by Grant Buday
So Rupp moved into Horst’s car. He poured gas in the tank so he could run the heater, and pinned up towels for curtains. That first night Rupp used Horst’s phone to order pizza. Yet Rupp couldn’t convince the guy that the address really was a red Pacer in an alley. Horst, listening, finally said, “Fuck. Just deliver it here.”
When the pizza arrived, Rupp insisted on taking the delivery kid out back to show him the car so that next time he’d know Rupp was on the level. The kid still thought they were shitting him.
“It’s a new trend in urban living,” said Rupp.
The kid was wearing a Corvette Stingray T-shirt. “Okay, but a Pacer?”
When the kid was gone, Rupp invited Horst to sit in the car and eat pizza. They played the radio and drank beer.
“So you’re finding a place soon, right?”
“Jesus, Horst. I’m fifty. You think I like this?” Rupp insisted Horst take the last piece. Horst knew it was bribery, but after a month of Kraft Dinner, he went for it. “I never brought a whore there once,” said Rupp.
They arranged that Rupp use Horst’s bathroom in the morning before work, then again at night before bed. Beyond that, they were living in separate houses.
That evening Horst’s landlord, Leo Buljan, discovered Rupp out back. Leo was huge. Rupp, terrified, refused to get out of the car. He rolled the window down an inch and they argued. Then Leo lost his temper and grabbed the window, and Rupp quickly cranked it up tight, pinching Leo’s fingers. Horst came running when Leo started howling. It took a lot of talking before Horst had him calmed down to where he wasn’t going to get a hammer, break the window, and drag Rupp out.
“Okay,” said Leo. “He can stay. But I want rent. Hundred a month.” He hulked off to ice his fingers.
Horst was secretly pleased. It was great. Rupp got the message, loud and clear, that he better get his ass someplace else. It also meant Horst didn’t take the rap for not letting him stay.
“That guy’s gonna kill me!”
“You oughta see his gun collection,” said Horst. “Goes to the Barnet Rifle Club twice a week. Drinks vodka.”
“A hundred a month,” said Rupp.
“Yeah.” Horst tried sounding sympathetic.
“That’s pretty good. Goddamn Svoboda was bleeding me for four hundred and fifty. What’s this guy’s name?” Rupp had his chequebook out.
The next night Horst heard singing. He peeked through the blinds and saw Rupp and Leo in the Pacer, drunk, singing Serbian songs.
In the morning, Rupp knocked on Horst’s door carrying two cups of coffee.
“Leo hooked up an extension cord for me so I can use my perk. He’s a good guy!”
“How’re his fingers?”
“Not even bruised!”
Horst sat at the kitchen table while Rupp used the toilet. Horst hated anyone using his toilet. It disgusted him. He shut his eyes trying not to think about it.
“Jesus,” said Rupp when he came out, “been holding that dump all night. So. See you at the track?”
“You just got evicted for not being able to pay your rent and you got money to bet?”
Rupp peeled off a couple of twenties. “Leo’s gonna lay down a piece of plywood and some foam rubber to level out the back seat. This should cover it. Hey.” Rupp looked at Horst’s jungle of jades, ivies, cacti, gloxinias, and philodendrons. “I’ll give you ten for a couple of these buggers.”
When Rupp pulled in about midnight both doors of his Bug opened and shut, and Horst heard a woman’s laughter. He made it to the window in time to see a hooker getting into the back seat of his Pacer. Rupp had his hands all over her ass as he crawled in behind. Horst went from the bedroom window to the living-room window for a better view. He shifted some of the plants and watched. For a minute the light was on and he could see the silhouettes of two bodies moving about behind the towels. Then the light went out. Pretty soon the Pacer was rocking side-to-side.
In the morning Rupp appeared at the door with two coffees.
“Where were you? I got the triactor! Bunce got it too. Paid three-fifty!”
Horst smelled Rupp from across the table. “You stink.”
Rupp grinned. “Jesus, Horst. It’s been so long I forgot what it looks like.”
“Where’d you find her?”
“Mr Submarine on Hastings.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t fuck whores in my car.”
“Ok, ok.” Rupp strolled whistling to the bathroom.
A minute later Horst heard the water running in the tub. He shouted and ran to the door. It was locked.
“This isn’t part of the deal!”
“I need a bath!”
“Go walk through a car wash!”
“Can’t hear you!”
When Rupp came out he said he’d buy Horst another toothbrush, and by the way he was out of dental floss.
“You used my toothbrush?”
“I had something stuck. Hey. Me’n Leo’re going to the casino tonight.”
“Leo doesn’t gamble.”
“I’m gonna show him the ropes.”
When Rupp left for work, Horst took a deep breath, then pushed open the bathroom door. The window was steamed and the tub had a brown ring and was full of hair — Boyle Rupp hair. Horst felt ill. Two wet towels lay on the floor and the toilet hadn’t been flushed. Horst stared at his toothbrush. Picking it up with a piece of toilet paper he threw it away. He spent the morning scrubbing and disinfecting.
The next morning when Rupp knocked with two coffees, Horst opened the door but kept the chain on. He stated the New Order.
“But we had a deal!”
“The deal didn’t include you shitting up my bathroom or using my toothbrush.”
“So what’m I gonna do?”
“There’s a hose around the side of the house. Wash with that. As for your other needs …” Horst pointed out the garden of the Chinese lady across the alley. “She’ll appreciate the fertilizer.”
Every morning for the next week Horst watched Rupp head around to Leo’s suite with two coffees. It was late April and the weather was warming up. In fact, it hadn’t rained in five days, which had to be some kind of record for Vancouver. Horst knew Rupp had no intention of finding a proper place. The bugger liked it here. It gave him three hundred more a month to blow at the track and the casino. Horst decided he was demanding rent, too. It was his car. It was only fair. A hundred to Leo and a hundred to Horst …. Yet he wondered. If he took money from Rupp, then Rupp had rights. He’d be a tenant. Hell. He almost was already. No. The only way to get rid of him was to pay up the car insurance and get the Pacer back on the road. And that meant getting a job. What a choice — a job or Rupp. Horst usually worked as a gardener. And it was spring.
Saturday was not only sunny, but hot. Everyone was outside, waving hello to neighbours they usually hated. Rupp had the windows down and the seat cranked back, reading the Racing Form. Horst wanted to go out on the back porch and drink his coffee — but he didn’t want to see Rupp. He especially didn’t want to see Rupp smug and relaxed like he had the world where he wanted it. After an hour of pacing and picking dead leaves off his plants, Horst stamped down the steps to the car. Rupp saw him coming.
“Ever think of getting a sun-roof?”.
“Ever think of getting a proper place to live?”
Rupp picked up the classifieds on the seat beside him. “City’s tighter than a frog’s ass. You can get sun-roofs for a couple hundred.”
“If I had a couple hundred I’d renew my car insurance instead of riding the bus.”
“Couple hundred? You live under a rug? Insurance’ll cost you a grand.” Rupp paged through the paper. “Here. Found you a job.”
Horst was both offended and intrigued. “Who’re you, my mother?”
Rupp slapped the paper and showed Horst a job he’d circled. “Telemarketing. Work from your home. No traffic, no boss, no hassles.”
“No money either.”
“You gotta
be a self-starter. I’m telling you Horst, I’m out there all day, it’s hell. Driving’s the shits. Gives you ulcers. If I could work from home I’d be happier’n a clam. Here’s the number.” Rupp passed Horst a losing ticket from the track with a phone number on it.
“What else did you find?”
Rupp tossed the paper into the back seat. “Fuck all.” He picked up the Racing Form.
“Gimme the paper.”
Boyle passed him the Racing Form.
“The newspaper.”
“Told you. Nothing there.”
“Just let me look.”
“I’m doing the crossword.”
“I’ll give it back.” Horst spoke with exaggerated calm. Rupp was hiding something. Horst smelled it. He took the paper and went inside. It took a while, but he found it: long weekend every week! Wanted: Experienced gardener for indoor plant maintenance throughout city. Four days per week. Good wage, great benefits. Reliable car a must.
Horst looked around at his plants. Rupp knew that of the hundred-some jobs Horst had held, a dozen had been in gardening and nurseries. “The motherfucker. So that’s his game. I let him live in my car and use my bathroom, and this is what the guy pulls!” Horst swung open the door intending to throw him out. Rupp, however, was gone. He’d headed for the track.
Horst wrote out a résumé and cover letter. He’d kill two birds with one stone: turf Rupp, get a job, plus have his car back on the road again — three birds. Or two birds and one weasel.
Horst felt sure he had the job in the bag. So he went ahead and told Rupp that was it, he needed the car. Rupp surprised him with his calm.
“No problem. Leo said I could store my stuff in the basement here.”
Horst was actually disappointed there wasn’t more drama. Not a word about the job, and no mention of how Rupp had tried hiding the job so Horst wouldn’t get it and pull the car out from under him.
A week later two things happened. The first was that Horst got turned down for the job. He kept this secret. The second was that Rupp rear-ended a bus. A wrecker left the smashed-in remains of his Bug beside the Pacer. Rupp was in tears.
“Horst! Lemme buy your car. Lemme rent it! I’ll give you two hundred a month, three hundred! I’ll live in the Bug and use yours for work. How about it?”
Horst’s voice was soaked in sympathy. “But Rupp,” Horst lied, “I’m working now. I need my car.”
Rupp’s eyes went dead as a clubbed cod. Short, flabby, narrow-shouldered, he slumped to the steps and was having trouble breathing. “Horst, what about that job I showed you? Telephone sales. Maybe I could do that — from your place! You’ll be out all day!” The hopefulness in Rupp’s voice was embarrassing.
Horst didn’t know what to do. But whatever it was, he wasn’t telling Rupp the truth. Not yet anyway. “I don’t know …”
“I won’t use the toilet or anything! I promise. I’ll even clean the place up!”
Horst drew a deep breath and gazed up the alley. “Let me think about it.”
The next day, Sunday, it rained. The world had returned to normal. It might be spring according to the calendar, but in Vancouver that meant nothing. The clouds slid in low and dense and heavy as slabs of clay, and it poured. It was dark and cold and November all over again. Horst felt a kind of relief. The relief of one born in Vancouver, whose earliest memories were of rain. Rain drumming, rain hissing, and rain drizzling. Rain from October to April. It calmed him. It made him feel at home. Horst wandered his place with a coffee, picking at his plants. He liked rainy mornings, especially Sunday mornings when he could hear the church bells up the street.
He looked out the window and watched Rupp sitting in the smashed-in Bug. The rain battered the metal roof, blurred the windows, and puddled around the wheels. Jesus, thought Horst. What a sight. Fifty years old and living in a car in an alley. Watching Rupp sitting out there like a toad in a hole, Horst decided: Okay. Tomorrow I’ll tell him he can use my car. Nine to five. No evenings or weekends, though. And he’s got to fork over two bills rent. Horst went over the conditions again in his mind, then added one more: And you can’t use my toilet.
HORST WAS RELIEVEDwhen Rupp hit a big triactor. It meant he didn’t have to worry anymore. Horst’s friendship couldn’t take much more. Rupp got his Bug fixed, found a decent apartment, paid five hundred toward the debt he owed Bunce, and got himself a good haircut. Then he invited Horst and Bunce to Melissa’s restaurant, his treat. Glass of red in his hand, Rupp described his haircut.
“Went to one of those boutiques over on Robson. Beautiful girl trained at the Vidal Sassoon school in Los Angeles. Not some drunk in a smock. Vanessa. She was great. Offered me a coffee, put on classical music, gave me a shampoo, a scalp massage. Then you know what she did?” Rupp sat forward like they’d never believe it. “She talked about my hair.”
“Your hair?”
“Everyone’s hair is different. It has a personality. You got to work with it, not against it. Otherwise it screws up your brain.”
Rupp’s beard was trimmed so short Horst saw the shape of his face for the first time. The guy had no chin, and his eyes floated like aquarium creatures behind his glasses. Rupp’s hair was combed straight forward.
“You look like Nero,” said Bunce.
“You should find yourself a good woman,” said Horst.
“Yeah, I know,” admitted Rupp, as if his playboy life had to stop.
“Like Rose,” said Bunce.
Rupp laughed. He’d been telling them about Rose the Nose. She lived in the suite directly beneath him and liked to come up and drink.
DAMAGED
GOODS
Boyle Rupp phoned his friend Helmut. “Did it come?”
“It’s here.”
Rupp hung up. He’d been waiting weeks for this package, but didn’t want it delivered to the apartment because of Rose the Nose. More than once Rupp had caught her in the lobby by the mail shelf holding his letters to the light, trying to read through the envelopes. He headed down to Commercial Drive, to Helmut’s Secondhand Store. Helmut’s place hunkered like a bullfrog under a board between a health food co-op and a Latin American imports store. He refused to budge, despite repeated offers to buy him out, and complaints he was lowering the property values.
Rupp stepped into the store’s stink of wet burlap, and found Helmut grinning like a pirate. The socket of his missing eye looked like a wad of wax mashed flat by a thumb. Helmut reached under his desk and came up with a box wrapped in plain brown paper. “Have fun.”
Rupp slipped it into the Safeway bag he’d brought and headed home.
Rupp pulled the bedroom blinds shut, turned on the lamp, and opened the box. He fit the bicycle pump to the valve, then inflated her, his eyes widening as she took shape — Miss Venezuela, 1990. He sat beside her on the bed, stroking her rubber cheek with the back of his finger. Then, groaning, he pressed his face to her belly, luxuriating in her smell of surgical rubber. After a while he sat up, cleared his throat, and studied the instructions, which were in French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and English. “Miss Venezuela, 1990. A reproduction authentic in every detail.” He skimmed the Maintenance paragraph and the Warning to keep her away from excessive heat and corrosives. Included was a bottle of lubricant, plus a tin of powder, so she didn’t stick when folded and stored. Rupp peeled off his pants.
He’d just mounted her when the phone rang. He stared as if caught in the act by a searchlight and sirens. He looked like an iguana perched on top of her. When the phone stopped ringing, he looked at the windows, reassuring himself that no one could see in. Rose often came up from downstairs and tapped. From the day Rupp moved in, Rose started coming up to flirt and chat, and have a drink, but she’d never let Rupp do anything.
Rupp waited to be sure no one was snooping. Then he felt something moving beneath him. He looked at Miss Venezuela, and hissed in shock. She was shrinking! Her face distorting as if she were holding back tears, her chin dimpling, cheeks suckin
g. Her great huge eyes sank and folded together until there was only her nose, which was the last to go under, like the prow of a ship. Rupp stood beside the bed watching her sag and settle. A leak!
Frantic, he pumped her back up. Her breasts unfolded and popped up, first one then the other, and finally her face reappeared, as if retrieved from the withering eternity of old age. Rupp dropped the pump, and, like a dog discovering a corpse, he nosed her body, smelling, listening, feeling with the shaved skin of his cheek for the faint flute note of wind betraying the leak. He passed over the spot a number of times before realizing where it was — yes, it was her asshole.
Miss Venezuela was bent over the bench in the dingy back room of Helmut’s store. Helmut sat behind her, spreading her cheeks with his thumbs and squinting at the hole, while Rupp held the flashlight. Helmut sat back and nodded.
“Looks good.” An old patching kit from a bicycle sat on the bench.
“Okay!” Rupp made a grab for her, but Helmut put his hand on Rupp’s chest.
“Hold on. Gotta give her twenty-four hours to set.”
“Twenty-four hours!”
Helmut pointed to the stamp by the valve at her ankle. “Made in Taiwan. Should’ve paid a few bucks more and got a German one.”
“How’s yours?”
“Three years now.” Helmut lit a cigarette then sat back, blowing smoke like a satisfied man.
Rupp headed home. Five o’clock, raining, and dark. Winter in Vancouver, like living in a drain pipe.
He lay down on the couch, arm across his eyes, exhausted. There was a knock on the door. He groaned.
“Well hello!” Rose stepped in and flashed him the bottle of Drambuie. She stripped off her coat. “It’s freezing in here. Turn up the heat.”
Trying not to look as miserable as he felt, Rupp turned the oven on to Broil and opened the door to heat up the kitchen. Then he put water on for coffee.