Checker and the Derailleurs

by Lionel Shriver

  “Any lyric has potential.” Eaton looked at Caldwell with an inside smile. “So may I?”

  “Go ahead,” said Check, stepping down.

  As Eaton approached the Leedys, the sticks clattered away from him. When he picked them up, the beater fell over.

  “You have to wire—”

  “I know.” Eaton glared at the shoddy traps. He retuned the snare until it was taut, nervous, like a horse on short rein.

  Eaton coached the band on their parts, until, wham: Howard’s song. Whether the lyrics were weak didn’t matter, since you couldn’t hear them. All the same, Howard was proud. It sounded like a real rock song.

  “So which do you like better, Howard?” asked Check heavily.

  “No offense, Check. But Eat’s does make you tap your foot.”

  “What’s the trouble? I think the demo’s going well. The songs have a lot of drive.”

  “Yeah, they sure do.” Caldwell mopped his forehead and unstrapped his guitar. “I don’t know. This isn’t the same.”

  “It’s not supposed to be the same,” said Eaton coldly.

  “I guess I’m feeling a little sleazy, creeping around behind Check’s back and all. Lying.”

  “You’re not lying. You’re just not telling the truth.”

  “But what happens when we finish the demo?” asked Caldwell. “If we get a gig, or especially a contract?”

  “Check find out way before that,” said J.K.

  “Well. Check’s pretty naïve.”

  Eaton smiled. “Or we are.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You assume Secretti’s life is one big Care Bears movie, don’t you?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I know something about the industry, okay? In recording it’s easier to get somewhere as an independent. You sign as a single musician, you’re flexible. A whole band is an albatross. And especially with a motley crew like this one—”

  “Who you calling ‘motley’?”

  “Not you, J.K., obviously I—we—selected the cream of The Derailleurs; that was the whole idea of this project—”

  “Not by me, it wasn’t,” J.K. interrupted. “I just want to play more, check out recording. I never said I’s better—”

  “But you are,” Eaton dismissed. “You and Sweets are real musicians. But for once let’s be frank with each other. Rachel’s voice is thin, and Carl has no stage presence. Rahim’s style isn’t nearly commercial enough for mainstream rock. And poor Howard thinks he’s a manager, when all he can do is clap. Now that he’s decided he can write songs, he’s an even bigger liability. Let’s face it, we salvaged those lyrics for him by playing over them, but—”

  “You stuck up for Howard song,” said J.K.

  “I didn’t happen to think Secretti’s joke was considerate of Howard’s feelings. But you’re missing my point: why do you think Secretti hasn’t noticed all these weaknesses in the band himself? Who would want that kind of baggage in an ambitious career?”

  “Check, ambitious? What are you on?”

  “A good dose of savvy, and I suggest you take two. When he disappears, what do you think he does, really?”

  “It a female, Sweets. Gotta be.”

  “But why hide a girl?”

  “Maybe he likes his privacy,” said Caldwell. “And maybe he wants to protect Rache.”

  “Or himself.”

  “Why, what do you think he does?”

  “I can’t say for sure, of course. But as you can see, cutting demos can be time-consuming.”

  “No way! You don’t know Check, then.”

  “I wonder if you do.”

  “He’s not an asshole!”

  “Sweets, I’m giving him far more credit than you are. What kind of dimwit with a talent like that would keep playing in a run-down nightclub in Astoria?”

  “So you think Check is good?” asked Caldwell, leaning forward. “I mean really good?”

  “I think,” said Eaton carefully, “that you’d better enjoy playing with your friend Secretti while he’s still around.”

  Caldwell sat back in his chair and snapped a string on his guitar, thwack, against its neck. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Eaton almost said, “I know,” but held his tongue.

  Syria did not dress up to go to the INS

  11 / The Newlywed Game

  “Big J., what do you make of Striker?”

  “Seems okay. Drums good. I guess.”

  “But not like Check.”

  “Nah.” They both seemed uneasy, hands in their pockets as they strolled through the park.

  “He’s a little—” Caldwell stopped.

  “What?”

  “Well, do you think he’s something of a scow?”

  “Some.” J.K. leaned over the railing and studied a parking meter down on the rocks. “He got a lot on the ball, though, that so?”

  “Yeah, I think he’s massively smart. See, the thing is—”

  “Spit it out.”

  “Well, damn it, J.K., I like the whole band, I do. And I said he’s a scow, but it’s almost a relief, isn’t it? I mean, Rachel’s voice is thin.”

  They breathed deeper, more relaxed breaths. “Yeah,” said J.K. slowly. “It thin.”

  On a bench in Syria’s studio, Checker and Rahim held their hands under a light. The Iraqi’s fingers were still black from fingerprinting at Federal Plaza; the swirls of their prints were dizzying and mysterious, the tiny triangles, the slurping concentric designs.

  Checker couldn’t match his prints to the FBI’s three standard categories of “loop,” “whorl,” or “arch.” The form’s small print noted, Other patterns occur infrequently and are not shown here. That must be it, for Checker’s prints expanded and exploded off the sides of his fingers. Circles were never closed. The current of the ridges took sudden curves, unpredictable diversions, like the whirlpools under Hell Gate churning at the turn of the East River tide. A fortune of sorts, he supposed.

  “Okay, kiddo. Immigration forms, right? Let’s get this over with.”

  Checker started at her voice. There was nothing like it. Nearly always she spoke briskly and with a sarcastic twang, like now, though once in a while that broke into a sudden gentleness, even sweetness, that struck Checker as thoroughly inexplicable. Where did that come from? It was like knocking along a smooth steel wall, bang, bang, bang, bong—suddenly the sound went low and hollow; you’d found the door. Checker listened for it deliberately now. He wanted in.

  Syria put her boots up on a bench and paged through her Petition for Alien Relative, sucking on her pen. She tapped the page. “This is going to take some creativity.”

  “Lying,” said Checker. “Though Kaypro says you guys should stick as close to the truth as possible. Still, you’re going to have to come up with a version of your meeting that’s a little more romantic.”

  “Old Muslim tradition,” said Syria. “Arranged marriage.”

  “But it was romantic,” said Rahim softly, who had of late grown curiously shy around his wife, almost diffident. “Sheckair.” Rahim pointed to a word. “How this say?”

  “Consummated.”

  Rahim looked blank.

  “It means you’re supposed to have…”

  “Fucked,” Syria intruded flippantly.

  “They tell—? They ask—!”

  “Yeah,” said Check. “Maybe. They can be pretty rude about it, too. Be prepared.”

  Rahim flapped the triplicates with agitation. “Is not their business!”

  “They think it is. Just chill, Hijack. Tell them what you have to…or make up what you have to…” Checker reached for the papers and burrowed into the instructions. “Just get through the interview, okay?”

  Checker led Rahim through the form; when he came to memberships in U.S. organizations, Rahim proudly had Check list THE DERAILLEURS in big block letters.

  “Have you ever knowingly committed a crime for which you haven’t been arrested?”

>   “Right,” said Syria. “Now’s your chance to get arrested.”

  Murdered my grandmother, Check started to enter.

  “NO!” screeched Rahim.

  “Have you been treated for mental disorder, drug addiction, or alcoholism? Have you engaged in, or do you intend to engage in, any commercialized sexual activity?”

  Syria, impatient with the tamer inquiry into the life of an American, pulled the Application for Permanent Residence from Checker’s hands and read down the page. “Jesus, who’s going to say yes to these questions? ‘Hello, my name is Rahim Abdul, and I want into your country. I am mentally retarded, insane, and psychopathic. Yes, I am an anarchistic Nazi saboteur, and I advocate the assaulting or killing of government officials. In addition to being a sexual deviant and chronic alcoholic, I am riddled with the following contagious diseases. Yes, I am a professional beggar, and likely to become a public charge. In spite of my severe retardation, I have somehow managed to try to overthrow your government and to perpetrate visa fraud. It is true that I deal illegal narcotics across international borders, and the only reason I haven’t been caught before now is that no one ever asked me on a form if I sold drugs so I could say yes. Otherwise I am a model citizen.’ I mean, why isn’t there a box here to check ‘Yes, I have married only to stay in this country and hope to hoodwink the INS in my upcoming interview’?”

  Checker laughed. “It’s a test! If you really do check yes to any of this shit, then they do know you’re retarded!”

  “Don marry only to stay in country,” said Rahim quietly, but they were having too good a time and didn’t hear him.

  Checker took the forms back. “See, it works! ‘Are you insane or have you suffered one or more attacks of insanity?’ And if you say yes, you’re insane!”

  “‘Have you committed or have you been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude?’” Syria read.

  “That’s gorgeous. What’s turpitude?”

  Syria raised her eyebrows. “Come back later tonight, I’ll teach you all about it.”

  “How is turpitude?” asked Rahim severely. “No later tonight.”

  Syria looked over at her husband queerly. “Any number of acts of savagery and depravity that free Americans are welcome to indulge in.”

  “Syria is not free. Syria is married.”

  The couple looked each other squarely in the eye, and Syria seemed to be contemplating a variety of statements, but made none of them.

  “Here’s one for you, Hijack.” Check proceeded in the uncomfortable silence. “Are you a polygamist, or do you advocate polygamy? That is, do you want more than one wife?”

  “One,” said Rahim, still looking Syria in the eye, “is enough. This one.”

  The three of them waited a sufficient number of hours in the reception room of the INS Investigation Branch to memorize the patterns of handprints on the walls, to discover a range of animals in the water spots on the ceiling tiles, to dislodge several wads of gum from the beige linoleum with the toes of their shoes. It was one of those places of almost sadistic blandness, since there was so little to see and so much time to look at it.

  Yet amid the faded red panels behind the desk, the rows of weak yellow plastic chairs, the guard swatting flies, major dramas played. Pregnant women walked up to that desk trembling, and came out half an hour later leaning on someone’s shoulder, the men patiently explaining, throwing up their hands. Couples conferred in whispers while children asked to go to the bathroom loudly in several languages. “Hush.” Forms fluttered, photocopies of forms; sweat blurred the ink. It was such a queer combination of boredom and terror—Rahim listened to the dull blare of the air conditioning drone behind the beat of his heart.

  Everyone spoke quietly except Syria Pyramus. “You know what a joke this is?” she said clearly. “All these documents and sneaky questions, while during the time we’ve sat here a thousand Mexicans have waded over the Rio Grande.”

  “Syria!” Rahim censured her.

  “Chick-pea, the whole garment district in this town is sewn up with illegals. It’s like you were on an interstate where the entire flow of traffic was going 75 and you were the only one they pulled over.”

  Everyone else in the waiting room was nicely, even primly, dressed, with women in high lacy collars, heels, stockings, and little silver pins. Syria had at best conceded to a fresh shirt. Her jeans were only dirty but not shiny yet—her clothes were a little cleaner now that Rahim did her laundry. But she’d blown glass early that morning; grit lined her neck and crooked at her elbow. Never one to waste time, she’d brought the set of goblets she was delivering to SoHo when this was through, and while they waited for their names to be called, she pulled out a battery-powered engraver to sign each glass on the bottom. The engraver buzzed like hair clippers, and as she ground her spidery signature, wiry and wicked like the trails of her hair, nervous families searched the room for the source of the sound that so perfectly articulated their state of mind—the grating of the burr, the growl of the motor like unsettled intestines, the horrible little shrieks when she changed direction: a sound track.

  The goblets themselves were insanely tall and narrow; you would fill them only with grappa or hundred-proof vodka, something clear and dangerous. The glasses looked fragile, but their master handled them casually, rolling them in her long, filthy fingers, with their crumbled black nails, wormy scars, and latest burn blisters.

  “So, Checkers,” she asked while she worked. “Is this interview the end of the bullshit?”

  “They can decide to investigate you further if it seems suspicious. Or turn you down flat.”

  “This one joker can say no? You hear that, Chick-pea?”

  “I do how Sheckair say.” Rahim looked pasty. He’d spent a long time dressing, having borrowed ties and shirts from the rest of the band to put together a suitable outfit, but by now his clothes had wilted. He was no longer thinking what a fine handsome boy he was in the mirror, or even what a magnificent wife he’d scarfed up. He was sitting in a plastic chair with his wool trousers sticking to his thighs and he was thinking about Iraq.

  “Rahim and Syria Abdul.”

  Syria switched off the engraver with a jolt and stood up. “Abdul?”

  “I thought it looked better,” Check whispered.

  “My name is not Abdul.” The entire room was apprised of this fact. Syria strode up to the desk. “Pyramus,” she announced. “This is Abdul. Heel, Chick-pea.” She walked down the hall, with Rahim scuttering nervously after her. As Checker watched them go, he held a goblet to his cheek to feel its cool comfort, sensing in this material the certainty, the clarity, the edge of Syria herself, and trusting her.

  Their interviewer had a thirty-year-old face, a forty-year-old paunch, and a fifty-year-old leer. The only part of him that was well groomed was his hair, carefully combed over his bald spot. The nameplate on his desk said DAVID REESE, and he greeted Syria, looking her up and down with a “Well, how do you do?” that was not a question. When he shook her hand, he held it too far up the wrist and for a beat too long; when he let go, he trailed his fingers over her palm. Syria wiped her hand on her jeans.

  “Just have a seat, honey, I’ve got to look over your papers first.”

  “All right, lambikins.” She shot him a sour smile and sat on the frayed couch, crossing her long legs and glancing around the office, looking bored. Rahim, dead white now, perched on the edge of the couch and held his knees.

  “Quite a place you’ve got here,” Syria intruded. “They don’t even give you a door?”

  Mr. Reese glanced up, and went back to tapping importantly at his terminal. Syria coolly appraised the cubicle, the dog-eared manila folders stacked on every side, the crumpled candy-bar wrappers, the button on the phone that had been blinking on hold since they’d come in. Phones rang unanswered in adjoining rooms in a regular refrain; outside, two officials strolled languidly past, slurping coffee and clutching fried foods. One said, “Salvador!” the other laughed. Syri
a reached over to a big dusty mailbag by the couch and picked an unopened letter off the top. Its cancellation date was almost a year old.

  “Getting a little behind on the correspondence?”

  “Mrs. Abdul, if you would leave that—”

  “Pyramus. Please.”

  “You didn’t change your name?”

  “A point of contention. Hubbie here is from the old country.”

  “And you won the fight?”

  Syria smiled. “I win most fights. You’ll see.”

  The official started taking ominous little notes as he scrolled through their file. He tapped his pencil, keeping them waiting. At last he looked up. “It says here someone turned your husband in as illegal two weeks before you married him. That we even sent an agent after him, and he eluded arrest.”

  “You were about to deport the kid. Our timing seemed opportune.”

  Reese tapped some more, pressed some keys, and worked his eyebrows theatrically. Finally he leaned back in his chair, sprang the tips of his fingers against each other, and sighed. “This looks ridiculous, you know that.”

  “Yes,” said Syria pleasantly.

  “I’m tempted to save us all a lot of time here and skip this whole thing—send what’s-his-face back to his sand pit and you can give him his money back if you’re a nice girl, or you can keep it and—”

  “Split it with you.”

  “Maybe. For keeping my mouth shut. You could be in big trouble. The wet here just gets to take a free ride. Your ass I could fry.”

  “You can’t do anything with my ass without proceeding with this interview.”

  He smiled. “That’s downright inspiring.” Reese leaned forward. “Let’s start with the obvious question, then. What are you doing with him?”

  “Why not?” asked Rahim hotly.

  Reese turned to Rahim as if noticing him for the first time. “Son, that’s a lot of woman you’ve got there. Let’s be honest—”

  “Oh, let’s not,” said Syria.

  “You don’t want to be honest?”

  “I don’t want you to berate my husband.”