The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories (48 page)

First I think, now what? But then, hey, I’m Rickie, everybody thinks I’m famous. I get to do anything I want! Which gives me the guts to pick up my two dollar hat and waltz right into the place like I owned it.

Inside it looks like a garage, you know? It’s, like, cinder blocks and white paint. But the people in there make up for the no-frills look. They’re either beautiful or rich looking and then two feet away from me is Jay Leno! I’m stunned, but not so stunned not to notice people are staring at me too. They’re smiling and nodding like not only do I belong there with the likes of Jay, but they’ve been waiting to see me.

“You bum! I’ve been here half an hour.”

The voice isn’t anything special so I don’t think she’s talking to me. Then I feel this really sharp pinch in the middle of my back. I whip around because there’s nothing I hate more than a pinch.

Madonna. I swear to God, it’s Madonna there and she’s looking at me. “Where have you
been,
Rickie?”

I was pretty angry when I left an hour later. The lunch was good, I mean the food was, but I’d give you back the lunch. All she did was talk about herself. I didn’t get a word in edgewise. I mean, she talked the
whole
time. About ten times I wanted to ask her how she knew me, why I was famous, all those types of questions. But once she started talking about Madonna, there wasn’t any air left in the room. Like a Virgin, my ass.

When I get out on the street, I can still hear her voice whanging away in my head. I ate too much, I gotta headache and I still haven’t found out what I did to get here.

And then the limo wasn’t there! I’m standing out on the street like an idiot wondering where’s the car. Then I think maybe it’s gone ’cause I just imagined all this. I’m running through all my maybe’s, confused, angry, weirded out of my socks and not having idea one about what I’m supposed to do next.

I look around and see a phone booth. A light goes off in my head. Mary! Give her a call and she can tell you the secret. The only good idea I’ve had all day. I go over to it, fish a quarter out of my pocket (Madonna paid for lunch), and call her number.

“Hello?”

It’s her! I’d know that voice on the moon.

“Mary? Honey?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s me. Rick.”

“Rick who?”

“Come on, cut it out. You know, your boyfriend, Rickie Prousek?”

“Oh yeah, right. Real funny, and I’m Meryl Streep.” Click.

She hung up! And I didn’t have another quarter. I’m standing there saying every curse I know in the world when suddenly the door to the booth bangs open into me from behind. What the—I turn to whoever’s out there, ready to kick their ass. But when I see who it is, I stop fast.

It’s me. And not only is it me, it’s three me’s. And one of them has a gun.

“Get out of the booth, Rickie.”

“Look, hey—”

“Get out of the booth or I’ll shoot you right here.” He points the gun at me and giggles like a girl. So do the others. Then I get a better look at them and they’re not really me. At first you’d think they were, but even though they got the hair jelled back like mine and other things, none of them
really
look like me. They’re like those bad Elvis impersonators. You know what I mean? The ones who’ve got the hair and the sideburns and the spangly suits, but one look and you start to laugh at the pathetic fucks for even trying to look like the King.

One of these guys is about a foot shorter than me, one’s a foot taller and the other is a fucking Arab. The one with the gun, naturally. But you don’t say no to a gun so I open the door, real slow.

“It’s him, it’s really him. You were right, Hassan!”

“Of course it’s him. All right, don’t do anything funny, Rickie. Just walk out and get in the cab.”

Down the street a ways is a yellow cab parked. I walk in front while Hassan-Rickie comes up right behind me. Every few steps he gives me a poke with the gun. The others are a few feet behind us. It’s a normal cab, but on the bumper is a sticker that says “My Heart Beats for Dachshunds.”

“Get in.”

What was I supposed to do? I climb in. Hassan gets in next to me while the other two fakes get up front. When we’re all settled, the little guy pulls away from the curb real slow like the world’s safest driver.

“What’s going on?”

Nobody says anything for about twenty blocks until the passenger up front says “Could I see your hat?”

I didn’t even know I was wearing it by then, but I took it off and handed it over. He put it on and suddenly all three of them are laughing like maniacs.

“We did it! We stole him.”

I don’t say a word.

We drive way uptown till we’re like in Riverdale. Then we’re out of the car and walking into a beat up apartment building. The three of them are talking to each other but I got nothing to say.

We go up a few flights and then one of them gets out some keys and opens a door. They point me to go in first.

I take one look and whistle. Not only are there six dachshund dogs in there, just kind of rambling around. Six dogs in an apartment!
Plus
the whole goddamned place is ten thousand pictures of me. Magazine pictures too, not any snapshots or anything. There are Rickie dolls on one shelf, at least ten copies of
Immortal Me,
a life-size dummy made up to look like me and wearing the same clothes all of us are wearing ... It was a shrine to Rickie Prousek.

“Sit down.”

There’s a ratty green couch in the middle of the room and I sit. Two of them plop down on either side of me and the other on the floor in front of us. All the dogs go up to him and kind of cuddle around. Nobody says a word for I don’t know how long. I sure don’t have anything to say. The room’s like a cemetery, except for the dogs snuffling and scratching.

The Rickie who’s wearing my hat finally says “We’re sorry we brought you here, but we had to.”

I just nod, trying to be cool and get some thoughts together in my head.

“We’re your greatest fans.”

I look around that ka-ka room and say “Looks like it.”

“We’ve been following your career for years.”

“Yeah well, then
you
can tell me why I’m so famous. What’d I do to, you know, get here?”

They all think I’m joking.

“No, I’m serious. Please, willya tell me what I did to be so famous? I really want to know.”

The guy with the gun shakes his head, but big Rickie says “I paid a thousand dollars for your ice skates at a celebrity auction last year.”

“Yeah well, you got robbed because I don’t skate.”

He immediately pulls back like I hit him. “You don’t have to be rude.”

Hassan says “You don’t understand how important you are to us. We brought you here because ...”

“—because we have to talk to you.” little Rickie blurts out. “You’ve got to tell us how you did it. The
real
truth. We’ve all read your book, sure, but we know most of the media stuff is lies or exaggerations. We needed you here, alone, so we could talk quietly and you know,
connect
.”

“ Connect
what
? I don’t know!” I’m cheesed to the max and start to get up. Enough of this. But gun guy tells me to sit back down. “I don’t know nothin’! I wish I did!”

Like they were all reading each other’s minds, the three of them stand up like they were one person. I’m on the couch staring up at three me’s and the looks on their faces were not have a nice day.

“You’ll tell us, or you’re not getting out of here alive. Do you understand? You may think you’re so big and famous and we’re nothing, but not today, Rickie. We got you and you’re not moving till—”

“But I just—”

Hassan bent down and put the barrel against my forehead. “No more bullshit.” His voice was ice cold; like my father’s when I was a kid and I’d done something really wrong.

The little guy sat down right next to me. He reached over and put his hand on top of mine. That more than anything sent a chill up my spine. “We know everything we could find out. But we want to hear the truth from
you.
Now’s your chance to tell the real story, Rickie. Why don’t you start at the very beginning, We’ve got all the time in the world.”

A
S SOON AS HE
saw her he began to run. He had to. You see a face like that perhaps twice in your life. If you
don’t
chase it, you’re doomed. Doomed to looking at yourself in a mirror late at night wondering what would that woman have been like? What might have happened if I’d been bold enough to introduce myself? Maybe she would have smiled and come for coffee. Maybe she was as amazing as she looked. Maybe she was cool. Maybe she was hot! Maybe
everything in my life
would have changed the moment we met and today I’d be a hundred miles away from here, someplace so much better I can’t even imagine.

But most men don’t run after her because she scares them. Nothing frightens a man more than a woman whose looks so pierce him he knows he’ll do anything, set fire to his mother, to be with that essential face. A fact women still don’t believe or understand—they can stop a man cold, no matter who he is, and leave him paralyzed, deeply shaken. Sometimes on the verge of a kind of madness. Truly, women can undermine everything that a man is with one glance.

So Ettrich was in Warsaw for the first time on business. Warsaw was okay. Poland was okay. He liked the Poles’ energy and enthusiasm; the way they were willing to work tenaciously for whatever they wanted. But what he liked most were the women. Polish women were very beautiful and Vincent Ettrich was a happy man whenever beautiful women were around.

But forget that. Forget anything except the moment he stood near the Holiday Inn waiting for a traffic light to change. He happened to look at a passing tram and saw her, HER, in a window seat. Their eyes met for seconds and then she was gone. I won’t waste time describing what she looked like because you already know. She was a tidal wave already crushing Ettrich by the time all of her face had registered in his brain. Thank God he was alone. How embarrassing to be with a well-dressed middle aged man who simply takes off running after a tram. Still fit, still attractive, still greedy as hell, Ettrich had recently told a woman the choice between a younger man and him was the choice between a four-hour hard-on and a great four-hour conversation
after
sex.

By the time her tram stopped at the next station, Ettrich had almost been hit twice by speeding Ladas and was dangerously out of breath. But there it was, the tram was coming to a loud halt and he was going to catch it after all.

Never once did he think what will I do once I get there? Or what happens when I approach her? When she looks at me with suspicious eyes and wonders what the hell is this panting man doing, looming over me like some big sweaty bird?

And I don’t speak Polish. Most people here don’t speak English so she probably won’t either. How do I say without words: I’ve been looking for you all my life but didn’t know it until five minutes ago? How do I tell her everything when I can’t tell her anything? The face is a very bad linguist. How many words are in a smile? There are right smiles and wrong. Some get you in the door, some don’t. What do you do when you need the language of heaven but all you have are your hands and eyes?

He couldn’t worry about it. The doors opened. People climbed in and out. Going up the steps he suddenly realized he didn’t have a ticket. Didn’t have a ticket, didn’t have a language, didn’t have a clue how he was going to do this. But a face like hers was worth any amount of confusion or embarrassment. Just walk up to her and pray the gods are with you. Walk up to her and ...

He walked up to her and his tongue grew to the size of a pumpkin in his mouth. His hands pressed hard against his thighs. She was looking out the window. Only after what felt like a hundred years did she turn her gorgeous head his way.

“Excuse-me-but-I-must-talk-to-you!” He made the typical American traveler’s mistake of thinking if you spoke slowly and loudly in English any foreigner will understand what you are saying. But one look in her eyes told him that was wrong. Her eyes, beautiful ten-mile deep eyes, were as indifferent as a lizard’s. She wasn’t in the least interested in him—no way, no day.

So he tried bad loud German “Ich habe sie gesehen am strassenbahn hier ... um—” Her eyes only grew colder. The woman of a lifetime was now looking at him like a fresh stain on a new dress. In despair he racked his brain for something to do, to say—he
had
to reach her. But he could think of nothing. Defeated, he was about to turn away forever when she spoke.

In perfect British English she said in a voice no man would ever forget “Why did you follow me Vincent? It’s
over.
We’ve talked about it until I’m going out of my mind. You made your choice and I accept that. But let me go now! Don’t end it like this.” Her smile was so full of tenderness and heartbreak he thought he would dissolve.

He blinked and frowned. “We, uh, we know each other?”

She
frowned. “Yes, we know each other! We’ve lived together on and off for three years!”

Ettrich was married and lived in Seattle. Twenty years with the same woman, three kids, a dog. He’d never lived with anyone else.

“What ... What’s your name?”

Oh, she didn’t like that! Her face closed up tighter than a fist. Her eyes narrowed till they were almost closed. When she spoke her voice was a blowtorch of anger and hurt. “Very
funny,
Vincent! Am I supposed to laugh? Are you trying to hurt me even more? Do we pretend now we don’t know each other? Is that how it’s done? I wouldn’t know. You’re the one who wanted to leave!” Standing up, she was gloriously tall; she was everything he had ever dreamed of. “Should I pretend I don’t know about Kitty and Seattle and your red Audi? Hmm? Should I call you Mr. Ettrich too? Should I pretend I don’t know you bite your lip when you make love or sometimes can’t catch your breath? And what about your high blood pressure? I even remember that last reading, Vincent. It was 180/90—Right? Because I
loved you
so much I remember these things. But you don’t want my love. You want Kitty and your stupid red car life in Seattle. Wasn’t your blood pressure 180/90?”