The Unbinding

by Walter Kirn

  “‘The Unbinding’? Not a thing.”

  “Shoot. I was hoping you’d say it’s from the Bible. I’ve been thinking it sounds like something from the Bible.”

  “To young people who’ve never read it, most things they hear out of old folks sound that way. My grandson thinks ‘Eat your spinach’ is from the Bible.”

  “That’s funny. That’s cute. I have to hurry, though. Here’s my real problem. This guy I have a date with (that Kent I mentioned; he works there at your company, and no, I don’t plan to sleep with him immediately; just dinner and drinks, though I’m not so sure he drinks; he might be one of those grim, clean-living types), he told me this morning when he asked me out that he studied in San Francisco once, at ‘Berkeley College.’ Which didn’t sound right to me. And it’s not. I checked.”

  “It’s the University of California, Berkeley.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did you confront him on his fib?”

  “I should have, but I’d lied, too. About a movie. That eye surgeon I’ve been trying like mad to ditch, he had me rent it for him a week ago, but I never saw it myself. I said I had, though. I told this guy Kent it’s my all-time favorite, actually. It changed me. Inspired me. La-di-da. I’m ass-fucked.”

  “When is your date? Do you still have time to watch it?”

  “The trouble is that the movies this surgeon likes, I never understand them. They’re way beyond me. And Kent’s going to want to talk about it, probably.”

  “Can the surgeon explain the film to you perhaps?”

  “I dumped him for good on my way to Colonel Geoff’s here because I’d told Kent I wasn’t seeing anyone and hadn’t since my divorce three years ago, which was actually closer to seven months ago but happened way down in Daytona, so I’m safe. Plus it was an annulment, technically, which means the marriage never legally took place. Which means I can’t misrepresent the facts about it because there aren’t any. Gone. Withdrawn. Erased.”

  “An annulment on what basis?”

  “We never actually had intercourse. Long story. My ex had anxieties. Me too.”

  “So why would you tell your new suitor you’re divorced?”

  “To make myself sound more substantial? More mature? An annulment comes off as an ‘oops,’ a silly slip—no scar tissue, no hard lessons, no inner journey—but with a divorce there’s core emotional trauma followed by gradual spiritual renewal.”

  “Let’s pause and summarize. Let’s halt the mudslide.”

  “That’s all I need. A halt. That’s why I called.”

  “On top of seeking some stranger’s admiration for cherishing a movie you’ve never seen (and doubt your ability to comprehend), you crave his respect for surviving an ordeal you haven’t undergone.”

  “But know I will.”

  “The odds of divorce are only one in two, dear.”

  “Not in my case. I have different odds. I’ve learned from reading medication labels that if there’s a three percent or greater chance of some uncomfortable weird side effect—blurred vision, say, or difficulty swallowing—I’m basically guaranteed I’m going to get it. That’s who I am, I’ve learned. The failure rate. The person they print the warning stickers for…I’m coming. I’m dishing the soup up. Hold your horses.”

  “It’s time for you to go. He’s hungry.”

  “Lonely. He gets depressed from working on his lists. Those were his golden years. Colonel Sunset Strip. You’ve been terrific, though. This really helped. Honesty. Openness. Clarity. Why not? Otherwise, what’s there to love? The fear?”

  “You’re right.”

  “The cover-up? The performance?”

  “No. You’re right.”

  “Saying I want to talk to you again, how do I make sure I get you? What’s your schedule? I feel like unless we keep this going here I’ll lose my nerve. I’ll turn all fake again. All shaky and fake, like before I left Daytona. Active angel? I’m turning off the Crock-Pot. You there? I’ll unplug it. Are we connected? Fuck!”

  “My code is Operator Fifteen-F. I’m here from nine to six except on Wednesdays. An eight-day vacation in Budapest nine weeks from now.”

  “You scared me. My heart stopped.”

  “I saw that on my screen.”

  “I just had a pretty wild, icky thought. Say that I do break down and sleep with Kent, and say that this ear jack flips on while we’re in bed….”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. It happens.”

  “Like how often?”

  “More and more. Like everything.”

  “One more excuse to postpone penetration.”

  “Your ‘anxieties’ have persisted then, I take it.”

  “I think I’ve babbled enough for now. Good God!”

  “Fifteen-F in North Platte, Sabrina. I’m here for you.”

  7.

  [MyStory.com]

  Occasionally, maybe twice a year, revved up after a hard-fought paintball match, I’ll wash my face but leave my body spattered, concealing the “wounds” with a clean white business shirt that I button up tight around my flushed-pink neck. It’s a ritual I’ve evolved, a private ceremony. I put on the tie and gray suit I bought for work and rarely wore after my training period, preferring looser outfits in lighter fabrics, and I head to the bar of the W Hotel, where the bands and athletes hang out when they’re in town. There I order a single neat manhattan, amber and cold, with a ghostly sunken cherry. It was my grandfather’s cocktail. I first tasted one at his Elks club in Racine, the night he celebrated his sixtieth birthday. It was also the night his only son, my father, flushed away his visitation rights by taking me out of state without permission to visit my grandfather and snagging a DUI on the drive back. I didn’t see either man much after that, but I was fourteen by then, a hard fourteen, and convinced that I was the only man I needed. Now, of course, I’m the only man I have, which is why I try to go easy on the liquor. Easy on all those things. In all their forms.

  But I do like a nice manhattan now and then.

  Yesterday, Sunday, knowing I ought to stay home and watch Aguirre before my date on Wednesday, I ran to the range for a quick skirmish and suffered two gaudy fluorescent yellow “kill shots” during my squad’s disorganized attempt to free a female peace corps volunteer from an urban terror hideout. It was a new scenario for me, engrossing and overstimulating. The blindfolded “hostage,” a guy in a blond wig, shivered my skull with shrieks and pleas that bounced at slashing angles off the tin walls. The match was held indoors, in a vacant old leased warehouse we’ve spray-painted roof-to-floor with hellish slogans. DECAPITATE! REVOLUTION! DEATH TO TRAITORS! Lots of brutal insignia and symbols, too. Sword-pierced eyeballs. Bloody talons. Entrails. The only rules are nothing Nazi or racist or anti–anything that really exists—no nation, church, group, idea, or individual.

  With two exceptions. Two organizations.

  Guess.

  Click here for the first one. Click here for the second.

  Maybe you dislike those outfits, too. Maybe you love them. Maybe you’re involved with them. Or maybe you don’t think about them any. But you’d abhor them if you only knew what sort of damage they’re capable of causing. It’s my secret, their crimes, and they have to stay my secret, because that’s how the magic of curses operates. Call down destruction on something, then shut up. Desecrate its image, then veil its image. Wait for the crumbling. Then take credit for it.

  Maybe those clicks will hurry things along.

  Or maybe there were no clicks and it’s just me here.

  To gaze ungazed upon. I’ll take the deal. It sounds depressing, but when you think about it, it’s the same deal the creator gave himself. And the creator had all the deals to choose from. I believed that I did, too, back when, but somehow the thought prevented me from acting, which was why, for a time, all my choices went away. According to a wise old priest who counseled me toward the end of my decade of confusion (the man who steered me to AidSat, actually, and provided the reference that helped
me land the job), the time to choose is always now, and the only two choices available are these: Do or do not.

  “Do what?” I asked him.

  “Anything.” (He wasn’t a conventional sort of priest.)

  So after Sunday’s paintball match, I acted. I dressed and drove to the W Hotel. I grinned the whole trip. I valet-parked. I winked at the floral arrangement in the lobby. Here’s to you, white tulips.

  Manhattan time.

  Ten bucks for the drink and five bucks for the tip I hoped would coax the hipster bartender into pointing out a lounging celebrity. I’m lousy at spotting them on my own unless they’re actively signing autographs. I don’t admire them enough to memorize their faces. Most famous folks in the fancy magazines now could easily be switched with normal people who, after getting their hair and skin and muscles done by the California beauty experts, could earn the same millions, I bet. The same attention. Tom Cruise? Let’s build ourselves a new Tom Cruise. Let’s name the entity Jack Race. Then let’s vote on our pick.

  It would be a tie, I’m guessing.

  But the bartender wasn’t a gossip, or even friendly. I sipped my first drink in silence, frustrated, glowering at the five I’d given him that he hadn’t bothered to touch yet. Sometimes they do that, as if it’s not enough. As if it’s just your opening bid. I contemplated removing it and replacing it with three linty, wrinkled ones. Maybe he’d notice and grab them. If not, I’d take away another dollar.

  That’s when my old girlfriend Jesse walked in. By the confidence she showed, I gathered that this was her regular watering hole. She had on a pair of tall X-laced leather boots that seemed designed for kicking in bedroom doors and giving seizures to fat old billionaires whom she was extorting money from. When I’d known her she’d been a hostess at Outback Steakhouse, outdoorsy and slightly windblown, a freckled chuckler, but now she looked combed and carved and oiled down.

  “It’s Cass,” she said. An old nickname I’d used when dating, based on my initials (K and S). Back then, two years before I went to AidSat, I was demoing Vita-Mix blenders at fairs and supermarkets and trying to keep my day and night sides separate. A blender demonstrator is a performer whose corny voice and manner must be suppressed in casual social settings. The after-hours nickname helped me do this.

  I bought Jesse a drink, as she clearly expected me to, and wasn’t happy when it took the form of a twelve-dollar champagne cocktail made with a shot of dense bloodred liqueur that oozed and blobbed to the bottom of the slim glass and somehow held its beguiling swirly shape. Like the soul in the pit of the body. If there are souls. The priest assured me that there are, but that they’re not inside us. He told me that’s a misconception generated by the fact that it gets dark when people shut their eyes, and by our assumption that darkness always hides something. That darkness always has depths.

  “What are you up to nowadays?” I asked her. My arousal made me feel sorry for Sabrina. I’d been cooling on her since the morning we made our date—ever since she’d looked back over her shoulder to see if I was watching her walk away. The glance showed doubt, which is one of my big turnoffs. The other one (which Sabrina also displayed, and at the very same moment) is the inability to live with doubt.

  “I’m doing Marriott time-share presentations.”

  “Roping folks in with show tickets and things? I fell for one of those in Las Vegas once. A free steak-and-lobster buffet, unlimited trips. Except that they kept me prisoner all day first, filling out loan applications and studying floor plans.”

  “I show them a movie, and then they’re free to leave. Anyway, I’m evolving out of it.”

  “Into what?”

  “Forensic psychology. A master’s degree through an online university.”

  That’s when my plan to ask for Jesse’s new phone number became a plan to focus on the rough, scaly patch that used to discourage me from kissing her neck. In young women, a sudden interest in criminology means that they’ve given up on finding love. Or more specifically, on giving love. I’ve run into two or three cases of this syndrome. The last was a late-night Active Angel caller who’d gone from stripper to arson investigator and kept me on the line for ninety minutes as she talked herself out of poisoning a pit bull that her new boyfriend insisted share their bed. Along the way I got her whole biography. It started with lots of church and wholesome team sports, took the usual downturn when she reached drinking age, and gravely worsened when she moved to Florida, where—I’ve learned from our trademarked LifeSit maps, which measure things like level of sedative use and divorces within six months of marriage—the misery and mischief clusters once it escapes the small towns and medium-size cities. Those are zip codes I hope I never get mail in, seascapes I never want to see. Lean criminologists in string bikinis, starving pit bulls tied to stakes, Christians-only swingers parties. Florida is the rain forest of human behavior, with ten thousand times the rare species of other environments. Hawaii and San Diego are dicey, too.

  I swiveled on my stool to check for ballplayers and saw, in a gloomy corner booth, alone with a Sunday paper and a dark beer, my pal Rob from the gym. Had he been there all along? I waved. He folded his paper, nodded, stood. There were bike clips on his trouser cuffs and a vee of what looked like freshly salon-tanned skin beneath the open collar of his polo shirt. I’d never estimated his age before, but I pegged it now as forty-six. A silvery, predatory forty-six that can finally afford what it longed for at eighteen but knows that it doesn’t have forever to get it.

  Jesse and Rob traded smiles as he walked over, and, before either one had said a word, I sensed a jagged mutual attraction, all lust and resentment and moral distaste, that I wanted nothing to do with. The genie in Rob called forth by Jesse’s legs was not, I sensed, on good terms with the rest of him, perhaps because Rob had kept it bound so long. I expected that it would fight fiercely to have its way with him. And Jesse would take its side for her own purposes. Maybe to keep her closet full of boots.

  In the ensuing small talk I made a point of mentioning Sabrina, exaggerating my hopes for our first date in order to signal to Rob and Jesse that my interests lay elsewhere, outside the bar, and they should consider themselves alone together. I think they appreciated this gesture, particularly Rob, who encouraged me to draw it out.

  “What’s this girl’s background?” he asked me. “What’s she about?” That’s when I realized something odd. Jesse, just moments before, had called me Cass, and Rob hadn’t flinched. Nor had he called me Kent yet. Either he had a keen sense of discretion or he hadn’t been listening when we met last Friday. He had an intriguing manner, Rob. Focused but not curious.

  “Powerful lawyer’s daughter. Educated. Lightly educated, but enough. Not bookish or driven, maybe, but aware. Cultural, too. Aspires to be, at least. Flirtatious but deeply gun-shy about relationships. On the edge of a breakdown that never quite arrives.”

  “And that’s the part that interests you, no doubt.” Jesse said this, but it came from Rob—her verbal translation of his arched left eyebrow.

  “She claims she’s divorced, but I checked and it’s not true. She thinks that it makes her sound more worldly, maybe.”

  “So how did you woo this psycho?” Jesse said.

  “By radiating bored contempt.” It was one of those jokes that disguises a conviction. A conviction you’d find repulsive in someone else.

  “So all you did was stand there? She came to you? ‘Hello, there. Take me. But first let me tell you what damaged goods I am.’ And that’s appealing to the new Cass, all spiffy and poised and cocktail-hour cool?”

  “It’s a special occasion,” I said. “I died today. Two shots to the midsection. I shouldn’t be here. I’m toasting my recovery from fatal wounds.”

  “Everyone here is toasting that,” said Jesse. “That’s what these swank hotel bars are all about.”

  She seemed to be speaking some version of Rob’s thoughts still. They’d be in bed before midnight, not a doubt, and probably stay there unti
l tomorrow lunchtime. Rob was a man who’d be missing a lot of work soon. Screwing and shoe shopping, dipping into savings, punching his tanning card three times a week. I could feel him already budgeting and scheduling. And waiting for me, whoever I was, to scram. He’d find me when he had questions about Jesse, after she revealed that we’d been close once, and this would create an alliance, I expected. It might even gain me a steady paintball partner. First, though, Rob wanted me to vanish.

  He looked like a man who thought that he could will it.

  But I still had to answer Jesse’s question. “If two people aren’t pursuing each other equally—at least in their thoughts, their dreams, in fairyland—they can’t really find each other,” I philosophized. “You guys have your next round on me.” I flipped a twenty down. “On Sundays I try to get to bed by seven. Rest up for Death Day. That’s what we call Monday.”

  Rob and Jesse squinted at me.

  “When everything suddenly hits again,” I said, “and people aren’t in position, aren’t quite ready. Asthma attacks. Bad accidents. Burst arteries.”

  “How gruesome. You’d best get on it, Cass,” Rob said. Then he picked up my twenty, turned away, and called for a fresh bowl of snack mix and two more drinks. Without a glance back. Without a quick last question for the guy with more than one name and bright paint between his fingers.

  8.

  [By courier]

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