Even if it had gone differently, if he’d confessed to murder, I don’t think I would have rejected him. He is everything I could have been, everything I am, except a coward.
He wrestles his anger back into its cell, and a wry sweetness returns to his eyes. There’s something of an eager child about him as he takes a bite of his burger.
“What did you do with the gun?” I ask.
“Pawned it. For traveling money.”
A black girl screams at the old Mexican man behind the counter. “I told you no tartar sauce, you motherfucker, and what is this?” She throws her fish sandwich at him and stands with her hands on her hips while a stray dog that has somehow slipped inside laps at a puddle of spilled Coke.
“I can’t help you,” I say.
Karl purses his lips and draws his head back. “I ask for anything?”
“I mean spiritually, philosophically.”
“I understand.”
“Something happens, you live through it, and then another thing happens. That’s all I can say.”
Karl grins. “You’re full of shit, bro.”
“Let’s go get your stuff.”
“I don’t want to ruin your Christmas.”
“It’s not a big deal. Really.”
I CALL THEM the gray men, my coworkers, though there are a few women in the bunch. We sit side by side in the basement of the building, ten of us, in shoulder-high cubicles the size of barnyard stalls. The others have decorated their workspaces with comic strips clipped from the newspaper and maps and photos of their cats, but not me. Except for my company-issued lamp, desk, and chair, my cubicle is empty. I’m ready to walk away at any time.
The gray men think I’m a snob because I make fun of the detective novels and spy thrillers they pass along to one another with rave reviews. Little do they know I haven’t read a book in years. I stopped because nobody was writing about me. For a while I had my screenplay to keep me occupied when I went home at night. It was about a man who killed his boss and got away with it. I let a friend read it, and he said I was crazy. “Don’t you understand the good guy has to win?” he asked. Now I watch old Westerns and dream of moving to the desert, and I’m not talking about Vegas, I’m talking about some lawless spot where it’s just me and rocks and the bluest blue sky. I will go months without hating my face in a mirror. I will learn to shoot a gun, set a trap, the art of ambush. My legend will deepen and spread. When I was a boy, I thought I would grow up to be some sort of poet. Now, when it’s ridiculous, my heroes are bank robbers and vengeful desperados. “Don’t be surprised if you wake up one morning and I’m gone,” I tell Judy. “If I just disappear.” God, does that make her laugh.
KARL STANDS IN front of our living room window, watching the sun set. I point out the landmarks — the Hollywood sign, the observatory, Capitol Records. It’s a view I like best at night, when, with a squint, I can transform the lights of the city into stars.
“If you stretch, and it’s not too smoggy, you can even see the ocean,” I say.
“No shit?” Karl asks with genuine wonderment. His duffel bag is on the couch, everything he owns in a bundle small enough to be carried under one arm. I do my best to get past the envy that triggers in me.
The downstairs neighbors are throwing a party; the nose ring and platform sneaker crowd. Their music seeps right up through the floor, and every time someone slams the front door, the whole building shakes. This place will come down in the next earthquake. And I will be here. Still.
In the kitchen Judy is taking stock of the refrigerator. We eat like birds when it’s just the two of us. The look she gives me when I reach around her for a beer lets me know I’d better step lightly.
“It’s only for a couple of days,” I say. “I’ll do the cooking and everything.”
“Turkey and all the fixings, huh?”
“The cleaning, Whatever.”
“You’d better pick up a tree, too, and some decorations.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you want a beer, Karl?” she calls out.
“Thanks, but I’m on the program.”
I make a horrified face, and this gets a smile out of her. We’ve been together for ten years now. It’s hard to believe. I never planned on knowing anyone as well as I know her. You get so comfortable after a while. You start to wonder if you could make it on your own. She grabs the beer out of my hand, snaps it open, and takes a sip, then goes back to writing the grocery list.
Karl is studying the old photos of Judy’s relatives that hang on the living room wall. He touches the faces with a tattooed finger.
“These were taken in Poland, before the war,” I say. I move up beside him. “This little girl, her uncle here, her great-grandmother — all of them died in the camps.”
“Hitler, you mean?”
I nod.
“I never was down with the Nazis. They kept at me in the joint.”
“Hey, I’ve got something to show you. Hold on.”
I go into the extra bedroom we call the office and dig out a photo of my grandfather from my desk drawer.
“My mom gave me this. It’s our dad’s dad when he was about twenty or so.”
Karl rests the photograph in the palm of his hand. It shows a young man in a hat and suit, smiling and squinting into the sun. Behind him, a dusty plain stretches to the horizon. I’ve always imagined that he’s come back to West Texas for a visit, that the suit is new and worn to impress the folks. He’s been to Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, which is where he picked up the camera and the radio he’s brought for his mom and pop and little sister.
“All I really know about him is that his name was Karl, like yours, and that he used to box a little and make his own wine. I never met him. I think he came from Germany or maybe Ireland.”
Karl smiles and strokes his chin. “Well, you got his fucked-up nose,” he says.
“So did you.”
“And I guess that’ll do for history.”
The party downstairs is raging. The drugs must be kicking in. Someone yells, “I drink Dr. Pepper and I’m proud!” Judy comes in and asks Karl what he’d like for dinner. He ducks his head shyly and says anything’s okay.
Night falls so quickly in winter. The sun has barely dropped out of the sky. We sit together watching television, the three of us, nobody speaking. Karl is perched gingerly on the edge of the couch, like he’s afraid he’ll be asked to leave at any moment. He finally clears his throat and says almost too loudly, “I’ve been to prison. He tell you?”
“Yes,” Judy replies.
“So we’re cool, then?”
“We’re cool.”
Karl leans forward and rests his forearms on his thighs and stares out the window. At what? Thinking what? I’m joyfully at a loss.
HER NAME WAS Tiffany, and I knew from the start we were gonna fuck this up. Most of the dancers you meet, you get them outside the club, and it becomes pretty clear pretty quick that it isn’t really just a job, no matter what they want to believe. At least Tiffany was honest with herself. She’d been diddled by her stepdad, okay, and was born with one leg shorter than the other, which gave her a limp that made her feel ugly. There are reasons for everything, right?
I was doing a lot of speed back then but not having much fun. In fact, I was pretty desperate to crawl out of the hole I’d dug myself. Along comes Tiffany and her boy, and I don’t know what I was thinking when I thought, Hey, I can do this. He was about six, Jack, a cute little guy, tougher than shit. I’d let him punch me in the shoulder sometimes, and it fucking hurt! I got my act together, took a job as a mechanic, and she let me move into her condo, which was in a real decent part of town. You felt like a citizen there. Our neighbor was a chiropractor. The sprinklers were all on timers. I worked in the day and watched the kid while she danced at night. We had dinners, man, Kentucky Fried Chicken, went to the park and Little League on weekends. You want something like that to work out. You really do.
Our problem was Ed Land
ers, this old, rich bastard with a red Seville who started hanging around the club. Big, fat, white-haired fucker. Big tipper. Tiffany swears to me nothing’s going on, but it’s always Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. I’m a jealous man, I’ll admit it, and the whole thing started to wind me up after a while, soured all my good intentions. She invited Ed to supper one night so I could see what it was, but the two of them, I mean, what were they thinking? That they could play me like that? We were drinking some, and he was holding the kid in his lap, telling him to call him Uncle Eddie and shit, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I went off on him right there in the living room. Broken glass, the kid crying, a real fucking mess.
Needless to say, I was out on my ass with the clothes on my back and some righteously bruised knuckles. No good-bye, nothing. You know, sometimes what we call love is something else, but it’s just that there aren’t enough words for all the kinds of wanting in the world, and people, bro, people are fucking lazy.
WE HAVE A good time at the supermarket, even though it’s so crowded with people shopping for the holidays I can barely squeeze the cart down the aisles. I read the items off Judy’s list, and Karl retrieves them from the shelves. He’s wearing a red tasseled hat trimmed in fake white fur that he picked up from a display at the front of the store. “Here comes Santa Con,” I sing, and, “Santa Con is coming to town.”
“Ho ho ho,” he bellows. We deviate from the list whenever we feel like it, grabbing potato chips, ice cream, caramel corn, and cookies.
“You sure it’s okay?” Karl asks as he reaches for a box of graham crackers.
“Come on, man, it’s Christmas,” I reply.
He tries to give me money at the checkout counter, but I wave it off. While the clerk is ringing us up, I turn to the candy rack and casually slip five Hershey bars into my jacket pocket. It’s a silly habit that took hold a few months ago. Every time I pay for something, I look for something to steal. An odd compulsion to develop at my age, I know, but I kind of enjoy it. It worries and disgusts me and gives me a thrill all at the same time.
We walk over to examine the trees for sale in the parking lot after putting the bags in the car. The night has grown colder, and neither of us is really dressed for it. Karl raises his hands to his mouth and blows on them, and they disappear in the fog his breath makes. Colored lights hang above the sad forest of misshapen pines and scrawny firs, and the bulbs are reflected in the drops of water clinging to the needles of the freshly misted branches. A Mexican kid in a stocking cap follows us as we search for the least lopsided of the bunch.
Actually, I’m not all that particular. It’s Karl who seems to have some idea of what he wants. “How’s this?” I ask once or twice, but he shakes his head and moves on. After two circuits of the place, I’ve had enough. I stroll to the flocking tent, where a fire burns inside an oil drum. Standing over it, I let the flames lick my palms, then press them to my face and cup my icy ears. A few minutes later Karl joins me, and the kid.
“What a bunch of garbage,” Karl says. “Looks like they kept the best for themselves.” He points with his chin into the tent, indicating a five-foot tree caked with fake snow and swaddled in lights and blue glass ornaments. A golden angel is perched on top, a trumpet raised to its lips. It’s a nightmare. Really. Judy will fucking die.
“How much for that?” I ask the kid.
“It’s not for sale. It’s like the display.”
“Lights, decorations, everything, how much?”
The kid shrugs and goes off to consult the owner.
“Forget it, bro,” Karl says. “They’re gonna rip you off.”
I put my finger to my lips to shush him.
The kid returns and says, “Two hundred.”
Karl snorts. “Yeah, right. Let’s go.”
“We’ll take it,” I tell the kid.
“What’s up with you?” Karl asks, a shocked look on his face.
“Ho ho ho,” I reply.
I’m for tying the thing to the roof of the car, angel and all, but Karl insists upon removing the ornaments first. The kid finds an empty cardboard box, and I watch from the oil drum as the two of them gently stack the balls inside it.
“I SAW WHAT you did in the store,” Karl says on the drive home.
“So,” I reply.
“What’s the point?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Well, I was stupid and drunk and on drugs.”
I feel myself blushing and hope he doesn’t notice. He does, though, I can tell by his smile when I glance over at him. “It’s just a game I play with myself,” I say.
“You ever see a shrink?”
“Should I?”
“It helped me.”
“Are you sure?”
If he answers that, I’m ready with more, but he doesn’t. He turns away from me and stares out the window at a little house with bars on its windows and a plastic Nativity scene in the yard. You don’t get a silence like this every day. I’d like to tear off a piece of it and keep it in my wallet for later.
I MADE A run for it once. It was before Judy and I were married, but we’d been living together for about a year, and I could see where things were headed. I was editing the employee newsletter for an aerospace firm at the time. Corporate propaganda interspersed with health tips, recipes, and announcements of promotions, anniversaries, and retirements. Every issue I’d set up the headlines so that the first letters of each of them read in sequence would spell out messages like FUCK THIS PLACE and KILL YOURSELF NOW. I waited to get caught, but never did.
It was a Monday afternoon in March, a day so bright and clear that the mountains looked close enough to walk to. I left work for lunch but kept driving right past Taco Bell to the freeway. West was the ocean and the end of everything, so I headed east, into the desert. Gradually the malls and gas stations fell away, the houses, the people. I found myself alone in a pitiless wasteland. It was lunar, perfect. The craggy hills in the distance stood firm against the sun and wind, but everything near me was well on its way to being worn down to dust. Here and there wiry plants clutched at the rocky ground for dear life.
I stopped the car and walked a few hundred feet off the road to a boulder that broke the flatness of the plain. I took off my clothes. The boulder was warm against my skin, almost silky, as I lay on top of it. A shy little lizard poked its head out of a crack, and a pair of hawks circled overhead. I held my breath, then exhaled slowly, and Whatever was bent almost to breaking inside me seemed to straighten itself out.
The wind picked up toward sundown, surprisingly cold. I drove on across the border into Nevada and stopped in a little town that wasn’t much more than a gas station, a motel, and a casino. “Car trouble?” the woman asked when she handed me the keys to my room, as if that was the only reason anybody would end up there. I could have kissed her.
Feeling reckless and lucky, I walked over to the casino. It was deserted except for a couple of snowbirds playing video poker. The bartender was a fat man with a handlebar mustache. When he asked me where I was from, I said, “tonight? Right here,” which got me a dirty look.
The blackjack and craps tables were dark, so I spent a few hours drinking and throwing money at the slots. What happened next has always been somewhat hazy — this was back in my hard liquor years. I hit a jackpot, fifty or sixty dollars, and tried to give it to the cocktail waitress. She wouldn’t take it, and that pissed me off. I got on the bartender’s bad side, too. My jokes went right over his head. “You must know where the whores are in this town,” I said, and he asked me to leave.
There was blood on my pillow when I came to in the morning. My lip was busted, my left eye swollen almost shut. I vomited all the way back to L.A., pulling over to the side of the road every twenty miles or so. What can I say but that I failed? I had a spark within me, but not enough fuel to break the bonds of gravity.
I WAKE UP at five a.m. and can’t get back to sleep. When it’s quiet like this, before the city revs up, you hea
r the strangest sounds. Roosters crowing, squirrels in the trees, distant trains. Nobody believes me, but it’s true. I roll over to put my arms around Judy. She shudders and pulls away, scooting to the edge of the bed.
The refrigerator is full of food. I’m not used to this. It takes me a while to notice the blood. The plastic the turkey is sealed in has a hole in it, and watery pink blood has leaked out and puddled on the bottom shelf. I take out all the beer and sodas and pickles and sour cream and clean everything off in the sink.
As the sun comes up on the morning of Christmas Eve day, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, eating the chocolate chip cookies we bought last night and drinking a glass of milk. Karl is asleep on the couch in the living room. I hear him breathing. I sense he doesn’t like me much. He thinks I’m weak and bizarre, and he’s right, but how do I make him understand that everyone here is weak and bizarre?
IT’S JUDY’S IDEA to drive to the beach. She suggests it after breakfast. Karl is washing the dishes, and I’m drying.
“We’ll go out there and laugh at the rest of the country,” she says. “Picture them shoveling snow.”
“That’d be something,” Karl replies.
Good. It’ll be good to get out of the apartment, all of us together. My wife is a genius. I rustle up a pair of shorts for Karl. We throw the snacks he and I bought into a bag, then some towels, a blanket, and we’re off.
What a day. The sky is a flawless blue, the sun a cheerful old friend. We take Judy’s car. She drives, Karl sits in back, and the radio plays all my favorite songs. I start up the license plate game. We alternate calling out the letters of the alphabet as we spot them on passing cars. Karl joins right in. “What am I?” he asks, and we switch to twenty questions.
The freeway dumps us out at the beach, which is almost empty at this time of the year. It’s a little colder than it was in Silver Lake, a little windier, but we tromp out and spread our blanket on the sand like it was the Fourth of July. Karl strips off his shirt, revealing a large tattoo on his chest. BROKEN-HEARTED, it reads, the letters arching over the face of a woman. “Momma,” he says before Judy or I have a chance to ask. “Prison shit.”
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