by James Siegel
I was hoping I would run into you again. I was considering driving to Santa Monica and taking a seat on the Third Street Promenade until you passed by. Are you still in town? If so, I’d love to buy you a drink. Or an island. Whatever it takes
After I sent it, I thought it smacked of desperation.
Too late. There might be a way to cancel a sent e-mail, but I didn’t know it.
It reminded me of high school. Blabbing something into the phone and instantly regretting it.
Then again, maybe she was desperate, too.
There was a lot of desperation going around these days.
Bowling night.
Muhammed Alley was unusually crowded. Unusually noisy, too-even for a bowling alley. For some reason the women’s league had been forced to switch nights.
Sam began the evening by propositioning me about buying life insurance again. I declined again.
Seth was another matter. He was acting weirdly hyper-a 2-year-old in dire need of Ritalin. Every time he threw a strike, he gave an impromptu rendition of “Who Let the Dogs Out”-the guttural choral part. Ooho-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, accompanied by a series of Lil’ Kim-like pelvic thrusts.
Some of the women bowling four lanes down froze in mid-throw to watch him, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were witnessing.
I questioned Marv about my car problems.
“Coil wire, huh? Bring it in and I’ll take a look,” he said. “Gratis.”
“Thanks.”
“No problemo.”
Marv was famously low-key, the kind of person who might actually watch grass grow and get a kick out of it. A demeanor you’d want at the other end of a suicide hotline. If I ever contemplated offing myself again, I’d call Marv.
Now I was contemplating other things.
The accident investigation was going nowhere. When Sheriff Swenson returned my call-after several days-he’d greeted my news about Cleveland having no record of Ed Crannell with a barely suppressed yawn. It was an accident, he reminded me. Meaning, who cared about finding Ed Crannell?
There was also the intriguing but ultimately unfathomable note from Benjy.
And there was Anna.
She’d actually gotten back to me.
I’ll take the island, she wrote. Palm trees and warm water preferable. While you’re shopping, I’ll take a cosmo.
It was kind of pathetic how happy I was to receive three lines. As if she’d whispered the three little words. I immediately e-mailed her back. We were meeting tomorrow night at Violetta’s Emporium, the only decent Italian restaurant in town.
I was surprised to realize I was feeling magnanimous and even happy-at least hopeful. But then, happiness is reality divided by expectations, and expectations had clearly risen.
When I noticed Seth being confronted by two pissed-off men, I was initially ready to offer them a beer.
Something had evidently escaped my attention. I was scoring tonight; I was contemplating scoring tomorrow night. Two men were yelling at Seth for some unknown reason.
“Let’s take a walk outside,” one of them was saying.
Seth was resisting that suggestion.
“Go fuck yourselves,” he exclaimed. He was holding his bowling ball in his right hand, swinging it loosely up and down as if considering using it as a weapon.
Sam was attempting to intercede.
“Let’s all calm down, shall we?”
“Keep out of it, fatty,” one of the men said. “Fuckwit here insulted our ladies.”
Insulted?
Then I understood. Seth had been doing the dog thing and one of the women objected. Seth’s impromptu wailings sounded like the epithets construction workers hurl at passing women in New York. Seth could’ve simply told them they were mistaken, that his yells of jubilation weren’t directed at anyone but the universe.
This was Seth.
“Those bow-wows?” he asked. “You ought to put a muzzle on them.”
That was all it took for one of the men to shove Seth into the ball retrieval. He came back swinging.
As I sprang up to play peacemaker, I could see BJ lumbering out from behind the bar. It appeared he had a Louisville Slugger in his hand. This had all the makings of an ugly incident-a banner headline across tomorrow’s Littleton Journal.
“Hey fellas,” I said. “This is a bowling alley.”
“Thanks, asshole,” the bigger one muttered without actually looking at me. “I thought it was the public library.”
Seth had awkwardly swung his ball in the direction of the bigger man’s head and badly missed. His momentum had carried him sideways into the scoring table. It occurred to me that five or six beers had probably taken their toll on Seth’s general equilibrium. Bowling ball or no bowling ball, he was a sitting duck.
The man smashed Seth in the side of the face. Seth went down hard. A woman screamed from somewhere in the alley-probably not one of the women who’d sent these two idiots out to defend her honor.
I managed to grab the closer one’s arm-he might’ve been physically less imposing than his friend, but I still felt a generous amount of muscle beneath his bowling shirt.
He jerked around to confront me, his right hand back and balled into a fist. I felt a crackling jolt of adrenaline, similar to the effect I used to get from the stepped-on coke I’d begun inhaling during my last excruciating days in New York. I ducked as his fist skittered over my left ear. Everyone seemed to be surging to our alley, mostly just to gawk, but some of them looking as if they had an old-fashioned barroom brawl in mind.
Crack!
BJ’s baseball bat slammed down on the scoring table, sending one and a half Miller High Lifes flying into the air.
A generous amount landed on the seriously pissed-off man I was holding on to for dear life.
Some of it got in his eyes; he cursed, squinted, then covered his face with his free hand. I used his momentary blindness to trap him in a semblance of a bear hug-more Yogi Bear than grizzly.
Seth had made it back to an upright position, frozen in a boxing stance of dubious merit. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something.
Maybe for the man holding the baseball bat over his head.
“You don’t want to be doing that here,” BJ said in a remarkably calm voice.
No one ventured a counter-opinion, including the man I was hugging like a long-lost friend.
I smelled a mixture of sweat and aftershave. I slowly let go. Aside from stepping back and flashing me a halfway murderous look, he made no effort to resume hostilities.
Seth was still bobbing and weaving.
“He was woofing at my girl,” Seth’s attacker said, obviously feeling a need to explain. It might’ve been his appearance-Jerry Springer miscreant, “Why I Can’t Stop Beating People Up”-a mostly shaven head with a Judas Priest tattoo garishly displayed on his right forearm.
“He was just woofing,” I said. “Honestly. That’s him. He gets boisterous.”
Seth didn’t look appreciative of my effort to defend him. It was possible he didn’t know what boisterous meant and was wondering if I was accusing him of something embarrassing.
“There you go,” BJ said, still holding the forty-ounce bat at chest level. “No harm, no foul,” switching sports in an effort to reach for the appropriate idiom. “I think you tough guys should call it a night.”
I believed his tough guys comment was sarcastic.
“Hey,” Sam said, “why don’t we all shake hands?”
He was trying to be civilized about it; maybe after we all made up, he was going to try to sell them some life insurance.
“C’mon,” he said, seemingly undeterred that no one had taken him up on his suggestion. “What do you say?”
Not much. The guy who’d punched Seth in the face snorted derisively, turned his back, and simply strolled away.
Sam flushed and turned to the other guy, tendering his slightly wilting olive branch. Still no takers. The guy shook his head as if Sam were a moron child,
then followed his buddy down the lane.
It was about then that I saw him.
I was watching the two guys make their way down the alley, to collect the ladies Seth had grievously offended, I suppose. A few men patted them on the shoulders, whispered words of encouragement at their retreating backs.
I knew one of them.
The last time I saw this person, he was holding a plumbing tool in his hand. Or not a plumbing tool. Maybe just something to punch a hole in the wall and pry off a phone-jack cover. Staring at me with those muted features, as if he’d somehow missed his final trimester as a fetus. I could swear he was smiling.
I felt slightly nauseated.
I didn’t step forward, or step back, or yell police.
I turned to Seth as if eliciting silent support. When I turned back, the plumber was gone.
I know. It sounds as if I were hallucinating.
I wasn’t.
He was there, then he wasn’t there, just long enough to smile in my direction and disappear.
I hustled over to a table where two middle-aged couples in matching bowling shirts were snacking on greasy fries and chili dogs.
“The guy who was just standing here-did you see where he went?” I asked them.
They looked wary. Also confused. What guy who was just where, their faces said.
“Who?” One of the women finally asked.
“The man who was standing by your table…”
“You mean the man you were fighting with?” the woman said. “He’s over there.”
“No. Not him. The guy who whispered something to him when he walked by.”
“Whispered something to who?” one of the men asked. He looked kind of eager for me to take BJ’s suggestion and leave the bowling alley. Or at least leave them alone.
“Look, I’m a reporter for the paper here… I just want to know who that guy…”
“We don’t know what guy you’re talking about.” The woman again, looking almost sorry for me.
I stopped, scanned the alley. Most people had resumed bowling after the night’s entertainment break, something they would talk to their coworkers about over morning coffee. And then he picked up a bowling ball and…
I dashed into the men’s bathroom. A high school kid was busy admiring his tongue ring in the mirror. That’s it.
When I finally made it outside, the plumber wasn’t there, either.
Just the remnants of my bowling team.
Seth was telling Sam and Marv how he was going to get even with the pussy who’d sucker-punched him in the face.
Just you wait, he promised. It’s a done deal.
SIXTEEN
After my story about the moving homecoming of Lowell Beaumont passed muster, after it earned me a verbal hug from he-who-must-be-pleased, not to mention scattered praise from the peanut gallery of copy-desk drudges, I did it again.
I wrote a piece about an American soldier of fortune who sold his services to the highest bidder-including a Taliban warlord-leaving him in the awkward position of battling his own countrymen.
The piece was alarming, dramatic, and even sad.
It just wasn’t in any way, shape, or form true.
I’d never met this soldier of fortune.
He was an amalgam of different people I’d talked to, read about, or possibly dreamed up.
No matter.
It went over like a charm.
Other pieces followed, one after another, a dizzying anthology of truly creative writing.
A group of out-of-work Hollywood actors who loaned themselves out to the Russian mob for various cons, impersonating everyone from computer-parts salespeople to temple cantors.
A Republican evangelical think tank that asked what Jesus would do on every major policy issue.
A game of Auto Tag sweeping the nation’s highways-cars tapping each other’s bumpers at eighty miles per hour, till the loser crashed and burned.
A secret society of pyromaniacs who traded videos of their greatest hits-forest fires, block burnings, gas station flash fires-over the Web.
There was something exhilarating about it, of course.
Creating stories out of thin air. Giving them the black-and-white imprimatur of fact. Telling bigger and bigger fibs and holding my breath till I saw if I’d gotten away with it. It was like betting the house on every turn of the wheel.
It was, in a way, addictive.
So was the resultant praise and clamor for more of them. Even the jealousy it kicked up among my peers was addictive.
After all, they were jealous of me.
Of course, one of those jealous reporters ended up taking me out to Keats and pumping me full of Patron tequila. All the while pumping me for something far more valuable-the fascinating details concerning my series of scintillating scoops. Especially my latest one-red-hot and read all about it-the abortion clinic-bombing pediatrician. As I remember, he spent a lot of time that night scrounging for details: how did I meet this doctor? Where? How did I figure out the doctor was feeding me anagrams-for his place of birth, his city of residence?
Okay. Maybe my drinking partner wasn’t jealous-maybe he was simply being diligent, protecting his chosen profession from what he perceived as a dangerous polluter.
He tipped off a certain editor, of course.
I should’ve known when he requested my notes.
Not that it hadn’t happened before. I’d become remarkably adept at conjuring up voluminous notes whenever they were needed.
Sometimes they were. Someone-real as opposed to made up-would complain that what I wrote never happened, that they’d never been interviewed by me, never laid eyes on me, never even heard of me. It didn’t hurt that I’d portrayed the majority of these people in an unflattering light. It was fairly easy to attribute their motives to anger, to the simple desire to discredit their muckraking accuser. Of course he says he never heard of me, I’d say, dismissing their accusations as if they were hardly worth the trouble. What would you do if I’d just exposed you in the paper?
It helped that we live in a plausible denial world.
Just pick up today’s news. Everyone denies everything.
It was taken out of context. It was misguided, misheard, misunderstood, misrepresented, or just made up.
Accountability is out; ask our president if he’s found any WMDs lying around Iraq lately. I was a creature of our times, someone who otherwise couldn’t have existed.
Which is not in any way an excuse.
No.
I might’ve scored sympathy points long ago by going the Oprah route and dredging up my childhood for national TV. Sprinkling my public absolution with select anecdotes from the Valle childhood album.
One anecdote, at least.
After all, these days the only thing more popular than denying your sins is going on television and confessing them. It’s okay to do bad stuff, America keeps reminding us, as long as you’ve got a reason.
I resisted that temptation.
I still resist it.
Speaking of temptation.
This is what it looks like.
Like Anna.
We were sitting in Violetta’s Emporium, the two of us.
Our table came complete with glazed netted candle that threw a soft, flickering light on the remarkable face sitting across from me. Not that it was in any particular need of mood lighting. Not with those eyes.
The table was cozy enough to make it hard to avoid touching knees. As if I wanted to avoid them, as if I didn’t do everything within my power to brush against her knees again and again and again. Two years ago, on my cross-country journey into ignominy, I stopped at a resort in Arizona and blew my last remaining cash on a hot-stone massage. That’s what Anna’s naked knees felt like-smooth hot stones sending shivers of fire shooting down my legs. And in the opposite direction.
I know. Mush, of the most egregious kind.
I’m simply trying to paint you a picture, to sit down with my inner police sketch artist and r
e-create for you what hit me.
We ordered matching pastas, though I did little more than move the vermicelli around my plate.
Women who’ve had the misfortune of going on first dates with me generally came away with the misconception that I wasn’t much of an eater.
I can eat with the best of them.
It’s simply that my hunger for one thing generally takes precedence over my hunger for another. I’m perpetually famished for love and approval-this according to Dr. Payne, who tried mightily to delve into the underlying reasons for my sociopathic behavior.
You had an absent father and an alcoholic and abusive mother, he concluded, so what else would you do but seek massive and extreme pats on the back?
Sounded sensible to me.
After all, it would help account for why so many first dates failed to materialize into second ones. Apparently neediness wasn’t an attractive quality in a man. The one woman who did find it endearing married me. She lived to regret it.
Anna and I made small talk.
She asked me about working for a newspaper.
“I took journalism classes in college,” she said, with a small pout meant to convey, I think, her ineptitude at it. “What, when, where, how… what’s the fifth one? Anyways, it wasn’t me. I’m not an observer. I lack objectivity. I flunked.”
“Okay, you’re not a reporter. What do you do? It didn’t say in your profile.”
“Sure it did. I play the conundrums-remember?”
“Yeah. That was cute.”
“Ya think?”
“Yeah, I think.”
“I work for a nonprofit organization,” she said. “Very Berkeley, even though it’s in downtown Santa Monica.”
“Oh? A nonprofit organization for what?”
“The usual. Clean planet, clean politics, dirty movies, the stuff near and dear to a blue stater’s heart.”
She ran her middle finger around the edge of the candle glass, catching a small drip of hot wax, then holding it up to the light, wincing. “Ever try it?”
“Try what?”
“Hot wax.” She giggled, took another sip of her Chianti.
“Try it how? You mean, like have it dripped on me?”
