Home Land

by Sam Lipsyte

  “Poor horsey,” she said.

  Extrapuffed

  GOD SMILE ON YOU, Stacy Ryson.

  God grin and frig you with his giant hydrogen hand.

  Your decision to delete my latest update from the Eastern Valley Alumni Electronic Forum is a blessing in disguise. Yes, domestic shortliairs of the geological depression, I know I remarked a while back how resigned I was to my erasure from the greater Catamount dialogue, but after logging on to the alumni page and seeing how simple it was to post an item, I guess I couldn’t resist.

  Even as I clicked send on the submission form I knew I’d violated some of my Serious Inner Tenets, particularly the one that pertains to my continued reluctance to assume the mantle of hypocritical hypernormative pussy-hearted fuck. So picture my relief, Stacy, when my only karmic payback was your terse little bitch-mail about how all update submissions are prescreened, that mine had been deemed unsuitable for the Catamount community, which, as you pointed out, includes minors (but not Miners, I gather).

  Fair enough, as Principal Fontana would say, and my musings probably are unsuitable for impressionable minds. Heaven forfend they chance upon these outlaw rants, discover too soon all that Sex and Death and Love and Longing out there like glad knaves in life’s lurking spots, or even glimpse the tears and jissom on a sad man’s pajama top.

  Better you hide in your bedrooms, junior Catamounts, with your sleek modular desks, your tungsten-coated gooseneck lamps, all that soothing pointillism on the wall. Better you get cracking on those college admission essays, prevarications three-parts stroke and one-part gloat, if I remember the measurements correctly. Don’t forget to mention how much you learned about character canvassing for Glen Menninger last summer, especially after befriending a man named Vinnie, who, though born with terrible mutilations, is an absolute angel on the mandolin!

  Don’t forget to note how fortunate you were to be sponsored by your father’s firm on that white-water rafting trip last August. The vistas were magnificent, all those mountain peaks and Douglas firs—what an ecosystem!—and that ghetto boy paddled better than anybody.

  Nature is poor people too!

  Don’t forget to spell check your essay before you send it off to Bethany Applebaum for a spit and polish.

  She’s got connections at Cornell!

  Someday, perhaps, a voice will rise among you, a boy or girl with the guts to utter the truth of what occurrences, mighty and tiny, have occurred up to that particular date.

  This child will be the Teabag of the new generation, town-shunned, jerk-judged.

  Maybe this young bard will seek me out for counsel.

  “Listen, boy, girl,” I’ll say, “nobody wants to read an honest update. It’s Death’s collection notice. Stick to babies, work transfers.”

  “But I want to be like you!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” I’ll say. “I wanted to be like me, too. Look what fucking happened!”

  Today I heard a high whine out the window, peeked out past the AC unit to the alley below. Landlord Pete had his boot on a cat, its neck. The poor thing looked sick. It twitched on the cement. Nearby was a mangle of feathers, beak.

  “What are you doing?” I called down.

  “Tabby’s done for,” said Pete. “Ate a bad bird. There’s a lot of them around these days. It’s on the news. It’s a virus.”

  Pete pulled a knife that bordered on sword, stabbed up the bird.

  “This would be the perpetrator,” he said. “The carrier.”

  He stood down hard on the cat. I heard a quick shriek, a snap.

  “Got the rent?” said Pete.

  “I’m really close. A few more nights of work.”

  “I’m really close, too,” said Pete.

  LATER THAT DAY an ambulance wailed up to our house. I threw on some shoes, rushed downstairs. I figured they’d need bystanders.

  My neighbor Kyle was dead on the living-room floor. His roommate Jared stood over him while the paramedics went to work with fists and paddles. One spoke into his epaulet while he pounded.

  “Tell me what he took,” said the other.

  “Nothing,” said Jared, pointed to some powder on a mirror. “He just did a bump. Jesus, it was nothing.”

  Kyle’s eyes popped open, tore around the room.

  “What happened?” he said. “Am I dead?”

  “This is a kind of way station,” I said.

  “Shut the hell up,” said Jared. “Kyle, you’re going to be okay. These guys here saved your life.”

  “Thanks,” said Kyle. “You guys rule.”

  Then his eyes rolled up funny and he was dead again. The paramedics went at it with the paddles once more.

  “Jerks!” screamed Jared. “You’re not doing it right!”

  He snatched the paddles away, whapped Kyle’s face with them.

  His method didn’t work, either.

  I SAT WITH JARED most of the afternoon while men came and took our statements and other men carried the body away.

  “It was just a bump,” went Jared’s statement, or part of it. “He’s done mountains of it, fucking Fujis of it.”

  The rest of his statement was about how his mother had deserted his family when he was in kindergarten and the last dinner she ever made for him was fish sticks. Jared had bonded with Kyle over how much they both loved fish sticks so how the hell was he, Jared, ever going to handle the frozen-food aisle ever again with all that breaded cod there cold in bins and not break down about the double-crazy whammy of his bad mommy and his dead best friend?

  “Hollis Wofford,” Jared added, “he sold us the stuff.”

  The men with notepads traded loaded looks.

  Maybe the kid was in shock, Catamounts, if that’s your body saying life is not a TV show. Jared shivered and I brewed him some tea, this health brand with a root extract the druids grew to cure dangerous moods. There was a knock on the door and Landlord Pete leaned into the room.

  “You better not have mentioned me or Hollis,” he said.

  “I was here,” I said. “He didn’t say a word.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” said Pete.

  “I told them Kyle got it from an old friend,” said Jared.

  “Good work,” said Pete. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. You can’t predict. Mysterious ways. Your time is your time. Good kid, Kyle. Nice kid. Let me know. Want something. Call my cell. Take care.”

  Jared went to the bedroom, maybe to weep in peace. I stuck around in case he needed more tea.

  I guess Dean Longo was on my mind, Catamounts. I hadn’t known Dean much better than Kyle, but I’d eaten the body of Christ with him when we were kids, and later, some mushrooms, mescaline. We’d sat around with tequila and speed a few times, too. Sweet depravity, I did know that, the mania for more, more booze, more weed, more powder, more riffing on the nature of the world. I still detested tongue-cluckers, safety fetishists, comfort-food fucks, even as I sensed myself sliding toward those soft kingdoms.

  The bad years before Dean died he lived in the city and I rarely saw him, though Gary did, they shared a place, some studio. They had a band for a while, too, though I believe their principal instruments were the pointy kind, with a plunger.

  “Do you think Dean died on purpose?” I once asked Gary.

  “I don’t know,” said Gary. “Did he live on purpose?”

  That answer screwed with me for a few days, as I guess it was designed to do, but when I finally asked Gary what he’d meant by it he gave me this look like I’d better never ask him again.

  JARED WENT TO STAY with friends in Jersey City. The fresh dead move too easily in an old house like this. I went upstairs, fell off early on the sofa in the middle of a ball game. Mikey Saladin roped them to all corners, turned a nifty double play.

  That night I dreamed of the Kid again. He was an old codger now, years past his championship prime. His victory over Buttercup in Kansas City was the stuff of forgotten legend. A new breed of professional masturbator had usurped
him, men and women with enormous genitals and endless reserve who lacked both the craft and poetry of the old guard.

  He’d never gone home, the Kid, never bought that land at the bend in the river, never wooed Wilhelmina, the schoolteacher.

  She was dead of fever, or had married an owlish young inventor who’d patented a peanut sheller.

  He’d heard both things.

  The Kid sat now in a hotel room in Vancouver surrounded by several powerful television producers. The Kid’s plus fours were fallen at his shoes and he sat there in a silk-upholstered chair, stroked, kneaded himself, to no avail. He wanted to please himself, these men. They’d promised money but he was weary. His prick felt filled with wet sand.

  “This is pathetic,” said a producer. “I thought you said this guy had the goods.”

  “He does,” said another. “He did. He was famous once. My grandfather, when he was a little boy in Kansas City, he met him. He always talked about it. I’m sorry. I should have known better.”

  “This is bullshit. Let’s get some heroin. Or hamburgers. Pay the geezer, get him out of here.”

  The Kid’s hand went dead in his lap. He stared up at the wooden ceiling fan. Its revolutions were the revolutions of his life, his storied life whose story nobody remembered anymore. He’d beaten Buttercup, the invincible Buttercup, others, too. Choad Leonard. Baby Arm Bartlett. Wee Billy Thomas. He’d bested Gertrude “The Gorge” Mosenthal and White Gravy Drake in Charlotte with a half million in chits on the betting table. Nobody gave a damn anymore. The Jew-hater with the car factory was right: History was bunk.

  Days later, coming back from the minimart, I noticed boxes stacked on the porch downstairs. A man walked out of Kyle and Jared’s doorway with a duffel bag on his shoulder, an inflated inflatable woman under his arm.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “I’m Jared’s dad,” said the man. “Just picking some things up.”

  “Is Jared okay?”

  “He’ll be fine. It’s not the first time he’s lost a buddy this way.”

  “Maybe he needs some treatment.”

  “He’s getting it. The district attorney’s a friend of mine. I asked him work up some charges, put Jared away for a spell.”

  “Your own son?”

  “Jared’s a bright kid. He’ll make a fine jailhouse lawyer.”

  “What about rehab?”

  “Jared doesn’t need to talk about his feelings. He doesn’t have any. He needs to learn about fear in the company of true predators. Over time he will become a predator himself, or perish. Either way he won’t be the pampered brat he is now.”

  “Tough love.”

  “There’s no love in it anymore.”

  The man took his son’s things out to his station wagon. I followed with some bags, boxes, helped him tie down the load.

  THE COLETTE MAN was at the Bean Counter. He was marking up his favorite author with a feathered pen. Ashes from his cigarillo fluttered down upon his vintage football jersey. Who was this guy? He didn’t seem the type to live around here. I thought I knew all the types who weren’t the type. They tend to be the types I know.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “What’s doing?” said the Colette Man.

  “Are you taking a class?”

  “Come again?”

  “All those notes.”

  “I’m homeschooling myself.”

  Mira was at the counter pouring coffee for a ravaged-looking man in an oil-stained Stetson.

  “Milk it up, there, mama,” said the cowpoke.

  I knew this voice, its scratch, its lilt.

  “Bob Price,” I said. “Holy shit. It’s me, Lewis Miner!”

  “Howdy.”

  “You know each other?” said Mira.

  “We’re buddies,” I said.

  “We are?” said Bob.

  “We were buddies one night. ‘Zev’s gone odd,’ you said.”

  “What?”

  “After you read at the Nazi bar.”

  “Oh, right,” said Bob. “You’re that fan who tried to force all that blow on me. Truthfully, dude, I thought you were trying to fuck me.”

  “I don’t really remember it that way,” I said. “What’s with the cowboy routine?”

  “It’s no routine. I’m part cowboy. I was nearly born in Nevada.”

  “It’s so weird to see you here,” I said.

  “I remember hearing about this town. Maybe from you, come to think of it. Seemed perfect for this book I need to research. It’s called ‘Americaville.’ This place will be the model for the East Coast chapter.”

  “Are you working for Don Berlin?”

  “Pulling a couple of shifts, yeah. I want to capture things from all angles. Professionals, proles, layabouts.”

  “You should interview me.”

  “Which one are you?”

  “Some of each.”

  “I’ll call you if I need you. What’s your name again?”

  “Teabag,” said Mira.

  “Lewis,” I said. “Is it going to be a novel?”

  “No, I’m done with fiction. I said what I wanted to say. I said it the way I wanted to say it. Nobody will understand what I did until I’m dead.”

  “So fucking die!”

  The Colette Man stood, dropped his cigarillo in his demitasse, stalked out.

  “What’s that all about?” said Bob.

  “That’s Craig,” said Mira. “He owns the place.”

  “What a hard-on,” said Bob. “It’s not like I’m going to apologize for my talent.”

  “Hey,” I said, “I’ve been writing some stuff myself.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Bob. “I’m immensely thrilled for you. Do you have any cash I can borrow?”

  “No, I’m sorry. But, anyway, what I’ve been writing is—”

  “No money at all?”

  “Sorry, I’m tapped.”

  “Liar. Hack. What time should I pick you up?”

  “For what?” I said.

  “I was talking to the chick.”

  “Come by at five,” said Mira.

  Bob left and I leaned over the counter.

  “You’re dating that joker?”

  “Just fooling around,” said Mira. “He came in here one day and we got to talking. He makes me laugh.”

  “He does?”

  “Well, maybe not laugh. Anyway, you were kissing his ass.”

  “I was just being friendly,” I said.

  “Friendly to his ass,” said Mira.

  MAYBE IT WAS my duty to warn Gary about how Bob Price was setting nookie traps all about town, but I had more pressing business with the Captain. I bought an iced coffee to go, got going. The ice would be melted by the time I reached the Retractor Pad, but it was the thought that counted. The thought that I’d been nice enough to buy Gary an iced coffee was part of a larger notion I meant to plant in his mind: that he should maybe float me more cash. Gary’s handouts weren’t lasting. It was time to discuss a long-term loan. I had some phone bills, a letter from the IRS folded in my pocket to prove I had documents pertaining to my finances. I figured I’d show them to Gary, use the word “finances.” This would make the loan official. Then I wouldn’t feel so bad when I defaulted. It would be like screwing a bank, or a credit card company, not your best friend.

  Clara, Gary’s mother, answered the door at the Retractor Pad.

  “Lewis,” she said. “What a nice surprise.”

  Gary and his father, Ben, a balder, bonier Gary, stood together in the kitchen.

  “Hey,” said Gary.

  His voice was hoarse and he heeded his father as he spoke.

  “Everybody okay?” I said.

  “Beautiful,” said Gary’s father, softly. “Everybody’s beautiful.”

  It was pretty awkward, Catamounts. I was definitely the fourth wheel on the tricycle of family reconciliation. These kinds of deep encounters are better viewed from a distance. That’s why there’s daytime TV.


  “I’ve got iced coffee,” I said. “I think the ice might have melted.”

  Clara took the soggy cup, poured the coffee off into a mug.

  “Here you go, Gary, honey,” she said.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Clara smiled and Gary lunged at her, wrapped himself around her waist, curled up to her blue-jeaned belly.

  “I’m so sorry, Mommy.”

  Coffee slopped to the floor.

  “There, there, baby,” said Gary’s mother. “Everything’s going to fine. We’re going to be a family again.”

  Now Ben began sobbing, honked, bobbed, a spit-laden horn.

  “Ben, please, no more,” said Clara.

  Ben closed his eyes, heaved. Clara unhitched Gary, shoved him gently against the stove. She pulled her purse down from the refrigerator, led Ben by the elbow to the door.

  “Nice to see you, Lewis,” said Clara.

  “Yes,” said Ben.

  “See you on Sunday, Gary, baby,” said Clara. “I’ll make your favorite cake, with the Life Saver on top.”

  The Captain nodded into his palms, wailed.

  I STOOD BESIDE GARY, rubbed his neck. I’ve never been a big mantoucher, Catamounts, but the moment seemed right to chance it.

  “She loves you,” I said. “You’re her son. She’s no panda.”

  “No what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “She said she saw you in the diner,” said Gary.

  “I should have told you,” I said.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Gary looked up, his face swollen, cut with an old-time Gooner smile. He rinsed himself at the sink, dried off with a tea towel.

  “Fuck me!” he said, popped his temple with the heel of his hand.

  “I know,” I said. “This is heavy.”

  “No, I mean, fuck me. Now I’ve got to get a job.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I gave them the settlement money. The retractor money.”

  “All of it?”

  “They’re not doing so hot.”

  “You didn’t keep any for yourself?”