by Brian Hodge
The police were long gone from the apartment, and it felt as empty and lifeless as a crypt when they entered. Treading up those stairs had been one of the hardest things he had ever done.
“At least they didn’t turn the place upside-down,” April said. Her voice tight and forced. It matched her face, red and blotchy.
Justin nodded, crossed the hardwood to sit on the edge of the couch. Longing to look up and see Erik draped into the love seat, wielding omnipotence with his remote control. April followed, rested a hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his own. Not up to packing his things yet. How final that would feel, like dirt on a coffin lid.
“Maybe we should clean some things up,” he finally said. “For whenever his family comes down to get his stuff.” Justin pointed at the scattering of empty beer bottles on the coffee table. Elsewhere there should be a package of rolling papers. “Know what I mean?”
“Maybe we should.”
He sighed and got up, retrieved the trash can from the kitchen. They both pitched in empty bottles, and he found the rolling papers. April dampened a dishcloth and wiped up tabletop rings and places where his dusting had been lax. On bookshelves made from concrete blocks and boards, Justin found a few issues of Penthouse and scrapped them too. Mothers never understood such things, healthy boys’ curiosities. Folded onto a bedroom closet shelf was a silky pink teddy, still exuding whiffs of perfume. He wondered whose. In the kitchen, he readied the remaining Killian’s for transport to April’s, threw out the stuff that was likely to spoil before his parents’ arrival.
Justin lingered at the answering machine. Played the tape to see if any messages had come in lately. Only his own. Played Erik’s outgoing message, choked up at the sound of his voice. April paused while dusting to listen. He couldn’t look at her, not right then. When it finished, he popped both tapes from the machine to keep. His last contact with Erik’s voice.
They had the place in reasonable shape in a half hour, cleansed of the benignly incriminating stuff his parents didn’t need to deal with. Let him retain some privacy in his life. They likely thought him an angel, so let it stay that way, without taint.
Justin cinched the trash bag, hauled it down and out of the building. Across the lot to the dumpster to pitch it in. Shut his eyes at the metallic thud. He’d heard that some people found intense cleaning after a death to be therapeutic. Not so here. He felt like a vulture, mopping up selective traces of Erik’s existence.
My fault. My fault. This entire ghastly chain of events had been forged the moment he had decided to follow Mendoza at Apocalips. If only he’d just stayed put, kept his ass in that chair like someone with brains. If only, if only. The burden was immense, Atlas shouldering the globe.
On the way back, he lingered beside Erik’s car. The mighty Lynx. Laid a hand on the hood, remembering when Erik had gotten it several years back.
It had been just before a vacation from the Tribune, and Erik had driven it up to St. Louis. That first night of his in town, they had taken it everywhere they went. Eventually grabbing some road beer and wheeling north, no destinations in mind. Justin had already decided to call in sick to the agency in the morning, and this was before spousal accountability. They’d wound up on some bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, and there they had stayed. Talking the night away. Some Phil Collins tape cycling endlessly thanks to the auto-reverse of the in-dash player. Drinking until dawn, looking at life fore and aft. Discussing lost loves and lost causes.
Put it away, he decided. For now.
On the way back to the building’s entrance, he hung close by the building. Passing the nose-ends of cars. Halfway along, he stopped. Peripheral vision; he stooped. On the ground, a familiar yellow rectangle the size of a business card, blown against the building’s foundation.
Erik’s membership card from Mind’s Eye Video. He feared he knew how it got there.
Justin pocketed the card. Keepsake. One more connection to Erik, product of a shared obsession. And fuel for the fires of a debt he could not let go unpaid.
April’s apartment was at a west central location, on Magnolia, south of Kennedy. Not too far from the University of Tampa, and maybe a twenty-minute walk from downtown proper. She had the second, and top, floor’s northern half of her building; somebody else had the southern. It still seemed vast to Justin, as it had earlier when they’d come to fix the picnic breakfast, then later after the sun was up. The rent was undoubtedly high, but since it doubled as office space, she took out a chunk of that as well as utilities every spring for tax deductions.
Except for the east end, which had been reconfigured into a separate bathroom and a pair of large walk-in closets, the rest was essentially one long room. Areas subdivided according to use. Her office at the west end, which merged into bedroom, which merged into living and dining areas, which merged into kitchen. Rattan partitions helped perpetuate the illusion of rooms, as did a spaced pair of brick support pillars. One-inch Levolor blinds hung over the north wall’s bank of windows, and across the street was some trash-chic bar and diner with reddish-orange neon. She left the lights off as they entered, and the neon glow filtered through the blinds like slatted fog.
The rain had started by the time they arrived, gusts of wind rippled the blinds. A place this big, she had little use for air-conditioning. Watch the electric bill skyrocket. Live with it; she was a native. He wasn’t. Suffer.
He left his luggage sitting beside the couch, just sank into it. Tired past the point of exhaustion. Conversation seemed as dead as the Latin language. He unbuttoned his shirt, left the short tail hanging out over his jeans. Sweat tickled along his breastbone.
“I don’t suppose you’re very hungry either,” she said.
“No.”
April nodded. “If you change your mind—” She pointed to the kitchen. “Help yourself.”
She followed the direction of her own finger and then disappeared into one of the closets. Emerged in different clothes, shorts and a large T-shirt cut down to size. Sleeves, neckline hem, bottom few inches, all amputated. Beneath it, her body looked more fragile than before. Her hair was pinned loosely at the back of her head.
“Want something to drink, at least?” She paused in the kitchen.
He nodded. “Want to go for the Killian’s?”
“Yeah.”
She harvested two from the refrigerator. They’d been transplanted there all of five minutes. When she opened the door, steam rolled out into the humid air, pooled at her feet, and dissipated.
He wondered where he would sleep tonight. Couch, probably. Considering they hadn’t even kissed until last night, things didn’t quite seem advanced enough to expect an invitation to her bed, even if all they did was collapse into exhausted slumber.
April put on music then. No vocals, just eerie open synthesizers, thick and warm and droning. Music for mists and distances.
She joined him on the couch. Held both bottles against her face before relinquishing his. The moisture beaded on her cheeks.
“I never thought there’d be a time in my life when Erik wasn’t around,” he said after several moments.
She scooted closer. Touched his leg with one foot. He looked at her, and she tried one of those smiles meant to look consoling but just end up looking heartbroken. All that was felt, all that was intuitive, all that had been — words could only trivialize. How do you eulogize a world that has just come to an abrupt, violent end?
They did not try. Just shared mutual silence, the soft melancholy of the music. Shared interlocking fingers. And the heat. It meant so much more than words. Strange. As someone who had earned his living manipulating words, he felt they were vastly overrated at times.
The rain fell. The sky deepened. The neon glow from across the street grew bolder.
Finally, then, she couldn’t hold back.
“I don’t guess anything came out of your talk with the police?”
“As far as I’m concerned, no.”
She tilted her head. “What does that mea
n?”
He took a deep breath. Steady. “It means that no matter what I said, absolutely nothing got accomplished. Not a damned thing.”
She leaned closer in, and he could almost see her eyes growing. “What’s all this about, Justin? I mean, why? Why Erik?”
Justin hunched his shoulders, let them fall. “It’s got to have something to do with Tuesday night at Apocalips, and whatever Tony Mendoza gave Trent and me to snort. Beyond that, I don’t know. But that has to be it. You say Tony was looking for me — well, I figure he finally found out where I was, or who I was close to, something like that, and got to Erik first.”
“Didn’t you tell them that this afternoon?”
“Over and over.”
April swung closer still, drew her legs beneath her until she was on her knees. “So why wouldn’t they do something?”
“Where’s the proof? That’s their argument. It’s all conjecture on my part. Our part. It’s not illegal to go around asking where I live. Sure, they can haul him in for some questions, but that’s it. That is it.” He let the ale wash his throat; it felt very dry all of a sudden. “I sound like I’m defending them.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t even be here. If he connects you to me, then we both might be in a real bind.”
“Don’t say that, don’t worry about me.” Although April looked as if something inside had just wilted. “Question him, that’s the most they can do?” Fighting against dying hope.
“Hell, they turned the whole thing around onto me. They think I came down here to deal again. I felt lucky just walking out of there without handcuffs.”
She leaned back again, spent. Held the sweaty bottle against her cheeks.
“I’m totally alone in this. So I guess I’ve got to deal with Mendoza by myself. It’s their call.”
“You’re not alone.” She stiffened. “And don’t say the rest of that. Not even as a joke.”
He simply stared. Not a joking matter.
“You can’t take him on. Justin, please, think straight. That could get you killed.”
“I think that’s what he wants anyway. Look, I’m not talking High Noon here. I just mean there’s got to be some way to trip him up. Set him up, something. Just so he catches the cops’ attention.”
“Yeah? Yeah?” April had wrapped her arms around herself. Skeptical. “How?”
“I don’t know. But it’s better than sitting around waiting.”
It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Then again, he didn’t think anything would have appeased her. April swung her feet to the floor, sat on the edge of the couch. Arms still clamped around herself, straitjacket snug. Her head was lowered.
“I don’t suppose I’ve known you long enough for my feelings to make any difference to you.”
He was about to tell her they did, couldn’t quite wrest it out. She got up, paced into the kitchen. Sweat trickled along her neck, forearms. Glistened at the backs of her knees. The cut-down T-shirt clung damply.
April leaned against the fridge door a moment. She reached out to grab a spindly chair from the dining table and dragged it over. When she opened the fridge door, the light was brilliant white in the dim apartment, unearthly so. Contrasted with the muted neon filtering through. Steam oozed out in tendrils, puffy wisps. She plunked herself down in the chair before it, fanned cool relief onto her face, body. Leaned elbows onto knees, as miserable as a rag doll destined for the furnace.
Thunder rumbled in the sky, delicate and eternal. Rain spattered.
Justin fumbled through some of the things he had brought from Erik’s. Found what he wanted, carried it to her. Showed her, standing in the netherlight and cool steam. The picture Erik had taken for her fiancé. When she looked up, her lower lip was quivering.
“It makes a difference,” he said softly. “It has ever since my first day when Erik showed me his studio. And showed me this picture. It’s made a difference ever since that moment.”
April stared at the picture along while. Then took him by the hand.
Maybe this was playing dirty. Showing her the portrait, scraping afresh the wounds caused by the breakup with her fiancé. But he hadn’t meant it as such, only wanted to make a point. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Then again? Yeah, he probably had meant it that way. He knew he wasn’t above it, wasn’t above much of anything sometimes, it seemed. Maybe he just had trouble admitting it to himself.
But at least he hadn’t consciously meant to be cruel. He hoped there was some decency there, somewhere beneath the crud. The knight in tarnished armor.
April was crying. Not so you’d notice. You might think them droplets of sweat. But he knew better. She held his hand, and with her other let the picture slip to the floor.
He bent down to kiss tears from her cheeks, felt her release a hot, wavering breath along his ear. Groping, she seized a fistful of shirt to hold him in place while moving her mouth to his. Her face, his own, their mouths … already so wet.
She rose from the chair, and they were a clashing symphony of twining arms, tongues, moistened hair. He felt the need, the yearning, rising within him. Past the point of no return now.
April parted his open shirt, lowered her face to skim across his slickened chest. Kissing here, nipping there. Lowering to stomach, tongue dancing across the fine hairs. Rose up to his mouth a moment, plunged down again. Crying, still. She fumbled to undo his jeans.
It was the final trigger. The give and take, stripping away barriers one at a time, alternating one to another. Too too rapid, no patience. Her damp T-shirt hung draped from one narrow shoulder. His shirt made it no further, gaping across chest and torso. Her shorts and panties she kicked skyward, and they came down to ripple the blinds, and the filtered neon undulated with them. Steam caressed them, music soothed them, blind urgency propelled them.
It was no longer a simple matter of release. No longer merely hunger for flesh. It was a quest across misty landscapes. Searching for something, anything, that was real. Stable. Reliable. Something that could not die in the moment, and be taken from them. A holocaust could not stop them.
He fell back into her chair, scooting down a bit to give her room. And she straddled him, taut legs an inverted V silhouetted by white light, red light. She lowered herself, trusting him to guide her with hands on her hips. And all gears meshed, perfect synchronization.
April wrapped one arm around his shoulders, clasped the top of the chairback with her other hand. Bent at the knees. Repeatedly. Justin reached up across the smooth arc of her back to impel her downward. They sought rhythms, found them, slid across each other with delicious wet friction. He too was crying by now, his face nuzzled against her breasts. They accepted his tears like an offering, and her hair swung down to claim them as its own.
They rode. And rode. And when journey’s end came, the neon sunset, her chair was no longer enough. They tumbled to the floor. Rolled. Struggled. Held fast. It was hard to tell which were cries of ecstasy, and which were cries of sorrow. In some ways, both the same. La petite mort, the French called it. The little death.
And he felt that they were bound now, for better or for worse.
Joined by death, until death might do them part.
Chapter 12
ESTRELLA
This was a land of great beauty and great ugliness. And Kerebawa surprised even himself in how well he managed to blend in.
He looked a little ragtag, and this had concerned him even before Barrows and Matteson had flown him out of Venezuela. But after arrival, and slipping away along the airstrip and finally finding himself in hardcore civilization, such worries evaporated.
He knew it wouldn’t do to carry around his large bow, at least in its usual form. So he unstrung it and tightly coiled the fibrous bowstring, pocketed that. Now all he had was a long, gently curved stick. Kerebawa used twine to bind it with the six bamboo arrow shafts he had brought, into one solid bundle. The arrow point quiver he hung down inside his shirt, and he did the same with his machet
e. His cloth bundle he carried as usual, and he resembled just one more denizen of the street, homeless, possibly eccentric, with a more than adequate walking stick.
Miami was a vast and confusing land, but the map Barrows had scrounged for him helped make sense of it. Once he had studied it top to bottom, he walked east. Always east. Toward the sea. And another name on that bloodstained paper written by Hernando Vasquez — Estrella.
Miami. He liked the white towers that were usually in sight, shabonos reaching up to the sky. They reminded him of seashells he had seen once in Caracas. He liked the way he could look up to see the sky from almost anywhere, without it being obscured by a canopy of foliage. And after more than a day’s walk, he liked the ocean, the beaches. He liked the palms, a reminder of home.
But the noise, the smell, the vehicles careening about, the endless hot rock covering their ground — these were horrors. The white man’s world was plagued by its own races of demons. Far more frightening and overt than those of the jungle.
As before, on his previous trip with Padre, the people amazed him. So many, so diverse. How patient they must all be, and how kind, to live so closely. To think of that many Yanomamö living together was laughable; there would be so many feuds and fights that they would wipe themselves out within a month. And the women! They walked freely about, often alone, with no fear of being stolen.
Food was his main bother. It wasn’t like Mabori-teri, where your garden was mere steps away, or where you could stalk a wild pig or harvest what grew wild. No. You had to trade the paper for it. The money from Barrows might as well have been a gift left by ancestors.
He went hungry the first night, Wednesday. The next day, in south Miami, he found a Spanish grocery and bought bananas — they looked almost like plantains — and other fruit. The next day he was drawn into something called a 7-Eleven; people were leaving with food, so that was a good sign. There was no fruit inside though. Just ugly plastic food. He wandered the aisles, plucking up packages that looked promising. Bread. Honey. A packet of ham, Padre’s word for pig meat. He also grabbed a box that he wasn’t sure about, but the woman on the front looked very happy, as if recently well fed, so he went for it too. Outside he was disappointed to find that the box contained only inedible rectangles of spongy paper. With pictures showing how to put them into your underclothes. Whatever Kotex Pads were, he wasn’t going to waste any more of his money on them.
