Karl arrives at Viggo's house
Takes place a few days after this, and a few days before this.
Karl's not heading for LA. Karl’s not really heading for anywhere at all, but LA is where his dark brown 1969 Ford Capri finally exacts retribution for all the times that he’s skimped on an oil change or filled the tank with cheap sludgy gas and blows the head gasket. It takes most of Karl’s folding cash to get the car towed to a shop. He digs scraps of paper with names and numbers smudged in ink or faded in pencil from the bottom of his bags, from behind the driver’s side sun visor, from the hip pockets of his jeans. There are couches Karl can crash on from Wellington to Washington State and all points in between. LA is slim pickings, though. Karl’s kind of people don’t generally come to rest in LA, except for one.
Karl hasn’t seen Viggo for the better part of three years, and even then it was an unsatisfactory visit for a couple of days while Viggo was moving into the white clapboard house in Venice Beach. He was plagued with phone calls and utilities and movers, and Karl quickly grew bored with amusing himself by drinking Viggo’s beer and reading Viggo’s journals.
When the taxi pulls up, Karl gets out of the back seat and hauls his pack from the trunk. He pays the driver off with the last of his cash; while the car pulls away, he glances up and down the fairly quiet tree-lined street. He smirks, and hefts his pack onto one shoulder.
He goes up the narrow concrete-slab pathway, past a bit of short parched grass, and up the sagging wooden steps to the front porch. He cups one hand against the twelve-pane window of the room that runs the length of the house from front to back, and peers in. There’s a clutter of canvases stacked along one wall, with further debris of crumpled papers and open cardboard boxes in front of them. A slat packing crate is doing duty as a make-shift coffee table, judging by the crop of empty beer bottles and coffee mugs on top of it and the ratty tweed armchair drawn up next to it.
Karl huffs out a sound of amusement. He walks across the porch, ignoring the front door, and steps down onto the bit of dirt track leading along the side of the house. He goes through the open gate in the peeling and sun-grayed picket fence that surrounds the back yard. The grass back here is as yellow and scrubby as the stuff out front, with the addition of an oily black fire-stain about six feet across right in the middle.
Karl goes up the couple of concrete steps to the open kitchen door. Past the square pillar that juts out on the far-side of the stove, he glimpses the slouched curve of a gray-sweatered spine and the legs of a pine stool pulled in to the breakfast bar at the other end of the kitchen.
“Hey. You serve breakfast all day here?” Karl calls.
He hears the ring of glass on glass and a muffled curse, and then the stool’s legs scrape on the tiled floor. Viggo unfolds from his perch and comes barefoot to the door, squinting into the brightness of the day outside through the lank locks of hair hanging in his eyes.
“Karl?” he says doubtfully, and his voice has the thin dry creak of something left too long unused.
“Afraid so,” Karl grins, shrugging his pack off his shoulder and letting it slide to the ground.
Viggo’s expression cracks, as much wince as smile at first, but then growing more certain in its warmth.
“Fuck. Jesus. Karl,” he says as they fall on each other, hugging and laughing and shoving each other.
Karl’s grin tightens against Viggo’s shoulder when he feels Viggo’s bones too sharp under the thin skim of muscles and skin, and smells the burnt-out sweetness of whiskey and dope and an empty stomach on Viggo’s breath. Karl pulls back a little, holding Viggo off by both shoulders.
“Fuck, mate, what ate you up and shat you back out?”
“You hungry?” Viggo asks, turning his face aside a little so he’s looking at Karl from the creased corners of his eyes.
“Always,” Karl says, pulling his pack back up and following Viggo into the house.
“I’m not sure what there is,” Viggo says, pulling open the refrigerator while Karl makes his way through to the other room. “Eggs, maybe … no, maybe not. I think this was cheese … ”
Karl dumps his pack behind the door and wanders around the room, using the side of his boot to sweep things aside enough to let him tilt some of canvases upright so he can look at them. They’re all finished pieces, already varnished. Karl hunkers down, lifting the lid on a wooden box filled with tubes of oil paint.
“How about fish?” Viggo calls from the kitchen.
“Fish is good,” Karl says, running his fingers over the lumps and strings of color around the necks of the paint tubes.
His fingers come away clean; the paint is absolutely dry.
“Not this fish,” Viggo announces, punctuating the remark with the grind of the garbage disposal.
Karl gets up and walks over to the fireplace. There’s a slew of unopened mail on the mantel.
“There’s beer,” Viggo says triumphantly, appearing in the doorway with a bottle in each hand.
“You been away?” Karl asks.
“No, why do you - ”
Viggo follows Karl’s line of sight to the accumulation of unopened envelopes.
“No,” he says again.
He crosses the room to Karl, offering one of the beer bottles.
“Breakfast of champions,” Karl says, accepting it and tipping the neck against the neck of Viggo’s bottle with a sweet clink of glass against glass.
“So, you didn’t come to LA to see me, did you?” Viggo asks, when they’ve each taken a long appreciative pull at their beers. “What are you doing here? Planning to free-climb the Hollywood sign?”
“Nah,” Karl shrugs, and then adds, “you do know there’s a guy in Wisconsin willing to pay ten grand for one of the ‘el’s, right?”
Viggo laughs.
“The Capri crapped out on me,” Karl says. “Twelve hundred buckaroos and that’s not including shipping on the part if it has to come from outta state.”
“How much have you got on you?” Viggo asks.
“About a dollar ten in change. You got any ideas how I can make twelve hundred dollars, fast?”
“Lots, but none that I’m gonna suggest while you’re living under my roof,” Viggo smirks.
“Ah the hell with it,” Karl smiles, shouldering away from the fireplace where he’s been leaning. “Somethin’ll turn up - ”
“ - it always does,” he and Viggo finish in unison.
Viggo takes the spot Karl’s just vacated against the mantel. Karl wanders around the room, stopping in front of the cheap pine bookcase over-laden with books and magazines and sketchpads. He reaches for the camera sitting on the top shelf, picking it up one-handed, his long fingers and broad palm wrapping around the smooth chrome contours.
“So,” he says mildly. “You wanna tell me what derailed your fuckin’ train?”
Viggo blinks.
“I don’t - I - what are you talking about?” he says, but his voice is taut with understanding.
“There’s no film in it,” Karl says, turning, the camera lifted in his hand to display the back hanging open.
Viggo opens his mouth, but he doesn’t actually say anything.
“There’s no film in it,” Karl repeats. “That’s like saying there’s no fucking blood in your veins, Vig. Your paints are bone dry, and every picture here’s varnished - they’re all weeks old, aren’t they?”
“It’s a long story,” Viggo says tightly.
“Lemme guess,” Karl says, walking up to him and shoving the camera into his free hand. “There was a woman, now there’s not.”
“Okay, maybe it’s not all that long,” Viggo winces, setting the camera on the mantle gently.
“Jesus,” Karl says in fond disgust.
He walks over to his pack and hunkers down.
“You got much booze in the house?” he asks, rifling through the pockets until he comes up with a soft black suede pouch.
“Enough,” Viggo says.
“Okay, we’re gonna get completely fucked up, and you’re gonna tell me how the hell this happened you again.”
Viggo groans, but his grimace is just a twist away from a smile.
Karl stands up again and tosses the pouch to Viggo. Karl turns back to toe his pack further into the corner, when the flutter of something white or light outside the window catches his attention.
“You expecting someone?” he asks, moving back to the kitchen doorway.
“No, whoever it is, tell them to fuck off,” Viggo says, putting his beer bottle next to his camera so he can use both hands to untie the pouch.
“Very good, m’Lord,” Karl says, walking back through the cool gloom of the kitchen to the back door.
Karl's not heading for LA. Karl’s not really heading for anywhere at all, but LA is where his dark brown 1969 Ford Capri finally exacts retribution for all the times that he’s skimped on an oil change or filled the tank with cheap sludgy gas and blows the head gasket. It takes most of Karl’s folding cash to get the car towed to a shop. He digs scraps of paper with names and numbers smudged in ink or faded in pencil from the bottom of his bags, from behind the driver’s side sun visor, from the hip pockets of his jeans. There are couches Karl can crash on from Wellington to Washington State and all points in between. LA is slim pickings, though. Karl’s kind of people don’t generally come to rest in LA, except for one.
Karl hasn’t seen Viggo for the better part of three years, and even then it was an unsatisfactory visit for a couple of days while Viggo was moving into the white clapboard house in Venice Beach. He was plagued with phone calls and utilities and movers, and Karl quickly grew bored with amusing himself by drinking Viggo’s beer and reading Viggo’s journals.
When the taxi pulls up, Karl gets out of the back seat and hauls his pack from the trunk. He pays the driver off with the last of his cash; while the car pulls away, he glances up and down the fairly quiet tree-lined street. He smirks, and hefts his pack onto one shoulder.
He goes up the narrow concrete-slab pathway, past a bit of short parched grass, and up the sagging wooden steps to the front porch. He cups one hand against the twelve-pane window of the room that runs the length of the house from front to back, and peers in. There’s a clutter of canvases stacked along one wall, with further debris of crumpled papers and open cardboard boxes in front of them. A slat packing crate is doing duty as a make-shift coffee table, judging by the crop of empty beer bottles and coffee mugs on top of it and the ratty tweed armchair drawn up next to it.
Karl huffs out a sound of amusement. He walks across the porch, ignoring the front door, and steps down onto the bit of dirt track leading along the side of the house. He goes through the open gate in the peeling and sun-grayed picket fence that surrounds the back yard. The grass back here is as yellow and scrubby as the stuff out front, with the addition of an oily black fire-stain about six feet across right in the middle.
Karl goes up the couple of concrete steps to the open kitchen door. Past the square pillar that juts out on the far-side of the stove, he glimpses the slouched curve of a gray-sweatered spine and the legs of a pine stool pulled in to the breakfast bar at the other end of the kitchen.
“Hey. You serve breakfast all day here?” Karl calls.
He hears the ring of glass on glass and a muffled curse, and then the stool’s legs scrape on the tiled floor. Viggo unfolds from his perch and comes barefoot to the door, squinting into the brightness of the day outside through the lank locks of hair hanging in his eyes.
“Karl?” he says doubtfully, and his voice has the thin dry creak of something left too long unused.
“Afraid so,” Karl grins, shrugging his pack off his shoulder and letting it slide to the ground.
Viggo’s expression cracks, as much wince as smile at first, but then growing more certain in its warmth.
“Fuck. Jesus. Karl,” he says as they fall on each other, hugging and laughing and shoving each other.
Karl’s grin tightens against Viggo’s shoulder when he feels Viggo’s bones too sharp under the thin skim of muscles and skin, and smells the burnt-out sweetness of whiskey and dope and an empty stomach on Viggo’s breath. Karl pulls back a little, holding Viggo off by both shoulders.
“Fuck, mate, what ate you up and shat you back out?”
“You hungry?” Viggo asks, turning his face aside a little so he’s looking at Karl from the creased corners of his eyes.
“Always,” Karl says, pulling his pack back up and following Viggo into the house.
“I’m not sure what there is,” Viggo says, pulling open the refrigerator while Karl makes his way through to the other room. “Eggs, maybe … no, maybe not. I think this was cheese … ”
Karl dumps his pack behind the door and wanders around the room, using the side of his boot to sweep things aside enough to let him tilt some of canvases upright so he can look at them. They’re all finished pieces, already varnished. Karl hunkers down, lifting the lid on a wooden box filled with tubes of oil paint.
“How about fish?” Viggo calls from the kitchen.
“Fish is good,” Karl says, running his fingers over the lumps and strings of color around the necks of the paint tubes.
His fingers come away clean; the paint is absolutely dry.
“Not this fish,” Viggo announces, punctuating the remark with the grind of the garbage disposal.
Karl gets up and walks over to the fireplace. There’s a slew of unopened mail on the mantel.
“There’s beer,” Viggo says triumphantly, appearing in the doorway with a bottle in each hand.
“You been away?” Karl asks.
“No, why do you - ”
Viggo follows Karl’s line of sight to the accumulation of unopened envelopes.
“No,” he says again.
He crosses the room to Karl, offering one of the beer bottles.
“Breakfast of champions,” Karl says, accepting it and tipping the neck against the neck of Viggo’s bottle with a sweet clink of glass against glass.
“So, you didn’t come to LA to see me, did you?” Viggo asks, when they’ve each taken a long appreciative pull at their beers. “What are you doing here? Planning to free-climb the Hollywood sign?”
“Nah,” Karl shrugs, and then adds, “you do know there’s a guy in Wisconsin willing to pay ten grand for one of the ‘el’s, right?”
Viggo laughs.
“The Capri crapped out on me,” Karl says. “Twelve hundred buckaroos and that’s not including shipping on the part if it has to come from outta state.”
“How much have you got on you?” Viggo asks.
“About a dollar ten in change. You got any ideas how I can make twelve hundred dollars, fast?”
“Lots, but none that I’m gonna suggest while you’re living under my roof,” Viggo smirks.
“Ah the hell with it,” Karl smiles, shouldering away from the fireplace where he’s been leaning. “Somethin’ll turn up - ”
“ - it always does,” he and Viggo finish in unison.
Viggo takes the spot Karl’s just vacated against the mantel. Karl wanders around the room, stopping in front of the cheap pine bookcase over-laden with books and magazines and sketchpads. He reaches for the camera sitting on the top shelf, picking it up one-handed, his long fingers and broad palm wrapping around the smooth chrome contours.
“So,” he says mildly. “You wanna tell me what derailed your fuckin’ train?”
Viggo blinks.
“I don’t - I - what are you talking about?” he says, but his voice is taut with understanding.
“There’s no film in it,” Karl says, turning, the camera lifted in his hand to display the back hanging open.
Viggo opens his mouth, but he doesn’t actually say anything.
“There’s no film in it,” Karl repeats. “That’s like saying there’s no fucking blood in your veins, Vig. Your paints are bone dry, and every picture here’s varnished - they’re all weeks old, aren’t they?”
“It’s a long story,” Viggo says tightly.
“Lemme guess,” Karl says, walking up to him and shoving the camera into his free hand. “There was a woman, now there’s not.”
“Okay, maybe it’s not all that long,” Viggo winces, setting the camera on the mantle gently.
“Jesus,” Karl says in fond disgust.
He walks over to his pack and hunkers down.
“You got much booze in the house?” he asks, rifling through the pockets until he comes up with a soft black suede pouch.
“Enough,” Viggo says.
“Okay, we’re gonna get completely fucked up, and you’re gonna tell me how the hell this happened you again.”
Viggo groans, but his grimace is just a twist away from a smile.
Karl stands up again and tosses the pouch to Viggo. Karl turns back to toe his pack further into the corner, when the flutter of something white or light outside the window catches his attention.
“You expecting someone?” he asks, moving back to the kitchen doorway.
“No, whoever it is, tell them to fuck off,” Viggo says, putting his beer bottle next to his camera so he can use both hands to untie the pouch.
“Very good, m’Lord,” Karl says, walking back through the cool gloom of the kitchen to the back door.