Home Land

by Sam Lipsyte

  A Baby Is Not a Bicycle

  HOME FROM THE GARLAND, I found the latest issue of Catamount Notes in my mail slot, got myself nooked up on the sofa for a visit with my cougar kin. Some alums had acquired new coordinates of toil on the corporate slave grid. Others were celebrating the advent of poop-smeared approximations of themselves. I’d nearly tossed the issue aside in favor of a longish essay on the return of moral elegance I’d clipped from MindStyle, another one of my not-so-free free magazines, when I saw it, that lone boxed item beside the ad for Pittman’s Liquors (“Don’t even try to get up—we deliver!”). The headline read: “TEABAG SPEAKS.”

  That bastard Fontana! This was worse than the blackball. He’d fiddled with my prose. Here, in its entirety, for those who missed it, is what some ghoulish version of me, concocted in the recesses of Fontana’s obscenity of a mind, supposedly wrote:

  Hi, everybody! It’s Lewis Miner, class of ’89, and I’d just like to send a shout out to all you Catamounts and let you in on what’s been happening to the old Teabag. I’m doing real well working for a big soft drink company (free sodas on me, friends!) and I’ve got a nice spread out here in Eastern Valley. I still see some of you Catamounts around town, which is always a pleasure. Mostly I just want to say whassup to Principal Fontana, who got me through some rough spots back in the crazy old days. I’ll never forget you, Dr. F! Peace out, Teabag.

  The “peace out” was an especially nice touch on the part of “Dr. F.” (How’s that dissertation coming, dickfart?) Damn near diabolical. He might have destroyed me in so many ways but he opted for the foolproof: wholesale update rape. Nice try, Fontana, you would-be plow mule, but I will not be broken. One cannot violate verity without consequence, pal.

  The telephone jolted me out of my rage before I had time to invoke the Teabag Doctrine, which states that once I’ve decided to fantasize about hurting somebody I must try to imagine some really sick shit. It was Gwendolyn. She sounded far away, her voice tinied down, an ocean or prairie between us. It was how I knew she was near. That and the love roaring up in me.

  “I’m at the airport. Come pick me up.”

  “Of course, baby,” I said. “I’ll be right there. I’m so happy you—”

  “Don’t rush. I want to be here for a little while. You know me.”

  Transit lounges, Gwendolyn once confided, were the only places she’d ever experienced tranquility.

  “To be not anywhere,” she’d said. “Self-contained. Nobody, not even Lenny, making demands.”

  Lenny dead, maybe life from here on out was just one long skim latte by the gate.

  “Yes, I know you,” I said now. “But I want to know you even more. I’m so fucking happy you’ve decided to give me—”

  “See you in a while,” said Gwendolyn.

  Gwendolyn had no idea I was in pedestrian exile these days. The airport, it was going to take more than a while. A few bus rides later—moral elegance, it turns out, never went away—I saw her across the terminal, looking morose in a tube top of festive suede.

  “Gwend!” I said.

  A national guardsman tracked me from his checkpoint. His cammies, with their neon flecks, appeared designed for casino combat. I wondered if the fucker was profiling my T-shirt. Would I have time to explain that Anal Jihad had been a reasonably bitching South Jersey hardcore band before this guy had me gagged, prone?

  Catamounts, I don’t have the clothes for the new conditions.

  “Gwendolyn,” I said. “Over here.”

  We found some tables near the express food counter. It offered the same food as the regular food counter, just slightly undercooked.

  “Look,” I said, pointed past the sliding doors. “See? Business travelers. They look so defeated. Good thing I’m out of that grind.”

  “What grind? You’ve never been on a business trip, Lewis. You’ve never been called away on business.”

  “It could happen, though. That’s all I’m saying. Let’s get out of here. I feel like I’m being watched.”

  “You probably are with that stupid shirt.”

  “They had some good songs.”

  “Who?”

  “Nobody. How are you?”

  “How do you think I am? Lenny’s dead, Lewis. I can’t believe it.”

  “It’s kind of unbelievable,” I said. “It’s horrible. Look, I know I’ve already said this but—”

  “I’ve been wandering around here for hours. It’s not the same. I don’t love airports anymore.”

  “People change.”

  “Flying in I was next to this monk. He looked kind of like Lenny, but with a beard. He was one of those young monks. He had the robe, the rope belt. He smelled very clean. I don’t mean soap clean. Like inside. Like instead of blood he had celery juice or something running through him. Wheatgrass juice, maybe, but not that harsh. More like celery juice. I kept waiting for him to take out special monk food, but he ate the meal, the plane meal. Can you imagine that? A monk? I was mad at him for it. I thought it would muddy up his celery blood. He was writing furiously in a spiral notebook, too, some kind of letter.”

  “Why do people always write ‘furiously’?”

  “Shut up, Lewis. You are so fucking insensitive. Just listen to me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m listening.”

  “So the monk was writing this letter, not furiously, just writing. Happy? Anyhow, I kept peeking over to read it but his arm was in the way. I caught one part, though. It said, ‘Brother Michael should stick to brewing ale. He’s a fucking clown.’ I swear to God it said that. Don’t you think that’s a mean thing for a monk to write? I wanted to ask him what it was all about but he seemed so pissed off. I thought maybe I could tell him about Lenny being dead and maybe he could get some perspective on his rage. I mean, poor Brother Michael. What did he do to deserve this?”

  “Do you think the man was really a monk?” I said.

  “He had the fucking robe on!”

  “No, I just mean—”

  “How the hell should I know? Stop interrogating me. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “We don’t have to. Whatever you want to do.”

  “I want to get the fuck out of this airport.”

  We took a taxi up the turnpike. Gwendolyn rummaged through her canvas shoulder bag, churned up a bright heap of things: cell phone, cigarettes, magazines, candy wrappers, a tank top, a pair of socks, a thin stack of crisp fifties. The money fanned out against her forearm. A few bills stuck to her skin.

  “Look at me,” said Gwendolyn. “Sweating like a pig. Do my armpits stink?”

  I leaned in for a deep whiff.

  “I like it.”

  “Of course you do, Lewis. Here.”

  Gwendolyn peeled some bills from her arm, rubbed them in her armpit, tossed them into my lap.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Car fare. Palimony. Whatever you like. I could do some with my ass, too.”

  “Please.”

  “Actually, I’m a little low on cash.”

  “Do you want to stay with me? Until you know what you’re going to do?”

  “No, I’m booked at a hotel in the city. We’ll go there first. Then you can take this cab home. I just wanted to see you for a minute. And I already know what I’m going to do. I’m going to call up the Board of Monks and report that guy. If he’s not a monk they should know about it. If he is a monk they should still know. Either way, he’s impersonating an emissary of Christ’s love and that’s totally fucked up.”

  “Somebody has to do something,” I said.

  GWENDOLYN HAD A ROOM at one of those hotels downtown where the movie stars stay. Porters in tracksuits and headsets charged out the smoked glass doors. Come moonfall these men were DJs, but for now they were here for the luggage, the baggage.

  “You want me to come up?” I said.

  “That’s sweet, but no. I have friends meeting me here.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Maybe read about.” />
  “I see.”

  “I don’t mean that in a harsh way, Lewis. You know how it is. These people aren’t comfortable around strangers. They feel threatened by the average citizen.”

  “Now I feel better.”

  “I’ll call you soon. Enjoy the ride back to Jersey.”

  She kissed me on the nose, dipped herself out to the curb. I noticed a new tattoo on her calf, a likeness of Lenny, wreathed in daggers and roses. A tiny pod of bile cruised up my gullet, scout ship for a puke armada. I felt sick, guilty for it. Just as Gwendolyn reached the doors I stuck my head out the cab window.

  “Cunt!”

  Gwendolyn wheeled.

  “Did you hear that?” she said.

  “Homeless,” I said, tilted my head up the block.

  Gwendolyn shrugged, darted into the darkness of the lobby.

  “Man, you lucked out,” said the driver.

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

  “I heard what you called her.”

  “You heard nothing,” I said, folded a fifty into the plastic tray. When I saw the driver hadn’t noticed, I snatched it back.

  I WALKED AROUND in the swelter, the stink, stood stunned at an intersection where a crowd had gathered around a baby in a baby stroller. Citizens debated a course of action. A young woman walked out of a nearby deli with a bottle of Belgian water.

  “That’s my kid,” said the woman.

  She sounded kind of Swedish. A big burn wrapped her up in his arms.

  “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “You’re going to jail,” said an old lady. “You can’t leave your baby out here. This is America. We could have killed it.”

  “That’s right!” somebody shouted.

  “A baby is not a bicycle!”

  “I don’t understand!”

  The mob pressed in on the woman, her baby. I thought they might kill them both. A radio car pulled up to the curb.

  “Keep moving,” said the cop inside.

  I kept moving, Catamounts.

  A TEABAG SIGHTING in the big city is a rare occurrence these days. My last extended sojourn was over a year ago, when I took the bus in from Eastern Valley to hear the writer Bob Price read. I’d been a fan of Bob ever since his first book. It’s hard to find anything good to read and I told him as much in a letter to which he never replied. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t looking for a pen pal. I just wanted to tell the guy he’d done a good job.

  The reading was at this downtown bar filled with Nazi memorabilia—flags, armbands, broadsides, identity cards—which the bartender assured me was kitsch.

  “Heads up,” I said.

  Bob looked sharp in his leathers, read from his story collection Vegas, Baby, brought the house down with his prizewinner, “Good Hands,” the tale of a pregnant teen who dreams of softball greatness even as her world falls apart and she’s forced to shoot her emotionally abusive father, then wheel him around in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or at least for the rest of the story.

  When the reading was over Bob stood at the bar. We all lined up to buy him beer.

  “Mr. Price,” I said.

  “Bob,” said Bob.

  “My name is Lewis Miner. I wrote you a letter a while back.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’re the guy with the snake.”

  “No, that wasn’t me.”

  “That was a really cool letter. It meant a lot to me. Sorry I didn’t write back.”

  “You must be busy.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Anyway, I just wanted to say you were great tonight. I’m glad you read ‘Good Hands.’ I always thought that story was one of your—”

  “You got any cash?”

  I’d been working for my father at the Moonbeam that week. I flashed Bob my take-home wad.

  “Beautiful,” said Bob. “You’re with me, buddy.”

  We took a cab across the river to a place Bob knew, this Dominican dive that served domestic beer, international cocaine. Bob led the way, nodded us past the door goons. He took my money, scooted into line at the DJ booth. I stood off near a dingy red curtain, watched Bob chat with a stringy-haired Eurasian-looking guy behind him. Bob pointed me out for the fellow. They both laughed.

  The curtain slid open behind me. A woman stepped out. She had some kind of gypsy look going with her loose skirts, her beret. Past her was a dim alcove, like a voting booth without the levers. The snorting chamber. This wasn’t Sodom, after all. You couldn’t just huff rails at the bar. The woman had a nice smile but all I could see were the coke stars in her eyes. The pain of her pathetic life took several hundred million years to reach me. I had my own terrible light to emit.

  “I look at you,” said the woman, “and I see a jealous man. A strict man.”

  “Not me. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  I began to imagine how I’d call Gwendolyn in Hollywood, tell her I’d fallen in love. Maybe Gwendolyn would see the error of her ways, catch the red-eye home. She’d find me in bed with this woman. We’d all get high, have a three-way. No needles, though. That would be the rule.

  “Yes,” said the woman, “you are a jealous man. It’s easy to tell these things. You are also a handsome man, but you know that already. What are you looking over there for?”

  Bob Price was near the DJ booth, about to procure the bounty of the marginal economy. I figured I’d get my drugs and send Bob packing, go back to Beret’s place. Fuck three-ways. Fuck my take-home wad. We could have a good life together, me and Beret. Hard, but good. Our children would have rich cultural legacies.

  “I’m just looking over at my buddy,” I said.

  “You mean acquaintance. I can tell these things.”

  “No, he’s my buddy.”

  “You lie to yourself,” said the woman. “Sad for such a handsome man.”

  “Look where we are,” I said. “Aren’t we all lying to ourselves?”

  The woman took my hand, kissed it.

  “I never lie,” she said. “What is your name?”

  “Lewis.”

  “Luis. My brother is named Luis.”

  “They also call me Teabag.”

  “Why do they call you that?”

  “Long story.”

  “Do you like to be called Teabag?”

  “Usually not.”

  “Why don’t you tell them to stop?”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Yes,” said Beret. “It’s much too late. Your so-called buddy is calling you.”

  Bob saluted from the corner of the room. He stood there with the stringy-haired guy. The soil samples had been collected. It was time to board the surface module, head for the home globe. I kissed the woman’s hand, made for the door. A big kid with dazzling neck gold scoped the corner through the door slit, shoved us streetward. The night sky was moonless over the warehouse roofs.

  “This is Zev Kwan,” said Bob. “We’re going to his place to listen to some old hardcore.”

  Bob caught me gazing back at the steel door of the bar.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I was into that chick,” I said.

  “What, the coke whore?”

  “She’s a person.”

  “We’re all people. She’s a coke whore person.”

  “Then what are we?”

  “White fucks,” said Zev Kwan.

  “Where’s the hope?” I said.

  “It’s in my pocket,” said Bob.

  We went to Zev’s place a few blocks away, did a hundred dollars worth of what was probably baby powder in about seven minutes. The stuff worked wonders for a while. Maybe it was real blow, after all. Zev hauled out his prizes, first pressings of forgotten hardcore pioneers: Painful Discharge, Containment Theory, Semblance of Order. I believe he had some Anal Jihad, too. Zev wept recalling his first show. He was eleven, his father just dead in a car wreck.

  “They poured beer on my head and kicked me in the chest and loved me,” he said.

 
; Bob and I tendered warm nods. Then Bob started talking about his literary career, lambasting this or that critic, or some jealous colleague he suspected had nixed him for a fellowship. It was a bit hard to take, not least of all because I’d never heard of these people and Bob went on as though they were household names.

  “Maybe in ten, fifteen years, people will get what I was up to, Miner. But not if these idiots are still around. The gatekeepers, the fucking gatekeepers. That’s why I write for the dead. And the unborn.”

  “What are you up to, exactly, Bob?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What is it the gatekeepers don’t get?”

  I didn’t hear all of it due to the grinding of my jaw and what I took to be an impending heart attack. Zev had wandered off and now he returned wearing a tie-dyed union suit, a Cub Scout scarf knotted at his throat. He said nothing and began to whack away at his record collection with a field hockey stick. Black shards flew the painted floor.

  “Fuck analog!” he said. “Fuck the warm sound!”

  “We’re out,” said Bob. “Zev’s gone odd.”

  We booked out of there, Catamounts. It was sunup and the streets were full of vampire interns slithering home to change for work. No coffin sleep in the new-old-new economy.

  “Take care,” said Bob, hailed a cab, ditched me in the poison dawn.

  There was something fallen about Bob, but I’d still like to track him down, buy him another beer.

  We were buddies one night.

  More FakeFact Fun

  IT WAS TOO EARLY for coke bars, Catamounts. Besides, I had a feeling Beret had long quit the scene. I caught an afternoon bus back across the river.

  I waited for Gwendolyn to call, waited for days.