Cannibals in Love (19 page)

“Why are you even asking me for money anyway? Can't you just go into your trust fund, you little bed-wetter?”

“Ha! My trust fund! Oh, right,” I said, starting to have fun. “I wish.”

“Don't deny it. You're not fooling anyone. Nobody can live as poor as you live. I'm not even entirely sure how you take care of yourself.”

“Well, I'm either secretly rich or egregiously poor. Make up your mind.”

“You're both,” she said dismissively. We held our faces straight, like a staring contest. To laugh first was to lose. This was the game. We were always returning to this sick, shared laughter.

“I could keep a job, if all I wanted was to keep a job,” I told her maddeningly.

“Liar.”

“What I want,” I went on, smiling, “is for somebody to pay me for being
clever
.”

Lauren didn't even have to say anything. The scorn was written all over her face.

“A job like that would suit me just fine, I think.”

“Just admit that there's a secret trust fund right now, and I won't ever ask you anything about it again. I swear to god.”

“You're paranoid. I'm just better with money than you are.”

“You know what?” Lauren said, with a new smile coming over her. “Never mind. I think I just figured out your secret. You're a fucking spy!”

“A
spy
!” I guffawed. “Oh, man. Oh, man.” This was really good. I couldn't believe she'd found a way to say that to me with a straight face. Lauren was trying desperately not to laugh, too. It was important to stay angry. She was still pissed at me for calling her an ex-wife.

“Admit it,” she said. “What are you doing in Washington, D.C., anyway? Who comes here to study
literature
? It's not even a good cover.”

“Okay,” I said. “You caught me. Which side do you think I'm on? Hmm? What's my agency?”

“Shut up,” she said, breaking down a little.

“It's the CIA, all right? This is serious, though, Lauren,” I said with gravity. “You need to listen to me very carefully now because someday you might need this information. It might just save your life…”

“Shut up!”

“
The red rooster crows at dawn.
Remember that phrase, okay? I'm serious.
The Indian never crosses the same stream twice.
” I was almost in tears, cracking myself up with this. “Are you listening? Don't be crazy! Write this down!”

“Shut up! Just stop! Shut! Up!” Lauren was screaming to drown me out.

But as I lay there, rolling on the floor, I could see that she was laughing, too. She couldn't help herself then, letting it all go. Lauren sat down on the floor with me and we laughed, and the laughter was a reset. This was what we did for fun.

But after a while, she went back to the couch and started flipping through her magazines again, making a show of ignoring me.

“Well…” I said.

“I'm getting tired of talking to you now. Can we just have some quiet?”

“Oh, right, I'm sorry,” I said. “Would you rather have us talk about celebrity gossip or the way that jeans fit?”

Lauren looked up mischievously. “Yes. Could we?”

“No, we can't,” I said with crossed arms.

Lauren shrugged and dropped back into her glossy pages. Lately she had become a prodigious reader of these celebrity tabloid shitrags. I knew that she was smarter than me, too, which was why it galled me so much that this was the only reading that she did anymore. Lauren refused to confirm the fact that she had a photographic memory, but I knew that it was true. I envied her for this, and felt like she was wasting it working as a secretary. I told her she was depressed, but really I was talking about the both of us.

Lauren flipped the pages sullenly, and I could feel her losing interest in fighting with me.

“Why don't you love me?” I asked her out of nowhere.

These were always our most tedious conversations. I knew at my worst that I was needy. Lauren told me this. That was why it was necessary to be cruel sometimes. It was about trust. It all came down to some unbearable need to be loved. I was terrified of the idea that Lauren could not or would not love me back. Worse yet, she liked to say that she didn't even believe in romantic love. She said that she couldn't.

“I want to know,” I said. “It's a real question.”

I was calm and earnest, which was just another way to push her buttons. We needed to shock and undermine each other, always. We needed the tension and the drama of it, because in a sick way it worked. Part of the charm of our relationship was the fact that we engaged these parts of each other's personalities that no one wanted to touch. The ugly parts. The mean, unhappy, quarrelsome parts. The parts that are small and petty and drive normal people away. They were important to us.

Lauren stood up suddenly and put the magazine down. “Do you think you're losing your hair?” she asked with her blankest face.

“What?” Every nerve in my scalp tightened reflexively.

“It's not a big deal to me. I just think we should be able to talk about it like adults, if you are.” She was trying not to smile.

“I'm not,” I couldn't help myself from saying. And I wasn't. But it was too late then, I had already taken the hook. Lauren would do this sometimes. Asking me about my weight or my drinking or my libido. Asking me if I thought the ways in which I behaved were somehow irregular or abnormal, maybe.

“I'm just saying that you've been acting different,” she said.

“Different?”

“Yeah. Ever since your hair started falling out, you've been acting weird.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” I said. “That's very funny.”

“Hey, don't get defensive. Either you're losing your hair or you're not. It's not a big deal to me.” Long pause. “But if you
are
, I just think you should be able to talk about it with me. Your girlfriend.”

Lauren didn't even bother masking her smirk then. I glared at her, hating her.

“Don't look at me,” she said with feigned innocence. “Look in a mirror.”

“Why won't you marry me?” I asked suddenly.

“You're crazy.”

“Not now. Marry me in ten years.”

“Oh. I think I'm busy then.”

“Marry me in ten years when you're fat and unhappy, and your youth and your looks are all used up,” I went on, smiling. “Say that you'll marry me then.”

“I think I'm washing my hair that night,” Lauren deadpanned.

I stood there, waiting for her to crack. I was so pathetic and vulnerable. This, too, was part of the game. I would ask her to look at me, to love me, to stop all of this now and let me love her back. I smiled because I knew how uncomfortable this could make her. She found the whole act sentimental and sappy in all the worst ways. She said it was moronic to talk about our lives as a kind of love story. She said it bored the shit out of her. And yet we were both laughing again, too.

“You're killing me, Zelda,” I said.

“You deserve it, though. You're so boring. God. How can anyone who calls himself a writer be so bo-ring?”

“No. I guess we should all become secretaries.”

“Oh, you'd never make it as a secretary. It's a lot of hard work. You have to show up
every
day.”

“Yeah, you're a fucking working-class hero,” I said. But I was suddenly thinking about my hairline again. Involuntarily. I wanted to go look in the mirror. Just quick, just to see. Was it possible that I'd missed the fact that I was going bald?

“Hey,” Lauren said, putting up her hands. “All I'm saying is that you should have a plan for when this
writing thing
doesn't work out. Is that so crazy? Are we not allowed to talk about that?” She was just barely smiling, but not. We were right on the verge of some eruption here.

“You're an elitist, you know that?” I said coolly.

“You are.”

I laughed with contempt, wanting not to be vulnerable anymore. But all at once I felt unbearably sad. Sad about us. Something had changed. We were fighting too much these days; everything was too raw. These fights used to be shorter. Cleaner. Funnier.

“What's going on now? Are you going to cry?” she asked, beaming at me. Lauren was the only girl who had ever made me cry. And despite the fact that I'd made her cry a half-dozen times at least, she held it over me, bringing it up on these occasions.

“Maybe.” I sighed. “I don't know.”

Lauren's face changed. “Come sit down next to me,” she said, pushing her magazines onto the floor. “You know I don't mean it. It would kill me if you started crying right now.”

I could almost believe her, too. But I was tired. I just stood there, refusing to sit, refusing to cry. “Will you just give me the five fucking dollars already so I can buy myself a beer?
Please?
You know I have a check coming on Monday.”

“When I was a girl,” Lauren began cryptically, “I always imagined I would have a boyfriend who was a doctor or an architect. And he would bring me flowers, and take me out on dates to fancy restaurants.”

“Yeah,” I said unkindly. “And I feel sad for you for everything you'll have to do to earn your money, honey.”

“Exactly. I need a man with a big cock that eats big, bloody steaks.”

“I hope you choke on it.”

Lauren laughed with her angry face crumbling. “Choke on what?”

“All of it,” I said, and we were both laughing again, in spite of ourselves. But this was exhausting. This was not really fun.

“Aw,” she said, looking sincere. “Why are you always doing this to yourself? Working yourself up like this. You wouldn't be able to take care of me anyway. You can hardly take care of yourself.”

“And who's going to take care of you when you're not so pretty, huh? When you have big matronly arms and dry, brittle hair. Who's gonna love you then, huh?”

“You will,” she said simply.

“Goddamn right I will.”

The only thing I wanted in the whole world was to believe in that, to agree with Lauren now. But I resented my own flailing desperation. I couldn't be sure that I believed in any of this romantic pap any more than Lauren did. Maybe she was right about love. Maybe we really were all doomed.

Just looking at each other was enough to bring on another sick smile, though.

“Come down to the store with me,” I said. “I'll let you pick everything out. I'll let you make a big show of paying for it and emasculating me in front of the old guy who works there.”

Lauren looked at me strangely, not saying anything, and I felt myself sigh. I didn't even care about the beer anymore.

“What if I let you slap me in the face for five dollars?”

“What?” she said, slightly startled.

“You heard me.”

“Hard?”

“Yeah, as hard as you want,” I said, suddenly impatient. “As hard as a
girl
can do it, anyway.” These were fighting words, and I could tell that she really wanted to slug me. “Yes or no? It's a onetime offer.”

With that, Lauren was up on her feet, ready to smack me.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Pay up,” I said, taking a step back.

Lauren stopped and crossed the room, looking for her purse, as I followed behind her, taunting. Rushing her. I was making her angry all over again.

“Jesus. Shut up,” she said in a small fluster. But when she was done digging out balled-up dollar bills she was one short. “Shit, shit!”

And then I really laughed. This was as good as any outcome I could have wanted.

“Look,” she said seriously. “I can write you a check for ten bucks, right now.”

“Don't insult me,” I said. “The price is five. Cash money. One time only.” I was gloating and claiming victory now. I was getting pedantic.

“This one scenario is a microcosm of all your larger problems with money, Lauren.” I laughed, growing giddy. “You see some shiny thing that you just have to have, and then—”

WHACK!

Lauren spun around and slapped me good. Uninvited and off guard, and pretty fucking hard. It stunned me a little, and I turned away defensively.

“Oww, Jesus.
What the fuck
, Lauren?” I said sourly.

I stretched my jaw and touched my hand to my cheek where it stung. Lauren's mouth was hanging open like a guilty little kid.

“Oh. God. I'm sorry,” she said in a small fit of laughter. “I don't know what came over me. That felt incredible. Let me see your face.”

“No,” I said, turning away again, annoyed. “What a dirty cheap shot that was.”

“Aw,” she said, finally feeling bad. “I didn't mean it.”

Lauren's face turned genuinely sweet then, and I let her come a little closer. I dropped my hand and measured this. She touched my cheek softly and shook her head. “Look what you made me do.”

“Shut up,” I said, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of a laugh.

“You just make me so
mad
sometimes,” she said, growing fond of this voice. “I only hit you because I love you, baby. You know that.”

“Shut up,” I said, grabbing her arms. We laughed with our faces coming closer, and I couldn't stay mad because this was all too much like sex. And Lauren could feel it, too, as I pressed my hard-on into her hip and she cooed something soft in my ear. She was sweet and careful with me. She kissed my cheek and told me how sorry she was. And all the barriers fell away then. We kissed each other, slow and tender, before our mouths began to open. Lauren grabbed on to my belt and I pulled at her sweater. And when I picked her up to carry her into the bedroom, she squealed happily.

This was how it always ended when we set off fighting to kill. We were tearing off our clothes and fucking loudly on the bed now. Lovers. Lauren would let the sound build out of her. Unh-unh-unh. This thing that she couldn't stop, erupting into orgasm. Unh-unh-unh! Her body generating a kind of scorching radiant heat under mine. We came alive in this way that made me feel insane. We lost our bodies in the bed. There was no self, and there was no other. We fell into the space between, letting it close and disappear around us.