Scar Tissue(11)
However, though the experiment was a clever one, the resulting story didn’t quite work. It had the bones, but not the heart, and without that, you got no pulse. So I put it aside and moved on.
It was years later that I returned to it. Since then I’d finished two novels and a bunch of other stories and learned a few things. And when I took another look at it, I saw a way to hit it in the chest with some high voltage.
To my intense delight, the thing came to life.
Gravity and Need
Here's how Pamela introduced herself to me: "Candle wax washes out of sheets. Did you know that?"
People talk about love at first sight, but what they really mean is recognition. You look in someone's eyes, could be anyone, a childhood friend or a stranger waiting for the bus, and in an instant, things are different. Like they've pulled aside a curtain and let you look deeper than flesh.
What you see depends on who you are. Maybe it's peace and plenty. Maybe it's grandchildren bobbling on your knee.
In Pamela's eyes, what I saw was a reflection. And more than that, I saw her seeing her reflection in my eyes, the look bouncing back and forth like an endless loop of mirrors. Then she smiled, those lips turning up at only one corner, a hint of teeth, and the next thing I knew we were going at it under the humming fluorescents of the stockroom, her legs wrapped around my back, her ass up on the packing crate of a forty-inch plasma screen.
In retrospect, everything that followed seems obvious.
#
It hadn't been easy getting the wheelchair up the hill and onto the embankment above the river.
Late sun spilled through the trees and set the steel tracks on fire. A hum of crickets rose loud and steady. The railroad bridge was lonely in the same way as the back side of strip mall. It's a part of civilization you aren't supposed to see; there's graffiti but no people.
"What are we doing here?" I watched the light rouge her cheeks, highlight her black hair. She looked away, and I thought of the day we met.
#
The guy was ideal. Late twenties, outfit by Banana Republic, cheap shoes and a good haircut. Two years ago he probably had a goatee, and two years hence he'd have a BMW. Ideal.
"I need a new stereo," he'd said.
I shook my head. "You don't."
"Huh?"
"You don't need a new stereo. You need water. You need food, and clothes and shelter." I held up my hands and smiled like we were buddies. "I'm not going all grammar Nazi. I'm just saying the things you need, they aren't any fun. They're just things you need. What's fun is the things you want. Right?"
He snorted. "Sure."
"Okay. So what kind of stereo do you want?"
The guy walked in thinking about a boombox. He walked out with a 5.1 surround sound system, a hundred-watt-per-channel receiver and a progressive scan DVD. Understand—I didn't con him, and I didn't pressure him. Hell, I didn't even sell him. I just told him that it was okay to want something.
Everybody wants. Without that, what are you? Just an animal taking care of needs.
But I didn't waste a lot of time pondering it, because all the time I was talking to him, I saw this beautiful girl staring at me, one side of her lips raised in a secret smile.
#
After you have sex with a total stranger on top of a three-thousand dollar television, what you're supposed to do is zip up, exchange fake numbers, and never see each other again.
We went for Thai.
You know that moment on a first date when the conversation hits a lull? You'd been scoring points with the classics—the story about an old roommate's dog, the day you tried to quit your job but were fired first, one about your wacky-but-beloved sister—when suddenly the rhythm is lost. You laugh a second longer than her joke is worth, and fiddle with the chopsticks while the silence beats against your temples. It's unavoidable; after all, you don't know each other. The trick, though, is what comes next. Usually it's banal, a question about her job or yours, a reflection on the décor or the food.
What Pamela said was, "Do you think you could kill everybody in this restaurant if you needed to?"
I narrowed my eyes. Leaned back, looked around the room.
Her words spilled fast. "I'm not a psycho. I'm a writer. It's my job to think about things like that." She paused, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, then looked down and bit the corner of her lip. After a moment, still staring at the table, she said, "Did I just blow it?"
A waiter came by and splashed water into our glasses, then sulked away.
"Well, it's like this." I scooped gomae, chewed slowly. The peanut sauce was delicious. "I think if I surprised the big guy at the end table with a chopstick in the ear, I could handle the rest of them with a chair. It'd be messy, though."