Adam Levin - Hot Pink

That night he set the camera on the chair in his stead, pressed RECORD, and happily went to sleep beside the woman. In the morning, however, he met with disappointment. The recording of the wall during the hours before sunrise was far too dark for him to even make out the crack; by the time it grew bright enough, the gel had already oozed; he could see nothing more than he’d already seen.

The next night, at bedtime, he set up the camera just as before, but this time he put a flashlight beside it to shine on the crack.

The following morning, to his great surprise, the crack was entirely free of gel.

He proceeded to use the camera-and-flashlight rig three nights in a row, only to discover, three mornings in a row, a crack with no gel. The woman suggested the flashlight (and maybe even the camera) be set on the chair before the crack in perpetuity; she suggested that keeping the crack well-lit (or under well-lit surveillance) might prevent the gel from ever reemerging. The man thought this plan was cowardly and defeatist, but also, he knew, the woman wouldn’t understand why it was cowardly and defeatist. The problem, to her, was that a crack oozed gel, and to prevent that crack from oozing gel would, to her, be a form of victory, while to him it would at best be a stalemate, for the crack would still be there (the woman wasn’t even pretending to suggest that light or surveillance would uncrack the wall), and at worst be a miserable and total defeat because you don’t negotiate with terrorists, do you? You don’t buy a high-performance German sedan to convey you to work when a baby’s on the way (knock wood, knock wood). You don’t learn to live with your plight, you end it. The world was a blooming and ever-fertile garden containing the means with which any man, if he was of any use, could solve any problem that might arise as long as he determined to forego half-measures. But because the man knew the woman wouldn’t understand how mounting the flashlight or the flashlight-and-camera would be cowardly and defeatist, he suggested that the gel, if prevented from oozing forth from the crack, might gather in the wall, causing them troubles they couldn’t imagine, and the devil you know, and the devil you don’t.

And the woman relented. “Maybe the crack’s finished oozing anyway,” she said. “Maybe it ran out of gel and stopped.”

“It’s possible,” said the man.

“If the gel comes back, though,” the woman said, “and you won’t try the flashlight and camera again, you have to promise you’ll keep the crack clean.”

The man made the promise, the crack oozed gel, and he returned to the previously established routine. Each morning, on waking, he would wipe the crack with kleenex, throw the kleenex away in the can in the garage, feed the dog, feed himself, then take the dog for a walk.

As the weeks went by, the walks became longer, and the man, on these walks, became increasingly vexed by fundamental questions about the gel’s origins, namely: had the gel formed first and created the crack, had the crack formed first and created the gel, had they been created simultaneously by a third phenomenon he wasn’t aware of, or might they even have been created by a pair of independent phenomena he wasn’t aware of? Was it really safe to say the gel oozed from the crack? Might it not be the case that the crack somehow attracted or gathered the gel from somewhere else? From somewhere in the bedroom? From the air in the bedroom? The very air the man and woman breathed nightly?

The man elected not to trouble the woman with these questions. They’d only upset her, which would, most likely, be bad for the baby. He hated, however, to hide things from the woman. It revved his vexation. He grew vexed to distraction. He’d find himself thinking of the crack and the gel during meetings with clients, visits to friends. In the middle of an orgasm he saw them on his eyelids. What did it mean? What could it mean? It was gel on a crack. A crack oozing gel. Or gathering gel. Or coalescing with gel by unknown means for unknown reasons. Crack and gel. He lost lots of sleep. Eating seemed a labor. One morning he forgot to shave a section of his face and didn’t even notice until after lunch when a certain associate who liked to yank his chain called out to him just outside of reception and told him, “Nice work! You possess my admiration. Rare is the man who can pull off the cheekstache without looking totally crazy and depressed.” Was he crazy and depressed? He remembered a talk show that talked about depression. Or maybe obsession. Something psychological. Experts were consulted. They got into arguments. All they could agree on was break the routine. Break the routine was the moral of the talk show. Break the routine was the cure for… something. He’d give it a shot. It was worth at least that.

In the morning, instead of wiping the crack then feeding the dog then himself and then walking the dog, the man walked the dog first. A couple blocks in, it seemed to be working. His mood was improved, jovial even, and so was the dog’s; it licked at his hands and bounded and leaped, cast glances at the trees whose leaves had started turning, then cast glances at the man as if to say, “Look! These trees are really great! Don’t forget about these!” and accompanied these glances with a kind of sigh that sounded like “ Fff !”

After returning to the house from their walk, the man fed the dog, and then fed himself, and then went upstairs to wipe the crack with the kleenex. Upon dropping the kleenex in the can in the garage, he noticed that the tips of two of his fingers seemed slightly moist and slightly tacky. Were they, though? He touched them together again to double-check. They no longer seemed to be tacky at all, but maybe they seemed to be a little bit moist. Only a little bit. Maybe it was nothing. But maybe it was something. He triple-checked the fingertips — no longer moist. Maybe it had been something that then became nothing. Maybe some gel had seeped through the kleenex when he wiped the crack but it was such a small amount that it evaporated rapidly. Unless it was maybe just a drop of fruit juice. Or maybe some honey he’d put in his yogurt? But it might have been the gel. And given how quickly the evaporation had occurred, it might have happened before without his ever noticing. He might have touched the gel any number of times. What the fuck was he thinking, standing there like that?

He ran inside the house and scrubbed his fingers. He stared at his face in the bathroom mirror — he still had the cheekstache. In the twentyish hours since he’d first been made aware of it, he hadn’t thought even once of shaving it off! Was he losing his mind? Was the gel, contact with it — was contact with the gel poisoning his mind? How could he know? Was there some way to test it? There were tears in his eyes. One of them fell and got stuck in his cheekstache. And then, all at once, he understood what needed doing.

Next morning, the man wiped the gel with some bacon, and went to the dog, who was waiting on the patio.

“Go on,” said the man. “Eat the nice bacon. Then we can go on our Saturday errands.”

The dog rose on its hind legs and leaned on the man, put paws to his nipples.

The man stepped back. The dog fell to all fours.

“No dancing,” said the man, “till you’ve eaten what I brought you.” He gestured with his chin at the dangling bacon, which he held at his side between two fingers.

The dog stepped forward, rose on its hind legs, and licked the man’s chin.

From behind him came a noise, a muted chuffing — the laughter of his wife behind the sliding glass door. She was saying something now.

“What?” the man said.