by James Sie
I take a deep breath, force the air out sharply. “My mother.”
“What about her?”
I stare at her straight on.
“Something you want to know?” asks Vee.
“Jesus!” I want to strangle her. “Do you know what happened to her?”
Vee looks at me like I’m crazy. “Of course I know what happened to her. I buried her myself, didn’t I?”
There’s actual pain. Physical. Sharp. Vee looks at me, indifferent. Irritated. Like it was the stupidest question in the world.
I finally find my voice, crouching way way down at the back of my throat. “You could have, you could have told us, you know.”
“What?” she says, like she can’t understand what I’m saying.
I jerk forward. “You. Could. Have. Told. Us!” I shout, shoving each word into her face.
Vee doesn’t flinch. Her lips are tight, her eyes cold and unblinking, reptilian. She looks right back, but she’s staring through me, she’s somewhere else. Then she gets her mouth moving, and when she finally speaks, her words are low and measured.
“Boy. Don’t lay this at my door.” She flicks out her tongue and dabs it over her lips. “Ask your father. Let him tell you the facts.”
Then she focuses in on me, gives me her half-lidded gaze, strong enough to petrify. “He’s the one who brought her body home. And you were there when he did it.”
The world freezes.
Vee continues, cold, unstoppable. “They found her in the bathroom of the Liberace Museum. Of all places. She drove down there—Lord knows why—in one shot, no stopping. Just like her. Drove to this goddamned city, went straight into the goddamned museum, took out your father’s goddamned pills and swallowed them all. I got the call that day. Sent your father down to bring my baby girl home.”
Her neck muscles constrict and release as she swallows down nothing. Her eyes are as dry as the Vegas sands.
“Anything else you want to know?”
WALTER
HALLWAY
The gods don’t look on it kindly when you arrive at a place empty-handed. Bad things happen. You get ambushed. I won’t make that mistake twice. Jenny gave me fifty bucks. She tucked it into my pocket before I left. I got a bottle of ouzo from it, Plomari’s best, for the gatekeeper at the door. I’ve got a box of those honey pastries Chrystostom loves, the ones studded with pistachios you can only get at the market near his house. I’ve got a six-pack of Heineken, bottles, not cans. And flowers, I even picked up some of those, the last bunch of lonely purple hyacinths languishing in their black bucket, propped up by dried baby’s breath. I’m taking no chances.
Problem is, no one’s home. I’ve been pushing the button at the gate for forty minutes, and there’s no buzz back, no crackle of the intercom. His motorbike is here, I see it in the carport under the building. Acacia’s is missing, which is fine by me, but Chrysto doesn’t answer. I go back to the street and look up at their window. It’s dark. The sun god will not come out.
Back to the gate. I jab the button six or seven times more, trying different degrees of force and length, hoping to make a connection. No. Maybe if I stare at his name next to the button hard enough it will summon him. With my mind, I can keep all other thoughts away and will his return.
The safety of his apartment, the warmth of his body.
An hour passes.
All that my concentration has summoned is the troupe of tiny Thai girls, back from their last show of the night. They’re tired, dragging their feet. Their long hair is still wet. One of them is already asleep, wrapped around the torso of another. The girls pass by me silently; one by one, like little ducklings, they follow their handler through the door. The last one looks at me solemnly and holds the gate open. She nods. I’m in.
* * *
The buzzer didn’t lie; no one answers the door, either. I set my stuff down in the hall. I can’t sit. Why am I shivering? I feel ungrounded. My arms are twitching. My legs won’t stay still. Pull yourself together, I tell myself, and I mean it. All my parts are in mutiny, wanting to gallop off in different directions. I grab the bags up; I need the weight, I need to feel the solidity of the white cardboard box, the heft of the green glass bottles, to keep myself from splitting apart.
Vee said I didn’t go to the funeral. Either of them. They thought it would be too upsetting. I don’t remember any weeping, or black suits, or hushed conversations. I don’t remember anything. My memory’s been scrubbed clean, white and smooth as an egg, or a blank screen.
The Love Den. Of course! Chrysto’s in there, sleeping or passed out or waiting for me. He’s stripped and posed and motionless, waiting for me to find him. I run to the apartment, afraid he’s becoming impatient. It’s locked. I knock. And knock again. I hear the bolt slide—the door opens.
Out from the darkness a giant looms, huge and slablike, shirtless and stubbled. Three steel rings curve outward from his upper lip; two hang from each ear. One eye glares down at me, the other is still closed with sleep. “Ja?” His voice is thick and rough. The number on the door is right but the giant is not. “Chrystostom?” I say, his name a password that will reveal him, but the blond giant only stares at me. One meaty hand rests against the doorway. He’s in his boxers. A light switches on behind him and I see dark curly hair emerging from the darkness. Chrysto, I think, O Chrysto. But it’s a woman, muscled and sinewy in a long nightshirt. “Jann, wer ist hier?” she whispers. The light illuminates several cardboard boxes. A bench press. Another life.
“Never mind, it’s a mistake. I made a mistake,” I mumble, and take off.
* * *
Now the weight’s too much. The packages have turned into concrete, sinking me to the hallway floor. I hunker against the wall next to the door, shivering in the air-conditioning. My back’s sweaty. My face is cold. He’ll be back soon. Where could he be? Doesn’t he know I have libations prepared? I’ll be his beer boy, when we get to Los Angeles. His beer bitch. I should crack one open now, and he’ll suddenly appear like they do in the commercial, he’ll appear in bright Bermuda shorts with a salsa band behind him. No bikini’d girls, though, they’d have to go. Those tiny Thai girls will kick their butts out of here.
No bottle opener. I opt for the ouzo. Acacia won’t mind if I sample. I pour myself the smallest capful, and tilt it back only slightly. I’ve learned a thing or two since that first time at the taverna. Yasas, I whisper. Down the trickle goes. This time there’s no explosion, just a warm licorice river coursing through my body. Mmmmmmmm. Another sip, please. I feel a fuzzy glow that wraps like cotton. I’m mindful, though. I tear off bits of honeyed pastry with my sticky hands, cram them into my mouth between sips. Just to be safe. I drink like a Greek now. In my new life I will pass myself off as Greek. Eastern Greek. In my new life I will live in the mountains with Chrysto and raise goats. He will teach me the ways of the Petrides. My mind will be still in my new life, and I will know absolutely I am in the right place. Yasas.
I have no old life.
My old life dissolves when I touch it. It’s spun like cotton candy in a world that’s drizzling. It’s a topsy-turvy carnival world where nothing makes sense and nothing is real. Strong women off themselves there, and weak men limp on.
She was strong. My father mentioned that often, and Vee said so, too. It must be true. She was strong. But not, apparently, strong enough.
There’s a dull headache beginning at the sides of my head. Another capful of the sticky stuff will drown that out. Yasas.
I conjugate the new status of my mother: She is dead. She was dead. She has been dead.
What has changed, me knowing this? My life would not be any different, had I known back then what I know now. We’d still be living in a peeling apartment building in Las Vegas, we’d still be out here, wasting away in the desert heat. What has he done, really, by making up our history? She is dead. She was dead. She has been dead.
He has done nothing, but he has done everything.
Enough
with family. Away with family. Away with me. I’ll float away. This bottle will be my oar.
I’m ready to go. Wherever, whenever.
Off I go. I’ll sail away. To Los Angeles, to Greece, to parts unknown.
Off I go.
* * *
Off I go.
* * *
Off
* * *
I
* * *
Click.
I wake to the sound of a door closing. My mouth is sticky. My hands are sticky. I’m covered in sticky pastry flakes, and I’m still holding the open bottle of ouzo. The hyacinths have wilted by my side, limply curled into themselves, little purple stillborn babies.
Someone has gone into the apartment.
I lurch to my feet, dumping the box of pastries off my lap. I smell like a fermented package of Twizzlers. I knock on the door, two knuckles at first and then fist-fist-fist-fist.
“Go away, Walter.” It’s Acacia’s voice.
She’s locked up Chrysto. She’s got him drugged and bound in the bedroom. I pound on the door again. “Please, Acacia, let me in!” I plead. “Let me see him, please!”
The door unlocks and Acacia swings it open. She’s smiling wide, with all of her teeth showing.
“Let you see him?” she asks. “Let you? Of course I let you!” Laughter pours out of her in torrents, unstoppable. I think she might choke. Finally, as if to still herself, she claps both hands to my face. She grips me firmly but gently. It’s almost kind. “Poor, poor boy,” she says.
Acacia is clearly mad. I slip from her grasp, leaving her with the ouzo, and run to the bedroom. He will be in the corner, gagged and cowering. Or in a pool of blood, his throat slit like a sacrificial calf. She’s behind me now, ready to hit me over the head with the liquor bottle after I make the grisly discovery.
But the room I enter is abandoned. Abandoned, as in, left for good. There’s no sign of him. Nothing. The dresser has been emptied. The closet is bare. Nothing.
In the living room, Acacia has sauntered over to the dining nook, where a petite glass and a half-empty bottle of vodka have been patiently waiting for her return. She shoves the vodka bottle with its slim Greek counterpart, sets the two side by side. She sits back in her chair. Puffs up her cheeks and blows out. The skin around the sides of her mouth hangs loosely, as if she can’t be bothered to tighten it back to her face.
“Gone, Walter,” she says softly.
“Where?” I ask.
In answer, Acacia picks up a piece of paper from the table and reads it: “‘Acacia: I am done with Las Vegas. Good luck to you. You can sell my bike. Love, Chrysto.’” She lets go of the paper. It glides past the table and sails to the floor. “He never was very good writer,” Acacia says, grabbing the neck of the vodka bottle.
The ouzo surges in my belly. Somehow I have stepped into the future, where I’ve already passed the driving test and Chrysto is waiting for me to pick him up. “Do you know where he is now?” I ask.
Acacia gives me the smallest of shrugs.
It’s all clear. There’s been some miscommunication. He’s texted me. He’s left me some message I haven’t received because I haven’t got a phone. “I’ve got to get to him.”
Acacia slumps back in her chair. “I think not.” She empties her little glass.
“You don’t understand. This was our plan. I’m his ride.”
Acacia chuckles a little and shakes her head, smiling at me. Her eyes have sunk into their sockets, leaving behind a broken trail of dark, shadowed lines. “Maybe, Walter. But you were not his only ride.”
She takes out a pack of cigarettes and shakes one out. Dangles it on her lip while digging for the matches under the cellophane. “You know what I mean? There were others he was riding too, yes?” She lights up, inhales. Blows out smoke. “My guess? Producer from L.A.” She punctuates each letter of the city with a jab of her cigarette. “He comes maybe twice a month. Yes. This is the one.”
I talk slowly, to make sure she understands. “Acacia. Listen. Do you know where Chrysto is now? Because I think, I think he’s waiting for me. We’re together. He’s … we’re … Chrysto and I are…”
“—in love?” she asks pleasantly. “No doubt.” She takes a long drag. Wrinkles form around her lips that don’t disappear when she releases the cigarette. “That is one of my brother’s talents. It is talent he shares with many.” Acacia closes her eyes. Tiny lines spray across her lids. “The priests on the mountain. Poor idiot Mara. That witch at Emigration. Fat, with a mustache and smelling of old meat. He told me he stays stiff as a tree branch for seven hours with that one. The next day? We get our passports. Very talented, my dear brother.”
She opens her eyes. “I told you, Walter. You should have stayed away. But now is better. Better for you. Go. Go and play with boys your own age. You understand me?”
She stares at me, hard, and her face seems to swell and sag before my eyes. Lines appear and furrow where there were none before; the veins on her nose redden and splotch. I barely recognize her. Her arm muscles hang slackly when she brings the glass up to her lips. Even her hair has dulled, brittled. I think of Chrysto, Chrysto always admiring my soft skin, Chrysto and his impossibly taut torso, always so perfectly arranged, his wolfish smile …
A rising tide of ouzo and revulsion sends me staggering away from Acacia, gasping for air as I stumble out of the apartment and down the stairs. I have almost escaped onto the street when I hear, “Wait! Wait!” Acacia is leaning out of her window above. She waves. Her arm is toned and graceful, her face as smooth and fresh-looking as any girl attending her first spring prom. “Walter,” she calls out sweetly, “perhaps you know someone who needs a bike?”
Sketch #4
WALTER
NOWHERE
The sky brightens.
Another day. I didn’t notice the last one, or the one before that.
The sun’s already taken over the arm of the couch. Heat prickles my head. TV’s still on, a game show, turned low. I watch it sideways. People jumping, sideways, waving their arms, sideways. Happy sideways babbling. Applause. Excitement framed small.
There are beer cans in my view. I don’t know when they’ve been drunk. I don’t taste beer in my mouth.
I don’t know what day it is.
* * *
Glare spreads over the screen. The game show contestants are getting ghosty. Hard to see. The sun hurts my eyes. So I close them.
The babbling dims. Heat’s a slow blanket that covers you up. Was that how it was with Georgia? Sun-swaddled into helplessness, the heat, warming and draining, a drowsy lullaby? She probably didn’t even cry out. There was no breath for it. There were no tears for it. She didn’t have a chance.
I’ll cry for you, little sister.
* * *
It’s later. I think.
Bedroom door. Shuffle-shuffle-shuffle-shuffle. “Walt?”
A touch on the shoulder.
Hello, father.
Child killer. Wife killer.
You haven’t killed me, not yet, but I can’t answer you. See? My eyes are closed. I’m sleeping. Go away. I’m having a dream, a beautiful dream, and you’re not there.
* * *
And then, he’s not there.
Shuffle-shuffle-shuffle-shuffle. Bedroom door.
* * *
Look at me, motionless. I’m like Chrysto, except he didn’t stay still. He moved on. I’m fetal and frozen. Does that mean I’m exactly where I want to be? No. There’s nowhere I’d exactly want to be. Or, nowhere is where I’d want to be, exactly.
She left.
He left.
They all left.
The leavers.
My father and me, we’re the indirect objects, that which is left. We’re going to be lying here forever, until our legs and arms shrivel and we roll around in our own filth like two fat mealworms, stuck wriggling in the past until time runs out. Because time, that runs out, too.
Those pills.
The ones
that go in the medicine cups. I think of how I dropped those pills, doubles and triples, into two cups—Morning and Night—for years. When did I fill them last? It doesn’t matter. He’ll be fine. We’ll all be dead and he’ll rise up, poking through the ruins like some scavenger thing.
He’ll live.
Those pills.
I’ve never read the paperwork that comes with them, dosage and side effects, warnings and such, but I’m sure they’d be strong enough, if you took enough. They’re way more potent than what he took way back then, what with medical advances and all. And those did the trick for her. Wouldn’t it be funny, history replaying itself out the same way? Those who do not learn from history, and so on.
I’m shivering. Maybe it’s the sweat cooling on my body. Or maybe it’s fear. Temptation and fear.
* * *
The sky darkens.
The television’s clear and bright again, but smaller. The sideways people look so far away. It’s life, over there, on the wrong end of the telescope.
Hand on my shoulder. “Hey, champ? Soup?”
I shake my head. Or I think of shaking my head.
* * *
Sometime later—I hear clattering, dish scraping against dish, metallic rustling of silverware, the hum of the microwave.
* * *
Sometime later—the bedroom door.
* * *
Sometime later—
* * *
I wake up in the dark. Quiet. The television’s off. I’m burning up, so hot. My mouth is dry. And I need to pee.
Up.
Oh God. The dark swirls all around. I’ll never get through it.
I get to the bathroom, feeling along the walls like a blind man. When the pee comes out it’s such sweet relief I lean against the sink and start crying.
Back to the couch. Better to lie down again.
Sshhh.
* * *
Go
* * *
away
* * *
I’m burning up. So hot. My tiny body can’t contain such fever. Strapped into my seat, in a car going nowhere, my hair is wet, my eyes gummed shut.
Next to me, the sound of breathing, stopped.
