by Hari Kunzru
—A small window.
—Of time.
—A small window of time. In that case, I suppose you ought to play me something.
I chose Carter’s pride and joy, Victor 38535, Tommy Johnson’s “Canned Heat Blues,” recorded in Memphis in August 1928. I slid it out of its sleeve, feeling the heft of the shellac as I placed it on the turntable and lowered the needle on its counterweighted tone arm. Then I sat down beside Leonie. Johnson’s guitar rose up out of the crackle, followed by his strange, lamenting voice.
Crying mama mama mama
you know canned heat killing me
It flipped up into an uncanny falsetto:
canned heat don’t—
crying babe I’ll never die
The strange high vibration of I and die. I had listened to that record many times, but it was as if it had never broken my skin. The air was rent open by the sound; darkness poured in. Babe I’ll never die, he sang. I’d always heard the line as frightened, the alcoholic singer afraid of the death he is swallowing: Sterno brand camping fuel strained through a cloth. But now I heard something else. A veiled threat. If what I’ve already swallowed doesn’t kill me, nothing can. You will never be able to stop me, babe. I’ll just keep on coming.
The needle hit the runout groove and I lunged forward, terrified that it would skate. I didn’t dare turn my head to look at Leonie. Only when I’d secured the record, sleeved it and returned it to the box did I finally steal a glance. She seemed agitated, angry.
—That’s it? That’s what he loves?
—I know the sound quality is poor.
—That doesn’t help me.
—I’m sorry.
—It’s the opposite of helpful.
—I’m sorry, I don’t understand.
—Why would he listen to this? It’s so morbid. Everything about it is dead and buried.
—I didn’t mean to upset you.
She seemed to be making an effort to pull herself together.
—It’s not your fault. I’m just upset. Look, you can go back to bed. You must be tired, I got you up. I’ll sleep here.
I thought about warning her not to try and play any more records. Carter’s deck was temperamental and she was more than a little drunk. But she’d said she hated the music, so I judged that there was little risk of her damaging anything.
—Really, she said. It’s OK. Go to bed. I’m just going to crash.
—Do you need a towel?
—Sure.
—I’ll just leave it outside your door.
—OK.
Even with the air conditioner on high, the heat that night was oppressive. As I got ready for bed, I was aware of her presence across the hallway, asleep so very close at hand. I got up twice. Bathroom and glass of water. I tossed and turned in a tangle of damp sheets. I kept my door open, in case she called out.
THE NEXT MORNING I got up early, expecting to have the place to myself while I tidied. In the kitchen I found Leonie wandering around in one of Carter’s shirts, eating cereal out of the box. I started grinding coffee and washing glasses, keeping busy so I didn’t have to endure the full hormonal shock of her. Leonie Wallace, wearing a dress shirt and a pair of black cotton underpants. Leonie Wallace’s legs. Either she was dealing with a hangover or she hadn’t been to bed. Either way, she was irritable.
—You said he was going to buy records? So what does he spend on a record? A hundred bucks? Two hundred?
—More. The one I played you last night is worth about four thousand dollars.
—Four thousand dollars for that?
—More, possibly. Maybe a little less. That’s what he told me he paid for it. There are forty copies in the world, perhaps not even that many.
—So he could have taken a lot of money with him?
—I guess. He got fifty thousand dollars from Corny as some sort of investment in the studio. He told me he was going to spend it on records.
—Why would he do something so stupid?
—I suppose he doesn’t see it that way.
—Not Carter, Cornelius. What was he thinking, trusting Carty to hold on to that amount in cash?
—I don’t really understand. It’s not like your brother is ever short of money.
She gave me a straight look.
—Actually he’s on kind of a tight leash, financially.
—What? Really? It never seems like that.
—Sure, he’s got his allowance, he can buy toys.
She saw that I didn’t understand.
—Seth, Carter’s had a few problems in the past. Maybe you know about that. He doesn’t make good decisions. We try to avoid anything which would stress him out.
As I was trying to process this corporate “we,” the doorbell rang. The entry phone showed two men on the street outside. Ties and shirtsleeves. One of them held up a badge to the camera.
—Maybe you should put some clothes on. The police are coming up. Go into the bedroom and I’ll talk to them while you get dressed.
—Relax, Seth.
—But it’s the police. You don’t want them to see you like that.
—This isn’t Saudi Arabia.
Reluctantly, I buzzed them in. Leonie hopped up on the kitchen counter and struck a centerfold pose, arching one eyebrow sarcastically at me. They stepped out of the elevator, professional intruders. I was in a state of sexual panic, aroused and humiliated. It was too much to bear, the way she made them look at her. One, maybe both men knew who she was. The shorter one, who looked Latino, knew for sure. He didn’t take his eyes off her, swiveling left and right, up and down, checking out her ass, her legs, the shape of her breasts under the shirt. Helping himself. The taller one, the white one, was big and doughy, too physically somnolent to really feel her provocation. He turned to me and said blandly that they needed to ask some questions about the attack. Sit down, he said. It’ll only take a few minutes. The Latino detective gave way to autoeroticism, compulsively stroking his little French beard. Her point made, Leonie got down from the counter and leaned against the sink, her arms folded, making no further eye contact with him.
—Miss, said the white cop, glancing balefully at his partner. Why don’t you finish getting dressed and give us a minute with your friend?
I thought Leonie was going to say something smart. Instead she walked away and shut herself in Carter’s room. What could I do but comply? I sat down at the table and answered their questions. The short cop was angry with his partner for embarrassing him, so to compensate he went in hard. Why was Carter at Hunts Point? Did I realize it was a known haunt of prostitutes? A “known haunt of prostitutes,” a period phrase, strange out of his mouth. I told them that Carter didn’t use prostitutes. I basically told them the truth. They pressed and the short cop raised his voice, maybe for his partner’s benefit, maybe for Leonie, hiding in the bedroom. When I told them about the money, they thought they’d made their case. Did I understand there was a possibility that he was targeted because of the cash he was carrying? Who knew about it? Cornelius. Leonie. Who else? I must have mentioned it to someone. I needed to think. Was his understanding correct that we were in the music business? A moment of hesitation. We probably socialized with—he hesitated again, hunting for the delicate term—hip hop guys.
How could I tell them what I really thought? The money wasn’t the reason it happened. It was bad luck he had it, but whatever happened to Carter had to do with the song, with the three minutes of darkness we had released into the world. That’s what I believed, but I had no justification for it, nothing I could put into words. Just my fear, the acid knot in my gut that had persisted for days and would not go away, no matter how much stomach medication I poured on top of it.
—Just to refresh my memory, sir, where were you that night?
—Here.
—All night?
They mentioned phone records, a search of the apartment. I told them I had nothing to hide.
Just then, Leonie appeared in the living area, dre
ssed for the road, carrying her bag.
—I’m going now. You should tell them about the guy, Seth. The record collector guy.
—He’s downtown.
—But you said you thought Carter might have gone to see him.
The detectives looked concerned.
—He intended to visit someone? Sir, I think you need to be more frank with us.
Leonie left. They made no attempt to stop her. I wondered if they had instructions not to bother Carter’s family. Reluctantly, I told them about JumpJim. I said nothing about “Graveyard Blues” or about the fact that I’d met him. I just said that he was a person Carter had met on the internet, that in my opinion he had no records to sell.
—And you think Mr. Wallace may have gone to meet him?
—It’s possible.
—You never found out his name?
—I guess not.
—Or where they were going to meet?
—No.
—We’re going to need access to his laptop, if he had one. We have his phone. What email system did he use?
They took down details. I told them I couldn’t give them his possessions without permission from the family. They weren’t happy about it and the Latino detective went into the hall and made a phone call. They left, saying they would be back with paperwork.
As soon as they’d gone, I got on my bike and cycled over the bridge into Manhattan. I don’t know if I was tired. Perhaps I made some kind of mistake. I took the same route as I’d taken the previous day. I chained up my bike to the same lamppost. But though I walked that stretch of 14th Street several times, it seemed confusing and unfamiliar. Between the dollar store and the dry cleaner, where the bar ought to have been, was a clinical white space selling frozen yogurt.
THE LANGUAGE. Blunt force trauma. Bradycardia and hypotension. Impairment of neurological function secondary to mechanical impact. They had surrounded Carter with this language, lowered it over him like a wire cage. Later the police came back with a warrant to search the apartment. By that time I’d collected anything that had to do with drugs and thrown it in a dumpster behind a nearby restaurant. They found the old laptop he used to check and send mail, and took it away in an evidence bag. After a cursory look at the walnut box of records, they left it alone.
Then Leonie texted me. If I wanted to see Carter, I should come by the hospital. She was going over there. She would sneak me in.
It was hard to look at him like that, attached to a ventilator, his hands a mess of tape and plastic vents and drains. His head was tightly wrapped in bandages and the few exposed sections of his face were horribly bruised. Both eyes were closed up, puffed out by fluid. Plugs of blood-soaked cotton stuffed his nose. Something else had happened, some indefinable sliding of his features, as if they’d been smeared, pushed sideways. Sensors were taped to his chest and clipped to his finger to monitor vital signs. The audio output on the machine by the bed was turned up high, presumably so staff could hear alerts when they were outside the room. Inside, the volume was punishing, the thump and squelch of his amplified heart an industrial bassline, some other parameter indicated as a high-pitched pulse, like a car alarm.
I held his cold hand, stained orange by some kind of antiseptic, trying not to cry at the sight of the plastic tags circling his thin wrists. The previous summer, he’d collected festival passes like fluorescent friendship bracelets. I wanted to play music to him but they said I couldn’t use my phone, so I sat there, listening to his amplified vital signs, watching paper scroll out of a plotter onto the floor.
—Did they find his car?
Leonie shook her head. She was leaning over the bed, stroking her brother’s matted hair.
—I still can’t believe what an ape you were. Going up there in that stupid fancy car. Bright red. I mean, Carter, come on. You’re supposed to be the streetwise one.
A nurse passed the door and frowned. Visitors were only allowed on that floor by special permission.
Carter wants to trust people, I said.
—That’s the trouble. My brother thinks the world is fundamentally a safe place.
The nurse passed the door again, still scowling. You could see she was itching to tell us to leave.
Leonie took out her phone and framed herself in a picture with Carter’s bandaged, swollen head. I must have looked surprised because she told me not to freak out, she was on airplane mode, she wasn’t going to short-circuit his defibrillator or whatever. The phone made its fake shutter sound. I wondered why she wanted the picture.
—We ought to go, I think my mom and dad are going to stop by.
Too late. We met her parents as they were getting out of the elevator. I recognized her father from photographs, the precise wedge of gray-blond hair, the prognathous jaw. In person, he had a particular quality, not exactly visible, the unbreachable membrane of legal decorum that only politicians or very wealthy men of business possess, the suggestion that everything he did was correct because he did it, that your impertinent questions could not touch him, would in fact only rebound on you. Pictures didn’t convey his raw, unwholesome physicality. The skin around his jaw was rough and pocked, as if he’d survived some childhood disease. Above a blunt, heavy nose, a nose like a ship’s bridge or a gantry, two pale eyes surveyed me with displeasure.
—Hello Leonie, he said, addressing himself deliberately to his daughter.
—Hello Daddy.
—Who is this?
—This is Seth, Carter’s roommate.
—I see.
The children had this man’s unholy features sanctified by those of the mother, a birdlike blonde with an air of startled perfection. How do you do, she said, just a trace of a southern accent. A limp hand extended like a sea creature putting out a feeler.
—I’m surprised to find you here, Seth. I’d given instructions to the staff to let only family members see my son.
Up to that point I’d been holding up OK, but, caught by those eyes, I lost my nerve. I became hyper-conscious of my baggy board shorts, the grubby soles of my sockless feet. My right calf began to itch, in a spot where I had a persistent patch of eczema. No obvious response to her statement came to mind.
—It’s not the hospital’s fault, mother, said Leonie. I snuck him in.
Don Wallace turned his eye on me.
—Why would she do that for you? Who are you to my son?
Why hadn’t I put on a pair of shoes instead of going out in flip-flops?
—Sir, he’s my best friend. I was—I am worried.
Don Wallace carried on looking at me. I couldn’t say he scrutinized me, because that would imply a level of engagement which simply was not there. He just rested his eyes on me as he might on any phenomenon in his visual field—a stone, a spreadsheet. I am often accused of lacking emotional response. In fact I think that what I lack is emotional spontaneity. It takes me a while to release my reaction, for the feeling to bubble up from below. That man was what people think I am. He made me afraid.
—I didn’t mean to intrude, I said, instantly disgusted by my cringing tone. I was rolling over, baring my throat.
—And now you’ve seen him, said the mother, in a tone that suggested I would not be doing so again. A very refined threat. She must have been the prize of whatever town Don Wallace found her in. Miss Magnolia, Cotton Queen. Waving at all the little people in the parade.
Leonie took my arm. I held my breath at her unexpected touch.
—I’m going to walk Seth to the lobby.
We got into the elevator. My calf was on fire and I reached down to scratch. Leonie was visibly upset, chewing a strand of hair and scuffing the sole of her sandal against the floor.
—Stupid me, she muttered. Stupid stupid me.
—Why?
—He’s going to get them fired, those nurses.
—Seriously? Your dad can do that?
—I don’t know. Probably. He’s all about consequences. My mother will make sure he does something.
—I
should go back and talk to him. Take responsibility.
—Believe me, that would only make it worse.
I left her in the hospital lobby. Later, she texted me and we got dinner in Chinatown, silently slurping noodles in a place with wobbly plastic tables where the lighting turned everything green and a Cantopop karaoke video played on a screen over our heads. She didn’t seem to have anywhere to go. I wanted to say to her, where are your friends? All those people who sit for hours in your apartment? Where is Marc and his billion-dollar tech company? Like the previous night, we ended up back at our place, sitting in Carter’s room and listening to records. I’m leaving baby crying won’t make me stay. We were crying to make him stay, trying to cast a spell with our crying. The records were all sending messages, now I had ears to hear. Crying leaving crying leaving leaving. The hiss and crackle of worn surfaces, the constant chirping of our phones. Ignored alerts, word about Carter getting around.
THE FOLLOWING DAY I took a call.
—Hey Seth, it’s Lewis. How have things been?
Fine, I said.
—Look I was so sorry to hear about Carter.
I talked to the guy for a minute, trying to work out who he was. I agreed that it was terrible. I said I hoped the police would find whoever attacked him. I ended the call without ever quite working out who I’d been speaking to.
Just after midnight, Leonie came round again. I’d spent the day cycling along 14th Street, through the East Village, over to Washington Square. I was disturbed. Everything was slightly off. It wasn’t as if the city had changed, exactly. Perhaps my memory was at fault. Leonie was in party clothes, all hair and heels and bag. Her hands were a blur of motion as she opened the fridge and made herself a drink. She knew the whole thing had been a mistake, she said. What had she been thinking? Her friends had insisted, but it was such a bad idea. It was hard to follow her train of thought. I gathered that she’d been to an opening.
—The asshole gallerist went to the bathroom and obviously he Googled me. I mean what would it cost him to be nice, to acknowledge my work, the fact that I make work, but he comes back and all of a sudden he wants to sell me a picture. He’s talking about how legacies get made early and touching my arm and I want to say I sent you slides, remember, only last month, why don’t you talk to me about my slides, and then I flash on Carter lying there with a fucking tube in his mouth, tubes all in his arms. He’s up there in the ICU and I’m making nice to this asshole for what? For my career? How sick of a person am I? Then, well, I just couldn’t anymore. I wasn’t dramatic. I didn’t raise my voice or throw things around. I just told him I thought he was a dick. And still everyone behaved like I took a dump on the floor.
