Alice Fantastic (3 page)

I nodded dumbly, tugged on Turbo's leash, and followed the man with the missing tooth to his car.

He helped me usher Turbo into the backseat where she plopped down, pleased at our adventure's unusual turn.

“I'm Billy, by the way,” he said as he simultaneously maneuvered the car into traffic and gave me another handkerchief, this one plucked from the glove compartment of his Saab.

“Eloise,” I said.

“Nice to meet you.”

Billy kept Turbo entertained outside the hospital the entire two and a half hours it took for me to get taken care of. As I got my lip numbed then sewn up by a young and enthusiastic resident, I thought of Billy. It made no sense. I am not impulsive with men. That's my sister Alice's department. I prefer getting to know them, building up tension, making sure the attraction is solid and that the individual in question is not married or mentally ill.

When I finally emerged from the ER, I found Billy and Turbo standing out front. Turbo was gazing up at him, obviously communicating something. Billy in turn was looking at Turbo as if she were the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth.

“She's an incredible dog,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed, coming closer. I looked up at him with what I hoped was less obvious longing than Turbo's. I stood on tiptoes and kissed his mouth.

He was surprised at first. He pulled back fractionally, then returned the kiss, trying to be gentle on my injured lip, wrapping me in his long arms, crushing me to him as if he'd been waiting for me for years.

“This is unusual,” he said, when he pulled back from me.

“What is?”

“This affinity I feel for you.”

“Do you usually dislike people?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that's sad.”

“How can you possibly say that?”

“Isn't life more interesting when you can look forward to chance affinities?”

“I hadn't considered that,” he answered. “Can I take you home with me?”

“Yes. Please.”

We put Turbo in the backseat then got into his car, driving to his place way down on the Lower East Side where, Billy told me, he's been living since the days when boys with sawed-off shotguns stood on the corners guarding the street drug trade.

“I used to get knifed and mugged a few times a month back in the day,” Billy said, in that wistful way people in their forties speak of New York as a very different place, a place where anything was permitted and the rich were confined Uptown.

Billy's apartment was on the top floor of an old four- story building that had once been some sort of factory. The apartment was airy with high ceilings, old rusted steel beams, and a wall of windows.

“Is your dog a cat chaser? I have cats,” Billy said.

“No, she's fine with my cat. How many cats do you have?”

“Three,” he said, “but I guess they're all hiding.”

Three?
I thought. But before I could thoroughly examine the red flags raised by the fact of multiple cats, Billy threw me down on the bed. He pinned my arms back and stared at me so deeply I thought he was going to paint my portrait. I was surprised by his intensity. Then surrendered to it in a way I couldn't remember surrendering before.

He explored every inch of my body with his large hands and his soft mouth. He penetrated me with his fingers and then his very thick cock. I had a fleeting thought of condoms and with it AIDS, herpes, gonorrhea, and syphilis, but some part of my mind whispered,
Don't worry, Eloise, let it go
. And I did.

“Do you run dog fights?” Billy asked at some point, maybe 4 a.m., after we had exhausted each other and were laying in the darkness, flat on our backs, shoulders touching.

“What?”

“Turbo's ears are cropped.”

“Do I look like I run dog fights?”

“Yes,” he said, putting his hand between my legs.

“She was that way when my mom rescued her. Someone probably tried to get her to fight but she's about the least aggressive dog I've ever met.”

“Are you a paratrooper?” he asked then.

“Where'd you get that one?”

“The hitch in your giddyup. The scars on your thighs. I thought you'd jumped from a plane and landed awkwardly.”

“Oh,” I said. “No. No plane jumping. Though I flew one once when I was eighteen.”

“And the hitch will remain a mystery?”

“Yes,” I said for reasons I failed to understand. I usually love telling all about the manhole crushing my pelvis and, if I trust and like the person, I even hint at the money the city gave me in exchange for swallowing me. But I didn't want to discuss such things with Billy.

I fell back to sleep, my head in the crook of Billy's neck, and woke as dawn was breaking through the wall of windows. Turbo was licking my face.

“You need to go out?” I asked the brown dog.

She looked at me meaningfully and wagged her tail.

“Okay,” I said softly, not wanting to wake Billy.

As I searched the floor for my pants, Billy suddenly sprang from the bed and ran into the bathroom. I put on my clothes and was looking for Turbo's leash when he came back out, fully dressed.

“Oh,” I said, “you're dressed. You want to come walk with us?”

“Walk?” He looked confused. “No, I have a lot of things to do. You're going home now, yes?”

“Excuse me?” I said, shocked. It wasn't even 6 a.m.

“Don't take it personally. I just have things to do.”

I stared at him without blinking. He stared right back. There was nothing on his face. His eyes were a washy blue.

Turbo looked from me to Billy and back, sensing that something had gone wrong.

He offered me cab fare. I considered seeing if Turbo understood the command
Kill
.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, his eyes wide and innocent-looking.

“What could possibly be wrong?” I spat.

“Eloise, don't be upset, I have things to do. You were awake. I figured you have things to do too.”

“Millions of things,” I said. “Come on, Turbo.”

I marched to the door, yanked it open, then slammed it behind me and went down the stairs as fast as my hitched giddyup would permit. Turbo bounded at my side, like we were heading for an exciting adventure.

I stood outside Billy's building half expecting him to come to his senses, call out to me, etc… . But he didn't. A rat scampered toward a garbage can.

I walked to Houston Street where, after hailing four cabs, I found one who was willing to take Turbo and me.

I got home, fed Hammie, and got into bed.

The phone woke me.

I grabbed it without checking the caller ID. “Yeah?”

“Are you sleeping in the middle of the day, you little slut?”

“Hi, Amy,” I said. “Rough night.”

Amy is my money manager and confidante. I met her on the subway one day when I dropped my keys and she picked them up and handed them to me. We'd gotten to talking and I'd trotted out my story of the manhole incident and even told her about the money. She was appalled when I'd confessed I had it all sitting in a savings account.

“Your money should be working so you don't have to,” she'd said.

I don't like money enough to send it to work. But Amy convinced me to let her tend to my modest vat of cash. This she does at a greatly reduced fee as she keeps hoping I'll sleep with her even though I've always made it clear that that's not on the horizon.

“What was rough about it?” Amy asked brightly.

“I had phenomenal sex.”

“With a woman, I hope.”

“Of course not.”

“What do you mean, of course not? You'll see the beauty of my ways someday. There's a big dyke inside you just waiting to get out.”

“Un huh.”

“So?” said Amy.

“So what?”

“Who was the lucky stud?”

“Some rotten piece of crap.”

“Nice.”

“No, he wasn't very nice.”

“That's what I meant. Nice that he's not nice. Who wants nice?”

I could tell Amy wanted to go on and on like this, but her endless appetite for sex talk had actually started to get tiresome. She never wants to discuss the things I am genuinely curious about, like her bicycle racing career, her mountain climbing expeditions, or even her high-powered job. To Amy, that stuff is all too personal. Yet she'll gladly go into graphic detail about, say, a corpulent virgin she deflowered with her fist.

“Was there a reason for calling, Amy?”

“Yes,” Amy sighed, “I made you some more money.”

“Oh, thanks.” I felt slightly embarrassed. If the money grew enough, I'd have to do something with it. Have an extravagant spending spree. Give it all away. Something.

“Are you okay, Eloise? I know the Indio thing was awful for you. And it doesn't seem like you've acknowledged that.”

“I've acknowledged it,” I said curtly.

“Okay. I'll leave that one alone.”

“Thanks.”

“I suppose I will release you from the bondage of this call now.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I put the phone back in its cradle and it rang again. This time my sister, Alice.

“El, do you know any cops?” she asked after a cursory greeting and a brief inquiry into my emotional state.

“Cops? What for?”

“Do you know any?” Alice asked insistently. “Not that I'm aware of, Alice, no.”

“Shit,” she said.

“What is it? What did you do now?”

“Nothing,” Alice lied.

Alice liked playing this game. Getting me to extract information from her. In fact, she'd get downright furious if I didn't. It was even more exhausting than detailing my sexual exploits for Amy. Why was everyone in my life so tiring?

“Alice, why do you want to know if I know any cops?”

“Clayton got into trouble.”

“The big oaf?” I asked. I was pretty sure the guy who'd been borderline stalking my sister for several months was named Clayton, but I'd never heard her call him anything but The Big Oaf.

“Let's call him Clayton for now.”

“Okay. What did Clayton do?”

“I can't tell you that. I was just wondering if you knew any homicide cops you could talk to.”

“Homicide? Shit, Alice, did he kill someone?”

“It was an accident. I'm just trying to find out if anyone's pursuing the case. There was a little mention of it in the papers right after it happened, then nothing.”

“Jesus.”

“Don't say
Jesus
, Eloise. Religion is too incendiary. I get angry just at the thought of it.”

“Alice,” I said, “what happened exactly?”

“I like Clayton a little.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know. We shouldn't talk on the phone. The line might not be secure.”

“Ah,” I said.

Alice had had a crystal methedrine phase in her early twenties. She and Mom had gone on a few speed jags together, Alice coming back to stay at the old apartment on Charles Street, before Mom moved to Woodstock and went into Narcotics Anonymous. The two of them would gnash their teeth and overzealously clean the house. Mom, of course, didn't know when or how to stop and got so skinny she nearly died. Alice one day decided speed was unhealthy and stopped doing it. But she has a touch of residual paranoia.

“He pushed someone,” Alice said after a pause, during which she presumably wrestled with herself about her need to tell me what happened versus her paranoia about the phone line. Her need won out. “It was an accident. Guy fell on the train tracks and got run over by a train.”

“Oh my god.”

“Don't say
God,
please.”

“Alice, I'll say what I want. And I don't need to hear about any more bodies right now.”

“I'm sorry, El.”

“Your oaf is a homicidal maniac.”

“You know that's not true.”

“How do I know that?” I demanded. “The guy lives in a parking lot.”

“He's living with me now. And it was an accident.”

“I don't know what to tell you, Alice. I don't know any homicide cops. Or any cops at all.”

“What about your friend Dennis?”

“He's a fireman, Alice, not a cop.”

“Oh yeah. Well. Shit.”

“How's work going?” I asked even though I could never quite get used to the idea of gambling being my sister's work.

“Fine. Holding steady.”

“Right,” I said. “Well …” I added to coax her toward hanging up.

“Okay then.”

Alice hung up. I knew I should have pressed her a little more about the Clayton thing. Tried to see exactly how worried she was, if she really cared for that big oaf. But I didn't have the strength.

I crawled back under the covers.

The next few days blurred the way they do sometimes when I've gotten new fabric and am drawing up various trolls and beasts to render in felt and buttons and big awkward stitching. I drew, then I cut fabric and started experimenting. I had failed with my first dog-headed cockroach. The head was so enormous the animal couldn't stand, even on the eight legs I'd given it. The new model was a slightly smaller-headed version and I was giving it thicker legs.

Between bouts of work, I walked Turbo. Some days, I talked to Amy Ross or to Mom or to my friend Jane who has four kids by four different fathers and lives in New Jersey.

One morning, I was in the bathtub with a Lyle Lovett CD playing as loud as Jeff from downstairs will tolerate. I was soaking in Epsom salts after taking Turbo for a six-mile run the previous day.

The landline rang, and for some reason, I decided to answer it even though it was probably a telemarketer. I scampered out of the tub, grabbed the cordless phone, then jumped back into the bath before answering.