Читать книгу 18% Gray - Zachary Karabashliev - Страница 6

She’s been gone nine mornings.

The blinds in the bedroom are shut tight, but the day still finds a way in, and with a roar—the garbage truck. That means it’s Wednesday. That means it’s 8:15. Is there a noisier noise than the noise of a garbage truck at 8:15?

I crawl out of bed, stagger to the living room, and flop down on the couch. The cool leather doesn’t help me fall back to sleep, the garbage truck rumbles closer. I get up, push aside one of the blinds, a bright ray burns my face. I focus my powers and attempt to dismember the roaring green monster with a gaze. The effort only succeeds in waking me up completely.

I look at the flowers in the vase on the coffee table. Dead freesias in murky water—she left them behind.

I open a kitchen drawer and pull a Toblerone out of the stash of candy. I pick yesterday’s white shirt up off the floor and plug in the iron. I iron with one hand, while breaking off triangles and gobbling them down with the other. I put on the shirt and a blue tie, make instant coffee, slosh some on my sleeve while I fumble for the car keys, throw on a gray suit coat, and slam the door behind me.

Another scorching Southern California day. I gun the Corolla. I make a right onto Jefferson and get on the highway. Five lanes of cars in one direction and five lanes in the other. Exhaust pipes roar, engines rattle, fenders gleam—as if preparing for battle.

At work, I think about her. I can’t stop talking to Stella in my head—it won’t stop simply because one of us is not here. Can I stop? I try.

OK—from this moment on, I will not think about her. I will not think about her. I will not think about her. I will not think about her. I will not. I will do yoga, I will open my chakras, I will repeat OM until I clear my mind, I will eat rice with my hands, I will grow a beard, I will do headstands. O-m-m-m-m. O-o-m-my God, I’m tired of thinking about her. O-o-o-m-m-my God, I’m tired of thinking about her. O-o-o-o-m-m-m-m-my God, I’m so tired of thinking about her.

At the morning meeting, Scott, the manager, announces the latest structural changes in the department and talks about the new clinical trial. There’s a box of doughnuts on the table. There is orange juice and steaming coffee. “. . . to monitor the progress of this clinical investigation . . .” Why is the AC so cold in here? “. . . and this new drug . . .” O-m-m-m. “. . . since it is a Phase One . . .” Why is the coffee sour? “. . . what you should monitor at each site and how much attention should be given to each activity . . .” What is he talking about? “. . . strict adherence to the procedures by the treating physicians . . .” Who are these people? Scott hands out personal agendas for the upcoming quarter to everyone, his eyes filled with that perkiness, that perkiness . . . He shakes our hands energetically—the way only short people do—but hangs on to mine a bit longer. Where am I?

Everyone heads to their cubicles while Scott gestures for me to follow him into his dark gray office down the hall. Office minimalism—a desk, a computer, a personal coffee maker, and a water cooler under a poster of a long boat (kayak? canoe?) powered by a squad of rowers. Below the photograph, a sign reads Teamwork.

Scott is speaking to me in a concerned voice. He is looking at me with that look. I don’t hear what he’s saying; I just nod and want to puke. That look. I don’t remember how the rest of the day goes. Horribly, I imagine.

On the way back from work, during rush hour at the traffic light on 11th and Broadway, the stream of cars slows down. Somewhere up ahead, I see fluorescent reflective vests holding stop signs and redirecting traffic. I notice the white corpse of a semi sprawled on its side in the middle of the road. It’s hot. I try to change lanes at the last second and cleverly take Cedar Street, but don’t make it—the schmuck on my right won’t let me in. Fine, I’ll sit in traffic like everyone else then. I look to my right: a guy around fifty, with crow’s feet and a dry California tan, is picking his nose and watching a small plane in the sky trailing a giant red banner. I also look up to see what is written in the sky behind the plane and catch myself picking my nose, too. I look at the plane overhead, I look at the man. His left elbow—resting on the rolled-down window; his right index finger—up his nose; his hair—gray. That’s how I’m going to look in about twenty years.

A honk from behind jolts me and I press the clutch to shift to first. It suddenly sinks. I press harder, I push and pull the stick to shift into gear, but it won’t move. I watch the gray-haired man pull away. The light is still green, but it won’t be this green forever. I start shoving the stick harder (damn—yellow), I hear the honking grow more impatient behind me. An intolerably hot day (it’s red now) and longer than any other (scarlet red). I feel the rage of those accountants, lawyers, software engineers, waiters, and real estate agents focusing on my tiny tan car. Had there been someone to coordinate their thoughts, with a single conspiratorial glance they would have tossed me down by the docks where the bums hang out. Where I belong.

I start scouring the dashboard for the red triangular button; I have no idea where it is. Behind me, more and more of those jerks, safe in their anonymous vehicles, start honking. I see only their expressionless faces in the rearview mirror, but I know that a little bit lower, down where I can’t see, they are laying on their horns. I’m sweating. Can’t they see that I’m stuck, that I’m miserable? The more intelligent ones signal left and go around my immobile vehicle. The rest refuse to accept my misfortune.

Now I really start sweating and it smells like French onion soup. If they keep pissing me off, I’ll get out of my car, fling open my arms like the statue over Rio, and blow them away with the stench. They’ll be jumping out of their cars in a panic, hands clamped over mouths and noses, running frantically like in a Godzilla movie. Finally, at the corner of 11th and Broadway, there’ll be only me and countless abandoned vehicles with open, beeping doors. They’ll go peep-peep-peep-peep like chicks. Peep-peep-peep-peep. And I’ll stride down the street like a conqueror and laugh a loud, ominous laugh.

I finally find the hazard light button. I push it and jump out, half-suffocated by my own smell. The air is hot and dry. I make apologetic gestures to those behind me, my shirt soaked with sweat. I loosen my tie, grin guiltily, and shrug (it could happen to anyone), while in my mind I mercilessly rape and murder every single loved one of those fucking slimeballs who now avoid making eye contact with me.

I use a payphone to call a towing company.

Half an hour later, a tow truck rumbles up and a Vietnamese guy jumps down. He’ll be towing my car to the body shop. He wants eighty bucks. I ask him who to make the check out to.

He shakes his head, “Cass, cass!”

“Cass?” I say. “I don’t have any cass.” I write a check for eighty dollars and hand it to him.

“No!” The Vietnamese guy insists. “Cass, cass!”

“Cass, my ass.” I say.

“Huh?” He frowns, he doesn’t get it. Well, I don’t get why Stella’s gone either.

“I don’t have any cash.” I say. “No credit card either.” The Vietnamese guy sees he’s got no other choice and decides to accept the check, but now he wants more money. I write a new check for ninety dollars. Whom should I make it out to?

“Howah.” He says.

“Howah?”

“Howah.”

“Oh, Howard? OK, Howard.” Look at them Asians and the noble names they appropriate! I’ve yet to see one named Bill or Bob. I write Howard Stern and hand him the check.

“No! No!” He screams. “No Howard Stern!” and rips up the check. “Howah!”

“Howard what!?” I snap.

He grabs the checkbook and writes the name himself: Hau Ua.

“Oh!” I pat him on the shoulder. “I know lots of Vietnamese guys, Hau. Good people.” Hau stares at me with no expression. “Good people!” I say, “the Vietnamese.”

“I from Laos.” Hau gives me a nasty look and turns his back on me. Now they’ll skin me at the garage. Let them.

I take a cab home. Quiet and shady. I water the plants in the backyard. Nothing is their fault. The neighbors’ orange cat shows up. He wants to play with somebody. “Do you miss Stella?” I ask. He meows, which means of course he does. Stella used to buy him canned food. She insisted that ocean whitefish was his favorite. I find some cans under the sink and open one. I take it out and set it under the easel where her last abandoned painting sits. A sheet spattered with blue paint covers it. I watch the cat eat for a couple minutes. I gave Stella this easel five years ago as a Christmas present. I lift one corner of the sheet and look at the canvas. I don’t get it. This is the only painting of hers in the house—the rest are either in her studio or in storage—and it’s unfinished. Why don’t I throw it in the trash?

I’m hungry. I turn around and accidentally knock over one of the jars with watery paint and brushes sticking out. It rolls over, spilling an ugly trail of muddy, grayish paint. I angrily kick the jar and it shatters.

The only things in the fridge are some rotten vegetables from before she left, and some beer, which I stashed there afterwards. Lately, my life has been divided into before and after she left. The latter is made up of nine days of loneliness. Loneliness that I feel most acutely at dusk. The world sighs with relief after a workday, while I choke up with her absence. Alone like a Sasquatch, I wander through my thoughts, and there’s no shelter, absolutely none.

“You need to be alone. To decide what to do with your life.” I can hear her words in the room now. I didn’t say anything then. I just watched CNN and didn’t say a single thing. What was on the news then?

I find half a baguette in the breadbox. I take out a can with a colorful sombrero and an “El Cowboy” label and pour its contents into a small pan to heat it up, stirring it from time to time. The smell of spicy Mexican beans fills the room. She doesn’t like beans. She doesn’t like Mexican spices, either. I go pick something to listen to. While I sift through CDs and LPs, I hear a “pf-f-f-f”—the beans are boiling over and spilling onto the burner. I get up and start sponging away the mess before it’s dried up. Suddenly, my wrist—where the skin is most tender—sticks to the hot pan. That sizzling sound, the smell of burned flesh, the pain . . . I don’t even scream in pain. Why should I? Shit, my hand, shit, fuck my stupid hand! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck? All of a sudden, the idea of porn doesn’t seem as pathetic as it has for the last week and a half. I will reward myself with a serene hand job after my spicy bean dinner.

I put a tablecloth on the table. I lay out the silverware on a linen napkin. I take out a jar of hot chili peppers and arrange it on the table. I light a candle. I serve up the bowl of beans in the middle and set two beers next to it. I pick a record—La Sonnambula by Bellini, performed by Maria Callas at La Scalla 1955—and play the aria “Ah! non credea mirarti.” I pump up the volume, like I never did when she was here. I drop pieces of dry baguette into the bowl, stir, and slurp up the hot chunks, rolling them around in my mouth. Beans are an experience. You have to devour them hot and spicy, otherwise there’s no point.

The aria lasts five minutes and forty-three seconds. Two minutes in, I see the bottom of the bowl and spend the next three listening with my eyes closed. The telephone rings right at the last note. I don’t pick up. I haven’t picked up the phone since Stella left.

Leave a message!

“Zack, are you there?” It’s the annoying voice of Tony, who’s been calling me three times a day.

“I’ve been calling you three times a day. Where are you, Zack? We need to talk, man. Pick up the phone. Zack?!”

Thirty-three messages blink on the machine. Not one from her. I look around. Every single thing in this house is in its place because she put it there. Every square inch is covered with her fingerprints. I try to get used to the fact that she’s gone.

The porn is lame, pink bodies lurch on the screen for a while, then everything ends in a napkin. I toss it into the trash along with a few old papers, bills, and junk mail. I get ready for bed. I brush my teeth meticulously and wash my face. I turn the lights off everywhere. I lie down on the right side of the bed. The left side—her side—feels like a wound. I’m suffocating on sadness. I stare at the dark ceiling for a long time, then roll over to where she slept until nine nights ago. I curl into a six-foot-long embryo and press my heart with the full weight of my body. The heart is like the neighbors’ cat—it doesn’t get it. It doesn’t understand that she’s gone. The heart is an animal.

*

1988, Varna, Bulgaria

Stella.

I saw her for the first time just before I was discharged from the army. I was on day leave and was wandering around the central part of the old Black Sea town where I was stationed. It was a warm afternoon in late May and the scent of blooming linden trees hung in the air. I had read in the newspaper that ancient ruins had been discovered during the construction of a mega-department store. The subsequent excavations unearthed the remains of a Roman arena, and a third of downtown had been turned into an archeological site. It was worth checking out, I thought.

It wasn’t. It was a big hole in the middle of the city filled with bored students brushing stones. I crisscrossed the central promenade several times and started seriously thinking about having a bite to eat. Then I headed half-aimlessly toward the beaches, my ravenous stare making the local girls move to the opposite side of the street. Or was it my hideous buzz-cut?

I remember walking into a café and there she was. First her lips? No. First her eyes, then her lips. Then her breasts—her round breasts stretching her uniform. Then the curl of light brown hair hanging down to the dimple in her cheek. The feeling of destiny. And then the dread that whatever I would do was pointless. She was the most beautiful girl in town. There was no way she didn’t belong to somebody. There was no way some lucky bastard wasn’t counting off the minutes until the end of her work day. Miracles don’t happen, I decided, and walked out.

*

Something suddenly thrashes in my stomach and my insides knot up into a small, hard ball. I sit up in bed and stare into the silvery threads of darkness. I listen. Is there someone in the house? I hold my breath and try to figure out if there’s someone in the living room. I swear I heard something. THERE IS someone. I can hear the blinds moving. I get up cautiously. I reach for the bedside lamp, unplug the cord, roll it up and grab it by its metal stand. Then I realize I’m naked. I can’t just burst out of the bedroom nude and start chasing off criminals like in a Swedish film. In the dark, I manage to make out the three white lines of my running pants. I put them on carefully, without dropping the lamp stand, and move toward the door. I press my ear to it, struggling to catch a sound.

I hear the ticking of the clock. I hear the hum of the fridge. I hear the blood in my head like a distant freeway. I also hear another, barely perceptible noise.

I take a deep breath, burst through the door, and leap into the living room with a scream.

No one. Then something on the patio clatters, and I fly in that direction. A raccoon, paw stuck in the cat-food can, frantically tries to scramble over the fence outside. I lower my improvised weapon and start laughing.

You felt like eating some cat food, huh, fatso? I almost want to help him push his chubby butt up, but I know that I’ll scare him even more. The can slips off his paw and rolls under a chair. The raccoon gets over the fence. He stops for a second and throws a final glance at me. “Hey,” I yell. “You know you look like a bandit with that funny black mask on your eyes. You scared the shit out of me, Zorro! Now shoo! Go away!”

I doubt I’ll be able to fall back to sleep after this. I stay on the patio for a while. The canyon beneath the house rustles. The palm tree in the backyard sways. The wind has picked up. One of those winds that slides down from the cold mountains in the fall, whooshing through the sizzling hot desert, drying up everything in its path to the Pacific within a matter of days. One of those sick, dry winds named after a saint.

I throw a jacket over my shoulders and go out. I take a left at the traffic light, then a right—I don’t know where I’m going, so I don’t care where I’ll end up.

I come to my senses somewhere near the freeway, walking through one of those newly built neighborhoods with artificial lakes and cute miniature waterfalls, petite jet-powered streams and little bridges decorated with “Made in China” gas lamps. I walk along the winding trail past the houses, trying to peek into other people’s windows when I can. In some, I see bluish light flickering through the blinds, framed family pictures on the walls, posters of movie stars in the kids’ rooms, pianos with the lids down, unlit candles, a vintage calendar of Manhattan, a Thomas Kinkade print.

The normality of this night is insulting.

It’s insulting that sooner or later they will all turn off their TVs, brush their teeth, and fall asleep. Then it will be dawn again and a new day will come as if nothing ever happened. It’s insulting that tomorrow the sky over the neighborhood will be the same as it was when Stella was here. It’s insulting that people will keep working at places like General Electric or AT&T; they will go on being truck drivers, florists, accountants, postal workers, and receptionists. It’s insulting that there are words like “shingle,” “nugget,” “waffle,” “halibut,” “persnickety,” “boodle,” “dungarees” . . . It’s insulting that the craters on the moon will be the same, the salinity of the ocean—the same; the octane number of gasoline—the same; the calories in a Pepsi—the same. Some things just stay the same.

*

—look at me

—i’m thirsty

—look at the camera

—i’m cold

—c’mon, please

—i need coffee . . .

—we’re almost done

—i want to get dressed already . . .

—this is the last roll of film and i swear we’re done

—the last one?

—the very last one

*

I walk back to the house, grab the keys to her sports car, the one I surprised her with for her last birthday, and turn on the lights in the garage. I unlock the car and get in. Before I turn the ignition, I close my eyes and lean my head back. The interior of the car, unaired since she’s been gone, still smells like her. I exhale loudly and start the car. The garage door opens and I peel out, tires screeching in the night. I roll down all the windows to chase away her presence. The cold canyon chill seeps in. At the ramp for I-5, I stop at the light. West Hollywood is an hour north. I know someone there. Mexico is less than an hour south. I have no reason to go to Mexico. I will have to decide which way I’m going before the light turns green.

The light turns green and I hit the gas pedal.

*

Miracles don’t happen, I repeated in my head as I crossed the street. She was a beautiful blue-eyed girl with big, round breasts and an intelligent face who would never pay attention to a guy with a uniform and a moronic haircut. I hadn’t smelled a girl for two years. Before I got drafted, I was always the “life of the party” and had lots of friends and all, but I had no idea how to act around girls, and it seemed I would never learn. I would always try too hard to come up with something clever and hilarious to say, and would always end up going home alone while my boring buddies made out with girls under the lindens. I was a loser. A dumb, dorky loser.

I strode down toward the beaches, beating myself up, but I knew, mercilessly, clearly, I knew that I had seen and felt something different this time. Sure, I had the same major hard-on I always did when I fed a pretty girl to my inflamed imagination, but this time there was something more. My mind—as ridiculous as this might sound for a guy in an army uniform—my mind had a hard-on this time; my intellect was aroused.

I walked into the city park known as “The Sea Garden,” wandered around the cool pathways for a while, until I reached a row of benches scattered with old people, overlooking the bay. I found an empty one and sat down. The view was nice—the sea, the sky, the horizon. North was to my left, the old Gala Lighthouse to my right, Varna Bay in front of me, and behind me, the love of my life.

I took a deep breath, got up, and walked back to her.

*

—will you always take pictures of me?

—always

—even if i get fat?

—yep, even then

—with a huge booty?

—all the more to photograph

—really?

—really

—don’t worry, i’m not going to get fat

—we’ll see

—i’m never gonna get fat

*

I park Stella’s car in front of the still-open McDonald’s on the US side. I have no business driving in Mexico. I cross the border into the Third World on foot. The Tijuana cab drivers chat in front of their cars, eat sunflower seeds, and look at the passersby just like cab drivers anywhere in the world.

“Hola,” I say.

“Hola,” says the one at the front of the line. I get in.

Where am I going? Avenida Revolución?

Avenida Revolución sounds good.

We take off. The radio is playing Mexican rap with accordion. A gilded Jesus glued to a plastic crucifix and a pine tree air-freshener swing from the rearview mirror.

The cab stops before the end of the song. I pay and get out. I inhale deeply.

The intersection of Avenida Revolución and Paseo de los Héroes blasts from the speakers of every nightclub, penetrates the air with the smells of the street grills, stares at me with the hungry eyes of every vendor of everything that’s ever been for sale, and wants my money with every beggar’s hand.

A mariachi family plays sloppily tuned guitars and sings their heads off. No one pays any attention to them.

Under a street lamp, a scrawny dog stretches a piece of gum off the pavement.

From the roof of a nightclub called Spiderman, a guy dressed as Spiderman swings from one side of the street to the other on a rope over the heads of the crowd. On the sidewalk across from me is a donkey painted with black and white stripes like a zebra. The zebra is hitched to a cart as colorful as a Christmas tree. $5 photo, Viva Mexico.

People, people, people . . . that’s why I’m here. People, people, people, people, people, people. The energy of Tijuana pulsates through every aorta, thrives in every germ south of the border. This very energy sucked me out of our empty house on the canyon, away from go-to-work-in-the-morning suburbia.

I go into the first bar I see. The bartender, thank God, speaks English. I ask if he can make a vodka martini.

“Sí, señor.”

“You got olives?”

“Sí, señor.”

“Can you make a dirty martini?”

“Sí, señor.”

“Now, the señor here wants a dirty martini with three olives.”

“Sí, señor.”

Three martinis later, Señor finally looks around. It hits me that if I had done so earlier, I surely would have left. What kind of a place is this? Dirty, dark, and it stinks something awful. A TV set on a wooden crate in the corner plays a never-ending soccer game. A few customers in cowboy hats watch the crate and drink beer from green bottles. During every commercial break, though, the hats turn to look at me. I pay and get out.

Outside, Tijuana enfolds me in its sweaty, open bosom. Noisy merchants pull me left and right, trying to lure me into their stuffy little shops.

I dive into another bar. This time I look at the crowd carefully. A TV set on a wooden crate in the corner plays the same soccer game. Men in cowboy hats are drinking beer and watching the game. The commercials begin, the hats turn toward me. I stay. On my way out, the stairs seem funnier.

The night now is hot and throbbing. I need panocha now. Panocha. A fat tattooed neck pulls me up fluorescent stairs. A whorehouse? No. A nightclub. The speakers slam Latin-Electro. The lights change with every beat, the girls under them, too. It’s full of girls. A waitress shoves her huge tits under my drunken head. What do I want to drink?

“Martini,” I yell.

She brings me a margarita. I’ll drink margaritas, then.

The dance floor is packed. The crowd consists of American military men, Mexican pimps, bleached-blond hookers, drug dealers, and losers like me. While normal people north of the border rest before the workday, Tijuana is wide awake.

An hour later I realize that the margarita was a mistake. I get dizzy from the lights, bodies, mirrors, boobs, sweat, glasses, tables, chairs. In the bathroom a geezer with a bowtie and pencil mustache hands out toilet paper for pesos. I dig out crumpled bills, drop them in his bowl, stagger to the sink, and splash water on my face. In the spattered mirror, a gray man frowns at me. I frown back. His wife left him. Boo-fucking-hoo. If I were her, I’d leave you, too.

Outside the john, Tits greets me with a new margarita. I didn’t order a new margarita.

“Sí,” says Tits.

“No,” I say.

“Sí, sí.”

“No sí sí,” I say.

“Sí, sí, sí, señor!” Tits insists.

“I did not order a margarita!”

Tits is angry. She whirls around and heads over to the bouncer. I pull out money and chase her. Mexicans understand English when they want to. I pay before she makes a scene. I down the watery margarita and shove the glass in my pocket—a little payback, fucking extortionists. They treat me like a regular gringo. I might be boracho, but I wasn’t born yesterday. And, no, I am no gringo. The whole world spins fiercely before my eyes; I am going to die here. I stagger down the stairs, grabbing the railing with all my might, and end up next to the tattooed neck. I attempt to hug the bouncer as I stammer panocha. I’ve got to have a panocha before I die.

“I want panocha!”

“Panocha, sí, sí.” The fat neck grins and makes that gesture that all of us idiots make. “Fucky, fucky, huh, señor?”

“Fucky, fucky, yes.”

“Fucky, fucky?”

“Yes, find me a panocha before I perish! I need panocha.”

He points to a man on the other side of the street. I can’t quite make him out. I set off in that direction, but the sidewalk has something else in mind—it suddenly ends. I trip and hop on the pavement, barely keeping my balance. Out of nowhere, a little hunchback midget in a white sombrero appears and pulls me aside. “Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show.” I have no idea what’s going on. To my right against a wall, a sailor kisses a whore while tugging on her g-string. She smirks at me over his shoulder.

To my left, leaning on a crumbling wall, a man with no legs stretches out a plastic cup—he wants dolla.

A scruffy five-year-old girl sucking snot from her upper lip stretches out a plastic cup—she wants dolla.

An Indian with a baby on her breast reaches out a plastic cup, she wants dolla.

A one-eyed grandma holds a plastic cup, she wants dolla, too.

Dolla-dolla-dolla-dolla, everyone wants dolla.

Something swings over my head, I duck at the last second and make out Spiderman.

“Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show . . .” the white sombrero wiggles his ass back and forth. “. . . fucky, fucky . . .” I don’t understand. “Donkey fucky señorita.” A-ha! A spectacle involving a donkey and a naked female suddenly seems appropriate. I follow him. “Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show . . .”

We cross Revolución and go down the steps of a side bazaar. The white sombrero stops in front of a beat-up door lit by a dirty naked bulb and rings the bell. The door cracks open and a shaved head peeks out. Sombrero turns to me—he wants dolla. I give him dolla and he slinks away up the stairs. I pay the shaved head an entrance fee and go a few steps further down.

Smoky bar, maroon booths, brown padding on the walls, columns painted in black enamel, Christmas lights, on the walls are faded posters for Corona, Dos Equis, and Tecate. Leather jackets, Hawaiian shirts, and navy uniforms are crowded around the tables. There’s a stage at one end of the room. I enter when the music stops and go to the end of the line at the bar, behind a row of square backs, so I have to stand on my toes to see anything. Now all eyes are focused on the red velvet curtains, which draw open. A couple of Mexicans drag a gray donkey on stage and disappear. Whistles and claps. Dollar bills reach toward the bartender. He hands back beers.

The curtains open again and a naked brownish woman with short legs, a flabby stomach and floppy breasts comes out. I picture her, laundry pins in her mouth, hanging saggy bras on a clothesline. Her legs perch atop a pair of white glossy sandals and meet in a black bushy tuft on top. Her hair is the color of henna. The makeup is bad. Her eyebrows have been waxed off and drawn in with a brown pencil. Booing from the audience. Ungrateful bastards, what do you expect for five bucks—Shakira?

After a little foreplay, the woman shoves herself under the animal. She grabs his thing and starts rubbing it energetically. The donkey shakes his head, showing two rows of yellow teeth. The woman keeps working it, but the donkey does not respond. The woman moves her hand faster and faster. Suddenly, the donkey snorts and reaches back to bite her, but only gets a bit of her hair. The woman manages to escape cursing and yelling at someone behind the curtain. Two Mexicans hop out; one of them grabs the donkey by the muzzle and the other hits him in the teeth.

A-a-a-a-h-h-h-h! The crowd groans in disapproval.

The animal snorts louder and rears back, but a pair of mustachioed mariachi show up and tackle him to the floor. One of them, guitar hanging from his back, traps the animal’s head between his bow-legged pantalones and firmly grabs the front hooves, which are now pointing towards the ceiling. His buddy, accordion strapped to his back, grabs the hind legs.

The entertainer works the donkey’s hard-on with both hands now. The audience, who thought they had gotten ripped off just a minute ago, now exclaims its approval.

The donkey reciprocates with size.

Silence. Then someone claps. A drunken female tourist starts laughing hysterically.

I turn my back on the spectacle. I weave my way through the crowd and climb up the steps so I can throw up the margarita and everything else I’ve ingested tonight. I make it out, wobbling. I’m dizzy and I need to lie down. I turn the corner and lean against a wall. Breathing heavily, I force myself to eject the poison.

Then I see them. I stagger toward them clinging to the wall.

The body is sprawled on the ground. The two men kick it silently, indifferently. As if in a dream, I hear the dry thumping sounds and see the head jerk back and forth with each blow.

“Hey!” I yell. I can’t stand violence. But this doesn’t even look like violence. No one is screaming, no one is angry. Just two men kicking a third, as if knocking the mud off their boots. I get closer, still leaning against the wall.

One of them turns my way and looks at me, motionless. The other one keeps kicking, but soon he stops as well. They are big; short leather jackets and short black hair. They wait for me to get closer. The body on the ground stirs, thank God. I smile and wave.

“Hola, amigos,” I say before the fist hits my forehead. The sidewalk meets my face. A kick to the ribs lifts me off the ground. I manage to half scramble up—only to receive another blow to the face. I spot a flight of stairs, a railing. I grab the railing, fly down, trip over, and keep going. They are a few feet behind me. I keep flying down more stairs. I try to catch the railing again, but no luck. I trip and start rolling down for a long time. I finally stop as my head collides with a metal door. The glass in my pocket shatters.

Their silhouettes thump down the stairs. Their shoes flash as they speed towards me. Then their kicks. They pull me up by the collar. One pulls out a lighter and studies my face. They drag me up the stairs. I’m on the sidewalk now. I stumble on a shoe. There was a body here a moment ago, nobody now. We reach a trailer with a few cars parked around it; barbed wire, gravel crunching underfoot, urine-colored light. They start pulling me toward a shabby van with California plates. One of them cracks the door open and it starts dinging. The other tries to push me inside. Hell no—they can beat the shit out of me, but I am not getting in their fucking van!

I spread my arms wide so they can’t ram me inside like livestock. One of them kicks me in the stomach, and I double over, clutching my midriff. A pair of hands grabs me by the hair and pushes my head down. The anticipation of another blow to my belly—a strong blow, a blow that will leave me as breathless as a sack of potatoes. I tighten my abdominal muscles as much as I can. The kick doesn’t come. The seconds stretch on endlessly. I gather my strength and, in a last, desperate effort, jerk my head away, and jab at the face of the guy holding me with the broken glass. He screams. The other one has been busy looking for the end of a thick roll of duct tape to tie me up with. I get his throat. Something dark spurts geyser-like several feet in the air. I turn to the first one, who keeps screaming while staring at his hands, now black with blood. I punch him in the forehead and hurt my wrist.

Somewhere in the dark a window slams shut.

The open van door is still dinging. I jump in and slam the door behind me, turn the key in the ignition, and stomp the gas pedal. In the rearview mirror, I see one of the men rolling in the dirt, the silhouette of the other one hovering over him.

I am in a narrow, unlit street. A dog starts barking.

I realize that I’m driving with no lights and slow down until I figure out how to turn them on.

Five or six turns later, I’m on Boulevar Constitución. I speed up. I reach a traffic light, turn right, and drive fast until I reach Avenida Revolución. Seeing the crowded well-lit place, somewhat familiar already, I relax a little and take a deep breath.

I start replaying the scenes from a few minutes earlier in my head. What have I gotten myself into?

Before I know it, I’ve reached the US border. I get in the line of cars. At this ungodly hour, there are only about ten other vehicles ahead of me, but the checks are somewhat slow. I take off my jacket and slip out of my bloodstained T-shirt, wipe my face with it as well as I can, then shove it under the seat. I put my jacket back on and try to fix my hair. I can hardly keep my head up. I’m still drunk and feel like throwing up and sleeping at the same time. I start dozing off behind the wheel.

*

I go back to the café. My heart is going to explode. But what does the heart know? I get in line in front of her register and wait. Just before my turn, I spin on my heel and leave. Why does my damn heart want to burst? Why does it give me away? I gather up my courage and go back in, but a few people are in line in front of me. I start doing some breathing exercises. I have to act normal, damn it! I can’t. If I only knew then that so many years later I would still feel the same way every time I thought of her!

“What can I get you?” Her voice. Her lips. Then she glances at me. The blue of her eyes glows and spills out as in a watercolor. And then, a miracle: I manage to stutter a few words. For the first time I speak to a girl without forcing myself to come up with the most clever line ever. She doesn’t answer. She keeps looking at me. I don’t sense that annoyance or boredom that I get from most of the girls I try to strike up a conversation with. It’s more like curiosity. While she’s probably wondering how to get rid of me, I ask what time her shift ends. She answers calmly, and I take off immediately, before she regrets talking to me.

*

“Rough night, huh?” A voice wakes me.

“Uh-huh.”

“Sir, are you in a condition to operate this vehicle?” Where is the voice coming from? Border patrol booth, US border, young officer, kind eyes.

“Yes, sir,” I say, trying to sound chipper. I hand him my driver’s license and passport. “Must have dozed off while waiting.” He looks at the passport, then the license, then back at me, clearly checking to make sure the pictures match up.

“It’s your birthday today, huh, Zachary?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By yourself?”

I don’t answer. I look straight ahead.

“Anything to declare?” He says, scanning the inside of the van.

“No, sir,” I say, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

“Why didn’t you take a cab, Zachary?”

“I ran out of money, sir.” I notice a smear of something on my right cheek.

“Where are you from, Zachary?”

“A small country far away.” An ugly dark smear.

“No, Zachary, I meant . . .”

“Sorry, officer! Rancho Penasquitos.” Could be blood.

“Where’s that?”

“Just north of San Berna . . .” It could be mud. But then again, it could be blood. It’s on my right cheek though. The officer is inches to my left.

“I know where Rancho Penasquitos is, Zachary,” he cuts me off. “Where is the small country far away?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. It’s . . . just north of Greece, sir.”

“I see. They don’t drink and drive just north of Greece, do they?” His voice seems louder.

“No, sir, they don’t.”

“Well, we don’t drink and drive just north of Mexico, either.”

“We certainly don’t, sir.” I wait for him to ask me to step out of the vehicle. There’s no point in trying to run. There’s no point trying to hide my smeared right cheek.

The radio on his shoulder buzzes. He picks it up, lowers his chin to listen to the distorted voice. His eyes are still on me.

“Ten-four, sir,” he barks at his shoulder. I slowly exhale my last moments of freedom.

“Happy birthday, Zachary,” he says and hands me my license. “Go straight home now, you hear?” He says as he waves the next car over. “Straight home.”

I press the gas and head back into civilization.

*

When I came back to meet her after work, she was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a tight, light-blue T-shirt. She had on high-heeled platform sandals and a bag slung across her shoulder. It’s easy to fall in love with a girl who wears everything with such ease.

I had my hands shoved deep in my pockets, most likely.

The regular summertime crowd must have been swarming around us. We walked, I remember, toward the Sea Garden. Somewhere around the Museum of Art, I lose the thread of this memory. I can’t remember what we did between six, when she finished work, and the time it got dark. Did we sit somewhere? Did we just walk? Later, we went into a bar on the corner of First and the street she lived on, a small, dark place called “Impulse.” We sat at one of those little round tables with a black tablecloth pressed under a circle of glass. We drank gin and tonics and munched on peanuts. And started talking. We talked over each other. We talked as if we had been talking forever and someone had just interrupted us. We talked as if we were only pretending we didn’t know each other. We finished each other’s sentences, completed each other’s thoughts, and reminded each other of where we stopped. We talked as if tomorrow we would have to go our separate ways forever.

*

California! I’m saved! There’s the parking lot where I left Stella’s car. I feel like stopping, jumping out, and kissing the pavement.

I stop, jump out, and kiss the pavement. Then I get back in and park the van. I jump into Stella’s car and gun the engine. Then it hits me—I might have killed somebody an hour ago in Mexico. I’ve stolen a van and left a ton of fingerprints. One must think about these things. I get out, open the trunk of Stella’s car and look for something—anything—to wipe down the inside of the van. Nothing. I walk back to the van and open the passenger door. Nothing on the front seats that I can use. I open the back door.

I stifle a yell when I see the prone body and slam the door shut. My heart bangs crazily. I open the door again slowly. I exhale. Not a body. I sigh with relief. A giant plastic bag, stuffed full, slightly bent in the middle. It does look like a corpse. It’s soft to the touch, yet dense, as if packed with straw. I glance around the parking lot, then open the bag up. The pungent smell hits me. I know what it is. I know what I should do. Instead, I pull the bag out of the van, drag it across the parking lot, and spend several risky moments shoving it into the trunk of Stella’s Mercedes.

I get behind the wheel, turn the ignition, buckle up, cross myself, and head north into the bluish daybreak with a trunk-load of marijuana.

*

“. . . what to do with your life . . .”

My exit is just a few miles away. What I want to do more than anything right now is sleep, sleep, sleep. I roll down the window for some fresh air, to keep myself awake these last few minutes. The morning chill laps at my face. Along with it comes the unbearable thought that I am headed toward an empty house.

Who am I kidding? What am I going to do at home without her? Sleep? I already tried that a few hours ago and ended up almost dead in Mexico. No more sleep. I need to decide what to do with my life . . .

In the bag behind me, there are at least seventy pounds of marijuana. I haven’t the slightest idea how many joints that makes and I suspect that if I start calculating right now, I’ll get sick and throw up inside the car. That shitty margarita did me in, I know it. One joint is about five bucks. Ten joints are about fifty. A hundred joints are five hundred. One pound makes . . . there, shit, I’m getting fucking sick to my stomach. Here we go-o-o-o. I’m already in the emergency lane, slowing down, throwing up out the open window. I vomit for some time, painfully, while still driving. I finally stop, get out of the car, and bend over, clutching my stomach. Just when I feel I’ve purged everything, I throw up at the thought of throwing up. Excruciating, bitter, sour convulsions clench my stomach.

Jesus, what a night! What a night.

Back in the car. There, I see the exit to our street. There’s the street sign I’m so sick of, beyond it, the traffic light I’m so sick of. What am I doing? What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing?

I pass the exit sign and press the gas pedal.

Farewell, street sign.

Farewell, traffic light.

Farewell, canyon.

Farewell to you, too, empty house.

*

I thought about her constantly my last few weeks in the military. We saw each other a couple more times before my discharge. When I got off the train with a green army surplus bag slung over my shoulder, instead of going straight home to see Mom and my little sister, I grabbed a cab and gave the driver her address. In the rickety elevator, I pressed number seven and rehearsed my opening lines. I rang the doorbell. She opened the door and smiled. I wondered whether I should hug her or shake hands. I forgot what I was planning to say. She kissed me on the cheek and invited me in. Her room was white, clean, minimalistic. Stereo on the floor, bookshelves with lots of books, some paintings on the walls, low bed, little glass table, a vase with freesias. We sat on the floor sipping gin and tonics. We listened to music all night long. We did it for the first time at dawn, on the carpet in her room. We did nothing, actually. I was so excited, tired, and crazy about her that I lasted only a few seconds. She understood. She understood everything. She passed me the T-shirt she had just taken off to wipe myself, and told me to lay down for a while. Then I saw her open the window and, like a cat, jump up on the windowsill. I leaned back on my elbows, amazed at this sight. She turned to me and calmly sat on the ledge as if there were something beautiful and safe on the other side. It was chilly out. Late September. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was her silhouette against the light-bluish dawn. Hard nipples, the flash of a lighter, a cigarette. Why was this beautiful girl here with me? Wasn’t she afraid of heights?

*

I stop in a surfer town between San Clementino and Los Angeles. I find a shabby beach hotel, check in, and lie down.

The sound of a vacuum next door wakes me up. I look at my watch; I’ve slept for four whole hours. My head is throbbing. I take a shower. I wash off the Tijuana filth, but the hangover clings to me. I look at myself in the mirror. Indigo bruises have started darkening under my eyes. My scalp hurts. I’m missing some hair, but that’s all right—better bald than dead.

I decide to go out, get some fresh air, and do some thinking. I haven’t thought straight for ten days. I go down to the lobby and ask the girl at the front desk about the closest coffee shop. There’s a Starbucks three blocks away. I find it and get in line behind several other customers. Now it’s my turn. At the register, a redhead with a tongue piercing asks me what I’d like. What? I turn around and look toward the door. Why doesn’t Stella just appear right here, right now? Why doesn’t she just come to this little town and have coffee with me like we used to, and we’d talk until . . .

“You waiting for someone?” The redhead with the tongue piercing asks calmly.

“Pardon?”

“Would you like anything, sir?” I don’t respond. Behind my back, an orderly line of men and women has formed. I look at the girl with red-streaked hair but no words form in my throat.

“Sir?”

Stella, Stella, Stella, if you show up at the door right now, I promise:

I will take the garbage out without you reminding me, I will give you massages anytime you want, I will learn not to slam the doors, I will buy you flowers, fields of flowers, I will be quiet when I get up in the middle of the night, I will make the bed on Sundays, I will water the plants, I will vacuum, I will lift the toilet seat before I pee (and put it back down afterward), I will stop being a jerk to your mom, I will take you on a paddleboat ride, I will teach you three guitar cords, I will explain what the F-stops mean on my Nikon without yelling, I will give up drinking two beers at dinner, I will quit being a small fish, I will leave my terrible job and we’ll still have money, money, money, lots of fucking money, we will finally sell this house, we will go to . . . India?

Stella. I also promise:

I will not correct you when you’re telling jokes, I will not interrupt you when you’re excited about something, I will not sing over your favorite songs, I will not be a smartass when we watch sentimental movies, I will not share my opinion about every single thing, we will not have Josh and Katya over for dinner ever again, we will never ever go to Vegas again, ever, I will not rent Hitchcock films, I will not order Chinese, I will not leave the room when we fight (what am I saying? we won’t ever fight!), you will never see me picking my nose, I will not burp loudly (or strain to fart on purpose), I will never be silent with you for so long, never, I will never watch CNN, I will never promise you the moon—you are a star, Stella.

“Long night?” The redhead tries one last time to get an order from me before turning to the next person in line. I rub my temples, shrug, take a deep breath, and try smiling.

“Triple espresso, please. Actually,” I reconsider, “two triples.” I sit outside and gulp them down. The caffeine kicks me in the heart. Good. I sum things up—I am an hour and a half away from home. It’s still Thursday. It’s still before noon. If I get on the San Diego freeway immediately and drive south, I can show up at work just after lunch and make up some excuse. Because I’ve never done this before, Scott, the manager, will understand and won’t give me a hard time. I’ll wait until nighttime and get rid of the dangerous load in my trunk. Then I’ll go home. I’ll return all my phone calls, I’ll read a book until I fall asleep. The next day I’ll go to work earlier, then go home again, pull the blinds open at last, and try to go on without her.

I leave the coffee shop in a better mood, get in the car, and head north.

*

From the beginning of our relationship, we realized that we could either talk or be quiet for hours without ever getting bored. Our interests were absurdly similar, the same music, the same books, the same films. We were both fascinated to see how our paths gradually converged, overlapped, and eventually became one. The old magic of love was brand new for us. Our unconsummated high school crushes had nothing to do with what we were experiencing: a passionate, beautiful, intelligent, restless, dazzling sensation. During our first months together, I didn’t miss a single chance to make love to her, no matter where we were—at some of the many parties we went to, in dark, cold bedrooms while everyone else was screaming and dancing in the other rooms, at her parents’ house, in hotels, on trains, in a car, in the park, in the sea. I’m not sure she experienced any pleasure whatsoever then. I was so insistent and wild in my hunger for her. There must’ve been a way for her to tame me. Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe she wasn’t looking for one.

I remember the first time she came—tight, tasty, firm. I remember the way she began pulsating, then her accelerated breathing, her confused look (what’s happening? is this it?), her moaning, the short scream, the silence afterwards. It was late afternoon. I remember the smell of roasted red peppers coming from somewhere in the neighborhood.

*

At the last second, I notice the Venice Beach sign and take the exit west. On a weekday in November, parking is not such a hassle. I buy orange swimming trunks and a towel from one of the boardwalk vendors. I step onto the warm sand. The strong wind makes long, tall waves, their crests are scattered with surfboards. OK, now I’ll rush in and thrust all my sorrows into the salty bosom of the Pacific, thrus-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-t! I run, water splashing around me. I wade in chest-high, but the waves push me back to the beach. I take a deep breath and dive in. I stay underwater for a long time. I hop out. From my low vantage point, I see the ocean swallowing and spitting up surfers. One of them manages to take off, catching a wave in my direction. He passes close by, young, long-haired, calm, with the inspired expression of someone who walks on water. Our eyes meet for a second and he disappears. I keep on battering the waves until exhaustion empties my head. At some point I stop, float on my back, close my eyes, try to free my body of fatigue for a while, but can’t. I turn around and start swimming toward the distant shore. Getting out of the ocean proves to be harder than I expected. The same waves that wanted to toss me onto dry land earlier now won’t let me reach the shore. I battle them for a long time before realizing that I am the only one out here acting like an idiot. I understand that resistance is pointless. I relax my muscles, watch the surfers, and try to understand how the ocean operates. A few futile attempts to take advantage of the breaking waves follow; the undertow thrusts me deep into the water and spins me around, leaving me without any sense of up and down, of bottom and surface. At last, almost breathless, I manage to come up and see my wave. I catch it, seconds before it breaks. I relax on its crest, stretch my arms forward, I become one with it as countless, small, invisible turbines beneath my body drive me joyfully toward land.

I dry off and head back to the tourist-scattered boardwalk. A group of Japanese sightseers come toward me. They politely ask if I can take a picture of them by the ocean. They hand me the first camera. Before I snap the shot, I arrange them so all of their smiling little heads are in focus. I lift my left hand up, one, two, three, cheese, click—there you go. At once, several more hands pass their cameras to me. I pose them a little more carefully this time—four squatting down, six standing behind them and again, one, two, three, cheese. In no time, I’m holding a Canon, two digital Sonys, a small Yashica, a Panasonic, and something else. While I am clicking the shutters, I wonder what would happen if I suddenly took off with all this loot. Would they chase me? What would happen if they caught me? Is there a kung fu master among them? I hand back the gear and accept their compliments with a slight bow. The last camera someone hands over is a Nikon F3. Grasping the familiar body, I feel chills run down my spine. I love this model. After a few shots, I return it hesitantly. Its weight, its reliability, its grace . . .

Again, Stella storms my thoughts.

*

—don’t take pictures of my legs, please

—they’re part of your topography. now please lift up this knee

a little

—topography in blue. anytime i bump into something, bam—another bruise . . . see . . .

—you have delicate skin

—am i delicate?

—the most delicate thing ever . . .

—m-m-m-m-m . . .

—the most, most, most delicatest thing ever . . .

—hey, dog-eyes . . . stay focused

*

I was a freshman majoring in English literature. Stella was in her senior year at the High School of Fine Arts. Yet the idea of going to the Art Academy had somehow never crossed her mind. Her classmates took private lessons in painting. She took English instead. Next year she was accepted into my college and moved in with me. She never stopped painting. She just said that she was tired to death of painting what other people told her to. Because I was a year ahead of her, I told her which classes were important, which were a waste of time. I gave her my notes and pointed her to the “right” books. I introduced her to interesting people, to her future professors and instructors, some of whom I had become friends with. I filtered her education—I realize now—with the noble desire to make things easier for her. We spent countless dark mornings in our warm bed because I wouldn’t let her go to an early-morning lecture or a boring seminar. Half-awake, she would let herself be conquered, we would sleep in, roll in bed until late, then we would have coffee, listen to music, read novels, laze around, waste our time—we had time, God, we had so much time.

*

I park in front of a liquor store a few blocks from where Elijah lives. I know Elijah from a screenwriting class we took together a few years back. We got to be friends and kept in touch after the class was over. I go to a pay phone, pick up the greasy receiver, and dial his number. Elijah Ellison is large, redheaded, and freckled. He’s twenty-nine and rents a shed by the pool at Steve and Tara’s place. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and doesn’t eat meat. The remarkable thing is, despite a complete lack of any success whatsoever, he continues to write screenplays 24/7. Elijah is obsessed by the idea of writing a romantic comedy—something along the lines of When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, or Sleepless in Seattle . . . Whether he has talent or not is hard to say. What he definitely has is perseverance. If I were an envious person, I would envy him.

The last time we saw each other was two years ago. I was jobless and desperate. I had slipped into one of those moments of madness (or enlightenment), in which you feel that nothing is impossible. I was writing a script then. We met to discuss it.

“The idea is great,” he said, “but it’s hard to figure out whether it’s a comedy or a drama. What is it? You’ve got to clear that up.”

“Well, Elijah,” I countered, “is it really so important whether it’s a comedy or a tragedy or . . . ?”

“It’s important.”

“Elijah, it’s easy for you to say this is comic, that’s dramatic, and this . . . well, this is a tragedy. To me, man, everything I write is a giant jar of salsa: salty, sweet, sour, with a hot aftertaste!”

“So what I’m hearing is that you’re only interested in doing Great Things.” Well, it’s hard for me to say no to that. “Now me, I don’t have a single great idea, nothing even close, but I’ve finished seven romantic comedies and a dozen more short scripts. I have short stories and a complete novel. It’s better to have an average but completed idea than a great unstarted one!” Sometimes I want to strangle the guy. But now I call him from a pay phone.

I park on the street, under the blooming magnolia. Pacino, the dog, starts barking and Tara answers the door.

“Zack, how are ya?” She immediately notices my black eye but says nothing. I say “Hi” and hand her the bag with the bottle of wine. She and Steve like good wine. The other dog, I forget his name, licks my shoe. I go inside.

“Where’s Steve? Where’s Elijah?” I say.

Tara talks very fast and a lot. In fact, Tara talks fast precisely because she talks a lot. “Elijah is here, and Steve should be home any minute now. Where’s Stella? Why didn’t she come with you?” Without waiting for an answer, she goes on: “She’s probably busy. How are you guys anyway? You know what? Her painting, the one with the scorched trees that I saw at her show last year . . . I just can’t forget it. What with all these wild fires now . . .” On the TV screen there is a forest burning somewhere in Southern California. “I want to buy it. Can I buy it? How much would it be? But where can I put it here? No, no, no . . . it belongs in a gallery. It’s huge! How big is that painting, Zack? Seven, eight, nine feet? And black. It’s not black, actually. It’s dark, very dark, but not black. But it’s huge!” She whistles and waves her hands. “Big, it’s gigantic. Yes, Stella is amazing, amazing! Last year she painted burned forests, now we have wild fires all over the place. Hmm. How does that work, huh? It’s like she knew, it’s like she knew in advance. You’ll sleep here tonight, right?”

Here’s the story—Tara and Steve were theater actors in Boston, where they met Elijah. Ten years ago, they moved to Los Angeles to get into the film industry. They founded a theater company, started staging new plays, and did all kinds of things to survive. Now, Steve is a producer and Tara owns a casting agency and directs plays from time to time in small theaters, just for the heck of it. When Elijah later decided to storm Hollywood with his average screenplays, they offered him a place to crash until he found a job. He accepted the offer and four years later he’s still there. He occupies a tool shed crammed with mowers, junk, and boxes of books. At least it’s by the pool.

“Hey, Zack Attack!” I see his big orange head peek through the door. “Who gave you that black eye?” He grins.

“I fell down the stairs,” I say as I collapse on the couch. A Hummer parks outside, the dogs bark, and Steve opens the front door. He’s been shooting a commercial all day and is glad to see me. He grabs a bottle of scotch and offers ice. I say, “No, thanks, no ice.” He smiles and we lift our glasses for a toast.

Hours later, the four of us are standing around the bar in the kitchen, sipping wine and munching on cheese, ham, and grapes arranged on a pig-shaped cutting board. We talk about movies, theater, Hollywood, Europe . . . Steve tells a funny story about something that happened to him in South Africa while producing a stupid movie. Tara laughs loudly, throwing her head back. Her cheeks are already flushed. Elijah is gloomy. Elijah is always gloomy. Maybe because he doesn’t eat meat, drink, or smoke. I’ve never seen him with a girl, either. Elijah is not gloomy only when we talk about romantic comedies. Pacino, the dog, is sleeping at my feet. The other one, I still don’t remember his name, follows the fish in the tank with his amber eyes.

“Hey, guys,” I begin nonchalantly. “I want to meet with that Jamaican dude you introduced me to last year at Jeff’s party. Remember? What’s his name? The guy . . . with the turban?”

“Oh, you mean Chris?” Steve says.

“Yeah, that’s the guy.”

“You need some pot? We’ve got some here if you want.” He looks at Tara with that it’s ok to light a joint, right? glance.

“Pot,” I say, “is the last thing I need right now. I just wanted to talk with him about something.”

“He’s a little . . . you know,” Tara begins, “discrete. I’m not sure whether he’d like to . . .”

Steve jumps in. “A discrete guy.”

Chris is an enormous, muscular black man with a handsome, inspired face that radiates peace and wisdom. He wears white, free-flowing clothes and, sometimes, a colorful turban on his head. Last year I spent half an hour with him at a party and, while we were drinking (I—wine, he—orange juice) by the pool, we talked about inner peace, freedom of choice, inspiration, happiness, and all sorts of nonsense. The next few days I was in a cheerful mood. I was later told that he provided Steve and Tara with marijuana; they liked to smoke from time to time.

“I’m writing a novel,” I start lying through my teeth, detecting how Elijah instantly perks up, “in which the main character stumbles upon a bag of marijuana.” Elijah relaxes; a lame idea, nothing new. “So, I guess, my question is . . . what can my hero do with a bag of weed? Could he sell it, how much would it cost, stuff like that?”

“Don’t you know?” Steve asks.

“Well, if I did, why would I be looking for Chris?”

“And how does the story end?” Elijah says.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, how can you start writing something without knowing how it ends?” He almost snaps.

“Goddammit, Elijah, if I knew how it ended, why would I start writing it in the first place? That would be totally boring for me.”

“How can you reach the end when you don’t know where you’re going? The end is the most important part.”

“It’s no more important than the way there.”

“You have to know the end. Start at the end. Start there and go backwards, to the beginning.”

“Go backwards?”

“Sure! What does your hero want? That’s the question. What does he want? What drives him? What drives the story chapter after chapter after chapter?”

“A bag of weed.”

“A bag of weed can’t do that. What does your hero want to do with this bag of weed? Can he possibly achieve it? Or not? From there, you know whether you’ve got a tragedy or a comedy. But there’s another problem.” Elijah pauses. “Pot is too . . .” he gesticulates, “harmless. It doesn’t have that aura of . . . evil, so to speak. It doesn’t push people to do terrible things. On the contrary, it brings joy, relaxation, peace. Nobody kills somebody for a joint.” Pause. “Plus, it’s not expensive either. So the stakes are low. You should think of a different drug: heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, something like that. You should raise the stakes to the max—money or death!”

“Listen, my friend. This isn’t a script for a thriller. This is a story about . . .” I try to calm down and sound convincing. “Actually, this is not a story about drugs. This is a story about a guy who loses his talent . . .”

“His . . . what?” Elijah’s eyes narrow, puzzled.

“. . . loses his faith,” I keep going.

“Ay, ay, ay.” He shakes his head mockingly.

“. . . loses his appetite for life . . .”

“Existentialism?” Pure disgust.

“. . . loses his love . . .”

“So you’re writing a love story?” Sarcasm, plain sarcasm.

“. . . himself . . .”

“And he finds a bag of ganja? Genius!” Elijah slams the table with his fist.

“But one night, one crazy night, as if in a dream, he stumbles upon a bag of marijuana.” I sigh and stop. I won’t bother telling the skeptical bastard what my story is about. He doesn’t ever leave his shit-hole because he’s too busy reading countless how-to handbooks on screenwriting written by losers who haven’t made a single film. I know Elijah is searching for the formula behind the romantic comedy. He talks like a character from a romantic comedy, yet he’s neither romantic, nor comic. Elijah is just a benign tumor on my life story, and Lord only knows why I like him.

Silence.

Tara nods at Steve. He goes to the post-it spotted fridge and starts looking for something. Somewhere among the numbers for insurance agents, dentists, auto mechanics, producers, actors, lawyers, bankers, handymen, and the like, is the link to Chris. Then Steve dials a number and makes an appointment for me for the next day. We drink more wine and go to bed very late. I fall asleep the second my head meets the pillow.

I dream about Stella.

*

I can’t remember myself ever doing less than three things at the same time, which has made me confusing—I suppose—for people who neatly catalog their acquaintances. In college, I wrote short stories and articles for the local paper, I loved photography, and played the guitar. While I did the former two less frequently and only for pleasure, I took my music very seriously. I had a cheap electric guitar, which I plugged into an old Russian radio, turned the volume up to the max, and wailed on the strings. I played with the volume cranked up because it was the only way to distort it enough to make the sound unidentifiable. I was looking for my sound then. Later, I added several more people to this mayhem and created something like a punk-rock band. We would play three-chord tunes all night long. Gradually, grandiose plans for worldwide success started taking shape in my head, and for some odd reason, they seemed realistic. I managed to inspire the poor souls around me with some kind of wild enthusiasm and belief, absolute belief, that we were destined for glory.

The lead vocalist was a metalworking machinery operator with thick glasses, the drummer was a cousin of mine who worked in his father’s beekeeping business, and the bass player was an overweight, acne-stricken kid from a small town nearby who was about to graduate in accounting. However, the three of them were good musicians, so the rest just didn’t matter. My own musical education consisted of a handful of classical guitar lessons and countless hours of heavy metal on the old Kashtan eight-track. I didn’t really know the guitar technically, which is why I tried to compensate with high volume, distortion effects, and insane onstage behavior. And because I was on familiar terms with only a few guitar chords, my songs were simple and exploded with the fury I felt precisely because I couldn’t write music. I secretly hated my inability to master the guitar musically, but, on the outside, I was all confidence and authority in front of the boys. It was my energy, I believe, that kept people coming to our small gigs. Stella spent hours with the band in basements and garages, a silent witness to the chaotic rehearsals and quarrels. She just sat off to the side and drew in those countless notebooks of hers, submerged in her own world whose soundtrack, I suppose now, was a compilation of my angry songs.

*

Chris and I meet at the Aladdin Café on the beach. It’s still overcast, but the skies seem promising. I tell him my made-up story, trying to sound like an inspired writer. This marijuana thing is just one of the story lines in the novel, but I want to sound authentic. I tell him I want to know what the odds are of my character being caught. I’ve heard that every other surfer around here is an undercover cop and, although everyone smokes, if my character tries selling pot just like that, they’ll get him sooner or later and the novel will have to end. That’s why I want to learn more, how it works, how he gets rid of a bag of pot, retail or wholesale, and, of course, everything will stay just between us. He knows who hooked me up with him so there’s no danger of . . .

“What’s your question, man?” The low velveteen Jamaican voice interrupts my stream of bullshit. I take a breath and shoot:

“How can the hero in my story sell a bag of marijuana?”

“He can’t,” the big black man answers calmly.

“What do you mean, he can’t?!“

“He can’t.”

“Well . . . how about half a bag?” I decide to take what I can get.

“He can’t.”

“Why?”

“He don’t know how.”

“That’s why I’m here with you, my friend. Tell me how.” Chris studies me carefully, sizing up the bruises on my face.

“Listen, man. Your hero has a problem. First, he loses, then he finds, yes? What he finds, though, he doesn’t need. And what he needs, he already has.”

“Well . . .” I clear my throat. “What can my hero do?”

“Let him move on now. OK, man?” The big black figure with a white turban leans back in his chair and sips his orange juice.

“Chris, you don’t think I’m . . . ?” I make small circles around my temple with my pointer finger.

“No.” He smiles for the first time and the big golden hoop in his ear trembles.

“You don’t think I’m a cop or . . .”

“No.”

“Then why?”

Chris turns his head. After a pause, staring at the ocean: “See the waves, man. Each one is born, it grows, it fights, it foams, and then comes ashore, bsh-sh-sh-sh, and it dies and becomes ocean again. Beautiful, yes? And again, and again, and so on . . . and so on . . .”

“You’re not helping me, man,” I say.

“I help, man. I help.”

*

We put together eight songs and found a studio where we recorded them on a primitive four-track recorder. The album was entitled The Winds of Hell. We produced a cardboard box of TDK cassette tapes, and now the only thing we needed was an album cover. I asked Stella to draw something. The next day, she gave me a picture. It was an expressionistic, somewhat naive silhouette of a girl, arms stretched out as if ready to fly out of the frame of a dark-blue window. It was beautiful, but the boys from the band didn’t like it. I didn’t think it fit, either. So we went to Angel the Artist. He listened to Judas Priest, wore ironed jeans, and lived with his mom in a gloomy apartment that always smelled like sauerkraut.

Our album came out illustrated by Angel the Artist, with a picture of a snarling monster clutching a guitar in its tentacles.

God, was I really that blind?

*

It’s clear that I’ll have to deal with this on my own. I need to improvise. There’s a bookstore across from the coffee shop. I go in and buy a roadmap of the United States, a college-ruled notebook, and two 99-cent pens. Then I stop at the photography section. I open a book of portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson. I sit down between the aisles tête-à-tête with the faces captured by the great master’s little camera. I turn the pages one by one. There’s Matisse with a pigeon in his hand; William Faulkner in the company of two stretching dogs; Jung with a pipe looking straight at me; one very innocent Capote; Ezra Pound, who here reminds me of my late grandfather, Stefan Nichts; a smiling Che Guevara; Samuel Beckett staring at the bottom left corner of the photograph; Albert Camus with a short cigarette butt in his smile and a turned-up jacket collar; a suspicious Sartre on a winter bridge over the Seine; Stravinsky with two large hands and a walking stick; a tired Marilyn Monroe . . . All dead, dead, dead.

Half an hour later, I put the book back on the shelf. I feel like crying. I wish I could cry. I leave the bookstore and wander down the sidewalk aimlessly. I stop in front of a bridal store. It’s still Friday. It’s still not too late to call Scott the manager and come up with an excuse for my absence today. I can see his grimace. Ok, I’ll let it slide this time, things happen, but from now on . . . I can show up earlier than usual on Monday. I can stay late. I’ll work on my attitude. I’ll be more blasé in my inspections. I’ll forget about my Tijuana adventure and about the bag in my trunk. Everything will be fine. I’ll bandage my heart and get back into the traffic on my way to work.

*

—i don’t want you to be quiet like . . .

—like what?

—like . . . that

—i’m taking your picture

—OK, but I want to talk to you

—all right. you talk, i’ll listen

—well then, this session is over. i’m getting dressed

—wait, wait, wait, wait. just a few more shots and it’s over

—but we’ll talk

—we’ll talk

—and you won’t be quiet like that

—i won’t

—ever?

—never

*

Then came those several years I don’t remember clearly. The government changed overnight, the Berlin Wall came down, protesters were killed in the streets of Romania, and evil things were happening in Yugoslavia. I wished something profound would come about at home, too, something earth-shattering. Something that would make me put on my black leather jacket dramatically and leave Stella at our door crying, not knowing whether she’d see me again.

I remember the night was cold. I put on my black leather jacket, zipped it up, took a blanket and a pillow under my arm, a thermos full of hot tea, kissed her as we made plans about where to have coffee in the morning, since the college was going to wake up to an occupied campus and the cafeteria would be closed.

The occupation. In our Alma Mater that night, we watched TV, listened to the radio, cursed the communists, and waited for instructions to come from somewhere. I was elected to be part of the occupation committee. Now I can’t actually remember what we were protesting about. I think it was because of “. . . better get the tanks rolling.” I think we demanded changes to the Communist Constitution, and free and democratic elections. Really, I can’t remember why we were protesting.

The second night. Stella came to spend the night in the occupied building. Student activists had already turned the dean’s office into their headquarters and had put on new worried faces, which they wore as they paced up and down the corridors. They started using the copy machines, faxes, and telephones with such businesslike efficiency—as if they had practiced for this occupation their whole lives. The rest of us lay around on the floors, read books, watched American soldiers in Arabian deserts on CNN. The next day Stella decided that there was no point in her spending any more time there; nobody needed her, the floor was too hard, it was boring, and most of all she wanted to paint, but she couldn’t there. I walked her home and went back to the campus, cutting through an old graveyard so I could keep up the anti-communism. I remember that night there was a power outage, and with nothing else to do, some friends and I gathered around the piano in one of the auditoriums. We lit candles and lanterns, and a guitar appeared from somewhere, and a real party broke out. We sang The Beatles, The Crickets, and Pink Floyd, we took breaks with Gershwin, and then with renewed strength we screamed “Bohemian Rhapsody” in our broken English.

After midnight, the activists sent a freshman to tell us to stop the commotion—we were not making a good impression. What if somebody passed by the university campus? What would they think? We were taking part in a serious endeavor; the occupation was no joke; we had to be responsible and accountable for these events, which were oh-so-important for our future; after all, we had not come here to party and sing.

I slammed the piano shut and we all fell silent. I folded up my blanket, said goodbye and took off, walking down the candle-lit corridor toward the exit. On my way, I kicked the upholstered door of the dean’s office and walked back to our cozy apartment. Stella was my velvet revolution. I decided never again to miss a night next to her warm body. I swore that I’d never ever waste my time with made-up coups and fabricated riots. After all, the real changes are invisible and the rest simply are not worth the pain.

*

I find a pay phone and dial the familiar office number. Scott picks up. His voice starts buzzing in the receiver and I hang up in disgust. I pull my thoughts together and call Danny in New York.

“Hello?” He sounds as if I have just woken him up.

“Hello.”

“Hello-o-o?” Drowsy.

“Danny boy!”

“Zack, is that you?”

“It’s me. What’s happening in the Big Apple?”

“Nothing.”

“We’ll have to do something about that, then.”

“Well, let’s do something about that, then.”

“I’m coming to New York.”

“You’re coming.”

“I’m coming.”

“How about Stella?” Here we go again.

“I’m coming on business.”

“Are you being transferred, or what?”

“I’m transferring myself.”

“And what are you going to do here, if it’s not a secret?”

“No secrets from you, friendo. I’m going to sell marijuana.”

He laughs. “Marijuana?”

“Pot. Grass. Cannabis.”

“Nice! You’ll make it big!” Danny keeps laughing. Then he stops. “Come on, man, tell me!” I guess I didn’t sound serious enough.

“I told you. I’m gonna sell marijuana.”

“Well . . . no problem then. You’ll have tons of customers. Half of them undercover cops, too!”

“I know.”

“So what’s with the bullshit then?”

“No bullshit. Just fresh marijuana.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I might be. But I have a bag of weed in my trunk.” This paralyzes him for sure. For one long minute I listen to his breathing. I can hear a car honking in the background. The building next to his is a bar that closes at 2 a.m. It’s never too quiet around Danny. It’s never too dark, either. I remember how the orange light from the street lamp in front of the bar cast stripes through the broken blinds as Stella and I tried to make love silently on his hard mattress.

“Where did you get it?”

“What?”

“The bag.”

“I found it.”

“You found it?”

“Yeah!”

“No one finds bags of marijuana on the street!”

“I never said I found it on the street.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In a van.”

“And how about the van?”

“Two guys wanted to shove me inside it and do something awful to me, I’m sure, and I . . .”

“And you?”

“I somehow managed to . . . Come on, man. Something happened and maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen. Now, I have a bag of grass. About fifty-sixty pounds . . . maybe more. I don’t know anybody here who could help me get rid of it all at once. If I start selling it ounce by ounce, I’ll stumble across some asshole and end up in jail. I have no idea how to reach a serious player. And, I suspect some local douche is in trouble because of this bag. There’s no way they wouldn’t be looking for it, right? What I’m saying is, if I try to sell it locally, I’ll either bump into a cop or someone who knows someone who has heard of someone else who is missing a bag of weed. You get the picture. So, I want to get rid of the whole thing and I want to do it safely! I expect you to help me resolve this situation. I think thirty percent will convince you to cooperate.” Long pause. “So what do you think? Can we do something about this?”

“Look here . . .”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you do me a favor and don’t start with look here? Just don’t look here me, OK?”

“OK.”

“OK. If it were easy, I wouldn’t have called you in the first place!”

“Give me some time to think. I’ll ask around. I need to talk to some people. I’ll call you as soon as I know more. You said about fifty pounds?”

“Something like that.”

“Fresh?”

“Aromatic, pungent, strong . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it! How can I reach you?”

“I’ll call you, Danny,” I say matter-of-factly. I hang up the receiver and slowly walk across the sun-scorched parking lot.

*

We were poor. Although I never stopped inventing ways to earn the next buck, we were poor, always on the edge, and sometimes beyond it. In between midterms and finals I bought and resold jeans with the Gypsies at flea markets; I smuggled duty-free coffee from Romania; boom-boxes from Macedonia; beach towels from Greece; and leather jackets from Turkey. One summer we were in such dire straits that I had to steal corn from some fields, boil it in a barrel over a fire made from stolen pallets, and sell it to the tourists on the beaches of Varna. Humiliation.

How was I so arrogant as to ask her to marry me? How was she so foolish as to accept? Stella, I know now, often prefers saying “yes” instead of inconveniencing herself with explaining why no means no. She has a natural talent for minimizing situations in which she has to say either one. Perhaps back then I was one of those few cases in which she needed to give an answer. Maybe she had said yes. I think I remember where it happened. It was winter. A smoke-filled tavern at a train station in Pleven (what train were we waiting for there?). It was a white, cold night outside, warm and dim inside. I held her soft hand in mine, touched it to my cheek and I knew, I so ruthlessly and clearly knew that I did not want any other hand touching my cheek. I tenderly kissed her fingers where I was supposed to place an engagement ring and asked her to marry me. I did it instinctively. Tears streamed down my face (did I have any idea how this would end?). I promised her, I remember, “I’ll always take care of you.” What was I thinking then?

*

I decide to stay in the Los Angeles area one last night before I go. I find the closest Walmart and supply myself with a pair of shorts, blue jeans, socks, T-shirts, sandals, towels, toilet paper, bottled water, and air-fresheners for the car, as well as Toblerones. I get in line at the cash register along with the usual clientele—fat white women and their ice-cream-stained, pink-tank-top-wearing, snot-nosed kids hanging off the shopping carts, and fat black women with their oversized-shorts-and-shiny-basketball-jersey-sporting, buzz-cut, boogery kids hanging off the shopping carts. The cashier is unfriendly and slow. Next to her a kid with Down’s Syndrome wearing an “Our People Make the Difference” pin bags the purchases. I wait in line for a long time to get to the register. Then the cashier screws up and the system crashes. My credit card is not working, and we all wait for the store manager to come and fix the mess.

Walmart: a leech sucking on the flabby back of democracy. I leave in the usual misanthropic mood the place inspires. I unload my purchases in the car, unwrap the coconut air freshener, and inhale its trashy scent. Stella loathes it. So do I.

I find an ATM and withdraw two hundred dollars from our joint account. No more credit cards. No more complications. No more comfort. I want to go back to the beginning of things. I want to touch, feel, taste . . . I want to live again, God damn it.

*

Things were somehow going well with the rock band. The tapes of our first album sold before we were totally sick of the songs. Musically, we were supposedly reaching a new level. I needed a better guitar. Good instruments were not easy to find in those days. Needless to say, they were expensive. My grandpa stepped up and gave me his old Zhiguli as a gift. I fixed it, painted it red, and sold it. With the money, I bought a stolen Fender Stratocaster. For the first time, I realized what it meant to have the right instrument. I kept on writing songs, which we played in front of ever more people. At one of the gigs in a neighborhood bar along with the band Lucifer, our speakers blew and we sat on the edge of the little stage, dejected, waiting for a new amplifier. A gray-haired, serious-looking man approached us. He dropped some compliments and offered to organize a concert for us the next Sunday in the center of a nearby industrial town called Devnya. The money was good, too. He said they had professional sound and lighting equipment—we just needed to show up. We accepted the offer, of course. This was our first paid gig.

This time, I took my camera, along with the Fender, to capture the memorable event. A beat-up Chavdar bus drove us into a gray town, covered in what seemed to be ashes. The gray houses had gray roofs. On the gray streets we passed gray people bent over gray bicycles. It was as if I had ridden into a black-and-white dream.

We got off the bus, instruments in hand, and we found ourselves in the middle of a large crowd of old people waving red flags. Up on stage, under a giant red banner with the slogan of the newly reformed Communist party, a much decorated veteran from WWII was finishing his speech, thrusting a bony fist in the air. After him, schoolteachers got up, then nurses, then machinists, bakers, crane operators, factory workers, retirees, school girls, and even one local artist. Our promoter had conveniently forgotten to inform us about the nature of our audience. We, on the other hand, had never asked. He was nowhere to be seen, and we were forced to deal with his assistant—a round-faced, plain woman, with the well-intentioned and energetic radiance of a Girl Scout leader. She assured us that we could do anything we wanted and say whatever we wanted on stage—they were modern people. We put our heads together and decided that we would better serve democracy if we made ourselves heard instead of refusing the red party paycheck and going back to the bus stop and waiting for a bus (which would not come for another hour anyway).

After the communist rally was over, the crowd started thinning out, for it was almost time to drink some rakia. The murky sun was setting behind the bellowing smokestacks of the largest cement factory in Eastern European, which had discolored this town. We plugged in our instruments and blasted away with our most ferocious songs. From time to time, we shouted anti-communist slogans. The communists left the town square one by one, angrily turning gray overcoated backs on us and shaking gray heads.

And, of course, we didn’t get paid. Those were the times.

I didn’t give up. I kept at it, living in my own world, where things would always happen one way or the other. I somehow managed to conceal my technical impotency on the guitar. To the band, I elaborated theories on how I was looking for new musical structure and new ways of expression. I spoke of punk rock and heavy metal, but secretly listened to Bach, Beethoven, Paco De Lucia, Al Di Meola, Pat Metheny, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Stravinsky, Pink Floyd, Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg . . . Eventually, I started digging deeper into jazz. I was reading more and more. I began having less and less time for rock and roll with the boys. We weren’t rehearsing as often anymore. I wasn’t satisfied with the conversations we had anymore. Often, I felt like I was sitting at a dinner table with some distant relatives. We didn’t have much to say to each other. When all of us were hanging out together, Stella and I could not wait to ditch them, so we could switch back to our own frequency.

I read like a maniac then—Nietzsche, Kant, James Fraser, Berdyaev, Hegel, Levy-Strauss, Propp, Mircea Eliade, Freud, Jung, Barthes, Bachelard, and Schopenhauer, especially Schopenhauer’s The World As Will and Idea . . . whatever I came across, whatever was translated. I would spend hours drifting away with Castaneda’s visions, listening to Mahavishnu Orchestra. How indelibly did I mess with my head then?

*

I check into a shoddy motel a block away from Grand Ave. This neighborhood has a long-standing reputation for its nightclubs, pubs, striptease joints, hookers, and dope dealers. In the parking lot, there are old, beat-up Jeeps hung with surf boards and drying wetsuits. A bumper sticker showing a dog licking his thing reads: “Because they can.” This almost makes me smile.

I take a shower and shave. I register that the bruise on my face is even more noticeable. While deciding what to wear, I realize that I have forgotten to buy underwear, damn it. I put on my blue jeans, run down the stairs, cursing in my head, cross the dim lobby, pass the dark reception desk, and step outside.

The sun bursts in my eyes and, for the first few seconds, the police cars and the pointed guns don’t seem to have anything to do with me.

I freeze.

A very long moment passes until everything penetrates my mind and I understand that this is real.

Just then I reach down to zip up my still-open fly.

“Get down! Hands in the air! Let me see them! Get on the ground! Get down, get down, get down!” There are cops everywhere, leaning on the hoods of their vehicles, guns pointed at me.

I lift my hands in the air and fall face down on the hot asphalt. Here I am, you motherfuckers! Catch me! Cuff me and take me away from here. Shove me in the darkest prison, in its dankest cell. Rid the world of me. Take my health, my youth, my life, my time, take everything. I need nothing if she is not here.

And she’s not here.

Someone grabs my neck, pushes me down. Two strong hands search me for weapons. Handcuffs tighten around my wrists. All this hurts. My right cheek and the burning asphalt. The black shoes of the police officer pushing me to the ground. He pulls my wallet out of my back pocket. Out of the corner of my eye I can see him flipping it open with one free hand, looking at my driver’s license, and then dropping it on my back. He seems disappointed. They drag me behind the cars. I notice that none of the cops have changed positions. Then I realize that I might not be the only one with a problem in this motel. In the doorway I had just come out of a moment ago, a brown, muscular, tattooed body appears, throwing his hands in the air:

“OK, OK, OK, I’m here. Here I am, here I am.” The man looks calm.

He’s almost smiling, obviously resigned to his fate and the number of cops. Our eyes meet. The cops again start screaming for him to lie down. He breaks into a big grin as he’s kneeling down. He bends forward and, just before his body hits the ground, his face twists. His right hand disappears behind his lower back, and reemerges quick as a snake, holding a pistol.

“Die, bitch, die!” He yells, shooting at me. Gunshots from everywhere blend into a single, long, deafening bang.

Seconds later, it’s strangely quiet again and his body is lying in the parking lot. One of his legs is trembling. My ears are shrieking. Gravel chips are stuck in my cheek, the back of my head itches, my eyelid twitches. And I am handcuffed.

Blue uniforms swarm the body. I hear the wailing ambulance and police sirens. Onlookers appear out of nowhere. Somebody shoves me into the back seat of a squad car. As we take off, I see how trickles of blood begin creeping out from under the dead body.

The next hours pass in taking fingerprints, running a background check, and a long Q&A session. The detective interrogating me is more or less my age. He assures me that this is something he has to do, it’s nothing personal. He offers coffee and I turn it down. He tells me about the shoot-out. The suspect who was shot and killed was a gang member wanted in several states for the possession and dealing of narcotics, gun trafficking, racketeering, rape, and the murder of a police officer, etc. . . . He most likely thought that I had ratted him out or that I was an undercover cop helping with his arrest. He most likely wanted to take me with him wherever he was going. Who knows what actually passed through his head along with the bullets.

“Well, that’s about it, Zack.” It seems like the conversation with the detective is almost over. “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding.” The detective hands me his card. “If you remember something on your way home, I’d appreciate a call.”

“No problem.” I say. I’m still summing up the facts. While I was studying photography I’d spent hours adjusting the camera so that I could capture a bullet going through an apple. That was one of my exams. Now I can visualize the bullet entering my skull and what will happen when it exits. I can also imagine the less deadly scenario in which they throw my ass in jail. If you have a good imagination, you don’t need life experience. “If I remember something, I’ll call, sir.” We shake hands and I am almost out the door when I hear:

“I forgot to ask you, you’ve got a car here, right?” I stop with my hand on the doorknob. My heart is about to burst. Why don’t I just open the door and run? Why don’t I fly out of here like a fireball and burn to ashes anyone who dares touch me? I take a deep breath before I answer. I furrow my brow in what is supposed to look like an astonished wasn’t-it-enough expression and slowly turn to him.

“Which car is yours?” I hear his voice as if there is a thick, glass wall between us. I tell him the model. “Oh? Great,” he says. “License plate?” He is writing something down. Plate, plate, plate . . . I can’t remember the license plate number. It’s my wife’s car, for Christ’s sake. It is Stella’s car. And I realize that I am in deep, thick, slimy shit. I realize something else, too. Not only have I gotten myself into this shit, but I’ve also dragged Stella into it as well. Why did you have to go anywhere, baby? Why did you have to go back to yourself?

I hope my mom won’t think her son is a drug dealer. I hope my sister will still believe in me. I hope that everybody one day will understand that what happened during these last few days was only an accident. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

But then again, every place is the wrong place, and every time is the wrong time, if you are not there, Stella.

“I can’t remember the license plate number . . .” I stammer. The detective lifts his head from the paper he is writing on and puts the pen back in the jar. He gives a rather absent look and smiles. “OK, no problem. If the vehicle was damaged by bullets directly or by ricochets or whatever . . . call this number. Your insurance might need more information. This is the number to call. OK? Do you need a ride back to the motel?”

*

—have you seen those really old photographs where people look kind of stiff?

—yes

—cameras were very slow back then and they needed to pose for an hour or even more for just one shot. they had to stay still. they needed to put braces on people’s necks so they wouldn’t move

—what a nightmare

—now, what I want from you is to stay very still and not move at all . . . just for fifteen seconds

—like this?

—yep. i’m taking this picture at a very low speed

—why?

—because i believe that the longer i keep the shutter open the more life gets captured on the negative

*

I cannot stay in the motel, of course. FOX News and Channel 10 trucks are parked next to my car. Reporters, photographers and camera crews are walking around. A helicopter is hovering above, it’s a total circus. I take my stuff from the room, stop at the reception desk, but, guess what, I don’t need to pay anything.

I find another motel, throw myself across the bed, and fall asleep immediately. I have a dream that I’m in my grandparents’ old house in their village. It’s winter. I press my forehead to the frozen window and look at the snow-covered backyard. Suddenly, in the distance, I see an animal running toward me at great speed—as only happens in dreams or films. The next thing I see on the other side of the glass is the enormous, toothy head of a gruesome wolf. I pull away from the window, but I just can’t stop looking at him. I wake up. I don’t know where I am. Evening is nearing and I’ve slept through yet another sunset. I close my eyes and let my head fall back on the pillow.

*

As time passed, I became more and more depressed by my own inability to master the guitar. I found a teacher and started taking classical guitar lessons and spent countless hours practicing—technique, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios. I wanted to play like Steve Vai, but everything I tried sounded like the Sex Pistols. Sometimes, at night, I dreamed that I could play like a virtuoso. My fingers obeyed me. They moved wonderfully, joyfully fast. In my dreams, I extracted each note with no effort whatsoever, as if I didn’t play the instrument but rather thought with it. There were no secrets for me. I wanted to share all this with Stella and the world. I would be awakened in the middle of the night by difficult, gorgeous symphonies echoing down through the nothingness. I would desperately chase them, trying to grasp at least a few chords with which to put together a song. The results were murky reflections of the real music which flowed through me and which I was incapable of capturing.

We were still poor, but managed to keep our heads above water. We were together all the time—not just hugging, but clenched to one another. We were both excellent students, even though we never studied too hard. We received scholarships and lived in a cheap, small loft from which we could see the red roofs and beautiful sunsets. I started taking pictures and writing short articles for the local paper to make money. I had a Russian camera and a Bulgarian typewriter. The most expensive thing I owned, though, was the Stratocaster. My calling, my gift—I had fooled myself into believing then—was music. Stella never seemed to question her true calling—she just kept on painting. In the uninhabited space adjacent to our loft, she made an improvised studio under the eaves where she started experimenting. Since we didn’t have any money for art supplies, she painted with anything she had at hand on anything she could find—oils on bed sheets, industrial paint on cardboard, house paint on sheet metal.

I wonder where all those paintings are now?

*

It’s cool outside. I find a coffee shop. I order espresso. I sip it as I write some random thoughts in one of the notebooks. Why do I write them down? For whom? Another diary by someone who didn’t need a diary until recently? Aren’t there enough losers in the world already?

I ask the girl behind the register where the cool places are for Friday nights around here. I don’t learn much besides that it’s cool everywhere Friday night. Life begins Friday night. America lives for Friday night! TGIF, America!

It’s still before eight. I leave the coffee shop. I find the closest movie theater. The movies playing this summer are mostly stupid sequels of stupid movies that were playing the summer before. I debate for a while before stopping on a flick starring Jack Nicholson. Stella finds him repulsive as both a man and an actor.

I get out of the movie theater around ten. The film wasn’t bad, not at all. Only Jack Nicholson . . . Isn’t there anybody to tell him that those days are long gone and acting with your eyebrows isn’t funny anymore?

I decide to walk until I reach the ocean and, after that, I haven’t really decided what to do.

The bars start filling up. The night gets cooler with every block. Music sounds from the open restaurants and bars. The ocean is near. I can feel its chill. I can hear it. Here it is.

There are moments when you expect the answer to come precisely from there, from that endless dark mass they say we all crawled out of. I walk through the sand until I reach the water. That’s it. This is where the west ends. And here I am at its very edge. Here I am—at the brink of Western civilization, whose sunset I slept through today.

So what’s beyond this? The East?

I take off my shoes and let the ocean, calm as a cat, lick my bare feet. The foam wraps around them. I close my eyes and inhale—the ocean’s scent now reminds me of blossoming linden and smashed watermelon.

Pacific Ocean, what am I doing here in your calm caress while the Black Sea thumps inside my head?

There is a lifeguard tower further down the beach, and I see a few figures dragging wood and trying to start a fire. From time to time one of them cups her hand around her mouth and yells toward the closest pub: “Bobby-y-y-y-y-y-y-y, you asshole! We’re out here-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!”

*

Things with the band started stalling. We weren’t going anywhere. I dreamed of arenas, but we were playing small bars instead. I wanted best-selling albums, but the boys were happy if the local radio played a song or two of ours. I wrote scripts for our music videos with helicopters and car chases, but I didn’t have the money to buy decent guitar picks. I was so naïve. Stella accepted all this with an unfathomable understanding. She did not judge me. And I looked at life as if somebody somewhere had promised me something. I am asking myself now whether my craziness was contagious, or perhaps the daydreaming of those first years of freedom from the communists had pervaded everyone’s minds, even the most skeptical of us.

Or perhaps youth made things seem so inexplicably possible?

*

I shake the sand off my feet, put on my shoes, and head back to the nightclubs and Friday mood. There’s a long line in front of every place. It makes no difference to me which one I choose. I pause in front of one that is almost right on the sidewalk. Only a tall plexiglass wall divides the table-filled yard and the street.

I can see everything happening inside. Gestures, waitresses, customers, Bacardi, Jack Daniels, bartenders, TV screens, American beer ads . . . I get in line. Behind the glass are the pink tank tops, the bare midriffs, the lower-back tattoos, the ubiquitous California flip-flops, the silicone breasts, the chewing gum, the laughs, the bleached teeth, the artificial tans, the searching eyes.

Soon the line behind me gets longer. Across the street, one idiot gives another a piggyback ride. Both of them fall and start rolling on the ground. The line laughs. A Jeep Wrangler drives by and the three blonde girls in the back laugh and flash the crowd. Large breasts gleam and disappear into the night. The line screams its approval.

And then I notice the woman in front of me. More precisely, I see her semi-profile. The beautiful line of her forehead, her eyebrow. She shifts, slightly lowering her head to say something to the girl next to her, and I see her arms folded over her chest. There is something about the way she readjusts the jacket hung over her shoulder. I see her left fingers slightly caressing the fabric of the dark sweater and pulling it over her breasts. It’s not that she is cold, but more a reflex left over from the years when she had been embarrassed by her own body. Her pants are white and free flowing. The fabric, light and see-through (cotton? linen?), allows me to make out the line of her behind and her shapely thighs. Suddenly, she is aware of my stare and turns around to look at me. Our eyes meet briefly. I can’t tell if she likes me, but she doesn’t shut down.

Beautiful? In that particular way that seems visible only to me. In that particular way that urges me to reach for my camera. In that way that tempts me to pull out her inner beauty, the one others don’t see. She is attractive but she has never quite believed it. No one ever told her when it was most necessary. Her friend is a scrawny brunette, with slightly dark skin, thin lips, perky little breasts, and a high, round butt. She throws a warning look at me and I read the subtitles: “Fuck off, loser!” They go in first, then I follow. I tail them to see which of the bars they are heading towards, and I pick another from which I can see them. The bartender is quick, but the orders are piling up. All of a sudden, next to me, four half-drunk women show up. They are all blonde, wearing tank tops, shorts, and flip flops. Three of them could lose at least twenty pounds and would still be chunky. The fourth is beyond help.

I exchange glances with the woman at the bar across from me at the very moment a broad-shouldered guy with a beer in his hand approaches her. These muscled morons have a distinct way of holding their beer bottles—grasped firmly like dumbbells. From this distance, by the way the young woman speaks with words, gestures, and body language, I can tell she’s not American. And there is something about the way she keeps pulling on the sweater over her shoulders as if it’s a shawl or a light blanket. Obviously, the conversation with the body builder doesn’t go anywhere, as he is not the type to waste time talking, so he waves goodbye and approaches the next girl, as he would the next piece of exercise equipment.

The bartender leans over to take my order. I tell him what I want.

“Dirty martini.”

“With vodka?” He says.

“Absolute-ly!” Where could this young woman be from?

“Olives?”

“Three.” No, definitely not Europe. Actually, why not? Portugal, perhaps.

She could be Spanish. This quiet intensity in her. The bartender shakes the cocktail and pours the murky, greenish content into the chilled martini glass. I take a sip. Wonderful. I compliment the bartender. He thanks me humbly and asks if I want the ice from the shaker before he tosses it. Professional, a true professional. He asks me where I’m from.

“Bulgaria.”

“Never been there.”

“And you?”

“Michigan.”

“Never been there, either, but I went to school close by, at Ohio State.”

“Oh, Ohio State. The Buckeyes almost did it this year, huh?”

“Almost.”

“Are you a bartender?” He asks.

“Used to be. It’s how I put myself through school.”

“You know what you want.”

“I know nothing.”

“I meant . . . the martini.”

“Yeah, I know my martinis.”

“What did you study in Ohio?”

“Photography.”

“Cool. Is that what you do now?”

“No, I work for a pharmaceutical company.”

“You take pictures for them?”

“No. I stopped taking pictures some time ago.”

“So, what do you do now?”

“I monitor data from clinical trials.”

“Well,” he shrugs. “It pays the bills.”

“It pays the bills.” I say and order another one. I leave money for the two cocktails. He thanks me and goes to the other side of the bar to take a large order. I sip the second martini much more slowly. I feel its coolness crawling down my throat and penetrating my body, caressing my agitated nerves. I close my eyes and enjoy it. Nice. Maybe she’s Latin American. Venezuela? No, maybe Argentina. The tranquil grace, the walk. The tango in her eyes. Argentina. Definitely, Argentina.

“What are you drinking?” I hear a raspy voice to my left. I turn. The fattest of the four smiles, leaning toward me. The strap of her top has slipped down her round shoulder. Her bra is green.

“Uhh, martini. What are you drinking?”

“Long Island Iced Tea.” She manages to conceal her Southern drawl until the third syllable.

“Very good.” I say and get down from my bar stool to pick up something from the floor that looks like a dollar bill.

“So what are you drinking?” She asks again and leans toward me, exposing an even better view of her cleavage.

“Martini. And what are you drinking?” It’s not a dollar bill, it turns out to be a dentist’s business card.

“Long Island Iced Tea. And you?” I decide to see how far I can go.

“Martini. And you?”

“Long Island Ice Tea. And you?”

“Martini. And you?”

“Long Island Ice . . . But you asked me already. Wait, what happened to your face?” Goddamit, I had forgotten about my bruise.

“I fell down the stairs.” I take another sip of my martini and glimpse at the bar across from me. She is not there. Her friend is not there, either. I scan the entire place but she is nowhere to be found. I jump off my bar stool and start looking for her, climbing the stairs to the upper level. I can’t find her. I don’t see her around the bathrooms either, and I don’t see her outside where the smokers are hanging out. I don’t see her anywhere, ever again.