A Commodore of Errors (9 page)

SHORT AND INADEQUATE

T
he next day, Putzie strayed from his habits and shut down the Martinizing machines five minutes early. He came to this fateful decision after talking some more with Raymond about the value of sticking with a routine.

Mrs. Tannenbaume, bored by the lack of customers, was hanging around listening in. To her, this talk of routine just sounded sad. She told Putzie that she herself hated routines. It made things go stale, she had said, matter-of-factly.

“What about the hoo-hoo and the ha-ha?” Mrs. Tannenbaume asked. “I hope you're not letting things go stale in the sex department.”

Raymond tittered like a schoolboy. “The hoo-hoo and the ha-ha? Sounds kind of fun.”

“Well, come to think of it,” Putzie said, “Mitzi has been acting kind of cold lately.”

“Cold?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “How cold?”

Putzie avoided Mrs. Tannenbaume's gaze. A bad sign.

Mrs. Tannenbaume nodded her head. “I know the type. She's as cold as a stepmother's kiss, ain't she?”

Putzie looked down at the floor while the Martinizing machines whirled away. Mrs. Tannenbaume figured Putzie must be uncomfortable talking about his sex life with a seventy-six-year-old woman. She decided to get right to the point.

“Do you ever mix things up a bit?” Mrs. Tannenbaume did not look at Putzie directly so as not to scare the poor fellow. “You know, when you're having a situation?”

“A situation?”

Raymond jumped in. “You know,” he said. “The hoo-hoo and the ha-ha.”

“Well,” Putzie said, his head swiveling from Raymond to Mrs. Tannenbaume, “as a matter of fact, my wife does like a certain position—”

“From behind?”

Putzie winced. “How did you—”

“Most women like it that way,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “So that the man is breathing on the back of your head and not right smack into your puss. Plus, most women don't like to feel a man's rough beard against their face. It hurts.”

Putzie's pained look worsened. “Well, actually, she likes it from behind standing up. She's got a bum knee and can't . . . kneel down, if you know what I mean.”

“So why don't you give it to her standing up?”

Putzie really squirmed now. It looked to Mrs. Tannenbaume like he would do anything to get out of the conversation. The poor man. He really did need to let go of these hang-ups. She decided to get to the heart of the matter.

“What don't you like about doing it from behind? Does it smell a bit too French for you back there?”

“No, it's not that. Mitzi's as clean as a whistle.”

“So what's the matter?” Mrs. Tannenbaume stood there with her hands on her hips, waiting for an answer. Then she slapped the palm of her hand smack into her forehead. “Oh! I should have guessed it earlier.”

Putzie looked up. Mrs. Tannenbaume could tell that he seemed horrified that she might know of his shameful secret. “What?”

“You're too short!” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “Why didn't you say so earlier, love?”

Putzie slumped down in a chair while the Martinizing machines roared away. Mrs. Tannenbaume felt Putzie's pain. She knew that every woman wants her man to bend her over the kitchen table every now and again. But with Mitzi's long legs—dancer's legs—Putzie simply couldn't reach. The poor man. Too short to take care of his own wife. She knew what that meant—some other man, a man with longer legs, was most likely “servicing” Mitzi.

She reached over and put her hand on Putzie's shoulder. “You need to mix things up a bit, son. You mustn't be so rigid.”

Putzie looked up at Mrs. Tannenbaume with moist eyes. “You know something? You're right, Mrs. Tannenbaume. I'm sick and tired of being rigid. It's time to think outside the box, right?” Putzie wiped his eyes, stood up, and faced his Filipino Martinizer. “Shut down the Martinizing machine, Raymond.”

Raymond looked at his watch. “But, Mr. Paultz, we still have five minutes to go.”

Putzie took off his rubber Martinizing gloves and walked up to Raymond. Like his hero George C. Scott in the movie
Patton
, Putzie slapped Raymond across the face with the rubber gloves.

“Don't be a yellow-belly soldier! The Martinizing machine! Now!”

“But we still have more shirts to press, sir. The Commodore's shirt!”

Putzie ignored Raymond's plea and marched over to the Martinizing machine. With a theatrical flourish, he threw the main switch himself. Shutting the Martinizing machine down five minutes early was the first spontaneous thing Putzie Paultz had done in twenty years.

Putzie thrust his arms over his head to the sound of the Martinizing machine winding down. “I'm free!” Putzie shouted. “I'm free!”

“Not so fast.” Mrs. Tannenbaume cupped her ear, straining to hear what was coming from upstairs. “Do you hear what I hear?”

Raymond walked to the front of the store to turn off the loud commercial blower behind the curtain. With the commercial blower turned off and the Martinizing machines silenced, Mrs. Tannenbaume stood with Putzie and Raymond behind the counter with their ears cocked toward the ceiling.

“It sounds like a dog barking,” Raymond said.

“It's barking, all right,” Putzie said. “But that's no dog.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume nodded and put her hand on Putzie's shoulder.
Poor Putzie Paultz. Such a
nebbish. She wished this wasn't happening to him, but it was. Mitzi had found her long-legged lover—and now they all knew about it.

“That's Mitzi,” Putzie said. “Years ago, on our honeymoon, Mitzi barked like that. I'd know her bark anywhere.” Putzie once again hung his head. “I haven't been able to make her bark since.”

“Mitzi barking?” Raymond said. “What would make Mitzi bark like a dog?”

Mrs. Tannenbaume reached over and grabbed a hunk of Raymond's cheek with her clawlike grip. “Don't be such a
shlub
. She's upstairs with her long-legged lover, that's what.”

“Oh,” Raymond said, rubbing his cheek. “The hoo-hoo and the ha-ha.” “That's right.” Mrs. Tannenbaume sighed. “She's having a situation right over Putzie's head.”

Putzie slumped into his chair, no longer George C. Scott but the same old Putzie Paultz. He covered his face with his hands and began to weep. His sobs drowned out the barking. In fact, the sobs became so loud they wafted through the ductwork to the upstairs apartment.

Mitzi heard it before Mogie. She stopped barking.

“What's that sound, babe?” Mitzi said over her shoulder to Mogie, still going at it from atop his stool.

Mogie furrowed his brow and listened to the sound coming from the ductwork. “I know what it ain't.” Mogie picked up his stool and raced to hide it under the bed. “It ain't the goddamn Martinizing machine. Putzie's onto us. I'm outta here, baby.”

Mogie was still putting on his clothes as he half-climbed half-slid down the fire escape to safety. Mitzi stayed put. Putzie's sobbing froze her in her tracks. She cried out in the emptiness of her tawdry love shack. “Why won't you use the stool, you Putz!” Mitzi sobbed. She knew Putzie played it down the middle, that's why she married him, but, God, did he have to be so rigid?

Putzie's sobs collided with Mitzi's sobs and reverberated inside the ductwork. The sobs inside the ductwork undulated back to the store.

“Oh my,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said, as they listened to the sheet metal warping. “It sounds like Hogan's Alley up there in the ceiling.”

Just then the Commodore strode into the store.

When the Commodore spotted Mrs. Tannenbaume, he doffed his cap with a flick of his wrist and tucked it beneath his left arm. He greeted Mrs. Tannenbaume by pulling up before her with a click of his heels and a deep bow from the waist. He stood there in front of the old woman and waited for the desired effect that his grand entrance had on all women and children—giggles, coos, avoidance of eye contact in the presence of his eminence.

Mrs. Tannenbaume neither giggled nor swooned. Instead, with an irritatingly confident look on her face, she made direct eye contact.

The Commodore fumed at the indignity of it all, the appalling lack of grace on the part of Mrs. Tannenbaume. Yet the old lady persisted with her offensive eye contact. The unseemly standoff ended when Mrs. Tannenbaume broke eye contact and looked the Commodore up and down. She lingered on the Commodore's long legs.

The Commodore shifted his gaze to just over Mrs. Tannenbaume's head, his imperious thousand-yard stare.

Mrs. Tannenbaume turned toward Raymond, rolled her eyes in the direction of the Commodore, and said, “Who's the flouncy?”

“He's . . . he's the Commodore, from the academy. He normally picks up his shirts after you leave.”

“Hey, flounce,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said to the Commodore. “What's the matter? You think you're too good to say hello?”

The Commodore maintained his thousand-yard stare. He would not be trifled with.

“What's with the glazed-over look?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said to Raymond.

“He's angry.”

“He's angry?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said.

The Commodore's posture remained ramrod straight, his bearing regal, his unflinching gaze aimed just above Mrs. Tannenbaume's head. His breathing remained steady, his skin unflushed. At five-foot nothing, Mrs. Tannenbaume was clearly short and inadequate—she simply did not possess the corporeal wherewithal to matter to a man of his stature. He decided to let the matter rest.

“I'm here to pick up my shirts,” the Commodore said.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Raymond said. “Your shirts have been cleaned but we have not had the chance to—”

“My shirts are not ready?” the Commodore said, his voice rising. “Are you informing me that my shirts have been laundered yet they remain unpressed?”

“That's correct, sir.”

The Commodore slammed his fist down on the counter. “This is unacceptable!”

“Smoke screen!” Mrs. Tannenbaume shouted back.

“I want my shirts pressed crisp and I want them now, thank you!”

Mrs. Tannenbaume pointed her finger at the Commodore. “Red herring!”

The Commodore deigned to look down at Mrs.Tannenbaume. After all, the woman was wagging a finger in his face. “My dear woman of unfortunate stature, will you kindly refrain from shouting aloud these inane non sequiturs.”

“Don't go changing the subject,” Mrs. Tannenbaume scolded. “You're muddying the waters is what you're doing. Trying to get us off the fact that a shamed woman is crying upstairs and her cuckold husband is doing the same down here. Where were you five minutes ago, you long-legged lout?”

“Long-legged?” The Commodore spoke the words clear over Mrs. Tannenbaume's head. “My dear, my legs are neither long nor short.”

“Why won't you look at me?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “Are you afraid of facing the truth?”

“The truth?” the Commodore said. “The truth is something a person of your unfortunate inadequacy cannot aspire to. You are simply too short to see the truth, madam, for the truth resides on a pedestal—”

“Smoke screen!”

Putzie, who had sat down and stayed down after Mrs. Tannenbaume rightly pointed out that he was not yet free from the bonds of his stifling habits, stood
up once again. “No, Mrs. Tannenbaume. I don't think the Commodore is having an affair with my wife. He's not her type.”

“Sit down, Mr. Paultz, while I handle this. I mean, look at the long legs on this one. Of course he's your wife's lover.”

The Commodore remained calm. “Mrs. Tannenbaume, I assure you, I'm no one's paramour. I am perfectly chaste.”

“Well, if you aren't servicing Mitzi, who is?”

“If my guess is right, I believe I know exactly who is liaising with Mitzi,” the Commodore said.

Putzie came alive once again. “Who's the yellow belly? I'll have no adulterers in this outfit!”