A Perfect Blindness

by W. Lance Hunt

  Dizzy, I stare at the phone.

  I want to vomit.

  Eventually the phone complains to be hung up.

  Chapter 57

  Blowing Off Steam

  —Scott—

  I’ve lost Mercurial Visions—for now.

  But I have him.

  I smile at Kenny across the table.

  After what happened, we decided we needed burritos and a couple of margaritas.

  He nods back and drains the last of his drink. “I wanna get out of here … get home … blow off some steam.”

  We start walking the four blocks to his place. Our place now. He did say “home.”

  As we go, he’s quiet, and that’s good. He’s not pushing me. This is a major move for us, living together. Sure, I’ll have to put up with his roommates. With them getting home late only to flop on the couch and watch their shows until even later, and their sniggering, teasing looks.

  At least we have our bedroom to hide in.

  We walk into the apartment together, and his roommates leer at me as we walk past them and into his bedroom. They nod as if they know what’s really going on. That pisses me off the most, because they know nothing about what’s going on, ’cause nothing’s going on. We’re only trying to figure things out, he and I. Together.

  “Now,” he says, closing the door behind me. “Next we’re gonna blow off some steam.”

  I feel unreal, as if I’m only watching this other man standing next to Kenny, who feels like he’s fifteen again, and it’s Sammy, not Kenny, standing there. He wants to grab the waist of Sammy’s jeans, and pull them down, and then—I don’t know. Sammy got killed before showing me. But I can still learn.

  “Need to get ready first,” Kenny says, sitting on his bed. Then he reaches under it, pulls out a box, and puts it on the bed beside him.

  What’s inside? Is this what you didn’t show me, Sammy? I need to see it this time. Please.

  He flicks open the clasps and then slowly lifts the top.

  Holding my breath, I lean forward.

  Nestled inside gray foam is a large 9 mm automatic.

  I jerk back.

  “My pistol,” he says, lifting it out of the box. “Firing off a few clips is the best therapy in the world.”

  “I hate guns. I told you that,” I say. Take it away. “I’ve never even touched one before.”

  “First time for everyone,” he says. “The range is close by. We step in, get some targets—who or what you hate—blam, blam. Confetti. You win. You’re the boss.”

  “Guns.” I shake my head. “Killing—no.”

  “First off, guns don’t kill; people do,” he says. “Second, it’s only pretend. Fantasy. Like Mistress Mayhem. Who’s boss now? As for not liking it … well, we’re gonna make you a man today.” He points the gun at the closet door, which is covered in a poster of Mercurial Visions. “Bang,” he says.

  “Kenny, I thought …” I cut the idea off before it’s recognizable.

  “Whaddya think?” he asks, giving me a coquettish look. “How’d ya think were we going to blow off some steam here, huh?” He winks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. The room feels so small, as if it’s pushing us together. Sammy, why aren’t you here? You promised to be here for me.

  “Oh, come on. Hold it.” He holds it out to me, daring me to touch the long, hard shaft.

  “No.”

  “It doesn’t have a clip in it. It can’t shoot.”

  “No,” I say, taking a step back. The room’s so small my back’s already to a wall.

  “Pussy,” he says, reaching back down to the box. He lifts something shiny out. “This clip has twelve rounds in it. Nine millimeter. Blows the hell out of things when it hits.” He slaps it into the grip. “Scott. Relax. The first time’s awkward for everyone.”

  I wave it away.

  “It won’t go off if you only touch it, you know.” He holds it out to me again. “Doesn’t have a shell chambered. Think of it as foreplay.”

  My heart stutters, pounds. I shake my head.

  “There’s nothing weird about doing it.” He steps closer. “First, safety.” He points to a latch next to his thumb. “It’s on, so it can’t go off, even with a shell chambered.” He pulls back the slide. It makes a metallic click. He lets go, and the slide snaps back into place. The hammer is cocked. “Now a shell is chambered,” he says. He points the pistol at a poster and pulls the trigger. Nothing.

  “It’s okay.” He pulls the trigger again, and then twice more. “See?”

  “I can’t,” I say, feeling disjointed in our bedroom, alone. With him pretending to be Sammy—no. I shake my head.

  “Then why are you here?” he asks, teasing. “All you have to do is switch this thing off,” he says, sliding the safety down to off. “Start blasting away. It’s better than sex.” He licks his lips slowly.

  “Sex?”

  “Think about Jonathan,” he says. “Or that asshole at Wax Trax!”

  “Why? No. That’s … no.”

  “Come on. Just take it,” he says, holding the gun out to me, chest high. “Hold it. Touch it a few times. Then we’ll take off. Target practice. Blam, blam, blam. It’ll change your life.”

  He’s standing so close. You’re going to make me touch it. I’m trembling not from fear but in excitement. Why do I feel like this? Unforgivable.

  “What are you trying to do?” I demand. “I can’t. No. You’re not Sammy.”

  “Sammy? Who’s Sammy? Some queen you’ve been hiding from us?”

  I grab his hand holding the pistol and turn the barrel. I feel the safety click off.

  “Don’t ever say that about Sammy,” I say. “He wasn’t some faggot. He’s my only real friend.”

  I squeeze Kenny’s hand to make him understand, which squeezes his fingers, including the one on the trigger, and then there’s a glaring flash, a thundering boom.

  I can’t breathe, blinking away the afterimage of the muzzle flash. When I can see, I see gore covering the wall. Kenny’s body lies crumpled on the floor.

  “No.” Ice fills my body. “No. No. No.”

  I bolt for the door.

  One of Kenny’s roommates opens the door right then. The solid-wood edge hits my forehead. I feel pain like a flash of light.

  Chapter 58

  Ready for a Fight

  —Jonathan—

  Hours have passed as I’ve sat on this couch, staring out the window at nothing in particular.

  I know I should call AnnMarie and Nancy. To let them know. I should start doing … something. Putting a new band together?

  All I can do though is purse my lips.

  Then a knock on the metal door startles me in the empty silence.

  “What now? Hasn’t this been enough for one day!” I shout at the door.

  The knocking comes again.

  “Piss off, Scott!”

  Again comes the knocking—more insistently this time.

  I stomp to the door, grab the handle, and pull to make sure it’s locked fast. “Fuck off, Scott.” I take the new keys out and jingle them. “New lock. New life.”

  “Chicago Police,” says a man’s voice through the double-thick steel door. “We’re looking for Jonathan Starks.”

  I was ready for a fight, but they aren’t here to evict me. Rather, they deliver news of Kenny getting shot and Scott being in jail, then they start with questions for me. I answer them as best as I can.

  As they leave, the younger one, Officer McInerney, says, “You guys kick ass. I have both of your CDs.”

  I nod, I think.

  I then look up at the angel covering her eyes on the poster for “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and think none of this should have happened.

  Not to Amy. Not to Jennifer—my lovers—and not even to Scott, once
my closest friend. Certainly not to Kenny, who’d only stumbled into this—our thicket of ignorance. This is not the ending any of us deserved. I should have seen something sooner and been able to stop this. Shouldn’t I have?

  How can it take so long to see what’s so obvious?

  “You’re right, Angel,” I say to her. “There really is too much sorrow to uncover your eyes.”

  Chapter 59

  Suspended in Contradictions

  —Jennifer—

  It’s been two days since Jonathan and I almost fell into bed together, a day since I watched Charlene tip herself over the balcony railing, and a day since I burned away the part of me that wanted Jonathan—the part of me that could have been Charlene.

  And tonight I’m not hiding in my old room; my mother has knocked on my door, saying that Chris has arrived to pick me up.

  I let Sarabeth run out first.

  “I’ll be back,” I say, walking past my mother. “Not too late. And I’ll be quiet.”

  I grab Chris’s hand and lead her quickly out through the doorway. Climbing into Chris’s car, I say, “I have to get the hell out of here. The last two days here have been too much.”

  “Stay with me,” Chris says, starting the engine.

  “I mean out of Chicago,” I say. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  “Visiting friends,” Chris says. “Chillin’ out.”

  “Chillin’ out?” I scoff.

  Then I realize Chris has makeup on.

  That’s about weird.

  I take a closer look.

  “Hey,” Chris says, “I heard something about Mercurial Visions. ’Bout Scott.”

  “What?” I say, pulling back.

  “Caught the end of something on the radio,” Chris says. “Wondered if you knew what it was.”

  “Oh, no,” I say. “I don’t sleep with the lead singer anymore, remember?”

  She shrugs.

  Two blocks pass in silence, and then Chris gets this grin like she’s got a secret she wants me to ask her about, and it’s probably about why she has the makeup on.

  Girlfriend, I need to catch my breath here.

  But her smile gets wider, as if she’ll burst if I don’t ask.

  “Okay,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “Guess who’s been sleeping over?”

  “Sleeping over?”

  “We get naked.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Fey?”

  “God no! Please.”

  “Well, I have been away for a while.”

  “You know him. Very well.”

  “Scott!?”

  “That closet queen? Hell no.”

  “Okay, who? Just tell me. As long as it’s not Jonathan.”

  “Kenny.”

  “Kenny?! The boy-girl, any-port-in-a-storm Kenny?”

  “Yup.”

  “Chris,” I say, “an awful lot’s being going on. Don’t mess with me.”

  “Kenny Magnum. Singer. Unknown Vices. Sleeping with … yours truly.”

  “Okaaaay.”

  “He’s good in bed, by the way. Very good.”

  “Too much information, girl.”

  “And Scott is soooooo jealous,” Chris says.

  “Jealous?”

  “Yeah, as in acting like he’s Kenny’s boyfriend. He hates me now. I think I just got myself uninvited to do any more artwork for Unknown Vices or Mercurial Visions. But he’s worth it. Whoooo, the sex.”

  “I …”

  “Wendy called it years ago,” Chris says. “The problem with Scott is that he can’t admit he’s as queer as a three-dollar bill. I swear he’ll end up shooting someone. Probably himself. Can’t deal with who he is. Pow!”

  “No more suicide talk.”

  “Oh, yes. Shit,” Chris says. “Sorry.”

  “Let’s not. Not tonight.”

  “Sure. I … Sure.”

  “So first stop. Las Mananitas, right?” I ask.

  “Right.”

  “Then Smart Bar.”

  “I’m sure we’ll run into people who’re wondering what’s up with you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say, sighing. “Only wish I knew what to tell them.”

  “Come on. It’s not that bad.”

  “I dunno.”

  “You’ve always made it through bullshit.”

  “Tired of having to.”

  “What can you do?” Chris asks. “If not this, then it’s something. Is it ever any different?”

  “I thought it was. Once.”

  “With Jonathan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told you, straight up, love’s like this,” Chris says. “Something always happens.”

  “What about with Kenny?”

  “Oh. Eventually he’ll do something. I will. We both will. It’ll end, I imagine. It could. I don’t think about it. I mean, really; we all die. If that’s all I thought about, I’d do nothing.”

  “Charlene didn’t get it right,” I say. “That’s the cheater’s way out.”

  “Oh, she pisses me off. I mean, you can’t just return your ticket like life’s a show. Plus you miss all the good parts—the ones that make it worth it.”

  “That was so weak,” I say. “So not her.”

  “Not the her we knew,” Chris says.

  “Jonathan’s not who I thought either.” I watch the dusk skyline. Tall pillars of darkness speckled with lights pass slowly behind one another. “How about you? Are you who you say you are? Who I think you are?”

  “I think I am. As much as I can be.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore. About anyone. Everyone’s always telling stories about each other, including stories about themselves. And none of the stories are the same. Or even completely true. It’s like we’re all a bunch of contradictory stories, none of which is completely true or totally wrong. Who we really are hangs someplace between all the stories, suspended in the contradictions.”

  • • • • •

  After a dinner of chicken flautas, rice and beans, and two margaritas, we’re on the hunt for parking closer to Smart Bar. There’s a lot of traffic on Clark Street, so we start looking for a parking space blocks before Metro. Everything slows to a crawl in front of its big black doors and glowing marquee. I haven’t been here in ages, and I miss it.

  I remember the time Mercurial Visions played here, which starts me thinking about Jonathan.

  I shake my head.

  Chris looks quizzically at me.

  I mouth “nothing,” and scan the street for parking, holding my fingers up in curling quotation marks, invoking parking karma.

  “There,” I say, pointing to a space on Racine, behind the Gingerman.

  After parking, we walk through the alley between Metro and the Gingerman, and emerge on Clark and then wave to the bouncer as we walk past the black doors of Metro and through the gate of Smart Bar. We enter the tunnel. The graffiti skankers and demon-faced boys and girls painted on the passage walls, dancing under the pallid flickering of fluorescent bulbs, look like old friends. I feel the throbbing rhythm more than hear it. Then it’s like old times and I’m nineteen and the past couple of years never happened. Still manning the booth, charging cover, Jennie looks the same with her long, black, blunt-cut hair, black dress, lipstick, and eyeliner.

  I wave.

  “My god, we all thought you’d died,” Jennie says.

  “Kinda did,” I say. “In Seattle.”

  “Welcome back to Chicago,” Jennie says.

  Chris hugs the bouncer, and he lets us onto the fenced-in stairs leading down into darkness. The music thunders. Light splashes intermittently as people walk through beams of light coming straight down from spotlights in the ceiling. It’s so familiar, like home. I look dow
n the front bar, and I recognize several of the faces in the light splattering up from the bar. The light casts deep shadows over them, making everyone look demonic. I hang names on those I can—Paul, Missy, Mark, David, Sherry, Darlene, Gray, Bobby V, Rob, Kelly, Lynn—and I wonder if I actually know everyone here. Jack, the bartender, hands us our beers, Chris puts a fin down as a tip, I suck on the cold brew, and everything feels good and right.

  Chris tells me she’ll make the rounds to see who else is here, and she leaves me standing in the darkest corner of the bar, where I can watch but not be seen. It’s always been my favorite spot. I notice people I don’t know. New blood keeping this place alive. Good to see.

  At the far end, Nancy struts up to the bar in a tight, short black cocktail dress.

  “Oh, shit,” I say, pulling back farther into the shadows.

  She gets several drinks.

  If they’re all here, he’s here. I need to get gone. Now.

  “Chris, where are you?” I whisper.

  As Nancy carries off the drinks, I notice she’s not smiling. What the hell’s up tonight?

  Lurking in this deep shadow, I search for Chris, watching out for anyone from the band. The DJ has played “Mambo Witch,” “Isolation,” and “Stainless Steel Providers,” but still no Chris, and I dread that she’s talking to them—to him. Or maybe she’s dancing. She never dances. Not even when she’s drunk. But she never wore makeup either.

  Oh, girl, where the hell are you? Get back now, I think as hard as I can. Please.

  Then someone at the bar recognizes me in spite of the shadows, raises his beer glass, and nudges the girls beside him, and they wave me over, and now I can’t escape, so I trudge over, and the questions start like a flood: Have I gotten married? No. Pregnant? No. School? No. How are the bars there? Some are okay. Night life? Not like here.

  I hate answering these questions.

  More people I used to hang with pile on, asking the same things, and more songs play, and Chris hasn’t come to rescue me, and I’m dreading Jonathan finding me here, so I’m thinking maybe I should simply leave, but I’ve no car, and this is getting very frustrating, so finally I tell everyone I have to find Chris.