Nicotine

by Nell Zink

  “It’s nuts that we’re so far away,” Penny says.

  “Yeah, we’re pretty far back,” Sorry says. “If you want to hear something, you can just head up front. You’re not obligated to stay with us.”

  “No, I mean it’s weird.” Penny glances eastward to where demonstrators are gathering with large banners in black, red, and green. “It’s like they’re here against TTIP, and we’re here for smokers’ rights.”

  “That’s how discrimination works,” Rob says. “You exclude people because they have something meaningless in common, and pretty soon they’re one big family.”

  “Plus I thought this was supposed to be a march.”

  “That’s later,” Rob says. “For people who want to get arrested.” He turns and spits into a bush. “Not my thing.”

  “I’ve never had any interest in getting arrested,” Sorry says, stubbing out her cigarette against the lamppost. “I’m allergic to institutions of that nature. Any place that locks you up.” She tucks the tar-stained cigarette filter into a spring-loaded portable ashtray she takes from her pocket. She picks up a sign and faces front.

  The sun breaks through the clouds, lighting up the banners and treetops. The weekend air seems fresh. An organizer’s voice booms, but it is too far to hear well. “I’m going up front,” Penny says. Holding her sign upright, she walks toward the distant loudspeakers, accompanied by Anka.

  After they leave, several other smokers come to the lamppost to chat. Soon they, too, choose signs and walk toward the dais, accompanied by Sorry. Rob is left alone with Tony.

  “She really digs you,” Tony says. “I’m so fucking jealous, I might move out.”

  “That wouldn’t stop her,” he says. “And I don’t know what you’re worried about.”

  “She’s different.”

  “True.” Rob spits into a bush. “Why don’t we talk about TTIP for a while? How much it sucks and all that.”

  “Who gives a shit about TTIP?” Tony says. “Everybody knows it’s wrong. It’s just a news item. Another bad omen in the sky.”

  Rob doesn’t respond.

  “Do you even know what TTIP stands for?”

  “Transatlantic, trade, international, partnership?” Rob ventures.

  “Nope,” Tony says. “I don’t know either, but that isn’t it. Anyway, I’m more interested in knowing whether you plan to cut Penny loose anytime soon, so that maybe she notices I’m alive.”

  “No chance,” Rob says.

  “You’re a female attention sinkhole,” Tony says. “You lead them on. It’s kind of shitty, especially for men within your gravitational field.”

  “What do you mean?” Rob says. “Would it be less shitty if I fucked them all?” He spits out his wad of tobacco on the asphalt and adds, not looking at Tony, “My political activities are a foregone conclusion. I’d like for my personal life to be different.”

  “You have it way too easy,” Tony says. “If you want things to get interesting, gain twenty pounds and shave your head. That would put the suspense back in your life. You might even meet some women who don’t follow you around begging for it.”

  Tony tries to relight his cigar with a cardboard match from an old yellow matchbook advertising a taxi service, but it has apparently been wet. He cannot get any match from the matchbook to light. “I’m going to catch up with those guys,” he says, flinging the matchbook into a bush and tucking the cigar behind his ear.

  “I’ll come with you,” Rob says. “It’s not like I need to be in the smoking zone.” He picks up the little red fire extinguisher and carries it like a schoolbook, cradled in one hand.

  On their way forward they meet Anka and Sorry coming back the other way. Tony joins them to return to the Blue Bloc, while Rob presses forward into the crowd, looking for Penny.

  He finds her close to the stage. Setting the fire extinguisher down, he stands behind her and places his hands on her shoulders. He lowers his head to rest his cheek against her ear. She shivers with pleasure. A tall plainclothes cop in a button-down shirt and Mets cap touches his arm and says, “Weapons not allowed.” His gaze indicates the fire extinguisher. Rob makes eye contact with Penny, and they return to the smoking section.

  “How come there’s no ‘NORTL’?” Sorry is saying as they arrive. “‘National Organization for the Reform of Tobacco Laws.’”

  “Because it would be superfluous,” Tony says. “There’s a huge industry devoted to making it easy to buy tobacco.”

  “At thirteen dollars a pack?” Sorry says. “If they want it to be easy, they’re definitely fucking up. I have a medical need to keep my mania under control.”

  “By turning it into depression, thirteen dollars at a time,” Tony replies.

  Sorry laughs with the others. “I know. Financially, smoking is suicidal. But in every other way, it’s the thing keeping me alive. I’m serious.”

  “Why don’t you buy nicotine patches or gum?” Penny asks. “Wouldn’t Medicaid cover it?”

  “Because they’re not indicated for manic-depressive disorder. They’re for people trying to quit smoking.”

  “Not for people who think if they quit smoking they’re going to die,” Rob says.

  “That sounds like some kind of paradox,” Penny says.

  The rally winds down. There is some discussion as to whether they should send Rob alone to get the minivan and pick them up, but they decide it’s such a nice day that they should walk together back down to Bowery.

  “Nice to know TTIP is dead and buried,” Tony says.

  “Did you see people there from any other CHA houses?” Penny asks.

  “There’s no anti-World-Trade-Organization house,” Tony says.

  “There aren’t really any ‘anti’ houses,” Rob says. “The houses are always for something. I mean, you can be against poverty, but you wouldn’t go around saying it should be banned. That would be like the Trump campaign. On the left, you try to get the government to invest in your issue. Create sustainable growth via fairer redistribution of our tax dollars.”

  “If it weren’t for cigarettes, you wouldn’t be paying taxes at all,” Penny says. “You’re all pseudo-self-employed, right? And squatters, even if you are paying off a home improvement loan from CHA.”

  “CHA is probably bankrolled by the Koch brothers,” Rob says. “You want to control the left, offer it cheap rent. We get to live for free, and what do they get? We stick to specific issues and work in a way that’s potentially effective. Meaning we join the service economy, and the service we’re providing is to be a sop to people’s conscience. Make them think there’s somebody out there fighting TTIP.”

  Penny looks at her sign. She says, “So are CHA houses ever bugged?”

  “What for?” Rob says. “Informants are cheaper. Like you. Look at you. Just drift in on the wind, and you’re living in Tranquility, with people there arguing that you don’t need to pay rent. The Feds don’t even have to give you a salary. You’re grateful for a roof over your head. Maybe they told you there’ll be a couple thousand dollars in it for you if you dig up something good.”

  “Like that dirty bomb you’re building with the plutonium in the garage,” Tony says. “That bomb is ineffective. I don’t know why you keep building it.”

  “Being a fuckup gives me flexibility,” Rob says.

  “You’re just typical white dudes,” Penny says. “You can fuck up over and over and get away with it. Fuck up stuff a hundred times in a row, get it right once, and call it a learning curve. I know you people, man. I was a business major!”

  “Anarchism is the poor man’s B-school,” Tony says.

  “I mean it! CHA is like the dot-com boom. I had it as a case. It’s like an overcapitalized start-up, having to adjust its goals upward to justify the faith placed in it by its investors. You know that saying ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’? That’s what start-ups do. You have to tell the VCs you’re going to change the world, even when what you’ve got is an app that tells you when to refi
ll the dog dish. To get liberal seed money for a free house for people like Stevie and Jacob, you have to say you’re achieving way more than cheap rent.”

  (She has this critique ready at hand because something similar has been going through her head since she noticed she’s heavily invested in Rob. She can’t stop thinking he’s both high potential and a liar. Undervalued businesses are dishonest, too, in their own way, right? If Rob didn’t go around saying he’s asexual, wouldn’t she be standing in line behind dozens of competing emotional VCs? She’s his only stakeholder. She could win big. That’s her thinking.)

  “I know what you mean,” Rob says. “It’s like facilitators, always telling you their nonviolent conflict resolution method would work in Syria because it worked at their community garden.”

  “But our ambitions really are trivial as all get-out,” Sorry says. “Live one day at a time, and try to afford cigarettes by living in New Jersey.”

  “And bring down the WTO and put an end to globalization.” Penny waves her sign in the air. A car honks its horn in support.

  The others stand still and wave their signs, and several more cars honk.

  THE NEXT DAY—MONDAY—A locksmith’s panel truck pulls up in front of Nicotine and parks in the street. It is five minutes after 9:00 A.M. and the truck’s loud idling awakens Sorry and Jazz.

  Sorry looks out her window and yells, “Tony! Toe-neeee! Rob!”

  Tony is not home—he is taking a walk, planning to tell everyone when he gets back that he went down to the union hall to ask about work as a welder—but Rob is in the kitchen, making moussaka with wilted broccoli, dubious mascarpone, and packaged prefab puff pastry he fished out of a Dumpster. He opens the front door.

  “Is this the vacant house?” the locksmith inquires. “Where I was ordered to change the locks? This is not going to work.” The locksmith is in his thirties, with a wedding ring, an orderly short haircut, and blue uniform coveralls bearing his name, Gene. He looks dissatisfied.

  “There’s obviously been a mistake,” Rob says. “Maybe the wrong address.”

  “Just maybe. Because nobody told me I was going to be dealing with squatters.”

  “Who don’t want you to change the locks.”

  “I didn’t figure that.” Gene returns his heavy toolbox to the truck and comes back up on the porch. “How long have you been here? This doesn’t look fresh.” He indicates the flaking lightning bolt squatter symbol and cobwebby individualized doorbells.

  “Seven or eight years, maybe?”

  “I’m not crazy about squatters, but what I really can’t stand is slumlords who think they can waste my time,” Gene says.

  “You mean a skinny, bearded guy in an Audi A5? About forty-five?”

  “I didn’t see him. Just talked on the phone. He drives an Audi?”

  Rob nods.

  “Some people have fucking too much money,” Gene says.

  “You up for lunch? It’ll be ready around eleven. Moussaka, if you’re still in the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, that sounds so good. But I have to get over to Kearny.” They shake hands.

  JAZZ SLEEPS AGAIN UNTIL ROB calls her downstairs for lunch. After lunch she downloads an e-mail from Matt.

  Doing his best to be charming, he draws on every rhetorical style ever demonstrated to him by anyone.

  Princess! Hope I’m getting your address right. Bae been on my mind so hard, I might be coming around 2CU real soon. But it won’t be a surprise anymore, because my attempt to get keys of my own didn’t work out. Do you people *ever* go to work? Three residents out of five at home on a Monday morning! Vive l’anarchie, or something. I should have your job. Do you even know what I do? I design discreet hydraulic compacting systems for waste disposal. I do some pretty work. You won’t see it around JC (bc glam). But should you get up to Saddle River or down to Princeton one of these days, you’ll see my stuff. Garbage disappears like it was never there. In that spirit I remain, yours ever faithfully, MB

  Jazz deletes the mail, briefly. She restores it to her inbox.

  ROB SENDS A TEXT MESSAGE to Penny: Leftover moussaka.

  Around four o’clock in the afternoon, she arrives at the house. She brings a salad made of poached green asparagus, shallots, lemon, and blanched almonds. Jazz puts her arms around the bowl. “I love this salad so much, I want to make out with it,” she says. She pulls the plastic wrap tight and sticks it in the fridge next to Rob’s moussaka, which she says tastes to her like school cafeteria shepherd’s pie, only moldy.

  “Is Rob upstairs?”

  “Out in the garage. But maybe we could talk a second.”

  “Sure,” Penny says.

  Jazz sets about making a pot of coffee. “So your half-brother Lucifer sent somebody around this morning to change the locks.”

  “That is so Matt.”

  “So now I’m confused. Is this his house, or yours, or what?”

  Penny shakes her head and bites her lower lip. “I wish I knew! Seriously. It’s a complicated patchwork-family thing.”

  “Right. Complicated because a man had two wives, not even at the same time, and three children. Baby, you need to lose your ethnocentrism if you want to keep living at Tranquility.”

  “All right! It’s not complexity per se. It’s that Matt’s mother—well, also Patrick’s mother—I have two half-brothers and they’re both a lot older—I have no idea who she was. I never heard her name.”

  “That’s actually pretty strange.”

  “I certainly never met her, or heard anything about her. I think she’s dead, for the reason that we also have this summer cabin that I think must have been in her family. And now Mom inherited it, just like everything else. Dad was like forty years older than Mom, with two sons also older than her. So Matt and Patrick’s mother, if she’s not dead, she’s in her seventies. So I think it’s basically that Matt might be putting pressure on Mom to pay out a little bit of his inheritance. Which would also be my inheritance? But somehow I don’t seem to have any say in what happens with it.”

  “Your dad didn’t have a will?”

  “If he did, I sure didn’t see it.”

  “I think Matt killed his own mother by setting fire to this house, and that’s why when he goes up near the attic where she died, his dick gets hard as granite.”

  “What?”

  “Just thinking aloud.”

  “You fucked Matt?” Penny folds her arms tightly.

  Jazz raises her shoulders and turns her head, picking up her coffee cup in both hands like a small child. She takes a sip. “He’s intriguing! The innocent sex beast. Your brother wants it the way a guy can only want it if he’s never getting it. Really bad. Desire like that turns me on.”

  “He’s not my brother, and imagining he killed his mother in your room is perverted.”

  Jazz reaches for a cigarette, exposing a scarred wrist. “It’s arousing to me. I try to discover what excites me first, and analyze it later.”

  “Bullshit,” Penny says. “It’s operant conditioning. You slept with him, and if he’d talked about his golf game, right now you’d be saying golf makes you hot. But knowing him, he didn’t talk about anything. He just put his hands around your neck.”

  Penny glances downward, masking a vivid flashback to her father’s final run-in with his cat. She can feel the incongruous serrated knife in her heart. It has nothing to do with the current conversation—she’s pretty sure of that—just with the notion of hands on necks, which of course she brought up herself, so maybe it does have something to do with the conversation.

  “He wants me,” Jazz says.

  “Is that why he sent somebody to change the locks?”

  “Maybe he was going to give me the other key.”

  “This is too fucking romantic. You’re turning me on.”

  “You’re misunderstanding me,” Jazz protests. “Sure, I fucked his hot, lonely desire. Poor Matt. He sent me a love letter. And now all I have to do is tell him I want to go on living in t
his house with my friends, and he’ll find a way.”

  “To do what? Pay off the other heirs so you can keep living here? It’s not his house! It could be Mom putting the pressure on him, I think because this house is the easiest way to raise cash. She’s already accused me of doing what you want Matt to do—keep Nicotine a squat because I have a lover here.”

  “Maybe she’d be more indulgent of a man?”

  “If she knew about you and Matt, she might come over here with some gasoline and light you on fire herself.”

  Jazz is silent. “Maybe I shouldn’t always be plotting,” she says at last. “I think with a family as complex as yours, I might be in over my head.”

  “I know I am,” Penny says. “I’m too depressed to even look for work. And I can tell you why. My whole family is useless, and every night when I go to sleep the first thing I do is lie there breathing. Okay, that’s normal, but when I do that—breathe—it reminds me of Dad. Because when he was dying, that’s all he could do. Breathe. For weeks. I was such a fucking idiot not to walk away. No one could help him, and now I have PTSD complete with flashbacks. How am I supposed to go to sleep without breathing?”

  “Maybe music would drown it out. Or you could masturbate.”

  “I tried all that. I still get Dad flashbacks. No, thanks. What I need is to not go to bed alone. To feel a living person—”

  “Go back to Rob,” Jazz says with conviction. “He doesn’t want you, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. You rejected him for not wanting you, but you know what desire is worth. I mean, look at me and the prince of darkness!”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “Rob’s different. Any other guy, to get that close, you’d have to be fucking. With him, there’s not that barrier. You just get close. He won’t resist it, if you don’t. Trust me, there are worse things than a guy who can be friends.”

  “Just forget it.”

  “Then do what everybody else does when they can’t handle sleeping alone—camp out on the DJD!”

  PENNY TRIES JAZZ’S IDEA. FULL of leftover moussaka, tired from thinking and talking, she shows up at DJD after supper. Without consulting anyone, she curls up on the DJD. She reads an old clothbound hardback of The Master and Margarita that she finds glued to an end table with honey. (Her hypothesis: a previous guest used it to hide a honey spill.) All around her, the residents go about their business—talking, making tea, listening to music far away on upper floors. She is invisible. Each resident ignores her as though she were a couch surfer some other resident forgot to announce.