On stage Xavier was a gentle folk singer. His Appalachian drawl dripped drops of wisdom from the microphone. Yet get a few beers in him and he would go full rock star.
Once we were at Jacks Place in Wicker Park when Genie the bartender cried, “Last call! Last call!”
“Let me get four beers,” Xavier waved. “Four beers over here.” He wasn’t ordering a round. The four beers were for him.
After he chugged the first one he turned to me with a five-dollar bill, “Take this and put on the longest song on the jukebox.”
As War Pigs by Black Sabbath laid sirens and searchlights in the stale night I turned around to see Xavier standing on the bar glass in hand proposing a toast.
Genie behind the bar was neither amused nor surprised. Xavier was six foot five and gangly. Having to hunch over to talk to people he perpetually shrugged. But now he stretched his back to the ceiling hoisting his glass in affirmation.
Genie flipped on the overhead fluorescents. In a flash the dark ambiance of the bar glowed cafeteria style. The ghosts in the mirror behind the bar gasped. Faces soured and squinted. Hats and coats headed to the door. Plans to go home together were reneged.
The flash of reality caused Xavier to slip in a puddle on the bar. But he dug his cowboy boots down deep turning his stumble into a backwards soft-shoe shuffling across empties and tips. He sashayed his way until he made dominoes of his remaining beers. Then it was time to go.
Back on solid ground Xavier leaned over the bar where Genie reluctantly accepted a kiss on the cheek. A handsome shmuck can get away with a lot.
The air was cool on the curb as I asked Xavier where to?
“I can’t go home. I’m on the outs with my lady.”
“You can crash at my place. I have some wine left. You can have the beanbag chair.”
We hailed a cab. In the backseat Xavier unloaded his troubles, “We had a fight before she left town for work. So of course I’m going to sixty-nine with a black girl. Of course.”
The third time Xavier said sixty-nine with a black girl the cab drifted to the curb.
Stoically the cabbie said, “Get out of my cab. You two get out of my cab.”
Like clowns we rolled into the gutter.
In the next cab I told Xavier about the boys selling rock at Wilson and Broadway. It was that perverse instinct to brag about how bad your neighborhood was. It makes you look tough and world weary, but in reality it’s a damn shame.
“Uptown is the only place on the North side that you can score crack out in the open.”
“Let’s get some!” Xavier howled.
This cabbie was more lassie faire. We redirected him to Broadway a few blocks from my apartment. At three in the morning there were still sentries standing post under the piss colored streetlights.
Xavier flopped forward and requested rock. Under their hoods the story was that they didn’t have crack on them only weed.
“We don’t want no weed. We want to rock!”
Pulling Xavier by the collar I sensed the deal was a bust.
As we ambled down the sidewalk the hard cases followed. Then one disappeared down an alley. The other guy insisted that he could get us crack, but he didn’t keep the stash on him. It was nearby if we followed.
As we approached the door to my building the other guy emerged claiming he had a bag of crack for us.
Tired of the nonsense I used my fob to unlock the front door. Both the outer and the inner door buzzed open. Within the glass chamber between the two doors a deal was brokered for the bag of crack. Holding the inner door I waited for Xavier as he handed over the money. After the exchange was made something occurred to our new friend the dealer. Not maliciously, but almost naturally he reached for Xavier’s wallet deciding he wanted all of his money. While the street pharmacist pulled at his coat, Xavier in a daze looked back at me grinning with amusement as if to say hell at least something was happening.
As I pulled Xavier my way the dealer pulled his. After a few flashes of tug-o-war he fell my way. I pushed the inner door closed on the local entrepreneurs. Behind the glass we waved. They smiled and waved back. It was all in the game.
Upstairs in my studio apartment I brought out the cheap wine and put on some Johnny Cash. Xavier produced the bag-o-crack. He requested some tinfoil to make a pipe. As he fumbled with the foil I examined the rock. It was grey, pot-marked, and the size of a fifty cent piece. I held the precious pebble at arms length one eye closed the other squinting.
“I’m afraid my friend, that this rock, is nothing but a rock.”
Xavier dropped his tinfoil sculpture, “What? No.”
He seized his purchase and peered at it.
“You see,” I laid back on my mattress. “It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Xavier reared back like a horse. He was too big for my ten by ten foot room. He tipped the jug of wine taking a healthy swig. Red dripped down his chin. He began flailing to the music. Like a bronco kicking in a stale he broke my wooden chair. He tipped over my card table. He knocked the shelf. Books rained down. The stereo on top on the shelf skipped. His body twitched to the glitches of Johnny Cash. Watching him flutter I lay back on my bed sipping wine. Finally, he let out a great moan, reached for the fake crack, scooped it in his mouth, and swallowed it whole.
This seemed to anchor him. He fell onto the beanbag chair. After I finished my wine, I put a blanket on him, and turned out the light.
In the ruin of the morning Xavier was his old self. As I made coffee he quietly strummed my Spanish guitar. He looked like a turtle perched on his back in the beanbag.
“Sorry, about all your shit.”
“Easy come easy go. I’ll find more random furniture in the alley.”
“Guess so. I owe you one.”
“Forget it. You could always write me a song.”
Looking over the steam of coffee Xavier warped in a mirage. Strumming a few chords and jotting things down on napkins he’d sometimes stop and moan a few words.
Westley says he drinks to blur what he sees in the mirror
And I only drink to see what I’ll say
Westley sees what he likes in what I have forgotten
And I never remember what I yelled at some stranger yesterday
Deliver me oh faded wings and feathers
Hold me tight like a stone in the palm of your hand
These swirling slivers of light wash over the rocks in the river
and the choir walks home with me dragging shoes full of sand
Intention gets the best of my thoughts and Westley knows this is true
I know I say a lot and never can tell if there’s anything I can do
I will help Westley walk where he feels he’s gotta be going
But I never made a promise I knew I couldn’t shift by a weekend or two
Destination and retention run hand in hand
I can bounce the ball if you can follow along
Westley takes back forgotten nights that we lived lifetimes ago
And shows me how to capture shadows and tear off new songs
He left the napkins on the shelf for me to keep. Then he went to take a piss. I made toast. We were hung over. Only the hair of he dog would get the sunshine back in our heads. In the meantime I tried to chatter.
“That song is pretty cool. Your stuff is always introspective. But you have a wild side. The maniac you become at night is never in your songs. It would be fun if there was more of that in your music.”
“Think so? I don’t know about that.”
By then his phone was charged. A text chimed in. Xavier checked it. His girlfriend was leaving him.
“No. I don’t want to sing about this shit every night.”
I checked my phone. I had a voicemail. It was my landlord. He had received numerous noise complaints last night from my neighbors. The more I thought about it I got nervous. There was a camera in the lobby downstairs. It likely captured Xavier buying the bunk crack.
“Let’s get out of here,” I told him. “I don’t want to talk to my landlord.”
“Well, there’s room at my place now.”
We took the subway back to Wicker Park. We didn’t talk much along the way. There’s no good way to get from the North side to the west without a car. Going from the Redline to the Blueline drags. But self-conscious about how much was dropped the night before on bar tabs, fake drugs, and cabs we spent the time rather than the money. Cabs pass the gas prices on to the rider.
On Division Street we economized with a 30-rack of PBR and a pint of Old Grand-Dad. We hooved our provisions down the quiet side street till we came to Xavier’s place. The three-story house was divided into three shotgun style apartments. His place was on the first floor. Inside were signs of a hurried exit by his now ex-girlfriend. There were empty patches on the walls and a blank spot where a desk once sat. Some of his stuff was thrown around in the shuffle.
“I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent now,” he said to himself. We cracked cans in the kitchen. The foam spilled onto the linoleum. “At least now I don’t have to wipe that up.”
Each of us took a hit straight from the pint of whisky.
In the living room Xavier plopped on the sagging couch. Using a remote he put on some music. In his restless fashion he’d switch to another song before the last one ended. One song reminded him of another. It was maddening, but I didn’t say anything. He was having a rough day.
When ten cans of PBR lay crumpled on the floor he finally put the remote down. The hangovers were gone. The worries were gone. The sun was down. The mood was up.
Maybe it was the incident with the crack, but somehow we got to talking about all the drugs we’ve tried. I bragged about drinking for three days straight after a line of meth. He bragged about still being able to ride a bike on liquid codeine. I smoked crack with punk rockers in a basement in Milwaukee. He freebased at a squat in Pittsburg. It was becoming a competition. Tit for tat he had one depraved tale for each of mine. It wasn’t fair. He could sing. He got all the women. He wasn’t going to one up me with stories. Finally I thought I had him.
“When my buddy and I were like thirteen we went into a barn with a gas can and huffed gas fumes.”
“Big deal. Lot’s of kids did stupid shit like that.”
“Oh yeah? You?”
“Sure.”
“One of my neighbors put himself in the hospital sniffing gas.”
“That’s pretty stupid,” Xavier smirked. “You gotta use the brakes when you’re using gas. Just because you’re huffing gas doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”
We laughed and he took a hit from the Grand-Dad.
“Matter of fact, all this talk about huffing gas has made me nostalgic.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Let’s go get some gasoline.”
I thought he was fucking with me. I didn’t like it. So I played along.
“You have a gas can?” I asked.
“No but there’s a gas station round the corner on Augusta.”
“I don’t know man. Gas prices are over five dollars a gallon right now. I don’t know if we can afford it.”
“Let’s treat ourselves! Come on I’m buying.”
Xavier staggered to his feet. I put on my coat and followed.
The clerk behind the glass didn’t want to sell us an empty gas can. Xavier had a crazy look in his eyes like he was about to burn down the whole world.
“What you want it for? You walked in the lot. You don’t even have a car.”
Finally I gave him a sob story about running out of gas a few blocks away. He sold us the red plastic can.
“Put five dollars on pump number two,” Xavier added.
At pump number two there was regular, midgrade, and premium.
“What’s you fancy?” I asked him.
“Well, I’m not going to huff no regular gasoline.”
“Of course not. We’re not white trash.”
“Let’s get the premium!”
“Yeah, top shelf!”
Back at his place Xavier called my bluff. He staggered around with the can spilling gas willy-nilly. He plopped back in his spot on the couch and sloshed some on the floor. I was nursing the whisky when he looked me dead in the eyes and took a long inhale on the hose sticking out of the red can.
He passed it my way.
“I’m getting enough fumes from all that you’re spilling.”
“Come’on man. I spent five dollars on this shit.”
I shook my head.
“It’s premium yo!”
I got up and grabbed another beer from the kitchen.
Back in the living room he had put on Towns Van Zandt. Xavier lay on the floor with his eyes closed moaning along with the music. Yawning I knew he would freak if I turned off the tunes. So I plugged headphones into his stereo and placed the cans on his head.
After a while he was in a trance. I couldn’t hear the music but I could still hear him singing along. He wasn’t making words anymore. He voice was several steps from being in tune. He was gone.
Taking a pillow into the kitchen I lay on the floor and tried to pass out. The din from his mourning continued. I got up and found another pillow and put it over my head. It was no use. I could hear him through the floor.
Drunk, tired, and twisted I stood up and began fisting his wall. I punched the thin white stucco in frustration. When I cracked a hole in the wall Xavier woke up enough to roll over. Then there was silence. Then there was blackness.
I awoke to the sound of knocking. Someone was at the front door. My head was throbbing. The noise was relentless. I heard Xavier moan. The banging stopped for a minute. Then there was banging on the back door closer to my aching skull. I got up and went into the living room. Xavier sat up. The banging returned to the front door.
Xavier went into the hall and answered the door.
“The whole building smells like gas! What the hell is going on in there?”
It must have been a neighbor or his landlord.
Xavier thought fast. Through the crack in the door he said something about refilling a Zippo and spilling the fluid. The lady outside went on about it. He promised to mop it up. She went away.
Xavier sat on the couch. He was about to light a cigarette when he stopped and said, “Fuck.”
We opened all the windows. He fetched a bucket and a mop.
“Here, I’ll do that.”
“Why?”
I showed him the hole I made in the wall. He wasn’t mad.
“I’ll get some plaster and patch that up tomorrow.”
With throbbing headaches we picked up the cans. He hid the gasoline in the closet. I mopped up.
After that Xavier and I didn’t hang out much. We both understood that we brought out the worst in each other. He got back together with his girlfriend. Later he moved to Brooklyn where his music gained some recognition. Last I heard her was sober. When I emailed him saying I was glad things were going good for him he sent me some more lyrics.
Moved by the spirit and acting like kids
We find homes without mothers and fathers
Our labors and glories and smiles from our friends
Keep pushing and moving us onward
New mornings everyday and new dawning’s
We find we’re growing up while feeling more young
We come in from the corners and pounce
on the heart of an idea we’ve finally become
We’ve known each other forever
We meet up in every new life I suppose
Lets get back to the beginning of our beginning
How far back we remember we can’t know
Without borders I search for my family
I’ll be your brother if you’ll be a friend of mine
We own young and smiling faces
We’re born with the mist and are not afraid to die