The wind shifted and a gust of smoke and decomposition blew into my face so acrid and foul that I had to cover my face with my arm. When the air cleared, I saw a garbage truck clamber down through the heaps and pull up alongside the incinerator. The passageway was so narrow the truck was forced in a little close for comfort. Twice the driver rang a bell. One of the white-fanged netherworld pups raised its snout and gave a long howl. The bucket then tipped, and as the truck turned and pulled away I saw in the firelight the scorch marks up the side of the passenger door, the same marks on Shelly’s truck.
On the way back to the Island to pick up Sweets, who would chastise me for my Tijuana jaunt and my rubbish and prostitute smell, I stopped in at Shelly’s house to see if he had returned. He should’ve been home long ago. The house felt different this morning and I found the door unlocked. I hoped that no one had broken in. The door as usual stuck slightly and it was dark inside. There was cash on the table in plain sight. I had not left the cash. I called and looked about. Whoever had been here was gone.
I’d been holding three Mexican beers since the border, so I raced down the hall. Out of habit I closed the bathroom door behind me. The bathroom was another furry chamber, moldy curtains and mildewed tile, toilet stained, vintage bachelor. There were a few vestiges of his “airhead” mom, a basketful of ancient soap balls, a homey plaque with cartoon rabbits. While I was peeing I heard voices. Just the stream hitting the water, I thought. When I stopped, the voices stopped. I stood for a minute, listening. Something brushed against the door. Quelling the urge to shout, I zipped up hastily, flushed, waved my hands under cold running water. In the mirror my eyes were zapped wide in my scarred and mangy penguin face. I fingered back my Streisand hair. Shelly has returned, I told myself, and is fooling around out there. I felt a cold fear opening the door, dusky hall, smell of fur, ink, dust, vague rot, sea.
No one was there.
Now the front door clunked open. I’m surrounded, I thought to myself. I’ve been set up. I considered turning back and scrambling out the bathroom window. But it was no stranger who came through the front door. It was a haggard Shelly, twelve pack under arm.
“When did you get back?” I said sharply, wiping the damp from my forehead with a sleeve.
“This morning,” he said, setting the twelve pack on the table. He looked around, rubbed his head. He seemed dazed. I realized he’d been drinking. “You wanna beer?” he said.
“Is there someone here?” I said.
“What?” His head wobbled as he handed me a warm Miller Lite and glanced down the hall.
“I thought I heard someone. I was taking a whiz . . . Never mind.”
He shook his head. “I called you when I got in.”
“I was down in TJ.”
“How’d everything go?” he said.
“Same as always,” I said. “Whore, church, a few tacos.”
“I mean my business.”
“Oh, that. Fine. Good. You’ve got a great business.”
“Thanks.”
“Everyone wants 1960 America.”
He offered a weak smile and took a haul off his beer.
“It was better then, wasn’t it?” I said
“You can’t blame Elvis,” he said
“How was . . . Alabama?” I asked.
Again he glanced down the hall. “Oh, great, you know I’m mostly just burying people these days.”
“Your father?”
“Yeah. To the last second he didn’t believe he would die. What do you call that, a messianic complex?”
I opened my can.
There was that sound again, a wordless voice, almost a moan. It was my turn to glance down the hall. “You need to get out this house, boy,” I said. “You got ghosts in here, you know that?”
He managed a smile that seemed to say: now you finally understand what I’m dealing with here.
“Well, I’d better get going,” I said. “Got to get home and feed Sweets.”
“All right, man.” He followed me out and closed the door behind him as if he were trying to prevent rattlesnakes from escaping. Music was now playing inside. He yanked on the doorknob again and again.
At the gate I couldn’t help wonder what kind of Alabama souvenir he’d brought home. Lover? Victim? Perhaps his father, who would not die but take his turn sitting in the cage? Or maybe it was the same guy as before, the megalocephalic special friend.
“Damn it,” he said, more to himself than me. “I’m going to inherit this house. I hate this house.”
“Sell it,” I said.
“To the Nuremberg Museum,” he said.
“Or you could have a bonfire. Invite all the neighbors.”
“I’m going to inherit everything,” he repeated in disbelief. He gazed at me, bedeviled, nothing like the festivity he’d imagined. “More paperwork than I know what to do with,” he grumbled.
It’s too much to ask, I thought. Your parents torture and disable you, then they die and leave you with all the paperwork.
“I have to go back,” he said.
“Why?”
“Vultures.”
“Who?”
“Lawyers and accountants.”
“When?”
“Soon. A week or so.”
