Pillow ran a hand over his face and enjoyed the hard scrape of his stubble. ‘We weren’t all sitting around reading sad books and diddling ourselves and falling in love with boy painters, Gwynn. I know time, all right? I spent my whole life watching clocks count down. Listening for bells to ring. But it doesn’t help a bit when it actually runs out. When it keeps running.’
Gwynn slapped him on the leg and turned back around, looking out the window. ‘Diddling myself. Psssh. The boys who called themselves painters fell in love with me, buster.’ She jabbed her upper chest with her thumb. ‘And, when I was feeling generous, I let them do the diddling for me as I closed my eyes and imagined old men with rotten teeth and tweed jackets and thick yellow nails. As I came and came and came. I’m an eighty-three-year-old woman who was an amazing thirteen-year-old girl. I had a youth. It was only everything else that was sad.’ Gwynn pushed a thin, almost translucent, piece of hair out of her eyes. ‘I’m going to assume you want something.’
‘You’re good at that.’
‘What?’
Pillow laid his hand out flat, as if expecting an answer to be placed on it. ‘Assuming.’
‘I’ve been told I’m also passably talented at being told what the fuck you’re doing.’
‘I’ve got Artaud all to myself. I’ve got, maybe, a couple days to get him talking, during which time I need him to give me the coins, and hopefully not die of withdrawal.’
‘You’ve never seen my office, have you, Pillow? Almost nobody has. I’ll show you.’
Pillow offered her a hand up.
Gwynn kept looking at him for a second and then hoisted herself up with his hand, sliding up his forearm and settling into an old-school arm-in-arm, directing him with small, certain pushes toward the doors that were way taller than they needed to be. All Gwynn did to open them was put her hand flat against them and keep walking.
The room was huge and almost empty. The ceiling was all glass; the walls were covered with different tricks of light from the sun catching angles in the pane. In the middle of the floor there was a small tree in a pot, and a chair a couple feet in front of it. Gwynn took Pillow to the chair and told him to sit.
‘Watch this tree while I get your stuff.’
Gwynn shuffled over to the corner and opened a wall safe. Pillow looked at the tree; it looked like a fully grown tree but tiny. Its leaves formed a clean circle at the top, like leaves do in drawings.
Gwynn kept talking over her shoulder.
‘Some would say I’m too old for a diary, Pillow. But I thought myself too refined for a diary when I was the right age, seven-some-odd decades ago. I regress years each day. I was born a hundred-and-nine-year-old woman and I’m the perfect age now. You’re always young enough to do something the first time. That’s something I’m only just learning. My diary is about this tree.’ Pillow turned around and looked at Gwynn flipping through a wide assortment of sealed bags like they were records in a store. ‘I bought that tree when it was a seed, and for the last seven years I’ve recorded every change. I note each leaf that falls, and how it falls, I record the exact day they start turning. What the colours turn into. I have a whole section about how the shadows differ by season and by hour of the day.’
Pillow was back to looking at the tree. No leaves fell. He was sweating under the focused light of the ceiling. Gwynn dropped two baggies and a pill bottle into his lap and then rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘What’s going on, Pillow? Is anyone on to you?’
‘We’re good, Gwynn.’ He closed his eyes for the next lie. ‘Nothing to worry about. I’m closing in on these coins. Artaud will give them up soon. Are you ready?’
She used her free hand to flick at an imaginary bug. ‘Some people, people more worried about being right than being original, would say that I was born ready. I’ll just say that I was born one time, and I’m ready this time.’
Pillow pocketed the baggies and stood. Gwynn was looking at the tree.
‘I know it’s silly.’
He grabbed the back of her head and pulled it in to his chest. He spoke with his jaw moving against the top of her head. ‘It’s a great tree, Gwynn.’
Pillow couldn’t help but wonder if that was how any tree wanted to live, in a box being watched. Everything written down.
Paper is made of trees. So was the box.
Gwynn pushed back and spread an arm toward the doors. Pillow noticed that the top of the door brushed against the glass ceiling every time it opened. He could see the little scuffs along the whole arc. A long spear of light hit him in the eye.
At the door Gwynn stopped and dug into the closet. ‘Here, you should take this.’ She pulled a long knotted walking stick out of the closet. It was bluntly ugly, but solid-looking, like something a very old and stereotypical shepherd would use to support himself as he walked up a heath.
‘Why?’
Gwynn shoved the stick into the crook of Pillow’s arm, spun him and pushed him toward the door. ‘Artaud. He’ll like it. He found it at a market in Paris, and he carried it around with him all the time for a while. He traded it to me for heroin. I don’t even think he remembers I have it. But he’ll like it, give it to him.’
Pillow tapped the stick on the toe of his shoe. Gwynn kept looking up at the tree on the floor of the other room.
When he got back to his car, Pillow looked at the clock. Emily’s appointment started in five minutes. Pillow really hoped they didn’t do the thing where they show you a grainy picture of the baby and then tell you how big it is in terms of fruit, but he knew they would. Pillow sat in his car, trying to think of better places to stash Artaud, as the clock counted off minutes until the appointment started and then it counted off a few more. Pillow looked out the windshield. It felt exactly like sitting still.
Driving sleepily back to the slaughterhouse gave Pillow some mostly traffic-free time to think over his game plan. The whole thing was a foot race, and he was the only one on track. Bataille was in the wind without the coins, and now it was between himself, whoever knocked off the original buy, and the cops. Avida and Simon were in it for themselves. They’d keep the whole thing unofficial in case they found the coins and managed to work a deal. Breton had written off the coins, and Don would be in just as much trouble as him if he told about Artaud. The only real wild card was the robbers. Everyone else was predictable, but he didn’t even know who those crazies were – they just came in shooting.
As long as Don kept his mouth shut, Pillow thought he had the advantage, strategically. Only the cops realized he was looking for the coins, and they couldn’t tell anyone, and even if everyone did know they wouldn’t think he was a real threat. Apollinaire was the trump card. Everybody else, Breton included, thought there was only one way to move the coins. If he could just get Artaud to tell him about the coins soon, he could get away clean. He and Emily could move somewhere sunny, somewhere with beaches and sea turtles older than the telephone. The sort of place where Emily could fix shoes and learn to windsurf, and his kid could become a world-class long-distance runner.
The slaughterhouse seemed less creepy during the day, but a lot dirtier. Pillow could pretty much see staph crawling up the walls. The sun was highlighting all the dust in the air. It looked the way snow in a storm looks, falling or floating back up. Artaud was lying down exactly where Pillow had left him, one arm twisted up at a weird angle chained to the table, the other folded under his head like a double-jointed airplane cushion. Pillow figured he should probably buy Artaud a blanket, maybe a pillow. The roof was obscured by the light, making it seem absent and opaque to Pillow, like a sky that was all cloud.
Artaud woke up as Pillow reached him and started spazzing out and contorting himself away from the table. Pillow watched a long shallow gash pucker open on the priest’s wrist.
‘Okay, enough of that, Artaud.’
Artaud bent himself around the table leg, closing his eyes and letting out one muffled wail, sounding like a whale whose blowhole had
been packed with wax.
Pillow sat down cross-legged and scooted under the table. He snapped his fingers in front of Artaud’s face. ‘Hey! Morphine! Food!’
Artaud kept his eyes closed tight, but his long, wracked limbs started relaxing in gradual stages. Pillow reached out and cupped Artaud’s hip. He left the hand there awkwardly.
‘So, you’re probably pretty confused, and I want to help you out, so we should get some basics straight. The first thing you need to know is that you’re safe. You have a broken jaw and a pretty bad concussion, but that’s all healing. I’m not here to hurt you. Actually I’m here to help take care of you. The drugs I’m going to give you are just the drugs you like. The food I’m going to give you is just food, and the water is water. Is that all okay with you?’
Artaud opened his eyes, nodded and then turned his head to the floor. Pillow let go of his hip and took out a small notebook and a pen. ‘It’s important that you don’t try to open your mouth too much, okay? You can write down whatever you need to say. Do you have any questions for me?’
Artaud stayed still. Pillow watched him for a while, then he put the pen and paper down on the floor, crawled out from under the table and set up the morphine shot.
Pillow held the syringe up to the blinding sun, watched the air bubble bounce back and forth, framed by illuminated dust, which, he’d recently learned, is mostly just dead skin. Pillow hadn’t been surprised to learn that one. It made sense to him, that this was a life you spent breathing in skin.
The thing for Pillow was this: he didn’t want to find the coins, he wanted to have found the coins. He could see it all, how far away he was from being done. The fact of doing it, pumping Artaud for information, lying to everybody, moving through the day, was tiresome to even imagine. And that wasn’t how Pillow was used to wanting things.
When he’d been fighting, what he’d wanted was to fight, to train, to be a boxer. To be a boxer every day. The imaginary titles, all that imaginary glory, and the money could (and did) come and go. What he’d liked was beating people. Looking someone in the face, knowing what they wanted to do, them knowing what he wanted to do, and still getting over on them. Seeing guys fold, crack like seashells hit with a tennis racket, under the pressure. Watching all those plans and all that confidence fall out of their eyes. Watching their shoulders sag that little bit and knowing he hadn’t just won a game, he’d dominated someone who was used to dominating. That wouldn’t be the payoff this time. He wouldn’t see it. He’d have to imagine it. Imagine those numbers in the bank, disappearing day by day, as worth it. Understand the money, the time that passed warm under a roof, as the results of effort.
Artaud wasn’t going to give Pillow what he wanted until he stabilized a little, but Pillow wanted to start setting him up. He put the needle between his teeth, picked up the smoothies he’d brought and walked to the side of the room Artaud was staring at. He placed everything down in a neat line.
‘All right, Antonin, that’s your first name, right?’
Artaud sprayed a thin mist of blood out from between his lips in response.
‘Antonin, you need to drink these smoothies I’m making for you, all right? That’s important.’
Artaud reached weakly up toward Pillow’s face, and Pillow caught the hand and pulled it firmly, but gently, away. He laced his fingers through Artaud’s, bouncing their hands against the floor.
‘Hey. Take it easy. I want to tell you one more thing first. You listen to me and you get your morphine, okay?’
Artaud looked him in the eyes. Artaud’s were that light blue shade that people wear contacts to get. They were rimmed with dark red blood, the rest as white as the boring part of an egg. Pillow shook their hands, then held them still and close to his chest.
‘I’ve seen you around, Artaud, you know that? I’ve seen you around, and I’ve seen you talk, a lot. And I’ve seen nobody listen. I think you’ve got some shit to say. So I’m not going to ask you to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. And I can’t promise I’ll understand, but I will pay attention to you. I’ll get you drugs, I’ll get you food, I’ll keep you alive. And you can tell me whatever you want to tell me. And after a while, after you think I’ve paid enough attention, enough care, you’re going to tell me one thing I want to know. Sound good?’
Artaud didn’t nod or move his head or look up from the floor. The shattered extra hinge of his jaw sagged a little and then tensed back into place.
‘Oh, I almost forgot, here’s your walking stick. Gwynn said you might like it.’
Artaud bolted upright and snatched the stick from Pillow’s hands. He lay down flat, gripped the stick in his arms and legs and squeezed as hard as he could. He kissed the top knob of the stick, and a large, bloody, chapped piece of his lip came off stuck to it.
Pillow wondered if love and adoration and being obsessed with sticks could all be the same thing.
Artaud finally sat up. He let his jaw sag in a way that must have been painful and locked his eyes on Pillow, and then those eyes started to cry.
That walking stick was either the worst or the best present Pillow had ever given someone, and with Artaud it was hard to tell.
Artaud looked down at the needle and squeezed Pillow’s hand. Pillow turned the arm over. He took off his belt, handed it over and then uncuffed Artaud and watched the rest.
There was a small but significant part of Pillow that was still convinced that all the people who were squeamish about needles were actually faking it. It was the same part of his brain that couldn’t help thinking he should weigh more with an erection, no matter how many times he’d woken up, stepped on his scale and been proven wrong.
Artaud, needle now stuck firmly in his arm, stopped and looked back at Pillow.
Artaud started moving his lips slowly with no sound behind them. Artaud’s eyes, huge and blue and unblinking, his head tilting to the side, the deep black bags underneath creasing a little with humour, his shoulders heaving with breath. Pillow reached up and ran his hand through Artaud’s hair, which fell to the sides like a field of wheat with a truck moving through. Artaud leaned forward and kissed Pillow on the lips. Pillow could smell and taste the metallic bite of blood from Artaud’s mouth. When he pulled back, Artaud nodded at him and shot the morphine straight in without looking back at the needle.
Pillow considered himself an open-minded, deeply freaked out person at that exact minute. The little notebook he’d given Artaud was propped open, with a short note inside that he must have written while Pillow was preparing the needle.
A localized numbness. Local in the same way the whole of the universe is local. You have provided me with the only possible tonic. I cannot thank you enough.
Pillow sighed. Pushing Artaud was going to be a lot of work, and he needed to be sharp for it. So he just sat quietly and let Artaud enjoy himself. The guy’s wrist had swollen to almost the size of a grapefruit. Pillow poked it with his finger. It was hard as a rock who’d never met another rock. Pillow pinched the abscess between his fingers and shifted it back and forth. Artaud was staring at the ceiling, mouthing something, small droplets of blood flipping off his top lip.
On the way back to the car, Pillow took a brief pause and looked out at the forest behind the slaughterhouse. They were sparse, vaguely dead woods, but still pretty in the way that trees and soil are no matter what. They were the sort of woods where seeing an alien landing or a backwoods marriage would have just made Pillow nod and shrug.
A deer walked out onto the path behind him. The deer sniffed the grass for a second and then it kept walking, in that way deer move where it seems like they’re hurt but it’s just how their joints are.
Pillow followed Emily down the stairs, enjoying the fluorescent lights reflecting in the polished cement of the walls and floor. Emily was holding the thick metal door open with both arms.
She was in the middle of making it very easy for him not to tell he
r about Artaud. It seemed like she’d pretty much tapped out of hearing about his business. She hadn’t said anything to that effect, but Pillow figured it was up to him to honour the agreement. Emily didn’t want to know.
‘So, Peter, the reason I called you down is that I’m going to show you how I became so broke. I’m going to share this with you, even though … No, scratch that. Because it is really humiliating. You need to see.’
‘I’m sure it’s not that bad. Do you know how much cash has gone through my hands? It’s shameful. That’s not a thing I say much either. I’m actually ashamed of it.’
Emily shook her head slowly. Rapped on the sliding metal door of a passing storage locker. ‘Just wait. You make a lot of strong calls on things you don’t know very much about. That’s something I’ve noticed about you.’
Possibly the only bonus feature of their apartment building was that everyone got a free storage locker in the basement. Pillow had never opened his, having lost the key shortly after moving in.
Emily hustled down the long, smooth, shiny hallway. She threw the door to her locker open unreasonably hard, and then jumped back a little, startled by the noise. ‘See how strong I am? This guy, bodybuilder.’
Pillow’s jaw went slack as he turned the corner and looked inside. It was packed to the ceiling with old hobby items. Hiking poles, ski poles, remote-control boats, remote-control planes, models, a sewing machine, a pottery wheel, a chemistry set, a snowboard, a diorama-making set, an easel, golf clubs, two chess boards, a boogie board and several knitting needles jammed randomly through huge, mixed balls of wool.
‘Are you a …’
Emily shook her head wistfully.
‘I knew you were going to say that, and I really hoped you wouldn’t. And I’m just generally pissed the concept of “hoarding” has gotten so much play lately. I’m a hobbyist, okay? I have hobbies. I have almost all the hobbies, and I keep the things that I bought for them in case I want to go back and do them again.’
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