Tell Me How This Ends Well

by David Samuel Levinson

  Up ahead, a sign indicated that if he wanted to get to Calabasas, he should take exit 63B to merge onto the 101. He took the curve and merged again, slowing down considerably to join another stagnant pool of traffic, a wall of brake lights and fenders. He drove with a deep sense of regret and reservation, for a part of him wanted to forget about it all, forget everything he and his siblings had discussed, forget that his mom was dying and that his dad was going to die, even if he deserved it and she did not. He wanted to forget that he’d ever suggested this trip to Diet, forget about the Seder and Clarence Lee Chalmers. There was still time, he thought, to present an extraordinary excuse to his family about why he and Diet weren’t coming after all. It would be so easy to lie, to tell them their originating flight in Berlin had been canceled on account of snow, which would not have been far from the truth—theirs had been the last flight out of Berlin Brandenburg before they’d shut down the airport and discontinued all other flights.

  He’d even suggested to Diet they wait until travel conditions improved before chancing it, as a late-winter storm, an anomaly for that time of year, was gathering strength in the Atlantic and threatening to dump three feet of snow across New York City. And if they closed the airports in New York and New Jersey, God only knew in what city and on what runway they would end up. “It’s a matter of timing and connections,” he told Diet, who understood what was happening and took hold of Jacob’s hand—Jacob who detested flying almost as much as he detested the prospect of having to spend four days with his family. “I will hold your hand the entire way,” Diet said, kissing him. “I will not let anything happen to you, Jay.” And he did hold Jacob’s hand just as he said he would, and they’d landed on time and without any pother at a snowy JFK and made their connection to Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, where he called Edith, who was flying out the next day, and where they again had to change planes. Diet never once let go of Jacob’s hand, not in the entire twenty hours of travel they began in the late morning on April 13 and didn’t complete until midmorning on April 14. In some way, he wished they were still on the plane, for he missed Diet’s fingers twined in his own, the grip tight and reassuring, a pressure unlike any other and one that he’d remember until his dying day.

  Now, according to Jacob’s calculations, it was nearing 1:30 P.M. here in L.A. and 9:30 P.M. back in Berlin, which, he understood, accounted for the tremendous torpor he was experiencing in nearly every part of his body. He felt the drag thoroughly and throughout, an exorbitant physical and spiritual heaviness, as if every one of his cells and corpuscles were alchemizing, turning to lead. Or pleather, he thought, feeling suddenly at one with his seat, with every seat he’d sat in during the last twenty-four hours, from the taxi ride to the airport in Berlin to the cramped excuses for seats on every plane they’d flown on.

  Jet lag was odd, and Jacob experienced it oddly, as both a shrunken and expansive form of himself, in touch with who he was and also out of touch with the rest of the world, which went sluicing by in a single wet blur. He knew full well that he was strapped into the rental car and speeding toward his brother’s, yet at the same time was convinced he’d never left Berlin and was about to join Diet in bed. Afternoon and night, here and not-here, split in half only to be repurposed whole again elsewhere—these moments of concurrent temporality coexisted within him and produced the profound, eerie sensation of being and having been in several places at once. Though he was far from religious, he wondered if this weren’t the closest thing to what life after death might be like—not the haunting of several different places at once but participating in several different manifestations of your own consciousness equally and at the same exact moment.

  Ghosts in our own machines, Jacob thought, hitting the scan button on the radio and trying to find NPR, which he did, though it wasn’t the show All Things Considered as he had hoped but another rousing rendition of Little Brother, a program in which ordinary citizens were witnesses to extraordinary events, catching every second of it on their smartphones. Today’s guest was a native Los Angeleno who’d recorded a gang of teenage skinheads ambushing a young pregnant woman and bludgeoning her to death in the parking lot of Temple Beth Am, on La Cienega.

  “It was late and at first I didn’t understand what they were up to,” the man recounted, “but then I saw them swinging these, well, they looked like homemade maces, tube socks stuffed with bars of soap that were hammered through with nails—even from where I was, I smelled the Ivory soap; I still can’t wash my hands with the stuff without retching—and that’s when I pulled out my phone because what kind of person would it make me if I hadn’t done something?”

  But you didn’t do anything! Jacob thought, disgusted, unable to bear another second of such cold, calculated indifference, for the man, instead of dialing 911, decided to use his phone for other means, as a way of becoming a guest on what had become one of the most popular shows in the history of radio. Jacob hit the scan button again but not before the recording began to play and the young woman was shrieking for help as the gang closed in around her, their taunting faint but still recognizable: “Oven magnet,” “Jew will die,” and “Hitler was right.” As an antidote and to combat the horror of the image of that poor young woman, who could just as easily have been a close friend or even his sister as anyone, Jacob settled on KJEW, a station his sister-in-law, Pandora, raved about, mainly because it plugged her business, Pandora’s Box, for free. Today Jacob happened to land on the station right in the middle of an opera, the title of which was finally revealed to him during a station break—not a plug for Pandora and her ubiquitous Box, but one that reminded everyone that local Jewish baker and matzo maker Goldie Goldfarb was still taking special orders for Pesach, which lay just around the corner.

  “Don’t forget to clean out those cupboards of your chametz, ladies and gents, and donate all your yeasty, leavened goodies to charity, preferably to us here at KJEW,” and the announcer rattled off an address somewhere in downtown L.A. “So harrumph and rise to the occasion, folks, and a mitzvah on all your houses!” He tapped a gong three times in succession, then added, “A big Jew-cy welcome to all those of you just now joining us. Congratulations again on spinning the dial and landing on us here at KJEW, because you do not want to miss another second of this remarkable production of The Death of Klinghoffer, brought to you by none other than the Metropolitan Opera of Jew York. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, stop right this second and feast your ears on this,” and up came the music, as if from the bowels of the car itself, mesmerizing Jacob, who normally disliked opera.

  “Isn’t that right, my sleeping Schatz? Opera and I don’t mix, do we?” Jacob asked, creeping his way along Ventura Freeway until the traffic stopped again. “But hear this: If you don’t wake up soon, we’re going directly to the emergency room,” and he removed his hands from the wheel to clap loudly at Diet, who opened his eyes and squinted against the somber afternoon light.

  “Baby, you are back again,” Jacob said in relief, while the music took a dramatic turn, darkening considerably and signaling the eventual murder of the invalid Klinghoffer by one of the terrorists in the Palestinian Liberation Organization. An absolute philistine when it came to opera, Jacob had never heard of this Klinghoffer person, much less how he’d managed to get an opera named after him and have a production of it staged at Lincoln Center.

  “Oh, I think this is the part where they shoot Klinghoffer. It happens offstage,” said Diet, who was as much an opera aficionado as Jacob was not. Jacob observed him carefully as he yawned and stretched, exhibiting only the telltale signs of having been asleep, nothing to indicate he’d fallen into a dangerous unconsciousness. Diet pulled down the visor and peered at the welt in the small, glowing mirror, wincing. “I am such the idiot. We will tell everyone who asks that I slipped in the shower. In das kleinste Bad in der Welt,” and he grinned at the evocation of the nickname he’d given to their bathroom back in Berlin, which in fact was the smallest bathroom in the worl
d at about four feet by three feet. Before the traffic started to move again, Jacob reached around into the backseat, producing a Drumstick and the can of Coke. He offered both to Diet, who grinned again and said, “Schatz, you make me the happiest German boy in the whole state of California.”

  “There’s ice, too,” Jacob said, “in case you want to use it on your noggin.”

  Diet reached over and caressed the back of Jacob’s neck, his fingers frigid, which gave Jacob a jolt and made him whimper, which in turn made Diet say, “You like that, don’t you?” Jacob said that he did. “We will save the ice for later,” and he purred mischievously, bringing the cold, perspiring can of Coke up to his forehead, where he gently held it.

  “You scared me, but you’re feeling okay, right? You’re not seeing double or dizzy or anything?” Jacob asked, while Diet removed the can and studied the map in his lap. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “None, because I must navigate for you,” Diet said, giving him a sideways smile. “I was knocked up for a long time?”

  Though Jacob had warned him not to fall asleep, he couldn’t bring himself to scold him, although he suspected that’s exactly what Diet would have done if the situation had been reversed. A part of him wished Diet was still asleep, for now they would have to discuss the lingering, nagging question of this Lucius Freund character and who the hell he was and how Diet had met him and fallen in love with him—and he struggled with the insurmountable uncertainty of the future with Diet, which up until a couple of hours ago had appeared to him to be inscrutable. Sure, they had their issues, some more ongoing than others, but here was their chance to make a clean break with those other two men, the ones they’d left behind in Berlin, and concentrate on these men, this Jacob, who was driving and trying not to think about Diet’s prior declaration—that Jacob pull the car over—and this Diet, who was busy studying the map of L.A. and directing Jacob to take exit 27B, then turn onto Mulholland Drive. Let those other two men do battle, Jacob thought. Let those other two continue to assume the worst about each other, while this Diet and this me recommit to this relationship.

  “That rain makes me think we never left Berlin,” Diet said, lifting his eyes from the map to stare out the windshield. “So far, L.A. has not proven impressive to me. It is an ugly place, I think.”

  “Oh? You can already tell that based on your extensive experience of it?” Jacob asked, knowing the moment he said it that it came out all wrong, for Diet withered in his seat and returned the can of Coke to his forehead.

  “My head pounds,” he said, more to himself than to Jacob, who understood that he’d accidentally wounded Diet again.

  “L.A. is actually quite beautiful. You’ll see, Schatz. I mean, it’s no Berlin,” Jacob said, backpedaling, softening his voice, his stab at trying to erase any trace of impatience and ire.

  As focused as he was on smoothing things out with Diet, he nearly forgot about the exit, which he was going to miss if he didn’t get over immediately. He shot into the far-right lane, cutting off a young Latino man with a big, fat teardrop tattoo who was driving a low-riding, restored Cadillac Seville. He had no other choice but to let Jacob muscle his way in, albeit hatefully and with horns and middle fingers blaring, all of which elicited a terrible, curdling cry from Diet that they were going to die. He shut his eyes and braced himself for an eventual impact that luckily never came. “What the hell? He was in my blind spot. Have a little faith in me, huh,” Jacob said, breathing more calmly now that he’d left the 101, which would go on torturing other drivers for hours and days and years to come. (Though Jacob knew nothing about it, US News & World Report had just published a new issue that ranked driving in L.A. as the number one cause of stress, well above perennial favorites, moving and death, in just about everyone of any age.)

  “That cowboy antic is sure to kill us,” Diet said, giving him one of his all-too-familiar, all-too-punishing looks. “The roads here are always like this?”

  Sitting up as high as they were, Jacob had a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the swirling, tortoise-green skies that hung over the San Fernando Valley and the close-knit terra-cotta-roofed homes that hugged the sides of the undulating hills and looked as if they might come away at any moment. He couldn’t imagine how his brother and sister-in-law dealt with it all—the potential threats of sinkholes, earthquakes, and wildfires and the more real, more immediate threats of drought and suicide car bombers. All of these disasters just waiting to happen, and for what, to say that you lived in a mild climate where the sun shines three hundred and fifty days out of the year? And wouldn’t you know that we’d fly in on one of its off days, Jacob thought, which was odd, because he had no real stake in L.A. either way. Yet the more Diet pointed out its flaws, the more Jacob felt personally assailed and needed to defend the city against him.

  Heading north on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, they passed a Denny’s, yet another iconic American breakfast spot, Jacob told Diet, who, it turned out, already knew about the chain from his stint in Baltimore, and who summarily dismissed it as “some of the worst American poison I ever put into my mouth.” Which made Jacob wonder if Diet weren’t holding on to some residual resentment, payback for Jacob’s own role in their harrowing, horrendous first few weeks in Berlin when Jacob came down on Berlin hard, insulting the bland weather and the blander German food and accusing Diet of not seeing what he did each time they left the flat: Nazis in various guises everywhere. It didn’t help that they were living directly across from a sports bar, which was an alleged gathering spot for neo-Nazi skinheads, or that Jacob spent many hours on the Internet, secretly viewing YouTube footage of Kristallnacht and portions of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. Diet called this dark period in Jacob’s acclimation “The Month of Nazis Everywhere” and had even downloaded and printed out a translation of Das Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany) and read it to a terrified Jacob, who appreciated that his lover had gone to such lengths to soothe his fears, although it had little impact. For Jacob continued to see swastikas and hear “der Jude” in the air no matter what Diet did or said.

  “Look, we’re only here for a few days, so let’s just give it a chance before condemning it,” he said. “Or I can always just let you off on the side of the road and you can call Lucius Freund to come get you,” and though he was smiling as he said it, his voice was pinched with jealousy again. “I just want to know if you were really serious or—”

  “Jay, I made it all up,” Diet said, keeping his face turned toward the window. Jacob couldn’t help but register the sorrow in his lover’s voice and beyond this the crisp, cold, vexing snap of exasperation. “It was a bad joke. We’re taking your parents for dinner this night at Luscious Friend. Your brother recommended the restaurant to me when he called a few days ago. I reserved a table for us.”

  “I see,” Jacob said, thinking he should just let it go, because Diet, like most Germans, had such a poor sense of timing and an even worse sense of delivery.

  “I upset you. It was not intended,” he said, his voice both detached and full of hurt, which moved Jacob. Out of all the men he’d ever loved, and the number was small and dwindling, he trusted Dietrich Krause the most, for Jacob could find next to nothing disingenuous about him—and he’d tried—which was why he’d believed his story about Lucius in the first place.

  “Luscious Friend/Lucius Freund: pretty clever,” Jacob said, though now that the initial shock had worn off, he experienced another, more menacing one and began to wonder if Diet hadn’t used the ruse to test him, to gauge Jacob’s reaction and thus his commitment. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  “You must turn left onto Mulholland Highway, then again left onto Edelweiss Drive,” Diet said, tracing a finger along the map to where Jacob had drawn a star in red ink to mark the approximate location of his brother’s house. “Then it looks like a right onto Von Trapp Lane and this will wrap around into a caul-de-sac.” J
acob had already ranted at length about the bizarre choice in subdivision names—Edelweiss Estates—and the equally bizarre choice in streets, ranging from his brother’s to others like Pomerania Way and Graz Road.

  “Cul-de-sac,” Jacob said, correcting him, and pulled up to the guardhouse, which sat at the entrance to Edelweiss Estates, both men oblivious to the end of the rain and the clearer skies, the sun burning off what was left of the dark, mealy clouds. All of a sudden, the day was drying off, warming up, inundating them with sunshine.

  “You with the reality show?” asked the guard, a puffy, middle-aged matron in her late fifties, the ridge of her oily forehead riddled with a constellation of pimply-looking sores, her chin with coarse gray hairs. As though she were merely an extension of the seat and made out of the same foam and plastic, she rose without getting up and leaned over to peer into the car, squinting at Jacob, then past him to Diet, who was fiddling with his seat belt, which seemed to be jammed, and muttering indecipherable German.

  “But the show’s been over for months. Didn’t it get canceled?” Jacob asked as the guard shrugged, this motion of hers coinciding exactly with the raising of the mechanical arm under which the car slowly rolled.

  “You have a nice day,” she said, or might have said, if Jacob had been listening more closely. He wanted her to have said it, yet in the back of his mind he was convinced that what she actually said was “You are so gay.” He would have asked Diet if he’d heard her, except Diet was still preoccupied with loosening his restraint and hadn’t been paying attention.