Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

“I told you to bring the armor!” she hissed.

“I said that I couldn’t find it. I didn’t want to be late.”

He was docile — a far cry from his brutish behavior of the other night.

“Well, next time I say bring it, bring it. Or there won’t be a next time. They specifically asked for the armor, and now I don’t even know if they’re going to pay for you, understand? If you ask for Mickey Mouse, you damn well expect the ears. ” She tapped her foot with irritation. “ Start paying attention or there won’t be a London and there won’t be a European tour. Understood?”

“You’re a little over the top, don’t you think?”

“There won’t be a European tour, Rusty! Am I making myself understood?”

He stared at the ground in the diffident way that had charmed Becca when they first met. “Understood.”

Elaine stormed off.

Rusty — she wondered what his real name was but liked Rusty just fine — approached the Subaru space, defeated. She was reminded of the scene where Joaquin Phoenix stabs Maximus, mortally wounding him before their Colosseum showdown. Becca discreetly circled around so that they both approached the exhibit at the same time. When he saw her, he seemed to reach out and retreat all at once. She said hello, and he nodded in a way that broke her heart. Becca saw him deflate as he stood there in his shabby Beautiful Mind suit, watching the Louie cavort with people’s kids. He listened to the other look-alikes introduce themselves by their celebrity names, and seemed to steel himself; then, in a remarkable rally, he approached a young black couple and vigorously said, “G’day, mates — I’m Russell Crowe. Come have a seat in the Subaru Baja! I assure you its south of the border qualities won’t disappoint. As a real Insider, let me tell you this little vehicle’s no croc— or ‘Crocodile’ Dundee! So c’mon over, put a shrimp on the Barbie doll and let me give you something strictly L.A. Confidential: I got half A Beautiful Mind to give this Gladiator ”—arm sweeping toward polished passenger door—“an Academy Award — for Best Car of the Year!”

The Fireman’s Fund

THE COLD, MOLDY, red-shingled string of cottages was called The Albany. A voice inside her — the snotty L.A. voice, the wry deadpan voice of her boss, Reggie Marck — said, Hey: it doesn’t get much more imaginative than that.

Robbie wouldn’t take her home, and she knew that meant he was involved. Though maybe not. Lisanne wouldn’t ask. Maybe he had a roommate he was embarrassed to parade her in front of, the kind who would tease him about porking a porker. She understood. She’d never made love at this weigh-in. He seemed excited enough, and besides, she didn’t care. She only wanted communion. She had almost forgotten what that was like.

He was an athlete in high school. It was torrid between them, but when Lisanne got accepted to Berkeley they broke up. Robbie stayed behind and drove an ambulance, with the idea of eventually enrolling in med school. When the company went bankrupt, he took the EMT course for paramedics in training and began working for the city. His story was that he injured his back lifting a gurney and wound up addicted to painkillers. He moved back in with his mom, inheriting a small amount of money when she died. Lisanne didn’t want to know too many details.

The sex was still good. She got vocal and cried out to God. That surprised her. He went down on her, and that was rough; she instinctively covered the fatness of a thigh with one hand while drawing up folds of belly with the other. While he worked down there, she thought about enrolling in an obesity program at UCLA. You ate seven hundred calories a day for months and lost three or four pounds a week, the only drawback being that your breath stank as your body began to devour its stores of fat. There was a moment of embarrassment when he spoke up and said it looked like she had some discharge. She switched on a lamp, but it was only a small wad of toilet paper. He went back to his labors — nothing seemed to turn him off.

Robbie lit an après-sex joint and proceeded to get all happy. She smoked and choked. He asked if she wanted to come see his house (the one he had bought and was slowly fixing up) and glowed like a cheap guru when she assented. Her cohabitation theories might have been wrong after all.

The ride was freezing and quiet. The truck smelled of desuetude and cigarettes, old mud, junk mail, torn vinyl promises. She hadn’t been this loaded in a long time. She became focused on the long, trembling metal stick that ruled the roost, the crystal of its eight ball cupped in Robbie’s hand like an animal’s heart. She watched the arcane, manly, unfathomable patterns of his upshifts and downshifts with the attention of an adept. The engine provided heat; there wasn’t even a radio. Her ex seemed to lose impetus as they drove, but Lisanne thought maybe that was because there wasn’t any more weed. Robbie clearly had a tolerance.

A light flurry of snow blew down as they pulled into the drive. It felt like high school, playing hooky to do something dirty.

“How long you been here?” she asked as they stepped out.

“About a year,” he said. “My grandma stays with me.”

“I thought Grannie was dead!”

“That’s Mom’s mom — remember Elsa?”

“Sure do,” she said.

“Well, Elsa died about a year after Mom.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, well, it was time for her to go.”

“So this is your dad’s mom?”

“Uh huh.”

“I don’t think I ever met her.”

“She lived in Rochester. She’s kind of a hermit.”

When they entered, the house was filled with shadows. A cloud of perfume pressed on Lisanne like a rag of chloroform. A petite, hawklike figure watched them from the other side of the kitchen counter.

“Maxine?”

“Yes?”

Lisanne was suddenly self-conscious that she hadn’t showered. Robbie’s eyes were bloodshot. She felt dodgy and illicit.

“This my friend Lisanne, from L.A. — her dad died. I told you about her,” he added. “We went to high school together.”

“Hello,” said Lisanne, brightening like a loser.

Perky whore.

The pot was still kaleidiscopically working on her.

“Hiya,” said the woman.

Her features grew more distinct as Lisanne’s eyes adjusted to the light. She looked around seventy, of slender frame and predatory countenance. She was meticulously groomed, and Lisanne pegged her wardrobe as vintage — Chanel or YSL.

“I was just getting ice cream,” said Maxine. “Y’all like some?”

Robbie turned solicitously to Lisanne, who shook her head. In the full fluorescence of her stonedness, her man looked wild and bereft, startled to have put them in this wrong, weird predicament.

“Actually,” said Maxine, “it’s soy. They call it Soy Dream and it’s raspberry. I am absolutely hooked and don’t care who knows. Do I, Robert?”

“No ma’am!”

“Aren’t I absolutely hooked?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Hook, line, and stinker. Bell, book, and candle.”

“May I use the bathroom?” said Lisanne.

She could feel her smile becoming fixed and ghoulish; Robbie pointed the way.

Lisanne listened to the voices engaged in low argument as she douched.

The Greenroom and Beyond

“HE’S BEEN VOTED People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ more times than anyone on the planet — and he can type too. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome… Kit Lightfoot!”

The supernova took the stage with his patented self-effacing panther walk. The band raucously played the well-known theme from an early megahit. There was a large contingent of fans and screamers toward the front.