The Narcissism of Small Differences

by Michael Zadoorian

  Ana brightened slightly at this. "What did she have to say?"

  Bruce snickered. "She's totally pulled back from it. Acting like she never even said it. Who knows? She may have just thought better of it. Or she may have thrown it in there just to get our knickers in a knot. Sometimes clients will do that, just to test you."

  "Well, if that's true, it worked. I know my knickers were officially knotted," Ana said, immediately regretting it. Why was she talking about her panties with her boss? Use your filter, Ana.

  Bruce just laughed it off. "Yeah, mine too. Look, I've got a meeting in Grand Rapids at eight a.m. on Thursday. What do you say we drive out there tomorrow night? You can be a surprise guest at the meeting. Besides, it'll be good for them to meet someone doing the actual work on their account. That way you won't be just some faceless creative either. Clients are always less likely to kill work when they know and like the person who created it."

  "I guess that's true," Ana said.

  "So plan on it. We'll leave work early if I can get out of a meeting or two."

  "Okay."

  Bruce wiped his fingers again, stood up, and put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze, then left his hand there. "Feel better?"

  Ana noticed there was no wedding band there. "Yeah, I guess I do."

  Bruce's hand left her shoulder, but Ana felt the warmth of it linger there.

  "Good. And if you wouldn't mind, could you ask Adrienne to be more careful about her demeanor with clients? It occurred to me that she may have set Karin off at that initial meet and greet. If so, we need to put a lid on that."

  "Of course."

  Bruce smiled at her, one of those smiles that made you feel worthy of his attention. "I'm really glad we had this talk."

  It wasn't until Ana was out in the hall that she realized what had just happened: she had agreed to go out of town alone with Bruce.

  19

  Heart of Tiki Darkness

  Malcolm had asked him if he wanted to go see Satori Circus, a local performance artist who had a show downtown that evening at 1515 Broadway, and Joe felt weird having to lie to him. But he had promised Brendan that he would not talk to anybody about what they were going to do. So he told Malcolm that he was planning to stay in and work. Malcolm seemed perfectly cool with the explanation, but the whole thing still left Joe with a bad feeling.

  Joe was standing in the foyer of their town house, looking out the window, waiting for Brendan to come pick him up. Was he insane to do this? He'd never even met the man before and now he was going with him to illegally break into a privately owned building? This was crazy. What if they were actually going to do a heist? What if he was being snared into some Tarantinoesque maelstrom of mayhem? Would there be heroin? Gunplay?

  At first, he was glad that Ana was out of town, but now all he could think of was that she wasn't even here to bail him out if he ended up in jail. Joe thought of himself sitting in a big communal cell over at 1300 Beaubien, the ancient police headquarters. There he was—Joe and an assortment of gangbangers, crackheads, rapists, arsonists, and hard-core criminals. Good lord. He'd be someone's bitch in a matter of minutes. He took three deep breaths. It's fine. Brendan knows what he's doing. He's a highly experienced urban explorer. He's done this dozens of times. His website's won awards, for Pete's sake. He's a Webby winner.

  This actually helped, at least for a few minutes. By that time, he saw what he figured was Brendan's Astrovan pulling up in front of the town house. It had to be the ugliest van he had ever seen. It looked like it had once been green and white, but was now covered with a grainy dark sheen of grime and rust and what appeared to be a viscous residue, as if it had been permanently parked beneath a pine tree that had bled out. When Joe walked up and opened the passenger door, his hand stuck slightly to the handle.

  "Joe!" He was greeted from the driver's seat by a heavyset young man with a burning bush of bright red hair that joined at the ears with a slightly darker, equally bushy red beard, of the sort that all the kids were sporting these days. (Yes, he had started calling them "the kids," first ironically, then it just stuck.) Brendan was wearing dark baggy jeans and a blue hoodie that looked as though he'd stolen it from a prison laundry. The effect was not unlike a giant, freckled, thuggish garden gnome of indeterminate race. "What up, doe?" he barked.

  "Brendan?" Joe yelled over the music. Was this the same guy he spoke to on the phone? He didn't expect him to be so, well, young and colorful.

  "Who the fuck you think it is, suburbanite? What? You think I'd be pushing a Benz coupe?" Brendan leaned over to grab Joe's hand in a thumbs-up seventies-style handshake.

  When Joe clasped his hand, Brendan pulled him in for a makeshift bro clinch. Joe gagged a little from the smell of sandalwood and sweat and weed. The stereo was blasting the Dirtbombs' "I'm Through with White Girls."

  "Good to meet you."

  "Likewise, dog."

  Slightly confused, Joe stared at him and started laughing. "Did you just call me dog?"

  The mop of red hair flopped forward as he nodded. "I did indeed."

  Joe cocked his head and nodded back. Apparently, he was a forty-year-old dawg. Cool. "Okay then, I guess. Good to be dog."

  "It always is. You ready to bust out of your comfortable little neighborhood to hit the nasty old city and do some snoopin' around and shit?"

  Snooping around and shit? Joe thought back to their phone conversation awhile back, Brendan talking about "the verity of decay." Was this the same guy? Feeling strangely energized, Joe settled into the spongy, collapsed seat, pulled shut the rattling van door. "Yeah, I guess I'm ready."

  Before Joe could say anything else, Brendan grabbed his arm. "Lemme see your shoes." Joe lifted one of his old Doc Martens from the rusted floorboard. "Good man," Brendan said, handing him a half-toasted blunt that smelled of burned resin and sick-sweet strawberry. "You're gonna need this." Out of nowhere, he produced a flame and held it in front of Joe's face.

  "Really?"

  "Definitely."

  Joe took a deep drag, trying to ignore the soggy-dog end of the blunt. Once the smoke hit his lungs, he started coughing like a consumptive.

  "Let's do this!" yelled Brendan. He turned the music up louder, now the Stooges' "No Fun," then hit the gas. "Classic fuckin' Dee-troit rock and roll!" he whooped, as the van stammered down the street with an asthmatic wheeze.

  Joe took another toke and suddenly felt much calmer as they headed down Woodward Avenue, across 8 Mile, past the art deco apartment buildings of Palmer Park, past the burned-out husks of buildings next to the newly built strip centers of Highland Park, past the Boston Edison district, past Virginia Park where the Algiers Motel once stood, one of the flashpoints of the '67 riots (there was a Burger King there now), then down through the Wayne State campus.

  "You nervous?" said Brendan, throwing his hand in the air to the music. Joe thought it was now Black Milk, a local rapper, but wasn't completely sure.

  "Yeah, a little."

  "It's gonna be interesting, I guarantee you."

  "I believe you."

  "So, you strapped?"

  Joe looked at him, eyes wide. "You mean a gun? No . . . Should I be?"

  "No, it's cool."

  "Are you?"

  Brendan smiled slightly. "Almost there."

  After crossing over the Fisher Freeway, Brendan took a right on Montcalm down to Cass, where he parked about a block down the street from the Chin Tiki. There were closer parking spaces, but he assumed Brendan knew what he was doing. Meanwhile, the weed was making Joe's head reel.

  "Come on," said Brendan as he threw open his door, which creaked so loudly, Joe considered scuttling the whole mission.

  Joe got out of the van and pointed up Montcalm Street. "Is that going to be a problem with the fire station right over there?"

  "Yeah. Like those fucking guys care."

  Joe scanned the area. There wasn't really anyone else walking around. Up the street, across from the fire stati
on, he saw a couple of people going into a local tavern, the Town Pump. He turned to Brendan, who smacked him in the arm.

  "Chill. It's no big thing."

  "It is illegal, though, right?"

  "Oh, fuck yeah it is." Brendan then grabbed the same arm and pulled Joe off the sidewalk. They walked through what was once the parking lot of the restaurant. On the brick wall next to them were the vestiges of an old painted billboard:

  CHIN

  TIKI

  AUTHENTIC POLYNESIAN CUISINE

  TROPICAL DRINKS

  A giant tiki god was also painted on the sign that seemed to gaze down on Joe with a wide-eyed, thousand-yard Easter Island stare. Much of the painted surface had peeled off to reveal the brick beneath. Joe was suddenly fascinated by the tessellated pattern the bricks formed behind and around the tiki.

  "Come on. We're going this way." Brendan led Joe along the perimeter to the very back of the building. There was debris all over the place—trash, papers, old pieces of fencing, and rusty objects that Joe couldn't recognize. Vegetation was growing up the back wall. "All right. Here we are," said Brendan as they stopped in front of a padlocked door.

  "It's locked," said Joe, relieved they wouldn't have to do this now.

  He watched as Brendan produced a key, inserted it into the lock, then twisted the base from the shackle.

  "How did you—"

  "Don't you worry your pretty little balding head over it. That's on a need-to-know basis." Brendan grinned and pushed open the door. "Welcome to the Chin Tiki." He grabbed Joe's arm, clicked on a long black Maglite, handed it off, and pushed him through the door.

  "You want me to go first?"

  "You have to. It's the only way."

  "Says who?"

  "Go. Just keep the light on the ground and watch where you walk. I'm right behind you. I'm going to stash the lock and shut the door."

  Joe stepped farther into the building. The place smelled strongly of damp and must. He seemed to be in a short hallway, which probably led somewhere near the kitchen. Joe kept walking, continually sweeping the beam of the Maglite with each step, bouncing it off the glazed concrete floor, the gaudy floral wallpaper–covered walls, and the acoustical tile ceiling. He wasn't sure if he expected everything to be covered with graffiti or what, but aside from water stains and peeling wallpaper, the ceiling and walls were in decent shape. The floor, however, was thick with dust and covered with scuffs and footprints.

  Brendan came up behind him. "Dude, you're making me seasick. Hold the light still."

  "Sorry." Joe held the light directly in front of him until they reached the door to the kitchen area, which was more like what he had been expecting. The counters had been ripped from the walls, an old stove was tipped on its side, bare wires hung from the ceiling. Over in the corner lay pieces of scrap wood and bent metal. Joe stopped and waited for Brendan to join him. "What now?"

  Brendan took the long Maglite from him. "First, no more psychedelic light show." He handed Joe a much smaller version of the same flashlight. "Then we get out of the most boring part of the whole place. Come on."

  "What happened to the kitchen? Why's it so messed up?"

  "Fucking Hollywood film crews. Idiots left things unattended while they were filming that Eminem movie. A lot of stuff got ripped off by scrappers. And if that wasn't bad enough, then the crew was plundering all the tiki stuff inside. You can tell there's a lot of shit missing now."

  "Really?" Joe had heard something like that had happened while they were here shooting. Everyone was so thrilled that they were actually shooting an entire Hollywood film in Detroit (instead of just the ghetto B-roll that they usually came for) that they overlooked this small fact—the desecration of Detroit's last remaining temple of tiki.

  "Fuck yeah." Brendan shined the light on all the debris.

  "Assholes," said Joe. Then it occurred to him that he was here desecrating the place himself. He had just broken in. Or had he? How did Brendan get a key? Was it still illegal if you had a key? Probably.

  Then Brendan grabbed his arm (he did that a lot), and Joe followed obediently, passing a few doors marked He Tiki and She Tiki that had to be restrooms, until the hallway opened into a dining room. The floor was carpeted now. Joe could discern gold tapa cloth patterns beneath the grime.

  "Check it out," said Brendan.

  "I've always wondered what this place looks like inside," whispered Joe.

  "Now you know. Awesome, right?" Brendan shined the light on the room before them. Joe did the same with his smaller light. From what he could see, it was in fact awesome. The walls were covered with rattan matting, bamboo, and dusky tapa cloth. There were avocado-green leather banquettes along the wall and a long inlaid mural with bas-relief tikis, an oar and a tiki mask that seemed to smirk at the two of them. Dusty globes hung from the ceiling, where a leak had created a large hole in the acoustical tile.

  They kept walking through what seemed to be a hallway, past the bamboo and rattan partitions that separated the various rooms of the restaurant. The two of them skirted around tipped tables and chairs, through powdery plastic foliage and clattering bead curtains, past dust-edged Moai figures that were almost as tall as Joe, huddled in corners. Then they entered what had to be the main dining room. Joe shined his light on the ceiling. It was covered with grass matting. Hanging from it were inflated blowfish lamps, wicker-shaded lights, and colored glass globes, suspended by fishnets and cobwebs. He was surprised that the nets hadn't rotted away over the years, then he tipped his flashlight downward and noticed the glass scattered on the carpet. Joe kept wishing he had that bigger flashlight back.

  "Those are authentic Witco chairs," said Brendan, pointing his light on a group of high-backed chairs in the corner. Carved into the dark wood seat backs were the upper torsos of two large-eared natives, back to back, bisected only by a bright floral strip of orange, gold, and green vinyl that matched the seat cushion. At the top of the chair, the profile of one of the natives was serious, the other wore an ironic smirk like the mask in the other room.

  "And check out these tables."

  A group of them were pushed together and, without thinking, Joe reached over and ran his hand along the top of one. It was white with dust and possibly mold, but the surface felt silky. Where his fingers made contact, he could see foreign coins suspended in Lucite. The table was amazing, but he made a mental note not to touch his eyes or mouth until he got a chance to wash his hands.

  "I'm surprised no one has taken this stuff," said Joe, thinking that a lot of it would be great to own.

  "Nuh-uh. We don't do that. Take only pictures, leave only footprints."

  Joe shined a light at Brendan's chest, just to see his face, to see if he was serious. "Really? So you're like the Sierra Club or something?"

  Brendan nodded his head, as serious as Joe had ever seen him, though he had only known him for the past forty minutes. "Really."

  "Cool. Why aren't you taking any photos?"

  "I've shot it a couple of times. I wanted to travel lighter tonight. Plus, I'm carrying a rookie." Brendan grabbed Joe's arm again and started pulling him back toward the hallway. "Come on, you got to see the grotto. It's dope."

  "Okay." Joe touched the back of a rattan chair, suddenly liking the feel of the dust and grime on his hands. He was excited now, he liked the whole idea of this, of the Joe who would do something like this, break into an abandoned building and explore. He liked Adventurous Joe. It occurred to him that he had never done much of anything outrageous or dangerous, and certainly nothing illegal. So it felt good to be walking through a dilapidated building at night, especially while stoned. This was more like it! This was the Joe he had been planning to be all along, before clearer heads prevailed. (Who was he kidding? He had nothing to blame but his own clearer head.)

  As they approached the banister that led to the grotto, there was a clanging sound. Brendan grabbed Joe's arm again, only tighter this time.

  "What was that?" said Joe. />
  "Shhh!" said Brendan, suddenly clasping his hand over Joe's mouth. He shut off his big Maglite and covered the beam of Joe's small one with his hand. It got very dark very quickly. The only light came from between Brendan's glowing fingers. Brendan then took his hand from Joe's face and placed a finger to his own lips.

  Joe motioned at the back door and mouthed: Is someone there?

  Brendan nodded slowly.

  Joe mouthed: Police?

  "What da fuck gon' on in here?" said a voice from the back door.

  "Probably some scrapper, after copper pipe," whispered Brendan. "Shit."

  Adventurous Joe was ready to run for it, but whoever was there was at the door. There was nowhere to go. They were stuck in this death trap of a building, with the only open door at the other end. Joe's breathing quickened as the footsteps got louder, heading toward them. Brendan took a step. Joe grabbed his arm this time, but Brendan shook it free and scuffed ahead silently.

  "I kill any motherfuckers in my building!" shouted the voice. Then there was laughter, which could only be described as diabolical.

  Oh god, oh shit, thought Joe. What's happening?

  Brendan turned off Joe's flashlight and handed it to him. "Keep this off and stay here," said Brendan, then reached under his hoodie and pulled out what looked to be a rather large blackjack. At least that's what Joe thought it was. He had never seen one before. "I'll deal with him."

  Brendan took off, holding his Maglite like a truncheon in his left hand, with the blackjack in his right hand, leaving Joe in complete darkness.

  "No!" whispered Joe, but no one answered. Brendan was gone. Joe was afraid to turn on his small flashlight, so he just stood there in the dark, not knowing what to do.

  Joe heard what sounded like a fight breaking out by the back door. He turned the tiny flashlight on, keeping it close to the floor, and slowly made his way toward the back. From there, he could hear something get knocked over.

  He heard the voice say, "Pull that shit on me, bitch? I'ma fuck you up." There was another crash, then a thud, then the sound of what might have been a head or body being slammed against the floor repeatedly. He heard Brendan scream.