The City That Never Sleeps

the joint hard. He was off driving duty now, and could finally relax after getting away from Jimmy.

  “Nah, I think I saw a gas station back a few miles,” Jeremiah quipped.

  “I’m so glad I don’t live here,” Clair said, taking the joint from Marisa.

  “Chicago’s way cooler, it’s a gem. I can’t wait till we go through it – you’ll see,” Marisa said.

  “Yo,” Nathanial said, his voice tight. “I’m gonna kill this, that cool J?”

  “Yeah, go ‘head,” Jeremiah said. The decrease in moxie was astounding.

  “Dude…” Nathanial said, really feeling the effects of the pot now. “Where’d that shit from…where’d you get it from?”

  “Grandma Darren.” Grandma Darren was the nickname of a sketchy drug dealer in Bed-Stuy they’d met when they were homeless.

  “He fuckin still gets the best shit man,” Jeremiah added after a long drift of silence.

  “Let’s go in,” Clair said, sliding the door open. Marisa was careful as she stepped out in her platform shoes. She pulled on a flannel and looked around. It was pretty desolate. She tried to catch up with Nathanial.

  “So like what part of Indiana are we in?”

  “Richmond.” He glanced down at her, a mysterious grin crawled across his face. “You ready for your surprise?” he put his arm around her.

  “You’re going to give it to me here?”

  “No, later, camping. When its dark – you’ll see.”

  He opened the door for her and the cold air conditioning sent rapid relief after driving around in the heat all day.

  “Oh man,” Jeremiah sighed when he smelled the sweet stew of smells – pancakes, maple syrup, coffee, burgers.

  “Think I’m gonna pass out,” Nathanial said, wrapping his arms around Marisa. He smelled heavily of pot and that dirty hat smelled like gasoline. It pleased her so strangely. She loved being in his arms.

  A waitress came over, and Clair was pretty sure Nathanial wasn’t going to flirt with this one. Her name was Dorothy and she looked to be in her sixties. She had thick, frizzy bleached blonde hair kept up on top of her head by several overworked bobby pins. She didn’t act like she wanted any clowning around, tossed the menus down at them as soon as they were seated and took their drink orders.

  “Heineken,” Nathanial said in no time.

  “Oh man…who’s driving next?” Clair wondered. “We’re all st…” she looked up at Dorothy, who just gave her a taxing stare, waiting.

  “We’ll just chill here for a while,” Nathanial mumbled.

  “I’ll have a Heineken too.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremiah wanted the same. Dorothy eyed Marisa next, who was staring out at the van.

  “Yo, Marisa,” Nathanial called out to her.

  “Hmm?” she turned and looked at him. She looked very forlorn.

  “What would you like to drink?” he asked her.

  “Oh um,” she shook her head and stared back out of the window. “Heineken,” she said, not taking her eyes off the window. Dorothy jotted that down, rolled her eyes and walked off.

  “We’re going to be so sick after this, dude,” Jeremiah said, smiling silly. “Like fuck it, I’m goin for the Grand Slam.”

  “Be a man,” Nathanial suddenly starting singing goofily, gazing down at the menu and drumming his hands against the booth. “Get the Grand Slam…”

  “You guys…” Marisa slowly peeled her eyes away from the window. “Wasn’t that van parked facing the highway?” she pointed to Jeremiah’s van and looked at Nathanial. They all peered out at it and shrugged. Clair tried hard to remember.

  Dorothy returned with their drinks and Nathanial sipped his beer while eyeing the van questionably.

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking at Jeremiah. “Do you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “What she just said.” Nathanial pointed to Marisa. Jeremiah was totally out of it.

  “What did she just say?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathanial said after a minute, sinking back down into a mental fog.

  “You guys gonna eat?” Dorothy inquired. “I think you might need some food.”

  “Um, yeah.” Marisa tried to focus on the menu but it was hard. She was sure they’d parked the van facing the highway and now it was facing the restaurant.

  “I’ll have the BLT and fries.”

  “Great,” Dorothy said, happy they were making progress.

  “Uhh…” Nathanial groaned as he stared at the menu. “Can I get like…an egg sandwich but with pancakes – like eggs between the pancakes, and bacon like on top? And a side of avocado.”

  “What the Christ, Nathanial?” Clair said.

  “What?” he innocently looked up at her. “I’m freaking so hungry.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t leave the van in the keys?” Marisa asked Nathanial. Nathanial started giggling. Dorothy was about to walk away and hand the table to someone else.

  “Uh huh, I’m sure I didn’t do that,” Nathanial chuckled.

  “Who else wants to order?” Dorothy interrupted.

  “I’ll get the…Moons Over My Hammy…” Clair looked up from the menu when Nathanial started laughing in spurting snorts.

  “What?”

  “Its just a funny thing to order,” he said, all giggly.

  “You’re so immature,” Clair snipped, handing her menu over to Dorothy.

  “No dude, stoned,” Nathanial corrected. “And my van’s in my keys…” he laughed hard and started slapping the table and then Jeremiah joined in.

  Clair looked up at Dorothy. “I’m sorry about them,” she said. “Listen do you know of a place to camp nearby?”

  “Oh, well there’s a ton of places around here but if you’re looking for the closest I’d suggest Tamra Lane, you familiar with this area at all?” she asked.

  “No, we’re on a long road trip and just want to camp for the night. It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy.”

  “Well,” Marisa jumped to interrupt. “It should be decent, I mean, with cabins, because we don’t have tents or anything.”

  “Oh well I think Tamra has cabins, pretty sure they used to. You just gotta take Chester Boulevard to 77 to get to Tamra, ain’t that far.”

  “The what?” Nathanial asked, his eyes slim slits of green.

  “Chest,” Dorothy said, her tone short. “To 77.”

  “Where are we?” he asked. “I thought…this was Ohio.”

  “You’re in Indiana,” she informed.

  “Oh shit,” he chuckled. “Okay.”

  Clair shook her head and opened her purse to find her phone. She rummaged through everything – hair brush, wallet, stupid feminine products, but couldn’t find her phone.

  “I don’t know…where my phone is…”

  “Maybe its in the van,” Marisa said. “I have a pen, I’ll just write it down.” She looked up at Dorothy, hoping. “Can you repeat that please?”

  “Sure, I got all night,” Dorothy quipped. “Not like I gotta go to work or nothing. So you take Chester Boulevard to 77 to get to Tamra – you’ll see signs. Now, you got to be able to see them – you got to be able to understand what they mean, think yall can handle that?”

  “Yup.” Nathanial was getting moody because of the pot and didn’t like her attitude and was starving.

  “Oh, can I get a burger and chilli fries and a Heineken please,” Jeremiah ordered before she ran off.

  19 “Monsters”

  Full of food and very tired, they headed out to the van. No one mentioned how it had been originally parked. Nathanial patted himself down for his keys and when he didn’t find them he looked back at the restaurant, perplexed.

  “Uh…” he started to walk off, running his hand through his hair before looking back at the group. “I think I left my keys in there,” he said. He ventured off back to Denny’s while everyone else leaned against the van, waiting.

&nb
sp; “Are you okay to drive?” Marisa asked Clair, rather compassionate.

  “No…but yeah, yeah I can.” She focused on Nathanial as he came back out. The look on his face was not comforting. He slipped his hands into his pockets as he neared them.

  “Clair, do you have my keys?”

  “The keys to the van?” she said.

  “No, Clair, the keys to Gramercy Park! Yes the keys to the van.”

  “Fuck you – you don’t have to be so mean, Nathanial. And no, why would I have them? You drove last.” Clair was on the verge of tears.

  “Hey,” Jeremiah calmly spoke as he bent down and picked up Nathanial’s keys. “They musta fallen out of your pocket. Let’s go.”

  Nathanial took the keys from Jeremiah and slid the door open. He climbed in when he saw Clair walking away, back to the restaurant. Marisa went after her.

  “He’s never yelled at me like that,” she sobbed. “He hates me – he fucking hates me.”

  “No he doesn’t,” Marisa tried to console her, placing her hand on her back. “He’s just being a stupid boy. He’s stoned and moody and tired – we all are. Its okay.”

  “Its not okay – nothing is going the way I thought it would. I’ve spent the last like three years of my life…” she wiped the tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt, “Trying…hoping he’d like me – we moved in together, we work together – but he just never…he likes you, and its not your fault, you’re just like…this freakin’ supreme goddess of whatever, its not your fault. I’m so tired,” she finalized. “Of New York – and now I’m tired of this. I want to be happy, I just…”

  “You need a good night’s sleep is all,” Marisa cleared up. “Baby, let’s go.” She took Clair’s hand and tugged until Clair reluctantly headed back to the van.

  Nathanial sulked as Clair came over. His mouth was pregnant with an apology but he just couldn’t let it out. Clair didn’t care anymore. She needed to, somehow, accept the fact that things would never become anything more between them. Friendship, and that was it. She wanted to focus on getting them out of here, getting to the lake.

  “Okay, so Chester…” Marisa helped without Clair having to ask. It was unfortunate that Marisa was nice, it was hard to hate her the way Clair wanted to.

  “Its right here,” Clair said as she approached the end of the street where the trees were thicker. She felt like she was in the south.

  “Did she say turn right on Chester?” Clair looked at Marisa. Why did she feel so anxious?

  “She didn’t say,” Nathanial said. “And she probably didn’t know.”

  “Whatever, we’ll try one road and then the other. Its all one road anyway, right? Didn’t Jack Kerouac say something like that?”

  Nathanial was quiet. Guilt gagged him. He knew he should apologize, but at the same time Clair was always so bitchy. Why? Hadn’t they enjoyed the last three years (as much as struggling ones could in New York) together? He thought back to the day he met her. Life was nothing more than a choice. You choose to do what you wanted with it, the end. He would never understand what possessed him to go to Midtown the day he met her but he had and had made roughly three dollars in loose change spanging. Clair was walking down the sidewalk, obviously upset about something. He looked up at her as she was about to disappear down into the subway station.

  “I don’t accept tears, miss, just money,” he said, trying to cheer her up. She looked down and expected to see the usual haggard bum, but instead she saw the cutest boy – and so young.

  “Yeah? Well…I was just robbed.” She was put off by his charm so she couldn’t be as annoyed as she would have been. He looked at her, his dry lips parted. He slowly stood up and got this look in his eyes like he was about to go to war.

  “Who robbed you?” He seemed ready to fight.

  “These guys, don’t worry about it. I was at my stupid job and had my bag on the counter and they swiped it.”

  “Monsters,” he said. It was hard to tell by the passionate way he said that if he was being sincere. In any case, it was still adorable.

  “Yeah…I don’t even know if I have enough money for the train.”

  He held his old coffee cup he’d been collecting money in out to her, keeping this puppy dog look on his face.

  “Its not much, hasn’t been the most lucrative day – bad morning on Wall Street, the dow dropped and all…” he tugged on the front of his baseball cap. Then it wasn’t Wilco, it was a St. Louise Farm Show.

  Clair laughed a little. She didn’t want to take his money though.

  “I…its okay,” she looked around. Person after person bumped into her like she wasn’t human, like she was some kind of obstacle that would eventually fall over and never get back up.

  “Well…” Nathanial looked sadly into his cup. “You could hang out with me if you want, I might get more – or we could go to another neighborhood…”

  “I could just…go back to work and try and get a loan,” she thought. “Yeah, I guess I’ll do that.”

  She looked back at the herd of people along 34th Street. Sometimes she did just want to lie in the street and never get back up.

  She returned to work and was able to get a hundred dollar advance. She went back to give some to Nathanial but he was gone. Her heart ached that night and she couldn’t understand why. He’s just another homeless boy in a city full of them. But he was so funny, and sweet. She thought about him all night, unable to sleep, unable to forget those big green saucer eyes looking up at her. At the time he had pink hair. Forget him, he’s just a boy.

  But the next day he was back in his usual spot and the gave him some money. He waved it away at first, and his mood seemed somewhat pugnacious.

  “Okay, I’ll take five,” he reasoned. “But you have to meet me back here at five-fifteen sharp, cause that’s when I saw you walking and crying yesterday, and you can’t be crying this time. And then you have to let me buy you a drink with it.”

  And she agreed and that was that. He supposed he gave her the wrong idea. Maybe it was all the wrong idea.

  “Live, travel, adventure, bless and don’t be sorry,” Nathanial finally spoke up. “Kerouac said that,” he looked at Clair. He also said “The only truth is music.”

  Clair smiled a little.

  “Oh cool,” Marisa spoke up right when Nathanial was about to apologize. “77! We take that to the lake.”

  “Cool,” Clair said, turning on 77.

 

  20 “We Have The Right You Know”

  Clair was actually enjoying driving. And she could listen to her music, she’d forgotten. She’d never had the chance to listen to the other side of her mix CD. Nathanial tried to figure out what the hell was playing on the CD. He hardly recognized it, some sappy 80s song.

  “Clair?” he let his disgust be known in his tone. “What the hell are you doing to us right now?”

  Marisa snorted at his comment.

  “This is a great song, Nathanial. Air Supply? You don’t know Air Supply?” She moved her head along to the love song as she began to sing.

  “Here I am…the one that you love…” she began to sing. Marisa actually liked the tune too. Her dad used to play it in the afternoon, right as the sun started to set. It made her feel like a child again.

  “Oh! We have the right you know – we have the right you know – Here I am! The one that you love! Askin for another day…understand! The one that you love – loves you in so many ways.”

  “Jeremiah?” Nathanial’s dark, cunning tone cut through the sweet song. “You’re still alive right? You haven’t off’d yourself? Please don’t leave me alone right now!”

  Jeremiah laughed a little. “Don’t worry dude, hey Clair, just saw a line for Tamra Lake.”

  “Sweet!” Clair was happy. Nathanial observed her and decided to leave her alone and let her enjoy something since there were so few things she did enjoy.

  The campsite was prett
y unsightly. It simply looked dismissed. The grass was overgrown and branches were growing out of the lake and twisting sticks surrounded it like barbed wire.

  “Where the hell are the cabins?” Marisa asked.

  “Right? Is this a joke?” Clair remarked.

  “Hey, we have the van,” Nathanial reminded. “Fuck I just wanna get out and stretch and scratch my balls and drink this damn wine.”

  Everyone laughed and climbed out of the van. At least the sky was pretty, with strokes of both dooming gray and pretty innocent blue.

  “So what’s the plan?” Clair asked, following Nathanial up towards the woods where a trail snaked through.

  “Go to the lake…” He was hoping Clair wasn’t about to complain again. Marisa pulled on Clair’s arm so she’d slow down. The boys walked much faster, in the mood to explore.

  “I don’t like this place,” Clair said.

  “Me neither,” Marisa looked down at her shoes. “I know I’m about to break an ankle.”

  “Yeah,” Clair sympathized. “Did you bring any other shoes?”

  “No…” Marisa looked at her. “Stupid, I know.”

  “I have an extra pair of flip flops. I can go get them. It’s a shorter distance to the lake so you should just hang out with them.”

  “You sure?” Marisa asked.

  “Yeah.” Clair wasn’t in a big hurry to go to the creepy lake anyway. She turned back and Marisa carefully finished the trail and sat down by the water. There was all sorts of trash in it – bottles, plastic bags, and the water around the edge was lardy.

  She looked up at Nathanial as he took his shirt off and then his jeans. Her crush came back to knock her over like a wrecking ball.

  He smiled, all giddy at the thought of swimming before he remembered he still had on one thing – his hat. He walked over to Marisa and placed it on her head.

  “You’re really going to go in that water? Your flesh is gonna fall off.”

  “Hey, don’t start sounding like Clair now – after this you’ll get your surprise.”

  “Oh will I?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned, walking backwards into the water. She laughed because he had an erection.

  “Yo,” Jeremiah’s laugh was inspired by fear. “I’m gonna skip this,” he told Nathanial. “That water is too gnarly.”

  “Whatever man,” Nathanial waved his hand at Jeremiah. “Pussy.”

  “I’m gonna go get the wine,” he said.

  “Oh cool,” Nathanial said before venturing out into the water.

  “I’m not touching you after going in there,” Marisa let him know. He turned and looked at her from where he stood, ankle-deep in the water.

  “That’s what you think,” he warned. Then he came running over to her and she playfully screamed as he tackled her and pinned her to the ground. It was great. Finally.

  “That’s what you think,” he whispered.

  She gave into his aggressive hold, getting wet, moving around as much as she could.

  She kissed him hungrily, like a starving child cradling a fresh piece of fruit, sucking out the flavors just in time to save her life. She felt his warmth in her hand, running her hand up and down his cock. Their kissing became very sweet and intrinsic. As Nathanial kissed her he ran his hands over her breasts and between her legs. “Ahh…Nathanial,” she whispered. He took his time with her, slipping a finger in and barely pinching her vagina. Her body lifted in a sudden twitch.