Fake House (4 page)

Jason put me down.

Little did I know that this would be a precedent. All of my erotic adventures, from that point on, would be arrived at fraudulently, by accident, pilfered from drunken, nearly unconscious men. A sexual shoplifter, I would never have sex as sex, only its double. While others can seek their pleasures out in the open, I must seek mine underground, through stealth and corruption, through substitutions and perversions.

I even thought of travel as a solution. In Antananarivo, Vishakhapatnam, or Ulan Bator, a white girl (with blond hair, blue eyes), even one as ugly as I am, would be an exotic creature, and hence desirable.

In Idfu or Maroni. In Fuzhou. In Kyushu or Lagash. In Kigali.

I would come into McGlinchey’s and see a man sitting by himself. If he was an ugly man, someone fat or old or with other obvious defects, or a foreigner, an Indian or a Chinese, someone socially crippled, unglamorous, or a black man, I would send him a drink. Surprised that a woman was buying him a drink, he would look over and smile, think things over and most likely ignore me. After a while I would send him a second, then a third drink. Some would be so disgusted they would not even look in my direction after the second drink. Some would leave the bar. But there are
also those who would reciprocate by buying me a drink. A few would come over and sit next to me.

Once, as I was leaving the bar, I heard, “I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick and me pushing.” It was the bouncer talking to one of his buddies. It is a tedious job, being a bouncer, and he usually has a friend standing by him to keep him company most of the night. As I walked down the street, I thought,
Did he actually say that? He couldn’t possibly have said that. He seems like a friendly guy and I’m always nice to him. Maybe he said, “I wouldn’t hug her because she’s sick and it’s catching.” Or maybe he was talking about somebody else
.

I also thought that although what he said was in itself malicious, his tone was jocular, friendly, even endearing. He did not intend to wound. To separate content from delivery is a sign of madness. Besides, it was simply a statement of sexual preference. You can’t force someone to find you attractive. Desire is fickle. And he was not talking to me but to a buddy. Anything could have triggered such a remark: boredom, the desire to amuse, even flirtatiousness.

I was already three blocks from the bar when I decided to go back and confront him. It was a mistake. As soon as I barged through the door, as soon as the bouncer and his buddy saw me again, what had been said earlier, even if it was directed at somebody else, would now be applicable to me. Both of them must have thought, since the sentence was still fresh in their minds,
I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick and me pushing
.

A man would say, “Looks like shit, feels great.”

A man would say, “That girl
requires
two six-packs.”

One night as I sat at the bar, a midget bumped against my elbow. I hadn’t even noticed him until his head bumped against my elbow.

It was after midnight and the place was packed. The midget stood patiently waiting to be served. When the bartender came over, the midget said, “What do you have to do get service around here?”

“First you have to be able to see over the bar. What you want?”

“A Rolling Rock.”

I burst out laughing. The midget also laughed. He said to me, “How you doing?”

It was very loud in there. I shouted, “I’m all right. How are you?”

He shouted back, “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure.”

The midget was about twenty-five, with a smart-alecky face. He had a very deep voice, the voice of a seven-footer. When the bartender came back, the midget said, “Sir, can you get her a drink also?”

I didn’t like his face hovering below my breast. I said, “You want to share my seat?”

“No, no, that’s all right.”

“No, really.” I scooted my ass over.

He hopped up. “I’m Spanky.”

“I’m Becky.”

We sat in silence, minding our drinks. His bony hip rubbed against mine. He started to rock back and forth, his feet dangling, then stopped, as if suddenly realizing the inappropriateness of what he was doing. On his square head, flakes of dandruff, like dried
onion, were impaled by strands of thinning yellow hair. He said, “You want a shot?”

“I don’t drink shots.”

“A martini? A mixed drink?”

“I’ll take a Jack and Ginger.”

“What is your name again?”

“Becky!”

“I’m Spanky!” Then to the bartender: “Sir, can you give Becky a Jack and Ginger, and an Absolut for me?”

I said, “Absolut … yuck! The last time I drank Absolut, I threw up the whole next day.”

“Where do you live?” The midget placed his left hand on my right knee.

I thought,
How did we get from me throwing up to “Where do you live?”
I did not answer him. He became frightened and took his hand away. I smiled earnestly to reassure him. I leaned my face forward in a vague gesture of intimacy. Our drinks arrived. We toasted: “Cheers!” A generic toast. He placed his left hand on my right knee again. He rubbed this hand back and forth.

Two drinks later his hand was palming my inner thigh. It was like a catcher’s mitt someone had forgotten. He kept it immobile. He didn’t want me to think about it: that his hand was between my legs. If I could have given him my pussy in a plastic bag, he would have said, “Thank you,” kissed me good night, and walked out the door. I said, “Let’s go.”

“Let go?”

“No, no, let’s get out of here.”

A man that hard up could easily turn out violent. The whole time I was talking to him, I was thinking of the word
dire
.

A couple had yanked my hair in bed. One had punched me
in the face. But this guy was only a midget. He was half my size. He was a midget.

As we walked down Locust, Spanky couldn’t stop rubbing my ass with his hand. Now pinching, now stroking, he wanted to get as much he could just in case I changed my mind. He was praying. He wanted to rake it all in and save up for the future.

At an intersection, as we waited for the light to change, he steered his face toward my pelvis and jabbed his nose at my crotch. Many cars drove by. Some people honked their horns. I said, “Spanky, you’re treating me like a whore.”

He ignored me. He was homebound and could no longer be distracted. A car slowed and a frat boy with his head sticking out the window yelled: “Whooooooooosh!!!!”

He burrowed and burrowed and burrowed. He gnawed. He clawed my ass with both hands as he bit my denims. He unzipped me with his teeth.

V
AL

Last month I was in Trenton waiting for the train to Philadelphia. There were maybe twenty people standing on the platform. A woman to my left, her back turned to me, was wearing a yellow sweat shirt, embroidered with the cartoon character Scooby Doo, over a print dress patterned with dancing chili peppers—a chili-spangled dress. She had on Dr. Martens boots. She was very tall, about five-ten, with dirty-blond hair. Something about her posture was oddly familiar: feet spread wide, groin tucked back, belly out, gravity centered. Her meaty hands were clasped behind her back over her non-buttocks. Did I know this woman?

When she turned sideways, I checked out her profile: small yet lumpy nose; pointy chin; round, protruding forehead—all in all, not a very attractive woman. And then it dawned on me: it was Valentino! a boy I once dated for five tumultuous months three years ago. Rather than risking an encounter, I went back inside the station. I don’t think he saw me.

From the time I was twelve to the time I left home at the age of seventeen, my two household chores were (1) taking the garbage out once a week; and (2) washing the dishes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday (my mother took care of the other days). Although I did not mind either chore, I particularly enjoyed washing dishes. I would stand at the sink, with my feet spread wide, my groin tucked back, my belly out, gravity centered, sponge in hand, and go to work. I enjoyed the contact of suds on skin and never wore those faggoty pale pink latex rubber gloves. I was an exceptionally competent dishwasher, maybe the best ever, with a clean repertoire of hand movements to minimize expenditure of time and detergent. The objective was to eradicate grease and food scum from each vessel without abrading the aluminum on a frying pan or tarnishing the tender glaze of a fragile tea cup. You do not want to injure your dishes. Dishwashing is a civilizing act. It’s not just a coda and bookend to eating but a counterbalance, nay, a refutation, to its organic consequence. At the end of each session, as a reward for a job well done, I would keep my hands beneath the faucet, under very hot water, for maybe a minute.

There was a risk to this indulgence, however. Sometimes I would be so transported by hot water running over my hands that I would stand there for not one but two minutes. That’s when evil thoughts would seep into my consciousness. I would think, for example, of pulling my pants down, right there in the kitchen, with my mother watching TV a few feet away in the living room. (She wouldn’t have been able to see me, but, still, she was only a few feet away.) Or, worse, I would think of stabbing myself with the still-wet bread knife sticking out of the dish rack.

She’s watching TV in the living room, alone. Dad is upstairs in his study. I can hear the sounds of recorded laughs and a man’s voice saying, “But, Margaret, you didn’t!” “But of course I did, Henry.” “You mean you didn’t tell me it was all a misunderstanding?” More recorded laughs. My hands are pink under the hot water. Mom thinks I’m still washing dishes. I have unzipped my fly to allow my half-erect penis to stick out of my jeans. I can smell the musk of my own sex. Only with a superhuman effort can I refrain from taking the still-wet bread knife sticking out of the dish rack and stabbing myself over and over, over and over. Ha! ha! More recorded laughs.

When I heard what my son had done, I nearly had a heart attack. I mean, how can anyone, no matter how deranged, do that to himself?! It’s unheard of. It was my wife, Trish, who had answered the phone. She walked into my study, pale as a radish, with her eyes shut tight.

“What happened, Trish?”

“Oh God, oh my God, oh God, oh my God …” She was shaking her head from side to side, her mouth wide open, her eyes shut tight.

“Say it!”

“Oh God, oh my God, oh God, oh my God …”

“Say it!”

“Oh God, oh my God, oh God, oh my God …”

It was sickening.… Trish flew to Philadelphia right away to see Val, but I stayed behind. I went to work the next day as if nothing had happened. I didn’t know how to broach the subject to
anyone. I couldn’t say, for example, “Val got into an accident, and Trish flew to Philadelphia to see him.”

But I should have gone with her, I should have. Maybe I was too afraid to see him, to look him in the eyes, knowing what I knew.

Are Trish and I responsible? What did we do to cause this disaster?

In elementary school, a few kids did call him Valerie. Maybe I shouldn’t have named him Valentino.

It was a seven-hour plane ride and I was crying the whole time. The stewardess said, “Are you okay, ma’am?” I bit my lip and nodded. I couldn’t even speak. The elderly gentleman next to me was trying hard to ignore my distress.

And all this time my husband and I had thought Val was finally getting his act together. He was going out with a girl. Patty, her name was, Patricia Potemkin. What did she do to him?

It was not a good sign that Patty was eight years older than my son. But considering the fact that Val never dated in high school, never even went to a dance, we were glad he had found somebody. We wanted to raise an upright gentleman, yes, not a homosexual.

But I never did like the way she looked. In the one photograph Val sent us, she was wearing shades, a black leather vest over white T-shirt, black leather pants, and black boots. A girl who is that self-conscious about her appearance has got to be bad news, I had thought. She had almost no lips and her teeth were extremely large.

“You think they’re sexually active?” I had asked my husband.

“How would I know?”

“But what do you think?”

“If you’re so curious, why don’t you ask him?”

“I can’t ask him, I’m his mother. You ask him.”

“They’re probably doing it right now, Trish, as we’re talking! He’s twenty-four, for God’s sake!”

We had a sun deck at the back of our house. It was about twelve feet off the ground. It overhung, on two sides, a cement-paved patio, and on one side, a flowerbed: gloxinia, morning glories, and black-eyed Susans Mom had planted.

One of my earliest memories was of me and Dad standing on the sun deck pissing on the flowerbed.

When I was thirteen, straight strands of hair jutted out from the hypogastric region above my uncircumcised penis. I took out a scissors and cut them off. They reappeared. This time I not only cut them off with a scissors but shaved my entire pubic region. Again they reappeared.