A Postmodern Love

by Nick Totem

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  After the fourth time, Lana said, “Thomas, why don’t you park in the overnight lot when you first get here? One would think that you have learned to do so already, after so many times. Such a waste of time, darling. Don’t you think?”

  “I know. I’m a slow learner. I keep forgetting.”

  “Where were we? Oh, yes, we should get away from here for a while after my reconstruction. I feel like going to Greece. What do you say, darling?”

  But it seemed he could never remember about parking the car. A couple of times, before he left to park the car, he gave her Norco when she was feeling a sudden onset of pain along the incision, and when he got back, he was relieved to find her sound asleep.

  38

  Then came the night in question, the night when Thomas put his plan into action, that would be have to be remembered and recited. As usual, Thomas came to the apartment after work, bringing cartons of rice, Orange Chicken, and Schezuan Beef. Clumps of clouds streaked red in the early evening and peppered the sky, which was deepening into an ominous blue. The usual traffic noise roared, sometimes in a staccato of backfire, and the acrid smell of car exhaust lingered in the air.

  As soon as Lana let him in, Thomas went about setting up dinner.

  “What’s the matter, Thomas?” Lana said and gave him a kiss.

  “Nothing, what do you mean?”

  “You seem so tense. Was everything okay at work?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He hugged and kissed her. “I was just thinking, maybe you can come and stay with me. At least while you’re recovering so I don’t have to drive here. The traffic is just crazy.” He had asked her to stay with him many times before, but she had refused for one reason or another.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. But what about your mother? We should have another gathering as a sort of announcement that I’m moving in with you, but without your ex-girlfriend.” She laughed. “How is she by the way?”

  “I don’t know. After that night she refused to answer my texts and calls.”

  “Anyhow, let’s eat. I’m famished.” She took a bite of Orange Chicken. “Delicious. I haven’t had Chinese for such a long time. Speaking of meeting your family. I think I would love to spend some time with Samantha. I talked to her last time. She’s so delightful. She makes me want to have a little girl of my own.” She raised her eyes to him with a tentative look.

  “Yes, she is. She’s a wonderful child.”

  At the mention of Samantha, a doubt rose. Should he go through with his plan? He had debated it ad nauseam, and now he willfully ignored his doubts by invoking the training he had acquired in the Army Reserve. After drilling and training, you have to let the training take over, you must act automatically, thinking mustn’t occur during the heat of battle or you’re dead, he mused. But still, the worst case could happen, and he could lose not just Lana but everything he had.

  “I’m thinking more about what I should do, Thomas,” she said as they were finishing dinner. “Should I continue to work with Dominic or perhaps do something else. I could go back to school, get my bachelor’s degree, and maybe teach. What do you think?” She was more cheerful than usual, and her beauty, as least to him, had settled gently and soothingly amid a domestic setting, unlike the thrilling high it had given him when he first met her.

  “Teaching is always good. Good teachers can change students’ lives. I remember my English teacher in high school, Mrs. Nelson, a wonderful teacher.”

  “Yes, I think so, too. I can apply to a local college, have my grades transferred from Stanford,” she said and then looked at him. “You know I got straight As at Stanford.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  After they were finished with cleaning up, Lana picked up a notebook and pencil and sat up in the bed, writing something and then crossing it out.

  Standing by window, Thomas glanced at her and then at his watch. The sun had set more than an hour earlier, the sky had darkened, but no stars could be seen against the city lights.

  “What are you working on?” he asked, hearing her mumble and chuckle now and then.

  “Patience, darling. I want to surprise you.” She wrinkled her nose and tapped her forehead with the pencil.

  He sat down and watched the street below for a while, trying not to think, seeing that the traffic had thinned out and only a few cars were passing by. At last, it was time.

  “Let me change the dressing,” he said.

  “No, not now. Can’t it wait a few minutes? I’m close.”

  “No, let’s just get it over with.”

  “Why didn’t you do it earlier, like you’ve always done? All right, but no peeking.” She shut the notebook.

  He unbuttoned her shirt, unwrapped the bandage, and peeled off the dressing. Then purposely, he pushed on her scars.

  “Ouch,” she hollered. “That hurts.”

  “I’m sorry. I just want to make sure it’s healing okay.”

  “If you weren’t a doctor, I’d be really worried. Oh, that was intensely painful.”

  He changed the dressing and wound a new bandage around her. Then he took a Norco from the bottle and put it on the nightstand next to her. He checked his watch again.

  “I’ll have to park the car in the overnight parking. I’m sorry I forgot again.”

  “Don’t go, darling. Don’t, Thomas,” she said with unusual sincerity, and in her eyes was the same clarity that seemed to occur only at some critical moments. “Stay here with me.”

  “I don’t want a ticket.”

  Her lips tightened and her cheeks tensed not into a smile but into what seemed like a sign of reflection. Finally she said, “All right then, if you must. Poor darling. Hurry back.”

  “Your pain pill is right there.”

  He stopped by the door and fixed his eyes at her, lying on her side, adjusting her body delicately with a notebook in hand, still keeping her clear eyes on him, the pain pill within reach. He cringed and reasoned that if she had suspected anything, she would have understood, or at the very least questioned, what compelled him to stop and look at her; after all, he would be away just a few minutes.

  “Thomas, where have you been?” she cried, when he came back in. “You were gone for a long time. What happened? I was so worried about you. I couldn’t call you. You left your phone here.”

  Sweat dotted his forehead. His face was morbidly pale, his hair disheveled. His eyes seemed to bulge, piercing, surprised to see her sitting there.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” he said sharply. “You’re still awake?”

  “What do you mean? It’s still early.” She squinted at him. “Are you all right, darling?”

  He came close and saw the pain pill still on the night stand.

  “I thought you’d be sleeping already,” he said but then stopped himself and went into the bathroom. A moment later, he emerged; blood seemed to have re-infused his face. With his hair combed and face washed, he sat in his usual spot, next to the window, looking down the street.

  “I thought you were sleeping already, so I went for a walk,” he said before she could ask again.

  “Oh.”

  “You didn’t take the pain pill?”

  “No, I wanted to finish this.” She held up the notebook. “Pain apparently is very inspiring. I finished. Here have a look. I wrote this for you.” She handed him the notebook. “Cristiano loved them. And Lloyd too. At least, that’s what he said.”

  He began to read but then, hearing their names, raised his eyes to her for an instant before resuming. It was a poem:

  The Moment

  I am dying slowly

  So I have been told

  And so shall I prepare

  Church on Sunday

  Prayer before bed

  Till the moment

  But death is a moment

  Then thereafter, the everlasting

  Or maybe not

  And what of my heart

  Of flesh and m
ortal

  That ticks

  This way and that

  That decides the moment

  And the everlasting

  “It’s beautiful, Lana. It really is.” He read it twice.

  “Darling, you really like it? Be honest.”

  “Of course, it’s beautiful. The contrast works very well. I really like it.”

  “Hmm,” she exhaled with satisfaction and lay on her side. “Now I’m ready for that pain pill.”

  He waited to hear her regular breathing and the occasional murmuring that she often gave out during sleep, usually about ten minutes after she took the Norco. Lying on her side with one hand curled under her chin and the other thrown aside as if beckoning him, she appeared to be figuring out everything about him. He touched the mole on her left cheek and gave a soft kiss on her forehead before leaving.

  39

  It was 3:30 in the morning by the time Thomas got back to his house. At last he went into the shower, and, finding a warm respite under the spray of water, he stood there for a long while. Then he lay in bed and closed his eyes, but sleep was nowhere near; all that had happened zigzagged through his mind haphazardly. Outside, the silvery pale that precedes dawn was gaining luminosity by the second. He felt a tingling around his head and his fingertips, the result of sleeplessness and the surge of adrenaline that he had experienced plenty of times, though none had been like this. Still, he kept his eyes closed and remained motionless, letting the body rest while the mind slammed around like a sparrow trapped inside his skull.

  Finally, as the sparrow tired out and he was about drift into sleep, his cellphone rang. He picked it up, noted that it was 6:20 a.m., and saw Lana’s picture on the screen. The thudding of his heart started again.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Thomas, Thomas,” she wailed.

  “Yes, what’s the matter?”

  “Lloyd is dead.”

  “What?”

  “Lloyd is dead.”

  “When? How?”

  “Martin has been calling me all night, but I was so knocked out from the pain pill I didn’t answer the phone until just now.”

  Thomas stayed quiet.

  “This is unbelievable, Thomas,” she resumed. “Martin found him. He was shot . . . He was shot outside the Biltmore Hotel. He said he couldn’t give me any details because of the police investigation.”

  He could hear her frantic breathing.

  “Okay, stay calm. I’m coming right now.”

  After an hour and a half of driving through the morning traffic, Thomas came to the apartment. As he entered, nausea roared up from his stomach and pain zapped his temples. He braced himself as he approached her. Lana was sitting in a chair, next to the window, looking at the street below. Bustling traffic noise echoed against the glass window. Her feet rested high on the ledge, her knees bent, and her chin perched over her folded arms. He sat next to her.

  “How do you feel?” He put his hand on her back.

  Her face was away from him, and for several seconds she didn’t move or answer. Then, still looking away, she said, a tad nasally, “It’s so surreal.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know how I should feel . . . When Cristiano disappeared, I was full of grief. I cried. I felt like retching, like walking on glass. I felt a lot of things, sadness, a lot of sadness, regret, guilt, a lot of things, but I was certain of them. Now I feel some of these, but I don’t know if I should feel them. I’m not certain about them.”

  “It’s okay. If you feel like grieving, you should grieve. After all he was in your life . . . for a long time.”

  She turned to him now, her face still resting on her arms. “Yes, he was. But I blamed him for Cristiano. And sometimes I wished I could kill him myself, or for something bad to happen to him. I never considered how I would feel, if it were to occur. I hoped to be relieved, I guess, but I’m not.”

  “It’s understandable after a person you know well has passed away.”

  “I’ve been thinking. What if it’s karma. All those things he did caught up with him. But what I’m afraid of most is me. He was only half. Half of the guilty party. I’m the other half.”

  “No. You’re not. You might have had something to do with Cristiano, I will grant you that, but to say that you deserve or will get what happened to him is just nonsense. You’re not thinking right. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but the truth is he was not a good guy. You know Chau the Dog? Lloyd hired him to scare off Dietrich Gassiot. Do you know that?”

  “Really? It can’t be true. How do you know that?” She perked up and turned to him. Her eyes were red and puffy.

  Thomas repeated Dietrich Gassiot’s ordeal.

  “You knew all this time and you didn’t say anything. Why not?”

  “I didn’t want to appear obsessed. I don’t know. Digging into your past. Anyhow, it’s not important now. I just wanted you to know.” His ears started to ring and his head felt light, and he struggled to finish. “Lloyd did a lot of other things. Money laundering, involvement with the gangs.”

  She looked down and closed her eyes.

  “Lloyd and his business partners were under investigation,” he said, and told her about pressing charges against Chau the Dog and Detective Sam Mosqueda’s investigation.

  “Well, I guess I don’t know about a lot of things then.” She looked away.

  “My point is that you don’t have the same karma as he did. Don’t compare yourself to him. If anything he destroyed your chance at happiness, to have a real life.” He realized that he was telling her the same thing Dietrich Gassiot had told him.

  “Chance at happiness? Thomas, don’t make me so innocent.”

  He was mute for a while, and then with effort said, “Any idea when the funeral will be?”

  “Martin said it’s a murder investigation. They’ll have to perform an autopsy. It may take a while before they release the body.”

  Then they were quiet. He wished everything could quiet down, outside and inside his mind. Two bodies with their own preoccupation were doing just one thing, breathing to their own rhythm. Down in the morning street, Angelenos were navigating the busy sidewalks, cars inching along, honking and fuming exhaust, and the rumbling penetrated into the quietness of the apartment.

  Lana put her face down over her folded arms, and when she looked up again, her eyes were sad and lost. “Every day you lose a bit of life. The other day, I suddenly remembered the feel of Cristiano’s face. The sound of his voice. The smell of his skin. The curl of his hair tickling my palms. And his eyes, young, almost childish. What do I care about his ideas? Or his music. Just the feel of his body. I don’t know the feel of his body, not anymore. I forgot about it for the longest time and then out of nowhere he came back to me.” She stopped and gazed in front of her, and at length she went on, “Life is too real. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter if you record every second of it, you can never record its realness. And you lose a little bit of it every day.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and, in his groggy, unsteady state of mind, he meant it in every way.

  She turned to him and clasped his hands. “It’s just you and me now, Thomas.”

  He bit his lip, squeezed her soft hands, and gazed at her tenderly. He should have felt a spark of triumph now that he had lasted to the end, not as he had anticipated, but still a happy end for him, but he sensed only an enormity, a dark of mass of something unidentifiable at the back of his head, inching toward the front, throwing a shadow over his consciousness. Though he didn’t acknowledge it at the time, instinctively, he wanted to get away from everything, and so he agreed right away when Lana said, “Martin asked me to help him make arrangements since Lloyd had no immediate family here. His extended family will be coming from New York.” He nodded, and before he could ask, she added, “I hope it won’t take long.” He didn’t have the compulsion to ask her any more, only feeling that a little time by himself would be a much needed relief. �
�And my wounds are essentially healed.”

  40

  Thomas had not anticipated the media frenzy that would follow Lloyd’s murder, but it came all the same, with the blinding force of a blizzard. It was all over the news, all over the local and national channels. During work and in between patients, he would scan the internet for articles on the murder, and there were a dozen. Sometimes he would watch an internet video. On the screen, a pretty woman with too much makeup spoke with Southern California accent into a microphone: “Lloyd Quattleberns, a local entrepreneur, was found dead, shot in the chest last night. He was found outside the historic Biltmore Hotel by his chauffeur. Though the investigation is still ongoing and thus very little information is available, it is believed to be a robbery, according to sources. Quattleberns was a highly respected entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, and local developer. His death has shocked the financial district in Pershing Square. Pershing Square is the financial hub of greater Los Angeles and indeed the entire Southern California area; it has grown tremendously over the past decade. The murder has already raised questions about the pace of gentrification that has been going on around this area. Gentrification that has resulted in some tension as longtime residents are increasingly priced out of this real estate market . . .” The frenzy lasted for days.

  When one of the moneyed elites was gunned down outside his favorite watering hole, a place of business just as important as in the high-rise offices, a general panic took hold of the rest of them. The flow of money from Pershing Square to City Hall was vital, and even a perceived threat to the moneyed center demanded a swift, disproportionate response, a show of force. So an investigation began in earnest the next day and, though unseen to the public, descended upon Pershing Square with the force of a bureaucratic hurricane. Homeless people were taken in and questioned; camera footage, whatever was available, was requisitioned from store owners to be analyzed. Police cars patrolled the adjacent streets 24/7. The detectives also rounded up the local gangsters and questioned them via extra-judicial methods. From the frequent phone calls, Thomas got all this information from Lana, who in turn was informed by Martin. It turned out that Martin was an ex-cop who had left the police force under questionable circumstances and, through his contacts in the Pershing Square, had begun working for Lloyd for much better pay some years ago.