This is the eighth installment in a series of short essays inspired by the 22 Trump cards, featuring original artwork by Greg Erskine (Click and scroll down for large version).
My friend Owen had the thickest New York accent I’d ever heard in real life. I learned later that he’d left home some years back as part of a criminal sentence -- the judge offered him a choice between jail time in New York or rehab in Arizona. What junkie hoodlum teenager wouldn’t elect to go West under such circumstances? He took the treatment program very seriously, enjoying years of perfect sobriety -- his first since about 7th grade. Owen found steady employment, a long-term relationship, a sense of purpose. But then he slipped, and kept slipping until you couldn’t even really call it “slipping” anymore. Before long he was in worse shape than ever, disappearing for days on end and returning home to his frantic girlfriend with no knowledge of where his cuts and bruises had come from, or what had happened to his shoes, or how they would pay their rent.
This was when I first met him; we were both waiters at a fancy restaurant in Arizona. He wasn’t what you’d call a reliable co-worker. He was a frequent no-call, no-show, and he was churlish and red-eyed when he did show, though he’d perk up considerably after a trip to the walk-in refrigerator where he and the cooks could sample cocaine in peace. He’d already been fired five or six times, but the owner’s wife had a soft spot for this lost boy and could never resist taking him on again if he asked contritely enough. Also, I think that when he actually came to work, Owen was great for business. Customers who’d actually traveled a bit were charmed by his authentically rude, supernaturally charismatic New York flavor. He was an exotic, a welcome relief from the cheerful armies of local high-school graduates that all the chain restaurants hire. And of course, he was very familiar with the wine list.
We became good friends, for some reason. Owen was no occultist, but he admired Aleister Crowley, often quoting from his poems or the novel Diary of a Drug Fiend. He introduced me to Crowley’s Tarot deck, pointing out the Hanged Man card as the one he’d always related to the most. The man on the card was formless, nailed down by his hands and feet. The significance was obvious; Owen regretted that his entire adult life had been spent mitigating his sickness, but his awareness of this fact had somehow never translated into freedom. His addictions had impoverished him physically, financially, and mentally, and still there was no slowing his descent; he once confided in me through a bilious blood-whiskey haze that the only sensations he was capable of feeling acutely anymore were pain and thirst. I was very relieved when his long-suffering family in Queens agreed to welcome him back home to New York and supervise his return to sobriety. It happened very quickly; within days of the news I was saying goodbye to Owen at the Greyhound station. The gritty five-day bus ride from Phoenix to Port Authority would be his longest stint of sobriety since we’d known each other -- a trans-continental mandatory detox. I cried a little when he got on the Greyhound. I promised I’d come visit.
I kept my promise and then some, moving to Brooklyn two years later. I’d looked forward to seeing him right away, but as weeks went by it seemed he was still a no-call, no-show. We hadn’t talked much, and I’d heard from mutual friends that he hadn’t exactly straightened things out the way he’d planned to -- that in fact he was worse than ever, and that his family had given up hope and washed their hands of the whole mess. Perhaps he felt he’d let me down too, and was embarrassed to show himself. Or perhaps he was just fucked up and oblivious, and didn’t care about being friends anymore. I figured that, like any stray animal, he’d turn up whenever he was ready.
One night that fall, my doorbell rang at 2 a.m. The sound startled me out of sleep and sent me stumbling all the way downstairs in just boxers and a t-shirt to answer the door -- I assumed it was some kind of emergency. I was so glad to see Owen standing on the stoop instead that I accidentally let the front door of the building close behind me -- I hadn’t grabbed my keys. “That’s okay,” he said, “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.” Something about his demeanor was oddly unfamiliar. Nevertheless, when he beckoned I followed him to the curb. A car was waiting there. I was barefoot and the sidewalk was chilly. I thought, Might as well see what he wants before I wake up the house trying to get back in.
Then it occurred to me what was different: Owen was drunk. Scary, blackout-league drunk, but holding it all together by sheer force of will just for my benefit, the way career drunks can. This was not down-and-out Arizona Owen -- this was New York Owen in all his terrible, unchecked splendor. My self-preservation instincts tingled. There was no way on Earth I’d let him drive me anywhere, I decided, and told him so. "Nah, I know," he said. “Go around over there and just sit down for a minute.” He pointed to the passenger side. I balked, but he reassured me, “Don't worry. Look, we’re not going anywhere.” Well, okay then. I padded gingerly across the pavement and into the street and opened the passenger-side door.
There was someone passed out across the back seat, a guy I didn’t recognize at all. “Need me to help get rid of the body?” I asked. I rested tentatively in the passenger seat, leaving my door wide open and hanging one leg out, careful not to give the slightest impression that I was along for the ride. But it was cold and I wasn’t dressed, so when Owen said he wanted to turn the engine on so he could run the heater, I didn’t protest. We dwelt there in ridiculous silence, the three of us. “So what did you want to show me?” I finally asked. I was tired and growing disappointed. Owen perked up. “Oh yeah... Okay, close your eyes.” And the second I followed his instructions, of course -- of course -- I heard the gearshift scrape and pop in its socket. The car leapt away from the curb.
Inarticulate yelling from me as I jerked my leg into the vehicle to keep the door from swinging closed on it. Pleading and demanding as the car hurtled around the corner onto Provost Street, still picking up speed. Owen smiled and ignored me, concentrating on the road, and it occurred to me that if I wanted to live, I should shut up and let him focus -- nothing I could say would sway him. I buckled my seat-belt. I tried to calm myself and take inventory of the situation, but all I could think of were the things I didn’t have. Clothes. Phone. Keys. Wallet. Money. Identification. In fact, no one even knew that I’d left the house. If we crashed and died -- something which I figured by now I totally deserved -- it would probably take over a week for them to figure out who the hell I was.
Our reeking friend in the back seat must have had similar concerns. Our speedy departure had rattled him awake, and he too began pleading for Owen to pull over. “C’mon, man... Slow down... You’re gonna kill us!” he whined. The pleas only motivated our driver to accelerate. We blew through a red light without slowing, then another and another as if we were being chased. My whole body clenched, awaiting the inevitable. When Owen finally braked a bit to turn a tight corner, the guy behind me seized the opportunity -- with a garbled scream he popped open the back door and threw himself out into the street. Looking over my shoulder I had a diminishing glimpse of him crawling out of the gutter. Neither Owen or I said a word. The door to the backseat snapped closed again on its own as we hauled ass up the ramp toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Now that we were alone, Owen started talking again, though I found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying because of his aggressive indifference to freeway lane-markings. He punctuated sentences by correctively veering toward the median in a way that made me (and some other startled-looking drivers) suspect he’d eventually try to cross it. It turns out that the thing he wanted to show me was the grave of Harry Houdini. The body was interred somewhere in one of the many cemeteries of Forest Park, deep in Queens, and Owen knew just where. As the speedometer quivered at 90 he told me the story of the magician’s tragic downfall, the one which everyone already knows, about the unexpected punch in the stomach which ruptured the magician’s appendix and sent him to death on All Hallows Eve, 1926. I could relate to the poor guy -- I was about to die my own very pointless death. I was utterly convinced of it. I began mentally catalog the unfinished projects I’d be leaving behind, soon to be discovered by my survivors as they pawed through my leftovers looking for answers, wondering how in the world they never noticed how totally fucking stupid I was. Stupid!
“Owen,” I said, straining to sound fully game, “Maybe I should drive. Why don’t you let me drive us there?” He either pretended not to hear me, or really didn’t; I don’t know which possibility was more unsettling. But we exited the freeway, so that was something at least. Where the hell were we? My entire knowledge of New York geography was based on the subway -- not much help here. An elevated subway track ran parallel to the road, I squinted to see if I could tell which train line it belonged to. There was no park in sight. I asked Owen where we were, careful to sound only casually interested. He found this question to be very funny. “We,” he smirked with homegrown pride, “…are in the ghetto.” He pulled over to the curb and parked.
He explained to me, looking straight in the eyes for the first time that night, that he was going to get out and go use the pay phone, and that afterward this dude and his girlfriend were going to drive over here to sell him a bag. "They won’t sell it to me unless I get in the car and ride around for a bit and taste it with them," he added. "So you just sit tight, and I’ll be back soon.”
“I thought we were going to the grave, Owen.” I had to admit that the original plan was beginning to sound a lot more alluring.
“Oh we are, we definitely are,” he laughed. And then he sprang out of the car and was off down the street. I checked: he took the keys with him.
Shivering in my underwear, I had plenty of time to curse myself. But then, who makes all their sharpest decisions after being suddenly awakened in the middle of the night? I resolved to focus on the present instead. For example: who knew when -- or even if -- Owen would return? I opened the car door. The world around me was strangely still, no pedestrians, no cars. Stepping carefully around the floral pattern of crushed green glass on the sidewalk, I realized that I could actually see a subway station in the distance -- the sign said Jamaica, the last stop on the E line, about an hour from home. I was overcome with relief until I remembered that I had no shoes and no money. Would the attendant let me through the turnstile without paying if I shared my sob story? What if there was no attendant? Maybe a police officer would give me a ride home if I explained my situation? But what if there was no officer? Meanwhile, there was always the chance that Owen could come back while I was gone and strand me here.
My backup plan was to call for help, or at least to let someone know what had happened. I scrounged in the car seats for change. What vehicle doesn’t have at least twenty-five cents in it somewhere? A junkie’s, I thought -- even the cup-holders and floor-mats were depressingly void. But as Owen was in no hurry to get back, I had plenty of time to search, and desperation as a powerful motivator. Eventually, I had a dime and three sticky nickels in my hand. I only knew two New York phone numbers by heart: my own, and my friend Alice’s. And Alice knew about Owen, would know what to do. Inching up the street again, I set my sights on a pay-phone and gave her a call.
The call went straight to voicemail. That caught me off guard -- I gave it my best shot: “Uh, hi Alice! This is Tom. And I just wanted to let you know in case something bad happens that I’m with Owen, and that he is pretty fucked up and I have been sort of… abducted? And I’m near the Jamaica stop of the E with no clothes or shoes. I mean, I have underwear on. And a shirt. I don’t mean to… scare you, but if I’m not home when you wake up and get this, you should probably call the police? Uh, okay, I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Bye.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I hung up the phone, listening as it digested my coins. Unsure about Plan C, I retreated to the car and locked the doors, miserably.
I must have fallen asleep -- at one instant it seemed that I was all alone, and the next the engine was turning over. Owen had a new light in his eye as he drove -- the score must have been good. “Owen, I thought you said I could drive now,” I complained, hoping I could get him to mis-remember our plans.
“Oh yeah, sorry about that,” he said, grinning. “We’re not far off now, anyway.” By the time on the radio display, if it could be trusted, it was almost four in the morning. A few minutes later we pulled over alongside a steep embankment in Forest Park. The earth was damp and spongy and I was still barefoot, but Owen was unfazed. “There’s a pair of old boots in the trunk. Help yourself!” Owen called, flipping me the keys and scrambling up the slope, out of sight. The keys! I slid into the driver’s seat, praising merciful Jesus, promising Him converts..
So why didn’t I just leave? Surely I could have eventually found the way back on my own. Surely he’d manage somehow -- it wouldn’t be his first time sleeping in the park. I sat there for a minute, weighing my logic against my loyalty. Well, I thought, I’ve got the keys. After all this I might as well at least get to see the damn grave. If it's even there. I crammed my bare feet into the crusty, overlarge boots and followed the sound of laughter up the slick embankment, into the trees.
This was one of the places he’d spent his childhood, a place where boys ran wild. Owen had always been full of these tales, and I believed them all, they were too wild to be made up. He told me about the time he and his friends climbed onto the roof of a warehouse and assaulted the windows of passing J trains, throwing bricks and screaming like demons from hell. The windows were virtually unbreakable, the bricks bounced right off -- but, he told me with relish, the passengers didn’t know that, and they were pretty freaked. He told me about the time that a dozen or so boys mobbed a convenience store, grabbing up everything they could get their hands on and laughing at helpless screams of the owner, confident he’d never be able to pick any of them out of a lineup. One of the boys actually got away with an entire rack of sunglasses, the kind that spins, which they had a hell of a time fitting into the back seat of the car as they made their getaway. Owen knew these stories were outlandish, and he made them really funny when he told them. But you could tell he also knew they were sad, and that’s what made him such a great person to know.
He led the way over the misty, garbage-strewn hills of Forest Park. He didn’t want to admit he had no idea where we were going -- at this point he just wanted to talk. He wanted to tell me everything, I realized; my head was just an empty space for him to fill up with all the best and worst parts of himself, the shards worth gluing back together. Despite all, I was touched that Owen would seek me out as a confessor, taking me out among the trees and strange noises of the park where reality could not intrude upon memory. It terrifies me to think of how often that warm, cozy feeling of obligation I felt must be mistaken for love.
My victory that early morning wasn’t one of good sense, it was one of pure endurance. Losing steam, Owen finally gave up and allowed me to aim us back toward the car. I got behind the wheel and drove, so grateful for the ridges of the pedals under my bare foot. My friend dozed next to me; I prodded him whenever I needed directions, and when in doubt I followed the Manhattan skyline, now clearly visible in the pale pink air. By the time we got back to my house, the sun had already risen. I double-parked and woke him to say goodbye. In the daylight he looked gray and unwell. Very casually, so as to disguise his great need, he asked me if he could please come up and sleep at my place for a few hours. Just a few hours.
I made hasty, lame excuses, as I handed him his keys. My refusal seemed to let all of the remaining air out of him. I turned and left quickly to keep from losing my resolve, leaving him slumped in the car, alone.
I thought he would come find me later, after he’d sobered up a bit -- maybe he would realize what he’d done, how bad he must have scared me, and apologize. Maybe it would scare him too, scare him enough to help him. I figured that we’d at least end up laughing about it together sometime, me recalling details that he had no memory of whatsoever. And I confess to holding out a small hope that he'd really fix himself and that maybe one day we'd even venture out to where the great Houdini was actually buried. Perhaps by then I would have stories of my own that he'd be interested in hearing. But the truth is that I never saw Owen again after that, and whatever bond held our friendship together during those short, eventful years expired that night, somewhere above the embankment of Cypress Hills Street -- remains buried there for all I know.
I love this card. It's such a perfect interpretation.
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