Bucky F*cking Dent (14 page)

Marty went back to sleep. Ted made himself a sandwich and some coffee, and sat down to read more of “The Doublemint Man.” There was a daughter in the book, but no son, and though Ted knew it was fiction, he still felt somewhat slighted by that. Did it represent a wish on the old man's part for a daughter? This was the danger of reading fiction by those close to you—you kept on looking for parallels and clues, like it was a puzzle, a message in a bottle. Is this what Marty thought of Ted? Did it mean that he did not want a son at all? Or just not want Ted? It was impossible not to project. Ted felt relieved he didn't have a son to go through his own work with such a bias. But, as a son himself, he couldn't help it.

Around noon, that awful buzzer sounded again. He knew of only two noises at his father's door—the sound of
The New York Times
out of the delivery boy's wild hand and the knock/buzz of Mariana. He was leaning heavily toward the hope of one over the other as he checked in the mirror to see that he wasn't wearing the clothes of a twelve-year-old. Damn, he was fat. He jogged to the front door in an effort to begin to commit to losing some weight. It was Mariana. He was panting. How could he be out of breath from running to the door? He probably looked like a serial killer. In an attempt at nonchalance, Ted said, as if he were disappointed, “You again.”

Zero for one, Ted thought, and added, like he was trying for “touché,” “Olé.” Olé? Zero for two.

“Hola. You figure out what the opposite of fifty percent is yet?”

“Nope, still working on my calculations.”

“How's Marty?”

“Oh, you're here for Marty.”

“Why, are you sick, too?”

“I have a little tickle.”

“Maybe you should do yoga with us. It'll help you lose some weight.”

“This isn't fat. This is insulation. Winter is on its way. I'm bearlike.”

“Whatever works for you. How is Marty?”

“Door-to-door full-service death nursing, that's impressive.” Nope. Full service sounded kind of massage parlor-y. Back it up.

“Not full service, of course, nothing of the sort implied. Extensive service. Far reaching. Comprehensive. Thorough. You can stop me anytime. I'm gonna shut up now. He went back to bed.”

Ted could not read her expression. Charmed? Disgusted? Something between?

“Sox lost, huh?” she said.

“How come everybody knows how a loss affects him physically? The old guys on the corner were talking about that, too.”

“The gray panthers? That's what your dad calls them.”

“Yeah, those guys. They say they can tell if the Sox won or lost just by looking at him.”

“It's the way he's telling the end of his story.”

“You mean it's psychosomatic?”

“At some level, everything is psychosomatic. Our minds control our bodies. I've seen people die of heartbreak. No other ailment but a broken heart, and they just stop, they can't go on, they die of sad thoughts, of loneliness.”

“Does that show up on the autopsy?”

“It's easy to make jokes about faith.”

“I'm sorry, it's a defense mechanism.”

“You're sure it's not an offense mechanism?”

“No. No, I'm not, now that you mention it. I'm sorry.”

“You don't need to apologize to me, Ted. It's not like you called me a spic.”

Ted was genuinely caught off guard and laughed. He saw a piece of what was probably bagel, what he hoped was bagel, shoot out of his mouth and land on her lapel. He didn't know whether she saw, whether he should own it, the bagel bit. Shit, if it wasn't bagel, what was it? Jesus. Let's call it bagel. He decided to let it go, but then he reached out as if tapping her approvingly in applause for the joke, and stroked the wet thing off her lapel, immediately realizing his hand was moving dangerously close to her bosom. She looked at his hand, then looked at him, and asked, “Are you coppin' a feel?”

Ted stopped patting her, but he was still panting like a pervert, and said, “You had some schmutz.”

“Oh, then thank you.”

She patted her own lapel. He sucked his teeth and gums and swallowed what might have come off. Subtly, though. He hoped. I should floss once in a while, he thought.

“Is that a Jewish word, schmutz?”

She pronounced it “schmoots” in her Nuyorican accent. Ted did not correct her. If she wanted it to be “schmoots,” then “schmoots” it was.

“Yes, Yiddish, I think.”

“It means?”

“It means … schmutz. You know, schmutz. It means like it sounds. Schmutz.”

“Onomatopoeia.”

“Bingo. Wow, you know, I don't know whether you're the best death nurse in the world, or the worst, if you know what I mean.”

“I suppose you can choose which, Ted, is what I'm saying.”

Ted nodded.

“Well, if your dad went back to bed, I'll be on my way.”

She turned to descend the steps. There was a logo on her ass, on the back pocket of her pants. She was wearing Jordache jeans, and that kind of broke Ted's heart right there. She cared about how she looked after all, he thought. She appeared not to care about fashion and trends, but she did. She wanted to believe that we could control all stories, but she wasn't above seeking the safety of being told what to wear, being part of something, even if it was the stupid part of American history where otherwise sane people just had to have Jordache or Sasson scrawled across their asses. She followed the herd a little, even though, oooh la la, it was the herd that overpaid for denim. He was of the tribe of Levi himself, begat by Strauss, but surely that wasn't an insurmountable difference. Strauss and Jordache wasn't like Capulet and Montague, was it? Maybe she would convert to the Levi clan. So their jeans could marry. Shit, they looked pretty good on her, maybe he would convert.

He became aware he was smiling. Ted was beginning to see even the weaknesses and faults of this woman in the light of her charm and vulnerability. She was human. This must be what love looks like from a distance, he thought. If my heart were a camera (if my heart were a camera?), I would constantly be looking for the best light to take her picture, but fuck, I don't even know her, it can't be love, even from a distance, and she thinks I'm fat and Mr. Peanut. In an instant, he realized he cared what she thought about him. That sucked. That opened up a mental space he was not comfortable with. A new self-consciousness on top of his quotidian self-consciousness. I don't need this, he thought. He felt sick. She should go. She should go and never come back. He opened his mouth to say goodbye, but what came out was “Wait.”

Mariana turned. “What, do I have schmoots on my back?”

“I'll do the yoga,” Ted lied.

 

29.

Ted and Mariana moved some furniture out of the way so they could have space in the middle of the floor to do yoga poses. It began simply enough with some sitting and chanting, and then some of what she called “sun salutations,” which Ted thought were pretty identical to “head—nose—tippy toes” stretches from kindergarten. But that's okay, he was going along for the ride. Mariana had changed into her beige Capezio unitard. “Keep your eyes focused inward.” Fat chance, he thought, and what does that even mean? She assumed a pose she called Downward Dog and then Upward Dog, and then onto a series of increasingly difficult poses named after other animals. Ted was soon out of breath and quivering, his muscles already fatiguing.

“My dad does this? My dad, who is dying, does this?”

“Your father is quite the stud. You're shaking.”

Ted was looking for an excuse to take a break. He felt like he was going to pass out. Headstand? Shit. “My dad does this, too?”

“I'm afraid so. Here, let's slow down a bit. Let's try lotus.”

Mariana took Ted's ankles in her hands and tried to twist them underneath each other like a Gumby doll. Ted thought his ankle might literally break off like a stale baguette, but he'd be damned if he was going to fail at what the old man did. She finally had him in a full lotus, snapped into place. He had no idea how to get out of this. He felt a panic start to rise as his ligaments howled, a yoga pain. A bead of sweat jumped off his forehead.

“Thanks, I always need help with that one.”

Trying to find anything to distract him from the white-hot pain in his legs, and the growing thought that he was doing permanent damage to himself, Ted focused on something on Mariana's ankle—of all things, a Grateful Dead tattoo. Could this woman get any more attractive? The classic Dead image of a skull seen from above, neatly scalped to reveal a lightning bolt diagonally bisecting a circle, half red half blue, of brain. Ted's voice was trapped in his own benumbed feet, but he managed to croak, “You like the Dead?”

Mariana seemed taken aback for a moment, her eyes flashing mistrust and defense as Ted's eyeline brought her gaze to her own ankle. “What do you mean?”

“The band? The Grateful Dead? Your tattoo is one of their symbols.”

Mariana relaxed. “Oh, I was messed up one night a while back, and saw this symbol in the window of a tattoo parlor, and thought it would be perfect for me. They're a band, huh?”

“One of the most famous bands in the world.”

“Cool.”

“‘Truckin'? ‘Casey Jones'? ‘Sugar Magnolia'?”

“Nope. What are those, songs?”

“Songs? They're not songs. They're hymns.”

“What religion?”

“Deadian. Deadianity. Deadiasm.”

“Okay.”

“And can I ask you”—when Ted wasn't talking, the pain began shooting up the back of his legs to his spine, so he made an effort to keep speaking—“after you got the tattoo, did you find that white folks were a lot nicer to you? A lotta skinny guys in tie-dye shirts with hacky sacks start to ask you out?”

Such an odd question, he could see Mariana initially thought he was kidding, but then reconsider and say, “Wow. Yeah. I thought it was 'cause I highlighted my hair.”

“Well, your hair I'm sure was lovely, but those were fans of the Dead. Drawn by the symbol. Like a secret handshake.”

“The ways and customs of you gringos can be confusing.”

“We're pretty fascinating. Us whiter folk.”

As Mariana shifted her weight, another tattoo revealed itself on her left ankle. Ted could make out the word
Christ
.

“And what's the story with that one. The Christ one? You drank too much communion wine at a church near Forty Deuce?” Even before it was out of his mouth, Ted knew that “Forty Deuce” sounded ridiculous and was trying way too hard to be “street.” Ted had been on many streets, some of them even dangerous, but he was not “street” and would never be. Mariana pulled her leggings down to cover the tat self-consciously.

“Oh,” she said, “that's a nunyo.”

“A nunyo?”

“Yeah.”

“That Spanish?”

“Yeah, it's Spanish for nunyo business,” she said with a smile. “I gotta run. Namaste.”

“Now you're gonna stay? Thought you had to run.”

“No, ‘namaste'—it's Sanskrit for peace, it's the yoga ‘later, alligator, over and out.'”

“I knew that.” Ted didn't know shit. “I was joshin'.”

“You want a hand?”

Ted could not even move to take her hand if he wanted to. He was locked up from neck to toe.

“No, I'm not done. I'm gonna grab another hour or two. Once I get going, I can't get enough of the yoga.” Mariana threw her things together.

“Okay, do five minutes of shavasana at the end, corpse pose.”

“I think I can manage that.”

“And chant ‘om shanti shanti' when you're done, okay?”

“Copy that. I mean, nama, you know, nama, nama, rama-lama-ding-dong…”

Mariana smiled. “Namaste.”

“That.”

Ted flashed a smile that was a grimace in drag. As soon as he heard the door slam behind Mariana, Ted howled in pain and rolled on his side, his ankles still locked one under the other. He looked liked a turtle on its back. He grabbed his ankles and pulled, but could not free himself from the clutches of the lotus. Marty, alerted by Ted's animal yowl of distress, came shuffling into view. He looked at Ted, narrowing his eyes. “You stoned again?”

“Dad, gimme a hand.”

“You should take better care of your lungs.”

“Help me.”

“How?”

“Kick me.”

“Where?”

“In the ass.”

“You want me to kick you in the ass?”

“Please.”

“Thought you'd never ask.”

Marty came up behind Ted and kicked him in the rear, finally freeing Ted's legs. But the torture was not yet over. Ted's legs were so stiff from being immobile for twenty minutes, he was unable to straighten them, and each time he tried to stand up, his lower back went into spasm and sent him back down to the floor again. He was hunched over like Tricky Dick Nixon and looked much like Quasimodo unsuccessfully learning to roller-skate.

“This is quite amusing,” said Marty. “You have a flair for physical comedy.”

Ted finally straightened and tried to walk but he was stiff-legged, like the Mummy, arms blocked straight out for Marty's chair, like Boris Karloff's Frankenstein, hoping to steady himself. Marty moved back a few inches out of reach. “That's a little over the top now. You went from Peter Sellers to Jerry Lewis. You making fun of me, Ted?”

“No.”

But Marty didn't believe him, thought he was imitating his disability, his old-man walk. Marty shuffled away to the next room. “Asshole,” he said in parting, just as Ted's legs shot out from under him as if they had a mind of their own. Ted landed hard, shaking all the furniture in the house. Marty, thinking he was still being mocked, yelled from another room.