The War Against the Assholes (4 page)

6

M
y mother didn't wait for an answer. She slipped her head past the jamb to ask if I was sick. “I feel great,” I said. I don't like lying. She wanted to know if I wanted any pancakes. She made them for my father every Saturday morning. Blueberry pancakes, summer and winter. I said I was all right. Which hurt. “Well, you look,” said my mother, “like you're getting sick. But that's just this correspondent's opinion.” I promised I wasn't getting sick. “I should go deal with the pancakes,” she said. I tried to get back to sleep. Could not. Even the muscles controlling my eyes burned and sang. To say nothing of the healing wound on my hand. That had started hurting again, like a motherfucker. As Gilder might have put it. Every time I flexed my palm—and I couldn't stop flexing it—it stung and ached. I listened to my mother clattering around in the kitchen and my father singing. He was a morning singer. “There's no business like show business,” he sang. Or: “The sadder but wiser girl's the girl for me.”

That made me think of Alabama and the tattoo twisting down her neck, beneath the yellow edge of her shirt. I was too sore even to get a hard-on. So I lay in my bed, smelling the detergent on my sheets and hearing my parents' soft conversation. “Is he hungover,” my father said. “He says he feels fine,” my mother said. “I don't know, he looks a lot worse for the wear,” said my father, “and he smells like he's been drinking.” They weren't criticizing me, just observing. I drifted along for a while, an hour, two hours. Listening and wincing. When my house phone rang, I knew it was Hob. He'd been calling my cell. I'd been not answering. Listening to the apian buzz.
Apian
means “of or pertaining to bees.” I learned that from my parents' nature-TV habit. My father answered and I rasped that if it was for me, hold on, I was on my way. I rolled out of bed and grunted when I hit the floor, and had managed to raise myself to my knees when my father appeared in the doorway, holding his tennis racket in one hand and a phone in the other. “You're wanted on the telephone,” he said, and winked and walked away, singing that song about the sadder but wiser girl. “Good morning, sunshine,” Hob said.

Then he explained about meeting up. I listened. At times you have to keep your mouth shut. I heard my father leave. He was a tennis fiend. He said it kept him young. Maybe so. Nobody's parents stay young. After I got off the phone, I staggered to the brown-tiled dim half bath off the front hall. I turned on the fluorescents. They hummed, flickered, blazed. My skin looked transparent and green. I could see veins at my temples. I swabbed sweat from my eyebrows. I vomited in the sink. My mother, through the door, asked me if I needed help. I puked up another jet of yellowish bile and told her I was fine. My voice croaking, from the acid. “You don't sound fine,” said my mother. “Did you go out drinking last night? Where were you out so late?” I told her I'd been doing wind sprints with Greg Gilder—his name slipped out—and had lost track of the time. “I thought exercise was supposed to be good for you,” said my mother. Hovering outside the door. I could just see her: palm spread on the wood, ear cocked near the jamb. “All right, I'm off,” she said. I told her good-bye. I waited until the front door creaked shut before spewing a third stream of bile into the white sink. I grinned at myself in the mirror and said, “This isn't so bad, Mikey.”

Nobody had ever called me Mikey. Not my parents and not my friends, not any girls. The statue of Simón Bolívar just outside the park: that's where Hob wanted to meet. Why Hob chose it, I don't know. I slipped the green book into my pocket as I left. Seemed like the natural thing to do. He was already waiting when I got there, smoking. I walked up, slow. Again, I had no real idea of what to say. We kind of stood there, watching each other. Hob was smiling a smile that made me want to punch him in the teeth. The wound across my knuckles still stung. He asked me how I felt. “Like I'm the one who got my ass kicked,” I said. “And what about your vision,” he said. “What are you, an ophthalmologist,” I said. “Just tell me right now if you've had any blurry vision or numbness,” he said. He sounded old. “Like I caught a beating. That's all,” I told him. “I'd rate your health situation normal,” he said. A rickshaw rolled by, the driver needlessly and joyfully dinging the handlebar bell. Two fuchsia-clad fatasses in the back snapping pictures of me and Hob and Simón Bolívar. A raven landed on the statue's iron hair, and Hob watched it hop as he spoke to me. “Normal,” I said. The raven took off with a raucous caw. “I hate those birds,” said Hob. “Hating birds is pointless,” I said. He exhaled a cloud of sweet blue smoke. “What's in those anyway,” I asked. “All kinds of stuff,” he said, “my brother makes the blend.”

I took one. I was not much of a smoker. My second in twenty-four hours. No better reason to smoke than the fact that you don't smoke. It hurt to take a drag. The smoke wasn't harsh or hot the way it was from the few other cigarettes I'd smoked, and as soon as it eased into my lungs my bodily pain started to dissipate. “Not bad, right,” said Hob. “I didn't say anything,” I said. “I know you don't necessarily understand what happened last night,” he said. This was true. I did not understand what had happened and I did not understand why it left me feeling as though my bones had shattered. As though I'd lost a lot of blood. “Then why don't you give me the executive summary,” I said. Bike hawkers sidled up to pedestrians, holding their rate cards and mumbling, and the stink of roasting chestnuts blew into my nose. “Well,” said Hob. “It was a test, right,” I said. “It was the salto,” said Hob. “Why the salto,” I said, “why don't you call it facing certain death or something more accurate?” I drew in another lungful of that sweet smoke. My pain ebbed more. My blood stopped buzzing in my ear canals. “I don't know. It's just what it's called.” “And I passed,” I said. “You're standing here, aren't you,” said Hob. “When does my certificate arrive,” I asked. Hob held up his two closed fists. “Pick one,” he said. I chose left. He opened up. A key lay there, silver and unscratched, its wards undented.

I knew what it was for. Or guessed. I took it. The raven came back. “Put it in your pocket,” said Hob. “What is this thing you have with birds, man,” I said. “They like shiny objects,” said Hob. “So do a lot of humans,” I said. “I'll explain it, soon,” he said. I pocketed the key. “And you do,” he said, “really feel all right? No blurry vision? No aphasia?” I told him no blurry vision. I told him I didn't know what
aphasia
meant. “It's like if you can't remember the word for ‘door' or ‘coffee cup,' ” said Hob. “I puked. That's it,” I said. “Pretty much par for the course,” he said. The rickshaw fatasses: rolling by again, still snapping away. “Hob, man, seriously,” I said. “Look, don't think about it too much. Okay? Don't dwell on it,” he said. The rickshaw driver stopped. The fatasses got out. He started to berate them about the price. They objected at first. He'd said fifteen dollars. Et cetera. In the end they complied. Hob and I didn't speak as we watched the argument. After the male fatass paid the rickshaw driver, taking a grass-green plastic wallet out of his sea-blue backpack, after he and his fat wife or fat girlfriend had waddled off, I figured it was time. To ask Hob, I mean, the question that had really been on my mind since I'd woken up: “How old is Alabama?”

He grinned and didn't answer. “No, seriously, is she in high school or what, I couldn't tell is why I'm asking.” “Yeah, you and every other loser,” said Hob, “but you're in luck. Her phone number's on a piece of paper in your copy of the
Calendar
. Along with Vincent's. Use, don't abuse. Memorize and destroy.” He was already leaving. He just tipped me a salute and left me there holding the green book. Which seemed too heavy for what it was. Then again, what did I know about the relative weight of books? I opened it: as promised, a slip of paper held Alabama's phone number and Vincent's. Hob had never touched the book, that I'd seen. The raven came back and watched me smoke from the top of Bolívar's head. Or maybe it was a different bird. Couldn't tell the difference then. “Check it out,” I said, and held up the book and the key. “Look at this, bird.” The raven cocked its head and looked and looked. Book to key. Key to book. It stared at my face. Those black, reflective eyes.

As for wonder, the sense of wonder or what we commonly call that: it's almost if you think about it a way of stopping you from ever working any miracles yourself. Truth is, miracle-working's no big deal. For example, we put boot prints on the moon. No other animal can say that. And when I launched myself into the air above that resonant shaft, it was also no big deal. I didn't think about it. I just didn't have a choice. Hob and his gang, or whatever they were, stood in a rough semicircle behind me. Charthouse staring at me, arms crossed. His windbreaker sleeves pushed high up on his bulky forearms, the skin covered in black writing. Right down to his wrists. Hob shouted, again, that everything was going to be fine. “I have no faith in that prediction,” I said, “not to be a dick.” Alabama adjusted her stance again. I realized she was going to shoot me.
I jump, wait a while, then land.
A Russian expert said that. A dancer. I think. Jump. Wait a while. Land. Sounds simple. Within anyone's reach. Anyone who can stomach the risk. All you need is the correct impetus. A beautiful woman (or girl) whose age you can't tell, for example, pointing a gun at you. I jumped. I tried to aim for the concrete sacks at the bottom of the shaft. I thought they'd be better to fall on. I started to pray my tenth or eleventh Ave Maria. Waiting for the ground to rush up to meet me.

It failed to do so. I was turning slowly in the blowing, frigid wind. The black soles of my sneakers about level with the plank I'd launched myself from. I didn't feel wonder. I didn't feel anything. No: I sort of felt like an idiot. Or the fraction of my self or soul doing my thinking at that precarious moment suffered the pangs of being an exposed, flailing fool. Mostly nothing. That's what it's like.

“Not bad,” said Charthouse. Alabama lowered her huge gun. Vincent said, “Too close for comfort.” Hob was applauding. “Sterling,” he yelled out, “totally sterling.” “Question is, can you get back,” said Charthouse. Another gust moved me. I tried to walk. That wasn't happening. So I flapped my arms. Trying to swim. It half-worked. I tumbled and floated out over the middle of the shaft, my pulse vibrating. Another two, three minutes of backbreaking effort and I managed to scrape my fingers on the edge of the wooden platform. I dragged myself forward. The last three feet: not so graceful. I hit the plywood with a bang you could hear echoing and echoing. My clothes heavy with sweat. My captors were now approaching. Alabama still had her gun lowered, so I assumed I was safe. “What the fuck,” I said, “what the fuck. What the fuck.” She'd already reached me and was helping me up. Yanking me, I should say. “That's just how it works,” she said. “How what works,” I said. Could not catch my breath. Charthouse limped up. “Hob knows how to pick them. That is the trick to getting by,” he said, and jabbed me lightly with his cane. I stumbled. He grabbed one arm and Alabama grabbed the other. My jaw quivered, my teeth knocked against one another, my knees bowed. One of my arms lay across Charthouse's wide shoulders and one across Alabama's narrow shoulders. Her scapular bones dug into my skin. What she looked like naked: still on my mind. Blame my age. She pressed two fingers to the hollow of my throat. “His pulse is high,” she said. “I'm cold,” I gasped. “You are so eloquent it's amazing,” said Alabama. “You watch too much TV, anyway,” said Charthouse, “he's fine. Look at those shoulders. Like a young ox.”

7

I
like winter. I like the cold. I like the monochrome sky. I like the festive secrecy that attends the season. Holiday parties, for example. I like nothing better. Supervised or anarchic. “I didn't end up winning. I think of it as a learning experience.” So said Mary Agnes Ravapinto. Everyone called her Maggie. A contraction. “A learning experience,” I said. “That actually sounded pretty lame,” said Maggie, “I just meant that losing isn't this catastrophe everybody's always making it out to be.” She was talking about her failure in a third-grade spelling bee. Wearing a yellow dress and a white kerchief in her hair. We were standing in the kitchen of Simon Canary's parents' apartment. I was doing that thing where you lean against a wall on one arm while you're talking to a girl. I'd seen it in a movie. I was glad Maggie was talking about spelling bees. Helped distract me. She'd taken off her green blouse and black bra the first time I hooked up with her. Olive skin. Dark, small, slightly cockeyed nipples. Areolae crumpled with the cold. In a spare bedroom in this apartment. I couldn't stop thinking about it as I listened to her.

“So what's new in the world of Michael Wood,” she said. That stumped me.
I learned to fly. I met a group of weirdos who hang out in a secret basement and tried to kill me. Hob Callahan is one of them, actually, so he's got that going for him
: kind of a conversation stopper. Yet I didn't want to lie. So I said, “I had to go pay tribute to Coach Madigan's mother last week. She made cookies.” “Oh, cookies,” said Maggie. “Last time it was brownies, right? I hear they're not fit for human consumption.” “She's just an old lady,” I said, “she actually has snow-white hair.” Maggie went to Holy Agony. Which is a sister school to Saint Cyprian's. So she knew about Coach Madigan and his helpless mother. When I was little, a boy, I thought “sister school” meant where your sisters went, since so many of my classmates had sisters at Holy Agony. This I also told Maggie. “Man, little kids are so literal,” she said, “it's crazy that you grow up and figure out metaphors.” She had a red cup. I had a blue one. We clashed them together and drank. She had wine. It stained her tongue and lips. I was drinking tequila and pretending to enjoy it. That's what Simon had managed to obtain. He was not a genius host. His parents both traveled a lot for their jobs—they were architects, he explained once, “but not for people”—and he lived in this massive apartment on Fifth and Ninety-Seventh. Top floor. Walls of windows. He had parties before major school vacations. He was not an indiscriminate weekend rager. Before Christmas, Easter, and the advent of summer we all at Saint Cyprian's relied on him. You could see the great darkness of the park from his living room. Streetlamps. Bundled-up joggers beside the wall. Cop cars flashing their red-and-blue lights on the transverse.

“Hey, you think there's a deck of cards,” I said. This part I could tell her. “People,” she said, “usually have one in their junk drawer.” Turned out to be true in the case of the Canaries, fancy architects though they were. We found loose batteries, twine, twenty or thirty blank keys, an orange rubber fingertip puppet of a grinning monster, and a deck of cards. “Okay, watch this,” I said. I shot the cards from my left hand to my right. Then back again. I fanned them open and closed. Theatrics, Erzmund called this. I riffle-shuffled them seven times. I'd had to practice this less than I'd guessed I would have to. Even making the cards arc hand to hand I mastered with relative ease. I showed her
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
. With all the patter Erzmund advises. “In this way,” I said, “I
demonstrate the unconquerable desire of the low to rise.” “Spooky,” said Maggie. Then I showed her
CALLING MR. ASQUITH
. A more serious sleight than
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
. You need a handkerchief. Maggie took my request in stride and unbound her hair. “You sound like a guy at a carnival,” she said.
CALLING MR. ASQUITH
involves extensive narration. You have to tell, says Erzmund, a brief story about England on the eve of the First World War. You then ask an audience member to pick a card. Maggie chose. She was about to speak, say its name. Before she could, I instructed her to slip it back into the deck. After that, you shift it to the top (there's a two-handed move for that) and palm it, wrap the deck up in the kerchief while going on with your story—“It was a time of great need for England,” I said, “the right man for the top job was nowhere to be found”—and leave an extra fold to hold the palmed card. It's much harder than it sounds. If it fails, it looks atrocious. It worked, now: I said, “Calling Mr. Asquith,” and gave the kerchief a series of light shakes. When you do it right, the card the audience member picked seems to force its way up from the deck through the cloth of the handkerchief. I did it right. Sweat lined my brow but I did it right.

“Do you,” said Maggie, “like mind if I have that back.” I didn't know what she meant at first. “I just don't want to get any blood on it,” she said. Warmth on my upper lip. “Cool trick, though,” she said. Walked out of the kitchen, binding the cloth once more around her shining, tawny hair. Not what I'd expected. I grabbed a paper towel and cleaned my lip. I slipped the deck into my jacket pocket. The Canaries did not need it. I finished my tequila. Poured another. Drink and be merry, as the saying goes.

The party in full swing. “Wood,” called Simon Canary as I crossed his living room. “Great job on this one, man,” I said. A girl I didn't know, tubby and blond, was dancing by herself in a corner. “Yo, check out Miss Piggy,” said Simon. He wasn't wrong. The girl was wearing pink: sweater and skirt. It wasn't even late enough to be dancing. “Did you hear about Gilder,” said Simon, “apparently he fended off these four guys. They tried to mug him. He kicked their asses.” I could tell from the way Simon said
guys
that Gilder had made the assailants black in his fake story. “Well, there you go,” I said. Simon pushed his long hair back behind his ears. He reeked, already, of weed. “You wanna smoke,” he said. He said this ten minutes into any conversation outside school. “I'm good,” I said. Over his shoulder, through the glass doors to his enormous terrace, I saw Maggie's white kerchief shining. “Rock on,” said Simon. I told him I would.

Outside, bitter gusts. They moved the corners of Maggie's kerchief. She'd put on her coat: bright blue. She was smoking. A regular cigar­ette. I had a bundle of Hob's brand. I wasn't sure about smoking them in front of strangers. She heard me approach. I was not at that time a master of stealth. “Listen,” she said, before I had said anything. She had her hands raised. As though in self-defense. “Okay,” I said. “It's generally my experience,” she said, “that coked-up football players call you a slut behind your back.” “It's not from coke,” I said. “Come on,” she said, “you still have a blood mustache and you're going to stand there and lie to my face?” “It really isn't, I don't even smoke weed,” I said. Technically true. Vincent never mentioned anything about weed in the cigarettes he made. “Pipe tobacco, eyebright, rose petal. Other things. I learned it from my mother,” he'd told me. Maggie stopped talking. I waited to see if she would buy this. With the truth, you never know how it's going to be received.

“Well,” said Maggie, “you're still a huge nerd for trying that magic trick.” The truth wins out. Though not often. “I never pretended to be anything other than a nerd,” I said, “even though I play football. So it's more like spiritual nerddom.” “You're just digging your grave deeper,” said Maggie. She was starting to grin. She'd opened up her stance. Both good signs. “Card tricks. What am I, seven? You pedophile,” she said. I laughed. She was nakedly grinning. “At least I have a hobby,” I said. “That's disgusting,” she said, and now she was laughing too. “Seriously though, how does it work,” she said. “Everybody asks me that,” I said. Nobody had ever asked me that. She was the third person I'd ever shown a sleight to. “I see I'm just an entry on your list,” she said. “More like I'm on your list,” I said. I had moved close enough to her to feel the warmth of her exposed neck. Flushed. From drinking. I think I was too. If two people have big, beaky noses, which both Maggie and I did, it makes it awkward to figure out how to start kissing. Her lips and tongue tasted like wine and ash. I worried that mine tasted like blood. She didn't say anything.

My phone vibrated. I didn't answer. “Maybe we should go inside,” I said. She nodded. She'd gotten quiet the last time, too. I didn't mind. I like silence. She led me through the Canaries' apartment. Simon was standing with Frank Santone and Peter Neal, and this kid from Nigeria called Wilton Opuwei. They were all taking hits from Simon's famous bong, which was made of rose-pink glass. He called it the Optimist's Bong. Coughing and howling with laughter. “Oh my god that is quite fine,” said Wilton. Maggie tightened her grip on my fingers. Down a hall. Dark and quiet. We leaned against the wall, our faces pressed into each other's neck. I was drunk off the shitty tequila. Drink of innocence. Not in a bad way. Just the first celestial tinges of intoxication. “Hey,” she said, “we're wasting time here.” At the end of the hall a dim, square room with one window, in which the moon shone. An eye, clear and stern. It was cold. Our breath even fogged. “Why is it so cold,” she said. “Man, rich people hate paying their bills,” I said, “I guess.” “Everyone forgets to pay what they owe,” she said, “it's convenient like that.”

Her coat zipper stuck. I had to force it. “This cost me three months of saving up,” she said. “I won't tear it,” I said, “my zippers get stuck all the time. I'm an expert.” I was. The door even had a lock button. A daybed stood against the wall with the window, its gray cushion and bolster whitened by moonlight. “Take it off,” she said. I did. My jacket. My shirt. She was unbuttoning her dress and thumbing down her tights. The moonlight whitened her skin. I covered my smile. “Don't stare,” she said. My phone vibrated. I didn't answer. “A man with an active social life, I see,” she said, and sat on the daybed. Arms spread along its bolster. “You look like you're about to interview me for a job,” I said. “Maybe I am,” she said. She wore nothing now except grass-green underwear. I knelt at her feet to slide them off. I brushed my lips against her knee. She parted her thighs and pressed on the crown of my head. Four warm fingertips. “You owe me,” she said. “That's true,” I said. Her handkerchief a white, white flag. I had never gone down on a girl before. I did not want her to know. “You've never gone down on anyone before, have you,” she said. “Nope,” I said. “Well, it's not a mystery,” she said. That's when the pounding began. On the door. Maggie grabbed a tasseled taupe blanket and wrapped her torso. Her shins and shoulders bare, her hair brushing her clavicles. More moonlight. I couldn't stop looking. “See who it is,” she said. The knob shook. I dragged my shirt on. I said, “No one home.”

“More wit,” said the pounder. It was Alabama. I could tell by the dark-toned voice. “Can we reschedule this,” I said. “Nuh-uh,” said Alabama, “we need to talk.” “Would it be at all possible,” I said, “I mean, can you just come back later.” “An acquaintance,” said Maggie. “Who's in there with you,” grated Alabama, “how could you do this to me.” Maggie had already redonned her dress. “Wait wait wait,” I said. “Fuck you, wait wait wait,” she said. “Is it that blond hussy,” Alabama said, “or the tennis player with the shapely thighs?” “Get out of my way,” said Maggie. I had to let go of the cold knob to let her pass. Alabama barged in. The door edge caught Maggie's supraorbital ridge. “You shameless harlot,” said Alabama. “You really are disgusting,” said Maggie. Covering one eye. I'd expected a more visible show of pain. Even winced in sympathy. Although that science says you can't help. Her stoicism impressed me. “He totally is,” said Alabama, “he's a pervert of the first order.” “I had a really excellent time,” I told Maggie. I meant it. Way too late. Long gone. She turned at the hall's end. Into the light and noise of the main party. Binding up her hair. Certain gestures you'll always recall. “How did you get in here,” I said. “How do you think,” she said, “she's hot, by the way. I would never have guessed.”