Dan, ‘The Man’, Can: Volume 15 - Who Says You Can’t Go Home

1

 “T-uh,” Miley snorted in exclamation at the car which swerved before her. “Okay, just get in front of me. So, anyways. I forgot what I was saying.” 

 Miley was sending her cousin a voice message on an app which allowed the pair to leave each other sprawling, circular diatribes, the result being an unending tennis match of dueling monologues.

 “So, I’m on my way to Sprout Mart before I go pick up Deeb, because right now they are doing a sale where if you buy two whole-wads of rat fruit, you get a free box of Fum-Fums, and you know how I like Fum-Fums, they remind me of grandma, she always used to eat Fum-Fums and Bleeding Fish and drink her Butter Home chardonnay, and I was going to use the rat fruit tonight for vegan red noodle burrito bowls, so, I mean, I had to go there anyway, and the people in Sprout Mart are so much nicer there than at Hater Brothers, cause last time I went there the lady in front of me kept looking at my stuff behind hers on the belt at checkout and whispered something, I don’t know what, I think I already told you this, so let me know if I did, but if you did I guess it’s too late because I’m going to tell you again, heh-heh-heh-heh. Hue-hue-hue,” she chuckled before sighing. “Dammit, I forgot what I was saying. Cheese and rice. So, I don’t know. I had a pretty good day, my coworker Larry was out again, so I had to cover for him, so it was basically no more hectic than usual, he always - is that a brown dog?” Miley asked herself. There was a momentary pause. “Huh. That’s a brown dog. I just got off the freeway and there’s this dog sitting by its owner on the curb. He kinda looks like one of those big white dogs, you know? But he’s brown. So, yeah. I’m going to be at Sprout Mart soon. Oh! So, I went to Bell Mar yesterday to get more stuff out of my room and your mom texted me about those stupid-fucking-rings again, and I have no idea what she’s talking about, I don’t think they ever existed, I think she invented them in her head, because, no, I don’t want your stupid, fucking, rings, Pan. I don’t.” She sighed sharply in frustration. “So I’m over there already getting sick in that filthy air and your mom’s texting me this shit and my dad’s creeping around the yard, I saw him look in the window when I was looking through pictures, so that’s great. I just, I’m over it. They both think I’m being sneaky and stealing shit over there like there’s anything to steal anyway and I’m only there to make grandpa happy. It’s, wild. Oh yeah! So you’re moving back down right now? I didn’t even know until your last message so let me know if I already knew, t-heh-heh-heh-heh. Hueh-hueh-hueh-hueh. I know Beela will be excited to see you at least, so let me know how that goes. The guy in front of me has a sticker that says, ‘Bung Wizard’. Is that a band? It looks like a band. Oh, Deeb wants me to pick up Panda Burgers tonight too and last time I went there the line was going around the block, so I asked if he wanted Bell Taco since I have a coupon there and I can eat there but he hasn’t text me back yet so I guess I’m gonna - ” 

 The blast of a semi’s air horn prefaced Miley’s two-toned scream, and the message cut out - much to her cousin Gay’s chagrin. He was presently driving down Interstate 5 bound for Southern California behind the moving truck which his father drove, his Father Dick who had also carried the same weight north six years ago. Six opaque years gone forever, lost fecklessly in the northwestern fog, and now, under somewhat hushed circumstances, Gay was returning to his parents’ home. He had driven up there with a young woman in the passenger seat, and now drove back down accompanied by a large tuxedo cat named Bissa laying in the back. With no plan or goal in mind regarding his foray up north, Gay had still managed to fail miserably at everything and nothing in particular. The lowering sun glared maliciously in the rearview mirror as Father Dick and Son Gay exited the freeway and rolled into a hotel parking lot, giving pause to their solemn two-float parade of unspoken disappointment.

2

 Word spread quickly that night about Miley’s meeting with the rogue semi, the big runaway diesel truck who’s brakes had failed before the red light and plowed into Miley’s driver side as she drove across the intersection. Several ribs and vertebrae had disintegrated upon impact and she suffered a dire concussion. All of her available family rushed to the emergency room except for her father, Ryan, who was working, and both her mother Kerry and sister Spam, who were too busy preparing for Spam’s weight loss surgery later the week after. It was posited that Miley would never walk again, if she even pulled through.

 After driving another eight hours early the following morning, Dick and Gay pulled into the sluggish motorized gate which courageously guarded the O’Nays driveway. Gay parked and hurriedly took Bissa out and rushed for the sliding glass backdoor, behind which the big black Beela was excitedly rearing up on her hind legs. Father Dick clapped the moving truck’s door shut and saw Gay.

 “No-no-no, Gay,” Dick said. “Lookit.”

 “What,” Gay huffed with juvenile irritation. 

 Dick pointed back into the yard. Waiting beyond the extended finger, out at the rear gate, newly set on a plot of failing grass, was a large white shed, its door and windows facing the O’Nays home. A thick orange extension cord ran from an outlet beside the garden hose, across the patio under Gay’s feet, and through the grass, ending up somewhere behind the little blocky structure. Gay eyed the tinny box confusedly.

 “That’s your shed,” Dick said. “Take a look real quick. They’re actually really nice.”

 Gay stared idly at the white box for a few moments. Bissa was watching the tiny chattering birds which darted from tree to pomegranate tree. 

 “Alright, c’mon now, Gay,” Dick quipped impatiently. “Get your cat in there and let’s go. We have to pick up Deeb on the way to the hospital, too.”

 Gay dumped Bissa into the air-conditioned shed without his litter box and power-walked back to Father Dick’s truck. They departed as quickly as they had arrived, tired and hungry and ornery. They pulled through a fast food drive-thru and their empty stomachs churned the heavy grease which their burgers perspired. They exchanged no words until merging onto the highway.

 “Y’know, I don’t get why Deeb doesn’t just learn to drive,” Dick randomly declared, oddly peeved. “His dad’s got all those real nice classic cars. Bunch of nice old cars, just rotting in a garage in great condition. I don’t get why he wouldn’t want to drive them, y’know? I mean, I think it’d be a kick.”

 “Yeah,” Gay responded drowsily, biting his tongue to avoid enacting the labor necessary to more accurately illustrate the state of affairs between Deeb and Dan the Man.

 “And now, I mean, I hate to say it,” Dick continued. “But your cousin is going to be in a wheelchair the rest of her life. How are they going to get around now? How are they going to get to work?” Dick fussed with growing volume and rising pitch. “He’s just gonna have to man up and get his damn license!” Dick abrubtly rubbed his head, as anxiously as though he suddenly realized that he had just mistakenly divulged sensitive information to an enemy of the state.

 “Yeah,” Gay repeated glumly, recognizing now that he had forgotten to provide Bissa with a proper place to defecate. 

 After a few minutes more of illuminating conversation, Dick’s truck veered off the highway and into the residential zone in which Miley and Deeb resided. Deeb was standing outside their house, squinting in the bleached sunlight. He climbed up into the backseat and cleared his throat after buckling his seatbelt and shutting the door.

 “Hey, Dick,” Deeb said.

 “Hey, Deeb,” Dick replied.

 “Oh, hi, Gay! I didn’t know you were visiting!” Deeb said wryly. “How long are you staying this time? Forty-eight years?”

 Gay glared at the windshield and tried to hide the moistening of his eyes and trembling of his lower lip. 

 “Oh yeah?” Gay huffed. “Well at least my wife isn’t paralyzed!”

 “What wife, Gay?” Dick said.

 “Yeah, ya bimbo!” Deeb jabbed, somehow maintaining a good humor. “What’s his name then, huh? Who’s the lucky guy? Get it? Hah? Male? Because you’re Gay?”

 Dick and Deeb cackled together until another silence seeped into the truck, and they merged back onto the highway. Gay was covertly pressing tears into his shoulders. When they reached the hospital, Gay walked yards ahead of Deeb and Dick, fuming at the experience of not being the funniest person in the group. When they entered Miley’s hospital room, they found Paw-Paw Gerald sitting against the window with folded arms, Mother Pan sitting upright and close to the bed, and laying in the bed at a slight incline was the semiconscious shell of Miley, her head rocking softly in delirium. 

 “Hi, Miley,” Gay said.

 “Shh!” Pan retorted, her brows arched like a crossbow aimed the son she had not seen for two years. She turned back to Miley. “Do you have the rings, Miley?” Pan cooed into her ear. 

 “Ugh-n,” Miley moaned, her face both pale and beet red.

 “Does Gay smoke? Does he have a MyBook account?” Pan whispered, seemingly under the impression that, after suffering cranial trauma, Miley had become a Magic 8-Ball which had ingested truth serum. Miley offered no answers to Pan’s urgent queries. 

 “Ah, yes. MyBook,” Deeb said grandly. “The virtual dirt pit of mutually masturbating simians.”

 Gay stifled his laughter. Both of his parents jolted with shock at the mention of masturbation. Gerald, unsure of what masturbation was, remained unfazed. He eyed his deadbeat grandson with disapproval. 

 “I can’t believe you’d leave your grandpa like that,” Gerald told Gay, as if unaware that his granddaughter was fighting for survival three feet away. “Up there in those communist redwoods. Lots a dope. Hm!” He sucked air past his toothpick.

 “Yeah, I don’t know,” Gay told the shiny floor.

 “Couldn’t manage a basement studio, huh?” Deeb added. 

 “I have to go to the bathroom,” Gay said with urgent truth and a quivering voice. He left swiftly.

 “Uh-m,” Miley groaned. “Uuh-hn.”

 “Where?” Pan prodded Miley. “The dresser?” Pan turned to Deeb. “Are my rings in her dresser, uh, Deeb?”

 Deeb was swaying and whistling now, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head in response to Pan’s question.

 “They was my momma’s rings,” Gerald told the room. “Her momma gave ‘em to her, and her momma’s momma gave ‘em to her momma.” He grumbled. “Now I guess Miley’s gave ‘em to her own self.”

 “Can you believe it?” Pan griped, eyeing Deeb venomously.

 “Nope!” Deeb replied firmly with an air of passive defiance. 

 “Guh-h,” Miley murmured, her head rolling.

 “You’re so selfish,” Pan hissed in Miley’s ear.

 “Mu-uh,” Miley replied.

3

 After returning to the O’Nays residence with his father late that afternoon, Gay entered his exorbitant shed and ineptly cleaned the mess which Bissa had left. He fed Bissa dinner and sat on the hard plastic folding chair waiting in the corner, eyeing the walls of his new habitat as though it were a waiting room. The air conditioner whirred gratingly in the infernal California heat, and the familiar crunch of Bissa’s chewing sounded inexplicably alien, almost magnified, in these smaller confines. Gay thought of his lost life up north and nearly felt an emotion before reaching into his pocket and feeling the warm lump waiting therein. It was a serving of edible marijuana, brand name “Stoney Baloney”, the gimmick being that it looked and tasted like a clump of processed meat. It was quite unpopular. 

 With Stoney Baloney eaten and Bissa napping peacefully on the floor, Gay ventured back outside to the trailer which contained all of his belongings. Beela was squatting in the grass and baring her lower teeth at Gay, who made the detour to pet his estranged dog once she had finished relieving herself. 

 “Ooe-hr,” Beela growled warmly. “Haourl.”

 Gay unlatched the back of the trailer and opened it. The large, thin metal door wobbled unevenly as it swung on its hinges. Gay scowled at the slanting mess it revealed. 

 “Goddamn fucking idiot,” Gay boiled. “Can’t fucking do anything fucking right,” he seethed over his father, who had packed the trailer himself alone in lieu of trusting his wholly incompetent boy with the slightest hint of adult responsibility. “Drives like a fucking asshole with all my fucking shit. Piece of fucking shit.”

 Gay began violently yanking his possessions out, tossing them out into the driveway as blindly as if the trailer were ablaze and his beloved companion Bissa was trapped inside. His blood was pumping madly and his breath was short and hot in the muggy late August air. He felt the tickling streaks of sweat beads rolling down his brow and back, an irritating sensation which he consciously decided to transform into more impotent rage. The pile of belongings grew larger. Gay’s wooden furniture cracked on impact with the hard concrete. Gay chucked out a military ammo box containing some of his most precious vinyl records, aiming for the pile of blankets and pillows he’d manifested. They missed miserably.

 “Fucking great!” Gay lamented. “Probably had three grand in there. Fuck!”

 Gay began to detect the uncanny feeling of illness creeping into his attention, odd chills and weakliness shuddering into his skin, guts, and bones. He begrudgingly decided to simmer down and begin sorting through the pile. After hopping out of the trailer and crouching next to the mountain of his damaged goods, Gay froze unthinkingly, feeling as though his vision was somehow receding, watching the grass beside the driveway breathe and sway, realizing that the airplane shrieking miles above sounded eerily close, seeming somehow to be screaming directly at him as a falling angel, an unhallowed omen which split the sky in order to let the vantablack shadow of the underworld pour down on Gay like the squirt of a giant squid’s ink. In his useless frenzy, Gay, who had already forgotten by now that he’d eaten it, had managed to make the edible marijuana kick into hyperdrive at an ungodly speed.

 His eyes darted perilously. Unseen layers of Gay’s existence began to peel and unravel like a thick layer of dust being hit with compressed air. Gay was being unmasked, realizing that in all of these wasted years of his squandered life, he still remained a helpless, useless child that completely missed the bus. He remained crouched for an unknown span of time, looking blankly at his things as waves of guilt and white-knuckled terror washed over his nerves like the mirage of heatwaves. Gay gently stood up, nearly whiting out, and began pacing manically, knowing not what else to do. He happened to notice his old skateboard leaned up against the side of his father’s little brick barn. Taking it up under one arm, Gay walked stiffly out for the back gate, eyes wide with primordial fear, every moment like an opening wound. When he shut the gate, Gay noticed Beela dutifully watching him from the patio with an almost paternal disapproval, and, glancing into a side window of his luxury shed, Gay met with Bissa’s blank yellow eyes, who meowed silently behind the glass, meowing with curling lips of warning. Gay shuddered and started down the alley on his skateboard.

4

 Gerald was sitting supine on the blue recliner in his darkened den, his fingers laced together over the great paunch which preceded him. A game of baseball was roaring out from his immense television. Slats of golden sun fell through the tilted, cobwebbed blinds of his office across the hall. Though he could not totally shake the hellish worry over his injured granddaughter, Gerald sat now with post-dinner-and-dessert contentment as the baseball game broke for commercial. The house phone rang and Gerald peeked at the number showing on caller ID. He picked up the receiver.

 “Hello-o,” Gerald sang. “Gerald Johnson.”

 “Yes, hello, Gerald? This is Sergeant Willis with the City of Chino Police Department, calling to inform you-”

 “Nope,” Gerald croaked. “No. Wrong number.”

 Gerald hung up and clicked the television’s sound back on. Two commercials transpired and the baseball game resumed when the phone rang again. Gerald ignored it, cranking the television to skull-rattling volume. His granddaughter was mortally maimed and his team was losing. He had no time for telephone malarkey. 

 “M’pfff,” Gerald belched, his potbelly lurching with effort. “M’pfff. Mmm,” he grumbled.

 A half hour later, the television had quieted back down to a mere unearthly volume, and the sun angled further down through the blinds, hitting Gerald’s face directly now. Silhouetted against the bright solar disc, two figures emerged from a patrol car that had parked moments ago at the curb in front of the Johnson home. Thinking that the gallant officers of the law had merely dropped by to harass the Mexican family which lived across the street from Gerald, he continued watching the ballgame in peace. Shortly, there was a fierce pounding at his front door.

 “Police,” an imposing voice bellowed. “Chino Police!”

 In a shock of fear, Gerald involuntarily dribbled at both ends. In an attempt to turn the volume on his television down, he accidentally changed the source of input, a simple mistake which resulted later in hours of befuddlement. The beating against the door carried on undeterred. Gerald waddled to the door and opened it, robe slightly ajar. 

 “Yes, may I help you?” Gerald offered.

 “Where’s Ryan?” The larger officer asked coercively.

 “Ah-h-h, uh-h,” Gerald mumbled with bewilderment. “Well, what’re ya, who d’ya, yer soundin’ like a,”

 “Where the fuck is Ryan Johnson?” The officer repeated forcefully.

 “Well, ah-ah, who do ya, what’re ya,” Gerald stammered, visibly frightened. 

 “Shut the fuck up,” the large officer barked. “Where is Ryan Johnson?”

 “Listen, guy,” Gerald blurted irritably. “My name is Gerald Johnson. I’m a retired homicide detective. I got a granddaughter in the hospital. I don’t know what in the hell the deal is, but -” 

 The police officers pushed through Gerald, who timidly folded to his grimy floor. Through the glass backdoor, the cops saw Ryan walking out of his backyard garage bunker, visibly oblivious to the fact that he was a wanted man. They winged the door open and pursued Ryan with guns drawn.

 “Get down on the ground!” They screamed.

 Ryan bolted, heading west for the Shore end of the Johnson property, forcing the pudgy officers of the law to scale the equestrian gate which divided the big yard. One of the cops made for the side fence which lead to a passage that ran along the garden, hoping to thereby intercept Ryan, who was now sprinting into the back alley, his dull boots thudding loudly against the asphalt. 

 “Fock,” Ryan rasped, rubbing his face frustratedly as he ran.

 “Get down on the ground!” A distant, disembodied shout echoed. “Dog killer!”

 “Fock,” Ryan huffed. “Fockin’-ass-shit.”

 Ryan was making his way to the end of the alley when the stabbing pain of a stitch sank his ribs. He was hobbled now, trotting unevenly and clutching his right side, a primitive, smiling grimace on his face when he hit the old street. Figuring that the police officers would think Ryan was headed for the freeway, and without more time to think, Ryan slinked back down the street he grew up, planning to hide somewhere in the adjoining bridal trail. The misdirected cop who had taken the false shortcut by the garden was now beside his partner again, and they both started down the alley, too starved for breath to belt more demands at Ryan, who by every definition was presently lost to them.

 The stitch in Ryan’s side was making him whimper and gasp in agony when his pace slackened even further as he hit the dead-end where the Johnson homestead sat, Ryan heading opposite of it, up toward the sun, rushing away from the open doorway where Paw-Paw Gerald was gradually making his way back onto his feet, down the dirt road choked with dead weeds and rocks. Ryan’s boots chewed and scuffed against the dry earth, plumes of dust rising smokily from their tracks, and Ryan watched his blue jean knees weave in and out of view of his downward gaze. Hearing the distinctive yelp of a squad car siren up ahead, Ryan looked in horror at the end of the bridal trail, where a flashing red-and-blue beacon waited. Ryan dashed into a side trail which went east until he saw another squad car park at its opening. With no more options, Ryan jogged back towards his lifelong home.

 Reaching the dead-end of Bell Mar once again, Ryan saw approaching from his right the duo of cops who had charged past his father. Ryan stopped in his tracks, hunched over in apparent defeat. Seeing that Ryan Johnson was finished, the cops abated their lethargic hotfooting, screaming again for him to get on the ground. Ryan had his hands up, seeming to ignore the officers’ explicit demands. His chest was heaving and his jaw chattered with adrenaline. 

 “Get on the fucking ground!” The smaller officer squealed.

 Ryan still stood firmly, hands reaching for the power lines, his eyes clouded and distant.

 “Ryan,” Gerald chided from the doorway. “Do h’what they say, Ryan.”

 The officers bounded slowly for the defiantly erect man when the gravelly rumble of skateboard wheels against asphalt turned into the street. Floating at a leisurely, drugged pace several yards behind the police officers, the red-eyed Gay was struck with panic at the scene which abruptly appeared; his offbeat uncle vacantly staring at the cops which pursued him, his grandfather Gerald cupping his mouth to holler.

 “Dogs,” Gerald hollered indistinctly toward the frozen Gay. “Dogs.”

 “Get on the fucking ground!” The officers belted at Ryan as they leveled their firearms.

 “Dogs, Gay,” Gerald hollered again, soft as a ghost, watching Gay from the doorway, the sun glinting in his gray eyes. “The dogs, Gay. They found out ‘bout the dogs.”

 Deafening pops and blinding flashes bathed the darkening street. Gerald, apparently detached from their reality, continued to holler at Gay, the pops and flashes coinciding with the latter’s loss of consciousness. Overloaded by edible marijuana and the sounds of urban warfare, Gay fainted and and fell to the dirty blacktop alongside his uncle, the growing cacophony of sirens, yelling, and gunshots melting into a resounding scream within.

5

 In the orange-gray of early October, the Johnson clan exited a Teppanyaki restaurant with presents and leftover cupcakes in tow. Gerald waddled impatiently ahead of the of the group, fiddling with car keys and sucking on a toothpick. Father Dick obsequiously held the box of cupcakes, a gift bag balanced on top. Mother Pan whispered something plainly insidious at him. Dick’s head wobbled with faded resentment, and Pan’s cold eyes scanned Dick’s countenance for traces of damage, a stealth bomber examining the holes it had left on enemy turf. Spoiled siblings Gay and May grumbled solitarily behind their parents and carried more gift bags belonging to the birthday celebrants, who trailed behind them in two walkers, one purple and one blue. 

 Miley and Ryan faltered and staggered behind the group, gripping the soft handles of the walkers with which they held themselves upright. Deeb held a gift bag in one hand and the other rested between Miley’s hunched shoulders, a gesture of loyalty and support. The father and daughter duo of Miley and Ryan were simultaneously celebrating their birthdays and improving health. Their birthdays were within a week of each other, and they had both left their hospital beds within a week of each other late that September. Ryan, happy to be standing beside his daughter again, elected to start a round of bumper-walkers, ramming the side of Miley’s vigorously.

 “Dop it,” Miley whined dully. 

 Ryan rammed her walker again, chuckling.

 “No-o,” Miley wailed primitively through marred cognition. “Dop i-it!”

 Gerald turned around just in time to see Miley snag a crack in the sidewalk and nearly dive over her walker.

 “C’mon, now, Miley,” Gerald jeered. “What’re you doin’, actin’ silly?”

 “No-o-uh,” Miley nearly howled. “Me do no-ot!”

 “Oh, well, you know,” Deeb addressed the whole family. “Just Miley being Miley!”

 Everyone laughed. Ryan, reflexively lifting his hands to rub his chuckling face, fell over his walker.