Broken Piano for President (46 page)

“Wouldn’t you have the keys if Mister Findlay said it was alright to borrow his car?” Malinta says. The camera nauseatingly swings to her blonde head. Thin shoulders pop through a floaty black outfit.

“Napoleon saw him,” Deshler says, full of Cliff Drinking stutters and slurs. The camera focuses on the driver’s seat again. Dean’s skull wobbles back and forth. He hacks at the steering column with a screwdriver, stabbing it to death. “Tell her, tell Malinta that the lovely Mister Clifford Findlay,” Deshler’s voice slurs and chops in a way that says
too many dollar beers tonight
. “With his fat ass and birthmarked face, said, ‘Yes, you can borrow my shitty German car that only starts with a screwdriver.’” He lifts the tool—“A blunt object,” newscasters and reporters could call it.

In the heat of the Beef Club, Deshler squints at the screen where his body is broken into a thousand pellets of light. Onscreen, a golden hamburger swings from a thin chain around the rearview and captures Dean’s attention. So familiar. It locks his eyes for a few moments—he’s seen it before. His head trembles, he doesn’t remember this happening. The Cliff Drinker forgets about gin and beer and mouthwash.

Back onscreen, the camera jumps around. Napoleon’s voice comes from behind the lens, “Well, is it a birthmark? I always thought it was, like, a skin disease. You know how it’s all red and pink around his left eye? I just assumed Clifford Findlay had psoriasis or something, not a birthmark.”

“Dude,” the driver stutters, taking a break with the screwdriver. “Just tell Malinta what the bossman said, please.”

“Oh, yeah, Mister Findlay said to borrow the car. He said he’d do anything for Deshler. But Findlay never gave any of us keys, I don’t think. Can you believe that? Isn’t that cool? I’ve parked this car a million times.”

“Good enough,” Malinta says, making a pouty face. “Let’s just go. I want to score some—” She looks back at the camera and whispers like a little girl stealing candy. “D-R-U-G-S.”

There’s a heavy plastic
crack
. The camera jerks to Deshler’s wavy head. “Ahhh Haaa!” The engine kicks to a meaty sports car start. “I knew I had the key somewhere.” The shot zooms to the screwdriver’s blue plastic handle sticking out from the ignition like a broken arm in a cast. Dean chugs the rest of a beer bottle and tosses it out the window with a shatter.

At the Beef Club, Deshler’s throat hurts: “Napoleon…turn-this-off.”

Cannonball words drop from Malinta’s mouth. “What are you trying to do here? This is stupid, just, just…” Napoleon flashes a quick glance at her. Malinta’s green eyes balloon with tears.

“What is this, dude?” Deshler asks, their hands lovingly clasped in fright. “I don’t remember ever—”

“Just watch, it’s getting good,” Napoleon says.

Henry’s bass cuts through everyone’s concentration:
Blomp-Blomp-b-blomp-SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE.

“Let’s go, let’s go, I’m so bored,” Malinta says in Napoleon’s directorial debut.

“Dude, put that thing away, I don’t…” Deshler’s voice trails as he slams the gearshift into reverse. “Want to be on camera.”

The video drives through a parking garage and out the wide mouth of an exit.

“After this,” Malinta says. “I’m done.”

“Yeah, right,” Dean chuckles.

“I’m serious. Good people don’t use drugs.”

“You, a good person?” Napoleon says, laughing.

“Shut up. Do you want me to call my guy?” Malinta says. “Or, Napoleon, honey, should we use yours?”

Deshler plunges the gas pedal completely down. The engine opens and sprays horsepower.

“Whoa, easy, easy,” Napoleon says, steadying the shot. The screen looks out between the two front seats as the stolen car screeches onto the street.

Pandemic slams the kick drum. He hammers a roll on the car hood. The thick metallic punches rattle Napoleon’s laptop. Someone cuts the lights. The room is dark and everyone hushes. The computer screen blossoms with intense clarity. A purple black light glow springs up around the stage. Two neon masks float in the darkness.

Staring between Dean and Napoleon, Malinta clutches a hand over her heart, bunching her shirt in a fist. The other hand goes cold and moist within Dean’s palm. “Oh…my…God.”

“Hey Napoleon,” Deshler says, turning around, looking into the camera, still driving. “Remember that time you and I skipped work—”

The screen jerks out of control in a flash. The soundtrack for this intense lurch is an empty aluminum thud, much like Pandemic beating a car hood—hollow metal gongs. Then, thick weighty slaps—like raw brisket dropping on the sidewalk. Hot burning rubber noises distort the cheap speaker into fuzz before the camera goes black.

The screen is darkness for only a beat.

The video starts up again. Napoleon jumps out of the back seat and pans around the empty downtown lit with streetlamps. The shot bobbles to the open passenger side window. He steadies the camera on Malinta’s bloody head. “Whoa, shit,” the cameraman barely utters. She has a deep cut on the left side of her head. Her blonde hair sponges the extra blood. She’s unconscious.

Napoleon runs and the camera bounces with the sound of sneakers across wet pavement.

The backside of Deshler’s head, hair all tangled, is clearly lit under an orange streetlamp. He looks down at the limp body stretched across the cement. The one he just smashed with Findlay’s car.

The Japanese record moguls huddle shoulder-to-shoulder in a booth. They speak about Lothario Speedwagon in an airy native tongue. The online rumors of the band’s breakup are obviously false, they say with a teenage thrill.

(Can you feel it?) the man says. (That excitement when we’re on the verge of something great. I can’t believe some valet left Lothario Speedwagon’s CD in my car last time I was visiting. This feels like destiny.)

(They’re still a cult band back home, but with the right advertising,) the woman grins. (They will be huge.)

(Marketing says
Broken Piano for President
is so hot the tape fetches sixty dollars at record stores in Tokyo.)

(A&R told me bootleg MP3s eclipsed twenty thousand downloads last week.)

(This is an easy sale. I almost don’t want to hear the band,) the man says confidently. (I think the idea in my head will be impossible to live up to. It’s happened so many times before.) The man’s frown has a gravity—a hungry, swallowing sadness.

They playfully eye one another. She reaches under the table and pulls out a black leather bag.