THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE

by Mark Russell

Goldman nodded. 'Yes, it's the same stuff.'

  'Well, how much do you want for it then?' Carmen appraised Goldman as if he were a cheap-shot salesman on her doorstep, then tossed the powder back onto the coffee table.

  'No, take it as payment for the shower,' he said.

  'My.' Carmen guzzled more cola. 'How surprising.'

  'I imagine generosity will always be surprising to someone like you,' Michelle put in.

  'Well, 'chelly dearest, I've had little experience of generosity since doing business with that bloodsucking dealer you call a boyfriend. What he does with all the money we both give him I'll never know. Though I should be grateful I receive something tangible for such payment.' Carmen moved forward like a cobra readying to strike. 'But then looking at that black eye of yours, I suppose you are known to on occasion as well.'

  'Ah, screw you,' Michelle snapped.

  Carmen grinned icily and leaned back in her seat, her vitriolic jab having found its mark.

  'That's it, I'm leaving.' Michelle jumped up from the sofa, her anger filling the room like an electrical charge.

  'Please do.' Carmen studied the splayed fingers of her right hand as if admiring their delicate structure.

  Michelle looked down at Goldman, her heated aura suddenly replaced by womanly charm. 'Could you, um, give me a lift home, Scott? I know it's a bit out of the way, but it'd be good for us to, you know ...'

  Goldman and Carmen both waited for her to finish. Michelle blushed slightly as if returned from a base instinct that had momentarily claimed her. She bit her lip and said to Goldman, 'It'd be good for us, you know, to get to know each other. So can you, um ... give me a lift home?'

  'Sure, sure.' Goldman's unreserved acquiescence betrayed his attraction for the vulnerable blonde staring down at him.

  'Right.' Michelle reached for the bag of powder on the table.

  'No, it's mine,' Carmen said.

  'No way,' Michelle answered back. Carmen leapt from the sofa and the two women were again at odds. Pushing and flailing and cussing.

  'Hey, stop it.' Goldman grabbed Michelle and disentangled her from the dispute. 'Give it up,' he urged, realizing it was the second time that night he'd pulled two fighting women apart.

  'No way.' Michelle freed herself and snatched up the disputed powder. Goldman sensed it was high time to leave. He guided Michelle towards the door.

  'I'm sure Terence is gonna be interested in all this,' Carmen said with barefaced menace. 'Hmm, he's gonna be pissed alright.' She whacked her fist excitedly on the sofa.

  'Screw you. And screw Terence too. You'll make a great team behind my back.' Michelle grabbed her leather jacket from the hand-carved Balinese chair by the door. 'And you're deluded to think you won't end up like him. A principle-less has-been always looking for the take.'

  'Well, as they say about has-beens, they've had a better innings than never-beens.'

  Michelle wrenched open the door, her white knuckled grip more than equal to the task. Goldman put on his shoes and grabbed the sports bag he'd brought in from the car (said bag bulging from soiled clothing and blood-spattered runners). He nodded farewell to Carmen and stepped out into the hallway. But Michelle was a long way from finished.

  'Yeah, screw you, Carmen.' Michelle jabbed her finger at her long-time friend, and Goldman sensed it wasn't the first time the women had parted on such terms.

  'Look, why don't you call Terence and go score off him. I'm sure he'll find your patronage at this hour ... appealing, to say the least.' Michelle's spite was untrammelled. 'Oh, that's right, I forgot. You can't use your phone because it was disconnected when you were ... how did you put it? Oh, yeah, “partying with the Black Roses on Mustique”. For God's sake, wise up, Carmen. It's about time you cleaned up your dumb junkie ass!'

  Carmen pitched her empty Coke can at Michelle who slammed the door shut before the projectile could hit her.

  Alone in her apartment, Carmen loosed a string of stifled sobs. Her eyes moistened, her chest constricted, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She looked at the bright Warhol prints near the door and collected herself. She pressed her knees together and ran her hands along her brown thighs, back and forth, back and forth. Hmm, I'm gonna tell Terence all right. You bet I am! She crossed her arms and hunched forward, her vindictive emotion and physical addiction wrapped about each other like mating serpents.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Haslow sat at a table that afforded a view of the nightclub's entrance. He nursed a double scotch and ice and had to fight back an urge to down the drink in one or two gulps. Throbbing dance music and the club's boisterous Friday-night crowd challenged his overtaxed senses. A shoulder-to-shoulder sea of partying young people was hardly his choice of setting for a serious discussion with an unknown quantity like his brother. Still he was hardly in a position to demand anything.

  It was a strange and desperate feeling to be suddenly stripped of everything he'd made for himself since leaving the Delaware orphanage. Truth be told, he'd never felt so waylaid in his life. So much was behind him and little if anything before him. In any case he had to stay focused. He couldn't afford to slip and fall. No safety net awaited him.

  He remembered an orphanage brother drumming into him once that it was our reaction to circumstance, not circumstance itself, which truly determined our lot. The soft-spoken brother had said winning was not so much fortunate circumstance as gainful attitude. The ongoing ability to utilize any advantage, however slim, which might turn the unfriendly cards we'd been dealt into a winning hand. Haslow had taken what solace he could from the long-ago advice, but hardly felt suffused with destiny-making power as he sat alone at his table.

  He scanned the vibrant dance floor and crowded bar, admiring the many young women in the club. Their painted faces and shapely limbs were a welcome reprieve from his dire predicament. A frizzy-haired girl in high heels, a black micro-dress clinging to her torso like it had been sprayed on, stood close to his table. She laughed with girlfriends and nursed a cocktail with a small orange umbrella poking from the glass. Haslow sensed her honey brown thighs, the warm soft flesh leading to the prize mound between her legs...

  He fell back in his seat and ran a finger around the rim of his glass in an effort to curtail his runaway senses. The girl moved her hips to more upbeat music and threw back her head in riotous laughter. She glanced suspiciously at him before returning to the tipsy chatter of her equally attractive girlfriends. Alone in his corner, Haslow felt painfully out of place. His generation hardly belonged here.

  He drained his scotch. And there was his brother. It was a miracle he recognized him, considering the jostling sea of ill-defined faces in the club and how long it had been since the brothers last met. But it was Peter sure enough. An attractive young blond clung to Peter's side, like a sucker fish to a shark.

  The moment had come. He stood up and waved and caught his brother's attention, an attraction of genes which circumvented the revelling crowd.

  Haslow sat with Peter and Candy in a booth on the club's upper level. A thick safety-glass partition ran alongside their table (much to Haslow's relief, for the transparent barrier muted the loud music coming up from the dance floor). Haslow gazed at the electric sign mounted over the downstairs bar: PURPLE HAZE. Purple neon tube sculptures resembling palm trees dotted the main floor area. All the while the glowing sculptures coloured the cigarette smoke clinging to the patrons below. The figures in the purplish fog reminded Haslow of a science fiction movie he'd once seen; but for the life of him he couldn't remember the film's name.

  At first the estranged brothers had difficulty striking up conversation. There were too many pauses, too many drawn-out moments of unfamiliarity to negotiate. Of course each man had much to say, had much to ask about, yet each found it hard to express himself in a meaningful manner. Consequently Peter wasted no time in ordering a round of double-strength drinks. Only after a second round did he and Haslow manage to shake the guardedness that had plagued them since meeting dow
nstairs. Midway through third drinks, the brothers spoke more freely. E ach seemed mindful not to trample on the perceived boundary of the other. However it wasn't long before the cordial exchange ran out of steam and petered to a standstill. A weighty silence fell at the table with the underlying awkwardness of the situation reasserting itself.

  Peter lit an imported Benson and Hedges cigarette and clicked shut his opal-inlaid lighter. Candy fidgeted and twirled a lock of blond hair. 'I'm gonna check out the machines, hon.'

  'Yeah, sure babe.' Haslowski watched her slide out from the table then cast his brother a levelling look. 'So what couldn't wait until tomorrow night?' He exhaled a plume of smoke then sat back and stretched his arms along the top of the padded booth's seat.

  Haslow was apprehensive. He didn't know where to begin or how to relate the night's extraordinary events. He looked on nervously as Candy played one of the pinball machines set to one side of the softly lit bar. Eager and adroit, she twisted her hips while jabbing the machine's flippers.

  'She seems a nice enough girl.'

  'Oh, she's all right.' Haslowski chuckled. 'If you're an all night performer.' He winked lewdly. 'Got a lot of spirit, that girl. She'll be famous for it one day.'

  Haslow appraised her shapely calf, the slender pivot of her ankle as she embraced the flashing machine. He hadn't slept with a woman since Madeleine ran off with her artsy lover, and he cursed inside that Manuela had been snatched away from him when everything looked so promising between them. Of course it was for the best. At least Manuela was safe from the vortex of danger swirling about him. But knowing that didn't alter the knot of loneliness growing inside him. Sometimes when in close proximity of a woman he was overcome with intense hankering, like when the frizzy-haired girl in the tight black dress had stood near his table ...

  'So, Rod, why did you drive to the Capitol tonight? Just to see me?'

  Haslow felt his stomach turn on the question. 'Yes.'

  'Hmm.' Haslowski finished off his bourbon, butted his cigarette and stared at the crowded floor below. 'Why?'

  Haslow rubbed his brow. How could he begin? He downed the rest of his scotch for starters. He squinted as if in pain and gathered his thoughts. Again he felt in the grip of a nightmare, something he would surely wake from. Still he had to stay focused as Peter was his only chance of leaving the country, of bettering his situation in any way.

  Haslow had to make a compelling case. So he began a detailed account of the home invasion at Goldman's dinner party. A part of him could only wonder whether the disturbing events had really taken place. But he knew from the icicles of fear in his spine his story wasn't the product of inexplicable imagining. Moreover, he knew, as surely as his midsection still ached from when Flip kicked him, that his former world had been snatched cruelly from him. As he sat in the bass-thumping din of the nightclub (a place he wouldn't normally set foot in), it was achingly obvious that he was on the road, that he'd been reduced to a piece of flotsam in the hard grey bowels of the city. Each ragged breath and pained thought only served to remind him of his outlaw status. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. An outlaw? He was a victim, pure and simple, with nowhere to hide from the formidable forces rallying against him.

  In any case, his brother's innate criminality seized on a telling point of the account. 'The fact that this Turner sent guns to your friend's apartment other than MPs only shows his bad intention. Considering the resources at the general's disposal, I'd say you're in grave trouble indeed ... Should he decide to keep after you.'

  Haslow watched Candy clock up another free game on Lazar the Space Barbarian. He looked at his brother. Time to be forthright. He took a deep breath and spoke his mind, asking for a new identity, a false passport no less. 'Listen, Peter, I know I've cold-shouldered you for more years than I care to count,' Haslow said, with strained humility, his clammy hands clasped together on the tabletop. 'Still ... I'm in a desperate fix. So, please, can you help me? Can you give me a straight answer one way or the other?'

  He was a portrait of exhaustion as he sat with slumped shoulders. The drama of recent hours showed on his ashen face. He was at his wits' end, as depleted as the melted ice cubes in his glass. With no more hands to play he was in the lap of the gods. The freedom awarded him with a scrappy liberation. Though it was soon lost like a burst of Buddhist satori.

  Haslowski lit another cigarette and stared off into the distance. 'Yes,' he said at last, 'I can help you.'

  Haslow understood the precise meaning of his brother's words, and waited uneasily for Peter's final answer.

  'And ... I will.' Haslowski looked at his young brother, a commanding glint in his eye. He reached over and punched Haslow good-naturedly on the arm. 'Why? Because you're the only true blood I've got.' Cigarette smoke billowed from his nostrils as he appraised a rowdy group of youths passing the table. 'You know, this is a big country. A big world. Loyalty a scarce commodity ... ' His voice trailed off, and Haslow could see his brother was reliving a painful memory. Something that had cost Peter dearly, something which the situation and the drinks had unexpectedly brought to the surface.

  Peter Haslowski sucked on his cigarette and rubbed his forehead. He gazed at the overlapping drink-rings on the tabletop, mired in thought. After a weighty moment, he looked back up, only to speak measured words on the importance of family, on the enduring pact of blood, the familial bond.

  ' ... it goes without saying that a family should unite in times of hardship, each member drawing strength from the other. Nature's hard wired us that way, safety in numbers and all that ... naturally I checked with Red Cross International, but it seemed none of our relatives survived the war. Can you believe it? ... Really, you never even checked?' Peter tapped his cigarette forcefully on the table's ashtray.

  Haslow looked down at his drink. The past was an unmapped minefield. A dangerous place he didn't want to visit, even as his brother had tried to draw him there whenever talking on the phone. In any case, Haslow had to contend with the problematic waters of the present, had to keep ahead of the unseen forces tracking him down. He sighed and said nothing and another protracted silence fell at the table.

  Peter gazed at the crowded dance floor below. Haslow suspected his brother didn't want to expose more of himself to the sibling who until this night had repudiated their kinship. But it seemed Peter wasn't prepared to draw a sword, either, to make an issue of their unshared years. Well, not for the time being. In any case, the brothers knew it was something of a miracle that they sat together at the table.

  'Listen.' Haslowski pulled on his cigarette and lowered his voice. 'I can get you a passport. A high-quality facsimile with a valid serial code. It'll take four or five days. I know a pro, possibly the best in the country. A decrepit old Nazi who once worked for Himmler. So don't worry your brain any longer.' He leant forward and tapped his index finger on Haslow's forehead. 'Your ship's come in.' He grinned darkly and fell back in his seat, before calling over the waitress and ordering another round of drinks.

  He checked to see if Candy's attention had wandered from pinball machines. It had. She chatted with a sprite young barman who had the looks and moves of an inveterate womanizer. Haslowski gave their spirited conversation scant attention, even though it looked like Candy had scored herself a free drink. He generously tipped the waitress after she placed a fresh round of drinks at the table, all the while admiring her cleavage. He looked shrewdly at his brother. 'So, have you thought of a country yet?'

  Haslow remembered the glossy travel brochure in his letter box that afternoon. He mentioned his tentative plan of flying to Hawaii, then going to Bangkok to see an old university friend.

  'Well, to Thailand then.' Peter Haslowski raised his glass in a toast. 'To its tireless army of Patpong pole dancers.' He drew on his British cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke as if a panting jinn in Beelzebub's legion. The brothers clinked their glasses together.

  'To Thailand,' Haslow said, his voice sounding brittle in his ears.
r />   They rounded St. Vernon's square and motored down Ninth Street in Washington DC. Goldman was conscious of the speed limit and the thin guise of his car’s newly acquired license plates. Fortunately for him Michelle had only seen the passenger side of the car when climbing in. The Saab's scraped panels only confirmed Goldman's earlier claim of dodging a scrambling Red Setter (luckily Michelle hadn't seen the bullet holes on his side of the car). Of course Goldman planned to ditch the incriminating vehicle at the earliest convenience.

  He and Michelle had talked like old friends and shared moments of unguarded mirth during the drive from Carmen's apartment. Their growing attraction was laced with the bonus of compatibility, or so it seemed at this early stage of their knowing each other.

  'I don't know,' Goldman said, pulling up at a red light, 'Carmen seems too strong-headed to get herself into serious trouble with drugs. She's got too much going for her.'

  'Hmm, I hope you're right, but high-paid models can make the worst addicts.' Michelle reached into her jacket and grabbed cigarettes. She inched down her window, not letting in too much of the night's chill air but still enough to filter the vaporous byproduct of her habit. 'I've never seen her quite like this before. I think she's pretty messed up inside over Paulo Jr., her Rio-based fiance. He's been playing her for a while and she's finally come to know it.'

  Goldman glanced at Michelle as she drew on her cigarette. He knew his immediate situation, in contrast to his overall, was rose-hued indeed. Michelle was special. He didn't need the way other men looked at her to know it. With each passing hour he grew more enamored of her cover girl looks, grew more relaxed in her company, grew more certain of a kindred-soul connection. But was everything as it seemed? Of course he wasn't sure where he actually stood with her. Had she really broken up with Terence? Or did she sometimes use other men to make Terence jealous? Was it a tried and proven ploy during her long, tumultuous relationship with the photographer? Goldman didn't know, but knew just the same the affairs of men and women were rarely spelt out in black and white, and the friction of uncertainty was part and parcel of such affairs.