Everyone's Pretty

by Lydia Millet

  He collapsed onto the street.

  —Officer, he said when he was able to sit up, —this is not necessary. I’m way below the legal limit. One beer, that’s it. My father was a member of the Temperance League. We are Mormons. To a man.

  —Sir, your license has been suspended twice for this offense, said the cop.

  Sir? The cop was clearly a rookie. Decetes saw him graduating from high school not two years ago, a mortarboard askew atop his pimpled brow, and decided to implement Plan A.

  —Listen Officer, maybe you’ll take an interest in my work. I’m a freelance editor, said Decetes. —Review movies for a national magazine. Fact you may be familiar with some of our publications.

  The rookie let him bring out a copy from the backseat, but one look at the nudity inside and Decetes’s ass was grass. The officer was a fundamentalist Christian of some stripe, clearly. Perhaps a Promise Keeper, even. Family values up the wazoo.

  —We also publish a magazine for the law-enforcement community, fact I’ve done quite a lot of writing for it, started Decetes, reaching for the gun magazines spilled over the vinyl. But his hands were cuffed behind him in a trice. If he was not greatly mistaken they would be suspending his license for good.

  In the squad car he attempted to draw the rookie out on the subject of value systems.

  —Are you of the Pentecostal persuasion? he asked. —Your brother or father handle snakes? Snake-handling in the family? I handle one myself. Frequently.

  —Shut up, please.

  —Your sister speak in tongues? Glossolalia? My sister does. Once a month on the rag. I’m not kidding. Armenian, Swedish, what have you. Officer, I swear to the good Lord it’s true. You should come over and hear her sometime. I can get you in free of charge.

  —Shut up! snapped the rookie again, agitated. His radio was squawking out an emergency. He picked it up, spoke into it and spun the wheel.

  —I have to take a leak, I’m going to mess up your upholstery here, said Decetes.

  They pulled up behind two fire trucks. The house previously visited by Decetes was ablaze. A small crowd milled in the street; into the night air triumphant arcs of water spewed. Decetes was reminded of his needs.

  —Don’t leave me here Officer, he begged. —I’ll piss on the seat. Leave the cuffs on, just let me take a leak. You think a man in my condition could get far? You have my license Officer.

  —All right, just shut up I told you, said the rookie in a high-pitched voice, sweating profusely. He popped the back door open and ran toward the firefighters. Decetes opened his flies to the gutter, looked over his shoulder at the cop and then wended down a driveway and through someone’s backyard.

  The Pinto was elsewhere. He called home from a payphone.

  —There’s a possibility, he said, —the Los Angeles Police Department may have impounded my vehicle.

  —Not again, you lowlife, said Bucella.

  —Just pick me up, he said.

  —Forget it, said Bucella. —I told you, the next DUI I do not bail you out.

  —Wait, wait, said Decetes. —No bailing, no nothing. I’m here in my shirtsleeves on the side of the road.

  —So what, said Bucella. —You have legs.

  —I may meet with physical harm, said Decetes. —There are several potential assailants in the area. I mean here I am on a dark street with homeless individuals and African-Americans hooked on crack cocaine.

  —You’re a racist Dean, said Bucella.

  —Racist, schmacist. I tell it like it is. This isn’t Disneyland Bucella. Do you want to be responsible for my stabbing death? Here I am with a guy who I think may have a switchblade, Bucella. He smells like a 40-ounce. He’s coming closer. Jesus. He’s here! Oh help Bucella! Help!

  —I’m sure you’ll hit it off, said Bucella. —No means no. She hung up.

  —Goddamn Bucella, said Decetes aloud. —Not worth the ribonuke—oxyribe— . . . DNA she’s made of.

  There was no one to hear him, since the street, which was well-lit by the orange glow on the horizon, housed no vagrants or addicts. He wrested a broken cigarette from his pocket, the cuffs chafing his wrists, and lit it. Pinching it tightly at the fissure, he started off in the direction of Santa Monica Boulevard, to catch a bus. But then he stopped in his tracks. Something had captured his attention. He stood swaying and gazed up at the firmament. Vast it was, but void of stars. Instead of celestial bodies the night sky was dappled with representations of his own face. How benevolent, how like a God! But how human. He was willing to admit it. A patriot and an American.

  —A patriot, sir, and an American.

  Let them come! His weapons were invisible but potent. His armaments were splendid. For he had what other men could only dream of having: a conscience clear as firewater.

  11:55

  Bucella had been organizing her spice rack when Dean so rudely interrupted. Each spice was numbered. A1 was garlic, B1 was basil, C1 was cilantro, D1 was rosemary, E1 was oregano. She classified them by frequency of use, with subheadings for variations on a theme. A2 was garlic salt. And she had a new plan: from now on she would lock the cupboard to prevent her brother from wreaking havoc among the Innocent Herbs.

  With Dean around the house she had no Future, that was clear. He was like a maimed old dog squatting on the floor, flatulent. Decent people pitied him but they also feared him. At Thanksgiving he had fallen on his face when he carried in the cranberry sauce. He was always falling. He fell when he had nothing else to do. It was the closest thing he knew to a party trick. —Does your brother have a drinking problem? Alice Reeve had asked when he’d gone back to the kitchen for a wet cloth. —Yes he does, said Bucella. —He does have a drinking problem. It’s a classic case. He has a problem and he won’t let me help.

  But Dean was back quicker than she’d expected and caught the end of her sentence.

  —My drinking is not a problem, he announced to the assembled Company. —It is an avocation. I turn wine into water. I am an alchemist and a magician.

  Ten minutes later he got up to go to the bathroom, tripped on the rug and gouged a hole in his cheek. It was a poker from the stand beside the fireplace. —Fall-o-Matic, whispered Alice Reeve, within Bucella’s hearing. If Bucella recalled correctly, Alice had been none too sober herself. That was before she started going to AA. Now she wasn’t a drunkard anymore, that was true, but she had myriad other Flaws. Though friendly, Alice was a Loose Woman. She gave of Herself too freely. Jesus wept.

  Bucella scrubbed a burner ring with steel wool. Ernest Lesser had become agitated when the poker went through Dean’s face. Bucella had noticed and bustled around in a demonstration of Caring, though she had seen much worse. She had seen her brother perform an Obscene Act upon the end of an arrow when he was in his Cups, and then fall on the arrow, which pierced the roof of his mouth and adorned him with a Beard of Blood. He had not even noticed the blood until she pointed it out.

  But this time, for Ernest’s sake, she had guided Dean to the kitchen and tended to him like Florence Nightingale.

  Later, when she and Ernest stood talking by the mantelpiece, Dean had approached them weaving and made disparaging remarks about her choice of wine. He said it was a California table wine and a ripoff at $2.99. Which was not true since it was Beaujolais from France, $5.99 on special sale. Then Dean asked Ernest right out loud what he himself thought about Ribbed Prophylactics. —Myself I never use ’em, said Dean. —Double Her Pleasure while I’m fucking latex, perish the thought. Many women do not realize that the nerve endings in the penis are less sensitive than the nerves in the fingertips. The penis has a sensitivity that is largely overrated. Your average penis is deaf, dumb and blind. Your average penis has the sensitivity of a liverwurst.

  He paused, then continued.

  —I am referring, of course, to the shaft.

  Bucella had gone running to the kitchen. She stood at the sink washing plates, trying not to cry till Dean stumbled in and tried to pee in the trashcan.

&n
bsp; —There’s someone in the head, my bladder’s bursting, he said, but she beat him about the shoulders with a spatula until he left the garbage can alone, saying Foul Demon! Foul Demon!

  Then she blew her nose, dried her eyes and was gracious again to Ernest, dignified in her Adversity.

  Once the guests had gone she gave Dean a serious lecture.

  —I work with these people, she said. —I try to cultivate mutual respect!

  Dean had folded back the pages of the Vile Pornographic Publication he was reading as she averted her gaze. He looked up from the Naked Hussy and cocked an eyebrow at Bucella. —Respect? Sure, he said. —I respect the hell outta this girl. Excuse me. I have business in my room.

  She would have to hire a carpenter to put a lock onto the spice cabinet. That would take until Monday or Tuesday. But maybe Dean wouldn’t notice the numbers and wouldn’t disturb anything. He never used spices. When he cooked it was at three in the morning, packaged Ramen with MSG. She walked to the den. There were piles of crushed beer cans and X-rated movies on Dean’s table in front of the VCR. She could not help noticing the Rude and Profane titles. Buttman Goes to Rio. Bend Over Babes 3. Sodomania 1. He sat there two nights a week with the remote control, pretending to evaluate the movies for his Sordid Tabloid. At these times she avoided the room, since she had interrupted him once with his zipper open, Exposed.

  Her brother blundered in, kicking over a rattling object, and slammed the door behind him. She went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning. He stumbled over the floor with a cigarette butt dangling from his lips, his hands cuffed together, and opened the refrigerator.

  He smelled bad, very bad. Like a dead weasel would.

  —You’re not smoking in the house, she cautioned, but he ignored her, closing the refrigerator and extracting a moldy heel of bread from his personal supply in the breadbin. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, dropped it into the sink and bit into the bread. —What are those things doing on your hands? Don’t leave that butt in the sink either, she ordered, and exited the kitchen. Dean stuck up his middle finger as she turned her back. He had always been grossly Vulgar.

  When she went back to the den he followed her. She sat down and turned on the news. He perched on the arm of the couch.

  —Think you could cut these things off with a power tool?

  —I could, she said stiffly. —But would I.

  —I’ll make a mess if I try to do it myself. I could hack off a finger by mistake. Then you’d have to drive me to the hospital.

  —Change out of those filthy clothes why don’t you, said Bucella. —Because you really smell.

  He unbuttoned his shirt. Bucella stared straight ahead at the screen.

  —Bucella I’m disappointed in you, said her brother. —I could have been killed. I barely escaped with my life.

  —Don’t lie, said Bucella, changing the channel.

  —You think I exaggerate? I went to a Versateller to get some money out, guy sleeping on the ground grabbed onto my ankle. Tried to gnaw through the tendon. It’s an act of divine intervention I’ve still got the use of my lower body. Had to give him forty bucks to get off me.

  —Show me the scar then, said Bucella.

  —What, I’m supposed to have stigmata now? It was my pants he was biting into, it’s lucky he didn’t get through to the skin. Five more seconds I would have been maimed. See Bucella I divested myself, he crawled away with the bills. Had his saliva on my cuff for ten full minutes before it dried.

  —You have no shame, said Bucella. —Now would you leave me alone? I’m trying to watch this program.

  —Bucella Bucella, said Dean, shaking his head. He retreated to the kitchen and she heard cupboard doors opening and closing. Finally he reappeared with her ground cinnamon in his hand.

  —Put that back, she told him harshly.

  —What is this, all the spices have letters and numbers?

  —Just put it back, she said. —Right where you got it. I mean it.

  —Jesus Bucella, this is what you had to do, this is what I risked my life for out there? For this I could have been thrown into the pokey and raped by a convict?

  —I’d like to see the convict that would rape you.

  —I believe I will hold this cinnamon hostage.

  —Put it back Dean. Right now.

  —My ransom demand shall be as follows. You must cut these primitive restraints off my hands with a tool from the basement. If you do this immediately I will release the cinnamon into your custody.

  —Shut up, said Bucella. —Maybe later if you’re good.

  Decetes padded back into the kitchen, where she heard him fall with a clatter to the floor.

  She turned off the TV. He had passed out; there was a broken glass beside him on the linoleum. Luckily the cinnamon had rolled under the dishwasher and was unharmed. She returned it to the cabinet and mounted the stairs to her bedroom.

  On her back, toes stretched out beneath the taut covers, she cleared her mind of her brother’s detritus and placed Ernest at the end of a tunnel. Behind him there was Light. He wore a loincloth and a Crown of Thorns. —Bucella, he said, his voice grave. —Wash my feet.

  She fell to the ground and washed them, bathing them in kisses. The skin was tender and smelled sweet. The legs of Ernest rose like sinewed columns, like graceful Greek statues, the Colossus of Rhodes. He bent and placed a strong, dry hand on her head.

  —Rise, Bucella, he said, and when she got to her feet, her cheeks wet with tears of joy, he lifted her up and strode with her to the shadows.

  CHAPTER THE SECOND

  All greet the day with new Hope; Dreams are dreamed and Love is declared; and public morals are examined. Introducing an Innocent and an Honest Man

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  3:11

  When he woke up on the kitchen floor, Decetes lay gazing at the linoleum. He was plagued by a question. Who would play him in the movie? There was no one of suitable stature. In days of yore, Charlton Heston might have been selected. He had played Moses. But since then he’d been exposed as a bad actor and a Republican.

  Possibly he, Decetes, would be called upon to play himself in his life story. It would be an irritation, like flies on an elephant, but he would consent to make time for the task. This was his burden. He took it into account. Yes: a movie of his life story.

  However, the path to glory was obscured for the moment. It had slipped his mind. It would return, no doubt.

  He hauled himself up, unsteady. His wrists were raw and bleeding from the cuffs. After a moment of rushing nausea gravity raised its dizzying anchor and he was upright, a hand on the sink edge, feet planted far apart on terra firma. He lifted his hands and shaded his brow: was it land there, in the distance? Was he a conquistador with Incan gold off the starboard bow, and wild animals to kill?

  It was the moldy loaf in dishwater, surmounted by the white corpse of a Marlboro.

  In Bucella’s study he opened a file cabinet and moved a few papers from a folder named Taxes 1996 to a folder named Taxes 2005. Into each life some rain must fall. Unlike his law-abiding sister, he himself had no truck with taxation agencies. As men searched in perpetuity for God and failed to pinpoint his location, so fared the IRS with Dean Decetes.

  He noticed a Post-It note on Bucella’s desk: Mrs. Ernest Lesser. Bucella D. Lesser. She had done the same thing when she was 11, imagining herself in connubial bliss with a shrimpy sixth-grader named Davy. Decetes had given her an Indian sunburn then, twisting the skin on her wrist until she was forced to repeat after him, —Davy and Bucella, sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G.

  He detached the Post-It from its pad and stuck it on one of Bucella’s religious prints on the wall: Triptych of the Annunciation, Robert Campin, Flemish, d.1444. It pictured an old geezer doing carpentry, a fat sow reading a picture book and a faggot angel overturning a table. Bucella had acquired it recently, attempting to get culture in the gift shop of the L.A. County Museum.

  Yes, he was a man with an am
bitious plan. To work, to work. He reclined in the viewing throne, wielded the remote in a kingly fist and watched two double penetrations in a row. He must be brought before the masses of the unwashed. He had denied the inklings of his destiny for long enough, for even through adversity he always had been certain: Dean Decetes was not just a man.

  The means might be persuasion, or they might be force. Force required manpower, armed to the teeth. In the legions of his army, he would need a loyal footsoldier. Recruitment was one of his many talents, fortunately. He had found his first convert, and a man-at-arms would soon be his. It was an acolyte, a worshipper. A fanatical reader of the scriptures of smut, an assault-with-a-deadly whose Bible was porn. His day was nigh, and its name was parole.

  When they had briefly shared a cell in lockup, Ken had been deeply impressed by the sight of Decetes’s name on the printed page, beneath a review of an amateur girl-girl video titled Furpie Frenzy. Swiftly Decetes had reeled him in, a fish on a hook. As a result, soon Decetes would no longer be a solitary visionary but a revolutionary general with five stars, albeit self-conferred. Ken would be his first Private.

  He fast-forwarded through dialogue, stopping only when flesh filled the screen. With his hands chained together, it was unfortunately a choice, at any given moment, between the pen and the wand. Notations on his yellow foolscap took form slowly, painstakingly. 2 DPs, Madison, Sierra w/ Rocco Siffredi & Hedgehog; 3 anal, Alicyn Sterling, Tianna and Alicia Rio; 2 Girl-Girl. A long pause for refreshment; then, vigor renewed, back into the fray. Enema scene.

  4:57

  Bucella woke up from disturbed sleep, her back aching. She had been dreaming about seraphim, the highest order of Angels. They were six-winged and stood in the presence of the Almighty, but their backs were riddled with craters and speckled with black hair. They were emaciated and drooling, with concave blue-veined chests. They were her tormentors. They came to stick pins in her sleep, their sharpened teeth sparkling in the dark, their hoary paws grabbing at her with curling claws clicking and scratching, leaving a gray film where they walked. She slid, slipped and fell turning and twisting as they screeched. She pushed back the comforter and got out of bed.