A Scattered Body
Twenty-four hour gyms are where insomniacs go to die. Isolated treadmill junkies rocketing nowhere, watching their own blank faces bob in the windows. Obsessive iPod-cyborgs mouthing rap lyrics as the weights rattle and clank. A desperate dead-lifter whose steroids are slowly turning to fat.
All of this was illuminated with hospital-white florescents, stage lighting for any cars on the dark fresh-paved road outside, for any 12:33 a.m. drivers who might want to worship a pantheon of sweating gods. During the day, when it was full, the gym was like one big machine of flesh and metal. During the night, the cogs kept to their own devices.
Ty, for instance, alone at the chinning bar. His grip was wide, pronated, magazine-approved. He pumped up and down soundlessly, with back muscles skimming just under his skin like sharks. A tattoo of crossed keys was imploding and unfurling at the base of his neck. The rack was boxed in by mirrors, and each one showed a Michelangelo. One also showed Jonny come in wearing a rumpled suit and jumped up on speed. Ty watched him wander past the runners and sneer at the lifters.
“Look at you,” Jonny said, taking position directly behind him. “Like a Greek god. You spend too much time here, you know that?” His New Zealand accent was thicker than usual.
“What’s up?” Ty asked, still bobbing.
“Found us something to do, mate.” Jonny slapped a tree-trunk thigh on its way up. “Some easy cash. Have a look at this.” He had a tablet tucked up under his arm, and now he whizzed over it with his finger, grinning down at the screen. With a soft “Aha,” Jonny shuffled around the side of the rack and held the tablet up waiter-style.
“Cute,” Ty said. Jonny flicked through a few more photographs, all of a girl with fake-blonde hair making a typical webcam pout, Myspace poses.
“Isn’t she?” Jonny rubbed a hand through the black hair that shot off his forehead in spikes. He grinned like a wolf. “That’s the premier’s son.”
Ty stopped at the top of his pull.
“Yeah, the bloke with the fucking signs everywhere,” Jonny continued. “Do you see where I’m leading you, Ty? Are you using those cancerous biceps to pick up what I’m laying down?”
“Details,” Ty said, resuming. His book-case shoulders were straining now.
“Not here, mate.” Jonny gave the gym a contemptuous scan. “Let’s grab a bite to eat. You know, once you’ve finished.”
“I’m done.” Ty made another slow pull, then another. Gravity had found the brash offender and was focusing all its attention on him now, fighting him back to Earth. Ty quivered. Dropped. Mopped his face with a towel.
“Man, why do you come here?” Jonny asked. “Not a bird in sight. And those jokers by the punching bag, bet they’ve never broken knuckles in their life. I mean if they got in a scrap with a, a rowing machine or something, maybe they’d come out top-wise.” He stared at the tanned bodies with disdain. Jonny was bones and tendon, built like a ferret.
Ty was stuffing two sacks of Jell-O into the sleeves of his thermal. “Self-improvement, Jonny. Maybe you’ll go in for it some day.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Jonny said, eyeing an ape doing butterfly presses. The man gave him a dead eye. “Oi. Some kind of gangbanger here in his mum’s shirt, Ty.”
“Don’t start shit.” Ty was staring at himself in the mirror, grimacing. Jonny hopped impatiently from foot to foot. Then Ty flipped off his reflection, as was custom, and started for the exit.
“Go get your chest waxed, you pussy,” Jonny said to the back of the butterfly machine. The man pulled his earbud and swung around. By that time, Jonny was slouching down the stairs and all that was visible was the mountain range of Ty’s back. The fight chemical got all crossed up with the flight one and the man did not get up. People usually didn’t where Ty was concerned.
* * *
Neon and grease. They had moved the conversation to a fast-food joint staffed by bored Filipinos. It seemed like a natural progression. Sweat was sticking Ty to the Lego-colored seat. Across from him, Jonny was reassembling his cheeseburger.
“Blackmail,” he said, dumping his fries onto the patty.
“The premier doesn’t know? About, uh.”
“About his son’s little hobby? Don’t know, man. Doesn’t matter.” The ketchup packet burst like a pillbug. Jonny licked his hand edgewise. “What matters is, nobody else knows. None of his voters. He’s a bloody Conservative, man. Two words. Family. Values.” He drizzled the ketchup. “Gay son, that doesn’t look so great for him, you know?”
Ty dipped a brace of fries into mayo. “You don’t know that he’s gay, Jonny.”
“The fuck? He’s a fairy, no doubt about it.” Jonny frowned. His eyes had circles under them. “Dressing up as a girl and putting little cocktease videos on the web? What else do you call that? Oi, you want the pickle?”
“I’m good. How do you know it’s him?”
“Never forget a face, right?” Jonny slapped the top back onto his burger. “Saw one of those big advertisements, premier and his family sitting all nice and waspy. Middle America and all that shit. Very same night, I see this.”
The tablet was skewed between them. Jonny didn’t seem concerned with the ketchup smeared on it. Ty had another look at the photos while his friend attacked the cheeseburger.
“And you saw this video why?”
Jonny swallowed. His grin smelled like onions. “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. Or whatever.” He made a curt gesture under the table. “Any case, this stuff is golden. I put the screen caps through a little facial recognition comparison. It’s him. He’s been at it for a month or so. And his daddy is up for re-election. Bad, bad timing.”
“You want to blackmail the premier.”
“Fuck yeah, man. Easy cash. Easier than some other shit we’ve done.”
Ty found the rest of his fries were cold. He pushed them across the gritty table and thought. “It’ll ruin the kid’s life, Jonny.”
“Mate. The kid would’ve ended up doing odd things at a truckstop for fivers anyway.” Jonny scarfed the last of the cheeseburger down. “How often’s an opportunity like this going to drop right in your lap? One in a million here, Ty.”
“But it’s not. I mean. Anyone could find that website.”
“Yeah, they can find it, yeah? But will they know who it is? Not bloody likely.” Jonny tossed a balled-up napkin from hand to hand. “We give the premier the web address. He’ll get the little fairy to pull it the videos down, delete the account, all that. Then he has it on our good faith that we get rid of the screen caps.”
“Good faith.”
“Well, he’ll have to, won’t he.” Jonny grinned. “And if he’s lucky, none of the old pervies with it saved to the spank bank are, eh, deeply invested in regional politics.”
Ty studied his knuckles. “How much do you think we can take him for?”
“Oh, he’s loaded. Got a swimming pool. Drove by the place.” Jonny leaned back and tongued some beef out of his molars. “Fifty thousand fast cash. That’s him getting off easy.”
“Split down the middle.” Ty said it so casually it almost slipped by.
Jonny slapped the table, making the cold fries jump. “Holy God, man, you aren’t even doing anything!”
“I am.” Ty folded his arms to a portcullis. “Or you wouldn’t have told me.”
“Eh.” Jonny smiled ruefully and shook out his shirt cuffs. “The premier’s a sizeable bloke. Former policeman, too, so I’m thinking he has a few guns to pick from. The gay apple fell far from the tree, as they say. So you come, maybe come packing, and it all goes down very peacably, right?” He fingered a spike of his hair.
“For half,” Ty told him.
“For half, because you’re my best mate.” Jonny wrapped the second burger back into its greasy paper. “You know why these taste so fucking good? Chemical engineering. They engineer them to taste like this. Natural verus unnatural for you.”
“You should go home.” Ty shrugged his aching shoulders and stood up. “Get some sleep.”
“Holy God, Ty,” said Jonny. “You know I don’t sleep.”
* * *
They drove instead, Jonny surfing the wireless from stoplight to stoplight and trying to pack a bowl at the same time, Ty at the wheel with his foot tired on the gas pedal. The gray compact skimmed along the empty road, alternately purring and snorting. They looped onto the highway. Dotted white line ate away under Ty’s window like a zipper sealing shut. Comets whizzed by on top of lamp posts.
“Password, password, everyone’s got a fucking password now.” Jonny put the tablet away as they sped out of range. “So, time to find ourselves a phone booth.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s got up your arse, Ty?” Jonny found a lighter on the dashboard and pinned it down. “You’re being more quiet than your quiet self.”
“Pass me that,” Ty said. He steered with his knees and lit up. The smoke went down smooth.
“I mean, yeah, it’s illegal,” Jonny said, taking it back. His thumb snapped once, twice on the lighter. The bowl flared in the dark. “But so’s jay-walking. Or nicking a film off the internet. We just do a little cost-benefit analysis is all. And fifty grand, well…” He tried for a smoke ring. “Well.”
“You want me to talk, right?”
“Accent’s a fucking curse.” Jonny put one loafer up on the glove compartment. “Except where the women are concerned, that is. I’ll fake an Australian any day for pussy.”
They merged back into the city main, snaking through residential areas. Wooden fences slid by, manicured lawns where the automated sprinklers chattered to each other. It took a long time to find a phone booth, and neither of them remembered how much change they needed. Ty was feeling the weed by the time he got out of the car. His head was light but sharp.
“Short and sweet, Ty.” Jonny was punching the number in. He held the receiver out and Ty took it from him.
Two rings.
Three.
An irritated voice. “Hello?”
“How well you know your son, Mister Premier?”
“Who is this? Is this a prank or something?”
“I’m going to quote you a URL,” Ty said. “What you see might be, uh. It’ll be surprising. And if you don’t want your voters to see it, you’d better cover your ass.”
There was static on the line, then: “What’s this got to do with my son?”
“Ha, say we kidnapped him.” Jonny, stifling a giggle.
“Need to keep an eye on your kids’ computer,” Ty said. The words seemed to be coming out on their own, now. It was like he was in some gangster movie. It felt silly and smooth at the same time. Ty motioned at Jonny for the web address, then read it aloud into the phone.
“Got that?” Ty asked. The silence was a long one, and it stopped feeling like a movie. Ty’s fingers slackened around the phone. His stomach was guilty.
When the voice came back, it was loaded with shock. “What do you want?”
“Fifty grand.” Ty read it off Jonny’s lips. “We’ll get it at your house. Tomorrow night. That’s it.”
“This is fake.”
“Ask the kid,” Jonny broke in. “Please, don’t tell me you never guessed at him being light in the loafers. Needs a fucking haircut, too—”
Ty shoved him away. He mouthed the haircut bit again.
“Not fake,” Ty told the receiver. “Put it through, uh, facial recognition. If you want. Be there with the money tomorrow night.”
Another long silence.
“And don’t touch the kid,” Ty added. The line went dead, so he hung up. They trooped out of the phone booth and back to the car. Sirens from an ambulance gave them both a jolt, then died away. Ty slumped back in the seat and started the ignition.
“Not bloody likely,” Jonny laughed suddenly, slamming the door. “He’s going to kick the shit out of him. Know I would.”
“Yeah, well you’d be a piece of shit father,” Ty said.
“Woah, let’s not get serious.” Jonny stabbed around in the bowl with his thumbnail. “We just earned ourselves insane money, Ty. Relax and enjoy the feeling.”
* * *
They smoked enough that the headlights of distant cars and the glow of street-lamps became the same thing, an abstract yellow kind of symbol, some sort of machine code, and Ty’s hands began burning and freezing on the steering wheel.
Jonny was laughing, head thrown back, about a story he’d remembered from the old days, and would tell, if he could stop fucking laughing. Lazy circuits through another neighborhood, a classier one. Jonny balancing the tablet on his knees. Ty thinking about the photographs, the girl, the angle of her chin and the dress she was wearing. Bought? Or stolen from mother’s closet with shaky fingers?
And then they were parked slantwise in the middle of a deserted street, leaching wireless from an invisible hotel, looking at the site and reading the capslocked comments to each other. Something about hormone costs and early transitioning. Another bowl, but this was the last of it. Jonny said that, not Ty.
Then: looking at the screen caps again. Would you be fooled in a bar? How about on the street, though? Man, that’s a minor. Jonny kept asking and pushing the tablet at him and Ty kept wincing at it and pushing it back. When Jonny dropped it Ty felt relieved and achy at the same time.
He cranked the seat back and buzzed somewhere between awake and asleep. “When you can’t walk away from what you want, you have to run,” he said.
“You’re high as a kite, motherfucker,” Jonny said back.
The bowl was pooched. Jonny said he could drop a hit of speed right now, get sharp again. Ty found a case of knock-off energy drinks under the backseat. They swirled lukewarm sugar in tingling mouths instead and they rambled about familiar things. Professional sports. They were paid too much, weren’t they? But still, what a fucking life. Jonny complained about a lack of rugby. Then it was the autoshop where Ty worked. Any new beauties in there? And then girls they had fucked back in school. Ty invented names.
And then, eventually, the world turned dull and cold again. Ty drove Jonny home. When he arrived back at his own apartment, he stripped down and went into the bathroom. For the first time in a long time, he showered in the dark.
* * *
“Alright, let’s do this.” Jonny shouted it over a car stereo pushed to breaking point. “Hop in, man. Shit, you’re looking big. Just from the gym again or what?”
Ty climbed in and dropped the volume. “Yeah.”
“Holy God.” Jonny drummed a tattoo on the wheel and they pulled away. Ty’d slept badly with plenty of old dreams. They were like a stain when he woke up. The gym had been the only solution for it. He was better now, and he’d figured out his gameplan. He felt ready to extort money from a local politican again.
They pulled in against the corner of the street. The premier’s house was just visible, a big brick and smoked glass behemoth that screamed money. It was getting dark, but they’d agreed on eight o’clock as an arbitrary doorbell time. Five minutes to.
Jonny was nervous, and so he was talking. “Why do you hit the iron so much? I mean, really. Why? You have someone you need to shit-kick?”
Ty hadn’t thought of it that way. “Sort of. Sort of do it to exorcise.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jonny snorted. “Smart ass. I know.” But he didn’t.
Both of them watched the dashboard clock like a time bomb. When it hit eight, Jonny hissed through his teeth and keyed the ignition. They crept out and forward, down the street. The premier’s house had a wide driveway. Pristine basketball hoop. Aquamarine glow from the back, where pool lights were just switching on. Ty looked up at the windows and wondered whose room was whose. Jonny shoved a wooly ski mask into his hands.
“Only tug it down at the door,” he suggested.
“Alright.”
“Just up and ring the doorbell,” Jonny said. “Like Halloween. Trick-or-treat. That’s a big thing over here, right? Dress up? You ever go as a burglar?”
“A cowboy,” Ty said. “Every fucking year.”
He pulled the ski mask onto his head and went to the door. Jonny kept the engine running. When he came back to the car with a grocery bag full of cash, they peeled away like bats out of hell.
* * *
Ty caught him on the way to the city bus stop. He was small and skinny for seventeen. Twitchy-looking, but nothing that made it easy to imagine him sitting with lip-gloss on in front of a laptop, or telling anonymous screen-names that he wanted out, at least to his mother, but wasn’t ready.
“Hey, excuse me. Need to talk to you for a second.”
The kid turned around. His bookbag migrated to the other shoulder, where it would be harder to snatch. Ty was used to that. The kid was wearing makeup, liberally applied, but the blue bruise showed through.
“You need money for hormone replacement, right?” Ty asked.
His eyes went wide. He smoothed a hand along his hair and cast around, like someone else might be listening with a clipboard. “What?”
“And to get out of the house. Your dad beat on you pretty hard. Don’t take that shit.”
The boy’s fingers flew to his eye. “Who the hell are you?”
Ty gathered up his guts and pulled the wad of cash out of his jacket. “If this is what you really want, take some cash. You have someone to stay with? Like, safe?”
“Yeah,” the kid muttered. He stared at the cash, hand on his hair again. “I’ve been, um, talking to my cousin. She’s on the coast. Who the hell are you?”
“I gave up on solving that right about when I hit six feet and grew stubble.”
Understanding flashed onto the boy’s face. “You?” Surprise, and a needle of scorn that Ty wanted to slap out of his mouth.
“Yeah, me.” Ty grabbed the bookbag and stuffed the money inside.
“But, you—” The boy stared into the bag. “Oh. I just, you know, I wouldn’t have guessed.”
A pause.
“Good luck,” Ty said gruffly. He wanted to say more. It was a gamble, and maybe the kid was picking wrong. Maybe Ty’d picked right, and a few more lifts would make him perfect in another way, a better way, and he could forget everything else.
Ty didn’t say more. He put his earbuds in and forgot that he had ever seen the kid in his life.
