The Nirvana Blues

  “Course, that’s not all,” Tribby said.

  Joe thought: Oh no, what next?

  “I heard a rumor that Cobey Dallas and Roger Petrie are planning to tip over the First State People’s Jug in order to raise cash to outmuscle Skipper and Nikita and Ray for Eloy’s land before the Bonatelli-Smatterling helicoptered insurance fraud goes down.”

  “Tribby, I’m beginning to have trouble fathoming this plot.”

  “You and me both. Well listen, if you find Heidi, tell her to call me quick. Meanwhile, I’m gonna overlook our driveway tête-à-tête. We’re all in it too deep for second thoughts right now.”

  Joe mumbled, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Just don’t blow it. Start a riot tomorrow when you hear us coming … if you can. If you can’t, stay out of the way, at least. We’ll cut you in for your piece of the action no matter what, seeing as how you launched this fantasy.”

  “That’s big of you.”

  “Get hold of yourself, kid. Bye-bye.…”

  As soon as Joe hung up, the phone rang yet again.

  “Joe, this is Iréné. Papadraxis.”

  “Oh, hi, hey, how you doing?” he said jovially. Thank God she couldn’t see the look of horror and panic on his astonished features!

  “Did you get my note?”

  “Sure, yeah, gee, thanks a lot.”

  “I certainly hope you’re coming to the party tonight.”

  “Well, I, uh, you know, I mean…”

  “Listen, Joseph. I’m frightfully sorry about last night. I think I’d imbibed a little too heavily. It was awful of me to come on so strongly. I felt very sheepish this morning, I really did. I would love to see you again, and I promise not to be so overbearing. Strictly between us two, I must admit that I find you inordinately attractive. Is that a deal then?”

  “Uh, well, I, um…”

  All his life, lily-livered geek that he was despite his superficial athletic prowesses, Joe had allowed people to make him say yes when he wanted to say no, and today proved no exception. Hanging up after acquiescing to Iréné’s invitation, he knew he was doomed.

  He also knew—will wonders never cease?—that despite the morbid circumstances surrounding his life, his wife, their future, he had somehow been sexually aroused by a woman he thought had emasculated him forever only hours earlier. He seemed to be like one of those incredibly robust villains in the Dick Tracy comic strip who kept coming at you despite a barrage of blood-spattered .357-Magnum slugs popping out of their gunhands, thighs, and rib cages, their passion for survival equaled only by Chester Gould’s greedy love of graphic mayhem.

  Impetuously, Joe stooped, hugging each of his kids hard, until they groaned and squirmed. Then he kissed their lips—“Yuucch, Daddy!”—and he would have fled in search of his wife had not the door abruptly opened: Heidi said, “Hello.”

  * * *

  “MY GOD, YOU’RE ALIVE!”

  “Why would I be anything else?”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I don’t believe that’s any of your business anymore.”

  “But I thought … but we thought maybe you had been kidnapped.”

  “Obviously,” she said with pointed, sarcastic cheerfulness, “you thought wrong. Sorry to disappoint. I guess I’ve failed another test. Dearie me.”

  Joe said, “Wait a minute, let’s not start.”

  “Did I begin it? I’m standing here perfectly calm, when what to my wondering ears should I hear, but my devoted husband chastising me because I haven’t been kidnapped, raped, or bumped off in some grisly manner.”

  Joe bit his tongue, crossed to the kitchenette and opened the refrigerator, thirsty for a cold one. But they were out of beer. In fact, the dearth of comestibles was depressing. “Hey,” he announced petulantly, “this refrigerator is empty.”

  “Oh children oh children,” Heidi cried in a breathless, mocking voice, “our master is home and the refrigerator is empty. Let’s all run around tearing our hair. My God, what a tragedy! In the next fifteen minutes we may all starve to death!”

  Joe asked suspiciously, “Are you drunk?”

  “Why do you ask—because I’m not acting like Joey’s little Kewpie doll?”

  “Since when did you act like anybody’s little Kewpie doll?”

  “Well the answer is no, I’m not drunk. I’m a little pooped, though, and I had hoped to arrive at a peaceful home devoid of Joe Casanova and his boring, uptight maunderings.”

  “Heidi, I’m too tired myself to fight back; I’m sorry.”

  “All fucked out, is he, our Boy Wonder? Come back for a little Rest and Recuperation in the bosom of the family before he takes off on another tear, is that it?”

  “I’m serious.” Wearily, Joe plunked down at the kitchen table. “You win by default.”

  “What happened out there in the Cold Cruel? Did one of your paramours hit your ego with a deadly hickey?”

  Deliberately, Joe closed his eyes, determined to give some kind of reconciliation a desperate shot. “Hey, I’m not here to bug you or attack you,” he murmured nervously. “I’m here because I’m ashamed. I love you and Michael and Heather, and I wish this past week had never happened. I want to know if there’s any way we could talk again, or at least try not to be enemies.”

  “I’m not exactly riddled with altruistic feelings for you, Joey, if the truth be known.”

  “I can accept that.”

  “I really don’t give a damn if you accept it or not.”

  “I meant ‘I understand.’ You’ve got every right—”

  “No, wait a sec.” She gestured ludicrously with the arm in a half cast. “Don’t you start investing me with the rights I have or I don’t have. From here on in I decide my own rights. You have nothing to do with it anymore.”

  “Again … it was only a figure of speech.”

  “Our language is full of figures of speech guaranteed to promulgate an exploitative male-oriented world, and I’m sick of them.”

  “Okay,” he said, thoroughly bruised, utterly helpless. “Maybe you could let me know where we stand, anyway.”

  “You’re on my royal shit list. And you can’t con me into some sickly sweet reconciliation by pulling a pathetic, downcast, pooped-little-boy routine. I’m wise to that shtik. Between you and me it’s over.”

  “Well, what can I say, then?”

  “Why not start by stating your purpose. You want more clothes?—go get ’em. You need a fresh checkbook?—be my guest, they’re in the bedroom desk as always. If you’d like to trade the bus for the Green Gorilla, that’s fine by me—they’re both such a bargain. Other than that, what could you possibly desire? The kids for a movie? They’re all yours. Or some of this wonderful furniture for your bachelor—”

  “Stop.”

  “It’s hard to stop, Joey. First I’d like to crucify you with words. Then I’d enjoy tying you up and burning you all over with cigarette butts. Finally, I’d like to buy a gun and blow your head off.”

  “I can’t say that I blame you.”

  “‘I can’t say that I blame you,’” she mimicked ruthlessly. “What’s the matter, don’t you have any fight left? I liked you better when you were lying your ass off trying to salvage a homelife and your extracurricular scoring at the same time.”

  “It just happened,” he said forlornly. “I didn’t plan anything.”

  “So what is it called, then, this ‘spontaneous fucking’? Adultery in the second or the third degree?”

  “Go ahead. Keep it up. How many points must you score to win this particular game? Please, keep going until you hit the magic number and can stop.”

  Michael self-consciously feigned absorption in his soundless television program. Heather sat cross-legged in the middle of the living-room rug pretending to be fanatically spellbound by a Judy Blume novel.

  After a long pause, Joe said, “Well, then, I guess there’s no point in my being here.”

  “What do you want me t
o do?” she replied bitterly. “Forgive and forget? Now that they’ve chopped you up a bit and spat you out, now that you’ve discovered it isn’t all glamour and white-hot Playboy pussy out there, I’m supposed to welcome you back with open arms? I’m supposed to stroke your poor sweet bruised little ego cooing ‘Oh the poor little Joeytums?’ I’m supposed to nurse you back to psychological health, and proceed along the Primrose Path of Life as if nothing had happened?”

  “I think I have enough decency left not to suggest anything like that.”

  “Do you? I haven’t really been impressed by your decency lately. As far as I can figure out, you’ve had about as much sensitivity as a can of sardines.”

  “Actually,” he joked lamely, “I think I’ve got at least as much sensitivity as a can of salmon.”

  “Help! Shecky Greene strikes again!”

  Joe shrugged, playing the teary-eyed clown. “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.”

  “I’ve done plenty of the latter this week. But I’m tired of it now. Time to move on.”

  “To what?”

  “That’s up for grabs, I guess. I spoke with Scott Harrison again this afternoon about our divorce.”

  “Why did you have to choose that scumbag?”

  “Because he knows how to ream people.”

  “Do we have to get divorced?” His insides felt as if, little by little, they were being incapacitated by a creeping ice that was coating his vitals like some kind of poisonous Maalox.

  “I’m bitter, Joey. Right up until it happened, I trusted you. I knew we might have troubles someday, but I always thought we were big enough to confront each other on the level, without going through all this stupid, banal deceit and clumsy fraudulent pain. Our struggle to make it as a family deserved better than that.”

  What could he say, except, “I can’t defend myself. I’m guilty as charged.”

  Close to tears, Heidi said, “I always believed that come what may, our marriage had the emotional and ethical horses to sink or swim with honor.”

  “Divorce with ‘honor’?”

  “You’re deliberately misinterpreting what I just said.”

  “No I’m not.” He retreated. “I’m sorry.”

  “I feel like I’m covered with slime, Joey. I feel ashamed and humiliated, like our life together suddenly turned into an X-rated movie. We’ve been transformed into pornographic laughingstocks by your recent antics.”

  Joe nodded dismally. “You’re right. I can’t protest. Everything you say is the truth.” And then, overwhelmed by frustration, he said, “I know to a woman this sounds stupid, but it’s not easy being a man!”

  With that, he burst into gut-wrenching, shoulder-wracking, back-spasming sobs. “Oh shit!” he cried. Immediately, the palms covering his face were lathered in tears. And he couldn’t stop himself, no way. The humiliation was there for all to see. Heidi, the kids, the cat, even the blithering sea monkeys—they would all understand just how incompetent and frail he was. Joe wailed, “I’m sorry!” and wondered if this debilitating soap opera would ever end.

  Heidi started to rise, but Joe hollered, “You stay right where you are! I’m not crying to get your sympathy! I don’t want it! I’m just crying because I can’t help it, that’s all!”

  “Very well.” Calmly, she sat back down. Both kids had quit pretending to book-read and tube-goon: they gawked openly, frightened and curious.

  In a rage of tears, Joe sputtered at them: “What’s so goddam interesting? Michael, Heather, go to bed, will you? Beat it!”

  “Leave them alone,” Heidi said.

  “But I don’t want them to see me like this!”

  “It’ll probably do them good. At least you’re acting like a human being for a change.”

  “I’ll kill you, Heidi!”

  “Joey, the one good thing about you, I’ll have to admit, is I don’t believe you could kill a fly.”

  “You say!” In a senseless rage he grabbed the nearest weapon—a banana from the wooden salad bowl atop the fridge. Gripping the yellow fruit daggerlike in his hand, he lunged for his wife, stabbing her in the back as she scrambled for safety. Heidi shrieked, “Don’t, you’ll fracture my other arm!” They tumbled to the floor in a heap. Joe stabbed her repeatedly in rapid-fire fashion, right out of Looking for Mr. Goodbar—ten, twelve, fourteen times as she struggled to roll free. The banana disintegrated into a mushy pulp. “I’ll kill you!” he continued to sob: “I really will!” And then suddenly he realized her shrieks were unmerciful laughter, and he stopped. The shredded limp concoction in his fist scarcely resembled a piece of fruit: Heidi was plastered with sticky goop.

  “Oh God!” she giggled hysterically. “I’m gonna die from laughing!” And “Oh,” she cried, crawling away from him, “my stomach hurts!”

  MAD BANANA KILLER STRIKES AGAIN! “I KILLED HER BECAUSE SHE APPEELED TO ME,” SEZ MINIVER!

  “It isn’t funny!” he howled. “Stop laughing!”

  “I can’t! I don’t believe you, Joey! You’re unreal!”

  “But it isn’t funny,” he blubbered. “What did you do with the cocaine? They ransacked Tribby’s office! Four freaks in rubber suits actually invaded the septic tank at the Castle! They’ll slit throats if we don’t cough up the goods and apologize. Everybody out there is crazy, and you don’t know the half of it!”

  Heidi quit laughing and stared at him. “Who’ll slit throats?”

  “Ray Verboten, Joe Bonatelli, Natalie Gandolf … or whoever else out there considers this their territory. For God’s sake, what did you really do with it?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That’s all you’re interested in, isn’t it? You came home solely because you want that cruddy cocaine.”

  “I don’t want it, Heidi.” Joe gasped, trying to catch his breath. “But unless you or me can deliver it to somebody, or prove that it’s destroyed, they’ll think we’re pulling a double cross and cripple me, maim you, and terrorize the kids in hopes of making us cough it up!”

  “Then that’s simple. Tell everybody to forget it. The coke is gone.”

  “They won’t believe me. Or you. You have to produce the shit, or its traces. Otherwise they’ll think we’re scamming to unload it in secret.”

  “I don’t care what they think. I hope all of you kill each other for it. That’ll serve you right.”

  “But you’re involved. And they’ll try to get at you through the kids.”

  “Tell them I’m not afraid anymore. I’m out of the stupid game. And that’s final. I hope Tribby crashes that dumb helicopter tomorrow!”

  “Oh my God—how did you hear about that?”

  “How could I not hear about it? You wouldn’t believe the rumors out there. Somebody told me today that Ephraim Bonatelli, on a contract from his own father, was going to snatch the Hanuman and hold it for ransom. If he can get up from his hospital bed.”

  “It so happens that your new boyfriend, Nikita Smatterling, is in cahoots with Mr. Bonatelli, to rob his own statue, both for the ransom and the publicity that they figure will make Iréné Papadraxis’ hack job a best seller, and garner millions for the Simian Foundation.”

  “You lie! Nikita would never do anything like that!”

  Weary beyond belief, Joe said, “Shoot, it doesn’t matter. I just want to resolve the coke scam and then flee to Timbuktu. So please tell me how you destroyed it,” he begged. “Then I can relay the information to Tribby, and he can tell Ray Verboten—”

  “Why don’t you leave now?” Heidi interrupted. “We’re getting nowhere.”

  “You refuse to tell me?”

  “Oh Joey, you know I flushed it down the toilet!”

  “No!”

  “You knew I had all along.”

  “I don’t believe you! You’re lying! That stuff cost me twelve Gs! We could have sold it for a fortune! We could have—”

  “You’re the one who told me to do it.”

  “When? I’m not that crazy! You’re nuts!”


  “When you phoned from Tribby’s office you said it wasn’t worth it. You said ‘I would rather you just flushed the shit down the toilet.’ Those are your exact words.”

  “I never dreamed you’d take me seriously!”

  “You were terrified they might harm Michael or Heather.”

  Joe sat there, benumbed, contemplating the hands in his lap. She had actually done it! He thought his hopes for the land had vanished long ago, but her statement now cut him apart with machete strokes. Finally, irrevocably, his family was destroyed; the children were scarred for the duration. Nothing to do but end it all. Joe giggled, reached into his pocket, removed the revolver, and pointed it at his right temple.

  As he pulled the trigger, Heidi shrieked, “Joey, don’t!”

  Incredibly, though he had assumed it was empty, the gun went off: blam! Joe keeled over sideways in a great hullabaloo of flame and smoke.

  “Oh no!” Heidi shrieked.

  “Oh help I killed myself!” Joe wailed.

  His eardrum must have burst; a fire engine clanged through his brain. A muscular maniac pounded an enormous Chinese gong. And yet his senses were reasonably intact: he could smell gunpowder, he could see Heidi, absolutely horrified, her knuckles pressed against her teeth. And he could even hear Michael crying, “What happened, Mom? What did Daddy do?” And he could feel the gun, still in his hand—cold, hard, and somehow not as deadly as guns are supposed to be when discharged at point-blank range.

  Joe whispered hoarsely, “Heidi, I’m still alive. Can you see where it hit? Is there any blood?”

  “I can’t see a thing.” When she bent over him, her plaster cast accidentally banged the back of his head—he cried “Ouch!” Heidi said, “There’s just a little burnt area, nothing else. No hole. No blood…”

  “I thought it was empty,” Joe moaned weakly. “But there must have been one blank left.”

  “‘Blank’?”

  “It was loaded with blanks this morning. But I thought I had fired all of them. I guess I counted wrong. I feel sick, I’m gonna throw up.”

  “Blanks? Joey, what kind of monster are you? I thought you had actually shot yourself!”

  “Nothing was supposed to discharge, believe me. I didn’t mean—”