Cartilage and Skin (8 page)

Miriam came back and slipped herself onto the chair. Looking over the rim of my glass, I watched her as she began to turn around in her seat, my eyes lighting first upon the gentle curve of her breast and then briefly upon her forearm that was placed on my table, before moving up to her smile and beholding the face that belonged to that tantalizing figure. Her shrunken chin sloped radically toward her neck, and her raised upper lip revealed an expanse of pink gum, and her eyes, unfortunately, were set too close to the bridge of her nose, which, by the way, was dimpled at the tip. All the desire she had aroused in me an instant ago was abruptly shocked by her ugliness. As I felt my blasted passion begin to shrivel beneath the radiance of her beaming countenance, I returned her good humor the best I could; I imagined that I smiled back at her or at least did something semi-civil with the corners of my mouth. She apparently didn't notice my disgust because she said, “Don't mind that bastard,” then held out her glass to me, and added, “Cheers.”

I clinked my glass against hers. Slowly sipping my drink, I vaguely listened to her speak, transfixed by her mouth shaping the words. Evidently, her upper gums were always exposed, even when she wasn't smiling. My beer, she said, was on Stephen's bill.

“Wait a second.” The bearded boy laughed. “It's nice of you to be generous with someone else's money.”

“You don't have to—” I started to say.

“I didn't—”

“Don't you be a bastard now too.” Miriam cut him off.

They both seemed very happy.

“Really,” I said, looking at him now because it was easier. “I'll pay for my own drink.”

“No, no.” He waved his hand. “It's my one act of charity in this life. Don't take that from me.”

“Thanks then,” I said.

“Besides, now I won't have to spend so much time in purgatory.”

The girl began to turn around and settle back in her seat.

“Let me treat you two next then,” I said.

“I don't know,” he said. “I would like my drink today, if you know what I mean. By the time you get service—” He ended this sentence with a chuckle.

“I have no idea why he's snubbing me.”

“Oh, I know,” the girl said, with her back to me again. “I asked him.” She fell silent, as if to tease me.

I waited a moment and then asked, “Why? What'd he say?”

Before she would answer, she wanted me to join them at their table. Gathering up my umbrella and overcoat, and switching my sports coat to the back of a different chair, I sat next to the girl; I couldn't imagine sitting across from her. The waiter had given her a very brief explanation, and she wanted the rest of the details from me. The girl said that I had insulted the waiter's mother.

At this, Stephen perked up in his seat and started to laugh. “What, ho?” he exclaimed.

“I don't know him or his mother,” I said.

“Out with it, Walter,” he said.

“I have no idea.”

I also had no idea why he suddenly called me Walter.

By the way the two of them had welcomed me, I sensed that I was acting for them as a reprieve from each other. My presence afforded them a break from the inane inquisition.

“I suppose we can get the waiter's version,” the girl said. Although she sounded as if she were attempting to taunt me, I readily agreed.

“Get his version.”

At once, the girl rose from her chair and sprung away with a tiny, happy bounce in her step. Both Stephen and I watched her go; then Stephen made an audible sigh. All the joy on his face dissolved into an exaggerated pout.

“Shame, isn't it?” he asked.

“What?”

“I have no luck at all.” He shook his head, but suddenly his grin returned, as if he'd just realized something. He leaned over the table and whispered: “You know why they really call it doggy style, don't you?” He nodded knowingly, sat back, and sipped his drink.

Realizing that I wasn't going to respond, in fact didn't know how to respond, he leaned forward again.

“When you're doing her from behind,” he whispered, “you don't have to look at the mutt's face.”

He erupted with laughter, and his cheeks grew even rosier.

“I have no luck at all,” he repeated.

He was still laughing when Miriam returned. Seeing him so pleasant and jovial, she lit up with a smile.

“It was in a doctor's office. That's all he would say.”

I tried to think, but I was certain that the bastard, the prick, was mistaken; I didn't know him.

“A doctor's office?”

“That's what he said.” The girl sat down with her foot under her, elevating her a little.

Besides the optician and the dentist, I hadn't been to a doctor in many years, even though I was at an age when I should get regular checkups. I wasn't enthused by the prospect of having some doctor's lubed finger wiggle its way toward my prostate. Like most men, I decided to wait until I pissed blood or couldn't pee at all.

“No, the prick's mistaken,” I said.

Amused, the bearded boy pretended to be stunned by my profanity. I suspected that all his expressions were not only exaggerated but also mock expressions. While such jovial affectation seemed to give him a bit of charisma, it also suggested that any relationship with him would be carefree and involve scarcely any emotional investment, both easily established and easily broken.

Despite having no story to tell, I remained at their table and listened to them. I treated them to the next round of drinks. On a plate in front of Stephen was a half-eaten baked potato, a dollop of sour cream speckled with parsley flakes, and a few sliced mushrooms sitting in a thick brown pool. The waiter twice tried to take the plate away, and each time Stephen picked up his fork and said, “Hold up, my friend.” Then once again, the plate sat untouched.

Miriam began a story of her own, to which the bearded boy silently grinned like a culprit to some petty, ludicrous crime. I learned that over the past month or so, Miriam and Stephen had gotten to know one another pretty well by way of email. They had met in a chat room for Jewish singles, and because neither of them was actually Jewish, they were drawn together. At this point, Stephen interrupted to say that he was surprised to discover that, like him, Miriam leaned toward Mardukianism. Miriam humored him with a flash of her gums and said they were having trouble finding a church. Anyhow, after they'd typed their way into each other's heart, it was her idea that they arrange a meeting, face-to-face.

“That's sweet,” I said.

Interestingly, their conversation was more fluid and natural when they had me as their medium. They weren't so much concerned with finding out about my life as they were with using me to reveal each other. After a while, however, even this became stale, and Stephen decided that we all needed a shot.

“Why are you still holding that stuff in your lap?” Miriam asked me. Before I answered, she picked up my overcoat and umbrella, her fingertips brushing along my thighs, and handed the bundle across the table to Stephen, saying, “Put this on that chair.”

When the shots came—some viscous liquid the color of urine—I reminded myself that not only was I a lousy drunk but also I was supposed to be Dick Diver.

“Pick them up, boys,” Stephen said.

“What is it?” Miriam asked.

“No questions,” he said, raising his glass. The girl looked doubtfully at the shot, but then picked it up. I felt obliged to follow.

“What are we toasting?” she asked.

“Alcohol.”

“No. How about to happiness?” she suggested.

“Sound good, Walter?”

“No,” I said, feeling self-conscious and silly, as I held up a shot glass with two strangers.

“What, ho?” Stephen exclaimed.

“To stupidity,” I declared, but before I could drink my shot, Miriam grabbed my wrist.

“That's no good at all.”

“I like it,” Stephen said.

Because she was holding my wrist, I switched the shot to my other hand.

“Then let's toast to love,” I said quickly and gulped down the putrefaction in one swallow.

Stephen followed first, then Miriam.

“That was a better toast,” she said.

“It was the same thing,” he said.

“Don't be a brute.”

Maybe to some degree it was the alcohol, yet this was the first thing that Stephen had said that struck me as genuinely funny; in fact, it was the first thing I'd heard in a long time that made me laugh, and once I started laughing, it seemed to erupt out of me in great waves of mirth that came from deep within.

“What, ho?” Stephen started laughing too, apparently pleased with himself for affecting me.

“A pair of brutes,” Miriam criticized, but her gums were all exposed in a frightening smile.

Any semblance I had to a cultured lover soon evaporated as I continued to laugh, not because I'd completely collapsed in a hysterical fit, but rather I doubted that such a charming man would have regurgitated his drink and allowed a few burning drops of alcohol to bubble out of his nose. I held a napkin over my mouth and began to cough.

“Watch it,” Stephen said. “That's the end of my potato.” He pushed his plate away.

Miriam was patting me on the back. When my coughs subsided and I wiped the tears from my eyes, I noticed that Stephen was steadily grinning at me as if I, too, were a culprit.

“If you're going to waste a shot like that, you're going to have to pay for your own next time,” he said.

Even though I regained my composure, Miriam kept her hand on my back. Strangely, as the puerile talk resumed, I was less conscious of the soft pressure on my shoulder blade than I was of the cool, lingering prints that her fingers had left on my wrist. Meanwhile, they were playfully arguing over whether Stephen really intended to eat the potato and the congealing sauce or if he was just being “a goof ball.” She said something that gave me the excuse to turn my head, smile, and look her full in the face. I wondered if I could eventually get used to it.

When she got up to go to the bathroom, Stephen leaned across the table again and whispered.

“What am I going to do?”

“She's a real sweet girl,” I said.

“Yeah.” He leaned back and seemed to consider the situation seriously. “I ought to at least fuck her one time.”

“I don't know.”

“Not for me.” He smiled. “For her sake.”

Wanting to defend Miriam, who, after all, really was a sweet girl, I found the bearded boy loathsome. Yet I couldn't help admiring him. Something about his attitude seemed more than honest; it seemed right.

“Here's the question though, Walter: Do I tell her first or afterwards? You know what I'm saying? It's a risk. ‘I'm sorry, Miriam; I don't think you're the right person for me, but if you want to have a little sex, no strings attached, I'd be into that.' She might think I'm an animal.” He was now pointing the fork at me. “But believe it or not, Walter, that's what a gentleman would say. Most guys would take her out to dinner a couple of times, and once they'd fucked her from behind, they would find a way to get away from her. You know I'm right.” He jabbed the fork in the air, as if to keep me from possibly springing upon him.

“Why have sex with her at all?” I asked, but he didn't seem to hear me.

“Once a guy puts some time in with a girl and spends a few bucks, he figures he ought to at least try to close the deal. He treats her like a whore. You know why, don't you?” He leaned forward again and grinned mischievously. “It's because they put women on a pedestal, or they're afraid of them or something. They turn them into whores because they can't be honest. But I'm honest with women; I know they get horny too.”

He sat back and dropped his fork on the plate. He was talking rapidly, getting caught up in the flow of his own words, though there was nothing terribly profound in what he was saying.

“I'll put it in email though. Maybe. I haven't decided. But who knows? She might be into a little carefree sex. She seems to like me.”

He looked at me now as if he wanted an answer. I wondered if this was normal guy talk, if he needed me to support him, to help convince him that his plan was valid. There seemed to be something noble about him.

“Why have sex with her at all?” I repeated.

He smiled at me, as though he assumed I was pretending to be naïve.

“Maybe I won't. Nothing's certain. Here she comes.” He sat upright and looked serenely pleasant, and although I didn't turn around to watch her approach the table, I knew by his expression that they were both looking at each other.

“The great irony,” he said, with his eyes still on her, “is that whores don't get horny. I bet your mom gets more worked up than any whore.”

Behind me, Miriam began to laugh, and sitting down in the chair, she said, “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Walter's mom. Who wants another shot?”

“Only if I get to choose,” she said.

Stephen put his elbow on the table and held up his forearm, apparently readying himself to hail the waiter. We were all silent for a moment. I glanced over at the two blonde-haired girls because a fresh set of young men was lured to their table. One of them squatted as he talked.

“I feel like I missed something,” Miriam said, and she looked at me to fill her in.

“Walter was just telling me that whores aren't really into sex,” Stephen said. “I guess I agree with him. He's got some crack-pot theory.”

Miriam laughed and said, “That's what they say about nymphomaniacs.”

My mind, a little fuzzy from the alcohol, began to teem with bleak thoughts. I wanted to leave the happy couple, go home, finally check my mail, and then burn my manuscript in the sink. Celeste Wilcox, I thought, in a blur of contempt and lust.

Stephen began to play with his potato, pushing it around on the plate and poking it with the fork. “I heard the same thing,” he said. “But I suppose it doesn't matter if they like it or not. As long as they pretend.” With this, he plunged his fork into the potato and started waving to the waiter.