Smoke and Mirrors

by Lillian T. MacGowan

  Naim started to feel cold and instinctively leaned into Deck. He was right. This guy wasn’t typical of the posh, very exclusive downtown offices. He was likely someone in between, someone who knew a world of violence, deprivation, and survival. Someone who knew a place like the Bottom.

  “Actually”—Laura grimaced—“it was Wes Rizel.”

  “Something’s not right.”

  “I know.”

  “We’re never gonna know what it is, are we.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Probably not.”

  “I hate that kid. But…fucking shot?”

  Naim didn’t respond. He thought about his scar again and stared at the ceiling.

  They were lying in his bed side by side, trying to outfrown each other. Play-Doh was going to prison after he was well enough to move to the prison hospital ward, and he would be there for a long time. Deck had no problem with that, but something about this shooting wasn’t sitting right with him. Then again, nothing that ever had anything to do with Wes Rizel ever sat right. The guy was a snake. A snake with a hand in every shady real estate deal that went on down the Bottom.

  “He knew that was a risk, though.” Naim finally spoke again, and he still sounded far away. Deck wondered if Naim knew he was even in the room. Naim didn’t need to be any part of this bullshit. Not anymore. “Play-Doh knows the life he chose.”

  Chose.

  That word. The same word Naim used about himself and what he used to have to do. But Naim saw it as a choice for no reason other than he’d been old enough to be aware that such a concept as choice existed.

  Since learning about Marseille, Deck had gained a better understanding of Naim’s ambiguous feelings toward Play-Doh. Because of the life he’d been forced to live, Naim was empathetic and compassionate, so Deck would push him less about his lack of hostility toward the kid.

  But in a moment of clarity, Deck just now gained a better understanding of Play-Doh.

  He’d outfrowned Naim. “Did you ever hurt anyone?”

  Naim didn’t know how Deck wanted or needed him to answer that. Did he want to hear him say no so that he could deny any parallels between Naim and Doheany? Did he need him to say no to continue to respect him? To continue to deny Naim’s responsibility for his own choices and actions?

  Once again Naim found himself struggling with who he knew he was and who he wished he could be for Deck. But he wouldn’t lie to him.

  “Yes.”

  “Like this? Like Doheany?”

  Naim blinked at the ceiling. “I…I’m not sure what you mean, like this. I never set a building on fire.”

  “But…” Deck turned to his side and put a hand on Naim’s chest. “What did you do?”

  Naim sighed and closed his eyes. “That’s really hard to answer, Deck. I did a lot of things. We all did a lot of things. Everyone who lived their shitty lives on the Curiol.” He referred to Marseille’s infamous Red Light District, the small blocks and streets that he called home despite his life being too miserable to be worthy of that name. “I was a hustler first, but I stole too. Rolled tourists all the time. Fought. I did. I did hurt people who weren’t like me. And I hurt some who were, just because it felt good. To hurt anyone.” He sighed again, sat up, and pulled away, feeling like he didn’t want Deck to touch him. He didn’t deserve Deck’s touch.

  “We did horrible things to the church workers that used to come around to try and save us.” He stared at his hands and remembered his behavior and how revolting it had been. “The way you said Play-Doh was with those girls that day…” He looked away from Deck to the other side of the room.

  “You would do things like that?” Deck asked quietly.

  “Worse.”

  “Like…sexually?”

  Naim clenched his jaw for a few seconds, forcing himself to remember that Deck deserved this degree of honesty. He had to know the kind of man Naim really was. That he wasn’t like Deck or Jen or the crew: he was like Doheany. “Yes. Yes, sexually. They were church people. Ridiculous to us. They didn’t call us sinners or anything, but they kept saying that they wanted to help us. Save us.” He shook his head. “We knew better. And we thought we were better than them. Because we understood what the world was really like.” He stopped. The images in his head turned his stomach, and those images were things he couldn’t share with Deck. He didn’t think he could talk about them.

  “So you tried to show them.” Deck sat up too and finished for Naim.

  Naim nodded.

  “And you stole from tourists?”

  “Constantly. If there were too many of us trying to catch tricks on the Curiol, some of us would cut out and head to the train station. Weekends especially. Turn tricks there and pick up some extra easy cash from pockets. Or better yet, the golden ticket: a US passport.”

  “Sold them?”

  “Yeah. Fucking things were worth about ten thousand francs at the time. I could stay high for a month off that. On good shit too, not the rat-poison crap we got from Émile.”

  Deck didn’t ask who Émile was.

  “The scar on my back…” Naim studied his hands again and noticed they were shaking. He wondered when Deck was going to get up and leave, tell him he couldn’t look at him anymore. “I used the word ‘accident’ pretty loosely when I told you about that.” It took him a minute before he could continue. “I tried to roll the wrong guy. Fucker must have been a soldier or something, because before I knew what was happening, he had me pinned against the wall, my arm up and nearly broken.”

  Naim glanced at Deck, trying to explain better. “You have to understand, that was pretty hard to do. I was fast, and I knew how to fight. How to move. It’s not like I was a Navy SEAL or anything, but I could handle myself. So I managed to get my blade out of my boot, and…I remember it just not being in my hand anymore. And he was laughing at me.”

  “He cut you?” Deck asked, angrily.

  “No,” Naim whispered. “I tried to get away from him. Fucking managed to stab myself in the goddamn struggle.” He shook his head, and he did laugh. A small breath that was more pitiful than a laugh.

  “How…? So you got to a hospital?”

  Naim swallowed. “No. I uh…I let myself get arrested.” He saw Deck start and pull back from the corner of his eye. “I knew the cut was pretty bad. Felt the muscles all fucked up, and I figured it would keep me from working for at least a week.”

  Deck breathed his own pitiful nonlaugh. “That’s a good thing, though,” he stated definitively.

  Naim shook his head, still looking at his hands. “No. Not good. Fuck something up that keeps you out for more than half a day and Émile got pissed. Especially me. I was cheap trash, but I made him a lot of money.”

  “Naim—”

  Naim interrupted, not wanting to hear Deck argue with him. “I didn’t feel like dealing with that, so I let them take me.” It was so typically Deck’s way to want to argue with him for calling himself cheap trash, all while being clearly and explicitly told exactly what kind of cheap trash he had been. Sometimes it took Deck a long time to process shit. “Got charged with attempted armed robbery, assault, possession of a controlled substance. A few other things I think. I can’t remember exactly.” He didn’t finish the story. He wanted Deck to get there himself so that he could finally see on his own that Naim was really no different from Play-Doh.

  But leave it to Deck. “It wasn’t armed robbery, though,” he insisted. “You didn’t pull the knife out until after the guy gripped you up.”

  “Oh, fuck’s sake, Deck. Does it matter? So I didn’t pull a blade on him first. So the fuck what? I had before. I pulled it on a lot of people before. Innocent people. So what difference does it make when I paid for it?”

  Deck frowned and thought, and Naim waited for the light to dawn.

  “So…You did time then.”

  There it was. Idiot. “Yeah. Nine months out of an eighteen-month sentence.” Naim sneered through his words. “I was a good boy, so they let me o
ut early.”

  “A year and a half. They gave you a year and a half?” Deck stared.

  “It wasn’t my first goddamn time, Deck.”

  Deck blinked at him, and neither of them spoke for a long time.

  “You’re not like him.”

  “Every word I just said provides evidence to the contrary.” Naim stared at the wall. “Just because you don’t want it to be true, doesn’t make it any less true.”

  Deck shook his head more and more as Naim talked. Finally he turned to Naim and spoke desperately. “But you…Naim, you had reasons to act the way you did. To not give a fuck about anyone, and you had fucking reason to hate the world and want to hurt everyone in it.”

  “And what makes you think Doheany doesn’t?” Naim asked him quietly. “The only real difference between us is that someone gave a fuck about me. One man really gave a fuck. I got lucky, and one person gave enough of a fuck to make me care for him back. So I’m able to care now. So I don’t want to hurt the people that mean something to me. Étienne was a fluke, Deck. An accident in my life. But one that taught me to give a fuck and not hurt people if I love them.”

  “You may be right about Play-Doh, Naim. Maybe he does have reasons for wanting to watch the world burn, but there is a difference between you— you know how to care— and that so called ‘accident’ in your life makes that difference pretty big.”

  “Not to the people I don’t care about.”

  Deck stared at him sadly for a few seconds, then moved to hold him. Not because he thought Naim needed it but because Deck needed it. Naim did care. And he didn’t hurt people anymore. He was a doctor, for Christ’s sake. But he still looked at Play-Doh and thought he was a mirror. He believed that beyond his nice clothing, wealthy vocabulary, and hard-learned manners, they were the same. Ugly and hateful.

  Deck didn’t know what to say to make Naim understand that that’s not who he was anymore. That he cared and was compassionate and loving and didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

  Except maybe himself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Laura’s news about Play-Doh and their subsequent conversation disturbed Deck more than he admitted to Naim, and it took more than a week for him to notice that Naim had started to close off again. He got quieter and more thoughtful, and Deck remembered those first few weeks in the hospital and how withdrawn and skittish Naim had been. Deck now understood how Naim believed eventually Deck would figure out he was a fraud and end things between them.

  Deck wanted to argue and shout at him that nothing about him was a fraud, but he sure as fuck was an idiot. And after the ninth night in a row of Naim’s quiet complacency about what they did, where they ate, what they watched, and even how they fucked, Deck was ready to have that fight. Then the crew reminded him that it was long past his turn to host their monthly poker game, and Deck decided to put the argument off until later. Maybe he could reach Naim like he’d been reached when he lived in England, by being around average, flawed people who treated him like an average, flawed person and loved him for it.

  So the crew and a few significant others packed into Deck’s apartment, and Naim seemed to enjoy himself while Deck suspected him of running an illicit gambling syndicate along with everything else when he was young. He easily cleaned them all out. Keller was the only player who could stand against Naim, but even he was losing, just not as badly as the others. Deck was also pretty sure Liebgott and Laura were cheating, since it was impossible not to if you were playing two separate hands, one player on the other’s lap. Deck grumbled to himself and took comfort in groping Naim under the table, pleased that his little plan seemed to be working.

  They were starting a new hand of five-card draw. Deck picked his cards up as Spellacy dealt, and groaned loudly. “Aw, fuck my ass.”

  Naim didn’t miss a beat. “Okay,” he agreed, never taking his eyes from his cards.

  Deck dropped his cards on the table without a thought. “Really?” His face lit up.

  “Of course,” Naim answered, looking at him like he was ridiculous.

  “Now? That’s my favorite!”

  Mac looked at them and huffed.

  “No, not now.” Naim counted a few chips and threw them into the pot. “You do have company, idiot.” He shook his head and his lips twitched in a grin. Keller snorted but put his cards down and his hands over his ears.

  “Ok, but later? When they leave?” Deck bounced in his chair like a kid promised a trip for ice cream. At Disney World. With Batman. In the Batmobile.

  “Absolutely. You should have said something sooner.”

  Deck put his head on Naim’s shoulder. “I love you, baby.” He batted his eyes, grinning and thrilled that Naim seemed to be not only opening up again, but relaxed and comfortable enough with his lecherous crew to bring up sex in front of them.

  Laura giggled, everyone else groaned, and Mac huffed harder. “Aw, goddamn it. You guys, are you fucking serious?” He made faces and glared at Deck.

  Naim started, one eyebrow already climbing. “I’m sorry. What?” He placed his cards on the table and stared at Mac.

  Mac scowled back at him. “I can’t believe I just heard that.”

  Naim cut him off. “What? Why? Because we have the gall to talk about sex in front of you?” he snapped. “I can’t believe you just said that. What kind of bigoted bullshit is this, Mac?” he challenged as everyone else slowly put their cards down and stared. “Laura’s on Liebgott’s lap; Spellacy and Freya are constantly groping each other. He had his hand up her fucking skirt five minutes ago, for fuck’s sake.” Freya grinned, and Naim was getting angrier and more offended as he spoke. He didn’t register, and wouldn’t have cared, that Keller had uncovered his ears and was counting out some of Mac’s poker chips, helping himself.

  “We have to listen to the shit you guys talk all the time. Big tits, juicy ass… I’ve even had to listen to you eloquent wordsmiths talk about sweet, tight pussy. And you give us shit for a few innocuously suggestive words?” Naim’s giant eyes flashed, his cheeks reddened, and Deck knew that he was ready, willing, and more than able to kick the shit out of someone.

  Deck was ready, willing, and able to boot everyone out right then and there. It never ceased to push him right out of his skin with want when Naim got angry.

  “Uh, Naim—” Liebgott started.

  “No. There’s no excuse. That’s bullshit and you know it. I’m not just fucking offended. I’m actually hurt too. What the fuck, Mac?”

  That got Deck’s attention; nobody hurt his honey’s feelings. He turned to Mac. “Yo, man, what the fuck?” Neither he nor Naim noticed that Mac had been sitting slack-jawed the entire time, eyes wide and surprised, his face turning three shades darker than his ginger hair, and he was too flabbergasted to even try to defend himself.

  Deck gave him a filthy, fuming look when Keller couldn’t take it anymore and started to snicker. A few of the others broke down with him, and even Liebgott grinned and shook his head. Spellacy sighed heavily.

  Naim sat, annoyed and confused, and Deck rubbed his shoulders, working on a fit of his own. Mac finally found his voice, looking not a little bit scared. “I…I don’t care if you guys talk about th-that stuff,” he stuttered. Deck continued to glare, but Naim furrowed his brow in further confusion.

  “He lost a bet, Moreau. Settle down. You know better,” Keller cackled.

  Naim blinked and frowned. “A bet? What?” Deck growled, and Naim stilled him with a hand on his thigh.

  “Yeah,” Mac exclaimed and turned somewhat desperately to Deck. “I just… Keller…”

  Naim’s anger had vanished, replaced with annoyance at the whole nonsensical thing and embarrassment over his reaction.

  “What bet, you fucking douchtards?” Deck was still pissed, but mostly because he didn’t know what was going on.

  “I knew you were a big, fat, nellie bottom.” Keller laughed. Mac turned red, Laura giggled harder, and Liebgott face-palmed.

  “I didn’t
bet,” Peyton assured them.

  “I didn’t care.” Spellacy chugged his beer.

  “Can we play fucking cards?” Freya threw money into the pot.

  “I fucking hate you guys.” Deck moaned, kissed Naim, and stomped into the kitchen for more beer.

  Naim’s mouth tightened with the effort not to laugh as he made his bet, but Mac couldn’t let it go. Naim had scared him.

  “It’s just…ya know…logistically. I don’t get how that works.” He tried to explain to Naim, throwing chips into the pot. Naim gave him the eyebrow.

  “You have no imagination.” Spellacy shook his head, taking two cards.

  “Nobody wants to get how it works, brainpan,” Keller growled.

  “One,” Naim said to Spellacy, ignoring everyone else.

  Deck wandered back in. “How what works?” He pulled his chair up behind Naim’s, straddled him from behind, and rested his chin on Naim’s shoulder.

  “How do you bottom with Naim?” Laura asked.

  “Jesus, Laura!” Liebgott goggled at her.

  “Fuuuuck.” Keller threw his cards down.

  “What? The fuck?” Deck sat back up, horrified. Naim was going to strap him to a surgical table and go all kinds of Dexter on his ass.

  “It’s the logistics,” Mac insisted.

  “What? Shut the fuck up!” Deck considered his own obituary.

  “Seriously.” Laura raised the bet. “The height difference has to be a problem. I just can’t sort it out.”

  Naim saw, raised, and continued to ignore them.

  “WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SORT IT OUT? THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?”

  Naim turned slightly toward Deck. “You’re screaming in my ear, cupcake.”

  “Sorry, love.” Deck bent forward, kissed Naim’s temple, then covered his ears with his hands. “WHAT THE FUCK, YOU GUYS?”

  Spellacy saw and shook his head. “No imagination.”

  Jen and Bosko walked in at that moment, having made a quick market run, and Keller immediately ran over to her asking if they could leave.