Killing Time in Crystal City Read online

  I do wish I could see his expression as he approaches the water to sling his first stone.

  “This time you were definitely speaking code, right?” I say.

  “Yes, sir, I was,” he says, and I hear his first throw plunk into the water without a single skip.

  This seems like a good point to throw rocks and not talk.

  • • •

  There is probably a point beyond which rain doesn’t matter, has no more effect on the human body, but for whatever reasons, Mickey, Howard, Tailbone, and myself are still on the beach way past when any sense, common or otherwise, would tell you to go home.

  Of course, I know, go home is not an option for any of them.

  But go somewhere certainly is.

  The four of us are sitting under the lifeboat, which is once again upturned. Up and down our little line a joint is passing, along with a cigarette and the remains of one bottle of red wine and one bottle of rosé. We are all pointed in the direction of the ocean, though with the darkness and lateness and weather heaviness and eye blurriness we could just as well be facing into the back of a garage except for the fact it is the ocean, and for the fact that we know.

  “You know where you’re going to go, tonight, to sleep?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah,” they all say in their own distinctive ways of saying the same thing no matter how many times they say it. Nobody, however, adds any detail to that answer.

  They don’t even ask me. By now I reek of it, what Stacey said about me and my being all taken care of, kind of privileged, and I loathe it.

  “Do you not ever worry,” I ask, “about being out, and exposed, and vulnerable to whatever might come along?”

  “No,” Howard says as he and I trade red wine and a cigarette. “’Cause I have them.”

  “Exactly,” Tailbone adds. “I mean, two bigger assholes you’ll never wanna meet. But . . . I can’t imagine these days sleeping without ’em. Probably couldn’t even get to sleep, I imagine. That’s the truth.”

  “Family,” Mickey says matter-of-factly.

  Am I the first person ever to be envious and longing to be accepted by a gang of homeless bums?

  “Is it okay for me to ask how you guys wound up . . . well, here, in this situation, in the first place?”

  “Women!” all three roar, in tune, in time, and as if they have been waiting for this question forever.

  I know, as I laugh, that this is a far more serious thing than it sounds. And I know, that if I probe even just a little further, that there will be no shortage of horror stories, delivered with gusto, and venom, and bile, and possibly even dollops of truth, and that none of it will be truly funny even though the soliloquy will certainly be. I know, and I laugh even harder.

  I know, men blaming women and believing it. I know, and I laugh, because it sounds funny and if it’s not funny, then what else is there? If it’s not funny, then what is it?

  The fat rain now bouncing loud off the rubber protective inflatable roof above us sounds funny, and soothing.

  “So, fair trade,” Mickey says. “Now, tell us how you got that cast.”

  Fair. Fair trade. Well, yes. These guys, yes, why not?

  “He broke his arm trying to wipe his own ass, because he never had to do it before,” comes the voice from above, from above the blobby bouncing raindrops.

  “Stacey?” I say, leaping up reflexively because even if I didn’t recognize the voice, the words would have spoken for themselves.

  I have flipped the raft straight up into the air and into the breeze. It sails back and away from us, revealing a soaked and serious and steely Stacey.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “I knew you’d sink when I sent you away,” she says, “but I didn’t think you’d sink to this level.”

  “I haven’t,” I say, accomplishing what, exactly, I have no idea.

  “Would you like to join us, fair lady?” Mickey asks as Howard scampers to re-collect our shelter. Tailbone just stares up at her as if she’s one of those cement St. Mary statues that suddenly started weeping real tears. His open mouth should be collecting a load of fresh rainwater.

  “Thank you, but no,” Stacey says in that ultracool Staceyness that is more impressive and intimidating than anything else I have seen in my travels.

  I, naturally, am up on my feet and up close to Stacey, thrilled at the very presence of her.

  “You’re here,” I say.

  “You’re perceptive,” she says.

  “I’m sorry, Stacey, for coming by . . . your place of work, and your home and everything and being, like, a bother and all. I feel really stupid and sorry and, like, yeah . . . .”

  “I didn’t make it back for curfew tonight,” she says, the rain running down over her face.

  “Oh,” I say. “Oh. Where were you?”

  Tired, wet, and inconvenienced Stacey is not a person one should ask something like that.

  “I’m here, right now, talking to you, under these conditions. Do you really need to start questioning stuff like that, Kiki Vandeweghe?”

  Before I can offer my obvious and simple answer, Mickey takes the wheel.

  “No. Nope. No way. Not at all,” he says.

  “You want to stay here with us?” I ask hopefully. “It’s not much, but at least it’s—”

  “Are we a tribe, Kiki?” she asks firmly.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, absolutely.”

  “Are we a something, a whatever, a God-knows-what-you-were-thinking, but here we are?”

  “Um, yes,” I say. “Yes, absolutely.”

  “You do not belong here, sleeping in the rain, do you?” she says.

  “No,” I say, because I will say what Stacey says.

  “So, do I, then? Belong here, sleeping in the rain?”

  I shake my head emphatically, no.

  She stands there with her arms dropped at her sides and the rain pelting the whole of her.

  “Would you like to see my father’s book of poetry?” I say, finally.

  “Well,” she says, “that sounds wonderful. But I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “You know,” I say, taking her hand, which feels quite specifically drenched to the bone, “you are all the girls.”

  “You’re lucky,” she says, allowing me to tow her along, “that the weather is in your favor and I have limited options.”

  “I will agree with you,” I say, “that those things have left me lucky. I feel lucky.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t go feeling all that lucky. I’m not one of those girls who feel obligated . . .”

  “No obligation expected,” I say. “No matter what, I already feel as lucky as I need to, and as lucky as I ever have.”

  All the hoots and barks and shouts of “Way to go, Kiki,” and “You the man, Kiki,” as Stacey and I leave the beach are probably not helping my case as a gentleman.

  • • •

  All the most maniacal horror movies have the twin peaks of sex and murder that make them viscerally right and wrong enough to blow your senses to smithereens.

  This is exactly where my mind is at as I pull the moose-head key chain out of my pocket. Stacey is not only with me, but it was her idea. On the other hand, if I open this door and Syd is on the other side, I’m fairly certain I won’t have such a great story to tell. I look behind me, as I’ve done a hundred times already, because I cannot shake the feeling we are being stalked. So now I’m the meat of a paranoia sandwich, with threats in front of and behind me. It’s possible that smoking dope and drinking wine do not agree with me entirely.

  I am hoping my lady friend cannot see my chest heaving in and out with desperation as I turn the key and burst through like I’m expecting to confront a home invasion.

  Which is ironic, since we are the home invasion.

  “Are you al
l right?” Stacey asks, putting a hand on my thumping chest, which only stokes the thumping further.

  “Sure I am. Of course I am.”

  And when we step into the house and nobody cracks a chair over my head, I am a little more all right. I feel more nervous when I flip on the lights. It is so bright in this place. Nobody is up in these hours and if they are up, they are up to no good. I feel like the bright lights call too much attention to this bright shiny home and I am already looking forward to shutting down again.

  “I suppose you’ll want the tour,” I say.

  “I want whatever Molly got,” she says slyly.

  So we do the condensed version of the walk-through: living room and kitchen.

  “You want food?” I ask her as we pass the fridge.

  “Too tired to eat,” she says. “I’ll take you up on it when we get back up, though.”

  “Good answer,” I say, and am just about to switch the light off when Stacey spies the book on top of the washer-dryer.

  “Ah, here it is. Kiki’s big book of seduction.”

  “Oh God, please don’t call it that. Of all the things it is not, that’s probably number one.”

  “Okay. I am taking it to bed, though. Which, when you think about it, means it is exactly that.”

  It didn’t really matter what she said after the taking-to-bed part.

  “Right this way,” I say.

  I lead her to my room, but on the way past I just have to gently try Syd’s doorknob. Thankfully, still locked. I imagine what it would have been like if he was already in there and just emerged at some point. The thought makes me briefly lose all the feeling in my hands and feet.

  “Charming,” Stacey says as we enter my modest bedroom.

  “It’s home,” I say.

  “Mind if I use your bathroom?”

  “Sure,” I say, “right over there.”

  She is gone for less than five minutes, but it’s an anguished time for me anyway. I can’t decide what I should be doing. Clothes on? Clothes off? Underwear? Shorts with no shirt? Bathing suit? What’s the etiquette on this kind of thing? I am well lost and panicking at the notion of failing the big exam on the first question.

  “This is a glorious robe,” she says, standing just inside the room and all inside Syd’s very popular bathrobe. The book is still in her hand.

  “So, you really are determined to get the full Molly,” I say.

  “Yup. I hope you don’t mind, I hung my wet things up on the curtain rod.”

  “Mind?” I say. “Oh, no.”

  “You going to sleep like that?” she asks, pointing at my own none-too-fresh outfit.

  “No,” I say, but I don’t do anything about it except stare at her, lovely, gleaming in that robe. Jesus, what if it’s the robe? If I just fall for everybody who puts that robe on, then I think we’ve figured out what my freakery is.

  “We didn’t do anything,” I blurt.

  “’Scuse?”

  “Molly and I. When she was here, she just slept, and showered. Wore the bathrobe for a while.”

  She is beaming at me and I have no clue what it means though I’m aching to find out.

  “I was wondering about that,” she says. “I was thinking you might have a little problem that way.”

  That’s what it meant?

  “Huh? No. No, no, no. I could have done it. I don’t have any problems. Well, okay, not that I don’t have any . . . but no, not that one. I was kind of dying . . . to do it. I was way, way into it.”

  “So . . .”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was acting the way a decent man should act. And I guess I believed that if I showed Molly that there were decent guys out there and not everybody was just here to use her, then . . . then . . . I don’t know what.”

  “You thought you could, what, repair her? With your goodness?”

  I never for a second thought of it in those terms. Until now.

  The best I can manage is a shrug.

  Stacey manages far, far better.

  She unties the sash on the robe, disrobes, revealing herself in just her underwear and one book of poems for modesty. I have some testicular turmoil going on but at the same time there is also a form of relief, now that she has set the etiquette. I drop my clothes to the floor as quickly and awkwardly as possible, the cast on my arm suddenly deciding to fight me for the shirt. In the end, Stacey comes over and rescues me.

  “You’re an idiot,” she says, calmly coaxing the shirt away and dropping it to the floor. “But you are a freakishly noble idiot.”

  She leads me over to my bed and we lie down, on our sides, pressed close together in the small space of it. I am behind her, with my casted arm draped over her. She nestles in.

  “And then you did her laundry, while she slept. Remarkable.”

  “Not too remarkable. I like doing laundry.”

  “And you don’t often get a chance to do ladies’ undies, I imagine.”

  “True. But it honestly made it harder, the whole noble good-guy thing. A lot harder, actually.”

  Slowly, her head turns in my direction. “Seriously?”

  I don’t think I’ve given away anything there. Seriously. And now I’m squirming, physically and otherwise as she traps me in my corner.

  “Um, seriously?” I stammer. “Seriously, what?”

  “You did, didn’t you.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Yes,” she says. “You had yourself a little Molly-whack to tame the beast within.”

  This is about as caught as caught gets, and I don’t even have the mental muscle to speak.

  “You are a good guy. Molly’s knight in gooey armor.”

  I close my eyes tight, wishing it all to dissolve. I hear her snap the lamp off.

  I feel her shift, turn to me, and start kissing me. And kissing me. And she is not stopping, not rolling away or anything. I am quaking with rushes of every kind.

  “Can I turn the light back on?” I say.

  “Must you?” she says.

  “Yeah. Because I’m afraid if I don’t see it, I won’t believe it.”

  • • •

  When I wake up, she’s at it.

  The book.

  “I assume you have read all of these,” she says with a thick voice and a sniff.

  “No,” I say, burying my face in the back of her head. I don’t care about the book. I care about the back of her head. And her back. I love Stacey’s back and think I might just cling to it with all I’ve got until the fire department has to come and remove me.

  “A lot of them, anyway, right? These are some of the most—”

  “Some,” I say. “Though for most it’s been quite a while. Growing up . . . they were a big part of everything, when I was growing up.”

  I’m expecting her to roll over and take me face-on on that one. To inquire forensically about the poems and their history. She doesn’t, though. She flips a page. A few minutes later she flips another page. Many minutes later, another.

  I hang on to her, listen to her deep breathing along with the turning of the pages. This will be my reading of the book with my face pressed to Stacey’s skin, and from here it is indeed a wonderful work of art.

  “I would think,” she says, closing the book with a pop, “that I would read a collection like this if most of the poems were about me.”

  Ah, cripes.

  “They’re not about me,” I say while trying to hold on to her for whatever is left of now. This painfully fine and dwindling now.

  “How do you know, if you won’t even read them?”

  “It’s the kind of thing a guy knows.”

  “Not sure I get what you mean by that,” she says.

  “Not sure I do, either,” I say.

  We go quiet again and
I lie there breathing Stacey skin, absorbing Stacey molecules, seeing Stacey scenes playing on Stacey screens in my head. This is what I knew was waiting out here before I could ever know what it was. This is what I came for and if all the difficulty had to happen for this to happen then it has all been superb difficulty, and thanks for it.

  She is reading the poems, and her lungs are shushing rhythmic responses that thrill me probably too much for anybody’s comfort.

  “Why are you here?” she asks.

  Caught way, way off my guard, I come up with, “Do you always talk to books when you’re reading them? That’s intense. My lips move, but that’s not even close to the same—”

  “Ki-ki . . . ,” she says, almost patiently, almost not, completely husky-hot.

  I take her all the way seriously now, which means an extended pause, which I have no doubt she understands intuitively. I do my best to assign and assemble the constituent parts of the answer.

  “Certain events put me on the road ultimately, that’s undeniable. But I’m convinced that that was just about timing and I would have made the same trip eventually. Probably soon-eventually. The big answer would be that I had exhausted all the other options, belonging-wise. I never fit myself in anywhere, not really, and I suspected that further afield somewhere I would find a someplace, a somebody, a collective of somebodies—”

  “A tribe.”

  “A tribe, who would have me and I’d want to be had.” I squeeze her around the ribs and she laughs at that.

  “And you think that is this, that is us? Crystal City and the Hairy Homeless? Hey, sounds like a band.”

  “You’re not saying that thing about you having a beard again, right? Because you still do not have a beard.”

  “Well, no, I just meant a general kind of scruffiness but, thanks. Thanks for the reminder. By the way you still don’t have one either.”

  “Ouch. Okay, sorry. And yeah, somewhere in the depths of my mind I think I felt like . . . I don’t know. Like people in your situation were the ultimate outsiders of outsiders of outsiders. Outside of all the other insides, and so a kind of special class all your own. I think I gravitated to that.”

  The silence that settles over us now feels of a different type from the warming, comfortable ones earlier. I don’t like it, and want to chase it away, but think I’d better wait for something instead.