Checker and the Derailleurs Read online

  “So tacky!” Eaton exclaimed as he strolled through the lobby with Howard. “More Parthenon murals. This neighborhood destroys me.”

  Milling through the red room bolting hot hors d’oeuvres, Plato’s patrons turned suddenly shy with each other, embarrassed. Girls held glistening fingers out from their clothes, in horror of ruining two-hundred-dollar dresses before the main course. Yet when Check Secretti purled into the heart of the crowd, everyone eased up, laughed, and took long draughts of their drinks. In his wake they felt suave and attractive. You have looked forward to this and now it is happening, the bright black shoes tapped out their way. You’ve posted my invitation on your billboards for weeks, Hijack’s curling Arabic script hypnotizing from across the room; or it’s rested on your dresser, been your bookmark for that novel you never seem to finish. You’ve mentioned this date on the phone, though you’ve never confessed to anyone just how many times you changed your mind about what to wear—which shoes, which flowers, whether to buy a boutonniere. But I know and I enjoy your anxiety; I relish when you care about anything. But I’m also here to tell you that today is February 21. It’s possible that this whole evening could pass in a blur and you’d later say, When was that party I was looking forward to? You’d look at the calendar with sad surprise—why, it was yesterday, it was last week, it was years and years ago and you can no longer remember what happened. But I will save you: you are here. That’s what Checker Secretti was for, actually. He told people simple, obvious things: You enjoy your job, or: This is the party.

  Syria had advanced him his pay for the shoes, and he loved the way they rolled on the floor, wax against wax, coasters on his toes.

  Girls kept Checker in the corners of their eyes and smiled and said nothing to each other. Only later, rearranging disheveled necklines in the bathroom mirror, would one of them finally sigh, “Checker,” and the whole roomful of girls would burst out laughing—a mutual confession, though they all had boyfriends of their own. Then at last it would be out, and they’d trail from the women’s room looking at each other with complicity for the rest of the evening. All, that is, but the one in the last stall, who would remain there for longer than the rest, because none of this was funny to her; so she’d stay curled on the toilet, letting her big gauzy formal wrinkle up around her waist, her head on her knees. She wouldn’t stay indefinitely, though she might have, had they not been waiting for her—Rachel DeBruin was in the band.

  Checker had instructed all the guests to wear only black and white, though he himself had cheated with a crimson tie and cummerbund, and tiny red studs. The rest of the party had complied more strictly, anxious to please him, and the perfect checkerboard of the room was worthy of the ballroom scenes in War and Peace. Even Rahim had cooperated, waltzing in with traditional Muslim dasha; the white material fluttering around his delicate face suggested a role reversal the Iraqi himself wouldn’t have appreciated.

  Checker had told everyone to wear black or white except Syria, whom no one told to do anything. Besides, whatever she turned up in was bound to be interesting.

  Her gown was better than interesting. The neckline streaked to the waist, where the material gathered and draped over her narrow hips, snuggling down those long legs, laying claim—and Checker could hardly blame the dress. It had a good thing going. It was a dress that would want to stay on. With padded shoulders and long tight sleeves, it glared protectively at Checker from across the room, hugging her figure, possibly regretting the way her entire leg could so easily escape its clutches—the slit sliced all the way up her thigh. While he was intrigued to see her finally without the Levi’s and big green shirt, that she’d done nothing with her hair delighted him—it was alive, and pinning it up would have been as offensive as caging wild predators in a zoo.

  “I knew you’d wear red.”

  “I almost didn’t. You said the room was red. I don’t like to blend in.”

  “You couldn’t if you tried.”

  “Listen, later we’re going to have to talk. Your friend—did you explain?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “He married me, do you understand?”

  “You’ll have to make yourself clear.”

  “You can count on that, kiddo. But he’s very sweet and very young, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  Check said nothing.

  “Those robes, they’re sincere, Checker. This is his wedding reception. We have a communication problem here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You fucked up.”

  “I tried, but—I think he likes you.”

  “Great.” Syria shook her head. “I’ve done some weird shit, but this one takes it.” She watched Rahim billow through the crowd; he waved to her, his delectable teeth gleaming in the light of the chandelier. “You know, he’s actually kind of cute.”

  “Yes.” Checker swallowed. “Maybe you could get to like him, too.”

  “I already do,” said Syria distractedly, still following the flapping robes as they wafted ebulliently across the room. “He’s a raving lunatic, isn’t he? I like that.”

  When she turned back to talk to Checker, he was gone.

  “You’d think the two of them were getting married,” Eaton snickered. Rahim had swaddled his garment around Checker like a cocoon. “Those two aren’t, uh, close?”

  “Check’s no fag,” said Caldwell sternly.

  “Sure,” said Eaton, trying not to roll his eyes. The Derailleurs seemed so good-timey, but they had a humorless streak a mile wide.

  Checker escorted Mr. Diamond through the throng and introduced him to everyone. Mr. Diamond hadn’t actually attended one of his own affairs for many years. He made a mental note that the phyllo around the spinach pie was soggy. But besides that, why, it really was a grand thing he did for people, wasn’t it? And he hadn’t felt so clever in his life.

  After dinner, The Derailleurs took over from the dj and the event began in earnest. Checker sat down at his traps, and at the first rat-tat, zing, the velvet chairs slid back; it was hard to wait out the first dance while the peculiar bride and groom took the floor. But it was worth watching, anyway: Rahim swirling in those robes of his, already a little drunk, doing full rippling turns and running the length of the hall like Lawrence of Arabia leaping down the cars of a captured train, his arms extended, flapping his headdress behind him from the head table to the bandstand. As for Syria (who, according to Rahim later, unsuitably made a show of herself), she danced with the same precision and economy with which she blew glass, centering her body on its axis like a vessel. She was a craftsman. She understood material in motion; you got the feeling flesh and glass weren’t that different to her, that she believed all matter operated basically by the same rules.

  Yet after “Baby, You Convenient,” written for the occasion, Checker hit the splash and rolled into “Cotterless Cranks,” their fastest song. In three measures not a guest was still mashing the heavy white icing around his plate, and the floor churned like an ant colony someone had just stepped on.

  Even Mr. Diamond liked the music. It was louder than he preferred, but bounced him on the balls of his feet. Though portly, he’d eaten sparingly tonight, and for once his chin didn’t fold and sweat in its creases. He felt broad rather than fat. Though it was now late enough that he could disperse this party, he decided to allow the band to play a third set.

  The Derailleurs were cranking, that’s why it was queer. Everyone agreed, too, that Checker had been “majorly jacked” even “ultra-jacked” Rahim observed quietly, “Too jacked,” but no one heard him. Only Rahim noticed the trace of hysteria that laced the drummer’s second set. The pulse that Checker ordinarily gave off was heavy and uneven, like a heart that is overstrained. He was somehow dangerously happy, with a flush under his coffee complexion: too much blood, too much sweat, cuts and blisters on his hands. He was shaking.

  “He’s gone.” Syria sat back summarily in her chair at the head table.

  “Sheckair!”
r />   It was time for the third set. All was cleared with Diamond, and they’d even routed Rachel from the bathroom. But Checker Secretti had disappeared.

  Caldwell was ready to announce an early retirement when J.K. remembered Eaton Striker, and the party went on. But funny things started happening. The dance floor, though thinned, felt crowded, and couples elbowed one another out of the way. Guests eyed the head table, making surly remarks about immigration. “What’s in it for her?” carped a girl, loudly enough for Syria to hear. “I bet she’s making a mint on this. Marry for money, you’d think a woman that old would have more pride.”

  The wrong boys asked the wrong girls to dance. Two best friends fought over a date and knocked down a table; she watched blankly from the sidelines as glasses skittered and smashed across the floor. Eaton kept playing.

  “What?” Syria rose over her new husband.

  Rahim burst into raging Arabic. He’d drunk too much and could no longer scream in English. He was communicating, anyway, and Syria threw the red wine in her glass all over her husband’s white wedding robes.

  “Out!” shouted Mr. Diamond. “Every one of you out this minute!”

  But the music was too loud and no one heard him. More fights broke out, and the Olympic Pavilion lost considerably more crockery before he finally grabbed the mic from Caldwell; after a screech of feedback, the drums petered out and the hall stopped.

  “Get out,” said Mr. Diamond in an ugly voice.

  Sheepishly the crowd wiped the wedding cake off their faces. Many of the girls’ dresses were irrevocably splattered with beef gravy and grenadine; some of the boys would have to purchase their tuxedos, after all—bloodstains were the living bitch, their mothers had taught them at least that. Spilled champagne spread and flattened over the dance floor, its bubbles popping, pip, pip. The musicians packed up their instruments as fast as possible.

  Howard in one of his yellow shirts

  7 / My Love Is Chemical

  An Inquiry into the Ecstatic State

  By Howard Williams

  By H. Williams

  By H. (“The Head”) Williams

  Our studies have discovered an extraordinary case. Subject displays an unusual aptitude for heightened emotional and sensory experience. Proposal: To pin down the source of this capacity, and whether it can supplant the costly pursuit of a “high” state through alcohol, marijuana, hallucinogens, and opiates.

  (Besides, beer makes me tired. Drugs make me nervous.)

  From examining and interviewing our subject, little or no evidence surfaces of consistent substance abuse. This observer’s first hypothesis, however, is that our subject’s state is still chemical in nature. We draw the reader’s attention, for example, to the recent discovery of “endorphins”—chemicals produced by the brain that create a sensation of “jack.” Endorphins can be excited by rigorous physical exercise.

  “Howard?”

  Howard jumped, and stuffed the notebook quickly in a drawer. “Yes, Mother?”

  “I got that shirt you asked for. Only they didn’t have the style you wanted in red. So I got yellow. I hope that’s all right.”

  Howard took the shirt. “Great,” he said faintly. “Just great.”

  He inspected it when she left his room. Yellow! And pale at that, tinged with ocher, as if washed in the wrong load.

  Rot. This always happened. Like the cuff? Howard loved that bracelet—heavy plain leather, well oiled from long wear, darker by the year. It laced at the inside, and the end of the tie whipped the drummer’s wrist when he threw licks from tom to snare. It was neat. Why should Checker Secretti be the only guy who wore neat stuff?

  But the only cuffs Howard ever found were either covered in cheesy tooling, horses, paisley, or with bulky macho studs. The only plain one he ever found was brass, and that week everyone stared at him and his skin turned green.

  In a little surge of optimism, Howard tried on the new shirt and looked in the mirror. Yep. There was Howard, all right. Howard in one of his yellow shirts. Howard pulled it off and flopped on the bed in despair.

  “Where have you been?” Syria leveled the smoldering blowpipe at the door. “It’s been over a week. You figured I was sleeping late at Niagara Falls so you wouldn’t need to come to work?”

  Checker’s mouth twitched in a half smile.

  “You always so talkative when you come back from a vacation?”

  Checker took a deep breath and sat on the bench, leaning up against a pole and gazing into the furnace.

  “According to your little friends, you’re off smelling the flowers somewhere. Is that right? You’re just too bloody high on life to visit the mortals for weeks at a time?”

  “Your glass.” Check nodded. “It’s getting cold.”

  Syria slung the blowpipe to the yoke and turned it abruptly in circles until the glass sagged, and whipped it over to her bench to blow.

  “A vase?”

  “Goblets. SoHo.”

  For a while Checker watched her work in silence.

  “I should fire you.”

  “Maybe.” Checker raised his hand in front of him before the flames; it trembled slightly. “I shouldn’t have come back for another day, I think.”

  “The surly helpmate in my apartment claims you pull this disappearing act all the time.”

  “Mmm.”

  “It’s bullshit. I don’t see why I should have to put up with it.”

  “Don’t, then.”

  “You want to quit?”

  Checker raised his eyebrows, smiled, shrugged, and drifted toward the door.

  “Come back here.”

  Checker obediently stopped and turned.

  “Where did this idiot complacency come from?”

  Checker looked around the studio with interest, as if he’d never been there before. “What?”

  She looked at him hard. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You seem different.”

  Checker looked up and down and patted the cinder block beside him like a friend. The wall was cool, porous, and musty. “I’m good.” Checker smiled.

  Syria put her pipe in a barrel, taking unusual care it didn’t clatter. “Come here.” She took his hands, studying his face. Gently she reached up and touched his hair.

  “Sheckair!”

  Checker sprang back from the woman and turned on his heel. The Iraqi looked confused, even apologetic. “You are back. Is good.” He looked back and forth between them. Ordinarily he would have flung his arm around Checker’s shoulders; instead, he smiled weakly. “Rehearsal tomorrow?”

  “First time I seen a tugboat on land,” said J.K. From far off down the park a small figure chugged turgidly toward them, raising a poof of dust like a spray of river water, gray sweats billowing in the breeze.

  “You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself, Howard,” shouted Caldwell.

  As Howard puffed past, a stolid purple, Caldwell and J.K. began to lope effortlessly beside him.

  “Now, don’t you think Howie looks unjacked?”

  “Lack of jack, that what I see.”

  “There’s more to life than having a good time,” said Howard with difficulty. “There’s discipline. There’s suffering.” No matter how reasonable Howard’s assertions, somehow they never rang true.

  All three of them suddenly slowed at a long, high whistle from up the hill. Leaping the sidewalk between the columns of Hell Gate, a figure streaked down the slope. As he came up from behind, his wake pushed them faster, until all four, even Howard, were ripping down the walkway by the river, jumping cracks and puddles, passing sports cars. They accelerated into Ralph DeMarco, vaulting its queer plum-colored railings to the rocks by the water. At last their leader reached the edge of Con Ed, assaulting a neat knoll where children played King of the Mountain. He turned and tackled the three of them as a group; they rolled on the grass and laughed. It was early March; the grass was cold.

  “Oh, man,” said Caldwell. “You’re
back.”

  “Yeah, the manager flipping out,” said J.K. “He into suffering, man. It serious.”

  But Howard wasn’t suffering anymore. He lay panting, looking up at the sky, an amazing cloudless cerulean, with the unreal intensity of cheap postcards. His vision was awhirl with tiny points that curled the sky. Though he knew this was called “seeing stars,” to Howard these comma-shaped distortions were each tiny endorphins, creeing to each other ecstatically like faraway birds returning north in spring.

  “A bicycle?”

  “So? I’ve thought about getting one for a long time.”

  “I bet.” Caldwell walked around the new purchase, shooting looks at J.K. “Must do at least five miles an hour. That is, if you hold on to a bus.”

  “Don’t make fun of him,” said Howard, clutching the big rubber grips. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  “Your bicycle has a personality, too?”

  “Checker says everything does.”

  “Yeah,” said Caldwell. “Checker says.”

  “Check doesn’t have a monopoly on bicycles!”

  “He right, Sweets. So the man bought a bike. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I’ll just be curious what Check has to say,” Caldwell said, quietly off away from Howard, who was proudly pumping the heavy treaded tires.

  “Think he be pissed off?” asked J.K.

  “I’d be, wouldn’t you? Jesus—the red shirt, the bracelet. And did you notice the tennis shoes?”

  “No, why?”

  “Same brand. Converse All-Star low-tops, white canvas. I wouldn’t be surprised if he bought the same size.”