by Dale Peck
I received my last paycheck from the lawyer in the mail. It came with a letter folded around it. It said, “I am so sorry for what happened between us. I have realized what a terrible mistake I made with you. I can only hope that you will understand, and that you will not worsen an already unfortunate situation by discussing it with others. All the best.” As a P.S. he assured me that I could count on him for excellent references. He enclosed a check for three hundred and eighty dollars, a little over two hundred dollars more than he owed me.
It occurred to me to tear up the check, or mail it back to the lawyer. But I didn’t do that. Two hundred dollars was worth more then than it is now. Together with the money I had in the bank, it was enough to put a down payment on an apartment and still have some left over. I went upstairs and wrote “380” on the deposit side of my checking account. I didn’t feel like a whore or anything. I felt I was doing the right thing. I looked at the total figure of my balance with satisfaction. Then I went downstairs and asked my mother if she wanted to go get some elephant ears.
For the next two weeks, I forgot about the idea of a job and moving out of my parents’ house. I slept through all the morning noise until noon. I got up and ate cold cereal and ran the dishwasher. I watched the gray march of old sitcoms on TV. I worked on crossword puzzles. I lay on my bed in a tangle of quilt and fuzzy blanket and masturbated two, three, four times in a row, always thinking about the thing.
I was still in this phase when my father stuck the newspaper under my nose and said, “Did you see what your old boss is doing?” There was a small article on the upcoming mayoral elections in Westland. He was running for mayor. I took the paper from my father’s offering hands. For the first time, I felt an uncomplicated disgust for the lawyer. Westland was nothing but malls and doughnut stands and a big ugly theater with an artificial volcano in the front of it. What kind of idiot would want to be mayor of Westland? Again, I left the room.
I got the phone call the next week. It was a man’s voice, a soft, probing, condoling voice. “Miss Roe?” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive this unexpected call. I’m Mark Charming of Detroit Magazine.”
I didn’t say anything. The voice continued more uncertainly. “Are you free to talk, Miss Roe?”
There was no one in the kitchen, and my mother was running the vacuum in the next room. “Talk about what?” I said.
“Your previous employer.” The voice became slightly harsh as he said these words, and then hurriedly rushed back to condolence. “Please don’t be startled or upset. I know this could be a disturbing phone call for you, and it must certainly seem intrusive.” He paused so I could laugh or something. I didn’t, and his voice became more cautious. “The thing is, we’re doing a story on your ex-employer in the context of his running for mayor. To put it mildly, we think he has no business running for public office. We think he would be very bad for the whole Detroit area. He has an awful reputation, Miss Roe—which may not surprise you.” There was another careful pause that I did not fill.
“Miss Roe, are you still with me?”
“Yes.”
“What all this is leading up to is that we have reason to believe that you could reveal information about your ex-employer that would be damaging to him. This information would never be connected to your name. We would use a pseudonym. Your privacy would be protected completely.”
The vacuum cleaner shut off, and silence encircled me. My throat constricted.
“Do you want time to think about it, Miss Roe?”
“I can’t talk now,” I said, and hung up.
I couldn’t go through the living room without my mother asking me who had been on the phone, so I went downstairs to the basement. I sat on the mildewed couch and curled up, unmindful of centipedes. I rested my chin on my knee and stared at the boxes of my father’s old paperbacks and the jumble of plastic Barbie-doll cases full of Barbie equipment that Donna and I used to play with on the front porch. A stiff white foot and calf stuck out of a sky-blue case, helpless and pitifully rigid.
For some reason, I remembered the time, a few years before, when my mother had taken me to see a psychiatrist. One of the more obvious questions he had asked me was, “Debby, do you ever have the sensation of being outside yourself, almost as if you can actually watch yourself from another place?” I hadn’t at the time, but I did now. And it wasn’t such a bad feeling at all.
Wrong
by Dennis Cooper
When Mike saw a pretty face, he liked to mess it up, or give it drugs until it wore out by itself. Take Keith, who used to play pool at the Ninth Circle. His crooked smile really lights up the place. That’s what Mike heard, but it bored him. “Too obvious.”
Keith was a kiss-up. Mike fucked him hard, then they snorted some dope. Keith was face first in the toilet bowl when Mike walked in. Keith had said, “Knock me around.” But first Mike wanted him “dead.” Not in the classic sense. “Passed out.”
Mike dragged Keith down the hall by his hair. He shit in Keith’s mouth. He laid a whip on Keith’s ass. It was a grass skirt once Mike dropped the belt. Mike kicked Keith’s skull in before he came to. Brains or whatever it was gushed out. “That’s that.”
José was Keith’s friend. Now that Keith wasn’t around he moved in. Mike said okay if they’d fist fuck. José’s requirement was drugs: speed, coke, pot, the occasional six-pack. “Oh, and respect, of course.”
“Great stuff,” José whispered. Mike shrugged. “Too fem,” he thought, putting a match to José’s pipe. José had hitchhiked from Dallas. He had a high-pitched voice, wore a gold crucifix on a chain. “Typical Mexican shit.”
José slipped on a dress. Pink satin, ankle length, blue sash. He put on makeup. “Mamacita!” Mike fisted “her” on the window ledge. “She” dangled over the edge. Mike shook “her” off his wrist. “She” fell four stories, broke “her’’ neck.
Steve had blond hair, gloomy eyes, and chapped lips. “He should be dead,” Mike thought. He liked the kid’s skin, especially on his ass. Sick white crisscrossed with gray stretch marks. Mike liked how lost it became in pants, like the bones in an old lady’s face.
Mike knocked a few of Steve’s teeth out. He’d called Mike “a dumb fuck.” That night Mike kicked in Steve’s ribs and tied him up for the night. They fell asleep around four. By morning Steve was cold, eyes open, blue face. Mike dressed and took off.
He walked home. He thought of offing himself. “After death, what’s left?” he mumbled. He meant “to do.” Once you’ve killed someone, life’s shit. It’s a few rules and you’ve already broken the best. He had a beer at the Ninth Circle.
He picked up Will on the street. “Snort this.” Mike tore Will’s shorts off and slapped his ass. “Shit in my mouth,” Mike said. Will did. It changed the way Mike perceived him. Will was a real person, not just a fuck. Mike let him hang out.
Will’s body came into focus. It wasn’t bad: underweight, blue eyes, a five o’clock shadow. Beauty had nothing to do with it. Mike could see what he was looking at. But he got used to the sight. One night he strangled Will to be safe.
The night was rough: wind, rain, chill. Mike walked from Will’s place on West Tenth to Battery Park, chains clinking each step. He stared out at the Hudson. He put a handgun to his head. “Fuck this shit.” His body splashed in the river, drifted off.
Morning came. Cops kicked Will’s door in, found his corpse. Will’s friends got wind of it, phoned one another up. Down river tourists were standing around on a dock looking bored. One girl pulled down on her mom’s skirt and pointed out. “What’s that?”
George looked out at the Hudson. He saw a dead body. He shot the rest of his roll of film, then milled around with the other tourists. Guides led them back to the bus. It was abuzz with the idea of death, in grim or joking tones. George listened, his feelings somewhere between the two.
The World Trade Center was not what he
’d hoped. It wasn’t like he could fall off. Big slabs of glass between him and his death. No matter where he turned his thoughts were obvious. The city looked like a toy, a space-age forest, a silvery tray full of hypodermics. He wanted one fresh perception, but . . .
Wall Street was packed with gray business suits. Seeing the trading floor, he thought first of a beehive, then of the heart attacks those guys would get. It was like watching a film about some other time and place, very far back and relegated to books.
George took off his clothes. He lay on the bed. “Where you from?” It was his roommate, a Southerner, judging by the accent. “West.” “Of what?” the man asked. “This,” and George turned his back. The Southerner shook his head. “Not worth it,” he thought.
That night George walked through the West Village. “I’m tired of sleeping with that,” a man sneered as they crossed paths. The guy was chatting to some friend of his, but he eyed George’s ass. Hearing this, George felt as cold as the statue he’d touched at the Met last night. A boy was playing the lute when art froze him stiff.
The Ninth Circle was packed. Hustlers in blue jean vests, businessmen in all the usual suits. George leaned against the bar lighting a cigarette. “What’s up pal?” It was his roommate’s voice. “Not much,” George thought, but they talked.
Lights out. Dan’s cock was minuscule, so George agreed to be fucked. Dan spread the asscheeks and sniffed. George did his best to relax. He thought of ovens with roasts cooking in them. He knew his ass smelled more rancid than them, but maybe that was the point.
George thought of home. It was a white stucco, one story. His room was paneled in oak. He never aired it out. It reeked of BO, smoke, and unlaundered sheets. The smell was clinically bad, but he loved the idea that he’d had such an impact on something outside himself.
George didn’t want to be held while he slept. He never got enough rest as it was. No lover could comprehend that. To them a hug was an integral act. George felt pinned down by one, too pressed to squeeze back. “Don’t.” Dan sighed and moved off.
George dreamed in bursts. Little picturesque plots. Casts of peripherals refocused, brought to the fore in a world he’d backed into unknowingly. He saw himself floating dead in the Hudson; Dan held a knife to his throat in an alley; the room caught fire and he went up in smoke.
Dan thought of love as defined by books, cobwebbed and hidden from view by the past. Too bad a love like that didn’t actually exist. In the twentieth century one had to fake it. He put his cheek on the boy’s ass and seemed to sleep. He couldn’t tell if he was or not. Then he did.
George sat on a park bench feeding some birds what was left of his sandwich. He drew a handful of postcards from one jacket pocket. They were all cityscapes, what friends and folks would expect. Bums limped by begging for change. Their clothes were falling off. George turned his palms up. “Die,” he said under his breath.
“Dear Philippe, New York makes sense. I fit right in. I’m sitting under a bunch of trees. They’d be great if bums weren’t dying all over the place. Everything you said was right. I’m going back to the hotel now to take a nap. Anyway, George.”
“Dear Dad, The trip’s going great. We’re in New York for the weekend, then up to Boston, then the ride back to L.A. The man I’m sharing a room with reminds me of you. He’s nice, from the South. Don’t touch a thing in my room. I’ll be home in two weeks. Love, George.”
“Dear Sally, I thought about you today as I walked forty blocks to a pretty park. My legs are used to it. They sell marijuana in stores here. I bought a bag for ten bucks. I’m smoking it as I write. Out of room. Be seeing you in a while. Love, George.”
“Dear Santa Claus, For Christmas I want a penthouse in New York, one in L.A., and one someplace in Europe. I’ve been a good boy, plus . . .” George ripped the card in half. “Duh,” he said, giggling at himself.
“Dear Dennis, I think I miss you most of all. What’s-her-name said that to Ray Bolger, right? Yesterday I saw the top of what’s on this card. Today I’m off on my own. Tonight I’ll hit the bars. Hope you’re great. See you, George.”
George headed toward the hotel. His calves ached. Times Square was spooky; too many junkies out, pissed eyes way back in their heads. The hotel lobby felt homey. Dan was out. George kicked his shoes off, snoozed a bit.
The Ninth Circle was packed. George downed three beers in no time. One man was cute, but his haircut resembled a toupee. Another stood in an overhead light, too sure of its effect. His expression was “perfect.” Between them George would have chosen the latter, depending on who else showed up.
Fred’s loft was spacious, underfurnished. Track lighting bleached out its lesser points. George got the grand tour. “This is the bed, of course. This is a painting by Lichtenstein. Amusing, yes? And these are the torture devices I mentioned.’’ George saw a long table lined with spiked dildos, all lengths of whips, three branding irons, sundry shit.
To George it looked like a game. Whether it wound up that way or not was beside the point. Handcuffs clicked shut in the small of his back. Electrical tape sealed his lips. Black leather shorts made him feel sort of animal-esque.
George fantasized that his father was hugging him. He didn’t know why. It had something to do with a gesture that couldn’t be downgraded or reinterpreted, made into some half-assed joke. Someone who made him feel this all important must be intrigued at least.
It started out with a spanking. Slaps to the face, which George wasn’t so wild about. His asshole swallowed in something’s enormity simply enough. More slaps. Fred’s breaths grew worse, a kind of storm knocking down every civilized word in its path.
George was hit on the head. “Shit!” Again. This time he felt his nose skid across one cheek. His forehead caved in. One eye went black. Teeth sputtered out of his mouth and rained down on his chest. He died at some point in that.
George was across the loft watching himself kick. The sight was slightly blurred like the particulars in a dream sequence. He saw a club strike his face. It was unrecognizable. His arms and legs slammed the tabletop like giant crudely made gavels.
George had a lump in his throat. He wondered why, if he was still alive, he should feel shit for that too-garish wreck of himself. “But that’s the beauty of dead kids,” he thought. “Everything they ever did seems incredibly moving in retrospect.’’
He watched until his old body was such a loss that each indignity was simply more of the same. So he looked down at his current form. He was a hologram, more or less. “Too much!” he thought. He tried to walk. It was a snap, like bounding over the moon.
So this was death. “Hey, not bad,” he thought. He inhaled slowly and slid without incident through the steel door. Descending the stairs was exactly like falling down them, liberated and discombobulating, a drug hallucination without the teeth grinding.
He walked west, sometimes right down the middle of streets, cars plowing through him. He strolled through shoppers, amused by the idea that he was just part of the air to them, at best a breeze they’d write off to earth’s natural forces.
Seeing a husband and wife, the male of which he’d have been quite attracted to during his life, he followed them up a rickety staircase, through their front door. Jeff, as the wife called him, hit the head. George watched him shit, loved the dumb look on his face, but was driven back into the street by the subsequent stench.
Now what? He took a leisurely stroll to the river, down Christopher Street. The piers were decrepit. One was completely decapitated. A few rotten pylons stuck out of the water. George felt an odd emotional attachment to them.
He sat on a bench. The dawn felt terrific. He warmed slightly like fog just before it burned off. He thought of movies he’d loved where the ghosts of dead men were big jokes, mere plot twists, a sort of stab in the dark.
Who would have thought it was true? All those old ladies in New England mansio
ns were far more sane than their distended eyes would have had one believe. “One,” he muttered. He’d always hated when people used “one” in conversation. But it was the right term for him now.
He stared out at the brownish river. It was the first time he’d thought about water’s solidity. If he were to hurl himself in, would he break into millions of molecules? Or would he, like Jesus Christ, land on his feet? “Interesting prospect,” he thought, but he couldn’t chance it.
He walked slowly up West Street past several leather bars he would have liked to check into, but he was tired. Sure, he could crash out wherever he liked, see whichever cute rock star nude, fly to London for nothing. But he’d get bored of the voyeur bit before he knew it. Then what?
George thought of things that had haunted him during his life: A staircase that, after turning a corner, led to a brick wall. B&W photos of great buildings destined to be dusty heaps. A human face that had turned into just one more mudslide from heaven.
The hotel loomed in the distance. Its neon sign blinked out vacancy. “An appropriate place for myself or what’s left of me,” George thought. He headed for its rococo, checking the faces of hapless pedestrians for his reflection. But they stared straight ahead, not realizing.
George passed through the door of room 531. Dan lay on the single bed nearest the window, writing a postcard, probably to the wife he’d been complaining about on the previous night. His face seemed peaceful, but maybe it was the light: low, grayish.
George liked Dan, though “liked” was too clear a word. “Something” had drawn George to him. It had to do with Dan’s fatherliness, George thought. That was a much bigger turn-on than tight jeans on tanned, over-exercised guys. His ideal man was a little bushed around the eyes.
George hadn’t spoken all day. He felt a tightness inside his throat. “Dan?” he croaked, “I know you don’t hear me, but if you can sense me in any way tug on your left ear.” George waited. Dan continued to scratch out what George had no doubt were inanities.