Little Deaths, page 45
‘What’re you doing?’ she asked, groping for my hand.
I wished I could tell her what I felt, the mixture of delicacy and lust she aroused in me, but I couldn’t have framed the words just then.
‘Just checking you out,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘If I hadn’t already eaten, I might just gobble you up.’
She giggled. ‘I hear it’s like Chinese food. Twenty minutes later and all that.’ She left a pause. ‘I’ll still be here in twenty minutes.’ Then her smile faded a bit and she reached out for me with both arms. ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘I want you here.’
I gripped my erection in one hand, and put the other hand between her legs. Her cunt was so wet, when I rested my thumb against it, just that slight pressure caused it to sink into the folds of her labia. I planted my hands, palms flat, on either side of her head, and when she had fitted me to her, I went all the way inside with a single, slow thrust. The tight, hot, silky feel of her took my breath, and I hung my head, eyes closed, phosporescent blooms printing on my lids.
‘I love you,’ she said, drawing up her knees, starting to rock beneath me. ‘Oh, God, I love you so much.’
As we moved together, I had the impression we were becoming a single entity, a dark red shape wrapped in skin, four-armed and four-legged, the whole of it pulsing like a heart, a great man-and-woman-shaped heart through, which pumped blood and all the steamy, beasty juices of desire, an immense circulatory system that allowed us to share everything, every thought, every nuance of emotion, every nervy shock and thrill. Fucking her, I was fucking myself, we were almost that close, and growing closer with each passing second, permeating one another, and it seemed I could feel myself plunging into myself, the plush muscles rolling and pushing and tightening around me were mine, and there were voices, hers and mine, our voice, whispering, cajoling, demanding, a confusion of heat and breath so profound that when I began to come, when I straddled her chest and pressed my cock against her lips, her cheek, letting the semen smear across her skin, I was no longer certain whose demands I was responding to, and even separated from her, I had a muddled sense of identity. Then she slipped me into her mouth, and I felt irrationally aloft, unnaturally apart from her. The feel of her tongue going at me made me faint, and I had to put a hand on the wall to keep my balance. But then a few moment later, lying beside her, kissing, a salt taste in both our mouths, I began to lose myself once more, to yield up what was mine to the configuration of that larger being we comprised, and when I grew hard again, when she lifted her leg and let me come inside, joined like that, with our sticky faces and sweaty skins glued together, melting one into another, growing dim and thoughtless in that dissolute embryonic warmth, I realized that this weird, perfect unity, this sweet glide into non-being, this was what I refused to give up, this was what I desired most of all, the pure centre of love, the force that compelled me to obsession, that made me willing to do whatever was necessary in order to preserve it.
4
Six weeks after Kathleen returned to her husband, I lost my sublet and, unable to find a new apartment in Manhattan, relocated to Brooklyn, to the second-floor of an old brownstone at the grafitti-festooned gangster end of Park Slope, a neighbourhood whose ruinous appearance and violent populace provided an environment that accorded with the progressive deterioration of my life. I have always considered myself to be a strong person, and it seems unreasonable that love, or rather the apprehension of its loss, should have so deranged me that I fell into a state of collapse. And yet it’s true, as my doctor has pointed out, that other factors were involved in my pathology. I had spent the past six years enduring abnormal stress, beginning with my first unhappy affair, proceeding through Guatemala, prison, and my uncle’s illness; perhaps my affair with Kathleen was simply the nudge that sent me falling off the precipice of those years. But be that as it may, my level of derangement would have been extreme under even the most fortuitous of circumstances. I slept fitfully if at all, I neglected to eat, I drank to excess. I managed to keep up something of a schedule of work on my prison book, but as had happened in Virginia, its dark materials conspired with the darkness that was accumulating in my head, and accelerated my depression, and I was subject to horrible dreams in which Kathleen and I were lost inside the prison walls, assaulted by guards, by demons, by mentally deficient prisoners. To keep at it I began dosing myself with increasingly large amounts of cocaine, which I bought from one or another of the legion of drug dealers who frequented the streets. Over the nine months I lived there, my abuse became so monstrous that when I told my favorite connection, a dreadlocked Jamaican by the name of Rickey, I was thinking of quitting, he said half-jokingly, ‘Michael, you quit doin’ cocain, an’ you t’row de whole neighborhood into a recession.’
This deterioration was not lost on Kathleen. My doctor is of the opinion that this may have served to make her even more reluctant to leave her husband. I will admit to the possibility, for it’s evident that the self-destructive side of my nature was dominant during that time, which is the point the doctor wishes to establish; yet I feel my self-destructiveness was called into play by the black forces that were gathering about me, those same forces that had caused me to lose my sublet and move to Hell on the East River so as to effect their dire purposes, and while my deterioration gave Kathleen ammunition to use in argument against me, I am certain now that she would have stayed in the marriage even had I been a paragon of stability—she had her own mysterious agenda in all this, and it was those concerns, not my frailties, that informed her various modes of indecision.
We saw each other often during the first seven months of her return, at my apartment, at her father’s house in New Jersey where she would frequently spend weekends, in bars and clubs, in the homes of mutual friends. I knew she was displeased by my drug usage, but she joined me in it nevertheless; and though she commented negatively upon my appearance, my decaying health, and similar matters, she remained as ardent as ever. We made love when-and wherever we could) and when the opportunity did not arise naturally, we contrived an opportunity. Buses, both Greyhound and Trailways; taxis; trains; airplanes; the only form of transportation that did not at one time or another function as a bedroom for us was the subway, and we nearly managed that. Once when we had not made love for almost a week, Kathleen suggested we visit a friend of hers, a film editor at the network, and the instant we were inside the door, she announced brightly to the woman that we had not had sex for some time, could we use her bathroom? Yes, we could. The bathroom was scarcely bigger than a broom closet, but for the next forty-five minutes we engaged each other in almost every possible way, employing position after position, ending with Kathleen bent over the toilet while I took her from behind. The perfunctoriness of this encounter, which seemed a kind of sexual sampler from our salad days, devoid of all emotion except that of lust, distressed me; but I was so weak, so full of longing, I would have done it again without a second thought.
Even when sex was impossible, we approximated it. Kathleen would meet me for lunch and say that she was not wearing a bra or panties so I could touch her more readily, and we would spend the entire hour in secretive foreplay beneath the tablecloth. And then there were her phone calls, during which she would inform me how much she loathed Darryl and what foul thing he had recently done, and how she was almost ready to leave. She never slept with him, she told me; she dressed in the bathroom and ignored his attempts at seduction, most of which involved pornographic videos and masturbation. Then in a loving tone, she would shift the subject to us. Typical of these moments was a call I received around Christmas time. She was in a nostalgic mood, her voice soft as she reminisced about a Sunday night we had spent at her father’s several weeks before, and how on her way to work after making love early Monday morning, she had enjoyed the feeling of my come leaking from her.
‘It made me feel you were still with me.’ She paused, dropped her voice to a stagey whisper. ‘I get so wet when I think about it.’
My body reacted uncontrollably, and half my mind was swept away in a rush of arousal; but at the same time I was furious with her. What the hell was she doing? Teasing me? No, she wasn’t that cruel, she was simply missing me, missing sex, and wasn’t considering how her reminiscence might affect me. Which was, of course, every bit as cruel as teasing would have been. But it was the sort of cruelty I had learned to accept from her, the childlike cruelty that accompanies self-absorption. Perhaps she believed she was consoling me by saying these things. And in a way it was a consolation to have even this much evidence that nothing had changed for her.
‘I wish I could see you,’ she said wistfully.
I wanted to shout at her, to tell her this was bullshit, that we should be together, but all I said was, ‘Maybe soon.’
‘Maybe.’ Her voice was frail, without conviction. Then in a more assured tone, a tone designed to give me hope—because, I knew, she still wanted me to have hope—she added, ‘I love you, Michael.’
Afterward I remained seated for a long time, less thinking about the call than immersing myself in it, recalling every inflection, every shift of emphasis, trying to interpret word choices and turns of phrase that to anyone else might have seemed plainspoken, but that to me seemed marvels of intricacy and innuendo.
Even more problematic were the calls I began to receive in February from her apartment. She had told me previously that she had bought a vibrator, and now, when Darryl left her alone while he took his shower and she thought it safe, she would call with the vibrator in hand and talk dirty to me while she brought herself to completion. Sometimes I would join in. These techno-fucks, albeit perversely satisfying, left me feeling wildly agitated, and following them I would go for long, perilous walks through the neighbourhood, striding like a madman into the midst of streetcorner brawls set to screams and boombox salsa, past rock-smoking villains and shadows with knife hands, saved from injury or worse, I assume, by a principle similar to the one that caused the Crow tribe to refrain from scalping pioneer nut cases during the days of Westward expansion.
At this juncture, in late winter, I began to ask Kathleen—no, let’s be honest—I began to beg her to tell me it was over. She had to tell me, I said, because otherwise I wouldn’t have the strength to walk away. But she would not speak the words. Don’t worry, she’d say. Just give me a little longer. We’ll spend next Christmas together, I promise.
Next Christmas, I thought on hearing this. Fuck, I’ll be dead by next Christmas. Can’t we make it the Fourth of July, can’t you show up on my doorstep dressed as the fucking Easter bunny with a basket full of eggs, or how about Arbor Day? We’ll plant a goddamn tree together and experience Druid joy. But I never said these things, I only rarely expressed any rancour, and usually I would tell her, okay, all right.
My obsession with Kathleen had grown so all-pervasive by this time that I was, I believe, insane. My doctor denies the legitimacy of the term and offers instead a number of politically correct labels; but I must insist on my choice of terms. Insane, with its connotations of Bedlam, of dark nightmare wings lifting from the back of a tormented skull, of hallucination, delirium, and violence, is the only one that fits. As evidence of my condition, I offer my change in attitude towards Kathleen’s husband. I had never met Darryl, though I had often heard his petulant voice on Kathleen’s answering machine, and I had never been able to feel much more than distaste for him; yet in my heart I understood that he was not to blame for any of this. He, too, was a victim, as perhaps we all were. Now, however, I contemplated killing him. I did so quite calmly and methodically, and I devised several workable plans, several of which I took so far as to perform walk-throughs, making certain of his schedule, his habits. Darryl’s pathetic stance had come to reflect my own, and aside from the satisfaction I would get from the deed, I thought it would be something of a mercy to let the breath out of him; that way, only one of us would have to suffer. Sometimes to entertain myself I would imagine a meeting on a dark street, a series of swift, sure blows or a single knife stroke, and then I would stroll off without a care, leaving his Gucci-clad feet sticking out from a dumpster. There were also moments when I was very close to ringing their doorbell and saying, ‘Howdy hi, folks! How ‘bout we have us a little chat?’, thinking that by doing so I would goad Darryl into initiating violence. But I recognized that any attack I made against either Darryl or the marriage would in effect be a violence against Kathleen, and I could not bring myself to hurt her. God knows why. Kathleen, who on the surface was charming, charismatic, smart and professional, had proved to be a saucily packaged bundle of neuroses, and on those infrequent occasions when I was honest with myself, I realized I did not have the slightest idea who she was anymore. Nothing could ever be the same between us. But I wanted her. I no longer knew what it was I wanted, I only wanted it with frightening intensity, and Kathleen, whom I loved, hated, needed, despised, exalted, and wished to profane, seemed the nexus of all my hopes and desires.
Early in my durance on Park Slope, Ricky the Jamaican drug dealer introduced me to santeria. I had told him my story … I had told my story to-everyone in the neighbourhood who cared to listen; I preferred the passionate advice the gangbangers gave me: ‘Kill the muthafucka!’ ‘You gotta steal her, man!’ ‘I know somebody fix the cocksucker for fifty bucks!’ ‘Can’t let no bitch fuck you up like that, man. You got to slam the bitch around so she understand what’s going on,’ and such—to the bland counsel of my friends and colleagues, who unanimously told me to get on with my life, a homily whose absurdity more often than not provoked me to rage.
Get on with what life?
This sickhole black absence with rotten gums and six OZs of Mistress Cocaine stored under the fridge roach-infested nightsweat baddream convulsion of a life with typewriter and tape recorder in Bongoland where the seven hooded shadows stand, man, I got no fucking life without pretty Miss Bitchtoes Lovestar Wetdream Kathleen the Great and her tight little pussy, and her sucky little mouth, and her big white butt, don’t you understand, I got to have it, ain’t nothing going to be right til I fly through her window and seize her up in my jaws and swoop down the thirteen alleys to the holy rooftop where we can do the messaround forever and ever, and you know the last time we fucked at my place, we left a wet spot on the grey sheet in the shape of a slightly-darker-shade-of-grey eagle, now what do you figure that means?
Ah, lucidity! What a trip.
I saw everything so clearly when I was angry. My doctor maintains that lucidity cannot be abnormal, but I submit that extraordinary lucidity is the true province of the insane. The problem is, it’s impossible to sustain. If I could have remained in that state of feral lucidity for even an hour, I would have savaged whatever feelings I had left for Kathleen and thus saved us both. My troubles always began when I allowed myself to sag back into that sappy, dreary, mooning condition I knew as love, but had long since become something much more destructive.
But as I was saying, I told Ricky my story, and he said, ‘Listen up, you gots to see de witch mon. He don’t like white people very much, but he deal wit’ you, ‘cause he religion say he must.’
‘Who’s the witch man?’
‘Dis Sponnish guy name Beltran. Got a botanica sells remedies and shit over on Twenty-Third. He’s a santero. Santeria. Like a preacher, y’know. ‘Cept he gots spells he can work get you woman back.’
Santeria, I thought. Animal sacrifice. Voodoo gods. Shango, Ogun, spirit possession. Cool. Just what I fucking need.
And underneath those thoughts was a deeper current of thought, a wordless stream of compulsion, of superstitious fascination, of manic hope that maybe this would be the key.
But I had my doubts.
‘I’m not into joining a church,’ I said.
‘You don’t hafta join, mon. Santeria ain’t like dat. You just go ax de mon to help you, and you pay him for what he do. Then maybe t‘ings work out, you want to join.’
‘Sounds like a fucking fast food religion,’ I said. ‘Sounds like shop 7–11 and go straight to heaven.’
‘Dere’s more to it den dat,’ Ricky said. ‘I’m tellin’ you, mon. Better you check dis out.’
I mulled it over, but not for long. ‘Twenty-Third and what?’ I asked.
I am unwilling to assign to santeria or to Sebastian Beltran the lion’s share of blame for what happened—that I must accept myself. It may be that my imperfect usage of it came into play, or that the Beltran’s ethnic bias caused him to lead me astray. But at heart I believe that santeria was merely the capstone of my obsession, the final piece in a monstrous mosaic. At the very least it provided a colourful focus for my obsessiveness, appealing in its vivid imagery, its mixture of animism and Catholic pageantry. Yet I cannot state that the rituals I participated in and the sacrifices made on my behalf had no effect whatsoever. During them I sometimes felt curious stirrings in my flesh, in the air, and sensed invisible presences close by. Of course I felt similar things on other occasions due to bad health, drug abuse and mental instability, but those occurrences seemed of less moment.
Beltran himself was difficult to dismiss. He was an unprepossessing sort, a sinewy little man with a pumpkin-coloured complexion and a pinched, bespectacled face and long grey hair worn back in a pony tail; yet he had a distinct personal force, and whether by virtue of occult powers or the exercise of simple common sense, he gave the impression of having great insight into my situation. When I approached him in his botanica, telling him I had woman trouble, he said with studied disinterest, without even glancing up from the paperback he was reading, ‘Find another woman.’ But after I had pled my case further he stared at me searchingly and said, ‘This woman is not for you. She is a silly woman, a liar. Her love for you is the love of a child for a precious toy. Stronger, perhaps. But of no more depth. Still,’ he shrugged, ‘if she is the one you want …’
