I called the on-duty nurse, asked her to talk Veronica down, explain to her what was happening. The nurse told her that no, she wouldn’t drown, most likely she’d die as her organs shut down one by one. It wasn’t a painful way to go, she said.
Veronica snapped back: And how could you possibly know that? By this point, after all the chirpy prognoses followed by one round of bad news after the next, she was convinced absolutely everyone was lying.
She asked me to get my gun and shoot her. She couldn’t take it anymore, she wanted to put an end to it all, stop dragging it out: Kill me, she said. Please. If you love me, you’ll do that for me.
I told her I couldn’t. We needed to see the current chemotherapy regimen through to the end to learn if there was any progress. If not, there were other regimens and even clinical trials, experimental treatments. It was far too soon to give up, I said. But we both knew I was being dishonest. Worse, selfish.
The thing neither of us dared to say? She was going to die and I was not. She’d run out of luck. If I did as she asked, killed her, I’d be surrendering my luck as well.
Perhaps she needed to know I understood what she was going through, what it felt like. Perhaps she wanted vengeance on the thousands of humiliations I’d inflicted on her during our marriage. Perhaps both. Regardless, I saw the demand as unfair. I felt sorry for her. But I refused to give up the rest of my life for her.
What a miserable night. Sleep was out of the question—we talked, we argued, we wept. She remained afraid and ready to die. I remained unwilling to oblige her. All the while, we both danced around the real issue lying there between us.
But something else happened too. I’ve already said I recognized Veronica but did not comprehend her—and once her connection with Aydin took hold I didn’t entirely recognize her either.
Well, that night, as I faced her hour after hour, trying to reason with her, trying not to get swallowed up by the despair that was dragging her under, my lack of recognition became complete. The chafing voice, the vacant eyes. The hollowed-out ruin her face had become. I no longer saw her there. I saw someone else. I saw myself.
Come morning, Aydin appeared. The night had taken its toll, I’m sure it showed. He asked what was wrong and I simply lacked the wherewithal to make up a lie.
He was horrified—not at Veronica’s wanting to die but my refusal to do what she wanted. He called me a weakling, a coward. How could I let her continue to suffer?
Of course, the real question was: How could I continue to let him suffer? He couldn’t bear the sight of her misery anymore. He wanted it over with. Christ, who didn’t?
I wouldn’t let him in. He flew into a rage right there on the porch—neighbors peeked out past their curtains at us—but this time I refused to bend.
He wasn’t used to being denied. Incensed, he said that before she’d fallen ill, Veronica confessed that she intended to leave me, divorce me, rid herself of me once and for all. She’d come to despise me, then he rattled off all the things she loathed about me, how cold, how resentful, how selfish, how predictable I am. How ugly in every conceivable way.
To have this shouted in my face, by a boy, after the night I’d just spent—especially while harboring the ridiculous illusion that, had Victoria’s luck been different, she would have returned to me—I will admit, I did not respond wisely. I’m sure you know this, sure the neighbors told you. I shouted right back that, if he didn’t leave, I’d kill him.
He shambled off, seething. An hour or so later I had to step out. Veronica was short of Fentanyl patches, I needed to run to the pharmacy.
It’s hard to describe the level of distraction I’ve been operating under, one minute panicked into focus, the next I’m standing somewhere, at the sink or in a parking lot, completely oblivious to how much time has passed. And today, as I wandered around the drugstore, God only knows how long, I got lost in my own self-pity, wondering how I could have been such a fool not to grasp Veronica’s true feelings. I miss things, is what I mean to say, things I should have noticed. Like the fact that, when I drove away from the house, Aydin was nearby, watching me leave, probably hiding in the park down the block.
When I got back home from the pharmacy I could feel it, the stillness. I called out. The house swallowed up the sound.
Perhaps Veronica let him in, perhaps I forgot to lock the door, like I said I’ve been strangely abstracted of late. I climbed the stairs, went to the bedroom, found them. I guess it was his turn to calm her down, her turn to make him feel needed.
She must have told him where I kept my gun—I didn’t see any signs he went scavenging for it himself. Of course, he botched it, like he had before, only now he’d included Veronica. He’d fired one round into her skull, but couldn’t bother to see if she was actually dead before turning the gun on himself. That would have sullied the drama. He was very sentimental, like I said, yes, which is just another way of saying he was incompetent. But what’s the point of competence if you’re never responsible?
I’m sorry. I sound angry. Bitter, yes. I suppose I am. But not at Aydin. Not at Veronica. Not anymore.
I stood there wondering: What to do? I could leave, pretend I’d never come home, let a few hours pass so they could lie there like that until they finally got what they’d wanted—would that be denying them anything?
Or I could call 9-1-1, have the paramedics rush over, fuss over them, dash them off to emergency, maybe even save them. For what—so Veronica could suffer even worse than before, only to die in a few weeks regardless? And Aydin—say he lived, what would he wake up to? Imagine it. Imagine discovering yourself in a hospital bed, instead of hell where you belonged.
I understood that. I understood because I realized that’s how I’d spent every day of my life, finding myself unjustifiably alive, furtively killing everything around me.
I’m a coward, yes. They were right: I’m selfish and shallow and vain and weak. And yet oddly enough—here’s one more paradox for you—it was Aydin, the one who believed in fate, the one who believed that nothing changes, we are who we are, for better, for worse, forever: He was the one who gave me one last chance. The chance to redefine myself.
He’d done what I couldn’t bring myself to do—he failed at it, but why punish him for that? Why punish either of them? I tugged the gun from his hand, then took a moment. I had to collect myself, wait until it wasn’t revenge or disgust or rage in my heart. Maybe it was just one more trick of the mind, the self-delusion that makes the rest possible, but I told myself: Remember, you know what it means to be overdue for a little kindness.
Pretty Little Parasite
One hand on her hip, the other lofting her cocktail tray, Sam Pitney scanned the gaming floor from the Roundup’s mezzanine, dressed in her cowgirl outfit and fresh from a bracing toot in the ladies.
Stream-of-nothingness mode, mid-shift, slow night, only the blow keeping her vertical—with this odd craving for some stir-fry—she stared out at the flagging crowd and manically finger-brushed the outcrop of blond bangs showing beneath her tipped-back hat.
Maybe it was seeing her own reflection fragmented in dozens of angled mirrors to the left and right and even overhead, or the sight of the usual trudge of losers wandering the noisy maze-like neon, clutching change buckets, chip trays, chain-smoking (still legal, this was the `80s), hoping for one good score to recoup a little dignity—whatever the reason, she found herself revisiting a TV program from a few nights back, about Auschwitz, Dachau, one of those places. Men and women and children and even poor helpless babies cradled by their mothers, stripped naked then marched into giant shower rooms, only to notice too late—doors slamming, bolts thrown, gas soon hissing from the showerheads: a smell like almonds, the voice on the program said.
Sam found herself wondering—no particular reason—what it would be like if the doors to the casino suddenly rumbled shut, trapping everybody inside.
&n
bsp; For a moment or two, she supposed, no one would even notice, gamblers being what they are. But soon enough word would ripple through the crowd, especially when the fire sprinklers in the ceiling started to mist. Even then, people would be puzzled and vaguely put out but not frightened, not until somebody nearby started gagging, buckled over, a barking cough, the scalding phlegm, a slime of blood in the palm.
Then panic, the rush for the doors. Screaming. Animal terror.
Sam wondered where she’d get found when they finally re-opened the doors to deal with the dead.
Would she be one of those with bloody nails or, worse, fingers worn down to gory bone, having tried to claw her way past so many others to sniff at an air vent, a door crack, ready to kill for just one more breath?
Or would she be one of the others, one of those they found alone, having caught on quick and then surrendered, figuring she was screwed, knowing it in the pit of her soul, curled up on the floor, waiting for God or Mommy or Satan or who-the-fuck-ever to put an end to the tedious phony bullshit, the nerves and the worry and the always being tired, the lonely winner-takes-all, the grand American nothing …
“Could I possibly have another whiskey and ginger, luv?”
Sam snapped toward the voice—the accent crisply British once, now blurred by years among the Vegas gypsies. It came from a face of singular unlucky pallor: high brow with a froth of chestnut hair, flat bloodless lips, no chin to speak of.
The Roundup sat just east of Las Vegas Boulevard on Fremont, closer to the LVPD Metro tower than the tonier downtown houses—the Four Queens, the Golden Nugget—catering to whoever showed up first and stayed longest, cheap tourists mostly, dopes who’d just stumbled out of the drunk tank and felt lucky (figure that one out)—or, most inexplicably, locals, the transplant kind especially, the ones who went on and on about old Las Vegas, which meant goofs like this bird.
What was his name? Harvey, Harold, something with an H. He taught at UNLV if she remembered right, came here three nights a week at least, often more, said it was for the nostalgia …
“You are on the clock, my dear, am I right?”
She gazed into his soupy green eyes. Centuries of inbreeding. Hail, Brittania.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
Come midnight she began looking for Rick, and found him off by himself in the dollar slots, an odd little nook where there were fewer mirrors, and the eye in the sky had a less than perfect angle (he thought of these things). He wore white linen slacks, a pastel tee, the sleeves of his sport jacket rolled up. All Sonny Crockett, the dick.
“Hey,” she said, coming up.
He shot her a vaguely proprietary smile. His eyes looked wrecked but his hair was flawless. He said, “The usual?”
“No, weekend coming up. Make it two.”
The smile thawed, till it seemed almost friendly. “Double your pleasure.”
She clipped off to the bar, ordered a Stoli rocks twist, discreetly assembling the twelve twenties on her tray in a tight thin stack. The casino’s monotonous racket jangled all around, same at midnight as happy hour—the eternal now, she thought, Vegas time.
Returning to where he sat, she bowed at the waist, so he could reach the tray. He carefully set a five down, under which he’d tucked two wax-paper bindles. Then he collected the twelve twenties off her tray, as though they were his change, and she remembered the last time they were together, in her bed, the faraway look he got afterwards, not wanting to be touched, the kind of thing guys did when they’d had enough of you.
“Whoever you get this from,” she said, “I want to meet him.”
From the look on his face, you would’ve thought she’d asked for the money back. “Come again?”
“You heard me.”
He cocked his head. The hair didn’t budge. “I’m not sure I like your attitude.”
She broke the news. In the span of only a second or so, his expression went from stunned to deflated to distinctly pissed, then: “You saying it’s mine?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. An angel came to me.”
“Don’t get smart.”
“Oh, smart’s exactly what I’m going for, believe me.”
“Okay then, take care of it.”
With those few words, she got a picture of his ideal woman—a collie in heat, basically, but with fewer scruples. Lay out a few lines, bend her over the sofa—then a few weeks later, tell her to take care of it.
“Sorry,” she said. “Not gonna happen.”
He chuckled acidly. “Since when are you maternal?”
“Don’t think you know me. We fucked, that’s it.”
“You’re shaking me down.”
“I’m filling you in. But yeah, I could make this a problem. Instead, I’m trying to do the right thing. For everybody. But I’m not gonna be able to work here much longer, understand? This ain’t about you, it’s about money. Introduce me to your guy.”
He thought about it, and as he did his lips curled into a grin. The eyes were still scared though. “Who says it’s a guy?”
A twinge lit up her lower back. Get used to it, she thought. “Don’t push me, Rick. I’m a woman scorned, with a muffin in the oven.” She did a quick pivot and headed off. Over her shoulder, she added, “I’m off at two. Set it up.”
It didn’t happen that night, as it turned out, and that didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her was that it happened only two nights later, and she didn’t have to hound him half as bad as she’d expected—more surprising still, he hadn’t been jiving: It really wasn’t a guy.
Her name was Claudia, a Cuban, maybe fifty, could pass for forty, calm dark eyes that waxed and waned between cordial welcome and cold appraisal—a tiny woman, raven-black hair coiled tight into a long braid, body as sleek as a razor, sheathed in a simple black dress. She lived in one of the newer condos at the other end of Fremont, near Sahara, where it turned into Boulder Highway.
Claudia showed them in, dead-bolted the door, offered a cool muscular hand to Sam with a nod, then gestured everyone into the living room: suede furniture, Navajo rugs, ferns. Two fluffed and imperial Persian cats nestled near the window on matching cushions. Across the room, a mobile of tiny tin birds, dozens of them, all painted bright tropical colors, hung from the ceiling. Thing must torment the cats, Sam thought, glancing up as she tucked her skirt against her thighs.
“Like I said before,” Rick began, addressing Claudia, “I think this is a bogue idea, but you said okay, so here we are.”
Sam resisted an urge to storm over, take two fistfuls of that pampered hair, and rip it out by the roots. She turned to the woman. “Can we talk alone?”
“That doesn’t work for me,” Rick said.
With the grace of a model, Claudia slowly pivoted toward him. “I think it’s for the best.” For the sake of his pride, she added, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
That was that. He sulked off to the patio, the two women talked. It didn’t take long for Sam to explain her situation, lay out her plan, make it clear she wasn’t being flaky or impulsive. She’d thought it through—she didn’t want to get even, pick off Rick’s customers, nothing like that. “I don’t want to hand my baby off to daycare, some stranger. I want to be there. At home.”
Claudia eyed her, saying nothing, for what seemed an eternity. Don’t look away, Sam told herself. Accept the scrutiny, know your role. But don’t act scared.
“There are those,” Claudia said finally, “who would find what you just said very peculiar.” Her smile seemed a kind of warning, and yet it wasn’t without warmth. “I’m sure you realize that.”
“I do. But I think you understand.”
It turned out she understood only too well—she had a son, Marco, eleven years old, away at boarding school in Seville. “I miss him terribly.” She made a sawing motion. “Like someone cut off my arm.”
“Why don’t you have him here, with you?”
For the first time, Claudia looked away. Her face darkened. “Mothers make sacrifices. It’s not all about staying home with the baby.”
Sam felt backward, foolish, hopelessly American. Behold the future, she thought, ten years down the road, doing this, and your kid is where? In the corner of her eye, she saw one of the cats rise sleepily and arch its back. Out on the patio, Rick sat in the moonlight, a sudden red glow as he dragged on his cigarette.
Claudia steered the conversation to terms: Sam would start off buying ounces at two thousand dollars each, which she would divide into grams and eightballs for sale. If things went well, she could move up to a QP—quarter pound—at $7800, build her clientele. She might well plateau at that point, many did. If she was ambitious, though, she could move up to an elbow—for “lb,” meaning a pound—with the tacit agreement she would not interfere with Claudia’s wholesale trade.
“I want you to look me in the eye, Samantha. Good. Do not confuse my sympathy for weakness. I’m generous by nature. That doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I have men who take care of certain matters for me, men not at all like our friend out there.” She nodded toward Rick all alone on the moonlit patio. “These men, you will never meet them unless it comes to that. And if it does, the time will have passed for you to say or do anything to help yourself. I trust I’m clear.”
The first and oddest thing? She lost five pounds. God, she thought, what have I done? She checked her sheets for blood, then ran to Valley Medical, no appointment, demanded to see her ob-gyn. The receptionist—sagging desert face, kinky gray perm—shot her one of those knowing, gallingly sympathetic looks you never really live down.
“Your body thinks you’ve got a parasite, dear,” the woman said. “Just keep eating.”
She did, and she stunned herself, how quickly her habits turned healthy. No more coke, ditto booze—instead a passion for bananas (craving potassium), an obsession with yogurt (good for bone mass, the immune system, the intestinal lining), a sudden interest in whole grains (to keep her regular), citrus (for iron absorption), even liver (prevent anemia). She took to grazing, little meals here and there, to keep the nausea at bay, and when her appetite craved more she turned to her newfound favorite: stir-fry.
Thirteen Confessions Page 15