“But that’s crazy!”
A chill of anger and admiration went up my spine. She tossed her hair and laughed.
“You got to let the good times roll a little. You have no idea how much good it did me.”
She took her jacket off and undid the scarf that circled her neck like a multicolored snake.
“I’d love some coffee,” she said. “Darn, look at my hands. Got to wash them.”
I went to the window and lifted the curtain with my finger.
“Hey, you sure no one’s after you? You weren’t followed?”
“No, they were pretty stunned. No one even had time to lift his ass off the chair.”
“Next time the cops will be out there surrounding the house. I can see it now…”
“Jesus, you always expect the worst.”
“Yeah, it’s true. I must be sick in the head. You go out and paint half the town crimson and I shouldn’t worry…”
“Listen,” she sighed. “You’ve got to get at least a minimum of justice in this world. You know? I’m not going to spend my life getting pissed off and not reacting.”
The story made the last page of the next day’s newspaper. Witnesses said they’d seen a “madwoman with two paint-bombs suddenly appear.” The end of the article said that the act of terrorism had not yet been claimed by any particular activist group. I tore out the article and put it in my wallet. I put the paper back in the pile while the guy at the newsstand had his back turned-there was nothing else interesting in it. I bought some cigarettes and gum, then left.
Betty was waiting for me across the street at a sidewalk café, drinking a cup of hot chocolate. The weather was clear and crisp. She looked into the sun and closed her eyes, her hands in her pockets and her collar turned up. She was so beautiful that I slowed down, walking toward her. This was something that would never leave me. It made me smile in the morning sun as if I’d just somewhere, somehow hit the jackpot.
“Take your time,” I told her. “We can go whenever you’re ready.”
She leaned over to kiss me on the lips, then went back to her hot chocolate. We were in no hurry. We’d decided to do a little window-shopping, buy what we needed to keep our teeth from chattering too much in the winter. The streets were already full of wolf, wildcat, silver fox, and red cheeks-a sure sign that temperatures were going down, and that the fur sellers were making shitloads of money.
We walked arm in arm for about an hour, not finding what we wanted, not really knowing what it was. All the salesgirls heaved sighs of relief when we left, then set about refolding the mountains of clothes we’d taken down off the racks.
The last place we went was this big department store. One step inside the doors and I thought we’d landed in a box of chocolates left out in the sun too long. I gritted my teeth to keep the perfume-music from coming in through my mouth. It’s unhealthy to breathe that stuff, something I’m not into. I didn’t say anything, though-I cut my losses with some chewing gum and followed Betty to the women’s department.
There weren’t many people, and I was the only guy there. I hung out for a while in lingerie, looking at a few of the items they had lit up-familiarizing myself with the latest zipping and hooking devices. It might have been a little voyage among the clouds, if it hadn’t been for the saleswoman, a sort of troll about fifty years old, with hot flushes and burn marks on her forehead from so many permanents. The kind who’s been laid maybe twice in her whole fucking life and does her best to forget it ever happened. Every time I stuck my hand in a basket of panties, or dared to stretch an elastic, she gave me the evil eye, but I never let go of my special industrial-strength smile. By the time she finally came up to me she was as red as the blood of Jesus.
“Tell me,” she said. “What is it exactly you’re looking for? Perhaps I can help you.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “I want to buy some underpants for my mother. I want the kind you can see the hairs through…”
She let out a ridiculous moan, but I didn’t see what happened next because Betty came and grabbed me by the arm.
“What the hell are you up to?” she asked. “Come on, I want to try on some things.”
She was carrying an armload of brightly colored clothes. On our way to the fitting room I got a glimpse of a price tag dangling from the bunch. I just about fell on my face-a belly-flop, like a tree struck by lightning. Then I just laughed.
“Hey,” I said. “You get a load of that? Must be some mistake. That’s two weeks’ salary…”
“Whose?” she said.
I cooled my heels outside the fitting room like someone left on a desert island-bare head and broken legs. I didn’t feel well. I didn’t have enough money to pay for half of what she’d taken. The poor dear-she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. I wondered how I was going to console her, except with a pale smile. Obviously the world was not yet our oyster. I heard Betty breathing and moving around behind the curtain.
“How’s it going?” I said. “You know you really don’t have to worry-girls like you, they look great in anything.”
She pulled the curtain back sharply, and what I saw made me choke. I put my hand over my mouth. She’d put on all the clothes at once, in layers. She looked like a two-hundred-pound fat-lady, with hollow cheeks and a very determined look.
“Jesus fucking Christ… no…” I said.
I closed the curtain quickly and looked around to see if anybody had seen us. Now I was breathing through my mouth. The curtain opened again immediately.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “In thirty seconds we’re outside.”
“Betty, please. I’m really not into this. We’re going to get caught, I can feel it…”
“Hahaha,” she said. “Us? Caught?”
She gave me a fevered look and grabbed my arm.
“All right, let’s go,” she said. “Try and look a little less nervous.”
Off we went. I felt like we were walking through rice paddies with Viet Cong hidden in the trees all around us. I was sure we were being watched. I wanted to scream: SHOW YOUR SELVES, YOU BASTARDS! LET’S HAVE IT OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL! It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other, with some invisible claw tearing at my guts. The closer we got to the exit, the higher the tension mounted. Betty’s ears were red, and mine were whistling. Sweet suffering Christ, I said to myself, two or three more yards and we’re home free.
Outside, the light seemed supercharged. I was seized by nervous laughter. Betty reached for the door. In the end it was all rather exhilarating. I was close on her heels, ready to take off like a shot, when I felt a hand tap me on the shoulder. That’s it, I’m dead, I thought-it’s over. I saw myself lying in the gutter in a pool of blood.
“STOP! DON’T MOVE!” the hand said.
Betty was out the door like a jet plane.
“Don’t stop! Lose him!” she advised me.
Like an idiot I turned around. I don’t know why. A taste for defeat sleeps somewhere in us all. The guy had two arms, two legs, and a badge. He thought I was going to follow Betty’s advice. He was wrong. I was actually in a state of shock. For me the war was over-I had half a mind to start citing the Geneva Convention. Still, the bastard took matters into his own hands: he gave me a good one, right in the eye.
My head exploded. I flapped my arms and fell backward against the door. It opened, and I landed on the street on my back, my legs tangled together. I lay there looking at the sky for a second, before the guy’s head appeared over me like a mushroom cloud. I could see out of only one eye-the film started turning at high speed. He leaned over and grabbed me by the lapel.
“Get up,” he said.
A few people had stopped on the sidewalk. Free show. I hung on to the guy’s arm as he lifted me up. I was planning to make a gallant last stand-a surprise kick in the balls, perhaps-but it turned out I didn’t have to. This fat girl came at him, with her foot to the floor in a head-on collision while he was still half bent-over. I fell backward again and the guy plastered himself like a pancake against the door of a parked car. A ray of sunlight shone on me. The fat chick put her hand out.