The Failure (6 page)
G
uy’s heart sank at the sight of Constance. Constance’s heart sank at the sight of Guy. He motioned for her to take a seat, which she did reluctantly.
-He’ll be right back, said Guy. -Men’s room.
-Okay. Good.
An awkward silence developed between Guy and Constance, a vacuum that somehow the ambient chatter of the rest of the lobby’s guests could not fill.
-You doing all right? asked Guy, for lack of anything else to say.
-Why bother pretending, Guy?
-Okay. Fine. Look, Constance, I love my brother. I mean, I don’t like him very much, and he doesn’t like me, but that’s cool, that’s fine. By extension, I’m supposed to love you too. Or at least like you. You’re family. I’m told family is important. I don’t know why it’s important, but that’s what I hear. That’s the word on the street.
-You live on a strange street, Guy.
-Is this really just about the teeth-brushing thing?
-I’d call that symptomatic of a deeper problem.
-Because I’m willing to do a lot to satisfy my familial responsibilities. I mean, not really, but I might consider certain changes if they were reasonable. But I’m not going to brush my fucking teeth just because my brother’s wife thinks it’s disgusting.
-I’m not crazy about your haircut either.
-This is the nub of our problem, Constance. I don’t care what you think.
-I’m not sure you want to say
nub
.
-Yeah, whatever.
Silence once again descended like a grade-school play curtain between the two.
-What the fuck is he doing in there? said Guy after a while.
-Brushing his teeth, replied Constance, with a sarcastic smile.
14. THE NIGHT GUY MET VIOLET MCKNIGHT, FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO
T
he Smog Cutter doesn’t look like much from the outside. It doesn’t look like much from the inside either, but its grime is its charm, apparently. Grime and karaoke—which at the time Guy met Violet had not yet become the hipster cliché it has since become. In other words, although those who participated in the nightly karaoke sessions at the Smog Cutter did so largely in quotation marks, these quotation marks still had a certain fresh appeal, had not yet worn out their welcome in the smugly insular world of Los Angeles’ bohemian class. It was therefore not unusual to find famous rock musicians, like the bald singer from R.E.M., and famous actors, like the thin blond girl from the
Charlie’s Angels
remakes, rubbing elbows and too-sharp rib cages with ordinary Beck-a-likes in trucker hats with sideburns and horn-rimmed glasses.
The drinks were cheap, though watered down, and you had to wait forever for your turn at the microphone, which would usually get hijacked by one of the celebrities anyway. Guy found it incredibly annoying to get halfway through the first verse of Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” only to be interrupted by an overeager and tone-deaf Rising Starlette wearing a gray satin slip dress that clung to her erect nipples like saran wrap. Who would then spill her rum and Coke on the sleeve of Guy’s only good jacket, laughing at herself in an attempt to prove that she was capable of laughing at herself.
-Why did you go, then? asked Violet, several weeks later, in languid repose on her reposable futon.
-Same reason everybody goes. There was nothing else to do. Why were you there?
-Free drinks. The Chinese lady who runs the place likes me. I think she’s a lesbian.
Guy nodded. -Free drinks is a really good excuse.
The night Guy met Violet, she was sitting at the bar in a white dress with a white feather boa around her neck, long before feather boas became either fashionable or ironically fashionable, and on Violet looked unaffectedly sexy. Her hair was dark brown, medium-length and tousled, with shiny turquoise clips placed at seeming random, and her lipstick was red and her fingernails were red and her toenails were red and her eyes—like the two small tattoos on the back of her neck and on her left shoulder, abstract curlicues—were green.
-It’s my birthday, said Guy, pushing his way to the bar through the unruly crowd, into a space next to Violet, who looked him over and smiled mutely. It was, of course, not Guy’s birthday, that was his standard opening line, and he had waited three drinks before summoning the courage to talk to Violet, who had attracted his attention on several earlier nights, and again tonight, the moment Guy pushed through the red plastic strips that hung just inside the front door, outside of which, in the gray Los Angeles night, the doorman knew Guy well enough not to ask to see his ID. The shiver of pleasure you get when a doorman recognizes you, when you have become a regular, when you are no longer entirely anonymous in a city that loves to deliver crushing reminders of your anonymity regularly, right to your face, was one of Guy’s favorite small triumphs.
-Can I buy you a drink to celebrate my happy occasion? Guy continued, noticing that Violet had not stopped smiling or looking at him since he had spoken to her, and taking this as a sign of encouragement.
-What’s your name? asked Violet.
-Guy.
-That’s a funny name. Guy. What’s your last name?
-Forget. My name is Guy Forget. It should be pronounced For-
zhay
, but no one ever does. Just like my first name should be pronounced
Ghee
, but no one ever does.
-Why not?
-I don’t know. They just don’t. When I was younger that used to bother me, but it doesn’t now.
-My name’s Violet.
-Like the flower?
-Yes. Which brings us to the limit of my interest in gardening. I hope you have something else to talk about.
-I’ve seen you in here before.
-I come here a lot. So do you.
-And yet we’ve never met. Until now.
-On your birthday.
-It’s not really my birthday.
-I figured that out already,
Ghee
.
-How?
-Because you wouldn’t waste your birthday talking to me, a stranger. You’d spend it with friends.
-If I had any.
-Everybody has friends.
-Not everybody.
-Some people even have too many friends.
-Agreed. How about that drink?
Violet shook her head. -I don’t need another drink. I need a cigarette. You want to go have a cigarette with me?
-I don’t smoke. But I’ll watch you smoke.
-Okay.
Outside, the light had followed its usual progression from gray to dull orange, the color of night in Los Angeles, and Guy trailed Violet around the side of the building so as to be away from the bustle of Vermont Street. Violet pulled out a yellow pack of cigarettes from her small black purse, but before she could use the matches from the bar, Guy leaned in and kissed her.
-You kissed me, said Violet, touching her fingers to her lips.
-Sorry.
-We hardly know each other.
-That’s true.
Violet snorted derisively. -Let’s go to a different bar, she said.
-Okay. Are you driving?
-No. I came with a friend.
-I’ll drive then. Do you need to tell anyone you’re leaving?
-No. Do you?
-No.
-Can I drive your car?
-
Baby, you can
… actually, no. It’s better if I drive. My car’s kind of touchy.
-Me too. Violet tossed her unlit cigarette on the ground and dropped to her knees, fumbling at Guy’s zipper.
-No, stop. Someone might see, protested Guy.
-That’s the whole point, whispered Violet into Guy’s ear as he pulled her to her feet. Her tongue darted quickly into the folds of his outer ear.
Guy pulled her close and tried to kiss her again. Violet turned her head away.
-Where are you parked? she asked.
It was approximately at that moment that Guy fell for Violet, fell hard, fell for good. It’s not right to say “fell in love” because it’s not clear that either Guy or Violet was capable of love as commonly understood, which would require a certain degree of selflessness, however slight, that may have been beyond the abilities or at least inclinations of both. But Guy was, whatever else, enormously enamored.
What Violet felt was more difficult to determine, because Violet hated showy emotions, but it was clear that she liked Guy, maybe liked him a lot, or so it seemed to Guy, who did not wish to examine or question further his luck.
Violet was the sort of girl who seemed to exist to inspire infatuation. She did this intuitively, without trying, by obscuring her true intent and radiating, at every moment, a kind of pure possibility—promise in human form—that could not and did not fail to attract both the best and the worst kind of man. She took all comers, without discriminating, without judging, for reasons that she preferred to keep to herself, and most of her lovers did not care to question. Because behind that façade of possibility lay a steel curtain of Do Not Enter. Not physically, of course, because that was the easy part, requiring only physical desire and a fear, if you can call it that, of being alone. But emotionally, Violet was remote to an extreme not usually seen in a human being. Almost not actually present, which for anyone interested in a sustainable or long-term relationship—and there were many, some of whom would have left their wives, children, houses, and vital organs behind for her sake—proved an immovable force.
Occasionally she formed attachments, however: men she liked more than usual, and whose companionship she enjoyed outside of the realm of sex, so long as they did not violate any of her inscrutable and often capricious rules. The first and foremost of which, as Guy would eventually learn, was,
Do not ask me any questions about myself.
The Echo Lounge was only a two-minute drive from the Smog Cutter, but almost as soon as Guy pulled out of the parking lot, Violet reached for his crotch.
-What are you … he began, then trailed off as Violet shifted in her seat and bent over his lap.
-We don’t really have time, he protested meekly. -We’re practically there already.
-Just keep driving, said Violet, without looking up.
-Okay.
Guy kept driving, on unfamiliar streets, panicking whenever he pulled up at a stoplight, as if anyone in an adjacent car was interested in what was going on in his, or would be even if they knew. Los Angeles by its nature attracts only the most self-absorbed inhabitants from all corners of the globe—in other words, if it wasn’t happening to them, personally, or at second best to a very famous person, then it wasn’t happening at all. The process took all of ten minutes, after which Violet sat up in her seat, licked her lips, and smiled broadly.
-Let’s get a drink, she said.
-Okay.
A
re we clear vis-à-vis procedure? asked Guy.
-I’m not even sure I know what that means.
-I mean, do you know what you’re supposed to do?
-Yes.
-And you’re okay with it?
-I’m not
not
okay.
-Billy.
-I suppose you could say I have a few moral qualms. Still.
-Still?
-We’re stealing money that belongs to someone else.
-We’re not stealing the money. We’re reifying the money.
-No matter how many times you say that …
-Reification is a perfectly valid process, as long as its use is intentional. Money, as a thing-in-itself, does not exist. It’s an extended metaphor for a complex system of commodity exchange. Thus, to think of money as “belonging” to someone or something is a pathetic fallacy, in the literal sense. It’s our job, as self-appointed stewards of the language, to liberate money from its normative bonds. There is no quick-and-easy shortcut. I wish there were. We have to go in and actually do it. Hence Plan Charlie.
-I thought you just needed cash to fund the prototype for Pandemonium and your asshole brother wouldn’t loan you any.
-There’s that too. But he’s not an asshole. It’s not your place to judge. You don’t judge a blind man for his lack of vision.
-Usually not. But what if he stabbed both of his eyes out with a fork?
-Why would you … why would you even
say
that?
-Wasn’t there a Greek tragedy about a guy who clawed his eyes out with like his bare hands?
-Tell it to your therapist.
-He’s the one who told me. Couldn’t sleep for a week. That’s a disturbing image to plant in a five-year-old’s brain.
-It’s almost time.
Billy opened the glove compartment, carefully removed an object in a filthy, oil-stained rag, carefully unwrapped the rag to reveal the glistening shaft of a handgun.
-You sure this is fake.
-Here’s the thing, Billy. I’ve planned every aspect of this operation within an inch of our lives. Some would say I’ve overplanned, but I don’t believe you can overplan, I don’t believe you can be too prepared, it’s just the way I operate. Do you think, can you imagine, in the vasty dim cobwebbed caverns of your brain, that I would neglect something as absolutely crucial as ensuring that you were equipped with a weapon that in no conceivable way could be used as a weapon, because to do otherwise would be to court certain death?
-So you just assumed.
-The man said it was fake. Like I’m gonna check?
Billy lifted the gun in his right hand, measured its heft in his palm.
-Kind of heavy for a fake.
-Look, just don’t shoot anyone. Okay? I mean, in case. That way it’s not an issue.
-It’s not like I was planning on shooting anyone.
-Good.