Scratch, page 6
Billy put the picture back and returned his attention to the stage. Ecstasy was just beginning her routine, which involved a hand puppet, some baby powder, and a feather duster. Billy frowned. He didn’t come to these places for vaudeville. The annoying rhythm of “Tequila” poured out of the speakers.
“Hey, Zack,” Billy said to the bartender. “Tell Suede I’m going to my car. If she needs anything she can come out. Same for any of the regulars.” Zack nodded and watched Billy walk out of the Sugar Wall.
The night was brisk. Spring may have arrived, but at night old man winter still blew wind up her skirt. Billy pulled his collar up around his neck and walked faster across the muddy gravel lot. Cars whizzed by on the interstate, proper citizens doing their best to ignore the strip club, and failing. The darkness inside called to their curiosity, to the dark that resided in each of them.
He got into his car, started it and turned the heater on. He felt under the dash behind the radio until his fingers felt the plastic bag taped there. He pulled it loose. Inside were several smaller bags of carefully measured amounts of coke.
After lighting a joint he pulled the picture out again while he waited for Suede to arrive. He looked at it in the illumination of the two dusk-to-dawn lights in the lot. He ran a finger over the slick surface, trying to see his own features in his daughters face. The blonde hair and blue eyes were his, of course; Holly was brown on brown. Michaela did seem to have a few freckles like her mother, though it was hard to tell for sure in this light.
Billy saw a male hand resting on his daughter’s shoulder, ripped from the arm it belonged to; Holly’s husband, touching her, reading to her, raising her. None of that had mattered before. He wasn’t sure why it pissed him off now.
He should have just knocked Holly down today, and waited for Michaela to show up. If Adam caused them any problems, he would have knocked him down as well. They thought they were safe in their little home. Holly probably still thought angels watched over them.
Billy shook his head. She was still into that stupid angel shit. Her trite paintings were all over the house. When he first met her he had tried to show her the way, tried to tell her that realism in painting had been dead since the invention of the camera. No one in the art world wanted to see angels cluttering up their galleries. Only little old ladies of the bourgeoisie could be interested in that crap. As a graduate student he had felt it was his duty to disabuse her of the notion that her sort of art was meaningful. He had tried to usher her into the world of real art.
But she persisted, and against all logic, was becoming successful. Her professors loved her work. She got shows with that crap. In the meantime his canvases were ignored. No one understood his art, the subtleties of the color, the deeper meanings he concealed in his slashes of paint. Eventually, as the drugs became more frequent and his paintings less so, he gave up.
He turned at the sound of footsteps in the gravel. Suede was stumbling through the lot on her stripper’s shoes. He was sure her ankle was going to snap in two and she would sprawl in the mud. That would be funny if it didn’t cost him his sale and a blowjob.
He spared one more look at Michaela. In a rare moment of clarity, it hit him. He knew why he wanted her. With all of his failures as an artist, she was the only thing of lasting value he had ever created. His career had been taken away from him, and he blamed a lot of that on Holly. Her success had taken the favor of their professors. Her pregnancy had resulted in the restraining order. His work went to hell after that
He leaned over and opened the door for Suede. She slipped in accompanied by a chill wind. She held a wad of cash; a few twenties and a whole bunch of wrinkled ones. He took the money and counted it, then passed one of the smaller bags of white powder to Suede. She clutched it hungrily.
Billy thought of Holly again as Suede leaned down and unzipped his pants. The image of her life in that sweet little apartment, with her doofus husband, fired his anger. She didn’t deserve to have success and Michaela. Adam certainly had no right to her.
Billy began to wonder if they even had a right to be alive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
scratch, scratch.
There was something at the window. Adam was in bed on the second floor of the apartment, high enough off the ground that nothing could be scratching at the window, but in the permeable logic of his dream he accepted it without question. His arm draped over Holly’s hip. Her body was warm. He could see the centers of energy that emanated the heat, glowing coals along her spine, brightest at her heart. He raised his head and looked over her at the window.
Buggly pawed at the glass. His bean filled body was the size of a real bear, and a large one at that. His eyes, slick wet marbles, burned red with urgency. His floppy paw scraped against the glass, desperate to get Adam’s attention.
Adam stood by the window, though he didn’t remember taking the steps to get there. Buggly motioned with his paw for Adam to follow, then turned and loped slowly away.
Adam was outside then, walking behind the bear through the streets of Pittsburgh. The geography of his neighborhood was not the one he recognized from his waking life, but it was familiar all the same. Buggly led him on a spiral path around the city, which Adam realized with no surprise was actually a forest. Trees, impossibly tall and green, flanked their passage. It was night, and the canopy blocked his view of the sky, but he could see perfectly well.
Buggly walked with a rolling gait, and as they went deeper into the woods Adam saw that the bear had sprouted fur, black streaked with gray. The stubby paws had grown long, dangerous claws. The shoestring collar had become a leather necklace. Something dangled from its length, but Adam couldn’t see what.
“Where are we going?” Adam asked.
“The map is on your hands,” Buggly replied in a voice that smelled of earth and honey and old meat. Adam knew then that this was no longer Buggly, but a real bear, perhaps the only bear. He looked at his hands and saw that the creases in the flesh of his palm had become a glowing spiral.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Your path,” the bear said.
“I didn’t know it was here.”
“I know,” said the bear. “You wandered off it. You were going in circles and not approaching the center. It is time to go within.”
Adam walked toward a dark patch of the forest. The bear was no longer in front of him. Cold air blew out of the trees and icy rain dripped from the dead branches. Adam’s heart beat faster in his chest as panic began to set in. The dark forest frightened him, but held a fascination as well.
“Not yet,” said the bear from behind him. “You’re not ready for the Deep Woods.”
“What is it?” Adam asked.
“Part of your path,” the bear said. “But not yet. You went there once and it nearly kept you. If you go there again you will sleep your life away. Later, when you are stronger, you may brave the lessons of the Deep Woods and find the truths it hides. But first, you must go within.”
They walked again upon the glowing path in the forest. Adam could still feel the call of the Deep Woods behind him, filled with the howls of the animals of his rage.
“Don’t look back,” the bear said. “The Deep Woods are in front of you on the path as well as behind. You will come to them again.”
The trees closed around them and the forest grew thicker the farther they went. They walked for days.
Adam stood in a clearing next to the bear. In front of them was a tall rocky cliff. Vines of ivy covered its surface. The giant roots of an ancient tree pushed through the stone and framed the entrance to a small dark cave.
It didn’t have the same feeling of dread that the Deep Woods had. Adam knew with perfect certainty that it was safe, but he still felt afraid.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Your path,” the bear said.
“What will I find?”
“That is for you to discover. It is in the womb of the world that each path begins and ends. You must go within.”
Adam stared at the dark mouth in the rock before him, then stepped into it.
Holly rolled over and put an arm across Adam’s chest. He could hear the refrigerator humming to itself downstairs until the furnace kicked on and drowned it out in a whisper of warm air.
Adam went back to sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
“Yeah,” Holly said into the phone she cradled against her cheek. Boxes filled the apartment. She was packing art supplies and diligently writing labels so she could find everything she needed when they arrived at their new home. “The movers are picking the stuff up later today. They said they would drive home to Appleton tonight, then drive down to Canaan in the morning. They should probably get there around noon.”
“I’ll be looking for them,” Jack Hardy said. Holly heard a dog barking in the background. “When will you be arriving?”
“Adam and Michaela and I will be coming a day or two after that.” The packing tape made a whirring sound as she peeled a strip. She bit it off and stretched it across a box marked “brushes.”
“Michaela, hunh?” Jack mused. “Pretty name. Unusual, but pretty. Bet she’s a pretty little girl, too.”
“Beautiful,” Holly said.
“Has to be, if she has any of Dora’s blood in her.”
“You knew Gran’ma pretty well?” Holly asked.
“Most all my life,” Jack said. “One of God’s finest women.”
“I envy you. I hardly knew her.”
“I’ll tell you some stories, if you want,” Jack said. “We’re gonna be neighbors after all. Only ‘bout a mile between us. Out here, that’s practically next door.”
“I’d like that.” Holly found another pouch filled with brushes. She groaned and ripped the tape off the box.
“Anyway,” she continued, “we’re staying with my Mom for a couple of nights before coming down, if she and Adam can get along that long.”
“How is Caroline?” Jack asked.
“Oh yeah, you know my mom, too. I keep forgetting stuff like that.”
“Your Grandpa, Harv Porter, was my best friend,” Jack said. “We were smoking cigars and drinking toasts for hours the night your mother was born.”
“Yeah, I wanna hear some stories,” Holly smiled into the phone. “Mom’s fine, I guess. Not much interest in Canaan, though. Doesn’t want me to go.”
“I’m not surprised. She never liked it here too much. Haven’t seen her since she ran off with your dad, that Evans fella.”
“Reed,” Holly said. “He kept running, unfortunately. Not long after I was born. Seems to run in the family. Grandpa died not long after Mom was born, didn’t he?”
Jack was silent.
“And Michaela’s biological father has never wanted anything to do with her,” Holly said. Not that that’s a bad thing, she added to herself.
“Yeah, well,” Jack said, “we missed your mom after she was gone. She was the light of the valley.”
“You sure it’s my mom you remember?” Holly laughed. “I can’t imagine her being the light of anything.”
“She was, though. Dora missed her something fierce.”
“So you have the keys and everything,” Holly asked.
“Yep,” Jack confirmed. “We’ll get everything in the house for you. I have the reverend’s wife April and her sister Shelley up there cleaning for you right now.”
“You didn’t have to…”
“Hush, now, it’s all right. The place ain’t filthy, just a lot of dust. Needs airing out some, too.”
“I’ll pay them.”
“You’ll do no such thing. They’re happy to do it. Neighbors watch out for each other down here.”
“Then I’ll make dinner for the whole bunch of you some night soon. And you can’t say no to that.”
“Wouldn’t want to,” Jack said. “Well, I better go. Blue here wants to go for a walk, don’t ya, boy?” Holly heard an excited bark.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“Looking forward to it. Tell your mother I asked about her. Good-bye, then.”
“Bye-bye,” Holly said, then hung up.
What a nice old man, she thought. And Mom said not to trust him. Hope Adam hurries up. I’m running out of boxes.
* * * * *
After circling the block about a billion times Adam finally found a parking spot four blocks from where he wanted to go. He backed the Taurus into the space and hoped he would be able to handle the boxes he would be carrying and Mike as well. Parking in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh pretty much sucked whenever you came here.
“Stay there until I put money in the meter,” he said over his shoulder to Mike. He and Holly had taken the car seat out and Mike was proud to have graduated to seatbelts.
“’Kay,” she chirped.
Adam got out of the car and dug in his pocket for quarters, then slid them into the slot of the No-Armed-Bandit. “Thirty minutes for a quarter,” the sign said, but Adam had never gotten more than twenty in his life. He chucked in seventy-five cents and, sure enough, had fifty-six minutes worth of parking. He shook his head. At the end of the day it was the little frustrations that drove you crazy.
He opened the back door, unfastened Mike’s seatbelt, then lifted her out. He started to put her down, but she shook her head.
“Carry me,” she said.
“Okay,” Adam said. “But on the way back I’ll be carrying boxes. You’ll have to walk next to me. I’ll hold your hand, but I can’t carry you. We may need to make a couple of trips, okay?” She nodded. He hoped there was room in the car for the boxes.
“You have Buggly?” he asked.
“Yep!” Mike said, and they started walking toward Craig Street.
The sun had come out early, and though it wasn’t hot, it was still the warmest day Pittsburgh had seen since fall. The sidewalks were busy with the lunchtime crowd, many of them in hospital wear, and hundreds of students. Oakland was home to Holly and Adam’s alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University, which boasted the actress Holly Hunter, and Lenny and Squiggy as alumni.
Sandwiched in between the two was Joel’s Record Cavern, Adam’s destination. If there was a better location in the world for an independent music store, he couldn’t think of it. Culturally diverse and affluent, Oakland had supported Joel Tadajski for over three decades. Adam had dropped hundreds of dollars there over the years, and was recognized as a regular. Joel was happy to oblige when Adam had called to ask for boxes this morning.
Craig Street had started out with only a few businesses in the seventies: a pizza place, an art supply store, and Joel’s. In the eighties it had become a dark street with a few hip stores for the college’s bohemian crowd. By the nineties there was a Starbuck’s on the corner. Currently, it was in the grips of an upscale revolution, with trendy and expensive clothing stores and restaurants. Through it all, the Record Cavern had crouched stubbornly in its one floor walk-down, holding onto customers through changes in musical styles and technology. Some of the new businesses thought the Cavern, and Joel himself, to be an eyesore. To his regulars, the Cavern was a haven.
Adam carried Mike down the steps and paused to look at the window. It was lined with dozens of posters for national bands most people had never heard of, and homemade flyers advertising local bands with names like Fetus Breath, and My Three Turds. There were announcements for poetry readings, art openings, and the perennial Friday Night Improvs at Pitt’s studio theater.
Adam felt a twinge of regret. This was what he was going to miss. He took for granted the ready availability of music in the city. That was true for a lot of things: books, ethnic food, live music and theater, a diverse mix of cultures and lifestyles. He doubted that anyone in Canaan, West Virginia had thoughts or ideas that were very different from his neighbors. He was damned sure he wouldn’t be able to go out late and have a gyro and falafel, or Szechwan chicken, or even a pizza that didn’t come from his freezer.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
He knew it was, at least for the time being. Holly and Mike needed to be safe from Billy, and that would be easier if he didn’t know where they were. Holly was really excited about the whole getting-back-to-nature thing. She had romanticized her grandmother’s rural life, and truly believed that living in her house would benefit her creativity. It probably would, but Adam knew that Holly would miss eighteen flavors of Ben & Jerry’s just a block away, not to mention the art stores and galleries and museums. It would be good for a while, but Adam didn’t think they would be there for the long haul.
Holly also seemed convinced that it would be good for him to get away and spend some time figuring out what he wanted to do. He couldn’t argue. He was still stuck on that score, unable to conceptualize a career. When he thought about work his mind automatically went down all the same paths (You were going in circles and not approaching the center. It is time to go within) that he had always gone down. His options seemed to be the same kind of jobs. He had tried checking the classifieds one Sunday afternoon. There was listing after listing for counselors and therapists, all jobs he qualified for. He hadn’t made it halfway through when the anger surfaced and he started to feel queasy. He dropped the paper and went to tell Mike a story.
Adam put Mike down and opened the door to the Cavern. They walked into the dim interior of the record store. He recognized Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak” album blaring from the speakers. Some punk kids were checking out the pins and jacket patches. A doctor Adam knew was looking at the new Heavy Metal releases. Adam scanned the racks of new and used records. The changeover to digital music had been hard on record stores, and the Cavern was no exception. Joel catered to the die-hard vinyl and CD junkies. There was still a collector mentality among his older customers. His focus on the hard to find and obscure had helped him weather the decline of new customers.
“Hey,” said a thin teenager in a ripped Ramones t-shirt from behind the counter. Adam didn’t recognize him. Yet another in a never-ending line of part time employees Joel hired.
