Lessons

How I ended up being the quasi-roommate of a drug trafficking motor head is an easy story to tell. My mom hated pretty much everything about me and going home to her bad mood and bleached kitchen and spotless living room had no appeal at the age of seventeen. I had learned to survive outside of the home base so I could experience a different side of life. You could say my mom was uptight, suburbanite, square, boring, or harsh. Most people would describe ‘ol Barb, that’s her name, as pious. she was the most religious person I knew but without Jesus or Buddha or Allah. She lived by a strict moral code, and I did not. So like I said, how I came to be the quasi-roommate is an easy one to understand. How I came to love him is another story.

Some people think they don’t deserve love. And some people don’t deserve to be loved. If I think about it objectively I realize that Dango was both. He never felt his life was significant, you could see it in the guest bedroom of his house that never got turned into a nursery. How no girl until me had left a bottle of shampoo or a toothbrush or a box of crackers on top of the refrigerator. You could see the absence of love in the unchanging course of his life. There had been little love for Dango or his six brothers growing up. What I had been permitted to know included a vague history of abuse from his father to his mother. So Dango had probably never been loved properly. And while he was a “good guy” and someone who’d help you out, Dango had never earned loved. There was blankness in his eyes that came from seeing blood spilt and a thump in his walk that told you he wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. Without love to blind his view of the world Dango saw everything for what it was.

***

His house sat back from the road a good fifty feet. Its yard dipped and rolled into a crater almost, like you had to walk downhill to get to the front door. This was no accident. You couldn’t see if Dango was home just by driving past his house; his three cars and motorcycle were not visible unless you pulled in the circling driveway. His drive was a big wide spread of cracked asphalt with weeds and grass shooting up from anthills, stamped upon by basketball shoes and Nike flip-flops, here they congregated safely out of the public’s eye. Eight to fifteen to sometimes twenty guys would show up to stand around in Dango’s driveway and shout and talk and drink those tall cans of cheap beer with little slivers of metal in it so when you drank it the metal pieces would cut your stomach and make you drunker faster. These men would stand outside for hours. When I first started coming by Dango’s, I assumed this was how his friends had always hung around. He sat inside the coolness of his house sipping canned sodas from the bare fridge, puffing away on his menthol cigarettes. Eventually he’d go outside, as they expected him to, they’d all stand around and talk shit, about cars, women, fighting, mostly sports. Eventually the voices would lower and the younger men would drift down the driveway, scuffing their heavy shoes, shaking the last of their warm, stale beer out of the can, finally tossing it off into the darkness. Then the talk would turn to different things. If I stayed around long enough Dango’s buddies would break out their goodies and start to sell. Shawny always held coke. I say coke ‘cause it wasn’t ever primo, half bullshit cut with crushed aspirin or those headache powders or sometimes even stuff as bad as ice or crank. Shawny looked like he used the stuff he sold. He had red-clay skin and eyes that seemed to never blink. He had grown up with Dango, he was a skinny nervous dude who always wore white and always had coke, had dreadlocks and kept his fingernails long on his right hand. Wore designer sunglasses and always had coke. But not primo. Another guy everyone called Bean instead of his real name, I think because he was shaped like butter bean. Bean was evidentially Dango’s cousin. Bean always had a gun and always had a blunt of some stinky weed. He’d walk around with one 24/7, offering it only to Dango or me even though I didn’t like the stuff all the time. Even though I was welcome I did not want to be high all the time with these guys. I was white and close to half their age and a girl and I had to remind myself that everything can turn out to be an illusion of safety and trust. I was Dango’s little pal I guess to them. Bean was always nice and usually I couldn’t understand what he was saying and Dango would have to tell him to, “slow down boy, she can’t understand wha choo sayin’.” Bean was always nice. Shawny always had coke. Other faces became familiar and names stuck and I learned to be afraid that every time someone knocked on Dango’s door it could be someone I know on the other side here only to buy pills from Dango.

So Dango’s house was located perfectly. Right in the middle of town, but on the side of the road. Not out of sight, but out of mind. For a whole summer I hung out there, amongst strangers and pill heads, and coke handlers, and big fat guys who sell awesome weed and dudes who trade car parts for dogs. This place was the closest to a marketplace or a bazaar that I would ever get. It was incredible to watch and to be held above all of it. I never had to say anything. I could come outside and talk with the boys or stay inside or hit the blunt when Dango handed it to me and not anyone else. I don’t know why I was held above it. I was held above Dango’s fits of anger when he threw Shawny’s nephew Trey into the side of the house or hurled a chair across the yard or hit his dog Tito for throwing up in the kitchen. I was held above all of that and unlike the other girls who showed up at Dango’s; I didn’t eat pills all day or just want to come over to sleep in his bed. When I look back on it now I think Dango kept me above all of that because I was the only real friend he ever had. He didn’t have to buy me like he did them. He didn’t have to impress me like he tried to impress them. I didn’t want any of his pills or weed or money or whatever else he had. I didn’t. And I think he knew that. 

I had met Dango working at a sports bar where bikers and brothers alike could meet in peace, get drunk, eat bad food, and stare mindlessly at one of the forty TVs distributed throughout the bar. I was working as a dishwasher; I hated the idea of being a cocktail waitress, barmaid, or one of those girls who carries around nothing but a tray of shots and encourages customers to behave like animals. No, I preferred the fulfilling duty of washing away the residue of the bar’s activities. So, one night I had walked out the back of the bar to light a smoke. Standing there smoking I considered what my mother had always said, that smoking will kill me because it killed my grandfather and so on and so on. Whatever. I was leaning against the lattice work just outside the kitchen when I heard a really loud car. I don’t know much about cars but I heard this one coming before I saw it. A low, black, two-door, something pulled into a spot ten feet away when the engine quieted, the door swung open and a huge leg landed on the pavement. As I watched Dango emerge I wondered how someone his size could even fit in that car, let alone drive it. He cleared his throat and straightened up his windbreaker. He turned and started over in my direction with a cut in his stride almost like a limp or a sprain. He must’ve been over six and a half feet tall. His muscles strained against his jacket sleeves and his jeans hung low on his hips. He wore a thin gold chain tucked inside his A-shirt. His voice was like coffee, oil, and rubber.
                “What’s up girl? I’m lookin’ for Carlos.” Carlos was one our late-night kitchen cooks, only four or five years older than me. A complete and total junkie, but a nice guy.
              “Yeah hold on I’ll get him,” I started off for the back door.
                “Hold up ‘n finish your smoke, I’ll have one wit you.” He pulled a soft pack from his jacket pocket and produced a lighter. The flame spread a warm glow over his face and I was able to make out his face a little better. He had a cut jaw line and really defined cheekbones, full lips and a little tuft of facial hair guys called a “soul patch.” His eyes were what stopped me. Deep and cavernous and empty, but full and infinite, I couldn’t look at them.  But I wanted to stare into them, and invent a new crayon color so I could call it Dango. He held his cigarette delicately between the tips of his fingers, like a woman. His hands were huge and I was thinking he could probably cover my whole face with his hand. The cigarette looked miniature and fragile compared to his fingers. We exchanged names and familiars and talked about how I did or didn’t like working at the bar and how well I knew Carlos. We marveled at the fact that we smoked the same brand of cigarettes.
                “Man, my parents hate that I smoke and give me shit about it all the time. Working at the bar gives me time and space to smoke when I want to,” I explained to him.
              “Cigarettes are just a way to pass the time. You see old women with them cracks around their lips? They’ve smoked their lives away. Each day their schedules include cigarette breaks. They got to have dem cigarette breaks. A handful of minutes at a time fo them to sit ‘n think. Stand and talk. Drive and smoke. Doesn’t matter. People who smoke sit around wit other people who smoke. People who don’t smoke don’t smoke 'cause it’s bad for you, or dirty, or stinky. Best we keep those whiney types away. I wash my hands and brush muh teeth and smoke outside and I’m not dirty so don’t look at me like ima dredge of society. Cigarettes are addicting and they kill you yeah yeah we got it. We know. But you gonna die anyways.  After the age of 18 I hope and I believe anyone who puts a smoke in their mouth knows what it’s doing to ‘em. I do. I do it anyways. ‘Cause to me I’d rather have all those handfuls of minutes to myself, without the whiners, to sit and think. There’s no time anymore for people to sit and think. I can name of a whole bunch of people who should start smoking and start thinking.“ Dango and I stayed outside talking for what must’ve been a long time, because eventually Carlos found us and sent me back into the bar to start breaking down for the night. Around four a.m. or so I was soaked in dish water, grimy with dirt, trash juice on my shoes and grease on my skin, and I was ready to get the hell out of there. I grabbed my coat and headed out towards the parking lot; it was dark and cold and I always got a little nervous making the mad dash from the door to my car. I noticed an extra car in the deserted lot; Dango was still here. As if he knew I was looking around for him, he emerged from around a corner.
                “Need a ride?”
                “Nah I’m good, my car’s over there,” I said.
                “I’m ‘bout ta head home ‘n burn one if you’re interested.” His hands were shoved in his pockets but his stare was relentless and heavy. I hesitated and considered my answers. I had no reason to trust him; he was twice my size, a strange black man, and apparently a drug dealer of some sort, not to mention I’m pretty sure he could crush me with his hands alone. But I also had no reason to be afraid of him.
                “That sounds great right about now.”
That’s how it started I guess. After that night I realized that I would never really have a reason to be afraid of Dango. Or be afraid when I was with him. I started staying at his house to escape the environment at home with my parents. I started hanging around, coming by almost every day. Sometimes I’d fall asleep on the couch. So eventually I just started staying over once or twice a week.        
              Dango was known around town, but never really left his house and if he did he didn’t run around bar-hopping or shopping at department stores. Dango got groceries from gas stations; he said he’d rather pay four dollars for a bottle of ketchup than pay two at a grocery store and have to see eight people he’d rather avoid. Dango was always talking like that, like he was always on the run. Thing is he’d lived in town for over 15 years and lived in the same house for the last 9 of those years. So people knew Dango’s name and his business for all the wrong reasons. When I think about it I think it sucks because he just wanted some privacy. But I guess when you sell pills to addicts you see the same people over and over again.
              Dango and I would run errands; I would bear witness to some interesting situations and meet some equally interesting characters. But sometimes we’d drive to the next town over and go out for dinner. Dango never wanted to eat in town. Probably because he didn’t want to have to ever explain me as much as I didn’t want to have to explain about him. Sometimes we just drove around. Dango had a motorcycle, a classic road hog, supercharged and refinished, black and loud and old with new, that he never took out. So when I told him I’d never been on a bike I was totally surprised he wanted to uncover it and take me for a ride. I’ll never forget that ride. 

Dango’s soft tail deafened me when he first started it, but by the time we pulled off the highway and onto Parker’s Climb the dry wind speeding over my ears had completely cancelled out any sound. I could feel the heat emitting from the throttle near my ankle and found its warmth oddly comforting. I clung to Dango’s parka, whipping around turns, his headlights flooding the two-land back road up the mountain. The crisp bright light was the only one in sight. As we came up over the top of the hill my eyes focused on the quarter mile stretch of road ahead. In the distance above the tree line of a thousand looming pines you could see them: one, two, three, four, five, six service towers. They were spread out across a ten mile span, the road led straight up through them and Dango accelerated, blasting my pants legs with exhaust. My heart thumped behind my coat as I saw the speedometer crawl past 103. Dango reached up and flicked off the headlights.
                Immediate, total, and complete darkness, it was all-consuming like the cold air flying up my nostrils preventing me from breathing correctly. The bike was gone from underneath me and Dango wasn’t there anymore but I could still feel both of them. This must be what blindness is like. My eyes were fully open grasping and straining for light on the road to console my mind that we weren’t about to run into something huge in the road. I turned my head back taking deep gulps of air. I was so busy worrying about breathing that I didn’t realize what I was supposed to be experiencing. In the distance the red glow of the signal lamps on the towers was comforting and powerful I immediately accepted and appreciated the beauty they gave the valley. I was calm and could begin to make out the back of Dango’s head and handlebars. Red light spilled onto the road, leaving it with a wet and tired look. The moon wasn’t out and the stars could not be seen, only the burning red of some thirty unblinking lights, staring back at me like they knew something I didn’t.
               

***

I only knew Dango for a few months. A summer. I worked in a restaurant and slept in late and partied when I wanted to and spent my money on what I wanted to because I didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t care about anything. Neither did Dango and that may be why we got along without words.  Sometimes I didn’t got to Dango’s to sleep. I was privy. I had my own set of key for the front and back door. Dead bolt too. I had been given these keys and never really sure why.
                “I want you ta be able ta come and go when you wont to.” I had simply blinked when presented with the keys. Thoughs swelled and dripped out. Everytime I walk into your house I wonder whether or not I’m on one of your cameras. I don’t turn on a heater when it’s forty two degrees inside the house unless you have mentioned it or brought it up first. I don’t eat or drink anything from your fridge and I don’t take a shower without asking. Your electric bill, your grocery list, your water units. Money out of your pocket. Like I said I was privy and I behaved accordingly. I respected Dango. But I’m not sure why. He was suspicious and paranoid but you’d never see him bat an eyelash of worry. He had monitors set up in the living room to see when people showed up and who they were. He could leave his door unlocked and not have to worry about it because people always knocked. They never came in without him admitting them with a loud, “Yeah?” Dango demanded respect from people but he never once had to ask for it. Sometimes I stayed out of his hair so he could feel like a normal guy again and watch football games and races and boxing matches without feeling my presence in the back room reading.

It was one of those nights I didn’t go to Dango’s to sleep. Usually I’d go over when it got dark and hang out or go see some other friends and come around one or two in the morning. But that night I didn’t. I hadn’t wanted to go over there because I was hanging out with what we affectionately joked as being, my “white” friends. Damaged children of ex hippies to whom nothing was ever funny enough to crack more than the gentlest of grins. When I felt like sitting and thinking and not talking much I would go to these people. They listened to calming music at moderate volumes and calmly smoked their weed on the back porch so they wouldn’t stink up their calm houses. I had begun to notice the cultural divide occurring over the summer, I now listened to rap often and smoked blunts inside the house. Rap kept me from really assessing my emotions and smoking inside was just smarter. But I still needed these people like I needed Dango and his people. If I flipped open my cell phone right now I’d see phone numbers of Dango’s boys who had my number for deals and emergencies and contacts. Emergencies. I was sitting with my damaged friends listening to their depressing music thinking about the sky when my phone started buzzing. A message from Shawnee saying to call him. Weird, but I called him right away. When someone’s doing business you can tell cause they walk away before they make the phone call cause they for real don’t want you to hear who they’re calling. I was all the way to the back of the privacy fence surrounding my friend Charles’ house when Shawnee answered.
                “Yo you need ta come on up to tha hospital.” His voice was fluid and weak like he didn’t mean the words he was saying. I stared down at my shoes until I had collected my thoughts. Put one and two together. Whatever had happened to Dango must’ve been bad. Dango never went to the doctor or the hospital. He had always said “I’m the doctor,” in a baby voice playing around that he didn’t ever need anyone’s help. He said he wouldn’t ever need health insurance cause if he got sick he could find whatever it was he would need to fix it. I remember one time he had over fifty penicillin pills. They were straight penicillin and super rare. He took two over two days and was completely cured of the nasty little sinus infection he had. I swallowed hard and tried to absorb what Shawnee was saying.
                “…it bad not good you need ta come girl. Stop playin’ come on…” his voice was beginning to break. Then he hung up. When I got to the hospital about twenty minutes later they had already pronounced Dango dead. I didn’t cry. There was no family to call, just us. His boys and his little white girl. I didn’t know what to feel or how to react. Death is a weird thing when it’s staring you in the face. Dango’s death reminded me that life was always going to feel short. He had said it. You’re going to die anyways. And when he died he left me there having to explain to my mother how I had inheritied three collectable cars and a house and a huge junk yard dog named Tito. Dango left me confused with what he had felt about me. Something I guess I’ll never understand. He left me all of his things but he left me with so many questions. The accident reports claimed the bike maxed out at two hundred over the hill on Parker’s Climb and hit a piece of rubber in the road, making Dango lose control and fly into a tree. Dango was the best driver I had ever seen in the world. I couldn’t believe it.
                When I look back on it now and I remember things about Dango I never before took into consideration, and I miss him. I don’t feel like Dango ever really taught me anything besides the hustle and how to play the game best from my angle. But at the same time I look at him as an example. Not one of those “models of perfection” types I’m supposed to wanna look, smell, sound, and act like. But like an example of what not to do. There was no pity when Dango died, and not in that frigid “I told you so” way. Just sadness. Because I would miss him and all the things he never taught me. I moved out of my parents house and into the one Dango gave me. I drove his cars to work and got into college and things were good. I think about him still and I wonder if anyone knows the truth. I don’t think Dango killed himself. But I’d bet my life his headlights were off that night.