by Damon Suede
“Nowhere. Away. A walk. Cool off.” A meeting, he should have said, but even that seemed impossible right now.
“It’s ninety degrees outside. Have a—” Andy stopped the words before he said anything stupid. “We should eat. I just need a refill.” Andy tipped the glass back and emptied it down his throat, larynx bobbing.
Just then the living room felt too harsh, the recessed lights blazing as if Andy’s off-stage adversary had set them to broil.
Ruben tried to claim the glass. “I think you’ve had plenty.”
Andy wasn’t having it. “Plenty of nothing. I’m not a drunk, Mr. Oso. I don’t have to watch myself.”
“The fuck did you say to me?” Ruben straightened. “What exactly did you just say?”
“That was outta line.”
“All of this is out of line.”
Andy put the glass down on a tread of the spiral staircase. “Wait—”
“I never shoulda moved into this place, pintón. Taken this job.”
“Ruben.”
Ruben wavered, not sure which step to take. “I never shoulda left Florida. Fucking brother. Fucking Hawaiian shirts.” He shook Andy’s hands off him. “Fuck you, Richie Rich.”
At the bar, Ruben dropped a handful of ice into a fresh glass and scooped up the decanter. For whatever reason, the smell made him feel like puking, but still he wanted that poison in his belly and blood.
HALT, said Peach from her grave—and she was right.
“Stop it.” Andy took hold of his arm again. “Enough.”
Ruben raised the glass and toasted Andy’s felt-soft eyes, now wide with worry and anger. He brought the glass to his face, but instead of drinking it, he inhaled, filling his lungs with the peppery fumes. Saliva swamped his mouth as the drunk woke up in him and staggered toward the light.
“You’re not that person, Ruben. This isn’t who you are.” Andy pleading.
“Really? I used to think this was the worst addiction, but I was wrong.” Blink. Inhale again. “I was wrong. Everything is wrong.”
“Ruben, this is not my fault.”
Match, meet fuse.
“No.” Ruben stared through the alcohol at him. “The fault is all mine.” He lowered the glass and inhaled again as he bumped the rim against his dry lower lip, still swollen from the scrape of Andy’s stubble.
If he tipped it an inch, he could take the swallow. “Well, I quit.”
“A year, a year, Ruben. You’ve been sober for a year.”
“You don’t even know what that means.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I want to know.” Andy swallowed hard on nothing. “Ruben, talk to me and we’ll figure this out, huh? You and me.” His eyes glittered, wet.
Ruben scowled at the liquor, his jaw wobbling with a grief that froze his blood. A born loser fighting fate. Maybe that was the mistake: he’d wasted a whole year, squandered all the booze and blackouts he coulda had. He’d missed out on all those emergency room visits and drunk tanks where someone else woulda cleaned up his messes for him. What was he thinking?
“Ruben, stop.” Andy grabbed at the glass. Scotch sloshed over their knuckles and splashed the clear bear skull box.
“I already quit. You can’t make me do anything.”
“I love you.” Andy took the glass and Ruben let him.
“Me too.” Backing away, Ruben shook his head and exhaled in a sad nonlaugh. “Which makes no fucking difference to anything.”
I have to leave or I’ll cry or I’ll hit him or I’ll lose control and he’ll see exactly what I am: an open drain that leads into a sewer.
“I mean it.” Andy’s face broke, the gleaming stare shaken. “All of you. Every part. We’re so lucky.”
“Not me. Speak for yourself.” Ruben dragged himself to the foyer and pressed the only available button: Down.
Andy pleaded silently, a tic in his handsome, gee-whiz jaw.
“I guess that’s why I’m thirsty. I was born empty.” Ruben’s teeth chattered, and he wiped his mouth to hide it, wishing he was dead or drunk in Miami. Same difference. His gaze roamed over Andy, trying to memorize him standing there crumbling beside the bear skull.
So this is what it feels like to commit suicide.
“Do you know how lucky we are, Oso? Do you know how happy I am to have found you?”
“I know plenty.” Ruben stepped onto the elevator without turning, without looking back. Sodom and Gomorrah. He didn’t need any more salt to rub in his wounds. “I know what you do… to me.”
Andy moved forward to block the doors from closing automatically. “No. No you don’t. You’re terrified of being happy. Ruben!”
“Stop.” He couldn’t look Andy in the face. “Sorry, man.” The delayed elevator squawked in frustration. “I’m sorry for everything.”
I’ll never see him again. All he saw was a world full of poison, rows of bottles waiting to drown whatever this feeling was.
Andy took a shuddering breath and wiped his mouth. “Ruben, you said, you said. All your steps should take you somewhere. Talk to me. Put your foot down.”
Ruben shut his eyes so he wouldn’t see and get stuck with the memory. “No. Please. Have the last fucking word. You obviously need it more than I do.”
Then the doors closed behind him, unseen, on Andy Bauer, unseen, and he descended blind in the gleaming, seamless box all the way back down into the dirt.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NOTHING’S SO bad that a drink won’t make it worse.
Ruben woke up on the filthy tiles of the Port Authority bus terminal with a mouth full of decomposing mice and a head like an infected molar.
He hadn’t had a blackout or a hangover in, well, a year come to think of it. Funny too, how in all the no-drinking he’d developed complete amnesia about the ruinous downside of sleeping in a gutter, and this time he’d done it without the booze.
Score one for AA.
At least he made it to the bus station john before he yacked. He tried not to leave anything horrific behind for the maintenance crew. He stumbled out into the blinding light and waved down a gypsy cab. “Hundred and Ninth. East side. Off Lex.”
He hoped he had money to pay but couldn’t bring himself to check. He pressed his pounding skull into the shitty upholstery without opening his eyes.
Stroke of luck: he had fifty-seven bucks in his wallet, so the driver didn’t have to kill him.
Second stroke, his keys were still at the bottom of his pocket, and he didn’t puke on the stairs. He did, however, have to pause on the fourth floor landing so his stomach didn’t come out of his nostrils.
His first indication that something was wrong sat in the hall flicking its tail on the doormat: his brother’s tortoiseshell tabby, pawing at the apartment.
“How did you get….” He stopped when he saw the yellow police tape stretched across the door. “Out?”
The cat stood and arched as Ruben reached the end of the hallway, then stalked around itself in an irritated circle, mewing to be let inside the crime scene.
How had they found this apartment? Nothing connected Andy to this place.
Gouges at the locks and door frame painted a pretty clear picture. He hadn’t slept here in three weeks, and Charles was at his girlfriend’s, so who knew when it had happened or been reported?
Without stopping to think or check inside, Ruben scooped up the cat, jogged downstairs, and hailed a yellow cab. Holding the freaked animal on his lap, he dialed his brother’s phone. No answer.
The detector. He’d installed the rescued CO unit from the penthouse in his brother’s place. He needed to warn someone.
On a hunch he went to Daria’s place. She buzzed him up way too fast to be safe, but when he got upstairs she was crying and panicky. She took the cat without question before Ruben asked, “Have you seen him?”
“Office.” She spoke into the cat’s motley fur. “They hit the office.”
Ruben nodded, but his feet were already in motion.
&n
bsp; Another taxi. His brother’s phone still went to voice mail. He wanted to call Peach, but no phone reached that far.
The afterlife has the worst cell reception.
He kicked himself for not finding a new sponsor when he needed one so badly. At this hour, the traffic alternated between caterpillar crawls and breakneck progress, making Ruben straight-up nauseated by the time he paid the twenty-dollar fare and emerged onto the curb in front of Empire Security.
Ruben climbed the creaking stairs, wishing for the hundredth time that he had some kind of weapon. Some bodyguard.
The bright nail salon looked empty: a couple girls gossiping at the back. As he passed they turned to eye him suspiciously. Whatever had happened wasn’t any secret in the building.
Empire Security had been disemboweled with a crowbar, the guts of its little office exposed to view. The hollow door had been split and pushed in, cracking the rickety frame. Inside, the receptionist’s area had been pulverized into a jumble of papers, splintered electronics, and cracked particle board. One of the chairs was stuck in the sheetrock wall near the ceiling.
Ruben tried to close the door, but only the lower hinge was still attached. “Oh.” He propped it shut.
“Rube.” Charles’s weary voice came from the little inner office. “Yeah. Not so good.”
Ruben leaned and saw him back there. Charles sat in the wreckage with the stunned annoyance of a dropped infant. Today’s shirt was tangerine, short-sleeved and covered in dolphins. He had a black eye and his fingers were taped.
Ruben waited. “I called.”
“My cellphone’s dead. It’s in here somewhere, busted, and I need to get a replacement, but I been too busy getting assaulted.”
“You’re okay?” Ruben pointed at the purple eye.
Charles chuckled with grim finality. “Not so bad. You kept saying there was something weird about Bauer.”
“Andy didn’t do this.” Did he? Ruben hated himself for even thinking it.
“Someone did. Someone wants to have a messy conversation with that asshole.”
Carefully as he could, Ruben picked his way across the rubble. Andy might be in serious danger. He hated himself for worrying. For a lot of things.
“S’my fault. I saw the money is all. You warned me, but I kept thinking you were paranoid. Divorce. Drinking. I figured at this point, your instincts were shot. I didn’t pay attention.” Charles opened and shut his mouth, sad fish.
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re not amateurs, these guys, I can tell you that. And not any kind of figment of Bauer’s imagination.” Charles pointed at his swollen eye socket.
He’d left Andy alone. Asshole. He had to get—
“And for some fucking reason, they are really not fans of yours, big brother. You did some damn thing to yank their rope all right. They were very clear on that point. Adamant, even.”
Ruben whispered, “I fucked up.”
Charles squinted. “They took your file, Rube. Your whole life. I got everything in there. Birth certificate. Marriage shit. Medical records. Taxes. I kept ’em in case of… trouble, y’know.”
“I know.” Ruben had always been sloppy about paperwork and that file was probably the last coherent record of his life on the planet. He didn’t blame Charles for trying to take care of him. He had to get back to the penthouse. Idiot. Andy could be hurt or worse.
“S’my fault. Some security company. Didn’t see shit. Crappy insurance. Fake cameras. Only reason they didn’t do worse was one of the limo drivers came by for his check and got stuck being a good Samaritan.” Charles raised his chin toward the window. “Poor chump’s in the hospital.” His hands were shaking.
Ruben took a step toward him. “This isn’t your fault. I knew better. I knew the whole goddamn time. Eyes open. I could see it, and I walked right off the cliff.” He saw the question forming in his brother’s eyes. “Not booze. God, the booze would be simpler. No. Different. Nothing.”
“Well, not nothing, exactly.” Charles opened his arms at the mess. “What do you know?”
“I tried to leave him. I mean. I woulda quit last week. In June, even. I tried. But then they attacked his assistant, so I moved in.” He leaned back against the wall, his shoes slipping on the scattered bullshit papers covering the floor. One cane back chair sat tilted in front of the desk, missing a leg. “I tried and I fucked up.”
“You shoulda left! You promised me you’d bail before things went to shit.” Charles probably thought he wanted the truth.
Oh jeez. “I know. That’s what I’m saying. It hadn’t gone to shit.”
“You knew that these guys were serious. That Bauer wasn’t imagining everything, and you stayed on, solo? What kind of asshole are you?”
Ruben’s face heated and his eyes welled up, but hot as it was, who could tell? He loved Andy and he had split. Like a jerk. Like a drunk. He pressed his fingers to the lids like he could push the stinging tears back inside his head.
Charles glowered. “I trusted you.”
“So did he.” Why was he standing here at all?
“He! He who? You mean Bauer? What the fuck you screwing ’round in, Ruben?” Charles said his name in a baffled squawk.
He’d done the one thing to Andy he’d promised he wouldn’t, abandoning him the second things got sticky. I care about him. “I hadta make a decision. I…” He swallowed and gripped the back of the three-legged chair hard enough it creaked. Peach in his head, Truth, kiddo. “Made a promise that I needed to keep because even if I did it for the wrong reason, it was the right thing and I knew it. I knew I had to even if it meant keeping a secret. From you, even.”
“Since when?”
“Since I been with Andy.” Done. “As in, Bauer and I were together.”
“He hired you.”
“No. More than the gig, is what I mean.” Gulp. Still, he swung the hammer and drove the nail deep. “Personal.”
A snaky silence coiled around the two brothers and squeezed.
“Meaning what, Ruben? What do you mean ‘together’?”
Please God.
Ruben inhaled, holding the deep breath. Andy’s flannel eyes filled the inside of his head till the words landed soft and low. “He’s important to me. Still.”
“Rube.” Charles bit down on that like a wormy apple. “What in hell are you telling me?”
“The truth.” Stand there and take it.
“Together. You are. Like what? Like making out? C’mon! You let Bauer get with you? On you?” Charles made a manic face and smacked papers off the desk that fluttered to the floor. “A guy.”
“Don’t start.”
“Me, don’t start!” An arc of spit hit the tilted desk, and the whites of his eyes gleamed. “Like Richie Rich porks you in the ass, and you like it?”
Ruben scowled. To his credit, he left the remains of the three-legged chair he was holding on the floor and didn’t beat his brother with it.
“That dude pays you.”
“He doesn’t pay me for anything but the job.” Frown.
“Hidden cameras and shit. He’s been watching you, taping you. Some maricón!” Charles spat the Spanish for “faggot.”
Ruben’s heart tightened into a cold stone fist. A muscle ticked in his cheek, and a scowl welded itself onto his skull.
Charles stepped back and his eyes widened. He held up his hands.
“You forget, Carlos.” He let the threat in his words swing free. “I don’t habla español.”
“I’m sorry I said that. That was uncalled for.”
“I’m not talking about protecting him. And I care about him more than—”
“Don’t.” Charles eyed him doubtfully.
“Anything you say about him, you can say about me. Dig?”
Both brothers ate the muggy air for a few moments, looking at each other but probably not seeing much they recognized. The quiet only made the entire mess look worse, a nauseous snapshot of his future.
Charl
es broke it first. “Are you and he…?”
All the possible words boiled between them: queer, stupid, crazy, fucking, doomed, angry, lovers, happy, scared, ridiculous, trapped, impossible, serious, still together?
Still together.
Ruben nodded longer than he should have. “I dunno. Yeah. Sure. Whatever the rest of that sentence is, the answer is yes.” He crossed his arms and stared at his brother.
“Jesus. Jesus Christ, Ruben.” Charles exhaled and swallowed. “Okay. Okay. I gotta sit down but I’m already sitting down.”
Ruben frowned but nodded. “Whatever you wanna say, go the fuck ahead, because at this point, I don’t have much waste-able time.”
Charles stretched his lips into a freaked-out trout mouth. “So, uh… who’s the, um, girl? When you… y’know….” Grimace. “Fuck.”
“No one is the goddamned girl! We’re not girls, Chucky. That’s the point.” The anger felt good, actually, felt like focus. He could see everything so clearly, with his situation magnified to tactical precision. Still together.
“All that surveillance.” Charles rocked forward and then back, as if he was sitting on a cactus. “Andy fucking Bauer. Even his name sounds queer. Sorry-sorry.”
“He’s not what we thought.”
“Obviously.”
“Fuck you.”
“I don’t mean that. Well, no: yes, I do mean that, but obviously he was in some kinda serious actual danger when he sauntered in and hired us. Is what I meant to mean.” Charles frowned and sat back, resting his palms on his dolphin gut. “You follow?”
“He—” Ruben tried to find a way to keep telling the truth that wouldn’t mess him up. “—matters to me. And these people came after him. They hurt him. I plan to do something about that. Something not strictly legal.”
As much as Ruben had dreaded facing his brother, telling the truth, just speaking the words aloud felt like someone had lifted an anvil out of his splintered ribcage.
“You shoulda said something. I get why you, y’know, didn’t, but still.” Charles looked at the floor and rubbed his eyes. “That was shitty. This is shitty. Jesus Christ, Rube.”
“Charles, I’m not drinking. The feelings scare the crap outta me. The, uh, gay stuff even more. I made a mistake, but I’m not fucking up here. I didn’t know. I found something good, someone real.”