in the form of a destroyed room
Up against one wall, the twin cushions of the sofa were now standing, in a slack and improvised V, and each half had been slashed like the canvas of one of those modernista paintings so its foam was visible and you realised just how dense the foam inside a sofa is, like foam as a word in no way does its deep density and honeycomb kapok justice – and these slashed cushions formed the backdrop or central motif to the general scene, in the foreground of which was the smashed form of my banjo, whose pieces were now haphazard around the room, the left-hand side of which was marked by a chest of drawers, except now every drawer was pulled out in an irregular stacked fashion so that its profile was more like an art deco building, and while most of these drawers were still in their containing chest, with the stuff inside them strewn on the floor or collapsing over the rims, two of the drawers had been entirely taken out of the chest and turned upside down, so that out of them had tumbled a selection of old photographs that were now in a spilled heap, including the ones from my father’s business visit to an unidentifiable city when I was five, and also photos of me sporting a spaceman’s helmet and space cadet’s shirt, while on the other side of the room, by which I mean the right-hand side, the wall now had a small smash or dent in its plaster, maybe related to the fact that a mirror had been pulled off the wall in the process of which the hooks had ripped down two strands of wallpaper that was printed with ornamental roses or tulips – I have never been good with the language of flowers – which now descended floppily to the floor where they caressed a pile of my old Super 8 films and a broken Polaroid camera and a smashed pair of Hiro’s glasses: yes, this was the basic set-up on the floor, over which was now scattered my backpack that was now torn, and some of my mother’s shoes, which she had left out, maybe to clean them or reheel them or resole them, which included a pair of gold sandals with high heels, and two pairs of black stilettos, and as I looked at all this it struck me very forcibly how easy it was to make objects into garbage and I think that’s an interesting phenomenon, that everything ends up like this, I mean just sad and badly made, unusable like my banjo, dirty, it’s their natural fate, there’s no meaning in anything at all, I suppose – an example of which, for instance, was one of the toys that Hiro had bought for the dog which had once resembled a spirited rabbit but now no longer had the stuffing in its legs, and the stuffing itself was revealed as a mess of cotton wool that was a pile of clouds on the floor, while its felt eyes had been ripped out and were on the floor among its entrails and its arms, although I think that in fact this destruction had been there already, and was not these gangsters’ fault but the dog’s, but as I looked at this bright tableau I was also thinking that while this looked like total mess the amount of actions that they had really performed was strangely smaller than you might think, the effects were much grander than their causes because there are only so many objects in a room that can be destroyed and in fact the most confusing and perplexing to the eye was the most minute, by which I mean the new surface on the floor that the girl had caused by just upending some quite small boxes of my mother’s in which she kept whatever she had no idea of classifying, a surface that was soft and sharply glittering and was made up, for instance, of two pairs of folding sunglasses, but also some plastic and silver rings and a set of picnic plastic cutlery, under which were draped one striped silk scarf and one chiffon scarf – printed with what I think was a floral design but I wasn’t down on my hands and knees among it – along with some hair grips and a miniature pill box with a beaded design on its lid and some old beer-bottle tops that were presumably souvenirs, one fried-chicken menu, then various chain necklaces tangled up, I think in fact there were more rings than I previously thought, as well as a flyer from one of the bars that we had visited, and then also a pile of now-defunct fairy lights to light up any home which I had never ever noticed but now realised they had been hung up in our house for all the major festivals, because I suppose in the end what people mean by an unknown reality is just the real you haven’t noticed, like the image in a microscope or the mess that’s created by just making a pile horizontal, a pile which further contained, I finally noticed, not only a bag of weed but also various other empty plastic sachets, and a felt-tip pen which I think was the one Romy had once used to do up her hair, though how it had got there I had no idea, and then another pen, one of those pens where inlaid in the holder is a panorama, and this particular panorama was a miniature ferry that slid to and fro in front of the Manhattan backdrop while I definitely thought that if you could only look closer then you would see the hopeful faces at the ferry windows and then the mascara on the women’s heavy eyelashes, if you could only get even closer, but I couldn’t.
& a gun
It was at this point that in wandered our curious dog. And I was very glad, because a dog is always a distraction.
— What’s his name? said the man.
— Sidney, I said.
— It’s a girl? he said.
— No, boy, I said.
— Fuck you, he said.
— How is it a girl’s name? I said.
— Obviously it’s a girl’s name, he said.
I had no idea what to say to that and so I just said nothing, because possibly this was just the menacing crazy talk that was prelude to us being dismembered or other violations. Or maybe in fact every name is double, and philosophically he was right, which I suppose is possible.
— Sydney, is with a y, he said.
— Oh, OK, I said.
Always in life it’s good to humour people and especially when they mean deliberate violence to you – for obviously I was not convinced that you could spell Sydney with a y, not as a name, but then in life there are so many names and in the end a name is just not important, it’s just a means of identifying something with one sound when that thing is in fact multiple and not really to be identified at all. And if this were all that were to happen then I did think we had got off lightly.
— The money, he said, — is to be paid tomorrow.
— What money? I said.
— Really? he said.
— What money? said Candy.
— The money is not important! I cried.
— No? said the girl.
And she presented a definite gun.
which he cannot deny is in some way a just punishment
I felt a wild smearing sense of injustice inside me, or perhaps more precisely this sense surrounded me, like a cape, and maybe in fact that sense was also fear. When I was criminal myself, I had not been so fearsome! We had been very careful to avoid harm! When we entered the nail salon or canal cafe with our gun we knew that definitely it was not real and also that even had that gun been real we would not have been capable of using it. Whereas this was a very different proposition, it turned out, just because this person was not me. There was no way of knowing how far this gun was just a gesture or a true instrument of massive harm. In general I did feel that people were not such maniacs as to shoot in domestic areas, but obviously I did not know what she was thinking, not at all. Of course I was therefore scared! But not just scared. I was many frequencies at once. Anger certainly was something I was feeling, or a sentiment just like it. And also at the same time I had some expanding sense of karma. For the provenance of these people was very mysterious and could not easily be explained, or at least, there was more than one possible explanation and they were giving me very few clues. But whether they came from the nail salon or cafe or even the small bodega from so long ago, it was obvious that at some point we had made one fatal miscalculation, which was to think that that salon or cafe or bodega would be run by conscientious citizens with impressive insurance deals, rather than, as was perhaps becoming clear, criminal organisations who very possibly were using these operations to obscure their secret financial misdeeds.
— I think, I later said to Hiro, — we made a bad call somewhere.
— In what way? said Hiro.
— I think we may h
ave got mixed up with very bad people, I said.
— It’s possible, agreed Hiro.
— Yeah, maybe, I said.
But then, you can never know, when you enter the world, what dealings the people you are dealing with now have. That’s a principle of all business and in particular perhaps the gangster style. And in this state of large revelation it began to occur to me that the cast list for grievances against me was so vast I did not really know where to begin, like I was responsible for a swarming muddled series – as if everything cartoon on the surface was linked in some vast network of transversals. There was definitely a very long list of people I had wronged, like Candy or Romy or even Dolores – whose messages I did not always reply to, or not at least with the correct adoration, if I was busy with my wife, or my lover – even if obviously I was not thinking that any of this trio were responsible for this armed invasion, but the realisation of the harm I did every day then led to the darker thought that also there was then this additional list of extras to whom I had not done the right thing, like Quincy and Osman and the maid at the hotel, or Caycee, or my friend Shoshana whom I no longer see, then also Shannon or Timeka or Cassity, or the woman in the burger bar with her many children, or the girl in the cafe, or the boy who came to our door with feather dusters, not to mention the owners of the bodega and nail salon and cafe, and their various terrified employees and customers, just as also there were so many people I had not correctly tipped or thanked or remembered their name at gatherings, and it made me frantic not only with guilt but also a sense that therefore in some way they might not only have been wishing me harm but even causing it, and that was why my life was such calamity. Not every light in the distance is an automobile on a distant freeway, and not every fear you can feel approaching is so easily explained. Some fears may have very formless sources – and in this case I was wondering if in fact the entire backdrop of my life was really a vampire waiting to strike. Many people did not like me. They were on the outside, and they wanted to come in. I guess it’s difficult to use words like enemies but I think these sad people should be considered as my enemies, and in fact not just mine but those of everyone around me. For perhaps they were right to hate me, the ghosts ranged in opposition. I was feeling very philosophical in a manner that reminded me of my father, who was given to repeat snippets of his reading like an old-time sage, the whole fortune-telling routine such as: Whatever you imagine is real. Or, perhaps, If you’re thinking about it, then it must be meaningful. My wisdom I think was tougher. Why wouldn’t people want the things that I had? That was the single question and I think it is still the single question. Why should you have what you have for ever? Once you realise that, it’s very hard to think of other people as unjustly envious at all.
even if it becomes far worse than he could imagine
The surprising thing was that normally if a dog walks into a room that’s a cue for general adoration and gasps of joy. Oh such loveliness! Look at his four paws! Whereas now I noticed these two phantoms in balaclavas were eyeing our dog with much malice. The girl still had the gun raised, just precisely raised in my direction, and I was looking away because the spectacle was scaring me very much.
— You don’t seem so very sorry, said the girl.
— Me? I said.
Because I was keen, if possible, that Candy should not know the precise facts of my recent criminal activities. Definitely I was keen, and I think perhaps however this keenness for privacy within my marriage looked different to the people who wished us harm. It looked, I think, like some insouciance or misplaced lack of remorse. And had I known this or foreseen this of course I would have tried to convince them otherwise. But who is able to foresee anything? So that then the girl just turned slightly so that the gun was pointing down at our dog, and the dog was looking up at her in its usual manner, because that is what dogs do, they are not attuned to social precision, they think that everyone loves them. Until the man suddenly said:
— What the fuck, man? Not the gun.
— Good point, she said, and pointed the gun away.
— I mean, he said, — don’t shoot it.
Then the man took the gun from her and just clubbed our dog on the head and our dog fell over, just very awkwardly tumbled, like his body fell before his legs could crumple, and as he did so he made the strangest noise, a little like the noise he made if accidentally you trod on his paw, but much more terrified. Then everything went silent. I mean, he went silent, but it felt like the whole room was silenced, too. There was blood gunked over his eye, and also his mouth went strange, as if to match his voice – like it went slack over his teeth in the way it sometimes did when he was asleep. I cried out but I did not cry out, because Candy was crying more than I was and I wanted to stay strong and brave. Instead therefore I stared very intently at the way the blood was forming from his skull. I know the usual phrase is a pool of blood but I am not sure that pool is right. It was more like now there was an extra surface beside him and that surface was viscous and a deep brown shade of red. Or maybe only red, I can’t be sure. As before, blood was indescribable. It was brown against the green carpet of my parents’ living room and everything was horrified.
— You give the money back, the man said. — In twenty-four hours. And then we can all leave each other alone.
& darkness descends
It was maybe five minutes later when Hiro finally descended, for which I don’t think I can blame him since sleeping pills were playing a useful part in his existence at this time. I suppose what he found was like one of those scenes where the eunuchs are engaged in destroying the sultan’s possessions before his fall, right down to gouging out the hearts of the luscious screaming concubines – scenes where the whole previous construction is just meticulously dismantled.
— Hey man, I said.
— Fuck, he said.
— Yeah, I said.
I was just stymied and quiet and this seemed to make Hiro pause. It was like he was seeing this scene as dimly as when you first try getting into Bangla, or like the way at four in the morning you are looking for cold takeaway, maybe fish-fragrant aubergine or bear’s paw bean curd, and the kitchen’s just vaguely outlined by the sad light from the fridge.
— What the fuck? said Candy.
— I really, I said, — have no idea.
The basic realismo principle, after all, is people’s readiness to be duped. If you say a thing with enough conviction, they will never ever doubt you. Or no, I think that’s too much. What I mean is that in such a state of trauma and of shock, no one is so interested in precise explanations. They just want to feel safe as soon as possible. So that if I could maintain that I did not understand, yes, maintain that this was some horrific act of random violence or mistaken identity, it would be possible for Candy to believe me, or at least believe me for a while. I wasn’t sure. Just call the police, OK, she said, then got up and walked upstairs and covered herself in our duvet. And as she did so I think I did just possibly know that finally the cloud in which I floated was about to descend to earth. But I did not think about that, not at that precise moment. I sat there staring at the wrecked room, and in the middle of that room our savaged and beautiful dog. I think what makes something a pet is that we live longer than it does, which I suppose means that maybe to the trees we are also just pets, too. But never had I thought I would witness his death as violent. He had very sad eyes, and was very thin, and did this skittering thing when he ran like he was made of mercury. And I was thinking how always he could make things supersad. He would stare at me with his triangular ears straight up and his eyes unblinking as if thinking worried thoughts and when that happened I got worried like a reflection. Then I just started to laugh hysterically. It was zany like that, like some comic film for children that is showing in the citron afternoon when the only people who are watching feel just desolate and crazy and alone.
8. TIME SADNESS
THEIR FINAL ENTRANCE INTO THE PUBLIC WORLD
then much
later they wake up
When we woke it was already dark. The day had been erased, and it would have been no surprise to perhaps just hear vast guns booming exorbitantly on the South Side. To clear the house up and decently dispose of the body of our dog would have definitely been the obvious next element in the sequence, but I did not know if I was equal to such a clean-up operation, and Candy seemed no more able to cope with it than I was. Not that we wanted to go to the balloon festival in the park, or sunken trampoline display, but I don’t think it was strange if we just wanted other distractions. That night there was meant to be some happening that our friend Tiffany had organised, a discussion of inequality in some outdoor impromptu cafe. We knew that Romy would be there with Epstein, not to mention groups of other and interesting people, and as always we had a wide selection of narcotics, and also we had promised we would be there – and so this seemed a better option for the moment than considering what to do with a destroyed room. Our souls were exhausted. I carried the body of our dog outside and shrouded him in a towel, so that later we could bury him and try to make things right, and then with Hiro we made our way over to the gathering. I would not say that the conversation between us on the metro was easy or delicious but also I think that’s normal after such violence. One of the major problems with the telenovelas is how tough people are, how easily they cope with rape, embezzlement, gunfights, and so on. Whereas any one of these would be enough in real life to make a person a total breakdown and always weeping. And I did feel like weeping, very much. But also I wanted to be faithful to some idea of style. If people were ranged against me, I intended to face them with calm.
Lurid & Cute Page 22
