Louie recounts the story
He seemed like a smart kid–
but not really I watched the way he gnashed his teeth when he was grinning and thought maybe he was filing off the tops while he was cracking himself up so hard. As a rule, he laughed at his own jokes, which could be downright annoying or just plain adorable. Laughter ran like an open stream straight out of his belly.
But the kid was hopelessly stuck on himself. You got the impression that Lethe Bashar thought himself a minor god in the pantheon of the Greeks. Okay I’ll admit I fed his adolescent ego once in awhile. With low self-esteem myself, I have a tendency to flatter people. Especially the Euro kids who walk around the Inn like sleek models in their underwear. I make them feel like they own the world and I’m good at it. Lethe Bashar was definitely not one of them.
He was a bit topsy-turvey. Big, unstable head; small, waifish body. And he sort of stumbled through the legs of chairs whenever he had to go somewhere. You looked into his eyes and saw curlicues and ampersands. Literally, the kid was on another planet half of the time, dreaming under the stars But he was also lovable and endearing, the way excitable children can be at times. With all that energy, you just have to admire them. They run, run, run and you can sit back and watch them fall on their face or step into a wall. They crave your attention and want you to worship them.
You know he reminded me of a character in a comic book.
Yes, I read comic books.
The character’s name is Yorick and he hangs upside down in his Brooklyn apartment at the beginning of the story. He’s wearing a straight-jacket. He’s an escape artist.
I’ve been reading comic books ever since I can remember. My father, a Russian immigrant, used to find them under my bed and give me a thrashing for it. Father had a bison’s neck and thick, stubby immigrant fingers. Those fingers wrapped themselves around my neck a couple times, threatening to kill me. Rick, my older brother, was always outside, mixing with the local hoods. That’s how he developed his street smarts and I didn’t. He grew fearsome–and me–I grew day-dreamy and prone to fantasy. Rick got in fist fights; I hid behind the illustrated covers of comic books and magazines. Rick lost himself in gangs. I lost myself in the adventures of Tintin.
As I said, Lethe was like this Yorick character. Yorick is the last man on earth; the name of the comic is Y: The Last Man. The world is ending, some plague ravaging the planet, and Yorick’s on a desperate mission to find his girlfriend who lives Down Under.
But the protagonist is a little slow. It takes him awhile to catch on to the apocalyptic stuff happening all around him. And in the meantime, he has to grow up.
Lethe just showed up at the Backpacker’s Inn one day, looking confused. He was stoned, I think. Later Tracy, the janitor here, told me that he invited Lethe to smoke.
I called Lethe over to the bar to have a drink with me. He said he liked Bloody Marys so I ordered him one. Clearly he valued my companionship. I watched how his eyes lit up and he suddenly became moony talking to me. We were like old friends, Lethe and me. That youthful energy and googly giddiness has always been my second nature. I understand adolescents better than most adults. I give them time to explain themselves.
He made me chuckle. I could tell that he imagined every moment of his life, every second, whether he was taking a shit or talking to his mother, like it was being recorded for Timeless Eternity. He had a real cinematic flourish to his manner, like he’d been trained under the giant eye of a camera. He wanted my attention no matter what, and I was glad to give it to him.
Now this movie he imagined his life to be. It was not one of those feel-good movies with syrupy music in the background, but more along the lines a broody, avant-gaurd flick that no one’s ever heard of. He was apparently in control of things in this highly-individual film of his. But there was a self-consciousness too, which made him a little vulnerable to the giant eye, and that’s what made me want to be his best friend.
Most of my friends are young people. That’s why I come to the Inn. We get a lot of wandering teens, a lot of wayfarers of the middle-class suburban variety, with North Face backpacks and granola bars and scruffy clothing. I’m fond of these adolescent tribesmen. I like to hear their stories and share some wine, or Bloody Mary’s if they choose. Las Vegas can get lonely if you don’t make friends. And everyone’s a little screwed up here, so it doesn’t matter. We’ll accept you whoever you are.
I accepted Lethe even though I could tell he didn’t accept himself. That overflowing ecstacy was all bombs and butterflies obscuring his real self. He wanted you to think he was important. He gave his life so much cumbersome meaning; you felt the weight of it just listening to him. He said he was writing a book. A book. I’m always skeptical when a kid under the age of twenty-two says he’s writing a book. He called it the Novel of Life.
“I’m not into reading novels,” I said. “Just comics. But you can tell me your story. I’ll listen to you.”
My father once found one of my comic books in his car. He used to have 56 Mercury with orange and blue paint on the sides. That car was my father’s prized possession and when he discovered I soiled it with my comic, he gave me a thrashing. There were to be no unholy objects in his car. The old man squeezed my temples together in his knobby immigrant hands and then brought his knee up to my forehead. Bam! Wam! Zazzzzam!
I never left a comic lying around after that.
I don’t have any problem befriending a lonesome kid who comes into the Inn. Hell, I was a lonesome kid once. I think I ran away from home too. Too many beatings.
We sat by the poolside sipping our drinks and telling stories. That’s what I love about Vegas. You could be sunning out in the crapiest motel and the sun still shines the same, ruby-red. Boy, do I love sipping on a salty drink by the pool.
That kid had quite an imagination–the foolish kind. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you; I made him think I believed his every word and that was probably the best thing I could’ve done for him. I did it because I saw that it made him happy.
He was something to behold when he was happy. He grinned like a toothsome sailor on the Stanton Banks of Scotland. Squirmed in his seat, then jumped up for another drink (of course I paid for everything). He came back with fresh reserves. I loved to see him stumble about, posturing and attitudinizing.
Maybe if he picked up one of my comics, he’d get so absorbed in it that he’d forget about his own life, his own movie.
He got really wound up when he was telling stories about himself. Like they were happening to him right now. There was a sense of urgency and danger. I didn’t want to unsettle his image or anything, so I went along with it. If he can get absobed in himself, maybe he can get absorbed in my comic books, I said to myself.
He tossed the comics aside. “I’m a writer,” he intoned with an air of importance. “That stuff will warp my brains.”
He could be a snob, you know.
“Who told you that,” I said, “Your father?”
“No, I told myself,” he replied. “I’m just not interested, okay? Keep your stupid comic books to yourself.”
Once I saw he wasn’t going to come up to my room to read comic books, I decided to give him what he wanted.
Drugs.
All rebellious teenagers like drugs.
Agent 355 never would’ve given Yorick drugs; I felt a bit ashamed. Forgive me father, for I have sinned . . .
I didn’t have any drugs on me, but I told Lethe about the infamous bus stop where a lot of shady drug deals went down. “You can find some drugs down there. Here take my money.”
Later I found out he went to Mammon’s on a lark. Mammon is one of Vegas’ biggest drug lords. Not somebody to butter up for a dime bag. He’s been compared to Pablo Escobar, the Colombian cocaine trafficker. What would cause Lethe to become so single-minded?
I didn’t know what drove him, but I wanted to keep it going. It broke my heart but it also exhilarated me. I’m a forty-five year old man, okay. My life is ho-hum. I come to the Backpacker’s Inn for a little spice, to invite some craziness into the droll corner of my existence. When I met Lethe, my old blood started to boil again. I could have ran the from the East Side of Vegas to the Pacific Coast. Youngsters have this effect on me. They make me want to run for miles and pretend I’m someone else.
I suppose I live vicariously through them.
Things started to get going. He was out in the streets, looking for crack. We were smoking together in my bedroom. We shared my pipe. I didn’t need my comics anymore to have a good time. He came to my room, willingly. With a big, toothy grin on his face, gnashing those sweet little pearls.
Laughing like hyenas, we took hits from the pipe until the money was gone.
Occasionally, he’d burst into a manic, drug-induced monologue. I sat back, heavy-lidded, watching him perform in front of the mirror. The Chinese lady was sleeping on the bottom bunk. I don’t think she ever woke up during our midnight parties.
Lethe was my pal, my Yorick. So when he said he wanted coke, naturally I racked my brains to figure out how to get us some.
Everything was natural, you see. I wanted to make Lethe happy. We were friends. His happiness was Number One.
