Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 03

"I can if you help."

He came around and together they got Shane out of the car and standing, Shane waking somewhat, and they took her inside. They gentled her onto an examination table, and Barbara called in a nurse who still hadn't left for the day.

"Harvey, you better wait outside," Barbara said, as she and the nurse began to undress Shane. "We're going to be a while."

More than two hours later, Barbara Cranshaw came out to the waiting area, and found Harvey dozing in front of the TV. She sat down next to him as he woke up and sat up.

"How is she?"

Barbara shrugged. "Compared to what? I'd like to see her hospitalized somewhere overnight for observation, but like you said, she said she'd just run away if we tried that. Said she didn't want any chance of police finding out and getting involved."

Harvey nodded. "That's what she told me, too. So that's why I came here."

"Like I suspected, she has a mild concussion. Somebody slugged her pretty good. The whole left side of her face is going to be black and blue by tomorrow morning. Her left eye is almost swollen shut, although it isn't injured itself. She'd been slapped around. And of course she's been repeatedly sodomized, orally and anally. There was no vaginal penetration whatsoever. Which is kind of weird for a gangbang. She told me she'd been kidnapped by two men, and chained to a bed in a motel somewhere, and they had her a couple of times each. Then they called a friend, and he had a turn with her. Oral, anal, and sometimes both at the same time. I started taking swab samples for the rape kit, but I realized the futility of it. There was plenty of semen, in her and on her, but it was all cross-contaminated, and there's no way any lab could find a way to sequence it out to identify any one rapist, so what's the point? None of it can be used in court.

"Her rectum was torn, and she needed some stitches. There's going to be a big risk of infection, and we're going to have to be careful for a few days. If you won't get her hospitalized, them I'm going to have to see her back here at least once a day for two or three days. I asked her where she lives, and she said she didn't know. Meaning, I guess, she lives on the street somewhere, or in some crack house, or wherever these kids go. I guess the good news is she isn't injecting anything. She doesn't have any tracks marks, and no scars of any."

"She can stay at my house," Harvey said. "I'll bring her back for the check-ups."

"Harvey," Barbara said. "You're gay. And wealthy. And you play the violin in the philharmonic. What the hell are you doing with a down-and-dirty street hooker? She's not even the right gender for you."

Harvey sighed. "It's a long story, Barbara, and not especially relevant. Let's just say she's a friend of mine, that's all. She needed my help, so I decided to give it to her."

"My god," Barbara said in mock astonishment. "A Good Samaritan! In fucking Los Angeles, California, of all places. Harvey, is this some sort of reclamation project? Does this have anything to do with Jack?"

Harvey shrugged. "Jack's dead," he said.

"That wasn't my question."

"Look, I picked her up a couple of times, just quick and casual, only I thought she was a guy. She pretended to be a guy, called herself Tommi, with an 'i' at the end of it."

"For Christ's sake, Harvey, she was wearing a strap-on."

"Yeah, but I didn't know that. He never got undressed, I never got undressed, I never even touched him. Her. It was just quick stuff, five, ten minutes, with condoms and rubber gloves, like you doctors wear."

"Latex. The gloves are latex."

"Whatever. And then sometimes we'd go get a latte, or I'd buy him, her, lunch, if she looked like she hadn't eaten in a few days, which she never had."

"Harvey, you picked up a cross-dressing street faggot and then took her to lunch at Starbucks? God. Men. You guys are so ... ." Barbara just shook her head. "Harvey, what about AIDS, what about diseases? You know how many STDs these kids carry?"

"I told you, she used condoms and gloves. There was never any skin-to-skin contact, no body fluids."

Barbara turned to him, put her hand on his shoulder. "Will you do me a favor? Will you get tested? Even if you don't think you need it? Harvey, this is Russian Roulette you're playing."

Harvey nodded. "I miss Jack," he said.

"I know, baby. I miss him, too. How long's it been? Two years?"

"Twenty-seven months."

"That's a sufficiently long time to grieve, Harvey. And I bet you haven't started dating again, have you? You should. There's a lot of men out there. You need somebody. This ... thing, this picking up street hustlers, it isn't sex, it isn't dating, it isn't love, and it isn't even companionship."

"Everybody needs a hobby," Harvey said.

"Very funny. Okay, I won't lecture you anymore. You already know everything I'm telling you. We've been friends a long time, and I just want to see you be happy, that's all."

"I know. I thank you for that."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"When's the next concert?"

"Two weeks."

"What are you playing?"

"Mussorgsky, Night on Bald Mountain. And Copland, Quiet City."

"I love those pieces."

"Me, too. Especially Copland. I'll get you tickets. You want four, like last time?"

"Could you get five? My sister's coming in from Ohio."

"Sure, no problem."

***

It was long after midnight when Dr. Cranshaw let Harvey take Shane home, because Barbara was worried about the concussion. Harvey got her into his car and drove home. Barbara had wrapped Shane's head in a bandage mainly to cover up her swollen eye. She was woozy and sleepy, and Harvey half-walked, half-carried her into the house, a modern single-story rancher behind a fence on the side of the hill with a terrific view over the city – on a clear day. Barbara and the nurse had cleaned up Shane somewhat, but she was still smelly and still had some remnants of her ordeal on her. Barbara told Harvey Shane could bath in the morning as long as she kept dry the bandage on her head and the one around her abraded wrist. Harvey decided not to wait, however, and took Shane into the big master bathroom. He ran the bath water and carefully undressed Shane, who was virtually motionless and uncaring. Shane was skinny, pale, boney, malnourished: Harvey couldn't help thinking she looked like a concentration camp survivor, which broke his Jewish heart. He helped her get into the tub, made sure she kept her bandaged wrist out of the water, and gently washed her. He opened the drain and as the water ran out he used the shower wand to carefully rinse her off as she stood holding on to the safety bar. Her nakedness bothered neither of them. From a sexual point of view, neither one would be remotely interested even under better circumstances. Harvey debated whether to put her into the guest bedroom, but decided instead that he'd better remain close by, just in case. He led her naked into the master bedroom and sat her on the edge of his big king-size bed.

"Don't move," he said. He went into a big walk-in closet and came back out with a big T-shirt that said "SoCal Pops Philharmonic" on it. The T-shirt had belonged to Jack, who had been a tall man. Harvey gently slipped it over Shane's head and got her arms into the sleeves. When she stood, the T-shirt came to mid-thigh. Even so, he got a clean pair of his own boxers and put them on her, even though they were way too big. He got a safety pin and pinned the waist so they didn't slide off her skinny hips. Then he put her to bed, nice and fresh and clean, between crisp clean sheets. No one should have to go to bed covered in the filth she'd been covered with; it wasn't right.

***

Harvey had a big pool with an infinity edge and a separate ground-level hot tub on the flagstone patio by his house; the infinity edge of the pool overlooked the city and disappeared into the mountain range behind the city. Harvey sat at a big table under the patio overhang, in the shade, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper when Shane appeared at the sliding glass doorway at quarter to ten the next morning. She was wearing a big terrycloth robe he'd left for her on the foot of the bed. Her face looked awful, the left side full of red and blue and black colors never meant to be there. She was swollen, too.

Harvey jumped up and guided her to a chair. "Don't go away," he said, hustling back into the house. He came back out with a coffee pot and a mug, and poured her a cup. "Cream and sugar. I remember."

"I can fix it," Shane croaked.

"Shut up," Harvey said. "Real sugar or artificial?"

"Sweet and Low, Splenda, whatever."

"See? That's how you answer a question," he said, fixing her coffee. "With an answer. Be right back."

Harvey returned in a few minutes with a tray, and on the tray was a plate full of food and a glass of orange juice.

"What's this? Shane asked.

"You don't know what that is? Really?" Harvey hung his head as if disgusted. "Shiksas," he said. "They don't have lox and bagels in Texas? That is a bagel. And not just an ordinary bagel. A top-of-the-line bagel, toasted, the only way. And soft, so you can chew. That's lox. You know what is lox? It's salmon. Fish. To die for. Novi lox, the best, from Fleishman's Deli. That's a slice of Vidalia onion. That's a slice of tomato. You Christian girls have heard of tomatoes, yes? And this is cream cheese. Philadelphia brand, the Neufchatel, what else? And these are capers."

"Of course, I should have guessed, you don't know from capers either. Never mind, just trust me. And I'm guessing you have no idea what to do with this extravaganza of deliciousness I have put in front of you. Well, watch, faygelah, and learn from the master." He picked up a table knife and loaded it with cream cheese. "First, the cream cheese. This is what's called a 'shmear.' A shmear is the life force of the universe. You know when Yoda is talking about 'May the force be with you'? Well, he's talking about a shmear of cream cheese. A shmear is what holds things together. It makes gravity work. Without a shmear a bagel might as well be...an inner tube. It is nothing. So: you need a shmear. Now, on top of the shmear go the capers. These go next because they tend to roll around like ball bearings and fall off if you put them somewhere else, so they need to go here. The shmear cements them in place. Think of it like God's Dent-u-Cream. Now the lox. I am told there are people on this earth who eat a bagel without a shmear and without the lox. For these people I have pity. You understand me? Pity. Next, the slice of onion. Not so long ago, when I was young, this was a slice of Bermuda onion, but Bermuda doesn't export onions anymore. So now we use either a slice of Vidalia or a slice of red onion, depending on your preference for sweet or tangy. Then the slice of tomato. Finally, the top of the bagel. There. Magnificent. Go ahead, pick it up, take a bite, don't hit your head when you fall over in ecstasy."

Harvey watched while Shane reluctantly picked up the now four-pound sandwich thing, eyed it, and then took a modest bite out of it. Then, before swallowing the first, a second bite. She chewed and looked at Harvey, who was beaming. Shane nodded her head in approval. Harvey held out his hands as if to say "See?"

"Bliss," he said. "Jewish bliss. This is why Christians hate us. We have lox and bagels, and they don't. God made Jews so there would be someone to suffer in the world, and then He decided it wasn't such a good idea after all, and gave us lox and bagels to try to make amends. So it all comes out in the wash."

Shane discovered she was ravenous. Stretching her jaw to take a big bite hurt her face like hell, but it was worth it. Harvey went back to reading the newspaper. About halfway through the sandwich Shane said, "This is really good." Harvey grunted, but Shane could tell he was secretly pleased.

When she was finished Harvey asked if she wanted more and she said no.

"Okay. I have to take you back to the doctor for a follow-up in an hour. Why don't you go over by the pool and lay down on a chaise lounge and try to get some sun? A little color would do you good."

Shane did as he suggested and walked over to the far side of the pool, laid down, curled up in the fetal position, and let the sun bake her. When she got up to get dressed forty-five minutes later, she found her jeans had been washed and neatly folded on the bed in the guest room. There was a clean, starched man's white dress shirt, too big, of course, but Shane always wore them that way. She picked up the jeans and slowly brought them to her nose. She sniffed. Fabric softener. He'd used fabric softener in the dryer. The jeans smelled wonderful.

***

When they got back from the clinic Harvey told Shane he had rehearsal he had to go to and that he'd be back around six. "Make yourself at home. Watch TV. There's movie DVDs, music, whatever. I'm sure you can figure out how the electronics work, you're still a teenager. There's books and magazines. Sleep, take a nap. Swim in the pool, just don't drown. Also the hot tub. Same thing: no drowning. Nobody will be here, so you can use your birthday suit, or not. I'll pick up some dinner on the way home. You like Chinese? I'll get something mild, the doc says to be careful about anything spicy until your tuchis is healed up. In the meantime, you need something, food, aspirin, look around, help yourself. No overdosing. I have two house rules: no overdosing and no drowning."

Shane nodded. Dr. Cranshaw had given her some oxy; it had gotten her through the night and the morning.

"Look, you be okay?"

Shane nodded.

"You're sure? I don't want anything bad to happen. Here's my cell phone, call if you need something. I may not answer right away, so leave a message." He wrote her a note with his cell number on it and left it on the kitchen counter.

It was after 7:30 when he returned, and it was apparent the delay was because he'd been shopping. He had to make two trips to bring in everything. Shane was lying on the big couch in the living room watching TV, and sat up when he came in. He put down a large paper bag of Chinese food on the coffee table in front of her and said, "Here, put this out on the kitchen table, get us some plates and stuff, while I put the rest of this away."

When Harvey came back they sat down to eat. Harvey watched her.

"Look, I know it hurts to eat, but you've got to keep your health up. Does it hurt very much?"

"It kind of throbs," Shane said. "I found some Tylenol. It helps, a little."

"Still got the headache?"

"A little."

They ate.

"I haven't said 'Thank you,' but thank you."

"You're welcome," he said.

"I'm not real good at saying things," Shane said.

"I've noticed."

"After dinner, if you could take me down to Santa Monica, I'll get out of your hair."

"What's in Santa Monica?"

"Uh, nothing. If you can drop me off ... ."

"You been living on the street? In a shelter? You got someplace to go?"

Shane didn't say anything.

"Yeah, I didn't think so. So here's what I've been thinking. Number one, your face is a mess, and nobody but nobody is gonna pick you up for a handjob or a blowjob, so your career as a street fag is temporarily on hiatus. You got nowhere to go, and nobody to take you in, am I right?"

Shane said nothing. She didn't know what a hiatus was, but it didn't matter.

"Tommi?"

"Yes. That's right."

"So. You can stay here. The truth is, this is a big house and I'm the only one in it, and it gets lonely. I like having somebody around to talk to, even somebody who's as quiet as you are. I'll trade you room and board, and in a couple of days, when you feel better, you can start doing some chores and stuff. Do the shopping. Go to the dry cleaners for me. I'll teach you how to clean the pool, you can become my pool boy. Pool girl. Whatever. Clean house, vacuum. You know how to do that kind of simple stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then."

They ate.

"What about ... ."

"What about what?"

Shane made the up-and-down fist gesture for jerking off.

"Oh," Harvey said. "No. You don't have to worry. That's not part of the deal, Tommi. No offense, but you're a girl. When I thought you were a guy ... let me just say -- and I mean this in the kindest possible way -- a handjob from you has kind of lost its appeal. No offense meant. We cool with that?"

"Sure," Shane said.

"Good."

They ate.

"My name's not Tommi," Shane said. "It's Shane. Shane McCutcheon."

Harvey looked at her a minute, swallowing the food he was chewing. Then he put out his hand.

"Harvey Platt," he said. "Nice to meet you, Shane."

Shane shook his hand.

They ate.

"Why are you doing this?" Shane asked.

Harvey didn't respond right away. When he did, he said, "Because I can. You ever hear of a poet named Charles Bukowski?"

Shane shook her head no.

"Bukowski once wrote, 'You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.' You know what the Talmud is? It's a commentary on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. One of the sections is called the Sanhedrin. In the Sanhedrin it says, 'Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.'"

They ate.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Shane said.

"Sure."

"How come you live alone? What I mean is, I saw some photographs in picture frames, in the bedroom and around the house. You and another man. And you seem to have clothes and stuff for two people, like there's someone else living here."

"That's Jack," Harvey said.

"What happened?" Shane said, knowing somehow that she was on dangerous emotional ground.

Harvey sat back and looked out the window for a while.

"Jack was my partner. My life. We'd been together eleven years. Some good, some bad, like all relationships. But mostly good. I thought so, anyway, but I think maybe I wasn't paying attention. I was pretty self-absorbed in my career. And the orchestra was on the road a lot, playing in other cities. I've been in an orchestra my entire working life, and being on the road and traveling and performing, that's what I do, what we all do, in the orchestra. And so I wasn't always home a lot, you know? And Jack was an assistant principal of a private school, so his career tied him here, he could never go on the road or meet me in Chicago, or whatever. And he was kind of a moody guy, and he'd been depressed about life, and our relationship, and his career, and midlife crisis, and the whole package. So a little more than two years ago, I was on tour with the orchestra, we were playing the upper Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee. And while I was away there was some sort of incident at the school. I never found out what exactly it was, because nobody would talk about it much. But it was sexual, of course. Somebody had made some sort of accusation. Somebody touched somebody, or said somebody touched them. I have no idea, really. Nobody seems to know if there was any truth in it. But one night, it seems that Jack drove down to the beach, took off his clothes and piled them neatly on the beach, and went into the water, and swam out to sea. They found his body a couple days later, a few miles down the beach. I got a phone call in Chicago, and flew home. The police told me he'd left me a note. All it said was, 'I love you. I'm sorry.' That's it, nothing else. So half the people we knew thought he'd done it because he was guilty of something, and the other half think he did it because he was innocent, but knew it'd be his word against the boy, and the whole gay thing, and a big scandal, and I'd get my name dragged into it, and all of that, the big media circus. Even if he'd been as innocent as a lamb he knew his career and his life were over, trashed. So in the end he knew it didn't matter if he was innocent or guilty. So that was Jack, the other guy in the photographs."