Beautiful Blemish (10 page)

Photo of Deformed Fingernail

I had seen her at parties before, squinting around with that smile on her face, as if she was on some medication that made her too happy, too facially contorted. My friends made fun of her teeth and her haircut.

She was taking photos of people’s fingers and hands. She said it was for a magazine. Her dress looked like it was made of paper towels.

“You gave me your phone number once,” she told me by the bookshelf.

I was always hovering around bookshelves. It made me feel prepared for conversation. I couldn’t remember her name. It was
Jule
-something. Julianne,
Juliette
,
Julee
.

“Can I take your picture?” she asked.
“Just your hands.”

I looked at my hands. The fingernail on my left hand middle finger was grown in weird, a result of an accident in eighth grade. I showed it to her. “You should get a focus on this one, it’s sort of deformed.”

She tried to snap a photo but her batteries were drained. She pulled a Polaroid camera out of her bag. “I won’t be able to get a good close-up of it, but I want a shot of you.” The camera flashed and the photo came out of the front like a slow tongue. She walked away and talked with someone else for a few minutes. I could see the photo between her fingers, by her side as she talked, fading into existence. She came back with the photo. It looked like I was flipping her off. “Is this the way you want to represent yourself,” she asked.

I looked at the photo. It wasn’t so bad. It had more of me than my hands. “You can’t really see my fingernail,” I said.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I like it. I’m going to put it on my door.”

I gave her some sort of look. A look that said,
What
kind of door? She gave me a look back, as if to say,
You
know what kind of door.

On Your Bed

I’m trying to remember last night. It comes to me like shrapnel.

Sitting in the booth at the bar, you told me about the
drunk
girl in the bathroom, the one with olive skin. “She has all this wild black hair,” you said, pointing her out at the next table.

    
“Let’s take her home,” I said. But you were shy.

“I haven’t had sex in over three years,” you told me earlier. You knocked over your bottle of beer as if you didn’t care. “I’d rather take her home and watch you have sex with her,” she said. “Let’s just stare at her for a while.”

Not only was there this conversation, but there were others, more sobering. When we were at your house later, kissing on your bed, you asked, “What if you were one of ten guys? I mean, would you care?”

I tried to be honest, but creative. I tried to think of an abstract sort of truth. “I can’t have all of you,” I said, and I knew it was abstract enough, true enough.

We wrestled on the bed.

“I hate men,” you said. “I wish I was a guy,
then
I could separate sex from my emotions.”

“That’s not the way it always works,” I told you.

“You have to leave in twenty minutes,” you said. It was getting late into the night, early in the morning, the exact time when it seems like you could wake up the whole city with one good scream.

My Old Man

I took in a man today.
An old man.
Probably too old to work.
My neighbor, who is a doctor, says he looks to be about 76. He also said he is blind in one eye.

I was coming out of the bagel shop when the old man shook his empty hand at me, seeking spare change. It caught me off guard, partly because of his age, but also because he wasn’t dressed like a poor or homeless person. He had a noble-looking white beard and wore shoes that could pass for expensive. Besides that, he seemed friendly. I continued walking to the corner, confused and contemplating. I looked back and saw him asking other people for money. Perhaps he was new to the streets and a few days from now I would see him again. I wondered if he would become dirtier, shabbier, more slumped over. I saw a TV show once where a reporter dressed up like a homeless person and panhandled for a whole week. He made around $150 each day. I walked back to the man to talk to him.

Are you homeless? I asked him.

He pointed to a homemade sign propped on the sidewalk by a gallon of spoiled milk. Written in a downward fit of arthritic penmanship, it announced: I NEED MONEY AND/OR A HOME.

TUESDAY NIGHT

His clothes seemed clean but I wanted to give them a firm washing. He was almost my size.
Same height, but a little thinner.
I had a box of my old high school clothes (circa late 80s) in storage and I found them for him. He wore my old pants, secured by my belt, with an extra hole bored through the leather for a tighter fit. I threw his clothes in the wash and made some dinner for him. It’d been a long time since I had lived with someone else and I couldn’t help but feel a little thrilled and vain to be cooking for someone. I wasn’t sure what he usually ate but I didn’t want to ask him many more questions. The ride home from the bagel shop was already pretty tense. I had tried to ask him how a man his age became homeless. He just sat there and counted his few dollars of change. I asked him if he had any children or family, any social security money. Not enough, he finally shouted, and then he was mad. I saw him fidget with his hearing aid. He was shutting me out.
 

I made him ham and beets for dinner. He smeared his food around, mashing it together. I had burnt the ham a little. I tried to sneak a look at his teeth, to see if they were real or dentures. I couldn’t tell. He seemed to savor the meal reluctantly though, even wrapping some of the leftover ham in a napkin and putting it in his shirt pocket for later.

WEDNESDAY

I came home from lunch to check on him today. All morning I was nervous that he’d run away, but I realized that would be a foolish move on his part. I have to learn to trust him. When I walked in the front door I caught him watching The Price is Right. It was so endearing, seeing this man that I had saved from the streets, sitting on my couch in my old terry cloth bathrobe. I made myself a bowl of chili and joined him for the Showcase Showdown, my hand patting his leg approvingly.

THURSDAY

I’m already getting used to him being around. Even when I’m at work I find myself wondering what he’s doing. What show he’s
watching.
Whether he’s playing the Nintendo.
I saw a study that says old people could be just as good as kids when it comes to some video games. Their bodies get old but their reaction time is just as good. It’s all a matter of their hands and fingers being quick.

After work I stopped at a store that sells really great old people clothes. I bought him some sweaters for the cold months ahead, as well as some loafers and a pair of snappy green slacks. I’d like to take him to a movie this weekend and I want him to look cool. My friend Steve had an old man last year and it proved to be a great way to meet women. He often dressed his old man in clothes that matched his.
Like twins.
He had a different girlfriend every month.

THURSDAY NIGHT

I finally decided on a name.
Matey
.
I think he likes it.
It’s
sounds like a pirate name, but mostly it sounds like someone who would be friends with a pirate. Plus he is, after all, blind in one eye. But he won’t wear an eye patch. I tried to fit him with a gray one, to match the wispy gray horseshoe of hair on his head. He kept tearing it off his head and throwing it on the ground. I finally put it on myself so he could see it wasn’t so bad.

For dinner, I gave him some tuna fish and biscuits and then let him walk around the big parking lot across the street. I watched from the window to make sure no one else would take him. As he strolled aimlessly about, I thought about all the things I was learning from him. I had never been responsible for another living thing before. I was learning about sacrifice, sharing, and the quiet wisdom and humility that comes with getting old.

When he came back in I gave him some warm cocoa and let him work the remote for an hour. He pushed the buttons but couldn’t figure it out.
 

FRIDAY

My landlord told me I wasn’t allowed to have an old man in my apartment. Not without a deposit, he said. I told him I would pay the deposit. It’s worth keeping him off the streets. Plus I’m starting to feel attached.

My neighbor said he’s been hearing noises from my apartment while I’m away. He said it sounded like the old man was talking to himself or the TV. I guess he could be lonely when I’m not there. I noticed on Wednesday night, after I went out with some friends to shoot pool after work, that he was mad at me. He had run out of buttermilk and was acting as if I hadn’t fed him for weeks.

Before my landlord questioned me this morning, I was actually thinking about finding a playmate for my old man, maybe an old woman. I buy him a toy or a game every day but maybe that’s not enough.

FRIDAY NIGHT

I had to give him a bath before we went out. I’m not sure what he was doing all day but he sure stank. It was embarrassing because I had invited my friend Sarah over to borrow some DVDs. The first thing she noticed was the overwhelming old person smell.

Do you have an old lady, she asked.

Old man, I told her.

Her face squished up and down. You know, they have those collars you can get for the smell, she said. But make sure you don’t get the unisex ones. They’re not strong enough. You have to get the Old Man kind.

I’ve only had him for a week, I said. I’m still learning.

Matey
emerged from the bedroom wearing tweed pants, my letterman’s jacket and no shirt.

There he is, said Sarah. What do you call him?

Matey
, said the old man excitedly. There was a silence. I am
Matey
, he said again.

He talks, said Sarah.

SATURDAY

We were out late last night and didn’t get in until after
2 a.m.
Matey
and I had met up with my friend Sam and his sixty-year-old mom, Eileen, for some karaoke at The White Dragon.

I can’t believe you found him on the streets, said Eileen. He looks pretty healthy.

    
Ha, you should have seen him in the state he was in, I said proudly.

    
Sam got called up to do his song, Hot Child in the City. His mom clapped in time with the beat and
Matey
started in on his third microbrew.
He was already starting to get fresh with Eileen, trying to get her to dance and pouring her more wine.
For
one twenty
-minute stretch, he and Eileen even disappeared for a “smoke break.”

    
He doesn’t even smoke, I said.

    
He better not
be
getting too fresh with my mom, said Sam. She just had her hip replaced again.

    
She’s the one talking about how “healthy” he is, I reminded him.

    
This comment made Sam tense. Just keep your old man under control, he snapped.

    
When they returned, it was my turn at the
mic
and I tried to get them to join me for some background vocals. The song was Come On, Eileen.
Matey
joined me and tried to harmonize but he kept murdering the words. Eventually, he dropped the microphone and did some lewd hip-thrusting dance. Another smoke break followed.
    
 

SUNDAY
 

We went hunting and then out for a late lunch. Without thinking, I took him to the bagel shop where I had found him. I didn’t even think about it until I opened the passenger door for him. He just sat there with this crooked grimace under his coonskin cap. Oh, I said awkwardly. I looked back at the shop and the employees were looking out at
Matey
and I, pointing and whispering. It was too late. I had to go in now, or else I’d look like I had something to hide.

    
Matey
grunted and slapped my hand away when I reached to help him out.

    
Can I at least get you something, I asked.

    
He just sat there and started to shake. I closed his door and went inside the shop.

    
Hey Roger, the manager lady greeted me. Are you the one who took that guy home? There was someone looking for him the other day.
Some younger guy.
He said he was his old man.

    
Well, I said, he must not have taken good care of him now, wouldn’t you say?

    
I suppose not, she answered.