Hellgoing

by Lynn Coady

  But in the myopic way of local media, the host or producer always wanted the small talk to be about the city. What was happening in the city. The police fences going up and latest restrictions announced. Something on the car radio this morning about no flying kites downtown. Kites would be banned the week of the convention, the radio announced, deadpan. Sam had leaned forward to hear better but Marco was not a morning person. His eyes were closed and his cheek vibrated against the passenger’s side window.

  I live in Washington, he yawned when Sam exclaimed about the kites. There’s police everywhere. You get used to it.

  But people are allowed to fly kites in America, said Sam.

  Not since 9/11, said Marco.

  He was renowned for what they called his “dry wit.” It surprised people, when they met him, because his writing wasn’t dry. His writing was wet. It flowed with emotion and swelled with profundity and was boundless in its erudition according to the press kit on the seat between them. Sam didn’t laugh at Marco’s remark, however, because his dryness in conversation entailed that he didn’t drop any of the usual hints of this is a joke; laugh with me, won’t you? — didn’t attempt to catch her eye, or smirk. Or, as Sam might have done, sound a giddy little snort.

  Yesterday she learned to smile in a neutral sort of way at everything Marco said on the off-chance he was making a crack of some kind and she hadn’t caught it. It was safe. She hit upon the strategy not long after picking him up at the airport and used it to great effect at the reception that evening — she used it with everybody, not just Marco. It was a handy trick. She blank-smiled not only the luminaries who came out to greet Marco — flashy silver-hairs in colourful scarves (the men) whose names she understood she was supposed to recognize the moment they were enunciated at her — but even the blowsy female editor who intimidated her and the philanthropist CEO who was always so courtly and drunk.

  There was something about smiling in a neutral way at people that sort of impressed them, she discovered. I give you nothing, it told them, which they liked. It made them notice her, whereas in the past, whenever she’d attempted some bland, quippy remark, they all but tried to rest their drinks on her head.

  For Samantha was short.

  She settled in behind the glass with the producer and technicians and checked her phone and found a text from her brother sitting there.

  At hospital. Pre-op stuff.

  She poked back: Ok! xoxo

  The host had asked Marco to talk about whatever for a moment or two; what he had for breakfast, for example, so that the technician could get his levels. I don’t eat breakfast, Marco was saying. Mornings make me sick.

  Just anything, urged the host.

  Sam had heard this before from the radio people. Radio people didn’t get it because they were so used to talking — filling the airwaves on command. But it was dumb to ask the guest to talk about whatever. Guests needed specifics. The concept “whatever” ballooned in their minds, which accordingly went blank.

  Then she saw her brother had sent the text three hours ago and realized she’d had her phone muted since the night before and thanked God Marco wasn’t a morning person and hadn’t been calling at 6 a.m. wanting a power smoothie or something.

  She texted her brother again: So updates?

  Marco had his headset on and the levels were good and now he was saying: We desire. It’s what humans do. We want to open doors, tear at packages, hammer piggy banks, rip bodices. It’s an essential force and an essentially destructive force. We have to reconcile ourselves.

  The light was low in the studio; it was an artificial environment, meant to fake a feeling of end-of-day serenity, as if outside birds were peeping wearily and lawns were perspiring dew.

  She watched Marco on the other side of the glass, saying versions of other things he had already said that morning. Eventually his words coagulated into a mellifluous white noise and for something to do she texted Marie.

  Marco in a gorilla cage.

  It was the idea of sticking him in an artificial environment. Marco peeling bamboo as the popcorn-eating masses gawked. Explaining to them in gorilla sign-language: We desire.

  Although a voiceless Marco clearly would be not the same sort of Marco at all.

  Mar-Koko, she texted next. Sam often texted stream-of-consciousness to Marie.

  I’d take him in any kind of cage, replied Marie, who was always insisting upon her thing for older men. Sam had come to find this boring about her.

  This is what it means to be fallen creatures, Marco was saying. In the biblical sense.

  It was the fourth time she’d heard him make this statement and she still didn’t understand what it meant. The phrase wheeled around in her head, clanging, like a pot-lid dropped and spinning across a kitchen floor.

  You want to know him biblically, she texted Marie.

  Then her brother wrote: He went into OR hour ago.

  She texted: Agh! Tx! xoxo

  Ew, wrote back Marie. Evangel-lovin’. Give it up for JC.

  It was a short interview because it was live and live segments always had to be short, Sam had observed, to keep people from tiring out and saying something stupid on the air. Marco was coming to the end and then they would go for lunch. Sam texted Marie: The Bible is very dirty. Compendium of sin. A very dirty and vicious place.

  Marco had removed his headset and was shaking hands with the host.

  Sign me up, said Marie.

  THE BLOWSY EDITOR was meeting them at something called an Izakaya restaurant, which had just opened up around the corner from the office. She and Marco were late, however, because the route Sam planned on taking had been blocked off by a police fence.

  But this is right in the middle of downtown, complained Marco, scrutinizing the chain-link and concrete beyond. It doesn’t make any sense.

  I guess there’s going to be, like, said Sam, who didn’t really know what she was talking about, a security zone or something.

  But people will still need to get from point A to point B during the convention, said Marco. Are they planning to evacuate downtown?

  Finally he was showing an interest in what was going on in the city and the only person there to explain it was Sam, who had only started paying attention that morning when she heard about the kites.

  She gave a neutral smile. Ideally, she said, that’s probably what they’d like to do. Evaporate.

  As she said it, she realized she’d meant to say “evacuate.” But Marco didn’t notice.

  People get in the way, he agreed.

  THEY WERE FIFTEEN minutes late and when they arrived the entire restaurant staff yelled something at them in Japanese, startling Sam. She looked around in a panic, but everybody, after yelling, just went back to cooking and chopping and waitressing as if nothing had happened. The editor was seated at the far end of the restaurant, gesturing with both hands, her gauzy sleeves billowing like sails.

  Don’t tell me, she said, brushing cheeks with Marco. Police fences.

  Just everywhere, said Marco.

  Well, don’t worry, said the editor. The service here is like nothing you’ve ever seen. Sam? When is Marco’s next appointment?

  Sam already had her phone in her hand. Still on the table, no news, her brother had written.

  Not until two, she said.

  Lots of time, said the editor.

  Sam leaned back and placed her phone beside her napkin as the editor leaned forward to ask Marco how his morning interviews had gone. The moment the phone touched the tabletop it lit up with another text.

  It was nice to see you last night.

  So she yanked it back up and read it again. She typed: You suck, texting me, and stuffed the phone in her purse.

  It’s okay, Sam, if you need to keep your phone out, the editor told her, glancing over. Which was a way of saying, Shouldn’t you keep your phone out? Because to be in constant contact was Sam’s job. She gave a neutral smile and placed the phone beside her chopsticks. Sam could feel her e
ars producing a heat that would soon make her entire face look boiled.

  She wanted to text Marie about it. Marco and the editor were leaning toward each other in order to hear and be heard over all the restaurant noise. Both of them had their hands resting on the edge of the table. It was like they were preparing to play the mirror game.

  Marco was saying: The idea that we are in the way. In the way of nature, like Sartre said. Perhaps that’s what it is to exist.

  And is it a bad thing, necessarily, said the editor.

  But the problem is, we treat everything else that way.

  So who’s in the way?

  The more important question is, who gets to decide?

  When they hugged the night before at the reception. And the side of her head was warm against Alex’s breastbone, her ear squashed against him as if to ask, You in there? Anybody home? And it was longer than it should have been, the hug, yes, full of heat. And Natalie was there who was his wife. And then they just got on with the evening, making the rounds and paying attention to other people and not to each other as they had long agreed to do.

  Which is why it sucked of him to text her.

  Excuse me, said Sam, and left for the bathroom.

  Very dirty and vicious place, was the last thing she had written to Marie.

  Ugh, she texted now.

  What, wrote Marie.

  Alex, wrote Sam.

  Yikes, wrote Marie. Is he there?

  Texted.

  Ignore it. Delete message.

  You know you are a good person, added Marie a moment later.

  Her brother wrote, About halfway through and all is well so far. One end of bypass connected. They are now sizing the new tissue valve.

  Sam could picture him hunched on some bench in some waiting room, taking forever to peck out the message with his slow, enormous man-thumbs. There was ten years between them. He hadn’t exited the womb with a cellphone in hand the way she had. Texting was like breathing for Sam, or blinking her eyes, whereas for her brother it was exactly like poking away at infinitesimal buttons on a tiny little machine. It was like trying to thread a series of needles just to tell a person something.

  The staff yelled at them again as they left the restaurant — even louder than when she and Marco had arrived. Sam had been thinking about her brother’s giant thumbs and also Alex’s hands and how she held one of her hands up against his one time and remarked how the size of women’s hands compared to men’s seemed like a deliberate, cosmic humiliation because when you really looked at them, when you compared and contrasted, women’s hands were downright puny. So she had been looking at her hand around her phone as they left the restaurant thinking that it — her hand closed around an object — sort of resembled a big white grub or a giant scallop, and the staff hollering scared her even worse this time.

  Why do they do that, Sam wanted to know.

  Marco looked over at her — made a point of looking over at her, which was actually kind of touching. He hadn’t really looked at her since they met the day before, even when he was telling her something.

  Then she realized the editor had looked over at her too. It had to do with the way her question sounded — higher pitched than it probably should have been, drawing attention to itself.

  They’re just saying goodbye to us, sweetie, said Marco in the tender voice he used for interviews.

  Sam realized she didn’t know if she had eaten anything.

  OUTSIDE ON THE sidewalk they were swarmed by young women in white shorts and yoga tops who were trying to give them hot sauce.

  Want some hot sauce? They said. Free hot sauce!

  Marco took one and handed it to Sam, who put it in her purse.

  Hot sauce? Another of the girls said to Sam.

  I just took some, Sam told her.

  Have some more, insisted the girl. She was overtanned and grinning away, making a point of meeting Sam’s eye as if they were flirting with each other. She’d been told to do this, Sam realized, had probably been staring into the eyes and grinning into the faces of countless strangers all day long. The girl was on auto-pilot.

  So Sam accepted another bottle as Marco and the editor brushed cheeks goodbye. As the editor pulled away, a girl tried to give her hot sauce.

  No, no, said the editor, moving down the sidewalk. Sam admired the easy way she held up her hand; easy, yet with authority — That is the way you use a hand, thought Sam — stopping the girl mid-proffer.

  But Marco accepted the hot sauce on the editor’s behalf and handed this one to Sam as well.

  Moments after they’d disentangled themselves from the girls in white, Sam looked back to see a young policeman approaching the group. The girls fluttered whitely to intercept him like seagulls expecting to be fed.

  Put the sauce away, girls, she heard the young cop say before she and Marco rounded the corner.

  No kites and no sauce, Sam remarked as they approached the car.

  Pardon? said Marco.

  She shouldn’t have said it out loud. It was the kind of thing she would have texted to Marie.

  That cop, said Sam. He made the girls put away their sauce.

  Well, thank God for that, said Marco.

  THERE WAS JUST one more interview and then Marco was allowed to go back to the hotel for a nap or whatever he wanted to do before meeting up with everyone at the restaurant.

  I hate when they make you have dinner before giving a talk, he told Sam when they were back in the car.

  Sam herself was looking forward to the dinner because the restaurant was new and the fish was supposed to be insanely fresh and even the drinks would be paid for. That showed how impressive Marco was.

  Best seafood in town, she told him.

  Marco blinked his great, sad eyes. His eyes were so large, he seemed to blink in slow motion.

  Those eyes, Marie had texted the day before.

  I think he’s gay, though, Sam told her. He doesn’t give off any heat.

  But you can’t stuff yourself with seafood and then talk about the human soul, said Marco.

  No? said Sam.

  And the other thing, said Marco, is I won’t be able to drink. Sorry to whine — I know I’m whining — but it’s good to be a bit of a brat between interviews; to misbehave before I have to be all gracious and wise. I just like a glass of wine with meals.

  You can’t have a glass of wine before the talk?

  I don’t like to, no. Marco was gazing up at the building before them. Weren’t we just here this morning?

  That was live, Sam told him. This is taped. It’ll be more in-depth, too, like a couple of hours give or take.

  The police are out front now, observed Marco, noticing cruisers all along the street. They’re going to fence off the broadcasters. Smart move.

  Sam gave a neutral smile.

  HER PHONE HAD been vibrating intermittently in her purse like some tiny panicked creature and the technician frowned at her for taking it out because the three bottles of hot sauce made such a racket when she did. There’s no microphone in here, Sam wanted to bark at him. Radioland can’t hear my sauce. So keep your frowns to yourself.

  There was a text from Marie wanting to know, Did you text him back? And a text from Alex saying, Where are you living these days? Which was a way of asking if she still had a roommate. Because all Alex ever had to say to her was a form of the question: Where can we fuck? Or else: When can we fuck? Or the statement: I assume we will be fucking shortly. Which was usually correct. And as she was pondering these questions and statements a message popped up from her brother which read: Procedure complete, now undergoing post-maintenance testing.

  The interviewer was a woman this time, a woman with one of the best voices on the radio, a voice like nougat. She did not look at all like she sounded, which shouldn’t have bothered Sam, she knew, but which did. The interviewer, who sounded like a sexy professor on the radio, looked like somebody’s mad aunt in real life. She wore pink Crocs and velour pants covered in cat ha
ir. Sam never thought of being middle aged — she tried not to — because it made her weepy, which in turn made her feel guilty. She knew she, herself, could easily give in to velour and Crocs, she knew how happy she might one day be made by cats, she knew how simple it would be to let go, to have wrinkles appear on her face and say: Oh well — to hell with it then. She could do it in a heartbeat; she could give up on youth like it was nothing. It was the easy way out, like a gun was, kind of. Terrifying in the same way.

  So she didn’t think about it.

  Marie kept texting in an effort to be a good friend. She was texting: Remember you are blameless. And a couple of minutes after that: You made no promises or vows to anybody. And then: No one expects anything of you.

  Sitting in the booth with the technician, Sam just wanted to close her eyes and visualize the sexy professor as the interviewer spoke, but her phone kept jumping and the interviewer kept asking Marco questions and Marco kept saying things like: We live in torment at our own carnivorous nature. We are divided beings. We are shaped to feed upon our fellow creatures, just as they are shaped to feed one another. We tie ourselves in knots to avoid the reality. We keep our butchers in the backroom, where we don’t have to view their work. We treat the people who feed us like pariahs. We don’t want to know. We are ashamed. We can’t abide the sin. We dress our dogs in clothes, like us. To convince ourselves we are confreres.

  When you say “sin” — began the nougat-voiced interviewer.

  Sin! Interrupted Marco. And you’ve hit on it exactly. It is the first sin, the ultimate sin. Historically, in religious terms, we’ve supposed that sin was sex, but sex is just the smallest part of it. The real anguish resides in our break with the animals. We don’t want to harm them; yet we’re made to harm them. This is why they are innocent and we can never be. We can never be. This is what it is to be human — to be human is to be fallen.

  I’m not sure I get it, confessed the interviewer.

  Sam, however — shifting forward, hot sauce chattering away in her purse — Sam got it.

  BACK ON THE sidewalk, three policemen stood together watching them walk past.

  Hello, said one to Sam.