Shedding Skin

by Robert Ward

  But now, with Lily here, and with her breasts rising and dropping as she tells me about her artwork, I don’t know.

  “ ‘n’ my daddy sent me out here to paint and do my sculptures, you know, and it’s been great. I mean, with the mountains, and the sky, and everybody looks so healthy and friendly; why, it’s jes the perfect place to work.”

  I don’t want to look at those eyes. I drop my head, run my hand through my hair and see her legs. Goddess. My Queen from the Town of Thatched Rooves. I hate myself for weakness.

  “Yeah,” I say. “This place is like … ah, well, it’s like a … man, what it is, is like a doorway. You know, your own doorway, you dig, and you’ve entered the garden …”

  And she is staring into my eyes as I talk, and long-haired kids are spacing by, right behind us with huge canvases, and the mountains are looming up like gods behind us, and you are not Bobby Ward at all, but a hip hustler, so don’t you weaken to this bourgeois bitch and her Southern drawl.

  “You have made the leap,” I am saying, “the leap from what is passed off as reality down there in Atlanta, and now you should know what you are doing out here is only the beginning of major changes in your head, because …”

  Now she is squeezing my hand. My God almighty, is it this easy? I don’t know what I am saying, pure grass improvisation, but there is no doubt about it, she is squeezing my hand.

  The Phantom and I are riding in a jeep down the highway leading out of Aspen. He is driving, and next to him is this little black-haired chick named Gloria. She’s from New York, and she goes to Bryn Mawr, and Phantom is laying it on her, riff after riff, about his trip around the world.

  “Yeah,” he is saying. “There is this place called Tasmania, you dig, Gloria? And they are well aware of spiritual things, very into it, because it’s there that I ran into the Theory of Duplication, which is undoubtedly a psychic aid to the spiritual world.”

  “Yeah,” she says, smiling and showing her sharp little teeth.

  “And you see,” says Phantom, standing up in the front seat, spreading his arms toward the sinking sun, “you see, what it is, is that they realize the death inherent in all material goods and private property, so they have built the ‘little ones.’ “

  And as we turn in toward a grove of aspen trees that are leaning gently in the wind, Phantom grows quiet, until Gloria has to break her cool and ask him what the “little ones” are.

  “You aren’t hip to them? Listen. They are small statues of everyday things. Like telephones, cars, houses. Little scale-model statues, you dig? And the people of Tasmania place these statues next to the real things and leave them there. Do you dig it?”

  Gloria nods her little head furiously, and her hard black eyes are softening. I sit in the back, amazed at the hypnosis.

  “So when a guy gets a car in Tasmania, he also gets a little statue of the car with it, and he places them side by side in his straw garage, you see, and so every morning when he’s leaving for work, he sees not only the car but the little statue. Now don’t you dig it?”

  The jeep is pulling up a long, narrow road now, and the mountains are surrounding us, and down below is a five-hundred-foot cliff, and I know that if Phantom requested it, Gloria would throw herself against the rocks.

  “But I don’t get it,” she is saying, as she reaches into her workshirt pocket to get another joint.

  Phantom glares at her, cruelly, no quarter given, and Gloria drops her eyes. Then Phantom’s own eyes twinkle, and his huge rubber mouth stretches into a grin. The sun bounces off his yellow, jaggy teeth.

  “You aren’t hip to this? They never covered this in anthropology at Bryn Mawr?”

  She can say nothing. I see it in her head. The revisions, the self-doubt, the terror of not being on top of the situation. What would Bryn Mawr do? How about Ashley Montagu?

  “So there are these little statues, and every Saturday of every week, the townsfolk bring these statues to the village square and burn them. There’s a huge bonfire, and they chant, like this: O-lay-o-lay-taz-gan-mee-ka-o-lay-o-lay-taz-gan-mee-kay—which translated means: ‘The life of the spirit is the life of creation. What have we but our heart? Death and no permanence in all physical things. Life in the spirit shall seed the garden of the mind.’ “

  By the time Phantom is finished with the story, Gloria is smiling like a cretin. Her eyes are rolling around in her head and her mouth is hanging open.

  “Did you see that, Warren?” I whisper. “The Phantom is a hypnotist.”

  “I’ve heard better stories at vacation Bible school,” he replies.

  But I do not think of the story. I think of myself up here on this cliff, while down below are millions of Glorias all throwing me dollars, dope and leather clothes.

  “This is it,” I say to Warren as we jump out of the jeep and stare into the endless aspens. “Bobby Ward is on a long, maybe permanent vacation. The Phantom and I will look at all humanity with no compassion.”

  As we walk around the bend, I feel the wind whistling through all the holes in my head.

  When we get back from our ride in the country, I go to the art school to see Lily. My head is full of plans. I imagine she is a racist who would stomp Negroes to death while sipping a lime rickey. I see her on the old plantation dropping a bonbon into her mouth as black people all around her weep and moan. I think how I let her take me in with those blue eyes and cheap perfumes, and my arms go limp in self-loathing.

  I rap on her door with heavy, purposeful knocks.

  While I am waiting, I imagine her coming to the door all bleary-eyed, without aid of cosmetics. She will slam the door on me, putting one of her racist hands over her face. This will not bother me and it will not keep me out. I will be like Mike Hammer, slamming the door into her, blocking her weak and futile punches. In a few moments, I will have her gauzy negligee torn off and I will bury my barbell penis into her hairy cushion. After I have left her sobbing and helpless, I will rifle her purse and double-dare her to call a shamus.

  “Why, Bobby,” she says, opening the door. She is dressed in Levi’s and a tight-fitting T-shirt. Her breasts push through, begging me to caress them with my lips.

  “Come in, honey. I have a surprise for you.”

  I will not be reduced to her own natural clown.

  “Don’t want no surprises,” I mutter from the side of my mouth.

  But she has not heard me. No, she has walked through her living room and disappeared around the corner. So much the better. If she is in the bedroom already, she will save me the trouble of carrying her limp body to the bed.

  “Here I come,” I say.

  But halfway through the front room, I am hit with an overwhelming heat. It’s suffocating. Worse than the heat of a Baltimore heart-attack summer.

  “Whew,” I say, pulling a bright-red bandanna from my pocket. I wipe my forehead and the bandanna is completely saturated.

  “Don’t you mind the heat,” she laughs from the bedroom. “It’s just all part of my little old artwork.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I say, gasping. “I have never been felled by sunstroke.”

  Then I turn the corner.

  In front of me is Lily. She looks all wavy, blurry. Through the heat waves I can make out a smile and her beautiful brown arm pointing to a giant, red-hot sculpture of a taco! Its shell is brown and it is filled with huge dark-red beans. I move into the glowing room and see oozing red sauce coming off the layer of meat. I am overcome, exhausted, but I will be no pauper to my Queen. I move closer and see the giant crispy lettuce sitting royally on top of the beans and meat. I go crazy over the lettuce. It’s shimmering, cool, even in the ovenshell. I want to touch it, but I know she would laugh as I burned. Phantom, Phantom, where are you now? Her smile, her smile, and her legs all glowing. And on top of the lettuce, like a nipple all hard and ecstatic, is a round, succulent black olive.

  “Oh,” I say, like the woman getting it snappy in the back seat at the drive-in. “Oh, the Big Taco.�
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  And then I am racing out of the room, afraid of what is happening to me. I sweat; my legs buckle. Lily is up on the balcony waving to me, calling my name, and I have failed the Phantom, failed the test again, and I am racing, loplegged, like my father, down the Aspen streets.

  I cannot tell Phantom what has happened to me. I cannot stop what is still happening. For two days I sit in the greasy, darkened bicycle shop, smoking grass and looking at my hands shake. I think of Lily, of her smile, so horribly alluring. I think of the steaming, sweating Taco, connected to Lily as surely as her beautiful legs are connected to her crotch. Phantom and Gloria come and go, and stare at me. All I am able to do is spin the old bicycle wheel on its bent axle and nod my goofy head. When Phantom comes back alone, he opens his hand and shows me two hundred dollars.

  “And that’s only the beginning, baby. There’s a whole lot more, you dig? You and me are gonna take a little trip around the world real soon.”

  “Sure,” I say, putting the second cigarette in my mouth like a bad comic. “Sure we are.”

  “By the way, man. I don’t want to hassle you, but haven’t you been letting off the pressure on this chick Lily? I mean, she’s a gold mine; what ripe pickin’s.”

  “Gold mine,” I say. “No fool’s gold, that one.”

  “Right,” he says, sitting on the English racer and pedaling fast. “So like why don’t you get your ass up there?”

  “I feel a little sick,” I say.

  After Phantom throws me out onto the street, I am shaking and heaving. I can remember the strange odor of the Taco heat. I can see Lily smiling. I don’t want to go. I appeal to Warren. He has left a sign hung on the inside of my ear—”Gone to Mexico.” I do not see any humor in the mockery of the sick and injured. If I survive this, I will seek some vicious revenge on that little pest.

  I walk the dusty streets of Aspen, past the boutique shops with their paper flowers, nifty wood carvings and cutie-pie names—Mr. Snowman’s Cottage, Santa’s Reindeer (“Our Clothes Are Endowed with All the Charm of the Old World”), Slalom City. I look in each and every window trying to find something to divert my attention, but soon all the knickknacks begin to pile up in my mind. They are molding themselves, creating something monstrous. I shut my eyes, watching them crawl over one another, little reindeers, baby dolls with big eyes, miniature sleighs, Swiss ice crushers. Portuguese lime squeezers, each of them quainter than the one before; and they are turning brown, and I know they will soon be the Giant Taco, hot, spicy, irresistible. I shake my head very, very hard and race around the corner to the Pure Air Bar and Grill. Inside the window is a fat cook. I stare at him through the glass. He stares back. He smiles. I am positive he will hold up a taco and eight-by-ten glossies of Lily in a skimpy bikini. It is no use. I see it.

  “If you were half a man,” says Warren, “you would race back up to that crummy artist’s colony and attack. A good offense is the best defense.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “yeah. She can’t tempt me and get away with it.”

  I start up the hill, flashing pictures of Johnny Unitas coolly sidestepping the Monsters of the Midway to toss an eighty-yard game-saver to Lenny Moore.

  When I am halfway up the hill to my rendezvous with fate, I see someone racing toward me. It is Lily. I bite my wrist and stand waiting for her with my hands on my hips.

  “Bobby, oh, Bobby,” she cries, rushing to me with open arms.

  “Oh, Bobby, you must help me. You must.”

  Then I am holding her, feeling those perfect breasts heave against my bony chest. She is sobbing wildly, making animal wails.

  “Anything,” I hear myself say. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  We sit down on a little bench beneath a great tree. After many pats on the shoulders and three fatherly kisses, she is calm enough to tell me what I must do.

  “Oh, Bobby, there is another student at the art colony, nobody knows which one, and he’s a thief. He stole sculptures and paintings from three girls last night, and today I got this note.”

  I take the crumpled piece of paper from her desperate fingers and read:

  You may as well spare yourself an unpleasant and traumatic scene by leaving the TACO masterpiece outside your apartment tonight. The others I have stolen were nothing compared to your sublime creation, and I WILL HAVE IT. There is no force on earth powerful enough to stop me, for FATE has deemed it so.

  In deepest admiration,

  Carlos

  I crumple the note in my fist and look straight at Lily. She looks back at me, a tear running down her face.

  “Who is Carlos?” I say.

  “I don’t know.” She sighs, throwing open her hands.

  “An alias.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll never get the Taco. You can count on me. Where is it now?”

  “In my room. I left Sarah, a girl friend of mine, with it.”

  “Can she be trusted?”

  Lily begins to cry and throws herself into my lap.

  “I don’t know. Oh, Bobby, I don’t know who to trust.”

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  In the basement of the art colony I find two leather straps. After thanking Sarah for guarding the prize, I suck in my breath and walk into the sweltering bedroom. Lily hands me a pair of silver gloves and I lean down in front of the sculpture. She pushes it over on my back. I cannot bear the heat. The straps cut into my armpits, and I am thinking of my spine snapping. This will not be easy to explain to a doctor. He will not be able to perform surgery if he is trading Mexican wisecracks with his nursing staff.

  We move slowly down the steep path. The heat is overwhelming, and the massive spicy odor makes me reel from side to side. Lily walks in front of me over the stones. I see her hard brown calf muscles contract and loosen at each step. If I push my neck mightily against the fiber-glass shell (but not too mightily, for I fear the synthetic juices will ooze out of it and scald my back), I can lift my head enough to see her frosted blond hair tossing in the breeze. But the heat is overwhelming, and I ask Warren if I should demand that Lily turn off the infrared heater which lies like a steaming rock in the center of the monument. He is being playful with me by answering in lilting, sonorous Spanish. This is a language which I no comprende.

  The sun blazes down upon us, and Lily’s ass sends off spirals of heat, spirals that are smaller than, but of the same unbearable temperature as, the masterpiece.

  I cannot bear to stop and turn off the batteries. It is doubtful that I can go on like this.

  The hill has ended. We are on level ground, walking down Gold Street, Lily two steps ahead, shimmering. It occurs to me I want her. Right here. Lying on the street, her legs wrapped in ecstasy around my shell. When we reach orgasm, the stuffing will pop from the top of the black olive. I will make the papers, end up with my own show on television, prime time.

  The mothers are coming now. They stroll from the exclusive tourist restaurants with their silent, crew-cut husbands. The husbands are bent, but only slightly, from the weight of their children, who are harnessed to their backs. The mothers walk by me first, tanned, thirty-five, with good slender bodies. They smile quickly at Lily and then grin at me. Though it kills me to do so, I push against the shell and look at their white, even teeth. Their eyes do not meet my own, but are locked above my head. I think they understand the Taco very well. Their husbands do not smile at all, but frown, and in one case growl, disapproval. The children take one look and react in the extreme. It is always either hysterical laughter or terrified bawling. I know they think the Taco is my child, some great abomination of nature. Perhaps the mothers think so too.

  When I tell the Phantom that we must hide the Taco in the bicycle shop, he shakes his head and mumbles “Ballcutter.” However, after I assure him that this inconvenience is but a single thread in the tapestry of my cold-blooded scheme to bilk Lily out of her bankroll, he agrees to go live with Gloria for a week.

  I kick away the nuts, bolts, sprin
gs and broken handlebar grips from the center of the shop; and we set the great object fully upright. Lily stares at it and throws back her head in laughter.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” she cries.

  Before I can answer, she is upon me; and with no modesty whatsoever, she is grabbing my hand and placing it on her cunt. I trip over the bicycle pump and nearly crash into it. Lily grabs my crotch and we fall on the crummy mattress. I am ripping off her pants and kissing her flat stomach, thighs, burying my head in her bush. Though I am very excited, I cannot resist looking at the Taco. It is glowing red, the whole giant shell. Lily is pulling my head up to her, biting my lips, her hand squeezing my penis. The Taco is erupting molten hot sauce all over old gearshifts and patent leather bicycle seats. Lily is moaning for me to put it in her, and I am certain that the Taco is bubbling an echo to her screams. I jam my cock into her and she wails. We are moving up, down, up, down, and the plastic lettuce is casting unspeakable shadows at frightening speeds. I am going crazy now. Yes. Yes. More intense than Johnny Unitas. Yes. Yes. You can get into my beans. I don’t do this for everybody, but you, you’re different, and I want you in my beans, throw your cock into my meat, gurgle with my lettuce, spicy on my stomach, and I am coming and you are coming all down the lettuce and all over the beans, and there’s them red hot peppers oozing down the bike floor.

  We wait for Carlos. I take the morning shift. Lily handles the evening. Aspen is not a large place, and we must be diligent. We both know he is bound to find us sooner or later. The Phantom is getting anxious. Though I wouldn’t let him into the shop due to the increasing hideousness of the odors and the staggering death heat, I did talk with him through a small slit in the sliding door.

  “Hey, baby, when you gonna make your move? I got all I can get outa Gloria. I want to split for the Coast.”

  I have been able to stave him off for three days, but I am living on borrowed time.