The Forgetting Time(71)

There was an ache near his balls and he realized it was a Ping-Pong paddle. He must have tripped against the table and fallen the night before and lay where he fell. His lip, too, felt funny, swollen; he moved his tongue around his mouth. It tasted like blood and dirt and bad breath and throw-up. There was a bit of vomit stuck to his hair, though he couldn’t see how he’d had anything to vomit. He hadn’t eaten anything solid in days.

He lifted his head. It was killing him, of course. He set it down gently on the cool concrete. It felt nice, like a pillow. Maybe he’d stay there a while. He couldn’t remember what happened and who he’d fought with, but he had a feeling that it was well after noon and he’d royally screwed up again. No way Mr. Kim would take him back at the gas station now. That meant Jimmy would probably kick him out. He was behind on rent, though paying rent for somebody’s couch never had sat right with him, anyway. He was getting ripped off, anyway, right? So who cares?

The job at the gas station wasn’t too bad, though; the people coming and going kept his mind busy. When he was working his mom got on his case less about getting his GED or going back to AA. He’d tried to tell his mom he wasn’t going back there, but she didn’t understand and he couldn’t explain it. She kept asking him, “Why?”

“Questions like that, that’s why,” he’d say.

At AA it was the same old business. They wanted you to tell them a “story.” Your “story.” They wanted to get it out of you, your bad childhood, or whatever, and they never listened when he said he didn’t have a story to tell. His dad was an asshole, and when Paul was fifteen he had divorced his mom and married the co-worker he was fucking, but lots of dads did shit like that. What difference did it make why he turned out this way? He was here now, wasn’t he? But it wasn’t enough for them. They wanted your blood, is what they wanted. This one counselor last time would not shut up about it. She kept looking at him and looking at him like she knew he was lying. His brain started to get that whirling feeling like it was a roulette wheel going around that might stop at any moment on the wrong number. And he had to leave that room right away. He left by the back door and walked straight to the grocery store and bought a beer. Just one beer. Happy now, bitch? he thought as he gulped it down. He went home to his mom’s basement with that taste on his lips and in his mind like the smell of a girl he couldn’t forget and then in the middle of the night he’d raided the house of all her brandy and NyQuil and elderberry wine and whatnot and for the next day or so he didn’t think about anything and then she kicked him out.

He could hear his mom and brother moving around upstairs, doing whatever the hell they did all day. From down in the basement, he could smell the hot dogs she was cooking. He was hungover but he was also starving, so he was nauseated and hungry at the same time, something you might not have thought possible except he felt that way all the time. He would kill for a hot dog right now or even a peanut butter sandwich, but he didn’t want to risk going up there because his mom would take one look at him and know what’s what. She wasn’t an idiot, even if she still let him sleep in the basement sometimes.

He lay there until he heard his mom and Aaron finish eating their lunch and the screen door slam when they went out. Maybe Aaron had a wrestling meet at school.

After they left he couldn’t find the energy to get up for a long time and he lay on the floor of that basement where he’d spent so many hours as a little kid playing air hockey and Ping-Pong and video games. He thought about how hungry he was and how far into the shit he’d sunk.

Then his mind started to get that nervous feeling again, like he was going to blow up, and he felt around on the floor to see if there was anything there and came across a vodka bottle he must’ve bought the night before. There was a lick of it left but it wasn’t enough.

He forced himself up the stairs to find some food. Maybe there was a bottle of Amaretto or something tucked away that he hadn’t come across yet, though he seriously doubted it, after that last time.

Someone was outside; he could hear the crunching on the gravel. Maybe it was a guy delivering pizza who got the wrong address. He could eat a whole pizza right now, even if it had mushrooms on it. He’d find the cash somewhere. There had to be some change in the couch cushions or something. He flung open the door.

There was a boy standing there.

A little kid, yellow haired. He was standing in the driveway, staring at the house. The boy had a lizard on his shoulder. It was a pretty weird sight. He knew all the kids on the block and this boy wasn’t one of them.

“Hey,” Paul said.

The boy looked really nervous. Maybe some of the other kids had dared him to come by. All the moms on the block told the little kids not to talk to him; he could tell by the way they looked scared sometimes when he said, “Hi.” It hurt his head to think of it. He wanted the boy to leave.

“Can I help you with something?”

He just stood there. He didn’t say anything. He was a weird boy. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Like he was a mongoloid or something. What did they call them now? Down’s syndrome. He had a friend who had a sister with it and she stared at him sometimes, too, and didn’t mean anything by it. This boy had regular eyes though, really big blue ones that were looking at him like he stole his lollipop or something.

Paul smiled. Tried to be nice. It was just a little boy. He wasn’t a complete asshole, despite what everyone thought. “You need something?”