Afraid to Death

by Marc Behm

  ‘You have a high forehead.’

  ‘Why don’t you buy one of Nellie’s paintings?’

  Ah hah! She was wondering about his finances. His trousers and shirt and jacket were properly expensive, but just a bit too new. What did he do? How much was he worth?

  ‘I can’t afford it,’ he sighed. Fuck her. Let her pick up the tab. She’s the one who invited him to this clipjoint. ‘I’m just a penniless architect.’

  ‘Is that what you are?’ Nel drawled. ‘I forgot to ask. I …’

  ‘What have you built?’ Alice cut in.

  ‘Just one small house,’ he said. ‘In Atlanta.’

  20

  The session took place the following evening, in Nellie’s studio on Bayshore Road, a loft as large as three tennis courts, filled with canvasses and antiques and marijuana growing in casks.

  She still loved Shakespeare. She had all his plays on cassettes. While Alice was making a phone call, they listened to Orson Welles in Julius Caesar.

  ‘“For our elders say,’” she recited along with Edgar Battler’s whispering voice, ‘“the barren, touched in this holy chase, shake off their sterile curse.” Egan, do you have any children?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Me neither. Alas. I’d give anything to be pregnant.’ She studied him. ‘For that I need a stud.’

  Alice switched off the machine and sat down beside her. ‘Shakespeare was a fag,’ she said. ‘All those boys, dressed as girls. And vice versa. His ambivalence was pitiful.’

  Joe was relieved. He’d been dreading having to listen to Act 2, Scene 2. ‘X, a necessary end, will come when it will come,’ Christ! X! He couldn’t even bring himself to pronounce the word now. He was really freaked out.

  ‘Alice turns me on fiercely,’ Nel drawled. ‘But sperm has its charm.’

  ‘Perhaps you can talk Egan into tearing off a quick one with you,’ Alice stroked her hair.

  ‘I already tried. He doesn’t seem interested.’

  ‘You probably intimidate him. Girls eager to bestow their favors on any dude available can be terribly threatening.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s – oserais-je le dire? – fruity?’

  ‘Or just neuter. A blank cartridge.’

  Joe smiled, settling deeper into sudden contentment, listening to them drone. This was another one of those odd moments of quiescence, when the vibes were appeasing. His wounds healed, all his loss and pain became soft music playing in a void. Where was Ada now? What was she doing? Children? No, they’d never have their baby before she was thirty. They’d never grow old together and watch the acorns turn to forests. The concerto would have no second or third movements. Their themes would just dissolve in empty oblivion.

  ‘I think he’s falling asleep,’ Nellie said. ‘All fagged out. He was always bizarre. He used to memorize requiems and do-it-yourself manuals. There was a horrible island in the lake, our parents wouldn’t let us go anywhere near it, because of the watersnakes. But he was over there all the time, doing mysterious whimsical things.’

  ‘Probably playing with himself,’ Alice concluded.

  Their guests arrived at eight. A hideous woman in a mauve dress and an orange coat, wearing a floppy hat.

  It was Milch.

  ‘You!’ a snarl. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Mrs. Milch,’ he waved. ‘Hi. What a surprise.’

  ‘What are you doing in Florida, asshole?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  ‘Stop making faces, you’ll demolish your pretty make-up. God! You look like Queen Victoria.’

  ‘Don’t mock me, you bastard!’

  ‘You know each other?’ Nellie asked. ‘I find that highly coup de theâtre-ish.’

  ‘They make a darling couple,’ Alice remarked. ‘Albeit chilling.’

  ‘Always mockery!’ Milch railed. ‘Don’t you think I know I’m ridiculous?’

  ‘No you’re not, Milch.’ Nellie pinched his cheek. ‘You’re just dubious. Let’s gamble.’

  They played for five hours. Joe took six thousand from Milch, eight thousand from Nel and thirteen thousand from Alice.

  At two o’clock in the morning he began to feel dizzy and knew immediately that the girls had put something in the coffee he’d been drinking.

  He tried to get up and fell out of his chair.

  21

  ‘Joe!’

  It was Ada, calling to him. In a parking lot. No, in a railroad station or an airport. Or on a roof. In a blizzard.

  He woke.

  He was lying on a bed, his arms spread, his wrists tied to the posts.

  Alice was bending over him. ‘He admitted everything,’ she said. ‘You were in it together, the two of you. You were going to rip us off then split the winnings.’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘He told me you were kicked out of the 4 Straight Club in LA because you were caught cheating.’

  ‘He’s lying, Alice.’

  Nellie came into the room. ‘Oh, Egan,’ she drawled. ‘I’m so disappointed in you. You turned out to be a grubby little cardshark. How awful.’ She leaned down and kissed him on the lips. It was almost agreeable.

  ‘Untie me, Nellie. This is goofy.’

  ‘No no no. You took advantage of our friendship to try to pick my pocket. I can never forgive you for that. And you’re not an architect even!’

  ‘Don’t believe anything Milch tells you. He’s a slob.’

  ‘Y’know what we’re going to do?’ Alice grinned. ‘We’re going to tie you up and dump you in the street in front of the police station, dressed just as you are. Tampa cops know how to deal with drag queens.’

  He looked down. He was wearing Milch’s mauve dress! And the wig!

  They turned out the lights and left him there in the dark.

  In the studio, someone was playing a flute. Then three girls were singing and laughing. It sounded like a party.

  God damn it! No cops. If he were booked on a morals charge that would be the end of everything. Even trying to talk his way out of it would be messy. If he was lucky they’d just rough him up and let him go. But if they hauled him in front of a judge he’d do time for sure. Florida laws were lethal.

  He pulled and jerked his arms, freeing one wrist.

  Then she looked through the window.

  He saw her shadow first, lowering in the moonlight on the wall just beside him. He turned.

  She was out on the balcony, staring into the room. She opened the window and came over to the bed. His heart stopped beating. He could hear it, thumping in his chest. Then – nothing! It stopped.

  She peered down at him.

  Then she went back out to the balcony.

  His heart began drumming again. Blood flowed into his aching brain.

  The wig! And the dress! She hadn’t recognized him!

  He was alive!

  He yanked at the rope, pulling out the other wrist. Where was she?

  He got up, his head spinning. Where did she go? He opened the door, went out into a hallway.

  The loft was dim, filled with undressed girls. Nellie was dancing with an Amazon, both wrapped in a sheet, their lips fastened together. Two others were coiling around Alice, on the floor, like a spider with six weaving legs. Another was sitting on Milch’s lap, blowing a flute. He was tied to a chair, gagged, his bulging eyes glaring at Joe.

  Where was she?

  He moved through the thickets of marijuana, went into the kitchen. He was walking on high heels, his heavy skirt pinioning his legs. He pulled off the shoes, unbolted the service door, stumped down a steep flight of steps to a parking lot.

  He vomited in the gutter, emptying himself of pints of swill.

  Just across Bayside was the beach. He saw a row of cabanas there. They meant clothes – maybe.

  He crossed the road, ran through the sand. They were all unlocked. In the second one he found what he needed. He tore off the dress and wig, pulled on a pair of shorts and a ragged T-shirt.
/>   She almost found him.

  She was on the beach, coming straight toward him, as if he were her loadstone.

  He picked up the dress and wig, climbed up to the cabana’s slanting roof, stretched out on it, watched her.

  She was wearing a black sheath, her blond hair tied in a black band. In the moonlight, with the surf and the sand all around her, she looked glimmering and transparent.

  ‘Joe!’

  Oh, Jesus! She’d seen him.

  No … not yet …

  She opened the door of the first cabana, then the next and the next …

  He hid his face in the dress.

  She opened all the doors, one after the other. His door banged, just beneath his ear, jarring him. He uncovered one eye.

  She was walking off. Up the beach to Bayside, into the street lights. Her hips were swaying.

  He jumped off the roof and ran.

  22

  A truckdriver gave him a ride to Riverview. Then he walked south on 301. The sun came up, rising in thick stormy globs out of the middle of Florida. He was looking for a quiet wood where he could take a long nap under the trees.

  Instead he found Iraq.

  A Triumph was jacked up on the edge of a field, a tall black girl was changing the tire.

  She spun around as he approached.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he tried to smile, but his jaws were like pigiron. ‘I’m not a highwayman.’

  ‘Then just keep walking,’ she said.

  ‘Right.’

  A car passed. He jumped behind the Triumph, dropped to his knees.

  A huge bird flew over them, its wings flapping loudly.

  ‘Look!’ she cried. ‘That’s an albatross!’

  ‘“Instead of a cross an albatross about my neck was hung.”’ He tried to get up. His knees buckled. ‘I memorized “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” when I was a kid.’

  ‘It’s an auspicious sign.’ She watched it fly off into the amber overcast. ‘So you’re probably not as foreboding as you look.’

  ‘In that case, I need a lift.’

  ‘Fix my flat and I’ll take you into Palmetto.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’ He came around the car, reeling, almost falling. ‘Excuse me, I’m lightheaded.’

  ‘Me,’ she grinned, ‘I’m darkheaded.’

  She was doing seventy. He wished she’d stop gazing at him and watch the road instead.

  ‘My name is Joe.’

  ‘Mine’s Iraq Weber.’

  She took a pendant on a chain from her pocket, hung it on the rearview mirror. He examined it. It was a silver cat with diamond eyes.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It will put you to sleep.’

  ‘You’re going too fast.’

  ‘Aren’t you in a hurry?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. The faster the better.’

  ‘What are you running from, Joe?’

  ‘A card game. That reminds me … Nellie and Alice owe me … how much? Twenty grand? As for Milch, that mangy little weasel … I still have his IOUs in my money-belt …’ The diamonds glittered. ‘In my safe-deposit box in … in … I never finished The Brothers K … you shouldn’t pick up strangers on the road … for all you know I might be an ax-murderer …’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Your cat is looking at me evilly.’

  ‘Not evilly, no.’

  ‘Diamond eyes.’

  ‘Where are your clothes?’

  ‘Gone. Everything. All gone. Run run run …’

  He sank into an ocean of peace.

  He woke just in time to see a roadsign pointing to Palmetto in the opposite direction.

  ‘Aren’t we going to Palmetto?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where are we going … uh … what’s your name again?’

  ‘Iraq.’

  ‘Where are you taking me, Iraq?’

  ‘Farther on.’

  He slept again.

  23

  He was still in the Triumph when he woke. It was parked in the carport of a house on the seaside. At first he thought he was back in his wooden box in the lot in Atlanta and that the sound of the waves was the traffic on Memorial Drive. But that was a long long time ago and this was Florida. And he was broke again, in a torn T-shirt and shorts, barefoot. Hoodoo.

  He walked across a terrace high above the beach and went into the house through an open window. Into a sunny room with gray and yellow walls.

  Iraq came out of the kitchen, wearing a bikini, peeling an orange.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Naples. This is where I live. You’ll be safe here. It’s been immunized.’

  ‘Immunized?’ he stared at her legs. ‘Against what?’

  ‘This and that. What are you looking at?’

  She was incredibly sensual, like a resplendent carnal feast. The slightest false note would have spoiled everything – a roll of the hips, a lascivious look, a boudoir smile – but she was grave and still, without falsehood. Only her eyes simmered and flashed.

  ‘Would you care for a drink?’

  ‘No thanks. Do you by any chance have some cigars on the premises?’

  She had. A humidor filled with havanas. He lit one and it tasted divine.

  ‘Iraq …’

  ‘Yes, Joe?’

  ‘I think you have the wrong guy.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m not good for anything. I’m a wreck. I can play poker, that’s all. Everything else is decrepit. I should be wearing a sign: “Malfunction.” I’m going on the road for a while, then I’m going to sneak back into Petersburg to my safe-deposit box. If you could loan me a little money, just enough to keep me going, I’ll repay you before the end of the month.’

  ‘In there,’ she pointed. ‘Take a bath and shave and put on some clothes.’

  The bathroom was blue – tiles, ceiling, tub. Even the soap. On the windowsill violets grew in an azure pot. She was a young woman who chose everything carefully, with a sense of hues and rhymes. But why had she chosen him?

  He looked at himself in the mirror. Not too grisly. He needed a haircut, but aside from that he was just as blankly nondescript as any normal person. Certainly not a morsel for this splendid black goddess.

  He bathed and scrubbed his head with indigo shampoo.

  On the bed in the guest room was a shopping bag. He unpacked gray corduroy trousers, a pair of sandals, a shirt, a leather sweater. He didn’t check the sizes. He knew they would fit. What did she want?

  He smoked another cigar.

  They had dinner in a Spanish restaurant in East Naples. The Mexican maître d’hôtel oozed with reverence when they entered. The waiters were all Cuban and bowed respectfully like a chorus line.

  ‘Are you the Mayor?’ he asked. ‘Or with Immigration or something?’

  ‘They’re afraid of me,’ she whispered. ‘Because of this.’ She was wearing her cat pendant. She touched it with the tip of her finger. ‘My charm.’

  ‘They’re afraid you might put them to sleep?’

  ‘Worse,’ she laughed. ‘One evening the former maître d’hôtel was rude to me. A few moments later he scalded his hand on a stove in the kitchen. Another time, the bartender refused to serve me at the bar because I didn’t have an escort. He even suggested I go across the street to a cafe where hookers hang out. The same night he was hit by a car in the parking lot. Do you really think I brought you to my house to sleep with me?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘I didn’t. I doubt very much if you’re capable of sexual intercourse.’

  Why did that embarrass him? It never had before. He felt suddenly ashamed, as if his inadequacy were important.

  During the meal she told him a little about herself. Her parents were South African, members of the Batloka tribe, the Wild Cat People. Twenty years ago, a Dutch captain had smuggled them aboard his freighter and taken them to New Orleans, where they’d entered the United Stat
es illegally. Iraq was born in Mobile. She’d graduated from Alabama State and had worked in San Francisco, Chicago and New York. She was semiretired now.

  ‘Retired from what?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘You were a model.’

  ‘True. For a while, when I was in my teens. I was even on the cover of Elle. Twice, in fact. But that’s not it.’

  ‘A Gospel singer? A tapdancer? A lion tamer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I give up.’

  ‘I’m a medium.’

  24

  He slept in the guest room, without dreams or tension. He woke once in the middle of the night and thought he saw her kneeling on the floor beside the bed, holding a stick, tapping it silently on the rug. He tried to ask her what she was doing, but then the sun was shining and he was alone in the room.

  They had breakfast on the terrace, then took a walk on the beach. ‘You must never swim here,’ she warned him. ‘Not even in the shallow water.’ She pointed to a fin, passing and repassing, just beyond the waves. ‘Last winter a man in Bonita Shores was attacked by a shark. He survived but he went mad. My mother, when she was a little girl, was almost killed by a crocodile on the Caledon River. It gave her nightmares all her life. Thirty years later she would wake up nights shrieking. Do we ever escape from our nemeses?’ She studied him gravely. ‘Joe! Why are you always so far away?’

  ‘I’m thinking. Sharks and crocodiles. Do you have a nemesis, Iraq?’

  ‘Yes. Other people’s nemeses are mine. My clients’ ghouls give me nightmares too. But the deadliest of all nemeses is despair. I have to go to St. James this morning. I’ll be back in the evening.’

  Later, just before leaving, she put her hand on his cheek. ‘Let me show you something,’ she said.

  She took a crystal goblet from a shelf, set it on a table.

  She placed a silver teaspoon in it, stepped back, waited.

  ‘How long have you been running?’ she asked.

  ‘All my life. What’s that?’

  The crystal was humming. The spoon rattled in the goblet.

  ‘It’s you. The whole room is vibrating with your panic. You’re frightened to death. What are you afraid of, Joe? Tell me.’

  ‘I can’t talk about it.’