THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN

by
Mike Boyle

�Oh mother, tell your children��

I heard someone knocking on my door. �Hello? Tony?� she said. I laid there, hoping she would go away. She didn�t, knocked again.

�I know you�re in there,� she said. Fuck.

I got up & put on my pants, thought about putting on a shirt, no, opened the door, it was Kathy. Hi Kathy.

�Katherine. You know I hate Kathy. I ah, did I wake you?�

�No.�

�Well sorry to bother you but Susan thinks you might know what happened to my coat?�

�Coat?�

�That one I wore to the party the other night, someone stole it.�

�Susan?�

�Yeah. She said I should ask you. You know the coat I was wearing when I came in? Had that long orange fur?�

�Someone stole it?�

�Yeah. I really liked that coat. You remember, right?�

I didn�t really remember but said I did. �That sucks. Sorry Kath... er, Katherine, I don�t know anything.�

�Yeah, well, sorry. I didn�t mean to infer anything.�

She looked down the hall to Susan�s room & back. �She just said��

�Well��

�Yeah, well. What were you doing?�

�Nothing.�

�Can I come in?�

We looked each other up & down & I said no. She gave me her phone number, said something, smiled shyly & walked on down the hall. I looked at her ass for a bit & she turned & saw me looking at her ass. Smiled again.

I shut the damn door & got back into bed. When you�re broke & starving, you get cold.

The party last weekend was thrown by my roommates in this commune/rooming house. There was a huge crowd & there was joints on the Christmas tree, grain punch in the kitchen. I had gotten a turkey from the job I quit but remembered they were handing out free turkeys to all the employee�s, went & they gave me one. The guy that was handing them out said, �Hey Tony! Where ya been?� & I told him I went 2nd shift to the paint line which was true but I had walked off the paint line one night a month earlier & had gone to the unemployment office the next day telling them I was laid off. Two weeks later, the checks were coming in the mail but it wasn�t much, $43 a week. I hadn�t worked there long. And when the check came, it went to drugs.

The turkey got ripped apart by the stoned, drunken crowd & although I cooked it, I didn�t get any. I was upstairs in my room shooting dope, smoking weed & listening to records with a few new friends. You see, I lived in a party house. My one roommate sold weed & there was always people coming & going. He sold a lot of weed, was one of the biggest pot dealers in town, possibly the biggest. He was also a junkie so all the junkies came & went too. When you live in a place like this & are just a couple years out of high school, the old high school friends come slumming. I imagined the stories they would tell when they went back to college.

�Oh, you should see these peeeeople I used to go to schooool with. They live in the ghetto.�

�The ghetto?�

�Oh god yes. I went there last weeekend.�

�You went there? Are you craaazy?�

�Oh, I can be pretty wiiiild!�

The party was like that. The underworld, the folks who came here to buy weed & the old �friends� from high school. Who ripped apart my turkey & projectile vomited grain punch on the wall.

I laid there for a while thinking of Kathy�s ass. It was no good, she was going off to Penn State & I was there. I remembered the day I took the bus to Harrisburg to talk to the people at social security. As soon as I turned 18, I started getting SS checks in the mail because both my parents were old & retired. I understood that, as long as I stayed in school, the checks would keep coming. So I enrolled in the local community college. They weren�t much, the benefits were split between me & my twin sister. And since our parents started charging us rent as soon as we turned 18, there was little left after books & tuition.

I remembered that day. Had to go there because they were fucking up, the checks had stopped & the people on the phone were insane. I got things worked out & took the bus back home. It was raining, pouring rain. The bus left me off a mile away from home & I started walking.

I saw my parents driving by & waved, hoping they�d give me a ride home. But I was not seen, they just drove by�

When you�re broke & starving, you get lethargic but the hunger subsides. I had gone 3 days without food but didn�t much care. I just wanted to lay there.

Later that afternoon, a knock came upon my door. It was Nick, I had met him at the party & we had gone back to my room & I had shown him my Vox amp & guitar & played some stuff. He said he was in a band but it wasn�t going anywhere & played me some of his songs. I liked Nick. Hi Nick.

�Hey Tony! How you doing?�

�Good.�

He came in, had some weed & a pile of records.

�What�s this?� I asked.

�Some of the garage stuff I was telling you about,� he said. �Have you thought about it?�

�What?�

�Getting a band together, man!�

I told him I did but really didn�t. We smoked some weed & listened to the records he brought on my stereo. I had been thinking of selling my stereo for food $. The records he brought were cool, I couldn�t believe it.

�You�re an idiot!� I said.

�What?�

�This is some cool stuff.�

�I told you man. People all around the country are putting out their own stuff. Ain�t it cool?�

�Yeah.�

He played me the records he did with Billy Synth & the Janitors.

�That�s you playing guitar?�

�Yeah man, I told you.�

I didn�t remember him telling me anything like that; all I remembered of the party was the dope & passing some girl in the hall who I knew in high school & her saying to me, �we thought you were dead.�

�We could do this stuff,� he said.

�All right.�

�So you want to get a band together?�

�Sure. Where�d you get that coat?�

�I, ah� found it,� he said.

�The girl you found it from came by earlier today looking for it.�

�What?�

�Yeah man, Kathy. Susan sent her to me thinking I stole it.�

�What did you tell her?�

�Nothing.�

�Sorry. I liked it so I took it. Figured that rich chick would get another easy.�

�You don�t have to apologise to me man, I don�t fuckin care what you do, just don�t steal from me.�

�It�s a nice coat.�

�Ha-ha, it looks good on you.�

�I�m not really a thief.�

I looked at him & thought, he�s a desperate as me. Thought that was pretty cool but didn�t say it.

�Don�t worry none about that,� I told him & we listened to records & then we were playing songs on my guitar & ideas for new songs were flowing.

�I got a PA,� he said when I asked how we were gonna get it together.

�We gotta find some players & a place.�

We would.

Later that night, Matt came over, bought my cassette deck & then went back to his parent�s house in the suburbs after scoring some weed from Dave, the dealer in the next room. The rent & utilities were due so I gave Susan $60. Then I pulled on my steel-tipped boots & walked down to the corner store. There was a crowd of blacks hanging out on the corner but they didn�t mess with me anymore. I got a few cans of mac & cheese & some iced tea, went back, threw a couple of cans in a pot & warmed them up. Then I walked up to Wendy�s room on the 3rd floor & knocked. I liked Wendy. It�s me.

�Tony?�

�I got some food if you�re hungry.�

She was.

We ate in the kitchen, talked, then watched Susan�s TV in the living room. Susan & Dave came down & I shared the iced tea. Dave passed a joint around & it seemed all right, like family. Although Susan & Dave had separate rooms, they were a couple. And they had been good to me; if it wasn�t for them, I�da been homeless. When I first moved in a few months back, they would cook fine meals for the whole household. But that stopped when nobody did the same for them. I couldn�t, Wendy couldn�t & Mike & Laura, who lived in the front room on the 3rd floor, pretty much kept to themselves.

�Well�� Dave said after a while. He and Susan went to Susan�s room.

Wendy & I sat on the couch & looked at the TV. I knew her & Susan shared a place up on the hill before Susan rented this house, that it was hard, that they were kicked out of their parent�s houses also.

�Well�� Wendy said.

I was a 20 year old virgin who hadn�t even kissed a girl yet. An alien.

I put my arm around her & she didn�t jump up & scream. We looked at the TV & she put her head on my shoulder. The door opened & Mike & Laura came in from the cold, the wind howling outside.

�Look! It�s the TV couple!� Mike said.

�They�re so cute,� Laura said.

�Funny. You guys are funny,� I said.

�Are we funny?� Laura said to Mike.

�I think we are. Isn�t that what Tony said?�

�Yes, Tony said we were, ha-ha.�

�He-he. I feel a little funny. Wanna feel me?�

�Oh yes, I wanna feel you,� Laura said.

�We�re going up to our room to feel funny. Good night TV couple!� Mike said.

�See ya,� I said.

�G�night,� Wendy said.

�Ha. They were drunk,� I said.

�They�re always drunk,� Wendy said.

�Where do they work again?�

�He works for the state & she�s a nurse.�

�I need a job.�

�No shit.�

We talked for a bit about it & she told me about being a Kelly Girl; doing temp secretarial work.

�All I do is type,� she said & then started going off about her job, no benefits, freakin slavery, etc�

When I kissed her it was because I had been wanting to but also, to shut her up.

When I woke the next morning, she was naked & laying next to me, saying she was thirsty. I put on some clothes & pulled on the boots & went to the corner store for more tea. A different set of blacks were standing on the corner, �hey,� one of them said.

�Hey.�

I walked back up the block, had 40 cents left. It was Saturday & her day off. Hey.

�Hey,� she said. �Get out of your clothes & get in here.�

Every once in a while, we came up for air & drank at the tea jug. When twilight came, she ran off & came back with a small bag of weed saying she got a nickel from Dave. I played her some of the records Nick had loaned me & we smoked. We ate my last can of mac & cheese in bed & thought we heard firecrackers but, the next day we heard it was gunfire, that there had been a gang war down the block.

� Mike Boyle
Reproduced with permission

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