ALSO BY CATHERINE JOHANN
BEFOGGED
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Catherine Johann
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual living persons living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright 2010 © by Catherine Johann
Written and designed by Catherine Johann
Edited by Vreni Merriam
Published by smashwords
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SINISA, VRENI AND NATHALIE,
THANK YOU
Follow your intuition.
Whenever you have an intuition,
It is me, your father,
blowing on your back…
Paul JOHANN 1923-1971
FOR SINISA,
Sinisa, you are an inspiration…
1
CHAD HUBER never spoke, hummed, laughed, sang or whistled anywhere in his home except in his own bedroom.
At thirteen he thought he’d seen quite a lot. Up until their divorce, his folks had been so allergic to each other that their interaction had been limited to screams, insults, cries, threats, slammed doors and broken things ranging from cups or dishes to bottles, phones, laptops, windows, walls and doors. So, for as long as he could remember, Chad had chosen to distance himself from the family hysteria and take refuge in a parallel realm, fully crafted by his imagination and confined within the limits of Adarr, his own bedroom.
Traditional punctual gatherings around a dinner table didn’t exist at the Huber home. Everyone ate alone, anywhere and at anytime.
The Hubers had never blended with the norm, so whatever was working for average people wasn’t working for them, but only the future would tell if it was a curse or a boon.
After school Chad usually idled for a while with pals before he gradually prepared for the madness that always pervaded his not so sweet home. By the time he turned the front door knob, Chad was ready for the ritual he performed every day with the precision of a clock: Locking his jaws imperturbably in spite of raging family dramas, he would go straight to the kitchen, grab a food tray, open the fridge and sink into a quasi-motionless state while his eyes scanned and transmitted food data to his brain.
This first step was what he had named the “processing phase”. In the phase that followed, Chad consciously kept his breathing shallow and the muscles of his legs, arms, torso and neck contracted to their extreme. It took the perseverance of years to master this art of “body freeze- framing”, as Chad liked to call this short-lived, food-related immobility.
Then came the tricky “action phase”, where Chad would set up his chronometer and allot himself precisely fifty-five seconds to put food and drinks onto the tray. After this lapse of time, the fridge’s door had to be irretrievably closed.
Chad’s self-imposed rules were tough, but rules were rules so he submitted to them with military discipline. As architect of these regulations, Chad had the power to modify them at whim but he chose to never compromise. After all, these laws acted as an armor sheltering his sensibilities against his family’s insanity.
Once the implacable fifty-five seconds had passed and the fridge’s door irrevocably shut, Chad would secure his rucksack on his shoulders, grab the loaded tray and, with hunger nagging his saliva glands, climb as swiftly as he could the stairs that led to Adarr, his bedroom and beloved kingdom. As he entered, before slamming the door shut with his foot he would glance with satisfaction at the inscription he had skillfully chiseled on its upper oak panel: “Welcome to ADARR, Chad Huber’s private island, where liars, hysterics and quarrelsome freaks are banned”.
Adarr was compartmentalized into distinct living zones.
Made out of three aged mattresses piled on the top of each other, Chad’s bed was squeezed into an alcove just abutting the entrance. Blankets and pillows tucked against the walls made it a satisfactory sofa look-alike. Embracing the vertical surfaces above the bed, plywood shelves were filled to the brim with CDs, computer magazines and vintage art books. The bed was Chad’s central station. There he did his home work, called his friends, fomented new ideas, watched TV, surfed the net, and chatted with Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, as Chad preferred to depict his sleeping hours.
Across from the bed, a styleless armoire, Adarr’s “Great Wall Mall”, mantled the entire length of the wall. Bits and pieces of broken mirrors glued on the edges of the closet’s asymmetric front panels gave an artsy look to the overall awkward piece of furniture.
Chad had integrated a sound system in the “Great Wall Mall” so that any rotation of its door hinges launched an audiotape whose content consisted of irritable high-pitched voices punctuating nature’s rapturous sounds of thunder, waves, whale-song, birds and frogs, and saying: “Hate fashion but got to get dressed, got to find clothes at the Great Wall Mall.”
Chad wasn’t a skillful painter but he had done his best to copy a painting of Douanier Rousseau onto the wall section between the doorway and the Great Wall Mall so that the transition between his office and the mall would be softened by the presence of a tropical forest.
Across the room from this lush vegetation of the deep green unknown sat a wide window whose southwest exposure invited sunrays from mid-morning to late afternoon. A dozen pots of tiny Australian desert plants, whose existence there acted as a direct link with the aborigine motherland, rested on the window narrow sill. Often, Chad would tuck a pillow under his head and indulge in sunbathing like a cold-blooded lizard.
The bedroom’s floor was the Yeng Yong Plaza. Its name had been inspired by Yin-Yang; the Chinese principle of complementary opposites, for the plaza was surrounded with extreme territories and with subtleties in between. It was a piece of land after all bordered by a hotel with office headquarters, a mall, a jungle and the wilderness of the Australian desert.
2
ONE DAY, as he was taking a shower after a soccer game, something insidious, something he couldn’t define, invaded Chad’s psyche. He felt his inner world suddenly collapse; yet nothing out of the ordinary could have triggered his new state of being because nothing special had disrupted his very ordinary school day. That night, for the first time, Chad skipped his daily eating ritual and went directly to bed, where to his dismay he stayed awake until the crack of dawn. His excitement at having gone through a night of real sleeplessness dwindled after a second night of the same. Now tiredness, undented by spurts of naps during the day, aggravated Chad’s mood.
“Alright! No more school, soccer games, projects, friends, TV, music, computer, games, nothing! Just Silence,” he muttered half aloud to himself as the wee hours announced a bright and sunny morning after another night of insomnia.
Chad closed Adarr’s curtains and changed the message on his voice mail: “Summer’s in two weeks, no more school for me. Can’t tell you more. Need to be by myself. Stay put I’ll soon catch up with y’all.”
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Adarr shape-shifted into a sad, lugubrious penitentiary cell deprived of sunrays, laughter, video games, TV, Internet and friends.
An undifferentiated day went by, followed by a restless night of undefined gloom. At dawn a surge of spirited energy pulled Chad out of his apathy. He threw his favorite black sweater over his shoulders, slipped his bare feet into his beat-tup military boots, then ran down the stairs like a mad man on speed and rushed outside. The air was cool and damp and the front lawn muddy. Hesitating, Chad paused before moving forward and disappearing into a maze of back alleys. He checked his watch: quarter to five! According to his calculations he had a good hour to safely wander in total anonymity before the city would fully jump into the crazes of a brand new day. The pace of his strides settled into a regular cadence. Streams of sweat rushed down his torso, prompting him to take off his T-shirt and sweater and dump them in the first trash bin crossing his way.
“Awesome! I’m just doing the unimaginable! And yahoo it feels great! Amen,” he announced mildly aloud.
Encouraged by the thrill of his daring he then discarded his pants and shoes and kept on walking. To walk in the streets dressed only in underwear felt odd but it was too late to reconsider what had been triggered by irrational impulses. Chad quickened his pace and switched to running mode. Time and space melted into a blur.
The awareness of his surroundings and of him in it resurfaced as he crossed Lincoln Boulevard. From a distance his navy blue underwear could easily pass for a pair of shorts, but from up close they unmistakably looked what they were. All of a sudden, from a running robot he became a ridiculous dude overwhelmed by shame.
“Great job, you idiot! Now you look like a deranged lunatic, almost naked...barefoot ... Darn!” he said to himself.
A flock of wild ducks flew above the Venice canals. In a few blocks he would see the Pacific Ocean. Chad looked at his watch for the second time. Three hours had gone by since he had left his home.
“Hello, young lad, where are your shoes?” he heard a voice come from behind him, then felt a firm grip squeezing his right arm.
“Hey!” Chad yelled as he turned around to find himself facing a stocky man in his mid thirties. The man’s eyes glowed with sparks of kindness.
“Are you in trouble?” the man asked, releasing his grip.
“I’m fine thanks, I’m training for the marathon…like a Kenyan marathon runner, you know…barefoot.” Chad scrutinized the inquisitive man. With his thick black moustache, unshaven beard, arms hairy like a carpet and rusty mountain bicycle, the stranger looked like a regular normal kind of a crazy guy.
“Where do you live?” the man inquired.
“In a pad on the boardwalk. But it’s none of your business, is it?” Chad answered with a cynicism that sounded more like plain insolence.
The man seemed unfazed. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Mark Smith.” Chad ejected as naturally as if his real name had been Mark Smith forever.
The man softened his tone: “Listen Mark, you see the yellow beamer down there?”
“Yes,” Chad acquiesced as he looked down the street.
“It’s where I work. The car is parked in front of the bakery and that’s where I work.”
“Are you a baker?” Chad asked, images of fresh pastries and warm breads already animating his salivary glands.
“Yes and I’m running late! You know, making bread is like running a marathon with bare hands. Do you need help?”
“No thanks; thanks but no thanks,” Chad said adamantly as he turned toward curious onlookers in the hope it would prod them to mind their own business and leave. No one moved, and Chad felt pestered. He shouldn’t have stopped: Now he would never make it to the ocean. He noticed two cops sipping their morning brew on the terrace of the Café Del Mar right across the street from where he was standing. In a fraction of a second he imagined a bold headline in the Los Angeles Times: Police arrest a daffy teenage exhibitionist.
Chad abruptly changed his mind: “You know what? I’ll accept a ride to the Venice pier. I live on Speedway, my parents…”
“Okay, okay, keep your stories for later. Come on, let’s go. By the way my name is Mitar. I’m from the Balkans. What are you waiting for? Jump on! ”
Chad clung onto the bicycle’s cold cross bar. Mitar battled to keep his two-wheeler in balance as he pushed on the sluggish crank gear. A fresh salty breeze dissipated the effluvium of his garlic breath.
“Okay sailor, here we are. Go take a good shower and go to school, will you? And Mark, wear shoes and dress properly, yes?” Mitar winked one eye and smiled.
Chad squeezed some incomprehensible babble between his teeth as a response. His mind was already focused on trying to figure out what his next move should be, other than to fake walking toward an apartment building he had pretended to be his home. He chose to run instead. Raising his arm and waving good-by, he never turned his head to check if Mitar was watching or if he was already gone. Chad left Speedway behind and after a short walk down 30th Avenue he reached the boardwalk of Venice beach
3
VENICE’S ECCLECTIC crowd contrasted sharply with the people Chad was accustomed to seeing in his good old downtown neighborhood.
Neatly groomed businessmen, vagrants and artsy looking folks mingled along Ocean Front Walk with remarkable nonchalance. Dogs ran free on a narrow plot of grass while their owners, leaning against a palm tree, sipped coffee and shared croissants. Three musicians, guitars strapped to their backs and faces begrimed by a restless night, laughed boisterously while skating away. Joggers in perfectly molded tight outfits nodded at each other as their ways crossed. Caltrans workers garbed in bright orange uniforms reaped the scattered junk and leftovers of regardless beach goers. It was too late to walk back to Adarr. Chad would have to wait for the sunset to abscond into dense obscurity before undertaking his journey back home. He had a whole day to fill before he could glide back home incognito behind the shadows of the night.
Chad hastened his steps to the shore.
A bleach-haired black surfer in his early twenties holding his surfboard by a plastic fluorescent cord burst out of the water whooping and hollering.
“Hoo yeah! I nabbed a killer bottom turn, did you see that?”
“Yeah,” Chad lied.
“Yesterday I surfed Topanga but I hurt my elbow on a rock. Nasty acid drop.”
“Don’t bother, I don’t surf,” Chad interrupted with a forced laid-back tone.
“Really? Got to try it man. There’s nothing like it. Seriously, dude!”
“Maybe one day,” Chad muttered.
Chad waded off timidly. The nippy water poked at his skinny legs. As he contemplated the reflections of the sun playing with the roiling salty liquid, glimpses of his old sensitive self resurfaced only to be pushed away by the cold unemotional being he had become. Perhaps his personality changes were signs that he had left childhood for good.
He followed loner sandpipers from a distance safe enough to not hinder their restless quest for food. Walking along the shore in the comfort of his self as his sole company, he cringed as he almost stepped on a jellyfish.
“Wow, look at this!” He exclaimed. “This is me here right at my feet. I feel like a jellyfish. Hey jellyfish, I am like you, I have no more substantiality. Hey you, are you dead? Well I’m not…”
He dug a channel from and around the jellyfish to the ocean until the two connected and the water ran through. It took what seemed hours for the ocean to reclaim its pellucid child from the shallow pool of seawater Chad had meticulously created. Chad smiled as he imagined how the medusa would later drift ecstatically under the moonlight glow.
“Have a pleasant swim and oh, don’t bother thanking me! I’m glad I kept you alive. We’re both really alive aren’t we? And guess what? I’m starving.” Chad quickly immersed himself up to his waist to rinse the sand off his skin.
The oddness of the bond he had felt with the translucent sea creature had been gratifying but it hadn’t changed anything about Chad’s main concern of getting back home in the most discreet way possible. His head hurt and his stomach rumbled. He couldn’t recall such a feeling of hunger where nothing in the whole world, nothing but eating, had importance and meaning. It was late afternoon by then and Chad decided he couldn’t wait for the shadows of the night to hide him before he could brave the city streets. His painful hunger wouldn’t allow it. He combed his hair with wet fingers, and walking straightened and erect he left the beach behind and melted into the urban plane.
Santa Monica was already absorbing the fits and tempers of the 9 to 5 car drivers hurrying to squeeze their chores and leisure into whatever little time they had left before sleep would lead them again towards the next day of duties.
Daylight was taking an awfully long time to dim. Chad distanced himself from curious eyes by turning into the first back alley he encountered. His thirst and fatigue annoyed him greatly but he could only be irritated at himself since he was the sole architect of his ridiculous misery.
“I’ll never be a bum, living in the streets, that’s a fact,” he muttered.
Then, as fate would have it, he saw an orange stuck between a public parking garage wall and a city trash bin.
With nobody in direct sight, Chad picked up the juicy fruit, sat down on the back stairs of an abandoned building and dug his fingernails into the thick orange skin before peeling it with his teeth. Sweet and acidic juices burned his lips. Oh everything was so good! The tart juice, the bitter sweetness of the pulp, the orange flavor and its scent.
“Paradise, hey?” a soft voice said.
Chad turned around.
A few feet away from the stairs, all wrapped up in a thick red and white-checkered blanket, a man in his seventies or eighties or even nineties was lying on his side right on the pavement.
“Paradise, hey?” the man asked anew.
“Ha-ha!” Chad guffawed politely.
Chad could have sworn he hadn’t seen anyone there when he walked by. He found it humiliating to have been spied on yet had to admit that the situation was also somewhat hilarious.
“Sweet, bitter and tart all in one,” the elderly man continued.
“One what?” Chad asked.
“The orange you ate. Hello? Are we talking the same language?” the old man teased.
“Oh…” Chad said confusedly.
“Fruits are paradise,” the old man stated with authority.
“I guess,” Chad blabbered, as he got ready to dash away.
“Prepackaged, ready to eat, liquid and solid, fruits are the perfect fast food,” the man added.
“Sure. Well I should be going now.”
Chad picked up the orange peels and tossed them into the trash bin.
“Incredible variety of color and shapes. Fruits are masterpieces. Exquisite flavors for all living beings to enjoy and share,” the bum continued.
“Almost. Now, it was nice to meet you but I’m cold and I need to go back home. Have a nice evening.”
Chad turned his back but his legs seemed to refuse to move. The vagrant resumed his monologue: “Paradise! Fruits are the perfect food. Fruits are paradise. Fruits are life.”
He then turned his head to the ground and immersed himself in the most exquisite humming concerto. His bare weathered feet sprouted out of the warm blanket and tapped with astounding gaiety the rhythm of his humming
Chad couldn’t understand why his desire to flee was counter-balanced by a stronger urge to stay. Baffled, he looked for something to say but his mind, devoid of witty insights, plunged headfirst into the banal: “My name is Chad, and you are?”
Lost in his humming, the strange old man didn’t answer. Keeping his eyes and lips tightly closed, he gently swayed his forehead to the beat of his music.
“You’re a funny man, you know!” Chad was starting to get upset.
The old man abruptly stopped his musical conjuration and went from his prone position to sitting cross-legged in a flash.
“Enough. Go home now!” he ordered.
His sweet, delicate, high flowery voice had turned into a strong, firm injunction. “Go! Go! Go!” He repeated.
The fragile appearance of the old man didn’t fit with the unwavering authoritative tone of his voice.
“I’ll go if I want to and right now I don’t want to go. The alley belongs to everybody,” Chad rebelled.
But the old man remained inflexible as an ancient oak
“Go home, young man!” he ordered again.
“Easier to say than do. It’s easy for you. You don’t need money to take a bus because your home is everywhere!” Chad shot back insolently.
“Oh, is this what it’s all about? Money? Then go ahead and take this five dollar bill and please go home and leave me alone, you smart aleck!” the man was shouting now.
“Keep your stupid money. I don’t want your stupid money. I never mentioned that!” Chad said to the homeless one.
Taking the bus was far more appealing than running back home, then again buying something to eat and walking home wasn’t a bad idea either, but Chad played coy.
“Did I ask for charity?” Chad softened his tone, hoping the bum wouldn’t change his mind. “Let me remind you that this is a reversed situation because I’m the one who’s supposed to give you money, not you me; so no, I don’t need anything, thanks.”
“So why are you here, if you don’t need anything? Do you see a lot of kids like you in this alley? Do you see adolescents talking to old rags like me? Do you? So who’s right? This is my alley, my home. I want to be left in peace and you’re annoying me right now. These are my final words.”
The old man waited for Chad to take the money he proffered, then proceeded with his animated humming as abruptly as he had previously interrupted it.
Not having the last word was upsetting but not as much as walking back home would have been; so all in all, Chad was in great mood. He took the bus and reached home by nightfall, but things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse when he saw all the living room chandeliers brightly lit up. Peering through the window, he perceived, amongst a group of happy chattering people, his mother kissing someone who wasn’t his father.
Clenching his teeth, Chad bypassed the main entrance and ran along a small passageway hemming the side of the house. Once in the backyard he hesitated and, betting that nobody would usher into the kitchen within the next few minutes, opened the backdoor and tiptoed through the pantry--only to bump into Ann, his inebriated mother!
All guzzied up in a sexy, skin tight, purple mini skirt and a plunging shirt, Ann was holding, in fingers overloaded with cheap jewelry, a glass of white wine besmeared with lipstick.
“Chad! You are incorrigible!” She scolded.
Look at yourself mom who’s that guy? Chad wrote on the fridge pad.
“I’ve had enough of your scribbling. Talk like a normal person, no more scribbling. This is too much. First of all I don’t owe you any explanation…but you better give me a good excuse for walking around half naked!” She knew full well that her son wouldn’t utter a word outside of Adarr.
Setting her wineglass down on the stove, she pressed her palm on Chad’s forehead and whispered, “Are you nuts? Do you really want to ruin everything for me? Why now? Why tonight? My guests are leaving soon but I won’t be alone! Where have you been? Where are your clothes?”
Chad could see a crescendo of hysteria coming. Gently squeezing Ann’s fingers, he fixed his eyes into hers for a couple of seconds before rushing to the bathroom on the second floor, where he hastily rinsed his face. The fresh water felt heavenly.
At long last he reached Adarr, the only place on earth where he wanted to conclude the memorable journey that had started at predawn. He slipped into his favorite jumpsuit and crashed on his bed with unparalleled satisfaction.
Half an hour hadn’t gone by when Ann’s hiccups resonated in the stairwell. Her intrusion was imminent.
“Chad darling?” she called with a voice unusually sweet. “I brought you orange juice. Well, aren’t you going to open the door? I want to introduce you to my dear friend Larry Domate. Larry is a microbiologist, you know. Can we come in?”
“Mom, the door is open.”
“Oops, so it is,” she said as a simple knock swung Adarr’s door wide open.
“You reek of alcohol, mother and…”
“Oh stop it now! I wouldn’t go there if I were you. We need to have a talk, you and me, but not right now.” Ann switched on the light. “Larry, let me present you my son Chad. Chad, this is Larry…I know you two will get along just fine.”
“Nice to meet you Chad, here I am, Larry Domate, but you can call me Dom.”
Chad wished he’d never shaken Larry’s hand. Clammy and nauseatingly soft, Larry Domate sported the dreariest handshake. Chad zoomed in on Larry’s thick prescription glasses in the hopes of getting a direct eye contact with the flabby man his mother was so enamored with.
“Chad! Chad, enough now! I’m not going to waste my precious evening …anyhow, would you like to join us for dessert? It’s Larry’s idea, not mine.”
Chad shook his head no. He could have wolfed down a dinner for ten and still been hungry, his hunger was so bottomless. But he wasn’t willing to satiate it for the price of playing well behaved and polite, especially in the company of a man like Dom. On the bright side it was an interesting experiment to see how far he could push his resistance to eating. The biggest challenge was to destroy all images or suggestions of food from his mind’s eye.
Lying on his side and folding a blanket over his shoulders, he wondered if the homeless one was still frozen in the same position and in the same back alley where he’d left him and if his humming had subsided by now. His mother interrupted his reverie.
“Chad? Are you part of a gang? Because if this is the case you might as well pack your bag and leave… unless… yes of course, a girlfriend! Remember, no girlfriends in your room!”
Dom swallowed Ann’s nervous words with a long noisy kiss.
“I don’t have a girlfriend, if that is what you’re burning to know. And what is it you said? Gang? No way. I spent my day in Venice Beach. Alone.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ann said as she untangled herself from Larry’s embrace. “You hate swimming and now you’re telling me you went…where? Chad, you’re not going to spoil my evening, if this is what you have in mind, sorry but you won’t.”
Ann and Larry stood in silence for seconds that weighed like hours, then they left as they had come, with the same false aura of normalcy... oft, calm, patient and loving. Chad couldn’t bear her false pretense of being a perfect mother every time she was in the presence of friends.
“Thanks, mom for scratching my nerves. Now for sure I’m not hungry!” he called in a voice loud enough to carry itself down to Ann’s ears.
Chad switched off the light and reacquainted himself with his world. The red blinking light of the answering machine punctuated the silence that had by now fallen over the entire house. From time to time, remote giggles and submerged voices echoed from the first floor. Chad fought in vain to keep his eyes open and to reminisce on the chronological course of events of his long day. His mind froze into the deepest dream state.
4
AN URGE TO URINATE aroused him the following morning. He changed his T-shirt, gulped down a glass of orange juice and a bagel, brushed his teeth, and plunged back into sleep for another twenty-four hours. He woke up benumbed, stiff, drenched in sweat and with a pounding headache. Obnoxious sunrays had forced their way through his bedroom’s Venetian blinds. Thirst had dried and hardened his tongue, his eyes had swollen to the extent that he could barely open them, and his dried wrinkled lips had broken open at their corners.
Chad hurried to the bathroom, filled the washbasin with cold water and kept his eyes and mouth wide open while immersing his face in it; then, taming his innate fear of drowning, he held his breath under water. It did the trick. His tongue recovered its vitality and his mind sharpened. Lifting his head, he alleviated his gasps for air with deep inhalations and exhalations, dabbed his eyelids with a dry towel, moistened his lips with Amish salve and dared to throw a glance in the mirror. His groggy look and peeling skin added interesting traits to his boyish facial expression.
“Oh yeah!” he said aloud with satisfaction.
Chad coddled his greasy hair with herbal shampoo and conditioner, trimmed his finger nails, flossed his teeth, and muffled his naked body in a vintage maroon jumpsuit, all the while staying in touch with his recent memories because he had a hunch that, after enough churning and mulling, they would provide him with the keys, solutions and directions he was looking for. Thoughts linked to the homeless episode should have irrevocably disappeared into Chad’s mental quicksand, but his shifting reality was creating havoc in all aspects of his life including in the way he processed information. When he first woke up, he had been like a soldier coming home after years of battles and nightmares. Now though, after such meticulous pampering, he felt like a grounded businessman looking forward to another day burdened by a compacted schedule.
Ann had stuck a note on the fridge door with a plastic hamburger magnet:
“Danish and pie in blue container. Call me. Larry b. here @ 3.30 pm. B nice 2 him. Called ur school. Seems you had a very good year my son! Am on 48-hour shift then 3 days off. Martin left a message on my answering machine. Your friends miss you...so do I...Love you, mean it. Ann.”
Chad guzzled a whole quart of rice milk in one go, wolfed down the leftover lemon pie instead of the Danish pastries, and scribbled on the bottom of the note: DELICIOUS!
He’d spent enough time in his bedroom and had no intention of going back there in the near future, yet he wasn’t exactly sure where he should direct his surge of energy, inwardly or outwardly. He grabbed the phone in the living room, switched on the TV and dialed his cousin’s phone number, only to hang up at the first ring. Submersed in the cozy banana-yellow faux leather couch and too lazy to search for the remote control, he didn’t bother changing channels and let a very boring, black and white romantic movie pollute the screen. He couldn’t care less.
The antique Swiss horologe jangled three times. In half an hour Larry would be there and it was out of question that Chad would be part of Ann’s plans. Chad ran upstairs and scrambled through the Yeng Yong plaza to find his baseball hat and sandals, then rushed outside and crossed the garden with the satisfaction of having successfully avoided his mother’s new flame.
After his beach escapade, Chad had learned his lesson. From now on, and regardless of when or where he would go, he resolved to take his bicycle because walking was not an option he intended to contemplate in the near future.
The garage door was locked. Chad searched for the keys and was baffled to found them half buried in the ground between two ceramic flowerpots. Ann’s phobia about hiding the garage keys in impossible places had become irrational ever since she had watched a TV special about garages being taken over by dangerous gangs in order to grow marijuana.
“So stupid! What’s going on with her?” he said aloud.
As soon as he pushed the door open he heard footsteps closing in.
“Chad?”
“Mr. Domate? Gosh, you scared me!” Chad was so startled he forgot his rule about not speaking at home except in his bedroom.
“Sorry about that!”
“What are you doing here anyway, creeping up on me like this?”
“Will you go out to dinner with us tonight? Your mother worries about you.”
“Ann? Worried about me? You must be kidding,” Chad smirked.
Ann had always neglected her motherly duties starting with the most basic one: food. Chad basically had grown up on pasta, wonder bread and junk food, but lately his mother had surprised him with culinary novelties. Larry seemed to be of the gourmet type and was without a doubt the impetus behind her food habits
“Keep Ann busy and remind her that it’s too late now to play parent,” Chad said. “ I appreciate the food but that’s about it. So here’s the deal: You stay here, you have the keys to the house anyway, and I’m going on a ride. Now if you would be kind enough to let me do what I was in the process of doing just before you interrupted me….”
Larry had taken the initiative and was pumping air in Chad’s bicycle tires. Chad didn’t object. Fixing and repairing were way on the bottom of the list of things he liked to do and his tires were low on air.
“Thanks,” Chad said when Mr. Domate handed him his restored bicycle a few minutes later.
“My pleasure,” Mr. Domate beamed.
Chad pedaled hastily out the back gate. As he rode along the row of blooming jacaranda trees and visualized Larry’s bamboozled face, he raised his right fist above his head and screamed like a South American soccer world cup commentator: “GOOOOOOOOOOOAL!”
Hewing to his bicycle, suspended between sky and earth, Chad regurgitated one more time his beach escapade. Nothing really spectacular had occurred that day besides a succession of uncomfortable incidents and a few human interactions, yet there was no doubt that, ever since, his abstract gloom had faded and his mood, while still edgy, had recaptured driblets of coherence. Chad surrendered the rhythmic movement of his lower limbs to the bike’s free will. Consumed by his thoughts, oblivious to the traffic, he let the wheels go wherever they wanted to. It was only when he had passed beyond the fish market on Colorado Street that he regained his spatial awareness.
Of all the places he could have been randomly led to, here he was again, in Santa Monica!
Chad acted nonchalant in spite of his suddenly contracted solar plexus and moved with turtle-like speed toward the Third street promenade. He stopped at a corner stand and bought a cone of sugarcoated peanuts. None of the pedestrians, tourists, and shoppers looked familiar. Turning into the adjacent alleys he searched for the old vagrant around every corner, entrance, vehicle and trash bin. Chad reasoned that the essence of homelessness must be constant movement, since it was linked to things such as: no place to stay, too broke to afford an hotel, belonging to nowhere, welcomed by no one, left to randomly wander anywhere.
All things weighed, the search for the impecunious old man was irrational and probably vain yet, pretending to be looking for his senile grandfather, Chad interviewed passersby, shopkeepers, parking attendants and vagrants with a newborn audacity that he seasoned with a profusion of credible lies.
“Grandpa left home again, got Alzheimer’s, barefooted, dressed in a blanket, looks like a bum. Cool guy but totally out there. Got to find him, grandma is beside herself, have you seen someone looking like this?”
Answers like “No!” “No idea!” “They all carry blankets!” “They all look the same!” “Sorry!” or “Call the cops!” didn’t deter Chad from scouring the adjacent streets. After all, he had nothing else to do other than to kill time.
Randomness led him to Montana Avenue. Luxurious cars parked ostentatiously competed for attention. Smiling, well-manicured, easygoing people swarmed in and out of ritzy delicatessens, coffee shops, designer boutiques, upscale furniture and antique stores. Their gait, relaxed by the safety of well-garnished wallets and indulgent yoga sessions, lacked any spice or charisma.
Chad looked at his feet and withstood the shame of flaunting cheap, ugly, un-cool sandals. His favorite weathered army boots, the ones he had foolishly discarded, would have been so appropriately trendy on Montana Avenue. By now they were probably traveling in a garbage truck or rotting in a junkyard under a mountain of debris....
He stepped off his rusty bicycle and parked it against a young tree whose trunk was small enough to be encircled by a standard metallic padlock.
“So you thought I kicked the bucket, hey?”
Chad instantly recognized the voice. Once again the old fox had taken him by surprise!
Chad slowly turned around and bumped face to face with the smiling toothless old man he had been searching for.
“Miracle or coincidence? Just kidding,” Chad said.
“Nice to see you again, young lad. Nice bicycle. I like your slippers too. Tell me, Chad, are you happy to see me? Were you looking for me? Or maybe you thought I was dead and…”
“No!” Chad interposed. “I mean yes, I mean of course not. How could I have thought you were dead? I totally forgot about you, I swear. I came down here for the Italian ice cream. It’s the best in town,” Chad lied.
“Yap yap yap, talk, talk, talk. So why don’t you buy me an ice cream with the money you were going to give me back. So?” the homeless one asked with impatience.
“So what? What flavor?” Chad retorted as with lightning speed he scanned the street for a coffee shop, grocery store or anything to support his lies and deliver him from the old man’s pressure. He jammed his baseball cap over his eyebrows. “Whenever you’re ready, let’s go!” he said.
The old man freed his right arm from under the striped green, blue and black wool blanket.
“Let’s go down this way for a little promenade, young man!”
Chad felt a firm and hearty hand fastening itself over his shoulder.
The man’s warm touch irradiated Chad’s whole being with a sense of infallibility yet the situation was not without its share of the ridiculous. Walking amongst the well-heeled public and with the old destitute glued to him, Chad couldn’t disassociate himself from the flagrant scene he was creating. His hope for discreteness and invisibility had been reduced to smithereens, but beyond the first tremors of unease it did not matter anymore.
Adopting the rhythmic pace pondered by the homeless one’s bare feet, Chad let himself be guided by him like a car by its driver. The duo choreographed their procession with the prestige and pride of African kings. They passed by several Italian restaurants but they never savored their creamy frozen delights. Abreast of Café Montana they crossed and sauntered down the middle of the street in the same light reverie. Two blocks before Ocean Avenue the old guy gently released his grip then proceeded, unfettered, in the direction of Palisades Park, whistling and singing in awkward high tones. Without missing a beat, Chad followed him docilely.
They paused at Mario’s kiosk, or so the sign said. The old man winked at the food vendor with undeniable complicity. “One fry bread and a coke for the kid,” he ordered.
“Who? Thanks for the offer but I don’t like fry bread,” Chad interrupted.
“Change of order Mario, the kid seems to like it a lot so make it a double fry bread,” the old man countered.
“It will be for you because I won’t eat it. I told you I don’t eat this stuff so you eat it then, not me…”
“Old men don’t need to eat. Just try it.”
“I don’t even know your name,” Chad diverted
“What for?”
“Everybody has a name; you know mine, what’s yours?”
“Choose one for me.”
“Come on!”
“All right, as you wish Chad, you’re right, my name is comon, I like it.”
“Man, you’re putting me on, stop it!”
“Man is fine too.”
“Oh Maan! I’m not in the mood for this!”
“Ohmaan? Fantastic! I’m keeping this name…oh maan! Ohmaan is my name. Good good! From now on I want to be called Ohmaan, and that’s final. My name is Ohmaan indeed. Now Chad, Mario is wondering what’s wrong with his food? Have a bite.”
“I told you I don’t like greasy, gooey stuff.”
“You’re impolite. Eat.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Try it with salt, I prefer mine with lemon and honey.”
The old guy gathered his blanket and wrapped it tightly around his waist, winked again at the amused Mario and traced his way out. Chad couldn’t get accustomed to the homeless one’s abrupt switch of behaviors. Disconcerted, he rolled up the fry bread in a brown paper napkin.
“Hey! Where are you going now, wait!” Chad shouted as he ran after Ohmaan. The enigmatic man made a face and decided to sit and rest on an unoccupied wooden bench nestled underneath a royal palm tree. From the horizon to the sand, the ocean scattered magnificent strings of white foam. Brown pelicans traced virtual lines on the naked sky before plunging with sudden majesty into the oceanic depth. The view was breathtaking.
“Ohmaan. Ohmaan. Ohmaan and Chad!” The old guy muttered.
Keenly aware of Chad’s scrutiny, he nonchalantly lay down on his back, closed his eyes and breathed deeply with a slow, even cadence. Two playful young pit bulls chased each other around the bench but Ohmaan didn’t move nor seemed to notice the canine commotion. Chad devoured the two pieces of fry bread. It tasted like the best food he had ever eaten.
Something out of the normal was going on…something that was also altering his gustative senses. Sitting on the ground a few feet away from the bench Ohmaan had claimed as his, Chad couldn’t fully comprehend the nature of his fascination for the old rascal whose magnetism was so intense that it had intertwined reason with the ludicrous.
“Ohmaan? Ohmaan, are you really sleeping?” Chad asked.
Ohmaan had indeed fallen into a profound slumber.
“You see,” Chad said, softly, “now that I’m thinking about it, I think it’s cool to change names. Maybe your name is Ohmaan for real…and I guessed it right away. That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? I should change my name also.... I don’t feel the same as before, for one, but I don’t really know what I feel or who I am anymore. Well, that’s not true. When we were walking together on Montana, I thought about it. Now I know what’s wrong with me. I’m bored. I’m bored, that’s all there is to it. I’m bored to death. And speaking about death, it just pisses me off that I will have to die one day. It just ruins everything. Everything! I’m bored and pissed off, that’s for sure. And all these people running around like crazy, they run, run, run but it’s not going to chase their death away, is it? They’re going to get hit too, you see what I mean?”
Ohmaan didn’t move an iota. His mouth half opened with a generous smile revealed shamelessly two rows of pink gum meagerly garnished by handful of thick teeth.
Chad got up. “Have a nice one! Good by!” he said and retraced his way towards Montana Avenue with the sentiment that the circle had been circled and that the homeless saga had been put to rest for good. Yet as soon as he recovered his bicycle the same yearning for the unexplainable that Ohmaan seemed to trigger reawakened in the dead midst of his thorax. Chad sped back to Palisades Park, and stopping briefly at a crowded café, borrowed a pen from a waiter and wrote on a paper napkin a message dedicated to Ohmaan:
“Man oh man! It was fun! Let’s do it again . . . like tomorrow? Same place same time? Thx for the bread . . . I feel I know you. Yet we are zillions of years apart. By the way…I hope you can read!”
Chad’s heart pummeled. Was the old monkey still there? He rode down Santa Monica Avenue at competition speed, burned the red light, nodded at the kiosk keeper and caught up with Ohmaan who, as expected. was on his way to somewhere nowhere.
“Just in time! Had a nice nap?” Chad asked victoriously.
“Oooooooooooooweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! You bet!” Ohmaan bragged.
“I wrote you a note. Anyway, thanks Ohmaan for, you know…” Chad started.
“What do you want now?” Ohmaan’s tone was quite grumpy.
“Nothing Ohmaan, just to see you again, things like that!”
“Again? You want to see an old fart like me again?”
“If it’s okay with you?”
“Okay with me? What an arrogant things to say to an old ... when?”
“I wrote it on this napkin. I thought I could come back tomorrow?”
“When?”
“Like today...whenever... I am flexible... early afternoon?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know…wherever you want…here?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it’s fun.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know...it makes me feel good.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know! Is this how they are teaching you to speak in school these days? Anyway, it’s okay for tomorrow, Bored.”
“Bored?”
“Yes, your new name! It fits you to a T. You are a very bored young fellow; you said it yourself!”
“I wasn’t thinking about this kind of name for a new name; I’m not sure I like it either!” Chad grimaced.
“Well, you gave me a name and I’m giving you one that fits you, but enough about names. Give me my napkin.” Ohmaan ordered.
“There’s nothing much on it. I just told you what I wrote on it,” Chad replied.
“Thief! It’s mine. Are you going to steal from a poor man like me?”
“No. Here! Take it and see for yourself.”
The old man disgustedly nodded his head from left to right, then fixed a mean eye on Chad and blasted out, “So that’s how grateful you are? I walk you around, I feed you, I share my precious time with you and you write a letter to me on a filthy old napkin? I’m not going to be insulted like this by a spoiled whippersnapper like you. Not me!” Ohmaan was shouting as he walked away.
“But you asked for it and I gave it to you and now…whatever!” Chad called after him in disbelief.
A middle-aged couple pushing twins in a stroller had strained smiles pasted on their faces as they turned a deaf ear to the loud scene.
Hours ago, Ohmaan and Chad had made quite a sensation on Montana Avenue. They had been like red fluorescent lights shining in the dark. But Palisades Park and Montana were two different stories. Palisades Park was a refuge for lost souls, tourists, joggers, dreamers and rebellious teens. Over there, the untoward was indiscernible from the ordinary.
No one stopped at the obstreperous street drama created by Ohmaan. Nobody cared.
5
CHAD WAITED stoically until Ohmaan had disappeared in the maze of cars and idlers. He forged his way home lost in a maelstrom of satisfaction, upset and angst. Stopping at a pet store on Lincoln Boulevard, he wondered if the poor caged martyrs, in addition to their claustrophobia, suffered also from boredom. They too would die. All of them! Who was that idiot who one day had stipulated that life sucked? Death sucked, not life! He watched a mouse, shaking with fear and with no place to hide, doomed for the dinner of a reptile. Chad couldn’t accept it. His sensibility to life and death had been distorted. He turned inward and roughly estimated that if he added all the sausages and meat and fish that he had consumed since birth it could translate into hundreds of fowl and fish as well as a few cows and pigs. A whole menagerie!
“How disgusting. Eating or being eaten!” he said as he walked out the door.
Since the old homeless smarty seemed so well versed in food matters, Chad decided he would quiz him the next day on the subject of survival. Hopefully….
Chad was puzzled. Why was the old man such an oasis of hope, of the antidote for boredom and conflict? Why him? Chad would have to engage in a real conversation with him to see if he was a brilliant man or a con artist.
The sun was veering toward dusk. Chad thought about his cousin Martin, whom he also viewed as his best friend… then there was his cousin Brooks who periodically oscillated between being close then distant.
Chad chose to call Brooks from the pay phone outside the store.
“Hey Brooks, I’m calling from Lincoln. I stopped at the pet store… anyway, what are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing much, hanging out here, doing my you tube demo stuff. Hey I got the coolest video game yesterday ‘Doomster in Gory hell’. It’s so cool it’s addictive. What’s up with you man? What are you doing over there?”
“I’ll be home in thirty. Can you call Martin and could you both wait for me in Adarr?”
“Sure man, no prob. Glad we still exist; you know dude, we’ve all been so bummed by your funky silence. Alright, I’m calling Martin and see you in Adarr.”
Chad hadn’t foreseen a flat tire and a benign collision with a pedestrian. He reached home way past sunset. Brooks was impatiently waiting at the gate.
“What took you so long?” Brooks nagged.
“I blew my fucking front tire and more stuff…but who cares. Is Mart in Adarr?”
“No man, we’ve been waiting for you here forever. Martin is with Larry in the backyard. They’re setting up the barbecue. Ann is pretty pissed off at you. Hey man it’s so good to see you. Honest!”
Brooks use of ‘man’ was extremely annoying now that the old guy had claimed it for his name; but Chad wasn’t given the opportunity to mention anything because as always Ann had found a way to show up at that very moment.
“What are you doing, Brooks? Are you with Chad? Is he here? Chad?”
With the fluorescent front porch light shining behind her Ann looked grotesque. A see- through off-white blouse matched with her too tight, half-zipped shorts.
“Brooks darling, could you bring the chicken wings out to the boys? I have to clear things up with my son. Chad? Let’s go to Adarr. Now. I mean right now, Chad!”
“Superb,” Chad thought, because Ann was sending him directly to Adarr. Yeah! There would be no mingling with Larry! There would be no barbecue either. No charred dead animal parts.
Chad stared at his mother whose face was buried under inches of heavy makeup. Her long, multicolored fingernails added a vulgar touch to her overall absurd look. Was it possible that she had conceived him and that he had once sucked on her teats? How disgusting!
Turning his head away, Chad parked his bicycle against the side of the house, picked up an empty plastic bottle and aimed it at the recycling bin. “Yeah!” he said, throwing a fist of victory while running into the house. Ann breathed on his neck. Both reached Adarr simultaneously.
“Good, now we’re in your room so you better talk. What a mess. You spend your days doing who knows what, you are gross, vulgar, impertinent, unappreciative…are you listening to me? Talk or else! What could you possibly be thinking about?”
“Well, let me tell you what I think right now. You look like a whore, mom. I mean it mom, I don’t recognize you. You’ve changed like…totally.”
“Oh no Chad, you aren’t going to tell me what to do, how to dress, who to see or not and all. I’m in no mood to go there. You’re crossing the line. Believe me, I will come back to this conversation later, but right now I want you outside with all of us, I mean now! Larry had the goodness to take care of the barbecue, so outside in the garden we can all make an effort to be in a good mood and have conversations like normal folks do,”
“No. I’m not hungry but mostly... I don’t eat meat anymore. So you and your Larry can just go ahead…without me.”
“What? You’re vegetarian? My son is a vegetarian? Since when?”
“Since today.”
“Why?”
“Death. I don’t eat death… anything conscious…”
“Don’t be silly. Chad.”
“Starting today I will not eat any more meat, dead flesh, it disgusts me. Do you know how to make fry bread?”
“What? Fry bread? Oh my! I grew up on fry bread, so much so that I can’t stand it anymore. You bet I know how to make fry bread. Something is wrong with you, my son, but I won’t go there now. We have corn and cookies so you could eat that. We also have peaches and bananas. Chad! Do you hate me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m a mutant with no heart, no feelings.”
“Okay E.T, that was a stupid question for me to ask. Do I look like I was crying?” Ann gathered her hair in a bun and wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers.
“You look fine mom, but could you slip into something more decent?”
“Oh Chad, now you’re getting silly. My son is a prude! Okay, I tell you what...don’t move.”
Ann left Adarr only to reappear minutes later. She had swapped her blouse and shorts for a white T-shirt and a pair of stonewashed jeans.
“Do I pass?” She asked.
Chad acquiesced with a discreet “yeah”.
Chad and Ann reconvened outside with the band of three chefs. Martin and Brooks superintended the roasting meat and corn. Larry, all tied up in a large apple green apron, was clumsily tossing a salad with two wooden spoons. Scattered pell-mell on the tiny patio table, a medley of plates, forks, bread, tortillas, condiments, cheddar cheese and chocolate chip cookies lent an atmosphere of undeniable gaiety.
“Here we are boys, how’s everything? First barbecue in years! It’s going to be so much fun. Come on let’s have some fun!” Ann exhorted as she massaged Larry’s shoulders.
“Are you going to sleep here tonight?” Chad asked to Larry.
“Chad,” Ann interrupted. “Don’t start, please.”
“I’m not …I’m just asking a question.”
“Whatever Larry does is none of your business. I thought we talked in Adarr about spending a peaceful evening… didn’t we?”
Brooks and Martin kept their jaws double locked. Larry didn’t budge.
“Well it’s okay if he does, I don’t care; it’s fine. We’re going to sleep outside! Right Brooks? Martin?”
Blind accomplices in any of Chad’s tricks and whims, the two cousins nodded convincingly.
“Out of the question,” Ann emphatically objected.
“We’ll set up our quarters under the avocado tree. We’re not using a tent, just three blankets that’s all.”
“Absolutely not. Let’s eat, you’ll have time to change your minds.”
“Then stop playing the game of the happy family. It’s a little too late for this, mom, don’t you think?”
“It’s never too late.”
“It never existed so why pretend now? And Mr. Domate and you…it’s so nauseating.”
“Enough, Chad! I’ve had enough of you already. Do whatever you want. Eat whatever you want, wherever you want, with whomever you want, but stay away from Larry and me…leave us alone! Go and do your silly camping and whatnot under the avocado tree. Brooks and Martin…stay with Chad and keep an eye on him and hello, he’s crazy enough don’t push him to become even more insane, promise?”
Delivered from the embarrassing situation they’d been caught in the middle of, Brooks and Martin relaxed in unison with a loud “Yes!”
The boys collected bowls of fruit, nuts, bread and cheese, then moved swiftly away from the huddle. Chad exchanged a few last words with his mother before reuniting with his cousins under the avocado tree where they silently awaited him.
Ann and Larry didn’t spend much time outside. They nibbled on a chicken wing or two, and soon after retrenched for good in the comfort of a by now very secluded living room. Ann’s overbearing parental game had evaporated like a charm. Relieved of guilt, she invited Larry to partake in a very daring mating dance. Their amorous gambol didn’t slacken at the sight of Chad dragging out his bed quilt and blankets.
…
Removed from the giggling fury, Martin and Brooks sat voiceless against the trunk of the avocado tree. They couldn’t begin to guess what was going on with Chad; it felt like eons since they’d shared in his daily extravagancies. No one, not them, not their classmates or their gang of friends, understood why Chad had disconnected cold turkey from the group. This night Martin and Brooks were at the threshold of the enigma and it made them feel special. Soon, as carriers of fresh news, they would brush ephemeral instants of fame and glory with their peers.
Chad lined up sheets of plywood on the ground then handed the blankets to his accomplices.
“Things have changed. I would lie if I said I’m happy to see you. I appreciate your presence but I’m not sure I’m ready to be with you right now, although it’s close. I think I’m almost ready but not quite,” he announced.
“Everybody’s been missing you, Chad,” Brooks said.
“I’m sorry, Brooks, but I’ve had no time to spare and I haven’t missed any of you yet, but there’s something real I’m missing. I don’t know precisely what it is, or let me rephrase it… some crucial things are missing.”
“Adarr’s been robbed? What did they steal?” Martin asked.
“No, nothing like that, I’m not sure I want to talk about this right now…it’s kind of personal stuff.”
Martin wasn’t in the mood to force his cousin to say more than he wanted to, but instead of being stuck in unquestioning silence, he diverted the conversation with the first thing that came into his mind: “Hey Chad, I should go up and attach a cord or something to Adarr’s window sill, you know what I’m saying? So we don’t have to go through the house anytime we need something, you know, pillows or stuff.”
“Or when we want to play. I brought Doomster in Gory Hell and other rad games. I found the sickest site on the net, I swear…” Brooks started before being interrupted.
“No! Absolutely out of question,” Chad announced. “No more games for me and no more games in Adarr. I don’t want to play games these days…”