The Highway Kind(36)

Walter got up off the couch, chuckling, and said, “Ranger, come.” The dog followed Walter to the stairs and with the command of “Up,” he went to the second floor. We heard a door open, then the Mahoneys’ mother yelling something fast in Japanese, and the same door slamming shut.

“She wants us to turn the music down,” said Walter.

“Fuck her,” said Jason.

I looked around the room. Behind the couch, in the center, was a clean wrestling mat with nothing on it. Against the walls, several terrariums held tarantulas and poisonous snakes. A half-deflated blowup doll with a big O mouth had been tossed in a corner. There was a Super 8 projector facing a wall-hung white sheet on which the brothers projected porn: young teens and dog-on-girl action were among the favorites. Down here, no stone of degeneracy had been left unturned. Mr. and Mrs. Mahoney, who rarely ventured into the basement, had lost control of their own house.

Ted sat on the couch and I took a chair near Mike. He didn’t acknowledge me. I couldn’t figure out if Mike was retarded or shy.

Walter squeezed himself onto the couch between Ted and Jason. He picked up the shoebox top and shook it like a miner panning for gold. The seeds became separated from the bush and buds. Walter filled the bowl, handed the bong to Ted, and fired it up. Ted let the bong’s tube get cloudy, took his finger off its hole, inhaled a shotgun of smoke, held it in his lungs, and coughed it out. The bong went around to each of us and soon we were all high. Ted and the others lit cigarettes.

Jason got up, put on an Aerosmith record, and dropped the needle on the third track.

“This jam is bad as shit,” said Jason. “Dream On” came fully into the room.

“You like the stereo?” said Walter to my brother.

“It’s okay,” said Ted, without enthusiasm. They owned a Soundesign compact system with horn speakers. The sound was treble dominant. It wasn’t even okay. It was one step up from a clock radio. Ted was being charitable but he wasn’t the type to lie.

“I guess you’d know,” said Walter. “On account of you’re like a manager of that Audio Chalet.”

Some guys got quiet when they were up on weed. Walter became more aggressive.

“I’m just a salesman,” said Ted patiently. “It’s called the Audio House.”

“Ze Audio Haus,” said Jason with a German accent, laughing at his own illogical joke, then digging his spoon into the tub of chocolate ice cream.

“Ricky, you should get a job up there too,” said Walter. “But, wait, you’re working at your old man’s station, right?”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Rick’s pumping ethyl,” said Jason, and now he and Walter both laughed.

“Nah, Ricky’s pumping that little Jewish girl,” said Walter. “Diane Finkelstein or whatever her Hebe name is. Ain’t that right, Ricky?”

“It’s Finkle,” I said. Warmth came to my face.

“Aw, look at him,” said Jason. “You made Ricky mad.”

“Lay off him,” said Ted.

“Okay,” said Walter. “How’s Francesca?”

“She’s fine,” said Ted.

“You two are hot and heavy again,” said Walter. “That’s nice. I guess she got it all out of her system while you were over there in Nam, keeping America safe.”

“What’s that mean?” said Ted.

“Nothin’,” said Walter, then winked at Jason.

Ted let it go. No one said anything for a while after that. The song built up a head of steam and Jason, his eyes closed soulfully, began to sing along. It was the part at the end where Steven Tyler repeats the title over and over in a scream. When it finished, Jason got up and took the tonearm off the record and now it was silent in the room.

“I’ll take that ounce,” said Ted.

“Wrestle me,” said Walter.

“What?”

“Wrestle me for the ounce.”

“I already won it. We raced for it last night.”

“If you beat me, I’ll give you two ounces for nothin’.”

“I’ll just take the one,” said Ted.

“Chickenshit.”

“Say what?”

“Big Marine,” said Walter. “What, they let faggots into the Corps now?”

A look back in time is in order now. In our day and where we came from, when you got called a faggot, it didn’t mean homosexual, exactly. It meant you were a pussy, a coward, and a weakling. It meant you had to fight. On top of that, Walter had implied that other Marines were that way too. And Walter had said all of this in front of me, the kid brother. It was too much for Ted to walk away from or ignore.

“All right,” said Ted.

We stood up from our seats at once. Even Mike. There was a physical contest about to happen. We were young men, and the promise of it jacked us up.

The group moved to the mat, marked with a circle in the middle. I assumed that Walter had boosted it from our high school, where he had wrestled his senior year, without distinction, in the 160 weight class.

“I’ll ref,” said Jason, and he made a thumb-up, thumb-down gesture with his hand to Walter. “Top or bottom?”

“Bottom,” said Walter, and he got down on all fours on the mat.