Raw: A Love Story

by Mark Haskell Smith

  Sepp winced as a piece of rock bit his foot. He kept running.

  …

  Harriet had tried to push the couch away from the wall, but it was bolted to the floor, so she pulled off the cushions and began poking around. She reached her hand under the back of the couch, through a little gap she’d found in the upholstery, and felt around for any sign of electronic devices.

  Her arm was buried all the way in the sofa when Roxy and the Ninja came back. Roxy stopped, crossed her arms, and cocked her head. But it was the Ninja who spoke first.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Harriet blinked up at them. She could tell the Ninja wasn’t happy. “What?”

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Harriet pulled her arm out. “I lost something.”

  Roxy made a snorting sound. “Your mind.”

  Harriet stood up and put the cushions back. She decided honesty might be the best policy in this instance. “I’m a techie. Okay? I wanted to figure out where you put the server. I might want to rig my car up like this.”

  The Ninja narrowed his eyes. “You can’t get to it. It’s locked up in a special shockproof casing inside the wall.”

  Harriet tried to look thoughtful.

  “Wow. Cool.”

  The Ninja looked at her, then turned to Roxy. “I need a couple hours of snooze, then we’ll get back on the road.”

  Harriet watched as he picked up the laptop and went back into the bedroom, pulling the accordion partition shut with a magnetic snap.

  She turned to Roxy. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Roxy flopped down on the couch and sneered at Harriet. “Hey, while you’re out, do us all a favor and walk off a cliff.”

  …

  The gap between Sepp’s big toe and second toe had been rubbed raw by the plastic thong of his flip-flops and had now started to ooze blood. It felt sticky between his toes, like he’d spilled syrup on his foot.

  Sepp stopped running. He stood in the middle of the trail and looked out at the alien terrain. The thick black rock looked like piles of foam. Like shaving cream or mayonnaise. It was like the volcano barfed and rocks just blasted everywhere. He sucked fresh air deep into his lungs, his body shiny with a slick varnish of sweat, his muscles feeling tight and springy. He could’ve kept running, maybe gone ten miles, but his toe was a mess.

  Sepp sat on a rock and tried to rip a piece of his shorts off. He succeeded in shredding a good hunk, enough to give his shorts a tattered, Robinson Crusoe look. He had to laugh at himself—he was starting to look like a contestant on Survivor, one of the few shows he’d never wanted to go on. Who wants to starve in a jungle when you can have sex in a Jacuzzi?

  Sepp tied a makeshift bandage over his wound, giving him some padding against the flip-flop, and looked out at the scenery. It was then, as the heat of the day began to build, that he realized he needed water.

  He heard the sound of someone running along the trail, shoes crunching in the soft dirt. He looked over to see a monk, or at least it looked like a monk, like the guys in the kung fu movies, wearing a red and yellow robe, running up the trail. The dude wasn’t Chinese or anything. He was American looking. A white guy with a shaved head and some really nice New Balance running shoes on his feet.

  The man ran up to Sepp and stopped. “Are you okay?”

  Sepp nodded. “Am I on TV?”

  The man’s expression changed. He looked at Sepp. “Do you need some water?”

  Sepp shook his head. “I just thought maybe you were part of the show. I’m just not used to seeing . . . what are you? A monk?”

  He nodded. “Buddhist monk.”

  “But you’re American.”

  The monk smiled. Sepp noticed that his eyes were friendly. “There are lots of American Buddhist monks.”

  “So you’re not part of the show.”

  “What show would that be?”

  “Reality.”

  The monk chuckled. “That depends.”

  Sepp didn’t know how to respond. Did the monk think he needed a SAG card to be on the show?

  The monk continued. “The reality you’re currently experiencing is just an appearance to your mind so maybe I am on the show.”

  Sepp blinked up at the monk. “Dude. You lost me.”

  The monk caught his breath. “Think about your dreams. The things that happen when you’re dreaming seem real, don’t they?”

  Sepp nodded. “Is that why I wake up with a boner?”

  The monk smiled. “Exactly. Your mind creates a reality that seems as real as this reality.” The monk waved his hand in the air to indicate everything around them.

  Sepp nodded. “My dreams do seem real.”

  “And when you wake up, where does that reality go? Is the reality that your mind creates in a dream that different from the reality your mind creates when you’re awake?”

  Sepp pondered that for a moment. “Not really I guess.”

  The monk nodded. “Both are versions of reality. Both are appearances to your mind.”

  “So like my mind just makes stuff up?”

  The monk pulled a cloth from under his robe and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “That’s the basic idea. Everything depends on the mind.”

  “What about love?”

  The monk looked out over the vista for a moment. “If you looked for love outside somewhere could you find it? Is it a thing you could touch?”

  “No.”

  “We would say that if love truly existed, if it was a thing you could find in the world, it would be solid and unchanging. But everyone knows love changes.”

  “So it only exists in my head?”

  The monk shrugged. “Is that so bad?”

  Sepp stuck a finger in his ear and scratched. “No. That makes a kind of sense. I see that.” He looked at the monk. “But what about, like, reality TV?”

  The monk smiled.

  “Buddha would say that television is inherently empty. It only exists in conjunction with our mind perceiving it.”

  Sepp nodded. “Like a dream.”

  The monk smiled. “Like everything.”

  …

  A festive pop echoed through the RV as Roxy let the cork fly on a bottle of bubbly. She licked the foamy spew as it ran out the top and down the side of the bottle, then poured herself a big glassful. She took a sip, letting the bubbles tingle her tongue, and pulled a small paper rectangle out of her purse. She unfolded the rectangle and, using her long pinkie fingernail, scooped out a bit of white powder, held it to her nose, and hoovered it. One clump for each nostril.

  She carefully refolded the paper, put it in her purse, and then sat back on the couch to begin texting in earnest.

  …

  The Ninja lay back on the water bed and propped the laptop on his chest. A couple clicks of the mouse and he had the footage he’d shot of Sepp and Harriet on their first night in the RV. Even though the picture was slightly grainy, with a green-gray hue, he could clearly make out Harriet’s body as Sepp’s head bobbed between her legs. The image was hot. He captured fifteen seconds of it and uploaded it to his personal website. He wanted to make it available to all his friends and fans. A little taste of the show to come.

  The Ninja couldn’t put his finger on why Harriet had such sex appeal. Sure, there was something hot about her girl-next-door figure, and there was something to be said for her amateurish enthusiasm in bed; there was nothing staged or made-up or porn star about her. But what really turned the Ninja on, the single thing that stiffened his cock in no time, was the look on her face. It was an expression of pure pleasure. Her mouth open, gasping, her eyes wide. It wasn’t the thrusting of their bodies or the wobble of her tits, it was the look in her eyes that caused the Ninja to get up and see what Roxy was doing.

  …

  Harriet stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down at the rocky floor below. She halfheartedly considered jumping, but she just wasn’t the suicidal type. She didn’t want to
pull a John Kennedy Toole and have her book win the Pulitzer posthumously. If there was a big prize she was going to be there, in a cute black cocktail dress, to accept it.

  She thought about Franz Kafka, a writer she hadn’t thought about since college. He was the overused cliché when things got weird. But, when she thought about how to describe what had happened, and what was continuing to happen, the first word that popped into her head was “Kafkaesque.” Circumstances conspire, misunderstandings emerge, and the next thing you know people are dead and you’re a giant cockroach. Harriet knew she’d behaved badly, she could admit that to herself. She wasn’t proud of what she did. But, fuck it. It had happened. It was an accident. A horrible, terrible, Kafkaesque incident. It wasn’t an excuse, really; just the way it was.

  Now she was trapped in this constructed reality TV reality where the normal rules didn’t apply. How could they? You can’t go putting secret cameras everywhere, record every intimate moment and confidential conversation, and then broadcast it to the world. After a moment’s reflection Harriet realized that the internet—her turf—was filled with exactly that kind of thing. Was the World Wide Web only built to humiliate people with YouTube videos of them kicking each other in the nuts and to sell self-published books?

  Harriet found herself with the unappealing options of going to jail because she’d incriminated herself in Curtis’s death by being on a reality show—and honestly, how could she explain that to the literary world—or destroying the hard drive that held Sepp’s confession. One way or the other she’d have to force the Ninja to turn over the drive. She didn’t know how to do it, exactly. Threaten legal action? Convince Sepp to walk off the show? Hit the Ninja with a tire iron? She had to do something.

  Harriet looked at the RV and noticed a cargo hatch on the side. Maybe that would provide access to the hard drive. She tiptoed over and tried the latch. It opened. She hesitated, not wanting them to hear her, until she realized that someone was playing the stereo. Harriet was no music aficionado, but it sounded like a band her college roommate used to listen to called Mott the Hoople. Harriet swung open the cargo hatch and stuck her head inside.

  …

  The Ninja didn’t usually get involved with cast members. It just never turned out good for anybody, it wasn’t good for the show, and it could hurt your reputation as a reliable shooter. But the speed and bourbon combined with watching his homemade porn had got the better of him and now he found himself sitting in the driver’s seat with his pants around his ankles as Roxy straddled him. Her breasts were shoved in his face and all he could see was bouncing flesh as she worked her body up and down, riding his cock like a porn star. All he’d had to do was ask and Roxy was up for it. She even seemed mildly interested in the sex. Not like he was rocking her world, but she was tolerating it in a friendly and professional way. She drank slugs of champagne from the bottle she held in her right hand and in between gulps would talk dirty to him.

  As the Ninja got more and more turned on and increased the power and tempo of his thrusting, Roxy fell back, leaning against the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn. The horn was loud and the shock of it caused her to drop the champagne bottle. The bottle hit the parking brake and caused it to pop up, releasing the brakes. Despite its weight, or perhaps because of it, or maybe because the Ninja’s thrusting had caused Roxy’s elbow to put the gearshift into neutral, coupled with the fact that the RV was pointing downhill and susceptible to the force of gravity, or maybe it was some combination of all these factors combined, the RV began to roll.

  The Ninja felt the vehicle move and was caught in two minds—he was on the verge of climaxing and yet he needed to hit the brakes. He didn’t stop thrusting as he tried to stomp on the brakes but Roxy’s legs were in the way and he ended up kicking her before frantically jamming his foot on the gas pedal while having one of those orgasms that leaves you breathless.

  …

  Harriet had climbed halfway in the cargo hold, following several thick cables that led to the main cabin. She was sure they led to the hard drive. A loud honk startled her and she was scrambling out when she felt the RV lurch and begin to roll. Harriet jumped out of the way, slipping on the gravel and falling on her ass. She looked up in time to see the RV roll toward the lip of the overlook, picking up speed as it went, until it broke through the wood guardrail and plunged off the cliff.

  Harriet ran to the edge and watched the RV face-plant into an outcropping of sharp rocks, bounce off the cliff face, flip, and fall two hundred feet down into a dry arroyo, where it landed on its roof, crushed like a stomped beer can. The RV sat there for a moment, silent except for the rattle and clatter of falling rocks, and then it burst into flames.

  …

  Sepp saw black smoke drifting in the cloudless blue sky and thought that the Ninja had broken out the grill and was barbecuing steaks. He was famous for that, had some kind of special spicy rub he put on the meat before he threw it on the fire; Sepp had eaten barbecue with the Ninja at least once a week on Love Express. But as Sepp walked back he noticed the smoke getting thicker, blacker, and not looking at all like a barbecue.

  42

  Colorado

  While Sepp filled their rental car with gas, Harriet went into the minimart to buy a couple of coffees for the drive to Denver. Sepp had convinced his publisher to spring for the car, as long as he promised to get back on schedule with his tour, take the flights he was supposed to take, and not go driving off into the boondocks on a whim. He was happy that Brenda wasn’t mad at him. In fact, she seemed to be thrilled by the fresh burst of national media coverage the book was getting now that Roxy had died in a freak accident. “Tragic for Roxy, but great for the book.” That was something Brenda had said to make him feel better.

  It was a new rental, a Chrysler 200 with a convertible top and, although they never discussed it, the top stayed up; neither of them were in the mood to be exposed and Sepp had warned her that once the paparazzi found them it would be like a feeding frenzy.

  Harriet looked out the glass door of the minimart and watched as Sepp meticulously cleaned bugs off the windshield with a squeegee. “Squeegee.” That was an awesome word. She thought it probably began as some kind of nautical slang. Perhaps related to, or derived from, “squeeze.”

  An unhealthy smell emanated from a machine that heated hot dogs, the meat product glistening with sweat, rotating on metal cylinders under hot lights. For some reason it made Harriet think about the trail of dead she’d left across the American Southwest. It was weird. She didn’t really feel bad about it. Well, that’s not true, she did feel bad about Curtis. He had so much promise as a writer. Could his accidental death be some kind of karmic retribution for selling out? The kind of thing that happens when you don’t honor your gifts? Harriet had thought she’d be racked by guilt, but really, she wasn’t. Maybe the guilt would come haunting her in the night like she was a character in some B-movie. But she didn’t think that would happen. Curtis had slipped in the shower, the Ninja and Roxy had died when the RV’s parking brake failed. Accidents happen.

  Harriet filled up two large cups with scalding hot coffee, leaving a little room for sugar and milk in Sepp’s; she preferred hers black. She put the lids on them and carefully slid them into corrugated cardboard sleeves so she wouldn’t burn her fingers. All that preparation didn’t keep her from almost dropping the cups on the floor when she turned and saw the cover of Us Weekly perched by the cash register. Under the headline “Sepp’s New Love” was a glossy color photo of her and Sepp holding hands as they exited the bookstore in Phoenix. A subtitle said: “Who is the mysterious writer who’s captured his heart?”

  She paid for the coffee and then stood there, frantically checking the internet on her iPhone. News about her and Sepp was everywhere. Gawker was the first to break the story of her identity; they had a snarky profile on her and ridiculed her for “self-importance in overdrive.” Perez Hilton, Go Fug Yourself, Jezebel, Celebitchy, and TMZ all followed with articl
es or links. Someone had even fished photos off her Facebook page. She did not look cute in any of them. It wasn’t just celebrity gossip sites that were pumping the news, everyone else piled on too; book blogs like GalleyCat, Jacket Copy, and Bookslut—which seemed fitting—had all run pieces. The Huffington Post, E! News, and MTV had reported the story; even MSNBC had mentioned them. It was unbelievable.

  Harriet wonder what it all meant. She checked the metrics on her site and discovered she’d had almost a hundred thousand hits yesterday and more than three hundred emails. That was unheard of. What was happening?

  She was about to put her phone in her pocket when the ringtone began playing its marimba rhythm. The call was from the 212 area code.

  “Hello?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line and Harriet wondered if she’d accidentally disconnected for a second before a robust voice crackled through the phone.

  “Hey! Is this Harriet? Harriet Post?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi. This is Amy Evanston calling from New York. You sent me your amazing manuscript a few weeks ago and I just had to call and talk to you about it.”

  Harriet remembered her—she was one of the agents who’d asked to see her massive manuscript.

  “That was six months ago.”

  “Well, I do get busy. But listen. I think it’s terrific and I’d like to work with you on it.”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to represent you. Your writing is just brilliant, your book is amazing, and I think I can find an editor who will give your book the TLC it deserves.”

  …

  Sepp was standing next to the car, checking the air pressure in the tires, as Harriet walked up to him and handed him his coffee.

  “What took you so long?”

  Harriet looked at him. “I think I just got my fifteen minutes of fame.”

  Sepp looked at the minimart. “In there?”

  Harriet nodded. “Yeah.”