Free Monster's Chef by Jervey Tervalon Page B

needy woman. Me, I had been there; thought I could be a good husband and not the man I had been before who liked to get high. My shining armor crashed to the floor and I stood there naked to the world, a reformed basehead. And, as fucked up as I was, I had to pull myself out of that rathole of despair. If you want to help someone in a bad situation, you need to give them the opportunity to work their way out of it. At least that’s how it was for me, and with the help of Asha I managed to pull myself out of the mess of my life. But it wasn’t Asha dragging me by the scruff of my neck to independence from drugs. It was me; I wanted to stop. I wouldn’t ruin that for Rita, snatching away that last shred of dignity, even if it made me feel good about myself, like I was some kind of half-assed hero on a mission to save wayward white women. I didn’t need to know her personal tragedy, character flaw, failing, or whatever it was that led her to Monster’s Lair. She was down that path and so was I, and now the future was more important than rehashing the past.
    I PICKED UP Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On in a cutout bin at a gas station in Solvang.
    If I couldn’t sleep, I’d listen to Marvin relentlessly until I passed out, drunk off his voice. He had his demons, but his soul was made pure by the suffering that even a deaf fool could hear in his voice; he became my companion in misery. He made nights bearable. Before, I’d lie in bed listening to crickets until the crickets got tired of putting on a show, and I’d get sick of myself and think that this was why I became a basehead, not being able to stand myself. I wanted to get to a better place, a quiet place, a place very much like Monster’s Lair, a high that isolated you from all the madness and noise until you realized none of it made sense, that you were fucked. The pipe will do that for you, make the mundane bullshit of everyday life disappear, to be replaced by the monumental bullshit of looking for the next high.
    I could have written a book on how I was slowly becoming a roach, giving up my humanity for the constant thrill of the pipe, the allure and squalor of it.
    Dreams of Rita receded into the fatigue of sleeplessness, and I couldn’t force myself to stay awake; when my growing fascination/minor obsession with Monster couldn’t sustain me and Marvin couldn’t help me, I’d drift off to a dead sleep, usually and thankfully free of dreams, but not tonight.
    Tonight I heard gunshots.
    I heard them distinctly and they were near. I had an innate instinct not to get too excited by gunshots, and of course I didn’t make the suburban mistake of flinging the door open to see what was happening. I pulled a pillow over my head and hoped that whatever it was would end, but it didn’t. I heard stout voices shouting, and more shots, and the endlessly shining lights of Monster’s Lair blazed brighter. They invaded my bungalow, casting shadows, making everything disorienting. From behind the bungalow a commotion erupted, shouts and curses, the sounds of a struggle.
    Panicked, I rushed for the door, flung it open, and ran down the steps of the bungalow, and before I could decide where to run next, I heard a command to freeze.
    â€œDon’t move!”
    I stopped and held my arms high. Blinded by the lights, all I could do was squint in the directions of the voices.
    â€œIs that him? I thought we had that son of a bitch.”
    â€œNo,” another voice replied. “He’s the cook.”
    â€œGo inside and stay,” the voice shouted.
    I did as they asked. I sat in the rocking chair with a blanket wrapped around me, and listened to them shout as they searched for the intruder until just about daybreak. Was this the same intruder who had been mentioned earlier? He had found a way onto the grounds and caused a DEFCON 1 kind of reaction, even with all the security upgrades. I felt kind of giddy