I can revoke your licence right now.
Without a hearing? I said.
Yes.
Based on what, sweetheart?
Don’t call me sweetheart.
Officer?
Let’s go to your car.
What a femme fatale, I whispered to myself.
You said something.
No, I was just remembering the time when I was a child in the circus and the lady with the whip told the monkey man to jump but then. .
She made me open the trunk and the glove compartment. Checked the lights and did the rest of her little routine.
Now drive.
Where to?
Drive. I just want to see if your car is making any noises.
I drove straight to a back alley and parked there and opened my thighs wide and leaned my head back and closed my eyes in submission. Here, I thought, I am being a good citizen and participating in the government census. Indeed, information and the gathering of information are essential to every state before they fuck over another nation or drive their own citizens into poverty and despair. The measure and length and diameter of every organism should be assessed before one exercises indulgence, war, or occupation.
She molested me, touching my thighs, and then she called me a faggot for no reason, or for a reason, and told me to drive her back to her car.
She left and I entered the restaurant, walking with the bowed legs of a cowboy just off his horse. The piano started to play, the chariot drivers started shooting their guns into the air, and all the dancers danced and the crowd laughed and the cowboy bought drinks for everyone and shot more bullets into the sky in celebration of the loss of his virginity to an officer of the state.
HUSBAND
A FEW DAYS later I went back to Mary’s new neighbourhood and I saw her just as she was about to enter her building. I ran across the street. I grabbed her hand and she embraced me and started to laugh. She seemed unusually euphoric and talkative. And then her mood changed and she said, I keep crying all night. And the books you gave me were all so harsh and sad. I called my husband. Then I told him that I slept with you. He called me a slut. I am not going back, Fly. I asked him to pack some of my books and leave them at the door. I need you to pick them up from the house. He’ll be there. Could you do that for me? I can’t go there. . I haven’t stopped crying. Do you remember where the house is? It’s a bit far. I’m sorry but I think of you as a friend. . I tried to go for a walk today but all those Carnival people in their masks and disguises made me scared. I had to run home. I locked the door. I keep imagining them here in my room. Could you please do me this favour? Please. And I promised to give him back a necklace. It was his grandmother’s. He wants it back. Could you take it to him? Here. I trust you with it. Sorry, I’m crying. . I can’t stop crying. . He would have brought the books himself, but his car is in the shop, he said. I think he’s lying. He is leaving the country, he said. He quit his job, he’s selling the house. . I urge you to do this for me, Fly. . I am not well. And she started to cry again.
I took the necklace and put it in the glove compartment of my taxi, and then I drove to Mary’s husband’s place. It took me about half an hour to get there. I drove through the suburbs, where all the houses looked identical, one variation or another of the same thing. I said to myself, I’d rather fire myself from a cannon, pick up the shit of elephants and eat it, suffocate inside Houdini’s water tank, lie beneath the running horses, or sodomize a big cat in a cage and pay the consequences than get trapped in these suburbs of cardboard, gossip, and conformity.
I parked at a gas station and called Otto. This time he was home. Otto, my man, I said. Could a harmless, farcical clown be ready in about forty-five minutes?
Who is the guest reader this time? he asked.
A hater of books, I said.
I’ll make him excel in his recitals, he answered.
Gently, I said. Very gently.
Can do. What do you suggest for reading material?
How about The Clown, by Böll? I said. That would be an appropriate joke of a title. .
Yes, but Fly, man, I don’t have that book. Where am I supposed to get it?
Just go to my place, I said. You still have the keys. By the way, the extra key to the taxi is on the same ring. Don’t lose it. People are more interested in stealing cars than books. Choose a passage from any novel you find.
Fiction is overrated, Fly. We’ve discussed this. In the time it takes those novelist fuckers to contemplate a few poetic passages, a thousand kids die from malnutrition. Immediacy, man, that’s what counts. What do you say, Fly?
Fiction would still be my first choice. Let’s not underestimate the power of imagination.
Suit yourself. I’ll see what I can find.
Meet me at the bar, in the back alley. Be there in an hour, I said.
I arrived at the house and knocked on the husband’s door. The man answered and he looked me up and down, frowning, and before I could say that I was there to pick up things for Mary, he pointed at some boxes in the corner.
Could you take off your shoes? he said.
That would make it difficult to go back and forth to the car, I said.
Well, the rule here is that no one enters with shoes on.
Well, the rules have to be broken today, I said.
Do you have the necklace?
Actually, Mary decided she would like to give it to you in person, since it is valuable and all, and asked if I would drive you to where she is.
I thought she trusted you, at least well enough to fuck you.
Listen, man, I am just in transit here. I take what comes. Are you coming?
Fine. But you should have taken off your shoes.
We began to drive back to the city and he lit a cigarette in my car.
There is no smoking inside the car, I said.
He looked at me and said, I thought the rules were to be broken today.
Right, you got me, Mister. . ?
Are you asking for my name?
Nothing is mandatory here.
My name is Chad. You could have simply asked my wife.
Too painful, I said.
I like you, Mister. . and where is your name? I see nothing on the dashboard.
You don’t have to bother with my licence at the moment; I am off-duty. Just call me Fly.
Right.
I drove with the window down. Rain, wind, and the night entered the taxi. I asked him for a cigarette and the white of our smoke crossed, mingled, and disappeared.
We both stayed silent. He would look at me sideways once in a while; I was sure he was picturing me above his wife. A filthy low-life, a loser of a driver. He was probably thinking that she’d grabbed the first thing available just to hurt him. Anything to stick it to him: it was all about him. This arrogant bastard, I thought, this uncultured mechanic capable of reading only manuals and sports sections! Who the fuck does he think he is. At least I’d made sure he sat in the front, next to me. I ain’t his bloody driver, I said to myself. I am his equal. I am the new victorious general that is taking over and entering, triumphant, through the city arches. .
So you are fucking my wife, he finally said, to break the silence.
Among other things we do together.
Let me guess: you cook.
No, not much of a cook. I am afraid my kitchen is very flammable. So I avoid cooking.
Flammable? What, do you have bombs in your cupboards?
Worse: books. My cupboards, my stove, the top of my fridge. . all filled with books.
Right, that would please Mary. Listen, man, taxi driver, or whatever you think you are. You want to take care of this woman, go ahead. But make sure she keeps taking her mental pills. Which reminds me. . here. . and he slammed a bottle of medicine onto the dashboard. Now she is your responsibility. Enjoy.