The Best of Lucius Shepard (88 page)

—That
ain’t what I think, I said, grumpy from losing out to a rich dyke.

—Then
why you treating me like I don’t know which end of a jar to open? I been with
women. It ain’t my favorite, but there’s times I felt that way. And I can feel
that way again. Enough to earn us twenty thousand dollars, I can.

The
word
us
punched a hole in my overcast.

—I
don’t trust Ava, Leeli said. But with you along I don’t have to trust her. So I
told her you had to come with us.

—What’d
she say?

—She
said it’d be okay ‘long as you don’t get crazy ‘bout I’m sleeping with the both
of you.

I
turned this proposition over to see if it was missing a piece. I don’t know, I
said. I get these mood swings.

—Oh,
really! I couldn’t tell. She flounced down beside me, resting her chin on my
chest. Can you deal with it? ‘Cause if you can’t, I might not do this. But I
want that money! You imagine the party we could have on twenty thousand? I bet
we can get more’n twenty, you ease back and lemme treat Ava right.

I
hooked my thumb under the waistband of her panties and gave the elastic a snap.
You a bad woman, ain’tcha?

—Goodness
me! She batted her eyelashes. I don’t know what in the world more I’m gonna
have to do to prove it.

*
* * *

In the morning we had another
conversation. It kicked off wrong when I said what bothered me was Ava offering
twenty when she could have snagged Leeli for less. Once I got her cooled down,
she said, huffily, It’s not like she was comparison shopping. She’s took with
me. Guess you’d have trouble understanding that.

—You
know that ain’t it. I’m just being a realist.

—That’s
what a realist is? A pea-brained Florida cracker?

—Damn,
Leeli! Some guy offered me twenty grand to go party with him for a month, you’d
think something was screwy.

—Maybe.

—Maybe
my ass!

A
polite room-service knock ended this round. The waiter, a college boy with a
forelock of frosted hair, rolled his cart to the table at the window,
off-loaded Leeli’s omelette and my breakfast steak, and stood waiting for his
tip.

—I
got no cash on me, I told him.

—You
can add it to the bill, sir.

This
was spoken like he was advising a backward child who’d stepped in shit. He had
the kind of smug, fleshy face made me yearn to see it staring up from inside a
roll of sheet plastic, dripping wet from a canal where he’d been swimming
underwater for a week. I snatched the bill from him and wrote one billion
dollars on the tip line. His eyes flicked to the amount and froze.

—I
was you, hoss, I said, I’d polish up one of them special Disney smiles and
waltz on outa here.

I
guess he wasn’t a total candy-ass. He had some size on him and I could tell he
was weighing job security against the joys of bashing my face in with one of
those metal domes that kept the food warm. I thought about sucker-punching him
just to see how far he’d fly, but he turned on his heel and headed for the
door.

—Rock
on, dude, I called after him.

I
sat down to eat. Leeli gave me a God-you’re-hopeless look. She bit into her
toast with a snap, as if somehow it might do me an injury. We ate without
talking for a while, then she said, It might be true what Ava told me. ‘Bout
the experiment. Carl and Squire are pretty strange.

—One’s
a retard, other don’t know he’s a retard. That ain’t so strange.

She
diddled the fork in her eggs. I can’t figure why she’d tell me that story if it
wasn’t true.

I
had to talk around a bite of steak. To make herself look like a big deal.

—People
with the money she’s got, they don’t hafta do that.

—If
they’re freaks they do. I finally got the bite chewed. Say it’s true. Fuck does
it matter? We still get paid.

Leeli
had built a little fence of eggs around her sausage patty. Nothing this good
ever works out, she said, staring at the plate like she was considering making
a rock garden out of her cottage fries. What I think’s gonna happen and what
does happen, there’s always a mile of swamp ‘tween the two.

—Yeah,
well, I said. There is that.

*
* * *

With a step that was a shade
perky for my tastes, Leeli ran off to tell Ava the news. For want of better
occupation, I took my Disneyworld pass and went to experience America. As I
waited in line the man behind me kept ramming my legs with his gray-headed mama
who was sitting in a wheelchair, gripping the arms and scowling like a fury.
Everywhere you turned you saw parents yelling at kids who were bawling about
they didn’t get this or that. Stuck in a photograph album, I supposed these
same scenes would dredge up fond memories years from now. It depressed me that
I wasn’t able to work such a change with my own miseries. Must be I come to
Disneyworld too late in life for the enchantment to do its trick.

Close
by the Pirates of the Caribbean, an elderly fat man with the word Jellybean
embroidered on the chest of his overalls and dozens of jellybeans stuck on his
straw cowboy hat had cordoned off a section of walkway and there created
portraits of celebrities from thousands of—guess what?—jellybeans. He was
working on his knees, dribbling jellybeans onto a rendering of the Statue of
Liberty, which except for the spiky headdress looked a whole hell of a lot like
his take on the fat Elvis. People stood around saying, Isn’t that amazing. He
seemed so jolly in his craft, I naturally wished him ill. Odds were he was a
twelve-stepper who after a lifetime of domestic abuse visited upon wife and
children had gone simple enough from Jesus and caffeine to believe this shit
was a suitable atonement. A four-year-old howler with the mouse on his chest
and a stalk of blue cotton candy in his fist broke free of his parents and came
to stand by Jellybean. Way he held the candy to his mouth and screamed, you
could easily picture him at twenty-one doing the same with a microphone and
getting laid by supermodels. When his mama tried to drag him off, he endeared
himself to me forever by ralphing all over Miss Liberty. Jellybean offered him
grandpa consolation, but I caught a glint of good old murder in his eye.

We
stayed at Disneyworld four more days. Leeli spent the nights with Ava and
mornings with me. The rest of the hours we traveled as a pack. At these times
the air got icy. Dinners became occasions of grand formality, long bouts of
chewing and swallowing broken by courteous exchanges. Please pass the butter.
Would you like another dessert? Can I bring you back something? Leeli had to
make sure both Ava and I got our share of flirty glances and secret smiles, and
the strain of it all roughed her up some. I learned to let her relax when she
came back to our room. She would take two valium from a bottle Ava had given
her and sit by the window, her breath ragged, like she was pushing herself to
exhale. Finally she’d smile and say, Hi or How you doing?, as if she had just
noticed me.

-—I
can’t take much more of Carl, she said one day. It’s not about him watching.
I’m almost grateful he’s there. It kinda makes it easier to switch off my head.
But the talking they do.. Jesus Lord! She glanced at me for a reaction. Am I
boring you?

—I
was just letting you tell it.

—I
know you’re being sweet with me, and I appreciate it. But I’m wore out with
sweetness. I could use a shot of male insensitivity. Can you handle that?

I
grinned at her and said gruffly, Hell they talking about, woman?

Leeli
sighed like those words had hit the spot. Ava’ll stop right in the middle of
things and explain what’s going on. Anatomical stuff, y’know. And Carl he just
sits there humming to himself.

—He
don’t say nothing back?

—Sometimes
he asks can he go do something with Squire, and she’ll say maybe later or naw
it’s not your time to be with Squire.

—See
what I told you? He’s a fucking retard.

—He’s
not dumb! Ava’s always testing him or something. Asking him weird questions. He
never gets a’one wrong. She’ll ask him to do a sum and he does ‘em in his head.
Just snaps ‘em off!

—Remember
that Tom Cruise movie where his brother did all that? That guy was a retard.

—It’s
not just Carl. Ava, she’s....

—What?

—She’s
a strong woman, is what it is. Sometimes I get a feeling I’m gonna drown in
her, y’know. Like she’s this tide rolling over me and when it goes out again,
nothing’s gonna be left of me. Leeli hung her chin onto her chest. I don’t know
I can do this for a month.

—Fine
with me. Let’s take the five and split.

The
second hand must have galloped damn near ten times around the dial before she
said, Chances this good don’t come around but every so often. Let’s give it a
few days.

She
come over to the foot of the bed and crawled up beside me and cuddled into my
shoulder like she wanted to sleep. I did my best to be pillow and comforter,
but the heat of her and my natural preoccupations got me all charged up. She
reached her hand down and played with me awhile, then lost interest and closed
her eyes. Want me take care of that for you? she asked after another bit.

—We’ll
have our time, I said. Whyn’t you rest?

She
blinked and peered at me. Wide open, those brown eyes could be like a car
coming at you with its high beams on. They left me dazed and fighting for the
road.

—That
a real feeling I see in there? she asked.

—Whatever
you see, that’s what it is. You know I ain’t smart enough to fake nothing.

She
didn’t act like she believed this. Her lights dimmed and she lay quiet. She
fingered my shirt button and appeared to be studying the stubble on my chin. I
asked what she was thinking.

—Lots
of things.

—Say
one.

—I
was wondering if anybody’s smart enough to know they’re faking and I was
wishing we already had that twenty thousand.

—Anything
else?

—I
was thinking you got a whole crowd of people paying rent in your skull.
Different sizes, different ways of doing. But they all wearing the same face.

*
* * *

A woman starts to get deep on
you, you know it’s just the coming attraction for a head movie that’ll be
playing six shows daily in the weeks to come. She’s evaluating her prospects
and unless you’re a fool, you best do some evaluating your own self. Generally
speaking, a commitment is being called for, but with Ava in the picture I
wasn’t sure how things were fitting together in Leeli’s thoughts. She went to
drowning in moods so wide, they’d wash over me from the next room. Sometimes
she wanted me to be patient and other times she wanted me to haul her off to
the monkey jungle. After playing mama’s little helper at night, she needed
daddy to straighten her out. I didn’t have a good record when it come to
treating female mental disease, but I managed it with Leeli. I gave her to know
I was there for her like Oprah and Tarzan both. It surprised me that I was up
to the task and when I meditated on this, I realized the feeling Leeli had
spotted in me might be for real. A runty little weed sprouted from sandy
soil—that was all it was. If it was going to survive, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye
would have to drop in from TV heaven and manifest a miracle. But there it
waved, baking under the sky of all the shit that had ever gone wrong with me,
waggling its dried-up leaves, trying like hell to grow up and learn how to
whistle. Puny as it was, it stood taller than any decision I could have made to
chop it down.