Funny People by Vincent Poturica

“What are you thinking?” Amber points her finger out of the window and I follow it toward a man sticking out a sideways thumb over a pile of trash bags.

“I’m down,” I say, and I’m always down. I’m always really fucking down. Crystal lights another cigarette, a Camel filter. She hands me one and squeezes my thigh and smiles. She’s been chaining them since she and Amber picked me up in Eugene. She even lit one up while we were still pulling out of my aunt and uncle’s driveway and my little cousins were waving their goodbyes and my aunt was smiling a crooked smile.

“When are you coming back Tony?” little Emma had asked. “When are you coming back?” she had tugged at my belt loops with her tiny hands until I had picked her up from the garden. My aunt was planting tulips with a Grateful Dead bandana tied around her head. She was a vegetarian and I gave her shit for being a hippie. I would roll my eyes at her when she would let Emma and my other cousin Grace run naked through the playgrounds in public parks. And my aunt rolled her eyes at me as I swung little Emma around and around and tossed her up in the air and danced with her until she was laughing again. And I flashed a peace sign at my aunt and she smiled and flicked me off.

“Don’t worry,” I said to Emma, “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.” But that was a lie that I regretted telling as soon as it came out, so I kissed Emma’s forehead and snorted her hair like a wild boar until she giggled.

The sun was small and high up in the sky like a white eye looking for a face and I lifted Emma up to it. “Say hello to the sun Emma.”

“Hi,” she sang, “hi. Hi, hi, hiii, hiiii, hiiii . . . “

The air was hot and I was nineteen. I’d just finished three months of trail work in the Three Sisters’ Wilderness and was catching a ride back down to southern California from Amber after living in Eugene on and off for eight months with my aunt and uncle. They’d taken me in but their bills were piling up and their arguments were getting longer and I couldn’t make it right. I couldn’t wash enough dishes, walk enough streets, vacuum enough floors, talk to enough bums, read enough library books, go to enough twelve step meetings, watch enough Sesame Street, have enough solitude to make it right. I didn’t have a job, a plan, a home, but things were looking up and the summer was winding down and it was time to go.

Grace was lying in a damp patch of green grass studying two small snails crawl across her left arm. She touched the trail they had left and looked up at me and smiled. She had almost all her teeth in now, and she picked up one of the snails and tottered over to me and held it out.

“Ouuhh,” she grunted, “ouuhhh,” and I accepted her gift and laid down with her in the grass for a while and I held her in my arms while she played with my beard. I let the snail roam free while little Grace tickled my face and everything was good and the snail wandered inside a lilac bush that covered it up and swallowed the path that I was trying hard to follow. And I left little Grace with little Emma in the green grass and their mother began to plant some sunflowers.

I went inside and gathered up all my things in the basement. There wasn’t much: some clothes, a blue sleeping bag, some books and c.d.s, a journal, dental floss, leather work boots, Old Spice deodorant, letters from my mom, soap, a picture of my sister and me at Disneyland, an inflatable orange sleeping pad, some pills, a painting little Emma had made for me, a toothbrush, two old comic books, two pairs of work gloves, a razor, and a few shitty love poems I’d written to a girl with a black mohawk I’d met on a train in Kentucky.

I don’t like things. I don’t believe in them, but I still have some so I packed what I had into a black duffle bag and an old backpack with a molé from Ecuador safety-pinned to the front pouch. An old woman had sewn it for me, a yellow and green and blue and red and purple creature with a mouth like an empty hole and eyes like holes and a tail covered with spikes. She told me it reminded her of what can happen to a man, and I hugged her and told her I’d be careful.

I sat down with all my things in bags and I took out the journal and looked out the glass window at all the Oregon firs and composed a note of gratitude. “Thank you,” I scribbled, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking me into your home.” And I didn’t know what else to put down because there was too much feeling in me, so I wrote, “I love you all. I love you all so much.” And I hoped that was enough. I scrawled a check for $350 and stuffed it into an envelope on the kitchen table and I ran out the door with my bags because Amber was honking her horn over and over again. I hugged my aunt and little Emma and little Grace and I hugged them some more and it all happened much too fast, but I guess it always does.

“Come back soon,” my aunt said, “you’re always welcome,” and I knew she meant it, but I was already in the van and it was already pulling out and Crystal was already smoking her Camel filter and my eyes were already wet.

“Yeah, I’m down too Tony,” says Crystal as she strokes my beard with tingling fingertips and I’m brought back to the highway.

“Okay then, I’m pulling over,” says Amber and she looks beautiful with her dark hair down, falling in waves on her small shoulders and I look at her soft face and its smoothness covers everything she told me by the lake after work. We’d wash ourselves in the mountain water and sit on the brown rocks by the shore and let the dry heat warm our skin. She’d tell me about her family in Iowa, about her father living in the cellar and her mother living in the master bedroom upstairs. He sits alone and eats morphine pills and plays guitar and she manages two restaurants in town and her boyfriend plays guitar too. And Amber would tell me her mom kicked her out when she was seventeen and that a year ago she lived in her car, on friends’ couches, on benches. She’d tell me about stealing food from cafeterias and going to high school every day homeless. She’d tell me she was welcomed back home with open arms and I was grateful. She’d tell me her sister snowboards in Vermont and her other sister fucks too much. She’d tell me her boyfriend drinks too much and that she just wants to travel for a real long time. I listened to Amber by that lake after we were cleansed of all that wonderful forest dirt and we were tired and sometimes we were quiet and I’d look out across the water.

“I’m so fucking down,” Crystal says again and unlike Amber her stories are written on her face in the bags underneath her eyes and the creases in her forehead. She’s pretty though: long blond hair, thin shoulders, big breasts, big lips, a tough mouth, sad eyes. They look out the window and past the sea when she remembers riding horses through the plains with Amber when they were young. They look at the ground when she talks about scrubbing kitchen tiles with her toothbrush at night when she’s on crystal meth and going to church the next morning to listen to her mother speak from a wooden pulpit. They look at the empty beer cans, at the dirty white t-shirts, at the plastic Dairy Queen spoons, at the faded cassette tapes, at the broken bits of saltine crackers that cling to the brown van carpet like slivers of yellow glass. I want to fill those eyes with something wonderful, with something healing even though I met her yesterday. And she turns towards me and tilts her head and grins.

Amber’s on the side of the road now and I search my backpack for my wallet and count the money: $48. Not much to steal and I put the bills back inside, but I can’t help staring at the picture of myself on my old college I.D. I’ve got long hair that’s combed and a clean shave and I’m smiling like I’m stoned. I probably was. I look at my reflection in the rearview mirror, a knotted black beard, knotted black hair, visible bones in my cheeks and neck, a fresh scar creeping out from underneath my ear towards my Adam’s apple. I don’t see it on the old I.D, but it’s not so old, it was just last year right? Wasn’t it? I don’t see much of anything on it and I hide the wallet inside a book in my backpack before I start getting stuck inside these circles again.

Crystal gets out of the front seat and opens the side door and the man is sitting next to me with his pile of things hidden in black plastic and I shove my hand inside my jeans’ pocket to make sure my knife is still there.

“Fuck man,” this man says in a voice that’s deep and hoarse, “I thought I was for sure gonna have to sleep in the weeds,” and he points to a field of dandelions on the side of the road that are swaying and gray. And this guy smells like the road, like gravel and sweat and rubber and gasoline, and there’s a wad of silver duct tape around the center of his glasses. The glasses don’t sit quite right on top of his bony nose that reaches out of a bony face that looks more animal than anything else, like an antelope or a jackal. He’s tall and all arms and legs like an ape or a spider and his hair is dreadlocked and he looks over at me and smiles with long teeth and no one says anything.

He takes a glass pipe out of the hemp pouch around his neck and packs a big bowl. I give him my lighter and he takes a big hit, and he passes it to me and it’s been six weeks since I’ve smoked anything, even bud, a long time, a real long time. And I hesitate, I always hesitate, but I’m always down so I take the lighter and it’s on.

I pass the bowl to Amber and she hits it and so does Crystal who’s driving now and we keep passing it and this man keeps packing and I’m back.

“Well shit, this sure is a quiet bunch,” the man says and he laughs and I’m laughing too and we’re all laughing because it is all very funny. And we’re driving past the sea and laughing because it is pretty funny to watch the sun sink into the sea. And we’re driving past the California redwoods and they’re pretty funny too and the man points to them and says “that’s where I’m going, back to the trees,” and that’s funny in a different sort of way.

“Make a left at the next exit,” he says, and Amber does and the sky’s filling up with dark clouds.

And the man looks out the window and sits with his arms hanging at his sides and I notice the black tattoos crawling out from under his tie-dye sleeves. All the black spirals and black eyes and black teeth and black claws are spilling off his arms into the shadows and I keep flicking my lighter to make sure I can see.

“Make a right onto that dirt road,” he says and Amber does and now it’s raining.

“I love the rain,” I say, and I do and I say it again and I yell. “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh. Ahhaaahhhaaahaahaaahhhh,” and the hitchhiker joins me.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh.” It’s a chorus of howls and we stick our heads out of the van and try to catch rain drops in our mouths, try to fill up on a real something, and the rain is coming down harder and harder, drumming faster and faster on the windshield. “Ohheeehhohh. Ohhheehhhohhhehhhohhehhhohhh.”

And we go on like this for a while, the man and I, fighting against the prospect of another awful silence with our voices and pushing our bodies farther and farther out of our windows until even our knees are tasting the sky’s tears. And I sing to the road before us, the narrow slice of tall grass and thick roots climbing out of a brown earth and this slice winds and gets smaller as the trees link their arms closer and closer together. This road is where I am and the road shifts and twists and I shift and twist with it and I have no idea why Amber and Crystal are listening to the directions of this man and why I’m not asking any questions and I don’t know where we’re sleeping tonight or where I’m going to sleep for awhile. I’m making loud sounds though, desperate sounds, and my t-shirt is stuck to my chest like all the tangled feelings that are stuck inside. And I take off my shirt, but everything else is still stuck and the rain can’t wash it away and already the shower is over, too brief to let out much of anything.

I pull myself back into the van and watch a few stray sunbeams peek through the forest tunnel, and I’m holding on to this image when I say to the hitchhiker, “I’m sorry man. My name’s Tony and I feel like a real asshole for not introducing myself.” I stick my hand out into the space between us. He takes it and slides his long fingers into the spaces between my knuckles and kisses one of the knuckles, the one that’s still raw and purple and swollen and the sunbeams are finding more holes through which to shine.

“Brother, you just told me who you are a second ago, but I appreciate the gesture,” he says and smiles with longer teeth, “my name’s Dave.”

“Good to meet you Dave,” and it is good to meet him and it is good to be lost in the woods when the night is fast approaching and I know a lot of good Daves and now it’s time to speak with this stranger. “But, I gotta ask you buddy, where are we going?”

“Yeah, where are we going Mr. David. That’s a good question Tony. Oh, and I’m Crystal by the way.” She leans back and extends! her hand towards Dave then tussles my hair with that same hand. Amber does the same then returns to staring out the window.

“Just tell me where to go,” Crystal says, with just the faintest rise in her voice, “and talk to Tony, he’s a good listener.” She turns back and winks at me and lets out a giggle that sounds more nervous than amused.

Dave chuckles then smiles with teeth that are even longer, “I’m going as far into these trees as you’re all willing to take me, but I’ve got no clue where Tony’s going,” and he winks too and I like it when people use my name when they talk to me.

“Okay, Mr. Funny,” I say, “I’ll be more clear. Where is it that you’re living?” And something else is laughing inside me as I stuff my hand deeper into my pocket.

“Mr. Funny, I dig that Tony, I really do. But man, it’s hard to say because I’m living everywhere. I was up in Alaska with an Inuit friend of mine for a long time. We were hunting with bows we made from cedar branches and shooting the elk up there. We’d aim for the neck and usually I’d hit it right on because I’ve got the shot, man. And we’d cut those elk up and just feast brother. We’d skin them too and make blankets and that’s what I’d sleep under in the snow caves that I’d carve up into the sides of the ice hills. And then I was wandering for a while along the west coast. I made it all the way down to Nicaragua and I was living in the rain forests down there and learning the ways, brother. The ways of the people down there. They know how to live, brother. They know how to live. All you need is the trees, man. All you need is the trees . . .”

Dave is going, the inertia’s there, and I’m listening. He starts to break apart the monotony of the road, the tension forming between the tires and the mud, the tension everywhere, and I start to breathe.

“Tony man, I was hitching around these parts. Hey, you ever been to Arcata?”

“No, no man.” I let go of the knife in my pocket and wipe the sweat from my hands, my face, my chest with one of the dirty shirts on the ground and light a cigarette.

“Well that’s a town brother. One time a dude picks me up and he’s like ‘Hey man, you know where I can get some herb?’ And I just told him ‘drive to Arcata man,’ and we just walked into the town square and in five minutes one of my brothers walks up to me and says ‘Dave, brother, it’s been a long time,’ and that dude who gave me the ride got all the fucking ganja he wanted. I ended up staying in Arcata for around a year that time, sleeping in this dude’s hammock by the sea and just picking up mussels and clams when I was hungry and frying ‘em in a fire pit with some butter and hot sauce. Oh man. Arcata is the place brother. You’ve gotta stop there some time, man.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Amber is looking at the clouds and pointing and Crystal nods.

“But now man, I’m sitting up at this tree village that we’re almost at. Real good place, brother. Me and my pirates set up these huge hammocks ‘a hundred feet up in the redwoods and we sleep up there in the ropes and no one cuts those trees down anymore man, no one. The loggers fucking hate us brother, but we don’t care. We don’t give a fuck. Only our hands do man. Look at these paws brother. Just look, all cut up from sliding down the tree trunks.”

He shows me his paws and his calluses are thick and black like tar and his blisters are yellow pockets of water and his wounds are deep and crusted and orange.

“Jesus, those look awful man,” I say. “You know, I’ve got two pair of gloves from my last job. Let me give them to you, buddy.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. Take ‘em dude.”

“Thank you brother. I appreciate that and all the pirates will too, man, because we’re so far away from anything you know, so far from everything . . .”

I am trying hard, but the sunbeams aren’t finding spaces to hold on to with their yellow fingers. The road just keeps twisting and getting thinner like living walls and Crystal’s pressing her nose on the windshield, telling me I’m beautiful and laughing, and Amber’s in her own world now too, just staring out the window and watching the moon rise or something and rubbing her arms and Dave just keeps talking and talking and I don’t know.

“ . . . They filmed the third Star Wars here man, Return of the Jedi. This is where all the furry little animals dudes lived, you know, you know what I’m talking about?”

“Seriously? This is Endor? The Eewoks? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yeah man. Yeah. This is fucking Endor brother. We’re in Endor man.”

“Endor? Wow. That’s crazy Dave. That’s really crazy.”

“Yeah brother it is. It’s crazy.” Dave looks over at me and smiles and his teeth are so long that I can’t even look at them anymore.

I look out the window now, and I do recognize this forest that we’re in. It is Endor. It is a fantasy. It is crossing all those lines that keep me in place and I’m laughing now because all of this is very funny and I laugh for a long while.

And somewhere beyond all the roads Crystal parks. And we all get out of the van. I grab the two pairs of gloves out of the black duffle bag and hand them to Dave and he cheers with his arms above his head, “I knew this was gonna be a good ride man, I could feel it in my bones. You guys are cool man, real cool. Thanks Tony, thanks.”

“No worries, buddy,” I say and we all stand in silence for a bit.

“You know,” Dave asks, “how about you all come up these hills with me and check out the tree squat? I want you brothers and sisters to see it.” And he grins a wild grin with his long long teeth.

I look over at Amber and she's looking at her watch and making a spiral in the dirt with her shoe. Crystal gazes up at the trees, the branches, the moon, and smiles then looks over at me, inviting me with her eyes to take a chance. Dave's packing another bowl and soon we're all having another session.

"So how 'bout it?" Dave asks, blowing smoke from his nose.

"Well," the silence again. Everyone’s just gazing up at the stars. Amber shrugs. Crystal slides her fingers into mine. Dave takes resin hits from his pipe. I breathe in deep and let out the air. It makes a whistling sound. "Yeah, I guess we could all go up and chill for a bit."

"Right on, brother, right on,” Dave squeezes my shoulder just a little too hard and I take the black trash bags from inside the van and sling them over this shoulder.

“You sure you want to carry those Tony? I can take ‘em,” Dave adjusts his glasses but the duck tape keeps them from staying in the center of his face. They keep leaning to the left.

“I got ‘em. It’s fine.” The bags are heavy, but I want to sweat. I want to feel useful.

Dave walks ahead with Amber and I focus on the trail, forcing my foggy mind to notice the markings in the dark, the gnarled tree that looks like a scarecrow, the rock pile stacked up like a snowman, the sharp left turn up towards a looming hill. Crystal smiles at me in the silver moonlight and I smile back even though my hands are trembling. I overhear Amber telling Dave that she wishes she were home working at the restaurant with her mom and Crystal puts her arm around my waist beneath the plastic bags and I start to count my footsteps.

“I love the moon and the stars,” she says and I look up and the dark sky is filled with small blinking lights that I wish were closer together.

We come across what looks like an old fortress, a primitive reminder of a western past I read about in an elementary school history class. Huge logs stand in a row end on end, plunged deep into the earth. The fence they form must be at least twenty feet high, the tops of the logs sharpened to sinister points. This fence, twined together with gray ropes, extends deep into the woods, bending at a right angle into the darkness. A huge sign nailed across five of these logs, reads, THE LORAX TAKES CARE OF ALL HIS CHILDREN and that’s a strange sort of funny. I’d just read that Dr. Seuss story a couple nights ago to little Grace and Emma and had fallen asleep with them both in my arms. My uncle had lifted me out of the small covers painted with pictures of rocket ships and shooting stars and tucked me in that night like a child, kissing me on the forehead. I had heard him recite a short prayer about the freedom found in giving up control and almost wanted to believe him for a second.

Dave kneels down next to the towering fence and brushes away a pile of dead branches and rolls a log away, revealing a hole the size of a basketball hoop that we all crawl into as he puts the log and the branches and the leaves back into place.

We all climb out the tunnel and a kid, maybe sixteen, maybe younger sits with a black pan over a fire, shirtless, his ribs pressing up against his dark skin. He pours some water and then a bit of salt onto a yellowish lump of dough. He’s wearing a Grateful Dead bandanna like the one my aunt was wearing in the garden today. I think that was today.

“All we’ve got left is this flour Dave.” The boy doesn’t look up as he speaks. He stirs the lump with a stick covered with gray dirt.

“Well, look what I brought,” Dave motions for me to bring the trash bags to the fire, so I drop them beside the kid. Dave unties them and empties the contents onto the ground. I can make out large packages of rice, sugar, coffee, and flour in the meager light, cans of peaches, pears, green beans, kidney beans, chicken, beef, blocks of Swiss and cheddar cheese, loaves of bread, some of it sprinkled with blue mold. The boy drops the pan into the fire when he sees this and grabs one the bread loaves and tears the plastic off and shoves piece after piece into his mouth. When he finishes, he takes a rock from the ground and pounds on a can of beef until the metal lid has caved in enough for him to rip it off and stuff himself with fistfuls of the dripping meat.

Dave laughs, the light shining sharply off his long long teeth. “You sure were hungry, weren’t you Joey?” Joey is pounding on a can of peaches with his rock now. He strikes it like he hates it.

Dave looks over at me, laughs again, “You ever been that hungry Tony?”

“No man, I haven’t” I whisper watching Joey pour the slimy peaches into his mouth. And I think about my father smacking his lips watching a baseball game and eating a baked potato and screaming at the television and looking at me and screaming. And I think about my father some more and about Joey and Grace and Emma and none of this is okay at all.

I walk towards Amber and Crystal. “You guys ready to peace?” my voice is shaking and I can’t keep it steady.

“We just got here,” Amber says.

“I’m pretty damn tired,” I lie and my voice is cracking.

“Let’s hang a little while longer,” she says and now my legs are shaking.

“I’m actually really fucking tired,” my voice cracks again, “can we please go?”

“Let’s go, Amber,” Crystal looks at me, “Tony’s tired. Let’s just go.”

Dave walks to my side and puts his arm around my shoulders. “You’re all welcome to stay here as long as you want. I like you guys. I think you’d fit in here just fine.” He winks, the sharp light still shining off his long long teeth.

I shiver and look at him. “I think we better go Dave. Thanks, but I think we better go.”

Dave shrugs and pats me on the back. “Suit yourself brother.” He extends his coarse and yellow hand and I shake it.

“It was nice meeting you Dave.”

“Likewise,” he says and then turns away

And we crawl back through the hidden tunnel and I try to imagine that I’m sleeping in Eugene tonight, that I’m eating cookie dough ice cream on the yellow couch with my aunt and uncle, as we scramble and trip through the night in silence.

“I’m sorry you guys,” I’m sobbing now, “I’m just tired,” and I can’t stop.

And now we’re at the car and Amber steps into the driver seat and Crystal climbs into the farthest back seat with me bringing a green bottle of gin. She takes it straight into her mouth from the bottle and makes a face and smiles and kisses me on the neck.

“It’s okay Tony,” she says, “It’s okay.” And I don’t know.

Amber puts a Beat Happening album into the tape deck and drinks from a brown bottle of whiskey, then takes another drink, then another. I grab the gin and gulp it down fast and hard. It’s awful and I’m still crying and drink more and Crystal slips her hand into mine again and I force more gin down my throat to get some warmth. Crystal kisses my neck again, then my ear, then my collarbone. She slides her tongue down my chest and then I bring her face towards mine, bring her mouth toward mine. I need to be close. I kiss her deeply to the sounds of droning guitars and slow, steady drums. I kiss her with everything I have.

Amber drives and I catch her eye quickly as she takes another slug from the whiskey. She turns back quickly to the road though and turns the volume up.

We enter a campsite somewhere inside the dark redwoods and I grab the gin, then the other whiskey bottle and take them with Crystal along with my sleeping bag and orange sleeping pad out to a gray picnic table besides a fire pit surrounded by red and orange and yellow flowers. I hear Amber talking to her boyfriend on the phone while I blow up the mat and unroll the sleeping bag and Crystal pulls me towards her and soon our bodies are tangled together before I hear her say she loves him.

We finish off the contents in the bottles later on and I try to cradle Crystal in my arms with clumsy hands. I brush the hair away from her face with clumsy fingertips. She leaves me alone in my sleeping bag though, even after I ask her to sleep beside me, to let me rock her to sleep.

“Tony, C’mon. I thought you were tired. It’s been a long day. Just pass out.”

Even after I say that I’ll tell her a story about little Grace and Emma running through the green park grass, that I’ll tell her everything, she laughs and walks back to the van, dismissing me with a shaking head as I watch her close the passenger door.

I light a cigarette. The stars are scattered across the sky, spaced out far apart more dull than bright. They seem to be fading, laughing. I light another cigarette and talk to them. “Please, please stars don't be swallowed,” I say, “please don’t.” I want stars that twinkle. I say it aloud. "I want stars that twinkle," and I get up out of my sleeping bag and say it again, naked, staggering. I take the condom off and bury it next to the fire pit. I place a flower on top of the hole and bury that too. I climb onto the picnic table, laughing now, laughing always. The stars are fuzzy. And I walk into the forest and pick more flowers, more yellow and red and orange ones. And I bury each of them in separate holes, spacing them apart like the gray and blue distances between the stars.