Disintegration (17 page)

The girls wander past me as I stop for a moment to catch my breath, to figure out the next move. A wave of patchouli, burnt sugar, and cigarettes washes over me, and they head up to the corner and turn left.

Need to see Holly tomorrow, can't put it off any longer.

I look up and I'm farther up the street, orange neon to the left. I need a quiet place to sit. Estelle's looms in front of me and I think that'll work.

I pull open the heavy door and it's like climbing inside a blood orange. The scatter of lights reflect off the walls, tangerine and maroon blending with a blur. The long wooden bar is half empty, the late night crowd still dancing next door. I head to the bar and sit down. The gaggle of girls from the street looms just to my right, and a spunky one in pigtails and checkered stockings turns to eyeball me.

“Seriously, Gramps, you're giving me the creeps.”

Jesus.

“Listen, miss, I just wandered in here. Would a round of drinks shut you up?”

She opens her mouth to complain, one hand on her hip, does the math in her head, and shuts it.

“Be a start.”

The bartender walks over, a muscled Chinese guy with a soul patch, a purple Mohawk, and tattoos running up and down his arms. Koi fish mingle with pinup girls and I have to admire the work.

“Nice tats.”

“Thanks, man. What'll you have?”

“Bud and a shot of Beam, and whatever those witches are drinking.”

“Ha. You sure about that? They'll suck you dry, man.”

“I can handle it, thanks.”

“Your party,” he says, walking away.

Goth Pippi turns around, squints.

“Don't start,” I say.

I close my eyes and try to make sense of it all—Vlad, my dead doppelgänger, Holly—and the chance that my family may be alive.

The clack of pool balls pierces the room as they scatter over the red felt in the back of the room. A bald-headed man stands at the mic, mumbling into it, reciting poetry, but a Cure baseline drowns him out.

The poet goes on, “…an old woman with a faded memory and a wobbly shopping cart…”

Why isn't Holly running?

“…there used to be a skinny whore there with a film over one disjointed eye…”

The beer arrives and the shot beside it. I flip some bills at the man and he goes away. I turn to the girls, who are watching me now, holding tall glasses filled with fluorescent liquids, martini glasses with sugar on the rim, and Pippi taking it like a man, with just a beer, a twenty-ounce Sapporo that looks like a giant black cock in her tiny hands. The red star on the bottle winks at me and I force a meager grin their way.

“Cheers,” I say.

“Ostrovia,”
they say.

More Russians. Or freaks who fuck Russians. I need to drink in a different neighborhood.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and I freeze mid-drink.

“No worries, my friend.”

I look up and it's Vlad—in the flesh.

The girls turn away and wander down the bar.

“You've scared off my
entertainment,”
I say.

“I usually do.”

He waves at the bartender, who hops over in a flash, pouring clear liquid into a rocks glass. He sets it down and walks away, leaving the bottle behind. Something is chiseled into the glass, raised letters, but I can't read it.

“To what do I owe this great honor?” I ask, sipping my beer. “Where's the mountain range?”

“They are around. I don't tell them where to stand.”

I tilt my head and see one at the front door, dwarfing the house bouncer, making him nervous. I turn the other way, and his mirror image is back by the bathrooms, standing in front of the emergency exit, leering at the girls, who huddle in closer, whispering into their drinks.

“Just making sure you still wanted to work. And it seems you do.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Good.”

He raises his glass and drains it, and pours another.

“You have job tomorrow. Important, yes?”

“Yes…I saw the film. Two thumbs up.” I wince, reaching for the bourbon, and downing it.

“Ha, ha, ha…yes, very good. Thumbs-up. Ebert and Sisko.”

He leans down close to my ear. I smell grease and decay, his nose buried in my neck, and I don't like it. There's movement at the periphery, glaciers drifting in the sunset waters.

“You haven't been honoring your dead,” he breathes.

He's right. I haven't.

“Don't get sloppy, my friend.”

He pats me on the back and I'm engulfed in a vast darkness, a cool shadow hanging over me, and they're gone. I don't watch them leave. I want to pretend that I don't really know them. No need to cause a scene.

I grab the beer and suck it down. I wave the bartender over.

“Again.”

He nods and disappears.

Pippi appears at my side, and she smells like rain. My face contorts and I try to get a grip. Her hand sits on my shoulder as she looks past me to the front door, her jacket open, low-cut corset leaning in, her glistening body making my head spin. Some things never change.

“Man, and I thought
you
were an ugly fucker.”

“Don't mind them.”

“Friends?”

“Something like that. You know, we all frequent the same haunts.”

She makes eye contact and she's young—too young. She likes it, the danger, and I just got off that ride.

“You like it rough?” I ask. “You like it when guys smack your ass, leaving a red imprint of their hand, a little blood on the sheets, a punch to the gut when you climax?”

Her eyes go dull.

“You're a freak,” she says, and walks away.

Thank God.

I stay until closing, hardly moving. It's probably not a good idea.

I watch a trio of young men approach my girls, drinks are bought, and then they move on. I see a pool stick raised in anger, a bouncer quick on his feet, intercepting the fight, grabbing the punk by his J. Crew flannel, tossing him into the night. I watch the bartender, Sam, hustle his ass off, pouring and pouring the night away. We're on a first name basis now, Sam and me. I'm paying his way through an MFA it seems. He keeps them coming. I don't fight it. I take an elbow to the back, a drunk blonde falling into me, pushing her lips on mine, calling me Daddy, her boyfriend prying her off, his eyes like slits. I'm a freak magnet tonight. A thin young man in a leather vest and tight jeans, ears ringed and studded with metal, eyebrow pierced, black fingernail polish, sits down in a cloud of sandalwood and ambergris, and turns to address me.

“Move along,” I say.

He does.

I have work tomorrow, the death of an old friend. Well, a friend. A co-worker. Somebody I used to screw. The girls left about an hour ago, and I was relieved to see them go. I have no willpower when it comes to young submissives. And since Pippi took offense, I can rule that night out, for sure.

I can't run through the scenarios in my head anymore. There's no point to it. I have to talk to Holly.

Holly works for Vlad. Holly doesn't work for Vlad. She's really an angel, not what the film says. She's really a devil, as bad as, or worse than, me. She set me up, she's coming for Vlad. She's going to kill me tomorrow, she's already dead.

I don't know.

I stumble out the front door and head south down Milwaukee. It's one long diagonal line, and I know it by heart. I keep moving forward, my hands buried deep in my pockets, across North Avenue and on down the street. I pass a doorway, and Pippi is leaning there, smoking a cigarette.

“Hey, old man,” she says.

I stop.

“I thought I disgusted you.”

“You do. But maybe I'm writing you off too soon. Wanna cuddle?”

She walks toward me and her eyes are empty, one arm behind her back.

“I don't know, sweetheart….”

She sticks something into my ribs and grins.

“Sick fuck.”

She steps back and pulls the trigger and I'm filled with electricity. A taser. A fucking taser. I shake back and forth, a dull buzz filling my ears, eyes rolling up into my head, a pulsing tickle running over my body, muscles tightening, and I fall to the ground, stiff as a board. She laughs above me, a high-pitched keening, and if I could move my lips I'd probably be laughing too. Sucker. I've been too trusting.

I can feel her rooting around in my pockets, emptying me of my cash. She leaves my keys. She doesn't find the gun.

I haven't pissed on myself in some time now.

Ah, there it is, a warm sensation running down my legs as I lay face-first in the snow. Maybe it'll run down into my mouth and complete my day.

She bends over me, her breath a mix of peppermint and ash. She grabs my hair and lifts my face up to hers, smacking away on her gum. I've been electrified by a drunken pixie, a foul-mouthed fairy.

“Don't be such a perv,” she says. “Stick to the old man bars. Maybe Lincoln Park is more your speed, or the Gold Coast. Should be easy pickings for you down on Rush Street.”

She drops my head back on to the concrete, and I watch her walk away. Six-inch platform boots, and long, slender legs. Even though she just assaulted me, and robbed me at taser point, I still follow her long legs with my eyes.

But I'll remember her face. It's a small circle of late night caverns, and everybody knows everybody, it seems. I'm not going to hurt her, just hold her close and whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

I sleep until the afternoon and wake to a dull buzz in my ears—Luscious is home. She's asleep on the pillow next to me, none the worse for wear. I wonder where it is she goes. Does she have a crew she runs with, out mousing around, chewing on stray frozen blades of grass? Do she and some dirty tomcat with half a tail snuggle under somebody's porch, cleaning each other with their tongues? Maybe she has a second family, one that feeds her on time, keeps her warm, a little cat door carved out of the wooden doorframe, coming and going as she sees fit, a little boy worried about her, hugging her when she comes back, crying and tugging at his mother's apron strings when the dark settles over the backyard and she hasn't returned. Like all of the women in my life, she's silent about her personal business. But I fear she may be the one thing keeping me sane.

I hop in the shower, the stink of urine still on me, my face scratched from the sidewalk. Every so often when I twist a certain way, my left eyelid twitches, and I smell something burning. That can't be good. When this is all over maybe I'll head south, find a pool someplace that doesn't mind leaving the bottle, lime, and salt and nothing but blue refracting the light, even better, an ocean, the waves lapping at the shore, bikinis and the odd game of poker or blackjack, the biggest decision of my day to hit or stand.

The suburbs are calling, several clear voices, all of them faint, but each of them a siren song. There may be rocks on which to dash my weak frame, but I'll go there anyway, unable to resist. I have a busy day ahead of me. Several stops. And the first is to honor my dead. If Vlad is right about one thing, it's that I've gotten sloppy and have forgotten the face of my wife, my children. Forgotten the meaning behind my morbid deeds.

I dress in silence, staring at the cat. An enviable life, I think. There's a patter on the porch, and I peel back the blinds, hold back the drapes, and see expansive raindrops pummeling the porch. It's warmed up enough to make it rain, not snow. Great. I'd prefer the snow. The standard jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt, and instead of the wool coat, now scuffed and slightly damp, a sharp odor peeling off of it, I grab the leather. Back to the basics, it seems. I tug on the knit cap, boots laced up, and walk over to the bed.

“Now listen, Luscious. If I don't come back, don't take it personally.”

She lifts her head, green eyes filled with flecks of gold.

“It's business. Go to your other home, find your friends, there's enough food here for a couple days, and if you can get in the cabinet, enough for a month.”

She lowers her head. She doesn't want to hear it.

“You're a good cat and never did me wrong.”

I stand up and head to the door. She won't look at me. Before I go, I want to give it another listen.

“…oh my God, what happened, where am I, Taylor? Robbie? Oh my God, say something, talk to me, I can't see, I have to get out of here, ugh, the belt, Taylor? Robbie? Answer me! Oh, that smell, I'm wet, what is that, gas?”

Nothing. I don't hear anything but death and despair.

Out the door, locks turned, I head next door to Guy's to get the keys to the company car. I go to knock on it, and the door pushes open.

Shit.

I push it gently, then open it all the way and peer in. The television is on,
The Price Is Right,
the sound turned down. The man likes his game shows. I take a tentative step in and scan for his lumbering frame. Nothing. The distant weak haze of pot drifts across the room, the smell of dirty feet and socks, a compressed sense of old air, the windows closed tight for God knows how long.

On the low table in front of the couch, the worn recliner with his giant ass shape pushed into the cushion, are the car keys. Well, he can't have gone far then. Maybe he just ran out to the corner—booze and cigarettes, lunch meat, maybe. There's a tall glass of orange juice tipped over on the table, running over magazines, scraps of paper, receipts, plastic baggies, and a tray of weed. He's a slob, but that doesn't seem right. I look around. No sign of a fight. Nothing is broken. I wander back to his bedroom, and the bed is made. I open the closet, and hangers are scattered all over the floor. Most of the clothes are gone. I pull open the dresser drawers, and they're mostly empty as well. He ran. He decided to make a break for it. Good for you, Guy. I wasn't protecting you much, anyway.

I look around for anything that might be incriminating. There are no remnants of our time together, just an empty Jim Beam bottle sitting on the kitchen counter. I give it a quick wash in the sink, just in case, and drop it in the trash. I expected a sink full of dishes, cockroaches climbing over sticky syrup and crusty old eggs, but no, he's left the place in decent shape. Heading back to the living room, I run my eyes over the walls of books and it's a real shame these will just lie here, unread, collecting dust. Well, I hope he took a good one for the train, or bus, or whatever flight he is on.

Run, fat man, run.

I wonder why he didn't say goodbye, and realize I've turned into a sentimental fool. Snap out of it.

I head toward the television set to turn it off when I see Guy's face on the screen. It's framed in a white box in the upper-right-hand corner and the news lady has a stern look on her face.

Damnit.

I turn the volume up and sit down.

“…yesterday night, and authorities still have no identification for the man found in a bathroom stall at Union Station, a fatal gunshot wound the cause of his demise. It doesn't seem to be self-inflicted. A large quantity of marijuana was found near the body. The investigation is ongoing. If you have any information…”

I click it off.

It had to be Vlad. Guy never would have left with that kind of quantity, unless he was trying to get rid of it, a little extra cash for the ride to desolation. It looks like the company is continuing to downsize, and Guy won't be the last one to go.

Out his door, I pull it shut, leaving it unlocked. I may need to look in here again. Or hide. There are a number of reasons to keep this space handy, and ready. A tingling at the base of my skull says that I'm not immune to Vlad and while I may be his favorite student right now, at the end of the day that could certainly change.

Down the steps, there's a rattle of pills in my coat pocket. Just in case. That's the Boy Scout motto—“Be Prepared.” And in a different life I ascended to the rank of Eagle Scout, and that seems like a different boy, someone else's life, a kid with a future, not one with a head full of crazy and a gut full of bile.

I have a man to see up the street, it's been too long.