Untitled Anthony

This is kind of a silly, unfinished one that I started as a break from my second novel and have been picking up the thread of again lately.


Anthony stood at the corner of doubt and self-possession, wavering, as usual. If he turned left he would be at Kelly’s safe and warm, the green of the carpeted stairway looming before him as he waited for her to come down. But if he arrived too soon she would be angry, she would think he hadn’t finished what he set out to do. Right then, to Samantha Bowman’s apartment on the Upper East Side, an apartment with rooms and rooms, without a worry in its molded mind.

He saw the bottom of her chandelier from the street and briefly marveled without envy that people should live that way. Elegance was all that remained to the eye and the palate, regardless of what it had cost to attain. He thought perhaps he would buy Kelly something with the money, if she let him have it. He steeled himself, straightened, coughed, shook out his pant leg and put on what he thought of as his business face. It only brought his blonde eyebrows lower on his face and made him look like a kid playing cop. Nonetheless, he braced himself. He rang and waited for the polished click of high heels on hardwood. He was surprised when she opened the door, first because she’d been soundless, and second because when she opened it she looked like hell. She wore a cotton robe that despite being thin, looked expensive. It formed a small crooked rill above her right shoulder and it seemed as if she had nothing on beneath it. She was barefoot and by the look of the furrow cut into her forehead, hungover.

He took a deep breath, cataloguing all the differences he hadn’t apprehended, saving them for Kelly, and he began, imagining that the screen had only changed, but the game was still on. “Miss Bowman, I think there’s something you ought to know.”

He meant to speak fast here like a private dick, he meant to slur the words intriguingly together, but he left a rather long pause in which she made no response. He went on, “It’s about Burke Law. I don’t know how well you think you know him….” No help. “But there may be things about him that you might not like.” She slid a hand into her robe, lifted her breast to scratch under it. She lifted her hair from her neck with both hands. “Let me get this right. You’re here about…Burke.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t know why he went southern when the nerves kicked in.

“But what about Burke? You…ah,” she said, as the realization dawned. She sized him up and smiled. She kicked her bare foot out across the empty air that separated them and it landed as a nudge on his shin. “You got a cigarette?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He dug in his pocket and handed her a crumpled Camel Light.

“Got a light?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He lit the match for her and held it to her cigarette tip. She looked into his eyes as he did it. He thought she might invite him in.

“Hey you, what’s your name?”

“I can’t tell you that, ma’am.”

He saw some small delight register in her eyes.

“Hey you, nameless, listen. Don’t you ever fucking come back here trying to sell information. Alright, honey?” She smiled, took a deep drag and her eyes pulled him in once again. She let out the smoke on a whistle, blowing up towards the gray sky beyond the doorway and sliding down the scale till she was eye to eye with him again. She gave him a dazzling smile and while he was still swimming in her glamour, closed the door.

“Kelly? Baby?” He heard the click of the burner on the stove go as he moved deeper into the apartment he shared with Kelly, a voluptuous brunette singer who worked the bar at Charlie’s Fish Can and sent money to her child in Oregon on occasion. “Kelly? I think I fucked up.”

He stood in the doorway of the spare kitchen, clean save for the breakfast dishes from this morning, still in their positions on the formica table, ready to satisfy some other Kelly and Anthony. Kelly swiped her hair back from her face which was heart shaped and soft with large brown eyes and long lashes, a small sweet mouth and a forgettable nose on which there were several freckles that Anthony treasured. “Anthony,” she said in a warning way.

“Baby, I just…I don’t know what happened…I…”

“You didn’t get the money, that’s what happened.”

“I didn’t get the money,” Anthony agreed. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry is not,” she said, forcing the omelet from the pan to the plate, “gonna cut it.”

He had been sent to shake Samantha Bowman down, to get her to agree that her safety from certain information was worth a couple of grand, to intrigue her into the melody of fear and dance her into a corner over which he would hang, panting, his palm out. Back on the street, he would regain all composure, smooth, assured, suave as the day is long, slicker than grease. He was, of course, none of these things, couldn’t live up to any expectations. He’d tried to shake her down and it had been more of a jostle. He did have good dirt on her. Her boyfriend, rising pop star, charismatic man, no good dirt bag, had fathered Kelly’s child all these years ago, a fact Kelly hadn’t thought much of until recently, until Burke’s CD’s had started selling when her own were not, until she saw four foot posters of him everywhere she went, until she had to contend with the myth instead of the man. She had known him all those years ago, they had been close. They used to sing together, they used to drink together, on occasion, obviously, they would fuck together.

It was a long time ago and everyone had aged since then, maybe learned things, maybe not. They had been a group of promising musicians, most of whom had scattered now, most of whom had been reabsorbed into the mainstream. It was something to see, all that promise, all that presence shucked off. It usually wasn’t at the person’s choosing, though sometimes there was posturing in that direction. It often seemed more a matter of despair, a loss of faith in the great world surrounding. Kelly knew about this because she was one of the casualties. She still sang, but she felt a certain hardness to her heart, to her self that she had not felt before. She was cooler towards newcomers, she had given up the hope that she would find someone to set her life on fire, she was…more grown up, and yes, a little sadder, but even her sadness felt content now. It was not the raging sadness of what she, at 30, now thought of as her youth.

She loved Anthony, you could ask anybody. But sometimes his baby cheeks and just his…general blondness, his aura of newness and faith, it irritated her, it made it hard to breathe sometimes. Other times, other nights it was so comforting to see him studying on the bed, his brow furrowed, turning over the pages of Kant or Kafka—he liked difficult reading and she thought it was sweet that he thought that knowledge lay that way. That an argument might save his life, clear his thinking, that another man’s labyrinth could be his salvation, that he might like to see a labyrinth appear before him, that that might give his life shape.

They had met in a grocery store, the one that her friend Sandy, before she disappeared, had always said was a meat market. He was inclined over the papayas, deep in judgment and she was sad, scared, and could tell a ripe one from a hard. He smiled at her and in that moment it did seem that he took it all away. She forgot anyway, what other interference had been playing in her mind and only saw his warm face, his interested eyes, intelligent eyes and his sweetness all around her like a light, a reassurance.

She had wanted to show him her singing. She invited him to her motley gigs and liked that he sat in the back, it stretched the space for fantasy, for creation and she always sang directly for him, into him as she imagined he might be. It was so sweet, so strong and its thickness justified her sadness. When life was this …round, this, fragile, how could you help but feel the weight? They had begun to see each other more, in taverns and in dancehalls. She began to broach the subject of Callie. There had been a popular movie that frequently quoted the off base statistic that a woman over 30 has a better chance of being hit by a train than marrying and Kelly quietly multiplied that chance by negative ten when you factored a child into the equation.

Callie was a beautiful child, a good kid in every sense, quiet and charming with a burgeoning voice and a polite manner that did not hide, as it did in the popular girls, haughtiness and disdain, but that covered a genuine uncertainty that she was too young to know the value of. She was only twelve, but she seemed, despite her innocence, worldly. It was a new issue for Kelly, and one she’d tried to call into the foreground last month, but found that looking into the sweet round face of her daughter, she could not do it. She was too young, too tied to her origins, there would be time for the talk when she showed some savvy.

Anthony didn’t seem to think that Callie was a problem, though it was also true that he rarely saw her. Kelly privately thought that Callie had a bit of a crush on Anthony and she didn’t know whether to encourage it as an expression of fondness and a sweet nature or to nip it sharply in the bud as she would with a friend who showed too much interest.

It was puzzling having a daughter. It was a lie that they didn’t grow up till 18. She should have known it seeing how she was at 14, 15, lucky she didn’t have any older than Callie. It was a weird system that kept these young girls in captivity, sexually matured, perhaps even intellectually adequate, exciting maybe, but so vulnerable that it was a little sick, it made her see how a man could want to cuff a woman, to punish her for being so open, so freakishly giving, with no end in sight. Kelly did not want to hit her kid, but sometimes she wanted to distance herself from her, float off into another zone, another universe where Kelly’s voice was louder than the incipient beauty’s, where she really could control, simply by holding her position of authority.

Anthony lay awake in bed that night, thinking of how Kelly’s disappointment, and something more—her exasperation—had dulled her face for a moment, how she seemed to think he couldn’t do anything right. He supposed he should be thinking he would show her but he didn’t think that, he thought she’s right, I can’t do it, I haven’t done it, I won’t. Well, I will. I have to now.

Samantha Bowman was difficult to deal with though, not just because she did not behave as he thought women and humans should behave, but also because she was famous if only in a limited way, and there was something about the familiar face that lulled him. It was hard to feel serious around her. It felt a little too Busby Berkeley, a little too candid camera, someone would any minute tote out a huge camera that he would briefly almost subconsciously try to imagine how they had hidden and then he would have to smile and wipe his forehead, apologize with his shoulders and live in a mild shock for weeks afterward, always expecting his life to be randomly televised again.

It was disorienting, an overlap between the real world which he felt he undoubtedly lived in and the glittering distant world of make believe. He wouldn’t mind crossing over but he imagined himself uncomfortable even in his fantasies, not having anything to hold onto, getting squirmy after an hour or two and returning to Kelly’s heart shaped face and bottom with an immense sense of relief. He smiled at her in the dark just thinking of it. He loved her and hoped secretly that she would get pregnant. She didn’t seem anxious to have another child, but there was something so light, so graduated about the idea of fatherhood. Him, a father, a man with something to teach, much to show. He liked it. Bikes and loose teeth, school problems and Halloween costumes. It was a life he could live, could work out from memory.

He didn’t know where blackmailing fit in to this sunny future, he was sure it didn’t. But this was soft blackmailing. Gauzy and as friendly as it got. They needed money and she had it. Burke was a twerp and deserved to pay. Callie deserved to get money from her father. It wasn’t too hard to see who was right. But swimming in the in between, in the deed undone was something that he would like to wrap up. He didn’t mind asking for the money, conveying it, threatening even, none of that bothered him, but if it could all just be over…that would be nice.

On his second visit, he dressed up a little more. Not memorable still, but polished in his own right, as if to make up for the polish she had failed to provide. This time she was dressed. In a slim skirt and sweater, her hair pulled back and small rubies in each ear. She looked radiant.

“Samantha,” he said, with an easy smile, “I seem to be back. I’m back. What do you make of that?”

She looked slightly puzzled, as if she had actually forgotten him. She looked him up and down, “I’m sorry,” she said, “You were?”

“I am a friend of yours,” he said, this time, as he had practiced, “I’m here to give you some information that I know you want.”

“I don’t...” she frowned, half apologetically and started to close the door on him and he stuck his foot in the door, pleasantly, he hoped, and gave her another smile. “Miss Bowman, let’s just talk…”

“You’re freaking me out right now,” she said, and turned on her heel to walk further into the apartment. She hadn’t closed the door and Anthony hesitated in the doorway for a moment, politeness overtaking his current errand. Then he eased inside and followed the clacking of her heels towards a large woody dining room, with multipaned windows shining at each end. She emerged from the other doorway holding a butcher knife rather casually and leaned against the doorframe. “I’ll give you six minutes.”

“I won’t take more,” Anthony said and sat at the far end of the giant table. It must be a single slab of wood. Whatever it was it was impressive, Beowulf impressive. “Ms. Bowman, thirteen years ago Burke Law fathered a child that he has since held no responsibility for. The mother of this child wants recompense.”

The butcher knife fell slightly. “What the fuck? Why are you talking to me about Burke’s problem. Talk to fucking Burke. I mean, I’m sorry and all about the … kid or whatever, but… what the fuck?”

“It’s not possible to talk to Burke. We are talking to you because if you care about Burke, the best thing you can do for him is to help him settle this bill. We’re asking ten thousand, only what’s fair, less than what’s fair, for thirteen years of negligence. I read in the paper that you and Burke are going to be married. What’s his is yours and in this case what’s yours needs to be his.”

“That’s not even true,” she said, “I don’t know where they heard that.”

“Regardless. People believe it to be true and I believe it too. I think you’re closer than you’re letting on.”

She said nothing.

“The question is, can you help him? Can you help him now? Give us this money and we’ll go away. You’ll never hear from us again because what’s right will have been served, but if we have to go the route of DNA tests and courts it’s going to take a lot longer and it’s going to make your man look a hell of a lot worse.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re asking me.” She waved a gesture with the knife, “I mean, what do I know about it? What do I have to do with it? Can’t you just leave me out of it?”

“No,” Anthony said solemnly, “you’ve got the means. You’ll have to decide what the future you have planned means to you. Thank you for hearing me out. You can reach me at this address when you’ve decided.”

He laid the card they’d had printed on the table and rose to go. She stood still in the doorway in her pretty sweater and skirt, her eyes cast down, thinking.

He wanted to go and console her, to help her with the burden he’s just laid at her feet, that was his upbringing, but he walked instead, slowly, measuredly, to the door.

When he got home Kelly was sleeping, laid across their bed like a king of hearts, face to the side, looking fully armed. He curled around her and her body molded to his.

In the morning there were pancakes and the beginning of the wait. Who knew how long it would go on, but the tension was thick. Would she buy it as her responsibility? Had they mismeasured her regard for him, their entaglement? If so, it was all off. Anthony had pushed courts early in the scheming, but mulishly Kelly did not want to take her old friend to court, though somehow blackmailing fell within her moral code. She wouldn’t show his if he wouldn’t show hers, he supposed. He thought there was still something there, something he should watch out for. She was desperate and there was really nothing to get desperate about, so that should have been a red flag and it was, but not the kind that could change anything.

Samantha Bowman thought about it for a long time. She paced her apartment, ending up always in the bathroom, the cool extra large gray tiles calming her down just when she had reached the pitch of pissedness, the height of annoyance. Why the fuck should she care? People had kids all the time in and out of wedlock—look at Mick Jagger, look at…anyone. They all had bastards, roaming the world, ducking in and out of their famous names. Why should anyone care if Burke had one too. But she kept finding, snagging on the fact that she did care about what people thought of Burke, Samantha’s husband, if not of Burke music man, famous whatever. I mean everyone felt a little sorry for Jerry Hall when Mick kept showing up with babies. Though they were already married. She hadn’t even married the sonofabitch yet and he was already giving her grief. Unfortunately, she loved him. Unfortunately. And 10,000 dollars really wasn’t much money to her. Her lingerie bill for the year. It wasn’t much. It was possible. But, no. How could she even consider giving in to blackmailers? Because she wanted them gone, that’s how. To not have to think about this ever again, to never have to meet this child, plan a Thanksgiving dinner that in any way involved this offspring, to never have to mention it again, that was worth something. She sat on the edge of her cool, black tub and thought, heel gently tapping the porcelain. Was this a precedent or a preemption?