by Marc Laidlaw
He zipped up the duffel bag. A kitchen knife would do just as well. The kitchen was probably the best room for it anyway. Linoleum tiles were easily mopped.
Out on the deck, Raymond was whistling. Lupe had started to whistle a few notes of his own, to no particular tune, when he heard a sizzling sound. Meat on a hot grill. It was too near to be a neighbor. He checked a scream, swallowed his bile, already heading for the living room.
He had warned Raymond—warned him—
Out on the deck, Raymond stood over a low hibachi grill, adjusting a seared steak with a long fork. Fat spat in the fire, hissing and burning, joined by the thick, rank smell of charred meat.
Lupe’s head caved in, cutting off light and oxygen. He gasped out a suffocated shriek and rushed at the deck, seeing it as though through tinted glass.
Raymond saw him coming and leapt back with the fork dangling from his fingers by a leather cord. “Rico!”
As he stepped onto the deck the wind shifted, wrapping him in coils of sickening smoke, stuffing it down his throat, stinging his nose and eyes, bathing him in the stench of burning. Smothering him.
He lashed out at the source, kicking the hibachi across the deck. Hot coals went tumbling; the grill plates rattled away.
Lupe snatched the fork from Raymond’s fingers, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and forced him down on his hands and knees.
Raymond begged desperately, as if he had no idea what he’d done wrong. But he should have—must have—known. How many times had Lupe told him he couldn’t stand meat, cooking meat, burning meat? How many times had he forbidden him to cook it, on threat of Lupe’s instant departure?
“Please, Rico, please . . .”
He had pressed Raymond’s cheek to within an inch of a heap of coals.
“I told you,” Lupe raged. “I told you!”
“It was only for me, a little steak, I thought out in the air—”
“Shut up!”
He couldn’t let go of Raymond’s neck, or even ease off a fraction of an inch. The steak had stopped cooking but the smell was still overpowering. His fingers were locked in Raymond’s flesh. He brought the fork with its three-inch tines right up to Raymond’s gaping eye. Raymond struggled away from the fork. Lupe forced them steadily closer together.
“My god . . . my god . . .” Raymond blubbered. Weak. Pitiful. When the boys begged like this, it spurred him on; but Raymond’s debasement gave him no pleasure. He only wanted to end it quickly. He rolled the fork in his hand, wondering at the best way.
Then the stink began again, far worse than before, because far more familiar.
Raymond’s hair was fuming in the coals. Lupe loosened his grip, setting Raymond free. As Raymond groped for balance, his hand went down among the embers, his full weight pressing on the hot grill. Raymond screamed and flesh sizzled and hair continued to burn.
It was all too much. Lupe threw himself at the railings, spewing vomit. Behind him, even before his retching subsided, he heard the sliding glass door bang shut.
He turned, wiping his mouth, to see Raymond latching it, locking him out.
“What are you doing?” he asked miserably.
Raymond backed into the living room, holding his burned hand to his belly. One side of his face was blistered, hair singed from the temple.
Lupe threw himself at the glass.
“Stop it!” Raymond shrieked.
Lupe forced himself to smile. Relax, he told himself. Calm down.
“Raymond . . . please. I told you I couldn’t stand you doing that. I warned you more than once. Didn’t I?”
“That’s no excuse,” Raymond gasped hoarsely. “My God, look what you did!” He raised his scarred hand in recrimination. “What were you going to do to me?”
“It’s not my fault. You have to believe me—it’s uncontrollable. Just . . . please just let me in, and I’ll explain.”
“You would have killed me!”
No duh, Lupe thought, fighting down a grin. He was hysterical. The stink clung to his nostrils. How could he think through it?
“No,” he said. “No, I—I wouldn’t hurt you, Raymond. I—God, this is hard for me to say. It’s so hard to believe that you—you don’t want to hurt me. I’ve been hurt myself, Ray. I could never do that to anyone. I know what it’s like and I’m sorry. I want to . . . to make it up. Please just let me apologize.”
Raymond put a finger tenderly to his cheek. Bitterness and grief welled from his eyes. For an instant Lupe truly did regret what had happened—and all that was yet to come.
“Ray, I . . . I love you.”
Through the depths of pain and fear, he saw that Raymond was still dragging along a deathless load of hope. It just might get him through the door. Raymond started tentatively forward, but then his hand or his face must have twinged, reminding him of what had just happened.
“Please, Ray. I feel terrible. It just comes over me, when—when I smell meat burning. I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you what happened, if you’ll just let me in. I’ve never told anyone, but I’ll tell you. I trust you, Ray. I need you. You’ve done so much for me.
“The—the steak was for me,” Raymond said faintly, weakening though he hadn’t realized it yet. “I know you don’t eat meat. I know that, Rico. I was going to make vegetables for you, a shishkebab, that’s all. I thought it was okay to make a steak for myself.”
“It’s all my fault,” Lupe said. “It’s a huge misunderstanding.”
The fork still dangled from his fingers, hanging out of sight behind his leg.
“Please,” he said again.
Raymond came forward.
In his eagerness, Lupe moved rapidly to meet him and saw another, stronger look of dread pass over Raymond’s face as the fork swung into sight from behind Lupe’s leg. Lupe jerked his hand to hide it again, but that guilty movement betrayed him further.
Stupid!
Raymond took his hands from the latch.
“Fuck,” Lupe said. “Come on, Goddamn it. Open the fucking glass!”
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Lupe froze. Raymond turned and stared across the living room, in disbelief.
“Open the door,” Lupe hissed. “If you love me . . .”
But Raymond was turning away, grateful for the interruption. The fucking cavalry had arrived. Lupe banged on the glass but Raymond ignored him, walking down the hall to the front door. He backed away from the glass, not wanting to be seen out here, telling himself that it must be the mailman or a paper boy. Once they went away he would still be out here, waiting for Raymond, cooler and more convincing than before. Yeah . . .
The door was hidden from his sight, but he saw light flood the hall when it opened. Raymond spoke loudly, for his benefit: “Please come in.”
Someone else said, “Thanks very much. I don’t mean to intrude, but—”
Without a thought, Lupe sprang in a single fluid motion over the nearest end of the balcony. He hit the hillside rolling, got to his feet, and ran downhill, abandoning in that instant of panic everything he’d planned, everything he’d created by sheer will.
Maybe it was better this way. Heading for the safety of the deep canyons, that voice echoing in his ears, he felt a giddy eagerness, as if some great event was just about to occur.
Maybe, down there, he would finally find the cave of his dreams, the cave he could smell when the evening winds shifted. How had he ever fooled himself into thinking any other life was worthy of him?
***
While Raymond Mankiewitz was staring at Lupe’s photograph, Sal looked past him into the dark house. He could have sworn he’d heard Lupe’s voice as he was walking down the driveway. He was tensed for confrontation.
Raymond looked up at Sal, worried, then he too glanced back quickly into the house. He said loudly, “Please come in.”
“Thanks very much,” Sal said. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I have reason to think you know him, or did.”
“I have to—to get a better loo
k at this.” He moved toward a table lamp and switched it on, holding the photograph under the light. “Yes, this is Rico, but . . . much younger.”
“His real name is Lupe. Guadalupe Diaz.”
“Lupe?” Raymond spun toward the deck. Outside, through the sliding glass doors, Sal saw a distant range of mountains through the summer haze; nearer were lines of hills, far ridges of the same Greenbelt canyons that ran behind Shangri-La.
Raymond rushed toward the glass and pressed up against the pane as if trying to see around the corners of the house without opening the door. “Where . . . where did he go?”
“Was he here?” Sal said, not quite believing it.
“He called himself Rico . . . ”
Raymond’s voice trailed off as he unlatched the door and slid it open. Sal joined him on the deck. Together they looked down on tangles of dense brush, islands of bamboo, clumps of cactus edging the bluffs and outcroppings of worn sandstone that dropped away into the deeper canyons. The hot wind shook every shrub, making it seem as if someone was crawling away under the landscape.
Smelling smoke, Sal looked down at the deck. Scattered coals smoldered on the redwood planks; a piece of dirty steak lay folded in one corner like a discarded rag. He tried to imagine the scene he had interrupted.
“Gone,” Raymond whispered. He started to drag a hand across his face, then hissed and pulled it away.
Sal glanced over at him. “Jesus!” He hadn’t noticed in the dark house, but one side of Raymond’s face was a mass of blistered, cracked and oozing skin; his hair had been singed so recently that shiny blobs still clung to the ends of the brittle, damaged strands. His hand was scored with a grid of fierce red lines, patterned on the hibachi’s grill.
Sal took him by the shoulders and drew him back into the house, leading him to a sofa. “Where’s your burn cream?”
“In the bathroom,” Raymond gasped, weeping openly now. “He lied about his name. Lied about . . . everything, I guess.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. My car’s outside. We’d better get you to the hospital.”
In the bathroom, Sal found a huge aloe plant thriving in the filtered light from a frosted window. He broke off a thick green tendril and carried it back to the sofa, along with a bottle of aspirin. Cool syrup dripped from the broken frond, pooling in his palm. He smeared the gel gently over Raymond’s burned face and hand. Raymond shut his eyes and sobbed, but without further tears.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I’m Sal Diaz. Lupe’s brother.”
Raymond opened his eyes. Stared for a moment, examining his face, then nodded. “You look like him, a little. But I recognize you. And your name’s . . . familiar.”
“I got your name from Tyler at the Rock Lobster; you’ve probably seen me there. Your office told me you were going away. I’m glad I caught you before you left.”
“I won’t be going anywhere now. Rico—I mean, Lupe and I—were traveling together. He’s your brother, then. I—I was desperate when you rang. I didn’t want to be alone with him. I didn’t want to leave the house, though, with him out there. I might have called the police. He did this to me!” Raymond gestured at his face with his burned hand, now cramping from the pain.
Sal went to the kitchen for a glass of water, which he offered to Raymond with several aspirin. “Take these. You’re probably in shock right now, but the pain is only going to get worse. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you.”
Raymond nodded, choking down the aspirin. “Thank you. Why were you looking for him?”
“Because I was afraid he might hurt someone. If he hadn’t already.”
Raymond shook his head, then took a huge breath. He pushed himself upright, staggering slightly so that Sal had to support him. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready for anything now.”
***
Sal had never been in such a quiet emergency room. South Bay Hospital seemed deserted at midday. There was sand on the floor, and trails of water where a surfer had come in right behind Sal and Raymond, still in his dripping wetsuit, his hair matted with blood. The nurses had literally pushed Raymond aside to reach the surfer. When the one nurse remaining at the desk finally returned her attention to Raymond, she informed them that they would have to wait for treatment of such minor injuries. There was only one doctor on duty, and he was busy. Yet, as they waited, more emergency patients came in—a vomiting child, a man with a sprained ankle, a girl with a bloody toe—and each was whisked away out of the waiting room while Sal and Raymond were left to wait. Raymond kept an ice pack pressed to his face, but Sal couldn’t believe it was cold anymore; he could hear it slosh without the crunching sound of ice.
He noticed that the nurse kept glancing at them, as if wishing they would give up and go away. Her eyes said, Faggots.
“Let me tell you about Lupe,” he said after a while.
“Yes . . .”
“We grew up in L.A., in a building that should have been condemned. I spent most of my early life in the same apartment; 1 guess that was some sort of stability. It was cramped and falling apart, and there were always men visiting my Aunt Theresa. Our mother died right after Lupe was born; Theresa took us in, not too willingly. I’m not sure why she didn’t abandon us right off. She didn’t have what it takes to raise children. Things might have turned out better if she had dumped us.
“Lupe never knew any other way of life. But I was always angry—at my mother for leaving us, at my aunt for taking us in, at the world for being the way it is. I was always fighting and running away, hanging out with a gang. Theresa couldn’t complain; as a role model, she left a lot to be desired. I guess I was following her example when I got into hustling myself.
“I had, I guess you might say, an aptitude. I used to spy on her pimp, peeking through the door to see him naked, strutting around proud. Even at a young age, it excited me. One day the pimp came over while Theresa was out. He talked me into letting him in. I was thirteen. I can still remember his mouth and the smell of booze, the way he looked at me when he decided what he was going to do—knowing I couldn’t stop him. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. It was violent, but not so different from my fantasies. You’d be surprised. I had practical knowledge, you know, from watching him with Theresa; I already knew he was rough. The real thing turned out to be pretty close to some of the scenes I’d been carrying around in my head, you know, in that desperate way a horny adolescent wishes for someone to touch him, no matter who.”
“Adolescent?” Raymond said wearily. “I still feel that way.”
“After that, it was like all the chains just snapped. I figured out I could make it on my own, and make money, too. Even save it, since I never cared about doing drugs.
“I’d sleep with whoever would take me in for a night, or even a few hours. Lupe was my only tie with home. He was at Theresa’s mercy. Once I ran away for good, she became even more protective, she started locking him up in her room. She’d padlock it from the outside, so if there’d been a fire or something he would have been trapped. Maybe because he didn’t know any better, Lupe never seemed to mind. He was an artist from early on; as soon as he could hold a crayon he was drawing. Good, too—he had natural talent. He could draw anything, things he’d only seen on TV. At least I guess that’s where he got them from. He certainly wasn’t drawing from life. He’d never been out to see anything.
“I used to go crazy, thinking about him locked up like an animal in a kennel. Sometimes, when I knew Theresa was out, I would break in and take him out and around with me, my little brother.”
“How’d you get him out?”
“My aunt would leave the key in the front room—less chance of losing it there, I guess. Anyway, Lupe looked up to me. I took him places where I was known, where I had a few friends. Not my old gang, though. I stayed away from them once I started hustling—which I only did where I wasn’t known. Even so, word got around of what I was up to. Things got dangerous for me.
“One day we c
ame home and Theresa was there. We got in a huge fight about how she treated him. Then her pimp came in. He’d been waiting on her and since I was slowing her down, he beat the shit out of me. I could barely crawl away. He said he was moving in with Theresa and threatened to kill me if I came around again.
“The next day I stole a gun and went back for Lupe. I had this idea I was going to set up house for the two of us, away from Theresa. I found her pimp alone in the apartment, and pulled the gun on him. But Lupe wasn’t there. He said Lupe was in the hospital and Theresa was with him. That news maybe saved his life. I had really wanted to kill the guy.
“By the time I found the right hospital, Lupe was in stable but critical condition. Lupe had broken out and come looking for me. But the poor kid—he didn’t know the neighborhoods where he would be safe. He didn’t know shit, only that he had to get away and I was always the one who said I’d protect him. I sort of pieced together from my aunt that the guy had gone after Lupe the night before, after he’d warmed up on me. So he just wandered around looking for places I’d shown him, looking for people who knew me . . . and from what I finally figured out, he finally went up to a gang of boys—you know, I mean a gang—and asked them if they knew me.
“You can imagine how they took this. Plenty of them knew of me. Even my own old gang wanted to kill me. I’d been chased a couple of times. Probably would have been killed if they’d caught me. I was learning some martial arts from an old guy in the park—karate, white crane, and then tai chi—but the main thing I’d learned was to keep away from trouble. Lupe walked right into it.
“Someone found him in the morning. I went up to look at the place, for clues, gang-signs, to figure out who’d done it to him. It was this big hill covered with garbage; on the peak was a huge metal pylon where the powerlines came through. You could hear them buzzing and crackling up there. Cactus everywhere, flies and shit, stripped cars. Down under the pylon was a big sandstone cave, so much broken glass on the ground it was like pebbles on the beach. Pretty deep, too. That was where they’d taken Lupe. In the back I found an old ripped-up mattress, stained with blood. And an acetylene torch. That was the worst part.