Still Life Las Vegas

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Still Life Las Vegas Page 21

by James Sie


  Chrysto mutters darkly behind her, “Why don’t you go to work?”

  Acacia turns to him, smiling her sweetest smile. “Yes, who else is going to work? Who else will pay the bills now, hmm? You? Of course not. Me, always me.” She says this last part in my direction. Clearly she’s speaking English for my benefit.

  “Come, Walter,” she says, swiping her bag from the small counter. “You have brought your flowers. Now, out.”

  But she knows I’m not going anywhere. She doesn’t even wait a beat before swaggering to the door. “Keep him here,” she says over her shoulder. “If they see him anywhere, anywhere on that street, they will grab him and phtt, out he goes from United States.”

  “How am I moving from this couch?” Chrysto says. “Tell me this.”

  Acacia mutters something filthy in Greek and with one last baleful glare, sails out, slamming the door behind her.

  * * *

  Silence. I feel the heat collecting on my skin. The door’s only been closed for a minute and the room has already warmed.

  “Walter,” Chrysto says softly, “why do you stare at the floor? Do I look so terrible?”

  I concentrate really, really hard on the corner of the sofa. “I shouldn’t have left. You.”

  “No, of course you should have, I asked you to. You did … perfect.”

  He’s the mangled one, and he’s cheering me up.

  “I found Acacia,” I say.

  “Yes. Exactly!” Misery lifts, ever so slightly. Chrysto looks to the door where Acacia has left, and sneers. “I allow her to have this moment of victory, but what she says? Not so true. They already decide to let me go before she comes in to scream and make embarrassment.”

  “Why?”

  Chrysto waves his hand vaguely. “This friend I have, he spends much money in this casino. He talks to hotel, everything is okay.”

  “So he got you out?” Misery descends again.

  Chrysto speaks softly. “Yes, but now he is very angry with me. I think maybe, I not see him anymore.” Chrysto sighs sadly. “But, you are here, my good, good friend. I am happy to see you.”

  These words should lighten my heart, but instead I feel sick. I ask him why he went crazy, why he did what he did. “They could have killed you.”

  Chrysto smiles back at me. “No, no, it is good, Walter. My luck is my own, now. I feel this inside of me.”

  “How can Mara bring you bad luck?”

  He shakes his head. “It was not her. It was her memory. Her memory stick in me, like, like a … splinter. Now, splinter gone. I am free!”

  I point out that he can’t get off the couch.

  “Is not so bad. Really. Soon, I will be one hundred percent. And then—” He shoots his good hand into the air—a rocket in flight.

  “You go?” I say quietly.

  “No,” he says with great excitement. “WE go.”

  I draw in an exasperated breath, but Chrysto presses on. “Come on, Walter, say good-bye to Las Vegas, with all the fat tourists and bad food.”

  “There are fat tourists in Los Angeles,” I say. “Giant ones.”

  Chrysto shakes his head. “Only beautiful people out there. The fat ones, phtt! They are invisible.”

  “Who told you that?” I ask.

  “Please, Walter, make company for me. I need you.”

  “What would I do in Los Angeles?” I ask.

  Chrysto shoots back: “What you doing here?” He beckons me closer and pulls me onto the couch. “I have plan—”

  “Movies?” says skeptical me.

  Chrysto brushes aside that idea. “Maybe later. No, this is perfect plan. Exercise! Exercise training. Very big in L.A. I set up studio, I train stars, I make videos. Big business! You—you help in studio, make phone calls, all these things. This is perfect, no?”

  It would work. I see the business in my head. He’s got the charisma, he’s got the training, if anyone were special enough to pull this off, it’d be Chrysto. But it still doesn’t mean I can leave.

  “Go with Acacia.”

  “Enough! Enough with Acacia!” he thunders. “I am tired of Acacia! Listen, Walter. Listen to me. Family is important, yes? But one day, we must leave family. We must become who we are. This you will never know until you leave. You must come. Come with me. Be free, my friend. Be with me.”

  He stares at me with those crystalline blue eyes that glow even in the shadowed room. I feel sweat trickling down the side of my body. Time’s ticking away and there’s no decision I can make.

  I stare at the floor again.

  Chrysto pats my face and lifts it up. “That’s okay, Walter,” he says softly. “No problem.” Which makes it all worse. He’s ten inches away from me and already he’s gone. Already I see him in the distance, flying away while I watch from my tower of bricks. I’ve got no wings; my father’s been too busy sleeping to make them for me.

  “Walter, do not look so sad. Come, let us do some drawing, okay? Give us some light.”

  I trudge over to the window. Sunlight slashes in through the blinds I twist open, and the room is instantly bright again. When I turn, Chrysto is attempting to get up. He looks golden, gashes and all.

  “Hey, I can be wounded warrior for you,” he says, trying to stand with only the use of his legs and one arm. I run over and offer my shoulder. He’s glistening with perspiration; from the heat, or effort, or both. It’s an attractive misting, like he’s just risen from his poolside deck chair. I, on the other hand, sweat like a pig.

  “Help me,” Chrysto asks, and it’s only then that I realize he’s trying to take off his underwear.

  I start to protest but he insists. “Why not?” he says. “Pull down.”

  He’s got beads of sweat around his navel, on the hair below, which tousles its way downward. How can his skin be so tan when he spends all his time indoors? I kneel before him, tugging his shorts down to his ankles, and there’s a musk coming off him that almost makes me dizzy. The hair on the back of my neck starts to tingle. I guide his feet out of the shorts. His boxers are still warm; I have to resist a totally pervy desire to take a big, luxuriant whiff.

  Chrysto looks down at me. “Walter, you look like you have soaked in bath. Take off your shirt, yes?”

  I haven’t undressed in front of someone not related to me since I was in sixth-grade gym. Mine is not a body meant for display. I’m too embarrassed. I can’t.

  And then I do.

  Chrysto doesn’t laugh, or wrinkle his nose at my sunken chest and scrawny arms. Instead, he strokes the top of my shoulder with his finger. “Your skin, Walter, so soft,” he murmurs, almost in disbelief. “So nice.” He cups my face with his hand. I almost explode, right there.

  Chrysto pushes me away and with a loud yelp, flops back onto the couch. He takes a few breaths to recover himself, then looks at me.

  “All right, what shall we draw? Give me a feeling.”

  I walk slowly to my bag; I’m so hard each step chafes. I fish out my pad and pen and stand there, staring at my notebook. A word enters my head: it fills my entire brain; it crowds out any other thought.

  “What is it?”

  My mouth is dry, the word sounds like a parched grunt, or a moan.

  “Lust.”

  “What?” Either he can’t hear me or doesn’t know what the word means.

  “Lust, lust!” I stammer loudly. “You know … love…” But I don’t know how to go on. I just swallow.

  Chrysto’s eyes widen just a fraction, comprehension brightening the blue. “Oh, Walter,” he says softly, with a smile as welcoming as a warm pool, “with you, that one is easy, very easy.”

  He’s on the couch, reclined, and Holy Zeus, there it is, there’s no denying his feelings on this point, it rises up in front of me, insistent and proud. Chrysto holds out his good hand to me, and my own hand springs up to meet it, and in no time at all my own deity is sprung as well, not as awe-inspiring as his, but every bit as sturdy.

  I have to be careful where I touc
h, and there’s not a lot of movement, but it’s enough. By the gods, it’s more than enough.

  WALTER

  VOLVO

  I can’t believe he took me back, but there he was, waiting for me by the car at three thirty sharp. We’re sitting in the front seat now, awkward, like it’s a first date, me in my jeans and pitted-out tee, him in his wrinkled gray suit and fat tie. I think he’s the only teacher left in the country who still wears a tie.

  “Stahl.” Mr. Handy says my name so quietly, it might have been a sigh. He coughs and starts again. “Behind the Wheel’s over, you know that, right? I don’t teach it this late in the year.”

  I nod. The school secretary’s already filled me in: it’s unheard of, him even considering giving me a second chance. Extraordinary. She’d never seen Mr. Handy make an exception. I’m counting on it. How else am I going to learn to fulfill my role as designated driver?

  I’m going to California. Me and Chrysto, as soon as we can. I’ve just come from his apartment; I’ve left him lightly dozing on the couch, sticky with me. There’s probably some of him still on my body, I probably reek of him, but I don’t care. It suits me fine. I’m funkalicious.

  “You know what?” I say, grabbing the steering wheel firmly. “I was thinking of maybe knocking this out in maybe two lessons.”

  Mr. Handy straightens out and raises a bushy eyebrow. “You haven’t even started a car, Stahl. Highly unlikely. Highly unlikely.” He sniffs. I can feel him thinking it out. He taps his clipboard with his pencil, all business.

  “Let’s see what you remember.”

  “Mirror. Mirror. Mirror. Ignition. Brake. Gas.” I point out each quickly, but the drill sergeant in Mr. Handy has been replaced by a fussy old man who spends way too much time checking off each item on his clipboard. I need him to go faster. I’m already flying down the road in a red convertible, Chrysto in the passenger seat, hair billowing in the wind. We’re wearing shades. We’re cool.

  Chrysto’s sleeping on the couch. This morning I was there, too, my head resting gently on Chrysto’s thigh. The sun, and the sex, settled over on us a sleepiness, a heavy contentment, but rising up at the same time were these little smiles, like bubbles of happiness, effervescent. I wiped a puddle of myself off my chest and started humming “California, Here I Come.” Couldn’t make him understand why I was laughing.

  “Key in the ignition.”

  Mr. Handy holds out the keys. My hands leave their sanctuary at ten and two. I make my adjustments. Grab the keys. They jangle in my fingers.

  My body’s humming, ready for movement. All I have to do is bring this car along with me. I take a deep breath. Chrysto’s face floats in front of me. “What are you waiting for?” he asks, with that freaking confidence, that dimpled smile.

  I have tasted that smile.

  Key in the ignition.

  Lock. Acc. On. Start.

  The car roars to life.

  * * *

  Of course, it all goes downhill from there.

  WALTER

  EVERYWHERE

  It’s my first flying dream. Well, not flying, exactly; my flying is more like bouncing, as if the ground were made of trampolines. I’m running on the street, fast, and then suddenly up I go, up past buildings in a blurred rush, legs still pumping, high in the air, moving forward but suspended at the same time, and just as I get used to the height I sink back down, slowly losing altitude until I touch Earth again, still running. I get in a few strides and then up I go again, rising maybe as high as the Wynn Hotel but lower than the Stratosphere, but it’s hard to tell because I’m in a Las Vegas that doesn’t look like Las Vegas. There are no flashing lights and MegaResorts, at least none that I can see. I think, oh, I can find my way out when I’m in the air, I’ll get my bearings, but when I’m in the air there’s nothing I see that I recognize, just mile after mile of industrial buildings and run-down apartments. And then a few strides later I lift up into the sky again and see something sparkling and bright and blue up ahead and I think, oh, there’s the Strip, I know where I am, and I do an amazing leap, kind of curving and twisting, finding just the right current to carry me farther, and it lands me on a cliff in front of the blue I saw, only it isn’t lights, it’s water, there’s a huge ocean below me, waves crashing, louder than a casino on Saturday night. And next to me is someone I know to be my mother, only she looks like Acacia, Acacia without the accent and the smirk, and I shout to her over the waves, this must be California, and she says (without yelling, I hear her just fine), she says, no, this is Chicago, don’t you remember it? and I think, oh, I must have gone north instead of west, and then she says, California’s just on the other side of the water, can you get there? and although I can’t see the other end I don’t want to disappoint so I say, yeah, I think so, but inside I’m not so sure, and then Acacia/Mother says, don’t get wet or it won’t work. And I back up away from the cliff so I can get a good running start and my mother says, it’s time, it’s time! and away I sprint, feet digging hard into dirt all the way to the edge and I push off, up into the air I soar, up over the water into the blinding sun—

  * * *

  I wake up wet, with the taste of salt on my lips. Even the sofa mattress is soaked. I close my eyes. I want to know if I made it. I think I must have. It was the best leap I’ve ever done.

  * * *

  “Green, Stahl. Green means go.”

  I understand the rules of driving, the physics of it. If I could drive my own body on the streets it’d be no problem. But this giant metal coffin I’m steering? Who knows where it’s gonna go?

  “Slow. Hand over hand.”

  Love can make you brave, but love can’t buffer you from an oncoming truck. I think of that, and my father’s curse. It’s not the kind of thought you’re supposed to have while trying to merge with traffic on I-15. I’m under the protection of Apollo, I think, gripping the steering wheel. He’s not going to let anything happen to me. Not while I’m designated driver.

  “Lean back, Stahl,” barks Mr. Handy, “you’re not going to get there any quicker.”

  * * *

  Three lessons done, and not a single death. Me, Mr. Handy, and the car, all intact. Sure, he still jerks on the steering wheel from time to time, but he’s been doing that less and less with each outing. And the barking’s toned down, somewhat. Maybe I’m getting somewhere after all.

  Sitting in the car in the school parking lot, Mr. Handy usually details my near-fatal errors for the day, and then dismisses me with a curt “All right, you can go.” But today he’s not giving me the usual heave-ho. Instead, he’s silent, squinting at the glove compartment like it’s giving off glare.

  “At the DMV you need a car to take the test,” he says finally. “You have a car?”

  I shake my head. That’s one of the biggest holes in our plan: lack of wheels. Chrysto doesn’t think it’s going to be a problem. “There are cars everywhere,” he says. “We will get one.” When I ask him how we’re going to pay for it he waves the question away. My job is to get the license. He’ll work on getting the car. Chrysto’s getting impatient. He wants to be off, westward bound. He doesn’t understand why I can’t just take the test and be done with it. “Because I’d like us to live,” I told him.

  Mr. Handy’s frown deepens. “Look, Stahl,” he says, not looking at me, “when you’re ready to take the test—and I’m not saying you’re ready—I can drive you over there. If you want.”

  He clears his throat and continues squinting. It’s only three seconds later that I realize he’s making an offer.

  “Oh,” I stammer. “I mean, thanks.”

  He nods and turns my way, still squinting, and his face raises up into a smile, a quick one, up and down, like a curtain.

  “Thanks,” I repeat.

  Mr. Handy takes one long suck of his teeth and smacks his lips.

  “All right,” he says, “you can go.”

  << where r u? should I come over? >>

  No word from Chrysto, after tw
o texts and one voice message. I was hoping to stop by before Acacia got home. I’ve already seen him this morning before rushing off to work. I see him as often as I can: after Acacia leaves for Venice Venice; when I get off work, late at night when Acacia’s in bed; I’ll even trek over there during my lunch break. I’ll take the bus from Fremont Street to the monorail at the Stratosphere and then walk the six blocks just to say hello before running back. I can’t help it. I need the fix.

  This morning he was restless, uncomfortable, roaming from bed to table to couch without settling down anywhere. His face was, amazingly, almost healed, but his arm was still in a sling. With the other hand he picked at the bandage at his side like it was itching.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Off! Off!” he shouted, grabbing the gauze and tearing it away from his body in one move. The tape ripping off from his skin made him shout with pain, and he flung himself on the bed, panting with exertion and irritation.

  “For someone so good at standing still you’re pretty caffeinated,” I told him.

  He ran his hand over his head and grabbed a handful of black, spiraled curls. “For body to be still, mind must be still. For mind to be still, you must know absolutely you are in right place. I am losing this feeling!” He jumped up, anguished, and prowled around the room, hand batting the air. “I am not here, I am not there, I am nowhere!”

  I almost knocked over a lamp getting to him. “You’re exactly where you should be,” I said. My hands did their own prowling. Ten minutes later, I left him on the bed, arm over his eyes, still enough.

  * * *

  Where is he now?

  I look at my phone again, and there’s some weird message flashing on the screen. I’m out of minutes. Shit. Three years, and I’ve used up all my time in just a few weeks. This disposable phone is ready to be disposed of. It’s dead.

  He could be calling me right now. Calling me and getting no answer.

 

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