Read Online Extraordinary by David Gilmour - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Gilmour
Tags: Contemporary
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Methedrineââ
âNasty business, that Methedrine.â
ââthen whatever he could get his big farm-boy fingers around. It was all good, all part of an adventure that put another square on the checkerboard between him and the boys in front of the pizza parlour back home.
âWhacked on sleeping pills one day, he stole a car that had been double-parked with the engine running. He drove it the wrong way down a one-way street, spotted a police van (which was empty, by the way), panicked and smacked into a fire hydrant. Totalled the car. Knocked himself out cold. Chipped his front teeth on the driverâs wheel.
âThe judge, realizing he was dealing with a moron, gave Jerry a choice: jail or rehab. To his misfortune, Jerry Malloy, the boy who made broomsticks, chose rehab. And to punish him for his crimes, they put him in with my son.
âKyle was everything that Jerry imagined a city boy would be: slick and quick with a put-down, always on the hustle. He was smitten. For his part, Kyle knew he had fallen on a live one and treated Jerry like a goofy sheepdog. Had him doing his chores, cleaning the toilet, making the bedsâthe things you do in rehab to reacquaint yourself with regular life. Kyle wasnât interested in regular life.
âThree or four weeks in, I got a call from Bruce. It turned out that Kyle had smuggled two grams of Lebanese hash into the centre. Heâd bought them on the street with Marekâs twenty dollars. Smuggled them past security in the loose portion of his shoe sole, grinning and joking with the guard. It must have been the excitement of it all, making a fool of everybody, that explained Kyleâs wild wave to Marek as he went in.
âAnd then one night, after everyone had gone to sleep on his floor, he stole out of bed, recovered the hashish and offered a drag to Jerry. Within three hours, they were caught breaking into the meat fridge in the basement, but not before Kyle had turned on a young amphetamine addict from Stratford and a sixty-eight-year-old alcoholic. Within the space of a few hours, Kyle had undone months and months of rehabilitation.
âIt was an act of such egregious irresponsibility that the centre gave up on him. You can fix an addict, but you canât fix an asshole. Both of them got kicked out, Kyle and Jerry. Then, poof, they vanished. For a couple of weeks, no one heard from them. Maybe they went to Jerryâs hometown. I donât know. No one heard from Kyleânot his father, not his friends, not me, no one. So how what happened next happened isnât entirely clear. But you can guess the broad strokes: Kyle had found a mark and wrung him like a washcloth for everything he could get.
âBefore too long, probably at Kyleâs suggestion, Jerry stole his uncleâs pickup truck. He must have figured he was in a movie, two bandits on the run. They turned up at a local dog pound, adopted a mongrel and began to wind their way across Canada. They were heading to Vancouver. Somebody had told them it was like Florida there, warm temperatures, pretty girlsâtheyâd get a job on a fishing boat and sail to China. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
âThey went up around the Great Lakes into Manitoba. Stealing gas when they needed it. Shoplifting here and there, mostly smash-and-grab. A farm family reported that a couple of young guys, one with chipped front teeth, stayed with them for several days, stole their grandsonâs coin collection and moved on. The people who were kind to Kyle were people, he figured, who had targets on their backs, suckers who were saying, âHere, fuck me, Iâm stupid.â
âJerry turned a trick in a truck stop outside Winnipeg, let some guy blow him in the back of his rig, and that got them another seventy-five dollars. They made it as far as the outskirts of a town just across the Alberta border. They were driving at night. Kyle was. He fell asleep, the truck
âNasty business, that Methedrine.â
ââthen whatever he could get his big farm-boy fingers around. It was all good, all part of an adventure that put another square on the checkerboard between him and the boys in front of the pizza parlour back home.
âWhacked on sleeping pills one day, he stole a car that had been double-parked with the engine running. He drove it the wrong way down a one-way street, spotted a police van (which was empty, by the way), panicked and smacked into a fire hydrant. Totalled the car. Knocked himself out cold. Chipped his front teeth on the driverâs wheel.
âThe judge, realizing he was dealing with a moron, gave Jerry a choice: jail or rehab. To his misfortune, Jerry Malloy, the boy who made broomsticks, chose rehab. And to punish him for his crimes, they put him in with my son.
âKyle was everything that Jerry imagined a city boy would be: slick and quick with a put-down, always on the hustle. He was smitten. For his part, Kyle knew he had fallen on a live one and treated Jerry like a goofy sheepdog. Had him doing his chores, cleaning the toilet, making the bedsâthe things you do in rehab to reacquaint yourself with regular life. Kyle wasnât interested in regular life.
âThree or four weeks in, I got a call from Bruce. It turned out that Kyle had smuggled two grams of Lebanese hash into the centre. Heâd bought them on the street with Marekâs twenty dollars. Smuggled them past security in the loose portion of his shoe sole, grinning and joking with the guard. It must have been the excitement of it all, making a fool of everybody, that explained Kyleâs wild wave to Marek as he went in.
âAnd then one night, after everyone had gone to sleep on his floor, he stole out of bed, recovered the hashish and offered a drag to Jerry. Within three hours, they were caught breaking into the meat fridge in the basement, but not before Kyle had turned on a young amphetamine addict from Stratford and a sixty-eight-year-old alcoholic. Within the space of a few hours, Kyle had undone months and months of rehabilitation.
âIt was an act of such egregious irresponsibility that the centre gave up on him. You can fix an addict, but you canât fix an asshole. Both of them got kicked out, Kyle and Jerry. Then, poof, they vanished. For a couple of weeks, no one heard from them. Maybe they went to Jerryâs hometown. I donât know. No one heard from Kyleânot his father, not his friends, not me, no one. So how what happened next happened isnât entirely clear. But you can guess the broad strokes: Kyle had found a mark and wrung him like a washcloth for everything he could get.
âBefore too long, probably at Kyleâs suggestion, Jerry stole his uncleâs pickup truck. He must have figured he was in a movie, two bandits on the run. They turned up at a local dog pound, adopted a mongrel and began to wind their way across Canada. They were heading to Vancouver. Somebody had told them it was like Florida there, warm temperatures, pretty girlsâtheyâd get a job on a fishing boat and sail to China. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
âThey went up around the Great Lakes into Manitoba. Stealing gas when they needed it. Shoplifting here and there, mostly smash-and-grab. A farm family reported that a couple of young guys, one with chipped front teeth, stayed with them for several days, stole their grandsonâs coin collection and moved on. The people who were kind to Kyle were people, he figured, who had targets on their backs, suckers who were saying, âHere, fuck me, Iâm stupid.â
âJerry turned a trick in a truck stop outside Winnipeg, let some guy blow him in the back of his rig, and that got them another seventy-five dollars. They made it as far as the outskirts of a town just across the Alberta border. They were driving at night. Kyle was. He fell asleep, the truck
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