Who is Charlie Conti?

by Claus von Bohlen

  ‘So Charlie, you runnin’ from the law?’ Stella called from the doorway.

  ‘Kinda, I guess. Except they think I did something which I didn’t do, but it’s pretty hard to prove I didn’t do it. And it’s not just that, the problem is that I need their help to prove that I am Charlie Conti. Until I can prove that I’m screwed.’

  ‘So what you gonna do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve got to think about it. But I want to go see my sister. She’s got Down’s Syndrome and lives in Maryland and the last time I saw her or spoke to her was almost a year ago. She’s pretty different from other people, but we grew up together and, well, she’s the only family I’ve got. And the other thing is, I’d like to write down everything that’s happened to me, so that the truth doesn’t get twisted. I mean, I’ve already forgotten some of the details.’

  ‘Is that what you were writing in the diner?’

  ‘Sort of. Except those were just notes and a few dates, and they’re now mostly covered in blood where Kramer cleaned his hands. I’d like to write it all down properly and get it typed up so anyone can read it.’

  ‘Why did Kramer attack you? I thought he was a Special Agent?’

  ‘Yeah, so did I. But he isn’t. He works for Ray Celador, for the asshole that’s responsible for everything. I guess I’m an idiot for trusting people.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Stella, exhaling smoke into the cool air.

  ‘Well, Ray kinda set me up with this girl. Then he encouraged me to go on a trip. While I was away he used my house as an unloading point to smuggle blow. Then Jeanine disappeared and took my stuff. When Kramer called I never doubted him – he said he was FBI and he’d been tracing my calls and he knew I’d been calling LAPD. I guess Ray, or Kramer, could see who I’d been calling. They must’ve gotten access to my cell phone account along with everything else. I never thought of doubting Kramer, even when he sent me to pick up cash from this really sketchy character in Venice.’

  After a few moments Stella asked: ‘Ray set you up with Jeanine?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Well, she was nothing like you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I thought for a second. ‘Because there was really nothing I liked about her,’ I said.

  ‘Huh. So why were you with her?’

  ‘Sex, ego, whatever. Basically because I was an idiot.’

  Stella took one last drag on her cigarette then stubbed it out on the ground next to her. ‘You can stay with me as long as you want,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks Stella. I appreciate it. Really I do. But seeing Izzy – that’s my sister – and writing everything down, that’s what I’ve got to do now.’

  I finished getting dressed while Stella sat in the doorway singing the song she’d been singing in the shower in the strange Hispanic-Caribbean accent.

  *

  We walked beside the highway to Marv’s Soda Shop. That’s to say, I walked beside the highway and Stella walked along the white markings dividing the road, carefully putting one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker. It kind of worried me but I didn’t say anything. I guess it wasn’t so dangerous; you could see a long way in both directions because the land was flat and open and the only buildings were low and set back from the road. We saw a truck coming but by the time it passed us Stella had skipped over to the side of the road. Still, I thought it was asking for trouble to walk in the middle of the road like that.

  We were walking through a strange no man’s land – gas stations and factory outlets and second hand car dealerships, and everything else flat and dry and dusty. I suddenly felt sick of the landscape, of its terrible monotony. I couldn’t wait to go north, to feel a wet Atlantic breeze on my face and to see the pine forests rolling away upcountry. I’d have liked to take Stella with me. We could’ve been fugitives from the law like Bonnie and Clyde, except fugitives with a clean conscience and no blood on our hands. It was a nice idea but I realized it was totally unrealistic, though I promised myself that as soon as I got out of this mess I’d go find Stella again.

  Marv’s Soda Shop was stuck in a 50s time warp. The floor was a big black and white linoleum check and the bar and all the furniture was made out of spearmint green plastic, except for the stainless steel counter top. The soda fountain was a big old machine against the wall at the back; it bristled with stirers of different lengths for the different sizes of shake and there were bits of piping and chrome tubes sticking out here and there, but I think they were mostly for show. Stella ordered two chocolate malteds with marshmallows, then we sat on the spearmint green stools at the stainless steel counter.

  I started to feel nauseous about halfway through my shake – it was too sweet for breakfast – and I saw that Stella was mostly trying to drown the marshmallows by dunking them with her straw. She seemed preoccupied.

  ‘You think you’re gonna move on?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m saving money.’

  ‘What about boys?’ I was pretty sure she didn’t have a boyfriend, though I hadn’t actually asked her. But then, it seems strange to think that there are strippers who don’t have boyfriends. You’d have thought that if they wanted a boyfriend there’d be plenty of guys to choose from. I’d have been sorry to hear that she was seeing someone, but at the same time I knew I wasn’t exactly offering an alternative, not right then anyway.

  ‘I’ve been out with a couple of guys round here but really they just wanted to get hooked up because I’m a stripper. We were together a few weeks, then they went out with one of the other girls from the Palace. To them we’re interchangeable.’

  I’d never really thought about that before. I felt bad for her. It’s pretty sad when you realize that someone is being nice to you just because they want something from you, but they don’t really care about you at all.

  ‘You know,’ said Stella, ‘I’ve been thinking about people who get together on the internet. I mean, it sounds weird, but at least that way you find out whether you like someone as a person before all the physical stuff gets in the way. And if I like someone, chances are I’ll find them attractive too, even if they’ve got a messed up face or whatever.’

  Stella smiled at me. I said, ‘But the physical stuff is important too. I mean, you can’t force yourself to find someone physically attractive when you don’t, even if you really like them.’

  ‘I guess not. But I think it’s better to try and make yourself find someone attractive because you like them, instead of making yourself like someone because you find them attractive. Otherwise you end up with an asshole.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘If you’ve got to force yourself then I guess it’s best to force yourself that way. But even if you meet someone on the net, and you like them because of the things they write, I mean, they might just be playing a game, you know, inventing a character that they think you’ll like.’

  ‘Maybe. But people can do that when you meet them in real life too. I mean, that’s always a danger.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Stella put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. You don’t expect girls to do that. Maybe football coaches and teachers and so on, not girls. But I liked it.

  *

  We walked back to the motel to get the Buick, then we drove around all the second hand car dealerships to see if anyone wanted to buy it. Most of them weren’t interested. They said that buyers didn’t want that sort of car anymore. But the salesman at O’Rorke’s Cars, he seemed interested. Or at least, he was interested in Stella and pretended that he gave a shit about the car but I could see he didn’t. He had a big handlebar moustache and he was almost handsome in a 70s porno way. But I didn’t like him at all. You could see straight away he thought he was a real hotshot, the kind of guy that thought he was doing a girl a favor if he let her blow him.

  He was corny as hell too. He walked around the car and stroked the wheel arches and looked at Stella and said, ‘Believe me when I say I
appreciate great bodywork.’

  Stella played along. While the cheeseball was stroking the wheel arch she leaned across the hood from the other side so he got a good view of her breasts, then she said, ‘Of course Mister, you’re more than welcome to a test drive.’

  He smoothed down his moustache and asked, ‘You know, you look mighty familiar. Ain’t I seen you before someplace?’

  ‘Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t.’

  ‘I could swear I know your face. Are you from around here?’

  ‘That depends…’ Stella stood up and turned around and leaned back with her ass against the wheel arch and her eyes closed and her face lifted towards the sun, like she was sunning herself.

  ‘Depends on what?’

  ‘Depends on whether you gonna make my friend here a nice offer for this here vehicle.’ She adjusted the cowboy hat and looked archly over her shoulder at the salesman. Boy she was good.

  ‘Lemme go make a coupla calls.’ He disappeared inside. I thought he’d probably gone to jack off.

  When he came back he said, ‘I’ll take it for a thousand.’

  That was five times less than I paid for it, but I didn’t have an alternative. I figured that a thousand was about enough to get me to Maryland, to stay there a few days, and then to go on to the coast to write my story. If I ran out of money I could get a job on the coast and write at night. That was my plan.

  ‘Ok, I’ll sell it for a thousand,’ I said.

  The cheeseball looked at Stella again. ‘And I still want my test drive,’ he said.

  She replied, ‘Come to the Palace of Pleasure tonight. I’ll get you free entry and a free dance.’

  ‘And when do we go for a proper drive?’

  ‘Buddy, this vehicle’s stick shift, we go one gear at a time.’

  *

  So, I left O’Rorke’s with a thousand bucks in hundreds in my pocket. I offered to give some of it to Stella but she refused pointblank. Then we walked to the bus stop by the motel and sat in the dust waiting for the bus into Vegas. The shadows were long and the light was fading from the sky and I thought that in a novel or a film or whatever I’d go back to Stella’s room and we’d make love while the sun set and then I’d whisper something mysterious and meaningful into her ear which would solve all our problems and that would be the end. But life isn’t like that, or at least mine isn’t.

  Then the bus came and I kissed her goodbye on the cheek and thanked her for the stitches, but I forgot to say anything that mattered, like how I felt about her or how I wanted to see her again.

  XV

  SITTING ON THAT bus I started to feel pretty depressed. I wished I’d kissed Stella while we were waiting at the bus stop, or at least told her how much I liked her. Boy, I hate regret. It makes me feel sick. I swear, it really gets to me. I still feel terrible when I think back to this one time in New York a couple of years ago. I saw a girl on the subway who was so sweet looking it pretty much killed me. She was about my age, sixteen or seventeen I guess. She was reading a magazine and laughing to herself and she had striped mittens dangling down from the sleeves of her duffle coat. I guess the mittens were tied together with string, the way little kids have them. She even looked over her magazine at me a couple of times, kind of inviting me to go talk to her. Thing was, there were other people standing around and I chickened out; I couldn’t do it. I got to my stop and all the time I was thinking that if I didn’t talk to her I’d regret it for the rest of my life, and I guess that’s what happened.

  I think regret kills me so much because I kind of invent these great stories of what could’ve been. Like with the girl on the subway, I remember walking home – it was just starting to snow – and imagining how differently things might have turned out. I mean, I could’ve waited until she got off the train and then spoken to her on the platform and she might have smiled at me and we’d have gone for coffee and then maybe walked to the park and suddenly we’d be holding hands and it would have happened just like that, without thinking. And all the time we’d be telling each other everything and understanding everything and there’d be no confusions or misinterpretations or whatever. Maybe we’d go to a movie and when we came out the snow would be thick and fresh on the ground and we’d have kissed out there on the street, our cold noses touching like Eskimos. We’d have become lovers and spent the rest of the vacation together and done all the things that lovers do that are beautiful at the time but kind of corny when you try to describe them later.

  To tell the truth, I’m always regretting stuff. I guess it’s also because I’m not very good at seizing the moment. In fact, I almost always miss the moment and then I have to make up for it afterwards. It’s ok if I’ve got the time to think about what I should do and if I imagine the regret I’ll feel if I don’t do it, that helps me to work up my courage. But when something happens suddenly and you’ve got to seize the moment and be decisive and all, like with Stella when the bus came into view, that’s when I screw up.

  I guess the real irony is that I worry about all these possible stories that never get played out, and the few that have been played out have never in my experience lived up to the promise of the first opening sentence. I don’t just mean Jeanine; I’m thinking generally about the girls I’ve hooked up with, which really isn’t that many. I mean, before hooking up with them I’ve always imagined that things would turn out to be, I don’t know, more exciting than they were. It’s a bit like when I lost my virginity. Before I ever slept with a girl I spent hours and hours thinking about what it would feel like and what that dark triangle would be like and so on. That was back at Belmont and I guess we were all like that, being schoolboys and all. It was so mysterious. Then I did sleep with a girl and it really wasn’t that great, just a lot of squelching in the dark. It made me think of getting rubber boots stuck in mud. Sure, it got better after that, and like I said it was pretty good with Jeanine which is mostly why I was with her. But what I want to say is just that things are often better in my imagination than they turn out to be in real life. At least, when I’m feeling down it often seems that way.

  That’s when I like to watch nature documentaries. Thing is, depression makes you think that the world is a boring place. But when you watch nature documentaries it makes you realize how much there is out there, and how unbelievably varied it all is, and how minutely sophisticated. I like amazing facts too, like that there are 240 million insects for every human on the planet, or that the blue whale’s tongue is the size and weight of an African elephant, or that cockroaches can survive for nine days without their heads. I mean, when you hear stuff like that you realize how amazing the world really is, and that’s before you even start thinking about magic and the human spirit and so on.

  *

  I woke up just as we were pulling into the Greyhound bus terminal in Vegas. I went to the ticket office to buy a ticket east to Frederick in Maryland; from there I’d have to hitch to Paradise, just across the river from the Susquehanna State Park. The bus journey was going to take two days. I had to change in Denver, St Louis and Pittsburgh. It was cheap though, and I didn’t want to risk travelling by air because of the security checks and all.

  Most of the journey I slept. In St Louis I started to get a headache so I went to the drugstore next to the bus station to buy some painkillers. The guy behind me in the line was enormous; not just tall, he had massive shoulders too, like a football player. His face was memorable – everything about it was very straight, like geometry. Almost scary. I paid for the painkillers and left the drugstore and right away got on my connecting bus. I was about to sit down when I saw that the guy from the drugstore was already in the seat next to mine. I guess I did a big double take because he said to me, ‘Don’t worry, you probably just saw my brother Hal. We’re identical twins.’

  ‘I thought I was going crazy,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, people can get freaked out. Hey, I’m Jud.’ He stuck out his massive hand and I shook it. Then I sat down.

  ‘I don
’t want to be rude,’ I said, ‘but what’s it like being a twin?’

  Jud brushed his hair out of his eyes. It was an oddly feminine gesture for such a big man. Then he said, ‘It’s not so different. I mean, sometimes people that don’t know us can get freaked out, like I said. And of course you get mix-ups and all – people think I’m Hal and ask me something about the dairy and I gotta tell them I’m Jud. See, I do the agriculture and Hal does the dairy, that’s why I gotta go up to Indianapolis and source me some parts.’

  ‘But do you know what your brother’s thinking? Do you have the same dreams, stuff like that?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not anymore. I got a fair idea what he’s thinking, but we don’t have the same thoughts. I guess when we were kids and we were always together, I mean, we were more similar then. We played college football together too, at Texas A&M. It woulda been pretty useful to think the same thoughts on the football field, but that’s not the way it works. It’s more like having a best friend who also looks like you.’

  ‘But isn’t it strange to be able to watch yourself, to see a copy of yourself walking around?’ I asked.

  ‘Thing is, we don’t think that we look the same. It’s only people that don’t know us that get confused. People got more confused when we were kids, that’s true, but we were more similar generally back then. And at college it was kinda fun. We used to swap girls in a bar and most times they didn’t notice. But now people don’t get confused so much, and like I say, it’s never been weird for us. I guess you get to know your own face pretty well. It’s like when you look in a mirror and you think your appearance changes from day to day but most people never notice a difference.’