by Aidan Truhen
Put this on me—here.
It is a one-inch square of white adhesive-backed plastic. She takes my hand and folds my arm around her body, brushing it down her stomach, then back around as she bends forward, tabletop. Index finger on the coccyx.
Here.
I do.
Now take off your clothes and turn around.
I step out of my clothes and she watches. I’m still bandaged and she tuts. Tuukka you asshole. I feel the scratch of the plastic down my spine, the brief pressure as it sticks. Her hands trace my balls, clasp and release. Maddening.
Don’t worry Price. I promise. Do you trust me?
No.
I don’t mean in theory. Of course not. I mean now. Here. In this room. Do you trust me?
Why should I?
Why didn’t you kill my dog?
Why didn’t I?
Because you knew that in one way or another we were coming here, to this point.
I wanted to recruit you.
She laughs. It’s the dirtiest sound I’ve ever heard in my life. Good. Recruit me. I need to be recruited. Really. Recruited. Again and again. And. Again. Recruit me until I can’t take it. Any. More.
She laughs again, then scrambles up the bed and finds a thin silver wire. Plug me in.
What?
Plug me in Price.
Is this experiment sex?
Oh believe me I know exactly how this works. So: do you trust me?
Yes.
I clip the wire to the white adhesive patch.
Turn around.
I do. I feel a tug as she closes the clip. Nothing more.
Step away Price. Good.
She does something with the case. I hear a whistle, a dynamo spinning.
Now. Touch me.
Will I die?
How much do you care?
She arches her back.
Not that much actually. I step forward and extend my hand.
I feel a fizz like being washed in Coca-Cola in a straw. Blue light arcs to her from the tips of my fingers and she gasps, then grins.
Yes Price.
Fuck you crazy bitch.
Yes. Move your hand.
I do. Lightning rolls up and down her stomach and she writhes.
Yes. Up.
The lightning traces her ribcage, her breasts. Up to her lips. She grins like a boxer.
Yeah. You gonna kiss me Price or you too chicken?
I lean down and feel it build in my mouth. The stubble on my chin stands on end.
From my mouth to hers: lightning. I can see her pupils go wide and then close at each flash. My lips are burning like I’ve been in the sun for a week.
Closer. Just your mouth. Now.
My lips on hers and the lightning goes and something else happens something like madness or magnetism or frenzy. I hear the whine again and I can’t stop. I’m drowning in her. I can’t breathe because it’s all the kiss and nothing else. She’s killing me.
We break apart.
Gotta be careful Price this stuff’ll kill ya. Do it again.
I shake my head and step back and she growls until I play both of my hands up and down her, two inches above her skin. Mouth and shoulders. Neck. All the way down.
Oh bastard. Bastard. Bastard yes. I will O. O. I will fucking. I will GET you for this Price. Fucking. Get. You come here right the fuck now come HERE.
She drives her hand into a spot dead in the middle of the bed, between her knees. I do as I’m told.
The doctor looks at me, lip between her teeth. Breathing hard. I’ve never seen anything scarier in my entire life. Nor more beautiful.
Fuck. I’m in love.
There will be pain, the doctor says. There will be pain and then—you will see. Trust me. Now. Slowly. Come here.
I do.
WHEN I WAKE I AM ALONE. My whole body feels like I fell asleep in a tanning bed. The mark on my hand is gone but there are other marks now that are not medical or scientific. My neck and shoulders are a map of her teeth. My back is raw.
I want to do it all again. Now.
But I’ve got places to be.
In the elevator on the way down I keep waiting for my hands to shake. But they don’t. I guess this whole thing doesn’t bode well for my relationship with my former lawyer but you know what they say: when God closes a door he opens an electrosexed unethical medical-experimenting international murder queen window.
I think about my asshole friend who took the stairs. It sucks but it is not like a yawning fall from a great height. It is just my asshole friend and he is dead. I say his name. His name was Peter and I disliked him sometimes. Mostly not. Huh.
Electroshock therapy. Go figure.
Time to be up and doing.
REMEMBER BILLY WHO WAS BIG and made a living putting tubes up buildings whilst ripped to the tits on the Pale Peruvian and then Fred went and killed him in a total gesture of disrespect to artisanal construction? Yeah that Billy. Well I need a big favour from his brother so it’s time to do a little pastoral care. That’s his brother Rex who does demolition likewise pepped on the Devil’s Dandruff which you know holy shit but whatever. I guess you can’t stop people from being people.
Ringadingaling.
Hey Rex it’s Jack Price man yeah. I am so sorry. Your brother was a great—no I don’t got—well maybe actually I have one or two bags somewhere—yeah I do as it—yeah as it happens yeah. Your brother was a great man Rex and—yeah I mean I know you gotta be feeling the bite of the world a little without that you got some of the Pale Peruvian to tide you over during this difficult time yeah. I will bring it Rex. Bring it personally. Well no actually it won’t be me but you’ll know it’s from me because right exactly. But I mean Billy man I am so sorry. I haven’t been to see the guys at Without Friction. Right I just can’t because I can’t because—honestly because also too what the fuck man how do you express your deep and abiding grief to a guy got his balls in a bowl of warm wax? Yes Rex I will just bike it the fuck over man no screwing around today yeah listen there’s one thing could I just ask you? Yeah no I’ll give you details later just tell me again about the views from your rooftop at the Triangle. I hear they’re like amazing? I got this special someone I really want to impress man and I think yeah you got me. Okay man thank you look out for the bike bye.
Look at me makin’ plans like a kid.
TAKE A MOMENT MAN. Take a moment and stand on the harbour front and look past the great ships that carry cargos of life to places you cannot imagine with smells and sounds that at the simplest level of humanity you have not tasted and that entail a perception of the world of colour of existence that is not like your own. Smell the burning hydrocarbons and recognise paleolithic ghosts in the engines of those great machines and pain and slavery under an industry that exists to rip the earth’s blood from the ground. Smell the water and know that dry land is rare on this planet. Look up at the endless sky and know that planets are rare in the universe vastly separate from one another and walled off by laws no criminal can break not even Einstein and beyond that our universe is just a fucking bubble in a foam of universes. Even when there is so much appalling shit going on, take that moment. This is your life and it is amazing. Even when everything is all fucked up you are a bundle of cells and electricity in a sack that walks and talks and you experience in a way that the raw matter around you which is already the ejaculate of suns cannot and that is stupendous man it is—
Jesus fuck doctor what in the fuck did you do to my brain?
PORTSIDE COFFEE THICK LIKE SUMP OIL. Tastes about the same: slum beans discarded by coffee kings in Lima and Nairobi, mis-picked too young from the tree, sold cheap and baked hard in industrial ovens so it gets a false adulthood before it dies. Ain’t that the fucking state of the world? Red plastic tabletop with a metal rim and it’
s the shift change I can hear the whistle. Shift change. What’s Fred doing I wonder? Karenina’s bringing him my money now. My ghost money ripped from Poltergeist and Panama and Grand Cayman. Still doesn’t quite get it: if I need something I can steal it. There’s a hundred Driskols out there. Global bastardry is in oversupply. Don’t need more than I have in my pocket to be a problem. Don’t need anything at all to disappear. It’s a big world Karenina and I’m not you. I got no overheads I’m an idea not a corporation. If we’re talking reputation here I’ve already won. I’m the guy who took out three of the Seven Demons. I’m the man shot Johnny Cubano with a severed head. I know you’re not gonna give up but you got to realise I broke your toys.
Karenina, Tuukka, Fred, and then there’s the doctor and who the fuck knows what she’s up to but she’s playing her own game now.
Where’s Sarah? Does Fred really have her like the doctor said or is she in the wind?
Well yeah I may have slightly forgotten about her during the amazing sex with a medico-criminal nutjob and so on but I got to ask if she’s okay. Just because she puts me on a level with street gum—which you know I mean that is fair by her lights right—that does not entail I got no regard for her. In the end it’s Sarah. I care about her as much as I care about anyone.
We’re coming to the end now. Coming to it. Things are happening. All the balls are in the air. All the balls except mine which are still a little bit electrified thank you for asking.
Mist on the inside of the window. Whistle blowing for shift change. Bad coffee.
And now I’m not alone at my table.
MAN GOT A FACE LIKE A FIRST SKETCH. All the features are there and in the right place but they’re not what you’d call delicate. Steel brush hair like in a Schwarzenegger movie from the 80s from the Commando period. Don’t look entirely approving I have to say not like he’s one hundred per cent on board with my charm and my elective lifestyle at all. More like he has a few choice things in mind to say and figures to say them in a fair but emphatic way. Against that he’s got a tiny little fucking coffee like in a thimble and he elevators it between thumb and finger like his firstborn and sniffs at it then downs it and sighs and says, which I got to agree with:
That is disappointing.
He’s got a voice like the Swedish Chef if the Swedish Chef had had his throat cut one time by murder clowns. I say:
Yeah it’s not great.
Mr. Bates would you please go and oversee the next batch? There is some Civet in my case.
Yes Mr. Friday.
Mr. Bates?
Mr. Friday?
Please purge the machine thoroughly with clean water. So you would be Jonathan Morgenstern Price.
Mr. Bates is a small guy but not a guy I would instinctively send for coffee. These two are friends not colleagues but that does not mean they are not also professionals with relevant skills. I do not ask how they found me. I say: And you would be Mr. Friday.
Really Morgenstern?
Yes.
I have a brother-in-law in Oslo with that name.
I wonder if we’re related.
Genetically speaking we are all close family I suppose.
You want to introduce me to your group?
Yes of course. You have heard me refer to Mr. Bates. Then the wide fellow there is Mr. Overlook. The two persons just keeping an eye on the door are Ms. Quint and Mr. Dory.
I look around. Overlook is Friday’s lateral twin. Quint is a narrow old bird with that eternal Nordic thing going on—she could be fifty or eighty. She looks like Didi Fraser if Didi had lived without make-up and eaten raw bear from the moment she gave up the nipple. She’s a reasonably disturbing sort of person in the first place but for emphasis and to avoid the possibility of being mistaken for a tourist she is carrying over one shoulder an open aluminium gaffing hook of the sort used by fishermen to impale the brains of troublesome sharks. It is quite a statement and not really in tune with this year’s pastel woodland colours but it certainly has its own energy. Then there’s Dory. Dory has a lot of hair. He’s basically a really disturbing version of those little trolls that have giant gaping assholes into which schoolkids are for some reason encouraged to insert pencils like that’s not gonna provoke some seriously weird psychosexual architecture.
I say: Oh yeah that’s very clever. I get it.
I’m glad.
Bates like motel Overlook like hotel Friday like the thirteenth Quint like Jaws and Dory like in Finding Nemo.
You don’t see an issue with Dory’s inclusion in that list Mr. Price?
Fuck no are you kidding me? Two thousand children get eaten with their mother in the first scene and then their father who has appalling PTSD goes looking for the last kid he has left in a trek through this cannibalistic wilderness in the company of a dementia-suffering love interest and everyone laughs at them for ninety minutes. It is the darkest most fucked up thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
Mr. Dory spreads his hands like: I fucking told you so.
Mr. Friday says: Mr. Dory I am not sure that being in the same mental and emotional perceptual space as Mr. Price is a victory of any kind.
So what can I do for you good people?
We actually are good people Mr. Price.
Never said otherwise.
Well you know that it’s important we clarify this matter because you are accustomed to dealing with really pretty bad people.
Yup that is true.
And of course you are a bad person also yourself.
Yeah I guess. No yeah I definitely am. I kinda wish I wasn’t sometimes but I guess everyone’s the morally conflicted hero of their own narrative am I right?
No, Mr. Price you believe that because your cinematic lexicon is limited to unambiguous pap produced in Hollywood whereas in our part of the world there is a rich tradition of interiority and self-examination in film which creates a far more healthy understanding of identity.
Yeah okay that’s…well I feel that is not why you came to see me.
This is true. In fact I personally did not come to see you at all.
No?
No.
I’m a little used to being the centre of attention right now so that’s kind of a relief.
In fact my only purpose in being here is to provide emotional support to Ms. Quint who has recently suffered a family tragedy.
I’m very sorry to hear that.
Yes. Ms. Quint does not speak English. That is the other reason I am here. I will tell her you are sorry but I doubt very much that she will believe you. She is a little cynical about your actions in this context Mr. Price.
But she’s not here for me.
No. She is not. You are very much just her pathway to the discussion she wishes to have. Her door into this world.
That suits me fine I’m basically in the first instance a facilitator that’s my absolute thing I would be delighted to assist in any way.
In fact that is untrue you are a very particular kind of narcissistic high-functioning sociopath. I would love to scan your brain during decision making under pressure it would be a great benefit to the study of abnormal cognitive process. Would you consent to this?
I know someone who’d really love to do that on your behalf although in fact she does not concur with your assessment regarding my being a nutbar.
You are referring to the doctor Mr. Price. I believe one must consider her perspective on horrible criminal insanity as unique albeit also uniquely informed.
Plus also we recently made it so she is not objective not like scientifically.
I do not think that I would accept data that had passed through her hands in any case. I am sure it would be completely accurate but there are lines.
So I hear.
Mr. Price I have known Ms. Quint for all of my life. We grew up together in th
e same town and I knew her husband before he returned to his place of birth to die. I am godfather to her son.
You’re real close.
We are indeed although I was not godfather to her other child as my own wife was at that time pregnant and we did not wish to create an ambiguous context for our family. If I had been perhaps certain things would now be different and we would not be having this conversation.
What line of work are you in Mr. Friday?
I am an advocate of individual rights Mr. Price. I am an entrepreneur of deeply private things.
Ms. Quint comes over to the table and sits down. Mr. Bates brings four short coffees. They’re too hot to drink so we sit there and look at them. Ms. Quint takes from her left pocket a small chemical photograph of a pretty European Japanese girl holding a graduation scroll. For a moment I don’t recognise her without my number cut into her forehead but then I do: LuciferousYesterGirl.
Mr. Friday says: I am Poltergeist Mr. Price. We all are.
OH KARENINA. I knew in some form there would be blowback. I knew if you got really pissed off you would overstep and someone would come. I knew you’d get into it with Poltergeist because it was the wall between me and you. But I figured you’d be at least a little bit careful.
I figured it would be the mob who got pissed. One of the mobs. Or maybe even the FSB or some international shit.
Because here is the thing: Poltergeist is a tool. It is neutral. It exists and continues to exist because it is willed by all sorts of people around the world on all sides of politics and law. It is where whistle-blowers hide from companies and companies hide from taxmen and politicians hide from newspapers and journalists hide from dictators. It is where spies go dark and where Al Capone leaves his bookkeeping. It is infrastructure. You do not simply walk into Mordor and switch off the aircon.
But Karenina, Jesus. I figured even hating me and full of rage you’d be circumspect enough. I figured you’d make sure who you were cutting on.
Oh honey I really thought. I figured to give you trouble to distract you, take down Fred and then we’d see. But you went all the way. You could have grabbed someone else. Could have left her alive. Could have left the body unsigned. If all you’d done was blow up hardware this would be a different thing. A sternly worded note.
