RETORTMAGAZINE.COM

TYRONE

Snow rumbles against the floorboards pushing me sideways. Flakes as big as doilies flutter into my headlights as the wipers do the best they can. They’re calling for a foot in the outlying areas and an outlying area is right where I’m headed, to my own dismay and Andree’s sputtering disbelief. Tyrone’s call came shortly before midnight. I rolled out of bed and summoned my strength.

“You’re out of your friggin’ mind,” was how Andree put it.

“Come on, it’s not that bad out,” I struggled into my pants. “The weather guys always overdo it.”

“Fine. I’m unplugging the phone.”

“You should be glad he called. You know how I get.”

How I get is pretty unbearable. Instead of the usual mood swings I bottom out completely. Without weed all the wheels stop turning and I mope around heaving sighs of despair. Any task seems beyond me. I can’t sleep and I have nothing to say. It’s not like I take it out on Andree, but hey, she’s there.

The snow’s not so bad under the el if I keep to the inside lane. If I were stoned I’d be thinking how unworldly this looks, the weird light, the iron canopy, the deserted streets and sidewalks. Crossing 41^st Street, I steal a glance north at the walled compound that was once the Tyler estate, is currently the Pennsylvania Institute and will soon be something else. Tucked away under snow-draped sycamores, a rich man’s dream gone horribly wrong. If I were stoned it would strike me funny. The world would look strange and magical and the rattle in the heater wouldn’t worry me a bit. I’d see the gas tank as one quarter full instead of three-quarters empty

But I’m not stoned. Six days now without a buzz and the world is cold and ugly. Pretty much a new low here. The rationalization, that midnight was actually a good time to go to Tyrone’s, beat the traffic and snow removal crews etc. turned delusional here in the thin vapor light. Laughable, even if I’m not laughing. What you lose sight of when you’re caught for ten blocks in a Penndot parade is the odds against them clearing the one street you need. I’ve passed one other plow, near Broad, parked in a Wendy’s lot, snow up to the fucking gunwhales.

The el ends at 59^th Street and I’m on my own. Fishtailing along Cobb’s Creek, then a wide left onto Haverford. Plumes of snow in my wake as I time myself to the traffic lights. How silly they look in the absence of traffic. My nose is running and there’s a knot of tension in my shoulder. The gas gauge is now halfway between the quarter mark and the big, red E, where just blocks ago it was dead on a quarter. How is that possible?

Andree thinks I have a problem. She doesn’t say anything, but it’s in the air. She sees the weed as an extravagance and knows I’ll never pass a drug test if I don’t give it up. As if it was that easy. I tell her the test is unreliable, that lots of companies use it as a ruse to filter out the faint of heart. Flunking three of them took the wind out of those sails, but it’s not like you can skip a few joints and pee Perrier. It takes months without to clean the system and months is just not an option. OK, I’m an addict, but it’s not like I’m shooting smack and robbing people. Just reefer, no harm no foul. I still eat right. I still bathe everyday. As for the money – 150 crummy dollars a month! The electric bill is almost that much, for crying out loud. The way Andree says nothing says it all, if you listen. What it says is, is this the best I can do? Silent disapproval is not what I need right now. Christ you’d think I was pawning the silverware.

Pothead, a failing, sure, but nothing to freak over. It’s not like there isn’t an upside. I’m a scream when I’m stoned, ask anybody. Ask Tyrone. My impression of a cat coughing up fur balls always brings down the house. I’m not nearly as contrary when I’m high and I’m much smoother with the women. Plus, I can watch almost anything on television. Kicking pot probably wouldn’t kill me. I’d just wish I were dead.

By the time I get there Tyrone’s out cold. His snores carry through the storm windows and I see him sprawled on the couch with the TV going. I tap on the glass but that’s never going to do it. Tyrone’s a world–class snoozer and nothing short of a referee’s whistle is going to reach him. I could call from the phone booth on the corner but then I’d wake Sharon, and the baby. That leaves me …

I tap on the window and the cat jumps up to sniff at my fingers. I rap harder with my knuckles and she does the shadow-boxing thing. I can hear the snow falling behind me, a light hiss that deepens the silence. I picture it piling up on my lamppost at home, filling the lone set of tire tracks on Haverford.

On the off chance I roll back the mat. What do you know? Thank you God. Now all I have to do is unlock the door and walk in. … Except when I picture it all kinds of things go wrong. You don’t just walk into a guy’s house in West Philly at one in the morning, even if he is expecting you, especially a black guy with a kilo of weed and paranoid tendencies. Just the kind of bonehead move you read about in the papers, under the photo with the crime scene tape. But if I don’t do it I’m back to square one. I fit the key in the lock and push the door open. Tyrone’s sitting there looking right at me.

“Dude,” he flashes a sleepy smile.

“Hey,” I walk in and toss him the key. ”You might want to find a better hiding place.”

“Duuuude, where you beeeen?”

“Sorry. The weather outside is frightful.”

“I’m thinking my boy slipped up, wrapped his sorry ass around a pole. What your old lady think about you dogsleddin’ cross town to cop a bag?”

“She thinks I have a problem. What do you think?”

“Hey, the fucking pipers don’t come out on a night like this! Sit down, Slim. You’re looking peaky”

“Peaky?”

“Peaky.”

“I can’t stay long,” I sink into the recliner. Jesus …

“Why? What YOU gotta do, slacker?”

“I’ve got to maintain a semblance of routine. Daytime is for business, night time is for TV and sleeping. This was all wrong, Tyrone. This …”

“ … smacks of desperation?”

“Yeah, …yeah, I guess so. Maybe desperation is a little strong.”

“Now Tyrone?” he aims a finger at himself. “Tyrone don’t go out that door until springtime. Not for nothing or nobody. I’ve made all the arrangements.”

“What kind of arrangements?”

“Sharon goes to school and does the shopping. I watch the kids.”

“What if something happens? The kids get sick, there’s a gas leak.”

“If the kids gotta go somewhere I call Aunt Serena. She owes me big time.”

“ … Gas leak?”

“Dude, something like that and I’m outa here. OK? I’m not looking to go up in flames. I’m just, … uh, uh, uh, … setting a goal for myself.”

“Of sorts.”

“And, you know, I’m a goal oriented motherfucker. I can do this. April.”

“And I can say I knew the man. Knew him personally.”

We smoke a bowl out of one of Tyrone’s contraptions, a long, gunky tube with foul liquid bubbling at the bottom and a finger hole on the side for those real bell ringers. The way that works, you toke a good three hits into the tube then take your finger from the hole and whammo! Out of body experience.

“I think I love you, Ty.”

“Then you got two problems dude.”

“Between you and me, I’d go nuts staying inside all the time. With kids? I give you a month.”

“Been TWO months already. First frost Tyrone was on it. Anyway, Angie’s at St. Matthews and Jeanette just started preschool. Alarm goes off, they eat their Cheerios and book.”

“What do you do all day?”

“Watch TV.”

“How can you do that?”

He looks at me. “You mean how can I actively avoid doing something productive with my life? How can I fritter away the best years watching Yosemite Sam blow his own god damn brains out? How? How? How?”

“In good conscience, I mean.”

“You think Mr. White Man is gonna hire me? Get real, my brother.”

“The race card.”

“I heard that!”

Tyrone grew up in a white neighborhood so he does his best to look the crackhead. Glassy eyed, hair sticking up in clumps, big butt hanging out of his pants and complicated sneakers right out of the box. His wife Sharon is a white girl, from Ireland, if you can believe it. Red hair, freckles, about as far from the’ hood as you can get. Their two girls are angels and every time I see them I want to go home and have me some.

“I was tripping man,” he is telling me about a frat party he went to. Tyrone’s half my age. “The bitch is heaving her guts out and this other bitch is screaming about the rugs. Puking man, and it’s got chunks and shit. And my boy’s got his hands out and he’s trying to catch it, you know?” now he’s laughing, a deep, phlegmy wheeze, pure Tyrone. “But it’s splashing down his arms and between his fingers and the look on his face? Buckwheat, yo!” he gives me the wide eyes.

“Bitches?”

“Huh?”

“You call women bitches?”

“Wha-?“

“I don’t know, man. It’s unbecoming.”

“Naah, it’s a black thing. What we call uh, uh, uh, term of endearment.”

“Bitches.”

“And hoes.”

We met when I was running presses at U of P. He was just out of high school, working in the bindery. It wasn’t long before we were getting loaded at lunch and shit-canning the afternoon. Seems like a million years ago now.

On TV the Keystone Cops are chasing crooks, legs going a mile a minute. They shake their fists and make angry faces and when they fall they land on their keesters.

“Now this, …” Tyrone shoots a finger at the screen. “This shit is funny.”

“ … Your best years ….”

“Look at those little white motherfuckers go!”

“Your momma’s gonna chew your butt, Tyrone.”

“Shiiiii-it,” with just a hint of uncertainty. Momma Henrietta – the butt chewingest woman in West Philly, I happen to know. Another movie begins, the Keystone Cops in Dangerous Desperados. Somewhere along the line I lose contact with my legs.

“Got some Molson’s on ice, Slim.”

“No thanks, I gotta go.”

We hear something in another room, a baby’s whine stretching to a wail. Tyrone scrambles from the couch and darts down the hallway returning moments later with little Jeanette over his shoulder.

“S’OK baby, it’s only the white man,” he sidesteps past me. “Don’t worry, Daddy won’t let him oppress you.”

She gives me a sleepy smile and wave.

“Hey kitten, you come to see me?”

She nods shyly then busies herself with Tyrone’s buttons.

“Watch this, honey. Check it out,” he points her at the TV. “This is important.”

She stares at the little men racing around in circles.

“See baby? Can you say Cau-casian?”

“Caw Cayjn,” she giggles.

“I love my kids, man,” Tyrone shoots me a wink. “Girl babies, ain’t nothing bad about them.”

“Caw Cayjin,” she looks to me and points a dinky finger.

“That’s my girl. Ain’t you a trip? We have fun don’t we baby,” he turns her to him then lifts her over his head and spins her like a propeller. Jeanette shrieks with laughter and he does it again. I’m no dad but I can see problems with this.

“Come on, sugar,” he sets her down. “Show Slim what you can do. This is killer, man. I take her down to Barney’s and drink all night for free. Tell the white man what you can do, Jen.”

She clasps her hands from behind. “I can say my ABC’s,”

“You can? Gee, that’s -”

Tyrone leans in over her shoulder. “In five seconds.”

Jeanette nods eagerly.

“Do the whole bit for him baby. Like we do it at Barney’s.”

She toddles over to me and pokes me on the knee. ”’Scuse me mister. Could I interest you in a little wager?”

“Sure sweetheart.”

She takes a pretend something from her pocket and puts it on the arm of the recliner.

“A dollar says I can say my ABC’s in five, count’ em,” she flashes her fingers, “five seconds.”

I place my own pretend dollar next to hers but she shakes her head from side to side.

“That’s not a dollar.”

“What do you mean? That’s a ten.”

“Oh.”

“That’s OK, baby,” Tyrone nuzzles her ear. “Slim here is chiseler. You remember what I told you?”

She bobs her head. “Chiselers burn in hell.”

“Thaaat’s right. Go on now. Show him.”

Jeanette steps back, takes a deep breath and fixes her eyes on the wall behind me.

“ABCeefgeehlmentopqueZEE.”

“HO now! Record time, baby, record time,” Tyrone give her a squeeze. “Show him what else I taught you.”

She reaches a hand under her top and makes little fart noises with her armpit.

Tyrone beams at me.

“Hey, …I’m speechless!”

“She really picks things up quick. Don’t you sweetie,” more nuzzles and kisses. Aw Jeez.

Halfway through The Keystone Cops in Moonshine Mayhem the two of them are snoring away. I cover them up, show myself out and slip the key back under the mat.

It’s not so bad going home. Still snowing but the plows have been out, at least on the main streets. I punch up the radio and fall into some Milt Jackson, just the thing for a stoned drive home, something bluesy, Philly Joe tapping rim shots. Ba didlee dink a-dink a-deedee, yessir, Bags’s in a groove. No one stepped up to take his place so he just took the vibes with him. Yeah, I know my jazz guys. Bags, Bird, Monk, Trane, like that. I’m hip. City slick, that’s me. Bags Baggledee Beebop, got my dope, dope, dope. …

So it went OK. Tyrone hooked me up now I’m set for the month. Maybe a red flag or two in there, but nothing to beat myself up over, yo?

… But that’s just what I do. Forty-eight years old and I’m dashing through the snow to feed a thirty-year habit. Hair going, teeth going, eyes going. The writer, God help us. Two half finished novels in a drawer at home, a one-hit wonder with a Pushcart Prize. Whoa boy, easy. Definitely not the buzz I need right now. I pull into the Wendy’s and order coffee to go. A Penndot crew takes up half the counter, big guys with beards. I give one a nod but it sails right past him. Fuck you plowboy. Back in the car I fish a roach from the ashtray and let ‘er rip. Big hit, the usual hacking and histrionics, then another, then one more. I sit for a moment as the elements recombine, Sonny Rollins blowing, the wipers not quite hitting the beat. The rattle from the heater has stopped for the moment and the cold air feels good through the rolled down windows. I drink coffee until the reefer dissipates. Not even moving when I run out of gas.

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© Tom Larsen 2010

I’ve been a fiction writer for fifteen years and my work has appeared in Newsday, New Millennium Writing, Philadelphia Stories and Antietam Review. My short story “Lids” was included in Best American Mystery Stories – 2004. My novel FLAWED was released in October.