Gould (5 page)

Times
while he drank and ate sliced carrots and pieces of cheese, and passed out. Her poor parents, he thought while he was drinking; Christ, what it must be like to lose such a beautiful high-spirited talented daughter in her twenties. To lose one anytime, any child, but this one in her early twenties at the most, right? He knows: they even celebrated her twenty-third birthday with a champagne split and two eclairs he brought to her apartment. “Here's to you, Miss Twenty-three; not a significant number or earthshaking passage, like twenty-one, fifty, but just the right one perhaps for big things to open up for you. So here's to ya, Linny La-la,” and they drank up, saved the pastry for later, saw a movie, came back, ate the eclairs and made love. Her younger sister, slightly older brother, or maybe he has them reversed, but such a live wire she was, how stupid could she have been to go screwing around with drugs or just using them in strange combinations? “Here's to you, lovely Lynette,” he said from the chair, raising his glass of vodka and ice, standing up, newspapers and plate of carrots sliding off his lap to the floor, and holding the glass out, shooting the drink down, sitting down and from the chair pouring another. “What a phony I am, a fake, washout, drain—take take take, that's all I do, can't help a fucking soul and all I want is to get laid, right? Yes, I think so. Right? Yes, it's goddamn true. Even now I want to go through my phone list to see who to call, but I won't because I'm too sloshed to even move from this chair.” And such a gorgeous body. There you go again. But those legs, breasts, backside, cunt that was always ready for him and never stunk. Just shut up about it, stop, everything you're thinking's wrong. Then he passed out.

Met her when they were both grad students in the same university. She was in the theater department and because she didn't have as good a fellowship as he, worked in the town's Woolworth's. Met her in the school's main cafeteria. Wasn't going with anyone then, wanted to talk to someone now, walked over, had seen her before at the same big round empty table, or one of the ones right around it, eating from a bagged lunch and Thermos, liked her looks, not just her intelligent face but the long thick braid and dark sensible clothes and even her frayed canvas bookbag and the two serious modern novels and book of plays on the table the last time and what seemed like different books this time, had never seen her standing up so didn't know how tall she was and what her legs and waist and rear end were like, told himself to be bold, sit down beside her and start talking, however inane the first things he says are, it'll be okay, if she's attracted to him, sat down and said “I don't know, you were sitting alone. I was, I mean, and you too, of course, and excuse me for sitting down without being asked, if you were reading and not just eating I wouldn't have, but I thought it'd be nice on such a nice day to talk to someone for a few minutes, do you mind?—though I don't see what the nice day has to do with it. Probably a rainy or cloudy or very cold day, not that you're going to get many very cold ones around here in winter. But one that draws you into yourself and where you'd be less likely to want to look out these enormous dirty windows, would even be a better reason to want to talk to someone and that person to want to talk to you, even if for both of you it's someone you don't know. I'm sorry, that couldn't have made much sense, but I'll get around to what I want to say eventually. Anyway, if you do—
mind
—just say the word and I'll go,” and she said “No, fine, sit here, free country and so forth, and I'm not reserving or preserving,” and he said “‘Reserving' I under stand, but ‘preserving'?” and she said “If you want to talk, you can't do all the talking—those are the basic conversational rules, agreed?” and he said “Deal,” and stared at her and she said “Yes, so, what?” and he said “Well, I already talked too much, you said so and I agree with it, but if you don't want to say anything just this moment, I'll go on?” and she said “No, I have things to say, except my mouth takes a few more seconds than yours to start up,” and talked and he did and the conversation was fast, stimulating, lively and they laughed and after about a half-hour of it he wanted to see her standing up before he went any further with her and he said “Like a coffee or tea?” and she said “I brought some, hot cider,” tapping the Thermos, and he said “But you also wouldn't like a coffee or tea?” and she said “I don't want to seem health-nutty, but I don't drink stimulants and I abhor all those decontaminated alternates,” and he said “Then something else?—here,” standing up, “come with me to the food line and choose whatever you want—my treat, since I've been chewing your head off—but not anything lavish, of course,” and she said “What could they have lavish in that kitchen midden?     but honestly, right now I wouldn't walk very well,” and he said “What's wrong?” and she said “I have a limp,” and he said “Something really wrong with one of your legs, or just temporary?” and she said “Let's simply say you're anatomically close and there was and what I have is a relic of what existed and that right now that foot wants to recess,” and he said “So, your foot, not a leg, okay,” and got coffee and they talked more and later walked to the parking lot and she did have a bad limp and kept having to stop because she said “My relic's rebelling, but you go on, though I won't be able to catch up with you and you don't know which one's my car and I'm not sure where it is,” and she drove him home and he got her phone number and after she drove away he realized he'd forgotten to look at, or maybe for her sake with the limp he just wanted to keep his eyes off of, the bottom half of her, but from what he thinks he fleetingly saw when she got into the car, nothing was out of the ordinary there. She had a hole in her foot, wide as a quarter and deep as, well, a quarter standing on its edge. Maybe not that deep. The first time they made love, which was on the first night they went out—drove to San Francisco, had a fish dinner, walked around a block of elegant food and clothes shops in a building that had recently been a chocolate factory but was now called a square—she took off her sock while they were undressing—“You mind if I get right under the covers,” she said when he started kissing and fondling her, “I'm cold?”—and pointed out the hole to him and said “This is my limp
raison
for baying  .     excuse me, I thought that'd be funnier than it came out sounding. Anyhow, I thought you wouldn't, when you glided your lips up and down my body, which I hope you'll do, want to discover it on your own and possibly get frightened. You did show unusual restraint or disinterest in not further pursuing the question of its existence. I got my foot trampled by a truck and this little crater is where they had to operate to save it.” At first her hole mortified her, she said, but she showed how used to it she got by sticking her forefinger in about half an inch and he said “Stop, take it out, and please don't ever do that when I'm here or you might never see me again,” and she said she'll cover it with a Band-Aid in bed or always keep a sock on if it really repulses him so much and he said “One or the other, but maybe you should. Blood, shit, gore, I don't know why, but nothing like that makes me squeamish when it's on someone, and I can probably stick my hands in all of it. Just holes like what's left in the neck after a tracheotomy and the ones where someone's skull's been drilled to get at the brain or the two or three I've seen where all that's left of the eye is the socket it was in.” She was conventionally pretty, didn't do anything it seemed to take care of her body so it was kind of flabby, wasn't a good lovemaker. She wanted lots of things done to her she'd read in
Kama Sutra
—type books but wouldn't do anything to him except suck his earlobe halfheartedly for a few seconds or massage his shoulders, not even hold his penis. She berated him if he came before she did and he was through for the time being. “Hey, you have obligations,” and he'd say “Not when nature says no, for look at my fucking prick.” “Bastard,” she'd say, and he'd say “The only time you curse or are anything but gentle and understanding is when this happens; well, it shuts me down completely, so I'm going to sleep,” and she'd say “Go on, sleep, you motherfucker, and if it so happens, don't wake up,” and he'd think if it wasn't so late and he wasn't so tired and he had a car to drive back to his place he'd get the hell out of there pronto and never come back, but in the morning she'd apologize, say something like “I must be hormonally out of joint or just sex-crazed when I get so close to liftoff and then have to abruptly stop, not that I'm blaming you—as you say, ‘nature,'” and be nice again and stroke his arm and say “If you want to, make love to me any way you wish and complete it when it's most spontaneous or pleasurable for you to, but I'll never act that way again.” But the abortion. He lived in a single room in a professor's home with his own private entryway that couldn't because of some fire regulation be locked and she'd show up lots of times, knock on his locked door—it could be two in the morning, once it was four—and say something like “I've been driving around for hours listening to radio music and late-night shows from as far away as Chicago—it must be almost daybreak there—and suddenly I felt lonely, do you mind?” or “Excuse me, Gould, don't come to the door if you're too sleepy to or you have a woman in there, but can you tolerate some company? Because of something scary [or ‘disturbingly erotic'] I read I wanted to be nestled in bed with someone and you're the only man I'm balling these days. I know I must sound pathetic, even the use of that uncharacteristic ‘balling,' which only hip simpletons say, so if you want just tell me ‘go away.'” They drove to San Jose for cheap Mexican dinners, San Francisco for cheap Japanese and Chinese dinners, over the mountain to Pescadero Beach to read and look for polished stones and grill hot dogs or hamburger steaks, did a number of things together for about three months, all in her car—he totaled his a month before he met her and was now riding a borrowed one-speed bike—and then he said, he'd thought of saying it for weeks, then thought Hell, why not, this is how I think she expects me to be, up-front and on the level: “This thing between us, it's not working, don't you agree?” and she said “It is for me; we should give it some more time,” and he said “Well, it isn't for me, that's a fact,” and she looked sad and said “What is it, you're not attracted to me?” and he said “It's not that so much; in fact, not at all,” and she said “It's not only my looks you don't like but my body,” and he said “No, you're quite pretty and exceptionally smart; it's true—but whose is?—your body's not that of an acrobat's or ballerina's, but you're not heavy or flat-chested or with enormous thighs, and even if you were—” and she said “You also don't like that I limp so badly,” and he said “Now that I can tell you doesn't bother me one bit; in fact, I find how fast and much you get around courageous, or maybe that's a word you hate, and if it is, I—” and she said “You would never touch or even look at my foot,” and he said “Why should I touch it—I mean, what's that supposed to prove? And I've looked at it plenty, I think, the few times you left it uncovered—in the shower once, or twice, but not to stare at it; simply because it was in front of my puss so I looked, and so what?” and she said “Have you noticed, or the water could have been spraying too fast, that the hole closed?” and he said “Good, that's wonderful, and I haven't noticed, I'm sorry,” and she said “It hasn't, but that just shows how much you've looked, though one day it might,” and he said “I hope so, I know how much the whole thing disturbs you,” and she said “You're not spiritually or physically involved with me—forget intellect; that never counts for much after the first few minutes. But that's what you're saying—and emotionally too—that you don't feel at all deeply toward me,” and he said “Maybe something like that,” and she said “Then why didn't you come out with it months ago and we could have cut the whole stinking thing off from the beginning?” and he said “Because I didn't know then and I'm still not precisely sure what it is that isn't working and maybe never did,” and she said “So what am I to do? I'm precisely attracted and involved with you in all the ways you say you aren't, even your intellect—that's supposed to be for laughing, but you're not—and perhaps enough for us both,” and he said “You know it doesn't work that way,” and she said “Then this is the last time?” and he said “Though I hate to be, and I never was before, the one to say it to anyone, and maybe that's the wrong thing to say, but yes, I think it's best, if it's okay with you, since the last thing I want to do is hurt you in any—” and she said “It isn't okay, and you
are
hurting, and what you said before was not only the wrong thing but a rotten thing to say, so what do you say to all of that?” and he said “You know what I mean,” and she said “I not only know but I knew and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's that there's nothing I can say or do to stop it, isn't that true?” and he said “I guess so,” and she said “Then okay, it's over, I don't feel the relief yet but I suspect that'll come in due time; but you know, I'd hate going home alone, especially when I'd expected to stay, and worse, sleeping alone after hearing this, so would you object very much if I spent just one more night here?” and he said “It's not a good idea,” and she said “Good idea, no idea—please, a prisoner's last request—laugh laugh—and I won't be asking for a last meal,” and he said “Good, that's funny, and if staying here's really what you want, all right. Though it's very unlikely—I'm not sure, but is that what you meant by your last meal?—that we won't make love,” and she said “That's not what I want. And listen, I think my fondest memory of us—I can't recall it exactly, but I think one of us was sick, so it must have been you, since I was the one who really enjoyed it—is when we just held each other through the entire night. I kept waking up and we were still face-to-face holding each other,” and he said “I don't remember that,” and she said “I have it in my journals and will gladly show it to you if you want,” and he said “I believe you.” They made love. She always slept with no clothes, he too, and just being near her in bed—she'd made no move to him, seemed to be on her back with her eyes closed—gave him an erection. He didn't think it was a good idea to make love and stuck it between his thighs, but it sprung out and hit her leg and she grabbed it for maybe the second or third time since he'd known her, said something he didn't get all of but with “baby bonnet” and “smooth lil' doll” in it, and so on. Then she got on top and said “I'm a-gonna abuse you, Señor Phallus, make you weep chili peppers, you bastardo, for the future rather than the past—how's that for hopelessly imitation swagger?—but do new things to you I've never done, since this one's supposed to be the finale and there are many things we pathetically haven't tried,” and rode up and down on him a few minutes, he was sure they'd done that before, but his stomach began to ache so he grabbed her waist and started to slide her off and she flattened herself out on him, spread her legs and arms out as if she was going to do a belly flop off a high dive and he thought “Goddamn, what now?” for he'd popped out of her and she didn't put him back, and scratched his shoulders and buttocks and legs and he said “Evelyn, that hurts,” but then thought it doesn't hurt that much but let her think it did, maybe it'll help her later in some way, and he said “Yes, this is memorable sex,” and she said “You've never talked once during it, but I'm glad, frivolous as what you said is.” Then she jiggled a bit and came, he was still out of her and he thinks not even semi-erect, and she said “Want me to minister to it in some way, I've still lots of kick and hot wind left,” and he said “No, I'm just sleepy and have been practically all day, that's the only reason. Nothing to do with you—it was great.” He let her hold him as she fell asleep and then he turned over on his side. In the morning he pretended to sleep while she got out of bed and washed and dressed, then said “Oh, you up?” and got dressed and made the bed and put on his jacket and she said “Can't I have a cup of coffee—for the road?” and he said “I'm sorry, thought you wanted to get out of here,” and made it, they read yesterday's newspaper while they had coffee and toast, then he walked her to her car. She started crying the moment she got in it and he said “Don't, please,” and indicated with his hand for her to wipe the tears away and she opened the window and said “I bet if I had a normal foot and no limp and hole we'd still be seeing each other or this wouldn't be the last time—maybe only the penultimate one; say, how about it being that, Gould—please?” and he said “You really put me in a position,” and to himself, She's probably right, he wouldn't give her up till something better came along or till he saw it was getting too risky sticking with her and that when he finally had to break it off it would hurt her even worse than it has today, and she would be a different person too without that limp and hole, not so sullen and abject and self-pitying and whatever else, for her whole psyche seems to be postulated on that foot, and the sex last night was the best he's had with her so far, even if he didn't ejaculate—at least she was up there and trying out things and acting free, but he said “Look, sometimes the guy leaves, sometimes the girl, that's the way it is, so I'm saying I've been deep in the dumps about it too,” and she said “With me, it's always the guy, though there haven't been a whole lot of them,” and he said “Funny, because with me—well, not always and I'm sure, by a much wider margin and not just because you're a woman, not always with you too,” and she said “That's true. Though of course I could be lying there because I don't want you to think I'm an utter loser and thus reduce my chances of ever getting together with you again, but you'll never know unless you call me,” and she started the car and he walked away. When he heard it pulling out of the spot he turned around and waved but couldn't tell if she saw him. She called two months later and he said “Hi, how are you?” and she said “Not so great. I aborted our fetus two days ago,” and he said “Oh my goodness, God, I'm sorry, why didn't you tell me before this?” and she said “You wouldn't have cared,” and he said “Not so, I would have done something,” and she asked what, and he said “I don't know, helped you with the abortion—money if you needed it—taken you to the doctor to have it, things like that,” and she said “You wouldn't have wanted me to keep the baby and then married me, right?” and he said “Marriage? Why would you want to be married to me? I have almost no money; I don't really know where I'm going after this year. I'm not ready for it by any measure, and a kid?—oh come on,” and she said “You're a nice guy, intelligent, personable, have decent looks and in good clothes you'd be very presentable, and plenty of other things, and for me personally, particularly how I feel about you. I felt a lot, and it's obvious I believe in you a lot too, and for some reason it also seemed you'd be a terrific father, loving, caring—” and he said “Maybe I would. They say good uncles make for good fathers, though I have no nieces or nephews, so why'd I say that?” and she said “You're being clever, trying to take me out of my misery, and it