Beautiful Children

by Charles Bock

  The University of Nevada, Las Vegas's men's basketball program had come to prominence in the seventies, thanks to a charismatic, if somewhat schlumpy, balding coach named Jerry Tarkanian. Nicknamed Tark the Shark for his habit of sucking on moistened towels during games (they kept his throat moist enough to allow him to yell at players and referees), Tarkanian was infamous for recruiting players with disreputable pasts and superhuman leaping abilities. By the late eighties UNLV had become a national powerhouse, and in 1991 destroyed Duke for the national championship. Soon after, when several of his players were photographed in a hot tub with a noted mob figure, Tarkanian came on the short end of a fight for power with university administrators, and was forced to resign. In the years since, coaches had come and gone as if they were dieting fads, and the program had never completely recovered. But if visiting celebrities no longer could be found courtside, sitting in what infamously had been called Gucci Row, Rebels basketball remained an event of local glamour. About the only way to get a pair of season tickets in nosebleed seats was to endow a chair to the school's fledgling philosophy department. Even for games against conference doormats, a pair of lower-deck seats represented something more than a coup.

  “You're spoiling him,” Lorraine complained. “He needs a father, not a friend.” And: “Why don't you ever take ME?”

  Was he supposed to disregard the joyous energy with which Newell had decked himself in scarlet and gray? Ignore the expectant banter as they'd sat in pregame traffic and listened to sports radio call-in? What was the point of connections if not to bring a father and son together? What was the point of money if not to make your child smile?

  An executive order put the kid's hyperactivity diet on hold for a night. A couple of limp and steamed weenies were procured at four fifty a pop. Medium-size boxes of imitation-butter-soaked popcorn-shaped Styrofoam came at three fifty a shot. Another eight for watered-down Cokes. Ten for generic game programs with the visiting team's roster stapled inside. Before a lounge lizard had finished butchering the national anthem—in one particularly galling case, before Lincoln and Newell had successfully made it from the concession stand to their section—Newell had spotted kids from school. With a quick wave the boy had receded into the stadium crowd, disappearing as if he'd never been by his father's side. Yep, each one of those three supposed bonding experiences, those father-son outings, had ended up with Lincoln alone, near the bottom of a half-empty sold-out arena, watching with relative disinterest as UNLV phoned in the results, the Rebels registering uninspiring victories in contests that were neither as competitive nor as entertaining as trying to brush all the cat hairs off your suit jacket. Lincoln's knees would incessantly bang against the back of the seat in front of him and he'd pound more than a few ten-dollar buckets of watered-down hops, then set the empties onto the chair that his kid was supposed to be occupying. He'd apologize to the guy whose back he kept kneeing, engage in small talk with one or two others around him, and pay special attention to the players he knew to be his son's favorites. Inevitably, by the middle of the second half, the white Rebel players would be mopping the floor with the other team's starters. Time-out would commence on the court and the UNLV student band would strike up “Dixie” and the crowd would respond with a swelling pride, and the female cheerleaders would cartwheel from the sidelines and into the proceedings, their vented little skirts flipping up. Lincoln always stopped trading business cards for this; the horn section's brassy refrain rousing him out of conversations, thoughts about work, or flashes back to his own athletic days. A muscular male cheerleader would be at center court, waving what had to be the largest Confederate flag in the history of organized humanity; and Lincoln would slam his callused hands together, clapping loudly and roughly now, whooping it up a bit, even as his eyes scanned the aisles, checking to see if his kid was nearby.

  Breaking off eye contact with his reflection in the mirror, Lincoln ran some water. Conservation regulations be damned, it took a while to get good and cold. And Lorraine always appreciated a nice glass of cold water.

  Really, did life come down to more? A glass of water for the woman you love. A tub of popcorn for your kid. Was it the stronger man who ordered everyone around and in the process pleased not even himself, or the man who satisfied those around him and in the process was satisfied? The benevolent patriarch enjoys nothing so much as being able to step into responsibility and shoulder the load, making the big decisions, providing for all. Lincoln was competent and then some at his job, he didn't mind all the planning, detail work, or late nights. At the same time, no matter how hard he worked or how well a project came off, he always had a sense, basically, of how useless his job was: he did not make anything, after all, did not really provide any kind of service, but spent truly head-pounding quantities of time trying to convince corporations that having their conventions at the Kubla Khan would make for a significantly better experience than having it across the street. Any of a million people might have been able to do his job, he knew this. But the way Lincoln figured it, he might as well be the one who made use of that salary designation, the one who took care of his family in style. Thus he schmoozed the people who needed schmoozing, landed most of the new accounts that mattered, kept his customers satisfied and coming back for more. He took pride in a job well done and, a couple of times a year, he packed up his family, set their home's security system, and took off to Vail on a ski package. He headed to the Napa Valley for a weekend of wine tasting and hiking, to Puerto Vallarta and Squaw Valley, Bermuda, and Cabo. On summer mornings when Newell was just a toddler, he and Lorraine used to take him out to Lake Mead—it was about an hour-and-a-half drive and he'd keep the child entertained by pretending one of his hands was a puppet. In a high-pitched voice, Lincoln would blurt out ridiculous insults and nonsensical sentences, driving along and tickling and poking and jabbing Newell, bringing light to his kid's eyes, filling the pickup with titters, the boy laughing so hard he cramped up, stop, Daddy, or I'm a pee.

  What could a man do but try? Try and then try harder, that was what.

  Yet for all the secret time he spent trying to learn how to play the boy's video games, for all the pride Lincoln took in his son's quick wit, there were evenings when Lincoln's migraines were pounding and his stomach was upset, and about the last thing he needed was to step inside his house and hear the little bastard's sass. Even worse was when the kid pretended to be interested in his ol’ man's life—buttering Lincoln up and wanting to hear the birth story again, all to mooch a few more bucks. There were evenings when the single thing on this planet that Lincoln least wanted was to step inside his house and have his wife lecture him about everything that was wrong with his kid (like he was an idiot, like he couldn't see for his own damn self ). Evenings he would have given her a million dollars if she would just let him eat in silence, okay? When, short of taking a dinner knife and cutting out each of their rotting hearts, about the only thing he could do was get up, stand right up from the dinner table, and walk out of the dining room he had gone into debt for, wordlessly and without comment heading through the house he was still paying for, and into the clandestine tomb of his garage with all its dusty cartons and boxes of obsolete crap that he'd bought his family over the years. There were evenings when Lincoln would get inside his car and sink deflated into the driver's seat of artificial leather, and a bottle of peach schnapps would be withdrawn from the glove compartment, and Lincoln would not for one second longer be able to ignore the beast his child was turning into, and for one minute longer he would not be able to deny the shrew that his wife had become, and there would be nothing in his power that could be done to delay the inexorable destruction of his homestead, the all-but-destined dissolution of his family, and Lincoln would feel deathly afraid because the awful and cold and most assured truth was that he welcomed this dissolution, he wanted the destruction.

  You bet your ass there were evenings. Evenings the clock struck six and the end of another workday had fallen upon him and h
e was feeling fairly on top of the world, and sure as hell he did not want to go home and have that feeling demolished. Evenings when his boss was riding him and deadlines were looming and he was too plumb worn out to deal with any more of his wife's mind games, too beaten down to give a shit about the difference between a woman who pouts and frets so that she can be consoled and one who is permanently pissed off. And so, during this past spring, sure, there had been one or two evenings when Lincoln had joined his fellow middle-management types, headed to this little dive on Industrial, and watched live lesbian sex shows. During this past spring and summer, admittedly, more than a few sunsets had been under way when Lincoln had taken a detour on his way home, heading past Vixxen's, Little Darlings, the Can Can Room, and the Crazy Horse Too.

  Cars never parked in front of the small and windowless storefront, but drove around to the side. Here, a cinder block wall blocked any view from the street, and no passersby, by chance or through purposeful snooping, could identify someone's make, model, or license plate. The store's entrance was covered with black glass; a small, red lettered sign announced that all entrants had to be eighteen years of age. Inside, the store was brightly lit, with top-forty bubblegum pop piped in like Muzak, and aisles stocked with glowing cardboard boxes. In these and many other ways, the shop had a normalcy and matter-of-fact surface resemblance to thousands of stores and franchises. This always rattled Lincoln, for no small part of pornography's appeal to him was its naughty thrill, its illicit and libidinous nature, the sense that you were headed somewhere you knew better than to go. Lincoln kind of wanted his porn shop to be sleazy, a red-light-district hole in the wall, with female groans carrying from everywhere, and the smell of chemical disinfectant all but permeating the dinge.

  Slowly, he'd muddle his way into the maze of aisles, wandering beneath the makeshift cardboard signs: General. Amatoors. B&D. fetish. Man n Men. Trannies. SheMales. Like every other guy in there, he kept his head low, avoided eye contact, and picked up various cardboard boxes, studying each brightly colored, weathered, well-handled cover, examining their nubile, scantily clad women. Sometimes he dispensed with browsing, and headed straight toward the back of the store, the rows of stalls in the style of Old West saloons. An unshaven Arab-looking guy was usually there, listlessly sloshing his mop into a half-filled bucket. Lincoln never said anything to him, but found an unoccupied booth and pushed through the two small swinging doors. He knew better than to sit on the small chair inside the stall, touch anything that did not need touching. There was a slot for coins, and an illuminated bill feeder had been embedded in the wall. Above that were two glowing yellow buttons. As soon as Lincoln put his money in the machine, the stall went dark and the television screen was activated. Lincoln used the buttons to flip through the channels, whirring amid the ungodly number of offerings, checking out what kind of women were getting it in which positions—by how many men; how many women; with what kinds of objects.

  ——

  From a lower shelf, he grabbed the jelly glass that he normally rinsed with after brushing, and filled it with cool, refreshing water. If he saw the dripping faucet, he ignored it. Same for the black ants that marched behind Lorraine's bottles of moisturizer. His lower lumbar region was stiff, albeit in the best possible way. The stiffness was familiar to him, reassuring, an old neighborhood friend whose life had taken a different direction, but whom he still met every once in a while at a bar. So much of Lincoln's energy these days was spent at work and being a parent, it was spent trying to figure out how to maintain this lifestyle and at the same time plan for the boy's future. The stiffness reconnected him to company parties and the collective eyes of a room following Lorraine; to Lincoln next to her, smiling steadily at everyone and sneaking his hand up the back of her skirt. It connected Lincoln to Lorraine's hand down there during sex, to the small purple vibrator he knew she kept in her panty drawer, the handcuffs they'd once kept on the nightstand.

  Between men and women there is a point where words become useless, where the physical, bestial sides of the sexes undo every knot that language can tie. A point where sex is its own language. Their most serious problems had always been solved this way, through these rhythmic dialogues.

  He switched off the bathroom light and carried the jelly glass toward the bedroom. The bathroom tile was cool underfoot, and Lincoln moved down the short corridor, unencumbered testicles swinging easily between his creaking legs, confidence surging through his body. For all his fears, Lincoln felt a rightness with the world. They'd straighten everything out. Like any venture, marriages were elbow grease and overtime. At the end of the night, he had the prettiest wife in the great Silver State and the luckiest child. The funnest job and the dreamiest home. He was the goddamn camel who'd made it through the eye of that needle.

  He called his wife's name. Heard the muted beeping of her activating her phone. The second time tonight she'd done this.

  Moving stiffly, he reentered the bedroom.

  She remained silent, sitting up in bed, luminously bare, only her raised knee shifting underneath the covers. Her head was cocked, the phone to her ear. The sweep of her bangs hid any expression, her face a polished surface of disciplined concentration. Lincoln knew her well enough to see she was trying to remain in control. He sensed her rising concern, her cold intellectual fury. He could hear the voices coming from the phone, the violent shouting. For the rest of his days, he would remember Lorraine's expression. The moment when life as he knew it ended.

  4.2

  Along the top of the electric canyon, the lid of sky was tinted the color of sputum. Neon drenched the girl with the shaved head and she soaked in its downpour, the neon pulsing through her like radiation, as infectious as hope or, maybe, love. She whooped and laughed, ran and then skipped, her gait unsteady, her vision blurry with dope and drink and fear and the lingering flavor of Ponyboy's kisses. In his hardened grip her fingers were brittle yet unbreakable, and with a tight squeeze he pulled her through the hot still air, and she suspended her hesitancies and followed along, peripherally aware of the half-forms running alongside, their blurred shapes and deep breaths, their screamed curses and athletic weavings. One self-styled rude boy slammed his arm against a mobile home, then limped away as if hit. Another rolled commando-style across the hood of a midsize station wagon. On the spur of the moment, the girl slapped the side mirror of a stretch limousine. From behind tinted windows, its horn bleated. She howled back “MOTHERFUCKERS.” Ponyboy's grip remained firm, unaffected.

  Across eight lanes, on the opposite side of the superhighway, their sprint ended where the pedestrian stream thinned. Pierced hooligans reclined against the bottom of a casino wall—some pouring condiment packages down their throats, others using the opened baggies of mustard and ketchup to make finger paint portraits on the sidewalk. A group of thugs was happily screaming obscenities into a cellular phone. Two stragglers were watching, wrenching the last scraps of humor from some earlier incident:

  “Waah, who snaked my cell?”

  “Waah, I'm calling the cops.”

  Ponyboy let go of her hand and began stepping through a circle of ghouls, accepting without notice their greetings and slaps on the back. The girl was momentarily apprehensive, and watched him approach a lanky, deeply sunburned teenager—standing at a mailbox, with his pants around his ankles, and his hands on his crotch. In profile, half of a battery protruded out of the side of his nostril.

  Ponyboy came from the rear, wrapped his biceps around his friend's waist and lifted, an arcing golden stream spraying the crowd of passersby.

  “WHAT UP, COCKSUCKER?”

  The girl waited, sure Ponyboy was going to return, introduce her. When this did not happen, she drifted, wandering absently, without direction. Green Wool James was nowhere to be found. Piggy neither—probably home by now, she figured. Certain boys resembled various punks she was used to, only where her friends took time to make themselves look properly disheveled, these punks were disheveled, their edges harder,
their seams more frayed. As the girl approached the outskirts of a second small, disorganized circle, she felt predatory stares on her backside. A game of My Past Sucked the Worst was erupting, with tempers flaring over the hierarchy of incest abuses, whether you got more points for parents or grandparents, activity or grotesqueness.

  “And just how do you top being jackhammered up the ass by your dad?”

  “Try having grampa's eighty-year nuts slamming against your chin, BITCH.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Bullsheeyit.”

  She backpedaled, trying to get away from their vulgarity. But her legs were suddenly rubbery, her coordination less than it should be. Her eyes searched for some hint of Ponyboy. Battery-nose. Anyone. She settled for a frail and enormously pregnant chick. Reclining against the bottom of the casino wall, the pregnant chick was filthy as a mechanic's rag and just as used, her skin bruised with dirt and grime. She was morose, and stared blankly at this feral wolf dog next to her. The dog was ignoring the pregnant chick and scratching its ear with a hind leg, and the pregnant girl watched for a little while, then scanned the chaos of nearby ragamuffins. Now she chugged from a clear plastic bottle, swallowing three, four gulps, before she gagged and then doubled over, spilling thick green liquid from her mouth, down her chin and neck. The pregnant girl dropped her head down between her legs, and took deep, sucking breaths, and when she came back up, her eyes were glassy and dim, her face adrift, unfocused. She coughed up a globule, and a thin line of phlegm hung from her cracked lips, and for an instant she seemed naked in her confusion, embarrassed at her nakedness.