The Albuquerque Turkey: A Novel Read online

  At a price he considered, well, worth it.

  “Ten bucks an hour,” he said. “Can you believe it? They come over. They take off their clothes. They stand there. For as long as you want. In any position you want. And all you have to do is paint.”

  “Yeah, small problem with that,” I said. “Vic, you don’t paint.”

  “I paint,” he said. “I put pigskin on canvas.” He meant pigment, of course, but Vic often missed his intended words by that wide a mark.

  “Don’t you think there’s a little more to it than that?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, you know, like … training? Vision? Skills?”

  “I got skills, Radar. I got mad skills. Watch this.” Vic jumped to his feet and attacked an easeled canvas with the fervor of a rabid javelina. He used the brush, his hands, sponges of various sizes and textures, even a squirt bottle. What Mirplo lacked in aesthetic sense he made up for in fury, and in less than ten minutes he had created something so visually distressing that it made me want to shoot the painting, just put it out of its misery. “See?” said Vic, sinking back down on the couch, exhausted, as if he’d just run a marathon. “I’m telling you, Radar, you gotta get in on this art shit. Easiest goddamn money you’ll ever make.”

  “So you’ve sold stuff, then?”

  “I will,” he said. “I’m creating a buzz.”

  “What you’re creating,” I said, “is hazardous waste.”

  Vic smiled indulgently. “Ah,” he said, “the ol’ Hoverlander sense of humor. It never gets old.”

  At this point, Vic’s latest model walked back into the studio, returning from her pot break. She looked to be about twenty-five, with pallid lips, ringlets of dirty blonde hair, and the hundred-yard stare of someone who’d just come back from a pot break. Shedding her kimono, she struck a standing pose on the low platform Vic had crudely comprised from a couple of wooden pallets and a thrift-store blanket. Here in Santa Fe, you’d expect the blanket to be Navajo. It wasn’t. It was acrylic, with figures from Star Wars. Vic immediately stood and affected a pose of his own, what I imagined he imagined to be his artiste stance.

  “Um, Jena,” he said, stroking an imaginary Vandyke beard, “that pose isn’t working for me. Let’s try another.” It took a moment for Vic’s request to leap across Jena’s distended synapse gaps, but eventually the girl blinked, rolled her neck slowly, and settled into a yoga seat on the blanket. “Much better,” said Vic, evidently satisfied with the full Sharon Stone–scape the new pose presented. He turned to me and reverently mouthed the words, “What a muff!”

  There are times, and this was one of them, when I consider my ability to read lips less a blessing than a curse.

  Vic returned to work. I couldn’t bear to bear witness to any further crimes against canvas, so I headed out. As he waved a distracted farewell, a great glob of bruise-colored paint fell off Vic’s brush and soiled his jeans like the numinous spew of a sick pigeon. I thought this would irk Vic, since he washed his clothes only under grimmest duress and had been known to wear the same pants for seasons at a time, but he just smeared the color into the cloth and said, “What the hell. Makes me more arty.”

  What had the world come to, I mused as I walked out into the New Mexico sunshine, when a Mirplo could be legitimately concerned with looking more arty?

  What, indeed?

  I’d been in Santa Fe about a month, and so far it struck me as the sort of place you could get tired of in about a month. Not that it lacked appeal. The climate was good, the people relentlessly friendly—well, friendly the way people are when they make their living off tourists and they know it. The architecture agreed with me—low adobes that blended sensibly into the desert scrub and cactus by design, utility, and civil statute. I’m told that no new buildings in Santa Fe may be over two stories high, unless architected into setback levels, which gives the tallest structures in town the look of taupe wedding cakes. I didn’t mind. It kept the scale human. After Los Angeles, the last city where I’d spent much time, a little human scale was a welcome change of pace.

  I think what got to me about Santa Fe was exactly how open and accessible it was. I hadn’t been in town two weeks when I started to recognize the same faces—and they started to recognize mine. At the coffee joint or the grocery store, they’d nod at me as if to acknowledge, Oh, you’re still here? If you were a tourist, you’d be gone by now. This there was no denying: Santa Fe was definitely a three-day tourist town. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the Plaza, Loretto Chapel, a quick spin through the art galleries, maybe a day trip to Los Alamos, then it’s up the road to Taos or down the road to Albuquerque. If you’re not outta here, pretty soon you’re from here, and in a town this small, that tends to get noticed. Which is when a grifter like me gets edgy.

  Check that, I reminded myself. Ex-grifter.

  It was back in March when Allie and I decided to go straight, about three months after our measured skedaddle from L.A., and just about three months before this moment here. We’d been propping up a cervecería at a Mexican beach, amusing ourselves by tapping out lewd suggestions to each other in Morse code,* when the conversation turned to what to do with the money we’d made off the California Roll. That scam, a scheme to rob China through certain banking irregularities (okay, skims), had netted us north of half a million each—not counting Mirplo’s cut, which he scrupulously kept to himself, and who can blame him, for when you’ve been burned as many times as Vic has, you tend to wear asbestos Depends. But Allie and I had made common cause, sharing our resources as we shared our love: with enthusiasm, abandon, and the devil-may-care joie of two lonely, deeply suspicious con artists who, after a lifetime of looking over our shoulders, had finally found someone who’d have our back. This, in part, was why we decided to give up con artistry. Having traveled so far down separate paths, alone and on the wrong side of the law, we had to view it as a sign that our peculiar skew lines had crossed. The universe, we concluded that night, had handed us a second chance, an abundantly funded clean slate, with the cops who’d dogged us through the California Roll either dead or bought off, and the ponderous Chinese banking system we’d ripped off none the worse for wise. Two smart cookies like us (we flattered ourselves) could easily and legitimately manage seven figures of working capital without having to resort to the sort of flimflammery that had been our respective culling cards for so many years. We could start a business. Buy a franchise. Learn a trade. There’s nothing we couldn’t do once we determined to leave our bent lives behind. And frankly, the prospect turned us on, Allie especially. “When the world is your oyster,” she said, “there’s no telling how many pearls you might find.” Having sold no few bogus pearls in my time, I had to admit that the chance to chase the real deal held a certain innocent appeal.

  Behind and beneath all this, I suspect, was the fact that we two were not well practiced in candor and were both working hard to keep our maturing affection on the fully up and up. To turn our attention to snukes—cons, that is; jivin’ and connivin’ for fun and profit—would be to place a layer of professional lies atop our attempted personal honesty. It was bound to leave us confused. So that night in Mexico, we decided to accept this cosmic gift and embrace our second chance as avidly as we’d always each embraced the main one. We sealed the deal by making love waist deep in the warm sea, with the rhythm of the waves serving as languid counterpoint to our own and the full moon illuminating our bodies for any creature, land or sea, that cared to check us out. I may have been stung by a jellyfish. I think I didn’t care.

  Some beer-driven ideas don’t make much sense the next morning, but this one took. So we did our research, settled on New Mexico, Land of Enchantment, as our land of opportunity, wired our bankroll to a Santa Fe savings and loan, packed our meager things, and rolled. Vic, as Vic will, rolled with. If we were determined to go straight, he announced, he’d better come along “for mortal support.” We flew to Houston, where I bought a used Song Swing, the nimble littl
e Chinese SUV that used to be called the Scat until its makers realized that while scat means “go away quickly,” it also means, inaptly, “poop.” Vic, in the Mirplovian tradition of naming cars, named it Carol after a (mythical, I suspect) lost love. We headed west till we hit the Rio Grande, then north until we hit, well, here.

  And here I was, on a sun-blanched sidewalk halfway between the converted Quonset hut Vic had rented from some down-at-the-heels artist* and the little adobe cottage where Allie and I currently laid our heads. It was about a fifteen-minute walk between the two places, and every time I walked it, I felt a little better about being a citizen for once. I’d never felt guilty about my chosen profession but had become quite accustomed to feeling furtive. Now I was trying to take on board the notion that there was nothing wrong with people on the street greeting me by name. I even used my real one, Radar Hoverlander, rather than any of the dozen disposable slip-ons I’d cobbled up over the years. And why not? For once in my life, I had nothing to hide. It felt great going straight. I had every confidence I could keep it up.

  And I did, too.

  Until that dog came along.

  *Which we both knew, and yes, that’s a measure of how geekishly made for each other we were.

  *Not rented, swapped—for some spurious mining rights in the falsely allegedly gold-laden Sangre de Cristo Mountains. What can I tell you? Especially for a Mirplo, honesty takes practice.

  3

  This Relationship Shit

  But the dog came later. First came Allie, who was sitting at the kitchen table studying some catalogs when I got home from Vic’s. She looked completely matter-of-fact, with her bare feet, painted toenails, denim shorts, and halter top. But something about her—maybe the way she absently pushed her cinnamon hair off her face or ticked the end of a pen against her perfect white teeth—made me crave her even more than I usually did, which was plenty.

  “What are we looking at?” I asked.

  “Career paths,” she said. She held up a pair of catalogs and asked, “What do you think, mechanical engineering or nursing?”

  “Engineering,” I said. “Somehow I can’t picture Allie Quinn as a nurse.”

  “Can’t you?” She unfolded from her seat, stood, cocked a hip, and dropped her voice into a breathy coo. “It’s time for your sponge bath, Mr. Hoverlander.” She reached behind her neck. “Sadly, this is my only top. I dare not get it wet.” Deftly untying it, she tossed it away, then crossed to me and pressed her chest against my shirt. “Now then, where shall we begin? Tell me where you’re dirtiest.”

  “I know what career you should choose,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Porn star.”

  She slapped me a little, but that was okay. It was the start of something great.

  Afterward, we sprawled together on the cool tile floor. From where I lay, I could just reach Allie’s toes. I gave them the little piggy treatment and thought about how lucky I was. “I’m loving this,” I said.

  “ ’Course you are,” she said. “You’re getting sex in the middle of the day.”

  “No, not that,” I protested. “I mean, yes, of course that. But more than that. This. All of this. This domestic bliss. This relationship shit.”

  Allie propped her head up on her hand and eyed me sardonically. “This relationship shit?”

  “You know what I mean. We’re … I don’t know … normal. I’ve never been normal before. It’s nice. I could get used to it.”

  “Well, you’d better. Because I’m going to be a nurse—”

  “Or mechanical engineer.”

  “Or mechanical engineer.”

  “Or porn star.”

  Allie ignored this. “And what are you going to be?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t given it much thought.”

  “Tick-tock, Radar. Rent’s due on the first of the month. We can’t live off our savings forever.”

  “No, just”—I pretended to do a rough calculation in my head—“a decade or so. If we cut back on caviar.”

  “So you’re not going to take this seriously, is that it?”

  “Wait, what?”

  “This domestic bliss. This relationship shit.” I could tell that all of a sudden Allie wasn’t having a good time. Were I Mirplo, with his malaproptic bent, I’d say I’d pinched a nerve. “If we’re going straight, Radar, we have to go all the way straight. That means going to school or getting a job or finding some sort of purpose, just like straight people do. It doesn’t mean coasting.”

  “Not coasting,” I said. “Transitioning.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t buy that word. Before, maybe, when I didn’t have anything to lose.”

  “But now you have something to lose?”

  “Of course, you numbskull. You. Us. We backslide into a scam, next thing you know we’re arrested or worse. I don’t want that, Radar. Do you?” I shook my head. “Okay, then, we have to go cold turkey. Man up. Find something productive to do with our lives. Be citizens.”

  “Why do I have a feeling being citizens means less sex in the middle of the day?” This was intended as a joke, but it landed flat as a karaoke diva. Allie shot me a sour look, a look I’d already come to recognize as You’re not as funny as you think you are.

  This relationship shit is tricky—land mines everywhere you look. Like the sign says, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, not in relationships, not in anything. Everyone wants the good stuff: someone to light candles for, curl up next to at night; someone to bring them soup when they’re sick. But if you want the good stuff, of course you have to put up with the rest. Moods. Privacy jags. Not being as funny as you think you are. Most of all, the land mines. Everyone has them—Allie and I had them in spades—psychic sore spots that take a lifetime to bury and then a lifetime again to disinter and disarm. That’s two lifetimes right there, and I don’t know anyone who’s got that kind of time. So instead of doing a thorough, safe sweep of the area, sometimes you just blunder ahead.

  And sometimes you step on a mine.

  “How’s it going to be, Radar? I mean, really, how is it going to be? Do you plan to do this thing, actually do it? Or just hold back, play at being citizen like you’ve played at numismatist, talent scout—God, I don’t know—whatever other roles you’ve played.”

  “I’ve never played God.” Another badly misfiring joke, this one actually propelled Allie to her feet. She stormed around the kitchen, picking things up and noisily putting them down. Our little bungalow with generous and low-slung windows stood close to a fairly busy street, and I imagined some passers-by getting an eyeful of the unself-consciously naked Allie. I remained on the floor. I didn’t see much point in two of us putting on a show.

  At last she came over and crouched down beside me. She touched my cheek. It sort of made me melt. “You don’t get it,” she said. “Radar, I love you, but this is gonna be hard. Hell, it’s hard enough to say I love you without freaking out. Look, we’ve been on the snuke all our lives. Both of us. You think we can stop on a dime? We’ll get bored, frustrated, thwarted in our ambitions. It’s gonna stress us out, and stress our relationship. And why? Because we won’t have the comforting demands of the grift to distract us. We won’t have all that noise in our heads. We’re going to have to face each other, face ourselves. I’m not afraid of that, but I know what it means: questions, Radar. ‘Is this the right person for me? Can we grow together? Can we become people of substance?’ ”

  “You make it sound like we need a twelve-step program.”

  “Maybe we do.”

  I sat up and took her by the shoulders. “Okay, first of all, there’s one question I definitely know the answer to. Are you the right person for me? Yes. Absolutely. Case closed.”

  “What about the rest of it?”

  “Uh … don’t ask, don’t tell?”

  “Not good enough, Radar. We’ve got to figure this shit out. That’s what straight people do.”

  “Strai
ght people don’t figure this shit out. Swamis don’t figure it out. I should know, I’ve been a few. Look, Allie, there are no answers. There’s just questions. Questions and more questions. The type of questions that if you keep asking them long enough, of course you freak out. That distracting noise you’re talking about? I’m glad for that noise. We didn’t have that noise, we’d slit our wrists before breakfast.”

  Allie stood again. I thought I heard a squeal of brakes on the street. She looked down at me and shook her head sadly. “Not good enough,” she repeated. “We have to do better than that.” She grabbed her halter top and shorts, and went in the other room.

  Like I said. Land mines.

  Times like these, I half wished I smoked, because this would have been a perfect moment to say I was going out for cigarettes. Instead, I called, “I’m going out for gum,” which sounded as dumb as I thought it would and really just meant that I was angry and confused and had to walk it off. I got dressed, grabbed my keys and cash, and cruised.

  Relationships are tricky. Even a rank beginner like me knows that. After all, there you are with your One True Love, right? The one person you can count on to accept you, warts and all. But no matter how many of your hidden demons you reveal and how many she accepts, there’s still more to reveal and still more to accept. And some of those demons are fierce. Take me: abandoned by my mother and father. Mom at least had the legitimate excuse of dying of cancer. Dad just bailed, leaving nothing but tales of his conny exploits, a trail of jokey postcards, and a fading picture of his face in my mind. I thought it was my fault. Little kids will do that, place themselves in the center of the universe and blame themselves for every supernova that explodes around them. Later we get smart enough to know that each of us is the center of our own universe, and if your father left you or beat you or drank or ran around, it’s because of crap in his universe, not yours. But no matter how smart you get, that little kid’s still in there somewhere, and guess what? When you’re being all vulnerable with your OTL, the demons come out. You can’t help it. It’s just the way things are. Maybe what Allie was driving at, with all this drive to change, was just the need to leave her old universe behind.