19.
Marc and Sammi were, beneath all the surface turmoil, kindred spirits. I first learned this when we were at the Cavern: David, Sean, Marc, Sammi, Ed, and myself.
On this afternoon, Grape, the purple poodle, was inside the house. Ed didn’t want it inside but he didn’t (or couldn’t) say anything because Sammi had allowed it.
Sammi sat on the couch and Grape sat at her feet, Marc was on the floor, Sean on the Ed-couch, and the rest of us were hanging back behind them.
Sean kept staring down at the dog with a wry, hateful grin, and then he’d glance around the room at us.
It was not a secret that Dusk hated the dog. But his hatred, at this point, consisted of avoiding it altogether.
Sammi loved Grape – probably because Grape was slightly retarded. Marc was asleep on the floor. After she’d pet the dog enough it fell asleep on the couch. Contented she got up and went to the bathroom. Sean’s evil grin became an evil, wide smile.
“That dog looks too dry to me,” he said.
Ed shook his head. “I hate that creature. Sissy should put it to sleep, or maybe WE should.”
David laughed softly. “It sure does love Sammi.”
At that point Sean got up and walked over to the kitchen. He grabbed a glass from a cupboard and filled it full of tap water. Then he snuck around, stealthily as possible, to the front side of the kitchen, into the living room, and held the glass over the sleeping dog.
“Let sleeping dogs lie,” David smiled.
“Not today,” Dusk replied.
Sammi came in from the living room, stood at the border, and shouted:
“Sean! No! Don’t!”
Marc sprung out of his lazy-day sleep, practically leaping out of his skin.
Sammi’s shout didn’t matter to Dusk. He tilted the glass slowly at first, and then with a quick jerk of the wrist, he dumped the water on the head of the poodle.
Grape went nuts (dogs hate, more than anything, water in the ears). First he ran over Marc’s mountainesque belly, and I think the toenails scratched him but good because he cursed and in reflex shoved the dog against the bottom shelf below the TV, knocking its head hard on the wood.
The boys laughed loudly. Ed cheered. A cheer coming from Ed was great. David and Sean applauded at both the cheer and the situation.
Grape scurried around the room like a pinball, and even ran into the sliding door, thinking it was open: the way a bird mistakes glass for air. Marc quickly stood, went over, and opened up the door. The dog, after another wet lap around the room, ran outside, shaking itself dry.
Ed was laughing to tears at how funny the dog had looked running in a frenzy - Marc stood up by the sliding door and watched the dog, now running wildly, the same way it did in the room, circling the pool.
Sammi, who stood there frozen the entire episode, stormed in, pissed as I’d ever seen her, and said, to pretty much all of us:
“That’s so mean - you guys are fucking assholes!!!”
Sean laughed, but the laugh was shared with a sort of guilty embarrassment. He jogged past Sammi, over to the front door of the house. I heard the door open and close. Before I went out to join him I saw Sammi go into the backyard.
Out front Sean stood beneath the strange tree laughing. I could see him now quite clearly…
He looked just-shaved from a lean beard, his mouth beneath a slightly crooked nose, a practical joker that had been warned if he kept that sly expression it’d stick – like a teacher warns a child when making a funny face – and he didn’t heed the warning. Sometimes you couldn’t tell if he were good looking: straight on you’d see a hint of handsomeness, but by his profile you’d think he had no jawbone – his chin seemed part of his neck like he’d squeezed back his head at the neckline – a caterpillar bred from a one colored butterfly. The back of his ears, slightly curved, seemed glued to his head, the tops shaped in a slight point. His face, pallid white, competing with dark, thick eyebrows (shaped like Nike emblems), made him resemble - especially in the morning when he hadn’t enough sleep – a pale Lebonese.
He had a slouch, a Neanderthal neck extended out, bent from naturally muscular shoulders, natural because he wasn’t really defined, a farm boy build, big worker hands without a single callus. His teeth protruded slightly – but weren’t big teeth – you couldn’t see them anyhow since he’d rarely smile except for that eternal sly smirk. His eyes were a honey-brown and always seemed drowsy and lost. Sean Dusk was the black sheep of life but really was – or seemed to be – a wolf in black sheep’s clothing.
He’d usually be in a sad state of lost, mixed confusion.
He had a goof-on laugh you couldn’t hear unless you stopped listening – then it roared! A sorrowful guy who knew his sorrow was his own great punch line – a ghost sheet covering a fifth place trophy from a four man race, dusty, neglected on a mantle someplace.
Sean Dusk seemed always – even in a crowd – alone; in the daytime burdened. His eyes scrutinized everything in every possible direction, yet he was never a complete witness to a murder he’d proverbially caused by simply mentioning it...
“Jesus, I can’t believe that bitch,” he said, referring to Sammi. He lit up a cigarette.
I sat on the porch and watched him. Sean smoked and walked around beneath the tree and even went out by the sidewalk near the street. He had the look I could tell he was used to. It was sort of a quilty expression that orphaned a sinister yet slowly fleeting grin. In his face I saw every kind of loneliness personified and yet profoundly rationalized. He stared out across the street at nothing in particular, and then flicked the half smoked cigarette into the gutter.
He walked back toward the house, past me, went into the family room and sat on a back chair next to David. Ed was in his bedroom. Sean glanced into the backyard.
Sammi and Marc were near the back wall, behind the slide, comforting Grape. Sammi sat on the cement, caressing the dog’s chest; Marc was down on his knees, very precisely drying the dog’s face with a large beach towel…
Halloween approached…
When you get older there’s this shell of a feeling when the big holidays creep up. Marc, though, didn’t keep the excitement inside; he’d drive you nuts sometimes – the child inside him would burst like firecracker!
Also he’d seem, in a way, nervous around the holidays. His eyes would widen, his voice got edgy.
He kept Sammi close around the holidays – she was his mommy, and he needed her then…
We were (all) in a phase of somewhat, for no particular reason, avoiding the Cavern.
We wouldn’t be there as much. Thus began the Dusk car phase. He had a four door affordable Asian job that was quick and reliable – this was indeed our vehicle…
One night, really close to Halloween, maybe even the night before, we drove by a park. It was difficult to see anything except for a dense blanket of fog ghosting over the dewy grass.
“I love Halloween,” Marc exclaimed. Sean was driving, Marc the passenger, myself, David and Sammi were squashed in the back.
“Look at that fog,” he said. “Fog trips me out. Shit, man. It makes me want to DO something! We have to DO something. Sean, c’mon, we have to. Look at that FOG!!!”
He was excited, but he didn’t know quite how to express his joy. It sounded pretty clumsy when he did. It sounded like a child thinking out loud.
We went to The Minor, the same lodge-like restaurant, and Marc would have his two goblets while we waited.
“Should I be drinking this?” he’d say, always staring down at Sammi, who’d sit next to Dusk. “I’m on my medication - do you think I should drink this, Sammi? Do you think it’s good for me? Do you think the medicine will react? Huh Sammi – what do you think?”
“I don’t think you should drink beer at all,” she said, “especially not on the medication.”
He finished that beer, and then ordered another…
“I don’t think you should drink,” she’d repeat, feeling free to say this since he had asked before. But he’d be onto his next thought. Marc’s train of thought was a winding locomotive.
By the time we’d get our table he’d be already loaded. He concealed it pretty good; he wasn’t drunk in the cliché sense, all that slurring and talking-nonsense stuff like in old black & white movies. But he’d do some pretty outrageous things… We went to the Minor quite often…
Once he threw an apple behind him. He threw it as far as he could and I don’t know where it ever landed but he’d do this and also he’d make comments about people at other tables.
That night before Halloween he acted up so bad an entire family left because of it, and we were asked by the manager to leave the place.
Sean seemed to love the thrill. He’d be smiling the whole time, laughing too, as if Marc Sandoval was the greatest thing he’d ever witnessed…
Halloween night there was a party. Marc wanted us to join him. In fact he insisted.
(Dusk didn’t seem truly excited about going, but I don’t thing he wanted Marc to catch on that he wasn’t.)
If Marc could talk Sean into it I’d go too, and so would David. We liked being around Sean. Marc was slowly becoming a pain but Sean would keep things in perspective for David. Although I liked having Marc around, I thoroughly, although he was somewhat annoying, enjoyed his presence.
The beginning of the night, Halloween, was real depressing. Kids started showing up to my (parent’s) house and it made me sad in a way to see that.
I couldn’t wait to go to Marc’s.
When I got there everyone was ready. David had the get-up of a lifetime. He was a devil. The costume fit him. Fit meaning it suited him. David’s face was both youthful and handsome and in a way also fiendish. He was a cross between a jester in a box and an out of work child actor bluntly handsome in his latter teens. He did a fantastic job with the makeup. He was meticulous that way – sort of a natural perfectionist. Boy, I wish I had a picture of it. He wore red tights, too. Marc and Sean, at the last minute, played off of David’s costume and became, ironically enough, angels. They wore white t shirts, blue jeans, had white makeup on, and little cheap halos they’d picked up at the drugstore, hanging askew from wires above their heads. Sammi also had a pretty great get up. She was a zombie, wearing torn clothes and bruise-colored makeup. Her hair was frizzed and colored like it’d been electrified. David and Sammi could’ve been a perfect couple, for they were, looks wise, a perfect TV couple. They’d be what celluloid marriage was based on. Marc, though, was her reality.
I wore a black t-shirt and faded jeans and said I was Sean. They laughed, and because of the joke I got away with not dressing up.
When I came over they were all ready to go, but it still took a little while to leave. It’d always take a while leaving Marc’s, which was solely because of Marc. He was in grown into that place. You keep a tiger caged long enough the cage becomes his jungle - if he were ever to see a jungle again he’d imagine iron bars in the trees.
Soon enough we left, and went straight to the party…
That night, in all, was pretty awful. It started bad right off, grew worse and then fizzled completely, though there was somewhat of a climax.
Marc’s the kind of guy who’ll get very nostalgic, and he’ll need you around to be nostalgic with, but you won’t be part of the nostalgia, you’ll just be a venolater, a buffer for his reflective madness. The whole drove up he talked about the people who’d be there. Oh! the names…
Popularity is all about names. First names and last names. A popular guy to another popular guy is all about last names: Davis, how’ve you been? Jones, what’s up? Dechert, you look like a young Burt Reynolds. Anderson, you look great, have you been working out? A popular guy about a popular girl is both first and last: Jenny Davis, she was my girlfriend in tenth grade - she was fine. She’s gonna be at the party!!
Marc would drop all these names and I was in the backseat, and when he’d mention a chick Sammi would ask, “Which one is she?” or, “What did she look like.” It was kind of sad and I didn’t like seeing Sammi in that state. She’d act vaguely interested but I knew jealousy reared in her bogus, easygoing candor.
When we got to the party, which was at some fancy house near the high school, it was, as I said, bad right off.
In an hour’s time there we were, the three of us, sitting around the kitchen table: the zombie, all frowns; the devil, bored as hell; the other dirty angel, a beer in hand, who didn’t feel much like drinking that night.
Marc was outside. The main party was out in the backyard. We were near the screen door and could hear everything. Marc was getting hammered fast, him and all those names he’d mention in the car. And by now he had his makeup and halo off, and wore, simply, blue jeans and a white shirt.
Everyone in the backyard was in rapture, nostalgic bliss.
That’s another thing about Marc. He’ll tell you all about these people, as if they were gods, but when he saw them he’d forget all about you, the venalator. But not entirely. Deep inside he’d need you around. He didn’t say it but I knew: Marc’s the kind of guy who wants to have everything at once: he would need his cake and eat it too.
It was kind of funny to me seeing the Devil not having a good time at a drunken party. He had a sullen angel and zombie right at his side. But it made some kind of odd sense somehow. Marc, now and then, would come in to check up on us. Mostly it was to see if Sean had shed his lethargic nondrinking skin; if he were ready to drink; he wasn’t. And then Marc would stand over Sammi.
“You having fun, babe?”
After a few beers Sammi’s name would always become “babe”.
“No.”
“I am,” he replied evenly, then walked off, back to the throws of past popularity, back in that backyard with all those names.
There was a certain point at the party when I didn’t see Marc, not for a little while. I looked around and noticed the people. The girls were beautiful but they had a weathered look, and ragged, knowing smiles. One beauty I’d noticed when we first got there was on the couch, making out with some good looking guy I think she’d met that night, maybe even an hour earlier.
I felt empty seeing that.
The worst part about loathing popularity is realizing now and again why you hated it in the first place. In the beginning of realizing the hatred, the hatred was for all the wrong reasons. You convinced yourself it was because you’re intellectually above it, and that you loath its mundane banality, or that it’s all a pointless waste of time. You’ll even start to act - and even dress - against it.
But then (eventually) you’ll realize it’s because the best girls (or guys) you really truly desire are simply out of your “league”. It’s a real shitty wake up call. It’s a tugging of the gut sort of ticklish nerve that makes your heart sink to the bottom of your stomach – a dull hopelessness: they’re on the field and you’re at the Snack Stand: they could go to the Snack Stand anytime they please but you can’t go out onto the field: you sulk at the Snack Stand, avoiding the bleachers because the “vapid” applause drives you nuts – but what if it were for you?
For a while I didn’t know where Marc went, but then he appeared, coming down the windy staircase in the middle of the house. I saw him walking down and he seemed different than when he had last checked on us.
His eyes were glazed upon; he walked carefully, precise; he seemed a bit nervous. The party by then had calmed and I knew something was different because Marc, who, for the first time that night, didn’t have a beer in hand, came over and sat right next to Sean.
Sean had eaten a lot of junk food: chips, dip, and candy. Dusk hated to eat while he drank and he had only a few beers and I could tell he was in a deeper hell than any of us. Marc sat down next to him. He spoke to him but I didn’t hear what he said. He didn’t speak loudly. There were a couple of noisy last names yakking it up in the adjoining kitchen.
But I did make out one word from Marc: “Stoned.”
The tone in his voice was somewhat afraid. Within moments we left the party…
Well we shot like a bat outta hell and it was different in the car going back. Only we really weren’t going back to anything. It was a strange feeling nonetheless.
With Marc you’d always have a destination. Something was off. We had no destination.
Marc talked to Sean up front and I couldn’t make a word out. Sean had the music loud. Marc had told him to turn it up. He needed the music. I couldn’t hear him but I was watching him. He closed his eyes religiously during a song but then after a minute or so he looked kind of edgy. He’d move around in the seat. He’d keep looking out the window as if he were seeing ordinary things for the first time, like trees, houses and buildings that we’d pass.
Then what happened happened fast.
We were stopped at a red light, at an intersection (in the left turn lane), cat corner to a 7 11. Marc got out of car. He opened the door and ran into the street. It was Halloween so the streets were pretty empty. Sean laughed, Sammi shouted, “What are you doing?” David watched wordless, and as we pulled out, Sean drove slowly behind Marc, who was running, both arms raised in the air, towards the 7 11.
Sean never turned the music down. He kept looking back at David and laughing. The music was a wild orchestration for this episode. Sean needed it now like Marc had before.
Marc ran into the 7 11 parking lot, past it and towards a trash bin, which was at the end of the strip of shops. I remember Sammi said nothing at this point, and Sean, after the light change, drove into the lot, turned his brights on, and stopped the car.
We watched as Marc ran up to the garbage bin. He stopped, and then grabbed the side of it, and feigned banging his head against the side. But he didn’t. He just pretended to. And by the time we parked the car and got out, all three of us witnessed Marc laying in the fetal position next to the bin.
“What happened to him?” Sammi asked Dusk. She didn’t sound too desperate to know but very curious.
“He smoked some weed at the party.”
“Marijuana got him that high?” Sammi replied.
“He obviously hasn’t done it for a while,” said Dusk.
“Do you think it was laced with something?” Sammi asked.
It was laced the moment Marc smoked it, I thought.
“No,” answered Dusk. “If it were the whole party would’ve gone nuts.”
Marc just lay there.
“Trick or treat,” Dusk said loudly over to Sandoval.
Marc didn’t budge. But, I could tell, by the way his eyes were shut extra tight, that he wasn’t out cold, and that he could, most likely, hear every word we said…
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