Killing Johnny Fry (25 page)

“There‘s too much feeling in here,” I said. “I can‘t stand it."

“Why did you come here with me?” she asked.

“Because I‘m obsessed with a story in my head."

From the next booth up a woman‘s frenzied cry issued: “Oh God, oh God, oh God!"

The cries made me think of Sasha and her story about her mother.

I glanced up.

“Don‘t look at them,” Sisypha said. “Look at me."

I pulled my attention back to the golden-hued woman.

“What?” I said on a sob.

“What story?” she asked. “The one about your girlfriend?"

“No. I mean, I mean yes. . .ma way. But really it‘s about when I saw your movie. It was my story, only stronger."

“Better?” she asked, a child‘s grin on her face.

The whole time we talked, the woman kept calling for God.

“No. Stronger, scarier, something that I can‘t look away from. You."

She took my wrist and led me toward the exit. As we went past the booth from which the screams issued, I saw a black couple having vigorous missionary sex. You could hear their skin slapping in rhythm to his beat. Her face, the only one I could see, stared into his with fear and fascination as he kept hammering at her faster and faster.

We walked through the door at the end of the dark room and into a rather genteel-looking bar. It was then that I noticed we‘d lost Krista and Freefall. I wasn‘t bothered that they‘d gone off and so I didn‘t ask Sisypha about them.

This room was bright and might have been anywhere in Manhattan if it weren‘t for the occasional nude woman and the one man at the bar who was on his knees with his head up under a woman‘s chiffon gown.

While he performed cunnilingus on her, she was talking to another man.

“I‘ll meet you in twenty minutes in the green room,” I heard her say as we passed them.

“Maybe we should have a drink,” I suggested to Sisypha.

“It wouldn‘t mix well with the cocktail you‘ve already had."

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She opened a white door and nodded for me to go ahead of her.

“The pill you took is actually four doses of different drugs that will affect you in different ways . . . at different times,” she said as we walked through another door. “The first dose, which will wear off soon, makes you relaxed. The second will intensify your mind, and the third will get you hard and horny."

“What about the fourth?"

“That one‘s a knockout drop,” she said.

We were in a long, empty hall that was laid with small white and black tiles. The walls and ceiling were painted cherry red.

I stopped and took Sisypha by the arm.

“I better go home,” I said.

“Why?"

“I don‘t know anybody here and I‘m scared, at least I should be scared."

“I want you to stay with me for the night."

She was looking up into my eyes. Sisypha was no more than thirty, much younger than I. But to me she was like a goddess, a minor spirit in a great pantheon that mortals like myself were never allowed to see.

“Did Mel know what he was getting into?” I asked.

“Not consciously."

“Will you do that to me?"

“You aren‘t him,” she said. “You don‘t need to be stretched out on a rack and have your ass reamed by a woman who gently strokes your face—do you?"

I moved my face very close to hers and grabbed her by both wrists.

“Don‘t destroy me, Sisypha,” I said in a voice that might have been issuing a prayer.

The next room we came to was a restaurant. It too was bright, with twelve tables set for four and four corner booths that might have accommodated six. Five or six of the center tables were inhabited, mostly by couples, but one table sat four.

Only one of the booths was in use. A man and woman sat there, but I couldn‘t see their faces.

“Miss Landfall,” the maître d‘ hailed.

He was a portly Latino man. I would have said he was of Mexican descent, but I knew better than to second-guess the genes from south of the United States border. He could have been from Panama or Bolivia, Puerto Rico or Peru.

“Pero,” she said in a perfect accent.

“Your booth?” he asked.

“A table will do."

Once we were seated with menus, Sisypha looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“How much do you know about me?” she asked.

“I‘ve only seen the first few scenes of your movie,” I said. “I didn‘t look at any of the extras."

“But have you been to the blogs about me, or my Web site?"

“No."

“Do you belong to my fan club?"

I shook my head, then asked, “How many members are there?"

“At last count, eleven thousand four hundred and sixty-two."

“Wow."

“More than half of them women,” she added proudly.

. “Is it because you‘re so confident and dominant?” I asked.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Cordell?"

“No."

“To make love to you?” she asked, a little sarcastically.

“Not even,” I said.

“Then what? What do you want from me?"

“You called me,” I said.

“But you called out to me."

I was feeling, for lack of a better term, rather bold.

“I‘m hoping,” I said, “to learn from you. To get a, a grasp on your handle on things. My girlfriend thinks of me like I‘m a favorite pet. Up until a week or so ago, she had me so well trained that I‘d never even ask her could I come by during the week, when she was working. If we were on the phone and she said she had to go, I‘d never argue, no matter how much I wanted to talk.

“She has another man who throws her on the floor and fucks her in the park and who hires male prostitutes to take her while he watches and smokes cigarettes."

I wondered where I came up with the smoking detail. Johnny Fry had never smoked in my presence.

“May I get you something to drink?” another waiter asked us.

I remember thinking about how many waiters and waitresses there were in my life. People who attended to my needs but who never knew me. This one was short and dark with tiny eyes and no accent.

“Water, Roger,” Sisypha said. “And two green salads."

I didn‘t protest her ordering for me. I felt that I could break the table in two, but holding myself in check wasn‘t a problem.

“What‘s the gun about?” she asked then. I could tell by her eyes that she knew I planned to kill Johnny Fry.

Fuck you,
I thought.
If you know all about it, I don‘t need to say.

“I got it from a friend of mine,” I said. “Sometimes I carry it around with me."

“For protection?"

“For fun."

“You feel the second drug now?"

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I could pick you up and run around the block. But I don‘t have to."

She reached across the table and pinched the skin on the back of my injured hand—hard.

A typhoon of rage went through me. I bellowed and stood straight up, knocking my chair to the floor. Everyone in the room turned toward me, even the couple hidden in the booth. The woman, I noticed, even through the red fury, was quite elderly, while the man she was with couldn‘t have been thirty.

“Is something wrong, sir?” the maître d‘, Pero, asked, rushing to pick up the fallen chair.

“I, I, I,” I said.

“His first time,” Sisypha explained.

Pero held the chair for me. After a moment I obliged him by sitting down.

Sisypha was grinning.

“What is that you gave me?” I asked.

“Designer,” she said. “The guy who makes it lives in Berlin. He‘s originally from the Bay Area but I think his passport is Brazilian. He has a thousand clients. We pay him a yearly fee, and he supplies LIS with drugs so secret and so new that they‘re never illegal."

“I still feel your pinch,” I said. “It makes me want to get up and run through that wall."

“Maybe we should go to the Gym after we eat,” she suggested.

“Let‘s go now,” I said.

She smiled and nodded.

We left the room without paying. I guessed that Sisypha was a member of the Wilding Club. Her life came in a monthly bill, not pay-as-you-go.

We were walking down yet another empty hallway. Hallways and waiters, I remember thinking, they are the bulwarks of my empty life.

This passageway was carpeted in red, with walls painted brown.

“What did you want to ask me?” I said to Sisypha‘s back.

She turned to face me.

“I like you, Cordell.” Her eyes fastened to me. “But . . ."

“But what?"

“I don‘t know you."

Before I could say any more, she turned away.

The Gym was more than I expected. There was a health bar and many exercise machines; they even had a sports ring for boxing or wrestling. As with every other room, there were lots of naked men and women posing here and there. But there was no sex. People posed and worked out, but that was all.

Sisypha and I sat at a small, white table at the health bar. She had celery juice, and I had Sleepy Helper tea. The drug inside me was like a wide-awake two-year-old looking for mischief in my hands, in my feet. I couldn‘t concentrate on anything but Sisypha for more than a few seconds at a time.

“What do you like about me?” I asked the woman known as Brenda Landfall.

She smiled and shook her head.

“Please answer me,” I said. “I know it‘s stupid and childish, but I didn‘t know what this goddamn drug was gonna do to me."

“You‘re blaming the pill?” she asked with a smile.

“Please."

“Love, I think, is a material thing,” she said, taking my hand and stroking the fingers lightly. “It‘s something made naturally every day, like tartar or blood or skin. Most people I know don‘t store it up; they give it away as soon as it‘s there. They give it to ungrateful children, unworthy lovers, to faithless friends, and strangers they meet each day . . ."

This was why I wanted to be with Sisypha. The knowledge she passed to me was like fresh, home-baked bread to a hungry man, or like penicillin to a mad fever born of infection.

“ . . . But now and then I meet a man who has never tapped the love he creates. He‘s like one of those ants in the colony that become giant sacks of honey. All you have to do is stroke his neck, and sweetness just flows out of him."

She was still stroking my fingers. I, for my part, was staring hungrily into her eyes.

“A man like you is a treasure for women like me,” she said. “Most people, men and women, only want to take from us. But every once in a while, we meet someone who only has love to give."

“Me?"

“Why not you?” she asked.

“ I ‘m cold and boring,” I said. “I‘m, I‘m commonplace."

“No, Cordell,” she said gripping my hand. “You‘re special. You‘ve had your ability to give love turned off, but never has your ability to make love been messed with. You‘re like a treasure trove. There‘s enough passion in you to keep someone rich for their entire life."

“I don‘t understand,” I said.

“I know you don‘t,” she said. “And I wish I could tell you, but . . . But I don‘t know you."

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Do we have to be friends for a while and then you‘ll know and then you could tell me?"

“I probably won‘t ever see you again, Cordell."

“Why not? I mean, can‘t we be friends?"

“Bren,” a man said—a tall, black man dressed in metallic gold pants and a finely spun white cotton shirt. You could see the outline of his huge cock against the tight, shiny fabric.

“Hi, Maxie,” Sisypha said, in mock submission. “This is my friend Cordell."

“Nice to meet you,” the deadly handsome man said. He was bald, and his head was waxed. “Come on, Sis, let‘s go to the playroom."

For the first time that night, my date seemed uncertain.

“Um . . . I‘m here with Cordell,” she said.

“I‘ll bring you back in forty-five minutes . . . if you still want to come back, that is."

“Would you mind?” Sisypha asked me.

“Yes, I would,” I said, with no hesitation. I wasn‘t going to be Mel.

“But you said you didn‘t want to make love to me."

“I want to be with you,” I said. “Be with you all night."

Sisypha breathed in deeply and smiled for me.

“Sorry, Maxie,” she said. “He needs me to be with him."

“He can come,” Maxie said with a single shoulder shrug. “Maybe he learn sumpin‘."

Sisypha shook her head and smiled. You could see that there was a history with this guy; she would have gone with him if I hadn‘t held on so tightly.

For a moment I worried that I was doing the wrong thing. Maybe I should have let her go off to the playroom and take his big dick up in her ass. But as I had this thought, I imagined Jo asking me if I minded if Johnny Fry climbed into our bed and she fucked him while I sat there and read the
New York Times
or watched
Seinfeld
on the TV.

The drug and the thought blended together in my sinews.

I jumped to my feet, shouting something stupid like, “Fuck no! Fuck you, fucker!"

There was actual fear in Sisypha‘s eyes.

“What?” Maxie said.

“I said, take your pimp pants and your fairy blouse and get the fuck outta here.” They were words I would have spoken privately—thinking I should have said them but keeping the thoughts to myself. “I don‘t have to take your shit."

Maxie looked at me and then shook his head, dismissing my threats.

He turned to Sisypha and said, “What you gonna do, Bren? You know you supposed to be goin‘ wit‘ me."

“Didn‘t you hear me, man?” I said. “I said get the fuck out of here."

This was the person I always wanted to be. When my father slapped me or humiliated me or told me where I could go and how long I could be there even when I was sixteen—I wanted to be that man. When teachers refused to believe that I was smart and when the police stopped me for walking in neighborhoods where I had white friends. I wanted to stand up to my father and every racist and bully I‘d ever known, but I‘d never had the courage until that night. And if I had stopped there, it would have been enough to last me until my dying day. I would have been able to look back and say that, at least once, I was a man in the world—that I didn‘t let some motherfucker walk Up and take my woman without a fight.