by Lydia Millet
Estée made her way down the stairs again, where the redhead’s john lay curled on the landing, grabbing at her foot as she passed. She shook him off.
“Esty!” said someone behind, and fearing interference from Bill she sprinted for the door. “Wait a sec, shit. Hold on!”
Pete Magnus caught up with her on the front steps.
“Where you heading? Want a ride?”
“I called a taxi,” and she sat down to wait.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride, I’m going into L.A.,” urged Pete Magnus.
“That’s okay.”
“I was wondering, is your father for real? This stock, I mean it’s worth what, three million dollars, he’s letting me walk off with it? I mean he seems kinda unstable, you know?”
“You were just a bystander,” said Estée.
“Let me drive you. Take forever to get in with a taxi. Where you headed? I live in the Hills, a condo. Drop you off anywhere. I mean this is the weirdest night of my life. You’re talking hundreds for the taxi. You know the city?”
“I’ve never been. I always lived out here.”
“What never? And you’re eighteen? You’re what, an hour out here? Jesus. I mean Jesus. Poor little rich girl. You know?”
“I have a hotel.”
“No way, not letting you go by yourself, some sleazebag picks you up on the Strip, gets you on crack or horse or shit, makes you hook for a living, raw babe like you. I’m serious, dangerous out there. Come on.”
“You can just go,” she said, annoyed. “I want to be alone.”
“Lemme get this straight,” he said, squatting on the stair. “You’re taking off because your folks are wacko, right? You on a budget? Because a taxi, that’s gonna run you real money from here, I mean it. No one takes taxis in L.A. Especially not from out here in the boondocks. Let me drive you, drop you off wherever. You say the word. Okay?”
She ran over credits and debits in her head and rose reluctantly. “You’re not in this with him, are you? With my father?”
“A business deal, that’s it,” said Pete Magnus. “I hardly know the guy.”
“You swear? You won’t tell him where I am?”
“I swear,” said Pete Magnus. “The buck stops here.”
She followed him to a parked convertible Mercedes and slid into the passenger seat, the bag on her lap, arms protecting it. She had to conserve her resources. It was a new landscape and aid should not be scorned.
“Why are you in such a hurry, I mean what a great setup,” said Pete Magnus, slamming his door and turning the key. “Crazy father handing out fortunes, I would stay for the action, get a piece of it, Jesus shit, luckiest night of my life!” he crowed, and rocked forward in his seat, banging a fist on the steering wheel as they pulled out onto the street. She turned and looked out the window at the Kraft house receding into the distance.
“He paid to get rid of me,” said Estée. “I was a Free Gift with Every Purchase.”
“Hey now, shit,” said Pete Magnus. “I don’t know. No idea the guy was so into me, model son-in-law material, shit, barely know him. You know what it reminds me of? Those kings and shit, that used to arrange marriages for their kids. That’s what it’s like. Elevator doesn’t go to the top floor, though. Shit.”
She was silent, watching the neighborhood turn unfamiliar, feeling the leather of her seat.
“He tries to get it back, no legal way,” mused Pete Magnus. “No one has that much capital in a street account, it’s insane, hand over the paper like it was Monopoly money. No fucking way. I give you ten to one he realizes what he’s done tomorrow, calls up, threats of litigation, pressing charges, say I stole it out of his house, you don’t give out that kind of money. Wacked. Calls my office tomorrow, lay money on it, shit.”
“Probably not,” said Estée.
“Goose that laid the golden egg,” said Pete Magnus, shaking his head as he steered them past an accident scene, two police cars flashing red and blue and a Datsun crushed into a guardrail, a mop of auburn hair against the steering wheel. “Tries anything, we can talk turkey. Esty? You wanna help me out? I could help you too. We can help each other. You stay with me, sleep in the extra room, save money on the hotel?”
She said nothing. They were driving up an entrance ramp onto a freeway, moving at high speed, past a sign reading Interstate 10. West. She grabbed the sides of her seat. Cars zoomed by at frightening velocities, their taillights shrinking fast.
“That way I’ll have a better conscience, see? I won’t feel like I left you on your own. Just till we find you a place? I’ll show you around. Help you get on your feet. Be great. How about it?”
“I don’t know,” said Estée. He knew Bill. He might also be in league with the FBI men, with the police, all of whom were in collusion with Bill. He was driving fast and talking at the same time.
“You afraid of your dad? I mean I’m handling a leaseback situation for him, that’s it, he knows my office number but he sure as hell doesn’t know where I live, I’m not going to tell the guy where I live,” said Pete Magnus. “A loose cannon. They can’t find you, my home number’s unlisted. It’s a nice place, a penthouse, it’s centrally located, I can drive you for job interviews, give you a hand? I mean it could be weeks till you find a decent one-bedroom.”
“I don’t know,” repeated Estée. There was nowhere to put her eyes without them being dragged along, making her dizzy, a burgeoning headache as she stared outward to her right through the dark, at lighted digits on a tall clock, billboards glowing from the trees. The moths had refused to eat meat. They were used to plants. They could not change.
“Specimen 76,” she murmured, “could not adapt.”
“Say what?” said Pete Magnus.
There was no species known to her that had adapted itself and then reversed its adaptation instantly when the landscape changed. They died first. Maybe she would starve without familiar food. She had always lived in the house. Once Betty and Bill had been masses and smells, had moved around her like shapes blotted by light. It was when she got older that they had become separate, identifiable, and remote, and a gap opened between what they did and what she saw. She could still remember, long ago, their warm arms. Had Bill brought on the floods, reversed the laws of gravity, or had the climate changed after a natural disaster elsewhere, a cold front moving in from far away? Betty’s precedent was lying down. She was emancipated from the need for locomotion. She pretended satisfaction in her stasis, though it reduced her slowly, cell by cell.
“You could even work for me, you know, like be a temp,” said Pete Magnus. “We need a good-looking receptionist, what I have is this chick from the Valley, she does her nails I swear to God, the stuff stinks, you can smell it all over the office and she leaves like the trash from her lunch right on the front desk. Whopper boxes, fast food, greasy shit. It stinks to high heaven, which it’s no mystery how she put on the extra weight since all she eats is this shit. She’s just this stupid chick from Studio City, I mean the accent puts people off. We could get rid of her because she’s late all the time so I can fire her hassle-free, don’t have to worry about lawsuits or whatever because I’ve already reprimanded her, she’d had the warnings, shit I don’t know how many times, she’s actually skating on thin ice, I could bring you in, you can type right? Use a computer, we’re on IBM clones hooked up to this database, pretty easy, and do phones, you’d give the place a classy touch, plus which I’m thinking of remodeling. Right now we’ve got this cheesy carpeting practically looks like indoor-outdoor, I’m like ashamed to bring clients in. I was going to go for a more modern look, chrome and Lucite, this kinda high-tech look, go ahead, make the outlay I know it’d be worth it, you could like be part of the new look! I do a lot of phone business and seriously you could add a kind of upscale feel, it’s like your dad’s this hick from Hicksville though I’m not saying he’s completely in the dark businesswise, but how you, I mean you talk like an educated person, you don’t talk like him at all, d
id you get it from your mom’s side? I mean, no offense, but you don’t look like your dad, I mean the guy’s a mountain. It’s amazing that someone who looks like you could, like, be the fruit of his loom. I mean he must hafta buy his clothes from Omar the Tent Maker.”
They took an exit ramp and swerved to avoid a car making a left turn in front of them.
“Son of a bitch learn to fucking drive!” yelled Pete Magnus, and Estée looked down to inspect the phone, high-gloss black and compact, that lay in a console between them on the seat. “I’ve been driving to my place, whaddaya think? Is it a deal?”
They pulled up at a crosswalk and waited for a staggering man to make his way across. A diamond-shaped sign next to the blinking orange hand, black letters on a yellow background, read Walk With Light.
PART TWO
HOMO ERECTUS
ONE
THE PENTHOUSE WAS DECORATED IN SOLID COLORS, expanses of cream-colored carpet, furniture of black brocade. It housed a collection of sculptures. “African art,” explained Pete Magnus with a dismissive sweep of his hand. He had contacts, he reported, with an import-export consortium that brought the stuff in duty-free: fetishes of carved wood, totems, statues made of stone and clay. “Primitive majesty, see. The noble savage and shit.” He indicated a spear-wielding wooden man squatting on the glass coffee table, ornamented with tufts of white animal hair. The wood man’s face was bone-thin, his polished cheekbones gaunt on a long, sharp skull. Emaciated, leering, teeth filed down to sharp points, he was impervious to the man of the house, who patted the top of his head with patronly affection.
Pete folded down a sofabed in his spare room and brought out a pile of striped sheets, keeping up a patter on Virtuous Living. He was confident in his advice. “You gotta be able to shift personal gears under stress,” he said. “Maximize your potential. You gotta have drive, but you also gotta be able to relax.” On his desk Estée found a ballpoint pen that featured a girl in a white bikini. When she turned it upside down the girl went naked. Watching nervously as he swept a pile of magazines into a drawer, she felt the viral tree of taxonomy take root, in whose lower branches Pete dwelt, in congress with his brethren, arboreal primates, among the gibbons and the siamangs, whom evolution had favored with a median position.
“You sleep tight,” he said. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
He did not close the door behind him. She could stay where she was or she could move. She opened the window and breathed in the dark air. Lights dappling the black land like stars, but the stars were invisible. Passage was unconstrained, motion was unregulated. There were countless options, all mysteries. She was stunned, let loose, she was floating in a pool of the real. She was unanchored. It was sink or swim. This had to be normal. Normal had no directions. It was aimless. You struck out along a path for no reason except to be moving. She would have to arm herself against chance, against its infinity. Position herself. Put her feet on dry land. The liquid of choice might rush, rear up in massive tides, swamp her and drown her. She took out her notebook and wrote with the nude girl.
GLOSSARY: HOMO SAPIENS
SPECIMEN 1: Real Estate Agent, Male.
DESCRIPTION: Puffy. Poor camouflage.
HABITAT: Urban nest builder.
BEHAVIOR: Obstreperous. Aggression in male.
DIET: Carnivorous. Esp. Beef & Bean Burrito.
Already there was comfort in her command of the situation. She had tools; she was trained in scientific method. She would make observations, record her findings, and build up a database. Then she could decide on an approach. “Cover yourself,” she told the naked girl sternly, and flipped her. Burrowing into the sheets she flicked off the bedside lamp. She was a stowaway, she had to pass herself off as one of them. The task was monumental. From the living room she could hear Pete Magnus talking. “I’m not kidding, I’m not kidding,” he said over and over. She got up to close her door, peeked around the jamb to see him leaning over his coffee table as he cradled a cordless phone on his shoulder. He sniffed at something on the table—salt?—and rubbed his nose, jabbering to the telephone. “I swear to fucking God. It’s like the goddamn lottery!”
She shut the door and went back to the bed, where, head on the cool pillow, she ascended the back of the great white bird and belted herself in. Something beefy and pink, in a halo, hovered over her. An angel pig?
“Left a key on the table,” it said. “Come and go, do what you want. Eggos in the freezer. Make yourself at home. I gotta go in to the office.”
She sat up and blinked, but he was already out the door.
The street was loud and all made of stores. She was a tourist: she needed information. She asked a grocery store employee if he could answer some questions, but he was too busy piling oranges into a pyramid. She tried out lipsticks at Beauty Supply and was told to buy them or put them down. In the drugstore she saw endless combinations and permutations. The product categories were distinct but within each category little variation was allowed. Coty Airspun Powderessence Liquid-Matte Makeup, Ivory Silk, was identical to its nearest neighbors. She made a note of it.
OBSERVATION 1: HOMO SAPIENS
The choices go on forever, but they are all the same.
She passed a video store, sporting goods, Allstate Insurance. Everywhere the array of items was spectacular: even Betty’s vast personal collection was dwarfed by comparison. Jenny Craig, haircuts, greeting cards, compact discs. Then specialty clothing, dangling spiders, a skull in the window, a dark interior. Inside she saw they carried black shining synthetic apparel, chains, whips, collars studded with pointy metal. In a display case were surprising items labeled Locking Penis Chastity and Patent Leather Bondage Mask. Her inquiries were met with distaste. Questions large in scope were not tolerated. Discussion had to be practical, minute, and succinct. Obviously they didn’t like tourists. There were no guides available.
At the end of the afternoon, after a Coca-Cola from a machine, she returned to the apartment. Pete Magnus, clad in wraparound towel, was on the telephone again. He pushed a button and put the phone down.
“Wanna go out? Drinks with some guys. Friend Stew, he’s in advertising. They don’t card at this place. C’mon, it’ll be good for you.”
The place was full of people milling and holding glasses. Their short-term goals were unclear. Luckily she had science on her side, and science was hypothesis testing. But before she could test the hypothesis, she had to have one. Observation was the only way: look, listen, learn. Bill had said it himself. Conversations were circular, like animals chasing their tails: their purpose appeared to be affirmation. The male code, disguised as idle chatter about sports teams and their activities, was unbreakable. She escaped to the restroom at intervals to record her findings.
GLOSSARY: HOMO SAPIENS
SPECIMEN 2: Advertising Assistant, Male.
DESCRIPTION: Weasel face. Tropical plumage.
BEHAVIOR: Insecure around dominant males. Vies for position by squawking.
DIET: “I’ll have machos with cheese.”
When Pete Magnus took Stew aside and whispered to him, Stew threw his arms out and whooped, spilling the mush of a daiquiri on a woman behind him. “Who cares? Hey lady, Petey here can buy you a whole new outfit, shit! You kidding? No way man. You serious?” After that Stew concentrated on Estée. He sat close in the booth, his shoulder against hers. A Stew hand brushed against her knee. She listened to the tale of his marital breakup. It became clear that Stew was targeting her, Estée, for possible fertilization. But she was prepared. She knew what it had done to Betty.
SPECIMEN 2: ADVERTISING ASSISTANT, MALE.
Addendum
MATING HABITS: Competitive; promiscuous. Biological imperative: distribute semen to multiple females. Does not mate for life.
OBJECTIVE: Mass insemination.
Stew was a quick study. “We’re married for like three months and she’s going, I need time, I’m not comfortable with my body, and this kind of crap. Plus which she had thi
s friend she was always talking to with the door closed, the woman I know for sure is a dyke. I mean it sure as hell wasn’t me, know what I mean?” Drawing near for confessions, breathing close to her face, Stew attempted to encroach on the area surrounding her person. Feeling that outright rejection of Stew would result in verbal recriminations and abuse, Estée was able to forestall these effects by gently caressing Stew with Stew-affirming rhetoric, while quietly though firmly disabusing Stew of the notion that she would like to be inseminated by him.
And then Pete Magnus bore down again, and the onus of persuasion was no longer upon her. She was clear of the first hurdle. She was learning the vernacular.
Afterward she let herself be transported back to the apartment, numb with overload in the passenger seat. The night street was a shifting swarm of cars, metal and rubber and glass in parallel migration. The drivers alongside Pete Magnus’s car knew where they were going. They had plans. Their eyes contained maps of the city. They were supercomputers, data banks of endless coded digits with no overt meaning. She was only a receiver. She received signals. It was too soon to process them.
Over additional beers in the living room, remote control in hand, Pete Magnus told her what her expenses would be if she lived by herself. “You gotcher rent, first off, then utilities, your gas, electric and your phone, plus a water bill maybe. Then you got health insurance, your dental, plus you gotta have a car in L.A. You gotta get insurance for liability, the minimum’s like $25,000 for uninsured motorists. Then you gotcher furniture, you need kitchen appliances—shit, did you see that? What a kick, goddamnit. Esty? Would you be a pal and get me another Wicked Ale?”
“I can’t drive,” said Estée, in awe.
“You got no license? Eighteen and no license?”
“He didn’t want me to drive.”