Architects Are Here

by Michael Winter

  So how are things progressing in fashion.

  Sok Hoon: It’s not progress. Fashion is circular. Taste doesnt evolve, it revolves.

  Me:That could be said for a lot of human ingenuity and wisdom.

  She handed me a key from a nail under an old milk delivery chute. And then embraced a woman who had come up behind us. It was Allegra Campinghorst.

  Sok Hoon: Are you getting outrageously drunk on white wine and club soda?

  Allegra pinned her own corsage on me. She was a year older than me, we must have compared birthdates. There’s something about women being just a touch older. Nell was a year older. Allegra’s glasses were tortoiseshell and I realized up close she was tall and had some flesh on her. The green dress disappeared and it was just her skin you noticed. She was a bit like Nell when she talked and her voice, when I closed my eyes, it reminded me of those late nights in St John’s, when Dave and I listened to her show, when she played music that mattered a lot to us. Her hair was cut like a boy’s. I was getting a chill.

  Let’s go inside.

  Two men grumbled around Sok Hoon’s silent TV—playoff basketball. One said, What do you love the most. The other:The word lucrative. First guy:What do you hate the most. Second:When I’m wiping my ass and I get shit on my balls.

  They made me nervous because they were wearing ties and they were cold to David and aloof to me. The bright hardwood on the TV made you realize how dark Sok Hoon’s floors were. And then David returned and said, Allegra. He said it the way you’d say abracadabra.

  David wasnt talking to the men. This was his graduation class, but there was a shunning going on. They had heard, or they disapproved or they did not want to be associated with the different angle David was now taking. It made us want to leave the room and so Allegra escorted us downstairs where I ended up on a leather couch holding hands with her. I asked Allegra for one outrageous fact. I watched her face search itself for a fact. Then she brightened and swivelled to me. She said there is a doll house that has a doll house in it. And everything in that doll’s doll house is a replica, except for the champagne in the bottles. The bubbles of champagne are too big to pass through the neck of the bottles.

  David’s knees on the stairs. Then a moment when David casts an approving eye over me, an eye that feels like a too-big champagne bubble. He was considering me on the prowl when I wasnt at all, I was with Nell. I was happy and solid with her. I did not feel like a bachelor and I hated this eye of David considering it to be so. He made me feel like a shit disturber.

  Allegra stared at me and wet her finger. Then she sculpted my eyebrow. She was a woman who ate three meals a day.

  I have no idea where my bike is, Allegra said. Or where I am.

  You came here on bike?

  Then the Prince peered in with his bodyguards. He was looking for her. Are you Malaysian, he said to Allegra.

  I’ve been to Japan, she said.

  This made him comfortable. No one can read a park sign in Japan, the Prince said. Seventy percent of Japan is wooded.

  Pardon?

  It’s forested.

  He changed the word that might most be misheard. Nice shirt, he said of David’s chest.

  Does that mean I have to give it to you?

  That’s my mother, the Prince said.

  And we raised our glasses in the basement of Sok Hoon’s house.

  Youre not to raise your glass, the Prince said.

  His face, the friendly corrugated face, a famous face. We’re so used to it in two dimensions. Soon, with the new hologram technology, we won’t have awe. The Prince asked what I did.

  I used to write gossip, I said.

  Such as.

  If there’s anything interesting you hear tonight, let me know.

  Gossip, he said, the story of my life.

  A man with a headset waded in.

  Allegra:Youre my father’s age.

  Then I’ll act a little better, the Prince said as the headset directed him away, or you’ll have a bad impression of your father’s generation.

  ALLEGRA’S YELLOW BIKE was on top of a Mini Cooper beside the French school. Someone had thrown it up there for devilment. Allegra dragged it off, the kickstand scratching through to grey factory primer. She unlocked the chain and we walked it home. I loosened and began to think about what I was doing. Allegra lived in one of those apartments with the wrought-iron stairs up to the second landing. Her ex-husband, she said, lives in Florida. I grew a little puzzled at my predicament. But I knew not what else to do and so I followed her. I am a good follower. I would follow someone to the edge of a cliff. In fact I have.

  This is it, she said. And she lifted her bicycle up the stairs. She had probably chosen the bicycle for its weight. I held on to the small round of her hips. I just followed her to the landing like we were a train.

  She locked her bike then bent and licked my arm.

  You taste like cereal.

  Me: Oh.

  She found a hidden key and then said, Fuck David and Sok Hoon. They are the most fucked-up couple.

  I must have asked her about David.

  Do you or do you not, she said, have a wife.

  We were in the hallway now. And then discovered a couch. All of her possessions seemed to be in boxes. I was very tired and drunk. She told me about her ex-husband, who works in securities. At first it was elevators and then, when the separatists got into power the second time, he moved to Florida. He lives in Indiatlantic, and I had to ask where that was.

  He has to live by the sea, Allegra said.

  She kept saying he, no name. She didnt want his name in the room, just his bio. He has a view of the shuttle launches, she said, and he was working on new security systems for condominiums and gated communities. How about you.

  So I told her about Nell. How she left and she was with her ex now and I said her name, Nell. But telling this to Allegra made me heavy and I had to sit further into the couch. Allegra was balanced on an inflated yoga ball, almost a full year older, as though that little bit of wisdom was all I wanted to follow. We both seemed to say we were tired of young people.

  Nell Tarkington, she said.

  Did I say her last name.

  I know Nell, she said. Nell is the one Dave’s with.

  When I’m under the influence I get loud or I get introspective. And here I became thoughtful. I was thinking woeful thoughts about love and career. How I’d given up writing because I was getting into trouble. I was writing too much about my own life and people who loved me were hurt. The Prince was right, story of my life. I wasnt successful enough to compensate for the surplus anguish. I’m not trying to get all modern on you, especially when I’m doing my best to be old-fashioned. What Allegra said had hurt and so my mind caromed off the hurt to another hurt.

  Apparently, I said, she’s with this guy Richard Text.

  Oh I know Richard Text all to bits.

  SIX

  SHE PASSED a five-foot-tall gold hand grenade with a red pin and thought of Joe Hurley. Joe was dead now. Nell had heard through Richard. And now she was going to have lunch with a man who was there when Joe Hurley died. Nell pronounced hand grenade to herself. It sounded like a migraine. A migraine is a hand grenade in the mind.

  She followed the sounds of cutlery, to breakfast. People left dollar bills as a tip. Then she drove out to the ranch where Georgia O’Keeffe had lived. She tried to become her. Then she drove back into town and parked near the restaurant where she’d had her wedding reception, on Canyon. El Farol. It was the oldest restaurant in Santa Fe. A long table out back through a twist of rooms, beams in the ceiling, a net over the bride and groom.

  Hello Nell.

  Nice to see you, Algren.

  Algren Leonard had been the best man. He had flown in from London for the wedding. His face was like Gabriel’s. He still lives in England half the year working at the Faslane nuclear submarine base, and what she remembers of Algren is that the first real swim he had was in the Suez Canal. They ordered
fried avocado rolled in pistachios; squid, halibut, chorizo and pork tenderloin. Algren suggested margaritas that were mainly triple sec, a splash of tequila, but Nell did not want a drink. When the food came they had a red wine from Argentina, a cooked romaine with goat’s cheese. Algren was good at remembering food. Raw tuna red as watermelon. It was because of men like Algren Leonard and Richard Text that Joe Hurley was dead. They had encouraged him.

  Richard’s not here, he said.

  I’ve just come for the box.

  We can’t authorize that. Even Richard can’t authorize the box.

  He told me he might be able to do something about that.

  Well Richard’s not here, he said again.

  Had she fooled around with Algren? No they’d never had anything, she would remember those teeth. She’d gone through a bad spell but had left Algren alone. He was married, that was it.

  Are you still married.

  That was a long time ago, Algren said.

  His wife had a broken arm. She’d gone around at the wedding with an ice pack in a sling. She was the only person in Santa Fe that summer to get frostbite. Nell did have a line. The line moved but that was the line while she was in Santa Fe.

  Nell had driven to Santa Fe without her watch and now she couldnt read Algren’s face well enough. It was as if the watch helped her eyesight. She couldnt tell if he was playing. She’d left the watch by the side of her plate that morning in the hotel in Las Vegas. She would have to call for it. Algren was wearing a New York Yankees cap. She could see him back at the hotel in the pool with that cap on. Margaritas were called silver coins.

  Algren had known Joe Hurley in Afghanistan, two years ago. Algren and Joe had been logisticians. Joe wasnt meant to be travelling in a LAV. He was fetching medical supplies, Algren said, when the left track hit an improvised exploding device. Joe Hurley made sure there were doors and windows, things like that. They blew up a man in charge of doors and windows.

  He had been alive a long time. They carry tourniquets, Algren said. You stop the bleeding and stabilize fractures. You get them pronto to a hospital. But Joe had a hole in the bowel and it contaminated his chest.

  Algren, for the other six months of the year, was in charge of a simulator in Landstuhl, Germany. That’s where they brought Joe Hurley. He was given an ultrasound and digital imaging but it didnt catch the bowel. He was sent by Airbus back to Sunnybrook and that’s where he died, of infections.

  Now it was David’s father, though Algren didnt know Arthur Twombly. Though it was probably because of Nell or because of Joe Hurley. A different scale, a different power contributing to this, but here she was, sitting here with Algren Leonard, trying hard to flirt, if flirting meant getting her hands on that box.

  It was dark when she got back to the hotel, the swimming pool glowing emerald, with black silhouettes swimming. Did she miss Richard. He was not the same man since she left, Algren said. Algren knew that Richard was gay, but Richard was also protective. Richard had been concerned about her feelings for David. Though he allowed it. There was what, fourteen years between Nell and Richard, and their relationship made him almost a father to Nell. That’s how she felt. She felt the word grandfather meant a man much older than your father. There should be a generation between father and grandfather, perhaps call it a goodfather. And Richard was her goodfather. He had got her into the country, employed her, but he wasnt convinced David was a good choice. No there had been nothing with Algren she was sure of it. Was that a mistake. Would he have given her the box if they’d had something. Richard believed people could live together if they were the same age or some multiple of seven years. Seven years, it was like a time in office. Both of you at the inauguration.

  Richard was not here. He had four days to make a president’s visit smooth and inoffensive, Algren said. And no she couldnt have the box not even with his written authority. Richard’s signature wasnt big enough. He had to be there in person for such a transaction. Even then it was iffy.

  Nell had been to Bethlehem with Richard. She had met Kenneth Mosado and David’s sister, Sasha. Sasha and Kenneth were married. Sasha knew who Nell was and yet not a word was spoken about Corner Brook. Nell thought she probably hated her. She had slept with Sasha’s father. She had broken her parents up. But none of that could be said here. It was like a planet in another galaxy that breathed a different life force and they were never alone so it would be rude to speak of it in front of people who were not familiar with that galaxy.

  Nell remembered sitting with Richard in a cafeteria when in walked Sasha’s husband. Kenneth is going to sit with them. Then a commotion. A magpie inside the cafeteria, up in the rafters. The rafters are made from beams of wood sawed out of the local forest. The magpie stood up there, perplexed, studying the wall of windows. Kenneth Mosado sat himself down with a plate of cafeteria food. Magpie, he said. And they watched two waiters arrive with white tablecloths, but then Richard got up. He stood on a chair with a green dinner napkin. He caught the bird as it battered itself against the window. He carried it outside, the two waiters looking like men who accompany the matador.

  I was thinking you were the magpie, Richard said to Nell. And that you should be outside, youre trapped inside.

  SEVEN

  WE ORDERED two smoked meat and coffees with a side of fries. Just David Twombly and me with the rest of our lives strung out the open door and down parallel sidewalks. I could tell he was not happy. When David’s unfriendly his jaw locks, his mouth ajar. Like he’s chewing on his cheek. It reminded me of my own swollen gum, how I was still favouring the left side of my mouth. I had seen pictures of implants. If you dont get an implant the cheek can collapse. A muscle under his cheekbone flexed. We had it out over the coffee. Poaching, Dave said. He was wearing those blue and yellow pants, and they gave him a military advantage I found unfair.

  I take offence at that.

  Youre enjoying, he said, a good-boy reputation out there.

  Youre spreading bad things about me.

  Allegra thinks you give mixed messages.

  She licked my arm, Dave.

  Let’s take this outside.

  We leaned against a rough wall outside Schwartz’s. The daylight made it hard to be serious. Dave in his caramel coat. The shoulder was getting scuffed against the unpainted brick. He wasnt conscious of the scuffing and so I was worried, but then the bright unshadowed outdoors made our conflict feel trivial. Sunlight lit up his face and his face was unhealthy. Nature tends to diminish the grievances men contrive.

  I’m getting upset, he said.

  He pushed my chest with a finger. He suddenly looked a lot bigger. His mass increased and the folds in his face changed colour. He was like an octopus.

  Well what about Nell.

  It was as if all the internal meccano in his face and neck had collapsed.

  I might have acted badly there.

  What’s badly.

  He stared at the centre of my chest.

  After you got together, Gabe. I wondered if I should say something to you.

  You wondered.

  I figured I’d leave that to Nell.

  Youve had your cock in her mouth.

  This blew air into his throat. He flared up, but it wasnt muscle, it was air. He was hard to get into new territory, to rip open the deep trestles he’d set and the easy yet nuanced version he’d created of his past. It was satisfying to him to relate his past in these entertaining chunks of anecdote. But it was blurred now, and false. I wanted to get him back on the knife edge of what had happened.

  I said, Nell was evasive.

  Dave: She made it sound like your connection with her wasnt one where she had to tell you those kinds of things.

  You mean of your affair.

  Youre upset, he said. He didnt mean to sound trite, but he was pissing me off.

  I’m not about to give you the pleasure, I said, of my upsetness.

  David looked around at the tops of buildings. Well youre here in my town poachin
g my women.

  I received an arm lick.

  You said a few things to Allegra.

  And it’s true, I may have said a few things. I’m a talker. I like to talk about being bad without being bad. I like to imagine badness and have someone enjoy our bad life.

  I didnt mean, I said, to be putting a thing out there to make you look bad.

  Fact is, you are acting in a way that can be considered outrageous.

  I looked at David. He had changed in the year since Sok Hoon had left him. He had become hard. But I also knew he was on antidepressants. Allegra had meant more than what Dave was telling me. But I fought off this habit of mine to be conciliatory.

  Youre mixing a trivial incident with a tough one, I said.

  I could only bear to be ninety percent direct, so I crumbled the shoreline a bit, to get a firm anchor to the question.

  I’m sorry, he said. And if it means anything it’s over. She wants it over.

  Wants. He said wants. Whereas, I said, you’d keep right on plugging.

  I dont know what I’d do. I dont know what I am to do.

  So it’s an ongoing thing.