Party Favors

TRIC ZINE #19, 2005

The biggest problem was there weren't enough hours in the day. If you could just solve that one, thought Kyle, everything else would flow like butter. Or beer, or the inside of a leaking glowstick, or whatever flowed better than butter. Right now Kyle wished that knucklehead Billy Hickman would hurry up and answer the goddamned phone at the Zippy Lube, because he had a hundred miles to drive in the next three hours, and his jalopy wasn't feeling so hot. But the phone just rang and rang. Kyle wondered what the fuck Billy could possibly be doing at four in the afternoon to not answer, the shop probably full up with customers all jammed together in the waiting room, listening to the phone ring. Keep shit like that up, people start wondering if they brought their rides to the right place.

Finally, Billy came on the line. "Thanks for calling the Benjamin Street Zippy Lube, can I help you?"

Kyle had been cradling the phone on his shoulder while he rushed around his apartment looking for the mixtapes. Usually he kept them under the couch, in two padded carrying cases he liberated from Sound Depot a long time ago using a returned receipt scam, but they weren't there. This worried Kyle, because Rooster, one of his weed buddies and occasional employees, had been couch surfing for two months, until he'd met some cracked out girl from Dover at the last party they went to in New Jersey and shacked up with her. That one had been at an abandoned mental institution, hidden in the woods just off the Garden State Parkway, overgrown with vines and crumbling floors, a real safety hazard. The promoters brought in their own generators, Dieselboy came down from Philly, and there were over a thousand kids there. Not that he suspected Rooster would do something like steal the tapes, but with partykids, you never knew.

So when Billy answered the phone, Kyle nearly dropped his cordless into the back of the closet where he was now digging through boxes of CDs and t-shirts, looking for the mixtapes. "Shit, Billy, where the fuck you been? I was hanging on for two minutes straight!"

"Oh, hey Kyle," said Billy. "I was gonna call you today. I need a little sumthin' sumthin'. Just like, fifty worth."

Kyle whirled around fast and bumped his head on the closet door. "Fuck! Fuck! Not you, dude. What do you need? On the cheese sandwich tip, you gotta talk to Rooster, that guy who was staying here. But I can facilitate. Listen, you gonna be there for awhile? I gotta bring by my jalopy."

"Yeah, I'm here," said Billy, and Kyle could hear him ringing up a customer. "Me and Otis just came back from a pizza break."

"Cool." Kyle hung up and tossed the cordless over onto the couch, aiming for the middle, but the phone bounced off one of the worn cushions and fell on the floor. "Bitch ass motherfucker!" Kyle could see the back of the phone had come off again, and the rechargeable battery was loose. Cheap thing did that all the time. He was surprised it still worked at all. As he bent down to pick it up, Kyle noticed something that looked like newsprint stuck to the black marble coffee table he'd lifted from the UD Student Union in Newark. Kyle loved that table, he'd found it one night while wilding with his friend K'Gai. They'd carted it out around three-thirty, the campus deserted, everything still in the night air around them, carrying the table upside down with two chairs, another triangular-shaped corner table, a mirror, and a lamp balanced precariously in a big illicit furniture pile. As soon as they made it into the bushes across from the Student Union, campus cops drove right by. If they'd been held up a minute more smoking that joint in the elevator, they'd have been busted for sure.

Peering closer at the table, Kyle realized the newsprint was from last week's Delaware Loafing. It was stuck to the table in a ring that looked approximately the size of a beer can. Kyle was pissed. He picked up the phone, tried putting it back together, and wondered why Rooster couldn't have taken a goddamned shower now and then while he was crashing with him. Fucking walked around coated with a thin layer of grime, a glaze, really, always looking half plastered, or high, probably because he was. So it was no wonder his glaze stuck to whatever he touched, including his beer cans, which then left a ring on the table, and that's how the newspaper got stuck. It all made sense, once Kyle thought about it long enough.

But Rooster didn't care enough to clean it up. Why should he? It wasn't his place. Kyle just left the ring there, too, because he was late, and didn't have time for spring cleaning. Kyle was usually late, especially when it came to showing up on time for parties. Hurrying just to be on time for a bunch of goddamn ravers rubbed him the wrong way, even though it also meant he’d wind up making less dough. But getting to a rave on time was close to impossible, anyway. Shit, he had to spend days just digging through all his boxes and making sure he had enough stuff on hand, then nearly a whole afternoon packing the car from back to front. At least twenty boxes crammed full of shit, some of them big boxes. A few were shaped weird, so they wouldn’t fit quite right in his jalopy unless he tied the hatchback down. It was a hassle.

Usually he’d be low on something or other, so he’d have to make a trip to the dollar store and stock back up. Then maybe swing by the Big Jawns and pick up a couple gallons of antifreeze, ‘cuz his jalopy wasn’t really running so great ever since he hit a deer one night coming back from a party in rural Pennsylvania. Kyle never should have bought the used radiator, but he only paid $750 for the jalopy, so he refused to pay more than four hun for any single repair. That’s why the shit ran so funny. Something with the heating and cooling system. The temperature gauge was all fucked up, too. So not ten minutes after he got on the road, that gauge would be right up to the top. But as long as he didn’t go over 60 miles an hour, it wouldn’t go any higher. If it got up like, an inch or so above the top, he’d pull over and add some more coolant. “Car needs a drink,” said Manda one day while they got off the highway halfway to Baltimore, looking for a gas station with antifreeze on hand. Manda used to help Kyle out before Rooster showed up, he was a good guy. Rhymes with Panda. He was from Burma, where there weren’t any raves. Or at least not very good ones.

And it wasn’t just mixtapes they’d be selling. Kyle had moved beyond that scam a long time ago. He did CDs, t-shirts, breakdancing and kung fu videos, toys that lit up, and all the barely legal drug accessories he could think of. Pacifiers, of course. And glowsticks. But if the promoters got cold feet, or the venue owner came around to check out what the vendors were selling so they could sell the same shit themselves next time around, you could always make a case that neither product had anything at all to do with drug use. Glowsticks? Everybody loves glowsticks. They bring back the fun and magic you enjoyed as a child. Crack the stick, and suddenly you’re running through the wet grass on the Fourth of July, waiting for the fireworks to start.

Pacifiers were basically a fashion statement. Just like all the frigging beads and other little kid shit these ravers liked to wear, big floppy hats, and fuzzy bear slippers, like they were going to a goddamned slumber party. It was harder to pull the wool like that about stuff like masks. Face masks. They were a huge item for about a minute. You’d bring in a couple jars of Vicks, buy a box of 100 masks for fifteen bucks from Wal-Mart, then smear a dab on each and sell ‘em at two dollars a pop. The kids couldn’t slip them on fast enough. Kyle wasn’t satisfied until he looked up from his table at three in the morning, peak party time, and saw everybody in the fucking place running around with masks on their faces, pacifiers dangling, clutching a handful of cheap plastic glowsticks.

For once, Kyle had the car almost packed with time to spare before getting on the road, assuming Billy Hickman could hook him up with no holdups at the Lube. But that was before the mixtapes turned up missing. After a few more minutes, Kyle decided the tapes were expendable. Everybody wanted CDs these days, anyway. It was a good thing Kyle knew Harold from the video store, that kid was a frigging electronics genius. Last year, Harold hooked Kyle up with a CD burner and some high tech type of bubble printer that printed real nice, glossy CD labels. Ever since, Kyle had slowly been adding CDs to his product line, bootlegs of the already-bootlegged mix CDs that DJs from faraway states like Connecticut and North Carolina were always handing him at parties, hoping he’d call them up to order multiple copies at $8 apiece wholesale. Kyle figured it wouldn’t be long before all the kids got CD burners, so he should move ‘em while he could. These fucking ravers all had rich parents, and it was 1999, goddammit, everybody was getting rich, even the poor slobs stuck working at hot dog shacks were doing a little day trading on the side.

With the CDs under one arm and the last box of t-shirts under his other, Kyle hustled out his front door and locked all three deadbolts rapid fire. He slid into the front seat of his ride and gunned the engine. Once Kyle was listening to that Car Talk show on the radio, and heard he should wait at least six seconds for the engine to warm up before putting a car in gear, but he still hadn’t found time to try it out. He sped the whole way through his neighborhood, came out on Benjamin Street, and ran two lights in the eight blocks it took to get to the Zippy Lube.

Kyle never carried drugs with him in his jalopy, especially not when he was going to vend at a party, so he was usually a little careless with road rules. Twenty times a night he’d get asked if he sold beans, or knew where the kids could get some, but he honestly didn’t. Not just for fear of selling to the wrong undercover, he also didn’t want to be responsible for some underage kid’s overdose. Plus Kyle knew too many fools who got popped, and he liked life on the outside too much to pull a dumb stunt like trying to sling beans at a rave. Even though he’d probably have made ten times the cash he usually brought home from the glowsticks and whatnot just selling a little on the DL. Using runners, maybe, like this other vendor he knew did.

As Kyle pulled up to the Zippy Lube, he noticed the parking lot was full, as usual. You'd think they were selling drugs, too, for all the business that spot did, but it was their leave-a-twenty-on-the-dash inspection policy that really sealed the deal. It was wide open like that even before Billy started working there, when his friend Otis used to be the assistant manager. That was before Otis got fired for pulling a practical joke on the rest of the crew, by giving them a sealed note and sending them all to the bank at once to make the night's deposit. It was a hold-up note, and the tellers forked over three grand to the hapless Zippy Lube gang, oblivious until they got out to the parking lot, saw the money and realized something funny was up. Lucky for them they didn't run, just hung around looking stupid until the cops wheeled up. It was never clear if this was Otis' master plan to get rich quick and escape from the Lube, or if he was just fooling around, but he got fired fast and barely escaped jail time.

Kyle slammed his car door shut and hurried inside. The waiting room was crammed full of customers, most looking bored and irritated. A line stretched three deep at the counter of heads waiting to pay. Billy was nowhere to be seen, but Otis was there, a slice of pizza in one hand, adjusting the reception on the waiting room's wall-mounted TV with the other. Since getting fired, Otis swung a paper route for the Wilmington News Journal in the mornings, then dropped by the Lube in the pm to hang out with Billy, just like he still worked there.

"Yo Kyle! Whassup, dawg!" Otis was all smiles when he saw Kyle, and the other customers glared at him. Crooked inspections or not, the whole waiting room looked like they'd been waiting too long for Billy to get back from wherever he'd frigging disappeared to.

They bumped knuckles, and Kyle grinned. "Otis, good to see you, man. Where's Billy?"

"Oh shit, you lookin' for him too? Join the club, boy!" Otis took a bite of his slice, piled high with green peppers and black olives. "He was just here, I think he went downstairs to get somebody's paperwork."

Just then, Billy popped back into the waiting room and on cue, the first person in line began to tear into him. Kyle stepped up to the counter, ignoring the drama, and nodded to Billy.

"Hey Kyle," said Billy, rolling his eyes. "Sorry, all the dumbasses in Wilmington been through here today. You waiting long?"

"Naw, man," said Kyle. "I just got here. But I'm totally rushed, I gotta be where I'm going in like, two and a half. Can you squeeze me in?"

Billy laughed. "No problem! Hey, Otis! Get my man's ride here started, okay? I'll be there in a minute."

Otis wolfed down the last of his slice and grabbed Kyle's keys. "Special treatment, right? Yo, where you gotta be?"

Oblivious to the dirty looks coming his way from the entire waiting room, Kyle followed Otis out to his jalopy. "I gotta drive to fucking Clinton, it's like somewhere in suburban D.C. But I gotta be there to set up early, like by seven. Goddamn promoters all paranoid about what we're selling, and it's right near Andrews Air Force Base, so military intelligence probably sending crazy undercovers there to keep tabs on the scene, keep the enlisted away from the ecstasy. It could be a nightmare."

"Whoo-wee, boy!" Otis marveled at Kyle's car, packed from one end to the other with boxes and gear. "You got enough shit in there? You better hope you don't blow a tire or nothin’, 'cuz you ridin' a little low! Then you'd have to unpack all those boxes just to get to your spare, and man, you'd be fucked!"

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna be definitely fucked if I don't get outta here soon enough," said Kyle, as Otis climbed into the front and started the engine. "Treat her gently, dude. She’s seen better days. Like, every day before I started driving her."

Otis giggled, and in a flash wheeled the car like a pro into the Lube's only empty bay. Otis liked to show off, and working on a friends and family favor like Kyle's car gave him a chance to show just what the Lube was missing not having him around anymore. He disappeared down the back stairs, and then Kyle could hear him cursing as he started monkeying around beneath the jalopy. Kyle walked back into the waiting room. He felt a little sleepy, all of a sudden, and figured he'd curl up in a chair underneath the TV while Otis got his ride good to go. Billy was still at the counter, busy arguing with another customer. The TV was tuned to WWVD, Channel 9, Delaware’s local news leader, and there was a program on about people who claimed they’d seen honest-to-god angels appearing in downtown Wilmington. Kyle sat down in the first chair he saw and started nodding off immediately.

The next thing Kyle knew, he was waking up in slow motion to the sound of a very loud backfiring. He looked around, noticed he was all alone in the waiting room, and wondered what time it was. Through the heavy plate glass windows separating the Lube's waiting room from its inner bays, he could see Otis in the driver's seat of his jalopy, gunning the engine. Billy was standing near the back of the car, watching a gigantic plume of thick, black smoke streaming out of his exhaust pipe, shooting out into the parking lot behind the Lube. Kyle thought he must be dreaming, because the smoke seemed to fill the entire back parking lot, and he could almost smell it through the plate glass windows, too. They usually cleaned his exhaust system like this, hooked up some special flush treatment to get out all the impurities, but Kyle had never seen his car smoke so much before. He had a sudden, sinking feeling that something might be wrong.

Right then, Otis started to scream. "Shit! Shit! She's gonna blow, man! Run!" With that, the two of them took off in different directions, Otis running out the Lube's front doors, Billy disappearing into the hazy clouds of black smoke that shrouded the back parking lot. And then Kyle saw his jalopy's poor, overworked engine burst into flames, and he was up from his chair, running out the waiting room's side door himself, still not knowing if he was dreaming or not, but not wanting to take a chance and find out wrong. A few seconds later he heard the explosion, and as he darted into the path of oncoming traffic he looked up and saw flaming glowsticks and pacifiers and oil-smeared plastic CD cases hurtling through the air into the Benjamin Street treetops, and he marveled at how colorful they seemed even in the daytime, and how he was definitely gonna be late to the party now, right before a delivery truck hit Kyle head on and all he saw was black.

Roommate Wanted

I never planned my rendezvous with destiny. Things just happened to turn out the way they did. I would have been the first one to call the cops if I'd known what was going on, but who would have thought something like that would ever happen in a place like Newark, Delaware. Shit, there's hardly anything here except for UD, and you can't hardly call that a real school. I mean, its biggest claim to fame is consistently making the list of the top twenty party schools, but that's only counting ones on the East Coast.

Newark's not that far away from the Pennsylvania border. The Klan is still strong around there, I heard the national grand wizard-poobah-whatever now lives in rural Pennsylvania. They got a permit to march in Newark a few years ago, but so many people turned out to protest the march that the Klan never showed. Dumbass racists.

That's why I was a little freaked out when I first met my roomie back then, right around oh, '98 or '99. He answered my ad for a roommate wanted, well, actually my ad was all set to run in the Wilmington News Journal, but he called even before it did. He'd seen the notice I sent out on the listserv for UD grad students who need housing, although later he admitted he wasn't a grad student. I think he was just using the school's computers. This was before somebody got raped in the stacks of Neimers Law Library and they cracked down on letting outsiders onto campus. Anyway, he said he was living in Bowman, this little tiny rural Pennsylvania town about thirty minutes away, and was looking for a place in Newark.

He seemed a little funny right from the get. He e-mailed me a couple times, all cryptic, and wouldn't answer the simple questions I asked him about how long he needed a place for. Then finally he called me, and wanted to see the place right away. At this point, I really didn't give a fuck. I needed a warm body to fill the spot. My previous roommate was real nice, he was a pothead, deadhead, you name it, if it involved the 60's, he was into it. Adam worked for this group called Save The Earth, until he fell in love with a fellow canvasser who, big surprise, was a major hippie chick, and they both moved to her uncle's farm in Tennessee. I think their plan was to raise medicinal marijuana and babies.

Adam was cool, because he always used to leave his weed in the fridge, and I was welcome to it. Maybe he also moved out 'cuz he was trying to protect his weed. But he jetted right before the summer started, with four months left on the lease. Man, it's murder finding somebody over the summer in a college town. The only cats who don't have their shit all lined by April are the sketchy ones, or the kids who are coming to Newark because their internships with MBNA or Dupont are connected to fellowships at UD, so they're trying to live near campus. But I don't live anywhere great, I mean, there's no washer or dryer, just a clothesline out back, but it's usually in use because the guy downstairs from me has this clean clothes fetish. Day or night, rain or shine, Soggy Britches is out there hanging up some laundry. And the dishwasher doesn't get the dishes all the way clean, plus the same fridge dude used to keep his weed in doesn't close properly, and over time it's gotten kinda worn down. I think the motor's burnt out, 'cuz nothing stays cold. I swear, next summer, I'm gonna look in the $50 or less section of the News Journal classifieds and buy another fridge outta somebody else's house, which is how I found this one six years ago.

Almost nobody else had responded so far to the notice I'd sent out over the listserv, except for a few people with cats. Wow. If you really want to rent your place, I'll hip you to the magic words - "cats welcome." Nobody ever puts that in their ads, so right away, you'll automatically hear from all the mugs with cats. People with two cats, three cats, sometimes more, short haired, long haired, indoors, outdoors, the whole nine. And they all smell great and never, ever shit in the house, except for maybe once or twice two years ago, but they've learned their lesson since. They only reason I was open to cats in the first place is because I had an ex-girlfriend with the sweetest little cat, he used to sleep curled up right by my face, and ever since I sorta missed that little guy. But faced with the reality of my crib becoming a full-fledged cathouse, people calling and e-mailing me left and right trying to bring their critters over to sniff out both me and the turf, I had to just say no.

Besides, my ad hadn't even started running. I'd almost given up on the listserv when I heard from this new guy. So then he shows up to actually look at the place. As luck would have it, right around the time I'm expecting him, the doorbell rings, and it's a fucking canvasser from Save The Earth! They were doing my neighborhood that day! I asked ol' girl if she knew my ex-roomie Adam, but predictably, she's new on the job, a summer recruit. Just as she's leaving the porch, my new roomie walks up. So my guard was a little down from the start, I thought he might have been her canvassing director, or whatever. Nope, he was there to see the room, right on schedule.

I got a weird feeling about him right away. Not bad weird, just funny. He had a shaggy beard, and dark, piercing eyes. He seemed a little jumpy, and talking with him was a little strained, like he hadn't been around people in awhile. This should have been all the warning signal I needed to tell the dude, hey, I got a few other people ahead of you who already saw the place, so I'll call you if it's still available. But at the same time, I was getting desperate. It was five days before the end of the month. My ad wasn't due to start for another two days, and the knuckleheads who wait until three days before they gotta move to read the classifieds are truly a sorry bunch.

It wasn't even my fault that my ad was running so late. The deadline for classifieds to start on a Sunday is Friday, it's been Friday ever since I've lived in Delaware, and I called those bastards at 2 pm on Thursday. Come to find out, since the first of the year, there's a new policy in effect for all real estate ads, and now the deadline's noon on Thursdays. Great. Of course she wouldn't squeeze it in for me, even though I'm a regular classifieds customer and a faithful News Journal subscriber. When I used to stay in Wilmington, I even had a roommate once named Otis who delivered the News Journal. But she didn't care about any of that.

Dude said his name was Robert. Robert Ericsson. Then he said he was from Western Pennsylvania, but had lived all over the country, everywhere from Gainesville to Austin to L.A. and back. That was about all he mentioned about where he was from. Claimed he was thinking about going back to school at UD, studying Horticulture. Which sounded promising. When I asked him if he liked to puff, his eyes lit up, and he said, yeah, sure! So I figured maybe I'd still have a source of fridge weed. He wasn't really clear about how long he wanted to stay, he just said he was applying to some other schools, and might only be around for the summer. I said fine, whatever.

Next thing I know, dude's borrowing my measuring tape and checking out the dimensions of the room, so he could be sure his shit's gonna fit! I was like, hey man, not so fast. But on the other hand, renting the room was the plan. I kept selling him on how quiet the street was, how nice it was having a dishwasher, and how there was a great laundromat just down the street. That made him stop in his tracks. He said something about not liking to go out much, and I was a little relieved thinking the deal might be off, until he asked to borrow my phone book. Sure enough, the dot-com bubble hadn't burst yet, and Sudsy Duds had expanded its operations to include a pickup and delivery service. He also looked up the pizza delivery options, and was pretty psyched to find Newark had at least a dozen places flipping pies. Gotta keep the college students fed.

So that was that, the guy moved in. I was relieved to have the place rented, and for the first week, I kept telling myself he seems nice enough. Then, once it was obvious he was a little nuttier than the average acorn, I kept sane by reminding myself it was only for the summer. After the summer came and went, and my efforts to get rid of him and find a nice, normal roommate all came up short, I shrugged my shoulders and said, hey, how bad could things get?

All the phantom stuff he'd been so concerned about having enough room in the apartment for turned out to be nothing more than two army-issue duffel bags, and a lot of milk crates packed with dog-eared videotapes that looked like they'd all come from the same mom & pop video store. I asked him about them and he said he bought them all from a store in Bowman for a dollar apiece when the place went out of business. Except once that summer when I was watching this flick called "Hardbodies," all about the philosophy of the BBD, which stands for Bigger, Better Deal, and also has lots of naked chicks, I noticed a metallic sticker on the tape that said "Video Plus, Murphy, NC." But I didn't say anything to Robert. By this point, I'd gotten used to him telling tall tales. In fact, he never told the same story twice, about how his applications to school were going, or where he sometimes disappeared to for days at a time, nothing. But it never really bothered me. I decided he was just a habitual bullshit artist, and I'd take the stuff he told me with a grain of salt.

Besides, dude was not only keeping the fridge stocked with weed, it was all over the house! The motherfucker was growing! His room had these two enormous closets, one on each side, and they opened up on exposed rafters, so it got really hot inside. This was another thing that made his eyes bug out when he opened the closet doors with my measuring tape in hand. Said they'd be perfect for his "gardening research." Little did I know exactly what kind of horticulture he had in mind! But I didn't give a fuck, because number one, I just rent the place.

It wasn't like they were gonna haul me into forfeiture court and confiscate the apartment. Our landlord's some Chinese lady named Syreeta who lives in Hong Kong. Her son stays in Wilmington, and every once in a while he shows up to check on the place and make sure we're not breeding animals, or sunbathing on the roof. Those are pretty much the only things Syreeta cares about, that and the six hun she makes off us each month. Dude never thought to check in Robert's closets, maybe he could sniff out pets but not three dozen five foot tall mature female cannibas sativa plants.

And no way they would really take the time to bust somebody for growing weed in Newark. The cops around here have bigger fish to fry. Downtown Wilmington's like, twenty minutes away, and people will hardly drive there after sundown because they're afraid of getting shot. The downtown businesses have private security guards that patrol the streets! All the little shops and stuff close around dark. It's 'cuz there's no middle ground in Wilmington, you either work in a gleaming corporate building and escape to the suburbs daily, or you're one of the little people stuck working at a little job and living in the city, and you're struggling just to make it. Or you've got a city job, in which case you're also struggling, 'cuz there's been a recession on for the last couple of years and everything's gotten cut. Or you're on welfare. That's about all there is to Wilmington. That and the rich people who live on the hill over by Brandywine Park, and that's who the cops and private security guards mostly care about. God forbid they might be afraid to go out to the theatre and enjoy a night on the town.

People struggle in Newark, too. Like I said, there’s nothing in this town except the University. No industries, nowhere for people to work who don’t have college degrees or enough dough to open their own business. And kids come from all over Delaware to go to school here, but if you’re born in Newark, and you’re from the wrong side of the tracks, chances are the closest you’ll get to UD is working as a groundskeeper, housekeeper, or employee in the Physical Plant, spending your life making sure things run smoothly so other people’s kids can get a good education. What’s really fucked up is back in slavery days, some of the same black folks working for the school today had ancestors who built its original buildings, brick by brick. Betcha didn't know there were slaves in Delaware. They might have outlawed slavery, but it’s almost like the University’s still a big plantation.

The thing Robert liked most about the university was the co-eds who walk to class in the mornings and back in the afternoons, ‘cuz there’s a big front balcony and our place is right near campus. Robert spent a lot of his time out there in the late afternoons, when he wasn’t lying around on the living room couch. He also liked taking naps, watching predictable stoner stuff like Cheech and Chong movies, ordering takeout pizzas, and of course, smoking weed. He was usually reading something, and muttering to himself, but it'd always be two three magazines at a time, so I could never tell exactly what he was reading for real, underneath the big copies of the Weekly World News he always kept on the outside. I figured it was probably porno mags, but when I heard later what kinds of stuff he used to subscribe to, and was likely keeping in his room the whole time he lived with me, it really freaked me out.

I mean, I had no idea. It's not like I was keeping up on the news every night. Fuck, I read the paper, but it's mostly for the horoscopes and classifieds! Plus the film reviews and schedules. See, one of my friends used to work for the Regal, this little theatre across from UD on Main Street. The Regal's the only arthouse theatre in Newark, and they've had a deal cooked up with all the chain theatres in town for years where employees of the Regal get to go see chain movies for free, and vice versa. So me and my friend go to the movies for free all the time.

There's all kinds of free stuff like that in Newark, you just have to know where to look. Like, you can call up WVUD, the campus station at UD, and win free tickets to shows at the Rocket in Wilmington, where any bands that bother coming to Delaware usually wind up playing. Why anybody ever bothers paying for tickets to the Rocket when they give them away all the time over the air is beyond me. You can also get free toilet paper on campus, if you don't mind wiping your ass with something cheap and scratchy.

On Wednesday nights, except in the wintertime, the Falung Gongers from the temple in Delaware City serve a free dinner on the campus Green. It's all vegetarian food, and it's all free. You can go through the line as many times as you want, so if you want to get two or three plates worth of food, no prob. It's all veggies and rice and weird Falung Gong applesauce and shit, so if you stick it in the fridge it'll keep for a couple days, long enough to get you close to Sundays, when the Feed The World anarchist kids serve a free dinner at the Little Red Bookshop, right down the street from the only McDonalds in Newark.

Monday nights, there's no cover trivia nights, where you can go to the Moonlight Cafe and win free beer and sandwiches just by answering some silly questions! I swear, people in this town must have nothing better to do on Monday nights, 'cuz that place is jam packed on the regular. There's even a theme song, and people from the audience join in to play it with trombones and accordions. Maybe there's so many people there because all the restaurants in Newark close down on Mondays, and eating's pretty much the only industry in this town besides the University.

I must have developed a heavy tolerance from having so much weed around me all the time in the apartment, because eventually, it didn't seem to get me high like it used to. It was right around the time Nevada voted "No" on legalizing small quantities, in the fall of '02. Robert had been excited all summer long for that shit, yammering on about it whenever I was around, telling me how he wanted to drive out there and volunteer for the cause, and how he was gonna lead the charge to pass a similar bill in Delaware. I was excited too, but after the election, reality set in again. That's when I finally had to tell him he should think about downsizing the garden.

Robert didn't take the news so well, and then we started fighting about other, trivial stuff. I got on a neat kick after four years of living like a slob. I realized I was the only one who'd been cleaning up, wiping down the counters, taking out the garbage, stuff like that. Once I opened his medicine cabinet, and out fell a crusty Ding Dong and half a dozen Rice Krispie Treat wrappers. I asked him to start pulling his own weight on the chores, but he still never lifted a finger. Then I asked if he could maybe start taking off his shoes in the house, and he refused. Live with somebody four years in a weed haze, everything's likely to be fine, but take away the weed, you might just realize they're an asshole. One morning, I woke up and just found him gone. All his things were cleared out, and there was no note, nothing. Talk about no class. That was a few months ago. I didn't hear anything else about him until this past week. Then, when it all made the papers, suddenly everything hit me at once.

Maybe I should go to the cops and tell 'em what I know. That he wasn't really living in the woods for five years, like a mythical Davy Crockett. While armies of FBI and ATF agents were combing the hills of Western North Carolina looking for his ass, he was laughing at them from the relative comfort of a run-down second floor apartment in Newark, Delaware, sitting on the front balcony every afternoon getting stoned, devouring junk food and pizzas, reading his fucked-up white supremacist literature, and watching UD co-eds go by. But to be honest, I don't want the publicity. People might think I was harboring him because I was a racist, or a dum-dum because I didn't realize who he was for so long, or even figure out that I was sharing my crib with a radical right-wing fanatic who hated gays, blacks, Jews, even the Olympics. And screw it, he's not about to talk, mess up his outlaw fugitive image. I'll tell you what, though, this experience has definitely taught me one thing for sure. I'm gonna be a lot more careful next time I need a roommate.

Whatever Happened to the Love

Andy used to think about love a lot. When he was young and stupid, he thought his heart was so wide open, love must be something you could stumble onto while just walking down the street. Then, after his heart got broken a few times too many, he started imagining love to be a quiet, still place that always seemed to dangle just out of his reach. He looked around at all the people walking hand in hand, two by two, and couldn't help thinking the whole world was an ark, but somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten the way on board. Then Andy realized he really didn't know very much about love after all. So he decided to ask some people.

The first person Andy asked was old Mr. Henderson, who was sort of a fixture in Wilmington. Mr. Henderson was eighty-seven, and he took the bus into Wilmington from Marsboro every morning, rain or shine. He'd walk all around the downtown, usually have breakfast at the Olympic Steak Shop, then settle down on a park bench across from Market Square. Every day, Mr. Henderson was impeccably dressed, wearing one of his dozens of hand tailored suits, with matching shoes, suspenders, hats, and oldtime folded handkerchiefs. He'd wave and smile at everyone he saw, especially the ladies, and everyone always had a kind word for him when they'd stop to talk.

Andy had never spoken with Mr. Henderson before about anything other than what a snappy dresser he was. As he approached him on the park bench, he saw Mr. Henderson was reading the morning edition of the Wilmington News Journal. The noontime sun reflected off the white of the newspaper, and seemed to bounce up at the brim of Mr. Henderson's straw hat, illuminating the lines in his wizened, golden brown face. Some pigeons lurked nearby, drawn by the freshly baked smell of whatever was in the slightly oily brown paper bag sitting next to Mr. Henderson on the bench.

When Andy got close, Mr. Henderson looked up from his paper. He looked right at him, and snorted. "Young man, do you believe in God?"

Andy had to stop and think about it. On one hand, he didn't, really, he thought the world was too screwed up for any all powerful being to be in charge. On the other, who could say for sure. "Yeah, sometimes," he replied.

Mr. Henderson seemed to relax a little. "That's right you do. Young man, look at that sunshine. Do you see that sunshine?"

Andy looked across the street and up in the sky at the sun over the tops of all the buildings in Market Square. The glow on his face felt good. It was May, and the sun wasn't so hot you couldn't stand to let it wash over you like a stream, not worrying about getting your clothes all sweaty, or dying a premature death from skin cancer. Andy didn't use anti-perspirant, only deodorant, because there was aluminum in the anti-perspirants, and he had seen a special once on 20/20 about how aluminum caused Alzheimer's. Ever since, Andy also only drunk from glass bottles.

He nodded, and Mr. Henderson continued. "That's a sight only God could bless us with, you see? Took how many billions of years to make that sun, and don't think God couldn't snuff it out right today if he wanted to."

Andy sat down on the bench and took a deep breath. He didn't know exactly how to put what he wanted to talk with Mr. Henderson about, but he started anyway.

"Mr. Henderson, you know, I see you downtown all the time," Andy said. "I mean, you're always here, and everyone knows you, and you're always talking to somebody about something. What do you talk about with everybody?"

The old man laughed, folded up his newspaper, and set it down on the bench. "Folks talk with me about God, and the weather, and about how life is good to us, if we'll let it," he said.

"What do you do when you're not in downtown Wilmington?" asked Andy. "Where do you go when you're not here?"

Mr. Henderson looked at him a little funny. "Why d'ya wanna know that?"

"I'm not trying to be nosy," said Andy. "I'm just curious, I wondered if maybe you had a wife or anything. She must be real proud of you being a local celebrity."

Mr. Henderson cupped his hand to peer up towards the sky. "My wife died twenty years ago," he said quietly. "Cancer. Came on all of a sudden, no warning."

Andy had figured he was either never married or a widower, and thought his story would go something like that. But now, sitting on a park bench three feet away from Mr. Henderson, listening to him tell it, he suddenly felt really ashamed, and wondered why in the hell he'd dragged the old man into this.

"Nothing for me to do, usually, just sitting around at home, staring at the idiot box, or the walls. I come into town because I like being around people." Now Mr. Henderson was looking at him with eyes wide open, having bared a little of his soul, expecting something back. Andy fought the urge to mumble some excuse about needing to be someplace and get up from the bench. Instead, he opened his mouth and started speaking, slowly at first, then faster and faster, the words spilling out of him all at once, trying to tell Mr. Henderson why he was there.

"I just wondered," said Andy, "because I'm kind of alone myself, and sometimes I feel like there's nobody out there for me. I've had girlfriends, and it's been wonderful, being together with someone for awhile, but eventually, they all leave. And it never works out, nothing ever works out, and I just don't know what to do, how to go on. Why can't I find love? Why is it so hard to find someone who feels the same way you do, someone you're meant to be with? And then, even if I do find that person, what if they leave? Or something happens to them? Like your wife? How do you go on?"

Mr. Henderson stared at Andy for a long time. Then he shook his head, and stretched out on the park bench a little, digging his heels into the freshly cut grass.

"Young man, you got a troubled soul. Maybe a broken heart or something. Don't worry, if it's God's will, you'll find love. Or it will find you. You can't force these things."

Then Mr. Henderson slowly reached for his paper, unfolded it, and began reading again. Across the street a man walking a dog whistled, and shouted something, and Mr. Henderson looked up, then tipped his hat with a flourish. Andy got up from the bench and walked away, fast. He didn't feel so good all of a sudden.

Later that day, once Andy felt better, he remembered he had a stack of bills sitting in his coat's inside pocket, all ready to mail. So the next person Andy asked about love was Mrs. Tate, who worked at the counter in the Wilmington post office's main branch. The year before, Mrs. Tate had been pregnant with her second baby girl, and now she had a whole wall next to her counter window filled up with snapshots of little Zoe. Some afternoons Zoe would get dropped off from daycare early, and would sit on a high chair right behind Mrs. Tate, sucking on her bottle, looking at the customers in line with wide eyes. Everyone regularly asked about Zoe, even on days she wasn't there.

It was a slow day at the post office, with only two people in front of Andy. He waited his turn, then stepped up to Mrs. Tate's window when she called out "Next!". She saw it was him, asked how he was doing, then took his letters and opened up her book to show him all the new stamps. Andy liked stamps, and usually tried to choose unique ones to go on his letters, even if they were only addressed to the utility companies, like today. Mrs. Tate laughed when he mentioned love.

"Andy, you better watch your step," said Mrs. Tate. "You come in here moping around, convinced love's passed you by. Well, keep that attitude up, and it will, wait and see!"

For some reason, Andy always felt comfortable telling Mrs. Tate about his latest troubles with romance. She never seemed to mind listening, except when the line was backed up with customers.

"I don't know what to do, Mrs. Tate. It's been three months since she moved out, and I'm dating this new girl, but I don't want to get burned again."

Mrs. Tate shook her head. "You're a mess. Child, haven't you ever heard the phrase love the one you're with?"

There weren't a lot of stamps in her book for Andy to choose from, because he only liked the self-adhesive kind. It came down to a choice between famous American poets and a sheet of stamps with twelve different kinds of bats. And of course a sheet of "LOVE" stamps, with a rosebud where the "O" in "LOVE" should have been. Every time the postage went up they'd print a new version of that one. But Andy thought it was silly to stick stamps that said "LOVE" on his mail, unless someday he found somebody to write love letters to. Andy remembered the stack of love letters his father had written to his mother, and how she kept them on the top shelf of her bedroom closet, tied with string. He'd discovered them and read them one night when he was fifteen, and he remembered thinking how incredible it must be to truly be in love, so full of passion that you let your feelings and emotions flow out onto page after page, like his father had, writing to his mother about how wonderful she was, how he thought about her night and day and couldn't bear to live without her.

One year, Andy had thought about buying some "LOVE" stamps, and saving them, because they had just come out with a very pretty style. But then he realized there was no way to tell when he might meet the somebody he'd want to pour out his passions to, and if by then the postage had gone up, he'd have to stick more stamps on the envelope to make up for it, which would ruin the whole romantic effect. So he didn't do it. Now, looking at Mrs. Tate's stamp book, Andy stared hard at the bats with their strange little faces and ears covered by veins, and decided to get them. Mrs. Tate put the book up and began sticking the bat stamps on his mail.

"But how do I know?" asked Andy. "How do I know if I'm really in love?"

Mrs. Tate threw her hands up a little. "You know you're in love when you're happy. If you feel good, lots of energy, and you smile at the people you meet on the street, that's a sure sign you're in love."

Andy had never thought about it like that before. "Maybe I'm not in love. How would I know that?"

"Well, just the reverse," said Mrs. Tate. "If you're exhausted, and feel like every day's a struggle, and find yourself thinking mean thoughts or being mean to other people, chances are you're not in love."

Andy thought this over, but not for too long, because now Mrs. Tate had finished hand stamping and canceling his bills, and sure enough, a line was beginning to form behind him. So he thanked Mrs. Tate, and went along his way.

The last person Andy asked that day was Otis Nyquil, who regularly hung out at the West 4th Street DART stop across from the Adams Four Shopping Plaza. It was getting near rush hour, and Andy liked to catch the bus back to the Delaware Tech park and ride where he kept his car before the streets got clogged with a mad dash of office workers emptying downtown like rats before a flood. Otis lived in one of the poor, ramshackle neighborhoods behind West 4th Street, and every day around four o'clock he bought a chicken sandwich from the McDonalds at Adams Four and a bottle of Mexican beer from the Rodriguez Food Mart, then sat at the DART stop to eat. That's how Andy first got to know him.

When Andy got to the DART stop at four-thirty, Otis was there. He looked like he was done with his sandwich, but was holding a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. Otis was staring across the street at something so intently he didn't even notice when Andy sat down on the other side of the reinforced plastic bench that curved in a semi-circle beneath the bus stop's plexiglass walls. There was a big ad for the Brandywine Zoo behind Otis, with a picture of a whole family of hyenas sprawled out asleep in the sunshine. The ad read, "TAKE A BREAK, COME TO THE ZOO."

"Hey Otis," said Andy, and Otis turned around so fast he spilled some of his Mexican beer on an old Dominican lady who was sitting right next to him. She started cursing at him real fast in Spanish, and he said some Spanish stuff back to her. Then she got up and made some strange gestures at him Andy didn't recognize while walking away from the DART stop, still swearing loud enough for the whole corner to hear.

"Give me the evil eye?" said Otis, as he turned back to Andy, smiling. "I don't think so. Said I wuz sorry. Andy, why you gotta scare me like that. I was just minding my own bizness over here, checking out this fine girl 'cross the way goin' into the Dolorama, now I gotta worry 'bout some curse. Damn."

Andy felt bad for the old lady, and worried that now maybe Otis wouldn't much feel like talking, but right away Otis seemed to forget about the curse and started asking Andy about something else entirely.

"Say, you seen Hell Up In Harlem yet?"

Andy shook his head. Otis liked old movies, especially ones about kung fu or gangsters or revolutionaries like the SLA or United Fruit of Blackness sticking it to the man. He was always telling Andy about movies he used to see on Saturday afternoons when they'd come on Channel 13's Kung Fu Theatre, three o'clock sharp, right after the Creature Double Feature.

"Hell Up In Harlem. That’s one of my favorite movies of all time," said Otis, then paused to take a sip from his bottle. "I like when his Daddy takes over the town. But boy, that chief of the police. He didn’t like Tommy Gibbs, ‘cuz he was the Black Caesar of the Underworld."

Every time Otis talked about movies with Andy, he usually mentioned this one. By now Andy had heard so much about Hell Up In Harlem he figured he shouldn't actually rent it, even though he'd seen a copy at the Videodrome, a little video store a few blocks past West 4th Street on Maryjane Avenue, because he'd prefer to remember the movie just the way Otis talked about it. The reality couldn't possibly be any better.

Andy leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, facing Otis across the bus stop. "So, Otis, what'd you do last night?"

Otis took another swig from his bottle and laughed. "What'dya think I did? Got me a piece. Wore me out."

Sex was another thing Otis usually talked with Andy about. Otis knew a lot about sex, so Andy figured he probably also knew some things about love.

"You know, every time I see you, you've been sleeping with somebody the night before," said Andy. "What's your secret?"

Otis leaned back against the ad for the zoo and shrugged.
"Sometimes it comes like water. Sometimes you just gotta lie there in your bed and suffer. I had to tell one girl not to come by the other night 'cuz I don't wanna cause no confusion with the other girls."

Now Andy was trying to get serious. "Otis, do you have a steady girl?"

"I got two steady girls," said Otis, as he flashed Andy a wide smile. "One on the outside, plus another one, but she's in Del Central right now. She ain't due out until a year from this May, and then whoo boy, look out!"

"But you don't live with anybody, right?"

Otis shook his head. "Hell no! My main squeeze's got a husband. I get more play on weekdays. That's because her old man be going to work, so she can ease on out of the bed, and come over my way."

"Why do you mess with her," asked Andy, "if she's already married?"

"He suspects I'm messing with her," said Otis. "But he can't prove nothing. Other than that, fuck what he's talking about. I'm gonna keep on getting it till I can't get no more. See, if you ain't treating 'em right, somebody else will. Girls come over my house, I try to show 'em such a good time, nine times out of ten, they be calling me next time they need a little sumthin'."

Andy wasn't convinced. "Isn't that just asking for trouble?"

"I ain't gettin' in no trouble," said Otis. "I ain't like that. Makes no sense to get caught up in some drama with other dudes over a girl. He can't do no more harm to her than you can. It might be bigger and fatter, but it all goes in the same way."

Otis snorted a little and went on. "That's what did in Tommy Gibbs' daddy. All over a little lie 'bout some girl. His real name was Tony King, but in the movie, his name was Zachariah. The chief of the police hired Zachariah to kill her. Then they put it on Tommy Gibbs’ daddy. So his daddy got killed over some bullshit."

"Why does she do that," asked Andy. "Why's she cheating on him?"

"Oh, I was screwing her since before she even met her husband," said Otis, and downed a little more from his bottle. "If you gotta marry somebody with a wild streak, you better watch it. 'Cuz I'm getting it, Tom's getting it, Dick, Harry, the milkman, the cat who sold a hot piece to the judge while you turned your head. Somebody's getting it outside of you."

Andy shook his head. "Bet if she was your wife, she wouldn't cheat on you."

This cracked Otis up. "I ain't never had nobody on lockdown. You ain't got her on lockdown. Lockdown's when you drive her Momma's car around. Go in her house right now and fix yourself something to eat. Fell outta bed and bumped your head twice if you think you got her on lockdown. You can't run that shit down on me. I've been out there longer than you have."

Andy glanced at his watch and realized it was almost quarter to five, so he didn't have much time because his bus came. "What about your other girl, the one in prison. What was she like?"

Otis looked at Andy thoughtfully, and seemed a little sad for a minute. "She tore my screen door off once. 'Cuz I wouldn't give her no money. I got mad. Called her a bitch and everything. I'm out there nailing my screen door back on at three in the morning. Next day, she comes on by like nothing happened. Hi baby, what's happening, you mad at me? You done fucked up my damn door! You don't be tearing up nobody's shit, just 'cuz they won't give you whatchoo want."

"You miss her, right?"

Otis drank some more of his beer and nodded. "Sure. I asked her to stay with me once. But she told me, 'we can't stay together, 'cuz you're too moody.' I'm human, man!"

"Otis, let me ask you something," said Andy. "Have you ever been in love?"

"Yeah, I've been in love," said Otis. "With that girl, 'specially. But like I said, she's not in town no more. I don't know what these girls want around here. Most of them just want the Benjamins. They sure love that money. Whatever happened to the love, back in the year. When you could just talk with the girls."

Andy's eyes got all wide once Otis started talking about love, and his questions came fast. "How do you find someone to fall in love with? How do you know when you've found the right one? I mean, what made you want to move in with your girl?"

Otis stared across the street at the shoppers going in and out of all the Adams Four stores for a while before answering. "It's not who you love. It's who you let love you. I had this dog, see. Came from the pound, he was nothin' but a mutt. Used to tear up my whole crib, messin' with the carpets, my couch, scratch his claws on the damn entertainment center, everything. But after a while, he wuz sleeping by the door every time I left the house, just 'cuz he loved me. I became 'sponsible for that mutt. That's how love is. Once you let somebody love you, you become 'sponsible for them."

Otis' voice was a little slurred by now. Andy figured he'd gone through more than one bottle of Mexican beer that afternoon at the DART stop. But what he was saying made sense, and Andy kept listening.

"Maybe now I don't feel like I'm 'sponsible for nobody, 'cept for myself," said Otis. "But I know there's somebody out there for everybody. And God's gonna deliver me a nice girl one of these days. Probably find one for you, too."

Otis looked up suddenly, and pointed down West 4th Street. "Hey, here comes your bus."

Sure enough, the DART express to Delaware Tech was pulling up, and Andy stood up real quick.

"Thanks, Otis. I needed to hear all that."

Otis stuck out his clenched fist and bumped knuckles with Andy. "Anytime, boy! You alright, you know. Not one of those people all in a hurry, too busy to sit down and talk for awhile. You'll work it out. Stay easy, Andy."

Andy got on the DART and took a seat near the back. He waved to Otis out the window as the bus pulled away, and as Otis waved back Andy could see him do a doubletake as a pretty girl walked by. On the slow trip to the park and ride, Wilmington rush hour traffic snarled all around, he tried to remember everything he'd heard about love that day. By the time the DART let him off at his stop, Andy had decided he still didn't know very much about love, but at least now he had a lot more to think about.