Numb

by Sean Ferrell

  “These aren’t even my pants,” I said.

  “You just bought pants from Dave, and you aren’t going to throw them out. Get upstairs, have them fixed, and I’ll talk to you later.”

  I went upstairs and sat in front of the window looking out at Times Square, the Barrymore Theater across the street, the lines of people dressed up for an evening show.

  This is what my life will be, I realized. Michael would take me to meet executives from Budweiser, Coca-Cola, or TD Bank and convince them I could say lines like “Make banking painless!” I would stand in rooms full of business suits in my mended suit with stitched-up legs or nail holes in the ass. They would tell me how much I was needed to sell something for them. We would munch overheated appetizers. Company people would circle into groups and I, a foreigner among them, would not speak their language or know their customs. I would have no place of my own. And when the meetings and dinners were done, I would come back to a hotel room to find nothing as I left it. New soap and cups and bedsheets. Paper napkins folded on the sink counter, and a new newspaper placed neatly on the table. No dirty clothes or used tissues or dog-eared magazines.

  Outside a woman stumbled on the curb and fell into the street. A cab honked at her as she caught herself on its hood. I watched, silent, as silent as the other pedestrians staring at the woman pushing herself from the hood of the car, and saw myself as if I had just toppled into traffic, saw myself as both the spectacle and spectator. I realized that Hiko would not clean up after me. She would allow me to sit in my own mess. She would not watch and gawk and stare as I fell from curbs and punctured old wounds. She would not judge. She would take me off this road with this hotel and the circled groups of ad men and give me a place to call home. I called her and heard her smile through the phone when I said, “Let’s talk about me moving in.”

  six

  MY FIRST PUBLIC event organized by Michael was Hiko’s showing. The “public” piece of me she’d made was displayed along with a dozen other pieces completed in the past year, and Michael made sure not only that would it be talked about but that I would be talked about by being there.

  The showing was at a Soho space, a former warehouse that had been three different stores/galleries/restaurants before it became this current gallery/performance space. I thought it might become a J. Crew outlet at any moment, with most of the guests staying on as mannequins. The room only barely smelled like wet paint, just under the incense that someone burned through the evening despite Hiko’s complaints.

  True to her word, Hiko had the red portrait of me on the wall. I thought of it as the scab me. As far as I knew, no one but me had seen the other portrait. The scab hung among other portraits and scenes that relied so much on touch and yet still retained a pleasing look. I stayed in the background as much as possible. I ate crackers and drank martinis.

  I eavesdropped, listened in on compliments and complaints about the work, and discovered that I am really bad at eavesdropping. Twice people I was listening in on walked away, and once the conversation turned to how it looked as though I was trying to listen in on the conversation. After that I hung out near my portrait, but no one remarked on it. I marveled at Hiko’s talent and how many people came out for her work.

  After taking a second martini—I wasn’t asking for them; the bartender simply ignored what I ordered and made me one—I walked around the perimeter of the room to find someone to talk to. I checked on Hiko. She sat with Michael and a photographer. Michael made strange, violent gestures with his hands and then looked over at me, smiled, and pointed. I made a noncommittal thumbs-up gesture. I decided I needed some fresh air and hurried to the door as the photographer took aim at me.

  Empty plastic bags blew down Water Street. A few people walked by, hands in pockets, blown in the same direction as the wind. I joined them and shuffled to the corner, crossed, and came back on the other side of the empty street. I watched the people inside the gallery. I’d met some of them before, through Hiko or Michael. A reporter from the Voice was there and that photographer Michael wanted to sic on me. Even though this was Hiko’s evening Michael wasn’t above buzz creation. I’d seen the article about the show in the paper earlier in the week, and I would never tell Hiko that it had mentioned me as much as it had her. Michael used our relationship to our “mutual advantage,” he said. I didn’t stop him and I didn’t know why.

  As I prepared to return to the gallery, a badly beaten Dodge van pulled up and parked in front of a fire hydrant. It idled loudly for a moment and then the rumble stopped as if the engine had popped out of existence. The side door slid open and a man with long reddish hair lurched out. He turned and helped a thin blond woman in a long, tight paisley skirt pull herself out. Two men climbed out the back. The driver, a man with a shaved head, walked around the front. He said something to the others. The hairy headful glanced over his shoulder at me. From the light coming through the large windows of the gallery I could just see the side of his face, and it took him getting close enough for his features to make sense, with his hair ponytailed on top of his head and a black T-shirt that read IMPEACH PEDRO. He was and he wasn’t the man I’d last seen at the hospital.

  Mal stroked the long whiskers that hung from his chin. “Miss me?” he said. I felt vaguely threatened.

  He turned away for a minute and waved the others into the gallery; all but the blond woman went in. Instead, she walked over, beautiful with her long hair in duplicate braids on either side of her head and her skirt wrapping her to the ankles. There were circles under her eyes and she wore the highest platform shoes I’d ever seen.

  She looked me up and down. The tiniest smile came to her lips. “Is this him?”

  “Yeah, this is fucking him.”

  Mal had grown his beard long. Tied into a rope with red hairbands every few inches, it reached the center of his chest. The beard looked like a hanging string of beads streaked with red, brown, and black. His hair was long too. It probably would have reached the middle of his back except it was all gathered in a tremendous clump on top of his head. It stood straight up and fell back, like a little pom-pom. His eyes were dark. He stood as if his back hurt.

  I stood at the curb with him, uncomfortable and self-conscious.

  I said, “It’s been a while.” I pointed at his beard. “It’s gotten long.”

  “That’s all you can say?” he asked. From his crooked grin a chipped tooth shone in the gallery lights.

  “What am I supposed to say?” I sounded angry. I think I didn’t know why.

  He shrugged. “This and that. You know.” He thumbed toward the gallery door. “You’ve been busy, getting in with the in crowd.” He pointed at my suit. “What did that cost you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. It had only cost me my dignity. “It was a gift for a show I did recently.” I became aware of the stitched holes on the seat of my pants.

  “You were on television, right? I heard that.” As I nodded, he laughed. Through his smile I could hear the grinding of his teeth. “You did it, man. King of industainment. Go-go-go! I told you.”

  “Told me what?” I regretted that we were talking. His being there surprised me, but his anger unnerved me. I’d convinced myself that his attitude in the bar on the last night I’d seen him had been an aberration. The result, I thought, of too much alcohol and too little sleep, maybe too much time together on the road. But here he was, still ready to swing at me if only he was holding a hammer.

  “I told you that you’d be okay. You’ve taken off and now you don’t need to worry about anything, right? They’ve got you in some hotel and you’re whoring yourself on TV. So, it’s all good, right?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Mal said, “We’re on the guest list, man. Well, Karen here is.” He pointed to the girl, as much of an introduction as we would get. “Karen is becoming a pretty well-used reporter here in the downtown scene. Though none of us are VIPs, not like you, Mr. Late-Night Famous.”

  “I’m not
famous.”

  “Not famous. Your face is on every magazine. You’re selling beer on the subways, man. King of New York.” He looked awful. He’d lost weight. Long scars littered his arms.

  I asked, “What’s your problem?”

  He looked away and muttered something under his breath to Karen. She shook her head and whispered back. I asked him to repeat himself and Mal looked me straight in the eye and said, “A man who plays with nail guns wants to know about my problems.”

  Michael came out of the gallery, tilting from too much wine. “Who is this?” He stood unsteadily between us. “A friend?”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I said.

  Mal looked down at his feet. “There are probably better ways, though.” He laughed. A breeze blew and the reek of the garbage bags on the street hit us. “Shit, that’s awful. Let’s get inside.” He took Karen’s arm. “If we stay out here, we might have to rumble.”

  Michael and I followed him inside. Michael leaned close to me, wrapped me in wine vapors. “Who is that clown?” I didn’t answer.

  Mal and Karen walked through the gallery and I stood at the front door a moment so I could watch them. I felt like I had just stepped back into the lion’s cage. They walked past the guests and onlookers as if they’d been there before, and Mal even seemed to know many of them. He stopped to talk to the bald guy who had been driving the van. I realized then that it was Redbach. He had the same dark eyes and stiff movements as Mal. With his head shaved he looked like a mental patient, and a scar I hadn’t known he had ran from his right temple to just above his right ear.

  Within five minutes, Mal and Redbach had swept over to the bar and commandeered a bottle of vodka, which they splashed liberally into tall glasses of ice. Karen was nowhere to be seen.

  I tried to act casual. I stayed close to the wall and spied on them as they ate and drank. I moved forward as much as I dared, between a group of uncomfortable patrons and my scab self. I tried to look like part of the group, who, speaking only German, made some comments, then left me where I stood.

  I wanted to get Hiko and leave.

  She sat near the bar, on a small bench, alone. She looked tired and a little sad. When I got to her, I said, “We should go.”

  Immediately she brightened and said, “There you are.” She patted the seat next to her and when I didn’t sit she said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that you look tired.” I saw Mal look at me and Hiko with interest. He muttered to Redbach; it looked like he was preparing to come over. I didn’t want to see him again and I didn’t want him to talk to Hiko. I thought Hiko might get hurt by my knowing him. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but it was clear in my mind that something bad would happen.

  “Come on, why don’t we leave?” I took Hiko’s hand and gave as gentle a tug as I could manage.

  Her face tightened. She tried to smile. “We haven’t been here for very long, and it is my opening. I can’t leave yet, and besides, I don’t want to. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Karen walked up just then, calling out to Hiko. She carried two drinks. “I have a drink for you. Hold out your hand.” She kept a martini for herself and handed the cosmopolitan to Hiko. Karen guided it to Hiko’s palm, waiting for a small moment until Hiko pulled it away. It had an ease that came from practice. They knew each other.

  “I didn’t know she was coming tonight,” Hiko said. “This is my oldest friend, Karen.”

  Karen sat in the seat Hiko had saved for me. “We met outside, sweets.” She winked at me over her drink. “I’m just so glad that my editor allowed me to switch stories so I could cover your opening.” She took Hiko’s hand. I stood there, struck dumb, and Mal walked up next to me. Had he planned this? Had he learned about my relationship with Hiko and found a way to connect himself to me through her? How could he have just casually met and gotten involved with Hiko’s best friend?

  Karen said, “Hiko, you remember my boyfriend.” They had met. When, I didn’t know, but suddenly it seemed that Mal’s plan, if he had one, included Hiko. I called myself paranoid and then remembered that a paranoiac is only someone who hasn’t yet been proved right.

  Mal gave me a wide grin as Hiko said, “Mal is here?”

  Mal said, “I’m right here, Hiko. The only thing more stunning than your artwork is you.” Hiko blushed and Mal took her free hand and kissed it just above the knuckles.

  Hiko laughed. “I’m so glad you could come too.”

  I felt like I might pass out. I muttered, “I need a drink.”

  Mal laughed. “I’ll get one with you.”

  We walked over to the bar where Redbach stood quietly, drinking from the vodka bottle and looking at the track lighting above him. Mal asked for a couple of glasses of ice and poured us each a healthy dose. “Here’s to Hiko’s opening.”

  “How long have you known Hiko?”

  “I don’t know. I met her a couple weeks ago.”

  “Did you know that I was living with her?”

  “Karen said something about that, yeah.”

  “So you could have contacted me? At any time. But you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t think you would want to hear from me.” His face dropped into a parody of concern and piety. “What’s great is that we have this opportunity to repair our friendship.” His sappy grin broadened and Redbach started to laugh, nearly choking on his shot of vodka. To Redbach Mal said, “What, too sarcastic?”

  I swore at him and then downed most of the drink he’d poured me. “Just don’t screw tonight up for her. She’s worked very hard.”

  “Don’t I know it. Hiko and Karen go way back, and Karen’s always telling me what a great artist she is. You know what respect I have for great art, great talent.” He finished his drink. “Like you, for instance. I see your face on billboards from time to time. That’s pretty—how would you put it, Red? Larger than life.”

  “Sounds about right,” Redbach said. The track lighting held some glorious fascination for him.

  Mal poured himself another drink and refilled my glass. “Listen, I don’t want to ruin anything for anybody. You and I, we can put what happened behind us. You don’t need to worry ’bout me hammering you to any of the stuff in here. We can just, you know, start over.” From the look in his eye I thought he might be serious. I wanted him to be serious.

  “Start over? I don’t even know what happened.”

  Mal picked up his drink and pulled his finger through circles of condensation left by the glass. I realized that the last time we had talked it had been just like this. Us on one side of a bar, Redbach quietly standing by, and a crowd surrounding us that we could have done without. Not looking at me, Mal said, “I was in a bad place, man. I’m better now. And I’m sorry.”

  I tried to imagine how he could be in a better place when his face looked so much older and so tired.

  He handed me a card with his name and number on it. It said Hyper-drama beneath his name.

  “What’s this?”

  “Call me sometime. I’ll make you a part of my life again. You can star in the movie that is me.”

  Redbach checked his watch and made a move toward the door. Mal got up to go with him. Mal whispered to me, “In fact, you can start now. Can you get away?”

  Get away, I thought. From what? “Away?” I said. Behind me, Hiko laughed with Karen. “Where are you going?”

  “The Manhattan Bridge.”

  I couldn’t just leave Hiko. But then I looked over at the crowd that surrounded her. Again, I felt as uncomfortable as I had when we’d first arrived. She drew people to her, she spoke and people laughed, she moved through crowds with humility and was treated like a queen. I only felt more on display. Mal planned to disappear into the darkness, and disappearing held attraction. Even my fear of what Mal might do, and what he’d done to me in the past, didn’t keep me from following him. I still preferred the danger that he promised more than the hesitant comfort I felt around Hiko.


  Mal walked to the door; Karen stayed behind. I walked quickly after Mal, feeling as though I was cheating on Hiko.

  “How long is this going to be?” I asked.

  “Thirty minutes. Forty-five at most.” He saw me looking back at Hiko and Karen and said, “They won’t even know we’re gone. Be back in plenty of time.”

  I was a little scared to go with him. From the look of his van, I should have been terrified. Redbach got behind the wheel. It came to a rumbling start and a spiral of smoke drifted out from under the hood.

  I shook my head. “I should really stay.” I thought if I said it out loud, it would actually happen.

  “Still whipped. Just like with Darla.” He turned to get into the van. “You feel anything spheroid grow down there”—he pointed a finger at my crotch—“then you give me a call, okay?”

  “You’re sure we won’t be long?”

  Mal smiled and said, “If we’re a little late, it’ll be worth it.” He got in the passenger seat and I climbed through the sliding side door. I had to sit in the back on a floor painted electric blue beside boxes of video equipment and cables stacked high enough to promise toppling. Long elastic cords tied in large loops, harnesses, and hooks filled a box nearby.

  “What are we doing?”

  Redbach smiled and looked at Mal.

  Mal said, “Living my life.”

  The van died as Redbach started to pull away from the curb, and when he tried to restart it a fresh cloud of smoke poured forth.

  “Is this van okay?”

  “You’re full of questions. ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ Just sit down and relax.”

  I squatted on the box of cables and hung on to the backs of both front seats for some type of stability as Redbach finally got the van started again and we lurched forward.

  Over the rattle of the engine I said, “You know, I have an agent who said he’s willing to take a look at any acts that my friends might have.”