The Dirty Kids (Part Three of Seven)

After Spencer downed his bottle of Robitussin, they drove, skirting the edges of town, where the strip malls gave way to surrounding crops of corn and soybeans. They came across a 24-hour Meijer and wandered through aisles of blinding white fluorescence until, chastened by the black surveillance camera domes on the ceilings high above them, they hurried up to the automated checkout counter with their chosen wares: Spencer, a new Spalding basketball; and Sal, a mango he’d been carrying around the store clutched against his chest like a newborn. Then they got back into the car and headed back toward campus, taking bites out of the orange-green skin of mango and spitting chunks of pulp out of their windows. They laughed deliriously as Future’s “I’m Trippin’” played from Spencer’s playlist.

Astronaut at the same time

Gone to Mars at the same time

Pluto Jupiter the same time

Pick a planet the same time

I’m trippin’, I feel ignorant

Keep rollin’, keep sippin’

As they passed the sign welcoming them back to campus, Sal turned down the stereo and asked, “How’s school going, anyways?”

Spencer took a drag of his American Spirit and tried to keep his eyes focused on the road. The drug was taking hold of him now: he felt the familiar rush of euphoria and the car felt like it was a hovercraft, floating a few inches above the asphalt. Finally, he responded. “About the same as last semester.”

Sal laughed. Then he intoned, “I’ve seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving.” He jabbed the air with his cigarette. “Hysterical.” Another jab. “Naked.” 

It was an old refrain between the two of them. Allen Ginsberg’s words struck something physical and deep within the darkest recesses of Spencer’s brain, and waves of pleasure coursed out to every part of his body. “Destroyed by madness,” Spencer continued, as if to himself, while shaking his head slowly from side to side. The words felt luxurious to Spencer, as if he were bathing in silk. Then, louder, Spencer said to Sal, “Say what you will about Allen Ginsberg, but when he nailed it, he nailed it.”

Spencer could feel Sal stare at him for a moment. “What do you mean by that?”

“By what?”

“By what you said. ‘Say what you will about Allen Ginsberg.’ Like there’s something wrong with him.”

Spencer tried to focus on the road and wondered for a second what he had meant. Then he realized he’d repeated something his Romantic Literature professor had said earlier in the semester—something about Ginsberg and William Blake. That was back when he’d been going to class, Spencer thought, before he went back to robotripping. 

Then he answered. “Just there are other good poets, that’s all.”

Sal laughed in the darkness. He lit a Marlboro, and Spencer’s eyes drifted toward the winking light as Sal inhaled. Spencer could see the tip of the cigarette glow brighter, leaving traces of color in his peripheral vision. 

Then Sal spoke. “Is that what you’re doing down here? Just reading a bunch of boring English class shit, and then being told it’s better than Allen fucking Ginsberg?”

Spencer kept looking at the road and clutching the wheel. Sal took another drag of his cigarette and Spencer could feel the tiny muscles in his eyeballs “tick,” with a staccato rhythm like the hand of a stopwatch, as he swept his eyes from the light of Sal’s cigarette back to the roadway, creating an almost stroboscopic effect. Spencer tossed his half-smoked cigarette out of the window, then clutched his steering wheel tighter with palms that were becoming damp with cold sweat.

Then Sal said, “Why are you down here anyways? You basically flunked out last semester. Right? So why did you come back?”

Spencer thought for a moment, then answered, “I don’t know. I guess I don’t know what else I’d do.”

“Why don’t you just go work for your old man? He makes a fortune at that car lot.” 

Spencer remembered the previous summer, his father coming home drunk from the cocktail bar he favored, red-faced and bragging about lowballing a trade-in he could sell for double the price. Then Spencer snorted. “I don’t know what I want to do, but I sure as fuck don’t want to do that.” 

They drove on in silence for a while. Then Sal sighed and said, “Y’know, me and Clancy were just gonna hit the road and head west, see where the road takes us. Like we used to talk about in high school. You should come with us. Quit wasting your time down here.”

Spencer thought for a minute, trying to place the name, then said, “Clancy?”

“Yeah, you know, Clancy. My roommate.”

“Your roommate? Since when did you move out of your mom’s place?”

“In September. I’m living with Clancy now. You know. Clancy. From back in the playground days.”

Spencer thought back to when he and Sal had first met. He thought he remembered Clancy from back then—a pudgy kid sporting a spiky red mullet, always wearing an assortment of Tapout t-shirts. Clancy, Spencer thought, he always used to carry around a pair of nunchakus—or “numchucks” as Clancy called them—and brag about his white belt in karate. 

Spencer realized he was starting to drift out of his lane.  Concentrating on the road, he blurted out, “That’s right, I remember him. One of those Dirty Kids.” 

The car was quiet for a moment. Then Sal broke the silence. “Dirty kids?”

Spencer felt a sudden drop in his stomach as he realized he’d fucked up. But the drug had made him voluble and he went on, as if trapped in the inexorable logic of a nightmare. “Yeah, Dirty Kids. It was something my mom used to call all those guys.”

“All what guys?”

“You know, all those kids that lived in those shitty apartment buildings back home. You know, those ones just off West Main.”

Sal was quiet for a moment. In his peripheral vision, Spencer saw Sal’s cigarette glow orange, leaving another smear of light floating in his vision. Then Sal said, “You know that’s where I grew up. That’s where I lived when we were kids.”

Spencer felt woozy. He put his hand to his forehead and wiped away cold sweat. He searched for some sort of excuse, but all he could come up with was, “Oh shit. Sorry, man.”

“Is that how she talked about me? Is that how you see me? A dirty kid?”

Spencer didn’t respond. His feeling of euphoria had passed, and now he felt a mounting feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. He knew he had to get off the road. Then he remembered the new Spalding in the back seat.