by Ira Gold
A bit stunned, I walk into the night.
39
Say My Name
I head to the boardwalk. Even here, in Brooklyn, the waves wash in and out with the regularity of a Caribbean paradise. At the edge of the water, I try to lose myself in this oceanic moment. Ah, nature. Its comforts are just one more sentimental illusion, like the attachment to this neighborhood that blights my life. I throw my urine-soaked underpants into the sea.
Old Russian men stroll by, shooting hard, suspicious glances. I have no weapon but so what? Let them take me out. I can’t think anymore. I walk back toward Sheepshead Bay and text Ariel, coming over.
Ariel responds with one word: hurry.
Thirty minutes later, I’m in her basement. She’s waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, her eyes open so wide that she eats me with them.
I say, “Give me a minute.”
“Why?”
“Privacy. Fuck. Please.”
Without saying anything she walks up the stairs. But she immediately runs back down and says, “You don’t have to say ‘fuck’ every other word. It’s just an affectation.”
And with that she charges back up the stairs.
I remove my clothes and get into the shower. The more grease and shit and blood I wash off, the filthier I get.
Hours, days pass. Suddenly, Ariel rips back the curtain, “Are you okay? You’ve been in there for twenty-five minutes.”
She’s wearing a white T-shirt that is getting wet and showing her nipples. But she’s not trying to be sexy. She has bandaged her foot. She’s ghost white. Poor girl.
I shut the shower and she hands me a towel. With the latest gore wiped clean, I go to the bed. The towel is still wrapped around my waist. I brush back my wet hair. This impresses Ariel.
“You have great hair,” she says.
I kiss her now and tug at her shirt. A sappy desire to touch her breasts overtakes me. I’m pulling her jeans down when I sense resistance.
“Howie. Not before we talk. You know I stopped drinking.”
“So? Do you need to start again?”
She sighs. “Without alcohol . . . I can’t have sex with you every time. I hardly know you.”
“You fucked me like a cheap whore when you knew me even less.”
“I thought I knew you. With the ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that.’ With the gangster stuff. The gun. I loved an unself-conscious brute. Boys like you in high school . . . you know, like nerds despise and salivate over cheerleaders. My situation here. Nothing going on. My mom. The booze. You tempted me with your killer attitude. Remember how you went out the bathroom window at the café to avoid those guys. That was thrilling. You know the rest. Now the only thing I know is that you’re no killer. So stop acting like one.”
This little speech annoys me, but not enough to shrink my painfully engorged dick. I say nothing but I rub her crotch. A moan escapes her and I wheedle, “I need you, baby.”
“I haven’t slept in two nights, Howie.”
I pull the towel off and when she sees me fully loaded the color returns to her face. “Blow me. It will take a minute. Then we can talk for the rest of our lives.”
She accepts that until I get my rocks off I won’t be coherent. So she gently swipes her tongue along the base of my shaft. When her lips enclose the head of my dick I explode. She cups my balls as pleasure racks my body.
She says. “All right? Can we talk now?”
My breathing quickly returns to normal. “Sure. What.”
“Howie . . . why did you pretend . . . I’m furious with you.”
Is this significant? In a few days we traveled through the five stages of relationships. We liked each other. We craved each other. We became annoyed. Then furious. Soon we will become violent. Typical. I thought it cute the way she desired to educate me. Rembrandt. Sushi. Sadomasochism. She surprised me with the bondage—not that she enjoyed it but that she had the nerve to explore it so deeply. Her tits also provided a nice jolt, hanging off such an otherwise petite body. That she had been drunk almost the whole time had hardly decreased her appeal.
Sober now, Ariel acts like everyone else.
“Say something.”
“What?”
“You have words besides ‘blow me.’”
“I read a few books. So what? Does that mean you can abuse me?”
“I’m not abusing you. All I’m asking is that we have a conversation. It’s no longer acceptable to merely grunt like a gorilla. Gorillas don’t read . . .” She pulled the crumpled list from her pocket, “The Nicomachean Ethics. Do you think you are oh so clever?”
“I am who I am.”
“You made a fool of me. Maybe you think I’m the idiot because I never read the Nicomachean Ethics.”
“How could I know that?”
“Because no one reads it! Maybe dopey undergrads. Don’t play these games, Howie.”
“So only your games are legal.”
She stares at me with monumental resentment. After a few moments she runs up the stairs and slams the door to her mother’s apartment. The last thing I hear is her mother’s high-pitched whine, Ariel, is that—
I begin packing.
I put all my things in the gym bag. This really isn’t a good time to be walking the streets. Though we struck a decisive blow against the Russians, stragglers who hadn’t been in The National could be roaming the streets looking for revenge. I did not see, for example, my old friend Ivan among the dead.
Ariel returns. “I got this for you.” She hands me a paper bag. Inside is everything—the booze, the snacks, the Aristotle, and the Proust. Oh. Not everything. No Snickers Bars.
I put it all into my gym bag.
“Howie, please don’t go.”
“You don’t want me here.”
“That’s not true. It’s just that we seem to have things in common that you kept secret.”
“I’m trying to be more open. But my interests make people not trust me.”
“I trust you,” Ariel says.
“That’s not what you said a minute ago.”
“I said I was furious. You can be furious with someone you love.”
“Over a book?”
“It’s not about a book. It’s that you made believe—”
“I didn’t make believe shit. You assumed I was a savage. I’m not. You’re disappointed.”
“Why did you give me that list if you didn’t want me to know about you?”
She’s right of course. Why did I do that? “It was stupid, a mistake. My father’s goal was to read every Penguin Classic. I inherited his obsession. It’s a fu— curse.”
“Every one?” Ariel blanched. “There must be hundreds.”
“One thousand, seven hundred and forty-eight. So what? I’m starting with the most interesting. I hope never to make it to the ‘Faerie Queen.’ It’s famous for being the most boring poem ever written. I’d like to be dead before I get to it.”
Ariel replies in a stricken tone, “We need to adjust the relationship. I also have intellectual interests I don’t talk about all that much. You’ll see. I just never wanted to read every classic. Why? What would be the point?”
No point. Ever since I started on this stupid reading, I’ve alienated everyone I know. Truth and beauty bring out the worst in so many. Only Ivan understands me, is simpatico, and he firebombed my house.
Even Ariel of college and grad school holds my erudition against me. She’s thrown by the juxtaposition of my abs and my library, my gun and Aristotelian ethics.
I grab my bag off the bed and take it to the stairs. She follows. “Where are you going?”
“Underground.”
“You’re already underground,” she says, desperate.
“I’m a sick man. My liver is diseased.” I walk up the stairs toward the street.
“Howie, don’t. Let’s go to the city. We can stay in my place there.”
I believe Pauli Bones will let me live if he never sees me again. “Has your
renter left?”
“My tenant moved out two days ago. We can stay there until we figure out what to do.”
As much as I hate driving, I could get my car and go out west, the far west. “I need to get farther away. Wyoming. Montana. I have enough money, credit, and pot to survive for months.”
Ariel follows me onto the street. “Let’s go together. We’re finally starting to talk normally.”
“There are people hunting me. They see you with me, you’re dead too. Go inside.”
“But you never did anything. You’re innocent of everything except for reading Proust.”
“They’ll clip you without a thought.”
“I don’t care.”
“You say that now. You won’t be so sure with a few extra holes in your head.” It’s not that she doesn’t care. It’s that she doesn’t believe me. She still thinks that murder happens to other people.
“My therapist says not to catastrophize.”
“What?”
“It’s unhealthy to always expect the worst scenarios to materialize.”
“Being shot in the head, Ariel, is the best scenario. It’s quick.”
“Say my name again.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes me feel good. You only used my name when we first met.”
I can’t believe this shit. “Ariel. Ariel. Ariel, get your ass inside your house.”
She stands there, her nose reddening. I finally grab her hand and drag her to her door.
“Howie. Stop. Please, you’re hurting me.”
“Go inside. We should not be seen together. Trust me on this.”
She shoots me a wicked look, her squinting eyes reminding me of a snub-nosed .38. I’d be dead if they were. But she finally goes back down her steps.
40
Two Plus Two
I go get my car, which is parked in front of Judith’s house.
First, I check my blue Mazda for wires, anything suspicious. While the Italians dismiss car bombs as ostentatious, the Russians, for whom too much is never enough, favor them. They like the idea of being nowhere near the hit. If bystanders are hurt, well, luck runs out for all of us. A properly installed car bomb leaves no trace of the perpetrator or the victim. I duck to examine the vehicle’s underside. It looks clean and so I jump in and turn the key, bracing myself. Nothing happens. So I pull into the street and drive toward Ocean Parkway. I’d pick up the Belt Parkway and head to the Verrazano. I’ll keep going west until I run out of continent.
But at the Prospect Park Expressway, I find myself exiting and doubling back. I really am a shade condemned to haunt the streets between Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay.
In another twenty minutes I’m circling Ariel’s block.
If she were in the car, could I leave then? Would having Ariel break the spell?
She wants to be with me. She thinks one day we might have a conversation.
Unfortunately, the little I’ve said so far has annoyed her. She likes me best when she knows me least.
I pull into the driveway and Ariel comes out, wearing a short, stylish suede jacket and pulling a rolling suitcase.
“What took you so long?” she asks as she gets into the car. Her face is elegantly made up.
Maybe she does know me. She knew enough to get ready. I just say, “I have to say good-bye to my sister. We might not see each other for a while.”
“Good. I’d like to meet her.”
“You’ll stay in the car.”
Ariel doesn’t push.
It’s not the right time to introduce a whole new element into the situation.
Judith’s in-laws live in a solid brick house on Court Road, a quiet dead-end street hidden between Avenues S and T. It’s too close to Brighton Beach for my liking, but there’s nothing to do. It’s late, almost midnight, and I text Judith that I’m coming over.
I hear nothing back and I pull up in front of the house. John’s father is a successful mason and his home is set back behind a gated front yard. Judith likes it here. There’s plenty of room for the girls. John’s mother dotes on her grandchildren.
We wait in the parked car.
“Is she going to come out?” Ariel asks.
I hit her number. I have little hope that she’ll pick up until she picks up.
Judith whispers, “Howie?”
“Did you get my text?”
“I was putting the girls to sleep. They have nightmares.”
This rips into my guts.
“They’ll get over it,” Judith reassures inanely when she hears my silence. “Give it time.”
“I’m parked outside. Can I see you for just a minute. Can you come to the porch?”
“I’m in my nightgown. Do you want to come inside?”
“I don’t think John will appreciate—”
“John’s watching TV in our bedroom. I’ll open the door. We can talk in the den.”
“If you think it’s okay.”
I say to Ariel. “I’ll be back.”
Ariel nods.
Judith opens the door and peers into the night. I slip inside and we hold on to each other for a long time. Then she says, “Is someone else in your car?”
“No one. A friend.”
“Is that a woman?”
“Never mind.” I absorb her familiar, worried features. Under the pale creases, however, I still see the gentle, openfaced woman that Judith had been when she eagerly married John. She really thought that she’d create this loving circle unencumbered by cares or Molotov cocktails.
I have been no help to Judith at all.
“I’m going away,” I say. “This time for real. The neighborhood is just too hot.”
“I heard something happened at The National.”
“Really? What?”
“A massacre. Guys came in and shot the owner and a bunch of the workers.”
Judith is not fishing for information. She certainly doesn’t want to know if I was one of the gunmen. She’s telling me that she understands the reason I must go.
In the next second she’s crying on my chest. The sobs are low because she can’t risk disturbing John. What Judith does say is, “At least you’re not alone.”
“Thanks. I’ll always know that you’re with me, Judith.”
She picks her head up and wipes her cheeks. “Not me, silly. The girl in your car.”
Right. Ariel. “I don’t know her that well.”
“She’s in your car at a moment like this. Cherish her, whoever she is.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve packed up all your stuff. What do you want me to do with it?”
“Nothing. Dump it.”
“The books?”
“Especially the books.”
“They were Dad’s.”
“Yeah. Well, you read them.”
She laughs.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I’m busy. They don’t mean much to me. Dad gave them to you for a reason. I can send them to a post office where you can pick them up.”
“It’s not going to work. Knowing anything can be dangerous.”
“I think of you every time I come across those orangey bindings. Any orange reminds me of you. I see a box of tangerines and I want to ask, Howie, what’s going on?”
I’m causing my own sister to lose her mind. “When are you moving back to your house?”
“John’s father is going to start fixing the bricks as soon as the war is over.”
“The war is over. For now. Pauli Bones . . . the war is over.”
This surprises her. “Then why are you leaving? If the war is over and you’re still . . .”
“I have to leave. It’s my chance. And someone would get me sooner or later if I stay.”
“But why?” Judith can no longer contain herself. “What did you do?”
“What the fuck—” John materializes into the little entrance foyer where Judith and I are tearing each other to emotional shreds.
“Hey,
John.”
“Fuck you, punk. You son of a bitch.” He advances on me with fist clenched. Because he’s so angry, he thinks he could take me. The idiot.
Judith steps between us. “Go, Howie. John, please. He’s saying good-bye.”
“Not before I kick his ass.” He begins shouting, “Because of you my family—”
“Let him go, Judith,” I say softly. Why not rip John’s head off? Besides my own stupidity, he’s the main source of Judith’s misery.
Once more in a choked voice Judith begs me to leave. I really do want to kill John before I go. This is one way I know Judith will be safe. But I leave. Behind me, the door slams and I hear a bang, as if someone has been shoved against it. I charge back up the stairs and kick the door. It shudders on its frame. As I lift my leg to kick it again, Judith’s voice rings out, “Howie, please. I can’t take this anymore.”
I keep my head down as I walk to the car. I wonder what Ariel thinks of this display, but then I don’t give a damn.
I pick up my head and glance into the passenger seat. Shit. She’s gone. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Ivan clutching a chunk of Ariel’s hair, jerking her head back. I don’t see a piece, but I have no doubt that a weapon is pressed against Ariel’s spine.
It never ends.
“Hello, motherfucker,” Ivan greets me with what I hear is genuine friendliness.
“Hey, Ivan. Let her go.”
Ariel is too terrified to do more than whimper.
“Let me see your hands,” Ivan says.
I lift them palm up and say, “I’m not heavy, Ivan. I dumped the gun.”
“Leave hands high.”
There are times that Ivan could pass for a human being. Today is not one of them. The scar that runs down his face appears blood red against his pale cheeks. His eyes have disappeared into slits behind the ridge of his forehead and his lips are translucent. Without a drop of makeup he could play a zombie. On the other hand, he has not killed Ariel or me yet. So this could be a cry for help, a request to just talk.