Little Caesar

by Tommy Wieringa

  ‘My mother,’ I said. ‘It was only for a couple of nights, these days I usually sleep somewhere else.’

  ‘Listen, have you got the right outfit for this? Tie, shirt? Blazer?’

  Lovers’ insomnia. Whispering, we take little bites of each other’s life stories. I listen to the youth of a stranger, a girl who saw snowcapped mountains to the west and violent thunderstorms over the prairies, with bolts of lightning reaching from the clouds all the way to the ground. The word nowhere for Augusta, a dot on the map. Ranch-style houses, pickups out in front. The desperate longing for something else. Once a year there was a big rodeo, men in leather chaps, the gruesome shouting of ‘yee-haw’ in the streets. She remembers the pang of excitement when one day a body was found along the road, riddled with bullets. Later her father read aloud to her from the newspaper, about a married woman who had become involved with a Hell’s Angel; she had complained to him about her husband, how he made her suffer. The plan to murder him had arisen from her lamentations. The Hell’s Angel had asked two friends to help him, they had lured the husband to a strip joint, later that night they had waylaid him along the road and shot him in the chest and face. Her father read such stories to her as a warning, beware of the world, but it had served to awaken in her a desire for that world, for the romance that lay outside the straight and narrow.

  Sarah tries to go home twice a year, to Augusta, for Thanksgiving and for the annual family reunion.

  ‘My mother would like to meet you,’ I say.

  ‘Already?’

  Sarah doesn’t know what a high tea is, but she’ll try to be there on time, after work. The moment I’ve been avoiding all this time. She’ll have to find out before they meet.

  ‘A while ago you asked me why my mother and I are here.’

  I unroll before her a threadbare life story, catchwords, incomplete sentences, compressed until no life is left in them. Mother’s side, father’s side, all those things I left out. Telling it straight. Ignoring her dismay.

  ‘Oh my God, poor Ludwig.’

  She remembered hearing something about it, or reading it.

  ‘Insane,’ she said, ‘completely insane.’

  That sounds a lot more like it already. Then she falls asleep. She has a little over three hours before her day begins. She breathes deeply and calmly. I watch over a wonder.

  A little past five, later that same day. I ask my mother whether Mr. Suess has called. She shakes her head. What I really want to know is whether the shooting has already started, whether the irony and the propaganda have already segued into the earnestness of sex for money – have the hordes already descended upon her person?

  She says she’ll go ahead and order. Her voice at my back, ‘It takes them a while to put it together. I hope your girl gets here on time.’

  Everything she says repulses me. Worse than that. A hatred that nestles high in my chest. If I were to seize her by the throat, I’m afraid I might never let go. I want to know who it is who fucks her, I want to see their faces as they go into her. Sometimes I awaken from daydreams: orgies of crime and rape – by broad daylight, I walk down the street, the events in my head are razor-sharp, the world around me is cast in weak light.

  Sarah is late. I know that somewhere, back in the kitchen, the meter is running. Now that I’m paying attention, I notice that you actually hear sirens here all the time. All the time. As though people here immediately act on every bad impulse. The tea and scones must be pretty much ready by now. Maybe I should keep a parking spot open for her along the street, valet parking at the hotel costs a bundle. Don’t forget later on to get a pair of clean underpants out of my suitcase.

  *

  She arrived just after six. I was annoyed and relieved. My mother was seated behind a silver tower of aromatic substances and flavor enhancers.

  ‘Hello, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I’m Marthe.’

  And then to me, a little more quietly.

  ‘We would have been better off ordering dinner.’

  She poured the tea.

  ‘No sugar for me, thank you, Marthe,’ Sarah said.

  She took an egg-salad sandwich. My mother rattled her spoon in her teacup. Sarah told us that someone had spilled a plate full of pasta all over her that afternoon. The woman hadn’t even apologized.

  ‘Some people,’ my mother said. ‘It’s not right to judge, but still . . .’

  ‘You’re very pretty,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s hard to believe that you two are mother and son. In terms of age, I mean.’

  ‘Lucky genes,’ my mother said. ‘Only our necks, ugly necks run in our family.’

  ‘I don’t see anything ugly about it.’

  ‘You do when I do this.’

  My mother bowed her head, causing deep wrinkles in her ugly neck.

  ‘Oh, but I have that too,’ Sarah said.

  She bowed her head as well, a double chin appeared.

  ‘The two of you have other interests in common as well,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Do we?’ said my mother.

  ‘Incense,’ I said. ‘Candles. That kind of thing.’

  ‘Do you mean spirituality, Ludwig?’ Sarah asked with a treacherous kind of amiability.

  I smiled at her to confirm our bond, but was suddenly not quite sure we belonged to the same conspiracy.

  ‘He always jokes about that,’ my mother said. ‘You seem so afraid to believe in anything, sweetheart. Even though . . . life would be so much richer if you weren’t so cynical. Just look at your father . . .’

  ‘Let’s change the subject,’ I said.

  I had told her beforehand that all things Schultz were taboo when Sarah was around. But I was now no longer certain that I had nailed shut that particular fire door firmly enough.

  ‘Is cynicism something that’s passed from father to son in your family?’ Sarah asked. ‘It seems so typically male to me. As though you men can’t tell the difference between disbelief and strength.’

  A little tremor of approval played at the corners of my mother’s lips. Then she started talking about when I was born, how in the hospital in Alexandria she had rocked my cradle every few minutes to hear whether I was still alive. She laid her hand on Sarah’s forearm.

  ‘Even then I was already so jealous of the girlfriend he would have someday!’

  The conversation fanned out into practical idealism; I raised my head with a start when I heard Sarah say, ‘And that’s how I met Ludwig.’

  ‘Oh really?’ my mother said.

  Sarah looked at me.

  ‘Didn’t you tell her how we met?’

  ‘Things like that don’t really interest her.’

  ‘Oh, Ludwig! That’s mean! Those are exactly the kinds of things I love to hear!’

  ‘I want to get going,’ I said.

  The thought of having come out of her – to gag on a mouthful of amniotic fluid.

  ‘One more cup of tea then,’ Sarah said. ‘I just got here.’

  ‘Exactly, very good,’ my mother said. ‘He can be so pushy. Stand up for yourself. But now tell me, where did the two of you meet?’

  This was getting out of hand. I said, ‘So why didn’t you ask me about it, if you were really so interested?’

  ‘Oh, well, you’re always gone so quickly.’

  ‘I’m perfectly willing to tell you,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s no secret.’

  I saw how I could come to hate her.

  ‘I’d rather talk about something else,’ I said. ‘Porn or something. Fucking for money. Prostitution in front of the camera.’

  The silence around that silver cylinder full of sweetness was extremely pleasant.

  ‘That wasn’t very . . . nice, Ludwig,’ Sarah said after a moment.

  I was speechless. She should be standing by me, at my side! Not facing off against me! After the victory, the defeat appeared without delay; my mother was sitting with her face averted, her eyes full of tears. Tears, goddamn it. Oh, you bastard, now you’ve ruined everything. And Sarah is looking at you
with the most painful kind of distance, and now she’s moving over beside her to put a hand on her shoulder and comfort that tainted whore. A different word. The charm bracelet on her wrist tinkles softly as she runs her hand up and down my mother’s back. My mother, who smiles at her and dabs at the corners of her eyes with her fingertips – all female bonding at this table, it’s unbearable, what a seedy little tableau. And isn’t it amazing that I, the link between those two, have now completely disappeared from the whole situation? A chemical process is what it is: after the reaction the catalyst is regenerated, unchanged, and I am alone again.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ my mother said. ‘Mothers are always a kind of punching bag, aren’t they? Almost all men hate their mothers. That’s just the way it is.’

  Sarah slides back around in the booth to where she was sitting. She blows on her tea as though it were very hot indeed.

  We drove through Santa Monica, the evening was still young.

  ‘I thought she was really nice,’ Sarah said.

  ‘You don’t know her,’ I say, looking straight ahead.

  Futile. You can’t hand over your world to someone else. I was breathing through a screen of repulsion. She’d taken sides with her. Neutrality I could have understood; partiality in the wrong direction was unforgivable. I hadn’t been expecting it, my defenses were down. My mother had seduced Sarah and simply wormed her way between us. She had become my rival for Sarah’s attention and loyalty.

  Sarah’s room was too small for sitting around together in silence. I went outside, my disappointment in one hand, my wounded soul in the other. I felt the lack of a house to go to, wherever I went I would be a guest. The streets were lined with low, dusty trees whose leaves had curled from the drought. When ultramarine overwhelmed the sky I sauntered back and came in the door with the insouciance of a cat who has disappeared for a few days. Again the candles, the incense rising in a shaky column, the mysticism of a shaman’s cave. I tried not to look at the dead child, the focal point of the room.

  ‘You’re not talking,’ she said. ‘Apparently you’re very angry about something, but how can I do anything if you won’t talk?’

  The listless mantra that accompanies failure. She said, ‘I don’t know, but what are you doing here if you don’t want to talk?’

  I turned around and walked back down the steel steeps, back to the street. High, searing pride took my breath away. The unconditionality could end that quickly, that quickly you could be transformed from lover into unwelcome guest. After a fashion, I actually reveled in the bonfire of self-destruction. Behind me the sound of fast, light little footsteps.

  ‘I’m running after you this time,’ she said, ‘but next time you can figure it out for yourself. What do you want, Ludwig? I don’t know why you’re acting like this.’

  For a moment I thought about ignoring her and walking on, but realized that that would be overplaying my hand.

  ‘I didn’t mean to send you away,’ she said, ‘I asked why you were with me if you acted like that. It was a question, okay, a question!’

  My body heavy with inertia, I let myself be led back to the house. Later on she took my cock in her mouth, which was still hot from a cup of tea. A scream escaped me when I came. A few minutes later I heard the sound of spitting coming from the bathroom: she had kept the sperm in her mouth all that time.

  The Indians, a coalition of tribes, had been bused in from the mountains to take part in the march on the Court of Appeals in Pasadena. As there had been during the demonstration in front of the gallery, there was a young man who seemed to be leading the operation. He was the one who held the megaphone, he led the prayer before the procession started moving. It was just past noon, the sun was shining hotly. In the middle of the circle a blind old Indian lit a fire of dried sage and mimed a series of incantations to the heavens and the earth. A banner read NO DESECRATION FOR RECREATION. A smoking stick was handed around and everyone waved it around their head before passing it on. The stick came to Sarah and me.

  ‘Purification,’ she said quietly. ‘Wait . . .’

  She waved the stick, first over my head, then over her own, and handed it to the nappy-haired boy beside her. Someone screamed into the megaphone, For the rights of Nature! Of the Earth! Of Humanity!

  The megaphone was passed around. Some people were unable to find the right button. We were called upon to free ourselves from the sickness of greed and appetite. The slogans flew wildly back and forth. A group of anti-globalists, it seemed, had joined forces with the Indians. The march began. Drums pounded.

  ‘Tribal elders to the front!’ the leader shouted.

  He had a pointy nose, his skin was the color of hazelnuts. I could see why people would want to follow him, his charisma seemed like something that could be expressed in wattage. Sarah was pushing the shopping cart again, this time filled with photocopied pamphlets. She handed out bananas and water to the hungry and thirsty. She was our mother. Behind us, a group of Indians were dancing – a handsome man in a red loincloth laid down the beat with the strips of bells tied to his ankles. He danced the whole way, his body gleaming with sweat. I shriveled under his sacred earnestness. What was I but an intruder and an impotent practitioner of irony? Sarah screamed along with the slogans; when she tossed her fist in the air, her top slid up over her belt. I saw her pale stomach. I knew what she smelled like, I was familiar with her taste.

  From the sidewalk, groups of skeptical blacks were watching the parade go by. There could have been no greater distance than that between those grim Indians and the blacks, who just stood there grinning. How differently they viewed the soil! The Indians were demonstrating here for the preservation of their holy ground, which the blacks associated with the forced labor of their ancestors and had radically turned their backs on. Sarah asked me to take the shopping cart while she went into a Hooters franchise to pass out broadsheets to the leering men. I couldn’t stand still in the current, I was pushed along from behind and in turn found myself pushing a shopping cart, amid a procession of Indians and anti-globalists, to a courthouse where a verdict was supposed to be overturned. You never saw a normal, reasonable person at gatherings like this, only the crackpots with rings in their noses, wearing their army surplus outfits and chanting slogans, the dull rhythm of which expressed, above all, a sense of stagnation.

  Sarah came up behind me and I passed the shopping cart to her. I asked myself whether I would ever be capable of bonding with something the way she did, or whether cowardly skepticism would reign forever in that barren, prematurely old soul of mine. When we got to Colorado Boulevard I said, ‘I’m dropping out for a minute. Going to get a hamburger.’

  ‘Now? You’re kidding!’

  I gave her a quick kiss and stepped out of the parade. At a bit of a distance I let the procession pass by and shivered at the melancholy sound an Indian was producing on a conch shell – a baby whale that had lost its mother.

  I walked back to Hooters. There, in those profane surroundings, I let myself be served a hamburger by a girl who barged her breasts ahead of her like icebergs. Then I used the pay phone to call Loews and ask if they had any work for me. I was put through to Berny Suess.

  ‘Hey, buddy, good thing you called. Have you got time for me on Saturday?’

  He wanted to know whether I could play at a reception, some charity thing, they were expecting celebrities.

  Outside I asked someone how to get to the courthouse, and set off after the demonstrators. Sarah was standing in a circle of demonstrators in front of a Victorian building set among tall trees. There was, I was told, already a delegation inside; the stay-behinds were chanting prayers and dancing and singing. The leader had stayed behind as well. He stepped into the center of the circle and said it was time to pray and sacrifice. He put a shell on the ground in front of him.

  ‘Which way is east?’ he asked his lieutenant quietly.

  Calling on the spirits of the four winds and the cosmos itself, he then made a burnt offering. The
smell of rosemary.

  ‘Brothers and sisters,’ he said, ‘let us pray for the misguided spirits inside this building, who are also our brothers and sisters but have been blinded by greed. Let us send them love.’

  Sarah nodded. There was a devout gleam in her eye. The Indian placed dried sage in the shell, lit it and fanned the smoking fire with a white wing. The group fell silent. I looked over, Sarah was standing beside me, her eyes closed. I knew she was sending love into the courthouse, or at least thought she was doing that. I thought about other things, about how much better suited she would be for the boy now leading the prayers at the center of the circle, how the two of them could lead a life of activism and holistic conviction and fuck till the stars fell from the sky – a pang of sweet jealousy. I placed my hand on her lower back, gently, in order not to break her concentration. The Indian stood up and invited the others to lay their offerings in the shell. A black man with feathers in his hair stepped forward. He knelt down before the shell and made a few karate-like gestures. His voice was that of a gospel singer. The smell of a burning feather snapped at my nostrils.

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ he shouted, ‘the time has come to destroy Babylon! Is the time not ripe, Lord? We beseech thee, bring Babylon down. Down with Babylon! Down with Babylon!’

  He stood up, bowed, and rejoined the circle. A lineup of weirdos followed. When I yawned, Sarah elbowed me.

  ‘Behave yourself, carnivore,’ she said.

  The prayers died out, the leader raised the megaphone to his lips.

  ‘Concerning the toilet situation,’ he said, ‘if you need to use the toilet, you can do that in the courthouse, but then you need to show your ID, okay? Don’t make a scene, we can accomplish more by being cooperative.’

  The cooperative attitude appeared to me to be the result of an endless row of defeats suffered by his people – cooperation was all they had left.