Seven Days in Rio (4 page)

It turned out that Sunshine was a charismatic and controversial figure whose attempts to broaden the audience for Freud’s insights had included showing ’70s porn films, with famous stars like John Holmes, Harry Reems, and Linda Lovelace, as illustrations of his theories of narcissism and idealization. Sunshine had been brought up in an orthodox Jewish family in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. His parents had actually been members of the Satmar sect, led by Moses Teitelbaum and his feuding sons, Aaron and Zalman. Sunshine was not a practicing Jew, but he was no stranger to feuds. The once close relationship with his student David Moldauer had fractured over the fundamental aim and purpose of using pornographic films to illustrate his theories, mirroring the famous split between Freud and his Aryan disciple, Jung. (Sunshine’s famous maxim, “We aim to please, will you aim too, please?” displayed above the toilet in his office bathroom, was another bone of contention between the two men).

The position once occupied by Moldauer had been taken over by someone named Herbert Schmucker. Schmucker had a whole theory of Oedipal rivalry that argued it was best to be as blatant about it as possible. This explained the fact that he named his institute after himself instead of after his esteemed mentor, Sunshine, and favored a porn film entitled
Three Some
, in which a physically appealing couple invite their sad-sack friend to watch them having sex, while never allowing him to join in. Schmucker had argued on more than one occasion that sexual satisfaction derives from a feeling of superiority in getting something that someone else doesn’t have. The guilt from such feelings of rivalry, he believed, is what any good analysis should attempt to alleviate. There were all kinds of paradoxes in analysis. For instance, one of the most famous centers for the study of analysis in Manhattan is the Karen Horney Clinic, but what kind of inducement is a name like that? How could Karen Horney help me? Why wouldn’t I go to a place honoring someone named Karen Un-Horney, where the name at least held out a hope?

Sunshine and Schmucker were like an argumentative married couple. Over the remainder of my stay in Rio, I would frequently find them sniping at each other in the halls, and in one case overheard a furious battle in which Sunshine actually brought up the naming of Schmucker’s institute, telling Schmucker in a petulant voice that could be heard throughout the hotel lobby, “You’re behaving like you just got off the boat. You’re behaving just like a schmuck!” Indeed, I learned from Wikipedia that Schmucker’s parents had been humble German immigrants, and that Schmucker had grown up in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. Schmucker’s parents had occupied a tenement on 86th Street above the Old Heidelberg restaurant. But the old German neighborhood was in the same district as the silk-stocking PS 6 (which I would attend years later) and Schmucker was able to get an education that allowed him to rise out of his immigrant roots, attend medical school at NYU, and eventually become a prominent psychoanalyst.

China had been close-lipped when Sunshine had come up in our conversation, but she spoke with great reverence about Schmucker, whom she plainly regarded as one of the gods of Olympus. It was clear from her attitude that Sunshine had become a mere footnote in the arc of Schmucker’s career.

I returned to the lobby to look for Victor the concierge. He hadn’t been much help, but it has always been my philosophy that it’s good to do the same thing again and again even if it fails to produce results. I remember my analyst telling me that there are people who in fact unconsciously want to bring about the outcomes they so often complain about. There is even a word for it in the psychoanalytic literature: parapraxis.

I was thrown into a tailspin when I arrived at the concierge desk to find that Victor wasn’t there. In his place was a small, dark, unshaven man with the face of a rodent. I immediately dubbed him Rat Man, after Freud’s famous patient. His nametag read, “Adolphe.” When I asked when Victor was coming back, Adolphe was evasive. He pulled the language card, pretending he didn’t understand what I was saying. As far as Adolphe was concerned, he was the concierge now and Victor didn’t exist anymore. I felt very much the way I did years before when my analyst got sick and set me up with a dentist named Dr. Klein, a good friend of his who had had analytic training, but for some reason had chosen to become a dentist instead. For months I went to Klein’s office on 57th Street, using his dental chair as an analytic couch. As then, I dreaded having to tell my story all over again, especially to someone like Adolphe, who didn’t seem to be the kind of person with whom I could be comfortable expressing my desires. In the middle of this awkwardness, Schmucker appeared. He seemed already to know Adolphe well.

“Ah yes, Dr. Schmucker, the patient is waiting in your room.” There was something oddly unsubtle about Adolphe. The way he addressed Schmucker made it apparent that the word “patient” was a euphemism for what in all likelihood was a Tiffany.

I have always been a kind of groupie when it comes to mental health professionals, so I impulsively put out my hand as Schmucker turned in my direction. When I said, “I’m Kenny Cantor from New York and I’ve really been enjoying your conference — especially the films,” he gave me a withering look that communicated exactly how irrelevant I was to him. I could see he was perspiring profusely, so I figured he was already somewhat worked up about the “patient” who was waiting for him in his room.

“So, Adolphe, give me the real run-down on what happened to Victor,” I said, after Schmucker had hustled off to his assignation. “Did they can him?”

“All major canning companies in Brazil are in the São Paulo area.”

“No,
can
is an American expression that means
fire
. You ‘fire’ someone when you remove him from his job and tell him he can’t work for you anymore. You can also say a
senhora
has a nice ‘can.’ ”

Adolphe responded with an expression that was equal parts confusion and bemusement. I pointed to a cream-colored Tiffany who looked like she was just coming on for her evening shift and seemed to have a condition, more common in Africa than Brazil, called steatopygia, which is a distended rear end. It was a deformity, but it illustrated my point.

“For instance that
senhora
with the tight pants has quite a can,” I said.

“One hundred dollars American,” Adolphe shot back.

“I admire her extension, which reminds me of a guest house attached to a larger estate. But I’m looking for your normal sexy Brazilian whore with a nice butt. I’m all for helping people with their troubles, but one thing I learned in my years of therapy is that you don’t have sex with someone because you feel sorry for them. Anyway, it’s a big world out there and there is always going to be some john who likes the chick with overly large this or that or none at all. I once heard of a prostitute who had a vagina with no hole, and she had plenty of customers, believe it or not. She’d had some kind of industrial accident before she became a working girl, and all her orifices had to be put in different places. I think she peed from her belly button and went to a gynecologist when she had a toothache. I know it sounds totally unbelievable, but apparently there was a harmonious logic to her whole body. So, Adolphe, tell me, where are all the good Tiffanys?”

I leaned over conspiratorially. Adolphe looked in both directions to see if anyone was listening and whispered, “Victor is now the bartender at The Café Gringo. It’s very dark in there, but he will get you nice girls.”

I was so happy that Victor had found gainful employment that I stopped feeling horny and frustrated for a moment, although when I thought of Herbert Schmucker making passionate love to a Tiffany in his room, I was filled with penis envy.

I was sure I saw the face of an Asian woman in a crowd of people waiting for the elevators at the end of the lobby, and my heart skipped a beat thinking it might be China. It was at that point that I understood something that neuroscientists have known for years: our emotions are often ahead of our thoughts. I was more involved with China than I could have possibly realized, and was already feeling troubled by the prospective complexities we would face. I have looked into the eyes of dogs and cats, and I know there is a tendency to anthropomorphize them, to believe that somehow they are thinking about you. China almost had the opposite effect on me. When I’d looked into her eyes I saw a hungry animal with only a veneer of culture, consciousness, and sensibility. I had the urge to dart across the lobby, if only to stand next to her in the elevator, if only to feel the warmth of her body close to mine. I seethed with jealousy when I imagined that the patient waiting for Schmucker in his room was not a Tiffany at all, but China Dentata. As it happened, the Asian woman I had spotted across the lobby was indeed China — en route, I assumed in my jealous delirium, to Schmucker’s room. Analysis was just like every other profession — good-looking women routinely fucked their way to the top.

But I stopped myself before I could go any further. If China and Schmucker were an item, standing next to her in the elevator and wishing her a nice afternoon would get me nowhere, unless I had some chloroform and a pair of handcuffs. Having neither, I elected to continue with my original plan and head off to The Gringo to consult with Victor. There was no sense in chasing windmills. I realized I was coming deathly close to having my seven days in Rio turn into nothing more than my other 358 days in New York, where all my interactions with Tiffanys were fraught with anxiety.

My heart was in my throat as the doors opening onto the Copa swished open. It was late afternoon. I imagined China in the arms of Schmucker, their writhing bodies in an almost perfect psychoanalytic embrace, in which love and work, like the stars in a John Donne poem, were “perfectly conjoined.” I started mentally undressing the women who now paraded themselves before me. I had been thinking I ought to get one of those sandwich boards they use to shill discount suits in Manhattan. Mine would say, “American with
Reality
Seeks Available Girls.” Not everyone would get it, but enough so that I would enhance my selection. As it was, I noticed so many Tiffanys in tiny thongs that I didn’t know which one to pick first.

I assumed that as an attractive, partially psychoanalyzed American with
reals
, every Tiffany would be after me. But it was no use even trying. It was a situation that is known in psychoanalytic literature as a double bind, in which the patient gets conflicting messages. If I wanted to get attention I had to advertise it, but if I advertised it I would get more propositions than I could handle. Besides, I had begun to develop an indifference toward the Rio girls, which, even if it was manufactured in my head, was becoming stronger by the minute. The fact that I couldn’t get my first Tiffany off the phone with her Chinese clients probably didn’t help matters. I have learned that experiences of this kind can traumatize a patient, or a john, and shape his view of the world.

I turned to a Tiffany standing to my right and asked, “
Senhora
, do you know a place called The Gringo?” She was gorgeous, and even though I knew her body was for sale, I figured she was like one of those Michelin five-star restaurants where you have to make a reservation years in advance. She had olive-colored skin, dark braided hair, and a perfect chin. She was a “10.” In fact she looked like a Latin version of the character Bo Derek played in the movie. Her breasts stood perfectly motionless, like soldiers at attention. I decided to take a businesslike attitude, holding out my hand and introducing myself.

“By the way, Tiffany, I’m Ken Cantor.” It turned out she spoke very good English, but I can’t remember what she said, since I was too flabbergasted by the fact that someone so spectacularly beautiful was talking to me. This Tiffany was no mere whore. She was a call girl, an escort, a courtesan. Whatever the highest rank one can give to someone who sells her body, she deserved it.

Tiffany looked me up and down like she was inspecting a new car. Deep inside I maintained the hope that she would say, “You don’t need to go to The Gringo. Why don’t you come back to my apartment?” Though there are lots of Tiffanys in Rio, the kind of Tiffany I was looking at was a rarity, and could surely command top dollar, or
real
, as was the case. For her it was always a seller’s market. I was sure that she occupied a lavish condo with a balcony overlooking the Copacabana. She was not a whore who worked out of one of those dingy hotel rooms with hourly rates.

“Oh yes, I am quite familiar with The Gringo,” she said with a smile. It was only when I noticed her voice was a little lower than I expected, and saw that she had an Adam’s apple, that I realized she was a man, one of the legion of beautiful pre-op transsexuals who are a famous feature of Rio nightlife.

Even though Tiffany was more beautiful than any woman I had ever encountered, I didn’t need something stiff and hard when that’s what I already had. It’s like meeting someone who thinks just the way you do. At first you get excited about finding a like mind, then boredom sets in as you anticipate every word they say. It’s what’s known as prolepsis in the world of rhetoric, and I hadn’t flown five thousand miles to experience an evening of it in phallic form.

It turned out The Gringo was located across the road that ran along the Copacabana, in a warren of side streets that were plastered with flashing neon signs shaped in the forms of palm trees and half-naked females. The streets were lined with old hotels whose doorways were filled with bored-looking Tiffanys. For a moment, like Orpheus, I had the desire to turn back for my Eurydice. Looking around, I was suddenly filled with premonitions of disaster, and this last Tiffany’s Adam’s apple had a reassuring appeal. She was just one of the guys, after all. I imagined what it would be like to massage her breasts. At the same time, I had disturbing thoughts about her penis. People solicited pre-ops because they presented a buffet of sexual pleasures. If you had homosexual inclinations or were AC/DC, you got the pleasure of being able to indulge all of your desires at the same time. Taking a democratic point of view, I asked myself, “Why not?” Before long I was imagining what it would be like to put Tiffany’s big cock in my mouth or to have her hardened nipples gently tickle my back as I felt something hard nudging my ass.