by Bryan Hurt
He rolled up his yoga mat and went to the yoga studio. But when he arrived there, the woman at the counter told him that he couldn’t take the class.
“Your nose,” she said.
“It’s bleeding,” she said.
Brandon touched his nose and saw that it was indeed bleeding. He also realized that he couldn’t feel it. His nose was numb.
“May I have a tissue?” he said.
The woman gave him the box.
Brandon sat on the bench outside the yoga studio and rolled tissues into his nose. He thought about going home.
But then he thought about the frowning stickman.
29
Later Kara came out of the yoga studio and found Brandon sitting on the bench. Her skin shone with a lucent halo of sweat.
“Brandon?” she said.
She asked what he was doing there.
Then she asked what had happened to his face.
“Teenagers,” said Brandon.
“How horrible,” said Kara.
“But,” she said, “I suppose you deserve it. After all it’s like they say: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, etc.”
“They?” said Brandon.
“Yes,” said Kara.
She said, “That’s what they say.”
“And Charles?” said Brandon.
“Charles and they,” said Kara.
Then she told Brandon that the teenagers must have been the agents of karmic justice, doling out punishment for the lies that Brandon had been spreading about Charles.
She also told Brandon that he was mostly forgiven.
“After all,” she said, “forgiveness is the better part of valor.”
“Not discretion?” said Brandon.
He took out a tissue to see if his nose was still bleeding.
It was.
“Forgiveness,” said Kara.
She told Brandon that she forgave him because his jealousy of Charles was understandable. Charles was successful. He was a small business owner. Brandon, on the other hand, was something else entirely. He was like an artist, she said, but without skills or ambition.
To show how forgiven he was, she invited him to the launching of their new boat.
“We bought it with a small part of the settlement,” she said.
“The Chu Chu Too,” she said.
30
When Brandon arrived back at his apartment he saw that the door was ajar. He stood at the threshold and peered down the hallway.
At the end of the hallway he saw the kitchen.
Inside the kitchen he saw his refrigerator.
The refrigerator was sideways. It was tipped on its side.
31
Brandon went to Miranda July’s.
He went to Kara’s.
He called his mother.
No one was home.
Brandon called the prison in Ohio. He was transferred from the switchboard operator to a prison guard and then was put on hold.
Eventually his father came on the phone.
“Brandon?” said Brandon’s father.
“Yes,” said Brandon.
He asked his father about prison life.
“Fine,” said his father.
He said the food was fine. His bed was fine. His roommate was fine. He liked the rigid schedule. He had lots of time to read.
“The library is very impressive,” he said.
He said, “I’ve read Bentham, Kierkegaard, and Foucault.”
Brandon told his father that was happy to hear that he was enjoying his imprisonment.
He said, “After all, the system is designed to do more than punish.”
“Indeed,” said Brandon’s father. “The system is meant to lead to a reconciliation with reality. Crime is the refusal to accept the basic facts of existence. In most rational societies that which is abhorrent to nature is also against the law.”
He asked Brandon if he’d heard about the gray whales.
“Take those gray whales for example,” his father said. “Their refusal to decay in the ocean is criminal. It goes against their very function in nature. The function of gray whales is to live and decay in the ocean. If they refuse to do the latter who will feed the bottom feeders?”
“Anarchy,” said Brandon.
“Exactly,” his father said.
32
Numb nose.
Cold nose.
No nose?
33
“You look terrible,” said Kara.
“The teenagers,” said Brandon.
“Again?”
“I’m afraid to go home.”
Brandon explained about his refrigerator.
Kara closed the door and stepped outside her apartment.
She asked where he’d been staying.
“The Saharan Motel,” said Brandon. He told her that his room looked out onto the pool. It had a bed, an air conditioner, and a minibar, which technically was more than he had in his own apartment.
He told her that whenever he tried to fall asleep, he’d hear the minibar and be reminded of his own refrigerator.
He hadn’t slept in a week.
“Can’t you unplug it?” said Kara.
“I tried that,” said Brandon.
He told Kara that the maid had found the cord and told the management about it. The management had threatened to kick him out.
“But I have worse problems,” said Brandon.
He told Kara that his nose had turned from numb to cold.
“Can you lose a nose?” said Kara.
Brandon didn’t know for sure but he thought that you could.
“Oh yes,” he said. “You can definitely lose a nose.”
34
After they went to the doctor’s, Kara drove Brandon back to his motel.
“Now we know,” said Kara.
They sat on Brandon’s bed and listened to the sound of his minibar’s engine. There was a vacuum cleaner in the distance. On the wall was a picture of a slow camel moving toward an oasis.
“Yes,” said Brandon.
“I’m relieved,” said Kara.
She said, “I’m happy that your nose is fine.”
“It’s not fine,” said Brandon.
“It’s broken,” he said.
“But you’re not going to lose it,” said Kara.
“That’s true,” said Brandon.
She said, “The only type of nose you can lose is a syphilitic nose.”
Outside the sun quivered in the swimming pool.
A child sat in the sandbox and built a shapeless lump.
“I don’t have syphilis,” said Brandon.
He said, “Because I haven’t been having sex.”
“Promiscuous sex,” said Kara.
She said, “You can only get syphilis from having promiscuous sex.”
Brandon thought about Charles.
Promiscuous sex, he thought.
35
Everyone gathered at the marina for the launch of the Chu Chu Too.
Brandon was gathered with a fresh bandage across his nose. Kara was gathered. Charles was gathered. Javier was gathered. Miranda July was gathered.
Charles wielded a bottle of champagne.
He held it by its neck, ready to smash it against his brand new yacht.
But before he smashed his champagne he made a speech.
Charles: “Back in the Viking times, the Vikings marked the launch of a new boat with a human sacrifice. They sacrificed a human and spilled his blood into the sea to satisfy the sea gods. Like Vikings we are gathered here today to launch a new boat. But unlike Vikings we are not allowed to sacrifice human beings. Instead we are going to sacrifice a very expensive bottle of champagne. May this bottle of champagne satisfy the sea gods so that they protect us on this voyage and on many voyages to come.”
He broke the bottle and everyone applauded.
Kara handed out yachting caps.
Everyone boarded the boat.
> 36
“How do you like it?” said Miranda July.
“Fun,” said Brandon.
“My first time on a boat,” he said.
Brandon and Miranda July stood alone at the rear of the boat. Everyone else was at the front of the boat eating shrimp on toothpicks and laughing.
The laughter flew back like spray from the waves.
Brandon’s nose was bleeding.
He was cold and nauseous.
Every time the boat bumped over a wave he grabbed the rails and choked down a tide of vomit.
The boat hit a wave and Brandon grabbed the rail.
“I hate boat rides,” said Miranda July.
She said, “Boat rides always go on too long. The sun is always too hot. The boats are always too confining. But every time I’m invited, I accept. I think maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this time it will be a fun boat ride. But at the same time I know exactly what’s going to happen.”
“What’s going to happen?” said Brandon.
“Reality,” said Miranda July.
37
After they had sailed past Venice Beach and Santa Monica Beach and had begun the long curve up the coast toward Malibu, Charles called everyone to the front of the boat.
He and Javier had brought along golf clubs and wanted everyone to hit golf balls into the sea.
He offered Kara the chance to go first.
“What about the fish?” said Kara.
“What fish?” said Charles.
Kara said, “I don’t want to hit a fish.”
“You won’t hit a fish,” said Charles.
He handed a club to Javier and Javier swung it.
The ball landed far away in the water.
There was a tiny, white splash.
“See,” said Charles.
“The ocean is vast but mostly fishless,” he said.
He gave a club to Miranda July and she dutifully knocked a ball into the water.
Then he gave one to Brandon.
“Let’s see if you remember how it goes,” said Charles.
Brandon looked out at the ocean.
Then he looked at Kara.
Her nose.
Her brown eyes.
But not her breasts, thought Brandon.
Not her breasts, he thought.
“I can’t,” said Brandon.
“The fish,” he said.
Charles hit two more balls into the water.
“No fish,” he said.
“Oh it does look like fun,” said Kara.
She stood at the front of the boat and raised the club above her head.
She swung.
But before the club connected with the ball the boat bumped over a wave and everyone lunged forward.
When Brandon stood up again he looked to the spot where Kara had been standing.
Kara was gone.
38
Everyone stood at the rail and called into the water.
But there was no Kara.
There was just blue-black sea.
Charles climbed over the rail and dived into the ocean.
Javier peeled off his shirt and jumped in as well.
Miranda July clutched a lifesaver.
“Look,” she said.
She pointed at a floating whale corpse that had surfaced alongside the ship. There was a whole rotten pod of them.
“It’s the whales,” said Miranda July. “That’s what we hit.”
Brandon could smell them.
“The stench,” he said.
“Truly horrible,” said Miranda July.
Then Brandon saw Kara. She was clinging to a whale corpse and drifting further away from the boat.
“There she is,” said Brandon.
He climbed up the rail and pointed.
“Kara,” he said.
“I’m coming,” he said.
But Charles and Javier had also seen her.
They began swimming toward her, their muscular arms pulling them through the water with ease.
By the time Brandon had removed his shirt they had already reached her. The three were hugging together and paddling back toward the boat.
The rescue was already over.
It’s too late, he thought.
But Brandon jumped in anyway.
He mounted the rail and plunged into the water.
He was a poor swimmer and was dunked by the waves. But when he got his head above the water he could see Kara and Charles moving together in the distance.
The whales rose and sank around him.
“I’m coming,” he said.
There was music in the water, the sound of waves slapping on whales’ bodies.
He was moving farther away from the Chu Chu Too but he didn’t seem to be getting any closer to Kara and Charles.
“I’m coming,” he said. “Wait.”
PANIC ATTACK
From: Dan & Nan [[email protected]]
Sent: 18 June 2014
To: K--- J------ [[email protected]]
Subject: RE: Bryan Hurt
Hi K---,
We enjoyed Bryan’s story, but we are looking for something more true, something that explores deeper human emotions. Bryan’s stories do not have as much emotional depth as I think we are looking for. Might he have something else that is more along these lines?
Hope all is well!
Nan
Nan says that my stories aren’t real enough. She and Dan like them, she says, but they want something that’s more true. Even the true stories I send them, stories about stuff that really happened, aren’t true enough. They want true true. The kind of truth that builds a nest in your heart, lays eggs, and two weeks later little baby truth birds hatch out. That’s the kind of truth she’s talking about. “Truth birds?” I say. “Or bombs,” says Dan. “The kind of story where you read it and—” he makes a kaboom gesture with his hands like a bomb blowing up.
“So you want a story with birds or bombs in it?” I say. I’m hunched over my notebook taking notes.
“No!” they say. Birds and bombs are just metaphors. They want stories about real things, stuff with real emotional depth.
“Got it,” I say. “No birds, no bombs.” I scratch both off my list.
“And no ghosts,” says Nan. “No zombies, no spaceships, no time travel, no fairy tales. None of that funny stuff.” They want straight-up, regular stories about real-life emotional things. “We believe in you,” says Dan. “We know you can do it.”
Me, I’m not so sure. I like Nan and Dan a lot and want them to like me back. But the way they’re talking about my stories makes me feel like I’m a psychopath. Like I deliberately put a heavy lid over my feelings or that the tap to my emotions is completely shut off. But the tap to my emotions is not shut off. I look down at the floor. While my eyes are down there, I notice that Dan’s sneakers are a limited edition. I’ve never seen them back home in LA. “Thanks,” says Dan. He sips his drink, gets mustache in his beer. “They are a limited edition. They only sell them here in Williamsburg. You have to be from Brooklyn to buy them. They make you show an ID and everything before you pay.” Compared to his shoes, my sneakers are nothing. The black parts are brown, the white parts are black, and there’s dog poop dried to the soles.
“We didn’t come here to talk about shoes,” says Nan. “We’re here to talk about stories. What do you say? Do you have the kind of story we’re looking for?” I look at the list that I jotted down on the airplane, but after Nan’s tirade almost all of my ideas are crossed out:
Time travel
Zombies
Ghost pirates
“What about pirates?” I say. Of course I know what they’ll say pretty much immediately. But I’m not very good at making things up on the spot. Nan lifts her glasses, pinches the bridge of her nose. Dan blinks. A silence, tight as piano wire, stretches across the bar. “Sad pirates,” I say. Someone coughs apologetically.
“Well,” says Dan. “I like the sad part. That feel
s true to me. Sadness is real.” Nan sighs. “Look,” she says. “We’re not saying we need a story right away. Think about it. Maybe send us an email when you get home.”
When I get home I’m still shivering from the plane ride. I paid twelve dollars for a chicken sandwich that tasted like it was made in a lab. Everyone was too big for their seats. My wife is on the couch, underneath an Indian blanket, reading the Sunday magazine in the New York Times. “How’d it go?” she asks. I uncork the wine, pour myself a glass. Upstairs the neighbor’s big dog starts scratching. The building is old and everything is thin—the walls, the ceiling. Our ceiling lamp shakes.
“We should move,” I say.
“Can’t,” says my wife. This is true. We could barely afford our place when we moved in three years ago, and we can barely afford it now. But it’s rent-controlled. Since the recession, we can’t afford anything else.
I’m feeling anxious from the plane ride. I down the wine in two drinks, but still the need to do something is like a rash. “Want to fool around?” I say.
My wife looks at the clock. It’s inching toward ten o’clock. “I would,” she says. “But I should be in bed already. Need to get up early for a conference call with the East Coast.” She yawns. “Tomorrow? Pencil it in?”
I throw myself on the couch, switch on the TV, and flip between channels for a while before settling on a show about science. A famous scientist is talking about global warming, mankind’s eventual doom. When I wake it’s from a bad dream I don’t remember. The TV’s off and my wife has gone to bed. I lie there for a while trying to remember the dream and feeling my heart beat. The more I try to remember the dream—the more I can’t—the faster my heart beats. It takes a few minutes to realize that I’m having a full-blown panic attack.
I stumble to the kitchen, splash water on my face, pour myself a glass. The apartment might be crappy but you can’t complain about the location. Out the window there’s a clear view of the ocean. Tonight, the moon’s big over the water, fog rolling in. To the north a foghorn’s blowing. I drain another glass and focus on my swallowing, like focusing on my swallowing will slow down my pounding heart. When did I start having panic attacks? I’m not that old. I live by the ocean. I have a beautiful wife. What do I have to panic about?