by Sam Lipsyte
“Are there any MCs in the house?” I said weakly, held the microphone out.
“You!”
“Come on, man!”
The room had hushed down. Somebody crushed a plastic cup. I was about to set the microphone on the stage, slink away, when I spotted Gary shoving his way over. He reached up, grabbed my collar, yanked me close. His grip was weak, his eyes watery. A few flakes of coke had caked in his nose.
“Step up,” he whispered. “Be a fucking hero.”
Gary careened off into the darkness of the hall and I was alone up there again. I looked off to the edge of the stage, saw Loretta and the other Jazz Lovelies. Loretta smiled.
“Ladies and gentleman,” I said. “My name is Lewis Miner. It seems it’s fallen to me to introduce the next and final act. But before I do—”
“Tell it, Teabag!”
“Pardon?”
“Tell it like it motherfucking is, motherfucker!”
“I’m telling it,” I said. “I’ve been trying to tell it all along. If they’d only let me have my say in the … I mean, does anyone even read Catamount Notes? I didn’t think so. Look, here’s the deal. Here’s my update. I didn’t pan out. Okay? I did not pan out. But what the hell does that mean, anyway? What’s success? What’s achievement? What’s wealth? What’s power? Is it anything besides climbing over the corpses of your fellow human fucking beings? And when you get there, then what? Everybody’s gunning for you. Look at Glen Menninger. Look at Mikey Saladin. Look at Stacy Ryson, Glave Wilkerson. They’ve got it all. But for how long? At what cost? Is it worth it?”
“Yes, it’s worth it!” somebody called.
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe it’s worth it. I don’t know. I’ll never know. Look, I like to beat off. A lot. I eat shitty food. I’m a fat fuck. I used to tell myself it was because I couldn’t afford nonshitty food but it’s probably laziness. I mean how much is a head of lettuce? Or some asparagus? I drink too much, Catamounts. I lost my bride-to-be. I’m falling in love with another woman and I’ll probably lose her, too. I used to be bright for my age, but then I got older. These days when I read a book I can’t remember a word of it. But a bad line from a stupid movie sticks with me for weeks. Did I mention how much I beat off? My mom died. Everybody’s mom dies. Can you believe that shit? But that’s not even the worst of it. You know what the worst of it is, Catamounts. We all know what the worst of it is. But you know what? I’ll tell you what. I’m going to live my life, not die of it. Or, rather, I’ll live it until I die of it. I’ll always be Teabag. I know who I am. I was Teabag long before those bastards threw me down on the locker-room floor. I don’t blame them. It couldn’t be helped. Even Will Paulsen, beautiful, beautiful Will, even he couldn’t help it in the end. We live our lives wanting to love, to be loved. We are not loved. We sense the darkness just beyond. It’s a scary fucking darkness. Where is the light? There is no light. We lash out in the darkness.”
“What should we do, Teabag?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“You’ve got the microphone. Tell us what to do! Tell us what to be!”
“What to do?” I said. “You want to know what to do? What to be?”
“Yizza!”
“Huzza!”
“Booyah!”
“Well,” I said, “let’s start with what not to be. Don’t be an evildoer! Don’t be an evil can-doer! Conversely, don’t sit on your ass all day wondering why ‘cleave’ means two completely opposite things! I spent a month on this, and to no avail. Avoid fried or fatty narcotics. Make an effort. Volunteer in your community. Bathe the children in your neighborhood. Keep a dream journal. Send it to your congressman. Flood the legislature with dream journals. The government will have to respond to our unconscious desires. Keep it simple, simpleton. Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbor’s father. Honor thy lover’s beer. Covet thy neighbor’s father’s wife’s sister. Take her to bingo night. But mostly it’s about the don‘ts, Catamounts. Don’t lie with beasts of the field, at least not without their consent. Don’t be a borrower nor a lenderbee. Don’t sweat the sweaty stuff. Don’t touch turtles without washing your hands afterward. Especially buck turtles. Don’t confuse the issue. Don’t duck the question. Don’t get preachy with the choir. Don’t chew more than you’ve bitten off. That part’s you. Don’t let anybody pack your luggage. Don’t mention anything, even in jest, at an airport. Don’t monger things. Don’t walk. Don’t walk under ladders. Don’t live near power lines. Don’t be born into difficult circumstances. Don’t inherit diseases. Don’t get all ‘Third World’ on me. Don’t struggle with depression. Don’t struggle to pay the bills. Don’t expect a goddamn handout from the very people who have worked so hard to hijack your opportunities. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to corner the market on fish and be thankful for the small acts of philanthropy he may perform while depriving most of the world of fish. Have faith. Take stock. Take five. Never surrender. Live to fight another day. Better a dead dog than sleeping all the time. Don’t rob Peter to pay some other guy. Don’t judge people just because their beliefs teach them to despise you. You could easily be in the same position. Think about it. Now ask yourself. Now close your eyes and imagine. Now stop living in a dreamworld. Gravy boat, people! Do you understand? Don’t be with us. Don’t be against us. We are not of us. Don’t play the bounce. Don’t steer into the skid. Don’t let them see you shit your pants. Don’t fuck a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Yeah!”
“That’s right, Valley Kitties! Heed my words! Mark them, heed them! If you can’t do the crime, do the time. If you can’t stand the heat, burn down the kitchen! If you can’t say anything nice, you’re beginning to see the bigger picture.”
“Whoo-hoo!”
“We’re at a critical juncture in the history of our homeland, Valley Kitties. It’s now or never. It’s now and never. We must choose once and for all: police state or police state!”
“Wowza!”
“And another thing. What I said about turtles goes double for dead birds!”
“Bowza!”
“Alright already!” somebody called. “Bring on the dancers!”
“What?”
“The dancers!”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We love you, Teabag.”
“Sort of!”
“No,” I said. “You’re right. The dancers. What the hell am I doing, not bringing on the dancers? Let them deliver us from darkness, at least for the duration of their routine. The dancers! Ladies and gentleman, alumni of Eastern Valley High School, I present to you the astonishing and inimitable Loretta Moran and the Catamount Jazz Dancing Club, featuring Jasmine Herman and Brie Nachumi!”
Now the sirens started up again. An organ note, deep, sustained, filled the hall like some sonorous gas. Out from shadows floated the Jazz Lovelies, Loretta first, Brie and Jasmine hovering close behind. They assembled themselves with asymmetrical grandeur in a stark oval of light. Brie and Jasmine wore canary yellow bodysuits, feathered belts. Loretta stood between them in a purple leotard, her hair pulled back in a burnished bun severe enough it seemed a coat of lustrous paint.
The other Lovelies commenced a swift methodic rocking, tilted sideways from their hips. They seemed the matched functions of some multiform machine. Each time their torsos, shoulders, swung together, as though to pinion their leader in the vise of their pates, Loretta would plunge forward, down between her knees, clasp her wool-slung heels, her fingers bunching yarn for purchase.
Some cheered, bland and lewd, made high animal sounds, but seeing Loretta there in her limber majesty, the rhinestones in her leg warmers catching sweeps of light, put me in a holy state of mind. Loretta was our high priestess, almost sexless in her beauty, fulcrum of desires born not of scrotal ache. The other Lovelies looked a bit undone by their canary sheaths. They had humanity, wore winces. They were just trying to get through this. Pe
rhaps somebody, a therapist, a therapeutic sister-in-law, had said this was something to be gotten through.
Not Loretta.
She seemed seized with dreamy perfection, a beloved ballerina making her adieu.
She would accept just enough love for the next farewell plié.
I thought I would puke from all the love I had left over.
“Go, Brie!” some doofus shouted.
I caught sight of Fontana waking, sitting up. He wore the look of a man in sudden awe of the everyday, the sunset out his kitchen window, the lush slope of his yard, the fawn shitting pellets at the edge of it.
The organ paused, the deep note died. The hall fell silent and the dancers froze. Lit smoke billowed up from their feet. We were all of us frozen now, waiting, waiting. Here it came, Catamounts! Synths, saxophones, a heaving beat. Our awful ancient music! The Jazz Lovelies detonated themselves to it. A roar rose up and the dancers flew into their schemed deliriums, their steps loosely synchronized, so that for each pivot which flung a Lovely away from the thick, another reeled one back. They were a whirling panorama, a Möbius snarl. Now they were snakes, now eels, now flowers, soldiers, dolphins, cities, engines, curls of ocean, ribbons of steam, stalks of waving wheat. Whatever they were, Loretta was their lodestar, their queen, her light-flecked leg warmers slipping down her calves with the force of her slides, her splits, her dips, her huge antelope leaps.
They danced, and danced, and of a sudden came a shudder, a rip, an invisible wave concussing the crowd. I figured it for some natural buckling, us pitched by the power of our witness. Then I saw him, bushwhacking through the Togethering, carving a path with low sweeps of his mace. Catamounts parted, pressed in behind the barricades the buffet tables made. Brie and Jasmine were the last to flee, bared stricken, courage-sapped looks to their fellow Lovely, peeled off for the safety of the throng.
Loretta and Hollis stood alone. Or Hollis stood, mace up easy on his shoulder, evil’s yeoman, a farmer of skulls. Loretta, she kept dancing, the music killed now, Valley Kitties shouting, shoving. Yes, Loretta kept dancing, or kept herself in some version of motion, as though her life depended on her continuing to undulate, sway, enact some artful swoon, refuse the monster’s tinted gaze. Hollis watched until the room got quiet. He’d waited all night for his scene.
“You dumb fucking hag,” he said. “Look at you.”
Loretta did look, studied the curve of her arm, the arch of her foot, calm with craft.
“Go away,” said Loretta.
“You stupid fucking bitch,” said Hollis.
“Leave.”
“Let’s go then.”
“No. Just you, Hollis.”
“Just me? Okay. But first I’m going to kill you right here in front of all these people.”
“No, you won’t,” said Loretta, long fingers up like tongs, spread now for some luminous butterfly pose.
“Fucking A I won’t!” said Hollis. “Keep still and hear what I’m saying! I’ll crack your bitch skull you don’t come with me right now! You want that? You want our son should want that?”
“My son,” said Loretta.
“That’s not even funny.”
Loretta fell still, gathered up a stare.
“It’s not supposed to be funny.”
“You saggy stinkhole, I swear to God, I’m going to do you right here.”
“Do me, babycakes,” came a voice, liquid, silken, through the speakers. “Do me first, you big phony.”
Fontana strode out from the darkness, woozy, the microphone in his hand.
“What did you say?” said Hollis.
“You heard me,” said Fontana. “Everybody heard me. Everybody’s heard me all night. What do you think I’m saying?”
“You active,” said Hollis. “Get out of my face. I’ll do you, too.”
“Exactly, babylove. Except you’re missing the big picture. I’m saying do me first. You want to, quote unquote, do this kind, talented, beautiful lady because she won’t bend to your vile whims? I say unto you: do me the fuck first.”
“You better watch it, sport.”
“Okay,” said Fontana. “I take it back. I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I need help. I’m ready to surrender to a higher power. A higher power I call hairy sky pie. Will you help me?”
“Hell, no.”
“Then fucking do me, nihil-humper!”
I’m not sure how many Catamounts witnessed the blow. All I saw was Hollis rear back with his mace as though fixing to hammer a tent stake. Chip Gallagher was falling on top of me, the bottom of his clenched bourbon bottle mashing my nose, when I heard the muted crunch, Loretta’s scream. I wormed up out of the swarm, saw Fontana folded over, blood running out his stove head, its seep lit by bulbs in the dance floor. Hollis paced around his fallen prey, mace up, as though expecting reprisal.
He was wise to expect it. Catamounts edged in from all sides. Hollis kept them at bay with big swings of his mace. Philly stepped forward with Brett Meachum’s pistol.
“Put the club down!” he shouted, maybe imagining that along with Brett Meachum’s pistol came Brett Meachum’s training.
“Fuck off,” said Hollis, stepped in, banged the flanged iron mace head down on Philly’s arm. Philly shrieked and the pistol dropped to the floor. Hollis snatched it up, waved it at the room.
“I’m walking out of here!” he said.
Hollis hauled Philly up by the collar, pressed the pistol at the back of Philly’s head, made for the fire exit.
“You’re the worst fucking sponsor in the world!” came a shout, and here came Gary, flying out the shadows.
He crashed into Hollis and Philly and the three of them went down in a writhing heap. We heard a shot. Gary rolled off the pile holding his shin.
Now Hollis was up on top of Philly, choking him, working the pistol into Philly’s mouth. I took a running start, dove at Hollis’ ribs, knocked him over, pinned his arms under my knees. It was stupid, Catamounts, I know, but I was lucky, lucky I’d watched so many goddamn cop shows. I guess you get one move like that in your lifetime. The pistol skidded clear of both of us. Bethany Applebaum picked it up.
“Oh my God, is it on?” she said.
Hollis squirmed beneath my knees. Philly winced up at me, clutched his crushed arm.
“Teabag him, Teabag!” said Philly.
“Shut up, Philly.”
“Kill me, Larry,” said Hollis.
“For real?” I said.
Now Philly stood, stomped on Hollis’ gut.
“You’re fucked!” he said.
Hollis wheezed for air.
“Pile on!” Mikey Saladin called. Catamounts poured in for the gang pounce. I could hear the crunches and moans and ecstatic sighs behind me as I scooted over to where Fontana lay.
LORETTA CRADLED his broken head in her lap. Stacy Ryson had slipped off one of Loretta’s leg warmers to stanch the wound. Bits of brain clung to the wool. I knelt, took Fontana’s damp hand, laid my knuckles on his brow. His eyes swiveled in faraway milk. I figured he was falling through folds of time.
“Miner,” he said.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Tell Loretta I love her.”
“I’m here, Sal,” said Loretta. “I love you, too, baby.”
“Oh, baby,” said Fontana.
“It’s okay,” said Loretta.
“Oh, fuck,” said Fontana. “It’s not fair. I don’t want to wake up.”
“It’s okay, baby.”
“Miner?” said Fontana.
“I’m here,” I said.
“No wakey.”
“No wakey,” I said.
“My sweet baby,” said Loretta. “My poor horsey.”
“No eggs,” I said. “No bakey.”
“No bakey,” I said again, but I don’t think he heard me. Fontana was pretty much dead by then.
The Erasing Angel
CATAMOUNTS, once more I stuff my heart into the firing tube of language, loft it into the void
.
See the wet meat soar?
I swore an oath off updates after the death of Fontana, but I’ve been checking the bulletin board on occasion, shocked anew each time at the dearth of soul-searching there. It’s as though that night at the Moonbeam never occurred, our lives one unruptured procession of promotions and breeding success, summer cottages, marathons. Who called for the moratorium on feeling? Who pulled the plug on the true? Or was it always just me, feeble Tea, who believed in the power of updates, who thought that by sharing with my brethren of the valley the story of my days and nights, my fears and joys, or even just the febrile murmurings of my mind, our forts of ruinous solitude might be breached.
Okay, maybe it was just me.
Saith the man: wakey, wakey.
I’ll keep it short, Catamounts. I know you are all busy with your lives, your amnesia. It’s been seasons since the Togethering, seasons since we gathered at the Nearmont cemetery, too, recited homilies, prayers, sank our principal into the loam. (I think it was loam—kind of clayey?) Autumn was cold, winter colder, the snow like white dirt. Now it’s spring and I’m giving it one last go at telling you what’s happened.
I don’t think you’ll be hearing from old Teabag again.
Hollis Wofford, as you’re probably aware, was convicted of two counts of murder in the second degree. He awaits sentencing in a special wing of the county jail.
I attended the trial, had the pleasure of hearing Hollis’s testimony regarding the night of the Togethering.
“Fontana got up in my face,” explained Hollis. “I happened to have my war mace with me. I figured, what the fuck, I’m already wanted for that punk’s OD. This tragedy, Your Honor, is the direct result of our society’s dragony drug laws.”
Hollis’s mace, as it happened, had been missing from a traveling exhibition of Germanic tribal artifacts. Hollis had some urns adorned with Wotan’s visage, too, fakes from the 1950s. He’d filled these with cocaine.
Rumor had it Hollis had shared a cell for a few weeks with Georgie Mays, who was being held on an assault charge. Georgie had exposed himself to the maiden aunt of a noted but recently disgraced historian whose latest best-seller included this index entry:
