Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"I am not having blackouts," she said to the dog conversationally. "Honestly, Sweets, I recall everything that occurred last night. We went to the opera. I bought a season because I always promised myself that if I got rich I would, and I did, and I took Butch because I bought him four season tickets at Yankee Stadium, and it's only fair. I remember he was acting peculiar, like distant. I wore the crystal coat and the Molinari sequined silk with the sleeves. It was Turandot, the opera, I remember that all right. With Casolla, Larin, and Frittoli. Butch fell asleep, which I guess is par, and this woman came up to me in the intermission… Binky? Bootie? And I said I didn't remember her from this speech I gave once at the Coalition Against Violence, which I didn't, but I said I did, and she invited us to a party over on the East Side, Seventy-something off Park, and we went and…" She stopped. The dog sighed again.

"No, wait a second, Sweets," she said and started again. "We went to this party, a big town house, and there was a bar, of course, and I think I was drinking champagne, which was fine because, really, you can't get very drunk on champers. It's only wine. But then later… we went someplace else, a saloon, and I was drinking brandy Alexanders, which, they're practically a dessert, not really drinking, and… no, I didn't get thrown out for throwing a drink…" An image popped into her mind, looking up, the tops of buildings whirling around, and the whitish night sky you get on a cloudy night in the city, as if she was looking up at it from the ground. The coat!

She leaped up and ran into the bedroom, threw open the closet. There was the coat, hanging there, and she saw a big streak of city gutter grease down the back of it and hundreds of tiny crystals torn off the hem. How awful, she thought, but only vaguely. The emotion did not bite deep. For some reason she was not attached to this costly possession. In truth, she was hardly attached to anything much anymore. She shrugged and closed the closet and went back to her coffee. What she really wanted, actually, was some Irish coffee with lots of whipped cream, and so she made a pot of drip with the espresso grind and whipped up a bowl of cream, pausing to admire the cleanliness and order of her refrigerator. A little man now had the food order and took care of all that, and a number of other little men and women now took care of other things: cleaning, the children, the dog, transporting physical objects to and fro. Ms. Lipopo at the bank apparently knew, or knew people who knew, an apparently limitless supply of people who made life in the city a delight of ease and comfort for those with enough money. Which had, of course, formerly included Marlene, but not now. There were even people who shopped for you, should you be blessed with funds and not with taste, but Marlene didn't have any of those because she liked shopping now, loved it, in fact: it was what she did, although she would have to get back to the office sometime. Yes, after she'd had a rest, everyone said she deserved one. She made the Irish coffee in one of the big ceramic mugs because, with those little whiskey-sour glasses that restaurants served the drink in, you hardly had time to taste it before it was gone. She filled the mug halfway with powerful coffee, poured in a lot of John Jameson, and dolloped out the whipped cream. A little shaved chocolate on the top. Perfect.

As was the next one. She sat in front of the TV and drank it, sipping slowly, inhaling the lovely fumes of Irish and coffee and cream. She surfed through the cable fare until she found Life Styles of the Rich and Famous and watched that for a while and entertained the idea that she herself was now rich and famous. She could have one of those houses, too. It would take so much time to fill one of them with art and furniture, and when you were done, you could do it all over again, as the woman who was being profiled obviously liked doing. Using up time had recently become extremely important to her. Odd, because she could recall never having enough time. Marlene watched avidly and on the first commercial break made herself another Irish coffee, omitting the whipped cream this time. Terrible for the arteries, that whipped cream! Then she watched a quiz show, then the shopping channel, keeping the Irish coffee flowing, although, to be honest, there was really no point in making more coffee-why jangle the nerves? So she just sloshed the Jameson into the mug. Life was good, she thought, good and getting better. She called the dog over, who licked up various spills and washed her face with his tongue. "Yes, you still love me, don't you?" she crooned. "Don't you? Yes, you do. Unlike some people."

Meanwhile, deep below where this Nouveau Marlene lived, down one of those damp stone staircases that exist in even the best-ordered minds, through dripping, dark, torchlit passageways, past spiked and barred gates, in a little low cell full of rustling vermin, True Marlene sat and wept. She knew she deserved this punishment, she was not complaining. People had died, people had suffered because of her stupidity, sloppiness, pride, and arrogance. Her vicious, sick lust for violence. Oh, she had evaded it for a long time, but it had finally caught up with her, more than a hot bath and a little drinking and a nice fuck could cure, far more. Those corpses in the Daumier, Wayne blowing bubbles through his nipple, that final fountain of blood and brains, arcing up, splattering off the ceiling, falling like a rain from hell on her head. Where it belonged. Get over it, say the people who haven't been there, even Butch hadn't been there. Get over it, easy for him to say. Lucy had been there, a little, but Lucy had God talking to her, Lucy was not available. God didn't talk to Marlene anymore, and she was damned if she was going to beg. She would be damned. Post-traumatic shock was the approved phrase nowadays, a curiously sterile, medicalized bit of nonsense. She's had a shock. Stupid! Not a shock; a shock was when you touch a hot wire-some sparks, some pain, and that was it-not like this, this erosion of the human, this imprisonment. She wept because she missed Butch, and her babies, and the brave boys and girls who guarded the stinking rich, and the life of the little pleasures of frugality, and action, too, the rush of it, and the intense, barbaric pleasure of seeing the bad guys in the dust. At some level, she still hoped for release, that the prince would come and rescue her from the dungeon. Or the princess. But herself, right now, she could do nothing.

"Why do you do that?" Grale asked.

"What?"

"That little pause when you go out a door. When I'm behind you, like just now, I have to watch myself so I don't step on you."

The doorway in question was the entrance to a convenience store on Tenth off Forty-third. It was owned by a pair of Dominican brothers named Santomas, and you could buy there the usual things convenience stores sold in that neighborhood-overpriced groceries, doubtful fruit, beer, sweet wines, lottery tickets-and you could also get at this particular one a wide variety of illicit pharmaceuticals, other than heroin and crack. The Santomas boys, decent fellows, drew the line at those, although they would cheerfully sell you Dilaudid, Percodan, Benzedrine, Darvon, Dexedrine, and Fiorinal, besides ecstasy and LSD. They considered themselves discount ethical pharmacists, like Dart, but without the bothersome paperwork. Lucy and Grale were not there to buy, but to inquire about Canman, a regular customer there for setups, a cocktail of uppers and downers he favored. But the boys knew nothing, having not seen the Canman in several weeks, but they expressed their concern.

They were well away from that door when Lucy answered, "A habit. Something Tran taught me." A nervous laugh. "You know, checking for snipers in the street, people following. I was an impressionable child."