Eddie Yettian was dead, maybe. You could never tell with that guy. He was always getting lost, going missing. Living on the existential precipice, as it were. He didn’t feel alive unless he was on the precarious edge of death.
He always came back, though. Bedraggled, quieted, neutered or haunted, but back.
And he always had crazy stories to tell (after he’d rebuilt his wits).
Natalie and Chet stood conferring under the Interstate 15 bridge, behind an offramp that emptied into a little rundown plaza with a Starbucks, a 7-11 and an UrgentCare. Only the 7-11 was still open for business.
They were standing on uneven terrain of packed black clay littered with litter. The fleeting woosh of passing traffic overhead had a calming effect, like gentle summer rain or a soothing computer loop of slowed-down sea sounds. No wonder so many hobos chose to crash here. It was a relatively safe haven from the peril and treachery of the streets.
A grizzled old man lay fetal and comatose under a flattened cardboard blanket, his back snug against the concrete bridge abutment so no one could sneak up behind him. Three empty wine bottles lay next to his oblivious head, which rested on a stained canvas bag.
The November day was cold, overcast. A cruel day to sleep outside.
When Chet and Natalie first arrived they’d checked to make sure the old guy hadn’t passed away and confirmed he’d just passed out drunk. He wasn’t dead yet.
Chet noticed a nuance of disappointment in Natalie’s posture when she realized the guy was alive.
Natalie was Eddie Yettian’s ex. One of hundreds.
Their meeting under the overpass was by Chet’s request.
“So, where’s Eddie been hiding these days?” he asked her.
Natalie took a drag on a Camel cigarette and plucked a sliver of tobacco off her tongue. Her tongue was bright red, like she’d been sucking a cherry Dum-Dum or cough drop.
“What’re you askin’ me for?” she said. “I don’t keep tabs on that asshole anymore.” She was chewing bubblegum and smoking at the same time, a habit that bothered Chet on a visceral level. Like people who crumble crackers into their soup and let them get soggy. Or who eat peanut butter with an unwashed index finger. Or consume egg salad at all, ever. Horrifying. Nauseating. Natalie’s ruby-red tongue didn’t help relieve the queasiness.
Chet said, “Just thought maybe you might’ve heard something about his whereabouts. You still move in the same mutual circles don’t you?”
Chet could tell Natalie was jittering on something. Her eyes kept darting, as if searching for invisible threats.
“Yeah, well I did and I didn’t and I don’t.” She laughed with short staccato bursts that descended into a hacking chain of coughs.
She stabilized herself and with a rough, phlegm-crackling voice clarified, “He runs in fucked-up circles. Like dangerous circles. Like Dante’s Hell circles. No lie. I useta have to walk on eggshells around him `cause he was so bitch-strung all the time. Like he thought there was an assassin with a gun hidin’ behind every corner ready to blam a bullet in him. All his crazy conspiracy shit really got on my fucking nerves too. Like I was scared we both might wake up dead someday. Or he’d kill me in like a delusion. I mean I like the fuckin’ guy and all that kinda shit but like his brain ain’t built for nothing else more intentional than a fuckin’ birthday party with like stupid balloons and a big stupid chocolate cake and vanilla ice…”
She halted her talking before she got swept over the falls.
Chet nodded. The wind was cold and he carried his hands in his coat pockets. Natalie didn’t seem affected by the temperature. She didn’t even have a jacket.
“Yeah,” Chet said. “He told me about being stalked. He said nefarious people were spying on him all the time.” He uttered a bemused chuckle. “He said he found a hidden camera in the bathroom stall at Kelly’s Tab. Said it was the approximate size of a microdot. Those were his exact words: the approximate size of a microdot.”
“Oh yeah well that was just another one of his methpipe delusions. Why would a camera wanna take video of a bunch of drunk assholes taking a shit? Pissin’ all over the seat? Eddie useta get wicked paranoid when he hit the meth with too much zeal. Useta drive me nuts all the time till I had to start screaming in his stupid face. Like one minute he’d be all chill an’ shit jus’ watchin’ Deadliest Catch or whatever and then after a couple hits into the windshield he’d be yellin’ his guts out an’ tellin’ me to hide my phone in the freezer and then he’d start digging a fuckin’ moat around the bathtub with a hatchet. Stupid shit like that. It was crazy. He’s crazy. I mean like aren’t we all but his craziness was off the handcuff.”
“Heh, yeah. That sounds like something Eddie would do,” Chet admitted, tickled by fond memories of his old friend.
Natalie did not share in his amusement. She asked, “I mean, how could he even of seen a camera the size of a microdot when a microdot is invisible to the naked eyes? Wouldja tell me that? What, does he have super-power vision now?”
Chet hunched his shoulders. “Beats me. He seemed pretty convinced about it though. Maybe he used a magnifying glass. I know he has one. A big one. He used to call it his `Sherlock Holmes spyglass.’ He useta burn ants with it when we were kids.”
Natalie scoffed. “See? That’s the sign of a psycho, right there.”
“Well… They were only insects.”
They stood in silence, gazing at three seagulls dipping and soaring over the grassy marsh to the north. The cold wind carried a whiff of decomposing garbage from the town landfill just beyond the marsh.
A truck passed above them, rumbling like Asgardian thunder.
Natalie dropped her cigarette to the packed black dirt and crushed it under the toe of her boot. It looked like she was doing the Twist for a second.
She gazed up at Chet and grinned and said, “I’m holdin’ a new teaspoon of syrup if y’still wanna glaze your brain. Real pancake-type stack. Five feet high and rising.”
“Oh yeah?” Chet said. “I’m not sure. I was really hoping to find Eddie first. Having catatonic schizophrenia for the next ten hours wouldn’t be super conducive to a thorough search.”
“It’s real good buzz-honey,” she informed him. “I’m talkin’ psych-ward good. Straight straightjacket glaze.”
“Oh yeah?”
“No lie. Freddy Chalmers tasted it and he seen God on it. Kissed him on the lips. Dude made out with holy fuckin’ God almighty.”
“Oh yeah?” Chet seemed to consider the offer again, then shook his head. “Nah, I gotta fly straight and find Eddie before I can afford to start a dialogue with God. I gotta stay in detective mode.”
“Why you so amped to find Eddie?”
“He has a book of mine. I need it back.”
“That’s it? A fuckin’ book?”
“Yeah. I stupidly lent it to him a couple months back. Haven’t heard from him since.”
“What’s so special about the book?” she asked, trying to light another cigarette with her disposable Bic lighter. She snapped three cold sparks, shook the lighter fluid inside, and then raised a flame. She took an agonal drag on the cigarette and released the smoke like an urgent expulsion. Relief at last.
“It was my grandmother’s,” Chet said. “She just died recently and I need to get it back.”
“What kinda book is it?”
“Recipes.”
“A cookbook?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, Eddie could be anywhere. Get a map to the fuckin’ stars.”
“Yeah, well I figure Eddie’s probably skinned. And he still can’t drive, so he’s gotta be around here somewhere. In the general vicinity, anyway.”
“Didja check with Scratcheye yet?”
“Yeah. She kicked him out three months ago. Hasn’t heard from him since.”
“She probably threw away your cookbook.”
Chet shook his head. “That happened before I lent it to him.”
“Oh. Well, I dunno then. Can’t really help ya, man. Sorry.”
The dozing old man suddenly sat up and shoved the cardboard flat off his body. “Who’s that?” he gasped, searching his surroundings with squinting, half-dreaming eyes.
Natalie and Chet stared with surprise at the old man’s confusion and alarm. Then they looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Who’s that laughing?” the old man asked. He sounded terrified. And looked blind. He kept swiveling his head, eyes wide and searching. But nothing seemed to register in his vision, as if he were surrounded by baleful spirits beyond the limits of sight.
“Take it easy, dude. You’re all right,” Chet assured him.
“The name ain’t ‘Dude’,” the man said and his eyes came slowly into focus. Chet and Natalie materialized in his unclouded eyes. “Who’re you two? Where’s Ed?”
Chet stepped toward him. “Did you say Ed? You know Ed?”
“Course I know `im. We been working together all week. Worked it all out.”
Natalie exhaled a Camel-drag. “Calm down, Chet. He ain’t talkin’ about our Eddie.”
“How can you be sure?” Chet said.
“He don’t go by `Ed’ for the first thing. An’ for seconds, Eddie wouldn’t hang out with no fuckin’ bum.”
“Who you callin’ a bum?” the old man snapped.
“YOU, ya bummy ol’ bum!” she said and then cackled and coughed.
“An’ you jes’ a slutty little junkie,” the old man said. “I seen you before. You jes’ a sick rancid little monkey-fucker.”
Natalie sprang into sudden furious action, launching herself toward the old man. She kicked him in the gastric plexus and the old man wheezed and pink spittle sprayed from his twisted lips. “Oof!” he gasped, rolling over and tucking in his limbs in a defensive move to avoid another punt to the gut.
Chet grabbed Natalie’s arms from behind and pulled her away from the stricken old man. “Hey whoa! Take it easy, Nat.”
Natalie cursed at the old man, “Scabby old trash piece of alcoholic shit!”
“You…keep…uh…your…crazy…uh…girlfriend…away…uh…from…me…” the old man moaned, with labored, hitching breaths.
“He ain’t my fucking boyfriend you fucken dead-eyed street ghoul…”
“Cool it, Nat,” Chet said, still restraining her as she thrashed against him, kicking toward the gasping, moaning old man.
“She like to kill me…” the old man said. “Lil’ bitchy bitch…”
“Lemme go!” Natalie said. “Chet! Let go of me!”
“Are you gonna calm down?” Chet asked her.
“No! Fuck you!”
“Then you’re getting a time out.”
“You can’t hold me here!” Natalie squirmed and thrashed and attempted to gain leverage against him but failed to find a fulcrum and break away.
“Yes I can,” Chet said. “I’m a lot stronger than you.”
She relaxed into his grip and lowered her head. “Okay, ya bastard. You win. Please, lemme go now?”
“Promise you won’t try to kill the hobo?”
“Hey! I ain’t no hobo! Bastards…”
Natalie nodded and said, “Yes.”
Chet released his grip. Natalie turned and slapped the side of his mouth. “Don’t you EVER put your paws on me or my body! EVER!” she yelled.
Chet was surprised by the speed of her reflexes and he rubbed the sting on his cheek. “Good shot,” he told her. He had no appetite for retaliation. He’d been taught never to hit a lady. It was a credo he believed in.
“Yeah, you just better watch your ass or I’ll do it again,” she warned him.
“Okay, truce. Now, let me have a few words with this old gentleman here.”
Chet walked over to the old man. He was still breathing heavily, strings of snot hanging from his face like webbing. He looked up at Chet.
“Hey, man. Sorry we disturbed you. I’m looking for a friend of mine named Eddie. Eddie Yettian. Was that the guy you were with?”
The man squinted at Chet. “He said his name was Ed. Tha’s alls I know. Now get lost and let a man nap. I was in the service, y’know.”
“Could you describe him?”
“Who?”
“Eddie. Er, Ed.”
“He was an asshole.”
Natalie snorted. “That’s our Eddie to a tee. Case closed.”
“Could you shut up a minute, please?” Chet said. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this.” He turned back to the man. “So, what did your guy look like?”
“My guy? He wasn’t mine. And why should I tell you punks anything?”
“Because…Well, because…”
Chet sighed and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. It was connected to his belt with a thin filament of silver. He plucked a five-dollar bill from it and held it out for the old man to see. “I’ll pay you for your valuable time.”
The old man craned his neck, squinting at the bill. “He was tall.”
“Yeah? And?”
“He was jealous of my skills. I’m a handler, y’see. You know what a handler does?””
“No, but that doesn’t really concern me. Please, try to think. What’d he look like?”
“He wore goddamn glasses and had a big goddamn nose and his goddamn hair was black and too goddamn long and he had a goddamn tattoo of the goddamn Tasmanian Devil on his goddamn shoulder! Now gimme the goddamn fin and then get lost!”
Chet whistled with surprise. “Oh my god, that’s him. That’s fucking him.”
Natalie lit another cigarette. “Sounds like our loser,” she said.
“So, what happened? Where’d he go?” Chet asked.
“He’s at the dump,” the bum told him. “Now gimme that five. Shit, with all the info I just gave you, better make it ten.”
“He’s at the dump? You mean this landfill over there? Past the highway?” Chet gestured toward the marsh.
“That’s the one, genius.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“Ain’t doin’ shit. He blowed himself up into tiny little pieces of debris. Seagulls probably ate him by now. Stupid shit. I told him not to mix too much of that shit. That fool makes bombs like a baby fingerpaints.”
Chet closed his eyes and shook his head. He raised one finger and said, “You’re telling me that Eddie and you were building a bomb?”
“Yeah.”
“And it went off?”
“Yeah. A little prematurely ”
“So, Eddie’s dead?”
“He ain’t nothing but particles, kid. Now y’gonna gimme that ten or fuckin’ what?”
Chet turned toward Natalie. She looked at him with raised eyebrows and a half-a-smirk. Chet finally wanted to slap her back. He released the bill in his hand and it fluttered on the corkscrew breeze until it wafted onto the old man’s legs. He grabbed it, crumpled it into his fist, and jammed it into his jacket. “Thanks for the scratch, asshole. Now get the hell out of my house.”
“Sure thing. Did you happen to notice if Ed had a book with him?”
The old man sighed and grumbled, “Aw, cheapjunk motherfuckin’ shitpile in hell…” he rummaged in his canvas bag for several seconds, muttering and cursing. “…gorilla puke sob-story in a heathen’s bleeding sphincter eye…”
He removed a battered, creased, tattered, and stained copy of The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell and held it up toward Chet. “This what you was lookin’ for?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Hey,” Natalie said. “You told me it wasn’t a cookbook.”
“It’s not.”
“It says it is.”
“It’s lying.”
“Fine. Fuck you too.”
The old man was sitting up with his legs folded, flipping through the grimy pages. “How do I know this is really yours?” he asked Chet, squinting up at him.
“The top of the first page says, `Property of Gloria Glasscock.’ That’s my grandmother.”
The old man scrutinized the ownership inscription as if he were a forensic handwriting analyst. “Grandma’s a dope-smoking, bomb-throwing revolutionary, huh?”
“She used to be.”
“And now?”
“Dead.”
“Ah, I see.”
“So, can I get the book back, please?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said and tossed the book at Chet’s feet. “I’m too old to go blowing shit up anymore.” He lay down again, still mumbling, “…too old to go smokin’ banana peels. I’ll never manufacture LSD again. Shit, if I even so much as dropped acid nowadays, they’d have to peel me off the ceiling like a gigantic decal…That’s all I am—a big floating decal fit for the peeling beaks of carrion-hungry buzzards…”
His low muttering fell, faded and became a rusty snore.
“Well, that worked out,” Natalie said, lighting another cigarette. “You got your book back. Sorry to hear Eddie exploded.”
“It was bound to happen, eventually.”
“Yeah. Some people are just born to explode.”
“Yeah. And Eddie’s no exception.”
“Nope. Really makes you think. What are you gonna do with the book?”
“Stick it on a shelf and forget about it.”
“Sounds like a proper stratagem. Hey, this frees up your afternoon. Wanna glaze your way into Heaven?”
“I dunno. Shouldn’t we report this first?”
“Report what? To who?”
“Eddie’s death. To the police.”
“Nah. It’ll all come out in the wash. Getting involved means nothing but trouble for people like us. No thank you. Never call the police. It just causes trouble. We’d end up guest-starring on America’s Most Wanted toot fucking sweet!” She flicked her ash toward the dozing old man. “Let the bum go and report it. He’s the only actual witness to Eddie’s actual explosion.”
“Yeah. I guess. Okay, fuck it. Gimme a teaspoon.”
“Comin’ up! Your eyes are gonna bleed racetrack cartoons.”
And soon Chet is climbing over a dark bank of clouds as they brew and stir and churn, depositing tiny clicking pink hailstones over the slumbering city and dogs cry for the return of the Foodbringers amid the rush of photons and static. Pillories wet with alabaster oil line the landscape like premature headstones, lubricating an entire genealogy, kept passive and straight and single-file within a vast tangle of palpitating, heavy-pounding seawater and filth. Things best left forgotten. Creatures survive in the dark, under tremendous pressure. Small glowing things flee. Heavy predators lurk near the bottom of the obsidian void. Untucked, unrestrained. Free. Open wide. Invisible filaments sprouting from the fillings in his cavities like the coiling fronds of a frosted fern. He is now growing exponentially and yet could fit his entire volume into a child’s balloon. He’s a gas, an anvil. A frozen meatloaf in a field somewhere. The prepuce is abundant and he laughs until his larynx burps itself free and fills his drooling mouth with its soft warm mass and he spits it to the floor where it lands with a black silent splash. And then Chet vomits/laughs his liver into the melting black churn. He tastes blood and bile on his lips. It is burning nectar. Both lungs suddenly burst out and gasp and puff around the room like a balloon released into the wild. Like a butterfly with sinewy wings of raw meat, flicking instant art against the walls like Jackson Pollock dabbling in the cutting-edge medium of arterial spray. And then Chet feels his kidneys push and squirm and unite, only to tear themselves free, expanding into dripping, nervous, chittering wings. The membrane of the dual patagia is slick, smooth and running with feathery squibs that will make your lips go numb and turn purple and all the words will flow like white magma into a final deadly punchline. A jack-in-the-box gag that doesn’t make a lick of sense and Pop Goes the Weasel stops playing and there goes Eddie. He’s over here! He’s by the rusted washing machine! No, he’s here, on this pile of diapers! No, he’s here, next to the drums of rancid grease! Look over there, is that Eddie among the old tires and obsolete computer monitors?
Yes. It’s all Eddie. You’ll find him everywhere you go. There’s a little piece of Eddie Yettian in all of us now shut up and get ready to meet your evil fucking God.
Crumbling Asphalt 