by Bruce Wagner
She must have uncrossed a leg because Jeremy heard the tinkle—more a hollow clank—of a bell. He used its declaration to deflect a looming discomfort. “What are those all about?”
“They were a gift from my Sir.”
“But they’re so heavy! I saw the marks they made on your ankle. And people stare . . .”
“Do you know the poem ‘The Bells’?” she interjected—as if to dismiss his inconsequential remarks.
“Poe?”
“That’s right. When I first read it, I nearly blacked out. I’d just turned twelve. Suddenly, into that very ordinary life I described, came something abnormal, unruly, something fabulous, forbidding, exalted! To say I memorized it would be the palest truth; I embodied it, it resided in every cell. I breathed those stanzas, they coursed through my veins! That poem was the prayer that set me off to sleep—I recited it in my sleep, and awakened to its words upon my lips. During the day it was uttered with each breath, as pilgrims do their guru-given mantras. But why? I asked myself that just once and got no answer. For when one has a first love, there can be no interrogation.
“They told us in school that ‘The Bells’ was about a man who met his first love. He married her then witnessed her death by fire, and perished of grief soon after. The poem tells the story of what happened to my parents; it prefigured their deaths. I never thought of myself as morbid, but there’s darkness in all children and some of that Gothic metaphor took hold years before it came true. Something else mesmerized me, though, less earthbound—I was like a young shepherdess, following the sound of the bells of a lost animal, one she thought was hers yet belonged to nothing and no one. That celestial sound belonged to Silence! My teacher told me that the instant I encountered the poem, I unwittingly entered the world of the esoteric, for which I was well-suited and predisposed.
“I believe that if Mother hadn’t died, I would have fulfilled my goal and become a doctor, only to abandon the profession for the path of the seeker. (But by then, it may have been too late.) My Sir told me I was in search of one thing only since I was small—‘the only thing worthy of discovery’—Silence. He said true Silence resides everywhere, except in one place: the very bells that seekers insist upon ringing! ‘Bells entertain the monkeys,’ he likes to say. (He’s very funny, you know.) Many times my guru has told me that when he sees the energetic bodies of human beings with his third eye, they uncannily resemble the shape of a bell. The Source formed us that way—the Source, who delights in that first wild clanging of shrieks that pour from the throat when we’re born—the Source, who cries out joyously at life’s end too, when the scream of Self and its tintinnabulation of vanities, having rung, pealed, tolled, tickled, tinkled, and gonged its alarum on our breath for a lifespan, returns to the Silence whence it came. So you see, it isn’t at all true one can’t unring a bell. We are all bells, yearning to be unrung—monkeys craving Silence!
“It’s the habit of human beings to muddle a simple thing. Take a bell: we convert the ineffable into a crude call to faithless prayer, an echo of the ego, unable or unwilling to apprehend that its ‘sound’ represents an entreaty to soundlessness and nothing more. We leach out the mysterium tremendum of its instruction, for it’s our blockheaded nature to make convenient signs and symbols from the Unknowable. The bell’s original purpose loses its way, like a love letter in a littered ghetto—just as they say one cannot see a forest for the trees, we cannot see the face of God for the bells. We insist on reminders to summon us to worship, as if love is a mess hall to which we’re subpoenaed only when hungry . . . My Sir has also made the comparison of a prizefighter: punch-drunk in the ring, we feint, wobble, and reel, each round marked by a profane cacophony of bells—and for what? What is the boxer’s true prize? A bowdlerized Silence that gives rest from his struggles between rounds, in timed segments so deformed and desecrated they’ve lost all meaning. Money, power, and perverted love is what we hear ringing . . . The cracked clarion is even on our currency! We troop schoolchildren to see that golden calf: ‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.’ How true that is! Yet still we miss how close the broken bell is to the mark, for divinity sees glory in the fissure running through it. Would that cast-iron ruin was our sole legal tender—for a bell that cannot be rung is a cousin to Silence!
“The cliché of all seekers is to stubbornly believe that as long as they hear the airy, rippling magic of a bell, they’re on the path. Its music, melancholy and light, is seductive no doubt, but the sound is mere incense in a temple. One may enjoy it, even be saturated in it, yet it will not lead to Silence. Like Judas, it may even lead one away . . .
“When I grew older, the poem stayed with me, even influencing the school that I chose. Loyola was Jesuit, and it is said that Poe, living in the Bronx, wrote ‘The Bells’ after hearing them ring in the tower at Fordham, a Jesuit college. When Mother died in that fire—Dad tried to save her but was overcome—the poem became prophecy, a mandala containing all things. My Sir said it was the compassion of the Source that allowed me as a little girl to perceive the bells as messengers of Silence, not harbingers of doom and sorrow; that would have been too ugly and cynical a burden for someone so young. But I wasn’t strong and hadn’t yet found my teacher. After the death of my parents, the ringing of the bells grew violent and too much to endure. The tinnitus would have been fatal but for the birth of my daughter, which quelled all sound—and the intervention of my guru, my teacher, my love.”
Without segue, Devi cheerily asked Jeremy about his life. It was jarring. In an instant, the woman who’d channeled a daft, pantheistic discourse was gone. Caught off-guard, he confessed to the recent stab at fatherhood and his ambition to try again. He felt vulnerable and surreal, as if they’d been thrown together in a Red Cross tent, sharing intimacies amidst an unfolding disaster. Content to follow his nose and his gut (the only two organs that never failed him), he allowed himself to acquiesce, and let the mysterious goings-on guide the way. He really did sense something might be born of such lunacies.
When Devi told him that she and her consort had walked to the restaurant, he offered a ride.
As they drove up PCH, he expected to drop them on some forgotten Topanga utility road leading to a communal encampment. Perhaps they’d wash their faces in a stream before trudging into the helter-skelter woods. When Devi told him to pull into the driveway of a faultlessly manicured beach house off Malibu Road, he thought it was a joke—even when she produced a key that opened the front door.
That was when her cohort uttered his only words of the night.
“Two hundred and twenty-five thousand a month I give ’em! Ain’t that a pretty penny?”
—
Tessa, the Marilyn stand-in, stopped by Larissa’s for a drink. She was on her way to Pump because the man she was dating said that his good friend Lisa Vanderpump told him “Katniss” was having dinner there tonight. (Apparently, Jay-law was all about flaunting her serious reality-show love and insisted on chowing at Pump whenever she was in town.) He was a man of certain means who relished creating a mystique around his wealth—of the L.A. variety who liked to foggily “present” as billionaires. They wore the bullshit, self-aggrandizing rumor like aftershave and were legion. They chose Bentleys over Teslas. Teslas were for schmucks.
“How old is he?” said Larissa.
“Sixty-two.”
“Oh my God! Your cougar membership has so been revoked!”
“Can’t be. Member for life.”
“Ha! How old was the last one?”
“Twelve?” Larissa laughed so hard she belched, which made her laugh harder. “Well, that’s what he told me. Maybe he was fourteen. But I’ll tell you something, Riss—until Mister Billion, it’d been a while since I saw hair on a man’s back.”
“Ask him to shave.”
“That’d be like polishing a turd—an old turd. But actually, I kinda like it. It’s
kinda animal. It’s old-school.”
“Oh, fallen cougar! How’s the sex?”
“No trouble in that department. Rich geezers need to prove it all night. It’s like a campaign! I don’t even think he takes Cialis! He really likes the hard fuck. But we cuddle too, we do. Pushes my ‘daddy’ buttons, I guess.”
“You are fuckin’ hilarious.”
They were already drunk.
“When I tell him what a man he is, Mister Billion just blooms. All I have to say is, ‘You a rock star! You a gangsta!’ and he’s hard like a motherfucker. Tell you somethin’ else, Riss: when he’s fucking me and whispering in my ear how I’m the most full-on woman he ever met, it’s a total fuckin’ turn-on. It full-on works. He tells me I have the perfect body! Me! Well, for him I guess it’s perfect . . . tells me I have an ass like a black woman and I love it. I seriously own that pedestal he puts me on. Aren’t we funny, Riss? How everybody lies to each other and it never gets old?”
Just then Tristen came in, barely acknowledging them as he scurried to his room. (Rafaela was on a sleepover.) Larissa made necessarily hasty introductions before excusing herself to follow the blur of her boy. After a minute she came back in, distracted.
“He’s cute,” said Tessa. “You okay?”
“My son has . . . a lot of frickin’ issues. Know who I blame?”
“Dad?”
“Tristen always . . . I mean, he’s his own person, always has been. With incredible gifts. He’s a friggin’ genius. Gets that from his mom, o’ course—not the genius part but definitely the go-your-own-way. Derek always shit all over him—the way he dressed, the way he looked, his sex-shoo-al-itay. Everything! Rafaela was always the angel . . . our little one. But you know what’s wild? And freakin’ unfair?” She laughed spitefully. “I poured so much love on that boy! The therapy and the boosting him up. Daily. So much! In some ways, I’m closer to him than Rafi—I know it sounds crazy, even to me, but it’s true. And he knows it, Tristen knows it. But you know what’s unfucking fair? He still seeks that approval from his dad—”
“Wants the love.”
“—fuckin’ masochism! Keeps going back to that poisoned well.” She finished her drink and got contemplative. “God works in strange ways.”
“God doesn’t fuckin’ work at all, sista, nuh-uh. The man is currently unemployed. Basically just sits around the house planning gore and may-hem. You know: tips and helpful hints for ISIS.”
Tessa got a text. “Fuck. Mister Billion’s running late.”
“Mr. Hairy Man?”
“He’s probably blowing his Bentley.”
“Or waxing his back.”
“He takes better care of that car than I do my vajine-jine . . . it’s ten grand for a tune-up. Give me ten grand and I’ll tune you up, bitch—hey, know what you should do to your ex?”
“Contract killing?”
“Post ads on the Internet with his address. You know, ‘Cuckold seeking big black cock for wifey—drop by all hours.’”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. But I just read on HuffPost about a gal who just went to jail for that. Crazy story. She wanted to buy a place in Carmel Valley and this couple swooped in and bought it instead. She was so pissed that she went online pretending to be the new owner. Said people should just drop by for sex ‘while my husband’s at work.’ Said if there’s no answer, just push your way in!”
“Now that’s the spirit. That’s what ahm talkin’ ’bout.”
Tessa made herself another martini, which Larissa discouraged, because her friend always told her, “I’m a Cadbury—that’s cheap drunk to you, missy.” She was going to get shitfaced tonight and that was that. “I just want to puke in his vehicle. Or do I mean butthole. Or is there a difference.” She swung the topic back to Larissa’s love life. “Best way to get fucking revenge on that cradle-snatcher is to fuck one of his friends. If he has any.”
“No way, Renée. They all have tiny dicks.”
“Probably all pedophiles . . . you should tie him up and make him watch you get fucked by niggers.”
“Tessa!”
“But seriously, Riss, you gosta get out there. Fucking well is the best revenge—who said that? Maybe it was Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. I frickin’ love Mr. Wonderful!”
She was getting loud. Larissa shushed her, nodding toward Tristen’s room.
“Anyway,” she said, “I have been out there. Sort of.”
Tessa immediately sobered up. “I knew it! Tell all!”
Larissa couldn’t believe she was about to, but went with it.
“You cannot tell anyone, Tess.”
“Oh my God, you know I won’t!”
“But I’m really serious. Because it’s—potentially—I don’t know what, but you have to totally promise.”
“Larissa, I swear. On my kids.”
She took a dramatic beat then said, “I went to a party.”
“And . . .”
“I totally wasn’t expecting anything to happen—”
“Expecting . . . ? Larissa! This is not freakin’ charades! Spill it!”
“The party was at Dusty’s house—”
“Oh. My. God. I knew it.”
“And I wound up sleeping with her and her wife.”
“Oh my God,” said Tessa, hand clapped to mouth. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I knew something was going on!” (Which of course she didn’t.) Giggles became an avalanche, burying them both. “Was that—is that something you do?”
“It was totally my first time.”
“You are amazing. I love you so much I want to sleep with you, right now! I’m totally jealous!”
Larissa shushed her again, raising an eyebrow as she gave the wall of her son’s room the fisheye. She knew Tessa was kidding but said, “No way. Been there, done that. Not my thing.”
“Well, it might be mine! So what happened? I mean, are you, like, seeing each other? Are you all, like, seeing each other?”
“No! She fucking fired me!” said Larissa with a forced laugh.
“What!”
“The day after, she totally ghosted me.”
“Dusty? Or wifey?”
“Dusty. When we wrapped, she made it very clear.”
“Oh my God.”
“Can you please stop saying ‘Oh my God’?”
“You mean, you guys fooled around the night before she wrapped?”
“Yep.”
“I totally think I remember that! I mean, that there was something—I think I totally actually think I saw that happen—she walked right past you, right? At the cemetery?”
“It was totally kinda creepy. It was, like, mean.”
“Rissa, fuck her. Again, if you can hahaha! No, but seriously. Okay. Do you know what you have to do? Do you know what you totally have to do? You have to, like, blog about it. Or go on Twitter or Reddit, whatever the fuck that is. Payback’s a motherfucker.”
“Tessa, I can’t.”
“If for no other reason than to fuck with Derek.”
“That’s not really me.”
“But why not? It could be you, why can’t you? You have to!”
She adamantly shook her head. “I’d never work in this town again.”
“Who are you, Jennifer Aniston? It’s not like you’re working now, my friend. And this could lead to work—I mean, if you put it out there in the social media. Fucking Instagram and Meerkat it! Periscope it or whatever; my daughter’ll totally help you! Larissa, I am so serious. Or, like, all you need to do is write one of those, like, little essays—like an op-ed for Huff/Post50! Or Jezebel or wherever.”
“You read Huff/Post50?”
“Fuck yeah. And the AARP magazine too, all that shit.”
“You’re insane.”
“Just do it!”
�
�And what about Rafaela?”
“What about her?”
“There’s, like, a shame factor. You know, that her mom . . .”
“Oh please. Kids are totally fucking blasé about that shit. I have two words: Kendall and Kylie. I rest my case.”
“Well, if I do write something, I’d have to wait. Her mom just died.”
“Probably in a threesome with that cunt and Allegra.”
“Tessa, that’s terrible!”
“You fucking have to, Riss. It’s not like it’s going to hurt her career. No one’s going to be shocked—”
“If no one’s going to be shocked, then why should I do it?”
“For you. She wants everyone to believe she’s a dyke saint, that she’s so fucking above it all, but in the end she’s just a user and a typical Hollywood bullshit power-tripper. Do it for you! And oh my God, don’t you know how fucking hot it would be? You’d get so much attention. It’s total reality-show shit! I’ll tell Mister Billion to talk it up to Lisa Vanderpump!”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Fuck Derek and fuck Dusty Wilding—”
“Already did.”
“What was it like!”—in a flash, she went from rage to naked need to know, and they both thought that was the most hilarious thing. “I’m totally serious. I totally want details! I want to know how it fucking smelled and who came when and how many hundreds of times!” Larissa couldn’t stop laughing. Tessa, sobered by her devilish curiosity, clasped her friend’s hands and stared into her eyes like a woman about to ask a psychic the burning question of her life.
“Tell me! How. Was. It?”
“Pretty fuckin’ great,” said Larissa, with a seraphic grin. “Like, off the charts, major earthquake great. Like, insane.”
“Oh my God.”
—
Driving over to Hollywood to see his dad, Tristen was all nerves.
There’d been so much drama around the divorce. Derek tried to hide the existence of the twenty-three-year-old slut from Rafaela but she found out by overhearing one of their mom’s phone rants. The old man went ballistic, even though he knew he was officially fucked. Locked in a perennial war with his father—a war whose origin mystified him—Tristen lately adopted the strategy of vibing to Derek that he was judgment-free, thereby forging a truce, or at least waving the white flag of ceasefire. It wasn’t in Tristen’s nature to take a moral position anyway, even if he hadn’t been involved in a relationship mirroring that of his dad and the ho who practically shared his birthday.
