Beautiful Children Read online

  Was there any way to jump-start a libido quicker? Any other place on the planet that instantly offered the chance to reverse fortune and end losing streaks, the chance to set right a lifetime of disappointments? How could one read the gracious message—welcome to fabulous las vegas, nevada—and feel anything but tingling anticipation?

  1.5

  The first pulse, high-pitched and melodic, caused each young man to reach toward his waist. By the time phones were out, the customized ring tone had distinguished itself.

  “Shit. Whenever I'm about to do anything—”

  Checking the screen confirmed what he already knew to be true. Newell brought the device to the side of his face and did not wait for a greeting. “Ten more minutes?” he asked. His eyes found Kenny, rolled for his friend's benefit. “Mom? Maaawwwmm. . . . Come awhnnn—”

  “But you said FOUR. It's only—”

  He scanned for the store clock, saw what time it was, and expelled air through his nose. His hip slung to the side. Newell went silent and sullen. He listened.

  “I know,” he admitted. “I know. . . . But he just got here, Mom. . . . I been waiting all summer for this. I mean, that's the whole—

  “No,” he said, brusquely. “I know it's not your fault he was late. . . . All right. . . . All right. All right already, FAWCK.”

  Slamming the device shut, Newell stomped away from Kenny, shoved the glass door with enough force to whip its metal guard against the store's outside wall, and ignored the banging impact, trudging outside, into the vivid brightness. Beneath a sun-beaten awning, the boy paused on a stretch of shaded cement, near three complicated-looking mountain bikes, each of their front treads locked into a slot on the dull metal rack. Newell feebly kicked the nearest tire, and took in the relative stillness, the shopping center's long rows of parked cars, metallic surfaces gleaming beneath the unforgiving sun. He put his hands on his hips, cocked his head. Defiance gave way to a plunging inevitability as his eyes trained on a single object: gliding like a wraith along a long row of parked cars and light posts, taking each speed bump with methodical ease.

  Store bells jingled behind him; a presence arrived next to him. Newell continued his surveillance.

  “It's not fair,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I wanted to be here to see.”

  “You were here. I was late.”

  The boy remained still as a rock, then exhaled air through his nose, snorting. “But I never get to do anything.”

  His holster was clipped into jean shorts that, by design, were far too baggy for his body. When he jammed the phone back into place, the fabric slid down, just a bit. Newell gave a halfhearted smirk, watching as the black luxury sedan slowed, pulling toward the curb. Presently, its heavily tinted driver-side window descended. In the newly created opening, a salad of strawberry blond hair tossed lightly. Reflective lenses of designer sunglasses danced with light.

  The last time she'd ventured inside Amazin’ Stories, her tanned flesh had all but spilled out of her baby-blue swimsuit top, and her wraparound sarong had been clinging to her in something straight out of a sophomoric dream. Newell still got upset about the way the whole store had gone dead, and he refused to let anyone so much as bring up the subject of his mother. Still, on the rare occasion when Kenny sensed his young friend was in a receptive mood, and wouldn't freak out too bad, he'd remind Newell of harmless details—like how the flip-flops had matched her toenail polish. He did it only when they were alone, though—around other people Kenny got flustered; even around Newell he wasn't exactly vocal, a clamped fist that refused to open. And if there was even a hint that Newell had taken his joke the wrong way, he'd retreat, mollifying the boy, claiming he understood why Newell's mom had to pick him up in the parking lot. That having a prearranged signal was a super idea.

  Kenny stared over at the sedan, its engine idling with barely contained power. After a long moment, embossed lips smiled tightly in return.

  “Hey,” he said, addressing Newell casually, almost absently. “What are you doing later?”

  “Dickfuck. Why?”

  “I thought, dunno, we could—a movie? Maybe just drive around. Hang or whatever. I mean, it still won't be anything, but, you know, something.”

  Newell's freckles turned a deeper color, and it looked as if his face were glowing, lit from inside. “For reals?” Newell asked. “Dude. Aww. You rule.”

  “I have to get my aunt from work. Figure I'll come by between seven and eight—”

  The bleat that interrupted them was short, and sharp, and scattered small black birds from their lamppost perch. “I gotta go,” Newell said. After pounding Kenny's hand with his fist, he took off, a spark in his stride now, this coherent, optimistic agility. His shorts were slipping but he did nothing to stop them. Before disappearing into the backseat, he quickly looked back and over his shoulder. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he called, “Don't wuss out.”

  The sky that afternoon was perfect and blue and stretched endlessly in all directions, and it was as if the day's brightness and intensity brought each detail into a crystalline focus: the onetime franchise diner from an era of ice cream socials; the massive main lot, just a bit more than half-filled, most of the cars showing themselves as white, gray, light blue, or some other color the sun could not ruin. Kenny stood there for endless seconds, letting the last shouts (“Yeaah boiiey! You the man!”) fade. He dutifully watched the sedan disappear into traffic, brushed a stray coagulation of hair from his eyes, felt the sun wide across the middle of his forehead and in a sharper crease between his eyes; he felt anonymous, a loneliness gripping him, this sense of intense emptiness—rooted in his stomach, it spread outward, threatening to swallow him whole. At the same time, Kenny felt something else: the small and penetrating type of failure that comes exclusively when a person must face a question, the answer of which terrifies him.

  Kenny's hands were clammy; and he realized that at some point during his conversation with Newell, he had rolled his drawings up into a tight scroll. He dropped to one knee now, and pain flared where he made contact with the sidewalk, and he began smoothing out the damp pieces of paper. Then he wiped his hands on his T-shirt. His head ducked; simultaneously, his arm raised. A quick whiff. Of all days to forget deodorant.

  A few months before the World Trade Center was attacked, an angry man of Arabic descent told a librarian in Hamburg, Germany, Thousands will be dead and you will think of me. This warning reminded Bing Beiderbixxe of one issued from that high school parking lot—You don't want to be at school today. I'm telling you because I like you. And that line never failed to lead Bing back to something he'd read in one of his favorite novels: Beckett is the last major writer to shape the way we think and see. After him, the major works involve midair explosions and crumbling buildings. This is the new tragic narrative.

  He did not know what, if anything, any of it meant, if those examples weren't just cases where coincidence and human nature created overlapping similarities. Lots of times, the conclusion a person makes tells you more about how they think, as opposed to revealing any kind of grand scheme. After all, someone steps on a butterfly, that doesn't mean he caused an earthquake halfway across the world. Only, this was not butterflies and this was not earthquakes.

  Bing Beiderbixxe was now three months shy of his twenty-fifth birthday and nowhere near the finished and mature person he wanted to be; yet he honestly could claim he was working on it, evolving, taking the slow and arduous baby steps that were mandatory for the transition from self-consciousness to self-awareness, coming into the distance necessary to have some perspective on his past, all that self-help shit. Problem was, at the same time, he was slaving away on an undertaking that just wasn't succeeding, a project that, no matter how good an idea it might have been, just wasn't getting through. Two weekends of each month in a storefront in some strip mall, wasting his afternoons at fold-out autograph tables, sitting beneath too bright halogen lights and dealing with obsessive types who
believed that maybe one day his autograph on the first issue of this failing comic book would be worth something, four hours at a time, making small talk with college kids who had little else to do, staring at primitive drawings made by young men who thought his job was glamorous, slugoids who for whatever reason wanted his career, wanted to be Bing—which they were more than welcome to be, only then Bing would have to figure out what the hell else he was going to do.

  Bing smiled big and pretty. “No,” he said, “of course I don't mind personalizing the greeting. To whom do I make this out?”

  Searching for his pen, he made light of his forgetfulness, then scribbled out yet another signature, and asked, What's it like living here in Vegas?

  Shy teenagers shrugged and said they'd grown up here, they didn't have anything to compare Las Vegas to. Know-it-alls looked at Bing like he was batshit crazy, as if he'd asked them what it was like to live in Crapsville, North Dakota.

  Whatever they said, Bing listened. However strangely they acted, he responded with practiced sincerity and understanding and the momentary pretense of thought. Beiderbixxe the Curious. Bing the Attentive. A final sip of his Big Slam. Another bite of a high-protein energy bar that tasted like a combination of chocolate and chalk.

  Surely life had to hold more than this! Rock and movie stars got nubile groupies in thong underwear, after all. Rappers traveled with posses of Uzi-toting steel-fanged homies. Even young women with acoustic guitars and songs of female teen angst didn't do so badly, attracting younger women with glandular problems and metal lunch boxes stuffed with dead white roses. But your friendly neighborhood comic book illustrator? All he got were these long-haired mongoloids, lurking in the background, trying to summon the intestinal fortitude to approach him. How the Bingster yearned to break free of labels and limitations! How much more than a simple illustrator he knew himself to be: a scholar and a gentleman, a chronicler of metaphysical conundrums, and a devotee of historical arcana. Did the surrounding flotsam have the slightest idea that Der Bingelot not only had built, but maintained and governed, his own virtual Roman empire? That he was now proficient in JavaScript, HTML, C++, and rudimentary bump mapping? That after only two months on free weights, he had lost five pounds while increasing his arm-curl workout by ten?

  And did any of his so-called fans, in any way, shape or form, know which burlesque house was nearest his motel?

  The espadrille eased down onto the gas pedal, moved to the brake, and did the same thing, the sedan inching ahead. Lorraine stared forward, without energy. In front of her, a blood-red pickup sat high on raised tires, its gleaming bumper festooned with stickers. One announced that freedom was not free. Another promoted 92.3 KOMP as the rock of Las Vegas. Especially eye-catching was the sketchy outline of a spike-haired boy—he had a devilish look, and was urinating, in an arcing stream, onto the name of a foreign automaker.

  Ahead a bit and to the left, some poor bastard was standing in front of a raised hood, waving through black-and-white billows. But he wasn't responsible for all the gridlock. It was a gruesome scene, spanning all four lanes in each direction, with rows of brake lights and blinkers washed out by the sun, and an oppressive glare reflecting off hoods and windows. Even the air along the road was gray and dingy and gross, for pollutants had collected for months without any rainfall to wash them away. Median foliage, fortified by so much carbon dioxide, was in full bloom and covered in soot, with the weaker, newer branches buckling beneath layers of dirt. Mobile calls constantly juxtaposed and faded. Kerosene mirages were not uncommon.

  Lorraine checked her rearview and silently cursed her judgment, taking Sahara in the middle of the afternoon. By the time she'd seen this was the wrong decision, it had been too late. Now she was stuck, halfway up the overpass, unable to tell what color that traffic signal was. She guessed it didn't matter. Listlessly, she flicked the switch for her turn signal.

  Halfway down the backseat, Newell was hunched over something or other, sulking maybe, perhaps manipulating a handheld stylus, playing one of his games. Was it possible he was immersing himself in the pages of some comic book? Perish the thought. He'd just come from a comic book store, absurd to think he'd be looking at a comic book. At least then he'd be reading. Lorraine adjusted her rearview mirror.

  “Quit staring,” he said.

  She chalked it up to his age. Almost twelve and a half, the boy liked to brag, as if the six months made a difference, as if anyone besides his mother cared. That stretch where he would rather drink urine than sit up front with her. Like Muhammad coming down from the mountain if he deigned to argue about which radio station's commercials he wanted to hear. Whatever he was doing back there, it was sure to ruin his posture, keep him preoccupied for a little while.

  “What? Quit it.”

  Jesus. She was never going to get into that lane.

  Within sight yet impossibly far away, the intersection's two nearest corners were anchored by convenience stores, while its two far corners were occupied by gas stations. The convenience stores had gas pumps, the gas stations had mart attachments, and each of their bright color schematics promised pleasure and reliability, a smile with your receipt or your money back—if you could manage to make it three blocks.

  “Momz?”

  . . .

  “Mamasita?”

  “So you're talking to me now?”

  “Come aww-hhn.”

  “You know the rules.”

  “Please. Pleeeeezzze.”

  “The doctor says—”

  “FPhhf.”

  “And your teachers—”

  “FFFFfffphhhfffft.”

  “Well,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “I think skim milk is tasty.”

  “Knock yourself out, then. Don't let me stop you.”

  “Besides, it looks to me like you're already sugared to your hyperactive little jowls.”

  “MOM.”

  She could not help but laugh a little, feeling a small measure of satisfation, and eased her foot, for a pulse, onto the gas. “What's the matter, sweetie, the way you dish it out—”

  He was brooding, pushing his hand on his cheek. Was he really checking to see if he had jowls? The possibility was so cute that Lorraine felt her heart break.

  “You know, maybe if you'd stop being obnoxious, you might be allowed to get Slurpees.”

  “YEAH. Maybe I'll do that. OKAY. And maybe I'll grow lips on my butt. I won't need a Slurpee then. I'll spend all day kissing my own—”

  “Language.”

  A rancher with a comb-over had been checking her out for a while. From his secondhand Ford, he waved her into the lane. Lorraine thanked him with a dip into the shallow end of her endless reservoir of forced smiles. Still good-looking enough to set hayseeds and horny teenagers drooling, it was true. Her palm guiding the steering wheel, she flashed a glance at herself in the rearview mirror, and immediately fixated on small truths she could not avoid: eyes that stayed rigid around the corners; cheekbones that used to smile easily through kick steps, now puttyish.

  “You know, Newell, you don't have to get anything.”

  “What do any of us have to do? Huh, Ma?”

  “Don't be smart.”

  “Rilly. Why are we here?”

  A terse smile. She kept her foot flexed on the brake. Was it the worst question?

  “We are here,” Lorraine said, “because your perfect mother made the mistake of turning onto this road in the middle of the afternoon. That is why we are here.”

  “He could have taken me home, you know.”

  She felt an aftertaste in her mouth, perhaps the onset of car nausea, and dutifully flicked the console, turning the air-conditioning system to a lower setting. A look in the rearview showed her son was actually staring back, waiting on an answer. She puckered her lips, checked her lipstick.

  “How many times have I told you—”

  He answered with a snort.

  “Well, maybe if you explain it to me again? He's old enough to drive, b
ut still hangs out in comic stores?”

  “Maaa.”

  “How about we change the subject. How was this week's . . . drawer? Did he do the . . . autographs? Like you wanted?”

  “I don't even care about him. Bonerbite's lame. You should see the stuff Kenny's been doing.”

  “Something else, Newell.”

  “Serious, though. It's awesome. And he's cool to me. I don't—”

  “I said . . .”

  A vacant lot between two of the strip malls on the near side of the street: tumbleweeds and jetsam and landfill; a chipped fiery bird painted across the weathered hood of an orange Camaro, a small black-and-red for sale by owner sign taped to the tinted windshield. One one thousand, Lorraine counted, a trick that allowed her to control her anger. Two one thousand. With a measured, almost forced cheeriness, she said: “You understand there's a dramatic age difference between you and Kenny.”

  The boy kept staring out of the window. A strong vein down the side of his neck tensed.

  “He's nice enough, Newell. I'm not disagreeing with you, honey. But I don't think I'm being unreasonable, wanting to know where you two are going tonight.”

  Broken glass sparkled in random constellations; the outline of tract homes and subdivisions through the background was faint, but undeniably present, the purple mountain ranges apathetic across the far distance.

  “Newell?”

  . . .

  “At least explain why I'm so out of line, then.”

  . . .

  “A phone number. Where his mother can be reached.”

  His silence broke softly, with the declaration: “He doesn't have parents, Mom.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “I'm sorry, honey. I didn't know.”

  “He's a mutant sewer dweller.”

  “NEWELL.”

  “A total perv.”

  “YOUNG MAN.”