felix
Dylan Bassett
My wife was my wife. Then she wasn’t. She left. One day she was there, one day not. Everything was fine. Then everything was not fine. It was nighttime. Then it was morning.
Two weeks later I got the divorce papers and a call from my wife’s Italian brothers. Contact her and you’re dead. That’s what they said.
Then her Italian brothers came over to the house and took her furniture. Her furniture was all the furniture.
I had a mattress and a futon. I had a table. I had a lawn chair in the backyard. The backyard was nothing. It was dirt and rocks.
Soon I developed a porn addiction. Fat Moms. Mature Amateur. Those were my categories. Big women with sloppy boobs.
Then I let myself experiment with plastic bags. I put them over my head, for example.
I started going to a massage parlor in Chinatown. It was called Smiley Face. I paid twenty-five dollars to get a hand job there. Every masseuse was an old Chinese lady. They called me wild boy. Why you take so long get hard, wild boy? Big balls, little cum, wild boy.
One day, Smiley Face was raided by the police. People were arrested. Human trafficking. I worried I’d be implicated. My name was on file. I stayed inside for two days and turned off all my lights, my phone, and my Wi-Fi.
Then, sometime after that, I had a seizure.
My friend George took me to the emergency room. The ER doctor referred me to a general practitioner who referred me to a neurologist who looked like my grandma and told me it was probably stress. I was unlikely to have another seizure.
I had another seizure.
The same neurologist referred me to another neurologist who looked like Adrien Brody and told me it was now only a matter of time until I had a third seizure.
I had a third seizure. It happened while driving my route. I still worked for UPS back then. I crashed my car into a tree. There were no other cars involved, thank Christ.
I lost my job.
And then I lost my driver’s license.
At the hospital, they said, Wear this. I said, What’s this? They said, It’s a wristband, it has a tag on it. I wore the tag. Like a dog. It said EPILEPTIC on it, and it had a phone number on the back so people could call an ambulance if I was seizing in a grocery store, for example.
I started collecting unemployment and disability checks. All I had to do was apply for jobs and keep applying and prove I was applying. If I did that, the checks would keep rolling in.
Oh, boy. What a life.
I noticed more homeless people near my house. Mostly in the alleyways a block away, along the edge of the neighborhood. More and more of them are moving in, setting up tents and building encampments.
There was one guy who wore an orange jacket. He acted like the kingpin. He was everywhere.
I tried to hang myself. I found an old leather belt in the closet. I nailed one end to the door jamb in the bedroom. Three nails. I tied the other end into a loop the way they showed in the diagrams online. When I finally stepped in, there was this moment, just a few seconds, where everything felt weightless. What a feeling. My feet barely touched the ground. This is it, I thought, and the thought wasn’t bad. I heard music. I heard my name. And then the belt broke and I hit the floor and I felt ashamed, even though there was nobody there to be ashamed of me.
My friend George put me on suicide watch. He said, Good for you. All that’s behind you now. This is your new life, brother.
All my friends had ideas about how I should live my new life. Donny recommended a sex robot. It feels totally real, he said. So wet. Johnny said, Get on a dating app. Bill said, Get a gym membership and stop drinking. George said, Get a hooker. Jesus said, Don’t degrade yourself, get out there and find yourself a new wife. But I didn’t want a new wife. I wanted my old wife.
That’s when I got an idea.
*
I put an ad on Craigslist for a pretend wife: Seeking someone (a woman, etc.) to act as my ex-wife on the phone—$12 an hour—just conversation, no funny business. The job is simple but requires consistency and good conversational skills. Must be reliable, discreet, and have a good sense of humor. Maximum 9 hours per week (flexible scheduling). If interested, please reply. Serious inquiries only.
*
If you wait long enough something is bound to happen. Good or bad. You meet someone and you don’t meet someone else. You do the thing. You don’t do the thing. Something always happens.
The woman who called me first, her name was Jackie.
—Is this my audition? she said.
—What kind of woman are you? I said.
—I’m Mexican.
—My wife is Italian. Kind of. She’s from New Jersey. Can you do New Jersey?
She changed her voice and said:
—Like this? You want me to talk like this?
—That’s more like Minnesota.
—I’ll work on it.
—Do you have any other jobs right now? I said.
Jackie assured me she would be available to talk whenever I needed to talk. She explained that she was unable to hold a regular job because she lived at home with her grandmother who had Alzheimer’s.
—Do you have a man in the house? I said.
—Not anymore.
The ad had been up for weeks before Jackie answered. I wondered if she had always been looking for someone like me. Or if she had been looking for anyone at all.
—Are you good at conversation? I said.
—Astrology, true crime, conspiracy theories, celebrity gossip, skincare routines, ghost stories, the best way to cook an egg. Does that work for you?
—Are you a sad person?
—I can cry on command.
—What else?
—Well, she said. I have a gimp leg.
—I’m sorry, I said.
—I walk with a big bad limp.
I wish she hadn’t told me that. The gimp leg thing made it hard for me to imagine her as my wife.
—When I was a girl, Papa told me I was touched by God. He said I had la marca de un ángel.
—What do you look like? I said. Are you very beautiful?
—My last boyfriend thought so.
—Who was your last boyfriend?
—He was similar to Papa. Big guy with a voice that sounds like he smoked cigarettes. He sounded like this.
—That sounds like my mother.
—Your mother sounds like my father who sounds like my boyfriend.
I turned away from the phone, covered the speaker, and chugged my beer. I burped.
—Have you ever heard of Eva Longoria? she said. Go look her up if you don’t know.
—Hold on, I said.
I looked her up. I felt good about the way she looked. She looked good.
—Okay, I said. You look like that? The hair and the lips?
—That’s what he told me, yeah.
Great. This was going great. I had a good image in mind now. The image of my new Mexican wife making margaritas in a flower dress. She sounded like my Italian wife if she were from Minnesota and looked like Eva Longoria. She rode horses.
—You’re hired, I said.
—I always wanted this, she said. To be a wife.
*
The first real conversation with Jackie was later that evening.
First, I went out and got myself a Big Mac and a milkshake. On the way home I bought a six pack of Bud at the gas station. I drank it in the parking lot.
When I got home, I called her. I wasn’t wearing any pants. I even took my shirt off. She answered right away. That was a good sign.
—Hey, babe, she said.
—My wife doesn’t say babe, really.
—What does she say?
—She likes to call me edible things. Muffin, pumpkin, sugar, honey, like that.
—Well then, hello, honey. How was work?
I took a minute to tell her about the job I used to have. I was a delivery guy. It was a fine job. I drove comfortably around. I got to know the town, the side streets and the neighborhoods. I listened to comedy podcasts.
—But I’m not allowed to drive, I said. Not anymore. Legally.
—Terrible. Las Vegas is the worst place to be without a car. The distance between buildings is so good and big. It’s five miles from my apartment to the Dollar General.
I noticed she wasn’t even trying to do her Minnesotan accent anymore. She was doing a Mexican accent that sounded fake. I’d seen Mexican women on TV. I’d seen them down at the Chinese restaurant behind my house. They didn’t sound like that.
—As long as I keep applying for jobs, I said, I’ll keep getting those government checks.
—I used to be a barista at Starbucks, you know. Every morning this bum would come in. He was always the first customer. His name was John the Baptist. That was his legal name. John the Baptist Jefferson. He said he was the poet laureate of Fremont Street. He wrote poems. Real ones. His poems were all about mermaids and quicksand. I never really understood them. He never had any money. Sometimes we gave him free black coffee, but mostly he just wanted cups of ice. He’d sit in the corner with his cup of ice writing poems. He’d shovel it into his mouth, suck on it for a while, chew it until his mouth was empty, then go back and ask for more. All day he ate ice. Once I asked him about it. And he told me that he was tricking his body into thinking it was eating food and in this way he never got hungry. I haven’t had food in seven years, he said. His body went through the motions of eating, savoring, digesting, and so on.
— Sorry, I said, but my wife never worked at Starbucks.
—This isn’t my first acting gig, you know. When I was a kid, I used to pretend to get hit by cars and tell the drivers I’d forget the whole thing if they gave me some cash. I was born to be an actor.
—That’s terrible.
—I’m flexing right now you just can’t see it.
—My wife would never flex.
—I played Lady Macbeth once, I did.
—I want you to play my wife.
—I can’t play a character I don’t understand, Felix. Tell me something about her. Help me out.
I thought about that.
—My wife used to wear more makeup than most women, I said. How much makeup can one woman wear? Once she got all dolled up to go shopping at Walmart. I told her that she looked a bit like a clown. I laughed a little and pointed to my face and said, Honey, you got this clown thing going on.
—That’s the third worst thing a man can say to a woman.
—She didn’t talk to me for two days. When I tried to apologize, she made a clown face at me—big smile, no teeth—and acted out a clown routine. She walked around the house honking an imaginary horn, tripping over invisible objects, pretending to cry. She was punishing me. Then she stopped wearing makeup completely and deliberately made herself look haggard. She stopped combing her hair even and let her roots grow out. She started wearing oversized clothes. She refused to pluck her eyebrows. This was her personality. To get me back. To take a joke, turn it inside out and wear it. She never wore makeup again.
Jackie covered up the phone again and yelled something something in Spanish.
—Okay, she said. Here’s an idea. Let me play this role the way I want to play it, okay? Trust me. Let me be your new wife. I think you’re going to like it.
*
The next morning, I drank a glass of milk and a beer. I didn’t eat breakfast. I was saving money. I made myself a glass of ice and went into the backyard. I sat in a lawn chair and chewed my ice.
Soon the heat got worse, so I went back inside.
I wanted to call Jackie but had already talked to her twice that week and couldn’t afford more than 10 hours. Pace yourself. I applied for a few jobs. Always jobs I knew I’d never get. A flavor scientist, an analyst for the FBI, a fisherman in Alaska, a Sumo wrestler on the Strip, a voice actor for cartoons.
In my cover letters I listed out all my fears. Elevators, drowning, teeth falling out, deep ocean, holes where they shouldn’t be, a knock at the door when I’m not expecting anyone, something sharp hiding in my food.
No one called me back, of course.
Free money.
I felt like a king. I felt like a total loser.
*
The biggest thing was to distract myself from suicidal thoughts. It wasn’t hard to do, but I was supposed to do it.
I was supposed to keep a journal and write down happy words.
I was supposed to keep moving.
Sitting too long. That’s bad. Napping too long. That’s bad, too.
I remembered I had a bicycle and decided to ride it. It was a green bicycle, a wheelless bike, if such a thing exists, with wide handlebars. I rode it downhill and up, with my arms up and out, no hands, in the shape of the crucifix. I felt a rare terror that was also a pleasure.
And I rode like this to a nearby coffee joint. My wife used to go there and sit. Fancy place. I hated it. They were always playing jazz. I hated jazz.
I leaned my bike against a fire hydrant and went inside.
The place was crowded and loud. I thought I heard someone say my name, but when I looked, no one was looking back.
I walked inside and went to the counter. I stood in line. When it was my turn, I asked the barista whether he knew my wife.
—Your wife? he said.
He had a tortured look on his face. Like he’d just taken a shot of vinegar. He was wearing a tank top that looked like my tank top.
—My wife is a regular here, I said. She sits up there on the balcony and reads. She comes here every day.
—Everyday? No, man. I don’t know your wife.
I didn’t believe him. He was wearing one of those beanies that’s too small for your head.
—Can I get you a latte? he said. Or what do you like?
—Diet Coke, man.
He looked at me. He did a thing with his face.
—We don’t do that here, he said.
—Just a cup of ice then.
—Just ice?
I found a table and chewed my ice. I almost recognized the people around me like I’d seen them on the internet. But not really. Just lots of fat moms.
I ate all my ice and stood up and asked for more. They gave me more. I sat and chewed. I imagined the decapitated head of John the Baptist on a plate. It spoke to me. It said: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
I tried to imagine my wife sitting across from me. She was saying something to me, something important, I thought, but I couldn’t hear it. Very important. The future depended on it.
I leaned in.
—Say it again, I said. I didn’t catch it.
*
Jackie was good at answering the phone. It only rang once or twice before she picked up. I was proud of her, but I still resisted her acting techniques. I wanted her to act like my wife but she was more interested in talking about why I wanted her to act like my wife in the first place.
—I’m not paying for a therapist, I said.
—I used to have a therapist, she said, but not anymore. Most therapists are pretty stupid. All they do is say yes. They don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Some of them are perverts, too. A lot of them are. I had this therapist once who wanted to hear about my sex dreams. Weird, huh? Just to fuck with him that I told him he was in one of my sex dreams. He seemed excited about that. I can be a character in your life’s movie, he said. If you need me to be.
—Pretend I’m your therapist, I said. What would you tell me right now?
—I’d tell you there are ghosts in my apartment.
—What kind of ghosts?
—The kind you can see and talk to. A whole family. There’s a man with a top hat and a woman with an umbrella, and a few kids who run around breaking their invisible toys and shitting their pants. There’s another man with a cane, but he never leaves the bathroom.
I tried not to laugh.
—Don’t laugh, she said.
—What do you think of them? I said. Do they scare you?
—I love them. I say hello to them as I go by. I speak to them in accents. Sometimes in a German accent like this. And sometimes in a British accent like this. And sometimes Irish. And sometimes, like this, very Southern and proper like. And sometimes like this robot voice which is, I really don’t know what to call it, like someone from the middle of nowhere.
*
Few days later I had a seizure. Assclown. Shitbird. Then I walked to the gas station and bought a tall can of Bud and drank it in the parking lot which was a bad idea. I sat on the curb. I looked bad. I was how I looked. I couldn’t feel my mouth.
That’s the point, isn’t it?
Someone said that to me as they walked by. A bum said it. It was the bum in the orange jacket. The one who lived in the alley behind my house.
—That’s the point, isn’t it? he said.
What an idiot.
Later I struggled to get home. I walked over an overpass and stood at the top for a while, leaned against the railing, felt the rush of traffic in my bones. I looked down at the cars driving on the freeway. I imagined standing at the top of a cliff, looking down on some rushing river. I had thoughts. Bad thoughts.
I don’t know how I made it out of there, but I did. When I finally got home, I saw the orange jacket bum. He was standing outside my house. He complimented my bike.
—My bike?
He pointed at it. My bike was leaning against the garage door. I must have forgotten to put it away. The bum had a look in his eye, a little gleam of hope, and an ugly grin. He smelled bad.
—Are you looking for a bathroom? I said.
—Look, he said. I just wanted to tell you I like your bike.
—Don’t look at my bike, man.
He had something in his mouth, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Candy, maybe.
He pointed his fingers at me like a gun.
*
—Sleep never comes when it should, I was saying to Jackie. It leaves me alone. And then just when I have forgotten about it, just when I least expect it, it’s right there and then it gets me. I’ve fallen asleep while eating dinner or talking on the phone and the next thing is I’ve wasted the day sleeping.
She yelled something in Spanish. Something something.
A fly buzzed around my head and landed on my neck. So many flies. I swatted it away.
—You know one and a half people kill themselves every day in this city, I said.
—Have you ever seen half a person? she said.
The fly was back buzzing around my head. I swatted, swatted.
—I’m serious, she said. A half person. Have you ever seen one?
—What do you mean, like, a little person or what?
—No, not like a little person. A half person is what I mean.
—Like half a body?
—I met a guy with half a body once. At the Circus Circus. He lost his legs in Beirut is what he told me. He was trying to get to Arizona. I forget why. I said something about his penis. I said, how do you pee without a penis? He said, who told you I don’t have a penis? I said, Don’t you not have one? It doesn’t look like you have one. Then he showed it to me. There it was. It was not the kind of penis you’d want to look at per se. Not for very long anyway. But he did have one.
—My mother had a thing for crippled guys.
—Everyone has a thing.
—And dead guys.
—Your mother sounds like my father. He only wanted broken girls. Lots of guys want that.
—Mom’s first boyfriend. Had cancer. She was twenty-two. She spent two years taking care of him. The love of her life. And her next boyfriend happened to be dying, too. Turns out, it wasn’t a one-time thing. She only dated men who were terminal. Lung disease, brain tumors, ALS, cirrhosis. Not old guys either. Not too old. Guys her age or just older. Guys she met in hospitals, in waiting rooms, and the online forums where people share their final months. She never married. Marriage was for people who believed in the future, and she didn’t believe in the future. She just wanted love in the present.
—Your dad was one of these dead guys?
—I never knew him.
—Everyone loves someone for the wrong reasons.
*
Soon I developed a weird rash on my ass. A kind of lizard skin. It looked like I had been spanked. Too bad I hadn’t. My wife wasn’t into that kind of thing. It was probably from sitting around so much, sweating on the sofa, eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos for lunch every day.
I needed to get out. I walked to Walmart.
It took me an hour.
Walmart is one of those places where it doesn’t matter how good-looking you are, you're going to look like trash. You could be Gwyneth Paltrow or Julia Roberts but, if you go into a Walmart, you get transformed into a divorced stepdad.
I wanted to vomit the whole time.
All I could see were the fattest people in the world staring at toothpaste, stuffing their shopping carts with frozen corn dogs.
I did what I needed to do.
I stole some cortisone and a bottle of water and got out of there.
It took me even longer to get home. My legs hurt. I stopped and sat at a bus stop. I would have taken the bus anywhere, but no bus ever came. No bus and no people. Lots of cars, though. Nonstop cars. This way and that way.
Maybe it wasn’t really a bus stop.
When I got home, George was there. He was sitting on my driveway in the shade. His lips were red, and I wondered if he was wearing lipstick.
—Are you wearing lipstick?
He touched his lips.
—I’m just dehydrated, he said.
He pointed at the sun.
—Beautiful day to be alive, he said.
—Is that what we are? I said.
—What else would we be?
He was wearing board shorts. He was always wearing board shorts. He was that kind of guy. Also he was wearing his compression stockings because of his blood clots.
—Do you feel like pancakes? he said. I’m craving some pancakes, and I thought I’d stop by and bring you along.
George was my best friend. He was one of those guys who quit drinking when he got married. Had kids. Stopping going to the gym. Got a tattoo of a football helmet. Bought a motorcycle he never learned to ride. Went bald.
I loved him.
There was an IHOP around the corner. George drove and it felt good to be driven.
We were the only people there. Our waitress was a skinny, older lady with pink hair and alligator tattoos. Her teeth were black. She winked at me.
I ordered pancakes and Diet and a bowl of whipped cream. George got French Toast with extra powdered sugar.
—I thought you wanted pancakes, I said.
The food came out fast. Hot food. What a life.
—We’re here to talk about you, George said with his mouth full. How are you? How’s your mind?
—I haven’t tried to kill myself recently if that’s what you mean.
—Have you been thinking about it?
—Not more than usual.
—Don’t kid with me, dude. This is serious. You shouldn’t kid about it.
—Calm down. It’s just a coping mechanism.
George smacked his lips as if laboring to chew. I kind of lost my appetite. I downed my Diet Coke fast and ordered another one.
Our waitress winked at me again. She reminded me a little of my wife if my wife were a skinny older lady with pink hair. I felt the jolt of caffeine and artificial sweetener getting into me.
—How’s your sex life? said George. He was chewing.
—I have it sometimes, I said. Less so now.
—You’re letting me down.
—I was having it sometimes with this woman who had been a preschool teacher. But she would only have sex with the bottom off. She insisted on keeping her shirt on. I didn’t ask why. But I thought it was weird. She kept her socks on, too. That was too much.
—That’s not so bad.
—And she took a selfie every five minutes. Smart people don’t do that. You know? Smart people do not go around taking photos of themselves all day.
—I used to do that kind of thing, it’s not a big deal.
—I have someone new anyway.
—A girlfriend.
—I’ve never actually seen her.
He looked up at me. Then back down at his plate. He added more syrup. He stirred it in little circles.
—Is this a mail order bride type thing from Bulgaria, or where do they come from?
—She’s a phone-wife kinda thing.
—A what what?
—Her name is Jackie. We talk on the phone.
—She’s your girlfriend but you’ve only ever talked to her on the phone, that’s what I’m hearing.
I explained it to him. Everything about it. The conversations and the phone sex. We talk about everything. No secrets between us. Mostly she talks and I listen but sometimes she gets me to talk and that’s good for me. We’ve skipped all the wining and dining.
—She’s Mexican, I said.
—She’s not Mexican, he said. I’ll tell you that. A Mexican woman would never sign up for something like that. A phone girlfriend. No way. Maybe a Russian or a Chinese, but even that I doubt. Maybe a Filipino. More than likely she’s a Russian. Or a Hungarian. Polish, could be. Ukrainian probably. Those Eastern Europeans. They’ll do anything for bread.
—She looks like Eva Longoria, I said.
—What if she’s a man? What if you’re jerking off to the voice of a dude. Or even worse. A minor. She’s underage, bet you. A teenager. You’re having phone sex with a teenager. Have you thought about that?
No, I hadn’t thought of that.
—Imagine, he said, she’s like fifteen. You’re sick, buddy. Sicko. You’re in trouble.
I started to spiral. Who was Jackie really? Maybe a man, so what? A teenager. She could be a teenager. That was bad news. Terrible. She could be a middle-aged married woman, smoking in her kitchen while her husband watched TV in the next room. She could be some bored college student, doing this for a sociology project. She could be a scam artist running multiple personas at once. Or worse she could be no one at all. A bot. An AI experiment designed to test how long a man will keep talking to an illusion. Just lines of code. Programmed to listen, to respond, to keep me tethered to my phone. Like an idiot. I imagined the developers sitting in some windowless office. I saw them laughing at transcripts of our conversations, analyzing how long it would take me to say I love you.
George put his finger up in the air to signal another cup of coffee.
—You need something else to do, George said, chewing. You need a quest.
—Everyone says that.
—I’m serious.
—Don’t worry yourself. I have quests. Beginning middle and end. I’m applying for jobs. I’m seeing how long I can live off condiments and free samples. I’m seeing how many movies a man can watch in a single day.
I was still spiraling. It was difficult to focus.
—You need a haircut, he said. You look like a plumber. I bet you could get a job as a plumber’s assistant.
We ate and went on eating. George gave me his pep talk. He told me to do something with my life. Change. Better yourself. Improve yourself. He said self-improvement was how man showed God his gratitude. Life is just a long, slow argument between you and the world. And every time you get better at something—every time you build something, learn something, fix something—you’re winning that argument. You’re saying, See? I was here. And if you don’t, the world wins and you’re done.
—How many years do you really have left? he said. Thirty? Twenty? And then what? I’ll scatter your ashes on some random beach because you never told me where you’d want to go. And that’ll be it.
We finished our meal. George volunteered to pay for it. I let him.
He drove home and didn’t talk. I was thinking about Jackie as a teenager. It was bad. I couldn’t focus.
George dropped me off at home. Before I got out of the car he slapped me on the shoulder.
—Here, he said.
He reached into his pocket, took out some cash, and handed it to me. Sixty dollars.
—What for? I said.
He looked at me like I was supposed to know what for.
—You can pick up a girl.
He pointed up ahead, out the window.
—Between Magik’s and Paradise Lost. They’re out there. They sit on the curb after five o'clock.
—I’m done with all that, I said. After what happened at Smiley Face. I’m done.
—Don’t be a masturbater. Masturbation is bad for your soul and your brain. Your confidence, too.
He slapped me on the back again.
—All the geniuses masturbated, I said. Aristotle was known to have masturbated seven times a day. Napoleon masturbated in front of his officers and political rivals. Picasso was a chronic masturbator at age thirteen.
I got out of George's car.
He did the rock-on sign with his hand.
—Use it!
Then he drove away.
*
I didn’t get a prostitute. I pocketed the money.
Then I called Jackie.
—I’m gaining weight, I said. Are you disappointed?
—Me?
It was hard not to imagine her as something wrong, something bad. A little girl. I was afraid to ask. I didn’t want to ruin it. It was a good thing we had going.
—Tell me you're disappointed in me, I said.
She snorted.
—Before I get into the shower, I said, I search the internet for images of the world’s fattest people, so I don’t look so fat when I take my clothes off. The world’s fattest man, Jesus, you can’t even see his bones. He looks like a man trapped inside another man.
—Does that frighten you, that a man can get so fat?
—What frightens me is his voice. It’s strangely delicate. It’s the voice of a child.
—I feel the same way about fat people that I do about skinny people. I hate them.
—I hate being alone more than anything.
Jackie paused, covered the phone with her hand, and yelled something in Spanish. Something something. I heard the toilet flush.
—It’s getting easier and easier for me to be alone, I said. The technology’s getting better. The apps and the websites. It’s no problem sitting in a room all day without seeing anyone, talking to anyone. I’ve got everything I need. Groceries, entertainment, even conversation. It’s like the world comes to me now.
I heard the toilet flush again.
—Do you believe in hell, Jackie?
—I grew up Mormon. Mormons don’t believe in hell.
—Do Mormons believe in heaven?
—Heaven is on Earth, baby. It’s right now. Take streetlights, for example.
—What about them?
—Aren’t they the most glorious thing you’ve ever seen? There are other things, too. Water fountains, for example. Stop signs. Skateboards. Stress balls. Scratch and sniff stickers. Balloons. Mechanical bulls. Electric toothbrushes. Utensils. Microwaves. Impossible burgers. Eyelashes on cars.
—Keep going, I said. What else?
It was dark in my living room, and I wanted to keep hearing her voice.
—Flip flops. Flip flops! Let me tell you about them. You can get them in all kinds of colors, and they make you feel like you’re walking on air. Like you’re not on the ground at all. Like everything you touch is air. You can walk across the parking lot, or the sidewalk, or into a room, and you don’t have to put down your foot. Or your hand. I mean, think about it. Flip flops are sort of like that. They make you feel light and airy. Like you’re in your underwear. Flip flops are like foot underwear.
*
I applied for a job as a high school hockey coach and another as a lawyer and then went out for a ride. I took the little side streets, toward downtown, the Arts District, the Naked City, not too close to my house. I let chance carry me along. There were thousands of houses made of stucco and cinder blocks and concrete and other scrap. There were apartment buildings unnaturally far apart, leaning right and left. Street bars. Little furniture shops. Key masters. Pawn shops. The city seemed to grow out. To multiply. Beyond the houses were more houses. And beyond those houses, still more. The cigar lounges and the laundromats. The sunlight was there and not there. There again.
The wind was blowing.
I ran a stop sign. It gave me a little jolt of confidence and I wanted to run another.
Then there was a police officer. I hadn’t seen him. He pulled me over and asked for my ID, and when I handed it over, he took off his sunglasses and let me see his face. He had a big head but a small face. A tiny mouth, like a mouse’s. He stuck his tongue out and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked at me the way an adult looks at a child. The way a healthy person looks at a sick one. I looked at my wrist and saw my little wristband: Epileptic.
—Do you need to be escorted home, sir? Are you coherent enough to get yourself home?
—I don’t understand, I said. And immediately regretted it.
He took me by the shoulder.
—Here. I’m going to take you home. You’re going to be alright.
He sat me in the front seat and put my bike in the back. He had to open the window so it would fit.
He drove slowly. We were closer to my house than I’d thought. Just right around the corner, in fact. I hadn’t gone very far at all. I had been going in circles without realizing it.
We arrived and he filed a report. I had to wait in the car and the car was like a sweatbox.
—I’m not sure it’s safe for you, sir, to be out on your bike. I’m not sure it’s safe for you to live here alone.
*
Later Jackie was talking about movies.
—Most of them are stupid, she said. Right? They make them to be stupid, most of them anyway, because most people are stupid and don’t need much to entertain themselves. Take the Matrix, for example, it’s about sunglasses and dodging bullets. Titanic is another example. That movie was three hours of rich people being dumb and one guy who couldn’t share a piece of wood. Move over and let him on the door, Rose. I have a suspicion that Rose wanted him to die. She had her fun with the poor working-class boy and then, when she had the chance, she killed him. Subliminal messaging. Poor people deserve to die. But people love this shit.
—Everything that doesn’t make us angry makes us dumb, I said.
—I was the best actor at my high school, you know that? Someday I’m going to make it to the movies. I don’t just play the role. I become the role. It’s called method acting. Have you ever heard of method acting?
—Like Heath Ledger?
—I want to wear the right clothes. I want to get the body language right. Someday I’ll show you.
—When, Jackie? When will you show me?
Then we had phone sex. It wasn’t the first time.
By now I was great at self-touching. I had gotten good at imagining Jackie, too. I had a clear image of her. It was easy. She looked like Salma Hayek plus Eiza González. Look at those big brown Mexican eyes, glossy black hair, lips red like ripe fruit. I pictured her sprawled across a bed, tangled in sheets, drinking Dos Equis. Or I pictured her in a red dress with ruffles, twirling in the kitchen, making tamales by hand. Or I saw her lounging on the beach in a long colorful skirt, squeezing lime into a michelada.
—All I have left is this little sliver of happiness, I said. I’m doing everything I can to keep it.
*
I applied to more jobs: a high school biology teacher at Durango High School, a private investigator’s assistant, a park ranger, a professional line sitter.
I went to the bathroom mirror and drew circles around my fat rolls with a sharpie. I was disgusted with my pasty white skin. I wondered whether Jackie would be disgusted, too.
I needed some rays. I went outside, took my shirt off. I lay flat on my back in the driveway. The concrete was hot. It felt like torture. Then it felt good. It relaxed me. I imagined myself in some other place. San Diego or Miami. I imagined myself as a monk on top of a mountain. I counted my breath until I forgot I was counting and lost my place.
When I opened my eyes, the sky was completely empty. The sunlight was colorless and washed-out. Everything looked fake.
Briefly I had the thought that I wasn’t looking up, but down. I was floating in the sky, suspended, and looking down on some void.
Everywhere you look all you see is yourself.
I sat up and that’s when I saw him.
He was a bum walking down the street toward my little house. He was walking slowly, limping. He bent down occasionally on one knee to pick up rocks. Small sandstone rocks on the sidewalk and in the street.
He examined each one and either put them into his pockets or tossed them back into the street or into the front yards of other houses. Then he put a rock into his mouth and sucked on it for a while and spit it out. He did it again. Another rock. And another.
Now he was close. He was standing right in front of me.
He saw me seeing him. He stopped and nodded to say hello. He approached and put out his hand. I thought he was offering me something, but his hand was empty. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a stone, put it in his mouth, sucked on it for a while, and spat it into the street. He did it again. He took out another stone from his pocket. He did the same thing over again. Four or five times he repeated this.
—Can I trouble you for a glass of water?
It was only then I saw what he was wearing: layers. Too many. A shirt underneath a shirt. A jacket with deep pockets. An orange jacket. Camouflage military-style pants tucked into industrial boots. He was the same bum as before. The one who had been eyeing my bike.
—My bike is inside, I said.
He sucked another stone.
—Aren’t you hot in that jacket? I said.
—I just need a glass of water.
I thought of all the reasons why I should not give him a glass of water. Because he wanted my bike. Because he was filthy and smelled like he’d pooped his pants. Because he was a stranger. Because he was sucking on stones. Because people like him, wandering, layered, unbothered by heat, never just needed a glass of water. Because if I went inside, he might follow me in. Because once you give someone something, they tend to want more. Because what if I gave him water, and he asked for food? And then money? And then my bike? What if I woke up the next morning and he was still here, camped out in my yard, drinking from my hose? Because maybe this was a scam. Maybe he had a whole crew of stone-suckers waiting around the corner, ready to rush in the second I turned my back, attack me, take my bike.
—Who are you? I said.
—I just need some water.
—What’s your name?
—Dylan, he said.
Dylan was a perfectly normal name. A fine name. And now that I knew his name was Dylan and not some other name, I suddenly could not think of any good reason why I shouldn’t give this man some water.
And sometimes, if you’re like me, you want to say one thing but end up saying the opposite.
—It’s hot, I said.
The sun rises and the sun falls, he said. But the temperature never changes.
—I’ll give you some water, I said.
The way the sunlight fell across his face made his eyes look almost black. His cheekbones stuck way out. His face looked like a skull.
—And why don’t you come inside, I said, and take that coat off and cool yourself down.
He pointed to my house with both hands.
—In there?
*
We were inside the house. I regretted all of it. Dylan took his coat off and suddenly the whole house smelled like spoiled milk and damp fabric and poop. He took off his shirt and there was another shirt underneath it. He took that shirt off and there was another one under that.
He wasn’t young and he wasn’t old. The skin on his face was pulled tightly around his bones and his lips were thin. It looked like he was pushing them together in a way that made it seem like he was only ever frowning.
I filled up a glass with ice water and took it over. I was careful not to get too close. I set it down on the table and took a step back.
—There you go.
He didn’t immediately claim the glass. Instead, he looked around my living room, considering this and that.
—You don’t have much in here, he said.
—Not anymore, I said.
He looked at the futon, the rug, the window, the coffee table, the little TV.
—Do you want any ice to chew on? I said.
—Chew on?
—Or suck?
He didn’t answer. He paced. He went around my living room and touched a few things. His hands were boney and birdlike.
—Don’t touch anything, I said.
He kept touching.
I started thinking of ways to get him out of my house. I wondered whether I was going to have to kill him.
He touched a frame. It was on the coffee table. He picked it up. There was a picture of me in it: I am a boy. I am standing next to my mother.
—You live here alone? he asked, but it was not a question.
He walked back over to the table and sat down. He chugged the water and pointed back to the picture of me as a boy.
—You fell off, he said. Your face got ugly.
—I was a beautiful child, I said. I could have been a star.
—I was a strange child, he said. I used to walk backwards. Everywhere. All the time. I looked over my shoulder. People asked me why. Why backwards? People ask so many questions. I refuse to answer them. Sometimes the best definition of a thing is the thing itself.
I should have been a celebrity of some kind, I said. I should have been a politician. I have good public speaking skills. My seventh-grade teacher told me.
—You live alone? he asked again. You don’t have a dog or nothing?
—I don’t have a dog. I never have.
—Having a dog is like having a whole nother perspective.
—Where’s your dog then?
—I used to have one. His name was Charlie. A good dog. The best. Having a dog makes you wonder about the consciousness of animals. It must be full of shadows, vague shapes and lights, dotted outlines, like a child’s coloring book. Like a dream of consciousness. Like a miniature Russian Orthodox church. Like flowers that bloom and die in a single second. And this is how it has been for me, too, since I got sick. I struggle to hold onto a thought. A thought comes and I reach out to touch it. And maybe I do touch it. But only for a second. And then it’s gone again. And in this way my consciousness is the same as an animal’s consciousness. I am an animal. Do you know what I mean?
He held up his empty glass. He gestured for more water, and I got him more water. Then he asked me for food. I offered him the rest of my Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
He took the bag.
—These will give you anal seepage, he said. You eat them and you leak.
—Where you’d even hear about that?
—The internet. Don’t you have the internet?
I went back into the kitchen and got the pack of Nutter Butters I was saving for lunch. There were only five or six left. I offered them to him. He accepted and ate them quickly.
—Where’s that bike of yours? he said.
—Maybe I don’t have it anymore, I said.
—So, you live alone. You don’t have a dog. When do you go to work?
He put another stone in his mouth.
—What’s with those rocks?
—It’s all logic. If I put one rock here, and another rock there, then this rock goes back into this pocket, and that rock goes into that pocket, and on and on it goes.
His tongue came out. His tongue was yellow. He took out the stone and put it into the other pocket.
He got up and resumed his pacing.
—Where did you say you worked? he said.
His voice had an edge.
Then he did something else. He set the rock on my table. He placed it there. Like a marker. Like he was staking claim.
—I don’t work, I said.
He nodded. Like he already knew. Then he took another rock from his other pocket. Set it down next to the first one. Now there were two.
—When do you leave the house, then?
—I don’t.
—For errands. Groceries. Appointments.
He picked up one of the stones. Put it back in his pocket. But he left the other one on the table. He went back to pacing. He stood by the window and looked out.
—You get a lot of bugs? he said.
—Bugs?
—Yeah. In the walls. In the air vents. Coming up through the drains.
—Not really.
—I lived in a place once, he said. Didn’t notice at first. Little cracks here and there. Then one day, I wake up, and the whole house is full of them. These little gaps in the walls, the floorboards, the corners where the furniture met the floor. Like something had been working its way in all along.
—Something?
—You don’t notice until it’s too late. And by then, you don’t even remember how it started.
—I think it’s time for you to go, I said. I don’t like where this conversation is going.
He turned and sat back down, drained his water and burped.
—You got any knives? he said.
—Knives, no.
—Everyone has knives.
—Not me.
—You live alone, and you don’t got knives or nothing?
—I’m on suicide watch.
—You live alone, and they got you on watch?
—I used to have a wife.
—Used to.
—I lost her.
—How’d that happen.
—I was a bad husband. She was always disappointed in me. Disappointed that I was a delivery guy and not a doctor or something. She resented me. I drank.
—I had a wife, too. She was a strange woman. She used to keep a journal. But she didn’t record what she did that day. She recorded things she was going to do another day. Not big things. Small things. Like, she wrote, in two weeks I am going to go skiing. Or, in one year I am going to walk to the park and watch the dogs run around and chase the ball. She lived like this. Imagining herself doing other things. But she never did any of them.
—What happened to her?
—She died.
—She died.
—Brain aneurysm.
—I said sorry, so sorry.
—Yeah.
—That’s when everything got bad. Work got bad. I stopped going. I started drinking again. When I was drunk, I had the feeling I’d be with her again someday. I liked that feeling. I knew I wasn’t going to be with her as I am now, or as she used to be. But, you know, in the sense that she is dust. And soon I will be dust, too. We’ll both be dust. She doesn’t exist. I won’t exist. We’ll be together. With all the things that don’t exist.
—All the things that don’t exist, I said.
— All the things that don’t exist, he said. It’s a great feeling.
—It doesn’t sound great.
—That’s what heaven is. All the things that don’t exist. Finally.
*
I went into the backyard and sat on my lawn chair. I called Jackie. She greeted me in the usual way. I had so much to say so I said nothing. That’s how it goes. Too much is the same as nothing.
—Have you ever heard the story of the man in the orange jacket?
—No, want me to look it up? Hold on.
She took the phone away from her face. I couldn’t hear her breathing. She looked it up on the internet.
—Looks like it’s some story about a guy who mysteriously vanished into the ocean.
—You’re kidding.
That’s what it says.
I felt like crying. I didn’t know why. So much regret. I wanted to punch myself in the face. I wanted to take my own body and vanish mysteriously into the ocean.
—What’s the truth, I said. What’s the truth, Jackie?
—I don’t know, she said.
—If everyone says Napoleon was five feet tall, does that mean he was five feet tall?
She was thinking about that.
—I guess so, she said. I can’t think of any reason why not.
—If you call me your husband long enough, does that make me your husband in real life? Does that make you my wife?
She was quiet.
—How old are you? I said.
—Is this a test? she said.
—How old are you?
—Old enough.
—I want a good, firm number.
—Don’t make me.
—Fifteen? Fifty?
—I’m ashamed to say what I am.
I couldn’t stop seeing her as a teenager. A little girl with pigtails and high socks.
—Say it.
She hesitated. I waited.
—Are you a man, or what? I said. Are you fifteen?
—Do I sound fifteen?
—Anyone could sound fifteen.
—How old are you? she said.
—I’m thirty-nine.
—Good age.
—I think we should meet in person, I said.
She was quiet.
I threatened to end our contract, tear it up, and throw it in the trash can.
—I think it’s a bad idea, she said. I’ll do it. But I think you’ll regret it.
*
I did regret it, but not really.
We agreed to meet at a Subway and have lunch. When I got there the place was empty. Every place was empty these days. Mostly empty. I sat in the corner booth.
I had a good feeling about all of this.
I imagined Jackie walking in. She looked like Melissa Barrera. I saw her in a straw sombrero, oversized sunglasses, riding a horse through the desert, yelling in Spanish, calling me an idiota or pendejo—because that’s what she thought of me.
Just then, someone walked in.
Oh, no. A woman. Very fat. And she was limping. That’s how I knew it was her. She was wearing a pink Disneyland t-shirt, beige cargo pants, and yellow flip flops. Her feet were swollen and purple. They looked like overfilled balloons about to pop. She had a small face and a bulbous mouth. Her neck looked like a frog. It jiggled. It had a life of its own. And her breasts, no bra, sagged down to her waist.
She looked like she was smiling and crying at the same time. Holding back laughter or tears. She carried a plastic Ziplock bag with a wallet, makeup case, and an apple inside it.
She sat down across from me.
—It’s me, she said.
—I know, I said.
She looked away, ashamed, and pretended to yawn.
—How do I seem? I said.
—You seem fine, she said.
—How do I smell?
She leaned in and sniffed dramatically.
—Like laundry detergent, she said. Like paper.
—Do you think I’m fat?
—You’re not not fat.
I showed her my teeth.
—What about these?
—Okay. Not bad.
She took the apple out of her bag and started eating it. She chewed with her mouth open. She took a packet of salt from the condiment container, tore it open with her teeth, and sprinkled it onto the apple. She licked the salt from her fingers and went back for another bite.
—You’re smaller than I thought, she said. Shorter.
She talked with food in her mouth.
—Are you going to get a sandwich? she said.
Suddenly I didn’t feel hungry at all. The thought of food made me want to throw up.
—I don’t know, I said. Are you going to get one?
She shook her head, chewed, swallowed, and held up her apple.
—I’m on a diet, she said.
—You should have told me that before we came here.
I felt like I needed something to do with my hands. I took a napkin from the dispenser and tore it as if pulling pedals from a flower.
—You want to know the real me, huh? she said.
—How old are you?
—Fifty, can’t you tell?
—You look older. Maybe.
—Everyone looks older except for celebrities. They look younger.
I pulled at the napkin. She loves me. She loves me not.
—I lost my first boyfriend and started smoking menthols and reading tarot cards. Next thing I know, I'm pulling graveyard shifts at a 24-hour diner out in Boulder City, pouring coffee for cowboys. A guy named Billy with a busted front tooth and a Harley takes me to Phoenix, and we shack up in a motel off the highway. He teaches me how to count cards. Later he gets locked up for boosting a Cadillac, and I drive back to Vegas broke. I was thirty. That’s when I meet Donny, a guy who sells used tires and calls me his lucky charm. We get married by an Elvis impersonator. Things are good—until I catch him screwing this rich white lady with fake boobs in the back of his El Camino. I head to Laughlin. I meet Ray, an insurance adjuster with a collection of vintage lunch boxes. We buy a trailer, adopt a mean little chihuahua, and try to make it work. Then one day, immigration shows up and ships Ray back to Guadalajara. I stick around for a while, selling costume jewelry to tourists and trying not to cry. I gotta get out of there. I pack up and head to Vegas. In Vegas, I work the front desk at a motel that mostly rents by the hour. I meet a guy named Kenny who sells fireworks and owns an iguana named Big Jim. He sets the hotel on fire. That’s when I pack up and move back in with my grandmother. She’s dying. You already know that. I’m taking care of her. She gets disability checks, too, like you. And I work this job on the phone. It’s good for me, too. I think this is where I’m supposed to be for now.
She finished her apple and wrapped the core in a napkin. Then she put it in her pocket.
—That’s me, she said.
My napkin was all torn up. I gathered the shreds and crumpled them up. I held them in my fist. My palms were sweaty.
We sat in silence for a while. I think she made that story up. But it got me excited. I didn’t care about reality anymore.
We nodded. Nodding. Looking around. What were we supposed to do after that?
—What should we do now? I said.
—Well, she said. Right now, someone in our good city is preparing to blow their own brains out. Someone is loading up a cocktail of pills. Someone is getting into a bathtub to end it all. Someone is closing their garage, and the car is still running. All these people. They’re alone. And here we are. Together. Not everyone has someone like we do.
She put her head down and looked up. The fat of her neck scrunched up into rolls.
—Do you live around here? she said.
—I walked here.
—You have a house?
—You want to see it?
*
We had a beautiful afternoon together. She came over. She didn’t care that I didn’t have any furniture. We drank Diet Coke. Then we tried to have sex. It looked like the porn I had been watching. Morning pancakes. For a moment, briefly, Jackie was my porn star. And I became Superman.
It didn’t work out, though. It wasn’t easy getting her clothes off. I struggled to get her pants off. I had to strain. It killed the mood. Oh, well. We rolled and romped around on the floor for a while. She pressed her thumb into my throat. In the end we touched ourselves and that was just fine.
Afterwards we lay there, staring at the ceiling.
—Don’t you feel like it would be better if the world just ended? I said.
—I never think that, she said. Never anything like that.
—It’s what we deserve. I think that sometimes.
Then we fell asleep next to each other. The futon creaked under her weight.
I dreamed about the desert. The desert was growing. I dreamed about Dylan and his orange jacket. He was standing outside my house. It was dark outside. When I woke up it was dark outside, too. Just like it had been in my dream. I went outside to see if Dylan was there.
Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t.
I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I laughed and laughed. I did a little dance of celebration. Victory.
*
The next day I didn’t call Jackie. And the day after that I didn’t call her either. Now that I knew what she looked like, I couldn’t imagine her anymore. I couldn’t tell whether that was a good or not-so-good thing.
The imagination is a gift, I thought. Imagination is what makes God God. God is the great imaginer. His imagination is so good that He imagined the whole world and that’s what made it real.
*
The next day or the day after that, Jackie showed up at my house and I let her in. She took off her shoes. She had brushed her teeth, I could tell. She was wearing perfume.
—What haven’t you called? she said.
—I’m running out of money, I said. I don’t know if I can afford you anymore.
—I don’t care about that, she said. I don’t need the money. I’ll just get a job at the bodega down the street. I’ve done it before I can do it again.
I let her in. We had a good time. I let her do whatever she wanted to me. When it was over, she turned over to face me and gave me a face. She had pockmarks on her forehead. I hadn’t noticed them before. It didn’t bother me. I felt better about myself.
—Is this our new life? she said.
I knew what she meant. But what was I supposed to say? I didn’t say anything. Not yet. I stood up and went to the kitchen and got myself a cup of ice. I chewed the cubes. I chewed them until my jaw hurt.
Jackie asked me the question again.
—Did you hear me? she said. Is this our new life? Are we doing this?
Now the cup of ice was gone. My whole face hurt. My tongue was numb. My teeth ached.
*
That night, I had a seizure. I slept until the afternoon. I woke up and drank a tall boy. Then I applied for a job as a blackjack dealer. Good hands, I wrote. Great hands. I applied for a job as a male stripper. I wrote in my cover letter that I had a six pack, veiny forearms, big budge. Willing to do private parties and butt naked.
Later George called me and wanted to come over to check in.
—See how you’re doing, he said.
He came quickly. We went out for pancakes again.
There was a different waitress this time. She was young. Looked like a high school student. No hair. Shaved completely bald.
As soon as the pancakes came out, George asked me about the prostitute. He was dying to know. He wanted the facts.
—Money well spent? he said. Tell me about it. I want the facts.
I made up some story. I told him I had taken an African woman, tall a thin, like an Amazon warrior, back to Magik’s. She told me she had a thing for fat Jewish guys. I made love to her heroically, slowly. In the end she didn’t even want to take my money. I forced her to take it. Then I took her out to Burger King.
George loved it. He gave me a high-five.
—That’s my boy, he said. Proud of you.
—What a life, I said.
After breakfast, George dropped me off. He offered me another sixty dollars.
—Another session would be good for you, he said. You need to get all the evil out of your body.
I took his money. Then he drove away, very pleased with himself. Grinning. He turned up the radio and pumped his fists. He honked.
I went into the backyard and sat in my lawn chair. I thought about Jackie. I had a good feeling good about my decision. I imagined Eva Longoria. It was easy to do. She was salting the rim of a margarita. She was chopping avocados.
The sun was shining.
Various birds at a distance.
The voices of strangers.
Dylan Bassett’s first novel is Gad’s Book (2023). He is an Assistant Professor at Xavier University where he directs the creative writing program and edits Bench Editions, an independent press of poetry and fiction.