The Mirror Thief

by Martin Seay

  So the pad was that of Alex, Claudio says after a while, but was once the pad of Charlie? Is that right?

  Beats the hell outta me, kid.

  They trudge along for a few more paces. The head of the line has reached the boardwalk, is crossing onto the sand.

  Claudio tries again. Charlie was unhappy, he says. Do you know why?

  He’s afraid he’s a joke and a phony, I guess.

  But why is he afraid of that?

  I dunno. Maybe ’cause he is one. Look, why don’t you run ahead and ask him?

  He does not want to hurt the world, Claudio says. But how can a poem hurt the world? How can it do anything? I do not understand this.

  The column loses shape when it hits the dark beach, jumbling like a dropped rope. People walk by: a woman and two younger guys, all three nude, on their way to the water. Nobody looks at them twice. In the ring of light cast by the farthest bonfire, a bare-chested man in sunglasses plays a pair of high-pitched Cuban drums, not very well. The drums look and sound like toys. A rhythm rises against the crash of waves, then gutters, then starts up again.

  Milton checks his watch. High tide in ten minutes, he says.

  These knuckleheads better put out their lights, Stuart says, or else they’re gonna spook all the fish.

  A motorcycle sputters along the Speedway, turning toward the traffic circle. From somewhere near the oilfield comes a series of loud pops that could be backfires, could be pistolshots.

  Ten minutes, then? Alex says, digging through the pockets of his denim overalls. Anyone fancy a round of pinball before the arcades close?

  Stanley grins; he feels like his mind’s been read. Lead the way, pal, he says. That’s my meat and potatoes.

  They step onto the wooden planks again. Claudio and Charlie and one of the others—Jimmy? Saul?—break off to follow. Stuart calls to them as they go. We’re headed south, he says, where it’s darker! Alex lifts a hand in vague acknowledgment, doesn’t turn around. Charlie has vanished before they’ve crossed the boardwalk: off to find a bottle, Stanley figures.

  The penny-arcade is an old Bridgo parlor, small and seedy and full of machines that look like they fell off a truck. The sign hung on the colonnade was new maybe ten years ago, which puts it ahead of the sign on the boarded-up building next door, which was new in maybe 1930. The interior is about a quarter whitewashed, like somebody stopped in mid-brushstroke partway along the left-hand wall when they ran out of paint and money, or maybe just realized that nobody cared. A shrill wash of noise spills from the windows and bounces off the bricks: bells and thumps, mechanical whistles, sickly celesta melodies.

  It’s the usual crowd inside: soldiers, sailors, laborers, pachucos, thugs. A few sorry-looking hookers loiter at the door and windows, asking passersby for dimes. The Dogs are here too, though not in force: three of them, manhandling a Daisy May machine in the corner, their backs to the door, Whitey among them.

  Stanley drops some coins into Claudio’s palm, parks him at an ancient wobbly Bingo Bango. Back in a minute, he says. Just sit tight.

  He crosses the room and taps Whitey on the shoulder before anyone sees him coming. It isn’t hard. Stanley keeps his weight back, his stance open, in case somebody takes a swing.

  Whitey turns, does a doubletake. For an instant, alarm flickers in his eyes; then he plasters on a hyena sneer. Well, whaddya know, he says. We may get some blowjobs tonight aft—

  Can it, meathead. I’m looking for your boss.

  Whitey squares his shoulders and juts his jaw, puffed up like a peacock, but his voice is clear, and he’s breathing through his nose: he’s not going to pull anything. For my what? he says.

  You heard me. Where is he?

  Probably still at the last job I quit, asshole. I ain’t got no boss.

  Okay, smart guy. Then where’s the joker does your thinking for you? You know who I’m talking about. Don’t act like a putz.

  It ain’t my week to watch him, nosebleed. You think I’m his secretary?

  I don’t think about you at all, chum. When you see him, you tell him that me and my buddy are about to do some business on the waterfront. If he wants a cut, he better let me know pronto. I’m not gonna track him down.

  Whitey’s sneer sags, like his face is getting tired; he sifts the contents of his brain for a sharp response. Stanley fades back slowly until Whitey open his mouth again. Then he spins on his heel and walks.

  Claudio’s watching with panicked eyes; he steps forward, meets Stanley halfway. What are you doing? he whispers. Why do you go to the hoods?

  You know why, kid, Stanley says. Look, we can’t talk about it now. I need you to hold onto something.

  He pulls Alex’s wad of bills from his pocket and presses it into Claudio’s hand. Claudio’s eyes get wider; his jaw drops. Stop it, Stanley says. Look at me. If you see those punks make a move—I mean if they come over here, understand?—then you let me know right off. If anybody throws a punch, then you scram the hell outta here. I’ll meet you at the hideout.

  Alex and his buddy are playing adjacent machines at the room’s far end, a Shoot The Moon and a Mercury, their mist-damp heads silhouetted against the sleek painted rockets of the glowing backglasses. Alex is good: he tilts his machine with subtlety and skill, lecturing as he plays. Pinball’s true appeal, he’s saying, resides in its embodiment of the stiff social mechanisms that ensnare us. To play is to strike at them in effigy. Pinball and jazz are the two finest things your country has given the world, and they arise from the same spirit of opposition.

  Stanley moves past them to an Arabian Nights machine. He drops a dime and the backglass lights up: a veiled bellydancer, a turbaned sultan ringed by busty harem girls. The sultan is smug, portly, reading aloud from a massive book; Stanley thinks of Welles and grins. He figures he doesn’t have much time, so he draws back the plunger, launches the first ball, and lets it drain. He does the same with the second, and the third. Then he starts to play for real, racking up points in a hurry, slowing down when he feels Alex loom behind him. Not bad, Alex tells him when the game ends.

  Thanks. Not too shabby yourself.

  I used to play quite a lot in Paris. I’ve rusted a bit, I’m afraid.

  Stanley puts his hand in his pocket, comes out with another coin. Time for one more game? he says.

  Why not? The fish will wait, I suspect.

  You wanna win back some of your cash?

  As Alex plays—warping the cabinet with the pressure of his knees and elbows, deforming the course of the little silver balls—Whitey and his hammerhead sidekicks exit, flipping Stanley the bird as they go. Claudio seems to relax a little. A light breeze filters through the windows, and Stanley can see moonlight on the waves; the rainclouds must be blowing through. The pinball cabinet groans against Alex’s weight. Score lights climb the backglass; the machine clunks and dings.

  Soon it’s Stanley’s turn. He doesn’t even look at Alex’s score. Moments after he’s launched his first ball Alex begins to laugh; he takes a fin from his billfold, creases it down its middle, lays it across the lockdown bar. Ah, but you’re a good fucking con, Stanley, he says. Go as long as you can, now. It’s worth five just to see you play, you magnificent bugger.

  Stanley never tilts; he’s never tried, isn’t really sure how. He touches nothing but the flipper-buttons. The left is a little tacky; sometimes he can see where the ball’s going but can’t do much about it, and that gets on his nerves. His eyes track the streak of silver as it ricochets between bumpers. The trapholes light; the machine vomits replays. Three million points. Four million. Five. Claudio, bored, taps out a mambo rhythm on the tin bucket with his fingertips. Stanley’s still on his first ball. Sweet christ, Alex whispers to Claudio. I’ve not seen anything like it.

  Eventually the machine maxes out. Stanley pockets the fin, then tears off the replays and hands them to Alex. So, he says, who’s ready to go fish?

  They find Stuart and the others near the entrance channel to the new marina. Stu
art and Milton are at the water’s edge, staring into the swash, outlined against the emergent moon. The others sit farther back on the dry sand, beside empty buckets and scattered shoes. The group has grown: Lyn’s here, with three other women, faces Stanley recalls from the coffeehouse. One of them plays a soft melody on a guitar. Charlie’s nearby too, a little apart, nursing a bottle from a paper bag.

  One of the women greets Claudio by name; he must’ve met her last night, while Stanley was with Welles. While Claudio talks to her, Stanley slips off his shoes to join Milton and Stuart. As he approaches, Stuart signals caution with a raised hand, and hisses for silence, although Stanley isn’t making any noise.

  Stanley crouches between them, watching the surf. A couple of slender silver fish—maybe six inches long—swim in the backwash of the last wave, there for an instant, then gone. Hey, Stanley whispers. What’re we looking for?

  Stuart squints at the ocean, his heavy features fierce and alert. Fish, he says.

  Another silver fish zips through the shallows, furrowing the water with its smooth back. Stanley looks at Stuart, then at Milton. What do we do when we see ’em? he says.

  Catch ’em, Stuart says.

  With what? We got nets?

  Don’t need nets, Milton says. Just use your hands. You grab ’em, you drop ’em in the bucket. They come right out of the water.

  Stuart’s still wearing his purposeful Bomba-the-Jungle-Boy expression, scanning the white foam. Stanley looks past him. Probably twenty or thirty small fish cruise along the water’s edge between here and the stones of the half-finished jetty. Turning north, he spots even more. What are they supposed to look like? he says.

  Like big sardines, Milton says. Five, six inches. Skinny and silver. You’ll see a few males at first: those are the scouts. They case the beach, make sure everything’s a-okay. Then the ladies make the scene, to lay the eggs.

  Stanley points. Are those the scouts? he says.

  Milton and Stuart hunch forward. Each presses a palm to the wet sand, balancing on it, and shades his eyes from the moonlight with the other. In this position they look like a couple of gargoyles, or stone lions. Well, I’ll be damned, Milton says.

  Stuart looks over his shoulder. Get ready! he barks. Here they come.

  Within minutes the sand swarms with writhing fish. The crowd on the beach rolls their trousercuffs, rushes forward with whoops and cheers; Claudio hits the cold ocean with a gasp, then wades forward to fill his pail with seawater. The first wave that sweeps Stanley’s bare ankles numbs his skin, seizes his shivering body. He can hardly put a foot down without something squirming under it. Saltwater soaks through his bandage, stings his cut. He stoops, clasps slick scales between his stiff blue fingers, lifts and drops his catch into Claudio’s waiting bucket.

  More fish sweep in on each wave, flipping and thrashing, burrowing tail-first into the sand. Patches of beach all along the waterline glitter in the moonlight, as if mirrors have shattered there, their shards come to wriggling liquid life. Stuart and his friends splash past, laughing through chattering teeth. Don’t take more than you’ll eat, Milton says. Leave some for the next new moon. Alex has a small fish cradled in his palm, its head clamped in the crook of his thumb; he whispers something to it, then puts it back into the waves.

  The buckets fill, and people amble back to the dry sand. Someone’s playing a blues shuffle on the guitar: I wish I was a grunion, swimming in a cold deep sea, she sings. I’d have all you pretty people fishing after me. Stuart chases one of the women through the knee-deep water, trying to slip a fish down her blouse. Charlie has stolen Alex’s shoes and slipped them on; they’re too small for him. He dances on tiptoe, waving his bottle in the air, shaking his hips and bellowing in an unsteady Scottish burr. Iamb trochee! he shouts. Dig my metrical feet, man! They’re longfellows!

  Stanley’s half out of breath—from the cold, from the effort of scrambling after the fish, and also from something else: an unfamiliar feeling that’s hard to name. A wakeful amazement. A sad fragile sense of presentness, of moments passing. The low moon breaks through the clouds for a second, and Stanley thinks of the fireball he saw that time in the desert, and how he felt when he saw it. He thinks of The Mirror Thief, too—thinks of it in a way that he used to think of it all the time, but hasn’t really been able to since he made it out here, since he got close to Welles, as if Welles has been blocking it somehow. Now Stanley remembers. There are certain moments that open onto another world, onto the world that Stanley’s sure he belongs in. The book is a map that will take him there, a password that will unfasten the locks.

  He walks back onto the beach for a moment and sits. Claudio rests the bucket on the sand and crouches next to him. Stanley? he says. Are you okay? Are you sick?

  Stanley looks at him. Then he looks away. He watches the moon multiplied in the water, the silent buildings along the boardwalk. Streetlamps and the lights of oil-derricks have reshaped the inhabited ruin of the waterfront into a maze of shadows, a hidden web that links a set of illuminated stages. Each empty stage glows like a diorama viewed through a peephole, the scene of a cancelled performance, and hints at something that this place once tried to be. Stanley can feel it reverberate around him, as if he’s inside a struck bell. I’m great, he whispers. I’m doing great.

  After a while he rises again. By now they’ve crowded Claudio’s pail with as many fish as seems reasonable, but the bucket that Charlie brought is lying nearby, forgotten on the sand, so Stanley picks it up, and he and Claudio fill it too. What will we do with so many? Claudio asks.

  We’re gonna eat ’em. Whaddya think, we’re gonna train ’em to do tricks, like in a flea circus?

  How will we do this? We have no place to cook.

  Leave that to me, kid. I got a place in mind.

  The pulsing silver carpet keeps coming, but soon everybody’s done, loaded with all they can carry. Alex and Lyn have become fidgety, eager to get indoors. They dust themselves off and drift toward town, and the crowd follows them, angling first one direction, then another, pausing sometimes for no reason Stanley can see. The stops and starts spook the captured fish; they ping their snouts against the tin sides of the bucket.

  Stuart and the woman he chased hang back, arguing quietly. At Windward they split: Stuart stops to light a cigarette under the Center Drug portico; she continues down the boardwalk with their bucket. Except for Lyn all of the women go with her, and most of the fish go with the women. The men stand around, hands in pockets, watching them walk away. Everything cool, Stuart? one of the guys asks.

  Stuart shakes out his match like a movie tough, draws deeply, exhales a volcanic plume through his nose. Can we go someplace, he says, where I can just cool out and think for a goddamn change?

  They wind up at somebody’s pad: the upper floor of a rickety old house, now subdivided into a triplex, in the neighborhood that Welles and Stanley walked through last night. The buckets are lined up on the landing, their silvery surfaces broken now and then by a tiny fin or a gasping mouth. Inside, a new bop record rotates on the hi-fi, and the sleeve gets passed around: a photo of a white altoist posed with his horn in the shade of trees, cool and blank-faced, eyeing something offstage right that could be the setting sun, could be approaching doom, it’s all the same to this cat. Stuart and Tony sit on the floor by a cinderblock bookcase, smoking and complaining. I go home, and it’s the kids, the bills, the rent. How am I supposed to get any serious work done? Women don’t understand how hard it is to keep an idea in your head, especially when it’s a dangerous idea, one that nobody wants you to be having. At the kitchen table Alex has settled in: matches, dropper, spoon, needle, the dead biker’s junk. Some of the guys are rolling up their sleeves. Lyn drifts from room to room like a shade, ignored by everyone. Charlie’s propped in a corner, trying to open a bottle of beer, talking loud in his radio voice: Are you risking your life—or the life of your child—by using dirty syringes?

  Stanley aches all over, in his leg most of all, a
nd his skin is raw and filmy from the sea. He can’t stop thinking about the fish outside, tapping their noses against the sides of the pails, sucking air off the top. Whatever moment he felt passing before has now definitely passed. He and Claudio slip outside as the moon sets, saying goodnight to no one, lugging their heavy buckets home.

  44

  Adrian Welles lives in a clapboard bungalow on Wave Crest, a big house for the neighborhood: two stories, custard-yellow eaves and siding newly painted, long second-floor deck ringed by a wrist-thick wisteria vine. The slab has settled unevenly over the years; from the street, the front door seems slightly off plumb, tilted at a funhouse angle. The house sits on its wide sandy lot like a lunatic on a parkbench, tricked out in his best suit, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but fix passersby with a silent crooked smile.

  Stanley and Claudio have spent the day in a frenzy of primping, hauling their filthy clothes to the coin laundry, then hiking north along the beach into Santa Monica to shower and shave at the communal washroom there. By the time they got back to Horizon Court, the wrinkles had fallen from Stanley’s stolen clothes; Claudio slicked his hair back and donned a loud rayon shirt. Then they crowded together as Stanley held out his steel pocket mirror in an outstretched hand. The two of them could pass for horn-players in a hot hotel combo—or film stars, Claudio insisted. We are like two young stars of film.

  They headed up Pacific as the sun began to sink, moving through the shadowed mercantile valley of liquor stores and shuttered warehouses and careworn Jewish bakeries, slowed by the weight of the buckets they bore and the risk of splashing seawater on their clean trousers. Stanley’s greatest fear—an encounter with the Dogs that would end, at best, with their catch spilled—did not come to pass, and as they made the corner onto Welles’s street they paused for a moment to relax, to flex their cramped fingers, to feed the gathering neighborhood cats with the handful of fish that died in the night.

  Now they’ve come to the house. At this hour the light is exactly wrong for peeking in the windows: each pane is a mute sheet of reflected sun, shaded here and there by pale green clusters of unopened wisteria blooms. Beyond the low wooden gate, the flagstone path is edged with winter-green, infiltrating the patchy grass. Tall hibiscus grows beneath the windows, and a pair of fuchsias hangs in baskets over the stoop. On the left side of the lawn is a shallow birdbath; on the right is a sundial set on a concrete pedestal, its rusty iron blade adorned with a round laughing face. Text curves around the pedestal’s edge: but a name I snatched, it says. Stanley can’t read the rest. Somewhere inside the house a hi-fi plays a string-orchestra record; it’s hard to hear at first, but when it crescendos, it’s loud enough to rattle the windows in their frames. The music is discordant, keening, like nothing Stanley has heard. He has a hard time imagining why anybody would listen to it on purpose.