My neck ached, and I bought an ice pack, wedged it up against my headrest. My tongue was a mess. I still tasted Ondine. Deep in Pennsylvania I ate a coq au vin quesadilla. It’s what Jesus would have ordered, and it was delicious.
I had to drive fast, before I ate too much road food.
The ragged rider, Davis had called himself, but I couldn’t parse the phrase. I was naturally undetective.
Clues clenched me up.
—
I’d booked a tiny room in the Hudson Lux in New York City, high up and hushed, a loneliness box of polished walnut and chrome. You could picture yourself dead of a hanging jackoff in such a room, your necktie living up to its name, your lubricated fingers curled stiff near your hips. I stretched out on the narrow bed, decided not to picture this. It wasn’t the kind of thing I figured I’d ever try. Aficionados cited the bliss spasm caused by air loss, but I wondered if most got orgasmic on the gamble. Anyway, everything in my life was a gamble, a wager that somebody would see to my needs. Was I secretly here because I thought Davis would somehow fit the bill even though he was sick? If so, who was sicker?
Now I shut my eyes, and Davis loped into view. He stood in an orchard of pomegranates, his legs greaved in a low, personal mist. Tall, homely Davis, with his hamster-fluff hair and granny specs.
We used to sip espressos in the campus café. Davis would read from his critical works: “In truth, of which there can be no certainty, the Peter Frampton phallus must be unfurled from the constrictive denim of manufactured desire’s sweatshop.”
I loved his papers, these phrases that seemed to trickle out of a plastic port under his shirt or hiss from slits in his hands. I wasn’t one of those narcissists who thought I had to understand something for it to be important. Besides, he wasn’t wrong about whatever the hell he meant.
He wasn’t wrong about much. I rarely went to lectures. Davis tutored me.
We drank beer in the old sailors’ bar and Davis would whisper about the Russians — Pushkin, in particular, whose story “The Shot” he so admired.
“Pushkin invented Russian literature as we know it,” he said.
“But I don’t know it,” I said.
Davis studied Latin, computers, knew some physics, dabbled in questions that plagued those he sneeringly called the string-cheese-theory people. He taught me to marvel at the elegance of Nagle’s law and the Peck conjecture, though maybe they had other names. Even words associated with counting undid me.
We slurped whiskey in our basement apartment with our friends and possible friends. Davis was the savior. I was his handsome disciple. Eventually Davis would get huffy about the cigarette smoke and stomp around the piles of books and laundry, the stray Stratocaster, the tripod with the liquid swivel. We were making an experimental video for our band, the Interpellations, but who wasn’t?
“How can you breathe in corporate death like that!” Davis shouted one night. “Smoke the kind, like me.”
“We’re not hippies,” said Caldwell, neobeat goblin. “I’ll take the bourbon of my fathers.”
“But this is the one thing the hippies got right!” Davis said, held aloft his cinnamon-scented bong. “Maybe they sold out the working class, but they grooved! Anyway, there are too many of them. So few of us. They will rule our lives forever. They will never pass the torch.”
“Do we deserve it?” I said. I guess I’d gotten tired of being his disciple.
“I do,” said Davis.
“So what kind of ruling-class motherfucker are you,” I said, “to be talking about the torch?”
I knew this would bother him. He’d been born into citrus money. We’d get crates of tangelos delivered to our door. Also, his girlfriend, the Brilliant Brianna, which was her official nickname, had made some late-night sojourns to my ashy mattress. Davis starred in the Invention of Monogamy seminar, so his hands were tied, so to speak, but I could tell he seethed.
“Be nice,” Brianna mouthed now, but I plowed on, foolishly, for her, I imagine. I was not yet heart literate.
“Davis,” I said. “Davis.”
“What is it, Sasha, my brother?”
“My name isn’t Sasha.”
“Is it something?”
“Davis,” I said. “You’ve grown clownish. I’m sure you’re right about the cigarettes. But you’re not our father.”
“I don’t believe in fathers,” said the goblin Caldwell. “Except my bourbon fathers. Listen to Sasha.”
“Davis sucks,” called a girl near the stereo. “Sasha, or whatever, is our hero. Ask Brianna.”
Brianna ducked her head, but Davis caught her eye. He threw her an evil glance as he departed. We stayed, drank, smoked, forgot bad things. We laughed. We stood up and sat down. We impersonated each other standing up and sitting down. We told tedious stories about our childhoods, feigned enthrallment. That part of the evening arrived when people sat closer together on the carpet. One groupuscule, a reedy boy and two brawny women, groped and giggled, mashed their faces for a trilateral smooch. Brianna and I fell entwined into the couch.
“What makes you think you’re smart enough to talk to him like that?” she whispered, tongued my ear. “You’re just a dumb piece of gash. We like you for your innocent enthusiasm. Remember that.”
“I will.”
“No, you won’t.”
That’s when Davis returned with his velvet-lined mahogany pistol case. A brace of Berettas gleamed from their notches: compacts, pearl handled, gold flecked. We broke our clinches as Davis called the room to attention.
“Big happenings, entertainment-wise, folks. Gather round for what will prove a violent and transformative highlight of your lives.”
“Guns?” called a tall fellow with a can of dip. He was a theater jock from Texas, which meant he affected flasks and went bare chested under his pleather vest.
“Put those away,” said Brianna. “Davis, this is not funny.”
“It’s just a game. They’re not loaded.”
“What game?” said Brianna.
“Come, Princess,” he said to me. “I mean, Countess. Choose one.”
“You’re drunk,” said Brianna.
“Somewhat. Also stoned. Why do we even say stoned? So brutal. So Levitical. Pick a pistol, dreamboy. We’re going to play out that scene for our friends here. From the Pushkin.”
“And then will you can it?” I said.
“Like Steinbeck.”
“Goddamn ridiculous.” I hardly looked at the pistols, drew one from the box, took a position near the stereo. The girl who stood there smirked.
“They’re not loaded,” I said.
“Bummer.”
I shrugged, raised the pistol at Davis.
“Did I grant you first shot?” said Davis.
“I’m following the story. I’m the young, handsome soldier everyone has left your orbit to be near. You are the older, bitter officer who can’t compete with my charisma.”
“Funny,” said Davis. “Not exactly as I saw it, but I admire your hustle. You framed the scene first. We’ll go with your version.”
“It all fits, Davis. You called for the duel. You’re the crack shot. I’ve never even fired a gun.”
“True. Well, on with it, then. You may have the first metaphorical shot, you upper-crust social usurper. Just flick that safety off.”
“What about the tangelos?”
“My poor father has a little tree. Now take your shot.”
Our audience, stymied in their lust, groaned at our stagecraft.
I grinned and pulled the trigger. Davis fell back with the bang. There was a neat hole in the drywall.
“Shitsnickers!” called the kid with the dip.
Brianna swayed in shock. The goblin squealed under the table, and the girl by the stereo clutched her ears.