UNLAWFUL ENTRY

UNLAWFUL ENTRY

FICTION

Trespassing, larceny and crime-scene sex—romance is alive and thriving

CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Back in the world you still know...back in Before Times, here’s how Walter Baines had always dreamed of doing it.

On Shasta’s 25th birthday he’d suggest taking a bus, the bus going uphill, the one that most days carries her mom and the other house cleaners to work. He’d wear his lucky Lamborghini scarf even if it’s so old it’s turning back into dirty wool.

The two of them would catch the last bus of the night, following the route past that house. Not the house Mrs. Shasta cleans but the one with Scarlett O’Hara columns lining the front porch and the rooflines and lightning rods and red-brick chimneys rising above the ancestral oak trees. It’s the house Shasta has always gawked at the way a dog eyeballs a squirrel, like that pile of bricks and ivy is her pornography. One stop past the house in question Walter would step off the bus and walk back to where the windows would be dark. When she pulled away, he’d get her, tight, around one wrist and tug, gently, saying, “It’s a surprise,” leading her past a statue that creeps him out.

It’s a monkey made out of that metal where if you touched it on a cold day you’d be touching it forever, and anyone who touched you would stick, as would people who touched them until everyone in the world would be trapped together like ice-nine in Vonnegut. The little statue brings to mind a little monkey dressed as a clown, maybe to ride ahorse only with his face painted white. Like in Japan.

Walter would cross the damp grass, beyond the Kabuki-faced monkey-clown statuette, past the little yellow sign for the alarm company.

To mark the occasion, Walter would pull out his lucky pipe and tamp the bowl full of Hindu Kush. Ever the gentleman, he’d offer Shasta the first hit.

He’d pat his hip pocket to double check for a bulge, a round bulge like old-school Kennedy half dollars, like pirate doubloons or chocolate gelt—in reality only gold-foil-wrapped condoms his ma distributes wholesale. His fingertips would trace the outline of something else,

coiled, a larger circle, a loop of something tucked deep in his back pocket.

Walter would lead her, shivering, onto the porch, where and when she’d hide behind a column, standing sideways-skinny in the shadows, blocked from the street. She’d be trusting him but be ready to run. Then and there, he’d say, “Let me go get your birthday present,” and he’d disappear around the side of the house.

She’ll cower there, hearing crickets chirp and the hiss of in-ground sprinklers. Smelling this and that. The nighttime air carries swimming pool chlorine and the vanilla fabric softener of billowing steam from some dryer vent. A private security patrol will cruise by playing its searchlight over the hedges. Since her finger-painting days, this house has stood here, filled with history, never changing, a place where she could never imagine feeling afraid. Here and now she’s hugging herself behind a column, looking on her phone for a taxi, surfing the Neighborhood Watch sites to see if anyone’s reported two prowlers.

The front door creaks open. As if by itself, the paneled, whitepainted door will swing aside on its brass hinges. Nightmare slow. Before she can bolt down the steps, comes a whisper from the darkness inside the front hallway, Walter’s voice whispering, “Happy birthday, Shasta.”

Walter will edge his head out until the porch light puts a white mask on his face, wave a hand for her to come inside. He’ll whisper, “It’s okay.”

She’ll stand there between the fear she feels and what she wants most: the end of all fear.

He’ll say, “Hurry.”

She’ll give the empty, dark street one last look and step inside. He’ll shut the door. The two of them will kiss until her eyes adjust so she can look around in the half-light. Take note of the brass chandelier holding a forest of fake candles above their heads.

Check out the stairway curving down, out of the darkness. The carved, leather-scented wood of everything. From somewhere,

Walter will hear a clock ticking, loud against the silence. Little smears of light will bounce off a swinging, polished silver pendulum. Flicker in shades of blue off the mirror above a fireplace.

The thing about Shasta is the taste of her mouth. In his experience a girl can be beautiful with all the tits in the world, long legs and a button nose, but a bad-tasting mouth makes her only as good as porn. Shasta, the inside of her mouth reminds him of high-fructose corn syrup, like soaking maraschino cherries stewed with Red No. 5 and gelatin until her tongue has the mouth-feel of a Hostess fruit pie flaking sugar like a baby snake shedding its sweet, dead, sweet skin. Until every French kiss is him deep-throating a semimolten, sugar-coated snake, like a little garter snake or a garden-variety brown boa. Like Walter’s mouth is locked overnight in a delicious combination reptile house and Danish pastry shop.

She’ll whisper about the alarm system, and he’ll point upward. Her gaze will follow his arm to a camera mounted high on one wall. When and where he’ll give her a silent thumbsup, a-okay. He’ll explain that he hacked the system. Before they even boarded the bus, Walter deactivated everything, remotely. He found a window unlocked in the back. He’d been planning this for weeks. No one will ever know they were here.

As irrefutable evidence that he’s more than a slack-jawed, single-digit brain-cell burner, he’ll explain about network enumeration and exploitation. Walter will boast about his genius cryptographic keys while leading her toward the stairs.

Shasta will be heel dragging, whispering about homeowners with shotguns. About stand-your-ground laws.

If anyone catches them, Walter will promise to lie. He’ll swear that he lured her here to strangle her. He’s a serial killer. He’s got victims buried in shallow graves all over the American West. He’ll pretend to a jury that he’d told her this was his house. He’d planned to eat Froot Loops out of the bowl he’d make from her skull. Using her blood, he’d write HELTER

SEX IS SEX, BUI SEX PLUS omis mi

SKELTER on the glass door of the Sub-Zero wine cooler. As an almost-butchered woman, she’ll get off scot-free.

Walter will say that he’s already snooped around. No one’s home. He’ll reach into his back pocket and show her the coil of thin wire. It’s ready for when the police frisk him: a garrote, for strangling her, with a small wooden peg attached to either end so he can pull it tight. It’s her get-out-of-jail-free card. Seeing condoms and a murder weapon will be all the insurance policy she’ll need. She can relax.

Sex is sex, but sex plus danger is great. The looming threat of being serial-killed or getting jail time will bring down her juice faster than green M&M’s. The both of them a tangled knot, he’ll go at it until they’re half dead. They’ll christen every room. If there’s a safe, behind a painting or a secret panel in the wall, Walter will find it. He’ll press his ear near the dial and listen to the tumblers spin. Before she says not to, he’ll throw the handle and open the heavy door, taking only enough cash for two first-class one-way tickets to Denver.

In Denver, he’ll take her on another bus ride to where big houses sit far apart. He’ll show her on his phone how he reverse-engineered the security-monitoring software, how easy, and she’ll follow him around the sides of a house until they find a window unlatched.

Before here and now, she’s only known him as some baked chode. A hammered nobody who can only afford ditch weed shake full of seeds and stems. He lives in his ma’s basement, where the plumbing growls like a stomach, like the sound of an impending bad smell. Shasta likes him okay, but not so much that she’d marry him.

By Denver, she’s bought into his secret Robin Hood bad-boy side. The way he can open doors—abracadabra—and human-traffic the two of them into rich, forbidden worlds. After they make love on a bearskin rug and throw the goopy condom into a roaring fire in a stone fireplace under a crystal chandelier, after they drink stolen wine and she washes the glasses and puts everything back, then he’ll locate another safe. This one, hidden under the false bottom of a seemingly empty bathroom cabinet, he’ll have it open in a flash and withdraw just the money they need to fly to Chicago.

That bad-boy Walter will completely win her over. Chicago will be a repeat of Denver. Minneapolis will take them to Seattle. As a sign of her newfound awe and respect, she starts referring to his junk as the Penis de Milo. In Minneapolis she slips up and calls him “daddy.” Seattle leads to San Francisco, where they’ll sneak past the doorman at some art deco skyscraper that they’ll just happen to be passing one night. He’ll hack the elevator code and ride to the penthouse. Using his phone, he’ll show her the view from every security camera to prove nobody’s home. While Shasta stands lookout near the elevator, he’ll trip the locks, then hurry her inside. He’ll remind her of the backup scenario. Him: serial killer. Her: victim. The two of them, outlaws. The next day they’ll be strolling along a dock in Sausalito where he’ll target a yacht. They’ll take it out into the bay, not sailing, he’s not that much of a show-off. He’ll use the motor and spend a sunny day on the water. On the deck, catching some rays, she’ll say, “Show me, again.” Then and there he’ll pull the coiled wire out of his pocket and demonstrate how easily it fits around her neck. Just to give her peace of mind.

A locker will yield an array of bikinis all in perfect Size Shasta. He’s neither a tit man nor a leg man so she’s his physical ideal, stretched out on a deck chair, sucking down Durban Poison until her skin burns the color of deep-dish chili-cheese Pepperoni Stix. That same evening, he’ll moor the yacht and look for a new safe, this one hidden by a spice rack camouflaged behind a panel in the galley. The money he finds will get them both down to San Diego.

Still they’re trespassers in paradise. She might be having a ball, touring the glamorous life with Mr. Douche Danger. But she’ll never marry him, and he knows that.

As long as her vacation time holds out, they’ll hop from San Diego to New Orleans to Miami. In a waterfront villa, they’ll be making love. In a canopy bed beside big windows that look out on the ocean under a full moon. Not a minute after they’ve taken each other to heaven and back, the bedroom doors will burst open. Uniformed men train their side arms on Shasta. The lights blaze bright, and she screams, clutching damp sheets over her naked body. Not like Walter practiced, not exactly, she screams, “He’s a serial killer,” meaning him. She screams, “He told me he lived here.” So much for her acting skills. She says, “He planned to strangulate me!”

A voice among the uniforms yells, “Police!” Commands, “Put your hands where we can see them!”

This is how it ends, their cross-country crime spree. Bonnie and Clyde without the body count. With the spit still wet on each other, he’ll climb out of bed and find his pants. He’ll show the police his driver’s license. Keeping his hands in the air, his pecker still stuck out so hard it shines, still waving the filled

condom like a little white flag, he’ll cross the room to an elegant antique French desk.

She’ll still be in bed, openly weeping, saying, “Thank God, thank you! He calls this love, but he plans to destroy me!”

The police won’t allow Walter to actually open the desk drawer so he’ll direct an officer to do so. Revealed within, lying on top in plain sight, will be a deed of property ownership. On it, notarized and duly recorded in all public records will be the same name as on the driver’s license. His name. Where and when, in the elegant intonations of a landed aristocrat, he’ll explain, smiling, naked, “Officers, I own this house.”

In the bed, the weeping will stop. Shasta’s voice will ask, “Huh?” The two of them had been drinking red wine, and the edge of her glass will have left a thin, red Salvador Dali mustache curving up from the corners of her mouth.

He’ll explain. He owned everything. In Denver, in Seattle, every house is his. He knew the codes, the combinations to the safes. The cash he took was his own. He left the windows unlocked and tipped doormen to look the other way. Even the yacht and the bikinis. Secretly, Walter dialed 9 -1-1 to bring the cops at this, the perfect moment.

Blithely, he’ll pull off the condom and cast it aside. Not only is he a brash bad-boy douche bag with the stealth and cunning to skate through life and show a girl a good time, he’s also rich. He’ll be the same old Walter she liked before, only loaded. The regular him, but with so much more to love.

With the police officers looking on, their guns lowered, him still naked, her naked, he’ll kneel on the floor near his pants. He’ll reach into the pocket where the garrote is hidden and bring out a ring. He’ll ask, “Will you marry me?”

A big diamond ring.

There and then, a crew of caterers will arrive with chocolate-dipped strawberries and Mountain Dew-flavored Doritos with garlic popcorn and extra ranch dressing on the side. He’ll fire up a big, juicy party bowl packed with New Purple Power, and even the cops will greedily partake. For the honeymoon him and Shasta will live happily ever after on a tropical isle he owns, reforested with fields of White Rhino. Either there or maybe under a geodesic dome terrarium sunk on the bottom of the ocean with self-contained, recycling everything, surrounded by an ever-changing galaxy of colorful tropical sea life.

Whatever the case, this is how he’ll propose.

Excerpted from Adjustment Day, out May 1 from W.W. Norton.