The Egotist Page 15

  I turn on John Liggins, who is now getting up off the floor. He also looks a little afraid, but more animated, more mobile. He is like a rat in a cage rather than a deer trapped in headlights, and I think he is looking for escape. When he stands I push him hard in the chest and he sprawls into a few other people and through a small table before tumbling to the ground. A woman throws a drink on him, and I clearly see his face glistening as he tries to stand once more. I notice also that his briefcase has fallen open spreading debris across the floor, and, beyond that, I see Lemus quickly approaching.

  I turn to check Beth, who, although clearly more alarmed, does not move toward me. Oddly, I don’t feel any surge of confidence or power from this. Rather, I feel a sort of unfamiliar sickness wave through me. I grimace it away and turn on John Liggins again. Now, however, he seems much more into the spirit of things.

  “Enough, W.!” he yells at me, wiping his face with one hand while holding the other out before him, his knees bent and his body poised, as if waiting for an impending impact.

  “No, John Liggins,” I say through clenched teeth, “it is not enough. You can screw my sister but you cannot screw me, and I will die before I allow this parade to proceed any further. Leave now, and leave her here.”

  I have no idea what I’m talking about, and am not even sure whether him following my directions will make me feel better or worse, but I know that I cannot look at him right now, and I know that I cannot see them leaving together, for that would be more terrible than anything. They would be escaping then, off to a better place, off to a world without big bad W. Buhner, away from things like me and the rest of the glorious, glistening luxury truck owners at my back.

  Things do not work out in the real world, and having an invested interest in society as it currently stood, I had to protect my interests and betray those who would betray the system. Like the Nazis and Body Snatchers, I had been brought into the real world through a radical procedure of discreet manipulation combined with unfathomable power, and this man was a traitor, and despite my feelings for him, he must not be allowed to pursue his obscene and non-parallel course.

  I see him now, still wary of me, moving around me somewhat; he turns his outstretched hand over in a gesture not of defense, but of offering.

  “C’mon Beth, let’s go,” he says, and I understand what he is thinking, and it makes me want to scream.

  I feel Beth brush by me, moving toward his hand gracefully. The fabric of my shirt ripples where she has passed, and my skin aches as her hand encloses his.

  “No!” I scream, grabbing her forcefully from behind, hurling her back into the bar behind me. She hits hard into the dark, polished wood, awkwardly bending over a stool as she catches the railing. I look back at John Liggins and see a look of pain on his face so great it almost overwhelms me, but I stand strong and move between him and his have-not.

  “Why?” he whimpers, then, in a sudden brash cry, “Why!” He hurls himself at me, and I’m brought down to the ground roughly by the force of him.

  We both land hard, and I scramble to get a hand on him, but he slips through me and around me too quickly. He’s on top of me now, and he pushes my head into the floor, stunning me. I feel a blow to my gut, and air leaves me and I curl up defensively. I turn my head upwards to see him standing over me, and although I am squinting slightly and feel about to retch, I try and calculate my next move.

  He turns away from me, not giving another glance or glare. I watch him move toward the tiny frame of Beth, helping her to stand on her feet. Then I hear Lemus.

  “Hold it, Liggins,” Lemus says loudly, above the din and confusion of the bar. “You heard what he said.”

  I look up and a little behind me, and almost laugh out loud when I see Lemus standing there, his hands wrapped around the cold, black steel of a gun. I recognize it at once as John Liggins’ weapon, the one he always kept in his briefcase, and I smile at the whole idea of what this situation has become.

  Lemus has a weird smile on his face, and, as I get myself rolled over onto my knees, I can see the stunned and frightened faces of the strangers around us. What a moment! I think, the grandeur of it tickles me. I look over at John Liggins and Beth, and absolute terror has enveloped them both. Poor John, trying so hard to stand up for the woman he loves, but here, here are these dirty dogs, these villains! We daunt him, harass him. We are his calamity.

  I look at Lemus, finding myself wondering once again what makes him do the things he does. He looks at me, seeming so sure of himself - he gives me a wink. It’s too perfect! Victory! Victory in the coolest way! Oh, what a story, I think, this will be to tell as the days grow long.

  “I think it might be best if we decide right here and now who’s going to win and who’s going to lose. It might spare a lot of bloodshed and save us all a lot of time,” Lemus says grandly, and I recognize the passage at once as a recital from his first prison book. It was a guard, I believe, who had spoken the lines to a prisoner just before clobbering the holy snot out of him with a juiced-up billy club.

  I get to my feet and nobody has moved. I stand up next to Lemus, and actually turn toward him, allowing my back to face John Liggins and Beth, as if not even finding them important enough to regard. I look at Lemus and I look at the gun. It’s a frightening object, and I can see that he is getting the tiniest bit anxious about holding it. I attempt to bring things back to earth, and bring my face close to Lemus’ ear, I reason with him and the weapon he holds.

  “Lemus, do you know what you’re doing?”

  “No, I don’t,” he whispers. “I just want to get out of this. I can’t stand confrontations, W.”

  “Okay, take it easy.” I say, trying to relax him. “Is the safety on that thing?”

  “Who the hell knows?” he mumbles back, cocking his head slightly as if to look at the mechanisms of the gun.

  The gun explodes in Lemus’ hand, and screams come at me like demons. I turn like a whip, my mind registering things clearly, in frames, one at a time.

  Lemus’ face is stone, and he looks as though he has swallowed his tongue. His smile is far gone, his eyes are like saucers, and his face is chalk white. He stares forward, surveying the climactic scene.

  People scream, run, fall.

  A few feet away, John Liggins lays on his back - one leg is kicking slowly, awkwardly. Beth is on her knees next to him, her hands jammed into her hair. Her arms block my view of her face.

  I look back at Lemus, who is still holding the gun. In the next second, Lemus is gone. He is under a pile of vigilante strangers at my feet, and I can only watch.

  I am pushed violently to the side, and haphazardly fall to the ground. For the next few moments, nothing happens - time stops. It’s chaos and chaos and running and bumping and pulling. My mind does not allow the event to fully transpire, to run its course through my head.

  John Liggins has been shot, I think to myself. John Liggins has been shot.

  I look at my hands, at my white palms. I follow the lines of my palms, wondering which one is the life line. I wonder if John Liggins is going to live. I feel so badly for Beth, and feel so badly for John Liggins.

  I pull my eyes up slowly, trying to see if maybe John Liggins is moving. I hear Lemus screaming louder than anyone, being held and beaten by about five or six grown men. I drown that out and look towards John Liggins. I see John not moving. My gut feeling is that John Liggins is dead.

  BOOK TWELVE

  HUMOR

  A Pie in the Face

  Why is there nothing funnier than a pie in the face? Who came up with this? Who is the guy working on the Soupy Sales show, standing just off stage going, “Do it again, Soupy! The pie, do it again! Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

  Why is this funny? The Stooges did it, a bunch of B-movies did it, bad high school plays do it. Why? Is it the humiliation of the whole thing? If that’s the case, why don’t they just insult the person and then laugh at him while he stands dejected. Or, let’s see some real insult! Pull their pan
ts down, expose a weak hand or a bad eye. Mock their nose, make fun of their haircut, ridicule their way or life and belittle their intellect. C’mon, let’s get the ball rolling here! Screw that pie business, there’s real pain out there to explore, we just haven’t got it down on film yet.

  I think that, before I die, I will read a story in the newspaper about a high school boy who gets a pie in the face as some part of childish prank. Everyone laughs, it’s a good joke. He’s humiliated. Teachers pull frosting off with their fingertips and lick it while laughing hysterically at the plight of the young clown.

  Later, the boy goes home and takes a bunch of sleeping pills. Now, the joke is no longer a joke. Everyone is serious now, this is a major issue. Young people, the paper warns, be careful of who you embarrass, because you never know how that person is going to react to the ridicule.

  Now, in my opinion, I think that the suicide is just the punchline. I say, why stop laughing at the pie, when you’ve got a corpse laying there? HA HA HA! He killed himself! HA HA HA! What a maroon! What a cobbler!

  Humor is a dangerous thing. I think I’m going to be sick. Why am I writing about this?

  Stop thinking about me and think about yourself. Do you know someone who would love a good pie in the face? Good, now go and kick them in the groin instead, watch them keel over and vomit on their shoes, because that’s comedy. There’s no such thing as taking something too far. There’s no such thing as limits.

  The Last Person on Earth

  Everything is gone now. I stand speechless at the end of the world, waiting for darkness to come. I have no feelings anymore, and I hardly ever go outside. My apartment is nicely furnished, and I can have everything I need delivered to me here. I don’t want anything to do with them anymore, not with anyone.

  There is no one left. I’ve put the final nail in my own coffin this very night, and when the door closed, it made me realize how very alone I am. I am beaten.

  Looking back, I feel mildly certain I have no one to blame but myself. I’m not sure where the years have gone, I always assumed I’d have so much time. Time to sort things out, time to conquer, time to learn.

  My sister Beth comes and visits me this very night. I haven’t seen her in over a year, not since the death of John Liggins. She wasn’t even at Lemus’ trial, poor bastard. She looks pretty good, I guess. A little heavy, but considering the circumstances, I suppose that’s normal, I don’t know. I am half-asleep when she knocks, and I almost don’t answer.

  “Hello, W.,” she says, smiling at me from the hallway. Her dark hair is pulled up behind her head, as it had been when I’d first seen her. She is wearing overalls. I think of seeing her for the first time, that weird day at the coffee shop.

  “Hello, Beth.”

  I don’t invite her in, I’m not sure why. Something inside of me still hates her, even though I do feel a certain amount of pity for her as well. I just look at her, waiting for her to understand that she isn’t welcome, waiting for her to move on. She gets it pretty quickly.

  “You still hate me. Amazing,” she says, dropping the phony smile she had started with.

  I just shrug. I suddenly feel very antsy to have the entire encounter over with.

  “What do you want?”

  “Well, you’re going to love this. I have a favor to ask of you.”

  I stand unfazed, blinking at her.

  “I need money, W. I . . . I have a baby. A little boy.” She pauses before going on, “It’s John’s.” She pauses again, then shakes her head as if clearing cobwebs. “I need money, W.”

  I stare at the stammering wench in my hallway, my vision a tunnel. A baby? Do I care? Who gives a rat’s ass about her baby? She and dead John Liggins have a baby, and I’m supposed to care? I’m supposed to give her money? Ridiculous. This is absurd. Stupid, stupid, girl. I can almost feel my heart turning black.

  “I ain’t your sugar daddy, sweetheart,” I say, and begin to close the door on her pudgy, shocked face.

  “W.! Don’t!” She sticks a hand out to block the door and pushes herself into the apartment. “Help me, please, I’m desperate.”

  She seems like she is about to cry, and I figure on finishing her off.

  “Why don’t you just go work the streets? Whores make good money, I hear.” I pause, then spit the words at her. “Although you better lose some of that weight first.”

  I turn my back on her retort.

  My vision flashes white as I take a strike to the back of my head. I stumble to the floor, and turn just in time to feel the full force of her weight come crushing down on me. Her knee drives into my gut, and the wind blows out of me, leaving me gasping. Without pause, she begins swinging unmercifully at my face.

  “You ass!” she screams, “You pretentious little shit! You think you can treat me this way? You think I don’t know why you hate me?”

  She connects on a shot to my chin, my hands uselessly flailing to deflect her attack.

  “You sick, jealous, son-of-a-bitch! You couldn’t have me, so you made my life miserable! Isn’t that right? Why don’t you admit it, you sick, twisted fucker!”

  She sticks me with another punch to the eye, and I am not surprised when I see blood tracing her knuckles as her fists come down again and again.

  “Admit it, W.! Admit it! You love me! Admit it! Admit it! Admit it!”

  She trails off into hysterics, tears steam down her face. The punches slow down, then stop, and she pushes herself off of me.

  I can only lay there and catch my breath, taking it in long, shallow gulps. I move up onto one elbow and see her sitting a few feet away, her face in her hands, blood and tears trickling down from between her fingers.

  “You’re my brother,” she says in a muffled tone, “and I’m not myself when I’m with you.”

  I’m not sure if she’s trying to apologize, and I don’t really care. My face feels a little numb, but intact. I think about what she told me at the door, about it being John Liggins’ baby. The person whose death I was responsible for.

  He was the one who had bought me beer after beer after beer, the one who had given me free legal advice on many occasions. He had let me fire that fateful firearm for kicks and use his business cards to pick up women. He was my friend. John hadn’t deserved to die. He should have lived a long time.

  Still, the better part of me can’t help feeling that if it hadn’t been for the blubbering lump in front of me, he would have.

  Beth is a product of a mother I never knew, who never wanted to know me. She is just like her, the same. As for this whole jealousy business . . . who knows? Maybe it’s true, but I don’t really see why that matters one way or the other.

  “Okay, Beth,” I say, not bothering to get up. “I’ll help you with the kid. How much are you going to need?”

  After she recovers from the shock of my acquiescence, she gives me a monthly sum to cover certain expenses while she’s not working, and writes down an address on the back of a magazine on my coffee table. I tell her I’ll take care of it, and she starts to walk out.

  “Oh, Beth?”

  She doesn’t turn around to face me, and I notice that her shoulders seem to be clenching, as if expecting an impact. She doesn’t say anything . . . just waits for it.

  “The whole ‘working the streets’ thing? I was just kidding about that,” I say, proud of myself, “You know, I don’t want the kid having a whore for a mother.”

  I wait for a response, a “thank you” maybe, but get nothing. She goes out the door and closes it behind her. I know I’ll never see her again.

  I sit on my couch, looking at the address. The way her handwriting curls. It’s an okay part of town, I think. The kid will be fine.

  When she’s gone, I ice my face. I haven’t been beaten up in a while, and I don’t like it. It consumes the rest of my energy just to turn on the television, lay down on the couch, and watch the phony world pass me by in thirty-five inch color.

  A Pleasant Evening

  Tonight,
for no particular reason, I decide to go for a walk. Outside. Maybe it’s the months of seclusion, or maybe my body needs some fresh air, some exercise. Who knows?

  I put on a heavy black overcoat and a thick knit hat, although I have absolutely no clue what the temperature is like out there. I know it’s late at night, and it could be very cold.

  I step out into the thick gloom of midnight, and take a moment to look up and down the street on which I’ve lived for over a year now but have only seen a handful of times.

  Deserted. Nothing. No cars, no people. Electric lights fill the void as best they can, creating tiny pools on the dark pavement here and there, consistency their greatest attribute. I don’t know which way to walk, have no destination in mind. I choose a direction and set my feet in motion. It’s not too cold out, but I’m glad to be bundled up, anyway. The night feels odd, and the air smells a little funny. I’m not sure how much exposure I want to the unfamiliar elements.

  I begin to stride down the sidewalk, waiting to see that first person, that first car, the sound of noise from somewhere inside one of the dark buildings by which I pass. Nothing. I look up at the sky, searching for a moon and stars, and see murky pitch. A little gust hits my face, and I shiver off a chill.

  I reach the corner, and again look both ways into the paved darkness. Again, nothing. I choose left and walk another block or so. The silent night allows me to probe my mind, and I find myself exploring corridors covered in the etchings of lost thoughts as I walk.

  I step into my head as I do this street, bundled up, walking abruptly, looking for signs of comfort or acknowledgment. In my head, in this space, I can see certain things through the darkness, things that I cannot see in the real world.

  I see visions of my past, thoughts which I no longer think, opinions which no longer make sense. A flyer is stuck to the fleshy side of my brain, large letters reveal an organization called the PLV. I giggle in my head, ripping the flyer down, stamping it into the dust as I move along.