William Vollmann - The Atlas

Her face lit up. — Only twelve, she said proudly, and he's already doin' time for armed robbery! He's so bad!

She dug a scrap of greasy paper out of the trash can and wrote her phone number on it. The next time I was in town I called her and said if she wanted to come over she could make some money.

She came running upstairs throwing herself into my arms and kissing me with delicious greasy lips. Her hair was well oiled. Even in that first embrace I felt her trying to pick my pocket.

We went upstairs and she said: I wanna have your baby. Please will you gimme your baby? I wanna little girl. I had one but she died in a crib death. How about it? You wanna make a little love? Just gimme some money so I can go and get some rock. I'll be right back — I promise!

So she was a crackhead now. Before it had just been freebase and some other things.

I knew she wouldn't come back, but I wanted to see what she'd do. I gave her twenty and told her to leave her jacket behind as a hostage.

Lemme borrow yours then! she said.

You just go out without any jacket, I said.

OK, OK, OK. An' I'll even leave my pipe — you know I won't be goin' nowhere without my pipe!

She put it ostentatiously into her coat. I pretended not to notice when she palmed it back.

After an hour had gone by, I had to go away myself, but I thought that since the jacket really belonged to me now I might as well see what was in the pockets, whose domain had been considerably expanded by holes, so that the whole lining of the jacket was hen to store things and hide things — how precious!

There was no crack pipe, of course, but I found three lighters, a tube of Vaseline, lots of dirty tissues, a hamburger wrapper wet and yellow with oil, a broken cigarette, some matches, and finally, like some sweet secret, a little Tootsie Roll. Something about the Tootsie Roll touched me, I don't know why. It was like her, the dearness of her hidden inside all the greed and the lies, the goodness of her that the badness drew on and exhibited and used for its own selfish work.

I left the coat in the hallway where she could get it if she ever came back. I wanted to keep the Tootsie Roll but that would have been like robbing her of her soul. In the end, just so I wouldn't feel like a complete chump, I stole one of her cigarette lighters. The bus took me down Haight Street. Suddenly I saw her, soundlessly arguing and pleading and whining with a man. I waved to her but she didn't see me. Later I took the lighter out in order to strike an idle flame, but then I saw that it had no flint. I wondered what would have been wrong with the Tootsie Roll.

His razor was a Happiness Double Blade, made in China. It lived in a phony gold box whose phony silver lid was spring-loaded like his other wife whom no one dared to say a wrong word to. New and quiet, the razor waited for him. He pushed the stud and the top flew open. The tray where the double blade went had been engraved with a repeating pattern of leaves which dazzled him almost as much as if he were standing at a waterfall's edge peering down into some deep gorge tapestried with the heads of palm trees. The tray could be raised, too, clicking against the lid's underside with a flimsy metal-on-metal sound. The bottom of the tray was a mirror just large enough to reflect either his chin or his upper Up; which should he choose? The secret space beneath, which reminded him of a hiding place in a false-bottomed coffin, held a half-cylindrical recess for the handle, which was grooved with diamonds formed by the intersection of slanting lines; and next to the handle-niche a sunken rectangle waited to reclaim the double blade's shield.

In his underwear, with a towel around him, the journalist looked at his moustache in the mirror for a moment and then closed the empty box. He'd clicked and screwed and twisted the razor's three parts together. The naked blade he'd handled with nervous loathing. It was by no means a safety razor. He remembered a winter day long ago in school when the other children had debated which death would be the worst. One small girl whispered that she was afraid of fire. A boy had seen his sister drown, and thought that was the worst. But the boy who was going to be a journalist had known at once that the most horrible thing would be to have his throat cut, to feel the razor sawing and slicing through the skin and muscle and soft cartilage of his neck. For years it made him go weak just to see barbed wire.

He put the box down on the night stand and rested the razor beside it. Solid and silvery, it caught the sunlight in its many whirling grooves.

Through an interpreter, his wife (whom he'd met a week before) had told him that he looked old with his moustache. He'd told the interpreter that she could shave it off, and she smiled with timid pleasure.

So you're gonna let her shave you, huh? said the photographer, lying bored and sick on the other bed. The shades were down, but through the slits where the fit wasn't perfect the sun still swarmed, turning everything to sweat and corruption. The photographer's whore lay on top of him, giggling and moaning and squirming even as the photographer cursed her, rubbing his stubble with the back of his hand.

You could use a shave yourself, the journalist said. I bought you one of those razors, too.

How much?

Oh, about two bucks. Maybe it was one buck. I don't remember.

The photographer flushed with fever. — Get me the bucket. I'm not sure if I'm gonna puke.

The journalist's wife tapped softly on the door. He leaped up and let her in. He knew that it was embarrassing for her downstairs because everyone looked at her knowing what she was.

Hello, Vanna, he cried happily.

She almost smiled. Then she came with him to the bed. The other whore laughed, and his wife paid no mind. She lay wordlessly down in her black spangly dress with the green ribbons, and he lay beside her. He put his head in her lap. Very softly she began to sing him a sad song which he could not understand. He fell asleep with her hand so light in his hair that the harsh sun-time seemed not to touch him, and he could feel himself grow younger as he slept, more handsome and strong and perfect for his new wife. When he awoke, the light from outside was a screaming orange, but much of the heat had gone out of it. He felt pleasantly damp with sweat. The photographer and the other girl were asleep. His wife (who was amazed by freezers and dental floss) lay against him in her black dress, not sweating, breathing steadily with eyes closed. He raised his hand to caress her and she opened her eyes.

Remembering, he sat up and handed her the new razor. He pointed to his moustache. Her face lit up. Her redwaxed lips curved up lovingly, the lower one widening and shining like her once-scared eyes beneath the dark-peaked brows. A circle of light kissed her nose.

Between her narrow brown fingers (the nails painted the same apple-red as her lips), the handle undid itself, turning until it separated into a hollow silver bone. She lifted the inner plate of the guard off its three screws and set it soundlessly down. Then by the side-edges she took the pure blade whose exposed double meetings of steel and nothingness could so easily have sliced his eyes out or slashed his wrists down lengthwise to burst open the blue arteries of his life. Her smile widened, and he began to sweat.

The photographer had sat up. — Don't tell me you're gonna let her shave you dry with that blade! That's a good way to get cut, man!

I guess I'll make her happy, the journalist replied.

Again he laid down his head in his pretty wife's lap. He made up his mind not to wince away whatever she did. But as he gazed upward at the approaching blade, he decided that it was better to close his eyes.