How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy? (Phoenix Noir Book 1)

by Graham, Barry

  I stayed at the house of a guy who played in the other band. I was still feeling numb and would have preferred to sleep by myself in the van, but the guy had offered and I didn’t want to be impolite. I slept on the couch in his living room. The house was close to the airport, but the noise didn’t keep my awake. I went into a near-coma for ten hours. I think I’d have slept even longer if my merry men hadn’t swung by to pick me up. I dragged on my clothes as George honked his horn outside. I thanked my host, and told him I’d reciprocate if he ever came through Phoenix. Then I used the toilet and ran outside to the van.

  I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t had anything to eat or drink that morning. George had driven from house to house, picking the guys up, and he’d hustled them into leaving right away. Only Ricky Retardo had been up early enough to have eaten breakfast by the time George arrived.

  George wouldn’t pull into a diner, saying he had to work that night, so he wanted to get back to Phoenix as soon as he could. We stopped at a Circle K. I got some oranges and a bottle of water. The guys got chips and Twinkies and Dr Pepper. “You eat like a bunch of junkies,” I told them.

  We got back on the road. The guys made fun of me as I said a Buddhist grace over my food. They put their hands together and began singing, “Gimme that good old-time religion...”

  I pulled down my jeans and shone my bare ass at them. “Gentlemen, you may commence licking whenever you please.”

  We did an autopsy on last night’s show. We were satisfied with it. We clowned and told jokes for a while. Then, as it always did on our road trips, the conversation slowed down, got tired and died.

  As we crossed the border into Arizona, I wondered what I was going back to. I tried not to imagine going into my apartment and finding everything normal, everything as it should be, except for Janine’s broken corpse on the floor. The killer had to stop somewhere, I told myself. Going after me made sense. But if he went after Janine too, he might as well start killing everyone I knew—my band, Laurie, my customers, my optician. Being a pro, he wouldn’t be that crazy. He’d hunt me, and that would be it.

  At least, that was what logic dictated. That was the method of a pro. But he might be getting desperate. He had killed two people in the space of a few days. What would he do if he was panicking and not thinking professionally?

  Whatever, in the end the possibilities were simple. Either he would kill me, or I would kill him. And it would be over.

  It would be strange to kill someone. If I hadn’t killed anyone in a while, there was always a feeling of fear before I did it, a fear of pissing in the face of something sacred. But, after I did it, I was always overwhelmed by the weight of how little I felt. It should have been so horrible, and it was always so easy. And, if I killed someone else soon after that, it was easier still, until I could kill people as easily as I could change my shirt. Only after a break from killing did it begin to seem like a big deal.

  How many people had I killed? I didn’t know for sure. In the combat zone you can’t be sure who you do or don’t actually kill. But I had killed people close-up and face-to-face. I could have added them up, but I didn’t allow myself to. One thing I was sure of—the number of men I had killed was considerably greater than the number of women I had slept with. I was never sure if that meant anything, but I tried not to give it too much thought.

  Aside from my fear for Janine’s safety, I felt calm. If I killed the killer now, I would be doing it in the best state of mind possible. I had always liked the old story of the samurai who spent a long time hunting a man he intended to kill. Finally he found the man, and drew his sword. As he was about to strike, the man spat in his face. The samurai sheathed his sword and walked away. The guy spitting in his face had made him angry, and he knew you shouldn’t kill when you’re angry.

  Just last week I had been angry, which was why I’d gone to see Fallowell. Then numbness had eclipsed my anger, and now numbness had given way to a sense of the inevitable. I knew that my way of being was a violation of the Buddhist precept against killing, but you can’t talk to a skilled warrior about what is forbidden by the Buddha. And, if what I had to do was wrong, I could now do it in a way that was less wrong than it could have been. As the van rolled into Phoenix, I was ready to kill or be killed in a spirit of equanimity.

  SEVEN

  Strangely for a soldier, I’ve never been much of a traveler. Given the choice, I wouldn’t leave my neighborhood, let alone leave the city. Even if I’ve only been gone overnight, I always love the feeling of coming home, of the landscape becoming increasingly familiar until I’m in my street, outside my apartment.

  It was one of the hottest days of the year when I got back from San Diego. George stopped the van outside my apartment complex and I got out, telling the guys I’d see them for practice next week. I shouldered my backpack and walked into the complex.

  Janine’s car wasn’t there. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. If she wasn’t here then she was probably okay, but I’d hoped to find her at home.

  I unlocked the door and went inside. The apartment was dark. All the shades were closed. I opened them and let the light in. Janine must have been gone for a while—the air-conditioning hadn’t been on and the living room was like a sauna. I opened the windows and left the front door open. Then I saw that something was wrong.

  The place was clean.

  Janine and I lived in squalor. It wasn’t my choice; I won’t even wear boots that don’t have a perfect shine. But Janine was so disgusting that pigs would have kicked her out of their sty. When we first moved in together I used to clean up her shit, but I soon got tired of it and gave up. So we lived in a state of near-barbarism, halfway to Lord of the Flies. The apartment was like a museum of white trash domesticity.

  Not today. The dishes were washed and neatly stacked, the kitchen counter and even the floor were scrubbed clean. The carpets had been vacuumed and the furniture dusted. The bathroom was fit for humans.

  I poured some water, took off my boots and lay on the couch. Janine had apparently wanted to do something nice for me coming home. Now all I needed was her. I played the messages on the machine. None were from her. That made me a little uneasy. We always left each other messages to say where we were.

  I wasn’t very worried, though. It just didn’t feel like anything would have happened to her. I drank the water, then picked up a magazine and started to read it. But I was more tired than I realized, and I fell asleep while reading. When I woke up, it was the sound of Janine’s key in the door that woke me.

  I sat up and looked at her groggily. “Hey,” I said.

  She didn’t smile. “Hey.”

  “So what made you clean the place up? Have you got a dual personality—like, Dr Janine and Ms Hyde?”

  Now she did smile, but the smile was feeble. She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t sit down. She just stood there looking at me.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. Really wrong.” Pause. “We need to call it a day.”

  I looked at her. I knew the literal meaning of the words, but I had no clue as to what she meant. “What?” I finally said.

  “We need to call it a day. We need to break up.”

  “This is a joke, right?”

  “No. I’m serious. I really mean it, Andy.”

  “Is there something I don’t know about?” My voice was rising, and I made an effort to lower it. “Is there something I’m not getting?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think there’s a lot you don’t get.”

  “Last I heard, you loved me. I sure as hell love you.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at me and looked away.

  “You do love me, don’t you?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I do.”

  “Janine, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I think what I’m saying is pretty clear.”

  “But...Shit. Are
you seeing somebody else?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “How is that stupid? How is it more stupid than me leaving to play a gig, and everything’s okay, and then I come back and you want to break up?”

  “Everything wasn’t okay, Andy. You were talking about finding someone and killing him.”

  “Yeah, because he’d killed three people and he’ll probably kill me. Is that what this is about? If it is, I’ll tell you what. I’ll drop it. I’ll go on with my life the way you want me to. If he kills me, boo-hoo. Anything you want. Just don’t do this.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m trying to tell you something, babe. You’re not listening to me...”

  “I am listening. What’re you saying?”

  “I said it already. I don’t love you. I thought I did, but I don’t. I’m really sorry.”

  “When did this happen? I mean, what brought all this on?”

  “It’s been brewing for a while. I just thought things were weird because you were upset about Mara, and you had to teach that sick class, and then Tim got killed and everything else. But it’s got nothing to do with that. It’s that I don’t want this anymore. I realized it while you were gone. I liked that you were gone. So I went and got a monthly rental downtown, and I moved as much of my stuff as I could.”

  I sat quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Why did you clean this place up?”

  She laughed nervously. “Guilt. Stupid, I know. But I was like, hey, I’m leaving you, but at least you’ve got a nice, clean apartment. Look, the bathroom floor’s clean for the first time ever...” When I didn’t smile, she reached out and took my hand. “I know what this must be like for you, babe. If I still felt the way I used to feel about you, and you left me...Jesus. But I don’t feel like I used to. And I know you still do.”

  I nodded. I squeezed my eyes shut hard, trying to keep the tears from getting out. But they got out anyway.

  “I’m so sorry,” Janine said. “I hate myself for doing this to you. You’re the most wonderful man. But I can’t be with you out of pity. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’d better go,” she said. “I’ve paid the rent on this place for next month, so don’t worry about that. Here’s my new address and phone number. I’ll call you in the next couple days, okay?”

  “Janine—“ I said.

  “What?”

  “Nobody ever loved me before.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. And she left.

  I sat there in the apartment for a while. Then I called Laurie and told her what had happened. She asked if I wanted her to come over, or if I wanted to come to her place. I realized that I wanted to get out of the apartment, so I said, “Can I come over there?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Just drive carefully okay?”

  “I will,” I said.

  When I parked my car in her driveway, she came out of the house and came toward me. She put her arms around me as soon as I got out of the car.

  We sat in her living room and drank tea. “I just don’t get it,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense. I mean, this kind of thing doesn’t happen.”

  “It happens,” she said. “It happens all the time.”

  I told her what I’d said to Janine, about how nobody had loved me before. I expected sympathy, but Laurie burst out laughing.

  “Is that funny?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she told me. “It is. You fucking idiot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She was still laughing, but it wasn’t unkind. “I’ve been in love with you for about two years, that’s what I’m talking about.”

  She made up a bed for me on the futon in her living room. I was falling asleep when she crawled in beside me. “Is this okay?” she said. “I’d hate to molest you when you’re vulnerable.”

  I didn’t say anything, just kissed her.

  “But if you don’t object, I’m going to assume I can have my wicked way with you,” she told me. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

  I held my peace.

  When I woke in the morning, I liked being where I was. I knew better than to trust this feeling. It all seemed unreal, and I knew that it hadn’t sunk in properly. But it still seemed good that, instead of screaming at the impassive walls of my apartment, I was here, with Laurie naked and wrapped around me, her arms crossed on my stomach, tits soft against my back, cunt nestled to my ass.

  Laurie didn’t have to work that day, but I had to get up early to attend a funeral service for Spike. She got up with me. We ate some fruit for breakfast, then sat in front of her altar and meditated together.

  “Will you be okay?” she asked as I prepared to leave.

  I had no idea what the answer was, so I just said, “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She gave me a long kiss at the door, stroking my face with her fingers as she did. “When will I see you?”

  “Don’t know. I’ll call you. Or you call me.”

  “Okay.” She kissed me again. “Take it easy.”

  As I walked to my car, she called after me. “Hey, Andy.”

  I looked back. “Yeah?”

  “You know what I said about being in love with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s true. But here’s the deal. If you like it, then you can have it. If you don’t, then forget I said it and just be my friend, okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you will be my friend, right?”

  “Right.”

  I got on 202 and headed West. The sun had just risen, and it dazzled me, glare reflecting off the dirty windshield of my car. I dug in the glove box until I found my sunglasses. I put them on, and was able to see well enough to jump from lane to lane. Morning was the worst time on the freeway—when you signaled that you were about to change lanes, the people behind you wouldn’t slow down—they’d speed up and cut you off. I sometimes theorized that I might be the only citizen of Phoenix who deliberately allowed other people to change lanes.

  I took 51 North, and exited at Bethany Home. In my apartment, I was struck again by its unusual cleanliness, telling me that things weren’t the same. That gave me a pang, but not as bad as if the place had been as it was when it was Janine’s place too.

  I looked in my closet for something appropriate to wear at a funeral service. I didn’t have suits or ties or anything like that. I chose black jeans and a black silk shirt, with black shoes instead of my usual combat boots or sandals. Spike wouldn’t have insisted that I look like a lawyer or a pimp, and so I wasn’t concerned with what anyone else would think.

  I stripped off the clothes I was wearing. I hadn’t taken a shower at Laurie’s, and I could smell myself, a cocktail of her sweat and my own. My pubic hair was crusted with flakes of her dried come. In the heat of the day, people would be able to smell me from across a room. Out of respect for the dead, I jumped in the shower for a few minutes. I toweled myself dry as quickly as I could, then got dressed. I checked myself out in the mirror. My outfit didn’t look the way I’d hoped it would—I looked readier for a Goth club than a funeral. But it was all I had.

  I got in the car and headed for Scottsdale, where the service was being held. I almost didn’t find the place—the area is a suburban maze of identical streets and houses, barely any stores. I’ve never been able to figure out why rich people create such horrible neighborhoods to live in.

  There weren’t many people at the service, only about twenty. I think all of them worked for the Republic. Spike’s editor, Tony, got up and talked about him, called him “a great man.” Afterwards, as I was leaving, Tony came up to me.

  “Andy Saunders, right?” I nodded and he shook my hand. “Good to see you. Spike talked about you a lot. You were a good friend to him.” I nodded but didn’t say anything, not because I had anything against the guy, but because I just couldn’t think of anything to say. I had my sunglasses on and he coul
dn’t see my eyes and I could tell that it somehow bothered him because he wouldn’t look at my face. “I was hoping you’d be here,” he told me. “Because Spike left some things you might want to take care of.”

  “What things?”

  “Just some junk he left in the office, mostly papers.”

  “I thought the cops would have taken all that.”

  He shook his head. “They went through it, but there wasn’t anything they were interested in. They’re pretty sure it was suicide. Anyway, I’m not sure what to do with the stuff. Spike had no family. I contacted his ex-wife, and she doesn’t want to know. The stuff’s just lying there in his desk, but it can’t lie there forever. I thought you might want it.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Come by the Republic and get it as soon as you like.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.”

  Suicide, I thought. Suicide, for sure. He got drunk and decided to kill himself by driving a spike into his own head. For sure.

  I drove to the Five and Diner and had fried chicken for lunch. Then I headed home. I’d half-expected to cry at the service, but I’d felt nothing, not even boredom. Everything—Spike, Tim, Janine, Laurie, my whole life, seemed distant, removed from me. I felt like I was acting in a movie. I seemed to be mentally and emotionally anesthetized, and I wondered how I would feel when that wore off.

  It wore off overnight.

  I slept until one in the afternoon. When I got up, I played the messages on my answering machine. One of them was from Janine. “Hey, it’s me. Are you home? Pick up if you are...Well, I guess not. I’ve got some shit at your place that I need to pick up. Call me and let me know when would be a good time. I hope you’re doing okay.”

  Usually, I meditate as soon as I get up, but this time I didn’t bother. I sat naked on the toilet and cried and whimpered as diarrhea dribbled out of my ass. I was sweating so much that my eyes stung. When I’d finished and had wiped my ass, I got dressed without taking a shower, even though I stank and would stink worse as the day went on.