Choke

Chapter 34

WITHOUT INSURANCE OR EVEN A DRIVER'S LICENSE, I call a cab to come jump-start my mom's old car. On the radio, they talk about where to find traffic, a two-car accident on the bypass, a stalled tractor-trailer on the airport freeway. After I fill the gas tank, I just find an accident and get in line. Just to feel like I'm part of something.

Sitting in traffic, my heart would beat at regular speed. I'm not alone. Trapped there, I could just be a normal person headed home to a wife, kids, a house. I could pretend that my life was more than just waiting for the next disaster. That I knew how to function. The way other kids would "play house," I could play commuter.

After work, I go visit Denny on the empty block where he's laid out his rocks, the old Menningtown Country Townhouses block where he's pasting row on top of row with mortar until he's already got a wall, and I say, "Hey."

And Denny says, "Dude."

Denny says, "How's your mom?"

And I say I don't care.

Denny trowels a layer of gritty gray mud on top of the last row of stones. With the pointed steel end of the trowel, he fusses with the mortar until it's even. With a stick, he smoothes the joints between rocks he's already laid.

A girl's sitting under an apple tree close enough you can see she's Cherry Daiquiri from the strip club. A blanket is spread out under her, and she's lifting white cartons of take-out food from a brown grocery bag and opening each carton.

Denny starts bedding stones into the new mortar.

I say, "What are you building?"

Denny shrugs. He twists a square brown rock deeper into the mortar. With the trowel, he chinks mortar between two stones. Assembling his whole generation of babies into something huge.

Doesn't he need to build it on paper, first? I say, don't you need a plan? There's permits and inspections you have to get. You have to pay fees. There's building codes you have to know.

And Denny says, "How come?"

He rolls around rocks with his foot, then finds the best one and fits it in place. You don't need a permit to paint a picture, he says. You don't need to file a plan to write a book. There're books that do more damage than he ever could. You don't need your poem inspected. There's such a thing as freedom of expression.

Denny says, "You don't need a permit to have a baby. So why do you need to buy permission to build a house?"

And I say, "But what if you build a dangerous, ugly house?"

And Denny says, "Well, what if you raise a dangerous, ass-holey kid?"

And I hold my fist up between us and say, "You better not mean me, dude."

Denny looks over at Cherry Daiquiri sitting in the grass and says, "Her name's Beth."

"Don't think for a minute that the city is going to buy your First Amendment logic," I say.

And I say, "She's not really as attractive as you think."

With the bottom of his shirt, Denny wipes the sweat off his face. You can see his abs are rippled armor, and he says, "You need to go see her."

I can see her from here.

"Your mom, I mean," he says.

She doesn't know me anymore. She won't miss me.

"Not for her," Denny says. "You need to go complete this for you."

Denny, his arms flicker with shadows where his muscles flex. Denny, now his arms stretch the sleeves of his sour T-shirt. His skinny arms look big around. His pinched shoulders spread wide. With every row, he's having to lift the stones a little higher. With every row, he's having to be stronger. Denny says, "You want to stay for Chinese food?" He says, "You look a little wasted."

I ask, is he living with this Beth girl now?

I ask if he's got her pregnant or anything.

And Denny lugging a big gray rock with both hands at his waist, he shrugs. A month ago, this was a rock the two of us could hardly lift together.

If he needs it, I tell him I got my mom's old car running.

"Go see how your mom is," Denny says. "Then come and help."

Everybody at Colonial Dunsboro says to say hello, I tell him.

And Denny says, "Don't lie to me, dude. I'm not the one who needs cheering up."