Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  “Killed her? How could you, Victor? You weren’t driving, were you?”

  “No, I told you, I was lying on my back, half raw. But thoughts themselves are dangerous – more powerful than we realise, maybe.” A jet plane screeches through his words. He waits, silent, while it passes, its echo throbbing through my head. “After that, I changed.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Well, revenge was out, to start with – all revenge, whether against the gooks or the government, or the growing bunch of draft dodgers including rival Dougie, who was now a widower. I guess I just accepted things, stopped feeling so damned sorry for myself. I was alive, when all those other unlucky guys were dead – and the girl I’d loved. I could walk and talk and even earn my living, when thousands more were paralysed or crippled or missing arms or legs. To say nothing of the psychos and the junkies and those who snuffed themselves because they couldn’t face the world after what they’d seen and done in combat.”

  Victor’s hands are locked together. I’ve always liked his hands, but now they look quite different: soldier’s hands, hands which have loaded shells, fed huge and hungry guns, picked up stinking corpses. I realise that I’ve never really known him – only just the outside. He shifts one leg, leans forward.

  “D’you realise, Carole, by the end of that damned war, the death-toll had reached fifty-eight thousand men, and I doubt if that included all the suicides. A load of guys had breakdowns or ended up as dope fiends. The media weren’t so wrong there. You could buy drugs like candy in ’Nam. No one really cared if you were stoned, so long as you kept fighting. In the end, people acted kind of wary of you if you’d been out there at all – assumed you were a baby-burner or a raving sickie who might shoot up innocent women in the street. It wasn’t so bad in Bardstown. It’s a patriotic little place, and loyal to the hometown boys. All the same, I decided on a second move. I was still too close to home, still pitied as the poor wounded soldier, still labelled as Laura’s ex-fiancé. I needed a new start, new friends who’d never met Laura and weren’t wondering every time they saw me how bad I looked underneath my clothes.”

  He pauses, grimacing at himself as if seeing with their eyes. Silence in the room. I feel guilty, don’t know what to say. Empty cliches about looks not mattering are not only untrue, but hypocritical. I ran away myself.

  He looks up, breaks the tension. “New York was quite a shock at first, after small-town living, but I survived, found a job of sorts, even found another girl. She was a nurse, so I figured she wouldn’t be too thrown by all those scars. Even so, it was months before I told her, and longer still before I let her have a look.”

  “What … happened?”

  “Not a lot. She just stopped answering her phone, started being busy all the time, too busy to see me any more. After that, I lost my confidence. I kind of chopped myself in two and threw away the bottom half. I was just a head, a chest, two arms. Oh, there was plenty I could do – I worked damn hard, read a lot, improved my poker, raised orchids in my one-room bachelor apartment. It wasn’t such a bad life – quite a wrench, in fact, when I was forced to change it. My firm was taken over. I told you that already, didn’t I?”

  I nod. Though it’s only now I realise what a shock it must have been, coming after so many other losses.

  “I took it hard, though it was really just tough luck, I guess. The new company already had an ace engineer. It was either him or me, and not much question which one would have to go. So now I had my financial compensation from the war and this new severance pay. I felt doubly on the scrapheap, a write-off with two pensions – nothing else. I sat at home feeling sorry for myself, just went out in the evenings to play poker – though I kept losing even there. I seemed to be unlucky, not just in my life, but in my cards. I had a run of really heavy losses. It became a vicious circle. The more I lost, the more I felt a victim. The other players sensed that, saw me as no threat. I was an easy mark and they jumped all over me. Psychology in poker’s all important, Carole, but I didn’t even see what I was doing. Well – not until one evening when I’d lost another grand, and this old guy, Mitch, who was always hanging around the poker room, parked himself beside me, ordered us two beers.

  “‘Vic,’ he said. ‘You sat in that game resigned to lose, expecting to, in fact. You’ve even started to root against yourself. I’ve watched you. Okay, you’ve had some bad streaks, and it’s real tough running bad, but every deal affords you the same chance to be lucky or unlucky as any other deal – regardless of what happened yesterday, or the day before, or any goddamned day. Why don’t you decide to be a winner for a change, instead of making yourself a target for the rest?’

  “I was mad at him at first. He’d no right to just butt in, start giving me advice I didn’t want. Now I’m very grateful to the guy. He turned me round, changed my way of thinking. I couldn’t sleep that night for mulling it all over. I mean, he was only talking about cards, but what he said applied to my whole life. Did I really want to live it as a loser? Okay, I’d lost my job, but I was still alive, still had funds – and wits. And I kept remembering that phrase about every deal offering you another chance. It was obvious, even trite maybe, yet I’d been trying to deny it, refusing even to take the breaks I got.

  “That next night at poker, I had a full house and a straight flush in just the first half hour. I took it as an omen.” He grins. “We poker players are real superstitious, Carole, but I needed that good luck. It psyched me up, helped me change gear from unlucky guy to winner. The difference was incredible. Even when I had bad cards, I played them with a will to win. Sure I still had losses, but I didn’t just accept them, sit there like a turkey, resigned to lose, like Mitch had said. And I was winning more than losing – much more. In fact, I even …” He breaks off. “I’m boring you, I’m sorry, Carole. Poker freaks are the biggest bores on earth. Get us on to cards, and five hours later, we’ll still be yakking away.”

  Boring me? Good God no. That’s the last word that I’d use. I’m shocked, admiring, humbled, and confused. So many emotions are churning through my mind, I hardly know what to say or think or feel. Victor seems a stranger. I’m awed by what he’s been through, what he’s seen and suffered; need time to take it in. And so many things he’s said have a bearing on my own life. All that stuff about losing, failing, feeling sorry for oneself, letting go revenge. I light another cigarette, try to sort my thoughts out. The silence feels uncomfortable.

  “Did you find another job?” I ask. I must say something, or he will assume I’m bored.

  “No. I tried. It wasn’t easy. My field was fairly specialised and I was already old in their terms. And when I went for interviews, people always seemed uneasy that I wasn’t married.” He laughs. “An aging fag, I guess they thought. All the same, I got close several times – in the final group, in fact – but each damn time it was a younger married man who got the job. I was feeling rather sore about it, until I realised I didn’t need to work. I could live off my two handouts and my winnings. I guess it was a question of attitude again. I could see myself as out of work and useless, or I could enjoy the fact I was free of any ties – which meant free to fly to places like Las Vegas, so I could play in tournaments, play a tougher game with pros. After that, it was Vegas every month. I never really planned to settle there, though I liked the climate, especially in the winter. As I said, it’s not a friendly town, but I was used to living a private sort of life, presenting just a face to people, concealing all the rest; so that wasn’t any problem. In Vegas, you’re accepted as you are, no questions asked. A lot of guys end up there who have things to hide, or want to start new lives.”

  He rubs his chin, reflecting. “I had a real good start myself, a run of wins, soon found my niche in a couple of casinos where they knew me as just ‘Vic’ – no past, no state, no surname. That suited me just fine. But I was getting tired of all the travelling – crowded planes, delays at airports. It seemed more sensible to buy a place, try my luck here as a native. I a
lready knew this neck of the woods. I used to hire a car and drive out on weekends – explore the desert and the mountains. One day, I stopped to take a hike, admire the sunset, and I came across a house for sale – this house. Twelve weeks later, I’d sold up in New York and moved in here. So …” he shrugs. “Now you know my story.”

  A pretty bloody lonely one, I think, as I ease my aching legs, stretch them into life again. Victor’s lost everything, not just a normal healthy body, but love, marriage, the chance of children, a proper family home. And he’s still not bitter, not furious like I’d be.

  “And you … never met another girl?” I ask him.

  He grins. “Dozens. But I didn’t fall in love again until just this last December.”

  I snap a match in two. “In love?”

  He picks up my blue dress, which has lain forgotten on the floor, smooths it out, handling it as gently as if it were precious antique lace. “Carole, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I fell in love with you the very first moment I saw you standing on that sidewalk, soaked to the skin with your wet hair dripping into those furious blue eyes and …” He’s talking to the dress, mumbling, nervous, yet incredibly intense.

  “In love?” I say again. I need to play for time. I’m stunned. I suppose I guessed it really, but to have him spell it out, declare it formally, when I’ve still not recovered from the first shock.

  “I vowed I’d never tell you. It wasn’t fair. I’m twenty-one years older. No – twenty-four. Jeez! That sounds a whole lot worse. I’ve been worrying all this time about a twenty-one-year age gap, and now you’ve made it more.”

  “D’you want me to be twenty-one again?” I feel much older, more than twenty-one. So much has happened in this last half hour – a whole war, twenty skin grafts, fifty-eight thousand deaths.

  “No.” He grins. “Forty-two’s still double that. Even if you shot right up to twenty-five, I’d still be much too old for you, as well as being …” He stops, embarrassed, searches for the word.

  “Scarred,” I tell him silently. “Disfigured.”

  “Well – not exactly Mr Universe. I just hoped we could be friends. Except it wasn’t simply friendship I was feeling. Christ, no! In fact, it was only because of you I went to that damned brothel. I guess you must have stirred up all my hormones.” He give a sheepish laugh.

  “You mean, you’ve never been before – not to other ones? Not in all those years?”

  “Never. Not even in Vietnam, where there were hundreds of girls available, and half the bars were brothels.”

  “Loyal to Laura, I suppose?” I try to keep the resentment from my voice.

  “Well, she was only just a kid, Carole, and always seemed so … trusting. And she wrote me every goddamned day out there. So,” he grins, “I managed to resist. Not that it was easy. This may shock you, Carole, but war’s a kind of turn-on. I guess it’s the adrenalin which gives GIs the hots. The night before you’re going into combat, all you want to do is screw your brains out. Otherwise, you just lie there on your own, shit-scared and keyed-up both at once, so it’s impossible to sleep. And after it’s all over, it’s like you’re extra horny just to celebrate the fact you’re still alive, haven’t lost your vital bits and pieces. You’ve got to try them out, to prove you can still function.”

  He glances at me, as if he’s afraid he’s gone too far. “All the same, I’m glad now I said no. I saw my pals buying girls with dollars, or softening them up with Lucky Strikes and bars of soap. It all seemed so damned casual – just throw your money down, do your stuff, wham-bam, then saunter out. It caught up with them later. I’ve heard guys say they couldn’t handle women once they’d left the military – not emotionally – couldn’t relate or feel, couldn’t give themselves.”

  I say nothing. That’s hardly news to me. At the Silver Palm, we’re just objects to be bought. It may be stupid, or even hypocritical, but I’m still upset that Victor ever went there. He seems to read my thoughts, or perhaps he’s just defensive at my silence. Anyway, he starts explaining.

  “Listen, Carole darling, I only went this time because I was so upset about the fact that I’d lost you, so turned on when I thought of you … Oh, I knew you’d never look at me, not in that way, but so long as you were with me, I felt the greatest luckiest guy in all of Vegas.”

  “But it was only two days, Victor.” I try to haul them back, re-examine them. I can’t. The Victor I knew then was not the same – not scarred, not a gunner, not a bloody hero.

  “No. Two centuries. Except time went backwards then. I was twenty-one again, with thick brown hair and a bushy beard and not a mark on my lithe body. You mean to say you didn’t even notice?” This time it’s a real laugh. I don’t join in; I’m still too overwhelmed.

  “I felt just the same last night, when you were lying on the carpet in my arms. Though that wasn’t meant to happen. I only took you home to tell you the whole story. I felt it wasn’t fair to go on hiding things, and I couldn’t broach the subject in a public restaurant with waiters breathing down our necks. It would be easier at home, I thought, more private and relaxed. Except it wasn’t easy – impossible, in fact. Once I’d got you home, I longed to keep you there, not frighten you away with ugly stories. Losing you seemed worse than anything, worse even than the scars themselves. Then, once we’d had the meal, and wine, and we were stretched out on that carpet, the scars just disappeared. You’d healed me, Carole, and I was a normal healthy guy again, round about your own age and horny as all hell, who was wild to … to …”

  “Screw me?” I suggest.

  “The word’s not good enough. Love you. Make love to you. Christ Almighty, Carole, you just can’t understand how much I wanted that. I lay awake all night, feeling furious and bitter – all the things I thought I’d licked – and old again, old and grey and finished because you’d gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “In my mind you had. I’d told you in my mind, you see, and what else could you do but go? And if I didn’t tell you, well, how could we continue avoiding one another, sleeping separately? As it was, I had to almost tie myself to the bed-posts to stop me barging into your room.”

  And I thought he was asleep, dismissed him as a wimp. I stub my cigarette out. The room smells smoky: acrid smoke from scorching flesh, burning villages. I sit in silence, scared of my own power; power to heal him – or blow his life to bits a second time. Being loved feels almost like a burden, a responsibility which I’m not sure I can handle.

  He gets up from the bed, offers me both hands, scoops me from the floor. “You deserve a medal for endurance, darling. I don’t think I’ve ever talked so long before, and I’ve certainly never seen you sit so still. This must be a record. You’re so full of energy – I love it. Even your face is always on the move. You’ve got so many expressions, do you know that? And you’re so … so involved with everything. If I buy you chocolates, the whole of you lights up; if you’re mad, you’re really roaring mad. You should have been an actress, a star. You are a star. And I’m your fan. I love everything about you, Carole – your real cute English accent, the way you eat your strawberries – two tiny bites, as if you’re scared they might bite back – then gulp, just like my lionfish; the way you love all food, never leave a morsel; the kind of crazy way you laugh, your kindness to Norah, your …”

  “Kindness?” As far as I recall, I spent most of the time avoiding or resenting her.

  “Yeah. That touched me. You’re a real good person, darling. I mean, the fact you came back now, had the guts to do that when …”

  I pull away. He’s going far too far too fast, assumes I’ve accepted him, that the scarring doesn’t matter. It does. It does. Okay, he loves me, but that doesn’t mean everything’s just fine. Yet how can I reject him like Laura and that nurse did, be another no-go in his life? He is a hero, brave and loyal and incredibly accepting. I’m still bitter about Reuben and my father’s death and a host of other things, while he’s moved beyond that; builds gardens, raises orchids, even
charms the desert; can cry for the bitch who ditched him when I’d be glad she died. I love him for all that, and it isn’t simply pity. He’s far too good for pity. The problem is he thinks I’m good as well, doesn’t realise what I’m thinking underneath, or understand the rotten selfish reasons why I slunk back here at all. It was more to do with Suzie than with him, a desire to do her down; plus abject craven fears about losing my job, alienating Carl. Yet he still thinks I’m wonderful, big-hearted.

  He strides over to the window, pulls the curtains back. We both blink against the brilliant desert light.

  “Carole, you’re hurt. I didn’t realise.”

  “Hurt?”

  “Your knee. And both your feet are bleeding. Gee, I’m sorry, honey. I’ve been rambling on for hours, while you’re shivering in those damp pyjamas. You’d better take ’em off. I’ll fetch some antiseptic.”

  I’m the child again, the little girl who must be fussed and spoiled and petted. I can hear him in the bathroom, opening cupboards, running water in the basin. If I play the child’s rôle, let him bathe my knee, that means removing my pyjama bottoms. Then I’m a woman, with a woman’s body, a body which he loves, which turns him on. Already he’s admiring it, standing at the door while I stretch and yawn, finger-comb my hair.

  “Look, Victor, I think I’ll have that bath now. It’ll warm me up and clean my grazes at the same time. Don’t worry” – I force a laugh – “I promise not to touch the shower this time. And why don’t you fix breakfast while I’m in the bath? I’m starving now, aren’t you?” Toasting muffins will keep him busy, keep him off. I still need far more time, time to sort out what I feel, process his last twenty years.

  The bathroom floor is damp still, though Victor’s mopped the worst up; left me antiseptic, soothing creams. Can you love a guy because he’s more concerned about your footling little grazes than the fact that half his body’s scarred? I help myself to bath salts, flinging in several generous handfuls till the water turns a murky green; then strip off my pyjamas and climb in. It’s heaven. I didn’t realise how stiff and tired and achey I was feeling. The hot water lulls my body, but my mind is still racing round in circles. Victor’s life – the hell of it, the waste, yet the way he’s battled on, outlawed all self-pity.