The Secret History of Las Vegas

by Chris Abani

  Sunil moved to fast-forward the video, but Sheila’s hand stayed his, and he felt her breasts brush his back. In the six years they had worked together, this was the closest they had come physically. He had a moment of guilt, like he was cheating on Asia, which was stupid. Asia was a prostitute. But he loved her.

  What is he doing, Sheila asked.

  They watched Water as he leaned up against the window. He was hugging himself and his lips were moving but the audio was really bad and they couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like a melodic hum.

  I think he is singing, Sunil said.

  I think you’re right. How odd, Sheila said.

  Yeah, that is odd, Sunil agreed.

  They watched Water, occasionally forwarding through the footage. Sometimes he was by the window, other times he was in the corner, and then sometimes on the bed. But wherever he was in the room he seemed to be singing the same inaudible song. Finally he fell asleep and then woke with a start less than an hour later when the duty nurse checked in on them.

  This is exciting, Sheila said.

  About that, Sunil began.

  Don’t send me away. I can help, Sheila said. Besides, I’ll be gone on Tuesday. So let me help. Please.

  Sunil looked at her from behind his steepled fingers.

  I’ll even make the coffee, Sheila volunteered.

  Actually, I’ll let you stay only if you promise not to make the coffee, Sunil said.

  She smiled. I like this. We should hang out more often. What do you think the singing means?

  Sunil was sitting back, legs crossed, crease pinched, chewing thoughtfully on a wooden stirrer. More important than what it means, he said, is the question of his manner.

  How do you mean?

  When the police and I interviewed the twins yesterday, Water exhibited traits of autism. He spoke mostly in factoids that were only tenuously connected to the conversation, and only when pushed.

  So?

  Some experts say twins can swap consciousness. What if Fire is the one singing, and Water is the one sleeping?

  That’s creepy, Sheila said.

  Sunil smiled. Are you going to attempt a diagnosis?

  I work on robots, Sunil, not psychopaths.

  Some could argue that’s the same thing, he said.

  She laughed. I have to get back to work, she said.

  Okay.

  I won’t wait forever, Sunil, she said.

  I know, he said.

  Twenty-four

  It’s Dr. SS, Fire said as Sunil knocked and entered their room. The twins were sitting in the chair in the corner. Water was surfing through channels on the television, a bored look on his face. He barely glanced at Sunil, who was flicking through their chart, a nurse hovering by his elbow.

  I told you not to call me that, Sunil said.

  What should I call you?

  Why don’t you just call me Doctor?

  There are eighteen doctors in the U.S. called Dr. Doctor and one called Dr. Surgeon, Water said.

  It is important that we establish some boundaries in our communication, Sunil continued. When you call me Doc, you sound like Bugs Bunny.

  Mel Blanc, the original voice for Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots, Water said.

  How are you feeling today, Sunil asked Fire, changing the subject.

  I’m good. We are good.

  Could you maybe expand a little on that, Sunil asked.

  We had eggs for breakfast, after an early snack of Red Vines and M&M’s. I’m not sure what level of detail you’re looking for.

  I see you’re being difficult again. Water, how are you?

  Sharks lay the largest eggs in the world, Water said.

  Really, Water? You’re going to keep this up?

  Tone, Dr. Singh, tone, Fire said with a smirk.

  Sunil took a deep breath. Your chart looks good, he said, your vitals are holding strong. How did you sleep?

  I slept like a baby, Fire said. But then I always do. Water, on the other hand, he doesn’t sleep much.

  And your appetite?

  Pretty good, Fire said.

  Water?

  Selah is a tree, Water said.

  I’m sorry?

  Selah is a tree and that’s why I can’t sleep, Water said.

  Selah was our mother’s name, Fire said, his stubby hand rubbing Water’s face gently. His head, however, never looked in Water’s direction. And even his hand movements seemed forced and clumsy: unnatural. Sunil made a note in the chart.

  And why is she a tree, Sunil asked.

  Trees are the oldest living organisms, Water said. He still hadn’t looked at Sunil.

  Sunil was leaning against the bed. Why is she a tree, Water, he asked again.

  Water was silent.

  Can you tell me why he thinks your mother is a tree, Sunil asked Fire.

  Fire looked away.

  What can you tell me about your mother, Sunil asked.

  She is dead, Fire said. She passed on when we were twelve.

  I see, Sunil said. And your father?

  We never knew our father. For all we know he was God.

  And that would make you what, Jesus?

  The Bible is the Word of God, Water said.

  Look, I’m trying to conduct a basic evaluation here of your mental health. If you keep up with these kinds of answers I’m going to have to assume that you actually believe them.

  The mustard seed was a parable by Jesus, Water said.

  Fire was silent.

  Understand that if I take your answers seriously, Sunil said, then I have to conclude that you suffer from delusions.

  Delusions of biblical proportions, Fire said, smirking.

  Fifty Bibles are sold every minute across the world, Water said.

  What does that mean to you, Sunil asked Water.

  Water shrugged. Shakespeare was forty-six when the King James Version of the Bible was compiled. In Psalms 46, the forty-sixth word from the first word is “shake” and the forty-sixth word from the last word is “spear,” he said.

  Do you both realize the severity of your situation? You will either go to prison or be remanded to a secure wing of a mental hospital. Is that what you want?

  What will be will be, I can’t worry about that, Fire said.

  I think you should, if not for your sake, then your brother’s.

  I’ve been taking care of my brother for years, since Selah died, so don’t tell me how, thank you very much.

  Fire and Water are always together because we are born of steam, Water said.

  Sunil sighed. This was going to be hard.

  Look, Doc, this whole thing is loaded against us, Fire said. We can’t win in a rigged game.

  How do you mean exactly, Sunil asked.

  I just don’t think the justice system works for people like me, Fire said.

  Are you saying you’re above the law?

  This is exactly my point, Doc. When I admit that I don’t believe in this country’s justice system, you think I’m saying I am above the law, which you might call a grandiose sense of self-worth. If I keep making jokes you will say I am exhibiting glibness and superficial charm. If you decide that I am not answering your questions or at least not answering them honestly, you will think I am a pathological liar and that I am cunning and manipulative. If I complain about any of this, you will say I am not accepting responsibility for my own actions. If I admit to being bored, which I am by the way, you could read that as a need for stimulation and proneness to thrill seeking. I am living off the side of my brother, so I do qualify for parasitic lifestyle and I think you will agree that I’m pretty high on the aggressive narcissism scale, which makes me think you are going for an evaluation of us that fits with something you’ve already decided.

&nb
sp; Such as?

  If we’re supposed to be serial killers, Fire said, then my guess is we are supposed to be psychopaths.

  An American study found that one in twenty men was a psychopath, Water said.

  Well, Doc, am I right so far?

  No, Sunil said. I’m here with an open mind. Are you?

  If you are, then what am I, Fire said, and cackled.

  Interesting how you keep switching between the pronouns we, us, and I.

  Is it? I don’t think so. Fire paused, then, taking a shuddering breath, began again. About Selah, she killed herself—hanged herself, to be precise, from the branch of a bristlecone pine that grew on the edge of our property.

  I’m sorry, Sunil said. That couldn’t have been easy for you at twelve.

  It wasn’t.

  Do you know why she did it?

  We were downwinders, you know, downwind from the nuclear tests. She had leukemia, she was dying, so she gave us away and hanged herself.

  Gave you away?

  She gave us to Fred’s dad, Reverend Jacobs, and his freak show, the Lord’s Marvels.

  Is that how you grew up? With a circus?

  A sideshow, Doc, a sideshow. Not a circus. Yes, we grew up as freaks and hardcore downwinder nationalists. Sideshow or die, Fire said.

  Why do you call yourselves freaks, Sunil asked.

  It’s a badge of honor, Fire said. That’s what Reverend Jacobs gave us. Pride. You see, freaks are made, not born. Birth defects, unusual genetic formations, they make you less capable in this able-biased society, but they don’t make you a freak. Freakery you learn, you cultivate, you earn.

  And what’s a downwinder nationalist, Sunil pressed.

  Oh for fuck’s sake, Doc, Fire snapped. Look into it, do your own fucking work.

  Your attitude is not very constructive right now, Sunil said.

  Yeah, whatever, Dr. Phil, Fire said. We want a phone call. Don’t we get a phone call?

  The telephone was invented to talk to the dead, Water said.

  Sunil noted that Water’s tongue seemed to protrude a little from his mouth when Fire was speaking, but not when they were both silent. It was a small thing but one he’d noticed the day before at County. He didn’t know what it meant, or if it meant anything at all.

  When you say the telephone was invented to speak to the dead, what do you mean, he asked Water.

  Just that, Doc, Fire replied. That’s what Edison invented the telephone for.

  When Thomas Edison died in 1941, Henry Ford captured his last breath in a bottle, Water said.

  If you could have a phone call, who would you call, Sunil asked.

  Fred, Water said.

  Fred, Fire agreed.

  What is Fred’s last name, Sunil asked.

  Fred Jacobs, Fire said. So do we get our call, Doc?

  The word “doctor” comes from the Latin doctori, meaning to teach, Water said.

  Thank you, Water, Sunil said. Is there any way you can get your brother to speak to me, he asked Fire.

  He is speaking to you, Fire said.

  I see, Sunil said. Giving the chart to the nurse, he said, I’ve modified their medication, be careful with the dosage. And with that, he headed out the door.

  What about our fucking phone call, Fire yelled.

  Twenty-five

  I miss my mother terribly, Sunil thought as the gondola sailed under the fake bridge. In truth, Dorothy had died many years—when her mind folded in on itself and opened along the crease—before her body gave up the struggle. It had been a lonely and difficult time for Sunil and he would most certainly not have made it without White Alice.

  A drizzle of crumbs from a bag of chips that a fat Midwestern family were stuffing into their faces on the concrete arch above brought him back to the gondola and the chlorine smell of water and the blue sky that was so blue it couldn’t be real. He watched the family with a mixture of envy and disgust. To be part of a group so oblivious seemed attractive. The gondola turned a bend and his thoughts returned to his mother.

  I miss my mother, he said aloud to the gondolier. Is that a childish thing to admit?

  The gondolier shrugged.

  Sunil was twenty-three when Dorothy died. He was far away in Europe, in Venice, that city she had loved but had never visited. Dorothy was locked up in the Soweto mental hospital for blacks. It was housed in the barracks of an abandoned mine workers’ camp. The barracks consisted of one long bungalow built to house five hundred men and sat in the middle of half an acre of dirt and bush scrub, with broken windows and walls that had not seen paint since it was built. The air of abandonment around it was real.

  In Dorothy’s room, pictures of Venice cut out of magazines were pasted across the walls. Other than those colorful walls, the room was bare except for a bed and an altar. On the altar were a single candle, a small statue of the Jesus of the Sacred Heart, and a statue of Mary with a half-melted face, probably from being too close to the candle flame. The altar also held, in a glass jar, a coiled piece of string stained dirt-brown from dried blood. It took all of Sunil’s willpower not to look at the string—it represented everything that had driven his mother here.

  On one visit to see Dorothy, Sunil brought a large detailed map of Venice stolen from the library. They spread it out on the floor and she touched each of the sites she loved: the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which held Titan’s Assumption of the Virgin, a painting she loved because the model for the Virgin was a famous courtesan; the Piazza San Marco, with the dual columns crested by Saint Mark’s winged lion and Saint Theodore standing on a crocodile, tiles laid out like a flat labyrinth; the Doge’s Palace; the path of the Grand Canal; the Rialto Bridge; and even the brown patch that was the beach at the Lido. Omar Sharif used to holiday there, Dorothy said. Even then Sunil knew she would die in those barracks.

  As soon as he left South Africa to study in Europe, Sunil went to Venice and crisscrossed the canals, touching walls, gazing at paintings in churches and galleries and museums, even approaching the statutes that terrified him but held such grace and awe for her. That was when the telegram had arrived announcing her death. He took a ferry to Isola di San Michele and wandered around the graves, watching a bulldozer push the headstones of funeral-plot debtors into a pile for trash against a far wall. Picking a spot by a tree, far away from the giant statue of the angel in the middle of the cemetery, he laid a single rose under it and said the Lord’s Prayer. On the ride back, he tore the telegram into many pieces and watched them flutter into the oily water. Then, and for a long time, he felt nothing more than an overwhelming sense of relief. Years went by before the grief arrived, the way it often does, unannounced, as quiet as the morning when you break down into your cup of coffee, crying.

  After Dorothy died, Sunil couldn’t bring himself to return to Venice, the real one, but when he came to Las Vegas and discovered the Strip, he began to come to the Venetian. And there he would ride a gondola for hours lost in this private rosary, this ritual of faith and grief.

  The ride has ended, sir, the gondolier said, interrupting Sunil’s thoughts. Do you want to go again?

  Sunil had been around twelve times already in two hours.

  No, thank you, he said, getting out.

  He tipped the gondolier and walked into the hotel lobby. After checking in, he went up to the room to wait for Asia. She’d finally called back and agreed to meet him there. While Sunil waited, nursing a scotch from the minibar, he became aware how sad it was for a forty-four-year-old to have had only two serious relationships, both plagued by gulfs of impossibility. Asia’s arrival brought him back to the present, and with it an animal hunger.

  Later, Sunil traced the tattoo on her shoulder. Trae Dah it said in cursive made from the winding stem of a rose. It took him back to the first night they’d spent together. He’d found her online, on Craig
slist, and she came over in less than thirty minutes, like her ad promised. That night she’d worn a tank top and he’d noticed the tattoo on her shoulder.

  She’d stood at the door for a long time before saying, Aren’t you going to ask me in? Of course, he said, stepping back to let her through. He peered out of the door, down the corridor. It’s okay, she said, I’m alone. Of course, he said, and shut the door. She sat on the couch and looked around. Nice place you have, she said. How old are you, he asked, thinking she didn’t look a day over sixteen. Twenty-two, she said. Then: But I can be younger if you are into that. No, he said, not sure exactly what he was into. What does your tattoo mean, he asked. An ex-boyfriend, she said, and her voice was sad. You can have it removed, he said. I don’t want to, she said. Silence. So, can I get you a drink, he asked. No, thank you, she said, but you are welcome to have one if it helps you relax. She got up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked out at the city. It looks so beautiful from up here, she said, a wistful tone in her voice. Is your name really Asia, he asked. She turned and smiled. Yes, she said, taking off her tank top. She had a pretty bra on. Do you want to do it here or in the bedroom, she asked. Here, he said, not sure why. She came over to the couch and, sitting down, she took a Bible out of her bag and placed it on the coffee table. The donation. Please put it inside the Bible, she said. There is a bookmark, she added. He opened it at the bookmark, to the book of John, and his eye was drawn to an underlined passage. He slipped the crisp dollar bills between the onionskin and shut the book. He never asked her about this ritual. Not then and not since.

  She rubbed her hand over the cushion next to her and patted it. Lie down, she said. He lay. Take your clothes off, she said. As he struggled with his pants, she said, Have you never done this before? What, he asked. This. No, he said, no. What made you call? I was lonely, he said, almost defensively. I know, she said, me too, and there was a sincerity in her voice. Lie back, she said, and he did. You can touch my breasts, she said. Thank you, he said, touching them tentatively. She smiled and bent to wrap him in her mouth, but then winced. What is it, he asked. Do I smell? No, no, she said hurriedly. I just had an abortion, she said. Oh, he said, suddenly uncomfortable, but not wanting to talk about her abortion. He no longer wanted to ask her anything, didn’t want her to speak. He only wanted sex. And she obliged. Later she held him and the move surprised him. Can I stay tonight, she asked. Please. Just tonight. Sure, he said, holding her firmly but gently. When he woke up she was gone. That had been three years ago and he had seen her regularly at least once a week since then.