New Wave Fabulists

by Bradford Morrow

  And I stood there in that little shop, my nostrils swamped with sweet incense, my eyelids twittering like an enraptured enthusiast, my mind reeling, relishing the first consecutive surprises I could remember feeling. I inspected the silver brooch, my newly golden hide, the milk carton of wafers I carried like a pigskin, and the three green digits on the face of the heavy pager. It, of all the numbers I might have tried, was the most obvious.

  “That’s all?” I asked.

  “Nahh,” she said. “That’s the easy part. Now it gets bumpy.”

  I knew her then and was humbled that I hadn’t seen it before. The white glow came out of her eyes and burned me in my deepest, hidden places, searing as it flared against my many acts, my many choices, my oblivious self. I wanted to shrink from that light, cower like a dog before an angry master. But she was not angry and there was nowhere to hide.

  After an endless moment I said, “It’s over?”

  “Yah.”

  “I’m forgiven?”

  “Completely.”

  “I did not repent.”

  “To say the thing is to make it real.”

  She touched my arm. Understand: I had never been touched like that. I hope no one ever touches you like that. “Why’d ya come back?”

  Sees all, knows all. Why is she asking me?

  “You wanted to be hidden. So I let you hide. You left an obvious trail, though.”

  “My handiwork,” I said, nodding, stifling a gag that to this day I have not wholly swallowed.

  “I wouldn’t call it work,” she said.

  “No, it was more of a hobby.”

  “People enjoy hobbies.”

  I dared her eyes and got a fresh burn for my trouble. “My revenge, then,” I admitted.

  I could feel her waiting on my answer. An almost palpable gap, like an awful lull in conversation. I suspect it’s what a conscience feels like.

  “I was tired,” I said finally. “Tired of being right. It’s exhausting.”

  She smiled. “Especially when you’re wrong.”

  Then she told me a story about a bitter man who tried to flood a home with darkness by opening all the doors of the one unlit room in the center. But as many doors as he opened, the darkness never spilled, never spread; it only paled. He found he couldn’t let the dark out; he could only let the light in.

  I nodded, unconsciously picking up the rhythm of her dancing body, as I contemplated the way her toes tapped, a ripple that began and ended on the little one, which bore the golden ring. With a dexterity I had only seen before in the fingers of a pianist, each toe played out a different portion of the constant reggae beat.

  She opened the door and it jangled as I walked into the new day. I stopped and turned to her. “I would like to ask a favor.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would like to take a piss.”

  “I understand,” she said. Her nose twitched as she gave a brief sniff. “Do where the boy did.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This is love, in case you were wondering. You learn it slowly and it hurts like hell.”

  “Love?” It was a question I had never asked before.

  “Seeing what it is and accepting it.”

  I will think about that for the rest of my mortal days.

  “Lightbearer?”

  I felt the touch of her eyes again. That hard light that I had dodged since human time began. She must have known I couldn’t bear it any longer, so she spared me and looked away.

  When I stopped shuddering, she said, “Don’t be a stranger.”

  The boy’s spot was still wet on the gray wall. The stink rose up as I set down the large bottle, unzipped, and released the serpent that was no longer a serpent. And I pissed. The longest, most glorious piss. A Niagara of relief. It emptied me. It plashed and pooled and snaked away. And as I pissed in the merciless shade of that dirty alley in that broken city I smiled for the first time in aeons. A real smile with none of the pretended pleasure of a smirk. And I began to laugh.

  I am a fool, I thought. I gave up this for what? Why had it taken me so long to admit it? I had asked to be left alone. But had always hoped that somewhere he—she—was watching. That had been important. Just then I couldn’t recall why.

  Alone. That was all I ever wanted. If I couldn’t have all of her I wanted none of her. A furious philosophy I could have learned from any two-year-old.

  A dandelion stood up in a crack at my feet. A beautiful weed, I had to admit. A nuisance and a charm.

  Should I pick it? Or leave it be?

  I thought about it for a long time. Then I decided.

  Simon’s House of Lipstick

  Jonathan Carroll

  HADEN WAS IN TROUBLE again. Big surprise, huh? So what else was new, right? That man wouldn’t have known he had a pulse unless the IRA was closing in, his ex-wife was circling his field with a squadron of divorce lawyers, or a rabid dog had just bitten him on the dick.

  When he opened his eyes that morning this is what immediately filled his mind: he had no money to pay the bills on his desk. His car was dying of three different kinds of automotive cancer. He had to lead a city tour today and if he didn’t do it well this time, he would be fired. Earlier in his life, it was okay when Haden lost a job because there was always another around somewhere. But now, like the last pair of socks in the drawer, there were no more left. He had to wear this one with the big hole in the toe or else go barefoot, and barefoot meant even more trouble.

  Sighing, he threw off the thin purple blanket he’d bought at a Chinese discount store after his wife left him and took everything, including the blankets. But she was right to leave because he was a dog in every way except loyalty. No, that’s not correct. To call Haden a dog was to insult canines. Call him a rat, a weasel; call him a disease with a head. … Simon Haden was not a nice man, despite the fact he was a very handsome one.

  His face had been the downfall of not only innumerable trusting women, but one-time friends, used car dealers who gave him a better deal than they should have, and former bosses who were proud for a while to have such a handsome guy working for them.

  Why do we always, always fall for good looks? Why are we never immune to them? Is it optimism or stupidity? Maybe it’s just hope—you see someone pretty and the sight convinces you if they can exist, then things are right in the world.

  Uh huh.

  Haden used to say women don’t want to fuck me, they want to fuck my face and he was right. But that was history. Now few women wanted to fuck any part of him. Oh sure, sometimes one down at the end of a bar who’d had too much to drink and begun to see double saw two Hadens and thought they looked like a movie star whose name she couldn’t remember at the moment. But that was rare. Now he usually drank alone and went home alone. He was a shallow, self-absorbed middle-aged man, with a fading face and an empty bank account, who gave guided tours of a city that was no longer his friend.

  Why a tour guide? Because it was mindless work once you got the hang of it. And the tourists he led were so interested in what he said. Haden never got over how grateful these people were. They made him feel like he was giving them his city rather than just pointing out its sights.

  Once in a while a good-looking woman would be part of a tour group. She’d be like an extra tip dropped in Haden’s hand. What a wonderful guide he was on those days! Witty and informative, he knew everything they wanted to know. And what he didn’t know, he made up. That was simple because he had been doing that sort of thing his whole life. His audience never knew the difference. Besides, his lies were so imaginative and interesting. Years later while looking at snapshots of their trip, people would say “See that dog in the portrait? It lived to be twenty-eight years old and was so loved by the Duke that its gravestone is as big as his.”

  A lie of course, but an interesting one.

  Maybe there would be a pretty woman today. Gripping the sink with both hands, Haden stared into the bathroom mirror and said a little prayer: let ther
e be a beautiful female face in that crowd of blue-hairs, hearing aids, and TV-sized eyeglasses. In his mind he saw them all—saw their cream-colored crepe-soled shoes the size of small hydrofoils, the perma-pressed leisure suits a thousand years out of fashion. He heard their loud voices full of whines and stupid questions—where’s the castle, the toilet, the restaurant, the bus? Was one beautiful face asking so much? A daughter along for the ride, a nubile granddaughter, someone’s nurse, anything to spare him a day surrounded by The House of Lipstick. He said those words slowly into the mirror, as if he were an actor learning his lines. Today he was guiding a group of people from The House of Lipstick. What was that—a store that sold only lipstick? Or a business that manufactured it? He would know more when he opened the envelope given him at work, detailing the job.

  He smiled, imagining twenty old people with lipstick-smeared lips, all very attentive to what he was saying. Glistening red lips, the color of a clown’s nose or a dog’s rubber ball. Sighing, he picked up his toothbrush and began to prepare for the day.

  Because he was a very vain man, his small closet was bursting with the best clothes—Avon Celli cashmere sweaters, one-two-three-four Richard James suits, one hundred and fifty dollar belts. He had never been to Europe but he dressed like a wealthy European. He certainly had taste and style, but neither had helped him much over the years. Yes, they had enabled him to fool some of the people some of the time. But sooner or later everyone, even the dumbbells, figured Haden out and then invariably he was out: out of a job, out of a marriage, out of chances.

  What’s most interesting about these people, even more than their pretty faces, is that they almost never understand why the world eventually ends up hating them. Haden had done terrible things to people. But for the life of him, he could not understand why he had ended up where he was now—living alone in a lousy cramped apartment, working a no-exit job, and spending way too much free time at the TV watching whatever was in front of his eyeballs. He knew which wrestlers were feuding with whom in professional wrestling. He had given serious thought to buying those Japanese steak knives on the Shopping Channel. He carefully taped his favorite daytime soap operas if he had to miss an episode.

  How did I end up like this?

  If someone had told Simon Haden that he was a colossal prick and why, he would not have understood. He would not have denied it, he would not have understood. Because pretty people think the world should forgive whatever their sins are simply because they exist.

  He finished in the bathroom and went to the bedroom. The envelope containing the day’s instructions lay on the dresser. In his underpants and sheer black socks, he picked it up and tore it open.

  A little man the size of a cell phone stepped out of the envelope into his hand.

  “Haden, how you doin’?”

  “Broximon! Long time no see. How are you?”

  Broximon, a man in a beautiful blue double-breasted suit, brushed off both arms as if being inside that envelope had dirtied them. “Can’t complain, can’t complain. How’re you?”

  Haden carefully put him down on the table and then pulled up a chair.

  “Hey man, put some clothes on before we talk. I don’t wanna be talkin’ to a dude in his underpants.”

  Haden smiled and went off to choose an outfit for the day. While waiting for him, Broximon took out a tiny portable CD player and turned on some Luther Vandross.

  With the music cooking in his ears, Broximon walked to the edge of the table and sat down with his legs dangling over the edge. Haden sure lived low. The man’s apartment showed no signs of life. No texture, no soul, nothing was in it that made you go whoa, that’s cool. Broximon was a firm believer in “to each his own,” but when you’re in a man’s home, you can’t help look around, right? And if you see that apartment ain’t got nothing inside it but the heat, well then that’s just the truth of the situation. You’re not making any sort of value judgment; you’re just reporting what you see. Which in this case wasn’t much, that’s for sure.

  “So who am I showing around today? The House of Lipstick, right?” Haden came in wearing a formal white shirt and a sharp pair of black slacks that looked like they had cost serious money.

  “That’s right.” Broximon reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. “A group of twelve. And the part you’ll like is that they’re almost all women, average age thirty.”

  Haden’s face lit up. His prayer had been answered! He couldn’t believe his luck. “What’s the story with them?”

  “Did you ever hear of ‘Mallvelous’ in Secaucus, New Jersey?”

  “No.” Haden looked to see if Broximon was joking with that name.

  “Biggest shopping mall in the Tri-State area. Then someone started a fire in it and it became the biggest shopping-mall fire ever in the Tri-State area.”

  Haden checked his pockets to make sure he had everything—keys, wallet. Then he asked without much interest, “How many died in the fire?”

  “Twenty-one, over half of them in The House of Lipstick. The fire started right next to their shop and they didn’t have much chance of escaping.”

  “What was it, some kind of cosmetics store?”

  “Yup. The guy who owned it—you’ll meet him today—had himself a good little business because that’s all he sold. Just about every brand of lipstick on earth. You know everybody’s crazy for specialty shops these days. He had brands from the weirdest places, like Paraguay. You never think of women wearing lipstick in Paraguay, you know?”

  Haden stopped walking around the room and stared at Broximon. “Why not?”

  The little man was instantly embarrassed. “I don’t know. Because it’s—I don’t know. Because it’s fucking Paraguay.”

  “So what?”

  For want of anything better to do, Broximon stood and brushed off both sleeves again. “Are you ready to go or not?”

  Haden stared at him a moment longer, his expression saying the other man was an idiot. The message was conveyed loud and clear. Finally he nodded.

  “Good! So let’s go, huh?”

  Haden picked up Broximon, placed him on his right shoulder, and left the apartment.

  He always met the tour bus outside the café where he ate his breakfast. The bus driver was one of those saps taken in by Haden’s looks and sometimes-charm and was more than happy to detour a few blocks to pick up the tour guide.

  The bus doors hissed open. Simon Haden charged up the stairs, lit from within by two cups of strong cappuccino and the optimism that comes with knowing you are going to spend the day with a bunch of young women.

  The bus driver, Fleam Sule, waved one of its many tentacles in greeting at Simon. Then with another tentacle, it pressed a button to close the door. Haden had always loved octopuses. Or was it octopi? He would have to ask Fleam Sule that someday, but not right now because Women Ahoy!

  Winking at the octopus bus driver, Haden put on his best, most winning smile and turned to face the passengers.

  Outside on the street, Broximon stood and watched as the bus pulled away from the curb. A maple leaf blown by the wind collided with him, disappearing the tiny man completely from view for a second. He brusquely pushed it away and the leaf fled down the street. Shaking his head, he reached into his pocket and took out a cell phone the size of a pencil eraser. Speed-dialing a number, he waited for it to connect.

  “Hi there, it’s Brox. Yes, I was just with him.” Broximon listened while the other voice said something long and involved.

  Down at the corner, the traffic light turned green. The tour bus took a left and disappeared into the city.

  Broximon started going up and down on his toes and looking at the sky as the other person talked on. Eventually he was able to get in, “Look, Haden doesn’t get it yet. It’s as simple as that. He doesn’t have the slightest clue. You understand what I’m saying? He’s not even on the map yet.” Broximon saw a bright red candy wrapper skittering down the street toward him. He started moving
out of its way long before it arrived. Seeing it pass reminded him he hadn’t had breakfast yet. That made him doubly impatient to get off the telephone and find a place to eat. “Look, I don’t know how better to tell you—he doesn’t get it. There is not one indication that Simple Simon sees the big picture.”

  Listening some more to the voice on the other end, Broximon was no longer paying much attention. To amuse himself, he stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. After holding that pose for a while, he couldn’t take the other’s verbal diarrhea anymore. So he said “What? Huh? What? I’m losing you. We’re losing our connection here—” Then he pressed the disconnect button and turned off the phone altogether. “Enough. Breakfast time.”

  It took several seconds for Haden’s eyes to adjust to the blue dark inside the bus. He was so eager to see that he squinted hard to distinguish who sat facing him. The first thing he saw was a cassowary in a green dress. Do you know what a cassowary is? Neither did Haden, nor did he remember the one time he had seen one at a zoo in Cincinnati. He had stopped to look at it, thinking once again how weird nature could be.

  Seeing that giant bird looking at him now, his eyes narrowed. Oh no, they weren’t going to do this to him again, were they? He remembered one tour he’d led where—

  “Excuse me?”

  Trying to locate the face, he worked very hard to overcome his dismay. “Yes?” He hoped his voice sounded happy and helpful.

  “Is there a lavatory on this bus?”

  Lavatory. When was the last time he’d heard that ridiculous word used, fourth grade? Smirking a little, he looked toward the questioner. Seeing her, the smirk died and Haden almost yawped because she was absolutely hair-raisingly beautiful. And blind.

  That’s right—even in that shadowy space he could plainly see the woman’s eyes were so deep set in her head that they could not possibly have been functional.

  “Uh yes, there’s a, uh, lavatory at the back of the bus. On the left side.” Absurdly and without thinking he beamed his best, most winning smile at her. Not that she could see it.