The house was an old, white, two-story colonial with a slate roof and lots of windows. Inside, it was pleasantly musty and cool. I followed Samantha through the foyer. My shaking had increased so dramatically that I had turned to stone, albeit moveable stone. My eyes were wide brown and darting and any second I expected someone to jump out and club me over the head.
“Ouch!”
“You don’t belong here!”
“Why did you hit me with that club?”
“I didn’t hit you with any club. This is just your imagination.”
“Well, good.”
I tried not to stare at Samantha. This was the first time I’d seen her with sober eyes. The same was true for her. Our chance meeting three months earlier in Washington had been oddly powerful, and enough to keep our 3000 mile string drawn tight. Her arms were long and slender. She moved gracefully.
“This is my uncle’s house,” she said. “When my mother asked if I wanted to come here to visit for a week, I knew I had to.”
Samantha was young and poor like me. When a friend of mine had offered to buy me a roundtrip ticket to visit him in Washington, I took it. Samantha was his neighbor then. A week after I had gone, she moved back to California to live with her mother. That’s when the letters began.
The house was huge and tall and wide, filled with creaking stairs and corners. Samantha explained that throw rugs were placed strategically over the hardwood to hide stains. The kitchen was floored with dull white tile. I moved toward the windows by the sink and looked outside. My truck was at the bottom of the driveway.
“I like this place,” I said. It reminds me of my house.
“I like it too. It’s so old, so big.”
We looked at each other and laughed.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want some tea?” she asked.
“I would love some tea.”
“Let me put the kettle on, dear.”
“I’m so in love with you. Isn’t that retarded?”
Samantha put a finger to her lips, her face thoughtful. Her nails were long and glossy, pretty, pink. Then she said, “No…it’s not that retarded. I can think of more retarded things.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“You know how it goes.”
“Yes, I do.”
I leaned against the counter, unsure of what to do with my hands. I wanted to eat them. I noticed then that the kitchen was dressed in unique wallpaper in which acts of bestiality were depicted between men and goats. Very Greek, I thought to myself. Samantha poured the steaming brew into two small cups that had little handles for little fingers.
“Thank you.”
I love you. Stop thinking that. I can’t help it.
We sipped our tea quietly. Then a car moved up the driveway.
“My mother’s back.”
Samantha’s mother was a short round woman with a big smile. We shook hands.
“Hello, David.”
“Hello.”
“Do you like the wallpaper?”
My eyes moved over the prints again, men on goats.
“I do. I like it very much. Very…colloquial.”
“Yes,” she said. “My brother is a very colloquial man. He’s 87, you know?”
“Amazing…This house is so big.”
I was growing stupider by the second.
“Yes…Have you seen the studio? I think you and my daughter are going to have clumsy, drunken, unprotected sex in there sometime this week.”
Samantha winked at me. I stiffened.
“Yes, the studio is quiet lovely,” I said. “Much like you.”
Her mother blushed, waving off my comment.
“Oh, you Massachusetts boys.”
I looked to Samantha and returned the wink. We were partners in crime. She slapped the teacup from my hand. It landed upright in the sink without breaking.
“What did you do that for?” I asked.
“We have to get this story rolling, fuckshow. Can we get to Cambridge already? Get to the good stuff.”
“But this is the good stuff,” I pointed out. “Men on goats.”
“I know…but get to the part where I spill pizza grease on my shirt, or better, when I ask you if you’ve ever jerked off thinking about me.”
“But that’s like part four, or something. That’s a long ways away. I still have to do Harvard Square and the tea place and when we rub heads in line.”
“You’re too sappy. Get on with it already.”
Her mother was looking at us, quizzically. Deep creases flexed across her forehead. She didn’t know that we were visitors from a parallel universe.
“Why don’t I let you two kids get going? There’s only so much daylight left and I know you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“You’re right, Mom. David, let’s go. Wait, I have to change out of this sexy skirt and put on some jeans.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah.”
Samantha slipped out of the room and up a flight or two of stairs. I smiled at her mother and she smiled back. Then she moved close to me. She took my hand and slowly massaged my thumb. Her hands were affectionate, soft.
“You’re a dirty boy, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
She moved closer. I could smell chocolate milk on her breath. She closed her eyes and I closed mine and we kissed.
“I always hit on my daughter’s boyfriends,” she explained.
“I see.”
Then she put on her innocent, doe eyed face.
“You’re not going to tell on me?” she pouted.
“No, of course not.”
“Good.”
She sighed and patted my hand. Then she let go. She moved to the studio.
“And don’t forget,” she called through the doorway. “Friday night, leaves and twigs.”
What does that mean? I wondered. Are all mothers psychics?
“Yes we are.”
I jumped.
Where is Samantha? I wondered. This was all getting very strange.
“Ready?”
I turned, and Samantha was standing in front of me. She had put on jeans.
“I’m ready.”
I moved close to her ear.
“Can I tell you something?”
“What?”
“Your mother—”
Then, from the other room, “What the fuck did I just tell you, David?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s just go.”
“Good.”
We said our goodbyes to her mother, went outside into the early afternoon sun, and drove toward the center of Hudson. Samantha smiled next to me. My cell phone rang. It was my old friend Gus from Washington.
“It’s Gus,” I said. “Do you want to talk to Gus?”
“Okay…Hello?”
“Hello? Who’s this?”
“This is Samantha, your old neighbor.”
There was a long pause and then I heard him say, “Ohhh! Right! Samantha! You must be with David.”
“Yes, I’m sitting next to him. We’re going to Boston.”
“That’s fantastic. How do you like Massachusetts?”
“It’s great. My uncle broke his leg.”
“M&Ms?”
“Isn’t that joke getting a little old?”
“Right. Anyway, can I talk to David for a minute?”
“Sure. It was nice to talk to you, Gus. Tell Darlene that I said ‘Hello.’”
“I sure will. You have a good time, and don’t ever do shots with that bearded fuck sitting next to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you’ll find out. But you were jacked up on coke and he was a liter deep in whiskey when you guys met, so I’m sure it can’t be any crazier than that. But you never know.”
“Okay…Here’s David.”
Samantha handed me the phone then stuck her head out the window. The breeze rippled her hair like black sat
in. I pressed the phone tightly to my ear and navigated through the hustle and bustle of Hudson central.
“What? What do you want?”
I was Mark now. I imagined myself on a waterbed.
“Hey, buddy. Got a little friend with you today?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Are you gonna eat her pussy?”
“I thought we’d go to Harvard Square this afternoon.”
“Why don’t you answer my question? Are you gonna eat her pussy?”
“Thanks, Gus. I gotta go. I hate being that guy.”
“What guy? The guy who doesn’t answer my questions?”
“Alright, then. You have a good afternoon.”
“Fuck you, you bastard. Answer my fucking ques—”
I hung up on Gus and then put the phone in the cup holder between the seats. I tapped Samantha on the leg and she pulled her head back into the truck.
“Gus is such a goofball,” I said.
“He’s nice.”
“Yes, he’s nice.”
“Darlene’s nice too.”
“Yes, she is.”
And she has huge fake tits, I thought to myself, grinning.
We chatted and sputtered and rid ourselves of some nervous energy as we searched out Cambridge and Central Square. I parked behind Mark’s old apartment building, four stories of red brick that stood in front of a baseball field with basketball courts to the right. I’d brought two balls: a man’s and a woman’s.
“Do you want to play a quick game of egg?” I asked.
“What’s egg?”
“It’s like horse only it’s egg.”
“Oh…Yeah, let’s play.”
We walked over to the courts. A heavily bearded black man was sitting on the bleachers. He rapped his cane on the metal as we moved by.
“White people!” he yelped.
We stopped.
“Yes?” I asked.
He wore mirrored sunglasses. His beard was gray and gnarled. Smiling broadly, wisely, he said, “You can’t play basketball right now.”
“Why not?” asked Samantha.
“You have so many other important things to get to, this could take forever.”
“But this is important too,” I said. “We’re testing out our chemistry.”
He leaned back and looked to the sky. Then he roared, “Bullshit! Get on with it! Like the young woman said before, get to the fucking pizza place, or better, the sushi bar!”
“But what about The Re-poo-blick?” I asked. “Or the Cantab Lounge?”
He rapped his cane again and we both jumped. I dropped the basketball and it rolled out of sight.
“Fuck that shit!” he said. “All foreplay! Stop teasing me with this crap! Get to the center of this thing and stop tap dancing around the edges! You bunch of cowards!”
I looked at Samantha, frowning.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“We could go to the pizza place.”
“But I’m not sure anything big happens there.”
“Something must happen there.”
“Yeah, you spill grease on your shirt and I love you.”
“Well…where do you want to go? You’re the one telling this story.”
I stuck my fingers into my ears and thought for a moment.
Fuck. How to swing this? I could write it really fast without punctuation like a free write. That way it’ll still be significant and nothing, nothing big anyway, will be omitted. This I can do.
“Free write?” I asked, tentatively.
Samantha rolled her eyes, two hazel marbles. The fictitious bearded black man applauded and whistled.
“Whatever,” she said. “Your story. What the fuck do I know? I’m only in it.”
“Shut up. Are you ready?”
“I guess.”
“Okay. Hang on. And keep your eyes moving.”
“Yes, my love.”
The sun was strong and high in the early afternoon and we were in Cambridge and we were at the basketball courts and we played egg and Samantha was good and she slaughtered me with ease and I grumbled and grunted and we played a best of three and she had a magnificent mid-range game and her feet were fast and she was strong and could get to wherever she wanted to get on the court nine free throws in a row we played but not too hard and we didn’t get sweaty and then we left the courts and walked the shady sidewalk up toward Central Square and I asked Are you hungry and she said Yes and I asked Do you want real food or junk food and we had a discussion on the difference and something about falafels was mentioned and then she said pizza and she was adorable just like she was in Seattle when the sun was coming up and I was in her bed and so we walked the sidewalks and we smoked and she told me that I’m tall and then we were in Central Square and we crossed over the paths of buses and the streets were warm and people were out and about wicked smart kids and the bums and I could smell food wherever we went and so we took a right and went down the street and finally we came upon a pizza place and it was warm inside and greasy and smelly and so we got pizza and soda and Samantha rumbled about getting a beer and I thought that that might be a good idea but not right now I’m still so dehydrated and wired and we sat down and ate our pizza and I looked in and she looked out and I asked how the view was and she said she could see the street and I was looking at Gino the pizza guy and I burned my mouth but played it cool Samantha wanted another slice and so she got one and while she was gone I smiled and shook my head and wondered what the fuck was going on here she came back with more pizza and we ate and we talked and she spilled pizza grease on her shirt and then we left the pizza place and headed back toward the T and I called Mark and asked Inbound or Outbound for Harvard Square and he told me Outbound and I said Thanks Mark and then we got to the T and we went down the stairs and the tunnel echoed and we got through the turnstiles and then we waited for the train and the train came and we got on and it rattled and squealed into Harvard Square and we got off and climbed up to the street more people than Central Square and fuck I just realized I missed a bunch of shit The Cantab and The Republic and drinks and darts and Samantha won and every time she went to pull her darts from the board I was staring at her ass she must have known we played scratch-tickets at The Cantab but that was before The Republic and we won some money but left about even and Jameson Whiskey and beer and Guinness and I wanted to kiss her then but it was early don’t fuck this up now but flirt and be merry and then we climbed the stairs to the street in Harvard Square and we went to buy cameras and we took silly pictures of each other and I was pretty buzzed still and I was getting tired and she suggested we go get some coffee and tea and so we went to the coffee/tea place and we waited in line and it was hot inside and we rubbed heads for a moment and I wanted to kiss her neck but I didn’t and we got our coffee tea waters too and we went outside and sat in the grass and the sun was going down and the sky was dark blue and purple and Samantha must have been growing cold but she said no she’s fine and she called her mother and they talked for a moment and we smoked c