by Sam Lipsyte
"Well, it wasn't so broken you weren't able to mow some rocks with it, now was it?"
"I told you, I didn't mow no goddamn fucking rocks!"
"Don't you dare swear in my shed."
"This was Walt Wilmer's shed before you even moved here. I helped him build the fucking thing."
"It's my shed now."
"Walt Wilmer."
"Nuts to Walt Wilmer."
"Walt Wilmer was a good man. He died protecting this community."
"He was a drunken traffic cop. His wife ran him over."
"He was protecting this community."
"I don't know what that means."
"Sure you do, Jewboy."
"You just stepped over the fucking line, Cudahy."
"Hey, don't swear in the shed, kike!"
It didn't sound like a fight. It sounded like an accident, or some vaudeville routine. I pictured our fathers in checkered suits, pratfalling in tandem, dumb grins footlight-lit.
"Hey, Jimbo, what do you know, is this a hole in the road?"
"Don't see no hole, Charlie, I think it's just fresh paiiiiiint . . ."
Then it sounded like something else was in there with them, something maybe fanged and rabid fettered to the toolshed floor. We heard banging, bashing, what must have been the rake barrel spinning, all those wingnuts and washers and quarter-inch screws spilled out like some dragon hoard of home improvement, all those thingamabobs sliding, wheeling, rolling into thingamajigs, flipping them, flying them, and underneath it now a new noise, a slow, pressured thrashing, as though our fathers were vying for great gruesome grips on the floor, for spine-snapping holds, full and infernal Nelsons, each man sliding, straining, torquing for purchase, for a death blow, even, but it never came. There was only a thud and then another thud, hard breathing, moans.
Cudahy cupped his hands under the window and I slipped in my Ked for a hoist. I caught sight of them before his fingers-not yet the cannonball shovers they would someday become-gave way. Our fathers were shored up together against the wall planks, eyes shut, shirts torn, knuckles torn, blood riding eddies of sweat down their cheeks. They looked like a famous photograph of war, some newsweekly pin-up of noble woe. They rubbed their arms, tested their necks, bit down on pulped lips.
"Who won?" whispered Cudahy.
Cudahy hadn't seen what I'd seen. For him it was still my-father-can-beat-up-your-father, understandable, really, part of the protocol, in fact, but my vision of them there together in that ruined place-everything upturned, upended, all order murdered, the floor studded with oddments, the rakes and spades and hoes heaped like some peasant rebellion's surrender-had changed everything. These were new men now.
We'd have to be new boys.
"Nobody won," I said.
"What do you mean nobody won?"
"Shh," I said.
We heard them through the shed wood.
"Jesus, Jim," said my father. "I'm sorry."
"Didn't know you had it in you, Charlie."
"Jesus, Jim."
"Haven't banged around like that in a while."
"My first fight."
"No shit? You did good, Charlie. You're a maniac."
"I thought I was a pacifist. Against the war, you know."
"Hell, the war was bullshit."
"We're all animals, Jim."
"Take it easy, buddy. You weren't that good. I could have kicked your ass if it came down to it. Still might."
"You're a big man, Jim. Big Jim."
"Big Jim Cudahy. Big everywhere. Big where it counts."
"Sure you are."
"No shit. Ask your wife."
"I did."
"Fuck."
"It's all right, Jim."
"Shit. What'd she say. Oh, fuck."
"Forget about it, Jim."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"You're a better man than I am, Charlie."
"Clearly I'm not. So, let's see it."
"What?"
"Let's see it."
"Whoa, there, buddy."
"No, really, let's see Big Jim's big 'un."
"Now I'm really going to have to beat the crap out of you."
"Want to see mine?"
"What the hell?"
"No, really."
"Really?"
"Really."
"You, too, then."
"Me, too, then."
"You won't be sorry."
"I'm always sorry."
We listened for a while, a shuffle of boots, buttons unsnapping. We listened and heard nothing. Then we heard something. It didn't mean anything, really. It was a couple of men finding some kind of solace in darkness, I guess. It was a couple of men with nothing in common but four hands and two cocks between them.
I looked over at Cudahy.
We'd have to be better friends than we'd ever been or no friends at all.
"Somebody won," said Cudahy.
"No," I said, "it was a draw."
Now I walked the cemetery grounds, poked around for Cudahy's stone. Near some weeds I spotted a granite sarcophagus that said Kippelman. I laid some nylon roses on it. Cudahy had been a great believer in fake flowers, fake teeth, fake fur.
"Everything God makes rots," he'd said.
I laid a card down beside the roses.
"Kippelman," I wrote. "Please hold for Cudahy."
I drove west, took a room in the hills, the Landview Inn Motel.
"We used to be an inn, in the olden days," said the woman who'd risen from a plate of sauerkraut when I'd tapped the bell. "We're a motel now, but we enjoy the historical significance of our past. Aaron Burr bedded a lady here. How long are you staying?"
"I don't know."
"That's not a problem."
"I'll have a better answer tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"
"What do you mean?"
"Tomorrow the cows come home."
"I don't follow."
"I didn't ask you to follow," said the woman. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I guess I'm not in a welcoming mood. I'm pooped. People think motel people just sit on their butts and pass out keys. There's a lot more to it."
"I don't doubt it."
"That's kind of you not to doubt it," the woman said, looked at my credit card. "William."
"Bill."
"I'm Fran. Fran Kincaid."
"You're kidding."
"It's not a very funny name, Bill, why would I be kidding? I mean Fran's sort of funny, like Gertrude, or something. I'll grant you that. But Kincaid? I like the sound of Kincaid. Hearty, right? I knew a guy named Murray Murray. Now that's funny. Jewish fellow. Not that I care. Happened to be Hebrew. We kissed, that's all. Not because of the Jew thing. I'm attracted to Jews. Einstein stayed here with his mistress in the fifties. Not that he was attractive. But you figure a guy who knows how the universe works would probably have a knack for smaller-scale manipulations, too, if you get my meaning. I'm sure you get my meaning. You seem like a worldly man of the world, William."
"Bill."
"I like William better. Do you mind if I call you William? It sounds more historical."
"Tell me, Fran, have you worked here long?"
"All my life. Or, well, a while. A few years."
"I once knew a Fran Kincaid. We were pen pals."
"Were you in prison?"
"No."
"Because a lot of gals write to cons. It's good to know where your man is every night. Oh, wait, I've heard of this. She was in prison."
"Nobody was in prison."
"Well, William, I never wrote you when you were in the slam. Seeing you now, I'm kind of sorry I didn't."
"Can I have my key?"
"Here. Don't worry, I've got a set, too."
I picked up a pint of rye at a package store across the interstate. My hunt for a complimentary Landview Inn Motel water glass proved futile and I had to make do with Dixie cups. This wasn't a bad thing, though I find it pretty hard to d
rink from a Dixie cup without tasting toothpaste. Someday there will be surgical remedy for this sort of thing. I called directory assistance and asked for my father's telephone number.
"Does your father have a name?"
"Oh, right," I said.
The old man let it ring for a while.
"Dad."
"My boy."
"That's me. How're the nibs?"
"I'm about to strike a deal for a Hink's Civic Stainless. Maybe a Mitchell's Fairie, too, although this Kraut down in Brownsville is playing tough guy. The nib world is no place for the gentle, kid. But you've got to do what you've got to do. You can't worry too much if you're righteous. You've got to give it up to the qelippah sometimes."
"The what?"
"The power of evil, son. It's a Kabbala thing, you wouldn't understand."
"Dad, you're really deep in this stuff."
"I've been deep in all my life. I'm clawing my way out now. So when do I get to see my boy?"
"Well, I'm actually near you. I thought I'd-"
"This is a really bad time for me, kid. I'm closing in on that Hinks. Winnie's real busy, the kids are around, court-mandated house arrest, you know. Menachem's LoJack is too tight and we've got to get that dealt with."
"It's okay, Dad."
"Next time you swing through Pittsburgh. How are you, though? Good?"
"Not good."
"Good. I was worried about you. I saw you on TV and all that. Then I didn't hear from you. I respected your decision not to involve me. I probably would have complicated things anyway. But it sounds like you're all better now. I'm happy about that. No father wants to see his son die. Not before a reasonable age. That's just the way of nature. I'll call you soon. Or you call me. When this Hinks thing, when it's in the can. Isn't that what you Hollywood people say?"
"I was never in Hollywood, Dad."
"This is the big one. I thought the Brandauer was the big one but that was before the Hinks."
"Good luck."
"I don't need luck. I have faith."
"Fuckeroo'd," I said.
"Excuse me?"
* * *
The TV was bolted to the wall near the ceiling. There was no remote. I had to hop up on the bureau to work the dials. Was this how Einstein did it? Maybe he made his mistress change the channels. Not that they had much to choose from in those days. Puppets, mostly, maybe a Senate hearing. Probably just wanted to see up her poon, Einstein. He was pretty damn old by then. Maybe even dead.
High up on the dial, past all the softcore sumo and night hunts of the snow owl, was a show I'd never seen before. The Realms, it was called, or at least those were the words that pulsed continuously in the corner of the screen. Sometimes there was a graphic, too, a sketch of a thatch-roofed hut. The whole thing was hard to follow, all dissolves and bleeds and wipes. Nude people drifted in and out of mostly empty rooms. Sometimes the rooms had chairs in them, or a ceiling fan, or a pail of soapy water. One room was knee-high with topsoil. A man in buckskin and a ski mask stabbed at the dirt with a shovel, let the blade scrape concrete. Now two women cuddled in a hammock, talked in low grave tones.
"Woodland apes," said one.
"Spawn of," said another.
She pointed across the room to where a man stood eating some whitish substance from a peel-off container. It took me a while to place him. The bones in his face had slid around a bit, the skin was bumpier, seamed.
But it was absolutely Bobby Trubate.
"Guess you're wondering what the hell is going on," he said now to the camera. "Let me explain something about the Realms. The Realms is the Realms. My new friend Warren said that. I couldn't agree more. The only thing I'd add is that the Realms is the Realms is the Realms. It's where we all truly live. It's not fantasy. It's not reality. It's not another world. It's not television, though you're certainly welcome to tune in. It's not the Internet, though I think you're lost if you're not already a part of our online community. It's not a movement. We hardly move at all. It's not a paradox, but it's guaranteed to blow your mind. It's not even a business, though we do accept all major credit cards. Would you like to see something? I'd like you to see something."
He led the camera through a door into a narrow room. There was a hospital bed, a bony old man up to his ribs in sheet. The walls were a trompe l'oeil of desert dunes and sky. The trick didn't quite take. You could see where the paint got grainy, the streaks of charcoal underneath. The old man sat up in bed. His hair was patched and stiff, his arms spindly, his skin stippled with rot.
"Good morning, evening," Trubate said to him softly.
"Good afternoon," said Heinrich.
Now the screen went white. The rest of the evening's local cable line-up started to scroll. Something called Landview Today was on next. Sallow men in varsity satin argued the merits of a new turnpike toll. I tugged a fresh Dixie cup from the stack, grateful for such distraction after the shock of seeing Heinrich. Christ, how long had it been? How long in Pangburn Falls? How long in the guilt room? How long in the Landview Inn Motel? It feels of an evening with your Dixie cups, your rye. It could be years. Carthage gets covered with Tunisian condos, or moves to Tennessee.
How long had Heinrich known he was sick?
"Time has never lost in overtime," he'd told me once.
Whatever was having at him now was no mystery plague, either. It looked like a good old fashioned tumor party, cell bullies pulling the body dirtward. I stared at the TV, tried to focus on the Landview spat, blot Heinrich out. I was listing toward support of the toll hike when the liquor put me under.
Near dawn there was a noise at the door. Some carouser in the wrong keyhole, I figured, a demo-kit pilgrim back from a sports bar score.
"Who's there?"
The lock clicked and Fran Kincaid walked in, kicked off her shoes. She had a maid's apron on.
"Do you want me to wear this?" she said.
"Don't you own the place?"
"This is fantasy time."
"It's a little late," I said. "Or a little early."
"I had to finish the books. I promised my husband I'd get the books done. Now do you want busty mature woman sex or not?"
"Sure," I said.
"No mommy tit shit. We're beasts of the field, okay?"
"Okay."
Fran was no stranger to the field. When we were finished I watched her shimmy back into her jeans, fix her hair in the mirror as though trying to approximate the wife her husband had last seen, the bitch who hadn't done the books yet. I could smell bad hubby a mile away. It smelled like me. She balled up the apron and stuffed it in her pocket.
"Did you enjoy yourself, William?"
"I did," I said. "But I still can't get over the fact that your name is Fran Kincaid."
"It's the doppelganger effect, I guess."
"Something like that," I said.
"You really miss her, don't you?"
"Who?"
"Stop lying to yourself, William. You are you, and that's all there is to it. You just need a little continuum awareness, is all."
"The Realms," I said.
"I couldn't watch last night," said Fran. "I told you, I was doing the books. But my husband tapes them all. That Bobby Trubate is a dreamcake. Now, William, it's time for me to say good morning, evening. I've got a lot of work to do. As you may have noticed, I don't just sit on my butt all day. Checkout's eleven-thirty."
I checked out around ten, bought some gas, got back on the highway heading west. I'd never seen the heart of the country. I figured it all for corporate parks and sick prairie grass. Apparently there were also some malls. I pulled off into one in Ohio, bought a knockwurst sandwich and a bag of chips-"flavored with other natural flavors"-sat on a wrought-iron bench in the middle of a freezing atrium. The coffee shop across the way had a brick facade and ornate signage much like that used in commercials to convey the supposed muffin-consciousness of Industrial England. A big blond cop walked out with some kind of roll in his hand. He put his boot on
the bench.
"Yum," said the cop. "Mocha bagel."
"I got knockwurst," I said.
"Get it with golden mustard?"
"I did."
"Smart move."
"Thank you."
"You're not from around here, are you? I can tell by your mannerisms. You use your hands a lot."
"I'm eating."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"What do you think of cops?"
"Cops," I said.
"I want to write a TV show about a cop and another guy. The cop part is easy, but the other guy, what he thinks about the cop, I need to do research. So I'm asking all the smart people I meet what they think about cops."
"Why do I qualify as smart?"
"The mustard. Your mannerisms."
"Who's the other guy?" I said.
"He's this guy. He's not a cop. It's becoming a real pain in the neck. I'm blocking on the non-cop mentality. Can't you give me something?"
"Cops have guns," I said.
"That's it. That's all I needed. I knew you were the guy to ask. Fare thee well, me. Good afternoon, breakfast."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm just beginning to pick up the lingo."
"I should get going," I said.
I got some news on the radio. The oldest man in the world had just admitted to lying about his age. "I feel bad about it," said Willett Phillips, fifty-three, "but the yogurt people dangled a lot of cash in front of me." Harvard seniors were gearing up for an international event they'd organized for credit, A Day Without Exploitation. The CEOs of several major corporations had already pledged to pay overseas factory workers minimum wage for the day. Some American-based companies had promised full health benefits for the twenty-four-hour period. "If I'm going to lose my arm," said Glen French of Flint, Michigan, "I pray it's on Tuesday." Speeches and a concert were planned. In other news, the third unclaimed nuclear device in as many weeks had been detonated over the Pacific, this time in the vicinity of the Cook Islands. When asked to comment, a spokesman for the State Department said, "Somebody's having some fun." Meanwhile, advertisers were lining up to air spots on The Realms , the runaway underground multimedia hit to be pancast by several networks and content companies at once. Said Realms creator and host Bobby Trubate from his headquarters in Death Valley, "We'd do this for free, but we wouldn't. The main thing, though, is to win people over to the idea of spirit-based branding. We're a spiritual delivery system. People are tired of reality, and they're too smart for fantasy. It was just a matter of time before somebody figured out what was next. This is the marketplace of ideals, and we mean to corner it. The Realms is just the tip of the ice pick. I want our advertisers to know that. The dream of the wireless Xanadu is alive. I'm literally on the verge of decreeing stately pleasure domes, here, people."