Nude Men (12 page)

S
ara is not interested in seeing the Magic Kingdom, which, she asserts, is for babies. She wants to go to EPCOT Center which, the bus driver informs us, stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired. She wants to go to Future World. That’s when my mother tells us what
she
wants to do. She says she had no desire whatsoever to come to Disney World, that the only reason she came was to spend some time with me, and that therefore we should go to The Living Seas first, as it is the only thing that might put her in a good mood. So that’s what we do. We see big fish swimming in aquariums.

M
y seventy-one-year-old mother may seem conventional and proper because she does not like my messy apartment, but she is not ordinary at all. She’s like a little bull. Short and stocky, less fat than muscular. A small rock. Her body looks hard, like if you poked your finger at any part of it, even a presumably mushy part, your finger wouldn’t sink one millimeter. A compact creature. Which is perhaps why, when she runs, her flesh doesn’t jiggle, as one would expect in a person her age. Or perhaps this is due to her running method, very low to the ground, knees bent, “for speed,” she says. She doesn’t bounce. But she
can
jump, and she does, sometimes, and does it well, even with her short, stubby legs. Children occasionally cross in front of her unexpectedly, pulling toy animals on long leashes. I cover my eyes. But my mother leaps over them smoothly.

She loves to run, especially when it’s not necessary. Her favorite scenario occurs when she sees people about to get into line ahead of us. She’ll run to beat them to it. When she visits me in the city, she runs to make the lights before the Don’t Walk signs stop blinking. But the city doesn’t offer as many opportunities to run as Disney World does, and running to make the lights is not as much fun as running to get in line before someone else does. There are so many lines to run to!

And yet, when we walk, she leans on my arm with all her weight. When we climb stairs, I practically have to carry her. It’s all an act. Sometimes she gets bored with hanging on to me. She lets me go and walks by my side with a spring in her step. And at the first glimpse of someone heading toward our line, she bolts away to get there first.

When she has won her place in line, she tries to regain her composure. She organizes herself, straightens her shirt and skirt, smooths her hair, feels herself all over, and clears her throat.

My mother looks like an older me. Which is to say that she looks like a man. She has a huge complex about this, has a mortal fear of one day being mistaken for a man. Her face looks like a man’s when she smiles, and also when she doesn’t smile. She has long, deep lines running from the wings of her nose down to the corners of her mouth. However, certain aspects of her face look less like a man’s than like a toad’s—let’s say a male toad’s. She has moles and no lips, just a slit. But since there could be no greater insult, in her mind, than being taken for a man, she does things to herself, wears signposts, to guarantee that no one will be confused. Most women her age try to look as young as possible. My mother’s concern is merely to look like a woman. In itself, this is such a hard thing for her to accomplish that it would be ridiculous to expect her to try also to look like a
younger
woman, or a
pretty
woman, or even
not a toad.
And she doesn’t worry about those things. (Good for her.) She doesn’t dye her hair. She wears it gray, but she puts pink bows in it: signposts of womanhood. And she wears frilly things, and perfume, and lots of jewelry: not the expensive kind, which she can’t afford, but pastel plastic. She says it’s more classy than fake gold. She never fails to wear bright-red lipstick, but without much success, due to her lack of lip. She does this not to look pretty, just to look not masculine. And blush on her cheeks. She doesn’t bother with eye stuff anymore, because she doesn’t have the patience. Anyway, her eyes are her best feature: “best” as in “impressive,” or even “intimidating,” not as in “attractive.” They are black, wide open and alert, flashing here and there like lightning. She never looks sleepy but always wears a frown.

One day (I don’t know what possessed me) I remarked, “If you didn’t always frown, you wouldn’t look so much like a man.” Although I didn’t believe a word of this, I picked on her complex to eliminate the frown more efficiently. Well, she seemed so hurt, and was in such a bad mood for days afterward, that I never said anything of the sort again.

M
y mother’s behavior with the porter surprised me. I’d never seen her act that way before, and I wondered what brought it on. I did not want to ask her about it when Sara was with us, because my mother might have felt too inhibited to answer me sincerely. But now is the perfect time. We are alone, standing in line for Journey into Imagination, which the guidebook describes as “an imaginative ride through the creative process.” Sara has left us to go to the bathroom and buy a snack.

I know I must formulate my question in the shape of a compliment. It would be a mistake to simply ask, “Why did you treat the porter that way?” My mother would automatically take it as a criticism, get angry, and scream at me.

“That was wonderful, the way you treated the porter,” I remark. Anyway, I
did
think it was wonderful.

“Thank you,” she says, and does not say more, even though I give her a good full minute to do so.

“Sometimes you surprise me by doing the most wonderful things,” I tell her.

“Well, I would hope that my wonderful things don’t come as such a
great
surprise. They’re not
that
rare, after all. Why do you have to be so surprised?”

I sense that this will be one of our convoluted conversations. In the past, I’ve tried every method imaginable to get out of them, but nothing ever works. My best bet is patience. I look at the people standing in line near us, hoping they all have many distractions and won’t be tempted to listen in on us. They would think we belong in a mental institution. In front of us is a mother talking loudly to her three children, who are playing loudly together. Good. I glance behind us. There are two men, about my age, thirtyish. They look rather sophisticated for Disney World. Tall. Educated. One of them has longish brown hair. They are both wearing shorts. They are tan. The other one is blond. They are the types of men women would prefer to me. I could not imagine living creatures more out of place at Disney World than these two men, especially their combination. They are talking to each other. Anyway, they look discreet, as if they wouldn’t stoop to eavesdropping.

“I’m sorry,” I tell my mother. “I didn’t express myself clearly. I simply meant that such wonderful behavior is rare in anyone. I know very few people who would have had the courage or the wit to even attempt to treat the porter that way, not to mention the mastery with which you carried out the operation.”

“Oh, spare me, Jeremy.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

When she talks, my mother is sure of herself. She articulates well- Her tone is clear, confident, authoritative, and powerful. It makes anything she says sound intelligent. I did not inherit her talent, but sometimes when I speak to her, I feel I’m able to imitate it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “What interests me is this: I’ve never seen you treat a man the way you treated the porter, in that clever way. I’d like to know if there was a specific reason.”

“Yes. It’s because I never really knew men before.”

“What an intriguing thought. You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

“It was already piqued.”

“Right again.”

“I was not right before. How can I be right again?”

I look around in embarrassment. The two men are still talking. “Because you are
always
right,” I tell my mother.

“But not in a specific way in this conversation.”

“Right again.”

“This time it fits, because I was right before,” she says. “What did you mean when you said you never really knew men before?”

“Okay, you want to get back to the subject. Giving some sort of warning is more polite than just barging rudely back in.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care if you are. That’s not the logical thing to say at this point. I’m merely teaching you something that you should already know.”

“Would you like to get back to our conversation?”

“It’s that sort of warning I mean, but you do it so clumsily. A better way is to say, ‘As we were saying...’ Or, even better, ‘I don’t mean to interrupt you, but our conversation was so agreeable that I would love to continue it from where we left off, if you would like to.’ ”

I glance back. They’re still talking.

“As we were saying,” I say, “what did you mean when you said you never really knew men before?”

“You chose the less good way. I can’t believe it. Just to upset me. I told you the second way was better than the first way, and you went ahead and used the first way.”

“I’m sorry, but the second way was too hard to remember. It was long.”

“I marvel at your lack of shame in admitting the weakness of your mind. What is even worse than having a weak mind is not having the shame to hide the fact.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt you, but our conversation was so agreeable that I would love to continue it from where we left off, if you would like to.”

“You’re now using the second way, which means you lied when you said it was too long to remember. What is even ruder and more obnoxious than having a weak mind and not having the shame to hide it is to purposefully reveal the fact that you lied at an earlier point in a conversation.”

We’re already in it so deep, I may as well just charge ahead, even if they’re listening.

“Yes,” I say. “What did you mean when you said you never really knew men before?”

“I meant that recently I have discovered them in a new way.”

“Oh, really.”

“What way,” says my mother.

“What?”

“What way,” she repeats.

“What do you mean?”

“What way.”

“What way?”

“Through books,” she says.

“Through books.” I take a Kleenex out of my pocket and wipe my forehead.

“No need to repeat what I say. You can come up with something a little more original.”

“What aspects of men have you discovered recently through books?”

“You don’t need to repeat ‘through books.’ We’ve already said it many times.”

“What aspects of men?”

“A certain aspect. A certain way that they think about women.”

I nod encouragingly.

“I need sound,” she says.

“Hmm.”

“I mean words.”

“Go on.”

“Men, in the books I’ve read, say and think things like: ‘That cute little cunt Cindy.’ And the narrator says, concerning the main character: ‘Intelligence in women has never much interested him.’ And then this one: the male character thinks, ‘She does know something. All cunts know something.’ ”

“I read that book!” I exclaim. “It’s John Updike’s
Rabbit Is Rich,
right?” I don’t mind if they hear me now. In fact, I’m sure they’d be impressed that I was able to recognize a novel simply by hearing some of its sexist lines. I glance back to check if they’re listening. They’re not talking, but they’re not looking at us either. They’re watching people walk by.

“So it shocked you also,” she says.

“That’s not the word, exactly—”

“Don’t deny my feelings.”

“I’m not. I’m expressing mine.”

“Well,” she says, “it was unpleasant to learn such things from those books. And the only way men will change—and I’m not talking about you; you’re not a man—is for women to talk about men in the same way. And we’ll just see how pleasant men find that.”

The children in front of us are playing more loudly than ever, and their mother is screaming at them. Good. Hopefully, their noise completely muffled what my mom just said.

“What do you mean, I’m not a man?” I ask softly, close to her face.

“Don’t change the subject.”

I grab her arm, a bit tightly. “What do you mean, I’m not a man?” My voice wavers. I knew she had a low opinion of me, but this beats everything.

“Why do men find it so upsetting to be told they are not
real
men?” she says, disengaging her arm.

“It has nothing to do with gender,” I tell her. “Women find it upsetting to be told they are not women. What do you mean, I’m not a man?”

“Don’t take it so badly. I meant it as a compliment. I meant you are a person. People are individuals, first and foremost. Then they have ages. Then they have nationalities. Then they have race. Then they have religion. Then they have social class. Then they have childhood and education. And then they are females or males, but that’s far down the list. You are a person. You don’t have all the jerkiness that the majority of men have. Or do you? Do you ever act or think in any way that is degrading to women?”