Sex and Death in the American Novel (3 page)

My brother placed his elbows on the table. “Yes, I've got about fifteen hundred pages written for this
thing
I'm working on.” He spoke about his mountainous work with reverence and shyness. Mother called it a trilogy when he wasn't around; he never seemed able to articulate what it was he was even doing. Unlike my father, he didn't let her help him—he typed it all up himself.

“That's impressive,” Robert said.

Tristan made his familiar, don't-be-impressed-with-me-that's-not-the-point face. “Some parts are still pretty rough,” he said, shaking his head like he was clearing his mind, preparing for a serious discussion.

“Still, you've got to be making progress,” Robert said.

Tristan made the face again, twisted his head around on his neck. He always began serious conversations this way—like a boxer shedding his robe, he was about to hit the center of the ring. “Progress…it's hard to say.”

Robert looked to my mother, then leaned forward and pushed an empty plate aside. “Do you outline? Do you know where you're going and how you're going to get there?”

Tristan gave a scary smile where he showed all of his teeth but there was no humor in it. If I didn't know what came after this it would have been comical—like Eric's cat who was forever coughing up fur balls, opening his mouth really wide and wheezing, then giving us all an apologetic look before finishing the display with a low growl—only with Tristan, it was like he was getting ready to really talk, exchange ideas, and engage.

“I have internalized all that stuff already. I've been writing seriously for the last ten years. Not to mention teaching.” He grimaced and took a breath. “Outline, yes…” Tristan trailed off, frustrated, making his hands into fists and flattening them again.

Mother interjected, turned to Tristan, gave him an adoring smile and said, “My son used to write for hours in his room, and let me review what he'd written. I was the one that encouraged the graduate degree.” She addressed Robert while still looking at Tristan: “He gave up a very promising career as a musician to follow his dream.”

Tristan shook his head. “Mom, we played covers of Metallica and Iron Maiden. We were hardly on our way up.”

“I will never believe that. You had all those people calling for guitar lessons at one point,” she said.

Tristan ran his hand over his face. My mother could make even his smallest accomplishments seem like he'd achieved world peace. Tristan sat waiting for her to finish with a faint smile on his lips. Robert looked confused.

Tristan scratched his chin, then he nodded to her. “Thanks for that.” He seemed both annoyed and appreciative and turned back to Robert. “It's not about the story anymore, it's about word choice, it's about not using any ideas or concepts my readers will associate with exactly what I want them to, it's about the right metaphors, making someone feel disturbed at the right time, and in the right context.”

I made a low snoring sound so only he could hear me, deep in the back of my throat. I spooned the last of the mousse from my dish, hoping Jasper Caldwell would start yammering so I could sneak out for a smoke.

My mother leaned in and said low in my ear, “Better take it easy on those desserts dear. A moment on the lips and all that…” Her hand rested on my thigh for a split second.

My stomach dropped, and what was first a sticky sweet pleasure on my tongue turned to a greasy bitter mess. A flash of anger and I said, “Don't worry Mom, there are plenty of guys here who could help me work it off.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Vivi,” my mother said.

Robert's eyes got wide; Tristan shifted in his seat. I was angry and sorry for breaking up the nice conversational mood.

“Well, it sounds like you've got it covered then,” Robert said, pushing his chair back.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Robert waved goodbye and walked back to the table where Jasper sat. I grabbed my purse and stood up. “Let me know what I miss. I'm going out for a smoke.”

My mother groaned. Tristan snorted under his breath and said, “Wait up. I'm coming too.”

We went through the hallways to the warm night air, the sounds of crickets and the breezes in the grass. My hands shook as I pulled out my pack of cigarettes.

Tristan closed the heavy glass door behind us and said, “Don't listen to her Viv, okay? She doesn't know anything. She is trying in her own way, a twisted deranged way I admit, but that's Mom. What are you gonna do?”

I lit up, my shaking fingers gripping the lighter, flicking my thumb three times over the rough flint wheel before a flame shot out of the metal and grabbed at the dry tip of the cigarette. I sucked in a searing breath and blew it out, satisfied by the stream of gray smoke that came from my lips and made me lightheaded, and the way my tongue now tasted of smoke, acrid, blasting away the memory of the mousse.

“I know. I really do. I usually just block that stuff out but since I haven't seen her in a while, I forgot how evil she can be.” I swallowed, choking down the emotion that rose in my throat. “I'm not used to it anymore.” I looked up and caught his gaze: neutral, a blank look, his wide eyes trying to help, but not equipped with the right tools. How would he know how hard it was not to obsess about my weight when I grew up with Mom constantly hanging over me, hammering the fear into me in a million little ways? How would he know unless he had college roommates who took up smoking, barfed up their food, or lived on caffeine just to avoid gaining the dreaded pounds that would render them unlovable, ugly, and worthless? “I know I'm not fat. It didn't seem like a big deal until I told her I quit dancing every day and now that's all Mom seems to care about. Not how are you sleeping, not how is work. It has been years since I danced competitively, can't I move on? She can't take her eyes off me now; I knew she was just dying to say something. I'm starting to think the only reason she cared about my dancing was because it kept me thin and pretty so I could meet some perfect guy who would make her look good.”

“You know that's not true.”

I stared at him, challenging that.

“Okay, maybe only partly,” he said, glancing at his watch, then back to me. “I'll tell you right now Viv, if you weren't my sister, well, fuck it even that you are—I'd do you.”

“Lovely,” I said, not meeting his eyes, appreciating that he was trying to make me feel better, but he missed the entire point. “You know, this might come as a shock to you and Mom, but the entire focus of my life does not revolve around meeting a guy…or finding one who thinks I am cute enough to fuck. I should gain fifty pounds to prove it.”

“We would be visiting her in the padded room at the hospital if you did that,” he laughed. We were quiet for a minute, watching the sky. The sky, the trees, the mountains…there were more important things going on than the stupidity that made up my life.

“I'll tell you this, most guys don't care as much as you women think we do about that shit. I knew this girl once, smoking hot she was,” he made an
hourglass outline with his hands in the air, then held his hands in front of his chest like he was holding two globes. “Right?” He waited for me to say something.

“Fine. I acknowledge the smoking hotness of the babe.” I twirled my hand in the air signaling that he should get on with it.

“Okay, so after she started going on and on about the size of this almost imperceptible roll of skin you know…here,” he motioned to the area below his bellybutton, above his groin. “I didn't even know there was anything wrong there. She had this small pooch. That's all. A total turn off. I lost all interest.”

“Didn't you like her before that?”

“Totally,” he said, affecting a cretin's tone, “but the thing was, all that insecurity dumped on you—not cool. So you have nothing to worry about Viv, if there is ever anything you are not lacking it's confidence.”

“Really?” I said. Tonight after a good dose of my mother's bullshit and having to explain once again my career choices, I felt unsure.

He nodded, and then started bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Smoke up, don't make me miss Jasper okay?”

I dragged on my cigarette. “Go back in then.”

He leaned against the wall with me, so close that I could smell the malty beer and the buttery pasta on his breath. His arm just barely brushed against mine.

“Mom says you miss me,” I said.

He turned to me, gave me this serious look before he pushed on the side of my head with his big hand and said, “You know what I think about sometimes?”

When I didn't say anything, he held his arm straight out—smoldering cigarette held between his middle and forefingers, a small red tip glowing in the air—he pointed to the dark craggy shapes against an inky sky. “Sometimes I want to just walk out into those mountains and never look back.”

There was gravity to his tone, not the usual testing when he said things like that, and my limbs went cold, my body responding to his words before my brain could articulate what bothered me about them.

The podium was still empty when we came back to the table. I avoided my mother's eyes as I sat. A plump, brightly dressed woman stepped behind the podium. She wore too much jewelry and tittered something I didn't listen to, and stretched her arm out while everyone started clapping.

Finally the applause died down and Jasper Caldwell took the podium. He was taller than I imagined, at least two heads taller than the woman who'd introduced him. The podium barely made it to his chest.

“My goodness,” my mother said, and Tristan made a sound in agreement. Jasper wore a gray shirt under a dusty brown jacket with brown pants. I wondered if it was just the lights or if he was actually sick, his skin was so pale I could make out fine blue veins on the backs of his hands, and under his eyes was a purplish tint.

“String Bean walks on to stage,” I said as if I were about to lead into a joke.

Tristan shushed me and picked up his pen.

What did my brother see in this guy? From the hazel, milky eyes contrasting with dark, fluffy hair cut horribly in a thick man-bob to the drab clothing—he radiated boredom. He tucked his hair behind his ear. I stifled a laugh when I pictured the insanely boring sex I would find in one of his books. Three lines were what Tristan was so impressed with. Three lines to lay out what my brother said was an honestly described sex act in
Forests
. A lifetime of experience summed up no doubt.

I turned my attention back to my brother, who, for the first time since they picked me up at my apartment, looked really happy. He clapped with everyone else, two days’ worth of stubble at least on his chin and this goofy grin on his face. If he weren't so big he would look like a really ugly girl.

After Jasper pulled out several pages from a black shoulder bag, which he then set on the floor, he adjusted his glasses, took a sip of water, and began reading from the papers in front of him.

“I hope this will help you understand what I believe is the explanation for what I do, but then again, the writer is often the last person who would understand his own work. In the end I believe it is the reader's job to decipher and find meaning in my words.”

Gentle applause all around, and he began again, droning on about what he was trying to achieve in his latest book,
Forests
. My interpretation of the work was that it was dull, overly descriptive, and the woodsy metaphor for the chaos of the human mind seemed way overdone. He went on about how he tried to work in the insanity of world events and human emotions, as well as make it entertaining by way of what he hoped was a good story.

We sat close enough that I could see his hands shake, and he hardly looked to the crowd. Tristan didn't seem to mind. He furiously wrote notes as Jasper talked. I slid my chair out, and Tristan set his hand on my arm. My mother gave me a firm stare. No sneaking away from this rack treatment.

I studied Jasper as he spoke. This was what someone would look like if they had been drained of all color and energy. Maybe the body snatchers had gotten to him. My mind wandered briefly to a scenario where Tristan got to save his hero from an evil plot. He would be outfitted in a suit of waffle-patterned thermal and a scabbard, his hair blowing in the wind, Jasper's skinny bod clad only in rough potato sack rags, tied to a burning
stake at the top of a stony mountain. In my vision Tristan howled above a raging wind, and then charged.

The tinkle of a wine glass against a dinner plate brought me back to watching my brother scribble notes, my mother sip from her wine, and Jasper flip another page of the stack in front of him, his long fingers curling around one side of the podium.

A part of me whispered that I should listen and try to learn something, but the part that craved a good time decided it didn't matter. What I wrote was the farthest thing from what this guy did; there was nothing I could learn from him that I hadn't heard from Tristan or my mother a hundred times. I wondered if Jasper smoked, and I watched the way he moved his hands—a simpering gesture he made where he held his forearm in the air and flipped his hand back each time he said something that came after, “by that I mean to say,” or some other filler.

Jasper spoke slowly. The jutting round chin that anchored his mouth made that part of his face at least salvageable. Like an artist's rendering of an anonymous nude, I was surprised by how nicely it was put together. His mouth was perfectly shaped, unique. His lower lip was longer than the top, but the whole mouth was full, and even though the rest of him was unattractive, I found myself watching his lips move with an intensity I had before only directed at my old dance partner, Eric.

What words would best describe that mouth? I bit my lower lip, imagining what it would be like to kiss him, removing the glasses and seeing him naked and exposed. What would it take to get those glasses off his face? He probably kept them on when he fucked. His teeth were straight, only the first three were visible as he talked, except when he smiled and I got to see one sharp canine. Would he knick me while pressing his mouth to mine, or would he be gentle, passively letting me do as I wished? The way he curled his mouth into a crooked smile, then let his eyes dart out toward the crowd gauging the reaction to what he'd just said, made him vulnerable. I imagined when he got older he would end up looking a little like the Grinch; the ridge between his nose and top lip being so pronounced. Strong features could easily be made cartoonish.