David Gates - Preston Falls

"When did you lie before?"

"I didn't," says Champ, "That's the fuckin' point. She calls the first time and I'm like, Nope, nope, not a word, haven't heard shit, you know, which I hadn't."

"Okay, so you're telling her the same thing now."

"Yeah, right, except now — you want a cold one, by the way? You know for one thing, Tina's going to fuckin' kill me, out of fuckin' female solidarity." He opens the refrigerator and holds up a Budweiser tallboy. "Yes? No? Might take the edge off of shit."

"What a concept," says Willis. "Yeah. Please." He takes his finger out of the book and looks some more at the picture of Oswald with his white undershirt and his I'm-a-patsy stare, posed between two thug cops in dark uniforms. One's a fat old potato-shaped fuck with sergeant's stripes, the other a young brush-cut Nazi like the early George Jones,

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glaring at Oswald as if he really was the piece of shit who shot the President.

"Okay, just to put this at its crudest level," says Champ, "you must be tired of spanking the monkey." Willis's arm gives a jerk — something icy. "Here." Champ's handing him the tallboy.

"I don't know," Willis says. "Shit, what does that even mean, tired of}" Fact is, he loses focus and the Unnamable won't stay stiff. For months now. This really could be clinical depression. He takes the first sip, supposedly the best.

"Oh, phi/orophy," says Champ. "Great, let's do that for a while." He takes out a tallboy for himself, sits down at the kitchen table and pops it. "You're welcome," he says. "Fuck time is it? It's dark out again. Oh baby. Tina's going to fuckin' kill me."

"You keep saying that," says Willis.

"I wasn't going to do this shit anymore. Fuckin' all-nighters. All-dayers. And I was being real good, you know? Okay, I'm fucked. Fm fucked.''

"When was she supposed to get back?"

"Like tomorrow."

"Well, so you'll get a chance to sleep. She's not going to know."

"What are you, shittin' me? Tina has fuckin' X-ray telepathy. And what about that?" He points at the wall behind Willis. "I mean, what does that say?" He squints and pokes his index finger five times: "Drugs. Have. Been. Abused. Here."

Willis sticks his finger back in Oswald Talked and twists around to look. Last night he and Champ painted a speedometer six feet long and three feet high on that big kitchen wall. They'd gotten the idea on the way back from the East Village in Champ's car. Willis had argued that a tachometer would be more ironic — i.e., revving and getting nowhere— but Champ said that was too inside baseball. Actually, Champ's original idea was Ruby shooting Oswald — all you had to do was put like a grid over the picture and just copy the sucker square by square — but Willis said it was too political. They stopped and bought a pad so they could sketch Champ's speedometer, a quart of black Rust-Oleum, two quarter-inch brushes and, to paint by, Parsifal, on four CDs, Armin Jordan conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. (Champ circled the block while Willis hit the downtown Tower, since he was afraid to sneak up to his office for his own copy.) They roughed the thing out on the wall in pencil, then bent the shit out of a W-monogrammed butter

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knife trying to pry open the fucking can. Willis painted the 0 to 60 side; Champ got to do 60 to 120 because it was his speedometer. They had been going to put a red needle that you could actually move — by an amazing miracle, Champ actually had a mop with a red handle — but they couldn't figure out a way to rig it up. Champ thought just a big screw, but by the time this became an issue, all the hardware stores were closed.

"Maybe you could paint over it," says Willis.

"Yeah, like how many coats of white paint? Ten?''

"Well, you don't just paint right on top of it. You use paint remover first. Or you could use stain-killing primer. Like that stuff KHz. K-i-l-z?"

"Like you've really done this. What do you care? You'll be back at the fuckin' Bates Motel, man. Tell me something. Why don't you at least go back up to East Buttfuck instead of that shithole? I mean, if you just want to fuckin' dwindle"

"I told you already," says Willis. "I can't go up there anymore."

"Oh, right, because the bad boys are going to get you. I forgot about that one. Didn't anybody ever tell you that coke makes you paranoid?"

"You don't know the situation. These are serious people."

"Right, they're so serious they have you making their fuckin' runs for 'em. No offense."

''Youd go back there?" says Willis. "Let 'em plant dope in your house?"

"Fuck, I wish. Okay, look. You obviously want to believe this shit— you know, which is cool. Actually, it is cool. I mean, that place up there wasn't doing you a whole lot of good. Any of you. My opinion. You have to go home, man."

"I need to think about that."

"Translation," Champ says. "/ need to go back and hole up again in my little motel room half a mile from my fuckin house. Don't expect me to fuckin' drive you."

"It's more like three miles."

"Oh, well then, that's difterent. What a sick pile of shit you are. I'm not kidding either. Fuck, I should've been a shrink. My family background?" He stretches forth a hand. "C. L. Willis, Psychotherapist. Practice Limited to Psychotherapy. Get a couch in here? Feel the ladies' titties? Shit, fuckin' Freud used to do coke. Speaking of which, what do you say? Put the edge back on?"

"I thought you said we were out."

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"Okay, that was almost true," Champ says. "But I do have a top-secret super-emergency stash that we might as well do up. The more I think about it, I don't need that shit around. I want to just live a pure life, you know what I'm saying? Up in the morning, beddy-bye at night, throw a fuck into the old lady couple times a week? The pure life. That's what you need, bro."

"That's what I had."

"That's what you had," says Champ. ''Yes. ¥.xact\y. So will you call your fuckin' wife, please? So we can get high in peace? And then Til drive you up there."

"I thought you weren't going to."

"Not to the fuckin' Bates Motel, no. To your house. You know, where you fuckin' live.''

Why does Willis's finger suddenly hurt like a bastard? Oh: because he's squeezing it in this book. He leans forward and sets it on the floor. Oswald talks, bullshit walks.

Champ shakes his head. "Shit, Fm dead. Fuckin' Tina, man, Fm going to have to borrow off of her to pay the fuckin' rent, which Fm already like a week late or something. Seven hundred dollars, man, right up the old information superhighway." He taps the side of his nose. "I can't afford this shit, you know? I mean, Fm not a fuckin' Wall Street analyst. Look, bro. You have to at least call and let her know you're fuckin' alive, man. 'Cause if you don't I will."

"Bullshit."

"I don't think so," says Champ. "Jesus, how can you do it? How can you fuckin' do it? Kids and everything? Believe me, if I had kids? I wouldn't put 'em through this shit."

"Bullshit," says Willis. "You're a bigger fuckup than me, even."

"I don't think so."

"Bullshit."

"Well, this is a really fucking intelligent discussion," Champ says.

"So where's this secret hidden stash?" Willis tries to get up out of the chair. "Actually I have to pee." Could beer go through him this fast? Isn't that supposed to be one warning sign of prostate cancer?

"Pee?" Champ says. "You have to pee} You mean you have to piss. Jesus. What do you, go in and sit down} First it's the fucking opera. . I think you need marital relations."

Willis can't seem to get up out of this chair. He rocks forward, back, forward; at last he's on his feet, swaying. He looks at the speedometer. A

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bad drip coming off the 0 in 30. Another one off the 7 in 70. Off both Is in 110. Bathroom's through the doorway and to the left. He paws at the curtain of clattering beads.