Who is Charlie Conti? (17 page)

Dawn was beginning to edge its way underneath the curtains while some satellite in outer space beamed information about blue eyed scallops and garish orange egg-sacks and the Goddess Venus into the room. For a moment I felt a glimmer of happiness; not happiness itself, more the realization that despite everything happiness was a possibility. I mean, in the unseeing eyes of the massive computerized institutions that mysteriously control our lives, I had nothing and I was nobody; for now at least. But Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise and Ken Kesey and William Burroughs and all those beatniks, I mean, they never had a dollar to their names and it didn’t seem to bother them. And I had a sister up in Maryland who loved me in her way, and a girl beside me who I wanted to talk to rather than screw, and not just because of propriety but because that’s what my heart wanted. And I’d decided that I was going to write everything down the way it happened and
then the truth would be out there no matter who tried to twist it or what the massive blind institutions said, and that was a good thought too.

The sunlight was streaming into the room when I woke. The door to the bathroom was open and clouds of condensation were billowing out and clinging to the ceiling of the bedroom. I could hear the sound of the shower and Stella singing in a
Hispanic-Caribbean
accent:

The accent was kind of strange but she had a great singing voice, clear and girlish. Then the sound of the shower stopped and she came out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around her under her arms.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hey, have you seen your face? I did a pretty good job last night.’

‘Oh, thanks. I haven’t seen it.’

‘Well go and have a look. And there’s another towel in the bathroom. I think you’d look better without the blood.’

I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. At first I was pretty shocked. All around my eye was really black and kind of merging into a horrible sick-looking yellow. From the bridge of the nose across to the blackness was swollen too, so it looked like I had a trunk rather than a nose. But where Stella had stitched my chin it was all clean and neat. The little twists of black thread stuck out some. They reminded me of the pointed twists on barbed wire. I’d studied the Holocaust back at Belmont and I remembered a photo on the cover of one of the text books: it was black and white, a close-up of a twist on a barbed wire fence with blurred snow-covered huts and a
watch-tower
in the background, very haunting. It was a great book though, I remember that. They did some terrible stuff to the guy who wrote it, but the strange thing was he didn’t seem to hate them. You’d expect him to want to scream and shout and tear everything apart, but he didn’t, not once. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but it was like all these terrible things that had been done to him didn’t really touch him. Or maybe they did touch
him but they didn’t breed hatred like you’d expect. Instead he just seemed to want to testify, to testify to the truth, like that was enough. Anyway, barbed wire – that’s what my chin reminded me of. But, like I said, neatly done.

‘Hey, thanks,’ I called out.

‘That’s ok. Now get in the shower. I’ve got a surprise for you.’

I switched on the water and waited outside to check the temperature. I’m a bit chicken like that, I like to know that the water’s hot before I get in. It’s not that I mind cold water so much once I’m in it, it’s just that I don’t like the shock. But the water was hot and so I got in and held my head under the shower head. I hadn’t had a hot shower for, well, for a long time anyway and it was very enjoyable.

I began to worry about the surprise Stella had for me. I mean, if she got back into the shower with me then I didn’t think that my resolution of the night would last that long. I wasn’t worried about disappointing her any more, but really I wanted to talk more than screw which was strange. As I was thinking this Stella’s slender arm reached in beside the shower curtain. In her hand she held a nectarine, you know, one of those hairless peaches.

‘Go on, take it. They’re best in the shower.’

I took it and held it for a moment. The curtain closed fully again. The nectarine was cold in my hand; it must’ve come from the fridge. As I held it the condensation began to form into tiny pearls on the smooth skin. It looked perfect, like fruit in a commercial. I bit into it. The flesh was crisp and sweet but not too sweet; it was good and sharp and citric too. And boy was it juicy. I took another bite and let the juice dribble down my face into the hairs on my chest to be
washed away by the hot water. Now I understood what Stella meant: the coldness of the fruit and the heat of the water and the fact that you could take bites without worrying about the juice getting on your clothes or about what other people would think, that was a pleasure. It’s amazing how there can be so much to worry about even with something as simple as eating a nectarine. But eating in the shower was different, except then some juice got into the cut on my chin and started to sting like a bitch, which I guess is a lesson against thinking that anything in this world can be perfect.

When I came out of the shower Stella was already dressed. She was wearing cowboy boots and a short denim skirt and another tight t-shirt; she looked hot, I have to say.

‘Don’t you have to go to work?’

She clucked her tongue dismissively. ‘It’s my day off,’ she said. ‘You wanna get a milkshake?’

‘Sure.’

Stella opened the door and sat in the doorway with her back against the doorpost. She’d put her wet hair underneath a cheap white cowboy hat. The back of the hat was pushed up by the doorpost so that the front pointed downwards and the angle of the brim echoed the angle of her nose. The morning air was cold and I was still wet from the shower so I tried to get dressed as fast as I could, but I got distracted watching Stella smoke a cigarette. The wraiths of smoke curled upwards like the ghostly fingers of a hypnotist. With a shiver I felt the beauty in that moment – in Stella’s profile and the angle of the hat and the twisting smoke in the pale morning light.

I’m kind of surprised that anyone can enjoy the taste of smoke
first thing in the morning. But that morning I thought about having a cigarette, just to solidify the moment, to pick it out from all the others as significant and worth remembering, like I’d done on the roof of the Buick after I first met Stella two days before. Watching her now I thought how the ritual of smoking takes time, and the smoking itself makes you breathe deeply, and that also helps to solidify the moment. I mean, I guess you could try doing something else instead, like taking a dip or chewing gum or whatever, but there’s not the same ritual and it doesn’t require your attention in the same way or make you take deep breaths either. I was tempted to have a cigarette then, because the moment felt significant. The world is not perfect, but there is kindness, and there is beauty, and there’s only so long things can keep getting worse.

‘So Charlie, you runnin’ from the law?’ Stella called from the doorway.

‘Kinda, I guess. Except they think I did something which I didn’t do, but it’s pretty hard to prove I didn’t do it. And it’s not just that, the problem is that I need their help to prove that I am Charlie Conti. Until I can prove that I’m screwed.’

‘So what you gonna do?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ve got to think about it. But I want to go see my sister. She’s got Down’s Syndrome and lives in Maryland and the last time I saw her or spoke to her was almost a year ago. She’s pretty different from other people, but we grew up together and, well, she’s the only family I’ve got. And the other thing is, I’d like to write down everything that’s happened to me, so that the truth doesn’t get twisted. I mean, I’ve already forgotten some
of the details.’

‘Is that what you were writing in the diner?’

‘Sort of. Except those were just notes and a few dates, and they’re now mostly covered in blood where Kramer cleaned his hands. I’d like to write it all down properly and get it typed up so anyone can read it.’

‘Why did Kramer attack you? I thought he was a Special Agent?’

‘Yeah, so did I. But he isn’t. He works for Ray Celador, for the asshole that’s responsible for everything. I guess I’m an idiot for trusting people.’

‘Why?’ asked Stella, exhaling smoke into the cool air.

‘Well, Ray kinda set me up with this girl. Then he encouraged me to go on a trip. While I was away he used my house as an unloading point to smuggle blow. Then Jeanine disappeared and took my stuff. When Kramer called I never doubted him – he said he was FBI and he’d been tracing my calls and he knew I’d been calling LAPD. I guess Ray, or Kramer, could see who I’d been calling. They must’ve gotten access to my cell phone account along with everything else. I never thought of doubting Kramer, even when he sent me to pick up cash from this really sketchy character in Venice.’

After a few moments Stella asked: ‘Ray set you up with Jeanine?’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘What was she like?’

‘Well, she was nothing like you.’

‘Why not?’

I thought for a second. ‘Because there was really nothing I liked
about her,’ I said.

‘Huh. So why were you with her?’

‘Sex, ego, whatever. Basically because I was an idiot.’

Stella took one last drag on her cigarette then stubbed it out on the ground next to her. ‘You can stay with me as long as you want,’ she said.

‘Thanks Stella. I appreciate it. Really I do. But seeing Izzy – that’s my sister – and writing everything down, that’s what I’ve got to do now.’

I finished getting dressed while Stella sat in the doorway singing the song she’d been singing in the shower in the strange
Hispanic-Caribbean
accent.

We walked beside the highway to Marv’s Soda Shop. That’s to say, I walked beside the highway and Stella walked along the white markings dividing the road, carefully putting one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker. It kind of worried me but I didn’t say anything. I guess it wasn’t so dangerous; you could see a long way in both directions because the land was flat and open and the only buildings were low and set back from the road. We saw a truck coming but by the time it passed us Stella had skipped over to the side of the road. Still, I thought it was asking for trouble to walk in the middle of the road like that.

We were walking through a strange no man’s land – gas stations and factory outlets and second hand car dealerships, and everything else flat and dry and dusty. I suddenly felt sick of the landscape,
of its terrible monotony. I couldn’t wait to go north, to feel a wet Atlantic breeze on my face and to see the pine forests rolling away upcountry. I’d have liked to take Stella with me. We could’ve been fugitives from the law like Bonnie and Clyde, except fugitives with a clean conscience and no blood on our hands. It was a nice idea but I realized it was totally unrealistic, though I promised myself that as soon as I got out of this mess I’d go find Stella again.

Marv’s Soda Shop was stuck in a 50s time warp. The floor was a big black and white linoleum check and the bar and all the furniture was made out of spearmint green plastic, except for the stainless steel counter top. The soda fountain was a big old machine against the wall at the back; it bristled with stirers of different lengths for the different sizes of shake and there were bits of piping and chrome tubes sticking out here and there, but I think they were mostly for show. Stella ordered two chocolate malteds with marshmallows, then we sat on the spearmint green stools at the stainless steel counter.

I started to feel nauseous about halfway through my shake – it was too sweet for breakfast – and I saw that Stella was mostly trying to drown the marshmallows by dunking them with her straw. She seemed preoccupied.

‘You think you’re gonna move on?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. I’m saving money.’

‘What about boys?’ I was pretty sure she didn’t have a boyfriend, though I hadn’t actually asked her. But then, it seems strange to think that there are strippers who don’t have boyfriends. You’d have thought that if they wanted a boyfriend there’d be plenty of guys to choose from. I’d have been sorry to hear that she was seeing
someone, but at the same time I knew I wasn’t exactly offering an alternative, not right then anyway.

‘I’ve been out with a couple of guys round here but really they just wanted to get hooked up because I’m a stripper. We were together a few weeks, then they went out with one of the other girls from the Palace. To them we’re interchangeable.’

I’d never really thought about that before. I felt bad for her. It’s pretty sad when you realize that someone is being nice to you just because they want something from you, but they don’t really care about you at all.

‘You know,’ said Stella, ‘I’ve been thinking about people who get together on the internet. I mean, it sounds weird, but at least that way you find out whether you like someone as a person before all the physical stuff gets in the way. And if I like someone, chances are I’ll find them attractive too, even if they’ve got a messed up face or whatever.’

Stella smiled at me. I said, ‘But the physical stuff is important too. I mean, you can’t force yourself to find someone physically attractive when you don’t, even if you really like them.’