Chapter XXXV: End of the Innocence

Chapter Thirty-Five: End of the Innocence

I'd prefer to skip over this part with a short paragraph like, “Went to party w. Cristo and Buddy and Erin. Got Drunk. Passed out. In morning walked back to Bone Harbor w/ Erin.” But that wouldn't capture the night as well as a few well-placed details would. After much debate I decided to give you the extended version.

The trouble started when Cristo called 'Shotgun' first. Buddy got in the front passenger seat anyway.

“Come on, Huggy. I called it.”

“Get in the back and shut your fat mouth, Sticky. Do you want me to piss on you again? What? You think you got the Dave Dorows to fight me?”

Huggy faked a right jab at Cristo and we all laughed when Cristo tripped on his own crippled leg. He landed hard on his big ass and then tightened his shoe laces as if that was why he was on the ground in the first place.

“Real funny, Buddy. Is it funny that Oggy told me you got caught shoplifting dildos at Peter's Palace? Huh?”

I was already too drunk to care if Huggy got mad at me for something I never said. Was he gonna sue me? Get in line. Still, this didn't stop me from trying to execute a “Crane” technique kick to Cristo's chest.

Huggy shook his head as I grappled with Cristo for a short round in the snow.

“Why do you have to do that, Sticky? You tell lies about Oggy telling lies? What kind of coward are you? Can't you be a man? This isn't BHHS. We're all equal now. We all have to live our own lives now. You know, Sticky, you always try to blow other people's candles so yours shine brighter. Why don't you try lighting candles instead?”

This was pure Huggington mockery. I knew that Buddy would shit on my car seat and steal my mother's heirloom jewelry given a chance. Cristo knew too.

“But he did! Oggy was talking so much shit about you. He said you take the dildos out to Pierce Island and shove 'em up your ass. He really did.”

I coughed up a big wad of phlegm and spat it over the car and onto Cristo's pants.

“Shut your flabby mouth, Sticky,” I mumbled as I finished another can of Natural Ice beer. “At least I'm man enough to tell people what I think of 'em to their face. I'm not a two-faced Greek Fahk like you. Pussy! 'Look at me. My name's Sticky and I'm a pussy.”

Huggy was dipping Kodiak chewing tobacco and spit some dark wetness at Cristo's arm. He dodged it, but I pointed and did a little dance and laughed. Cristo looked to Skipper Sully, who was preparing to drive.

“You know Oggy beat off in your sister's bed? He bragged about it like a sick bastard.”

Skipper shrugged.

“At least it wasn't my bed.”

Cristo turned desperately to Erin.

“Oggy told me Rose licked his ass. He told me her pussy stinks.”

Erin's lips curled up. He threw an empty can at Cristo. I wished Piper Skinski could have been here to see this. It was so human. I waited for Erin to attack Cristo, but he hadn't had enough to drink yet.

“That doesn't work anymore, fatty. You're just a scared little kid throwing up a smoke screen so we don't make fun of you. I'm on to you Sticky. You're really just sad.”

“Yeah!” I yelled and beat on the roof of the car. “Get him a body bag! Fatso! Sweep the leg, Johnny!”

I spat at Cristo again. Erin stared in disgust at him. Skipper didn't even want to waste the spit on him. Huggy faked another punch and Cristo fell back into a pile of snowy dog shit. I felt tingly all over, indestructible. I tried to kiss Skipper but he dodged me and got behind the wheel. I told Huggy to punch me in the chin. After he did I danced around by the car and slapped my own face. I was numb. The Wraiths lay huddled nearby but only watched. Maybe they realized I was on the edge and since they were smart parasites, they were careful; they needed their host.

We tried to drive away without Cristo but he opened the door and jumped in while we were moving. He cried out when the door closed on his ankle. I punched him in the arm just to get back at him for talking shit about me.

“Hey, Huggy, you don't have the Jamie Moorheads to piss on Sticky. Oooh, that reminds me Sticky. Your mom is just like M&Ms. She melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”

Skipper laughed. Cristo sulked so I laughed and taunted him in between swallows of beer. I felt so good I pounded my chest like an ape. I bit the beer can before it was empty and beer sprayed all over everyone causing an outburst.

“Calm down, you pickle-pounders. Hey, Sticky, your mom is like the Asia all-you-can-eat buffet: It stinks and makes you sick but you just can't stop eating. Did your fat dad go back to Greece to get his Gillies foot-long sucked, or is it because he's a fat fahk? Hey, Is that your mom out there?” I pointed to a parked car and laughed like this was the funniest joke ever told. I bit the can again and cut my lip on the jagged metal.

“Hey, Huggy, you're a handsome man. Remember that time we snuck out of the Weinbaum warehouse? We went over to diddle Sticky's mom for a couple hours. HA! Remember the time you tore out that Hustler centerfold and stuck it in that bitch's purse? She nearly shit a squirrel when she saw it. And you beat up that retarded kid. Remember? You hit him and he fell and I threw that car of his into the woods. Remember when we got fired? Punch me again.”

“Settle down, Bob Stanley. Jesus, what a sausage party in here.” He looked around the car. Skipper was driving, Erin was looking out the window as he spit into his aluminum spittoon. Cristo was rubbing his ankle. I was searching on the floor for another beer. As long as I was drinking I didn't care that I was getting sued.

“Where are the whores?” yelled Huggy.

“I think I would like to suck your sausage, Huggy. You down with that, big boy? You want me? I'll treat you real nice. Boom Boom long time. Me suckie suckie. Fi' dollah. I'll fahk you hard! Say you want it.” I pinched his ears like Rose used to. “Oooh, your dick is so wookie, Buddy. Come on, Buddy, say your dick is wookie. Say it, you fag.”

“Get off me, Oggy, you Drunk!” He turned around and slugged me in the shoulder. I, in turn, punched Cristo.

“Kodiak! Buddy called me a drunk and then punched me. He called me a Drunk. This is just like It's a Wonderful Life when George gets drunk. Remember? Now I'm the one who's worth more dead than alive. See? Am I a Drunk? I'm not a Drunk. I might be drunk but I'm not a Drunk. Are you a Drunk? I'll kill whoever calls me a Drunk. You don't have the Clarence Goodbodies to call me a Drunk again.” I laughed and beat the car seat with my fist but my throat was tight.

Skipper looked in the rear view mirror. “Watch the car, Oggy, Man, brothah.”

“Skip! Skip, have I ever told you how much I love you? I love you and your father and your mother. I love your sisters. I want to be part of your family, Skip. Adopt me. Will you adopt me? You don't have the Buster Sudans to adopt me. Will you be my brother? Please adopt me before I shoot my father.”

“Sure thing, bro. Just don't punch the seats. Relax.”

“Kodiak! Skip told me to relax. Huggy called me a drunk. Are you getting all of this? It's priceless! This is the youth song, Kodiak. We are finally writing the poem of time forgotten. Uh.”

I clawed at the window and blew my nose in my hand, wiping the snot on Cristo's pants.

“Are you gonna puke, Oggy? Do it out the window, you fahk. Don't puke in my car.”

I was very close to turning inside out. The Natural Ice beer tasted like pure poison. Jaundice was a six pack away. My eyes watered and I rolled the window down just in case. I drooled down the car door, my head bounding along, my Sox cap plastered by sweat to my forehead. Lights went by, a honk, a human cry, then more lights and snow. I groaned and spoke as much to the white landscape as to the occupants of the car.

“We've finally got the Timewraiths on the run. This is my masterpiece, boys. I'll paint you all in electric lightning and far out flames. I'll create a masterpiece out of raspberry jelly baked on sheet metal. I'll raise you up in glorious superman freak french-fries. Oh! Look out, is that Sticky's Greek dad?”

I pointed to another parked car in the dark then I laughed to myself since no one had been listening. I felt like the whore of the earth, loving and embracing all who needed me. I kissed Cristo on his head and reached to kiss Erin.

“That's enough, Clarence. Just slow down. Hey, your mouth's bleeding.”

I touched my face and went into my Jimmy Stewart impersonation.

“My mouth's bleeding, Burt! My mouth's bleeding! Zuzus petals. Zuzus petals. There they are! Merry Christmas!”

I stuck my head out the window again and called out to the pedestrians on the streets of Willowville.

“Merry Christmas, JJ Newberrys! Merry Christmas, Chickanoosuc Savings and Loan! Merry Christmas, Gillies. Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter.”

“And a happy New Year,” said Erin, “In jail.”

I pulled another beer from the floor and upon finding it already empty I hurled it onto the street.

“Wait, Skip. I dropped a beer can. I've gotta go back.”

“We're almost there, Kid. Just relax.”

“But I dropped the can and I'm sick. Stop the car.”

Buddy slapped my face.

“Puke out the window, monkey breath. We ain't stopping.” Then he grinned and shrugged like a guilty kid. “ Sorry about that. Here's a cold one, handsome. Drink up.”

Huggy handed me an open beer. I forgot about the beer can I'd dropped and yelled to Erin, “Mr. Martini. How about some wine?”

“Wait, Oggy!” called Skipper.

I ignored him and drank deeply from the can, instantly realizing by the laughter from the front seat that I'd been duped. It was a half-filled can of chewing tobacco spit from Huggy and Erin's Kodiak fix. When they put the dip between their lip and teeth the saliva had to be spit into a cup or else on the ground. Swallowing dip spit, even your own, guaranteed six hours of agony as the stomach tried to digest the nicotine and chemical saturated leaf shreds. Bastards! I'd swallowed a good amount before my taste buds revolted and my throat completely closed in a violent gag. My stomach burned and bellowed. Urine scented sweat beaded up and dripped off my mustache. Huggy laughed and sang, “Oggy drank my dip spit! Oggy drank my dip spit. Loser.”

“'Look at me,” said Cristo from the other side of the car, “I'm Oggy and I drink slimy dip spit. Yummy in my belly. I'm a big fahking cunt loser.'“

I leaned out the window and dropped the can of spit into the street. My vision became blurry as my eyes filled with tears of nausea. Then I stuck my finger down my throat and puked out the foreign saliva and beer and a piece of gum I'd swallowed earlier and half a banana I'd eaten for breakfast. Some vomit spewed onto the salty breakdown lane but most just dribbled down the side of the car like thick rain. When I felt Cristo try to push me out I pulled myself back in and searched the floor for an unopened beer. I rinsed my mouth out with the beer and spit it out the window. Then I chugged the rest, belched and fixed my Sox cap. The crowd all groaned at the smell of my breath. A door had been opened and I felt that anything I said would be forgiven once the New Year arrived.

“Me so horny, Erin. I'll treat you nice! Come on Mr. Dip Spit, you don't have the Hawk Adders to come back here and suck my sausage.”

Hawk Adders was a student who had climbed Tuckerman's Ravine in the White Mountains to Snowboard down it, only to be caught in an avalanche and buried for two days. He survived but lost an ear. Suggesting Erin did not have the Hawk Adders to do something was about as provocative as saying he did not have the Roddy Monahans. These were fighting words. But Erin just wanted to drink.

“Get off. Quit it you queer. You know your old lover Darcy Devins will be here. She's back from college. Looking good too. Hot! “

I opened another beer and slugged half of it back to hide my reaction. Then I said, “That old whore? I thought I could smell some fish in the air. Her stinky hole reeks as bad as Sticky's big Smurf.”

I was ashamed to criticize Darcy, my old lust bucket, but the beer was quick to my lips. Huggy laughed. Erin smiled back at me with his crooked teeth. I continued to spit out my betrayal.

“I wouldn't screw that slut with Huggy's dick and Mike Dowd pushing. She can take her stinky spandex running tights and her big hair and her Def Leppard tapes and her French-rolled jeans and shove them all up her wrinkled cow Smurf. What do you think of that? Huh, Sticky? Huh, tough guy? I wouldn't fahk her with Olson's dick.”

“You couldn't fahk her with Olson's dick; it's only half an inch long!”

We laughed at Olson's expense and exchanged hi-fives. The night was a pregnant Hindu cow of possibilities.

“Finally. The Old Oggy is back. He's back, Kodiak.”

Cristo's comment only increased my misery. I had betrayed my love for Darcy. I had thrown aluminum cans onto the streets of Willowville. I had disgraced the Red Sox. I was the old Oggy, old and selfish and still wearing Dewey's Sox cap, still hungering elusive attention. Being sued hadn't made me mature or worldly, it just made me mean and bitter. The Oggy who cared about the children in Iraq was gone. A drunken criminal had taken over his body. I made a mental note to flog myself when I got home.

I drank some more booze to hide my shame. I still loved Darcy and often pleasured myself in the bathroom with her sock while looking at her 1988 High School yearbook picture and softly moaning her name. I had kissed her picture so many times that the lamination was wearing off. I tried to convince myself that she had missed a big opportunity for love and security with me, but that was ridiculous. I was a loser who dropped out of college and got fired from a janitor job. I had no prospects and I was getting sued for a thousand times what I had in savings. She had made the right choice. I poured beer down my throat without tasting it. At least all evidence of dip spit was gone from my body.

Skipper said, “Slow down, there, Sean Gibbons.”

Sean had been a prodigious drinker before he swallowed a shot gun barrel and blew off his head the year after the Sox lost the World Series. I still remembered his deep brooding silence when he played Capture The Flag. He was short. He liked The Scorpions. I couldn't remember what color his hair was.

“What color hair did Sean Gibbons have?”

“The same color as your mom's bush hair,” laughed Huggy.

What a legacy! I tried to laugh too.

When we arrived at the house I fell out of the car into a puddle. Then I attacked Huggy for making me drink his spit. He easily deflected my closed-fist karate chop and pushed me onto the ground.

“You wanna fight?” I called from the icy lawn. “You don't have the Fingers McEagans to fight me. That's right, Karate Kid,” I said as he walked away. “You don't have the Chatham Borders to fight me. Come on, Sausage Man. I'll do you right. Boom Boom long time. Two dollah. I'll do ya' good! No retreat, no surrender. Get him a body bag, Johnny! No Mercy!”

I was deliriously plastered. Time was in a gin vortex. The stars spun in tight circles. It took a dozen more beers to maintain my level of joy once Erin and Skipper helped me stumble into the party. I told Huggy that if I saw Darcy I would go over and grab her by her neck and take her on the stairs. I would make such passionate love to her that she would decide to come to Mexico with me. She had to. If she didn't then I would knife her in the back with a kitchen blade, The bitch! Huggy laughed. Good old Oggy. Drink up! Have some more Vodka.

Then things got blurry and ill. Everywhere I turned were menacing faces. “Who am I?” I yelled at a stranger who had questioned my identity, “I'm your little sister's worst nightmare, that's who. You don't know Ray Knight. Where's Huggy? Get that sausage-smoker over here. I'll kick his Calvin Schiraldi ass. Blech!” Then I showed him the Sox team photo. “Do you see Dewey? Yeah? Well, fahk you and the camel your mom rode in on.”

I stumbled into a well built red-headed girl and bent down to kiss her shoes. Then I used her legs to help me to my feet. As I was about to introduce myself she said, “Oggy? What are you doing?”

It was Rose McCorley, back from college. She looked terrific. The perm was gone, replaced by naturally wavy hair. Gorgeous. I held up a plastic cup full of beer, vodka and cigarette butts.

“I saved the first drink for you, kid,” I slurred.

I tried to drink the lumpy cocktail but gagged and spit down the front of my Red Sox shirt.

“You've got hair,” I babbled. “I love your hair. Can I kiss it?”

I leaned forward while Rose leaned back, pushing me away. I stumbled into her arms and drooled on her shoulder as I tried to kiss her neck. Failing that, I inexplicably bit her hair. I believe I was trying to kiss her ear, but try telling that to Rose.

“Oggy! You fahkin' drunk fahk. You're slobbering all over my shoes. Why can't you get your life together? First you scare the hell out of me in Virginia. Then you drool your vodka breath on my shoes. Pig! Get help!”

“Rose, my old gal. I love you. I was just telling Cristo that I love you and I wanna have your baby. I mean...”

“Oggy, you're fahkin' cocked. Stop!”

I swayed a little before knocking over a lamp.

“Oh, so you're too good to kiss the man who got the high score on Star Castle? Your perm is too high now? Your lips are too sweet for me? Is that it, you 90210 slut?”

Rose's face was a mask of hatred at this point, but I knew I couldn't turn back. I was on the express elevator and the only direction was down.

“Is that it, whore? You find someone else's ear to tug in the back seat of a VW Superbeetle? Huh? I'll bet he doesn't know who Ray Knight is. I'll bet...”

“Stop it, Oggy! Leave me the fahk alone.”

Rose tried to step around me but I caught her by the waist and attempted to kiss her on the lips. She gave me some sort of women's defense class heel strike to my chin that my Ninja training had provided no defense for. I bit the inside of my cheek.

“But we kissed, Rose,” I whimpered as I rubbed my mouth. “I fahkin' love you. We kissed on the lips!”

Rose straightened her blouse out and said, “That was a long time ago, Oggy. You weren't so bad then.”

“A long time ago? It was yesterday. We kissed!”

Rose, being a track star, hurdled my outstretched arms.

“You gave me a hand job, Rose.” I plead. “Wanna tug my ears again. You used to love that.”

Rose turned around. “Not so loud, Oggy. Don't talk to me anymore. Don't write me letters. I don't want to talk to you.” She walked away as she always seemed to do. I watched her taunt ass and rubbed my crotch. I was numb all over.

“You whore!” I yelled. “You don't know how good I am. I'm good. I know things that you don't know. You slut! Your hand job sucked anyway. My couch gives better head! Darcy's sock...”

Whoever threw the ceramic ashtray at me had pretty good aim. The thing hit me right between the eyes and down I went.

Later, when Cristo came over to where I had collapsed in a wicker chair, I was drooling on myself and laughing out loud. The team photo was damp, but I still had it. Cristo smoked a cigarette in the style of James Dean and tapped the ashes onto my head. We were in the 'Chill out and drink' room. Upstairs there was the 'Heavy metal played loud on dad's stereo' room. Next to that was the 'Doing low grade designer drugs' room. Next to that was the 'Temporary make out' room. The garage was the 'Keg' room. Erin and Skipper were in the garage, but I couldn't face them. I had humiliated myself in some dramatic way after my encounter with Rose and the ceramic ashtray. But how? All I had were snapshot memories of the evening. What had I said to Erin? Slowly the memory came into focus:

“You don't have the Donna Reeds to measure your sausage against mine.” I had challenged, with my pants were down around my ankles. “Come on, Mr. Potter. Whip out that broomstick. Whip out your candy cane, Mr. Santa Claus.”

Had I then called Skipper a “White trash Langdonville punk who would never amount to anything.” I was pretty sure I had. It was too much to apologize for. I then remembered holding up a plastic cup of beer flavored piss or piss flavored beer, spilling half of it on my shoes, swearing drunkenly as though my curses could deliver me from my beer bonds. Erin stood by watching me with mild disgust. I glared at him and shouted my toast to the apathetic crowd.

“To Erin McCorley. The richest Irish drunk in this rotten-ass town!” I spit dramatically on the garage floor and wiped my mouth. “ May he got to hell with a six pack under one arm and a filthy English whore under the other. Merry fahking Christmas everyone.”

I then recalled blowing my nose on my sleeve and starting to belt out, “Should old acquaintance be forgot, and...” And then what happened? Oh! I now remembered seeing Darcy Devins, the future Mrs. Bleacher, glide into the room wearing sexy purple stirrup pants and a frilly Pet Shop Boys sweatshirt. This memory was as vivid as a crack whore's dream. I'd stopped singing. This was my chance to make sure she didn't get away.

I'd stepped forward to kiss her on her sweet painted mouth, but I tripped over my pants, which I had not pulled up after exposing myself to Erin and Skipper. My beer flew into the air, striking a passer by who took a wild swing at me. I executed a perfect Lun T'ou (Ninja Wheel Throw) and my assailant tumbled to the floor.

“No Mercy, Bob Stanley,” I shouted and gave my victim an open hand power chop to the spine. If that didn't impress Darcy...

But Darcy now looked at me and the commotion around me with a look of fully realized horror, like a terrible memory of a sadistic prison guard had come back undiluted from her past. I didn't care. I loved her. I would always love her. She was my Precious Double D, my Nighttime Lover, my Dream Weaver, my Virgin Mary Madonna in French-rolled jeans.

Normally, I'm gent with the Bettys, but I must've checked my manners at the door.

I stumbled toward my penny lover and mumbled, “I'll fahk you hard or soft, Darcy. Anyway you like it. I'll get you off. I'll eat your Smurf out.”

I fumbled in my pockets but only found a Taco Bell napkin stained with mild sauce, which I then tossed on the soggy floor.

“I've got your sock right here, my love. Let me show it to you. I've kept it clean for you, clean and nice like your mouth. How could it good've been,” I babbled.

My Princess Leia stood before me as I hunted for her sock. I knew that once she saw that I'd kept her sock clean and safe for all these year then she would understand. She would love me as I loved her.

“Please let me kiss you, Darcy. I'll get your Smurf wet and make you cum. Please. Please let me fahk your pretty mouth. Here's the sock you gave me, sweetheart. I know I've got it somewhere. I could find it if I wasn't so drunk. I'm really drunk because I love you. I...”

That was as far as I got before a thick-necked man in a University of Miami sweatshirt, sleeves rolled over his muscular arms, swooped up as I struggled with my filthy drawers. He hurriedly ushered Darcy behind him with a sweep of a meaty arm.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” I spluttered as I tugged my soiled britches over my knees and scrawny ass. It was hard to bend over because of my lower back injury.

Before I could fully dress and assume the defensive Erh Lung Te (Twin Dragon Fist) Ninjitsu stance that would culminate in my serpent-like striking of his eyes, thus blinding him, the bastard punched me in the face with what I was told was a beautiful right hook. I flew backwards, but before I collapsed in a puddle of keg-swill, I saw Toddy Bonigan laughing at me from the shadows. He was right there laughing at me and no one cared. The night was sick. I was lost in the sick night.

Without a doubt, my star had finally faded. But where had it blazed in this uncertain firmament, if it had blazed at all? What dark corners had it illuminated, if any? This was the last night of 1991. I was pretty sure about that. I was also confident that I had been born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a state without a Major League baseball team, some twenty years earlier. But I wasn't sure what I had to show for those years besides Darcy's sock, a well studied collection of porn, the 1986 Red Sox team photo, a brass medal “Coach's Award” and a High School diploma that may or may not have been accidentally given to the library with some used encyclopedias. As I descended into a puddle of hops froth, I had decided it was as good a time as any to review, to regroup, to get my bearings in this storm tossed sea.

My family, those who had not adequately prepared the world for my arrival, moved to Homestead, Maine to be closer to my grandparents in 1975, the same year the Sox lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, the last shot Yaz had at the Big Win. After all, Albuquerque wasn't their birthplace and home for the first three years of their lives. Then we moved from Homestead to Bone Harbor, New Hampshire to be even closer to the old ones. A year later my mother moved to Ironbury, Mass. and my brother and I joined her for two memorable years of Kick The Can and recreational arson. We went to family counseling where I learned the most painless way to get through the hour was to tell the lady I was sad but that I knew it wasn't my fault. Then Brooklyn and I returned to Bone Harbor where I remained for eight straight years, going to school, playing baseball, sneaking around at night in a Ninja suit and giving the Red Sox the best years of my life. I learned to roll down the hospital hill. I learned the delicious sound the snowplow on Lincoln Avenue makes when school might be cancelled. I learned to love Apple Pie with ice cream. I learned to take the bus to the Greenfields Mall with Kurt and Erin and Cristo, or ride our bikes to Langdonville Beach. Eight years of classes, homework, assemblies and baseball games were indistinguishable from each other except by the music broadcast by WHEB and the number of games the Red Sox were out of first place.

After nearly a decade of memorizing and obeying and chanting my pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of the blah blah blah nearly 1800 spirit-crushing times, I was still a non-conformist. All the resources of my culture had been allied to create a warrior for Capitalism, or at least a spiritless, obedient voter, but they had all failed. I wouldn't have raised an eyebrow if Satan himself ran for president. The Clipper ship of conformity had left port without me and no one seemed to care, least of all me.

Then I went to Alaska, took the long way back across the country, went to South America and then to Florida. Now I was back where I started from. My star had come full circle. That was all. I had songs to sing but none of them mattered. Nothing matters in the sick nighttime mutterings of kids drunk on stolen beer. Nothing and everything.

On the last day of 1991, I lay collapsed near a keg on a cold garage, in a strange house, surrounded by uncaring faces. I sported a vomit stain on my shirt and a fat lip and belly full of cheap beer, cigarette ash, and regret. Everyone could see I was not wearing underwear and that my shriveled prick was as white and small as a sea worm. That was my final song, or should have been. My only loyal companion was my Red Sox cap. My hat had followed me faithfully around North and South America and was here with me now absorbing the beer and body waste of another holiday. Darcy and her man slave had vanished like a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the tenth inning. A familiar bulge in my wet pants pocket told me I still had her sock.

Someone, Erin and Skipper I was fairly certain, had dragged me to my present location on the wicker chair. As they walked away I heard through the ringing in my ears, “Who knows?” It's Oggy. Who knows how he'll fahk up next.”

I was numb-drunk and time-dumb. Memories came and went like the tide at Stinky Creek, near Langdonville Beach. There was Mack Wynter's hat. There was Dwight Evans at the plate. There I was playing Off The Wall at Bone Harbor elementary school. There was Ray Knight swinging at an 0-2 pitch from Schiraldi. All these visions paraded in front of me.

My armpits stank. My jaw felt crooked. Was this my own vomit on my chest or had Huggy puked on me for fun? I was an embarrassment to someone, somewhere, but didn't know their identity. Maybe myself.

I was able to open my right eye a crack to see who was in front of me. Erin and Cristo were standing near an open window a few feet away so Cristo could blow his cigarette smoke out of the house. Erin was dipping Kodiak again. His limp eyes told me he was plastered, but he'd had more practice at it than me. He just rocked in place as Cristo talked.

“Well I know how he's gonna fahk up next,” said Cristo, “He's gonna go to Mexico and get killed. Fahk Oggy. He's all talk. He thinks he's such hot shit because he went to Alaska, but he always comes back with his nose running and his dick in his hand. I could leave too but I've got a good life here. I'm not a loser like Oggy. I have no respect for the kid. He doesn't have the Mason Felixes to leave this town.

“Remember in Bone Harbor Elementary,” continued Cristo, “when he wore those loser jeans and loser sweatshirt with that big loser Red Sox hat? He was a born loser. He was all legs and waving arms, ugly as a bull's ass. Greasy hair and a big uni-brow. Geeky braces on his teeth and curled up lips. Remember when Huggy said we should have a bake sale so Oggy could have his Adams apple shaved down? That was vintage.”

I wasn't sure where Cristo was going with this line of recollection, but I wasn't in a position to argue. My stomach currently housed a family of anxious rats.

Said Erin, “He looks horrible. He's like a refuge. Where did he find those clothes?”

In my brother's closet, where else?

“That's what I was tellin' him. You could put hinges on the kid and use him for a door. He's the worst. And get this, he put a fahkin’ Debbie Gibson poster on his ceiling. What kind of freak does that?”

I didn't see any reason to bring my Out Of the Blue poster into this. Say what you will about me, but Debbie Gibson wrote, sang and produced everything for her debut album. That girl was electric! Erin spit into his can and almost fell over.

“He just runs away from everything,” Cristo said with conviction. “Remember when he ran home from school in first grade?”

“No. I went to first grade in Deerfield.”

“Well his little girlfriend was the ugliest girl on the planet. And when we all started making fun of her, Oggy runs home like a big baby. The teacher had to bring him back. Who does that? Who lives like that?”

How Cristo remembered this incident was beyond me. Even I barely recalled the details of it.

“I thought Oggy went to first grade in Ironbury.”

“He was down there for second and third grade. Then back up here from fourth on. Remember Mack Wynter?”

“The dead kid? I've only heard Oggy tell stories about him.”

“Well Wynn's ghost should haunt him for the rest of his life. Did Oggy happen to mention the time when him and Flash broke into Wynn's house and stole half his baseball cards? No? He didn't mention that he hid under Wynn's bed while his parents were downstairs. No? It turns out that he and Flash were a couple of professional thieves. They broke into Wynn's house while the kid was away at Chemo treatment and they stole baseball cards. Real brave, right? Then Wynn leaves all his baseball cards to Oggy. How about that? What a piece of shit.”

Ugh! Once again, this incident twisted in my side. The fact that Mack had managed to die without revealing where he had hidden the baseball cards he stole from, just added to my regret. The Chemo Kid had had his revenge.

“He was twelve years old, Sticky.”

“I don't give a fahk if he was twelve months old. He's a crook and piece of shit. Remember when he was into Ninjas?

I thought to myself, 'Aren't I still?' Erin grimaced.

“But wasn't that after the Sox lost,” he asked in my defense.

“We were freshman in '85. Remember? Gym class? Someone should've locked him up. Remember how filthy his jeans were? He wouldn't shave or shower. “

“But Huggy was in that class. No one could shower without getting pissed on.”

This was sadly true. Huggy would smile at you one second and then piss on you the next. He was the ultimate back-stabbing turncoat and had taught Cristo everything he knew.

“But remember when Oggy dressed up in the ninja outfit for Project Adventure? He was mental.”

“Didn't someone lock him in the bathroom?”

“Huggy did, but Oggy climbed out the stupid window and came running into the gym like a madman with his black mask and split toe boots. Remember? The entire school was laughing at him. There were a thousand kids pointing and laughing at him.”

I'd thought they were laughing with me.

“Come on, Sticky. We only had three hundred in the entire class of '89.”

“Whatever. Oggy was the biggest idiot of all three hundred. Kodiak, there were retarded kids who wouldn't dress up like a Ninja in gym. I threw a baseball at him and he tried to kick it out of the air. Even the teachers told me that they hated him. Remeber Scarponi? He hated Oggy.”

Cal Scarponi, my English 12 teacher, had taught me the importance of Sports Literature.

“You're a real asshole. Scarponi didn't hate anyone, Sticky.”

“It's true. He was on the ropes course all dressed up like a crazy ninja and he nearly broke his neck when he started kicking and jumping on this log fifty feet in the air. Remember?”

“I was playing flag football. We all did stupid things, Sticky. You got dropped off by your mother every single day for four years. You mom and your ugly dog and your little sister. You think we didn't make fun of you? You Greek freak.”

I smiled as I remembered Cristo arriving at school with his sister and mother and dog. They were the ultimate freaks. All that was missing was a brown sack lunch and a kiss on the cheek. Total losers.

“That ain't shit. Everyone hated Oggy. Oggy was the idiot. Admit it.”

“He was alright until the Sox lost. Now he's a mess.”

Here, I had to agree. I was a total mess.

“That is a matter of opinion, Kodiak. He was carrying a Red Sox pennant to school long before '86. Remember when he'd run down the halls yelling, “Red Sox Rule” in full uniform? Yeah? Then he takes a Greyhound bus to Fenway Park, misses half a week of school and camps out by the back entrance for two tickets to the ALCS against California. I think that is what jinxed it. He should have bought a ticket for Game Five of the World Series in Boston. He had no faith in them so...well, you know what happened.”

“One strike. He was so close. He would've been so happy and instead he went crazy. Too bad. All because of Buckner.”

This was a simplistic viewpoint of the drama. Buckner's error was hardly the cause of all my pain. In fact, it was just a perfect ending to the game, something Sox fans could point to as evidence of their eternal grief. Instead of a Bucky Dent home run or a stupid trade that took place seventy years ago, Sox fans could point to a single play that symbolized their desperate luck. It should be obvious that I did not share Erin's simple categorizing of the game's critical plays. Many decisions had conspired to leave me slumped and drunk on a wicker chair. Buckner's error was just one of them.

“A lot of people lost something that October, Kodiak. What about me? I was a Sox fan. Oggy was just the most vocal. That didn't make him Ted Williams. I was the first to call him during Game Six when Don Baylor and Dave Henderson hit home runs in California when the Sox were down to their last strike. I was the one who called him every inning of Game Six in New York. He said he had to channel all his positive energy to the Sox, but some of it must have gone to the Mets. That fahk. He lost that Series and he knows it and that's why he's hanging Tiffany posters on his wall. He can't accept it.”

Tiffany wasn't quite as talented as Debbie Gibson but she had cool red hair and showed off her stomach. Pure teenage spank-magic!

“Alright, doctor Freud. You're real cool.”

“I'm just saying that a lot of people took it on the chin that October and you don't see me bitching about it. You don't see me listening to Hall and Oates records and Human League tapes and talking about going to Mexico.”

Cristo was a big U2 fan and liked English drek such as The Cure and Depeche Mode. As far as I was concerned, if it didn't have a synthesizer, it wasn't music.

“You don't see me dressing up like a Ninja and making a fool of myself over some dried up cunt from six years ago. What about me, Kodiak? Oggy even admits that he never recovered from eighty-six. He says his leg started hurting after the loss, but hasn't gotten better in five years. As if. It's all in his think head, I'm sure. There is nothing wrong with him except he's got no brain.”

I was disappointed to see that Erin didn't dispute this attack. I tried to get up but as soon as I opened both eyes my stomach flipped over and rumbled. I was certain that I had developed Colon polyps in the last seventy-two hours. Cancer and a slow death were what the New Year had prepared for me.

“Darcy just isn't interested in him, “ said Erin, “Why can't he see that?”

“Because he has no brain. That's what I'm tellin' you. He's crazy. You can't defend him, Kodiak. He dated your sister. That would make me sick and my sister's a disgusting pig. You must be sickened by that. Look at him.”

I closed my eye as the two of them turned to look at me.

“Look at that piece of shit. He pissed his pants. He shit on the carpet. He puked out the window. Look at that beard. He looks like Charlie Manson except I'll bet even Manson doesn't drool on himself. He's almost twenty-one years old and he's still wearing Red Sox shoe laces, Kodiak. He's been wearing that nylon warm-up jacket since 1982. Jesus! It doesn't even fit him. It's all torn on the arms from that time Huggy threw it in the fire. Remember? We should burn that hat. It smells like a Gillies dog.”

“That would kill him. Remember how crazy he'd get when Napper took it away? He'd die.”

“So? Would you care? He dated your sister. He...”

“Enough about Rose. They made out. Big fahking deal, Sticky. You make it sound like they had a kid together and he abandoned them. They fahked around. So? Maybe he got a hand job. Maybe he kissed her tits. Maybe they fahked.”

Erin visibly shivered at this last suggestion, but he kept a good front up. Since I was incapacitated, I had no way of telling him the limits of Rose's and my intimacy. It was unquestionably best that way.

“Who cares? Why do you keep nagging and picking at it like a scab? He treated her good. He adored her, as far as I know. He'd give her his last dime. You went to that baseball game with him and Rose. You know.”

“That fahked with his head. He didn't know if he loved the Sox more or your sister. You should've seen him.”

“What's wrong with that? He worshipped my twin sister. Great. He wasn't the only one. Is that something I should be ashamed of?”

“I was just sayin'...”

“You were just being a Greek asshole. Oggy's got problems, we both know that, but who doesn't? So he thinks the Sox will still win the eighty-six series. So what? So he still has a crush on Darcy, a chick who thinks he's a disgusting street psycho. Fahk it. He'll get over it. He's gotta get a girlfriend eventually. Or maybe he won't. I don't know.”

“Not a chance. He still watches the replays of Game Six. That game ruined him. He'll never recover because he isn't realistic. It's just like Darcy. He thinks if he keeps at it she'll fall in love with him and he thinks the Sox can still win Game Six. He just doesn't want to accept that things aren't like his fantasies.”

I reopened my right eye. The left one still wouldn't cooperate. Erin was spitting into the can again. He was the thin one. He was the one who looked like a refugee. Asshole.

“So what?”

“So you don't have to hear him bitch all the time about not being able to leave. You're up in Vermont and he's sissy bitching around here. He has no life, Kodiak. He has no money. Now he's getting sued. You know what that's about. Tell me. What did Oggy do this time?”

“I can't say.”

“He fahked up again. Did he get caught sneaking into the Girl's Locker room again?”

“Why don't you mind your own Greek business?”

“Whatever. I guess you know him better than me. You were the one who went out to Ogden's Point.”

“That's right, I was. You were still sucking on your mama's titty when we Sophomores. Oggy and me were sleeping in the forest. Starting fires. Singing songs. He did more than you dreamed about in High School. He played on the Championship baseball team. He played harmonica in that talent contest and did that lip-sync thing with that Meatloaf song. You didn't have the seeds to do that.”

“I wasn't crazy enough.”

“Whatever. He went on that one date with that chick. That tall chick. I forget her name.”

“That whore from Langdonville? Some date. She went home with another guy and I saw Oggy at Gillies that night beating off behind the dumpster.”

“At least he went on a date, Sticky. You wore that Bruins jersey for four years and stuck your runny nose up every girl's ass. You were a big puppy, sucking jock cock for four years. I didn't see you getting hand jobs under the bleachers. How many rubbers you beat off into during High School? Huh? You punk. I'll bet you frame the first rubber you ever fahk a chick in. I'll bet you get the thing dipped in bronze. Sick fahk. Fahking cunt. Shit on Oggy’s shinebox? Piss in his milk bowl? Not on my watch, motherfucker. You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.”

This was the Erin I loved. He could stand up to Cristo and tear him apart in ways I was too afraid to try. I felt vindicated, though still too sick to stand up or indicate that I was listening. After Cristo stuttered for a few seconds Erin kept going.

“He played harmonica and went to those Sox games. He played baseball. He might've gotten laid a couple times. Who knows. He has secrets too. Don't forget that he went to Alaska, Ecuador, California.”

“See, that's what I'm talking about. He's nuts. Why go to Alaska? To follow some Jack London pipe dream? For a while he wanted to join the Mujahadeen or something and then organize British Colombia to secede from Canada. He was a nut. He never should've left Bone Harbor but he kept talking about finding himself. You should read some of the letters he sent me.”

“I got 'em too. He was crazy. Could you even read yours.”

“It took a week to figure out that handwriting. If that isn't enough to tell you he's crazy, what is?”

Erin agreed. My handwriting was plenty good evidence that I was crazy.

“It's sad, you know? His parents save all their money and then neither kid goes to college. One goes to war and the other drops out of school and ends up a janitor in California. Oggy wasn't that dumb wither before Eighty-Six. He was loopy but he could do Geometry and some basic writing. But after the Sox lost his parents should've sent him to a work farm or a Kibbutz. He was worthless. I wouldn't hire him to shovel my sidewalk now. You see how he walks. He'll be in a wheelchair before two-thousand, if he lives that long.”

“Did he hurt his foot again?”
“Who fahkin’ knows? He's crazy. He keeps saying that Game Six hurt him. His back and his foot and his shoulder. He blames everything that is wrong him on Game Six. People don't really live like that do they?”

“Oggy does.”

I found this line of reasoning a trifle unfair. I didn't blame my physical problems on Game Six. I blamed them on the 0-2 pitch to Ray Knight. Everyone knows that a whole game can't cause an injury. It takes a specific play and that, in my case, the play was the 0-2 pitch to Ray Knight which should've been a curveball in the dirt or else some high heat, but was instead a mediocre cut fastball over the plate that produced an RBI single to centerfield. If I'd been part of their conversation I would've pointed this detail out to Erin and Cristo. As it was I just swallowed the acidic saliva collecting in my mouth to avoid suffocation.

“He used to come to UNH with me and sit in on classes just to listen. What kind of nut sits in on a philosophy class just for kicks? He did it at George Mason too. Your sister thought he was crazy. She hated him. He walked to Washington D.C. from California. That was two Septembers ago. So his father tells me to go bring him back . So I go down there and I've never seen a freakier nut case than Oggy. Kodiak, his clothes were falling off him. He smelled like a corpse. He wouldn't eat. He kept saying that cars were destroying the planet. As if! Cars are the greatest thing that ever happened. How else could I get to school?”

Erin nodded in agreement.

“Piper was there with his chick Sara, and those two are pretty creepy by themselves, but Oggy took the bowl of fahking noodles. He was sleeping on the campus in the shrubs by the dorm, shitting in the forest. He wasn't wearing shoes and his feet stank like the worst things you ever smelled. His beard and hair were about as long as they are now and he was using this crazy walking stick that he claimed was made from Alaskan Black Diamond Willow or some crazy magic wood.”

Once again Cristo was exaggerating. The Alaskan Black Diamond Willow walking staff was not magic in and of itself. It had magical properties that were available to a G'ichin Indian Shaman. If only I'd been able to speak out and get some of these facts straight then maybe they would have at least understood the essentials.

“Most of the time he walked around in this plastic loin cloth and when Rose finally complained he wove a crazy maple leaf vest and shorts and he crawled around on his hands. It was all some political thing.”

“I remember,” said Erin. “He was boycotting all manufactured products. It was one of the parts of his three-part plan.”

Cristo slapped his forehead as he remembered the awesomeness of my three-part plan to save the world. Clearly it had made an impression on him, as it had on all my disciples.

“Oh, yeah. The three-part plan. That was what he kept talking about. Rose thought he was completely bonkers. Since he wouldn't allow himself to use manufactured products he had to make his own clothes from garbage or what he found in the forest. What a nut!”

This wasn't the association I'd wanted but, as Gandhi would say, The seed had been planted.

“What was that freak talking about? Manufactured products are the only thing between us and the jungle. All he would eat were the raisins we brought to him. Raisins and nuts and whatever he found in the trash. This was at George Mason University. A big preppy school and Oggy is digging through the trash, crawling around, lecturing us about resources. He lost his mind, Kodiak. I asked him if he wanted to drink some beer, just to loosen up. Remembered when he got trashed on Ouzo when we graduated BHHS?”

“He got into a fight with Rose's ex. Remember he was wearing his championship jacket and fell down the hill into the mud? I tried to get him to stop drinking. He thought he was protecting Rose. He was drunk. I remember when Huggy body-slammed you.”

“Yeah, that was real cool. I thought Oggy might drink like the old days, but he wouldn't do it. He completely embarrassed everyone with his hippie thinking. I'm never going to California because everyone who goes there gets screwed up. Raisins and nuts? Come on! You ever go to California?”

“The farthest I've been in Virginia.”

“Well don't go to California because everyone there is a freak. They turned Oggy on his ass. Remember when Oggy used to eat ten Gillies hot dogs and wash it down with beer at Ogden's Point? Remember? He used to run around in Market Square and play football and steal food from the Bread Box over on Islington when Olly worked there. This is the same kid who got caught beating off in the first floor Girls Bathroom in BHHS. What does he care what he eats? He pulled the same shit the other day and Gillies and I had to break his arm to get him to eat two grilled cheese sandwiches. Fahking loser.”

“He still doesn't eat meat?”

“Nothing. No fish. No turkey. It's California, I tell ya. Those freaks are nuts out there. No turkey? No pepperoni? Why live if you can't eat pepperoni pizza?”

Erin agreed that there was no point to life if you chose to boycott pepperoni and other flesh based foods.

“That's what I was sayin' about Virginia. I had a ticket for him back to Boston.”

'I'll walk,' he said.

'But the ticket is already bought, you idiot,' I told him.

He says, 'I can't support the destruction of the earth. Piper and Sara are going to have kids and I want their kids to have a place to play. We can't keep taking and taking. It is time to give'

'Yeah, give me a break! You already have destroyed the earth. Remember the time we toilet papered the tree outside the high school?'

'That was a long time ago. I'm making up for my youth now ere the sunsets on my days among mortals. I'll walk.'

Said Erin, “He didn't talk like that.”

“He did,” said Cristo. “He was a total loser. California.” Cristo warned again.

Erin agreed that if anyone spoke like that they were a total loser.

“So I told him, 'Shut up, Hamlet and get in the plane.' And he actually started to cry in the backseat of the car.

'All those trees and animals we're killing all of them so we can go to a party. Boo Hoo. I'm such a sissy. My name is Oggy and I'm a loser.”

I told him, 'But everyone does it, Oggy. You need to get laid and stop thinking so much.”

“It was horrible, Kodiak. The guy driving the car thought Oggy was completely crazy. Even Rose told him to shut up. I managed to get him home on the plane but he raised hell when he found out the soda cans weren't recycled. Like that is going to make a bit of fahking difference. I mean, we were in an airplane, for Christ's sake and Oggy is worried about a nickel's worth of aluminum. It was embarrassing. He went up the aisle in his leaf vest collecting cans and preaching about conserving resources or some bullshit like that and these people just want to get home. I'm surprised they didn't call the police. He kept saying 'every bit counts.' What crap! He said he would have to go on a cleansing fast for two days to make up for the damage he caused on the planet from the fahking plane. As if a plane hurts anything. It isn't like we ran over a school bus or anything. The whole trip back he was talking about the friggin' government doing this and the government doing that, as if I gave a damn. The country needs a good war every once in a while and those Arab fucks pushed around the wrong people. War is good. Oggy kept mentioning some kid he met in California named Ernesto. You know him?”

“I heard about him in the letters. Some Commie type. A punk.”

To hear my dear friend Ernesto Deville dismissed as a commie and a punk was more than I could tolearate, but I was still too sick to move. The Devil's brew had taken equilibrium on a Rock-o-Plane carnival ride. I alternated between feelings of vertigo and high fever. Better to let them slander my friend and make amends later.

“'Ernesto said the Government treats people like babies. Ernesto said people need freedom to make mistakes.' You should have heard him. I thought I'd kick Ernesto's ass for turning Oggy into a freak. He used to be good kid and in less than a year he was turned into a no-good hippie freak. He was a smelly, homeless bum with crazy ideas. I almost gave up on him in Virginia.

“But it's Oggy,” stated Erin simply.

“It's Oggy,” agreed Cristo with a shrug, as though my being who I was, my being “Oggy” granted me an unlimited number of second chances with certain people. Maybe there was a conflict of interests, but this made perfect sense to me.

“So I tried to get him back on the right track. I should've known better. I thought it would cheer Oggy up to go to a Sox game when we got back to Bone Harbor in September. The Sox were in first place for the first time since '86. I thought it might get Oggy back in the right homeroom. He hadn't been to a game since we went with Rose the time the battery fell out of his VW Superbeetle. I thought it might bring him back to his roots.

“So I got lower Box seats, real good, right behind the Sox batting circle. They were about to clinch the division too. Oggy would have pissed his pants in the old days for those seats, but things went wrong right away. He insisted on bringing his walking stick with him. It was a goddamn wizard's staff, Kodiak, and he walks into Fenway Park with it because his feet hurt. Christ! It took all my strength to get him to stand upright and not wear the leaf vest. You could tell he was wavering between the Sox and the California crap they fed him out west. So we sit down, but Oggy isn't impressed. He barely raises an eyebrow during batting practice. He kept asking where Jim Rice was and I kept telling him that they traded that bum after he couldn't hit his weight for the third straight season. He asked about Oil Can Boyd and I just laughed. He asked about Spike Owen and I seriously had no idea where that no good bush leaguer went. I think the Sox got rid of him when we were Juniors. So Oggy was totally confused. He wanted Dewey in right field. He couldn't accept he was the designated hitter. Then everything fell apart.”

For the first time, I was glad I wasn't taking part in this conversation. The anecdote Cristo was deliciously preparing to tell was a moment so singularly embarrassing that I'd rather not be associated with it. And to have to explain myself to Erin, a member of the armed forces, would've been hard under any circumstances, let alone when my tongue was covered with green moss and I was seeing triple.

“So The Sox take the field and the opening notes to the National Anthem start and everyone stands up. Everyone including cripples, vets, freaks, retard camp groups, the hot dog guy, some Chink from Chinatown, a Puerto Rican guy who isn't even a citizen, the Nigger beer chick, the little wet-back kids from Middlebury, the Canucks from Montreal, the Micks, the Hebes, the Greeks, and an old man with one arm. Everyone except fahking Oggy.”

“You mean he was having trouble standing up because of his back?”

“No, Kodiak, “ said Cristo with a devilish grin. “He was sitting there, fully capable of standing up, and he was choosing not to stand up.”

“But he stood up eventually.”

“No, Erin. He sat there like America was his personal toilet. We were sitting in the lower box seats and Oggy was sitting down as the Star Spangled Banner was being sung. As soon as I tugged on his shirt and he looked at me, I knew the trouble was just beginning.

I told him, “Oggy, get the fahk up!”

He says, “How can I stand for a nation that is preparing to fight a war? Why is that something to be proud of? What is brave about that? We aren't in any danger. We are just controlling oil. We don't need to go to war. But America has to have Nascar.”

“Fahk those towel heads, Oggy, there is about to be a war right in section 21 row 4 if you don't stand up.”

I was talking about the dozen people who were giving Oggy the dirtiest looks I've ever seen in Fenway, except when the Yankees are in town. These fans were being patient because I was trying to get Oggy to stand up and they didn't know if he was a retard or deaf, but I could tell the clock was ticking. I smiled at them like Oggy was just sick or crippled, anything to protect him. I mean these fans were bullshit after Kuwait got invaded by those Arab towel-heads and Bush was sending Battleships and marines to the Gulf. Everyone was waving flags, saying God Bless our Troops and Oggy was sitting down at Fenway Park during the Anthem. I don't know what he was thinking.”

“It's just Commie Punk California,” said Erin. “They don't send any soldiers to war so they can all be pacifists . It's bullshit. California develops almost all the weapons and software for war and the people can talk all they want about peace. Those hippies.”

“I know. I was like, 'Please, Oggy. Don't be a hero. Get up. Really.”

He says, 'I should be asking you to sit down, Sticky. Now is the time the voice of dissent must be heard.”

He really said that. I'm serious. So I said, “We are both going to get our asses kicked, Oggy. First we're going to get our asses kicked and then they are going to arrest us. Ain't nothing heroic about that, Oggy. Please.”

“If we want a more peaceful world we are going to have to stop being nationalistic. Ernesto told me that.”

“Well, Ernesto ain't here to have his ass get kicked. Oggy, this ain't about being nationalistic. Don't be an idiot. This is about not getting your ass kicked.”

“Gandhi got his ass kicked.”

“Well, Gandhi was an idiot!”

“Maybe we all need to be idiots, then.”

“Gandhi isn't about to get his ass kicked, Oggy.”

“But he would, Sticky. He would be brave.”

Oggy was saying this real calmly like we weren't about to be killed but I could tell his heart was breaking. It was Oggy! He used to lead the National Anthem at Fenway. During '86' he used to cry when it ended. He used to start the 'USA' chants. Now he wouldn't even stand up and pretend to sing. I could have killed Ernesto.

Someone threw a program and it hit web in the back.

“Better stand up, buddy,” someone shouted

It was starting.

“He isn't feeling well,” I said. 'Look at him. He's been sick.”

So an older guy yells, “I wasn't feeling so hot at Keh San so tell your hippie friend to stand up for the colors.”

A bag of popcorn hit Oggy in the head but he didn't move. I shook him again but he wouldn't get up.

“Better get up, hippie,” another voice called.

“Stand up for the anthem, traitor.”

“Get off your ass, you ungrateful hobo!”

The shouts were coming from all sides and I knew time was running out. People in other sections were looking over to see what was going on. Some old guy standing behind Oggy was wearing a fahking VFW pin. It was like a Vet convention or something.

“You'd best stand your ass up, son, and respect your flag. I didn't fight no wars for you to sit on your ass during the Anthem. Now Stand!”

A full bottle of soda or beer splashed over Oggy's legs. HE didn't budge. The song was only half over but the crowd was starting to riot. Roger Clemens was on the mound and even he looked over to see what was going on. I could see security coming but I didn't think they would help.

“Oggy, stand up! We are about to be killed in Fenway Park.”

Then he stood up. Tears were falling down his face. He was all red and soaked from beer and covered with popcorn. His hair was flying all over the place and his beard was scraggly ass and his walking stick was waving around. Even the guy with the VFW pin stood back because you could tell Oggy was completely crazy. Then he started to shout.

“Killed? Killed? Killed is exactly what this is all about. Don't you see? You stand up for the flag and you don't even know what you're doing. You sing your fahking war song and you don't even care that it glorifies death and dying for the rich landowners. This isn't the land of the free. It's the land of the slaves, and now we're sending them to die for oil.”

It was insane, Erin. I moved away from him as he started up again, “You all sing your lies. You don't care about the cost. You don't care about the means, you just care about the ends. But it's the means sold to you on television by the rich. It isn't your freedom that soldier's die for. It isn't your way of life that Iraqi kids are killed for. It's for the richest one percent of the world. That's what we're going to war to protect. Not us. Not baseball. Not hot dogs. We aren't fighting wars to protect our freedom; we're fighting wars to protect our lies. You aren't free. None of you are free. You are all slaves! The government just allows you to have baseball to distract you from their lies! George Orwell was right! We're all mindless capitalist slaves who sacrifice our children to protect the queen bee.”

I was about five feet away from Oggy when he finished. I was completely mortified. I couldn't get further away because of a pipe that separates lower seat boxes. I love Oggy, and all, but I wasn't about to get killed for him. He was still crying and holding his arms up like he was Jesus. His pants were soaked with beer and his shirt was all torn and he was holding himself up with his Alaskan walking staff. He looked completely insane and not one person understood what he was talking about. No one could even hear what he was saying since thirty thousand fans were singing the freaking national anthem at the same time he is giving his little speech. You know that guy on the street you see yelling about something and you instinctively know he is crazy even if you don't know what he is yelling about. That guy was Oggy.

I took offense to Cristo's remark, but like I said, nothing good could come out of my entering this conversation. This moment, my “Fenway Rebellion”, though in the spirit of Boston's founders, was not one of my proudest moments. I'd embarrassed Cristo, who'd paid the tickets, I'd shamed the Red Sox, baseball, Dewey's promise, the America that gave me my shine box. I'd embarrassed the spectators around me and pissed on all their war time sacrifices. Why? Because I watched the movie “Gandhi” and had Ernesto Deville, the quintessential paper pirate, as a roommate. Nothing changed because of my civil display of non-compliance. American kids, including my brother, went to Iraq and killed people. Some didn't come back alive. Kuwait was free to produce more oil for American Nascar racing and demolition derbys. Capitalism triumphed again. Grainy films of Smart Bombs striking their targets were applauded. The Red Sox got swept by Oakland in the ALCS. The more things change...

“I would've booted his ass up. Did they kick him out?” asked Erin.

“Not yet. First the sky was filled with trash and beer and popcorn and hot dogs and programs, all being thrown at Oggy. The sun was literally blocked by thrown trash. Oggy was doused in beer. I was five feet away and I got soaked. Popcorn was falling for at least ten seconds. I mean, this is Boston and he was lecturing fans about politics during the National Anthem at Fenway Park. I don't know what hippie crap Ernesto told him but this was the worst decision I'd ever seen and it didn't change anything. No one cared. I was his friend and I didn't even care. The government does what it wants. What the fahk am I going to do to change that? Nothing. So I shut up and do what I'm told and I stay out of trouble. Ain't no reason to stir up trouble. It was more embarrassing than watching Oggy flip off the whole Senior class during that pep rally. Remember? Everyone in Fenway Park, thirty thousand people, wanted to throw something at Oggy, who had been the greatest Red Sox Fan on the planet, who had given his life to the Sox. I swear Oggy got beaned by a Roger Clemens fastball. I figured he'd be killed but what a way to go, mauled to death by an angry crown in Fenway Park. It's better than drowning.”

“That hippie. That communist,” seethed Erin.

Calling me a communist was taking it a little far. Hippie maybe, but Communist? No. I'd read Atlas Shrugged. Communism was neither noble, nor realistic, nor human. In fact, the failure of Communism, as evidenced by the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany (only a few days after the Fenway Rebellion), and Lithuanian independence all demanded a more practical, more philosophically rendered political strategy. Enter my three-part plan to save the world. This is what I would've introduced to my ignorant friends Erin and Cristo had I not been partially paralyzed by alcohol poisoning, toxic tobacco sickness and had I not been suffering the effects of a sucker-punch to the old melon.

“So the security guards come down and surround Oggy, “ continued the Greek, “and the trash is still flying and people are yelling things like “traitor' and ''freak' and 'loser' and 'asshole'. Just before the Security guards dragged Oggy down the ramp he stopped. I was following them out by now when no one was looking at me and I thought, Oh shit, does he have a gun? Or a bomb? I mean, no one knew what he was up to. Oggy puts his feet down and even the security guards were afraid he was going to blow himself up or something crazy. He looked like a fahking towel-head, Allah loving, camel jockey terrorist with his big beard and long hair and crazy eyes and that fahking wooden staff. So Oggy stops and raises his arms with that big walking stick and yells, “And the Flag was still there!” whatever that meant. Maybe he was trying to join in, finally. I don't know.”

“I didn't know either. It had just occurred to me at the time, as I was being led out of my second home, a tattered hobo, a pariah, unwanted, an embarrassment, that I somehow represented the flag of rebellion that the national anthem sang referred to. That I was that flag that was there waving in the dawn's early light. But a pretzel had struck my ear as I was preparing to make this point clear. And then the cops hooked my arms and booted me down the ramp.

“Jesus! We were in Kenmore square when the first pitch was thrown. The crowd in Fenway erupted in sustained applause. We both knew it was the third out of the inning. Clemens had probably struck out the side and we missed it. I know Oggy registered the applause, but he just stood there with his tattered clothes and his walking staff and his big beard and long hair. He used to be a good Kid but I knew that the good old days were over. Whatever Jihad Oggy was on, he meant to fight it alone.

I told that loser, “We didn't even get to see a fahking single out.. Forty Dollar tickets and not one out! “

Oggy looked around the crowd of latecomers. There were folks scalping tickets, people selling pizza, cars, kids with caps and pennants, cab drivers, cops, hookers, hobos. It was great! It was Boston! It was Fenway Park for a Sox game. We could see the Citgo sign. But Oggy looks all gloomy and says, “I don't belong here. I never belonged here.”

“Oggy, this is the only place you belong. This is it. It's Kenmore square. Look. You used to eat pizza here. You used to come out of that subway tunnel and start chanting, 'Here we go De-wey, Here We Go!' We used to come here with our gloves. You spent three days in the rain right over there on Yawkey Blvd. Waiting to get tickets in '86'. Remember? Remember how happy you were when they beat California? That was the Oggy I knew. What happened to him? What happened to the Old Oggy?”

“Somewhere on the road, somewhere on the highway, the old Oggy decided he didn't want to keep going. You're my boy, Sticky, but times have changed. I've shed my old skin and now it is time to find out who I really am.”

“Later that October, Oggy was in Market Square protesting with the other Hippies, going on hunger strikes and then telling his dad that his brother deserves what he gets. What kind of talk is that? He thinks my family fights. We were like the Brady Bunch compared to The Bleachers. I heard he fasted on Thanksgiving that winter and just sat at a table full of people eating food. Can you fahking imagine fasting for peace at a table full of your family eating Thanksgiving dinner? I would have carved him up for dinner. He said Gandhi won a war by not eating. Who the hell is Gandhi? Some Indian dude from a hundred years ago. Like that made any difference? And what does that have to do with him fasting on Thanksgiving? Couldn't he have just eaten some potatoes and squash? But no, he has to fast to protest the Gulf war. Like his family was the cause of it. Like anyone cared what he was doing. What a nucklehead.”

“You gotta admire him a little.”

“I don't admire shit. He's a loser, Kodiak. Face it. He is one who loses. He went downtown that November and had some protest by the North Church. It made the papers and embarrassed his whole family. One brother was in the war and the other is fasting for peace by a church and quoting Gandhi. Oh, the Herald loved that one. You should've seen the way he lived. At least I sleep in my room. That creep,” Cristo turned and spit in my direction. I was too numb to tell if he hit me with any saliva, but I made a note to let the air out of Cristo's bike tires when I got a chance.

“This creep slept in the living room on that shitty blue couch with pillows and sheets and all his cum rags on the carpet. The tape of Game Six was playing all day long. It was a disgrace. His cat wouldn't even go in the room. It smelled like a crypt. I could tell from his eyes. He had lost his marbles. The next I hear from him is from Ecuador. He vanished just before we started bombing those fahking towel heads over in the desert. Did he send you those stupid boycott America letters?”

Yes, Erin had received my Planetary Alliance Against Death (PAAD) solicitations. He had used them for toilet paper, he said. Lacking support from even my friends, I had been forced to withdraw my suit against Lockheed Martin.

“He just doesn't see things like you or me,” Cristo continued. “He isn't right in the head. A few weeks after he got back from Ecuador, I told him about The Wackmaster going to Florida. The bastard didn't even say goodbye. One day Oggy is downtown talking about some girlfriend he invented in Ecuador and the next thing I heard he went to Florida with The Wackmaster.”

“He sent me postcards of naked chicks on the beach right. Until I got home a few weeks ago I thought he was still living down there. He said he bought a house.”

“Hardly. He lived in The Wackmaster's room and ate at Taco Bell. They were trying to get jobs fighting the fires in Kuwait. One second he is the Prince of Peace and then he's talking about making ten thousand dollars a month fighting fires caused by the war he protested. You see what I mean? He is a nut case.

“Of course he came back to Bone Harbor when the money ran out in Florida. You know I went with him down to UCONN. He said he was in love again. He was all hung up on this psychology major in Piper's dorm.”

“Piper Skinski? What does he do?”

“Beat off. Screw around. You know Dave. Mr. Goody-good. His shit still doesn't stink.”

This summation of Piper’s life seemed to satisfy Erin.

“This chick Oggy loved thought he was the weirdest person in the universe. No one like him had ever spoken to her except to ask for spare change. He was a freak and he kept asking her to leave school and go to Mexico with him. Like that was ever going to happen. How is he gonna go to Mexico in that car? You've seen it. Will it make it Mexico.”

Erin showed even less confidence in Poncho than Cristo. He said the car had barely made it to Greenfields. Coming from Erin, a driver who had managed to sink his father's car, I felt the source was unqualified to discuss car issues. My car had performed well enough to destroy Rachel's can and ruin my life. Say what you will, but the car still had some life in it.

“It will break down before he makes it to the Mass Pike. Then he gets in all that trouble with Jeannie or Rachel and now he's talking about never coming back again. How many times has he said that?”

“Every year since the Sox lost.”

“See? That's what I'm talking about. I'm doing him a favor by keeping him here. He can't run away for the rest of his life. He has to settle down. Right? He's not the only one who loved the Sox. He's not the only one who wants to leave Bone Harbor. I mean, what about me? I had dreams too. It isn't all about Oggy. The world doesn't revolve around him, you know. I have a story too. What about me, huh? What about me?”

“What about you, Sticky?”

“Well, at least I don't fahk my couch like Oggy. He's sick. He beat off in Darcy’s sock!”

Erin spit contemptuously into his beer can.

“Alright, Sticky. Your shit doesn't stink. You're real cool. If you’re so cool then why are you a piece of shit?”

Then he walked away as Cristo pointed at me.

“He's sick in the head. He's messed up. He fucks his couch.”

I laughed as I realized that I had screwed my father's fake leather couch more times than I'd had sex with Nancy in Ecuador. Not only that, but I still preferred the couch. I managed to open my left eye and only experienced a mild feeling of plummeting off a building. Then I looked around for someone to announce this humorous fact to, but only saw the lonely, sweating face of Cristo.

“Put that butt out, Sticky. Your mom isn't watching you anymore,” I belched. “No one thinks you're cool cause you smoke.”

“Your mom thinks I'm cool when I fahk her from behind. Your mom likes that. She likes it about as much as I liked that little performance in the Keg room. Real smooth, Oggy. Darcy was really impressed. You're lucky her boyfriend didn't castrate you. You know you are going to have to clean up the shit you left in there. You can't shit on the carpet and just leave. That's fahked up.”

“Hey, could you hand me that stick.”

“What stick?” he said looking around.

“The stick that I put up your mom's ass. Ha!”

“I put it up your dad's ass.”

“I never liked you. Never. Not in High school, not when you got picked on because you're a cripple, not when you thought you were part of the baseball team, not when you were a big fat hairy cheerleader for the Clippers, not when you got pinned down by Boss and Huggy and them pulled your underwear over your head and pissed on you. I pissed on you too. You know why? Because I never liked you. You're a loser. I used to laugh when Clutch burned your crippled ass on the court. You mean nothing to me. You are a chump, Sticky. I hate you.”

I tried to stand up but just flopped to the floor. I was on the verge of vomiting for a moment but held the attack off with a weak groan. I gripped Darcy's sock for support.

“I'm just kidding. I love you, Sticky.”

Cristo tapped his ashes on my head.

“Lookin real good buddy. See? I told you this was worth staying for. You aren't getting into trouble. Have fun. Drink. This isn't home room anymore in Mr. Parr's class. You're a big boy now. Hey, even your mom's in the bathroom giving five dollar blow jobs.”

I struggled to my feet as Cristo finished his cigarette. I reached into my pocket to find a five-dollar bill so I could tell Cristo to go get his dick wet for once, but I was completely broke except for twenty three cents, a bottle cap, the folded 1986 team photo of the Boston Red Sox and the keys to my shitty car. The only item of importance in my possession was a pink slip, the “defendant's copy” of a small claims court case in which I was being sued for 2,525 dollars, the exact dollar value of my future freedom. I burped and accidentally pissed my pants. It was not enough for anyone to notice but I could feel the piss dribble down my leg, over my knee and into my sock. I thought, So this is what rock bottom feels like. This is what Bill Buckner felt like. I thought I'd hit rock bottom in Alaska when I pissed on myself in the girl's bathroom and then showered the first floor with purple vomit. But that had been just hovering around the bottom. This was the true dregs of the whiskey bottle. I grinned drunkenly and slobbered my words on purpose.

“Sticky, you are a punk and a sissy, a whore and a dirty bitch, a slut and a faggot. When you die from lung cancer I am going to shit on your grave up at the South Street Cemetery. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Wang Chung.”

I smiled through my greasy mustache and brushed the burning ashes from my majestic beard.

“No. I'm just kidding. I am. I love you. I love your fat rolls and your crippled leg. I love you so much that I'll suck your sausage right now. No I won't. Fahk you. I'm just kidding.”

Some punk walking by happened to glance over at me as I shared my feelings with Cristo. The kid was probably hoping for a fight to watch. I gave him the finger.

“Hey! What are you looking at? You wanna fight? I'm not afraid of anyone. Not you or Darcy's faggot boyfriend. No one. Not you or your mom or the hair on Sticky's pizza making dad's chest. You don't know Ray Knight. I don't care about you. I don't care about your baby. You don't got the Charlie Mansons to take a swing at me. How ya like me now, Karate Kid? Huh, Mr. Miagi? You wax on and I'll wax your ass off this planet. No mercy.”

The kid shuffled away as I spit in his direction. Cristo leaned in.

“Come on. What happened with you and Kodiak that night. He won't tell me.”

“That is because he has loyalty. Ever heard of it? He is a true friend and not a sissy bitch like you. I'll tell you if you lick the sweat off my floppy ball sack. You like that, Han Solo?”

“Why are you such a Rocky Dennis? Come on. Remember when we walked to Whaleswood Beach and we called Spaz Bunson and pretended to be Bullwhip? Come on. This is Sticky. The Stickster. You can tell me. You don't have the Olson Kirksons to tell me.”

“Your mom's been cold to me lately. I get mean when I don't get Greek twat. Naw, I'm just kidding. I love you.”

Cristo turned to leave.

“Your dad wants to get spanked so I'm going home.”

“You wanna know what happened that night?”

Cristo lit a cigarette and fumbled in his pocket for something.

“Yeah, shit. I mean, what the hell is the big mystery.”