by John O'Neill
As he spoke, he didn’t look at Leonard, but leaned into the fridge. His face was in a knot, as if he was working to concentrate. He had an olive complexion and an unconvincing goatee. His hair was pushed up in deliberate bed-head style, flag of wildness, calculated hint of unpredictability. Long, multi-pocketed khaki shorts, dark collared shirt, sinewy arms. Leonard thought he might be East Indian, though there was no trace of an accent.
“You coming out with us tonight?” he said.
He was sniffing the spout of an orange juice carton.
“I don’t think so, I happened to be in the neighbourhood ...”
The screech of a cat came from somewhere in the house. Stiv vanished with the juice carton, leaving the fridge open. Leonard sulked, disappointed that Alison had apparently made plans though this was the night she said she’d be free. He considered leaving, but went to the kitchen window. It overlooked an alley that ran behind all the houses. Below was a garage, its large metal door facing the house. Along the alleyway, garbage cans and recycling boxes stood at intervals. One overflowed with a green bag that had come to life. It rippled and bulged and swayed, until the tin container rattled onto its side. The bag began to drag itself down the alley. Leonard watched long enough to see a cat’s ginger head poke through. Finally the animal wrested itself free and tore madly from its green captor.
Leonard turned as Beverly emerged from the bathroom. She paused in the doorway, but, as before, seemed to be looking past him. She said nothing, turned and strode down the hall. Stiv was coming in the other direction. The two of them playfully collided, shoulder to shoulder; Stiv was lifted off his feet. Then he was in the kitchen, replacing the juice container.
“Expired,” he said.
He closed the fridge and sat down on the chair at the other end of the table.
“We’re doing the Bovine,” he announced.
Leonard stared at him. “Sorry? The Bovine?”
“A club on Queen.”
He grinned at Leonard, as if he’d just shared some Oscar Wilde-ish witticism. Leonard tried to smile. It turned into a grimace. Stiv continued smiling. Leonard looked away but still felt eyes on him and began to fear that Stiv’s expression had the taint of condescension, that Stiv knew something he didn’t about the situation. Leonard moved away from the window, sat down opposite Stiv, then saw he was still staring, grinning toward the space Leonard had previously occupied. He tried to think of something to say, to make some inquiry about Stiv’s life. But the boy’s tenacious idiot grin prevented him.
Stiv closed his eyes, straightened in his chair and let his mouth drop open, also increasing the frequency of his breaths. Some sort of meditative exercise, Leonard guessed. Alison cruised through the doorway and for a moment the sense of impairment in the room vanished.
While Leonard was occupied with Stiv, Alison had slipped from the bathroom and gotten dressed. His lingering disappointment was overwhelmed by how she looked: magnificently, wonderfully scary: black pointed shoes, black fish-nets, black leather skirt and jacket, Celtic cross between her breasts; long pale neck, feathery hair, dark lipstick, vivid dark eyes. All, inescapable. What was most erotic was how she greeted him. Her simple hi, sweetie was so full of enthusiasm it was as if she’d been preparing since early morning, that the rain clouds and rumblings from earlier in the day had been generated by her happy anxiety. She sat right down in his lap, gave him her full weight. Startled, Leonard’s hands hovered around her. He was frozen, unable to seize the moment – he needed to respond quickly, with some gesture that was both tender and fervent. Stiv grinned at the contrast: Alison committing herself to Leonard and Leonard looking as if something had spilled on his pants. Leonard wished Stiv would disappear, so that he could respond. But the kid stared at them. Stared hard, expecting pornography. Perhaps Stiv was the stare that Beverly lacked, that they worked in concert.
Then he said to Leonard: “So, you’re a teacher?”
Leonard couldn’t think of anything that would have better amplified the awkwardness of the scene.
“I see you’ve met Steve,” Alison said.
Leonard hesitated then said yes, wondering if there was another person in the room. He almost said: You mean Stiv, rhymes with live. But she’d said the name very clearly and Stiv-or-Steve hadn’t objected.
“Yes, I teach,” Leonard finally answered and planted one hand firmly on Alison’s thigh. He worked his other hand up under her jacket, pressing his fingers into the small of her back. Alison pouted at him, mockingly, in response to how he’d pronounced the word teach, the exaggerated burden in his voice. She launched out of his lap and yelled for Beverly and in a moment they were all, Leonard and Alison and Beverly and Stiv-or-Steve, single-filing down the stairs.
Alison hadn’t asked Leonard about his unexpected appearance and seemed unperturbed by it. Nor, though, had she invited him to the club. Yet, her unreserved greeting (her full weight in his lap, smell of her makeup, how she looked straight into his eyes, as if there’d been no ambiguity over the past week), and Stiv-or-Steve’s implied invitation, obliged him along.
Stiv-or-Steve hadn’t changed his clothing but Beverly had reappeared in darker colours, black mesh top and cloth skirt cut like a wing, and industrial storm-trooper boots. Leonard hoped that while walking to the club Beverly and Stiv-or-Steve would pair off, leaving Alison and him to talk. But once they’d all reached the sidewalk, Alison and Beverly blasted ahead, leaning against each other. Leonard decided silence was the best policy, afraid to speak lest his walking partner make further inquiries about his teaching career. He’d have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to spirit Alison away.
Inside the club, they sat at a tiny round table that barely accommodated their three beers and Coke. It looked, in the darkness, as though the drinks hovered in mid-air. Their legs were pressed together and Leonard leaned out of his chair so he’d touch only Alison. Surrounded by strangers’ shoulders, backs of necks and skulls in various shapes, Leonard was afraid to turn around. Close, music blared from a shabby speaker and Leonard felt an instinct to clutch Alison, fearful he’d be pummelled from his seat.
The sound never abated or lessened, no gradations of intensity, no gaps in the onslaught, and he thought: Gone are the days of listening to songs.
The music replicated the sound of perpetual industry, with no sense of beginning or end, little shape or distinct melody: no bridges, no choruses, and the vocals on the same grinding level as the instrumentation. Leonard shared this observation with Alison, shouted it in her ear. She smiled and nodded. He expected the club was a kind of twilight zone in which the middle-aged and cranky found their decline accelerated. He pictured Alison spreading his ashes over a steaming sewer grate on her way home.
The club was uniformly dark and drab, the only exception was the occasional purple or red spray of hair, or rainbow glint from a neck chain or bracelet or handcuff, or nose or lip or belly stud. But there were layers, every surface, even flesh, interrupted. The wall against which they huddled was hung with old bicycle wheels, sections of chain link fence, unidentifiable motor parts, errant guitar strings, clocks’ intestines. Above the bar, which resembled a scorched jet fuselage, were strips of perforated tin, much of it shredded, jutting down close to the bartenders. But there was consistency. The design was all texture, built up, and so was the music. This world was not stream-lined, finished, but included only broken things, objects that had once suggested enterprise. Everything conformed to industrial decomposition. It was the flip side of the Goth sensibility. The Gothic represented longing for the past, for an elegant Victorian cult of death; this foretold a desiccated, post-nuclear future. The only thing that people were clearly uncomfortable with, thought Leonard, was the present.
He tried to make himself small, cowered in an attempt to conceal his blue jeans, denim jacket, Talking Heads t-shirt. His hint of grey hair, which some of his colleagues described as distinguished, seemed gallingly out of place, as if by decree the inhabitants of
this post-industrial world could not exceed the age of 30, as anyone beyond that number was complicit in civilization’s ruin. Leonard imagined himself being swarmed and bound to some cross, like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man.
Conversation was difficult. One had to surrender. But Leonard was of a generation where talk provided the entertainment, modified the darkness, and was the reason one spent time with others.
Alison, seeing his discomfort, leaned in close and shouted: “How’s things at home? How’s your mom?”
Under the circumstances, Leonard was annoyed that he had to speak.
“Tell you later,” he yelled. “It’s too loud. She’s fine, all things considered.”
Alison put a hand on his, lifted and pressed it into her lap. She and Beverly and Stiv-or-Steve had easily adapted: they were dark flowers unfolding. Leonard decided to resist his petrification. He stood up, squeezed by them, mouthing to no one in particular that he had to pee. Beverly and Stiv-or-Steve didn’t react. Alison closed, opened her eyes in a protracted wink.
Leonard pushed through a narrow hall upholstered with bodies, then through an unreasonably heavy door. Came face to face with a pasty young man whose look was consistent with the textured walls, his cheeks thickly powdered in an attempt to conceal obvious patches of eczema. When he arrived at the mirror (a large portion of which was concealed by a black-and-white poster of an Indian mystic on a bed of nails), Leonard didn’t recognize himself. As if his eyes had adjusted not just to the darkness of the place but to the prevailing style. He looked even older in the bathroom’s bright glare.
He found the only stall empty and went inside, removing his denim jacket and pulling his t-shirt over his head. He put it back on inside-out, trying for a grunge effect. Tugged his jeans lower. Went back to the sink, which was spotted with clumps of fur. Splashed water onto his hair, attempting to darken it. Ran his hands through. Ended up looking, he concluded, like a reject from a Grease production.
His ineffectual transformation was interrupted by the arrival of two impeccably groomed men, one tall with a prominent, aristocratic nose and long, finely trimmed sideburns, the other short but prize-fighter stocky, whose head was closely, evenly shaved, and whose eyes were a transparent, mesmerizing blue, a touch of eye-shadow on their lids. Both wore black but of a silky, tailored variety. Leonard left the bathroom feeling as if he’d just unrolled from the towel dispenser after someone had used him to dry their hands.
Back at the table, Bev and Stiv-or-Steve glanced blankly at him, while Alison giggled, leaned over and mouthed: “You’re so cute.”
She spoke as one speaks to the afflicted. Injury to insult, she’d moved closer to Stiv-or-Steve and had one arm around him, her legs lifted onto his lap. Apparently, Leonard had, by leaving for a moment, allowed some fissure to open in the sludge of things, and Alison had been forced to reposition herself. Leonard pushed his attention away, saw the two men he’d encountered in the bathroom. They were leaning against the bar and, despite their tailored black jackets and haircuts and general spotlessness, seemed not out of place amidst the more wild among them. Leonard studied Alison again, watched her hand flex and unflex on Stiv-or-Steve’s shoulder, her legs jerk against his to the music. He concluded that her wrapping herself around him did not reflect any particular affection or desire; it was just a sign of how relaxed she was, how completely at ease with her physical self.
Stiv-or-Steve leaned forward, looked right in Leonard’s face and yelled, repeating his inquiry from before: “So you’re a teach-her.” Leonard wasn’t sure why he’d split the word this time, if he was emphasizing the syllables in competition with the music or was derisively commenting on Leonard’s relationship with Alison, his former student. And, as before, Alison attempted a rescue.
“You got wet,” she said, dislodging herself from Stiv-or-Steve, pushing her hand through Leonard’s hair, her nail-polished fingers surfing like little killer whales through the greyness.
But Stiv-or-Steve persisted.
“It must be a challenge, teaching. What are teenagers like nowadays? Are they morons? I hate them.”
“Probably not much different from when you were in high school,” Leonard said. He wondered if Stiv-or-Steve caught the irony.
“Must be horrible. I gave my teachers such a hard time. I wasn’t really rude or anything but it was such a waste. My teachers were so boring. I’m sure you’re not like that, from what Al’s told me.”
Leonard wished that Stiv-or-Steve hadn’t re-introduced this topic, partly because their exchanges had to be shouted. But the trace of contempt had vanished from Stiv-or-Steve’s voice. After he’d finished speaking, he nodded at Leonard with what appeared to be admiration.
Now, the boy’s vague obsequiousness provoked Leonard, and he said, too loudly even under the circumstances: “Actually, I am fairly dull. Education is not entertainment. We can’t compete with Letterman and Conan O’Brien. We don’t have writers. It’s not about entertainment. It’s work. It’s like building a house. People forget that.”
Leonard fell back in his chair, feeling surly, aware of desire stirring. His irritation/desire was further inflamed when Stiv-or-Steve leaned forward again and said: “Al said she would never have studied film without you.”
Leonard didn’t want to share any responsibility for Alison’s life. Didn’t want to feel he’d somehow shaped her. He needed her to be independent, free from all influence, and, for the time being, only a body, a wholly physical thing without a past. He wanted to forget the past. Their pasts. As he considered this, Alison sensed how his body had changed. She slid against him, planted a hand on his crotch, widened her eyes in mock surprise, grinned with mock lasciviousness. She pulled her hand up, turned toward a group of people lubriciously dancing. She wasn’t ready to cut the evening short, to separate herself from the sound. Wasn’t willing to surrender herself to Leonard’s urgency, his allegiance to the present.
Leonard saw that Beverly hadn’t heard any of the conversation. She’d turned her chair away from them. In profile, she was attractive, without the strange blurring effect of her widely set eyes. Chin strong, nose sharp, features emphasized by the way she was pumping her head. She’d maintained her connection to the incessant noise and conversation was a rudeness. Conversation implied logic, narrative, propositions then conclusions, a sense of getting to the bottom of things. But this place wasn’t about that – it was all surface. Leonard felt grudging admiration for Beverly, for her surrender. He realized that both his petulance and desire sprang from his resistance.
The place was intolerable. People stood six deep at the bar, with bodies backed up against the few tables. The proprietors were free to charge eight bucks for a beer without having to provide seating, or even service, as only one slim waitress slithered, strained, dipped through the throng. The meagre entertainment was provided by a disc jockey who floated in a small alcove near the dance floor. He was a minor celebrity, a crowd around him, some of the women even reaching out, stroking his unshaved chin. Here was heat, here was humanity in needful crush. Here was a place where everyone awaited climax, for all the tightness and noise to release: an approximation of the sex act. A kind of imitation of its frustrations. Leonard felt ripped off. He leaned into Alison, put a hand on her neck.
“I need to talk to you, alone,” he said.
“That’s what’s great about here,” she shouted back. “You can. No one else can hear.”
“I mean really alone,” he said. “This is like talking during a plane crash.”
“I imagine people say pretty revealing things during a plane crash.”
“Really, Alison. Headache. I need to get out of here.”
He regretted his words but couldn’t stop himself from saying them. Alison traded a pained look with Beverly. Leonard knew the evening was a kind of test, a test he was failing. And it was an easy test. All he needed to do was chill. To do nothing. Alison and Beverly and Stiv-or-Steve were his teachers. He needed to learn. To vanish. The ar
t was in the vanishing.
They sat. Leonard sat heavily. Alison made no move to leave. Leonard leaned over to kiss her. She turned away. Then she put her hand again on his crotch, applied too much pressure. He pulled up. Still, she didn’t look at him.
Beverly pushed her face across the table, shouted: “Let’s do the Rivoli. I feel like dancing, but not here. What do you think?”
Stiv-or-Steve gave an affirmative nod and Bev glanced at Leonard.
He said: “Sure, whatever.”
They waited for Alison to speak. Bev said: “We don’t have to. We can stay.”
“No, all right,” Alison said, leaning forward and putting a hand on Beverly’s wrist. “But I might go home. I’m tired.”
She removed her hand, brushed it against Stiv-or-Steve’s arm, stood up. Leonard found himself, in their little parade, two bodies distant from Alison, picking up the rear. In the little alcove by the front door, they had to squeeze by several people barking into cell phones. Leonard was embarrassed, mortified by his own impatience. Now, at least, he could further explain himself to Alison, could emphasize how distracted he was by the phone call from her father.
They walked east on Queen. Again, Alison paired off with Beverly. Stiv-or-Steve stretched his legs as they walked, exaggerating his strides, luxuriating in the extravagance of space. But Alison and Beverly were glued shoulder to shoulder, perhaps experiencing a more difficult transition.
Stiv-or-Steve asked Leonard, as if he were reminded of parking lots and wide lawns: “So, you live in Scarlem. How’s that?”
Leonard wondered what Stiv-or-Steve knew about his situation. How much had Alison told him and Beverly? Did they know he was married? Obviously his place of residence had come up in conversation, at least in a general way. Scarlem. It wasn’t that bad. And did they know his age? Leonard felt as though Stiv-or-Steve was trying to get him to explain, without actually asking point-blank about his infidelity. As if the idea of Scarlem was inextricably linked with his failures.
