Fight No More Page 2

  She wished she could ask him about the depression. Was there a nice word for dictator? But she didn’t believe that anymore. A dictator who wore fake fur? She doubted it. Who’d told her he was an African despot to begin with? Michelle the B of A lender? Michelle had said he had no credit so they couldn’t prequalify, but it turned out he didn’t need a mortgage. Someone ran a verification of funds and it was moot: Mr. Diallo was cash-rich.

  “I like it,” she said. And it was true—she liked the flowers and she liked the branches. Their delicacy.

  “He has these bouts,” said Lynn. “You name it. Between you and me, since you’ve seen—well, depression, agoraphobia, social anxiety . . . it’s worse when we’re recording. More pressure. The label’s—you know. Excuse my language, but—assholes.”

  Creatives.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’re musicians.”

  “Well, he is, anyway. Ry plays the bass. I’m just a drummer,” he said, and smiled.

  Ryan was stoned for certain. At least she’d called that one.

  The medics had the musician on their gurney; she glanced quickly at him as they pushed past, wheels squeaking.

  “Should be OK, but we do need to take him in,” a medic said.

  “I’m fine,” whispered the musician, though she could barely hear him.

  “Sure. We’ll follow you,” said Ryan.

  Lynn was wringing out his wet shirt, wincing in distaste as he pulled it on again.

  Social anxiety, not religion. She could have worn the pumps. One of the medics stopped the gurney a couple of feet away and talked into his headset. Meanwhile the musician lay helpless beneath her gaze, lit by the sun. He was exposed; she could look at him now, since his eyes were closed.

  He seemed so young. She hadn’t known how young he was.

  Those hands had never touched a machete.

  Lynn was beside her, waiting for the medics to get moving again.

  “You can call me,” she told him.

  “Of course,” he said. “He’ll still want—he really needs to find a place.”

  That wasn’t what she meant.

  “Call me for any reason,” she said. Had she said it? When you were this relieved it was like being drunk. It let you melt into the air—but not only the air.

  It was hard to let yourself drown, they said; a will to live kicked in. Maybe he had been asking himself, as he stood there at the end of the lap pool, if he could do it. In a way he’d proved he could. Because he hadn’t saved himself, he hadn’t jumped into the pool, sunk down, and then surfaced again spluttering. He’d stayed the course and let the water in. The water had entered his lungs. Someone else had saved him.

  So maybe his question had been answered. Can I? Yes.

  She walked them to the driveway, watched as the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance and Lynn and Ryan climbed into their car. From the driver’s seat, Lynn slid down his window. It made a purring sound.

  “So I’ll call you,” he said. “Nina. Right?”

  “Yes. Call. I hope you do,” and she stepped a bit closer. Beyond him in the shadows of the interior Ryan was wiping his sunglasses. “And—tell me how he’s doing.”

  “Sure thing,” said Lynn.

  She watched them back out, watched the gate close on its slow rollers. She had to do the rounds, lock up before she left.

  She went from room to room, checking the staging was still right. She’d had clients who moved things around, who ate the food out of strangers’ refrigerators. One guy had eaten a whole pint of ice cream while she was showing his wife a property’s backyard. Just took it out of the sellers’ freezer, sat down at the kitchen island and spooned it all up. When she and the wife came back in he was chucking the empty container into the sink.

  Not the garbage. The sink.

  He didn’t even hide the evidence. A libertine, clearly.

  What could she do with herself? Shaken, then so relieved . . . what happened next? The rest of the day felt spare, like: what was it for? Busy. And also empty.

  In the bathroom she glanced at the book but didn’t touch it. The first line she’d ever seen in the book came back to her: “There’s more to it than simply having a comely ass, you know.”

  Maybe, after she showed the place on Orange Street to Sheila, she’d drive back up here early for the 3:30 and hope for a page that told about the turning of the virgins . . . most of the pages disgusted her, true, and parts were laughable, but along the edges there was sex. The virgins had to be pried open—was she a pervert, or just bored? Maybe there were no perverts anymore. There was a huge industry: perverts were business, that was all. Like everything. She’d looked up the book. It had been written during the French Revolution, when the Marquis de Sade was in prison, and a few years after he got out he was arrested again, this time by Napoleon. His last girlfriend—from when he was seventy years old until he died in an asylum at seventy-four—was fourteen.

  The book had been banned in various countries, according to Siri/Wikipedia, for extreme violence and pornography. But now it was bathroom décor.

  Look around. The libertines had won.

  She felt the euphoria drain away. What stayed was almost like grief. It was true someone had been saved, but who was saved and who was left?

  How many were left sinking under, with no one watching them?

  Her mother, for instance. The water had been pills, but all the same. No one.

  Into the air went their panic, unheard. Into the air went agony. The sky must be full of it.

  She flicked the lights out as she stepped through the sliders to the back deck. You couldn’t leave the jets on in the hot tub.

  The pool water’s surface was still, and around it the tiles were bone-dry. The homeowners wouldn’t know what happened here, just her and the guys and the medics—it hadn’t happened for them. To them the pool when they got home from work would be identical to the pool they left this morning.

  Well, she would have to disclose, of course. The 911 call. Of course. Would they be billed for it? She’d look that up, too. But without her disclosure they would see the same pool. A pool without this history.

  A man like Lynn was a form of protection, a human fortress. There is an enemy at the gates.

  As she got older she was drawn to men with heft; you didn’t want a slight man as the years wore on. You knew the world better now than when you were young, you knew your own weakness. A fortress could help.

  Was there an enemy at the gates?

  Anyway this man did protect—not even afraid of mouth-to-mouth. Not squeamish. No one had given him permission; no one had conferred authority on him. He’d stepped up, accepted his role without a qualm. If he did call her, she would speak out and say she admired him. He was a good man. Were there fewer of them now, good men and good women? Solid and capable? Or was it just the lifestyle that made it seem that way?

  Too often the future was somewhere else, a land where you might find yourself one day. There was no need to travel there on purpose. Easy to tell yourself the future could be staved off and nothing had to change: the present would stretch in a band of gold along the horizon, bright line joining the earth and sky.

  As she went out she caught sight of the fountain in the front, where she’d never seen water: it was dry. A small cement fountain with a statue on it, a cherub holding a bunch of grapes. Cradling them in his hands. Why was unclear. A cherub with grapes, a figure she didn’t understand.

  Fear could turn you into a statue. Some people were statues all their lives. They feared the freedom of others, that others’ freedom could end up hurting them. A person might want to be free to do something to you, often. One man’s freedom was another man’s aggravated assault.

  But then, if you stood still like that, you couldn’t go anywhere. And was it fair to blame the libertines for moving?

  The libertines dined at a long table, drank until they were drunk. They spun and danced and deflowered virgins, while all around them, stricken, stood sta
tues in poses of humility and confusion.

  BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

  His mother had told him he had to get out for the so-called “showing,” which was during school hours anyway, but no. If they wanted to see his room, they could see it with him inside. And if it made some rich guy not want to buy the house, so good. So, QED. A Latin saying you used in math proofs, if you were fool enough to do them. Quod erat demonstrandum. “Which had to be proven.”

  He didn’t want to leave, hell no. The other option was some crap condo, some downsized piece of shit. He saw it already, he didn’t have to see it to see it. Beige carpets. Paper-thin walls and hollow doors. Maybe one of those pools in the middle, dirty, with a couple spindly palm trees leaning over and rotting leaves floating. Concrete steps up to the second-floor catwalk. No thanks, mater.

  She wouldn’t know till after. She was at work, while he was cutting school. An often-preferred activity. Preferred activities: watching, listening, gaming. Not school-working. Other preferred activities: getting off, three to five times per day. Minimum. Smoking, say five to ten. Also, nothing. Nothing was a preferred activity for damn certain.

  What he had planned for this afternoon’s showing was nothing short of diabolical: perform preferred activities in his bedroom. If the potential house-buyers came in, so much the better and let them feast their eyes on him. In flagrante delicto. First righteous saying Mr. Devon had ever taught them, which got him into the Romans. “In the very act of wrongdoing.”

  So here he was, ensconced. He had the pillows set up in imperial fashion and he lounged back against them, remote like a royal scepter. Jeans off and boxer briefs tugged down. Before him, the viewing altar. Flat-screen, HD, like everyone’s, but even larger than you often saw. Big-ass. He’d made them get him a big-ass TV back when they had money. For his viewing pleasure. Now here it was.

  For accompaniment he’d chosen old music. Liked vintage. His tastes were rarefied, admittedly. This in particular: Sid Vicious, of the old school of punk rockers. Helped his lady OD, then OD’d himself. There was a movie about it. But this was another scene. This was some video by French people. Some Eurofags who digged the Vish, back in the day. Who wouldn’t? Even the French dug him. Even back then.

  Before a stage curtain came Sid, and grabbed a mic on a tall stand. He sang the song, a cover of a Blue-Eyes tune. That Frank Sinatra. Also dead. Gangsta himself, they said, back then, though more of a mafioso type. And here came Vicious to cover him. He’d changed the words. He sang his own version. It was supposed to be some cheesy crooner thing, but he sang other words. “My Way.” Hard to understand at first, because the Vish yelled more than sang.

  And at the end of the vid, he pulled out a machine gun and sprayed the audience with gunfire. The Eurofags toppled in their seats.

  When it was over, briefly a silence fell. From downstairs he could hear voices. Good: the house gawkers were here. He’d play the Vish again later, but now for porn. She’d taken the lock off his bedroom door—said she didn’t want to do it, of course, but he’d “abused his right to privacy.” He put it on again, knew how to use a cordless drill, but off it came again as soon as she discovered it.

  So now she’d reap what she sowed. In flagrante, mamacita. Lubriderm in the drawer. Kleenex. This one was a blond chick in Carpinteria. About his age, he figured, ergo, under—. She did a bunch of different stuff, but his preferred modalities were, in descending order, (1) Coy Cheerleader, (2) Daddy’s Good Good Little Girl, and (3) Catwoman.

  Sometimes, though the black-latex suit ruled, he got bored of Catwoman. Too much hissing and meowing. The scratching moves could last for ages, to where he wanted to say, Chick, listen, you are way too into this. She had these long metal claws that, come to think of it, looked more like Wolverine’s, and liked to raise her hands one at a time and curl the claws down and pretend to be mauling him. The viewer. Whoever. It wasn’t that cute. More annoying.

  He brought her up, click-click.

  “I’m ready whenever you are, big boy,” she said.

  She wasn’t dumb, though. A few times they’d messaged. Her clichés were ironic.

  The cheer itself was nothing to write home about, although he liked the pink pom-poms. It was pure warm-up. The bouncing parts, mammilla and glutei, got you ready. Plus the trick that ended when she stood with her legs apart, bent over, and looked at him through the upside-down V. Her music sucked major wad, some stupid teeny-bopper shit she listened to ironically, but still stupid.

  And worse, not loud enough.

  Knock-knock.

  “Someone in there?” called out a woman from beyond the door.

  He wouldn’t dignify it with a response. The door was closed; if she should choose to violate, that was on her. On her own head be it.

  The stripper-cheerleader took off her bra and squeezed them together, round balloons. Two pink eyes, ogling him. Faster.

  “Yoo-hoo,” said the woman’s voice. “You know, this is the teenager’s room. He might have left the music on when he went out to school.”

  Faster, faster—and then it happened. Flagrante. Quick blur of a face: the woman he’d met before, the house-selling agent.

  “Oh my—!” The door slammed shut in a hurry.

  Yes! New record. She had a hot mouth, the agent. Great when it hung open like that, in a perfect blowup-doll O. She wasn’t bad overall, for someone in the aged set.

  The cheerleader kept on going. It wasn’t a two-way video feed. He did the watching. Not the help.

  Murmurs outside the door. He felt a grin spreading. Reached for the Kleenex. There you go. Veni, vidi, vici. Julius Caesar shit.

  Then silence again. The home invaders had moved on. Continuing their tour. Bully for them. He hoped she did tell Mrs. Mom. He hoped she did. Would show she had a pair on her. Plus it’d be interesting, what happened next. It’d be a science experiment to witness his mother’s embarrassment. Surely she’d try to “have a talk” with him. Of course, she knew his habits; they were no secret. Shee-yit, the laundry didn’t wash itself. In the OT, Jahweh killed Onan for spilling his seed on barren ground. Harsh.

  His mother didn’t go Jahweh on him—the opposite. She’d said more than once that it was developmentally appropriate. Although lately she’d suggested, better in moderation. “Maybe . . . also focus on other interests?”

  Still: a public shaming was different. Him acting out. Giving offense. Well, let her struggle. As mortals did. His role was that of anthropologist. Observe the tribe of others. His mission. The world was made of primitives.

  But his guess was, the agent lady wouldn’t breathe a word. Not real enough. None of them were. They said nothing. They talked and talked, but you could swap out their words for other words, like at random, and nobody would notice the difference.

  “I’m good,” he told Carpinteria. “Check you later.”

  “Whoa, that was quick.”

  “I had some help,” he said, and cut the connection. She had his card on file. Well, mamacita’s card. Technically.

  Time for some face. A face-to-face encounter. He switched back to the vid of Sid. Ratcheted the volume right up to 11. Another vintage ref.

  Pulled on his pants, went out the door. Left wadded Kleenex and Lubriderm on bed. Stagecraft.

  Down the hallway, he found the group of them in the master suite. Here was where his mother slept, all by her lonely now that the Dadster was deadbeat. Big bed. A California king. The gawkers stood looking into the bathroom. Like a toilet could full-on fascinate. The greatest show on Earth! A sink! And a toilet!

  Losers.

  Plenty of them—six, he counted. All over the hill. A bunch of human sacks, floppy, including a guy with a beer belly.

  They turned.

  “Oh, um,” said the house-selling woman. “Ah. Jeremy. Hi there.”

  Ron Jeremy to you, lady.

  “Hey ho,” he said. “How’s it hangin’. You can show them my room now, if you like.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,�
�� she said. “We wouldn’t want to, uh, disturb—”

  “No, really. It’s a great room,” he said, wearing a smile. She wasn’t going to get off that easy. “Got my own balcony. It’s on the other side from this. View of the Capitol Records building. Home of the Beastie Boys. Super.”

  That last he said real kiss-ass style. He’d never say “super” normally.

  “Sure,” said the beer belly heartily. “Sure! Come on, folks! Let’s go take a look!”

  So they trooped after him, back down the hall. He didn’t look behind him, but you could bet the house-selling woman was lagging. She was the only one who’d gotten a real gander.

  He threw open the door to chaos land. His walls had several posters on them, including some purchased mail-order from the Hustler store.

  On the big screen Vish was still yelling.

  “You cunt, I’m not a queer / I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.”

  Sid was right on the sorry homophobe brief. Right on it. Some old-school homophobe shit. It dated him, but fuck. He was still Sid.

  “Nice décor, son,” said the fat man, while the older ladies adjusted their expressions. Onscreen, Sid wielded his weapon, and bullets sprayed the French people. Totally fake-looking of course. You couldn’t believe it for even a second.

  Back then they had no CGI. All their FX were retarded.

  “Thanks, man,” he said, whilst taking in the ladies, whose eyes alighted in passing on the tissue and lubricant. Then darted off again.

  “The view of outside, anyway,” said the house woman, crossing the patches of floor between the heaps of soiled laundry like they were stepping stones through hot lava, “is impressive,” and she pulled open the curtains. Light flooded in.

  The ladies were reluctant to cross the lava flow. Beer-belly man not so; he crushed the clothes beneath his giant feet.

  “Can we go out?” he asked, and the saleswoman opened the slider. “Oh yeah,” he called, from beyond. “Nice. Great panorama. As good as the master.”

  But the ladies were in a rush to leave. In no time only he, the man, and the house-selling woman remained. The two of them stood on his balcony, jawing too quiet to hear, and when they came back in the man stood in front of him, confronting-like. Reached out and took him by the shoulders. Actual skin contact.