City Boy (17 page)

Chloe considered this, or seemed to, but Jack had a feeling that this was actually something rehearsed and calculated, a test of him in ways he did not yet understand. Since that morning she had regained her complexion and fixed her hair in some new way, a headful of black Gypsy curls, and she wore a white blouse he didn’t remember seeing before, with embroidery set into the sleeves, and although he was used to a certain chameleonlike aspect of her beauty, how she could change her looks in this way, there was something uncanny about it. She said, “I haven’t yet decided if it’s going to be fiction or nonfiction.”

Jack said, neutrally, “That’s kind of an important thing to get straight from the beginning. Whether you’re making things up or not.”

She leaned over the table, suddenly animated. “No, see, it’s definitely going to be autobiographical. Like a journal. A record of everything that’s going on with me now, in terms of drinking and you and me and my goals and whatever else. I thought it would help me to make some changes.” She waited while Jack nodded to signify that this was a good idea. “But I don’t want to impose arbitrary factual limits on it. Because when you try to define ‘fact’ or ‘truth,’ the very words begin to negate themselves. There are different narratives implicit in every action and every relationship. Different ways in which language accommodates subjectivity, the intersection between self and other. There’s one version
of events that we all agree to validate. There are alternative narratives, what we believe happens, what we wish or fear would happen. That’s what I’m interested in. That zone of ambiguity and disjointure.”

She finished, a little out of breath, and it was Jack’s turn to say something. “Wow. You have this all planned out.”

“And that’s bad?”

“No, not at all. You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought.”

“Oh don’t worry. It’s not going to be one of those tell-alls. I bet there’s some things you would never ever write about.”

Christ yes. He shrugged, eloquently, he hoped.

“Well I’m the same way. Relax. And I’m gonna surprise you. I’m going to write a hell of a book. I’ve even got a title. ‘Anesthesia.’ Everything’s going to center around the metaphor of pain, and pain killing, and of course that’s one of the things that alcohol does. But the metaphor will be ironic. Because the reader is always a participant/voyeur in the narrative, and by implication, another inflicter of pain. I want the whole concept of authorship to become subversive.”

“I never thought of it quite like that. The voyeur part.” Jack was treading cautiously here. He didn’t want to say that it sounded like more of the old, top-heavy grad school thinking. He was afraid that at some point Chloe would present him with a wrongheaded and hopeless piece of writing that he would have to read and respond to. But Chloe seemed so genuinely excited, so hopeful and energized, he didn’t have the heart or the nerve to discourage her. “It’s really good that you want to take something negative and deal with it creatively. I think it will be”—he hesitated slightly over the word, it felt false in his mouth—“empowering.”

Chloe nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I’m hoping. It’s mostly this personal thing, so I don’t know if anybody else would ever be interested in it, I mean want to publish it …”

She stopped, shrugged. “I know. Dumb idea. Publishing.”

“Not dumb. You never know how far you can go with something when you’re first starting out.” In fact he thought it was nearly delusional of her to think about publishing. Chloe hadn’t yet done any of
the hard work of pushing words around on a page, didn’t know how easy it was for writing to never get written. But in order to keep her from dissolving into another fit of self-doubt, he had to sound more upbeat than he really was. “I think you could end up with something really good.”

“No you don’t, but it’s sweet of you to say it.”

Then she laughed. “You really don’t have a poker face, you know?”

“If you say so.” He laughed along with her. Ha ha.

“It’s okay, silly. You’re just trying to be nice, I appreciate that. But I can tell every thought you think. That expression you have when you’re trying to be really smooth? I love it. I bet that’s what you looked like when you were five years old and told your mother you weren’t the one who broke the lamp.”

“I’m that bad, huh.”

“Oh I don’t blame you for being skeptical. I’m just starting out as a writer, what do I know?”

“I’m sorry if I was acting like the resident expert.”

“Well that’s what you are. But I’m going to give you a run for your money.” Chloe smiled and reached across the table and touched her fist lightly to Jack’s chin. “I can’t believe how good I feel about this. About quitting drinking and getting started on the writing and being somebody who actually uses the right side of their brain for once. Not just Little Miss Business Plan. This morning I was in despair, I couldn’t see my way out of this hole we’d dug, okay, I dug. I want to accept responsibility here. Then it’s like it all came together, and I’m feeling so good and positive about you and me and please tell me you feel good too, because I really need to know that.”

Her most beautiful smile. It teased the fullness of her mouth into a pure and perfect curve. Jack pressed the tip of one finger to her lips and said, “I do.”

And because he meant it his face had no lie in it and Chloe tugged at his sleeve to get him to stand up from the table and they embraced there, swaying a little. Chloe’s hands pressed against his waistband and for one panicked moment he remembered that other kitchen and what
the girl had done to him and now he was afraid that his body, not his treacherous face, would give him away if she …

But Chloe drew back from him and pulled him toward the bedroom. Jack reached across the bed and turned off the lamp. He didn’t trust himself to be seen in any way. In darkness he thought he might manage to convince them both, Chloe and himself, that love was something you could heal.

Afterward, Chloe’s soft weight rested on top of him. His body, drained, exhausted, kept sinking into sleep, but his mind was still alert and shrill. No matter how hard he’d tried to push his way out of himself and into her, he had only succeeded for that one moment, now receding, the best you could do and never enough. Maybe there was nothing in life that was not conflicted and imperfect and wounded, love most of all, and he was no more of a fool or a liar, no more lonely, than anyone else who walked the earth.

He was still awake when the music in the kid’s apartment ratcheted up from a growl into the forbidden zone. The air ducts vibrated, a faint, metallic humming, and the music itself was lost in the thudding bass. Jack was almost glad to have this excuse to get out of bed. The kid, at least, was someone you could depend on for consistency and unambiguous jerkdom. If he wasn’t there to be despised and scorned, life would be that much less predictable.

Chloe was sound asleep and didn’t stir when he eased her aside. How often had he done this very thing, roused himself out of bed to make the trip upstairs. It felt like a recurring dream, or maybe he should look at it as normal, whatever that had come to mean.

Once he was on the stairs he could make out the song, one of the jazzy, upbeat cuts, about the pleasures of smoking ganja. It was punctuated by the kid’s voice expressing something enthusiastic. His words were smeared into the music so that it might have been either the kid or the singer saying he was gone down de road, mon, and feelin mighty fine.

Jack raised his fist to the door and pounded. After a long enough pause to irritate him, he heard locks unsnapping, and Brezak saying,
“Yeah, I know, I know,” and the singer agreeing, and then the door opened. Brezak stepped aside as it swung inward. Dank, incense-tinged smoke escaped in an almost visible plume. Brezak was already working the remote that punched the volume down to the top end of the permissible range.

“It’s cool,” said Brezak, returning to the entryway and bobbing his chin at Jack. He had the kind of beard that made him look like he should be wearing underpants over his face. “Right before you showed up, I was thinking, Uh-oh, I better cut that down, my man Jack’s gonna kick my ass. Am I psychic or what?”

From the passageway that led back to the kitchen and the bedroom, Ivory came toward them, her stumping gait tangling another of her long skirts as she walked. She entered the living room, waved briefly to Jack, and sat down on the couch to leaf through a magazine.

Jack said, “Yeah, psychic.”

“And I bet you knew that I knew that you were coming. It’s like we already had the whole conversation.”

“Sure. Let’s just not have it again tonight.”

“Oh he’s quick, my man Jack. Isn’t he sharp?” He appealed to the girl, who hiked up her skirt and crossed her legs beneath her before she replied:

“Sharp as a major tack.”

She was immersed in her magazine. One bare foot swung back and forth in a half arc, just visible at the hem of her skirt.

Brezak said, “He’s a little uptight around the edges. But he can work on that. Right, honeybunch?”

“Right,” said Ivory from the couch. Her hair fell over the magazine pages and she shook it aside.

Jack didn’t like the way Brezak was looking at him, his eyebrows wiggling in some Groucho Marx—style leer, if Groucho was way stoned. Jack’s skin went cold, wondering what Ivory had said to him. He had no trust in her discretion. He had no reason to trust her about anything. The idea of Brezak having such knowledge about him was unbearable.

“And don’t worry about the music. We were just about to turn in.”

“Sure,” said Jack stupidly. He realized that Brezak was waiting for him to leave. “Good night, then.”

The door closed. Jack started down the stairs, swearing weakly to himself. Somehow he’d gotten himself involved in the ongoing comic book saga of the kid’s life. Somehow, hell: he knew exactly what he’d done, how he had bulled and blundered and refused to keep his distance from everything perverse and wrongheaded. Dirty little secret. He liked a taste of walking on the wild side. At least until he got caught at it. Why was the girl back here with Brezak, where was Raggedy Ann? How had she managed it, had she broken in again? Had she gotten around to telling him about that particular trick?

If part of what he felt was jealousy, and he had to admit he did, and if that shamed him, then it was only what he deserved.

By the time he reached his own apartment, he’d decided that bluffing it out was his only option. He didn’t know for a fact that Ivory had said anything. He couldn’t let nerves and paranoia get the best of him. Even if she had been telling tales to Brezak, he could deal with it. Stare the kid down or avoid him altogether. Nothing irrevocable had happened. Nothing of the sort would ever happen again, he would make sure of that. Things might all be working out, in some messy way. The girl and the kid. Him and Chloe. Status quo restored. Just a little less uptight around the edges.

He reentered his own bed, and the zone of warmth around Chloe, and the faint, unmistakable smell of sex that rose from her. The music upstairs was only a pulse now. He let it beat behind his closed eyes until his thoughts unraveled into sleep.

W
hoever it was that forecast cooler weather had lied. It was the next morning, and good neighbor Jack stood at Mrs. Lacagnina’s door, knocking away. The air in the upstairs hallways was so dizzy hot and thick, it took an effort to draw it into his lungs. Jack tried to hear if Mrs. Lacagnina’s air conditioner was laboring away behind her door. Nothing. That wasn’t a good sign. The units were old and undersized, and
when the temperatures climbed this high, they only stirred the tepid air. Jack and Chloe had already replaced theirs. Maybe Mrs. Lacagnina’s daughter could get her a new air conditioner, or at least get her to use the one she had.

Brezak’s door was shut and no one within was awake, as far as Jack could tell. Fine with him. They were, officially, none of his business.

“Mrs. Lacagnina?” He knocked again. He remembered seeing her the day before yesterday. Or maybe the day before that. She’d traded her hideous black coat for an equally ancient and bunchy cardigan sweater, which she wore over a long cotton dress. White cotton socks, sandals, and a cabbage-rose print head scarf, tied underneath her chin. The sight of her had reminded him of something troubling, fairy-tale witches, perhaps, figures of fear and dowdy malice. But that was the crazy heat that made everything ugly and queer. It was the sixth straight day of temperatures in the high nineties. The sky was a blistered, sunless gray. Newspapers kept a tally of what were called heat-related deaths: twenty-four as of last night. There were times he missed California, where people died of normal things like getting shot. The city had declared a heat emergency and had opened cooling centers and urged people to check on the elderly and not think barmy thoughts such as how they resembled witches.

Fortunately (he supposed), there was no need to check on Mr. Dandy, who had taken to hanging around the lobby more often than was usual, mopping at his forehead with a plaid-bordered white handkerchief. Jack didn’t think they sold handkerchiefs like that anymore. Mr. Dandy must have bought up a stock of them before they closed Montgomery Ward’s. “Hot enough for you?” Mr. Dandy offered whenever anyone came in or out, and then you had to find something to say back to him, different sprightly versions of yes, it certainly was hot.

“Mrs. Lacagnina?”

Jack had to bawl it out. He tried not to think about Brezak and Ivory, tangled up in the wreckage of their bed, waking up and listening. Finally, he detected signs of life on the other side of Mrs. Lacagnina’s door. She was running some sort of appliance, maybe an electric broom, that made a distant, whirring sound. So she was moving around in
there. But he might stand there all day knocking without her hearing him.

Jack went back downstairs and returned with a pen and paper. In big block letters he wrote,
HELLO! VERY HOT TODAY! HOW ARE YOU? YOUR NEIGHBOR, APT. 1-A
.

He drew a crude sketch of a thermometer, at least that’s what he meant it to be, with the mercury bubbling up to the top, and more exclamation points and zigzags surrounding it. Only then did Jack notice its unfortunate resemblance to a penis. He hoped Mrs. Lacagnina wouldn’t take the wrong meaning and think he was inviting himself in for a hot time. He waited until the sound of the cleaning machine moved closer. He knelt down and worked the paper beneath the crack in the door, pushing it from side to side.