131 Different Things Read online

  “Fuck YOU, Francis.” Pill let him rub his belly, though, rolling his eyes. In my experience no one turned down Francis.

  “Thanks, Pill, if I meet you on the road, I’ll never kill you.”

  Pill laughed, but the second Buddha reference seemed to sting a little. He walked over to two down-low black muscle guys a few seats away and felt their arms while they pretended to protest.

  I picked at the bar, which was one of those steel jobbers with a glass-top inset. Under the glass were coins and pewter miniatures.

  “Hey, Francis?”

  “Yes, Sam?”

  “You’re with me on this, right?”

  Francis looked into his beer and exhaled. “Sam, remember that time when we were seventeen and we took mushrooms and got thrown out of ABC No Rio during the Bugout Society show because you were pissing in the corner and then you shit your pants and I found you new pants and never told anyone?”

  “Yes, except that it was you who pissed in the corner and it wasn’t a corner, it was on an amp, and I shit myself because you had gotten us thrown out of the one place that would let two wasted teenagers use the bathroom, and you stole me leather shorts from the sex shop on Orchard Street and you told everyone, and you still bring it up every time I ask if you’re going to help.”

  “Well, exactly. I helped you then and I’ll help you now. I’m a very loyal dude. And you need not remind me of what you’ve done for me. Like an elephant, I am.”

  I’d paid Francis’s rent in a New Brunswick basement for almost a full year until he was finally thrown out for having sex with every single person anyone in the punk house had ever dated, been related to, or met in any capacity whatsoever. Francis wasn’t a predator but he wasn’t great at remembering names or faces. My loyalty to him had cost me. But what could I do? We came up together, two fatherless creeps fumbling with the world’s etiquette.

  Francis reached over the bar and grabbed a pen and paper from near the credit card machine. He also violated basic bar etiquette by grabbing a handful of olives. At least these rules I knew. I slapped his hand.

  Francis took no notice. “Okay, Vicki destination bars. This will be a good exercise. I think college told me something about this. Or maybe it was my dad’s self-actualization courses. Before he actualized his escape.”

  Francis and I had almost identical dads in terms of guidance. If we didn’t look so different, we could have supposed it was the same dad.

  Francis made a graph. Vicki on the top, plus Sam 4-evah on the bottom. In the middle he started writing the names of Manhattan bars and lofts Vicki had spent time at in her hellion days. It was a long list.

  “Cross off River Sticks and Remember the ’90s, they both closed.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wasn’t I 86’d from the ’90s anyways?”

  “Yeah, you kept trying to lure girls into the bathroom during CMJ, saying you wanted to ‘sign them to your label.’”

  “Gross. I hate CMJ.”

  “Doesn’t bring out your best.”

  Francis said, “No. Anyway. Coachwhips, the Underground, Boiler Room, Tassles, the Package, Reverse Cowgirl?”

  “Christ. Tonight is going to get ugly.”

  Francis motioned for two more beers. Synths and cool, cool vocals were in the air. Either She Wants Revenge or the Bravery were being played. Maybe it was the Faint but I was pretty sure I liked the Faint.

  “Violence is inherent to the system.”

  I said, “Yeah, okay. Hopefully we can avoid the Underground. What about East Egg?”

  “On a Saturday?” Francis looked at me like I was an idiot. “Impossible to get in. I mean, for us. Vicki got into all sorts of places.”

  “She and I got into those places. As a couple.”

  “Sorry. Untrue. She got in and you were with her.”

  There was a crash from the gallery in the back. It was normally closed on the weekends to keep weekend warriors from tagging up the art. Or throwing up on it.

  An unlabeled back door flew open and the black-leather-jacket-and-no-shirt combo came running out, screaming, “WHORE!”

  Francis and I swiveled our stools and said in unison, “Careful.”

  Stiv looked at us like we’d just crashed into his bedroom. What had appeared to be a heroin problem earlier appeared now to be general vacancy. His nose was bleeding and he leaned at an unnatural angle that failed to be rakish. Francis and I stood up. Stiv made for the street. He didn’t look back.

  Aviva appeared and struck an exaggerated karate pose.

  “Hiiiiiiiii YA!” She faked a kick that brought her high-heeled boot uncomfortably close to my nose.

  “Hi-ya, yourself, lady.” Francis hugged her. Francis hugged a bit long for my liking. I pouted.

  “Sam. You remember your wife.”

  “Hello, Aviva. You look nice.” I may have been wrong about the necklace but I was sure I recognized the tights. I had loved buying Aviva tights. Every variety, from webbed to sheer to every pattern in every suit in a deck of cards, all the textures that could be rolled off the architecture of a woman’s leg, and always black. These looked familiar. If she saw me looking she didn’t let on.

  Aviva did a low reenactment of her previous kick. “Sam. You prick.”

  Francis put out his arms to present her. “Doesn’t she look amazing? Like Sex in the City never happened?”

  “She does. What happened in there?” I motioned to the back room.

  Aviva shot me a look and told Francis, “Stiv there thought brunch meant he could do what he pleased. It was just brunch.”

  “Wait . . . his name is actually Stiv?”

  Aviva shrugged. “Anyway, what are you chumps up to?”

  “Nothing,” we said in unison.

  All the fun drained from Aviva’s face. “Oh. Okay. You know what? Fuck you both.” In one motion, Aviva drank the rest of my beer and threw her faux fur on over the layered swathes of black. She grabbed her purse, saluted Pill, and was out the door.

  Pill came over. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Aviva and some guy were here. I let them take a disco nap in the back cuz Aviva didn’t want to go back to Williamsburg. She works SO hard. Did you know that when her boss provided the sculptures for that Ant-Man musical, every ant had to have its own ‘energy’? Aviva had to design a karmic landscape for each and every one! And the pincers had to move so that it would be believable when they served as the Greek chorus! Boys, the art world is crazy.”

  I nodded. Francis was fiddling with his phone and suddenly barked, “We have a Vicki sighting!”

  I started layering. A band that sounded like Interpol but wasn’t was playing. Pill waved our twenty at us. Francis went to grab it but I swatted his arm down.

  eleven

  moments

  on the

  way to

  somewhere

  else

  1 New York 2015

  2 los angeles 2015

  3 bamako, mALI 2013

  4 los angeles 2015

  5–6 new york 2007

  7 los angeles 2015

  8 gold coast, australia 2013

  9 belfort, france 2009

  10 los angeles 2012

  11 austin 2015

  seven bars

  one nightclub

  one loft

  & a diner

  3

  We were in a cab, Francis and me, crossing Houston, to a party where Vicki had been seen drinking chilled cucumber vodka. Francis was guiding the driver. I prided myself on only being friends with people who, regardless of their other faults, where polite to cabbies. You could tell a lot about a person, not just from how they treated drivers, but how they talked about them. I distrusted anyone who complained about how a cab smelled. And I treasured Francis for the way that he thought of cabbies as cousins to bartenders. He wasn’t a fantastic tipper, but that was okay, I just always got out last and gave an extra dollar.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I asked Francis again
.

  “Sea Building. Twelfth floor. I don’t know if it’s really the thirteenth or what. Do they still do that?”

  The Sea Building. Jesus. I said, “Do what?”

  “Not have thirteenth floors. Whatever. I’m not a building professor. It’s the twelfth floor. Some party-promoter guy’s place.”

  “You can live on the twelfth floor of the Sea Building on party-promoter money?”

  “People love to party. But I imagine the money comes from somewhere else. From being awesome. It’s Sebastian. You know Seb. Sebo.”

  “Don’t we hate him? I thought he made his money in up-skirt DVDs.”

  Francis laughed. “That’s just something I made up. I wish. No, I think he’s just from LA or college or some shit. Money.”

  “And Vicki is there? I feel sick.” My anxiety was pitching as we approached the tower.

  “Don’t feel sick yet. We’re just getting started. She’s there. My sources are immaculate.”

  “That’s not what you mean, but cool.”

  The Sea Building was the most noticeable of the recent imbecilities plopped in the Lower East Side. Fifteen floors, plus penthouse, of aqua glass Lego, filled to the tippy top with, in their bland hubris and slim pretty functionality, the enemies of god. I supposed. It’s not like I knew these animals. Its slogan was See Yourself in the Sea and its design was supposed to reflect “the oceanic diversity of the neighborhood.”

  The doorman eyed us, but we were white riffraff, and that was hardly riffraff at all. We nodded like we lived there and rushed into the elevator.

  There were at least twenty pairs of disembodied shoes forming a row and turning a corner before you even got to the apartment door. I thought I recognized a pair as Vicki’s. There were at least three pairs of chunky-heeled Mary Janes. Did she still wear those? And if she was wearing the sort of dress that went with heels, would she even go to a party that required their removal? There were endless girls’ sneakers, the kind that deejays and models wore when they “didn’t care about fashion.” Vicki’s views on the topic had always been situation specific. Which were her shoes? What were her feet like now? I had to ask her, to have those scentless and velvety feet dragged across my face.

  We were met at the door by a sprite. A wisp of a man with thin blond hair that hands had run through to the point of heat evaporation, and glasses held together by wire and gossamer. I felt fat looking at him. I wanted to pick him up by the turtleneck and toss him somewhere. Not because he was terrible, but because he looked like he deserved to fly. He was held down by a tiny gray dog in his arms. The dog was one of those miniature aristocratic types. The only small dog I knew by name was a Chihuahua and it wasn’t one of those. It was the other kind of small dog.

  Sebastian sized us up to choose an appropriate greeting. “What is UP, motherfuckers!” he shouted.

  I was a little hurt that he didn’t greet us in French. That he’d tamped down the fey meant he thought we were dumb. But Francis gripped his shoulders in camaraderie and Sebastian beamed at him. I maintained eye contact with the dog, but honestly broke first.

  Francis said, “Seb. Point me in the direction of the fridge? I have some imaginary beer for it.”

  Over my genteel host’s shoulder, I could see a number of men in mujahideen scarves. I felt sympathetic. We were pretty high up in these mountains. My breath was thin. I scanned the room for Vicki’s . . . whatever magical haircut Vicki would now be making work in ways others failed monstrously at.

  Sebastian’s smile dropped for a millisecond. “Oh-ho. You are a funny fucking guy! Francis, right? Now I remember you two! You’re Sam. Vicki used to see you, yes? We were just talking about you! And she used to say how nice you were! It’s just so hard to find a nice guy, am I right? I’m a huge fan of you, personally.”

  I shook his hand and let him kiss both my cheeks and then moved past him. Francis handed me a martini glass. He was uncorking a bottle of vodka with an expression of glee.

  Francis held the bottle up to the light, watching the cucumber slices sink and rise. He said, marveling, “Vodka that doesn’t taste like vodka but isn’t entirely emasculating.”

  I shook my head. “He and Vicki were talking about me? What does that mean? I don’t like that guy.”

  Francis was unconcerned. “Guys like Sebastian don’t exist for you to like them. They exist for you to be employed by them, and steal from them, and take their women. But only temporarily. In my experience, the women go back to them. Paying your own rent sucks.”

  I pointed at Francis as I held up the glass for him to fill. “I imagine paying your rent sucks too.”

  Francis smiled. “Yeah, sure. There’s that. Bitches are fickle, am I right? That’s why I work. Can’t depend on anyone.”

  “Where’s Vicki, did you see her?”

  “Be cool. We can’t barge in there without drinks. I want to drink as much free stuff as I can before we have to go to another bar and not get charged. It’s the principle.”

  The apartment was spacious, the separation between kitchen and living room delineated only by a marble countertop and a real-estate agent’s will. The walls were eggshell. There were bookshelves, but they were practically empty, with the few books mainly art books stacked vertically largest to smallest. It was exactly like I thought apartments like this would be, so maybe I was filling in the blanks. There were plenty of black couches that didn’t look cozy. Everyone was standing. Everyone except those above Seb in the nightlife hierarchy was barefoot. One guy had on dirty sneakers and a T-shirt around his neck like a bandit’s bandanna, so he must have been somebody’s boss or drug dealer or pet graffiti artist. Francis hovered in the no-man’s-land between kitchen and great white open. I wondered where Vicki was. I wondered where all the pillows were.

  Another small gray dog, like a tombstone for a baby, sniffed Francis.

  “At least the dogs are cute.”

  “I don’t trust it.”

  “You don’t trust the dogs?”

  Francis scowled. “I don’t trust other guys and their affection for dogs. Seems exaggerated to make them more human. And I sure as shit don’t trust guys who compliment a woman’s dog. That’s fucking suspect. It insults everyone’s intelligence. Especially the dog’s. Anyway. Let’s not overthink this.”

  A woman in a sheer black dress who wasn’t quite a model reached for the cucumber vodka in Francis’s hand, assuming he would release it. She looked surprised when there was resistance, though the smile never left Francis’s face. She cocked her head to the side, lips parted slightly, increasing the pheromones being shot in his direction. I hated knee-jerk pretty-girl hatred, but Francis had his issues.

  I nudged him. “Francis . . .”

  “Oh. Sorry. Here you go, girl. Didn’t see you.”

  She gave him a look that communicated disbelief and stalked off.

  “That’s cute, Francis. Passive-aggressive girl baiting.”

  “Fuck you. I like cucumber vodka.”

  “The distinction is noted. Where the hell is Vicki? This place gives me the heebie-

  jeebies.”

  “You’re a Class-A worry wart. If you didn’t have heebie-jeebies, you’d have no jeebies at all.”

  Francis started moving through the room. I followed. He touched the furniture, looked down shirts, made fun of belt buckles. Vicki wasn’t anywhere. I didn’t even see anyone who knew Vicki, at least not when I knew Vicki.

  “Sam, come here and look at this. It’s amazing.”

  Francis had his head pressed against a full wall window. He was peering down with an expression of unbridled joy. I felt a pang of jealousy. Francis, greedy as a sweet infant every second of his life, with a carnality that bordered on innocence, was once again finding some flickering light to distract him and sate that moment’s desire.

  “You said Vicki was here.”

  “Look at this. Just look. Thirteen floors up, I bet the rent is, like, a lot, and check out this view. I almost feel sorry for the guy.
”

  Directly below was the McDonald’s on Essex, the car park next door. If there was a moon it wasn’t showing.

  “Maybe he never looks down. I wouldn’t.”

  “That’s because you’re scared of heights, not because you deny your own shitty view.”

  Francis and I both had our heads pressed against the window. Our host drifted up behind us.

  Seb said, “You know, I am just SO dumb. You came here looking for Vicki, didn’t you?”

  “No. Just heard it was a good party. I’m real sorry to crash.”

  “It’s all good! I like to mix it up! You are both totally welcome. I just may pat you down when you leave . . . I’m kidding, brothers!”

  It looked like he would have very much liked to have been kidding. He refilled our glasses from a shaker in his delicate, multiringed hand.

  “Stay as long as you like and please don’t hesitate to ask for anything.”

  He moved on to a couple of girls who looked over his shoulder at Francis and me and laughed at something he said. I placed my forehead back against the window.

  “He seems nice.”

  “Yeah, terrific, he has multiple copies of Infinite Jest on display.”

  “Where?”

  “Look. One on that bookshelf and another on that table. By the Artforum.”

  “Do you think he’s read it?”

  “Fuck no.”

  I put the Infinite Jest from the shelf in my jacket, while Francis eyed a black-and-white nude photo hanging on the wall, individual track lighting for what looked to me like an American Apparel ad. Francis took my glass from me and drained it.

  “Shall we?”

  “We haven’t even talked to anyone, we have to find out where Vicki went.”

  “Oh that. Sara Seventeen is working at Ironweed. She said Vicki is there.”

  “You got a text?”

  “In the elevator.” Francis shrugged. “Sorry! I’ve never been in the Sea Building. And we got a book! If this night stays this boring, it’ll come in handy. Rest our heads on it.”

  We toddled toward the apartment door as fast as we could. The room was crowded.