I hadn’t been at the Cavern for over half a week since Dusk arrived. I needed some time to myself. I slept mostly, had some free time for my dreams. I can sleep all day, or, I could back then.
When I came over that night Cudd was laying on the Ed-couch. The video game wasn’t out on the carpet where it had been.
I had knocked on the front door. Knowing Cudd was the only person around I knocked. I never knew him all that good. Cudd was the type of guy you know and stay on the surface with. Something about his personality demands that you do (yet it’s a very subtle demand).
Some people are quiet and you can slowly, and eventually, get in with them. Others are kooky, like Marc, and off-kilted characters are usually naturally surface types, but not shallow. Being shallow means you'rE dug in, but not deeply – surface people don’t care either way, that is, they’re not dug in at all – it’s the drone bee mentality. Cudd, unlike Marc, was pretty shallow. Yet he chose this because at times the deep-end would be too much for him, and he’d had experienced a lot of things as a kid that he didn’t care to face now grown up. Or rather, partially grown up.
When I’d knocked on the door I heard a tired voice say: “It’s open – come in.”
I went into the living room. He was on the Ed couch. His hair was all mussed up. It was growing out of a buzz and had that fuzzy look to it. I think he’d awoken out of bed and sauntered into the family room for more rest. (Cudd would either sleep or rest, and the only difference was that he possibly dreamt while he rested.)
There was some awful made-for-cable action flick on TV, most likely Cudd’s personal CITIZEN KANE. I sat on the smaller couch that lay vertically from the Ed couch.
“Where’re the video games?” I asked him.
He had to blink out of his sleepy haze. He glanced down where the games had been.
“Oh, yeah,” he said drowsily. I think it’d just come to him. “They’re over at Gale’s house.”
Cudd sighed, moaned, yawned, sighed, and moaned again.
People like Cudd, who don’t drink, have these kinds of mindless hangovers waking up. Paraphrasing Frank Sinatra: “For people who don’t drink, the morning is the best they feel all day.” Therefore Cudd had lost on all counts.
“I can’t believe you’d part with those games,” I said.
“We’ve been hanging over at Gale’s the last couple days,” he replied in a plain tone. “That’s where we play the game now, at Gale’s house?”
“We’ve been hanging over at Gale’s the last couple days,” he replied in a plain tone. “That’s where we play the game now, at Gale’s house?”
“We…?”
“Gale, Dave and I.”
I thought about Marc.
“Where’s Sandoval in all this?”
Cudd, rubbing his eyes, muttered: “I’m not sure.”
“I haven’t seen him for a few days myself,” I told him.
“He was over – I think it was Monday,” Cudd replied. “Him and Sean were hanging out. Ed, too.”
“Sean?”
I knew it was Sean Dusk, but I wanted more info from Cudd.
“Yeah. Sean,” he said, “Ed’s friend. He came over Friday.”
“Sean Dusk, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought him and Marc didn’t get along too good.”
“I don’t know. Ed was over and they all watched TV. Marc and Sean drank some beers. That’s about it. Sean left and Marc – you know Marc – he slept over.”
“What a surprise.”
“He should pay rent, that guy,” Cudd groaned.
Cudd had a glass of milk on the table. I don’t think I mentioned, maybe because it’s typical in any living room, but there was a table in the middle of the couches. He sat up and took a drink of his milk. He had sleep-crust in his eyes. One of them was half shut because of it. God, you’d of thought it was morning, not early evening, the way he looked.
“You feeling all right?” I asked him.
“No, just tired” he said vacantly. “We played video games at Gale’s till dawn.”
I met Gale Trask a few times. He was sort of a drifter, cozy in carefree aimlessness, kind of a suburban vagrant, flaky as hell but had a good roaring personality. He lived with his folks and he was the type of guy who not only detests loneliness (like Marc) but who’ll avoid it anyway possible. But I couldn’t figure why the games would be at his house instead of the Cavern, where pretty much anything goes.
But I figured it out, right when Cudd said they’d played till dawn. I can’t explain it but I knew the reason the games were gone was because of Marc.
Marc wasn’t a thing like those guys. He’s what I call a suburban street kid. He pretty much had to raise himself. He didn’t come from poverty, but he was a latchkey kid. He’d never just settle into a mode, but he would settle for a rut; but it doesn’t ever last too long. That latchkey still hangs onto his blue jeans, so to speak. He never knows when he’s really wanted, needed, or welcome, so he goes out of his way to be desired. And eventually he tries too hard. Eventually he’ll lose his edge.
David, Gale and Cudd, on the other hand, know exactly who they are (you need an edge to lose it), and not only that but they love to surf. None of them really surfed any more at that time, but they used to, way back in their skinny high school years, and once a surfer, always a surfer-type. No matter how downtrodden, the clothing’s always bright. So I figured the way Cudd had said they played till morning, that Marc had worn out his welcome around the Cavern, and had been wearing on their nerves – and they all needed to settle into their routine without having a “rut” hanging around.
Marc hadn’t been around in a few days, according to Cudd, not since Monday.
“Man,” I said. “Video games all night. That’s a long time to play video games. I don’t think I could hack that stretch.”
Cudd cracked a smile.
“You should try beating David,” he replied. “Takes till morning sometimes….”
The Cavern was strange without Marc. It was like drizzle without clouds. It was just Ed and I for a few days. One time Dusk had called and he and Ed talked for a little while and Ed had even answered something in that conversation concerning Marc. “Sandoval’s not here,” he’d said.
Ed and I watched TV and as I looked around the place it seemed different than when it was Ed and I, pre Marc. It seemed (now) as if a storm had blown through and things had just been restored; yet the storm still left a ghost of itself. It was relaxing at the Cavern but on the other hand it was boring – again…
And then, a few weeks later, right before sunset I glanced out at the pool and dazed my eyes onto the calm water, and I began to get pretty drowsy when suddenly there came three loud knocks at the front door.
These were signature knocks.
Ed just sat there, eyes glued on the set. Then - the sound of the door opening and closing promenaded Marc’s entrance into the family room.
He carried bags with him, both the size of 40 oz. bottles. My heart raced, similar to puppy love, a familiar euphoric relief when I’d seen the vacant space on the floor where the video games had been – nothing sexual, of course – but friendship has its own special brand of infatuation.
Marc didn’t bother cutting over to the fridge or freezer. He sat at the counter bar. He placed one of the bags in the space next to him, opened the other and drank from it, and sighed easily. He hadn’t even spoken yet.
He glanced over at me. I had to stand up, walk over, and get my own bottle. I grabbed it and returned to the couch. I opened the bottle and took a drink.
The beer wasn’t as cold as it should’ve been, but it might have been the best drink I’d ever had in my life so far.
Ed seemed blank, facing the TV, as Marc and I sat silently, drinking the 40s. Ed wore a face of someone who’d just been unexpectedly awakened from a long, needed, comfortable sleep.
I think he knew things were swinging back into place, just like before, when Marc and I ruled the Cavern – to his chagrin.
But the ice, half melted anyway, broke eventually. Marc rambled on and on to the both of us. He was bullshitting but not in the cliché, phony sense – his voice was more carefree than it had been before. He talked to Ed about football and Ed listened, and I could see after a while Marc was talking poor Ed’s ears off. Soon enough Ed stretched, yawned, and moseyed into his bedroom.
Ed sighed, and sat on his colorful bed, the sliding doors still open. Marc and I were almost done with the 40s.
Soon Ed got up and closed the door to his room. I saw Marc take the last swig off the bottle. I still had a few drinks left. Time had really cooked that night. It had taken a while to finish the first beer. Marc had yakked so much he hadn’t drank consistently. And I was pacing along with him.
Eventually he got up and replaced Ed on his couch.
“I’m fucking beat,” he sighing deeply.
In about ten minutes sleep took him over…
Later that night:
I sat watching TV. A decent enough movie was on and I began to feel that slightly letdown feeling when you’ve drank that just-enough amount of beer alone. Marc snoring, I was about to leave, when there came three light knocks at the front door.
I didn’t budge. In my passiveness I actually glanced back at the double doors of Ed’s room, thinking he’d know who it was, but he was asleep same as Marc. Then I heard the front door softly open – that whispering, careful skid-like noise – then close.
Soon enough Sean Dusk was in the living room.
He carried a bag that was tucked beneath his left armpit. He went to the fridge after nodding at me, seeing I was the only person around (awake). He grabbed out three beers and walked around with a whip crack of a smile. I could see his face a bit clearer but it was still vague and I was busy wondering why he had three beers. The way Marc snored I could tell he was pretty sleeping pretty heavily. Dusk came over, handed me a beer, walked in front of “my” couch and stretching out, leaned over Marc.
“He’s loud sleepin’, ain’t he?” Dusk whispered.
“Yes, he is.”
“I don’t like leaving anybody out, usually, when it comes to drinking beer.”
He placed the bottle in the crease of Marc’s arm and chest. Marc didn’t budge but his snoring pattern did that sort of abrupt discontented tick; then his nose twitched; soon he was breathing easily again.
Sean sat down next to me and it was funny. He cracked open his beer (I did already) and we sat and drank and watched the movie that apparently Dusk had seen a bunch of times. It was funny because Marc lay there with the beer and Dusk spoke in a normal pitch and Marc remained asleep yet he never resumed the loud snoring. Once he began to mumble words and move around. The beer ended up snout first pointing at his chin. The weight of the bottle (it was a normal bottle, not a 40) pressed on his neck. It was cold, too. And the guy just wouldn’t wake up.
Dusk went over for another round and he brought three more back. He placed the second bottle along the same crease but on the other sid. Dusk and I laughed. I kept my laugh low but Sean didn’t. I was surprised that Dusk was doing this kind of stuff to Marc Sandoval. The last I remembered they barely knew each other.
And even past the laughter the joke remained pretty funny. We drank the second beer. It was a good movie. I had never felt relaxed watching a movie with Marc. He’d always be itching for something else to do, or somewhere better to go, which was usually dreamland.
And after that beer Sean grabbed three more. He placed one in-between Marc’s legs. He did it as if he knew this would be the one to give it away; the joke was at that eleventh-hour stage where it needed giving away. But Marc kept sleeping.
Sean only stuck around for that movie. When he left I sat and had a beer without him. My buzz was hitting that point to where I was pushing it being alone and I felt alone and was coming down.
Dusk just gone, Ed asleep in his room, Cudd at Gale’s, Sissy out on the town, I sat there watching Marc, ornamented with beers.
Soon enough he began waking up, moaning, rubbing his eyes. The first bottle fell to the carpet. He felt the other bottle drop at his side, and then, looking over, saw the one in-between his legs. He didn’t look at me, still being half in a dream.
“What the fuck?” he said groggily.
As he came to, I sat there quietly. Marc grabbed the leg-beer and placed it on the table.
“What’s this all about?” he said. Then, quickly after, he turned and asked me, “Who brought over these beers?”
I smiled and lied: “I’m not sure.”
And Marc just sat there for a little while, not saying a word but not falling back asleep either.
And Marc just sat there for a little while, not saying a word but not falling back asleep either.
