Love and Other Wounds

by Jordan Harper

  “Now,” he says, playing the world-weary cop, “are you sure you really want to press charges?”

  He watches her think about it. About taking a stand. Then shakes her head no. Green has broken her.

  Good job.

  She nods. They walk back into the room. Aaron has put on some clothes. He has poured himself another drink. He has invaded Sarah’s personal space. He touches her thigh. She squirms. Green clears his throat.

  Aaron looks up at Green and Caroline. Grins.

  “See you around,” Aaron says as Caroline runs past Green and out the door. She holds in the sobs until she hits the doorway. The three of them stand still as her crying fades into the night. Sarah looks at Green. The look in her eyes. UNSAID: I don’t have to ask if this is wrong.

  Green holds the look. He’d done worse for less.

  Aaron lights a cigarette as he tries to talk Sarah into staying. Actors are the last smokers left in Los Angeles. It keeps them thin. Green walks her out. They walk down a garden path toward the pool.

  “I need a shower,” Sarah says.

  “It won’t help,” Green says. “But I know what will.”

  They follow the sounds of laughter to the outdoor bar. All these beautiful people. Green and Sarah find a table near the swimming pool. The drinks are eighteen dollars apiece. They have several. They charge them to Aaron’s room. It’s paid for by a studio, the one producing the animated film in which Aaron plays a love-crazed warthog. He’s supposed to be doing press all weekend.

  The landscaping rustles around them. Rats, Sarah says. They live in the plants around the hotel. They run wild in the Hollywood Hills. This afternoon she saw one fall out of the palm trees while a Vanity Fair writer interviewed Aaron. The thing lay dead for the full three hours of the interview. The staff didn’t want to clean it up, afraid they’d draw attention to it.

  “Smart,” Green said. “It’s the cover-up that gets you.”

  “It’s getting me,” she says. Her smile is real. Some of the thing they’re carrying lifts off them then.

  The waiter comes by to let them know it’s last call. Sarah tells Green that the studio bought a second room for the night, sort of a green room for the press people. The other room is full of booze and food. Shame to let it go to waste. Green follows her to the room. He tries to remember how long it’s been. A long time.

  They drink. They swap stories. She tells him about getting a pedicure with the assistant of a reality star. The reality star is making a series about her upcoming wedding. Sarah tells Green how the girl told her there were cameras everywhere all the time, and the star and her fiancé never spoke to each other when the cameras were off. Nobody ever said anything about it. She tells Green how the Vietnamese ladies at the nail salon put their feet in bowls of tiny fish, tiny fish that fed off the dead skin of their feet. How the assistant watched the little fish nibble her toes while she said to Sarah, “I’m losing touch with reality. I don’t even know what’s real anymore.” How the girl had been near tears. How the wedding show had been a hit.

  Green tells her a story from the nineties, one of his first jobs in L.A. He worked a case for T, back when he was still a name, before the drugs got him by the neck and took him down. T was the type of guy who figured that anyone with tits on their chest was woman enough to give him a blow job, no matter what they happened to have dangling between their legs. Green spent one hot and endless night cruising tranny row with T while the actor did lines of coke off the dashboard and lectured Green about twelve-step recovery. “What you need, Green,” T had told him between coke shivers, “is to take a moral fucking inventory of yourself.”

  Green and Sarah both know about famous men who secretly died jerking off with belts around their necks. Autoerotic asphyxiation. It happens more often than you think. Green says those jobs are easy. Everyone will help the cover-up. Even cops. Cops find a guy with a belt around his neck and his cock in his hand, they hide the belt and call it an accident. Or at least they call it a suicide. David Carradine caught a bad break by dying in Bangkok, far away from the safety nets.

  She pours. She talks. Nothing left UNSAID. She takes a moral fucking inventory. She tells him how she got her break as a scripty on a big sitcom. How the women on the set had a special place, a closet behind the craft services table. “What’s it for?” she’d asked the PA who’d shown her around the set. “It’s where we go to cry,” the PA said. Sarah tells him that she’d laughed at that, thinking some women were weak. Some women gave the rest of them a bad name. Until the day one of the show’s stars yelled at her for eight minutes because she’d brought the wrong cup for his coffee. She found the right cup. Then she found her way to the special place.

  She tells Green about how she’d moved into PR, got a job at a big firm with offices on Wilshire. Three weeks into the new job her boss, a woman with cigarette-stained hands and an acid-peeled face, told her to give a blow job to a movie star they were handling. The woman told Sarah the star needed to relax before a press junket. It was part of the job, the woman had said. Sarah tells Green about the gleam in the woman’s eyes. How some people get an evil done to them and they can’t wait for their chance to pass it on to the next person in line.

  Sarah had done what the woman asked of her, in a closet, on her knees. Sarah tells Green how it made her feel, like something hollow, like something you might keep your hats and umbrellas in. The star had texted with a buddy while she did it. He rested the phone on her head. Word got out. She got labeled. So she’d moved over. Switched to black-bag PR. A month later she met Green.

  She tells Green about her last few months. She’d turned one actress’s botched tit job into a struggle with cancer. A meth-fueled freak-out turned into exhaustion. She’d done a lot. But she’d never gotten back down on her knees.

  She’s quiet. UNSAID: it’s your turn. Time for your moral inventory.

  Green couldn’t. Not yet.

  She understands. She drains her glass. She comes across the room and she kisses him. He kisses back. He pulls away.

  “Why me?” he asks her.

  “Because,” she says, “you’re as scared as I am.”

  He knew she was different. She is the only one who has ever been able to tell.

  They undress quickly. Everything else, slow. They are gentle with each other. They know they’re both so bruised.

  She gets up first. Green pretends to sleep as she crawls naked out of bed. He watches her dress through half-closed eyes. She is so beautiful, even now, hungover, her hair hanging in her face.

  Back at his apartment he watches bad teevee in the dark. He orders pizza. He wonders if he should call her. He wonders where that would go. Could go.

  He watches cable. An action movie from twenty years back. Oh yeah, movies. Somewhere right now in this town, grips move lights. Prop guys dig through their trailers looking for just the right prop. Actors do vocal exercises and learn their lines. Writers type. Scripties time scenes. The place where that happens seems a million miles away from Green. He is in a place in a faraway corner of that world, one of the places marked Here Be There Dragons on old maps.

  He doesn’t call Sarah. Not then, and not ever before it becomes too late. Sleep comes and the next day he is normal again. He goes back to work. It’s award show season. They always keep him busy.

  Oscar night. Late. The helicopters have quit their endless loops above the intersection of Hollywood and Highland. Victor calls him. Victor says, “Cleanup on aisle seven.”

  “Okay,” Green says.

  “Can you handle some heavy stuff?”

  Victor has never asked him that before.

  “Yeah,” Green says.

  Green enters one of the Hollywood hotels. He takes the elevator to the eleventh floor. He goes to room 1103. He knocks. He listens. He takes gloves out of his pockets. He puts them on. He opens the door. He smells spilled champagne and something else, something wet and sharp and rich. His heart climbs into his throat and starts kicking. He tur
ns on the light.

  A body.

  A skull-print scarf in a pool of blood, red on red.

  Sarah’s head is split open. Her eyes, once blue flowers, are now gray dull mushrooms. Her nails broken. The arms slashed. She fought. Fought hard.

  Crisscross welts on her legs.

  A mad pattern to the violence.

  He cleans the scene as best he can. He wipes down surfaces. He tries not to look at her. But she’s everywhere he turns.

  While he cleans, he thinks. He makes a plan. He doesn’t think Sarah would approve of it. But one thing he knows: he’s done worse for less.

  Green knows Aaron will be someplace he feels safe. He chases a hunch. He makes a call to confirm it. He drives to the Grotto. He street-parks. He goes in the delivery entrance. He walks to the bungalow. He knocks.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let me in,” Green says.

  Aaron unbolts the door. He blinks at Green. Recognition comes slow.

  “You’re the guy,” Aaron says. “The cleanup guy.”

  Aaron opens the door. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His tuxedo lies crumpled on the floor.

  “We’ve got to get you cleaned up,” Green says.

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  Aaron smiles. It is flawless, charming, and Green cannot see the demon underneath.

  “What do we do?” he asks Green. Green pokes his head into the bathroom, as if he’s looking for hiding witnesses. He checks the shower. He yanks on the bar that holds the shower curtain up. It’s solid. Five-star construction.

  “Take a shower,” Green says. “Take the shower of your life. I’ll clean up around here. Leave your clothes out here so I can trash them.”

  Aaron strips in front of him, smiling.

  “Do you want to know why?” he asks Green.

  “I know why. She wouldn’t get down on her knees for you.”

  “Not the way I’d put it,” Aaron said. “But whatever. I want to know why you’re here.”

  “I haven’t picked my number yet,” Green says. “But I want enough so I don’t have to do this anymore.”

  “Doable,” Aaron says. He goes into the bathroom. Green waits five minutes. He breathes slow. He thinks about Sarah and her scarf made out of skulls. Then he removes Aaron’s belt from the pants he left on the floor. He tugs on the belt. Tests it. It does not break. He takes off his shirt. He picks the belt back up. He pushes the belt through the buckle. He holds the loop open with one hand, keeping it open, keeping it big enough to fit over a man’s head.

  Green goes into the bathroom. It is steamy from the shower. Green pulls back the curtain. Aaron looks at Green, squinting against the water’s spray.

  “What the fuck are you—” he says. Then Green is on him. Green gets the belt loop around the neck. He yanks the belt’s tail above Aaron’s head. The noose tightens. Aaron loses his footing. He slides onto his back in the tub. His fingers claw at the belt. The belt bites deep into his neck. Green tries to keep the angle right. He sits on the toilet and leans back like a man waterskiing. He puts his feet on Aaron’s shoulders. He yanks the belt toward the ceiling. He feels the man’s skull uncork from his spine.

  Green stands back up. He lifts Aaron. Green’s body shakes with the strain. He gets the belt over his head. He ties Aaron’s body to the shower curtain rod.

  Green stages the scene. He remembers the times he helped clean up an auto-choke death. He re-creates scene details. He leaves the water running. He puts the laptop on the toilet lid. He opens up four tabs’ worth of porn. He goes real dirty with the selections.

  He plays what will come next in his mind. A maid will find the body. She will be bought or frightened. Everyone will know the drill. The mess will be cleaned up. They will hide the evidence of a jerk-off death. They will clean up evidence of the murder along with it. They will slap a cover-up over his cover-up. No one will look close enough to dig down two layers deep.

  He calls Victor from the car.

  “Cleanup on aisle seven,” Green says. He hangs up before Victor can ask him what he means.

  He goes home. He writes. It goes slow. He leaves nothing out but his name. He leaves nothing UNSAID. He copies and pastes it into an e-mail. He sends it to everyone he can. He wishes Sarah could read it. It is a press release. It is a moral fucking inventory.

  LOVE AND OTHER WOUNDS

  I love you.

  I watch you bleed. I pull back your sweatshirt. I rip the bloody cloth with adrenaline Hulk-hands. I watch blood bubble from the bullet hole, frothy and too fast. The bullet caught you high and hard where the shoulder meets the neck. The bullet burst out the other side of you and smacked into the liquor store’s wall. And now you are bleeding too fast to live. Too fast for us to fix here on this dirty kitchen floor. You need a hospital. I tell you we will get you there.

  Rift says no hospital.

  We came back to his place after the job went bad. In the yard out back, Rift’s dog barks, the kind of sound that calls up caveman fears from the base of your brain. The dog growls. It whips drool chains around like a biker looking to beat ass. Part pit bull, part cane corso. All killer. So is Rift. He paces. He rubs on an india ink neck tattoo. He counts bloodstained money. He says no hospital. He says with a bullet wound, doctors got to call the cops in. He says after the doctors sew you up, the cops will make you for the liquor store job in two seconds. He says you’ll give up me and my faggot ass in two more. He says once the cops get to me, me and my faggot ass will flip on Rift faster than a Chinese gymnast. He says after that one clerk went for his piece and plugged you, Rift had to do them both. He painted the cigarette shelf and the boner-pill display with a fresh coat of brains and hair. He says the two cooling bodies turn the job into a capital case for all three of us. He says it’s a death jolt for sure if we take you to the hospital with a gunshot wound. He says if you’re bleeding out, you die to save me and him. Too bad so sad.

  I love you.

  You can’t talk. You are past talking now. Your eyes, beautiful and fear-wide, beg me. I tell Rift you won’t say anything to the cops. I tell him I know how strong you are. I tell him that you have to go to the hospital. I tell him that I’m taking you and he can kill me if he wants to stop me. I stand up. Rift picks his pistol up from next to the pile of bloody money.

  Rift says he’s done fucking around.

  One bullet in the head of each the Koreans behind the counter means the Ruger still has four shots. Plenty enough for me and you. He points it at me. He says he’s chopping up one corpse or two tonight, my choice. He says he’ll use our meat to teach the dog to hunger for long pig. Says if I want to be with you so bad, we can mix together in his dog’s ass. Behind him the dog scratches the glass door and shows me his teeth, the back of his throat. It bites the air as an appetizer. I know I can’t let you die. I know there has to be a way out.

  I love you.

  I move past him to the glass door. The dog goes epileptic with blood lust. I open the door. Time does me a favor and slows down. I dodge dragon teeth. I get the dog by the collar. I unchain him. I barely control him. My grip won’t last long. I tell Rift to get the car started. I tell him I’m taking you to the hospital. I tell him there won’t be any cops called. Maybe animal control at worst. Because by the time we get to the hospital, there won’t be any bullet wounds left. I aim the dog at you. At your shoulder. Rift gets it.

  Rift says oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  I set the dog on you. The dog bites down hard. You scream. Of course you do. He resets his bite and gives you a death shake. He grinds the muscle of your shoulder to hamburger. He chews the bullet wound away. When it’s done I rip him off you and throw him back in the backyard. He smears pink drool against the glass as he scratches at the door. I don’t care. I’m done with him. I lift you. You’ve never been so light. I tell Rift to get the car. We don’t have much time. You’re bleeding so much faster now. He runs to do it. He’s scared of me now. He knows I can do anything. I know it
too.

  I love you.

  LIKE RIDING A MOPED

  . . . and now, the last bad thing about my fat: my fingers can’t find the bullet holes. They must be there, because they brought me down and now there is sticky blood mixing with the sweat all over, but my clumsy hands can’t find what kind of holes just got poked into my body. Are they just little puckers in the flesh? Or is it worse than that? Are scoops of me missing?

  Somebody will write about this on the Internet. I bet they call the article “Fatty and Clyde” or something like that. Everyone will read it and chuckle. And everyone will look at me and see something else, which is what always happens. That’s how Benny got to me when I should have known better. He looked right at me and he saw me.

  Men sit next to me on the Metrolink and talk about women like I’m not even there. I’m just the thing taking up two seats when the train gets crowded. Everyone shifts their body away from me. Nobody points and laughs unless there’s a kid. Then the mom can try to shush the little kid and maybe smile an apology and then look away, tell the kid it’s not polite to stare. Honest, it’s okay when the kid stares. At least it stops me from feeling invisible.

  The others, the adults, they look and they just see other things. They look at me and their faces change, and I see my reflection in every little gesture and twitch. They look away and I look away.

  So when Benny puts his tray across from mine at the Galleria food court, I don’t believe him for a second. But he is so pretty, really, like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise. Later on I’ll learn that he’s from Springfield, down in the opposite corner of the state, same as Brad. And once he’ll even try to tell me that they’re cousins. Yeah, right, I’m sure Brad Pitt just has dozens of relatives who work for the St. Louis mob. What kind of cousin, I ask, like your mother’s brother’s son or what? And he says, no, I mean cousin cousin, like that means something.