We All Fall Down

  So I start walking.

  And then a car pulls up next to me.

  “Nic, hey, where’re you going?”

  I turn, half wondering if I’m hallucinating or something.

  But, no, she’s there.

  Holy shit.

  She’s there. I mean, here. Now. In front of me.

  Looking the same as before—green eyes glowing in the dark, like a cat’s would.

  “Sue Ellen, oh my God, I can’t believe you came.”

  She smiles, and all the breath goes outta me.

  “Yeah, well,” she says, her voice soft, like a goddamn lullaby. “I was worried when I didn’t hear from you, but I figured I’d go ahead and try.”

  I tell her about the phone card as I throw my stuff in the back of her new-looking silver Volvo station wagon.

  I sit down next to her on the tan leather passenger seat—trembling suddenly—staring.

  “This is fucking surreal,” I say, stupidly.

  She stares right back at me and she is beautiful and I’ve come all this way and I really do love her—I do—more than I ever could Zelda. That has to be the truth. I mean, I keep telling myself that.

  Her pale, small hand reaches up, her fingers lightly running down the curve of my cheekbone.

  “It’s so good to see you,” I tell her, unable to stop myself, the words practically forcing themselves outta my mouth.

  She moves her hand up higher, pushing back my long, greasy hair.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” she says sweetly.

  A car drives past—the light catching her eyes—her tears like shadows.

  “I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this, Sue Ellen. You’ve saved my life. I’m so fucking grateful for you.”

  She leans forward and kisses me. Her full lips pressing against mine—opening slightly.

  I want to take things slow.

  I don’t want to pressure her.

  But she’s kissing me, so I kiss her back.

  We kiss like we mean it.

  I suck on her tongue.

  I hold the warmth of her body.

  She tucks her head up under my jawline, resting there—taking shelter in the curve of my neck—her arms encircling my frail waist.

  “Jesus Christ,” she whispers, wiping away her tears with my frayed-to-almost-nothing T-shirt. “You’re so skinny. Are you all right?”

  “Well,” I say, laughing a little, “I haven’t eaten in about two days. And, uh, even then it was just a fucking PowerBar.”

  She pushes herself back. “What? Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I’m broke. I really don’t have a penny.”

  “But you’re gonna be getting money from your publisher when you finish your book, right? So why wouldn’t anyone lend you the money?”

  Leaning forward, I reach out to kiss her forehead, inadvertently picking up the putrid, rotting smell of my clothes and body crevices.

  “Man, I stink bad,” I say. “I’m sorry. First thing I’ll do is take a shower. But, uh, yeah, you’re right, I will be getting that money. It doesn’t matter, though. There’s not a single person in my life who still trusts me. I mean, you might wanna take that as a warning, you know?”

  She laughs, turning the key in the ignition. A James Brown song screams loud from the car speakers, startling both of us—Sue Ellen’s hands moving frantically, scrambling to get the volume down.

  “S-sorry,” she kinda stutters, not looking in my direction. Embarrassed, maybe.

  I tell her she should never apologize for the Godfather of Soul.

  That gets her laughing again. “Amen to that. But, uh, anyway, Nic, don’t worry. I trust you. I trust you more than I have almost anyone, I’d say. Besides, your dad already tried that one on me.”

  She puts the car in drive, and then we take off down the street a short way before half skidding out in a U-turn.

  “What do you mean? He called you?” I ask stupidly.

  “Yup. Tried to convince me I should put you right back on the bus as soon as you got here. Said all kinds of bad shit about you… and about me for helping you, actually. I guess he got my number from your mom or something. ’Cause you called her from my cell phone when we were in Arizona, right?”

  My whole body stretches out in the seat, and I crack my neck from side to side. The window’s halfway down, and I can smell this foreign sweetness in the wet air. I light a cigarette.

  “Yeah,” I almost whisper. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I called my dad from Texas somewhere. It’s gonna be a long-ass time before we talk to each other again—I mean, if we ever do. He’s pissed as hell.”

  “At you and me both,” she says. “Do you think he could be right? Do you think this could be the wrong thing for you?”

  My hand finds hers—our skin touching—my fingers tracing the lines of her knuckles—drawing shapeless patterns up her wrists and forearms.

  “No, Sue Ellen, no way. You’re the… the best thing to happen to me in as long as I can remember. That’s the truth, you know? There’s no other truth but that.”

  I watch her silhouette nodding.

  The streetlights glow a dull orange—bleeding out like watercolors on the coarse black paper of the night. We’ve made a few turns here and there, and I suddenly realize the street we’re driving on is made of uneven brick. On either side are wide sidewalks with rows and rows of old, what I can only describe as New Orleans–style mansions—many with gas lanterns burning on their porches, and intricate carvings along the stairs and columns and railings that I can’t fully make out in the dark. In front of us is a little square with green grass and hedges and some sort of large horseman sculpture in the middle. Giant oaks line the streets and crowd the square. Long, tangled moss hangs down from the tree branches. Sue Ellen turns at the square, and we take a sort of roundabout so we can keep going straight, if that makes any sense.

  The next street is the same, shrouded with oaks, the tendrils of moss reaching down. The warped, decrepit, haunted-looking mansions lead into a central square—everything deserted.

  But as we drive even farther, across a set of seemingly abandoned railroad tracks, the mansions suddenly give way to withered little shacks with cluttered porches and broken windows. Dogs sleep chained to the front stairways. Men and women are out here, talking in groups on the sidewalk, holding beer bottles in their hands, smoking cigarettes. Sue Ellen pulls into a large, sprawling, mostly empty grocery store parking lot—the rectangular fortress with its sliding glass doors is blindingly bright in the surrounding still and darkness. Until that point, it had been almost as if we were traveling through some other world—ancient and full of secrets—everything heavy with black magic and mystery. Already I can say that Charleston is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There is a feeling here like… like the dead really could crawl out of their graves—a feeling like it might all be an illusion, a town from some ghost story that will amazingly have disappeared by morning. But, well, then we get to the supermarket—some place called Kroger. It is giant and uniform. I know where I am now. I’m in America. And so we get out of the car and start walking in. I grab hold of Sue Ellen’s waist and pull her to me.

  “This is all pretty crazy,” I tell her.

  She kisses my cheek quickly, like a little kid would. “Yeah, Charleston’s pretty cool. Anyway, I don’t have any food, really, at my new place, so you should pick out some stuff you like.”

  I stop her. “New place? What do you mean?”

  “Oh,” she says, actually giggling some. “I forgot to tell you. I agreed to finish school here in Charleston, so in return my mom rented me my own apartment and she agreed to let you stay with me there. You’ll just have to start paying half of the rent once you get a job.”

  My eyes go wide. “No shit! Really? That’s amazing.”

  “Uh-huh.” She’s smiling all over. “I took care of everything, didn’t I? Now, uh, come on, let’s go get you some food.”

  But I don’t let her go in q
uite yet. I hold her right up to me, and we kiss for a good long time. I think maybe this has all been worth it, after all.

  Charleston, South Carolina. Man, I never would’ve guessed it.

  And Sue Ellen? She’s just fucking perfect.

  I mean, perfect.

  Goddamn.

  Ch.19

  Honestly, I’m not someone who really needs a lot of structure in my life.

  I’m not like most people, who seem to go kinda crazy if they’ve got too much free time on their hands. I don’t know—I really can’t relate. Between writing and reading and drawing and playing music and taking walks and watching movies, I never have enough time for everything anyway. So in terms of having to work a regular job, well, I can’t say I was too excited about the idea.

  But obviously I had to work, right? I mean, Christ, Sue Ellen had already started her spring quarter at school, and she was working part-time at this clothing boutique downtown, so I felt like a total asshole sitting around the house all day. Of course, I was writing, but when I talked to my editor in New York, she made it pretty clear that I wasn’t gonna see any more money from them till I got a really solid, complete first draft in—and that might take a while. So, yeah, finding a real, you know, job-type job was very necessary.

  It actually didn’t take long. Sue Ellen and I went to this kinda funky, pseudo-hippy, knockoff San Francisco coffee shop up the street from us. We ordered drinks and sandwiches, and it was all pretty good and the people seemed cool, so I asked if they were hiring. The manager was immediately called from around back to interview me on the spot. She was a middle-aged woman with long, ratty hair that might as well’ve had flowers all woven into it. She wore a shapeless sack dress with some sort of African-looking print. She wore Birkenstocks. When I told her I was born in Berkeley and raised in San Francisco and that I’d worked at a Peet’s Coffee there, well, the interview was over. At that point all she wanted to know was when I could start. And it’s a good thing, too, ’cause if she had called my references, I would’ve been fucked as hell. But, uh, then again, at least that would’ve held off this inevitable day a little bit longer. ’Cause, as it stands, I’ve gotta be there in about five minutes for training.

  Fuck.

  I mean, I feel so stupidly sick and anxious—lying here on Sue Ellen’s bed—my bed—the overhead fan spinning and rocking loose overhead—the early summer heat oppressive—suffocating.

  But, here, under the fan, I am safe. And the central air-conditioning whirs night and day to try ’n’ at least keep the rest of the apartment somewhat livable, even if Sue Ellen does a whole lot of complaining about the power bill. But the house is small—one-bedroom in the back and a combination kitchen/living room facing the lane… or, well, the alley. In Charleston they call them lanes, but they’re really just alleys—alleys where everyone dumps their trash both in and around the designated bins. Honestly, I’ve never in my life seen as much trash everywhere as I have here. The other day I was walking down to meet Sue Ellen at work, and I saw a passing driver throw her McDonald’s trash and empty drink cup out the window and into the middle of the street. Garbage clogs the gutters, breeds giant roaches in the dark places, lies rotting in the sun. Garbage piles high in the abandoned houses and empty lots. The smell of garbage is carried with the wind. The town stinks of it—mixing with our sweat and the shit-smelling fumes from the paper factory down the river. And our little alley, our little lane, is the apex of it all—the accumulation of crawling insects and shit and garbage and black asphalt hot as torched metal. Only here, inside, am I safe—with the air-conditioning and the fan and my books and writing and sex and the VCR. I want to stay hidden in this apartment forever. I want to be kept like a house cat. I don’t want to have to face the world. I don’t want to have to work, to meet new people, to put myself at risk. Here, protected, I know I can make it. Out there, well, I’m not so sure.

  But I’ve got no choice, right? I mean, I’m not some invalid. I’ve got to participate in life, just like everybody else does. There’s nothing so special ’bout me that should make me exempt. I need to be able to handle this kinda shit. And I will. I’m going to.

  I force myself up, put on some pants, and I’m sweating already. Sue Ellen’s got her laptop set up to a set of speakers, so I go put on one of the electric Miles Davis albums I downloaded off her iTunes without actually asking.

  The music starts out fast and frantic. In some ways, listening to this shit helps remind me of who I am, you know? I mean, the music I love has always been such a huge part of me. I need to hold on to that.

  So I turn the volume louder and go get dressed the rest of the way. Sue Ellen’s designated me some space in the closet and one dresser drawer. Like I said, I don’t have too much stuff, anyway. All the photos and posters on the wall are hers. The couch and plush chairs and desk and office furniture are all from her family. The rest of the stuff she bought herself, but with her mom’s money, of course.

  But now that I’m working, well, at least I’ll be able to pay for some of our shit, even though the minimum wage here is ridiculously low—like, six dollars an hour. Still, my getting a job is more a symbolic gesture than anything else. It shows I’m not some fucking freeloader. It shows I’m not just hustling Sue Ellen.

  And so I pull on my shoes and light a cigarette and walk out into the wet, sticky heat—my sunglasses fogging up so bad I can’t even see. The trash is stinking in the alley. Skinny, feral bobtail cats lie sleeping in the shade of parked cars. A young man with short dreads and a muscular body bends over the open hood of his car, messing with I-don’t-know-what. The guy I call the “bastard man” is walking down the narrow street in my direction. He makes his rounds of the neighborhood every day about this time—sweating, fat. His khaki shorts hiked up so they cling tight between his butt cheeks. His too-small Hawaiian shirt practically bursting open around his belly. His white socks pulled up to his fleshy calves. Waddling along in his bright white, sensible orthopedic sneakers. His straw porkpie hat pulled down over his eyes. I call him the bastard man ’cause, somehow, his particular mental illness causes him to walk around the neighborhood for hours, stopping every ten paces or so, screaming out “You are the bastard!” at no one at all—or, I guess, at everyone, maybe. The first time he came by, I tried to say hey to him, but he just turned on me and yelled, “The trash goes in the motherfucking trash can!”

  Of course, I get how fucked up it is that this guy isn’t getting treatment for his illness—most likely ’cause he can’t afford the psych evaluation and medication. Another example of how corrupt our health-care system is in this country. On the other hand, there’s something oddly comforting about the bastard man roaming free and unharassed around the neighborhood. I mean, he’s just accepted as an eccentric part of the community—one of a whole bunch of crazies wandering the streets, like the man who dresses in three-piece suits every day and screams “Jesus” at the top of his lungs, holding some sign about Satan over his head, walking from one end of town to the other, no matter how hot it is outside. They are as much a part of the landscape here as the live oaks, the ancient cemeteries, the Spanish moss, the squares and parks, the projects, the old Southern mansions. And I guess there’s something about that acceptance that I really do respect. Or maybe it’s ’cause, being totally fucking crazy myself, I’ve finally found a place where I might just fit in.

  So I walk off down the street—quick-like, ’cause I’m about to be late.

  The bastard man screams, “You are the bastard!”

  And I make sure to throw my cigarette butt in the motherfucking trash can.

  Back when I was in high school, dealing with all the bullshit pressures of getting into college, trying to figure out who the hell I was, battling my parents, challenging every goddamn thing, feeling hopeless, like nothing could ever fill me up completely, I remember thinking what a relief it would have been just to turn that corner, you know? Lose hold of reality. Drift off to some delusional place. Living with e
yes closed. Easy. Able to walk around Charleston screaming, “You are the bastard!” Never having to work or love or make anything of yourself. Never having to let anybody down. It would be such a relief. An escape I would never be blamed for. A little lovely dream. A fantasy. Romanticized in movies, books, and songs. The King of Hearts. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. David Bowie singing, “I’d rather stay here with all the madmen than perish with the sad men roaming free.”

  But as I’ve gotten older, well, I’ve come to learn the truth of it. There is no freedom in insanity. There is nothing romantic about wandering the streets disoriented and crazy, mixed up, tangled, bound by obsession. Sometimes I just want to curl up small in an abandoned corner and lie still till the world goes away completely. Sometimes I want to run screaming and screaming. But either way, crossing the street to the coffee shop, I’m suddenly aware that I have a whole lot more in common with the bastard man than I could ever have with these ultrahip-looking art school kids I’m about to be working with. I can see them through the large front plate-glass window, standing behind the counter, talking and laughing.

  When I walk in to introduce myself, neither one of them seems particularly impressed. The boy is super tall and skinny, with these tiny cutoff jean shorts revealing his long, sinewy, shaved legs. He’s wearing some kind of off-orange-colored boat shoes with no socks, and his tight, tight self-consciously vintage T-shirt has a picture of a sailboat silk-screened on the front. His head is shaved, and his neck and arms are covered in intricate, expensive tattoos. He has a pair of square, nerdy-chic glasses on that I’d be willing to bet aren’t really prescription. His name is Rafi.

  The girl is a lot more plain-looking, with short black hair and a narrow face. She’s wearing sensible clothes—jeans, a V-neck shirt, and hiking boots. Her name is Elaina. I guess she’s the one who’s gonna be training me.