J.D. Scavengers

I’m going to tell you about this real ingenious stuff that happened to me and my friend Steve last Dec, what I mean is this really terribly stupid stuff, but I think we thought it was pretty smart. We decided to go way the hell up to NH to stalk good old J.D. Salinger, the guy who wrote that Catcher in the Rye book and hasn’t really written anything in a billion goddam years. I’ll tell you how it ended up if you really want to know. We met him. Or we didn’t.

I swear: when we got back to the city, everyone was having about ten heartattacks a piece trying to ask us if we met him and all. Frankly, I could care less if we met him. First of all, I don’t think he’s a goddam genius or anything. It was just a lark, really. I mean, we were just trying to have fun and all. You gotta go meet someone like J.D. Salinger every once in a while. Life can get pretty dull, if you’re not meeting people like Salinger once in a while. And I guess since everyone probably wants to know what we did when we got there, I’m supposed to tell you all about it –all the stinking details.

The thing I really want to talk about is how on Christmas Eve, Steve and I were at this bar called The Imperial Lounge. It was pretty empty at first and we sort of got to talking with the bartender, whose name was Danni. She was nice and had this really warming smile and everything, and we both liked her – but you could tell she was the sort of person who gets paid for people liking her. She gets paid so much to get people to like her I mean it sort of makes you not like her as much. When you really think about it. So, there was this guy next to us who was all pocky and old and had a weasely sort of voice who was talking about how he didn’t like his girls to be wearing bluejeans and how they should be wearing sundresses instead. I wasn’t too interested in what he was talking about, he was one of those types of bores that says everything as if it were a long lost gospel or something – and it’s all in the same voice, tired and old as hell. But by that time, I wasn’t feeling too hot about anything and I sort of wanted something to do, so I listened to the old guy chatter on. He talked about the Navy and how he had veteran’s insurance and all and how it doesn’t work because once he got this hernia that started pushing the stomach into the old lungs and he couldn’t breathe very well and it took the hospitals like fifty years or more to finally get him looked at. I really felt sorry for him. You could tell what he really wanted was someone to listen to him and pat him on the shoulder and say good show ole joe, even though he was really a terrific bore. And him being there on Christmas Eve and all, and you can tell he was a real dope with the ladies. I felt bad for him, I really did. But who knows? Maybe he was an amazing painter or chess player or had a real stellar stamp collection or something. You can never tell who’s really a bore and who’s not. I can’t tell anyway.

I was also feeling kinda sorry for the bartender, because all she had for conversation was us, and here was this guy who was making a big deal about her wearing bluejeans and all, and I mean none of us were really rocket scientists or anything. I just got so damned angry thinking about it, that I needed to get outside and smoke myself a cigarette. I mean I didn’t feel too swell about anything.

Steve followed me out and the first thing he said was ‘I don’t know. I think our priority is to find someone to go home with.’ Real clever guy, that Steve.

We’d slept in our car the previous night and it was ok but our goddam feet were always falling over to the old floor vent. That’s the thing about sleeping in cars, you can never keep your feet far enough away from the old floor vents.

‘And since I’m kinda tied up, it looks like you gotta go to bat.’

‘I know what you mean,’ I said and blushed like a real ninny. Honestly, I was a real grade-A ninny. You see, I’m really terrible when it comes to women. I don’t understand them. The thing about women is as soon as you think you understand what they mean, that’s exactly when they pull out the old rug. I can’t tell you how many times it’s happened when I’m necking with some girl and we’re both getting into it and all of a sudden, when we’re supposed to be getting more sexy and all, she gets up and goes home or she just turns over and goes to goddam sleep. Sex really bothers me, you know. It really does. I think we’d all be much better off if we were castrated. And here’s the thing: if you are getting too much sex, you end up getting really very lazy and you start not showing up for your appointments and all. I really can’t understand why people get so goddam gaga over it.

When we went back in, I started smiling nervous as hell at the bartender, since she was the only girl in about five hundred miles. She wasn’t having any of it though, so I just ordered another whiskey on ice. Then, Steve and I sat there a pretty long while until suddenly we got the great idea to start playing some pool. I’m really terrible at pool, I’ll have to tell you. You’d never want me on your team, I’m so bad. I’ve never been very good at games that involve strategy. I mean I’ve got a really lousy memory and all. Pool’s a pretty fun game, but the thing is everyone is looking at all the angles trying to figure out where the dumb ball’s gonna hit, and I just sorta squint my eyes and prop myself on the table and pretend like I’m looking at the angles, but I’m really just trying to look suave as hell.

What’s worse is I’m a bit of a lightweight too, honest-to-God, I am. So we were drinking and shooting pool, and the thing is we were also talking, which was kinda distracting, but it made me feel not so depressed. We were talking about how I’m really such a dumb guy, and how Steve’s really smart and cunning and all. He really is. It’s not just that he’s smart, I mean plenty of people and their mothers are smart, but Steve really knows what makes people tick. He knows how to talk to people and get them to like invite him into their homes and blow tons of money on him and leave their cats with him – I mean that’s really smart. I just never paid too much attention to stuff like that. I’m really bad at looking people in the eyes and giving them a goddam authentic handshake and all and saying nice to see you, how’re ya doing. I mean I have to say what I mean most of the time, unless of course I’m horsing around or shooting the crap, which I do quite often.

Well anyway, I ordered us a round of tequila. I figured if we were gonna get steamed, we’d need some tequila. But this woman kept saying to me that I was a bad friend and I was trying to take advantage of Steve. They honestly thought we were a bunch of queers or something, Steve and I, and that I was trying to make him puke. I don’t know, maybe I was. The guy that she had with her was a real charmer. He didn’t say much. He probably knew that the less he said the sooner he’d be going home with her. Then all of the sudden this woman that I’m talking about started telling me how her eldest son was into drugs and in and out of jail, and she started to let the old teardrops fall. She really made me feel bad, so what I did was I put on this goofy smile and put my arm around her, real cassanova, and told her that all that was important was that he knew she loved him. I almost puked in my own mouth. I’m really a terrific liar when I mean to be. But the thing is I really liked this woman in a strange sort of way. I swear, if I lived up there in Claremont, I’d probably have friends like this woman and her Christ-like boyfriend.

Now, the bar was starting to fill up, and you couldn’t turn around without seeing some really fratboy guy and his girl who was looking all over the place as if she was some big star or something and had a hundred thousand autographs to sign.

I started feeling like I couldn’t get drunk enough. I was already at least two sheets to the wind, but it’s always when you’ve had more than enough that you start feeling like you can’t get drunk enough. I would’ve drunk a goddam ocean of whiskey if someone could find one for me. It was about that time that this real dumpy and desperate-looking girl came up to me and started slitting her wrists trying to get to know me. She wasn’t all too bad I guess, but the thing was she kept on making eyes at me and I couldn’t tell if she wanted to sex me up or cannibalize me. It was really kinda spooky, if you want to know the truth.

‘Hello, how’re you doing?’

‘Just swell, how about you?’

‘No I mean, how’re ya doing, anyway?

‘You know. You know.’

A great pair of conversationalists we were. So then, just to have something interesting to do and stop talking, I asked her if she wanted to kiss. Now, normally I think it’s really pretty awful to ask someone if they wanna kiss. First of all, it’s not very suave. What the real suave thing to do would be is to inch your goddam mit behind her back, lean in, wink a little, let her swoon a bit, and then when she comes back up, plant one on her sexy lips, and tip back your hat. That’s the real bogart thing to do. That’s the way I’d kiss all the time if I wasn’t such a goddam coward. It only seems to work in the stupid movies, though. Trust me, I’ve tried it a couple of times. Most of the time, it’s too much trouble not to just ask someone if you can kiss them.

So we started going at it and I kept on closing my eyes. I mean it’s hard for me to look at people when I’m kissing them. It’s hard to look at most people anyway, but especially when their big goddam face is right in front of your face. That sort of stuff just sucks the life outta me. She wasn’t a horrible kisser though. And you could tell she’d just recently brushed her teeth and all. That’s about the worst thing in the world: when you’re slobbering all over this girl and it’s like you’re kissing a goddam landfill, it smells so bad. But I guess people get used to it, because the truth is most people’s mouths smell pretty bad most of the time.

I went out to have a cigarette after a while. My mind was so loopy because of all the fooling around and now I was pretty reeling too. Good old Steve was out there talking to this girl that kept saying she had pot and all. She wanted to invite us over. Turned out she was a friend of the girl I’d been kissing. In a cheesy sort of way, it seemed like everything was working out as planned.

So what we did, we went back to their house, which was kind of funny because they lived in Windsor where we’d just come from. This girl, Kit Kat was cooking up some French toast, and I and the other girl, Tulsa, were continuing to sex eachother on the couch. We were both kinda silly because of all the drugs. The truth is I really didn’t want to keep it up with the girl, but I felt sort of obligated. That’s the thing about lying. Once you hand out one lie, it’s hard to not keep lying and end up horsing around with a very dumpy girl when you really don’t want to. I mean I sort of did and I sort of didn’t. I’m kinda bipolar, if you ask me. I’m really pretty nuts.

Then, we went up to someone’s bedroom and really started going after each other. I started pecking the hell out of her face, pulling down her bra, lifting up her shirt. She kept pulling it down again. She was a real modest princess. I didn’t happen to know that.

‘Tell me, Adam, do you believe in anything?’

‘Uh…no, not really.’

‘You mean you don’t believe in anything? Really?’ That put her in stitches, I’m not kidding.

‘Really. Listen it’s not very important,’ I said in a very smooth and urgent voice, as if I hadn’t any time to waste. Like I was on my lunch break or something. People like that sort of urgency.

‘Listen, I know you don’t really love me?’

‘You’re right I don’t. But that doesn’t matter, you see?’ Then she got sore as hell. It’s really funny how lots of girls will say these things in very mature voices like ‘I know you don’t really love me’ and all, and when you just confirm what they say they already know, they throw about nine hundred hissy-fits. Guys do it too a lot. I do it all the time. But I still think girls do it more. It’s real funny, if you think about it. You can tell ‘em a real load of horseshit about how you love them very much and that they’re sweethearts and all and suddenly they get really very mature and say something like ‘I forgive you, Adam.’ I swear it’s real funny.

Earlier in the night, good old Luke, he was one of the cavalry, married this girl and I, while we were on the couch. It was a real laugh. She asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said yes, ma’am, and so Luke, who by the way is as much an ordained minister as my left toe, married us. And then she asked me if I loved her and all, which really got a laugh outta Steve, because he’s always kidding that it’s impossible for me to love people. It’s not that I truly hate people, I just think saying crap like ‘I love you’ is really a whole lot of unnecessary bull. I told her I did love her though, because I figured we were joking around and it was a helluva amusing thing to say.

I started getting rough with her up in the old bedroom, but she told me to stop touching her neck, because something bad happened there.

‘Whaddaya mean?’

‘I mean I did something to my neck a while back and it hurts.’

Then she started telling me this sob story about how she’s a cutter and all, and how she’s tried to commit suicide before and she’s got a boyfriend who hits her all the time and she’s addicted to crack cocaine. That’s all a goddam gorgeous thing to say when you’re kneedeep in necking with a stranger in a dark bedroom. I felt really bad for her though. I’m not kidding at all. I wanted to hold her then and make her feel safe and loved and everything, but she kept on trying to suck on my jugular the whole time and stick her hands down my pants. So I sort of had to let her.

She started rubbing me down there, and I was really starting to lose my mind. I mean, the sex was starting to get very heavy. But what she kept doing was she kept on dropping me after each stroke. It was a little frustrating, and I was starting to feel really lonely and sad. I tell you, you take a girl who’s always stopping to ask you what you believe in, and ninety-five percent of the time she’s gonna need a lot of breaks when she’s getting you off. Soon after, we both sort of fell asleep because it was really taking so long and it had already been a pretty long night.

A couple of days later, we ended up visiting that old J.D. Salinger guy I was telling you about earlier and talked with his wife who was some sort of nurse, while good old J.D. watched his reruns in the other room – I’m starting to think he must have been a pretty smart guy, because if you know you’re going to be kicking the bucket pretty soon, it’s probably a real clever thing to marry a nurse and watch reruns. I swear I can’t honestly think of a better way to go. Believe me, I can’t.

Well anyway, I could bore you with all the very Steven Spielberg details about how we got our car impounded that night and had to stay in a roadside motel and then trek all over the snow again to get back to that old gray buzzard and his nurse, and all kinds of other details that wouldn’t interest you. I know that all anyone ever wants to read about is sexy stuff. Who's to blame them really? And let’s face it, an old dying author and his nurse of a wife watching reruns in the goddam snowy hills of New Hampshire is not too sexy, if you really think about it.