Western Palaces, page 18
Finally, with cigarette in mouth, he crosses the street and I’m astonished he doesn’t get hit by one of the many speeding foreign silver sports cars. On the sidewalk, he stands next to me and hands me a Winston and lights it for me and we stand there smoking for another long while as the dusk comes on and colors the sky above the Colosseum with salmon and violet hues.
After two more cigarettes he reaches his hand out and says, “I’m Logan.”
I take his hand, shake it, and just now recognize he’s wearing my Pretty Hate Machine t-shirt and want to say something about that but instead say, “Yeah… I… know?”
“I’m sure you do,” he says. “How are you doing?”
“Well, you know…”
“I guess I do.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why… all this?”
“You don’t know?”
“I really don’t.”
“It’s simple, Luke. You reap what you sow. You live in the world you create.”
“But, you created it.”
“Hmm. Is that what you think?”
“I… but, you… I don’t understand.”
“No. Me neither.”
“But…”
“But what, Luke?”
“Those palaces. They all live in palaces.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“Somebody had to do something nice for them.”
“I… uh… what?”
“This is your world, Luke.”
“But…”
“It’s your world. It is what it is.”
“So…”
“Look, I felt bad for them.”
“You did? Why?”
“They’re stuck here with you. And even when they tried to remove themselves from your shackles, you just wouldn’t let them go.”
“I’m supposed to let them go?”
“I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, man.”
“How the fuck do you not know?”
“Just making it up as I go along.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t be mad at me.”
“Who should I fucking be mad at then, if not you, goddammit?”
“Yourself.”
“Myself?”
“Yeah. Yourself.”
“You’re a fucking moron.”
“Yeah, well…”
“What about Cameron?”
“What about her?”
“Do you feel bad for her?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why doesn’t she just go? Why doesn’t she just pretend I’m a ghost, like the others do?”
“I don’t know, Luke.”
“Really?”
“Look, I don’t know what she sees in you.”
“Really?”
“But, I guess I can’t keep her away from you. Not if she’s determined to keep popping back into your life.”
“You won’t keep her away?”
“I’ll try.”
“I still don’t…”
“What?”
“It’s just not fair, is it?”
“Nope.”
“But…”
“I guess I just don’t like you very much. Is that what you want to hear, Luke?”
“You don’t?”
“Oh… I don’t know, really. I don’t really know what I think, I guess.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“But…”
“Yes?”
“If you don’t like me then you…”
“Then I don’t like myself?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm… I haven’t thought about it, I guess.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait… what’s…. What’s my last name? Why don’t I know my last name? I realized the other day, I never say my last name. Then I tried, and couldn’t. What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“I suppose you don’t get one, Luke.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Am I going to be homeless?”
“Maybe.”
“You’d really do that to me?”
“Luke, I don’t know. I’m not really in control, either.”
“Can I just… can I live in one of the bars, maybe?”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why not?”
“That’s just…. There wouldn’t be anywhere to put your bed.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“One other thing…”
“Yeah?”
“Have I hurt anyone?”
“Yeah.”
“Have I… killed… anyone?”
“That… well, I’m not sure about that, actually.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Who are you? I mean, are you really…”
“I don’t know. I could be who you think I am. I could just be your stalker.”
“I’ve always wanted one of those.”
“I know.”
“When are you gonna…”
“What?”
“Put me down.”
“Put you down?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think you’re someone’s pet, Luke?”
“I know I’m an animal.”
“That you are. But, aren’t we all?”
“I feel sick.”
“I know you do.”
“Of course.”
“What do you want to do about it?”
“I want to burn that Colosseum down.”
“Would that make you feel better?”
“It might.”
“OK. Maybe you can burn it down. But, on another day. You know, if it’s even there tomorrow.”
“It might not be?”
“Fuck if I know, Luke. What’d I say already? I mean, come on. Who dreamed up who, anyway?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway…”
“Is your world like this?”
“My world?”
“Yeah. Is it anything like mine?”
“Mind your own goddamned business, Luke.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, well…”
“I don’t feel good.”
“I know. And you already said that.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.”
“OK.”
“OK.”
“Can I… oh, my goddamned stomach… it hurts…”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?”
“I just want my friends.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Listen, I feel like we should talk more, but I just feel so terrible…”
“And?”
“Will we?”
“Talk?”
“Yeah.”
“I. Don’t. Know. Luke. Jesus. Don’t expect me to spell anything out for you. I’m not a fortune teller.”
“OK.”
“OK.”
“Then, all my friends, having abandoned me—having suffered my bouts of arson—they all just get to go on and live in palaces—or… the fucking Colosseum, I guess, in Kevin’s case?”
“It would appear so.”
“Why?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I just… I just want to go home now. To Cameron. Is that… is that OK?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t…”
“Why, Luke, are you asking me?”
“Can I… will she even be…”
“Look, Luke, I’d love to stay and shoot the shit all night…”
“But…”
“What?”
“What about my palace?”
“You don’t think you already live in a palace?”
“No. No I don’t.”
“Huh.”
“Well…”
“Like I said, I’d love to stay and shoot the shit all night but…”
“Yeah.”
“OK?”
“OK.”
“Well, then, Luke, you just, uh… you just…” Logan says to me as he stamps out his cigarette. Then he nods and walks west, and just keeps on walking. I stand still and watch him go, cigarette smoldering down to the filter and singeing my knuckles. I flinch and fling the butt away into the gutter, watch it sizzle out in a puddle of sick. Logan keeps walking west, a dark silhouette now in the dusky distance. He’s walking west where they tell me the sun sets. That’s where the sun sets, right? In the west? They say the sun sets in the west. But how would I know? Would someone, if I asked, tell me where the sun actually sets? If I took you by the hand, right now, and looked you in the eye, would you tell me the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west? Would you tell me this is common knowledge? A fact? If you did, why should I believe you? Why would I trust you?
Also by Logan Ryan Smith
Enjoy Me
My Eyes Are Black Holes
Bug House
Logan Ryan Smith writes unclassifiable fiction that fits somewhere in between literary, transgressive, and surreal, all with a dark comedy underbelly and lyrical leaning. Enjoy Me, a collection of interconnected stories, was his first book of fiction, and the precursor to Western Palaces. His second book of fiction, a twisted novella titled My Eyes Are Black Holes, follows the story of another unreliable narrator navigating his way through his own faulty memories, haunts, and the mysterious Chicago mansion he lives within. Though focusing exclusively on fiction now, his poetry books include The Singers & The Notes (Dusie Press, 2007), Stupid Birds (Transmission Press, 2007), and, most recently, Bug House (Mission Cleaners Books, 2013)—a narrative series of poems that shares many of the same fantastical and thematic elements of his fiction. Logan’s stories have appeared in, among others, Hobart Journal, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, and Great Lakes Review, which nominated his story “Bret Easton Ellis” for a Pushcart Prize. He currently lives in Chicago.
Logan Ryan Smith, Western Palaces
