s proud of himself again for being so clever. Caravaggio. He recalls learning about the Italian painter from Mr. Thurman. He remembers Mr. Thurman’s slide projector and the paintings shining on the white screen—the grayish dirty bodies, the blackness behind them.
Mike and Donald head down the strip. Mr. Thurman’s voice pings in Mike’s head like a video game. The subjects were on stage, on stage…
They end up on the boardwalk, walking through the throng of tourists, shops and game stands flanking them. It’s hot, sticky, reeking of sweaty human flesh. The scent of the salty ocean is not strong tonight. Mike stops for a minute and listens for the waves. He can’t hear them. It’s low tide.
The two walk into a boardwalk bar, do more blow in the bathroom, drink beers, and Mike meets a girl. She’s pretty with those long dark eyelashes and red cheeks and he ends up making out with her until her girls pull her away. She writes her number on a napkin, but back in the bathroom it drifts out of his hands and ends up on the piss-stained floor.
They do another line.
Drink more beer.
Mike meets another woman, someone with a lean body who reminds him of Andrea, that girl he was with in school. It’s the brown hair, the crooked smile. What happened to Andrea? Why did he screw that up? Why did he cheat, lie? Shit.
Another beer.
An angry bouncer throws Mike and Donald out. Last call has come and gone.
They wander around forever, criss-crossing the streets, passing other ghosts who can’t find their cars either. Donald is out of blow and he has a connection on Carteret Avenue, but then he says he just wants to go home. He says he misses Tiffany.
“But I can’t go see her now,” Donald says, picking up his pace. “Not all fucked up like this.”
“True, true,” Mike says. “You don’t wanna do that. She might go and do something wild, like dump your dumb ass.”
“Don’t start on my girl.”
“She’d be doing you a favor.”
“I can’t live without her.”
“You probably could.”
They’re walking fast now. Donald leans slightly forward as he moves, muttering to himself. “I just wanna get in my bed.”
Mike feels bad for Donald because Tiffany cheats on him and he won’t see it. Everyone else can. No proof needed. Just that shifty look in her eye.
They keep walking, continuing to search for their vehicle.
Eventually, Mike spots it—the El Camino glowing under a street lamp, windows glistening in the humidity, bulbous tires punching out on the sides, one of the last vehicles in the dirt parking lot.
They get in. Donald is paranoid. Every car that trails them is an undercover cop. Even the old Volkswagen Bug behind them. Donald drives the speed limit, both hands on the steering wheel. “Don’t fucking smoke!” he barks at Michael. “Cops are everywhere. You smoke, they’ll think we’ve been drinking.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t fucking smoke! Roll up the window!”
Mike switches on the radio but Donald turns it off. “No music. I can’t focus.”
Mike rolls his eyes and leans back in the seat, staring through the window as they travel over the bridge. The water shimmers under a moon that peeks out from the clouds, in a sky that’s clearing up. Then they’re on 37. For a stretch it’s nothing but fast-food places and strips malls with signs that are dark. Soon it becomes trees and quiet, two lanes. Donald can’t calm down. The car behind them is a cop, he says.
“It’s not a cop,” Mike snaps.
Donald shakes his head, mutters, “We’re fucked, we’re fucked.”
“It’s not a cop,” Mike says again.
It isn’t. It’s a pick-up truck. They drive and drive until Donald suddenly guides the El Camino onto the shoulder.
“Jesus, what the hell are you doing?” Mike yells.
“Can’t do this.” Donald puts the car in park and shuts it off. They sit on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The sounds of crickets burst through the vehicle. Mike knows they can’t stay. A cop will pull up and Donald will get hit for driving under the influence. Most likely, Mike will be screwed, too, with all that blow in his system.
Mike gets out of the car, goes around the back and over to the driver’s side. He opens the door and pushes Donald to the side. “Move over, dickhead.”
They’re back on the road, Mike feeling confident, doing the speed limit but smoking. Screw that.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Donald mumbles.
“Shut up.”
The highway is dark and Mike knows he has to get Donald back to his house in Lakehurst. Mike is not bringing him home to his father, that’s for sure. Antagonizing the old guy with a fucked-up friend is a bad idea. Donald lives with his brother in a rented, one-story duplex. Mike won’t sleep there. He’ll just drop the guy off and take the El Camino back home. Call him in the early afternoon, or maybe later in the week. It’ll be good to have a nice vehicle for a bit. His piece of junk only gets AM radio.
They approach town and Mike drives around the first circle, crests the overpass of an old train track, and sees the red and blue lights of the big hangar at the naval base. Then he descends. Stops at the traffic light. He looks at the closed diner to his right and remembers the milk his father wants. There’s a 7-Eleven in the distance. He’ll stop there on the way home.
Donald has fallen asleep and when they reach his house, the guy won’t get out of his car. So Mike does, and he stands under a pine tree, staring at the porch light, wondering if Donald’s brother is home. He might need help.
“Come on, man,” Mike says, holding the passenger door open. “Let’s go.”
He has to yank Donald by the arm. The big guy becomes awake enough to get out of the El Camino and walk to the front door. Mike shows his friend inside, to his bedroom, and Donald falls on the bed facedown. Mike turns the guy’s head to the side so he can breathe.
Back in the El Camino, Mike starts it up and rubs the steering wheel thinking he’d like a ride like this one day. He takes a side street to the 7-Eleven. He’s good. He’s thinking about his letter. Philadelphia. Art school.
But inside the store, Mike’s head is buzzing, ringing and everything under the fluorescent lights seem stark, like he’s stepped into an operating room. He realizes he’s all whacked out and forces himself to walk normal, grab the gallon of milk, go to the cashier. There’s a box radio playing music. “Come, as you are, as you were…” Cash slips out of Mike’s wallet with ease.
“Want a receipt?” the lady says, sticking the milk in a paper bag.
“No.”
She drops it in the bag anyhow.
He gets back into the car and starts it up.
To get home, Mike should make a left out of the 7-Eleven but there’s a cop car rolling down the road and because Mike doesn’t want to be a near a cop car, he makes a right on the highway. He’s okay. He does the speed limit. Passes the local Lakehurst motel, the main sign in the shape of a neon blimp. He steers the El Camino around a second circle, passes the video store with a porn section in the back. Then a beautiful new restaurant with a gazebo for wedding pictures. Around the circle again. Damn. What’s wrong with his brain? Don’t go around twice.
Back the other way. The window is open and Mike can feel the summer night. He passes the neon blimp sign. Passes the 7-Eleven. His eyes are sharp but in a warped way. There’s a deer crossing over the road and he slows down. He believes he slows down. But he hits the gas harder. What is a deer doing in town?
It’s not a deer.
Mike clips it. It flies off to the side and he doesn’t know what the hell it is.
He pulls over and jumps out, leaving the door open.
He approaches the object on the ground. It’s a man.
The guy is wearing a white sailor suit. A goddamned sailor. From the naval base.
