My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

he looks like. He’s rich!” Amity screams. “If he wants to fuck me, I’ll shut my eyes and turn him into Billy Dee Williams.” : “I couldn’t do it with him, even with my eyes closed.”

“He can wear his little dust-and-particle mask while we make love!”

I take a sip of water to offset my cotton mouth. “Are you dusty?”

“Of course not. Lemon Pledge, baby. But you know Michael. He’s got to be sure before he impregnates me. I can’t wait to have Michael Jackson’s alien baby!” Bye-bed

We laugh until we choke and pee our pants and think we’ll die if we don’t catch a breath. And we know if someone comes into the house and asks us what we’re laughing at we’ll laugh harder.

And this is the moment I know I’m saved that I will survive post-school, post-suicide, post-breakup, real-world, no-inheritance adult life. Because there’ ssomebody in Dallas, Texas, who doesn’t want me for the value of my family name or money or my willingness to make her laugh because Michael Jackson can supply it all.

And that night, as I stretch out on my air mattress, t covers pulled up to my neck, I lie back and stop worrying about where I’m going to be five minutes from now. And for the time in weeks, I drift quickly off to sleep, thanks to Amitymplus my waning marijuana-induced stupor.

“No! Help me! No!”

Amity is screaming! I kick the covers off. Roll out of bed. Run into a wall. Out. Into her room. “Amity?”

She turns the light on beside her bed and sits up. “Harry,” she says, clutching her heart. “Go back to bed.”

“What’s the matter, Amity? Are you OK?”

“Nightmare,” she whispers, staring at the wall ahead of her.

“That silly old nightmare.” She turns the light off and rolls onto her side. “Go,” she whispers.

I’m left standing in the dark. Awkwardly, I feel my way out of her room, and grope the wall to make the turn into my own room.

Settling down onto my air mattress, I have to wonder what she meant by that silly old nightmare. Though clearly in terror, she spoke coolly and tried to brush it off, as if describing an annoying but harmless cousin who showed up uninvited at a party. But there was more to it, I could tell. Something in her eyes told me it was far more familiar than that and far more frightening.

For a moment I get a sick feeling. Have I done the wrong thing by moving in here? Do I really know this girl? There’s always more to people than you think. I like to think of the more as good, but what if it’s not?

Forget it. It’s probably just my mind going paranoid on all this smoke. In fact, that’s probably it: the pot. She was having a stoner nightmare, and here I am making a big deal of it. Creating some big dark secret that doesn’t really exist. Right? Maybe. I don’t know. What happened to my blissful sleep? I’m hungry. Shit, all she has is Diet Dr. Pepper and champagne. Never mind. I’m too wired to sleep. This air mattress feels as if it’s floating on a body of water. When I move, it tilts, and I fear it will capsize if I’m not careful. This blanket is irritating every nerve cell in my body. I kick it off, but then grow cold. I drag it back on. I wait for sleep. Am I too stoned? Or not stoned enough?

Should I really be sleeping here at all?

;

CHAPTER

FOUR

l stay. I sleep on the sheets she provides, wash my hair with shampoo, and listen to her records on her old beater of a stereo. And when she’s sleeping at home and not with her

I attempt to grow accustomed to her occasional nightmares. On flight attendant seniority list, she is senior and I am junior, so we cross paths only occasionally at first. On a day off, I fly back Kansas and reclaim my car from Matthew, a 1968 Volkswa Beetle, and drive it back to Dallas. The poor old car has seen years of service, and it barely limps down to Texas. I coax it alon knowing that, if it breaks down, I’m fucked, because I just have the money to fix it.

My second weekend in Dallas, Amity is down in Houston on , date. She says it’s a flight attendant thingmgoing out of town a date. You don’t have to clean your house, you impress your with your mobility, and you’re guaranteed to have sex, because when it’s over, you fly away.

I’m jealous that she’s in Houston with a guy. I wish it were me, But now that I’m feeling somewhat more secure, and my stitches are dissolved, I’m brave enough to strike out on my own for night.

I head over to the gay bars. I luck out and find a parking

right in the thick of it on Cedar Springs, and as I step out of my ‘68 VW, I hear a gaggle of guys catcall my Kansas license plate. “Girl, you need to ask the Wizard for a new car!” I look at them and laugh, as if they’re just having fun with me, and they look back as if I’ve broken a rule by smiling at a stranger. A different guy says, “He ought to ask the Wizard for a friend.” That hurts. They walk on, singing “If I Only Had a Friend.” My confidence is weakened.

I unknowingly choose a bar that’s infamous for its heavy S&M: Stand and Model. The place is named LBJ’s and I’m amazed that the Johnsons haven’t sued. It’s all glass and chrome and pretense. The floor is actually carpeted with now filthy dark green short pile carpet that does nothing to soak up the deafening sound of the thump-thump gay-boy music. Behind the main bar is a wall-to-wall mirror that the bartenders use for preening rituals during their few off moments: flick of the hair, teeth check, suck in the