Hart & Boot & Other Stories (13 page)

So I’d suffer in silence, noble and alone, or maybe get drunk, finish the bender that Lily had interrupted all those months ago.

I didn’t actually do that, though. I got into my work as much as possible instead, editing a long software manual that had been translated incompetently from the Japanese, writing an article about the early American oil barons, researching world death rituals for an anthropology professor at one of the universities. Filling my brain with more useless bullshit, and crowding out all the bad thoughts about Lily and Martin, Martin, motherfucking Martin. It was a struggle every day not to call her, and finally, in desperation, I got involved with a woman who lived in my building. Her name was Marie, and she was a waitress/actress, dumb as a thumbscrew and attracted to my old misanthropic-ironic pose, which I’d donned like a suit of armor when Lily gave me the boot. We went to clubs, drank too much, and screwed. Such was life; familiar, empty, simple.

And then one day I was sitting at the coffee shop, reading one of the local papers, getting pissed off because they’d put a typo in the
byline
of my latest music review, so now my name was “Roy,” when I saw his name, that fucker’s name, that bastard’s name: Martin Chorus.

(“His name’s Martin
Chorus?”
I said, laughing. “He’s a musician, and his last name is
Chorus?”

(“It was ‘Khora’ originally,” she said, and spelled it for me. “A very old Persian name. But when Martin’s ancestors came to America, the immigration officials spelled it ‘Chorus,’ so that’s what it’s been ever since. Just a funny coincidence, that he’s a musician.” That was one of our few conversations about Martin.)

Martin was playing at a little jazz bar on Saturday, which was that night, at 8 o’clock. I looked at my watch. Four hours. Shit. There was no question. I had to at least get a
look
at this guy. And if Lily was there... I’d just tell her it was a coincidence, or I was covering it for a review, or something. I called Marie on my cell phone and cancelled our date. She wasn’t even that pissed. Marie was easy-going, and not bad in bed, but about as deep as a saucer. No comparison to Lily.

So I got dressed and went to the bar, a placed called The Stone Mirror, and took a table a bit back from the stage. It was a little before eight, and the place was filling up, but it was Saturday night, so that didn’t mean Martin was any good;
every
place was full on Saturdays. I looked around for Lily, but she was nowhere to be seen, which didn’t surprise me. She’d seen Martin play a million times, probably, and loving supportiveness only goes so far.

The band came on without introduction, setting up their instruments. A drummer, an upright-bass player, a guitarist, a keyboardist, a trombonist, and Martin, a trumpet case in one hand, a flute case in the other.

I’d never seen pictures of him—which was weird, when you think about it, it seems like Lily would’ve had a couple around—but the instrument cases gave him away.

I hated him at first sight. I wanted to eat his fucking eyes out of his head. I’d never had such a visceral reaction to someone before. It made sense; he’d stolen Lily from me, sort of, but still, my reaction felt extreme even from the inside. Martin had olive skin and curly black hair, and he wasn’t all that good-looking, really; his face was too round, almost babyish, and the resting position for his expression was a kind of nasty smirk. He wore a dark suit with kitschy, wide lapels, and he introduced the band members, his voice was nothing special, kind of deep.

I watched him through the whole set, and he was good, the bastard. He played trumpet and flute both, wringing out music violently one minute, playing soft and gentle with a master’s touch the next. I drank about four beers during that set, and once when the music stopped I heard myself
growling
, deep in my throat. I stopped once I realized I was doing it, and wondered if I’d been making that sound all along.

When the band took a break, I got up to leave, because I’d seen enough. He was a good musician, looked like kind of an arrogant bastard—he took his applause like it was his due, not gracious in the slightest—and what else could I expect to learn, just watching him?

On my way out the door, someone yelled, “Ray!” I should’ve left, but I stopped, and turned around, and there was Martin, approaching me, holding out his hand. I shook with him, feeling like my brain had been scooped out. He knew me. It hadn’t occurred to me that Lily would have talked to him about me, or that he might’ve seen pictures, but of course there
were
pictures of Lily and me together, in the country, in the park, just hanging out.

Martin grinned at me, and he seemed to be friendly, but it was still a smirky smile, and I thought maybe he just had an unfortunate face, an asshole’s face. “Good set,” I said, which was the best I could come up with.

“Better than some, worse than others,” he said. “Have a drink with me?” He should’ve been sweating after all that work he was doing on stage, but he was totally cool and fresh.

Having drinks with Martin was not an experience that fell within my comfort zone. “Thanks, anyway, no. I’ve had enough already tonight.”

“Don’t have a drink, then. On me.”

I still wanted to kill him—and people say that all the time, but I
mean
it, part of me wanted to slam his face into a table until you couldn’t tell where skin ended and wood began. But maybe it would be good to talk; hell, maybe he was going to tell me he was breaking up with Lily and I was welcome to take over, or that Lily dug me so much he’d decided to make an exception and let her see me while he was in town.

I know. Fat chance. But a guy’s gotta dream.

“Sure, I guess I don’t have anywhere to be.” So we sat down at a tiny table, way too close together, our knees touching. I slid back and crossed my legs, crossed my arms over my chest.

“What made you decide to come here tonight?” he said.

I shrugged. “Heard there was a good band playing.”

He looked amused. “You didn’t know I’d be there?”

“Yeah, I knew it was you.”

“You wanted to get a look at me.”

I shrugged again, beginning to think this was a bad idea.

“You think I’m... competition. But you misunderstand the situation. There is no competition. Lily and I go way back. Farther back than you can imagine. We belong together. We’re the same, I have a connection with her that you never can. We’re closer than blood, Ray. She liked you, I know, though she didn’t want to tell me much about you. I found the pictures tucked into one of her drawers, that’s how I recognized you, but she didn’t volunteer to show them to me. I wondered if I would see you around.”

“Hey, Lily already dumped me, Martin. You don’t have to do a follow-up, okay?” I wanted to make him eat a beer glass.

“No, no, that’s not what this is about. What Lily and I have cannot be harmed or lessened, and for that reason, I
don’t
see you as a threat. I am a... hungry person, Ray. I demand a lot of Lily’s time. But...”

I uncrossed my arms. This sounded like it might be going my way after all.

“We occasionally invite people to bed with us,” Martin said. “Women, men, whatever. I’ve romped with Lily and many of her other summertime romances. She didn’t seem to think you’d be interested, but...” He raised an eyebrow and then, horribly, reached across the table, and brushed the back of my hand with his fingers.

“No thanks,” I said, not even thinking about it, not even weighing the pleasure of being with Lily against the instinctive revulsion I felt for Martin—the revulsion won, with no calculation necessary. But I was already confused; Lily had told me that Martin was jealous, that he didn’t play well with others, and now here he was, coming on to me! Was Lily lying, trying to get rid of me? Using Martin as an excuse for a breakup she wanted to happen anyway?

“Ah,” Martin said. “Pity. Oh, well. I’ve got to play another set, Ray. Nice meeting you.”

He went back to the stage, and I went out the door, miserable, thinking,
Sometimes it’s better not to know.

***

That night I slept alone, and dreamed of lions, but it was different, this time. Before I’d always delighted in my strength, my grace, the sheer wonder of my leonine form... but now I sensed that something was terribly wrong. Something was rotten on the savanna, and I don’t mean the leftovers from my kills.

Walking, trying to find the source of my unease, I came to a place of tumbled rocks. An old lion lay stretched on a boulder, his mane pure white. He sat with his head on his forepaws, watching me, and I settled down before him, respectful, quiet. I was the head of my pride, the ruler of this territory, but I knew this old lion was something bigger— maybe even a god among lions, at the very least a wise old cat, to have reached such an age. If he was a god, I didn’t feel any shock of the divine, or the overwhelming reverence that a human might have felt. I just felt respect.

There is a monster
, the old lion said—or gave me to understand, it didn’t use words.
An old monster. You must kill it.

I lifted my head, full of strength and indignation, and made it clear that I would hunt this creature down and kill it.

The old lion shook his head.
Not here
, he said.
The monster is here, yes, but only as you are—in pieces, from long ago. You have to seek him out in the other world. It does not look like a monster there, any more than you look like a lion; but that is what it is, and what you are
.

“I don’t understand,” I said, and I wasn’t a lion anymore—just me, naked and cold, crouching on freezing rocks.

Perhaps you will
, the old lion said, and the sadness in him was as heavy as the world.
Or perhaps you will die.

The old lion rose and padded slowly away, without looking back, and I woke up in bed, thinking:
Martin
.

No, I didn’t decide Martin was a monster, and that I had to kill him. This isn’t a story about me turning into a raving psycho—I don’t think. At least, I’m convinced that the things I saw later on, the unbelievable things, were real, as real as hangovers and overdue rent. After the dream, I
did
think I was getting a bit obsessive about things. I mean, Lily had made it clear I was out of her life; whether the reasons she gave me were true or false didn’t ultimately matter. If she’d lied to spare my feelings, hell, in a way, that was being
nice
, wasn’t it? So I tried to forget about her, and Martin, and really get on with my life, not just pretend to do so.

And maybe that would’ve been it, I would’ve healed with time and all that, if I hadn’t seen Lily, and if I hadn’t known the guy she picked up.

Look, it’s a big city, right? The odds of me running into Lily were pretty low, so I didn’t worry about it. I avoided a couple of the bars that I knew Lily really liked, but otherwise, I went about my business. So it was a bad sharp shock when I was in a club called Ugly Everything, propping up the bar while Marie danced with whoever, swinging by every once in a while to urge me onto the dancefloor, but I just kissed her cheek and said I’d rather watch her dance, tonight. She was flirting pretty hard with a blonde girl in a short vinyl skirt, who kept throwing me these meaningful glances, and I thought there might be some intriguing three-way action in my future, which made me happy in a vague sort of way—and then I saw Lily.

Oh, she looked hot. She wore a tight black dress that stopped at mid-thigh, and she had her hair in pigtails, and she wore black boots. I’d never seen her dress like that; she wore dresses pretty often, but nothing so... well...
slutty
. I’ve got nothing against slutty, mind you; “slut” is hardly a pejorative term in my lexicon, it was just a surprising side of Lily, one I’d never seen before. I looked around for Martin, but didn’t see him, and I had a funny feeling that I’d know it if he were here, sense it somehow, or smell him, like something rancid in the air. That didn’t make sense, but I’d had enough to drink to accept the idea, almost enough to drink to go talk to Lily. Then I looked over at Marie and the blonde, dancing hard in the sweeping lights. I sucked back a little more of my drink, and decided I was better staying in my current situation. Hot sex was a poor substitute for true love, but it was miles better than loneliness and rejection and the ego-bruising I would surely take if I went and talked to Lily.

But why was she here, alone, without Martin? She looked like she was on the prowl, too, dancing with boy after boy (I couldn’t help glancing at her, keeping track of her movements on the dancefloor). Had things fallen through with Martin, or had he left town already after just a few weeks, or was that stuff about them being exclusive just bullshit, as I half-suspected? I realized I was pissed-off at her, well and truly, and wondered how long I’d been feeling that way without realizing it, surprised I’d had to get a little drunk in order for those feelings to bubble up to the surface.

I didn’t go over to her, and she never looked my way, but I saw her leave with Steven Lee. Steven and I had shot a lot of games of pool together, and gotten drunk together a couple of times; we weren’t exactly friends, but we had lots of friends in common, and we got along well enough. So when I saw Lily leading him toward the door, holding his hand, while he grinned dopily at his good fortune, I almost shouted, almost told him to be careful, she was a viper, she had a stone cold heart... but I didn’t say anything. I just watched them go, and even though I believed then that Lily
was
a tricksome viper, I was jealous of Steven, too. Because I still loved her. That shit doesn’t go away. It’s not like a poison you can suck out.