The Pull of Gravity

by Brett Battles

The problem with going numb is that you don’t notice things, things that would have jumped out at you on any normal day. Things like how Isabel stiffened anytime Mariella came into the bar. Like how the afternoon receipts seemed lighter than usual. Or how more and more of the girls seemed to be taking shabu-shabu to get them through the night.

  The once stellar reputation of The Lounge was beginning to slip, but I was oblivious. Even as we lost some of our best girls, girls who’d been with us since before I even started, I acted like nothing was wrong. In many ways, I had become like an alcoholic, only most nights I wasn’t drinking at all.

  A couple days before Christmas we had our annual Christmas party and body-painting contest. It was usually a highly attended event. Only this year the crowd was thinner, maybe half the normal size. And while everyone had fun, I don’t think anyone went home thinking it was the best time they’d ever had in Angeles.

  The highlight of the evening, though, was Larry’s unannounced arrival. I hadn’t seen Isabel’s face light up like that in months. Even I felt a certain amount of happiness when I saw him.

  “How you doing, Doc?” he asked, after we’d given each other a warm hug.

  “I’m good,” I said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  He winked at me. “No one did. My Christmas surprise for Isabel.”

  “If you had surprised her any more, I think you would have killed her.”

  We both laughed.

  “I guess I came on the right night,” he said, taking in the festivities.

  I nodded.

  “Good turnout,” he said.

  “Not bad.”

  “I got you something.” He removed the backpack that had been slung over his shoulder and opened it. From inside he pulled out a package, wrapped in gaudy Santa Claus paper, about an inch and a half square and eight inches long. He handed it to me. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the package. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

  “Shut up and open it,” he said.

  The paper flew off and the white cardboard box that was underneath was quickly opened. At first I was looking at the wrong side of whatever was inside, so it appeared to me to be a long piece of metal that had been bent into an “L” shape. But I turned it over and quickly realized it was one of those name placards you see on desks. Engraved into the gold-colored, metal surface was:

  Jay “Doc” Bradley

  Owner/Manager

  “Figured it would look nice in your office,” Larry said. “Just in case anyone wondered who you were.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. For most people, it would have been pretty cool. I had never had anything like it before, and there was a small part of me that felt a little more important as I ran my fingers across my name. But for the rest of me, the sign was an engraved reminder of an act of desperation that had failed.

  I guess it showed on my face because Larry asked, “Don’t you like it?”

  I smiled. “It’s great.”

  “Good,” he said, clapping me on the back. “But that’s not all. I’ve got a dozen of your special-delivery beers back at the hotel, too.”

  “My trusty supplier,” I said, attempting to recover some of my humor.

  “Come by tomorrow. I’ll buy lunch and you can pick them up.”

  “You’re on.”

  I bought him a drink and soon he returned to Isabel, leaving me with my new reminder of my social position.

  Questions began swirling in my head—dangerous questions, all beginning with “why.” As I’d done before, I pushed them to the back of my mind. Only this time they didn’t completely disappear. I signaled for Analyn to get me a San Miguel, hoping that would dull the roar.

  • • •

  There was one other thing of note that happened that night. It was something I might have been the only one to see. At the time, I thought it was kind of funny. Not now.

  The day before, after one of our banter sessions, I had asked Mariella if she was coming to our Christmas party.

  “Of course,” she had said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  She gave me one of those coy looks that said all I had to do was say the word and she would be mine. Only I was pretty sure if I did say the word, I would be more hers than the reverse.

  “Good,” I told her. “We’ll be having a body-painting contest. Maybe you’ll want to join in.”

  “I don’t do that,” she said, feigning indignation.

  There was a time in the past when she had, but I wasn’t going to remind her about that. In fact, I didn’t really care if she showed up or not. Our banter, as fun as it was for a time, was growing stale.

  So on the night of the party, I hadn’t even noticed that it was almost midnight and Mariella had yet to arrive. Instead, I was busy telling Rochelle why it would be a bad idea to go with the guy who wanted to bar fine her. He was already drunk and had a reputation of having a bad temper. But my attempt was only halfhearted and she wasn’t listening to me anyway.

  After she left to get changed, I scanned the room, still nursing the same bottle of beer Analyn had given me an hour earlier. I was about to go over and join Larry and Isabel when the front door opened. Hopeful that a group of guys was about to enter, I stopped.

  But instead of more potential customers, it was Mariella. I laughed to myself. She was wearing a sexy red dress that ended halfway down her thighs, and a Santa hat. Her smile was about as wide as it ever got. It was as if she was saying, “I’m here. The party can start now.”

  She probably thought she was going to get a rock-star greeting, but she had walked in just as “Love Shack” came over the sound system. The dancers, no matter if they were on stage or not, and the waitresses and the bartenders all began doing the dance. The guys began whooping in support, a few of them even trying to join in. So no one saw Mariella step into The Lounge. Only me.

  Her smile slipped a fraction of an inch, and I thought for a second that she was going to step back outside and try her entrance again once the song was over. But as she was turning to leave, she saw something that made her smile disappear. At the other end of her line of sight were Isabel and Larry.

  Mariella walked out, but she didn’t come back in.

  • • •

  I got to Larry’s hotel around two thirty the next afternoon. He was staying at the Las Palmas, so we ate at one of the tables surrounding the pool. As had become my habit, I only picked at my food, eating no more than half of what I’d ordered. I had lost almost twenty pounds since Cathy had left, but on a guy my size it was probably hard to tell. It wasn’t any conscious effort to lose weight, not then. It was more an unintended byproduct of my mental state.

  We’d been talking about his business in San Francisco, his expansion plans and his hopes for the coming years. So when he asked me how I liked things at The Lounge, I thought at first he was going to offer me a job.

  “Things are good,” I said, my voice noncommittal.

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I paused. “Well, things could always be better, but for the most part, it’s fine.”

  He took a bite of his steak. “This is really good,” he said. He looked at my plate. “Don’t you like yours?”

  There was barely a quarter of my steak gone. “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just not that hungry.”

  He cut off another piece of his and put it in his mouth. Once he’d swallowed it, he looked me in the eyes and said, “What’s going on, Doc?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  He set his fork and knife down. “Is it Cathy?”

  “Cathy?”

  “I know she’s been gone for a few months now. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “I’m still not sure what you’re talking about.”

  He didn’t say anything for several seconds, then, “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.” He picked up his Coke and took a drink.

  Until th
at moment I had thought my internal turmoil was just that—internal. I, Psychologist of Fields Avenue, King of Self-Analysis, had been thinking I was projecting an image of normality to the rest of the world. Apparently I was wrong.

  Larry continued eating and I continued pushing my food around my plate. He talked about football and how he wondered if the 49ers would ever get their act together again. I thought about Cathy. He mentioned how cold it was in San Francisco when he left. I wondered how much longer I would actually be able to keep doing this. He said he was going to take Isabel to Manila for a few days and asked if I wanted to come along. I told him I’d love to but didn’t think I could get anyone to cover my shifts for me, when in truth it was because I was afraid I’d start looking for Cathy again. At that point, as far as I knew, she hadn’t left for Sweden yet.

  After we finished eating, Larry signed the bill, and told me he’d walk with me back to The Lounge. I almost told him it wasn’t necessary, afraid he’d want to prod me more. But I said okay and we headed out.

  “Didn’t that used to be Jammers?” he asked as we passed a boarded-up building a block south of Fields.

  “Yeah. Closed up about four months ago,” I said.

  “There never seemed to be many people inside whenever I stopped by.”

  “Exactly why they closed.”

  A little further on, he said, “Isabel wants me to take her to a place called Clowns tonight. You ever been there?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “It’s a comedy club.”

  “In English or Tagalog?”

  “Both.” He had a worried look on his face, so I said, “Don’t worry, you’ll have a good time. But don’t let them know you’re a foreigner.”

  He laughed. “It’s going to be pretty obvious, don’t you think?”

  “Just don’t arrive too early, and whatever you do, when they ask if there are any visitors in the audience, don’t raise your hand.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  When we arrived at The Lounge, we stopped near the front door and shook hands. Larry then handed me the bag of Gordon Biersch Märzan he’d brought.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Have fun in Manila.”

  “We will. Hey, let’s you and me have a boys’ night out when we get back.”

  “Okay, “ I said, then turned for the door.

  “Doc,” Larry called out.

  I looked back at him.

  “If you ever do want to talk, I mean about anything, I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Because of my lunch with Larry, I ended up getting to The Lounge sooner than I was expected. For a weekday afternoon, the bar was crowded, almost two dozen guys enjoying the show and a beer. I assumed Tommy must have sent out the call for reinforcement, because I noticed several girls from the night shift had come in early.

  Tommy, never one to take his job as part-time papasan too seriously, was enjoying the special attention of one of the dancers, a girl named Charlene, and hadn’t noticed me come in. As I walked up, Charlene had just finished unbuttoning his shirt to his waist and was running her hands over his bare, hairy, flabby chest. He had a big grin on his face, and was urging her on with his eyes.

  “Get you something to drink?” I asked him.

  If I hadn’t been looking at him when he turned to me, I wouldn’t have noticed the flash of fear and surprise in his eyes. A fraction of a second later, it was gone.

  “Hey, Doc,” he said.

  “Comfortable?”

  “Couldn’t be more so.”

  Charlene’s hand moved down over his ample stomach toward his pants, then slipped under his waistband.

  “I’ll take that drink now,” he said.

  I laughed and signaled the waitress to bring Tommy a beer. The occasional fooling around on the job was not unusual. Papasans weren’t paid that much, so if a girl was willing to flirt with them, I long ago decided it wasn’t any of my business.

  “I need to do a little work in back,” I said. “Come get me if you need me.”

  I don’t know what Tommy was thinking. I guess he wasn’t. There had been a moment, right after I first arrived, when he could have taken action. The impulse had been there, it was what I’d seen in his eyes. But I suppose once Charlene’s hands started wandering around near his dick, his neural pathways had clogged up and his mind had gone blank.

  In the end, he did get his act together. Only by then it was too late. I was already sitting at the desk in the office staring down at the remnants of two lines of white powder on the desk blotter. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the small plastic bag sitting nearby containing more of the stuff.

  I didn’t even have to taste it to know it was cocaine. In my early Navy days I had tried it once. You never forget.

  “What the hell?” Tommy said. He was standing in the doorway, his shirt not completely buttoned. “Is that what I think it is?”

  I looked at him, my face blank. “You tell me.”

  “That’s not mine, if that’s what you’re thinking. Probably one of the girls’,” he said. “I’ll bring them back here a couple at a time and we’ll find out.”

  He started to leave, but I stopped him with a forceful “Wait.” Once he was looking at me, I said, “Come in and shut the door.”

  I don’t know why he didn’t just run. That’s probably what he was planning to do when he said he was going to round up the girls. But instead, he did as I told him, then took the seat across from me.

  “You have a better plan?” he asked. There was still a hope that I hadn’t guessed the truth in his voice.

  “Yeah.” I stared at him silently for several seconds. “This is what’s going to happen,” I said, keeping my voice level and unemotional. “You’re going to give me your key to The Lounge, then you are going to get up and walk out. You’re not going to talk to anyone. You’re not going to even look at anyone. And, most importantly, you’re never going to come back here. Understand?”

  “But it’s not my—”

  “Bullshit! Don’t even fuck with me, Tommy. It’s yours and we both know it. I told you the rules when I took over as bar manager. Rule number one: no drugs.” I waited a moment to see if he would continue to protest, but he said nothing. “Give me your key.”

  He hesitated a moment, then pulled a set of keys from his pocket, removed one and handed it to me. There was a moment of awkward silence, then he stood up.

  “I’m sorry, Jay. You’re right. I fucked up.” He paused, then said, “But I’m not the only one fucking up around here.”

  He started to put his hand out so we could shake, thought better of it, and left. I followed him out, making sure he didn’t talk to anyone on his way to the front door.

  As soon as he was gone, a few of the girls came over to ask if something was up. I told them everything was fine. They seemed dubious, but once they returned to the fold there were no obvious signs of problems.

  Over the next few days, I began to wonder if I had done the right thing. Maybe it had been an isolated event, and I’d been too harsh on him. It was the life, after all. Things happened, people made mistakes. In our fantasy existence, mistakes were often overlooked, and bad habits encouraged.

  Then I found out it had been more than just the drugs. Tommy had been skimming from the receipts. I couldn’t tell how much was missing, and I would never be able to prove it, but there was no mistaking that money was missing. I knew I should have noticed it earlier, but I hadn’t. It made me wonder what else I had overlooked.

  Tommy was right—he wasn’t the only one fucking up around there.

  • • •

  Larry and Isabel spent Christmas in Manila. He had reserved a room in the one of the best hotels in town, the Makati Shangri-La Hotel. They never left the building the entire time they were there.

  Isabel said it reminded her in many ways of that first trip to Boracay. They were like two people in love for th
e first time. They ate breakfast in bed, went for a swim every day, and made love every afternoon before the sun went down. Dinner was in the Shang Palace, a four-star restaurant on the second level. Then it was back to the room where they’d watch a movie on TV, hold each other, make love again and eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms. There was no Angeles, no go-go bars, no obnoxious customers.

  “And no Mariella,” I said.

  Isabel was silent for a moment. It was late, well after midnight. We were sitting by the pool at my hotel. No one else was around, just two old friends remembering other times. In some ways, better times, in other ways, not.

  “Right,” she said eventually. “No Mariella.”

  “Why did you stay with her?” I asked.

  “It was better than going back to where I was living before,” she said, though without much enthusiasm.

  Physically, it might have been better, I thought. Mentally, I wasn’t so sure.

  “Why didn’t you leave Angeles after Cathy left you?” she asked

  I looked away, toward the ocean. “I don’t know.”

  “Same for me,” she said.

  When I looked back at her, she was holding her empty wine glass in both hands, staring at it absently, a waning smile on her face.

  “Would you like some more?” I asked.

  “What?” She looked up, realized what she’d been doing and put the glass down. “No. No more.”

  “Do you want to go to bed?” I asked.

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  We sat quietly for several minutes listening to the ocean, lost in our thoughts. At some point she reached over and put her hand over mine.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” she said.

  I looked over, brow furrowed. “Who?”

  “Cathy. She got out,” she said, then more distantly added, “She was lucky.”

  I almost laughed in surprise. Though she was right—I was thinking about Cathy—my thoughts were no longer of what could have been, but merely of one friend worrying about another, and hoping she was happy.

  “What were you thinking about?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. There was a pause, then, “Nothing at all.”