Frisk: A Novel (Cooper, Dennis) (10 page)

All the way to the hotel, that sound rattles around in his head, gradually fragmenting into the sound of the cab's motor. The lobby's faint Muzak is gruesome-old Beatles, homely as a buzzing mosquito. It follows him into the elevator, down the third-floor hall. 338, 340, 342 ... He knocks. The door's thrown back by a nude, dyed-blond, pockmarked troll.

"Hi, Pierre. I'm Terrence," the troll says. He revolves and walks into the room. He has one of those bodies that's thinnish at the top, fat bottomed and ripply on the sides, sort of like a jug. "I love your videos," he continues, sitting down on the bed, crossing his hairy legs. "But they don't show your armpits enough. Your pits are spectacular, you know, and vastly, vastly underrated."

Pierre just stands there. He has slid his hands into his back pockets. That's supposed to signify boredom, cockinessqualities that troll-types admire. Whatever works. "So, undress from the waist up and lie down," Terrence says. "But first, do you use a deodorant?" Pierre nods. "Well, I may ask you to wash it out. We'll see." "You said pants on, right?" Pierre mutters, yanking his shirttails out.

Faceup on the bed, fingers entwined behind his head, Pierre waits patiently while Terrence sniffs first one armpit, then the other. The troll's on his hands and knees, back so pockmarked it looks like a turtle shell. "They're perfect," he moans. "Purr ... fect." His voice turns to breath. "Hurmph." Something like that. He starts guzzling a pit-tongue, teeth, lips blended together.

The view keeps reminding Pierre of different stuff. Sometimes the armpit hairs stand in a skinny brown stalk, with Terrence's lips as its flower. Then the hairs will come to a point and twist slightly at the tip like chocolate ice cream or smoke. They spread out to resemble a big, dirty dandelion. The troll mashes them down, they're wheat pasta steaming in a white bowl.

When Terrence switches over to pit #2, his double chin blocks the view. So Pierre watches the last few standing hairs in the abandoned pit droop into a swampy pile. Then he slides one hand loose, focuses on his watch, and counts down the rest of the hour, rerunning some particularly nonsensical Eno lyrics in his head. With three minutes to go, the troll comes, says, "You're ... great."

There's enough time to walk to the Washington Annex Hotel, so Pierre strolls across Seventeenth Street, left at Park Avenue, across the park, down University Place. It's late enough in the fall that people's tans are just yellowish shells cracked and peeling in spots to show the real, milky guys underneath. Pierre's into guys whose coloring keeps them indoors a lot. That's Marv's biggest selling point.

Thought of Marv's naked white body twisted for sex reminds Pierre of saliva, which makes him picture his own dribbling into my mouth. He's climbing the spiral staircase to my hotel room, half backing out of the meeting, mentally anyway. It's the shit-piss agenda. It's not that he minds sharing those things with strangers. It's just .. .

On the one hand, they're trash. They should cease to exist as soon as they leave Pierre's hips. Even cavemen knew that, he thinks. Shit, piss are presents for dogs out on walks at best. If they have any message, it's got to be very disguised and intricate, since it takes guys with eight years of med school to send word some shitter or pisser is sick.

"Oh, fuck it." Pierre knocks. He's a few minutes early, which explains the delay in my answering, as well as some banging around in the meantime, right? When I open up, disheveled, smiling, he remembers how harmless I seemed in relation to what I was spouting, like those angelic singers in satanic rock bands, but less cute. I lead him in, sit on the bed, pat a spot to my right.

"I thought," I say, "maybe we'd just talk this time, since I've gotten you figured out, physically anyway." I blink at him. He sits on the bed. "Okay, sure." "... Because it was fascinating to say all that stuff to you, stuff I usually just write in my journal, and you didn't seem to mind." "No, it's fine." "... And it could help me to get my ideas in the open." Pierre shrugs. "You got it."

"So ..." I stand up abruptly, go over and lean on the wall by the fake-wood desk/dresser. "... uh . . ." I twist my lip, eyes following an invisible fly. Pierre has relaxed and is fingering one of his brown curls. When he's not on the job, his shoulders tend to slump forward. This time he lets them slump. "Well," he mumbles, "you were talking last time about how you'd kill me if ... well, I forget why."

"Right, yeah." My eyes steady and pin Pierre. "Like I flew out here from Los Angeles thinking I'd kill you. That was the fantasy. Obviously, I didn't make any provisions for getting away with it, so I guess it was never a real goal, but I took all these notes on the way about wanting to do it." I point at my open suitcase. There are papers, heavily marked, scattered over the contents.

"I think," I continue, "No, I know that if I killed you, and it wouldn't have to be you, just someone who, like you, fits a particular physical type that I'm into, it would be unbelievably profound. I'd be ... free? That sounds stupid, I guess. But I see these criminals on the news who've killed someone methodically, and they're free. They know something amazing. You can just tell.

"And I want to know that ... thing. I've wanted to know it since I was thirteen and ... blah, blah, blah." Pierre looks vacantly down his chest, through the slot of his shirt collar. There are six or seven lightning-bolt hairs on his chest that he shaves before video shoots. Sometimes they accidentally seem to form letters or Roman numerals. XII at the moment. "Yeah?" he says, hearing I've paused.

"Can you relate to any of this?" I'm frowning at him. Pierre shrugs. "Only the weirdness," he says. "I appreciate things that could be considered a little off." "Like what?" Pierre smiles down at his deflated nipples, creased stomach. "Music," he says. "Seventies Art Rock. Eno, Roxy, Sparks, T. Rex? Know that period?" I seem to nod. "Well," he adds, "that's a pathetic comparison, but ..."

My face is adrift again. Well, mainly the eyes and especially my mouth, which hangs partway open. It's pink and kind of too dry inside. It looks a little bit like a doll chair, at least from ten feet away. There's something generally pleasant about my face, Pierre decides. That should make my insanity eerier. Maybe he's being too nonchalant. Or maybe I'm totally harmless, just ... Who knows?

"I feel like I'm boring you," I say. Pierre shrugs. "Boredom isn't an issue, and anyway, you're not." I sort of fidget, sniff. "Well, I'm glad." Pierre flops back, wriggling across the bed until he can reach a pillow, which he slides under his head. The cool cotton reminds him of something. He tries to home in on the memory. It involves Marv. "Why don't you ... ?

"... Why don't you make what you're saying a story?" Pierre says. He raises up, squints at me. "Like if I was a kid, and you were trying to help me get sleepy and teach me something new at the same time. Sometimes my boyfriend does that, tells me weird stories based on his day at work. Maybe that way I'd understand better, or ... But I mean, it's your hour." I nod hurriedly. "Okay, let me think."

"Well, a friend of mine, Samuel, was in love with a young guy he worked with, okay? Samuel used to obsess about Joe, who apparently was very `me.' Tall, pale, dark hair, thin, boyish, spaced-out. Like you. So I kept saying, `If you ever get over him, introduce me.' In the meantime, whenever Samuel and I hung around, I'd asks tons of questions about Joe, being obsessive myself.

"Samuel found it hard to approach Joe, because the guy was so spaced-out or private or both. Lots of staring off into the air, vague answers, which struck Samuel as very Mona Lisa-esque. He'd follow Joe around the store studying his manner, waiting for the perfect moment to ask him to dinner or something. That took weeks. Samuel was just getting shyer and more confused.

"One night on the phone we added up what Samuel knew about Joe. I had paper and pen at my end, making a list. We decided that Joe was probably just as obsessive as Samuel, only not about sex and love, but about splatter films, which was mostly what Joe talked about when he talked. I like them too, not surprisingly, I guess, which made me even more curious about Joe.

"Samuel's not into violence at all. He's very romantic, despite his cynicism. So I gave him some tips, buzz words, splatter codes, to try out on Joe, in terms of getting to know the guy. Of course I was hoping Samuel would lose interest, but not before getting to know Joe well enough to play Cupid for us. Because the guy sounded perfect, and I was still boyfriend-oriented at that point. This was a year ago.

"Apparently it got so Joe and Samuel would have weird little talks during lulls at work, with my friend asking questions and Joe half responding, half daydreaming. Still, Joe was easily distracted, and if Samuel could keep up one straight line of thought for a while, especially on the subject of violence, Joe would follow it. That was enough for a couple of months.

"Let's see. I forget how it happened, but thanks partially to my urgings, Samuel got around to the subject of sex. Essentially he asked Joe to sleep with him, pretty much straight out. I think Joe's reaction was on the order of, `That's weird,' something very ambiguous. Hope for us both. Samuel brought it up several times over two, three weeks. Joe shrugged, yawned, etc.

"One day Samuel was lucky or something. Joe said, `Sure, why not?' So ... This is wild. They went back to Samuel's place, and it turns out that Joe, who, like I said, is supposedly my ultimate physical type, is a masochist. He's covered with scars, cuts, welts, stuff like that from his earlier encounters. And Samuel, the wimp, freezes up, spanks him a few times.

"Next day he calls me, recounts the scene. Obviously I flip. Samuel mopes a bit, then agrees reluctantly to introduce me to Joe sometime the next week. I mean, you can imagine, based on what little you know about me, how it stank of fate or whatever. This guy who wants to die, even if that just means dying metaphorically, and me, impotent murderer .. .-

"I spent most of the weekend with Samuel pumping him for every shred of Joe info. Physical details, habits, opinions the guy had let slip about music or TV he liked, background stuff. I still have an unfinished novel I tried to write based on all this. Anyway, I was wandering around dazed and horny or psychotic or whatever it is that comes over me, waiting for `next week.'

"Well, Joe never showed up for work. Not for months. Eventually it turned out this actor whose name I forgetyou'd know his face-murdered Joe during some violent S&M scene. They dug Joe's dismembered corpse out of the actor's backyard. I felt really conflicted about it. I mean, I could have killed him, or not killed him, but known him, explored stuff with him.

"Because I don't want to kill anyone, not really, not if it means being selfish, which murderers basically are. But here was this guy who might have shared these obsessions. Shit. It's like my whole fucking life has been a series of near-misses, in terms of people. I let my first boyfriend, Julian-this weird, amoral explorer of bodies like me but more clever-I let him drift off.

"And Julian's kid brother, Kevin, who I got involved with later. He seemed insane at the time, but I think he was something like Joe, only at an earlier stage of development. Really passive, spaced-out, always accidentally hurting himself, very puttylike. So cute, and all bruised ... The thought of him drives me wild now, but at the time he seemed like too big a responsibility.

"The only guy I ever actually got violent with was a hardcore punk type in the days when I hung around those kinds of scenes. Samson, a fake name, I'm sure. He's dead now. Of AIDS. I beat him up, to see what it felt like. I thought I'd killed him for a while. Anyway, I just remember it as a weird, fluky experience. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with my obsession, though it obviously must.

"I don't know why it doesn't, except the scene was so unsophisticated, unlike my mental image of violence, which is more like a film. I'm sure I've idealized brutality, murder, dismemberment, etc. But even slicked up, there's an unknowableness there that's so profound or whatever, especially when I combine it with sex. Then it's-I'm-out of control. Inside.

"It's incommunicable, obviously. Listen to me. I should either do it, or not do it and see a psychiatrist or whatever. Because it's infecting everything for me now. I flew here daydreaming of killing you, without a specific plan, not having told anyone I know. It's stupid, pointless. And I'm repeating myself, so ... Maybe you should just go. Here ... here's your two hundred dollars." I dig around for my wallet.

Six months later, Pierre refolds my newest letter, jabs it into his back pocket. Then he slides off his jeans, settles down on a wicker chair. "Don't sit there!" Warren yells, glaring across the equipment-strewn room. "Use ... your ... head!" Pierre shoots to his feet, twists, looks down his back. The wicker's design is printed perfectly on the buttocks in pink. "Tim," Warren sighs, "massage that crap out."

Pierre folds his arms while the kneeling Tim squishes his ass around. One time he looks back and reads the guy's ruddy face. It seems distant, uninterested, as if Tim were petting a dog or whatever. Still, it feels like the guy cares in some fashion. Clients have stroked him in similarly vague ways when what they actually desire is ... who knows? Unsafe sex, Pierre guesses.

His costars, two blond guys-one pale, skinny, and bignosed, the other hefty, tan, hairy-chested-are sitting across a double bed from each other. The latter, Heiner, smooths down his calf hairs, which are so dense his legs appear permanently filthy. Cuter Bob stares at his reflection in a round mirror hanging to the left of the window, overcast with little clouds of cocaine.

"Tim?" It's Warren's voice. "Yeah, yeah," Tim yells. He slaps Pierre's ass. "It's itself again." Pierre checks, nods approvingly, wanders in the direction of Heiner and Bob. Their hazel eyes focus on his. They slide maybe two, three feet farther apart. The bed looks sort of beachy, with blue sheets and green blankets bunched up at one end like the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean.

Pierre wedges himself between the blonds, squints at the camera half-buried in glare, waits. The crew's discussing the lighting, which is apparently too undramatic for Warren. As a director, he's trying to upgrade gay porn with artsy technical details, although the sex is your standard, post-AIDS, "safe" sleaze barely interrupted by thin, sub-sitcom-style narratives. "So where were we?" he mumbles.