by Неизвестный
“My employee,” she said. “I don’t believe this. What’s with the duct tape?”
“Go get me a blanket,” he said. “Need to keep him warm. My ex-wife did this once.”
She skidded down the hall. Slammed open the door to Elliot’s room. Turned on the lights and grabbed the comforter off the bed.
“Vas poh! Your new boyfriend’s in the bathroom,” she said. “Cut his wrists with my potato peeler. Wake up, Lan-Lan! This is your mess.”
“Fisfis wah, Lin-Lin,” Alan said, so she pushed him off the bed.
“What did you do, Alan?” she said. “Did you mess with him?”
He was wearing a pair of Elliot’s pajama bottoms. “You’re not being funny,” he said.
“I’m not kidding,” she said. “I’m drunk. There’s a man named Alberto in the bathroom. Jason tried to kill himself. Or something.”
“Oh fuck,” he said. Tried to sit up. “I was nice to him, Lindsey! Okay? It was real nice. We fucked and then we smoked some stuff and then we were kissing and I fell asleep.”
She held out her hand, pulled him up off the floor. “What kind of stuff? Come on.”
“Something I picked up somewhere,” he said. She wasn’t really listening. “Good stuff. Organic. Blessed by monks. They give it to the gods. I took some off a shrine. Everybody does it. You just leave a bowl of milk or something instead. There’s no fucking way it made him crazy.”
The bathroom was crowded with everyone inside it. No way to avoid standing in Jason’s blood. “Oh fuck,” Alan said.
“My brother, Alan,” Lindsey said. “Here’s a comforter for Jason. Alan, this is Alberto. Jason, can you hear me?” His eyes were open now.
Alberto said to Alan, “It’s better than it looks. He didn’t really slice up his wrists. More like he peeled them. Dug into one vein pretty good, but I think I’ve slowed down the bleeding.”
Alan shoved Lindsey out of the way and threw up in the sink.
“Alan,” Jason said. There were sirens.
“No,” Lindsey said. “It’s me. Lindsey. Your boss. My bathtub, Jason. Your blood all over my bathtub. My potato peeler! Mine! What were you thinking?”
“There was an iguana in your freezer,” Jason said.
Alberto said, “Why the potato peeler?”
“I was just so happy,” Jason said. He was covered in blood. “I’ve never been so happy in all my life. I didn’t want to stop feeling that way. You know?”
“No,” Lindsey said.
“Are you going to fire me?” Jason said.
“What do you think?” Lindsey said.
“I’ll sue for sexual harassment if you do,” Jason said. “I’ll say you fired me because I’m gay. Because I slept with your brother.”
Alan threw up in the sink again.
“How do you feel now?” Alberto said. “You feel okay?”
“I just feel so happy,” Jason said. He began to cry.
NOT MUCH OF A BEDSIDE MANNER
Alan went with Jason in the ambulance. The wind was stronger, pushing the trees around like a bully. Lindsey would have to put the storm shutters up.
For some reason Alberto was still there. He said, “I’d really like a beer. What’ve you got?”
Lindsey could have gone for something a little stronger. Everything smelled of blood. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m a recovering alcoholic.”
“Not all that recovered,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Lindsey said. “You’re a really nice guy. But I wish you would go away. I’d like to be alone.”
He held out his bloody arms. “Could I take a shower first?”
“Could you just go?” Lindsey said.
“I understand,” he said. “It’s been a rough night. A terrible thing has happened. Let me help. I’ll stay and help you clean up.”
Lindsey said nothing.
“I see,” he said. There was blood on his mouth too. Like he’d been drinking blood. He had good shoulders. Nice eyes. She kept looking at his mouth. The duct tape was back in a pocket of his cargo pants. He seemed to have a lot of stuff in his pockets. “You don’t like me after all?”
“I don’t like nice guys,” Lindsey said.
There were support groups for people whose shadow grew into a twin. There were support groups for women whose husbands left them. There were support groups for alcoholics. Probably there were support groups for people who hated support groups, but Lindsey didn’t believe in support groups.
By the time Alan got back from the hospital it was Saturday night; she’d finished the gin and started in on the tequila. She was almost wishing that Alberto had stayed. She thought about asking how Jason was, but it seemed pointless. Either he was okay or he wasn’t. She wasn’t okay. Alan got her down the hall and onto her bed and then climbed into bed too. Pulled the blanket over both of them.
“Go away,” she said.
“I’m freezing,” he said. “That fucking hospital. That air-conditioning. Just let me lie here.”
“Go away,” she said again. “Fisfis wah.”
When she woke up, she was still saying it. “Go away, go away, go away.” He wasn’t in her bed. Instead there was a dead iguana, the little one from the freezer, on the pillow beside her face.
Alan was gone. The bathtub stank of blood and the rain slammed down on the roof like nails on glass. Little pellets of ice on the grass outside. Now the radio said the hurricane was on course to make land somewhere between Fort Lauderdale and Saint Augustine sometime Wednesday afternoon. There were no plans to evacuate the Keys. Plenty of wind and rain and nastiness due for the Miami area, but no real damage. She couldn’t think why she’d asked Alberto to leave. The storm shutters still needed to go up. He had seemed like a guy who would do that.
If Alan had been there, he could have opened a can and made her soup. Brought her ginger ale in a glass. Finally, she turned the television on in the living room, loud enough that she could hear it from her bedroom. That way she wouldn’t be listening for Alan. She could pretend that he was home, sitting out in the living room, watching some old monster movie and painting his fingernails black, the way he had done in high school. Kids with conjoined shadows were supposed to be into all that Goth makeup, all that music, so Alan was into it. When Alan had found out that twins were supposed to have secret twin languages, he’d done that too, invented a language, LinLan, and made her memorize it. Made her talk it at the dinner table. Ifzon meh nadora plezbig meant Guess what I did? Bandy Tim Wong legkwa fisfis, meh meant Went all the way with Tim Wong. (Tim Wong fucked me, in the vernacular.)
People with two shadows were supposed to be trouble. They were supposed to lead friends and lovers astray, bring confusion to their enemies, bring down disaster wherever they went. (She never went anywhere.) Alan had always been a conformist at heart. Whereas she had a house and a job and once she’d even been married. If anyone was keeping track, Lindsey thought it should be clear who was ahead.
Monday morning Mr. Charles still hadn’t managed to get rid of the sleepers from Pittsburgh. Jack Harris could shuffle paper like nobody’s business.
“I’ll call him,” Lindsey offered. “You know I love a good fight.”
“Good luck,” Mr. Charles said. “He says he won’t take them back until after the hurricane goes through. But rules say they have to be out of here twenty-four hours before the hurricane hits. We’re caught between a rock—”
“And an asshole,” she said. “Let me take care of it.”
She was in the warehouse, on hold with someone who worked for Harris, when Jason showed up.
“What’s up with that?” Valentina was saying. “Your arms.”
“Fell through a plate-glass door,” Jason said.
“That’s not good,” Valentina said.
“Lost almost three pints of blood. Just think about that. Three pints. Hey, Lindsey.”
“Valentina,” Lindsey said. “Take the phone for a moment. Don’t worry. It’s on hold. Just yell if anyone pi
cks up. Jason, can I talk to you over there for a moment?”
“Sure thing,” Jason said.
He winced when she grabbed him above the elbow. She didn’t loosen her grip until they were a couple of aisles away. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fire you. Besides the sexual harassment thing. Because I would enjoy that. Hearing you try to make that case in court.”
Jason said, “Alan’s moved in with me. Said you threw him out.”
Was any of this a surprise? Yes and no. She said, “So if I fire you, he’ll have to get a job.”
“That depends,” Jason said. “Are you firing me or not?”
“Fisfis buh. Go ask Alan what that means.”
“Hey, Lindsey. Lindsey, hey. Someone named Jack Harris is on the phone,” Valentina said, getting too close for this conversation to go any further.
“I don’t know why you want this job,” Lindsey said.
“The benefits,” Jason said. “You should see the bill from the emergency room.”
“Or why you want my brother.”
“Ms. Driver? He says it’s urgent.”
“Tell him one second,” Lindsey said. To Jason: “All right. You can keep your job on one condition.”
“Which is?” He didn’t sound nearly as suspicious as he ought to have sounded. Still early days with Alan.
“You get the man on the phone to take back those six sleepers. Today.”
“How the fuck do I do that?” Jason said.
“I don’t care. But they had better not be here when I show up tomorrow morning. If they’re here, you had better not be. Okay?” She poked him in the arm above the bandage. “Next time borrow something sharper than a potato peeler. I’ve got a whole block full of good German knives.”
“Lindsey,” Valentina said, “this Harris guy says he can call you back tomorrow if now isn’t a good time.”
“Jason is going to take the call,” Lindsey said.
EVERYTHING MUST GO
Her favorite liquor store put everything on sale whenever a hurricane was due. Just their way of making a bad day a little more bearable. She stocked up on everything but only had a glass of wine with dinner. Made a salad and ate it out on the patio. The air had that electric, green shimmy to it she associated with hurricanes. The water was as still as milk, but deflating her dock was a bitch nevertheless. She stowed it in the garage. When she came out, a pod of saltwater mermaids was going out to sea. Who could have ever confused a manatee with a mermaid? They turned and looked at her. Dove down, although she could still see them ribboning there, down along the frondy bottom.
The last time a hurricane had come through, her dock had sailed out of the garage and ended up two canals over.
She threw the leftover salad on the grass for the iguanas. The sun went down without a fuss.
Alan didn’t come back, so she packed up his clothes for him. Washed the dirty clothes first. Listened to the rain start. She put his backpack out on the dining room table with a note. Good luck with the philosopher king.
In the morning before work she went out in the rain, which was light but steady, and put up the storm shutters. Her neighbors were doing the same. Cut herself on the back of the hand while she was working on the next to last one. Bled everywhere. Jason’s car pulled up while she was still cursing, and Alan got out. He went into the house and got her a Band-Aid. They put up the last two shutters without talking.
Finally Alan said, “It was my fault. He doesn’t usually do drugs at all.”
“He’s not a bad kid,” she said. “So not your type.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Not about that. You know. I guess I mean about everything.”
They went back into the house and he saw his suitcase. “Well,” he said.
“Filhatz warfoon meh,” she said. “Bilbil tuh.”
“Nent bruk,” he said. No kidding.
He didn’t stay for breakfast. She didn’t feel any less or more real after he left.
The twenty-two sleepers were out of the warehouse and Jason had a completed stack of paperwork for her. Lots of signatures. Lots of duplicates and triplicates and fucklipates, as Valentina liked to say.
“Not bad,” Lindsey said. “Did Jack Harris offer you a job?”
“He offered to come hand me my ass,” Jason said. “I said he’d have to get in line. Nasty weather. Are you staying out there?”
“Where would I go?” she said. “There’s a big party at the Splinter tonight. It’s not like I have to come in to work tomorrow.”
“I thought they were evacuating the Keys,” he said.
“It’s voluntary,” she said. “They don’t care if we stay or go. I’ve been through hurricanes. When Alan and I were kids, we spent one camped in a bathtub under a mattress. We read comics with a flashlight all night long. The noise is the worst thing. Good luck with Alan, by the way.”
“I’ve never lived with anybody before.” So maybe he knew just enough to know he had no idea what he had gotten himself into. “I’ve never fallen for anybody like this.”
“There isn’t anybody like Alan,” she said. “He has the power to cloud and confuse the minds of men.”
“What’s your superpower?” Jason said.
“He clouds and confuses,” she said. “I confuse and then cloud. The order makes a big difference.”
She told Mr. Charles the good news about Jack Harris; they had a cup of coffee together to celebrate, then locked the warehouse down. Mr. Charles had to pick up his kids at school. Hurricanes were holidays. You didn’t get snow days in Florida.
On the way home all the traffic was going the other way. The wind made the stoplights swing and flip like paper lanterns. She had that feeling she’d had at Christmas, as a child. As if someone was bringing her a present. Something shiny and loud and sharp and messy. She’d always loved bad weather. She’d loved weather witches in their smart, black suits. Their divination kits, their dramatic seizures, their prophecies that were never entirely accurate but always rhymed smartly. When she was little she’d wanted more than anything to grow up and be a weather witch, although why that once had been true she now had no idea.
She rode her bike down to the Splinter. Had a couple of whiskey sours and then decided that she was too excited about the hurricane to get properly drunk. She didn’t want to be drunk. And there wasn’t a man in the bar she wanted to bring home. The best part of hurricane sex was the hurricane, not the sex, so why bother?
The sky was green as a bruise and the rain was practically horizontal. There were no cars at all on the way home. She went down the middle of the road and ran over an iguana almost four feet long, nose to tail. Stiff as a board, but its sides went out and in like little bellows. The rain got them like that sometimes. They got stupid and slow in the cold. The rest of the time they were stupid and fast.
She wrapped her jacket around the iguana, making sure that the tail was immobilized. You could break a man’s arm if you had a tail like that. She carried it under her arm, walking her bike, all the way back to her house and decided it would be a good idea to put it in her bathtub. She went out into her yard with a flashlight. Checked the storm shutters to make sure they were properly fastened and discovered three more iguanas. Two smaller ones and one real monster. She brought them all inside.
By 6:00 p.m. it was pitch-dark. The hurricane was still two miles out at sea. Picking up water to drop on the heads of people who didn’t want any more water. She dozed off at midnight and woke up when the power went off.
The air in the room was so full of water she had to gasp for breath. The iguanas were shadows stretched along the floor of the living room. The black shapes of the liquor boxes were every Christmas present she’d ever wanted.
Everything outside was clanking or buzzing or yanking or shrieking. She felt her way into the kitchen and got out the box with her candles and flashlight and emergency radio. The shutters banged away like battle.
“Swung down,” the announcer was saying. “How about tha
t—and this is just the edge, folks. Stay indoors and hunker down if you haven’t already left town. This is only a Category 2, but you betcha it’ll feel a lot bigger down here on the Keys. It’s 3:00 a.m. and we’re going to have at least three more hours of this before the eye passes over us. This is one big baby girl, and she’s taking her time. The good ones always do.”
Lindsey could hardly get the candles lit; the matches were that soggy, her hands greasy with sweat. When she went to the bathroom, the iguana looked as battered and beat, in the light from her candle, as some old suitcase.
Her bedroom had too many windows for her to stay there. She got her pillow and her quilt and a fresh T-shirt. A fresh pair of underwear.
When she went to check Elliot’s room there was a body on the bed. She dropped the candle. Tipped wax onto her bare foot. “Elliot?” she said. But when she got the candle lit again it wasn’t Elliot, of course, and it wasn’t Alan either. It was the sleeper. Versailles Kentucky. The one who looked like Alan or maybe Lindsey, depending on who was doing the looking.
She dropped the candle again. It was exactly the sort of joke Alan liked. Not a joke at all, that is. She had a pretty good idea where the other sleepers were—in Jason’s apartment, not back in Pittsburgh. And if anyone found out, it would be her job too. No government pension for Lindsey. No comfy early retirement.
Her hand still wasn’t steady and she was running low on matches. When she held up the candle, wax dripped onto Versailles Kentucky’s neck. But if it were that easy to wake a sleeper, Lindsey would already know about it.
In the meantime, the bed was against an exterior wall and there were all the windows. Lindsey dragged Versailles Kentucky off the bed.
She couldn’t get a good grip. Versailles Kentucky was heavy. She flopped. Her head snapped back, hair snagging on the floor. Lindsey squatted, took hold of the sleeper by her upper arms, pulled her down the dark hall, trying to keep her head off the ground. This must be what it must be like to have murdered someone. She would kill Alan. Think of this as practice, she thought. Body disposal. Dry run. Wet run.