Charlie Huston: Sleepless

His phone buzzed. A text. A summons:

dr33m3r rpt 3hrs/highland+fountain

Three hours. He thought about the distance, the traffic. He might be able to get something to eat first. If he drove on a few curbs.

First things. He opened the driver-side door, reached under his seat, and gently ripped the holstered Walther from its Velcro patch. Taking the gun and the travel drive, he popped the hatchback. Clearing aside some of the trunk clutter, he pulled up the cover that concealed the jack and other tools, dug his fingers behind the undersized spare, and peeled open the flap of rubber, exposing the interior of the permanently flat tire. The gun, the drive, and his watch went inside, a baggie of low-grade Ecstasy and a couple bottles of Valium and Demerol came out. The cover went back, clutter redistributed, and hatch closed. The pills he tucked under the passenger seat for easy access.

He paused, wondering if he should put something more substantial down there, something to satisfy whoever found it, but decided against it. No reason to throw away his best stock on something like this.

Not pearls before swine, perhaps. But he still had, at this late date, his father’s Protestant values deeply ingrained. In this case, “Waste not.” Period.

Leave right now and there would be time to grab something to eat.

But he sat, hand on the key in the ignition, knowing he needed to turn it and drive away but frozen for the moment as he tried to remember what day of the week it was, and what month.

THE FLAMES WERE extinguished when I got up the next morning, a thick smudge of black smoke still hanging over La Cienega, putting me in mind of the history of the basin.

Cradling a saucer and a demitasse of espresso, I’d thought about the swamp it had all been reclaimed from and of the clouds of gases that must have hung over it. And the oil fields that followed, the greasy plumes of industrial reek. And the ’70s heyday of smog, before the catalytic converter and unleaded gas.

Those bruised yellow skies had never quite returned, but not for lack of trying. Traffic was a waking nightmare, but it had less to do with overall density of vehicles than it did with streets closed for lack of maintenance or the wreckage from a fatal accident that was never cleared or traffic rerouted around an incoming column of Guards or burst water mains flooding or downed power lines snaking or some group desperately protesting the condition of the roads and highways.

All that aside, the price of gas had put enough hybrids on the road and knocked enough low-income types off their wheels that the air quality probably would have been at its best in years, if not for the occasional explosion and the constant pall of smoke drifting in from brush fires to the south, east, and north of the city.

When I thought about it, I often regretted buying the house in the Hills rather than the one I’d looked at in Santa Monica. Sooner or later the last stand would be made with our backs to the sea and our ankles in the surf. Not that I relished the thought of being there for that final scene. Far from the point of things, that would be.

I spent the bulk of the day tending to my garden and my collections. Rotating pots and planters in and out of sun, pouring water liberally here, misting there. A bit of mulch. Then inside, running a dust cloth over the tops of canvases and prints, an urn or two, the flickering screens of two video installations that faced each other in an otherwise empty hall, adjusting the setting on a humidifier for fear the air might become too dry in a room devoted to original pen and ink drawings. Finally, oilcloth, soft bristle steel brushes, and silicon lubricant, removing dust and easing friction in the moving parts of my many firearms. The most time-consuming of the tasks, and the one to which I applied the greatest effort. Not for love of the things, but out of appreciation for the fact that any one of them was significantly more likely to save my life than even my most luscious tomato plant or most vibrant Murakami acrylic.

Done with my chores by afternoon, I was able to settle into a deck chair and contemplate those tomatoes and what wine I might drink with a plate of them doused in balsamic vinegar. For a moment I considered the possibility that the tomato plant might be more vital to me than my arsenal. The further possibility that those weapons posed more danger to me than they deflected. It was not a new thought.

I pictured myself, menaced by foes, brandishing a tomato.

A phone rang in the house.

A business phone.

“Welcome to My Nightmare” as ring tone.

I allowed myself to finish my exercise in visualization, picturing a bowl filled with bullets floating in a vermilion sauce of unknown origin. It was unappetizing. No, things were as they should be with me. My values in place. Such as they were.

I went inside, letting the tinted green glass door sigh closed behind me, my ears registering the slightest change in pressure as it shut. The song continued to play, Alice Cooper telling me he thought I’d feel like I belong in his nightmare.

Right at home.

I stood at the Dadox cube table, my face reflected in the chrome surface, framed top and bottom by the eight phones laid out in neat rows of four. From this angle, looking down, the recessed ceiling lights highlighted perfectly the strip of thinning hair running back to front on top of my head.

I made a mental note to shift the table so to diminish this effect, knowing the change would set off a chain reaction of furniture moving as I tried to keep the room in balance.

The song continued to play.

I considered the flashing screen on the bright blue Sanyo Katana. I’d assigned the phone to this particular client not out of any attempt at broadly ironic racist humor but because the shade of blue on the casing matched so well the color I’d seen highlighting the lower scales of a dragon tattoo encircling the length of her left arm. Still, sometimes the shoe fits.

I answered the phone.

“You let me ring for a very long time.”

I nudged the Dadox with my knee, just a few inches to the right, looking down to gauge the impact the change had on my revealed bald spot.

“Yes, I did.”

“You had something pressing.”

“That sounds like a statement.”

“Excuse me?”

“It sounds to me as if you just made a statement of fact, declaring that I had something more pressing to do than answer the phone, as opposed to asking if I did.”

The light still glared unacceptably off the shiny skin topping my dome.

Moved one inch farther from this spot, the relocation of the table would demand not only rearrangement of the room, but the jettisoning of several pieces and the acquisition of several new ones. In my mind I could see the shock waves this would create, radiating through every room in the house.

“And did you?”

I considered her question, looked at my reflection, thought briefly about my own vanity, and shook my head.

“No, I had nothing more pressing. I was simply procrastinating.”

“Don’t, in future, when I call, keep me waiting, please.”

The “please” was an afterthought on her part, dedicated to the skill and efficiency with which I did my work. A bone of courtesy thrown my way, perhaps, but I knew it took some effort on her part. And I appreciated that.

“I will, in future, endeavor to be promptly responsive, thank you.”

“Come and see me.”

I looked out the glass at the smoking world.

“Someone blew up La Cienega last night. The Guards have checkpoints everywhere.”

“Did you set off the bomb?”

“No. According to the news, whoever set off the bomb did so as a final editorial comment regarding the universe.”

“Then you have nothing to fear from checkpoints.”