the wanderer

by Bryan Alistair Charles

A night in July. The Club Soad marquee read FRI  SAT  ROLLINGHEAD. A crowd out front, voices, traffic cruising by on East Michigan Ave.

I walked through the doorway, a T-shaped shared entrance. To the left was Club Soda, to the right Bimbo's Pizza. I entered Bimbo's. Oldies on the sound system. I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around. I ordered a small cheese pie, plopped down in a booth. I was ravenous, pale, exhausted. For the last two months I had been working in the paper mill. A summer employment program open to workers' families. My stepfather, a Georgia-Pacific lifer (as his father had been), had told me about it. I applied. And lately did not know which way was up. Schedule was murder—swing shift but because you are filling in for people on vacation there is a randomness to it, they stick you wherever. Days one week, three to eleven the next, back to days, nights, three to eleven, days.

If you were lucky you would catch a couple-week cycle. Trudging through the vast roaring factory like a zombie. Dreaming on my feet. Jerking off in dark distant corners behind stacked massive paper rolls. Roaches scurry by, sometimes a shadowy rat. Hosing paper pulp off greasy floors. Snarfing vending machine fare at two, three a.m. Hostess fruit pies, microwaveable sausage-gravy-filled biscuits. Always an earplugged ear out for the siren that signals a paper-machine break.

I worked on the number seven machine. I was on days that week, at the end of the cycle. Tomorrow I would have to wake up at 5:45 to get to the mill by 6:30.

My pizza arrived. It was like eating a saltine slathered with Ragu and cheese.

Thinking of coworkers. Patti in rollwrap drives forklift quick to laugh and profane like most everyone in the mill. Sex talk at picnic table in rollwrap—Marla (and this is only implied in my presence, wink-wink) is having an affair with a married guy—Patti describes sex with husband (who she otherwise seems to like) as chore to be rushed through laughing saying "hurry up, get off and get off!" her loud laughter echoes through loading dock. Train tracks, an open train car, stacked massive paper rolls within. Humid nights. 4th of July we drank beer, dead of night. String of firecrackers popping on loading dock. Rollwrap. Dave (mustache, blue T-shirt, smoking) tells me they have done studies (who they is he does not specify) and found that working swing shift takes years off your life. We drive around the paper mill grounds on a battered golf cart. The rest of the world sleeping. Hazy humid sky no stars mosquitos and smell of polluted Kalamazoo River. Greasy work boots crusted with paper pulp. Igor walking to and from locker room wearing cowboy hat, overalls and leather vest with no shirt underneath, pointy cowboy boots with actual jingling spurs. Strange homemade tattoo of himself on his fleshy arm. Bright humid buzzing day loading dock jingling up concrete steps. Igor's odd silhouette. I wander, wander, pausing now and then to leaf through old (sometimes years old) magazines stacked in break areas. Found a copy of Eye of the Needle in a desk in a disused office and am reading it. Siren goes off and I go back to the machine, spray paper debris off dryers, wait for the guys above to rethread it. Drift away jerking off in some forgotten basement bathroom thinking of Marla green eyes behind large prescription safety glasses quick to laugh smoking bent cigarette—

From next door comes a burst of muffled guitar, throb of kick drum and bass. The opening band has begun to play.

Horse and Rider. Generic grunge. The singer had long curly hair that was always in his face and a low Vedderesque voice. Sludgy guitars and all their songs are like six minutes long. As soon as they were done I grabbed my customary spot front and center of the stage. Rollinghead moved their gear out. Singer Dave Grant saw me and waved and said hey. A bolt went through me. The other Rollinghead superfans had assumed their positions too. Next to me was the weird couple where the guy always stood behind the woman with his arms around her waist while she mouthed the words to every song while doing these kind of witchy-hippie dances, holding her arms up as though entreating the gods.

To my right were a gaggle of A&E writers from the Western Herald, most prominently a girl named Shirley who wrote about local music and whose pieces on Rollinghead I found vaguely threatening in their affinity for and perceptiveness about the band. Behind us people were crammed in shoulder to shoulder all the way past the bar to the front door.

The long slow build of "Terrifying" and then—

Music blasted us.

At last I let go.

Always some idiot trying to crowd surf. Chris the bouncer grabs him and pulls him down.

I closed my eyes and let go.

I so rarely let go.

Sleeping in basement after third shift and drive-thru McDonald's breakfast, blanket tacked over window to shut light out—Day sounds, mom puttering about, the always-on TV, mill roar echoing in my head—Drift away jerking off into dirty sock thinking of ex-girlfriend Tammy only to wake seconds (actually it is hours) later and step blinking into broiling midafternoon drive-thru Burger King dinner.

I, well, I guess you could say "danced." Six-five, gangly (as a kid had been called goon), no rhythm, throwing my body around knocked into the girl who had squeezed in next to me. "Sorry," I shouted. She laughed.

She had brown bobbed hair and wore a dark green blazer. Smooth pale skin and full red-tinged lips. She held half a drink in a plastic cup which she now set on the stage next to the monitor. She looked behind her at a girl wearing an oversized tie-dye who had bleach-blonde hair. The two smiled at each other. The blazer girl lit a cigarette. Blew a jet of smoke up into the bright light that blazed on the band.

I guess you could say "danced." Tidal pull of the crowd. Some idiot tried to crowd surf. Chris pulled him down.

The night, the music, the moment—Everything slipping away—My curse: always lamenting the inevitable end of whatever moment I am in—The days running away from me, the years—I am forever in the past—

All you had to do was smile . . . is what Tammy had said to me flatly by way of explaining why her parents never liked me and I am silent sitting in movie theater coldly staring waiting for Indecent Proposal to begin.

My hand brushed the blazer girl's hand. I kept stealing glances. She smirked at the woman doing her dramatic witchy dances.

Dave Grant stepped back from the microphone. Light glinted off his acoustic guitar. For the briefest of instants, a heartbeat, a plucked note, another world was revealed to me—a forest in winter giving onto a valley where everything glowed and shimmered with blue light.

Then a film cut and Dave was saying thank you and the band disappeared through the little stage-left door whose dimensions and odd angle from the audience made it seem like a fun-house effect.

We struck up a conversation, the blazer girl and the tie-dye girl and me, and ended up walking out together.

The fresh air felt wonderful. My eyes burned from the smoky bar. In the relative silence of the city night I was suddenly aware of the high whine in my ears. My feet were tired, felt like I had been on them for days marching through hostile landscapes. I could almost have lay down on the sidewalk and slept. Shirt reeked of cigarette smoke. In my head an insistent anxious voice kept saying it's late, it's late.

But I was walking in the opposite direction of my car.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to talk to strange women?"

"Only women in blazers and tie-dyes."

"Blazers?" the blazer girl said.

"Are you not wearing one?"

She looked down at it. "I would've just said jacket."

Tie-dye girl: "Yeah, what are you, fuckin fancy?" Slurring a bit.

We had arrived at a dirty white car.

"Well," I said, "it's sure been nice chatting with you girls."

"Yeah, we had a good old chat," the tie-dye girl said.

"See you around then."

But the blazer girl stayed where she was, arms crossed leaning against the driver-side door. Tie-dye girl had gone around to the passenger side. She yanked the handle a few times.

"All right Shelly, let's go."

"Shelly," I said.

"One sec," Shelly said.

Tie-dye girl emitted an exasperated sigh. Climbed onto the roof of the car. "Fuck it, as long as we're not goin anywhere."

"We're gonna go somewhere," Shelly said.

Then, to me: "What about you? What are you doing now?"

"Talking to you," I said.

"OK, let's say two minutes from now."

"Nothing. I have to be up in a few hours."

"What for?"

"Work."

"In a few hours?" tie-dye girl said, flat on her back, staring at the sky.

"Right."

"Why even go to bed?"

"Well, I mean is there anything . . . more interesting?—going on?"

Shelly shrugged.

"Maybe. I don't know. Depends."

Only after I was in the back seat of her car did she ask what my name was. I told her.

The tie-dye girl turned around. "I'm Dominique."

"Dominique," I said, "interesting."

"It's not her real name," Shelly said and she gunned it and sped through the empty intersection. I flew back against the seat.  

A dark smoke-filled house on Burr Oak . . . a couple of creeps drooling in front of the TV . . . wait—is that?? . . . yes, Sleepaway Camp. Haven't seen that one in ages. Friday the 13th ripoff. Sexually charged teens slaughtered in woods. Very low budget. Killer turns out to be a boy who was raised as a girl by a deranged aunt. For the whole movie you think Angela is this shy quiet girl until the big reveal—beach at night Angela apparently naked and cradling a boy's head in her lap humming to him lovingly when these counselors arrive trying to get to the bottom of things, the butchery having gone on for days, mutilated corpses hauled off in ambulances . . . the camp has somehow remained open, shady boss ever leery of bad press—these counselors show up and startle her, interrupting the seemingly tranquil loving scene, at which point Angela leaps up and the head she has been holding rolls away (it is the severed head of the boy she has always liked, the rest of him is lying in the sand) and she's got this big fucking knife and as the camera pulls back we see that Angela has a penis, see the penis in shadow Angela hissing wickedly flashing an evil look. The End.

In the kitchen another roots-showing blonde. "Hey I'm Georgia," she says to me . . . pale eyes, splotchy skin, she blows out a stream of smoke.

Dominique: "Hey girlie, got a bump?"

Grimy tabletop. Georgia taps out some lines. Dominique sniffs one, then Shelly, who then hands me the rolled bill.

I hesitate. I have never done cocaine before, although as it happens just the other day a guy I am friendly with at the mill offered to get me some . . . Burkhardt . . . he does coke, he says, mostly when he's on eleven to seven . . . he hates sleeping away his summer days.

I lean over and inhale the line. Sudden wicked burn in my sinuses. For a moment every anti-drug thing I have ever heard screams in my mind and I worry I will drop dead in this kitchen with these strangers.

The feeling passes.

I am still alive.

Dominique sloshes vodka and Coke into a coffee mug. Shelly lights another gasper. Lovely in dull kitchen light. She takes the blazer off. Black T-shirt, blue eyes—and oh the way she is looking at me, well . . .

We drift through the house. My earlier fatigue a memory. Lovely in flashing living room light teens slaughtered. Two creeps watch TV, slack-jawed, oblivious . . .

"Heroin," Shelly whispers.

"Really? Who are they?"

"Just some friends."

Now we (Shelly, Dominique, Georgia, me) are upstairs in a mostly bare bedroom, sprawled on floor, gabbing away. Turns out the three of them are . . . colleagues at the Velvet Touch, the dirty bookstore on West Main. I have driven by it countless times, never thought about it much except garish sign with painted leering woman always sort of distantly reminded me of Duran Duran's Rio album cover. But as I am learning it is so much more than a place to buy whack mags . . . Shelly puts a tape in, a bouncy jazzy number comes on, a mush-mouthed guy sing-speaks: never squeal on the pusher, don't lie to your mama.

Yes, at the Velvet Touch there is lingerie, lubricants, aphrodisiacs, sex toys. Interesting condoms, dirty greeting cards and playing cards, all manner of smaller novelties. There are video booths where you put in a quarter and watch a two-minute fuck flick . . . The screens are semen-encrusted, you can barely see through them, says Shelly who as cashier is tasked with cleaning them off (or attempting to) each night.

And behind a curtain are two rooms with mood lighting and soft music playing designated for "massages"—hence the name of the place, as the standard store offering, the so-called massage, is known officially, if never referred to by patrons or empoyees, as the Velvet Touch. Dominique and Georgia work in these rooms. Their job title is "model." They give the massages but are candid about what actually goes on.

They never fuck. Just use their hand.

"Here, feel," Dominique says proudly and urges me to touch the hard muscles up and down her right arm.

"Nice," I say, nodding, impresed.

"Wellllll, OK," Georgia says, "so if I like the guy, if we know each other a little, if he's a regular and a good tipper . . . " she shrugs, "I might go down on him. Might. It's been known to happen."

"Well, yeah," Dominique says, "sure."

In addition to her cash register and video booth duties Shelly must monitor the models' "sessions," which usually just means keeping an eye on the time (although most guys, and certainly the regulars, have the whole routine clocked to the second) but could also involve stepping in if there was trouble.

What about that, ever any real trouble?

Not really. The usual. Regulars who think they are in love and there is a real connection there etc.

"Same as when I used to dance at Déjà Vu," Georgia says.

"This guy Roger, he brings me flowers," Dominique says, "and always wants to talk about my life."

And do you?

"Sure, why not, but . . . sometimes I make stuff up, just to make it a little more . . . I don't know—interesting."

"Yeah," says Georgia, "it can be kinda the worst when they're real chatty—which surprisingly some are."

"Sometimes they want you to do the talking," Dominique says, "sometimes they want nasty talk."

And you oblige?

"Yeah, I mean . . . yeah, it's all a part of it, like a little mini performance . . . helps when they sorta tell me what to say though. Some do that."

"Yep," Georgia is nodding, "I got a few that're rather particular as to their dirty talk . . ."

Oh by the way, Shelly would like me to know that it is not all salivating weirdos and hand-job procurers. You see people from all walks of life in the Touch. Guys in suits or whatever. And one time she saw one of her professors. It was . . . awkward. She had just come on shift, was talking to the other clerk who was on his way out when boom—her sociology prof emerged from the video room. The dude is young—youngish—and Shelly really liked him, thought he was really sharp, had kind of a crush on him in fact. She had written a paper he had liked and praised her for, once in a while they talked for a moment or two after class. Never anything improper—the in-class discussion, assigned reading, blah blah. A minor crush in the scheme of things. Barely even sexual.

"Then suddenly there he is coming out of the video room! I'm gonna be spray-cleaning his spooge later! Soon as he saw me—and he couldn't not, I was like three feet away—he froze. Obviously mortified. Then he smiled this strange little smile, very tight, nodded like, yep, here we both are. Then he left."

They never mentioned it, of course. As far as she can tell he treated her pretty much the same after that, except no after-class chats, no extraneous praise, he would write like good observation in the margin, maybe a star, nothing beyond that. Remote. Polite. Would not look her in the eye.

Now Georgia is telling the story of her first kiss. As she speaks a movie of the memory plays on one of the room's bare white walls. Ricky Butler, out at Aunt Dee's farm. She did not enjoy it much. Ricky's fuzzy upper lip and he used too much tongue, damn near gagged her with it. But the way he held her hand . . .

Ricky liked Y&T. Ricky liked Def Leppard. Ricky lived like five miles away and rode his bike over even on the very damn hottest of days when Georgia was visiting Aunt Dee and Barry and Nicole. They would roam around together, Georgia and Ricky, go exploring on endless humid days—insect whine—deep in the woods where you would sometimes find old rusted farm equipment—Ricky's fuzzy upper lip and Y&T T-shirt: Show me . . . come on pleeeeease . . . begging—and eventually she did.

They rode bikes to Mike's Market and bought oatmeal cream pies. Saw Poltergeist at the drive-in sitting in Ricky's dad's truck. Ricky chucks a handful of pebbles at the pond and pretends the splashes are machine-gun fire, aiming with empty hands and making the firing sounds with his mouth.

And the way he held her hand . . . 

Kissing in damp basement Ricky shoved his tongue in—Tasted of peanut butter they had just eaten it Georgia fought an urge to laugh. Days of this—Show me—Eventually she did.

In tool room in basement her heart beating rapidly she pulled down her shorts. Both were silent, listening intently for any hint of motion in the house. Georgia was lightheaded, smiling. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she whispered. Ricky stood two feet away and could only stare, frozen . . . A floor squeaks somewhere, they rush out . . . Years later she saw him . . . Hey Ricky! . . . Cold to her . . . I go by Rich now, turning away—

I am sprawled on the dirty carpet in a fog of ten thousand cigarettes. I must get home. Odysseus in Burger King drive-thru. I am never going to bed. 

Shelly said, "Let's switch the vibe up."

Slips another tape in . . . Acoustic . . . CS&N, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." Meanwhile—O yes! speaking of farms—Dominique is telling a story about a guy from high school, a geek named Trevor who lived on a farm and told her they castrated animals with like these big rubber bands and—

What?

"Yeah, they wrap rubber bands around the nuts and then the nuts . . . I guess turn blue and stop working?—fall off?"

Laughter.

"That can't be right," I say.

"No, no, I think I've heard something like this," Shelly says.

"Yeah but nuts don't . . . I mean fall off? Wouldn't the whole area turn like gangrenous or something?"

"Gangrenous?"

"Yeah like . . . how long would you have to leave a rubber band on for a pair of nuts to like . . . detach from the body?"

Dominique: "OK so they don't 'fall off' then. But they do something with a rubber band. They like . . . squeeze it on so it disables the balls."

"How goddamn big is this rubber band? I assume we are not talking about castrating chickens here."

"Chickens are—"

"Roosters, whatever. I assume it's like . . . heavy livestock. Big fucking bulls. Balls."

"Fuck if I know," Dominique says.

"But you are the one telling the story."

"No, it was Trevor."

"Let's get Trevor on the horn then. Where is he?"

"Probably still on that farm, snappin on rubber bands . . . Georgia help me out here."

Georgia laughs. "Aunt Dee didn't have like big animals like that. Even if she did I doubt she would've had my non-farm-girl ass on castration duty. Not for the faint of heart, I wouldn't think."

Shelly: "A friend of mine volunteered at a vet's once. Thought she might want to be one. She saw a dog getting neutered and she said it was like, they make a little incision and then bloop," makes a small pushing gesture with index and middle fingers, "the testicles pop out like raisins."

"See that makes sense to me," I say, "that I get. Though . . . raisins doesn't sound like a totally apt comparison."

"All right. Marbles?"

"Sure. But there's still a snip involved. Testicles do not roll around loose in the scrotum, they would not just pop out."

"I'm not narrating a documentary," Shelly says.

Georgia: "Dom, this is what you oughta talk to Roger about."

Dominique laughs.

"Next time he comes around with flowers wanting to know what's going on with you, you tell him. Rubber bands, raisins. The nitty-gritty of animal castration, that could set quite the mood."

Shelly drove me back to my car. Streets are empty, all the buildings dark. Some song playing on the stereo, a fuzzed-out instrumental. Beautifully weary. Melodic. Voices at the end, dimly. Here Come the Warm Jets. Every traffic light blinking. Wanna hang out again? Sure . . . Shelly wrote her number on a scrap of paper along with a joke about rubber bands.

And then I was driving on Kings Highway. Passed right by the mill, still lit up, alive . . . Country Palace (strip club where Igor occasionally works as a bouncer) . . . through Comstock—Galesburg—big curve by Dreamers Furniture . . . 35th Street to house.

I pulled into the driveway. Got out of the car.

Birds chirping.

Smell of damp trees, earth.

Inside I removed my shoes but kept my clothes on. I lay on the bed. Stared at the ceiling, thinking. About thirty minutes later I rose. I grabbed my duffel bag, put my shoes on, walked out. And then I was driving again. Took G Avenue to 35th Street . . . big curve by Dreamers Furniture, through Galesburg—Comstock—and then out to the mill.

I pulled in and parked. Saw others walking in. Faint figures in the predawn. Ghosts almost. Burkhardt with his tall easy stride—Tolan a little ways behind him, shuffling in baggy jeans, short, squat—Weaver with black sweatshirt with sleeves cut off and big muscled arms.

Igor was waiting in the break area, showered and ready to depart (he used dish soap to clean himself, I had witnessed this—would bring a bottle of dish liquid into shower, squirt it generously over his bald head and lather up). He gave me a nod. "Been runnin good all night," he said, "no breaks."

He picked up his Igloo cooler and walked off, spurs jingling.

In the locker room I changed into my work clothes and boots. I bought a biscuit and an orange juice from the vending machine, stuck the biscuit in the microwave and when it was done ate it standing at the window looking out on the scrub below and a patch of parking lot. Quitting time—2:30—seemed a century away. Igor said the machine had been running well, which meant I might be able to get a little rest.

I walked around for a few minutes, making sure Thompson the foreman noticed me, then bopped down to rollwrap. Sections of newspaper scattered over the picnic table—Patti's faded Midwest Fastener thermos—smell of cigarette smoke and coffee . . . but no one sitting there. I went over to the brokebox, shoved a big mound of scrap paper aside and climbed in. Covered myself completely, heavy blankets of white paper. I could not be seen. I closed my eyes.

No sooner had I done so than the siren began to wail.

Fuck. Goddamn it. A break.

I climbed out of the brokebox. I went to work.

Photo of Bryan Alistair Charles

BIO: Bryan Alistair Charles is the author of a novel, a memoir, and a book about Pavement written for Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series. bryanalistaircharles.com.