Don't Kiss Me: Stories (10 page)

But, like, it’s us, we lie on our backs to watch the sky pearl to star, we are skin to bite we are hair to flick we are swish, we have the power it’s us we say what we want we say, Come, and we say, Here, and we say, Burn, and we say, Like.

THE NOISE

There was that noise again. Definitely something mechanical.

His stomach roiled; he pictured a swordfish wearing a parsley lei stabbing through the slosh of coffee and bourbon and, when the night got late and he felt tired of paying for premium booze, the gin he felt sure had been ladled from a toilet somewhere in the bowels of the hotel.

The hotel had seemed promising. Its neon sign in a modern sort of font. Industrial lettering or some shit. Maxine would know.

But after pulling his wheeled suitcase through a labyrinth of hallways to get to his room, he realized it wasn’t anything different from the Ramada at the end of the strip. Just a hotel room. In fact he wondered could he have smelled the drapes so strongly in that Ramada. Bleach. Exhaust. And something sour, something like rags at the bottom of a well.

They were bright yellow. Frazzles of black lines at odd intervals. He imagined in the Ramada the drapes were hunter green with some mallards or paisley, or both. This hotel was really saying something with these drapes, with that chair made out of clear plastic, with that urchin of a beanbag he found in the bathroom. For what? He had rested his feet on it while on the toilet. Had read the free months-old issue of
Playboy
. It had been placed with the soaps, the mouthwash, the shower cap, all arranged on a fan of towels. Had clearly survived a bath of some sort, maybe more than once, and it gave the pages the feel of a rarefied document, something old and of the import to never, ever be thrown out.

That fucking noise! What was it? Had someone left a dog in the next room? Terrified in the dark, shivering, its eyes two black moons, keeping quiet until it became impossible and out burst a cry, a two-note moaning eruption that the dog immediately felt relieved and reterrified by?

Only, the noise was the same, every time. The clock was on the other side of the king bed, and he felt barred by something—exhaustion? fear, maybe?—from rolling over to look at it, to time the intervals in between the noises.

Instead he convinced himself, again, that he was just hearing the elevator. Something to do with the elevator. Focused on the night he’d had. What had he lost, what had he accrued?

At Caesar’s he’d started at the quarter slots, and after four neat bourbons had moved on to the five-dollar slots. Had come in with a grand. Left with thirteen hundred. Thought he saw Maxine at the ATM, nearly grabbed her elbow until he remembered: wasn’t her. Heart jabbing wildly. He ate swordfish at the buffet. Could taste the lamp it had been heated under. Hunted a scale from behind a molar, left it on his plate, thought better of it, dropped it into his inner pocket. The way it flashed at him: wink, wink. A real treasure.

At New York, New York, he’d ordered a coffee from a cocktail waitress whose face was smooth, unlined, fresh even, but whose gnarled toes and bunion the size of a cherry tomato told a different story. He tipped her a twenty, she ran her hand down his cheek. He waited for a different waitress, ordered a double bourbon. Won a hundred at craps, two at blackjack. Made it outside in time to heave into a trash can, but only the bourbon came up. A girl holding hands with her grandmother watched him, shook her head and grinned like he was putting on a show for her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tipped an imaginary hat at her. Wink, wink. Realized too late it was the kind of grin that’s the preamble to a gory wave of screaming. Pushed his way forward, away, Oops, he said, oops, I didn’t know. Every face a spinning wheel.

The noise couldn’t be mechanical. It had the essence of sorrow, of regret. He wanted the clock the way a drowning man must want an inner tube. But he’d have to roll, he’d have to show his back to the window, and the noise was making him feel like that was a bad idea. Like a shrieking carpet of horror would reach him if he turned for the clock. Better to stay on his back, where he could see the window and the short hallway that led to the door.

Would Maxine laugh at him? No. She’d be turned off. Call down and ask, she’d hiss, the smell of sleep pouring out of her, her face creased, her hair in her eyes.

Well, the phone was on the desk across the room. So eat shit, Maxine, and God, it felt good to think it.

There it was again. Was it coming more quickly? Now it sounded like a child who’d been hiding too long, shut in a closet waiting for the game to be over. Olly olly oxen free? He felt threaded with exhaustion. He imagined putting up his hands, No thanks, the inner tube bobbing away.

He’d returned to his hotel, had found a bar, watched some fratty types twitch and lunge at the cocktail waitresses from the rim of his double gin. Had made one of the waitresses giggle when he said, You feel yourself having a powerful craving for beef? Was talking about how they all looked made of meat. Felt good that she got it. Realized later human beings are animals and thus made of meat anyway. But realized that while getting an outside-the-pants squeeze job from a different waitress he’d asked to meet him in the elevator, so the shame was eclipsed and set aside. They were all so smart, these girls. Just had to give them an idea in the neighborhood of what you were thinking and they knew just what you were getting at, could give you directions to your own house.

He’d come in his underwear. Better that way, less cleanup for her. He placed bills one by one into her tiny brown hand until she closed it. The elevator stopped at his floor. Had he pushed the button? They both made a move to get off, but she stopped herself, her face a small brown apple, and swept her hand out, like, Here you go!
Gracias
, he said, and she stared at him so blankly he realized she wasn’t Hispanic, just really tan. The mirrored doors came together silently. His two selves joined, and then halved.

The noise again. Not like a child really, more like a man whimpering into a toilet, the bowl splattered with his dinner. And there it was again. Not like the man, more like the elevator. It came from the wall across from the bed. No, it came from the hallway. From the room next door. Someone was watching television, or making love, or both.

He’d taken a bath, brought the
Playboy
in with him to finish reading. Splunk, it’d fallen almost immediately in. Seemed destined. There was a particular girl he’d liked, wearing a blazer and high heels and nothing else. Just all, Here’s my vagina, no bones about it. A hint of areola, no nipple. But he’d thrown the magazine in the trash, figured this final bath was the end of the road for it. Now he wondered if it was his girl whimpering in there, crying out from her crimped page. It was stupid! Still, he felt sad about it.

And now it came from the side of his bed, the side with the clock. The floor. The swordfish in his belly quaked, the sword lurched up toward his heart. It reminded him of something. He’d had a dream, as a child, that he’d looked over the side of his bed to see a man with flat black eyes lying there, his mouth full of blood, reaching up clawed hands like Help me. Or like Say goodbye. As an adult he’d found out it wasn’t a dream, that an Indian from the nearby reservation had wandered into the house after a bar fight, that his father had come in and dragged the Indian out.

He felt that man’s hands reaching up now, crabbing slowly over the side of the bed, hidden in the comforter. The man’s tongue probing, blinded by blood.

He ran through his room toward the door. Worked the handle like a baby works a ring of keys. Light in the hallway. Someone was watching TV a few rooms down. The sighs of the elevators. Everything would be okay. He lay down on the carpet outside the room. Maybe everything leaves a ghost. Maybe his ghost was still inside the room. Maybe another ghost was at a slot machine. Maybe Maxine’s ghost was a whimper in the dark. It was Maxine who’d always loved Vegas. But he didn’t have to care about that anymore.

BRENDA’S KID

On her way to work Brenda stopped by her kid’s house to help clear the leaves out of the gutter. He shuffled out in gym shorts and a tank, worked his bare toes into the squelch of the lawn, it had been raining, Brenda wore a 7-Eleven bag over her hair to keep out the damp. Well, she said, and her kid’s head snapped to, it was clear he knew he was supposed to do something, get something, offer something, but he couldn’t figure what. Brenda said, Ladder, in a gentle but questioning voice, and he answered, I know, I was just, but he didn’t finish what he was just, and the mean part of Brenda, the oozing eggplant-colored meanness hissed, He wasn’t just anything, and get a load of those love handles, beer-drinking monkeytoed lumberdummy that he is, but Brenda swallowed that down and concentrated on how nicely the aloe she’d planted was coming up, it seemed to love its new pot, orange clay pot, ochre, the word ochre, ochre ochre ochre. Her kid dragged the ladder over, stared at Brenda with his eyebrows raised, like, What now, lady? Brenda let him hold her purse, he slung it up and over his shoulder and stood with his arms folded over his stomach. Don’t fall now, he said. The boy had enormous brown eyes, puddles of fudge, moist and glittered, Brenda could see why the girls loved him, penis fool that he was, Lord, delete that, delete it please and thank you but he does swing that penis around like it’s tossing candy coins over a parade of sluts, sorry forgive me delete delete delete. Brenda secured the ladder up against the house, debated, but in the end kept her heels on, she was good on her toes like that. Her kid stood with her purse and his feet in the earth, squinting, the bottom of his tank rolled up a little and the hair on his stomach exposed, Feel a breeze? Brenda asked him, but he didn’t get it. Brenda began her climb. Good thing you ain’t wearing a skirt, her kid called up to her, else I’d be seeing something I don’t want to see. He snorted, Yes ma’am, I’d be awash in barf if that was the case. Brenda prayed to sweet, delicious Jesus. Grace. Strength. Whatever else. During her pregnancy all those years ago she had anticipated a bond so strong that she would die for it. That had been true. But also true was how often she considered harming her child, just a little. Taser gun. Mace. Roundhouse kick. Judo chop. Good old windmill. Tires crunching over toes. She had never done any of it, she had once lobbed a small decorative pumpkin at his head, but that was the extent. Thank you Lord of Light, thank you chariot God. The gutter was caked, Brenda would need a tool of some sort. Trowel? she called down. Spade? Her kid emitted a low, indignant Uhhhhhhhhhh that Brenda interrupted with Spatula? Her kid trudged into the house, pausing to drop her purse into the dirt. The sky was pale blue now, all the gray diluted and drained, Brenda looked for the sun but didn’t find it. The boy came out of the house with a small metal spatula Brenda recognized as her cookie spatula. Jesus was a child, Christ in a canoe, nature, nature, nature. Sweetest, Brenda said, ain’t that the spatula I asked you about a few weeks ago? Oh yeah, the boy said, here it is, I guess, catch. Brenda watched the spatula blading through the air. Glinty arc. She caught it and her boy said, You need me out here the whole time? He bent to pick at a toe. I got shit on pause is the thing. But yell if you need anything. Brenda said, I got it, precious treasure, microwaved honeybun, go on inside. Brenda hacked at the gutter muck, Jésus Cristo preaching to the putas, but it would require more time than she had. She left the spatula staked in the muck. Maybe it’d attract lightning, she almost let herself complete the thought. She took off the 7-Eleven bag, went in to wash her hands, the front room of her kid’s house featured her old sofa and a plate of nachos furred with mold. She went through to the kitchen, her kid in the TV room playing a video game, eyes glazed, the embroidered pillow Brenda brought over earlier in the month on the floor, a shoeprint across the face of the sunflower, and why she had thought her boy would want a sunflower pillow in his home she couldn’t recall, her kid was right, it was faggoty, if faggoty meant nice, decorative, thoughtful. He had never forgiven her for the pumpkin incident. Lord God grant me a shovel! Brenda focused on her handwashing, the cucumber hand soap she’d brought over months before still full, the lather gray, then less gray, then a perfect bubbly white, this was the kind of satisfaction her kid would never know, never care to know. Perfect, bubbly, white. So simple! What are your plans for today? Brenda asked her kid. His foot rested on his knee, his foot as black with dirt as if it had been drawn there with charcoal. I don’t know, was the answer. Well, jobs don’t get themselves, Brenda said, forcing brightness into her voice. Good one, her boy said. On the television a black man with two swords cut the head off a woman in a metal bikini, the head screamed and the eyes rolled, the black man laughed and brandished his swords. Brenda’s kid said, See what you did? Now I have to start all over. Holy Ghost on a tricycle, floating like a fart, Brenda didn’t see what she did. Her kid was playing the woman in the bikini? Okay well, Brenda said. There was no reply, her kid was back in the game. The woman in the two-piece whipped her hair and did an elaborate scissoring flip. Brenda realized there was a good chance her kid had a boner. Okay well, Brenda said again. She’d always wanted to be a mother, she knew she’d be good at it, she wanted a close relationship with her son, when she pictured her own parents they were always staring just to the right of her, she didn’t want that for her son, she wanted him to feel seen, loved, free to be himself, but now standing in his kitchen, counters covered in dried chili and cereal bowls and pizza boxes, trying not to see the tent he was pitching in his gym shorts, Brenda wondered if her parents were right to distance themselves, and she felt an unfamiliar warmth spread through her thinking of them, Mom, she thought, and Dad, Mom, Dad, Mom Dad, they were right, Mom with her tight-set hair and Dad with his bad toe pushing out of his slipper, they were right to just live their lives and not get involved. Brenda would leave now. Her kid would have to just figure it out, figure out how to clean his gutter clean his kitchen get a job contain his desire live in the world. She could see her purse out the window lumped in the dirt, and beyond was her car, she’d just had it washed, how it shone, she had to get to work, there was still that stretch of highway she had to drive, this was her life! Her own. And then she saw into her kid’s bedroom. Saw the tangled hair tanned calf and single dollop breast staring dumbly out. The girl saying, Oh hey, in a pebbled voice, and there was the other breast now, two stunned eyes. The television shrieked, something was stabbed. Brenda’s kid said, Don’t look in there! but made no move to get up. Brenda continued on to the front door, closed the door behind her. The sky was a candy blue now. She bent for her purse, she bent into her car. The girl was beautiful. God in the grocery, this made her sad, she didn’t know why. Did her kid appreciate it? Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t. But anyway, the highway.