Apathy and Other Small Victories Page 19

  “Yeah. I’m a nice guy.”

  The one message on my answering machine was from Gwen. She’d left it on Friday at 4:57 P.M. She sounded kind of sarcastic:

  “Hello Shane? It’s Gwendolyn. I hope you’re enjoying your soon-to-be permanent unemployment. See, I had a little talk with my friends in HR and I told them all about you. Then they had a talk with their friends, and then they talked to their friends. It was quite an email chain we made. Don’t bother even thinking about applying for a job at Panopticon, or any of its subsidiaries. Or any other insurance company in the state for that matter. If you even try to pick up an application you’ll be led out of the building by security. Best of luck though finding a new career. Your ass is grass.”

  Just before she hung up, right as the phone hit the cradle, I heard a woman’s voice go “Woo—” The beginning of all her co-workers and friends saying, “Woooo! You go girl! I can’t believe you did that! Oh my god! That was awesome!” Then there were high fives. There was clapping. Someone said, “Girl power!” Maybe one of the guys said, “Wow. I never want to get on your bad side! Har har,” and then had a secret crush on her because she was so strong and tough, and with her for a girlfriend maybe he’d finally, finally be able to stand up to his mother.

  I hoped so. That was just about what she deserved. She really did. And she deserved the satisfaction of that phone call. I was going to let her have it. For a few months anyway, until she’d forgotten all about me. Until she came into work one Monday morning to me on her voice mail, telling her in a quiet, somber voice that my test results had just come back positive and I had full-blown AIDS. I’d pause dramatically to control my emotions and laugh into my hand as I held the phone away. I’d apologize and beg her to get tested as soon as she could, and to keep getting tested for at least a year, just to make sure, and to contact all of her other recent partners and tell them to do the same. I’d say, “May the Lord Jesus Christ bring you comfort and peace in these difficult times Gwendolyn.” I’d tell her she was in my prayers. Then I’d hang up.

  Maybe I wouldn’t, but maybe I would. Her attempt to spite me was so misguided I felt like I almost had to. Two wrongs don’t make a right but sometimes they make me laugh. I am a vengeful god.

  The day I left I took the M-80 I’d gotten from Mobo before he was Rick Beekman and I blew the shit out of my tiny bike helmet. Vulcanized rubber shrapnel pelted the side of my building and rained down on me like a baptism as I ducked behind a Dumpster. And it was good.

  I was going to put the sparkler on Marlene’s grave, but I didn’t know where she was buried and I’d already forgotten what her last name was, so that didn’t work out. I lit it anyway and stood there like the Statue of Liberty as it flared in my hand, the remains of my bike helmet scattered around me like the ashes of a life I would never admit to leading. I did it for Marlene, and for America. And for me too.

  The sky was gray and it looked like it would rain. I hoped that it would. I like to leave places in the rain. It gives things a poignancy that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

  I walked down the street with my bag over my shoulder and looked around, finally trying to notice all the things about the city that I’d missed all these months, knowing that I wouldn’t remember any of it anyway. Whenever I’m leaving I get sentimental for that nostalgia I know I won’t have the next day.

  I stood at an intersection and looked up at an abandoned building that could have belonged to any city in America, but I tried to fix it on that street corner at that time of day, and remember it there and nowhere else. It was around three o’clock and nothing special was happening, but I tried not to forget it anyway. And as I struggled to create some scenic memories of my time there in my own doomed, after-the-fact sort of way, the General Lee pulled up beside me.

  I dropped my bag and stood with my mouth hanging open in the wind. It was idling at the red light. From that angle it couldn’t possibly run me over. I had to know. I walked over and tried to look through the glass but I couldn’t see past the tinting. So I knocked. I heard the hum of the electric window as it slowly, slowly unrolled. And there was Karal, sitting in the driver’s seat.

  He was slouched over with his head bowed, his chin pressed into his chest. His hands were both up over his head, gripping two triangle bars that were connected to the steering wheel by an elaborate set of wires and pulleys. His legs were spread wide, his right foot jammed all the way over on the passenger side, and there was a huge pedal hooked under each of his shoes like they were ski boots snapped into bindings.

  I stood at the window staring at this puppet show, and Karal swung his head over to look at me. Then he gave me the biggest grin in the world. He was thrilled to see me. I had no idea what to do. Karal smacked his head into the middle of the steering wheel and the horn groaned “Dixie.”

  Then the light turned green and he slammed both his feet down and swung his arms like he was conducting an orchestra at some wild, fantastic finale. He gunned the engine and nearly ran down an old woman who hadn’t made it all the way through the crosswalk. There was a handicapped sticker on his license plate, so that made everything okay. And the General Lee took off, swerving all over the street.

  I walked down to the waterfront, back to the Japanese memorial where Marlene had called me Stink for the last time. I hadn’t met any Japanese people while I was in town, but I’d decided to remember them anyway.

  The park was empty and the river had gone gray, reflecting the overcast sky in its dirty ripples. It was getting colder. I put my collar up against the wind and on a copper plaque laid into a four-foot-tall Stonehenge rock I read an excerpt of a speech by Ronald Reagan:

  The sad chapter in our history . . . teaches an invaluable lesson: that our Constitution is based on a belief in the innate, God-given worth of every individual, and that this worth cannot be denied without diminishing and endangering us all.

  I walked away and stood on the paved concrete path, leaning my elbows on the wrought-iron railing, and I looked out across the gray water at the spirals of highway on the other side and the long bridges stretching towards them.

  I should have heard a baby crying somewhere, or an ambulance siren wailing as it raced down the street behind me. I should have seen a homeless man sleeping under a newspaper or a junkie passed out grinding his teeth and gripping his scarred, pot-holed arm. Preferably a junkie who was Japanese, or at least Asian. That would have been perfect. That would have been right.

  Instead I heard the saxophone of an unseen street musician from further down the walking path. He was playing “Careless Whisper” by George Michael. And then I saw Doug coming towards me.

  He was wearing tan leggings bunched up around his knees and a white wraparound tunic with a thick white belt high on his waist. He looked like he was on his way to a Star Wars convention. Like fucking Luke Skywalker, and the years since Return of the Jedi had not been kind. His right arm was in a sling, and he was wearing an orange headband. Before I could throw myself into the river and drown he’d seen me.

  “Shane!” He waved his free left arm and galloped towards me like the damaged, awkward, middle-aged man that he was.

  “Hey!” he said gasping, totally out of breath. His strawberry blond curls hung over his headband and dripped sweat down his face. It drained into his ragged mustache and was lost. He had sprinted almost six yards. “Long time no see!”

  “Hi Doug.”

  “Wow, it’s been a while.”

  “Yeah. What happened to your arm? The bus?”

  “No, I don’t ride the bus anymore. I tore my rotator cuff trying to open a banana.”

  “Christ Doug.”

  “It was really unripe. I was yanking on the stem and then rip!” He winced at the memory as he touched his good hand to his bad shoulder. “I had to have Tommy John surgery. That’s what the doctor called it. He was an athlete I think. I’m on my way to rehab now. I learned my lesson though. You should always cut your bananas open, even if they look yel
low enough to break. Believe me. I found out the hard way.”

  “I didn’t know there was a hard way to open a banana.”

  “Neither did I,” and he shook his head. “But I’m really doing great. My episodes are almost gone! I don’t even carry my iced tea flask around anymore. Remember? DWI? Ha ha ha ha.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I haven’t ridden the bus in weeks. I bought a scooter.”

  “Honda?”

  “No, Huffy. It’s the kind you stand on and kick off with your leg. The one all the kids have. It’s hard going up hills, and I can’t ride with my arm like this, but it’s much healthier than the bus. It’s good cardiovascular, and it’s much safer for your noggin, ha ha ha.”

  “Jesus Doug.”

  “Ahhh . . . so I guess you heard about Marlene?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was such a shame. Such a shame,” he said, and looked down at his feet. “The police called me in for questioning. And tests. She and I had a sexual relationship you know.”

  The dirty water beckoned to me from below.

  “It wasn’t right, but it happened. I miss her.” And he looked out over the river. “Her death really made me look at my own life. That’s when I decided to make some changes. I stopped riding the bus and bought my scooter. I eat a lot more vegetables now too.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “I’m still looking for a new permanent assistant. Right now I have a temp. Davinder. He’s from India. He goes by Davey. Very smart, and he can hear too. You don’t know him. You missed your last appointment actually. I tried calling you but—”

  “Yeah, where are you headed again? Rehab? Is that your, uh, uniform?”

  “I suppose it is. The doctor said I needed to do something that would work a full range of motion, give me more flexibility to help my tendons heal, so I started taking yoga. Don’t worry, it’s not some hippie New Age thing. I’m in a class with Yogi Finkelstein. He teaches a much more non-traditional, nondenominational type of rabbinical yoga, and he brings in French philosophy and pagan fertility rituals and all kinds of neat things.”

  “Sounds like a liberal arts degree.”

  “You know, it really is,” he said reflectively. “It’s supposed to be performed in a natural hot spring wading pool, but there aren’t any around so we go to the Y.”

  “That’s fantastic. Listen, I’ve got to take off. I have to catch a bus.”

  “Oh you’re leaving town? I wondered what the bag was for.”

  “Yeah, it’s my time.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, best of luck to you Shane. It was great having you as a patient. If you’re ever in town again stop by the office. I still keep a pitcher of iced tea handy, just in case, ha ha.”

  “Okay.”

  “And take care of your teeth. You’re going to need some foundational work eventually. Those spot repairs I did aren’t going to hold up forever. You really shouldn’t go too long without seeing a professional. Remember, ignore your teeth and they’ll go away, ha ha ha.”

  “Ha ha ha,” I said as I was backing away from him.

  “And watch your head getting off that bus!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, and about those outstanding bills you have.”

  Shit.

  “You’re not going to pay them, are you.”

  “Probably not Doug.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, but he was smiling, like only a man who’s wearing an orange headband on his way to see Yogi Finkelstein possibly could. He looked ridiculously serene and at peace with the world and with me, both of whom were obviously screwing him.

  “That’s okay. We had some laughs, didn’t we?”

  “Sure Doug.”

  “Yeah, we did.” And he put his free hand on his hip and sighed, quietly reminiscing. “All right, hurry up and don’t miss your bus. And wherever you go, find yourself a yogi when you get there. It really helps.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He walked along the water and whistled the tune to “Splish Splash I Was Taking a Bath,” snapping his fingers as he went, which mingled with the saxophone solo from “Careless Whisper” that was blowing up the concrete path to meet him. And this soundtrack somehow described Dr. Douglas Weinhardt more completely than words ever could. Guilty feet have got no rhythm. Rub a dub Doug. Rub a dub.

  I was on my way to the bus station. Despite everything I felt pretty good. I wasn’t skipping down the sidewalk or anything, but I liked some things about myself and I didn’t want to die. It was the closest I’d been to optimistic in years.

  And I was rich, which always helps, no matter what rich people say. I still had some money left from those paychecks Panopticon Insurance had given me for sleeping in their bathroom, and I’d saved a lot from not paying rent the past few months. And I had a check, made out to me, for $800 in my back pocket. Marlene’s husband had been in the hospital since that night he’d tried to murder me, and with no hand and so much else on his mind I doubt he would’ve thought to call his bank to cancel a check. There were a few flecks of dried blood on Marvin the Martian’s face, but there’s always a check cashing window that doesn’t care about those kinds of details. And it’s always by the bus station, no matter what city you’re in.

  I was still a little torn up about Bryce’s wife, and when that detective told me about her and Mobo, that finally broke my heart actually. So maybe I really wasn’t feeling all that fucking optimistic. Maybe I was pretty fucking sad. Even so, I was still hoping I’d run into her somehow, and I thought for some reason that I would. I wanted to see her again, and ask her a few questions maybe, and that was something. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

  At least I had some things to think about.

  So I walked towards the station and I waited for it to rain. And it did, which was nice.

  Table of Contents

  part one

  part two