All Hail the Melon Heads

 

Edward R. Rosick

 

It was raining stones.

Not little pebbles but big fuckers, baseball sized, large enough that if one hit you in the head it would be a bloody mess at best, lights out permanently at worst.

"Fuck!" DJ yelled, clutching his left ear. "I'm hit, E, I'm hit!"

"Get closer to me." I was cowering under a small oak tree so I pulled him tight alongside me. I wanted to see if Weasel, Hot-Rod and Monique were faring any better but I didn't dare stick my head out.

"Where are the rocks coming from?" DJ asked. Blood was running down the side of his skinny neck onto his frayed Detroit Lions pullover.

"I don't know," I replied, but deep down, I was afraid I did know. We had found whatever was haunting the grounds of the asylum. Or more accurately, it-or they- had found us.

 

***

 

It had started like most things-DJ and Weasel, two of my best friends at Lincoln Park High School, arguing, this time about the nuances of the latest video game they were addicted to. We were at Council Point Park on the banks of the sluggish Ecorse River, pounding down some tall boys on an early Friday afternoon in late October, waiting for our two other friends, Hot Rod and Lee, to arrive. It was just about a perfect autumn day in southeast Michigan-some high clouds but mostly sunny, temps in the low 60s, leaves on the trees in full change sporting brilliant colors of yellow, orange and red.

"What do you say, E?" Weasel asked.

"About what?"

DJ waved dismissively at Weasel. "About the stupid shit that's coming out of his mouth." Although he was dressed almost the same as Weasel except for a Detroit Red Wings hoodie, they would never be mistaken for blood brothers. DJ was five-eleven, about my height, with long, greasy black hair tied up in a haphazard man-bun, overweight round face, small eyes and lips so red they looked like he wore lipstick. Weasel was five six, one-twenty soaking wet, sharp nose and chin, with spiked light brown hair already receding.

"All I said was that Hank Greenberg was the greatest athlete to ever play in Detroit," Weasel said. "Everybody should know that."

DJ shook his head. "No, scrotum-face-everybody knows that Stevie Yzerman was the greatest."

"Sorry," I said. "I'd have to put my money on Barry Sanders."

"He didn't play for the Tigers," Weasel said.

"Or the Red Wings," DJ added.

I sighed and looked for another tall boy in our cooler. It was empty. "Yeah, you boys got me there." I stood up and arched my back, causing several pops to echo in the air. "It's almost time for fifth hour. We should be getting back. It doesn't look like Hot Rod and Lee are joining us."

Weasel laughed. "Yeah, right. Like we're going back to school."

"I mean it," I said. "Fifth hour is trigonometry and I'm getting a solid C. Graduation is eight months away and I don't want to fuck it up."

"Relax-we're all gonna graduate," DJ said. "Who the hell doesn't graduate LP High?"

"You two, if you don't start going to class."

"Thanks for your concern, Dad, but me and Weasel have world history fifth hour," DJ said. "Why the hell do we have ti learn about dead people?"

"Yeah," Weasel said, "what's the use learning about shit like that?"

Sometimes I just never know when to shut up. "Did you ever hear the saying 'those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it?'"

DJ and Weasel both looked at me like I was speaking ancient Egyptian.

"You spend too much time reading, E," DJ finally said, before lighting a fat blunt. "Did you ever hear the saying, 'Friday is high-day?'"

DJ and Weasel laughed while I dug around in my pocket for car keys. I almost wished I had lost them, since they were paired with my 2009 Chevy Impala, a true Detroit POS if there ever was one. I'd paid fifteen hundred dollars for it the previous spring and had put in at least that amount in repairs since then. Every time I parked, I prayed to the car gods that somebody would steal it so I could collect the insurance money.

"What are we gonna do this weekend?" DJ said between tokes of the joint.

"Monique said she'd like to go to a haunted house or something like that," Weasel said.

"We should go to a haunted house on Halloween," DJ opined. "That would be dope."

"Halloween night is the Ecorse-LP football game. Winner of it goes to districts," I said.

"Then there's no way I'm going to a haunted house that night," Weasel said. "Monique would kill me." He passed the blunt back to DJ and stood up. "I gotta go piss. Be right back."

"But I need to get back to-" I started to say, but Weasel was already booking to the outhouse. I sat down next to DJ.

He passed me the blunt and I shook him off. "I don't like weed, DJ. You know that."

"That's weird, dog." He took a long hit then blew out a stream of perfectly formed smoke rings. "You'd be a lot less anxious if you smoked."

"Thanks for the advice, doctor," I said sarcastically. I wished DJ was correct; if weed could chill me out like other people, I'd be a somewhat happier maladjusted teenager. But all it did was make my anxiety and paranoia worse. My drugs of choice were alcohol and benzodiazepines, particularly Xanax. With a bottle of Strohs and a handful of xannies, I could face the world with a fake smile on my face.

"I bet Weasel is talking to Monique," DJ said.

I nodded. Weasel and Monique Shoniqua Brown, she the star of the track and girls' basketball team, leader of the high school band, and probable valedictorian, were the unlikeliest couple at LP High. Weasel was going out with a six foot, one hundred and seventy pound-none of it fat-girl with skin so dark it was almost ebony. I had heard her described as a Nubian princess and it fit perfectly.

He had been bragging for the last month that he was having sex with her and, like all things Weasel, I blew it off as just more bombastic bullshit until the night of our home football game with Melvindale. My Impala had broken down yet again and I was in the far field of the high school which functioned as a spill-over parking lot during home games. In the light of a full-moon, I spied Monique's silver 2015 BMW X5 and noticed the rear door was open, which I figured meant she was around. I walked over the back of the car, intending to bum a ride, but instead saw a sight that is forever burned into my brain cells: Monique naked and on all fours, her back arched in orgasmic pleasure and Weasel, wearing only a Bob Marley t-shirt , pounding her from behind like a horny jackrabbit. A few seconds later he grunted like an angry steer then rolled onto the floor, his pale skin slick with sweat. Monique finally relaxed and looked over her shoulder at me. "You mind shutting the damn door?" she said, unperturbed.

I shut the damn door and walked the mile and a half back to my house.

"You boys miss me?" Me and DJ turned to see Weasel walking back.

"No," DJ answered. "What took you so long?"

"I wasn't gone that long."

"Talking to your honey?" DJ asked.

"As a matter of fact, I was." Weasel grabbed the smoldering roach from DJ's fingers and killed it off with two long puffs. "She said she missed her little Snowball." He laughed. "That's what she calls me-her little Snowball."

"Maybe it's because of your little pee-stick," DJ said.

Weasel grabbed his crotch. "This stick fills her up just fine," he said, then flicked out his over-sized tongue like a lizard tasting the air. "And this never fails to get her off."

"That's gross, man."

"Monique doesn't think so. And speaking of dick-sizing, you're one to talk, DJ. We've all seen your little wee-wee."

"It was cold that day in gym class, okay?"

But Weasel was right. DJ had been cursed with LDS-little dick syndrome-and he hated to be reminded of it.

"Did you talk to Monique about going to a haunted house?" I asked, to diffuse the tension.

"Yeah. She said she'd think about it."

"I know," DJ said. "We could go hunting at old man Wertman's. Pheasant season opened yesterday."

"No way," I said firmly. Wertman was a mean-ass Methuselah who lived on 160 acres south of Jackson, a friend of a cousin of a friend of DJ's dad. "I had a nightmare about that guy."

Weasel frowned. "About old man Wertman?"

"It was crazy. I dreamt that all of us went hunting on his property and DJ blew Lee's head off with a shotgun."

"Damn," DJ said. "Why'd I do that?"

"I don't know. All I remember is we were trying to figure out what to do with Lee's body and then Old Man Wertman shot all of us."

"He shot you?" Weasel said. "I thought when you died in a dream you like, died for real."

"He shot all of us, but I was the only one he didn't kill. I think I ended up killing him but that part is fuzzy."

"You probably dreamed that from all the horror movies you watch with Weasel," DJ said. "You should stick to porn; then you'll just have kick-ass sex dreams like me!"

"I'm living my porn dream," Weasel said, "and her name is Monique Shoniqua Brown."

I grabbed the cooler. "And I want to fulfill my dream of graduating high school, so I'm heading back."

"You're such a buzz-kill," DJ groused.

"But I'm a buzz-kill with a car," I said, "so unless you two want to hoof it back to school, quit whining and get to stepping."

 

***

 

Later that day and after much debate, we settled on going to a haunted house. For some reason-mainly my inherent laziness-I agreed to let DJ search online to find one, because Weasel said he and Monica were going off to play, quote, "hide the Weasel willy."

 

The next morning was another beautiful autumn day-blue skies, sixty-plus degree temps and a light southerly wind. Because of that and also because I was tired of staying at my dad's place and dealing with his new twenty-eight year old airhead girlfriend walking around the house in lace panties and my dad's wife-beater t-shirt, I decided to walk the half-mile to DJ's house, where we would be picked up by Hot-Rod.

The trek was mostly peaceful through working-class blocks filled with towering oak and maple trees, kids playing soccer and football in the streets and old people (anyone over thirty) raking their leaves listening to everything from college football to rap music.

It was a small change, turning off of Outer Drive onto Eighth Street, but the scene immediately changed. DJ's house, a small, three bedroom Cape Cod with a one-car garage was across the street from one of Lincoln Park's mobile home parks, or as it was better known, the meth factory. Three times the previous summer when we were drinking beer out in his garage, muffled explosions from the park informed us that yet another amateur Breaking Bad-wannabe chemist had learned too late that watching television shows does not count as Ph.D. chemistry training.

To my surprise-since getting up before 1 p.m. on the weekend was anathema to my stoner friend-DJ was sitting on the curb in front of his house, furiously tapping away on his new iPhone.

"Hey, DJ," I said.

He looked up at me, frowning, then back down to his phone. "Hey, E."

"What are you doing outside?"

"The twins were driving me crazy."

"They're eight years old and you're their big brother. That's what they're supposed to do."

"Lucky me." Every few seconds his phone would ping, prompting him to type out some answer.

"Who are you texting?" I asked.

"Some asshole. He's driving me crazy."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know," DJ said in an exasperated voice, "but when I find out I'm definitely kicking his ass!"

smiled. DJ talked a great game of being a tough guy, but a fighter he wasn't.

"Maybe you should just block him and call it a day."

"Fuck that. This asshole started it and I'm sure as hell gonna end it."

So it went for another five minutes. Ping-text-ping-text-ping-text.

I finally grabbed the phone out of his hand. "Let me see if I can figure out who this is." The pinging immediately stopped.

"Ha!" DJ said in triumph. "I showed that dickhead! Just when you take it he quits texting."

n my short seventeen years on this planet, I have come to believe two immutable truths: the only thing constant is change and there are no coincidences.

I quickly scrolled back through the texts and saw they were the same, that is,

if DJ texted U R an asshole! the 'other' would text U R an asshole! When DJ would text Why U copy me? his texting doppelganger would text the same message.

"You're texting yourself," I said.

"What?"

I gave him the phone. "Look at the phone number. That's your number that you sent to me two days ago when you got your new phone. You told me you switched carriers, right?"

"Yeah. When I got the new phone."

"That's it. You forgot you got a new number and you're just texting yourself."

He shrugged and put the phone in his pocket. "Well, everyone can make a mistake, right?"

I nodded and wondered if he had any beer in the garage.

"Why'd you walk?" DJ asked. "The Impala go POS on you again?"

"Yep."

"Bummer, man."

"No surprise. But it was good to get out of my old man's house and walk to clear my head."

"He giving you grief again about your school grades?"

"No It's his new girlfriend."

"Latisha, the tall Hispanic chick?"

"Nah, they split already. This one's a white Goth chick named Candy, or Bambi, or something like that. She mumbles so I can't understand her most of the time."

I sat on the curb next to DJ and continued. "I try not to judge him about dating these honeys who are half his age, especially since he and my mom were sleeping in different bedrooms the last three years they were married. But damn, walking into the bathroom this morning and finding a big purple butt plug floating in the sink filled with dirty water... I just don't need that scene."

"That's nasty. Was it hers or his?"

"I didn't ask."