Wetbones

by John Shirley

  For the hundredth time he wondered how much of it was "a neurochemical imbalance" and how much was just the skew of her personality, her tendency to subvert happiness because of some childhood trauma. If it was the latter, it was something that could be overcome. But if he raised that point she'd get defensive…

  Maybe he should just cut her loose. She was a basket-case and she didn't want to really do anything about it. He ought to let her basket drift like the baby Moses on the river. Trust that somebody would find her. He just couldn't take responsibility for another person's sanity.

  "And that's what you did," Fellini's heroine said, on the TV screen, turning to look at him. "You cut Amy loose, didn't you Prentice?"

  Prentice looked at Amy accusingly. "Don't put things in the movie. It's not respectful to the artist."

  "You pushed me into leaving you," Amy said. "You wanted to get away from me. It was simple as that, wasn't it, Tommy? You had that affair and let me find out and then you acted as if you were sorry and wanted to go on but you were about as happy as a snail in a saltshaker -"

  "A very colourful turn of phrase, Amy. I felt like a snail in a saltshaker. I felt like I was burning up with you. I had to babysit you constantly, and reassure you all the time, tell you it was all right ten thousand ways, and then endure your up moments – you were obnoxious when you were up as often as you were charming."

  ''So you cut me loose. Tom, how much is enough love? How much giving in love is too much? How do you tally it? You have units of love worked out on a calculator? How did you decide you were giving too much? You weren't the only one who gave. You could get pretty fucking moody yourself. You were really a pain in the ass when you were the aggrieved, sulking artiste because the screenplay was not going right or the critics had fucked you over."

  "Yeah, probably. But it was a tempest in a teapot compared to your cyclone, Amy."

  "To you. Anyway, I don't give up all that easily, Tommy. You're not really going to that party on Saturday, are you?"

  He was staring at her. The golden reds and silky yellows with which Fellini had coloured his film were playing across her face, and the shadows seemed to run together in her eyesockets… to deepen in her cheeks and to etch out her breastbone…

  She was sinking into herself. Shrivelling. Like the snail. Like the girl in the morgue.

  He could smell the death on her.

  He felt a purer fear, in that moment, than any he'd felt since early childhood. A four year old child was only four years and a few months from nullity – from the echoing void of pre-consciousness. That's why, he thought, small children could fear so deeply: in some visceral way, they remembered death.

  Prentice shrank, too, from the blacklight, the negative shine of that fear truly pure and childlike fear of death.

  He wrenched himself awake. Sat up on the sofa in Jeff's office, shaking and stupid with disorientation. That dream had been too well organized. It was far more coherent and thoughtful, in its argumentation and insights, than dreams ever were, in Prentice's experience. Dreams, if they meant anything, were metaphor. This one had been more like a goddamn essay…

  And Amy was still with him. Her presence was almost palpable in the dim, cluttered office. He could taste Amy. He could smell her. He could feel her hair under his fingers.

  He shook himself, muttering, "Cut it the fuck out," He went to get himself a drink, in the kitchen; some of Jeff's German stuff, Jaegermeister, chilled in the freezer! He poured himself a stiff one and drank it off. Amy drew away from him, a little. He poured himself another. Day after tomorrow was the party. Tomorrow, during the day, he'd try to get out of himself, enjoy himself. Give himself a chance to see things fresh…

  Almost eleven-thirty, Friday morning. Prentice was strolling down Melrose Avenue. It was sunny but not yet too hot, and the street, on this block anyway, was reasonably clean. The exercise felt good, and the smog was mild. He was almost in a good mood.

  He passed a newspaper vending machine, and glimpsed some headlines. LAPD ADMITS "WETBONES" IS HOMICIDE. He ignored it, very deliberately. He didn't want to know about whatever it was.

  Not today, anyway.

  He checked out a few of the displays in the windows of the self-consciously arty boutiques. Glanced over a display of black rubber outfits for casual wear. He imagined hearing Amy comment: How hot and sweaty and itchy are you willing to be for fashion?

  Farther on, a mannequin that had been spraypainted in gold and silver graffiti was posed like a fan of Faith No More in mid hiphop frenzy, wearing a black and red lace miniskirt and corset; it was dancing in a tangle of barbed wire. Now that corset and skirt I love, Prentice imagined Amy saying. I'm such a sucker for underwear that can disguise itself as a dress… I wonder how much it is…

  The boutique was playing a song by The Cars that he remembered, called "You Wear Those Eyes." Amy had been enamoured of The Cars. Ric Ocasek was "just so grotesquely adorable". Prentice couldn't stand Ocasek's singing voice. Now he found himself singing along. Which was surprising – he was sure he'd never learned the lyrics to this one. The singing sounded better to him now.

  He realized he was hungry and thirsty and his legs were hurting. I'm in rotten shape, he thought. He stopped in at a cafe that attempted to be a Parisian bistro, and ordered soup, bread, brie, and capuccino. Amy would have found the soup too thick with stock, but he liked it that way.

  He ate and rested. Buzzing a little on the capuccino, he paid the check and continued down the street, stopping in at a couple of galleries. One of them was the sort that sell decorator art and impressionist prints to people who don't want to take chances on their own taste. He saw a couple of coloured etchings there by the same artist who'd done the pictures in Arthwright's guest room. He thought about calling Lissa, and asking her if she wanted to join him, take a turn about the galleries with him. No, don't be pushy.

  He moved on to a gallery of local artists, paintings by gay neoexpressionists with frantic, guilt-edged images of copulation and self mutilation. He thought about Mitch's arms…

  He hurried on to another artist: Gaudy paintings that were really arty political cartoons: Bush and Gorbacev jacking each other off on a heap of starving, suffering underclass.

  These pictures, Amy said, are too didactic to last beyond the time. The curse of preachiness.

  What Amy would have said, he reminded himself.

  There was one painting that was more personal than political: A woman alone, on foot, on a freeway overpass, evidently despite all the painter's cartoonish hysteria – considering jumping off the bridge into the thick, brutish flow of traffic beneath.

  Looking at it, Prentice felt a surge of reawakened memory. Memory of a feeling, mostly: what he'd felt when Amy had first left him. A sense of betrayal mixed with relief. Or was that what Amy had felt? He wasn't sure. He wanted her, suddenly, in his arms… He could almost feel her. could taste her lips, the distinctive flavour of her flesh and her favourite lipstick.

  He began to feel something else, then. A suspicion.

  All morning and into the afternoon, the feeling had been there. A sense of being dogged. Followed by Amy, of course. Not a feeling that she was in him… it wasn't like possession… more like she was looking over his shoulder, whispering in his ear, wreathing him with some lost essence.

  He saw himself, then, as she'd seen him that day. The day they'd broken up. Tom Prentice with a refined sneer, a supercilious disdain at what he'd called her "childish over-reaction" at the affair he'd had. He saw clearly, beyond the unconvincing sneer, the fear and uncertainty briefly flickering in his face. The self loathing.

  He had abandoned her. He had failed her and driven her away and she'd gone out into the urban-primeval outer darkness of Los Angeles and gone alone…

  He wanted to put a fist through the painting of a woman alone on the overpass…

  He turned and hurried out of the gallery, looking for a bar. He found a fern bar, with lots of brass and plants and abstract paintings – ab
stractions were more to his taste at the moment, they were safer – and he drank a double Jaegermeister. He cast about for a way to get his mind clear of Amy.

  Found his way to the pay phone at the back of the bar. Jeff had given him permission to have messages left on his answering machine. He called up Jeff's number and pressed the appropriate touchtone buttons to get the machine to reel out its messages over the phone. He had to wait out three irrelevant messages for Jeff before there was one for him. It was Buddy. "Tom, this is Buddy – if I got it right, you're at this number – um, just wanted you to know that Arthwright called, he is interested in putting up a little money for your treatment…"

  Prentice thought: And Zack says thanks for the blow job.

  Buddy went on, "Um, I don't know how you pulled off that miracle but Zack says he's going to talk to you a little more about it at the party, whatever party that is – how come I'm not invited? – and I just wanted to tell you, don't accept any offers on your own, just smile and say, 'Sounds great – call Buddy!' Okay? Catchya later, pal. Hang in there."

  A new record for Buddy on message length. Usually it was, "Hey I think we got a nibble, give me a call." Startled into loquacity, apparently, by Arthwright's willingness to cough up some cash.

  Well. That was good, then. He should be happy about it.

  He really should.

  8

  The Doublekey Ranch, near Malibu

  As Mitch's body healed, his mind began to flake away. Sometimes he heard a murmur of voices when he was sure the building and the grounds outside were empty. After a while he realized he was hearing the roses outside the window talking to one another.

  When the Handy Man came into the room, Mitch didn't recognize him, at first. He looked the same as always, but somehow no identity clung to his familiar face. To Mitch this creature was just a moving module of flesh and purpose; an apotheosis of the minatory presence of this place. A thing that moved about the room like a videogame character, doing this and that; beeping now and then. Then he went away. Game Over.

  Eurydice's voice brought Mitch back to himself. "Mitch?"

  It came muffled through the wall.

  "Come and talk to me!"

  They'd spoken earlier, through the crack, but Mitch hadn't been able to say much. "Oh we're just here, is all," he'd said. "I gotta lay down now. 'Bye."

  How long ago had that been? Hours. He'd sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wallpaper, letting his eyes go in and out of focus. For how many hours? He shrugged, and got up from the bed, went to the wall, pushed the dresser out of the way, and crouched next to the crack.

  "Mitch… Are you okay?"

  Suddenly his pulse was pounding, his mouth was dry. "Eurydice," he said. "I'm geeking in here. I'm losin' it."

  He could tell she was trying not to break down as she said, "How long you been there?"

  "I don't know. Some days. Maybe some weeks. I'm not sure. They don't let me out at all. I go into some weird places in my head. I saw some shit in that room you're in. And outside. Eury, we gotta…"

  They had to what? He wasn't really sure.

  "Can't get out the window," she said. "Your room like that, too?"

  "Yeah. There's no attic trap doors, there's nothing. No way to get out."

  "The only way out is to jump somebody. When they come in the door."

  He frowned. Did she really think that was possible? "They wouldn't let that happen. They know what you're doing. They know when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. They won't let us. No."

  "There always be some way! Motherfuckers. Fucking motherfuckers lied, really trickin' us off, they…"

  "We have to just stay here. Maybe they'll let us have lots of head syrup."

  "Don't talk about that!" she hissed. He heard her thump the wall in her anger. "Goddamn it, why you such a limp dick? We gone get out of here, Mitchie. We…"

  "I was always in love with you," he said, suddenly.

  She was silent for a minute. Then she said, "You tell me when we get out."

  "We can't."

  "Mitch -!"

  "Don't get mad. We can't. Except… Um…"

  "Except how?"

  "Except if we… become like them. We got to learn to be what they are…"

  Watts, Los Angeles

  Garner found them, all of them, in the parking lot of a corner E-Z Check Cashing place, its windows cluttered with signs. Any check cashed! Bus Passes; Money Orders; Food Stamp Pick-up; Western Union.

  On the opposite corner, across from the little parking lot, was Bubba's Discount Liquors. The crowd that hung out in the parking lot filtered back and forth between the check cashing business and the liquor store. They stood around laughing and arguing and hustling one another and ignoring one another and gossiping, their restless eyes watching the street. Now and then one of the girls, the toss-ups, would take a ride with one of the men who cruised by, looking for easy pussy. There were about forty of them in the Set, when they were all there; sometimes there were as few as ten, depending on what the Mix had given them. Garner had sat in his van and watched them for a while, sipping from his bottle until one of the girls approached him. A black girl – her skin the colour of coffee with a single spoonful of cream. She was short but quite pretty, despite being nearly emaciated. Big eyes, pointy tits in a t-shirt shortened to show her flat, muscular belly, brown jeans. It was the sort of t-shirt with a cat's face on it, traced out in gold and silver paint; its eyes were plastic fake emeralds glued on at the factory.

  "How are you today?" she asked, putting it like that because he was a white guy.

  He shrugged and said, 'What's your name?"

  "Gretchen."

  "I'm…" He thought back. When he was using, the time before, they'd called him Slim, on the streets. "I'm Slim."

  "So. Slim – what's happening with you today?"

  She was careful not to solicit him, and she was consciously speaking in mostly white English. She probably had an educated background. A fair number of addicts did. He'd met hardcore crack whores who had two degrees. They were usually black, though, even the educated ones. Going back to visit the old neighbourhood could be dangerous, if your life was going sour.

  "What's happening?" Garner snorted. "My daughter's dead. She was murdered. I want to get fucked up. Really geeked-out fucked up on rock. And then I want some pussy."

  She stared at him. Then laughed. "Well, you come right to the point anyway, don't you?"

  They were in a dingy box that Gretchen's cousin, Hardwick, called "my crib". It was a studio apartment with the bathroom down the hall. It had nothing in it except a mattress where Garner and Gretchen and Hardwick sat with legs sprawled onto the floor; an aluminium chair missing the back; a pile of clothing in one corner. Even the fridge and the stove had been hauled out and sold somewhere, probably for less than fifty bucks each.

  Garner knew it was stupid and dangerous to be here. He heard voices in the hall. From time to time people pounded on the door and asked, ''What up?" Hardwick sent them away without opening the door but Garner knew that eventually they'd be back, and some of them would get in. And he knew that the more he was out-numbered, the more dangerous it was. Hardwick himself was a slender, muscular black man. Some weeks ago, after getting his back G.A. checks, he'd had his hair cut and shaped. There was a flat layer on top of his head, and his girlfriend's name, TASHA, was cut into the sides of his hair with calligraphic exactitude; but it had partly grown over as money went to crack instead of haircut maintenance. Hardwick wore a sleeveless, well-aged Lakers shirt, black work-out shorts and plastic sandals. Right now his yellowing eyes were focused on the crack pipe tilted off-centre and clamped between his lips.

  Garner and Gretchen were staring at the pipe too. Waiting for their hits.

  Garner had, of course, gotten off on the first two hits he'd taken, coached by Gretchen on how to melt the crack in the pipe with the lighter, how to draw the hit. Now, his hands shook where they clutched his knees as he struggl
ed to keep from snatching the pipe from Hardwick.

  That, he knew, would be very dangerous indeed. He hadn't seen any weapons on Hardwick but he'd seen the faded prison tattoo on the underside of his forearm, and he'd seen the old, black trackmarks on his veins from an earlier period of preferring the needle over the pipe, and, most important, he knew not a goddamn thing about

  Hardwick. Nothing, except that he was Gretchen's cousin. And he knew scarcely anything about Gretchen. Except that she was a cocaine whore who had been a licensed RN who used to make 40K a year supervising a ward for a Chicago hospital before coming home on a vacation and getting hooked and subsequently forgetting her job, staying here for the next three years…

  For all Garner knew, Hardwick was a murderer. For all Garner knew, so was Gretchen. Maybe they got white guys with money in here and got them fucked up and then rolled them. Or killed them.

  Maybe not. Maybe she'd just wait till he was too loaded to think, and then steal his money and split. Maybe she had AIDS and syphilis which would be just too bad for him since, now that he was loaded, he had every intention of fucking her and that was understood to be part of the deal. He might be dead of AIDS in two years if he weren't beaten to death first.

  All of it was possible and Garner was enjoying that possibility immensely.

  With luck, he might get killed.

  The pipe came around to Garner, at last. Fingers vibrating like tuning forks, he took his hit. He felt the rush; saw the room's colours drain and swirl around him; heard a humming in his ears. Then it was over.

  He stared at the pipe in surprise as Gretchen pulled it from his hands. "Not mucha hit," he muttered.

  "You gotta good hit," Hardwick said, absently picking at fuzz on the mattress, inspecting it between his yellowed fingers to see if it were a fleck of cocaine. Tweaking.

  "No… I…" Garner shook his head. The rush had been brief and superficial. The next one, he knew, would be even less powerful. He'd never smoked crack before tonight, but in the old days he'd shot heroin and cocaine, slammed it into his mainline, and he knew what to expect from coke. A high, then a down, then a smaller high, then a deeper down, then a smaller high yet, then an even deeper down…