Craig Davidson - Rust and Bone - Stories

“Hey. It’s me.”

“It’s you,” says Danny. “How goes the battle?”

“Gotta be honest with you …”

“Honesty’s the best policy, Samuel.”

“So here it is: I’m cruising. Right now, cruising.”

Silence on his end. “Are you, like, past the point of no return? Stripped and ready to rip?”

“Cocked, locked, ready to rock,” I tell him.

“Oh, man.” Danny clicks his tongue. “Oh, man-oh-man. Where are you?”

“Corner of Bonita and Empress. Between the peepshow theater and that rub-n-tug joint.”

“Sure, near that bar with the room in the back.” Danny’s fingers drum the wall beside his phone. “Listen, you probably ought to just let yourself go on this one, okay? You can fall off the wagon every once in a while, so long as you hop right back on.”

This is exactly what I need to hear. “Everyone cheats a little now and then, isn’t that so? I mean, it’s not the end of the world, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t,” says Danny. “Of course not.”

“And hey, not like I’m committing a mortal sin or anything.”

“Well I’m really not up on all that, Samuel.”

“But you think it’s okay? This one time?”

“I’m gonna greenlight you, here.”

“Bless you, Danny. Bless your heart.”

“Stay strong, brother.”

The moment I hang up she’s walking down the sidewalk—we’re talking on cue . Materializing out of thinned mist like an apparition, some vaporous half-glimpsed angel, not entirely real. Wearing tight blue jeans ripped at the knee and some sort of fur-trimmed coat. Too far to make out exact features but that’s not critical.

Pull alongside her, roll down the window. “Excuse me? Excuse me, miss?”

She checks up and hunkers down on the sidewalk. At this unforgiving range her face does not hold up: teeth shot to hell and this oddshaped growth, a carbuncle I guess you’d say, growing out the side of her nose.

“Lookin’ for somethin’?”

“Well, you see, I’m sort of lost.” It’s a struggle to keep my body still, I’m masturbating so furiously. “Do you know the way … to the highway?”

She leans forward, resting her wrists on the windowframe. “That what you’re really after, cowboy?” Her eyelashes are clotted with pebbles of mascara and the furred collar of her coat smells like a drowned rodent—Christ, she’s not making this easy. “Let’s not pussyfoot around.”

“Well, maybe we can work something out. If you could just … lean a bit closer …”

She thrusts her head through the window, face inches from mine as though this forced intimacy might somehow seal the deal and I surrender control with a moan, splashing the steering column as a feeling of absolute peace floods through me, ecstatic well-being of a sort experienced only by Buddhist monks and perhaps tiny infants— enlightening peace. I’m beset by these heartwarming thoughts towards this woman, dreams of a good life and healthy future, happiness and love but this mini-satori is fleeting and I’m overtaken by a sense of futility known to few on earth, brought about by the inconceivability of these dreams for this woman or myself or anyone really, staring through the windshield at a night sky spread with stars, the conceivable worlds couched in those dark sprawling spaces between the light host to alien lifeforms possessed of such nobility and decency as I will never even fathom, and this sense of incalculable desolation draws about me, I who remain so trivial, insignificant, tenuous, and specklike.

Among addicts, the act of release frequently triggers feelings of ecstatic euphoria followed by periods of profound remorse, paranoia, and depression.

“Well,” the woman assumes in a pragmatic tone, “you’re not a cop.” Her eyes narrow to feline slits. “Really should charge you for that.”

“Thanks.” Slip the gearshift into first, work a crumpled twenty out of my pants pocket, toss it on the street and pull away. “Sorry about that.”

“Hey, anytime …”

There are over three trillion nerve receptors in the human body. Fully seventy percent are located in erogenous zones. This is what you’re fighting. Every minute of every day. It’s an uphill battle.

My name is Sam. I’m a sex addict.

Welcome, Sam.

Lisa, my wife—ex-wife—and a six-year-old daughter. Met Lisa out East; went to the same college. She had this air like she’d swallow you up and blow you out in bubbles if you strayed too near. I mistook the effect she had on me for love. She could’ve had anyone. She chose me. I don’t love her, but I do care . If she were penniless, I’d support her. If she were dying I’d give her blood, a kidney, whatever. Her mistake was believing it was within her power to change me. My daughter, Ellie … I love her deeply. Looking at her I realize I’m still capable of that. When I think of her in idle moments, it’s always some mundane task—brushing her teeth, tying her shoelaces. Silly, day-to-day stuff. I never allow a week to pass without seeing her, calling her, letting it be known how much I care for her. I used to wish the love I felt for Ellie were somehow able to … stretch, encompass more people. But it can’t, and that’s okay. I once believed my heart was somehow impoverished, but now I recognize it’s no larger or smaller than the next man’s—my heart is simply different.

THE HOUSE IS AN AWKWARD DUPLEX with swayback roof, mullioned windows, a single-car drive. We used to live in a big house on the ritzy side of town back in the Days of Yore, epoch of the Steady Job and Frequent Promotions and Healthy Bank Balance, also the Weekly Business Junkets and Late Nights at the Office and Dirty Dark Secret.

Lisa answers my knock in a housecoat, hair wet from a bath. In the darkened family room the TV casts flickering luminescence on the walls.

“Hi there. Hoping maybe I could see Ellie for a bit.”

“What are you doing here?” My ex-wife crosses her arms over her breasts. “You get Ellie every other weekend, you know that.”

“Well, yeah, of course, but I was hoping maybe a few minutes …”

“You stink, Sam.”

“Do I?” It’s genuinely upsetting I failed to recognize this. “Oh, jeez. Could I wash up?”

Lisa purses her lips. I consider the single worst act I’d committed during our marriage. Probably the time I returned from a whorefilled weekender, gave her the clap, then halfheartedly argued she’d given it to me. Yeah, that’s the one.

“I wouldn’t ask but I’d really like to see her. Half an hour and I’m out of your hair.”

She steps aside. “Okay, for a little while. But clean yourself up.”

In the bathroom scrub at a stiff patch on my jeans then dry off with Lisa’s Conair. Unzip my fly and push the blowdryer into my pants until the heat becomes unbearable and switch it off. In the medicine cabinet find a bottle of perfume and give myself a liberal spritzing.

My daughter sits on the sofa watching a kids’ show. In the room’s muted light she appears somehow insubstantial, a flickering hologram of herself.

“Hey, kiddo.”

When she smiles I see she’s lost a baby tooth, upper left canine. “What’re you doing here, Daddy?”

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” Sitting beside her, the cushions compress in such a way that Ellie’s body tilts into the soft crook beneath my arm. “What ya watching?”

“The animals talk.” Her body shrugs against mine. “They live on a river. The guinea pig’s funny.”

On the TV screen a mob of industrious creatures—hamster and mouse, turtle, a duck—cavort in a drift of popcorn. The guinea pig’s voice reminds me of Jimmy Cagney: Youuu doity raaat! Youuu kilt my bruddah!