The First Bad Man (4 page)

“Pants and a shirt. Socks. Shoes.”

“That sounds nice. Do you want to tell me anything?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No confessions?”

He laughed nervously. “Cheryl? I’ve arrived.”

For a moment I thought he meant here at my house, right outside. But he meant Ralphs. Was this a subtle invitation?

Assuming he was on the east side, there were two Ralphs he could be going to. I put on a pin-striped men’s dress shirt that I’d been saving. Seeing me in this would unconsciously make him feel like we’d just woken up together and I’d thrown on his shirt. A relaxing feeling, I would think. The reusable grocery bags were in the kitchen; I tried to get in and out without Clee’s seeing.

“You’re going to the store? I need some stuff.”

There was no easy way to explain that this wasn’t a real shopping trip. She put her feet on the dashboard, dirty tan toes in light blue flip-flops. The odor was unreal.

After changing my mind a few times, I chose the more upscale Ralphs. We promenaded up and down the aisles of processed food, Clee pushing a cart a few feet ahead of me, her chest ballooning ridiculously. Women looked her up and down and then looked away. Men did not look away—they kept looking after they passed her, to get the rear view. I turned and made stern faces at them, but they didn’t care. Some men even said hi, as if they knew her, or as if knowing her was about to begin right now. Several Ralphs employees asked if she needed help finding anything. I was ready to bump into Phillip at every turn and for him to be delighted and for us to shop together like the old married couple we had been for a hundred thousand lifetimes before this one. Either I had just missed him or he was at the other Ralphs. The man ahead of us in the checkout line spontaneously began telling Clee how much he loved his son, who was sitting fatly in the grocery cart. He had known love before he had a kid, he said, but in reality no love could compare to his love for his child. I made eye contact with the baby but there was no resonance between us. His mouth hung open dumbly. A red-haired bagger boy hastily abandoned his lane to bag Clee’s groceries.

She bought fourteen frozen meals, a case of Cup-o-Noodles, a loaf of white bread, and three liters of Diet Pepsi. The one roll of toilet paper I purchased fit in my backpack. On the drive home I said a few words about the Los Feliz neighborhood, its diversity, before trailing off. I felt silly in the men’s shirt; disappointment filled the car. She was scanning her calves for ingrown hairs and picking them out with her nails.

“So what exactly do you aspire to, acting-wise?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Like do you hope to be in movies? Or theater?”

“Oh. Is that what my mom said?” She snorted. “I’m not interested in acting.”

This wasn’t good news. I’d been imagining the big break, the meeting or audition that would remove her from my house.

Kale and eggs, eaten from the pan, I didn’t offer her any. Early to bed. I listened to each thing she did from the dark of my room. TV on, then padding to the bathroom, flush, no hand washing, a trip to get something from her car, car door slam, front door slam. The refrigerator opened, the freezer opened, then an unfamiliar beeping. I jumped out of bed.

“That doesn’t work,” I said, rubbing my eyes. Clee was poking the buttons of the microwave. “It came with the house but it’s a million years old. It’s not safe, and it doesn’t work.”

“Well, I’ll just try it,” she said, pressing start. The microwave whirred, the dinner turned slowly. She peered through the glass. “Seems fine.”

“I would step away from it. Radiation. Bad for your reproductive organs.” She was staring at my bare legs. I don’t usually expose them, which is why they’re unshaven. It’s not for political reasons, it’s just a time-saver. I went back to bed. Microwave dinged, door opened, slammed shut.

ON THURSDAY I SLIPPED OUT
before seven o’clock to avoid Rick. Just as I stepped into the office, he called.

“I am very sorry to bother you, miss, but there’s a woman here and she just asked me to leave.”

I was surprised he even had my number, or a phone.

“Excuse me, she would like to talk to you.”

There was a bang, the phone was dropped, Clee came on.

“He just walked onto your property, no car or anything.” She turned away from the phone. “Can I see some ID? Or a business card?” I cringed at her rudeness. But also maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.

“Hello, Clee. I’m sorry I forgot to mention Rick; he gardens.” Maybe she would forbid him to return and there would be nothing I could do about it.

“How much do you pay him?”

“I—sometimes I give him a twenty.” Nothing; I’d never given him anything. I suddenly felt very judged, very accused. “He’s practically family,” I explained. This wasn’t true in any sense—I didn’t even know his last name. “Can you please put him back on?”

She did something that sounded like tossing the phone on the ground.

Rick was back. “Perhaps it is not a good time?”

“I’m so, so sorry. She’s not well-mannered.”

“I had an arrangement with the Goldfarbs . . . they appreciated . . . but perhaps you—”

“I appreciate it even more than the Goldfarbs did.
Mi casa es tu casa.
”

“What?”

I had always thought he was Latino, but I guess not. In any case, it probably wasn’t a smart thing to say.

“Please keep up the good work, it was a misunderstanding.”

“The third week of next month I will have to come on a Tuesday.”

“Not a problem, Rick.”

“Thank you. And how long will your visitor be staying?” he asked politely.

“Not long, she’ll be gone in a few days and everything will be back to normal.”

CHAPTER THREE

The ironing room and bedroom were my domain, the living room and the kitchen were hers. The front door and the bathroom were neutral zones. When I got my food from the kitchen I scurried, hunched over, as if I was stealing it. I ate looking out the too-high ironing-room window, listening to her TV shows. The characters were always shouting, so it wasn’t hard to follow the plots without the picture. During our Friday video conference call Jim asked what all the commotion was.

“That’s Clee,” I said. “Remember? She’s staying with me until she finds a job?”

Rather than take this opportunity to jump in with accolades and sympathy, my coworkers fell into a guilty silence. Especially Michelle. Someone in a burgundy sweater sauntered across the office, behind Jim’s head. I craned my head.

“Is that—who was that?”

“Phillip,” piped Michelle. “He just donated an espresso machine to the staff kitchen.”

He walked past again, holding a tiny cup.

“Phillip!” I yelled. The figure paused, looking confused.

“It’s Cheryl,” said Jim, pointing to the screen.

Phillip walked toward the computer and ducked into view. When he saw me he brought his giant fingertip right up to the camera—I quickly pointed at my own camera. We “touched.” He smiled and moseyed away, offscreen.

“What was that?” said Jim.

AFTER THE CALL I THREW
on my robe and strolled into the kitchen. I was tired of hiding. If she was rude, I would just roll with it. She was wearing a big T-shirt that said
BUMP, SET, SPIKE IT . . . THAT’S THE WAY WE LIKE IT!
and either no bottoms or shorts completely covered by the shirt. She seemed to be waiting for the kettle. This was hopeful; maybe she’d reconsidered the microwave.

“Enough hot water for two?”

She shrugged. I guessed we would find out when it came time to pour. I got my mug out of my bin: even though the sink was full of dishes, I had continued using only my set. I leaned on the wall and kneaded my shoulders against it, smiling lazily into the air. Roll, roll, roll with it. We waited for the kettle. She poked a fork at the layers of calcified food on my savory pan as if it were alive.

“It’s building flavor,” I said protectively, forgetting to roll for a moment.

She laughed, heh, heh, heh, and instead of growing defensive, I joined her, and laughing somehow made it funny, truly funny—the pan and even myself. My chest felt light and open, I marveled at the universe and its trickster ways.

“Why are you laughing?” Her face was suddenly made of stone.

“Just because—” I gestured toward the pan.

“You thought I was laughing about the pan? Like ha ha you’re so kooky with your dirty pan and your funny way of doing things?”

“No.”

“Yes. That’s what you thought.” She took a step toward me, talking right into my face. “I was laughing because”—I felt her eyes move over my gray hair, and my face, its big pores—“you’re so sad. Soooo. Saaaad.” With the word
sad
she pressed her palm into my chest bone, flattening me against the wall. I made an involuntary
huh
sound and my heart began to thud heavily. She could feel this, with her palm. She got a revved-up look and pressed a little harder, then a little harder, pausing each time as if to give me a chance to respond. I was getting ready to say
Hey, you’re about to cross a line
or
You’re crossing the line
or
Okay, that’s it, you’ve crossed the line
, but suddenly I felt that my bones were really being harmed, not just my chest but my shoulder blades, which were grinding into the wall, and I wanted to live and be whole, be uninjured. So I said, “Okay, I’m sad.” The kettle began to whistle.

“What?”

“I’m sad.”

“Why would I care if you’re sad?”

I quickly gave a nod of agreement to show how completely I was on her side, against myself. The kettle was screaming. She pulled her hand away and poured the water into a Styrofoam cup of noodles—not appeased, just revolted by our affiliation. I walked away, a free woman on rubbery legs.

I curled up on my bed and held my globus. What was the name of the situation I was in? What category was this? I had been mugged once, in Seattle in my twenties, and that had had a similar feeling afterward. But in that case I had gone to the police and in this scenario I couldn’t do that.

I called my bosses in Ojai. Carl answered immediately.

“Business or pleasure?” he said.

“It’s about Clee,” I whispered. “It’s been lovely having her, but I think—”

“Hold on. Suz—pick up! Clee’s making trouble! Not that phone—the hall one!”

“Hello?” Suzanne’s voice was almost inaudible through the crackling connection.

“You’re on the crappy phone!” Carl shouted.

“I’m not!” Suzanne yelled. “I’m on the hall one! Why do we both need to be on at the same time?” She hung up the hall phone but could still be heard distantly through Carl’s phone. “You get off the phone, I’ll talk to Cheryl alone!”

“You’ve been snapping at me all day, Suz.”

Suzanne picked up the phone but paused before putting it to her mouth. “Can you go away? I don’t need you monitoring my every move.”

“Are you going to offer her money?” Carl said in a whisper that seemed louder than his regular voice.

“Of course not. You think I’m just handing out—” Suzanne put her hand over the phone. I waited, wondering what there was to argue about since they both agreed I should not be offered money.

“Cheryl!” She was back.

“Hi.”

“Sorry about that, I’m not having fun in this marriage right now.”

“Oh no,” I said, although this was the only way they ever were, like this or loudly entranced by each other.

“He makes me feel like shit,” she said, and then to Carl, “Well, then go away—I’m having a private conversation here and I can say what I like.” And then to me: “How are you?”

“Good.”

“We never thanked you for taking Clee, but it means so much”—her voice became thick and halting, I could see her mascara starting to run—“just to know she’s getting exposed to good values. You have to remember she grew up in
Ojai
.”

Carl picked up.

“Please excuse the theatrics, Cheryl, you don’t have to listen to this. Feel free to hang up.”

“Fuck you, Carl, I’m trying to make a point. Everyone thinks it’s such a terrific idea to move out of the city to raise your kids. Well, don’t be surprised when that kid is pro-life and anti–gun control. You should see her friends. Is she going on auditions?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can you put her on?”

I wondered if I was still allowed to hang up if I wanted to.

“She might need to call you back.”

“Cheryl, hon, just put her on.” She could tell I was scared of her daughter.

I opened my door. Clee was eating ramen on the couch.

“It’s your mom.” I held out the phone.

Clee took it with a swipe and strode out to the backyard, the door slamming shut behind her. I watched her pacing past the window, her mouth a little spitting knot. The whole family exerted tremendously toward each other; they were in the throes of passion all the time. I held my elbows and looked at the floor. There was a bright orange Cheeto on the rug. Next to the Cheeto was an empty Diet Pepsi can and next to the can was a pair of green-lace thong underwear with white stuff on the crotch. And this was just the area right around my feet. I touched my throat, hard as a rock. But not yet to the point where I had to spit instead of swallow.

Clee stormed in.

“Someone named”—she looked at the screen—“Phillip Bettelheim called you three times.”

I CALLED HIM BACK FROM
my car. When he asked me how I was, I did my equivalent of bursting into tears—my throat seized, my face crumpled, and I made a noise so high in pitch that it was silent. Then I heard a sob. Phillip was crying—out loud.

“Oh no, what is it?” He had seemed fine when we touched fingers through the computer.

“Nothing new, I’m okay, it’s just the thing I was talking about before,” he sniffed soggily.

“The confession.”

“Yep. It’s driving me nuts.”

He laughed and this made room for a larger cry. Gasping, he said, “Is—this okay? Can I just—cry—for a while?”

I said of course. I could tell him about Clee another time.

At first the permission seemed to stifle him, but after a minute he broke through to a new kind of crying that I could tell he liked—it was the crying of a child, a little boy who can’t catch his breath and is out of control and won’t be consoled. But I did console him, I said, “Sh-sh-shhh,” and “That’s it, let it out,” and each of these seemed to be exactly right, they allowed him to cry harder. I really felt a part of it, like I was helping him get somewhere he’d always wanted to go and he was crying with gratitude and astonishment. It
was
pretty incredible, when you thought about it, which, as the minutes wore on, I had time to do. I looked at the curtains of my own house and hoped Clee wasn’t breaking things in there. I doubted if any man had ever cried this much, or even any adult woman. We would probably switch roles at some point, down the road, and he would guide me through my big cry. I could see him gently coaxing me into wet tears; the relief would be overwhelming. “You look beautiful,” he’d say, touching my tearstained cheek and bringing my hand to the front of his pants. With a little fiddling the car seat went almost flat; as his wail renewed itself I quietly unclasped my pants and slid my hand down. We’d blow our noses and take off our clothes, but only the clothes we needed to. For example, I would leave my blouse and socks and maybe even shoes on and Phillip would do the same. We’d take our pants and underpants off completely but wouldn’t fold them up because we’d just have to unfold them to put them back on. We’d lay them out on the floor in a way that would make them easy to put on again later. We’d get side by side in the bed and hug and kiss a lot, Phillip would get on top of me and insert his penis between my legs and then, in a low, commanding voice, he would whisper, “Think about your thing.” I’d smile, grateful for the permission to go within, and shut my eyes—transporting myself to a very similar room where our pants were laid out on the floor and Phillip was on top of and inside me. In a low, commanding voice he said, “Think about your thing,” and I was flooded with gratitude and relief, even more than last time. I shut my eyes and was again transported to a similar room, a fantasy within a fantasy within a fantasy, and it continued like this, building in intensity until I was so far inside myself that I could go no further. That’s it. That’s my thing, the thing I like to think about during intercourse or masturbation. It ends with a sudden knotting in my groin followed by a very relaxing fatigue.

As I reclasped my pants he began to slow down, to try to catch his breath. He blew his nose a few times. I said, “That’s it, there you go,” which made him cry a little more, perhaps just politely to acknowledge my words. Finally it was all quiet.

“That felt really, really good.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was incredible.”

“I’m surprised. I usually don’t cry well in front of other people. It’s different with you.”

“Does it feel like we’ve known each other for longer than we really have?”

“Kind of.”

I could tell him or I could not tell him. I decided to tell him.

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” I ventured.

“Okay.” He blew his nose again.

“Do you know what it is?”

“Give me a hint.”

“A hint. Let’s see . . . actually, I can’t. There are no little parts to it, it’s all big.”

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes.

“I see a rocky tundra and a crouched figure with apelike features who resembles me. She’s fashioned a pouch out of animal gut and now she’s giving it to her mate, a strong, hairy pre-man who looks a lot like you. He moves his thick finger around in the pouch and fishes out a colorful rock. Her gift to him. Do you see where I’m going?”

“Kind of? In that I see you’re talking about cavemen who look like us.”

“Who
are
us.”

“Right, I wasn’t sure—okay. Reincarnation?”

“I don’t relate to that word.”

“No, right, me either.”

“But sure. I see us in medieval times, huddling together in long coats. I see us both with crowns on. I see us in the forties.”

“The 1940s?”

“Yes.”

“I was born in ’48.”

“That makes sense because I was seeing us as a very old couple in the forties. That was probably the lifetime right before this one.” I paused. I had said a lot. Too much? That depended on what he said next. He cleared his throat, then was silent. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything, which is the worst thing men do.

“What keeps us coming back?” he said quietly.

I smiled into the phone. What an amazing thing to be asked. Right now, tucked into the warmth of my car with this unanswerable question before me—this might have been my favorite moment of all the lifetimes.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I quietly leaned my head against the steering wheel and we swam in time, silent and together.

“What are you doing for dinner on Friday, Cheryl? I’m ready to confess.”

THE REST OF THE WEEK
glided by. Everything was fantastic and I forgave everyone, even Clee, not to her face. She was young! Over a standing-up lunch in the staff kitchen Jim assured me that young people these days were a lot more physically demonstrative than we had been; his niece, for example: very physical girl.

“They’re rough,” I said.

“They aren’t afraid to show their feelings,” he said.

“Which is maybe not such a good thing?” I suggested.

“Which is very healthy,” he said.

“In the long run, yes,” I said. “Perhaps.”

“They hug more,” he said. “More than we did.”

“Hug,” I said.

“Boys and girls hug, unromantically.”

The conclusion I came to—and it was important to come to a conclusion because you didn’t want these kinds of thoughts to just go on and on with no category and no conclusion—was that girls these days, when they weren’t hugging boys unromantically, were busy being generally aggressive. Whereas girls in my youth felt angry but directed it inward and cut themselves and became depressed, girls nowadays just went
arrrrgh
and pushed someone into a wall. Who could say which way was better? In the past the girl herself got hurt; now another unsuspecting, innocent person was hurt and the girl herself seemed to feel just fine. In terms of fairness maybe the past was a better time.