The Exquisite

by Laird Hunt

  Jinx, I said.

  He looked blankly at me for a second then laughed.

  This time of the day you can usually count on eating and maybe conversing in some peace here but not today, no sir, they’re even talking at the same time as each other, he said.

  Amen, I said.

  Mel the Hat, he said.

  It took me a moment to realize I had just been told what I should call him. I nodded and said my own name.

  I used to know a Henry, years back. We used to do business together. Small stuff. Good times. You ever do any business?

  He looked at me with the kind of misty gray eyes that only the very old or very beautiful have. I wasn’t sure about the latter, but there was no doubt about the former. I figured he had to have at least fifteen years on Mr. Kindt. Maybe twenty.

  No comment, I said.

  He clapped his hands, let out a laugh, and said, I knew it. I could tell. I could have told you, this guy is doing business.

  I took a sip of my drink. He lifted his Mel Cooley and sunk what had to be false teeth into a clot of ricotta and roasted pepper. His voice, which was high-pitched and Dominican-inflected, definitely sounded like something I had rattling around somewhere in my head.

  I’m sorry, no offense, but what I said was, no comment.

  Sure, he said. And much better that way too. You have to forgive me—I’m out now. I’m done. They got a box paid up and waiting for me up at Plascencia’s and some green space to go with it and all my scores are settled. I spot individuals and sometimes I talk to them. I’m too old now to matter, so generally they don’t care. I don’t usually ask specific questions. But I do got one for you.

  I raised my eyebrow, bit into some Italian sausage, and nodded.

  How’s your back?

  My back? I said through the flecks of demolished crust, cayenne, and oregano scattered around my mouth like delicious storm debris.

  You got any issues? Bad knees? You look pretty good.

  The tassel of his fedora kept flipping back and forth as he spoke. He seemed to be hopping from leg to leg. He was old but the engine wasn’t sputtering yet. I said that my back and knees were fine.

  He clapped his hands. I thought so. You look like you got highly functioning shoulders. You want to help me out?

  I shrugged. I told him I was fairly busy. I asked him what he meant.

  Just boxes, he said. My sister has some boxes up in the closet and she wants them down. I was thinking maybe you could come help me out.

  We left via the video store attached to the pizza parlor. The Hat, as he said people called him for short, had gotten started on movies as we finished our slices, and movies for him meant vehicles for showcasing Steve McQueen. He listened to me talk a little about the movies I had watched with my old girlfriend at the Pioneer Theater, right around the corner, then said, that’s great, that’s great, but what about Bullitt? What about The Great Escape?

  I told him I hadn’t seen much Steve McQueen, but that I’d no doubt get around to it soon.

  Soon? How about now? That was always my philosophy: fuck “soon,” let’s do it now. I got a player at home. You help me with the boxes and then we can watch some of the maestro. I got some Bud in the fridge. I live nearby.

  Despite my protests, offered up more out of fatigue than anything, that I really didn’t have time, The Hat made a beeline for the Steve McQueen section and selected a couple of fistfuls worth of tapes so that we could have “a choice for our viewing pleasure.” He talked Steve McQueen exploits most of the way to his place, which was, indeed, nearby. He lived on Second Street, across from the Marble Cemetery.

  Lupe, he said. It’s me, open the door.

  Lupe didn’t come to the door this time, so he handed me the tapes and dug around in the pockets of his baggy old-guy pants until, about three minutes later, he came up with a key.

  Now listen, he said. My sister’s batteries upstairs are running down but she’s all right. She’s a good person. You allergic to cats?

  I shook my head.

  O.K., let’s go in.

  I know what I was expecting—some kind of East Village Lupe-haunted spider hole filled with the malodorous accumulation of decades stacked in every available space and threatening to breach the proverbial rafters—but that’s not what I walked into. What I walked into was so clean and brightly lit and uncluttered that the shift my mind was forced to make from the clogged-toilet imagery it had been preparing itself for was unsettling.

  It’s nice, huh?

  The Hat’s fedora shone in a dazzling blend of natural and electric light and his eyes twinkled. The cats I’d seen before came sauntering out from under a row of chairs, flicked their tails a couple of times, and brushed themselves against our legs.

  Lupe, The Hat said. We’re going to get your fucking boxes. I got someone to help.

  You want a beer?

  I said I was fine but The Hat got me one anyway.

  Lupe, he said again. We’re going to get your boxes.

  Lupe was in the closet. With the door closed. When The Hat pulled it open she walked out and past us without saying a word. When she got to the middle of the room she stopped and turned and stood looking in our direction. The cats came back from wherever they had swooshed off to and sat on either side of her. She had on the same filthy housedress she had been wearing before and I got hit with dj vu so hard I felt like I needed to sit down. Instead I took a long swig of beer and wiped my forehead.

  She likes that dress, she won’t take it off, will you, Lupe?

  Lupe didn’t say anything.

  She’s got a whole fucking drawer full of dresses and she won’t take that one off, The Hat said.

  I wiped my forehead again.

  The Hat asked me if I was all right, if I needed to take a break and maybe watch some Steve McQueen first before I got the boxes down. I told him it had been a late night and that I was under some job-related stress, but that I was perfectly fine.

  Well, I know it would make Lupe happy if you could get them for her. She won’t come out of the closet anymore.

  I got the boxes down. There were three of them, good-sized, wedged hard onto the shelf above the coatrack. The Hat had me take them into the back bedroom, presumably Lupe’s, which looked so spotless that but for the slightly warped floor and walls it could have belonged to a hotel. I set the boxes next to each other on the bed.

  The Hat looked at them and shook his head. The tassel shook with it. It’s just some of her old stuff. Stuff she picked up and had as a kid. She’s been in that closet for a week. You want to sit down?

  We went back into the living room. As soon as we had gotten there Lupe seemed to come alive. She beamed at her brother, then went to the bedroom and shut the door. The Hat sighed.

  You got family?

  No. Not anymore.

  My kid sister. Used to be a beauty. Or anyway, not too bad. Once upon a time I had to crack some heads. Guys came sniffing. You wouldn’t believe it to look at me now, but I used to be able to crack a head when I had to.

  I told The Hat I needed to leave.

  You don’t want to watch The Great Escape? We can skip to the fence-jumping scene. It’s got real tragedy, this one. I choke up every time.

  I told him I was busy. I stifled a yawn, pressed my beer against the side of my face. My bed at The Fidelity was calling me. Fumes or no fumes. I told him maybe some other time.

  Some other time is like soon, I know what that means. You don’t get to be my age with a heart still beating without knowing some things. But, still, I’m grateful. Not everyone helps. I got a building full of yo-yos here. Won’t even stop to answer you in the hallways. Next door I got nuts.

  I thought of the nuts next door. Then I thought of the couple leaving Two Boots with the stroller, wondered what they were like, wondered if, through some fluke, or some serious upgrade in my customers, I’d be paying them a visit soon. The woman had been good-looking, exceptional, even, like some Greek movie star. The guy
had been tall and beefy. Not bad-looking, but nothing like the woman. Cute kid too. I let myself flash for exactly one ridiculous second on me and Tulip pushing a stroller, maybe stopping for pizza, buying diapers for the baby, laughing, heading home, unloading groceries, giving the baby a bath. I then gave the scenario a quick run-through with the knockout, handsomely stomping her way down the avenues, in place of Tulip, then the contortionists, pushing the stroller with their feet, and almost laughed out loud.

  Come here, Henry, I want to show you something, The Hat said.

  He was standing next to what looked a little like a medicine cabinet sunk into the side wall. I raised my eyebrow, went over, and he opened it. There was a peephole there that looked out—at his insistence I bent over and put my eye to it—on the hallway. The Hat left my side, went around the corner, and reappeared in my line of sight. He took off his fedora and did a bow. Then he came back in.

  You can’t see it from the outside, he said. I got that from the old days. Some of us got them put in special. In the old days you didn’t want to be inspecting your visitors through the balsa wood they got for doors in these places.

  I guess not, I said.

  Now it’s just a convenience. Now if for example some guy, like you, Henry, comes and knocks at my neighbors’, then stands and has some words with my sister, who has seen better days and can’t answer right, I can see who it is.

  Yeah? I said.

  I don’t mean I care, he said, not one way or the other, but with this thing and with my old habits I can keep my eyes open. Then I can think about the sounds I heard coming out of my neighbors’ and put it together with things I’ve been hearing about jobs getting pulled in the neighborhood.

  Jobs? I said.

  You’re pulling jobs, he said.

  They’re fake, it’s a service, I said.

  Sure, he said. But fake is funny, don’t you think? Fake is like Steve McQueen and the movies—there’s always a little real there too. Fake is never 100 percent. And sometimes fake is real.

  He looked up at me for what felt like a long time, then he said, Kindt’s working you good, huh?

  I set my beer down on top of the peephole cabinet and told him it had been nice talking to him.

  He’s tough, huh, Aris Kindt? I never met him, not even in the old days, but I’ve been hearing things for years. Independent. Ran funny jobs. Always an angle, that one. Always smart. He’ll fool you. He’ll take care of you. He took care of a guy not too long ago. Guy who kept his books. Some accountant. That’s what they say and that’s what I heard. I heard you don’t ever mess with him if you’re smart.

  We’re friends, I said. It’s not really business. He’s retired. Someone else is running it. It’s all fake.

  Friends, said The Hat, and grinned. Like my good friends across the hall and in this building and in this neighborhood. I got so many friends I’m going to have a heart attack. What I also got is my sister, in there, looking through some boxes of junk, and a peephole in my wall so I can see who comes around and who is getting up to what exactly in this fucking city. I can look through this hole and see straight through the building. I can see you hitting yo-yos with salad bowls and getting yourself tattooed without knowing what was getting put on you and sleeping on the street and getting hit by trucks and running into blonds you got no idea about and meeting friendly Mr. Kindt. I can see that when you say you’re busy, you mean you’re going to go back to a flop and take a nap. I can see you pulling jobs and saying some quiet bullshit to my sister who can’t answer you and I can see you looking at my hat now and saying, check out this old clown. Check out this old motherfucker who likes Steve McQueen. You want another beer? You want another beer, punk?

  The Hat took a step toward me. I had the distinct feeling that he was going to produce a gun and put it in my face and pull the trigger and that there wouldn’t be anything fake about it.

  I’ve really got to go now, I said. I’m sorry for the trouble.

  So go, Henry. I’m going to watch a movie. I’m going to watch Steve rock it on his bike. You should see the look on your face. You should go show it to your “friend.” Go show it to Mr. Aris Kindt and see what he says. See what he says and leave this old clown with his hat and his sister in fucking peace.

  TWENTY-SIX

  A herring swims. A herring swims in a bucket. A herring swims in a blue bucket. A bright herring swims in a huge blue bucket. A herring moves forward. Why a herring and not some other fish? Because it’s exquisite. Because the adult common herring, more properly known as Clupea harengus, is found in temperate cold waters of the North Atlantic and is about one foot or thirty centimeters long with silvery sides and a blue back.

  Blue.

  Yes, can you picture it? The female of the species lays up to fifty thousand tiny eggs, which sink to the sea bottom and develop there, the young maturing in about three years.

  And then?

  And then they rise.

  Elevate.

  Propagate forward and vertically through the deep and the dark by the millions.

  So many.

  Yes. And other fish come to feed upon them.

  Eat them all?

  Not all.

  Most?

  Yes, most, and in dying, it’s quite lovely, they luminesce.

  I’m not sure what you mean.

  I mean they give off light as they die. As they drift off through the dark waters.

  Do the immature fish luminesce?

  I’m not sure. Probably.

  And they’re blue?

  With silvery sides.

  Most of them, as you say, are killed by other fish.

  By other fish, yes, Henry, which is an utterly acceptable form …

  Form of what?

  Of undoing. Of annihilation.

  Having said this, Mr. Kindt leaned far back into his chair, lifted his cigar, and took a long, ruminative puff.

  Think of the beauty of it, Henry, he said. It happens over and over, and will continue to happen long after we are gone, long after we have laid aside our skin and bones or whatever it is we have here and have shued off.

  Or stepped forward.

  Out of our skin and into our shadow.

  What about the fishing industry?

  Of course, the fishing industry. Yes, that’s true, the fishing industry complicates things, and has most certainly taken a hideous toll.

  A hideous toll that puts that pickled herring into your mouth every day.

  Mr. Kindt smiled. Oh, I’m simply full of contradictions, Henry, he said. Aren’t you?

  I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what I was full of. A neat scalpel trench, some metal sutures, and a lot less morphine than usual, for starters. Besides Mr. Kindt, who had given me a little hit of Dilaudid so that I wouldn’t, he said, go completely to pieces, I had seen no one apart from Aunt Lulu since my assignation with Dr. Tulp. Since the surgery, the slight correction, the scraping-out of some renegade flecks of lead, the “lightly invasive procedure, Henry” she had performed. After they had held me down and ripped my suit off me. After they strapped me to a gurney and rolled me down the hall.

  Thanks for asking, I feel wonderful, I said.

  I’m so very glad to hear it, Henry, Mr. Kindt said.

  How was your tour of the ward with my aunt?

  I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it when she comes to see you, Henry.

  I can’t wait.

  Oh, I suspect you can.

  Mr. Kindt smiled.

  I shuddered.

  Cold? Mr. Kindt said. Funny, I am too. Or not funny. No, I don’t think so. You see, not long after Lulu left, I had a visitor of my own. Someone I hadn’t seen in many years. Most curious. He came and sat at the foot of my bed, much the way I often sit at the foot of yours. He was dressed in a pair of bathing trunks and dripped much more than seemed reasonable onto my sheets.

  Who was it?

  A young man. He reminded me much of myself in my own distant youth, except of course for the ba
thing trunks. And in fact he told me we shared a name.

  So there is more than one of you here now.

  Yes, but I don’t get the feeling he will be visiting you.

  Well that’s a relief.

  Yes, I suppose it must be. I wonder if he will drop in again? I suspect I should set out a towel.

  Did you unload the merchandise?

  I wouldn’t be sitting here smiling so much and discussing the beauty and sadness of aquatic wonders if I hadn’t. Or perhaps I should say I probably wouldn’t. After all, it is my favorite subject.

  Along with history.

  Yes, along with history. The accumulation of remembered circumstance.

  You mean the pile.

  Do I?

  Yes, the pile of dead fish. I don’t feel very well, Mr. Kindt.

  I know you don’t, Henry.

  Very early that morning, I had put on the robe with the fake card, limped through the halls of the ward, which, incidentally, had gone dim, not to say dark, again, and picked up the speed.

  Mr. Kindt had come into my room four times before I had relented. Each time he had gotten angrier, less eloquent, more insistent. Each time he had brought up Aunt Lulu.

  She’s not at all like you described her to me, he said.

  No comment, I said.

  You need a little less juice in your system, Henry, it’s clouding your judgment, he said.

  So no one came around with my meds. Not even after I had pressed the button that was supposed to bring them, not after I had called out, not after I had walked down the hallways of the ward and out into the little garden and yelled. Deserted. All the terminal, critical, serious, and mild cases were gone, the machines in their rooms strangely mute, no longer pumping and blinking. Even Mr. Kindt’s room was empty. I found a couple of loose cigars and a box of crackers. I lit one of the cigars and pressed the glowing end against the cracker box and burned a hole. Then I took a few crackers out and ate them. Or tried to eat them. It didn’t work—I couldn’t swallow, not even close. I spit what I had chewed into Mr. Kindt’s toilet, flushed, and, still holding the cigar, walked out.

  I went to Dr. Tulp’s office and banged on the door for a while. Then sat on the floor, slumping considerably, my wound hurting hideously, expecting Aunt Lulu or who knows what to show up at any minute, and smoked.