While in film school at Florida State in the early 90s I must have somehow known that I'd never really have a film career, because I started writing a novella called "The Man Who was Chased Out of Time." I later turned it into a full novel called Moonville and got an agent for it while I lived in LA. She described it as having a B-movie sort of feel, and though I resented that terribly at the time, I thin now it's a proper assessment. It was more about the effect than the aesthetic experience, and that's the quintessence of the B-movie mentality. 

Nonetheless it included the first father I committed to the pages of a novel, so it fits into the timeline. By the way, a series of interstitial flash fictions were what I sent to Allen Ginsberg when I wrote to him about his father and mine. For that synapse alone, an excerpt from Moonville belongs in the labyrinth. It isn't kind to fathers, or to humans in general.

When they parked again, Carnes climbed up on the Buick’s hood and laid back with his hands behind his head, watching the few stars he could spot through the smog and city lights. He figured he could do that for an hour without getting too bored, see if they spelled words for him like the usually did. but Rivers had other ideas.

“You’re coming with me, pal. I told you you’re my good luck charm, remember?”

“No, I don’t remember.”

“Well I’m telling you now. C’mon.” Rivers pulled Carnes off the hood like a little rag doll and led him up the sidewalk, where they almost bumped into a black man in a gray hooded sweatshirt.

“Which way to Tonto’s?” Rivers asked him.

The man pointed with a spiky index finger at a squat, surly-looking building across the street. It reminded Carnes of when he was a kid in Denver, and he’d asked a big woolly black man the way to the U.S. Mint. The man, bulked up by layers of shabby winter clothes, crooked his finger around the corner and didn’t say a thing. 

“Doesn’t even have a sign,” Rivers said. “Must be his kind of place.”

Tonto’s had red brick walls and a blue awning, which blocked any light that tried to sneak through its four-by-four front window. An old poster for COLT 45 MALT LIQUOR took up most of the space anyway. Some marvelously clever fellow had given the horse a gigantic cock and balls in red marker.

“Ah, Tonto’s, how could you miss it.” Rivers fingered the tiny metal stick-on letters on the door. He pushed Carnes through, and tried his best to walk in unnoticed. They sat in a front corner booth, black-painted wood with dirty beige carpet on the benches, and watched Al Rivers hold down the bar.

Al’s outfit matched what Rivers had seen on the floor at Constance’s place. Yellow shirt with a big collar, baggy gray trousers on their third or fourth owner. He stared at the Yankees-Red Sox game on TV and nursed a dark beer, which he drank with scientific precision. Breathing in and out once, tilting his head back, then raising the glass. Inhaling with a quick swig, then exhaling long and slow as he set the beer back down. His hand never left the glass, and his eyes never left the TV.

“Do me a favor,” Rivers whispered to Carnes, pulling a twenty from his pocket. “Go over and get two of whatever he’s having.” Carnes took the bill and went to the bar, but the old bastard didn’t even look at him.

“Let’s see how far this gets us.” Carnes slapped the bill on the countertop, and pointed at Al’s glass. The bartender, a thirtyish guy with two earrings and one wedding ring, looked like he’d rather be playing pool with the guys in the back room. He whistled and drew two pints of beer from a nameless tap. Carnes brought them over to the booth, and saw that troublemaker smile crack open on Rivers’ lips.

“Watch.” Rivers took the beer and sat down two stools in front of his father. Al could maybe see the side of his son’s ear, didn’t even notice him. Rivers waited till he could hear that pre-sip breath, and matched Al’s drinking routine point for point. It scared Carnes to think how alike a father and son could move, just like those joggers in Boston that made Rivers flip out. Carnes sipped his beer in time with them, but stopped when he felt Al’s dirty sneer on his own face.

It took a few minutes for Al to notice his new friend, or at least say anything. Maybe because he didn’t recognize his own son, and maybe because the Yankees were a hit away from the lead in the bottom of the eighth.

“I thought you had a life somewhere, Joey,” he croaked between pitches.

“Yeah, I did.” Rivers didn’t turn around. “Gave it up though, it was fucked.”

“It was fucked, or you were fucked?”

“Same thing.”

“It’s destiny, Joey-boy. What’d I tell you?”

“Nothing worth remembering.”

Al raised his glass. “Here’s to reunions.”

“To reunions.” Rivers clinked Al’s glass and they drank again, in time.

“What the hell brings you down here?”

“I want to pay you back for everything you gave me.”

“That’s very sweet.”

“I’ve got a roll of pennies in the car.”

“That’s very funny.”

“I want to put my dad on my tab,” Rivers announced to the entire room. He downed his beer in one big swoop and set it on the bar, then polished off Al’s too. Al nodded his approval, and Rivers mumbled something as the bartender hauled both glasses away for refills.

“See that, Daddy-O? The same glass as you, the same bitter dregs of life.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“No. You’re supposed to take me on your knee and spank me.” Rivers looked over at Carnes, who just shrugged. Al turned around and saw Carnes too, but didn’t say anything. “You’re supposed to remind me about the most important lesson you taught me when I was a kid.”

“What was that?”

“Honor, decency, self-respect. Obviously things you know all about.”  He gestured grandly at the Salvation Army clothes, the loser bar. Al didn’t pay much attention, because somebody on the Red Sox made a great defensive play to end the inning. The TV kept replaying it, from four or five different angles. Their new beers arrived and Rivers went at his with abandon. Al continued to sip calmly.

“I saw your old lady today,” Rivers said. He’d gotten two shots of something, and downed them with the same fervor as he’d downed the beer.

“What old lady?”

“With the yellow hair, kinda chubby. Constance, I think they call her.”

“What’d you say to her?

“Nothing. Frank gave me her address.”

“Frank’s a bigger loser than you are.” A beer commercial came on, and Al pointed at Carnes. “Who’s this, your butt boy?”

“No, it’s my friend Carnes. We’re driving to Florida together.”

“Florida, huh? Joey-boy can tell you all about Florida. Can’t you, Joey-boy?”

“Indeed I can.” Rivers crossed up his eyes and stared at Carnes, who had no idea where the conversation was going.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Al limped over to the booth and sat down across from Carnes, smiling all the sudden. “He can tell you how to make money, how to blow your money. He can tell you about Linda, and why she stopped fucking him after awhile.”

“Shut up, you old bitch.” Rivers came over and gave Al a shove in the head, knocking him off balance and spilling beer on the table. Nobody bothered to clean it up. “You two be nice, I’m going to the boy’s room.”

Rivers headed off and left Carnes and Al sitting there, not really wanting to talk to each other or even look at each other. But Al had that loser’s bravado, he didn’t care what anybody thought of him or what he thought of himself. He just dove in and said whatever the beer made him say.

“What’s your name again?”

“Carnes.” He said it as slow as he could, and it felt like an egg sliding out of his mouth.

“You have a first name?”

“Confucius.”

“Cute.”

“My parents were Chinese.” 

“Even cuter. So you two are fags together?”

“No sir. We are not fags together.” 

“It just sounds a little suspicious, two guys driving down to Florida. Sounds like something a couple fags would do on their honeymoon. When’d you meet him?”

“I can see why he hates you.” Carnes wondered what he’d do if Rivers asked him to kill Al, whether he’d do it and how. Strangling was definitely what he deserved, a nice slow death so he’d know it wasn’t an accident or a spur-of-the-moment thing. Strangling with barbed wire, with his bare slowly squeezing hands, with a leather saddle belt.

“He doesn’t hate me, he loves me. He wishes he could be like me.”

Then a pounding noise came from the back corner, near the bathroom. A biker type, who’d been playing pool with his biker pals, banged on the door and threw himself against it but couldn’t get in. Carnes got up and went over, noticing that the man was a biker wannabe and not a real biker. His friends too.

“Let me in the fucking bathroom, asshole,” the guy said to Rivers, who sat on the floor just inside the slightly open door.

“Fuck you, pussy. If you were a real man you’d piss on my head.”

“Family situation, pal,” Carnes said, putting a hand on the guy’s shoulder. “Hold it for five minutes or go in the alley.”

The biker wannabe looked for a minute like he’d try to start something. But in the time it took him to decide, Carnes had knifed between him and the door. “Let me in, Joe,” he said to the solid, dark brown wood.

“Fuck you. Go home.” Rivers sniffled and banged his head against the door twice.

“Let me in. Who’s your good luck charm, huh?”

Rivers scooted forward and let Carnes into the bathroom, which looked a lot cleaner than most bar bathrooms. New tile and everything, the health department must’ve made them do it. He leaned against the nice white sink and waited for Rivers to talk.

“Why the hell did I come here?” Rivers wiped angry tears from his face. “I look at him and I just want to rip him apart. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Just thinking you came from something like that, it’s like having a cockroach for a father. You have no idea how much I hate that fucker.”

Carnes wanted to say yes, yes he did. But before he could open his mouth, Al showed up at the door and stuck his nose through the open crack. 

“How much, Joey?” he said. “How much do you hate me?”

Rivers sprang up and pulled the door open, grabbed his father and flung him at the urinals across the room. Carnes knew Rivers could kill Al without even trying. He knew he should have stepped between them, but the prospect of watching Al die excited him so much that he couldn’t even move.

“You never taught me anything,” Rivers said, banging Al’s face against the inside of a urinal. “Not one fucking thing, not your whole life. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”

He went on pounding the face with every beat, splattering blood on the white porcelain. People started to gather by the door, including the biker wannabes with their pool cues at the ready. Carnes wanted one of them to barge in and take a swing, so he could shove that cue up somebody’s ass. He wanted a barroom brawl, wanted to put people in the hospital, wanted to watch Rivers pick a man up over his head and throw him through a window.

“Family situation, folks,” Carnes said, peeking out. “Over in a minute.” Then he locked the bathroom door and went to pull Rivers off his father. Rivers had started crying again, and the rhythm as he pounded Al’s face against the urinal slowed to almost nothing.

“Is that all you got?” Blood dripped from Al’s face and eyebrows, but he could take much worse.

“You smell like piss,” Rivers said, washing his hands in the sink. It seemed to help him recover his composure. “I don’t want to touch you anymore.”

“What about you, butt boy?” Al said to Carnes.

“I’ve got no trouble with you.”

“Just beat the fuck out of him,” Rivers said. “I don’t care.”

“You heard what he said. Let’s see if you can do any better than Joey here. Big Joey, can’t even take out an old fart like me.”

“I’ve got no trouble with you.” Carnes hadn’t punched an actual living human being in almost two years. But he’d spent his whole life punching trees, punching the sides of buildings, and his knuckles had thick calluses.

“Come on. Finish off what this wimp started.”

“Hit him! Just shut him the fuck up!” Rivers had started putting his face back together, straightening his clothes. He’d said all he wanted to say, Al meant no more to him now than any other annoying drunk.

“You heard him.” Al stuck his reddened, piss-smelling face right at Carnes. “He’s giving you the okay. Look at him.”

Carnes waited for Al to glance over at Rivers by the sink, then snuck him a left to the gut and a right hook to the temple. Al folded up like a scarecrow and fell, his teeth clacking against each other as he hit the floor. Carnes looked up to see Rivers staring into his eyes like he couldn’t trust what was behind them, something coiled up inside that Carnes couldn’t trust himself with either.

“Thank you,” Rivers said. “You’re the saint who’s going to slay all my dragons for me, aren’t you?” Carnes unlocked the door and led the way out. The biker wannabes stood there, beating cues against their palms. But once they saw it was only Al inside, they backed off.

“Old guy passed out in there,” Carnes announced as they left. The bartender nodded like it happened all the time. Somebody probably came by once every couple weeks to give the old shithead a beating like that, just to keep him halfway human.