Syrup Read online

  This is so not true.

  6 confesses

  6 is mostly silent on the bus to her apartment. There is an annoying child sitting behind me who keeps kicking the seat, so I’m quietly stewing, too. I keep my bundle of clothes on my lap, and 6 very successfully avoids looking at it the whole trip.

  We disembark at Lincoln and Oak in north Venice. I look to 6 for directions, but she’s staring at the ground.

  “6,” I say sensitively, “it’s cool that you aren’t rich. I’m not rich, either. I’m carrying my worldly possessions in my hands here.”

  6 takes a deep, slightly unsteady breath.

  “I don’t think less of you for this. I know it’s important to look the part for the people we deal with, but it’s not important to me. I’m a marketer, too.” 6 abruptly starts walking, and I hurry to fall into step beside her. “You’re very cool, and you don’t need the image.”

  “I don’t have an image,” 6 says.

  “Well, 6,” I say, a little startled. “Of course you do.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “6,” I say. “You have an image. The young, independent, hot-shot lesbian—”

  “I am a lesbian,” 6 says. “I don’t want to have to keep reminding you.”

  I’m about to say something stupid like, “Oh, crap,” but 6 stops at an apartment block and I am stunned into silence.

  the worst apartment in north venice

  Take a small, stupid infant. Blindfold him. Make him draw a building.

  Take the drawing and rip it in half. Give each half to a different construction company and don’t let them talk to each other. Insist on materials that will crumble and accumulate vast quantities of mold.

  Paint it a light putrid green, except the window trimmings, which may be done in a thick oppressive brown. Use paint so cheap that sunlight will peel it off in great slabs.

  Don’t let anyone repair it, maintain it, renovate it, touch it, for a good twenty years or so.

  Then rent it out to college graduates.

  fukk

  “Well?” 6 says, a little aggressively.

  “I’m just grateful for a roof over my head,” I say, and, pathetically, it’s true.

  6 sighs and heads for the stairwell. I decide to trust her over my own impression of the stairs’ safety and join her. By the time we reach her apartment on the third floor, I’ve plucked up the courage to say, “Well, this is kind of what I’m talking about. You didn’t want me to see this, because it would ruin your image.”

  She shoots me a withering look of disdain. “I never said I was rich. I’ve been at Coke four months. And I have student loans to repay, too, you know.”

  I open my mouth to rebut, but, damn it, after the lesbian thing and the twenty-one-years-old thing and the being named 0 by her parents thing, I realize that this may be the one thing she’s never lied to me about. “Oh.”

  6 opens the door and I follow her inside, still carrying my bundle. She’s done very well with the place, and it actually looks pretty cool in a low-budget, college-student, movie-posters-on-the-wall kind of way. There’s a tiny kitchen which opens onto the living room, complete with TV, video, stereo, sofa and framed degree. I immediately check out the degree and discover to my shock that 6 really did graduate from Stanford University. I don’t contain this very well. “You actually went to Stanford?”

  She doesn’t even deign to reply.

  “6, I’m sorry for doubting. That’s really impressive.”

  “Thank you,” she says tonelessly. She fetches a bottle of Pepsi from an ancient fridge. “Drink?”

  I blink. “You drink Pepsi?”

  6 shrugs. “Market research. I drink everything.”

  “What have you got in there?”

  “Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Diet Pepsi, 7 UP, Fanta, Diet Fanta, Classic Coke, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, White Coke—”

  “White Coke?”

  “It’s a trial product.”

  “Wow, sounds cool. What does it taste like?”

  “Coke,” 6 says.

  “Well, yeah,” I say, “but how is it different to, say, Classic Coke?”

  “It’s in a different can,” 6 says.

  I wait, but 6 just looks at me. “What, that’s it?”

  “No,” she says. “It will also cost twice as much.” She pours herself a Pepsi. “We’re after a more upmarket niche.”

  “You really expect people to pay double for a white can?” I ask, astounded. “When it tastes exactly the same?”

  6 aims a chiseled frown at me. “I didn’t say it tastes exactly the same. I said it is exactly the same.” She sips at her Pepsi, waiting for me to catch up.

  “The cans contain special chemicals?” I ask hopefully. “That affect the taste?”

  “America’s most popular range of pasta sauces are made by the same company responsible for the number one brand of dog food. Do you think they advertise this? Co-brand?”

  “No,” I hazard.

  “Taste is marketing,” 6 says with finality.

  “Huh,” I say.

  “I also have Iridium, which is an independent we’re going to buy out and bury soon, and Fukk.”

  I choke. “You have Fukk?”

  “Of course,” 6 says. “It’s my product.” Her sizzling eyebrows descend. “Or was.”

  I restrain myself from leaping at the fridge. “Can I see it? Is it a bottle or a can? What’s the packaging like?”

  6 gestures to the fridge. I walk into the kitchen as steadily as I can and lean down.

  There is a truly awesome assortment of sodas in there, but Fukk stands out. Its deep black contours are like a splash of defiance against the bright reds and blues. It just sits there and says, Fukk.

  I reach out a trembling hand and touch the can. It’s refreshingly cool, it’s sleek, but most of all it’s real. I thought this up one night three months ago and now I’m holding it in my hand. It’s an indescribable feeling.

  “Take a sip,” 6 urges.

  I pop the top and it hisses angrily.

  “Extra carbonation,” 6 explains. “When you pop a Fukk, everybody around you knows it.”

  “Very good,” I murmur, my eyes never leaving the can. Slowly, very slowly, I raise it to my mouth. The metal slips between my lips and then cold, liquid Fukk is sliding down my throat. It’s much lighter than Coke or Pepsi, sitting somewhere between a mineral water and a cola. And it’s perfect. Just perfect.

  “You like?” 6 inquires.

  “I love it,” I manage to say. “You’ve done a fantastic job.”

  “Thank you,” she says, and, amazingly, 6 actually sounds pleased.

  tina

  I’m so lost in my Fukk that I don’t even hear the door open. Then 6 says, “Tina, this is Scat,” and I suddenly realize that this must be 6’s girl.

  It’s a shock. I’m expecting someone ... well, someone like 6. Tina is not like 6.

  6 says, “Tina’s doing an arts degree.”

  “Oh?” I say, as if the eyebrow ring, blond hair with a streak of black and oppressive eye makeup hadn’t tipped me off.

  “Oh, let me guess,” Tina says. “He’s a marketer.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  Tina throws her hessian bag onto the sofa and stalks into the kitchen. She’s very short, but the way she walks tells me it would be a very bad idea to point this out to her. “I hope they pay you well for strangling the youth of this country with cultural conformity.” She opens the fridge and frowns at the sodas.

  “Unfortunately, no,” I admit. “I’m unemployed.”

  Tina pulls out the Pepsi and pours herself a glass. “Really, ”she says, eyeing me suspiciously. Her eyes, beneath pints of mascara, are actually a deep, attractive green.

  “Trust me,” I say. “I wouldn’t make that up to impress you.”

  Tina smirks. “I thought that was all marketers did.”

  I throw out a wild guess. “You don’t like marketing?”

  “Marketing is like being give
n joke dog shit for your birthday,” Tina says. “It’s useless, stupid and insulting.”

  “Ah,” I say.

  “Marketing is a leech on a turd,” she continues. “Disgusting and unnecessary, sustaining itself on the bowels of society.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Marketing, ” she says, “is a pair of silicone tits. Superficially attractive, but secretly fucking up your life.”

  “And yet,” I say, “you’re drinking a Pepsi.”

  Tina frowns, wounded. “I just like the taste,” she says.

  tina, 6 and sexual preference

  Tina offers to show me around the apartment, and I find out the most important thing first. “You and 6 have separate bedrooms?”

  “Of course,” Tina says.

  My heart jumps. “I was under the impression that you and 6 were ... romantically entangled.”

  Tina laughs. “Oh, right. Sure.” She leads me into the bathroom, which is cluttered with more cosmetics than I knew existed. There’s also an oddly placed window that would offer a pretty good view of the street to anyone standing in the shower.

  “So that’s not true?”

  Tina says dryly, “I can assure you that 6 and I are not sleeping together.”

  “A-ha,” I say. “I knew it.”

  “At this point in time,” Tina adds, watching me carefully.

  My brain struggles to assimilate, but I can’t wait for it and let my mouth make the call instead. “You mean you used to be with 6?”

  “Oh, I get it,” Tina says, stepping closer to me. “You’re one of those guys who pigeonhole everyone by their sexuality, right? Do you call gays ‘fags’?”

  I’m beginning to find Tina just a touch confrontational. “No! I—”

  “Is someone’s sexuality that important to you?”

  “Usually, no—”

  “Good.”

  “Tina, look,” I say. “I’m not really interested in whether 6 is a lesbian or not. It’s whether she lied to me about it.”

  Tina stares at me for a long moment. “Men,” she says, and not in a good way. “I’m amazed that this patriarchal society even has a word for lesbianism. As far as men are concerned, it’s just another word for threesome.” She points at a closed door. “That’s 6’s bedroom. Don’t go in there.”

  “Okay,” I say, resolving to check it out as soon as possible.

  “I mean, Christ,” Tina says, her face twisting. “It’s none of your business. It’s no one’s business but the girl’s. She’s still a person, that’s what’s real. But no, men want to know all about it. There’s nothing more fascinating than a girl who won’t have sex with you.”

  I am defeated, and I hold up my hands to show it. “Okay, okay.”

  Tina pauses. “At least, that’s what 6 says.”

  bedtime

  I do get the sofa.

  After the fun and frivolity of last night, I’m totally bushed. 6, however, wants to stay up for Letterman. On the sofa, I snuggle into a pillow and a blanket, my feet nestling a few tantalizing inches from 6’s bottom. For about five seconds I drown in a rush of stupid fantasies, then utter exhaustion claims me and I dream that

  a brush with letterman

  “Wow,” Letterman says. “Hey! This is good!”

  I smile modestly, and, since this is TV, give a little aw-shucks shrug for the camera.

  “No, this is really good. I like it,” Letterman says. He looks at me, still holding the can of Fukk. “Can I keep this? You mind if I just hang on to this?”

  “Sure, Dave,” I say.

  “Tell you what,” Letterman says. “I’ll do an ad for you.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to—”

  “No, let me do an ad,” Letterman says. “I can do it.” He strikes a pose for camera two. “I’ve had a Fukk today—have you?” The audience goes crazy, and Letterman gives them all a big grin. “What do you think, Scat? You want to run with that? Huh? Huh?”

  “You should write ads,” suggests Pamela Anderson, who I notice at this moment is sitting to my right in a fluffy white dressing gown.

  I smile. “Actually, Dave, we had to be very careful with the advertising, because—”

  “Because it’s Fukk,” Letterman says. “You can’t say Fukk on a billboard! No! You can’t do that! Can he do that?”

  “Well, exactly.” I frown intelligently into camera one. “We had to be careful. That’s why all the advertising has just the word Fukk, nothing else. You see, if—”

  “Hey, wait a minute, what’s this?” Dave cuts in. I turn and see him frowning at the Fukk on his desk.

  “What?”

  “I can’t pick up the can.”

  “What?” I say again, confused.

  “I can’t pick up the stupid can.” He reaches for it, and his hand passes straight through it. The audience gasps. “What a stupid can,” Dave says, looking at me accusingly. “I can’t even pick it up.”

  “I don’t understand ...” I lean over and try to pick up the Fukk, but I grab thin air.

  “It’s not even real,” Dave says contemptuously. “What a stupid soda.”

  Someone in the audience boos daringly.

  “I don’t understand,” I say again.

  “Well, boy,” Letterman says. “You must be a dumb ass.”

  “Dave,” I say, wounded.

  “Why don’t you just shut up,” Letterman says, “you dumb ass.” The audience screams with laughter.

  I look around wildly for support. Pamela pouts sympathetically and reaches out a supportive hand. It passes straight through my shoulder. “Ooh,” Pamela says.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” Letterman says, as if he just can’t believe it. “Now Pamela’s not real, either. What a dumb ass.”

  I open my mouth, but suddenly I’m sinking, starting to pass right through the sofa.

  “Oh, boy,” Letterman says, rolling his eyes. “He’s disappearing into the sofa, now. Can’t he even sit on the sofa?”

  “I’m still on the sofa, Dave,” Pamela says, smiling up at him.

  “What amazing buoyancy,” Letterman says. “Okay! What’s next? ”

  “Dave. ”Pamela giggles.

  The floor is starting to dissolve underneath me and now I’m really panicking. “Dave? Can I get some help here? I need something to hold on to.”

  “Something real, maybe?”

  “Dave!” I scream, and the floor actually lets me go and I’m falling into a deep, thick, cloying blackness. I flail my arms wildly but there’s absolutely nothing to grab on to, and just as I’m sure I’m going to die, something bright and solid opens above my head and

  the intangibility paradox

  6 is leaning over me, dizzyingly close. My world is framed by her jet-black hair.

  “6?” My voice is thick with sleep. 6 starts a little, a strange expression flitting across her face. I am suddenly sure that she has been watching me for a while. “6?”

  Abruptly she stands and walks away. She doesn’t even look at me when she says, “Tomorrow we go to Coke. I’ll wake you.”

  She steps out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  morning breaks

  I’m woken by a dozen furious, hissing snakes crawling all over my body. I desperately grab at them for a few seconds before realizing that there are, in fact, no snakes, unless 6 is cooking them along with the bacon.

  “Morning,” I say, sitting up.

  “Bacon and eggs?” 6 asks.

  “You’re cooking for me?”

  6 sighs. She’s wearing dark red silk pajamas that are just a little too sheer for me at this time of the morning, and her hair is hidden under a huge towel. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  I struggle out of the sofa and wander into the kitchen for a glass of water. “6, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate it. It’s just I thought that you being ... well, you, you wouldn’t subscribe to stereotypical roles like cooking for a man.”

  6 stares at me from under her towel. “The sad thing is ri
ght now you think you’re being nonsexist. You think if you just do everything the opposite of traditional gender stereotypes, you’re progressive and sensitive. Right?”

  I haven’t been awake long enough to be having this conversation. “Uh, well, yeah, I guess.”

  “Reversing gender stereotypes doesn’t eliminate them,” 6 says, tossing the bacon. “You just create a whole new set of prejudices. The fact is, if you weren’t sexist it wouldn’t matter whether a man or a woman cooked you breakfast.”

  I try to think of a reply, but everything that springs to mind is inflammatory. While I stand there dumbly, 6 eyes me, waiting for my next conversational blunder.

  “Can I make you a coffee?” I say.

  a window

  While I’m in the shower, I look out the tiny window and watch people going to work. It’s fun and somehow liberating to be able to stand there naked and stare at people. I watch for about ten minutes, and then I realize that in their cars and business suits, everyone looks pretty much the same.

  inside coke

  6 signs me in at Coke and I get a special CONTRACTOR badge. I spend most of the trip to the 14th trying to work out how to pin the badge onto my shirt before realizing it’s meant to clip on to my tie.

  The doors open and I’m hugely pleased to see that the first thing to greet me is a Coke machine. Around it, giant framed Coke ads litter the walls, so densely packed that some eager but misguided executive must have once said, “I want to see every ad we’ve ever done up there.”

  6 leads me down a corridor (red carpet) to a small dark office. It’s bare apart from a desk, an ergonomic chair and a computer with a pile of instructions. I study it for a second, then look back at 6, who is standing in the doorway like a gunfighter surveying a saloon. “Good luck, Scat.”

  “Thanks, kid,” I say, and if she hadn’t closed the door so fast, I would have tipped her a wink.