Home Land

by Sam Lipsyte

  We retired to the Retractor Pad to celebrate. Gary filled his bong with some puce sports drink. We took our party to the terrace, which is one of the perks of retraction, along with an ice-making refrigerator, heat lamps in the john. We’d hauled this half-rotted park bench to the terrace and we lazed upon it now, watched men load trucks at the mayonnaise factory across the street.

  “I had this way-ancient uncle,” said Gary. “I asked him how he got to be sixty-seven, or whatever. He said, ‘No condiments.’ Can you believe that?”

  “Mustard,” I said. “He must have used mustard.”

  “No mustard. Maybe some pepper.”

  “Pepper’s not a condiment. It’s a spice.”

  “You say tomato.”

  “What?”

  “Cultural relativity.”

  “Relativism.”

  “It’s all bullshit.”

  “What about perception?” I said.

  “What about perceived relativity?”

  “What about this,” I said. “Say you’ve got some fake flowers that could pass for real but you know they’re fake. What have you got then?”

  “Shit, man, let me answer that question with another question. Do you think Liquid Smoke is smokin’?”

  “Her name is Mira, Gary, and yes, I do.”

  “I think I could make a life with her.”

  “You just met her.”

  “I feel like I’ve known her a long time. I don’t mean in a dumb mystical way. Or maybe I do. I just know that I’ve taken a bad path so far. The thumb thing, the drugs, the stuff with my folks. This Smoke situation could turn my life around.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No, it’s just that I’ve never seen you with hope before.”

  “Don’t worry, I still think we’re all fucked.”

  “Good.”

  We sat wordless for a while.

  “You know,” said Gary, “when Liquid Smoke, I mean Mira, when she mentioned Nice Horizons, it reminded me of something. Somebody said Doc Felix works there now. Doesn’t even draw a salary. They just let him live in that dump. My lawsuit destroyed him.”

  “Serves him right.”

  “I feel responsible.”

  “He did it to himself.”

  “I don’t know. I’m starting to have these dreams.”

  “The dope dreams?”

  “No, like my mom with all these candles. Fiery dildos and childos and whatnot.”

  “Felix made that stuff up. What’s a childo?”

  “How do I know if he made it up?”

  “Gary,” I said, “you’re a retractor.”

  “Don’t label me. I hate labels. What if I retracted the retraction? Then what? I’d still be Gary, right?”

  I followed his gaze to the terrace wall. He’d tacked up one of his old stick-figure diagrams. The figure marked Son was on his knees before the figure marked Father. Blue seeds flew out Father’s member. Gary took a long draw from his hip-high bong. His Truth Bazooka, he’d called it once. We’d both winced when he said it. Now he sucked in smoke as though it were air, his last, perhaps, before a leap into the sea off some lush, poisonous atoll. I pictured fish, bitter-blooded, glittery. Hammerheads on patrol. Pink, living coral. Pink, moaning coral. The moans of the coral sounded like chimes.

  Door chimes.

  “Shit, that’s my sponsor!” said Gary. “Deal, Gary, deal!”

  GARY’S SPONSOR HOLLIS is an asp of a man in soft Italian shoes. He fits my notion of a Christian pop producer with his overpruned beard, his tinted shades, the collarless shirts. He was a coke dealer in a former life. Now he claims to be in real estate, though most of his “closings,” according to Gary, occur at clubs after midnight.

  Hollis is not what you’d call the nurturing type, and I wonder how good he is for Gary’s recovery. Gary said all the gentle sponsors were taken, that he offered Hollis the job because he felt bad for the guy. Everybody thought Hollis was evil, one of those mistakes of the species, steered clear. Nobody would ever identify with his feelings, which I gather is a big part of the healing process. At meetings most nights, according to Gary, Hollis would just sit there crushing his Styrofoam cup. Others talked about the fear goading them to drink, snort, shoot, binge on cheese dogs.

  “I’m in a lot of fear,” they’d say.

  Hollis would just crush another cup.

  “Hollis is not afraid of fear,” he’d declare, out of turn. “Hollis is afraid of fun. Fun is what fucks Hollis.”

  I’ve met Hollis more than a few times but he never remembers my name. I assume it’s because I am one of the unsaved. He once told me he could tell I was an alcoholic by the shape of my head. He cackled when he said it. He could have been kidding.

  Now Hollis raced past me into the Retractor Pad. Together we watched Gary fumble with his bong out on the terrace.

  “How is it out there?” said Hollis.

  “Cooled off a little,” I said.

  “Not on the terrace, lump. I mean how is it out there.”

  “Out where?”

  “In the fucking darkness, pal.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “Larry, is it?

  “Lewis.”

  “Lewis. Do you know, Lewis, that I can look right at you and tell by a single glance you are consumed by demons of nearly unimaginable ferocity? Do you know how I can ascertain this?”

  “The shape of my head?”

  “Primarily, yes. Do you pray, Lewis?”

  “I don’t believe in God.”

  “Who said anything about God, twat? Hey, do you like antiques? You’ll never guess what I’ve got in my car.”

  “You’re right, I won’t.”

  “A goddamn war mace. It was used by Ostrogoths to split skulls. Fucked-up skulls like yours. Got it in the mail. From an Ostrogoth.”

  “I didn’t know there were any around.”

  “He’s an Ostrogoth by choice. You can be whatever you want to be in this country, in case you haven’t heard.”

  The terrace door slid open and Gary stepped in, his eyes puckered, pinked.

  “Good and stoned for the meeting?” said Hollis.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I practically invented drugs,” said Hollis. “Don’t play Hollis, son. Players don’t play Hollis, and you sure as hell shouldn’t. Let’s go. And now that you’re all Bakey Bakerton, just shut the fuck up. No sharing until tomorrow. You got me? You better not share. Are you coming, Larry?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, then, you can lock up. And make sure Bishop Bowlpacker here didn’t start a fire under that bench.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  “I’m watching you,” said Hollis. “I’m noting the shape of your head.”

  I WENT HOME, studied my head in the mirror. Misshapen, sure, but in the same old ways. I cooked up some dinner, shells and peas, leafed through these magazines I’ve been getting lately. Free offer. No immediate obligation. Congratulations, you have thirty days to cancel our plan to pluck out your pancreas. How did they get to me? Did I buy something? Sign something? That girl with the clipboard in the park? I’d figured she was just handing out those light-up sweatbands to get a fad going. Didn’t they double-check with the credit bureau? Don’t they know I’m not good for it?

  I guess that’s the whole idea, though. That’s what Gary says, anyway.

  I’ve read a lot on the subject, but I don’t really understand this capitalism stuff. It doesn’t seem tenable.

  Nice in theory, though.

  Then, Catamounts, the shocker. I’m tonguing shell for pea when I read it: “Actor Killed in Acting Mishap.” Apparently, in the dull interlude of a camera jam, Lenny put his prop pistol to his head, pulled the trigger. The blank charge tore through his temple. God’s a lousy comic, a Catskills hack. Give God the hook!

  I called Gwendolyn.

  Her voice was fuzzy from the pharmacy. She sai
d she had a house full of out-of-work actors groping through her fruit baskets, her pill drawer. Grief-scene fuel. A director who’d known Lenny less than a week had punched a breakfront in the kitchen, torn meaningful tendons.

  “Lenny, why?” he’d cried. “Why did you fuck me?”

  He’d had Lenny attached to star in the “Jew of Malta” set on an alien mining colony.

  Mourning rituals were invented hourly. They’d found Lenny’s agent in the garage. He’d knifed a strip of felt from the pool table for a bandana, wept while he reenacted choice bits from pioneering black sitcoms. Lenny’s personal trainer had dug out Lenny’s favorite pair of snakeskin boots, basted them with teriyaki sauce on a no-fat grill. The accountant had stolen paperwork from the study, deal memos, itemized tax returns, hauled them down to the beach with a compound bow, shot them, aflame, into the sea. The poodle was on suicide watch.

  “Come home,” I said.

  She said maybe she would.

  “It’s terrible about Lenny,” I said. “We never got along, but that’s only because we both loved you so much.”

  “I go now,” said Gwendolyn.

  “You go now?” I said.

  “Phone off. Funny feel.”

  “Whatever pills you’re taking,” I said. “Don’t take anymore.”

  “Anymore I take I want. You don’t tell it, me.”

  “Okay, baby,” I said. “Just come home.”

  “Don’t baby it, flatter yourself.”

  “Understood.”

  WELL, alums, it’s been a week and I’m still waiting for Gwendolyn to call back. I’ve put off mailing this update to Fontana thinking I’ll have a hopeful, if fragile, conclusion to this installment. I’ve left messages in Malibu, even talked to a woman named Quince who said Gwendolyn was “at a loss” and could not be disturbed. I told her to tell Gwendolyn the “L” in Lewis was for Love.

  “You’re adorable,” she said. “You’re the one Gwen ditched, right? Or are you the one who took her to that holistic abortionist and then tried to ball me?”

  “Ball?”

  “We’re saying ball again.”

  “Ditched,” I said.

  “Good. I’ll tell her you called. Oh, fuck.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Guillermo’s on the patio with matches and gasoline. I’ve got to go.”

  Quince let the receiver drop, bang down on something like a cabinet. I heard grunts, hard breathing, Quince shouting, “Guillermo, Guillermo!”

  Now a fainter voice carried over the receiver.

  “Lenny, look! Look at me, Lenny! I’m going to be a star. I’m about to blow up!”

  Dogs wailed into the telephone. Hundreds, it sounded. I’d forgotten about the dogs.

  GARY PICKED ME UP that night.

  “I’ve got a gift for you,” he said.

  We drove down Hoyt, turned off Mavis near the county line, parked outside a house on a cul de sac called Drury Court. The place sat back behind some birch trees, a modified ranch. We sneaked up to a shrub-mobbed window.

  “Consider this woe compensation,” said Gary.

  “I’m not woeful.”

  “Just fucking look.”

  It was a big room with a shag carpet, antique lamps, a cabinet TV from days when entertainment lurked in the guise of furniture. Fontana was on his hands and knees, yoked to a vacuum cleaner, naked beneath his harness. We could hear the suck and whine of the machine. A whip tip of knotted rawhide kissed his strap-reddened back. Fontana plowed out of view and now came the bare lovely legs of the living-room tiller. I jutted my head past the hedges for a better look.

  Jazz Loretta!

  The years had been kind to her. Slavish, even. Black eyes still beamy. Her body a pale and beautiful root.

  Her sorry domination of the educator Fontana, her slack way with the bullwhip, the giddy-ups, it was not good theater. Probably this pair would have been laughed out of any decent dungeon in the Northeast. But their joy looked true. Truer than mine, the peeper’s. I pulled back from the window. The Hoover howled, revved.

  Tuna Melt Deluxe

  FUCK ME, Ostrokitties.

  The next batch of FakeFacts is due to Penny Bettis in a week. Landlord Pete will be knocking on the door soon, too. Whither all my bank, Catamounts? Rent, utilities, a fifth of Old Overholt, a few tacos, boom! (Message to the Old Overholt folks: How about a case of your fine rye for this excellent product placement in Catamount Notes?)

  But I’m not bitter. It’s my bed and I’m going to make it. If I’ve learned anything it’s that you must bide your time until your time comes, knowing full well, of course, your time may never come. That’s the bitch about biding it.

  These FakeFacts are killing me, though. When I agreed to this gig I figured the possibilities for cola mythography were endless. Maybe they are, maybe it’s me who’s reached the frontiers of invention. I’m no genius, after all, just sorry-ass Teabag. But still, ever since I started writing these updates I’ve felt this godly hum in the gut. It’s all I’ve got.

  Maybe it beats what Stacy Ryson has, which is two hundred-odd pounds of pud-headed malevolence to call Honeycakes, or such appeared to be the case the last time I saw her at the River Mall. I’d hopped the bus out there to perv on rich wives from Tobias Hills, drop in on Roni’s mother at Slice of Life, cop some snatches of what contemporary amnesiacs call punk rock on those consoles at the record outlet.

  Also, I’d found myself in the market for a battery-operated pencil sharpener. There’s a top-notch Manila Mo’s at the mall. This might seem funny because Manila Mo’s is a chain, but good management makes all the difference. Those dreadlocked anarchists who follow the G-8 around like it’s a legendary acid band are right about how we’ve all crawled up to die in the anus of the oligarchy, but don’t listen to them when they carp about corporate homogeneity. Go get some Taco King in Nearmont, then get some at the mall, you’ll see what I mean. There’s a jalapeño fetishist in Nearmont who’s going to maim a child with his pepper juices someday.

  But back to matters Rysonian and cruel. I’d just slipped off my Music Mania in-store headphones after subjecting myself to the bloated plaints of Spacklefinger—yes, Catamounts, I do mean that Spacklefinger, the one fronted by our very own Glave Wilkerson, pseudopoet of Eastern Valley, purveyor of arena rock in deserted clubs near a decade now, whose major label debut, Sporemonger, arrives not a moment too soon, as Glave, who might have been an okay dude in high school were he not such a monumental suckass and sister-pimper, is beginning to resemble the very dads his anthems of teen disaffection rebuke—when lo and/or behold, there was Stacy Ryson, strolling down the concourse in mutual butt-grope with a big goon in designer glasses.

  I cut them off near a potted fern.

  “Stacy,” I said.

  She turned, stood, unnerving in her yogic rectitude. I smiled, gave big teeth. They’re not pretty, my teeth, kind of pointy, buttercolored, but then I hardly tend to them, not since Gwendolyn left. It’s tough brushing alone.

  “Do I know you?” said Stacy.

  Her goon struck a pose of high moral alert. His head was shaved, shaped like a cut dick, his eyes sealed in smug eyewear.

  Damn if it wasn’t Philly Douglas.

  “Friend?” he said to Stacy, laid his hand on her taut freckled arm.

  “Yes,” I said. “Friend. Old friend. Lewis Miner.”

  “Miner?” he said. “Lewis?”

  “Eastern Valley. Class of ’89.”

  “No shit.”

  “I saw you score three touchdowns against Edgefield.”

  “Three? Try four.”

  “I left early.”

  “Didn’t you sell me fake speed once?” said Philly.

  “That was my friend Gary.”

  “My dog died from it.”

  “I won’t ask.”

  “No, maybe it’s better if you don’t ask, Miner. Like maybe it’s better if I don’t ask about those updates Stacy showed me. Your homo shower fantasies starri
ng me.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “You’re not the star.”

  “Phil,” said Stacy. “Please. That’s enough. Lewis, it’s nice to see you again.”

  “Nice to see you, Stace. You look fantastic.”

  “How she looks is none of your business,” said Philly.

  “I’ve got eyes,” I said. “They do business.”

  “I hope you weren’t too offended by my letter,” said Stacy.

  “No,” I said, “flattered is more like it. I’m excited about correspondence with someone of your caliber. So, do you still live around here?”

  “We’re in the city now. We were just in town visiting my folks. Philly and I are engaged.”

  “Congratulations. I should send you something, right? A card? Can I get your address?”

  “To be honest, Lewis, I thought of my letter as more of a onetime thing. I just wanted to explain my, or, rather, our, meaning women, or, some women, at least, the position we might take regarding your update, had we read it, or rather, had women other than myself read it.”

  “You did a wonderful job explaining. I was just thinking about your letter today while listening to the new Spacklefinger LP.”

  “That’s Glave’s band, right? I hear they’re getting big now.”

  “Spacklefinger rock,” said Philly Douglas.

  “They’re crap,” I said.

  “Come on, Phil, lets go,” said Stacy. “Good to see you, Lewis.”

  “His name is Teabag,” said Philly. “Don’t you know how he got that name?”

  “I’m sure Stacy knows,” I said.

  “What’s the story, Phil?”

  “Forget it,” he said.

  I guess Philly Douglas suddenly didn’t want to tell his fiancée how he’d ordered his buddies to hold me down in the shower room so he could mash his balls into my face. It hadn’t bothered me much at the time. I’d been under the impression it was some kind of a hazing ritual. What hurt was afterward, when I still didn’t belong. Funny, but years later I saw this boy on TV who’d also been teabagged contrary to his will. He had a suit against his school for millions. His spirit had died. He couldn’t play sports. What a whiner.