Nude Men (20 page)

W
hen I open the door to my apartment, my phone is ringing. I pick up the receiver.

“Did you enjoy
that
one?” asks my mother.

“Clever. Do
you
write the scenarios?”

“Yes.”

And she starts criticizing me, telling me how horrible what I did in Disney World was, how could a child of hers do this, etc., etc. I say I know, it’s true, it was horrible, unforgivable, I
am
a monster, etc., etc. And I mean it. We hang up. I smell pee. I look around, but I don’t see anything. Then I see. I am sitting on it. Minou began her third heat by peeing on my couch. I spend the next hour trying to wash it out, first with hand soap, which doesn’t work, then with too much Woolite, which I can’t rinse out afterward. It’s slimy and keeps foaming up.

T
hat evening, I go to Lady Henrietta’s place. Laura is not there yet, but Sara is. Her mother leaves us alone.

Sara speaks first: “I’m afraid that maybe I made a mistake.”

“I made a mistake too,” I say.

“No, you didn’t. I did. I put our friendship in danger. Our friendship means more to me than anything, and I would never have tried to... charm you if I thought it would ruin things.”

“I’m very sorry about what happened,” I tell her. “I’m a weak man, and what I did was very bad.”

“I’m not sorry. Being with you those times was wonderful.” I stare in silence. She continues: “I understand that you feel embarrassed with me now. I should have thought of that beforehand, but I didn’t. I know you can’t love me the way you would an older woman, so all I ask for is your friendship. We can forget about what happened, and I promise I won’t try to charm you anymore. I’ll just be very frank and very direct. There won’t be any more teasing or flirting. There won’t be anything that will make you uncomfortable. So will you still see me sometimes, when you come visit my mother?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” she says.

We then carry on a bit of small talk, and she leaves. Henrietta comes back, and Laura arrives. The moment I see Laura, I realize she is exactly who I need. The very traits in her that I had found unpleasant before, I now crave. Her sanity, her normalcy. I love every word she utters. I love it when she says, “How’ve you been, Jeremy? I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“I’ve missed you,” I tell her, barely believing that I’m saying this. I glance at Henrietta to see if she heard me. She is staring at me with surprise. I won’t let it embarrass me.

Laura looks at me with surprise too, but mostly with pleasure.

“How have
you
been?” I ask her, as we go to sit on the couch.

“Fine, thank you.”

I ask her about her show and rack my brain to think of other things to say, but can’t come up with anything, and she can’t either, because we don’t have much in common. It’s wonderful to find someone to whom you have nothing to say. It’s so normal and sane. Much better than exchanging dozens of twisted little comments with Henrietta.

T
he next day I’m with Tommy (my crotch brooch friend) in a bookstore. We’re buying Cliffs Notes for him. An old woman with an umbrella walks toward us. We watch her coming, not really paying attention. She stops in front of us. She takes the handle of her closed umbrella in both hands and holds it in the air like a baseball bat. She swings her umbrella and gives me a tremendous blow on the hip.

“Ow!” I say, holding my hip.

Tommy steps back, expecting that he’ll be next, but the old woman pays no attention to him; all her interest is focused on me. She stares at me viciously and says, “You are an abomination to your family! You are a monster.”

A few people are looking as she walks away.

“Do you know her?” asks Tommy.

“Not really.”

“What do you mean, not really?”

“No—I mean no.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were an abomination to your family?”

“I don’t really have a family.”

“Except for your mother.”

“Yeah.”

“Poor Jeremy. Things like this only happen to you. She seemed to know something about you. Did you do anything very naughty that could cause such a venomous reaction?”

“I’ve never even seen her before. She’s insane.”

“You didn’t answer my question, so I must assume that you did do something very naughty.”

A
n hour later, I am back at my apartment, kneeling on the floor, scrubbing the newly pee-drenched couch, when the phone rings.

“What about
that
one?” says my mother’s voice, which has become nauseating to my ears.

“It hurt,” I answer. “Was the violence included in your scenario, or did your employee improvise?”

“Nothing is improvised.”

“What are you going to do next? Have one of your agents run me over with a car?”

“How dare you speak to me that way. How dare you even insinuate such a thing!”

She hangs up but calls me many more times, bugging me. I waste practically my whole evening talking on the phone with her. I finally warn her that I will change my number if she doesn’t stop phoning me.

Notice that I do not make a wish on my little white elephant for the agents to stop coming. Why? Because I know it’s pointless, gut then why am I so filled with hope when I make a wish for certain people to love me? And more important, why am I not repelled by the idea of making a certain person love me unnaturally, against her will, by using magic? Wouldn’t I prefer it if her love for me was genuine?

C
harlotte is not moving out of my apartment. I keep asking her to, ordering her to, but she doesn’t do it. She refuses to acknowledge that we’re broken up.

I try to explain to her the concept of breaking up. “You don’t need two people to do it. In a couple, if only one of the people wants to be broken up, then the couple is broken up.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Anyway, I’m involved with someone else.”

“Is it a little boy this time?”

I
’ve been thinking a lot about Laura. The thought of her normality soothes my mind. I often go to Lady Henrietta’s apartment to see Laura.

One day I invite her to have dinner with me at a nearby restaurant. As we walk there, a woman passing us bumps into me lightly. She turns around and says, “I’m sorry.”

“Leave me alone!” I growl.

She walks away, looking bewildered. Laura looks no less bewildered. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Oh nothing, I’m sorry; I made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

I try to think of an explanation. “Oh, I don’t know. I was in a daze, and she caught me by surprise.”

Laura raises her eyebrows at my unconvincing explanation and stops questioning me.

At dinner, we talk of nothing interesting whatsoever, and I love it. I learn that she is one year younger than I am. I did think beforehand of a few things to ask her, so we could make a bit of conversation. I ask her how many students she has. She says ten. She also tells me that recently, to her disappointment, three children dropped out when their parents found out what it was, exactly, that they were paying for.

I tell her my childhood story of the little white elephant, thinking it might interest her since it has to do with magic. She thinks it’s sweet. But I don’t tell her that I still keep the elephant on my night table. We’re not close enough for that.

After dinner, as we walk in the street, an old man stops us and says, “Excuse me, but could you please tell me where Bloomingdale’s is?”

I stand there gritting my teeth, while Laura gives him directions. I look at him with tentative hatred, dying to tell him to fuck off but knowing I can’t risk a second mistake in front of Laura. After giving him the directions, Laura tells him, “But Bloomingdale’s is closed right now.”

“Oh, I know,” he says. “I just want to make sure I know where it is, because I’m taking my granddaughter there tomorrow. She’s eleven, and I can’t let her go there alone, or some pervert might try to pick her up and have sex with her. Do you think I should let that happen?” he asks Laura.

“No,” she says, and starts pulling at my arm, to get us away.

I yield with great joy to her pull.

The man calls after us, “Wait a minute, mister, what about you? Do you think I should have sex with an eleven-year-old girl?”

I am perspiring as we walk away. The rest of the evening unfolds very pleasantly. We get heavily involved romantically that very night, because it feels too right to wait.

B
ack home, the ordeal begins again.

“What about that one?” my mother’s voice crackles.

I hang up. Ring. I pick up, hang up. Ring. Pick up, hang up. Ring.

Charlotte is obnoxiously serene, reading a book, paying no attention to the phone.

Notice that I do not make a wish on my white elephant for Laura to love me. This is because I feel she probably already does, and since this is the case, I would not want to think her love for me is caused by magic, that she’s under a spell. If, on the other hand, I did not sense that she already loved me, and I desperately wanted her to, I would not for one moment hesitate to use the white elephant, even though it never worked in the past when I tried it on certain people.

Ring. Pick up, hang up. Ring.

I escape outside, into the night, but I realize I can’t be alone, no matter where I go. Any of the people walking in the street, or shopping in a supermarket, or sitting in a movie theater, could be hired by my mother.

I must take control of my life. I go to a store, buy an avocado, walk to the park, and sit on a bench. I bite into the avocado, skin and all, and then I twirl the piece in my mouth, detach the skin from the flesh with my tongue, and spit out the skin. I once saw an Oriental woman eating a kiwi that way in the subway.

I eat three more mouthfuls using this method, then I place the bitten avocado next to me on the bench, I take out a scrap of paper and my Bic pen, and I make a list of things to do:

1. Have Minou spayed.

2. Kick Charlotte out of my apartment.

3. Get an unlisted phone number.

4. Keep my apartment clean.

5. See more of Laura.

I try to think of other resolutions I might want to add. I want a real list, a juicy, meaty list. Suddenly, a sixth resolution comes to my mind.

6. Ask for a promotion at the magazine.

When I get home, I take out my little ivory elephant and think to it: If you are magic, I make a wish that when I ask for a promotion at work, they will give it to me eagerly. In fact, they will somehow be grateful that I finally asked.

T
he next morning, when Charlotte has left for work, I get my locks changed. I take all of Charlotte’s belongings and put them in the hallway outside my door. I then call the veterinarian and make an appointment for the following day. And then I call the telephone company to have my number changed. They will change it in three days. Better than never.

I
go to work. I will ask them today. How should I act? Strong and confident? Or nice and charming and humble? Asking for a promotion is in itself a strong and confident thing to do, so maybe I should be nice and charming in the execution of that act.

I knock on my superior’s open door.

“Yes?” he says.

“Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk to you,” I ask, smiling.

“Okay.”

I sit across from him and wipe my moist palms on my knees. Annie comes in to arrange some books on the shelves. It disturbs me that she’s here, but my superior pays no attention to her and waits for me to talk, so I begin. “I feel that I have paid my dues,” I tell him. “I’ve filed for a long time. I’ve done a little fact checking, but not much. I was wondering if I could get a promotion.” I glance at Annie. She glances back at me with skepticism; perhaps even contempt; at the very least condescension.

“Really?” asks my boss, looking surprised.

“Yes. Why do you seem surprised?”

“I don’t know. To what position would you like to get promoted?”

“I guess full-time fact checker. At least.”

He nods thoughtfully. “I’ll have to discuss this with Cathryn,” he says. Cathryn is the editor in chief. “I’ll let you know what she decides.”

“Okay,” I say, wiping my palms on my trousers once more and getting up. “Well, thank you. I appreciate it.” I nod to him and leave the room.

I file nervously, telling myself not to be nervous. The worst they can say is “no,” right? And why would they say that? I’m a nice person and I file well. I may be meek and boring, but certainly no one can say I am not nice. Prepare yourself for a long wait, I tell myself. Don’t expect them to get back to you today. And probably not tomorrow either. It may take a week before they give you their answer. They may even forget. I’ll have to remind them, if they haven’t gotten back to me in a week.