The First Bad Man (6 page)

She was home from Ralphs: it was later than I thought. I pulled myself upright and listened to her flipping channels arrhythmically. My back was sore where she threw me down, but this was almost a welcome distraction from the globus. My neck felt like an object unrelated to me, a businessman’s misplaced briefcase. When I tapped my throat it made a bony sound, and then suddenly the muscle began to tighten, and tighten, like a pulled knot—I panicked, shaking my hands in the air—no, no, no—

And then it locked.

I’d read about this online but it had never happened to me. The sternothyroid muscle becomes so rigid that it seizes up. Sometimes permanently.

“Test,” I whispered, to see if I could still talk. “Test, test.” Very carefully, without moving my neck, I reached for the glass bottle on my bedside table. Using the Heidi scenario I drank all the red. Nothing happened. I gingerly carried my neck to the phone and called Dr. Broyard, but he was in Amsterdam; the message invited me to call 911 or leave my name and number for Dr. Ruth-Anne Tibbets. I remembered the two stacks of business cards in their Lucite holders—this was the other doctor. The one in charge of watering the fern in the waiting room. I hung up, then called back and left my name and number. The message felt too short for a therapist.

“I’m forty-three,” I added, still whispering. “Regular height. Brown hair that is now gray. No children. Thanks, please call back. Thank you.”

DR. TIBBETS SAW PATIENTS ON
Tuesdays through Thursdays. When I suggested today, a Thursday, she countersuggested next Tuesday. Six days of liquids; I might starve. Sensing my anguish, she asked if I was in danger. I might be, I said, by next Tuesday. If I could come right away, she said, we could meet during her lunch hour.

I drove to the same building and took the same elevator to the same floor. Dr. Broyard’s name on the door had been replaced by
DR. RUTH-ANNE TIBBETS, LCSW
—a plastic placard that slid into an aluminum strip. I looked down the hall and wondered how many other offices were shared. Most patients would never know; it had to be unusual for a person to need the services of two different unaffiliated specialists. The receptionist’s area was empty. I read a magazine about golf for fifteen seconds until the door swung open.

Dr. Tibbets was tall with flat gray hair and an androgynous horsey face; she reminded me of someone but I wasn’t sure who. This was probably the sign of a good therapist, seeming familiar to everyone. She asked if the room was warm enough—there was a small space heater she could turn on. I said I was fine.

“What brought you in today?”

A bento box sat on top of her day planner. Had she stuffed herself as quickly as possible after the previous patient? Or was she waiting, faint with hunger? “You can eat your lunch if you want, I don’t mind.” She smiled patiently. “Begin when you feel ready.” I turned sideways on the leather couch but quickly discovered there wasn’t enough length for my legs, so I swung myself upright again; she wasn’t that kind of therapist.

I told her about my globus hystericus and how my sternothyroid had locked. She asked me if I could recall any triggering incidents. I didn’t feel ready to tell her about Phillip so I described my houseguest, the way she moved around the living room, swinging her giant, heavy-lidded head like a cow, a dense, stenchy bull.

“Bulls are male,” said Dr. Tibbets.

But that was just it. A woman talks, too much—and worries, too much—and gives and gives in. A woman bathes.

“She doesn’t bathe?”

“Almost never.”

I described her total disregard for my home and acted out the different things she had done to me, pressing on my own chest and squeezing my own wrist. It was hard to yank my own head back.

“This might not look painful because I’m doing it to myself.”

“I don’t doubt that it’s painful,” she said. “What have you done to resist?”

I released my arm and sat back down.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you fight back?”

“You mean self-defense?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, that’s not what this is. It’s really more a case of very bad manners.” I smiled to myself because it sounded like I was in denial. “Have you heard of Open Palm? Self-defense that helps you burn fat and build muscle? I pretty much invented that.”

“Have you yelled?”

“No.”

“Or said no to her?”

“No.”

Dr. Tibbets was quiet now, like a lawyer who had no further questions. My face crumpled, and my globus swelled painfully; she held out a box of Kleenex.

I suddenly realized why she looked so familiar.

She was Dr. Broyard’s receptionist. It was outrageous. Was she even Ruth-Anne Tibbets or was she Ruth-Anne Tibbets’s receptionist too? What had she done with Dr. Tibbets? This needed to be reported. Who could I call? Not Dr. Broyard or Dr. Tibbets, since this usurping, masquerading woman would undoubtedly answer the phone. I slowly gathered my purse and sweater. It was best not to agitate her or let on.

“This has been a great help, thank you.”

“You have thirty more minutes.”

“I don’t feel that I need it. It was a twenty-minute problem and you addressed it.”

She hesitated, looking up at me.

“I’m going to have to charge you for the whole session.”

I had already prewritten the check. I took it out of my purse.

“If possible, please donate the thirty minutes to someone who can’t afford therapy.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Thank you.”

CLEE WAS AT RALPHS, SO
I stayed home and applied hot compresses, working to gradually relax my throat. Occasionally I pressed a warm metal spoon against it; some people say that helps. Just when I thought I might be making progress, Phillip called.

“I’m seeing Kirsten tonight. I’m picking her up at eight.”

I said nothing.

“So should I expect to hear from you before eight, or . . . ?”

“No.”

“Not at all tonight? Or just not by eight?”

I hung up. A shaking fury quietly rose through my chest into my throat. The lump began to seize up again, tightening like an angry man’s fist. Or my fist. I looked at my veiny hands, slowly curling them into balls. Is this what she meant by fight back? The thought of the receptionist’s smug, horsey face made my globus even harder. I jumped up and scanned the spines of my DVD collection. I probably didn’t even have one. I did:
Survival of the Fittest
. It wasn’t our most recent release; Carl and Suzanne had given it to me for Christmas about four years ago. Of course I had many opportunities to learn self-defense in the old studio, just never the desire to embarrass myself in front of my coworkers. The great thing about our DVDs (and streaming video), besides burning fat and building muscle, is you can do them alone without anyone watching. I pressed play.

“Hi! Let’s get started!” It was Shamira Tye, the bodybuilder. She doesn’t compete anymore but she was still very expensive and hard to get. “I recommend working out in front of a mirror so you can watch your tush shrink.” I stood in the living room in my pajamas. Kicks were called kicks but punches were called “pops.” “Pop, pop, pop, pop!” Shamira said. “I pop in my sleep! And soon you will too!” A knee-slam-to-groin movement was presented as the can-can—“Yes you can-can!” If someone was strangling you, “the butterfly” would break their hold while toning your upper arms. “It’s a catch-twenty-two,” Shamira mused at the end. “With your new ripped bod, you may actually get attacked more often!” I fell to my knees. Sweat ran down the sides of my torso and into my elastic waistband.

Clee came home at nine o’clock with a box of trash bags. I hoped this was an olive branch, since we were out of trash bags and I didn’t really have any intention of fighting her. But she used all of the bags to gather up the clothes and mildewed beach towels and food items and electronics that apparently had been in her car this whole time. I watched her park the four bags against the wall in the corner of the living room. Each swallow took concentration but I kept at it. Some people with globus only spit; they have to bring a spittoon with them everywhere they go.

At eleven fifteen Phillip texted. SHE WANTS ME TO TELL YOU I RUBBED HER THROUGH HER JEANS. WE DON’T THINK THAT COUNTS. NO ORGASM. All caps, as if he was yelling out of his penthouse window. Once read, the image was impossible to keep at bay—the tight jean crotch, his stubby, furry hands rubbing wildly. In the living room I could hear Clee crunching ice like cud. The chewing was so loud I began to wonder if she wasn’t doing it sarcastically, to aggravate me. I pressed my ear against the door. Now she was imitating the imitation—it was a chomping sound with a double set of quotation marks around it. Too late I realized there would be no end to this line of thought—her self-impersonation quadrupled, and then sixteenified, her eyeballs popping out of her head, ferociously rubbed jeans, teeth like fangs, tongue whipping around the room, ice flying everywhere. I spit on my sleeve, yanked open the door, and marched over to the couch. She looked up at me from her sleeping bag and quietly regurgitated a single ice cube.

“Could you please not make that sound please?” I shouldn’t have said
please
twice, but my voice was low and my eye contact was direct. I held my hands in front of me in a position of readiness. My heart was hitting the inside of my body so hard it made a knocking sound. What if she did a move that wasn’t on the DVD? I glanced down to be sure my stance was grounded.

She squinted at me, taking in my hovering hands and planted feet, then tilted her head back and filled her mouth with ice. I grabbed the cup out of her hand. She blinked at her empty palm, slowly chewed the ice, swallowed it and looked past me at the TV. It wasn’t going to happen; we weren’t going to fight. But she could see I wanted to. She could see I’d gotten all geared up—a forty-three-year-old woman in a blouse, ready to brawl. And she was laughing about it, right now, inside. Heh, heh, heh.

CHAPTER FOUR

It took a day to become calm and gather up my pride.
Delicate
was the word Phillip had used to describe me. A delicate woman would not throw punches in her own home. What a barbaric mentality! As if there weren’t a million other ways to deal with conflict. I drafted a letter to Clee. It was clear-cut and unequivocal. Reading it aloud was quite moving, actually; by inviting her to engage in a civilized manner I was probably showing her a respect that few people ever had. Dignity was on its way. I spit into an empty almond butter jar; there’s something kind of quaint about a spittoon. She didn’t need to thank me for my honest forthrightness, but if she insisted I would be forced to accept. I accepted a few times for practice. I put the letter in an envelope labeled
CLEE
, taped it to the bathroom mirror, and went out so I wouldn’t be home when she read it.

At the Ethiopian restaurant I requested a fork. They explained that I had to use my hands, so I asked for it to go, got a fork at Starbucks, and sat in my car. But my throat wouldn’t accept even this very soft meal. I put it on the curb for a homeless person. An Ethiopian homeless person would be especially delighted. What a heartbreaking thought, encountering your native food in this way.

When I got back she was eating Thanksgiving dinner, her favorite kind of microwave meal. I was a little nervous about the letter, but she seemed to be in good spirits—texting and reading a magazine with the TV on. She was taking it well. I put on my nightgown and carried my toiletries bag to the bathroom. The envelope labeled
CLEE
was still taped to the mirror. She either had seen it and not read it, or had not gone to the bathroom yet. I went to bed and checked my phone. Nothing. Phillip had been rubbing Kirsten through her jeans this whole time, still no climax. The jeans would be in tatters now, his fingers blistered, waiting for my green light. The toilet flushed in the bathroom.

A minute later my bedroom door flew open.

“Who’s the guest?” she said. The room was dark but I could see the letter in her hand.

“Who?”

“The one coming Friday that I have to move out for.”

“Oh, it’s an old friend.”

“An old friend?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the name of the old friend?”

“His name is Kubelko Bondy.”

“That’s a made-up-sounding name.” She was moving toward the bed.

“Well, I’ll tell him you think so.”

I slid out of bed and backed slowly away from her. If I ran it would be a chase situation and that would be too terrifying, so I forced myself to walk casually toward the door. She slammed it shut before I got there. Galloping heart and micro-shakes. Shamira Tye calls it “your adrenaline event”; once it begins, it has to play forward—it can’t be stopped or reversed. The darkness was disorienting, I couldn’t figure out where she was until she pushed my head down, dunking me as if we were in a pool.

“Trying to get rid of me?” she panted. “Is that it?”

“No!” The right word but the wrong time. I tried to rise, she plunged me down again. I heard myself gasping, drowning. What move were we on? I needed the DVD. My nose was too near her yeasty feet. I was queasy, green. A scream came out as raspy whispers, stuck to my throat. My peak was nearing; if you don’t fight back by the time you hit peak fear then you won’t ever fight back. You’ll die—maybe not physically, but you’ll die.

It came from my bellows, the loudest noise I’d ever made. Not
no
, but the old Open Palm battle cry:
Aiaiaiaiai!
My thighs catapulted upward; I almost leapt into the air. Clee was still for a moment, and then she barreled into me, pulling me down and trying to pin me. It was too much weight. I can-canned with full force, kicking everything in sight, and popped with my hard fist when I could. She repeatedly tried to bring me to the floor until I tried the butterfly. It worked—I broke free. She stood up and walked out of the room. The bathroom door locked with a click. The sink taps blasted on.

I lay next to my bed, sucking down big pulls of air. Long loose thrums of pain were gently vibrating through my limbs. It was gone. Not just the globus but the whole structure around it, the tightness in my chest, my locked jaw. I rolled my head from side to side. Exquisite. A million tiny, delicate sensations. The skin was burning from something she had done but otherwise loose as a goose. I laughed and sent a ripple up one arm, across my shoulders to the other one. What was that called again? The electric slide? Who was this big goof? Señorita Sillypants. I saw myself flamenco dancing, something with castanets. The water was still running in the bathroom, a pathetic attempt at passive aggression. Waste all the water you want! If she moved out tomorrow I could have the house in order by the weekend. My new muscles shook wildly as I reached for my phone. I left my name and number and requested the same time next Tuesday. Dr. Tibbets’s receptionist was a fraud and a thief and a pretty good therapist.

CLEE DIDN’T LEAVE THE NEXT
DAY.
Or the day after that. She was still there on Tuesday but I went to therapy anyway. The receptionist smiled warmly as I placed myself on Ruth-Anne Tibbets’s couch.

“How are—”

I interrupted her. “Before I answer that, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Are you licensed?”

“I am, I have a degree in clinical psychology and social work from UC Davis.” She pointed to a framed piece of paper on the wall, Ruth-Anne Tibbets’s diploma. I was about to ask to see her driver’s license, but she continued. “I don’t want to violate your patient confidentiality with Dr. Broyard, but I remember scheduling your appointment with him. I am his receptionist, three times a year, when he uses this office. That might have caused some confusion.”

Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of this obvious and simple explanation? I apologized and she said there was no need and I apologized again. Her shoes. They were a fancy European kind. Did she really need the extra income?

“How much are you paid as a receptionist?”

“About a hundred dollars for the day.”

“That’s less than what I pay you for an hour.”

She nodded. “I don’t do it for the money. I enjoy it. Answering the phone and setting up appointments for Dr. Broyard is a wonderful respite from the responsibility of this job.”

Everything she said made perfect sense but only for a few seconds, then it expired. A wonderful respite? It didn’t sound very wonderful. She leaned back a little, waiting for me to launch into my private life. I waited too, for a feeling of trust to arise. The room was very quiet.

“I need to use the restroom,” I said finally, just to break the silence.

“Oh dear. You really have to go?”

I nodded.

“Okay. You have two options. There’s a key in the waiting room with a plastic duck on it. You can take that key and go to the bathroom on the ninth floor, which unfortunately you can only get to by taking the elevator down to the lobby and asking the doorman to use his key to unlock the service elevator. This option usually takes about fifteen minutes in total. Alternately, if you look behind that paper screen you’ll see a stack of Chinese takeout containers. You can go in one of these, behind the screen, and take it with you when you leave. There are thirty minutes left in your session.”

The pee made an embarrassingly loud sound shooting into the container but I reminded myself that she had been to UC Davis and so forth. Overflow was a concern but it didn’t. I held the hot container in my hands and peeked at Dr. Tibbets through a tiny tear in the screen. She was looking at the ceiling.

“Is Dr. Broyard married?”

She became very still. “He is married. He has a wife and family in Amsterdam.”

“But your relationship with him is . . . ?”

“Three days a year I take on a submissive role. It’s a game we like to play, an immensely satisfying adult game.” She kept her eyes on the ceiling, waiting for my next question.

“How did you meet?”

“He was my patient. And then, many years later, long after he had stopped analysis with me, we met again in a rebirthing class and he told me he was looking for an office, so I suggested this arrangement. That was about eight years ago.”

“You suggested just the part about the office or the whole thing?”

“I’m a mature woman, Cheryl—I ask for what I want, and if the desire isn’t mutual, well, at least I haven’t wasted any time thinking about it.”

I came out from behind the screen and sat down again, carefully placing the takeout container next to my purse.

“Is it sexual?”

“Making love is something he can do with his wife. Our relationship is much more powerful and moving to me if we don’t compact our energy into our genitals.”

Her genitals, compacted. The image triggered a wave of nausea. I pressed my fingertips against my mouth and leaned forward slightly.

“Are you ill? There’s a trash can right there if you need to throw up,” she said flatly.

“Oh, that’s not why I—” I touched my lips several times to show how it was just a thing I did. “Are you in love with him?”

“In love? No. I don’t connect with him intellectually or emotionally. We agreed not to fall in love; it’s a clause in our contract.”

I smiled. Then unsmiled—she was serious.

“I’m sure the prevailing logic is that it’s more romantic to guess at each party’s intention.” She fluttered her big hands in the air and I saw chickens with ruffled feathers, stupid and clucking.

“Is the contract written or verbal?” My legs were twisted together and my arms held each other.

“How are you feeling about all this new information?” she asked soberly.

“Did a lawyer make it?”

“I downloaded a form from the Internet. It’s just a list of what is allowed and not allowed in the relationship. I don’t have it here.”

“That’s okay,” I whispered. “Let’s talk about something else now.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

I told her about fighting back. The story was less triumphant than I thought it would be, especially since Clee was still in my house.

“And how did you feel after she left the room?”

“I felt good, I guess.”

“And how about right now? How’s your globus?”

The flamenco feeling had not been long lasting. In the morning Clee didn’t seem particularly cowed by me—if anything she was more relaxed since the fight, more at home.

“Not great,” I admitted, squeezing my throat a little with my hand. Ruth-Anne asked if she could feel it; I leaned forward and she gently pressed my Adam’s apple with four fingertips. Her hand smelled clean, at least.

“It
is
quite tight. How uncomfortable.”

Her sympathy set off a crying response. The ball rose and tightened; I winced, holding my neck. It was hard to believe it had been so loose so recently.

“Perhaps you’ll get relief tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“If you and Clee have another”—she made her hands into boxer’s fists—“encounter.”

“Oh no. No, no—she needs to go. I’ve already put up with this much longer than I should have.” I thought of Michelle, how quickly she’d booted her. It was Jim’s turn now, or Nakako’s.

“But if the globus—”

I shook my head. “There’s other ways—surgery—well, no, not surgery, but counseling.”

“This is counseling.”

My eyes fell on Ruth-Anne’s mauve fingernails. Polished, but chipped. A receptionist needed nails like those, but a therapist didn’t. In three months she’d get another manicure.

I DROVE STRAIGHT TO OPEN
PALM:
it was my in-office day. All the employees looked strange and shifty to me, as if they weren’t wearing any pants under their desks, genitals uncompacted. Was Ruth-Anne pantless behind the receptionist desk when I first met her? It was an icky and unsanitary thought; I swept it away and got to work. Jim and I had a brainstorming session with the web designer on KickIt.com, our youth initiative. Michelle was called over to coordinate the media. Before she sat down she cleared her throat and said, “Jim and Cheryl can take notes alone; they are the best at taking notes—”

Jim cut her off. “Have a seat, Michelle. That’s just for group work.”

She blushed. The pseudo-Japanese customs were always tricky for new employees. In 1998 Carl went to Japan for a martial arts conference and was blown away by the culture there. “They give gifts every time they meet someone new, and they’re all perfectly wrapped.”

He’d handed me something wrapped in a cloth napkin. I was still an intern at the time.

“Is this a napkin?”

“They use fabric for wrapping paper there. But I couldn’t find any.”

I unrolled the napkin and my own wallet fell out.

“This is my wallet.”

“I wasn’t really giving you a present—I was just trying to show the culture. The gift would be a set of little sake cups or something. That’s what the head of the conference gave me.”

“You went into my purse and got this? When did you do that?”

“When you were in the bathroom, just a few minutes ago.”

He wrote up a list of guidelines for the office, to make the atmosphere more Japanese. It was hard to know how authentic the list was, since none of the rest of us had been to Japan. Almost two decades later, I am the only one who knows the origin of the office rules, but I never go into it since there are now actual Japanese-American people on the staff (Nakako, and Aya in education and outreach) and I don’t want to offend them.

If a task requires a group effort—for example, moving a heavy table—it should be begun by one person, and then after a respectful pause a second person can join, with a bowed head, saying, “Jim can move the table alone, he is the best at moving the table, I am joining him even though I’m not much help, because I’m not good at moving the table.” Then, after a moment, a third person can join, first bowing his head and stating, “Jim and Cheryl can move the table alone,” etc. And so on, until there are enough people assembled for the task. It’s one of those things that seems like a drag at first and then becomes second nature, until not doing it feels rude, almost aggressive.