by Steven Brust
“I don’t believe I can. How did you get out in the first place?”
“Rover let me out.”
“Ah.” That almost wasn’t surprising. Rover was in Gary’s squad. He had a dog’s face, and the brains to match. “Why did you do this thing?”
“I had to. There’s this girl—”
“I think you have done a bad thing.”
“If you’d met her—”
“This is a problem, Gary.”
“Look, we’ve only got a couple of weeks at this post. I can stand that. I won’t go out again. Just let me past, all right? There’s no one around—”
“Get in. Quickly.”
“Thanks, Fred. I owe you. Really.”
As the jeep sped past, Fred reflected that he was going to have to learn to say no eventually.
There was a certain justice, he decided later, to the fact that Gary pulled down ninety days, as well as the bad-conduct discharge that he and Rover got.
Chapter 11
I said, “By the fires
I see this is Hell
And by the looks on your faces
You’re damned here as well.”
“More Thumbscrews,”
William Kevely
Let’s talk about love.
I sat in my room with my back to the door, my legs straight out in front of me, my feet limp, and I stared at the ceiling and thought deep and profound thoughts from which wisdom emerged, as by magic. Well, okay, maybe not. But answer this for me: Why should the end of a fling with someone I hadn’t even met two months before leave me more dejected and, well, alone, than the destruction of the birth world of the human race, the place imprinted into my psyche and very genes as being and containing everything that was home?
Imprinted into my psyche and very genes. Aye, there’s where it’s used as a polishing cloth. Exactly what has been imprinted into my genes and very psyche? I dunno. Standing here, at the door to yet another epoch of humanity, with a view that spans from one end of the hall to another, I say to you that I have no idea in the world, or worlds, what this thing is, except that I got it and I can’t shake it. But some things are learned, and, in fact, are learned so thoroughly that they’ll never be pried out of the mind in which they have taken root.
Love, to pick an example at random. Romantic love.
To be a human being born into the mid-twentieth century is to inhale ideals of romantic love with your first breath, to drink it with your mother’s milk, to eat it with your Gerber squashed peas, and to have it drummed thoroughly into your skin and vital organs by every children’s tale, television serial, Hollywood movie, work of popular music (and unpopular music), and back-alley conversation.
But here’s another one, just to confuse you: To reach maturity in the late twentieth century is to learn that romantic love is a myth, created by the needs of the spirit and the skill of the songsmiths and the confusion of a spiritual being left, for a time, with nothing spiritual to believe in. Perhaps I overstate the case, as most people of that time were not aware of all of this—certainly not consciously. But nevertheless, romantic love was in the process of being discredited, even though the generation of man doing the discrediting was its slaves.
It’s quite a concept, all in all. It tells us that love must be hot instead of warm, or the sharp peak of a mountain instead of the gentle slope of a hill. Yet we all know that too much heat can burn, and that mountain peaks, while pleasant to stand on for a while, do not make as good dwelling places as hillsides. At least, for most of us.
We are a very creative race, you know. And an imaginative one, even when we don’t know it. It seems that those individuals who most bemoan their own lack of imagination are the ones who think they have met the perfect mate and spend hours spinning daydreams of how it will be and what it means. These people, along with their spiritual brothers who are waiting for the perfect mate who must be out there somewhere, are using their imaginations to find new and ingenious ways to hurt themselves.
I’m referring, of course, to myself.
We could tell ourselves that what we wanted was the warm familiarity of the lover we knew, who knew us, with whom we had grown together and could continue to do so, that security was part of love, rather than its anathema. We could tell ourselves this, but even as we did, a persistent voice whispered from our souls, This isn’t right. There’s something more. And there is the other side, perhaps worse: When we achieve, out of nowhere, the explosive infatuation reflected in a hunger that cannot be sated, the voice says, Yes, this is right, it must be like this forever.
Infatuation, as a phenomenon, can never be fully exorcised. Infatuation, with a person, an idea, a flower, a mountain, a starship, will exist as long as man. People who find their reason to exist in other people will exist as long as man. But be grateful, you who stand with me at the end of man’s infancy and the beginning of his adolescence, that no longer are such things held up as a virtue for which we all ought to strive.
All this I have learned, and much of it I learned there and then, as I sat and thought deep and profound thoughts, from which wisdom emerged, as if by magic. I am thus immune from causing myself needless pain over what cannot be and should not be, and I am able to go on with my life and with those things that are inarguably far more important than who is sleeping with whom at any given moment.
I sat with my back against the door, my legs straight out in front of me, my feet limp, and I cried until I was exhausted, and eventually I slept.
I’m so fucking wise.
When I awoke it was around midnight. My back hurt, and I felt like I’d slept sitting up in my clothes. The apartment was quiet. Rose slept in Jamie’s room, dreaming of Jamie, Tom in the living room, dreaming of Carrie. What a team. What a band. I wondered if Christian would be interested in forming a duet.
I picked up the harness with the knife and looked at it for a while, then put it back down. No, I wasn’t really feeling suicidal, I just didn’t want to be carrying it. I walked down the hall and out the door, breathing cool New Quebec night and wondering if it, too, would be reduced to radioactive rubble. God, I was in a cheerful mood.
No one tried to shoot me down as I stepped out onto the street, no one seemed to be following me as I made my careless way along, and I was not attacked as I walked into Feng’s.
I went back into the kitchen and helped Eve finish closing it. Neither of us spoke; I just started wiping down counters and sweeping while she threw charged water on the grill to polish it. We carried the garbage bags (they had biodegradable plastic bags here) out to the Dumpster, and as we were walking back in she put her arms around me and hugged me. I’d never noticed before how nice her hair smelled. “It’ll get better,” she said almost inaudibly, then with one last squeeze she led me in.
By then it was around twelve-thirty. I sat at the bar and drank water with lemon in it until closing, which, this being Sunday, was only half an hour away. By one forty-five the last customers were out of the bar and had moved into the restaurant where they could sit and drink coffee while they sobered up enough to walk home.
Libby said, “Are you being a pinhead, Billy?”
I nodded.
“Want to tell me about it?”
I did so.
She shook her head. “That’s harsh.”
“Yeah.”
“But you know he doesn’t mean anything by it, don’t you? Jamie’s just a whore. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing.”
“I know.”
“I suppose that doesn’t help, does it?”
I shook my head.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah, Libby, there is. Explain it to me. You know I don’t understand this stuff, tell me why this is happening to me, why I feel like I just want to roll over and die.”
“Because you’re a pinhead.”
“I know that. Why else? Why is she so vicious whenever I talk to her?”
“Because she loved you.”
&nbs
p; “Bullshit.”
“No, it’s true. That’s why she has to act like that, so she can break away from you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“That’s because you aren’t like her. She can’t go from loving a man to liking him, she has to hate him first.”
“That’s crazy. Why?”
“Because she’s scared, and she’d rather hate someone than risk getting hurt. She probably doesn’t know it, but there it is. Lots of people are like that.” She gave me another glass of water with lemon. “You wanted the wisdom of Libby the shrink, I hope you like it.”
“The whole thing is stupid.”
“Yeah. So’s being a pinhead. But you are one, anyway.”
“That,” I said, “is for damn sure.”
She tousled my hair. I stood up and leaned across the bar to give her a hug. She squeezed me, then kissed me, then we were kissing for real. I slid over the bar top and held her so tight it must have hurt, but she didn’t complain. When we came up for air she gasped, “Upstairs.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”
We strumbled up there to the bed she shared with Fred, and clumsily got rid of our clothes. Her eyes were so brown and wide, her legs were strong and gripped me while she made hissing sounds and low rumbling noises, or maybe that was me. I touched her breasts and her hips and her legs, and brushed her hair from her face, and she responded, and I remember frustration that I couldn’t keep my mouth locked with hers while looking into her eyes. The eyes won eventually, brown pools of lust, of love, of fever; I went crazy for a while, but it was a good crazy, and she matched me until that moment we held each other so tight we might have just compressed into the same space, which would have been fine, if you ask me.
We breathed heavily, and sweated, and sometime later Libby had the same thought as me: “At times like this,” she said, “I really miss smoking.”
We lay quietly for a few minutes. Sometimes I think that sex is only a necessary prelude to good cuddling. But it grew late, and it would be embarrassing, even if nothing else, for Fred to find us like this, so I stood up and began to dress. She said, “Where the hell are you going, pinhead?”
“Home. I need some more sleep, I think.”
“You’re walking home alone?”
“You coming with me?”
“Fred will.”
“That’s not quite the same.”
“I know.”
“I’d rather you did.”
She looked at me soberly and began to get dressed herself. “Maybe one of these days I will,” she said. We went back downstairs, and she called for Fred, who was in the dining room talking to Rich. The two of them showed up, bulges under their jackets.
“Yo,” said Libby. “The pinhead here needs to get home.”
“Very well,” said Fred.
“I’ll come, too,” said Rich.
“More help is always appreciated,” said Fred.
The three of us left Cowboy Feng’s together.
We spoke little as we walked. Fred suggested taking a wide detour around Le Bureau, and we did. Fred was alert, I was lost in thought, and Rich was watching me. Fred continued to look around. We went past a place where a church across the street faced an apartment complex on our side, which I always enjoyed because the apartment complex was built in a really fine Baroque style, with a big arch over the wood door, and windows with boxes and decorative stonework around them, while the church looked something like what on Earth would have been an “office park.” That’s a phrase I love: “office park.” Is it where offices go to play? Or where you park your office when you’re not using it? Le Bureau, at least, had a bit of style. I wondered if Souci was there now. No, it was late. She’d be at home, maybe with Jamie.
Rich said, “Something on your mind, Billy?”
“Huh?”
“You were gritting your teeth.”
“Oh. Women troubles, still or again. Nothing new.”
“Souci?”
“Who else?”
“Billy, I don’t know how to tell you this—”
“But she isn’t my type. I know. Thanks.”
“It’s true.”
“Of course it’s true. We are, quite literally, from different worlds. We have almost nothing in common. She doesn’t even like Irish music. Even if circumstances were different, we’d have absolutely no future. I know all that. It doesn’t change the fact that it hurts like a motherfucker.”
“Yeah. When I was married, I—”
That time, I could tell, it was a gunshot. Something hit me and I realized that it was Fred, pulling me to the ground. Rich fell next to me at the same time. Fred lay across me, keeping me pinned. All I could see was Rich, who caught my eye and gave me an okay sign as he pulled his gun out.
It was very quiet. Fred said, “You all right, Billy?”
“Yeah. I think I might have heard something go past my ear right before the sound, but I might have imagined it.” I wondered if my heartbeat was really as loud as it seemed.
“Rich, you all right?”
“Yep. Did you see?”
“No.”
“The hedge?”
“Pretty much has to be.”
“Check.”
“Good. You two make a run for that apartment building, go through it, duck around the corner, and take off and head for your place in as roundabout a way as you can.”
Rich said, “Will the apartment be open?”
“I haven’t run into any security locks yet.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll give you cover and keep an eye out for muzzle flash. If whoever it is fires again, he’s history.”
“Right.”
“Whoever it is, is still behind that hedge, so you make sure you keep yourself between it and Billy.”
I said, “Wait a min—”
“Shut up,” they both said together.
“It’s you they’re after,” said Fred. “If they can’t get a clean shot at you, they might not even fire.”
“Might,” I said.
“Shut up,” said Rich.
“Shit,” I suggested.
“Go,” said Fred, and Rich took my arm and hauled me up. We sprinted for the apartment building, just a few doors away.
I could do nothing except concentrate on speed. My eyes were focused on that door. It came to me that they might have placed a second killer somewhere, but I couldn’t do anything about that now, so I just ran.
Rich was just a bit behind me and to my left. We were almost there when he stumbled and fell against the door, his palms landing flat against it, and I heard the shot, followed an instant later by several that were crisper, louder, and came in quick succession, and I figured were Fred’s.
Rich sank to his knees against the door. He had been shot from behind, but there was a bloodstain on the door where he’d struck it with his chest. I knew that was a bad sign. Then I saw the hole in the window next to the door, and realized the bullet had passed completely through Rich’s body and broken the window. This was a very bad sign.
Rich managed to turn himself around. His eyes were open very wide. He rested against the door of the apartment, legs straight out in front of him, feet hanging limp. The bloodstain on the front of his shirt must have been three inches in diameter and was still spreading. I took off my shirt and held it against the wound. He coughed, flecks of blood appeared on his lip and beard.
“It stings,” he said.
“Don’t talk,” I told him. “We’ll get help.”
He said, “I’d like to thank all the little people who made this moment possible.” He gave a small, bloody laugh, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes, breathing deeply and unevenly.
Fred came up a moment later. He said, “I got her.”
“Her?”
“I’ve seen her before. I don’t know where.”
My heart and stomach did an amazing series of quick acrobatics. “Souci?”
“No, I’d remember her.�
��
“Ah. We need to get help for Rich.”
He shook his head. “Too late, Billy.”
“No, he—” I looked at him. He was no longer breathing. “Damn,” I said, my voice quivering.
I think he may have had more hats than anyone I knew. Three top hats (two black, one grey), a bowler, three leather caps and one woolen cap, and others. The one I remember best was a brown leather cap, with a snap. I don’t remember anything else that was going on that day, or even where we were, but I remember Eve kept pulling the cap down over Rich’s eyes, while he tickled her. I remember his big crocodile grin.
He had a strange fascination for the sounds people made during lovemaking, which was his biggest failing as a housemate. He would not only fill you in on what your other housemates had been up to, but what he thought of the sound effects you and your lover had made last night.
One Christmas we were in London, and the bomb scare was very real, so we didn’t dare leave. Rich brought the motorcycle into the dining room and decorated it with bulbs and lights and strings of popcorn. At midnight on Christmas we killed all the other lights in the place and he turned on the emergency flashers.
He had a nasty, unpredictable temper, but he always seemed gentle.
He spent a great deal of time thinking up ways to get rich. He very badly wanted to be wealthy. Now he never would be.
“Let’s go, Billy.”
“We can’t leave him.”
“You want to explain all this to the cops?”
I shook my head. Fred helped me to my feet. He took Rich’s .38 and put his own Beretta in Rich’s hand. “It might fool them,” he said. “At least for a while.”
I nodded and took a last look at Rich, sitting with his back to the wall like he was resting, Beretta in his hand. My ears began to pound as I turned away.
We made it back to the apartment without being stopped, although about halfway there we started hearing sirens, so we took a longer, more circuitous route. Tom and Jamie and Rose were all there.
As we walked in the door, Jamie said, “What is it?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I realized that I wasn’t wearing a shirt, but that I was still holding the bloody bundle in my hand. Fred took it, said, “I’ll be back in a moment.” He walked out.
