None of this Ever Really Happened (10 page)

The guy in front of me jumped up, turned around, and
gave me a high five. The Cubs had won the second game. No
one present was able to recall the last time they had swept
a doubleheader.

Peter Carey lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a shabby
building on an uptown block that hadn't been stately in a
long time. He shopped in a convenience store on Clark Street
(Campbell's Bean with Bacon Soup, Skippy peanut butter,
and a six-pack of Heineken. I sat in my car across the street
with a pair of binoculars.) and watched TV late into the night;
judging from how rapidly the images flickered on his living-room
ceiling, I guessed MTV. The next time I sat down at the
bar, he recognized me.

"Hey, you're Lisa's friend."

"Yes. No, we weren't personal friends. Actually I'm a
writer, and I was doing a piece on her."

"She that big?"

"Well, it was on a bunch of young Chicago actors. She
was just one of them."

"Oh, she was an actor, all right."

Two days later, I asked him what he meant by that.

"She was always onstage," he said. "Everything was a performance.
Everything. A soap opera. No, that doesn't do her
justice. She was like a Mamet play, maybe, something dark
and clever, brainy."

Another time I bought him a beer, and he sat beside me
at the bar at the end of his shift to drink it. "You ever go with
a really beautiful woman? I mean, a Lisa Kim?" he asked me.

"No, not really."

"Don't. Believe me, it isn't worth it. It's like they're doing
you a favor, you know? It's like they allow you to make
love to them. Sex with a beautiful woman is not a participatory
event. For them, I mean. You do all the work. You get
to worship her. It sucks. Actually, it doesn't suck. Rule Number
1: Beautiful women don't give head. Like Lisa—I'll tell
you something just fucking nuts; she use to dangle her head
over the edge of the bed backward, so I couldn't even see her
face. So I'm thinking, what the hell is she doing? Then I figure
it out. She's looking at herself. She's fucking looking at herself
upside down with her hair hanging down to the floor in
the mirror on the closet door. She had to have set it up, too;
planned it, moved the door just right, got in just the right
place on the bed. I'm telling you, it was fucking crazy. Here I
am boinking away, and she's staring at herself." He shook his
head. "No, give me a chick who's a little rough around the
edges any day. I'm with Springsteen on that one."

When I went out to my car, I listened to the little tape
recorder I'd hidden in my jacket pocket. It got every word. A
few days later, I went to Paddy Shea's right from school. The
bar was empty, and Peter Carey was alone.

"Hey," he said, "how you doing?"

"Good," I said. "Guinness, please." When he brought it,
I said, "You know Annie Pritchard?"

"Sure, I know Annie. Another friend of Lisa's. How's she
doing?"

"Good. She said maybe you could help me out."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm interested in doing some kind of special
partying."

The phone rang, and he went to answer it. I felt for the
tape recorder in my pocket. It was warm and moving.

"Special partying," he said when he came back. "What's
that mean, exactly? Drugs?"

I wrote the word in the margin of the sports page and
turned it toward him. I said it out loud. He looked at it, and
then looked at me. "You're full of surprises," he said. "Listen
pal, I don't do anything with drugs."

"I know," I said. "I know you don't; Annie told me that, but
she said you might know someone who knows someone."

"I don't know anyone who knows anyone."

"Problem is, neither do I, and I gotta get this stuff—
don't ask why—and I'm willing to pay good money to get it,"
I said.

"I don't know no one who knows no one." He walked
away. For the next week, he didn't speak to me or make eye
contact, and I was sure I'd lost him.

"Shit," I thought.

Then one day he said out of nowhere, "What kind of cigarettes
do you smoke?"

I pointed to the pack in front of me.

"You ever smoke cigarettes in a hard pack?"

"No." I thought it an odd question.

"Go buy yourself a hard pack of Virginia Slims. Put three
hundred bucks in twenties in it. Leave it on the bar tomorrow
afternoon."

I did it. I read my paper, drank my beer, and walked out
leaving the tip and the cigarette box on the bar. I came back
the next day and waited over an hour. I had to go to the bathroom
and turn my tape over. I was wet under my arms. Finally
I said, "Do you have something for me?"

"Nope," he answered.

"What do you mean, 'Nope'?"

"I mean I don't have anything for you," he said.

"You want me to come back tomorrow?" I asked.

"Nope. I won't have anything then, either. I told you: I'm
not a drug dealer." He smiled at me.

"You are a drug dealer. You sold Lisa Kim drugs."

"I thought that's what this might be about. You taping
this, maybe? Let me get good and close and say this loud and
clear. Ready? I am not a drug dealer. I did not sell Lisa Kim
drugs. I did not give Lisa Kim drugs. I do not do drugs."

"Then give me my money back," I said.

"Nope."

"What do you mean, 'Nope'?"

"I'm not going to give you your money back," he said.

"You're kidding. You're a thief," I said.

"There you go. I'm a thief, but I'm not a drug dealer, and
now you know the difference. It's a cheap lesson, really, and
an important one for a guy like you. Might save your life
someday. You don't want to go fucking around with those
guys. Now I think it's time for you to go, and don't come
back, either. You're getting to be a real pain in the ass."

There was nothing to say. I gathered my change and
headed for the door. His last words to me were, "I thought
the Virginia Slims box was a particularly nice touch, didn't
you?"

T
HE PETER CAREY DEBACLE
was embarrassing, but not
as much as I would have imagined. It was as if I had
plumbed the depths of humiliation, and they weren't
all that deep. Besides, like Brueghel's Icarus falling into the
sea, no one even seemed to notice, and since I had something
of a head of steam, a couple of days later I read over the notes
I'd made on Annie Pritchard and took Art for another long
walk. The more I thought about it, the more I came to feel
that she had not known that Lisa was using heroin before we
met. She might have discerned it, she might have deduced it,
but she didn't know it, and her pretending to proved to me
only that she didn't, and indicated she didn't even suspect it.
She wanted to never be surprised by anything, but she was
covering; and if she didn't know or at least suspect, then why
not? She was the kind of person who would suspect, maybe
know, something even if it were not true. Did this mean Lisa
wasn't using heroin? But we knew that she was.

I went home and wrote Tanya:

I am trying to find out who gave Lisa the drugs because I
think that person was at least partly responsible for her
death, but I've hit a dead end. Can you shed any light on
this at all? Do you know of any friends or acquaintances,
old or new, who might have given her the stuff? Do you
know of anything curious or suspicious that took place
in the last weeks or months of her life?

Tanya, I know Lisa was difficult, and I know you
have mixed feelings about her (I do, too), but I don't
believe she should have died. Help me if you can.

It was Memorial Day weekend, and Art and I drove around
the lake to my family's summer home. It's an old cottage built
in 1908 on a high dune a quarter mile from and overlooking
Lake Michigan near South Haven, Michigan. My grandfather,
who was a Presbyterian minister and moved frequently
in his career, bought it in 1926 and returned to it each
summer. My father, who was also a minister and who also
moved frequently, bought it from my grandfather. My mother
still spends her summers there. My brother and sister-in-law
spend vacations there, too.

It is a simple house that is beautiful in its simplicity. Built
on a hilltop out of cement blocks made with the sand dug
to lay the foundation and molded on the site, the house is a
thirty-foot square that is cut in half. One half is a living room,
and the other is cut in half again into two bedrooms that no
one sleeps in. This blockhouse is surrounded on all sides by
a continuous screened porch (continuous except in one rear
corner where two small side by side bathrooms are located)
that is six feet wide on the three sides used for sleeping and
twelve feet wide on the one used for living. There's a fireplace
and a skylight in the living room, a peaked roof made of exposed
cedar shakes hand cut on the property from trees felled
to clear the lot a hundred years ago, and a lower level beneath
the wide porch that consists of a kitchen, a dining room, and
a study all in a row with windows on three sides.

I had come to open the cottage for the season. I had come
alone; it was a long, cold spring, and Lydia had looked at the
weather forecast and decided to stay home. Just as well; I
needed some time to think about Lydia and me. Of course
I didn't do it. In fact, I avoided doing it all weekend long.

I had come to this place, this summer village, every summer
of my life; it's the closest thing to true home for me. It is
where I know Carolyn O'Connor and Steve Lotts from, and
half a dozen important people in my life. Most people there
know me and some like me; it is the place where I don't need
to explain very much. Once, years ago, during that summer
I spent in England, I dragged David Lehman down to
Bournemouth
on a hot weekend. I did not know why until I
got there, until I walked out to the end of the long town pier
late at night, stood with my back to the land listening to two
German guys playing a guitar and singing, and realized that
I'd come to look at Lake Michigan.

It was cool and drizzly, but I worked hard and kept warm.
I washed and cleaned the fridge and all the kitchen cabinets,
wiping away a winter's worth of dust and mouse droppings,
swept and scrubbed the tile floors on my hands and knees,
washed windows, and when the porch had dried, I rolled out
rugs, moved furniture, set up beds, and lugged mattresses.

By late afternoon the weather had begun to clear. I put
on a heavy sweater and a windbreaker, pulled up a big wicker
chair to watch the sun play on the lake and drank a Belgian
beer I had brought for the occasion. I was thinking about my
father. He always took his vacation the month of August, and
he worked every day of it painting, repairing, or building. We
would say, "Jeez, Dad, some vacation." But he would always
say something about how working with his hands was therapy
for him because he never got to do it. His one indulgence
was a plunge into the lake just before dinner, just at this time
of day. He would soap his body all over and swim hard out a
hundred yards and back. Sometimes I went with him.

Thinking there might be a sunset, I took Art down to the
beach. Despite the late sunshine, the air was cold and the water
colder. It would be weeks before anyone would swim in
this lake. Even Art was content to wrestle a stick on the sand.
We headed along the shore. O'Connor's cottage was brightly
lighted and full of people. Some of them were having drinks
on the front deck in heavy sweaters and jackets. Someone
called my name. It was Carolyn. She leaned over the railing
to speak to me. "Where's Lydia?"

"She didn't come. I'm just opening up the cottage."

"We're having a wine tasting. Come join us."

"Who's here?"

"Bunch of people I brought up from the city. You know
some of them. Let me get you a glass."

I probably should have known that these people were going
to piss me off because my mood had soured as the day
had waned, and I was feeling a bit like Ishmael, ready to step
into the street and knock people's hats off, but I was enticed
by the light and the warmth of the house and by the wine, as
well. I stood at the back of the deck and watched the sun go
down. I went inside by the fire. A wry, slow-talking Hoosier
I'd enjoyed a time or two in the past seemed to be performing
tonight. I stood outside a group of people who kept turning
their shoulders to me. Their gaiety seemed artificial, their wit
acrid and sarcastic. I didn't like it.

I went into the kitchen. There was a little architect I
vaguely knew sitting on the counter, one leg folded beneath
him and a sweater tied loosely around his neck. He seemed
to be with Carolyn. He was giving her and two other women
instructions on how to drink wine. "Let's see if it has legs,"
he said. They all held their oversized glasses up to the light
and swished the wine around in them.

"Now, the bouquet," he said. He held his glass beneath his
nose and fanned the scent toward himself, then plunged his
nose in. The others imitated him.

"Christ," I thought. I went out, found Art by the fire, put
my glass down, and let myself out the front door. It closed
and then opened again behind me.

"Pete?" It was Carolyn.

"Sorry," I said, "I'm in a shitty mood."

"We're going to have some dinner later," she said.

"No thanks."

"You okay?"

"I'm okay." I went home and opened a bottle of red wine of
my own. I cooked some spaghetti carbonara thinking about
Carolyn. I was disappointed in her; what was she doing with
that prissy little phony? I was disappointed in myself. Why
was I so black? I built a big fire, ate in front of it, finished
the wine, and spent the rest of the evening listening to music
and reading. I slept on the porch in the open air beneath lots
of quilts and blankets. The next morning I lay in bed on the
porch with Art curled beside me, reading for an hour, then
took a very hot shower and started working. The hard work
was done, and the urgency was gone. I played tunes and took
my time. It was sunny and I worked outside. I raked leaves,
swept the walks, swept and washed down the patio, put the
patio furniture out. In the afternoon I moved inside. My
mother had asked me to clean out my dad's old storage closet,
which we had all been avoiding since his death. It was stuffed
with boxes, tools, and lots of personal junk, so I turned the
Cubs game on the radio and opened the door.

I thought it would be hard, but it wasn't hard. It was nice.
It was a lot like seeing him again. And there was all kinds
of stuff in there: the world's oldest chain saw, a World War I
army helmet with mouse-eaten netting inside, three of the
mice who had eaten it (one mummified and two skeletons),
a wooden Don Budge tennis racket with a triangular opening
in the neck (for aerodynamic effect? whip action?), an
ancient unworn pair of tennis shoes still in their box, never
even laced, pristine and brittle after however many Michigan
winters, a white enamel bedpan connected somehow to my
grandmother by a famous story I can't remember, two moth-eaten
squirrels stuffed and mounted on a shellacked tree
branch. There was a pint of cherry vodka. There were about
thirty mason jars of nails, screws, nuts, bolts and washers all
neatly sorted and labeled, proving the irrelevance of saving
things; I threw them all away. There were six plastic fireman
hats purchased for some silliness or other, worn once, stacked
and stuck away and four handmade coffee mugs wrapped
in the
South Haven Tribune
dated August 1956; a gift never
given? "And why not?" I wondered. There was a treasure trove
of tools: hammers, screwdrivers, box wrenches, monkey
wrenches, pliers, vise grips, chisels, a hand drill, a hacksaw, a
level, and a rusted tape measure. And at the very back of the
top shelf against the wall and wrapped in a single fold of canvas
was a .22 caliber rifle with two boxes of cartridges. This
last item quite surprised me; who could have put it there?
My grandfather? One of my uncles? Surely not my father
who had been so opposed to violence his whole life. But if he
did not put it there, at least he had left it there, and against
what? Raccoons? Nazis during the war? Angry blacks from
Detroit or the South Side of Chicago? Intruders in the night?
What secret fears had occupied his heart as he lay here in
the dark?

I took the gun out and dusted it off. It seemed brand-new,
and I wondered if it had ever been fired. I opened both boxes
of shells. None seemed to be missing. I attached the barrel
with its single screw. I loaded the rifle. I sat on the front
porch and held it across my knees. I cocked it, held the stock
between my feet, and put the barrel in my mouth. I tasted the
hard, cold metal. I thought of all the people for whom this
had been life's final sensation. I thought again, as I had so often
since Lisa Kim, of all the things that lay within my power
to do, including this one. I leaned it against the doorjamb
and from time to time that afternoon I walked past it. It was
a little exciting to see it sitting there so still and lethal.

I went into town and bought a piece of trout, a couple of
red-skinned potatoes, some locally grown asparagus and a
bottle of white wine, grilled the fish and asparagus, boiled the
potatoes, drank the wine, and read myself to sleep, the rifle
still leaning in the doorway. The next day, before I locked the
cottage and drove back into the city, I unloaded the gun, took
it apart, and put it back where I had found it. I couldn't think
of what else to do with it.

Lydia was sitting on the couch again Tuesday evening when
I came into our apartment from walking Art after work. No
radio, no television, no magazine, catalog, or book. Her arms
were crossed. "Would you mind telling me what's going on
around here?" she asked. I recognized Lisa's letter lying on
the couch beside her and felt my hip pocket; I must have
taken it out with my wallet and left it on my dresser. I could
think of nothing to say perhaps because I did not
know
what
was going on. Fortunately, the questions that Lydia asked me
were all rhetorical and did not require responses.

"You were screwing the Korean chick, weren't you?" she
said. "In fact, you were with her that night. That's why you
were late. You were following her. You were in love with her."

"No, no," I finally sputtered.

"No, no?" And with that she produced her coup de grace:
There in her hand was another letter, the one I had recently
sent to Tanya Kim. I would later find when I picked up the
envelope from the floor that it was stamped return to
sender; I had omitted the street name. (I am a little embarrassed
to admit this, but I sent it again to the right address
the next day.) The letter had been opened, and now Lydia
unfolded it and read, "'I know you have mixed feelings about
her (I do, too).' For God's sake, Pete, why do you have any
feelings about her at all?"

I probably should have said something right then, but
what was I to tell her: the truth? Well, you see, I've become
hopelessly entangled in the life of a dead woman I never met
although I do know her parents, her sisters, her old friends
and lovers, and I have stalked her through letters and yearbooks
and school hallways, and I have made love to her in
my dreams. It seemed unlikely that Lydia would respond
positively to candor. Besides, she went on to say, "And if you
weren't screwing her, if this is all just . . . God, I don't even
want to think about that. That would be too weird."

So the truth was out of the question, which left only the
untruth, and I just didn't have the energy to start lying, so I
didn't say much of anything. Besides, I was pretty sure that
she would blow sky-high, and that there was nothing I could
do to stop it. You see, Lydia was heavily armed with self-protective
devices. Early in our relationship, one had been
her aversion to commitment, but later another was commitment
itself. When we got back from Mexico, signed a lease
together, and opened a joint bank account, she made an announcement
(and that's what it was, an announcement) that
if I ever cheated on her, she would pack her bags, leave that
day, and never look back. So what happened next was quite
unexpected.