Cartilage and Skin (11 page)

“Welcome back, monkey-boy.” He shook his head in feigned disappointment. “My bad luck charm.”

The girls were gone. They'd taken the cigarettes but left the drinks.

“We shouldn't have lied,” I said. “What a stupid lie.”

“Oh, that was beautiful. But it was my fault. I can't blame you.”

He started to compare us to baseball players, saying, “If you bat .300 in the big leagues, you're a fucking professional. That means most of the time, you're going to fail. It's the law of averages.”

As I stood beside the table, looking down at him and listening, I fought an urge to slap his happy, cherubic face. I imagined him saying something ludicrous or crude to Bruni and Ann to scare them off. In his drunkenness, his boyish charm must have cracked, revealing beneath that superficial veneer, the bone and pulp of his naked and grotesque desire.

“What did you say?” I asked abruptly.

“Nothing at all.” He pointed his finger at me again. “What, ho?”

Despite Stephen's age and his ability to grow a beard, he wasn't too different from the stupid, rutting high school boys of my youth—whose casual behavior, conspicuous sexuality, and easy friendships provided a vivid contrast to my social ineptitude, frustrated lusts, and sense of alienation. I suddenly realized that Stephen reminded me of a melon-headed boy whose cheerful jesting often used to incite me to rage. I felt the old beat of my adolescent heart. Somehow Stephen managed to stir up some distant association in my memory and inadvertently to finger and poke at the dormant emotions of my slow, painful pubescence. Despite my agitation, he didn't seem to notice. He was too amused.

“Sit down. Sit down, Mr. Parker,” he said and started to lean across the table, as if he intended to whisper to me again. Captivated by the sudden use of my name, I sat down and listened to him tell his story. As he recreated the scene, I was able to picture him inclining his round head close to Ann and saying that because she was so pretty, she was able to do him a favor: She could coax the waiter into explaining how Walter had insulted his mother. Stephen hadn't actually been as interested in the waiter's gripe as he'd been in finding a way to slip in a compliment to Ann. As a side note, he advised me that it was sometimes smart to present your lust casually as a foregone conclusion, rather than to fawn and blatantly announce that the girl “turns you on.” He then imitated a dim-witted farm boy who began and ended his profession of lust with the word “shucks.” I resented Stephen's assumption that, regardless of my superiority of age and education, I was someone who needed sexual advice from him. The more he spoke and prolonged his story, the more anxiously I wanted to hear how the soft young Slavic woman with the wet fingers would play a role. Instead, Stephen emphasized the effects of his flirtation upon Ann. The particulars of the waiter's grievance, however, must have genuinely interested Bruni because in the end, she was the one who had flagged the wiry, greasy, tattooed thing to the table. Because Stephen was calling me Mister, and not Doctor, I now had a timeframe; if the waiter remembered me as Mr. Parker, then he must have been a child when I insulted his mother. Listening to how the two girls had beguiled the story out of the waiter, I felt a sudden pang of terror. All at once, I knew exactly what doctor's office it had been and why I had overlooked it, mistaking it for a dentist's or optometrist's. With a little sneer, I had always refused to give my therapist the reverential title of doctor. The forgotten episode came back to me now. Perhaps somewhere in the waiting room, among the maroon cushioned sofa, the potted plants, and the magazines on the coffee table—while the room seemed to pulsate because, turn by turn, each slow-spinning blade of a ceiling fan passed over a recessed light; while the music piped in from some other room sounded less like easy listening than like the sustained moans of an afflicted soul; and while a pale, lanky man sat waiting and consuming himself with the idea that the whole universe was cleanly divided into categories of me and not me—a young, quiet boy must have sat dead still in his seat. At first, I used to arrive to therapy early, primarily because of the bus schedule. A woman was always in session with the doctor prior to me. She seemed to be a picture of decorum—a polished woman who went to the beauty salon at least once a week—but sometimes through the closed door I could hear her screaming. After a while, I purposely began to come early, just to listen to whatever I could. I would lean forward in my seat and strain my ears to hear. I imagined that she was weak and that her mind was a tattered rag. Even though she always emerged from the office composed and erect, and walked past me with complete indifference, I lusted for her fiercely. I created little fantasies. I longed to be her therapist, so I could draw out her secret tremors and poke my fingers around in her wounds. In the end, I never said a word to her, and in the pitch of my excitement, I never fully realized that she might have been a mother whose young son silently waited in the same room with me. Twice a week, he must have watched me writhing in my seat over his luscious mother. The poor traumatized child. I'd imprinted myself so darkly upon his mind that perhaps over the span of time I was the secret cause of at least some of his tattoos, a nest of black coils and barbs etched upon his skin.

More or less, this was the story that the girls had used their feminine graces to get out of the waiter. Add to this the idea that I'd made a career out of analyzing corpses, and then it was no wonder that the girls had picked up their cigarettes, shunned the drinks, and politely fled.

“They said, ‘See you next Tuesday.'” Stephen laughed. “They weren't too keen on you cursing in front of a kid. But it's my fault. You didn't want to tell the story, but I had the girls ask him anyhow.”

I didn't remember cursing or even saying anything at all; but then again, I didn't remember any kid either.

“See you next Tuesday?” I asked.

“You've got a foul mouth, Walter.”

Because Stephen appeared as happy as before, I began to appreciate that not only did I fail to revolt him; I was entertaining in a quirky way. His theory of the law of averages, as well as his conviction of persevering in the quest for women, somehow cleared me of blame. We talked for a little longer. I was conscious that he refrained from asking me about my therapy. In return, I didn't mention Miriam. If he wanted me to know her response to his plan, he would have told me. I sensed that he didn't like hurting her feelings.

“I warned them that you're a crazy fuck,” he said.

When I was leaving, he told me to send him a postcard from Yalta.

Back outside, hunched under my umbrella as the rain sounded loud upon the pavement and the parked cars, I didn't regret that Stephen and I had ended up as culprits in a petty crime after all: We had put our heads together and conspired not to tip the waiter. I undoubtedly ruined my option of ever returning to this particular bar, not because of the fear of stepping into an awkward and embarrassing scene with the tattooed boy, but because of the fear of sabotage. Even if I avoided ordering any food that he could spit on, and even if I cautiously stuck to beverages, I still ran the risk of the slighted waiter stealthily dipping his greasy, wiry penis into my beer. I would have been naïve not to know that such acts of revenge—which were exactly this puerile, furtive, and perverse—were as ubiquitous as disgruntled teenage boys working in kitchens and cleaning dirty plates off dirty tables. They were angry at the world, and whosoever wanted to substitute mashed potatoes for french fries or complained the meat was a bit undercooked or asked if the air conditioning could be turned down just a smidgen, was not only accountable for the miserable world but also susceptible to consuming unknowingly all manner of mucus and grime.

All the while I walked, the rain refused to ease up. It was cooler and darker, and although I tried to avoid puddles, I couldn't keep my socks from turning into wet mush inside of my shoes. The weather had the effect of driving out of my mind the recent episode in the bar. I needed to get home. I increased my pace. My sense of urgency gradually closed around me until I was nearly running, blinded as much by the water on my face as by my singular focus. Anybody watching me would have assumed that I was making a mad dash for shelter, not that I was on the brim of some unexpected and hysterical frenzy—on the brim, barely restrained—as some dark effusion was getting ready to rise, bubble, and seethe. I didn't know what had brought about this change in my emotions; a sudden sense of guilt stirred inside of me. I'd done nothing wrong, yet my incrimination started to rise to the surface of my skin. I consoled myself with the thought that the demons had fled, that the ugly swine had drowned themselves. Yes, I was merely on the edge of panic, feeling just a general uneasiness, like a harmless, slimy film upon the skin that needed to be desperately washed off. I had broken my routine, that was all, revealed myself as both a social and sensual animal. To a very small degree, I had taken the risk of exposing myself in ways I neither controlled nor expected. That was all.

As I hurried forward, I became conscious that I was envisioning myself from the perspective of a stranger. Anyone watching me, I thought, but then, why should anyone be watching me? Of course, not long ago, a young boy had curled up on my bathroom floor, and despite the cogency of my explanation, I could never escape my connection to that horrible scene. Surely, the investigation would persist. When all the possible leads were worn down to nothing or bluntly stopped by a dead end, then the officers assigned to the case would start afresh, and my life would have to endure another session of scrutiny. I try to reason with myself that the city street showed me nothing more than its blank, indifferent face, with no malicious intent lurking behind the windows or around corners, no probing eyes tracing my every foot fall along the wet concrete. Even so, I slowed down to a brisk walk in order not to appear guilty. I was thankful for one of my peculiar habits. Ever since my long ago days in therapy, I'd conducted almost all of my affairs in cash, renouncing receipts and any paper or electronic connection to even the most banal aspects of life. What had begun as my embarrassment over needing psychological relief had eventually turned into a mild phobia of there being any record of me as a social animal. If I'd ever previously upbraided myself for living a life of constant and trivial caution, then at last, on this Sunday night, my long observance of my particular paranoia seemed worth the effort. It gave me some comfort. Try as they might, investigators would only discover a quiet, unobtrusive, reclusive man who contented himself with the pleasure of books. All my reasoning, however, failed to alleviate my sense of being under surveillance. I didn't know what exactly on the street had triggered my suspicions, but, in retrospect, I see now that I was undoubtedly a little misguided. Rather than fear that some legitimate investigator wanted to drag me out of hiding and expose me to the light of truth, I would have been closer to reality if I'd imagined a stranger crouched in a doorway, ready to spring on me and cut my throat or, better yet, bludgeon my head with a hammer.

By the time I reached my apartment building, I was cold and wet, but my nerves were no longer agitated. The lingering traces of alcohol left me drowsy and dull. Several days' worth of mail, for both Claudia Jones and myself, was stuffed in my mailbox. In the hallway, I leaned my umbrella against the wall and shuffled through the mail. Although Teresa Morris hadn't replied yet, W. McTeal had sent something to my neighbor, but not the usual manila envelope with its stamped warning against bending the pictures inside. Now, it was a simple white envelope, which seemed to contain, when held against the light, a handwritten letter. Because of my recent encounter with the real Claudia Jones, I no longer felt at liberty to tear open her correspondences. The rest of the mail, both mine and hers, was junk. Someone's footsteps sounded on the landing at the top of the stairs, and I instinctively wished to avoid meeting my landlord, who would leer at me with his rodent-like eyes, silently accuse me of being intoxicated, and thus claim another reason to consider me loathsome. I gathered up my umbrella and headed down the hall in a hurry, even though I heard the person vanish down the second floor corridor, rather than descend the stairs. When I squatted before Claudia Jones's door and began to slip her mail under, one piece at a time, a sudden compulsion to knock took hold of me. If my landlord could do it loudly and without reserve, then nothing should have prevented me. But I didn't knock. I stood motionlessly. My senses seemed to be keenly tuned. I could smell the dull odor in the hallway as the caked dust on the radiator slowly smoldered. The air was heavy with moisture, and outside—as faint as an indefinable mood—the rain pounded the narrow city street. I felt sensitive to the tiniest movement and sound, but everything was still and silent. Drops of water fell from the hem of my overcoat. After a moment, I placed my hand on the doorknob and strained to discern any possible warning. I remained frozen for a long time, my eyes fixed on a section of the door's molding. What if the latch jiggles and she hears me? I thought. What if the knob turns quietly and the door pushes open without the slightest creak of its hinges? Something vaguely palpable, which seemed darkly sweet and illuminated by thick purple light, tempted me. My breaths, going in and out, were like the mild ebbing of my hazy mood.

“Claudia Jones,” I said, and then hearing the sound of my own timid voice, I repeated more loudly, “Claudia Jones.” I knocked two times, hard, with the butt of my palm.

I waited for a response. When none came, I believed that somehow by knocking and calling her name, I'd earned the right to try the doorknob.

The mechanism moved, the latch slipped clean, and a wild fluttering possessed my heart. The gradual inward progress of the door, however, was abruptly arrested as a thin chain pulled taut across the sliver of the opening. I tried to look through the gap, but the interior was too dark for me to see clearly. I could make out the side of a couch and, beyond it, the framed opaque darkness of a windowpane. If Claudia Jones were in the room, she would have certainly been aware of me because I was letting the light from the hallway into her apartment. I searched for her among the shadows.