When Eddie proposed to May during a Dead concert, it blew everyone away.
Earlier that day, May hid in the long grass outside Eddie’s farmhouse and watched the boys pack up a blue rental car to leave for The Grateful Dead at Alpine Valley. Though she hadn’t been invited, she knew their plans by way of the Loonis under-25 grapevine, a network through which those who had graduated from South Putnam High could find anyone they cared to catch up with in only a short matter of time. After a year of estrangement, it only took May seven phone calls and two trips to Burger King around midnight to get the low down on Eddie’s whereabouts.
Before they left, she ran back to her dirty red Chevette, tucked away down the road, and left unnoticed. She slipped out of high school a bit early, since her teachers and parents didn’t really care. Almost ready to graduate, her grade point hovered around a three-five, and she never caused anyone any trouble. Due to an uncanny ability to surround herself with a facade of self-sufficiency, she could get away with anything, and usually did. Teachers generally didn’t take much notice of May, sitting in the back row with her Dad’s clothes on, his tweed professor jacket and Irish Fisherman’s hat and all, and they had no idea of the oddities of abuse she experienced at home.
Independent as always, she waited in the Amaco at the corner of the street where Eddie lived. Breathing very quietly and slowly, she belted herself into the drivers seat. A very cold bottle of diet pop shivered between her thighs. A map was crinkled up on the passenger seat. An unopened pack of cigarettes fell of the dash as she coolly pulled out to follow the rental car. She kept far behind, out of sight.
She considered turning back. After all, she’d been good for almost a year now—no significant contact. But she had a legitimate excuse. She was going to meet a friend of hers at the concert, a girl who had gone up a few days earlier to do a whole Dead weekend. At least, that was the plan, anyway, although May wasn’t certain at all how to find her. May worked at a flower shop part-time and couldn’t get off except for this night.
All the way she sang; songs from musicals and rock songs and rhymes she made up as a child. She hit the wheel with her thumbs. Her foot rested comfortably on the window crank. She let the car fly off in the distance: she knew where it was going. After a while there were no another cars in sight. As she passed Indianapolis her heart began to race. She pulled her Dad’s old Irish Fishermen hat down around her ears, and fumbled to unwrap the cellophane of a fresh pack of Marlboro Lights. Pulling out one with her nervous hands proved a fiasco. Seven little cancer sticks spilled on the muddy floor board. She reached down to pick them up.
When her head popped up she caught sight of a large object, which proved to be a deer. She swerved and spun to the other side of the two-lane highway. After she came to a stop, completely unharmed, the graceful doe glanced at her, winked, and darted into the grove of median flora. May slowed the car back to the right side of the highway, pulled off on the gravel, and turned off the engine. Flopping out of the front, she sat on the hood and smoked an emergency relaxation cigarette.
***
Up the road, Jack spat out strings of profanities.
“What kind of fucking rental company gives you a car without a tire iron? Look some more. It’s gotta be somewhere…”
Tristan, tall, lean, and zen-like calm, sat cross-legged in the gravel, rolling a joint. Eddie, all too much thinking and neurosis, clutched his gut and hid in the bushes, wretching. Too much beer already, no food since lunchtime, and the shock of the great blowout overwhelmed him.
“This is bullshit,” said Jack, the funny fat one, throwing the incomplete parts of a jack to the ground.
“Look,” said Tristan. “Let me go make a phone call. I’m sure I can get someone to come out here and drive us the rest of the way. We’ll get them a ticket when we get there.”
“Who? Mike’s out of town.”
“Trust me. I’ll call some friends. Someone will want to do it. Just, go check on Eddie.” Jack obeyed.
Tristan set off in the semi-black emptiness of undeveloped countryside. With each breath he savored the way it smelled, dew, insecticide, manure and all. As he sauntered along, he effortlessly caught a lightning bug and stuffed it a brown beer bottle, freshly empty, so it blinked orange like the sunset.
May was just about done with her third cigarette, calm enough now to consider getting back in the car, turning around, and abandoning the Eddie-hunt when she heard footsteps down the stony shoulder. She quietly retreated inside her vehicle and turned on the brights at the human figure rapidly approaching.
Tristan lifted his long arm to shield his eyes. He tilted his head and flashed his white-toothed smile, tossing the bottled bug off in the dark.
“Hey! Need any help there?” Tristan knew how to make friends.
“No, no there, I’m okay,” said May, a bit wary at this male intruder.
“Listen,” said Tristan. “We got a flat about a mile or so ahead. Do you think…”
“Tristan?” said May, genuinely shocked, cocking her ever-hatted head out the window.
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“It’s May. May Murphy. I’m sort of a friend of Eddie’s.”
“Yeah? May Murphy? Alright!” said Tristan, chuckling at the coincidence. “Alright!”
***
The gang of four, stuffed in May’s red Chevette, curved around a corner and caught their first glimpse of the nomadic tribe of concert groupies. A scraggly caravan of utility sport vehicles, banners, small grills, coolers and an amazing stench blended to create a vision reminiscent of Alexander the Great’s army resting on its long leg to Persia. The music whispered over the trees. The real concert took place here in the parking lot. They might not even get through the main gates.
May reached over and locked her door. She felt sick herself from the ten cigarettes she just smoked trying to be cool, and the gallons of caramelized carbonation of Tab sloshing around in her stomach.
Despite their endless pleading, May would not let the men drive. Every one of them stammered and slurred, even though they tried hard to fight it.
Fat Jack made a deal for some acid on the way in, from a vendor on foot who approached the car window, and all but May took some. May thought surely it would be bad and laced and whatever and they were crazy to trust someone they didn’t even know. And besides, that stuff could cause permanent psychotic reactions. Her evaluation pissed them off, so they tried very hard to annoy her.
Or, maybe just Eddie tried hard to annoy her, sitting in the backseat loudly talking about sex.
“God. Check that thing out. She’s so hot,” he said of a woman with no tits running past them with long brown hair and strings on, the width of a small sapling.
May pulled into a spot next to a van with a fantasy super-hero painted on the side. A man, woman, and child posed inside like a freaked-out nativity scene. The parents had different skin, leathery and rich as if it had been tanned, and the grime had settled in. Yet, they moved serenely, both conferring to change the toddler’s diapers.
As soon as they stopped, the boys tumbled out of the car, writhing with excitement and disappearing like magic worms through the crowd. May watched them transform into children, knowing she was the mother for the moment. She undid her seat belt, and peered over her shoulder to check again on the happy family. The man was blowing smoke from a hookah slowly into the baby’s face.
“Hey,” she cranked her window down. “I know it’s none of my business, but do you really think that’s good for your child?”
“Hey. It’s not my child!” the man laughed. “Don’t worry, doll. It won’t hurt her. You want some?”
May got out of the car, intending to talk this man out of his abhorrent actions, if only for a little while. But, pot didn’t seem quite that bad, and many hits and rolls of laughter later, she ended up asleep in the plush shag carpet of the fantasy van.
A couple of hours had passed. May slept, now left alone. Jack shook her leg.
“May—May—what’s wrong?” He was panting and out of breath. “Are you sick? Get up! It’s great! Did you get any acid? Man, we were ‘Naming, running through the woods around the amphitheater. There were these two Deadheads having sex, and we almost stepped on them, but, the guy got up to urinate–you know how you have to pee afterwards?”
May was a virgin and didn’t know what Jack was talking about. Plus, she found his smell slightly repulsive.
“May? Are you listening?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I was crouched down and I thought he was going to piss on me! But Tristan saw, and get this, he started clapping! Clapping! And we all got up and started clapping, and this guy thought it was because he was some great lover or something, like it was a show.” Jack began to laugh heartily. “Can you believe that? It was hilarious, you shoulda been there.”
“I need to eat some food,” said May, sitting up.
“Have you seen Tristan? I wonder where he is,” said Jack, who immediately took off through the parking lot.
May got up, depressed and alone with the Deadhead family gone. She wanted to find someone to sleep with, to cuddle, but the concert was still going full tilt. In the parking lot, people were selling their wares: tye-dye shirts, pins, buttons, stickers, beaded jewelry, and paraphernalia of all kinds. One guy was selling warm cream cheese and avocado bagels. May got one.
She couldn’t get her hips to stay beneath her as she stood talking to the merchant. He charged her three bucks, and offered her some acid or mushrooms. She declined politely, and stood in the mud with bugs biting her ankles, eating her food like a squirrel, quickly, intently. She tried to remember what state she was in, both geographically and physically. Her cheeks puffed out because she kept forgetting how to swallow.
The music prodded her, penetrating her slowly. It began to enter her limbs and torso, leering them waft and wave in the aural breeze. May closed her eyes and imagined mandolins, horses, and foggy forests. She started to hum and stomp her feet and let her head swing round. She felt her ribcage aching and her breasts tender from the bounce, but the kept prancing, enjoying the movement, the release.
A few feet away, Eddie watched her, quite amused. He knew she was in love with him. He loved that she was in love with him. It made him feel important. But she was strange. Not like other girls, he thought. He admired her courage to go ahead and dance alone. But still, there was something not quite right.
“You look so sad when you do that, May.”
“Eddie!” She collapsed to her knees, dropping the dance. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed,” said May, rubbing her eyes and face with her hands.
Eddie, a handsome fellow, on most accounts, stood before her now in Technicolor. And he was looking straight at her.
Suddenly, soft fingers lifted May’s chin, and pulled her up to her feet. She looked up at him with far too much hope, like a puppy. He wiped avocado off the corner of her mouth with the corner of his flannel shirt.
“You know, I really love that hat,” said Eddie.
“You do?” said May, who had forgotten she still had the wool hat on. She grabbed it off. It was wet.
“Could I buy it?”
“You could have it, Eddie,” she said, putting on his head. She shook out a big mass of curly blond hair, that fell around her shoulders.
They walked together. He grabbed her hand. People smiled and said hello. A great feeling of love and plenty surrounded them. The music wove around and grew louder as they drew closer to the stage. There they were, the legendary band, doing their hypnotic, legendary thing.
Eddie ran his hands over May’s posterior freely.
Suddenly, they were attacked from the side by a lone banshee. May screamed as the wild man charged at them from the stands with with fierce eyes. Eddie instinctually tried to protect her, folding himself over her. The man leaped on Eddie with a bear hug and the ménage, all three, fell into a downhill roll. They landed at the bottom of a grassy knoll, out of sight of the stage, with few people nearby. The man fell off them, panting heavily.
When all motion stopped but gasping breath, they all became starkly aware of the beautiful clear endless sky.
“Look at that moon. I love you,” the man popped over and kissed May on the lips.
“And you,” the man kissed Eddie on the lips, too, and faded off into the woods.
They were both amused and grossed out by the strange enounter. May wiped her mouth on Eddie’s shirt, and rested her head on the tender part of his belly. She could hear the juices inside as she looked at the stars above.
“I didn’t take the acid, May. I faked it. I just wanted you to know that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m scared to. I don’t want to go back to the hospital. It’s like hell there.”
“I know. I visited you.”
“They took my shoelaces.”
“Oh,” said May pointing towards the heavens. “A shooting star.”
“I didn’t see,” said Eddie.
“Something good always happens to me when I see a shooting star.” She cuddled into him, like a child.
“What if I just went ahead and asked you to marry me?”
May closed her eyes and wished time to stop, knowing this would be the last time she could pretend that it might happen. She was still in high school. He wasn’t even out of college yet. It was, of course, unthinkable.
“Naw, I take it back,” said Eddie. “I’m too fucked up to get married.”
“Look at my family,” said May, trying to make the moment last. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with anyone who wasn’t.”
“Okay. Then let’s get married.”
He pulled her up and kissed her, lips parted, tounge only gently exploring beyond their customary bounds. There was something strange about it. Something, more fraternal than passionate. The moment ended.
“I was just kidding, you know that. Don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. Just kidding,” said May, her heart breaking for the millionth time over a relationship that never was.
“You know the thing that isn’t right about doing drugs, Eddie?”
“What, May?”
“It makes you too selfish. All you care about is how you feel. Everybody here acts like they love everyone, you know? And they don’t love anyone. Not even themselves. They don’t love anyone at all.”
image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toddwickersty/2792711408/