by Micah Nathan
The old man stood in the doorway. He kept his hand on the butt of his pistol as he walked into Hank’s room. Scents of menthol and baby powder. An early-evening breeze blew in through the open window, rippling Hank’s brown bathrobe.
“Hank,” the old man said, and Hank looked up slowly, unsteadily, his eyes clouded and his lower lip trembling.
“Hank, I’ve come for Nadine.”
Hank smiled, his toothless mouth rimmed with jiggling flesh. His hands opened and closed, fresh-cut nails gliding over the fabric of his brown bathrobe. His features were lost in the slack and droop of age and multiple strokes. Wisps of white hair floated atop his head. Spittle collected in the corners of his lips.
“That Russian maid told me Nadine’s back in Memphis,” the old man said. “But you and I know the truth.”
Hank blinked.
The old man pulled out the pistol and clicked back the hammer, hand trembling. He lowered it at Hank. “Tell me where she is, goddammit. And don’t say nothing about Memphis. No way I’m going back there, so don’t even try.”
Hank turned to the window, slowly, inexorably, like the movement of a glacier. His shoulders dropped and he closed his eyes.
“Hank.
“Hank.”
Hank’s chest rose and fell. His left hand twitched.
“Nadine Emma Brown,” the old man said. His voice cracked and he blinked to clear his eyes. “I know she’s here. I’ll tear this goddamn house apart.”
Hank began to snore, a sputtering wheeze as quiet as the wind that ruffled the drapes and the edges of his robe. The old man stumbled forward, knocked his foot on the bed and fell to his knees, gun clattering from his sweating hand, spinning on the plank floor. He scrambled for it and clutched the edge of Hank’s chair.
“Now, you listen to me,” the old man said. “Sitting there like you think you’re something better. Never had the pussy I had. Never had the screams so loud you’d think a thousand jets took off at the same time. Made my ears ring after every show; doctors said it was hypertension but I know it was worship. Screaming my name like I’m a Greek god come down to fuck each and every one of them.”
Hank’s breathing slowed.
“They screamed, ‘Fuck me, Elvis,’ and I fucked as hard as I could. Would’ve made you proud to see the women I fucked. Like visions come out of the ocean on a bed of pearls, tucked in one of them giant seashells. What’s the word? Sirens, is it? Or mermaids. I don’t know. Something wet and hot with seaweed covering their nipples so they get past the censors. You remember the censors, Hank. Remember that night I came to you crying after that motherfucker made me sing to a dog? Remember that? Remember what you told me? Come on now. Let me hear you say it.”
Hank’s head dropped, chin resting on his sunken chest.
The old man wiped his eyes with the hand he held the gun in. “You said to be great is to be misunderstood.”
Hank snored.
The old man sat on the floor with his legs out in front of him, head leaning against the side of the chair. The breeze cooled the back of his neck. Downstairs he heard Ben laughing. He looked into the gun barrel and let a lazy smile curl his lip.
“Look at us,” he said. “We slept through the end of the world.”
“Yes, I see it is beginning to bruise.”
Ben touched his eye. “Like a good bruise?”
“What do you mean, good bruise?” Alina sat at the kitchen table, sipping iced tea, cigarette scissored between index and middle finger. Late dusk fell outside the kitchen window, a blue-black horizon and the last flash of a cloud’s edge above the willow, slowly closing in on the dark.
“I mean does it look like someone punched me?”
“Someone did punch you. In both eyes. You look like raccoon.”
Ben drummed his fingers on the table. “I should have told Ginger I loved her. A little white lie wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”
Alina rested her chin in her hand and stared at Ben with her wide blue eyes. “Young women always talk about love. Do you love me? I love you. He does not love me. I do not love him. Love, love, love. Why? We do not need love to fuck. Or to have good times. If I only go with men who I love, my list is very short. Worry about love later, when excitement is gone. Then love is everything. Before that? Pfft. Love is a pest.”
“I don’t think I liked her anyway,” Ben said. “I practically bought her—no, not practically. I did buy her. I paid a pimp five thousand dollars. It was the tattoo, you know. I fell for it. She has these Chinese characters across her lower back, and she doesn’t even know what they mean.…”
Alina puffed contentedly.
“All I’m saying is I couldn’t pull it off,” Ben continued. “I can’t date a hooker. I’m not a hooker-dating guy. Can you imagine what my mom would do? She’s been through enough, and I’ve been useless. I’m not nearly as brave as I thought I was. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t even care that I don’t know where I’m going. I just graduated with a degree that will make me the smartest guy working at Burger King, I feel like I’m still in high school, and all I want to do is go back in time and call my dad and ask him just what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my life—”
Ben cupped his face in his hands. He clenched his teeth but the tears started anyway. He tightened his stomach and dug his fingers into his scalp, but they didn’t stop.
Oh, please not here, he thought. Not in front of this hot Russian woman.
“I’m sorry.” Ben forced a laugh and felt his palms wet. Colors blossomed in the dark of his shut eyes. Alina’s hand touched his back.
“You can call your dad from here,” she said. “Do not worry about long-distance charges.”
Ben rested his head on the kitchen table. Alina rubbed his back and hummed.
Hank slept in his chair, summer breeze stroking his face and shadows coiling around his thin leg. The old man sat on the floor, eyes half-lidded, wrinkled hands flat on the worn planks, watching an ant move from finger to finger. The old man wished he had a crumb for the little fella. He marveled at its unwavering faith, its tireless quest for something sweet to feed its little ants back home, and soon the old man found himself tearing up. He’d felt lonely most of his life, as if only he understood the true meaning of ambition above everything else, and yet here was his companion all along: an ant. Trillions of the little bastards just like him. Amazing, he thought. Lord, thank you for sending this ant to me.
Hank snored.
“I couldn’t see them even if I wanted to,” the old man said to Hank. “How would they deal with a shock like that? Hey, little Lisa, it’s your daddy. I been gone a long time and you stood over my grave and said sweet things, but now I got to tell you you were only talking to dirt.”
But there’s still time, the old man imagined Hank would say. There’s always time until there isn’t.
“I ran out of time thirty years ago,” the old man said. “World sat on a hill and watched me burn, and nobody did a goddamn thing except warm themselves by the fire.”
Nobody in the history of man had as much as you.
“I know. But I never asked for any of it. I didn’t want it anymore.”
Wasn’t your decision.
“I didn’t know who I was. Only saw myself through everyone else.”
Last chance, then. To make it right.
“I know.”
To do what’s got to be done.
“All right already.” The old man stood, slowly, painfully, easing around the protests in his back and warning shots firing down his leg. The gun felt heavy in his waistband, cold metal against his skin reminding him of that dark day in ’86. He got lucky that day, or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it. He’d awakened in a pool of his own blood, bullet stuck into the wall over his couch.
The old man pushed his hair back and fingered the scar on his temple. He looked at Hank.
“What do you say?” He drummed his fingers on the butt end of the pistol. “Do we end it here, or do I get
one last chance?”
Hank opened his eyes. His voice was wind from a cave. Nothing for us to fight over except table scraps and memories.
“Then can I have one of your jumpsuits?”
Take them all, the old man imagined Hank answered. Don’t you know I always loved you?
14.
itter dreams. Fire and ruin. What do you do when your enemies have shriveled and curled like old leaves at the bottom of a hedge? When the whispers stop, the sheets are yanked off the chair and you realize there’s no monster beneath the dusty folds?
The old man didn’t know and so he slept, refusing to wake himself from his nightmares. Instead he let them pass over, angels of death with black beating wings and open beaks that stretched back to the beginning of it all. When wriggling things wriggled in the muck and lightning shut the eyes of leviathans. When he drove a truck, bought his first guitar, and ate sandwiches of bread and salt.
Ben drove. Yellow bars pulled themselves under the car, the hum of the tires vibrating the edges of his teeth. He was beyond exhausted, beyond complaint. Just get to Memphis, he thought. Ditch this world and get back to what’s real. This old man isn’t real. Ginger wasn’t real. Alina wasn’t real. You know what’s real. You remember the papasan in your apartment. Patrick being an asshole, Samantha’s short hair; those are the things that fit.
Ben remembered his first anthro class, second semester freshman year. Professor Mitchell showed them a film on the Yanomamo, “The Fierce People.” Yanomamo men wore a string tied around their waists and the women wore nothing. They all had saggy tits shaped like gourds, every one of them. It never made sense, Ben thought. How come naked women in the jungle never have good bodies? It’s always flat asses, gourd-shaped breasts, and little potbellies.
Ben rubbed his eyes and slapped his face while the road dipped and curved. The old man mumbled in his sleep.
Professor Mitchell had told them that more than a third of Yanomamo males die from violence. Then they watched old footage of a Yanomamo war, a raid against a neighboring village. Professor Mitchell warned them it was about to get bloody and a few of the girls turned away. He sat and watched as the warriors hacked away with machete blades lashed to the end of long reeds. It looked like a mosh pit where everyone was naked.
All it would take is Elvis, Ben thought. Pull a 9mm and make sure it didn’t get bloody. Sing for the tribal elders and they’d make him honorary shaman. Shoot yopo up his nose and go on one of those vision quests where you find your spirit animal. Then continue the world tour; next stop, Kung San, the Bushmen of the Kalahari. How do you say Elvis in click?
Suddenly weeds clawed at the underside of their Caddy and the hood dipped. Metal squealed. Ben’s seat belt ripped into his shoulder. The car stopped and his head slammed against the driver’s-side window.
He smelled antifreeze; the engine ticked. The old man turned to him and there was blood streaming down his face, blood dotting the new white jumpsuit he’d taken from Hank’s. Red and green garnets were sewn into the back in the shape of an Aztec thunderbird, its plumage running down the side of the leg. The old man’s lion’s head buckle shone dull in the moonlight.
“Are we dead?” the old man asked.
Ben stared out the windshield. Steam rose from the engine, soft yellow from the headlights shining against the grass. “I don’t think so.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my shoulder hurts.” Ben unlatched the seat belt and opened the door. Its edge dug into the soft dirt, tearing up a clump of weeds. They were in a ditch, the forest ahead and the road behind. Ben heard crickets. He looked to the distance, blue hills bathed in moonlight like the backs of giant whales sleeping in the ocean.
The old man shoved his door open and stumbled out.
“Hey,” Ben said. “You shouldn’t be walking around.”
The old man made his way to the front of the Caddy. He pinched his bleeding nose and shook his head. “Goddammit. God-fucking-dammit.”
“I’ll get us a tow. Let me just make a few calls.”
“Man, you said you had a clean driving record.”
“I just nodded off. We’ve been going pretty hard and—”
The old man spit a ropy string of blood. “Boy, you don’t know the meaning of going hard. Fifteen cities in ten days. That’s going hard. Press conference at seven, karate at nine, cut an album from midnight until the sun shows its tits. That’s going hard.”
“Shut up,” Ben said. “For once, just shut up, and let me think this through.”
The old man took his hand off his nose. “What’s that?”
“I’m sick of your stories. The touring, the anguish … it’s all bullshit.”
“Bullshit?”
“You don’t even look like Elvis. The real Elvis wouldn’t throw it all away. For what? A life in the burbs? Because you were burned out? Give me a break. My dad got pinned to a fucking hot dog stand by some woman gabbing on her cell phone. You don’t see me whining. Well, maybe a little. But not all the time. Not like you.”
“Hot dog stand. You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“What’d they do to that woman?”
“Nothing.”
“You know where she is now?”
Ben shrugged.
“You find out and I’ll make some calls. I still got connections in dark places.”
Ben laughed.
“Man, I’m serious.”
“Of course you are. That’ll be our next mission. Revenge against the woman who killed my dad.” Ben looked to the sky and shook his head. “What the hell are we doing?”
“We’re going for Nadine.”
“You’re going for Nadine. I’m done.”
“Can’t be done. Not until I say. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked. Rest of the world quits when it gets rough—not me, and not you.”
“I should be selling ties. Instead I’m standing in a ditch in the middle of Tennessee, and I don’t even know who you really are.”
“Nobody did.” The old man spit blood again. “Nobody bothered asking.”
Ben started to speak but stopped himself. It was all useless, he realized. They could talk forever in that ditch until the worms ate their bones. He marched up the side of the ditch and started to walk down the shoulder.
“Hey!” the old man shouted. He clawed his way up the hill, a muscle pulsing in his side that felt like a hot spear every time he breathed. He tasted his own blood and spit it out. He knew his nose was broken. Maybe even his ribs.
“You can’t leave,” the old man said. “What about Nadine?”
Ben kept walking. “Fuck Nadine.”
“Fuck Nadine?”
Ben stopped and turned. “You heard me. Fuck Nadine.”
The old man roared and charged. He threw a kick; Ben stepped back and the old man felt something give in his hamstring. All the strength went out from under him. He stumbled to one knee. The old man tried to stand but lost his balance and fell onto the side of the road. Gravel bit his cheek. He pushed himself up and lunged for Ben, but the boy was too far away and he fell again. He felt skin tear from his palms. Road dust stung his eyes.
The old man rolled onto his back, coughing. He gazed at the moon. One nostril was plugged with blood; as he breathed through the other, it made a faint whistling sound like a teakettle. “I’m coming apart,” he said. “Help me up, son. Jesus Christ, I’m in sorry shape. Come on now. Help me up. Where are you going?”
Ben looked over his shoulder. “Home.”
Ben walked all night, past forests and mats of kudzu, his steps marked by the crunch of gravel and cicada chants. He felt like a post-apocalyptic drifter haunting the back roads of Tennessee, only this version of a post-apocalyptic world wasn’t filled with armored dune buggies and crossbows. This version was how it would really be: empty roads and overgrown forests, a few survivors among the mutants like that movie he remembered seeing when he was seven, the one with C
harlton Heston, the pretty lady with the Afro, and all those pale-faced vampires with severely chapped lips.
Maybe I’m dead, Ben thought. Maybe I died in that ditch, my chest crushed against the steering wheel. Maybe this is hell and Satan is dressed like Elvis.
The night slinked past. Birds awoke and the cicadas stopped. He watched dawn begin with a light blue line creeping over the mountaintops, and he began to jog. He felt good, surprisingly good, running faster until the wind shooshed in his ears. It seemed perfectly reasonable that he could run all the way back to Cheektowaga. The forest sharpened as if coming into focus, from dark blue mounds to pale green clumps to individual leaves. Ben passed a town sign and the forest tapered into mowed grass and suddenly there were buildings ahead, brick storefronts and modest clapboard homes. A church stood proudly apart with a bench on its sidewalk, church sign stuck into the lawn. Morning light washed over everything. The air smelled like dew.
Trinity Baptist Church. Howard E. Hipp, Pastor.
Ben had never seen such a perfect bench with its curled wrought-iron armrests and pristine white wooden slats. He sat down, closed his eyes, and raised his face to the strengthening sun.
He sat there for what felt like a long time. Wind stirred. Somewhere far away a dog barked. Then he heard voices. Women. Old women talking excitedly. He opened his eyes and saw a group of them walking down the sidewalk toward him, only they didn’t seem to notice him. They wore housedresses, hats, and poofy white blouses, giant purses dangling from their forearms. Some walked in sneakers, others in orthopedic shoes with thick heels. They stopped a few feet from Ben and kept talking. Ben couldn’t pick up on one thread of conversation. It seemed like all they said was Oh and My and Mmm-hmm, laughing with one hand pressed to their chess.
One of the women looked down at Ben. She wore a white blouse buttoned all the way up, with draping sleeves like a flying squirrel. Her long baby-blue skirt matched her shoes and stockings. A plastic daisy sat tucked into the band of her white hat.
