Fly Me

by Daniel Riley

  The backpack is light but far from empty; it holds its shape. Her finger inadvertently grazes a zipper, and her hand springs from it as though the zipper’s hot. Still, she tries to ignore what is no longer ignorable—that she’s accompanying Billy on dealing rounds. She’s never really known a dealer—was never the one, at least, among her friends in college who went to the corner to meet the guy. Never had to give out an address or phone number. She starts thinking about it and realizes she’s never even been in possession of what she might call her own personal supply. It’s pretty selfish. She’s always accepted a hit but never risked even so much as the direct purchase of her ten-dollar share.

  And yet here she is: Suzy Whitman, Billy Zar, the backpack. A small part of her wants to put a stop to whatever this is. It will end up somewhere not good. And yet this is action. This is what got her out of the house in the first place. This is the accelerator.

  The house is farther east than she’s walked in town. They cross the highway—the big, six-lane thoroughfare that gets you to the freeways in a hurry, and to the airport and the neighboring beach towns. The house is on a corner, the low stucco walls of its backyard exposed to the sidewalk traffic. The yard is stuffed with a hundred people—a blurry Xerox of the scene at the Drunk ’n’ Draw—dancing around a fire, whose flames are lunging for the lowest branches of a magnolia tree.

  “They’re gonna burn that tree down,” Suzy says.

  “Very possible but unlikely,” Billy says. “I think the tree’s kinda bored with the fire pit. Been there so long. If it was gonna go up, it would’ve happened by now.”

  It doesn’t take long for Billy to be recognized. He hugs friends and laughs at jokes that Suzy can’t hear. He shouts her name to other guests, and they body-nod as though they’ve never been more pleased to meet someone. As she and Billy pass the fire, Suzy can’t help but worry for its scale. It’s expansive and growing steadily. She couldn’t vocalize a concern if she wanted to, though, so she figures it might be worth grabbing a drink. When she draws her attention back toward Billy, he’s gone. Business, she figures, and so she finds the cooler and drinks a beer in the corner quickly while she watches the flames grow taller.

  A sliding glass door—smudged around the handle from what Suzy guesses were late-night, pitch-dark attempts to get inside—leads to a sparsely decorated office. One plush chair, an orange rug, and a small television propped up on a book. The TV has a ball game on, Dodgers and Expos, international. Over Vin Scully’s stat lines, the A side of a Three Dog Night album carries her through the house. Down a narrow hallway she hears a toilet flush and a small pack of women producing the noise of their number squared. She finds Billy in the kitchen with two other guys his age, each, like Billy, with swimmer’s hair the color of white oil.

  “Suzy, come here, come here,” Billy says. “This is Kermit. And this is Chester.” Suzy shakes their hands, and Billy goes on: “Suzy moved to Sela recently and tonight I’m her guide.”

  “I’ll bet,” Kermit says. Chester ducks his head into his chest to hide a smile from Suzy. The light in Billy’s face dims. It isn’t that Suzy doubts the attraction, or even the possibility of her needling its effect someday later. It’s just that she’s chalked up his accommodating spirit to compatibility (what her mother insufferably calls “peapodding”)—not purely sex. For the first time her mind begins to identify a familiar plot element, the gracious host with an ulterior motive. Something recognized, she is certain now, by everyone she’s met all day—longtime friends of his and coconspirators, whose willing compliance in stringing her up suddenly stings.

  “Suzy, check this out,” Billy says, changing the subject. “Chester’s got a pig.”

  Suzy figures that’s the nickname for a bulldog or a bong. She keeps her reaction neutral, not wanting to draw more attention to her waifish gullibility, her willingness to be told anything.

  But in the living room, right there, in a cage meant for a large dog, is a potbellied pig no longer than her forearm and hand.

  “He’s a baby,” Billy says. “His name is Hamlet.”

  Suzy sips her beer. “The mad prince.”

  “Hmm?” Chester says.

  She kneels and offers Hamlet her hand. “I like the allusion, the name.”

  “You know Hamburger Hamlet?”

  “Nah, I meant—just…”

  Chester is distracted by a crash in the corner. A head-high indoor rubber tree, balanced in its black plastic basin and decorated with red-white-and-blue streamers, has been tipped onto the hardwood, spilling black soil to their feet.

  Hamlet pinballs from one end of the cage to the other, his miniature hooves occupying all space at once, nostrils dilating with fright. He shakes like he’s freezing. Billy bends down and extends his fingers tenderly. He presses his palm to the side of the cage and hushes Hamlet, even though the pig is silent. Hamlet sniffs his palm, distracted from the commotion in the room, focused on this single point of interest.

  Suzy crouches down beside Billy. “It’s none of my business, but he doesn’t seem to like this much.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Billy says. “I love these guys, but Chester shouldn’t have gotten the pig. It was a terrible idea. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him like this.”

  “Where did they even find him?”

  “At the pound.”

  “Really?”

  “They went to pick out a dog and got Ham instead.”

  “Won’t he get big?”

  “Hundred and fifty pounds within a year, Chester says.”

  “Jeez.”

  “I don’t know what they’ll do then. In three months he’ll be too big for the cage. And besides, it’s illegal. Anyone who wants to could turn them in.”

  “Doesn’t that bother them?”

  “Look around,” Billy says. Kermit and Chester are sweeping up the wet soil off the floorboards, each taking turns running out the front door to toss a panful into the yard. Beside them, pulling long double gulps from plastic cups, are the girls who knocked the tree over, scrunching their faces with inconsequence as they admire Hamlet from a distance. “They walk him on the Strand. He’s getting to be known. Chester and Kermit are instantly spottable, notorious for lots of things. I don’t know why they feel the need to draw so much attention to themselves.”

  This could mean anything, but Suzy takes it to mean something about whatever business they had in the kitchen.

  “Let’s bring Hamlet out to the yard,” Billy says.

  “’Kay.”

  “Chester, Suzy and me are gonna take Hamlet out front, let him run around some, yeah?”

  “Careful, brother, that little bastard’s greasy.”

  “Quick, slick!” Billy says to the pig. “He thinks we’ll lose you.” Billy latches the screen door behind them. “It probably wouldn’t be such a bad thing.…”

  Chester and Kermit’s front yard is one of the few on the block with a picket fence. The fence is a muddied green, like too many drops of black got in the paint can. Billy wraps Hamlet in a wrestler’s half nelson to carry him, but as they move down the front steps, Billy calmly tells Suzy he’s losing his grip. Suzy rushes ahead and locks the gate, and Hamlet falls to the lawn and starts booking laps.

  The yard is surprisingly well manicured, uniform in length, and consistent in color. Rich and well watered, spongy like bundles of wire. At the far end of the yard is a small rose garden that was no doubt planted well before Kermit and Chester arrived. Hamlet digs at the base of the bush nearest the street.

  “He’s looking for truffles,” Suzy says.

  “Hmm?” Billy says. He pulls two beers from concealed pockets.

  “In parts of the South and in Europe, they use pigs to sniff out these fancy mushrooms—”

  “A Yale thing,” he says.

  “Nope.”

  “Fancy mushrooms?”

  “They’re not that uncommon. But they are stupid expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

 
; “Don’t know. A lot, though. Worth more than their weight in gold.”

  “Sounds like something worth getting involved in,” he says.

  She wants to ask but knows it’s not the right time: why the dealing when he could make money any other way?

  “How long till you need to be at the airport?” he says.

  “You have a watch?”

  “It’s five to ten.”

  “I should probably get going, then.”

  The pig is still digging.

  “How does it work once you land in New York? Will you be there for a while?”

  “I’m turning around and flying back tomorrow afternoon. After another few weeks or so, I guess they start to give you days wherever you go. My sister will sit on a beach in Miami for forty-eight hours while she waits to fly back. She might even get to go to Europe one day, too. Though it’s tough to picture her parading around les boulevards.”

  “How come?”

  “She’s just very…American. I would’ve lost a bet about who might be the first one to get to Europe.”

  “Seems like something you could do soon, right?”

  “We’ll see if I stick around as long as her.”

  “Who would bail before the perks kick in? I’d do the work till they sent me to Australia. Then I’d walk off the plane, buy a board, figure it out on another continent for a while.”

  “Didn’t you tell me at the party that you’ve never even left California?”

  “A guy I know spent nine months down there doing construction. Said the day he showed up, he walked out to this beach above Brisbane and it was just this massive swell, cheap beer, topless women. He grew up here—says that beach town there is like it was here when his folks were young. Thirty years behind, but with all the goods for the taking. Things are getting a little crazy here, ya know?”

  “I’ll take your word for it. It seems pretty mellow to me.”

  “Yeah, I just wonder sometimes if it’s over, if we missed it or something.”

  “I thought you were the mayor of Sela,” she says. “Director of public relations.”

  She smiles, but Billy’s eyes are fixed on the yard. He squints at Hamlet.

  “I dunno—maybe it’s that fucking pig. He’s wigging me out.”

  A breeze shakes the fronds in the towering palms across the street. Hamlet stands on two legs and presses his front hooves against a picket, peering out at the street. He circles to the middle of the yard and then, with a running start, leaps at the fence, slamming hard into the waist of the picket. Both Suzy and Billy fix their posture upright.

  Hamlet returns to the middle of the yard. He rushes toward the same mark again, this time leaping a little higher but hitting the fence with greater force. A whine slips from Hamlet, floating. He trots back to the center of the yard. He’s cut his shoulder. Suzy can see the blood, wet against his coat.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Billy says, moving quickly across the yard.

  The final attempt, he springs at a greater distance from the fence and his forelegs reach above the crossbeam, his lower half swinging into a picket belly-first. For a moment he hangs there, halfway free, but then he drops backward with a piercing squeal, landing on his side and resting steady there. He breathes slowly, widely. Billy and Suzy kneel beside him and touch his skin. His inky eyes are fixed forward, but the pig seems pained and distant. His open mouth pulls back into a misleading grin.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Billy says.

  “What do we do about him?” Suzy says.

  “Nah, I mean with him. I know this place we can take him. This big house with some acreage up on the Peninsula. They’ll take him for now and we’ll figure it out later.”

  “With what car? I’ve gotta get to the airport.”

  “What’s the latest you can be there?”

  “Eleven, I guess.”

  “We can make that. Whose car were you gonna use?”

  “I was gonna take a cab.”

  “Is there any other option?”

  “I can drive my brother-in-law’s, I guess.”

  “Is that really a possibility?” She knows this is a bad idea. She’s already cut it close and needs to start making moves to get to check-in. “We’re not actually that far from where you said you’re living, right?”

  Suzy tries to conjure the cross streets but decides to take his word for it instead.

  “All right, you pick him up, and walk down to the end of the block. I’ll tell Chester and Kermit that he got out and ran away. They might care, but they’ve got a party going. I doubt they’ll go looking for him tonight.”

  It seems reasonable enough. Suzy approaches Hamlet slowly and crouches beside him. He doesn’t move, and so she cradles him along her forearm, hoists him onto her hip. Suzy has held a baby just once, but this comes easily. He’s lighter than she figured. A hundred and fifty pounds is a long way off. He squirms, but only halfheartedly, instinctively, and soon he’s breathing quiet in her arms. In the shadows at the edge of the neighbor’s house, Suzy listens to Billy and Chester.

  “What?! How the fuck did he get out?!”

  “I don’t know, dude. He was digging over by the rosebush, and then he just…leapt.”

  “He leapt?”

  “You should’ve seen it. He just trotted over to the edge of the grass near the steps and got a running start and leapt.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Not shitting you.”

  “That little fucker.”

  “I know.”

  “What do I do?” Chester says.

  “I mean, he tore out of here. Right up the hill. He wanted the fuck out.”

  “Jeez.”

  “I’m sorry, hombre.”

  “Me too. It’s been some of the best weeks of my life.”

  “Yeah…,” Billy says. “So listen, I’m gonna take off. We cool?”

  “Yeah, brother, thanks for stopping by.”

  “Cool, cool, I’ll see you next time.”

  Suzy carries Hamlet down to the corner, where Billy told her to wait. He takes the pig and they make their way through the dark grid. It’s even hillier in this part of town than the others she’s explored. High-rolling waves of asphalt, gullies and precipices. One block is lined on both sides with palms. Another with magnolias. Their street eventually dead-ends at a sand dune that rises like a quarter pipe. A railroad-tie staircase carves its way by switchback up its side, two hundred steps. At the top of the dune Suzy recognizes the black horizon of the water, and the map in her mind defogs: they’re five minutes from the house.

  Billy waits outside and Suzy rushes in. Mike is mixing drinks on the countertop, reading the Times (New York). The shower is running. When Mike notices Suzy, he peeks his head through the gap made by the cupboards and the island.

  “You got time for dessert or are you heading out?”

  “I’ve gotta hit it,” Suzy says. “But listen, huge favor…”

  She says she’ll have the car back in the afternoon, she’ll fill up the tank. Just needs to run an errand before the flight. Mike offers to drop her off, and she squirms out of that, too. She grabs her prepacked carry-on bag, and two minutes, tops, she’s out in the alley with keys to the Karmann Ghia.

  Suzy drives. Billy holds the pig in his lap. They make greens like downhill skiers split gates. Everything is A-OK. Where they’re heading is the private property of some guy Billy met once. A guy with horses who has permits for weird animals, too. The house is gated, but Billy knows a dirt service road off the side street—a way to get up to the edge of the property.

  “How do you know this person, again?” Suzy says.

  “I made a house call once. There were explicit instructions. They had me use this road.”

  The house sits atop the Peninsula, the land mass that cups the southern end of the bay. As they pull to the side of the road, Billy thumbs over his shoulder, indicating that Suzy should turn around and look. The black bay like a D. The beachline stretch
ing north from the Peninsula through the South Bay towns, past Sela, and then the airport, and, beyond that, through the smog layer to Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu. A bleating light pitching up from LAX vanishes into the ceiling of clouds.

  There are five-story eucalyptuses everywhere in sight. The house is farther up the hill, but the property has an iron fence robed in oleander bushes. The pig is nestled in a towel on the floorboard.

  “Apparently, this guy even has a lion and a panther.”

  “That’s not real,” Suzy says.

  Billy raises his hands, just the messenger.

  “Can Hamlet cut it with a lion and a panther?” Suzy says.

  “I dunno, man. But we’re sort of out of options.”

  “Are you just gonna…ring the doorbell?”

  “I don’t think we can do that, either. National holiday and all.”

  “So, we’re…”

  “Listen, he wanted out of that situation. And this is a better one. He might have to fend for himself tonight, but it’ll be fine by the morning.”

  “Is this a good idea?”

  “Listen,” Billy says, “I didn’t mention it before ’cause it’s pretty fucked up, but I’ve seen this little guy eat bacon. Just rolled right up to the living room table the morning after a party and cleared people’s plates of fucking bacon. This will be an improvement.”

  Suzy frowns in the radio light.

  Billy bends back into the car, looking for something in the glove compartment, and when he emerges, he bites the cap off of a dark felt marker.

  “Is that shirt expensive?” he says, gesturing toward hers.

  “What? It was a gift.”

  “I’d write it out on mine, but dark on dark’s not gonna work, ya know?”

  “I don’t get what you’re saying.”

  “We’ll write a note to the guy, so that when Hamlet turns up in the morning, he’ll have an idea what’s going on. His name’s Mr. Honeywell, I remember. He’ll figure it’s from someone worth helping if we add the note. I just don’t have any paper.”

  “I’d really rather not…,” Suzy says.

  “Well, how ’bout this: you give me the shirt, or I leave you out here to find your way back alone.”