| Hey. How is
it? I mean, how do you feel?
Ridiculous. Really? I mean ridiculously good. Right.
 launch sequence It starts on the drive home from his office on the west side. Getting into his car, he feels raw and over-caffeinated in a way that is only possible after working through an absolutely beautiful Thursday afternoon. There is a throbbing knot in the middle of his shoulder blades, and the glare from his monitor seems permanently burned onto the surface of his eyes. Fortunately, highway traffic is light, one of those indefinable lulls in the otherwise perpetual Los Angeles logjam, and he uses the opportunity to push the accelerator past eighty-five. The car responds with a throaty purr, and the resulting gravitational physics presses him back into the seat cushion. He drives with one hand on the wheel and smokes a cigarette with the other. The speed of the commute is therapeutic, stripping him clean of the day's remains, and he feels smooth and aerodynamic by the time he walks through his apartment door. The cell phone is plugged immediately into its charger, followed by a habitual check to see if any messages have arrived in the three minutes it takes to ride the elevator up from the building's underground garage. His apartment is expectedly messy, having been largely ignored for the last six days. Party fliers, periodicals and uncased cd's litter most available surfaces, and the kitchen exudes and odor of sushi and stale beer. Various windows are opened. A quick sweep through the apartment collects most of the major debris, the act less a cleaning than it is an expungement of those objects to places unseen. He spins the dimmer on various lamps and chandeliers, and lights four candles on the living room table. The selection of music is very important, an audible equivalent of the evening meal's aperitif. Downtempo tracks are more suited to afternoon by the pool, but a cd with too much bang so early in the evening might be a bit strong for the palate. He selects an early Underworld album to start out the evening, turning up the volume just enough to muffle the sounds of twilight traffic floating in from the open windows. Cocktails are definitely in order, and he pours himself a vodka Red Bull that goes long on the Grey Goose. He takes a quick shower, during which he makes various mental notes about who needs to be called at what times and the places he might be when he does so. The water is hot, close to scalding, but to him it feels like a final cleansing of the previous week's soot. He braves the higher temperature with a grim determination, and when he steps out of the shower he feels bracingly clean and decontaminated. His mother calls while he is in the midst of shaving, and he engages her in a quick discussion about how things are at home: the weather, her health, and the ubiquitous passion of her painting. Keeping the schedule in mind, responses to her questions are quick and preemptively shallow. Conversation turns to matters more personal, but an emotional complication at this point in the evening doesn't seem to dovetail with his existing social timetable, and, guiltily, he ricochets toward subjects less grave. The exchange ends at the same time he is returning his razor to the medicine cabinet, and makes himself a promise to call her back on the following day. Clothes are selected for both style and comfort, and there is a focused effort on selecting fabrics that breathe. The Diesel t-shirt is tight, but not so tight that it feels premeditated, and his pants are a non-specific breed of cargos that give him plenty of room to move. Jewelry is kept at a minimum, and nothing that might be ill-disposed to an overabundance of sweat. Lastly, he chooses a large, golden-framed pair of sunglasses, a member of the species that Elvis himself would have been proud to don. He receives three phone calls in quick succession, each an inquiry about the future availability of Mr. Jones and the estimated quality of his product. He finds this mildly amusing, as everyone knows that he will be there and what they can expect from his wares, but a constant validation of the fact is soothing in the same way that organizing silverware might be for someone with a vicious case of OCD. The cocktail disappears as he is making a shoe selection, a suitably comfortable pair of Steve Maddens displaying their voluminous battle scars: worn soles, scuffed leather, and that permanent dance floor sheen that consists of sweat, cigarette ash, and an eternal flow of spilled drinks. They're tough enough to go the distance, and they fit his feet like a couple of lifelong friends. He slips them on, dutifully returns to the kitchen, and pours himself another stiff drink. The local bank will be visited to procure funds for the evening, with a particular focus on having an abundance of twenty dollar bills. A nicotine urge has been growing steadily with each sip of his drink. He walks out the sliding glass door to the pool patio for a cigarette, because the smell of stale smoke in his apartment invariably makes him feel ill after a long night at the clubs. The night feels clean and cool. He walks around the pool as he smokes, expertly navigating the tangle of ancient patio furniture that surround it like a graveyard of wrecked ships. Glancing at his watch, he makes a positive chronological assessment of his progress. Items on the proverbial checklist are systematically being marked off. Renzo finds that the whole process requires a glazed, robotic deliberateness, where efficiency dictates an impartiality that allows him to move quickly from one step to the next. It is a state that he finds decidedly comfortable given the events of the previous weekend. Details of said events are not something he wants to think about, so he hurriedly finishes the rest of his cigarette and makes his way back inside. His breath requires some pre-launch maintenance, so he walks from the patio to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Halfway there, he sees them, and, for the first time all evening, Renzo takes a deep breath and stops. There are two framed pictures on the wall. One is a photograph of Katie, Quentin and himself that Paige had taken at Coachella the previous summer. It had been the first year of the music festival, and they had spent two straight days dancing to their favorite dj's and trying to stay cool in the hundred-plus degree heat. In the photo, the summer sun burns high somewhere above them, and the short grass of the polo fields is suffused with a radiant shade of green. Quentin stands between he and Katie, his arms draped protectively around them, his dreadlocks falling to a length just past his ears. Katie, freckled, with summer short hair underneath a white visor, leans into Quentin, doing her best to put her arms around his waist without dislocating her shoulders. Renzo, tan and shirtless, strikes a celebrant pose, with one arm around Quentin and the other raised triumphantly in the air. Their faces are flushed, their clothes are drenched in sweat, and each wears a look that reflects the attainment of some euphoric delirium. There is another picture below this one, but he can only look at it peripherally before his eyes slide down toward the baseboards. Were he to raise them, he would see the familiar image of he and Katie that his mother had taken during their visit the summer before, leaning against the old tree in the backyard with the sun setting behind them. They are not exactly touching, but their postures seem to indicate that they are about to. Katie looks away from the camera, obviously laughing at something he has just said, and Renzo, resting his arm above her head on the tree, gazes down at her with an impermeable look that falls somewhere between amusement and fatherly concern. The photograph is in black and white, but it had been taken at that magic hour where light makes everything luminous, and each shade of gray seems to carry with it the memory of a vivid color. He has always been able to feel his mother behind the camera, reflected through a certain artistic balance of timing and composition; she had captured the moment's texture in a way that is unmistakably her own. For him, the photograph has always radiated a peculiar longing, but not so much through the subjects as through the wistful presence of his mother's eye. The pause is only momentary. He proceeds to the bathroom, grabs his toothbrush, and commences a vigorous cleaning of his teeth. In other circumstances the picture might have elicited more of a pointed reaction, but the evening's speed is steadily increasing, and anything not securely fastened to Renzo's framework is bound to shake loose. Finishing in the bathroom, he grabs his keys and his cell phone, blows out the candles, and walks out the front door. The launch sequence has already been initiated, underlined with an almost-audible countdown that is approaching an inevitable end. |
