Nothing Matters: A Noir Love Story

by Steve Finbow

  Asshole of the World

  …the day after mother died. I realized I could get men to do my bidding, that I could get what I wanted. Need is an empty shopping bag but desire is a list, a long one with all the goodies included. Thirteen years old, skinny as a stick of spaghetti, no breasts to speak of, long legs but about as syncopated as a two-legged Bambi, I knew how to use my eyes, use my lips, use my mind. Still do. Age may have calmed me, but memory and instinct drive me on. Darkness is just the flipside of light, night the twin of day. Daddy, off on one of his trips to Las Vegas, bimbo-sidekick, bankroll in his pocket matching the bulge in his jockeys, left me in the safe and capable hands of the maid and the gardener. And being looked after, looked over, waited on and spoiled, that’s how I grew up—humanity was there to serve me. Serve me right. Mummy’s funeral still two days away, Daddy said he’d be back in good time and would bring me a present if I were good. “And if I’m bad?” I said. He smiled and replied, “I’ll still bring you one.” And he did, a gold necklace with two gold die encrusted with tiny diamonds the size of the sparkle in my left eye. I still have it. I had it made into an ankle bracelet. When I walk, it’s double sixes all the way—midnight, midnight, midnight. Daddy also bought me a first edition Fowler’s Modern English Usage. I wore it out. The spine broken, the pages foxed, coming apart, drifting to the floor, autumn leaves of language. Joined on the shelf later at college by my beloved Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Of Grammatology, S/Z—Linguistics major—MA, PhD, Francophile. Daddy drove out the gate in a cloak of Thunderbird fumes, the maid and her husband waving him goodbye. If I had to paint a portrait of my father, that’s what it would be—a speeding car lost in plumes of dust and heat shimmer, an arm stretched into the air as a sign of farewell.

  The gardener, Raoul, worked shirtless and shoeless, cotton shorts reached just past his knees. Wiry, his body glistened with California sweat, his dark skin made darker by the loam he took from bags and rubbed on his chest and arms. Now, when I smell the earth, when I walk in forests or even visit garden centers, my panties become a little moist, my mind begins to manipulate, a wry smile crosses my lips, a cat over rooftops. He liked the smell, he said, and it was good for the flowers, the plants, the fruits. Good for grounding himself. Who wants that? My thing is the steely shiller moon, the color of my eyes on summer days, silver in autumn, slate in winter, smoke in spring—always adularescent. His wife Lillianne, the maid—the domestic manager as my father called her—thrummed with energy like a nuclear-reactive cat, all spit and sharp teeth battened down under tight clothes and a severe hair do. A look I sometimes use. Some men like floaty, others severe, some more innocent. Innocence. In no sense. I got that one from X. His words. Funny how one becomes the other over time. Pick up tics and nuances, verb use and cursing. Merges. Even our sentences changed—mine, once long and sinuous became staccato, clipped; whereas his, almost machine-gun in rapidity, spread and flowed out, a muddy delta. Yes—our sentences changed. Mine to life, his to death. Think about it. Which would you prefer? Imagine sitting in a cold hut, no food except a rotten potato, a leather sole, someone else’s fingernails. Aren’t we all waiting for our number to be called? Look down at your left forearm, the pale traces of ink, of numbers. Raoul I guessed was in his forties, Lillianne in her thirties—a decade age difference. X is older by the same margin. I wonder where he is. No, I don’t.

  When Daddy wasn’t here, Raoul subbed as chauffeur. I asked him if I could go see my mother’s body. When Daddy told me she had died, nothing happened. I mean, nothing happened to me. I didn’t faint, I didn’t cry, I didn’t rush up the stairs and throw my self on the bed. I nodded as if he were explaining astrology to me. He asked if I was OK, gave me $500. As Lillianne wore the trousers, Raoul asked permission to take me to the funeral home. Maybe Lillianne did teach me a thing or two about manipulation and control. Maybe I unconsciously learned from her blank expression, her tight mouth, her coldness. She said fine, glad to get this sulking teenager out of her slicked-down hair. I dressed in a white cut-off T-shirt, covered it in a black chiffon throw, black denim skirt, and white hi-top Converse. Clothes are important—not as a means of seduction—if you wanted, you could snag a man wearing a sack and bowler hat—but as a means of expressing your moods. These clothes said “I know I’m still a teenager but I’m aware of my emerging sexuality but you will have to stay away even though you want me.” The black chiffon throw said death, said silence, said mourning. Lillianne frowned when she saw me but said nothing. We pulled out of the drive in my Daddy’s Land Rover Discovery. The road led to the freeways, the freeways led everywhere and everywhere was where I wanted to be. Where I went. Where I’m going. Raoul waved. Lillianne ignored him, turned back to the house before we’d cleared the gates. I looked in the rear-view mirror. I always do. I always am—the front-view mirror is yet to be discovered, invented. If only.

  The funeral home was somewhere in Brentwood. Raoul remained silent during the drive. I fiddled with the radio. A mixture of funk and soul, country and bluegrass, static and galloping voices. Raoul stared ahead. I watched the houses, the sprinklers, the dogwalkers. The invisible people behind the walls, just like Daddy and me, just like my mother—no more. Raoul had put on a plaid shirt and beat up old sneakers to go with his shorts. He smelled of rolling tobacco and sour plums. X smells of beer and Issiye Miyake, of garlic and strawberry mousse. Raoul’s moustache, flecked with grey, twitched as he decided which streets to take. His nose, broken in a bar fight—so I heard my father tell my mother—sniffed as if he were tracking something invisible. X’s nose is likewise broken, a split in the cartilage, the left nostril slightly larger than the right, a small scar on the bridge in the shape of a nail paring. I lifted my right leg, placing my sneaker on the dashboard, a glimpse of white cotton between my legs, a kite lost in sand dunes, a sail on a silted river, a dazzling heron lost somewhere in the desert. Raoul’s moustache twitched, twitched again as if he were about to sneeze. I let my hand dangle between my legs, felt the hairs rise on them, a sea of corn stirred by a July wind. Looked at Raoul’s lap. Raoul coughed, adjusted the rear-view mirror, sniffed, smelled my scent, not just the perfume.

  “This is the street,” he said.

  “I don’t know if I want to see her now,” I replied, my voice quiet.

  Raoul pulled the car over to the curb.

  “You go in. I have a few errands to run,” he said staring down the street, transfixed as if an Apatosaurus had waddled drunkenly out of the shopping mall.

  “OK,” I said opening the door and stepping down. He pulled away, the vehicle

  rumbling low and steady.

  The funeral home, air-conditioned cool, stank of manufactured smells—fake vanilla, faux lavender, fabricated lilac. Strange to think that the bodies X made were stored in similar places, their bones broken, their skin slashed, parts amputated. I wonder what the morticians think, whether they try to make the bodies look normal, make them look human; but then, why should they? They’re soon to be hidden in the earth, dispersed into the air. Some have never been found. May never be found. Some are still rotting away, deliquescing. What a word. Deliquescing—“to become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air, as certain salts, to melt away, Botany: to form many small divisions or branches.” I sat in reception while they checked my ID, whatever that is. A laminated representation of facts about who you are? Yet, we change; we are never who we think we are, who others think we are. We change when we are with others, when we are alone, when we think we are alone. A man in a dark grey suit showed me into a room. The walls were pale cream, the carpet a darker beige. Flowers floated in stone bowls at each corner of the room. Gerbers. A dark wood casket sat in the middle on a trestle table covered in a fabric so white it glowed. The man opened the casket. Inside, a woman I didn’t recognize. I hadn’t seen my mother in three years. Hadn’t thought about her for nearly as long. I’d thought of Daddy, I’d even thought of some of his girlfriends. I thought of boys at school who
had begun to look at me, too frightened to talk, too scared to touch. I thought of the teachers, their ever-lengthening stares and the shake of the head at their own thoughts. I didn’t really have any girl friends to speak of. A few shopping acquaintances, cinema buddies. I never really got on with other girls, other females. Still don’t. My father had my mother’s body flown in from Fresno. I didn’t even know she was living there. Didn’t ask. Not sure I really cared. Spent my days in thought, in books, in preparation. Mother had had a series of mental breakdowns. I hadn’t noticed. She drank but seemed happy. Happy in her stupefied walks around the garden, her naps by the pool, her afternoon massages and saunas. There was talk of institutions. Talk of operations. Procedures. The doctors made her…

  The Voyeur

  …write down dreams. Millions of people forgotten. No, not forgotten—unremembered. Called a man about them. Wrote down some more. Black tail shiny, wet, chitinous. Drew pictures. Read books. Told another about nightmares. Trapdoor spiders wait for prey to disturb silken trip lines running like abandoned railways—terminals. Made job look slapdash, frenzied, work of hit man botching it, professional feigning amateur, whore pretending to love it. Said nothing. Kept schtum & mum together in same room. Dreams played twenty-four hours a day, technicolor, surroundsound, smellovision. All the senses in the world. Leading from passion back to uncertainty, life moved in reverse. Not frightened of truth but, until now very good at excusing it, concealing it—a disfigured child. In plain words, it was all that trees & forest thing. Death happening, whole world oblivious. Blind. Blind to time passing without incremental growth in Z’s feelings. Skin on body suffered sensations of pure ecstasy, then mind tattooed with agonizing doubt. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… Wanted to stop playing Mars & Venus, stop floating in Neptunian swimming pools, stop watching Mercury rise to red in swollen cock, stop goddamn Saturnalia of it all. Once down to earth & now here on road to Pluto with its pomegranate seediness. Starlings in infinite spiral processions paint whirlpools in the sky—mazes, labyrinths.

  Z had dangled it. Rather than bite it off, chew it up, then spit it out, panted & drooled for it, slobbered & howled for it. Running around in circles, tail on fire—worm ouroboros swallowing it all, swallowing it whole, swallowing it wholesale. Just for a taste. Just for a touch. Just for a time. Driving through desert with monkey on shoulder, monkey in threesome with devil & deep blue, pulling a train with the nephilim, spit-roasted by Beelzebub & Belial. Go back? Go on? Asshole of the world or bejewelled navel? Z fed caviar then fed scraps. No more leftovers. Do anything. Did anything. Rattlesnakes, coiled like discarded necklaces, sunbathe on asphalt, rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle.

  Second man—killed for fun. Life irreplaceable but known joy in taking of. Silence as blood stops circulating, heart finally rests, eyes flicker out to dead satellites. Man, an ex-lover, wouldn’t give up ghost. That’s what we are when we are no longer with the one we love. That’s what we are when we are no longer with the one we loved. Existence outside of the material. They strip you of things so you are no longer you. My glasses, my hair, my shoes. Insubstantial image forever becoming faint, forever dissolving, until person you were for them & with them, now a collection of abstract portraits covered in dust, invisible behind glass reflecting similar paintings. Names on a list. A… B… C… D… E… Layering of memory until original obscures. When we meet someone again, meet them by mistake, by chance, by appointment, we travel back in time, the present you an alien, foreigner, intruder, fake. Man to kill tried to make memories of her real again. Trying not to. Tried to make substance what was not, what was far from. Struggled to move on. Here on road. Wanted to feel cold breath of his monstrous fear. Wanted to see how much horror he could contemplate, how many hours of darkness. If he wanted flesh then he could taste his own. To take another life would diminish distance to Z. Vacant place filled with our entwined bodies, our melding minds. Writhing in invisible gas. Set drink next to his, said, “Best out of nine, 50 bucks a game,” said, “You rack ‘em, we’ll toss to crack ‘em.” Won first three games, balls flying everywhere, crazy atoms, pockets eating them up, speedheads popping bombers, black & whites, blues & reds. Crowd watching, quiet as a crematorium except for sound of pool balls. Let him win next two. Buddying up. Bought beers, played for cheers. Four each. Final game. Two down from break, balls spread tasty, tempting. Could feel shadows behind, smell cigarette smoke hanging low over green table, Poland on a misty morning. Pock! Pock! Pock! Pock! Pock! Rat-a-tat-tat. Eight-ball winking, shark’s eye, infinity pupil. Chalked & stroked, backspin. Eight-ball dropping into pocket, black sun setting in blacker sky. 50 bucks up. Drank two more beers. Cold-cocked him in car park. Hotfooted it to crash pad. Computer games, empty Old-Gold 40 ouncers—accoutrements of existence, life’s knickknacks. Fireman’s carry up back stairs. Would he fight? Wasn’t sure. When you fight & fuck you are most alive & closest to death. Stairs zigzag up side of building, lines on seismograph. Tied him to chair with electrical flex. Is the taste for life so strong one can never believe its possible extinguishment? Played prune metatarsal tree. Snipsnip. This little piggy went to frying pan, this little piggy sautéed in soy, this little piggy tastes of roast pork, this little piggy on your tongue, & this little piggy went snipsnipsnip all the way to bone. Repeat. Recorded screams & pleadings, photographed stumps & bleedings. Gagged him. Drove away into twinkling night. Called it in anonymously from payphone. Didn’t stay for sirens. Had one of my own to attend to. Showed her pics, played her noises. Camera, voice recorder. Kissed back of neck, ran hand up thigh, stroked cock, hard but pliable, typewriter platen. & what she’d done. What she did. Her tongue. Z’s tongue. Thick wad & tendrils of sputum & come. Tail dropping down into picture. Whiplash. Showed me door, showed me way to go home. Feral chameleons rock back & forth on thorned branches, wall-eyed, indeterminate.

  Two days later, dreaming of Maryoshka dolls served up on a bed of lettuce. Miniature Jabba the Hutt, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan & R2-D2 dressed all in pink attached to the end of foot. Dreaming of mini hot-dogs, chess pieces embedded inside. Eating pork rinds stuffed with ivory netsuke. Going fucking mad. Shrink says nothing. Talk. Says nothing more. Writes prescription. No need. No want. Swallowed dry. Bandit raccoons slip out of woods, masked eyes twinkling with mischief.

  Visit her apartment, one her husband didn’t know about, one festooned with trophies—tie, shirt, pair of Mickey Mouse jockeys. Given everything to be with her, job, life. Just another one to manipulate, to seduce, discard. Sanity tested, invented new realms of normality. She had money. Didn’t have to worry about things like that. She had time. She had words. Found hours to fit. Played with mind more than she played with cock. Juggled emotions more than juggled balls. But that’s it, isn’t it? The chase, the game, the play. Who can tell someone will change you irrevocably? Who can say it will be A or B or C or Z. Wasn’t looking for it. It came. Hadn’t planned to fall in love. Hadn’t planned to kill a man. Or two. Never three. Stepping over. Crossing line. She went. Followed. Not just physically, geographically, but mentally, emotionally—she’d say, she’d call. Listen in & nod not wanting to disappoint, not wanting exclusion, exclusivity. How had it come to this? A puppet, a zombie, an automaton, a dangling, shuffling, unthinking thing; a beast of nothingness, a void, a palimpsest to be written over—& all the words, in millions of lines, read “Obsession.” What Z asked, answered in positive. Loved her. Would do anything for her. Yes, even that. Above bats engulf clouds of moths flying towards the moon & are themselves snapped up by a monstrous jaw.

  Year after, ten months after death of first, called her. Day after killed second. She hung up. Waited & called again. No answer. Knot in stomach became basketball, basketball filled with boiling mercury, writhing cords of doubt & worry. Called again. No answer. Tried her cell. Called her home. No answer. Got in car, drove to apartment. Saw her car. Waited & waited. Knocked on door. No answer. Rang bell. No answer. Tried key she’d given. No joy. No luck. No chance. Prowled around area. Is that her? W
as that her? Drove back. Waited & waited. At last, door opened. Z got into another car. Headed out. Followed. Along coast highway. To left, miles & miles of ocean. Miles & miles of land to right. Gas stations. Diners. Trees. Birds. Sky raggedy with clouds. Splash of dark red urine on windscreen. Sun moving glacially through heavens. Hell. Rundown motel. Z drove in. Got out of car. Ankle bracelet glistening in sun. Door opened. Dark chevron & gone. Imagine. Imagination reared up, angry cobra, baring twin fangs of obsession & possession, spitting venom of jealousy. Z went in. Waited. Ten minutes max. Walked up to window. Curtains closed. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. But do. But did. But will. See Z on knees. Hear slurp of lube. See Z’s mouth open. Hear Z moan. See muscular thighs strain with it. Hear slap of groin on buttock. See sweat on upper lip. Hear thrust of flesh in flesh. Holes stretched tight around. See nape of Z’s neck flush. Hear abandoned groan of orgasm. See door open. Hear Z’s laughter. See wheelspin of Z’s whitewalls, dust cloaking escape. Knock on door, wait for it to open. Hear crackpopcrack of nasal bone. Knee to groin, cock still hard. See red. Make red. Feel red. Blood around. Blood on walls & mirror, blood on bedspread & pillows, blood in mouth & eyes, bloodfuel of terrible union… Take wallet from table, flip it open—some kind of private detective, private eye, private dick. Whatever. Whenever. All she ever had to do was…