Burning Down the House

by Lev Raphael

  When I checked in, a grinning, chirpy teenage girl ran my card through the slot and wished me a great workout. Her name tag read “Treycee.”

  Down in the brightly lit, massive, echoing locker room there was a shift change going on: high school students were leaving, and men my age and older were drifting in, having left work early.

  As I began to change at my locker, I heard a cheerful “Nick!” and turned to see Cash Jurevicius a few aisles over.

  He bounded over, a towel rather exiguously draped over his shoulder. His smooth, muscular body was amazingly lean, and he had tremendous vascularity, his veins visible all over. All over. I’d never seen him in the locker room before, and I was impressed—he had the kind of body you don’t believe exists on a real human being but you see in advertisements, or your dreams. You couldn’t get that way just through the right diet and the right workout; it was a genetic gift.

  Cash slapped my shoulder with one hand and shook my

  hand with the other. “That was a great speech you gave at the meeting!”

  “It wasn’t really a speech. It wasn’t planned.”

  “That’s why it was great. You were carried away by the moment.”

  Frankly, I found the current moment had more to be said for it. I tried keeping my eyes on Cash’s, but it wasn’t easy, since his glowing nudity seemed even more effulgent, set off as it was by the grim steel lockers around us. Imagine Botticelli having painted Apollo on that shell rather than Venus, and you get the picture.

  There was a discordant note, though. He was probably

  sleeping with Juno, wasn’t he? I felt jealous of his youth, his slimness, his good looks—and his access.

  “People are such cowards and quislings in EAR. We’ve

  got the fascists marching in, spying on us, shoving Christmas trees down our throat, and most people could care less.”

  He was on my side, so I didn’t tell him that the correct phrase was, couldn’t care less. Nor did I object to his hyperbolic reference to the Nazis, a maddening rhetorical tic that was culturewide. I refrained because I enjoyed his presence, and the spectacle of him unconsciously grabbing at his balls while he spoke, as only straight men seem to do at the gym, dressed or undressed. To me, that was always the dead giveaway when I was speculating about some guy at the gym—if he grabbed himself, adjusted himself, or scratched, he had to be straight. Otherwise, those gestures were too loaded. So to speak.

  “Forget Summerscale,” he said, giving himself a tentative shake, making anything else eminently forgettable. “He’s a buffoon. Nobody takes him seriously, even though he was right. You should run for chair.”

  “Me? I’m untenured.”

  “My grandmother wanted the department to be open and

  democratic, and she instituted a change in the department’s bylaws. It’s never happened so far, but in EAR, if an assistant professor runs for chair and wins, he’s automatically granted tenure. She thought an election like that would be a good sign the person was respected by his colleagues.”

  “You’re not making this up?”

  “You can check it out yourself. She had vision, though I don’t think she could imagine the department becoming what it is now. We desperately need a fresh voice.”

  “That’s me,” I said, “Funky, phat, and fresh. It must be time for me to do a music video.”

  Cash crossed his arms. “See what I mean? We need a

  sense of humor in EAR. I don’t know what’s happened to Serena, but she’s a zombie now, and Juno and Summerscale are too unpredictable.”

  I waited for Cash to say something nicer about Juno to palliate his criticism, but he didn’t. That was curious.

  “And Whiteness Studies! Do we really want someone like Mavis, I mean Avis, making curricular decisions? That program has to be fought department by department. If we can’t do it head-on, then we have to think of other ways.”

  What was he suggesting? Guerrilla warfare? Between

  him and Summerscale, I was likely to wind up hors de combat.

  “We need someone who isn’t mired in the past,” Cash

  said, peering at me so eagerly that I said, “Chair? Me?” I knew that would drag the conversation out some more, since I had never been one to not look a gift nude in the mouth.

  Now Cash leaned in to me and grabbed my shoulders as

  if to shake sense into me. He shook something else a lot more, and it wasn’t mine. “Really, Nick, think about it. Why should the chair always go to full professors who’ve turned stale?

  Why not someone young and vigorous?”

  If he touched me any more, he’d see how vigorous I

  could be, but thankfully, he gave me a firm man-to-man nod and walked away, heading for the showers, I supposed, or the bathroom. He looked as good in retreat as while advancing, his hairless butt as round and firm as a basketball. If Stefan were there, he surely wouldn’t be able to say Cash and I looked alike, not with this much evidence to the contrary. No one could mistake us with all this bright light.

  The beauty of Cash’s departure didn’t stop me from

  speculating about why he would want me to run for chair when Juno was doing the same thing. Wouldn’t my running hurt her chances, if even by a few votes? Unless it was some elaborate ploy to guarantee that she wouldn’t win, because he wanted to keep her out of the line of fire. She was criticized enough as just a professor; as chair she would be the object of contumely; if he cared about her, he might not want that to happen.

  But what if he was playing me; what if all this was his attempt to turn the tables on EAR? How else could an adjunct achieve success in the department unless he had a friend who could make crucial decisions like hiring? He could be trying to become my Svengali, using flattery (young and vigorous, coming from him!) backed up by his good looks and his amazing body to sway me. Maybe he thought if by some fluke I won, I’d be so grateful to him that I’d ensure he got a tenure-stream appointment and make him an associate chair.

  Backing two candidates—Juno and me—how could he lose?

  Either way, he’d have the EAR chair’s ear.

  The worst possibility was that he thought I was stupid enough to run, stupid enough to make myself even more unpopular in the department, and that for some unfathomable reason, he wanted to bring me down like the dogs savaging Actaeon. But I’d been good to him before, when I didn’t have to be, so that was paranoid.

  Maybe it was more entertaining: he was a closet case and enjoyed teasing himself and me, and had said the first thing that came to mind just to keep a conversation going. Now that was something I could live with. And at least he hadn’t mentioned or seemed to look at my bruise.

  I finished changing into my swim trunks, dug out my

  goggles, closed my locker, and headed to the showers to rinse off before getting into the pool, nodding at all the familiar faces on the way. Chair. Me? I might be able to keep on top of the administrative part because I’d managed the

  bibliography, but ride herd on EAR faculty? Even if I were completely out of my mind on coke or Ecstasy, I would know that was impossible. It would end up like Charles Laughton being attacked and cut to pieces by the army of half-men in Island of Lost Souls.

  Before going to the pool, I switched the bandage on my cheek to one that was supposed to be waterproof. The cut was healing well, but the bruise was larger and brighter, like one of those pictures from space of a nebula eating a galaxy— or the reverse.

  Juno and I had chosen a good time; the lanes of the

  Olympic-size pool weren’t crowded. She waved at me from the far lane, where she was standing in the shallow end, wearing a black bathing cap and a leopard-print one-piece that wiped the image of Cash’s nudity from my mind. He might have been handsome and hung, but the territory was familiar, whereas Juno was the undiscovered country, Shangri-la.

  I walked over, bent over to dip my goggles in the water, shook them off, and slid down into the pool. Even dressed as she was, Juno h
ad a kind of breezy bravado that must have made her a terror as a child, or perhaps I was just swayed at the moment by the echoing splashes from other lanes and the way the light shattered in the water.

  “Shall we swim traffic pattern?” she said. “I’ll follow you, and observe your form. Let’s do a few laps and see where we are.”

  I felt confident taking off down the lane, not at all embarrassed by being observed. It was sexy and thrilling to be swimming with Juno behind me, watching my legs, my arms, the way I turned my head to breathe. I was both in the moment and very much in the pool, but also outside it, enjoying the spectacle. I didn’t think of guns or attacks or violence or anything but the movement of myself through water, though my bruise stung a little at first from the chlorinated water.

  Back at the shallow end, Juno gave me her director’s

  notes. I was reaching more with my right arm and not pulling through enough, which seemed to throw my breathing off.

  And my feet were out of the water too much, making my kick less efficient than it could be.

  “Is that right?” she asked, brisk, efficient, but not critical.

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture it all. “I’m not sure.”

  “Okay, why don’t you swim out to the middle of the

  lane, and I’ll hold you in place, and we’ll watch it together to make sure.”

  I dove under and reached the middle; Juno followed,

  stood up, and slipped an arm around me. “Go,” she said.

  She was very strong, and very close, and as I pulled

  through and kicked in place, I was glad I wasn’t doing the backstroke because I would have been very embarrassed by my response to being in her arms. Well, arm.

  “I was right,” she said, not sounding remotely critical or superior, but encouraging.

  “I’ll swim down and back and meet you,” I said, taking off and hoping that by the time I returned, water rushing past me would have calmed me down. We swam twenty more laps together, Juno reminding me to slow down and not rush through each stroke, since I wasn’t exactly escaping sharks and trying to reach shore.

  She could say that. She hadn’t had my afternoon.

  We met upstairs at The Club’s restaurant for a quick

  drink after our swim.

  “Do you need help with your gun?” she asked.

  “Choosing it. I’d be happy to help.”

  There didn’t seem to be any hidden agenda here, so I

  thanked her and said I might. “I’ve just glanced at the brochures, and it’s hard to keep things clear. Like Smith & Wesson—they make so many different guns.”

  I didn’t tell her that when I’d seen the first description of a .38, I had flushed with embarrassment. Was I going to get a Saturday night special? It seemed so cheesy and vulgar.

  Juno sipped her martini and asked if I were free

  tomorrow morning. I was, and I welcomed the chance to return to Aux Armes early, since I assumed that it would be as empty then as it was on my first visit, and I wouldn’t have to face any grizzled survivalists, or anyone who knew me.

  “I want to ask you a personal question.”

  I braced myself. “Go ahead.”

  “What does Stefan think about your wanting a gun—or

  haven’t you told him?”

  “He doesn’t know. He’ll probably think I’m crazy.”

  “Do you think you’re crazy?”

  “Well, I have wondered about it. If I’m overreacting.”

  “You’ve been beaten up how many times now at SUM?

  Twice? And threatened? And been the victim of arson and an office breakin? And discovered a body? If I were you, I’d be looking for a fucking Uzi, not just a pistol.”

  I drank some more of my seven and seven. It was indeed unreal, the things that had happened to me since moving to Michiganapolis. They were episodes out of a book or a movie —or the kind of disasters that were supposed to happen to somebody else. I was an assistant professor of English. I was a bibliographer. I was just trying to live my life and get tenure.

  “You know, I’ve never wanted to ski or go white-water rafting or rock climbing or snowboarding or bungee jumping or skydiving. I’ve never been a thrill-seeker.”

  Juno leaned forward, her perfume wafting over me.

  “Nick, I can promise you that having a gun is much more exciting than any of those.”

  “But that’s my point. I don’t want excitement, I’m not looking for danger.”

  “It seems to be looking for you, and you need to be

  ready.” She finished her martini. “Shall we order some potato skins or something equally disgusting?”

  It sounded good to me, and we ordered another round of drinks to wash them down.

  “Now, you do know what you need to do?” Juno asked.

  “About what?”

  “Getting the permit and all that.”

  I felt like an idiot. I had never bothered thinking through what might be required, and Juno could tell I was unprepared, but she didn’t hassle me about it. “You’ll have to go to the Michiganapolis Police Department. Before they can issue the permit, they make a background check.”

  “Wait. What for? I haven’t done anything.”

  “They need more than your word,” she said wryly.

  I had no criminal past of any kind, but the thought of being checked out by the police disturbed me. What if there were some computer glitch somewhere, and I was falsely identified with some mobster and dragged off to jail, my life turning into a bad imitation of Kafka?

  “Nick, buying a gun is more serious than picking up a sink at Home Depot—at least, in theory.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “The background check? They say it can take three to

  five days. You also have to fill out a form to purchase a gun and take a quiz.”

  “Citizenship?” I had images of being asked to explain the significance of Marbury vs. Madison.

  “No, gun safety.”

  “But I don’t know anything about gun safety.”

  “Then you have a lot to learn, don’t you?” She raised her glass, and we toasted. I felt more of a sense of collusion than challenge at that moment.

  When I got home, Stefan had a fire going, and he was

  putting the finishing touches on a venison and shiitake ragout that already smelled wonderful. The venison had marinated overnight in chopped onion, garlic, carrots, coriander seeds, marjoram, and Zinfandel. Venison, I thought. Someone shot it.

  Not with a pistol, perhaps, but it had hardly died of old age or committed suicide.

  “Hey—I started dinner late in case you got carried away in the pool. I’ve already simmered the marinade with the beef broth.”

  I sat at the island, where he’d laid out a plate of

  homemade pesto and flatbread. “What?”

  “That’s how we did it last time.”

  “No—I mean what were you saying about the pool?” I

  tried not to look guilty.

  He turned from the stove, brushing hair off his forehead.

  “I figured you might decide to learn a new stroke or

  something.” He put the egg noodles into the waiting pot of boiling water, set a timer, and carefully started browning the venison, which could not get overdone thanks to the new well-calibrated cooktop. “How was Juno?” He seemed

  surprisingly cheerful about her now.

  “She’s a good teacher,” I said. “I think she can help me.”

  “That’s great.”

  Stefan peppered me with questions about the swimming

  lesson as assiduously as a parent worried about a child’s potential drug use but trying to stay cheerful and cool. Was he suspicious of my spending time with Juno and trying to cover that up, or was he so happy his antipathy to her was subdued?

  His questions about my time in the pool continued after the ragout was spooned into large blue bowls and garnished with chopped, toasted ha
zelnuts. We ate on the floor by the fire, laying placemats on the hearth. I wasn’t very thirsty for the Côtes-du-Rhône Villages he’d opened, but Stefan seemed too upbeat to notice.

  “How come you’re so cheerful?” I finally asked midway through the meal, feeling that I didn’t deserve his zest.

  “Because all the crap about Whiteness Studies and the Diversity Tree and who’s running for chair of EAR just doesn’t matter. You and I have a great life despite all of that.

  How were your classes?” he asked.

  “Terrific.” I raved about how well they’d gone, feeling mired in dishonesty. What I was saying wasn’t the problem; it was what I kept back. Not only was I attracted to Juno, she and I were going to a gun shop for my second visit—how murky was that? And would I end up feeling about myself the way Lillian Hellman had been described by Mary McCarthy: Every word she said was a lie, including the prepositions?

  If Stefan noticed that I was mildly distracted, he said nothing, and we finished dinner and got the dishwasher going with every appearance of harmony and ease. We checked the digital cable menu, and Stefan was surprised when I said I wanted to see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando again, but he was happy to join me. It was a taut mix of thrills and comedy, mostly in the interactions between Arnold and Rae Dawn Chong, but every scene with a weapon in it had

  tremendous resonance for me as I tried matching it against guns I’d read about. When Arnold crashed into the gun shop, I felt a sense of glee and greed I knew I hadn’t experienced before.

  Stefan went to bed early, and I stayed up for an hour or two in my study, going through the brochures that Mrs.

  Fennebresque had given me.