The Genius (43 page)

Dear Vic. I’m coming.

Victor is excited. He decides to buy Freddy a gift. He takes his money and goes to a store. There he stands for a long time, thinking about what Freddy likes. Freddy liked sometimes to throw glass bottles against the trees and listen to them break. What else? Thinking about what to buy Freddy is the most difficult thing he has ever done. The man in the shop says May I help you sir?

Victor says A gift.

The man shows Victor ladies’ gloves, handmirrors. He shows Victor some scarves. Victor leaves without buying anything.

For days he wanders around the neighborhood, looking in the shop windows. He is very nervous because he doesn’t know when Freddy is coming, he didn’t say anything in the letter. He has to find a gift as soon as possible; he wants to be at his apartment when Freddy arrives. He goes from one store to another, running through them, ignoring the shopkeepers when they try to talk to him. He has almost settled on a woolen hat when he sees the best thing yet: a horse made of gold and silver. It glints, its head thrown back with nobility. Victor asks the man for the price. The man looks distrustful. A hundred and fifty dollars he says. Victor pays him and takes the horse and leaves.

When Freddy comes, he whistles. Would you look at this. He sets down his suitcase and walks to the window. Victor is trembling. He wants to reach out and touch Freddy but he does not dare. Holy Toledo Vic. You got it made. He winks at Victor and a spasm travels through Victor’s groin.

They said you got a rich cousin or something. You never told me about no rich cousin. What else he get you, you got a car?

Victor shakes his head.

Well still. I think you’re a lucky son of a bitch. And lucky me too huh? He laughs. What you look like that for Vic? Huh? You miss me? C’mere. Let me see. Christ amighty you got a hard-on. Freddy laughs. What a fuckin thing is that.

Victor is happier than he has been in his whole life. Every moment he suffered was worth it. He has his own room, he has food and paper and he has Freddy. In the morning he wakes up and watches Freddy’s chest going up and down. Freddy has light hair on his chest, Victor’s is heavy and black. Sometimes he draws Freddy sleeping. Sometimes Freddy turns over or wakes up and then the drawing is incomplete. When he wakes up he tells Victor to put his mouth on his privates. Sometimes in the middle of the night he wants that too and he wakes Victor up and tells him to get going. Victor doesn’t mind. He is in love.

TIME PASSES. Freddy stays with Victor although he doesn’t stay every night. Sometimes he disappears for two or three days at a time and Victor gets worried. He prays and bargains. Or then sometimes Freddy goes for a week at a time, a month at a time, and Victor plunges into the worst despair he has ever known, worse than before, because now he knows happiness. Freddy refuses to explain where he goes or to warn Victor first. He is there and then he is gone. Victor comes home from the park where he has been drawing trees or from the restaurant or from the shop where he buys bread to make sandwiches for lunch and the apartment is quiet, a quiet different from when Freddy steps out to take a walk or to buy a bottle of beer or whiskey. Then Victor loses his mind. He swears the way he ought not to, he rips the pillows and breaks cups. When it is over he is tired and there is a mess and still no Freddy. Then Victor begins to bargain. He begins to pray.

Whatsit matter where I go? I always come back. The fuck do you care. Stop asking me, you’re getting on my fucking nerves. You can be a real pain in the ass you know that? When Freddy’s voice sounds this way Victor is frightened. He does not want to make Freddy unhappy. He would gladly cut off his own hands and feet to please Freddy. He would cut off his balls.

Look at this. It’s pathetic. Freddy picks up a pillowcase with a dark oily smudge where Victor puts his head every night. Do some fucking laundry.

Victor doesn’t know how to do laundry. Freddy takes him to the Laundromat. You put a nickel in, you put the soap in. Now you don’t have to live like an animal. Freddy laughs. The sound makes Victor’s heart grow. But another part of him doesn’t know what to feel. On the one hand he wants Freddy to smile; on the other hand, he was just feeling so low about himself that he now has a hard time feeling happy. He is all ajumbled, as Mrs. Greene used to say. Now that they live together all the time—sleeping in the same bed, sharing their meals, breathing the same air for most of the day—Victor sees things about Freddy that he didn’t see before. The way his moods change. Long angry speeches. Then compliments dropping out of the clear blue sky. Victor does not understand. He tries to think of another gift to give Freddy. That will make him happy.

Also Freddy refuses to go to church. Victor cannot convince him. He goes alone and prays for the both of them.

Time passes. The seasons dance. Things change. Freddy comes and goes. Victor lives and dies. The strain hurts him. He wants Freddy to stay and never leave. Days become nights become days and Victor’s eyes blur.

Stop crying. Stop it.

Victor cannot stop.

You’re worse than a broad sometimes. What the hell is wrong with you. I swear to God I ought to knock hell out of you sometimes and you’d get what I mean. You shut your goddamned mouth. Goddammit I will split and you have no idea how fast. I ain’t got to stay here one more minute. I got plenty of people I can go see. You think you’re the only one I know? Fat fucking chance. You got no idea. You can be really stupid sometimes you know that? How the hell are you so thick. You don’t know a thing about the world, you don’t know about things happening two feet in front of you. You just sit there like a chimp doodling. Don’t gimme no pictures, I don’t want any fucking pictures. You really piss me off. You’re pissing me off right now. I swear one day I’m going to bash your fucking face in. Give me that fucking thing. Give it back.

Victor throws the bottle out the window. It sails to the earth and explodes.

Oh now I’m going to get you. I’m going to get you for that. You’re nothing, if I threw you out the window you’d be a stain on the sidewalk they’d clean you up faster than pigeon shit. You think that’s a wiseguy thing to do, I wasn’t halfway done with that you son of a bitch. Freddy pins Victor’s arms down with his knees. He opens his fly and his privates fall out. Victor tries to put his mouth on the tip but Freddy slaps him. Don’t you fucking touch it. Don’t you fucking try. Freddy pulls on his privates and says Fuck, fuck. Then Victor is wet. Freddy relaxes, the blood leaves his face. He says All right.

Victor is twenty-seven. It is the week of the Fourth of July, and a summer rainstorm has caused the bunting to run, red and white and blue in the gutters. Victor stands at the window. Freddy has been gone for two days. Victor no longer tries to predict when Freddy will come back, and as rain streaks the glass he prepares himself for a long and lonesome stretch.

The key turns in the door. Freddy stands there dripping. Gimme a towel.

For the next few days Freddy is quieter than usual. He lies on the bed most of the day. Victor thinks it might be the heat, the rain makes the heat worse. He has the weather all written down. He keeps track of every day. He started and he does not intend to stop, it helps him separate one day from another.

The rain lets up. Freddy sits up in bed. I’m going out.

An hour and a half later he returns with newspapers. Victor watches as Freddy reads them. He turns pages impatiently, then throws the paper down and goes to sleep.

The next day he goes out again and comes home with the papers. This time he stops on one page and says Well shit.

Victor looks at the paper. There is a picture of a boy. His name is Henry Strong. He has short spiky hair. He looks sort of like a squirrel.

Freddy says I guess he wasn’t too strong after all huh? Then he laughs. He looks at the window. It’s raining. I think it’ll keep up.

Victor nods.

Freddy sighs deeply, stretches, and lies down.

Victor keeps the picture of the boy.

A month later Freddy comes home with another newspaper. Victor tries to look but Freddy pushes him and says Don’t read over my shoulder. Victor doesn’t know what the problem is but he obeys. The next morning when Freddy is sleeping Victor goes to look. He sees another boy named Eddie Cardinale. Victor keeps that picture, too.

Summer turns to fall and then to winter. In those months Freddy sometimes brings back papers and Victor reads them. In San Francisco somebody has killed a woman. In Hanoi they drop bombs. Freddy is often in strange moods. He goes out late at night and walks around for hours, returning as the sun comes up over the brick buildings. Often Victor hears him leave and cannot fall back asleep. He sits at the window until he sees Freddy’s shape crossing the courtyard. Only then does Victor close his eyes.

He wants to follow Freddy on these walks but he does not dare. He can imagine what Freddy would say. Get back in there. Get back you piece of shit. Freddy’s moods make him use bad language, and he does not notice the deep dents he puts in Victor’s heart. If anything Victor’s sadness makes Freddy angrier. Victor does not have the words to describe what is happening between them. But things have changed. He misses the old days when they lay together for hours and Freddy talked to him about things he’d done, tricks he’d pulled and would pull. Now Victor sees that his body repulses Freddy. He stops trying to touch Freddy, and when Freddy shifts around in the bed and splays his legs greedily across the mattress Victor rolls out and sleeps on the floor.

You dumb piece of shit. You worthless son of a bitch.

Freddy’s voice becomes Victor’s own, a voice that Victor carries around with him all the time. It tells Victor that he is stupid and it tells him when he is doing something wrong, which is all the time. Though this voice says things that hurt Victor, he still prefers it to silence.

One night Freddy comes home with another man. He is short and has big red lips. Look at what I drug in. Freddy laughs like a horse and the man takes off Freddy’s shirt. They begin kissing and Victor sits on the edge of the bed, feeling hot. The man gets on his knees and opens Freddy’s pants. Freddy moans. Victor does not watch. The man leaves and Freddy is angry. Whassa matter. Something wrong with me? You got a problem you fuckin faggot? He slaps Victor and then he laughs. He falls on the bed and Victor tucks a pillow behind his head.

A FEW WEEKS LATER Freddy comes home in a rare good mood. He holds up a can of oatmeal. Remember this? We used to eat this shit for breakfast every day. I can’t believe how much of that I ate. Well let’s have it for old time’s sake huh?

Victor hates oatmeal as much as he hates anything in the world; but he loves Freddy more, and so he and Freddy use the hotplate to make oatmeal for breakfast. This happens for a week. Then Freddy says You know what I can’t stand this shit. He throws the can out and they don’t eat any more oatmeal.

Soon afterward Freddy comes home with another newspaper. He shows Victor a picture of a boy with light blond hair and a square nose. His name is Alexander Jendrzejewski, a name that makes Victor’s head hurt to look at it.

Time passes. Freddy comes and goes, Victor lives and dies. Twice more Freddy shows Victor pictures. Victor keeps them all. He wants to ask Freddy what they mean but he understands that they are a gift, they are special and that to ask is to spoil the surprise. He feels jealous of the boys. Freddy spends a lot of time talking about them and about the weather. Who are they? Victor wants to know. But he does not ask.

One day Freddy says I need money.

Victor goes to the box where he keeps the money Tony sends him. He has spent so little that by now he has a bunch as big as his fist. He gives it all to Freddy, who says Christ amighty.

Freddy never comes back. One month passes, two months, six months, a year, two. Victor begs, he pleads, he confesses. He hurts himself. He moans and prays and bargains. If You will, then I will. Time passes. Loneliness settles on him like dust. He is so lonely that he reaches for the phone.

Tony Wexler.

Victor says nothing.

Hello?

Victor hangs up.

Then he makes his most daring offer yet. If You will, then I will. He shakes hands with God and then he takes all his drawings, box by box, down to the basement, where he feeds them into the incinerator. He cries as he does it but he does it all the same. Everything he has drawn in five years goes into the fire until there is nothing left. He takes the elevator to his room and waits for God to fulfill His end of the deal.

But Freddy does not come.

Victor feels lost. He does not eat. He does not leave the apartment. He grows ill. He has dreams, he sees Freddy getting on a bus and driving away. In the dreams Freddy will not look at him. Victor wakes up wet from head to toe. He has the same dream every night for three weeks, and at the end he rises up and takes a shower. He goes to the restaurant. He has eleven dollars left in his pants pocket that he forgot to give to Freddy. He eats slowly, his stomach aches. With the remaining money he goes back to the store and buys a lot of new paper and some new markers and pencils. He carries everything back to his apartment. It is difficult because he is so weak. But he does it and then he sits down and begins to draw himself a new map.

If I’m still writing a detective story—and I’m not so sure that I am—I believe that we’ve come to the part of the book where I tie up all the loose ends and reassure you that justice was served. Those of you expecting a bang-up finish might be a little disappointed with me. I apologize. You haven’t read this far without the right to expect some sort of fireworks. I wish this final chapter had more guns and explosions; I wish there was a knife fight. I actually thought about making something up. That’s how eager I am to please. I’m no novelist, but I could probably spin together an action-packed conclusion. Although—seriously—knowing what you know about me, can you see me rolling through the dirt, both barrels blazing? I didn’t think so.