The Fat Artist and Other Stories (20 page)

He didn’t mention any of this to Veronica. At this point, Phil just wanted to have fun, relax, and grow old disgracefully with a margarita in his hand, watching the sunset on the deck of his boat. He had retired from thinking about Julian in the same way he was about to retire from his career. Letting himself retire, letting himself quit thinking about Julian, letting himself buy that beautiful catamaran, and letting himself fuck Veronica—these things were all somehow connected, these were all things he decided to treat himself to after a life of hard work well done and responsibilities met, and he felt he deserved them—he deserved these things, and he didn’t give a shit anymore if anybody thought he was “bad.”

•  •  •

They ate the enchiladas on the table out on the back deck.

“This is
soooo
good,” she said, drawing out the word
so
and making it the emphasis of the sentence. She spoke in that frivolous, childish way that young women speak these days, and Phil loved it. They were already well into margarita numero tres and Phil was drunk enough that he wasn’t really all that hungry anymore, but he ate anyway. The green backyard sloped down a long hill toward a fence, behind which was a road, behind which were a couple of other houses, behind which was a brick wall, behind which was a stretch of land, behind which was a beach, behind which was the Gulf of Mexico, which they could see from the back porch, and which stretched clear out to the horizon. The sun was going down in the other direction, and the sky above the sea faded from blue to yellow to orange to red to purple. At the bottom of the hill, toward the back of the fence that divided Phil’s property from the rest of the surface of the earth, there was an old swingset and a sandbox. Every time he looked at his backyard he saw the swingset and the sandbox and, now with all three boys out of the house (for better or worse), thought about how he ought to get rid of them. Maybe he would once he retired and had time for things like that. It was almost nine now, the sun setting late in the day in the summer. Veronica looked gorgeous in this light. Phil was in love with life in general right now. She looked gorgeous in this light, with her margarita in her hand and her jaw working on a clump of chicken enchilada. It was June of 2005, and the world had its problems, but Phil felt great.

•  •  •

Phil went to the bathroom to drain some margarita, and when he came back into the bedroom Veronica had already taken off everything except for her jewelry and was on the bed on top of the pastel-colored patchwork quilt Phil’s mom had made, half sitting propped up on the pillows, still drinking her margarita. Her clothes were strewn all over the bedroom floor, except the candy-apple-red jacket, which she had hung on the back of a chair. Pictures of his three kids, of himself and Diane on various vacations, of himself and Garrett with various fish, of various relatives he barely recognized by sight, of his parents and Diane’s parents, were all over the walls, peeping down at them, as if watching. Let them watch. Veronica put her margarita down on one of the two matching bedside tables, and Phil unbuttoned his short-sleeved Oxford shirt, took off his khaki shorts and his underwear, and, thusly naked, climbed onto the bed and fucked her.

The windows were open, and a hot salty breeze blew in off the gulf over their bodies. Their two naked bodies lay spent and slack on top of the quilt, and they fell asleep together without even bothering to cover themselves.

•  •  •

Phil was woken up by noises coming from downstairs. First he noticed that his tongue was dry and he had a mild headache. Then he looked at the red numbers on the screen of the digital clock next to the bed, which said it was three thirtysomething. The second two digits were partially obscured by the saguaro cactus-shaped stem of the empty margarita glass on the bedside table. The red numbers of the alarm clock illuminated the margarita glass with the green cactus-shaped stem and made it glow as red as if it had just been pulled from a furnace. He turned his head and looked at Veronica. Her fat pale breasts were flopped over to the sides of her chest, and a sparkling rivulet of drool had slid out of the corner of her open mouth and made a spot of dampness on the pillow under her head. He heard noises of banging, shifting, rattling downstairs. He heard footsteps. He heard something being scooted around. He thought he could hear breathing. He was being robbed.

Then he panicked. He wondered if he had remembered to lock the doors before going to bed, and concluded—being as he had been at the time somewhat intoxicated and preoccupied with Veronica—that no, he had not remembered to secure the premises. And now there was someone downstairs, inside his house.

Phil eased his body off the bed, trying to get up without rocking the mattress too much, without waking Veronica. No need to freak her out. He would go downstairs to investigate. His junk was glued to his thigh with their fluids, and Phil had to wiggle around a little bit to shake everything loose before tugging and yanking his underwear and shorts back on. He crept, fastidiously and silently, out of the bedroom.

There was definitely someone downstairs. He grew surer of it with each step.

From the top of the stairs he could see down into the living room. There was nobody in it at the moment. There was a wall in front of the couch, where there should have been a flat-screen TV. Instead, there was just a naked white wall. Yes, he was being burgled. The light from the streetlights made orange rectangles across the floor of the living room. Phil made it to the bottom of the stairs and curled around the corner into the living room, hugging close to the wall. He heard a noise coming from the other side of the house, in the kitchen. He crouched behind the marble countertop that separated the kitchen from the living room. The kitchen was glowing with blue-white light, which meant the refrigerator was open. Phil peered above the countertop.

Phil had never been robbed before. Frankly, he had been expecting to find a black person of some sort. Instead, it was a white guy who was standing in his kitchen. He had his back turned to Phil. The guy was tall, skinny, and gangly, in a white T-shirt and jeans. He had an ugly, narrow shaved head, like a baby bird’s, with wiry little prickles of hair sticking out all over his pink scalp. Phil rose to his feet and walked noiselessly into the kitchen. The burglar was standing in front of the open refrigerator, with one hand holding the door open and the other dangling down by his side, so Phil could see both his hands, and assumed this meant he was unarmed. He was just standing there, looking into the refrigerator.

What the fuck kind of burglar was this, who would steal his TV and then decide to make himself a snack? With the door open like that, the refrigerator kicked on and began to hum. He heard the icemaker dump a cluster of ice cubes into the ice cube reservoir in the freezer.

The burglar continued to stand there, motionless, gazing into the bright space of the open refrigerator, as if temporarily mesmerized by the combined sensory effects of its chill and hum and light. Phil stood behind him in the kitchen. Slow, careful, no sudden movements, no noise. He thought about sliding open one of the kitchen drawers and grabbing a knife. He decided against it because the noise of the drawer opening would probably alert the burglar. He looked at the kitchen counter and saw the following objects: the empty plastic sack that had contained the ice, a dirty blender, a cutting board on which there lay a few chopped-up, dried-out limes, the knife Veronica had used to cut the limes—which was sharp, but much too small to adequately threaten a burglar with—a bottle of mezcal that was empty except for the bloated worm at the bottom, a bottle of Cointreau, and a rolling pin. Phil picked up the rolling pin.

The part of the rolling pin that had been lying on the counter was wet from the ice dust that had skittered across the counter and melted. He held the end of the shaft with the handle butted against his palm. Phil walked up behind the guy with the rolling pin. He swung as hard as he could and cracked the rolling pin against the back of his skull. He raised his arm to do it again, but the guy crumpled under the first blow. The guy additionally banged the front of his head against a shelf in the refrigerator on his way down and caused a half-full bottle of white wine to tumble out of the refrigerator and explode on the kitchen floor. The guy was knocked out.

•  •  •

“Phil?” Veronica called from the stairs.

Veronica came downstairs and into the kitchen wearing Diane’s robe, a slippery and shiny thigh-length thing made of blue silk.

“What’s going on?” she said. “I heard a noise, and you weren’t in the bed.”

She came into the kitchen.

“Phil?” she said, and snapped on the light. They both cringed at the sudden brightness. She saw Phil dragging the inert body of an emaciated young man across the kitchen floor by his feet. She screamed.

“Who the fuck is that?” she said.

“Veronica, meet Julian.”

Phil dragged Julian by his skinny ankles into the living room. He was white-knuckled with rage, and still talking.

“The little fucking asshole’d probably think he can blackmail me if he knows daddy’s having an affair. Fucking asshole.”

Veronica thumped through the house in bare feet, turning on lights. Phil dragged Julian through the living room and lifted him—Julian was so skinny, so dangerously light, much easier to lift than a twenty-four-year-old man should have been (was that right?—was he twenty-four?—twenty-five?)—and laid him out on the couch that faced the wall that used to prominently feature a very expensive fifty-inch Pioneer Elite Plasma HDTV.

The kid looked like complete shit. His arms and neck were spectrally thin. There were gray bags under his eyes. His skin was pale and sickly-looking. His head and face had pimples all over them. There was about a four-inch purple streak running up one of his forearms. He had new tattoos on his arms now, which Phil hadn’t seen yet. He smelled like cigarettes. He was out cold.

The front door of the house was open. Outside, Phil saw Veronica’s sparkly toothpaste-blue Mazda Miata parked on the street in front of his house. Then there was a nondescript little white car that Phil had never seen before parked in his driveway. Phil looked in the backseat of the white car. It was a shitty little old Toyota Tercel. A dim overhead light came on when he opened the back door of the car. There, sitting on the tan backseat of this mysterious off-white Toyota Tercel, was his TV. Phil carried his TV back inside, set it down on the floor—goddamn thing was heavy—and slammed the door.

Julian had woken up. Julian was sitting up on the couch and vomiting into a small plastic garbage can that he held in his lap. Veronica was down on the floor on her hands and knees next to the couch, wiping up vomit from the hardwood floor with a damp rag. Diane’s blue robe was too small for her. Veronica was bigger than Diane in every dimension and direction, and the bottom of the robe rode up above her ass, and in the position she was in Phil could see her pussy peeking out between her plump, naked haunches. Julian’s body twisted up in a hideous way as he emptily retched a few times before dumping another torrent of puke into the garbage can in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” said Veronica from the floor. She climbed from kneeling to standing with the rag wadded in her hand. “As soon as he woke up he started throwing up. I got him the trash can from the bathroom.”

“Thanks,” said Phil.

Julian looked at him from over the rim of the garbage can. His eyes were swampy and bloodshot.

“You done?” said Phil.

Julian nodded, weakly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and swallowed. His hand was shaking. His whole body was shaking. Phil took the trash can from him.

“How you doin’, son!” he said, in a voice chipper with sarcasm. “Good to see you! Been a while, hasn’t it? Long time no see. Yessir. Matter of fact, nobody’s known if you were alive or dead for a month. Heck, it’s been so long, seems everybody just quit giving a shit one way or the other. Good to know you’re still feeling well enough to come on back home and steal my shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Julian said, or maybe croaked. He held his face in his hands and started to cry. His protrusive shoulder blades trembled. He cringed into himself, drew up his knees, and cried.

“Boo-hoo-
hoo
!” said Phil in a sweet little voice. “Boo-hoo-
hoo
! Boo, hoo, fucking, hoo. I see you’ve already met Veronica. Or should I introduce you formally? Veronica, meet Julian,” he said, gesturing from Veronica to the miserable figure crumpled on the couch, a pantomime of manners. “My deadbeat junkie son. We’re all
very
proud of him. Julian, Veronica.”

Phil was still holding the garbage can full of vomit. Veronica was standing to the side, about ten feet away, with her hands clasped in front of her.

“You’re cheating on Mom?” said Julian.

“Fuck you,” said Phil, and upended the garbage can into Julian’s lap. “Got a lot of high moral ground to stand on, don’t you. What with robbing your parents and all. The little boy who was just too special for this wicked world.”

Julian stood up. When he got to his feet, his eyes rolled back in his head until his pupils disappeared and his eyes were only bloodshot whites, and he passed out again, falling forward onto the floor.

“God
damn
it!” Phil screamed, and gave the again-unconscious Julian a savage kick in the side.

“Jesus
Christ
, Phil!” said Veronica. “Calm down! It’s okay now. We’ll deal with this. Come on. Calm down.”

Phil threw the empty garbage can at Julian’s body. It bounced off him and brattled across the floor. He flung his hands up in the air and left the room. He stomped into the kitchen with a plan to steady himself with a drink and immediately stepped on broken glass. He heard the kiss and crunch of it under his bare feet right before the pain registered in his nerves.

“FUCK!”

“Jesus Christ, what
now
?” Veronica called from the living room.

“I just cut the shit out of my feet on all this goddamn glass all over the floor!”