Almanac of the Dead

  Max and Leah had made no secret about their terms of marriage. Max’s friends and even some of his closest advisors had fantasies about the ripe young women in a secret room in the clubhouse. Max only laughed. Let the would-be assassins stumble around the clubhouse locker rooms looking for nonexistent love nests. Max could have any person or any thing in the world if he wanted it badly enough to make the series of telephone calls to his lawyers or his bankers. Even the worst trouble could be handled this way.

  For a long time Max had brooded over the changes. Max had sent for sucking and fucking movies and had in expensive call girls, and then the more expensive and more ugly licensed sexual therapist. Max still lay awake for hours trying to feel even a spark, a last shiver of desire, some remains of an urge or a fantasy that brought even a tingle of excitement. Max could remember the daydreams and fantasies, but nothing about them excited him anymore. The bullets had torn Max loose from his own body. Now Max got pleasure only from precision planning, from perfect timing and execution. Max funnels money from his “contracting” business to Leah’s Blue Horizons and Blue Water corporations. Max is relieved by Leah’s happiness buying and selling real estate. For a long time Max had not seen any point in going on; he had felt the hopeless monotony of sleeping, eating, and shitting. Then one day he wandered into Leah’s office with its map scattered with blue, green, and yellow pins. Max had felt a flicker of interest stir. Max had leaned close to the display tables of the architect’s scale models of the canals and lakes and golf courses for Leah’s Venice, Arizona, development. Max had not been interested at first, but as Venice began to take shape with maps and models, Max had begun to feel faint anticipation stir. Leah saw Mediterranean villas and canals where only cactus and scraggly greasewood grew from gray volcanic gravel.

  STEAK-IN-THE-BASKET

  CALL IT A JOKE, a twist of fate, that after Max had endured hours of “Wheelie’s” rambling wet-dream scenarios in the Veterans Hospital, Leah should, years later, have an affair with Trigg, the Realtor in a wheelchair. Steak-in-the-Basket was what Max called Trigg. Leah had made it her practice to alert Max to her love affairs, and to give Max the names and descriptions of all business associates she was planning to see during the week. Max did not ask, but Leah had done this as a courtesy to Max. It was also a precaution. Leah did not want the security men to shoot a business client or new lover.

  Max did not ask Leah about her lovers because he had no interest or curiosity about the men or anything these men did in bed with his wife. Max could imagine innumerable sexual postures and practices without feeling the least hint of arousal. Max had tried imagining himself anywhere with anyone doing anything, but nothing worked. It was as if folds of wet, pink flesh were as ordinary as the sky or the sidewalk, though Max could remember when he had got hard-ons every time he saw a pair of big tits. But Max had been more curious about Leah and Trigg because Trigg was a loudmouth in a wheelchair. Trigg considered himself a “legitimate businessman,” but in Tucson that only meant no firearms were used. Trigg had a specialty with zoning laws and property that was worthless unless the zoning changed. Trigg bragged once he got started, it was too late, no one could stop him. Leah pointed to red pencil dots on blocks of downtown real estate. The grid of blocks and lots on the Tucson city map was a chessboard. Trigg was buying downtown block by shabby block. Trigg had started out with ratty bungalows near the university, and Trigg had got one of the houses rezoned to allow Blood Plasma International to lease the building from Trigg. Naturally Trigg was Blood Plasma International. Trigg bragged to Leah that blood-plasma donor centers busted neighborhoods and drove property prices down without moving in blacks or Mexicans. With property prices down, Trigg came and cleaned up, buying most property at forty cents on the dollar. Max didn’t blame Leah for her interest in Trigg; in fact, Max himself was interested in Trigg. Max wanted to know the deals and schemes in Trigg’s mind.

  “Wheelies” had something to prove. Short men needed to prove themselves, but for men sitting in wheelchairs, the need was absolute. Leah confided to Max that she had taken full advantage of the manhood Mr. Trigg had managed to resurrect between his legs. Trigg had managed to squeeze the blood flow to his groin with both hands until Leah had got what Trigg called his “rod” to ride. Leah had ridden herself raw the first afternoon. Trigg could not ejaculate, but claimed he felt orgasms inside his head. Leah had not intended to bring up sex, but there had been something in the way Max loathed Trigg for being paralyzed that had infuriated Leah. She hated how little sex mattered to Max. Leah had no intention of drying up just because Max had. Leah had gone after sex with the same confidence she had when she made her first real estate deal. Leah had thrived on afternoons in Phoenix with male clients who later invited her for drinks or dinner.

  The first words Trigg had ever whispered into Leah’s ear had been a little breathless. “My cock gets real hard,” he said, the scotch smelling bitter on his breath.

  Trigg had been in a wheelchair since his freshman year in college. He had spent eighteen months in hospitals and intensive physical rehab. He had read all the books in the hospital library and had asked his father to use his connections at the country club to get Trigg access to the doctors’ medical library at the university hospital. Trigg was adamant about the eventual miracle of medical science and high technology for spinal-cord injuries and nerve tissue transplants. It was only a matter of time and Trigg would be out of the chair.

  Leah thought sex with Trigg might be interesting. She had not been disappointed. Trigg’s desire had a sharp edge, as if he still hungered for all he had lost. After Max Blue, Leah found she had enjoyed the fervency of Trigg’s desire almost as much as she had enjoyed the durability of his erections. Max had not been able to resist a bad joke. How lousy a lover was Max Blue? So lousy his wife replaces Max with a paraplegic lover. Leah had preferred sex at the Arizona Inn because it was elegant and neutral ground. But after six or seven weeks Leah had yielded to Trigg’s insistence that she come to his “condominium.” Trigg never used simple words such as home or house as long as words such as condominium or town house were available. Trigg didn’t just want sex with Leah, he wanted Leah to get to know the “real him,” “the man inside.” Although picking up men on the university campus was potentially dangerous to amateurs, sex with strangers did have a few advantages; at least you did not have to be bored with self-revelations.

  Trigg’s condominium had been even worse than Leah had imagined. The development itself was no worse than other pseudo—Santa Fe stuccos, but Trigg had decorated the penthouse himself. Trigg had dragons everywhere. The front door knocker was a brass dragon’s-head knocker. The hat rack in the foyer was a black lacquer dragon with hat poles for spines. The dark red rugs had black and green dragons running their length. The draperies were fake oriental tapestries of intertwined gold and green and black dragons. Trigg kept the draperies closed carefully so the dragons could be clearly seen. The table lamps were writhing red and black dragons of plaster. The only decent object seemed to be a small jade incense bowl with a dragon’s head and tail for handles. Even the shower curtains had been custom-made to match the dragon pattern on guest bath towels.

  All doorways were wider to accommodate the wheelchair. In the kitchen, the refrigerator and the shelves and counters were all at wheelchair height. Trigg wasn’t dependent on anyone for anything except “one thing,” and Leah had been too shocked to respond when Trigg had slipped his hand lightly over her crotch. When Leah had warned him never to touch her like that again, Trigg had been puzzled at her anger.

  Leah hated handicap-designed toilets because they were so high off the floor to give easy access to the wheelchair. She sat on the toilet and only her toes touched the floor. Leah wondered if Trigg had thought about a custom development strictly for the physically handicapped. Was there “soft money” available from the government specifically for the disabled?

  Trigg had already got out of his chair and undressed. From the bathroom doo
r, the huge four-poster bed looked like a Viking ship, and the red dragon lacquered on the headboard was the mainsail. Leah slid into the bed beside Trigg pretending to squeal because the sheets were cold. She did not mention the idea she’d just had in the bathroom. She did not know how much further she and Mr. Trigg were actually going to travel together, and she wanted to get first crack at any preferential loans for housing the handicapped. The Viking ship tossed and rolled, and Trigg bragged later about all the ideas he had for future developments. The sky was the limit. Leah had enjoyed Trigg after they had fucked and smoked a cigarette because he had a childlike enthusiasm for all the schemes and plots he had. The word conglomerate had the same gravity as condominium for Trigg. He wanted to create his own conglomerate in southern Arizona. Cover all the squares. Touch all the bases. Own a hospital, an ambulance service, and a mortuary as well.

  “Diversification,” Leah had said when Trigg had stopped talking. He had covered all her squares and touched all her bases, and Leah was in a tolerant mood. She let Trigg keep talking. Trigg claimed most of his ideas were outgrowths of his months in the hospital, and the medical texts he’d read. Trigg was convinced he was a genius. All his ideas and the connections with the accident, the months in the hospital and the wheelchair—all of it was in his diaries.

  Trigg had reached into the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a thick three-ring binder. Trigg had pointed at a closet door. He had all the other notebooks stored there—notebooks all the way back to the accident. As he talked to Leah about himself, his diaries, and his accident, Trigg’s eyes sought Leah’s eyes urgently, as if he feared Leah did not understand the extreme importance of the diaries. He wanted Leah to know the person he was deep inside. All Leah could do was to nod when Trigg said this. The notebooks in the closet were stacked three feet high. Leah resigned herself to sitting in bed naked surrounded by dragons, reading the story of Trigg’s life on lined, loose-leaf paper. She was mixing business with pleasure, and Trigg’s diaries were homework. She was fascinated with Trigg and his “orgasms in his head.” Orgasms had to be in his head. The scars across his lower back looked as if Trigg had been chopped in half and sewed back together.

  But when Leah had reached for a notebook to settle back with and read in bed, Trigg had had other ideas. She could take the diaries home with her to read. Right now, though, Trigg said he wanted to talk about “diversification.” The health-care industry is a sleeping giant, Trigg said. His plasma donor centers had got Trigg thinking about alcohol and drug treatment centers. There were millions and millions to be made from treatments for people addicted to alcohol and other drugs. That had been what Trigg wanted to talk about.

  “Talk?” Leah had said in a teasing voice. “Who said anything about talk? This was all I came here for.” Leah laughed. She had not felt so good in months. Trigg had fucked her one way, and in typical Tucson fashion he was ready to try to fuck her with a slick real estate deal too. Trigg wanted Leah’s Blue Water group to finance and build his detox and addiction treatment hospital. In return, Leah’s Blue Water Investment Corporation would receive stock in the blood plasma business as well as stock in the detox hospital. Leah said she’d have to think about it. She did not want to see Trigg’s tacky dragon logo within ten miles of her dream city. But if Leah herself took over planning and design, then the addiction treatment center might be one “jewel” in a triple crown of high-tech medical care facilities, within the first luxury community designed for the handicapped and the addicted. When Leah had finally got loose from Trigg, the trunk of her car was full of loose-leaf notebooks, pages filled front and back with Trigg’s urgent scrawls in pencil and ink.

  DIARIES

  MAX HAD NOT BEEN ABLE to resist Trigg’s diaries. Leah had not seemed interested. “Go ahead, save me the trouble—let me know if there’s anything juicy,” she said, and then laughed at the memory of Trigg, his face wet from his own saliva, grinning at her crotch.

  Trigg’s diary entries appeared to begin in a rehabilitation center. The diaries were obviously kept for mental hygiene or group therapy. Max had experience with therapeutic diaries himself. Therapists were Peeping Toms. Your dreams and fears were their windows. Therapists were merely satisfying themselves though they claimed they were helping you.

  Trigg had only ever had one thing on his mind, and that was the meat dangling between his legs. The accident had only served to intensify Trigg’s attention to his cock. The diaries were page after page of notes on attempts to get pretty girls from his college classes to go to bed with him despite the wheelchair.

  Max shuffled through the stack of notebooks; the older they were, the more filthy they were. Max had started in the middle and flipped through the pages to the beginning, then fanned back through to the end of each notebook.

  From Trigg’s Diaries

  The black and Hispanic orderlies hate their jobs. Women’s work. They wipe shit off butts and mop up puke. They always smile for no reason when they lift me out of the bath.

  My mother smiles that smile too. I catch her staring into mirrors behind my back to see the width and length of the scar.

  Cut you down to size, I hear the orderlies say when I wheel by the nurses’ station late at night. I can’t sleep because I have the same dream every night.

  Helpless baby. I don’t dream anything but the words themselves written in white on black. The whole dream consists simply of those words. Nightshift orderlies close the nursing station door and smoke reefer. I am the only patient with enough of a brain to know. The others are snoring.

  The orderlies (blacks) hate white people. I can tell by the way the short one smiles when I complain about cold bathwater.

  You will find out who your friends are. The guys from school. At first they call a lot. Then it’s only one or two. Rick and Brett still come over and play chess. Sally and her friend Elaine will bring over a new album. They always ask for dope to smoke. Say I am the reefer man. My parents’ friends are not the worst ones. They always try to show they are confronting my “handicap” head-on. They go out of their way to watch me to prove their minds are as broad as their fat asses.

  Elaine came over with her friend Patsy. My folks were gone for the weekend. First vacation alone since the accident. A year and a half. Mother calls it “essential.” Elaine’s friend is a big girl but friendly. Pours Dad’s Black Label scotch too easily. I won’t bother with reefer if Elaine’s friend isn’t going to get friendlier. I want to reach down her white peasant blouse and pinch her nipples.

  Max finds the diaries extremely satisfying. For one thing, they have enabled Max to begin to piece together details of the crash that had put Trigg in the chair. Trigg had been drunk when another drunk turned left in front of Trigg’s sports car. Both his parents had been corporate lawyers and alcoholics.

  Susan is gorgeous. She has long blond hair and big tits. She smiles when she sees me, not like the others who smile but don’t want to look me in the eyes. I see Susan before class, then drop my notebook and feel really stupid because the chair almost tips when I reach down for the notebook. The dumb jock with F on all his quizzes sits and stares at the notebook. After class Susan talks about her fiancé. Two weeks to go to the third anniversary of my accident. In the hospital I had dreams about walking and running. The chair is not me. The chair is not part of me.

  Diane, a girl from my language class, walked with me to my van. I wanted to ask her if she wanted to sit in the back of the van with me. But I could see her get nervous. She had to meet her aunt. Something for a birthday.

  I don’t know what women really think of me. Even when they start out friendly and interested, I do something wrong. I scare them.

  I want women to accept me for who I am and not what I have or do not have. They look down on me in my chair, so why not overlook my feelings too?

  I can’t stand people who think they are better, who act superior. Bad day. I miss my swim because the city pool is closed for cleaning this week. I feel the difference in
my bowels. Rocky roads as the chair bounces across campus to see if I can swim between collegiate workouts. But after I climb the chair over the curbs and fight the elevator up to the fourth level, the secretary cunt bitch tells me there are no exceptions to the athletic department’s rulings.

  Mother won’t have time to see me in Key West over Christmas. The fourth “anniversary” in two more weeks.

  My MBA classes look okay. All my friends are in law school. I tell them what I need from life only money can buy. I want to make as much money as fast as I can. Lisa is upset that I am not going to Baltimore for Easter. I can’t tell her I feel like I’m drifting—that I want to date other women again. I want a woman up to my level.

  Lisa wants to get married in the summer. I try to explain my dream goal: to walk down the aisle with my bride, not roll in this fucking chair.