Western Palaces, page 17
She barks out some response, spitting at me, scoffing, and yelling, “You aren’t real! I’ve had enough of you!” though I have no idea what she’s talking about as I’ve never seen the woman before in my life.
I should mention I’m surprised to see Wilson for a few reasons. One, the motherfucker is the most allusive asshole on the planet. You make plans with him and find out only days later that, well, he’s super sorry, dude, but he was actually at the beach fucking three different girls (triplets, actually) inside giant sand castles, and, man, you should have been there, and, dude, he would have invited you but, you know, given the circumstances, he completely forgot about you. And given stories such as those were true most of the time you were prone to letting it go. But, he basically shows up when you don’t expect him, and almost never when you do. Me, Sanchez, and Kevin could all be sitting in a booth at Aberdeen Tower, sharing ideas about writing, music, art, and breast reductions, and, boom, without even realizing it, Wilson’s there with us, in the booth—the inside seat of the booth—and he’s been a part of the conversation for the last few minutes and you didn’t even see him arrive or take a seat and you just accept how he acquiesces himself into the situation.
God forbid you have a birthday or anything, though, because he’ll make the biggest deal about it with lots of vocalized love and affection—that is, until the actual day where you’re at the horse track, by yourself, tarred and feathered in betting slips and slipping around in the intestines of disemboweled race horses, sobbing profusely about all your losses.
Of course, the real reason for my surprise is that I torched Wilson’s apartment building on Mason and Eddy, here in the Tenderloin. For some reason, nearly everyone I know is in the Tenderloin. Or, I should say, was. As far as I know, I burned all these motherfuckers out of house and home when they offered no helping hand in the wake of my eviction from my tiny studio on Post and Leavenworth, just around the corner and up the hill a bit.
And, as far as I had known, Wilson had been trapped inside, drunk or drugged, succumbing to smoke inhalation or pure immolation, after I’d thrown a half-dozen molotov cocktails through his and other windows of the four-story pale brick building. And when I thought I saw him again not too long ago at Bourbon Bandits with other friends that should have been equally dead and crispy, I walked around the neighborhood once more with sloshy bottles of gasoline and ensured that the buildings my so-called friends called homes would cease to exist altogether in this world.
Yet, here he is, walking up Geary, skateboard held against his side, drinking a chocolate milk and laughing with flower makers. There’s not a hint of burn scars on his skin, which is just tanned from California living. Crossing the street, Wilson passes a run-down motel and a cavernous parking garage then pivots on his heels into Bourbon Bandits, almost as an afterthought. I stand outside the door, watch a palm tree in the sidewalk wither at the touch of the Tenderloin’s breath, then watch Wilson flash that smile again, this time at Cameron who’s behind the bar seemingly fucking blushing and I’m about to storm into my goddamned bar and rip off Wilson’s head and shit down his neck and feed his feces-stewed brains to Toby, Cameron’s kid who I think has mad cow’s disease. Or maybe he’s a cow. Maybe Cameron has a cow in the other room of the apartment we have been sharing and not a little kid at all.
Either way, someone’s eating Wilson’s shitty brains.
I don’t blitzkrieg Bourbon Bandits, though, because Wilson just took a shot of something and is walking straight for me. I duck out of the doorway, back into the street, and pretend I’m just one of the dozen zombies patrolling this block. I also don’t rush the bar—even though Cameron’s made herself so scarce for so long—because Wilson’s presence after that second molotov cocktail party I threw for him means he should not be here. So, something weird is going on. Cameron? She doesn’t have to be dead to avoid me. She just knows better.
Anyway, we continue eastward, and that palm tree is now just a brown, palm-less stump. At Hyde, he pops into No Casa, and again I step into the doorway, a blurry, haloed silhouette to all the sad, light-depraved drunks inside. Wilson takes a seat at the bar, does some stupid fancy handshake with Daniel, and says, “Hola, muchacho. Una cerveza, por favor,” and the cyclops grabs a bottle of Corona from the cooler, pops off the cap, and slides it Wilson’s way. They chat for a while in Spanish (when the fuck did Wilson even learn Spanish?) and I wonder why Cameron’s company was only worthy of a shot while this guy gets Wilson’s attention for a whole beer. I mean, Cameron’s a great conversationalist. She and I stay up all night sometimes just talking about my dick and nothing else.
But Wilson’s clearly on a mission as he drinks his beer in large gulps and is done with it in a matter of minutes and walking toward me again, catching me off-guard as I was thinking of what Cameron and I might talk about tonight after we put the kid to sleep—I mean, to bed. That is, if she comes home tonight. Which she won’t.
Back on the sidewalk, lepers are making love to the few black acacia trees sprouting from the sidewalk across the street, and the trees grunt and drop limb after limb until the lepers’ dicks finally fall off. It takes them a few moments to recognize that their dicks fell off and so they uselessly crotch-pound the trees until the trees are limbless and their bark turns to scabs. Then the lepers zip up, pick up their cocks, pocket them, and hunt for their next victim of affection.
Lost in this exhibition, I come to and find Wilson’s gotten almost a whole block ahead of me so I shoulder past a few zombies and psychopaths in suits until I’m maybe twelve feet behind him and panting for a cigarette. I light up a Winston and wonder why I don’t just approach Wilson, tap him on the shoulder, encourage one of those flashy smiles from him, and ask him how he’s been doing, where he’s been. Maybe I could even tell him I forgive him for not being there for me, like, ever. I don’t really know why I’m feeling this way, unless, of course, it’s the giant cloud of pot smoke that hovers over this whole city like green smog.
Before I can advance upon Wilson to offer olive branches and bullshit, he’s walking into another establishment, at Leavenworth, called The Seraphim Café. People at tables on the sidewalk share polite conversation while nibbling on baklava and sipping espressos spiked by pigeon droppings and gnats.
“Selam, arkadas!” I hear Wilson say, greeting the Turkish man behind the display counter of pastries and finger-foods. They exchange hearty handshakes and smiles. It’s not surprising that Wilson knows some Turkish (as opposed to Spanish), I guess, because I think his dad’s Turkish, or something. He told me once about his parents but I wasn’t really paying attention. I told him it’s none of my business and he chuckled and said one of the things he liked about me was my orneriness. I nearly knifed him for that, but decided I better look the word up before I commit wanton acts of violence.
Still haven’t looked it up, however.
The proprietor soon leaves Wilson to attend to other customers. I watch Wilson first lean his skateboard up against the display case, then himself as he snacks on borek and pulls his phone out of the pocket of his long shorts. He wipes the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand and appears to be texting someone. Probably Sanchez or Kevin, I think. Or Russ. Probably to say something mean and cruel about me. Maybe to plot some other ruse where they pretend to have never even met me, like they did when I went seeking a little bit of roof over my head those many months ago now.
Praise Cameron! Without her I’d be on the streets. And this fucker didn’t even want to talk to her. It makes no difference if she doesn’t want to talk to me, or see me, or have anything to do with me. It makes no difference she’s got a needle habit and likes to inject me in my sleep, hoping to hook me as well. None of it matters. Right now, I forgive her for recognizing I’m beneath her. She recognizes I need the abuse—the discipline. That woman’s a saint. St. Cameron. She should have her own goddamned holiday. St. Cameron’s Day. On that day we’ll house the homeless and distribute disposable hypodermic needles and have crazy, rough sex with monsters. Because that is what St. Cameron would do, goddammit!
I’m knocked out of that fantasy as my own phone buzzes in my pocket, startling me enough that I jump away from the entrance to the café and bump into a zombie lumbering past. As the zombie pulls away from me, a jagged oval of skin peels from it and sticks to me and I scream “Ah! Get it off me! Get it off me!” until some kind soul stops, pulls the grey flesh from me with a smile, tells me all’s going to be OK, and moves on before I can even thank her.
Actually, I think I may have just been pickpocketed.
Anyway, I pull my phone out, thinking that Wilson, twelve feet away from me, noshing on flaky pastry stuffed with spiced meat, has finally remembered me and thought to check in via text.
The text is just a message from my service provider either trying to get me to upgrade my service or offer me a blowjob—or maybe they want me to blow them. I don’t know. I have a hard time deciphering marketing speak.
Still, it was not a text from Wilson, just some strange coincidence, and I’m sad—sad because I don’t have that pocketknife on me anymore that I’d been carrying for years that could help me finish the job I’d thought complete when his building finally turned to ash, entirely.
Again, Wilson’s on his little Ulysses trek down Geary, saying “Hoscakal” to the proprietor as he picks up his board and strolls out of the delicatessen.
I follow him a few more blocks eastward, passing more dying acacias, decaying apartment buildings, and burger joints where giant crickets hang out waiting for their cousins the cockroaches to run out from underneath the refrigerator or burger meat to say hello and catch up.
When he turns right on Jones I start to get nervous. We pass the Nazareth Hotel, which is right next to Paradise Massage, and continue on toward Wilson’s old apartment building. But I burned that fucker down. After the second torching, Wilson’s building was actually torched so completely they had to tear the whole thing down. Now there’s just a big empty spot in the middle of the block, glaring like a missing tooth. I don’t know why Wilson wants to go there and see the ruins. Even I don’t much care for the sight. I mean, it’s the physical representation of loss. It’s symbolic. And while fire can often be the symbol of a new beginning, the fires I’ve started are all dead ends, and they’re represented in the real world by buildings turned to charcoal, or an empty space between buildings, like Wilson’s old homestead.
I stop, turn, and start walking the other way, not wishing to see the look on poor Wilson’s face as he looks longingly at the black hole that used to be his home, his place of respite, his sanctuary.
As if I don’t have a will of my own, however, I make a one-eighty and keep following. I compromise by sprinting across the street, thinking from that vantage point I won’t have to see his flashy smile melt into anguish.
Keeping my head down until I’m in front of the vegetarian take-out place directly across the street from the razing, I finally look up…
and see Wilson skipping up a short series of marble steps leading to a palace? A real, honest-to-god palace! The building is enormous. It looks Middle Eastern, or Russian. It’s white with peach and sky-blue accents, replete with a half dozen spires topped with bulbous shapes that look like glittering pieces of candy or soft-serve ice cream. It’s at least two-stories taller than the building on either side of it, and it’s definitely not an empty space in the middle of the block.
“Do you see this shit?” I ask this old man with a crooked back as he nears me.
“Hmm? Oh, yes. It’s… it’s very nice, indeed, isn’t it?” the old man says and shuffles into the vegetarian restaurant before I have a chance to tell him this is pure madness.
Wilson takes out his keys, opens the tall golden door, and quickly disappears inside. Running across the street, I nearly get hit by a speeding silver foreign sports car, but wind up safely on the steps of Wilson’s palace, cast in its tendrils of shadow. Carefully, I walk up the steps, scared I might slip into a wormhole or fall down a giant sinkhole. But, when I get to the door, I touch it, and know it’s real. I run my hands all along the moulding, which is a series of intricate braiding, curves, and angles along the edges of the golden door. Surprisingly, there’s a buzzer beside the door. It has one name on it: Wilson. This palace—it’s Wilson’s alone.
I don’t understand. I don’t know what has happened to the building I torched or the empty space that was here just yesterday. I can’t comprehend this palace in the middle of this festering neighborhood bursting with boils and diarrhea geysers. I just don’t understand it.
Before I know it, I’m running. I don’t even know where until I’m standing across the street from where Russ’s apartment building used to be. It used to be right here at Turk and Larken, right above Harry’s Pub—the place where Cameron’s older self sometimes tends bar.
There’s no Harry’s Pub here. There’s no apartment building with busted-out windows and charred brick. There’s no empty black plot of land. Instead, there’s a majestic castle with towers and swaying banners and large keyhole-shaped windows. It’s covered in webs of ivy. Its door is large and made of redwood. I cross the street to put my hand, my face up against the stone just to confirm its existence. Its reality. I check the buzzer—which, again, is actually there—to confirm that Russ’s is the only name listed. The music of a lyre escapes a window above. I immediately recognize Russ’s singing voice. He’s singing an acoustic version of “Everything in its Right Place” by Radiohead, and some angelic voice is providing backup. I believe it’s Bob, his dwarf friend that once sang for Princess Diana but has lived in obscurity here in the Tenderloin ever since.
“Russ!” I yell over the rumble of buses, cars, and zombies. “Russ! It’s me—Luke! Russ!”
I yell his name for minutes on end, receiving dirty looks from passersby, but none find gumption enough to tell me to stop, so I don’t. I don’t stop until Russ peeks his head out of one of those keyhole-shaped castle windows, squints, spots me, and hacks up a giant loogie, which hits me right in the eye.
Wiping my eye on my shoulder, filled with disbelief, I’m running again, and maybe sobbing. On my trek I knock zombies and little old ladies down and they all fall to the cement and shatter like ancient china.
I’ve run a little bit back in the direction I came from, winding up at O’Farrell and Leavenworth where Sanchez’s faded pink apartment building once was. His apartment used to be a couple floors above a rat-infested sandwich shop. It was a corner building and it received the least damage because I’d brought Toby out with me that night to play a game of toss-the-molotov-cocktail and his little arms just couldn’t put much umph behind the throws and after a few piss-poor attempts on his part we had to split because numerous toothless people were sticking their heads out of windows across the street yelling, “Hey, you fucka! What do ya think yer doin’?”
Even still, Sanchez’s place has been razed and replaced by a stone palace with a giant golden dome that’s topped by an intimidating bronze statue of an eagle with wings fiercely displayed. In one window I spy a giant bottle of Cool Water cologne and a whole rack of imitation Armani suits and I know this is Sanchez’s very own palace. I stroll up onto the portico and check the door, all the same, to confirm, and his name is there, the only one on the buzzer list. I run my hands along the pillars of the portico and think of ringing the buzzer but decide against it. Unlike Russ and Wilson, Sanchez has spared me a minute of his time since my eviction. But, in the end, still acted as if he didn’t know me and wanted less than nothing to do with me.
Dismayed, I walk the block north back to Geary, intent on just going “home” to Cameron’s place above Bourbon Bandits, even though I know I won’t find her there—perhaps never again. Before long, however, I find I’ve walked past her place and I’m standing outside of Aberdeen Tower, staring through the windows at the smoking room, which is empty and depressing.
I catch a reflection in the window as I stare listlessly. It’s something out of place. Something far too old for California. Far too old, even, for this country. It’s stone and it’s artful and it’s massive and built on blood and violence. It’s the goddamned Colosseum. The actual Colosseum. Reflected in the window. Right behind me. Across the street. Dropped right here in the heart of the Tenderloin. It takes up the whole block and is ruinous and beautiful and breaks my heart when I turn to take it all in.
Honestly, I can’t even recall if I burned Kevin’s place down, which should be right there, across the street from this bar. I wanted to think I burned his place down, having felt doubly wronged by Kevin since he not only cut me out of his life, but started dating my ex-girlfriend, Christy or Carol or whatever—just, you know, someone that I really loved once. And he’s with her now. In the building I may or may not have burned down, which is now the fucking Colosseum.
I don’t need to cross the street and touch the Colosseum to know it’s there. I don’t need to see Kevin’s name as the only one on the buzzer list. I know it will be.
Standing across the street in the shadow of that ancient structure, I wipe tears from my face. My stomach goes queasy. When I see Kevin exit the entrance of the Colosseum and walk down the steps with someone, I collapse and vomit into the gutter, which just collects with all the vomit that was already pooled there.
On hands and knees, breathing hard, puke caught in my nasal cavities, I stare hatefully at Kevin and the guy he’s standing and chatting warmly with. Kevin shakes the guy’s hand and runs up Geary after the 38 bus. That guy’s familiar for some reason, and for some reason his presence fills me with rage and an overwhelming sense of injustice. He’s average height, average build. His head’s shaved. He’s probably in his mid-thirties. He appears quite healthy and in control of all his faculties.
He looks a little bit like me before I became a fictional character.
That guy across the street pulls out a Winston and lights it and then spots me and stares with the kind of curious disgust one gets at the zoo when witnessing a frail and sick chimpanzee with bald patches pace back and forth behind the glass—just lost, hurt, bored, and waiting to die. He watches me like this for a long while as the traffic flows westward, eventually depositing and drowning all those bodies in the Pacific.
