All This Life (19 page)

The next saloon he spies is a Latino bar, mariachi music blazing in a near-empty room. There are three guys bellied up, the faces obscured to him from the doorway, thirsty silhouettes resting elbows on the bar. Barren of any furniture. A concrete floor. No tables. This seems like a place to become a shadow, shrouded in blackness,
but it's the music that keeps him from going inside. Mariachi features horns. Trumpets. Tubas. Which brings Noah911's mind to the brass band and there's no way he can sit in a room with horns hollering at him.

He continues his hunt for a just-right bar. Noah911 approaches and rejects five more, before finding the perfect place to slide inside.

It's the bar's color scheme, or lack thereof, that entices him. The place is painted entirely black—floor, walls, and ceiling. Noah911 is reminded of his suitcase, and knows this is what it would be like to climb inside the thing, zip it up, bathe himself in the darkness and quiet, keeping all the guilt away.

He walks to the center of the room and his eyes are brought up to the ceiling. He's wrong: It's not totally black. There are pieces of broken mirror glued up there, shining like stars in the sky, and it seems so beautiful that he chokes up.

Flies swarm back by the liquor bottles. There's a TV in the corner, playing the news. Ten guys, no women in the place. An old Jane's Addiction song hits everyone in the face.

Noah911 climbs onto a stool and the old man approaches, wearing a T-shirt that says S
PANK ME, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY
.

“Happy birthday,” Noah911 says.

“Lay off, will ya?” he says. “Lost a bet with my niece and have to wear this stupid shirt all week.”

“What was the bet?”

“Aren't you a curious asshole?”

If there was any debate as to whether or not Noah911 had picked the right spot, this seals the deal. He's home. This is the perfect pub for what he has to do. “I didn't mean any offense,” he says.

“No, it's not your fault. My fuse is spent. People busting my balls about this shirt the whole time. What will you drink?”

“Ketel One on the rocks.”

The bartender limps off to find the right bottle, and Noah911 peeks up and down the other stools. There are a couple men like him,
drinking alone, cuddling dejection with every sip. At the far end, though, way over by the TV and its news program, is a group of four guys. They have the look he needs and are pretty brawny, too.

The Ketel One is placed in front of him and Noah911 says, “Hold on, please,” and the bartender stands there for five seconds and watches Noah911 gulp down the whole drink and order another.

“I'm liking you more and more,” says the bartender.

“Be careful or I'll spank you.”

He shakes his head at Noah911 and goes to get another vodka, coming back with the bottle and filling up his glass, then pouring himself one as well. No ice in his glass, only warm vodka.

“That's hardcore,” Noah911 says, motioning to the tepid vodka.

“I don't drink for the taste,” he says. As a toast, the bartender holds up his warm vodka and says, “To being one day closer to death.”

Noah911 doesn't say anything and they shoot the vodka.

The bartender gets summoned by the four men, who are wondering whose dick they gotta suck to get the baseball game turned on.

Noah911 can feel heat and testosterone pulse from them. It's written on their faces and wafts off of them, a violent pheromone, and Noah911 loves inhaling it.

“This ain't a sports bar,” the bartender says.

“Just turn the channel, old-timer,” one says.

“Just go fuck yourself,” the bartender says.

Another starts clapping and howling. “Oh, snap, Willie. He sure got you!”

“Hey,” Willie says, adjusting his backward baseball cap, “I like your bite, old man.”

“You ain't seen my bite,” the bartender says. “We're too busy barking.”

This makes them lose it, cracking up, pounding fists on the bar, shaking their drinks, a few suds jumping out of pint glasses and slowly spilling down the outside.

Noah911 loses his capacity to follow the conversation, eyes glued to the TV. They're saying something about the brass band but he can't hear. They show a few stills from TheGreatJake's video; Noah911 has memorized every frame. Finally, the screen zooms in on one man's face, the last person to jump, the guy playing the bass drum. His mug is grainy, pixilated from being blown up this big on the screen, but Noah911 tries to soak up every detail. He's young, definitely in his thirties. Short brown hair. Sort of handsome. Not an imposing face, clean-shaven, not the crazy you can see in the eyes of, say, Ted Bundy or Jim Jones. Noah911 would sit next to this guy on the subway and not worry one bit.

He has to know what the newscasters are saying. Earlier, he'd been kept out of the mariachi bar, simply from the threat of being triggered to think of Tracey jumping by the horns. This, though, feels like something different—this feels like he might be able to learn. Why are they zeroing in on this man? Is he the leader? Is it his fault, too?

He asks the bartender to turn the music down, crank up the news. The men buck at this idea, saying, “God no, anything but that. Jesus, what's wrong with baseball? What do you have against the national pastime?”

This is the national pastime
, thinks Noah911.

The cranky bartender agrees to Noah911's request, probably because his suggestion bothers the others so much. He shuts off the music, snatches the remote control, and turns up the news.

“This is an image of the man thought to be the mastermind behind . . .” the news anchor says, but Noah911 can't hear the rest of her thought because one of the men whines, “Boring! This is boring! Can we please turn the channel?”

“We are so bored!” another says.

“Bor-ing!” they start chanting, all four of them, bisecting the word into two harsh syllables. “Bor-ing! Bor-ing! Bor-ing!”

They pound their fists on the bar in rhythm with their chants.

“Will you clowns shut up?” Noah911 says.

They stop. Look at him. Stand from their stools. Flash greedy smiles. It's like an antelope has challenged a cackle of hyenas to a fight.

“I'm trying to listen to the news,” Noah911 says.

“Mister, you should be listening to the common sense the good lord gave you,” says the bartender.

“He's giving you sound advice,” Willie says, readjusting his backward hat, pulling it down snug.

“I need to hear the news,” Noah911 says, “so put your tampons in and deal with it.”

“You assholes want to fight, you do it outside,” the bartender says. “I'll call the cops, though.”

“Believe me,” Willie says, “he does not want to fight.”

Noah911 hears another phrase from the anchor: “. . . it's not known if a reason has been explicitly stated . . .”

“What do you think, News Watcher?” says one of them. “Will there be anything left of you by the time the cops get here?”

Noah911 is off his stool. He backs up into the middle of the room. The news still tells people about the brass band, and Noah911 can't think of a more appropriate soundtrack.

“Not here,” the bartender says.

“It has to be here,” Noah911 says to him.

Then he turns his attention to the guys: “Are you made of chicken shit or what?”

“You must be off your meds, man,” Willie says.

“I know exactly what I'm doing.”

They saunter over and slowly circle him. The bartender has the phone in his hand, ready to dial 911, but no one will make it in time. Nobody can save him and they shouldn't. A piss-poor protector like Noah911 shouldn't get any shelter of his own.

Let his guilt have arms and fists.

Let him bleed.

The news still plays on the TV, not that Noah911 can hear much of what's being said. The brass band's enigma, their code, stupefies everyone, except Noah911 because he doesn't care why they did it. That's not a question that interests him. Futures contracts pay out or they bust. Those are the only two options, and Noah911 likes that simplicity. There's no time for why. Tracey was alive; now she's dead.

And that's when Noah911 hits him in the face.

It's a solid shot and drops Willie to the floor and Noah911 takes a deep breath, knowing what comes next. The first thing he feels comes from behind, a shot in the kidney, buckling him over, but he's not going to fall, no way is he going down yet, and now another fist finds his temple and he sees a bright light, loses any sense of where he is, might very well be zipped up in that suitcase, and here comes somebody grabbing him in a bear hug, tucking his arms so he can't defend himself, and Willie is up off the floor, saying, “Hold him still. Hold him still,” and Noah911 feels two punches straight in the face, another in the stomach, and the hyena who's been holding his arms is now the only thing keeping him on his feet, a few more swings, a hook to the liver, an uppercut to the chin and he bites his tongue, tasting blood and freedom, and a wide hook lands on his eye socket and they let him fall to the bar's floor.

The bartender screams into the phone, “Send the cops, send the cops, send the cops!”

The other men who had been drinking at the bar all scurry from the premises.

Noah911 looks up, lying under the bar's starry sky.

He can't hear the news but knows they're still talking about the brass band, maybe a close-up of Tracey's face and the newscaster asking earnestly, “Who was looking out for this young lady?”

He sees the four hyenas huddled around him. They're looking down at him, inspecting their kill.

It doesn't make any sense to Noah911 why they've stopped. No need for mercy on somebody so useless, so unconscionable, so undeserving of sympathy.

He says, “You guys punch like pussies.”

Which brings the boots, a couple of them kicking him while the others stomp on his chest and midsection, and he turns on his side so he can get enough air to take a breath, bringing his arms over his solar plexus to maybe defend his stomach but also maybe to leave his face free, exposed, open. Leave his face available for any gracious violence.

12.

S
ara sees the river and knows she has to swim. It was one thing pretending with Hank in the empty pool, but here, in the late afternoon sun, she can't wait to be in the water.

She's without a bathing suit and that means stripping down to her bra and panties. The way she figures it, however, what's the big deal, with the sex tape broadcasting her bits all over the world? Hank says the sex tape will die down, and she's trying to believe that, trying to hurdle the initial shock and hoping the whole thing fades to a tolerable decibel. That it will become another clip in a wide sea of them online.

Sara kicks off her shorts, pulls her shirt over her head, and throws them on the shore. She walks into the water, up to her waist. The cool temperature feels amazing, as the day's still over 90˚.

She floats on her back in about three feet of water, looking up at the white sky; without sunglasses it's almost impossible to stare straight up, but she tries, sees some rainbows around the edge of her eyes. She wonders if corneas smell like burning hair as they char. She decides to shut them, to enjoy the cool water and quiet.
To enjoy his company, assuming Rodney ever gets the nerve to exit the car. Maybe he's never seen a woman in a bra and panties before. It's a possibility that Sara hadn't thought about until right now. She's not trying to make him uncomfortable, not at all. She has no inhibitions around him, given their history. This isn't going to lead to a hookup or anything. Sara knows this isn't a big thing, but does he? Is he wigging out in the car, wondering if it's okay to approach the river since she's more than half naked? He's that kind of gentleman. Maybe the only one of those Sara has ever met. Rodney respects her, Sara knows that, and he's the last person in the galaxy that holds her in esteem.

It's also conceivable that Rodney watches a lot of porn, if he's not getting the real deal, and Sara doesn't think he is. Everyone needs to get off. She can't hold it against him. Not really. But it would bother her if she knew Rodney has seen her video, because taking it in would denigrate what he thinks of her. It would have to. In his eyes, Sara would be marred, spoiled, and she can't imagine losing his regard.

This is their first day together after so long and Sara enjoys his company, his honesty. Yes, it had freaked her out a bit in the car, him holding that busted side mirror up so she could see her reflection and talking his sweet words. He's so sincere that it takes her aback. It even did when they were inseparable, the way he could say something so real, so direct. One time during a backyard campout, they'd been kissing for over an hour, Sara letting him paw at her tits, and the tent was getting dimmer and dimmer. The battery in their flashlight dwindled, and they both knew the tent would be pitch-black in a matter of seconds, the light fading and flickering, Sara shaking it back and forth for extra juice, but there were no stashes left. “It's almost dark and I don't want it to be,” she said, and Rodney said, “It's never dark with you.”