The War Against the Assholes Read online

  When the light cleared, I saw: A blue-walled, neat room, containing a large bed. On one wall a poster for the Museum of Natural History; on another a black-and-white enlarged movie poster, a woman’s face painted in outline with a mustache scrawled on. JULES ET JIM, said the title. A white curtain waved in a draft. Everyone was gathering around me to watch. Maggie entered the frame. Her hair was wet. She wore a lilac towel. Nothing else. “Damn,” said Vincent. “I told you she was hot,” said Alabama. Maggie tugged at the flap of her towel and pulled it free. I saw again her breasts, her hip bones, her thighs, her tawny pubic hair. All beaded still with water. What you’re doing is not wrong: a whisper. My arms started to shake. A drop of blood slid from my nose and struck the floor. “There he goes,” said Vincent, “displaying his sensitive side.” The mirror slipped from my grip. It threw pale streaks of light as it fell, the beam hitting wall, floors, ceiling. Left these briefly phosphorescent patches wherever the beam struck. When it hit the ground, as the physical laws of the universe dictate, it shattered. Glass shards flew. I figured I was done. The Christmas lights on the wall flickered. A dry, sewer-scented wind rose up. “Jank,” said Vincent.

  In the dimming room, images of Maggie flickered into life all over. Above every shard of glass, I guessed. I was still shaking. The images wrapped their towels around their hair. “What is this,” said Vincent. The images paused. They turned. “I think they heard you,” said Alabama. The images stared off. Distracted or frightened. They adjusted their eyes so that they were looking at us. Each of us. My blood thudded in my ears. More drops hit the floor. Hob said, “Okay, enough.” The images grinned a slow unitary grin. Their faces stretched. Their eyes, even the whites, were getting paler. Their hair losing its color. Their pointed teeth gleamed. The air temperature dropped. The images opened their black mouths. I was not afraid. I was cold. I could not look away from those open mouths, those black mouths, which seemed to be forming the words of my name. “Mike,” said Alabama. The images of Maggie: I could see inside their throats. Black and red. “Mike,” said Alabama. The images raised their pale arms. They opened them. Scars, I saw, began to blossom across their white throats. I counted twelve. The apostles: that’s what I kept thinking. “Mike, what are you doing,” said Alabama. “I don’t know,” I said. My voice driven up an octave. Terror and incomprehension.

  “You don’t know,” she screamed, “what do you mean you don’t know.” “Can you just,” I said, “don’t you have a gun.” “A gun?” she said. Voice raw and high. The images of Maggie now moved off the mirror fragments and advanced, their hands raised, the fingertips flexed into white hooks, their mouths open in soundless cries of hunger. They all turned to face Hob. Who had his back to a corner. Vincent made the first move. He ground the broken glass beneath his heels. This did nothing. The images encircled Hob, who was gasping and saying, “What do I do. What do I do. Nothing’s working, guys. Mike, what did you do.” The air was iron-cold. The sewer stink deeper and ranker. The light almost gone except for a pale, nauseating glow. The images. Their skin. Leaking from them. Vincent’s sunflower grove black, wasted, the flowers crumpled, the stalks split and dry. It tumbled into ash as I watched. “Come toward us, just come toward us,” Alabama shouted at Hob. “I can’t move, they’re like stopping me from moving,” he yowled. A subtle keening sound rose from everywhere. The noise of a distant wind. Or a siren. I ran without thinking. Rushed toward the images. That same weird wave of slowness hit, the reddening of light I’d seen in Mr. Stone’s home. I had no idea what I was going to do. Only that I was going to do it. Trouble was, I tripped. Like a fucking idiot. Over a three-legged stool I missed in the near-dark. Knocked the breath out of me and left me on the cold cement. I was back on my feet soon. Not soon enough. “Get up, get up and help him, it’s your fault,” Alabama yelped. Vincent just sobbed his brother’s name over and over again. The images had closed on Hob, the two in the lead, and one was restraining his arms while the other tore red wounds open in his torso, his face, his throat.

  He screamed. He screamed himself into silence. His mouth working. His shirt bloody. Pink foam covered his lips. The images bent to finish their tearing. Hob went down. Fell in on himself. I heard his head strike the cement. The images, as one, wheeled. To face me. I saw blood on their talons. On their teeth. I screamed too. Deep and raw. The last light failed. I closed my eyes. Waited to feel the cold blades of their nails and fangs.

  What I heard first: Vincent’s laugh. Dry and sure. Then a slow, steady clap. I opened my eyes. The lights were back on. Alabama was applauding. Hob, who still lay in his corner, whose shirt and skin were still covered with bloodstains, rose to his feet. The wounds lipping shut and the continental red patches on his shirt fading as I watched. He crowed out laughs even as he apologized. “Sorry, Michael. I’m so sorry, Michael. It’s like a tradition, okay? Kind of a good-sportsmanship litmus situation.” I looked around. No images. No pale, dead light. Just the warm, oddly furnished basement. The eels calmly turning in the whiskey carboys. The doors sitting in their frames. Vincent was crouched down over the mirror shards with a whisk broom and a dustpan. “What,” I mumbled, “what.” “Someone has to keep this place clean, Kreskin,” said Vincent. “What’s Kreskin,” I said. My numb lips and tongue loosened. My pulse slowed. The sweat on my brow dried. “So I,” I said. “Flying colors, you passed with,” said Alabama. “He made me think I was already dead,” she went on, “walking the halls of the dead. I literally pissed myself.” She admitted this without any visible shame. “Oh yeah,” said Vincent, “I remember that. With those sconces of blue fire.” “Let’s go to this motherfucking party,” said Hob. Out of breath. But only slightly. “I am like totally wired.”

  11

  Three bulky crows. At rest on a huge windowsill, into which a series of leaves and curling vines was carved. You could hear music leaking down into the street, from very high up. Total crap. Singing, indifferent plucks at an acoustic guitar.

  “Why are there crows here, Hob,” said Alabama. I hadn’t spotted them until she spoke. He said, “Don’t worry. It’s not even a thing.” “Are these kids from Mountjoy,” she said. Hob said, “Maaaaybe.” “Maybe,” said Alabama. “Look, they’re not like dangerous,” said Hob. “Nonetheless, I’m going home.” And she was off the curb. Arm up in a cab salute. “No, wait, please,” said Hob, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t say because I thought you wouldn’t come. I promise it’s not weird. I’m not like trying to do anything.” He looked forlorn. His eyes wet in the streetlight. He even had a hand on her arm. Small and pale. The fingers hard looking and slender. The nails blunt. That amazed me. “I just don’t want to go in there alone and I need to see Quinn, okay? He took something from me, okay?” The crows twitched their heads. In unison. So that they all had their eyes, dark points, turned toward Hob and Alabama. “What did he take,” said Alabama. “It’s stupid,” said Hob. “If it’s stupid then why are we here,” said Alabama. “Okay, look. Okay. It was a gift. What Quinn took. From a friend. Okay? From this guy I used to know. Okay? Said he wanted me to have it. Okay? And it like meant a lot to me. I know you think that’s gay or whatever”—and as he said gay he curled his fingers into quote marks—“but that’s what it is. If you want me to go in there myself, then I will. Or just with Michael.” Alabama looked up at the crows. One of them shat. A brilliant streak on the concrete sill. “You and Wood,” said Alabama. “If you leave that’s what’ll happen, though,” said Hob, “I mean not that we’d kill anyone or burn anything down or anything.” His eyes still wet. Still liquid. He looked young and frail. His lever worked. Alabama was already leaping up the short staircase to the building door. Her boots scraped the cold pavement. “What number,” she said. “Penthouse,” said Hob. “Of course,” said Alabama. Rhythmic and precise. Behind us the naked elms of Gramercy Park rattled. A sadist’s park. My father said that. Because you can slip in behind a key holder. And not slip out again until a key holder releases you. He knew fro
m experience.

  Alabama’s mood had improved very modestly by the time we got to the apartment door. She was explaining about the crows. “They’re like drones, sort of,” said Alabama. “Way worse than that. They have eyes. They have actual brains. Drones just have cameras or infrared sensors or whatever,” said Hob. “Actual brains. I like that. Who’s the actual host,” Alabama said. “Eleanor. Something. Eleanor something,” said Hob. “That’s helpful,” she said. I think it was the surprise that upset her. People hate surprises. Rightly so. The Mountjoy factor was less irksome. She even started talking shit as we waited for the door to open. “Oh, I go to Mountjoy, my pussy hurts,” she said, “oh, I go to Mountjoy, I got sand in my vagina.” I was cracking up. We’d killed two pints of whiskey in the cab. The driver telling us, again and again, “You are too young to drink, mister and miss.” Alabama lifted the third pint and pulled. The liquor chuckled. The door swung. Hob said, “Hey!” His voice calm and bright. He slid past the elongated, hollow-eyed girl standing and watching us. Alabama just stared at her, pint in hand, until she quailed. I came last. I could already tell the party, considered as a party, was a failure. Knots of kids stood stiffly. Twos and threes. Talking in quiet, serious voices. Or loud, serious voices: arguments had broken out among the knots. In the grating, pleased tone used to deliver correct answers. The lights: too bright. The liquor laid out on the kitchen counter: too meager. I smelled no weed. No cigarette smoke. The music rattled and whined onward. Hob was asking everyone where Quinn was. Alabama and I just drifted in his wake. “Hey,” said a towering kid with floppy brown hair. Two long wings against either side of his face. He wasn’t talking to me. He wore a blazer. Navy. A corn-colored crest on the breast pocket: an owl with a sheaf of wheat in its talons. The Mountjoy school jacket, I assumed. Most of the kids had them on. Alabama didn’t speak. “I said hey,” said the floppy-haired kid. A reader of long books. I could tell. To impress girls. And then, when they aren’t impressed, tries to make them feel stupid. So that they’ll fuck him. Suck his cock. Been known to work. Peter Neal used that method. Seemed dishonest to me. Alabama didn’t answer. She took another pull and belched in the kid’s face. He stepped back and flapped open his mouth to speak. He flapped it closed. “That’s right,” said Alabama.

  Hob wanting company made sense. This thin hostility poured off all the party elements, off the kids in their stiff-looking jackets, the shitty music, the harsh light. Didn’t get any quieter when we strode in. It was quiet in the first place. But the pitches of the arguing voices fell. Though whomever Hob asked answered back. Physical cowardice: it distorts your behavior. The elongated girl from the door watched us. I waved. Hob was standing, now, at the mouth of a dark hallway. He jerked his head. “He’s apparently like tripping really hard,” he said as we walked away from the minimal noise of the too-bright party. “Even better,” said Alabama. The hallway long. Photos of a family on the walls. I couldn’t make out their faces. Certificates. The lettering blurred when I leaned in to read it. “Don’t worry about that,” said Hob, “it’s just part of their general BS.” A darkened, wide room spread out before us. The floor slabbed with moonlight. The walls mostly glass. An empty, lightless terrace beyond. “He’s out there,” said Alabama. “I wouldn’t want to be around these dicks if I was tripping. Were,” I said. My mother had a habit of correcting me on subjunctives.

  Two of the kids in jackets were peering at us from the bright end of the hallway. “Can I help you,” I called out to them. They looked at me. Their faces blank and still. “What are you doing,” said the guy. One had his hair buzzed almost down to the scalp and round, red-tinted cheeks. The other wore a modest fake diamond in a stud in her nose. It caught the light. “We’re contemplating the absolute,” said Alabama. They backed off. The limping, muddy noise of the party continued. Hob had slipped out onto the terrace. I followed with my fists cocked. Alabama had pushed her jacket aside. Her hand hovering over the gun butt.

  The air brick-cold. You couldn’t see much: the terrace was big but had an impoverished view. The backs of other buildings. A concrete courtyard with a black, endless-looking drain in it. There were some green wooden chairs and a green table, a green-and-white folded umbrella. All looking deadened. The way patio furniture does in the winter. Even though it was clear someone had been using the table. A bottle of vodka, half-drunk, stood near the umbrella pole. A woolen hat. A pair of gloves. Some slender black object I couldn’t make out. Hob grabbed it. Alabama closed the glass door. I couldn’t see the drinker. “Really genius idea, Hob,” said Alabama, “can we leave now.”

  Then we heard it: the unmistakable sound of male urination. Rattling, ringing. And a tuneless whistle that rose and fell, rose into a stream of mumbled, muttered words and fell back into wordlessness. The terrace had a panhandle-shaped area screened off by two juniper hedges in green wooden planters. The pissing and singing noise came from there. It was flush against a blind brick wall. No windows. A bunch of decorative crap hung on it: tiles with green glazing, fisherman’s nets, wooden masks with big mouths, a mirror in a round green frame. At the end of the narrow oblong, a kid stood by the terrace railing, pissing over the edge. His back to us. Between his spread legs I saw the pale, lit stream of urine falling as it arched beyond the railing, falling into whatever access alley the courtyard looked over. The void, I thought. His whistling had a whining, self-infatuated quality. He stopped pissing. A soft, quiet flapping sound: he was shaking his dick. The tight, short buzz of his zipper. Alabama’s shoes squeaked. Setting up her stance for shooting. The kid turned around.

  A little older than us, I guessed. Short, like Hob. Thin, like Hob. The moon blanked his glasses. Shone on his wet, pudgy lips. “Hello hello hello,” he said. We didn’t answer. The famous Quinn. The thief. “Who are yooooooou guuuuys,” Quinn drawled. His voice uncertain, a little hoarse. Loose. He sounded the way all the kids I’d spoken to while they were tripping sounded. I could see his pupils, too, dilating and contracting in the dead yellowed light. “Give it back,” Alabama said. “What are you talking about,” said Quinn. “Give it back,” said Alabama. Her voice dead still. Dead cold. “You’re not from enforcement. I know what enforcement looks like,” said Quinn. When he spoke, I saw his teeth: more pointed than they should have been. Ivory yellow. Vincent’s van-rapist remark seemed prescient. He kept glancing over our shoulders. I figured it was a trick. To get us to take our eyes off him. He was clearly a pussy, anyway, so I wasn’t too worried. “Are you thieves,” he said, “there’s nothing here for you to steal.” He was smiling now. A real shit-eater’s grin. “Give it back,” said Alabama. She had her gun on him. He looked into the barrel.

  “I’m here to claim my destiny,” he said. I had to hold back a laugh. You can’t take anyone who talks about their destiny seriously. The whole concept is a joke. “Your destiny,” said Alabama. “I’m here to claim it,” he said. He went into his pocket. Alabama said, “Do not move.” Quinn stopped. “I just want to show you the map.” And giggled. Dead echoes. That uncertain, there-gone-there smile and those chaotically active pupils. “What map,” said Alabama. “It’s a map, it shows you things. You just have to ask it the right questions,” said Quinn, “it’s a maaaaaaagic map. Surely you know what a map is. The map is not the territory.” He had gone into radio-announcer voice. I figured we were in the clear. Three of us, one carrying a gun, against a drug-addled nerd spouting incomprehensible nonsense about a map. Quinn was moving. Slow. Still moving. “You’re not from enforcement. The map told me to come here. It’s mine by right,” he said, “but fuck my uncle, though, okay? But I love him. I love him. Listen, let me past, okay?” “You don’t get to make the decisions here,” said Alabama.

  And also: “Hob, what is he talking about.” “I have no idea,” said Hob. “This is a test,” said Quinn, “but the problem with tests is that they can’t get all the way in, you know? I have a soul!” He was yodeling. “I have a soul, fuck yeah!” Then he grabbed his ears and h
eld them like he was trying to keep his head from flying away. “Calm down,” said Alabama, “you have something that belongs to us. Return it. Then we leave. Then you can leave.” “My choices are none of your business,” Quinn growled. He let go of his ears. “Give us what you stole and this will all be over,” Alabama said. “If you leave now I won’t hurt you,” said Quinn. Another dialogue addict. My life was full of them. Alabama said, “You shouldn’t use language like that.” “Get out of here, come on,” moaned Quinn. Sweat shone on his forehead, behind his glasses lenses. “You’re just stupid and envious. You don’t even know what this is. It’s fucking destiny! Can’t you see that,” he shrilled. No one responded. An asshole. An archetypical asshole. I don’t say that as an insult. Merely as a description. It occurred to me that he probably had excellent grades. Or marks. Or whatever you got in his school. “We’re going to take back what you stole,” Alabama said, “and that’s the end of it.” “You insect,” said Quinn. “I already told you you can’t have it.” “Don’t make this any harder than it is,” said Alabama. “You’re not going to shoot me,” said Quinn. “That is a matter of contention,” said Alabama.