Microcosmia

Cristian = Vane, unstable heir to an eleven billion-dollar empire, finally has his complete nervous breakdown. Torn by a heart-wrenching documentary of scammed Ethiopi= an famine victims, he determines to make a virtue of his blind luck, and sets = out to be the Danakil Desert’s great white savior. In this excerpt, he experiences that documentary in a cheap <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Hollywood hotel room with Prissy, a runaway hooker.

&= nbsp; Vane crammed the phone in its mount and switched on the radio. With soulless Muzak in his ears, he took the 10 inland, got off on La Brea, and passively headed north. He had no idea wher= e he was, no idea where he was going, no idea what to do when he got there. He o= nly knew he had to keep moving.

&= nbsp; But inevitably he did stop, halfway into an intersection on a dark unfamiliar street.

&= nbsp; To a casual observer Vane might have been a dead man, sitting slumped behind a wheel with the engine humming and the transmission in PARK, his bloodless f= ace running red, amber, and green. Drivers honked repeatedly, screamed obscenit= ies, sped around him. The cell phone rang insistently, but it was as numbing as Muzak.

&= nbsp; A glockenspiel chimed in his left ear: hel₌^lo_o? The voice tried again, louder. “Hell-low-oh? Hey-ey-eyyy . . . MISTER! Are you, like, okay= ?”

&= nbsp; Vane rolled his head until he came nose-to-nose with a skinny girl in her mid-te= ens. He closed one eye and squinted with the other: fine brown hair crackling in spear= s of neon, flat nose pushed to the side, tiny teeth way too perfect to be real. Three eyelid piercings, two tongue studs, a row of bunched hoops hanging fr= om one sagging lobe. Some weird things done with makeup; a deliberate Halloween mask for a face. But most disturbing was the deep blue liner under her eyes. Old memories stirred his pain.

&= nbsp; She was posed inquisitively; one palm on the limousine’s roof, the other displayed like a waitress with an imaginary tray. “Well, y’know, you can’t just sit here. You’re blocking traffic, man.” The girl looked around nervously. “Are you frying, mister= , or what?” She peered cross-eyed through the windshield, leaned back, lig= htly shook his shoulder. Vane heaved a sigh.

&= nbsp; “Oh, thank goodness! It’s alive. Alive!” She flapped her hands. “Look, man, you’ve = just got to get me out of here. There’s these like super-grungy guys who’ve been following me, and I’m totally freaking out. So can I get in? I mean, can we just go? Pretty-please?”

&= nbsp; There was a light clopping to his right. A splash of cool night air. The voice po= pped into his other ear. “Dude, it’s like what’re you doing, anyway? Taking this thing to the great queer body shop in the sky?” A door slammed. The smell of cheap perfume hit his nostrils. Plastic nails da= nced up his wheel hand and tapped on the gear-shift. “It’s like this long bar,” the voice said. “You have to move it over, from the little P to the little D. Then the car goes forward.”

&= nbsp; He raised his head. Sparkling eyes, tiny teeth flashing between heavily painted lips. Vane grinned back. “No wonder I wasn’t going anywhere.= 221; He sat up and peeked in the mirror. “What’d you say about being followed?”

&= nbsp; The girl jumped all over the car’s accessories, punching buttons and spin= ning knobs. “Wow, man! Who do you drive for, anyway?” She pecked the console’s computer keyboard with rainbow-glitter nails, saying, “Dear Mom. It’s like, wow. I mean, I’m being kidna= pped by this handsome limousine driver. His name’s . . .” She paused= in her play-typing.

&= nbsp; “Cristia= n.”

&= nbsp; “. . . Cristian, but I just call him Limo, ’cause Cristian makes him sou= nd like some kind of geeky priest or something. He drives this great big thrashed-out pink car for Elton John and George Hamilton, with a gay bar in= the back and everything. He may have kidnapped me, mom, but I stole his heart. We’re up in Hollywood on Cahuenga, and we’re = gonna go pick up some, like, major movie stars and party heavy all night. = So don’t wait up. Love, Prissy.”

&= nbsp; “Prissy?= ”

&= nbsp; She stuck out her tongue. “Priscilla. What is it with parents, anyway?= 221; She jammed her plastic sequined pumps against the glove box. One heel was loose. Prissy wiggled down her butt and got comfortable, the short red dress sliding up her skinny white legs. A second later she was all over the place; bouncing up and down, yanking on the visor’s vanity mirror, opening a= nd closing the glove box, corkscrewing her torso to work the radio. “Yuk! What are you listening to, anyway? No wonder you’re so spaced out.= 221; She looked him over while poking the SEEK button, her mouth turned down. “Can’t your boss afford one of those cute limo driver hats?R= 21; Prissy found a rock station and broke into an awkward little dance with her upper body. Vane had to laugh. She looked daggers for a second, then laughed right back.

&= nbsp; He put the car in gear and squared his shoulders. “So where do you live?”

&= nbsp; “It̵= 7;s not far. A few more blocks, up on the right.” Following her direction= s, Vane pulled the big pink car into a hotel’s parking lot.

&= nbsp; “You live in a hotel?”

&= nbsp; She stared sarcastically and showed him her palm. “C’mon, man. Are = we tripping here, or what?”

&= nbsp; Vane drew a blank. He slowly pulled out his wallet and exposed the bills.

&= nbsp; Prissy took a fifty and a twenty. “That’s just for now. Wait here.R= 21; She stepped out and sashayed up to the office, enormous purse slung over scrawny shoulder.

&= nbsp; Vane turned down the radio and zoned out. He was just starting the car when that same small voice popped back in his head. “Okay, let’s go. But = put up the windows and make sure everything’s locked tight. Even so, I to= ld the manager to keep an eye on this boat.” She rubbed her thumb agains= t the first two fingers meaningfully. “And I told him you’d be remembrandt in the allet-way, if you get my drift.”=

&= nbsp; Vane touched the dash switch that armored the vehicle. Windows hissed shut, doors locked in conjunction, red lights winked on latches and dash. Remembering t= he cell phone, he plucked it free and stuck it in his right rear pants pocket. Vane double-checked the locks before following Prissy into room seventeen. = It was as he expected: bed, dres= ser, television, bathroom. He sat on the bed. Prissy closed the door and hung her purse on the knob.

“I can’t ever get the porno channel, but there’s plenty of magazin= es in the dresser if you need ’em.” She kicked off her shoes, unbuttoned her blouse, and stepped out of her skirt. The bony body looked deathly pale in the room’s dirty yellow light. Vane glanced at the old scars and fresh scabs.

&= nbsp; “How old are you?” he asked quietly.

&= nbsp; She peeled off her panties. “I like to keep the bra on.”=

&= nbsp; “I’= ;m not surprised.”

&= nbsp; The girl fumed: foal on fire. “Look, mister. You’ve already paid, so you’d might as well get what you paid for.”

&= nbsp; “Fifteen? Fourteen?”

&= nbsp; Prissy stood with her arms akimbo. “Jesus!” She stomped to her purse, pulled out a Californi= a identification card, and tossed it at Vane. As he bent to retrieve it she s= at beside him, a scabby hand on his thigh.

&= nbsp; Vane tilted the card in his hand to catch the light. It appeared genuine. One Priscilla Ellen Hartley would be nineteen come the sixth of February.<= /o:p>

&= nbsp; “Why is ID always so important? Why ruin the illusion?”<= /p>

&= nbsp; “Men are funny like that,” Vane muttered. “For some reason the thoug= ht of spending a healthy chunk of your life in state prison tends to sour the experience.”

&= nbsp; She unzipped his fly and reached in. “Is that what soured it for you?R= 21;

&= nbsp; Vane fell back on the bed. Depression enveloped him like fog.<= /p>

&= nbsp; “It̵= 7;s okay,” Prissy whispered, releasing the catch on his trousers. She pul= led off his shirt and sneakers, expertly slid down his pants and shorts.

&= nbsp; Vane drifted along in that fog; without meaning, without mooring. After a while = he thought he heard his voice say, “No, it’s not. It’s never okay.” He was so far gone he didn’t realize she’d been bu= sy for over a minute.

&= nbsp; The goofy face popped back into view. Prissy pulled herself up using his knees = for support, sat beside him, yawned, and reclined on an elbow. “I can get= the manager to find the porno channel if you want.”

&= nbsp; “Forget it.”

&= nbsp; Presently she said, “What’s killing you, man?”

&= nbsp; “I don’t know. Things change.” He clasped his hands behind his hea= d. “I lost my father today. That could be part of it.”<= /span>

&= nbsp; Prissy dipped a thumb and forefinger into her bra and pulled out a small zippered pouch. From this she extracted a sloppily rolled cigarette and disposable lighter. “I always come prepared.” She lit, hit, and passed the joint. It was a new experience for Vane, so he copied the girl’s acti= ons; drawing deeply, holding in the smoke as long as he could.=

&= nbsp; “I’= ;ll need some money,” came the tiny voice. “I’m going for two dimes.”

&= nbsp; “Sorry,&= #8221; Vane mumbled. “I don’t have any change.”

&= nbsp; The girl laughed and picked up his trousers. “You’re cute.” S= he fished out his wallet, removed a twenty, and stuffed the wallet back in his pants pocket. “Hold onto this for me.” Prissy gave him her litt= le pouch and kissed his cheek. She already seemed to have matured five years s= ince their meeting. “I’ll be right back.” She pulled on her sk= irt and blouse and, barefoot, stepped outside and softly closed the door.<= /o:p>

&= nbsp; Brand new impressions seeped into Vane’s fog. Something was playing with the tension in his neck and shoulders, something was tightening and loosening h= is eardrums.

&= nbsp; Odd.

&= nbsp; The ceiling light was throbbing with his pulse, the room breathing right along = with him. Vane stared up at that fly-specked bulb for years, too drained to reac= t. Finally the bed rocked again, and a slender hand pried the pouch from his fingers. He sat up.

&= nbsp; Prissy took a tiny glass pipe from the pouch, pulled a white chunk about the size = of a hearing aid battery from one of two miniature Ziploc plastic bags, carefully placed the little chunk in the pipe’s steel bowl, and flicked her Bic. She closed her eyes and rocked gently while drawing, then lovingly handed t= he pipe and lighter to Vane. Again playing copycat, he sucked slowly until the rock had expired. Prissy plucked the pipe from his fingers and continued to draw, turning the bowl under the flame to get every molecule of residue.

&= nbsp; Vane’s lips were numb, his loins liquid. His brain relaxed and sharpened, relaxed = and sharpened. He laid back. Priscilla pulled off her blouse and slid out of her skirt. Her lips found his. Her tongue rolled over his chin and down his bod= y, fluttering like a wet butterfly. At last the butterfly moved back up his stomach and chest to his chin. Vane brushed her moist hair from his face, w= iped the dew out of his eyes.

&= nbsp; “YouR= 17;ve been driving too long, Limo. You need to learn how to cool.” Prissy s= at up and swayed languidly. She found the pouch and second little Ziploc bag, = then had to help him to a sitting position. Vane was allowed to hit the pipe fir= st this time. He fell back as Prissy killed the bowl.

&= nbsp; The bed rocked. The girl picked up the television’s remote control unit a= nd a sudden voice blared, “—contacted Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasa—” She muted the sound, stepped to the wall plate and switched off the overhead light. The r= oom was now lit only by deep reds and blues. The bed rocked again.

&= nbsp; The scrawny body smacked into his. “Let go, Limo!” Vane let = his head roll, felt her hot breath wash against his lips. He half-opened his ey= es. Prissy’s eyes were closed, her lips preening. As the shadows played o= ver her face the flesh around her eyes appeared to bruise and heal, bruise and heal. Her lips became a pair of writhing purple leeches; pursing, pouting, reaching for his throat like the sweet undead.

&= nbsp; Not since he was a teenager had Vane felt his body come alive. His tingling fin= gers clenched and unclenched, his hands found her breasts. The drowned face roll= ed back up. Fingers came wet in his hair, pulled his lips to a breast, slowly = drew his face deeper.

&= nbsp; The similarity to Megan was maddening. Vane fought to break away, but she bit h= ard on his lower lip, climbed on top of him, and guided him in. The room became= a pounding, squeezing cube. Vane’s brain went fuzzy, contracted, releas= ed. It all happened very fast. When the jack blew out of the box he was left em= pty and cold, anchored but adrift. Slowly the fog lifted.

&= nbsp; Prissy flopped off and rubbed his sweaty belly. He heard her voice in a dream, = “Thanks, Limo. That was sweet.” She walked her fingers up and down his che= st. “You’ve deflowered me, baby. I’ve never had a trick get o= ff while calling me ‘mommy’ before. It was kind of cool.”

&= nbsp; Vane’s head rolled on the pillow. His expression was frightening. “Shut up.”

&= nbsp; Prissy shivered, her eyes gleaming between the half-closed lids. She looped her ar= ms around his neck and smiled cozily, as though just flattered by a sweetheart. The phrase shut up came as the emotional equivalent of I love you= . “Yes master,” she whispered huskily. “Yes, Daddy.&= #8221;

&= nbsp; “I mean it,” Vane said. “You’re playing with forces you couldn’t possibly understand.” He sat up on the bed, hauling he= r up with him. She nibbled his ear. Vane pulled away.

&= nbsp; “Give me another twenty,” Prissy said, clinging. “You’ll cheer = up fast enough. Or make it thirty. I can score right in this hotel if the money’s right.”

&= nbsp; “Forget it. I can’t think as it is.”

&= nbsp; She released him disgustedly. Two seconds later was hanging all over him. Vane relented, and they leaned against each other quietly, using flesh for emoti= onal support. The televised images, blowing around them, made grim shadow puppet= s of their heads. Vane’s sense of the sordid was exaggerated, unaccustomed= as he was to the sticky underbelly of society. All he wanted was a long scaldi= ng shower.

&= nbsp; “Why do you live like this?” he wondered aloud. “Why don’t you find a decent guy and settle down?”

&= nbsp; Prissy laughed harshly. “Like you, Limo? Don’t judge me, man. A= nd don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou crap about finding a ‘nice guy’.” She pulled away. “I know all about men, probably more than you do. There are no ‘nice guys.’ A man is either horny or he’s not. If he is, then all his ‘niceness̵= 7; is a load of BS. He’ll say and do anything to get what he wants. And = if he isn’t horny, then what good is he? You think I want to listen to h= im weep about how there aren’t any ‘good girls?’ You think I want to hear him whining about what a great guy he is, and about how the sl= ut who left him didn’t appreciate how he busted his ass day in and day o= ut for her, baby, only for her?” She swung her legs off the bed. “In my line of work I hear more bullcrap than a bartender. I’ve heard it all. Mostly it’s the daughter thing, dig? Like, I’ll be laying there with some freak who’s paying top dollar to get off on a = chick just because she reminds him of his daughter, and then this bozoR= 17;s gonna lecture me about how I should be a ‘good girl,’ an= d go back to daddy.” She looked like she wanted to heave.

&= nbsp; Vane hunched gloomily. He’d been preparing to tell the girl precisely this. “Everybody,” he fumbled, “needs a father. Someone who can guide you. In decisions. In love. Someone with experience.”

&= nbsp; Prissy grabbed and squeezed his hands. Her eyes were dancing. “Let me tell y= ou about fathers, Limo. Let me tell you about men.” She hooked a foot un= der his leg and let her head fall back. Backlit strangely, Prissy became a wise, caring tutor, a mother figure poised naked on a grave. And bruised, so very bruised.

&= nbsp; “There have been two loves in my life, Limo.

&= nbsp; “The first was my father.

&= nbsp; “Daddy was an alcoholic with a bad streak. I mean really, really bad. He us= ed to kick the crap out of my mother, every single blessed night of the year; twice on birthdays and holidays. He worked at the foundry in our little tow= n in Paso County, New Mexico, and each morning he brough= t a thermos full of Jack Daniels with him to the job. That’s what the oth= er workers called him. They called him Jack:&= nbsp; Jackie D. Somehow or other he managed to bluff his way through work every day. Eventually even his friends despised him; first for the way he h= ad to get his paws on anything female, second for the way he went ballistic on anybody who objected. The heavier the tension got at work, the worse it got= at home. Then one day he got fired for breaking the foreman’s jaw. I remember mama, swollen and bleeding, crying and spitting teeth. I remember = her falling on top of me to protect me, screaming in my little face while Daddy kicked her in the face and spine. I must have been—what—maybe thirteen, maybe fourteen, and I remember seeing his bleary eyes sort of shining, and his mouth twisting as he looked down at me.<= /p>

&= nbsp; “Y’= ;see, Daddy was getting ready to teach me all about you poor, misunderstood men.<= o:p>

&= nbsp; “He grabbed mama’s hair and hauled her off me. I think she was unconsciou= s, but things were too weird at the time to tell. He took me by the front of my fr= illy pink blouse, and then he just kind of fell on top of me. I think his origin= al idea was to pick me up, but he’d wore himself out thumping on mama. He rested there on me, and I was, like, gagging on his whiskey breath, and als= o I couldn’t breathe because he was so heavy and I was so tiny.”

&= nbsp; Prissy’s grip on Vane’s hands became passionate. Her eyes burned in the surrea= l, glancing light. “And I said ‘please, Daddy.’ I said pl= ease, Limo!

&= nbsp; “I think I must have meant no. But it was Daddy. And he wasn’t touching mama any more. He was touching me!

&= nbsp; “And I remember seeing his fist rise above me and just kind of hover there. And I remember screaming, ‘I love you, Daddy, I love you!’ And= seeing that fist, big as a Christmas ham, come slamming down.”

&= nbsp; Prissy hugged herself, shivering. “Poor Daddy broke my nose so bad it took t= hree surgeries to fix it. But I was young, and he was sorry, and it all came out okay.” She beamed prettily. “See?”

&= nbsp; Vane clasped his ankles. The rock’s effects were passing. Part of him want= ed to say he understood, he was sorry, but the reds and blues had done their number on his soul.

&= nbsp; “There was so much blood,” Prissy said rapturously, “that I couldnR= 17;t see his expression. I had to see with my other senses. And they told me Dad= dy was real busy. His hands were all over me. He tore off my pretty blouse, an= d he tore down my pretty panties. He had me pinned, Limo. And he loved me real. Then, when he was done, he clenched his fists and started whaling on me aga= in.

&= nbsp; “And I remember waking up in his arms. He was crying, man, and he was telling me= how much he loved me. There was blood all over the place; on the walls, in his moustache, on our faces. He was crying like a faucet while he told me how m= uch he loved me, and every third breath he proved it with his fist.<= /span>

&= nbsp; “In the hospital they let me and mama share a room. We spent a lot of time hold= ing hands between operations, talking about how life was going to get better. D= addy had busted up something in mama’s spine, and she went through these freaky trips where she’d get all spastic and foamy. The doctors would rush her out and wheel her back in, then wheel me out and whisk me back in. They gave me some new teeth and fixed a funny clot in my head. We were ther= e, like, forever, man.

&= nbsp; “All this time mama kept getting worse, no matter how many tubes they stuck in h= er. She started to drift. I made like I was all concerned and stuff, but secret= ly I was on a total high. I knew she was gonna die, and then there wouldn’= t be anybody between me and Daddy.”

&= nbsp; She paused to study Vane’s face in the creepy light. He stared back woode= nly. The TV’s images bounced off the walls, froze with the screen, bounced some more.

&= nbsp; “One day a Jehovah’s Witness came in and scored big time with mama.= She clamped on his rap like a pit bull on a postman. He tried me too, but I wasn’t buying. I gotta hand it to those guys, though; he hung with ma= ma like a real trooper. When they wheeled her out for the last time he was sti= ll telling her how lucky she was.

&= nbsp; “Now there was nobody around to dump on Daddy. I laid there dreaming about the d= ay I’d get out of that morgue—about how I’d tell Daddy that I was pregnant by him, and about how happy he’d look when he loved me r= eal.

&= nbsp; “But then, just when I was getting ready to be released, this social worker bitch comes in and breaks it to me. Poor Daddy’d stuck a gun in his mouth a= nd blew his freaking brains out. So this social worker throws me in this halfw= ay house with a bunch of total losers, like she’s doing me a favor or something. I split and was just cruising on the streets, but I got caught a= nd thrown in juvie. The old broad bails me out. More favors. Next thing I know I’m living in this big condo in Marina del Rey with my new foster parents. It’s no mystery why they didn’t have any kids of their own. Their idea of a good time was balancing checkbooks over chai latte. I = was always Poor Prissy. Sweet Prissy. They liked to show me off to their geek friends, liked to show them what great parents they were. I was out of my m= ind, Limo. One night I told ’em I was gonna go admire the stupid sailboats= or something, but I stuck out my thumb and got a ride down Lincoln to the freeway. After a couple = more rides I wound up in Hollywood<= /st1:place>, cold and hungry and pregnant. That’s when I met Jeremy.”

&= nbsp; “Jeremy?= ”

&= nbsp; Prissy hugged herself again. She closed her eyes and began gently rocking back and forth. “The second love of my life. Jeremy’s a biker-slash-philosopher. He pulled me out of the gutter and put me to work.= I could make him a grand a day by going down on the daughter freaks, Limo. It= was easy. All I had to do was look lost and helpless. They’d launch into these long teary raps about what wonderful fathers they were, and tell me o= ver and over again how much I reminded them of their darling daughters. The hor= nier they got, the higher I jacked up the price. Jeremy schooled me on the freak= s. They’re scared, he’d tell me, and they’re all tore up ins= ide by guilt. But they’re horny as all get-out, or they wouldn’t be there.” She shrugged. “They’re guys.

&= nbsp; “Jeremy began slapping me around after each trick to make me work harder, and the harder he hit me, the deeper I fell in love with him. When I started to sho= w, he got super-pissed. He thought I wasn’t being up front with him on account of I didn’t tell him I’d been knocked up by Daddy. He b= eat me better than ever, but kept me in circulation. I learned to use makeup creatively. When the bruises got too loud I’d do my face up like a si= ssy punker. The johns really dug that. They wanted to punish their little girl = for looking rebellious. Some of ’em could get pretty Neanderthal. But none were ever as good as Jeremy.”

&= nbsp; Her eyes looked directly into Vane’s. “I’m not boring you?= 221;

&= nbsp; He closed his mouth and forced a casual shrug. “You must know by now I’m no talker.”

&= nbsp; The girl considered this. “I guess that’s cool, when you drive a limousine for a living.” She beamed. “I’ll bet you never = made a grand a day steering that big old pink hearse around.”

&= nbsp; “I wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of money.” <= /span>

&= nbsp; Prissy ran a hand along his thigh. “You could spend it on me.”

&= nbsp; “And it would all just go to Jeremy.”

&= nbsp; She smiled sweetly. Vane was again taken by the way she seemed to be maturing before his eyes. “One night,” she went on, “one of Jeremy’s best clients complained that little Prissy wasn’t so little after all. The guy was so mad about Jeremy’s business ethics t= hat he said he was gonna spread the word around town that Jeremy was a scammer. Nothing my man could say or do would make that creep change his mind, so Je= remy put him down. He had to, Limo. It was either that or go out of business. And Jeremy couldn’t let that happen. He had these, like, major bil= ls to pay: Jeremy was in way-dee= p with the Mexican Mafia. So he rents a van and a bunch of tools and takes this guy’s body out to the Mojave Desert. He lines the inside of the van with these heavy plastic drop cloths, gets naked and stashes his clothes up front. Then he climbs in the back with the saws = and the sledge hammers and gets busy.

&= nbsp; “He worked all that day and night. Jeremy told me he had to do an eight-ball of meth and a quart of Kentucky<= /st1:place> bourbon just to get through it. But after he was done he had a hundred and eighty-five pounds of primo lizard food. He poured the ex-trick down a gull= y, took out the drop cloths, covered them with gas, and let them burn. Now the= van was good as new. He’d brought along one of those big fifty-five gallon drums, filled to the brim with soapy water. Jeremy said he sat in that drum= for three hours soaking out the gore. Then he put the tools in the drum and innocently cruised out of there like some lost hippie looking for a Dead concert. Halfway home he stopped, poured out the funky water, and dried the tools and drum in the sun. While the speed was still keeping him jazzed he scrubbed out the drum, oiled and polished the tools, and even had the van detailed. When he got home I made him tell me all about it. He laid it down, then calmly reached back and slugged me in the tummy just as hard as he cou= ld.

&= nbsp; “In the emergency room they told me the baby had been killed instantly. Now you= see why I love the man, Limo? He’s a real problem solver. The doctors also said my spleen had to go, but that I’d get along fine without it. Did= you know all the stuff you’ve got inside you that you really don’t need?” She ticked them off on the fingers of one hand. “Gall bladder, appendix, tonsils, one kidney, one lung . . .”

&= nbsp; “You can lose your arms and legs, too,” Vane countered, “and life’ll still go on. But I’d rather keep what I’ve got.”

&= nbsp; Prissy nodded cozily. “I’m hip to that, baby. I’m keeping what I’ve got too. Do you know what a good man can do with a propane torch= and a pair of needle-nosed pliers?”

&= nbsp; “Shut up, man! You’re wearing me out.”

&= nbsp; Her eyes gleamed. “So now you’re all mad at me.”

&= nbsp; “No, I’m not mad at you. I’m just starting to see how stupid I am to feel sorry for myself.”

&= nbsp; “Yes you are, you totally limp loser. Mama’s boy. You’re all pissed = off, you pink limo pig faggot. You’re just not man enough to deal with it.”

&= nbsp; “Oh, for Christ’s—”

&= nbsp; She slapped him right across the face. “Then get pissed!” The blow was not only accurately placed; it was well-timed. Vane never saw it coming. He grabbed her right wrist with his left hand, caught her left hand= in his right, and shook his head. No one had ever struck him like that.

&= nbsp; The girl kept right on throwing her arms, but his weight and upper body strength had her pinned. It was an interesting position. Sitting on the bed with her heels under her thighs and her arms gripped at ten and two o’clock, Prissy was completely helpless. All Vane had to do was lean forward and hold on. He had leverage.

&= nbsp; She spat in his face, lurched back and forth and side to side, did everything s= he could to free herself. When she finally relented, smiling demurely, her voi= ce was sweet as treacle. “Doesn’t anything make you mad, lover?= 221;

&= nbsp; “Not mad enough to hit a woman.”

&= nbsp; “Not mad enough to hit a child?”

&= nbsp; “Or a child.”

&= nbsp; “Even if that child lied to you? Even if that child set you up?” She batted= her eyelashes comically. “What if you were looking at hard time for having paid sex with a minor? And what if that minor copped your license plate num= ber so her man could add you to his list? What if this minor had the hotel mana= ger photograph you entering the room with her? And Limo, what if all the stuff I just told you about were parts of a big plan that goes down every night, starting on that very corner where this what-if chick got picked up by a certain limousine driver? It’s like goin’ fishing, baby; the na= mes on Jeremy’s List could fill a small phone book. Now, think about it, honey. How many paychecks would you be willing to turn over before you got = really mad? Cons don’t like new-meat molesters, Limo. Not at all. So wouldn’t it kinda bug you if some strange chick did this to you? Wouldn’t it make you just a teensy bit upset?”

&= nbsp; Vane gripped her wrists fiercely. “Your ID says you’re of legal age.” He shook her limp arms. “My father’s company hired = tons of Guatemalans. I’ve checked out green cards and I.N.S. papers. I know good California ID when I see it.”

&= nbsp; “And so does the Mexican Mafia, darlin’. They’ve had plenty of experience creating false ID for illegals. And Jeremy makes sure his girls = get the best cover possible. Like I told you, he’s a real problem solver.” She shook off his hands.

&= nbsp; For a moment Vane saw red. When his mind cleared he found himself with one hand= in her hair and one fist poised to obliterate that crooked, ready smile. Prissy was teetering on the lip of climax.

&= nbsp; Vane unclenched his fist and pushed her away. It was not an act of passion, nor = of passion controlled. The night was over. He got off the bed and picked up his trousers.

&= nbsp; Five rainbow-painted trowels tore down his back. He turned.

&= nbsp; “DonR= 17;t go, Limo! I need a ride, baby. Bust my ass out of here!” She was now = on all fours on the bed, her head lolling, the fine brown hair clinging to moi= st spots on her face and shoulders. Her eyes were black caves, her mouth a liv= id, groping sea anemone. A string of saliva, red and blue, hung from her lower = lip. “Do me right, driver daddy. Lock me down and roll. Bash my funky face= in, baby. Beat me sweet.”

&= nbsp; “Little lady,” Vane said politely, pointing back and forth like a special education teacher demonstrating for a particularly slow student, “I don’t know you. You don’= t know me. We’ve never even met. You’re going to have to get your kicks, figuratively and literally, f= rom somebody else. I’m out of here.”

&= nbsp; Prissy collapsed on her side. She drew up her legs and thrust her hands between her knees. The tears began, gently at first. In half a minute she was a blubber= ing wretch.

&= nbsp; “That won’t work either,” Vane said solidly. “I’ve endured the charade of femininity since childhood. The whole self-serving gamut: tender concern, maternal warmth, p= etty jealousy, and, of course . . . lachrymosity. As a matter of fact, crying’s the worst thing you can do to make a man care. We’re o= rganizers. All it does is make the situation unmanageable.”

&= nbsp; The girl began to wail.

&= nbsp; “What= 217;re you crying for, anyway?” he said nervously. It must have sounded like= a cat was being tortured in room seventeen. “Finally you’re in the company of a man who treats you with a little respect, and you act like the= world’s coming to an end. You should be happy, girl. Your whole head’s turned inside-out.”

&= nbsp; She lunged and threw her arms around his waist. The wailing diminished to sniff= les and gulps. Vane stood still, fighting the urge to put an arm around her shoulders. He let his trousers unfurl from one hand, used the other to pluck out his wallet, and let all the bills rain onto the bed. It was a flutter of mostly tens and twenties; a few fifties. Maybe four and change. “I’ve got to go. I’d like to say it’s been nice.= 221;

&= nbsp; Prissy snatched up the bills with one hand, still clinging with the other. “Mine?”

&= nbsp; “On the condition you don’t give it to Jeremy.”

&= nbsp; “If it’s mine I’m using it any way I want.” She stuffed the b= ills into the open body of his pants. “I’m hiring you. It’s my= turn to be the trick.”

&= nbsp; “Hiring me for what?”

&= nbsp; “Just to be here with me. Let your boss wait. Tell him you’re at the beautician’s or something.”

&= nbsp; Vane fell back beside her. “But no more drugs for a while. Not so long as I’m here. Deal?”

&= nbsp; “Deal. Let’s just talk.”

&= nbsp; They stretched out and snuggled. “Tell me,” Prissy ventured, “about the real Limo.”

&= nbsp; Vane was silent for a minute, watching the dumb interplay of images on the scree= n. “Well, for starters my life is nowhere near as interesting as yours. I live in a great big house with a whole lot of people I don’t really k= now, and nothing much ever happens.” He was struck by the accuracy of this little revelation. “Except for today. My father died and everybody mo= ved out.”

&= nbsp; After a while Prissy said dully, “That’s interesting.”

Vane was catching on: the girl was les= s than a fireball without fresh drugs in her system. It was also becoming plain th= at sobriety didn’t do a hell of a lot for his own personality. “Wh= at a couple of losers.”

&= nbsp; “Monster= s,” Prissy agreed. She leaned across his chest, scooped up the television’= ;s remote control unit, cranked up the volume and began surfing the high chann= els, muttering, “This room gets crappy cable.” Finally she settled o= n a broadcast apparently highlighting the glorious wildlife of Africa’s savannah. She curled up and nestled in his arm. Both were glad to let the s= et do the talking.

&= nbsp; The announcer explained that all Africa was not the wild land of savage beauty portrayed by Hollywood. The film cut to an aerial shot of an achingly dry desert, which he describe= d as the Danakil Depression in northeastern Ethiopia. Now a small plane&#= 8217;s camera, receding at around a hundred feet, exposed a crescent of smoothed hillocks. A few seconds later an even wider view revealed an immense impact crater with a very low, highly-weathered rim. The crater was partly bisecte= d by a ridge continuous with the outer desert, giving the site a shape something like the letter Q. Only its hellish location could have kept such a tremend= ous natural phenomenon unknown to geologists.

&= nbsp; The viewers were informed that an American spy satellite, monitoring suspected Eritrean troop insurgences in the unmapped Danakil, had stumbled upon this huge crater and the thousands of nomadic pastoralists calmly starving to death within. Nothing would compel these people, the = Afar, to leave.

&= nbsp; The voice said the area, and the crater by extension, were known to the Afar as= Mamuset. He explained that this could be translated as both came and waiti= ng. This was all the proof the voice needed:&n= bsp; the half-dead Afar had an appointment with Jesus.<= /p>

&= nbsp; The film cut to a close shot of a nondescript desert location. The camera panned across numberless people dead and dying; desperately malnourished, parching= in the sun. The next shot, also nondescript, was of relief workers passing out rations from the backs of a few dusty pickup trucks. Sagging in the distance was a large canvas Red Cross tent, the nether arm of the cross extended downward with paint to create the symbolic cross of = Calvary. It was all very pathetic.

&= nbsp; According to the announcer, a drought of unprecedented magnitude had decimated the Ho= rn of Africa. The ensuing famine was already the worst on record, with a proje= cted death rate in the several millions. Typhus and cholera, along with the slow= but steady march of AIDS, had so weakened the pastoral population that many vic= tims were succumbing without struggle. Taped sounds of weeping and moaning now c= ame burbling over a brief clip of a little boy and his sister smothered by flie= s. The boy was dead, his sister clinging. Right behind this came a wide still featuring an entire family in rigor mortis, their cadavers being fought ove= r by hyenas.

&= nbsp; “Only on cable,” Vane muttered.

&= nbsp; Prissy shuddered and clung tighter. “What’s going on? What . . . why a= re they showing all these suffering people?”

&= nbsp; “It̵= 7;s a religious organization,” he explained absently, “looking for subscribers. They want to bleed viewers dry, and they’re savvy enough= to be as graphic as possible. You don’t break hearts with picnic scenes.”

&= nbsp; The frozen horror was replaced by a worried-looking man posing before a large g= roup of famine victims. He was dressed for safari.

&= nbsp; “That guy there,” Vane continued, “is a kind of barker for the organization. It’s his job to soak the rubes by appealing to their consciences. The actual problem is very compelling, yet it takes a real performance to hold a crowd. It’s just human nature. Everybody’= s a rubberneck at a pile-up, but it’s the rare individual who’ll be= come passionately involved. The barker encourages them to stay. He plays upon th= eir guilt, making it difficult for them to return to the workaday without feeli= ng ashamed. Cash solves the whole problem. The contributor has done something.= Now he not only sees himself as that one in a million who cares, but he can go = back to chasing profit, pleasure, and status without all those damned skinny bla= ck beggars making him feel guilty.

&= nbsp; “Scammin= g’s always most effective when it’s done in the name of religion, like on this program. The believer at home is caught between a real big rock and a = real hard place, almost as if his conscience is staring him in the face while his deity watches over his shoulder. What’s he gonna do? Offend his God in order to save a few bucks? But I’ll guarantee you the barker and all = his cameramen get first-class catering, depths of Africa= or no.”

&= nbsp; They watched the man pass his microphone like a censer over the passive black fa= ces, all the while shaking his head helplessly and pouting. The camera zoomed wi= de and remained on the paltry mission while additional footage, of desert outs= ide the crater, was superimposed.

&= nbsp; These new images were appalling.

&= nbsp; Whole tribes were shown wiped out by famine, bodies and personal belongings strewn amidst thatch huts. Camels and cattle lay rotting as far as the lens could capture. A new voice came over, explaining that a combination of factors had produced a situation that could impact the region for decades. Danakil, one of the hottest places on Earth, was in= the grip of an exceptionally intense eleven-year cycle. No stranger to drought = and famine, the region now appeared to be the focal point of an event much wider than any recorded in East Africa’s history. Kenya, Sudan, Somalia—all were being affected by rapid desertification. The Nile was shrinking visibly, while th= e Sahara, like a slowly welling pool, gradually ate a= way at its perimeter, etching arable earth into sand. Even Saudi lands, far across= the Red Sea, were slowly losing fertile grou= nd to desert sand. Doomsayers could wail all they wanted about acid rain and the ozone layer, but the pouting man with the microphone, once again at center stage, knew that a far greater Hand was at work. The man on the mic freely admitted he wasn’t smart enough to know why his All-loving God would = so cavalierly allow His precious children to suffer so. He only knew it was absolutely none of his mortal business. Two things, however, he was ready to claim with complete certainty. One was that man’s wickedness was some= how to blame, the other that the sinful viewer could immediately take the edge = off at least a part of that wickedness by pulling out a credit card and dialing= the toll-free number now throbbing orgasmically across the screen. He pumped the viewers to dig deeper, that these innocent babies might smile in the omniscient Eye of God. The camera zoomed onto a logy old woman holding a pa= ir of dying infants to her burned-out teats. The infants were little pot-belli= ed black skeletons, mouths wide and eyes shut tight. Their tiny fists beat the= stifling air in slow motion.

&= nbsp; Vane felt Prissy’s nails digging into his chest. He turned his head to find her quietly crying. “Why,” she whined, “why doesn’t somebody do something?”

&= nbsp; “I could change the channel.”

&= nbsp; “DonR= 17;t joke, Limo. That won’t save those babies.”

&= nbsp; He picked up the remote and muted the sound.

&= nbsp; “My dear, what you just saw was a taped recording, not a live broadcast. I guarantee you those children are out of their misery by now.”

&= nbsp; From the primal womb rose a piercing, nails-on-a-blackboard wail that gradually tapered to a long suffering sigh. Vane’s hair stood on end. Something= in that very basic, very feminine plaint had gouged a nerve in his heart fortr= ess. Prissy seemed to fill out as he stared, until she appeared fully opposite t= he scrawny, back-stabbing runaway he thought he knew. At that moment Vane thou= ght he had a lot to learn about women, when in reality he had lot to learn about testosterone. The sequence could have been the reverse—he could have encountered a mature woman and watched her morph into a teenager. Nature was hypnotizing him, stirring his hormones, trying to convert him from a procrastinator to a procreator. And now, watching agape in the crazy light,= he could have sworn her lips plumped as her cheeks ran alabaster and blue. He = was looking at Megan; he was looking at Mother the way she intended, as prisoner for life.

&= nbsp; Vane slammed a fist on his thigh and swung his legs off the bed. “God damn= you all! Leave me fucking be!”= ;

&= nbsp; Prissy blinked rapidly. “Dude, it’s like what’re you rapping? Who shoved a bug up your butt, anyway?”

&= nbsp; He stepped into his trousers, pushing the trapped bills through the legs and o= ut onto the carpet. He let them lie.

&= nbsp; “Limo?&#= 8221;

&= nbsp; Vane turned, said, “My name’s not Limo,” and caught her hand before the intended slap could reach his face. He threw the hand down and shrugged on his shirt. “And you should know me better by now.”<= /span> He watched her closely while dressing. Stepping round the bed, he found himself paused in front of the TV, mesmerized for perhaps half a minute by images of children and adults rotting in the savage African sun. There was a general = look to these people; the look of worthless animals resigned to their fate. He w= as reminded of photographs of Jews liberated from Ausch= witz and Treblinka. Staring skeletons. Faces too wasted to express gratitude or relief. The innocent Afar were freaks in a two-dimensional sideshow, exploi= ted by an evangelical gang of trespassing profiteers. Vane, grimacing, ran down= the channels until he reached a cartoon. Some kind of bear and a hound dog were bashing each other with mallets.

&= nbsp; “This is more your speed, Priscilla.”

&= nbsp; There was a familiar burring under the bed. Prissy showed him her tongue and lean= ed over the side. A moment later she resurfaced holding Vane’s cell phon= e.

&= nbsp; “Wow!= ” she said, fascinated by the blinking pink jewels on the sculpted cream case. “It’s so pretty!”

&= nbsp; Vane stomped over and plucked it from her hand. He flipped it open, placed it against his ear. Prissy’s jaw dropped as she watched the phone’s colored lights winking in response to the transmitted signal. In the throbb= ing red and blue darkness Vane looked like some kind of futuristic explorer preparing to beam up. At last he closed his eyes and winced.

&= nbsp; “Here,&#= 8221; he said, handing her the phone. “It’s for you.”

&= nbsp; He turned on his heel and drew open the door. Without another word he stepped outside and was swallowed by the night.

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