No bite.
Fer wanted the flop joint, and Dade conceded.
When he caught up with Sherry a few hours later, he almost didn’t recognise her, her hair was short, coloured brunette, she asked,
“So, you like it?”
He hated it. Before, she’d looked a little like Tammy, now she looked like an accident; he waited a beat too long and she snapped,
“The fuck you know.”
He moved to touch her, got his hand slapped away, felt the familiar rage coast, tuned out... A moment, refocused, heard,
“Anyway, it’s not like it’s permanent, just till we get this Irish prick buried.”
Dade wondered... who?
He asked,
“Who?”
She glared at him, used her down-home voice, the trailer trash out to play:
“Dun tol’ you the whole fang, who whacked my ol’ man, the prick, he sees me now, he don’t know me, he saw a blonde but now...”
Back to her own voice:
“I coldcock the sucker.”
Dade had forgotten the whole thing, so caught up in partying, it seemed like Sherry had been round forever; he asked,
“What makes you so sure this cat is going to like... you know... come to town?”
A smile now, a smile of pure maliciousness, her anger replaced by a lethal certainty, she tapped a smoke, got it in her mouth, lit, exhaled, said,
“He’s coming. A young guy who works at the Lazy 8, I slipped him a couple of bucks, keep his eye on the register, new guests, like that.”
Dade figured, from that smile, she’d slipped him more than a few bucks, something further as a sweetener and realised with horror, as an icicle slid along his spine... he was like... jealous? The fuck did that happen, and seeing her eyes, knowing she knew. His carefully constructed persona, the composite he used to cruise, was flaking away. He needed more dope, felt a pain in his gut, needed violence, managed to ask,
“What makes you so sure he’ll show?”
She was stubbing at the cigarette, in the way that women do.
Halfheartedly.
Dab it, maybe twice in the ashtray, short stabbing gestures, attention focused elsewhere, leaving the goddamned thing to smoulder, like it no longer had any connection to her. When Dade had done his jolt, the years behind bars, he’d read some psychology book, found it in the yard, first fifty pages shredded, for a spliff or toilet paper more likely, took it back to his cell, began to read it, trying to get a fix on his own self. All sorts of interesting shit, like a man, strikes a match, he strikes in inwards, living recklessly, the flame not a problem. But a chick, always strikes outwards, protective, away.
Dade was fascinated by that detail, somehow realised that in that data was the massive chasm between the sexes. Excited, worked up, he’d shared the info with his cellmate, a supremacist outta the hills of Kentucky. The guy, picking his nose, with intense concentration, said,
“Like, who gives a fuck?”
Chow time, Dade had put powdered glass in the bigot’s stew, early in the morning, the cracker on his knees, spitting blood, Dade asking,
“Like, who gives a fuck?”
Sherry said,
“He had CDs delivered yesterday.”
Dade was confused, she sighed, explained,
“The Mick, he had stuff posted from New York, so, like, he’s arriving... soon.”
She opened her bag, took out a slip of paper, read,
“The music store, East Village, he likes music, I’ll give him some songs, I’ll give him some thrills.”
Dade blew it off with,
“Don’t mean nothing.”
Her voice raised, going,
“Over two hundred bucks on CDs?... he’s coming.”
Dade veered another direction, asked,
“You stuck on this guy, that it?”
In a cold exact mimic of Dade’s remark, she sneered,
“Don’t mean nothing.”
He shucked out a cig, got a book of matches, lit up, striking outwards, trying it, didn’t work, couldn’t do it. She reached over suddenly, fury writ large, snapped it alight, he asked,
“So, what’s the deal, why you going to all this trouble, I mean, if the dude don’t, like, mean nothin’?”
Got some edge in it, let it sound mean, she got right in his face, the Juicy Fruit he’d given her, all over his nostrils, her eyes huge, said,
“The fuck walked out on me, upped and left... like... like I was a one-off!”
Dade went,
“Uh-huh.”
She was in front of the mirror, checking her hair, frowning, said,
“Nobody, no two-bit Mick fuck walks on me, not now, not ever.”
Dade filed the warning.
“I looked around the bar. There were five men in the
bar and no women. I was back in the American
streets.”
Slan go foill.
A common Irish term for “See you later” or... “That’s it.” But there is an undercurrent, depending on the intonation. You hear the old people, at the graveside of a loved one, whisper the words with a sadness beyond articulation. The meaning hangs in the air, dances a little with the sway of the breeze, then is washed away by the rain. A faint echo lingering as the evening falls.
I was standing outside the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art. The showcase was a collection of old masters: Mantegna, Raphael, Titian, Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt.
Not what you’d expect in Vegas, right?
Why I loved America, the rules only existed to be reinvented and if dollars could buy a dream, then bring it on. In my head was a DVD I’d watched of Bill Hicks... Jesus, his death, what a waste. I’d thought the paintings would part balm my wounded heart. But I’d flitted past them, my awareness of the beauty only intensifying my pain. The very first time, Siobhan, we’d made love, her lying in my arms and she turned her face up to me, asked,
“Will you mind me?”
Siobhan had never, never in her woesome life asked anyone for anything, and careless, without thought, full of afterglow, I said,
“I give you my word.”
She’d said,
“I’m going to keep you to that.”
What had I been thinking?
Siobhan was dead.
Everything pointed to that conclusion. Still, I’d have to go to Tucson lest she was somehow, against all odds, alive.
So I turned away from art, felt the heat from the desert brush my face, uttered,
“Slan go foill.”
An indication of my state of mind, I wanted to be in Brooklyn, to walk Third Avenue, stand on the corner of Fulton and Flatbush, trace the border between downtown and Fort Greene, stroll carefree (as fuckin’ if) on Nassau Street to McCarren Park, heading towards the Russian church, open a savings account at The Williamsburg and, in the evening, sit on the bleachers, pop a Bud, watch the neighbourhood kids play stickball.
I missed Brooklyn, how weird is that?
I come from a country steeped in culture and without a backwards glance, I’d have settled in Park Slope.
Or better, head for the Jersey Shore, my Walkman going, Bruce with “American Skin,” I’d be wearing a Yankees jacket, baseball cap riding low on my eyes, tan chinos and Docksiders on my feet, sifting the sand with my boat shoes, I’d sing along to the chorus, imagine Patti Scialfa giving me the enigmatic smile.
By fluke, I’d caught a classic episode of The Sopranos, when Tony and Christopher set up Adriana to be whacked by Silvio. It was the in-joke that made it so memorable. Silvio is played by Steve Van Zandt, original member of the E Street Band... Silvio is late, and Tony hollers,
“Where da fuck you been?”
Christopher, in a tone dripping with venom, says,