Conscience Read online

  By the time we reach Union Station, I just want to get drunk.

  NINE

  I’ve already had Mexican once today, so I bypass the party known as Olvera St., much as I love mariachi music and the smell of fresh leather. There are also too many cops there, in the afternoon sun. I’d just as soon that none of them see me, so close to the station, carrying my bags.

  It’s not that anyone’s looking for me – at least not yet; at least so far as I know –- it’s just that don’t want anyone remembering me. Catching a sidelong glimpse of my wickedness. Maybe catching a whiff of my fear.

  Chinatown has cops, too – far more than I’d like – and it’s all I can do to skirt under their radar. But the streets are so thronged with people – and so spread out – that I feel a whole lot more invisible there.

  One thing I like about Chinese markets is the fact that they leave the heads on their carcasses. Swine and foul and fish stare blankly back at me, dead and waiting, through the window displays.

  And in the glass cases that define their fate, innumerable crustaceans swarm before me. Crabs stacked upon crabs. Lobsters piled upon lobsters. Their fearsome claws bound with thick rubber bands.

  It’s a horrible thing, but I don’t see it ending. Not so long as people like to eat crab. And lobster? Forget it! They are more doomed than doomed. When your flesh is that delicious, how much hope can you have?

  Which brings me back to Angela, but I can’t think about her yet. Maybe later, when I’m drunk.

  Maybe sooner than later.

  I catch my first drink at a Vietnamese place in a two-story plaza at the heart of Chinatown. It specializes in pho, a traditional soup dish. I order my meat almost raw, so that it cooks in the broth.

  To this I add plenty of hot sauce and plum sauce, so the elements collide in a holocaust of flavor. Only when the last dregs have cooled to room temperature do I start on the beer. I want no heart attacks today.

  By the time I leave, I’m feeling better once again. Not good, but the sourness in my stomach is gone. The slight buzz, and the hot sauce in my veins, makes the long walk up Cesar Chavez Blvd. a much pleasanter thing.

  On the way, I pick up a six-pack of Red Stripe and a fifth of Jim Beam. They make the bags heavier, but it’s not a big thing. I can always use the exercise. And booze is its own reward.

  The walk is long – about a mile – but no buses come, and I ultimately don’t care. By the time I reach the Paradise Motel, I am sweaty and beat and very ready for a nap. Or a drink. Or a shower. Or a blowjob from a whore.

  The great thing about the Paradise is, all four can be easily had. The iffiest is the shower, unless you want to do it cold. In the peak hours, when the rooms are filled with copulating lowlifes, hot water pressure has been known to drop.

  But wait a couple of hours – or get in, before the peak – and the plumbing at the Paradise will give you what you need.

  It’s a shit hole.

  It is my kind of place.

  I check in without a problem, and settle into its embrace.

  TEN

  The first thing I do, upon entering my room, is to take off my coat. Set my gun down on the bed. Open up my old bag. And take out the deck of cards.

  The booze comes next –- no doubt about it – but for me, settling in is all about the solitaire.

  My daddy was a sailor, back when he was worth a shit. This was long before I was born, but hey: you can’t go around changing history until after you’ve won the war.

  Of all the many worthless things that Daddy taught me, solitaire is the one that has given me real pleasure.

  It is a game, played entirely by oneself. Wherein – when confronted with rules cemented long before your birth – you attempt to beat the odds against you: pitting yourself against random chance (the luck of the shuffle, the luck of the draw), and then using your wits to somehow win, against all odds.

  Or not.

  I set the cards by the gun, at the edge of the bed, proceed to inspect my quarters.

  The room is small and squat and squalid. The walls were once white, but have yellowed with sin. There’s a dresser with drawers, but I wouldn’t put clothes in it. There’s a crappy TV, but I don’t need the headache.

  The bathroom, as it turns out, is cleaner than I feared. The toilet looks recently wiped down, and the floor tiles in the shower are almost entirely mold-free.

  The sheets look okay, but the bed itself is possibly even worse than Dave’s.

  By the time I’m done drinking, I completely will not care; and if I am not careful, it will bear my mark as well.

  Which is why I probably will not fuck the hoochie slut who winked at me as I entered. Or take on the tragic fag in drag, working up funds for his traumatic transsexual surgery dream. Fun as it might be, I don’t want to have to explain, or dispose of, their bodies.

  I don’t need the trouble.

  It’s a solitaire night.

  I toss the cards on the floor, at the foot of the bed. Set the bottles in convenient reach. Sit myself down on the nasty carpet, so cross-legged I’m almost in lotus position.

  Then I shuffle, settling in for the duration.

  The first card down is the ace of spades. I take that as a sign to play straight Sailor’s Solitaire.

  If this were a ship, I’d pay $52 for the deck; and every card that played out would be worth five. For my purposes, I round it off at fifty per deck. It makes it much easier for me to keep score.

  On the first hand, I lose $35. I shuffle, deal the cards out again. By this time, I am halfway through my first Red Stripe, and there’s no bourbon in the neck of the Jim Beam bottle.

  My second hand goes slightly better. I only lose ten. And the first beer is done. I start to think about tomorrow. Then I shuffle the cards again.

  “Tell me how tomorrow will go,” I ask the cards, the bottles, the air.

  The next deal turns out badly. Nothing plays off of anything, and the deck is all shit. Until I turn the last card: a red six, playing off a black seven, which allows me to pull the black five off the seventh row. Revealing a red ace. The heart. Five bucks for me.

  Underneath the ace of hearts is the ace of diamonds. Another five bucks, and another card turned. I take a swig of whiskey before I turn it.

  Ace of clubs.

  And though I’m not, as a rule, a superstitious man, I start to like this a little bit better.

  The goal of the game is to unleash the hidden cards: get them all into play, face-up and scoring for you. Patterns will unfold, hopefully to your advantage.

  The trick is to make no mistakes: understanding the rules, and missing no opportunity.

  Past that, it is out of your control. Like it or not, you must play the hand that’s dealt you.

  The next card up on the right-hand row is the ten of spades. It plays off nothing. I flip the deck, start up again. Three cards down that yield shit. Three cards down that yield shit.

  “Give me a red nine,” I say out loud. I think I might remember one; and there’s a black eight, crowning the second row. Red nine on black ten, plus black eight on red nine, equals another card up. Another big chance for me.

  Unbidden, in my mind’s eye, Liam’s face appears before me.

  He is kissing Angela.

  I open up another beer.

  Only after I have swallowed half of it – in fifteen seconds or less – do I set down the bottle, resume flipping through the deck. By then, my mind is muddying nicely.

  When the red nine pops up, I am pleasantly surprised.

  I play the black eight. It reveals a red Jack, which allows me to move the black ten and its stack. Underneath is the only remaining ace. Twenty bucks in now, and the game is young.

  I take a moment to uncap the third Red Stripe. It strikes me, at this point, that I really drink too much. The second Red Stripe is only half-empty, but I am movin’on. I am seeing the future.

  “I will show you,” I say. “I will kick your ass.” More bourbon. “Then you’ll
know what it’s like to be me.” I raise the second Red Stripe up, as if in toast, and empty it.

  The next card up is a five of clubs that does nothing for me at all. It’s just a roadblock, between myself and victory.

  Like Liam, for example. Like the great Liam Pathe. Like that grandstanding, snake oil-peddling bullshit son of a whore. He thinks he’s the king, the King of Hearts, but he’s really just the five of clubs: a low man with a penile truncheon that he likes to call “Universal Love”.

  And it’s amazing to me, how victory can beckon, then turn around and wither on the vine. It’s amazing, how something that seems so close can never come to be.

  With all my aces on the table, the next round yields nothing. I slam through the deck twice, angrily, just to be sure.

  Now I’m $75 down. And shuffling again.

  And thinking about tomorrow. And drinking very hard.

  At a certain point, I lose track of the count. I am getting too drunk, dealing strictly out of habit. Laying cards down, then trying to meet their demands. Mostly losing. Stubbornly carryingon.

  And deep feelings assail me, all the way down the line. Getting deeper, as I drunkenly descend. The cards distract my attention, and the booze makes me dim.

  But they do not stop the technicolor pictures in my mind...

  ...because I have seen the future – the extremely immediate future – and no bogus godlike sunshine will be sugarcoating this scene. It is a vision of bloodshed and mayhem, played out in real time, and God is not there.

  In God’s place is a bungalow full of screaming women, running and falling and dying. On their faces is a painful and deeply-shared wisdom: one that they’ve come upon far too late. And it’s not God’s great baritone that thunders in their ears.

  It is the sound of my gun.

  It is a mighty, mighty sound.

  And it lays waste to the empire of deception. And it drapes a dreadful shadow over the disco ball of hope. The light it shines is terrestrial and real. It is the cold light of day. Laying waste to the lie.

  And exposing the cult built around lovely Liam: so benign on the outside, such a scumwad at his core. Exposing his harem, his dirty little secret, his cock empire, in the most unflattering terms.

  The greatest pleasure for me will lie in watching him try to hide the massacre: spinning lie upon lie, while the spotlight shines upon him.

  The spotlight he demanded – no, CREATED – for himself.

  To which I say: talk your way out of THIS, shitbag! Cuz you know you will try: first denying any connection, then promptly choking on your words, as reams of evidence descend upon you.

  Not the least of which will be the footage from Mort’s spy- cams.

  Already – it should be noted – conveniently located all over Ground Zero.

  The splatter footage will be staggering, I guarantee you.

  But what I really hope to see, before I die, is his face: in that room, with all that death.

  Wrestling with whatever emotions he has.

  And then instantly constructing his spin...

  ...and I see it all so clearly – much more clearly than the cards – that I finally stop dealing, and just swim in the vision.

  The women dying, in profound slow motion. Mort’s long-lost love, Delia.

  And then finally, my own.

  And I see these things, as increasingly random image-blips on the screen of my faltering consciousness...

  ...until there’s nothing left but me, and the floor, and my skidding emotion. Reeling like the room, which is starting to spin. Grasping vainly at the meaning of this life.

  Fucking crying, on this filthy pisshole floor...

  ...and thinking about Angela – who, for me, defined happiness, defined meaning, defined purpose, defined all that was good...

  ...and who – at a certain point – decided I was not worthy, or at least not worthy enough...

  ...and took off, then, for all that bullshit...

  ...leaving me, all alone...

  Do you know what it’s like to mean nothing at all? To feel so much that connects with so little? To want things that you can never have – and beat yourself against them – until the next thing you know, you are doing stupid things that will never, ever help...

  ...that are, in fact, the exact opposite of what you should be doing...

  ...in order to perversely guarantee that your worst nightmare comes to pass?

  And that you’ll be the one who makes it happen?

  And it is at this point – cross-legged, barely-upright, on the floor – that I remember what a special night this is. Or is supposed to be. For all of humankind.

  “Oh, yeah!” I say. “The Cozmik fucking Convergence!” I wait for its vibes to transform me, now.

  I wait and I wait and I wait.

  Nothing happens. Yes, I feel very weird, but I blame that on me. Not Liam. Not the planets. Not the God I can’t believe in. Not the swarms of pedestrian holier-than-thou ass wipes who swear that it’s all true.

  Not the woman I once loved, who gave her life to such nonsense: abandoning me, till I abandoned myself. Not the man who conned and charmed her into it.

  Not the people I have come to destroy.

  I blame myself for how strongly I’m shaking, as if my joints are about to rattle loose.

  I blame myself for how fucked-up I feel.

  It is the dark night of the soul. It is the cozmic convergence.

  It is the turtle, crying out in the black hour.

  It is me, with nothing of me left to give.

  I grab onto the edge of the bed. Yank myself up, through sheer force of will. Throw myself prone on the stinking mattress.

  And I do not wake up.

  Until the water hits the tile.

  ELEVEN

  The sound is coming from out of the bathroom. It is the sound of the shower, turning on strong.

  It is loud: surprisingly so, given the whimpering, ululating sounds of hookers feigning bliss in the rooms to either side. I snap out of my stupor by degrees: trying to differentiate between the wild noise without and the mini-waterfall from inside my littlesuite.

  My fingers – numb – grope down toward the place where I laid down the gun, at the foot of the bed. This involves my body moving. It’s not a thing my body likes. I am too drunk. I am so drunk that moving my arm is like lifting a couch.

  But now it is clear – there is someone in my shower – and the reality of that is like a big bite of tinfoil. I come awake like a galvanized emergency ward goner, jolting up beneath the paddles for another breath of life.

  My fingers find the gun, still there, and wrap around it: trigger finger inserting itself without thought, and ready to squeeze upon command. Without a second’s delay, I am up from the bed: wavering slightly, wasted bad, but psychically back in command.

  It is only then that I notice that my bed sheets are smothered in blood.

  Holy fuck. I don’t say it out loud, but it is what I think. What the hell did I do? As the panic rises. It wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t remember. And I have not remembered doing some terrible things.

  I quickly search the room with my bleary gaze. There’s no blood on the walls. There’s no blood on the floor. There are no bullet holes anywhere, no signs of disturbance. The door is still closed, and my bags are untouched.

  Then I catch myself in the mirror, and turn away quickly.

  I am covered with blood.

  Not a good look for me.

  Very quickly, I check myself for wounds. But nothing hurts, and nothing’s squirting.

  Whatever the case, I am wide awake now – my heart slamming like a kick drum in my chest – and I am moving toward the bathroom, with my gun arm outstretched. I don’t know who’s in there – I don’t know what they want – but I don’t like strange people busting into my room, and dumping blood all over me. If it’s that whore, she’ll be the deadest one on earth.

  And if Mort is behind this – I guarantee you – he’ll hear a
bout it in more than words.

  I pause at the bathroom doorway, scouring it for hidden targets. The mirror over the sink provides a wide view of the room. It’s just beginning to steam over, but the visibility is good. Nobody is lurking by the door. No knives, no garrotes, no hilarious KICK ME! signs.

  I see nobody slinking – nobody but myself – and I take this as a sign to step through the doorway.

  Aiming directly at the shower stall.

  And then staring directly at you.

  TWELVE

  See, now, this is the thing.

  To recap: I am standing here, covered with blood. I have no idea where it came from, whose it is.

  I am so drunk I shouldn’t even be standing.

  I am standing here, pointing a gun.

  There is a man – a naked man – inside the steaming shower stall. He is precisely my height, and precisely my weight. He has the same hair. The same eyes. The same face.

  He looks just exactly like me.

  There is blood – some caked, some watered down – sluicing off of him in runnels. Cascading toward the tiles.

  As he turns to me and smiles, a strange light about him.

  “You should see yourself,” he says.

  That man is you.

  “FUCK!” I exclaim. I do not know what else to say.

  “Very nice,” you respond, casually rinsing the clots from your hair.

  At this point, reality begins to unbend. I am standing here, yes. But I don’t know if it’s a dream.

  I can feel the gun metal, real as hell, in my hand. I can feel my shoes, pressing my socks to my feet. I can feel the floor, dizzily spinning beneath me. It’s the spin of the earth.

  But right there you stand.

  You are looking at me, as the blood washes clean; and your eyes are so clear that I am wobbly before them. Looking at you is like looking at my soul.

  And it hurts.

  “Good to see you again,” you say.

  So what am I supposed to do? What is my best-case accurate response? Do I shoot you? Do I shoot myself? Do I offer to soap your back? Kick your ass? WHAT?