You Don't Love Me Yet (14 page)

Calls might be stacking up on her machine. If they spoke she’d want to see him. Anything seemed possible: Carl might even be waiting for her in her house, or outside it. The carousel only seemed stopped because she instead bumped along in Matthew’s shockless Mazda, hell-bent for brunch. Matthew and Falmouth were at the moment discovering common ground, an animated cartoon they both liked, something to do with a Chihuahua and a cat. She should cherish this interlude, perhaps. Besides, she was ravenous for frittata. Sunlight strobed through the moonroof. She tilted her head back and shut her eyes to feel it batter her lids.

m
atthew explained to Falmouth about Fancher Autumnbreast’s radio show,
The Dreaming Jaw
. Playing one of Autumnbreast’s live in-studio sets had launched careers, everyone from the Rain Injuries to Souled American to Memorial Garage. Matthew also explained how Autumnbreast had been Janis Joplin’s boyfriend, the only one, according to her, who’d never taken advantage of her. He’d also spent a famous weekend consoling Marianne Faithfull in Morocco after her breakup with Mick Jagger. The three of them sat outside, on Hugo’s long deck, spectating as new brunchers grouped at tables around them. Their own chairs had been pushed back from the table, their meals demolished, oatmeal and egg white and curds scattered to plates’ edges and beyond, juice glasses emptied, coffees filled a third and fourth time. Matthew’s fingers stole across the settings to harvest appetizing chunks that had been abandoned on Falmouth’s and Lucinda’s plates. He looked healthier than in weeks, his sallowness fleshed again with glamour, with rock-star prospects. The kangaroo seemed forgotten for the moment.

Falmouth smoked and listened intently as Matthew talked, pursing his lips and shaking his head, stripped of irony. He interrogated Matthew precisely. It was as though his solipsism had been dissolved by the revelation of a rock-and-roll demimonde hiding in plain sight before him, now uncovered by the events of the Aparty.

“This person, this Autumnbreast, never wanted to play music himself?”

“He’s more like the most virtuoso listener who ever lived,” said Matthew. “When he listens, other people hear things. He’s like a site, an occasion for things to happen. His radio show’s like a clearing in the woods where the history of contemporary sound just happens to stroll through.”

“See, I like that very much,” said Falmouth. “It’s not a passive role. His sensibility declares itself, and others pay attention. He’s presiding.”

“Right.”

“Who cares?” said Lucinda.

They both stared.

“What a lot of malarkey. Presiding. You only like the way that sounds because it reminds you of yourself. It’s like the gallery. You don’t want to be an artist, it’s too vulnerable. You want to be a collector instead, a curator of happenings. But that’s what pushed you into the arms of Sniffles Harvey.”

Falmouth blinked, smoked, refused to lash out.

“And you,” she said, turning to Matthew. “You only like Autumnbreast because he calls you sweetheart, Matty-o, honey bunch.”

“I don’t think he actually called me honey bunch, Luce.”

“I thought we were supposed to be an art band, something alternative.” She felt herself growing vicious, couldn’t quit. “I didn’t realize you’d fall over your own feet getting caught up in some sleazy sixties rock dude’s clutches.”

“He’s responsible for getting attention for a lot of alternative bands,” said Matthew, with defensive precision.

“I’ve never heard of any of those bands you mentioned. Except the Rain Injuries. And you hate those guys.”

“Well, that’s probably because you don’t listen to much of anything, Luce.”

“Now, friends,” said Falmouth, making an appeal for peace.

“And anyway, all those legendary women this clearing in the woods ever-so-sweetly presided over but never took advantage of,” Lucinda continued, “I can’t help noticing they were all conveniently smashed on alcohol or suffering a famously devastating breakup at the time.”

“Huh?” said Matthew.

Lucinda’s eyes stung. Her throat began to tighten and she understood, reluctantly, that she was crying. “I’m just saying Mr. Funbreast sounds like a rebound operator to me.”

“What’s the matter, Luce?” said Matthew.

“Nothing.” She pressed her knuckles against her trembling chin, swallowed hard.

Falmouth stubbed his cigarette and peered at her. Lucinda fell silent, cast her gaze to the far avenue, shook the slime of tears from her cheeks.

“Did I say something?” said Matthew.

“We were only joking, Lucinda, whatever we said,” said Falmouth.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you’re crying,” said Falmouth.

“I’m fake-crying.”

“Why would you do that?”

“For sympathy.” She tucked what had welled, the joyous trauma of the past days, back into its hidden compartment. Something in Matthew might have been triggered by her sniping, however, or perhaps by the sight of her tears. He’d lapsed into his old recessive state, his joy in the gig unsustainable. Perhaps he’d also recalled Shelf the Flyer, maundering in her dismal basin.

“I wish I could fake cry as well as that,” said Falmouth.

“I’ll teach you.”

“Sniffles Harvey—that was a good one.”

“You don’t even know how he earned that name.”

“Of course I do. He was sniffling all around your band like a truffle pig. Trying to take credit for it himself, as if you were some strange lucky outgrowth of his loft.”

“Let’s give last night a break,” said Lucinda. “Forget about Harvey and Summerbreast or any of these other spooky characters circling around.”

“What other spooky characters?” said Falmouth.

“Nothing, I just mean let’s give the whole thing a rest. Try to enjoy the morning.”

“That’s what we were doing,” said Matthew.

“But not even mention the band, just pretend we’re our regular selves.”

“I think I just saw someone I think I know,” said Falmouth, rising from his seat.

i
t’s like I got into some kind of horrible chess match with Dr. Marian. All I wanted was for them to take Shelf back into the general population. They said she was gouging the other kangaroos but solitary confinement is a self-perpetuating thing, she wasn’t learning anything about proper socialization by being stuck in the pit.” Matthew had begun to confess his and the kangaroo’s dilemma the moment Falmouth had left him and Lucinda alone.

“They call it the pit?” asked Lucinda.

“Sure.”

“That’s what it looks like. I mean, that’s what a visitor would probably call it. But there’s something horrible about knowing that you people call it that too.”

“It just kept escalating between us. I was totally discredited because I tried to go around Dr. Marian, to the board. Everyone in the office kept freezing me out.”

“You appealed to the zoo’s board about a single kangaroo?”

“I wrote a letter.”

“Isn’t Dr. Marian the one who hired you?”

“The bad vibes up at the office aren’t really important anymore,” he said. “My problem is I can’t get anyone to pay attention now that I’ve, you know—taken Shelf away.” Matthew sagged in his chair as though only now relieved of some burden of denial, as if Lucinda and Denise hadn’t broken in and seen for themselves. Perhaps he’d persuaded himself that episode was truly a dream, a kangaroo piss-fever hallucination.

“You want attention for that?”

“My plan was to leak it and embarrass the zoo. I tried to get the
Times
and the
Weekly
to come and see Shelf. I said I was holding her hostage to protest her treatment. I even tried News Eleven. But they won’t return my calls.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Dr. Marian outflanked me. When the paper or the television calls, she says the zoo’s not missing any kangaroos. They think I’m a crank. She won’t even confirm that I worked there, just says I’m familiar to them, a publicity hound, some kind of zoological stalker, and that attention only encourages me. At the same time, she won’t admit to anyone at the zoo that I’m fired. Actually, I’m not fired.”

“What?”

“The department secretary called and said they were holding my paychecks in the office, but they won’t forward them. They’re trying to get me to come in, so they can surround me and conduct some kind of brainwashing.”

“That sounds a little paranoid.”

“You get used to putting a gorilla in a straitjacket or shooting an ibex in the throat with a twelve-ounce dart you’d be surprised what you’d be willing to do to a human being, Luce. These people are like Nazi doctors, they’ve persuaded themselves they’re engaged with primal factors outside the ken of normal human beings.”

“Were you ever recruited to join some kind of vigilante faction? I suppose the gorillas themselves could be employed in death squads, after enough shock treatment.”

“Don’t make fun of me.” He shrank into the corner of his chair, his eyes revealing real fear, as if the restaurant might be surrounded at that moment by Dr. Marian’s operatives.

“It can’t be easy, just the two of you in that apartment,” Lucinda said, gently now, thinking of that dungeon of lettuce and urine.

“I’ve been telling myself it’s going to get better,” Matthew droned, ponderous in his guilt.

“You probably thought it would be different when you got her out of the pit.”

“I think she blames me. I used to be the one who cheered her up. We’d talk and she’d lift her head and I could tell she didn’t want me to leave. Now it’s like she associates me with the zoo. She won’t even look at me.”

“Moving in together might not have been the best idea.”

“She has a problem with high expectations,” Matthew said, his gaze on some middle distance, as if facing some unseen advocate for the kangaroo, a mediator or marriage counselor. “It began with her parents.”

“What about her parents?”

“Shelf was born right here, in Los Angeles. Her parents were sort of famous. They were sent here as a gift to Linda Ronstadt from an Australian fan. Linda Ronstadt didn’t know what to do with them, so she gave them to the zoo. There was a lot of publicity at the time, and I think it was confusing for the kangaroos. They got special treatment and then were expected to melt into the regular population. I suppose they imparted a certain lack of realistic perspective to Shelf.”

“Maybe Fancher Autumnbreast should take her to Morocco,” said Lucinda. “It worked for Marianne Faithfull.”

“Either you want to help me or you don’t, Lucinda.”

“I’m sorry. Tell me what I can do. I’m hardly a kangaroo person.”

“Go and collect my checks,” he said. “I’m totally broke.”

“They’d let me?”

“It’s worth a try. At least there’s nothing they can do to you.”

Lucinda reached across the table and nudged Matthew’s fingertips, offered a smile. An immense noontime melancholy had suffused their table. The lives at nearby tables, pairs of couples, families, the clank of silver and happy conversation, all evoked what they’d deserted. Their days were rich and strange, full of kangaroos and gigs, things other brunchers couldn’t know, but they were impoverished too, bereft of ordinary solidarities which had once seemed near at hand as the spoons and forks on the table between them, as their browsing fingertips.

The fugue dissolved and they noticed Falmouth. He sat at another table, deep in the porch’s shadow, legs crossed, scribbling on a pad propped across his knee. As they turned to him he lifted his pen from the page and squinted at the results.

“What’s that?” said Lucinda.

“I’m entering a new phase of radical openness to suggestion. It took you and Jules Harvey to make me understand. You’ve been taking an admirable risk with your horrible music. From this point on my only conceptual medium will be myself. My own behavior and choices, the way I respond to the opportunities to transform daily experience into art. I’m done trying to bully others into being my canvas and oils, in other words.”

“That’s nice, but what are you doing?”

“I borrowed this pen and pad from the waitress,” he said. “She’s one of my students. It’s only ballpoint and it skips but I think that’s good, a happy accident, the kind of thing I’ll be open to from now on.”

“Okay, but what are you drawing?”

“You.”

He turned the pad around. Matthew and Lucinda were depicted in feathery blue ballpoint strokes, seated with their heads leaned together at the table, under shelter of the deck. Another figure loomed between them, paws bridging their shoulders, pointy ears brushing the porch, feet crammed under their table. Long whiskers extended from the grinning cartoon mammal’s nose, past Lucinda’s and Matthew’s heads, radiating like beams of light in a child’s drawing of the sun.

“Is that a ten-foot rat?” said Lucinda. “Or your idea of a kangaroo?”

Falmouth shrugged. “It’s me, really. A spirit-representation of my love and concern for you on this beautiful morning.”

“You’re a strange person, Falmouth.”

“Thank you.”

“Were you listening to us talk?”

“Half listening.”

“So, any half thoughts?”

“On what?” Falmouth reversed his pad and resumed sketching, squinting at them like some alfresco painter. The morning had drifted to afternoon, a sweet languor investing in their bodies and words. Cars swooped on the 101, a long block away, but the sitters on Hugo’s porch went contentedly nowhere, weekending.

“You’re a master of provocation, Falmouth. What about taking on the Los Angeles Zoo?”

“I’ve never been one for causes.”

Matthew had eased into silence, disburdened of his secrets and fears. Anyone could speak of zoos and kangaroos now. These were public facts, not some private concern.

“Think of it as a performance piece,” said Lucinda.

“I’m out of that line, I told you. Sounds more like a job for Sniffles Harvey.”

“Screw Harvey. If you help with the zoo we’d let you manage our band. Like Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground.” Lucinda pictured him as the giant mammal, his tender ghostly paws on their shoulders, guiding the band forward.