Flatscreen (14 page)

“I want them,” the kid said.

“Remember, we talked about this,” mom said. “Sometimes you can’t get everything you want.” Then, to Amy, “Just give him the flavors you do have.”

“I can only fit two in a cup,” Amy said. “How about sour apple and watermelon?”

“That’s it?” mom said.

“That’s not a lot of flavors,” the other mother added.

“What about green tea?” the kid said.

“Green tea is a type of tea,” Amy said. “It’s not an ice flavor.”

“He needs his antioxidants,” mom said.

“How about I add half a scoop of banana?”

Kid started crying.

“Fine,” mom said, produced an Amex. “Whatev.”

The new superheroes all had six-pack abs, no nipples. Evil bioterrorist was bearded, turbaned. I was shaking from the coke. Pages of the comic were glossy, felt nice. Tried to spin the comic on my finger. It fell.

“You bend it you gotta pay for it.”

Picked up the comic. The mothers had ushered their sons back into the world, ready to crush it.

“It’s me.”

Amy gave me the once-over.

“Who’s you?”

“Amy, it’s me.” Walked toward her.

“Eli?”

“Yeah.”

“My God, you look like shit. What’s with the bathrobe?”

“I don’t know. It’s comfortable.”

Noticed the console kids noticing me, avoiding eye contact. Dug through my pockets, pulled out the cards.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“I need to sell these.” Laid them on the table.

“I don’t really buy cards anymore.”

“Please.”

“You’re broke.”

“I know.”

“I mean, you’re not really broke, I guess.”

“I’m rich-people broke.”

“What happened?”

“We moved.”

“Most people move eventually.”

“I prefer to stay still.”

“You’re shaking like a leaf now.”

“I could use the money.”

Amy picked up the cards, gave them her attention. The players looked aged: uniforms out of fashion, of another era with their high stirrups, skin-tight pajama pants. Clemens was skinny, idealistic. Griffey Jr. sat smiley with stiff-brimmed cap and laundered jersey, an exemplar of Clintonian economic security. Neither knew about the
future—steroid scandals, back injuries, etc.; they stood frozen in early ’90s early season optimism.

“How’s your mom?”

“Same old,” I said, as there was no way to explain it.

Amy looked at me like she understood. I remembered something about a mother of her own, Alzheimered, eating Amy’s savings in a rest home off Route 16.

“Those mothers,” I said. “It wasn’t like that when I was a kid.”

“It was. You just don’t remember.”

She looked at the cards more closely. Knew she didn’t need them, but she was like an older, enabling sister—part of her loved part of me. She loved the part of me I worried was gone.

“The Maris is the only one that’s worth anything.”

“Not the Shaq rookies?”

“The card market’s gone down a lot in the past few years.”

“I’ll take anything.”

“I still know some people at the conventions. I can give you seventy-five for the Maris, another seventy-five for all the rest?”

“People always said these things would be a
good investment
.”

“I’m being generous,” Amy said, handed me the cash.

Felt like there was more to be said between us: loss of innocence, evil swiftness of time, unbeautiful demands of late capitalism. But mostly I wanted to get the fuck out of there, pretend it never happened, purchase cocaine.

“I have to go.”

“You better come back. None of you guys visit anymore.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t.

Spent the afternoon into evening snorting, watching
The Surreal Life
. Dan liked Vanilla, but I was partial to the surprisingly sweet relationship between MC Hammer, now a reverend, and Emmanuel Lewis, still, physically, an eight-year-old. In the midst of all the cameras, superficiality, and surface-level grotesquerie, they’d managed something close to love.

Nikki showed up at ten p.m., done with work, shivering.

“Let’s take a Jacuzzi.”

Invitation wasn’t meant for me. I left. Something about Nikki made me uncomfortable, anyway, the way she looked at me, secretly hated me. I’d always be a customer.

Flashback:

V.O.:

Cut to
: We’re out by a bonfire, deep as we can get in the shallow suburban woods. Keg on the tail of a pickup, cops coming soon, kids all drunk, disorderly, everything in slow-mo. Me, John, and Matt sit stoned, simultaneously part of the performance and spectators, mumbling clichés halfheartedly—“This town sucks,” “As soon as I graduate I’m out of here,” “In college we’ll get plenty of ass.” Matt zones out with headphones. John flicks an issue of
High Times
. I watch the party, finger my forearm hairs, unconsciously clutch my gut, attempt to lick the chappedness from my lips.

V.O.:

Streetlamps on, lighting the icy sleet that fell in clusters like Cupid-antidote arrows on my weak helmet of hair. Thought about tomorrow’s Thanksgiving football game I wouldn’t be attending. Hadn’t even gone while I was in high school, or the first year after grad, when everyone goes wearing sweatshirts of their colleges. They hug each other with rosy cheeks, as if there’s nothing so great as to be outside in November and have that feeling you’re really in New England, a feeling they have even though it’s the suburbs and the team never wins.

When I was a kid, remember thinking it would be me one day, on the field, absorbing cheers. Maybe that’s why I never went to the games during high school: because it wasn’t me with dirt in my cleats, sweaty, perfect locks hanging out the back of my helmet. Would never be me on the field, or hugging long-lost friends in the stands, or as an old man with a faded letter jacket.

Too cold to walk home. No reason to go there anyway. Found myself moving toward Kahn’s house.

The weather had killed all the plants, and the yard was flooded with dead leaves like in the years after Dad left,
when Mom stopped hiring the landscapers. I could see the dining room through the window. Walls were bare. Wasn’t expecting the same old decorations, but figured Kahn would have replaced them with mementos from his own life. Nothing. Just white walls. Felt like a statement, like Kahn’s whole life amounted to an empty, tableless dining room; nothing led to anything else, even our objects were impermanent.

Our mezuzah was still in the doorway. A relic, not just from my old family, but from an old world where God existed. Rang the bell. No one came. Waited a minute, jiggled the handle. Door open. Walked in, began taking off my shoes before remembering it wasn’t the rule anymore. Kahn didn’t even have a doormat.

Music from the living room, jazz again. Expected a scene like last time: Kahn lounging, drinking scotch, watching porn. Kahn was in the same chair, but his body was obscured by a gyrating, thonged ass. Beth Cahill turned so I could see her right nipple in profile.

“You’re just in time,” Kahn said, enunciating like always, as if onstage, spotlit, spilling soul-juice on a thirsty audience.

“The darkness falls, and Dionysus emerges in all his ragged glory. In your case, my friend, that glory is particularly ragged on this chilly eve.”

“He means the robe,” Beth said. “He always talks like this when he’s fucked up. He’s my little fucked-up old man.”

Then, turning to Kahn, “Aren’t you?” in a baby voice. Thought she might pinch his cheeks. Maybe that’s what he paid for.

“I may be in a chair, but I’m not in diapers yet.”

“Weren’t you at that party last night?” Beth said.

“Yeah, I was, wait … how do you two…”

“Know each other?”

“Internet, kid. Wave of the future.”

“I advertise on the web.”

“I know. I’ve seen your ad.”

“Give the kid a dance, will you. He needs some loosening up.”

“I’ve had an eventful day,” I said. “Can we do some drugs first? Not sure I’m up for a dance right this moment.”

“Fine with me,” Beth said. Kahn stared at me, played air drums against his knees, winked. Beth was nothing like her FB pic. Thin trail of dark hair led from top of black thong to bellybutton.

Took out the eight ball I’d bought from Dan.

“So he comes equipped. That’s why I like this guy, never empty-handed.”

Cut lines on the coffee table that was actually our old glass coffee table we’d decided not to take because it was chipped.

“This is my house,” I said to Beth, by way of explaining my presence. “My mother’s coffee table.”

“Man does not possess property,” Kahn said. “But we screwed that up when we killed all the Indians.”

“I used to live here.”

“You used to jerk off here.”

“That too.”

“You guys,” Beth said.

“No use thinking about what we used to do,” Kahn said.

“That’s all I think about,” I said. “I can’t even imagine the future.”

“Flying cars,” Beth said. “Nuclear war.”

“Maybe I’ll become a dancer,” Kahn said. “In the hazy orange light of postapocalyptic dawn, I will dance across the earth.”

Didn’t smile when he said it. Instead punched himself in the kneecap. He was thinking about the past even though he’d said not to. The only places he’d ever walk: the past and the imagined, impossible future.

“In the postapocalypse, we’ll all be dead,” I said.

“Unless we build a society underground,” Beth said.

“You two are young,” Kahn said. “You’ll never die. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Only old people and cripples die.”

“Let’s get high,” I said. Kahn nodded.

Coke, then Oxy. Lifted a framed photo that had been turned facedown on the side table. Erin and Natasha. An old pic because Erin has braces. Natasha is very young, but her face still looks like an adult’s. Arms wrapped around Erin in protection.

“It’s a nice picture.”

“Put that away,” Kahn said. “I don’t want them to see this.”

Beth stuck out her tongue, closed her eyes. Kahn turned up the music.

“Be a doll and shake around a bit.”

Beth looked at the stereo, gave a sour face.

“You don’t have to,” I said.

“You could at least put on something I could dance to.”

“This is dance music. You just got to feel that swing, baby.”

Beth had no rhythm, but she tried. Stood on my mom’s coffee table, shook her hips, tossed her hair, shoved her breasts in our faces. Kahn handed me a couple pills I could tell weren’t Oxy.

“Pop these.”

Done.

“What were those?”

“The big V.”

“Valium?”

“Viagra. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

He said, “Give the kid a dance, would ya?” and Beth straddled me so my face was level with her crotch.

Kahn watched. Got the sense from the way he met my eyes that Beth was a proxy for Kahn. That this was acting. That Kahn would have humped me himself, if I’d let him. I didn’t mind. Part of me wanted to embrace his broken body, lick his wounds, let his roaming hands handle my maiden skin, touch me in the tender places, the sections serially ignored. I wanted to feel loved like that, and for him to feel loved. Like an older tainted lover you only want to fuck metaphorically, out of respect, partly out of pity.

Beth leaned over, brushed her chin against my shoulder. Big round nipples, pink, dry. Vintage-porn-style heavy knockers, the nipples like weights on some ticktock pendulum making me dizzy with rhythmic sway. Beth cupped her D cups, cooed, aimed them at my open mouth. Nipple rubbed against my stubble.

“Are you, like, his son or something?”

Ran a hand up my shirt, fingered my chest hair.

“Just a friend.”

“So are you friends with Jennifer or something?”

“Not really.”

“She’s a cool girl.”

“Yeah.”

“This guy pays me more than anyone.”

Kahn rubbed the top of his exposed cock with his palm, hard and fast, like he was sanding some wood (
Wood and Nail
, Klauset Films, 1991).