We ate quietly. Mr. Frants wasn't one to talk much, and I was fine with that. It's actually moments like this I find most enjoyable in life--those moments where you just join together in space without the need to fill the void with babble, even if this particular moment is with an elderly racist homophobic prik.
We finished our touchups, and Mr. Frants dropped me off at home. There's a package on the porch, I glance at it and see it has my address, but atop it instead of my name, Edgar Alvaro, it says Patrick Oppenheimer. I set it back down and go about my business. The next day, it's still there, the package being about the size of a DVD but flaccid, slightly curved in the middle. I wonder what it is.
Day after day it glares at me when I arrive home, when I leave my apartment, when I take out the trash. Every day, it's there, getting more schlumped and nestled in its lonely little corner of the porch. One day, a Wednesday I think, I pick it up again. Its been here for over a week now. No one here has claimed it. I know it's against the law, but I might as well open it. I mean, no one else is taking it, so what will it do?
I don't open it. I carry it very personally under my arm down the hall, up the flight of stairs, and into my apartment. I lay it on my coffee table. I sit and stare at it. It stares back. What kind of man is Patrick Oppenheimer? I doubt he was a physicist. Maybe he is. He's probably a tallish man, good build, short cropped ashy blond hair, two reced curves on either side of his ever expanding forehead, thin lips, a charming always innocent boyish smile, a dimple on one side, oh shit, I'm describing Patrick Wilson.
The package watches me contemplate its future. It'd be two more days until I open it. It watches me sleep at night. It waits for me patiently each day. Sometimes I hear it whisper my name in a language only known to paper products.
I shouldn't do this. I know I shouldn't. Okay, just get it over with quickly. With eyes clenched shut... *rriiiiiiiiiipp*... that's it, it's done. Inside, the contents were unimpressive. I torn piece of journal paper scribed with "Happy Birthday Pat." and the barely legible signature at the bottom, "Zack." And the floppy item was a paperback: j. g. ballard - crash / a novel--typed all in lower case just like that. The words, "Happy Birthday" fill me with sudden remorse. This unknowable Patrick Oppenheimer will never recieve his birthday gift. This other man, known simply as Zack will think Patrick, or Pat rather, is an ass for not mentioning the book. But then really how good of friends are that that Zack did not know Pat's newest address? Zack probably once commented something about the book and suggested Pat read it, so he bought it and gifted it simply to boost his own ego. Furthermore, Zack only spent two dollars on the book according to the price sticker. A bargain for sure. Probably cost less than the shipping.
But then maybe I'm just justifying committing a federal offense. The book, laden with guilt, feels heavy in my hands. I hold it not in a way one holds a book, but more like when someone hands you a baby for the first time, and you're like, now what do I do with it, and a gaggle of overly matronly women must instruct you on the proper way to hold an infant. For a moment I am frozen. What do I do now? I open it to the begining of its prose.
Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. During our friendship he had rehearsed his death
in many crashes, but this was his only true accident.
I slam it shut as if a terrible revelation came to me. Zack, the harbinger of death has brought me this message. I do not believe in signs of god, nor do I believe in god, but this is a sign of god. Don't be silly. Of course it's not. Then how does it know I will die? It doesn't. When you want a sign, you see a sign. You take the most insignificant thing and make it a sign. This is just a book. These are just pages. They are cut and pressed wood pulp with carefully patterned pigmented oil-based product smashed into it to become a legible piece of literature. It is nothing. It is unimportant, even to Patrick Oppenheimer.
I contemplate throwing the book away, but it isn't mine to throw away, so I keep it hidden behind other books on a shelf so that one day in the future, and will refind it, and relive all the horrors it brought me, I'm sure.
.....
Not too distant bells peale the six o'clock hour. The gray sky echoed back with a hungry stomach thunder. I stroll down Chartres (Charters), avoiding the shakey slate sidewalk tiles. I just got off work at Lather and Lace, the soap shop. In the distance there is a man wearing an impressive costume which is likely his daily wear. From top to bottom he is clad in a black pork pie cocked to the side, a teal paisley shirt, black pinstripe trousers, and candy apple snakeskin shoes. Most impressive, though, is his golden handlebar mustache in the middle of his face. He walks with such confidence and fervor that I am inclined to be envious. As he passes me, he flashes a friendly smile that says, "look at this happy and healthy young man," but his eyes betray him. His eyes are my eyes. At this moment I know all his secrets.
I turn down Iberville because I plan on stopping by Walgreens for a cold drink. I pass Dixie Divas. A plump woman stands in the doorway meaning to tempt me in. Her breasts hang loosely in her thin clothes, unsupported by a bra, like jellyfish washed up on a beach. Outside the Walgreens is a man smoking a cigarette--one of those brown ones that smell good. He wears black and white striped pants, a white chef's shirt, and a black bandanna on his head, and he's leaning against the terracotta-painted wall, looking at me with his yellowed eyes with neither interest nor disdain.
After purchasing a bottle of juice, and I head to the streetcar stop to head home. In only a few minutes it arrives, and I walk on. I sat on the back bench whose windows run parallel to the seat. I watch people get on. The doors close, but just before leaving, they reopen for a woman hailing down the streetcar from across the street. She bends her arms at ninety-degree angles, sways them quickly in wide arcs, and shuffles her legs in small but quick steps. She is still going no faster than when she was simply walking, but she manages the illusion of running.
The streetcar takes off, and I open my novel I brought with me to work. The words would flow into me in spurts and then in jumbles almost as if I had ADD and was reading French.
Just after passing One Shell Square, the sky broke open with a downpour, as tends to happen this time of year. Then began the cacophony of people rushing to down their windows *Klklklklklklklklklklklklklkl!* Mine stayed up. First there was spittle upon the back of my neck like the gentle touch that no one can give you just right. Mere moments later, cold dots penetrated the back of my shirt. By Lee Circle, my back was soaked, and the water began to drop down into my ass crack. It was soothing, and in contrast, the front of my body now felt feverish. A few small specks made their way to the now abandoned pages in front of me, leaving tiny waves upon the paper. I took off my hat and set it onto my lap. I leaned my head back against the edge of the raised window and hunched my back through so the wind would more easily lay its cooling hands upon me. I closed my eyes, but it was only a mere moment before my reverie was broken.
“Do you mind shutting your window?”
I turned to see sitting next to me the soft-bodied Madonna with the Long Neck whose timid voice asked me the question.
“Yes, I do mind.” I looked and saw that every bench meant for two was occupied by only one person. “There are plenty of empty seats with closed windows.”
She stood up along with a young man next to her. He was probably her boyfriend, or worse, he her fiancé. They just stood in the aisle grabbing the pole. The Madonna with the Long Neck looked at me sideways, large obvious spots of moisture temporarily marring her light blue maxi dress made of t-shirt material, whose empire waist didn’t quite fit right around her boobs. A couple of blocks later, someone got off, and they quickly shuffled past to slide in that seat. Of course, by this point, we were at Washington, and the rain had stopped. Slowly, people began to realize this, and intermittently the *klklklklklklklklklklklklklklklkl* began again, and it wasn’t long before the couple, who had given up their spot by my open window had then opened a window of their own.
My stop had come, and I waltzed off wearing my skunk’s back proudly. My only regret is that the rain had ceased, and I would not complete my rejuvenation on this night.
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