Men and Cartoons

by Jonathan Lethem

  The Spray

  THE APARTMENT WAS BURGLED AND THE police came. Four of them and a dog. The three youngest were like boys. They wore buzzing squawking radios on their belts. The oldest was in charge and the young ones did what he told them. The dog sat. They asked what was taken and we said we weren't sure—the television and the fax machine, at least. One of them was writing, taking down what we said. He had a tic, an eye that kept blinking. “What else?” the oldest policeman said. We didn't know what else. That's when they brought it out, a small unmarked canister, and began spraying around the house. First they put a mask over the mouth and nose of the dog. None of them wore a mask. They didn't offer us any protection. Just the dog. “Stand back,” they said. They sprayed in a circle toward the edges of the room. We stood clustered with the policemen. “What's that?” we said. “Spray,” said the oldest policeman. “Makes lost things visible.”

  The spray settled like a small rain through the house and afterward glowing in various spots were the things the burglar had taken. It was a salmon-colored glow. On the table was a salmon-colored image of a box, a jewelry box that Addie's mother had given us. There was a salmon-colored glowing television and fax machine in place of the missing ones. On the shelves the spray showed a Walkman and a camera and a pair of cuff links, salmon-colored and luminous. In the bedroom was Addie's vibrator, glowing like a fuel rod. We all walked around the apartment, looking for things. The eye-tic policeman wrote down the names of the items that appeared. Addie called the vibrator a massager. The dog in the mask, eyes watering. I couldn't smell the spray. “How long does it last?” we said.

  “About a day,” said the policeman who'd done the spraying, not the oldest. “You know you c-can't use this stuff anymore, even though you c-can see it,” he said. “It's gone.”

  “Try and touch it,” said the oldest policeman. He pointed at the glowing jewelry box.

  We did and it wasn't there. Our hands passed through the visible missing objects.

  They asked us about our neighbors. We told them we trusted everyone in the building. They looked at the fire escape. The dog sneezed. They took some pictures. The burglars had come through the window. Addie put a book on the bedside table on top of the glowing vibrator. It showed through, like it was projected onto the book. We asked if they wanted to dust for fingerprints. The older policeman shook his head. “They wore gloves,” he said. “How do you know?” we said. “Rubber gloves leave residue, powder,” he said. “That's what makes the dog sneeze.” “Oh.” They took more pictures. “Did you want something to drink?” The older one said no. One of the younger policemen said, “I'm allergic, just like the d-dog,” and the other policemen laughed. Addie had a drink, a martini. The policemen shook our hands and then they went away. We'd been given a case number. The box and the cuff links and the rest still glowed. Then Addie saw that the policemen had left the spray.

  She took the canister and said, “There was something wrong with those policemen.”

  “Do you mean how young they seemed?”

  “No, I think they always look young. You just don't notice on the street. Outdoors you see the uniforms, but in the house you can see how they're just barely old enough to vote.”

  “What are you going to do with that?” I said.

  She handled it. “Nothing. Didn't you think there was something strange about those policemen, though?”

  “Do you mean the one with the lisp?”

  “He didn't have a lisp, he had a twitchy eye.”

  “Well, there was one with an eye thing, but the one who stuttered—is that what you mean by strange?” Addie kept turning the canister over in her hands. “Why don't you let me take that,” I said.

  “It's okay,” she said. “I guess I don't know what I mean. Just something about them. Maybe there were too many of them. Do you think they develop the pictures themselves, Aaron? Do they have a darkroom in the police station?”

  I said, “Probably.” She said, “Do you think the missing things show up in the photographs—the things the spray reveals?”

  “Probably.”

  “Let's just keep it and see if they come back.”

  “I wish you would put it on the table, then.”

  “Let's find a place to hide it.”

  “They're probably doing some kind of inventory right now, at the police station. They'll probably be back for it any minute.”

  “So if we hide it—”

  “If we hide it we look guiltier than if you just put it on the table.”

  “We didn't steal anything. Our house was broken into. They left it here.”

  “I wish you would put it on the table.”

  “I wonder if the police do their inventory by spraying around the police station to see what's missing?”

  “So if we have their spray—”

  “They'll never know what happened!” She shrieked with laughter. I laughed too. I moved next to her on the couch and we rolled and laughed like monkeys in a zoo. Still laughing, I put my hand on the spray canister. “Gimme,” I said.

  “Let go.” Her laughter faded as she pulled at the can. The ends of several hairs were stuck to her tongue. I pulled on the can. And she pulled. We both pulled harder.

  “Gimme,” I said. I let go of the can and tickled her. “Gimme gimme gimme.”

  She grimaced and twisted away from me. “Not funny,” she said.

  “The police don't have their SPRAY!” I said, and kept tickling her.

  “Not funny not funny.” Slapping my hands away, she stood up.

  “Okay. You're right, it's not funny. Put it on the table.”

  “Let's return it like you said.”

  “I'm too tired. Let's just hide it. We can return it tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I'll hide it. Cover your eyes.”

  “Not hide-and-seek. We have to agree on a place. A locked place.”

  “What's the big deal? Let's just leave it on the table.” She put it on the table, beside the salmon-colored glowing box. “Maybe somebody will break in and take it. Maybe the police will break in.”

  “You're a little mixed up, I'd say.” I moved closer to the table.

  “I'm just tired.” She pretended to yawn. “What a day.”

  “I don't miss the stuff that was taken,” I said.

  “You don't?”

  “I hate television and faxes. I hate this little jewelry box.”

  “See if you're still saying that tomorrow, when you can't see them anymore.”

  “I only care about you, you, you.” I grabbed the canister of spray. She grabbed it too. “Let go,” she said.

  “You're all I love, you're all that matters to me,” I said.

  We wrestled for the can again. We fell onto the couch together.

  “Let's just put it down on the table,” said Addie. “Okay.” “Let go.” “You first.” “No, at the same time.” We put it on the table.

  “Are you thinking what I'm thinking,” she said.

  “I don't know, probably.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “What you're thinking.”

  “I'm not thinking anything.”

  “Then I'm not either.”

  “Liar.”

  “It probably doesn't work that way,” I said. “The police wouldn't have a thing like that. It isn't the same thing.”

  “So why not try.”

  “Don't.”

  “You said it wouldn't work.”

  “Just don't. It's toxic. You saw them cover the dog's mouth.”

  “They didn't cover themselves. Anyway, I asked them about that when you were in the other room. They said it was so you wouldn't see the stuff the dog ate that fell out of its mouth. Because the dog is a very sloppy eater. So the spray would show what it had been eating recently, around the mouth. It's disgusting, they said.”

  “Now you're the liar.”

  “Let's just see.”

  I jumped up. “If you spray me I'll spray you,” I shouted. The spray
hit me as I moved across the room. The wet mist fell behind me, like a parachute collapsing in the spot where I'd been, but enough got on me. An image of Lucinda formed, glowing and salmon-colored.

  Lucinda was naked. Her hair was short, like when we were together. Her head lay on my shoulder, her arms were around my neck, and her body was across my front. My shirt and jacket. Her breasts were mashed against me, but I couldn't feel them. Her knee was across my legs. I jumped backward but she came with me, radiant and insubstantial. I turned my head to see her face. Her expression was peaceful, but her little salmon-colored eyelids were half open.

  “Ha!” said Addie. “I told you it would work.”

  “GIVE ME THAT!” I lunged for the spray. Addie ducked. I grabbed her arm and pulled her with me onto the couch. Me and Addie and Lucinda were all there together, Lucinda placidly naked. As Addie and I wrestled for the spray we plunged through Lucinda's glowing body, her luminous arms and legs.

  I got my hands on the spray canister. We both had our hands on it. Four hands covering the one can. Then it went off. One of us pressed the nozzle, I don't know who. It wasn't Lucinda, anyway.

  As the spray settled over us Charles became visible, poised over Addie. He was naked, like Lucinda. His glowing shoulders and legs and ass were covered with glowing salmon hair, like the halo around a lightbulb. His mouth was open. His face was blurred, like he was a picture someone had taken while he was moving his face, saying something.