Young and Revolting: The Continental Journals of Nick Twisp (14 page)

“
And you guys think Fuzzy’s dad has some connection to the Mafia?”

“
Have you ever met Mr. DeFalco?” she asked.

I had, unfortunately. As I recall, he was one intimidating dude, who had already made a serious attempt on the life of one Twisp (the near crushing of my father under tons of gravel).

I couldn’t tell if Sheeni was exaggerating this threat to mess further with my head or she really believed there were paid sociopaths on my tail. In any case, I was more than a little disturbed that Vijay knew both that people were looking for me and where I lived. This is not the type of sword one likes to hand to your mortal enemy.

After My Love left for yet another day of alleged culture-mining with vile aliens, I made an emergency call to Fuzzy DeFalco in Ukiah. The hirsute teen was winding down from a hot date by watching late-night TV in his bedroom.

“
I did it with Lana four times tonight, Rick. It’s my new record. I’m a little sore inside down there now. You think I busted something?”

“
It’s just a strained prostate,” I said, conscious that my own once- energetic gland was shriveling now from disuse. “Nothing to worry about, guy. Where were you doing the deed?”

“
My parents were out, so we went at it in my bedroom. Lana likes it better here than in the back seat of my Falcon.”

“
Better watch you don’t stain the upholstery, guy. That’s a valuable classic car.”

“
I’d still rather have a Camaro, but we always do it on a blanket. How’s the action on your end, Rick?”

“
Great. We’re going at it night and day,” I lied. “Fuzzy, mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“
Shoot, buddy.”

“
Does your father have some connection to the underworld?”

“
You mean like the Mob? No way, Rick.”

“
Glad to hear it. So you never had any FBI guys snooping around?”

“
No way. You must be thinking of my uncle Sal.”

“
Who’s he?” I asked, alarmed.

“
Well, he’s actually my father’s uncle. He owns a laundry in Vegas.”

“
That sounds pretty harmless.”

“
Well, it’s a pretty big laundry. They do the sheets and towels for lots of casinos. The FBI got interested because they had a few stiffs turn up in their hampers. But they never pinned a thing on my uncle. He’s a great guy. He always sends me very expensive Christmas presents.”

I didn’t like the sound of this Uncle Sal. I asked my pal to make a few discreet inquiries and promised to check back with him in a few days.

Damn. I hate to sound bloodthirsty here, but François should have bumped off Vijay and aimed more carefully when he was plugging our father-in-law.

4:48 p.m. At last, a money order arrived from my sister. For a measly $4,500! She enclosed a note explaining she had to buy a bigger bassinet for Tyler, and our father put the bite on her for an additional three grand. He’s quit his job! She wasn’t going to lend him a dime, but he convinced her that he will soon be marrying into a large truck-springs fortune. She says unless she wins the lottery, that’s her only hope for college education funds for Tyler. If that’s the case, I think my jumbo nephew better get ready for a lifetime as an undereducated blue-collar slave. One positive note: Joanie reports that Kimberly and Mario liked my flashy metal teeth idea, although Mario is thinking more along the lines of hygienic molded plastic with rhinestone inserts. Still, the concept is mine, so royalties must be paid.

THURSDAY, June 17 — Continuing silent treatment from my devoted spouse. Just to refresh my memory of what her voice sounds like, I let it slip that her brother was arriving tomorrow. She kept her enthusiasm in check. These Saunders can be a cold bunch. After she left I hurried to the local American Express office, where I cashed in my money order for euros. These I have cached separately from our communal funds in an envelope I taped under the bottom drawer of the dresser.

12:47 p.m. A curious development. My Love arrived home in a huff. A certain Vile Alien stood her up. They were supposed to rendezvous at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, but the twit never showed. (You’d think they’d eventually run out of musées, but apparently the supply is inexhaustible. If the French despise tourists so much, why do they provide so many attractions?)

Since a hole had been shot in her social calendar, I invited Sheeni out to lunch, but she scrounged up a better offer from Babette. I’m hoping my Welsh friend puts in a good word for the beleaguered husband.

7:35 p.m. Vijay is nowhere to be found. My wife made some inquiries at his dorm and discovered that he was taken away this morning. By the French state police! Naturally, My Love relayed this news to me in her most accusatory tone.

“
Yeah, right, Sheeni. Like I have some clout with the gendarmes? Get real.”

“
You know nothing about this?”

“
Only what you just told me, darling. I’m totally in the dark and I’m totally pleased. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving cretin.”

My Love’s response I shall not record here, lest—by the act of writing down each inflammatory syllable—the stinging emotional torment which they inflicted shall be unnecessarily prolonged.

FRIDAY, June 18 — A day of high anxiety. Even getting all that exercise walking Maurice and lugging birds, I know my stress levels are off the chart. I really should be smoking some major mind- calming hallucinogen. Perhaps I could get Fuzzy to airmail me some of Lana’s soothing homegrown reefer.

My Love returned from her morning investigations with the news that Vijay won’t be coming back. The guy’s been deported! So much for his summer plans. For this “monstrous injustice” she continues to blame me. Personally, I think it’s bad enough that she has to excoriate me for acts which I did commit, let alone for swinish misdeeds for which I’m blameless. I told her if she didn’t get off my back, I would be forced to do something we’d both regret.

“
Like what?” she demanded, her fine nostrils flaring.

“
Like . . . like, heave your damn typewriter out the window!”

She directed at me what could only be termed a sneer.

“
And what if it struck some innocent person on the sidewalk? And killed them!”

A valid point; I gave the matter some thought.

“
Well, I’d make sure I donned gloves before tossing it.”

“
You don’t own any gloves, you idiot. And it would be just like you to try and pin your nefarious crimes on me.”

“
Not just you, darling. You forget: Bernardo Boccata also handled that typewriter.”

“
And what about the innocent vendor who sold it to me?”

“
I’d send him to the guillotine too!”

Marital spats. They do ramble off topic sometimes.

5:38 p.m. A call from Connie. They have arrived. Even though they flew first class and received 19 hours of nonstop privileged pampering, they’re both feeling tired and jet-lagged. So they’ve decided to crash at their sumptuous five-star hotel and connect up with us tomorrow. I wished her well and confided that the climate at Chez Hunter was still bitterly sub zero.

10:31 p.m. A uniformed hotel bellhop arrived around dinner time with a small package from Ms. Krusinowski. I tipped him E.50 and eagerly opened the box. It contained a cassette tape and a note from Connie saying I should listen to it with my wife. I found that person next door chatting up a certain talented dwarf. She reluctantly excused herself and returned. I slipped the cassette into our radio-tape player, and we found ourselves in the middle of this extraordinary recorded phone conversation:

Sheeni’s mother: “But why don’t you come to Ukiah and see us, Paul?”

Paul: “I told you, mother, I’ll visit you when I get back. Connie and I want to go to Mexico to see if we can find Sheeni.”

Sheeni’s mother: “I’ve given up on that godforsaken country. We’ve looked everywhere, and the authorities don’t do anything even if you bribe them. And why are you going with that awful Polish-Asian girl?”

Paul: “Would you rather I got back together with Lacey?”

Sheeni’s mother: “Heavens no! She’s worse!”

Paul: “Mother, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How did you find out that Sheeni was trying to get a passport to run away?”

Sheeni’s Mother: “I’m not as stupid as she thinks. I made friends with that boy Vijay and he told me. I was hoping he’d persuade his tramp of a sister to give up darling Trent, but he proved just as untrustworthy as the rest of his family. I say send the lot of them back to India!”

I clicked off the player and looked at My Love. She sighed and wiped away a tear.

“
I didn’t forge the tape,” I said, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”

My Love got up from the sofa, ripped Vijay’s bloody declaration off the wall, and tore it into bits. Very small bits. Then she fell into my arms.

A very satisfying triumph, I must say.

SATURDAY, June 19 — Six solid weeks of marital rapture. These gala anniversaries really pile up. I awoke as I used to do: thoroughly entwined among the limbs of my beloved. We really get ourselves tangled during the night. Thrown together by forces beyond our control, we acquiesced to the inevitable and went at it again like frenzied rabbits. My dormant prostate rose to the challenge, and Sheeni’s female equivalent also performed admirably. Hard to believe someone so (intermittently) hot in bed can be so icily distant when provoked. I am resolved to remain on her good side from now on.

After a leisurely communal bath, we made it just in time to Connie and Paul’s swanky Art Nouveau hotel not far away (except financially) on the boulevard Raspail. One step inside the palatial lobby and I immediately felt like a trespassing peasant. I was even more unnerved when My Love disclosed that during World War II this hotel had been the Paris headquarters of Hitler’s feared Gestapo. Riding up to the top floor in the ornate elevator, I wondered how many brave resistance fighters had been given manicures with pliers in this very building

A smiling Paul answered our knock. He shook my hand and gave his baby sister a perfunctory hug. Their lavish love nest was like a 1930s movie-set fantasy of flowing Art Deco curves and extravagantly streamlined furnishings. Gleaming cascades of silvery satin engulfed the great round bed—now in strenuous disarray. One could only speculate what affluent celebrities had gone at it on that richly sprung mattress.

“
You’re looking thin, Paul,” said Sheeni.

“
Hmm, you’re not,” he replied.

It was true. My Love has begun to thicken perceptibly around the middle.

“
Don’t remind me!” she exclaimed.

Connie hugged us both. She was dressed to high Parisian standards and looked like Serious Money on the Hoof. No colored contacts since Paul prefers her eyes in their natural Polish blue—always a startling contrast with her artfully sculpted Asian physiognomy. (In private Sheeni terms their torrid affair “artificial miscegenation.”)

Polite conversation was made as Connie finished her elaborate toilette.

“
Tell me, Paul,” said My Love, “how was jail?”

“
Certainly not pleasant, but rather educational. How’s married life?”

“
Very much the same,” she replied.

Connie glanced at me questioningly. I smiled and gave her a discreet thumbs-up sign. This was noticed by my ever-observant spouse, who scowled and stuck out her tongue at me.

We breakfasted sumptuously downstairs in the hotel’s ritzy dining room. Such elegance! Such refinement! Such prices! Fortunately, Connie nonchalantly signed the check, which no doubt will be added to her humongous tab. Resourceful François made this mental note: If you’re down and out in a foreign city, just check into the best hotel, sample their finest in-house cuisine, sign the check, then casually saunter out.

Since this was Paul’s first visit to Paris, his sister was full of suggestions for Must-Be-Seen Sights. Connie inventoried the activities she had planned for today. For a broad overview of the French capital, they would begin with a guided limousine tour. Next up was a cruise down the Seine on a private yacht, during which a catered lunch would be served. Then a return to their hotel for rest and refreshments. Dinner was at sunset at the Jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower, followed by an excursion to Paris’s most exclusive jazz club.

“
Sounds like fun,” I admitted.

“
And what’s on your agenda for today?” Connie inquired.

“
I’m scrubbing fresh graffiti off the front of our building,” I replied.

“
I’m shopping for groceries,” added My Love. “Then I’m doing my laundry.”

Connie gave me a sour look. Damn, she’s right. I was supposed to be making marriage sound inviting.

Before we departed, I managed to take Paul aside to inquire if he thought I was the target of any paid assassins. He pondered this and said “so many” people were in pursuit of me that it was “hard to sort them all out.” Hardly the comforting words of reassurance I’d been hoping for!

5:25 p.m. Had another small tiff with My Love. She did her laundry, but wouldn’t take mine—even though I always drag hers along when I go to the launderette. She said forcing her to handle my soiled briefs and socks would be the “final nail in the coffin of romance.” I don’t think she should be so uptight. Personally, I always get a minor erotic thrill while handling her panties and bras— the funkier the better.