by Jeff Somers
Except, except, except, as she paced back and forth back and forth, smoking and picking at a scab on her arm, except she wasn’t piling the money up. She didn’t understand it. She was selling so much shit, like really setting records with it. Call the Guinness people: a doctor who sold more prescription drugs than ever before in history! It was her. But she didn’t have a ton of cash. It just melted away.
I rubbed her back. I told her, sure, sure. It was a fucking mystery. Unsolvable, unless you put a face on the cosmos and made it all angry and mean. The universe, fucking with her, stealing her money. I watched her scratching at herself. A real mystery.
Suddenly, she spun and asked me if I wanted a drink? Some music? Suddenly we’re on a date. She smiles at me. Tomwallace, she says. She did that, said my full name as one word. It was a thing. Tomwallace, she says, thanks for sticking with me.
Panic swept through me. She’s going to cry. Jesus fucking Christ, all I want is a bottle of horse tranquilizers, and now I’m starting to worry I’m going to have to fuck her to get them. She’s giving me that dewy look. Like she actually believes we are some epic love story. She’s the Ungettable Girl, super smart and pretty and successful, and I’m the nerd character, the puppy dog loser who’s always there for her but never noticed. Until that one fateful night when something epic and tragic happens, and the Ungettable Girl looks over at me, the pop music swells, and I get her.
Holy fuck.
Failure was not an option, however. I rubbed her back. I told her, sure, sure. I was prepared to dive in. To peel back those sweaty panties and wear three rubbers and do whatever it took. I said I’d love a drink. I said I’d love some music. I retold an old chestnut about us in high school, showing up for a dance humming to the gills on brandy and mystery pills she’d doled out, everything slippery and hilarious. How she’d caused a sensation by dancing with abandon with a series of boys. I left out the part with her ending up in some jerkoff’s Mustang, getting felt up until she puked suddenly, an explosion of puke with no warning signs sprayed all over the jerkoff and his upholstery. I edited it. I cut the end and faded out on her dancing, dancing, dancing, everyone clapping and excited.
She raced around the place as I talked. Handed me a dirty glass of sour red wine and raced around. Put the radio on, the old-fashioned over-the-air radio. Swing music. Jazz. Sophisticated. Raced around, disappeared into the bathroom. Terror seized me. I pictured her doing a hobo bath in there, wiping herself down, spritzing on deodorant over the old deodorant, taking the five birth-control pills she’d forgotten this week all at once. Sweat popped out on my face. I told myself I could do this. Wallace men had fucked some pretty horrifying things in their desperate quest to pass on their genes; one mildly skanked out junkie doctor was nothing to write home about. My ancestors would laugh at me and mock my fancy ways.
I stood up, setting the glass of not-precisely-wine-anymore on the filthy, cluttered coffee table, and started moving toward the bathroom. If this was going to happen, I was going to take control and do it in the best possible way for me. As I walked, I tried to ignore the persistent smell of body odor, the thick feel of the air. I didn’t think about what was crackling under my shoes like desiccated beetles. I was going to go in. I was going to rub her back. I was going to say, sure, sure.
I knocked. No answer. I pushed the door in and stood there for a moment. Lindsay was sprawled on the floor. Passed out. I saw her chest rising and falling. For a second my ancestors crowded around me, urging me to fuck her anyway, a deal was a deal was a deal.
I looked around the bathroom. It was, of course, a level of disgusting I’d never encountered before. I was going to have to check into a hotel, burn my clothes, take a shower that was about one degree less than lethal, and possibly shave my head, before I could go back to my own apartment. The only thing that could be said in Lindsay’s favor was that she appeared to still be using the toilet for its assigned purpose instead of just shitting on the floor.
I decided to leave the bathroom search for last, and thank God, because she hadn’t even hidden anything. It was just piled up on her gritty bed. Pills in thick clear plastic bags, piles of them. Syringes, rubber tubes, small glass bottles—everything the ambitious drug user could want. I took a single bag and examined it, noting the cute little OC stamped on one side of the little pills. I stuffed it into my pocket and sifted through the syringes, all packed in neat little sealed plastic baggies. I’d no idea how many fucking types of syringes there were. I sorted through them until I found a nice long one, thin like a bit of wire. It looked sturdy enough to be pressed down through a cork. The Bick had become recently snobby about wine, quoting entire descriptions from books and magazines. Fucking unbearable. Somehow appropriate.
I paused and looked around her bedroom. Dirty clothes everywhere, junk food containers, dust. On her dresser she’d arranged an implausible number of framed photos. Of herself. Other people, but always her. Always her from years ago—smiling, young, with healthier hair and fewer bruises. I saw myself in one, a smaller one, faded and blurry. Me, skinny.
I walked over and picked it up. I had no photos. I didn’t keep them. People sometimes sent me pictures; I threw them away or deleted them. I stared down at it. It was my lines, my shape. But it wasn’t me anymore. I put it back where it had been, right exactly into the clean spot on her dresser, turned and went back into the dark, stuffy living room. I paused and listened. I looked around, thinking whether I’d left anything, sloughed anything off I was going to regret later. There was nothing.
I stepped out into the hallway. Music, somewhere, soporific and muffled. Ten thousand dinners stretching back to the nineteenth century crowded into my nose. I shut her door behind me and thought about calling an ambulance. Then, didn’t.
XIII.
TODAY
An enormous something, just beyond the tree line. And me, sitting in the grass, small, fragile, and just beginning to feel the hurricane winds of its approach. Soon to be blown away, then to be crushed beneath it, unnoticed. But an awesome feeling of insignificance, and resigned, impatient curiosity. About to be destroyed, but in the moment just before, at least about to know.
My beard is itching me. I open my eyes, flick ash into the ashtray, pick up my coffee cup. Around me, Pirelli’s Diner bustles, taking no notice. It is the first day of the year, and I am sobering up. Coffee and nicotine, and, eventually, when I’m feeling up to it, pancakes. It smells like coffee and cigarettes, and the noise is wonderful. I’m wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and I haven’t shaved in three weeks now. I’d drank myself into a spot where I felt terrible all the time, and, satisfied, it was time to move on.
The waitress stops to fill my cup of coffee, and I beam up at her in gratitude.
“Jesus, Hank, you look fucking terrible.”
I look left, and there’s Kelly: white T-shirt, faded jeans, a scarf wrapped around her neck and chest. She looks fresh-scrubbed, clean, which probably translates to hung over.
I smile. “Hey, Kel, Happy New Year.”
“You too. Missed you last night.”
I shrug. “Denise here?”
“I am 100 percent Denise-free, I swear.”
“Have a seat.”
She pulls out the chair across from me and sits on one leg, leaning forward slightly in her seat. “So? No invite last night?”
I pull out my pack of cigarettes and nod, holding it out to her. After a moment she takes one delicately. “Oh, I was invited all right. I just didn’t go.”
She squints to inhale as I light her cigarette. “What’d you do?”
I shrug. “I don’t remember.”
There is a moment of quiet. Kelly just studies me. I sip coffee and enjoy this feeling, completely wrecked physically. I am congested, nauseous, weak, shaky. Ungroomed. It is wonderful. I look up, smiling, and meet her gaze.
“Jesus, Hank. You’re taking this pretty hard. If it’s any comfort, I think Denise is taking it just as badly. She was putting on a brave fac
e last night, but she was bummed the whole time.”
I try to stop myself, but self-control has been sanded thin of late and it slips the wire-thin bonds. I throw my head back and laugh, it comes rushing out of me like a torrent, a river of amusement.
“Oh Christ, Kel,” I say, wiping my eyes, “I’m not thinking about Denise!”
She seems a little taken aback, straightening up in offense. I hold out my hands placatingly, palms up, trying to look nonthreatening. “No, no! I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just funny, probably to me only. I haven’t thought about Denise in days. Really. She left me, I left her—we both got things to cop to, with that. I got bigger fish to fry.”
I’d always liked Kelly. She is a big girl but light on her feet and really attractive. It’s her eyes, at once amused and steely, determined but willing to laugh. Through the smoke rising up from her cigarette, she stares at me, considering.
“If not Denise, then what?”
I shrug. “Do you believe in evil, Kelly?”
“What?”
I lean forward slightly. “Evil. Badness. I used to think it was some foreign thing, that only Nazis and terrorists were evil, you know? Now I think it’s something we all carry inside of us, all the time.”
She appears to think about that, but then she says “Henry, maybe you ought to go home and get some sleep.”
I shake my head. “I am here for coffee, pancakes, and butter. I’m not leaving until I get them.”
“And to contemplate evil, right?”
“Nope. I’ve been contemplating evil, sister. This is my re-emergence.”
The waitress comes and I have my order ready: I’ve been dreaming of buttermilk pancakes, sausages, and toast all morning. The waitress turns expectantly to Kelly, who considers for a moment, and then orders a Denver omelette and coffee.
“I haven’t scared you off?”
She makes a face. “Eh, I’m here with Flo and this guy she picked up last night, young discomforted post-sex fuckups. You could eat the friggin’ tension over there. No thanks, I’ll take your insane ramblings about evil any day.”
She smiles, but it fades. “This have something to do with Mary?”
There are cigarette ashes on the table, mixed with coffee spill, ugly and muddy. “Always a woman, huh?”
“We’re always at the root of it,” she says easily. “Wanna tell me what’s eating you? We all miss her.”
“Yeah?”
I look up and Kelly is giving me the stink eye. “Mary was a challenge, okay? But we all loved her. She was a child. When she was sober, she was great. We all have our moments.”
I swallow thickly. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, she is touching my hand. “Hey, what’s wrong? Come on, Henry. Talk to me.”
I wave my hand. “I can’t, Kel. Don’t ask me to.”
There is silence then, and I stare out the greasy windows into the parking lot, squinting in the cold sun. I had just managed to leave it behind. I’m not going to be dragged back again. I know I wouldn’t survive another round of poison.
I put a smile on my face and lean forward as her coffee arrives. “Enough of that. Tell me about Kelly. What’s up with Kelly?”
She laughs. “Oh, you are such an insincere bastard!”
“But charming.”
“But charming, yes. In a dissipated, hung over kind of way.”
I lean back as a plate of food is placed before me. I’m starving. “So? What’s up with you?”
She wraps both hands around her coffee cup and stares into it with a serious expression. “Nothing much. Work blows; I have a totally chauvinistic boss who keeps making me type his fucking letters even though the word assistant doesn’t appear anywhere in my title. Still single and have recently sunk into the final, humiliating level of being set up by my mother, who leans toward thin, neat men with lots of money.”
She looks up at me. “Don’t you want to know about Denise?”
I shake my head and swallow. “She’s fine. Denise is stronger than me, than anybody I know. She’ll leave me behind so fast my head will spin.”
Kelly laughs. “Wow. You’re so wrong. She’s devastated.”
“She’ll get over it before I do.”
I feel her eyes on me, but keep eating.
“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” she says at last.
“Always is.”
“Yeah, but …” She let it drop as her own plate arrives. For a moment we sit in silence as she arranges everything the way she likes. She has a precise, bird-like way of eating that I found attractive, in an odd way.
“Who did Flo hook up with last night, then?” I ask finally. “I am so behind the times.”
Kelly laughs, snorting with her mouth full. “Oh, God! It’s actually quite amusing. You remember the guy she dumped? Phil?”
I think for a moment. “Dublen. The millionaire.”
She nods. “Not exactly, but yeah, him. They both crawled inside a bottle of Southern Comfort and came out the other end in bed, each saying something about how they should never have broken up,” she smirks. “Man, I could have written the script this morning, except he won’t go away. It’s like this guy has no sense of shame or embarrassment. She’s being really mean to him, and he just hangs on.” She sips coffee. “I’m gonna be in purgatory for months for leaving their table. He’s probably asking her to marry him right now.”
“The excitable type, huh?”
“Yep. Not like you. You I have to keep resisting the urge to check for a heartbeat.”
Mary. Eyes open. Dust and Bick, and a drink cooling in my hand.
“You okay? I’m sorry, I say things—”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a fucking guy. Everything’s fine until you’re bleeding out, right? God, I hate that about guys. So much would be avoided if you’d just talk. Just talk.”
I shake my head. “That’s chick bullshit. I’m fine. I say I’m fine because I’m fine. You have no idea what kind of shit I’ve been in. You don’t know. And when I refuse to tell you, you get pissed off. This is just gossip mongering. You just want to know what’s been going on. It’s emotional blackmail, because we’re friends.”
“Not fair!” she says fiercely. “I mean it, baby. I stick by it. If you men would just speak about what’s bothering you, we’d all be better off.”
I consider it. I do. I think about what might happen if I open my mouth and tell her all about the Tom and Bick and Mary show. My own shabby involvement. My own shabby capitulation. I hated most the idea that I’d been intimidated. Somehow. It was hard to explain. I’d been intimidated by Tom’s good opinion of me, as ridiculous as that sounds. I wanted them to like me, to respect me. As shitty as that sounds.
I am an asshole.
“Jesus,” Kelly says, hand on mine. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t mean to say anything. “Oh, Christ. I’m an evil fucking bastard, Kel.”
I am horrified.
“Forget it. I didn’t mean to say anything.” I swallow coffee and force a grin. “Bet you didn’t expect to get fucked-up Henry here today.”
Miraculously, she smiles. “I always expect fucked-up Henry, are you kidding?”
It feels good to laugh.
“Come on. What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “Nope, sorry. I take this to the grave.” Because I’m not one of the good guys. Because I’m as bad as they are. “Stick to Flo and the millionaire. Or tell me something juicy about yourself. That would do.”
“It would, huh?” She gives me a sly look. “Why, Henry, you’re gossiping.”
I stuff a sausage into my mouth, feeling more and more human as time went on. “Not yet. Give me something.”
She picks up her coffee mug and strikes a pose, looking thoughtful. “Well, there is a story concerning the younger Harrows sister.”
I nod. “Go on. Gossip about Miriam will do nicely.”
“Miriam and Tom had a … mo
ment.”
Ice in my stomach, but I clench my teeth against it. “Get out!”
She nods smugly. “Nothing serious. More of an unexplained loss of time, you know, like when people are abducted by aliens? There was a small gathering of intoxicants at Tommy’s. Mir needed a ride home after too many rounds of Beer Poker, and the ride home took two hours. Much ragging and speculation, but Tommy insists it was a flat tire on the way home and that the buzzed little darlin’ Harrows was safely between her flannel sheets, alone, within twenty minutes.”
“But you can neither deny or confirm, eh?”
She nods again. “Interesting how nothing changes, even when you’ve been away for a while, huh?”
Been away. She made it sound like it had been years, a mysterious disappearance.
“Time stands still,” I say, then wink. “At least for Tom and Bick.”
“But not for you. You’ve moved on.”
I linger over my coffee and an empty plate, the wonderful feeling of obese leisure, stuffed like a toad and nowhere to go for a while.
I study Kelly, and she stares right back at me, like it wasn’t weird at all. She was what, thirty-two? Three? A young girl. Great big green eyes. A lot of fine brown hair, up in a neat, practical bun. Great skin, fresh, and I always imagined she was one of those girls who smelled good no matter what, even three days without a shower, a night spent smoking cigarettes. She stares back at me without any attitude, just curiosity. She was one of those girls you suddenly and forcefully wished you’d known as a kid. I desperately wanted to be Kelly’s oldest friend, loved and trusted without thought.
I say, “Want to have a smoke outside?”
She grins. “You picking me up, Henry?”
“Maybe.”
“What the hell.” She stands up and pulls out a bunch of crumpled bills. “I smell like a brewery, my hair could be used as a wire brush, and I’m wearing men’s underwear. My prospects are not good. Can’t be picky.”
“Thanks.”
• • •
Out in the parking lot, it’s bright and cold, hard-edged with winter. I light us each a cigarette, and we sit down on the curb right outside the diner.