Читать книгу Summer in the Land of Skin - Jody Gehrman - Страница 9

Lucinda and I walk into Fanny’s Barbecue Palace at eight. It is brightly lit, with pink-checkered tablecloths and families eating piles of sauce-smeared ribs, getting their fingers sticky as their jaws chomp violently. The men at the tables look up at us quickly, then back down at their plates before their wives can notice. We make our way to the door at the back of the restaurant, which leads to the bar: orange vinyl stools, pool tables, loungy chairs before a dimly lit stage where the band is pausing between songs.

“Ready for more?” a man says into the mic. He is thin and freakishly tall, with a shock of white-blond hair and a gaunt face. He looks like a cross between David Bowie and Gumby. He reaches a lanky arm out and fingers a tuning peg. “We call this one ‘Fuck Sean Cassidy.’” He takes a pick from his pocket, poises it above the strings and glances at the other members; there’s a bald drummer behind a gleaming gold kit, and a badgerlike guy in black leather pants on bass. But the one I notice is Guitar Man. He’s wearing a thin cotton T-shirt and faded jeans. A red electric guitar hangs low on his hips, and his eyebrows furrow in concentration as he watches for his cue.

The lead singer mutters, “One two three,” and then they all seize their instruments like cavalry rushing into battle; their arms flail and their faces ball up like fists. Guitar Man is the only one who doesn’t look ridiculous; he stabs at the air with the neck of his instrument again and again, but somehow the aggressive gesture isn’t cliché, it’s plain sexy. The singer leans his long, gangly body toward the mic and screams words, but I have no idea if they mean anything; fucking pigs, he screams. Now now now, bend over, bend under, and later, when the song has gone on so long I fear I am trapped in a time warp—some ruthless hell of distorted audio-loops—he raises his voice to a feverish pitch that makes my throat feel sore, and cries, Fuck the Queen, fuck CBS, fuck Sean Cassidy, fuck YOUUUUUUUU! and just like that the whole thing slams to a halt.

Guitar Man looks up now, sees us and smiles. His face, beaded with sweat, glistens in the yellow lights; he pushes a strand of damp hair off his forehead. For a second, I think he’s looking at me. Only when I realize that his eyes are locked on Lucy does my pulse return to normal.

Another song begins, and the cocktail waitress comes over to take our orders. Lucy tells her we want Tanqueray and tonics. We don’t speak as we wait for our drinks to arrive; we just sit in the swivel chairs near the stage and let that huge wall of sound numb our senses. The lead singer is at once repulsive and compelling. He has a face that skids from pretty to ghastly so quickly, you cannot determine whether you really saw either. When the waitress puts our order down, I pay her, waving Lucy away when she tries to hand me a five. We touch the edges of our glasses together midair and drink.

On our second round, she scoots her chair over near mine and speaks directly into my ear. “That’s Danny Dog.” She nods at the lead singer. “He’s got two different colored eyes, like an Australian shepherd.” She gives me a meaningful look before adding, “He’s got real problems. If you’re a masochist, you’ll fall for him right off—though I don’t recommend it.”

“What about the others?” I ask.

“You could fuck them in a pinch,” she says. “But I don’t recommend that, either.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I mean, what are their names!”

“Oh. Right. Drummer’s Sparky. Total zero. Bill’s the rat-faced punk on bass. Ew. Don’t even get me started.” She lights a cigarette, waves it in the direction of Guitar Man. “Arlan, of course. But you live with him.”

In point of fact, this is the first time I learn his name, and for a moment the strangeness of my abrupt involvement with these people stuns me. Last night is still a blur of drinks and fragments—their matching black eyes, the taste of my own vomit, the sound of bedsprings creaking as I lay spinning in that dark red room. It all seems surreal and unreliable. In the morning, when I woke in a disheveled tangle on their hard black couch, Guitar Man was gone, and there was Lucy, clutching a mug of fresh, hot coffee in one hand, holding out three aspirin in the other. I struggled to keep my head from pounding louder than her words as she urged me again to move in with them. I didn’t really say yes, but I didn’t say no, either. She and I spent the day together. It was hot out; we floated in the lake outside of town, napping in the sunlight and drinking bottles of water to cure ourselves of the grimy film all that gin had left inside us.

“Hey,” she says. “I just got a new lipstick yesterday. Put it on for me, will you?” She takes a tube of lipstick from her pocket and hands it to me.

“What?”

“Put it on me—I can’t do it without a mirror.”

“But—the light’s so low,” I stammer. “Maybe you should do it in the bathroom.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “Put it on me, then I’ll put it on you.”

I uncap it and turn it until it rises from its canister. It’s hard to tell in this light, but it looks like a deep, rich scarlet—the sort of color I would never even consider wearing. I lean over and touch it carefully to her bottom lip. Her mouth has the bee-stung look of a porn star’s. I trace the upper lip now, making sure to stay within the lines. I rub my lips together, demonstrating, and she does the same. I nod my approval.

“Okay,” she says. “Now I’ll do you.”

“No thanks,” I say. “It’s not my color.”

“Come on,” she says. She downs the rest of her drink, leaving a red crescent against the rim of the glass. “A deal’s a deal.”

“No, really,” I say. “I don’t wear makeup.”

“That’s exactly the point,” she says. “You have to start doing the things you don’t do.” She snatches the lipstick from me and holds it close to my face, staring at my mouth.

“But—” I protest.

“Hold still, for God’s sake.” She scowls with concentration. “You’ve got to reinvent yourself, or there’s no point.”

“Playing dress-up?” I look up to see the blond singer staring down at us. He is sweaty, and his eyes are lit up from the inside, like lanterns.

Lucinda finishes painting my lips and looks over her shoulder at him. “Hey, Danny. This is Anna. Try not to scare her off.”

“Lovely introduction,” he says. He reaches over, takes my drink in his damp-looking palm and downs it.

“That was hers,” Lucy says.

“I know,” he says. “I’m about to get her a fresh one. She needed a clean slate. Gin and tonic?” I nod. “Lucy? You ready for another round?”

“I’m always ready,” she says. “You know that. Be sure it’s Tanqueray, though—none of that well shit.”

He disappears in the direction of the bar. The place is filling up now. There are swarms of barely-legal types milling around; the girls wear short skirts, the boys wear baseball caps. The air is getting thick with cigarette smoke and a headache-inducing mélange of designer scents. I recall seeing signs in town for a university, and its evidence is here; the girls are pretty, with traces of confidence. They laugh loudly and touch their hair often. The boys drink with grim determination, avoiding eye contact. Fanny’s Barbecue Palace, only minutes ago all ours, is now bristling with the chatty, neurotic electricity of kids recently released from the grip of their parents.

Danny returns with three gin and tonics, sets them down, and remains standing, surveying the room. Soon Arlan and Bill come over and join us, too, lighting cigarettes and carrying glasses of whiskey. Sparky comes over last, whacking his sticks restlessly against his thighs, an empty chair, anything within reach. Finally, Danny sits down. I’m glad; someone that tall is distracting when he’s towering over you. He looks right at me, and I see that Lucy wasn’t kidding about his eyes. The right one is a light hazel, the left is a gray-blue. He just sits there staring, so I start to speak out of nervousness.

“What’s your band called?”

Danny doesn’t answer. He just goes on staring.

Bill says, “Called Buddhist Monkeys. My name’s Bill, by the way.” He thrusts a hand across the drinks for me to shake, which I do. His fingers feel clammy, but his grip is fierce.

“Anna,” I say.

“I’m Sparky,” the drummer tells me. His voice is high-pitched and irritating. He rubs his sticks together like he plans to start a fire right in his lap.

Arlan sits there drinking his whiskey and staring around the room in silence.

“Place is really filling up,” I say. “You going to play another set?” Even before I’ve finished my sentence, Danny’s eyes narrow.

“They’re done for the night,” Lucy says. “There’s another band starting in a few minutes.”

“Really?” I say, trying to suppress my relief. “What kind of—”

“Pussy rock,” Danny says.

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“You like pussy rock?”

“Danny,” Lucy says. “‘Pussy’ is not an adjective, okay?”

At this Arlan chuckles, though he’s shown no signs that he’s been listening until now.

“I just asked her a civil question,” Danny says. He has a faint accent—Canadian, I would guess—and he speaks so loudly, I can hear him perfectly in spite of the adolescent commotion swelling all around us.

“Define ‘pussy rock,’” I say.

“Apolitical, inarticulate ass-wipe. Feel-good, cunt-worshiping cereal jingles. Answer your question?”

“Danny,” Lucy says, whipping around to face him. “If you didn’t bombard every woman with fucked-up pejoratives for her anatomical parts, maybe you’d actually get some.”

“Where you from, Anna?” Bill asks. He has a nervous twitch in his cheek.

“San Francisco.”

“So you’re visiting Lucy?”

“She’s living with us,” Lucy announces, her eyes locked on Arlan across the table. Bill looks from her to him to me with confusion. Arlan just keeps sizing up the room, smoking his cigarette. “I’ve adopted her,” she adds, and smiles at me. Her tiny, adorable teeth seem to glow in the dark.

“Mother Lucy,” Danny says, his voice filled with sarcasm.

“Motherfucker,” she spits out.

“Arlan!” Danny calls. “You want to keep your woman in line?”

Finally, Arlan ends his contemplation of the room and turns in our direction. He looks first at Danny—a quick, dismissive glance—and then at Lucy. His eyes rest on her face and fill with a tenderness so visible I could swear they actually change color. “She keeps me in line,” he says without a trace of apology, “and she knows it.”

Within an hour, Danny is asleep in his seat. His chin tucks into his throat, and his head, with its shock of white-blond hair, sways side to side every now and then, like there’s a breeze nudging it. I can see the very beginnings of balding at the crown—a hairless spot no bigger than a quarter.

He awakens occasionally and disappears for several long trips to the john, and each time he gets up, the other guys shoot each other glances. I wonder if he has severe digestive problems or narcolepsy or something.

“Danny’s a junkie,” Lucy whispers, as we cross the bar toward the bathroom. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

“I wondered what was wrong with him.”

“Pisses Arlan off,” she says. “Sometimes he’s so fucked up he can barely play.”

“How’d Arlan end up in this band, anyway?”

“He’s not a self-promoter. He’s an artist—way more than these shitheads—but Danny’s the one with enough ego to get gigs.” She closes herself into a stall. “You should hear Arlan play alone. He’s a genius.”

“Yeah,” I say, studying my deep red mouth in the mirror.

She flushes the toilet and reappears. “What do you mean, ‘yeah’?”

“I mean, yeah, I bet he is.”

She looks at me for a moment before washing her hands.

Later, when we’ve had too much to drink again, and the pussy rock band plays a song with a beat that echoes through your chest, a song that makes you feel foolish and alive, Lucy drags me out on the dance floor. The place is now packed with sweaty students, wriggling and rubbing up against each other like frenzied fish. At first I just sort of wobble from one foot to the other, painfully self-conscious. But then I close my eyes, forget about the room and find the rhythm with my hips. I move without thinking to a night one summer when my parents threw a party; I can taste the air, heavy with the smell of grass, and I can hear their instruments coming together magically. My little-girl body flings itself from side to side, caught up in the waves of their frantic laughter, their strumming and banging and singing.

“You dance like you’re on Ecstasy,” Lucy says into my ear.

My eyes open, and the room is back, with its pool players leaning against the walls, coolly appraising. I see Arlan sitting at the table, smoking, watching.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It makes people want to have sex with you,” she says, not smiling.

“Oh,” I say. “Wow.”

“Don’t act so naive, Anna,” she tells me, and now her face softens to a teasing smirk. “It’s not convincing.”

I keep moving, the frenetic beat of my parents’ music still pulsating in the back of my mind. I tell myself, as an experiment, Everyone here wants to have sex with you. It makes me smile and rotate my hips with more insistence. I tell myself, Even Arlan wants to have sex with you, but that makes me feel guilty, so I push it out of my mind. I tell myself, You’re the Sex Queen of Fanny’s Barbecue Palace, and this makes me laugh softly as I spin, gazing up at the dark, grease-stained ceiling.

I wake on the black leather couch, an old quilt tossed over me, and my mouth tastes like it’s been stuffed with sand. Out the window, lit by a streetlight, a huge maple lets its branches be tossed by the night wind. I lift my head and peer into the kitchen: the digital clock on the microwave reads 3:12. A leaf releases from the maple and flies recklessly against the windowpane—a kamikaze mission—one sharp tap against the glass before it disappears. I close my eyes and envision it plummeting the two stories down, careening with breakneck speed into the sea of dewy grass below.

I can feel my psyche winding itself. It is the familiar beginnings of insomnia: brain blossoms at the wrong hour, in the dark, like a transplanted jungle flower.

I get up and cross the room, wrapping the quilt around my shoulders. The air is chilly, suffused with the yellowed scent of the old house. A gust of wind rattles the walls; more leaves tap themselves to death against the window. I study the guitar cases leaning against the wall. There are two there—one is the electric Arlan played tonight. I wonder if the case next to it is for the crushed Gibson. I look over my shoulder, across the hall to their bedroom. I can just make out the faint wheezing sound of someone snoring. Very carefully, I lay the guitar case on the floor, undo the brass latches and lift the lid. It’s a Martin D-28—the exact model my father had. I run my hands over its polished surface, thick with lacquer, and I imagine I can smell its long, patchwork history—all those years spent in bars and living rooms and bus stations, pressed against laboring bodies, stroked by so many fingers. My hands are shaking as I lift it very carefully out of its case and carry it back to the couch.

I haven’t held a guitar in my arms since I was eleven. The cool feel of the body curving against my thigh is at once familiar and strange. I stretch my fingers into a G-chord and touch the strings tentatively, strumming just loud enough to bring back a rush of memories. I play the first couple of lines of “Folsom Prison Blues,” humming softly. I think of Danny’s heroin, and I wonder if this is how it feels—warm, dark relief spreading through your veins.

“You play?”

I jerk my head up to see Arlan in the doorway, little more than a shadow. I can actually feel the thumping beneath my breast against the rosewood.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, getting up to put it back. The guitar knocks against the coffee table and I curse under my breath.

“Sit down,” he says. I do. “Don’t worry about it.” He crosses the room, yanks the window open, and props it up with what looks like a towel rack that’s been ripped from the wall. I’m wearing only a big T-shirt Lucy lent me, probably Arlan’s. The wind comes through the open window and I pull the quilt around my legs. He sits and lights a cigarette.

“So, you play?” he asks again.

“I used to, when I was little.”

“Lessons?”

“My dad taught me,” I say, trying to make my voice sound casual.

“He plays?”

“Played.” I’m glad it’s dark enough that he can’t see my face. “He’s dead.”

I wait for a response, but there is none, just the orange glow from his cigarette, and the faint sound of breath as he produces a ghostlike puff of smoke. After a while, I play a couple of chords very quietly. My fingers seem to remember. “Where’d you get this guitar? It’s gorgeous.”

“Some old guy sold it to me,” he says. “It’s probably worth three times what I gave him, but he was in a hurry to unload it.”

“Play something?” I ask.

He hesitates. “Lucy might wake up.”

“Just softly?”

He listens a moment to the silence. “I guess she’s out.” I cross the room to hand it to him, being careful not to bang it against anything this time. I am aware of my bare legs, my naked breasts under the soft, thin T-shirt. Our fingers touch as he takes the neck from me. I go back and sit on the couch again, shivering, and fold my legs under the quilt.

“Cold?” he asks.

“A little.”

He stubs his cigarette out in a coffee cup and closes the window, taking great care not to let it slam shut. “You want another blanket?”

“I’m okay.”

He glances across the hall to their bedroom door before he eases the old Martin onto his knee and checks the tuning. He takes a pick from the case. Then he sighs once in the dark, and very quietly, with fingers so precise and nimble I long to see them in full light, he begins to play. He starts quietly, and I have to lean forward to hear the notes, but as he gets going, the melody hits the air loud and clear. It’s a sad, old-sounding song. He doesn’t sing, but his hands pull stories from that guitar: blue, tattered tales set in some humid place, full of whiskey and moonlight, black stockings, trains and smoke. I close my eyes and lean back against the cool leather of the couch. There is nothing like this. I want to sit here forever.

“What was that, anyway?” I ask when the song is over.

“Oh, I was just messing around,” he says. He puts the guitar down, gets up and takes a bottle from the freezer. He pours himself a drink. I think he’s embarrassed. “You want a drink?”

“No thanks.”

He sits back down and stares out the window. He doesn’t look at me when he says, “Trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah. You?”

He nods, still looking out the window. There’s a long pause. “Sometimes,” he says, “I’d give anything to sleep all the way through to morning.” We listen as the wind rattles the house, and more leaves tap against the window. He tilts his head in the direction of the bedroom. “Lucy sleeps like a baby, every night. She sucks her thumb.” I giggle softly. “I don’t understand people who can sleep like that.” He stares at the bedroom door.

“What do you do?”

“What?” He looks startled, as if he’d forgotten I was there.

“When you can’t sleep. What do you do?”

“I don’t know. Smoke. Play guitar. Drink. You?”

I pause. “Look out the window, mostly,” I say. “Soothes me. Watching, I mean.”

He considers this in silence. “Well, then,” he says, after a while. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Don’t be silly,” I say. “This is your house.”

“No, I’m taking up the window seat. Go on. It’s all yours.” He puts the guitar away and carries his drink toward the bedroom. I’m tempted to ask for another song, but somehow I know better. “’Night,” he says, pausing in the doorway for a moment.

“Good night,” I whisper.

When he’s gone, I lie back down on the hard couch and pull the quilt up to my neck. I reach between my legs as I listen to his body moving quietly in the bedroom. I imagine him taking off his sweats, sliding into bed next to Lucy. I envision his hands carefully moving to her breasts, see his dark fingers against her white skin, and I breathe in time to the memory of those same fingers plucking songs out of the darkness. When I come, I bite down on the edge of the quilt to keep from making noise. Then I lie there, sleepless but not restless, staring at the branches swaying and rocking, throwing shadows on the walls. I listen to the cryptic Morse code of the maple leaves against the window. The message behind their urgent tapping is anybody’s guess.