william giraldi

hideous blue

The photographs on his lap showed his wife Karen walking into a motel room with her lover. Ronald Feys looked at them and felt the grip on his throat. The man who had taken these shots was a private investigator who wanted to be called Ratt — with two t’s, he said. Ronald had hired him four weeks ago, after a shifty cousin had put him in touch. Now the two men sat in their cars in the supermarket parking lot, talking to each other through their driver’s side windows. Ratt had pulled in so close that Ronald could smell his pungent cigarette-coffee breath. He could not make sense of the weird blue light of the day.

Ratt said, “You want them taken care of?”

“I don’t,” Ronald told him.

“It can be painless. Or painful, it don’t matter. It’s up to you.”

“No thank you,” Ronald said.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind. We have a son.”



“Ask him if he wants her taken care of. You never know. Sometimes a boy wants his mother gone. It’s natural for some kids, I think. Someone should have knocked off my mother when I was growing up, and maybe now I’d be the CEO of some big company, a nice family, who knows.”

Ronald looked at the last photo and then slipped them all back into the manila envelope. Ratt had written “Feys Case” on the envelope with a thick, red magic marker, and Ronald suddenly wondered how he had become a man with his own case, a man who had arrived at this particular mess in his life. Awkward, inexplicable forces or circumstances had to align for him to be sitting here with these photographs on his lap.

Ratt said, “Not bad, huh? I should have been a professional photographer maybe. I got some talent for that, I think.”

Ronald tried to be offended by this man’s sarcasm, but he didn’t have any room left for that. He asked, “Where were you when you took these shots?”

“I was in my car, across the parking lot. Telephoto lens.”

He paused to sip from his paper coffee cup, and Ronald waited for further explanation, as if this strange man might, by virtue of some hidden goodness, offer Ronald a digestible explanation, a way for him to live from this day forward with the hurtful facts lying on his lap.

“So, what do you want to do now?” Ratt asked, but Ronald could not answer. Ratt reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a cassette tape and handed it over to Ronald. “Here,” he said.

“What’s this?”

“Audio surveillance. I planted a tape recorder in their room. You can hear for yourself what talent this woman’s got.”

“You recorded them?”



“Audio and visual, that’s correct. I serve my clients right. You can listen to the tape while looking at the pictures. It’ll be like you were actually there.”

Ronald examined the cassette tape as if he had never seen one before. On a thin label Ratt had once again written “Feys Case.” The anxiety loose in his stomach and the fuzziness floating through his head reminded Ronald of the awful influenza he had caught two years ago: ten straight days in bed and a fever so high Karen said that he could melt the ice caps. He opened the center console, dropped the cassette tape into it and then slammed it shut.

“Did you get the key I asked for? The key to their room?”

“Yeah, I got it, here. Room 23, on the first level, around the back. Always the same room, like I told you. Your wife parks her car next to the dumpster. Usually. You remember the address?”

“Yes,” Ronald said. “I think I remember.”

“1919 Spring Valley Drive. That’s pretty, ain’t it? Spring Valley. A nice place for an afternoon of illegal fucking. And you know they meet Wednesdays and Fridays, from 3:30 to 5:00. Usually no later than five. The motel is called The Bed, which ain’t exactly ironic, I guess, but it sure is funny.” He paused to chuckle and then said, “You don’t wanna write any of this down?”

“I don’t need to.”

“All right, but I’m thorough with my facts, buddy. Facts are everything. I’m professional. I serve my clients right. You mind if I ask what you’re gonna do with that key?”

“What do you think I’ll do with it?”



Ratt said, “I think you’re gonna drop in on them, pay a little surprise visit. I think you’re going to see for yourself.”

Ronald looked at the key resting on his moist palm. It was shiny silver with fifty sharp grooves.

“Just don’t do anything crazy,” Ratt said. “I’m the crazy one around here. You want craziness, you call me.”

The first evening they met at the diner, Ratt recited his credentials. He had been a tunnel rat in Vietnam, one of those sick son-of-a-bitch soldiers who crept through the ground with a flashlight between his teeth and a .45 in his grip. Chosen in part because he was a small man, he said he loved it, that it was like being buried alive, so silent and away from the world, inside the gentle, indifferent womb of the earth. Ronald swallowed hard and felt the claustrophobia overcome him, and then considered if this was really the man he should hire to spy on Karen. A man who had obviously killed people — some for country, some for money, and some, Ronald feared, for fun.

But it was finished now that he had the photographs in hand. Ronald Feys was grateful that it was finished.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“Three grand. And I hope you brought small bills. Places look at me funny when I try to use a hundred. Places look at me funny anyway. Usually.”



Ronald counted out the money on his dashboard and handed it over to him. After he made sure it was all there, Ratt passed a tissue back over to Ronald. He said, “Here, take this, pal. I can’t stand to see a grown man cry.”

Alone now, Ronald put his window up and slid the tape into the cassette player. There was crackling and static before he heard Karen’s voice beckoning God and then instructing her lover: harder, faster, deeper, rougher; grab my hair, punish my ass, spit in my mouth. Ronald had heard these words before, but not from Karen. He had heard them on innumerable porn videos, each indistinguishable from the one before. Karen had always been docile and conservative in bed with him: no foul language, rarely any position except missionary, always with her eyes squeezed shut, as if she was wishing. This woman on the cassette tape was playing a role. He knew it. She was leaving her skin and becoming somebody else. She was a woman who despised her life with such venom that she would do almost anything to escape it. Ronald recognized all this with an ache in his upper chest that nearly suffocated him.



On the way to pick up his son Jacob from school, Ronald Feys felt the numbness take hold of his body. It began in his head, slunk down through his torso and limbs, and settled in his feet. As he shifted gears, his legs were wobbly and weak, as if his knees might unhinge. He was not in shock, since he had known for nearly a week, and had suspected for much longer than that. Seeing the photographs and hearing the tape, though, made Karen’s betrayal come alive in a way he hadn’t thought possible. He tried to convince himself that it was only biology at work, the blind carnal needs of organisms on this earth. The sacred status of sex was a fabrication, he knew — emotions imposing themselves onto matter, mind trying to overcome the stubborn sovereignty of flesh, the honorable human being seeking to sever all ties to the ignoble beast he once was, that hairy brute who grunted through the jungle, splashing his seed into whatever receptacle he could find.

But Ronald’s dialogue with himself failed, because there was nothing more palpable, more physical, than the ache in his breast, the constriction in his throat, the tears on his cheeks and the wetness under his arms. This is biology too, he thought, and just as real. This is what happens to an organism in the throes of deception. Sex and pain were equal in the release of body fluids. Ronald Feys wondered if, with the sweat and tears, his blood would spill as well. This situation now thrust upon him seemed somehow to demand buckets of blood. Whether his or someone else’s, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t recall the last time he had ejaculated. The exhausting absence of fulfillment inside his and Karen’s bedroom made him almost impotent.

Jacob was waiting in front of the elementary school wearing his bookbag and flipping through the pages of a karate magazine. He had lately acquired a fondness for Bruce Lee movies and was trying to work up the incentive to join a martial arts class. Before the boy got in the car, Ronald dried his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt and then took the deepest breath he could. At the last instant he saw the envelope of photos on the passenger seat. He reached over and quickly slid them under the floor mat.

Jacob said, “You’re late, Dad,” throwing his bookbag onto the back seat.



“Sorry, Jake. Sorry about that. Were you waiting long?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Are you sick?” the boy asked. “You look sick.”

“Yeah, I think I’m getting a cold or something. I’m all right, though. How are you doing? Put on your seatbelt.”

“Good. Pretty good. I’m starving, though. Mom forgot to pack me two sandwiches again. I like two sandwiches.”

Ronald drummed his index fingers on the steering wheel and looked over at Jacob with a dazed expression, nodding slowly as if agreeing with the last sentence the boy had spoken. The word “Mom” baffled him and, at the same time, intensified the severity of what was about to happen to them. It was a much more hurtful word than “wife.” The information that his son preferred two sandwiches presented itself to Ronald as an almost philosophical problem.

“Why are we just sitting here, Dad? Let’s go already.”

“Oh, right, sorry. Put your seatbelt on.”

When he pulled out of the school’s parking lot, Ronald got into the left hand turning lane and switched down the blinker. Jacob noticed right away and asked where they were going.

“Well, I need to show you something, Jake. Before we go home. I need to show you something.”

“What is it?” the boy asked.



“Well, I can’t explain it, really. That’s why I have to show you. I wish I didn’t, but I don’t know any other way.” He felt for the key through his jeans. He tried to picture the look on Karen’s face as he and Jacob walked into the motel room.

Jacob said, “Any other way for what? What are you talking about? I’m starving don’t forget. And Enter the Dragon is on at six.”

“We can stop by Burger King or something if you want. And we’ll be home in time for the movie.”

“What about dinner? Mom’s not making dinner again?”

“Oh, probably not. But Burger King’s pretty good, don’t you think? I like it okay.”

The boy nodded and glanced over at Ronald with a puzzled grimace. Ronald understood that these next few minutes in the car were going to be mysterious for his son. He tried to stay his quivering limbs and stifle the dread so Jacob would not be afraid. He could not know if he was succeeding. Karen’s punishment had to come, though. Ronald could not relinquish that plan, the hot impulse that was forcing him to bring Jacob to that motel room, to show him his mother as she really was.

“You’re driving over the center line, Dad. Do you want me to drive?”

“Very funny, Jake. Ha ha.”

“Yeah,” the boy said, “ha ha. But I want to know where we’re going. You’re acting funny.”

“Just answer me something first.”

“Just stop at this red light why don’t you.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” he said and slammed his foot down hard on the brake. Jacob braced himself with one hand on the dash. “What do you like about that guy?”



“What guy?” the boy asked.

“Bruce Lee. What do you like about him?”

“He’s cool. He kicks everybody’s ass. He’s tough.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. I guess I knew that, yes.”

They were silent while waiting for the light to change. When they began moving again, Jacob said, “By the way, I decided I wanna take karate classes. Is that all right? I really wanna.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s all right. When? Where?” The question “How?” almost came out of Ronald’s mouth, but he was able to stop it.

“I don’t know,” Jacob said. “I wanna go soon. In town someplace. Isn’t there a place in town?”

“Uhh, yeah, I think so.”

“I saw the sign in town somewhere. The end of Main Street, I think. And, look, there’s the Burger King sign, as we drive right past it.”

“Oh, shit,” Ronald said, and swerved at the last second into the parking lot. Jacob once again braced himself against the dash, and then rolled his eyes at Ronald.



While his son was inside ordering fries and a milkshake, Ronald Feys remained in the car, commanding himself to breathe and wiping his wet palms across his jeans. He tried, once again, to persuade himself that monogamy is a social construct, that Americans are especially puritanical. The snakes do it in the slime, the worms do it in the dirt, all of nature is infused with the insatiable will to fornicate, to replicate. Karen has no dominion over her body’s cells or the autonomous neurons tripping in her brain. The universe has unruly intentions, chaos both within and without. Let’s leave loyalty behind and surrender to the mighty pulse that prompts all life forward.

In the next instant Ronald was hammering the steering wheel with the meaty underpart of his fist, cursing his wife and wishing there were an eternal hellfire for her to roast in. Through the Burger King window, he could see his son ordering at the counter.

When Ronald Feys opened his eyes several minutes later, Ratt was staring at him from behind his steering wheel. He had pulled in close again to Ronald’s car. Strings of lettuce dangled from the corners of his mouth; a dot of ketchup marked the tip of his nose. For those several minutes Ronald had been in a place somewhere between consciousness and sleep, as if only half of him had blacked out. With a start he looked around for Jacob, but saw through the window that the boy was still at the counter.

Ratt said, with a mouthful of food, “You taking a nap or something?”

“What are you doing here?” Ronald asked, straightening himself in the seat.

“I’m an American,” he said. “It’s my right to eat at any fast food restaurant in the nation. What the hell you mean, what are you doing here?”

“I mean, uhh, did you want something?”

“Well yeah, actually. I stopped by for a bite to eat just now and saw your car sitting here, and I remembered that I never asked you about the guy.”



“About what guy?”

“The guy who’s penetrating your wife.”

“Oh. What about him?”

“You have any idea who he is? Where they met? How long they’ve known each other? You recognize his voice on the tape? Anything like that?”

“How would I know any of that? You’re the private investigator. What did I hire you for?”

“Hey, I was employed for detection and surveillance only. Intel takes more time. You never said you needed intel, only proof. So that’s what I got you. Proof. Audio and visual.”

Ronald looked away from Ratt and saw Jacob ambling out the side door with a white paper bag in one hand and a tall milkshake in the other. For a second, as the boy’s head had emerged from inside the doorway, Ronald did not recognize him. It was the way the breeze blew his hair sideways, or his deadly-serious facial expression, so surprising on a boy his size.

“Listen,” he said, “my son’s coming back to the car, is there anything else you want?”

Ratt craned his neck to see Jacob. He said, “Is that the little tike? Looks like a good kid.”

“He is. What else do you want?”

“Well, to tell ya the truth, you didn’t look so good when I saw you before. I guess I was just worried about you is all.”

“You were worried about me?”



“Yeah, I guess maybe I was. You didn’t look so good. What, does that make me a fag or something, because I was worried about you?”

Jacob hopped into the car and closed the door hard. The scent of the fast food rushed up Ronald’s nose, and for the briefest instant he felt hungry.

Ratt said, “Hey there, little man, how you doing?”

Jacob said, “Hey,” and then looked at his father. His face asked, “Who is this man you’re talking to?”

“I’m an acquaintance of your father’s. My enemies call me Ratt.”

“Your enemies?” the boy asked with half a smile. “Well, what do your friends call you?”

“Friends? I don’t have any friends,” and he laughed at this.

“Listen,” Ronald said, “we should get going.”

“Hey, what’s the rush? Let the boy eat his food. Don’t you know that the body can’t digest in motion?”

“Is that true?” Jacob said.

“Absolutely true,” Ratt said. “I know things about the human body that most doctors can only dream of. I’m sort of an expert in the human body, actually. Strength, agility, digestion, all that.” He shoved the last of the burger into his mouth and then crumpled up the wrapper, throwing it over his shoulder into the back seat.

“Well, I’m taking karate classes,” the boy said.

“Is that right?” Ratt said. “Your father didn’t tell me you were interested in the martial arts. That’s something. I’m a blackbelt, you know.”

Jacob said, “Are you really? Do you like Bruce Lee?”



“Do I like Bruce Lee? Are you kidding? He’s practically my hero. One of the most unique human beings who ever lived. Did you know that he was, pound for pound, the strongest man in the world?”

“Pound for pound?” the boy asked.

“Yeah, he was just a little shit, like myself. Maybe only a hundred and thirty pounds, soaking wet. But of all the men in the world his weight, he was the strongest. That’s a fact.”

Ronald felt unable to stop this conversation. He sat between Ratt and his son, and turned his head back and forth each time one of them spoke. For the second time today, his mind hovered above his body, peering down while it writhed with nausea and fatigue. A panic attack was possible; it was inching nearer every minute.

Ratt asked the boy, “How far along are you with your karate lessons?”

“Well, I haven’t actually started them yet. I’m gonna start them this week. Right, Dad?”

Ronald heard himself say, “Yes, that’s right.”

“What about Chuck Norris?” the boy asked. “You like Chuck Norris too?”

Ratt said, “Ahh, an admirable man, Chuck Norris. A true champion. The Mohammed Ali of American martial arts. But he can’t really compare to Bruce Lee, you think?”

“No way,” Jacob said. “He’s a bad ass all right, but Bruce is definitely the best.”



Ratt slurped the rest of his soda through the straw, rattled around the ice, and then tossed it over his shoulder. He said, “Hey, kid, you want me to show you a few karate moves? So you don’t go to your lesson the first day like a spring chicken with its head up its butt?”

Ronald was about to say, “No, I don’t think so,” but Jacob was already getting out of the car, excited and smiling.

Ratt opened his door, just enough so that it didn’t hit Ronald’s car. Ronald had an uncertain look on his face. Ratt said, “Relax, buddy. The kid should have a few pointers. We’re all friends here.”

Ratt and Jacob met in front of the car; Ronald sat there with both hands on the wheel, staring at them with both horror and wonder. The next fifteen minutes transpired in soundless slow motion. Ratt showed the boy how to stand on guard, his knees slightly bent, his body limber and at an angle, left fist raised out in front of him, right fist clenched near his face. Ronald could see Jacob watching with fascination; the boy did as Ratt told him. Ratt pretended to throw a punch and told Jacob how he should duck to the side. He then took hold of Jacob’s shoulders and twisted them gently, putting him in the proper stance. He took hold of the boy’s fists and raised them to where they belonged, in a defensive position. He demonstrated a standing side-kick, his leg up at a sharp angel and perfectly straight. And the boy followed his every move.

Ratt was so careful and delicate that it seemed as if Jacob could be his son. They carried on like that in slow motion, and Ronald Feys watched their mock rumble. He watched the seriousness on Ratt’s face and the surprised delight on Jacob’s. He’s teaching my son, Ronald thought, his mind suddenly clearer than it had been all day.



Ronald wanted to just drive home, to forget about bringing his son to the motel. He knew it had something to do with the lesson that would be learned, and what Jacob was learning right now from Ratt. One was endurance, the other annihilation. The lesson and the punishment would become the same. And yet he could not change his mind; a force he could not explain was pulling him there.

After another few minutes Jacob got back in the car, then Ratt said goodbye and drove off. “Wow, that guy’s awesome,” Jacob said, pulling the seatbelt over his bony shoulders. “That was a pretty good present you got for me, Dad. Thanks a lot. Can we go home and watch Bruce Lee now?”

Ronald nodded and touched his son’s hair. They should go home now, yes, and sit on the couch together under the blanket, and watch Bruce Lee. And in the morning they should wake early to sign up for karate classes together. They should learn, together, how to defend themselves against the attacker, and how to survive when the inevitable fight finally comes. But instead Ronald turned right out of the parking lot in the direction of the motel. When the tears began falling from his nose and chin Jacob asked him what was wrong. Ronald was thinking of what he’d tell the boy as they stood before the motel room door, the key in hand. “Take this,” he’d say. “Go on, son. Take it.”