Lullaby

Chapter 40

Nash is eating a bowl of chili. He's at a back table in the bar on Third Avenue. The bartender is slumped forward on the bar, his arms still swinging above the barstools. Two men and two women are facedown at a booth table. Their cigarettes still burn in an ashtray, only half burned down. Another man is laid out in the doorway to the bathrooms. Another man is dead, stretched out on the pool table, the cue still clutched in his hands. Behind the bar, there's a radio blaring static in the kitchen. Somebody in a greasy apron is facedown on the grill among the hamburgers, the grill popping and smoking and the sweet, greasy smoke from the guy's face rolling out along the ceiling.

The candle on Nash's table is the only light in the place.

And Nash looks up, chili red around his mouth, and says, «I thought you'd like a little privacy for this.»

He's wearing his white uniform. A dead body nearby is wearing the same uniform. «My partner,» Nash says, nodding at the body. As he nods, his ponytail, the little black palm tree, flops around on top of his head. Red chili stains run down the front of his uniform. Nash says, «Me culling him was long overdue.»

Behind me, the street door opens and a man steps in. He stands there, looking around. He waves a hand through the smoke and looks around, saying, «What the fuck?» The street door shuts behind him.

And Nash tucks his chin and fishes two fingers inside his chest pocket. He brings out a white index card smeared with red and yellow food and he reads the culling song, his words flat and steady as someone counting out loud. As Helen.

The man in the doorway, his eyes roll up white. His knees buckle and he slumps to one side.

I just stand here.

Nash tucks the index card back in his pocket and says, «Now, where were we?»

So, I say, where did he find the poem?

And Nash says, «Guess.» He says, «I got it the only place where you can't destroy it.»

He picks up a bottle of beer and points the long neck at me, saying, «Think.» He says, «Think hard.»

The book, Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, will always be out there for people to find. Hiding in plain sight. Just in this one place, he says. No way can it ever be rooted out.

For whatever reason, cheatgrass comes to mind. And zebra mussels. And Oyster.

Nash drinks some beer and sets it down and says, «Think hard.»

I say, the fashion models, the killings. I say, what he's doing is wrong.

And Nash says, «You give up?»

He has to see that having sex with dead women is wrong.

Nash picks up his spoon and says, «The good old Library of Congress. Your tax dollars at work.»

Damn.

He digs the spoon into the bowl of chili. He puts the spoon in his mouth and says, «And don't lecture me about the evils of necrophilia.» He says, «You're about the last person who can give that lecture.» His mouth full of chili, Nash says, «I know who you are.»

He swallows and says, «You're still wanted for questioning.»

He licks the chili smeared around his lips and says, «I saw your wife's death certificate.» He smiles and says, «Signs of postmortem sexual intercourse?»

Nash points at an empty chair, and I sit.

«Don't tell me,» he leans across the table and says. «Don't tell me it wasn't just about the best sex you've ever had.»

And I say, shut up.

«You can't kill me,» Nash says. He crumbles a handful of crackers into his bowl and says, «You and me, we're exactly alike.»

And I say, it was different. She was my wife.

«Your wife or not,» Nash says, «dead means dead. It's still necrophilia.»

Nash jabs his spoon around in the crackers and red and says, «You killing me would be the same as you killing yourself.»

I say, shut up.

«Relax,» he says. «I didn't give nobody a letter about this.» Nash crunches a mouthful of crackers and red. «That would've been stupid,» he says. «I mean, think.» And he shovels in more chili. «All's they'd have to do is read it, and I don't need the competition.»

Imperfect and messy, this is the world I live in. This far from God, these are the people I'm left with. Everybody grabbing for power. Mona and Helen and Nash and Oyster. The only people who know me hate me. We all hate each other. We all fear each other. The whole world is my enemy.

«You and me,» Nash says, «we can't trust nobody.»

Welcome to hell.

If Mona is right, Karl Marx's words coming out of her mouth, then killing Nash would be saving him. Returning him to God. Connecting him to humanity by resolving his sins.

My eyes meet his eyes, and Nash's lips start to move. His breath is nothing but chili.

He's saying the culling song. As hard as a dog barking, he says each word so hard that chili bubbles out around his mouth. Drops of red fly out. He stops and looks into his chest pocket. His hand digs to find his index card. With two fingers, he holds it and starts to read. The card is so smeared he rubs it on the tablecloth and starts to read again.

It sounds heavy and rich. It's the sound of doom.

My eyes relax and the world blurs into unfocused gray. All my muscles go smooth and long. My eyes roll up and my knees start to fold.

This is how it feels to die. To be saved.

But by now, killing is a reflex. It's the way I solve everything.

My knees fold, and I hit the floor in three stages, my ass, my back, my head.

As fast as a belch, a sneeze, a yawn from deep inside me, the culling song whips through my mind. The powder keg of all my unresolved shit, it never fails me.

The gray comes back into focus. Flat on my back on the bar floor, I see the greasy, gray smoke roll along the ceiling. You can hear the guy's face still frying.

Nash, his two fingers let the card drop onto the table. His eyes roll up. His shoulders heave, and his face lands in the bowl of chili. Red flies everywhere. The bulk of his body in his white uniform, it heaves over and Nash hits the floor next to me. His eyes look into my eyes. His face smeared with chili. His ponytail, the little black palm tree on the top of his head, it's come loose and the stringy black hair hangs limp across his cheeks and forehead.

He's saved, but I'm not.

The greasy smoke settling over me, the grill popping and sizzling, I pick up Nash's index card off the floor. I hold it over the candle on the table, adding smoke to the smoke, and I just watch it burn.

A siren goes off, the smoke alarm, so loud I can't hear myself think. As if I ever think. As if I ever could think. The siren fills me. Big Brother. It occupies my mind, the way an army does a city. While I sit and wait for the police to save me. To deliver me to God and reunite me with humanity, the siren wails, drowning out everything. And I'm glad.