“You have a point, I suppose.”
“Maybe I don’t understand them as well as I think I do.” She took a sip of her beer and ran her finger through the wet ring it left on the coffee table’s glass top. “I can only guess what goes on in their heads. But when I look at these kids, on the one hand they seem like such monsters, yet I think, hey, that could be me.” She looked at me. “You know what I mean?”
“I do.”
“So no, I don’t think there’s a nobility in being poor. Some poor people have more dignity than others. And a few, in their own way, are just as decadent as some rich people. But take you, for example.”
“Uh-oh.”
“No, listen. You’re obviously incredibly wealthy, but it doesn’t show. You’re not ostentatious.” Gianna speared several pieces of glow-in-the-dark pasta on her fork. “It would take someone with a knowledgeable eye to look at you and realize that what looks like a nice two-thousand-dollar suit is actually a seven-thousand-dollar suit.”
“Have you been stealing my credit card receipts?”
“It’s still decadent to spend so much on one item of clothing, but at least you’re not obscene.”
“You want obscene?” I said. “You should see my diamond-encrusted mini-briefs.”
“I’d like that.”
“I’m saving them for a special occasion. For when I get to sleep with the Queen Mother.”
“See, I knew you had a thing for older women.” She took a long chug of beer.
I watched her against the backdrop of my abode and reveled in the feeling of uncommon and absolute contentment, one of the rare moments when I wasn’t yearning to flatten myself on top of her, heaving and grunting like a rutting bull elk.
She noticed the dopey look on my face and said, “So what do you think about all this?”
“All what?”
“We’re heading into double digits, with the number of dates.”
“Mmm, something like that.”
“And since you’ve never had more than one date with anyone before . . .”
“No, not in a row,” I said.
“What do you think?”
“I think . . .” I dropped my fork into the empty pot. “I think it’s time for me to hide behind the piano.”
“Cool.” Gianna settled on the sofa and gazed at me over the back of it as I sat on the bench and lifted the smooth wooden key cover into the body of the instrument.
“What would you like me to play?”
“I’d like you to play the violin that’s hidden in your coat closet,” she said.
“Ahh . . . that thing.”
“You do play it, don’t you?”
“I used to. It’s been years.” Ever since the Charlie Daniels Band recorded “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” playing the violin seemed too painfully stereotypical.
“Will you play it for me?”
I looked down at the piano keys and stroked the smooth, comforting surface of middle C.
“Certainly,” I said. “Go get it.”
Gianna leapt up from the couch and dashed into the hallway. She returned and presented me with the case in both hands, reverentially, as if it held Excalibur itself. I set it on the table and opened it slowly.
“Jesus God,” she said, “it’s a fucking Stradivarius.”
I picked up the bow and the block of rosin. As I drew it across the bow, the rosin’s weak, piney scent filled my head with memories so intense I had to turn away from Gianna for a moment to catch my breath. While the piano was a dear friend and confidante, my violin was more like a lover that had been caressed and obsessed-over once too often. I wasn’t sure if it would even talk to me now, much less sing. I picked it up.
“It’s beautiful,” Gianna whispered.
“You mean it’s pretty. Its true beauty can’t be seen, only heard and felt.”
“Still, it’s gorgeous.”
“I hope . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I lifted the violin to my chin.
There was no question as to what I would play. Bach’s Violin Sonata in E Major was the most breathtaking solo piece I had ever encountered, and I knew that if I could pull it off, Gianna would never leave me. For a moment I pondered whether that was a good thing or not, then closed my eyes.
The bow wavered in the air an inch above the strings for a moment and made a few practice strokes. I opened my eyes and began.
The notes gushed like a waterfall, and my mind emptied as I chased them across and up and down the strings, eight, sixteen per second, at some moments creating the illusion of two violins singing together, their voices intertwining in a duet of mad rapture.
Halfway through the second minute of this headlong pursuit, the sweat collected on my forehead and threatened to obliterate my view. My fingers and arms remembered every twist of this intimate dance. I allowed my eyes to close, shutting the salt water both inside and outside. The music stretched forth.
A minute later, I stabbed the climactic note, paused, then tumbled back into the few remaining, cascading measures. The final note came abruptly. The silence hissed with the missing sound and Gianna’s soft gasp.
I opened my eyes and lowered the violin to my side. Gianna rose, slack-jawed, from the chair into which she had sunk, and approached me. She took my face between her palms and kissed me. Then she slid her arms around my neck and leaned her forehead against my chin.
“That was . . .” She gasped. “That was the most . . .” Gianna threaded her fingers into my hair and kissed me again, this time with an urgency that was becoming familiar and precious to me.
When we made love that evening, the thunder and lightning returned to crash inside my head, for the first time since our first night together. Afterwards, I lay trembling in her arms while she spoke to me.
“I felt a million different feelings while you were playing,” she said. “Mainly helplessness. It seemed like the music had grabbed me and was carrying me wherever it wanted to, and if it had led me right over the side of the balcony I would have gone.” She stroked the curve of my shoulder. “I’m not sure if I can bear to hear it again.”
She feels helpless. Her touch immobilized me. Odd, strong words of tenderness leapt into my throat. I swallowed them just in time.
“You are amazing,” she said. “You must let the rest of the world know how talented you are.”
“No, not now.”
“Louis, look at me.” She shifted to stare into my eyes. “You make beauty. How many other people can say that? There are artists of all kinds out there lying to themselves that what they create is art, is beauty.” She touched my cheek. “You have some kind of weird gift, a genius that comes so easily that you don’t appreciate it. I won’t rest until you share it with someone besides me.”
“I’m happy doing what I do.”
“You’re happy being an intellectual prostitute?”
“I’m not an intellectual prostitute,” I said. “It only seems that way.”
“You’re letting other people use your mind for their own agendas.”
“So I make money off of stupid people who have too much power. What’s wrong with that?”
“Don’t you believe in anything?”
“I’d like to,” I said. “But for now, I figure it’s better to be empty than to be full of shit.”
“Hey.” She poked my chest. “You’re lucky I’m too dazzled by you right now to take that personally.”
I was right. The sonata had hooked her. What was I thinking?
“I didn’t mean you, necessarily,” I said.
“Yes, you did. Go ahead, say it. I’m close-minded and self-righteous. Say it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to reexamine your beliefs once every decade or so.”
“I can’t, don’t you see?” She lay back down and gestured at the ceiling. “Too many liberals are willing to make too many concessions. They want to be fair, open-minded. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. They’re
good people. They’re also wimps. I don’t want to be fair anymore. I want to win. Soldiers don’t question the motives or the tactics of a war. They just fight. It’s their job.”
“And you’re a soldier?”
“I prefer the term warrior,” she said. “More inspiring.”
“Couldn’t you be court-martialed for sleeping with the enemy?”
“There’s more to you than your money, Louis. You’d be beautiful in rags.” Gianna stretched and yawned. “Speaking of sleeping, I’ve had a rather vigorous day and would like to end it within the next few minutes.”
I kissed her goodnight, then went back to the living room to clean up. I stroked the Stradivarius once more before replacing it in the closet to continue its exile. After the dishes were put away, it was barely eleven o’clock, and though I wasn’t tired, I returned to bed.
I have slept beside thousands of women during my existence, yet always resisted the urge to observe them in their slumber, to witness their transitory peace, a reminder of the tranquility I lacked. But Gianna mesmerized me even as she slept. Many nights that first month I would lie awake for hours, marveling at the angles of her face and listening to her quiet breathing. I would cast my hand over her arms an inch above her skin to feel the vibrations of her nerves and the radiance of her heat.
Often mere observation would turn into exploration, and she would awaken in an advanced state of arousal. That night, however, I was content only to watch her sleep and feel her resonate beside me.
10
Flammis Acribus Addictis
Gianna returned to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving that weekend, leaving me with some much-needed time alone. I didn’t see Beelzebub or the others until Thanksgiving Day. He had planned a Pilgrim-style orgy, but due to its inherent incongruity, his vision never materialized, so our Thanksgiving was much like that of other Americans, consisting mainly of turkey, football, and falling asleep on the couch under the mighty grip of L-tryptophan.
The following day I held a cabinet meeting in my office to discuss my latest project. Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Moloch, and Belial attended.
“You’ve all seen those Web sites featuring a camera focused on the inside of someone’s apartment that takes a new picture every thirty seconds or so.” I turned on the projector. A home page with a pink and yellow background showed up on the screen. “The most famous and meticulously narcissistic of these is CandiCam, produced by, directed by, and starring Candi Kane—presumably not her real name.”
I clicked on the camera icon to bring up the latest photo from CandiCam.
“Cool, she’s having sex with her boyfriend,” Beelzebub said.
“Check it out,” Mephistopheles said. “On the left side of the screen. The dog’s watching.”
“I heard the dog has his own Web site,” Belial said.
“Shh.” I used my laser pointer to indicate an object in the corner of the camera lens. “Watch the green armchair.” I narrowed my eyes and concentrated on the chair for about fifteen seconds.
“Sir, what should we be looking for?” Moloch asked.
I reloaded the page to get the new image.
“Holy shit,” Mephistopheles said. “The fucking chair’s on fire!”
I snickered. “Hopefully this time they’ll smell the smoke before anything else starts to burn.”
“This time?” Belial said. “You’ve done this before?”
“Of course. I had to practice before showing you. This is the third piece of furniture to spontaneously combust in Candi’s apartment this week. But now that I’ve demonstrated it to you, I can leave her alone.”
I reloaded the page again. Frozen by the camera’s frame, a naked Candi was pointing a fire extinguisher at the armchair. I turned to my comrades.
“What do you think?”
“How’d you do that?” Beelzebub asked. “Do you know where she lives?”
“The answer to both questions is, I have no idea.” I leaned back in my chair. “I just think about things catching on fire, and poof! they do.”
“Lucifer, you become more godlike every day,” Belial said.
“Ah, you flatter me, Belial. That’s why I like you.” I stood up. “I got the idea after reading an article about a group of doctors who have been performing double-blind studies on the healing power of prayer. They’ve finally figured out that energy can flow a great distance to help someone who doesn’t even know he’s being touched. I’ve been converting negative energy into heat for thousands of years, and I’ve taught you to do the same. So I thought I’d try sending some heat through another dimension, and as you can see, it worked.”
“The potential uses for this power are endless,” Moloch said.
“You could tie up police forces around the country investigating arson rings,” Beelzebub said. “Or ruin people’s ski vacations.”
“Or destroy a year’s worth of vaccines,” Belial said.
“Or make entire towns smell really bad by heating up their cemeteries.”
“Or watch live news broadcasts and incinerate the anchors’ desks.”
“Or,” Beelzebub lifted his arms over his head, “you could evaporate Liechtenstein from the comfort of your own living room!” He and Belial high-fived each other from across the table.
“Let’s not get carried away,” I said, “This power is limited, not to mention very draining. To destroy an entire nation, even one as tiny as Liechtenstein, would require hundreds of us with the same power, and we’d probably be shattered for months afterward.”
“Can you teach us how to do that?” Beelzebub said.
“There’s nothing to teach. You can either do it, or you can’t.” I nodded to the screen. “Why don’t you give it a try? All of you. See if you can set Candi’s coffee table on fire, or even just the papers on top of it.”
The four of them knit their brows and leaned forward in deep concentration. The projection screen burst into flames.
“Stop!” I said, but it was too late. The screen was already a pile of ashes. “You’re all thinking in only three dimensions, and your mistake just cost us about two thousand dollars.”
“Sorry,” they all mumbled.
“Can we try again?” Beelzebub asked.
“No. Not with my equipment.”
“Can you be sure it was all of us who did that?” Belial said. “Perhaps one or more of us actually succeeded.”
“Let’s see, shall we?” I turned the laptop computer to face the others and reloaded the Web page. It revealed Candi and her boyfriend sitting on the couch fondling each other. “I guess not.” My brows pinched together to express my regret, but inside I was grinning, my superiority reaffirmed. “Oh, well. Let me know if you have any success. This meeting’s adjourned, if no one has any further business.”
“Good day, sir.” Moloch saluted and left the room.
“Hey, let’s go practice that trick down at the electronics store,” Beelzebub said. “That way if we set something on fire, we won’t have to pay for it.”
“Excellent idea,” Belial said. “Mephisto, will you be joining us?”
Mephistopheles, who had been silent and pensive since my demonstration, shook his head. “No, I need to talk to Lucifer about something. You go ahead.”
The other two sauntered out of the boardroom. I pressed the button on the intercom.
“Daphne, would you have Maintenance come in here and clean up this mess in the boardroom? Tell them we had a short circuit.”
“What happened?” she said. “I heard something pop.”
“Never mind. Please order a new projection screen, too.”
I disconnected the computer and began to pack up the equipment. Mephistopheles drew near to me and said in a low voice, “Lou, this power of yours fits in perfectly with my new plan.”
“What new plan?”
“A plan for radical misery on a monumental scale.”
“Really?” I snapped the locks on the laptop case. “Sounds like an occasion for
lunch.”
We went to a local pub, mediocre enough to be unhaunted by Christmas shoppers, and sat in a dark booth near the back of the tavern.
“I’ve been working on something, Lou. Something big.”
“You have?” With his attention to detail and keen strategic mind, when Mephistopheles says he’s been working on something, it usually means he’s got it planned from start to finish. “Tell me about it.”
“Living as a minority has taught me many things, things I only suspected before.”
“Such as?”
“Ever wonder why the police don’t care when one black man shoots another?”
“No,” I said, “but then again, I don’t know why they care when anyone shoots anyone.”
“They don’t care because they know,” he leaned closer to me, “that if the brothers ever stopped poppin’ each other and decided to turn their guns on the real enemy . . .”
The corners of my eyes twitched. “What are you suggesting, Mephistopheles?”
“A new rebellion. Lucifer, our inner cities are filled with rage. This society has no idea what kind of powder keg it’s sitting on. If we could channel that energy, if violence could unite them instead of ripping them apart, think of the power, think of the potential for bloodshed and chaos.”
“Are we talking riots here? Like in L.A.?”
“No, not riots,” Mephistopheles said. “More organized, more strategic. A mobilized corps of pissed-off niggas. A Million Man March that actually has a million men. No stopping to break windows and loot storefronts—just marching and killing. They’ll advance out of Anacostia and Harlem and Compton, into the suburbs, into the countryside. Meanwhile, I will have crippled law enforcement’s communication and tracking systems, setting them back a few technological decades.”
“Wait a minute. When they get to the countryside, they’ll run up against those civilian militias. They’ve got some heavy artillery, too.”
“That’s when the real fun begins, brother.” Half of his mouth curled into a smile as he waited for my reaction.
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