Moist

Eight

BOB LOOKED AT his penis. It was early in the morning, and Bob had woken with a blistering hard-on. Stretched out and throbbing, he could admire it in all its glory. Why did Maura find it repulsive? Maybe it wasn’t as long as, you know, a porn star’s, but he’d never had any complaints. In fact he’d experienced just the opposite. His penis usually earned kudos from the women who encountered it.

And why not? Aesthetically his penis seemed just right. It had a nice organic form, healthy pink color. He kept it clean. He used condoms. Maybe Maura was going lesbo on him. It’d happened before with a girlfriend in college.

Bob looked over at Maura. She didn’t look like a lesbian. But then, Bob wasn’t sure if you could tell that way. People change.

She was sleeping peacefully on her side, her back to him. He watched her breathing. He remembered the first time he’d watched her sleep. He’d never met anyone so self-assured, so dynamic. In bed she was a pneumatic drill sergeant, barking out commands and inflicting harsh punishments if her orders were not carried out to the letter. Bob was used to women who were awkward, a little shy, mostly sweet, but never like Maura. He used to marvel at her. Maura’s drive to orgasm was a planned, sometimes inflicted, sequence of events. Failure was not an option.

She was like that out of bed too. A dynamo. She didn’t wait for Bob to hem and haw about what restaurant to go to. She told him when and where. Bob admired her decisiveness. She always picked right. She was an amazing woman, and Bob was infected with enough postfeminist guilt so that he would never admit that she was sometimes overbearing, somewhat obnoxious, and frankly neurotic.

Reflecting on their time together, Bob came to the surprising realization that she had not only swept him off his feet but had put him in a bag and sunk him in the river. Suddenly, his cock deflated. It sagged like a punctured beach ball. Flaccid and done. Bob realized that they would never have sex again.

She found him repulsive. He found her overbearing. Bob sighed. He loved Maura, but he wasn’t a retard.

Bob picked the Polaroid of the tattooed arm off the bedside table. He looked at the image and it filled him with longing. Maybe I can find her, he thought. Maybe she’ll be sweet and warm and won’t think my penis is repulsive.

Bob got out of bed and started getting ready for work. His ritual — he actually thought of it as a ritual — was the same every morning except Sunday, when he liked to stay in bed, read the paper, and have sex as many times as he could before his body screamed for some protein.

But today was Wednesday, so he began the ritual. He unscrewed the Italian espresso maker and filled the bottom half with water, right up to that weird little gasket thing. Then he plopped the metal basket into place and spooned in a heaplette of fine ground coffee. The coffee smelled good. Earthy. Dark. Charged. Bob screwed the top half onto the bottom and turned the flame on. He poured milk into a little pot and put that on the stove to warm.

Then Bob walked into the bathroom. He had just enough time to take a shit before the coffee was ready, this learned from years of experience, the espresso maker designed to give him grace.

As the sound of flushing receded in the background, Bob returned to the kitchen just as the gurgling of the espresso maker became a full-throated roar. Bob cut the gas and poured the coffee and milk into his cup simultaneously, getting the color just right. He did the same into a second cup.

As was his practice, Bob carried the two cups back into the bedroom and put one down on the bedside table next to Maura. She stirred.

“Thanks.”

Bob sipped his coffee and cleared his throat. He didn’t say, “You’re welcome,” and he didn’t say, “Good morning.” He thought about the woman in the Polaroid and a life filled with sweet pleasures. He turned toward her.

“I think you should move out.”

That got her attention. She rolled over and gave him a nasty look.

“What?”

“I think you should move out.”

“Why?”

“Well, come on, Maura, if you find my penis repulsive and don’t want to have sex with me…”

“I don’t find you repulsive.”

“Just my penis?”

Maura turned away from him.

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“I don’t know why.”

“Have you gone gay or something?”

“No.”

Maura sat up. Bob watched sadly as her beautiful breasts heaved under her nightgown.

“If it’s any consolation, it’s not your penis, it’s all penises.”

“Maybe you’re just burned out from your job.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“Then you should move out.”

It was funny, in a way, but Bob didn’t feel that bad. He felt slightly numb. But not too bad. No urge to cry or go get drunk. Maybe, he thought… maybe I don’t love her.

Bob went into the bathroom to shave. Maura sighed and sipped her coffee. Then she said, “Maybe you should move out.”

Bob closed the door. He ran the tap, waiting for the water to get hot, and thought about the apartment where they lived. It wasn’t anything special. Just cinder blocks covered in stucco and paint. Really nothing to look at. A giant horseshoe-shaped thing with a gate at the open end and a pool in the middle. Now that he thought about it, Bob realized that the apartment building might seem ugly to some people. But, like most things in Los Angeles, if you looked at it from another angle, say floating on an inflatable raft in the middle of the pool, you wouldn’t see the cinder blocks or the trash cans, you’d see several large and graceful palm trees swaying in the breeze against a pure blue sky. If you looked at if from that angle you might think you were in paradise.

Perspective. Bob was trying to put it all in perspective. He opened the door a crack.

“Maybe I will.”

On an average day in Los Angeles the weather is clear, the temperature around seventy-five degrees. It rarely rains and it never snows. Modern streets and freeways, with traffic signals designed to provide efficiency of transport, crisscross the great basin, wind up over the hills, and spread out across the valley.

Despite what can only be called ideal driving conditions, there are, on an average day, approximately two hundred traffic accidents. It’s unexplainable.

Martin woke up to screeching tires and crumpling metal. The screech was a blinding pain behind his left eye, the crumpling metal was the taste in his mouth. A fender-bender in his brain. A sig-alert in his body. A bong-hit hangover in full bloom. This could be explained.

He looked over at the woman sleeping next to him. Good God, her tits were standing straight up. Virtually antigravity. Martin mused that he must be upside down, in outer space, or in Australia, something that would account for these tits. Then he remembered what those breasts felt like. Hard as fucking stones. He looked at her and shook his head in dismay. Fake tits, dyed blond hair, skin artificially bronzed the color of strained carrots. Maybe she was an illusion. Maybe she was not real at all.

Martin stretched, got out of bed, and slouched toward the shower. He liked to take a shower in the morning. Otherwise he never felt fully awake. He let the hot water caress his body, the scented soap reinvigorating his mind, the steam cutting through last night’s reefer fog.

When Martin, fresh from the shower, his soul patch neatly trimmed, walked into the kitchen, Esteban was already at the table forking mouthfuls of nopalito cactus and scrambled eggs into his mouth. The Latina with the natural breasts who, Martin was to learn, was named Lupe, stood in front of the stove. In the daylight he could see how lovely she was. More Mexican Indian than Mexican Mexican. Black hair to match her black eyes, her skin a luminous terra-cotta. She looked at Martin.

“Buenos días.”

Martin nodded.

“Good morning.”

Esteban looked up.

“Eat. We got a lot of shit to do.”

Lupe handed Martin a plate and a fork.

“Thanks.”

Martin sat down and sipped his coffee. He waited for the acidic brew to hit his tequila-tenderized stomach. It did, and the feeling he got can best be described as queasy. He watched as Esteban dumped vast splotches of hot sauce on his eggs. The same hot sauce that Martin felt hit his tongue like battery acid and gave his lips a raw and unpleasant sensation for most of the day. Esteban spoke with his mouth full.

“I talked to some people down at Parker Center.”

“Yeah?”

“The arm’s getting delivered later today.”

Martin couldn’t believe it.

“They don’t have it?”

Esteban shook his head.

“They had a lab treat it or preserve it or prepare it or something. Whatever they do with arms. What do I know about it?”

Martin’s appetite returned. The coffee settling in and warming his guts like a hot water bottle. He ate his eggs. Maybe they wouldn’t have to flee the country after all.

“You know where it is?”

Esteban nodded.

“So… we’re cool.”

Esteban scowled.

Martin realized he’d said the wrong thing when he saw the expression on Esteban’s face. He felt his bowels spasm and his testicles retract.

Esteban finally growled.

“It’s never that easy.”

Don stood in the shower. He let the hot water scald his pink body. He’d had a good workout. Free weights. Machines. A half hour on the StairMaster. Derrick, the muscle-freak patrolman who was like a personal trainer in the police gym, had spotted Don on the bench press and pushed him to lift more weight more times than he ever had before. Heavy iron thrust upward until his arms shook, his back warped, his legs kicked and then… then Derrick had him do it again and again until “failure.”

He felt his muscles. They were tight, pumped full of blood and more articulated than Don had ever noticed before. The overall effect made him feel powerful, indestructible. Don was ready to kick some ass. In fact, he was champing at the bit. He gave himself an affirmation. Told himself that today would mark the beginning of the end for the Mexican mob from Juarez. They had finally fucked up. He could feel it. He didn’t know whose arm it was, or why it was left there, but it just screamed of fuckup. And that’s all Don needed. A chink in the armor. A crack in the wall. Two years of watching and waiting, sitting in crappy vans in crappy neighborhoods gathering “intelligence”; spending hours in small smelly rooms interviewing punks, losers, and scumbags, as boxes of evidence and information stacked up around his cubicle. For two solid years he’d tracked down one bad lead after another. Every alibi Esteban had was sphincter-pinching tight. But now the day had come. Something had happened. All Don needed was to figure out what, and it was adios, scumbag, vaya con Dios.

Tonight, Don decided, after I break this case wide open, I’m going to splurge and get a bottle of Opus One. Drink it all by myself. A fat steak and a fat cabernet. Don smiled at the thought.

Norberto felt a little bit better. His ribs hurt from where he’d been kicked, and the blood from his split lip was caked and dried around his cheek, but all in all he felt better. He assumed that whatever poison they’d injected into him had finally worn off. Norberto shifted a little on the floor, trying to find some tiny degree of comfort. He realized that his pants were soaked with piss. His nice purple sharkskin pants.

The door opened and Esteban came in.

“How’re you feeling?”

Norberto was confused. There was a friendly tone in Esteban’s voice. What did it mean?

“Esta bien, gracias.”

Esteban knelt down and unlocked the handcuffs.

“Take a shower. I’ll have clean clothes waiting for you.”

“¿Qué pasa, Esteban?”

“Mucho trabajo, cabrón.”

When Bob got to the office, Morris was already there, playing Tetris on Bob’s computer. Several coolers were lined up on the desk, packed with dry ice and ready for the day’s deliveries. Morris shoved a coffee from Starbucks toward Bob.

“Dude, I got you that vanilla thing.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know how you can drink that sweet stuff in the morning, man.”

“Normally I don’t.”

Morris looked stricken.

“Did I fuck up?”

Bob shook his head.

“What’s on for today?”

Morris turned back to the game with renewed intensity.

“Usual.”

His clicking turned frenetic for a moment and then the cloying little jingle sounded.

“Fuck.”

“How’d you do?”

“I’ll never get past the seventh level. It’s like rigged or something.”

“It just takes practice.”

Morris nodded and started the game again. Bob picked a clipboard off the desk and checked it to see the day’s work. He noticed that a large order of organs and tissue was going to the UCLA Medical School.

“Did you get the stuff for UCLA?”

“What?”

“The stuff for UCLA.”

“It’s upstairs in the lab.”

“Dude. Go get it.”

Morris concentrated and clicked.

“C’mon, Morris.”

Morris shot Bob a disgusted look and turned off the game. He stood up, picking up his Starbucks cup.

“Why you got to give me all the agro, man? All the time, boss, boss, boss.”

Morris grabbed a cooler and started to stomp out of the room. Bob felt bad. “I’m sorry. Maura and I broke up this morning.”

Morris stopped.

“Wow. Man, sorry to hear that. She’s hot.”

“Thanks.”

“You want to talk or something?”

Bob didn’t want to talk.

“Tell you what. I want to get out for a while. You get the stuff ready and I’ll make the run. You can stay here and play Tetris all afternoon.”

Morris broke into a huge grin.

“You rule, man.”

Norberto sat in the back of Esteban’s car. He’d put on one of Martin’s black gabardine suits, with a vintage fuchsia tuxedo shirt underneath, and was feeling better. Much better now that it was apparent that Esteban wasn’t going to kill him after all. In fact, his future was looking good. Esteban had told Norberto that he was a valuable member of the team. With Amado in trouble, Norberto would need to take more responsibility. More responsibility meant more money, more respect. Norberto was pleased. He smiled when he thought of last night. Perhaps enduring the brutality and the strange drug had proven his strength. He wasn’t sure. But, quizás, man, todo es possible. All he was sure about was that they were on their way to help Amado.

He watched as Esteban and that weird gringo dude sat up front talking about something. Norberto wished that he’d finished his ESL classes. But the teacher at City College was such a pendejo that he just couldn’t stand it. He had to quit. Well, actually, he had to quit after he jumped the hippie gringo teacher in the parking lot after class and kicked the crap out of him. The gringo didn’t understand that members of el grupo de Juarez were due a certain amount of respect. You couldn’t make fun of them in class. Thinking back on it, Norberto wasn’t sure the gringo had meant to make fun of him, but either way, it just wasn’t cool. You had to stand up for yourself. Draw the line. Punish those who crossed it. Besides, the gringos always thought they were better than him. It felt good to send one of them to the emergency room.

It may have been satisfying to go all barbaric on the ESL teacher, but it also made Norberto feel stupid, like he was subhuman or something. Martin had that same effect on him. With all his talk about money and investments and shelters and such, he made Norberto feel stupid. Stupid for sending his money Western Union back to his padres in the South. Stupid for keeping cash in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. Like some dumb-shit wetback who didn’t know how the world worked. But Norberto knew how the world worked, a little bit, anyway. He knew he should go legit, open a bank account, and invest in a real business, a taco stand or something, just to launder the money so he could buy the kinds of things he wanted. Like a Porsche. But he just hated the idea of paying taxes to a country that would turn around and spend the money on law enforcement and immigration authorities that wanted to catch him and ship him back to Mexico. Fuck that, he thought, I’m an outlaw.

Bob took Amado’s arm out of the cooler. He carefully pulled back the plastic wrap to reveal the tattoo of the woman. Bob’s heart pounded as he looked at her. She was beautiful, even more lusty and erotic on the graying arm than in the Polaroid. Had Bob ever made a woman feel that way? He wasn’t sure, but he had tried. Bob was willing to throw himself into any erotic activity. He’d gone down on lots of women but couldn’t remember one of them who just threw her head back and let the sensation rock her world. A couple of women had come close, but they’d been drunk.

Was he attracted to uptight women? He wondered. How could a guy like him meet a woman like this? What if a woman like this didn’t exist? What if she was like a comic book character? Could he go down on Wonder Woman? Wasn’t she gay?

Bob felt a pang of self-pity shoot through him. Maybe he was too harsh on Maura. What if she was just going through something? Maybe they should go to a therapist, work things out.

Bob looked at the tattoo again. Even if she didn’t exist, there must be someone like her. It wouldn’t hurt to look. Fuck that, he had to look. If he didn’t, he’d regret it for the rest of his life.

Bob wrapped the plastic back around the arm.

Esteban pulled his Mercedes to the curb. He cut the engine. Well aware of his antitheft deterrent under the seat, he was careful not to set the alarm. Martin looked across the street. A drab modern-looking building next to a drab modern-looking building next to a crazy Moroccan stucco strip mall.

“This it?”

Esteban looked over at Martin.

“Yeah. United Pathology.”

Norberto squirmed in the backseat, ready for some action.

“¿Vamos?”

Esteban lit a cigarette.

“Patience, cabrón.”

Maura stood naked in the bathroom brushing her hair. She thought about what Bob had said. She wasn’t angry or hurt. How could she blame him? She was the one who wanted a change. By forcing Bob to be decisive she got what she wanted but was afraid to ask for. Or maybe she got what she thought she wanted but was afraid to ask for. What if she was making a mistake?

Maura watched her voluptuous breasts bounce and heave in the mirror in rhythm with the movement of the brush through her hair. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe she was just bored. Maybe sex was boring. She thought about all the men she’d had sex with, remembering them. It all blurred for her. In the end it’s always the same. In, out, in, out, faster… until she came or they came or it was over. What’s the fun of that?