Raw: A Love Story

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by Mark Haskell Smith


  “You’ll get on that list, someday. I’m sure of it.”

  Harriet sighed and unlocked the car doors. “I don’t care about the list. I’d just like to get my book published.”

  Sepp looked at her and got an idea. Inspiration is a funny thing. Like you never know when the muse is going to whisper in your ear and give you a million-dollar idea. For Sepp, it had never really happened before. Not like in a genius way, not like where you actually invent something cool. Sure, he’d had some radical ideas in his day, like when he auditioned for Sex Crib. But everything was usually someone else’s idea. Some producer thought of Love Express, and it was his agent’s idea to do the book. But now, it was his turn to have a great idea. The force was with him. The little twenty-five-watt bulb inside his Easy-Bake Oven head blinked to life.

  “I have a plan.”

  28

  Mojave

  On nice days, when the sky was clear, the early morning light peeked through a crack in the trailer, a little seam that ran just below the roof, and shot across the length of the mobile home. The beam of light would hit the stained glass mobile that spun over the sink, giving the little glass angels and their haloes an otherworldly glow. It was like the silver Christmas tree at Walmart when they put the blue-colored lights on it and it made the tree look all cold and shivery.

  Sally Francher thought that it was God giving her a message. The Universe was making the angels glow. It was saying, “You may live in a single-wide, but it’s a real nice one, a Fleetwood Festival, and you are blessed.”

  Sally sat up and stretched. Her joints popped and cracked as she performed a kind of stay-in-bed slacker yoga. Then she stood and walked into the kitchen, the mobile home shuddering with her steps. She wasn’t a coffee person and it was too hot in the desert for something like tea, so she dumped yesterday’s water out of her bong, refilled it, and sat down at the kitchen table for a little wake ’n’ bake.

  She exhaled and felt her brain relax. It was like her brain was an overfilled volleyball and the weed let a little air out, just taking some of the pressure off, softening it up for the day ahead. Her volleyball brain would still bounce; she could spike it over the net if she had to.

  Sally poured herself a big bowl of Frosted Flakes and drowned them in skim milk. It was sweet and crunchy, two of her favorite things.

  She put the bowl in the sink, blazed another nugget in the bong, and then got ready for work. She decided the Eagles of Death Metal T-shirt she’d gone to bed in, the one that said “Death By Sexy” across the front, was still perfectly clean enough to wear to work, so she slid on her blue jeans, banged her sneakers against the door to knock out any scorpions, and then hopped out of the mobile home and into the old Toyota pickup her husband had bought for her before he’d gone off to Afghanistan with his Marine Corps buddies.

  It was the slow season, Sally was thankful for that, so she’d only have to clean half of the rooms at the motel. Scrubbing toilets, making beds, and picking used condoms off the floor were not the kind of things she normally liked to do—she could hardly be bothered to change the sheets on her own bed—but it’s not like there are a lot of job opportunities in the desert. Her husband’s military salary barely covered the necessities. For him that meant the mortgage payment on the trailer, insurance, the satellite TV bill, and dumb stuff like that. For Sally, necessities meant cold beer, a healthy stash of OG Kush, and the occasional night out at a bar so she could drink and dance. She liked dancing to cowboy music. It wasn’t country and western, it was more what she liked to call “shit-kicker rock.” But to do it right, to really kick some shit, you needed boots and a hat and money for beer. So she showed up at the Pioneertown Motel every morning to tidy up the rooms, disinfect the toilets, and change the sheets and towels.

  She’d finished cleaning all but one room. It was an hour past check-out time and the little clipboard that the manager gave her said they were supposed to have checked out, but hadn’t, so she had to roust them. Sally went up and banged on the door. She got no answer, so she unlocked it, opened the door a crack, and said the magic word.

  “Housekeeping.”

  29

  New York City

  Brenda was annoyed. What am I? A fucking concierge service? Sepp had finally checked in, apologized for missing the phoner—he’d left his schedule behind in the room—and explained that he’d decided to drive to Phoenix with a friend but had somehow neglected to pack and bring his things. He promised he’d make it up to Ellen somehow. Maybe give her a personalized ab workout or do a dance or something. And would she mind having someone send his stuff to Phoenix? Would she mind? As a matter of fact she did mind. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do it. She had to do it. Totally Reality was her big book this season and she was going to do whatever she could to keep it on the bestseller list, and if that meant flying out to LA and picking his dirty underwear off the floor, she’d do it. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

  30

  Pioneertown

  The sheriff walked out of the motel room and looked at Sally. She sat on a rustic wood bench in the shade, underneath a little overhang, sipping a Fanta that the manager had pulled out of his minifridge.

  “Where’d you get that soda?”

  “Manager’s office.”

  The sheriff nodded. He lifted his hat and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was a good cop. Thoughtful, meticulous, logical, a real by-the-book kind of guy. He didn’t really like leaving his air-conditioned office or his air-conditioned patrol car; he figured if it was too hot for law enforcement it oughta be too hot to commit a crime. But that was the thing about criminals, they weren’t logical. Not that this looked like a crime. In the world of homicide, the bathtub was the most dangerous serial killer in history. How many slip ’n’ fall corpses had he seen in his career? A dozen? A baker’s dozen? Two dozen?

  He felt bad for the motel. Some lawyer was probably getting ready to sue them right now. A man’s dead. A motel gets shut down. All because nobody bothered to put those little nonskid daisies on the shower floor.

  He put his hat back on his head and looked at Sally. She was a nice-looking filly. Especially since she wasn’t wearing a bra under that “Death By Sexy” T-shirt. He wondered if her husband was going to make it back from Afghanistan. He hated to think about it, but if he didn’t, well, someone would have to console her. Show her that life goes on.

  “So you opened the door. Found the fella in the shower.”

  Sally nodded.

  “Was the water running?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you turn it off?”

  “Was that wrong?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Not with this drought.”

  The sheriff watched the condensation building up on the outside of the soda bottle; icy drops of moisture gaining weight and then gravity sending them sliding down the side of the bottle. It made him feel like jumping into a pool. But that’d have to wait until after the coroner got there and looked at the body. He smiled at her. “I’m gonna go get me a soda. You want another?”

  Sally shook her head. “I’m good.”

  31

  Arizona

  Harriet drove. Sepp yakked on the phone with his TV producers about his new idea. He was going to make Harriet a reality TV star and then she’d get her book published. It had worked for him. It would work for her.

  Harriet found herself feeling simultaneously repulsed and attracted by the idea. If it succeeded, well, then she’d be a real author. But she’d also be a reality person, just like Sepp, just like what she’d spent her life fighting against. Although she could reclaim the high ground by writing a tell-all autobiography about becoming a reality TV star and expose the hypocrisy of the media that only paid attention to books by celebrities. And wasn’t that her plan in the first place? She could bring the whole fucking machine down and the machine would pay her for the privilege. Think of all the struggling authors she’d be helping.

  Harriet rea
lized that this helped explain why she was with him and what she was doing. If the shit hit the fan with Curtis, she’d need a reasonable explanation, if not an alibi. She’d already written about her mission on her blog, so there was that, only now she was going deeper into the story. She was going to destroy the beast from the inside.

  Sepp rattled on to the producers about his vision for the show. Harriet tried to tune it out, and normally she would’ve been able to, but this plan involved her getting married to Sepp. It was just an unbelievably weird idea. Married? To the dude with the abs?

  She looked out at the red dirt extending off into the distance. There’s a lot of hot fucking nothing out here in Arizona. Although it was kind of pretty. If you like unending vistas of dirt. Harriet wondered what she would tell her friends. Her family. That the man whose book is dumbing down our culture is so awesome—she couldn’t believe that she’d just thought that word—so carnally adept in the sack that she put all her ideals and scruples aside to hump him raw. She had to admit that the sex was transcendent and while her intellectual friends might think she’d gone bonkers they would be jealous of his physique. They’d send her text messages wanting to know what it was like. She’d tell them, too. Fuck yeah.

  But what about her intellectual side? Could she discuss William Vollman’s ouevre with Sepp? What would he make of David Mitchell or Zadie Smith’s books? Harriet knew what Sepp would do with the books. He’d make her put them under her ass to raise her up, change the angle, and then he’d mount her.

  She could see it happening to her and the image made her clitoris throb and swell. She felt herself get moist. Who knew that getting fucked on a stack of literature would be a fantasy? She’d stop at a bookstore and buy a couple of books to take back to the hotel with them tonight. She squirmed in the seat, letting her underwear put subtle pressure on her crotch. She thought about what books would be good. Philip Roth? Or was that too on the nose? Harriet briefly considered something raunchy and contemporary, but those books seemed too lightweight. She wanted something with a little gravitas, but also thick enough to lift her ass into a good position. Infinite Jest? Gravity’s Rainbow? Or was that too collegiate? What about the entire Booker Prize shortlist?

  Harriet realized she was finally thinking outside her head. Sure, she was still being intellectual, but now she’d integrated her body and was becoming some kind of well-read sex animal. She reached over and grabbed Sepp’s crotch, giving it a healthy squeeze. Sepp turned to her. Harriet smiled.

  “How far to the next rest area?”

  …

  The producers were being a pain. They weren’t seeing the show the way Sepp saw it. There would be no eliminations, no rose ceremonies, and no tribal councils. That stuff was old, played out. This was simple. Sepp had found “the one” and the twist is, she’s really super smart. The bod and the brain, together at last. It would be more like Khloé & Lamar, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians spinoff that followed a couple around and watched them eat dinner and argue about what kind of curtains to put in the master suite. There were all kinds of shows like this: Cracker Barrel, where a family of moonshiners from Georgia tried to run their liquor business and send their seemingly gay son to a special musical-theater program in Atlanta, or Praise the Lard, which followed an obese pastor and his wife as they tried and failed to lose weight. These shows were all huge hits, so why not The Six-Pack and the Brainiac? But the producers weren’t so sure. People loved Sepp, but the book-critic angle, the intellectual part of it, was a hard sell. They told Sepp they wanted to be in business with him, but it had to be the right project. Viewers might want to watch a show about a hairdresser or realtor or a personal trainer—especially if they worked with celebrities, were gay, or better, worked with gay celebrities—but Sepp didn’t have a job. He needed to bring something fresh to the table.

  Sepp wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer. His brain was like a salmon, swimming upstream against the odds, avoiding grizzly bears, rocks, fallen trees, crab monsters, and other stuff. The salmon didn’t stop, he swam no matter what until he reached the top. Then he spawned and died. But that was the salmon. Sepp might spawn, but he didn’t think it would kill him.

  So as the producer was doing what producers do, that is, thinking of ways to say no, Sepp’s salmon brain kept pushing against the current. He zigged, he zagged, and when it finally looked like the grizzly bear was going to make him into Alaskan sashimi, the dude pulled out a game changer.

  “What if we were on the lam? For murder? For real. Do you think the network would be interested? Yeah, like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  Sepp was surprised when Harriet yanked the cell phone out of his hands and tossed it out the window.

  32

  Pioneertown

  Sally sat on the little wooden bench, the same bench she’d been sitting on since the motel manager called the sheriff. She watched as a string of ants climbed up the side of the empty Fanta bottle and did whatever it is that ants do. Take sugar-water back to their queen or something. She’d waited there while the coroner arrived, followed by an ambulance. The pudgy little guy had taken some pictures, complained about the heat, and agreed with the sheriff that the dead fella had slipped in the shower and died from whacking his head on the shower floor.

  It was hot and Sally was usually done with her work and on her way home by now. She wished she had a bump of something to break the boredom. A little crystal or another bong rip would make sitting on a bench a lot more enjoyable. The coroner stood next to her, trying to stay in the shade, and gnawed on a sandwich from Subway. It made Sally hungry. Maybe she’d stop and get a sandwich on her way home.

  The sheriff came over and took off his hat. He mopped sweat off his head with a bandana and looked at the coroner. “You sure?”

  The coroner nodded and swallowed a bite of his sandwich. He mumbled. “Pretty sure.”

  Sally noticed that the sheriff’s official sheriff hat had a salty ring around the base of it from his sweat. The sheriff put his hat back on his head. “You gonna do an autopsy?”

  The coroner shrugged. “Not much point in it.”

  “What about his car?”

  The coroner swallowed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You sure he had a car? Anybody see him drive in?”

  The sheriff shook his head.

  “My guess is he had too much to drink at the bar over there and got a room to sleep it off.”

  The sheriff nodded. “He walk to the bar?”

  The coroner pointed into the room with his sandwich. “Not in those shoes.” He took a bite of his sub. A strand of lettuce hung out the side of his mouth and danced in the air as he chewed. He looked at the sheriff. “You suggesting foul play?”

  The sheriff scratched his neck.

  “Shit. I’m not suggesting nothing.”

  The sheriff turned to Sally.

  “You can go ahead and clean the room. We’re all done here.”

  33

  Arizona

  Harriet glared at Sepp. She had pulled the car off to the shoulder, ramming on the brakes and sending a huge cloud of red dust up in the air like they’d just hit a roadside bomb. She sat behind the wheel, her hands shaking with barely controlled rage. She really wished she had her bite guard with her—her jaw was starting to ache.

  Sepp looked at her with a confused expression, like a dog that had crapped on the floor but didn’t see why that should cause a problem.

  “I thought we were gonna stop at the next rest area.”

  Harriet shook her head. “What are you doing? You can’t tell people that we’re on the run from a murder.”

  Sepp held out his hands, trying to calm her. “Whoa. Relax. They’re cool.”

  Harriet shook her head in disbelief. She remembered that old expression, “get a grip.” She didn’t know where, exactly, the expression came from, but she knew what it meant. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and looked at Sepp.

  “They’re cool?”

  “Yeah. They won’t
tell.”

  Harriet momentarily lost her cool. “They won’t tell until they make a fucking TV show about it. Then how’re they going to not tell? It’ll be on TV. How cool will they be when I’m in jail?”

  Sepp reached out and patted her shoulder. “I’m trying to make you famous. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  Harriet tried to calibrate what to say to Sepp. She couldn’t believe how quickly things had changed. One minute she’s got her alibi in place and she’s dreaming of being boned on top of a first edition of Don DeLillo’s Underworld, the next thing she knows, Sepp’s unintentionally turning her in for homicide. How had her life run off the rails? Now there was a cliché she could get behind. “To run off the rails” is to behave strangely, to veer from the path of society, to leave the straight and narrow. Or maybe it was worse. To derail, to become completely unconnected to the norms of the world. She’d seen pictures of train disasters, the cars accordioned on their sides. Off the rails. She didn’t want to end up like that.

  “I did it because I’m in love with you.”

  Harriet blinked. “You what?”

  Sepp reached out and took her hand. “I’m in love with you.”

  Her first thought was that she had to end this thing with Sepp. She would drop him at his hotel in Phoenix and get the next flight back to San Francisco. A couple yoga classes, some reading, an hour browsing in City Lights, maybe a glass of wine at Zuni and everything would be back to normal. She’d get back on the rails. She’d put this experience behind her, this aberration, this little excursus into the land of Playboy mansions and unintentional homicide and roadside sex.

 

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