Everyone's Pretty

by Lydia Millet

  He washed himself with antibacterial soap. Dear Phillip! Get thee behind me, Satan. Matthew 16:23. Rinsed and washed again. The dogs shall eat Jezebel. Kings 21:23. Rinsed. Washed again. Rinsed. Exodus 15:7. Thou sentest forth thy wrath.

  9:38

  Decetes hurled a clod of earth at the window of grace, and when it provoked no response lobbed a handful of gravel from the drive. Finally the girl next door showed her face at the glass.

  —Need a little favor, said Decetes when she grudgingly raised the frame. She wore a pink T-shirt that read HELLO STUPID.

  —Are you crazy? she asked sleepily, and pushed a wisp from her forehead. —Why would I do you a favor?

  —I know that, in the past, I have employed dubious methods in our friendly negotiations, and I regret it. A man has needs. However, if you do this one thing for me I give you my solemn oath: I will never blackmail you again.

  —Yeah right, she drawled, and yawned.

  —Please, said Decetes. —I am a man of my word. No more blackmail.

  —I’m getting out of here in three weeks. So I don’t care what you do.

  —I am sorry to hear that, said Decetes. Indeed it was distressing news. From here on in he would pay for his floor-shows. Leon B. Grossman had splurged on lap dances, and his credit was shot. —But do this for me out of the goodness of your heart. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.

  She cocked her head to one side dreamily.

  —Tell me what it is and I’ll think it over.

  —I need two bottles of whiskey from your father’s liquor cabinet.

  She disappeared inside and returned with a purple hairbrush, which she plied dreamily. Decetes was becoming impatient. It had been almost five hours since his last drink.

  —Okay, she said. —If you do something for me.

  —Name your price.

  —Take all your clothes off slowly and sing a song while you’re doing it.

  —Surely you jest.

  —Nope. No strip, no booze. I was going to make you bark like a dog, but that’s too easy.

  —You drive a hard bargain. What assurance do I have that you’ll give me the goods?

  —I’m a woman of my word.

  —I need a taste before we begin. Slip me a shot out the back door.

  —Nope. You gotta do it stone-cold sober.

  —My dear child, I am never stone-cold sober.

  —I don’t have all day and neither do you. They’ll be up soon. And sing quietly or they’ll wake up for sure.

  —Fuck. Okay, said Decetes. Humiliation was merely a means to an end. As such it was grossly underrated. —Here goes.

  9:49

  —Say it with me Barbara, said Bucella. Barbara sat at the kitchen table eating a banana. —It’ll make you feel better. Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open.

  — . . . Mighty God onto him. . . .

  —All desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.

  — . . . All desires none, and from him secrets are hid. Can I get another banana?

  —It was my fault too Barbara! I forgot to make Dean sleep in another room. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.

  —Clean the thoughts by instigation of the . . . roly Spit. . . .

  —That we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy Name.

  She took the peel out of Barbara’s hand and placed it in the compost. Barbara reached out over the table and broke another banana off the bunch.

  —We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable. Amen.

  9:51

  —Bring me my bow of burning gold, warbled the old pervert, hopping while he pulled off a shoe. —Bring me my arrows of desire. Bring me my spear, oh clouds unfold, he grunted as the second shoe fell onto the driveway. —Bring me my char-i-ot of fire!

  —You have to dance.

  —I will not cease . . . from mental fight, he sang, fumbling with his shirt buttons and wiggling his hips. —Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.

  —What kind of song is that, she said.

  He had a saggy chest and a hairy stomach.

  —Till we have built Jerusalem, and he pulled down his pants. He was wearing orange boxer shorts. The waistband was loose and they fell to his ankles. —On England’s green and pleasant land.

  Mondo pathetic. That was a good line though, about the kindness from strangers. She was going to use that for sure.

  —Satisfied? he asked.

  —Obviously more than your girlfriend. Oh yeah I forgot. You don’t have a girlfriend.

  She crept out of her room in bare feet. Her parents’ room door was still closed. In the basement she found a bourbon and a scotch. The lech was tying his shoes on the patio.

  —Those are half-empty!

  —Yeah but more than these he’ll miss ’em.

  —Ginny? What are you doing down there?

  Her mother, screeching from upstairs.

  —That’s it they’re up, she whispered, and shoved the bottles into his hands.

  —Thank you, said the pervert, —every woman is the gift of a world.

  She had just closed the doors when her mother came down.

  —Ginny did I hear something?

  —You always hear something. The distributive law for series follows from the fact that the sum of an infinite series is determined by its nth partial sum, which is finite.

  —Won’t you eat a wholesome breakfast this morning honey?

  —Only if you do a favor for me.

  —What’s that sweetiepie?

  —Graph a simple polynomial.

  10:08

  Even in the folds where the drapes fell there was restfulness. The order of Ernie’s chairs, sofa, table was an order of stopped time, a monument to care. He seldom drank, but kept the bar stocked; didn’t smoke, but ashtrays were discreetly placed. She sat on a chair, sipping from her cup and staring at a small painting of a saint, pierced by arrows, face illuminated. Her own face was not illuminated. In the silence she raised her cup again.

  —I don’t want to go home, she said aloud.

  The dog heaved itself up from beside the sofa and trotted over to her feet, where it collapsed again and began to snore.

  Her coffee was cooling, and hating Ray had been the rope of her life. Now Ray, waned away on the jaws of a tumor, was only the memory of her skin, of her arms, shoulders, atoms. Ray was in molecules. He would never be nothing. He was inside and outside, everywhere. Once you were who you were there you were: it was impossible to know who she would have been without Ray. She wouldn’t have been without Ray. That was biology. And then there were the social sciences.

  Hate had been all she had. She used to think it was splendid, would outlive her, a mote spinning in space, unseen. But now it was hope she dreamed of, spinning there endlessly. Hatred was boring.

  She looked at a vase, a plain silver vase filled with yellow tulips, on an end table. She put her coffee cup down, got up and walked over to it, idly slid the tulips out by their cool slick stems. Looked at the vase. It was cold and lovely. She put the tulips back. There had been something wrong with the rope of her hate, a weakness in its fibers, it was frayed from beginning to end and slipped and slipped forever. What was wrong with it? Not what people said: not its impulses. Loyalty had to be conditional, otherwise it was only submission. The impulses were not wrong. But something was. She moved a tulip for symmetry, then another. That was it. Hate was the arrangement of flowers in a hollow place.

  It was not resistance. Only resistance was splendid.

  Prozac said the shrink once, but Alice said she didn’t want to be a permutation of chemicals. If that was all that was all. Chicken Little the sky is falling: hand me my umbrella. But then she went to booze instead, a golden parachute.

  And she let herself fall, since falling she forgot who she was, and so even forgot Ray woven through her bones and her ce
lls. Without herself she could be with the others: any and all. Hell was in the molecules first.

  —Where’s the good life? she asked the dog. He blinked.

  But this was the good life. This.

  10:19

  Decetes struck out down the road with his whiskey and the camcorder stashed in Bucella’s Girl Guide backpack. Ken was idling at the corner, hands in his pockets, kicking at dirt.

  —Today, Ken, announced Decetes gravely, —we make the movie of my life. It will convert the needy millions. They have no leader Ken, and no future. But soon they will have both.

  —My gut hurts.

  —Ah yes I forgot Ken, you are not an airy plant like me. Not a creature of spirit, feeding on the ether, the winds and the stars, but an honest, sturdy beast of the earth. We can make a pit stop before the triumph begins Ken. We have all the time in the world. What’ll it be? IHOP or Denny’s?

  10:36

  Her air freshener swung from the rearview mirror like a pendulum. Pine Scent this way, Pine Scent that. It was the hour to right wrongs.

  The air freshener made a rhythm as she drove, saying yes, yes, yes. Zamphir flute. A phoenix rose from the ashes, and it was her! In her floral silk blouse that had to be dry-cleaned and therefore could only be worn on special Occasions.

  The castles of Debauchery were crumbling in her wake: for she had finally cleaned House. She could set forth with a clear conscience and would not be like Lot’s wife turning to a pillar of salt, for Gomorrah Ancient City of Palestine was behind her now, and it would stay that way. Before when Dean had begged to her she had always thought of him when he was little and crying for their sick mother. And she had thought of Dean when their mother died, standing in the kitchen in his funeral suit, barely as tall as the table, and of their father drunk and sleeping through the time for the funeral and how because of him they never went. And Dean stood in the kitchen in his funeral suit waiting till it grew dark outside.

  But she had to face the facts. That little boy was gone now.

  Anyway you could not think of dry-cleaning or Dean when choirs of archangels were singing. You could not think of it when the sun was rising on a new Dawn. As soon as she got to work she would steal back the letter from Phillip’s desk and slip it under Ernest’s door. Glory glory!

  The gas gauge read E. She pulled into a gas station. With the nozzle in the fuel hatch she closed her eyes. The gas pulsed through. Dean deflowered the Innocent. Barbara was annoying but being Challenged she was also a babe in the woods. Jesus wept.

  Bucella was feeling nervous, or maybe it was Acid Indigestion. When Joan of Arc stood in front of her solemn Judges she was probably nervous too, since they didn’t have Due Process Under the Law back then. But she had remained unflinching. Joan did not worry about dry-cleaning, rather she raised her head proudly to her Tormentors. Even when the flames were licking at her knees.

  Regular Self. Premium Self.

  On the wall beside the gas station lot a kid was spray-painting graffiti. I FUCKED YER SIS.

  The pump clicked.

  —You stop that! yelled Bucella, releasing the handle.

  The kid turned around. He wore a baseball cap backwards on his head. He scowled and turned back to his work. T, E.

  —You stop that obscenity now or I’ll call the police!

  —Shut your face, said the boy. R. —Already done anyways.

  Behind the wall were tall trees and a clock in a tower.

  —Whadda you care? Not your wall.

  —It’s everyone’s wall, said Bucella. —That’s obscene!

  —Yeah well I’m everyone too so fuck you lady.

  And he sauntered off, capping his spray can.

  11:01

  Decetes had given Ken a back issue to read as they made their way to HQ. He insisted on reading it as they walked. Unfortunate, mused Decetes, that Ken had not come with a halter and lead. He was meandering in the direction of a mailbox, his nose in the centerfold. His sneakers had mouths at the front and flapped as he stepped. Still, far be it from Decetes to intercede.

  —Unhh!

  —Whoops-a-daisy Ken, remember this simple rule. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Sir Isaac Newton, a colleague of mine. Stick with me boy, I’ll show you the ropes.

  —But Decetes, this gal’s got a ding-dong.

  —First, Ken, those are the advertisements. The fact that we print them does not constitute an endorsement. Second, you render a disservice when you refer to the male member as a “ding-dong.” Have some pride, Ken. What you call a ding-dong, Ken, is the first wonder of the world. Forget the hanging gardens of Babylon Ken, forget the statue of Zeus and the temple at Ephesus. Nary a one compares to the ding-dong. Without semen Ken where would we be today? There is much that you owe to your organ Ken. The will to live, for example.

  11:04

  Exiting the building Phillip passed his neighbor returning to his own apartment, wearing frayed bedroom slippers over bare feet. He executed a curt nod with his customary sangfroid. The man was untrustworthy. He was frequently unshaven and operated a coin laundromat at the corner in which transients were often to be seen, lounging on formica tables designed, purchased and designated by the management for the folding of clothes. Before the acquisition of the Kenmore washing machine/drier combination from Sears, at significant personal expense, Phillip had made use of the facilities there on no fewer than three separate occasions. He had developed the practice of taking his own Lysol, with which he sprayed the tables before folding his garments upon them. On his third visit, the table he preferred to use was, at the moment his drying cycle was complete, occupied by a sleeping transient. Phillip had woken him and asked him to remove his person therefrom, at first politely, then with increasing steadfastness of purpose.

  The transient had refused adamantly, claiming other tables were free. But the free tables were also inferior tables. Phillip was compelled to spray the table, therefore, with the transient still on it. The transient’s eyes began to water from the Lysol but he refused to budge; Phillip continued to spray until his can was empty; the transient, sobbing but stubborn, ingested Lysol in some volume and subsequently coughed up blood. Blood was a notorious health liability. Phillip had been forced to return to his home with his laundry unfolded. The resultant wrinkles had forced him to iron.

  Reaching the curb where his rental was parked, his eye lit upon a pile of trash awaiting the truck. All was not right. He stepped closer cautiously. Atop a clear trash bag there was a rodent. It was small, yellow in color, and dead. From its mouth a tongue protruded. On its behind was a massive growth.

  Phillip stepped back quickly and extracted a Kleenex from his pocket pack, which he swiftly placed over his mouth and nose.

  He must put two and two together. His neighbor had been wearing bedroom slippers, and no outdoor apparel. There could only be one agent of this atrocity, for the rodent sat atop the trash, not beneath it. The rodent was a recent deposit. Phillip turned and walked briskly back up the stairs. He tapped firmly on his neighbor’s door.

  —Yeah?

  The man was smoking a cigarette. His terrycloth robe was open to expose a filthy red undershirt.

  —Mr. Grossman, are you the responsible party?

  —Responsible for what?

  —The rodent, Mr. Grossman. What else?

  —Yeah, my daughter’s hamster. She’s at UCLA, moved to Westwood. Thing died. Good riddance is what I say. I woulda flushed it but it was too big.

  —You can’t do that. There are laws against it. The creature is diseased. It has a bubo. You must remove it immediately.

  —Get outta here, it’s a dead hamster that’s all.

  —Animal control must be notified. They will remove it. I would also advise contacting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are trained professionals. If you do not remove it at once I will call them myself.

  —Go ahead and call. I don’t give a shit.

  —War, famine, pestilence and plague. My
Lord!

  —Leon what is this?

  —Don’t worry I got it taken care of. Guy’s some kind of lunatic. Listen mister you’re paranoid. It’s a fucking dead hamster. Big deal.

  —I will contact Animal Control. You will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  —Get outta my face.

  The door was slammed.

  11:35

  There was a different security guard on duty in the lobby, ignorant, luckily, of Decetes’s exile from paradise. He lifted nary a finger against them, and Ken, following with the camcorder held up to his face, encountered only a door edge to hinder his passage.

  Also, Alan H.’s office was unlocked. It was a peaceful coup without bloodshed, a swift and stealthy ambush. Much had been learned, in terms of military strategy, from the Indians.

  Decetes established himself behind the desk in Alan H.’s armchair in a lordly fashion. After taping him seating himself with dignity, Ken put down the camcorder and busied himself with a life-sized inflatable doll. She was a deluxe model: 3D eyelashes, spongy breasts and a plug-in vibrating unit. Alan H. had a room full of free loot from mail-order adult entertainment merchandisers. The spoils of war were bounteous.

  —Tape this, said Decetes.

  Ken dropped his doll reluctantly and lifted the camcorder again. Decetes swiveled in his chair and positioned himself in front of a full-color poster of a large-breasted model. It was a magazine cover from two years ago.

  —I am Dean Decetes. I am the instrument of the masses, and this magazine will henceforth be their voice.

  11:47

  —Alice they found a man dead in a Dumpster this morning in Beverly Hills of all places, it was on the radio. Mummified darling, can you believe it? When I go I wouldn’t mind being mummified. Nefertiti or maybe Isis. Is there a mummification service you can get? I mean they have cryogenics.