It was James's modus operandi to light up a blunt
as soon as the AC had blown all the hot air out of the car.
Roll up the windows, turn on the stereo, light up the blunt.
That was the ritual, and as Jim B often
pointed out when drug use is ritualized, no problemo.
Today, steel guitar, rap, Funkadelic influences,
Stereo Maracana, Yes, liquid guitar with staccato voices,
as close to Van's interior music as you'd ever heard.
Smooth blue undertones, pulsing polka dots of orange then red.
If he had his guitar in his hands right now,
the sound would go directly from inside him into his fingers.
You just had to find a way to bypass the brain.
He just had to put some reverb on it.
Reverb up all the way.
By the time they kicked him to the curb
he was inside the music, outside himself.
He had assumed his father's omniscience.
He watched himself get out of the car,
check the mail, put the mail back in the mailbox,
kick the chain-link gate open then closed.
He heard them talking about him as he walked across the yard.
They said he looked thin.
They liked his new tennis shoes.
They thought he looked like he was waiting for rescue.
The voices, they were not his dad.
They were stones dropped into the pool of his own thoughts.
They were subdued today.
He put a CD on to drown them out completely,
but beneath the percussion, he could hear them chanting.
It was ritualistic as if some evil were being warded off.
He watched his hands make a sandwich.
Sometimes that helped to focus.
He watched the knife spread the deli mustard like paint
on a brown canvas, smooth over every square millimeter
of the bread.
Five slices of salami, two slices of provolone,
cover the salami exactly, slice the guard garlic
dills lengthwise.
Look how thin he gets them.
Look how thin the tomato slices.
Like paper, the purple onion.
He could work in a deli.
He could be a chef.
He could turn the music up.
Cover the salami exactly.
Slice the garlic dills lengthwise.
Look how thin he gets them.
Look how thin this, the tomato slices.
Like paper the purple onion.
He could work in a deli.
He could be a chef.
He could turn the music up a little louder.
He could check behind La Velvet Virgen for a camera,
a two way mirror.
He could go to the store and buy salt. He got in the car.
He hoped the woman was not up on the next street listening.
He hoped she wasn't a cop.
He hoped she wouldn't follow him.
He went around three blocks before driving to the store.
He walked into the store and put almost every carton of salt
in his basket.
He pretended his shirt wasn't dirty.
He kept his sunglasses on.
He didn't look at the person behind him.
He didn't look at the clerk.
He watched his finger tap in the secret number.
He put the bags of salt in the trunk.
He drove home.
He poured it all out, all of it, cartons of it
in a smooth ring around the perimeter of the house just
inside the fence.
He wanted a circle of white, something
that presented light and purity to surround them.
Back inside, the house was dark and quiet.
He could finally eat his sandwich.
He took a few tokes and filled up a glass with Coke,
went online.
Last night he'd been halfway through mapping
a room, a bar in 1940s Germany with Diego,
this dude in Puerto Rico.
Van liked practicing his Spanish, which reminded him.
He put on Con Respecto, a cover of the Beastie Boys "Girls".
Way cool.
Bumping, which became knocking on the front door.
When he walked out of the office to answer
their standing in the living room
his mom, his arm crossing, toe tapping, gum chewing mom.
She was wearing scrubs.
Even though she was the receptionist
she had to wear scrubs.
How dumb was that?
She had taken time off from work.
She was freaked out because he hadn't returned her calls.
Now she was freaked out by the ring of salt around the house.
What's that all about, Van?
Ants, he said.
Right.
He was trying to keep his head clear,
but she kept on and on and on.
She wanted him to recheck into rehab.
Why all those res he had wondered?
Recidivism, repossessed, was re ever good.
She was worried about him.
Why hadn't he returned her calls?
He needed to be responsible.
The sound of her voice was making his anxiety spiral out
of control spinning upwards from his chest to his head.
Gyroscope of anxiety he called it.
He tried to picture it slowing down instead of speeding up.
Sometimes it worked, but not that afternoon.
Wait, he told her.
I think I hear Diego.
Here that?
He went into the computer room, turned down the music.
Sure enough Diego's wife scolding him in Spanish again.
No.
There were more than two voices.
There was music, a whole Puerto Rican fiesta,
complete with laughing children and the whack
of the stick on a pinata.
But the sound was coming from the computer
instead of the headphones.
Did he have it on speaker?
No.
He checked.
Maybe it's possessed or something.
His mom had a funny look on her face.
Iván, she said, Iván.
Softer.
Her hand on his shoulder.
Her voice like when they were little before his dad died,
the old mom, the mom he loved.
Maybe there's something wrong with the hard drive
he said pulling the tower out from the wall.
Level with me.
Are you on drugs again?
Pot.
Only a little pot.
He checked the connections.
He was going to have to unscrew the back.
I want you to start going to meetings again.
Mom, I got to figure this out.
Darlene will kill me if I mess up her computer.
Please, you promised Isabel.
Mom, he said.
Chill.
That's all I've been doing, going
to meetings all frickin' week.
Darlene came home to a ring of salt around the house
and as far as she knew a fucked up hard drive.
Van and his brothers, James and Jim B,
two complete zeros if she'd ever met one,
were sitting on the sofa watching TV and drinking Patrón
as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about a ring
of salt around the house.
Yes, she had saved what was written
of her dissertation on the server and on her flash drive,
but that was not the issue.
The issue was that it was her computer,
and according to his mother, Van had messed it up.
The secondary issue, which was maybe the real issue
although she wouldn't use it because she
didn't want to be accused of being emotional, was this.
If she complained about the crash of the hard drive
or the mess of the living room or even
pointed out the weirdness of the salt,
she would be breaking Van's balls.
It was an expression James actually used.
According to James, she had Van by the short hairs.
Can we say dark ages?
Can we say Neanderthal?
They were all three staring at her waiting for the explosion.
Hey babe.
Van hit the mute on the remote.
The silence a prelude to apology,
like I told you momentary malfunction.
That was an apology.
She dropped her backpack on the floor
and tried to shake her thick bangs out of her eyes.
He patted the seat next to him on the couch.
She sat down reached for his shot glass
and poured some liquid heat down her throat.
She pushed her hair off her sweaty forehead, narrowed
her already narrow eyes.
She had decided to be, as was often said of the Chinese,
inscrutable.
OK, she was Vietnamese, but she could
adopt this technique of the ancient enemy of her ancestors
if she wanted to.
She could also practice absolute silence.
Silence and feigned deafness, forms
of resistance to assimilation practiced
by certain tribes of Native Americans
could also be, she knew from her two long years
as a graduate student, effective tactics
for dealing with those who would colonize you,
even if only metaphorically.
Maybe she could make James and Jim B so
uncomfortable they would leave.
Hey babe, Van said again.
Still she said nothing.
Felt his hand fall heavily on her thigh.
His long fingers close to her crotch.
The gesture in front of his friends proprietary.
She crossed her leg.
He moved his hand.
How was your class?
She shrugged.
She was waiting.
Van liked feeling the heat of her body next to his even
though it was a summer day.
Wherever the edge of her body pressed
into his an infusion of calm began to outline him
as if with a silver marker.
All along his edges like a shield of light
as if her energy could contain his.
He looked at the remote in his hand.
You guys want to see the rest of this?
Darlene stirred.
James held up his hand in the shape of a phone receiver,
mouthed call me.
Jim B, echo of James, did the same.
Pronto tonto, he said.