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It begins as a low rumble in the distance, as darkness beds down for night. The clouds infiltrate the purple sky in shredded silver columns, preceding the massing bulkhead. The clapboard house across the street lights up in the flash of God’s Instamatic. ”One one thousand, two one…” My count is interrupted by thunder like fireworks exploding in the upstairs room. Then sirens, first a fire engine, then an ambulance. Cop cars and taxi cabs are all that I can see drive past.
Another flash. ”One one thousand, two…” Another round of fireworks, just a little louder than the last, and I feel the first droplet, on my right ankle, exposed as it’s crossed over my left thigh. I look down at the suicidal raindrop on my ankle and a second droplet shatters on my nape. I drag on my cigarette. I exhale a cloud just thinner than the approaching thunderhead and toss the butt into the street. I stand up. I pick up my aluminum and nylon lawn chair and fold it up. I put the folded chair under my arm, and walk up the steps. I knock on the heavy steel screen door and look up into the mirror above the door. I hear a loud buzz and the door comes open with a thud, like dropping an aluminum baseball bat on a linoleum floor. I open the unlocked wooden door behind the screen. I bring myself and my chair inside, and close the wooden door behind me. I lean my chair just to the right of the door jamb and sit on the sofa under the stairs. I hear the heavy steel screen door thud shut and lock again.
I lay across the couch, my head on the armrest farthest from the door, my knees hooked over the other armrest, feet hanging over the side. I interlock the fingers of my hands and put them behind my head. I swing my feet in gentle alternating rhythm against the couch’s vinyl upholstery. I drum the pads of my interlocked fingers against the knuckles opposite. The couch is too short for my whole torso, so I’m bent at the waist and the hammer of my pistol is poking into my gut. I take the gun out of my waistband and set it on my belly, on top of my shirt. Another roar of thunder, the sound of God hitting a broken bat home run. It sounds so much farther away through the heavy wooden door. The cold seems so much farther away. The storm is here but I am warm and dry. My eyelids weigh a kilo each. I close my eyes.
I dream I’m in the home dugout of my high school baseball field. There’s a game going on, but I’m in the dugout. Coach has me by the lapels of my blue and silver varsity jacket. He’s yelling at me. He’s throwing me onto the field. I’m taking off my jacket and grabbing my glove and I’m running out to right field. The grass is dried yellow green and the sky is cloudless white gray. The batter seems a mile away. The pitcher winds up and delivers. The tiny batter swings, and connects, and the ball is flying towards me, its creamy white leather invisible as it rises against the milky sky. The crack of the bat reaches my ears.
I’m awake and the heavy wood door is splinters flying at me. I cover my face with my forearms and roll into the back of the couch. The gun slips from my belly and is pinned against the sofa. I turn my head and see black helmets and black machine guns and black gloves and black boots and black flack jackets. I’m torn from the sofa, my pistol falls to the floor. I see shag carpeting and feel those heavy boots on my back, on my arms: pinned behind my back. I feel cold metal around my wrists and the hot friction of the marbled brown shag against my face. Upstairs, another crack of the bat, and another and another, closer and smaller than the thunder, sharper, like m80s, like gunshots. I close my eyes.
January 11, 2009
I dream I am in Washington. I’m in the Capitol, in the statuary hall. I hear deep voices, but they echo so thickly I can’t make out the words. The echoes multiply and the voices deepen to become a churning cacophony, gnawing at itself and spawning simultaneously. The noise is insufferable: a tangible presence replacing the oxygen, a black adenoid swallowing elegant marble busts and intricate plaster moldings and, finally, my thoughts. Endless dark. And then bright white fluorescent light. I am in the Capitol, in my office, in my black leather swivel chair, behind my oak desk.
My wife appears in front of me. Her hair radiates a crimson halo. It is brighter than the day we swam in that azure cavern off Capri. She is naked and her breasts are pert and firm and her pubic hair is that same candied red. She comes towards me in silence, and I back the chair on its casters away from the desk. She kneels between my feet, unzips my pants, pulls out my flaccid penis and puts her hands behind her back. I take her by the hair and she opens her mouth. Her lips are full and smooth and red and glossy. I guide her mouth towards the tip of my penis, resting on the black wool of my suit pants. As her tongue touches the glans, she looks up and smiles and her teeth are razor sharp and her face is old and spotted and warted. Purple and crimson bruises ring her eyes, visible through her wax-paper skin. She lunges forward, and I tug her hair against it. She breaks free, swallowing my member. Her hair comes out in my hands in dull matted clumps. I wake up.
I am cold. My shirt is wet with cold sweat and sticks to my back. I sit up and put my elbows on my desk and rest my face in them, by my chin, on the heels of my palms. I rub my temples with my fore and middle fingers. I look between my hands at the agenda on my desk. The black ink swims on the white page, my head pulses. I pick up the beige telephone receiver from my desk and dial “714″. I hear a ring in the receiver speaker a second before I hear Laurie’s phone ring next door.
“Lorena Garcia.”
“Laurie, it’s me, I’m ready to go over today’s itinerary.”
”You sure?”
“Yeah, come on over.” I take off my coat and drape it behind me, over the back of my vinyl chair. I fold the right cuff of my shirt over, then fold it over again. I fold the thickened cuff one more length up my arm. The creases start to slip, the fold becomes a tangled roll of cotton-polyester blend, I push the roll just above my elbow. I repeat the process with the left sleeve. The door opens and Laurie walks in.
“Feeling better?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Ok. I went ahead and cleared your morning anyways. Armistise is gonna be your first appointment, so you’ve got a couple hours to relax. You should take it if you’re not feeling well, because you have a ribbon cutting at three, and then a police awards ceremony at 5.”
”Do I need a tux or anything for the awards?”
“No, you’re gonna be overdressed like that. We’ll lose the tie on the way over there.”
“Anything else?”
“The Union called, they want a quote on HR-765, and the woman with the hangnail on Medicare, Mrs. Delano, she wants a personal response from you, or she says she’s filing a malpractice suit.”
“Can she do that?”
“I doubt she’ll win, but she can file the claim.”
“Ok, send her a letter saying I’m sorry for her discomfort and that we uh, take very seriously all claims of malpractice by Medicare doctors and that we’re ‘looking into the matter’.” Laurie scribbles it all down on a note pad. When she goes back to her office, she’ll transcribe the note to her computer, and then send it to her BlackBerry and then e-mail it to the intern, who will write the letter to Mrs. Delano. “Is that it for the day?”
“Except for the private fundraiser tonight.”
“Shit. Do I need a tux for that?”
“No, it’s a luau theme.”
“What?”
“It was your wife’s idea. The caterers are doing a roast pig on a spit. ’Bringing home the pork’. Get it?”
“Very funny.”
“But that’s it. And you have two hours until Armistise is expecting you at the barbeque place. Anything else, or would you like me to leave you alone?
“That’s it.”
”Alright,” she says, neatening her manilla folder, “you’re sure you’re alright?”
“I’ll be ok.”
“Ok, let me know if you change your mind, if you need someone to talk to.”
“I will. Thank you. I’m alright.”
She leaves and closes the door behind her. My eyes fall on a photograph of myself and Sylvester Stallone. I lay my forehead on the cool wood of my desk and close my eyes again. My head pounds. I stand up and walk out of my office, down the hall to the men’s bathroom. I lock the door. I stand over the sink and splash water in my face, rubbing my face with the palms of my hand, slapping my face back and forth between my two hands. The faucet squeaks as I turn it off. I set my hands on the edges of the sink and lean in to the mirror for a closer look at the bags under my eyes. I feel the sink start to give as I put my weight on it, and I quickly stand up straight. I jiggle the sink. It feels like it’s attached by the pipe alone. I look in the mirror and make sure my hair is neatly parted, and I leave the bathroom. I walk through the maze of aides’ cubicles, to the elevator doors. I press the “down” button. It lights up. I press it again, jamming it into its socket, again, again.
“In a hurry, sir?” the intern asks.
“You have no idea.”
”Where are you headed?”
“The Grotta Azzurra.”
”Is that a new restaurant?”
The elevator doors open, and I get on the elevator. The elevator descends, stops, and the doors open again. I exit the elevator into the lobby. I see plastic ficus and shrubs, polyester flower petals and a fish tank. I see waiting room chairs upholstered in mauve and taupe. I walk through the lobby. I push its glass double doors open. I leave the home office.
I wake up and I don’t know where I am. I realize there’s someone next to me and a twinge of panic drops in my stomach. I blink my eyes and rub them and look around. I look at my wife, next to me in the bed. Her red hair is matted against her face, her mouth agape, her eyes still closed. I sigh in slight relief and pull the covers off myself. I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly and then do it again. I rub my left temple with the fore and middle fingers of my left hand. I rub my right temple with the fore and middle fingers of my right hand. I rub both temples. I get out of bed.
In the bathroom, I turn the shower on, to let the water heat up. I take off my silk pajama bottoms and the matching collared top. I sit on the toilet. I push my penis down between my legs and piss. I try to shit, but nothing happens. Steam begins to fog the glass shower doors and I get off the toilet. I reach my right arm into the shower, making sure it’s not too hot. I get in the shower. I let the water rinse over my body, until I’m wet all over. I take the bar of soap from its built-in enclave in the shower wall. I rub the soap between my two hands, to build up a lather.
Holding the bar in my left hand, I rub the lather from my right hand along my left forearm, then my left bicep and tricep, then my left shoulder. I scrub the lather vigorously into the hair of my armpit, scratching the skin underneath with the fingernails of my right hand. I rub the lather on my chest and stomach. I cup my testicles and rub them with the warm soapy water in my right hand. I take the shaft of my limp wet penis and gently squeeze it. I cup my hand over my penis and my testicles and rub them clean. It feels good and I take hold of the shaft of my penis again. I stroke it several times and it doesn’t get any harder and I give up. I rub the bar of soap between my hands again. Taking the soap in my right hand this time, I use the lather in my left to wash my right forearm and bicep and tricep. I scrub my right armpit as vigorously as the left.
With my right hand, I rub the bar of soap in circles on my right ass cheek. I switch the bar to my left hand behind my back and rub circles with it on my left ass cheek. I run the bar through the crack of my ass and rub the residue into a lather with my right hand. I lather both my legs and feet. Then I let the falling water of the shower rinse me clean.
I turn in small circles under the water, feeling its warmth on every part of my body. I feel its temperature start to fall. I stand directly under the nozzle and let what little hot water remains pummel the nape of my neck. I count backwards from ten. ”Zero.” I turn the water off and grab a crimson-red terry-cloth towel from the shower door.
I scrub my hair dry, and then drape the towel over my back and pull it towards my ass, to dry my back. I dry my chest and my arms. I remember what my arms used to look like, how firm my chest used to feel. I dry my penis and my testicles, and run the towel between my legs to dry the fleshy expanse between my genitals and my asshole. I dry my ass and the back of my thighs and my thighs and my calves and my shins and my feet. I hang the towel back on the shower door and I flush the toilet.
I brush my teeth with the whitening toothpaste in the medicine cabinet. I comb my still-damp hair, parting it down the right side. My hair is still black, still full. I walk naked from the bathroom. The sunlight peeks around the heavy brown bedroom curtains, embossed with hundreds of tiny golden fleures-de-lis. My wife lies in the same position, hair matted the same, mouth still agape, eyes still closed. I dress myself in a navy blue suit with a white collared shirt with buttoned stays. I choose a solid red tie. I slide my feet into a pair of black patent leather shoes. I thread a matching belt through the loops of my suit pants. I take my wallet and my car keys from the nightstand on my side of the bed. I look again at my wife and leave the bedroom. I pick up my briefcase in the foyer as I walk out the front door.
In the car, I listen to local talk radio, a show called, “Mikey in the Morning.” Mikey is telling a caller that he’s naive about immigration. Now Mikey is talking about me. Mikey is saying that I am naive like the caller. He’s saying that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I should be fired. He says that I’m a fat cat. I turn the station to classic rock and The Beatles are singing, “a crowd of people stood and stared.” I stop at the chain coffee store in the strip mall a block away from the home office. I order a small coffee. I look in my wallet and realize I don’t have the two dollars I need to pay for the coffee. I hand the girl behind the counter my credit card. She asks to see my ID and I show it to her. She laughs.
“What’s so funny?” I ask her.
“Nothing,” she replies, still laughing, “it’s just that you have the same name as our congressman.”
”What a coincidence,” I say.
She looks at me again and the smile disappears.
“Wait,” she says, “Are you him?”
“Guilty.” I raise my right hand like I’m swearing an oath.
“Wow,” she says, “What are you doing here?”
“Work.” I take my coffee and leave. In front of the home office I pull the gold Toyota into a parking spot with my name painted on the asphalt between its confines. I get out of the car and walk into the office. I get in the elevator and press a button marked “4″. The elevator goes up and the doors open. The intern at the reception desk sees me and stands up.
“Hello, Congressman!” he smiles, “I’ll let Ms. Garcia know you’re here.”
“Thank you.” I walk into my office and close the door. On the walls are pictures of myself. There’s one of myself and the president and one of myself and the last president and one of myself and the Lion of the Senate and one of myself and the chief of the Chumash Indians and one of myself and the foreign minister of Azerbaijan. On my beechwood desk is a picture of myself and my wife, swimming in the Grotta Azzura. Her hair is a brighter red in the photograph than it is now, my teeth a brighter white. There is a knock at the door. It is my chief of staff.
“Come in.” I say, and she enters carrying a manilla folder.
“Hello, sir,” she says, “Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Ms. Garcia.”
“Shall we get right to business?”
“We might as well.”
“Ok,” she says, opening the folder on my desk. She produces an agenda and spins it around on the desk, so it’s top-up to my perspective, and slides it across the desk. Below it in the folder is an identical copy, which she picks up. “For lunch, you’ve got Armistise, from Veteran’s Affairs. He wants to talk about the new VA hospital, specifically the leasing agreements and future development clauses.”
“Do we have to do it at the rib place again?”
“I could try and change it, but he’s pretty particular.”
“No, the rib place is fine.” I set my elbows on my desk and rub my temples with my fore and middle fingers.
“Jet-lagged?”
“Yeah. Laurie, I’m sorry, can you give me five minutes.”
“Sure,” she says scooping the manilla folder off the desk, “just buzz me when you’re ready.”
She walks out and shuts the door behind her. I lay my arms across the desk and my head on top of them. I close my eyes.
i sit in the cold of new night. an older couple walks briskly by and i nod to them, unrequited. the darkened side street is quiet. there is a small aluminum floodlight in a cabinet inside. i am supposed to attach it to the top of the one of the double doors that is closest to the outlet above the cabinet. there is a rubber-coated clamp welded to the aluminum floodlight for this purpose. i am supposed to attach the floodlight to the top of the door, thread its cord over the door’s top hinge, through the gap between the open door and the jamb, and plug it into the outlet above the cabinet.
i am supposed to make sure the conical flood of light it emits falls on the cardboard cut-out of a six-scoop waffle cone as tall as i am. the light is supposed to make it easier for people to see the sign. seeing the sign is supposed to make people want to eat ice cream, which we sell inside. if passers by succumb to the sign, i’m supposed to scoop the flavors they choose, into the vessel they choose, and give them that vessel. they, in turn, are supposed to give me money, in an amount corresponding to the vessel they have chosen, which i am supposed to place orderly, according to denomination, in the cash register.
i’m not going to plug in the floodlight. i don’t want to sell any more ice cream tonight. not that the floodlight works that well, not when its cold like this. i smoke a cigarette and my stomach agitates at the settling darkness. a group of arab men passes in tight formation, tersely debating the youngest war as they go. a sliver of the conversation lingers after them and finds my ear: “what peace…” the way they’re dressed reminds me of the secular muslims who smoked cigars at the Café Bassam, when it was still downtown, when one could still smoke inside. when i worked as a valet. when i was supposed to park people’s cars.
