Pig Latin For…
by Ralph Levy
Houdé Press
Kansas City • Rangoon • Tegucigalpa
Chapter 1
Professor Chrisler, who insisted his students call him by his first name,
Chad, was expounding on his novel analysis of the authenticity test of Christianity. He began with his theories on the nature of logical thought. “If our minds
are much use at all, then we have to assume that common logic, the kind we use
to think through our daily lives, must lead us to the truth. From there, it only
makes sense that the same reason, the same logic, is not something that has
popped up recently. We have to assume that what is reasonable now was
reasonable a hundred or a thousand or two thousand years ago. Can we all agree
on that?”
Finn Crowley, second row from the left, four desks back, would agree to
anything at all if only Phoebe Garnsten would agree to be with him, fall for him,
strip off her clothes for him, caress him, pull him down into her bed, and talk
dirty to him for hours as they continued to rut. Wasn’t Garnsten some kind of
Jewish name? What was she doing in this class? It was supposed to be Studies in
Christianity. Her being there was like a guy joining a women’s studies class or a
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red–headed rodeo rider in a black studies program. It was suspicious. Not that
he was complaining.
“I am starting with that assumption. I won’t be going into any of the little
sideshows that have always been on the edges of Christianity. So you won’t hear
me talking about this shroud or that window screen. As far as I am concerned, it
wouldn’t really matter if you’ve ever read an account of the life of Jesus. I will be
dealing with logic, nothing more. And furthermore, I will tell you that if you are
easily offended, now is the time to get out. No hard feelings. I promise that some
of the things I say will upset some of you. This is your final warning. If you fear
that this class is not for you, I would suggest you go to the registrar’s office and
ask to drop.” He stuck the eraser end of a pencil in his mouth, miming a deep
inhale of a long overdue cigarette. “If you would feel more secure going there
with a note from me, just stop by after class.”
Finn was trying to decide about Phoebe. Was she pretty or beautiful? She
was pretty, because she was a blonde. Blondes were pretty, not beautiful. Wasn’t
that how it worked? That was because bleach destroyed mystery as effectively as
it did pigment.
But she was different. She was pretty, but she was beautiful too. She did
not sit with the erect back and square shoulders of a pretty girl. It was as though
she slumped to hide her beauty, or because, as a blonde, she did not deserve it. It
was this paradox that so distracted him.
“…the paradox that he was all human, and yet all divine. I would like to
start with the part that is all human. Everybody in this classroom—and I am not
excluding myself—is all human. At the most basic level of humanity, we are not
talking about philosophical nuances or psychological aberrations. What we are
talking about is inhaling oxygen, converting nutrients to tissue, using our five
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senses to navigate through the world. We are talking about the social intricacies
of reproduction. We are talking about physical matter.
“So, when we talk about Jesus having been all human, that is what we
must accept. He breathed; he consumed and digested food; he saw and heard
and touched and felt and smelled the world around him.”
Phoebe’s posture was not that of a person who was confident. She was
shy, as though she did not understand that she was beautiful. Yes, beautiful.
Even a pretty girl could be beautiful if she was mysterious.
She was one of the rare ones who never just stood in front of the mirror,
staring at herself. If he looked like her, he would spend his entire life in front of
the mirror. He would order food in, so he would not even have to leave to eat.
He would wear diapers so he would not miss the barest moment of time that
could be spent looking at himself. Mostly, it would be the face, but sometimes
the clothes would come off.
Those slumped shoulders would be even more appealing naked. He
wondered about her breasts all the time. The classroom seating arrangement did
not allow him a good view, since she sat in front of him. His best view came
either before or after class or when she turned sideways or when he leaned
forward. They seemed to hang low, but he could not tell if that was because they
sagged or if it was the result of her humble posture. He had watched her closely
as she walked to her seat, looking for any independent movement in them, a
bounce or a sway, but she had them tightly controlled.
He would have sacrificed anything for just one night. Maybe…what if her
mother needed a kidney and he was the only tissue match. Yes, she would be
grateful if he donated his. Forever grateful. But he would need more than just
gratitude. For a kidney? No, that would have to be more than one night. At least
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a month. He would just come out and say it: “If I give your mother my kidney,
would you spend some time with me?”
”What do you mean?” As shy as she was, it would not even occur to her
that he was talking about her sharing her body with him.
“I mean, a kidney isn’t exactly a few coins in a charity box. It’s a pretty big
sacrifice.”
“…. It is certainly not easy to think of our divinity as human. For most
Christians, in fact, it is much easier to imagine Jesus as God than as human. And
that, my lovely students, is why I am concentrating on the parts of his existence
that are most like our own.” He took a cigarette from his sport coat pocket and
tapped its filtered end against his wrist. There was no way he was going to light
it. He knew the administration would never allow an instructor to light up in a
classroom. Yes, he was independent, a rebel, he fancied, but he was not stupid.
How many people were there on the face of the planet making a comfortable
living in the philosophy game?
“You see, if he was all human, then he was not just the beautiful aspects of
a human. He was also the less elegant aspects as well. For all we know, he snored
when he slept. Oh, and, yes, he must have slept. And there were, naturally, times
when spittle ran from the corners of his…”
How much would each of those breasts weighed? A pound? Two pounds?
She would have to stand perfectly still as he raised the scale until it captured the
weight of first one, and then the other. He would guess a pound and fourteen–
and–a–half ounces each.
She probably had a boyfriend, but she wasn’t one of those girls who
fawned over him. She probably goaded him into doing something other than sit
in front of the TV. After all, when he was courting her, he was always looking for
interesting things for them to do. He probably got her to go to her first rodeo,
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even though she didn’t like the way those cowboys treated the animals. He
persuaded her that it would be fun, exciting, but it was really just another
conquest of her. After he seduced her, he wanted to do it in her mouth; if she
really loved him, she would swallow. And then it was up her rear end, that most
private orifice that was so inconspicuous as she sat at that desk. But she had gone
along, just to avoid one of his petulant eruptions.
That fellow kept things as new as he could for as long as he could. After
the rodeo, it was teaching her to operate a motorcycle, or demanding that she
stay away from this of her girlfriends or that one. After several months, though,
he would realize that the excitement of victory was disappearing, since he
always won. He was, he realized, trying to get satisfaction by guessing how a
two–headed coin would land. The sex was just a physical release, no longer a
challenge, or even much of a satisfaction.
If he wanted to maintain the relationship as it deserved, he would have to
increase the challenge. He would see if she would be willing to bring another
woman in, or he would disappear for days to see if she would welcome him
back. He would start treating her worse, not because he hated her or he wanted
to get rid of her, but because he cared enough to keep the relationship
interesting. He knew that she would never want to be with someone she could
trust. She probably told her mother and her girlfriends that what she really
wanted was someone she could trust. Unh–unh.
Meanwhile, she would be thinking that she really wasn’t having much
fun. All this relationship was really doing for her was taking time that she could
be using for something useful. The way he was acting, it wouldn’t be long before
he decided to just call it quits. She would just wait for that to happen, so that she
wouldn’t have to be the one to do the explaining, to apologize, to say she really
cared about him, to explain how sometimes people just grow apart, to say she
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still loved him but was no longer in love with him, to pack all her belongings, to
swear that it was nothing that he had done, to wish him well, to say that he was a
good person and deserved someone better, to insist that the good times they had
together would be a part of her forever, to refuse to go to a counselor because it
never worked, to tell him that he could keep the souvenirs of their time together,
to make him promise to take care of the cockatiel, no matter how long it lived, to
offer one of those platonic goodbye hugs.
Then, he—his name was probably Scott or Buck or, like their professor,
Chad, or maybe one of those fashion names like Harris, Falcon, or Guy— would
come home one day to announce that he was moving out, because he had found
somebody else. She would be furious. Who the hell did he think he was? If she
had known this was how he was going to be, she would have left months ago.
This relationship had done a whole lot more for him than it had for her. The only
thing that had kept her around was the dread of boxing and moving all her
belongings to someplace small enough for her to afford on her own. That was it.
And she would guess who the lucky girl was. Without seeing any real
signs, she had suspected it was that girl from the brokerage where he worked. Or
the law office where he worked or the copier sales office where he worked.
She wouldn’t miss him, not even the slightest. But she would be angry
that she waited until he got rid of her, that he got the chance to piss on her before
she got to piss on him. That was the way it should have been. She might not have
been much, but she had a whole lot more to offer than he ever would. She well
understood life and its desperate little absurdities, but that didn’t mean she had
to accept them.
“…of course it wasn’t just the spittle. It was the air that he exhaled, the
urine, the excrement.” He held up his hand defensively. “I know, it isn’t the most
polite thing in the world to speak of Jesus Christ in that way, but, I think you all
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know me well enough to know that I’m not always the most polite person. I’ll
tell you the truth; you could go to the powers that be and get me in big trouble if
you wanted to. But that’s another thing you probably know about me: I don’t
mind taking chances.” He rolled his unlit cigarette between his fingers.
“But that’s neither here nor there. Let’s do a little figuring here.” He
turned to the blackboard. “Seventy pounds of air. That’s how much a human
being breathes every day, inhale and exhale. Let’s multiply that by the 365 days
in a year—let’s be generous and forget about the leap years—and then multiply
that by the 33 years he lived. That’s…um–m–m…let’s see here, about 843,150
pounds of air he breathed and exhaled while he was here, more than 420 tons of
air that Jesus Christ exhaled into our atmosphere.”
Or, it could be they were still together, still happy. Maybe they had a dog
named Plickplick, a cocker spaniel–dalmatian mix. Plickplick claimed a huge
part of the center of the bed for himself, and she and the fellow had laughing
little pillow fights about who would get which part of the remainder. She didn’t
look like she was limber, like her back was capable of arching. That was
something most fellows wouldn’t like about her. This beau might yearn for
someone who was a little more flexible. Yeah, he was laughing as he dodged her
pillows and laughing harder when he got her with one of his, but that wouldn’t
last. He would see those cheerleaders at the football game and yearn for one like
that, one that could do backbends and splits.
Her posture made her seem mature, as though she was already prepared
for the days long ahead when her bones would weaken. It might not get any
worse than it was. For now it made her seem shy and waifish. That was another
contradiction. How could a girl who was even so slightly overly–proportioned
carry herself like a street gamin? It was just one more part of her mystery. If only
he could solve that mystery. He wouldn’t demand eternal loyalty, just a few
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hours together. But not just any few hours. That time would have to be
uninhibited, a concentration of the months she had spent with Jeremy or Mike or
Rampart or Cowboy Jeff.
Were his kidneys good enough to donate? They seemed to work all right.
He drank plenty of water. He never felt that constant thirst that comes with
diabetes. His urine was a wholesome golden color, not too dark nor too light. On
those rare occasions when he got into some beer, it might be a little on the clear
side, but that was only natural. He had never seen even the slightest hint of
blood or the bubbles when the stream hits the water that is typical of too much
albumen. He was not one of those men who refused to use a urinal, but at home
he didn’t have one, so he had no choice but to watch the water in the toilet as he
evacuated himself. If somebody needed a kidney, he was their man.
Now, all he would have to do would be to wait until her mother’s kidneys
started to fail. Phoebe. Yes, he had to say that name to himself. Actually, it wasn’t
quite to himself, since he mouthed it under his hand, boldly forming her name
with his lips, teeth, and tongue so that even a beginning lip reader would
understand. What would it take to assure that her mom needed a kidney?
Well, as a bioengineering major, he was quite certain that it would not be
easy to induce a kidney disease. He would have to hope for cooperation from
nature. Or would he? Was it really necessary that her mother’s kidney’s fail?
Wouldn’t it be enough if, somehow, Phoebe believed that she needed one? And
then, wouldn’t it be enough if she somehow learned that he was the most
promising donor? Wouldn’t that be enough to persuade her that, as a daughter,
she had to be grateful to the man who was saving the life of the woman who had
given her life? It wasn’t just Phoebe. Any fair–minded human being who found
somebody willing to make that sacrifice for their mother would be willing to pay
that person back. Was there anybody who would not spend a few nights with
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somebody they didn’t particularly care for if it meant saving their mother’s life?
Especially a girl who was thoughtful enough to spend her precious educational
dollars sitting through a Studies in Christianity course.
Phoebe making that sacrifice didn’t mean her mother was her favorite
person. It just meant she knew her obligations as a daughter.
Chances were as good as not that mommy was one of those religious
zealots who did not like the idea of her daughter going to college, much less
taking a course from a man who was out to disgrace and defame the Son of God.
And, oh–h–h, the way that girl, a girl of her flesh lived her life. Phoebe surely
had endured The Concern.
“I know it sounds old fashioned, but they don’t call it ‘living in sin’ for
nothing. I tell you this because I love you. You may not believe that the rapture is
coming. It’s there in black and white, and I know you know what I’m talking
about.”
“Living in sin?”
“You are living with a man who isn’t even your husband. It would be bad
enough if he was, but at least it wouldn’t be a sin then.”
And that would be when the real Phoebe would come out. “But Mother,
you don’t understand. He’s got this wonderful tool. It’s not huge, but it’s the
smoothest one I’ve ever seen…”
Slap–p–p!
“It’s nice when it’s a little rough, but there isn’t any substitute for one
that’s so smooth. Except there’s this little bump right near the base that touches
me just in the right spot when it goes all the way in…”
Chad tapped his cigarette against his desk. He had been playing with it
enough that some of the tobacco was starting to drop out of the end. “Somewhere there was, or is, in our atmosphere air that Jesus Christ inhaled. And that
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brings us to the question we are talking about here. If Jesus rose to heaven, does
that mean that all parts of him went there too? After all, every breath we exhale
carries with it some of our cells. It’s impossible to trace what happens to…”
“I know a girl like you feels some kind of an obligation to shock her
mother, but you are only hurting yourself. It’s all right there, in…”
“…black and white. I know. But do you know what it’s like when it’s that
smooth? I mean, there’s still plenty of friction…”
“I bore you, Phoebe. It’s my duty to take care of you. That’s the beauty of
all of this. You owe me your life and I owe you mine. I don’t know about you,
but I intend to keep my end of that bargain.”
That little twist at the end might do the trick. Maybe that would be
enough for Phoebe to realize that she would have to do whatever it took to save
her mother’s life. She would certainly get the tests to see if her kidneys were
compatible with her mother’s immune system. It would be an odd hybrid of
relief and distress when she discovered that she could not donate her kidney to
her mother. The conscientious daughter would make a public plea for everyone
at school to be tested, a favor for a classmate in need.
He would win the lottery. She would hug him in gratitude, and she would
pledge that she would repay him. He would say that they could talk about that
later. Maybe over coffee or something. He would look into her eyes in a way that
she would know what he would like for compensation. She would ask petulantly
where he wanted to do this. They may as well get it over with. He would tell her
that he preferred his apartment, since most of the people who lived in the
building were elderly and didn’t hear very well.
They would drive over separately, because she would want to have her
car available just in case she felt like leaving. On the way over he would make
bets with himself about what she would look like naked. She was just a little bit
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on the chubby side, so he guessed that her thighs wouldn’t be as smooth as a
magazine model’s. And those breasts. They looked saggy. Were they really like
those of an old woman? They couldn’t be, not on a young girl like her. Most shy
girls like her seemed to have hairs growing around their nipples. Maybe that was
why they were so shy.
As he drove, as he realized what he was probably going to be sleeping
with that night, it occurred to him that he wasn’t getting very much for his
kidney. A kidney should be worth a whole lot more than a night, or even a few
nights, with a girl with cellulite thighs, saggy breasts, and hairy nipples. After all,
that was what she thought the bargain was. If she were really a good human
being, she would have offered to procure him someone close to perfect. She
would have handed him a pile of her beloved fashion magazines and told him to
take his pick from the women in it. That was what a dedicated daughter would
have done for her mother.
On the other hand, she might not have even offered herself. “Mother?
Who needs her? She’s a pain. Let her stay on dialysis for fifty years until the
damn machine rusts away, and then let her die in uremic misery.”
“…so the question is this: When we say Jesus arose to heaven, does that
mean all of Jesus? Did those molecules from his lungs go up there with him? We
might imagine that some of his disciples might have collected the blood that he
shed on the cross or some of the perspiration, but what of the rest of it?
“I hope I’m not offending any of you by talking like this, but, lets face it
good children of planet Earth, if he really was here among us, he would have
had to take a dump and a piss every now and then. He couldn’t hold it in
forever. If he had tried, somebody would have noticed, and, let’s face it, there’s
nothing about any of that in what they call the good book.
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“And this is what leads us to the question I’ve been asking: what would
the presence of the substance of Jesus in our world mean?”
Damn, it looked as though she was interested in what Chrisler was saying.
She couldn’t possibly be one of those girls that swooned over whatever some
professor said, could she? She had to be more intelligent than that. He could see
it, just from how she carried herself. If she had been like most other girls, she
would have thrown those shoulders back, pushed that chest out, and earn a good
strong B, maybe even an A. Or was she so confident that she honestly believed
she could be mousy, hunch over, hide her body, and still win the heart of any
professor?
He still couldn’t see that ring finger well enough. There was something
there, but he couldn’t tell if it was just decoration or if it was one of those that
meant something. If it was just a pretty ring, then he might be able to win her
over by just getting her one that was even prettier. Pearls always made a girl’s
hand look attractive. He could afford to spend a few hundred dollars on one, but
then he would have to figure out how to present it to her. He couldn’t just stop
her after class and say, “Here, I got this for you because I noticed you and
thought you deserved it.” Or maybe he could. It would be a novel approach, one
that even she might not have heard before. If he had the money, it might be
worth a try.
Hey, she might not do it for a kidney, but what about a heart? Let’s say, he
promised her to run his car off a cliff in exchange for one night. Or maybe a
week. It was a heart, after all. A kidney was simple. He would be alive afterwards, but his heart…. She couldn’t ask him to give up his life for one night.
Heart disease, the number one killer of both men and women in the United
States. He was willing to give up his healthy, undrugged, tobacco–free heart to
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keep her mother alive, and all he was asking was a few nights’ worth of
memories.
Even if she didn’t really care for her mother, she owed her that much at
least. Her mother had told her that she had given her life from her loins
(although science had proven that life didn’t come from loins). If this didn’t
make it even, then there was no pleasing the old lady. But hold it, if her wrinkly
thighs, saggy breasts, hairy nipples, and possibly flatulent bottom weren’t worth
a kidney, how could they possibly be worth a heart? But there was a difference.
The heart thing, her mother would be getting that on spec, since Phoebe would
not be able to repay him after the deed was done. With a kidney, she could say
she would fulfill her end of the bargain after he healed, even if her mother didn’t
make it. So, in that way, for him to give up his heart for her favors was just the
cost of doing business on credit. A kidney today or the promise of a heart after
some car crash.
Oh yeah, the flatulence. He didn’t know for sure, but he could have sworn
that he caught a little bit of a whiff coming from her direction. For a fellow to
donate his heart to a gal’s mom, she should be a little bit closer to perfect than
that. On the other hand, she was one of those whose imperfections actually
enhanced her. Her lack of confidence, her posture, her seemingly chronic
embarrassment, her bewildering sense of humor, they made her that much more
enchanting. Why shouldn’t a little bit of gas do the same?
There were a few things that he could guess about her. She had no tattoos.
She might have a cat or a dog, but no stuffed animals. When she got to know
someone, she could be sarcastic, but before she knew them she would hardly say
a word. She didn’t care what people thought about her, but did care what they
said about her. She didn’t worry if her bills got a day or two behind, but never let
them linger until she got reminder notices. She didn’t get speeding tickets. She
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liked clothes, probably because she admired anyone who could create garments
that would fit her unusually proportioned body. She went to the dentist
regularly. She claimed she was not particular about the guys she dated, but
would not be interested in anyone who wasn’t handsome, rich, and talented. She
would prefer if he had a few charming eccentricities too.
But, unlike half the girls in the class, she would never fall like a guy like
Chad. No odds on that one. Just an even bet.
“If you think I’m saying these things just to shock some of your Christian
sensibilities—boo! We’re all friends here, aren’t we? Jesus, even though he didn’t
live long, took his share of dumps. Now, if we’re going to be at all consistent,
then we have to ask what happened to all that shit? Did it go to heaven with
him? Did it stay down here? Did those parts that contained actual tissue rise and
the rest stay here to decay? In all the gospels, all the folklore, has anyone ever
heard reports of piles of shit rising to heaven? Show of hands?”
It was easy to tell which of the girls were his for the asking. They were the
ones who smiled or laughed when he spoke. Phoebe did neither. She glanced up
at the clock and made a few doodles on some note paper. When she leaned over
for a scratch, he saw the paper. She wasn’t much of an artist.
Chances were, she wasn’t much of a distinguisher of men. She could get
used to any guy who did not intrude on her life too much and who offered her
some comfort and security. It wouldn’t bother her much what he did for a living.
He could be a rancher, an automobile mechanic, an investigative reporter, the
owner of a trendy radish restaurant, the author of an exciting new radish
cookbook, or even a professor. Just not this professor. She wanted a companion,
not someone who demanded her constant attention as a condition for his
survival.
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The blonde in the right front corner was just the opposite. It might not
have been fair to think of her as a blonde, since her hair color was the result not
of genetic destiny, but of chronic affectation. He knew more than he needed to
know about her. High school cheerleader. Not quite sporting enough to be a
college cheerleader. She giggled at Chad’s every witticism. She nodded at his
profundity. She shook a naughty finger at his controversial proposals. He could
have had her whenever he wanted, just for the asking. That was probably the
only benefit to being an authority on something that nobody cared about.
What was this class again? Oh yea. There was only one reason to sit
through this, and that would be to be near Phoebe every day. He imagined she
was there for the credit. Biology had taught him that it was possible to classify all
organisms. College told him that it was possible to classify all instructors.
Chad belonged to a large bunch. When he was an undergraduate he got
good grades. He got good girls. After the grade part was over, he still wanted to
get the good girls. He prided himself on his success rate, probably could have
given statistics to confirm his allure to women. When he graduated, he got the
chance to teach, since his grades were good. Even though he had sat through all
the classes in undergraduate school, studied for all the exams, turned in all the
papers, and obeyed all the rules, he now wanted to be the rebel that the coeds
would fall for. What was that old word? Pie–eyed. That’s what those girls were.
He would tell them that he was a free spirit, and they would believe him,
because he was their teacher and they were supposed to believe everything he
said. If some fellow had told them the same thing while standing at a bar with a
bourbon in his hand, they would have laughed in his face. But he had learned
that somebody with a respectable profession who said the same thing was a
great candidate for soft beds with stuffed animals on them. And to prove his
primacy over their delicate minds, he would say things that would make them
15
uncomfortable, and not in an exciting way. He would tell them they were foolish
in their beliefs, naïve in their dreams, silly in their thinking, and they would get
all pie–eyed. The shy ones would dream that somehow they would find their
way into a private moment with their beloved Chad, a moment that might grow
to an hour, a week, a lifetime.
Phoebe would just roll her eyes. Finn had never seen her roll her eyes, but
he guessed that she would. She had the kind of wisdom that would not allow her
to fall for any professor, much less one like this. She would claim that she wasn’t
very particular about the men she dated, but it was likely that she was just
particular about different things. She probably didn’t demand that a guy be cool,
athletic, well–heeled, or even particularly handsome. She would just want one
who she could get comfortable with, one that people wouldn’t give her grief
about dating, one that would relax when she wanted to relax and have some
energy when she wanted that. From her point of view, that wasn’t asking for
much—total and absolute synchronization with her moods, her whims, her
parents, and her friends.
And on top of that, she wasn’t a girl who made guys go asthmatic at first
sight. That kind—look at the bazongas; take a gander at those legs; never seen a
butt that round; I’d jump on that in a minute—was the standard issue. They were
the type that fit neatly into the theory of evolution. They had bodies that were
properly fitted for child–bearing and the looks to attract sires. Phoebe wasn’t like
that, though. Guys didn’t say “Yaga–yaga!” or “Wow!” or “Hubba–hubba” when
they saw her. They said “Mm–hmm…yeah.” They could get used to her.
But he could more than get used to her. He saw something in her from the
beginning. He always found shyness appealing. There was mystery in shyness,
and he liked mystery.
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There was a quiet meadow somewhere. It was surrounded by thick
woods, from where the eyes of curious animals stared furtively, waiting forever
to blink. The fallen trees decayed. Along with leaves, worms, fungi, lichens,
animal droppings, and rainwater, they maintained the moisture in the ground,
even though the spring had been exceptionally dry.
They walked through that forest, getting their feet wet, but, because of the
strata of leaves and wood, they did not get muddy. He carried most of the cargo,
but she had the balled up macramé hammock in a small backpack. He had the
blanket. It would be too forward to suggest that they share that hammock. One
of them would lie in the hammock and the other would stay on the blanket on
the ground. They could have brought another hammock, but they didn’t have
one, and there was no place to find one at five o’clock on a Sunday morning.
Actually, there was a supermarket that occasionally carried odd backyard
paraphernalia—mosquito lights, hibachis, and folding chairs. They didn’t think
to look there before they left.
Would it be more romantic if he were on the hammock or if she was?
Lying on the ground, looking up as she swung on the meshed device would be
hypnotic. Being in the hammock, knowing she was waiting for his inevitable
advance, would be exciting. They couldn’t both be in the hammock. That would
be awkward, uncomfortable. Some joint would surely end up twisted, or flesh
pinched. And another reason not to bring a second hammock: to do so would
have meant swinging beside one another, like children in nursery school.
Nursery school…children… pregnancy…parenthood…dirty
diapers…screaming…lack of sleep…arguments. No, two hammocks were not the
way to assure that they would stay this happy forever.
She would lie there, her arm covering her eyes to shade the sun. Yeah, she
would be the one in the hammock, and he would be lying on the ground, looking
17
up at her. It would be the same angle that he was seeing now. He would make a
tiny noise in the back of his throat, and she would turn to look. Their eyes would
stay locked for a couple of seconds, just slightly longer than was comfortable.
He would stand and try to sit on the edge of the hammock, but it would
start to tip. They would both feel clumsy and laugh. Then he would kiss her,
since he couldn’t stop himself. He would look away, as though he was sorry, but
she would tell him it was all right. She was thinking the same thing herself. It
would have been wonderful if she were wearing a nice checked calico dress, but
he had to allow for a certain practicality. If they were going to be walking
through the woods to this spot, then she would probably be wearing blue jeans.
That would be all right with him.
He had long wondered about her bra. When she wore her white shirt he
was able to see the outline of the back. It clasped in back. He had always
suspected that she was not so lazy as to have one of those front clippers. That
lumberjack she was seeing, he probably hooked it for her. There were two kinds
of girls: those who reached behind to close their bras and those who clasped
them in front and swung them around to finish putting them on. There was
probably also a third kind, the kind that always had a boyfriend to hook their
bras up for them. That was most likely where Phoebe belonged. Even during
those rare spells when she was alone, she would never hook herself in front and
then spin around to the back. And he was also sure she would never stoop to
wearing a front hooker. Just as fourth–graders stopped writing on lined paper,
girls who reached any degree of sophistication at all used bras that clasped in
back.
That decision was not one of convenience or of beauty. It was a tribal
convention. It showed the world that they were flexible, nubile. And that was
why Phoebe would not hook her bra in front and move it around her body for
18
final enrobing. Phoebe teetered on the edge of sophistication. This might be the
way to find out, when they took turns on a hammock in an isolated meadow, on
a warm spring afternoon.
“The Son of Man, the Son of God. On the third day he arose again. The
question remains, what became of his stools?”
Hold it. Was Chrisler looking at Phoebe? Was he hoping she would respond? There were at least a dozen girls in the room who were completely
smitten with Chad Chrisler. And he chose to look at Phoebe, the one who wasn’t.
He would have ignored her if she had vocally objected, or laughed derisively
from behind her hand. But she just doodled, ignored him, was completely
indifferent to his supposedly shocking propositions.
“What became of the molecules he exhaled? The urine? The sweat? Or is a
messiah like the Victorian lady who doesn’t sweat, but glows?”
He shut his eyes tightly, turned away from the class, and then returned to
consciousness. “I know that many of you young folks have very strong faith. If I
have offended you already…I don’t really care.” There were a few chuckles.
“There’s still time to drop this course, because it won’t get any milder.” He
looked directly into the eyes of a girl he suspected yearned to be offended. It
wasn’t Phoebe, since Phoebe could have heard of infant dismemberment by the
Sisters of Mercy with barely a shrug. She was offended by things that she could
have done something about. What was the point of getting a spastic colon over
what some professor said about Jesus?
Besides…well… the hard part would be getting her to that lovely glade in
the first place. The galling truth was that she wouldn’t want to spend time with
him just because he was donating an organ to her mother. Not that she wouldn’t
appreciate it. She would be as blasé about that as she was about everything else
in her life. It was possible that she would have gone along with it, just like she
19
went along with paying her cable bill (including premium channels, which she
probably didn’t watch), but she wouldn’t be passionately grateful to him. She
wouldn’t weep with excitement at the opportunity to repay him for giving his
life for her mother. It would be more, “Yeah…all right…okay. That sounds fair
enough. When do you want to get this taken care of?”
But that was just a detail. Her eyes would be half closed as she swung on
the hammock. She might doze off as he watched her. He would get up to stroke
her hair, but he had to be so gentle that he wouldn’t wake her. Or if she did
awaken, it would be very quiet. Her eyes would softly open and gaze into his.
She would tighten her lips into a mild smile. Then she would fall back asleep,
proving to him that she trusted him enough to be so near her without molesting
her. The next time she awoke, she would reward him by encouraging him to
molest her.
He would try to conceal his excitement by controlling his breath. Otherwise, she would have heard it, would have known that he was fighting to
contain himself. She might take advantage of that weakness. Despite her
modesty, her lack of confidence, her shyness, she must have known that men
could smell her scent, that they would succumb to her, even without her encouragement. She knew that she would never have to scheme to have a boy fall
for her, that, just as some girls repelled men, she attracted them. She knew
because men always wanted to be around her. They wanted her to make sly, off–
color remarks. They wanted her to get a paper–cut, so they could hear her say
“oh, fuck.” She would scream to the world that she was unattractive, overweight,
boring, or otherwise unpleasant to be near, but she knew. It was possible that
there was some girl somewhere, whose brain was damaged in a car crash, who
had no idea what men thought of her, but Phoebe wasn’t one of those. Her brain
was intact.
20
Perhaps it would happen one day that her life would change. It could be a
terrible outbreak of cold sores, a pregnancy, or just the years passing, but she
would realize that men were no longer quite as anxious to be around her. She
would realize that her self–effacing demeanor now reflected not coyness but a
sad truth. By then, if her life was to be anything but tragic, she would have found
the right man, the one who would be forever devoted, who would be handsome
and strong and loving and exciting and adventurous and intelligent and witty
and secure and incapable of becoming bored with her. The two would confirm
their love with an elaborate wedding and seal their wedding by nesting in a
comfortable home and by having three or four children. She would never cheat
on him, because she wouldn’t want to, and he wouldn’t cheat on her because he
wouldn’t want to, because she would give him no reason to cheat, and because
he couldn’t afford the consequences.
If she would agree to become Mrs. Finn Crowley, she would get about
half of what she was looking for. He certainly would never cheat on her. He
knew that. No matter what hideous deformities appeared when she disrobed,
they would not be enough to make him stop wanting to be with her.
That could all start with a peaceful and a romantic spring afternoon in a
quiet pasture, one that didn’t attract mosquitoes and that wouldn’t support the
growth of poisonous plants. If there were a way to create such a moment,
whether by magic, by hypnotism, by guile, or by prayer, he would have done it.
That was how his life would be if his life was to be right.
“How many times do you breathe in your life? Let’s do a little figuring.
Five times a minute, 300 times an hour, 7,200 times a day, 2,629,800 times a year.
Let’s say that over history the average person has lived 35 years. That’s
92,043,000 breaths in a lifetime. Don’t worry kiddies, I didn’t do all that figuring
in my head.” He held up a sheet of paper. “I have it all written down.
21
“Now we know that nothing really disappears. You remember a fellow by
the name of Isaac Newton? He told us that. So those 92 million breaths were
around from the very beginning. The mix might have been a little different, but
the same stuff was there that is here with us now. Are you with me? Have you
heard of a game called Six Degrees? Well, I’d say that, in a way, we’re a lot less
degrees from one another. I suspect that you could take any human being on the
face of the planet, and at one time a molecule that was in his lung eventually
found its way into yours.
“And that brings us back to our old friend, Mr. Christ…”
Finally, something that was worth thinking about. How many degrees of
separation were there between any human being on the face of the planet and
Phoebe’s private parts? There were probably chains of relationships that could
take him there—she slept with Mike, who slept with Sheila, who slept with
Audrey, who slept with Moe—but that might be a very long process. It was
possible that there would be people completely left out of the string of
connections. There were people who were born without brains, literally without
brains. They would never fit into a chain like that. And there were people who
were celibate, not the celibate that was part of a religious order, but the kind that
came with absolute boredom at the notion of existence. Anyone who was bored
at being alive probably didn’t think much about pleasure or procreation. Just an
observation.
Anybody who ever shook Phoebe’s hand, had touched something that
had touched every part of her body. Even if she never masturbated (which was
possible, since he was certain her interest in sex was not for the physical
gratification but for the security that came with having someone to be with), she
certainly touched herself when she bathed or when she changed tampons. That
meant that every person in every reception line she was ever in had touched the
22
hand that had touched herself. Among those who had never shaken her hand
were those who had cleaned the public toilets where she had sat. Some of them
might even have happened upon a hair that was left behind. If they only knew
what a treasure that would be…
So it was not all that impossible that he would find himself alone in a
quietly romantic setting with her. After all, there were probably hundreds of
people in the world who had touched the hand that had touched herself. There
were probably millions who had touched one of those people, and billions who
had touched one of them. Six degrees? At least when it came to Phoebe’s private
parts, it was more like two or three degrees.
What she would be like? Would she be one of those who lay there, her
knuckle to her mouth, waiting for him to insert himself? Or would she have her
hand down there, helping? He would have been the first to admit that the
romance usually disappeared when things started getting damp. The moments
leading up to that time could include tenors singing on gondolas, gazelles
grazing on the horizon, diaphanous scarves, woven cane picnic baskets, and
calico ground cloths, but when the thighs became wet, the romance disappeared.
She was probably not one of those wild ones. She might say, “Uh,” on the
in–stroke and squeak a little on the out–stroke. She was not one who would
make a display of screaming. Chances were she had never screamed in her life,
even when she was six years old and playing with her little girlfriends. As the
rest of them ran around, teasing the boys, and screaming as their victims started
to retaliate, she probably stood quietly by, watching the idiocy, and eventually
just walking away.
Her favorite word was “immature.” She never used the word accusingly.
She might not have used the word aloud at all. It was something she thought.
Any action she took followed a decision that it was not immature, silly, or
23
embarrassing. Lying on a hammock at a quiet little picnic would not be any of
those things, not unless she fell off the hammock. But she would be careful.
Lying passively as he undressed her would not be immature either. If he got confused or clumsy at the clasps of her bra, she would help him out. She could do
that.
As long as she did not make a spectacle of herself by screaming, squirming, or grunting, she could lie there and allow him his pleasure. Oh, and God
forbid, she pass gas. That would be worse than immature; it would be humiliating.
“…Son of God, the Son of Man. Show of hands…how many think that at
some time during his time on earth, he breathed…show of hands? I won’t even
ask about bleeding—we all agree on that. But how many believe that he relieved
himself? Show of hands? Oh, come on, now, if you wanted to take a regular class
from just a regular guy, you shouldn’t have signed up for this course. I’ve given
you all the chance to drop out. So, show of hands?
“Well now, I think that’s pretty much what I thought. Not too many of
you are sure about this one, are you? Now you’ve all had twenty years to think
about it. But that’s all right. You’ve probably had other things on your mind. So
why don’t we do some of that thinking together now?”
The thought of Phoebe losing herself in passion, no matter how romantic
the circumstances, was impossible to grasp. It wasn’t that she would be
distracted or thinking about how she looked. Her mind would just be blank for
the minutes of conjugation. Afterwards, she probably would ask what they
should do now. She wouldn’t be asking about what they would do if she ended
up pregnant or if somebody found out, or whether their relationship would
change because of the act they had just engaged in. She would be wondering
what their next activity for the day should be. Would they go back to relaxing in
24
the sun? Or maybe play catch with the Frisbee? Or what about going to the
pound to see if there was a cute little puppy or kitten that really really needed
them?
He would lie there in ecstatic exhaustion, not answering her. Would this
be the time that would have to come? The time when he could suddenly no
longer endure the sound of her voice? It was bound to happen. It didn’t seem to
happen quietly, gradually. It was always a sudden change. One moment her
voice was lilting, smooth, winsome, and sultry; the next it sounded like the
screech of agony. When she even said his name, it would make him feel as
though she was an infectious organism of some kind. He hated it. It had
happened to him before, and he never anticipated it. It just happened. Maybe
with Phoebe it would be different. Maybe he would, this time, know it was
coming. Maybe, it wouldn’t come at all with Phoebe. Right now, he didn’t think
it would. She was so pretty, so soft, so unassuming, so quiet, so wry. Just looking
at this three–quarter profile of her, he could tell. He could tell that she was a
quiet adventurer, that she was only quiet around strangers, that she was fearless,
that she could be a serial killer’s only survivor, that she would never laugh just to
be polite, or fake anything just to be polite.
So the question remained: what would it take to get her to succumb? She
would never sell herself cheap. She wouldn’t sell herself at all unless she had no
other choice. For one thing, she probably didn’t believe there was anyone who
would pay. She probably couldn’t even remember some crude stranger even
whistling at her or calling her “sweet thang” or wiggling his tongue for her
fantasy pleasure. It was possible that men who had gasped at the slinky, round
busted, long legged, hip swaying, lip licking, eyelash curling, round rumped, flat
tummied, wrist scented, seamed nylon wearing gals who walked the street
25
would never turn to glance at her. But to those who longed for the mystery of a
gorgeous woman who retained her modesty, she was a special treat.
So, if he were to come out and ask her, “How much?” she would ask him
what he was talking about. So he would tell her he wanted to know how much
she would charge for just one night. He would tell her that he was absolutely
smitten with her and was sure he would never be able to win her with his charm,
his looks, or the impact he had made on the rest of the world. He would tell her
truthfully that he didn’t have much money, but if she would give him a figure,
then he would know how much he would have to save. She would look at him
cockeyed, hoping to see an escape route in her peripheral vision.
He would tell her that he wasn’t trying to frighten her. He was serious. He
knew she probably could use some extra cash, if not now, then at some later
time. No, he wasn’t one of those guys who would later claim that she was just a
prostitute, just because he gave her money. What made a prostitute a prostitute
was not that she accepted money, but that she was interchangeable with
hundreds of other prostitutes. Fellows didn’t drive up and down the streets or
call full–page Yellow Pages ads for some particular girl. Anyone would do, as
long as they were reasonably attractive and willing to please.
He wasn’t making her that kind of offer. If she wasn’t interested, he
wasn’t about to look for a substitute. He would never make an offer like that to
anyone else. He would have to make sure she knew that.
A couple of guesses about Phoebe:
•
She had ridden on the back of a motorcycle.
•
She had told the fellow up front that she wanted to try driving.
•
No matter how bored she was with a guy, she always waited until he broke
up with her.
•
She was furious with him for breaking up with her.
26
•
She was embarrassed about sneezing in public, but would tell near strangers
that she was getting her period.
“I am not that much older than most of you kiddies. You might not be-
lieve it, but our man Mr. Christ was long gone before I arrived. Long gone in the
physical sense, for sure…or was he? See how that goes around in circles? But,
now let’s add something else to the mixture. Let us speak not of Jesus Christ but,
oh, how about the fellow who mucked the donkey stables? Or how about old
Sadie, the Toothless Whore of Galilee? They exhaled the same air as our hero did.
They inhaled the same air too. So, does that mean that Jesus shared molecules,
not only with his disciples, but with a stable boy and a prostitute? And since that
molecule survives, which is it? Whose molecule are we breathing? Does it elevate
us, that we might have breathed the same air as a savior? Does it lower us to
think that we might have breathed the same air as one of those vomit slurping,
disease spreading, thought–free, imbeciles?
“Before we go on, just for my own information, have I made anyone sick
yet? I mean physically ill? Show of hands? If I haven’t, I’m not doing my job.
And if I’m not doing my job, I might not keep it, and if I lose my job, there will be
two natural consequences. For one, I’ll probably be angry enough to flunk the
bunch of you, and I’ll starve to death, since I don’t have the necessary skills to
muck stables. Now, show of hands?”
How could a rear end that was so unlike the ideals attract him so? It
would almost be worth sitting through that physics course again if it would help
him explain how that worked. When she stood, it was close to shapeless. It was a
little bit broad and had a flatness to it that seemed so functional. The skin
contained the fat within, nothing more. It did not have that erotic roundness that
was so universally appealing.
27
Was that what he so liked about it? That she made no effort to bind, or
shape, or exercise her bottom into an irresistible implement of attraction? He told
himself millions of times that there was no such thing as an attractive female
who didn’t know it. Yet, she carried that rump around as though it were a bag of
spackling compound. Was it her pride that made her do that? Was she actually
so convinced of her own appeal that she was sure she could brandish such a
nondescript butt and still win over any fellow she wanted? There was a point at
which modesty hid arrogance.
When she walked, he could see the two halves clearly. She wore those
light green slacks that both concealed and emphasized the shape. Underneath
she wore the kind of panties that pushed the outline of their legs against the cloth
of the trousers. He could have sworn that he could hear the two halves rubbing
together; that was how vivid the movement of those shapeless buttocks seemed
to be. If the world were just a tiny bit quieter, he certainly would be able to hear
them rub together with each movement. There were times when he could see one
of them hesitate for just a second before overcoming the friction and catching up
to the other. The cotton underwear held her firmly enough to minimize the
wobble. When she was naked, though, they must have jiggled, joggled, and
bobbled.
The thought of what happened to that mass when she sat fascinated him.
There was plenty of bone to prevent it from intruding into her belly. From where
he sat, he couldn’t notice any appreciable widening as she sat in her desk. He
looked at some of the other girls in the forward desks. Yes, it looked as though
they were wider in the rump when they sat, but Phoebe looked about the same.
That meant most hers either moved up her thighs or up her back. Where else
could it go? Ah yes, it could be pushing forward and up, where it would give her
soft, quiet pleasure. That was probably why larger girls were so passionate. That
28
was true, wasn’t it? That larger girls were passionate? If it was true, then she had
just the right amount of heft. Too much ardor was a waste of life. He had known
girls who were so excitable that they could not contribute anything else to a
relationship. Instead of wit, they relied on supposedly sexy banter. It just made
them seem foolishly preoccupied.
During the time he could observe Phoebe, he never saw them move unless
the rest of her moved. He saw no twitching, no tightening. He wondered if the
same thing was true when she was having her bowel movements. Unless she
claimed to be one of those who never had them. No, he supposed that she not
only admitted it, but would roll her eyes at every episode of constipation or
diarrhea. It wasn’t that she would try to irritate people with her candor. It just
never occurred to her that some of her alimentary functions were more
appropriate for discussion than others.
With that sort of inborn candor, she probably never ran out of things to
say. She might have had her faults, but she was certainly not boring. She was
probably incapable of becoming tedious. What was that boyfriend’s name? Cole?
Oscar? Mayhew? Kyle–Keith–Kevin? Whatever it was, he might find somebody
else some day, but he would never leave her out of boredom. And that eternal
excitement all grew from that nondescript, amorphous rump.
“You kiddies are probably wondering what kind of psychotic would be
saying these things to a bunch of impressionable youngsters. Well, I’m a–gonna
tell you some of it—not all of it. I’ve been arrested four times, one of which was
for being honorable in dishonorable times. One time was for stealing a coil of
rope from a farm store—you don’t want to know. The other two times were for a
couple of whoopsie–doopsies that might traumatize you. That’s the kind of guy I
am. I’d hate to hurt your little feelings.
29
“I share my life with a dog named Spinoza. Anyone want to guess what
kind he is? Nobody? He’s mostly a basset hound. I tell him he’s pure bred, because I don’t want him to get confused about his heritage. I was born in Ft.
Atkinson, Wisconsin. I have bought a lot more wine in my life than flowers. I’m
not as tough as some of you think I am, and I’m tougher than the rest of you
think. And I don’t have any plans for this coming weekend.”
If he had the chance to ask Phoebe one question, what would it be? “You
want to snuggle?” “Would it matter to you that I think about you all the time?”
Oh. How about, “If I won the lottery jackpot, would you marry me?”
Yes, there had to be a way there. He would ask her that question. And she
would laugh and say, “Sure.” Then he would tell her that he was holding her to
that promise. No backing out.
What she wouldn’t know would be that he had already won, say the week
before. Figuring out how to do that might be challenging. It could be just a lucky
break. People get lucky breaks all the time, so he could win the jackpot.
He would ask her to go with him to buy the ticket, and he would ask for
the same numbers that he had requested the previous week. He would tell her to
write down the numbers so she would have a record of the numbers that could
determine the rest of both of their lives. Then, a few weeks later, after she had
forgotten exactly when it was they made that pledge to one another, he would
turn in his winning ticket.
It would be important that the press not print his name before he had the
chance to tell her. She would laugh when he told her he had won the lottery,
flattered that he was willing to invent a huge windfall just to win her hand. Then
he would tell her that it really happened, but she still wouldn’t believe it until he
showed her the paper work and the newspaper listing of the winning numbers.
30
Then she would shake her head. He would insist that a deal was a deal,
and she would just laugh. Did he honestly think she had been serious about
marrying somebody she hardly knew just because he came into some money?
He had told her back then he would hold her to it. But then again, maybe
he wasn’t really interested in her after all. He had always taken her as a person
who kept her word, and she would tell him to stop whining. He was making her
uncomfortable. He would apologize, glance over her shoulder at a gloriously
assembled young woman. She would suddenly realize that, not only was she
completely expendable, but that he had the money now that would attract most
of the gorgeous girls walking around on the planet.
She would tell him that she had always hoped that the man she found
would be willing to fight for her, not one who would toss her overboard as soon
as he had other opportunities. He would explain to her that she was the one who
decided that she wasn’t interested. Oh, but that was just her way of getting the
reassurance she needed from someone she hoped would be faithful. Then she
would tell him that all she ever really wanted was to cuddle with him. She knew
she wasn’t as beautiful or as sleek as that other girl, but she was honest, faithful,
true, and not hideously deformed. And that would be his chance to be cruel, but
he wouldn’t do it. He would smile and hug her as a tear started down her cheek.
If only he could win the lottery. Maybe he would buy himself a ticket one
of these days. At least that would make his winning a possibility. She wasn’t one
of those who would chase after the money. There were probably a thousand
fellows in the country who had won the lottery. If she were interested in being
with a lottery winner, she could have looked any of them up. As far as he knew,
she hadn’t done that. It wouldn’t be the money that would bring her to him; it
would be the honor; it would be keeping her word, no matter how frivolously
she had offered that pledge.
31
He would be the first to admit, though, that he wasn’t quite as honorable
in extracting that promise from her. After all, if he already knew that he had
won, he was pretending that his win was a remote possibility, when it really was
already a fact. It was possible that days or months or years later she would
discover the discrepancy between the promise and the date those numbers were
chosen. She would either laugh at the lengths to which he had gone to win her
over or shoot him dead. In either case those days or months or years would be
the most satisfying of his life. At least that was what he thought now. Somehow,
it seemed that he never appreciated the good times once they were over. At the
end, when she no longer cared for him, he would feel that all of that supposed
happiness was just a ploy. She had wanted something all along, and, now that
she had it, she no longer needed him. He hated the thought of being a fool, and
afterwards that was always how he felt. And he didn’t feel like the kind of fool
who had been bamboozled into falling for someone, but the kind of fool who lost
his life savings to a scheming heartbreaker.
“I am a man who has taken many chances and, I’m happy to say, I’ve won
more than I’ve lost. In undergraduate school I changed majors at least five times
that I can remember, and, believe me, I can’t remember all of them. For a short
while I was in chemistry, art history, English literature, cross cultural studies,
and, believe it or not, physical education. In high school I played basketball, but
was thrown from the team for getting an unorthodox haircut that the coach took
as a symbol of rebellion.
“I am not going to tell you about my romantic life because, frankly, I don’t
want to make any of you jealous. I will tell you that my twenty–four hour record
is eight. You can interpret that any way you want to.” He closed his mouth and
then his eyes. He remained silent for a full twenty seconds. “I am a believer, but I
32
will not tell you what I believe in. And I will not tell you what I don’t believe in.
That is the nature of pedagogy.”
He couldn’t help wondering what she would do if he were to offer her
some huge amount of money for just one night. He knew that she wouldn’t
accept it. Even if he toted a million dollars in cash to her doorstep and offered it
to her in exchange for pleasure, she would not accept it. She would probably
laugh and certainly blush. She would accuse him of being ridiculous or childish
or demented. Or immature. She might tell him that he was making her
uncomfortable. She would never ask to count it. She would never agree. After he
was gone, she would probably call all her girlfriends to tell them about the
strange thing that just happened. Yes…that’s right…a million dollars. No… but it
was there. It was real money and he had it with him, cash money. That much
money all together, it had a funny smell, kind of like all the sweat from all the
hands that had touched it. When it was all there in one place it smelled pretty
strong. That’s right, just for one night. I must be an idiot. And then she would
laugh and tell them that she didn’t think he would make that offer to anyone
else. No, it wasn’t that she had such a big head; it wasn’t that at all. It was just
that it must have been terribly humiliating for him. Why would he want to go
through that again? No, she didn’t have a picture of the money. They would
have to just take her word.
The next time she saw him she would wonder if she had done the right
thing. She would consider asking him if that offer was still good. No, that
wouldn’t be when she wondered. She would wonder when she got all of her bills
in the mail on the same day: her rent, credit cards, telephone, car loan, all of
them. She would look at her bank balance, and there wasn’t enough money there
to cover what she owed. That was if she just paid her bills and didn’t spend
anything on food, clothes or fun. She had so hoped to eat this month. How much
33
simpler her life could have been, if only she had not rashly refused such a
generous offer. What would it cost her to go back and ask him if it was too late?
She would even apologize, saying she hadn’t meant to insult him. She was just
taken aback.
And he would tell her no. Just like the money, his pleasure would have
been gone in a night. But the satisfaction of being able to tell her he was no
longer interested would last well past the greatest pleasure he might have
received from her. She would ask him about that, if he no longer found her
attractive. He would tell her that he had had time to think about the whole thing
and no longer felt it would be wise to spend that kind of money with her
numerous imperfections. As a matter of fact, he probably had been wrong to
overlook those things when he first made the offer.
She would nod, but her curiosity would force her to ask what imperfections he was referring to. He would tell her that he wasn’t a cruel person. He
didn’t want to be a cruel person.
Another guess: she enjoyed many private jokes. She was incapable of
explaining what was funny. Either that or she was certain that nobody else
would share her humor. Maybe some day she would find the person who would
understand, but she wouldn’t have to tell him her jokes. He would see them at
the same time she did, and they would probably laugh together.
That might have been what she discovered about her fellow. What was his
name again? Crash? Lash? Flash? Splash? Dash? It was probably something like
Dash Rugby. He would be the love she told her friends about, not the love she
felt. She would stay with him even after she became bored because, well, she had
told her friends about him.
“Am I telling you too much about myself?” Chad Chrisler’s eyes didn’t
move smoothly. They jumped from student to student, stopping mostly at the
34
young women. It seemed he was stopping at Phoebe a little longer than some of
the others. She got a longer eye–bath than some of the spectacular ones that
could have been on magazine covers. Despite his attempts at earthiness, he
couldn’t deny that he was an educated fellow. He could see the lust deep in her.
“Part of it is, well, let’s be honest, we all like talking about ourselves. I’m
no different from the rest of you. If you were up here and had the chance, you’d
do the same thing. But even more than that is the simple notion that there are no
such things as facts. We believe what Galileo told us, but he didn’t enjoy a lot of
that credibility during his lifetime. His observations were certainly not regarded
as facts. As I hope you’ll learn about many things before you call it a life, most
information is part of a context. Just as Galileo’s speculations became facts only
in the context of a world accepting of science, you will have to judge the things
I’m trying to teach you based upon the context.
“All of that is just my way of telling you one basic fact. Before you can
decide whether or not to believe me, you have to know something about me,
something about the person I’m asking you to believe.”
What would it take to make Phoebe look less appealing? What would it
take to make her hideous? Very short hair on women had never been very
appealing. What if it was just wet? Wet in a way that made it seem unlike hair.
Then she would look bald, except with some approximation of a head–covering.
But, somehow, it seemed that even when her hair was wet or completely gone,
she would be appealing. Maybe even more appealing than she was now, since
her naked head would be even more proof that she didn’t care what anybody
thought about her.
So what of the other possibilities? Disfiguring scars, loss of teeth, an extra
couple hundred pounds on her frame, complete loss of sense and reason,
uncontrollable drooling. Each picture seemed hideous. All of them together
35
could convince him that she had absolutely nothing to offer him. Then, a quick
glance over, and he would realize that, until she actually appeared before him
like that, she would be irresistible. That was the cruelty of imagination: it could
force him to yearn for her, yet he couldn’t use it to drive her from his mind.
That was just one more inequity between the he’s and the she’s. Girls,
despite their reputation as the less reasonable gender, could actually think their
way past a fellow. A woman who considered her man crazy or selfish or mean or
stupid or lazy, could rid herself of him after nothing more than a hearty meal.
Phoebe must have had a favorite food, one that her mother made for her
on birthdays or when she got good grades. That dish was probably nothing as
mundane as cake, ice cream, or fried chicken. The possibilities: breaded cauliflower au gratin, scallops with cracked pepper cream sauce, raisins injected
with raspberry sauce, crushed scallions and capers, lox and bagels, leaf spinach,
goat sweetbreads, deep sea perch on a bed of malting barley, pickled grapefruit
rinds, barbecue–and–biscuit salad, poppy seed consommé, woven carrot sticks,
baby corn tempura, spun caramel ham crepes, Georgian bison steaks, slaw,
marshmallow beet salad. And if anybody asked her favorite food, she would roll
her eyes up in thought and mention whatever it was, as though one in four
people on the planet would have chosen the same.
He would guess that she had never eaten with a fellow on a first date. She
probably suspected that the sight of her opening her mouth, putting in a fork
(what a word…awfully close, even though everyone seemed to use it) and
closing he mouth around it to pull the food off with her lips would be too
suggestive for most fellows to be able to handle. She didn’t mind the flattery; she
just didn’t want the hassle. She wasn’t one of those girls who would play her
tongue seductively over her food before inserting it into her mouth. But that
36
would be the way some guys would see it. That wasn’t something she wanted a
boy to think about before she was ready for that kind of intimacy.
Besides, if she ate, sometimes her stomach would betray her. It was that
gas thing. If she liked the fellow, it was the gas thing, and, if she didn’t, it was the
forward thing. She had to be a bright girl. She knew that this wasn’t one of those
ancient civilizations that considered eating the most intimate activity a person
could engage in. She knew that ninety–nine percent of humanity thought it was
perfectly normal to eat with others watching. She agreed that it was normal. She
just didn’t want to do it. At least not at the beginning. Maybe after they got to
know each other better. She wouldn’t say so aloud, but putting anything into any
orifice in the presence of another was a terribly intimate act. That was also why
she never participated in any of those tampon–changing competitions the girls
had in high school. Changing her tampons wasn’t an activity at which she strove
for speed. She probably didn’t even agree to hold the stopwatch. She wasn’t
particularly repulsed or annoyed, just bored.
Another thing that she would never admit was that Dash, Splash, Crash,
Chad, Brock, all of them were athletes. She was not a shallow person. She was
not attracted to these stars because the world cheered at their sight. That had
nothing to do with it. In fact, she could name a couple of them who she didn’t
even know were ball players. There was something about them all that she found
appealing: their kindness, their humor, their strong character, their generosity, or
their winning personality.
“…and I like to think I’m a pretty nice guy. If you ask my mother, she’ll
tell you I’m as nice as they come. If it sounds like I’m spending too much of your
valuable tuition money on talking about myself, I plead guilty. But what I am
proposing here, is that there is a direct line of descent going back from me to
those few people who made JC the legend he is today.
37
“Tell me when I start to offend you. I can see on some of your faces that
you don’t like what I’m saying, but until you say something, I’m not going to
stop. Isn’t that what our man did? He spoke. He preached. He didn’t sit
squirming in a chair, feeling embarrassed. If he had, we wouldn’t have the day
off on his birthday.
“I was born in the month of March, and I don’t have any idea what my
sign is. I was never a child and I’ll never be an old man. I smoke cigarettes. I
drink beer when I’m celebrating with friends and whiskey when I’m alone. There
are other times that I won’t discuss right now that I drink wine. And when it
comes to wine, I’ve never spent less than eight dollars for a bottle and never
more than three–hundred.” He looked around the room again, fixing on some of
the beautiful eyes, which were set into the heads that rested on some of the
beautiful bodies.
When Phoebe drank, it was always wine. She probably didn’t like the dry
white wines. She preferred the wines that reminded her of the sweet grape juice
her mother gave her every morning for breakfast.
He would love to take her for a motorcycle ride. It would have to be in the
summer, when she would be pressing her chest against his back, holding tightly
in acknowledgement that he was her protector. In the saddlebags he would be
carrying a bottle of one of those sweet sparkly wines that she so adored. He
could not go wrong with Cold Duck.
As they sat at a roadside picnic table, drinking the wine out of silly plastic
cups with cartoon characters on them, she would tell him that she wanted to
drive for a while. Had she ever operated a motorcycle before? This wasn’t a
cheap toy. It was a police model Kawasaki that cost close to twenty thousand
dollars. And she would ask if he didn’t trust her.
38
He would laugh. Sure, he trusted her. But what would she do if he held
onto her the way she had held onto him? She would laugh again, embarrassed at
the implication that he would be grabbing her breasts during the ride. She
wouldn’t answer his question. He would ask if she thought it was wise for her to
operate this murderous machine for the first time after she had had four jelly
glasses of Cold Duck. Sure. Probably the best time ever. And he would be willing
to sacrifice his precious machine so that she could indulge her desire to operate a
motorcycle.
She would claim that she loved danger. He would have to point out there
was a difference between the kind of danger that was exciting and the kind that
was just depressing. Until she understood that distinction, he didn’t think it
would be wise of her to operate an eleven–hundred cubic centimeter motorcycle.
Besides, he doubted that she even knew how to operate a clutch on a car, much
less on a motorcycle. Coordinating the left and right foot on an automobile was
complicated enough, but to match the twisting motion of a hand accelerator with
the release of the other hand while maintaining the balance of hundreds of
pounds of metal demanded a little more than a desire for adventure.
But how could he ever say no to her, he would ask. He would tell her only
when it was to save her life. He felt that responsibility. She would pout, and,
when he begged her to tell him what was wrong, she would tell him that she
didn’t appreciate being patronized. What was patronizing about not wanting her
being maimed on his conscience? What was patronizing, she would insist, was
that he was so certain that she would crash his precious bike. And he would
complain that she was implying that his only real interest was in protecting his
property, not in protecting her life. Well, he never complained about her cooking
on a gas stove, which was just as dangerous.
39
Then he would ask her if they couldn’t just cuddle. She would slap his
shoulder the way she did when she moved from anger to playfulness, and she
would bury her head in his chest. He would put his arm around her and hug her.
The motorcycle? It would have to blow off a cliff or something, or the whole
argument would start all over again. After they were through snuggling, he
would kiss her softly, which would lead to them rubbing their hands gently over
each other’s bodies. A motorcycle? A motorcycle wasn’t fun. This was fun. On
second thought, though, they might go for a motorcycle ride out to the country
somewhere. Maybe they would find a peaceful clearing, where he could set up a
hammock. If only he were the only man who found her beautiful, everything
would be so much simpler, so much more perfect.
She liked adventure. He suspected that, because she was quiet, because
she seemed to be fearful of everything, because she seemed to not understand
how attractive she was, because her features were perfect, but her body wasn’t.
She would tell anybody that she had nothing to offer, but, given the opportunity,
she wouldn’t offer herself to anyone, not unless they fulfilled her hazy ill–
defined fantasies.
“Show of hands. How many of you think there was something special
about Jesus? Hands? It looks like all of you agree. If nothing else, we’ve determined that we have no quadriplegics here among our cozy little group here.
We’ll have to work on that next term.
“Okay, another show of hands. How many of you think he was so special
he was something other than a regular human being? Good. Very good. Either
some of you are a little skeptical or you suddenly went quad on me.
“I’ll assume all of you are in good health, so let’s go on a little further.
How many think whatever that special quality was was something other than a
super power like in the comic books? Just for argument’s sake, let’s say it’s some
40
sort of divinity or godliness, whatever you want to call it. Hmm–m–m, it looks
like just about half of you are with me here. I didn’t think we had quite that
many Jews in here.”
Phoebe didn’t look particularly embarrassed, although one of the girls
who nobody would have taken for Hebrew did.
“No offense intended. Of course, there are plenty of people who are extra
special, but who have no extraordinary powers. So let’s take this another step…”
It was funny about Phoebe. She wouldn’t play that silly tampon changing
game with the girls, but he would bet she would play his dirty talk game. He
called it beanbag. She would never suggest playing it, and she probably would
resist playing it, but eventually she would figure, what the hell, it sounds like it
might be good for a couple of laughs. He was pretty sure he had invented the
game himself, and he was absolutely certain that the structure he proposed was
completely his. He knew, because he remembered inventing the rules, simple as
they were
•
Only two people could play. One would be a boy and the other a girl.
•
The two would alternate uttering increasingly filthy words or phrases.
•
The first word would always be “shoot.”
•
The first person to laugh, to concede, to touch the other, or to get sick lost.
Phoebe probably knew all the words. She probably had uttered most of
them, although never casually as a part of a silly game. He would have bet,
though, that she had never invented new combinations. Her bedroom etiquette
would never have demanded filthy talk. But beanbag was different. It was a
game she could play with a near stranger, a word game, a test of wit and of will,
and she would enjoy that challenge.
He: Shoot
She: Drat
41
He: Blast it
She: Doggone it
He: Darn
She: Damn
He: Goddam
She: Crap
He: Bullshit
She: Horseshit
He: Shit
She: Ass
He: Asshole
She: Dick
He: Prick
She: Cock
He: Pussy
She: Cunt
He: Cocksucker
She: My cunt
He: My cock
She: My hot wet cunt
He: My hard cock in your wet cunt
She: Pump–a–pump–a–pump
He: Chew on your tits while I fuck your hot wet cunt with my big hard
cock.
She: You slobber while you chew on my tits while you’re fucking my hot
wet cunt with your big fat hard cock.
He: No matter how much you want to, I don’t let you come while I’m…
42
End of game. Either he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself that long or
she would start laughing. Or, more likely, before they got that far, she would tell
him how silly this game was. She would roll her eyes and just leave, as though
this game of his was too trivial to be taking her time with.
He could always tell her that he would kill himself if she didn’t consent to
him. It would never work. She would just roll her eyes, maintaining the conceit
that nobody could possibly be interested in her. She would tell him he was being
infantile.
He would tell her he was serious…or…no. That wouldn’t be the way to
do it. He would have to get her to make the suggestion. She would have to know
that he intended to kill himself. He just couldn’t take it any more. Couldn’t take
what any more? There was just much more pain than there was comfort in this
life. He had been around long enough to know that. It might not be true for
anyone else, but it was true for him. She would tell him that that was all part of
the adventure.
It was possible for things to change. They did all the time. All he had to go
by was his own experience. She would be sorry that he felt so bad and would ask
if there was anything she could do to make him feel better, and he would say no.
All he wanted was for the pain to stop. So she would offer…um–m–m…
To let him read her favorite book of poetry.
To bake him a pie.
To help him clean up his place.
To get him an appointment with a psychiatrist.
To go with him to pick out some new clothes.
If it ever did occur to her to offer herself to him, she would never have
said so. There did not exist in the history of the species a woman who was
43
unaware of her own appeal. That was a simple fact. Still, Phoebe insisted that she
was a meek, homely, stupid, naïve, misshapen third or fourth choice.
Part of her paradox, though, was that she would never condescend to
spend time with a fellow who was as unappealing as she seemed to consider
herself. It would be unthinkable for her to consort with an Ordinary. Any man
who wished to be a part of her life had better be handsome, healthy, athletic,
financially comfortable, romantic, personable, and popular.
Another guess about Phoebe: She had not worn a cowgirl outfit since she
was a child.
“Some of you are going to leave here today, go to the malt shop, and say,
‘all he talked about was himself. Wah–wah–wah.’ Now I don’t want any of you
citizens to feel cheated, so let’s get back to our old buddy, Jesus. That was his
name, wasn’t it? I mean, I’m just terrible with names, but I never forget a face.
“If we look at everything we know, it seems like it should be easy to sort
all of this out. He was a man who was God. He was God as man. He ate, but
survived without sustenance. Whatever he ate or breathed or drank is either still
on earth or arose to heaven with him. It follows that whatever he exhaled or
eliminated is either still on earth or arose to heaven with him.
“It would have been nice if we had the scientific instruments back then
that we do now. We could have probably figured out if the mass of the earth
changed over that Easter weekend. Now I’m not saying they woulda’ if they
coulda’. It wasn’t until much later that anyone paid much attention to our hero.
But if they had the means, they coulda’.
“So now all we can do is speculate and use our reason—hear that ladies?
I’m a reasonable kind of guy—to come to some sort of conclusion about what
might have become of his remains. Or, to put it more precisely, if there were any
remains. We could always take the coward’s way and just say all of the stories
44
about arising to heaven were just about his spirit. But, hell, we could say that
about anyone. If we’re going to be honest about this, then we have to assume we
mean an actual physical relocation. ‘Yeah, sure, Auntie Myrtle is still with us.’
Kiddies, every funeral I’ve ever been to has had some clergyman declare that the
deceased will always be with us. So, if that old book in the hotel room is
supposed to mean anything at all, it must mean that Jesus actually returned, to
earth, physically returned. If he left anything behind, was he reunited with those
molecules when…”
It was the way she carried her shoulders that made her seem so meek.
Why didn’t her parents do something about that when she was younger? Was it
scurvy or something? That shouldn’t happen in these times. A doctor could have
told her to make sure she drinks her orange juice every morning. And after they
saw what it was doing to her, they should have seen to it that she had the
surgery she needed to straighten her up. They were probably some of those
religious fanatics who felt they shouldn’t tamper with God’s will. If He wanted
her to have the posture of an old lady, it would have been wrong to have a
doctor straighten her out.
But this was how she was, and it looked fine to him. With meekness came
depth, thought, introspection, although he was absolutely convinced that, given
the opportunity, anybody would be shallow. If she wasn’t the mindless type who
lusted after the cute boys, it was only because she didn’t have the chance to be.
That was probably because she tended to befriend girls whose bodies were
straight, slender, and curvy, girls who never suffered from gas and who never
had accidental leaks when that time of the month came around, whose hair
looked beautiful even when it was unkempt, who never had to pluck their
eyebrows or their moles, whose nails never cracked, who never got lip sores,
whose thighs remained smooth, who never showed stubble, who never were
45
embarrassed, who knew when to laugh, who knew when to be angry, who
carried themselves in such a way that men who didn’t attract them would know
better than to waste their time.
Phoebe was a betrayer of love. She seemed so available, so attainable, that
men would presume the right to her company. She would confess excitement at
the invitation, whatever that invitation might be, unless it was rude or
outrageous, in which case she would laugh politely.
One more guess about Phoebe: She never owned any article of clothing
that was decorated with polka dots, not even as a child.
She would insist that he take her to the opera or the ballet. It wasn’t that
she enjoyed those particular entertainments, but it was a requirement of her
species that she test his devotion, just as he tested hers by demanding her favors.
On that evening she would wear a conservative but lush grayish–pink
dress that fit her. He would be surprised, because he could not believe that there
were clothes available that fit her unique proportions. Perhaps she had made the
garment herself, although he doubted that she sewed. Evidently she did, though,
because this frock had to have been custom made for her. Or did she have a
friend make it for her? Her mother? Would she ask her mother to create a gown
for her date at the opera?
But there she would be. He would compliment her on her lovely dress but
wouldn’t ask her how she got it to fit so well. He would just tell her that she
looked wonderful. Maybe some other time he would use the word “beautiful,”
but that would come later. He would tell her that he got loge seats and bought
each of them a pair of opera glasses. This would be to show that he cared enough
to make an enormous sacrifice for her.
46
She would smile, not in gratitude, but in satisfaction, for she had predicted that he would do as much. She didn’t know the details, but she knew he
would participate in this odious entertainment enthusiastically.
If the weather was chilly, he would hold her wrap in his lap. She would
look to make sure he didn’t crease it. The small things were important, because
this might be her only chance to be treated so regally. She had debated as they
entered the opera house whether they should check their coats. Although she
was sure that nobody would steal her coat at a place like this, she wanted to be
sure. He would wonder if this was the most important day in her entire life, or if
she wanted him to think it was. This might be the only time that she would feel
entitled to this obedience from a fellow.
And she had not promised him anything in return. She had not even coyly
told him that she was not making any deals with him. If he wanted to go to the
opera with her, that was his decision. She appreciated his generosity, but it did
not entitle him to anything at all, not anything special, nor anything regular. He
would pretend that what she was suggesting had not even crossed his mind. All
he wanted was her company. She would smile broadly, grateful that he
understood how this all worked.
The sound of the orchestra tuning instruments was probably as pleasant
as the entertainment would get. If he had his choice there were a thousand kinds
of music he would prefer to hear: jazz, country, rock, bagpipe, polka, orchestral,
Indian, big band, folk, percussion, choral, gospel. Still, he listened, glancing at his
companion, trying to make some conversation. He asked her when the last time
was that she had attended the opera, but he knew the answer; it was the last time
she was breaking in a new boyfriend.
Her breasts seemed to be riding higher than usual. Did that somehow
happen when she became excited? He had never heard of such a thing. More
47
likely she was wearing a structurally superior undergarment. Unless she planned
a truly exotic evening, she wouldn’t wear a slinky, lacy nearly naked brassiere
under a dress like this one.
Did she notice where his eyes were? Women were always complaining
that men never looked them in the eyes. Probably true, but by the time most
fellows reached adulthood they had learned very well how to conceal the aim of
their retinas. The women who said that were probably just flattering themselves.
But with Phoebe, it was possible that she really could tell.
She had that quiet intelligence that only belonged to those who didn’t
want the world to know how smart they really were. Oh sure, there were girls
who really knew when men were looking at their chests, just as there were
people who knew everyone was looking at their chests when they wore illuminated neckties that spewed lava. Phoebe wasn’t one of those.
In any case, if she noticed that he had seen the new buoyancy, she
wouldn’t say anything. She would be much more concerned that he was absorbing all of the intricacies of stagecraft that preceded the overture and the
rising of the curtain.
He would have to ask her questions, not because he wanted the answers,
but so she would believe that he was sincerely interested in what she had
brought him to see. If he were not in her presence, he would recognize her
duplicity, her guile, but he could not see her and disbelieve every word, every
gesture.
There were times when feigning interest could actually make an activity
more palatable. He knew that without Phoebe’s presence there could be no
pleasure in opera. Not for him. No matter how meretricious the playbill was in
describing the story as “torrid” or “forbidden” or “intriguing,” he would have no
48
choice but to dream of Phoebe as she became more and more enrapt in the
performance.
Her jaw line was very feminine. He had noticed that from the very beginning. Many beauties seemed less attractive once he noticed the lack of delicacy in the shapes of their faces. He never claimed to have fair tastes. There were
probably thousands of men who would find girls with strong features attractive,
much more attractive than Phoebe. That was why there were different boys for
different girls. Phoebe’s jaw was softly shaped, as though the bone hid deep inside. Her neck was soft too. It wasn’t one of those long, stretched types that assured fashion models employment. He had always thought that the main
purpose of a girl’s shape should be to conceal the internal organs. It wasn’t that
he liked obesity. He just found extreme slenderness as unattractive as obesity.
Like the woman on the stage. She was attractive, not grotesquely slim, but
artistically proportioned. Without the opera glasses he could have mistaken her
form for Phoebe’s. The actress wore a plain black dress, randomly flowing over
her form.
Then the singing began. Her hand spread, facing down, in front of her.
The note was very low, and she dropped her chin to reach it. Then, it suddenly
turned into a screech. He glanced over to Phoebe to see if there was any
expression on her face. He would have hoped for a smile, but saw none. Instead,
her eyes focused on the stage. She would never allow him the satisfaction of
sharing her emotions at this important time in her life.
But she would be thinking about him. Or, rather, she would be thinking
about what she had accomplished in persuading him to enthusiastically bring
her to this event. That would be her victory, having him do something that she
surely knew he could not possibly enjoy. He worried if that would constitute a
conquest in the same way his victory would. He did not want to be with
49
someone who strove for that masculine sense of accomplishment. Just like the
strong jaw line, the desire for conquest was not attractive.
The screeching of the woman was interrupted in mid–trill by the guttural
baritone of a strutting gentleman who wore baggy trousers, a dark brown wool
shirt, and no shoes. Phoebe’s eyes would intensify, and he would see the
beginnings of a smile, but he wouldn’t know what she was smiling at. He would
imagine that she was anticipating what was going to happen after the opera,
since there was nothing on the stage that could drive anybody to any hint of glee.
Yes, she had told him clearly that, other than their enjoyment of the
performance, their pleasure would not be part of the evening. Yes, he would
swear his agreement to that condition. But that would all be part of the test. Once
she was certain that he had actually attended the performance of the opera for no
reason other than to make her happy, she would relent. First, as they walked to
his car, she would ask him what he had thought. He would say that it was
interesting. It would be important that she understand that he had made the
most sincere of efforts, but that he had sacrificed more than three hours of his
time for no other reason than to please her. She would have to appreciate his
effort.
There was plenty of loud singing. Arms waved, fists clenched. There were
embraces and soft hair strokes. At one point the hero and a tuxedoed tenor,
carrying a pickaxe, jumped in the air half a dozen times. Meanwhile, the heroine
dropped to her knees in prayer. She was screeching softly. Phoebe was nodding
her head in understanding.
During the entire performance she would not once look at him. Still, she
would somehow notice him, which was why it was important for him to keep his
eyes pointed toward the stage. What he, like most fellows, had was the ability to
allow his brain to process what entered through his peripheral vision while
50
ignoring the center of the field. What he would see from there was what he
hoped for in payment for the suffering he was enduring.
“Now, before we go on, I want to make sure that you people get the
chance to say your piece.” He looked around the room, stopping to put second
coats of his leer on some of the sorority girls. “I’ll be the first to admit that I can
be an offensive bastard. I want to give you all the chance to say your piece.
Anyone have the cojones to disagree with the teacher? Or is it that I haven’t
offended you enough yet? Or, maybe none of you are strong enough in your
faith to argue with anything I’ve said. Nobody interested? Okay, then, let’s go
on. It looks like I’m going to have to try a little bit harder.”
He had been molesting his unlit cigarette for a while, long enough to drop
bits of tobacco onto the floor. He curled the loose paper around the end and
twisted it. Then he crushed the unsmoked butt over a waste can. He pulled a
new one from the pack in his shirt pocket.
“Let’s try something else for a few minutes here. What kind of a fellow do
you suppose this Jesus fellow was? I looked all through the books, and I haven’t
read anything about him laughing so hard that his sides hurt. There’s nothing
there about him yodeling, playing tag, hitting his thumb with a hammer. Was he
a happy sort? You’d think that if your old man is, you know…” He pointed
upwards. “… that you’d have some kind of a personality. What we see in the
movies doesn’t count. I mean, a guy with a deep, soft voice whose every word is
some profound pronouncement? Hell, if I came across someone like that, I’d be
the first in line to crucify him. It’s all right to be morose, but to push it off on
everyone you see, it ain’t the way to get people to like you. But…wait…” He
snapped his fingers in revelation. “What if…what if he was constipated and
never went to the bathroom at all? That would sure simplify our little mystery a
51
little bit, wouldn’t it? Let’s face it, there are people who will say the bible is just
like toilet paper, but it doesn’t try quite as hard to be soft and absorbent.…”
As they stood in the lobby, waiting for the crowd to thin out so the traffic
would be more tolerable, she would coo about how wonderful the opera had
been. She would demand that he give his opinion. He would tell her that he had
enjoyed it. He hadn’t thought he would, but he found it fascinating, especially
the part—he would have to struggle to remember any part at all, much less a
part he found vaguely interesting.
She would tell him that she knew he really didn’t want to be there and it
was sweet of him to come. She really appreciated it.
He would know better than to ask her how much she appreciated it. He
would just shrug and tell her he was glad he had the experience. He just
sometimes had to be persuaded to do new things. Would she understand what
he was really saying? That she should be just as willing to be persuaded? No, but
she might put her arm through his as they walked to the car.
By then, there would have to be some sort of understanding. She would
have to know that the conventions of Western Civilization would require that
they embrace before the end of the evening. That might not happen until they
arrived at her door, but it would have to happen. He would start to walk away,
but then, just as she was closing her door, he would return. He would hold her
again, this time much more passionately. He had started to go home, but found
her too irresistible. He had to return to express to her how emphatic his affection
for her was. She would melt. After all, he had spent an evening doing something
that, realistically, offered him nothing. He had sacrificed a priceless evening for
nothing other than to please her. He had even been a gentleman at the end of the
evening, but now, he found her too gorgeous, too wonderful to leave. He would
push the door open and embrace her passionately. She would try to mutter
52
“No,” but his lips would be too tight against hers to allow any sound to escape.
Then, she would succumb, because…because…because….
When he released her mouth, she would tell him that he was breaking his
promise. She would say it not as an admonition, but as a simple observation. She
had too long pretended that she was oppressively plain to now claim that he was
stealing something very precious from her.
Oh, her arm swept sideways. It looked like it knocked something from her
desk. She would have to bend towards him to see what it was. He glanced at the
floor between them. It was only a paper clip. If she needed that fastener, she
would bend over to retrieve it. He supposed that she would not pick it up if she
had others. Just another of her little hypocrisies. She would claim that she was
needy, that she had nothing to offer the world, and that any job she ever got
would be out of charity. But she would not worry about conserving what
resources she might have had. It might not have been hypocrisy. It could have
been just another of those paradoxes that made her so fascinating.
How soon could that fascination turn to painful boredom? Discovering
the true shape of her body would bring him far away from that fascination. Even
if, under the slump and the creases lay the most perfect body, familiarity with it
would move that greatest secret, the knowledge of her form, from her account to
his.
And he would have been willing to bet that her naked body was not
perfect. If stray hairs did not speckle the parts that were supposed to be
smoothest, if the flesh was not rough where it might have been smooth, if sags
and stretch marks did not interrupt the lines, then there would surely be some
ghastly huge birthmark or a primeval asymmetry. She was simply not allowed to
be perfect. Nobody was.
53
A guess about the things a guy trying to get close to her should not call
her:
•
Gorgeous
•
Sweet thing
•
Honey smiles (or honey anything else)
•
Hot stuff
•
Muffin
•
Doll face
•
Sunshine
•
Cupcake
•
Darling
•
Dream girl
•
Angel
•
Miss Pretty
•
Sugar pie
•
Lover
•
Baby
•
Babe
•
Any vague rhyme that included her name, like Eeby–Phoebe, Creamy–
Phoebe, Dreamy–Phoebe, or Sleepy–Phoebe.
His guess about what a guy trying to get close to her should call her:
•
Phoebe
She wouldn’t be sitting, bored, in a class that supposedly was teaching her
something about how to think unless she had a brain. Any girl with a brain was
immune to silly–name seduction. Now, there were at least half a dozen girls in
the same class who would have fallen for any fellow that called her the love of
his life. But they weren’t there because they were smart; they weren’t there
54
because they thought they were smart; they weren’t there because they wanted
to become smart.
They were there because the fact of Chad Chrisler’s style was established
far beyond any scientific necessity. He could be tempted, cajoled, or (as a last
resort) seduced into giving a decent grade to the girls who qualified. Those half
dozen certainly qualified. Finn Crowley would have bet more than he could
afford to lose that not one of them was interested in studying the final
destination of Jesus’s droppings as a career.
He had been wrong before.
It certainly would take a connoisseur of the professor’s refinement to
distinguish one of them from the others. They were buxomroundedtallishstraightposturedlongleggedclearskinnednailpolishedbracelettedearringedcellphonetotingwellmuscledsweetvoiced vixens. They were all interested in an
education, because it led to a) lucrative and interesting careers or b) lucrative and
interesting husbands.
The professor was fine with that. He could have named half a dozen
philosophical precepts that would be consistent with his enjoying the company
of any of those girls.
Phoebe was not one of them. If only the professor recognized that fact. If
she was what she seemed, then she would recognize him. She would understand
that everything he said was for the purpose of shocking or ingratiating or
impressing that half dozen. Even if she believed that he saw her in the same way,
she would know better than to succumb. More than knowing, she would find his
manipulations tiresome and irritating.
What she needed most was somebody who appreciated her quiet cynicism, her skewed beauty, and her boredom with herself. She did not need the
excitement of fabricated thrills. Maybe the motorcycle wouldn’t be the best thing
55
after all. Cliff diving would seem stupid too, as would scary movies, twisty roller
coasters, alligator wrestling, or daring sex clubs. Her thrills grew from
discovering the unexpected about those she thought she knew.
That was probably why she didn’t have too many girlfriends. Or, maybe,
she did have a lot of girlfriends, but she didn’t care for them very much. It probably had been back in sixth grade when one of them did anything that surprised
her. That was when Debbie or Cindy or Hillary told her she was going to New
York to become a professional singer so she could start making money for the
cosmetic surgery she would need when she got older, which was what her
mother had recommended. The mother had been left alone by the father, and she
didn’t have the means to correct the damage time had done to her flesh. She did
not want that tragedy to befall her daughter. What would have surprised Phoebe
was that her friend was so secure in her mother’s advice. Nobody blindly trusted
their parents, and, when their parents were so terribly…unfortunate in their
values, no sane girl should have even considered it.
Nowadays, she probably sighed in jealousy, frustration, or disappointment at whatever her friends did. Affairs with married men? Mm–hmm.
Tattoos? Okay. Booze and drugs? Yep. Whips, irons, and needles? Certainly.
Running off to homestead in Wyoming with a parolee? Why not? Dropping out
of school to shred cabbage at the slaw plant? Whatever works. Donating an
organ to snag a man? Sounds like a plan. Slimming down on that mineral only
diet? Absolutely.
“I’m going to throw a few things out and see if I can get a rise out of any
of you. Ready? Okay, here it goes. Jesus was a pervert. Jesus was a constipated
pervert. Jesus never lived. Jesus never came back from the dead. Mary was a slut.
A little bit of shit dribbled out of Mary’s ass when Jesus was born. Jesus spent
56
years in a psychotic haze. Jesus and Mary often sat around killing and eating
babies. Jesus and Mary had sex while Joseph masturbated.
“You know what’s interesting? Now, if I can believe what some of you
told me, we have a bunch of people in this room who claim to be Christians. Not
one of you said a single thing about the statements I just made. Are you going to
tell me it’s out of respect for a teacher? Were you waiting for me to make my
point? Were you, as you’ve been taught, turning the other cheek? You see, there
is always a reason. I’ve been saying some terrible things about the fellow many
of you good believers claim to worship. Do you think he would want you to sit
silently while I said those things?
“I’ll be the first to admit that I am a provocateur. That is my job as a
teacher. I am here to provoke you into thinking. As you know, I haven’t always
been a provocateur. I have been a hobo, a petty criminal with grand dreams—the
less about that the better, and I played blues harp down in the Delta with a
gentleman by the name of Gimp Van Stiles. Nowadays, he wouldn’t get away
with a name like that. Or would he? If I can get away with saying the things I
have about your Lord and Savior, why can’t a fellow who favors his left leg call
himself Gimp?”
He looked around at the class, smoothly surveying the reactions. His gaze
stopped for a part of a moment at Phoebe. She was the one. She was the
challenge. He could have had any of the rest of them. That brunette with the hint
of accidental cleavage would have fallen even without his romantic history. He
wouldn’t have had to be a hobo, a provocateur, or a blues singer. All it would
have taken would have been for him to be a cool teacher, and she would have
been his.
Was it possible that Phoebe would really succumb to a fellow like that?
They all claimed to be interested in fellows with some depth, who cultivated
57
their minds. They all claimed to be unimpressed with the athletes, the heroes, the
stars, the musicians, and the cowboys. They also all claimed that they never ate,
that they were innocent, that they were struggling to make ends meet, and that
what they really wanted from a man was companionship.
That would be how he should do it. He should just approach her, perhaps
as they were leaving class. He would ask if he could have a moment in private
with her. If she said she was in a hurry and couldn’t talk, he would insist, or, at
least insist that she give him a time and place where they could get together.
She would never have been so gauche as to look at her watch, but she
would have that polite but impatient look that shy girls get. Then she would tell
him that she was in a hurry, but that she would meet him at three at Crumpy’s.
She wouldn’t show up that first time, but the next time he saw her he would
make a softly sarcastic remark.
There would be one of two responses. She would either say that she had
thought he was just kidding or she would say that she simply forgot. Then she
would apologize and start to walk away as though the whole incident was past.
He would tell her that his feelings were really hurt that she would just dismiss
him like that. Again, she would apologize and say that she hadn’t realized he
was really serious.
At that point he would have to be very careful to maintain his sense of
humor. If she suspected that his interest in her was so deep, she might have
become frightened. His best opportunity would result from his making her feel
ridiculous about having ignored their arrangement.
One thing he was sure of, though, was that it would happen. There would
come a time when she would sit with him at a booth in a restaurant. He
considered himself reasonably competent at making conversation, a skill that
had not come to him easily. He would ask her how she had survived class
58
registration. He would make observations about the décor of the place where
they were eating. She would probably smile at some of his comments, because he
had a wry way of uttering bland comments. He would laugh at something he
saw and note whether or not she laughed along, since it was important that she
enjoy laughing with him.
She would eventually ask him why it was so important that he get together with her. He would tell her that she was a very pretty girl, and he was
egotistical enough to believe he could spend a little bit of time with her. She
might smile a little bit at that, one of those embarrassed smiles that told observers that she wasn’t really very pretty.
If he took her to a fancy restaurant, or even if it was just a coffee shop, she
would act as though she didn’t know how to behave at such a place. She
wouldn’t understand the conventions of any place that didn’t have a drive–
through. He would insist on a booth, tell her to make herself comfortable,
because he had something important to tell her. He would ask her what she
wanted. How about some of that milky coffee with a little bit of spice? That’s
what he was having, and they would have some fancy cookies too.
He would make small talk until they brought the order. After the waiter
left, he would tell her that he had something to say and he was going to say it,
even if it made him sound foolish. He would tell her that most people had
ambitions. They wanted to be wealthy or famous. They wanted to be secure in
their families. They hoped some day to own a business, to act on the screen, to be
doctors or nurses, to oversee a cattle drive, to produce stunning advertising
product, to become philosophers, admired by acolytes around the world. They
were desperate to be heroes. They dreamed that they would save children from
poverty in strange foreign lands or that they would win championships as
athletes.
59
He would tell her that he had none of those ambitions. He had only one
goal in life, and that was to spend just one night with her. She would giggle
nervously. He would stare directly into her eyes in a way that was sure to make
her nervous. This was the time for absolute honesty, which demanded that he
maintain eye contact, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. She would have
to get used to it, because this was important.
He would tell her that—wait, maybe she preferred to wait until their
orders arrived. It was sometimes more comfortable if people had something to
munch on or to sip while they listened. In the meantime, how about that
professor of theirs? Wasn’t he something? Yep. Uh–hunh. So, did she have a
favorite book? Movie? Food? Well, they’d be back any minute now with the
order. Wasn’t there something she would like to know about him? He’d answer
any question, even if it didn’t make him look very good.
Finally, here it came. He would nod at the server that everything was all
right. No, no, they didn’t need anything else.
Okay. This was it. He would tell her that his goal, his only goal was to
spend one night with her. She could look at anybody else on the face of the
planet, and there would be some who were attracted to her. She would know
which ones they were. But there would be none who had no other ambition.
They would want to be astronauts and spend some time with her, or they would
want to be investment bankers or firemen or inventors and spend the rest of their
lives with her. He wasn’t making any such claims. He didn’t want to be
anything. He didn’t want to allocate the rest of his life. He didn’t care if the
world thought he was rich or poor or intelligent or stupid. None of that
mattered, and he was unique in that way. He would not pretend to work towards saving the world, making any great discoveries, amassing wealth, or
being secure. He would not claim that he looked forward to the next playoff
60
game, that there was nothing like a good meal, well served, that he found hope
in the promise of the rapture, that he hoped to raise children one day, that he
was working on getting into shape. No, all he wanted, all he hoped for was what
he had just told her.
She would look distressed, perhaps even a little frightened, but he would
acknowledge that. He would tell her that he had no intention of making her
uncomfortable, but it was important that she know these things. He would also
tell her that he knew how dangerous what he was doing was. No matter how it
ended, she was certain to tell all her girlfriends, so he was absolutely guaranteed
that humiliation. Furthermore, she might become terribly frightened and actually
have him arrested. That was a risk he was willing to accept. There was the
danger that she would laugh at him, that she would, in effect, tell him that his
life was over.
Yes, he knew that it was insane. It was even more insane to tell her what
he was thinking, but it was important that she know. She might humor him,
asking him what he intended to do during that night, or asking where it would
take place, or how he had selected her.
He would tell her that none of that mattered. Except for that last question.
He hadn’t selected her. It wasn’t a selection; it wasn’t a choice. It was a simple
revelation. It might have started with a simple question: what did he really
want? Did he want to sit through these classes? Did he want whatever career
arose from graduating? Did he want the money or the power? Did he find
anything he was studying interesting? Had he ever found anything interesting?
No, he was not interested in anything except her. And why her, especially when
he really knew nothing about her?
That was the thing. That was the whole point. He had made the mistake
before of choosing, of adding the assets and deducting the debits. That was the
61
curse of being a logical human being, that too many people expected to be drawn
to somebody logically. No, dammit, there wasn’t anything logical about what he
was doing. It was even less logical to tell her, but it was his life, and he intended
to do what he could to make it happen.
He knew that people didn’t always reach their goals, achieve their ambitions. Most people prepared themselves for this prospect by having other
goals. He was going to be honest enough with her to tell her exactly what his
intentions were. What if she told him that she wasn’t in the least bit interested?
He would shrug and tell her that, if she were interested, it wouldn’t be a goal; it
would be a fact. She might smile at that, but she probably wouldn’t.
Again, she would ask him why he had chosen her. After all, she wasn’t
the most beautiful, most voluptuous, or most personable girl he had ever seen.
He would say that wasn’t it. He wouldn’t agree or disagree with her. To do so
would have made him seem either dismissive or smug. He would just tell her
that something about her was irresistible. She was so irresistible that he had forsaken his future to the quest for that single night.
And what was he planning on doing during that night? Oh, it was far too
early. He wasn’t planning anything. Just as he had said, he did not know if he
would ever achieve that goal.
What if he did? Was he saying that he was going to kill himself afterwards? Did it make sense to have only one goal? What happened when he
achieved that goal? See? Didn’t he understand? Of course she was flattered. Any
girl would be flattered. But why would she want to spend the night with
somebody who wouldn’t exist in just a few hours?
That was what he meant about her being so wonderful. What other girl
would think like that? What other girl wouldn’t want to know all the details of
his attraction to her? What about her face did he like the best? What about her
62
body? Was it because he thought she was intelligent? But Phoebe wouldn’t ask
any of those questions. She would ask about how this thing was supposed to
work. She would question not his motives, but his sense. She would probably
just shake her head. The big question would be whether she was smiling when
she did. Or would her face show apprehension, fear, distress, dismay. Her smile
would be his hope, that his goal was not completely absurd.
“How many of you have ever spent any time in the woods? Show of
hands? Now, I don’t mean in a camper, or even a tent. I’m talking about living
without any conveniences at all. I’d bet that there’s not a single one of you who
has. Oh, there might have been a couple of you gentlemen who earned some
merit badge for rubbing sticks to make a fire, but even that is a meager stab
compared to the times of yore. Am I getting a little too poetic for some of you?
“The point is this: when Jesus lived there was no such thing as electricity.
There was no such thing as running water. There was no central heating. There
was no air conditioning. Were those times of hardship? I wouldn’t say so. After
all, nobody had those things. That was the nature of life in those times.
“I’m not much of a predictor, but let me use my fertile imagination for a
few seconds. Let’s look a couple of thousand years into the future. Nobody has to
cook food. Nobody has to expend any energy at all in order to conduct their
daily lives. There is no such thing as paper work. Nobody has to work, since the
entire world, including repairing equipment, is run automatically.
“Since nobody works, nobody earns money. Since nobody earns money,
eventually the society adjusts to where nobody needs money. Of course there are
a few precious commodities: antiques, gems, works of imagination, body parts.
Those who want those things find some other way to get them. They trade some
of their belongings for them or—and some of you young ladies might be
interested in this—they trade themselves for them.
63
“If you lived in that world, you might look at our times as unbearable
hardship. Do we think of it that way? Oh, we might complain about some things.
I bet some of you might be complaining about the demands of this course. But,
compared to those days a couple of millennia ago, I’d bet every one of you
would say we have it pretty easy. Those who were alive back then probably
thought their lives were no more difficult than we think ours are. In fact, given
the demands of the times, they probably didn’t even think about how difficult
their lives were at all.
“Most people believe their own lives are hard, but it is rare that they
believe that they are living in primitive times. Against that background, we must
believe that those who lived alongside our hero felt they were in completely
normal times. Hardships were…”
If his eyes accidentally dropped to her breasts, she would ask him if it was
just about sex. He would have to think very quickly. The simplest response
would be to admit that that was all it really was. At least that way he would allay
her fear that his goal was complete domination over her. But that would not have
been the truth. If he was interested in nothing more than the standard
interaction, he would not have taken this step of actually exposing himself like
this. He could not have her think that he had just developed a novel approach.
No, he had to persuade her that he had really established her as his only goal, a
goal whose achievement would signify the successful completion of his life.
But those breasts. How was he to avoid looking at them? The weren’t the
pneumatic models that stood straight from her chest. They had a natural drop
that gave them more roundness on the lower slopes than the upper. At certain
times of the month they seemed to become slightly larger, sit a little bit higher on
her body. Or was that just the effect of one of those new, extra support
brassieres? She moved very gracefully, so it was rare to see them move
64
separately from her body. That would be one thing he would surely want to see
if he ever achieved his goal. He would ask her to jump up and down a few times
even before he asked her to disrobe…or before he undressed her. The sequence
was something he was trying to keep as a mystery. He did not want to know the
details of how that night would progress, which was why he tried to chase
specific thoughts and fantasies from his mind.
She would smile a little bit and tell him he was making some grand
statements just to get her into bed. But he would insist that what he was telling
her was just for her information. Trying to get her into bed was a much longer
process. He had asked her to sit with him now just to inform her. That was only
fair.
His biggest fear was that she would not understand, that she would feel
that he was threatening her. No, he hoped she understood that he was simply
telling her of his intentions. He would not be hiding outside her window or
calling her on the phone constantly.
Well, then, how did he intend to achieve this noble ambition of his? She
would have to tell him right now that, if he thought this was a good start, he was
mistaken. But, despite her words, she would have to be fascinated by his
oddness. If what he was doing had been a common practice, or if it had been part
of a movie plot, or if this was a practice that young fellows discussed and
laughed about in dormitory rooms, then he could understand that it was
frightening.
It was frightening when a family member suddenly claimed to be receiving death threats from foreign ambassadors through dental work. The fear
was not that somebody was actually threatening the loved one. The fear was that
the loved one had adopted the standard patter of a person who had gone insane,
and, therefore, the family was now harboring a crazy person. Long before that
65
sister or brother or uncle made the claim, though, there had to be a first person
expressing similar fears. That first person had to have certain information. In
order claim to receive radio signals through his fillings, he had to have certain
knowledge: he had to know of the existence of radio signals and he had to know
that dentists drilled through enamel and replace parts of teeth with foreign
materials. He also had to know that there might exist in the world such things as
ambassadors.
There had been thousands, tens of thousands of people who had developed the same delusions. There were so many that pharmaceutical companies
had spent millions of dollars developing drugs to suppress those frightening
images. But how must people have reacted to the very first person to be
suspicious of dental amalgam? That individual could not have existed before
dentists started actually repairing teeth rather than just extracting them. And it
was decades after that when most people became aware of radio signals. That
first person would have created not fear, but rather interest. If his behavior
included banging his head or screaming loudly in church, his family would have
known he was crazy.
But if he calmly and rationally described the messages he was receiving,
others might have thought him insightful and, in some ways, gifted. How could
the world cavalierly ignore the words of one who saw things and heard things
that nobody else had ever seen or heard?
How could Phoebe ignore his words? He was prepared for her not quite
understanding. Of course she would be confused. For one thing, she claimed
ignorance of her own place in this world. Nobody even noticed her; they
certainly would never make her companionship their single goal in life.
He was the first person who had ever done this. Perhaps if others did it,
they would learn the hazards of being insane. Somebody might force them to
66
take drugs to change their minds. There might be hospitals devoted to the
treatment of those who insisted upon devoting their lives to pursuit of a single
person.
What was interesting, though, was that he was not trying to win her over
in marriage. He didn’t care to ask her father for her hand. It was just one night,
one short hunk of time, during which he would satisfy his curiosity about her
body, her passions, her humor, her sensitivity, her posture, her inhibitions. That
was all he wanted.
She would either laugh with embarrassment, laugh with amusement, or
flee in horror. His suspicion was that she would do the first. But, then again, his
fascination with her grew from his inability to predict what she would do. Or she
might want to hear more. He was, after all, flattering her in a way that no fellow
had ever flattered a gal before. This might be her only chance in this life to hear
such talk. It might be the only chance that any girl would ever have to hear such
talk.
She might ask what he would do if he failed in his goal. He would tell her
that he had a whole life to try to achieve it. Even if she was married? Even if she
became horribly disfigured? Even if she stopped bathing? Oh yes. In that case,
what would he do if he achieved his goal? Did she mean what would he do to
her, because he had already told her that he didn’t know that yet. No, what she
wanted to know was what would he do the rest of his life after this one
supposedly glorious night?
He would laugh and tell her that would have to be a mystery to both of
them for now.
She would nod and tell him that this had been a very interesting talk, but
she had things to do and had to get going. He would thank her. She would wait
for him to say something else, to ask her out, to tell her that he had already
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chosen her fate, to offer a hug of mutual understanding. But he would not do any
of those things. He would bid her farewell, leaving her to contemplate what he
had told her.
“I am going to make a statement that some of you might find shocking:
There is no such thing as the past. On second thought, compared to some of the
blasphemies I have subjected you scholars to, that isn’t very shocking. But it is a
true statement. The past is an invention. What we have always called the past is
what I would call the cumulative present.
“I know the popular system is to mark the birth of Christ as the point of
demarcation for all matters of time, but let’s go back before that. I don’t care if
you want to say the world dates back six thousand years, six million years, or six
trillion years. In fact, I’m such a reasonable character that I’m willing to agree
with somebody who says there is no beginning at all, that the world goes back
forever without any starting point at all. That doesn’t have anything to do with
my point. By now you should be adjusted to the feeling of being shocked, so I’m
not going to spare your feelings. We can’t accurately divide all of that time into
years, hours, seconds, or even trillionths of a second. For lack of a better
explanation, though, let’s say we can define single moments. If we go back, let’s
say a million years, we can start adding moments, incidents, and events to
whatever it is we call history. Each of those moments is connected to the
previous moments, because, as far as we know, there are no gaps in time. Are
you with me so far?
“Now, if an objective observer were to measure those moments, weigh
them, put a tape on them, gauge them with a light meter, each would be equal.
Of course, if the observer isn’t objective, then the measurement will not be. I’ll be
the first to admit that the moment of my birth was of much greater importance to
me than the moment a milkweed seed blew into the side of a tree in Sicily. That
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is my own bias. But objectively all moments are identical. So we come to that
particular moment that we here in this country celebrate on December 25 each
year.
“Some will say that moment was quite different, that it weighed more,
that it was brighter, that it measured more meters across, that it lasted longer
than other moments. Okay, if that’s what you want to say, fine. Then I would
have to ask you the obvious question: How much more did that moment weigh?
And ounce? A pound? A ton? If I remember right, a number of you raised your
hands when I asked if you were believers. Any of you want to answer that
question? No, you don’t have to. I was just asking…”
Sometimes, especially when the weather was warm she wore those white
slacks. The fabric seemed thinner over her bottom. He could have sworn he was
seeing a little bit of stretch in the threads of the back seam. There was enough
overlap of cloth to block the line of sight into the underwear layer, but he was
seeing deeper past her outer layer than those who just looked at her casually.
Once, when she was wearing those trousers, she had to bend over to get
her purse before she left class. The cloth tightened against her body, and he could
have sworn he saw the outline of the lips underneath those trousers. They
seemed puffy. He hoped she was all right.
There had to be another Phoebe. The other Phoebe liked to drink and liked
to dance. She could not possibly be the shy, introspective, invisible girl who sat
in front and to the right (which was a good thing, since girls’ shirts and blouses
opened to the right, so sometimes he could see into the opening between some of
the buttons, which he would not have been able to do if she was sitting to his
left).
Maybe he would be there some time when she was like that. He would
ask her if she wanted a drink. She would say okay, that she could use something.
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He could not allow himself to act surprised, not when she was reverting to her
nature. Where would they be? It would have to be his place, since he knew what
that looked like.
He would sit on the stuffed chair, so that she would have to sit on the
sofa. That arrangement would assure that, if anybody was going to be
embarrassed, it wouldn’t have to be him. If she wanted him to come closer, she
could always pat the cushion next to herself. Otherwise, he would not lose
anything by staying where he was. He would tell her that he bought a couple
special bottles just for the occasion. He had a cherry brandy and two wines that
he bought at the expensive place where the wealthy doctors bought bottles for
their cellar collections.
She would think for just a minute about her choices. The sophisticate in
her would want the white wine, the newcomer to drinking would want the red
wine, and the child would want the cherry brandy. It was sweet, the perfect treat
for a girl who was just learning to use alcohol. Most adults graduated from sweet
brandy to sweet red wines to dry red wines to white wines. When they were
trying to show the world that they were beautiful, they drank sparkling wines.
The choice of beverages was the best way to guess the sophistication of a girl. He
would have guessed that Phoebe preferred white wines, or maybe beer.
There were a few things that he was confident of. He was not completely
certain, but he believed of Phoebe that:
•
She didn’t talk to her girlfriends about her underwear.
•
She was not flattered when fellows complimented her on her underwear.
•
The most heated arguments she had were with her mother.
•
She kept her hormones to herself.
It was important to decide whether he should pour her beverage in the
appropriate container. He happened to own a couple of matched brandy snifters
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and a complete set of wineglasses. They were not cheap either. They were real
crystal, unseamed, thin walled, and bright sounding. He hesitated to use them,
since they were ostentatious. He would have much preferred that she see him as
the playful sort who would serve fine wine in plastic glasses, decorated with
images of movie heroes. That would probably seem self–consciously
unsophisticated. If somebody did that to him, he would know that it was an
attempt to impress him by trying not to impress him.
She would expect him to pour the drinks and then sit beside her on the
sofa. Nature dictated that the fellow sit next to the gal at the beginning of the
ritual. Phoebe might be different, but she could not defy nature, so she would
expect him to join him there on the couch. Instead, he would start to return to the
upholstered chair where he had been sitting, forcing her to pat her hand on the
space beside herself.
He would look directly into her eyes for the first time ever. Then he would
sit where she asked him to, leaving about a butt–width of space between them.
He would play with his glass, spinning its stem between his fingers. She would
ask him some kind of question, something that had nothing to do with the flow
of the evening.
Had he ever been outside of the country?
Had he ever bought blue jeans that didn’t have a name tag?
Could he remember learning how to talk?
Had he ever worked in a factory? What about a restaurant?
She wouldn’t be asking as though she had any particular reason, just
because she wanted to know. What difference did it make if he worked in a
factory, a restaurant, a coal mine, a movie theater, a raisin packing plant, a parts
warehouse, a bookstore, or a bait shop? Would his answer provide her with
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some kind of information about his prospects? Was she going to decide
something based on his answer?
Whatever the question was, he would tell her that he didn’t want to
answer. He had to…no…he…. He would quickly close the space between them,
put his arm around her, and pull her towards himself. She might ask him what
he was doing, as though his actions came as a complete surprise to her. He
would tell her he was sorry. No, he wouldn’t apologize. Sure, she would claim to
appreciate kindness and gentility, but she wasn’t that different from every other
girl. She wanted him to tell her to shut up and let him have his way.
Before she had a chance to argue, he would cover her mouth with his
own. There were a hundred things she could do then if she really wanted to
protest. She could bite him; she could yank her head free; she could scratch him;
she could knee him; she could speak the words into his mouth that she was
going to call the police; she could cry. But she wouldn’t do any of those things.
She would quietly succumb.
He would have guessed that sex didn’t occupy many of her thoughts. She
would not want to participate in anything at all unusual, anything that required
thought of either herself or the guy she was with. When she thought about those
things at all, it was not with disgust, offence, or even distaste. It was more with
amusement. Why in the world, she would wonder, would somebody spend their
time, their money, and their energy on activities that were plainly preposterous?
Why would anyone, in anticipation of sex, snap whips, tie knots, twist bodies,
roll over, kneel, sit, stand, lie down, scream, moan, jump, stroke, strike, pat, pet,
caress, spit, and spin? All right, she would think, if that’s part of this living thing,
let’s go ahead and do it, but do you have to waste so much time?
But that would be when she would reveal herself. She seemed to not
know that she was gorgeous, that she was nearly irresistible. But she was bright
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enough to know that a girl who was not attractive could not afford to cavalierly
dismiss any man’s desires just because she thought they were silly or a waste of
time.
That was it. That was what so unusual and appealing about Phoebe. She
had invented a unique style of dishonesty. She had completely adopted the
manner of one who was unappealing. She slouched. She hid her face. She
avoided interaction. She dressed modestly and in a way that exhibited no sense
that anybody would be looking. She wore functional underwear that allowed its
utilitarian outlines to press against her outerwear.
Still, she chose to live her life as the gorgeous girl she really was. She was
particular about whom she saw. He did not know for sure, but he would have
guessed that Chad or Spike or Paul or Buzzsaw:
1. Was at least six feet tall
2. Had been an athlete in high school
3. Enjoyed beer
4. Had sex whenever he wanted it
5. Knew how to repair his own car
6. Held summer jobs as a salesman (appliances, clothing, or cars)
7. Had dated at least one cheerleader
8. Called her by some silly nickname
9. Spent at least one evening a week with his friends and away from her
“Let’s look at the mathematics. Let’s say, very conservatively, a pound a
day. That’s 365 pounds a year. In ten years that’s 3,650 pounds. Let’s say he lived
a round thirty years before you–know–who did you–know–what to our hero.
Just a minute and I’ll figure this out…that is exactly 10,950 pounds, almost five
and a half tons.” He wrote the number on the blackboard. “Let me repeat that:
Five and a half tons of dung. That’s a lot to hide. Now, don’t forget that back
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then there weren’t any sewage treatment plants. There weren’t even any sewers.
There weren’t any flush toilets. Certain parts of the world had some plumbing
arrangements—Rome, Athens, some parts of China and Africa. But that was not
the case in Nazareth. It was not the case in any of what we now call the Galilee.
Where is it? What happened to it? Let’s assume for a minute that we could
identify any of the leavings from anybody at all who lived during those times…”
He wondered what one thing he could know about her that would make
him feel complete. It would certainly be nice to know how her last boyfriend felt,
the one before Buzz or Spinky or Paco, because then he would know what it felt
like to be over her.
But that was too simple. He should hope to find out something that
nobody would ever think of. He would want to know what her brain smelled
like. That was something nobody ever knew about anybody, at least not while
they were alive. It was something he would hope to know about her. It was also
one of the questions that he would think seriously before he ever asked her. He
couldn’t imagine what made him think of that. It was just so fearsomely
unromantic, and, yet, it was obscenely intimate. “Ever since I first saw you, I’ve
wondered what your brain smelled like.”
No, that would never work. Such a question didn’t have the comfort of
asking what she was thinking. She had probably asked that question herself of
some fellow. It was standard patter. Even she didn’t know how her brain
smelled. Nobody did. In fact, most people weren’t aware of any of their own
odors.
It was crazy. No, he had to come up with a question that was much saner
than that, but one that she had never heard before. It had to be a question that
was unique not for its boldness, its crudity, its humor. It had to be a question that
demanded a response as complex as she was. Still, he couldn’t ask her what she
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thought about life or what she thought happened to us after we died. He
couldn’t ask her anything about her body, although that was certainly the thing
about her that most interested him.
Ah, he didn’t really have to ask her anything, at least nothing profound.
The questions would come. What was important was that he be able to leave
every encounter with her feeling she had a good time. It was important that she
remain interested. It would be even better if she was mystified, fascinated, or
enthralled. He had come to realize, though, that there was no appropriate place
in a conversation to let her know that he was curious about how her brain
smelled.
Despite her independence and her sophistication, she would have
assumed the worst, that he intended to find out for himself. She would not be
thinking of some poetic interpretation of what he meant. She would be looking
for some escape, assuming that he, somehow, intended to expose her brain
vapors to his nose. And there was certainly no way he could do that without
jeopardizing her well–being.
Besides, there was no question that would make him seem mysterious.
The most enticing thing would be for him to not care about her at all. That was
how it worked. Talk about faith. In his life, what he had to learn was to trust that
she would notice him even if he did nothing to attract her. She may have carried
herself more simply than most. She may have pretended that she was shy. She
may have persuaded others that she thought herself homely, clumsy, luckless,
and unattractive. But the truth was that, interesting though she may have been,
she was not unique in the history of the planet. In all of time there had never
been a beautiful girl who did not know she attracted fellows, and Phoebe was
not the one who changed that.
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It would not work to say that all of those men had pursued her out of
sympathy or that the only ones who were interested had no other options. She
could no longer dismiss Buddy or Hal or Glumpy as the one who got stuck with
her.
As much as she yearned to be with a fellow, though, he would have
guessed that strong emotions had little to do with her desire. She probably
wasn’t particularly interested in sex. She never was severely smitten. She never
stayed awake nights, dreaming of how handsome some guy was. Her only
desire, he would have guessed (supposed, bet) was to be able to utter the phrase
“my boyfriend.” Later, she would get the same pleasure from being able to speak
of “my husband.”
If she had learned one thing, it was that safety was important. She had
learned long ago that life came in steps, each one important.
1. The first step was to grow breasts.
2. The second was to coyly hide them so that she would attract the most
sincere of fellows.
3. The third was to learn to pretend that she was just average in all ways.
4. The fourth was to claim that nobody was interested in her.
5. The fifth was to select from the hundreds of guys who, believing that
they were her lone suitors, courted her.
6. The sixth was to casually mention her boyfriend in conversations, so
people would know there existed such a creature.
That was as far as she had come so far, but the other steps would come.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth steps might have to be repeated several times before
she was able to take…
7. The seventh step, which was to settle with the proper fellow. She could
then casually mention “my husband.”
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8. The eighth step was having kids, having affairs, having her husband
have affairs, and getting divorced, at which point she could talk about
“my ex–husband.” She would then have to repeat the fourth, fifth and
sixth steps a few times, reach the seventh and eighth steps, and move
on to the ninth step.
9. The ninth step was living her life, mentioning her husband every now
and then, watching her diet, helping him through his final illness and
all the small illnesses before that one, and dying herself.
The first step had come easily for her, at least compared to some of her
friends. Of course, there was a certain amount of embarrassment, which was
more than offset by the opportunity to shop for new clothes at least once a
month. Even her father, who was careful of the pennies, probably understood
that developing daughters cost money. After the eighth step she might have to
have some work done to make sure they were still serving their purpose, but,
barring a surprise between now and the eighth step, they should be good for
awhile.
The second step came almost as easily as the first. While her friends were
emphasizing, posturing, and enhancing, she found it very natural to move her
shoulders forward and her head downward, as though she were a bad magician
making the magic bumps disappear.
The third and fourth steps were not quite as easy as the first two. When
males of all ages leered at her, it was hard to pretend that they were looking at
her imperfections. Still, she learned. Once she had perfected that trick, it became
easy to tell the world that nobody was interested. All she had to do was tell
everybody she knew that she was lonely and nobody was or would ever be
interested in her. Those who didn’t care would ignore her; those who did would
ask her out.
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She would soon have all the boyfriends she could handle, and she would
make her choice (steps five and six). Since she had not yet taken steps seven,
eight, and nine, nobody could tell how she would fare with them.
Although she would never have to repeat the first step, it might happen
that she would have to undergo surgery of some kind to reestablish the
magnificence of her breasts. Even the best fitted of foundation garments would
only work while they were worn. The surgery would most likely occur some
time during step eight. Either then or between the eighth step and the return to
step four. The important point of each step was to maintain her spontaneity,
which was her greatest asset.
“…without any hope. Isn’t it fun to speak of hopelessness? Our man, here
he was heading off to a certain death. Remember, this wasn’t one of the
comfortable deaths that our politicians and theologians discuss all the time. This
one would make even the toughest hero in the world say, ‘Ouch.’
“Now this wasn’t one of those maybe–yes–maybe–no things. They had
him surrounded. There wasn’t any way out of it. Just think of that. It was certain
that he was going to die a horrible, protracted, painful death. What did he have
to hope for? I want you to sit there and imagine that for awhile.
“I want each of you to close your eyes for a few seconds. Now picture
yourself walking in pain. Exactly what that pain would be I’ll leave to you. I
don’t want to get too kinky here.” He smiled at an art major in the second row.
“What are you hoping for? Now, before you start thinking about that, I want to
repeat that there is no chance whatsoever that somebody will rescue you, so
don’t think about hoping for that. I’m going to be quiet for a couple of minutes
now, while you think about what ‘without any hope’ might mean. Then I want
you to imagine our hero being without any hope.” He closed his eyes gently so
that the class would understand that that was they were supposed to be doing,
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closing their eyes and thinking about what he had just said. Then he opened
them and stared at the same art major, the one in the second row, whose dark
hair curled down over her perfectly rounded breasts.
“If you are picturing this the way I imagine you are, then you have some
idea of what it means to be without any hope. I’ve got a feeling that even those
who haven’t—what’s that phrase?—oh yes, accepted Christ as their own
personal savior don’t picture him as a man without any hope. There are plenty
ways to look at that. He could have known that he was going to a better place.
He could have known he wasn’t going to be gone for long. He could have known
that what was happening to him meant something beyond his death. Or…or he
could have been aware of what he was leaving behind, that five and a half tons
we talked about. So what? Why would that give him any hope? A few seconds
ago, when I asked you to imagine, did you think about the tonnage you would
leave behind?”
How free would she allow herself to be to assure herself the opportunity
to be the first to leave? There were plenty or opportunities with Pete or Guy or
Hartley. She would have pretended to enjoy the three days in a bed game,
laughed at its absurdity. “Okay, we’ll have an ice chest with some food in it right
next to the bed and we’re going to stay here for three days.”
So they would kid each other about this silly game for awhile. They would
have sex, but it would be the happy kind, where people laugh in the middle,
maybe even stop for a few minutes to play other games and return to what they
were doing. They would both be sweaty all over their bodies.
Afterwards, she would say she had to go to the bathroom. He would
shake his finger at her and tell her they made a deal and he was going to hold her
to it. She would start to get up anyhow, and he would pull her back in that
playful way that the two had long ago agreed was all right. She wanted that
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agreement and the half dozen others they had. Those understandings were what
bound the two of them together, or at least what bound him to her.
Although it was not in her nature to be playful, she would on this one
occasion move out of her ordinary character. She would straddle his stomach
and pee, allowing the fluid to splash and flow onto his belly, his blankets, his
sheets, and his mattress. Although it was far too late for him to enjoy the first
fruits of the pleasure of her body, he would be the one who persuaded her to
abandon her inhibitions, to introduce her to the joys of insanity.
When she was done, he would flip her onto her back and warn her not to
move, as he returned the favor. He would stand on the ruined bed, aim, and
splash the length of her body, shaking the last bit off as she blinked in a
harrowing combination of horror and hilarity. The two of them would cry and
laugh, a condensed version of the range of emotions that true lovers were
supposed to feel over their lives.
He would say they ought to get up and take showers, but now it would be
her turn to invoke the agreement they had made. They would spend the next
couple of days doing everything either of them ever hoped to do with another
body, even things that hurt. By the end of their time, they would arise, covered
with filth, sweat, crumbs of food. They would look at the bed and shake their
heads at the mess they had made. He would ask her what he should do with the
soiled leavings. It wasn’t much of a question, since the only possible question
would be to take it all directly to the dump.
They would shower together, recounting their recent adventure. He
would be all the more smitten with her. For a girl who appeared to be shy,
cynical, unworldly, pretty, and frightened of the world, she sure was game. She
would help him take the debris of the past three days to the landfill.
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Both would go home to sleep. A couple of days later he would call her
and start to recount what they had done. She would tell him that she didn’t care
to see him any more. Except she would tell him in a way that would leave him a
little bit of pride. She would tell him not that she was bored, but that she was
afraid of her feelings. She would not realize that she was only increasing his
fascination with her. Or maybe that would be exactly why she did it.
“Have you ever seen how high you could jump? Let’s see here.” He raised
his arm and bounded upward, dislodging one of the acoustical tiles. “Now that
was pretty easy for me, because I’m blessed with the gift of height. Is there
somebody shorter here? One of you ladies? Never mind. I know you’re probably
worried about your…um…femininity.” He was looking directly at Phoebe.
Would she accept his challenge? “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just pretend. Now I
didn’t have any trouble at all knocking that tile loose. If one of you girls there
had tried, you might have had a little more trouble.
“I’m not trying to insult anyone here, but I suspect that there are actually
some cheerleaders in the room with us. Am I right? Show of hands. I thought so.
I’m surprised none of you volunteered. I’ve got a feeling that one of you
cheerleaders would be able to jump high enough to hit them. Can any of you see
where I’m going with this?
“I’m probably still being a little bit too obscure. We have a range of
abilities here when it comes to jumping. Some of us begin with an advantage.
Some have the leg strength to spring higher than the rest of us. Some of us have
no interest, no native talent, and no acquired skills that would allow us to jump
high. That isn’t anything new. But here’s what’s interesting. Despite that huge
range of differences, there isn’t a soul among us who couldn’t find a way to
move that tile. Those who can’t jump can use a stick or stand on a chair or even
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ask one of us tall people to move it. Moving that tile is something that everybody
in this room can do without too much trouble.
“Now, what about putting it back in place? We’re even more equal at that.
I’m taller than average, but I can’t just jump up and replace the tile. It takes too
much finesse, too much manipulating to do in the fraction of a second when I’m
in the air. We all would have to find another way to get up there, and, more
importantly, stay up there long enough to line up that ceiling tile and drop it into
place.” He held his hands at his sides, moving them up and down as though they
were scales. “Equality and inequality. Inequality and equality. You see, we share
our inequalities just as we share our equalities. That might sound strange to
some of you, but,” and he puffed a fraction of an ironic laugh, “Not as strange as
some of the things I’ve already told you. I’ve got a feeling that if you are still
with me it’s because you must either be seeing some of what I’m saying or you’re
too tired to get up and leave.”
Wait, there was a sudden movement. Had his words brought her back to
consciousness? She pulled her shoulders up. She didn’t do that very often, but,
when she did, it was worth the sight. Her blouse stretched over her breasts.
He supposed that:
1. She had two brothers, one of whom was older and one younger than
she.
2. She had one sister, who was younger than she was but older than her
younger brother was.
3. Her mother and father had separated once for a few weeks before she
was born, but they found they were more miserable apart than they
had been together.
4. Her mother had a crazy aunt, and no brothers or sisters.
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5. Her father had two brothers, one of whom had played football in high
school and the other of whom owned a refrigerator store at which the
other worked.
6. Her mother had actually earned only four paychecks in her entire life.
They had all come from the same office job, which she decided was a
much sillier way to survive than having a husband.
7. Her sister was very shy and got pregnant before she was out of high
school, claiming that she couldn’t possibly be pregnant.
8. She was close to the brother who owned the refrigerator store until he
fixed her up with his best friend, who prepared for the date by getting
drunk, drank the entire time they were together, shamelessly belched
at least once every minute, stood behind her, mashed himself into her
butt–crack, grabbed her breasts, licked her face, and asked her to
honestly admit that she was impressed with him.
9. Until she got bored, she was close to her sister because they shared,
you know, girl stuff.
10. She was never close to her other brother. She suspected he was really
adopted.
Her shoulders dropped to their normal low position, but before they did,
she leaned forward a little bit, creating a crease between the second and third
button. He could see that she wore a plain white brassiere. He knew it. She
would not wear undergarments to please a world that would never see them.
She was not one of those who would later claim that she had her cosmetic
surgery to make herself feel better. She wasn’t one to kid herself. She might have
an appendectomy to make herself feel better, or a root–canal, or a spinal fusion.
That would make her feel better eventually. But getting sliced across the cheeks
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and under the eyes, having the flesh pulled loose from its attachments and
pulled back only to be restitched would not make her feel better.
She was smart enough to understand that the purpose of such a procedure
was not to make her feel better. She would not lie to herself or to anybody else by
saying this was for herself. She knew that she wouldn’t care what she looked like
if she were the only person in the world. The truth was that she would have
cosmetic surgery only to make herself more attractive for others. More
specifically, she would have the surgery to make herself more attractive to some
guy who might take a liking to her, want to be with her, want to take care of her.
As long as she could have a large selection, why should she undergo that
torture? Make herself feel better? Was that somebody’s idea of a joke?
The trick would be to get her onto a bus, a crowded bus. Or maybe a train,
either one, as long as it was crowded. He would have to somehow maneuver the
situation so that he was sitting next to her. That would be easy if they got on
together, but that would be a different episode. No, he would somehow have to
find himself seated next to her on a crowded bus. He would be close to her, but
not touching, not until a tired passenger insisted on squeezing onto the same
bench. Then, their thighs would be touching. She would not notice at first, since
it was a public, disinterested touch, but he would concentrate, hoping to feel the
blood pulsing through her arteries. It would be several minutes before he would
be able to tell if the rushes he felt were hers or his own.
She wouldn’t even bother to be nervous about their contact, since this was
how things worked on crowded buses. It was just a couple of people on public
transportation whose outer thighs were touching. He would inadvertently
tighten the contact when the bus jostled at a bump or a stop sign.
The big moment would come at a busy stop, where people were jostling
one another right in front of where she sat next to him. His hand would slip over
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her thigh and move up high. If the weather was warm, her pants would be thin
and offer the most intimate contact, but if it was warm, the flapping coats of the
other passengers would make it harder for her to identify what it was that was
touching her.
Or…or…what if he got on a bus when she was already seated? What if
she was quietly weeping? That could be the best opportunity he might ever have.
Right now she was sitting impassively, listening, pretending to listen to Professor
Chrisler. It was hard to see her as she looked now and imagine her sitting on a
bus, weeping, but it was a picture worth forcing.
•
He could click his tongue at her.
•
Approach her and shake his head.
•
Ask her what’s wrong.
•
Tell her that he is sad sometimes too.
•
Kiss her hand.
•
Solicit suggestions for long–lasting mascara.
•
Shake his head and tell her with a smile that she was making him
nervous.
•
Let her know that this might be the perfect time to have a drink with
him.
He would not offer her a tissue, wipe her cheek, ask her what was wrong,
little soldier, say anything that a grandmother, a psychiatrist, a pastor, or a close
friend would say. That was one great thing about Phoebe: she could make a
fellow think without thinking herself.
“I’m about to ask you all to give me an answer to the very blunt question
I’ve been getting at since the beginning. If any of you are easily offended, this
might be the time to get up and walk out of here. One thing you should know
about me by now is that I’m not afraid to offend anyone. Another thing you
85
should know is that I’m not easily offended. That includes not being offended by
any of you walking out on me.”
His eyes darted from one of the pretty young ladies to the next. He didn’t
seem to spend more time locking Phoebe’s eyes than any of the others.
“Takers? If not, then here it goes. What happened to Jesus’s shit? Should I
ask that again? What happened to Jesus’s shit? I can warn you all right now that
we can get a whole lot more graphic than that. In fact, I’ll do better than that.
Before we’re through, we definitely will get more graphic.” He was wrapping an
elastic band around his hand. Then he pretended to shoot it at one or the other of
his students. Eventually, he released it upwards so it snapped into the acoustical
tile and fell to the floor.
Finn Crowley glanced at his notebook, where he had noted the substance
of his class:
•
Good to be sitting to the left of Phoebe so he could see into the
opening of her shirt.
•
Chrisler an asshole.
•
Jesus shit.
•
Wants us to think he’s cool.
•
Won’t give regular exams.
•
Grades = sex = grades.
•
He thinks he’ll change our lives.
•
Phoebe looks better than Chrisler sounds.
•
Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe
Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe.
•
She probably laughed when most people would have been
embarrassed.
•
Logic whatever we say it is.
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•
Chrisler doesn’t know the difference between being cool and being
pathetic.
•
People the same now as they were 2,000 years ago.
•
Jesus played harmonica in blues band?
Would she start to panic if she didn’t have children by the time she was
thirty? Or would she not want to have kids at all? Reasons she should have them:
•
She didn’t have a bad temper.
•
She was patient.
•
Her body was well designed for bearing and nursing babies.
•
She hid her boredom well, at least well enough that Chrisler didn’t call
her on it.
•
She would be able to find a way to remain intelligent while being
around babies.
•
Having babies would help her filter out the selfish men around her.
•
She could prove to her mother that she could raise children as well as
anyone else.
•
Once she got past the pain, the expense, the lack of sleep, the messes,
the loss of independence, and the complete alteration of her life, she
would appreciate how wonderful this new little creature was.
There were at least as many reasons for her not to want to become a
mother:
•
She would not have the opportunities to shyly display herself to the
world as she did now.
•
The child’s father would think she was fat, ugly, misshapen.
•
More stretch marks.
•
She might ruin the poor kid’s life, just as her mother predicted.
•
She could no longer claim she was a virgin.
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•
Blissful boredom would no longer exist.
•
She would have to buy clothes for someone besides herself.
•
Motherhood would be the end of the youthful games she was just
beginning to master.
It was hard to tell if Phoebe cherished her youth. She behaved as though
she would just as soon have been middle aged, but she also acted as though she
didn’t think she was anything special. She pretended that she didn’t care about
anything. She seemed to be unfazed by Chrisler’s performance.
She might have had something special, but she had not and would not
conquer cell biology. Oh, she might do all right in the class about cell biology,
but her own cells would not defy the chemical reactions that controlled every
living organism. It certainly made her much less intimidating to think of her as
an organism. There were plenty things that a person could do to an organism
that he couldn’t do to another person:
•
Step on it.
•
Juggle it.
•
Breed it.
•
Cross breed it.
•
Buy or sell it.
•
Rename it.
•
Kill it.
•
Keep it in a cage.
•
Infect it.
There was a soothing satisfaction in thinking of Phoebe as just another
complex chemical reaction. She would burn out eventually. There were many
things that might prevent her from naturally completing her reaction. Or some
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catalyst might impose itself, causing the reaction to slow to inertia or speed to
completion.
He guessed that she was a leg wrapper. That was, during sex, she
wrapped her legs around her partner. That only would count if she were lying
on her back and he was atop her. Some girls lay softly supine as their men
conducted their business. That was the feminine way to behave. If Phoebe was
anything, she was feminine. She was also quiet, dignified, impassive, and sweet.
She bore no scars. She sported no emotions. It would not make sense for her to be
a leg wrapper, but he sensed that was exactly what she was. Unlike others,
though, she was not a back scratcher, a loud screamer, a gaspy breather, a name
whisperer, a hair puller, or a lip biter. She never kissed, but allowed others to
kiss her. Her tongue remained limp in her mouth. But her legs wrapped, her
thighs and calves tightened, and her toes curled. That was his guess.
“Are you ready to hear a little bit more about me? I’m not telling you this
just because I’m an arrogant bastard who loves to talk about himself. Actually, I
guess all of you will have to judge that for yourselves. I have been telling you a
lot of things that some of you might consider speculative, harebrained, or just a
little bit too controversial for your particular taste. That is why I think it’s
important to tell you enough about myself so that you can decide for yourselves
whether or not to believe a word I say. Deal? Deal.
“I was eighteen years old before I got my driver’s license. Since then I’ve
had, I’d say, a couple hundred tickets for just about every illegal thing you can
do in a car. I’ve been suspended at least a dozen times. On three different
occasions I’ve had my license supposedly permanently revoked. Not once during
these events have I ever had the services of an attorney. Still, as some of you
know and others will eventually find out, I drive my car almost every day. If you
ever get to see inside my wallet, you will see a driver’s license.
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“So, now you know that I have done some things in my life that were not
completely on the honest side of the law. Some day I might tell you about some
of the others, but let’s just stick with those little traffic disagreements for now.
Let’s assume for the moment that I actually committed such dastardly deeds as
speeding, making illegal turns, passing on the shoulder, trying to outrun an
officer of the law, sneaking an MG Midget onto a ferry boat without paying,
sideswiping an ambulance, or failing to renew my license plates for five or six
years. We’re just supposing now, of course. Let’s even say I pled guilty most
times and didn’t show up for many of the court dates.
“Now mind you, the things I’ve just mentioned are just the traffic
infractions that I might have committed. There could be others. I could be a cattle
rustler, a counterfeiter, a barroom brawler. In fact, as far as you know I could be
guilty of just about anything you could imagine and some things you couldn’t.
You can assume that I haven’t been executed yet, but that doesn’t mean that I
haven’t done something that would earn me such a fate.
“So, is anybody here willing to answer my question? Does any of that
information tell you anything about whether or not you should believe anything
I tell you? I’ve been talking about some profound concepts that might attack
some of your beliefs. I can assure you that I am not completely psychotic. Or, if I
can’t personally assure you of that, I think you must know that I would not have
this job if there weren’t something vaguely rational about me. I know what
you’re thinking: if they would hire somebody with such a massive criminal
record, what would prevent them from hiring somebody who was insane?” He
turned his head aside and shielded his mouth in a whisper. “They don’t know
about my driving.”
Nobody would have thought of Phoebe as obese. Some would have called
her round, shapely, or even plump. But they would intend to indicate the robust
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health of a peasant, not the sloth of a neurotic over–eater. She might comment
about her weight, but would never despair. She would not even worry, since she
didn’t want anybody to think she cared about how she looked, about whom she
impressed, or which fellows she would attract.
In the shower she never did anything sensual. She scrubbed herself, using
whatever soap she happened to grab at the supermarket. She shaved her legs
and under her arms, since that was much less trouble than trying to explain why
she was hairy. Nobody would believe she was rebelling against anything, since
she never had before. She didn’t enjoy shaving, but she enjoyed making excuses
even less.
Her parents probably had pictures of her in albums. They devoted a page
to each of her first twelve months, including the only naked photos of her that
existed. After that the pages of pictures represented three-month intervals. Then
they came every year until graduation. Phoebe borrowed the album once to
show to Chad or Sam or Leyden. He looked at them and kidded her about the
baby pictures, where she splashed in the tub.
He would ask her if there were any pictures of her like that since she grew
up. She would roll her eyes at his immaturity. He would ask her what it would
take for her to let him snap her naked. She wouldn’t answer him, because any
answer at all would only be the starting point for negotiation. He would offer
scenarios. What if somebody threatened to kill her or her family? What if she
needed money to save her grandmother? What if she was too drunk to know
what she was doing? What if she fell so madly in love that she would do
anything for the fellow?
She would explain that she had never and would never become so
attached to somebody that she would do something she didn’t want to do. Such
a pledge would make her an even more challenging conquest. So, he would
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begin to bargain with her. What about a shot of her in her underwear? She would
walk away, not in disgust, but in boredom.
He would catch up to her and tell her he was only kidding. Didn’t she
have a sense of humor? Again, she would decline to respond. He would explain
that no answer was also an answer. She would tell him he was crazy. He would
smile, but she would shake her finger at him and tell him she didn’t mean crazy
in any loveable, romantic, funny, or endearing way. She would also explain that
she was not being coy, that she was not insulting him just to engage him or to
interest him.
When he turned to leave, he would make sure she saw the sadness in his
face. His peripheral vision would hope to see the tiniest bit of consternation, but
she would have gone on to her next adventure. Or, maybe, that evening she
would call to apologize. That would be when he told her that he was ever so
sorry for having offended her. Kidding around was just his way of coping with
his situation. She would ask him what situation he was talking about. He would
tell her that it was kind of her to pretend that everyone they knew wasn’t talking
about his condition? Condition? He would offer an ironic chuckle. She would
swear she had no idea what she was talking about, and she would appreciate it if
he would enlighten her.
He would tell her he couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. After all, he
was not so oblivious that he didn’t notice the people around him, staring. He
would acknowledge that he had never noticed her among them. Would he just
stop playing games and tell her what condition he was talking about? Well, all he
could say was that he intended to enjoy whatever time he had left. He was not
going to let this thing destroy his spirit. Was he talking about some kind of an
illness? He didn’t know her well enough to tell her everything that was
happening in his life. He would thank her for calling and hang up the phone
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before he lost his composure. He expected her to call back. If she did, he would
not answer the phone.
The next time he saw her, a plastic pill bottle would be bulging in the
pocket of his dungarees. They would have just enough aspirin in them to make a
sound when he walked. Every half-hour or so, he would excuse himself. After
the third time the pills would no longer make a sound, so she would know that
he had taken the last of them. He would look at his watch every few minutes and
then say that he would have to leave.
She would ask him if there was something she wanted to tell her,
something about his health. He would just smile and say no.
Eventually, her stoicism would succumb to her curiosity. She would have
to know what was wrong with him. She wasn’t stupid, she would say. She knew
he was taking medicine of some kind. Was he involved in illegal drugs? Illegal
drugs? No, never. He didn’t even enjoy alcohol. He didn’t smoke. Did she think
he was going to be taking odd chemicals for fun?
Well, if it wasn’t for fun, there was some other reason. It had to be
something to do with his health. The reflex response would be to tell her that he
didn’t believe she cared one way or the other about his health, but that would
make him sound as though he felt sorry for himself. No, he would just grin. It
couldn’t be one of those courageous smiles that arises from eternal faith. It would
be the hearty grin of a man who enjoyed life and intended to continue enjoying it
as long as the chemicals reacted in his cells.
She would tell him she knew he was having some kind of health problems
and just wanted to let him know that she would be there if he needed something.
He would thank her, but he was doing just fine. Was he claiming that he didn’t
have any health problems? And, remember, he wasn’t allowed to lie.
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He would ask her if she wanted him to prove how healthy he was. She
would pause for a minute. Was this all some kind of a game? She did not
appreciate being fooled. Not like this. Well, then, she shouldn’t have asked. He
was doing just fine. He appreciated her concern, but he didn’t appreciate her
games any more than she liked being fooled. She would insist that all she had
ever done was to be concerned. If that was what he called a game, then she was
very sorry. It was very important that he be the one to walk away. That way, she
would have to approach him later, if only to apologize. It would have to be in
some private place, where he would listen patiently, nod, and thank her. But he
could not be too grateful, because it was important that she ask if he was still
angry with her. He would hug her platonically. When she hugged him back, he
would begin to kiss her.
She would melt.
“Why is it that human beings are able to hop on one foot? Is that some
divine adaptation that might come in handy if we ever lose a leg? Those of us
who can remember to our early years can recall a thousand games where we
were required to hop on a single foot. As we age, many of us lose the flexibility
to do handsprings, somersaults, splits, and back bends.” He winked at a
cheerleader in the second row. “But for some reason or another, we are able to
hop on one foot well into our nineties. It is a childhood ability that we retain our
entire lives. Does anybody have an explanation for that? Hands?
“I suspect that this is one more question that you have heard in this class
that you have never heard anywhere before. Do I have any ideas about what the
answer might be? Not really. But I want all of you to think about something:
knowledge lies in questions as much as it does in answers. Even if you never
answer a question, you can be an intelligent, educated, erudite human being if
you are able to ask wise questions. Am I making sense? I’ll be the first to admit
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that sometimes I don’t make sense to everyone. I take a certain pride in that fact.
In fact, I am thinking about your final exam in this course. I wouldn’t give them
at all if I didn’t have to, but I’ve got to get my thrills somehow, and looking at
what you good people have to say is as good a way as any.
“I was thinking of asking you to write down a couple dozen questions.
How would that be for a final exam? You would give questions instead of
answers. Like that idea? I guess I can’t do that. I mean, once I tell you about it, I
can’t do it any more. That would be cheating. On second thought, every teacher
you’ve ever had has given you the answers to your tests. It’s just that you get so
much other information along with the answers you never know what to expect.
Do we call that cheating?”
Not once had she glanced back towards him. She might not even be aware
of his presence. He would have imagined that she was one of those people who
was able to sense eyes watching her. Maybe so many eyes had stared at her that
she no longer noticed them. Even for somebody with her composure, sanity
could disappear instantly.
It was hard to imagine her insane. It was much easier to picture somebody
who was passionate, artistic, or intellectual as going crazy. They were more
intense, more imaginative. The visions that had once inspired their creativity
would now impose themselves unwanted, forcing their victims to swat them
away, to scream at them, to punish them with fingernails, fists, knives, clubs,
poisons, or firearms. Those people’s faces would distort themselves in fear, in
anger, in desperation, in dread, in disquiet. They tightened their fists and
clenched their teeth. They constantly twisted their bodies at the waist, back and
forth. They grunted and hissed. Phoebe probably never even raised her voice.
Anger forced her to make sarcastic remarks. She never became sad, just angry.
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Was there somebody in the room for her to watch just as he watched her?
Maybe she was looking at him. When the clouds outside moved away, she could
see a reflection in Professor Chrisler’s watch. It was possible her eyes were that
good. But if she wanted to see him the same way he saw her, she would need a
more constant reflection than those glimpses she got when the watch was in a
certain spot.
In order for her to see him, he would have to find the path, and he would
be able to see her eyes just as she watched him. The slate at the front of the room
offered no reflection. But there was a flip chart at the corner of the room. Chrisler
never used it, but it was there. The strip of metal that secured the paper pad had
a sheen. He could almost make her eyes out in that strip. Not quite, but her eyes
could have seen him. Her eyes could not look the way they did and not have
better than average vision. Even though he had to half–imagine her eyes, he was
sure she could see him.
He nodded his head slightly, hoping she would see him, that she would
understand that he was telling her yes, that she would acknowledge that she had
seen him, that she would confess that she had been watching him. Or, he might
confront her, telling her that he noticed that she was watching him. How could
she have been watching him, when he sat behind her? That would be an
admission that she was aware of his presence, that she knew where he sat. If
there was any more obvious invitation, he couldn’t have imagined what it would
have been.
He would boldly take both of her hands in both of his, staring at her. She
would look back at him. She might have been embarrassed or confused, but she
could not take her hands away from his. He would pull her hands toward his
waist. She would gently pull them back towards the neutral territory between
the two of them. He would take advantage of that movement to continue the
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motion until the backs of his fingers were against her body. He would not be so
bold as to allow them to touch her breasts, although he could have. Having
touched her, he would release her, intensify his stare, and walk away. Had she
understood the point?
That would be a good time to forget he had ever seen her. It was always
best to leave at a time of victory. He knew that, if he really could control how
things went between them, he would never leave. There were several things that
might cause other fellows to leave their girlfriends that would never cause him to
leave Phoebe:
•
Losing her looks, whether it was from an accident, old age, or the
attack of a jealous rival.
•
His becoming so accustomed to her that she bored him.
•
Telling him that he was lousy in bed, or that she had no desire for him,
or that he was the size of a bump on stucco. Even if she did so in
public.
•
Reading romance novels.
•
Seeing a counselor.
•
Sleeping with her counselor. Or her gynecologist, her dermatologist,
her best friend’s husband, her worst enemy’s husband, or her own
sister.
•
Constantly asking him if she was still attractive.
•
Stealing his money.
•
Snorting when she laughed.
•
Snoring when she slept.
•
Smelling bad.
•
Pus coming from anywhere on her body.
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•
Insisting on getting a cat, a nasty one who bit and didn’t know what a
litter box was for.
•
Stopping shaving her legs or underarms.
•
Habitual belching.
•
Getting large tattoos.
He had left others. He had left them because he became bored. He had left
them because he couldn’t imagine why he had ever been attracted to them. He
had left them because better opportunities arose. But he would have sworn on
any stakes that he would never leave Phoebe. He just knew that. Actually, those
others, he had not actually left any of them. He just stopped being with them.
They understood. Why incite an ugly exchange? He knew how it could be. For
some reason, they would insist on torturing themselves by asking questions. Is
there someone else? Why? Don’t you understand that we’re supposed to be
together?
Questions demanded answers. There were only two kinds of answers,
those that would insult and those that were dishonest. He did not want to give
either kind. He did not comprehend the rationale behind those women who
insisted on answers. Did they hope to hear him say that they were just too good
for him and he couldn’t stand the guilt any more? Were they after some goodbye
gifts? If they were, they should have hooked up with someone with a little better
bank account than his own.
One thing that he was almost certain of was that Phoebe would never ask
questions. If Nickels or Buzz or McKenzie ever dropped her, she wouldn’t even
care to discuss it with him.
Another guess: There was a time when Phoebe’s mother tried to leave her
father. She boasted to friends that Phoebe had been very supportive of her
decision to return to the true love of her life. Phoebe had said how courageous it
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had been of her mother to stay with her father as long as she had. Yes, Phoebe
was the best daughter a girl could ever hope to have. She understood her better
than her own husband ever had.
Phoebe had found many ways to avoid conversing with her mother. The
most satisfying of those had been to agree. Let mom believe.
“I’m going to mention something else that I’d bet that not many of you
have thought about: Time. Of course, you all have watches. There’s a nice one
hanging around your neck over there.” He winked at the girl in front of Phoebe,
the one whose antique watch dangled from a gold chain and that cleaved her
breasts. “Let’s see now. ‘What time is it?’ ‘What time should we meet for coffee?’
‘It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.’ ‘Time sure flies, now doesn’t it?’ ‘Do
you have time to give me a hand?’
“We talk about time all the time.” He snapped his fingers. “See what I
mean? Time isn’t a new idea. It goes back before man, before there was even a
word for it. Animals measure time by how hungry they are, or how their
gestation is progressing, or by the seasons. They can sense their own heartbeats,
their breaths. I’ll be the first to admit that none of those measures of time are as
precise as even the watches they give away in cereal boxes.
“I know, I’m getting off the subject here. Or am I? Let’s go back to that
time, the year zero, if that’s what you want to call it. As far as we know there
weren’t any watches, not any grandfather clocks, nothing we would recognize
now as a clock. There were versions of calendars, of course. They were, more or
less, day counters. How many days before it started to get cold again? I don’t
want to get into all the geophysics of this. I’ll just let you understand that I know
how the world spins.
“There is one measure of time that seems to be closer to our guts than any
other. Any idea what that is? Anybody care to make a guess? We’re talking about
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a measure of time that isn’t seconds, hours, minutes, days, months, or years. I see
some quizzical looks out there. I suppose that’s why I’m up here and you’re
down there. But that’s fine. Some day some of you might be up here.
“That measure of time is…are you ready for this? Decay. You’re probably
wondering how that could be. If you go to Antarctica, matter might go for years
without rotting away. In some damp tropical forest it might be just a few days.
That is exactly the point I’m making, though.
“Just to make things a little bit less disgusting, let’s take a pork chop for an
example. We can get to the rest of it after we figure out where we’re going. Let’s
say it takes a week of our time for that pork chop to rot away where we sit. If we
took an identical cut of meat to the Everglades, it might take half that time. In
Northern Alaska it might take months.
“But remember, that’s using our measure. If we think of decay as a
measure of time, then, no matter where we go, a rotting pork chop is a rotting
pork chop. You might claim that doesn’t make sense, but let’s look at life back
when our hero was walking the earth. There weren’t meetings or class schedules.
The flow of people’s lives were determined by the course of nature. People did
not need to know when their boss expected them to show up. They needed to
know when it was time to plant. They needed to know when the rainy season
would start. They needed to know when the air would be too moist to keep grain
from molding. They needed to know when their animals would give birth. And,
of course, in the case of our discussion, when their own race would be
reproducing.….”
With a name like Phoebe, she probably endured some teasing when she
was a child. “Phony Phoebe. Me be Phoebe. Phoebe Phobia.” If she was the way
then that she was now, she probably ignored the taunts. In fact, she probably
ignored almost anything about herself that anybody would imagine as teasing.
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That would include her body. Had she had a simpler, less unusual, name, she
might have not been able to endure the guy who could not stop thinking about
her toes, her hair, her breasts, her backside, her nose, her legs, her teeth, her
hands, or her neck.
The way to endear himself to Phoebe would not be to compliment her on
any of the things over which she had no control. She did not demand
compliments on her looks or on her name. The way to win her was by making
her life more interesting, to entertain her, to make her feel intelligent or witty, to
make her crave his presence.
It would not be enough to buy her good times. Treating her to an exciting
movie would not help. Anybody could do that. The same was true of a
restaurant that offered a daring new dining concept. She could catch her own
fish, grill her own steak, chop her own vegetables, mix her own salad, or frost
her own cake without his help. And if it was company she wanted while she was
doing those things, she could find that anywhere. People were confident enough
in the safety of their helicopter rides, their bungee jumping dives, and their
dangerous camping experiences that they found insurance companies to protect
them against any unforeseeable mishaps. The exotic scent experiences, the
oxygen rooms, the adventure franchises were meant for those who craved the
sense of danger without the fear of actually being wounded or killed.
Phoebe was too bright to succumb to such artifices. Whatever he did with
her would have to be without the help of a guide or an insurance policy. She also
would not be satisfied with an activity in which the entire thrill arose from the
danger. Walking through fire just for the experience of testing her courage would
seem silly to her. She might walk through fire to save her goldfish, though.
It was strange; she didn’t seem to yawn very much. Was that because she
was never bored? Never tired? She must have slept well every night. The
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yawning thing would not have been much of a problem, but, by not stretching
her arms upward, she was depriving the world of that special view, the one
where her body was tightened, her breasts raised, her flabbiest spots tautened.
There surely was some way in which he could deprive her of sleep for
several nights to assure her utter exhaustion. But he would have guessed that she
would have stayed home to catch up on any night’s sleep she lost. There was
nothing in her days that approached the importance of her slumbering
peacefully for at least eight of every twenty–four hours.
But something would have to be important enough. If her mother was due
for her transplant operation and an organ became available, she might miss her
rest. So, the trick was to keep her awake for several days, and then to make sure
there was a kidney or a liver available for her mother. That was asking for a lot of
coincidences. And it was asking for them just for the privilege of seeing Phoebe
yawn.
Oh, and it was important that she not cover her mouth, so that he could
see deep into it. It would have to be a long yawn, one that froze her in place for
at least several seconds, long enough for him to examine her body in that state,
long enough for him to see deep into her mouth, long enough for him to imprint
those numerous pictures in his memory.
Some day he might have the luxury of spending his nights preventing her
from sleeping. Some day he would be able to predict when her mother got her
transplant. Some day he would see that body stretched tightly.
As bored as she seemed with life, it was strange that he hadn’t yet seen
her yawn. The reason for that was probably part of her mystery.
That was probably why Milt or Grady or Radney was threatening to leave
her, because he couldn’t keep her interested. It was always handy to have
somebody nearby who was interesting, but much more satisfying to be with
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somebody who found us interesting. He probably tried a million schemes to get
her to react. He announced that he was going to barber college; that he had
invested the inheritance from his grandmother in tropical plants; that he was
going to have the name of every girl he ever slept with tattooed on his arms; that
he had had sex with her sister, her mother, and her brother during a single orgy.
She wouldn’t react to any of his proclamations.
That was when he would attack her. It wouldn’t be one of those mature
attacks where he told her she was a sad excuse for a girlfriend, where he told her
that he finally understood why such a pretty girl had settled for him, where he
told her that she was not much of a companion. No, he would attack her by
grabbing her arms, dragging her to the bed, tying her wrists to the bedposts, and
whipping her with his belt. He would whip her until she screamed. He would
tell her that he wouldn’t stop until she screamed like she meant it. Then, he
would have sex with her, after which he would tell her he was through with her.
She would rub her wounds, but not while he was looking. She would not
even give him the satisfaction of calling him names. She wouldn’t threaten to call
the police, to sue him, to tell his mother, to tell her father, to have him
eliminated, to spread the word about his odd predilections. As he packed
whatever belongings he had at her place, she would not watch him, pretending
she was unconcerned about the direction her life had taken. She would not leave,
so that he wouldn’t think she was unable to bear the sight of him abandoning
her. She could take anything he did to her. And that wasn’t because she was so
attached to him that she would endure anything he inflicted. It was because she
was so bored with him that she would do anything to avoid the nuisance of
telling him no. The few times she had told him no it had taken hours of
argument, persuasion, slapping, screaming, and crying to get on with the rest of
her life.
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Phoebe did things the easy way.
•
She let the guy pay.
•
She let the guy have his way.
•
She let the guy choose the apartment, the furniture, the food, and the
pets.
•
She let the guy drive.
•
She let the guy pick the movie.
•
She let the guy be right.
•
She let the guy leave.
Was it possible…was it somehow possible that Phoebe who had the
unique body, who was able to be gorgeous in a way that other girls weren’t,
whose breasts seemed so flawless, who tried to remain unnoticed, who seemed
so perfect was actually retarded? Was that why she wasn’t reacting to anything
around herself? Was it possible that the irresistible composure was actually
nothing but a lack of brains? Was it possible for her to be beautiful, to have
invented her own form of perfection, and, yet, to be a moron?
If she were completely brainless, she would not have been able to get this
far in school. On the other hand, her stupidity would simplify life for those
around her. How hard would it be to imagine her conversations with her
girlfriends? “Yes, he’s got a great job. Even the parts I’d never tell my mother
about are great. He mixes the best daiquiris I’ve ever had.” Around this place it
was simplest to think of shallowness as being attracted to the Chrislers. Or, for
that matter, to the Chads or Gregs or Steves. But there was the other kind, the
kind that was attracted to the fast living, wealthy fellows who had their own bars
and slept in round beds, but never alone.
“I am going to tell you something about myself that you might not know:
I am not a mathematician. Are you over the shock yet? Okay, but that doesn’t
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mean I don’t know anything about math. There’s something in mathematics
called catastrophe theory. I don’t know all the details. If I did, I’d be a
mathematician, and I just told you that I’m not.
“The general idea, though, is that any kind of movement can lead to
sudden changes called catastrophes. The changes can be physical, like
earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, but they can also be economic, social,
personal, or artistic. Anyone who has been in an earthquake—and I’ve been in
my share of them—can tell you that it seems like an instantaneous event. A
geologist, though, will tell you that the deep geological layers under our feet
have been creaking and moving for long periods of time. That sudden event,
which the mathematicians call a singularity, comes only after all kinds of forces
have been working to create and prime that fault line.
“I can give you another example. One day we wake up to hear on the
news that we won’t be getting any packages today because the drivers went on
strike. From our perspective, that is a sudden event. You don’t have to be a
mathematician—did I mention that I’m not a mathematician?—to realize that the
strike didn’t happen over night. Before the workers stopped driving, there was a
long series of frustrations, demands, negotiations, offers, refusals, and
ultimatums. Yes, the strike, the singularity, itself happened suddenly, but it was
the catastrophic result of many forces working. What we’re talking about when
we say catastrophe is a sudden change in state.
“I’ll bet a few of you can guess where this is leading. And I bet I know
which of you. One of you want to say?” He held his hands at his sides, palms up,
pretending once again demonstrating his balance scale gesture. He locked eyes
with a few of the students. Was one of them Phoebe? It was hard to tell. “Maybe I
was wrong. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. Okay, I’ll give you a hint.
What have we been talking about here? That’s right. You’re getting it.
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“That’s all right. Don’t hurt yourselves. We’re talking about a catastrophe,
a sudden change in state: water freezing, war beginning, a couple breaking up, a
platform collapsing. A change in state.” He nodded, and pulled his arms towards
himself, trying to yank an answer from the class. “Divine and human. That’s
right A change of state from divine to human.
“That leads us to another question. If we are seeing Jesus, who I believe
some of you have claimed as a savior, as fluctuating between the earthbound and
the heavenly, then we also have to discover what gradual forces led to those
catastrophes. A marriage doesn’t suddenly end, no matter what people say in
court. A bridge may seem to collapse suddenly, but that failure is a very gradual
process of rusting, increasing loads, metal fatigue, and loosening fasteners that
finally lead to that single catastrophe. So, my question is: what are those gradual
forces that turn Jesus from human to divine, from divine to human. Do I have
some of those minds working yet?”
Phoebe was either very shallow or very deep. Here, as she sat in three–
quarter profile, she seemed to be too deep to capture with his ponderings. There
was nothing fair about how somebody might think about somebody else, but
Phoebe seemed to be one of those rare ones who could accept that depressing
fact.
He himself was willing to acknowledge that one half of the world’s
population did most of the judging of the other half based on their breasts. The
half that did the judging was not all the same. There were differences in
preferences for size, shape, firmness, resilience, and surface features. One thing
was certain, though, and that was that there was not a man on the planet who
would not be drawn to Phoebe’s breasts.
When she started to have children, they would change. If she nursed
them, they would change even more. When that happened, many of the others
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might lose their attraction for them, but he would still be there for her. Chad or
Cyrus or Aaron might find some excuse for leaving her, but the real reason
would be that her breasts were no longer quite so beautiful. They would be
heavier, and the weight would distort the nipples from their nearly perfect
circular shape to oblongs or even teardrops. Their smoothness would become
more porous. The impressions of fingers would stay for long seconds rather than
immediately recovering.
This view showed their profiles. Once, she had sneezed and they shook.
The movement was small, since she wore sturdy foundation garments. Still, it
was hard not to imagine the liquid waves of tissue that started at her chest wall
and moved towards the outer edges.
Sitting across from her, one day, he would stare at them. He would not
pretend to be looking into her eyes. He would just stare. At first they would be
covered in a light colored plaid blouse. Then, she would be in her underwear,
but somehow that would happen when he wasn’t looking. He would blink, and,
during that instant, the shirt would be gone. Then after a few minutes of
observing their movement, her bra would disappear just as her shirt had. He
would look at them for at least an hour, watching what happened to them as she
breathed or when she stretched. Then, he would touch them. Or why be delicate
about it? He would fondle them for hours. He would trace every spot on them
with his fingers—each finger and both thumbs. He would cup them in his palms
and then squeeze them, hoping that, at least, she would blink to show there were
nerve endings there. His real hope would be that she would tell him to stop. She
wouldn’t shriek; she would ask him tentatively, softly, as though she didn’t
really want him to stop, but that she had to say something. Protesting was an
obligation to her mother.
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Phoebe’s mother probably never worked (or, as was popular to say, never
worked outside the home). Her father was…a roofing contractor who had started
his own business after years of hammering asphalt and cedar shingles himself.
Or a machinist, expert on milling machine, lathe, and grinder, who never learned
the newer computer controlled machines. He then learned drafting, but that job
disappeared too when electronic drafting became popular. He probably drank
when he had the money.
It was hard to tell what kind of parents would raise a daughter like
Phoebe, but there were several occupations that her father certainly never held:
•
Hair designer
•
Philosopher
•
Public accountant
•
Sheriff
•
Medical doctor
•
Ambassador
•
Professional athlete
•
Research chemist
•
Art historian
•
Dog groomer
Whatever he did do, it was probably something that at one time in history
would have been considered most mundane, but now was exotic. He might have
been a blacksmith, a wrangler, a money counter, a sailor, or a lumberjack. He
probably beat up at least one of her boyfriends, because he had to. He probably
threatened co–workers when they were obnoxious, but everybody liked him
anyway, because he was a good guy.
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Phoebe was the kind of cool that, after a while, seemed more like cold.
What started as a challenge for a dozen old boyfriends, eventually became
boring.
Finn would never become bored with her. That was for other fellows. If
she stopped caring for him, he would still care for her. He would still look
forward to lying in bed with her. Still another bet: She slept on her side. Since she
wrote with her right hand, she probably slept on her right side. That was how it
was with him, at least. He was right–handed and slept on his right side. She
would not sleep on her stomach, because it would be too uncomfortable to have
the weight of her body crushing her breasts against the mattress.
She would not sleep on her back either. Lying on her back, even if she was
awake, even if her arms clenched the blanket to her chin, was too exposed a
position to allow her any rest. If she tried to sleep while lying on her back, she
would have nightmares of being violated or of choking because her head fell too
far backwards and closed her air passage.
So, she would lie on her right side.
His masculine distinction would be nestled between her buttocks as she
slept. He would reach over her as she slept, cupping her breast softly. If she
refused to respond when she was awake, he would take it as a challenge to keep
her from doing so as she slept. He knew he would become excited, but he would
not waken her. Instead, he would rub back and forth in her crack as she slept.
He took her for a deep sleeper. He would have bet on it. As he became
more excited, he would be tempted to squeeze her breast more tightly, but it
would be important enough to keep her sleeping that he would restrain himself.
Eventually, he would become too excited to stop. He would hold his breath as
long as he could to avoid waking her with his gasps of pleasure. When he
spurted and squirted onto her back, he would be sure that the wetness would
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awaken her, but it wouldn’t. He would soften the touch on her breast, watching
his juices as they slowly sidled down her back, forming small globules before
drying to a crust. It would strike him how, after a moment like he had
experienced, he usually just wanted to sleep, but, now, with Phoebe, it was
important that he stay awake to see what she did in her sleep. Other girls would
have shrieked and woke up, but not Phoebe.
In the morning, when she awoke, she might feel the dry residue on her
skin. Where did it come from? What was it? She had other things to puzzle over.
Either it would kill her or it wouldn’t. Whatever it was, it would wash away in
the shower.
“Yikes. A catastrophe!” Professor Chrisler adopted a mocking effeminate
tone. “Jesus was God, and now he’s just one of us, and now he’s God again.” He
shook his head in disbelief. “Most catastrophes can wreck your day. That’s what
we think of when we think of a catastrophe. A catastrophe is the same as a
disaster, but without the Red Cross. Well, fair students, that isn’t always how it
is. In fact, if we look at what we’re talking about, a catastrophe can be a godsend.
I’m using that word advisedly.
“Now I’m not asking anybody to accept anything as true. One thing you
should know about me by now is that sometimes the game of truth can be one of
my favorite pastimes. No, all I’m asking you to do is to look at this one
possibility that we’ve been talking about: if there truly is such a thing as a
catastrophe, a special phenomenon called a catastrophe, then there is no greater
example than Jesus Christ. If that sounds too final, too certain, too positive, then
I’ll plead guilty. As most of you have already guessed and some of you…” wink
“might find out if we all get lucky, I am a creature of certainty.
“You see, not only will I say things that you won’t hear anywhere else, but
I will say them positively and without shame. That is why I am putting this all so
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bluntly. Jesus was a catastrophe. You can tell your momma I told you so. You can
tell your father, your doctor, or your preacher. The only one I’d rather you didn’t
tell is my boss. What the hell. You can tell him too if it’ll make you feel better.”
They were more like globes than most girls’, at least the way she wore
them they were. Most girls liked a look where they stood from their chests like
half globes. Hers hung below their center lines, more like heavy balls, drooping
as proudly as other girls’ breasts stood tall. That was just one more thing that
made her different.
What was that formula again? Wait, there were two of them, one for
surface area and one for volume. It was strange how few things he was capable
of understanding, but somehow those formulas came to him. The formula for the
surface area of a globe: 4!r2. The formula for the volume of a globe: 4/3!r3.
This was why God created paper. He would have guessed that each of
them was four inches across. Four inches might not seem like much, but the span
of his hand was just about four inches, and each one would have exactly covered
one of them, so that an observer could not see what was underneath. The radius
was half of that, or two inches. The value of pi was somewhere in one of these
books. They weren’t complete globes, but they were close, at least on her they
seemed that way.
The surface area of one of her breasts was 4 times ! times 2 times 2 or
about fifty and a quarter square inches. The volume was 4/3 times ! times 2
times 2 times 2 or about thirty–three and a half cubic inches. The surface area of
both together was roughly 100.5 square inches and the volume was about 67
cubic inches.
The surface area first: 100.5 square inches was about .7 of a square foot. If
a gallon of pain would cover 350 square feet, it would take 23/1000 of a gallon to
cover her breasts with a coat of paint. Since the paint cans were often optimistic
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about the coverage, it would be wise to allow for a second coat, which would
bring the amount of paint necessary to 46/1000 of a gallon. Also, the estimates on
the paint cans were meant for those who were applying the paint with a brush or
a roller. The amount of paint would be different with a sprayer or dipping.
The volume was a little more complicated, but not too bad. There were
231 cubic inches in a gallon. That meant that to remove the insides of her breasts
and replace the contents with paint would take roughly 3/10 of a gallon.
Hmm–m–m. That seemed strange. It was possible to put two healthy coats
on her breasts and use less than 5% of a gallon, but to fill them with the same
paint would require 30% of a gallon, six times as much. Those calculations
assumed that her breasts were spheres, which they weren’t. Because of that, the
true surface area would be less and the volume would be more, which meant the
differences were even greater. Still the numbers were close enough for
estimating.
On such small amounts there probably was no quantity discount, which
meant it would cost six times as much to fill her breasts with paint as to cover
them. Then again, if he had to buy a gallon of paint anyhow, why not use it? In
fact, with a single gallon, there would be enough paint to both cover the surface
and fill them.
Colors she would pick:
•
Flesh, matched to her own.
•
Pink
•
Beige
•
Red
•
Light blue
•
Lavender
•
Mint green
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•
Eggshell
Colors she would never pick:
•
Black
•
Dark purple
•
Dark green
•
Dark blue
•
Maroon
•
Chartreuse
•
Avocado
•
Mauve
There never was any accounting for taste.
If all else failed, if he was unable to just forget about Phoebe, if she refused
to sleep with him in exchange for a kidney or a heart, if she didn’t fall for
romance, weirdness, or desperation, there was always the possibility of
kidnapping. Was it possible? Was it possible that “kidney” and “kidnapping”
came from the same root? As far as he knew, there were no other words that
began with those three letters. Except for “kid,” which was not the beginning of
the word but the whole thing. It was a young goat, which didn’t seem to have
anything to do with either kidnapping or kidneys. Kidding just meant acting like
a goat, didn’t it?
Was it possible that the first kidnappings were to steal kidneys? Or were
the organs called kidneys because that was where kidnappers struck their
victims? Hold it. This was sounding like Chrisler. He couldn’t be winning. It
wasn’t possible. Besides, kidnapping Phoebe was a very last resort, if nothing
else worked.
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Just as with any perfect crime, the first step was to make sure nobody
realized anything at all had happened. She might pretend that she would never
stoop to anything as simple as shopping at the mall, but she did.
Let’s say she was at the mall as it neared closing time. She would be trying
on one last outfit. Guards would be monitoring the doors, unlocking them as
each customer started to leave. He would offer to cover for them, so they could
go home to be with their families.
Somehow, he would have to manipulate it so that, first of all, the guards
would be willing to risk their jobs to allow him to take over, and, second, to filter
the customers so that Phoebe would be the only person left in the complex. He
would have to think about that, but it was just a boring detail. There was plenty
of time later to figure it out.
The doors of the mall would be locked and he and Phoebe would be the
only ones inside. He would maintain his post at the door until he spotted her
approaching. Then he would get up to do his last walk–through before going
home. She would tell him that she somehow didn’t hear the announcement that
the store was closing.
Now would come the tricky part. He would have to tell her that he could
not let her out of the building. He could not allow her to believe that he was
being a tough cop. Somehow, he had to make her believe that she would have to
stay there with him without frightening her.
True they could not get out of the mall, because if they opened a door now
the police would come out and tear gas them. Still, there was nothing to be afraid
of. It was just one night, after all. If she wanted to, he’d help her find a telephone
to call her folks, so they wouldn’t be afraid. Heck, what was wrong with a little
adventure now and then?
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Yes, but she had things to do. She had plans, and they didn’t include
spending the night in some godforsaken mall.
At least she didn’t have to worry about being lonely. He was stuck there
just like she was. Why couldn’t they just make the best of it?
And what was his idea of making the best of it? Maybe he’d like for her to
take a couple of guesses.
He would tell her she was being unfair to him. What did she want him to
do? Break out the windows? They were stuck there. That was the sad fact. If she
preferred, he would go to the far side of the complex so she wouldn’t have to see
him. Was that what she wanted?
No. She was sorry. She didn’t mean to take it out on him. It wasn’t his
fault. In a way, it was funny. At least it would seem that way in a couple of
weeks. Did he happen to know what time they came to open in the morning?
Not for sure, but he had an uncle who came there every day to walk along
the hallways. That was about eight or so, so somebody would be there by then.
They may as well try to get some sleep. There was a waterbed store on the
second level. It wasn’t so much a store as a kiosk that remained unlocked over
night. If they were going to be stuck here, it may as well be in style.
She would look at him square in the eyes. It was awfully convenient that
he knew where the water beds were around here but had no idea how to get out
of the mall. On the other hand, he seemed harmless enough. She would say that
she was hungry or thirsty. She would not be impressed if he knew how to
operate most of the equipment in the food court, but she would be if he figured
out the exotic machines that produced slurpies, soft serve ice cream, and vanilla
blasts. There must have been much more to operating a slurpy freezer than just
turning a switch, and, if he could grace her with a refreshing drink, she would
have to be grateful.
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He would not touch her, not ever. Even if, at some time during their
shared ordeal, she said that she wished there were some way she could repay
him, he would just blush. Once they found the waterbeds, he would get her a
blanket and tell her he was going to stay awake, just to make sure nothing
terrible happened. After he walked the corridors for a couple of hours, he would
return to check on her.
That would be when she would tell him that she would rather he didn’t
leave her alone. She would feel safer if she stayed there with her. He would start
to sit on a chair at the far side of the store and tell her he could keep an eye on
things from there. She would pat the frame of the waterbed. She wanted him
closer than that. He would say he didn’t want to impose on her. He knew that
she must think this was all some kind of ploy. She would nod, smile, and admit
that she wanted him to be close to her right now. She wanted somebody to hold
her.
He would leave his clothes on as he lay beside her. She still would have
everything on, except for that cardigan sweater, which she feared would strangle
her in her sleep if she didn’t remove it. She would squeeze her arms together in
front of herself and nestle close to him. He would embrace her softly and then
kiss her on the forehead. She would fall asleep before he did, since he would be
far too excited to get drowsy. She would moan softly as he kissed her again,
moving her head only slightly to give his lips better access to her own. He would
not know for sure if she was asleep or awake. The sounds she was making could
be of pleasure, or they could just be the sounds of dreams. She might awaken,
groggily asking him what he was doing. He would start to get up, but she would
pull him back, pinching the elbow of his shirt and weakly tugging.
He would lose his balance and fall back onto the bed, next to her. She
would blindly stroke his face and his hair. He would softly kiss her again,
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moving his hands as softly as she was moving hers. He would allow them to
rove gently over her back, her shoulders, her legs, her breasts. He would not
know for sure if she was sleeping or just pretending, but it wouldn’t matter. If
she was sleeping, then she was not concerned enough about his behavior to stay
awake; if she was pretending, that meant it was all right with her for him to do as
he pleased.
So, he would do as he pleased. By the next morning, he would be gone.
She would awaken to the clack of aluminum walkers on the linoleum.
Was that kidnapping? No, maybe not. He couldn’t bring himself to think
of actually stealing her violently. Perhaps somebody could think of that girl in
the front row at the far left like that. Phoebe’s bearing was inconsistent with
romantic ravishment. She seemed incapable of lust. Her most intense emotion
was gentle consent.
“I know what most of you are thinking. You’re wondering what kind of
an examination could possibly come out of the ravings of this mad man. Indeed.
It’s strange, isn’t it? No matter what our religious persuasion, we seem to want to
know what tests we will face.
“What’s funny about that? Well, let’s put it this way. No matter who we’re
talking about, what faith we claim, I can guarantee you that the tests of the
stalwarts had to face weren’t essay questions; they weren’t multiple choice; they
weren’t true or false. I can see a puzzled look on some of your faces. I’ll admit
that I’m not like everyone else, but I never have cared about tests, not the ones I
took and not the ones I gave.
“Coming back from the dead. How’s that for a test? Flying with angels,
splitting the sea in half, turning a staff to a snake. Those are tests. A few little
questions, they aren’t much to worry about. You can get every single one of the
questions wrong, and it won’t kill you. Just between friends, it might not even
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flunk you. How’s that sound? If you fail my test, God won’t smite you; Jesus
won’t drive you from the temple; nobody will demand your death. I think you
should be grateful for that. Maybe I should clarify this a little bit. There are a
couple of you people who might get a few lashes, but that’ll be off the books and
at my place.” He grinned at a dirty blonde in the fourth row back and the second
row from the left. Then he looked at another blonde who was somewhere in the
back of the room.
“Is there someone here who wants to know what’ll be on the test? I
couldn’t tell you. I don’t know myself. About two minutes before I hand out the
blue books I might come up with some kind of an idea. I might not. If I don’t, I
guess you can write whatever you want. Would you expect anything more from
someone like me? If you would, I’m not doing my job.”
Phoebe was probably a nice person. Was she nice in a bland way or in a
way that was enticing? The only way to know for sure would be to imagine how
nice she would seem in a few years. How nice would she be if those cheeks
dropped, draping into the slightest wrinkles? It wouldn’t take a lot of extra skin
to make her lips lose their fullness. They would look soggy, as though they lost
their natural ability to kiss. Then, kissing her would no longer be gentle. She
would have to concentrate her muscles and make sure her teeth were behind her
lips to give them body. A tongue against them, his or hers, would feel the cracks.
They wouldn’t be the cracks of cold or wind or adventure. They would be the
cracks of overuse, cracks of age, of loss of freshness. They would no longer carry
that sweet scent of youth. They would taste of her mouth odor. The aroma
wouldn’t yet be foul, but it would no longer be sweet either.
He wondered if she would still have the same toilet paper habits she had
when she was a child. Those habits seemed to stay with a person throughout life.
Somebody might change their tastes in food, music, or people, but it seemed that
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most people used toilet paper in the same way as adults that they had as
children.
For women, there were often separate methods, depending upon which
cleaning operation they were performing. For simple patting, he would have
guessed that Phoebe would use half a dozen sheets and fold them into a flattened
roll. She would hold the invention by a pinch of paper in the middle and pat it
once, holding it in place for a few seconds. Then, she would repeat the operation
with a clean roll of paper. He would have guessed that she would never use the
same piece of paper to pat twice. She would think that would be the same as
wiping her pee back on herself, which was something she would never do. He
could see from where he sat that there were slight traces of lotion at her cuticles.
That must have been because she washed her hands dozens of times each day,
leaving them raw and chapped.
The other operation would require a different approach to the toilet tissue.
She would tear off twenty or so sheets and wad at least a dozen of them,
wrapping the rest of the sheets around the crumpled mass. This procedure
would offer her the smooth outer layer, while maintaining the labyrinthine
crevices of absorbency within. Despite her delicate presence, she would drag the
pod over the soiled area. Again, she would never use that same piece of paper to
re–wipe. She would create a new one. Even though she would never touch any of
the filth, she would feel compelled to wash even more thoroughly than when she
passed urine.
She was clean of hair back there. That was one thing he would have bet
on. He would have even given odds. He supposed that to be so, because she had
not even a hint of a moustache. If she had, he would have suspected that she also
had extra hair in other places. But she didn’t, which meant it was easy for her to
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keep that area clean with a single swipe, or, at most, two. That was probably why
she always looked so fresh.
Oh, that hair thing. He would have bet that she didn’t remove the extra
hairs that might have extended down her thighs or up her belly. Yes, there was
some sort of a perfect triangle that girls were supposed to display, but she did
not seem the type who would go through barbaric rituals to achieve that
perfection.
She made no demands on anyone, especially herself, not when it came to
beliefs. There were some beliefs, though, that she thought made fellows either
unattractive, effeminate, or both:
•
Astrology
•
The oneness of the universe
•
The oneness of anything other than the universe
•
The duality of anything
•
That plants feel pain
•
That weeping is good for the soul
•
That people have souls
•
Tarot cards
•
Luck
•
That the color of anything makes a difference
•
Magical creatures, including elves, leprechauns, fairies, goblins,
unicorns, satyrs, centaurs, or ghosts
•
The beauty of old people in love
•
That there is wisdom on bumper stickers, tee shirts, or baseball caps
•
Arranging flowers or furniture; arranging anything
•
That there is art in cooking, dressing, sex, photography, or living
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He suspected that she was nervous inside of herself. She always seemed
calm, but that was because she had to. If her outsides were the same as she was
inside, she would be in an eternal seizure. What to the rest of the world seemed
supreme composure was really just control. She probably had ulcers, maybe
even bleeding ulcers, which would mean he would have to reconsider his
estimate of how much toilet paper she used.
Maybe he couldn’t really kidnap her. Maybe he could do something
better: rescue her. She would be studying late and start to drive home. Her car
would make it about half a mile before it started to sputter. She would play with
the gas pedal, trying to nurse the engine to carry her past this part of town. The
explosions in the car’s cylinders would become less frequent, until finally
stopping entirely.
That would be when he would appear. He would look under the hood
with a flashlight. He would tell her that it looked like she had a bad gas line. It
looked like it had broken off completely. He would cut a piece of rubber hose
from the cooling system and, using some wire, he would twist it into place. He
would tell her that the patch probably wouldn’t last very long. He would insist
on following her home. She would want to pay him something, and he would
smile, telling her she was insulting him. She would ask if there wasn’t something
she could do to repay him. As soon as the words left her mouth, she would
realize how that might sound, so she would clarify by offering him a cup of
coffee or at least asking for his address so she could send him a thank you note.
He would wave her off. If Clyde or Hampton III or Alex had left a fifty–dollar
bill on her dresser in the morning, how would she have felt?
She would nod her understanding. She certainly didn’t mean to insult
him, but she really did appreciate his help. What would she have done if he
hadn’t been there? She really really appreciated what he did, and some day she
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would be able to pay him back. How tempting would it be to tell her right then
that he had the ideal solution, one that would pay him back without insulting
him? But he would restrain himself. He would have to. He would have to leave
her with the simple impression that he had coolly and ably solved her problem,
expecting absolutely nothing in return. That would be what would leave her
thinking good things about him.
Her gentle thoughts about him would fade away after a few months. But
then, something else would happen. Her washing machine would quit. Or
maybe it would be her car again. As long as it wasn’t a toilet. That would never
work. She would be short of money for repairs, or it would be an emergency and
she couldn’t get a professional repair person to take care of it. She would
remember how nice he had been, and he would be there for her again. She would
say how she really hated taking advantage of him, but this was really an
emergency.
If he was lucky, the malfunction would be something he could handle. She
would absentmindedly touch him, his arm or his shoulder, in gratitude. That
would be when he would reciprocate. He would take her upper arm in his hand,
pull her towards himself and kiss her. Her eyes would stay open. She would act
completely surprised, as though it had never occurred to her that he would ever
think of doing such a thing. Still, she would think, if he did find her attractive,
the least she could do would be to not act as though she were completely
repulsed by him. She would let him kiss her. She would start to protest if his
hands moved over her body, but then she would surrender. She owed him a lot.
If it wasn’t for this particular incident, it was for that time back then. She could
have been stranded. Nobody could tell what might have happened to her back
then if he hadn’t fixed her car.
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So, she would moan her compliance. He would kiss her softly for a long
time as his hands gently caressed her. The moans would become more
enthusiastic; eventually they would become demanding, and he would honor her
wishes.
All because he knew how to loosen a gas line.
“How about a little sing–along? Okay, none of us are singers, so how
about a recite–along? You ready to repeat after me? One–two–three…Jesus took
a dump, a big old dump, a big old dump in Nazareth.
“Come on, now, students. You aren’t cooperating. I don’t want to feel like
I’m here all by myself. Here we go again…one–two–three…Jesus took a dump, a
big old dump, a big old dump in Nazareth.
“What if I were to tell you that ninety percent of your grade depends on
how well you do this? Would that make a difference? Oh, I thought it might. Last
chance. One–two–three…Jesus took a dump, a big old dump, a big old dump in
Nazareth. There, now that’s much better. I can see that there were about three of
you who either don’t care about your grades or are too well–bred to let me
intimidate you. Good for you. I was only kidding about the grades.
“I was making a point, though. There were actually three students in this
room who were so offended by the thought of their savior engaging in a basic
human function that they were willing to get a failing grade rather than utter
those words. That’s pretty amazing, now, wouldn’t you say? Let’s not even talk
about what might have happened to the product of that bodily function. Just the
thought that he had a bowel movement is too difficult for some people to speak
about. It’s not too hard for me, and, if some of you are looking at your grades,
then I hope that, by the time we’re through here, it won’t be too hard for you.
“I’m not one of those guys who’s going to claim it’s my job to build
character or to turn you into thinking machines. I don’t know if I’ll even get any
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of you to think any clearer. To tell you the truth…” he gazed into the eye of the
perfectly shaped redhead in the fourth row at the left side of the room. “…I
wouldn’t mind if at least some of you end up thinking a little less clearly. And to
be even more honest, I’ve got my suspicions that in a few cases, the foggier you
think, the happier I could be.
“But that doesn’t have much to do with our friend on the cross, now, does
it, much less those numbers between one and a hundred that so many of you
seemed so worried about. I don’t expect any of you to share my beliefs. After all,
it took me years to understand all of them myself, so it would be asking a lot for
you to understand just from listening to me. A lot of understanding has to arrive
like pre–formed concrete….”
Why do so many people like to fit together like spoons? With Phoebe it
didn’t seem like it could work, at least not the way the pictures showed it. To tell
the truth, he would have to be at least two feet long just to get around her bottom
to make a reasonable entry. Okay, the way it would have to work would be that
she would be lying on her side with her legs bent up towards her head. The
tough part for her would be that her knees would have to stay straight, so that he
could align himself along them. That way it might be possible for him to get into
her if he bent slightly backwards.
If he were to follow the ordinary visions of such a coupling, he would be
embracing her from behind, his hand lying over her side, cupping her breast.
Somehow, from there, he would be able to extend himself around her butt, make
an upward turn, and enter her. It hardly seemed possible. There might also be a
way by which she could bend backwards and engulf the appropriate parts, but
that seemed even more of a ballet. Still, somehow people felt that getting
together like that was natural, romantic, simple. Maybe Leonard or Ike or Riswill
would find those acrobatics simple, natural, or romantic. May they enjoy.
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Things that Phoebe used her mouth for:
•
Speaking
•
Eating
•
Breathing, if she had a cold
•
Coughing and sneezing, if she had a cold or allergies
•
Gasping if she was frightened
•
Laughing
•
Blowing on boo–boos on her fingers.
Things that Phoebe did not use her mouth for:
•
Anything else
Her reluctance, her refusal to engage in any flavorful activity was one of
the things he hoped to have the chance to change. Perhaps one day they would
be lying there, giddy over some ridiculous event that occurred in the world that
they shared. He would impulsively kiss her. She would laugh through the kiss,
and then tell him that nobody had ever made her laugh so hard or so often as he
had. She would wonder what she ever gave him.
He would tell her that she had given him plenty and tousle her hair. She
would ask how much of that plenty was just the sex. He would laugh and tell her
that her dry wit was a lot of it. He would tell her that her unpredictability was
even more of it. He would tell her that no matter how far he allowed his
imagination to wander, he was never able to figure out what she was going to
say next. When he told her that, he would be granting as her greatest asset her
unpredictability.
That would be when he would predict that she would never be part of
anything that anybody on the face of the planet would consider unnatural. No,
that didn’t make he a prude. Actually, he found it charming. She would tell him
he had no idea what she would or wouldn’t be part of.
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Was he supposed to take that as an insult? He didn’t know anything. He
was stupid. He was an idiot. Was that what she was trying to say? Wasn’t that
sort of thing beneath her? All he did was make an observation, and all of a
sudden she was acting as though he had accused her of slaying kittens. He had
trouble believing that she didn’t know what he was talking about.
So, she would tell him that just because he didn’t understand her didn’t
mean he was stupid. As a matter of fact, he might be surprised at some of the
things she had done or would be willing to do.
He would smile and tell her that some day she might prove him wrong. It
would be very important for him to walk away at that moment. If they were at
her place, he would leave. If they were at his, he would look at his watch and tell
her he had something urgent to do at the other end of town. If they were at a
restaurant or in the park, he would say he feared he was coming down with
something and had better get home.
For the first time ever, she would insist that he stay. Her meekness would
somehow blend with the demand in a way that produced not whining but
enticement. Of course, everything Phoebe did seemed to produce enticement.
That was her gift. She would say that, despite what he might think, she did care
what he thought about her. She didn’t want him to have mistaken thoughts. That
was why it was so important that he not be apart from her right now.
After a little bit of banter, he would agree to stay with her for a little
longer. She would ask if they could go somewhere else, somewhere neither of
them had ever been before. He would tell her that it was terribly unlike her to
want to plunge into that kind of mysterious adventure. She would insist that it
was a little bit bold of him to assume what she was or wasn’t like. He would
apologize, and tell her he was just telling her what she seemed like. She hadn’t
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realized that she seemed like anything to most of the world. Now she was
outright lying. Did she honestly believe that nobody noticed her?
She didn’t want to argue. Couldn’t they just go somewhere else,
somewhere they could be alone? Was this going to be the time that she was
going to prove him wrong about what she would or wouldn’t do? Maybe.
Maybe? Maybe. But maybe meant yes. It always meant yes.
Once they got to wherever that place was—it would probably be the
cheapest motel they could find, which would be fitting—she would want to do
whatever was the least romantic, the least conventional, the least dignified. If
they were to go to the presidential suite at the dignified hotel near the
convention center, she would feel that this was a scheme. After all, when a fellow
wanted to manipulate a girl into bed, he bought her flowers, took her to the
French restaurant where waiters keep their first names secret, vacuumed his
understated but elegant automobile, opened doors for her, pulled her chair out
for her at dinner. He sent her flowery greeting cards that told her how unique
she was, how she had made his life whole. He would wear expensive sport coats
when he picked her up. Meanwhile, she would be trying to calculate how much
he was spending on her. At some point she would realize that it would be
downright cruel of her to allow him to go through his family’s fortune and not at
least grant him a little bit of pleasure. After all, it wasn’t costing her anything.
The worst that could happen would be that she would waste her time and maybe
catch some disease that millions of other people had too.
No, for Phoebe it would be much more satisfying to go to some roachy,
smelly place on a county highway. There, she could bask in the adventure of
doing something brazenly sick. She would not pretend that this was the natural
progression of a modern relationship. No, she would be accepting his dare,
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because nobody would expect her to accept a dare. Or maybe she would accept it
because it was one more thing she had never done before.
She would try to be interested. She might even pretend to enjoy taking her
clothes off. In her ordinary life she pulled her sweaters over her head, pushed her
pants into a pile at her feet, and took off her underwear. That was the practical
way to disrobe. But she had seen that there were other ways too, less utilitarian
and more exciting to some guys.
He would like on his back, watching her trying with her very soul to not
be embarrassed. She would then ask him what these special things were that he
wanted her to do. He wouldn’t notice her body very much, even though he knew
it was quaintly different from other forms he had seen. Instead, he would be
looking at her face, allowing his eyes to drop for brief moments to her breasts. He
would have trouble answering her question. What did he want her to do? He
wanted her to take him in her mouth, to lick him, to completely engulf him in her
mouth. He wanted her to roll her tongue on him, to flatten it into a paddle, to
curl it around him. But Phoebe wasn’t a girl who could accept those words. She
had claimed to be the adventuress. She had pretended to be tough. She had
prevented him from leaving. She had sworn that she wasn’t as fragile as he
pretended she was. But he knew, absolutely knew, that she would probably
vomit if he uttered the words he was really thinking. One thing he was certain of
was that Phoebe’s bravado would never stretch to her actually hearing those
words. In the end, when he actually rewarded her efforts, she would cough and
sputter. Her eyes would tear over. She would tell him that she was very
disappointed in him; she had no idea he would actually do anything like that.
What was he supposed to say to that? That he was sorry? No, he would just tell
her that he thought she was looking for a little bit of adventure. At least that was
what she said.
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He would offer whatever comfort he could, maybe while stroking her
hair. And when she recovered her breath, she would say she just didn’t think he
would do that.
“Personally, I find it a little bit strange that everybody seems to know
what Jesus Christ looked like. He had long hair and bright blue eyes. He was
slender. Does that sound like him? Do you all think he looked a little like me?
That wouldn’t be too bad, now, would it? I can see some of you lovely ladies
trying to keep your emotions to yourselves.
“Now, if you go to some of the churches around the poorer parts—excuse
me, the less advantaged parts—you might find some other pictures. He might
have brown eyes and brown skin. He might have black hair. He might be a little
bit on the portly side.
“I’m assuming some of you have read this book we’ve been talking about.
You’ll confirm that there is not one word in there that tells us what he looks like.
I will assume that things would work better for all of us if he was a skinny
fellow. Why? Have you ever heard the expression about the more we eat the
more we do something else? Well, if he was skinny, then that means we have
much less dung to account for. Isn’t that a refreshing thought for all of us? As for
the hair color, wouldn’t we all like to think he looks a little bit like all of us, only
maybe a little bit better?
“That makes sense, though, doesn’t it? We wouldn’t want any savior of
ours to look just like anybody else. But that’s a little bit of a paradox. When we
decide who’s going to be our heroes, our leaders, our models, we look for people
who look as much like us as possible. The most typical, the most average
becomes our ideal. We don’t want somebody who is too skinny or too fat. We
don’t want their eyes to be too far apart or too close together. That’s why we call
them models, after all.”
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Wait, was he looking at Phoebe now? She was looking down, writing
something in her notebook. Or was she just doodling? He might have been
talking about models, but he was looking at her. Anybody thinking about what
he was saying would think he meant male models. If Jesus was a model, he sure
wouldn’t be a beautiful girl model. And if he was a girl model, he wouldn’t be
Phoebe. She wasn’t the average, not–too–skinny not–too–fat type he was talking
about. But maybe she suspected he was talking about her.
She was looking down in embarrassment. That might have been some
private communication between them. And that might be why she seemed so
bored with everything he was saying, because he had given this same lecture to
her in private. She already knew everything he was talking about. She was
sitting there because she had to. She needed the credits. She needed the grade.
What he was doing was a terribly practical plan. Didn’t it make sense?
Why worry about designing elaborate schemes to get close to Phoebe, when the
simplest plans were the ones most likely to work? Chad would see her in the
registration line, waiting to get into his course. He would tell her she was making
a good choice, since he would be her teacher. He could sense something about
her that told him she would be one of the few who could understand what was
happening in the class. He would like the chance to talk to her before classes
began, just to find out if his hunch was right.
Chad Chrisler kept a nice selection of wines at home. Even before he had
bought his own place, he had used his cellar storage in the apartment building as
a wine cellar. Since the cubicles were visible to anybody in the basement, he had
hidden his cache with blankets draped along the walls and along the chain fence
that created the cubicle. When he moved into his new home, he took special
effort to maintain the temperature of the bottles. So far, he had not found a single
bottle that had failed him.
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Would she like to come over? He would like to talk to her. She seemed to
be a person who could understand the way his mind worked, and that fascinated
him. He was going to start off by proposing something that she had probably
never heard of before, and that was drinking a cabernet without a meal. He
didn’t expect everyone he met to be knowledgeable about wines, but he assumed
that anybody would understand how radical a concept that was.
She would nod. She was not afraid to try new things, she would tell him.
By then, she had probably been with at least two dozen fellows, and twenty of
them were probably consumed with sports. They had played them while they
could, and now they watched them. They infused her with their enthusiasm,
took her to games, bought her beers, slept with her drunk and laughed at her
sober.
Chad was the first one, or maybe the second, who was proposing to share
thoughts with her. She shared that honor with at least a dozen other young girls
who were finally, if only tentatively, tiring of mindlessness. After only three
drinks of wine she would become drowsy, or pretend to. He would disrobe her,
explore her body, and take his pleasure, while she moaned, just enough that he
would know that he was not ravishing a corpse or somebody who was
unconscious. He could not be satisfied with her accession if she was not
conscious to give it. Thinking was part of being a philosopher, after all.
He would discover that, even after they had finished, she would not be
making any demands on him. She got up herself to get a towel. She helped
herself to a drink of water. Oh yes, the water. She didn’t gargle with mouthwash
as though any of his cells that might have entered her mouth would contaminate
her. She just sipped some water, because she was thirsty. And she didn’t mention
school, course work, grades, philosophy, his pedigree, her pedigree, or what the
activities of the evening might mean to either or both of their lives. She was the
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same person she had been before, both in how he judged her and how she
behaved. That was unusual.
Usually, he hated the after–moments. They were sometimes awkward, but
more often saturated with hypocrisy. Those moments demanded assurances that
the girl was still pretty, still shapely, still witty, still intelligent, still exciting, and
still interesting. It was asking a lot of a fellow to still crave a woman after he’s
satisfied his desire for her. Phoebe didn’t ask that of him, which made her
abnormally comfortable. So, he let her stay with him.
She stayed with him because, well, he was interesting in his way. He
didn’t hide from her or run away from her, but he didn’t claim possession of her
either. Eventually, she heard him talk about Jesus and about how he was going
to play with a classroom full of confused students. She would tell him that she
didn’t care about that, as long as he gave her a good grade. He would tell her
that it would be unethical of him to allow her into his class, and she would
numbly tell him that she didn’t care. That was his problem, not hers.
At least there did exist an explanation for Phoebe’s behavior during this
class. She had heard everything Chrisler had to say a thousand times. She
understood that he was a moron, but he was her moron, so she sat quietly in his
class, doodling circles in her notebook, rolling her eyes when she had to, crossing
and uncrossing her legs a dozen times every five minutes.
Part of her leg and most of her arm showed. How many moles were there?
Even Chad probably didn’t know that. That was because he didn’t care enough
to count.
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He could clearly count eleven moles on the outer part of her left arm,
including one that was larger than the others near the inside of her elbow.
Chad certainly hadn’t taken the time to map the moles on her arm. It
didn’t take an artist to see the possibilities in the designs. He was claiming to be
this great thinker, but he didn’t even have the imagination to see the hundreds of
shapes that those dots created. Thousands of years ago people could see Orion’s
belt in dots of light. They saw archers and goddesses.
It would shock her, surprise her if she found out that he had drawn
shapes across her body. Her arm contained a hundred abstract designs, each of
which should have a name: Ponds of Lucifer; Granger with Crooked Erection;
Ear Flowers; Axe–Flag; Coin–operated Firefly; Garlic Without Hamster/ Garlic
With Hamster; Crime and Slobber; The Infinite Swill that Swallows Swallow in
Slovakia.
It was important that she understand that imagination was valuable. She
probably was simple. She probably went out to bars with her girlfriends to find
fellows. When one of them took a liking to her, she probably smiled in flattery.
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She loved it when fellows paid attention to her, because she knew how pretty she
was and how much fun it was for others to notice.
She might be one of those who loved adoration, but craved the attention
of those who were the least effusive in their admiration. She wanted to dance
with the fellow who was dancing with everyone else. It might take a few drinks
to get her to tell the world that she didn’t mind having sex with a good–looking
guy. Well, she might demand an expensive meal, an orchid or two, and some
jewelry, just to show that he thought she was worth something, but she would
do it. A handsome man could count on her.
But she had better hurry up. In about seven years she would not be able to
do quite as well. She might have to settle for a few posies, and then it would
have to be with someone who didn’t bother to act like he cared about her. It
might still be a cowboy or an athlete, but now it would be the one who had
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already drunk himself past his first marriage while working as an appliance man
at a department store.
The crinkly smiles would seem more wrinkly then. God, how she hated to
watch what was happening to her breasts. She didn’t have the luxury that guys
had of just not looking. She had to look at her body so that she could shave
under her arms and powder herself. At first she would notice that they were now
covering the mole that she had seen easily just a few months before. Had it gone
away? She would pick up her breast, hoping that the small birthmark had
somehow disappeared. Instead, it was now hidden by part of her right breast.
Well, she probably hadn’t noticed before that at some times of the month they
sagged a little more. They were engorged with hormones, larger, heavier. As the
days went on, she would realize that her mole would never again be visible
when her arms were at her side.
She would be angry that she hadn’t accepted the many offers she had
received over the years. Hell, when she was barely sixteen a co–worker of her
father’s had probably told her he would marry her in a minute. Right now that
didn’t seem so outlandish.
The cream on her face would get thicker too. Just a few years earlier she
would have laughed at the notion that people would spend hundreds of dollars
on a few ounces of lanolin just because somebody had mixed in some
salamander glands. In those days she would buy the generic lotions that came in
square bottles with pink labels. Now, she yearned for the logic, the promise, the
assurance that she was worth the money she was spending on herself.
Oh yes, it was for herself she was doing this. No, she didn’t care at all how
appealing it was to men; what was important was that she could look at herself
and like what she saw. The whole thing was perfectly logical. Salamanders did
not wrinkle. That was a scientific fact. The simple truth was that there had to be
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some reason for that. The answer did not lie in the foods the salamander ate,
since mostly they ate fruit. So, somehow their bodies were able to transform their
basic diets into substances that prevented wrinkles. All the makers of the lotion
were doing was extracting those very substances and putting them in lotion
form. Yes, the process was time consuming and expensive, but miracles did not
come cheap. She would apply the lotion thickly near her eyes where the creases
were starting to form. The instructions were that she was to apply a thin layer,
allow it to process itself, and then apply another layer until the creases were
filled.
She would spend hours applying the substance and would be sure she
looked much younger. Then, she would go out to the bar and find herself a guy
who told her he would be willing to get some exercise with her if she’d help him
with his tab. She would laugh, pretending he was joking, knowing he wasn’t.
Companionship would be important to her as age attacked her. She would
excuse herself to apply what the package called a booster treatment. It only took
ten minutes in the bathroom to re–spackle her wrinkles. She could take care of
whatever other business she had in there while the salamander miracle was
working.
Those days to come would be different from today in other ways. Once
they got to the place where the deeds were to transpire, she would insist on
extinguishing the lights. Today she would barely notice whether the lights were
on or off. As those days of lotions, and idle thoughts of surgery loomed, she
would be more and more aware that she was visible to a man who she had to
attract. She had to appeal to this man. It didn’t matter if he appealed to her. She
needed someone to be with her. Why? She could not be alone. She could not face
debt alone; she could not sue her landlord without some help; she needed
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somebody around when her car broke down; it was important that there be
somebody nearby who would think she was funny, bright, and… and pretty.
The starch she had once put on her clothes to make them look crisp now
served a further purpose. Much of her shape, the soft shape that had seemed so
feminine was gone. She had to rely on the starch to mold her clothes, which
could then give the illusion of a shapely form. How she had laughed at her own
mother when she tried to appear more nubile with the same trick. At least
Phoebe would not immediately resort to the harsh undergarments that tortured
her mother.
“I’m going to introduce you to a concept that probably has never occurred
to most of you. That is what I called mixtures of time. If we could take features of
one era and combine them with another, we would be able to ask some very
interesting questions. Would we know the answers? I can’t say. Speculation
rarely leads to absolute answers.
“Now, of course, rarely doesn’t mean never. Let me give you an example.
I have never dropped this particular stapler before. As far as I know, nobody has
ever dropped it before. Still, I bet that everyone in this room can tell what will
happen when I drop it. Am I right? Hands? Okay…um–m–m… how about you
with the tee–shirt with the mountains on it—and, believe me, I meant it the way
it sounded. Yes, you. That’s right, you can say it. If I drop this stapler… Right! If I
drop this stapler it’ll fall. Is that speculation? I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it that.
I’d say it was just our experiences from the past telling us something about the
future. That’s what empirical minds do.
“So the question now is: what about things we don’t have any personal
experience with? Let’s take a few examples concerning our hero. Would Jesus be
an organ donor? Would he have a driver’s license? Would he have been on the
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side of the cattlemen or the sheep men? Who would he have voted for in the last
election? Would he have voted at all?
“Now, one of those questions I just asked wasn’t quite an accident. Any
idea which one? No, I’m not going to bother asking our Alpine champ over here.
I think you all know. The first question: would he be an organ donor?
“Why is that such an intriguing question? Okay, let’s look at it. We’ll draw
ourselves a little picture here. They’re walking our good friend down the road, as
he carries the cross and wears the thorn headdress. Just before they plant him, he
makes a request. He wants to sign his organ donor card. So far it all seems
perfectly normal in our mixed up little world. But now comes the complicated
part. A fellow named Zeke needs a kidney real bad and they give him one of the
ones from that crazy guy they crucified.
“Now we’re closing in on an absurdity. A being who is supposedly all
human and all divine is headed for his dad’s place without one of his kidneys.
But that isn’t the biggest problem in our little discussion. Remember what I keep
saying? Our intelligence comes from the questions we ask, so this is your chance
to show me how intelligent you are. No takers? That’s all right, I won’t call you
stupid. It could be you’re all just shy. I like that, especially in the girls.
“Anyhow, we don’t have any problems with Jesus getting to heaven with
just one of his kidneys. If what they say about him, he wouldn’t have any trouble
living without a kidney. Hell, he probably could get by with both of them gone.
I’d bet you could take away both kidneys, his liver, his legs, arms, eyes, ears, and
tongue, corkscrew out his spleen, his spine, his heart, and his little sausage, and
you’d still have yourself quite a little savior.
“Offended yet? Oh I’m past worrying about offending you. You’ve all had
your chances. Anyhow, the question is this: what happens to the person who
gets the kidney? Does he have more of that holiness than the rest of us? I mean,
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the tissue of a guy who’s supposed to be all man and all God doesn’t turn into
plain old lab specimens because it goes into somebody else, does it?
“We could take the other fork in the road, which would help a lot. That
would be that he wouldn’t be an organ donor at all. Does that sound possible?
Well, we could say that keeping somebody alive with somebody else’s parts is
some sort of a violation. We don’t have to go back too far when most people you
asked would have said they thought putting somebody’s kidney in someone else
was nauseating. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you’re dating the most
beautiful girl you’ve ever seen—let’s keep this to the fellows, just to make it
cleaner. How would you feel if you found out that person had the liver of a big,
hairy, tattooed fellow who drove a bulldozer? Would you still feel the same
about her? Most of you are good, principled people and would think it wouldn’t
make any difference. As long as she was really that good looking and the scar
from the surgery wasn’t too bad.”
She had been leaning her cheek on her left fist, and now she was changing
position again. There was a red mark where her knuckles had supported her
flesh. One–one–thousand–two–one–thousand–three…. He was past seventy
seconds and the impression was still there on her cheek. Her skin was losing
elasticity. She tried to be unemotional, but he would have bet that she had
noticed that her skin was aging even before he did.
Here would be how he would approach her: He was an honest man. He
thought honesty was important. He was sure he wasn’t telling her anything new
when he said that her skin was starting to sag. She probably had noticed it
herself.
Even so, he found her attractive and he would be willing to overlook that
flaw. He would even be willing to take her out and allow their relationship to go
wherever nature intended it to. She would wonder if she should slap him, but he
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knew she wasn’t a slapper. She was much more of an eye roller, a laugher, or a
walker away. Then she would tell him she didn’t need him, thank you.
He would tell her that she apparently didn’t appreciate honesty. That was
all right. Most people preferred lies and flattery. She would tell him that at least
she was able to tell the difference between honesty and crude insults. He would
ask her what she meant. She would walk away, but he would ask her to stay. It
was important for him to understand her. He really cared about what she
thought. He hoped he wasn’t just being nosy, but it was important that he learn
as much as he could as he went through this life. He believed she could teach
him something.
Now she would be interested. There were plenty of guys out there who
would want to teach her, but he was the rare one interested in learning from her.
She would inform him that she wasn’t as naïve as he apparently thought she
was. No, he didn’t think she was naïve. In fact, unlike other women her age, she
seemed to have earned her flaws fairly.
Scars he might find on her body:
•
Appendectomy
•
A rock kicked up by a truck tire
•
A burn from a sparkler that she got when she was six
•
Knee surgery—she told the gym teacher her leg hurt, but she insisted
she play field hockey
•
Kitchen cut
•
Rope burn from a one–time adventure
•
Welts from the same adventure
•
Shaving nick
He would repeat that her flaws were interesting. In fact, she was the first
girl he had ever met whose age made her more interesting. Wasn’t that strange?
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There were movie stars, models, writers, dancers, politicians, artists, and
business leaders. All of them, despite their desperation, became less and less
interesting as they aged. She became more interesting.
Of course, he would tell, her, she probably had heard the same things a
thousand times before. Probably every guy she ever met commented on how
well she wore her age.
She would thank him sarcastically for his compliment. She would act as
though he hadn’t hurt her feelings, but he would know that he had. If she was
feeling charitable, she might slap him playfully. He would hold her wrist and
pull her towards him. She would blink deliberately and stare into his eyes. This
was how kisses started. He would pull her towards himself and drop her hand
onto his shoulder. He would embrace her.
Did he really think she was old, she would ask him. He didn’t even know
what that meant. Maybe she should be talking to Chrisler about that. She was
just fine, however she was. Was he sure it didn’t bother him that she wasn’t the
young thing with the perfect skin and the boobs that didn’t sag? What kind of
man did she think he was? Did she really think that was how he judged people?
No. Well, to tell the truth, she hadn’t thought very much about what kind of guy
he was.
Actually, he sort of liked the small wrinkles that appeared between her
breasts. Was he being too forward in saying so? Yes, he had to confess that he
had noticed. She was grown up enough to realize as much. Then he would touch
one of her breasts, probably the left one, since it was on the heart side, and she
would appreciate his sensitivity in recognizing that her heart counted for
something.
Wasn’t that what Chrisler was talking about? This could be Jesus’s heart
he was fondling. Now, the thought of his fondling a guy made him sick. But,
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somehow, if that guy was Jesus he could still get excited. He was feeling those
breasts that beat over one very special heart. The kiss would have to be a small
one. It had to be tentative, telling her that he wasn’t quite sure, despite his words,
whether he wanted to intertwine his limbs with one who was no longer quite
elastic.
Now, it would be her job to persuade him. She would push her lips harder
into his. She would cover the hand on her breast with her own. She would touch
his hair with her other hand. Her hips would gently tease him as she moved him
towards the bed or the sofa or the haystack, whatever destination she chose.
Why couldn’t the changes happen suddenly, like the beginning and end of
the childbearing years? That way, Phoebe would know that one morning she
would wake up to find she was no longer attractive. She wouldn’t wake up to a
sudden realization, but to a sudden change in her status. Now, despite her pose
of obliviousness, she knew that men loved her, nearly all of them. Why couldn’t
her genes somehow tell her that she had better enjoy that advantage, because
there would be a sudden change one day, when she would have to scramble to
find anybody willing to touch her?
He could speak to her rationally. He could tell her that, although she
might now appreciate the attentions of Marvin or Lance or Marcus, those
attentions would disappear in exactly four years, two months, and eighteen days.
Any deal he might be willing to make with her today would no longer be
available to her after that day. Here was the deal: if she agreed to be with him
now—and they both knew what he meant by “be with”—then he would promise
to stay with her afterwards. How could she be sure he would keep that promise?
She couldn’t, but at least he was willing to make it. Were they?
But that wasn’t this world. In this world, she could imagine herself still
attracting fellows forever. Oh, sure, she knew that age diminished her prospects,
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but when that time would come was still vague. It was possible that for her it
never would come, so she would take advantage of every possibility and hope
that one of the guys she longed for would never tire of her.
“You know, I met a Jew once. I talked to him, asked him why they did it?
Why did they kill him? Do you know what he said? He said, ‘What would you
have done?’”
How about…it was crazy, but why not? He would have to prepare. For
one thing, he didn’t own a horse, and, if he did, he didn’t know how to ride. But
he could learn. Other people had learned to ride horses, and so could he. He
could be an expert.
These days, people weren’t accustomed to seeing horses in their daily
lives. He would bet that Phoebe had never even touched one. She might have
seen one, maybe at the circus or on a field trip when she was a child or at the
Rodeo that Chad or Vic or Paul dragged her to.
This would be different. He would have to decide exactly how and where
he would perform this stunt that would win her. It would be wonderful if he
could do it on a busy street.
What he wore would be important. He would need a mask that tied
behind his head, a satin outfit, including a broad cape. He wasn’t sure what a
cape was for, but he knew that a cape could turn a common thug into a romantic
mystery.
Her purse would hang from her shoulder. She would be cradling her
books in her arms. His horse would be a large, fearless stallion, a pinto named
Bullwhip.
Phoebe would be walking back to her apartment. He would dodge the
cars, weaving through the traffic. He would slow down enough to lean over, put
his arm around her waist, and swoop her up behind himself. Her books would
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scatter, and she would look back at them, realizing that her school days were
now finished.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to lift her as gracefully as he would have
liked. After all, she was not a wispy teenager. She was probably three-quarters of
the way to 200 pounds. Some of the preparation would require his developing
his muscles, but he could do that.
Once she sat behind him on the horse—it would be best to ride bareback,
since a saddle carrying both of them could be uncomfortable—she would put her
arms around his waist. She would be too surprised to try to escape. The
spectators, mostly students and professors, would stare, unaware of the nature of
this prank.
His cape would flow to the side, sometimes flapping at her head or even
covering her like a tent. She might be a little bit afraid, but the fear would be
more like an amusement park ride than an abduction. But he would be so
confident in his maneuvering of the steed that she would trust him to carry her
to safety.
Where would that safety be? His secret hideout, of course. It would be
important that she not think this was a long–planned plot, but, rather the
impulsive act of a highwayman. It would be a cabin with a secret trap door
leading to a catacomb, or perhaps a cave, which only he knew existed. It would
have to be a place of darkness, of quiet, of isolation.
He would carry her inside, leaving his steed to wander. The horse would
know when to return, for he was loyal. Phoebe’s not strain his arms as he carried
her to his lair, for he would have greater strength than he had ever had before.
She would quiver with fear and anticipation. Finally, she would ask him if
he intended to ravish her. He would shake his head at her, not in answer to her
question, but to let her know that she was not allowed to speak. She would tell
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him that she was entitled to know what he was going to do to her. No, she was
not entitled to anything. In fact, the very fact that she was still breathing at all
was only because of his good grace.
Her lips would tremble with fear. Or was it fear? Could it be some other
kind of passion? Then she would realize that, although her hands were free, she
had done nothing to repel this stranger. Why had she not asked him who he
was? Perhaps because it didn’t matter, or because she wanted to imagine her
own brigand. Would she picture him as somebody from her own life, or would
she imagine her own perfect creature? Of course, her eyes would be closed, so
she could imagine, dream, hope.
When they were safely hidden from the world, he would lower her feet to
the ground. Then, he would embrace her, pushing his lips into hers. She would
resist at first, but then, slowly, she would soften. Her mouth would give way to
his. Small, high–pitched gasps would escape from her throat into his. Her hands
would drop back in surrender. He would once again lift her, cradling her in his
arms as he carried her to the softness of the featherbed.
He would tear her clothes from her body. She would say nothing. Tears of
anticipation would decorate the corners of her eyes. Yes, he was going to ravish
her. Yes. Yes. And she could do nothing to stop him. Any protests she made
would be futile, and they would only increase his pleasure. Yes, she knew that,
and that was why she protested. And when, after long hours, he was satiated,
she would disappear. Exactly how, he could not imagine. She would simply no
longer be there until the next time, when he would reappear to her.
That was how Phoebe should be treated. Instead, she probably fell for
expensive meals, an occasional bouquet, and plenty of free drinks.
Things that should have impressed Phoebe:
•
Ravishment by a mysterious stranger
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•
Blind musicians
•
Home made furniture
•
Foraging for food
•
People who dreamed in seven languages
•
Truffle hunters
•
Love in a blindfold
Things that did impress Phoebe:
•
Beer drinkers
•
Letter jackets
•
Insincere compliments
•
Muscles
•
Snazzy clothes
•
Making lots of money the usual ways
•
Holding liquor
•
Winning smiles
•
Witty comebacks
Some day she would feel sorry for somebody, if she were paid enough. It
would suit her to be a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, an emergency relief
worker, a teacher, or a crossing guard. She had learned from her years of making
guys feel important how to care for people. Her mastery of the various
techniques allowed her to persuade even the most cynical that she really did
care. She baked pies; she smiled; she laughed at jokes; she pretended to be blasé;
she showed up on time; she made sarcastic remarks; she dressed sloppily; she
walked and sat as though she was unaware that anybody noticed her.
That was her gift, her genius, what probably brought Chad or Alphonso
or Lipman into her life. Who could have resisted a girl who was…like Phoebe?
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“Have I bored you enough? That by itself is something to think about. If I
got my count right, we have maybe four non–Christians in this class. That means
the rest of you all believe that Jesus is your savior. I do have that right, don’t I?
“We’ve been talking about that particular gentleman here for quite a
while. I’ll be the first to admit that. But if you are really the believers you claim to
be—I’m giving you non–Christians a pass—then you should never be bored.
“One of you great philosophers is about to point out that it might be the
messenger and not the message that is boring you. Think about that for a minute.
Do you listen to the messenger or the message?
“Let me give you an example. You are enjoying an evening at the carnival,
when a voice booms over the loudspeaker: ‘This is an emergency. Everybody
must leave the grounds immediately.’
“There might be a couple of reactions. Some people might panic; others
might slowly gather their belongings and walk away towards their cars. But I
doubt that anybody would take the time to study the announcer’s credentials, to
evaluate his credibility, or to analyze what he really meant.
“Now, this isn’t a trivial point. If you are truly concerned about the
message, then who brings you that message shouldn’t matter. I realize that you
aren’t here because of your love for complicated thinking. That’s why I’ve done
my best to make all of these very difficult concepts a little easier to digest. But,
let’s face it, no matter how smooth or how pure, digestion is never a pretty thing.
“I will not deny that I have a hard time with simplicity. I can look at some
of you and tell that you are in the same situation. And, then, there are some of
you whose lives I would love to complicate…”
Was he staring into Phoebe’s eyes? It sure appeared that he was. He
couldn’t see what her eyes were doing. A small crease in her blouse, just where
her breast met her armpit, flattened slightly. That was the only movement she
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showed. Her butt might have moved just a wee bit, which stretched her waist
band, tugging on her blouse and causing that change in the fabric.
In order for such a thing to happen, there would have to be a significant
coefficient of friction between the textiles of her top and her bottom. Neither
cloth could be either a synthetic or a naturally slick material, like silk or satin. He
had always suspected her of being partial to natural fabrics, especially cotton.
She probably owned an entire wardrobe of nothing but denim. In addition to
blue jeans, she probably owned denim dresses, jackets, and shirts. She might also
have had a few accessories of the same fabric, including purses and belts.
She also probably owned apparel—especially skirts—made of corduroy.
She probably hoped to find corduroy garments with horizontal ribs, just because
she had never seen such things. At some point she might have learned to sew,
just to be able to make those horizontal striped clothes. She might have heard
that there was a good reason for not laying cords horizontally. Actually, beyond
the fashion rule that wide would make the wearer appear larger, there was a
practical reason to avoid this particular construction. The weave of corduroy did
not allow for simple cross–grain hemming. If she were to leave seams raw, they
would quickly unravel or separate.
She owned Madras prints and dozens of cotton weaves. She probably was
among those who enjoyed darning socks with contrasting colors, even
overlaying intricate patterns as she made the repairs. She had wool clothes too.
Besides sweaters, she owned some heavy shirts, which she wore in the fall. Some
of them had linings, but others were as scratchy on the inside as they were to
others who touched them. She endured the discomfort, because it offered her a
simple test, one she knew she could pass. The scratchiness was not agonizing,
just barely distracting. It was one of the annoyances that she could control.
Nobody was torturing her; nobody was forcing her to wear barbed wire. She was
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wearing wool, one of the three most common fabrics on the planet. If she could
not endure the scratching, if it became unbearable, she could remove her
clothing. Since she would never disrobe in public, she would persevere. Other
than her undergarments, she probably did not own any clothes that contained
elastic.
If there were critics who reviewed people in the same way they reviewed
restaurants, movies, books, or plays, they would look for special phrases to
describe Phoebe:
•
The shyest vixen
•
The world’s most real imaginary character
•
Mistress of the patty–cake hug
•
A breathtaking mixture of subtle lust and vanilla beans
•
She represents the part that’s removed in a lobotomy
•
The one every old man wishes he had known when he was younger
He would not mind her getting old. Probably she would want some sort
of an agreement before she stayed with anyone for very long. She might not get
any concessions from Orpheus or Claud or Richard or Paco, but she would retain
the right to disappear from his life. Whatever that agreement was, it would be
important to her that she have some security. She probably didn’t need him to
remain affectionate forever. In fact, chances were good that she preferred her
fellow to hang around but not too closely, just in case she needed something.
She would want him to assure her financial comfort. She didn’t insist on
wealth. She didn’t particularly care for the trappings of affluence. Even now, she
wore just one modest ring that appeared to be a turquoise and silver creation of
southwestern folk artists. The band was thin and the stone was small. Her
earrings were just to keep the holes from healing shut. She got them when she
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was twelve, because her mother thought piercing her ears would be a wonderful
entry into her teen years.
There was a simple minimum that she hoped for in her life, and the man
who could promise that just might win her company. She wanted to have a
home, just a modest one. She wanted to be able to keep that place warm; she
didn’t demand that the temperature stay short–sleeve toasty, but warm enough
that she could, with a simple sweater and a pair of booty socks, stay comfortable.
Food? She wasn’t particular. She didn’t care if she had exotic or even
expensive food. Personally, she could live on hamburgers and fries. As a matter
of fact, she probably didn’t even notice food one way or the other. Wasn’t that
the stuff that people ate?
She probably had no interest in furs, not even the fake ones that told
people that she was rich enough to afford luxury but too thoughtful to slaughter
helpless creatures so that the world would know her good fortune. Maybe later,
when she needed some extra help to impress the world, she would find some
sort of handsome wrap for herself.
“In those days, they had what we would call choruses. They weren’t the
formal groups that we think of in churches. There was not much knowledge of
harmony, much less counterpoint or dissonant anticipation. We can pretend that
our perfect son of our perfect father knew everything, but, even when he was
most popular, nobody was making any claims about his musical ability.
“In fact, if they had, they would have had a tougher time persuading the
world that he was something special. If he was so great, why did people have to
work so hard? Why didn’t he know about windmills, radio, automobiles? Or did
he know about them and just decline to tell anyone? I’m not asking these
questions because I think there are easy answers. In fact, I don’t even know if
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there are any answers at all. At least not to those questions. I’ll be the first to
admit that there are some questions I would love to ask some of you…”
What the hell was Phoebe doing in this class? Was she seeking flattery?
She couldn’t possibly be interested in this nonsense. It made sense for somebody
studying engineering. After all, there were liberal arts requirements, and this
class filled one of them, although it was sometimes hard to remember which.
And it made sense for the girls that Chrisler so enjoyed flirting with. They
could be sure of good marks. They never knew for sure what they would have to
do to get them, but they knew they were available. But Phoebe?
Oh…oh yes. That was Phoebe’s special gift. Not only was every man she
met smitten with her, but they all suspected they were the only ones who would
be. Each man she met noticed her bent posture, her slight asymmetry, her
plumpness, the wrinkles on her clothing. Each of them knew that she believed
herself unattractive. The girls that Chrisler was blatantly trying to seduce had the
luxury of picking their prey, but she had to wait for somebody to choose her.
She was not a challenge, she was a comfortable choice, who would
probably agree to spend some time with anyone who asked. What else did she
have to do?
If she was bored, she would agree. If not, she would tell the fellow that
she had something important to do. Perhaps she had to see the dermatologist
about a mole, get an estimate on removing a dent from her rear quarter panel, or
get a book from the library. Would she like some company? No, thank you. Her
mother would be going with her.
She probably had more choice than even the beauty queens and sorority
girls did. There were fellows who would never ask one of them out. For
whatever reason, they had established themselves as rebels, poets, non–
conformists, or brooders. Guys like that did not date girls in lacy underthings.
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Not only was that particular breed of beauty reserved for those of certain
accomplishment, but they did not want to betray their images.
But Phoebe? Was there any reason to not ask her out? Was she too homely
to befriend? No. Was she too beautiful for any but the most confident of
gentlemen? No. Was she too nervous to be fun? No. Did she smell too bad?
Didn’t seem to.
So, what was she doing in this class? She sure wasn’t in the engineering
program. If she were studying the humanities, she sure wouldn’t have needed
this to meet any requirements. He couldn’t believe she was studying physical
education, not beyond the basic requirements. Actually, the basic requirements
didn’t include studying physical education. Even the course catalog used the
word “take” rather than “study” when explaining the physical education
requirement.
It was actually possible that some of the girls, the ones who Chrisler
seemed to single out for attention, were majoring in physical education. They
considered leading cheers as a noble profession, one that required the full benefit
of a higher education. They knew that they had been cheerleaders as far back as
the sixth grade. Yes, it was certainly possible for them to be cheerleaders. But for
those who aspired to professionalism, or who hoped to teach others to be agile,
flexible, artistic, and acrobatic while remaining graceful and attractive, it was
important to have a comprehensive education. Those young girls would be
depending on them for guidance. So, in addition to Body Dynamics, History of
Sport, Competition Theory, Physiology, and Calisthenic Mechanics, each student
enrolled as a Physical Education major took courses in Philosophy, Mathematics,
History, English, Political Science, and one foreign language. For those who
would later become teachers, it would be important that they have a broad
education, which would allow them to understand their students’ backgrounds.
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For those who would become professional athletes, cheerleaders, or performers,
it was important to understand the world they would be entering.
Phoebe did not major in:
•
Cheerleading
•
Physical Education
•
Home Economics
•
Anything that ended in “studies”
•
Fashion Design
•
Graphic Arts
It was only fair to offer her the benefit of his assumption. She had enrolled
in this course because he was there. She could have enrolled because Chrisler
was there or because one of the other fellows was there, but it pleased him to
believe she was there because he was there. If that was why she was there, then
he didn’t have to think too hard about how she found out what courses he would
be taking.
He could surely find out what she was taking. Heck, he could even ask
her, if he managed to snag the same table in the snack shop. He couldn’t
remember her asking him if he would be taking this course. She might have seen
him from the other side of the room during registration. Maybe she had spies in
the registrar’s office who found out his course schedule. She would have been
too shy to be the only girl in Analytical Geometry or Metal Science. If she wanted
to be in a class with him, she would have chosen one of the humanities. As much
as she adored him she wouldn’t have switched her language requirement from
German to Italian. So, what was left?
Actually, it might work, to approach her as though she had enrolled just
to be near him. He would tell her that he had spent most of his class time trying
to understand why she was sitting through a class like this. Unlike some of the
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girls there, he didn’t think she was there for an easy grade. He suspected what
might be an easy grade for the others would be one of the most difficult ones for
her. She would ask what he meant, and he would tell her that he thought they
both understood. She would nod flatly.
He would tell her that he thought she had taken the course because he
was there. At least he hoped that was why. Oh no, not just for himself, but for
how it would reflect on her. It would be hard to respect her if she had actually
chosen to sit through Chrisler’s performance because of his reputation or because
of an interest in Jesus droppings.
She would ask him if he thought he was impressing her by being
disrespectful. Did Chrisler impress her? Not particularly.
And was she sitting in the classroom just for him? She would smile and
roll her eyes. It would be a natural roll, from straight ahead to the right, up, and
then down. She would ask him why he thought such a thing, unless, of course,
he was insane.
He would explain:
•
Nobody would take this course because they yearned for the
knowledge they would get.
•
He had enrolled before she did.
•
She could have sat anywhere in the classroom, but she chose to sit in
the spot where he could perfectly view her. In fact, when she wore a
button shirt, it would open towards him.
•
She was not smiling as Chrisler spoke, so she wasn’t hoping for him to
notice her.
•
The other fellows in the class were too ordinary for her.
She would bow her head and then smile shyly. Well, he obviously had it
all figured out. Could they go somewhere private? She was so very embarrassed.
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She had believed she had orchestrated the perfect plot, and the intended victim
of her plot had exposed her. And so quickly.
He would hug her. It was all right. He was glad she had done it. It showed
her strength of character that she was willing to do what it took to attract the
fellow she wanted. And…well…to be perfectly honest, he wished he could have
done the same thing to attract her.
They would find themselves in an old tunnel that dated to the time when
the entire campus was heated by a boiler system. The walls were now in
disrepair. Students were not supposed to enter them, but they all did. When the
weather was bad, most ignored the rules, moving from one class to the next
through those passages. The administration had announced a plan to seal off the
tunnels, but engineers protested that doing so could present other problems. The
arts center’s legendary acoustics were in part the result of resonance provided by
those air chambers.
She was wearing a skirt today. He loved it when she wore skirts. When
she sat, her position could offer dozens of different views. Admirers might only
be able to see an ankle or a calf. Sometimes she would display a knee. Beyond
those free offerings, the views of her legs depended upon chance, upon her
generosity, upon the ingenuity of seekers of gold.
But now, he would hug her as she wept in the humiliation of having been
discovered in her scheme. He would offer a thousand assurances that he thought
she was wonderful. He had admired her from his seat in Chrisler’s class and had
hoped for a moment like this.
“Really?” she would ask.
Oh, yes. Yes yes. Then she would kiss him very quickly, barely making
contact with his mouth. Her eyes would remain closed, even as she withdrew.
He would cradle the back of her head in his hands and pull it back to himself. He
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would be bold enough to ask her to open her eyes so he could see into them. As
she did, he would kiss her, increasing the pressure of his lips on hers. She would
moan her approval into his mouth.
She would start to protest that somebody might come upon them, but
halfway through her objection she would stop speaking to surrender. She would
insist upon remaining clothed, because they were in a public place. She would
allow him to remove her panties but would pray that he would do so gently. She
wouldn’t want to hear any elastic snapping. The only surfaces in that place were
concrete. She wouldn’t want to be bruised against them, so she would ask him to
take her without pressing her body against any of them.
Immediately he would recognize how clumsy such a standing conjugation
would be, but he would try to preserve her grace, her honor, and her dignity. He
would bend at the knees, keeping his hands in a romantic embrace around her.
He would not cup her bottom in his hands to lift her onto himself. Only the
tiniest of squeaks would escape her lips. He would be surprised at how moist she
had become while maintaining her modesty. He would ignore the tightness in
his stomach muscles, stiffness in his knees, and the discomfort in his back as he
guided himself handlessly into her. Then, he would close his eyes too, and
dreamily enjoy their union.
“I’m sure all of you are smart enough to realize that I can say just about
anything I want and they’re not going to fire me. I’ve been saying some
controversial things here today, not the least of which is that I’m not going to tell
you what you’re grades will depend on. How’s that? It might be on your final
exams or your papers. It might be on class participation. For some of you it might
be on the size of your—how should I say this?—endowments. Heck, I might
even ask Jesus Christ himself to assign you your grades. Or I might just pick
some numbers at random
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“’Oh, you can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair.’ Wouldn’t it? Well now, why
don’t we just take ourselves a little look at what’s fair and what isn’t. If I give the
best grades to the girls with the biggest boobs, that wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Everyone, except maybe one student in this room might say that was a ghastly
injustice.
“I know, you’re saying I should base the grades on who shows the most
effort or who has studied the hardest or who is the smartest or who has best
absorbed the material. Is it any more just to give good grades to somebody
whose constitution allows him to spend hours studying? Or to someone who
was born with a well–organized brain? Or to someone who happens to be more
intelligent than the rest of humanity? Isn’t that just as arbitrary? What if I happen
to be completely taken with huge breasts? Shouldn’t I be allowed to express
myself just as much as Nichols over in the English Lit department who happens
to give good grades to people who write dreamy poetry?” He waved his left
hand in a flowing motion, exaggerating his colleague’s flowery mannerism.
“Let’s be completely honest here. If we want to be completely fair,
completely impartial, then the only way to distribute grades is with a random
drawing. I know, some of you will say that would mean somebody could just fail
to show up, not write any of the papers, not even show up for the exams and still
get an ‘A’. What is the point of having a class where the grades are given out at
random?
“Think about that for a minute. What is the point? Do you see how far
we’ve come? People are asking about the fairness of my grading system. It
doesn’t matter if anybody learns anything. It doesn’t matter if you have a
completely new picture of the world. It doesn’t matter if I trash your faith or
disgust you. It doesn’t matter if I’m crude, illogical, blasphemous. It doesn’t
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matter whether or not you’ve discovered an entirely new way to think about the
world. What matters is your grade.
“Is that so you’ll be able to snag the girl or guy of your dreams? Or maybe
you want to impress some employer? Or are you hoping to get into law school or
medical school or just meet that humanities requirement for engineering school?
“I’m about to tell you something about myself. I graduated from high
school when I was seventeen years old. I spent four years getting my bachelor’s
degree, another two for my master’s, and three on top of that for my doctorate.
And you know what? I don’t have any idea what grade I got in a single course I
took. I never looked at a paper or a test I got back. I never looked at a report card.
I never read the comments my advisors made. For all I know, I could have
flunked every course I ever took. I could just as easily have aced all of them.
“On second thought, I don’t think I flunked all of them. If I had,
somebody along the way would have asked me to step out into the hall. They
would tell me that I was no longer enrolled at the institution, or that I would
have to take something over again.
“The point is that, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter the tiniest bit
what number some professor punched into a computer. Would I feel any more
intelligent if I found out I got straight A’s? Would I be despondent if I barely
passed? No, it wouldn’t matter, which is why I never looked. Just another one of
my little quirks.
“So here’s my point. Grades don’t matter one whit. Here’s another idea.
What if, instead of me giving out grades to all of you, you give me a grade? Yeah,
you could all write justifications for the grades you give me. Then…well, I’m not
quite sure what I would do with that, especially since I wouldn’t look.
“You know, to tell the truth, I kind of like the idea of grading on breast
size. That way we all know where we stand. The fellows may as well stop
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coming to class, since they’re going to flunk anyhow. The rest of you could stop
coming too, since you already know what you’re going to get. I mean, if you’re
here for the grades and not to hear what I’m teaching, we may as well do it that
way and save all of us some aggravation.
“Does anyone have any ideas on that? One…two…three. Okay, then, it’s a
deal. And remember now, no cheating.
“Well now. I notice none of you are getting up to leave. Is that because
you are really interested in what I’m saying? Or is it because you figure I’m so
unpredictable that I just might change my mind again on how I’m going to
grade. See, life is never simple.
“Is that what you expected me to say? That life isn’t simple? I think
they’re raising the tuition again next year and with the wisdom you’re getting
from me the extra money is a bargain. Anybody disagree? Questions?”
“Is that really how you’re going to grade us?”
“I don’t think it’s any of your business. I haven’t decided yet. I like well–
written essays. I like people who participate in classroom discussions. I like
people with a sense of humor at least equal to mine. And, yes, I like well–
rounded breasts. A good grade equates to pleasing me. So, I don’t see why one
pleasure should carry more weight than any other. And if any of you claim that
I’m being arbitrary, I’ll laugh. Arbitrary? Is it arbitrary of you to choose French
fries over squid? No, what pleases us isn’t arbitrary.
“Which brings us back to what we should be discussing. What is good
and bad may seem arbitrary, but seeming ain’t being. In fact, good can be very
close to pleasure. Charity feels good. Generosity feels good. Even sacrifice feels
good, which is why your parents wore used clothes and lived in cramped
apartments so you could come here. That is why our man Jesus Christ walked
bravely through the streets carrying his own cross. Do you see where I’m going?
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I might even sacrifice my clever grading system so that some day one of you
might actually accuse me of being fair.”
Phoebe seemed to be the only one in the room who was still bored. She
looked as though she were writing, but he could see that she was making
random figure–eights.
“Do you think I’m spending too much time talking about grades? To tell
you the truth, I don’t have any interest at all in grades. But it seems that most of
the questions you are asking me are about your grades. ‘Will this be on the final?’
‘Will we flunk if we don’t do this assignment?’ Sound familiar? Now I won’t lie
to you. You’re not the first bunch who have been so worried about their precious
little grades.
“Believe me, you’re not flattering me when you don’t show any interest in
what I’m talking about unless it affects your grades. I mean, we’re talking about
some pretty important stuff here. If you think Jesus is important, I’d think you’d
want to know if there’s any of him left behind here. If you think he was a
charlatan, I’d think you’d be snapping up this opportunity to ridicule him. After
all, there are plenty of people out there who have lots of power who think he’s
about the only person in the history of the world who counts for much.
“Some day you might cross the path of a cop who asks himself what Jesus
would do before he decides if he should arrest you, beat you up, or let you go.
You might find a guy or a girl who won’t go to bed with you unless they’re sure
that’s what Jesus would do. Well, I’ll tell you the truth, that one’s more for the
guys than the girls.
“But I think you probably understand what I’m trying to tell you. Grades?
You guys are worried about grades? Would Jesus worry about grades? Would
Jesus’s dung worry about grades?”
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Was that a smile on her face? It couldn’t be. She would never smile at
anything Chrisler said. But maybe she was thinking about something else and
that was why she was smiling. Maybe she was thinking of that time when he
imagined the two of them putting pennies on the railroad track.
Or maybe it was the evening when she became nervous, frightened. She
was calm and affectionate when he put his arm around her shoulder as they
walked across the street. Then later, when the rain started and he offered his
jacket for shelter. While they stood there, he moved his head over to give her lips
a quick kiss. She knew that was coming. They half–walked and half ran through
the rain until they got to an awning. Most stores rolled up their awnings when
they closed in the evenings, but this one didn’t. It was a clothing store for large
or tall gentlemen.
He dangled his sport coat from one finger, and they both laughed as the
water dripped from its hem and lapels. She touched his shoulder and thanked
him for the protection from the rain. No, it hadn’t really protected her much. Her
hair was soaking, dark, and stringy.
He would drop his jacket on the ground and pull her toward himself. She
would smile, understanding and appreciating the sequence that nature followed.
She closed her eyes, because she knew he would kiss her seriously now. He
would, and she would smile. When his hand moved forward and upward from
its place around her waist, she would still smile. They would breathe in unison, a
rhythm that would increase as their kiss became more intense.
After minutes or days, he would walk her to a more private spot, around
the corner, behind a shipping crate waiting for the morning pickup. He would
pull her downward until they were half sitting but more lying against the wall.
He would smile and tell her that they couldn’t get any wetter or much dirtier.
She would nod and smile too. This was how they were supposed to be talking to
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one another. She would tell him that she couldn’t do what he wanted her to. He
would tell her he understood. They both had fulfilled their obligations.
It would only be when he touched her thigh that she would react. When
he touched the outside, she would tremble, because she would know what
would happen next. When his hand cupped the inside of her thigh, she would
finally be his. If she did not move, she would be acquiescing. If she opened her
legs wider, she would be inviting him to explore further. And if she closed them,
she would be clenching his hand tightly to herself.
If she tried to move his hand away with her own, he would have the
opportunity to again demonstrate his superior strength. Furthermore, by moving
her hand into the area of combat, she would be participating in the competition
that was taking place below her waist. She could accidentally come into contact
with the same parts that he was pursuing, and that would seem to him to be
mockery. He could become angry or violent. He did have that dangerous side,
didn’t he? He might have seemed soft, pliant, and quiet, but she could tell that he
could have stolen her away and ravished her. She was lucky that she was in this
situation rather than being at his mercy in some far off land, from which she
could never escape.
He would enjoy the trembling of her flesh. No, it wasn’t as smooth as
some of those other girl’s might have been. There were irregularities in the flesh,
puckers and dimples. He would smile at the discovery of these flaws on her
body. For just a moment he wished her eyes were open so he could see this mild
victory. He had discovered these imperfections and she could no longer pretend
to be worthy of someone more than him.
She would succumb silently.
Phoebe would be the last among her friends to wed. It might not have
seemed that way always. After she had been with Chad or Cardwin or Elroy for
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a few years, everybody probably assumed they would be together forever. She
was probably becoming bored with him, but she was not energetic enough to
start over with someone new, so she would stay with him. That was the easiest
path her life could take.
But then, he would do something she could simply not abide. It probably
wouldn’t be anything as dramatic as infidelity, violence, or cruelty to animals. It
would be something tiny, possibly losing one of his socks in the dryer or missing
payment on a utility bill. She would suddenly realize that she couldn’t stomach
the thought of spending her life with this man.
She would simply tell him that he would have to leave. He wouldn’t
bother to fight. He would then confess that he didn’t really care much for her one
way or the other, and that all she was doing was creating a nuisance for him and
maybe hurting his pride just a little bit. He could survive that. Besides, he was
tired of her gas, and he bet there were hundreds of girls out there whose legs
weren’t quite so fat. And he suspected he could find one who didn’t have hair
growing all the way up to her navel, or, if she did, had enough respect for him to
try to remove it.
She would tell him that there wasn’t any point in being cruel to her. She
hadn’t treated him that badly. Their time together just happened to be over. As
he left, he would tell her that he would have left long ago if he weren’t so lazy. It
wasn’t her that was keeping him around; it was just inertia.
After that, she would watch as her friends quickly found themselves
convenient husbands. She would attend all their weddings. Each of them would
have a cousin or a friend of the groom or a catering assistant whom they swore
would be perfect for her. She would find fault with all of them. She didn’t want
to be anybody’s sympathy date for the evening.
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She would watch as the athletic husbands began to sit around their patio
homes in tank tops and elastic–waist shorts, watching sports on television and
drinking beer. She would notice their bellies as they enlarged. They would look
unnatural without cans of beer in their hands. Their voices would become loud
and throaty. Their jokes would become crude. The pet names for their women
that had once been endearing would now be demeaning. Shaving would be a
workday chore, too bothersome for days when their only company would be
their wives and, eventually, their children.
Phoebe would see her girlfriends living their lives impassively in the
company of such men and would feel envious. Yes, she would know how crazy
it would seem to anyone else, but they weren’t her. They didn’t understand that
she wanted nothing more than the comfort of no longer having to prove to the
world she was attractive, winsome, and wanted.
What could be more secure than a man who took her for granted? What
could be more comfortable than a man who no longer cared to impress her, or
whom she no longer cared to impress? In the end, that was all she really wanted
of life.
That was probably why she seemed so distant, so unattainable. She would
never be happy with somebody who could never become bored with her. With
boredom came an end to the anxiety.
There were certainly things that would bore him, if only he could have the
chance to let her know:
•
Overuse of the word “cute”
•
Getting too many colds
•
Huge birthmarks that broke the lines of her form
•
Becoming predictable
•
Learning everything there was to know about her
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•
Having hair in the wrong places
•
Digestive problems
•
Telling him about her digestive problems
•
Asking him about his digestive problems
•
Reading romance novels
•
Thinking she had earned the right to spend lots of money
He suspected she could never be interested in somebody who was overly
fascinated with her. Yes, just like her navel–baring classmates, she would
appreciate a few gifts now and then, perhaps a bouquet waiting at home. But she
had to anticipate such things. She had to know that the fellow would show her at
least a modicum of respect. The more familiar she became, the rarer would be
those special attentions. She didn’t care if anybody considered her bright or
sophisticated, but she didn’t want the world to see her as a fool either. Among
girls, a fool was one who shared her intimacies with a guy who had not fed her,
entertained her, flowered her, and told her how wonderful she was.
Okay, here would be how it would work. There still was a physical
education requirement, which meant the girls still had to change clothes in a
locker room. At some time, when Phoebe was changing clothes or was in the
shower, there would have to be an emergency.
The campus community had always joked about the monkey research
going on in the psychology department. There were at least a hundred rhesus
monkeys and half that number of capuchins. None of the animals were tame.
Some of them could become hostile.
The tunnels, the heat tunnels that connected the buildings, entered the
women’s locker areas too. If the monkeys escaped their cages at night when the
caretakers were gone, they could find their way to those tunnels. They would
frolic most of the night.
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By morning they would be exhausted and would find the closest thing
they could to the height of their natural resting spots. That would be atop the
lockers, where they would slumber peacefully.
In the morning they would still be resting. Phoebe, the shy one, would be
certain to arrive early so the other girls would not see her change into her gym
clothes. The sound of her locker door opening would awaken the monkeys, who
would screech, startling her into a scream. Her classmates would be arriving at
that time, and they would all scream, loudly enough that the sounds could be
heard beyond the supposedly soundproof walls of the locker room.
It would be important for him to be the first to hear the panic. He would
enter, telling all the girls to just be calm. He would not pay special attention to
Phoebe, who would be the only one there who was undressed. In her
disorientation she would momentarily forget that she was not fully clothed.
He would climb onto the changing bench and speak softly to the animals.
He would reach gently for the one that seemed most interested in him. When it
bit him, he would not react, but Phoebe would see the blood dripping from his
finger. She would gradually dress herself, as fascinated with his heroism as she
was embarrassed by her own nakedness. He would tell the monkeys that
everything would be all right. All they would have to do would be come with
him. He was their friend.
The other girls would have made their way to safety, but Phoebe would
stay there with him. She would realize that he was sacrificing his own safety to
protect her. And not only was he endangering himself, but he was doing so
calmly, unpretentiously, as though the natural flow of his life included regular
examples of quiet courage.
He would finally notice that she was standing there, although by now she
would have put her clothes on. He would motion for her to leave, that he would
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rather handle this situation by himself. She would tell him that she wanted to
stay there with him. He couldn’t argue, since the animals could sense
disagreements between people.
After several minutes of softly speaking to one of the capuchins, he would
finally be able to touch him with his curled finger. The monkey would grasp the
finger and then move up his arm, embracing the gentle human. Finn would put
his arm around his new friend, holding him softly against himself. Then, he
would find his way back to the tunnel from which the monkeys had come. The
others, seeing their companion contentedly returning to his quarters, would
follow.
As he left, Phoebe would try to tell him that she really appreciated what
he had done for her. He might have saved her life. She had heard stories of… He
would make a motion with his head that told her he would prefer that she
remain quiet. He would disappear with all the monkeys.
She would have to thank him. Perhaps he would return to make sure she
was all right. But he wouldn’t. He had to treat this incident as though it were
unremarkable.
Then, the next time she saw him, she would approach him. Did he
remember her? He would blush. Yes, she was the girl in the locker room. He
would apologize. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. Really, he hadn’t. No, that
was all right. In fact, she was lucky to be alive with just a little shame as her only
scar. She owed him plenty, probably more than she had ever owed anyone
before.
He would tell her he appreciated her gratitude. Was there any way she
could repay him? Any way at all? Did she understand what she was offering?
She must have. But he would honor her modesty. Well, he would tell her, it
would please him if she would try to stay away from monkeys.
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She would laugh and touch his shoulder. He would smile. She would
inhale half a breath, preparing for something more than a finger on his shoulder.
He would tell her he had to get going.
Then, he would wait for the phone calls. They would probably begin
coming that very evening. She would thank him again. Was he sure there was
nothing she could do? He would tell her that she was just embarrassing him. She
would ask if he would like to return the favor. He would ask her what she
meant, since he didn’t want to leave any chance for misinterpretation. She would
offer perhaps a nice dinner or something. Nah, he never was much of an eater.
Weeks later, when he saw her again, he would ask her if that offer of a
dinner was still good. Yes, she would say hesitantly, but he should know that
she’s been seeing someone. He would ask her if that meant she had a boyfriend
or she was going to a psychiatrist. That would be when she would tell him he
was a special fellow. No, she wasn’t seeing a psychiatrist, although maybe she
should.
He would shrug and start to walk away, but she would call to him. What
did he want her to prepare for dinner? What would her boyfriend say? Oh, he’d
probably say steak, beans, and carrot cake. No, what would he say if he knew she
was fixing dinner for someone else. He wouldn’t know.
So he didn’t live with her? Gosh no. They just dated every now and then.
He would tell her he wasn’t much of a competitor. She would say he was
flattering her much more than she deserved. She would love to have him over for
dinner. Now, would he please tell her what he wanted to eat?
He liked spaghetti. He had to warn her, though, that he wasn’t the neatest
spaghetti eater who ever lived. She would tell him that she enjoyed being messy
as much as anyone else.
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“I happen to have the most miserable job on the face of the planet.
Surprise you? It sounds like something anyone would like to do, stand up here in
front of a bunch of gorgeous people and talk about themselves. You don’t think
that’s what I’m doing? Yep, I’m talking about myself.
“But how could that be? A little secret. How many secrets is this I’ve told
you now? It doesn’t matter. I’m well paid. I can afford to tell you a few of them.
Every course you’ve ever taken has an instructor. It doesn’t matter what the
course is: history, analytical geometry, English literature, physics, political
science, they’re all nothing but a person like myself talking about himself. If that
weren’t true, then it wouldn’t make much sense to pay a real human being to
stand up here, would it? You could watch filmed lectures or just read books.
What you, my lovely comrades, are getting here is me talking about myself. I
know what you’re thinking, I can see it here or in English literature. But how
could that be true in chemistry or mathematics, areas that aren’t subject to
interpretation?
“You know what? That might be a good question for your final exam.
Why don’t you write that down? See, I’m not being unreasonable. I’m telling you
right now what you might expect on your final exam. Did I tell you there
wouldn’t be a final exam? Was this the group that was going to pay me for good
grades? I can’t remember. Was this the bunch who had to draw a picture of their
private parts? Or were you supposed to each compile a scrapbook about me?
“I’d like a show of hands. How many of you honestly believe that I’m
completely insane? Hands? Oh, I forgot, we might have some sensitive souls
here. How many would say I have a personality disorder or a disabling
emotional problem? Any of you psych majors interested in diagnosing me? I’m
big enough to take it.
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“I’ll assure you that, yes, I am crazy. I am not that way because of messed
up chemicals in my brain or because I wasn’t nursed long enough or because I
was nursed too long. No, I’m this way because it is my obligation to be. I insult
you because it’s my duty. I challenge your beliefs because to allow you to accept
them without question would be an assault on your intellects.
“When you people are old enough to receive your first Social Security
checks, you won’t remember how to solve a redox equation. You won’t
remember what Seneca wrote. You won’t remember what Coleridge was talking
about in the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. But I’d be willing to bet that you will
remember some wacky fellow by the name of Chad asking you to think about
what might have happened when Jesus Christ took a dump.”
She would not be nervous at her wedding. Yes, she was bound to have a
wedding, because her greatest desire in life was to have her life be so normal that
her friends would envy it. She would wear the dress that her mother wanted her
to. She would allow her friends and her sister to preen her, to apply make–up, to
arrange her train and place her veil.
She would momentarily forget the fellow’s name. Chad? James? Aloysius?
Oh yeah, it would come to her. It didn’t really matter. The guy didn’t matter, as
long as he didn’t bother her too much. The ceremony would embarrass her more
than excite her. She would be nervous, not because her life was changing, but
because she could be doing something else instead of being there. She could be
folding her underwear, vacuuming her carpet, shopping for a new blouse, or
shampooing the cat.
The little rituals would embarrass her, especially the one where she had to
sit down to have the guy pull off her garter. It wasn’t just the exposure of her
thigh to the world that would irritate her, but the unoriginal absurdity. If
somebody was going to do something that ridiculous, why did it have to be the
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same thing that millions of people had done before? Why not tear a sleeve off the
dress? Why not dowse her in blueberry sauce? Why not chop off her hair? Those
things would make just as much sense as reaching towards her crotch in public,
removing an elastic band, and tossing it out to the groom’s slobbering friends.
Once they got past that day of demeaning customs, she would go with her
new husband on some kind of a vacation. Everybody would call it a honeymoon,
absurdly implying that this would be their first opportunity to roll around the
bed with pure abandon. For her, though, it would be just a vacation. She would
prefer to go to some busy place like Paris or New York than to a secluded
hideaway. If she was going to come home to this man every single day, why
would she want to be alone with him now? Wasn’t this supposed to be a happy
time?
If she wanted to be completely honest, she would tell him what would
most interest her about him:
•
His quest to have a career in which he could buy her everything she
wanted
•
Watching his belly grow over the years
•
Wondering each month if she was pregnant
•
Hoping he would smell a little better tonight than he did last night
•
Getting up the courage to tell him how boring he was
•
Finding someone at work who wasn’t bored with her
•
Watching him get nervous as she learned to sculpt with a chainsaw
•
Persuading him to do things he didn’t want to do, including getting
another cat, buying a new car, and tattooing her name on his forearm
•
Throwing away his belongings
But she would some day lose her special charms. She was already
showing the beginnings of a dowager’s hump. Nobody would have described
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her posture as being hunched over, not yet, but he could tell from the spot where
her neck met her shoulders that she was doomed to bear that particular burden.
First, there would be a slight crease at the back of her neckline. Then the top of
her back would be even with that crease. Later the shoulders would be higher
than the bottom of her neck. There would be a few years when her posture
would make her appear shy. But then, probably when she was in her mid–
thirties, she and those around her would realize that she was going to be
carrying that mark of age, that it would grow, and that she could live on milk,
yogurt, bone meal, and calcium pills, but she would never be able to reverse the
progress of her bending posture.
When that happened, she would no longer be able to play at being a
coquette. Rather, her poses would no longer be effective. When she possessed a
unique beauty, it benefited her to pretend that she was plain. When she no
longer was so adorable, her poses would seem pathetic. If she did not realize
what had happened to her, she would continue to behave as though she were a
beautiful girl trying to act plain. Her pretense though would be made sad by the
fact that she really was plain.
Her looks would be a fitting complement to her husband’s overgrown
belly. She would complain that it wasn’t fair. He could have done something to
prevent his expansion. What could she have done? Been born with different
genes? Besides, she suspected that he was still able to go out and find fresh
companions for himself. He never would admit to being unfaithful, but she
would suspect that he was.
Her questions would not arise from his being away from home. From the
day they were married he probably insisted on spending time away from her,
visiting rough bars or helping friends rebuild their classic English sports cars.
Nor would he come home with the scents of other women on him. But still, she
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would suspect. Her sense would detect the slightest variations in the speed with
which his eyes moved or the way his head angled when he spoke to her. She
didn’t have the forensic evidence that a prosecutor would require. She didn’t
have anything that anybody could realistically call evidence at all. Besides, she
wasn’t interested in accusing him of anything. If she were, she would have hired
a detective to follow him and confirm her suspicion.
She would softly complain to her mother how unfair this life was. After
all, he could always go out and find someone new, somebody younger than she
was. True, her replacement might not be quite as smart or as witty or as
interesting as she was, but that wouldn’t matter to him. He wouldn’t be looking
for brains or wit. He would be looking for a body that was still tight around the
belly, that had invisible pores, and that didn’t have a hump on the back.
For those years she would be faithful to Chad or Merrick or Jerome. One
day he would come home drunk. He would tell her that he had something
important to tell her. It was so important that he couldn’t tell her sober. She
would ask if there was someone else. He would tell her there were a bunch of
someone elses, but now there was one that was a special someone else. He wasn’t
going to let her get away from him.
She would nod, as though he wasn’t destroying her life. She would
consider telling him that she was pregnant, but would not, for fear that he would
just ask her to send him the bill. If anything, she would tell him that she wasn’t
going to end the pregnancy just so he could live a happy life with some slut.
She would wait for him to tell her she wasn’t a slut, but, instead, he would
tell her that, if Phoebe had been a little bit more of a slut, this might not have
happened. She would apologize for not spreading her legs whenever she was
bored or lonely.
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Now would be the time for him to tell her that she was saying some
terrible things about a girl she didn’t even know. Well, she didn’t have to know
her. It was enough to know him. Well, if he was all that bad, why had she spent
so much of her life with him? Because she was too lazy to leave and he was too
ordinary to notice in her life. The most he had ever been had been a little bit of
background music, nothing more.
He understood why she was so angry. He didn’t blame her. If she had
found somebody else, he would have been just as angry. He was so sorry he hurt
her. It was something that just happened. Yeah, she would tell him, something
like a bank robbery, just something that happens.
She always did have a vicious streak. He had hoped they would be able to
get through this time without her losing her civility. He felt terrible about
bringing out this side of her.
It was just like him to take credit for how she was behaving. He had better
learn that he wasn’t important in her life. Chances were that it wouldn’t take him
long to slip into his new girlfriend’s background too.
He would toss his personal belonging into a bag, including most of the
silly gifts she had given him: a paddle ball set, a single cowboy boot, a children’s
book about a wilted leaf of grass and a raindrop, and dozens of greeting cards.
Those things were, he would tell her, cherished mementos of the time they had
shared.
That would mean a lot to her. She would tell him that he had been a very
important teacher to her. She would not forget about him. And, oh, by the way,
she hoped that, in this new girl, he finally found that special companion he had
always sought, one who would listen to him, one who could share his interests,
and one who would take it up the ass.
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He would shake his head. He should have known that deep within that
innocent and shy girl was a crude and vindictive shrew. He would act as though
she had hurt his feelings. Well, if that was the real Phoebe, at least he need not
feel guilty about leaving her.
That was an agile display of footwork. He was too feeble to just say he
wanted out, to say he found someone nicer or prettier or smarter. Instead, he
would have to goad her to expose her most uncivil characteristics. Then he
would say his leaving was because she was too disagreeable.
He probably told the new one that Phoebe was such a nice girl that he
hated to hurt her. Still, he would confess that their relationship had been falling
apart for years. He stayed with her because he feared hurting her feelings. Now,
though, he could tell her that he finally discovered what the real Phoebe was like.
Honestly, he no longer felt at all bad about hurting her. If he had known what
she was really like, he would have hurt her a lot more and a lot sooner.
“We’re getting close to the end here. I’m debating whether or not I should
tell you something. In fact, I just might tell you a few things about myself.
“At least three times a week I soak my feet in Epsom salts. I had an affair
with my eighth grade English teacher. Sometimes I put pepper sauce on
popcorn. I was born four months after my parents married. I have 20-15 vision in
both eyes. I have been paid to judge wet t–shirt contests. I know how to operate a
bulldozer and how to play the marimba. I have no idea what brand of soap,
shampoo, or toothpaste is in my bathroom.
“I have never been interested in a person of the opposite sex who was not
interested in me. I have talked my way out of jury duty four times. The Post
Office once displayed a wanted poster with my face on it. I have only owned one
watch in my life, which was a gift and which I broke with a hammer. I have
never told a lie, except for this one. I have never had a favorite food.
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“Oh, and the one you might find most interesting. I happen to be Jesus
Christ. Does anybody care to comment on that?”
Okay, there really was a simple way to do this. Why hadn’t he thought of
it before? He would wait until he was alone with her, overpower her, and
command her to do whatever he wanted. It was surprising how often the
simplest of solutions were always the most elusive.
He didn’t care what she thought of him. All he wanted was that one
chance. If he was willing to die, or at least sacrifice major organs, for the
privilege, why shouldn’t he be willing to do anything at all? Grab her, strip her,
throw her down, and enjoy himself.
Even assuming somebody saw what was happening and interrupted a
complicated life to call the police, he would be done by the time they arrived.
And those assumptions were only vague possibilities. It would be more likely
that passers–by would laugh at the hokey drama.
Of course, such a scene would be at least as embarrassing for him as it
would be for her. On the other hand, it would be no less embarrassing than
allowing her to reject him in her sarcastic and slightly condescending manner.
And it would be much healthier for the two of them to share some of the
humiliation than for him to shoulder it all by himself.
It would not be easy to face the world as a felon. His picture would appear
in the newspaper, and it wouldn’t be a flattering shot. A million people would
hate him. Among them would be the several dozen who wished that they had
had the opportunity to enjoy Phoebe the way he had.
Maybe that wasn’t much of an idea after all. He had a whole life to live,
and he didn’t want to live it in shame. He’d rather die honorably in a car crash,
after promising his heart to her mother in exchange for a night—no, a week or a
month—of pleasure, than to have a court record detail his desperation.
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The only way to execute such a plan and avoid the humiliation would be
to dispose of her when he was through. He couldn’t bring himself to do such a
thing, even if he were certain that he could fool the authorities. It would be
wonderful if he could persuade himself that he had a strong enough conscience
to prevent him from doing such a thing. That might be the case. He had never
killed a dog or a cat, even when they irritated him. He could have killed one or
two and nobody would have ever found out, but he didn’t. But it wasn’t his
conscience that made the prospect of killing Phoebe so repulsive. It was the fact
that he couldn’t bear the thought of having had sex with somebody who was
dead. Not that she would be dead while they were having sex, but that she
would be dead, and his memory of her would be of when she was doing
whatever it was she did while he was enjoying her.
There was another thing too. After he had sex with her, he would no
longer feel like he had to find out what she was like. He would be satisfied never
to pursue her again. Nevertheless, he would be spending the rest of his life in
prison. By that time, he would no longer have any sense that his pleasure was
worth the punishment. He was ruining his life over someone who now bored
him.
She would die some day. That was certain. Nature would never allow her
to escape. But it would probably be after she had lived her natural life. Her hump
would be almost as high as the crown of her head. Those breasts that now
seemed so perfect would be wrinkled, nearly empty bags whose upper
musculature had dissolved. Those firm arms, speckled with distinctive
birthmarks and moles would flap with each movement.
The wit and sarcasm would be gone. The words she did speak would be
barely understandable. She would tell the younger people that she once had
more fellows than she could handle. She could have had any of them, and she
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wished she had been more generous to the fellows. The youngsters would smile
at her, pretend to be interested, and laugh at her when she wasn’t looking. They
would see the veins snaking across her wrinkled arms and legs. They would
accidentally glimpse the vestiges of her breasts, now barely more than flaps of
loose skin hanging from her upper body. She would now regret not having worn
them more proudly when she was younger.
Her greatest fear would be breaking her hip. She knew from her thirties,
when the modest slouch began to appear more as a hump, that her skeleton
would one day betray her. In those days she had heard of older women breaking
hips. Sometimes, the fractures happened without so much as a bump. Crossing a
leg or putting too much weight on a foot, twisting to reach a magazine or just
getting out of bed might be enough to cause the bones to snap.
She had often laughed at older folks. She had ridiculed their memories
and their driving habits, but she never laughed about broken bones. When some
friend mentioned a grandmother’s accident, Phoebe became concerned.
Even though she hated the taste, she had tried to drink a full glass of milk
every day. But her bones began to lose density anyway. She felt she was
gradually approaching the doom she had most feared. When she heard sounds,
she would interpret them as originating somewhere inside of her. Her hip was
starting to crumble.
Before that happened, though, she would have to find a more dignified
way to go. All of her girlfriends—there was Rina and Libby and Barbara and
Kimmy and Paulette—they had all found more dignified ways to go. She didn’t
think she would ever forget which of those girls was which, but somehow she
was too tired to sort them all out. One of them died in a car crash, and another
had been crippled in the same accident.
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Oh, yes, the breast cancer one. That was Barbara, wasn’t it? But it had
been beautiful. She had a nasty bowler for a husband. Anyone would have
thought that he would never stick around with a girl who was missing one of her
primary assets. But he proved to be much more of a human being than any of her
friends had supposed him to be. He moved to the evening shift at work so he
could spend his days with her. The days were the toughest, because that was
when she had all the tests, all the therapies, all the surgeries. And that was also
the part of the day when most people were working, so they couldn't visit her.
They had a couple of kids, and he managed to care for them too. That was
Barbara, wasn’t it? She had done what so many others would have dreamt of.
She had found a man who would love her even when her breasts were gone.
When she died, the whole world knew she had found the right husband.
Phoebe had never known that dignity. She was going to die of a broken
hip. Or not even that. It would be complications following a broken hip. They
would try to make her use one of those aluminum walkers, and she would tell
anyone who listened that there was a time when there were gents who would
have loved to carry her around in their arms. She would hear the words that she
most dreaded: “Yes, honey.”
Indignities that Phoebe was doomed to endure in her dotage:
•
Loss of memory
•
Loss of credibility
•
Loss of looks
•
Loss of bladder control
•
Loss of bowel control
•
Loss of breasts, or at least shapely breasts
•
Inability to realize when others were bored with her
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•
The realization that her company was not much of a reward for
anybody
•
That coyness would now seem foolish
•
Cleanliness and sweet smells were no longer enough
•
People laughing at the thought that somebody would take liberties
with her
•
Men no longer getting excited in her presence
Her end would come slowly. It wouldn’t be a painful, agonizing death,
but a long and boring one. The spontaneity of her youth would relax into a
dozen routines. Chad or Kirby or Parker would have left her enough money that
she could go to the beauty shop every week. Her appointments would be on
Thursdays at 10:15. She would prefer the same cab driver, since he knew how to
behave around her. Friday mornings he took her grocery shopping. Bread, eggs,
two pounds of ground chuck, a flank steak, butter (every other week), coffee
(once every four weeks), fruit in season, a bar of Lindt dark chocolate with
orange filling. She didn’t get milk. It was too late now to expect miracles. The rest
of her days she would sit in front of the television, waiting for her daughter’s
call, which always came at 2:30 in the afternoon. They would ask each other how
they were and what they were doing. Phoebe would offer some advice, which
her daughter would hear but would not absorb. Each would tell the other that
she loved her, but the words would be formal and insincere. Her daughter
would tell her that she was keeping busy with her work. She wouldn’t mention
that dozens of men believed they were the only ones who thought she was
beautiful.
Phoebe’s strength would gradually leave her. And she was often bored.
She would start concentrating on her breathing. Was it taking more of her energy
just to inhale? It seemed that way. She feared that she would pull a muscle in her
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chest by trying too hard to get air into her lungs. She would think of the days
long ago when guys spoke of her lungs slyly. They would show concern when
she coughed. Was there a problem with her lungs? Were her lungs congested?
They would have a look of worry. Her lungs were nothing to take lightly. Was
there fluid in her lungs? Were her lungs clear? She would pretend. They would
pretend.
Now, though, when somebody talked about her lungs, they were talking
about her lungs. They really were asking her if she felt as though there were fluid
in her lungs. And they were not asking because they were particularly interested.
They were asking because it was their job to keep her as healthy as an aged
collection of tissue could be. No, they weren’t interested in her. There was one
fellow who resembled a guy she had sported with long ago. It might have been
his son or his grandson. He was a doctor now.
How she wished she had cooperated back then. She hoped she had been
kind to the fellow. Whom she did or didn’t care for wasn’t something she could
control. He couldn’t control how he felt about her either. That was how nature
worked. Nature was cruel. That was a simple fact, one she could not change. But
if she had appreciated him the way he appreciated her, this young man could be
part of her lineage. She could have given rise to a doctor or the father of a doctor.
That would have made her proud.
Oh, her daughter made her proud too. What was it she did? Something
with crippled children. She taught them to walk or something like that. Or
maybe she was a secretary to someone who taught them to walk. If she had taken
the time to explain her job, she would understand. She wasn’t stupid. Nobody
had ever said she was stupid. Not then and not now.
She was weak, and she was sad that she wouldn’t be getting better. At one
time she had been able to impress the boys by changing her own tires and
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carrying a week’s worth of groceries from her car in one trip. Once, when she
was moving, she lifted her end of the sofa bed by herself. After several steps, she
had set it down. She couldn’t make it all the way from the parking lot to the
sidewalk and up the stairs to the new place. But none of the guys who had
offered to help was unimpressed.
The cheerleaders that thought they were so much more appealing than
she was would never have condescended to lift heavy furniture. They wanted all
of the guys to believe they could be easily subdued. A girl who was soft and
weak would be the one the lazy boys would choose.
Now, she too was weak and soft. Now should be the time when the lazy
boys came around, but they weren’t there. There were girls out there who were
weak, soft, straight–backed, smooth skinned, and still young. They could pretend
they were innocent, or at least tight enough to give the randy fellows a little bit of
pleasure.
Her mind would endlessly roll around what her life had been and what it
had become. What could she have done differently? She wished she could have
stored some of the pleasures of her youth to enjoy now. She wished she hadn’t
passed that time when people asked her about her regrets. Nobody had ever
asked her, and, now, nobody would.
If they did, she wouldn’t have the ready quips that so many subjects had.
She wouldn’t tell interviewers that she wouldn’t change anything, because all of
those events, good and bad, had led to where she was now. She wouldn’t say she
regretted not having more fun. She probably would say something silly, like that
she regretted having burned down the abbey and killing forty nuns just to watch
them burn.
Nobody was asking. She had always thought herself unique, someone
who, although quiet, was always noticed. The fellows noticed her. She had
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plenty of girlfriends too. She was not one of those meretricious little things who
prided herself on getting along better with men than with women. She got along
with everyone. The fact that boys wanted to get along more than even they could
have imagined was not her responsibility. And, no, she didn’t regret it. In fact,
she wished they would still come around. She probably couldn’t handle them as
she had Chad or Drake or Ancelon—her bones were weak—but she would love
for them to try to impress her. She would like for them to insist on helping her
clean her windows or drive her around.
Her life would become worse and worse. She would become weaker. Her
girl would try to fit her mother into her life, but she—was she still married or
was she out there at the bars again? And as there were fewer people to help her
with the chore of living, she became weaker. There was a little bit of a tremor in
her left hand. She was able to keep it quiet if she rested it on a table or the arm of
a chair, but when she lifted it, it shook. The rapid and tiny movements in her
hand used more energy than she could afford.
At one time she had worried about being overweight. Now she was
almost nothing. She idly wondered if putting on a little weight might help her
breasts fill back out as they had been when she was younger. But she didn’t have
much of an appetite. Her sense of taste was fading. The foods she had once
craved were now flavorless. The strongest peppers would still sting on her
tongue, but not as they had earlier in her life.
She would force herself to eat chocolate bars every once in awhile,
connecting the texture with the flavor she could barely remember. She
remembered having frequent cravings for the dark varieties, sweet or semi–
sweet. She still could enjoy the orange flavor they put in some of the dark
chocolate that Lindt made.
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Each night she would fall easily to sleep, grateful for the temporary relief
from the need to think about anything. She would hope that this would be the
time that she would stay asleep forever. That would be what would happen. Her
daughter would hope for the same thing, fearing that her mother would suffer a
needlessly protracted time in the hospital.
Her funeral would be a small affair, attended mostly by her daughter’s
friends and colleagues. None of the fellows who had pursued her in her youth
would be there. There might be a few distant relatives from out of town. All
would say that she had lived a long, full, and productive life.
“I think all of you know that it isn’t easy to get rid of somebody in my
position. Believe me, if they could, they would have fired me long ago. I can’t
remember all the jobs I’ve had in my life, but I think I’ve been fired from every
one of them except this one. There’s some kind of clause about moral turpitude.
They probably could use that if they wanted to, but, unless I do something that
makes the front page of the papers, I don’t think they’re going to do that. Other
than that, about the only way they’re going to get me out of here is if the whole
place goes under.
“Now, I’m not exactly sure what moral turpitude is. It sure sounds like
fun, though, doesn’t it? I’d say that those of you who are worried about flunking
this class might want to think of getting me some of it. The sad thing, though, is
I’ve been sitting by my phone waiting for a call offering me some of that good
old moral turpitude, but it never comes. It breaks my heart to think that none of
you cares enough about your career to make that one little phone call.
“Am I making some of you uncomfortable? If not, then I suppose I’m not
doing my job. But don’t worry, not doing my job isn’t grounds for dismissal, at
least not the way I read my contract.
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“But that isn’t really the issue here. I want all of you to think about the
things I’ve said. What are they? Well, I’ve said that I’m Jesus Christ, for one.
Nobody has protested. Nobody has arisen in rebellion. That’s quite a
commentary on a group of people who claim to be Christians. After all, isn’t
Jesus the guy who lived a couple thousand years ago? The one whose excrement
is as holy as he was? The one who millions of people worship at least twice a
year?
“Now I could tell you all to write an essay on why what I said is or isn’t
true. I could demand citations, footnotes, endnotes, a bibliography, chapter
heads, and at least three–thousand words. That would be quite an assignment. I
know that a lot of you are thinking I wouldn’t do something like that, since it
would be so normal, so conventional.
“What if part of my uniqueness is that I sometimes do exactly what every
other teacher does? Sometimes I might give you tests. Sometimes I might assign
homework. I know, I already told you how I was going to give out grades. You
have a choice. You can either trust what I said before or you can trust what I say
now.
“Or, you can just take your chances. In the end, though, every grade you
get in a course like this is random. And it’s not just me; it’s the same in every
course you’ve taken. Unless, of course, you’re studying to be an engineer or a
mathematician. In those courses, there really are such things as answers. Here
there aren’t. If there’s one thing I want you to take away from your time with me
it’s that I don’t know anything. I’m not what I know; I’m just what I want. I think
some of you probably know by now what that is.” He winked in the direction of
the brown–haired one who was guaranteed a good mark if his earlier criterion
held.
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“Some of you have already come to the conclusion that all of you will
reach eventually. That is that it doesn’t matter what you do or what you know,
not as far as your grades go. There isn’t anything you can study, learn,
memorize, reason through, deduce, discover, hear about, or invent that will have
any bearing on what grade I’ll give you. You’ll notice I say that I’m giving you a
grade. I’m not going to participate in that absurd exercise of claiming that I don’t
give grades, but rather you earn them. That way, if you flunk, it’s your fault, and
if you excel it’s your accomplishment. I’m not quite ready yet to give you guys
that kind of authority. I’ve worked too hard to have it all for myself.
“So what are you to do? Simple, do whatever you want. It doesn’t make
any difference to me.”
How much longer can this last? The clock on the wall. Whose diabolical
scheme was it to put clocks in classrooms that had no sweep second hands? How
was a person to measure the time as it passed? After this lecture it seemed
possible to see the motion in the minute hand. It was slow, but it was possible to
see it.
Phoebe was taking about twenty breaths every minute. It seemed she took
about half of them through her nose and half through her mouth. Probably, her
nose dried out if she breathed through it too much. She had plenty of practice
breathing through her nose. She wasn’t one of those who stopped breathing
during kisses. That wasn’t even a bet. He would be able to smell his own breath
as he inhaled into her mouth and that air came out of her nose. It was kind of
disgusting, but there had to be plenty of things about her that were just as
disgusting. Some day it would be important to know all of those things, since
they would make it easier to stop thinking about her all the time.
What he could see right now wasn’t disgusting. He wished it were. Or
maybe not. Chrisler was so boring that even a disgusting Phoebe would be more
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pleasant than Chrisler. Chad Chrisler obviously wanted her. He seriously
wanted her. That was why he was trying so hard to entice the standard girls in
the room. He wanted Phoebe to realize he was somebody who any girl should
want. He wanted her to realize that her time was running out. It would probably
be this very evening when he would call her on some pretext. He wanted to
discuss her attitude, or she had dropped a pencil and he would like to return it.
He would have some excuse.
She would thank him for his thoughtfulness and say she would take care
of whatever the issue was next week, when she had some time. He had hoped
they could get together before that. Well, if it was that important, maybe.
Chrisler was that kind of a person. He knew not how to control himself.
He wanted Phoebe and he would have her. It wasn’t determination and it wasn’t
pride that gave him that assurance. It was simple fact. The cheerleaders fell like
coins barely standing on their edges. Phoebe might be a little more challenging,
despite the fact that her prospects were not as universal as those other girls’.
But, dammit, Chrisler wasn’t willing to donate a vital organ to have her.
He wasn’t willing to sacrifice his future for her. He wasn’t going to enjoy
anything other than the game of seducing her and the sex, which was the prize
for winning that game. Unlike the grades in Chrisler’s class, though, Phoebe
would get what she deserved. If she lost this game, it was because she was
willing to allow Chrisler to take advantage of her. It probably wasn’t even taking
advantage of her.
He suspected that Phoebe wasn’t one of those girls who would change her
mind afterwards. She might say she was a fool to have done what she did with
Chrisler, but she wouldn’t claim afterwards that he had committed a crime
against her. She wouldn’t say he had drugged her, that he refused to stop what
he was doing when she told him to, that he had taken unfair advantage of her.
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She would just shake her head at her own gullibility. Maybe next time she would
know better, maybe not.
Things that Phoebe probably had purchased:
•
A second–hand car
•
Cotton sheets
•
Diet soft drinks (national brands only)
•
Writing tablets
•
Greeting cards
•
Cough syrup
•
A flashlight
•
A full set of any product that came in multiple absorbencies
•
Coffee filters
•
Salty snacks
Things that Phoebe had probably never purchased:
•
Massage oil
•
Yarn
•
Round crackers from a foreign country
•
Blank video tapes
•
Anything heart–shaped
•
A perfume atomizer
•
Fancy underwear (men’s or women’s)
•
Whole cloves
How was it possible that after what seemed like at least fourteen–hours
only forty–some minutes had passed on his watch? The clock on the wall
opposite the windows seemed to agree with his wrist. Somebody was conspiring
somewhere.
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The skin that seemed to have been perfect when Chrisler began speaking
now was showing deep wrinkles. Maybe those creases weren’t really that deep.
They just seemed that way, since he hadn’t noticed them at all before. She was
able to maintain that impassive look. Didn’t she know what she was carrying
around on her chest, for Christ’s sake?
He could not allow her to simply disappear. He would have to make a
quick impression on her, force her to remember him. What if he were to
approach her as she left…
•
I don’t think I like the way our relationship is going. I think we should
see other people.
•
Now, wasn’t that fascinating!
•
I’d like to try to help you forget what just went on in there.
•
This is going to sound like a strange question, but does your mother by
any chance need a kidney?
•
I think I’ve decided that you’re the one person I would like most to be
sad with.
If there was one thing he could say for sure about Phoebe it was that she
wasn’t one to succumb to lines she had heard in bars. She was too proud of her
cynicism for that. She smiled at wit, but smiling was far from spreading her legs.
“Okay, we have just a few more minutes. I warned you all that there was a
good chance some of you would be offended. I’d like to see a show of hands on
how many of you believe me now? Hands? So, I take it that none of you was
offended by my insults to your lord and savior. Okay, another show of hands.
How many of you plan on going to church this Sunday?
“You know, I’m starting to wonder if I have a classroom full of amputees.
I’d think that out of a bunch of supposed Christians, I’d find at least one who
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was a little perturbed at some of the things I’ve said. Or at least that some of you
would smile a little bit at my humor.
“You know what I think I’m going to do? I’m going to keep on talking.
You don’t seem have much to say. All I can assume from that is that there isn’t
enough in your brains to come up with some kind of response to any of the
strange things I’ve been talking about. It’s my job to make sure you do have
something in your heads. Anybody want to disagree with that?
“Well, then, I think I know what I have to do. I have to keep on talking.
I’m going to keep on talking until I think you have learned something. I don’t
care if it takes days. I’m going to just keep on going. And if you get up and leave,
I’m going to flunk you for being rude to me. Unless you have big breasts, in
which case I’ll flunk you for taking them away from me.
“If you stay, I’ll probably flunk you anyhow. It’s up to you. How
important is it to get to your History of Wrenches class?”
This would have been the time to arise from his seat and tell Chrisler that
he was really irritating and boring. Phoebe would probably blush, but she would
know that she had found the man for herself. If only he would notice her. But
how could he, when the room was full of slimmer girls with perkier bosoms and
stronger scents? If she were a guy, she wouldn’t have paid attention to the
mousiest girl in the room.
Chrisler would tell the class how relieved he was that somebody was
finally saying something. Everyone would know, though, that he was
embarrassed by the comment. He had been expecting for somebody to erupt in
philosophical outrage. He would not have been surprised for somebody to call
him a pompous asshole, a motherfucker, a cocksucker, a psychotic, a sham, or a
pretender. His greatest triumph would have been to arouse that kind of passion.
But to say he was boring? Still, he would nod proudly that one of his students
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finally found the courage to challenge the outrageous theories he had been
spouting.
Phoebe would fear that she was too boring for a hero of his stature. So it
would be his obligation to persuade her that she deserved somebody like him.
He would tell her that, of all the girls in that room, she was the one who stood
out. And he would have to push his way past the other girls fighting for his
attention to tell her so. If he waited until the crowd had thinned, she would think
that he was approaching her only because his other options had disappeared.
He would tell her that he wouldn’t have confronted Chrisler if it hadn’t
been for her, that she had inspired him. She would laugh, as though he had just
made the most outlandish statement she had ever heard. Really, he would tell
her. He ordinarily didn’t judge people by their looks, but in her case he made an
exception. Perhaps it wasn’t so much her looks as her carriage, but something
about her told him that he should do something heroic. She would ask him if he
thought a remark to a professor qualified as heroism. He would tell her no, but
nobody else was willing to do it, and somebody had to.
Then, he would ask her if he could see her later. She would look at him
with suspicion. At the same time, she would look around at the girls he was
ignoring in her favor. If he was doing this because he thought she was easier
than the rest of them, she was wrong about both. No, he was drawn to her and
not to them. That was the whole story. He was drawn enough that he was the
only one in that entire room who had assured himself a failure in Chrisler’s class,
and he did so, honestly, to impress her.
She would nod politely. She would wonder if he were serious, since his
actions were no guarantee of anything. After all, Chrisler had openly admitted to
the entire class that his system for assigning grades was completely arbitrary.
Finn might have believed he was assuring himself a pass to an honor society.
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Well, he would tell her, the truth was that he didn’t care what sort of
grade he got in this or any other class. If there was one thing that would appeal
to Phoebe, it was not caring. He was going to master not caring. Wasn’t the fact
that, of all the girls in the class, he was pursuing her proof that he didn’t care?
“What should we talk about now? I know, let’s get a little bit logical here.
That was where we started, wasn’t it? Logic? Okay. I think we can all agree that
Jesus at some point in his life left some of his stools somewhere on this good
Earth. Agreed? Good enough. And I’ve also, I think, mentioned that I happen to
be Jesus Christ. Which all comes together to mean that I must have left some of
my stools lying around.
“I’ll be perfectly honest, it’s embarrassing, humiliating for me to be
standing here in front of some of the most beautiful girls in the world talking
about my stools. I feel so naked. Why don’t we talk about some of your stools?
Can we do that for awhile? I know I haven’t given you the opportunity to speak
about yourselves.
“This is your chance. I’m giving you all the chance to shine here, to get up
and talk. I’ll make the deal a little sweeter. If you come up here and tell the rest
of us everything we might care to know about what you leave in the toilet, I’ll
give you an A for the course. And just to make this whole thing a little more fair,
those of you who are already getting A’s because of the size of your chests, I’ll
give you an A for next semester. Heck, you don’t even have to show up. All you
have to do is register for my class next term and the A is yours.”
What if Phoebe was one of those girls who led a double life? She was a
determined college student during the day, but at night she performed lewd
dances from behind coin operated window shades. Her body seemed strangely
unphysical. It was hard to picture her running, stretching, bending, hopping on
one foot, splitting, coughing, sneezing, marching, dancing, promenading,
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shaking, shivering, or skipping. She was not one of those girls upon whom any
fellow could paint a picture of his fantasies. She probably didn’t want fellows to
see her that way, not while she was in school. She saved those opportunities for
when she was paid.
If he could find out where she worked, he would show up with a
backpack full of money. He would buy a few hours’ worth of tokens. She would
smile when she saw his window open. She would be in her underwear. At first
she would not recognize him. Then, he would look familiar to her, but she
wouldn’t be able to quite place him.
The screen would close after about a minute, just as she was reaching up
to undo her brassiere. He would not insert another token immediately. It would
be important that she wonder if she had met his standards. He would allow her
to believe for a minute that he thought she was not worth a second token. Then
he would drop another token in.
She would not have finished removing her top yet. She waited for him to
reappear behind the plastic window to finish that particular chore. Only then
would she be able to place him. It wasn’t really her fault. She wasn’t slow in the
head. But the window was scratched; it glared and was not well lit. The privacy
of the patrons was important to the management.
She would tighten her eyes to a slit, trying to see who it was waving at
her from behind that plastic window. Squinting was a common gesture. It made
the guys feel that the girls really cared who was watching them. They would
then smile broadly, as though they really liked what they saw. On their side, they
could see a clock, just above the windows, so they knew how much time was left
before the view disappeared. If they waited until about five seconds before the
end of the token, they could begin to mouth something intriguing to their
customers, something that would make them think that this session would not be
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the end of their time together. They would bend down as the screen dropped, so
that they could almost get the words out. The reward? One more token.
If that was how Phoebe operated, she was about to change her plans.
When she recognized him, he would motion for her to move backwards. Then,
he would start kicking at the plastic. When the screen came down, he would
continue to kick. She would have some sort of signal button, but she would not
push it. After all, this was the fellow that shared the misery of Chrisler’s lecture
with her. She couldn’t possibly send him away to the penitentiary. So, she would
cower at the back of her cubicle, waiting for one of the security people to hear the
noise and stop him.
He knew that these operations planned for people like him. He knew they
had thugs on staff to drag people like him away from the girls. But that made his
raid on Phoebe’s cubicle even more noble. That plastic was supposed to be bullet
proof. But he was an engineer, or at least he would be one of these days.
The thick material was attached to its frame with stove bolts, driven
through holes drilled at dozens of spots along each edge. A person kicking at the
window would distribute the force to each of those screws. The secret, though,
was that each invisible line from one of the holes to another around the perimeter
represented a stress riser. If he was able to pound the same spot, with reasonable
force, and at the same angle, eventually one of those stress risers would become a
crack. The mantra in Materials Science was: The riser becomes the crack; the
crack becomes the fissure; the fissure becomes the gap; the gap becomes the
shattered pile of crap. He had not actually created a model of the barrier that
would separate him from her. He understood the principle well enough to put it
into practice.
He would mark a spot on the floor, which would be where he would keep
his left foot. It was important that his angle remain constant as he battered the
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window. He guessed it would take at least two dozen good strikes with his foot
to create the first crack. After that, it would be fewer than a dozen to completely
shatter that clear hunk of plastic.
The hole he created would not be big enough to jump through, but he
would be able to dive. He would take Phoebe’s wrist, look her squarely in the
eyes, and tell her that she was coming with him. Her protest would be mild
enough to qualify as encouragement. He would pull her back through the
opening he had created, throw his coat over her, and inform her that she would
never want to be away from him again. She would smile apprehensively, finally
having found the man in whose arm she could melt without reservation.
Just as they were leaving the cubicle, her employer’s security team would
pull the door open. They would order him to release her. He would tell them that
she wanted to come with him. If they wanted, she would mail them a letter of
resignation. They would threaten physical violence if he didn’t release her. He
would look at Phoebe, who looked more frightened than determined. There were
three muscle men against the two of them. He would turn so that he could put
his arms against a wall. The bouncers would think he was turning to leave.
Instead, he would use the wall for leverage to kick back with both of his feet,
catching two of the hulks between their legs.
Both of them would double over. Phoebe would immediately understand
what he intended for her to do and would raise her knee to the third man. As the
security force tried to recover, the two of them would run to his car. He would
have left the doors unlocked, anticipating that he might have to escape quickly.
He would have brought clothing for her to wear. As he drove away from what
had been her prison, she would twist her body to maneuver herself into the
clothes.
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When, finally, they were far away, she would stare at him. He would be
looking at the road but would notice her in his peripheral vision. He would not
allow himself to smile. Instead, he would concentrate earnestly on his driving.
Three hours into their escape, he would have to stop at a gasoline station. During
that time, she would try to engage him in conversation. He would be polite, but
would be unable to think of anything to say. Even when she asked him why he
had done this, he would just glance over at her and tell her it would have been
crazy not to.
She would be silent for a few minutes. Then she would tell him that he
had saved her life and pat his leg, just above the knee. He would put his hand on
top of hers and fondle it as he drove.
“I can see some of you squirming. Are you anxious to get out of here? Do
you have to go to the bathroom? If you know one thing after this class, you know
that Jesus had to go to the bathroom sometimes too. Do you have some other
professor that’s waiting for you? Is he going to flunk you for not showing up, or
am I about the only one around here who’s that crazy?
“You know, I think I’ve learned something from you too. I enjoy seeing
some of you squirm. Who am I kidding? I’ve always enjoyed that. Let’s see, right
now we’re about four minutes past when this class should have been over. I’m
happy to see that all of you are still sitting here.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m really not talking about anything. I find it
gratifying that you find my talking about nothing more stimulating than some of
my colleagues talking about something. Hell, they’re all fools anyhow, aren’t
they?
“I think I’m going to keep on talking for about another twenty minutes.
That should be enough for you to prove your love for me.”
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Phoebe dropped her arm to her side. Was she going to raise it to ask a
question? No, she just let it dangle there. Now she moved it away from her body.
It couldn’t be. Please, of all the girls in this room, why did she have to be the one
to actually engage Chrisler in some sort of a dialog? No, her fingers were
wiggling. She was trying to regain the circulation. Her hand must be tingling.
She wasn’t accustomed to sitting for so long without moving.
This was just one more of her charms. She seemed so calm, almost inert,
but she craved movement. Still, she probably dreaded physical education classes;
she wouldn’t want to compete with other girls over some piece of athletic
equipment; she didn’t want to run, jump, bend, or twist, but she wanted to
move. She wanted to flex her joints.
Oh, there was a spot of perspiration under her arm. It was only now
visible. Had it been there all along? Or was the fact that Chrisler was extending
his torture causing her anxiety?
The small stain on her blouse, though, only accounted for a tiny fraction of
the moisture she was producing. There were probably dozens of drops forming,
which would follow her body down her side towards her waist. But some of the
droplets would follow some skin imperfection around to her breast. Depending
upon the configuration of her brassiere, some would flow underneath and flow
downward or they would soak into that garment.
So, she was a sweater too. She was a gassy, sweating, misshapen, hairy
animal, posing as a shy, unflappable, mystery woman. How hard should it be to
not think about a girl like her? Chad or Leon or Philo probably spent most of his
time with her wondering how he got into this relationship. She must have
tricked him, because no reasonably sane human being would burden himself
with her. He probably spent very little time at home. He would be in a bowling
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league rather than a softball league, so he wouldn’t have to limit his escape to
summer.
He would claim relatives that didn’t exist, so he could claim he was
spending nights with them. He would spend his nights with other women, not
because he was born faithless, but because he had to assure himself that women
existed who were capable of giving him pleasure without revolting him.
She would ask him if there was something they should be talking about.
After all, his mother had made new clothes for her when she lost weight and
again when she regained some of it. Even if they had not legally wed, they were
already sharing families. If he was seeing somebody else, she had a right to
know.
He might be cruel and tell her that she drove him to disgorge at least five
times a day. Or, he might say that she was wonderful, but somehow he just
couldn’t bring himself to feel anything any more. He was thinking of seeing a
doctor, because the only explanation for his change in feelings would have to be
some sort of physical problem. Or, he could lie and say she was still the only girl
in his life. Or he could fake his death during a ski trip. Or he could arrange for a
friend of his to seduce her so that he could angrily dismiss her. “…and with my
best friend…” Or he could explain that men just were constructed different from
women. It was natural for them to crave variety. Or he could join the Foreign
Legion. Or he could stop bathing. Or he could tell her she was too good for him.
Or he could transfer to a different school.
“You know, I haven’t said anything important in over twenty minutes
now, but nobody has got up and walked out. I think you should think about that.
Do you suppose Jesus would have wasted twenty minutes of his time for a good
grade? I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. You know, I think I just might keep
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you people here for another six or seven hours. After that, I’ll have to get out of
here, because I’m hoping to have…well, you can imagine.
“Anyone have to go to the bathroom yet? Feel free to wet yourselves. I’m
telling you, there isn’t much I haven’t seen, and I wouldn’t mind seeing some of
them this afternoon.” He looked at his watch. “Yep. Yes sir.” Then he yawned
and sat down, his eyes fixing on…on…was it Phoebe or was it the spectacular
one just behind her?
What kind of a grade would Chrisler give to somebody who got up and
screamed? What if those vocalizations weren’t even words, but unintelligible
noises of despair, frustration, and anger? That wouldn’t be quite the same as
having huge breasts, but it would get his attention. Was that his point? That the
way to get a good grade was to get his attention? If that was the case, why seek
embarrassment? Why not do something productive, like stabbing Chrisler in the
gut, or at least punching him in the face. Or…even better, although it would still
be embarrassing, what if the entire class were to restrain him and relieve
themselves on him?
Phoebe would never do that. If there was one certainty, it was that she
cherished her dignity above anything, including her good academic record. It
was possible that even some of the sorority girls and cheerleaders would
participate, since they had probably degraded themselves at least as much while
drunk.
Some things that Phoebe probably owned but rarely used:
•
Lipstick
•
Potato ricer
•
Callus buffer
•
Battery charger
•
Roller skates
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•
Cross stitching hoop
“I’m going to count to twenty. Everybody who is still at their desk at the
end of that time will either get an A or will flunk. Everybody who is gone will
either flunk or get an A. One…two…three…four….”
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Chapter 2
“Hey…Hey…Phoebe!”
She turned around.
Finn said, “I don’t like the way our relationship’s going. I think we should
see other people.”
“Fine. Now are you going to pick up Muffin from the groomer?”
“I dropped her off. You get to pick her up.”
“I’ve got to stop by Mom’s. Don’t be a jerk. Look I sat through an hour
and a half of Chrisler. Do you have to give me a hard time too?”
“You know, I thought about you all the time he was talking.”
“Good. Now why don’t you think about picking Muffin up. I’ll get
something to eat on the way back from Mom’s.”
The End
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