Flatscreen

by Adam Wilson

  twenty-seven

  A loud bang came from the backyard. Dropped my bike on the front lawn, walked around the house, past the gutter pipes. Another bang. Kahn sat in his wheelchair wearing a blue terry-cloth bathrobe, slippers. Shooting empty liquor bottles lined up on top of the fence.

  Beth Cahill stood next to him, fully clothed this time in ski jacket, jeans. She held a cardboard box, wore large headphones. Mostly empty vodka bottle at her feet. Other guests too: young woman with plastic-looking hair, shirtless man with pierced nipples, bull-style nose ring, ski goggles. Both smoked cigs, sat in metal chairs (my smoking chair!), not paying attention to the makeshift artillery range directly to their right.

  Beth watched Kahn, who sat motionless, staring at the bottle he’d been aiming for, maybe wondering if his bullet had traveled into the Mitchells’ home; if their eight-year-old son or their cocker spaniel, Moses, now lay dead on the floor.

  She opened the box, handed Kahn a single bullet. With methodical movement, like a young private under observation by his commanding officer (Daughter of the Desert, Focus Features, 2004), Kahn inserted the bullet into the rifle. Slid forward the bolt, squinted through the scope. Face was method-acting-intense, maybe because he wasn’t actually acting, or because he was. Beth kept her eyes on him, on his hands that weren’t shaky but surprisingly steady. Behind them, the others laughed, sipped from plastic cups.

  Kahn shot. Chair rolled backward. Beth reached out a hand to slow the movement, causing Kahn’s chair to swivel so that he now faced me head-on. The bullet hit the fence.

  “Land of the dead,” Kahn said. “How was it?”

  “You tell me.”

  Nip Ring laughed high-pitched, repeated, “Land of the dead,” in campy alto. Girl laughed too. Beth removed her headphones to see what was funny. Waved but didn’t smile.

  “I don’t know,” Kahn said. “I’ve never returned. I have nothing to compare it to.”

  He picked up the vodka bottle, finished it in one long gulp, chucked it end-over-end like a boomerang in front of him, toward me. Aimed his gun at the bottle.

  “Bang,” Kahn said, drawing more squeals from the toasted peanut gallery. I didn’t flinch. Looked at the gun, tried to remember it aimed at me that night, to imagine the trajectory of its bullet that went through my leg, was now lodged in the living room wall for eternity, or at least until the house is demolished, earth reharvested, large trees to cover empty indoor-space, though probably someone will replace the thing with a cloud-scraping McMansion, be done with it.

  “Want a turn?” Kahn said.

  Walked to where he was standing, took the gun, stroked its wood stock. Kahn stuck his finger in his own chest.

  “Right here. Then we’ll be even. An eye for an eye.”

  “You shot me in the leg,” I said. “Not the heart.”

  “I don’t have legs,” Kahn said.

  “Not technically true,” I said, pointed the gun at him, said, “Bang,” handed Kahn the gun.

  Wind blew through the yard, opened Kahn’s untied robe. Shirtless beneath it. Chest looked like a piece of stale fiber-bread, nipples and moles for seeds and grains.

  “You must be freezing,” I said.

  “Inside,” Kahn shouted. “Bring me inside.”

  Beth grabbed the back handles of his chair. I grabbed the wheels from the front. Carried him up onto the porch, through the screen door, into the kitchen. I walked backward, face to face with Kahn. He looked intensely at my face as if Alzheimered, attempting to remember someone who seems familiar, but whose specifics can’t be accessed by memory.

  From the kitchen, Kahn led the way to the living room, to our old chipped coffee table. Lingered for a moment in the kitchen, trying to remember my greatest meals, that feeling of being alone in the world, late night, house asleep, town asleep, backyard darkness through the sliding doors.

  They passed a crack pipe, or something that looked like a crack pipe, might have been a meth pipe. Nip Ring crushed pills with a credit card. The girl kissed his neck, rubbed his shoulders. Beth hit the pipe, removed her jacket.

  Kahn flipped the pages of a large book.

  “Join us,” he said, patted the empty couch seat next to him.

  Beth put the pipe in Kahn’s mouth, lit it. As he inhaled he moved his face toward the open book. Beth’s hands moved in conjunction. A cookbook. Photos on the open page were tightly shot so everything was visible, each fleck of salt unique in its shape and tint. Basil greener than real life. Peppers peeling off the page. Kahn leaned into a bowl of sauce-soaked spaghetti, salivated.

  Beth took the pipe from Kahn’s mouth. Kahn pulled the book right up to his face until it sequestered his entire line of vision. For a moment I thought his head would be swallowed by the book, that his slim body would disappear within the pages.

  “Jambalaya,” he said. Beth turned the page. “Shrimp ceviche.”

  Then he dropped the book to the floor, leaned back into the couch, covered his face with his hands, uncovered, smiled, swallowed.

  Beth stood behind the girl, rubbed her belly as she danced. Nip Ring was gyrating, spinning an invisible hula hoop.

  Without opening his eyes or moving his head from its reclining position, Kahn said, audible only to me, “You’re a good son.”

  Put his left hand on my thigh. I watched him do this, tensed my muscles even though I wanted to relax, embrace his touch. He didn’t rub, just squeezed. Lifted his head, rested it on my shoulder. I let him leave it there. We sat like that. Breath tickled the hair on my arms. I was stiff but felt I should stay still, not upset his precarious balance, let him fade peacefully from consciousness, lavish some much-needed, honest affection on the old dude.

  “Good boy,” Kahn said, or maybe, “Goodbye.”

  Nibbled at my neck, squeezed my pathetic bicep, ran a hand from hips up to my ribs. Beth licked the other girl’s legs. Nip Ring was pantsless now, doing some kind of chicken dance.

  “Beautiful,” Kahn said, met my eyes.

  I’d like to articulate what I saw in his stare: mortality, humanity, love, death, pain, joy, etc. But it was something else. More like fear that’s been stripped of anticipation, fear of pain that already exists, but also an understanding that the disappearance of that pain is a disappearance of everything alive—disappearance into death. An unfair look: shitty with honesty, needy for things we both know I can’t give. I’d like to say I squeezed his body, felt his bones through his thinning skin, pressed his wildly beating heart against my own, synchronized.

  I didn’t. Said, “I should go.”

  Kahn lifted his head from my shoulder. I tried to stand but Kahn had latched onto my arm with both hands, was pulling me toward him.

  “Stay.”

  “I have to go.”

  Used my own fingers to unclasp his, which wasn’t difficult.

  twenty-eight

  Possible Ending #12 (circa 1946):

  THE END

  twenty-nine

  Benjy in the bathtub. Door half open. No suds. Curl-pubed cock swayed lean and long in steamy water. Even there we weren’t the same. Legs over the side, dripping, immobile, like hanging laundry. Hair frosty with leave-in. Star of David pendant floated above concave chest.

  Couldn’t believe Benjy still wore it. I’d had the same one—gifts from Dad—must have tossed mine in a bout of anti-Dad, anti-religious fervor, or else lost it immediately to the many drawers and containers that kept our objects hidden, consumed our knickknacks for us to find later: dusty, depressingly unused.

  Wished I had the necklace still. Not for solidarity with my never-chosen faith or the throngs of liberal-except-Israel sandal-wearers with DNA similar to mine, but for a secret sameness to share with Benjy beneath our clothes. A repeated reminder of our childhood, of the love-imparting father who’d lived for at least that moment.

  Benjy cried, sobbed, held a cell phone to his ear, said, “Baby,” said, “Erin,” said, “I’m sorry,” said, “Fuck,” said, “Fuck me,” said,
“Please,” said, “I know but,” said, “I don’t,” said, “I mean,” said, “Oh, Ere, please, I made a terrible mistake.”

  Dropped his cell in the water. Sank until it rested in the hollow cave between his puffy pecs. With his heart in my head brought laptop to the bathroom door, put on Kurt C., acoustic, singing, “All alone is all we are.” Sat on the shut toilet saying nothing, in acquiescence of the song’s bleakness, but also in defiance because I was here, quiet but consoling in my way; we weren’t alone. Passed a bottle of house white Mom had left chilling in the fridge for future consumption.

  Benjy must have sensed the strangeness of it all: he naked and drinking, while I, for once, the pacifier, rife with good news I couldn’t share—Alison, etc.—and also the sad Kahn story I had to keep buried, to hide from fragile Ben who lay in the rapidly cooling water like an underfed goldfish, waiting, without expectation, for food or death, no matter.

  “This is pretty gay,” Benjy said.

  “Don’t be a homophobe,” I said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Glugged, passed, put his head beneath the water. I silently baptized my brother.

  thirty

  Possible Ending #13 (Good Will Hunting as Directed by Woody Allen):

  I am a licensed guidance counselor with a master’s degree. Seriously. Office smells of leather, leather cleaner. Filled with dusty psycho-texts I read for years in grad school and now display. Proof of my postadolescent growth. Proof of learned-ness, boring-ness (which I treasure). Mustachioed, but not in a creepy way, just in a Jewy dad way. Still in Quinosset. Kids come to me. Fucked-up teens from QHS, arms crossed with math-protractor-made cuts. Threatening suicide. Threatening escape. Threatening to fuck my daughter. Threatening violence on those who let them down. I nod my head, listen. Respond with knowing advice in a grizzled, smoke-toughened voice that tells them I’m one of them. Stay calm. I’m still one of them. I do not hug, though it’s all I want to do, to hold their growing bodies in the dim lamplight of that musty room, tell them everything will end up okay, it did for me (though maybe I’m lying, maybe not).

  thirty-two

  Possible Ending #14 (Unsatisfying):

  Hover over the kitchen range: stirring, sniffing, salting, singing unself-consciously along with cable channel 567—Reggae-all-day-mon! Table set for two: no chinks in the china, silverware arranged in formal French style, menorah in the middle, nine candles slow-burning, champagne chilling in the ice-filled sink. Camera moves back to me, closes in, first on my face—awash in concentration, brow bent, eyes brown ovals of intensity oddly complemented by whimsical curls, dimple-pimpled cheeks, lips curled in expectation, tongue darting quasi-sexually, quasi-creepily, but more in an “alone and no one’s watching, face free to freak as it pleases” way. Camera moves to my hands: knife-nicked, thick-fingered, fluent in the language of stir, shake, salt, sniff; fluid fingers move like ballet feet, rehearsed enough to give the dual impression of chaos and control. Now camera pulls away, away from hands, out of pan, away and behind my body, lights slowly dimming until I’m just silhouette, shadowed by stove-flame, framed by the peaceful dark and inherent self-triumph of the moment regardless of how things turn out on the date or otherwise. Fade out.

  thirty-three

  It appeared that she was running late—somewhere in the murky district between fashionably and rudely—so I opened the wine, settled into a glass, which became two glasses, which became the bottle. By ten o’clock, two things were certain: (1) Alison wasn’t coming and (2) I was drunk.

  Did what anyone in my situation would do: tried her cell every five, leaving tongue-loose messages professing undying affection, promising erotic performance on par with Don Juan (Don Juan DeMarco, New Line, 1994). When that didn’t work, chugged what remained of the bottle, helmeted my spin-cycling dome, saddled my cycle, set off in search of something to make me forget I’d ever tried.

  Empty streets were a giant set stuffed with flashing store facades, seemingly undeep with 3-D depth. No people or animals, only parked cars infinitum. Trees were naked, starving West Coast wusses, unhappily displaced into East Coast winter. Wind hit my face like a slap-happy sibling, saying, “Wake up, sleepyhead, so as to suffer like the rest.”

  Places people went in these situations were comfort, calm voices. Calm voices came from parents. In this case, parents weren’t close, or comforting. Imagined Dad grunting “Better off,” Mom caught up in sitcom C-plot saying “Sorry E., one minute, Mindy’s about to get that sweater she’s been wanting…” If I’d known them better, might have uphilled to Sheila and Mary, sobbed into velvet handkerchief, whispered Nina Simone lyrics while Sheila held my hand, mended my broken heart with golden thread.

  Obviously ended up where I always ended up, the place that felt like home, the man who might understand. Wondered if, yesterday, I’d made Kahn feel like Alison had made me feel tonight.

  Went around back, helmet on, semi-seriously braced for another round of gunfire, bullets and clothes flying, Kahn high, lying naked with closed eyes sending squirts of semen into brisk air, watching it fall like sticky rain on his hairy stomach. Maybe Beth in the backyard with him, swilling chardonnay, tied to a tire swing, softly singing the Lord’s Prayer. Or something.

  Quiet, dark, would have been star-soaked if it weren’t so cloudy. Security-light-soaked when I walked by the security light. A dog barked. Apparently Kahn’s bullet had missed. Back door open. No B&E this time. House was quiet too. Reminded me of nights with Mom asleep, sneaking around in socked feet, tiptoe-hopping to music in my head, wanting to jump out windows, smash guitars, stick my penis in anything alive. Strange thing was I liked this feeling, though I hated it now, wondered where Kahn was, wanted anything, even sad, as long as it ended in numbness and the feeling that at least one person in this whole fucking world gave a shit.

  No music. Living room empty, lights off. No loose bras, blunt roaches. Ran a hand across the coffee table, groping anything solid. Wandered to Mom’s old room. Soundless because the carpeting was still there, still covering Dad’s hardwood floors. Imagined Dad still mad about it, knew he didn’t give a shit anymore. Felt sad about that.

  Guess I should have known Alison would be on the bed, asleep. Or, at least, in incoherent half-sleep, half-high. She wore a white gown. Not a nightgown or a wedding gown. More like an antique ball gown complete with lace garters, pink pillbox hat. Hair had been done in an attempted bouffant, but half the strands had fallen from the shoddily inserted clips, fell against her pale neck. Clown-red lips, cheeks. Turquoise circles around her eyes. Like a little girl playing dress-up.

  Possible Ending #15 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I’d seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone’s sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone’s okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn’t just a self-created illusion.

  I’d expected something more original from these two—Kahn, especially, who had acted in enough movies to understand their tropes, avoid cliché—figured we were above this, weren’t in a movie anymore, were joyfully sliding headfirst into untrammeled territory, unpredictable, undictated by the old narratives we’d studied, shucked.

  Maybe it was more gut-punch-holy-shitballs than I’m making it sound. Certainly my gut hurt, face hurt, couldn’t breath, speak, barely stayed standing, balls receding into pelvis, pelvis into spine, spine shocked into paralysis, neck extended, tongue bitten, legs wobbly, ears unhearing, gasping for breath like an asthmatic smoker, which I was.

  Alison looked like a desert mirage I’d always reach for, never have, never even hate out loud because I wanted to keep the dream alive, accept her explanations, concede some betrayal and psychological instability for the promised rewa
rd of occasional days like the one where she came over after coffee, came in my mouth, let me hold her as I fell asleep on the couch. But even on the visceral level I felt less betrayed by the act itself—whatever it was—than by the uncreativity of the actors, the all-else-fails reliance on this trodden, deeply depressing, uncomplicated numb-slutty-spaced-out fever dream.

  Alison was on the edge of the bed, sliding off. Gown too big. Gravity only loosed it more. One breast revealed. Pink nipple pointed at the ceiling fan.

  “Come dance, my dear,” Kahn said, like it was a normal thing to say.

  Pulled her arms. Top half tuxedoed, bottom half bare. Pretzel stick legs all scarred, unmoving. Stroked Alison’s hair, pressed a palm against her cheek, kissed her ear, rubbed her hip, said, “Let us twirl like children on the merry-go-round.”

  I felt sick, fell forward into the room, reaching out for Alison, landing face-first in Kahn’s lap.

  “Good evening,” Kahn said, stroked my helmet like it was hair.

  Lay there, not ready to retreat or acknowledge the various truths of the situation.

  He said, “Let’s play your body like a harp,” possibly to Alison, possibly to me, possibly to himself. Wasn’t even a good line, second-rate, regular scriptwriter out with flu, only some robot feeding the obviously drunk Kahn unworthy dialogue.