Liars in Love

by Ian Bull

  Kath dances over and takes the glass from Sam. They clink flutes and sip.

  “I’m going to nail you,” the barfly says, grinning at Kath. “He said so.”

  “Not too hard, okay, superstar?” Kath whispers, which makes the barfly blink. Kath shoots Sam an evil look as she tilts her head back and swallows the whole glass. Sam slaps his new companion on the back. “Drink, my friend, drink! You deserve this!” he says, and pushes the full glass towards his new friend, gesturing him to sip.

  The bartender returns and puts the bill down in front of Sam. “That’ll be 49.33, Frank.”

  The barfly’s eyes widen in almost tearful friendship. “Frank? My name’s Frank too!” he says, and he’s so excited he grabs the bill and the credit card and reads it. “Frank Ryan? That’s so weird, my name is Frank Ryan too! Let me show you!”

  The barfly goes into his pocket for his wallet and feels nothing. He’s scared as he pats his jacket pockets, and then confused as he checks his pant pockets, and then angry as he realizes what Sam has done to him.

  Sam holds out a glass of champagne to him and smiles. “Who just taught who a lesson?” he asks. “But you can still try to kick my ass if you want to.”

  Frank hits Sam in the face, but Sam ducks the punch enough that it's a glancing blow off the cheekbone. Sam kicks a barstool onto the floor and pushes Frank so he tumbles backward over it. As Frank falls, Sam grabs his heels and flips him onto his head. The Hotel Utah has a cement floor and the loud bonk of Frank's cranium bouncing off it makes everyone in the bar stop, including Stark Naked and the Car Thieves.

  “Am I bleeding?” Frank asks, lying on the floor, touching his head everywhere.

  “Nope. You’re fine,” says the bartender, with a tone that betrays that he wishes Frank’s head was more of a melon and less of a bowling ball.

  Kath grabs the bottle of champagne from the bucket just as a security guy plows into Sam from the right while Frank Ryan pops up and plows into him from the left. They careen around the small bar like three pinballs with flailing arms and hands, their punches barely connecting while they collide with all the tables and chairs.

  “Want to give me a hand here?” Sam asks Kath.

  “You look like you’re doing fine,” Kath answers as she sips champagne from the bottle while backing toward the door.

  The three men collide again, but now Frank is as mad at the security guard as he is at Sam and swings hard at him instead. They grab each other’s throats. Sam ducks under them like he’s playing London Bridge, and rushes out the door.

  He and Kath run down the street. Sam reaches out and grabs her hand. Kath laughs, her voice echoing off the wet pavement. They run across traffic and blend into a crowd of people outside an underground nightclub. They move into the people and pause to catch their breath. Everyone around them is also in black jeans and black leather, and they find a brick wall against which they can lean.

  Kath takes one more swig of champagne and offers it to Sam, who tilts his head back and chugs it too fast, and fizz shoots up his nose. Kath laughs as he coughs and wipes his mouth, and Sam grins and hands the bottle back. The bruise on his face where Frank Ryan punched him has swollen up to the size of a golf ball, making his boyish grin even more lopsided.

  “I think we've had enough." Sam puts the half-full bottle on the sidewalk.

  The crowd of youngsters surrounding them eye them but don’t approach, like a circling school of curious fish. Indie rock blasts from the second floor above, and the doorman behind the red velvet rope lets in only four people at a time.

  Sam and Kath smile at each other, not sure what to do next.

  Sam wonders if he should try to kiss her.

  Kath wonders if she should let him, if he tries again. All memory of her promise to herself to resist him has been wiped clean by the bubbly alcohol.

  Sam leans in, and Kath stops him with a hand on his chest. “I don’t trust you.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t trust you either.”

  “But you are cute.”

  “What should we do about that?” Sam asks, and flashes his crooked grin.

  “I think we should call it a night,” Kath says, and pulls him away from the crowd.

  They meander down the street, hands in their pockets, not daring to hold hands again but bumping shoulders occasionally instead. They find their way back to the Ford Fiesta, but as they get closer, they see the front passenger door is open, and two short legs are sticking out.

  Sam leaves Kath four steps back and sidles up to the open door. A small African American kid has popped off the ignition cover and is trying to hotwire the car.

  “Finding everything you need?” Sam asks.

  “Leave me alone,” the kid mutters.

  “Forget it, kid, we still need the car for a couple more hours," Sam says, shaking the keys loud enough for the kid to hear, then yanks him out of the car by his heels. The kid's butt hits the pavement right on his tailbone, and he rolls over and moans. Sam reaches in and pulls out the hammer, screwdrivers and wire strippers the kid left on the front seat and dumps them on the pavement next to him.

  “What’s your name?” Sam asks.

  “Muhammad Ali,” the kid says, rubbing the back of his jeans.

  “What are you trying to steal a car for? You’re a baby.”

  “Because I’m hungry, that’s why.”

  “You want to eat a Ford Fiesta? You must be pretty hungry.”

  “You people aren’t cops, fuck off,” Muhammad says, and gets to his feet and walks away.

  “Hang on a second,” Sam says, and pulls out his wallet and hands the kid a twenty-dollar bill, but when Muhammad reaches for it, Sam pulls the bill away. “You want me to tell you what you were doing wrong?”

  The kid nods. Sam hands him the twenty, and then pulls out the yellow plastic dishwashing gloves he used in the robbery and hands them to the kid. "First off, wear these, otherwise you'll get shocked. On this car, you should have just banged the flat head screwdriver into the ignition and twisted it. That usually works, and it's the fastest way to go."

  “Okay,” the kid says.

  “If that doesn't work, you use the Phillips to undo the panel and expose the wires. On a Ford Fiesta, you’ll see red lines and brown lines going into the ignition cylinder. The red lines are the electrical power for the lights and the radio, which you need. The brown wires run to the starter, which gets the engine going. You want to bypass that ignition cylinder, because you don’t have a key, right? Cut the red power wires first, strip the ends, then touch them together to get power to the system without needing a key to complete the circuit," Sam says, and holds up the key. "You can then twist them together if you're wearing the rubber gloves. Then you can cover them with cheap black electrical tape. Got it?"

  “Got it,” says the kid.

  “Then you cut the brown wires, strip the ends, and just lightly touch them to each other, and the car should start. You do need gloves for that because that jolt can hurt. But you don't have to twist them together, because the car is now running. Just like you don't have to keep turning the key in the ignition. But you do have to tape off the ends. Want to try?" Sam asks.

  “Are you serious?” the kid asks.

  “If you do it in less than two minutes, I’ll give you something worth a lot more than twenty bucks, Mr. Muhammad Ali.”

  Muhammad shrugs and nods. Sam looks at his watch, then at Muhammad…and points for him to go. Muhammad picks his tools off the ground and climbs back in the car.

  “Why are you doing this?” Kath says, walking close.

  “You got something better to do? If you want to go, I’ll give you taxi fare.”

  Kath doesn’t have anything better to do, and Sam’s odd behavior is intriguing enough that it sends another light shiver up her spine.

  The car roars to life, and Muhammad comes out, proud and grinning.

  “One minute, fifty seconds,” Sam says.

  “What do I get?” Muhamma
d asks.

  “Another two twenty-dollar bills, along with my professional assessment,” Sam says, and holds up two bills for Muhammad to see. When Muhammad reaches for the money, Sam pulls it back.

  The kid rolls his eyes. “This is jack.”

  “You can listen to instructions, understand them, and then quickly implement them, which means you have a high IQ. Crime, however, does not pay, especially for young black men. If you stay in this line of work, you will be in prison in less than five years. If you stay in prison for more than two years, your life will be ruined. Or, I can take you to my parole officer and he can place you in a work/study program. The kind of program that I ignored when I was your age. He's a religious zealot, so he really would try to help you."

  “I’ll take my chances, chump,” Muhammad says. He grabs the bills and runs.

  Sam watches him run around a corner. “You think I made a difference?”

  “I think you made it worse,” Kath says.

  Sam’s face falls with regret. “How do you figure that?”

  “You make people pay for advice, you don’t pay them. Otherwise, it has no value."

  Sam blinks at this nugget of wisdom, then nods and stares at his feet. “That makes sense,” he mutters. He sticks his hands in his jacket pockets and shrugs, trying to warm himself up in the cool fog.

  Kath looks at this man, so smart and capable, and wonders how he got here. He’s smart and he has good intentions, yet he makes dumb mistakes. Maybe he was born in the wrong place and then started down the wrong path. Maybe he made a few wrong turns at key moments. Now he’s here, stuck on this one-way street in cold San Francisco at three in the morning. Then she realizes that’s it’s her own story that she’s pondering…but it may be his story too.

  “I wish we still had that champagne,” he says.

  “I’ve got champagne back at my place.”

  Sam turns to her and they share a smile. He moves close, shuffling inch by inch, waiting for her to stop him. She doesn’t. He leans down and kisses her, and she kisses him back.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  K ath lives in a small one-bedroom apartment on the bottom floor of a pink clapboard duplex on 29th Street, just below Diamond Street. It's one of the steepest blocks in The City, with a 30% grade. When you're walking the block, it's smart to turn around halfway up and walk backward the rest of the way, just to give your thighs a break.

  Sam makes sure he curbs the wheels of the Fiesta and yanks hard on the parking brake, so the tiny car doesn’t roll down the hill and smash into St. Paul’s on Church Street. He and Kath push their doors closed and then lean against each other as they cross sideways against the steep street, like tipsy mountain goats. They reach level ground when their feet touch the first pink painted cement step that leads up to her door. They give each other a victory kiss.

  She's on the ground floor while the landlady, Mrs. Sanchez, has a door that opens to a narrow, steep staircase that goes up to a bigger living space above. Kath unlocks her door and they tumble inside, still kissing.

  Kath pulls away and shuts the door. “Put on some music,” Kath says, and pushes him down onto the black leather couch. Sam spies a turntable with some records leaning against the brown coffee table, and picks out George Benson’s Breezin’, lays it on the platter and drops the needle into the groove for the first track. Kath digs through her refrigerator and finds a half-finished bottle of Perrier Jouet and pours half-flat champagne into two plastic breakfast glasses.

  “You really do like champagne,” Sam says, standing up and taking the cup from her. They clink plastic and then down their beverages, then move close and slow dance, pasting themselves against each other. They kiss long and hard, and Kath pulls away again.

  “I’ll go get ready,” she whispers in his ear, then bites his earlobe a little too hard before stumbling into the bedroom and slamming and locking the door behind her.

  Kath’s bedroom is a monster rat’s nest. She darts around picking up piles of dirty clothes and flings them into an already full closet, and pushes hard to get the door closed, cracking the painted plywood. She finds a dirty dish on her writing desk, scrapes the food with a fork into the bubbling ten-gallon fish tank by the window and sticks the dish and fork inside a drawer. She finds air freshener and gives the canister a long squeeze, ensuring the destruction of a cubic meter of ozone. She takes off her leather jacket, yanks off her turtleneck and throws them both over a chair, getting down to just her bra. She rifles through her underwear drawer and finds a negligee and lays it against her upper body and looks in the mirror. She is lean and muscular, but when she sees her messy hair and the freckles on her upper arms, she exhales, disgusted with herself.

  Sam goes into the kitchen and splashes water on his face. He wets a dish towel and wipes under his pits, trying to mop up the terror sweats he’s got flowing. He spots his reflection in the dark window over the kitchen sink. “You can do this, Sammy,” he whispers, then exhales slowly. He cups his hand over his mouth and tests his breath and finds it gross enough that he picks a lemon out of her fruit bowl, cuts it open, squeezes some into his mouth, rinses, puckers, and spits into the sink.

  Back in the bedroom, Kath pulls on a white t-shirt instead and lays across her bed – a waterbed, and she rocks gently on the waves. She coughs, then gets up, opens the door a crack and lies back down, sending another ripple undulating through the water.

  Sam pushes open the door and comes in. He’s still wearing all his clothes, even his leather jacket. He stares at Kath, lying on her bed wearing just a white t-shirt and black panties.

  “Wow. You look great.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know about you, but I think you should take your clothes off.”

  Sam sits on the edge of the waterbed and kicks off his shoes. He leans forward and kisses her, and she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him close. The waves bob them up and down so much their lips barely connect, smearing Kath’s lipstick across both their faces. He rolls on top of her, crushing her arm until she yelps.

  “I haven’t done this in two years, you know.”

  Kath pulls herself out from under him and rolls on top instead. “That’s okay. You relax.”

  Kath pins down his arms and kisses him. It’s working. Sam’s excitement grows and he kisses her back. He smashes his mouth against hers, until their teeth bang against each other, making her wince, and then he grabs her butt cheeks too hard, making her yelp in pain again.

  That ends it. He rolls out from under her and retreats to his starting position sitting on the edge of the bed. Kath sits up and leans against her headboard.

  “Is it me?” she asks.

  “No. I shut this part of myself off for such a long time that I don’t know how to flip the switch back on again,” he says and reaches for his shoes.

  Kath comes from behind and breathes in his ear and rubs his chest and back. She wraps a leg around him and slides her heel between his legs and gently rubs back and forth. She smiles.

  “It seems to me that your switch works just fine.”

  Sam comes alive. They collapse back on the bed. Kath giggles as he straddles her. She reaches up and unbuttons his shirt and his belt buckle, while he struggles to get off his tight leather jacket. He tosses out all the contents of his pockets – the yellow dishwashing gloves, the marbles, the alligator clips, the pen flashlight, and then tries to yank off the jacket, but it gets caught on his thick arms. Kath has his shirt and pants open and she touches his hard six pack abs, tracing the outline between the muscles with her fingers.

  “You have a fantastic body,” she says, grabbing his butt cheeks now.

  Sam yanks both the jacket and shirt off over his head, and he holds his clothes aloft and twirls them, triumphant. They both laugh as he tosses them onto the bed.

  And a gunshot rings out. Sam falls on top of Kath, hugging her.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “What was that? Did someone follow us?” she asks, until she notices t
hey are sinking into a growing pool of water.

  “That was the gun Paul gave me. I forgot it was in my side pocket,” Sam says.

  “You shot my bed!” Kath screams.

  They leap up, but their weight tears a longer rip in the plastic. A wave of water flows out from below too, since the bullet tore through the top and then exited out the bottom, leaving two holes. They sweep away rugs and clothes and furniture, but they can’t move fast enough. Over two hundred gallons of water rush across her floor, into her living room, soaking the hardwood floors.

  Kath runs into the living room and opens the front door, and the wave of water flows over her two pink cement steps and down steep 29th street towards St. Paul’s Church. Kath stands on her stoop, then looks down at the flowing water covering her cold shivering feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam says. “You must really think I’m an idiot now.”

  She points at her feet and the stream of water flowing across them, then points inside the apartment, and then points at Sam. Her mouth is open as if she was screaming, but nothing comes out. She’s like the child who falls so hard on the playground but can’t even cry yet, and Sam is the anxious parent waiting for the wail that proves that she’s alright – but it never comes.

  Sam wishes she’d punch him or insult him again, but she stays silent.

  The water subsides. She, too, wishes she could dig up the anger and disdain that she had for him just twelve hours ago, and throw it in his face, but she can’t. Instead, she sits down on the wet cement step…and finally cries.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  T he morning sun shines through the sheer white curtains hanging in the front bay windows. Everything above the floorboard is still damp from the water surge that flowed through the apartment. Kath is asleep on the black leather couch, while Sam sleeps curled up in the futon chair with the round wicker frame. Damp towels are piled up by the front door along with a broom. They spent an hour pushing water out the front door and then mopping up the remaining dampness until exhaustion overtook them.