Sam Lipsyte - Venus Drive

The drummer quit, went to divinity school.

Now Gary likes to tell people at parties how he works with kids. It explains him, his shoes, his age. The only parties he goes to are those his mother gives. He talks to the children of his mother’s friends, younger people, yoga, the big new job, no stains on their teeth. He doesn’t really work with kids, either. He works near them, odd jobs, errands, the elevator, recess guard. The kids wave, say his name. Kids are precious, priceless.

Gary has a price.

He just lowers it a lot.

The thing is, all Gary did was try to stick up for the cart guy. Sweet guy, cart outside the synagogue, always the freshest stuff: squash, cucumbers, fruit. The older cop was hassling him, the rookie hanging back.

“Officer,” said Gary to the rookie, “what’s this about? A permit?”

“Fuck off.”

Gary was uptown to meet someone, a buyer. A tiny deal, a taste, a favor, bagel money while school was out. The buyer was nowhere.

“I pay your salary, officer,” said Gary.

“I doubt it, pal.”

The older cop banged the cart guy down on a tomato crate. The cart guy was talking in a bootstrap tongue.

“Hey, Turkey, you from Turkey?” said the older cop. Gary eyed the gun on his hip.

Maybe it was a test from God, see if Gary would stick up for the cart guy.

Maybe it was that Gary once played a little football, American. Tactics, crackback, spear.

He put his hand on the shoulder of the older cop.

“Lay off of him,” said Gary.

Clothesline, clip.

Gary was on his belly, cuffed. The rookie was in his pockets. “Well, well, what have we got here, Mr. Solid-Fucking-Tax-Paying-Salary-Payer Prick?”

Lock-up was winos unzipping, pissing on the walls. A boy Gary knew from a bulletproof bodega crawled under a bench and slept. There were dozens of them there in one cell. Hands cuffed at their bellies, they filed out for bologna on bread. He befriended a French kid, a student, busted in some club, a ketamine sweep. The French kid was here on a grant to study business. Catch you with K in Tokyo, the French kid said, and they do a number on you with a sword. Or maybe it was Malaysia. Either way, it was no time to be a student.

One guy, he went for a fit, a seizure, right there on the cell floor. The rest of them stood around, hands clasped together like a prayer meet. Smart guy, thought Gary. Get yourself a bed, warm food. The guards figured him for a fake, though. They were not dumb men, not for here. They kicked the faker in the buttocks, the back. The French kid nudged Gary, said something in French.

They got juice, more sandwiches. Gary gave the French kid a look. He was sorry about the cheese, American cheese, jail cheese, the whole thing.

“How did I ever get here?” said Gary.

“A big van,” someone called out.

They led him through some corridors, took him before the judge. It felt like early evening but there was little in the way of evidence. There was a box painted on the courtroom tiles. “Defendant Stand Here” was painted in the box. A short man, maybe hoping to pass his dark sneakers off as shoes, pinched Gary’s arm.

“Just tell me, did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“That’s what I thought.”

The defender faced the judge, said something in English. Felonies, misdemeanors, mitigations. The prosecutor, handsome in a good tan suit, spoke the same words in a different order. Gary tried to follow the exchange but he was beat. He could smell the stink coming up from his boots.

The judge rubbed his gavel.

The bailiff buried his key in Gary’s cuffs.

A woman at a window handed Gary a carbon receipt. It listed what the cops had taken from him at the station house, laces, a lighter, some lip balm, a pen. He waited for her to slide his things across the counter in a big envelope. Probably manila. He had a constitutional right to his lip balm back. He waited a while.

“Get out of here,” she said.

Fucking Cameroon. Why can’t they concentrate? They pound the ball upfield, get an open net, shoot wide into the stands. Their captain looks much older, slaps them around. It does no good. Their coach, a Croatian, walks the sideline in a windbreaker. Gary gets out his atlas, looks up Cameroon. Symbols for goods and resources, coffee, oil, lumber.

The Cameroon captain goes up for a header. The ball slants in for a goal.

“The glass slipper continues to fit!” the color man says.

But wouldn’t the glass shatter with the girl’s first step?

Gary goes to the kitchen for another O’Doul’s. When the O’Doul’s runs out, he’ll get some real beer, but right now there’s a principle at stake.

Gary’s mother calls Gary.

“Are you coming to my thing on Saturday, Saturday afternoon? It’s for Mrs. Lily’s daughter, Lorraine. She just got her masters in social work. It’s a little gathering. You two will have a lot to talk about with your job and all. Oh, and her mother says Lorraine’s a big fan of your music.”

“I don’t make music anymore,” says Gary.

“You know what I mean. How are you, honey? You sound a little blue. Are you blue? Did you find any summer work?”

“Maybe. It might start Saturday.”

“Really? Saturday? Doing what?”

“A city job, with kids.”

“Great, Gary. That’s great. But please try to get out of it for Saturday. I’ll give you the day’s pay. I really want you to come to my party. I really want you to say hi to Lorraine.”

“I’ll try,” says Gary.

“Try and make it more than try,” says his mother.

Gary had a feeling his best friend was going to blow his head off, but what are you going to do? The guy had always said that suicide was the plan. He said it the way some people mention the possibility of law school, vague and determined at the same time. Those people usually did go to law school. They saw themselves as lawyers all along. This guy just happened to see himself as dead.

Divinity school, though, that surprised him. It wasn’t that the drummer seemed godless, just kind of vapid, dumb. Gary got offers from other bands, but only the minor, imitative ones. It would have been like playing in his own tribute group.

Gary figures he’ll be fine when he gets over the idea of devotion. There was that morning in Rotterdam a man and a woman got down on their knees in the street. They took him up to their room, gave him dope to smoke, played his music for him as though this time he would hear it anew. The man pulled tablature of Gary’s songs from a cold oven, his file drawer.

“Your band is one of those bands,” the man said, “in a few years, forget it. Legends. People will see, separate the wheat from the chafe.”

“What about now?” said Gary. “And you mean chaff.”

“Now is different story,” the man said. “There is still a lot of chafe.”

Besides, he’s sick of rock. He likes kids. He’s shooting a lot of cocaine, sure, but that’s just because he’s off for the summer. This bust, though, it bothers him. Community service? What community? The cop and the cart guy? The man with no teeth? This city is just a lot of brickwork and stonework and people bearing down on nothing at all.

He remembers the last time he saw Lorraine Lily, a few winters ago. A tag-along, sweet, with tits. Maybe he could knock off the death trip, get clean, get clear, with Lorraine. Benefit from her training.

“Last licks,” he says out loud, pulls the plunger back, eases the needle home.

Neuron, axon, penalty kick.

Now the Africans are leaping into each others’ arms, sobbing, falling to the field, grabbing the turf.

“This carriage isn’t going to turn into a pumpkin anytime soon, I’ll tell you that,” the color man says. “In years to come we’re going to look back on this. This moment will become legend.”