Gray Duck, Chapter Two

2. Graceland

Lounging back in the brown polyester seat of my Ford Escort, I listen to Paul Simon sing about Graceland, Graceland, he’s going to Graceland. As always, the tune makes me think of my mom. The CD belonged to her, before I’d nicked it and several others (including such childhood staples as With the Beatles, Cat Stevens Greatest Hits, and Bing Crosby Ultimate Christmas) to pawn at Electric Fetus. Selling them felt a bit like cutting my balls off—parting with some fundamental piece of myself.

I remember the clenching feeling in my loins as I leaned against that scratched, cherry wood counter and watched the clerk—a short kid with stubble on his chin and piss-bleached hair—shift through my stack. His eyes were hazel, the whites so red he looked like he’d come crawling out of a house fire.

“Uh…” He sniffed loudly and wiped his runny nose with his hand. “I could give you, like… I dunno, eight.”

“Eight? That’s not bad. So how much for all of them?”

He looked up at me and blinked. “Eight.”

“Fuck you.”

No better than a two-bit whore, I took my pittance and left. Graceland survived the purge only by chance, having slipped to safety between the passenger seat and central console. I found it a few weeks later when I went digging for a dropped sour cream and onion Ruffles potato chip (which is probably still there to this day).

I turn the music off, and in doing so, turn on the world around me. Jackhammers, rollers, concrete mixers. A cacophony of beeps and grinding gears and dusty voices. Minneapolis’s finest symphony: road work. All of it crammed into the only three months out of the year that construction can take place without fear of snow. By the time they finish a road, the beginning is cracked again, and if it isn’t one road, it’s another. No, you can’t use that side street—we’ve blocked it off to through traffic. Why? Because fuck you.

Cars crawl down Olsen Memorial Highway, squeezed into two lanes, like a funeral procession of geriatric tortoises. My Depends-wearing grandmother could have outpaced them in her wheelchair. Up ahead at the intersection, lights change from green to red faster than traffic can cross, and an unbothered bum weaves amongst the cars, barking words I can’t hear. His right hand rests in the front of his sagging gray sweat pants, and he wears no shirt. I can’t blame him. The day is wet, August hot, heavy with a thick humidity. Chill sweat rolls down my spine, finding its home in the crack of my ass.

I crank down the window and look out at the McDonald’s Play Place across the street, its golden arches kissing a cloudless blue sky. A cool breeze tickles my scalp, teasing—like a girl has pursed her lips and blown gently on my forehead. Soothing me. The idea is a pleasant one, but when I close my eyes and try to imagine it, the only face I can pull to mind is Marsha. So, I open my eyes again, and instead, I watch the Willy Loman lookalike in his Freudian slip red Volvo beside me as he goes digging for gold. Eureka.

“Get off the road, dumbass!” A white Thunderbird lays down on its horn, rocketing through East 38th Street and Hiawatha, swerving to avoid the bum at the intersection, who jumps about a foot in the air.

This time, I can hear him quite plainly when he shrieks, “Fuck you, motherfucker! Bitch ass! I’ll kill you!”

A hand sticks out of the Thunderbird’s window, raising its middle finger towards the sky before speeding away while in retaliation the bum thrusts up the first that isn’t shoved down his pants.

There is an abundance of bums in Minneapolis—you can find them anywhere, on almost any street. Like fire hydrants, or storm sewers. Nodding off on Blaisdell Avenue, pissing under the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge, and even, if you’re lucky, practicing soap box philosophy in very loud voices on that charming little patch of grass between Target and Home Depot. With mournful basset hound eyes and “God Bless” signs these living, breathing reminders of systematic failure can turn even the most scenic locations into discomforting reminders that you really aren’t as good of a person as you like to believe.

“Don’t judge,” my mom used to tell me, holding my hand as we passed men leaning at 45-degree angles with toenails as thick and long and brown as woodchips. “He’s somebody’s baby, too.”

I push my lighter into the aux outlet, then fish a Marlboro from the pack in my back pocket. This bum has no cardboard sign, and I can’t see his feet. His dull ginger hair has been buzzed almost down to the scalp and, in the high sun, it glows like a candle against his waxen skin. Trailing his movements with my eyes, I try to pick out how old he is. He could be 20. Could be 40.

When he turns his head, his gaze meets mine—probably the only one that doesn’t immediately look away. His pinpoint eyes are not so much pale blue as pools of silver, liquid mercury: the sort of dead stare you see in Civil War wet plate photography. Across his emaciated chest, a black ink eagle, its wings spread, opens its beak in a silent, forever scream.

My lighter pops out glowing like an ember, so I pull my head back in the car and light my smoke. Warmth floods my mouth and throat, then my lungs, and I can’t stop the cough that comes tearing up from my chest. Doctor Nelson says, so far, I’ve managed to decrease my lung capacity by a whopping 15%. An impressive start. But with continued effort, a bit of hustle, and some determination, I’m sure I could make it to 20.

“Yo, you got a smoke?” a high voice whines. I look up.

One hand with long, thin fingers, like pale kindling, has curled over and into my car. Slowly, my eyes travel up a scabby arm—a Jackson Pollock of freckles, weepy track marks, and pimples. The Irish skin has been burned pink, and it peels painfully at the shoulders. Extending his free hand into my car, the bum opens and closes his fist, fingers nearly brushing my nose. A baby reaching for its rattle.

“Gimme one,” he says.

I take his hand and shake it. “Charmed.”

Pulling a face, he wiggles his hand like a fish out of water until it’s free. Then he extends it once more.

“Don’t you say please?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“Don’t you say please?”

He throws his head back in a gesture that travels through his whole body: a wave rolling down his spine and into his feet. Kicking out at some invisible foe, he howls, “Fuck you!”

“Alright, you’ve convinced me.” I pull out another Marlboro, placing it in his open palm.

“Light,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“What?”

“You’re welcome, it’s no problem.”

By now, the stoplight has turned green, so I put my car in park and turn on my hazards, then pop my lighter back into the aux. Cars behind me give disapproving honks as they merge into the left lane. Willy Loman waggles a finger at me before passing.

The bum steps back and paces, shaking his hands at his sides as we wait, sniffling every few seconds and blinking hard, conscious blinks, no longer on autopilot. I can smell him. Stale, unwashed body. Unwashed body and cat piss.

“What’s your accent?”

“Huh?” He whips his head around. The lighter pops, and his hand is already back in my car by the time I pull it out. I pass it to him. He turns away, slipping his hand from his pants and cupping his cigarette like a seasoned con—one who knows all too well the dangers of flaunting commissary. Let no man see you prosper.

“Your accent. Where you from?”

“Boston.” He lets out a plume of smoke, then pockets my lighter and slides his hand back in his sweats.

“You sound like it. Hey, do me a favor. Say, ‘wicked pisser.’”

“Fuck you!”

“You got a way with words. People tell you that?” I cross my arms, folding them over the car door, and rest my chin on my wrists. He spits just shy of my tire, then starts walking back towards the intersection. I shift into drive and roll slowly alongside him. “What brings you to the big Cherry on the Spoon? Meeting with the Proud Boys?”

“Fucking chick.”

“Tale as old as time. Where’s she?”

He bares his teeth, squinting into the sun, and hisses, “Won’t let me in the fucking house.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Locked me out. Fucking bitch. I’ll kill that fucking bitch, man. Kick her in the fucking stomach, then she’ll die, too.” He takes a drag off his cigarette, eyes rolling like loose marbles in their sockets. The smoke does little to calm him, and he gives another almighty lurch, as though she was right in front of him, and he could reach out and throttle her. “Probably not even mine. Cut her fucking head off. Fuck!”

“My God. Are you always like this?”

“Huh?”

“It must be exhausting, being in your head.”

“Fuck you.” This time, he comes right up to my car again, shuffling to keep pace, and I’m face to face with his eagle. He pulls his hand out of his pants, squeezing it into a fist that he holds at his side while he goes up on his toes.  A little chickadee about to take flight. “You talking to me, fuckface? Get out of the car, faggot! I’ll cut your fucking head off!” He thumps his eagle once, twice, thrice. “I know who the fuck I am and where I’m from!”

“Do you?”

“Fuck you!” He flicks his half-finished cigarette, and it hits my cheek with a painful singe that makes me cringe before it falls to the roadside.

“Ow!” I cup my cheek, and for a moment, I’m tempted to throw open my car door, hit him in the shins. Maybe it shows on my face, because he takes three quick steps back. The light turns. “Christ. You goddamn bum. Piss poor way to say thanks—you’re not getting another.”

The light turns green, and I start to roll forward, the heat of the day now mixed with the heat in my stomach as I clutch the steering wheel, feeling a welt already bubbling on my face. I can see the bum in my rearview mirror, standing where I left him like an action figure waiting to be played with until something I can’t see breaks him from his trance. He bends down, plucks his cigarette off the ground, then hurries to my car again, shuffling along and smoking.

“Do you want something?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“Fuck’s sake. Do. You. Want. Something?”

“I dunno.” When he walks, he kicks his feet out. The light is still green, but I slow. Someone behind honks at me, and I’m oddly touched when the bum looks over and shrieks, “Fuck you!”

I press on the brake. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

“Dunno.” He sniffs.

“How’s life in Boston?”

“Shit.” He sticks his cigarette between his teeth and shoves both hands down the front of his pants, rocking on his heels. I squint up at him, at his ivory teeth and the patches of painful acne on his cheeks and at his hairline. A boil on his nose. I wonder if he’s old enough to drink. “I’m just trying to get somewhere safe, man, I’m just trying to get somewhere fucking safe, like…”

“You need the police or something?”

“Fuck da police!” He yips automatically. A hooligan sleeper agent. His cigarette falls out of his mouth and lands on the ground between meticulously kept white sneakers sneakers. He stops, bends down, picks it up, then hurries to catch up, shoving his hands in his pants once again.

“Alright. Jesus.” I put my car in park. “Get in, I’ll drive you somewhere safe.”

“What?”

“Do you have hearing problems?” I lean over, opening my passenger side door and pushing it open. But he doesn’t move. He stands there stupidly, smoke rising from the end of his cigarette.

“You a faggot?” he asks suspiciously, raising his chin.

“Might be.”

He scowls. “If you try anything, I’ll cut your head off, faggot.”

“I’m sure you will.”

This seems to satisfy him. He scrambles inside, closing the door with a bang. His stink mixes with the stink of my car. Hash, cigarettes, sweat, body odor. I turn off my hazards, and I at last cross the street. On the other side, traffic lightens up. No longer bumper to bumper, cars chug along, puffing exhaust like Winston Churchill on a fat cigar. He leans forward and turns on my music.

And my traveling companions

Are ghosts and empty sockets

I'm looking at ghosts and empties

But I've reason to believe

We all will be received

In Graceland

“What the fuck is this shit?” he says, face twisting as if he’d sucked a lemon.

“Paul Simmon’s 1986 solo album, Graceland. Title track Graceland.”

“Fuck me. Where the hell do you keep the rest of your CD’s?”

“I don’t.”

He looks at me. “What do you mean? So what, it’s… just Graceland?”

“Just Graceland.”

The way he stares, you’d think I was the one wandering the highway median strip with my hand in my pants and no shirt. That he was the one who stopped to give me a ride. No music? He shakes his head.

“Jesus,” he tells me, “you’re crazy.”