~the dead angle. lchristopher.

in scandi countries they do not have the term blind spot; it is called "the dead angle," and i love anything and everything that has to do with mathematical theorems. fuck scene at the end this time.

just me and Kafka kicking it on Manhattan Island; no one can say i don’t keep good company.

**THE DEAD ANGLE. LCHRISTOPHER.**


We all knew the cost.  We all came anyway. In a time before, not so long ago, et. al. Over the river and through the woods. You know this song. 

He sees it like a credit rating. Their love. For eleven years there was no activity on their charge card and suddenly these past three years everything ratcheted up from the bowels of null. 

He’s fucking mental.  He’s a headcase.  When Nathaniel got off his game he began to slip into his father’s welsh verbal clogs; how badly is how much he began to repeat himself, and soon none of this townie political not-political but DEFINITELY political are running the town.

It was the dead angle.  
The what?
The blind spot. 
Do you mean blind spot?
If you like.
No. 
No?
No.

Mistah Kent—
Mistah Kent isn’t here right now. If you’d like to make an appointment, please…

These feelings, I am trying to put them in order.  It’s like you are fucking glass.  I am carrying you.  I am carrying you like some men carry fire.  Carefully and with great fear of being burned.
You left me in Ecuador, Samuel.
You lived there!  his voice rising.
You killed that boy.
You don't know that. Don't say that.
You shot him.
With HIS gun. I didn't bring a pistol into this equation. You need to hable con de controla de armas about that shit, es verdad?
Your spanish is still terrible.
Zazie. Listen to me. He spirited me away - kidnapped me, if you want to go all pussy about it -  in a taxicab worth less than my shirt. He drove me to a corner where there were six other equally short, equally repugnant men waiting to fuck this blanquito seven ways to sunday out of at least his wallet and his ATM card.  And he had a gun.  How was I supposed to know that after the plane took off and once I was safely back in American airspace the FARC...what is now basically the government would come after you?  Do not say this, he cautioned himself. 
"You were in the Peace Corps.  The US government should have sent operators to pull you out. That’s SOP."
"That’s what you told me.  Assured me, that." she said, going stone silent. Everything shutting down. In twenty-four hours they would not speak for ten years, if he didn't do something and right quick.
"They did.  Two weeks later."
"You see?"
"Two weeks in an Ecuadorian prison is not a feather bed, Samuel."
I know that, Zazie. 
Do you want me to tell you about it?  
No.
Why not?  Will it bother you to hear?  You live for action - like most men, but like most men cannot bear to witness the aftermath.
I have been to prison. Real prison. Men's prison. And you know this. Please don’t be cruel.  It’s cold where I am.
"You left me once.  Don’t do it again." There it was. That was the red light, the warning flare, the only one he was going to get. Women did not hit you over the head when it was time to slam on the brake. They launched a small balloon in the air, and that was all you were going to get. If you missed it, sayonara, c'est la vie, see you later, so sorry, bye-bye. 
I won’t.
Swear to me.
I promise.  I swear.
To God?
To all things you find holy.  You have no God, Samuel.  So swear.  Swear to me.
All right then.
Say it.  Put your hand on my heart.  He places his hand over his own heart, his breath fogging the LED crystal, a pleasant blue color chuffed with the smoke of his winter breath.  It was beating at a trot and he traces her aurolae from memory, an erect halo against his calloused thumb.
I swear to you, Zazie.
All right. Will you see me?
I don’t know.  Do you want me, or do you want to chase me?
I want to chase you, he lied.
Good boy, she said.  Southeast.  
You call that an address? 
That’s all you’re getting, she said pertly, and hung up the phone.

PROLOGUE ENDS
FOUR YEARS PASS
Samuel was my first husband.  I marry them all, you see.  They say will you marry me.  Samuel said it different.  He said you will marry me.  I said yes all the same.  And now the devil has truly come to settle. I am a Jew princess fallen from grace I suppose and we joke but there it is.  

What is it, Samuel?
It is like heliotropism in plants.
I’m sorry, I don’t…
They are born and their leaves turn immediately to where the sun is. Because it keeps them alive.
Are you saying I keep you alive?
Are you really that stupid?

I am not as smart as you when it comes to books; but I can make things work. I always make things work.  9/10ths of my life is run as it is on instinct.  I have been very lucky.  You think I am a fool.  Well, I’ll tell you.  If you married I would begin an affair with you.  If you died before I did, I would mourn.
Who speaks like this anymore?
A woman who is shit at tongue kissing and hasn’t yet learned to use compound words.
You like my tongue.
It is a very popular tongue, I hear, these days. 
Charlie.
Yes? he said, innocently. Zazie wanted to punch him through the phone.
You, she said, stubbornly. You're poison, you know that?
Yet and still, yes. You bring that out in me.  Come be my antidote.
I’m not here for other people’s repairs.
No. S’pose not.
You’re the mechanic, Samuel Noel.
No. Not anymore.
Be careful with that. "God loves to make a man break his vow."
You don't believe in God.
Neither do you, and you taught that to me.
So?
So.

She calls him at work at the machine shop. A quiet voice picks up.
"Newhaven and Hopkins Shop."


I can’t sleep.
A Japanese legend says that if you can’t sleep at night it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream.
"Well, it’s obviously not yours. Don't you ever sleep?" A tool clanged off the garage tarmac in the background. There was the sound of WHACK-WHACK-WHACK and then someone called the beaten vehicle or motor or whatever recalcitrant and ostensibly  made of metal: You whore. in a voice that sounded more disappointed at the part of the car than angry with himself for his inability to fix or destroy it, Zazie couldn't tell which.
The sound of the telephone receiver being muffled against his shirt. The shouting grew dimmer. Charlie was walking away from the noise.
"Obviously not, though you can dream while standing up. I've done it. I've done it while driving these past few nights on triple shifts. Was it any different when we shared a bed? You know this, Zazie. "
"Mhm," she said, prudishly walking the line of her relationship with another man. She knew she was out in someone else's AO - Area of Operation - but she hadn't committed anything that could yet be considered cheating. Emotional relationships absolutely did not count. Half the time she didn't really feel anything at all. To find both the emotional and the intelligent and the romantic and the trust/safety/belief factor - the TSB, in a single partner had always seemed more complicated than it was worth, the way some people threw pennies away now. Threw money away. It made no sense.
Everyone wants to be rescued. His father. He said that to her once. He was a lovely man.
Where next?
Africa.  The Cameroon.  I don’t know.
Casablanca.
Morocco.
Would you find me there?
I will always find you.
Even in death?
Death is easy.  Living is the hard part.
I have to go.  Nathaniel is awake.
"He knows about me?"
"Every man I meet knows about you. Then they think of the cutlery cabinet and wish for a sharp knife to stick in you."
"He would surely try."
"Boys."
"Yes'm." 
"Are you still masturbating to me?"
"You just want to hear me tell it."
"I just want to hear you tell it," she agreed.
"I am." 
"Which part?"
"That time you said goodbye to me in Hicksville in Nassau County cos Ronkonkoma Station was flooded and your little shirt rode up on the train platform and Marcellus Wallace ain't got no friendly places in the Valley, Vincent! in and I could see the band of your white cotton panties ride up and there was a field of tiny little yellow flowers planted there if you looked closely enough.
"Did you?" she said, coy.
"Did I what? he said, coyer.
"Look closely," she said. There is the sharp sound of her breath being drawn in, then released.
"Are you playing with yourself again?" he asked in mock shock.
"A lady never tells," she fired back, pertly.
"Not this again."
"Yes, Charlie. "
"Over or under?" he said.
"Are we gambling now?"
"We've been gambling our whole lives, sweetie." Sweetie again. God, that crushed her.
*beat*
I don't suppose the answer is to be found in whoever's bed that's currently not satisfying you enough so you have to call me up to mine me for sexuality.
You gave me my sexuality, Charlie.
*beat*
Say that again.
No. Once is all you get.
Over or under, Zazie. Don't fuck around with me, little girl.
Over, then under. He meant over or under her panties. His voice moved her. God help her but it did. All of her friends told her you cannot break his heart again Z. you cannot lead him on like this you cannot continue to give mixed messages you can't
Are you touching your cock?
Zazie, I'm at work. Surrounded by seventeen drivers who are currently watching Days of Our Lives and growing concerned that Mary or Marnie or Mopsy isn't going to come out of her coma.
I think that's....General Hospital. Mhm.
Mhm, yourself. 
I am mhming myself, Charlie.
Are you close?
Getting there.
It sounds like you're making good time, he said, all flip. And then the progress she was making collapsed in a heap. Gah! almost had it. that boy. that man. goddamn it to hell. why did he have to be so fucking beautiful. why couldn't this break heal cleanly. 

She could hear men in the background, gruff men, someone call someone else a faggot; then raucous laughter. Samuel wrapped the phone in something...he used to do the same thing when talking to people when they lived together back in New Constantine after college. He didn't want her to hear what was going on. The receiver scratched against the material of whatever....probably his tow truck uniform. That came out of an industrial laundry. Always stiff with knife creases in the trousers. Always with the iron this boy. He would iron his jeans in the morning before she finally had enough and picked out some dress clothes for his birthday. A tie from Calvin Klein Did he still have it? He probably did. Charlie Nod never threw anything away. Not like her. Ironing his trousers in the morning while she put the coffee on to perk. Ironing his shirt next. Iron. A penis like iron.  Like white hot iron, and big, but not blunt.  Always asked: "Let me know if I hurt you," before they began. When she would extend her legs out as far as they could go and scream out loud when her parents weren't home. How he would tie her to the bed if she asked him nicely. How she would lead him into the bedroom with one hand, her step quickening, when she was ready and positively wanting it. Knowing that he would always make sure she went first, that she got hers, his mouth on her, his long pianist's fingers curling, come here, come here
oh oh OH
....then white.

She came to, dazed and slick. Went to the bathroom to wash and kick off her unders, they were saturated to the point where it was just going to be like sitting on a wet hen for the next three hours after she drew them back up to her waist. Zazie had been dangling them unconsciously from one toe, her left one, because she knew he liked that.

Charlie? she said.
There were sounds of something being turned over, cursing. Not Charlie's voice. It wouldn't be.
Then definitely Samuel, back on the line:
"Lo'? Zazie? Zee?"
Hi stranger.
Hi you.
Did you finish?
Yes.
What did you come to?
I don't remember, she said. It was what she always said. It drove him crazy.
Don't be that way.
You, Charlie.
What was I doing?
Everything.
Everything?
Everything.
*a brusque moment and this time the telephone handset was not wrapped the same way as before, just pressed against his chest or his hand, because she heard Charlie this time, plain as day, saying something about "....touch philo again or....break the other one....next time."
Who or what was a philo? Was it a Philco? They had a vintage Philco radio in their apartment in college. It had cost seven dollars at Selden Thrift on the Island. Charlie came back all at once.
Did you break the radio again, Charles-Everett-Nod?
Huh? Wh..no. Just some trash." More muffled scratching of cloth on the recorder. 
"You broke some trash?" she said, teasing. There were sounds of tools clanging off concrete and the stomping of feet, a motor starting up, some shouts. But far away from Samuel. Little more than echoes. 
And he was not telling her the whole truth, but she supposed she was the last person on Earth to fault him on that tip. Glass houses and all that. He came back on the line.
"I better get going. Things are picking up around here. You're sure you're taken care of?"
"Quite," she said, and wished for a better set of boundaries in this life of hers.  The delicious feeling in her center was driftwood, now. Post-orgasm, her guilt began to chase away that perfect moment of clarity, that French little death.
You know you have a man for that sort of thing these days, right?" he said, and there he was again, the smile in his voice, on his lips, of his heart. He was back, the man she loved so hard - too hard - once, and something had to be done about that.
"Charlie."
"Goodnight, you." he said.
"Goodnight you," she said back. It was a game they played, once. Apparently, they were still playing it. Six years on. How much longer? Zazie wondered.

They click off.  He thinks what a mystery and wonder that there are no dial tones anymore, that there is this world of unpunctuated telephonic communication.  There is nothing to tell you when the sonic world you have created has ended.

***

She lives in movies.  Just like me.  Raised by the screens we would raise before the information cloud blew through so perfectly in the aughts.   8mm films on the walls.  

I could have a hundred honeymoons with you.   What was once will be again.

Bauhaus. She’s in Parties.  That’s the one that always makes you walk a little with your heart on the outside of yr chest.  Cos when you realize that it is 1999 and that can of film Peter Murphy is going on about, Y2K, the global pandemic by-your-leave, 2025 notwithstanding, you would be living in a world where the powers that be had leaked a camera into every television, every pocket computer, every telephone; that everything listened to you 24/7/365 just so they could know how best to pick your pocket without you ever knowing it was done, that in the future-present you could have naked pictures of your wife beamed over the earth for all days to come. For free.

The men gawped at this.
The circle closed.


THE DEAD ANGLE. LCHRISTOPHER.