Checker and the Derailleurs

by Lionel Shriver

  “Yeah!” said Check. “Syria played it for me, and I brought it in for the band. We couldn’t figure why it isn’t still around, but nobody—”

  “One of the things that’s interesting about that opera, Irv”—Eaton cut Check off calmly—“is the job it does on the story. In Superstar Jesus is pretty much an asshole. Not very realistic; pompous. And Judas is the good guy. Judas just ends up doing what he’s supposed to. Jesus is asking for it. He does a lot of stupid shit and he invites it, wants it, even, because martyrdom, that whole cross thing, it’s the most pompous scene he could ever hope to pull off, right? Judas, well, he does the guy a favor. He’s brave, even. In the end it turns out he’s been suckered, of course, that he’s the fall guy. But I always liked that opera, with Judas as the hero. And Murray Head, best vocals on the record.”

  “What’s the buzz?” Caldwell crooned in the background, and pretty soon they were all singing album sides of Superstar, until they ran out of lyrics they remembered. Eaton made a good Caiaphas, and Rachel a fine Mary Magdalene, though her “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” was, Checker thought, overly pointed.

  As the rest tried to remember the Gethsemane scene, Caldwell stretched out on the quilt Check had brought and suddenly caught himself having a good time. But he didn’t want one more memory to relive, to miss. It would suit him fine to remember the Last Supper as just awful. He would get his wish.

  “Irving,” said Eaton, curling the name around his tongue, “the band’s been talking demos again.”

  Bip, a hammer on the knee. Reliably, Checker rose to the occasion. “Eat, not now.”

  “When, then?”

  “Never. We’ve been over this a million times. And everything’s been so screwed up lately. Let it ride.”

  “I thought the whole idea in not going for it was that playing in Plato’s was so bloody fantastic, Irv. But the band being testy, why not move on?”

  Checker was plagued by the feeling that they weren’t talking about what they were talking about, and wanted out. “I pass,” he said tersely.

  “Why are you so entranced with failure?”

  “I’m not!”

  “Your insistence on being nothing. You bear down on it—”

  “You fail when you set out to do something and you don’t do it—”

  “And you set out to be a musician—”

  “I’m a drummer. I drum. I succeed in drumming.”

  “Then since you’ve already arrived, Secretti, if someone walked up to you tomorrow and asked you to sign with a record company, say, handed you the pen, would you turn them down?”

  The entire band leaned forward a good fifteen degrees.

  “Yes,” said Checker, “I would,” but he’d hesitated and felt funny and he wondered.

  “All right, Secretti. You like Plato’s so much, you can have it to yourself, then. J.K. and Sweets and I are forming our own band. It’s called Taxi, and we aim to do some recording and hit some decent clubs. We want something better.”

  Checker looked around the band, dazed. The park infused with lacking. He felt the tingle ebb from the air. The string of lights on the far side of the bridge was still dark. All the boys by the river looked bored and needed showers. One more night in Astoria Park. We want something better. It was heresy.

  Checker later named the problem the Poison Carrot: whenever you define what you want as what you haven’t got, you will never get what you want, since then you would have it and it would no longer be what you want, by definition. A “better” life is always an increment away. If you have decided your happiness will not really begin until you take, not the step you are taking, but the one after that, then you are set indefinitely on a treadmill from which only death, not love or money or fame, can save you.

  “So,” said Checker, feeling how completely he couldn’t help them, “The Derailleurs are—derailed, then.”

  “But why should you need The Derailleurs, Irving? When you’re so terrific by yourself?”

  “I need you,” Check whispered.

  “Actually,” said Eaton, “I believe that. Because you’ve got to surround yourself with people who will keep telling you how wonderful you are—”

  “Because he is wonderful, slime mold,” interrupted Rahim.

  “But Mr. Wonderful won’t try to record because it’s a big bad world out there,” Eaton barreled on. “There could possibly be a single recording company president who doesn’t drop his flannels when he hears ‘Walkmans Make Creepy Squealy Sounds’ for the first time. No, you’ve got to play it safe and stay with your reliable groupies, who will be careful not to look too good beside you—”

  “Hear how he say, Sheckair? I try tell you, now you see what he is—”

  “For once you might see what he is,” Eaton addressed Rahim. “Though I notice you’re the one member of this band who’s had the good sense not to challenge the poet laureate here. Maybe you know better than to ask for a little admiration yourself. The rest of us gave the guy too much credit.” He turned back to Checker. “Everything’s ‘screwed up’ now, is it? Well, it’s about time. You use people, Secretti—”

  “One word, Sheckair, I turn his face into pizza.”

  “No,” Checker mumbled. “I want to hear this.”

  “When mad dog is in yard, you don open gate—!”

  “Shut up,” Checker told Rahim with surprising sharpness. “Let him finish.”

  As Rahim retreated from the quilt, hugging himself, Eaton proceeded uninterrupted. “See, that kid should be on the payroll! Know how much overtime each one of these guys clocks talking up your rep all over Astoria? And what do you do in return? Howard writes a song, you turn it into a joke. Sweets writes a song, it’s too serious. Rachel asks you for a little encouragement or a little honesty, and gets neither. And tonight, you play their work, and they may not notice, but I can hear it, Secretti. I’m a drummer, too—I can spot sabotage in the back of the stage. Up against someone else’s lyrics the rhythm just falls apart. Isn’t that mysterious?

  “Oh, but that’s right. You’re so chipper, that’s what they get out of it. They get to watch you chirrup around the park and pitter-pat on drink glasses. Maybe if they stick around long enough, you’ll toss them a tab of whatever you’re on.

  “Well, relax, Tinker Bell, you can let up now. We’re closing down your run. It’s quite a routine you’ve got going, but it’s bogus, isn’t it? Even worse, it’s fucking boring, man. We don’t even care if it’s real anymore, that’s your problem. But we’re bored to death with watching the same show: Oh, this is so beautiful! This bread is so tasty! That little clinking sound by the river is so, so pretty to hear! A guy could suffocate from all that sweetness; we’re too old for Mr. Rogers, understand?

  “And most of all, can your loser philosophy. Just because you’re a coward, don’t keep these musicians from flexing their muscles in Manhattan. And spare us your diatribes about loyalty. Oh, I’m sure you believe in loyalty, all right—other people’s loyalty to you. You’re a petty tyrant, Secretti, one more fading neighborhood idol afraid to leave his adoring corner crowd because somewhere else he might not look like such a big man. Happens all the time in every high school in this country, and it’s pathetic. Wake up and grow up. Have a real relationship with somebody for once, because right now you don’t want friends, you want pets. Well, we’re snipping the leash, Jack. We’ve got lives of our own.”

  Eaton was breathing hard. Howard had cleared his entire lower stomach of dead skin. Checker had been staring at the little section of bridge lights that wouldn’t go on. Funny how disturbing that was. Funny.

  Slowly Check turned his gaze back to the band. They were frozen, as if posing for a photograph; the picture stiffened and flattened before him. Is this what happens to you, Sweets? Is this nostalgia?

  Checker reached for Zefal, nudging the kickstand, bu-bong, pushed off down the walkway, and was gone.

  20 / Into White

  “You take it back.”

  Eato
n sighed. “Why bother to say all that only to take it back again? I went to a certain amount of trouble.”

  “You take it back or I do things to your sister that in this country you don even have names for.”

  “Rescuing the hapless girl, I have no sister. I must say, I’ve found it ironic for a long time that you’re Checkie’s most faithful lapdog. It’s hilarious when you think about it.” Eaton leaned back, feeling pleasantly exercised.

  “Why so funny, garbage scow?”

  “So can I lie in your fire, / Let the furnace shoot higher? He’s lain in his share of fire, you can bet. And with your wife.”

  Rahim made a lunge for Eaton, but J.K. and Caldwell caught him by each arm.

  “You got any evidence, Strike?” asked J.K. “’Sides poetry?”

  “Come on! She walks in the room and he melts!”

  “Maybe,” said Caldwell. “But even Check might have a hard time pulling in the Fire Queen. He thinks he’s hot stuff with the high-school seniors at Plato’s, but Pyro’s the genuine article.”

  “Point is, man, here you don’t go round sayin some dude bangin your wife without info you go to court on. You may got your problem with Check, but that where I draw the line.”

  “I’m the only one who has problems with Check, of course. The rest of you are all in love?”

  “Check got his weak point, but I don’t want to rip his guts out.”

  “Yeah,” said Caldwell slowly. “Maybe you went too far, Eat. You really trashed the guy.”

  Eaton looked at the two of them in disgust. “You remember what you said yesterday, J.K.? ‘Loser,’ that was your word. Yours was ‘guru,’ Sweets, sorry I failed to get that in for you. And, Howard, that was your theory about how he’s a fake, right? Man, that whole thing was just stringing together everything you’ve all said about Check for months now.”

  “Well,” said Howard, squirming, “maybe it’s different to say them to his face.”

  “It’s braver,” Eaton shot back. “Hell, I do you people a favor, and all I get is flak.”

  “I think we should go find him,” said Rachel. “You, too, Eaton. You two should talk, try to straighten this out.”

  Eaton was about to mock her nicey-pudding optimism, but instead found himself shrugging in cool concession. He didn’t want them to leave him behind.

  “Where do you think he’d go?” asked Caldwell.

  “Home? Plato’s? The Triborough. Vesuvius.”

  Good guesses; wrong order.

  Checker propped Zefal in the alley and threw the Kryptonite around her wheel. He leaned his body fully against the hot metal door, his chest, his cheek, his instep.

  Things happened and you went where it was warm. He stood in the doorway and watched the pendulum swing of her pipe, the red-orange glow of the bones, the furnace wide open, and Syria sober, quiet this time—there were no words in her face. The rib cage breathed in her hands.

  She looked at him and wasn’t startled and he was glad because he wanted everything smooth now. He couldn’t see her eyes for the dark glasses, but something changed around her mouth and her face did have words; Checker found himself wondering what he looked like. He must have appeared different because she did. Seriousness-concern-anger. Always that last one.

  She turned back to her work and he understood and was grateful she cared about things, yes, even things, enough to finish them and keep the heat even and gently, gently crack the amazing rib cage (blue, he remembered, the tank was ice blue) onto the kaolin blanket in the lehr. He appreciated care. He would like some.

  This time she didn’t smash the punty on the concrete to clean the end or send it hurtling with a clang to its barrel, but softly set it against the wall. She closed the furnace door, and though the roar was quieter, he was glad for the remaining sound, alto, like all the lullabies his mother had never sung him.

  She walked forward and waited and then said, “What.”

  “They—” It was perfect to make rib cages out of glass, because that’s what they were; his own was breaking.

  He couldn’t talk. Casually, Syria went and sat on the bench, leaned her back against the pole, put her feet up. She rested her arms on her knees, her hands patiently draped. She looked at him. He faced the furnace. He didn’t want her to see him cry. He wasn’t exactly ashamed, but felt disinclined to put any emotion (quite a routine you’ve got going) on parade.

  Finding no tissues nearby, he wiped his nose on a forest-green work shirt. Finished, he held it with both hands. He loved that color. He loved that smell. He loved—We’re bored to death…A guy could suffocate from all that sweetness.

  Checker sat next to her feet, his own tucked under the bench, with the toes curled inside his tennis shoes. His spine curved and shoulders rounded, Checker bundled the work shirt to his stomach, wishing he weighed more. Those big people, he could see their point. Layers and layers and just a regular-sized person inside, laughing. I’ve hidden in here and you can’t get me. Just try.

  Syria nudged his thigh with her boot, once. Checker straightened up and looked at her. She couldn’t help him if he didn’t tell her what happened. So he told her everything, every word he could remember, which was every word. He delivered the story in a monotone, steady, reasonable: Cronkite.

  “Well,” said Syria calmly when he was finished, “you are pretty selfish, aren’t you? You pursue your own pleasure more relentlessly than anyone I’ve ever met. Besides, you don’t really deserve their admiration, do you? You’re not what they think at all. On top of everything, you’re a liar. A selfish liar.”

  She rose from the bench with a trace of weariness as if having just dispensed with one more job to do on an evening when she really could have called it quits an hour before. She rubbed the creases from her jeans and stood before him, with Checker completely curled over her shirt now and wanting to die.

  “Now, how does that make you feel?” she inquired nicely.

  Checker made a sound like ungh, his hands wrapped around his fragile chest, staring into his knees.

  “Ungh? Like that?” She leaned down and took his T-shirt in her fist and twisted. “Why doesn’t it make you angry?”

  Checker was in the clutch of something beyond him, something that would take care of him all right, but not the way he expected.

  “Get up! I said get up!” She pulled him from the bench by his T-shirt and slammed him up against the pole. “Listen. When Eaton Striker called you a ‘petty tyrant,’ when he called you ‘Mr. Rogers’ and ‘Tinker Bell,’ what did you do?”

  “I—looked at the bridge.”

  “You looked at the bridge? My God, Checko, you didn’t even have an argument!”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  Syria hauled her hand back and slapped him full force across the face. His ears singing, he stared as she stood with knees slightly bent, her hands forward, waiting. “That,” she growled. “That.”

  Checker eased away from the pole and stood with readiness, though he wasn’t sure for what.

  She hit him again. He was amazed at the wallop she could deliver for a woman. He took a step forward, she a step back. “Powder puff,” she taunted. As Checker advanced she turned over an entire barrel of cullet in his way. “Tinker Bell?” She kicked over another barrel; its punties clanged on the cement. “More like Benji. Or those helpless decoupage doggies with the big brown eyes.” He backed her up toward the furnace, the glass in his chest warming nearer the heat. His shoulders were broad. He felt a muscle in his stomach contract discreetly for each character she threw at him: Gentle Ben, Doris Day, the June Taylor Dancers. She seized a punty, keeping him at bay. “Because you’ll believe anything. I could call you small or bossy or lazy and poof! that’s what you’d be. Striker is right, you’re a coward and a fraud. But he overestimates you. He thinks he’s tumbled Goliath when he’s really popped the Jolly Green Giant. King of the Vegetables. You just assume people say things like public-service messages, don’t you? Here, this is something you sh
ould know. Think he was just being helpful? Because you need the short course in human motivation most people pass when they’re three. Don’t tell me—you were raised by Chinese—you had your brain bound.”

  The corners of her mouth were twitching. Checker’s eyes glistened in the heat. He picked up a punty from the floor and knocked it lightly against hers, parrying. In the front of the furnace they dueled, two-handed. It began carefully, clang, pause, clang, another insult (“You carry spiders out and set them on the sidewalk instead of squishing them, don’t you?”), but soon the fencing stepped up, until Syria threw so much of her weight into her attack that the vibration traveled to his shoulders and knocked him across the floor. While he was down she threw the furnace door open, stuck the end of her punty into the glass, and gathered. She sauntered over to Checker on the concrete, the molten bulb pointing toward him and trailing a bright string behind it, like the tail of a comet; quickly the tail darkened and cracked into lengths behind her, with small snaps and pings.

  The glass glowed before him, a crystal ball. Over it sweat streaked her breastbone in olive runnels with muddy rims. Her hair was at a climax of peakedness, teased out, like Check himself. In the punty duel, the buttons of her shirt had come undone, and he could just see the sides of her breasts, heaving. It was the time in a swordfight where the hero has lost his weapon and things look bad. She put her foot on his chest; the boot was heavy. It was time for the hero to think of something. Checker could think of only one thing; he’d been thinking of it for six months or more.

  As he reached up for the rod Syria shouted, “No!” and it was partly her horror that made it easy to wrest the punty away from her. Though he’d grabbed as far up as he could reach, by the time he flung it to the other side of the room his hand was seared. But it was worth it. He’d thrown her off balance, and before she regained it, he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her down, and rolled over on her stomach.