Here’s a scene from my new book, I Wish to Say to Lovely Things.
On Tuesday I take Frankie to work then drive to the office in Hillcrest.
A half block away as I pass the Friendship Hotel I realize I can’t, and I pull over at the first payphone I see and call in sick.
I make my voice sound ragged, stuffy. “I doan know whad happent. I jus woke ub feeging so sig. Is tha okay? Yeah? Thags so muge. I appreciad it.”
Downtown outside the Old Spaghetti Factory, I run into Joey Carr and we decide to walk to the harbor. It’s a warm, breezy day, the sky clear blue, and the city bustling with traffic, taxis, street construction, buses pulling up to stops, cranes lifting loads of rebar, painters on scaffolding giving office buildings a fresh coat of adobe pink or beige, skaters clacking across the sidewalks, a man walking three small dogs, planes overhead.
We walk fast and we talk about the war, about a cousin of Joey’s who tried to enlist and found out she has a heart condition.
Joey tells me, “Hey, hold up” or he says “Wait real quick” or “Just a sec” at every secluded spot where he smokes crystal from a tinfoil pipe he keeps in his hoodie pocket while I watch for cops.
A list describing Joey Carr—dyed black hair in a mop like a Beatle, very pale, sickly, gaunt, dark circles under his eyes, olive skin approaching green, stick thin jeans and a black hoodie, shaky hands, reeks of cigarettes and booze, “NOPE” written across the knuckles of one hand in Sharpie, fingernails painted black (though chipped), nervous, talking a mile a minute, smart but inarticulate, naïve, and god he’s lost a lot of weight since I last saw him. (Every time I see Joey Carr he looks more like a corpse.)
Down at the harbor we look at the Navy ships.
The bay waters sparkle with the sun in a moment of calm before the breeze kicks up then they are wind-swept, ruffled, dark blue.
The harbor is busy with tankers moving slow and gray battleships in the far-off distance and small white sailboats cutting past the bigger vessels. It’s a lovely thing and I forget temporarily the worries I have.
Joey leans forward on the railing like he’s going to rest his chin on his arms but snorts a bump of speed off the side of his hand.
The railing is painted dark blue, but it’s begun to chip and you can see older coats of paint—bright orange, gray, white below that like the layers of a jawbreaker.
“What if we joined the Navy?” he says.
“Like us, me and you?”
“Yeah. In the Navy.”
“Joey, we would suck as soldiers.”
“Yeah. I guess. I’m just thinking—I don’t know—thinking of doing something else.”
“Other than what?”
“This. Being a creep. Being a big piece of shit all the time.”
“Joey, you’re not a piece of shit all the time.”
He laughs. “Just some of the time?”
“Yeah. Just some of the time.”