by Lisa Taddeo
There was an old couple at a nearby table with their thirtysomething son who looked like he had cerebral palsy. His hair was trimmed into a crew cut and when he stood his limbs jangled like a puppet’s. His father helped him to the bathroom. His mother, a pale and pretty woman in her fifties with glazed eyes, sat at the table when her men had gone and squeezed a lemon into a Coke. There was someone, I thought, who might understand me.
I watched a career waitress say to the bartender, You have to take my tables. I gotta go back there. I’m gonna be some time. Somethin didn’t agree with me.
The waitress ran into the kitchen, her gray ponytail thwapping behind her. Now that I was looking in that direction, I saw the next wrong thing sitting at the bar with dirty-blond hair and light eyes the color of blue hydrangea. He looked back at me and smiled and then suddenly he was smiling more and walking over.
—Hey, he said, I saw you walking out to your car before, at the house. I would have come over, but I was.
He didn’t finish his sentence. He was one of the sexiest men I’d met in person. He didn’t have to do anything except not be cruel.
—Sorry. I’m River. I live in the yurt. You must be Joan.
—Must be, I said, biting my lip inside my brain.
—Mind if I sit?
He was twenty-two, I’d been told by Kathi, who also called him eye candy. He had pink cheeks and his bottom lip was thick and I thought I’d learned my lesson. He’d brought his mug of beer with him. His demeanor was gentle but indifferent, the gutting indifference of the young.
I said, I don’t mind, even though he’d already begun to sit down. “Werewolves of London” was playing. Behind his head a great silver and blue marlin hung from the wall. He asked what had brought me to California, and I said, Acting. That was what I was telling everyone so they would leave me alone. I figured there was enough shame associated with trying to be an actress in one’s late thirties that they wouldn’t press me.
River liked Japanese folk tales. He sold solar panels to celebrities in the Canyon. The company was owned by a couple of bros in Santa Monica and they’d promised him a stake. He drove the work truck during the week and on the weekends he had his fixed-speed. If he went out with friends they’d pick him up. They’d drive all the way into the Canyon from West Hollywood or downtown LA or Culver and they’d head down to Bungalow and drink whiskey near the water. Last week he’d sold a bundle to Lisa Bonet. Her hair was all cornrows and she was in raw silks. She had hundreds of children around her and they kept goats and the children drank the milk of the goats. River tasted it and said it was the flavor of grass.
—How do you get home at night, from the bars in Hollywood? I asked him. Kathi had told me there were no real taxis that went from Hollywood up to the Canyon. Or if they did, they were hundreds of dollars.
—Usually I don’t come back up here, he said. And of course I knew what that meant.
River was from Nebraska. He talked about hunting deer with his father and selling the meat to local purveyors.
—Where I’m from, he said, they sell deer meat at the gas stations. You can pay at the pump and someone will walk out a big bag of meat.
I pictured the bloody bag and the snow falling at a gas station on a country road. He leaned back in his chair and rested one foot on the bottom rung of my seat. He was wearing very light jeans that I don’t think were in style. You will always meet a new kind of man just when you thought you’d exhausted the supply.
“Werewolves of London” played again. Something must have been stuck in the system.
—Good thing I like this song, I said.
He laughed in a way that meant he’d never heard it. Sometimes I dreamed of being married to Warren Zevon, eating drugs with him at Joshua Tree and curry out of stained boxes in the rains of Shoreditch.
—Have you met Lenny? he asked.
—No.
—He’s an odd duck. He lost his wife a few months ago. He’s still pretty fucked up over it.
—How long do you think people should grieve?
—My father died eighteen months ago. That’s why I moved out here.
—I’m sorry.
—He had a heart attack while he was shoveling snow. I came home and found him on the driveway. You could see the asphalt in some parts. He was almost done.
I shook my head in pity. I meant it. I felt so much for him, but I was always feeling more than I should when it came to death. The bartender came and removed our dirty glasses. I was about to ask for another round when River said he should be going. He needed stamina to ride his bike up the two treacherous miles.
—I can give you a ride if you want.
He thought for a moment and said that would be great. For a third time, “Werewolves of London” came on. I said I hoped it would go on forever and realized that made me sound ridiculous.
—So nobody told you how the bills work, he said.
I told him no. The word bills filled me with dread. I was deeply in debt across many different cards. I’d sold some of the things Vic had bought for me and that had paid for the trip across the country, the movers, two months of rent.
—How it works is you and Kevin and Leonard are on the same propane, water, etcetera. I’m totally off the grid, so every month I read my meter. My total kilowatt-hour usage hovers around twenty-one hundred. My last reading was twenty eighty-five. So over the last twenty-four days I used ninety-seven. My total solar-power production is nine hundred eighty-seven. That means I produced a hundred and thirty-seven kilowatt-hours over the last twenty-four days, and that was directly subtracted from the group bill. So I’m responsible for minus-forty kilowatt-hours. I owe zero dollars and ten dollars was subtracted from the bills. Does that make sense?
I just looked at him.
—I save you guys money. I produce energy.
—And the rest of us suck it, like cows.
He laughed.
—It’s a good thing we like this song, he said.
I left two twenties and followed him into the warm, fragrant night. At the valet stand we waited behind a man in his sixties with a woman in her twenties. The woman wore a pink bandage dress and cheap shoes. The man had his palm on her rear. He moved his finger pads in concentric circles. He didn’t tip the valet.
River looked from them to me and smiled. Few things are more aphrodisiacal than looking down on another couple.
In the car his knee touched mine. And his hand touched mine when I shifted in the parking lot. Something about his youthful spirit made me think of all the times before something terrible happens.
—There are a lot of wild places in the Canyon. Great hiking spots. I’ve been thinking about getting a dog. But the coyotes.
—And the snakes? I said.
His bike bumped around in the back. I drove slowly because the trunk was open. The first thing he did was open his window all the way and stick his elbow out.
—The snakes are not as bad as the coyotes. Listen, be careful around Leonard. Lenny. I mean, he’s a great guy. But he’s really needy.
—Okay, I said, thinking of the way the young feared need. I was concentrating on the curves, which frightened me. I felt like the side of my body was scraping against the faces of the rocks. I was still wearing the white dress but I’d added lime oil to my neck and wrists and a thin gold bracelet of my mother’s.
River told me that Leonard’s father had envisioned something of a commune back when. A McCarthy-era bunker. Had I seen the Japanese soaking tub behind Leonard’s place? At one time there had been a fixed stream of tan ladies, porn stars and Satan worshippers and your general loose fun-loving types coming through the place. Their big bouncy breasts would float at the black surface of the tub.
He talked about the missile launch in North Korea. He talked about it the way young men spoke of threats, with political engagement and zero fear of radioactive death. River was deathless; I knew the mark of the deathless. They ate wasabi peas and used the same unlaundered towel for w
eeks.
—I practice stoicism, he told me.
In the driveway we stayed in the car for a few minutes. He was talking about Rotterdam. I thought it would be nice to have sex, mostly because I was thinking about the loss of his father, and that endeared him to me. The problem is it’s very difficult to find someone who will feel your loss with you. The same people who cry at movies will not blink an eye if you relate a tragedy. They will say, I’m so sorry for your loss. Like you have lost a thousand dollars on a horse race. Like it’s something replaceable. A pittance, in the grand scheme of things.
* * *
SOMETIMES HE DOESN’T COME OUT of his house for whole days, River had said of Leonard. But he watches from his window, so don’t do anything you wouldn’t want anyone to see. Like hanging laundry in a bikini or grilling topless.
I was imagining how many girls River had slept with. Probably he saw women naked several times a week. I liked the way he said topless like it was nothing. I’ve tried to explain that to other women—the feeling of liking men who don’t look for sex actively. Most men are crabs, crawling around with their pincers out.
I looked to the side and did the thing I always did when I moved into new, cramped quarters. I imagined a bassinet beside the bed. How crazy and stupid it would look. How terrible the staircase would be for going up and down with an infant. How dangerous everything was and how exhausting it would be to safeguard a ratty home. The bassinet was always wicker and white, something old-world that tottered when you walked into the room. I myself had never been in a bassinet. I’d slept between my parents for longer than was reasonable. They used to pass Marlboro Reds across my tiny body. I remembered the long reach of my mother’s slender arm across me and over to my small but muscly father. He would tip the ashes off. The ashtray was always on his side. Mimi, my mother called him when the cigarette was waiting over my head. Yes, Cici, my father said back.
I wanted to tell Alice those details before the end of that life as I knew it. I dreamed that night that she was the Antichrist, that she would be cruel and try to hurt me. Part of me wanted to hurt her. Sometimes I went around wanting to hurt everyone.
I woke in sweat at three in the morning. It was not the heat that woke me but a bright devil noise—a tone somewhere between the cry of a baby and the bray of a small dog. It felt so near that I didn’t want to turn on the light. Afraid there would be a tuft of silver fur on the bed.
I looked and saw only one coyote out of my bedroom window, but there were more out of sight. The one I saw stood on the tallest mound of land, about five hundred feet from me. It was slighter than I expected. I looked at it and it looked at me and then the sound abruptly stopped. It was a peaceful moment. It was windless and none of the landscape moved, as though it were a painting. Then the animal cast its head back, opened its jaws, and emitted a howl like stones cracking in fire. It was joined in chorus by the invisible others.
I ran around the house shutting all the windows. Down the grassy path I saw a light come on in Leonard’s shed-home. I tore my dress off in the agony of heat and noticed, for the first time, an air-conditioning unit mounted on the wall between the first and second floors. The realtor had said there wasn’t one. Probably the unit wasn’t working but I dragged my dining room table toward the door. I hoisted a chair on top of the table and climbed up. Standing on my toes like that, I could switch the thing on. Twice I nearly fell. Then I got it, hit the switch, and it turned on with a gratifying rumble. I smelled paint chips but soon felt the cool air. I was so happy that I began to cry.
From the daisy recipe tin next to the toaster I extracted two 10-miligram tablets of Ambien. I bit one in half. One and a half was my magic number for most pills. It was more than necessary without being too much.
In my dreams I was seldom as alone as I was in life. I wore baseball caps and had a child with me, almost always a girl. My breasts ached in my dreams as though they were heavy with milk. The girl was too old to nurse but I always had the feeling of pulling her into bed with me, against my chest. The bed was by the porthole of a window in some Greek or Italian seaside town. The child was in a white dress and always in danger. Other times we ate, happily, at a fast-food restaurant until suddenly a car was behind us and I understood it was someone coming to take her away from me. When I woke there was the mean little pain of missing someone’s laughter. There was also relief. I had no one for whom to care. No one to fear losing.
* * *
THAT FIRST MORNING IN THE Canyon I woke to pounding on the door. It sounded as though it had gone on for a long time before I’d become aware. One time Vic woke me with knocking like that. He said he’d thought I was dead. I hadn’t returned his calls for a few days. He was ashamed when I opened the door, but also he’d been angry. Later, after I’d sent him away and looked in the mirror, I realized why. There was mascara under my eyes. My mouth looked raw. I hadn’t done anything with anyone the night before, but he wouldn’t have believed me. Partly he liked to think I did.
BANG BANG BANG BANG. Then a pause and then four more.
From an opened suitcase on the floor I pulled on an itchy sweater that fell to my knees. I opened the door to find an old man.
He’d been angry but then he blinked. He looked down at my long legs.
—Joan, he said.
I nodded and squinted. When I woke too early on Ambien there was always the quivering terror—who did I fuck last night, what did I eat.
—I’m Leonard.
—Nice to meet you.
—Sorry, I seem to have woken you.
—Is everything all right?
—Well, he said, stepping into the house without invitation. He led with a cane. He wore old-man sneakers, a beige pair of New Balances. He indicated the air conditioner with his cane. That unit, he said, is not to be used. It’s very dangerous. It’s got asbestos. It causes cancer. It’s unsafe and the filter hasn’t been changed. It’s not approved by the city.
—Oh, I said. So why is it here?
—I need to have it taken down. Didn’t you see in the lease the line about the air conditioner.
—I thought all leases were standard.
—Well, yes, it’s a standard lease, but all leases have provisions.
He said this like I was a dumb thing.
—One about the AC, he continued. Another about pets. Female pets must be spayed.
—On account of the coyotes, I said. Kathi the realtor had explained this in depth. She’d said anything in heat would be torn to shreds by the coyotes. She’d instructed me on how to dispose of my tampons. To triple-bag them in dog waste sacks.
Leonard nodded. I lifted the chair on top of the table.
—What are you doing? Leonard asked nervously as I climbed. Don’t do that, he said, I’ll have Kevin come turn it off.
—Kevin is probably sleeping. He records through the night. I said this as I balanced on the shaking hardback. I wasn’t wearing any underwear and I felt the old man’s eyes between my thighs like a flare.
When I got down, he was winded, as though he’d been the one climbing on chairs. What a cheap little bastard, I thought. We pooled our bills. That was the reason he didn’t want me to use the air conditioner. And I couldn’t offer to pay extra. There were multiple periods in my life when I’d bought something in every store I walked into. I’d bought furniture on a whim, big Edison bulbs for antique iron lamps. I’d bought museum wine stoppers even though I had never not drunk a whole bottle the same night it was opened. But this was not one of those times. I had to turn off old air conditioners. I had to suffer the grotesqueries of crushed old men.
—There, I said. All better.
—I’m sorry to have woken you.
He had nice soft hair and a patrician face, but beyond that he was just another man who could smell it on me, the loss of a father.
—I’m late for an audition so I needed to be up, I said.
He was still nodding as I shut the door in his face.
5
After my brutal little landlord left, I got dressed. I used the same rose-colored balm on my cheeks and my mouth. I tried to look attractive but I knew before meeting her in person that she was, and would always be, beautifuller.
The notion of seeing her in person was nearly too much. I wanted to put it off indefinitely. But I couldn’t. It had become, by that point, irreversible. Seeing Alice would be the key not to my survival but to yours. Sometimes you are little more than a crimped apparition, like the heat that rises off the macadam in front of your car. By the time I’d been two days in the Canyon, you had come to exist. I couldn’t see your form, but I could feel you slipping from me. I could feel someone, something, pulling me away from you. Pulling me into a white room as I screamed for you. Give her back to me!
I would have burned the whole world down to get you back. But what if I could not?
* * *
LOS ANGELES WAS BOTH MORE remarkable and less beautiful than I expected. Cayennes and narrow streets and skinny women and the air of posh mystery. The grand homes of Beverly Hills were gruesome up close; the paint was chipping and everything felt empty, as though once-famous actors were dying inside.
But the canyon was different. It was orange and rocky, and the greens, the ragweed and the beach burr and the saltbush, were not plush but dry and brown or a singed yellow. In between the rocks sprouted sedge and mule fat. In the pictures I’d seen there had been up-close images of Indian paintbrush, the shocking canary of a beach evening primrose and the carpets of California poppy, like the Technicolor land of Oz. But now I saw it for what it was. The golden yarrow rattled with snakes.