Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

She coughed and the young man looked up. His lazy pose snapped to deference. ‘Can I help you?’

She was suddenly flooded with shame. She shook her head, turned and quickly walked further into the store.

She looked everywhere and saw nothing, she had to will colour and light and shadow into form. In one of the aisles, a middle-aged gentleman in a suit was flicking through magazines. He looked up at her, stiffened, and quickly grabbed his briefcase off the floor. He walked to the back wall, opened a blue door — sunlight, true light — and rushed out into the alley.

She breathed in deeply, a moment of relief. She had almost laughed, so boyish had he been in his embarrassment.

She scanned the shelves. Everywhere there seemed to be images of women proudly pulling at their nipples or cupping their breasts and smiling lasciviously at the camera. Most of them were young, of course, girls really, but she was surprised to see quite a few older women on the covers of the videos and DVDs.

There seemed to be no faces of men. Instead there was a dizzying display of penises: short, long, thick, white, black, brown, erect, outlandishly enormous, even some puny and limp. At the age of fifty-nine, for the first time in her life, she finally understood that every man she knew and every man she had known, in fact every man in the world, had a unique and identifiable penis. And every one of them was hideous. She was overtaken by rage. Every one of them was ugly. She turned into the next aisle.

The homosexual videos and DVDs filled one narrow panel. She tensed and walked towards the shelf. These penises had naked bodies attached to them. Those bodies had faces. Without thinking, she blindly stretched out her hand and grabbed a video from the shelf. She turned it around, silently read the names on it, and then placed it back. She took the next one, then the next, then the one next to that. The actors’ names were all silly, all-American: Randy and Calvin, Lance and Kirk. If not all-American they were exotically European: Sven, Hans, Lazlo or Misha. As she methodically scanned the videos and DVD slicks, she refused to engage with the images. Of course she was aware of the naked bodies twisted around each other, the stark close-ups of genitalia, the carnal directness of the images, but she did not think about them, did not allow herself any emotion. She felt neither curiosity nor disgust. She was seeking a name.

Men would approach the shelf and then, spotting her, swiftly turn around and walk away. A portly bearded man reeking of tobacco and aftershave looked at her with undisguised spite, but he too did not dare come close. Let them wait. Let them bloody well wait before indulging themselves in filth.

When she found what she’d been looking for, she froze. The image on the cover was of a man in uniform, a grey sheriff’s attire. A preposterous erection strained the actor’s tight pants. His name was there, in red type: Ricky Pallo. She held the video cover in her hand, noting the baton in the actor’s hand, the deep black void of the sunglasses that hid his eyes. She willed herself to turn over the cover, to look. But she couldn’t; her hands were suddenly clammy, her breath restricted. She thought impulsively of praying, but it seemed blasphemous to ask for God in this place.

She took a breath. Foolish woman, she sharply reprimanded herself. She turned over the video cover.

She caught her breath. He looked so very handsome. She was unaware of it but her tongue fiercely ground against her teeth, her lips were suddenly parched. She carried the cover back towards the entrance.

The young man at the counter was clearly bemused by her choice but he said nothing. He searched under the counter and found the cassette. ‘Twenty dollars.’

‘What?’ She was staring at a poster for a magazine called Kink . A woman’s ecstatic face was drenched in a thick paste of semen.

‘That will be twenty dollars.’ The man’s tone was patient.

‘Of course.’ She fumbled with the catch of her purse, took out a fifty-dollar note and gave it to the youth. She knew her face was flaming red; she did not look at him again. He handed her the change and put the video in a brown paper bag. She allowed herself a smile at this small conceit. Like a greengrocer, she thought to herself; only greengrocers and, evidently, pornographers still use brown paper bags. She accepted the package and stuffed it deep into her bag, covering it with her scarf.

‘Goodbye.’

She did not answer him. Making her exit she nearly collided with a man. He too was young, with slightly chubby cheeks on which the unshaven down could not quite muster to form a full beard. He stepped back, threw himself against the wall, and turned his face away from her. He cringed, his cheeks and neck flushing to bright pink.

She walked quickly into the light, into the street, making rapid strides away from the store, looking at no one, experiencing a humiliation that was visceral. She was terrified that one of the shadows rushing past her in the city street would not belong to a stranger. She only stopped when she reached the corner of Russell and Lonsdale.

That boy she had so nearly collided with — he was still a boy to her — who had been mortified by her presence, he had a sweet, charming face. She had wanted to hug him, stroke his hair, his cheek. She had so wanted to comfort him.

•

‘A packet of Supa Mild cigarettes, thank you.’

‘What?’ The girl at the counter was surly. Customers waited impatiently behind her.

‘Supa Mild.’

The girl stared back blankly. ‘Never heard of them.’

‘They finishing to make them long time ago. I smoke them too once. They very good cigarette.’

She turned. The man behind her was beaming; he was her own age and his trim beard was speckled with silver.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She was apologising to everyone. She scanned the tray of cigarettes and recognised a brand from her past. ‘Peter Stuyvesant, please.’

•

She had not had a cigarette in over fifteen years when she had asked for one in Los Angeles, in the tiny grim office at the back of the police station. She and her husband had flown across the Pacific, mostly in silence, to collect their son’s body and take it home.

There had been two policemen. The older, white one had seemed a little bored, as if detailing the particulars of an overdose to distressed kin was a familiar, tedious routine for him. As it probably was. But the young black officer had been courteous and gentle. His broad face had worn a sad smile throughout. She had found herself talking to him, asking him questions, though it was often the other one who answered her, reading directly from his notes. They had found a combination of heroin and cocaine in their son’s body, he explained, as well as traces of alcohol, marijuana, Viagra and Zoloft. Had their son been suffering from depression? There had been an embarrassed silence. She was ashamed to admit that it had been years since they had seen Nick, that they had not spoken since that phone call in the middle of the night, when he had been slurring, making outrageous accusations, making no sense at all. Her husband had grabbed the phone from her and slammed it down so hard that the casing had cracked.

Clearing his throat, the white officer had then informed them that their son had been HIV positive.

Her husband had made a whimper, like a frightened animal, and then, rising, his voice cracking, he had excused himself. She had put out a hand to him but he had refused to take it. She was alone with the strangers.

‘I don’t understand. AIDS?’

The white officer had nodded.

‘Oh.’ She felt nothing. He was dead, what did it matter?

The older man swallowed. ‘Mrs Pannini, did you know your son was homosexual?’