Afterlife

by Paul Monette

  “Uh, why don’t you take him with you?”

  “No, he’s a loner. Just like me.” Dead-on serious, not a trace of irony, like a cowboy choking up over his horse. “Make sure Stevie takes care of him,” he said, as earnest as a Cub Scout.

  “He’ll probably outlive us all,” retorted Mark dryly. “Where exactly are you going?”

  “Don’t know yet. I’ve only had one session.” He turned from the dog and gave Mark a glassy smile. “I should know better after today.”

  “I see,” replied Mark, as polite as he could, and happily Sonny was already late. He darted out the kitchen door. The dog jumped up to trot after him as he headed around the garage. Mark didn’t even feel any excess of contempt, so glad was he that the younger man was leaving Steven’s house.

  He moved to trash the pie box and wipe down the counter, something he’d never have done in his own house, because what else were maids for?

  “He’s pretty, that one, but he’ll fuckin’ believe anything.” Mark turned as Dell stepped in from the dining room. “That’s the kind they get to run the concentration camps. ’Cause God tells them to.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mark replied, cynic to cynic. “And what do you believe?”

  “Me, I’m a good Catholic. I believe in hell.”

  “And what are your plans?” Mark inquired, more brazen now, having struck paydirt already.

  “Fuck, man, I’m out of here in a few days. Mexico.” He seemed delighted Mark had asked, and went on with some excitement. “Spend Christmas with the family. Take mi madre to midnight Mass. Get drunk with my sisters’ fat husbands. Should be a blast.” He rolled his shoulders and twitched his hips.

  Mark laughed, though he wasn’t sure exactly what was funny. “Linda’s going with you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Here he seemed reluctant, even disappointed.

  “But you’ll come back and start a new life,” said Mark, pressing the point.

  “I guess,” replied the other vaguely, examining the palms of his hands, where the calluses of his previous life had practically disappeared. He barked his one-note laugh. “And if I don’t, maybe I’ll come back like Sonny. Be a prince next time.”

  They laughed together, though Mark was still an inch away from grasping the joke. He had a certain admiration for Dell’s forays into urban mayhem, and wished he could do the same sort of damage to Lou Ciotta. But having acquired so much power himself, even if it all meant nothing now, he couldn’t imagine being so far from power, learning an alien tongue in order to be a servant.

  “You love Steven?” Dell asked suddenly.

  “Yeah.”

  “For sure? You gonna stick with it?”

  “Yup,” said Mark. He was getting a little sick of having his vocation examined.

  “’Cause if you hurt him, I’ll break you in little pieces,” said Dell, his voice as even-tempered as could be, his smile pleasant. For an instant Mark could see the dead calm at the bottom of Dell Espinoza’s rage. He was strangely serene in his fury, the eye of his own storm.

  Mark groaned. “Are you for rent, by any chance? There’s someone I’d love you to terrorize in Beverly Hills.”

  “Sorry. I don’t want to fuck with my amateur status.”

  They parted as equals, a couple of tough guys. A deal had been struck between them, though its terms were mostly unstated. Mark left the kitchen with the curious satisfaction that if they ever needed a bit of serious revenge, the knees of their enemies whomped with a baseball bat, Dell Espinoza was their man. It was such a comfort to have your own terrorist.

  He crawled in under the sheet and tucked himself up against Steven, who stirred himself from the green lagoon of his nap and murmured, “What? Did anything happen?”

  Mark slipped a hand under his shirt and rubbed his belly. “I think your tenants just gave notice,” he said, trying not to sound smug about it.

  Steven spoke in a sort of dreamy afterthought: “But where will they go?”

  Mark was too groggy to tell all the machinations. “To meet their fate, of course,” he said, glib in spite of himself. But apparently it was a good enough answer for Steven, and so they slept without apology, as if their house was all in order.

  And in the living room Dell watched “The Three Stooges,” mostly because nothing else was on, certainly not for laughs. His pillow and blanket were stowed in the hall closet, along with his 976 notebook and a change of clothes. He had kept up with his laundry, sensitive about leaving no mess. Once Dell was up and dressed, the living room was the living room again, no evidence of squatters. The entire month of November he’d lived in Steven’s house without any privacy at all. He accepted this without complaint, like a man in prison who had no choice. Besides, even with the TV on, he had developed a certain radar for knowing when someone was about to walk in.

  Yet he seemed to listen now with an extra sense of tension and alertness. His head was tilted, and he barely breathed. He heard the Mercedes drive away, so he only had to watch his left flank, in case Mark or Steven had to run out for something. Moe was bopping Curly on the head with a trumpet, while Larry played the accordion and sang. Dell moved off the sofa and knelt by the hearth. He opened a cupboard door low in the wall where firewood was stored. It was smutty with cobwebs and crumbled bark and a couple of fragrant cedar logs lying side by side.

  He shifted one of the logs to the side. Underneath was a package about eight inches square, wrapped in crumpled brown paper. He lifted it out and unfolded the wrapping, the Stooges brawling over his shoulder. Inside was a black revolver that glinted with an oily shine. He just stared at it for a minute, slightly amazed, as if he was still trying to convince himself it was real.

  Maybe he would have believed it more if he’d gone in and bought it himself. But it came to him like this, handed over by Alfonso Nava, no questions asked. Dell had called him Friday morning: “You bring me a gun, you can have the truck.” Alfonso grunted yes without any hesitation. He knew a steal when he saw one, also understood that the real trade here was a shift of power. He wanted Dell to owe him one, a debt that would be satisfied by the hand of his sister Linda. Alfonso Nava had come to L.A. from the killing grounds of Guatemala. He couldn’t have cared less what Dell Espinoza wanted with a gun.

  Did he know what he wanted? Not quite yet. He was still making this up as he went along, since the very first call to the water department. He astonished himself every step of the way. It was all he had anymore to prove he was still alive, the surge of unlikeliness, the opposite of reason. Carefully he covered the gun again with the brown paper. The taste of metal was on his tongue, thrilling as blood. He replaced it under the cedar log, closed the cupboard, then stood up and lumbered into the kitchen.

  All month he’d been careful to keep his calls local, not wanting to abuse any privileges. But now he dialed Manhattan Beach, taking the small liberty because his tenure in the house was almost done. When the kid picked up the phone, Dell said, “It’s me, Lorenzo.”

  “Hey! I thought you dumped me.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been tied up. How you doing?”

  Kevin chuckled. “Well, my dick’s gettin’ hard. What else is new?”

  Dell ignored the provocation. “You getting along with your father?”

  “That asshole? Gimme a break. You want to fuck me?”

  “Kevin, listen—we’re not gonna be able to talk anymore. I have to go away.” Kevin was silent, didn’t ask where. He seemed to finally hear the gravity in Dell’s voice. “It doesn’t matter if he’s an asshole. You want him to send you to college. After he pays the bills, then you can tell him you suck dick.”

  “You mean I’m never gonna meet you?”

  Dell felt a stab he didn’t want to feel. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked roughly. “You get yourself a life that works. You understand?”

  “Okay, okay. But don’t I even get a kiss good-bye?”

  Silence for a moment. There was a great strain in Dell’s face, as if he were cr
aning to listen for any sound in the house. Faintly from the living room he could hear the Stooges brawling. His voice dropped to a husky whisper: “Take off your clothes.…”

  The call came through at five-thirty, on the hairline crack between dusk and twilight. “He died at five-thirteen,” said Margaret. “They like to know the time, don’t they?”

  Mark and Steven were down there in twenty minutes, just in time to see the stretcher come out with the body bag. Margaret stood on the porch with the Siamese in her arms, watching them stow the Korean into a panel truck, on the side of which it said beneath the logo IN TIME OF NEED. When Steven and Mark came up the steps to hug her, she said dully, “They don’t exactly use a linen sheet.”

  Nobody cried. They took turns on the phone calling the names in his little address book, but there weren’t very many. They decided against sending a spate of telegrams to Korea, figuring the modest legacies would arrive there soon enough. In any case there was no family. Ray Lee had always been quite specific about that: “Just me. All alone like Marilyn.” And since they were all the immediate family he had, they decided to make it short and quick. They didn’t need a wake, and they didn’t need to sit shiva.

  Besides, it was the twenty-eighth of the month, and the rent was paid only through Monday. So Mark went out to an all-night Thrifty and bought wrapping paper and packing tape and double-strength garbage bags. Margaret and Steven sat at the table sorting Ray Lee’s leavings, wrapping them up, tucking notes inside, half condolence and half legalese. They were a two-man assembly line, loving the mindless business.

  And while they worked, Mark went around with a garbage bag, disposing of everything else. He felt like the Grim Reaper in the flesh, brutally unsentimental as he threw away all that was not on Ray Lee’s master list. In the kitchen were canned goods and cleaning supplies still perfectly good, easy to pack up a bagful, shameful to waste. Regrettably, Mark was not in a discriminating mood. Despite all the hungry children in the Third World, he tossed the Campbell’s soup and the packets of oatmeal into the bag.

  By eleven, when they decided to break, Mark had four bags full to bursting at the curb. Steven had prevailed upon him not to trash the Korean’s clothes. These were piling up on the bed as Mark went through drawers and closets, to be donated to Gay Central. Ray’s relentless quest for fashion rightness would thus be passed on to the street kids of Hollywood, glints of chic in the bad parade along Santa Monica Boulevard. Meanwhile, Steven and Margaret had finished about a third of the grab-bag packages to Ray Lee’s heirs.

  When they turned off the lights and went outside, the cat was purring, rubbing up against the porch railing. Margaret shot Steven a searching look, and he boomed, “No! I’ve already got a dog I don’t want.” Margaret frowned. “But I’m allergic,” she said fretfully. Then they both had a brainstorm. “Heather!” they crowed in unison, and the Siamese problem was as good as settled. They all agreed to reconnoiter at noon on Sunday.

  Steven finally cried in the shower, sobbing into the drumming spray, for Victor more than Ray. He could feel the membrane of toughness crack that had kept him detached all day and fussing with details. He stared into the cauldron of what would never heal, and he hated Ray Lee and AIDS and the whole world, in that order. He didn’t turn the shower off till the noisy part was behind him, but Mark knew anyway. When Steven came out of the bathroom red and wrinkled, rubbing his scalp with a towel, Mark was lying on Victor’s side of the bed, watching the end of “Saturday Night Live.”

  He pressed the mute and felt a flood of inexpressible feeling, catching the barest stoop of grief in Steven’s shoulders. “Maybe you want to be alone,” he said, but with some topspin on the last word, turning it into a question that allowed no room for yes.

  Steven sat down beside him, steaming a bit, and laid the flat of his hand on Mark’s shirt. It would have been very sexy, one naked and one still dressed, if it hadn’t been for the dead part. “You shouldn’t have to go through this one,” declared Steven with a sigh. “You don’t even know him.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess it goes with the territory. From now on I’m going to have my boyfriends fill out a questionnaire. ‘How many friends do you expect to lose in the next twelve months?’ If it’s over three, I walk.”

  Steven didn’t seem to be listening. “You know what’s weird? Getting used to it.” He laid his head on Mark’s chest, his hair still damp. “I don’t mean getting over it. But it’s like nothing surprises me anymore. I expect it all to be horrible, and it is.”

  “AIDS or life?”

  Steven shifted his head, propped his chin on Mark’s breastbone and gave him a baleful look. “There’s a difference?”

  They slept fitfully, each trying to stick to his own side so as not to wake the other with tossing. In the morning they snuggled for an hour or so, achy and blurred and putting off the day, but there was no question of making love. Somehow it would’ve been the height of inappropriateness. “Like farting in church,” as Victor used to say.

  So they picked up the Sunday papers and dragged themselves to Pennyfeathers for pancakes and sausages, Steven asking the waitress for an extra helping of nitrites, Mark requesting a small bowl of cholesterol on the side. The first time they’d really laughed since Margaret’s call the night before. The waitress, no friend of Dorothy’s, walked away unruffled. She didn’t even listen anymore to the camp requests of mad queens.

  “Are we really not going to work anymore?” inquired Steven, tossing the business section aside.

  “You still have a business,” Mark countered accusingly.

  “Now, there’s an idea,” said Steven, dumping three packets of Equal into his decaf. “You can come work for us. We happen to have an opening.”

  “Interesting. Of course you’d have to match my salary. I’m very, very important.”

  “Please—Shaw Travel is a major player. And the perks are royal. Free theme-park weekends, vinyl flight bags, star clientele. Including Barry Manilow’s hairdresser.”

  “In that case, I could start tomorrow. But there’s one thing you need to know.” Mark took a small pause as the waitress laid the plates down. “I’m sort of dying.”

  “Well, you’ll fit right in then,” Steven purred reassuringly. “All our male staff is on respirators. That’s our motto at Shaw Travel—‘Keep moving, even if it’s just a twitch.’”

  This last was delivered with a gelid smile to the waitress, who was refilling their cups, sealing her ears to all they said. She knew AIDS talk when she heard it. They were just two blocks from Cedars, in the middle of the Warsaw Ghetto. Now she asked in a singsong voice if they needed more butter. And they let her go because it wasn’t her fault, and the whole elaborate riff suddenly died for want of an audience.

  They ate their pancakes greedily, like a couple of kids after Mass. They passed each other the funnies and “Arts and Leisure” and avoided sports like the plague. As for death, they didn’t think they were handling it very well at all.

  They didn’t know just how well till they saw Margaret. Ashen and ravaged, not a wink of sleep, foundering all night long in a sea of tears. By the time she met them at Ray’s, she was cried out and barely ambulatory. She collapsed on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, hissing like the cat when Steven crouched to speak. She didn’t want to be home, but she didn’t have an ounce of sociability left either. She was bottomed out on AIDS.

  They understood completely. All afternoon they worked around her, Steven at the table packing up the remainder of the legacies, Mark with Hefty in hand, trashing shelves of paperbacks and tearing posters off the walls. Nobody needed to talk, which was a relief. Every now and then Margaret would turn her face to the pillows and weep softly, but only for a moment. About two-thirty the phone rang, and they all three froze and gaped at it as if it were something returned from the dead. Steven picked it up on the fourth ring, steeling himself to break the news, suddenly sure the call would be from Seoul.

  But it was the mortuary phoning,
to let them know the ashes would be available for pickup Monday morning. Before he knew it, Steven had been put through to an Interment Counselor. He cupped the receiver and asked Margaret what she wanted, but all she did was wave her hand like a white flag of surrender. Steven listened as Mr. Corazon ran through several grisly options. Steven said they would forego a chapel service and simply gather at the columbarium to place the ashes in the wall. No, no priest would be in attendance. Mr. Corazon sucked his lips, clearly disapproving, then asked how many they would be.

  “Uh, ’bout ten,” said Steven vaguely, realizing only then that he meant to invite the entire Thanksgiving table. Somehow they would stand in for all the lost threads of Ray Lee’s life. Tomorrow afternoon at four would be fine. Steven should tell the mourners to park along Eternal Way and go to the North Garden of Repose. Mr. Corazon himself would greet them there.

  “He sounds like Liberace,” Steven observed, scribbling a quick list of his holiday guests. He saw right off that his ballpark estimate was overly optimistic. With Ray Lee gone and Angela in treatment, and any call to Andy Lakin bound to be received like salt in a wound, they were down to seven already. Still the idea seemed right, to pull together the sudden family the plague had left them with. Linda’s phone didn’t answer, so he left a message on Heather’s machine, laying out the details and asking her to be in charge of bringing Dell’s sister. Then he dialed his own number, hoping both his tenants were home.

  Sonny answered—silent after the first hello, as Steven announced the Korean’s journey was over. Then he extended the invitation to join them at the tomb, but made it clear there were no excuses. Two months’ free rent in the room beyond the garage demanded his appearance.

  “Sure, no problem,” he replied, disarming as ever. “I can’t get outa here before Tuesday anyway.”