D. He had a fight with Jim, Got angry and beat him half to death. Jim's father, a rough-and-tumble fucker, pulled Gary off. Told him, "Don't come around here again." Soon after, Gary got in trouble for something else and was sent to Reform School.
When his stories got too boiled down, when it got like listening to some old cowboy cutting a piece of dried meat into small chunks and chewing on them, why then he would take a swallow of beer and speak of his Celestial Guitar. He could play music on it while he slept. "Just a big old guitar," he would tell Nicole, "but it has a ship's wheel with hand spokes, and in my dreams, music comes out as I turn the wheel. I can play any tune in the world."
Then Gary told her about his Guardian Angel. Once when he was 3, and his brother was 4, his father and mother stopped to have dinner in a restaurant in Santa Barbara. Then his father said he had to get some change. He'd be right back. He didn't come back for three months. His mother was alone with no money and two little boys. So she started hitchhiking to Provo.
They got stuck on the Humboldt Sink in Nevada. Could have died in the desert. They had no money and had not eaten for the second day in a row. Then a man came walking down the road with a brown sack in his hand, and he said, Well, my wife has fixed a lunch for me, but it's more than I can eat. Would you like some? His mother said, Well, yes, we'd be very grateful. The man gave her the sack and walked on. They stopped and sat down by the side of the road, and there were three sandwiches in the bag, three oranges, and three cookies. Bessie turned to thank him but the man had disappeared. This was on a long flat stretch of Nevada highway.
Gary said that was his Guardian Angel. Came around when you needed him. One winter night of his childhood, standing in a parking lot, snow was all over the ground and Gary's hands hurt from cold. It was then he found new fur-lined mittens on top of the snow. They fit his hands exactly.
Yes, he had a Guardian Angel. Only it left a long time ago. But on the night Nicole walked into Sterling Baker's place, he found his angel again. He liked to tell Nicole this when her legs were up on the dashboard of the car and her panties were off, and they were driving down State Street.
It didn't bother her if somebody looked over. A big truck, for instance, pulled alongside at the light, and the guy up in his cab looked down into their car, but Gary and Nicole both laughed because they didn't give a fat fuck. Gary lit a stick of pot and said it was going to be the best lid ever. As they took a toke, Gary said, "God created it all, you know."
One night they went to the drive-in early and discovered they were the first ones there. Just for the fun of it, Gary began to ride over the bumps between each row. Damn if this fellow from the management didn't come chasing out with a truck and tell them in a rude voice to quit riding around like that. Gary stopped, got out, walked over to the guy and told him off so bad, the fellow whined, "Well, you don't need to get that mad."
But Gary was. After dark, he took his pliers and clipped off a couple of speakers. Made a point of picking up a couple more next time they went to the drive-in. Those speakers were good things to have around. You could hook one up in every room, and they would give you music throughout your house. They never got around, however, to installing them. Just left them in the trunk of her car.
Sometimes they went wandering in the grass between the nuthouse and the mountains. The idea of being up on the big hill behind the loony bin gave Nicole a charge. What the hell. This was the same nuthouse where they put her six years ago.
Sunny and Peabody didn't always like it too much, and would get scared at night when a funny chill would swoop in like a wind, and the mountains above looked cold as ice. She and Gary would go there alone then.
Once she was running around the place and he called to her. Something in his voice made her tear all the way down and she couldn't stop and banged into him, hitting her knee so hard it really hurt. Gary picked her up then. She had her legs wrapped around his waist, and her arms over his neck. With her eyes closed, she had the odd feeling of an evil presence near her that came from Gary. She found it kind of half agreeable, Said to herself, Well, if he is the devil, maybe I want to get closer.
It wasn't a terrifying sensation so much as a strong and strange feeling, like Gary was a magnet and had brought down a lot of spirits on himself. Of course, those psychos behind all those screened windows could call up anything out of the night ground in back of the nuthouse.
In the dark, she asked: "Are you the devil?"
At that point, Gary set her down and didn't say anything. It really got cold around them. He told Nicole he had a friend named Ward White who once asked him the same question.
Years ago, when Gary was in Reform School, he walked into a room unexpectedly and Ward White was being butt-fucked by another kid. Gary never said a thing about it. He and Ward White were separated for years, and then ran into each other again in jail. They still never spoke of it. One day, though, Gary came into the prison hobby shop and Ward told him he had just received some silver from a mail house and asked Gary to turn it into a ring. Out of a book of Egyptian designs called The Ring of Osiris, Gary copied something called the Eye of Horus. When it was done, Gary said it was a magical ring and he wanted it for himself. Never mentioned the old memory. He didn't have to. Ward White just gave him the Eye of Horus.
Nicole always thought of that ring as being taken from the kid who got butt-fucked.
Now Gary wanted to give it to her. He told her that the Hindus believed you had an invisible eye in the middle of your forehead. The ring might help you to see through it. When they got home, he had her lie on the floor. He said she should wait for the third eye to appear in the space between her closed eyes. She had to concentrate until it opened. If it did, she would be able to look through.
Nothing happened that night. She was laughing too much. She kept expecting a pyramid, and saw nothing.
But on another night, she believed she did see something open. Maybe it was the good pot. She could see her life coming back to her through that eye, and remembered things she had forgotten, but they were so far inside she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him all of it. She felt afraid it would bring down more spooks.
So she kept telling him about herself but it wasn't as straight. More and more, she put old boy friends down and made believe they were nothing in her life, and began to keep the best part for herself. After that night at the nuthouse, a lot of her past stayed inside her. It was like seeing a movie of herself floating down the river, and seeing it mostly for herself and just telling him a couple of the sights.
Before Sunny was even ten weeks old, Nicole got into a new thing. She began to date guys on Midway that never had been laid right. In part that was because Barrett had convinced her she wasn't any good in bed. Maybe she preferred therefore to go with somebody who didn't know what good was. Of course, Barrett had his own hang-up—he couldn't bet on getting it up with any girl but her. So, in a quiet way, he could get jealous as a maniac. Sometimes they'd be walking through town and a guy would smile at her, and Barrett would be convinced she had fucked the fellow. Only he would hold it to himself. Three or four days later, it would come out. He'd treat her like a slut. Make a point of the number of times she had been tooled before she ever met him. Said the cruelest things about how big she was. She always wanted to reply it wouldn't be so bad if he had something thicker than a finger's worth of dick. So she figured she needed a period where she was just making it with guys who were absolutely grateful.
Before too long, however, Nicole decided to come back from Midway. She had done lots of exercise and was feeling real good and slim, and the baby was beautiful. It was summer and Barrett was there to greet her at the airport. He was moving a couple of pounds a day of the best grass, and looking prosperous himself, wanted her back with him. She had a new rap, however. "I'm not your old lady," she told him. "You're not my old man. I can do what I want." Still, she moved in. That was a summer when they got high all the time on the best THC and Cannabinol. She really felt
like sex.
That's when Barrett became the guy she could get her rocks off with consistently. She wondered if that meant he was the guy she was supposed to work it out with. Maybe it was conditioned reflex, but Barrett could turn her on by walking into a room. The THC had mellowed her out and she felt like dancing all the time. (Except she started getting headaches whenever she was straight, and her teeth began to hurt, and her kidneys. Powerful stuff.) Still, it made for some awful good sex.
It was lonely, however. Barrett knew nothing about her head. Just liked to be the big man. Enjoyed walking around like the dealer that people were watching. Karma was a blank to him. Nicole gave him _A World Beyond_ by Ruth Montgomery Ford. Later, he said he read it, but that's all he told her. Wasn't much comment for a man as smart as he was. It certainly did no good for Nicole, since she was getting kind of suicidal with the Cannabinol. There was one dream where she thought she'd died, and laid down in a grave dug in the desert. In her last seconds, a soft black night came over all of her, and said, "Come to me."
She was so shook up she told Barrett death had spoken, and she would welcome it. Hey, look, he said, you're much too valuable. He didn't have anything to give on the subject.
They began to have personal troubles, too. He had a partner, Stoney, that she liked, who was staying with them. One night, feeling as horny as the hot summer night, she went up to Barrett in a sweet little way and said, "Why don't you sleep on the couch and give Stoney a break." It freaked Barrett out, but he had made the deal that she wasn't his old lady no more, so he lay down on the couch, and Stoney got in with her. Barrett was so pissed, he took off in his car, then came back about twenty minutes later and told his partner to get out. That seemed to be the end of that.
A couple of nights later, however, Barrett must have started figuring this is what she really wants, you know, because he took her to a party up the Canyon and went out of his way to share her with a couple of buddies. Then he kind of broke down. They had a big fight and Nicole threw a machete at him which went through the screen door. Then she threw a hammer through the kitchen window. Then they broke it off. She took Sunny, and went to live with Rikki and Sue at her great-grandmother's house.
That substituted one misery for another. She never got along worse with Sue, who was always leaving shitty diapers around. The house stank.
Then Rikki and Sue found Nicole in her great-grandmother's bed with Tom Fong, a Chinaman. He was nice, and made good money ripping off his boss in a Chinese restaurant, and he wanted to marry her. Just another man in her life who wanted to marry. She'd taken Tom up to that room for some privacy—he was giving massages, his specialty, and Rikki and Sue just happened to walk in when she had her top off. After Tom Fong left, though, there was a terrible argument and she gave a lot of lip, and Rikki promised to knock her on her ass if she ever talked that bad again. Then an aunt and uncle came over, and got so mad she'd been in that bed, they wouldn't listen to anything said. Called her a whore. Her uncle actually hit her across the face. She threw a bunch of stuff into a pillowcase, diapers, baby food, bottles, found a backpack, took Sunny, took off.
She was crying. Her great-grandmother was okay, but an active Mormon. It brought back Nicole's childhood when this same great-grandmother would get out of the tub, dry off, and immediately put on her religious garment next to her flesh. A lumpy thing that kept her clothes from looking good. You had to wear the garment next to your skin if you were married in the temple.
Her great-grandmother used to take her to Sunday School. It was kind of boring. They taught outer darkness was your lot if you sinned, and disharmony. If you were a good girl, you would sit at God's knee.
Only trouble was all the good girls didn't like her, and made nasty remarks about Nicole and the boys. They would walk by and sneer. It was all coming back to her now after that scene in the bedroom. Even as she walked down the highway, she was trying not to cry.
A fellow with a stutter who was driving to Pennsylvania picked her up. She didn't care where she was going. Nicole didn't know if she liked him or not, but he sure needed somebody and she didn't care where she was going. So she took off with him and they ended up living together in Devon, Pennsylvania, where he made a pretty good living in his leathercraft shop. They even talked of getting married. He was a real performer in bed. Worked very hard to please her.
This fellow, whose name was Kip Eberhardt, proved difficult to live with, however. He had a lot of paranoia and she made the mistake of telling him about herself. As soon as he went out to work, he would worry that Nicole was with a guy in their very trailer. Nobody ever was, but she couldn't convince him. It really messed her up. What bothered her head was that she did have secret thoughts of bringing in some sweet guy to while away an afternoon. Kip could make love like a fiend, but sometimes he left her feeling like one.
He went to ridiculous lengths. Kip even accused her of going to bed with a fat old man whose face was black from dirt. Occasionally, Kip would beat her up. Oh, Jesus, she loved him, and he was such an asshole. That hurt more than all the other guys put together.
Considering she gave a year of her life to him, and he almost took her mind away, Nicole got to despise him for hitting her. He was only a little guy, small and wiry and stoop-shouldered, so they had some pretty mean fights. She even came close to winning a couple.
Nicole was 17 when she found out she was pregnant again. The moment Kip heard he was so happy for himself, and so happy for both of them. They were going to have a baby he kept saying. She felt disgusted. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life with this guy.
She had never known how to keep from getting pregnant. In fact, she only found out this time in the Planned Parenthood Association building near Devon where she'd gone to get an IUD. Nicole never took pills, or watched the calendar. She read how at certain times of the month you could get pregnant more than other times, but didn't know when. She'd read about it but they seemed to mention different days in different places. Besides she somehow knew she wasn't going to get pregnant.
This time, though, there was a student nurse who lived next door and she kept after Nicole to make an appointment at Planned Parenthood. When she finally did put in an appearance, they said she was sure carrying something.
Telling Kip made it worse. He sat there with his beautiful black beard and curly hair and loved her enough for both of them. He'd start to say something and get so emotional it would take hours for him to get two words out. She'd have to sit with a smile on her face, wanting to say, I'm not a mind reader, you know. But when she knew what he was going to say, he would still drag it out. That made her want to escape as much as anything.
Plus the paranoia. Every so often he would say somebody was following him, or weird messes were waiting, Trouble ahead. He'd say, See, you know? She couldn't see.
She said good-bye and took the Greyhound to Utah. Twenty-four hours later, she was in bed with a nice guy she met on the bus. No big deal, but she relaxed, and laughed and talked. After all, she wasn't in no big hurry to get back to anything.
She thought about having an abortion. But she couldn't bring herself to kill a baby, She couldn't stand Barrett anymore, but she loved Sunny. So she couldn't see killing a new baby she might also love.
The day after Jeremy was born, Barrett was at the hospital. She couldn't believe the games he played with her. Said that when he saw Jeremy, he felt like it was his son.
Then after she got out, Barrett kept coming around. Jeremy had been so premature, she had to leave him in an incubator and thumb a ride over to the hospital every other day.
Barrett would hitch along. Carried on over the baby. Told her how he really wanted her, new baby and all. It was very emotional for Barrett but just everyday for her. She said, Well, I'll live with you for a while. She had to admit that Barrett really seemed to like going to the hospital, putting on the white shirt and mask, looking at the baby. He had never had that with Sunny.
Up to the time Jeremy was born, N
icole had been working full hours in a motel, changing linen and scrubbing bathrooms. That was about all she'd command, considering she had only finished the seventh grade. Anyway, she finally called Kip. Wanted someone besides Barrett to relate to the fact she had a son. Kip couldn't believe the news. Thought it was still weeks away. Anyway, he didn't stammer a bit, and was so nice on the phone she decided to try again.
For those first few days, it was her best honeymoon with Kip. Lasted until he was back at work in the leathercraft shop. That afternoon she was rushing back and forth, picking things up, sticking them under the couch. He really liked the house clean. If it didn't look right, he always thought she'd been goofing off with some guy—that's how he'd been before. So she was trying to pick up when he came in the door.
She was standing there waiting to kiss him, but he didn't look at her. Instead he began to squint. She had seen that look before.
He kept prowling around the house. Went into the bathroom. When she strolled by, Kip was in the hamper looking her underwear over for gunk. Really gross. She kept trying to find out what made him so suspicious. Finally he told her that just as he drove up, he saw two people walk in front of the window. Since there are two windows to look through, the storm window and the inside window, he probably saw two shadows, she said, but he wouldn't believe it. Swore to God it was two people. Enough to get her screaming.
Back in Utah, the family carried on how lucky she was to have a girl and a boy. Nicole didn't see where it was so great taking care of two when she'd never been sure she wanted one. On bad days, her main feeling was that she had missed out on a lot.
Once again, Barrett had been sure to meet her at the airport. They talked about old times and went to his pad and listened to favorite records. He told her he had been getting this house ready for her and wouldn't bother her, so she moved in.