The Temptation of Adam: A Novel by Dave Connis (17)

ON TOP OF ME

Time seems to move quicker than it had before. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not just spending all my time in my room, or if it’s because I now have Dez, or Addy, or Trey and Elliot. I just know everything feels more awake than it ever had before. It’s like I was rusty car and someone had to push me down a hill to get me to start. I feel like I’m picking up speed. Moving. Being something that isn’t filled corner-to-corner with dark and rust.

The weird thing is, I feel like I’ve passed my slowness onto Mr. Cratcher. We’ve been recording for three weeks now, and I feel like going up the stairs takes a few minutes longer. Getting him set up with his guitar is like putting boots on a finch. He just wanders around moving things. Persnickety fidget here and persnickety fidget there. I wonder if it’s just a new morning thing or if he’s this sluggish at school, too.

One night after Addiction Fighters, the Knights of Vice, plus a few extra, go to Pritchett’s. Trey and Elliot sit across from me and Dez, and Addy’s in a chair at the end of the table. We’re all talking about how, during the sharing time at the meeting, Dez walked to the podium like she was going to speak, but just stared at everyone for at least a minute and then sat down.

Dez shakes her head. “Everyone’s always talking about how life’s so hectic and overwhelming.” The obstinate smile she gets when she’s arguing a point playfully, but with the conviction of someone who actually believes it, appears on her lips. “I thought it would be nice to enjoy some silence together, but you didn’t even applaud when I walked off the podium. You plead for order and calm, but when it’s given to you, you stare at it like you’ve just walked in on a fat guy you don’t know on your toilet.”

“You didn’t actually say that was happening,” Elliot says. “If I walked up to a piano, sat down on the bench, and just stared at you instead of playing, you’d think I was a moron.”

Dez opens her mouth to say something, but she realizes she’s trapped. “I’d expect you to do whatever you wanted.”

Elliot lets out one strong laugh. “BS! Dez, you are always so full of manic pixie BS.”

Dez’s mouth drops, and she looks so offended that I wonder if she’ll ever say anything to Elliot again. “I am not a manic pixie.”

Elliot and Trey look at each other and then both say. “Right.”

“I think it’s …” I start, but then try to think of a different word for cute. Adorable. Sexy. “Avant-garde.”

“Oh God, so much BS everywhere,” Elliot says, pretending to hurl into a napkin holder.

Trey laughs but then looks at Addy. “You know what isn’t BS, Adelaide? Us. Come on. What do you say? Let me take you out. Just once.”

Addy shakes her head as the rest of us chuckle at her expense. “Who told bro that my full name is Adelaide? Raise your hand now.”

No one raises their hand.

Trey gets an embarrassed smile. “Chica, no one at this table told me. I asked Mr. Cratcher for all the information he had on you.”

“Dios mio,” Addy says. “Listen, Trey, if you want me, you’ve gotta step it up.”

“Yeah,” I add. “For one, you need to win her brother over first.”

Trey waves me away. “Oh, that’s easy, man.”

Dez raises an eyebrow. “And you’ve got to win over the brother’s girlfriend.”

When everyone, including me, turns and looks at Dez, she realizes her mistake.

Dez tries to correct herself, “I mean the brother’s …”

She can’t think of anything else to call herself. It’s funny, but, at the same time, I can’t keep up with what she thinks we are.

“Mujer de la noche?” Addy asks.

Trey laughs. “How do you not see we could be perfect together?”

Dez throws a french fry at him. “Elliot, tell Trey to leave poor Addy alone.”

Elliot flicks Trey in the neck. “Hey, man, relax. Dez wants to talk about Dez, not Addy.”

Dez grabs the table with a big grin. “Nuh uh! That is not what I said.”

I shrug. “That’s what I heard.” I look at everyone else. “That’s what you guys heard, too, right?”

Everyone holds back their laughter long enough to agree.

Dez shakes her head in defeat. “I am me, and he is he, and she is she, and you are all assholes.”

We laugh, and I realize I’ve never felt like this: included, like I fit, like I have a place.

Suddenly, as though my heart realized its vulnerability, images of porn crash in on me. In a matter of seconds, all the freedom I was feeling is replaced by my want for porn. My knee starts bouncing. My palms get hot. I get fidgety. I know that I’m not going to survive tonight. Dez takes one look at me and knows exactly what’s happening: the pull of withdrawal. The intense incompleteness.

“See?” she whispers. “This is why we aren’t dating yet.”

“Dez, can you please not make me feel guiltier than I already do?”

“I hate it when couples whisper to each other when they’re in a group,” Elliot whispers, and everyone laughs.

“That wasn’t a joke,” he adds. “For real, I hate it.”

Trey throws his arm around Elliot as another round of fries is brought to the table. “Hey, man, relax,” he says again.

Dez and I look at each other unsettled. Our volcano-ness is spilling over into each other’s struggles and we haven’t even officially dated yet. I turn away and catch Addy gazing at Trey while he talks to Elliot. Addy catches me catching her, and her only response is a mischievous grin.

—

“You can’t make fun of me for not dating when you know exactly why we can’t,” Dez says.

We’re standing outside of Pritchett’s. Everyone’s left except for Addy, who’s waiting for me in her truck.

“Dez, I’m sorry. I just—it sucks not to have something you want because of something that feels so out of your control. I just wonder like, what’s it matter what we call it? We’d be pissed if either one of us dated someone else, right? Doesn’t that mean we’re dating? The whole ‘we have no title but I’ll be pissed as hell at you if you no-titled with someone else’ thing is just as much of a title as dating.”

Dez uncrosses her arms and steps closer to me. “We can’t be boyfriend and girlfriend yet. We can’t date yet. We have to defeat our addictions, remember? Otherwise we’ll just burn each other up. We can do this. We’re awesome.”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

She collapses into my chest like she’s exhausted, so I just hold her.

“You don’t think I’m a manic pixie dream girl, do you?”

“I think you march to the beat of your own conga line and it’s adorable.”

“So, yes, but it’s fine, is what you’re saying?”

“I think it’s hot when you just silently stare at a room full of addicts.”

She pulls herself off my chest, her lips pressed into a concerned line. “I just … my brothers are the same as my dad; carbon-copy, moneymaker, rich, ignorant types. My mom is the perfect woman and wife who never makes a mistake, but is hollow on the inside. I don’t want to be that. I can’t be that.”

“I really think you’re awesome.”

She rests into me again. “You’re the first one, then. One of my sponsors once said that I was too focused on being different to ever be in a healthy relationship.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, I agreed, one hundred percent.”

“So, what does that mean for us, then?”

“I think it means if you look at porn tonight, I’ll kick you in the nuts,” she says. “How’s that for incentive?”

“A: That’s not an answer, B: the scariest thing about that is I know you’ll actually do it.”

“Yeah, I will. I want to date you.”

I wonder why she moved on so quickly from my question. I wonder what her quest to be different from her family means for us, but I let it go for now. I probably have some sort of backlash from The Woman affecting my relationships in a similar way. I don’t think anyone escapes their families without some sort of bruise.

“So you’ll kick me in the nuts to date me?”

She nods. “Yeah. So worth it.”

I take a deep breath and then step away from her and spread my legs into a rockstar-ish stance. “Alright, I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.”

She laughs but then kisses me on the cheek. “If only it were that easy. See you in the morning, Hawthorne.”

—

I watched porn for an hour.

I hate myself.

I hate myself.

I. Hate. Myself.

—

The next morning, I sit at the kitchen table with my dad. I shovel spoonfuls of Cocoa Puffs into my mouth, but the act of lifting the spoon, chewing, and fishing more puffs out of the milk seems like a placebo happiness compared to what I felt last night being with everyone. I didn’t think Cocoa Puffs could ever lose their shine. I thought their unnatural molecular structure could keep them shining way past their expiration date. I guess all it takes is something brighter to make a shine seem dull. My shine-o-meter rankings are now Addy, Dez, my friends, and then Cocoa Puffs.

Glad that happened.

My phone rings, and it makes Dad look up from his e-reader with his eyebrows all scrunched.

“Hello?”

“Why five?” Dez asks. “There are twenty-four options to choose from. Why five in the morning?”

“Because he’s an old man, and though I don’t go to school currently, he does.”

“Oh, yeah, I suppose I still have to do that later, too. At least it’s Friday. Do I have to kick you in the nuts this morning?”

Truth? No truth?

Pros: I tell the truth.

Cons: I avoid hurting her, hurting my balls, and being vulnerable.

“Nope, you don’t. You sure you’re okay with this?”

“I’ve never recorded anything. Ever. This is a temporary conquering until we can come up with something better.”

“Alright, I’ll see you there then.”

She doesn’t say good-bye. She just hangs up.

“Dez is going to Mr. Cratcher’s?” Dad asks.

“Yeah, she’s going to sing.”

“Huh,” he says. “Just make sure you’re still focusing on spending time with Mr. Cratcher. I don’t want these mornings to turn into the Dez and Adam Show where nothing gets discussed. I think the mornings have been good for you and I’d hate to see those go, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Promise me you’ll take advantage of the times you have to have with Mr. Cratcher to focus on yourself?”

“I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing, but yes. I will. Hey, we should get a different kind of cereal,” I say, standing to grab my keys off the counter.

“Leave it to love to get a man to change cereals,” Dad says.

“We’re not dating.”

“I never implied you were dating. I implied you were in love.”

“I guess. I don’t really know what that means.”

“You’re young. You have time to figure it out.”

The comment makes me wonder if he even knows what being in love means.

As I drive to Mr. Cratcher’s, NPR teaches me about the socialist dictator Hugo Chavez. Politics aren’t my favorite thing to listen to, but I’ve been having NPR withdrawals. Their funding telethon ran long because of dicks like me who listen but don’t support it.

Dez’s car’s already sitting in Mr. Cratcher’s driveway when I arrive. It’s a rust-colored station wagon, and each of the doors are painted a different color.

She leans against her hood, waiting for me. I never knew five in the morning could be so sexy.

“Hi,” she says.

I hug her. “Hi. You ready?”

“I’ve done scarier things than singing with an old man.”

I widen my eyes. “Not this old man.”

“Is he like Hugo Chavez or something?”

“NPR?”

She nods.

“Sweet mercy, you’re perfect.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“What does it matter? It’s too late. Even if he was Hugo, you already said you’d do it.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me I’d be singing with a socialist dictator. That’s before information, not after information.”

I pause before knocking on his door. “Do you have a flask?”

She flutters her eyelashes.

I hold out my hand. “Give it to me.”

She rolls her eyes, slides her hand into her coat, and pulls out the shining metal container. “God, you’re so annoying.”

I take it and dump its contents over the railing.

“That’s not fair,” she says. “It’s not like I can just dump porn over the railing.”

I grab my phone from my pocket. “Here.”

“What about your mind? I can’t dump that?”

“Okay, just … it was supposed to be funny.”

She takes my phone and stretches her arm over the railing. The phone slides from her fingers.

“I hope there’s grass down there,” I say.

She holds out her hand again. “Brain, please.”

I lay my head in her palm. She leans down like she’s going to kiss me but instead she blows into my ear. I shudder then swat Dez away.

“Dez, why would you even do that?” I’m kind of angry, but I’m laughing at the same time.

“Because that was funnier than dropping your phone over the railing.”

“Was it?”

“Okay, which is worse: the fact that your phone just shattered into bits and pieces on the concrete below or that you have air in your brain?”

I throw up my hands. “Did you really just destroy my phone? Why—”

She pokes my chest. “Totally kidding.”

“You’re going to make me insane.”

“I haven’t yet? Man, I’m losing my edge.”

Before we can knock, Mr. Cratcher’s head appears in the doorframe. “Good morning, Adam. Oh, good, you coerced Dez to sing on our broken little record?”

“I did indeed,” I say. “It wasn’t very hard.”

“He said ‘sing,’ and I said ‘let’s go.’” Dez steps into the house and hugs Mr. Cratcher. “It’s weird to see you without the Knights of Vice.”

“Well, there’s one right there.” Mr. Cratcher points at me. “One right here.” He points to himself. “And two right there.” He points to Dez and then winks at me.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Aren’t you two all buddy-buddy.”

“Always,” Mr. Cratcher says. “Shall we? I need to teach you today’s song before we can record anything. Adam, can you get this young lady some water?”

“I can. Just in the kitchen?”

“Yes, glasses are by the fridge, second cupboard.”

I’ve never been in his kitchen before. This is almost world-changing. I open the cupboard and grab a glass. I hold it to the dispenser on the fridge and a piss leak of water drips out of the spout. I look at the overwhelming amount of magnets, notes, lists, and pictures on his fridge. There’s a bunch of Gabby, so while I wait for the glass to fill, I study her features and her smile. I can tell she was a woman who had the eternally beautiful gene, probably like Dez does. Dudes don’t get that. We have the hot-then-beer-belly gene. Poor Dez.

Poor Dez? We’re not even dating and I’m talking like we’re forever.

Forever.

Can addicts have forever?

I shake my head and press the glass back into the stream of water.

My curiosity moves to the edges of the fridge when I finish scanning all the stuff in the middle. In the top left corner, there’s a pile of whatnot waiting for me to sift through it. As soon as I touch it, the magnetic disk keeping the pile pinned to the fridge shoots into the sink, giving up on its one task in life. At least half the world’s stationary, Christmas postcards, and notes tumble to the ground. I curse under my breath and leave the glass in the dispenser cubby in order to pick things up.

As I gather everything, I find an ancient picture of Mr. Cratcher sitting behind a mixing board in some studio. There’s a black guy beside him, wearing the culmination of all that was the sixties: tweed jacket, hair pick rising out of the afro on his head like a skyscraper on a horizon. Behind them, a sign hangs above the door proclaiming Abbey Road Studio: US in a thick and simple script.

Abbey Road? Like, the studio The Beatles recorded in? That Abbey Road?

I take the picture and slide it into my pocket, certain Mr. Cratcher won’t notice it’s missing. I grab the glass out of the dispenser and run up the stairs.

“I might’ve knocked some stuff off your fridge,” I say, putting the glass down on Mr. Cratcher’s desk.

“It is the plight of the fridge hoarder,” he says. “I do it frequently. Don’t fret about it.”

“How do you want to record the vocals today?” I ask, sitting down in the desk chair and opening up the DAW.

“Well,”—he rubs his eyes—“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to do vocal tracks for the first few songs we’ve tracked. However, let me and Miss Dez practice first. We tested the chemistry of man and microphone; it is even more important to test the vocal chemistry of man and woman. If we sound like brilliance, then we shall record together. If we have a hard time keeping up with each other, we will record our vocals separately, one track at a time.”

He pulls the guitar with the hole in it off the wall and grabs the stool out of the recording room—he calls it the isolation room.

“What is the genre we’re singing, Mr. Cratcher?” Dez asks. “Rap? Gypsy Funk?”

“I’m afraid my heart music has always been eighties hair metal.”

For once, Dez doesn’t know if she should come back with wit. She gives me a horrified look, but says, “Oh, cool.”

I laugh and give Mr. Cratcher a slow clap. “The beast has been tamed.”

Mr. Cratcher gives me another wink, the second of the morning. The first wink was okay, and this one was meh. Any more winks and it will be creepy.

On a completely different non–old man winking topic: porn.

It just hit me like a wave of tingling vibrations. It feels like they won’t stop unless I scratch the itch. My knee starts bouncing up and down. I think about the whole drop-the-phone-over-the-railing moment. Dez’s right. Though my phone’s currently somewhere on Mr. Cratcher’s lawn, I can’t stop my thoughts, even after the disaster that was last night. I feel incredibly guilty for letting my mind sift through its stored gallery of thumbnails.

“Boys,” Dez says, “you’re forgetting that my vocal chords are an economy. I’m the only one with the supply, but both of you have the demand.”

Mr. Cratcher lets out a thick and hearty laugh. One I’ve never heard before. “Well said, Miss Dez. Well said. Now, the real question here has nothing to do with music.”

Mr. Cratcher pauses and gives us the look of someone who’s about to ask about young love: raised eyebrows, a smirk that says “they know nothing” and “I wonder if they’ll make it” at the same time.

I cut him off before he can ask. “No.”

Mr. Cratcher stares at me. “It isn’t normal to be able to answer an unasked question. If one can do that, it means the question is close to the heart. Questions close to the heart are rarely questions, but answers.”

“This isn’t philosophical, Mr. Cratcher,” I say. “We’re not dating.”

Mr. Cratcher looks to Dez, a knowing suspicion in his eyes. “Is that true, Miss Dez?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Not dating.”

“Why not?” he asks.

Dez and I decide who’s going to answer with a battle of quick head nods and unmoving glances.

“Because we’re addicts and addicts can’t love,” Dez says flatly. “They can only consume. We’ll use each other, burn each other, and then lose each other. If normal people can’t make it through life without divorce, then the moment we start is also the moment we end.”

Start = End.

I think about that formula for a minute and conclude with this: why are my formulas looking more and more like a bucket’a’bull?

This sucks.

Mr. Cratcher sighs. “Miss Dez, have you heard the song ‘Hallelujah’ written by Mr. Leonard Cohen?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Adam, find it and play it for her, please.”

I do, and this time I listen closer to the words. One line captures my porn-filled head and it hurts me. It’s a beauty-filled hurt though, not a pain-filled one. Is that even possible? Can there be two kinds of pain? A beautiful kind and a hurtful kind?

Love is a cold and broken hallelujah. How does that work?

Before I can think around that any longer, I hear the line about a blaze of light being in every word. I watch Dez; my blaze of light, knowing everything in me wants her. I’ve watched enough porn to know what want feels like physically, and though that’s present, it’s only a little bit of what I feel. The problem is, I can’t figure out what else I feel. It seems like every time I get close to defining my feelings, she does something new and the definitions die. It doesn’t even have to be something huge, just a flick of an eyelash, or the twitch of a muscle in her jaw. Maybe all my feelings are fractions that make up a whole love for Dez Coulter. If that’s the case, then it’s terrifying, awesome, and confusing all at once.

The song finishes. After a few seconds of Dez staring at her feet, she says, “That’s a nice song.” She says it so nonplussed that Mr. Cratcher shakes his head in disappointment.

“I ask you the same question I’ve been asking Adam, Dez. What are you? What is Adam? What are we?”

Dez’s jaw clenches. I see the tightness push against the skin under her cheek.

“We’re all addicts,” she says. “Cohen was just an addict to the Hallelujah.”

Mr. Cratcher closes his eyes like the comment hurts. “Just think on it. Both of you, please. Think on it now, in your youth, before you waste your life trying to find the answer like I have.”

His plea is so deep and cutting, I think it makes Dez cry. We say nothing else that isn’t music- or album-related for the rest of our time together. They finally practice. Dez picks up the song with just one run through.

Her voice = haunting + sunrise + beautiful.

To my surprise, they sound amazing together. Some record exec should be kicking himself for not signing them already. Their voices—his wise and knowing, hers mysterious and young—combine to make my current world less porn-y and more normal.

Dez is quiet as we leave. I walk her to her car, but she doesn’t look at me. Before she opens the car door, she says, “That man’s an emotional Hugo Chavez.”

Without saying another word, she drives off.

I’m struck with how differently we handle hard things. She runs away from them by physically removing herself. I run away from them right where I am. I’m running right now, crafting a scene in which a woman takes her clothes off on top of me.