Hart & Boot & Other Stories Page 11

  And we had lots and lots of sex, occasionally great sex, but almost always really good sex. She was funny, and sweet, and she would sometimes have whole conversations with me in her sleep, her end of things matter-of-fact and surreal: “Have you seen my eyepatch?” she’d say, and laying awake I’d reply, “No, babe,” and she’d say, “The statues are breaking in the rain,” and I’d say, “That’s what happens when you use cheap cement,” and so forth. She never remembered those conversations the next morning, though she said she believed me; she’d always had the habit, she said, of narrating her dreams.

  Neither of us dated anyone else, though we left the option open; we were together more nights than not, unless one of us had a deadline to finish. It was something. Something else. Something special.

  I can’t decide if all this is boring or not, if you care about the good times, or if you’re just waiting for the monsters to start jumping out of the closet, if you’re waiting for the train wreck you know is coming. I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s hard for me, writing about those good months, remembering. The thing is: she loved me. I wasn’t just somebody to fuck while Martin was away, though maybe that’s what she expected me to be at first. We had something more. It was the best relationship I’d ever been in, the most honest, the most unselfconscious, the most gentle, and it was good for her, too; she told me so often enough. So I thought that when Martin got back, there’d be room for me, that we could still see each other, that it wouldn’t be the end, because I was special.

  So in late September, when she said, “We should talk,” I got this heavy feeling in my gut, like I’d just eaten a pound of ball bearings.

  But before I tell you about that, I should maybe tell you about the lion dreams.

  I’ve never really been into animals. I live in a city, and I don’t see anything other than birds and squirrels, cats, dogs on leashes. I’ve been to the zoo a couple of times, but the monkeys interested me the most, probably because they’re the closest thing to people. I hardly paid attention to the lions at all. But after I started seeing Lily regularly, I began dreaming about lions all the time, dreaming I was a lion, a big cat, slinking through the long grasses on the savanna, chasing down antelope, lazing in the sun, climbing over rocks. I loved the sun on my fur, the strength in my legs, the way dead animals smelled as good as hot brownies or espresso. I had that dream two, three times a week. I read about lions, even wrote an article about them, mostly about how badass they are, that I sold to a kid’s magazine. Most of the dreams were set in the savanna, or in a rocky place, but there were other settings, to0. The one I remember most clearly was an island, with a weird building like a Greek temple on a hill. The beaches were white sand, and the water was blue as the lips of an asphyxiation victim. There were gray stone statues standing in the sand in front of the building, like it was the most white-trash front yard in the history of the world. Statues of people, birds, and all kinds of weird creatures from mythology. Roosters with lizard tails and multifaceted eyes. A pegasus with one wing broken off. A hydra, tipped over, with half its heads buried in the sand. A griffin, a centaur, a unicorn, and a cyclops—that one was as tall as a building itself. I padded through the statues, toward the building, but then I heard this hissing, like the air being let out of a hundred tires at once, coming from the dark behind the pillars. I looked around, and saw some lion statues, their faces frozen in snarls. I slunk back to the water, which churned, and seemed filled with monsters, and I was trapped, and desperate, and also sad. I woke from that dream with a sense of choking despair, and I clung to Lily like she was the only thing keeping me from sinking.

  That was the last night I spent with Lily. The next morning she said, “We should talk,” and here we are again.

  We were in her white-and-yellow kitchen, having breakfast. I was having toast and coffee because my stomach doesn’t appreciate much more early in the morning, but she had bacon and eggs and chicken-apple sausage and a big glass of milk. Lily ate neatly, without shoveling, but she could make mountains of food disappear.

  “I thought we were talking?” I said, trying to keep it light.

  She sighed. “I should’ve said something earlier, but things’ve been so good... I heard from Martin a few days ago. He’s going to be back next week. Monday. I’m picking him up from the airport.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, cool. I know you’ll be glad to see him.” Lily didn’t talk about Martin much, though he naturally showed up in lots of her stories and anecdotes. The impression I got was that he was talented, moody, and capricious; the sort of guy who’s a lot of fun to hang out with, but maybe a little exhausting, who decides to go to Vegas on a whim and convinces you to go with him, or who jumps in the car to go to the coast for a week and sleeps on the beach when he gets there. He played lots of instruments, but his best were trumpet and flute, and he’d played with just about every jazz and swing band on the planet at one time or another. He did well enough to tour like hell for several months and then take a few months off.

  Lily nodded. “I’ve missed him, yeah. But what I really want to say is... I’m going to miss you. These past few months have been fabulous.”

  I put my coffee cup down; my hand was shaking. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  She looked annoyed. Lily had precious little patience for bullshit, and I realized that’s how I sounded to her. For a second her eyes looked black, just like they had in the mirror that first night in Black Glass. I’d seen that before, when she got angry, which wasn’t often; just a flash of black, and then back to green. I’d convinced myself it was a little consistent hallucination on my part, that I sensed her mood and translated it into a creepy visual effect. “Ray, you knew all along there was a limit on the far side of this, that once Martin came back I was going to be with him again. I never lied to you.”

  “You haven’t exactly brought it up lately,” I said, bitter, not trying to hold back.

  “I didn’t think you needed to be reminded every half an hour, no. Was I mistaken?”

  “So this is it, then? I’m out the door? You can’t even see me on weekends, or—”

  “No. I’m sorry. When Martin’s here, he’s for me, and I’m for him. He... it’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing for him. He doesn’t care what I do when he’s not around, but when he’s back, he wants me all to himself.” She shrugged. “That’s the way it’s always been.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, if you don’t want it to be.”

  She looked at me, totally cool, she might have been something carved from stone, and said, “No, it doesn’t. If I don’t want it to be.”

  And that was all. I knew how it was, then. She didn’t want to be with me.

  Though I hated myself for it, I said, “Don’t you love me, Lily?”

  She softened, and put her hand over mine. “Sweet Ray. Yes, I love you. But that’s not what this is about. I love Martin, too, and I have for a long time. You’ve been my summertime, but Martin is my man for every season.”

  I nodded miserably. “When he goes away again...”

  “Maybe,” she said, but she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “It’s hard to say. People change. I don’t know how long he’ll be here. He’s even talked about retiring, these past couple of years, though I can’t imagine him staying in one place for so long.” She finally met my eyes. “I’ll call you.” I knew she meant it. I also knew she might not call for months. “I’m not asking you to wait for me. You know I’m not the one-and-only woman for you. We know that’s just a bunch of dumb Hollywood crap.”

  “Yeah,” I said hollowly, but for the first time I realized that the movies she liked most were those old romantic comedies, the ones where there really is just one person meant for you, one true love in a world of wrong choices. And I think that’s a dangerous bullshit idea, I always have, and Lily said she did, too... but I wondered. I wondered if she didn’t see Martin as her one-and-only, and everyone else as mere recreation.

  “Take care,” she sai
d.

  I mumbled something, pushed back from the table, got my stuff, and went to the door. She didn’t follow. She didn’t kiss me goodbye. I couldn’t decide if that was cruelty or a kindness.

  ***

  I got home and found an invitation to Nick and Susie’s wedding. I pitched it in the trash. I’d been thinking about calling Nick, trying to convince him there were no hard feelings (and there really weren’t; losing Susie was how I met Lily, and I wouldn’t have traded that for anything), seeing if we could talk, but there was no way I could do that now. Too bitter. Why the hell should that idiot and that bitch be getting married, when I’d just been given the boot in favor of Martin?

  So I’d suffer in silence, noble and alone, or maybe get drunk, finish the bender that Lily had interrupted all those months ago.

  I didn’t actually do that, though. I got into my work as much as possible instead, editing a long software manual that had been translated incompetently from the Japanese, writing an article about the early American oil barons, researching world death rituals for an anthropology professor at one of the universities. Filling my brain with more useless bullshit, and crowding out all the bad thoughts about Lily and Martin, Martin, motherfucking Martin. It was a struggle every day not to call her, and finally, in desperation, I got involved with a woman who lived in my building. Her name was Marie, and she was a waitress/actress, dumb as a thumbscrew and attracted to my old misanthropic-ironic pose, which I’d donned like a suit of armor when Lily gave me the boot. We went to clubs, drank too much, and screwed. Such was life; familiar, empty, simple.

  And then one day I was sitting at the coffee shop, reading one of the local papers, getting pissed off because they’d put a typo in the byline of my latest music review, so now my name was “Roy,” when I saw his name, that fucker’s name, that bastard’s name: Martin Chorus.

  (“His name’s Martin Chorus?” I said, laughing. “He’s a musician, and his last name is Chorus?”

  (“It was ‘Khora’ originally,” she said, and spelled it for me. “A very old Persian name. But when Martin’s ancestors came to America, the immigration officials spelled it ‘Chorus,’ so that’s what it’s been ever since. Just a funny coincidence, that he’s a musician.” That was one of our few conversations about Martin.)

  Martin was playing at a little jazz bar on Saturday, which was that night, at 8 o’clock. I looked at my watch. Four hours. Shit. There was no question. I had to at least get a look at this guy. And if Lily was there... I’d just tell her it was a coincidence, or I was covering it for a review, or something. I called Marie on my cell phone and cancelled our date. She wasn’t even that pissed. Marie was easy-going, and not bad in bed, but about as deep as a saucer. No comparison to Lily.

  So I got dressed and went to the bar, a placed called The Stone Mirror, and took a table a bit back from the stage. It was a little before eight, and the place was filling up, but it was Saturday night, so that didn’t mean Martin was any good; every place was full on Saturdays. I looked around for Lily, but she was nowhere to be seen, which didn’t surprise me. She’d seen Martin play a million times, probably, and loving supportiveness only goes so far.

  The band came on without introduction, setting up their instruments. A drummer, an upright-bass player, a guitarist, a keyboardist, a trombonist, and Martin, a trumpet case in one hand, a flute case in the other.

  I’d never seen pictures of him—which was weird, when you think about it, it seems like Lily would’ve had a couple around—but the instrument cases gave him away.

  I hated him at first sight. I wanted to eat his fucking eyes out of his head. I’d never had such a visceral reaction to someone before. It made sense; he’d stolen Lily from me, sort of, but still, my reaction felt extreme even from the inside. Martin had olive skin and curly black hair, and he wasn’t all that good-looking, really; his face was too round, almost babyish, and the resting position for his expression was a kind of nasty smirk. He wore a dark suit with kitschy, wide lapels, and he introduced the band members, his voice was nothing special, kind of deep.

  I watched him through the whole set, and he was good, the bastard. He played trumpet and flute both, wringing out music violently one minute, playing soft and gentle with a master’s touch the next. I drank about four beers during that set, and once when the music stopped I heard myself growling, deep in my throat. I stopped once I realized I was doing it, and wondered if I’d been making that sound all along.

  When the band took a break, I got up to leave, because I’d seen enough. He was a good musician, looked like kind of an arrogant bastard—he took his applause like it was his due, not gracious in the slightest—and what else could I expect to learn, just watching him?

  On my way out the door, someone yelled, “Ray!” I should’ve left, but I stopped, and turned around, and there was Martin, approaching me, holding out his hand. I shook with him, feeling like my brain had been scooped out. He knew me. It hadn’t occurred to me that Lily would have talked to him about me, or that he might’ve seen pictures, but of course there were pictures of Lily and me together, in the country, in the park, just hanging out.

  Martin grinned at me, and he seemed to be friendly, but it was still a smirky smile, and I thought maybe he just had an unfortunate face, an asshole’s face. “Good set,” I said, which was the best I could come up with.

  “Better than some, worse than others,” he said. “Have a drink with me?” He should’ve been sweating after all that work he was doing on stage, but he was totally cool and fresh.

  Having drinks with Martin was not an experience that fell within my comfort zone. “Thanks, anyway, no. I’ve had enough already tonight.”

  “Don’t have a drink, then. On me.”

  I still wanted to kill him—and people say that all the time, but I mean it, part of me wanted to slam his face into a table until you couldn’t tell where skin ended and wood began. But maybe it would be good to talk; hell, maybe he was going to tell me he was breaking up with Lily and I was welcome to take over, or that Lily dug me so much he’d decided to make an exception and let her see me while he was in town.

  I know. Fat chance. But a guy’s gotta dream.

  “Sure, I guess I don’t have anywhere to be.” So we sat down at a tiny table, way too close together, our knees touching. I slid back and crossed my legs, crossed my arms over my chest.

  “What made you decide to come here tonight?” he said.

  I shrugged. “Heard there was a good band playing.”

  He looked amused. “You didn’t know I’d be there?”

  “Yeah, I knew it was you.”

  “You wanted to get a look at me.”

  I shrugged again, beginning to think this was a bad idea.

  “You think I’m... competition. But you misunderstand the situation. There is no competition. Lily and I go way back. Farther back than you can imagine. We belong together. We’re the same, I have a connection with her that you never can. We’re closer than blood, Ray. She liked you, I know, though she didn’t want to tell me much about you. I found the pictures tucked into one of her drawers, that’s how I recognized you, but she didn’t volunteer to show them to me. I wondered if I would see you around.”

  “Hey, Lily already dumped me, Martin. You don’t have to do a follow-up, okay?” I wanted to make him eat a beer glass.

  “No, no, that’s not what this is about. What Lily and I have cannot be harmed or lessened, and for that reason, I don’t see you as a threat. I am a... hungry person, Ray. I demand a lot of Lily’s time. But...”

  I uncrossed my arms. This sounded like it might be going my way after all.

  “We occasionally invite people to bed with us,” Martin said. “Women, men, whatever. I’ve romped with Lily and many of her other summertime romances. She didn’t seem to think you’d be interested, but...” He raised an eyebrow and then, horribly, reached across the table, and brushed the back of my hand with his fingers.

  “No thanks,” I said,
not even thinking about it, not even weighing the pleasure of being with Lily against the instinctive revulsion I felt for Martin—the revulsion won, with no calculation necessary. But I was already confused; Lily had told me that Martin was jealous, that he didn’t play well with others, and now here he was, coming on to me! Was Lily lying, trying to get rid of me? Using Martin as an excuse for a breakup she wanted to happen anyway?

  “Ah,” Martin said. “Pity. Oh, well. I’ve got to play another set, Ray. Nice meeting you.”

  He went back to the stage, and I went out the door, miserable, thinking, Sometimes it’s better not to know.

  ***

  That night I slept alone, and dreamed of lions, but it was different, this time. Before I’d always delighted in my strength, my grace, the sheer wonder of my leonine form... but now I sensed that something was terribly wrong. Something was rotten on the savanna, and I don’t mean the leftovers from my kills.

  Walking, trying to find the source of my unease, I came to a place of tumbled rocks. An old lion lay stretched on a boulder, his mane pure white. He sat with his head on his forepaws, watching me, and I settled down before him, respectful, quiet. I was the head of my pride, the ruler of this territory, but I knew this old lion was something bigger— maybe even a god among lions, at the very least a wise old cat, to have reached such an age. If he was a god, I didn’t feel any shock of the divine, or the overwhelming reverence that a human might have felt. I just felt respect.

  There is a monster, the old lion said—or gave me to understand, it didn’t use words. An old monster. You must kill it.