Chapter 2: Ronnie Has A Cat (Novel)

Chapter 2

Normally “I’d like that” is a pretty neutral response. Most guys who received “I’d like that” would likely hear it as negative – a decided lack of enthusiasm indicating a lack of any real interest or attraction. I am not most guys. The way Heather said “I’d like that,” in concert with the tiniest of winks and a little bit of a smile said to me: “why don’t you ask for more?” I didn’t ask for more though. Heather went home for the weekend, and I waited for Marty to pull around with his truck so he could follow me to my house where I dropped off my car and picked up my bags and gear for the weekend.

This late in the day we won’t see much beyond the headlights from opposing traffic. As a child I loved to stare out the windows as we headed east out of Tucson, with it’s low-lying scrub brush and mesquite trees, down into Cochise County’s dust-bowl of bankrupt farming towns and then a sharp northern turn and up, up, up Route 666 into the White Mountains. Along the way the monstrous Arizona mountains loom on either side of the highway – always far enough in the distance that you can’t make out any detail, only ragged peaks of deep browns and purples against the blue sky. Only when the highway starts it’s ascent do you realize the sheer size of these rocks, after you’ve gone 20, 30 or more miles and the road still points upward into the pine forests, myriad mountain lakes, and Indian casinos. It’s a dangerous road, Highway 191 by legislative agreement, but Route 666 to the locals and the sportsmen who haul their hunting and fishing gear up it each season. Running along deep canyon cuts and gorges it skirts a thin line between the San Carlos Indian Reservation, and New Mexico through towns like Morenci which might make you think you’ve entered the third-world, and places like Hannagan Meadow, a near-alpine paradise where you might think the desert could never be a twisty 40 miles of asphalt behind you.

It’s near midnight when we arrive at the cabin. Time to unpack and get down to business. Marty grabs a six-pack from the cooler and sets it down on the dining table, and Ronnie begins rolling a joint. For Marty and I trips like this are our only chance to really let loose and pretend like we're college pranksters again. It's par for the course for Ronnie, but then his enthusiasm for partying has always outweighed ours. I hope that between the clean mountain air, the drinking, and the pot I can get over my apprehensions about Wendy’s fidelity. And my own – Heather’s parting smile from this afternoon has refused to leave my field of vision. “I’d like that,” she said. Christ.

”So how's married life these days buddy?”

Ronnie is talking through the tensioned face he wears between taking hits. Just like in movies he takes a long drag, a couple of short staccato drags, then tenses his face up as he holds the smoke in and stares at the joint as though it were foreign to him. Good smokers can talk while they do this, albeit in hurried speech and with some effort, and Ronnie has certainly invested plenty of his time in the art. His question implies more than what is being asked. Marty has gone off to baptize the throne.

“What do you mean?” I take the joint as it is passed to me.

“Well – you know – you've been acting a little tense lately.” He takes the smoke back and stares at it some more while he speaks. “I wrote it down to issues on the homefront. I’m just checking – no big deal.”

“Shit man.” Cough. “I don't know. She's been a bit distant lately. It's like I'm a room-mate, not a husband.”

“Really? Shit, that's no good.” Ronnie wets his finger with his tongue and uses it to carefully put out the joint. This must be important to him – he doesn’t like to stop smoking under most any circumstance. “You know what it is? What's eating at her, I mean?”

“No. I mean – not really. Did I ever tell you I got her pregnant?”

“What? She's pregnant?”

“No . . . not anymore. Before we got married I knocked her up. We decided to get tid of it, you know. Back then – man – hell even now - can you imagine me with a kid?”

“Fuck no man.” Ronnie picked the joint back up and was fishing for a lighter. “That would have been a bad move.” The lighter was in his jacket pocket, he lit the joint and began the trademark smoking ritual. “So what happened man? Do you think that's what's bothering her?”

“I don't know.” I took the joint and held it close to my face. I’d had enough between the few hits and a couple of beers that watching the paper burn was an entertaining exercise. “It seems like whenever we have a conversation now – which isn't too often – she wants to talk about kids.” I passed it back and tried not to cough. “We've been trying to get pregnant again, you know, now that I'm working a straight job and all - but no luck.”

Marty returned. “Damn! It got real quiet in here! What's up boys? Wasted already? Lost without me?”

“Did you know Tom had an abortion?”

“Fuck off, Ronnie.”

Marty took the joint from Ronny . “What the fuck would you go and do that shit for Tom?”

“I say good move man – who the hell wants a rugrat running around messing things up anyhow?”

“Screw you guys – both of you. What do you care?” I was peeling the label off of my beer bottle. It was a Red Hook. This sort of random placement of my attention mid-conversation was a habit I picked up at the age of 5 or so and have stubbornly refused to let go of since. If things don’t go my way I can always find something to pick at or fidget with rather than stay involved.

Marty stood up. “Fuck you man, what do I care . . . of course I care man. That shit pisses me off! Wendy's a beautiful woman – why can't you have a kid with her?”

“Look, we're trying to have another one – this was a long time ago. Things have changed.”

“A long time. Not long enough. That shit fucks with a woman man – you can't make someone do that.” Marty was still standing. He still had the joint in one hand and Ronnie was eyeballing it like a true addict – his eyes followed Marty’s hands almost robotically. I had my fidgeting, Ronnie had his drugs, and Marty had his anger – we made a good team.

“Hey – I didn't make her do anything. It was a mutual decision.”

“Well it sounds to me like you gave your chance up. God is punishing you – you aint having no damn kid. No second chances.” Marty sat down – he seemed satisfied with his sermon.

Ronnie seized on the joint when Marty set it on the arm of his chair. “I wonder what God's got in mind for me then!”

“Fuck you. Talking God and bullshit. What the fuck do you know?”

“I know a real man wouldn't do that shit. You better not do that shit again.” I had to give some weight to what Marty was saying. He always was ‘the man’ of our little gang. He looked the part too – big and strong with the rough face you’d expect from a guy who’s seen some action. I could tell you every exciting thing that’s happened in Ronnie’s life since he was a teen, but neither Ronnie or I knew much of Marty’s past. It wouldn’t surprise anybody if it turned out he had been a Soldier of Fortune in some South American guerrilla war or some such. He just had that air about him – toughness with the guts to back it.

Ronnie finished off the joint and went to the kitchen. Marty was staring at the ceiling and taking occasional drinks from his bottle. His bottle label was in tact. Mine was on the floor, in little clumps scraped from the bottle with poorly kept nails. Some bottles you could take the whole label off if you were careful, but these were glued down fairly well and you had to scrape at them. I want to keep thinking about beer bottle labels, but I can’t. My heart quickens a bit, I find myself staring at nothing at all and Heather floats into the room. She sits down next to me and places her arm gently around me. She smiles at me and we float out together through the chimney. She and I alone together and without any confusion.

“Hey man – you sure it was yours?” Ronnie was making a grand re-entry with six shots of tequila on a tray. He set them down and handed Marty and I each our first glass. We each raised our glasses slightly and nodded. Drink. Wince.

“Of course it was mine! She never fucked around.”

“I dunno man – maybe. Did you?”

“No – fuck no. It's not like I haven't thought about it but I can’t screw this up.”

Marty grabbed his second glass. “You never screwed around on her?”

“Never.”

Ronnie and I each grabbed our seconds. Tequila makes a good canary for the drunk. When it doesn’t hurt to drink this stuff then you are too far gone – you either go full bore and drop out of society or you’d better get help. Fuck help. We drank without a toast this time.

“What about that hot little thing you work with? The one you brought into Carl’s?”

“No, not with her or anybody else.”

Ronnie was up and pacing the room with a slice of lime between his front teeth. “Damn. Whatever floats your boat buddy, but I plan on dipping this pen in plenty more ink before I die.”

“What about loyalty man?”

He stopped pacing and took the lime out of his mouth to look less silly. “Look man, I'm loyal to you guys and that's it. Friends. Girls are decoration.”

Marty stood with his beer raised. “I'll drink to that man – loyalty to friends.”

“Loyalty to friends, and to family. Wendy’s my wife. She's my family.”

Marty sat down, any further argument from him would be hypocrisy. Ronnie looked confused and opened himself a beer. “Whatever man. Whatever.”

Things were really starting to happen in my mind now. The tequila might have put me over the limit. Heather was back now. And Wendy as well. They sat on either side of me and tugged. Responsibility verses lust. Known versus mysterious. Stability versus opportunity. I exhaled slowly and deliberately. In a moment of clarity I see Marty staring at the ceiling again while Ronnie mills about the room smoking another joint and nursing his beer. I notice the cabin walls are molded plastic tiles made to look like stone. I imagine a miniature me running from a two-headed dragon through the grout lines between the stones. One head blonde, one brunette. Both sweet lips and devil’s tongue. I start to slow down. The Wendyheatherdragon will catch me but there’s no helping it. I have to rest. I lie down on top of one of the fake plastic stones and I am asleep.

Ronnie wakes me up soon enough. He is trying to move his arm around my neck without waking me but his coordination has gone the way of being drunk and stoned. He rests his head on my shoulder. Marty is passed out in the chair, his head still tilted up towards the ceiling and half a beer spilled in his lap.

“What the fuck are you doing man?”

“What? Oh I’m drunk man – sorry – I just passed out.”

“Get the fuck off me.”

“I’m comfortable like this.”

“Ronnie – get off of me.”

“Fuck man.” Ronnie gets up and kicks a bottle off the coffee table, sending it to crash on the floor and shatter.

Marty woke with the noise of breaking glass. “What are you two fags up to? What’s that noise?”

Ronnie is looking for roaches in the ashtray. “Don’t look at me! Tom just tried to kiss me on the lips!”

“That right Tom? Did you try to slip poor Ronnie the tongue?” In what I hope is the only similarity between Marty and Heather, he also seems to enjoy the gay jokes a bit too much. One time when Ronnie brought around a real queen with lisp, painted nails and all, Marty couldn’t stop laughing for days. No matter what Ronnie’s friend said it was the funniest thing Marty had ever heard and soon enough the queen left on account of Marty’s crass behavior.

“Fuck off. Fuck you Ronnie.” I get up from the couch myself, grab my jacket, and head out the door.

Damn it Ronnie. It wouldn't bother me if he was just drunk, but there's been too many times that I swear to God he's coming on to me. There’s nothing wrong with that even, but how long do you need to know a guy is straight before you give up? I know he goes both ways – it's mostly girls but sometimes he brings a boy around. We never give him too much shit about it, but when he tries this shit on me I want to punch him. Fuck it. I go back inside to grab Ronnie’s car keys from the table and I leave.

This will make two trips along this road without the pleasure of seeing it. Without the scenery it’s just a dangerous series of narrow roads and sharp curves, especially exciting after that party we had back in the cabin. I finally stopped thinking about Heather long enough to concentrate on not crashing and to be pissed about Ronnie. What would that piece of shit done if I hadn’t woke? Fuck him – I need to stop hanging around that guy. The whole time we’ve been friends he’s been a let down. I remember when he and I were taking our first big step up as dealers. We were small time idiots with big egos trying to setup a large purchase of weed from a dealer we had a connection with up in Phoenix. Up to this point we had dealt with a couple of pounds at the most – just dividing it up into socially acceptable portions and quadrupling the price for our efforts. Ronny decided we should step things up a couple notches and arranged this deal for a couple hundred pounds in one delivery. It would be much more than we had ever seen in one place and it was coming across the border with our name on it. We waited for the truck in a rented storage unit Ronnie had leased under a false name and as zero hour approached Ronnie started to get pretty nervous.

“I don’t know man, this doesn’t feel good.” He was smoking a cigarette standing just at the entrance to the rented unit.

“Now’s a good time to bring it up – they’re supposed to be here any minute.”

“Shit. Let’s bail.” Ronnie dropped his smoke and put it out with his foot.

“Too late.”

A big red Ford truck was heading our way. The windows were illegally tinted so you couldn’t see anything inside. Right on time. Ronnie looked at me for a minute without saying a word. I turned my attention back to the truck ad felt myself getting pretty nervous as well. Ronnie must have felt worse - he took off running and hopped over the fence surrounding the storage facility with surprising agility. A thousand possibilities ran through my head and finally I resolved to follow Ronnie – if anybody knew it was a bad deal it would be the guy who arranged it. It was too late. The truck stopped right outside the unit as I still stood inside.

The man who emerged from the passenger side of the truck looked up and down the aisle of storage units before coming inside to join me. He could only have been 16 years old. His black hair was slicked back with a comb and he wore a goatee. He looked me up and down twice and spat chewing tobacco on the floor.

“You Ronnie?”

“No.” I felt like I had already been shot by this kid. What the hell was Ronnie thinking, ditching me in this situation. “He sent me to take care of this.”

“That wasn’t his chicken-shit ass jumping that fence over there, puto?”

“Yeah. That was him.”

“You Ronnie's friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Well he aint no friend of yours, fucking your ass like this, is he, puto?”

I couldn’t say anything. He was right, Ronnie had just left me for dead. I’m standing in a concrete storage unit rented under a false name with eighty-thousand dollars and at least one kid who looks like he would kill his own mother for the right price. I never carried a gun, always said I never would, but right now I wish I had something with me for peace of mind. I know without being shown that this kid is armed.

“You better tell me some good news. Tell me you’ve got my money.”

“Yeah.” I relaxed just a little. If he is asking me for the money, maybe he’s still open to deal. “Yeah I got the money here. Did you bring the stuff?”

“I’ll tell you what, puto. You show me where the fucking money is and I won’t shoot you in the balls, how’s that sound?” The kid pulled a rather large gun from the waist of his pants just to show me he wasn’t kidding. I pointed to a cardboard box in the corner. He walked to it and knelt, gave me a quick look as though to warn me about any action while his back was turned, then opened the box revealing our carefully counted and stacked money.

Eighty-thousand dollars is a lot of money to most people, but when you’ve risked prison, robbery or worse seven nights a week making small-time drug deals in order to put that cash together it seems like so much more. You wonder why you don’t just take the money and run. Take a few years off, don’t take any risks, just live easy for a while. Go straight. Go to school and screw 18-yr. old daughters of rich guys. But then a guy like Ronnie convinces you that 80 grand is worth a half million if you play your cards right and instead of making the right choice you end up watching some teen-aged smuggler with a gun rifle through your savings like it wasn’t worth his time.

The kid was done. He picked up the box and carried it to the back of the truck where I couldn’t see him. My heart sank a little – it was gone. Ronnie had screwed us both, but this kid was getting the money either way.

“Hey – get your white ass over here puto! I aint unloading this shit by myself.”

I came around to the back of the truck and saw that it was loaded with boxes – presumably that was our shipment. Together the kid and I unloaded the truck while the driver kept the engine running. When we had everything loaded into the storage unit I closed and locked it.

The kid looked at me with a smirk and a quick wink. “Listen, I want you to tell Ronnie something for me when you see him.”

“What’s that?”

“You tell him that he better get out of this business. We run most of the big weed deals in this town and if I ever see him I’m gonna castrate his sorry ass. You tell him that, puto.” He spit, climbed into the truck and they left.

I was numb. I couldn’t believe that Ronnie had run. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t dead, or at the very least standing with no money and no weed in an empty storage unit. For a long time I just stood there in the sun and tried to calm myself unsuccessfully. Eventually I found my way to Carl’s and let my liver filter out my troubles.

The next day Ronnie came around my house looking like he had been on one hell of a bender since he abandoned me the day before. When I opened the door to greet him it was all I had inside me just to keep from punching him in the face. He wanted to know how it had gone down, was I alright, did I have the money, or the weed, or both? I closed the door and let him worry on his own for a while longer. I would need him to distribute the weed, but for now I couldn’t deal with his bullshit.

I should have known right then I couldn’t depend on Ronnie. Should have learned my lesson and moved on. Instead I’m driving drunk in the middle of the night through mountain passes in order to escape his continued bullshit. Fuck Ronnie. I plow through the darkness and I’m home before sunrise.

I find my myself sitting in the driveway unable to move. Her car is here, but is she home? Would she be home on a weekend I’m supposed to be gone? Or if she is home, is she alone? How would I react to seeing another man in my bed with my wife? It’s hard to know the answer to that. I hope I never find out. I determine to go inside.

She's home. Already up, she’s eating breakfast and when I enter the kitchen she drops her spoon into her bowl.

“What are you doing here?”

“I live here, remember?”

“You know what I mean, Tom. You’re supposed to back Sunday night, not Saturday morning.”

“I couldn’t handle it out there. Ronnie and Marty just wanted to fuck around. You know, I needed to relax this weekend.”

She can only grunt in response. Her look is contentious and she taps her nails on the table for a moment before getting up to clear her breakfast dishes. Not at all happy to see me, I suppose. I go to bed and hear her getting in the shower. I should be ready to pass out but I can’t. Thoughts are tumbling in and out of the forefront of my mind. What kind of a person am I? I replace my marital problems with thoughts of Heather. Heather is replaced by anger at Ronnie and Ronnie is quickly deposed by my marital problems.

Wendy can’t even stand to be near me. I come home early and she clears her place, showers and will likely leave for the day. What’s the difference if she cheats on me or not, I suppose. I’ve already lost her.