Like a Dog. Tara Jepsen
annoying. We say goodnight to Irma and walk down the street to my car. I puff on a wet-dirty-sweat-sock-tasting cigarette.
“Can you drive us?” Peter asks, then gets a mischievous smile. “Just kidding, ya drunkard!”
“Will you stay over again? Oliver is there and I’m a little freaked out by that.”
“What do you mean, he’s there?”
“He didn’t have a place to stay so I said he could go hang out. He was nodding out at the bar.”
“He’s been at the Eula, why didn’t he just go there?” The Eula is a residential hotel on 16th Street.
“He told me he was kicked out of wherever he was.”
“Really? Okay.”
A few minutes later we walk up to my front door and knock. No answer. Peter doesn’t have a key to my place and Oliver has mine so we’re locked out. I hit the doorbell several times, no answer. Peter calls Oliver’s Tracfone, or whatever those phones are called that you pay as you go. No answer. My landlord lives upstairs, and I would rather not bug him at two in the morning, so Peter and I go to his place and crash.
I wake up on Peter’s old olive green couch at five in the morning, booze sweaty and disgusting, my clothes from the night before twisted around my body. I’m obscenely dehydrated. I get a glass of water and stare at the filthy sink full of dishes. Half an hour later my brother wakes up.
“What the hell are you doing up?”
“Can’t sleep lately. Anxiety.”
“Probably the whole being sober thing, right?”
“Guess so.”
“I hope Oliver is okay.”
“Want to go over? Is your landlord up?”
“I’ll text him. I tried Oliver but no answer.”
We meet my landlord at my house and he lets us in. I check my bedroom and no Oliver. We get to the living room and there he is, on the couch. His face is a greyish-blue, and his rig lies next to him on top of his backpack.
“Fuck, call 911!” I holler at my brother, who is right next to me.
“Calm down, I’m on it.”
“I’m not going to fucking calm down! This isn’t a time for calm! Don’t tell me to see a dead person and mellow out!” I start yelling and Peter walks out of the room, giving an address to the operator. I try to find a pulse in Oliver’s neck, even though I think he’s gone. We wait. I feel like throwing up. I go into the bathroom and sit on the tub next to the toilet trying to throw up. A little bit comes out but nothing much. Just searing nausea in my abdomen. We leave the front door open so when the ambulance arrives they walk right in and to Oliver. They attempt CPR, but to no avail. He’s gone. He’s in my house. We’re just bodies in space.
Peter deals with the steps of calling Oliver’s mom, a sad alcoholic lady in Virginia with violent boyfriends and a smattering of other kids from volatile men. Oliver had a raw deal the whole way. I start walking through the Mission. I go all the way down Capp Street, then up 16th Street to Valencia and over to Market. I keep a good pace. People hang out, play chess, pee on the sidewalk. I cut up Hyde Street, jog over on Pine, taking on some punishing hills. I finally arrive in Chinatown and land at a vegetarian restaurant on Washington Street called The Lucky Creation. I order a plate of noodles with fake chicken. I decide to try to be in the restaurant purely as an observer, receiving information without judgment. Watching, feeling. The fluorescent lights make it feel like an office, like there should be a bunch of people talking about a TV show around a fax machine. A couple eats across from me, not speaking to each other, slurping. There are Germans at another table mulling over the menu. A lady sits at the cash register watching everyone, then looking out the door. I stay for a while and drink a lot of green tea. I start the walk home. Now it seems long and terrible. I try to get back in observer mode and just let it happen.
I don’t hear from Peter for a few days. He doesn’t hear from me either. I half-assedly look for a job, but hope that the pot farm work is still mine. I don’t know why it feels like there’s a rift between me and my brother. I feel like I fucked up when I didn’t do anything but witness Oliver’s dead body with him. I don’t know how to explain it. After three days I text Peter.
“Hey dude.” No answer.
“You okay?” No answer.
Two hours later, I try one more time. “Are we still going to Mendo next week for work or what?”
I see that he’s writing me back. Then the little dots go away. They start, then stop. Ten minutes later I get the text, “Yeah still on.”
“Want to get dinner?” I write. No answer.
We’re supposed to leave in four days. I walk over to Peter’s house and knock. I text him “I’m outside,” and he texts back “Okay.” A few minutes later, he finally opens the door. Immediately I can tell his vibe is off. He is sour and sharp, and his eyes look a million miles away.
“Dude, I’ve been worried about you,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t heard from you since Oliver. That was really gnarly.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Why are you being like this?” I plead, and he starts closing the door on me. “Please stop!” I say and put my foot in to block it. He pushes my foot out with his own, but leaves the door cracked.
“We’re leaving on Tuesday,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I have a lot of shit to do between now and then. I’ll text you.”
I sigh and leave. His sour mood is so demoralizing. I wish there was a way to guarantee he would stop acting like this forever. I call Irma to see what she’s up to.
“Hey, good morning, pal!” Irma is bright and energetic.
“What are you doing today?”
“Wanna come with me to walk my dogs? Bernal Hill? Maybe we get a drink after or something.”
“Yes. Two-thirty?”
“See ya!”
I drive down Cesar Chavez and make a right on Alabama. It occurs to me, apropos of nothing, that it would be hilarious to pick up a couple four-packs of wine coolers and bring them up the hill for me and Irma. I stop at the corner store on Precita and Alabama and walk in to a cloud of incense. There’s a big teenage girl sitting on a stool, talking on her cell phone. She doesn’t look at me. She’s wearing a grey hoodie and jeans that wrinkle up all over her like small waves. There’s a deli case across from the checkout, and a few meats and cheeses are strewn about, not filling the space, and looking a little past their eat-by date. Food poisoning waiting to happen. I walk back through the shelves of cat food and laundry detergent and Chunky Soup to the coolers and pull out a pack of pink bottles and a pack of green ones. Strawberry and green apple wine coolers. The gold foil wrapped around the tops of the bottles really has a top-shelf feel.
I pay the girl on the cell phone who only stops her conversation long enough to ask for $6.86. She has sweet, dark brown eyes and eyelashes that curl up to her eyebrows. I’ve been stopping here for years. The girl’s family moved to San Francisco from Eritrea years ago and took over the store from another family. She’s been working here since she was a little kid. I drive to the top of the hill and park in a short row of pickup trucks. I see several dog walkers and their crews. The dogs wander around, peeing, and sniffing, and greeting other dogs. A beautiful grey and black Great Dane lopes by. I like standing on this mound of nature planted in the urban landscape.
“Yo!” Irma hollers and strides toward me, a pack of dogs jetting away from her like sparks. She carries a long red Chuck-It over one shoulder, that long flexible plastic arm that helps you throw