Numb (15 page)

That was when the first swell of nausea rose in me. A second and third wave crashed between my navel and rib cage quickly and, as I watched myself in the mirror, my skin lightened from its normal tone to ash and then green. My eyes looked darker than usual. I felt myself sway with the next curl of my stomach and realized in the moment that I clicked off the dryer that the chicken had been older than it had been tasty. And then the phone rang. Not the cordless I held in my hand, but the hall phone. I had intended to answer the second it rang, so Hiko wouldn't get to the hall phone in time, but now I knew that the battery in the cordless had long been dead. For two days I'd carried around the equivalent of
a child's toy. I might as well have carried around the chicken carcass.

I swayed toward the bathroom door, prepared to lurch down the hall and yank the phone from the wall, but then my lunch made its return as a wet and chunky burp, and I turned to the toilet instead. Hands on the bowl, feet planted firmly by the tub, I heaved into an inverted V. I screamed my too-old half chicken into the toilet, light meat, dark meat, crispy skin, fatty yellow globules that I didn't remember going down. I had borrowed this meal for such a short time. I thought,
This is what a mama bird tastes, feeding her young
. Then I screamed some more out, eyes clenched shut, tears streaming up my forehead, acidic burn creeping down the back of my nose. I finally dropped to my knees and cowered before the toilet. I spit and blew chicken from my nose, then rose, not bothering to flush, and guided myself with one hand on the wall, out the door to the hall where I could see Hiko on the phone, smiling and laughing.

“Yes,” she said. “That will be nice.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“He sounds like he feels better. I think it was something he ate.” She laughed some more. “Okay. Goodbye.” She hung up the phone and said, “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.” Vomit dripped off my chin. “Who was that?”

“That was the model you worked with. Emilia. She
is very funny. We are meeting her for coffee tomorrow. Unless you don't feel good.”

I dropped my phone.

 

WE MET EMILIA
in a coffee shop near Union Square. On the way I quizzed Hiko over and over about what the conversation had entailed, why she had agreed to meet this woman.

“She said she enjoyed working with you and that she doesn't have many friends in New York.” The way Hiko defended this as charity for Emilia let me know it was charity for me. She thought I had too few friends, that I was lonely, that I needed to get out, find something to be other than a pincushion. I couldn't argue, not without revealing that I knew what she thought and that Emilia had lied, that Emilia flaunted my deceitful interest in her, that it was a test of me and my commitment and intentions, that I was failing.

When we entered we found her near the cafe counter, stunning in a black turtleneck, leather jacket, and short red skirt. I held Hiko's arm at the elbow, steered her across the room, past empty tables. As Hiko and I approached, Emilia waved and winked at me with a large grin. Breathing became difficult as Emilia introduced herself to Hiko. “It was so nice talking to you yesterday.” She guided Hiko to a nearby table.

Emilia, Hiko, and I sat down, the table so small all three of us were pressed together shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. Our knees bumped under the table. I could feel Emilia's bare skin as she made room for me to slide in.

“You must be very beautiful to be a working model,” Hiko said. “The photos of you and Numb must be striking.”

“They do a lot of touch-ups.” Emilia winked at me as she said this. “Lots of makeup, special lights, lenses.”

“Don't be modest,” Hiko said.

“She is very pretty,” I said. Emilia was. Especially now, in the low light of the coffee shop, her hair pulled back, and wearing deep red lipstick but no other makeup.

A tingle ran up my spine when Hiko said, “May I touch your face?”

“Of course,” Emilia said. She leaned forward, eyes on me, and as Hiko reached out Emilia took her hands and pulled them to her face. Softly Hiko touched her cheeks, her forehead, the soft dip of her chin beneath her full bottom lip.

Something shifted on my leg. Emilia's hand rested on my thigh. She stared at me as Hiko examined her face.

Hiko said, “He didn't tell me you were this beautiful. The proportions of your face are perfect.” She cupped Emilia's chin. Beneath the table Emilia squeezed my thigh, ran her fingers toward my waist, then she reached up to my face. As Hiko pulled her hands away Emilia dug her nails into the back of my neck. There was intense
pressure, then a rush of warmth that trickled down my back.

Emilia pulled her hand away and wiped at her nails. “It's nice to be able to get together with both of you. I don't know many people in the city. I do so much traveling.” She spoke warmly and directly to Hiko. She turned in her seat so that I could see along her legs up toward her skirt, which she pulled back a bit. I thought I would melt when she picked up a fork from her plate and touched it, softly at first, against the soft skin of her inner thigh. I looked past Hiko to the clerk oblivious to the sideshow act about to be performed at the too-small table by the window.

“Did he tell you about the photos?”

Behind her glasses, Hiko blinked rapidly. She'd been asking me about them for a week. I'd refused to talk about it. She said, “Not too much, no.”

“It's hard to know how to describe them,” I said. My eyes were locked on the tines of the fork, at the dimpling they created in Emilia's leg. She dragged it along for a few inches, left four red scratches in her skin. I wanted to be the fork. I also wanted to be that skin.

“I think the photos and interview will be great for you,” Emilia said to me. “You won't be surprised when he's famous, will you, Hiko?”

“Of course not. He's a hound for the publicity anyway.” She smiled and turned her head toward me. I knew that beneath her cat's-eye sunglasses her black
eyes were like painted windows. But still, for a second I thought she saw everything. “You should have heard the way he reacted to a group of fans on the way over here,” she said. “They must have seen the film of him with the lion.”

“Whether I want to be famous or not, I may not have a choice,” I said at last. My hand trembled as I reached out. “If the contract I signed leads to anything, I'll just have to deal with it, be a part of whatever they cook up.”

“Why?” Hiko asked.

“I don't want some idiot playing me.”

Emilia laughed. “You should let them do whatever the hell they want. Take the money and run.”

“It isn't that simple.”

“Of course it is. If you don't remember any of your past anyway, why feel tied to it? Cut the cord, take their money, and don't look back.”

I touched Emilia's thigh. She took my hand and guided it to the scratches left by the fork. We sat like that for just under an hour, Hiko's sightless eyes watching Emilia guide my fingers along the lines she'd gouged into her skin, my hand becoming warm and then hot as I felt the small ridges, raised and red and probably sore, parallel and barely separated and ruining the perfect white of her thigh. We spoke of her travel. We spoke of Hiko's art. I thought of where else a fork might go.

Emilia said, “I have to go soon, but maybe you could walk me back to my place?”

Hiko smiled. “We'd love to. It's a nice day for a walk.”

Emilia pressed my hand against her leg and said, “Yes, and then you'll know where I live. You can drop by anytime.”

With my free hand I reached to the back of my neck and felt the small oozing scratch that Emilia had left there.

I said, “So, let's get going then.” I helped Hiko out of her seat and the three of us walked out of the coffee shop, me between the two women, guiding the blind one by the arm and tightly gripping the other's hand.

 

THE FIRST TIME
I went to Emilia's apartment alone I forced myself to think of it as a casual, friendly visit. My self-delusion lasted until I knocked on her door and she answered it in only a pair of jogging shorts.

All she said at the door was, “Finally.”

She took me into her living room. Overwhelming deep red walls backed the burgundy leather couch, which swallowed me as I sank into it. She grabbed my belt and said, “You're going to show me that scar this time.”

As she undid my belt, I looked at the light on the ceiling. When Hiko and I had walked her back here, we had parted at the street with Emilia giving both me and Hiko warm hugs and an invitation to visit. Now I lay on
my back as she pulled my pants to my ankles. Her ceiling light looked like a giant eyeball. It stared right back at me and never blinked.

She dug her nails into my thigh, raising red lines alongside the old white scar. “It's so pretty,” she said. She kissed the scar and began to lick it. I swore her tongue had a cat's roughness as she lapped at the scar and the red welts she'd raised. She was absorbed by it. Her hands clung to my thigh and calf; she climbed me like a tree. She pushed her mouth against my leg and my flesh twitched beneath her. I began to pet her head.

She stopped and said, “Your skin is so soft.” She gave the scar another kiss.

We didn't talk much more than that, and I only stayed for an hour. She left me with a large purple hickey over my scar. At the door I noticed that her living room and hallway were lined with etchings and drawings of people in distorted, tortured poses.

“What are these?”

“I collect depictions of the saints. Those tortured for their love of God.”

“Are you very religious?”

She laughed, her arms cradled over her bare chest, goose bumps rising in the cool fall air. “God, no.”

I left her apartment and started to wander. I called Mal and told him what happened.

“I'm not sure what I'm supposed to tell you, buddy.” In the background behind him I could hear yelling and
hip-hop music. He named a club uptown. “Come find us and we can talk.”

When I got there, he was sitting with Karen in the corner. In the poorly lit room I didn't think it was her at first, perhaps trying to project onto Mal the same sort of infidelity I had committed, but when she stood up and I saw how high her platform shoes were I recognized her. Each of us took turns buying rounds.

When Mal went to the restroom, Karen and I found ourselves dipped in an awkward silence. She avoided eye contact for a minute, then smiled at me.

“Mal tells me you've got a big contract working? Development deal of some sort?”

“Something like that.”

“Will it be here or in LA?”

“Both, I guess. It depends on the company's expectations.”

She nodded. “Depends on what you do, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Mal did some time in LA.”

I hadn't known that. “When?”

“After you moved into the Thomas. He took off not too long after.”

Mal stopped off at the bar before returning to the table, and when he brought back another round Karen asked him about his time in LA. His jaw muscles tightened. “Not much to tell.” His lie fell flat at our feet and Karen stepped on it and kicked it toward the next table.

Karen hit his arm. “That's bullshit. What about your accident?” To me: “He stayed with some guy who sold weed to make money, and he borrowed the dealer's car—”

Mal waved his hand to cut her off. “My time there was a waste. I couldn't get any work. Then I read about an upcoming gig at an MTV concert. They had posters all over the beach advertising this thing that was going to have all sorts of sideshow stuff. So, I figured I'd do some fireballs and make a few bucks.

“I'm on my way there in that drug dealer's piece-of-shit BMW when suddenly the engine screeches like it's been stabbed and the brakes fail. Last I remembered there wasn't a car near me, so I try to get to the right shoulder. Out of nowhere there's this car. I hit it, ricochet back the other way, and hit a barricade. Someone pulled me out of the car. I had fire-eating shit in the trunk; it exploded. It was bad, I guess. Don't remember.”

He gripped his mug so tight I thought it might shatter. He continued. “Fire truck shows up, ambulance, police. Ten stitches across my chin and a broken jaw. It pretty much sucked.”

He never said that he blamed me for the accident. He rubbed his hands across the rough table edge, his thumbs pressed down to white. He looked away, and as the light from the neon sign behind him struck his face I said, “I think I see the scar.”

“No, you don't.” I don't know why he said that. I could
see it, just a small stripe slightly shining under his beard.
I can see it,
I thought.

Karen grabbed his chin and turned his head to face her. “That accident brought you back for me to find.” She kissed him gently and touched his hair. “He was on painkillers for months. He still suffers from pain in his neck and jaw when the weather changes.”

Mal's eyes bore into the table. A quiet minute, then he looked at me and said, “So that was what I learned about LA. Never drive a drug dealer's car.” His forced laugh didn't hide the pain in his eyes.

AT FIRST, WHEN
I arrived at the Thomas' lobby, I didn't see Mal. Then I saw his topknot over the back of a tall leather chair. He was reading a
Playboy
and drinking a cup of coffee.

“Hey, man.” He grinned up at me.

“Why'd you want to meet here?”

He puffed out his bottom lip. “You're no fun. How long did you live here? Six months? I figured you'd want to get back to your roots.”

“My roots.”

“Hey, man, you want to go back to the St. Mark's, we can do that. But that's not where it happened for you. It started here, right? The big contract. Money pouring in. Congrats and all that.” He poured his coffee in the
planter next to the chair and rolled up the magazine. He started talking through it like a megaphone.

“This man is famous. This man has been on TV.” Embarrassed, I told him to shut up.

Faces behind the desk pretended not to hear us. Because I had been a tenant for six months, their patience ran longer for me than for others. The lounge area was a large room with low, overstuffed leather furniture and low, wide lamps that barely cast any light. The walls were covered in a mural depicting the story of Noah's ark. Animals mated in twos marched around the room's perimeter until they finally reached Noah's big boat, which sat in rising water above the wide entrance of the room. Across the ceiling, beams arched up above us like the belly of an upside-down boat. I knew it illustrated a Bible story, but as Mal barked through the rolled-up magazine and other guests turned and looked at us, it turned into a mural of the circus I'd run away from. And the arched ceiling changed from a boat to a circus tent, and the groups of hotel guests, in their suits and fine dresses, seemed like my audiences, there to see the man in scars and jeans who worked with hammers and nails but no wood.

I grabbed Mal's arm but he continued to shout invitations at guests through the magazine, sprinkling in creative obscenities, until I pushed him through the revolving door leading onto 47th Street. When I followed him through, he stood on the curb and laughed.

I walked toward Times Square. “Always trying to get attention, aren't you?”

He stopped laughing and fell into step beside me. “And you've always got it, don't you? I've seen a lot of you lately.”

“The magazine?”

“Not just that. You've been on television too. And not just the Caesar tape. Apparently they got tired of that one. There are other films of you. Or at least it looks like you. You at a bank getting hit by the revolving door.”

“Turned out later that I broke my thumb.”

“Yeah, well, they don't go into that. Then there's the
Late Show
gig, with the nail chair. And you getting hit by a bus. In all of these short films you hobble along, unaware of any injury. There's just so many of them I wonder if they can all be you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what's the deal with that contract you signed? Hiko told Karen what she knew. It sounded like anything that's public knowledge is owned by the production company.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So what if you're being followed? What if someone's setting you up for these accidents?”

He stopped and we both turned slowly, eyes leading where our faces, grim, paranoid, followed, until we both had revolved in a circle, in opposite directions, looking for who or what, I didn't know. Most likely a small
man with a camera crew, a tall director's chair, and a megaphone, real, not misused pornography, ready to yell “Roll!” at the first hint that I might break my arm or trip into an oncoming hansom cab. When neither of us saw anything Mal grabbed my arm and pulled me forward again.

I said, “You're crazy. Why would they set me up? I get into enough stuff on my own.”

“Not enough for a movie or television. Not enough to hold the public's attention. If you knew about your past, you might have enough there, but, well, you don't.”

Somewhere, I knew, Michael continued his research. If he didn't find anything, if nothing ever turned up, then…what, exactly? Would I be plagued by short films from bank security cameras and (un)lucky tourists with camera phones? More than ever I wanted my sight to turn inward, to look back through my own mind and see into what I was before I wandered through the dust and desert winds into Tilly's arms. Just one hint, one item of what I might be to anchor myself, to throw to Michael and the movie producers, like horse meat for a lion.

We were on Broadway now, fighting our way upstream against a surge of tourists and theatergoers. We stopped and watched a cowboy in his underwear play guitar.

Mal asked, “What are you going to do about it?” “It” being my lack of control, my having signed away any and all rights without thinking it through, my stupidity, my life. “It,” as always, being limited to nothing and able to
slip between the spaces from one of my failures to the next. “It” was long overdue for fixing.

“I don't know.”

“Wow.” Mal shook his head and walked away from the audience surrounding the underwear cowboy.

I followed after him. He ducked through the crowd with his arms stretched to either side, as if surfing. He had little trouble getting through the people. I tripped twice as I tried to catch up, smashed into a woman's shopping bag, felt something crunch and kept going.

“What should I do?” I shouted.

He answered over his shoulder. “Do anything. Run away. Buy your own camera and film yourself all day and night to make sure you know what's true and what's bullshit. Sue them. Just do something.”

He crossed the street to the lane divider cutting Broadway in half. He stood at the center, traffic speeding by on either side of him, waiting for me. When the cars let up, I ran out to him.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You are just like you were in the circus. So friggin' passive. Take some control, for God's sake.”

I realized this was what he hadn't been able to say before, when I was nailed to Redbach's bar. I thought he'd learned something while we had been out of touch. He had learned how to protect himself without hurting others. My friend was back. This was the man who had tried to save me from a lion, not the man who tried to
wake me up by nailing me to a bar. He'd learned how to take care of himself and others, I thought. I counted myself lucky. I didn't know how wrong I was.

I said, “Not everyone knows what they want, Mal.”

“Yeah, but anyone can take a little control until they figure it out. For instance, what are you doing about that chick who's after you? Did you tell Hiko you're leaving?”

He knew I hadn't.

“You haven't, and you haven't told that model to leave you alone either. You're still sleeping with her, aren't you?”

I blushed and he laughed at me.

“You told me you don't even really like her. Do you know why you're doing her? Because she wants you to. Not because you want to, but because she wants you to. Just like when you moved in with Hiko, probably. Just like when I brought you to New York. You've never said no to anyone.”

“Well, what's so great about your life? You're living with a weird woman in a tiny little studio, with no job, and you look like hell.”

“What's great about my life is I say no all the time, man. I've chosen a hard path, but it's the one I chose. Did you know that Michael tried to recruit me after you signed with him? Wanted to get you a sidekick, he said.”

“You're not my sidekick.”

He laughed. “Shut the hell up. I
was
. I was your friggin' assistant. I held the nail, for Christ's sake.” The smile
fell off his face. “But I told him to go screw himself and that was the moment I realized I was angry at
you
for what
I
was doing. I decided to take some of your energy for myself. That's what the jump's about.”

I didn't understand. “How did the jump help?”

Mal checked out the traffic in both directions. “No, not the one you went to. Another jump. A bigger jump. I'll call you when we're ready for it. You'll have a bit part in the story that is me.” He flashed a smile and jumped into the uptown lane of traffic. A bus rumbled toward us and he moved to the dotted line dividing the two northbound lanes. He turned and raised his hands and yelled, “You can be my sidekick,” as the bus moved between us. When it pulled past he had vanished. As the bus continued uptown, I could see Mal running alongside, jogging to keep pace with it as it struggled through the heavy traffic. It was a simple and ultimately ineffective disappearing act. I lost track of him in the traffic lights and the passing taxis and I wondered if Michael would have wanted me if Mal had been the one with the great “talent” that drew attention.

When I got home I found Hiko soaking in a warm bath.

She greeted me with a kiss and a question. “Where have you been?”

“With Mal.”

I sat on the edge of the tub. She soaked navel deep. Steam coated the tiles and mirror with a film of conden
sation. I slid down to the floor by the tub, watching her soap her arms, rinse them off.

“Karen is really happy you and Mal have become friends again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she thinks you are a good influence on him.”

I watched her large dark eyes as she said this, but I didn't see any hint of irony, so I let it go. I breathed in the soapy air and felt safe in the white room. “It's like heaven in here,” I said.

Hiko smiled and her eyes cast about the room, not finding me.

 

EMILIA AND I
began to meet at her place more frequently, finally climaxing with three visits on the same day, a Thursday.

At first she would welcome me at the door of her apartment, the little peephole darkening under her eye only the first two times. By the end she was answering the door naked, making me wonder if there weren't other men or women in her life who shared this welcome, if there was a UPS driver or bike messenger, a super for the building, butt crack yawning between blue jeans and tool belt, who knocked in a way similar to me. I began to work on a secret knock in my head, one I planned to share but never did. I worried that someone else would
get the greeting meant for me. What if someone else knocked and then checked their watch, and as the door latch clicked and the flesh-colored door pulled back they looked down, past the roaring second hand of their Timex, and then moved up along the long bare toes, the curve of the ankle, up over the muscular calf, up the thigh, the furred thong, specially made for my visits to “Caesar's den,” as we called it, with a special split crotch and a three-foot tail in the back, a little puff of actual lion's mane on the end, and the delicious rivet of her navel, the abdomen, still red from my nails (nails and nails), and up to the breasts, rising and falling with heavy, possibly embarrassed breath, and along her neck, the ruby lips pursed in a surprised little O, wide eyes all but saying,
I thought it was someone else, and now I'm all naked,
in a singsongy little-girl falsetto. At this sight the milkman, postman, UPS, super, plumber, one or all of these, who knows, whispers, “I tawt I taw a putty-tat.” With Tweety's innocent blink he steps forward and the two begin to re-enact Warner Brothers' most sexually charged animated teams, consuming each other, a sadomasochistic game that was supposed to be mine alone.

My time with Emilia was always exhausting. After we'd finish tearing each other's flesh as foreplay, I'd lie back and she'd go to work on me. Once we extinguished our drives with what she called “traditional” positions, Emilia would roll off me and I'd stare at the ceiling. After about six weeks of this we'd fallen into as much of a
pattern as I had with Hiko. No longer dangerous or exciting, it was my life.

On the other hand, Hiko and I would go to a gallery or a museum or a showing of her friends' work. Amid drinks and small reheated appetizers we would hold hands and wander. Those shows or pieces that allowed Hiko to feel the work were, of course, more interesting for her. Otherwise it was just an opportunity to network. We'd eventually wander home with some sort of late-night takeout or we'd pick up ingredients for something we'd make ourselves. We'd end up in bed, holding each other or not, falling asleep almost immediately.

I had stopped telling Hiko any sort of excuse for my leaving. At the beginning I'd say something about shopping or Mal or even just a walk. Now I just said, “Be back later.”

Late one afternoon I found Emilia's front door standing open and as I came in Emilia called to me from the bedroom. I walked down the dark hallway and found her sitting quietly on the bed—in a black sweater and jeans.

I'd already scripted out in my head what I would say, but before I said,
Emilia, I've been thinking
, she had both removed my belt and tied me to the bed with it. This sounds more complicated than it was. One moment I was standing, looking at her thick glasses, and the next I was saying, “Make it tighter, I can still get loose.” I thought I heard a clasp close as she connected me, rack style, to the king-sized bed, too large for the room.

She left me there and went into the living room. When she came back in she wore the lion bikini.

“I had an inspiration,” she said.

“I guessed that.” I thought she meant belting me to the bed until she showed me her new gloves. She held them in front of me and flexed her fingers. Out of the furry paws poked long, curved claws.

“Those look real.”

“They are,” she said.

“They're so big.” I imagined the age of the lion that they had been pulled from. Some old king.

“The better to tear you to pieces with.”

“That's not a lion in that story. I think it's a wolf.”

“Don't be smart, or you won't make it home tonight.”