Look Down, This is Where It Must Have Happened

by Hal Niedzviecki

  We even dress pretty much the same. Polo T-shirts and chinos. Our wives have not met, though there has been talk about a dinner date, the four of us.

  We stop to admire next year’s Porsche, its yellow skin shimmering under spotlights.

  Wow, Stu says. Can you imagine?

  I shake my head ruefully.

  Suppose you got your hands on a car like this, Stu says. What would you do with it?

  I honestly don’t know, I say.

  You’d probably sell it, Stu says.

  I shrug.

  It’s the opening weekend of the auto show. Very crowded. There are men like us wandering through, admiring rpms and zero to sixty. There are young couples, the women tolerantly trailing their boyfriends past an array of souped up SUVs lurking like dinosaurs in a section of the huge convention center temporarily dubbed Truck Territory.

  We stop to watch a floor show. Customized Honda. Engine bulging out, a radiated wound. Women in bikinis prancing around the car.

  There are families, too, in the crowd, middle-aged husbands and wives doling out twenties to their just-teen offspring so they can play the racing games or the bumper cars, Get yourself a hot dog, meet me back at the entrance in an hour, okay? In an hour. Right here. Okay? Okay?

  The floor show continues.

  I peer through the crowd.

  Flicker of straight brown hair. Pair of doleful eyes.

  Stu’s attention is fixed on the bikini-clad spokeswoman, a buxom blond whose suggestively amplified remarks about the kind of transmission she likes in her car elicit whoo-whoos and catcalls from the audience.

  The back of long twiggy legs. Flash of near white. Skirt flaring. A hardness like a darkness. Black lump slipping free. Something inside me coming loose.

  Excuse me, I say, pushing past. I sidestep into a couple gawking at an RV the size of my house. Keep moving. She is graceful. Slips through the crowd like an eel.

  At the front entranceway, she stops. Looks for someone. A dad or a boyfriend. Tight pink lips, pale cheeks twisted impatiently. She is slim and petulant.

  Nice, huh? a man says to me.

  My gaze follows. I put my head down, move in the other direction.

  Hey, he says, blocking my way. I can help you.

  He tucks his card into my breast pocket.

  Charles Willet. Import/Export.

  My wife is ready to have a baby. We’ve discussed her going off the pill. We’ve waited longer than most couples in our situation. Stable, upstanding. Capable of providing the right kind of nurturing atmosphere.

  We are relatively young. Just barely into our thirties. There’s no hurry, I tell her. I know, she says. She understands that I do not want us to be one of those couples who has a baby as a way of marking the passage of time. Why does one have a baby?

  Still, she says, fitting her head on my shoulder. What do you think? Boy or girl?

  Weeks pass.

  I plug Marie Justins into a great deal offered just under the radar. She is ever so thankful. Wants me to come to the house for a “little celebration,” as she puts it.

  I courier over the paperwork.

  I need a hobby. Something physical yet mentally taxing. Squash. Chess. Pole vault.

  I lock the door of my office. A shadow over my heart. This reluctant creeping doom.

  The hours. Phone rings. I mute the player. Answer it. My hand still stroking. Flesh numb. Waiting. Pleasure deferred. Tomorrow. The next day.

  The next day my wife comes home early. I hear: knob turning. Hello? she says, puzzled at the locked office door. Are you in there?

  Coming, I call, as if I have to travel down several flights of stairs and halls to get the door, instead of three steps across a messy office. I scramble with underwear, pants, belt. Hit the power button.

  Computer dies with a reverse whine.

  I open the door.

  My wife wears a puzzled smile.

  I am sweating, red-faced. My nonchalant grin turning hard at the edges, like old cheese.

  What are you doing? she asks.

  Working, I say.

  She stares at me.

  I didn’t realize the door was locked, I say. Sweat beading my upper lip. Sometimes it does that, I say.

  She peers past me into the dark office.

  What’s going on with you?

  I step forward, forcing her to back up. Close the door behind me.

  I’m done for the day, I say.

  Upstairs, I pour myself a drink. Scotch. From the single, dusty bottle.

  My wife watches me, eyes narrowing.

  Neither of us is much of a drinker.

  Home early? I say.

  Things were quiet at the bank.

  Great, I nod. My face drying. I sip, feel the burn slip through me.

  What do you want to do for dinner? I say.

  She turns away from me.

  Weeks pass. No one notices.

  A call from my aging mother, resident of a city some thousand miles south. Dad had chest pains, she reports, checked himself into emergency. False alarm, Mom says. Dad’s heart, an accident waiting to happen.

  The economy slips into a long promised downturn. People tighten their belts. Hoard cash. Put their plans for a first home off till next year. My card in a drawer filled with takeout menus, preapproved credit cards and obsolete corkscrews.

  Cold outside, then suddenly hot and muggy. Is it spring or fall? Time expands to fill itself. Variations on a theme. My options narrowing, becoming inevitable.

  Mr. Willet? I say.

  My voice loud in the claustrophobic dark of my office.

  Yes, speaking.

  We met at the . . . auto show.

  Of course, he purrs calmly.

  He gives me an address, a day, a time. For our little informational session. There is a fee, he says sadly. I trust that eight hundred dollars won’t be an inconvenience?

  I —

  We offer the best sessions, he tells me. Premium sessions.

  I love my wife, I say.

  Spurt.

  Dribble.

  Clean myself up. Tap into the central bank. Check the interest rates.

  Look, I tell my wife. I know I’ve been — we’ve been — lately. But I think I’m, I mean, I haven’t wanted to say it, because, well, it’s — this isn’t —

  What is it? she says.

  I think I’m . . . depressed, I say.

  Depressed? she says.

  There is a stain on the linoleum. Shape of a starfish.

  It’s okay, she says. We can talk about this. You can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you?

  I know, I say. I just . . .

  It’s okay, she says. There are lots of people who — these things happen. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get you help. We’ll figure it out together.

  I don’t know, I say.

  We’ll figure it out, she says.

  It’s a combination of things. It’s not one thing. A sense of slippage. One thing happens, then another. And so on. And on and on and on. Until you are no longer really in control. But if not you, then who is to blame? Whose fault is it?

  I drive into the city. A weekday evening. The streets all but empty. What people there are seem like travelers waiting impatiently for their plane to board. Buildings looming over us, our shared legacy, these empty office towers and darkened arenas. Sky glowing purple, it could be dawn or dusk, midnight or morning. I keep looking in my rearview mirror. The path behind me. The way I came.

  I drive west, through a ramshackle neighborhood, houses adorned with crumbling wood porches. Then blocks of warehouses, late night dance clubs, strange art galleries, the kind of restaurants my wife calls “a rip-off” because it’s five bucks for a Coke and you always leave hungry.

  So . . . my wife says. She sits in the kitchen over a cup of tea. She is wearing her blue robe. The lines around her eyes, wedged grooves shadowed by fading light.

  So what? I say.

  So . . . she says, how are you feeling?<
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  Better, I say.

  Days later, I retrace the route.

  I take the elevator up. Knock on the door. Charles Willet. Import/Export. He greets me, shakes my hand. Leads me past the reception area and into his office. We are two men having a drink in an office.

  Heating up, Willet says. They say it’s gonna be a hot summer.

  Nodding, I withdraw the envelope, place it on his desk. Without looking down, Willet makes it disappear.

  So tell me, he says. What kind of experience can we offer you today?

  I take a drink. My hand is calm, cool.

  Brown hair. I say. Long, straight brown hair.

  Willet nods.

  And brown eyes.

  Yes?

  And slim. Very slim.

  Yes, he says very gently.

  If you asked me tomorrow to describe Charles Willet, I would be at a loss.

  Follow me, please. Willet leads me down a corridor. Past the closed doors of other offices.

  I can smell perfume. Her body.

  Is there, I say . . . I’d like to . . . a bathroom?

  Oh sure, Willet says. Right here. He opens an adjoining door.

  I close the door behind me.

  The bathroom is small, pink. On the counter, a hairbrush, lip gloss, purple barrettes.

  I stand over the sink.

  My face in the mirror.

  Doing God’s Work

  I’d been working for God for about ten years. God was the good-old-boy type, as at home in the boardroom as he was on the golf course and the firing range. God dressed office casual and kept his hair short and his cheeks shaved. He sported a bit of a belly and he worked out with a personal trainer three times a week. I was his go-to guy. I did everything for him. I drove his town car, picked up his dry cleaning, answered his phone and set up his meetings. People were always wanting to meet with God. He’d bring them into his boardroom and I’d pour them coffee. They’d beg and cajole and demand and promise and God would nod and smile and act like he gave a shit. I’d sit in the corner and take copious notes, all the while keeping track of the time. God had a lot of appointments and needed to stay on schedule. After I’d ushered them out, God would crack himself up imitating their pleading voices. God spoke all languages, but he always made his supplicants speak in English. He particularly liked it when they spoke English with some kind of exotic accent: Please God, if you could just stop the civil war for a few months, just long enough to get the children out. Pathetic, God would say. I’d file the paperwork by country and crisis and, needless to say, God wouldn’t do a damn thing.

  So like I said this had been going on for ten years, and it was starting to take a toll on my home life. I was drinking a lot. I was snapping at the kids. Most nights, I was getting home long past midnight. God would insist I join him while he ate surf and turf and trolled titty bars. I don’t know why I did it. I was just too afraid to man up and tell God the truth: that I wanted to be at home with my wife and kids. That I didn’t want to work for him anymore. That I deserved a decent severance and an excellent reference. My wife said that with my skill set I could take my pick of Hollywood stars. Who wouldn’t want to hire God’s right-hand man? she said.

  One night we ended up in the back of the Pussycat Club snorting coke off the smooth bellies of two girls closer to my daughter’s age than mine. God hoovered up the powder with his big semitic nose. The girls wanted to fuck. God said, I’ll go first, do both of them. That was the moment I realized why God kept me around. I mean, he could have just snapped his fingers and his clothes would have been magically starched on hangers exactly the way he liked them — he didn’t need me to schlep his argyle sweaters to the cleaners. But God was a show off. He liked an audience.

  After it was over, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried.

  When I got home at three in the morning, my wife was waiting for me in the kitchen. I’m divorcing you and taking the kids, she said.

  I looked into her eyes. They were steel. She didn’t blink. The only way I was going to get her back was by divine intervention. And that, I knew more than anyone, was never going to happen.

  Oh sure, once upon a time God liked, as he put it, a bit of a dabble in human affairs. But these days all he did was lie around tweeting about how hungover he was. All over the world people were praying and pleading and hoping God would help them out. God wasn’t going to help them out. He wasn’t going to help me out.

  Right then and there, I vowed to myself: I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill God.

  As far as I knew nobody had tried it. Everybody was just too chickenshit. They probably thought it was impossible. Isn’t he all knowing and everything?

  Maybe it was impossible. But God had gotten lazy. He was all knowing, but most of the time he didn’t bother anymore. He didn’t want to know.

  The thing to do was to keep him busy. I programmed a whirlwind schedule. Meetings, drinks, more drinks, private parties, three hundred dollar-a-plate fundraising dinners. God was impressed. He kept telling me I was outdoing myself. We drank 100 percent pure blue agave tequila with the council of Mexican bishops till the sun came up over the Sonoran Desert and they were sure we’d do something to help them out with their orphan problem. God never once asked me: Shouldn’t you be calling home, blowing kisses to your children over the sound of the wind rustling across my creation, this vast, miraculous, wasted expanse?

  In the meantime, I hired a man to break into God’s penthouse and plant a cobra. God hated snakes, believe it or not. I didn’t think that would kill him, but I thought it would keep him off balance. God called me from his cell. He was frantic. Get over here right away! There’s a snake curled up on my desk! It’s wrapped around the phone, he hissed.

  That night we got superloaded. God went on and on about the whole Adam and Eve situation. That fucking snake ruined everything, he kept saying.

  The next day God had a big speech to deliver to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. God loved flying. He always made a show out it. Super Elite status, Veuve Clicquot, Le Monde, the Economist, seat-back Internet, hickory-smoked almonds. I’ll have the ricotta-and-herb-roasted chicken with broccolini in a red wine jus, sweetheart. And keep the bubbly coming! I could hear him from all the way back in coach.

  The speech had been billed as: “Acts of God, Can They Be Avoided?” God looked a little rough when he took the podium — he was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot from in-flight drinking. Nevertheless, he quickly got into the spirit of the thing, pacing back and forth, listing some of the major catastrophes he’d had a hand in. Finally God paused dramatically at center stage and announced that these days we humans were just too focused on technological solutions to spiritual problems. That’s when my gunman started shooting. God’s hands shook, but he still managed to smote the poor guy pretty bad, along with three or four innocent bystanders caught in his wrath.

  If God was on to me he didn’t give any hints. We spent the rest of the week holed up in his office drinking forty-year-old Macallan and ordering in. I showed him, God would say every few minutes. When God finally passed out, I snuck away and called my soon-to-be ex-wife. I’m just calling to say good-bye, I told her. Tell the kids I’ll always love them. I hung up the phone.

  I crept back into God’s office. The place stunk of farts and the remains of a pepperoni pizza. God was facedown on his mahogany desk. He was drooling. Tenderly, I got down on my knees and slipped off his custom-made Manolos.

  All that week, God was bleary, barely coherent. We took a chartered plane to Vegas. I told God Cirque du Soleil was paying for the whole thing. I told him they wanted God to make a special appearance. I told him that the world would be watching, a live cable special, HBO. The performance, I explained to God, would culminate with our one-and-only number-one deity fearlessly sticking his head into the mouth of a lion.

  Let’s face it. If I was going to kill the boss of all bosses, the lord of the universe, if I was going to kill God, I’d have
to do it in a way so outrageous, so maniacal, so fantastic that even God wouldn’t know what the hell was going on until it was too late.

  The Cirque had been bugging me about a God tie-in for ages. They went crazy when I finally gave them a call. God wants to stick his head in a lion, I told them. Set it up.

  They didn’t ask any questions. Nobody ever asked any questions.

  We did shots of Stoli in the limo on the way to the Bellagio. God kept shaking his beefy jowls and smiling incredulously. A lion, huh? On TV, huh?

  Before the show we did E with a bunch of French-Canadian chorus girls. God was having a great time. The girls kept rubbing up against the boss and fake moaning: Ooooohhh Goooood. Everyone giggled hysterically. God’s cheeks were flushed. He donned a pith helmet and started running around the room snapping an imaginary whip and yelling: Let the show begin!

  When it was time, the girls led God onto the stage. The spotlight was blinding and the applause was deafening. Ladies and gentlemen, yelled the circus master. Please give a warm welcome to our very own GOWWWWWD. The crowd went wild. You should have seen God’s shit-eating grin.

  After some fanfare and chitchat they got down to business. The lion was led out of his cage. The tamer put him through his paces. God looked a little pale. But I knew he wasn’t going to back out. Not live on cable in front of millions.

  Drumroll, please!

  With the spotlight on God and the lion, I slipped behind the tawny jungle beast and waited for my moment. The trainer snapped his switch and the lion opened his yawning mouth. God let the circus master guide his head in while the chorus girls oohed and aawed. In front of me, the beast’s giant buttocks tensed. The lion’s anus protruded, a bull’s-eye on a target. I closed my eyes and imagined my wife and kids cuddled up on the couch, watching on TV along with the rest of the world. Then, one by one, I made my fingers into a fist.