Love Creeps: A Novel Read online

  “But I’m cold!” Alan said.

  Ray shrugged. “Well, then, decide which discomfort you dislike most. If you hate being thirsty, tired, and hungry, then stop moving. If being cold is even worse for you, then move.”

  Lynn and Alan did not move. Roland moved. Ray was doing something in between.

  Alan said, “Damn that girl who started the fire in my building, interrupting my suicide attempt. I could be happily dead right now, instead of dying.”

  Eventually, in an effort to warm up further, they each took turns being in the middle of their circle, while the other three huddled around him or her.

  They slept a little during the night, despite their fear of sharks. When the sun rose, they noticed Lynn had lost her hat. The men thought they ought to be gentlemanly and take turns lending her their hats. Roland and Alan debated which of them should give her extra time with his hat. Alan said he should be allowed to lend her his hat less time because he was bald and because she was his stalker. He said Roland should lend her his hat more of the time, because he was her stalker and should want to please her.

  Roland said, “But I have black hair. Black attracts the heat more than a bald white head.”

  “But my head will burn,” Alan said. “I’ll get a terrible sunburn as well as a sunstroke. Plus, you’re her stalker. You should lend her your hat! Can’t you do at least that for the person you’re supposedly obsessed with? I mean, what kind of obsession is this, anyway?”

  “It’s true,” said Lynn to Roland. “What kind of puny, wimpy, selfish obsession is this, anyway?”

  Roland threw his hat in her face.

  “Ah, that is so refreshing!” Lynn said. “Does this mean you’ll stop stalking me?” She put the hat on her head.

  “I’m getting tempted,” Roland said.

  “Bravo!” Alan said. “And what about you, Lynn, are you getting tempted to stop stalking me?”

  “Yes, but for other reasons. I just can’t believe I’m here. It’s stalking that brought me here. I don’t want to waste my life anymore.”

  “Why are we even speaking as if we assume we’re going to live?”

  “We have no choice,” Ray said. “How could we go on otherwise?”

  “How could we not?” Roland rested his head against the puffy red life vest and closed his eyes. “It’s not as if we have a swift means of self-deliverance at our disposal.”

  The three nuts got pissed off that Ray had not secretly arranged for them to be rescued. It was hard for Ray to convince them that no, he had not. They found it difficult to believe that he would risk giving up his good new life with a home and a revenue-generating occupation. They felt he was much more insane than they were.

  During the day they saw two boats, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and both in the far, far distance. They waved both times. Neither boat saw them.

  “Max was so smart, the way he killed himself quickly, with cyanide,” Lynn said.

  “Now that’s going out in luxury,” Alan agreed. “It’s like taking the Concorde to death. Whereas we’re getting there on the back of a tortoise.”

  “Speed can be one of the most luxurious things in the world,” Lynn said.

  Roland was not so interested in the topic, since he had murdered Max. “I know what our outcome will be,” he said, to change the subject.

  “How would you know?” Alan asked.

  “I just know. I will die, and you will all live.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I’m not a good person.”

  “So? We know you’re not a good person. You’re a complete jerk. But do you think life is fair?” Alan asked.

  “No, but I’m even worse than you think.”

  “Oh yeah? How?”

  Roland sighed. “I have a huge capacity to hate. And I act on it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Alan. “You could be ten times more evil than you are, and that doesn’t mean you’re more likely to die than us, unfortunately. And it also doesn’t mean you’re less likely to have a happy life. That’s how life is. It sucks. This isn’t some Hollywood movie we’re living in. This is life. Which means you’ll probably live long and be happy, will never get punished for your assholiness, will never get what’s coming to you, will not reap what you sow, and we the good people will probably be miserable or die young.”

  Lynn and Ray nodded in agreement.

  “I appreciate your efforts at comforting me,” Roland said.

  “It’s the grim truth,” Alan said.

  “Why don’t they make more movies where the bad guys don’t get punished? I mean, it’s so much more realistic,” Lynn said.

  “Because it’s depressing,” Ray said.

  “That’s true,” Roland said. “Why would people want to see anyone get away with murder?”

  “Because it’s real. How’s that?” cried Alan. “Don’t you think people could handle it? Don’t you think it would in fact be beneficial to society to be aware that the world sucks?”

  “They do know,” answered Ray. “They just don’t want to be reminded of it in their entertainment. It’s not pleasant.”

  “Well, except for the Europeans,” said Roland, treading the ocean with an air of superiority.

  “What do you mean?” Ray asked.

  “They frequently have two different endings for movies—the ending for the American market, and the ending for the rest of the world. In The Big Blue, the hero at the end drowns in the ocean, but for the American release, they made him swim off into the sunset with a dolphin.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Alan said.

  “It’s true! You can rent it, if you survive,” said Roland.

  Lynn said to Alan, “Don’t you wish you were in a movie—an American one—so you wouldn’t have to die in the ocean, and Roland would get punished for what a jerk he is?”

  When Roland woke from his nap, they all began fantasizing about the things they’d do with their lives if they got rescued.

  “I want to meet new people, eat succulent foods,” said Lynn. “I want to indulge in all sorts of physical pleasures. Each second of every day is an opportunity to indulge in something incredible.”

  “Sounds like you’re definitely over your desire problem,” said Roland.

  “Of course. I was over that ages ago.”

  “If I live through this, I’m getting more pets,” said Alan.

  “Pets? What kinds? More rats?” asked Ray.

  “I don’t know. But I wanna lotta pets.”

  “But why?”

  “For the warmth and the love, I guess.” After a moment, he said, “God, I need my hat back, my head is burning. It’s someone else’s turn.”

  Roland was looking away, as if lost in thought, even though he knew it was his turn to give Lynn his hat. When he heard no sound, he glanced at Ray, who was looking at him with an urging expression.

  “I have black hair,” said Roland.

  Sneering slightly at Roland, Ray gave Lynn his hat.

  Sneering slightly at Roland as well, she said, “Thanks, Ray.”

  Alan scooped water in his hat and put his hat on his head. “Ahhh,” he said with pleasure, as the water cascaded down his face.

  “If I pull through this,” Ray said, “I want to see more movies, make more money, and be dry. Maybe take a vacation in a really, really dry place. Dry and shady. Maybe a desert, under a tent.”

  They waited for Roland to volunteer his desires. He didn’t.

  “What about you?” Ray asked him. “Is there anything you’re dying to do if you survive this?”

  “Interesting word choice,” Roland said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m dying to get a refill,” Roland said.

  “A refill?” said Ray. “Of what?”

  “Something I used to have.”

  “Which was?” Alan asked.

  “Oh, something that used to make me feel powerful, unique,” Roland said.

  “A d
rug?” Lynn asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “Which one?”

  “It’s personal,” Roland said.

  “What effect did it have?” Lynn asked.

  “It could create a state, the prospect of which was pleasant.”

  “The prospect of which? But not the actuality?” said Lynn.

  “Well, who knows about the actuality,” Roland said.

  “What?” said Alan. “Then what are you talking about? I don’t get it.”

  Roland shrugged, didn’t answer.

  “But you would take it now, if you had it with you?” asked Lynn.

  “Maybe,” Roland said. “Or I might wait till things got a little worse.”

  “How much worse do things have to get before you’d seek comfort?”

  “Having the option to take it would be a huge comfort. But taking it introduces you to a new way of being that you can’t really recover from.”

  “It damages you?” asked Lynn.

  “I’m not interested in this line of questioning,” Roland said. “All I know is that I was a fool not to get a refill. This whole ridiculous situation would be so much easier to bear if I had the refill with me right now.”

  “Thank God at least we have each other,” said Alan. “Can you imagine how much worse things would be if we were each alone in this ocean? I mean, on top of not having the refill? We wouldn’t have these amazing conversations to pass the time.”

  “Is that supposed to be a sarcastic, yet deep, thought, Alan?” asked Roland.

  “Maybe.”

  To everyone’s surprise, Roland took out of his shorts pocket a pack of tuna fish. As soon as they understood that he had no intention of sharing, they said his tuna would attract sharks, and they quickly unclipped themselves from the circle of terry-cloth belts and swam away from him in a healthy fashion. Roland gobbled down his tuna, and rejoined them, holding the limp circle out to them, urging them to clip themselves back to it. He preferred enduring their insults to being alone in the ocean.

  Lynn lost consciousness first, or fell asleep, after they had been in the ocean a day and five hours. Roland suggested spitting in her mouth, to hydrate her. But they ended up not doing it, because they had never heard of such a thing.

  She regained consciousness forty-five minutes later, just in time to hear Ray rant and rave about the stupidity of having jumped in the ocean. He was cursing himself for having thought of the idea and cursing them for having been persuaded.

  “You guys are so malleable, I swear!” he said. “How could you have followed the advice of a homeless person? You guys are insane! Now we’re all going to die because of it.”

  Lynn lost consciousness again two hours later. And when she regained it, she was the first to notice a boat the others hadn’t yet seen.

  They began waving wildly, but the boat had already spotted them and was coming for them. It stopped a short distance away. The motor was switched off. Six people were standing at the railing, staring down at them. They looked welcoming.

  “Do you need help?” a distinguished-looking older man shouted at them.

  “Yes, very much so,” Ray shouted back hoarsely.

  “Well, come on board,” the man said, waving them to the back of the boat.

  With eager exhaustion, the four survivors swam the length of the one-hundred-foot yacht, toward the back, where the distinguished man was lowering a ladder.

  As they climbed, the name of the boat, written in giant letters, loomed before them: Eyeball.

  The moment Ray’s toe exited the water, his mood changed, his spirits soared. He and his nuts had done it! The experience had been invaluable! They would now reap the benefits.

  “Sit back and enjoy,” he told Lynn, Alan, and Roland as they climbed out after him. “Relish the magic. Few moments in your life will ever be as wonderful as this. Try to imprint it on your memory. Notice the ecstasy you’re experiencing right now. Savor every nuance of it.”

  “You’re not acting very dehydrated,” remarked Lynn, who was barely able to stand.

  They were given water and dropped off in Nassau. A cab took them over the bridge to their hotel on Paradise Island. They showered and put on dry clothes.

  They each, in his or her own room, ordered room service. Lynn remembered a picture book, from her childhood, that said you weren’t supposed to gorge yourself when you hadn’t eaten in two days or you could get sick. Lynn ordered pasta and a shrimp-stuffed avocado. Alan ordered two cheeseburgers; Roland a steak, wine, cheese, and a chocolate mousse; and Ray ordered conch chowder, pasta, and a disgusting pineapple soufflé.

  Lynn would have preferred not to be alone at that moment, but being alone was better than being with them. She’d have been happy with a good friend near her, like Patricia.

  Alan was thinking about little other than his bodily needs. He wanted to eat and sleep as soon as possible.

  Roland felt disgusted with himself for having gone along with these freaks. He felt embarrassed.

  Lynn, Alan, and Roland all felt the same way about one thing. They were thinking, Never toy with life. Never take life for granted and squander it. As they heard the things they were telling themselves, they realized that it had worked. This new attitude was exactly the one they had been hoping to acquire.

  After eating, they each put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on their doors and slept.

  Fifteen

  For a while their existence was diminished and enhanced at the same time. The smallest elements of everyday life seemed heavenly compared to floating in the ocean. They were so appreciative of the slightest things, that they settled for small things. At home they each sat in bed, and the mere feel of the sheets against their skin (in Alan’s case, the rat’s fur against his cheek) was bliss. They felt they could live like this for fifty years and be perfectly content, need nothing else out of life. They slept a lot. And they enjoyed walking. Walking on the hard ground was practically orgasmic.

  The stalking chain had dissolved in the ocean. The nuts were too tired to care about stalking each other. And when the tiredness faded, the prospect of stalking still seemed tiresome, repetitive, monotonous, a waste of time—not entirely unlike bobbing in the ocean. Life was too short for stalking.

  Lynn wanted to forget her ocean experience and resume normal life as quickly and thoroughly as possible. She wanted to drench herself in normalcy and routine. If routine were a liquid, she’d love to take a bath in it. No, scratch that—too close to their ordeal.

  She went to the hateful dinner she had been hoping to avoid through death, feeling self-conscious about her appearance. Her hair was dry and damaged from having soaked so long in the sea, and her skin didn’t look its freshest. But Ray had been right: The dreaded dinner wasn’t so bad compared to bobbing in the ocean for days. The host’s obsequiousness struck her as charming.

  As for Ray, he continued working on his matchmaking business Chock Full O’Nuts, which was as successful as ever. He loved how his ocean ordeal had sensitized him to the pleasures of life and desensitized him to its discomforts and pitfalls and bad days. He was so excited about it, he could hardly contain himself and was certain that in a year or so he’d want to do it again. Life was too short not to—even though doing it might shorten it more.

  Ray was glad that the nuts didn’t seem obsessed with each other anymore. His only disappointment was that because they no longer needed anything more than solid ground, they seemed a bit vacant, like shadows of their former selves. Maybe that was what sanity was—a less heightened self.

  But that state didn’t last long. The divine perspective they had acquired thanks to the grueling ocean experience wore off soon enough, as it tragically always does. As they lost the perspective, their appetite for more than solid ground was reawakened. They did some of the things they’d told each other they’d do if they survived.

  Alan purchased more pets. In addition to his rat, he now had a rabbit, a dog, and a ferret.

  Roland went to France to vis
it his dad and ask him for a refill of cyanide. When his dad asked him what happened to the cyanide in his locket, Roland said he’d emptied his locket one day when policemen were searching everyone in a park where a crime had just been committed. His father told Roland he’d made the right decision, that one could get into a lot of trouble for carrying cyanide around. He gave his son a refill. Roland’s father had a small cyanide-filled chest that had been passed down for many generations, along with the lockets. It was useful when lockets were emptied for various reasons.

  A month after her oceanic experience, Lynn was standing in line with Patricia at the local bakery when she heard, behind her, an attractive male voice uttering her secret, “real” name.

  She could not get herself to turn around. She just grabbed Patricia’s arm and squeezed hard.

  “What?” Patricia said.

  Lynn didn’t answer, she let it pass and walked out of the bakery looking away from the voice. Lynn realized she would never know who it was. Perhaps that was better than being disappointed.

  Later that afternoon, at the gallery, Patricia asked Lynn why she seemed so melancholy, and Lynn said it was because she had been within touching range of the man of her dreams, and not only had she not touched him, she hadn’t even looked at him.

  “When?”

  “In the bakery, when I grabbed your arm.”

  “Which guy was it?”

  “I don’t know, but I heard him behind us say to someone, ‘I love that scary elephant.’”

  “That guy? I know who he is, Lynn. He’s your neighbor. If he’s the man of your dreams, you certainly haven’t lost him. In fact, you’ve probably seen him around. I’ve often meant to ask you what you thought of him, because he seemed like your type.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not really. But he’s cute.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He works at the flower shop, three doors down, but you never buy flowers, so maybe you’ve never seen him.”

  Lynn ran out the door.

  Lynn entered the flower shop. There was a man in a far corner, sitting on a chair, working with string and flowers. He was an average-looking man with a gray mustache. She approached him, looking at him gently, her head tilted sideways, her expression generous. He looked up and smiled at her.