Santa Cruz

This is how I ended up with a wife who isn't my daughter's mother. In Santa Cruz, California, I was living in a shaky old Victorian house on Sycamore Street. I was living there with Mark, Mare, Marta, Adrian and Dave. Dave owned the place but was never there because he worked a lot in San Jose and lived at his parents’ house over there. I lived in the Sycamore house for two or three months before I met Dave. There were lots of little rooms in the house and I had a room that was four feet wide and about eight feet long with a single bed and a chest of drawers. Adrian lived in one of the rooms upstairs. The other room upstairs belonged to Dave, but Dave never was there more than once every couple of months. Mark lived in one of the downstairs bedrooms. Mare lived with her daughter Marta in a little suite of two rooms, which had been tacked on to the side sometime over the life of the house. There were a lot of rooms that had been tacked on over the life of the house.

Mark and I were supposed to be putting together a band, but mostly what we did was watch TV. The TV we watched was a TV that I sold to Mark for one hundred dollars when I left Miami to go live in the hills of North Carolina. The TV was a TV that a guy named Ralph had left with me when he went crazy and ran away from Miami to Rhode Island. Mark took the TV with him when he moved to Santa Cruz, so now when we watched TV it was the TV that I used to watch in my old apartment in Miami only now the tuning knob was broken and you had to use a pair of pliers. Mark had a pair of red handled pliers that he kept on top of the TV.

We were watching a football game on Saturday afternoon. We had smoked a joint and now we were drinking beers. I don't like football much, but I watched because Mark was watching and he had the pot.

"Oooh!" Mark said. The players on the screen had all piled up on one another. One of the teams was the San Francisco 49ers. We liked the 49ers because San Francisco was so close to Santa Cruz. The players all lined up again on either side of the ball. I looked through the tall windows. The sun was shining outdoors. A crowd noise came over the TV. Some cheering. That noise a TV stadium crowd makes whenever anything happens on the field.

"All right!" Mark said. Mark slapped the arm of the couch.

"What happened?" I said.

"First down," Mark said.

"Oh," I said.

Some commercials came on. I went and got some more beers from the fridge. Henry Weinhard. Hank's, was what Mark called it. I noticed that Mare had borrowed my bowl again and had it full of some bean curd crap and a plastic wrap over it. I'd asked her not to store stuff in it, and there it was again.

"Oh Shit!" Mark yelled, "What the fuck are you...?"

I went back into the living room. Mark was pounding on the arm of the couch with his fist.
"What happened?" I said.

"Turnover." Mark said.

"Oh." I said.

* * *

The longer the game went, the more excited Mark got. When half-time came, the score was 17 to 6 with the Niner's having the 6. I learned to say that, 'the Niner's', like I knew something about the game, and cared.

"Another doobie?" Mark said. He leaned over and pulled the Frisbee out from under the couch. The Frisbee was upside down, like a plate, and a flat little bag of pot was in there along with a pack of rolling papers and a bunch of loose seeds. The front door opened and Mark slid the Frisbee back under the couch.

"Hey, Dudes!" Adrian called out as he walked his heavy feet through the living room on his way to the kitchen. He wore khaki shorts and a T-shirt that advertised surfboards and he was spattered with black specks. Black specks like someone had sprayed him with the last paint from the spray paint can before the paint runs out. That is when the paint runs out before the air.
Patty was behind him. Patty didn’t say anything, just looked up at us for a second and raised her hand a little wave, like she didn’t want to bother us. Patty was Adrian's girlfriend. Patty was also Mare's sister. One of Mare's sisters.

"Adrian!" Mark said. He made his voice like Stallone's voice in Rocky. "Make the dishes!"

"You make the dishes, boy!" Adrian said.

Adrian went straight through into the kitchen with Patty right behind. He yanked open the refrigerator and all the bottles rattled around in there.

"Did you feed Ogly?" Adrian said, loud from inside the refrigerator. His voice had that bouncing off of cold glass quality.

"Haven't seen him, man." Mark said, "He's out roamin' the neighborhood."

"Roll a doobie, Dude!" Adrian said, loud from the kitchen. The refrigerator door slammed shut bottles rattling. "Who's winning?"

"Dallas." Mark said. "They're up by eleven."

Mark leaned over and pulled the Frisbee out from under the couch. He handed it to me. I set about rolling a joint.

"You better feed Ogly when you see him." Adrian said. He came back into the living room and sat on the arm of the couch. He had my bowl in his hand. He'd dumped cold spaghetti and a jar of salsa over the bean curd stuff and was stirring it around with his fingers. His fingers with the black specks all over them. Patty came in and leaned against the wall with her arms behind her. She tilted her chin down and her dark hair swung forward to cover most of her face.

"He's Dave's damn dog," Mark said. "He should get his ass over here and feed him once in awhile."

"It's part of the rental agreement, man." Adrian said. He put a handful of noodles, salsa and bean curd in his mouth.

"Man, you a mess!" Mark said. "Whatchoo been doin'?"

"Been workin' man, you know?" Adrian said around the noodles. "Like a real job, you know? Hey man, Get a Job!"

"Hey, Get a Job!" Mark said. The both said it in a funny kind of accent. Like they were European. Like the way they said "Make the Dishes."

Adrian looked at me. He opened his eyes kind of wide and stuffed some more noodles and salsa and bean curd in his mouth.

"That doobie?" Adrian said. "How's it coming?"

"Here," I said. I held it out to him. "You gotta light?"

Adrian wiped his fingers up and down on the leg of his shorts, quick like flicking them up and down.

"Hey," Adrian said to me. "Get a Job!"

Adrian reached over for the joint.

"Yeah," Mark said, "Get a Job!"

"Make the dishes, would you?" Adrian said. He put the joint in his mouth, slid a Bic lighter out of his T-shirt pocket and had it flaming all in one motion. Adrian held the flame up in front of the joint and sucked. The joint flamed up and he clicked the lighter off and slid it into his pocket all in one motion.

"Yeah," Mark said, "Make the dishes."

Mark had his hand up, thumb and forefinger like he was going to pick something up, ready to take the joint even before Adrian was finished sucking on it. Adrian took the joint out of his mouth, holding his breath. Scrunched his eyebrows together and looked at the joint. Touched his tongue to the side of the joint where the paper was burning too fast. Mark still had his hand up, thumb and forefinger poised to take the joint. Mark’s head was turning back and forth between the TV and Adrian, like he was afraid he was gonna miss something. Adrian putt putted his lips a little, trying to spit out a piece of pot or a seed or something.

"Hey, you dog!" Mark said, "Don't bogart that joint!"

"Get a Job, man." Adrian said, wheezing so he wouldn't let any smoke out. He handed the joint to Mark.

"Make the dishes, would you?" Mark said. He put the joint to his lips and sucked.

* * *

"I'll get you a job, man." Adrian said. To me.
"Yeah, you can be a plumber!" Mark said. "It's easy."
"You only gotta know two things." Adrian said.
"Payday's on Friday," Mark said.
"And shit runs downhill." Adrian said.

* * *

Adrian and Patty went upstairs. The second half of the game began. Adrian came back downstairs with a towel and went into the bathroom. The water pipes started whistling when he turned the shower on. Mark talked to the players on the TV screen, moaning when he didn't like what he saw and saying "Yes, All Right!" when he did. Mark knew all their names. Adrian came back out of the bathroom with his clothes in one hand and the other holding a towel wrapped around his waist. He was still dripping. Adrian's hair was blond plastered all over his forehead hair, and his belly was a very soft and white compared to his arm and hand where he held the towel belly. Adrian stopped in the living room to look at the TV.

"Where're they at?" Adrian said.

"Fourth and goal." Mark said, he was leaning forward, not looking at Adrian.

The players on the field got all still, then they all started running all over, chasing each other. One ran over the goal line, then slammed the ball down on the ground so that it bounced off to the side. The player put his hands in the air and wiggled his hips as if fucking someone. Mark jumped up from the couch.

"All right!" Mark yelled! "Way to go!"

Mark put his hands in the air and wiggled his hips as if fucking someone.

"What's the score?" Adrian said.

"Tied at twenty seven, if they make the conversion."

We waited while someone kicked the ball over the goal posts. Adrian went upstairs.

In the fourth quarter, a Niner's player dropped the ball. A Dallas player picked it up and ran with it.

"Oh no!" Mark jumped up and yelled. "You fucking idiot!"

He stomped across the living room and back, then sat down like falling on the couch. There was saliva on Mark's lip where it had slipped out of his mouth. Mark sucked the saliva back into his mouth

"You fucking idiot." Mark said.

The house started to shake. I looked up and the light fixture on the ceiling was moving back and forth and the windows were rattling. The walls were creaking. I looked at Mark, wondering if we should go outside or something. Mark was watching the TV.

"Earthquake?" I said, ready to get up.

"No, it's fucking Adrian fucking Patty upstairs." Mark said, "It'll be over in about twenty seconds, you wait."

We waited. About a minute or so later the house stopped shaking.

"Poor Patty," Mark said. He laughed and took a pull from his bottle of Henry's. "Adrian don't last very long. Just a Wham Bam man. Oh you Shit!" Mark said to the TV.