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Twenty-Six
I
have a powerful fetish for the rosetta figures etched into lattes by Northwest
baristas. My knowledge of the process is limited to stolen counterside glances,
but here’s my understanding of the basic steps: you lay down two shots of
espresso, suffuse them with milk foam to create a dirty sienna canvas, and then
pour a narrow stream of hot milk in a zig-zag weave, creating a ski trail of
white that is then seamed into a rough symmetricality by a quick pour down the
center. The result is an ivory sword fern, often with branches into the teens.
And then you get to destroy the poor thing (philistine!) by drinking it.
I’m
lying to you. None of this is important. I am seated in a corner of the Caffe
Vita in downtown Olympia, and I am stalling. After staring at my ten-limbed
rosetta for ten minutes, I move on to a chessboard balanced on the windowsill.
The knights are staring at each other. I turn them so they’re back-to-back,
pacing off a duel.
“Hello.
Is there a guy named Kong in the mountaineering department?”
“Oh,
you mean Kai. He’s not in today. Would you like someone else from that
department?”
“Um,
no. It has to be Kai.”
“Steve’s
back there. Steve knows everything about…”
“Nope.
Has to be Kai. He’s a Sherpa, you know…”
The
man laughed. “I swear, that guy has more groupies than the Foo Fighters. Well,
listen. He’ll be in tomorrow afternoon, um…” – sound of shuffling papers –
“noon to six. So call back then, I guess.”
“Thanks.
Thank you.”
“No
prob.”
That’s
how I found him. Apparently, he transferred from Tacoma to Olympia as a way of
staying out of my sights. As if I were some kind of threat. It’s
three-thirty-five, and I’m running a mental preview of every possible
confrontation, like an improv group doing the same sketch over and over in
different theatrical styles. Tennessee Williams. Shakespeare. Gilbert & Sullivan.
None of them have the tiniest relationship to reality.
The
weather has decided to directly contradict my mood. The air is laced with a
brilliant lemon-sorbet sharpness. A bevy of college students, clothed in the
latest thrift-store fashions, are cavorting on the sidewalk, taking in the UV
rays like they’re spoonfuls of caviar. My foamy rosetta has completed its
elevator ride to the bottom of my cup. It’s go time. I dig out the last bit of
foam with my finger and lick it off, and then I fight off years of parental
training and leave my cup and saucer on the table for somebody else to pick up.
The
sidewalk rolls away before me. I cross the intersection and pass the old State
Theater. On the far side, an old-fashioned storefront space plays host to
Jenalyn Sports, the windows covered in red banners declaring fifty percent off
cleats. Lest I lose my nerve, I keep right on, through the double glass doors,
past the cashiers, gun counter, baseball gloves, and then I look up to find
spools of rope in fluorescent colors. Kai, my ghost, is demonstrating a locking
carabiner for a tall man in a business suit.
“See,
you lock that in, pull it tight just to double-check, and there’s no way in the
world that…”
He
stops when he sees me, and our eyes lock in for a long time. Those dark irises
are hard to read. I imagine him bolting like a frightened buck, three giant
leaps into the stockroom.
“Excuse
me a moment, would you?” He leaves the businessman with a dozen carabiners and
comes to take my hands.
“Hi.
I’ve got a lunch break right after this customer. Can I buy you a latte?”
There’s
no reason to say no. And I’m back at Caffe Vita, deflating another rosetta. Kai
is five times more calm than he should be.
“I’m
sorry, Channy. I’m sorry for the way I took off like that. And I’m sorry I
haven’t called you. I’ve been meaning to, but the more I put it off, the harder
it gets to pick up that phone.”
“You
can always talk to me, Kai. I’ve been through everything. Nothing’s going to
kill me.”
He
glances outside at the college kids, as if he’s looking for spies.
“The
thing is, after that weirdness at the bar, I had to talk to my therapist. Army
guy. Sal. Unbelievably cool dude. The thing is, I can’t see you anymore.”
I’m
not surprised, but it sounds a little too much like Scootie’s breakup with
Ruby. I’m imagining what a bottle of crème de menthe Torani syrup would look
like, emptied over Kai’s head.
“I
know he’s… gone, Channy. I know he shouldn’t play into this. But he does. He
was my best friend. I let him down. I should have seen it coming. The sight of
you will always remind me of what happened, of how I failed. There is a real,
concrete limit to how much I can recover from that, of how far I can get back
to normal. It’s just not realistic to carry around this living reminder of…”
He
runs out of words, but I get the idea. I’m the reminder. I am Kai’s souvenir
from Iraq. He buys a little time by taking a drink from his latte, then sets
down his cup as a marker.
“I
can’t do it. I can’t see you any more. I’m sorry.”
I’m
fairly sick of my emotions playing dogpile with me, so I’m holding firmly to my
rational demeanor. I glance at the chessboard and find that someone has turned
the knights back around. I speak at them so I don’t have to look at Kai.
“I
think you and I are missing out on something pretty great, and frankly I’m
pissed off at Harvey for taking this
away from me, too. I think he’s done enough fucking damage. But there’s no way
I’m going to talk you into anything. I can’t begin to imagine the things you’ve
gone through, the things you might have seen. But Kai, I do want you to
consider one other thing. We were friends before all of this, and I know it
might take you a while to straighten things out, but if you come out on the
other end, I’d like to think we can be friends again.. You don’t even have to
call, just… show up at Karz some night.”
He
waits for more, but that’s all I’ve got. I watch a skateboarder with dreadlocks
grinding a curb. I’m feeling suddenly exhausted, and I can’t understand why
this man cares about my dead husband more than I do.
“Kai?
Could you just… go? I’m not up to all the niceties.”
He’s
gentleman enough to not say another word. He seems to think it’s a good idea to
take my hand from the table and give it a squeeze, and I’m too tired not to let
him. And then he’s gone, the front door swinging in his wake. I stare at my
caffeine rosetta for a long, long time. When I get around to my next sip, I’m
surprised to find that it’s cold.
“Okay,
this might seem a little odd, but please don’t turn around. I need you to play
a little game with me. I’m going to leave the coffeehouse and take a right down
the sidewalk. I’d like you to count to twenty and follow me, but I want you to
stay a block behind me until we get to the Harbor Walk.”
The
voice is coming over my left shoulder. At first, I suspect ventriloquism. But I
am a dedicated follower of instructions, so I face forward until I see the back
of a tall man with a blond buzz-cut, headed for the door. Everyone is so eager
to leave me. Rousting the molecules in my brain, I realize that this is Conrad,
captain of our ski squad, manager of the Olympia branch of Jenalyn Sports.
Spy
games. Why not? I have absolutely nothing better to do. I head outside and look
around to find him on the far corner, looking casual, waiting to confirm that
I’m “tailing” him. I’m fully invested now, so I make no signal before starting
down the sidewalk, working up a backstory as I go. Recently divorced mom with a
free hour, looking for the downtown spa with the great handmade soaps. Keeping
an occasional eye on Conrad turns out to be pretty easy, because he’s taking a
straight shot down Fourth, crossing a bridge in front of the loopy capital-city
fountain then heading for a grocery store next to the marina. He takes a sudden
right and stops two blocks later on a wide path constructed of clean, baked-out
timbers. This must be the Harbor Walk; I know this because I am a brilliant
detective, and also because I can read the words on the large, gray municipal
sign that says Harbor Walk.
I
join Conrad at a railing overlooking the water. Our near horizon is a field of
ship’s masts that reminds me, for the most transparent of reasons, of a
signpost forest. Even now, when I am ready to change my mailing address to End
of Her Rope, WA, I cannot resist an attempt at humor.
“The
ship sails at midnight.”
“The
albatross is a mighty bird,” he recites back. Conrad is a helpful playmate. He
gives me a chuckle. “Didn’t mean to go all James Bond on your ass, but Kai’s
pretty fragile right now, and it’s a real bitch these days finding replacement
Sherpas.”
“What?
He’ll think we’re having an affair? As of about a half hour ago, it doesn’t
really fucking matter.” The f-word feels good on my teeth, and my heart is
frosty with abandon. Hell, I would take Conrad right now; it would be a nice,
vengeful screw. But Conrad is shaking his head.
“Oh,
man. I was hoping he would hold off on that. But that’s Kai – he’s got this
overwhelming affection for a clean slate.”
Conrad
is still talking in code, but I guess I knew from the espionage that this would
take a while.
“We
got the word yesterday: they’ve started the investigation. We’re all pretty
jumpy. Kai thought that this might all pass over, that life would go on. Tough
warrior, that one. Not me. I always knew the shit would come down, and here it
is, every gory fucking chapter, ready to fall. I think he also thought that we
were doing this to protect you, but
it’s better you hear it from me than some anchorman. Oh Jesus, now I’m just
freaking you out. Why don’t I just shut up and tell you the fucking story?”
-->
Conrad
Harvey
was out on patrol with Bucksy – I’m sure Harvey mentioned him. Man’s man,
soldier’s soldier. Gave his orders straight out, undiluted, but you never felt
like you were being jacked around, because he’d always paint the whole picture:
reasons, danger, overall strategy. I mean, it’s the Army – when it comes down
to it, you just do what you’re told. But Bucksy figured if he took the time to
explain things, he could get ten percent more out of each of his men – and in
combat, ten percent is life minus death.
Physically,
he had your attention anyway. Six-five, 250, built like a freakin’ linebacker.
And you know what he did as a civilian? Hairstylist. Fuckin’ hairstylist. I
always had a hard time mashing that together as a concept. I imagine he didn’t
get too many complaints about his work.
I
used to call him “Captain Glue,” because I’ll tell you, it is an absolute pile
of shit over there, and all the flies buzzing around that pile of shit have
explosives strapped to their chests. You’re trying to save those people from
their own damn selves, and they’d just as soon blow you to pieces as make you
coffee. We had a lot of soldiers who were in danger of just plain losin’ it,
but Bucksy had that magic way of knowing who needed a kick in the ass, who
needed a dirty joke, who needed a good old-fashioned verbal takedown and who
needed to be left alone. Bullseye, every time.
Conrad
turns from the railing and looks at me, as if he wants me to get this next part, not as some colorful
abstraction but as a physical object, something you can hold and feel.
Bucksy’s
dead. Worse than dead. He was blown into two discrete pieces. Made me think of
the Black Dahlia. I go to horror movies now and I laugh. They have no fucking
idea.
It was your
husband who drove that Humvee over that explosive. It was also your husband who
escaped with a couple of scratches on his right elbow. Goddamnedest thing I’ve
ever seen. Not that I actually saw it. I only saw the remains.
We were
destroyed, useless. We spent the day either crying like babies or punching
holes in the walls. All except Harvey. Harvey spent the day sitting
straight-backed on his bunk, staring into space. He had this huge bottle of
water, and every few minutes he would take a swig, and then go back to staring.
It seemed like some kind of internal strategy session, like he was working
something out. I cannot conceive of the visual information that must have
registered on his brain that day, or what happens when something like that
starts tunneling around in your head. I’m thinking there also had to be guilt.
Nothing rational – there wasn’t a damn thing he could have done about it. But
maybe the irrational kind is harder, because you have to keep wrestling with it.
Especially when you’re the one who got away scot-free.
We didn’t
have much time for grieving. We were desperately short on personnel, the new
division wasn’t due for two weeks, and the insurgents in the village were
getting bolder. There were rumors about an attack on the local mosque. So there
we were, two days later, walking around like zombies, a squadron that had
literally had its head cut off. The command came down to me, but frankly Harvey
would have been better suited. I was off my nut. I envisioned an IED under my
every step, and you just can’t operate that way.
We had a
lead through one of our translators that a house in the northern sector might
be serving as a hideout for insurgents. I was still setting up my men around
the perimeter when Harvey bolted past me and busted through the front door.
Really threw me – for all I knew he had just barged in on a room full of armed
terrorists. He could be gunned down any second. But then I heard him inside,
yelling things in Arabic. Stay down. Hands behind your head. That sort of
thing. Then I heard a shot, so I told Kai to cover me as I went in after
Harvey. From the entryway, I had only a narrow slice of vision into the main
room. There were men, maybe thirty of them, all ages, kneeling on prayer mats. This
made sense – they were avoiding the mosque, because of the rumors. But what the
hell was Harvey doing?
Then I saw
their faces. They were terrified, breathing hard. There was another shot, and
the sound of a body falling to the floor. A man who was kneeling near the
opening tried to stand and run. Another shot. He fell into the hallway in front
of me, a hole in his throat. It was then that I realized what was happening.
“Lebeque!”
I shouted. “It’s Conrad! Listen to me! It’s the wrong house! These are not insurgents!”
Harvey’s
response was belligerent but strangely calm. “The hell they’re not! If ya
hadn’t noticed, Dixon, these people are not too particular about who they kill.
Well, neither am I! What about you, pal? Kill any Americans today? Did ya kill
my friend? Huh?”
Another
shot. Another body.
“Sergeant!
You must cease firing! That’s an order!”
I leaned
into the opening to see him raising the muzzle of his rifle to the head of an
old man. He looked at me and said, “I only take orders from Bucksy, and Bucksy’s
gone. This ain’t no fucking Zero Squadron. Zero Squadron has rules. No rules in
this fucking country. Alice in fucking Wonderland out here.”
He fired.
The old man slumped forward.
My teachers
had told me how a military mind operates in extreme situations, but this was
the first time I really felt it. My thoughts were dividing, half of them
scattered and shocked, the other half remarkably calm and rational. The calm
half noticed that Harvey was being methodical. He was working his way down the
line, front row first. The next was a young boy, maybe nine, ten years old, and
this meant that I was about to come to a crisis point. I wasn’t going to let
him kill that kid.
It was then
that Kai stepped into the back of the room.
“Harvey,”
he said. “You can’t do this.”
“I can do
this all day long,” said Harvey. “Motherfuckers blew my friend in half. In
half! This is a pleasure.”
“Fuck
them!” said Kai. “It’s not about them. I’m with you. But if you can stop right
now, we can get you out of here, cover our tracks and everything’s fine, okay?
You get a couple kills, get your payback, couple more weeks you go back to the
States, back to Channy, everything’s fine. But you gotta stop right now, Harve.
It won’t work unless you stop right now.”
Harvey
stood there for a second, staring at the back of that little boy’s head, and he
seemed to calm down. Thank God, I
thought. He’s talked him out of it.
“No,” he
said, and raised his rifle to the boy’s head. Another shot, and Harvey fell to
the floor.
When I
looked back toward Kai, I had this fanciful idea that he had just turned
himself into a statue, his rifle still on his shoulder, his eyes getting bigger
and bigger. I walked slowly toward him and spoke in my calmest military voice.
“Soldier,
hand me your weapon.”
I took it from
him and continued giving orders. I didn’t want him to think about what had just
happened. I was afraid of what he might do to himself. I put a hand on his
shoulder and shook him a little to get his attention. His face was just wide
open with fear.
“Soldier!
Go outside right now. Get O’Reilly and Benson.” Then I lowered my voice. “Kai,
you are not to say a word about this. Let me handle it.”
I guess if
I had to justify what I did next, I would say that your husband did commit suicide. He gave Kai no choice,
and I’m sorry, but every time Kai has a week like this one, I wish Harvey had killed himself. We carried the body
back to the base and reported that Harvey had gotten separated from the squad,
that we found him in that eucalyptus grove. The story made sense; it was an
American bullet, Harvey’s weapon had been fired – his feelings about Bucksy
were well-known. Any cursory forensics investigation would have proved us all a
bunch of liars, but we were counting on chaos, and we won – no one had the
luxury of looking into it any further. And, thank God, those Iraquis were
evidently too scared to report the killings.
I got a
call yesterday from CID, and I agreed to tell them the whole story. Politically
speaking, they’ll probably have to release this to the press. And… well,
especially with you and Kai being… a couple, I figured I better tell you. I’m
very sorry about all of this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone over
that day in my head and tried to figure out something I could have done to
prevent it. But reliving it, it’s all pretty fucking useless.
I’m feeling
grateful for the way the human body operates, the way everything numbs up,
because otherwise this would kill me. I stare at the masts, bobbing in the wind
like a leafless forest. Then I feel Conrad’s hand around my shoulder.
“What can I
do for you, Channy? Are you gonna be okay – I mean, right now? You want to call
someone? Could I drive you home? It’s no problem – I’m the boss.”
I’m
surprised at the clarity of my own voice. “No. That’s okay. I’ve got a place to
go. A thinking place.”
He nudges
my face toward his and gives me a teacherly scrutiny.
“Nothing
foolish?”
“Nothing
foolish,” I say. “I don’t operate that way. Besides, I’ve got a job tonight.”
“You sure
you’re up to it?”
I realize I
never knew his last name before, and I feel the need to speak it. “This is what
you do, Sergeant Dixon. You keep going.”
“Good
girl.”
“And you –
you keep a watch on Kai.”
“Always,”
he says. “That’s my job.”
The week we
moved into Sumner, I found a box of books in the basement with a note from the
previous tenant: Sorry! Didn’t have
enough room for this in the van – thought you might like something to read.
At the top
was a book of Northwest hiking trails. I opened it to the bookmark and found a
listing circled with a highlighter: the Nisqually Delta Bird Sanctuary. I had a
profound itch to explore our new region, and this certainly fit into the
category of Sign from God.
That
Saturday, we had a lot of chores to catch up on – we were still hunting up
shower curtains and a microwave oven – so by the time we found the sanctuary
parking lot the sun was getting low in the west. We walked straight into it,
down a wide gravel path bordered by tall wetland grasses the color of dried
bamboo.
“Look,” I
said. I gestured above us, where the swallows were swirling from one field to
the next, a haphazard, aerial tennis match. But Harvey’s gaze was fixed on the
long trail. Always the distance with this one. I had to take him by the
shoulders and nearly put him into a headlock to get him to look. When he saw
the swallows, though, I could feel his muscles relax.
“Absolutely
stunning,” he said.
Harvey the
human dichotomy. He was a tough climb, but there was something about the
challenge of the ascent that made the view that much sweeter when you got to
the top. But. This could be the last kind memory I have of him. Because he
snapped. Because he killed people. To that
dichotomy, there is no bright side.
I am back
in that very spot, the swallows of yesteryear weaving circles above me. The
tall grasses are now a milky green. The sun is low in the west, but setting
much further south.
He stood right here. The hands that massaged my
neck at the end of a long day were used to separate five innocent men from
their lives. There are no birds in this sanctuary, and the sky is brewing up a
football team of icy-looking clouds.
I watch my
steps carefully, as if I will be asked to describe them in a deposition. I have
begun yet another process – that of deciding if my so-called life partner was
inherently evil, or just inherently weak. A violent streak waiting for an
invitation, or an average man too harshly squeezed by mortality and
frustration? Are we all just one exploded comrade from taking lives? I picture
Hamster bisected by an orange burst, and try to channel my reaction.
I am angry
at Harvey, I am terribly sorry for him. I will love him forever, I will never
ever forgive him. And I am most sorry for myself, who will have to live with
these fucking what-ifs for the rest of my life, who will never have a joy that
is not cut in half by the sulfuric acid percolating from my memory banks.
Somewhere
in there, I should have some anger for Kai. The man killed my husband.
Justifiably, yes, nobly, yes – but there ought to be something. Instead I find only sorrow, so deep I can’t get my hands
around it. I don’t know if I will ever have the strength to be his lover, to
handle these explosive chemicals he carries around in his brain, but I want to
hold him and say, You did the right
thing. You did what your own humanity demanded of you. The beauty of
friendship is its forfeitability, and Harvey gave up Kai’s the instant he
pulled that trigger.
Oh, God.
The world is too gray, too empty of wings and song. I crave a bald eagle, a
blue heron, some shocking stroke of color to empty my thoughts for the smallest
second, but all I have are workaday seagulls rioting over the marsh. I am
grateful for my job, which even on the dreariest of days carries the
possibility of beauty: a bent note from a blues guitar, a cascade of horns, the
apple-ish bite of a hi-hat at the end of a phrase.
I turn and
look back at the parking lot. I have covered, at most, a city block. I can
still read the numbers on my license plate. It’s time to go to that job.
The evening
is utterly rote. I’m not even certain who’s here but I sense that it’s a
healthy crowd. I sit next to the pond as a familiar face rises to the surface,
sings a song and then sinks back down. I do a lot of smiling and nodding.
But the
songs stay with me. “Name,” “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” “The Sweater Song,”
“It’s All Right With Me,” “Beyond the Sea,” “Smooth,” “Chasing Cars,” “Tender
When I Want to Be,” “What Is This Thing Called Love?” The words drift in and
out like a dream before dawn. I try to piece them together, looking for some
clue on how a life is supposed to be lived. It’s not simply that nothing makes
sense to me, it’s that I am now beyond sense.
There is a
word in karaoke that I’ve never seen anywhere else: “Outro.” It’s basically a
made-up antonym of “intro.” It comes up on the lyric screen to let you know
that the singing’s over, but the music’s going to go on a little longer. You’re
free to stay at the mic and wait it out, but you’re also free to leave. Either
way, the music goes on without you.
“Channy?”
Big blonde
hair, like Joan Osborne in that “One of Us” video. I think this is Shari.
“Hi.”
“I think
you’ve got the wrong track, honey. It’s track twelve.”
“Oh.
Sorry.” Smile, nod – nudge the track to twelve. An acoustic guitar comes in
like a rowboat in gentle water. It’s called “Fade Into You” by a group called
Mazzy Star. This must be one of Shari’s CDs, because the song is sad and
otherworldly, and if I had ever heard it I would remember it. Shari’s whiskey
voice could squeeze tears from “The Hokey-Pokey,” and now she’s throwing in
this drowsy Patsy Cline lift that grabs at the fraying ends of my heartstrings.
I am able to hit the escape valve just in time, and I turn to face my little
squad of business card holders. Busywork. Busywork. Ah, that’s better – a wide
gravel path full of trivia.
The end of
the night comes quickly, and before I’m even aware that I’ve begun, I am piling
my last CD case into the truck. It could be that I can sneak away quietly and
continue ceasing to exist.
But then
there’s my paycheck, and the rent that’s coming due, so I trudge back in.
Hamster is leaning against the bar in a rascally fashion as he nurses an Irish
coffee. He’s a sipper; that’s how he keeps from becoming a drunk in a trade
that breeds them by the millions. He lends me a rakish smile, a little bit
higher on the right, the one he uses on his bevy of barfly Mrs. Robinsons.
“Hey
dollface. Good night tonight.”
“Yes.” I
smile and nod, but I can hear how flat my voice is. “Can I get my check?”
“Sure.” He
reaches into the cash register and pulls out a brown envelope. “Here ya go.”
“Thanks.” I
start for the door, feeling suddenly panicky.
“Channy?
Are you okay? You seem a little…”
Oh God.
That tone of courtly concern, it’s much too fatherly, avuncular, the vice
principal, the elder psychologist, the softball coach, and it’s precisely this
quality that snips the frayed ends of my heartstrings – the ones that held up
the marionette. I sink to my knees and it all comes pouring out of me, a
sobbing so deep that it sounds like some large, gray animal at the zoo. I’m
melting into the freshly mopped ammonia-smelling floor, and then I’m aloft on a
cloud of musky, old-fashioned cologne, Hamster’s day-old beard scratching my
cheek. I land on the cold vinyl of a bar booth, where my strange new song just
keeps spilling and spilling out.
In the
great Northwest, gray is our color of choice, the raincloud our team mascot.
Precipitation is such a dominant presence that we have invented a term for its
temporary cessation: sunbreak. This morning is my sunbreak, ten minutes of
slick beauty during which I have forgotten whatever it was that was plaguing
me.
I follow
the sunbreak across the room, where it lands on three fuzzy balls making their
way along tubes of yellow, red and green. I quickly designate the lightswitch
as their finish line and place my money on red. The second I do so, my steed is
off, as if someone has turned a faucet and shot him forward on a rush of water.
He reaches the switch and disappears around the corner, leaving his rivals to
choke on his primary-colored dust.
Victory!
Followed quickly by consciousness. I’m at Hamster’s. I’m at Hamster’s because…
Damn.
Sunbreak
over. But it’s followed by a slowly spreading smile that smells like coffee. I
take a steaming mug that says, It Must Be
Love (either that or this coffee is really strong!).
“Thanks,
boss.”
“I forget
how you like it,” he says.
The first
sip goes right to my head, sweeping aside the autumn leaves, prodding me into
untoward flirtation.
“I like my
coffee like I like my employers,” I say. “Hot and black.”
That sends
us both into titters, and I notice that Hamster is fully groomed and dressed:
jeans, tennis shoes, golf shirt. Apparently, I have slept in. He leans an elbow
against the doorjamb and gives me an appraising look.
“You know,
you’ve really got to cut this out. You’re ruining both sides of my reputation.”
I’ve got to
latch onto something, and this seems like a solid opening.
“Well now
right there! See? Yet another of your enigmatic pronouncements. What the hell
do you mean, ‘both sides’? And what the hell is your last name?”
“Don’t you
read your paychecks?”
“Have you seen your signature lately? It’s a
freakin’ Jackson Pollock.”
Hamster
cups a hand around his chin, considering how much of himself to divulge.
“Jenner.
Hamilton Beauregard Jenner.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” I am pounding the
top of my sleeping bag in disbelief.
“As for the
other bit of information, that is a great big fat secret that can only be
traded for a secret of similar proportions. Such as, perhaps, whatever it was
that liquified you all over my floor last night.”
I take an
overlong sip that scalds my tongue. I rub a finger along the hot-spot.
“Well. It’s
a whopper. But seeing how that bitch Ruby has absconded to Mexico, I guess I gotta
tell someone.”
He beckons
me down the hall. “Join me in my breakfast nook.”
I smile.
“Said the spider to the fly.”
Hamster’s
nook is a key lime pie of white tiles and yellow trim, with a small blondewood
table, white chairs and a bay window that looks across the harbor to Karz. I
picture him here each morning, nibbling a piece of toast, hamster-like, as he
ponders his greatest possession. I sit down and launch into my work, spitting
out the whole miniseries, chunk by grisly chunk. My conclusion turns Hamilton
Beauregard Jenner into a Catholic.
“Jesus Mary
Joseph and Richard Nixon,” he says. “Channy! You should be in a mental ward by
now. Certainly not doling out pop music in Gig Harbor. Are you seeing someone?”
“Well I
just… broke up to-…”
“Seeing a therapist, sweetheart. It’s fine telling
a friend, but eventually you need a professional. This is some grade-A shit.”
I keep
forcing my genteel boss to swear, which only adds to my feelings of guilt.
“You got
someone in mind?”
He takes a
bite from his scone – his first bite, such was his fascination with my story –
and smiles.
“How about
mine?”
I roll out
a finger like I’m laying a tiny carpet. “Which you’re seeing for…?”
He proffers
a pinkie. I recognize this from childhood. It’s a pledge of secrecy. I hook my
pink pinkie around his mocha pinkie and we pull them away like we’re unplugging
a bathtub.
“Just for
clarity,” he says, “absolute confidentiality.”
“Absolutely.”
“Your boss
prefers men. And he got most of those stock tips during late-night rendezvouz
on Amtrak.”
“Scandalous!
So… why the closet?”
“Different
times, honey. I didn’t need both races on my ass. So to speak. My youngers
speak to me of rainbows, and Pride movements, but it’s just not my bag.
Besides, I take great pleasure in the cash of all those Gig Harbor housewives
who come to my bar to indulge their Harry Belafonte fantasies.”
I laugh out
loud, which feels strange and lovely. “I was thinking Nat King Cole.”
Hamster
lets out a sandpapery Belafonte laugh (I’ll be damned) and says “Nat King Cole!
I’ll be damned.”
I stand
from my chair, so touched by this long-delayed confidence that I must have an
embrace.
“Mr. Jenner
– Harry, Nat – give me a big, gay hug.”
“I will,”
he says, and does. Wrapped in Hammie’s muscular limbs, I feel that perhaps the
world will stop beating on me, at least for the duration of a sunbreak. A trio
of cormorants slides by the window.
Photo by MJV
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