I Met Someone

by Bruce Wagner

  “You know where I’ve been—”

  “Really?” she said derisively. “I know where you’ve been? Fuck you, Dusty!”

  “I don’t understand—”

  Even though the situation was ugly and volatile, Dusty found relief in realizing that her abominable mission, shaky and amorphous as it was, would most likely abort. She numbed out.

  “You disappear for two weeks and now you don’t understand?” She skirted around to the driver’s side and got in. “You’re fucking someone else and you don’t understand?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh please stop. Stop! Please!”

  “Allegra, I am not sleeping with anyone!” she said, belching the words like some cheeky she-devil—a sinister kink in the script had forced her to declare her faithfulness.

  “Fuck you!” shouted Allegra, crying now. She slammed the door and screeched a reverse arc while Dusty jumped from harm’s way.

  “I need to talk to you!” yelled Dusty. Allegra jerked the car forward, waiting impatiently as the automated gate crawled open in slo-mo. Dusty ran up and hollered through the closed window. The driver stared ahead, ramrod and tear-streaked.

  “Allegra, please! We need to talk!”

  We need to talk—she was in hell again, a cheap disaster-movie, condemned to repeat a trite line ad infinitum. And she hated what she had to say next but there was no way around it, if there was any hope in assuaging:

  “I am not seeing anyone else!”

  The insanity, the Byzantine contortions, the absurdity of it!

  Allegra rolled down the window. “I know that you’re fucking Larissa—”

  “What?”

  “—because I’ve been fucking her too!” It was the only weapon Allegra had and she hurled it with full force. “Who else are you fucking, and for how long?”

  “I am not fucking Larissa or anyone else, goddammit!”

  She peeled into the street and was gone.

  —

  Sometimes a boy was just a boy.

  That’s what it felt like as he held the sobbing Tristen. He wasn’t a thing for sex play; he wasn’t a wickedly brilliant shit-disturber; he wasn’t a stoner orphan needing to be saved.

  Nothing but a boy . . .

  Though “sobbing” was euphemistic, for he was in the grip of a primal woundedness that was awesome to behold, a blowup of near epileptic proportions. Eyes glued shut, he clutched and windmilled, fighting and flighting for his life—Patty Duke to Jeremy’s Anne Bancroft—pounding on the door of his lover’s chest like a panicked repentant child locked out by punishing parents on a haunted forest night. The superheated bellows of his stomach pumped and furiously spasmed during the embrace yet Jeremy remained deserted by Eros. It was as if he’d become a leading man overnight, an understudy no more—a father now, fully present, seasoned and magnificent, in no need of rehearsals, dressed or undressed. The role felt so new and so old at once that its effortlessness astonished and pleased. The inconsolable boy behaved like a fugitive fresh from a first murder (one that might well have been his own), but interestingly, the details behind his misery failed to intrigue the padrone. Anyway, Tristen would have been mute if queried, he was beyond language, and of course Jeremy knew it had to do with the dad who lay in hospital, cardiac cosmonaut on the launching pad of ruined atria. Holding him now as he did, in a stuttering, slow jam boxer’s ballet, Jeremy was disgusted with himself for daring to question Tristen’s character in the last few weeks, that he’d tarred him with Larissa’s brush, when in fact the boy had done nothing but bestow inestimable gifts—he was certain Tristen had endowed him with the courage needed to have chosen the surrogate path—and was honored young Twist felt safe enough, cared-for enough, loved enough (with father-torn spirit and his own failing heart) to collapse in Jeremy’s arms just as natural as could be. He had learned so much from this boy! He’d never been so open and inspired with any of his young men.

  What would never be revealed, at least not directly, to Jeremy or anyone else (though suspicions would be raised), was that Tristen had stumbled upon an email that effectively destroyed him. When his father’s girlfriend unexpectedly returned from Portland (Derek had been on a quiet campaign to get her back), she usurped his quality time with the old man, and Tristen got pissed. So he hacked Beth’s phone, archiving her banking/medical records plus the usual mix of quotidian/scandalous texts, cock&tits selfies, and lo-res videos (a four-minute one of Beth blowing his dad)—before coming across a note written some months ago, from Derek to Beth while he was stoned and unguarded. He said the boy wasn’t his, that Larissa had a one-night stand early in the marriage but for ten years had passed “bitchboy” off as theirs, and that when Rafaela was born, his wife finally confessed. it was like a fuickin grim fairey tale, he wrote. one day you go to your kids room to wake him for bgreakfast and there’s a WHOREPIG there instaead. A filhy nasty fucking WHORPIG and you justthink aboutKILLIN it and EATING it and feedint it to your family and expecially too that bitch you want to see her choke her on that bacon LOL i got a peternity test on raffi, she’s MINE & you cn tell, she got my EYES (not my tits) and she HOT like her old man USED to be but you still like riding that cock, right girl??!?!?

  That was why he clung so fiercely to Jeremy—the only man who loved him, the only one who ever had or ever would. And when the anaphylactic siege was over (he self-hated for flashing that he was in Derek’s arms, not Jeremy’s), Tristen stole to the den to gather his thoughts. He swallowed a handful of pills and read the email again until he felt nothing. An hour passed and he left without Jeremy knowing.

  He was on his way to kill him, Beth too if she was there, and then himself.

  —

  Beth needed help—Derek’s breathing was labored but he wouldn’t let her call 911.

  To make matters worse, she thought he’d been doing blow. She had no idea where he would have gotten that, probably an old stash. With his heart the way it was, doing coke was the same as suicide, which is what she was beginning to think was the plan. Before Larissa rushed over, Derek had been fixating on whether the IATSE insurance hack would “hold,” and kept calling his son. When he finally got through, he said Tristen went all crazy and hung up on him.

  Larissa wasn’t in such great shape herself.

  A few weeks ago, while orgying with Tessa and the putative billionaire, she got a text from Allegra saying she was “uncomfortable with what we’ve been doing.” Too blazed to respond, she shut off her phone. In the morning, Larissa wondered if she’d imagined it, but no: Allegra was breaking up with her. Which probably meant she had already confronted Dusty about having betrayed her with the camera double . . . the earring in the bed, the this, the that . . . ugh and oy. A friggin’ nuclear situation. While part of Larissa was glad (she seemed to have reached an impasse over what to do with the monster she’d created), she was devastated too because one bright, euphoric morning she awoke to realize she was head over heels in love with the movie star’s old lady. She wondered how the fuck that happened, but there you have it. When Allegra blindsided her, she grew sleepless and obsessive, stalking the house on Carla Ridge. What began as an impromptu goof—an angry, nutzoid, bizarrely innovative payback for how Dusty had scorned her—had seriously backfired. She was grievously wounded and painfully alone.

  She was in bed when Beth called, spooning room-temp Häagen-Dazs Rocky Road into her mouth and masturbating to the nightlight of an MSNBC Lockup marathon. She decided not to wake Rafaela because she wouldn’t be gone all that long—they’d drive Derek to the hospital and that would be that. The paramedics might get there before she did, anyway. (She called them herself when Beth said Derek had forbidden her.) Tristen was at his boyfriend’s. The idea of alerting him only occurred in light of the men’s recent détente, but she demurred; as much as it warmed her, she didn’t trust all the happyface fence-mending, at least not on Derek’s
side. When Beth later mentioned something about Tristen raging on the phone at his dad, Larissa was actually heartened. It was about time he got angry.

  Maybe he was growing up.

  —

  The next evening, he kept his appointment.

  This time they were by themselves, as her guru was recovering from a head cold. She chose Denny’s because she said they had the best fried chicken and she loved the Googie architecture. When Devi asked after “the marvelous boy” (who had also been invited), Jeremy said he had tried to reach him. He really had; but Tristen was worrisomely out of touch.

  Without much ado she offered a summary of her fateful encounter with the portly sidewalk saint, succinctly recapping the history of all that led up to it—culminating in the long walks taken while her daughter lay in the hospital. When she first discovered the man who was to be her guru and protector, he was at rest upon a swatch of cardboard, hard by the fashionable Gold Coast establishment known as Mandry’s. They spent time together and she told him about her life. Then one day he cryptically announced, “It’s all over, because now they know. The contract is magnificently broken,” and in the next moment the two were at her precious Bella’s bedside, where the poor thing died soon after. She recounted the mysterious ease with which “my Sir” contrived a burial that was both humble and fitting for a princess—its million bells resounding—at costs marked paid and unknown.

  “I’ve sat at his feet now, as I’ve said, for seven perfect years. He’s given me life and shown me death and now we are leaving for that third place—I should say he is leaving and I hope to have courage enough, silence enough, to follow. Like myself, Sir is an inveterate rover, yet on a Promethean scale. In his day he thought nothing of swallowing hundred-mile walking tours whole; alighting in whatever far-flung city where his business had taken him, he’d set out on more compact versions, to shake off the crampiness of planes, trains, and automobiles. On one such restorative jaunt in Chicago, destiny brought him to Mandry’s, a hip neighborhood gastropub of the type summarized in local guides by the symbols of crossed knife and fork, martini glass, and triple dollar sign. While my Sir is and always has been a teetotaler, he’s a prodigious observer of people. He was drawn to the place; more about that in a minute. If you’re curious about his ‘background,’ well, so am I, and I’m afraid I can’t help you much. I know little about his life as a ‘householder’—it’s not something he dwells on, so I don’t either. He has told me that he used to reside in Minnesota with his wife and only child. I believe they were married thirty some-odd years. Their son was mentally impaired, though as gentle a soul as one would ever meet. Again, Sir told me this himself.

  “On those urban walks that I described, it was my guru’s pleasure to dodge into watering holes of both high and low character. Once inside, he’d lean against a wall and people-watch, smiling at whosoever passed by while formulating some astonishing new idea from which hundreds of jobs and untold millions in revenue would soon be created. On the final night of his trip to the Windy City, it was close to two a.m. He was on the dregs of a ramble that would be his last before returning home; as he turned into Mandry’s, a bouncer barred his entrance. ‘They’ve called it,’ said the man. ‘You can’t go in. Last call.’ Wishing to defuse the surliness and even potential violence he perceived were at hand, my Sir lightheartedly said, ‘Oh, that’s all right, I’m not drinking.’ ‘You better believe you’re not,’ said the thug. ‘Not tonight!’ And with that, he leapt in front of my guru and barred the door, snarling, ‘The last time I let you in, you asked every woman in the bar if they’d fuck you.’

  “I won’t dignify such ugliness with a rebuttal or defense of my teacher’s spotless character. I will say that until that evening, he’d never laid eyes on Mandry’s or its tactless guardian. But what is of paramount importance here is that for the first time in his life, Frank MacKlatchie became so enraged that he entirely failed to recognize the man—himself!—who, as a result of those ill-spoken words, directed the blast of a high-pressure fire hose tirade at the bully who’d so casually slandered him. (I had almost forgotten that my Sir encouraged me, in telling this story, to use the name he went by before he was ‘transformed’—Franklin MacKlatchie, Esquire.) Now as it was last call, customers began to pour from the front door; the bar was on a corner so that cars were poised at the stoplight and their passengers watched the embarrassing altercation for sport. It may have been just the sort of ‘colorful’ rowdiness that would have captured my guru’s attention himself, had he not been a star player in the spectacle . . . and then suddenly, as if deflated by a pin, the accuser dared to apologize! Without looking Frank MacKlatchie in the eye, he begged pardon, humbly admitting that it must be a case of mistaken identity! Which was the same as trying to unring a bell that’d been struck by lightning. The remorseful thug went on to remark upon the uncanny physical resemblance between my noble, my delicate Sir, and some other terrible fellow who’d made trouble some while back.

  “Well. As Mr. MacKlatchie’s remonstrations began to shrivel and he felt himself returning to his body, as it were, he became aware of the small, drunken crowd that had gathered to watch the ‘fun.’ When the fireworks ended, they lost interest and dispersed. My teacher left shortly thereafter. He went to bed but tossed and turned; humiliated and angry, he was unable to sleep. He felt an awful fool for losing his temper and handling the situation so poorly. He finally made peace with himself and drifted off. But in the morning, he was shocked to find that his rage had returned, white-hot and undiminished! He canceled his trip home and phoned the club, demanding to speak with the manager. He was surprised when the fellow got on the line and even more surprised when he coolly said, ‘I know what this call is about—you’re the gentleman from last night, no? I was in back of the club when it happened. I heard you arguing. Right after you left, Marcus came directly to me and admitted he’d made a horrible mistake. You see, a guy came in about a year ago who was very bad news. You really do look like him—and Marcus had a particularly shall we say personal involvement with this vicious, abusive man during the period he harassed our club. To his credit, after you had your . . . disagreement, Marcus said to me, “The moment I accused him of being that piece of shit, I knew I was wrong. But the words somehow had already come out.”’

  “‘I understand,’ said the formidable Mr. MacKlatchie. ‘But I’m afraid his apology wasn’t believable in the least! He never looked me in the eye nor did he offer to take me inside for a proper amends, i.e., to seek out his boss—you—“for the record,” as they say. The only conclusion I could draw was that it was the end of his shift and I simply wasn’t worth the trouble; that he sorely wanted to go home to whoever or whatever awaited him. It’s as easy as that! I should tell you I’ve already spoken to my lawyers, who’ve assured me that a case for defamation is clear. They’ve advised that in such instances, the courts do not “consider” apologies. They are after the fact—the damage has been done.’

  “It made no difference that the manager was profuse and proper in his apologies—all day long Franklin stewed in his suite at the Drake over his public shaming, a violation of ancient taboo that unexpectedly aroused a volcanic atavism in its target. He no longer felt he knew himself at all.

  “Suffice to say that my teacher never returned to Minnesota, more or less abandoning his affairs of business. (The corporation’s profitability was never at risk, thanks to an ingenious system of checks and balances implemented by its brilliant founder decades ago.) A bevy of close friends and colleagues made pilgrimages in an attempt to unravel the mystery and lure him to his senses, to no avail. His wife did finally come, after many months, begging an explanation of what had happened, or was happening (if he felt the latter might more easily be answered). “I’m suing a local club” was all she could get out of him. When the baffled woman pressed him on why the legalities couldn’t be handled from elsewhere (meaning Duluth), he had no response. As a last resort, she begge
d him to come home, if only for the sake of their special-needs child, who cried out for him at night—he remained unmoved.

  “If the fabled Frank MacKlatchie’s billions were born of a series of Big Ideas, he was suddenly struck by a thunderclap with the biggest of them all. As the Buddha’s prior life had prepared him for his seat beneath the Bodhi Tree, so had my guru’s secret yearnings and aspirations made him ripe for what he now planned—the death of all he’d come to represent, not just to the world but to himself. He knew that a life of wanton commerce and rampant lovelessness had tattooed his very soul, marking and defining him as surely as those insipid guidebook symbols did Mandry’s Gastropub. Franklin MacKlatchie saw that he was already dead; and like a grandmaster, plotted his checkmate. If you’ll allow, I’ll recite the moves of the game as they were told to me . . .

  “The case against Mandry’s settled out before trial. (Victory had never remotely been in question; Mr. MacKlatchie’s attorneys routinely scorched the earth to procure it.) The token figure agreed on by both sides, fifty-five thousand dollars, was given to a home for wayward children. When word of the legal resolution became known, executives at the highest company level sighed in relief with the presumption his ‘aberrant’ behavior had run its course. How little they understood of what Franklin MacKlatchie was becoming! But how could they have known? To have even had an inkling of his imminent sea change, one would need to have been cut from the same cloth.

  “His stroke of genius was to purchase Mandry’s outright—lock, stock, and wine barrel. He wanted the new ownership kept secret, so the transaction was carried out anonymously by three trusted successors. What he told those gentlemen next was shocking: he would be pleased to now vanish off the face of the earth! (Or at least wished to give the appearance of having done so.) For all intents and purposes, my Sir would henceforward be dead to the world, whereabouts unknown. Only the handpicked triumvirate would be privy to his new role as spectral CEO and ringmaster, running the whole circus from a cheap motel room. In order to effect such a plan, my Sir drew up an encyclopedic contract worthy of Borges—oh, I loved Borges, wrote three papers on him at Loyola!—that would make it virtually impossible for any person, entity, board member, or trustee to compromise Franklin MacKlatchie’s status as majority owner, regardless of perceived quote-unquote absenteeism or, say, on the basis of perceived quote-unquote abandonment and dereliction of duties; nor could he be deposed or expelled by the assertion he was in breach due to mental incompetency. The contract was signed by the necessary parties forty-eight hours after the defamation case against Mandry’s was resolved, which coincidentally happened to be the day his put-upon wife made her last stand, with a renowned psychiatrist in tow. (My guru indulged the missus, knowing he’d be vacating the Drake that evening and disappearing for good.) After a brief interview and some careful consideration, the learned man suggested a diagnosis of idée fixe, optimistically suggesting the condition would eventually ‘clear’ with the same mysterious abruptness with which it took hold—though naturally, it was impossible to say just when. Mrs. MacKlatchie was despondent.