Thought about cleaning a fourth and decided
I... Thought about cleaning a fourth and decided
I didn't want to take the timeThat fever was on
me again, that hungerIt was as sudden and
violent as my fits of rageIf the smoke detectors
had gone off downstairs, announcing the house was
on fire, I would have paid no attentionI
stripped the cellophane from a brand-new brush,
dipped black, and began to paint
As with the picture I'd called The End of the Game,
I don't remember much about the actual creation of
Friends with BenefitsAll I know is it happened
in a violent explosion, and sunsets had nothing to
do with itIt was mostly black and blue, the
color of bruises, and when it was done, my left
arm ached from the exerciseMy hand was
splattered with paint all the way to the wrist
The finished canvas reminded me a little of those
noir paperback covers I used to see back when
chanel jewelry I
was a kid, the ones that always featured some
roundheels dame headed for hellOnly on the
paperback covers, the dame was usually blond and
twenty-twoishIn my picture, she had dark hair
206
and looked on the plus side of fortyThis dame
was my ex-wife
She was sitting on a rumpled bed, wearing nothing
but a pair of blue pantiesThe strap of a
matching bra trailed across one legHer head was
slightly bent, but there was no mistaking her
features; I had caught her BRILLIANTLY in just a
few harsh strokes of black that were almost like
Chinese ideogramsOn the slope of one breast was
the picture's only real spot of brightness: a rose
tattooI wondered when she'd gotten it, and why
Pam wearing ink seemed as unlikely to me as Pam
racing a dirt-bike at Mission Hill, but I had no
doubt whatever that it was true; it was just a
fact, like
gold gucci watches Carson Jones's Torii Hunter tee-shirt
There were also two men in the picture, both naked
One stood at the window, half-turnedHe had a
perfectly typical body for a white middle-class
man of fifty or so, one I imagined you could see
in any Gold's Gym changing room: poochy stomach,
flat little no-cheeks ass, moderate man-titsHis
face was intelligent and well-bredOn that face
now was a melancholy she's-almost-gone lookA
nothing-will-change-it lookThis was Max from
207
Palm DesertHe might as well have been wearing a
sign around his neckMax who had lost his father
last year, Max who had started by offering Pam
coffee and had ended up offering her moreShe'd
taken him up on the coffee and the more, but not
all the more he would have givenYou couldn't see all of it, but what you
could see was a lot more naked than his ass
The
mulberry bags other man leaned in the doorway with his
ankles crossed, a position that pressed his thighs
together and pushed his considerable package
forwardHe was maybe ten years older than the man
at the window, in better shapeLong muscles in the thighsHis arms
were folded below his chest and he was looking at
Pam with a little smile on his faceI knew that
smile well, because Tom Riley had been my
accountant - and my friend - for thirty-five years
If it had not been custom in our family to ask
your father to be your best man, I would have
asked Tom
I looked at him standing naked in the doorway,
looking at my wife on the bed, and remembered him
helping me move my stuff out to Lake Phalen
208
Remembered him saying You don't give up the house,
that's like giving up home field advantage in a
playoff game
Then catching him with tears in his
chanel purses bags eyesBoss, I
can't get used to seeing you this way
Had he been fucking her then? I thought notBut -
I'm going to give you an offer to take back to her,
I'd saidOnly maybe he'd done more
than make my offer
I limped to the big window, not using my crutch
Sunset was still hours off, but the light was
westering strongly, beating a reflection off the
waterI made myself look directly into that
glaring track, wiping my eyes repeatedly
I tried to tell myself the picture might be no
more than a figment of a mind that was still
trying to heal itselfAll my
voices were speaking clearly and coherently to one
another, and I knew what I knewPam had fucked
Max out there in Palm Desert, and when he had
suggested a longer, deeper commitment, she had
refusedPam had also fucked my oldest friend and
business associate, and might still be fucking
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