“Something’s gonna have to be done about those fucking ants!”
She opened her eyes slowly. Adam wasn’t there. There was a cone of cigarette smoke pointing at the hole in the blind. She stared at it for a few moments blankly and then he reappeared, like a conjuring trick, leaning over the bed. He looked smaller than he did onstage—looked actually like he had been bigger once but had been reduced in size for convenience. “They’re all over the fucking snakes! Thousands of them. On their heads, in their mouths, all over their fucking eyes. I don’t believe it! I told you to call pest control.”
“I did. You also told me, ‘Tell them not to spray anywhere near the snakes.’ So I did. And they didn’t.” Matter-of-fact, bored even. He couldn’t engage her. The audience wasn’t listening. He stormed into the wings.
The phone rang. She rolled over onto her stomach and picked it up, tugged up the antenna, speaking in the same flat voice. “Yeah? No, he’s busy. Squashing ants. That’s what I said. In the serpentarium. With his fingers, one by one. How the hell do I know? Hours I suppose—there’s thousands of them. Adam!” she yelled over the sound of running water. “Coz. Telephone.” Coz was Shoot 2 Kill’s manager. “He’s not answering,” she said. “Okay, I’ll tell him.” She hung up and rolled on her back again, staring at the sunbeam on the guitar neck, distractedly stroking her tiny stomach.
Before she married Adam, Gerri was a model like all the other rockstars’ wives, “model” being a generic Los Angeles term for any woman who got paid to take her clothes off. Adam, like all the other rockstar husbands, had upgraded her with every rise in fortune. Her long legs were lipoed, her lips collagened, her nose clipped, her hair bleached, streaked, and extended; her breasts now stood at a top-of-the-market 38 double-F, exactly like all the other rockstar wives. They all saw the same cosmetic surgeon, worked out at the same gym. If you stacked them in a row they’d all match exactly, like paper dolls, or reflections of reflections in a mirror that went on forever.
The phone rang again. “Just thought you should know,” said Coz, “I’m wise to you. Keep the fuck away from Rex. You hear me?” She went cold, sat bolt upright, staring at the bedroom door as if Adam was standing there and could hear everything. “I don’t know what the hell you are talking about,” she said. She wanted to hang up, but the phone stayed glued to her ear. “Find someone else to fuck. That’s all. Not that it’s my business, but you might try your husband. And don’t forget to tell him to call me. Urgent.” He hung up. She lay there shaking, still holding the telephone, listening to silence and to the blood shrieking in her ears.
“I don’t fucking believe it!” said Adam, walking into the bedroom, wearing a pair of wet black boxer shorts and clutching his cell phone. “Howie’s not there.” Howie was the snake man, an English expat with a long list of rockstar clients who came by once a week to clean and feed the snakes in an old pickup truck packed with live rabbits and mice. He called it Squeals On Wheels. “He’ll call back,” said Gerri, guilt making her momentarily solicitous. “His machine’s not on and his cell’s not taking messages and his paging service says he’s been cut off for nonpayment. Fuck!” As if to contradict him, his mobile rang suddenly. “Hey, man, it’s Joss,” she could hear from where she was lying. Bass players always had loud voices, as if they refused to be ignored off-stage like they always were on. “Can I come by?” he asked. “Right now is not a good time, Joss,” said Adam. “Man, it’s important,” she heard Joss whine. “Look, I’m just pulling into your road.” And she rolled her eyes, pissed off at Adam on principle at Joss’s arrival while gratified that she had an excuse to be more pissed off at Adam than he had every right to be at her. She got up, pulled on yesterday’s T-shirt, and went downstairs.
She took a half-gallon carton of juice from the fridge and poured herself a glass, grabbed a blueberry muffin from the open pack on the kitchen counter, and took them to the sofa. Picking up the remote, she turned the TV on and sat back, tugging the T-shirt over her bent knees. On a screen as big as that of the average suburban multiplex cinema was a huge white woman in a cheap red satin blouse telling the talk show host that she had been in McDonald’s when that guy let loose with the Uzi and redecorated the place with a dozen people’s guts. The bullet hit the crucifix she wore around her neck and branded its shape right between her breasts. Gerri heard Joss’s Jeep pull up in the drive, heard him knock at the door, stayed sitting. The woman on the television lifted up her shirt to show the studio audience, and they all gasped as the camera closed up on two huge white mounds, made modest for American TV with what looked like black duct tape, and the red-brown, angry-looking cross that stood between them. Joss knocked again, less patiently.
“Are you gonna get the fucking door or what?” Adam called from the upstairs bathroom. She sighed and got up and, without taking her eyes off the television or her mouth off the blueberry muffin, opened the door, left it ajar, and went back to the sofa, leaving Joss to let himself in. “Fine thanks, Gerri, and how are you?” Joss said sarcastically, to no effect. Adam ran down the stairs in cutoffs and a black unbuttoned cotton shirt.
“Joss, man.” He grasped his bandmate’s shoulder. Glancing over at his wife and back at Joss with one of those incomprehensible looks by which men communicate that the woman in question is probably on the rag, he said, “You could fix us some coffee—if it’s not too much trouble. Come on back,” he said to Joss, leading him out to his studio by the pool, stopping on the way to grab a couple of beers from the fridge.
“Look, man,” said Joss when they were out of ear-shot, “I’m sorry to come at a bad time or whatever.” “Hey, no, forget it,” said Adam, perched on a stool by his computer, flicking the mouse automatically to make the winged Marshall-amp screensaver disappear from the screen. “Sorry I went off on one earlier—you know, domestic shit. Good to see you; I’ve been working on some songs—you can help. In fact, I was thinking only this morning how much I kinda miss when we all had no money and shared a place. Fuck, was that a great time? I think it’s when the tour is over, you know, I just can’t adjust to being at home again. You know, it’s so Spinal Tap. I come home and dial 9 on my phone for a line. I wake up and roll over to see who the fuck I slept with and it’s my wife.” They laughed, then fell silent.
“So, man, what’s up?” asked Adam. “You said it was important.” Joss stared at the bottle, rubbing off the label with the hard skin on his forefinger. “Rex and Deanne are getting back together,” he said finally.
“Wow,” said Adam. “After what Rex did to her? He must be shitting himself, the lucky fuck. He could have been facing ten years if she’d gone through with the lawsuit. Now maybe we can get on with the album. Great fucking news, man.”
“It isn’t,” said Joss. “She said she’ll take him back on one condition. That he breaks up the band.”
“No!” said Adam. “And he told her to fuck off, right?”
“No,” said Joss.
The two of them sat there staring at the floor. Adam had known all day that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what it was. A sick premonition of something. Now that he knew what it was he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It was all over. He pushed the computer’s backspace button as if he could wipe out the day and start over again.
Gerri came in with the coffee. She had changed into a tight pink spandex exercise top and tracksuit bottoms, her expression as impenetrable as the snakes’. “I’ve called the fumigators and they can come tomorrow but they said no way will they work with the snakes here so they’ll have to go to the vets for a couple of nights. I’ve left the numbers by the kitchen phone so you’d better call them. And call Coz back; he says it’s urgent. I’m going to the gym with Cathy.” Cathy was Joss’s ex-girlfriend. Joss sent a silent prayer of thanks to God that he hadn’t married her. Wives really fucked up a band.
Cathy was already on the StairMaster when Gerri got there—one of seven women and three men in a row, the men with dark stains on the back of th
eir tank tops, all lined up, legs choreographically pumping, staring at the bank of television sets on a scaffold in the center of the ceiling, all of which were tuned to MTV—pointless really, when you couldn’t hear a thing above the blaring workout music and the grinding of machines. Cathy waved at her, and glared at the man on the StairMaster next to her, willing him to get off. Gerri shrugged and did her stretches until the machine two away from Cathy’s became free, then hopped up, soon catching up speed, shouting over the head of the guy in the middle, who steadfastly held his ground.
Then Cathy pointed at the screen. It was an old Poison video. The two women screamed—between them they’d been with most of the band. Cut to Beavis and Butt-Head sniggering on the sofa. “Are they, like, girls or guys?” “Whatever they are they suck.” Cathy shouted above the gym noise, “Girls I’d say. How about you, Gerri?” Gerri squealed with laughter. “And they suck.” The guy in the middle finally gave up and climbed down from the StairMaster, tutting dramatically as he left. Next up was a band Gerri didn’t recognize, Cathy either, though she said the singer was megacute so she’d make a point of finding out. Then there were ads that went on forever before Cathy said, “Look.”
It was a Shoot 2 Kill video. Rex and Adam were standing together at one microphone like Siamese twins, both bare-chested and in low-slung leather pants, but it was Rex’s body Gerri stared at. She couldn’t wait to smear herself all over it again. Fuck Coz. Fuck Deanne. Fuck Adam. She stepped a little harder.
“Why the fuck would he want to go solo?” Adam was whingeing. “He’ll never find anyone like us to play with. I mean this fucking band, this fucking band, it’s more than just a band, man.” Joss nodded. They had drunk themselves beyond self-pity into sentimentality. They were blood brothers, one body five vital organs, all for one and one for all till death do us part. They’d called Coz but all he did was confirm that it was over. He would be managing Rex. And though of course he’d do all he could to help set them up, he felt it was in their best interests and his if they looked for new management. Joss was sober enough then to mention lawsuits. Or maybe carrying on the band with a different singer. Coz said forget it, Rex’s team of lawyers had gone to court and he had 100 percent rights to the name. Rex was Shoot 2 Kill, Shoot 2 Kill was Rex, and Rex could do what the fuck he wanted so he had.
Adam put down his bottle and made a decision. “I’m going to see him. We gotta talk.” “I’m coming too, man,” said Joss. “Shit, I’m too wasted to drive.” “Me too, man. Hey, let’s call Duggs,” he said, suddenly remembering they had a drummer. “Duggsy’s in England,” said Joss. “He’s guesting on Wet Dream’s record.” “Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Adam. “I’ll call Gerri. She can drive us.” He dialed her cell phone and got the voice mail.
Gerri was in the changing room at the gym, talking on the phone to Rex. “I want to come over,” she said. “It’s not a good idea,” he replied. “Why not,” she sneered, “Deanne?”
“No,” he said evenly, “not Deanne.”
“Well, I know you’re getting back with her.” There was triumph in her voice.
“She is my wife,” Rex said nonchalantly.
“And what am I, your fucking whore?” A couple of women changing their clothes stopped what they were doing to look at her.
“No,” said Rex, still calm. “You are my current guitar player’s wife and a hell of a fuck.”
“Is Deanne there now?”
“No, I believe she is visiting her psychiatrist.”
“Then I’m coming over. I’ll be there in ten.”
“Do you love me?” Gerri asked as she stripped to her underwear. “No,” Rex answered, “but right now I want you.” He didn’t tell her why he wanted her; it wouldn’t have gone down too well. He had decided that he would have her the night Shoot 2 Kill played the L.A. Forum, the night Adam took it into his head to leap into the crowd. Just unclipped his guitar, put it on the ground, and, legs together, bounded over the top of it like the stage was a diving board. The fans went crazy—they hadn’t found themselves that close to a member of Shoot 2 Kill for years. They passed Adam back and forth across the arena over their heads in an orderly fashion, like ants carrying crumbs, until their manager sent security in after him and they lugged him back onstage. Adam, his shirt torn off, hair all over the place, stood there grinning and gave a deep, exaggerated bow. The place went wild. Rex was furious. Deanne had learned that he was the alpha male, and now it was Adam’s turn.
Deanne had become way too independent, with her kickboxing lessons and her going back to school, telling him she was sick of doing nothing but going to the gym and the hairdresser while he was out on the road and she wanted a job of her own. He pointed out slowly and methodically, like she was mentally impaired, how much money he was making. She said it was crazy that she’d spent all this time and money looking good just so she could marry someone rich enough to give her the time and money to make herself look good and it was bullshit. But then she got pregnant, which changed everything. He told her she would have to go to Arkansas and stay with his mom until the baby was born, L.A. was not a safe place for the mother of his child, with him being on the road. As for the kickboxing, forget it; he didn’t want a baby with a dent in its fucking head. But Deanne was disrespectful. He almost thrashed her until he remembered that his kid was in there and let her go. It was two days before she came home—the housekeeper called and he drove straight back from the studio. She was tossing stuff into an overflowing suitcase on their bed.
“Put it back, you’re going nowhere.”
“Fuck you, Neanderthal!”
He turned the suitcase upside down. Its contents spilled onto the carpet.
“I said you’re going nowhere with my fucking kid.”
“It’s not yours,” she said. He finally beat the truth out of her; it was her kickboxing teacher’s. Okay, so he should have called an ambulance instead of locking her in the bathroom when she started hemorraghing, but nothing he had done to her was as bad as what she had done to him. He was out of his fucking mind with grief. He didn’t imagine that she’d bothered to tell the lawyers that the whole fucking time, four days and nights, he had sat on the other side of the bathroom door, weeping his fucking heart out.
He fucked Gerri fast and hard. She didn’t come. She’d left by the time the limo pulled up and Adam and Joss staggered out.
Early the following morning Adam woke up with a screaming headache. He could barely walk; either his feet or the ground seemed to have disappeared. Gerri was sleeping deeply. She smelt of sex, though he was so out of it when he got home he couldn’t recall doing it, though he remembered wanting to fuck her violently, take control of something in his life. But all he could think of was ants scurrying out of her pubic hair and marching in neat columns down her thighs. Shaking with nausea, he made his tentative way downstairs and took a beer from the fridge. The cold liquid made him feel a little steadier. He saw the note on the counter with the fumigator’s number written on it. Shit, he thought. He hadn’t called. Clutching his bottle, he went back upstairs to the serpentarium. The snakes were lying coiled and still. There were ants everywhere.
One by one he gently lifted the snakes up and carried them into the shower. Downstairs in the kitchen he put on a kettle. He took a bag of sugar from the cupboard and brought it upstairs, pouring a long white line on the serpentarium floor. “Come on, you fuckers,” he whispered, and closed the door. Back in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, he searched for saucepans to boil more water, but there weren’t any. Why the hell weren’t there any fucking saucepans in the kitchen! Then he thought about it: Gerri didn’t cook, they hadn’t eaten at home since he’d bought the place, and he guessed she hadn’t either when he was away on tour. He put water in the coffee-maker and in the cappuccino machine and switched them on.
He carried the kettle of boiling water carefully up the stairs. His head pounded. The sugar he’d put down was black with ants, clambering all over each other, tho
se at the top tumbling to the bottom of the pile and starting the climb again.
“Gotcha!” Adam said, and poured on the boiling water. Scrunched-up ant bodies floated down to the moat in great puddles of steam. Wonderful; such a feeling of release. He had to pull himself away to go fetch the rest of the water that was boiling downstairs. When he came back up with more, everything was still, like a stadium after the crowds had gone home. He was struck with a nagging feeling that there was something he hadn’t done. He didn’t know what it was; there was someone on the payroll to do everything. Was. What the fuck was he going to do now?
Gerri was still asleep. He opened the blind so that the light would wake her. Then he lay down naked on the bed next to her.
“What?” she said, her face all grizzled and childlike.
He wasn’t aroused. His penis flopped comically to one side. He cupped it with one hand, protectively.
“I’ve fixed it,” he said, looking like he might cry; for a moment she was moved.
“Fixed what?” she asked.
“The ants,” he said.
Jesus, she thought, he had more to worry about than that.
Outside, by the pool, a line of ants trailed toward the house like ellipses.
BAUDELAIRE’S DOG
On a table by the pool under a white umbrella a dozen strawberries sweat in a chilled glass in the sun. The dreary pock-marked young film director is raising a hand in benediction for the waiter. His companion is taking papers from his briefcase. “Justice,” the director declares, “is when both sides are equally pissed off. There ain’t no lightning bolts no more. You want ideas you steal them, you just piss with them enough so no one recognizes them. That’s originality.” He looks at his watch impatiently. “Isn’t he supposed to be here by now?”
Too Weird for Ziggy Page 16