Read Page 74

“Guess.” She giggles.

I pause a long time before guessing, “He ate … the donuts?”Advertisement

“He took the guy out to the desert.”

“Yeah?” I move my hand up to her thigh, which is bony and hard and covered with dust, and I’m moving my hand across it, wiping flakes off.

“Yeah … and he shot him in the eye.”

“Wow,” I say. “I know Peter’s done shit like that. So I’m not too surprised or anything.”

“Then he starts screaming at me and he pulled the guy’s pants down and he got out this knife and cut the guy’s … thing off and …” Mary stops, starts giggling, and I start to giggle too. “And he threw it at me and said, Is that what you want, whore, is that it?” She’s laughing hysterically and I’m laughing too and we keep laughing for what seems like a long time and once she stops she starts crying, real hard, choking and coughing up stuff, and I take my hand off her leg. “This is all we will ever talk about,” she sobs.

I try to f**k her anyway but she’s so tight and dry and high that I get sore so I give up for a little while. But I’m still pretty horny so I try to make her blow me but she falls asleep and I try to pick her up, lean her back against the wall and f**k her in the mouth but that doesn’t work and I end up jerking off but I can’t even come.

I wake up because someone is banging on the door. It’s late and the sun is high and coming through the window, hitting me full in the face, and I get up and look around and don’t see Peter or Mary anywhere and I get up thinking maybe it’s them at the door and I walk over and open it up, tired, groggy, and it’s a young tan guy with blond hair, blow-dried, in pretty good shape, a tank top, boat shoes, baggy shorts, Vuarnets, and he’s standing there looking at me like he’s all the things I want.

“What do you want, man?” I ask.

“I’m looking for someone,” he says, adding “man.”

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“Someone’s not here,” I say, about to close the door. “I don’t care anymore.”

“Dude,” the guy says.

“I just want you to go away,” I say.

The guy pushes his hand against the door and walks past me.

“Oh, man,” I say. “What the f**k do you want?”

“Where’s Peter?” he asks me. “I’m looking for Peter.”

“He’s … not here.”

The guy looks around the apartment, checking everything out. He finally leans against the back of the couch and after looking me over asks, “What in the f**k are you looking at?”

“I’m not even too mad,” I say. “I’m just really tired. I just want everything to be over because I can’t deal with it anymore.”

“Just tell me where the f**k Peter is,” the dude asks.

“How the f**k should I know?”

“Well, dude”—he laughs—“you better find out.” He looks at me and says, “You know why?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah, I just said I wanna know why,” I say. “Come on, man, don’t be a prick. It’s been a harsh week. We can be friends if—”

“I’ll tell you why.” He stops and dramatically, in a low voice I’ve become accustomed to, says, “Because he is in deep”—he stops, then—“deep”—and another pause, then—“deep shit.”

“Is that right? Yeah?” I ask casually.

“Yeah, that’s right,” the tan guy says. “Señor.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll tell him you showed up and all.” I open the door for this guy and he moves near it. “And I’m not a Mexican.”

“It’s a simple message,” the guy says. “I’ll be back and if Peter doesn’t have it you are all dead.” He stares at me for a long time, this guy, eighteen, nineteen, thick lips and blank handsome features that are so indistinct I will not be able to remember them, give Peter any particular characteristics, in five minutes.

“Yeah?” I gulp, closing the door. “What are you gonna do? Tan us to death?”

He smiles in a sweet way as the door slams shut.

I stay home from the car wash waiting for Peter or Mary to show up and I don’t even know if they are going to show up and I’m not even sure what “it” is, what the surfer was talking about, and I just sit on a couch staring out of a window onto a street not looking at anything. I cannot even think about how Peter came and f**ked everything up, because everything was f**ked up to begin with and if Peter didn’t come this week it would have been the one after that or one next year and in the end it’s hard to think it makes a difference because you always knew this would happen and you just sit there staring out the window waiting for Peter and Mary to roll back in so you can surrender. pqdm.com