by Stan Parish
“I liked your lyrics.”
“Well, they come from the heart.”
“Can I get a little more of that stuff?”
“Of course you can. Come with me.”
With his door locked behind us, Nick tapped a small snowdrift onto the sleeve of a Big Star record.
“How’re you finding the St. Andrews Academy for Misfits and Miscreants?”
“Is that what they call it?”
“That’s what I call it. It’s like the bar scene from Star Wars up there. Every kind of weirdo under one roof.”
“Are you from New York?”
“I’m from West Palm. I met Damien at summer camp a thousand years ago. Imagine what a shit he was as a little kid. It almost deserves a moment of silence. Is he showing you a good time?”
I nodded.
“He’s fun to watch, right? He’d save the planet if he was a car. Runs on his own steam.” Nick did a line, and used the breath he had inhaled to say: “He mentioned you, actually, if you’re the kid from Jersey. I don’t really know you, but I feel like you’re playing this place the way you play guitar, you know? It’s all borrowed licks with you. Anyway, I get what you’re doing there, but what about your buddy on the keys?”
“What about him?”
“What’s his malfunction? What’d he do to end up here?”
“Have you heard of Michael Savage? The financier?”
“No, I’m deaf and blind.”
“That’s Clare’s dad.”
It took me a second to realize that rather than imagining myself telling Nick that, weighing the consequences and thinking it through, I’d gone and done it. The coke had me operating two steps ahead of myself. Nick laid down his credit card.
“I’m assuming Damien doesn’t know that. Well, I’ll be. Jesus, he’d have a field day with that.”
Nick went back to work on the two industrial-sized lines that he was racking up.
“Do you make good bank selling this?”
“Good bank?” Nick laughed. “Yes, I make good bank. I make as much as bankers. Don’t even think about trying that shit over here. I see how you’re looking at this stuff. And you, my friend, are not cut out for this.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The fact that you’re not arguing. You know, you fucked up if you came here to be like the people you’re running around with. Kids like you, they go to a high school full of trust fund babies and they think they can have that if they make the right moves. It doesn’t work that way. What you’re aiming for and what you’re looking at are different things.”
Nick finished his line and held the record sleeve up to my face.
“Let’s get back out there,” he said, and then paused. “Maybe you’ve figured this out already, but you’re either the help or you’re not.”
I thanked him.
Nick pinched my cheek, pulled an envelope from his vest pocket, and slapped it down on my thigh.
“Be cool, stay in school,” he said. “That’s on the house.”
Nick and I bumped into Damien as we stepped into the hall.
“We’re heading to the Opal,” Damien said, “You’re welcome to join us.”
“I’ll pass, brother. You can have the businessmen and their bunnies all to yourself. I don’t feel like fucking with them tonight. Plus, I’ll have seventeen distinct semen samples in my sheets if I don’t stick around. But thanks for stopping by.”
• • •
The driver had fallen asleep with his head against the window. I tried to imagine how it would feel to wake up to four boys coked to the gills, demanding music, lighting cigarettes—to be the help, in other words. We were flying across the city, green lights as far as I could see. Brilliant windows studded the dirty, ornate stone façades. We were all talking at the same time without talking over one another. The driver pulled up to a crowded patch of sidewalk and we seemed to step through the crowd as we stepped out of the car. Damien nodded to a bouncer who unhooked a black velvet rope and ushered us inside. The Opal Lounge looked like a mash-up of New York nightlife as imagined by someone who didn’t live there. The host told us he would have a table in a few minutes, if we cared to have a drink at the bar. Damien ordered champagne, something pink and vintage.
“Shit,” Damien said. “My wallet’s in my coat.”
His coat was with the coat check. He handed me the bill.
“Tom, can you get this one?”
At the going exchange rate, this one was a little more than $800.
“Here,” Clare said, reading my panic. “I owe you for the other night.”
He slapped a card down on the bar, but the bartender had his back to us, so Damien picked it up to tuck it into the check folder. He paused when he felt the weight, and glanced down at the piece of metal in his hand. I watched him read the name stamped into the titanium. Clare pushed past me and shot out a hand to snatch it back, but Damien had already made the handoff. Clare stood at his shoulder while the bartender ran the card. I could see both their reflections in the mirror behind the stacks of back-lit bottles. Damien looked like someone had just put something in his mouth and asked him to guess what it was. I couldn’t look at Clare, so I closed my eyes, my guilt magnified by the drugs. Damien offered Clare the check, and Clare scribbled in a tip and signed a name, his real one, I presumed. He reached around Damien, left the folder on the bar, and walked away.
“You knew the whole time,” Damien said.
“So?”
“Clare’s dad’s name is Michael, right? Don’t bullshit me.”
“I always called him Mister.”
“Yeah,” Damien said. “I bet you did.”
“Did your dad have money with him?”
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever asked me. Please don’t insult my father like that.”
“What’s this?” Jules asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
Damien had turned his attention to a couple who were making their way toward us through the crowd. We had cut them in the line outside, and I knew they were American without hearing them speak. The man—he was at least thirty—looked like he had just come from work, his thick pink tie pulled away from his thick neck under a pinstriped suit. He was nodding enthusiastically with the DJ’s mix. The woman seemed older and wore pearls, a dark skirt, and a soft white sweater. She looked ready to apologize for whatever he had come over to say.
“Hey, I’m Adam,” he said, sticking out a hand. “Could you boys settle a little bet for us? That looked like Prince William who y’all were talking to, but my friend Anna says it’s definitely not.”
“How did you get in here?” Damien asked.
“Whoa, you’re American? Our clients brought us, but they pussed out and went home early. We work for Bear Stearns. Are you guys members or whatever?”
“Let me guess,” Damien said. “Sales and marketing.”
“Did we meet at the conference?”
“Let’s go,” Anna said.
“Hang on a second. Was it?”
“Was it what?” Damien asked.
“Was that Prince William?”
“Well, it would be some coincidence if it wasn’t, don’t you think? He goes to school right up the road. Do you want to meet him? I’m sure he’d love to meet you guys.”
“I know that’s not him,” Anna said, as Damien walked away. “Right?”
“He’ll be here in a second,” I said. “Just ask.”
“Hey, how come you’re all American?” Adam asked.
“We’re not,” Jules said.
Jules seemed unimpressed by this, and I was starting to understand that he didn’t share Damien’s enthusiasm for theater or performance art, or whatever this was. He liked drugs and champagne and conversation; he tolerated this. I felt the same way, and wished tha
t I could make him understand that somehow. Damien and Clare were threading their way back through the crowd. Clare balked at the sight of our new friends, who had their backs to him, but Damien pushed him forward. He was going to make Clare dance.
“Will, this is Adam and, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Anna.”
“Anna, this is Will.”
Anna seemed more interested in Damien than Clare.
“It’s a pleasure,” Clare said.
I coughed over a laugh; Clare’s accent was so good that I wondered if he had been practicing. I was amazed he had agreed to this, but it made sense—impersonating royalty was easier than lying to New York investment bankers about his last name. One was a game, the other was not.
“So do you come here a lot?” Adam asked. “Is this, like, a place where you hang out?”
“A bit,” Clare said.
He was cagey and uncomfortable, which was probably what they expected of royalty faced with tourists.
“So you’re really Prince William? This might sound stupid, but do you have, like, ID or something?”
“Adam, Jesus,” Anna said.
“Do you think the prince of England has a fucking driver’s license?” Damien asked. “He has a driver. Did you see that Benz outside?”
“Fine, fine, I believe you,” Adam said. “I was just fucking with you. Sorry if I came off like an asshole. Can I buy you all a shot or something?”
“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great.”
Damien kept inviting Jules to do the talking, Jules being a close approximation of English royalty, and Adam bought us shot after shot, which seemed to make the coke burn hotter.
“Hey, do you guys do any skiing over here?” Adam asked, shifting his weight back and forth, miming a mogul run. “I got some from our cab driver and we gotta kill it before we fly back.”
The bathrooms at the Opal, studio-sized rooms with locking doors and ample seating, were designed for this kind of thing. Adam offered us key bumps from a green plastic bag. Damien rubbed his finger along the inside edge and touched it to his tongue. He shook his head and slipped a hand inside his jacket pocket.
“I wouldn’t do my laundry with that stuff,” he said. “Flush it. It’s disgusting.”
Once Nick’s envelopes were in rotation, Damien occupied a leather ottoman and Anna, after a few minutes, moved onto his lap. This would be her souvenir from Scotland: a one-night stand with a rich, handsome college kid. I imagined her rehashing it over brunch in Soho with a group of girlfriends, joking that she went all that way to fuck someone from New York. She laughed at something no one had said, and I looked from her face down to her lap, where one of Damien’s hands was resting, the broad pads of his fingertips disappearing in the folds in the fabric between her legs. Adam was less stupid than he had seemed, and was determined to do as much of Damien’s cocaine as possible. He was arguing with Jules about barrel length in shotguns used for sporting clays. Clare kept trying to catch Damien’s eye. Whether he was desperate to explain himself or desperate for something else, I couldn’t tell. I was too high to talk.
Finally, Anna said that she was ready to head back. She stood up and pulled Damien to his feet. Jules said he was going to pop by and see what his sculptor friend was up to. Adam followed him; Damien had left the coke with Jules. Clare caught me by the arm as I tried to leave.
“Hey,” he said.
His eyes were pointing in slightly different directions as he tried to focus on my face.
“I’m sorry about that thing with the card,” I said.
“Whatever, I don’t give a fuck about that. I’m going home. I need cash for a cab.”
“Just take the car.”
“Damien’s taking the car. I need cash. I’m out.”
“I’m out too.”
“How can you be out of cash? You haven’t paid for anything all night. All week. You’re lying.”
He was inching toward me, and I felt time slow to a jagged crawl. Clare grabbed at my front pocket where my wallet was visible against my thigh. His fingers snaked over the hem and found the leather of my billfold. I grabbed his wrist, but Clare wrenched free and tried again. A quick instinctual punch to the stomach dropped Clare to one knee.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I said, as I tried to help him up.
He started slapping at me as he staggered to his feet.
“Give me everything you have on you,” he hissed, almost crying now. “No one touches me.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“You fucking owe me.”
“Owe you for what?”
“For everything. For all the shit I’ve paid for since we got here. I want my money, now.”
His voice was shrill, shattery, just shy of a full-blown shriek. My back was against the wall.
“Stop,” I said. “Stop it. Just relax, OK?”
Clare stuffed his hand in my pocket. I felt his fingers writhing against my thigh as he fought the fabric to pull my wallet free. He fished out fifteen pounds in cash, and flipped my wallet at the floor, where it flopped open on a bounce and landed in a split. I was braced for a hit. Instead, Clare pulled me to him. When his mouth smashed into mine, it felt like a flash grenade had detonated in my head. I was mostly gone while Clare’s front teeth were grating against mine. He let me go as soon as I was all there again, as if that was something he could sense. I thought: What took so long? Clare wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and walked out the door.
I was alone in my room, doing everything but my econ reading so that, eventually, I could sit down and crack my textbook with a clear head. My laundry was half folded when Clare knocked on my door. He seemed, or pretended to seem, confused by my standoffishness. I thought: So this is how it’s going to be. Two nights before, in Edinburgh, with the car gone and no money for a cab of my own, I’d slept on a bench in Waverly Station so that I could take the first train back to Leuchars. I was still sore on my right side. I figured Clare had come by to apologize, but instead he told me that his parents had sent a car for him and had extended the invitation to me. Clare didn’t name a town, but his parents were apparently a short drive from St. Andrews, hiding in plain sight, or not bothering to hide anymore. I could have said that I had work to do, that I was under the weather, wiped out—all true—and I could still hear the fear in my mother’s voice when she’d called to warn me about Michael Savage. But instead I went along. It was Thanksgiving, Clare said, to my complete surprise. We’d be spending the night.
“Your folks don’t give much notice,” I said, as the driver drifted into the fast lane on the A9, heading north. “Why are they in Scotland?”
Clare shrugged.
“Mind sharing?” he asked, touching a finger to his right nostril.
In preparation for my study session, I had dipped into Nick’s gift, some of which was apparently still visible.
“Can we play the radio, sir?” I asked, hoping that the noise would mask the quick nasal intakes and the choppy dialogue that followed. I was working up a mound of powder on the end of my room key when the driver settled on an oldies station. The coke kept my eyes inside the car, and off the route we were taking. In case anybody asked me where the Savages were staying, I could tell them, honestly, that I had no idea.
The house was a broad-shouldered stone mansion, just under an hour from St. Andrews. The winding drive and oval-shaped car park looked like a river feeding off a lake of gravel. The car ground to a stop, and I found myself staring at the driver in the rearview mirror as the interior lights came on. I ducked to wipe my nose clean with my sleeve, and when I looked up, his eyes locked on mine again.
“Thanks for the lift,” I said.
The driver said nothing.
The front door of the house was open and, staring into the glow of the
entryway, I imagined that something terrible had happened here, that we were about to discover the bodies of Clare’s parents, blood soaked, cut down in the middle of a desperate, clawing escape. And then I saw Michael Savage standing in the darkness by a head-high hedge, his arms folded across his chest. He was looking out over the roof of the sedan into the woods that bordered the lawn.
“Tom, nice to see you,” he said. “Glad you could make it. Camille’s a little under the weather. It’s just us boys tonight. I was thinking we could head into town, find a turkey burger in the spirit of the holiday.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Clare asked.
Michael shot his son a look.
“Thanks for having me,” I said.
“Thanks for coming. Throw your things inside and we’ll get going.”
In the right-hand bay of a pristine two-car garage were two ATVs parked nose to tail, the molded plastic saddlebags and rifle cases covered in a fine spray of mud. The other bay held a silver Porsche 911 that looked like it had never seen rain. Clare folded the passenger seat forward so I could climb into the cubbyhole behind it. Michael redlined the engine before he put the car in gear, and drove exactly the speed limit on the narrow, kinky country road, refusing to slow down for curves, exhibiting the kind of precision and control they teach at weekend racing schools. Clare seemed used to this, bracing his body against the padding of the passenger-side racing seat as we flew toward wherever we were headed.
“You boys hungry?” Michael asked.
I had never been less hungry.
“We ate,” Clare said. “Before we left.”
“There’s a band playing at a pub in town. They have grub if your appetites come back. Let’s go hear some music.”
“That sounds great,” I said, thinking of a double vodka soda and a private bathroom stall. I was coming down, and wanted another bump the way a cut will itch as it heals, begging to be torn back open.
The town, two loose strings of shops facing a narrow road, sat beside a dark unbending river, its banks covered by naked trees rooted in mud. I could see my breath in the air, and the chemical aftertaste of the coke made it seem like exhaust instead of exhalation. A bouncer sat hunched on a stool outside the bar, statuesque, a cap over his eyes. He raised his head as we approached and waved us down a flight of stairs. We ducked into a long underground room, where a band was playing on a plywood platform at the end opposite the door. They were covering “Hey, Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms while an overweight woman, her long blond hair streaked with electric blue, danced alone in front of them, swinging her hips and her head with her hands at her sides. We sat down by the stage. Michael hung his topcoat on the back of his chair, and tossed a ring of keys into a patch of light cast by the single candle on our table. I studied the teeth cut into the blanks, wondering which locks they fit. Michael turned to me, suddenly, nodded toward the band, and asked what I thought.