Still Life Las Vegas

by James Sie

  She must have looked alarming because the boy behind the counter got off his stool and took a step back. “You … all right?” he asked.

  Emily grimaced to get the saliva working again. “I’m fine,” she rasped, and entered.

  She turned her attention to the nearest display (SNAX 2 GO!) as much to avoid the clerk’s gaze as to steady herself. Her breathing had slowed, but she could still feel the tiny, insistent hammering of her heart against her chest. It was just exhaustion, she told herself, it was the sheer physical toll of staying awake for the entire drive. That was something near impossible to do, and her body knew it. When she told the checkout clerk where she’d driven from and how long (he would not stop staring), he told her the same thing.

  “No way,” he said. “You’d kill yourself doing that drive in one shot.”

  She grimaced. “No such luck,” she whispered hoarsely, grabbing a packet of Slim Jims and heading down the cold aisle. She opened a cooler door. She spun a snack rack. She wandered through the store. Never had selecting a beverage seemed so alien, and so comforting. She just wanted to lie down in the middle of the aisle, there between the potato chips and the antacids, and cradle her plastic bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade.

  Back at the front of the store, Emily was about to check out when the speakers overhead began piping in a pan-flute version of “Georgia on My Mind.” It took her a full twenty seconds to consciously register what the song was, but during that time she froze, dropping the Gatorade and Slim Jims to the floor. When the chorus repeated itself her shaking began again. She ran out of the store, barely waiting for the door to clear.

  Emily hurried back to the Volvo and popped the rear door, whispering, “I’m coming, I’m coming” over and over again, frantically, just as she had uttered those same words, lifetimes ago, rushing down a darkened hall late at night toward the sound of a wailing child. She crawled into the car and laid herself down, curled around her accordion, her head against the cool metal runners where the backseat would have been. She was certain she was about to die. She had done it, she thought, she had literally run herself into the ground. Emily waited, eyes wide open, for everything to stop.

  But it didn’t. After what seemed like an hour, oblivion had not arrived. Emily was still shivering on the floor of her car, the red glow of the store’s flashing neon reflected in the windows above her. She was still there. Emily’s breathing slowed, her body stilled. The boundaries of mind dissolved; it was as if she were standing in front of an open door, one not for passing through, but for receiving.

  With a muffled moan, Emily uncurled herself and, still on her side, stretched out her arms. With a gasp of pure pain, she let Georgia in.

  Enough.

  There’s no putting it off any longer—time to speak of the unspeakable. It really can’t be avoided. Emily could never escape it. Owen will never rise above it. Even our young Walter, who at this point knows practically nothing of the particular circumstances of the event, can still feel its ripplings beneath his feet more than a decade later.

  Omnes viae Georgia ducunt.

  Let’s talk about Georgia.

  Better yet, let me draw you a picture.…

  PART 2

  WALTER

  VENICE VENICE

  LATER

  Mondays are spent in service to the gods.

  I arrive as soon as the concourse opens, and they’re already in place; they could have been there overnight, for all I know. I give my customary wave to Security Joe, who nods back, and set up my viewing station on the marble banquette facing the archway to St. Mark’s. I’ve got my lunch in a Food-4-Cheap plastic bag, my pad and pens and my bottle of water. I’m good to go.

  I silently mouth, “Good morning” and take my seat. Not that these statues notice; they’re aloof, as they should be. The masses don’t deserve to touch the hem of their robes. Well, really, they can’t; they’re too high up. Also, there are no robes. In fact, the gods don’t wear much at all.

  Diana’s got a short tunic plastered on, revealing marble thighs, and a quiver of ivory arrows on her back. Young Apollo’s wearing even less, just a stiffened alabaster fig leaf that always manages to hide his privates and a length of white fabric that never flutters clipped around his neck, spanning his broad shoulders and draping down. He’s got a crown of white laurel leaves nestled on his unyielding curls and a stone lyre permanently affixed to his hand.

  They’re monochromatic, but gorgeous.

  Today Apollo is feeling bold. When I arrive, he’s standing upright, one hand placed jauntily on his hip, the other holding his lyre up to the sky like an offering. His right foot is stepping in front of his left, knee bent slightly. Another difficult pose to hold, but I know he can pull it off. His head lifts proudly.

  Diana, his sister, is more reserved, seated folded in on herself, head down. Her neck is long, like a swan. One hand is held to her chest, the other gestures out, warding off advances. She wants to be left alone, I can tell. She might remain like that the whole day. She’s done it before.

  The two look like they actually might be related. They both have the same strong brow, the deep-set eyes and the full lips. Apollo, though, likes to show off; he’s brazen, befitting a sun god. Diana’s more moon-melancholy, graceful but hidden, or as hidden as you can be on a giant column with a klieg light shining down.

  I’m not in any hurry to start sketching. Monday mornings are usually slower, and today’s no exception. Spectators are less frequent, and when they do come around, they only last about twenty minutes, tops. People are fascinated, but don’t have the patience. When they realize the statues aren’t going to start break-dancing they drift away. The gods would probably get more attention displayed in Banana Republic’s fall fashion line: Apollo in a chocolate cashmere ribbed V-neck with brushed corduroy boot-cut jeans; Diana wearing a lightweight wool two-button blazer and matching gray pleated skirt. Celestial chic.

  The painted sky darkens to a perfect sunset, thanks to the wonders of modern technology. Apollo’s bathed in the golden light of late afternoon, tinged with dusky red. Forty-five minutes later, the sky begins to brighten, a dazzling morning glow. The painted day passes quickly again and again, and it’s not even noon.

  Apollo’s feet are together now, the lyre pressed against his chest. Diana, like I thought, hasn’t changed positions. Her out-flung arm is still out flinging, without a tremble. The first time I came to visit I told myself that I was only there to catch one of them moving. That was my goal, to prove that they were mortal, after all. It hasn’t happened. As hard as I stare, I find myself lost in thought for a moment, and when I focus again, they’ve shifted. Or maybe they’d been shifting all along, only so slowly that I don’t comprehend it as movement. It’s beside the point now, anyway. I don’t want to catch them in action anymore. I just want to be with them.

  I wonder if they even know I’m down here.

  The place starts to fill up. The room echoes with chattering tourist-talk and the rustling of designer shopping bags. Groups of people stream in, fill the room, and stream out again, consumer corpuscles pulsing through the chambers of Venice Venice’s heart. And I’m the little clot that remains.

  “Look at me! Look at ME!” demands a teenage girl in braces and braids. She’s waving her scrawny arms at Apollo, whose face is, as usual, turned away. The rest of her friends, a gaggle of giggling ponytails, press together in a clump. Their leader gets emphatic. “Yoo-hoo! I’m talking to you! I’ve got a dollar! Look over here! Now!” Apollo doesn’t dignify her with an answer. The Clump takes up the chorus. “Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!” they shout in yoo-nison. She gives one last “Hey!” then crumples the dollar bill defiantly in her fist and stuffs it into her purse. Yeah. That’ll show him. She’s got those dark hard eyes that are too close together and a beak of a nose that’ll probably get fixed by junior prom.

  I don’t duck my head fast enough—she sees me watching. “What are you looking at?” she screams. I will myself into invisibilit
y, but it’s too late: Marble Eyes has got me in her sights. The group clumps around her in solidarity, all looking faintly horrified by the sight of me. Six lip-glossed mouths curl up.

  Seconds drag on. Finally, Marble Eyes cranes her neck forward. “Fuh-reak,” she sneers. Her mouth stays open in a grimace even after the word has splattered on me, pushing her beady eyes even closer together. Her sisters-in-destruction whisper together in agreement. Their laughter grows rapidly in volume until, propelled by one communal screech of pleasure, the half-size harpies push away from one another and scatter, only to merge moments later on their way out of the square.

  I look up at Apollo but he’s as serene as always. Mortals don’t matter, apparently. It’s time for lunch. I peel back the plastic on my “Snack-to-Go” tray: blocks of yellow cheese, brighter than nature intended, cubes of a ham-like substance, and salty round crackers.

  I think, briefly, of lifting my tray to the gods. An offering. Apollo want a cracker? When do they eat? Don’t they get hungry? For a moment they revert to human beings in my eyes, and I remember how much effort, how much sheer willpower they must be exerting just to remain still. And that blows my mind, which elevates them to godlike stature once again.

  Apollo. I know this god; I’ve spent hours studying his body. He’s not much older than me, I’m guessing, but the way his body’s constructed, he might as well be a different species. He’s got contours and angles that I couldn’t begin to find on myself. The sharp jut of his cheekbone, the deep cleft of his hairless chest, the line that begins at his hip and swoops down to touch upon his fig leaf and curve back up the other hip, that shadow that runs along the side of his thigh from his knee to the perfect roundness of his ass … The white makeup he has on, or paint, whatever it is, never beads up or flakes off or smears. It covers him completely and reveals everything.

  It’s odd that I should be able to stare at him in this way; and that, in a way, I’m expected to stare at him. After all, what is a god without his worshippers? It would seem incredibly sad to me that no one would be sitting here on this banquette, staring up, bearing witness. These gods get contributions, sure, but no applause, no greater glory. Just me, fishing out a carelessly thrown gelato cup and some wadded-up paper napkins from Apollo’s collection jar. Surely, they deserve better.

  The sky brightens.

  The sky darkens.

  Two guys stumble in during an afternoon lull. Shiny ties loosened at the neck, dark blue shirts untucked, hair wildly spiked. They appear to be renegades from some frat vacation/real estate convention/bachelor party. These gents must have recently come from the Paris Hotel, because they’re toting giant plastic cups topped by Eiffel Towers, straws poking through the summit. One of the guys, the blond one, drags his dark-haired counterpart over to Diana’s pillar and whispers sloppily in his ear, something hilarious to be sure because his friend can barely stand, he’s guffawing so hard.

  “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” he says, each emphatic repetition the vocal equivalent of a fist pump in the air. And then he does raise his arm, only it’s to point at Diana, who’s still repelling all advances, but she can’t beat away his voice, which booms up to the ceiling and echoes around the concourse. “You’re right, man! That’s one STONE-COLD BITCH!”

  A mother watching nearby tugs her daughter sharply into a store, two ladies with shopping bags make for the nearest exit. Security’s already on its way, I think; no one messes with the Great Shopping Experience. The two guys are oblivious to repercussions, though—they hoot with laughter and, yes, they high-five each other. Losers, I think, but I’ve hunched myself lower, head bowed down to my sketch pad.

  “Come on, baby, don’t let him talk to you like that!” the Blond One yells up, a Southern drawl in his voice. He’s been emboldened by his friend’s bravado. “Give us some sugar! Come on down, honey!”

  They’re swaggering below her pillar, hungry dogs sniffing at a tree. I half expect Diana to spring up suddenly, bow in hand, to dispatch two swift arrows into two impure hearts, but the Huntress has no response. Where’s Security Joe? My eyes lift to scan the entrances, but no one’s coming.

  The two are getting revved up. The Blond One pulls out his wallet, waves it in the air. “Five dollars! I’ll give you five dollars, you give me a little kiss, okay?”

  The Dark One has found other quarry. “DUDE! What happened to your CLOTHES?” he bellows at Apollo. “COVER! YOUR! SHIT! UP!” He yells each word like he’s calling out plays on a football scrimmage. “HEY! That’s a pretty FUCKING SMALL LEAF, MAN!”

  I’m standing before I know I’m standing. The blood’s pounding in my ears. I lean forward on the balls of my feet, fingers clenched tight.

  The Blond One has pried the Eiffel Tower off his cup and is weighing it in his hand. “Hey!” he yells up to Diana, breathing heavily. His bleary eyes have narrowed. “Don’t turn away from me, you fucking BITCH!”

  He swings back into a classic pitcher’s pose, but his arm never gets to release France’s most famous monument, because at that moment I have crashed into it. The Eiffel Tower’s plastic point impales me just below the collarbone, painfully, and then bounces to the ground. I’m not sure how I got there, but somehow I am tangled in the arms of the Blond One, who yelps, “What the FUCK?” but doesn’t fall down, not even with my weight and momentum pressed against him, and I see that even though I am probably a head taller than the guy he easily weighs two of me. I prepare myself for the inevitable pummeling that is sure to follow and by Jove there it is, not from the Blond One but from the Dark One, who has thrust his fist into my lower back so hard I feel his class ring digging into my kidney, and has also somehow managed to punch me on the side of the head at the same time. I haven’t even figured out which way to crumple when two rough hands clamp down on my shoulders and pull me backward. My body tenses, waiting for the next installment of pain to begin, but to my surprise the cavalry’s come after all. I’m looking into the red, watery eyes of Security Joe, who tucks his burly arm under my chin, choking me in the mildest way possible. His two compatriots escort Blond and Dark to the ground.

  And the last image I see, just before I’m dragged away, just before I pass out in Joe’s suffocating embrace, is of Apollo standing above, head tilted down. His lips are pressed together into a smile, a real one, with chiseled dimples, and for the first time, I am looking into the unblinking eyes of the Divine.

  They’re blue.

  And they’re staring at me.

  * * *

  My father isn’t supposed to be awake. That’s what I was counting on. I drift in quietly, just to get the lunch tray; I stay far from the bed, but damn if he doesn’t look up and notice right away.

  “What the hell happened to you?” His voice is cracked and has that raspy gurgling sound like our bathroom sink trying to cough up hot water.

  “Nothing.” I’m surprised he even noticed, but when I sneak a look in the mirror it’s not too hard to understand: there’s a purple-black relief map of Australia puffing up on the right side of my face, with a fissure running along the northwest end that’s crowding my eye and threatening to erupt at any moment.

  “You hungry?” I call out as I leave the room. Even I know that’s a lame getaway line, but it’s the only one I’ve got.

  He’s by the stove in forty-five seconds; fast for a man who’s barely used his legs in more than a week, who takes an afternoon just to get to the bathroom. “What is this? What happened?” He touches the perimeter of my bruise and his eyes narrow farther into his puffy face.

  I shrug him away. “It’s like, nothing, nothing, I just tripped and fell.”

  “On what? Where?” He’s getting that panicked stare, a faraway, far-inside kind of look. The last thing I need.

  “It was stupid, I was coming off the bus, it was really crowded and I tripped on the last step and slammed into a pole—it was one of those bus stop signs, but there was a rivet sticking out or something and I kinda whacked my face onto that, there was blood everywhe
re.” My lies always go on too long.

  “Oh, Walt, you’ve got to be more careful.” He’s standing in front of the refrigerator, swinging the freezer door back and forth uncertainly; he’s forgotten why he’s opened it. I grab a bag of frozen peas and wave them in front of his face. He nods vaguely and then, after a moment’s hesitation, shuts the door.

  I head for the living room, peas to cheek. I want to be alone and there’s nowhere to go in the apartment; it’s way too cramped, there are too few steps between the kitchenette and the couch, and I’d head out to the balcony but he’s already by my side, staring at me like I’m the Elephant Man.

  “You … you could have lost an eye!”

  I did lose an eye. Two of them. Two blue and luminous eyes shining down on me, intense and warming, the eyes of the sun. I want to fix them in my memory, to set them down on paper, because I’ll never see those eyes again. The Powers That Be at Venice Venice’s security office have laid down their judgment, and I have been set free, as were my fellow Disturbers of the Peace. No charges, no fines, but kindly refrain from ever entering our hotel or casino again. I am banished from the premises, now and always, amen. The most Security Joe can do is offer me a sympathetic eyebrow-raise and a small shrug—What can you do? Rules are rules—before giving me the boot at the back of the hotel by the loading docks. I’ve been exiled from Olympus, and I’ll never see my gods again. Never again.

  “What’s wrong?” my father asks.

  “Nothing. It’s … the ointment, stinging my eye.”

  My father lifts the bag of peas off my face to look underneath. “Walt, you’ve got to be careful,” he repeats, settling by me on the couch. I’m not used to this. Two weeks he’s been comatose, and now the one time I want to be alone he’s playing the Worried Father, sending me off to school with a bag lunch and a pat on the head. As if he were even aware of where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing, or how the groceries get put on the shelves or the sheets get washed or the disability checks get cashed, how the rent gets paid. As if the emergency numbers by the phone were for me.