by David Liss
Pete suddenly realized he was rock hard. A dizzying confusion washed over him because he knew in his heart that he was absolutely not gay. And even if he were – and this was just entertaining the possibility for the purposes of making a point – he was pretty sure he would not want to mess around with fat Mike. He’d been at a casting call for the Chippendale boys the day before, and he’d never had a single gay thought, so he knew that wasn’t the issue.
He just needed to fuck.
“Your cocked fist says no,” Mike observed with a grin, looking down at Pete’s pants, “but your cock says yes.”
He punched Mike in the face because he also needed to hit someone. It wasn’t because he hated queers. That would have been an overstatement. He didn’t really like them, but he didn’t like most people, so really, when you thought about it, Pete treated gays like he treated everyone else. Isn’t that what equality was all about?
Fat Mike was on the floor, limbs waving around like an upturned cockroach. The other guys were now getting up, moving closer to him. The geezer behind the bar was now holding an aluminum baseball bat. The odds were against him, but Pete didn’t care. In fact, he kind of liked the feeling of just how fucked he was because he knew he was getting out of this. He’d fought off a dead dog last night. A bar fight with a bunch of cupcakes was going to be no problem.
* * *
On the way home, he was pulled over by an Alamo Heights police car. He’d been driving erratically in part because he’d put down a shitload of booze in less than an hour, and also because the bar fight with a bunch of cupcakes had been more of a problem than anticipated. He’d held his own, and the aluminum baseball bat had never come into play, which was certainly in the plus column. Besides, it had felt great. Taking and throwing punches. It had turned out to be some kind of crazy Fight Club action, and when two of the guys grabbed his arms and Mike had slammed him in the gut, Pete had been thinking that maybe this was what he’d been missing in his life. Maybe all these years of saying Yes, dear to Jenny and saying Yes, sir to rich people who wanted to buy gigantic houses had taken something away from him.
The solution, he’d realized almost at once, was not getting smacked around by gay people. Neither was it flipping monster-truck tires and swearing off beer. Pete needed to stop doing what everyone else wanted him to do. Jenny wanted him to keep in line and let her act like they made twice as much money as they did. William was telling him he had to live his life like Piltdown Man. Mike wanted him to ride the sodomy train to Buttfuck Station. Fuck all of them.
He’d made it out of there, getting in a few more blows, taking a couple of big hits – one of the ear, which was still ringing, and one to the nose, which was definitely not broken, but was bleeding enthusiastically. The bottom line, as the flashing lights danced over him, was that shitfaced and bloody was not the best way to present yourself when a policeman pulled you over.
Pete sat there, drunk out of his mind, his knuckles bleeding from the fight, considering himself basically fucked. The cop sat in the car interminably, doing whatever it was they did before actually hauling their asses out. Then his door opened, the guy sauntered over, like he was hot shit. Pete watched him from the rearview mirror and thought that he recognized the baby-faced guy from somewhere. Then it came to him. It was the same cop who had kicked him out of the Candi Watson’s real estate office. The only bright spot in all of this was that while seeing this jerkoff again was a humiliation for Pete, there was no way the cop would remember him.
“Remember me?” the cop asked before requesting Pete’s documentation.
“You get that redhead with the big tits to go out with you?” Pete asked him.
The cop didn’t say anything. He didn’t grin. He didn’t say she was too fat or whatever. There was no cracking the ice of his professional demeanor.
The cop took Pete’s driver’s license and disappeared for a good long while, checking on things that required absolutely no checking. Then he came back and leaned against the window. “Sir, are you aware that you are bleeding?”
“I got into a fight with a bunch of homosexuals,” Pete said. “As an American, I believe they have the same right to get their asses kicked as anyone else.”
“Sir, have you been drinking tonight?”
“I had a few,” Pete said. “Within the legal limit.”
“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle.”
“Have you ever noticed,” Pete inquired, “that you have a habit of telling people what you are about to say? Why not just say it?”
“Sir,” the cop said, “get out of the vehicle.”
Pete really did not want to do this. He was both legally and legitimately drunk, and giving drunks a pass did not seem to be on the cop’s agenda. For the second time in less than 24 hours, Pete was facing the ruin through arrest. This sort of thing had never happened before. Now it was twice daily? Sooner or later, he was going to hit the end of the road. Maybe this was the exact moment his life would head down the shitter. People like to look back and wonder where it all went wrong. Pete didn’t have to wonder. He didn’t have to reflect later. This was it, here and now.
He didn’t even decide to do it. It just happened. He wiped his hand against the slow drip of blood from his nose. Then he reached forward to the dashboard and began to trace the three swirls. It was a few quick motions. It was a risk, of course. The cop might somehow misinterpret the gesture as hostile, but he had to take the risk. In a few quick gestures he hacked out the symbols and placed his palm print in the center. Then he got out of the car.
The cop stood there, staring at him for a long while, like trying to remember who Pete was and why they both were there. Then he handed Pete his license. “Have a good night, sir.”
The cop got in his car and drove away, and Pete went back into his car and sat, holding his license as he came to the understanding that he was not fucked at all. He was not fucked in the least. He was un-fucked. This weird symbol was his get out of jail free card – pretty much literally. How did Douchebag William not know this? Had he never tried it? Did it not work for him? Pete had no idea, and, frankly, he didn’t give a shit. All he knew was that he didn’t have to live by anyone else’s rules. This was not the moment his life fell apart. It was the moment it all came together.
* * *
Despite this decision, Pete’s routine did not change much over the next few days. Then, all at once, two events more or less changed him forever.
The first was a call from Grant, who wanted Pete to stop by his office. Pete knew what Grant was going to say, and he wished he could turn back the clock, choose not to have Grant inquire into Jenny. That would have been smarter, but it was too late for that now. There was no putting the genie back in the bottle. So he sat there, in Grant’s dingy office, pictures of sports cars on the wall, while his old high school buddy slid a folder over to him.
Grant looked like a mirror image of Pete. They were both losing their hair, both overweight. They had gotten into a lot of trouble back in high school, broken a lot of rules, raised a lot of hell, but now here they were, middle aged, shadows of what they had hoped to be.
“It’s not too late,” Grant said. “You don’t have to open it.”
“I kind of do,” Pete said.
Grant nodded. “Yeah, telling people that is bullshit, but I say it because it makes me sound wise and full of insight. Like I’m Yoda or something.”
The pictures were blurry, taken on the fly, but quality wasn’t the point. Jenny and Rick Hudson, holding hands, kissing, slipping into the casita in the back of his house.
Pete sat still for a long time. He looked at the photos, and then replaced them back in the folder. He didn’t say much of anything. Grant didn’t say anything either. Pete figured he had experience with these kinds of situations, and he knew how to handle them.
Finally Grant handed over another envelope. “This is the other thing you wanted. I think it’s better news. I don’t imagine it m
akes you feel much better right now.”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t really know what I feel,” he said, and it was true enough.
“You want to get a couple of hookers?” Grant asked. “I make a lot of contacts in this job.”
“Maybe later,” Pete said. He needed time to think.
* * *
He was still in a daze when he pulled up into his driveway. William had been across the street, sitting on his stoop, looking at his phone. He’d obviously been waiting for Pete. Now he came running over.
“I need to talk to you, brah.”
“This isn’t a great time,” Pete said.
“Yeah, well, it’s not a great time for me either. We had a gathering last night—”
Pete looked up sharply. After what he’d just learned about Jenny, this still stung him. He’d been invited to join their little caveman group, and now they were having meetings without him. “A gathering, huh?”
“Look, don’t be insulted. You’ve just been, you know, impure. We didn’t want that contaminating our shit. The point is that we were getting nothing. I kind of feel like, I don’t know, the powers have attached themselves to you. Like you’re hoarding it all for yourself.”
As soon as William said it, Pete knew it was true. He hadn’t exactly been hoarding. That suggested he had done it on purpose, but he knew the basic truth of what William was saying. The caveman spirits were his.
“And you want them back?” Pete asked.
“That’s right.”
“No problem.” Pete reached into his back pocket. “Oh, wait. I forgot. Fuck you.”
William put on his best reasonable lawyer face. “Come on, man. No need to be that way.”
“What way is that? You lied to me. You led me into this shit without telling me what was going on, and now I’m going to do things my way.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You don’t want to cross us.”
“Yeah, what’s going to happen if I do?”
William stood still for a moment, as if considering his options, thinking about which method was going to win the day. Then, without warning, he took a swing. It was a wild roundhouse, right at Pete’s head, but Pete saw it coming a mile away. He ducked, and then jabbed up hard, smacking William under the jaw. His already bruised knuckles stung like a motherfucker, but he didn’t care. He took too much pleasure in the sight of William staggering backwards.
William paused, pressed a couple of probing fingers to his jaw, spit out a glob of blood. “What the fuck, man?” he shouted, like Pete’s violence had been inexplicable. Then he lunged at Pete again.
For Pete, the world seemed to have slowed while his senses heightened. It was like in a movie. He wanted to shout something out, just for the pleasure of hearing his words come out all low and distended. He was too busy kicking William’s ass, however. Another swing came, and Pete deftly stepped aside, and with William over-extended, Pete slammed him in the gut. William staggered, and for good measure, Pete kneed him in the nuts.
William dropped to the ground, moaning, his hands covering his wounded package.
“The world has been kicking me in the nuts all my life,” Pete said. “Now you know how it feels.”
William did not seem to appreciate the deftness of Pete’s metaphor. He was too busy gasping for air, rolling on the grass with his hands tucked between his legs, and looking like he might vomit. That was when the reality of the situation began to wash over Pete. He had kicked William’s ass. He had just beat the crap out of a guy who had the size and strength and skill to completely crush Pete. More than that, he’d done it because he had these caveman spirits on his side. He hadn’t won them over by giving up things he liked or doing a bunch of bullshit that made him miserable. He did it by being himself. It was like all that stupid self-esteem garbage they dumped on Addison when she was in school – Be yourself! You are wonderful! Celebrate you! – only this was so much better because it involved eating quesadillas and drinking beer.
“They don’t want us to be like them,” Pete said, the truth of it coming into focus. “They want us to be what we are. You’re so busy chasing the latest fad, trying to figure out what you should be doing, that you don’t know what you want to be doing. I know what I want. That’s what they respect.”
Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was a total fluke that they were helping him. Maybe it was his hair color or his shoe size. How the fuck should Pete know? But it sounded good, and, more importantly, it made him sound like he knew what he was talking about.
“Now, get off my property.”
* * *
Jenny was waiting for him inside the house, standing in an awkward position, holding a dishrag as if she had teleported from the kitchen. “What the hell was that? Fighting on the lawn?”
Pete was slightly stooped over. His breath was coming in rapid bursts, and his clothes were a mess. His knuckles were raw and throbbing, and there was blood all over his hand. Nevertheless, he felt fantastic, and he grinned while he bent over double and caught his breath. “You saw?”
“Yes, I saw,” Jenny said, clutching the towel like she was trying to strangle it. “It was disgusting.”
Pete stood up and walked over to the fridge for a beer. How come, he wondered, there was always plenty of beer there? They ran out of juice and milk and soda all the time, but Jenny never forgot to replace the brews. Was this her way of keeping him contained, locked away in a cage of drunken cluelessness? That had backfired, he thought as the tab came back like a gunshot.
“That guy should have owned me,” Pete said, taking a sip. “Why didn’t you come out? You didn’t think I needed help?”
“What should I have done? Hit him in the head with a frying pan?”
Pete smiled at the thought of that. “That would have been something.”
“I don’t believe you. Can’t you see how far you’re letting yourself fall.”
“You don’t get it,” he said. “I’m not falling. I’m on my way up. I should be teaching other guys about this like a self-help guru or something. I’ve got wisdom now.” He knew it was true. Everything was about to change for him. He could feel it, and, in spite of what she’d done, he wanted Jenny around for the next phase of his life. He was willing to forgive her – mostly. This thing, with the caveman spirits or whatever they were, was an opportunity to completely remake their lives.
It occurred to him that she had no idea he knew about Rick Hudson. If he didn’t know about her cheating, then he could move beyond it without humiliating himself. He didn’t have to give ground here. He could have things back the way they used to be, only better.
Pete stepped forward and took her hand. “I know we’ve had a rough patch lately, but maybe we can put it all behind us. Maybe we can start over again. Things can be like they used to be. They can be better.”
Jenny pulled her hand away. Her face wrinkled up like he was a thing, like he was violating her by even trying to make contact. “You’re disgusting.”
He watched her walk away, disappear into the hallway. He was still standing there when the bedroom door slammed. No blow William could have delivered would have hurt like this. His own wife thought he was vile, filthy, not fit to be touched.
Not everything was going to go his way. He had to understand that. He’d just have to make the best of what he had, and if people didn’t like that, then maybe they shouldn’t have fucked with him in the first place. That was the sort of thing he would say when he went on the lecture circuit.
* * *
Pete had no idea how this stuff worked. He was flying by the seat of his pants here, but he figured his instincts had gotten him this far, he might as well keep on trusting them. The next day, after Jenny and Addison were out of the house, he returned home. He heated up a frozen pizza, one loaded with meat and extra cheese. Once it was cooked, he ate it while drinking a six pack. He cut his finger, and drew the swirling, caveman symbol onto an undershirt, drinking the last of the six while it dr
ied.
This, he figured, would protect him. With the shirt on under his button down, he got into his truck and drove over to Candi’s office.
This time, the plump redhead sent him right in. Candi was sitting behind her desk, looking perfectly composed in her expensive white blouse, open one button too many. Her lipstick was freshly applied and glistening. For a woman in her sixties, Pete decided, she wasn’t half bad. A little brittle, maybe, but still kind of sexy. In fact, he thought he knew how this had to go in order to appease the caveman spirits.
Pete closed the door behind him.
Candi held up a hand, but she looked amused, not angry. “Pete, I know what you’re going to say.”
Pete threw himself into the chair across from her. “That you fucked me over?”
“It was just business,” she said, lilting her words to bring out the Texas, like what she’d done was all charming and sweet when you looked at it from the right angle.
Pete threw a manila envelope onto her desk. It was the one Grant had given him in his office.
“It occurred to me,” Pete said, “that maybe I wasn’t the first person you tried this with. Maybe I’m the first one to get screwed over, but I figure if you slipped me a little money to tweak the system, you’d tried it before. It was just a sale, after all. You weren’t desperate. It was business as usual. So, I asked my private investigator buddy to do a little digging. I asked him to check out the other inspectors you deal with, and once he got them in a room with a lawyer, three of them were willing to admit they’d taken bribes from you. Now, that’s all off the record, but if my legal problem doesn’t go away, then I’m going to sue you, and then what those guys have to say will be on the record. I don’t even have to win, because everyone in town will know you’ve paid inspectors to bury information from your clients. And that means you’ll be finished, and if you think I have legal problems now, I can promise you that’s nothing. The rich assholes will be lining up to take your money.”