“All the time.”
“They’ve got a whole bunch of us…” He picked at a chip. Took a bite. Drank his beer with a dry, unsatisfied smack. “We all check for different things. Some of us for partisanship. Some of us for class warfare. Some of us for sexism. But all of us are looking for the same thing, finally.”
“What’s that?”
“Obviousness.” Marshal shook his head. “Obviousness where the obvious shouldn’t be. It can’t get too real. It can’t be too over the top, not if we’re using peoples’ worst instincts against them. Can’t be too on the nose. If you can tell that Chanel is making you feel ugly, then you’re going to react badly. If you can tell that a commercial for toaster pastries implies you are a bad mother if you don’t serve them to your kids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then the game is over… It needs to be implied.” He managed a few chips, focusing now. Broke off a healthy piece of his tostada and took a bite. “Demographics are shifting, though. Irony is beating at the gates. Soon, most commercials will be acutely aware of their manipulation, present them as such, belaying all suspicions of manipulation.”
Carmen nodded. “So what is your department?”
“I told you. Special content reviewer –”
“But your specialty. What do you see that nobody else in that department sees?”
“Sex.”
She paused in mid bite. “Huh?”
“Please tell me you haven’t been listening this whole time.”
“I have. Sorry. I don’t want to look down my nose at your work, but – hold on, this taco really is too good…” She popped the last bite into her mouth. Chewed. Bobbed up and down to speed the process. Kept on with a full mouth, right hand covering her face. “Aren’t commercials already all about sex?”
Marshal watched her jaw work. Lost himself in it for a moment. Then: “That’s just it. They’re inured. Sex is embedded into their minds like a lowjack. It bleeds into everything. I’m the guy who reviews every last thing to make sure the ultimate exploitation hasn’t snuck into an ad for Prozac or squirt guns.”
Carmen’s eyes widened. “You mean like the one with all the kids squirting each other with white goo?”
No small amount of relief in his eyes as he took another mouthful. Reached for a napkin. “That was before they had me.”
“Even my mind went there.”
“My mind always goes there,” he said. Went back to playing with his food. “Always has to.” He took a swig of his beer. “It’s what I do. What I do, always, it feels like, some days.”
“You seem unhappy about it.”
“Some days, it gets very unnatural.”
“It’s not unnatural.”
“Ok.”
“My mind goes there all the time,” Carmen said. “More than I can admit to anyone. Except you, I imagine. So that’s nice. What you do, how you think. It’s not a flaw. Or weakness.”
Carmen thought she might be reaching for his hand.
Saw Marshal fold his own in his lap, felt the table jump as his knee made contact. Legs clearly crossed.
Carmen told herself she had been gunning for his food the whole time.
Broke off a piece of his tostada.
The tortilla had grown soft with a heavy load of meat and tomatoes. Wilted on the way to her mouth and sent its contents all over her lips, chin. Dripping down onto her dress.
She had it in her to laugh. “Oh, God. Yes. Amazing.” She reached for a napkin. “That’s got to look so attractive, right?”
Marshal smiled. “It looks fine.” He handed her an extra napkin. “Here.”
She wiped her mouth clean. Took his napkin and worked on her chin, absently dabbing at the top of her breasts. “Unbelievable. What does a guy have to do to end up with a job like yours?”
“What?”
“What did you go to school for? You a human sexuality major? Advertising minor? Communications, I think, is a thing that gets you props on a resume? I mean, forgive me, again, but how do I get your job?”
“They find you.”
“What’s that?”
He finished his beer. “Let’s not talk about work anymore.”
“Alright.” Carmen nodded, took her own drink down in a few swallows. “Let’s get another drink. We can talk about whatever you like.”
“We can also have drinks at my place,” he said. Suddenly free of his straightjacket. Eyes flickering to the television in the top left corner, a Bud Light commercial having its way with everyone’s mind. “I don’t have much to drink at my place other than bourbon and a few bottles of wine. But we can pick up some Dos Equis at a store on the way.” Marshal smiled. “That is, if you don’t mind me shopping around.”
Carmen reached for her beer, and took three swallows of nothing from her empty bottle.
***
They stopped into a store that didn’t bother with holidays.
Bought two six-packs of Dos Equis.
Best part, far as Carmen was concerned, was when Marshal casually strolled towards the magazines. Picked up a copy of High Society and started to leaf through it.
“Are there certain things you like?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Are there things – You must be turned on, every now and then, by what you look at.”
“Not something I am happy to admit.”
“Well, admit it, anyway,” Carmen said. “Tell me.”
“I like the reverse cowgirl,” Marshal said. “I like that I can see her, and not see the guy. I don’t always like their faces. I don’t always trust that they’re not… that they aren’t conquering the whole world. Taking over. It can be a little frightening.”
“I like the reverse cowgirl, too,” she said. “So that’s ok.”
“Our beer is getting warm. ”
“Let’s buy it and get out of here.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“You still want to come back to my place?” he asked. “Really? Drinks and all.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Yes. We should all be worried.”
Carmen felt herself swallowing, nervous. “I don’t want to be. I want to like you.”
Marshal set the six-packs on the counter. “You shouldn’t.”
“Why all the honesty?”
“I can be pretty evil.”
“I know. We all can.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Let’s do something about that.”
Marshal nodded. Laid down his card. Carmen sent it back to his pocket. Pulled out a twenty and laid it down.
“On me,” she said.
“You scare me,” Marshal said.
“I know.”
The man behind the counter asked her if they needed anything else.
She replied in Spanish.
Saw Marshal smile.
***
Two beers in, and Carmen noticed something beyond the stacks of pornography he had been buying from her store for over a year now.
“Hang on,” she said, rearranging herself on a red couch, her bare feet digging under purple corduroy cushions. “I think I finally get it.”
Marshal nodded from his throne, a chintz armchair complete with floral vomit and brass upholstery studs.
Carmen knew she hadn’t been drugged. She knew the difference between an unaccustomed buzz and the dark waters of a laced Cuba Libre. If there was a thematic haze to the evening, it was all in the conversation since sitting down. The absolute blandness that had blinded her to the details of his home. His chair. Her couch. The yellow paintjob that bordered on butterscotch dressing. Worn, second-hand desk. Dusty chandelier. Paintings on the wall courtesy of Fernando Botero; one of them depicting an overweight Passion of the Christ, the other an obese, prepubescent Mona Lisa Aged 12. Crystal ashtrays, scattered rosaries. A bookshelf of classics, all in the original Spanish.
“This apartment isn’t yours,” she said.
Ma
rshal frowned. “I’ve been living here for one and a half years. I’ve got a three-page lease and everything.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Give it to me.
Carmen helped herself to an honest dose of fear.
Stuffed it down her throat, swallowed it all, and continued. “I mean, it’s not yours. You’re not some white hipster who wandered into Sunset Park and went native. You’re a square. But not average one. All the porn you’ve ever bought is stacked up along the walls, the fake fireplace behind you…” She trailed off.
“I sublet the place, once, a long time ago,” Marshal said. “Then she never came back. And now it’s mine.” He finished his beer. “I am surprised you didn’t mention it when I first let you in.”
“You were boring me.”
“What’s that?”
“I was boring me,” Carmen said. “I don’t want to talk about music. Or movies. I can’t stand any of the things I get stuck with at work. Unimaginative. Nonsense. I am so tired of thinking of excitement as something that ended at a funeral over ten years ago. I want to know things.”
“I was with the FBI.”
Carmen stood. Paused. Eyed the six-pack by Marshal’s chair. “Do I have to go over there to get a beer?”
“You shouldn’t trust me.”
“Roll one over to me, then.”
Marshal did as he was told, smiling the whole time.
Carmen popped the top with her keychain. “Why are you smiling?”
“I wasn’t an agent,” Marshal said. “That would have been nice.” He opened his own beer, took care of the cap with his bare hands. Sent a little blood down his arm. He glanced down dismissively before having a drink. Continued: “Agents get to be proactive. No outfit like that exists without it’s comptrollers. Paper pushers. Special content reviewers.”
Carmen didn’t sit back down. Wrapped her lips around the rim, took three large swallows. Let a decent amount trickle along her chin. “What did you do?”
“Your pornography section is small,” Marshal said. “Only gotten smaller over the years, I imagine. Online is the future. For our sex drives, advertising, our every last need. Shopping. You know what I mean. Everything you could want, it’s there. Barely regulated. Barely legal. Wild West. Yes, by the way, I am a little drunk. I really don’t drink that much. But you oughta know. You should know what it is that’s hiding out there.”
Carmen caught sight of a small brass pony on a bookshelf belonging to someone else.
“The things they do to children, Carmen.” Marshal shook his head. Smiling. “The things you have to sort through. Doesn’t stop at sex. Doesn’t stop at kids same age as yours. I’m talking about toddlers. Babies. I swear to God, you don’t know there is no God until you’ve seen a photoset of a man with his dick in a three-year-old girl, boy, whatever. A knife to their throat, actually cutting. Smiling.” Marshal kept smiling. “We would sort through it all, because it was evidence. Because we were, basically, secretaries.”
Carmen set her beer down. Done with the prop, no more coaxing. “Then why are you smiling?”
“What do you mean?”
“How can you say that this is what you did, and smile?”
“This isn’t a smile,” he said. “This is what I wear because I am always three seconds away from the end of the world.”
Carmen took a few steps forward. Said his name.
“Everything I ever came across,” Marshal said. “They harness those same depths at work. They just can’t be as obvious about our bad, bad thoughts.”
“Marshal.”
“And you start to wonder about your own bad thoughts.”
Carmen took a few more steps.
“I’ve been contaminated,” Marshal said. “I must have been.”
Carmen dropped between his knees. Her own thudding softly into a fake Persian rug.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Carmen stared up at him. “You are so right about everything you’re wrong about.”
She lifted her neck for a kiss. Thought she might have forgotten how, but he was as bad as she was. Lips missing their mark. Tongues relapsing through wet misadventures. She felt his breath quicken. Faster, from something resembling passion to the hungry throb of a disembodied heart. Felt his pulse traveling down to her neck, where his hand took hold. Moved up past her face. Back to her hair. Took a handful and pulled.
Very hard.
Pulled her away from the kiss, broke them both in one swift motion.
Bore into her with his black, unwilling eyes.
She could sense them running up and down the curve of her spine, bent back under the pull of his oversized hand.
“I shouldn’t like the magazines,” he whispered. “Not as much as I do.”
“Images,” she said.
“Then what?”
“Those are things people like to watch…”
“And sometimes do…”
“And sometimes do. Couples do, all the time, they can reach an agreement…”
“I don’t want the agreement. I want the fantasy.”
“That’s what I –”
“That’s not what you meant… I want the fantasy to be real. I don’t want agreements, permission. I don’t want rehearsal, pre-curtain, a play… I need it to be real.”
“Yes.”
“You should run.” Marshal said, eyes crying. “Get away.”
Carmen withdrew her hands from Marshal’s thighs. Placed them back on her ankles. “What do you think it is you want to do?”
Marshal let out a desperate sound. A dying animal face to face with it’s owner’s shotgun.
Mercy killing.
He watched his tears drop onto her face, run down her cheeks.
Some of them sidewinding their way into her mouth.
“I’m going to kill you,” he told her. “I’m going to drag you down to the storage room, tie you down with barbed wire, bound to the filthy mattress someone never had the common sense to throw out, and, I swear, while everyone outside stares at the sky, and the cockroaches watch, I am going to take a rusty knife to every last part of your body, in order, so that the last thing you feel is me cutting out your heart and eating it.”
“No.” Carmen took shallow breaths. Inhaled the peppery scent of beer and fresh jalapenos. “You won’t do that to me, Marshal.”
“I don’t have anyone else to trust with what I have to say.”
“Let go of my hair, Marshal. You’re hurting me.”
He did as he was told.
She stood and walked back to the couch. Didn’t sit. Realized her dress had taken a hike halfway up her body. Sent it back down around her knees. From somewhere outside, incendiaries were tearing the sky apart. An occasional scream or two. Celebration, inebriation. Across the whole goddamn nation.
“I’m going home,” Carmen told him.
Marshal sat in a state of monotone bliss. “Yes, please.”
“Thank you for dinner.”
“If they could hire pedophiles, they would,” he told her. “If they could drag every last demon from the gates of hell… Well, yes, it’s dramatic as that. If they could get the devil himself to tell them which way to turn, what product to sell and how, then they would.”
“Now, I actually am bored, Marshal.”
She picked up her purse. Walked to the door. Waited.
Marshal shook his head. “Sorry, yeah.”
Sent his bony, six-plus skeleton across the room and opened the door for her.
Let her out and closed it without another word.
Carmen reached into her pack and pulled out a Twizzler.
Took a bite.
***
Two days later, he came into the store.
Cut through a conversation between two MTA workers stuck working second shift.
Carmen watched him wander past the shelves of canned beans, corn, the coolers of Arizona Iced Tea and domestic beer. Settle on what he always did.
He
r youngest, Claudio, nudged her with mischievous eyes. Mimicking a lewd gesture copied from his older brother. Still too young to get the joke. Carmen rang up a few customers. Broke open a fresh roll of dimes. Reached up for a pack of Viceroys.
Marshal stepped up.
Laid down a single issue of Score.
Carmen scanned it. Threw him a friendly smile. “Not your usual fare.”
He nodded. Straightened his tie. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Come back in tomorrow,” Carmen said. “That’s eight eighty-one.”
He paid with a twenty.
She broke open some nickels.
Gave him his due and watched him leave.
From down and to the left, her son smiled with all the earnest cruelty a child could muster.
“Shut up,” she said. “He is not a real live wooden boy.”
Even then, two days later, she could still smell the gunpowder in the air.
Domestic.
I had just settled in. Surrounded by all the simplest things. A near-empty room. Hardwood floors, high ceilings. Ensconced by three naked walls and a pair of looming casement windows, three stories above the gravel parking lot of Camelot Apartments. Lamp in the corner burning bright, spherical midnight. Loose-leaf paper scattered like ripe snowflakes. Sitting at my cheap bridge table. Ass parked in a second-hand roller chair, black tattered vinyl exposing jaundiced foam. Pleasuring my seventh beer for the evening. Ashtray stuffed to the gills with crippled filters. Fingers parked on the keys of a worn, outdated laptop.
Radio tuned to the classical station. Brahms doing what he did best.
Myself, doing what best I could.
December of 2001. Not the best of years by any measure. Milo and I had parted ways. Gave him sole custody of our inner circle. Lost my girlfriend to a French flight attendant and my own ugly habits. Checked out of college without a single prospect before me. An endless summer spent nursing one of my few remaining friends though the aftermath of a crippling head-on collision. I had left Manhattan behind, only to hear it from CNN one Tuesday morning; watching the Twin Towers implode from within the confines of an idiot box in Verona, North Carolina.
Bar tabs and credit card statements flying in my face.
Despite the follies of that miserable year, the tide was slowly turning. I was finally alone. Cut off from acquaintances, so-called friends. A massive, fourteen-grand advance had fallen into my lap; just a simple matter of completing a manuscript for the Young Adult market. Figured my unpublished tales of booze and regrettable fucking could wait. Took a job at an independent video store to cover my bases. Found myself an apartment whose rent played straight David to New York’s greedy Goliath.