Lethe Bashar’s Novel of Life

 

Louie’s older brother was a drug dealer, plain and simple.  He sold large quantities of crack-cocaine.  But Louie avoided his brother, not only because he was constantly in debt, but also because his older brother took great pleasure in tormenting him.  For example, Louie would stop by his brother’s apartment to drop off some money (he always owed his brother money) and his brother would humiliate him about being gay.

 

They arrived at a seedy apartment complex.  A stoop-shouldered woman with an hostile stare answered the door.  She looked like she had been living in a cave for most of her life.  She retreated back into the kitchen, where she was scrubbing potatoes in the sink. 

 

Lethe followed Louie into the apartment.  Louie’s older brother was enthroned on a torn-up couch with his hands inside his sweatpants.  A hairy gut protruded out from underneath his blue football jersey.  He had an ogre’s appearance, large-boned and angry.  On top of the coffee table were two or three crack pipes, a bent clothing hanger, a burnt spoon, and a couple ashtrays.  Beside a few stray porn magazines were freezer bags filled with crack rocks.

 

The garish and overweight woman in her late twenties was Rick’s mistress.   Her name was Mona.  She lived down the hall and came over every night to smoke his crack.  When Louie and Lethe walked in, these two were watching an adult film on Cinnemax.

 

Lethe sat Indian-style on the floor with a guru-like aura of self-composure.  He’d been through the streets of Vegas, hunting for crack.  He’d been in a crack house filled with the Living Dead.  In terms of strangeness, this apartment was no different.  In fact, the setting intrigued him, it provoked his curiosity, and he looked around the place, as if secretly taking notes for his Novel of Life.  A few impersonal household items over here.  A picture or two on the television set over there.  Nicotine stains on the walls.

 

Meanwhile, the hermit lady in the kitchen was scrubbing potatoes.  She kept to herself and didn’t bother anyone.  Lethe guessed this was part of her stoic personality.  She scrubbed the potatoes while Rick and Mona indulged themselves on the couch.  There was a golden retriever sleeping at her feet; it also looked life-weary and put upon.  Underneath the dog’s heavy maw, the floor tiles were curling from age and there were dead insects and debris.

 

         Mona reached into one of the zip-lock bags and filled the older man’s pipe.  Rick hardly moved; Mona was his slave.  She had chalk-white skin, red lipstick, and flabby breasts.  Every couple minutes she dug her fake fingernails into the bag of crack dust.  Her plump hands looked even paler when she pulled out the rocks.  On the tips of her fingernails were gold and purple flowers.

 

Rick inhaled, spreading his legs farther apart and pushing out his hairy, protruding gut.  The smoke poured out of his mouth, followed by a raspy, savage coughing fit.  Lethe was startled by the amount of smoke that came out of the man.  It seemed to have emptied from every nook and cranny of his inner cavity.  Then the room was awash in crack smoke.

 

Mona poked greedily into the freezer bag of rocks and filled the pipe for herself.  Lethe broke the silence, asking, “Who’s that in the picture?”

 

         “That’s my son,” Rick answered sharply.  “Why?”

 

         “I was just curious.”  Lethe said.

 

“Just curious, huh?  Nobody’s ever ‘just curious’.  Who are you?”  

 

“Lethe Bashar.  Does your son live with you?”

 

“No.  Why do you ask so many goddamn questions?”

 

Louie flushed red.  He didn’t like it when his brother got upset.

 

          “Sorry.  I was just wondering.”  Lethe glanced over to the stoop-shouldered woman by the sink.

 

          “My son used to be a football star in high school.  He was the top quarterback in the state.  Senior year he was recruited by Georgia Tech, UCLA and a couple others, oh I can’t remember–”

 

The room was silent again.

 

          “Then he fucked up.  His coach found out he was using drugs.  That was the end of his chances going to college for free.  Nobody wanted him after that.  He turned out to be a fuckup just like his Dad.”

 

Louie took a hit from his pipe in the corner of the room.  It didn’t seem like he was part of the conversation.

 

“Offer your friend some crack, you gay faggot.”  Rick yelled.

 

“I don’t smoke crack.”  Lethe said.  “Well, I tried it once with Louie but I didn’t like it.  That’s why I wanted him to get me some coke.”

 

 The cocaine that Lethe wanted was on the bottom of the freezer bag.  Rick told Mona to spoon some of it out for him.  Lethe put his forty dollars on the coffee table. 

 

After snorting a line on the dusty table-top, Lethe stood up and stretched his arms in vainglory.   Then he bent down, sweeping the floor with his palms.  Rick and Mona eyed  each other, as if to say, “Who is this kid?  What the heck is he doing here?”

 

In a moment’s time, Lethe felt a rush of heroic power surge from his chest into his temples.  All his ideas about the Novel of Life began to swirl around and multiply.  He shot a glance at Louie and felt his own youthful domination over the impish older man.  Even toward Rick, Lethe felt a strange, incommunicable bond, and to Mona, that crack-whore, and even toward the poor, stoop-shouldered lady in the kitchen.  Nothing could hold Lethe back from speaking his mind.

   

“Who’s that woman in the kitchen?”  

 

“That’s my wife.  Why?”

 

“Doesn’t she care that you have another woman in the house?”

 

“She doesn’t get to tell me what she thinks!  I pay the bills around here. She’ll do what I say!”

 

Louie ran to shield Lethe from the wrath of his older brother.  “Let’s go now,” he muttered.  Lethe stuffed the bag of coke into his pocket and they were gone.