Shelby (27 page)

“Pee?” I asked.

“Full up,” he said.

“Eric,
muchas gracias
for helping me feel better.”

“Hey, it's better than breakin' your neck,” he said, staggering away. “I just hope it's for real.”

“It is,” I said.

A few seconds later he wobbled back into the kitchen, pulled his chair up next to mine, put his arm around me and showed me a brown bag. I peered inside.

“For my pal,” he said, “Island
Treat
number two …”

“What is it?”

He grinned. “Vancouver Island one hundred percent guaranteed to blast your fuckin' mind hydroponic skunkweed.”

“Marijuana?”

Eric lifted his arm off me and pulled a lighter from his pocket. “The best bud I ever had,” he said glassy-eyed. He lit one of the joints and took a few drags, coughed and passed it to me, obviously unaware that I'd never smoked before.

“We could be arrested.”

“For what?”

“This isn't right, is it?”

“We ain't fuckin' each other, man, we're smokin' a doobie.”

“Children are shot in the trafficking cross fire. Are we not, as users, also accomplices?”

“It's skunkweed.”

“Is it legal?”

“No, but that's a load o' shit. I mean cigarettes are legal! Have you read the package lately? Marijuana couldn't hurt a fly. It's no worse for you then a good lay.”

I looked at the smoldering joint. “I shouldn't.”

“So don't.”

“Will I get flashbacks?”

“That's acid.”

“I'm nervous.”

“Well, don't do it.”

“But I want to! I'm not afraid to live.”

“Great.”

“But I'm afraid to die. I could become an addict.”

“Look, Shel, whatever.”

“Dammit, I'm going to give it a go.”

“Are you sure?”

I lifted it to my lips and took two tentative drags.

“Shit, man,” he said grinning. “You gotta give it a little more suck than that.” I took two more inhales, swallowed and gagged. My eyes watered. I coughed. We did it twice again.

“Actually,” he said, “some people get flashbacks.”

“Really?”

“Nah.”

Eric lay down on the kitchen floor. I sat at the table, unable to focus. “What should I feel?” I asked, just as the doorbell rang.

“Oh shit!”

“What?”

“Cops,” he said.

“Are you serious?”

“Nah,” he said. “Come on in.”

The door opened and a few people I didn't recognize peeked in and stared at me.

“Hey, man,” Eric said. And so began the party. I didn't move, sitting, instead, glassy-eyed, staring at the fridge as the apartment turned into a veritable beehive of activity. I spun between fatigue and excitement, rich perception and incoherence. Sometime thereafter Eric came and sat down next to me.

“I just threw up, right?”

“I don't know.”

“Why is it always spaghetti?”

“What?”

“Puking,” he said. “Nobody ever chucks up a salad.”

“I have,” I said.

“No you haven't.”

“Caesar salad. I distinctly recall the pungent combination of bile and garlic.”

“And spaghetti, though, right?”

“
Caesar salad
—all on its own. The Revelstoke Keg.”

“Bullshit.”

“My eyes feel funny.”

“But are you happy?”

“I feel funny.”

“Happy-funny?”

“I think so,” I said, just as nausea wobbled my innards. “Ooh,” I said, pushing myself up. “I feel suddenly ill.” I wobbled into the hall and towards the bathroom.

“Shelby!” I heard from behind. I turned to see Suzanne standing just inside the doorway, her face smiling and glowing from the cool December air, a shopping bag under her arm.

“Hello.”

She grinned coyfully. “Can we go somewhere private?”

The proposition surprised me and I stumbled, crushing my ear on the door frame of the bathroom. “Uh … of course … um … Eric's bedroom?” I asked, pointing, attempting to gather my wits.

Draped in a thick black coat and a red scarf, resembling a model turned baglady, she nodded. In we went. We sat down on the bed. “I brought you something,” she said with a continuing grin. Feeling my arousal level rise, I moved as near to her as I could without seeming obvious. Her neck looked mildy sweaty. I yearned to move my nose nearer.

“First off,” she said, “I want to—what are you doing?”

“Sorry, I was … moving closer. I couldn't hear you.”

“I'm a foot away.”

“I can hear you now.”

“Okay. So here it is: Pie looks great from the outside, right?”

“What pie?”

“Let me finish. So you see it and think, ‘God, this is going to taste great'. Yummy pie, right?”

“Okay.”

“Then you cut a slice and fish tails fall out all over the place …”

I sat bewitched by her beguiling eyes, fully erect and throbbing to tell her so in a more poetic manner.

“So you stare at this gross pie for days and days and you start to get hungry. So you take a bite and you realise it's not so bad after all. In fact, if you were starving you'd be more than grateful.”

“Hm.”

“That's the way of the world, Shelby. Everything depends on the vantage point, what your basic needs are and, to a lesser degree, what you desire after that. It's all just Fish-tail pie.” She looked at me sideways and from the corner of her eye. “I couldn't sell it to you,” she said. “I want you to have it …” Out of the paper bag she pulled
Fish-tail Pie
and placed it in my hands.

“Me?”

She laughed. “Yeah, you.” I sat silent. “Say something.”

“Oh Suzanne …
kiss
me.”

“What?”

“Please. No more games.”

“Shelby …”

“Let us slam our naked bodies against the madness.”

“You look weird.”

“Cast our fates and morals to the high sea!” I wrapped my arms around her and we tumbled backwards, me on top.

“Get off me!”

“You and I!” I cried.

“Shelby!”

Holding her down, I pulled my face back to kiss her on the lips. At that moment her hand grabbed onto my cheek and dug into my face.

“Get off me!”

My head jerked back in pain and I tumbled away as a few stinging wacks pounced off the side of my head. My face and eyes burned.

“What are you doing?”

I peeked through my arms to see Suzanne staring at me aghast.

“You're sick,” she said, teeth clenched.

“Suzanne, I—”

“Get away from me!”

“Suzanne …” She ran from the room. “Suzanne!” I screamed again, swinging out at the air. All was still. Hyperventilating, I leapt to my feet having joined the ranks of the sexually deviant; the abusers, the molesters, the harrassers. Suzanne had offered me her spirit incarnate and I'd thanked her as would a rabid Rottweiler with his jaws around one's nose. Sprinting towards the door I stumbled on nothing as if tripped by God Himself, crumbling headfirst into the wall. Prostrate and dazed, a sparkle to my left caught my eye. There was
Fish-tail Pie
, upside down, two broken tails inches away. I let out a sob and forced myself to my feet.

“Suzanne!” I cried again, running out of the room, scanning the hallway and then tearing into the kitchen. “Suzanne!”

“What the hell happened to your face?” Eric said, twisting from his seat at the kitchen table.

“Nothing. Honest.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“Oh Eric! What have I done?”

“What
have
you done?”

“I've … I've assaulted a woman, okay!”

“What?”

“Suzanne. She declined my kisses and I fell on top of her and she clawed my face.”

“And?”

My breathing quickened. I could not speak.

“You bastard!”

“I didn't mean to break it!”

“What?”

“She clawed my face. I tumbled away.
Fish-tail Pie
must have fallen. Suzanne stood staring at me, aghast. Before I could apologise, she was gone.”

“Did you hurt her?”

“No.”

“Where is she?”

I shrugged.

“Okay, man, that's it. I'm getting my gun.” He pushed me out of the way and strutted towards his room.

“I didn't mean anything!” I said, whimpering a few feet behind.

“Not for you, asshole! We got to deal with Frank.”

“Frank?”

“You want to deal with this guy? We'll deal with him.” Eric reached to the top of his closet and pulled down a revolver.

“No violence!” I shrieked.

Eric turned and glared.

“I've seen too much already.”

“Who do I look like? Gerry the Gent? We're just gonna warn the bastard.”

“Why now? I need to find Suzanne.”

Eric cracked me on the side of the head with an open hand. “The guy shattered your manhood—all your courage. Look at you, man! Assaulting a woman! I ought to beat the shit out o' you right here.”

“This is where it happened,” I moaned, turning, staring at the bed. I fell to my knees, gathering up
Fish-tail Pie
in my arms.

Eric took a last look at the gun before stuffing it in his pocket. “She needs a good polish,” he said, “but she'll still do the job.”

“I'm more than a little nervous,” I said.

“626 Cordova,” Eric said to the cab driver as we sped towards the city center. He turned to me. “You sure this is the right address?”

“There was only one Frank Sagan in the book. Anyway, Lucy told me he lived down in the bowery.”

“Okay then,” he said, leaning back in the seat, taking a long drag on his cigarette, “on with the show.”

“What a dump,” Eric whispered as we stumbled inebriated up the fire stairwell in search of 201. It turned out to be the first door on the right, second floor. “Bingo.”

“What?”

Eric pulled the revolver from his pocket and held it by his side. “Now we knock. Then we give Frankie-boy the only kind of talkin'-to he'll listen to. Stand over there.” Eric pointed me off to the side, rapped on the door three times and leaned his back against the wall. We waited, listening. Silence. Eric leaned forward and knocked. Again no answer.

“I'd bet he's at his club,” I said, “it's Saturday night.”

“Yeah. Shit. 'Course he is.”

“We should get back to the party, shouldn't we?”

“Au contraire, mon ami.” Eric dug into his jacket pocket and removed a Swiss Army Knife, clipped open the nail file and began prodding at the door handle.

“
Eric
, please. Already my night … illicit drugs, Suzanne, now breaking and entering. The widening gyre is spinning beyond control. I need—”
Click
.

“Got it.” Eric pushed open the door and crept inside.

“I cannot go through with it,” I said.

“Okay, man.”

“Okay? You're … we're going home?”

“You can. I'm gonna wait for Frankie-boy and let him know what it's all about.”

“On your own?”

“Well, me and my lover,” he said, raising the pistol.

“You'd do that for me?”

“
God
, it stinks worse than our place in here.” Eric clicked a light switch just inside the door, revealing a virtually unfurnished apartment littered with fast-food wrappers and clothes and glass bottles. “Needles,” Eric said, pointing to the coffee table. “Does he deal?”

“Does who deal?”

“Frank! Does he sell?”

“I don't know,” I said with a shrug as I surveyed the room.

“So are you stayin' or goin'?” he asked.

“… and I literally fell on top of her,” I whined, brushing tears from my eyes. “I've become a truly rotten person.”

“What time is it?” Eric asked. I angled my watch into the lamplight that shone across the room.

“One-thirty.”

“How long we been here?”

“Eighty-two minutes.”

“Hm. If he is at his club he probably won't be here 'til after two.”

“I feel ill.”

“Nerves?”

“I'm not sure. Squeamish.”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Footsteps …”

“… I don't know why I've always felt such a need to be relevant to my fellow humans. Granted my parents believed me to be somewhat of an academic prodigy in my formative years. Nonetheless, how it all manifest—”

“What time is it?”

“Uh … five after two.”

“Okay. You gotta stop your yappin', man. Frankie-boy should be showin' up any second …”

“… it wasn't so much his urinating on the dash that bothered me. The fact is I was floored by his massive endowment. Suddenly there was a whole new—and perhaps paranoid—reality to Lucy's dismissal of my sexual advancements.”

“What time is it?”

“Twenty after three.”

“Where the
hell
is he?”

“… the irony being that dropping out of university I assumed I would find unbridled freedom and instead wound up addicted to television. And what now in the wake of my assault on Suzanne?”

“What the hell were you thinking?” he said, cigarette end glowing in the darkness.

“I … I don't know. I pray she'll forgive me. I think I was desperate to be sought after and for the briefest of moments actually thought I was.”

“She sure skinned your face. Does it hurt?”

“That's the extraordinary thing. In light of such a grave mistake on my part and now my waiting to threaten Frank with a deadly weapon, here I sit shrouded in a sea of infinite calm.”