“Can I call you Red?” I said.
“Sure.”
“Dear Red, I was wondering … hold on,” I said.
I thought of a question mark and I captured it, but it evaporated like trying to hug a ghost. I opened my mouth and a moan came out—I fell asleep.
I dreamt that Scott Harp trained the wolf to let him pee into its mouth. The wolf was trained to guzzle fast enough that not a drop dripped out.
I woke up with the prostitute poking my shoulder.
“Hun,” she said.
It made me wince and want to cry, but I didn’t want to scare her.
“You’ve been sleeping two hours, are you gonna pay me?” she said.
I pulled out some cash with my eyes still closed and opened them slits to count out for her.
“Don’t go away,” I said as I handed it to her.
I fell back fast to sleep.
“My gravedigger love interest,” I managed. “I just found out she was a prostitute.”
The prostitute said, “Wake up, you’re dreaming.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her and she was still smoking, but it was bright out now. I looked in the rearview hoping to see that someone had stolen The Headstone, but there it was—chained down.
“The opening’s tonight,” I said.
“Are you gonna pay me? I’ve been sitting in this cab all night knowing you’re gonna pay me and I better not be wrong,” the prostitute said.
I pulled out the cash and counted out for her.
She took it with her maroon nails and put it in her purse.
“Thanks! Do you want a cigarette?” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
The cigarette smelled like Red’s spicy perfume where she’d pinched it out of the pack.
“Do you mind driving me to the next exit? There’s a diner there,” she said.
I lit the cigarette and in one drag the ash was hooked toward the floor. I rolled my window down and wide-loaded our way out of the truck stop.
We drove a short distance and then exited into a parking lot the size of two football fields. We parked the truck and got out and walked the sunny concrete as it was starting to snow.
“I lost Anna-Patrick, I lost all my money cause I keep spendin’ it, he stole my scissor, and I’m showin’ up with my next piece,” I said. “Sounds like a bad country song.”
Red ignored me, which was interesting, so I took a good look at her for the first time. She was in tennis shoes and a little white cotton dress with a red parka over it where the fur collar looked wet but wasn’t. She had gold jewelry and brown lipstick on. I thought she probably has old pics of her daughter in her wallet before her earlobe was split like a vaginette.
She saw me looking at her and said, “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s a real treat for me to be able to have a nice quiet meal at a diner, and I’m really hungry, so do you mind if I eat alone?”
“I’ll pay you the rest of my money to let me eat with you,” I said.
“Okay,” Red said.
The diner was part of a gas station/restroom/souvenirs/food-court complex. Truckers and bladderful families entered and exited the complex like ants. Red and I sat in a gold-speckled booth on yellow padded benches. Snow fell diagonally out the window that said !raeY fO emiT tahT in frosty green cursive. We ordered the Gimmie-It-All special and I smiled at her when the waitress left, like We got the same thing, but she didn’t smile back.
“You seem really nice,” I said to her.
“And married,” she said, holding up her wedding finger.
“Oh?” I said, “And how’s your husband think of you bein’ a lady of the night?”
She lightly snarled and said, “He thinks it’s just fine. It pays the bills and I only have to work when I want.”
“Huh? But what does he think about you havin’ sex with other men?”
“Me and my husband have a good relationship. He knows it’s just sex and it’s no big deal. The dick goes in and the dick goes out. It’s just an action. I tell my clients exactly what they can’t do with me. No talking. No calling me slut or whatever. No kissing me on the neck like you’re my lover. No sucking my tits unless they pay extra. I only do blow jobs to healthy dicks—and I’m the judge of it. Always use condoms, duh.” She opened her purse to show a gun, “And I think they can sense it. No one’s ever really crossed my borders.”
My face hung on its skull frame.
She cleared her throat and lit a cigarette.
“You really did just find out your woman did sex work,” she said.
The waitress came back with our specials.
“Yeah, I did,” I said.
As we ate, I started to feel better, like my mother always said I would if I ate. I replayed my kiss with Anna-Patrick. Had she meant it?—you know. I found myself smirking, and thought—her parents were crazy! Makes sense she’d go off and do whatever!
“You know what?” I said.
“What?” Red said, very comfortable with me.
“Nothing. I can’t wait to see her,” I said.
She picked up her cig and sucked it, squinting at me through the smoke.
“Good for you, grown-up,” she said. “If I saw your ball sack I could tell you exactly how old you are. That’s how old you should be acting.”
I grunted.
“She loves you and only you, I promise,” she said, smashing out her cig and then biting into her toast.
“Psh!” I said, pretending I thought Red was overdoing it so she’d be uncomfortable instead of me, which she wasn’t. She was swishing her fingers together on her toast-eating hand to get invisible crumbs off while looking around.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Bobby Jo.”
While we were waiting for the waitress to clear our plates, Red showed me pictures of her family because I asked.
“There’s X, there’s X and X, and my daughter’s kids”—you know.
“Well they all look pretty normal,” I said.
She said, “That was a lovely breakfast, thank you very much. I’m just going to sit here and nurse my coffee and buy a paper now.”
I said, “Thank you for your help, Ma’am, I really appreciate you opening up,” and I got out my wad of cash and gave it to her. Then I grabbed the check and took it to the register and paid with a charge card. I took a peppermint, then pulled my jean jacket close and waved at Red when I walked by the booth outside and her face was next to the exclamation point in That Time Of Year!
When I pulled up to New York City, I fished the address of the Opening out of my jean jacket. I talked to cops and showed them paperwork and wide-loaded through special entrances that made me beyond impressed with Father John’s capabilities. I knew from those moments on that I’d forever be interested in him and I couldn’t wait to tell him about all that. I drove the entire borough of Brooklyn looking for the address. I had to do a corn maze of pulling into streets and backing up when I realized I wouldn’t fit through. (“Hey buddy, fuck you!”) After two hours of that, I finally arrived at a warehouse on Butler Street in the stench of the Gowanus Canal.
I honked my flatbed at the closed garage door and waited. In five seconds, the door started rolling up. I saw two pairs of shiny dress shoes and knew—there’s Christmas and Quick. The door revealed one Christmas-colored suit and one blue, and the endless depth and height of a black room behind them. Christmas saw me give a functional wave at the wheel of my flatbed truck and he yowled with laughter, clutching onto Charlie Quick so hard Charlie’s suit sleeve tore off. Christmas yanked it off his arm and bit it like a dog, stomping around in a circle. “YES!” he said. “YES!”
Charlie came around to my side of the truck and had surprisingly large muscles on his exposed arm.
“Pull in!” he shouted.
I turned the headlights on to illuminate the room and fifteen white cats scampered to hiding spots like cockroaches.
Christmas’s team had built the scaffold
ing frame like I’d asked: two sets of wooden stairs to go up each side of The Headstone and a platform on top to connect them so that viewers could look into the sinkhole. It was monumentally still as the only thing in the room. A spotlight hung from above it. The ceiling was so high I couldn’t see it.
A pack of art handlers appeared in the rearview to close in on my cargo. I got out of the truck and Christmas had Siedle the elf on his hip like a toddler. My heart doubled in beat. Oh my god!, I thought. Someone in the darkness flashed our pic.
Christmas said, “Haircutter! I believe this!”
The elf blinked like a real person. He had real-person teeth.
“Hi, how are you?” it said.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, and my vision began to blur.
“Just fine?” it questioned.
I started shaking. “Christmas can I talk to you in private?”
“Sure! Let’s go to my office and sign the contract.”
Siedle ran to Charlie Quick on his curly shoes and Quick held out his unsheathed arm and the elf swung around on it like a gymnast on bars. Charlie’s facial expression labeled that the contents of his brain were used to this—he was patient as the elf grunted and swung.
“Disgusting!” I said under my breath.
I followed the old familiar sight of Christmas’s bald head moving forward as if on a conveyer belt while his lower body did all the work as if on a unicycle. He pulled aside a thick black curtain to reveal a little office he’d fashioned. It had the furniture transported from his Thank You office, so I sat uncomfortably down.
“I don’t want Siedle at the opening. He intimidates me,” I said.
“You?” Christmas said. “Intimidated by something?”
“Huh?” I said. I thought of Harp and said, “Oh right, I mean interested. I want a lot of elves at the party. I’m interested in them.”
He sat on his desk, “So, we have forty-four minutes to get the piece set up, isn’t that sexy? We have three potential buyers coming, and there’s usually one or two others hidden in the crowd. I’m going to introduce you to Valter Konig, he’s the really tan one, and Laaren Ray, she’s the hippie heiress who’s secretly a murderer, and The Jewells, a young couple who love folk art. Okay? So make sure you tell them about how much the piece means to you, okay?”
“Well it ain’t a molehill, but okay,” I said. Then I thought of Harp again and said, “I mean a mountain. I’m interested in the piece I made.”
Was I drooling? You can add all that. It had been a while since I’d been in the spotlight, and I remembered that same old feel of wondering Is this how?!
Christmas put his hand down his pants to rub his candy-cane little excuse for a penis, “This is what I live for—look at this fuckin’ place. I’m sorry about what happened with Harp. I dropped him from the gallery. He was too trained anyway, I never really liked him. But Carol’s leg is a work of art! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Ach. I just want my scissor back, and let’s get this thing sold. Now where’s the contract, then let’s have Charlie Quick hose me off—I’m smelly.”
In a single motion, Christmas whipped out a contract with his left hand and whipped out a gun with his right and shot the contract with his pearl-handled pistol on his dotted line.
I waited for his hole to cool, then signed it John Reilly Junior.
“I’d like an extra request,” I said. “I’m done with that apartment I lived at, so tell your Finn to throw my stuff away. I wanna sleep in a side room here before heading out in the morning.”
Christmas said, “I knew you’d be tired!”
He peeled back another black curtain and we went through into a room of pitch black, then he peeled back another black curtain and we went through into a room that had a blue globe light on the floor with electricity moving in it. There was black bedding beside it that I could barely see. I noticed a melody song coming from the light.
“I’ll hear the full song later, but wow, this is perfect,” I said, yanking up my pants. “Hell.”
“I’m so glad you like it,” Christmas said. “I hope you get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
The light cast blue and lit pockmarks on his face and head like craters on a friendly moon.
“Do I smell food?” I said.
Christmas smiled and stepped to a corner where he peeled back another black curtain.
“Après vous!” he said.
We walked down a dark black-curtained hall and Siedle ran past us. He peeled back another black curtain up ahead.
“Thank you, Siedle,” Christmas said.
“Je vous en prie!” it said and held the curtain spread for us as we walked into another black room.
There was a turkey and a goblet filled with Coke.
“That’s my old writing desk!” I said.
“You recognized it! And that’s your chair. And a feast fit for a king by Mario Battistel at Jean-Quatre.”
I felt the turkey like it had braille on it.
“So, The Headstone!” he said, lighting candles with a long matchstick. “Where’d the idea come from?”
“Go see it,” I said, ripping off one of the turkey’s legs. “Have them put it in the slot between the stairs and take the lid off. It represents a coffin, so have them polish the mahogany to make the varnish gleam—the scratches are intentional. Then walk up the stairs and see what’s inside.”
Christmas wheezed at me through a smile like a party balloon with a pinprick in it.
“Would you like some entertainment while you eat?” he said.
I said, “What—Siedle?”
He peeled back another black curtain to show two actors waiting in a black side room with a vial of poison in the mouth of a pheasant on the girl’s head.
I said, “Ach! Get outta my face! No thanks. Get outta here.”
My temper became short, like Siedle. Christmas walked away laughing.
I took a closer look at the food. I thought of saying, “Well well, what do we have here?” but all I cared about was Anna-Patrick. I thought, “This is my girlfriend Anna-Patrick. She’s a gravedigger.” A mosquito hovered around a candle flame like Cupid was playing it like a marionette—he had it enter the flame and get burned alive by its passion. Anna-Patrick What? Anna-Patrick Wythe? Anna-Patrick Hoolihan? Anna-Patrick Forth?
“You’re in love with this girl,” I heard an old black man say in my head.
“I hope she loves me!” I said, and he simply nodded.
I loaded up my copper plate with oysters, ribs, carrots, grey jelly …
“I hope I’m not too lovesick to eat,” I said.
I heard Siedle snickering.
“Ahh!” I screamed. “GO AWAY! I DON’T WANT YOU!”
I heard him pitter-patter away down the hall.
“FUCK YOU!” I screamed.
The art handlers had used their machinery to insert the mahogany Headstone into the square slot between the scaffolding stairs, and they’d polished the smashed bugs off by the time I came out of the black folds with my pants unbuttoned. Christmas was on the ground conducting the men to take the lid off.
“Can I get a shot real quick?” a photographer asked.
The photog had to back up halfway across the room in order to get the whole thing in the pic. Christmas and I stood in front of the piece and Christmas kept looking up at it. Then the photog came in close to do a portrait of us against the mahogany and I tried leaning my head back on it with my hands in my pockets because I was lounging on my art piece with my pic being taken.
“Good, and Haircutter, can I get one last one with your chin down, please?” the photographer asked.
Christmas sniffed the varnish.
“It smells like the West,” he said.
Charlie Quick said, “You guys look great,” then motioned to me, saying, “We can hose you down out back. The guests are about to start trickling in.”
Siedle opened an EXIT that shot streetlights through the room.
&
nbsp; “Shall I wait for you or can I see it now?” Christmas asked, pointing up toward the sinkhole.
“No—I’ve seen it,” I said, unbuttoning my shirt.
He put his hands in his soft suit pants and walked up the wooden stairs that framed the box. He walked forward on the platform and stopped. He turned on his dress shoes to look down into the piece.
Charlie Quick hosed me off behind the warehouse in a cold alley. I rotated in the spray he made by holding his thumb over the hose.
“Just hold it still,” I said. “Let’s hurry up, it’s cold out.”
I lifted my penis and moved my hips around on the rod of water to gently direct it where I wanted it to go.
“It’s so nice to have you back,” Quick said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you don’t talk much, you just deliver the work and we make loads of money,” he said.
“Ha!” I liked his honesty very much. “Spray it in my mouth, I’m thirsty.”
I had to walk back through the warehouse in order to get to the street exit where my truck was parked, so I wrapped my shirt around my crotch like a diaper. Tiers of oysters and tables of champagne were set out around The Headstone. Caterers walked crisscross getting things done. Another photographer took my picture, and when the camera lowered off his face he was already looking away from me like it was nothing personal. I heard a moan.
Christmas was pacing in the dark with his head hanging.
“Do you like it?” I asked when I passed him.
He looked up at me like he didn’t know who I was.
“Hurry up and answer, I gained weight,” I said, and he didn’t answer, so I scuttled to the truck with my breath puffing out in a smelly cloud before me.
I changed into a plain white T-shirt and combed my part in the extra-large rearview mirror. I scraped the plaque off my teeth with my fingernails and wiped it on the seat—you know. It was my first opening without a woman, but I wasn’t going to show up looking like I played the banjo.
A laughing couple walking toward the warehouse caught my eye and made me lose myself in a memory of Carol and I looking the exact same—with our eyes as wide, with our hearts as beating, with our arms entwined like the roots of two plants planted near each other—“Oh shut up!” I said to myself. I was lucky to not love her anymore.
The Haircutter Page 24