The War Against the Assholes (21 page)

29

T
HE UPPER CRUST
. That's the name of one of the most complicated sleights in the
Calendar
. The premise is simple. Four queens are taken from the deck and laid out on a table. Each is then covered with a packet of three cards. The expert leafs through the first three packets to show that the queen has disappeared from each. He takes up the fourth to show that the three queens have migrated there, forming, with the fourth queen, a royal coterie. Erzmund supplies, along with the technical instructions for the sleight, a lengthy chunk of descriptive patter: the predestined failure of the vulgar in their assays to enter aristocratic circles, the wily means of each noblewoman's escape, the fatal vanity that gathers them together at last.

I never mastered this feat. Hob did. He did it not with face cards, not with aces. He used twos. Lowest of the low. He called his version
THE HOLE-IN-THE-GROUND GANG
. His line of patter inverted Erzmund's. He talked, as he showed us the twos beset with royalty and aces, about the crushing, philistine world, the violence inherent in our lives, and the hope and succor flight and privacy alone can offer. First time I heard the word
succor
. His version added another level of functional complexity, since he had to produce not just the twos but the tyrannical, two-faced kings, queens, and jacks as well, and the priestly aces. I've never gone in much for revolutionary sentiments. And there's no need to improve, through adaptation, masterworks. Yet I never minded Hob's version. I admired it. We all did. Charthouse went apeshit the first time he saw it. “You, sir,” he said, “are a genius.” We applauded. Hob bowed. Whipped his red-and-white handkerchief out of nowhere and swept it over the table. The cards had vanished when he'd completed the pass, and he showed us the deck, neat and squared off, in his left hand.

“Would you like more zucchini,” said my mother. My daze ended. “Yes, please,” I said. “One thing's for sure,” said my father, “whomever you end up marrying is going to know we raised you correctly. You always say please and thank you.” He pointed at me with his fork. Absurdly, I saw Hob, making one of his precise, mildly theatrical gestures. “Stop with this insanity about his future wife,” said my mother. She was chuckling. “I'm just saying,” said my father. Beneath us Mrs. Lorbeerbaum took up her tirade. The same tirade. Broken up by hours and days. “Nathan, this is the last straw,” she thundered. The floor dulling her voice. My mother and father both snorted and guffawed. I had to admit it was pretty funny. Even though I was thinking about Hob. Who was dead. You don't know many dead people at seventeen. Hob was, for me, the first. “This is super tasty,” said my mother. “Why thank you, my little chickadee,” said my father. Other kids, and I knew this for a fact, found their parents embarrassing. I never saw it that way. Longevity is a form of endurance. Endurance equals greatness. Therefore, respect your elders. I think this is why I volunteered to take Wittgenstein. He fell asleep as soon as I'd gotten him home. Hidden in my jacket. I put an old tee shirt and a sock in a shoe box and put him in it and slid it into the back of my closet. Whether he stayed put or got into the walls, I considered it his own affair. In a building like the one I lived in, a rat will thrive. Rat mind and human mind. Call them cousins.

My parents left the dishes for me and then went out. To the movies. They went to the movies on Saturday nights. An unbreakable engagement. “Like Kant and his walks,” said my mother. She had to explain who Kant was. I got the point. You can get past your human weakness with a little routine. A little practice, no matter how dull or insane it seems when described or viewed from the outside, will save you. Redeem you, even. If that's possible. I washed. My limbs ached from football. On top of the regular ache. Which had returned with my memories. My head twinged every time I tried to get a focus on the statue's face. Still shifting. The script still hurting my eyes. Charthouse said that was common, in accounts he'd read on the matter. “They call it the high speech,” he said, “no known translations exist. Not even any transcriptions.” About the temple he had as little that was defini­tive to say as Alabama. Aside from the speculation about her being Hecate, which he also dismissed. No name. Like the river. Its statue nameless as well. This didn't bother me. The place had almost killed me. I didn't necessarily want to know every last particular. The frescoes were enough to give you the general idea. That's the real ­paradox. You understand your place in the world only before it's taken away from you. Point out a case where that hasn't happened and I'll hand over my meager accumulations. I said good-bye to my parents when they left for the movies. Shook my father's hand and embraced my mother. “We'll let you know whether it's a renter,” my mother said. Her standard premovie valediction. In their opinion nothing was a renter. Even and especially the worst films. “The big screen ennobles them,” said my father. For all I knew it would be the last time I saw them. If they could get to Mr. Stone, they could get to me. I was not afraid. Just wanted to see what would happen. To know the ending. The great curse of humanity, a desire to know the ending. I found myself humming Charthouse's little melody. Whose name I also did not know. Stroking the rims of the dishes with a sponge.

And yes, I was waiting. I assumed I had little time left in the world. I was not afraid. Tired. Concerned for my parents. That's all. Hob Callahan could be described as Mozart. So Mr. Stone had said. Mozart died young, too. Maybe, I thought, a prerequisite. Precocious. Able beyond his years. His small hands. His failed flight in the gym. Beyond a few sleights of hand, what had I seen? Not even the shallows of his gift. Assuming Mr. Stone was correct. I racked the dishes. Mrs. Lorbeerbaum was screaming now. Top of her smoked voice. “I tell you every time, Nathan. I tell you every time.” Her husband's reply: bass and inaudible. The voice of a moose at bay. A large, pathetically dangerous forest animal. City life can put you on a first-name basis with strangers against your will. One of its less-observed qualities. “And still you do it, just as though I'd never spoken,” screamed Mrs. Lorbeerbaum. I'd met her once. In the hall. She'd accosted me and accused me of walking around the apartment too loudly. She wore a pink, cabbage-embroidered robe. Short loose sleeves. Fat swung beneath her upper arms. Her hair pumpkin colored. “I would appreciate it,” she said as I walked away. I don't waste time on the insane. “And what do you think you are doing, young man, and what do you think you are doing,” she'd shrilled after me. Her husband: another random victim. Some humans can't be distinguished from disease or car accidents. One of the oppressing queens in Hob's sleight. Clinging and vicious. Harridans. That's a word I learned from my mother.

Nothing left to be done. No word from Charthouse or Alabama. No crows. No dishes remained, even. So I went to my room and practiced.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. THE MOUNTAIN AND MUHAMMAD. THE FOUR WINDS
. I hurled cards at my own reflection: eyes, mouth, nose. The cards thunked into the mirror. My reflection never flinched. Mrs. Lorbeerbaum was now screaming at the loudest pitch I'd ever heard. The pink back of her throat. Her pink robe. Her husband's mumbled, helpless replying. I shot the cards hand to hand and squared the deck. Made the Joker pop out. Erzmund called that
I'LL NO MORE GO A-ROAMING
. He suggested using it as an obscure means of compulsion.
The speed itself will unnerve
, he wrote,
and so assert your mastery
. The Lorbeerbaums continued. On and on. I checked in with Wittgenstein. Asleep in his shoe box. He'd been through a lot. I didn't blame him. Even envied him. He didn't have to hear the Lorbeerbaums. I leaned out through my living room window and smoked one of my last cigarettes. With Vincent gone, I'd had to ration them. The sweet smoke slipped down. It palliated the ache. Cleared my head. “Fucking Mozart,” I said. To the cold night. The bitter bright stars. “If you're so amazing why did he get you then,” I asked no one. No one answered. No echo returned.

Problem with waiting for death: boredom. At least for me. At least at seventeen. So I tried a few stoic poses before the mirror. Flexed my biceps and triceps. Made my pectorals dance. I admired my tattoo. Without thinking I put my shirt back on, rushed to the hall closet, and grabbed my coat. Better to die on the run. Thought about leaving my parents a note. If they got back and found it, and then I failed to die, however, awkwardness would result. I left no note. I turned out the light. Took a deep breath of the apartment air. Your home, the house of your birth, has an irreproducible smell. Even if you never notice it. I charged down the stairs. Could not wait for the elevator. Passed within earshot of the Lorbeerbaums' door. Their screaming increased. Mrs. Lorbeerbaum's voice sawed my eardrums. Mr. Lorbeerbaum's voice thumped and floundered on, beneath it. Nathan. I saluted him. Invisibly. Ran past Henry, our doorman. Still asleep, still disturbing the leaves of the poinsettia with his exhalations. His livery hat on a nail. His hands gently, modestly folded. He woke up as I skidded through the building doors. Gave me a wave. Eyes bleary. I waved back.

Cold air hit my cheeks. All thoughts of death, I won't lie, vanished. The high stars. The moon. Our moon, with its bilious face, not that sleek and terrifying dragon. I slowed down to a walk. Headed east. The foot traffic thin and the air pierced by every car noise. The hissing of tires and the squeaking of brakes. A fruit seller was closing up for the night. Shutting his umbrella. Balancing it on his shoulder. Grapes gleamed in the sourceless yellow light from the street. You only see that in big cities. I had a dollar. I bought a cluster. The cold had almost frozen them. Lacy frost on their skins. Their juice poured onto my tongue. Man and woman in their late twenties. Behind glass. In the stagey light of a restaurant. Their faces still and kind. Their hands laced across the white cloth. An old woman with a dowager's hump, clad in a bed's worth of linen. Dragging a dachshund behind her in a grocery cart. A whole long life would not be enough time to know everything. I was eating the grapes off the stem. Carrying it in front of me. As classical figures do. The images from the temple. Pelagea and Ariston: I'd forgotten to ask Alabama about them. The name of the cigarette moss, which I'd never asked Vincent. Names matter. Details matter. Memory is love. Who said that? Not me. I planned to go on repeating and repeating it until they came for me. Messaline. Her crows. Whoever. When they did, I'd kill and maim as many of them as I could before they overwhelmed me. I knew I could do damage. I'd managed to hit her. Before I even really understood what I was doing. I grinned at the thought. One grape left. The denuded stem resembled a complex of human blood vessels. Or something. I held the grape up, next to the moon. Adjusting till they were the same size. Ate the grape. The moon remained. I was lowering my eyes back to the street when I saw Vincent Callahan scurrying along the east-side pavement, gaze aimed at his shoes, in a black overcoat.

The green flash of his tie. The glint of the streetlamps on his lacquered hair. I couldn't speak, at first. The surprise was too great. The sudden happiness. It's criminal that happiness can reduce you to silence. I regained my voice. He stopped to adjust his tie. “Vincent,” I called. Through a hand megaphone. He kept walking. His duck-footed walk. His brother's feet had splayed, too. I wondered if he remembered. Or if his return journey had taken even that knowledge from him. I assumed it had. Which meant that I was a complete stranger. Who knew his name. He finally looked up, however. “I know this might sound strange,” I said. I crossed the street. Was six pavement squares behind him. He turned. Saw me. He stumbled to a halt. “Hey, man,” I said. He still didn't speak. His eyes wide and white. “Do you know who I am,” I said. A bolt of pain lanced through my head. My eyesight blurred. I grappled my temples. I saw, all the same: Vincent started running. Like a fucking madman. Tie afloat in the wind.

30

T
he pain was just that. Pain. If a man can heal you, he can hurt you. Philosophers, take note. It's a useful fact to remember. If a man can hurt you, he can kill you. That's just logic. So either I was dumb lucky. A strong possibility. Or Vincent was too much a coward to straight-up kill me. Another possibility. Could have been both. Or so I told Alabama. “You're overreacting,” she said. Ate one of my last french fries. “You didn't remember either. When you got back.” “Then how,” I said, “did he know how to hurt me? It can't be one and not the other. That's not logical.”

She hid her face in her hands as I said this. I thought I'd scored a big point. Then I saw she was laughing. “Logical? Logical? Are you kidding me?” Everyone else in the diner looked up from their food at her cry. With that sick gaze of expectation people wear when they overhear a fight in public. It was the Gravesend. It had not changed since our first visit. Even the customers seemed to be the same. At least the guy with the shoe-black toupee was sitting in the same booth, eating the same meal: six slices of wheat toast glistening with butter. The best diners don't change. A waitress came over with a pot of coffee and asked if we wanted refills. An emotional intervention technique. Way too late. Alabama was paralyzed with laughter. Slamming her hand on the table and gasping for breath. Her pale skin flushed. I was overcome, too. I hate my own laugh: a donkey's bray. Couldn't help it. I gulped for air in between gouts of laughter. The waitress refilled our cups anyway. She didn't recognize us. She was the one who'd accused Hob of some unclear crime. The night he lost part of his ear.

“It's not logical! It's just not logical,” Alabama said, “attention, everybody: Mike Wood has declared it illogical.” We slowly recovered. Still a few trembles of pain left over from Vincent's parting shot. “In the tunnel,” said Alabama, “you were scared. With Charthouse. You thought he was going to murder you. Racist.” I admitted I was. Scared, not racist. “Then that's what it was. Try calling him. See what happens.” This had not occurred to me. I dialed Vincent's number. Seventeen rings. No answer. No voice mail. “He doesn't even have his message set up,” I said. “And that proves what, exactly,” answered Alabama. I had no retort. The waitress brought out my second cheeseburger. “A growing boy,” she said. “Yes, ma'am,” I answered. “And polite, too,” she said, “you should try to hang on to this one, young lady.” “It's not like that,” I said. Before Alabama could say anything more insulting. “So you say,” the waitress said. Her mouth lipsticked pink. Her eyebrows plucked. I could not determine her age. Between forty and sixty. “How can you eat like that,” said Alabama. “You're a fry parasite. You're in no position to argue,” I said. And ate. And ate. And ate. I was ravenous. I'd eaten with my parents. I'd already eaten, to Alabama's disgusted amazement, a previous cheeseburger. No reason not to eat another one. Alabama's explanation: I bought it. She was calm. She'd been calm when I called her, babbling about having seen Vincent. About what he'd done. She told me to meet her here. That itself had calmed me down. She explained. That calmed me further. I was eating. That calmed me yet more. An instinctive reaction. A quirk or quiver of memory, that's all. The patrons around us chatting or silent, gloomy or exalted. The way it is in diners, in the later part of the night. The old and the young. The defeated and the soon-to-be-defeated. You have to take comfort in that.

“So what do we do now,” I said. “Do you want me to call Charthouse,” said Alabama. I forked up a fry. “How come you're the only one who has his phone number,” I said. “You can't reveal what you don't know,” she said, “under torture I mean.” “Does he know a victim of torture,” I said. “What do you think,” said Alabama. Not pissed. “He's been around a long time, Mike. He's our parents' age. And this isn't new, as you may have noticed.” She sucked down coffee. With air. To cool it. I ate another fry. Our waitress gabbled to a colleague in a corner. “Don't call him,” I said, “there's no need.” “See,” said Alabama, “it's not even a thing.” She ate another fry. “You can have the fries,” I said, “to me they're ancillary and you ate most of them already anyway.” “Not true,” she said. She ate another. “They are extremely tasty, however.” I thought she was high. Didn't say so. She smelled like weed when she met me. She seemed a lot more laid-back than she normally did. Smiled a lot. Covered her neck. Touched her hair. She seemed at ease, whereas normally she was on alert. No other way to describe it.

“Who are Pelagea and Ariston,” I said. To avoid mentioning weed. The names had not been tugging at my memory. They floated up. “What,” she said. “That painting,” I said, “that family.” The first of the truly great naturals, Alabama explained. They came to their abilities as a young married couple in fifth-century-
BC
Athens, and they fled the persecutions of the Persian magi. Which were tentative though still fierce. The first historically documented witch and warlock. The gazelles are their traditional symbolic companions, representing the fleetness and lightness of their souls. The snowfield they allegedly fled across can be found in present-day Turkey. The name of their child: lost to history. “That's quite a story,” I said. “You asked,” said Alabama. “I did,” I said, “but I'm still impressed.” “Take a look, it's in a book,” sang Alabama. “Which one,” I said. “It's actually like,” she said, “you can piece it together but it's in about eleven books. At least that's how I read it. Charthouse has different theories.”

For an ignorant man, there's no greater pleasure than listening to the learned. Maybe why I brought the subject up. I ate my last fry. “Do you want anything,” I said. “I ate at home,” she said, “it was only curried kale but it fills you up.” I caught the waitress's eye. She swooped past and said, “A check for the lovebirds at table six.” Alabama looked me dead in the eye. I was tempted to drop my stare. I didn't. It was an excuse to look at her face. Her inky eyes and eyelashes. They were compelling. The way she moved her arms was compelling. The way she laid her hands palm up on the table. Not near mine. Not
not
near them. “Are we in a staring contest,” she said. Looked away. “You lose,” I said. The waitress came back. “Good night, sweetheart, weeeeeel, it's time to go, ba-da-dum-da-duuum,” she crooned as she deposited the check tray. Alabama chuckled. “Not bad, right,” said the waitress, “I used to want to be a singer. The tips are better here.” I lifted the bill. Alabama said, “Look,” and jabbed my shin with her boot. In the tray was a playing card. Clean-edged. Colors bright. It could have just been slipped out of a pack. “Fuck,” I said. “Fuck is about right,” said Alabama. The queen of spades. Smiling her slight, sly, closemouthed, tyrant's smile.