by Sam Munson
Once we were adequately high, once we had talked ourselves into a pleasing moral superiority, it was time to move. We had no plan in mind. But life as an adolescent is so dull that even pointless activity, wandering around for its own sake, enlivens it. The whole setup can be exhausting. And when you add in a pro-level weed-smoking regimen … everything gets sort of leaden. I promised I’d avoid this. You already know what the routines of life are like. As well as I do. Adolescence is enslaved to such routines, which is what makes alternatives to them so promising. Minor escapades of anarchy or sex. College! Promise, after all, requires the threat of its extinction to exist. Otherwise it wouldn’t be promise but just another unbearable fact.
So we drove, in long ellipses up and down the boulevards of D.C., which are wide and tree-arcaded, even the unimportant streets, and everything is laid out in accordance with Haussmann’s plan, which I don’t really know what it is, but it’s also how Paris is organized. Boulevards radiating outward from a center ringed with large streets, and veining their way in between are the small streets, the ones where people conduct their private lives. They are named according to a confusing recursive convention, so that if a land army ever invades it will have a tough time finding its way around. I mean an eighteenth-century land army. They have spy satellites now to deal with the pathetic ingenuity of the founders. It makes for fun driving. It makes it easy to get just lost enough that it’s fun. The light got colder, and Digger went quiet in the way she does before she propositions me.
As soon as we got out of my car, Digger gave a low grunt of surprise. One of the purple curtains that my father chose for our living room (to go with its orange walls) was trailing out through the broken front window, in which there was a jagged, starlike hole. Most of the glass still hung in the pane; you could hear it creaking as the muslin curtains snagged on it in the gentle breeze. The curtain was torn in places from the glass, long delicate rents. The whole thing was kind of beautiful. Or I thought so. A collage or something. “Dude?” Digger asked.
“I like have no idea like what it is,” I returned. She went back to the car. “I’m putting my pipe in here. In the glove compartment. Okay?” She gets paranoid about carrying it in her purse, in moments of stress. Then, with ceremony, to defuse her fear or something, she hooked her arm through mine and we walked inside. Three unusual objects greeted us. Two had fallen from my coffee table, which was now broken and sloped into a V: a thick green glass bottle of champagne, which had emptied itself on the floor, and a smashed white platter of strawberries, the fruit tossed in a neat diminishing arc. “What the fuck,” Digger said. The coffee table itself my father had purchased from this antiques place, Azul, where he buys our furniture, which is all, every last piece of it, rickety and uncomfortable, impossible to sit in or use.
The table had splintered down some invisible seam near the middle of the thin plank top, longitudinally, under the weight of a lumpy bundle wrapped in white cloth. Brown twine held it closed. This was what had broken the window. “Is this like some fucking installation?” Digger continued. She knows about my father’s pottery. I guess she figured setups such as this constitute the logical next phase of expression.
“No, he wouldn’t waste the champagne,” I remember saying. I think the bundle was already in my hands. That was the third unusual thing. The bundle, I mean. It was heavy, rigid, a little warm. I yanked at the twine, tied in a sure-handed double gift bow. A brick fell out of the cloth, nearly amputating my left toe, and dented the champagne-puddled floor with its corner. It was the exact color of the strawberries.
I don’t think it was until then that we heard them. My father and Fatima, I mean. I didn’t know it was Fatima at the time. I only learned who it was later. At which point I was no longer in any position to care. But when the brick fell with a melodic thunk, I noticed their mingled cries coming from upstairs, voices pitched about the same, short and breathy. Digger clapped a hand over her mouth and ran onto the porch, and then ran back inside, looking ashamed. I’d almost finished unfolding the cloth the brick had been wrapped in, and I could see that there was writing on it. The cloth felt clean and light, the way new cotton does. You could catch that spacious smell of fresh cloth even at arm’s length, and underlying it another smell, choking, somehow childish. Familiar, though. The bed screaked and the headboard flapped against the wall. I’m not trying to disgust you. But the sounds were an integral part of the whole thing, my father and Fatima fucking with a vigorous, mechanical regularity of rhythm. I’m just glad they were crying out in wordless pleasure and joy, though. And not talking to each other, I mean. That would have been unbearable. “Holy shit,” Digger muttered. She sounded impressed. I have to admit I was, too.
They reached a raucous pitch now. Just going at it. I had opened the flag of cloth to its fullest, so I could see what message the brick thrower had printed on it. A cut bedsheet, still trailing threads from its edges. The handwriting was overperfect, as though the writer were illiterate and just copying lines and curves. My own scrawl is that of a retarded five-year-old. So clear, firm handwriting—and this was musically fluent—always impresses me. No matter what it says. “Dude, dude, dude,” Digger kept chanting. She read the message before I could. It took me longer because I had to hold the cloth in an awkward position to decipher the words. Their message was terse and unmistakable:
SCARED NOW JEWBOY
ran across the top. No question mark, no comma. Across the bottom:
SHUT YOUR JEW MOUTH
This lacked the exclamation point you’d expect. The source of the familiar childish smell was the black tempera paint the writer had used, which made each letter a knobbly landscape. The middle point of the upper W, in the first JEW, was closest to my face. I could see the hardened gobs and spatters in amazing relief.
And in between these two statements, one interrogative and one imperative, was a large, foursquare, steady-lined swastika. Which would have been as perfect as the handwriting, except that Lorriner had gotten the orientation reversed. So that it suggested the schematic sketch of a man running blind, pinwheeling his limbs. Saint Vitus’ Dance—the phrase flickered through my mind. I could see the words, in violet on a night-dark background. Words appear to me that way sometimes. I’d started talking, to myself, to nobody.
“How does he like know we’re Jewish?” I asked.
“Schacht is a Jewish last name,” Digger murmured. And then: “He did have caller ID. Right? You said he did. He probably just looked your father’s name up in the phone book. Your address.” She stroked the banner between her thumb and index finger, as though to gauge the value of its material, and took a sharp breath in, through her nose, the sound a doe about to break cover makes. Upstairs, the steam-engine racket continued, and the mingled, exulting voices showed no sign of slackening.
IX.
PROBABLY FROM EVERYTHING I’ve written so far, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve gotten the impression that my father is a bad father. He’s not. He raised me by himself. He came to parent-teacher conferences. He arranged halfhearted birthday parties. He cooked his repetitive meals for me when he got home early enough and left me money for pizza when he didn’t, until I was fourteen. All the things parents do. But even to me it’s obvious that he’s weak. Or that he chose to be weak. Maybe after my mother died, maybe before—my knowledge of him, after all, is restricted to the period of my own life.
His weakness is undeniable, though. Example: when I was ten, I broke my wrist. I didn’t do it in any extraordinary way; I just tripped over my own feet and put out my arms to brace myself. In front of our local library branch, where I once had a real craze to go every weekend. My father was two yards ahead of me, sashaying toward the car. I heard the bone crack as I fell, and he must have heard it too, because he came rushing back, his face emptied of blood, and he forklifted me up and put me in the passenger seat. I was screaming my head off, I remember, in the embarrassing loose-mouthed way children have. Although the pain was considerable. So we drov
e off to the emergency room as I wailed and wailed, my gaze transfixed by the up-and-down of the telephone wires above the street. My arm went kind of numb after about three minutes, my howls abated to whimpers, the wires swooped and lifted and the sun shone. I was starting to feel better, like maybe I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life in agonizing pain, which is what you think when you injure yourself as a child, that the hurt will be permanent.
And that’s when I heard him, my father, I mean. He was weeping now, teary and windy, moaning, “Addison, Addison, oh, God, Addison, what are we going to do, what are we going to do.” While he was driving! This, as you might imagine, scared the shit out of me. So I renewed my screams out of raw terror, which has that unique metal taste, and by the time we got to the hospital, my father and I were both completely hysterical. The doctors, of course, thought he had broken my wrist and was wild with remorse, so they took me aside into a room and asked me confusing questions. “Can you tell us how this happened, Addison?” “Are you sure, Addison?” “Addison, is this the only time you’ve had to go to the hospital?” I answered all these with my good hand clenching the guardrail of my rickety gurney. But—since I could no longer see my father weeping—I found myself getting calmer and calmer, to the point that it became difficult to keep my eyes open, and I drifted off into the sleep of shock. I must have passed their test, because they didn’t arrest my father. We were released into the spring night, and drove home. I was ashamed. I couldn’t say why at the time. My father would not look at me. So you understand what I mean by his weakness. Though I know it came out of love and concern.
Does the fact that my father is a terrible potter surprise you? It seems to me to go along with this weakness. I mean, there’s no way of verifying this. But the available evidence suggests it is the case. He hasn’t sold a pot in years; he just grinds along, and Viktor Something makes his occasional visits, and they commiserate. I’m willing to admit he’s a failure, considered as a maker of pots. I have never seen the merits of the ones he throws. They remind me, as I said before, of him. Maybe that clouds the issue. But whatever his flaws as a potter, he is an unquestionably excellent maker of masks. We have a whole collection on our mantel, and dozens more in this pine crate he keeps in the basement closet where the water heater mumbles to itself. My father casts them with incredible speed and certainty. He doesn’t agonize over them the way he does over his pots. He’s also never sold a mask. He’s refused to try. I think—and I’m speaking as a philistine here—I think they’d sell. Who doesn’t want a mask?
Anyway, the collection on our mantel shelf has not changed in ten years. He’s made other masks. These are the icons among them, or whatever. And he keeps them on permanent display. They dominate the room, as you’d expect an array of large-featured, final faces to do. From left to right, they are: a cartoony version of William F. Buckley, with a flaming hundred-dollar bill in place of a cigarette; a phallus-nosed mask for Carnivale, with almond-shaped eye slits; a bigmouthed Chinese demon; an old, wild-haired man, a deposed king, maybe; a gouty man-in-the-moon; the god Cernunnos, from whose forehead branch deer horns. He’s on the right edge, and his right horn reaches up to the lip of the tall narrow window. And in the middle? In the middle there rests the oval face of a woman. The one female face. Unlike the other masks, this one is unpainted, and it has the blessing of eyelids, to relieve its empty, burning stare. My father made it of my mother when they were first married. And since she died, I always nod at it. For ten years, now. I nod at it when I go in or come out of the house. Like I’m greeting or thanking her. Digger is used to this movement of mine. She asked me who it was once. I couldn’t answer: my face burned with shame as I tried to speak. I think she figured it out, and kept silent about it afterward. Even that afternoon, when I lingered in front of it. The phone had just started to ring. Ten, fifteen times. I didn’t pick it up, just dropped the banner and grabbed the brick (why?) and ran to the door. Stopping to stare at the mask.
Digger gathered up Lorriner’s banner and followed me out, her quick steps filling in the gaps between my unsteady lopes. She stuffed it—the banner, I mean—in her purse as we ran to my car. I was glad she’d had the foresight to pick it up. I realized I didn’t want my father finding it or the brick. That would have been awkward beyond imagining. A broken window—well, a person can almost ignore that. If you see what I mean. I tossed the brick onto the backseat and hurled myself into the driver’s seat. Digger didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t know, either, until I found myself turning Noel’s corner. David Cash was outside when we arrived, tipping the last of a forty down. He never wears a coat, just a heavy workshirt and a canvas jacket over it. Not even in the bitterest weather. He offered us a curt nod as we parked, and then went inside to alert Noel. My car is recognizable: as I said, it’s orange, a car color that has suffered grave neglect for more than two decades. Digger kept quiet the entire drive. Not the quiet of fear, but the quiet of considering.
Noel, though he tried to hide it with a thick guffaw of welcome, was shocked to see us. He started talking to us, yelling, when we were still ten yards away. I’d never brought anyone with me to see him before. Can you be ashamed of someone you’re not related to? By blood or marriage, I mean. Ashamed of someone you associate with by choice? He kept us on his stoop for a while. His eyes kept falling to Digger’s tits. Against his will. It’s impossible not to stare at them. She, I guess, is used to it. And so am I. To other guys checking her out, I mean. Even a twinge of jealousy would violate the agreement. So I don’t feel any. Besides, how can you be jealous of Noel? When he greets you by saying, “Daaaaaamn, son! You all shook!”
Maybe I looked it. Maybe I was pale or something. No mirror was handy. Digger jerked back at the words, and I was afraid she would whip the banner out right then—you know, to make our point for us? The old black people who live in Noel’s area tottered out onto their porches and stoops. Some junkie rocked himself on the curb, muttering and laughing. This is about par for the course where Noel lives. People call it, in the papers and things, a “transitional neighborhood.” As we approached, I saw that the junkie was, to—please forgive me—my amusement, Stokey. Remember? “Don’t Care?” He didn’t recognize me. He didn’t look to be in a recognizing mood. He was addressing himself as he swayed. I heard him mumble—I swear to fucking God—“It’s eternity either way you look at it, my friends.” He had on his blue corduroy vest. His open, working mouth still showed omelette-colored teeth. He moved his torso in countertime to his own speech. “Can we come in,” Digger asked. Or rather instructed. And Noel, who despite his idiosyncracies is a polite guy, pressed himself against the wall and sucked in his gut, so that we could squeeze into his living room.
I expected more objections from Digger. Once we got inside and she saw the barrenness of Noel’s house, I mean. There was an empty bottle of malt liquor on the floor in front of the couch, next to a pewter ashtray shaped like a smiling pig. Two metal folding chairs, chipped white enamel, that I had not seen before. Set out as if he’d been expecting us. Which was, of course, not possible. A bunch of two-by-fours in one corner. He was always planning some absurd home renovation project. I’d gotten used to this visual shittiness. But having Digger there made me see it, you know? The CHANDLER pennant still clung to its wall, immaculate red and white. David leaned against the grimy paint beneath it. Eyes 80 percent closed, lips immobile. Noel blobbed out on the leather sofa, fumbling with the empty ashtray. He had on this glare-blue shirt, which said SHABAZZ GEAR across the front, in an arc distorted by his bulges. No one had any idea how to begin.
“Yo, y’all wanna smoke or suh’in?” Noel asked without enthusiasm.
“He threw a brick through our window. I mean through his window. That guy you told Addison about.” Digger was clenching the straps of her bag.
“The fuck?” Noel warbled.
“She means Short Mike,” I explained. He heaved himself around a little.
“Naw, man, I ain’t even say I
knew that nigga.” No one had accused him of knowing Lorriner. But Noel’s scoffing, which he delivered with a little fartage of his bolsterlike lips, sounded irrefutable.
“No, man, I mean, it’s fucked-up.”
“And? Whutchoo want from me, nigga?” followed from those lips.
“Can you stop using that word, please?” This was Digger again. “You sound ridiculous.” I swear to God that David chortled at this, although when I flicked my glance up to him he had recovered his shut-eyed, statue-proud poise. Noel tried to grin. It looked sad. I mean, it was a grin, in a technical sense. His cheeks had gotten this slight queasy shine, his eyes racketed back and forth. His breathing was loud, so loud you felt bad for him. He lives in combat with his own physical form, as all fat men do.
“Look, Noel, can you just like give us some help here. Seriously. Like you brought this guy up.” He was already shaking his head, his lips were already in motion to refuse. So I kept talking.
“Noel. Don’t be a dick. I’m not asking you for anything. To do anything. Just some information. Right? I’ll fucking pay you. I have money. I’ll pay you like a thousand bucks. I can go home and get it right now.”
“Nigga, y’all think I need yo’ damn money?”
“But it’s like for nothing, man. You don’t even have to like sell anything for it.”
