He leaned back in his chair. Got some coffee. Wandered into the briefing room, where Rodriguez’s picture was tacked to the wall, caught in a spiderweb of other bad guys. A red X taped across his mugshot. The X intersected right in the center of the kid’s face, both eyes peeking out from deep inside the jaws of the double-headed alligator. Martell took a step closer, then another step, and pretty soon his entire vision was engulfed in red.
He stopped at a gas station on the way home. Bought milk and hot dogs. At the register, he considered buying a pack of smokes, but bought a lottery ticket instead. The girl behind the counter rang him up. He fondled a spinning rack of keychains. He scooped one off its hook and placed it on the counter.
The house smelled like berbere. He took his shoes off at the door and set the bags down on the counter and wrapped his arms around Sandra. She stirred the soup and leaned her head to the side so he could kiss her neck. She poured two bowls and they sat and ate. He washed the dishes and dried his hands and sat down next to her on the couch.
He pulled out the keychain he’d bought at the gas station. A little green alien with big sunglasses. She laughed and put it on her key ring.
“When are we going back to Roswell?”
“Whenever you want.”
“I like this little guy.”
“I saw it and thought you might.”
“So we can go this summer?”
“We can go whenever you want.”
They watched a show on TV about aliens and Mayans. After that they watched a comedy show, then Alien on TNT. Martell had seen it about a hundred times, but his wife loved it, so he watched it again. They brushed their teeth and went to bed. He held Sandra and tried not to breathe too heavily.
“Do you want to go out to eat tomorrow? Thai food, maybe?”
She rubbed her eyes and grabbed his hand. “Can’t tomorrow. I have a date.”
Martell’s stomach tightened. “With who?”
“Thomas, from the Tavern?”
“Thomas? I don’t remember him.”
“He was the cute guy who made your macchiato.”
“I don’t remember a cute guy.”
She kissed his hand. “We’re gonna get some dinner and watch a movie.”
He held her tighter, because he didn’t know what else to do.
The next day Jack Martell felt slightly convinced that he hadn’t killed Anthony Rodriguez. He tried to replay the stabbing in his mind, the memory that had seemed so vivid the day before, but instead of a clear picture he had a nagging feeling, like you might get if you stood by a steep cliff and felt like jumping off.
He stopped at a Greek place and ordered a gyro. An old man behind him said, “Five dollars for lamb.”
Turning to face him, Martell said, “I know! Prices are getting a bit steep.”
The old man shook his head. “No, no. Five dollars is way too cheap. I wonder how they got it so cheap. Probably, it’s old.”
He ate half his gyro on the way to work, then threw the rest out.
He sat at his desk, in his own little world, until late in the afternoon. The office suddenly erupted with activity. He caught the electric scent in the air and found Trejo by the water cooler.
“What’s going on?”
Trejo crushed his paper water cone and tossed it in the trash. “We’re up.”
“Huh?”
“Mendoza turned himself in for questioning about five minutes ago. Says he has information on the Rodriguez case.”
“The Mendoza?”
“Yep. He’s in Room 2. Let’s go.”
“When Tony died, I wasn’t surprised,” Albert Mendoza said. He seemed comfortable under the bright lights, his hands crossed in front of him on the steel table. “We make a lot of enemies, doing what we do.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Nothing at all. People just hate us, I guess. Anyway, we make a lot of enemies. So, I send my boys out.”
“Which boys are these?”
“My sons, of course. They were in the middle of their soccer game, and I knew that after that it was their nap time, but work had to be done. So I sent my boys out to find out what happened to Tony.”
“And what did your ‘boys’ find out?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. And that’s what’s weird. These guys are good. These kids, I mean. They’re like really good dogs or something. They get the scent, you know. But they didn’t find a thing. There are some groups on the Southside that didn’t get along with Tony very well.”
“And why’s that?”
“They had beef over a shuffleboard game. Tony was an avid player, and really good. Well these guys, they were the shuffleboard champs of their neighborhood. And Tony just comes in and stomps them. Makes them embarrassed. Their girlfriends start hanging on Tony. And you know, things escalate. Never fuck with a shuffleboard player on his home turf.”
“Good advice.”
“So anyway, none of these guys, these bad shuffleboard players, had anything to do with the murder. Which surprised me.”
“How do you know?”
“Those boys, I’m telling you. They find things out.”
“And how is that?”
“Mostly they trade pogs for it. You remember those? Big craze when I was a kid. These little discs, about the size of a communion wafer. Well, those things fetch big money, now. People still go nuts over pogs, but now it’s like a money thing, instead of a collecting thing. My boys have all of my old pogs. Trade em for good dirt.”
“I see.”
“So anyway. I start to wonder. Did Tony just piss someone off? Just some average guy? And so I get my buddy to pull his credit card statements. The last place he went to, the last thing he bought, well that’s not very interesting. It was something that cost $5.19 at Taco Bell. But a few purchases before that, a few days before he died, he visited a florist.”
“Go on.”
Mendoza lifted his hands up. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I just thought you all should know.”
“You came here to tell us that Rodriguez bought flowers.”
“That’s right.”
Trejo stood up and stretched. He walked out and closed the door behind him. Martell leaned in close.
“Why are you telling us this?”
“Because you have resources that I don’t have. I’m a busy man.”
“Busy doing what, exactly?”
“Well you see, I’m really into car restoration…”
When Martell got home that night, the house just smelled like the house. He ate some leftover soup and watched TV. He got bored and turned it off and went onto the back porch and listened to a nearby neighbor’s party. He laid in bed. He thought about Sandra. He thought about her, out with Thomas the cute barista. He pictured her laughing. He reminded himself that the laugh in his brain was a recreation, something that he could own, but that her real laugh belonged to her, and he couldn’t keep it.
He just wanted her to be home.
He hugged her pillow, now close to positive he didn’t kill Anthony Rodriguez.
Martell awoke to the smell of waffles. He went downstairs and Sandra smiled and handed him a plate. She sat down across from him and they ate their waffles quietly.
He pulled the words out with both hands: “How was your date last night?”
She smiled and arched an eyebrow. “It was great.”
He moved the syrup around with his fork. “That’s good.”
“We went to a great movie. The special effects were so good. He bought me popcorn. After the movie we went out to have some food. I think I had Thai on the brain, after what you said. I got some green curry. I was trying to keep my nose from running, it was so hot. He thought it was cute.”
Martell chewed slowly. “That sounds fun.” Already in his gut, he knew.
“So after the date,” she said, and Martell could feel the waffles fighting to come back up. He could already see it, this kid inviting her up to his apartment, turning on som
e music. He thought about how excited she must have been, and that excitement broke his heart. And she was telling this story, just as evenly as can be.
Martell stopped her. “I’ve heard enough.”
Sandra looked like she’d been slapped. Then her face melted into this pity. She reached her hand across the table and stroked his arm like he was the only survivor of a car wreck. “Jack. If we don’t do this together, it’s never going to work. Remember? The imprinting? If you don’t experience this like I experienced it, then it’s just random.”
He remembered the books. He remembered that he was supposed to get turned on by this. To relive the excitement of Sandra’s first date with this boy as though it was their date. Supposed to keep the relationship fresh.
“You fucked him? Really? That quickly?”
She got up from the table. “Fine.”
Martell talked to his plate. “I’m not shaming you. I’m just surprised.”
Sandra kissed him. “I love you. You are my love.”
His head, spinning.
She walked out of the kitchen. Martell dumped his waffles down the drain.
He had been so close to convincing himself he had nothing to do with Rodriguez, but now it was more a question of why than if. Why would he have killed this guy? Why would he have killed anyone?
One time, about a year prior, Martell was dropping Sandra off at the airport, so she could fly to her mother’s for Christmas. When he pulled up to the drop off, he was nearly sideswiped by a limousine. He threw his hands in the air and made a face. The limo screeched to a halt, the passenger door opened, and the limo driver got out. He walked over to Martell’s car, made the “roll down your window” motion, and when Martell complied, the guy spit all over his shirt.
If he was going to kill someone, he reasoned, he would’ve killed that guy. No question.
The Tavern was quiet. Thick rimmed glasses reflecting laptop light. Gentle sips of hot coffee. Music Martell didn’t quite recognize. He ordered a coffee from a smiling woman and sat at a table. He blinked and when he opened his eyes he saw all the patrons as Russian nesting dolls. The couple that sat laughing and pointing at Cosmopolitan were very small dolls, freshly painted, intricate swirls and patterns. The quiet man and woman, each of them engrossed in the screens of their Macbooks, he saw them as slightly bigger dolls, each with a few chips, a few more layers. And him, sitting there, suddenly he felt big, like he could take up the entire coffee shop.
He missed his wife. Or rather, he missed a picture of his wife that he kept in his mind. Maybe that was the person he loved. There’s a possibility, he reasoned, that she never existed.
But he knew that wasn’t true.
Quick memories: the Grand Canyon, Roswell, San Diego.
He went to the bathroom. There was a small jar full of free condoms sitting on the lid of the toilet. He took one and washed his hands.
Threw his coffee in the trash. He walked around the backside of the counter and disappeared into the kitchen. There, on the rack of aprons, was a full body hanging, deflated, open in the front.
He saw red everywhere. The red of the microwave clock sitting on the breakroom counter. The red of some barista’s cellphone, blinking from her purse. Until there was nothing but red.
Martell picked the skin off of the rack and stepped inside.
He fixed himself a double espresso and went to work. Customers came in for the lunch rush. He’d never made coffee before, but there he went: milk under the steamer, pumps of syrup in paper cups, tips in the tip jar.
Molly flirted with him throughout the day. Martell had known her for about three months and could feel that he was close to fucking her. Their talk consisted mostly of double-entendres. She answered most of her texts with a winky face. He was close.
He finished up his shift and waved goodbye to Molly. He checked his phone for texts and Facebook messages.
There was one from Sandra. He answered her back and put the phone in his pocket.
He took the bus home and waved hello to his roommates and flicked on the TV. He lamented the state of the world. He hated the stupid shows and the stupid commercials. He watched the news and hated every stupid opinion. He smoked a bowl and watched cartoons. He laughed with his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend. They were still tripping from the acid they ate the night before. They told stories of seeing skulls everywhere, of the vividness of the trees, and for a moment he was tempted to eat the last tab, waiting for him in the freezer. But instead he turned on his computer. He tweeted and downloaded music. He worked on a paper for his English class. He got on Facebook and looked at his ex-girlfriend’s changed relationship status and felt a deep jealousy overwhelm him.
He shut the computer down and texted Sandra. She answered back right away.
They met up in the park. They sat on the steps of an empty outdoor ampitheater. He felt comfortable around her. He talked about how frightening it would be if sharks had arms and legs and could breathe oxygen. He told her about his failed relationship and she listened carefully and gave him good advice. He liked being around her, a lot.
But he kind of didn’t want to have sex with her.
They went to a bar and she bought her own drinks. He asked about her husband.
“What happens after you and I…you know?”
“Well,” she said. “What will happen, is that I’ll go home, and tell him exactly what happened. There’s a process called imprinting. We both relive the experience you and I have, and our love gets stronger through that process.”
Martell thought that was a strange idea, but he nodded his head and sipped his beer.
As the night went on, the alcohol made them both horny. He didn’t want to take her back to his place again, and he also didn’t like the idea of fucking in a car. He wanted a nice bed away from his roommates.
So, she took him back to her place.
“Won’t your husband be home?”
“We’re not cheating,” she said. “He needs to be a part of this.”
The whole way there, Martell felt strange. He remembered, distantly, plunging a knife deep into someone’s neck. It was mostly shapes and colors, but the sensation of the knife penetrating the skin was very clear in his mind. But he couldn’t remember who it was he’d killed or why.
They walked into the living room and her husband was sitting on the couch. He didn’t say a word to them. Sandra gave a weak hello and set her keys on the counter. Then they went into the bedroom.
His pants were gone, she was on her knees. Then he was slipping on the free condom from the Tavern. Then she was looking up at him, saying, “You work so hard for me.”
He couldn’t finish. He took the condom off and she put him back in her mouth. He closed his eyes and concentrated. He gripped the sides of her head. He couldn’t tell if she liked it, but she didn’t stop him.
When he was done he put his clothes on and walked out into the living room. The husband was still sitting on the couch. He was looking down at his hands.
Martell looked closer and could see that the guy was holding a keychain, a green alien with big sunglasses.
He ran his hand through his hair and walked out the door, still without saying a word.
He stumbled down the steps, feeling the alcohol take hold. Everything spinning. The husband looking down at his hands. He got to the curb, threw open their garbage bin, and hurled. He tasted beer.
Jack Martell rested his arms on the bin. Sweet trash smell making him gag. And from the bottom of the bin, he saw a bouquet of flowers with a red card attached. He focused on the card, and kept focusing, until all he could see was red.
CASH ON THE SIDE
The author decided that he’d write romances for cash on the side. There would be a monster that was built in a lab and the monster would escape and begin a romantic affair with a librarian. The monster would learn to love, but he’d still also have these intense sexual feelings for his creator. A love triangle! the author thought, and he began to
write. He didn’t give much thought to style. His fingers raced faster and faster as he got closer and closer to each plot point.
The monster escapes!
The monster saves the librarian from a loan shark!
The monster and the librarian are at first distant…but then they make love.
And on, and on. The monster kills the creator and decides to live with the librarian. Always with this lingering melancholy, though.
After the story was done, the author shut his laptop and stretched against the back of his chair. The day was gone and he stepped outside and lit a cigarette. A white truck sped down the train tracks just west of his house. He could hear the locomotive’s horn coming the other way in the distance.
He ran out onto the tracks, coughing in the still-lingering cloud of the truck’s exhaust.
He watched the vehicle kamikaze towards the train. The sparks of giant’s brakes against its wheels, the horn blaring over and over again.
The truck erupted into a fireball.
The cigarette dropped from the author’s mouth.
He went back inside and called his mother and told her what happened. He couldn’t quit the shaking in his fingers. He took a hot shower and washed himself with sage and eucalyptus and laid on his couch, watching the blue and red lights play over his ceiling until he drifted off to sleep.
He submitted the monster romance to Amazon the next day. Priced it at a modest ninety-nine cents. He got a little extra money out of it, maybe a hundred bucks or so a month. There were some good reviews and some bad reviews.
Then, he got an idea for a story about mermaids.
THE THICK FOG OF THE ALABASTER MOUNTAINS
John Parks jerked his foot from his boot and shook the brown recluse onto the greasy tile of his kitchen floor. He smashed it and scooped the curled corpse into a paper towel and tossed it in the trash. He didn’t feel the bite, just the wild thrashing of tiny legs, but sure enough when he inspected his foot he saw the red mark there, right below his big toe. He turned on his shower and ran the bite under slow cool water, applied some antibacterial cream, and popped an ibuprofen and a vitamin C pill. He set out on a fold-out chair on his porch and opened a beer.
Our Blood in Its Blind Circuit Page 7
