Planet Willie

by Josh Shoemake

  “Maybe in 1980!” she cries, charmed by my ignorance and whatnot. “Hell, you’d have to dig around in Jimbo’s closet for something like that. Paisley’s like some endangered species.”

  “And how is Jimbo?” I ask real sweet. She looks down at the wall-to-wall carpet and swats at my chest like I’ve got a mosquito there.

  “What I want to know,” she says, twisting a finger into my ribs like she’s mashing that bug real good, “is if you’ve seen Caroline.”

  “Caroline who?” I say, so she proceeds to tell me about the new and improved Caroline Susan, who’s apparently using her husband’s money to finance a long abiding passion for competitive high diving, yet another passion of Caroline’s that’s news to me. Been training for a year and a half and placed third in the over-forty division at last July’s Texas Amateur Aquat-athon, second in doubles with a fella named Rock Lightford, who apparently once placed in the U.S. nationals and, according to Junie, sticks his landings with perfect verticals. Rumor has it that Caroline is also getting him horizontal, which is the one piece of information here that comes as no surprise.

  “She still with that Susan?” I ask.

  “Oh she wouldn’t leave him for the world,” Junie says real sarcastic, and then she wants to know whether I want that suit on a hanger. I tell her I’ll just wear that suit right out of there. Keep the coat hanger, save the trees.

  From there I head for Houston, which takes me through midnight, and where I find a hotel room by the airport with all the modern amenities. In the morning I’m up for the breakfast buffet, feeling more than a little nervous about air travel, so I take a brief moment to imagine myself dying at the hands of ruthless highjackers. I’ve been doing this kind of thing ever since I was a kid. I like to think of it as a little prayer in reverse. If you can imagine the worst, I always think, then things can only be better.

  I picture it all in my mind – the ski masks, the screams, the feel of the blade as it moves through my throat. The more vivid you can make it, the more effective I’ve found it is. The philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote somewhere that no man should be called happy until after his death. He was an idiot, of course, but I think about that sometimes when I die my little deaths. You’ve got to make it real in your mind, or else you won’t enjoy the benefits.

  In any case, my little meditation does get me feeling especially good to be alive. Refreshed, is how I feel. I have a big breakfast, getting my fill of some earthly bacon, and head for the car park up the highway that’s got this shuttle bus over to the terminal. Long-Term Parking, they call it, but what I’m intending here is long-term in the extreme sense of the word, a sense of which I unfortunately have some knowledge. Yes, I mean Eternal Parking, as much as it hurts me to say it. I mean parking forever for the trucks you’ve loved the most. I’m driving up the highway trying to get up the nerve, and isn’t that always when you start noticing the little things, the ones you’ll miss? I mean for the first time in a while, I’m paying attention to the sound of her motor, the pull of her wheel. I’m also noticing a tendency on her part to shut off entirely if she gets to pushing thirty, and it pains me to see her hurting this way. She’s finished, and I know I have to do it, but by the time I’ve spiraled up the deck to a free spot with a view, I also know I can’t do it this way. Sentimental I’m not, but you leave your truck to die in a place like this, you get to thinking about your own death again, and I’ve done more than enough of that. You never want it to come – believe me – but you really don’t want it to come this way, lined up with the others like in a nursing home. You wait every day for something to come and set you free, but it’s never going to come. You wouldn’t want that for anyone, much less a beloved truck.

  So I just spiral right back down. Drive back on up the access road a half mile or so until I find what I’m looking for, a little dirt road running back into what must have once been farm country. Jumbo planes ease down over brown fields and telephone wires. I turn off into a field, kill the engine, and take the thirty-eight around to the front of her. Step a few paces back from the grill, steady my legs, and lift the gun. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I pull the trigger, then pull again, six shots as regular as heartbeats. Then it all goes quiet, and though you want to make it a sad story, the truth is it’s so good I reload and step in a bit closer for another round. Six like lightning, blam blam Willie the Kid. And I want her to explode for me, but mister she just sighs. What the hell, rest in peace. From there it’s not a long walk to New York City.

  3

  The address Shore’s given me for Fernanda’s gallery is in Soho, not far from a little roof apartment where I once stayed a month or so with a girl who played tambourine in an up-and-coming rock band. Great American hope on the tambourine, this girl, and mister did she practice. I’d wake at eight in the morning with the sun blazing down on the corrugated tin roof the owner hadn’t bothered to insulate, and man she’d just be beating time. You’d worry about the mental capacities of such a girl, and you’d be right. Personality like a metronome. Eight-fifteen and I’m out on the streets. Don’t need coffee, need a briefcase of horse tranquilizers. Ended up spending whole days in the Public Library trying to get cool and flipping through the pages of books I never read. It took a few more years out on the road to make a bookworm out of Mister Willie B. Lee, the B as in I don’t have to tell you.

  I take a taxi into the city, which must still be one of the greatest rides on the planet. The Empire State Building comes into view, and you can’t help but get that little lift. We work through traffic down to Soho, where a lot’s changed since I last visited. Back in the day, Soho was where regular people still lived. Now even the diners have bouncers and stores are selling thousand-dollar tennis shoes. I don’t guess anybody plays tennis in thousand-dollar shoes.

  I ask the taxi driver to cruise up Fernanda’s street until we find the address, passing quite a few other galleries with art in the windows of the sort I’d need a few drinks in me to even begin appreciating. Fernanda calls her place Shore, and it looks as if her father’s money has been put to good use. It’s one of the biggest places on the block, with some of the biggest windows, and the art in those windows actually looks as if it might someday make somebody’s wall feel good about itself.

  I pay off the driver and move my suitcase out onto the sidewalk beside an open flatbed truck, from which a crew of men in overalls are unloading what look like boarded-up paintings. The door to the gallery is open, and this redhead in reading glasses is standing there looking nervous. Could be thirty, could be sixty, and there’s not a chance in hell this is Fernanda Shore. Her hair’s pulled back in a tight bun, and the only makeup she’s got on is green lipstick. She’s the kind of woman who makes herself ugly to punish the male species, though honestly I’ve never met one of the species who felt the slightest guilty pang. Anyway, it gets worse. She’s got this string of painted rocks round her neck and is wearing what looks like a faded wedding dress. I’m thinking of Miss Havisham, from ol’ Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, because Miss Havisham joins the circus is the overall effect.

  A bell rings from inside the gallery, and she turns to go back inside. I follow her in, where she’s picked up a phone from a big desk carved from what looks like ebony. From what she’s saying, it sounds like they’ve got a big art show that night, which must be what those fellas are unloading from the truck. I pick up a paper off the desk and glance down a list of prices, and you just can’t believe the number of zeros down there. Old masters, lots of what look like Dutch and Italian names, though no sign of our friend Botticelli or his school. I have a look around the place. White walls going up a couple stories, with catwalks and more art up in the balconies. Hardwood floors stretching everywhere and a mix of styles on the walls, from modern finger painting to landscapes that look pretty old. From the stereo a woman in a sexy voice sings over electronic beeps in a language that may be Scandinavian. We’re the onl
y ones in there, Havisham, me and this Scandinavian number, and if I know how Fernanda bought the place, I wonder how she pays the bills.

  “Can I help you?” Havisham says, like she knows perfectly well she can’t. She’s hung up the phone and is giving me the smile she’s memorized for smiling occasions. You get the feeling she’d be disappointed if I went ahead and wrote out a check.

  “I certainly hope you can,” I say, giving her a grin that starts slow and carries right up through the eyebrows. The Facelifter, I call it, and it will generally give you a few seconds to work. Generally discombobulates, the Facelifter, and as predicted Havisham lifts a hand to fidget with her hair.

  “Your hair looks fine,” I say. “I’m looking for Fernanda Shore.”

  “Oh,” she says. Cranks up that smile even bigger, and I’d hate to have to give a name to this one. I mean you can just see those tendons working, such that you realize for the first time what a terrible thing a tendon is. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but Ms. Shore is out.”

  “Does she by any chance have a phone number where I could reach her?”

  “Oh we don’t give out Ms. Shore’s phone number.”

  “Then maybe you can help me,” I say, beginning to get a bit irritated with Havisham. This is going nowhere, so we may as well get there quick. “I was hoping to buy a little painting today,” I say. “Maybe something fifteenth century. You have anything fifteenth century? To my mind there hasn’t been any really superior painting since.”

  “We do,” she says, not liking me any more as an art lover. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well let me see,” I say. “I’m a great admirer of Mister Leonardo da Vinci. You’re probably familiar with his Mona Lisa. Also designed a helicopter, Leonardo, although I don’t imagine you sell those. If not Leonardo, then there’s always Michelangelo, am I right? Also I’m a Madonna freak, principally her early music, and also anything on canvas of the mother of Jesus Christ. A Botticelli Madonna I would find particularly satisfactory. Hell, even a school of Botticelli Madonna. Trained them well, didn’t he? So if you’ve got one of those, I don’t even need to see it. You can go ahead and start wrapping it up.”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any of those,” she says, the face going even tighter if you can believe it, such that I am getting truly fascinated.

  “Then would you tell Ms. Shore I stopped by,” I say most politely. “Willie Lee’s the name. Tell her I’ll just see her tonight at the show if I don’t run into her before.”

  Then I walk right out of there and turn down the street with my suitcase in my hand. Through the gallery window I can see Havisham still watching me as she picks up the phone again. Probably calling one of her girlfriends. I’ve just met the most amazing man.

  A block down I come to a cafe and decide to stop in for a drink to help me get over Havisham. The beer tastes good, so I order a little digestif, and as I’m digesting, these two kids come in looking like Halloween. He’s got on what looks like a soccer uniform and a goofy Russian military cap. She’s got on a pink beret, a camouflage tank top, and these shiny pants made of enough material to outfit with parachutes a medium-sized air force. The kid lets her open the door for him. You can tell it’s not out of laziness but the result of some philosophy he’s worked up for himself. Pitiful posture too. They’re both over six feet tall and may be on a hunger strike.

  The place is empty, but they go ahead and sit down at the table right next to mine, which I’d like to attribute to my breathtaking charm if only Twiggy weren’t looking through me like some department store mannequin. Anatomy class in a tank top, she is. So emaciated you get ideas. I mean maybe you’re not a tit man after all. Maybe you’re a clavicle man. I’ve seen crazier, and crazier may be the kid, who though he can’t be more than three feet from me actually picks up his hand and waves.

  “How you folks doing,” I say.

  “Howdy partner,” he says. “Welcome to New York.” Twiggy ignores us both. She’s picked up her knife and is carving something into the table in full view of the waiter. The kid orders beers and proceeds to tell me that he and Twiggy are Albanian, from Albania. They’ve come to America on a grant from their far-sighted government. Both artists, apparently. Twiggy also appears to be a deaf mute.

  I ask him what kind of art, he tells me he’s a hyper-realist. Twiggy, on the other hand, is into video installations. “Fascinating field,” I say, though honestly it sounds a bit like the tambourine. You can be the best tambourine player in the world, but it’s still a tambourine.

  Then he wants to tell me about avant-garde and the new revolution. I take it the kid’s not real used to opportunities for conversation, certainly not with Twiggy, so I’m happy to oblige. Then he won’t shut up. Meanwhile Twiggy’s cutting away whole chunks of their table, and I’m starting to feel like a charitable institution.

  “You two show your work in the galleries down around here?” I ask.

  Kafka, as I’ve decided to call the kid, laughs out loud, his voice cracking a bit. He’s got a few chin hairs that won’t make a beard and big innocent eyes that will never look as tough as he might want them to.

  “What galleries?” he says, looking out the cafe windows and pretending to search the street high and low. “I don’t see any galleries. I see a few financial brokers selling investments to the capitalist power structure, but I don’t see any galleries.”

  And what do you say to that? I wish I knew, but honestly I have no idea, so I ask if by any chance they’ve heard of any of the owners of said financial brokers, specifically a Fernanda Shore. Twiggy stops carving to give this some attention, not that I’m sure I want it. She looks up with that knife in her hand like she’d just as soon carve me as the table. Kafka too, for that matter, who clears his throat and stares down at his beer. You can see who wears the pants in this relationship, and honestly you just can’t believe these pants.

  We finish our beers with some small talk about the weather and New York City, then Kafka wants to know if I have a place to stay. He knows a little artist’s hotel nearby where he can get me a special rate. I’m in no need of special rates with the kind of finance I’m carrying around, but I figure I’ll drop off the suitcase and walk around the neighborhood a bit before Fernanda’s show that night. Also, who knows, there may be something more to be learned from Albania.

  Out on the street we pile into this old Volkswagen Beetle with a portrait of Che Guevara airbrushed across the hood. Kafka drives us up past Washington Square Park to a brownstone on a side street just north of New York University. There’s a greasy-looking falafel shop on the ground floor and stairs that lead up to a glass door and a buzzer. Kafka tells me to go on in, and he and Twiggy will catch up with me later. I ring the buzzer and push through into what looks like an apartment building. A hand-printed sign directs me down the hall to a steel door that says Hotel Blue, and though experience has taught me never to spend a night in a hotel with a hand-printed sign, it has also taught me that sometimes you can’t be too picky. I ring another buzzer and go on in to a little reception room that may well have been painted blue sometime during the administration of President William Henry Harrison, the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe. Now it’s color of an ashtray and smells like one too. So ashtray blue, I’d say to Shore if asked.

  A few kids Kafka and Twiggy’s age sit around on busted couches smoking cigarettes like they’re a main food group. They’re dressed like somebody opened a time capsule from the nineteen sixties and was selling costumes cheap.

  “Welcome!” says a big broad in a bathrobe from behind a desk that also comes in handy as a brassiere. Rarely have I seen tits of such magnitude. She smiles and runs a hand through her hair, which is long and streaked with grey. I tell her Kafka said she’d have a room. She smiles. I ask if she happens to have one available, and boy she smiles. I tell her my name is Inigo Montoya and I’ve come to avenge the death of my father, which gets me the most charming smile. Doesn’t speak a word of English except
welcome, apparently. Story of my life. Lack of communication. Figure maybe it’s a sign, like maybe English language instruction was my true calling. Denied it all those years. Professor Willie.

  She shouts over to one of the smokers in what I figure is Albanian. Sounds like Italian with engine troubles. “How many nights you stay?” he asks. I tell him I’ll start with one and try to avoid the second. He nods at the woman, who takes a key from out of the breastworks and rises to her feet with the aid of some complicated breathing techniques. She leads me down a dim hallway in her bare feet until we come to a door, which she unlocks before waving me into a room smelling of incense that almost makes me wistful for my cloud. The bed looks clean though, and I figure it will do. I nod to the woman, she gives me the key, and I listen to her breathe back down the hallway.

  Exhausting, really. In some Albanian flophouse losing my philosophy. I unpack a few things and put the gun in a drawer. Then I slide open the window for some fresh air, strip down to my underwear, and do some deep knee bends, some pushups, even a few bonus sit ups. You want to keep the body honed. Afterwards I dig around to see if maybe I’ve missed the minibar. An optimistic nature, mine, despite all evidence to the contrary. Well there’s not one, so I go back out to reception to see if somebody can rustle me up something wet, only to find that Kafka has arrived. He’s in heated conversation with the costume party, such that he doesn’t see me standing there.

  So I do a little drinking pantomime for the elephant woman. She smiles and starts to get up, but then I get worried she’ll go to all that trouble for a glass of water or something, so I do some more of the drinking motion and stumble around a bit like a drunk, meaning to make myself clear. About this time Kafka notices me flopping around, and I ask him if he thinks he could get me some bourbon.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe she’s got some whiskey in the kitchen.”