The Neon God

by Ben D'Alessio

  “I’m not. But ah…I have family here and visit often. I also went to school here.”

  “Tulane?” asked Portland blue-hair.

  “Tulane is a school for Yankees,” said the Texan, giving the male half of a Massachusetts couple a friendly slap on the back.

  “I went to Loyola, right next door,” Zibby said.

  They turned off Royal Street and down Pirate Alley, one of the tiny, slate-laid pedestrian streets that line both sides of St. Louis Cathedral.

  “So, you graduated?” started Portland blue-hair. “What do you do now? Heard the Louisiana job market is pretty dead. Lemme guess, moved out to Texas or Colorado?”

  “Ya know what?” Zibby snapped, taking such a sudden step toward the girl, she actually jumped back. “Don’t you worry about us down here, we’re doin’ jus’ fine.”

  Clemmons smiled at her; she smiled back.

  “And…I’m a writer, if you must know. A travel writer to pay the bills, that’s how I know so much about New Orleans. Ya know, in France, it’s considered extremely rude to ask someone what they do for a living. Maybe you should read my article on it when you get the chance.” She turned to Clemmons. “I’ve also gotten into fiction. Had a short story published in Bayou Magazine when I was in college.”

  “I love Bayou Mag,” he said, folding his arms in front of his chest.

  “Well, I wrote another short story I was thinking about submitting, but I wanted some notes first.”

  “I’d love to take a look at it.”

  Her heart popped; butterflies burst.

  “No…no, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said behind a hidden smile.

  “No, really. I’d be happy to.” Zibby fell in step with Clemmons as they continued down the Alley. “The editor of Bayou Mag is a friend of mine. Hey everyone! We’ll chat after,” he said out of the side of his mouth, the trail of whiskey breath close behind. “So, we’ve made it to our last stop. Behind me is Faulkner House Books, the most adorable bookstore in these United States and the once home of the legendary William Faulkner.”

  Clemmons shared some history about the writer’s whereabouts while visiting New Orleans, and anecdotes that included bathtub gin and a BB gun that made the group laugh. And although this information was actually new to Zibby, she could barely focus long enough to wipe the toothy smile from her face.

  “And I don’t mean to do the hackneyed ‘exit through the gift shop’ thing, but if you go inside, which I recommend you do, you will see copies of all of my books, including my new release, Sirens of the Mississippi. But it looks like y’all already own everything I’ve ever written!”

  The group laughed—Zibby joining in late, as she had already drifted off into a literary fantasy—as they had all quietly been taking weathered novels out of backpacks and purses, getting ready to jump in line to have them signed.

  She waited at the end of the line and checked her phone, expecting to find pics from the bar crawl or other celebratory activities from 1Ls Gone Wild, but instead, her Facebook feed was lined with headlines predicting the apocalypse.

  Thousands Descend on Downtown New Orleans: Extreme Violence Reported, Public Nudity and Fornication Witnessed, Public Intoxication Abounds.

  Super Storm Forms in Gulf. Could Be Detrimental if Continues Toward City.

  Drew Brees May Not Return in Time for Playoffs!

  The city’s media tended to exaggerate the debauchery and crime, the weather, and the woes of the Saints—every New Orleanian knew that Hell would freeze over before Drew Brees missed a playoff game—so she slid her phone back into her tight jeans and didn’t think much of the headlines.

  Portland blue-hair stepped up to the writer, who signed the copies and told her thanks for coming, and left it at that. Zibby smirked at the Mainer, who clutched her Ruiz novels to her chest and walked down toward Jackson Square in humbling defeat.

  It was her turn. Zibby caught herself skipping up to the writer and stopped herself before he noticed. Leaned up against the wall of the bookstore, Clemmons took the first novel, Quiet in the Alley, from her and rested a blue pen on the first blank page but didn’t write anything.

  “You really a writer?” he asked, snapping Zibby to attention. “I really am.”

  He looked back down at the blank page, smiled to himself, and looked up, as if just conceiving the darndest idea. “How ’bout this,” he began, closing the book. “We get to know each other a little better, and that way I can personalize your books, instead of just writing the same thing I write in everyone else’s. How’s that sound?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “Usually I grab a drink at this little pirate bar after each tour.” He nodded to his right at Tony Seville’s, a tiny pirate-themed bar that occupied the corner. “But something tells me we’d get to know each other better if we skipped that part and went straight to my place.”

  She took the book back from the writer without saying a thing.

  “If you have a copy of either of your stories, I’d be happy to read that, too.”

  When Zibby still couldn’t eke anything out of her ear-to-ear grin, Clemmons threw in one final offer, more of a gratuitous garnish than a bargaining chip.

  “And don’t worry about getting Sirens here. I’ll give you a copy from my personal stash, signed, of course.”

  Zibby could’ve been mistaken for a knees-wobbling, speech-slurring, glassy-eyed, simultaneously laughing and crying tourist on Bourbon Street after Clemmons’s offer sunk in.

  “So, is that a yes?”

  She nodded.

  “All right then, this way.”

  He led her down Royal Street and up St. Ann, cutting through the quiet nexus of Bourbon’s gayborhood. But as Zibby descended from the clouds and took in her surroundings, the rambunctiousness that typically flowed through the middle of the French Quarter was gone, and in its stead was a serene calm she had never witnessed before.

  “Is this strange to you?” she asked, looking one way, then the other, down Bourbon Street.

  “Is what strange?”

  “How quiet it is? It’s a Thursday, and nobody even seems to be in these bars. Usually there are, like, at least three sets of guys kissing outside of Raised Manholes. You don’t think this has anything to do with the storm?”

  Clemmons hadn’t heard her, or if he had, he already possessed a sentiment that needed to be shared before answering. “Ya know, there are times when I walked down the dimly lit paths illuminated by nothing more than the flicker of hanging lanterns, I would think to myself that the French Quarter had been built just for me, waiting through the fires and storms for me to stroll down its cottage-lined streets.”

  “Isn’t that from one of your books?”

  “I think you’ll like my place. I have a balcony with a beautiful view of the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, I know that view. I check your Instagram like, every day!” Zibby cringed when it came out. He wants to read your work. Act like a peer, not a fan.

  They turned onto Burgundy Street and approached a row of pastel buildings, their balconies overflowing with suspended gardens. Oil lamps hanging by chains marked old front doors that would have enough stories to fill books, if they were permitted to speak.

  Clemmons unlocked a blue door a few shades darker than the building itself and let Zibby go first. She needed to turn sideways to pass by the writer and into the narrow hallway that led to the staircase. He guided her up two sets of stairs until they reached his apartment on the top floor, and when he opened the door, Zibby stepped into a cave of books.

  “Holy God, that’s a lotta books.”

  Books covered tables and chairs and were stacked up to the ceiling in each corner according to no order or reason—trade paperbacks shared stacks with historical nonfiction hard covers, fantasy with Twain, García Márquez with biographies, Simone de Beauvoir with Philip Roth. Books created thrones for bowls of fruit and coffee mugs filled with cigarette butts, and stacks lined the long glass doors a
nd windows that offered access to the balcony.

  “You like it, huh?”

  “This is unreal, and yet…somehow the realest place I’ve been in a while. I’m afraid if I take the books out of my bag, they won’t want to leave.”

  She walked into the center of the living room, or what she suspected to be the living room, as any chair, table, or ledge was occupied by an Ishiguro or Joan Didion.

  “We’ll get to those later. What’s your drink?” he asked, walking into the kitchen. “I have all the fixings for French 007. However, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it quite like they do at the Monteleone.”

  “Very observant, Clemmons.” Zibby smiled, proud of herself for using his first name.

  “Isn’t that a trait for us, being observant?”

  “Us?”

  “Writers.”

  She turned away to hide her blushing face.

  “We write what we know, and we know what we experience and observe, or somewhere between the two, don’t you agree?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  “How about that drink?”

  If books were the star of the apartment’s motif, liquor bottles— full and empty and between the two—occupied the supporting role.

  “How about this guy?” Clemmons pushed a bottle of red wine across the counter with a foreign label Zibby didn’t recognize. “Or you could go with the Clemmons Special?”

  “And what would a Clemmons Special entail?”

  “Hayman’s on ice.”

  They both laughed.

  “That’s the well whiskey at the bar I go to! I think I’ll go with the wine.”

  “You got it.” And he finished with a wink.

  The writer popped out the cork and poured two glasses, moving a stack of books from a pink velvet chair to offer Zibby a place to sit.

  “You can barely see it,” Zibby started. “But this place has gorgeous exposed brick walls.” She laughed, teasing the author.

  “Ya know what two of my favorite things are? Exposed brick and the Garamond font.”

  “To the Garamond font,” Zibby toasted.

  “To the Garamond font,” Clemmons replied.

  They each took a sip of wine. Zibby regarded a stack to her right, hoping to find a pattern—Color? Length? Country of origin?— still nothing. Then she remembered what Liv told her during her first day on the job at the bookshop: “Don’t make any stacks past your chest; they could fall and hurt Margaret Atwood.”

  “Hey! Where is Orwell?” she said, looking underneath her chair.

  “How’s the wine? Better be good, for what I paid for it. Spare no expense! Here, hand over those books and I’ll get ’em signed for ya.”

  “Oh, right. Here.” She shuffled the books out of her shoulder bag, all of a sudden becoming embarrassed at the creases, crinkles, tears, highlights, tabs, and handwritten notes that curved around the prose like serpents.

  “I must’ve scared the little guy. I adore tuxedo cats. Definitely one of my favorite types.”

  “Not leaving me much space to personalize these!” The author laughed. “That’s okay, I love active readers. Makes you feel appreciated.”

  Zibby caught his elusion that time. She pulled her phone out of her jeans to check Instagram, but had a text from Brian and one from Liv.

  Text from Pham-Boy: Hail Dionysus!

  Text from Liv: Hail Dionysus!

  Text to Pham-Boy: What is that?!? I have no idea!

  Text to Liv: Yo, what is that??!

  She opened Instagram, searched for Clemmons’s page, and scrolled until she found a picture of Orwell; the date was from three days ago. Zibby reasoned that perhaps the poor thing had recently died and it was too painful to bring up. But before she could stop, she caught herself asking the writer if everything was okay with his cat.

  “The cat isn’t mine,” he said without looking up from signing Romeo Spikes. “I’m actually allergic to cats and don’t really care for them.”

  “Oh…”

  “How about you go and pull up your short story.” He motioned with his chin to a computer hidden behind stacks of books on the desk.

  “Okay.” Zibby got up from the chair and approached the desktop that seemed to be assembled from big tan blocks. “Does this thing even still work? It’s like what would be in a museum for computers,” she teased, but the writer didn’t respond. “Should I get the one from Bayou or my new one?”

  “Whichever.”

  She sat at the swivel desk chair and tapped a giant key that sent dust bursting into the apartment air to wake up the computer. Once on the Bayou Magazine site, she went straight to the archives to find the issue that housed her story, and clicked on it so it could load.

  Clemmons rose from the squeaking chair and, after a few moments of silence, walked into the kitchen, the hardwood creaking with each step.

  “So…how did you get those pictures of Orwell? Is that even his name?”

  Zibby scanned the desk and thumbed through a couple of envelopes addressed to Paul Loudermilk, trying not to rustle the papers and grab the writer’s attention.

  “He’s uh…he’s a friend’s cat. My publicist says to use a cat on my Instagram account because fans like when writers have cats.” He gave a pathetic laugh, as if to say, I know, I think it’s silly, too.

  While she waited for the archives page to load, Clemmons swiped her glass from the computer desk and Zibby popped in the seat, surprised at how quietly he had approached, as if he knew exactly which floorboards didn’t creak.

  “Didn’t mean to scare ya. Just wanna top ya off.”

  “I’m actually feeling pretty good…”

  But the writer began pouring her another glass from the behind the counter.

  “I’ve got it up here, finally, whenever you’re ready. Hey, does this printer even work?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You mind if I print it out and you…” Zibby laughed at herself, but went on, “You read it with a glass of whiskey or something? Preferably out on the balcony.”

  “If you’d like. Have a glass of whiskey with me.”

  “The wine is fine for now, but thank…”

  Clemmons poured out two glasses of Hayman’s whiskey over ice cubes and dropped one off at the desk. As the final page of the story printed, he grabbed the papers, shuffled them together, and put them to the side.

  “You have a beautiful smile, ya know.”

  “Trust me, I know.” She didn’t mean to come off like a jerk, but the experience with her Uber driver that afternoon was still fresh. “Sorry, thank you. Aren’t you gonna…”

  “How do you feel about reincarnation?” Zibby was caught off guard, and all of a sudden felt as if she were back in LaSalle’s Criminal Law classroom, thrown a curveball, knowing full well there likely was not a correct answer. “I believe we come back, over and over again, and the only thing that travels with us through the ether is our smile.”

  “Where did you read that?”

  “In a book,” Clemmons snapped. He downed his glass of whiskey and swirled the remaining ice cubes in the glass.

  Zibby straightened up in the desk chair. The flirtatious atmosphere had been sucked out of the room, and she could hear the writer cursing to himself as he mashed around in his freezer for more ice.

  “Hey, you mind if I print out my new short story, too?” Zibby paused, waiting for a response that never came. “I think you’ll see how much Below Water influenced it.”

  “So you’re plagiarizing me now?”

  She froze.

  Three more fingers of whiskey went into the glass.

  “I…I don’t see how you got that from what I said.”

  “Can I ask you something? Has your generation ever had an original thought? Really, I want to know and am designating you as the mouthpiece for millennials.”

  But he continued before Zibby could say anything.

  “And listen, I know us Gen Xers are the ‘disaffected, self-involved, Prozac Natio
n Generation,’ but at least our cynicism—a justifiable cynicism, I might add—created the modern world.”

  “Sounds exhausting.” Zibby folded her arms. “The fact that you have time to write best-selling novels and create the modern world, all while pickling your liver, is truly a commendable…”

  Zibby shrieked and ducked to the side as glass shattered against the exposed brick wall, and when she opened her eyes, the writer was turning the corner and heading straight at her, fingers fidgeting with his belt, a look of abject disassociation plastered on his face.

  “Clemmons! What are…”

  But before she could finish, the writer whipped his belt from his pants, which snapped in the humid air, and cracked it against the outstretched arms protecting Zibby’s face. A storm of blows battered her hands, shoulders, and head, and as she fell from the chair, a barrage of strikes landed on her back.

  “You’ve read Quiet in the Alley ‘like, a hundred times,’ right?!” he mocked as she wept, crawling on the floor. “Then you must remember the scene where the father beats his daughter, huh? You remember that one? Where do you think you’re going?” He stepped on her back and shoved her down onto the hardwood and gave her a couple more lashes about the back and knuckles, which were protecting her neck. “Ya know how I originally wrote that scene? But that fucking publisher made me take it out. I bet you want to know, because you’re, ‘like, such a huge fan’!” He whipped her again. “Answer me!”

  The sun had gone down and the apartment grew dark. Zibby could see her phone a few feet away from her on the floor. The screen was a shattered spider web.

  “Huh…huh…how?”

  “Well…how about I give you some writing advice, and show you how I wrote the scene. Always remember, show don’t tell!”

  One foot still on her back, crushing her more into the floor every time she squirmed, Clemmons Ruiz unbuttoned his pants and zipped down his fly. Before Zibby could summon the strength to push herself from the floor, the writer fell on the back of her legs with all his weight, threw the belt beneath her chin so it squeezed against her neck, and pulled at it with one hand until it made that ubiquitous squeak of stretching leather. With his other hand, he yanked at the back of her jeans.