The War Against the Assholes (2 page)

3

Y
our nose is bleeding, Mr. Wood,” said Sister Michael. In addition to teaching us biology, she supervised study hall. She wrote me a pink pass so that I could go see the nurse. Ice pack and advice. Head back. Head forward. Does not matter. The nurse told me I needed rest. I asked her when exactly I was supposed to rest. “You think school is hard, you don't know anything,” she said. Couldn't argue.
No certainty exists as to the author of these traditions, relics of an age more daring than our own. We suffer now constraint on our every attempt to find room. And room is essential to the expert's art.
That's what I'd been reading right before my nosebleed came. A drop spattered the word
relics
. I went back to study hall with two plugs of toilet paper in my nose and kept reading.

I'd never reread anything before, for pleasure. Flipping back to follow his descriptions of shuffling methods, which I had trouble with because they were complicated and because he even wrote about shuffling cards in the manner of a second-rate actor, in that brazen, arrogant prose. (
Brazen
is a word I saw for the first time in the
Calendar
.)
Our eyes were opened and our education commenced; we proceeded along its difficult path through ceaseless study and tireless inner effort
,
wrote Erzmund. Close application and constant study. They advocated this sort of thing at Saint Cyprian's. It was not possible for me to take them seriously. The pages smelled rich and fragile. They didn't flake or tear. A few had faded brown stains on them: commas, periods. The book had one of those fake-silk tassels, as green as its cover, to mark your place. Not much bigger, as a whole, than a deck of cards. I carried it in my pocket during school hours, the gray hours of a private-school December. I like winter. Then again I like every season. Except spring. Blame my general love of life. I even enjoyed school. Though I was semi-hopeless at it. My grades had never risen out of their initial mediocrity. For which my parents had to pay. Twenty-nine thousand four hundred dollars, that year. I looked up how much Saint Cyprian's charged after getting another C in Greek. They wanted me to go to school in an elevated environment.

Greg Gilder returned the day of my nosebleed. He would not look me in the eye. He did stop calling me Morning Wood. The slice across the back of my hand healed. Gilder's nose was now crooked, and one of his teeth, an incisor, shone out, much whiter than its neighbors. A cap or a replacement for the one I'd broken. Hob noticed this and did pantomimes of me flicking away the tooth fragment whenever he and I were in a room together. Which was all day except for biology. He had physics. Gilder stayed quiet. Frank Santone and Simon Canary stopped huddling around him. Coach Madigan let up on him. The worst of it was I could not relax and enjoy my triumph. That's what it was. I make no apology. Gilder insulted me. I beat him, as he deserved. Nothing complex there. People get offended if you speak so openly about morality. His new tooth and crooked nose proved I was unsafe. Hob could have turned me in at any time. Coach Madigan still paired me with Gilder during gym. Which created unorthodox moral situations. I still took him down as cleanly as I could. He didn't fight it anymore; he seized up as soon as he saw me coming. When I hit him he was totally rigid. He stayed rigid as he fell. Coach Madigan said nothing about it. He ordinarily would have, seeing a player lame out. But he was a man not lacking in compassion. Hence the trips to Yonkers. I liked his mother. She was tiny, pure-white haired, bent into a hook. She served us at the end of every help session baked goods (last time it had been brownies) and lemonade, no matter the season. Too sweet, both. We devoured them. You lack real discernment at that age.
Youth
, says Erzmund
, is the greatest period of stupidity and suffering known to afflict humankind, and therefore when we left it we gave great thanks.

“Greg Gilder's back in town,” Hob told me. We were standing in a sheltered corner of Saint Cyprian's inner courtyard. Beyond us the football field gleamed greenly. We stood next to a gray metal box. Heating or AC, I assumed. No real idea. “I noticed,” I said. “You ready for round two,” he said. “I don't want to be a dick about it,” I said, “but that's life.” “Have you not been reading? Aren't you sick yet of thinking about life like that? Like it's just a bunch of shit that occurs. Happens to strangers. To anyone. To you. Aren't you sick of that?” “I have been reading,” I said, “but I don't see what that has to do with your metaphysics.” “That's a big word,” said Hob. He took out a deck of cards. “Are you ready for this,” he said. “I'm not not ready,” I said. I'd gotten in an hour of practice the night before, and two the night before that. Hob made a go-ahead gesture. I showed him
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
. This was the first trick in the green book. Erzmund described it with perfect simplicity: you pick up two cards from the top of the deck at the same time, show the bottom card to your target, replace the two-card packet, slide the top card into the middle of the deck, tap once on the new top card, and then lift it to show your astonished target that it's the card you first revealed to him, the one you so ostentatiously slid back into middle of the deck, that it's floated by secret means up through the solid plaque of cards to the first spot.
Thus you shall demonstrate the unconquerable desire of the low to rise
,
as Erzmund put it.

It's just a simple motion. The way you have to put a spiral on a football. That in my experience proved more difficult, which is why I ended up playing on the offensive line. Hand to deck, the quick reveal, “replace” the card (except it wasn't replacing the card at all), and then the big show. You just had to let your fingers feel how much pressure to exert. Nothing to it. As long as you didn't worry overmuch. That's how it is with most things in this unpredictable life. Hob told me to do it again, faster. So I did. “Faster, again,” he said. So I showed him. “Faster as in faster, meaning do it faster,” he said. So I speeded it up. I recognized his psych technique. Coach Madigan did it constantly. I went as fast as I could: show, replace, reveal. Show, replace, reveal. Hob stared at my right hand. The metal box hummed and vibrated. My heartbeat slowed. That weird calm descended. Show. Replace. Reveal. The cards slid against one another like stone slabs. Light and heavy at the same time. I couldn't hear anything except my own blood. My hand was moving with incredible speed and fluidity. I watched it move as though it belonged to a stranger and felt a vacant smile starting to stretch my cheeks. Hob's lips kept moving, too, and I made the mistake of focusing on them, which distracted me. His words started to come through the thump and buzz of my own blood. “That was pretty sterling, but you could still do it faster.” First thing I heard as I zoned back in.

Coaches talk that way to make you mad. Make you try harder. There's diminishing returns on it. After a point your anger doesn't do much for your skill. So instead of trying again, I left the deck on the metal box and asked Hob to show me a trick, since he was such an expert. “You don't actually want me to do that,” he said, “you'll just get frustrated.” “You can only sell me out once, you know,” I said, “you only have one bullet. Remember that.” “A metaphor,” he said, “I didn't know you had it in you.” That was all right. I don't mind being insulted. Except when I do mind. Erratic human nature. “Are you going to show me,” I said, “because I have to say you're taking your time.” “That is correct, Michael,” said Hob. He took the deck. He looked at the sky. I didn't see anything. Just cold sunlight. “Keep in mind I've been doing this a lot longer,” he said. “How much longer,” I said. “Like ten years,” he said, “like since I could pick up cards.” “Holy shit,” I said, “I haven't been doing anything for ten years.” “Well, you should try it,” said Hob, “it makes the time go.” What an old man would say. He was riffle-shuffling the deck. Five times. Seven times. “Enough,” I said. “That's fair,” said Hob. He pushed back his coat sleeves. His forearms pale and knobby. A scar crossed the left inner wrist. A black tattoo decorated his inner right forearm. An eye. Schematic, but an eye. He saw me staring. He lifted the shuffled deck in the palm of his left hand. “What happened to your wrist,” I said. “Observe, good sir, this ordinary deck of cards,” he said. His voice cheery. Booming. “Would you do the honors?”

“What do you mean,” I said. “A card, sir, say the name of any card,” said Hob. A wing-beat made him look skyward. “Four of diamonds,” I said. He stopped scanning the sky. Turned over the top card and showed me: the four of diamonds. “You had nearly a two percent chance of doing that anyway,” I said. He let the card tumble. Bright against the air. “Again, sir,” said Hob. “I get it,” I said, “okay?” “Once more, please,” he said, his voice steady, dead-even, hard. “No need for hysterics,” I said. I was ready to break his nose if necessary. “All this is done at your behest, sir,” he said. Waited. “Ace of hearts,” I said. He lifted the top card. “No, hang on. The queen of spades,” I said. When it was in midair. I wanted to fuck with him. He showed me: queen of spades. “Okay then,” I said. He let it go. The card tumbled and fluttered. “Once more, sir,” said Hob. A crow screamed. I said nothing. He showed me the seven of spades. “Once more, sir,” he repeated. The crow screamed again. “You're belaboring this,” I said. “Again,” he whispered. “I understand,” I said. “You do not understand a thing,” he said. His scarf rippling with wind. The crow screaming and hopping on the cold cement of the lunch court. Hob kicked a discarded apple core at it. Went wide. The crow clattered skyward. I would have hit it. That much I knew. I picked up the cards he'd let fall. I had the queen of spades halfway to my pocket before I saw her slight, sly smile.

4

E
ight of diamonds,” I said, and turned the card over. Three of hearts. “King of clubs,” I said, and turned the card over. Two of spades. “Nine of hearts,” I said. Turned the card over. It was, in fact, the nine of hearts. I flipped two more and guessed them both wrong. One of diamonds, two of diamonds, three of diamonds. All the way up to the top of the suit. I got another, the ten, correct. My luck was improving. My father knocked on the door and asked who I was talking to. “It's Shakespeare, we have to memorize Shakespeare,” I said. “It doesn't sound like Shakespeare, but who am I to judge,” he said, and thumped away. Four of hearts, five of hearts, six, seven: nothing.

At that point I started to laugh at myself. I mean that literally. I was standing in front of my bedroom mirror, wearing my gym shorts and nothing else, shaking and covered with sweat from concen­trating. Because Hob was trying to blackmail me. I didn't know why: the hilarious part. I had gotten through almost all the suits now, in the order of precedence Erzmund describes, hearts as the least and spades as the worthiest. I was quaking, holding back guffaws. If my parents heard these they'd assume I was high. I didn't want that. I just wanted to finish. When I got to the jack of spades, I had to grab the footboard of my bed. These silent laughs convulsing my torso. Painful, my memory suggests. I wanted to stop. I nearly set the deck down. I thought:
Just one more.
I said, in a loud, even voice: “Queen of spades.”

Even before I turned it I knew what it was. I just knew. In the mirror I saw her black hair and her hard smile. And then I blared out a brief and meaningless monosyllable. There was a line of human writing scrawled on the card. I dropped it. It fell facedown among the others at my feet. I located it and stared. I must have missed it earlier. This was, at that time, the sole possible explanation. Hob's handwriting. Spiky and neat. Next to the queen's mouth. I read it:
9th and C. 8 PM
. I checked the clock. I had enough time. So I dressed. I slow-walked, holding my shoes, out into the hall. My mother was watching a show about dragonflies and my father was using his exercise machine. Its wheels whirred and its cords whipped and whispered. “I'm going out,” I said. “It's a school night,” said my father. Breathing hard. Above the high-pitched noises of the machine. “It's not, actually, babe,” said my mother, above the British voice droning away about the diets of dragonflies. “You could knock me over with a feather,” said my father, “but don't be too late.” “I won't,” I said. Henry the doorman was asleep when I reached the lobby. His pasty cheek glued to his lectern and his cotton-colored hair leaking out from beneath his brown livery cap. The air outside was brick-cold. As soon as my foot touched the sidewalk a black sedan cruising Park honked. I froze. The car moved on, flashing its brights at no one I could see. I didn't have a car. My parents had one they kept in our building garage. This was true of almost everyone I knew. No one drove anywhere. Yet traffic and parked cars jam the city. A mystery of city life. City life contains a lot of mysteries. Part of why you stay there.

I was out of breath when I got there. I'd had to run as fast as I could, shoes slapping the frigid cement, from the subway to make it on time. Hob slouched against a facade. Smoking his brown cigarette. Near his feet, a quintet of stone-blue young rats had their sharp faces aimed at the asphalt. Gathered around the carcass of a bird. “Well, well,” said Hob. “Give me two seconds,” I said. “I thought you were supposed to be a top-notch athlete,” said Hob. “You have an archaic way of leaving messages,” I said. I stopped gasping. The rats chittered and lapped. “They're doing good work,” he said, “I hate crows. And don't worry about the blood. It's not a thing.” “Nosebleeds, scourge of the common folk,” I said. More silence. More rat noise. “They could be siblings,” I said, “look at their fur.” “As long as they finish it off,” Hob said. It looked finished to me.

I saw, after I'd lost interest in watching the rats eat the glossy bird, which did in fact appear to be a small crow, its ribs now naked and gummy with blood, the place Hob was taking me. One of those dim, inexplicable stores, its window full of objects I couldn't really discern until Hob flicked his cigarette against the glass. I saw: a headless, old-fashioned mannequin, with a wooden androgynous body and a wire cage for a head, to which were affixed two huge antlers. Across from it an old globe, ivory colored. Then the cigarette's coal shattered and I couldn't see any more. I saw the store's name, though, or noticed it: Karasarkissian's. “What is this place,” I asked, “and it's closed anyway.” “It's kind of what it looks like,” said Hob, “and
closed
is a relative term. There we go.”

He'd opened the door of the shop. “You didn't say anything about suborning burglary,” I said. Hob showed me the key. “I have a right to be here, and so do you,” he said, “or at least I think you do.” He lit up again as we walked in. I followed him. Stepped over a low black table in front of my feet. On its surface the blind-looking moon floated. The store was full of the same kind of crap—which is how I thought of it then—as the antlered mannequin in the window. Couldn't see much. A green statue of a fat woman, I saw, and a number of what appeared to be stuffed bats, hanging from a conduit on wires that glinted in the light cast by Hob's new cigarette. I asked him for one. “You don't even smoke,” said Hob. “Maybe I want a new hobby,” I said. “You asked me to show you something, and I did, and now I'm showing you something else,” he said, “from which you might actually profit.” Then we hit carpet. Hob's shoes stopped scraping. He knelt down and rolled back the edge of the rug. I stared at his bulb-tipped nose. A white smudge in the dark of the store. “I have to say, Michael,” he said, “it took you a lot less time than I would have guessed,” said Hob. “What do you mean,” I said. “The first sleight, the first one in the book,” he said, “you have to be able to do it at a certain level to get in here.” “Who decides,” I said. “In this case me,” said Hob.

Cut and run. That's what I wanted to do. I mean, here we were with this hatch. Nobody wants to look at a closed hatch. A square steel hatch set in the floor of Karasarkissian's weird-crap store. The hatch swung open, and the sweet stink of booze and cigarettes wafted out, along with a wash of yellow warm light and the sound of violin music. Whoever opened the hatch clattered back down what sounded like a ladder, and Hob crept down into the square opening. “Are you coming, Michael,” he said. I climbed down. A hollow space about the size of our math classroom. Strings of warm, yellow Christmas-tree lights snaked across every wall that I could see, so that the place was well lit without there being a glare. In the back of the room was a red-brown table. A rank of unmatched glassware gleaming on it. Huge carboys full of golden fluid. I thought I saw snakes or eels swimming in them. A second later I thought: I hadn't seen anything of the kind. Hob was already at this bar, pouring the golden liquid, about the color of whiskey, into two glasses. The violin music came from a girl with ultra-black hair playing the violin. This weird song that I later found out was by a guy called Janacek. Leos Janacek. Hob was carrying the whiskey glasses back to us, and I was reaching for one when I felt a cold, subtle tap on my shoulder.

I whirled to see who'd done it. A towering and spindly guy, wearing a black suit and a poinsettia-red tie, like it was the middle of the day. Or like he worked in a mortuary. “Can I help you,” I said. “I don't know, can you,” said the tie wearer. Not harshly. I recognized him. Or thought I did. “You're Vincent,” I said. I knew him from Saint Cyprian's. In the murky, awed way I knew kids who had graduated. Simon Canary's older sister Rosie, for example. She didn't go to Saint Cyprian's, though. She had gone to Holy Agony. “You're Vincent Callahan,” I said, “right? Your name's Vincent?” “You have good recall,” he said. “Why are you dressed like a mortician,” I said. You see a man dressed like a mortician and you call him on it.

The violin player lifted her bow and cackled. A bruise-blue spot under her chin. Staring out. A single eye. “This is what I get for trying to raise the tone here,” said Vincent. “Vincent,” said Hob. He started trotting. Whiskey slapped over the glass rims. These two goblets. “Hob and his strays,” said Vincent, “it's like the ultimate in distributed democracy.” “I believe in democracy,” I said. The violin player laughed, again, from her corner, her green, grubby sofa. There were other people present in the room. A cavern. Or basement. There was a black guy there, too, who looked older than all of us—he had gray in his square beard. He came forward now. Limped up to where Vincent, Hob, and I were standing. His gait loud and arrhythmic. A strong footstep, the thud of his cane, a weak footstep. A dactyl. That's the only other thing I remember from Greek. His cane: black with a silver head in the shape of a badger. Yellow gems or yellow glass for its eyes. A silver tip on the floor-striking end. That part is called a ferrule. A word I learned from Hob.

“Hob,” said the cane wielder, “I see you've brought us a guest.” His voice was higher and lighter than I thought it would be. He was broad across the shoulders and deep in the chest. Big eyes. A short neck. “And we always treat guests with respect,” said the cane wielder. He stuck his hand out. It took me a second to catch on: he wanted to shake. “It's an ancient custom,” he went on as we shook. His palm dry and warm, seamed. A knobby scar I hadn't seen scraped the hollow of my hand. “Dates to classical times. When gods traveled in disguise throughout the world, testing their worshippers. Or so the thinking runs. I never saw much in that myself.” I could think of nothing to say. So I gave my name. “Charthouse,” the cane wielder said, “it's John Charthouse, but people seem inclined to call me Charthouse. You ever notice that? Certain people get called by their last names.” Vincent stood next to Hob. Touching his tie.

I couldn't believe this was happening but I could. This same contra­diction occurred the time Mary Agnes Ravapinto gave me a blow job and swallowed. A crude analogy. I don't have a better one. The air bluish with drifting smoke. “Truth is,” said Charthouse, “we've heard a lot about you, Mike.” “Is that necessarily a good thing,” I said. “Not necessarily but you have to be a friend to make friends. My father told me that,” said Charthouse, “then again, I always thought it was bullshit.” “Generational differences, that's what my parents say,” I said. Charthouse laughed. His filled molars glinting. “Hob knows how to pick them,” said Charthouse, “and he thinks you're a good candidate.” I wanted to ask
Candidate for what
.
Vincent called out: “He also believes in democracy.” Charthouse tapped the red knot of Vincent's necktie with the badger head. A practiced gesture. I wondered how much of a talker Vincent was. “Let's not lose focus here,” said Charthouse. “I think he's ready,” said Hob, “I think he should take the salto.”

No idea what the words meant. A drug, I thought. That's what you take: drugs. I wanted to be a good guest. So I said: “I'm happy to.” Neither Hob nor Charthouse listened. Vincent seemed to brighten up. He and Charthouse both smoking those brown cigarettes. Hob's brand. Their sweetish smell in my nose and throat. Enough to make me giddy. “Can I bum one,”
I asked when Hob had finished talking. Vincent cackled. “You're too young,” he said. “Vincent,” said Charthouse. Vincent shut off his laugh. “I know you don't understand necessarily what all this is,” Charthouse said to me, “but that's no matter. Hob's told us about you. And we value, you might say, his opinion.” Hob handed me one goblet. He gave Charthouse the other. Charthouse stared at me over the rim, and we toasted. I had no choice. You can't turn down a toast. “Drink up,” he said. Downed his goblet. I downed mine too. I didn't want to look foolish. No immediate ill effects. The whiskey: it tasted strange. Ripe apricot. Ammonia. The jagged strains of the violin rose again. I figured Charthouse would introduce me to the other people there. The violin player, I mean. She looked to be my age, Hob's age, her long head bobbing and her short hair gleaming. She had black eyes, actually black. Black hair. I wanted to go over and talk to her. You can't interrupt a violinist. Or any musician. She saw me looking. She closed her eyes. She smiled. She lifted bow from strings. She said, “Is there a problem.” “No problem,” I called.

We're raised, in America, to be polite to strangers. Your host offers you a drink, you drink it. Your interrogator questions you, you answer. The root of our sufferings, I'd say. When Hob refilled our goblets, Charthouse and I drank again. I was owed. For the nosebleed and Hob's trickery. The whiskey, or whatever it was, served as payment. When Charthouse asked me questions, I answered. As I said, that's how we're raised. How old are you. Do you like school. Where do you live. “In the city,” I said. “We all live in the city, or try to,” he said, “and even if you're only trying it serves as enough of a passport.” “What the fuck are you talking about,” I said. “You curse,” he said, “that can be a sign of low creativity. Not many know that.” Then he asked me what the capital of New Zealand was. “I know this one,” I said, “I really do.”

“That's all right,” he said. Hob poured me another drink. Vincent stroked his tie. For the length of an eye-blink I saw a sapphire-colored snake or eel twisting through the tawny liquid in the bottle Hob was lifting. Charthouse kept questioning me. As they did in catechism, when I was a kid, except it was not harsh: Had I ever considered the possibility of ontological perfection? “St. Anselm, they made us learn that,” I said. Which daisies were better, he wanted to know, yellow or white? We're raised to answer. I couldn't stop now. I'd already answered. It's easier to go to war than quit smoking. Whoever said that knew humans. Tell me about the tree with the ten branches. I guessed sycamore. Hob said you got a nosebleed. Correct. If you had to choose your own name, what would it be. Didn't answer that one. Charthouse didn't press me. Vincent bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet. His smile white and wavering. How long have you known Hob. My whole life. So it went. He kept asking and I kept answering. Hob filled the goblets and we drank. I was proud, too, that I handled the liquor.
Three glasses of whiskey
, I thought,
and nothing. I must be a king.
A jerking shadow climbed the wall. The violinist. Her eyes shut and her smile still present, still quiet. “It's so loud,” I said. “Here we go,” said Charthouse. He offered me a brown cigarette. “House blend,” he said. “Oh man, what a good idea,” I said. He offered me a lit match. “Wellington,” I said around the cigarette. “There you go, Mike,” said Charthouse.