‘Let me go,’ said Sarkis Alaverdian. ‘My pants are getting crushed.’
But Benny had him by the left hand, trying to pinion that one too. And all the time – this giggling, this weird luminous excitement on his face.
Benny was smooth and white, a stranger to the sports field and the gym, but he had two arms and he used them to slowly press Sarkis’s stronger arm flat against the rubbery-looking epoxy. He snapped the clip around it with his teeth and chin.
He knelt for a moment, and brought his face close to Sarkis. ‘Don’t think you can walk out on me,’ he said. His expression had changed completely. No smile – just small pink hot spots on his cheeks. His breath was cold and antiseptic.
Sarkis felt a prickle of fear run down his spine. ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘Very funny.’
Benny stood. ‘Funny?’ he said. ‘You just stole my first sale. You cost me three thousand fucking dollars. Then you think you can walk away from me.’
Sarkis acted as normal as he could be with his backside in the air and his head full of blood. He tried to look his captor in the eye, but could not twist his neck enough. ‘You admitted yourself, Benny,’ (he was talking to the buckle of his belt) ‘it was your fault too.’
‘You don’t get it, do you? Why did I say it was my fault? How could it have been my fault? Why do you think I’d say it was?’
‘You were going to do this to me?’
‘Sure.’
‘You made this thing? What’s it really for?’
‘For this,’ said Benny.
‘O.K.’ It hurt to twist his neck up, it hurt to leave his head down. ‘Now let me go.’
‘Let me go, let me go,’ Benny mocked. He took a step away to a place where Sarkis could not even see his shoes. He was somewhere behind him, near his back. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking – I gave you a family position. Do you appreciate that? I gave you my brother’s position. You are some slime off the street. You are no one. I offer you a ground-floor position. You could make two hundred thou a year. And all you can do is fuck up my sale, and then you try and walk out on me.’
‘Hey relax.’
‘Oh no, you relax, mate. You relax a lot. You should have listened to my aunt,’ Benny said. ‘This is a serious business you have got yourself involved with.’
‘What do you want me to do? Stay or go?’
Sarkis twisted his head sideways and this time, found him – the little spider was arranging a sheet of orange plastic on the sofa.
‘Stay or go?’ Benny laughed through his nose. ‘You’re going to have to be more clever than that.’ He was fussing with the sheet of plastic – wiping it with a rag, smoothing it with his hand – so he could sit down without dirtying his suit. When he sat he made a crumpling noise.
‘Stay or go,’ he said. He arranged himself with his legs crossed and his manicured hands folded in his lap. He smiled at Sarkis just as he had smiled at Gino Massaro.
40
Vish knocked on the cellar door, not once, but many times. When he opened the door, still uninvited, Benny was sitting on the rumpled orange sheet on the couch and staring at him. He was the only neat thing in the middle of this stinking mess and he had laid himself out, so to speak, with his hands folded on his lap, as pale and perfect as a wax effigy.
He had changed the lighting since last night. He had altered the direction of those little reading lights which had originally been above the beds in the family home. He had rigged them up so they shone on the webs of handwriting on the distempered wall, on the green concrete ceiling, on anything but where you’d want a light to be. The room was criss-crossed with the shadows of electric wires.
Vish stepped forward on to an empty ice-cream container. He stumbled and put his hand down to stop him falling.
He put his hand on to a living thing. His heart whammed in his chest.
‘Shit,’ he said.
It was a human being, he saw that. He got such a fright he could hardly breathe. He had his hand on a man’s buttocks.
The man was lying on his stomach and had to crane his neck so he could grimace up at the yellow-robed figure to whom he looked like a gypsy at a country show. He had a little wisp of beard under his lip and trousers made from some velvety material. He showed a lot of teeth, like someone about to be cut in half on stage.
‘You left it too late,’ Benny said. ‘I found another brother.’
Vish held his kurta close to his chest and peered down at the poor fellow who had been pinioned in position like a butterfly. The man stretched up his head again and rolled his eyes at Vish. He had white dry stuff in a rim around the edges of his lips. Vish observed this and accepted it like he might have accepted the presence of a goat or a policeman.
‘Anything you want to say to me,’ Benny said, ‘you can say to Sam. He’s my brother.’
‘Help me,’ Sarkis said.
‘He’s only joking. No one needs you.’
‘Please,’ said Sarkis. ‘My legs are hurting.’
‘Is this what you call being an angel?’ Vish said.
‘Do I look like an angel?’ Benny sneered. ‘You think I’d live down here if I was a fucking angel? No, I’m not an angel – I’m an attachment. Isn’t that it? Isn’t that what they call me at the temple?’
Vish smiled and smoothed the air as if he was patting the roof of a sand castle. ‘Even if they do say that …’
‘No, you said that – your guru doesn’t want you to have attachments. So now you’re free.’
‘Who is this bloke?’
‘This is Sam. He’s my brother. He’s going to make two hundred grand a year. He’s going to do an F&I course next week …’
‘Don’t hurt him,’ Vish said. ‘He hasn’t done anything to you.’
‘Don’t side with him. That’s fucking typical. You don’t know what he’s done to me.’
‘You’re an accessory,’ Sarkis said to Vish, twisting his head upwards. ‘Why don’t you phone the cops, before you both get in a lot of trouble?’
‘Listen to him,’ said Benny. ‘He’s smart.’
‘You want me to call the cops?’
‘Don’t ask me. Ask him. I’d like to know myself.’
‘You want me to call the cops?’ Vish asked the man. He came closer to him so he could see the dried white stuff around his mouth and his slightly yellow blood-shot eyes.
The man was quiet for a moment. It looked as though he was trying to swallow. ‘Just let me go,’ he said. ‘I’m losing circulation.’
‘See,’ said Benny. ‘I’m just calming him down. He got excited.’
‘You’re right,’ Vish said. ‘You’re not an angel, you’re an insect. You’ll live and die an insect, a million times over. I’m sorry I ever listened to your stupid story. I’m really sorry I came back down here.’
Benny’s lips opened and he went soft around the chin. He stood up, but he put out his hand towards his brother as if he meant to stroke his sleeve. He took the fabric between thumb and forefinger and held it. ‘You give me dog shit to eat,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll still grow wings. It’s my nature. It’s who I am. I’ll tell you, Vishy, they burn us, they shoot us, they pour shit on us and lock us in boxes, but you cannot trap us in our pasts.’
Vish shook his head again.
‘We could be lying around lighting our farts, or doing Ice or M.D.A.’
‘Help me.’
‘One more peep out of you and you’re in deep shit,’ said Benny. To his brother he said: ‘I need you.’ He held out his hand.
‘I need you too,’ said Vish. He took the hand and held it.
Benny looked at him and blinked.
‘We’re brothers,’ Vish said. ‘It is an attachment, but I’ve got it. I put you here, that’s right. It’s my responsibility. So now,’ he grinned, putting his hand around his brother’s neck, ‘I’m going to get you out of here, tonight.’ He made a move on Benny, trying to get a half-nelson on him, but Benny slipped out and started shouting and flailing with his bony hands. Vish stepped backwards and fell off the plank, twisting his leg and falling backwards into the pool of water. A glass fell and shattered. As Vish rose, his yellow robes clinging wet against his barrel chest, Benny came at him with the power cord from the toaster, twirling it like a propeller. The plug smashed a light globe, and bounced against the back of Vish’s hand, and head. He retreated, holding his hand round an injured ear from which fat drops of blood fell, tracing a dripping line up the perforated metal steps to the world outside.