Balls (16 page)

The light was changing. Traffic started towards them, and Paula led him up onto the sidewalk. She said, But do you really think you'd do it?

Really do
what
, Paula?

Do you think you'd visit me in Europe after your procedure?

I…but…are you sure that—

Her every part shone with affection for him. She said, I know it's expensive, but my parents gave me $25,000. I could pay for you to come. We could travel.

The wind, warm and smelling of the ocean, blew up the back of his shirt, and he caught the tail of it, stuffing it back into his pants. He said, Paula…I…I don't know what you mean.

I've always thought about us going around Europe together.

You have?

Yes, she said. You
knew
that.

And you'd be glad if I came to meet you?

So
glad.

Really?

Take off work. Come.

Do you
want
that?

I'm telling you I do.

Are you really, though?

Why do you keep doubting me?

Is Jeffrey Moss not going with you to Europe?

I could pay for your whole trip, she told him. I would do it if it meant having you with me.

What are you
getting at?

I want you to come meet me, Henry.

But he didn't understand. Was he not speaking the words he meant to say? Or was he saying them and she was refusing to hear them? He must be losing his mind. He must be. He must. He should tell her about his testicle. In an instant, everything would be different. Compassion would follow. But could he even utter the right words? And if he did, would she comprehend them? He tried again.

I have cancer of the testicles, he said.

And that's okay. You can come as soon as you feel better.

Ach, but why wouldn't she hear him? Was he saying something other than what he thought? Well, yes. That could be. Perhaps then he wasn't saying anything about Moss or cancer at all, but expressing his undying love for her. Or asking for her hand in matrimony. Though he thought he was standing, he might be down on one knee, proposing. Was that possible? Why not? Oh, he had to get out of here. He had to leave. To sleep. Rest would restore him. In the morning, he would go to the airport. He would fly to Paris. He would feel better there.

Everything's better in Paris, he told himself.

They were outside Paula's building. She said that staying the night was not a good idea. She hadn't even packed.

This is it, she told him.

Henry said, All right, and he began, by instinct, to kiss her. He used a lot of force. He remembered then how she preferred a tender kiss. He relaxed his lips. A moment passed, and he backed up a step and said, in a timorous voice, I'll see you soon, Paula.

You'll come to Europe?

I will.

Promise me.

Henry did promise her. He said, I'll come to see you. I mean it.

Her hand firm against his face, she said,
Please do
.

I will, he said. I promise, you'll see me soon.

Goodnight, Henry.

Goodnight. Goodnight. And he dashed off into a taxi.

NINE

N
othing can stop me now, thought Henry. He would travel to Paris to work with Bobby Jacques. He'd be present at the home of Michel Drouot Saturday for Paula's recital, as a saboteur, a lover, he didn't know which. His mind would not let him sort through an answer.

He lay down at a quarter after eleven to try and rest before a seven a.m. flight. Restricting his thoughts to the more mundane might bring on sleep, he knew. However, he couldn't stop fantasizing about Paula, Moss, Dahl, Walbaum, Bobby Jacques and his testicle. At a quarter to four he was still awake and staring viciously at the ceiling. Determined to leave for the airport in a half-hour, he went in the shower. Minutes later, under the rush of water, he noticed he was standing with palms up and feet splayed, the tip of his chin lowered to his chest and his eyes closed—he was nearly asleep. With a plane to catch, he slapped himself once, hard. From the shower, he began toweling off. He saw his own white face in the reflection of the medicine cabinet, the dark circles, and the eyes themselves a bright red. His heart started to beat dangerously fast. He turned away. He had to get out of here. In the bedroom, he struggled into his navy suit and put on his black shoes. He locked the windows, shut the lights, snatched his bag and rushed downstairs onto the avenue. A dark sky covered the hushed streets of the U.N. Henry hailed a taxi. In the car and speeding through the jaundiced tube of the Midtown Tunnel, he had the feeling that his testicle had swelled to the size of an orange.

You're just deceiving yourself. You've always been good at that. Why do you fool yourself like this in the first place? What pleasure does it bring you? It is pleasure that you're after, isn't it?

Is it?

You want to imagine your testicle blown up, deformed, and to lose it…to absolutely lose it…

What pleasure do you receive in that? Pleasure should be sweet. And that's not sweet at all.

But you're so quick to assume that you're deceiving yourself. Perhaps you're not. You can feel the testicle big against your thigh. You can
feel
it. Can't you? Or are you imagining that, too?

Which is it?

Onto 495, with the Manhattan skyline turned down black behind him and his body snaked across the vinyl, he threw his hands down his pants, seizing his testicles.

What do you feel? If you say they're bigger, can you possibly be right? If you say they're just the same, can you possibly be wrong?

The question took a hundred shapes in his mind. Eventually the road bent right into the airport. The horizon was not yet visible. Planes were idle at the ends of jet-ways. The taxi pulled up outside the terminal, Henry paid the driver and went inside. His filter, the gray shading, was there, impeding his vision. The carpeted walls behind the checkout counter, the floors and ceiling, the television screens announcing arrivals and departures, all appeared dulled in tone. Checking in, Henry saw he had nearly two hours before his plane departed. Though most businesses in the terminal were still closed at this early hour, on the other side of security he saw a restaurant with its gates up and lights on. He went through the metal detector without setting off any alarms, and carried his bags into the restaurant. There was no one here. Henry plunged down in a chair. A tall and skinny redhead with a scar above his brow appeared seemingly from nowhere and dropped a menu on his table, heading towards the back of the room.

Can I order something? Henry called to him.

No,
you
can't
, answered the waiter.

Why not?

‘Cause the kitchen's closed for fifteen more minutes.

You have coffee?

I will, he said, once I've made some, and he went off briskly through a swinging door.

Fucking idiot, muttered Henry. Vigorously, he scratched the palms of his hands. He thought his forehead must be hot. He felt it with the back of his hand. And it was, yes. He must have a fever. But what of these televisions? All of them on mute. And there was one…two…three…four… five…six…fourteen of them showing the same local news channel. Why in god's name were so many televisions necessary? What was wrong with these people? Did they think this was a credit to their establishment? Did they think people wanted so many televisions? Disgraceful.

Henry, with commotion in his heart, took the menu in his hand and began to read the items quietly aloud.

A bagel and butter and a cup of coffee, was what he eventually told the waiter.

The waiter said, That's all you're eating?

That's all, said Henry.

No eggs?

No.

Juice?

Uh-uh.

Suit yourself.

I will, you prick, said Henry, to himself. This waiter and his
attitude
. What was his problem, anyway? Didn't I treat him politely, even after he was rude to me? Didn't I maintain a gracious look? I did nothing wrong. Nothing.

Here, the waiter, wearing a blue tie which matched his bright eyes, put a cup of coffee in front of Henry. The cup was filled only halfway. Henry, still the only patron in the dining room, pushed the cup to the side. He said to him, I'll take more coffee, please.

The waiter stopped short before rushing off into the kitchen, and shot Henry a hard look. Henry pointed in his cup. He said, You didn't fill it all the way.

Drink what I gave you, the waiter told him, then you can have more.

I know I'll want more, said Henry, so why not give it to me now?

You'll drink what I gave you first.

He was not a big man, the waiter. His arms were thin. His shoulders and neck were narrow. Henry, sizing him up, felt certain he could take him in a fight. But he dragged the coffee cup back towards himself, and said:

Fine. Thanks.

The waiter went off. After a moment of consideration Henry began filling his cup with water. Drinking this mixture wasn't his intention. He gathered that the waiter, once returned, would think there was more coffee in his cup and he would wonder how Henry had come by it. Henry believed he suffered excessive pride. Because of this, he wouldn't ask how Henry's coffee cup levels had risen but let the question eat him up inside. Eventually he'd conclude that Henry had waited for him to go back into the kitchen, rushed over to the coffee machine himself and refilled his cup before he could be caught in the act. Of this, Henry was sure. So much so that among the empty chairs, Henry laughed an hysterical laugh, imagining the waiter's red-face darken with fury. However, at the next second, observing his coffee cup, Henry noted how there was still room to add more water. He did, and the vision of his cup filling higher inspired him so much that he didn't stop until the coffee was spilling over into the saucer. Henry, his body shivering, was experiencing so much joy, he couldn't wait to see the waiter's expression at the sight of his cup. It would be priceless.

The waiter burst through the double-doors of the kitchen, and Henry's heart began to beat hard. The tense, thin redhead was coming straight towards him. Henry sat up eagerly in his chair, his smile crooked. Without acknowledging the overflowing cup, the waiter dropped a plate down in front of Henry.

There you go, he said.

The waiter went to stand at the bar. With the clicker up in the air above his head, he changed the channel on the televisions, the networks flipping at the same time on every box from local news to cable news to sports highlights to a cooking program, and finally more news.

But Henry couldn't believe what he was looking at. Before him on the plate was a bagel, black and smoldering. He pinched the edge of the table, letting out a cry. What was this? And what did the waiter mean by putting it on his table? There was no reason to ask. Henry knew quite well. He was trying to insult him. Did he think he'd get away with it? Did he? The answer was no. He would
not
get away with anything. Henry, flabbergasted, pushed back in his chair. The waiter was going around the room, putting salt and pepper shakers on tables. When he got to Henry, he stopped and said:

Is everything all right, sir?

No! shouted Henry, everything is not all right. You gave me a burnt bagel. You think that's funny?

Excuse me?

You heard me.

My, my. I guess I did, he said to Henry, stoic-faced. Must've not been paying attention when it popped from the toaster. Like me to put a new one in for you?

Oh, this waiter was crafty. A crafty, abhorrent man. But Henry could play his game…play it even better. Adjusting the crotch of his pants so as to avoid any disruption to his groin, he came from his chair. Biliously, he said, Perhaps I should go back there and do it myself.

What's that?

I said perhaps
I
should go back there and do it myself! I think that maybe…just maybe…you're a little fucking incompetent. Henry's eyes were riveted on the waiter, who had a thunderous look on his face.

Yeah…yeah, yeah, yeah, the waiter was saying. Do it. Go back there. See what happens.

Slamming his hand to the table, Henry told him, Take this fucking bagel back and bring me a new one.

Or what! What'll you do!

Henry, seething white with fury, said, Or, I'll kill you.

You'll kill
me?

Yes!

Okay, come on, let's go. I'm going to kick your ass!

The two men charged at one another, their bodies coming down hard on the floor. Rolled under a table, spitting, grunting, Henry fastened his hands around the man's throat. Their faces were purple, sweaty, and their teeth flashed white. But Henry could see he was killing him. The waiter's blue eyes were partially raised from their sockets, and his embattled last gasps were enough to terrify Henry. He let go, jumping to his feet. The waiter was convulsing face-down on the floor. Henry rabidly paced. He began to apologize. He didn't know how any of this had happened. He was in complete shock. But could he forgive him? implored Henry. This was purely an aberration, a low moment. To strangle another man, to come so close to squeezing all the life out of him, he took it back.

The waiter, still fighting for air, said, You're going to jail.

Jail?

You assaulted me.

You assaulted me, too.

Did not.

You did! You
did
assault me.

Staring up at Henry from the floor, the waiter said the government would flag his name. He'd be put on a no-fly list, perhaps banned from air-travel forever. Whether there was any truth to this, Henry didn't know. However, taking his bag onto his shoulder, his body and mind daunted by these threats, he ran off. Was the waiter coming after him with a police officer at his side? He didn't look behind himself to find out, but went straight for the terminal exit. With no one on line at the taxi-stand, he got in the first car and told the driver to head into Manhattan. His mind was in a state of turbulence. Are you mad? What if you'd killed him?
You
…a murderer. Facing a trial. Fifteen years. Twenty. Life. Those heavy shackles cutting into your wrists and ankles, that orange jumpsuit, your hanging head in the courtroom where your mother was present—everything would be different. Everything would be
over.

Curled up on the backseat of the car, Henry wondered if he wasn't in fact running from the law. After all, he'd assaulted a man. (They'd assaulted each other.) But Henry had fled the scene of a crime. Surely an airport camera had captured his image. The waiter would identify him. They'd match his face to the names of passengers who'd checked in around that time. There couldn't have been many. The terminal had been so empty. There was no doubt the police would soon be knocking at his front door.

You're ruined.

The shivering of his body amounted to the first moments of a panic attack. He'd survived these in the past, the feeling that he was going into cardiac arrest, the pounding in his chest, the profuse sweating. The fainting. But he wouldn't be taken out by one of
those
. Impossible. He rolled down his window, the car speeding along the Van Wyck.

And yet he didn't trust himself. To think he'd nearly killed a human being. He could still feel the waiter's oily neck in his hands. He gripped the seat underneath him. You're mad. You're losing it.

A cold blooded…

You…you…you…,

Were seconds away from being,

A killer.

But that's not me.

It's not.

I'm under a lot of stress.

This is just what happens.

To go to Paris,

I should head to

Newark,

Airport.

They won't be onto me there I can buy a ticket and fly out,

Today.

That's the thing,

To do.

The panic in his nerves increased with this last thought, and he clamped his head between his hands, singing:

But you can't go to Paris,

You can't.

You need help!

There,

You said it.

I said it.

I need help

You do.

Can you get yourself

Into a psych ward?

Oh, god, if only…if only.

Just the thing to do.

But what if they say I'm crazy,

Then…then…then,

I'll be thought of as exactly that,

CRAZY.

For the rest of my life,

With the red stamp applied to the forehead,

The one that warns everyone,

That you're mentally ill.

Being hit with a lunatic stamp,

I couldn't bear it,

If people thought me…