House of Holes (7 page)

Cardell Has a Sherry Cobbler

C
ardell worked at the planning office of a small city, planning brick crosswalks and trying to figure out where people could park. It was interesting work, but he wanted to meet a nice, smart, sexy woman, so he went to a lecture on the history of the municipal water supply and sat down on a folding chair next to a woman with mustard-colored stockings. There was a good crowd, but unfortunately the lecturer had a boring singsong voice. Cardell’s assbones hurt from sitting and his mind was aswirl with obscene imagery, cocks being stuffed everywhere, women’s eyes suddenly going wide in surprise. He began to think more and more about the woman next to him. He liked her mustard-colored knees poking out from the hem of her skirt. She had a little notebook and she was drawing a picture of a cocktail glass. Below that, she’d written “He doesn’t know anything” and underlined it twice.

When the audience questions began, Cardell leaned toward her and asked her to the roof bar of a nearby hotel. “I noticed your doodle,” he said, in his thrummiest voice.

“You naughty man,” she said. She gave him a speedy once-over and made a single nod. They left as unobtrusively as possible. Turned out her name was Jackie. She sat on a dark-red bar stool and addressed the bartender. “Can you make a sherry cobbler?” she asked.

He nodded, sure.

“I’ll take one, too,” Cardell said impulsively. He turned back to Jackie. “What’s a sherry cobbler?”

“It’s my life’s work,” said Jackie, and moved an eyebrow provocatively. She told Cardell where she taught, and they talked about a big video store near there that had closed recently.

“Rented a lot of movies there, back in the day,” said Cardell, closing his eyes in nostalgic reminiscence. “Before everything streamed.”

The drinks came, with straws poking out. Cardell took three enormous sips and nodded, blinking and smacking his lips. The drink was incredibly sweet and strong. And good. “So that’s a sherry cobbler,” he said. “Not particularly subtle—but then, who needs subtle?”

Jackie sucked hers down greedily. “Damn delicious. I never tire of it. Would you like me to tell you the history of the sherry cobbler?”

“Tell it in the minutest detail,” Cardell said.

But Jackie had an odd look. “Wait a sec,” she said. She began breathing strangely and put her hand on Cardell’s arm. “I need your help with something. Stand behind me.”

Cardell stood behind where she sat on the bar stool. She leaned forward, so that her head was almost on her arms, and pushed her bottom back toward him so that she was almost off the stool.

“What’s happening?” Cardell asked.

“Put your hand under my dress.”

“Here?”

“Yeah, just pretend you’re whispering something to me. I’m trying to lay an egg.”

The end of the bar where they were was dark and nobody else was sitting nearby, so it was possible to do as she asked.

“Now what?”

“I’m not sure.” Jackie sat for a moment, leaning forward. Then she straightened and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Nope, not quite yet.”

Cardell sat back down and finished his drink. “Ah, Nelly!” he said.

“The great breakthrough,” Jackie was saying, “came in 1842 when Charles Dickens came to the U.S. on his speaking tour. Somebody served him up a big, ice-cold sherry cobbler. It was the first drink made with crushed ice, you know.”

“No, I didn’t,” Cardell said.

“Oh, yes. And the first drink people drank through a straw.”

“Doubly revolutionary,” said Cardell. “Did Charles Dickens like it?”

“Loved it, and he had his character Martin Chuzzlewit drink one.”

“Ah, old Chuzzlewit,” Cardell said, in a wuffly English accent. “And where do you come down on the question of the size of Dickens’s dick? Big? Little? Doesn’t matter?”

“We just don’t know,” said Jackie, with a look of mild ex-asperation. “It’s one of the great mysteries. Now shush and let me tell you about the sherry cobbler.”

“They’re real good,” said Cardell.

“Then let’s have two more immediately,” said Jackie. “They’re best drunk as fast as possible.” She ordered with a practiced move of her fingers—this woman knew her way around a bar. “Watch out for the spins, though. There’s a book of Oxford bar recipes that says that sherry cobblers have ‘more than once induced vertigo.’ Published in 1827.”

“1827, that early, really?”

She pointed at him. “You see, the straw allowed you to drink the mixture in a supercooled state.”

“And that’s why Martin Chuzzlewit’s eyes rolled back in his head and he said, ‘Good Lord Nelson O’Reilly, what is this marvel?’ ”

“Right, he gets totally smashed,” said Jackie. “I mean squashed. And that, you see, ushered in the so-called golden age of the sherry cobbler.”

“Can I say,” murmured Cardell, wobbling his head seductively, “that I loved feeling the hot heat coming from under your dress?”

“That’s what it’s there for,” said Jackie.

“That’s what what’s there for?”

“My li’l pussy.”

“Oh, your li’l private space heater. Your hot wet—pooter. Your kitten. Mhm. You know—”

The second set of drinks arrived. Cardell took a long, cross-eyed slurp from the straw and then sighed hugely. “Cold,” he said.

“Very. They drank it through straws from a straw-hat factory, and they cooled it with crushed ice from a lake in Massachusetts,” said Jackie.

“In England, they used American ice? That’s kind of loony.”

“No, it’s rational, because the Wenham Lake ice was the best ice, and the ice salesmen went over to London and Oxford and Cambridge, and they got the word out. They said, ‘Make this sherry cobbler from our recipe, but you have to use real imported American ice, not the dirty ice from the dirty fish shops and the dirty British rivers, because that ice will make you ill.’ ”

“And then of course you’ll upchuck, and the spins are no help with that.”

“Right, ‘Buy our clean innocent ice from the land of America, where there are clean green tree frogs, and clean shiny fish, and a few noble savages going skippity doodah in their immaculate moccasins.’ It was a big business, the transatlantic ice trade. Charles Dickens bought five pounds’ worth of Wenham Lake ice in 1850.” Jackie pointed at Cardell. “We know that for a fact.”

“Interesting,” said Cardell, rubbing his face vigorously. “You know, the English talk a good game, but they’re such hypocrites. All that business about how vulgar it is to have ice in drinks. Look at this freaking peach cobbler!” He held his palms toward his drink. “Just have a look at it!”

“Now, Cardell,” said Jackie gently, patting Cardell’s hand, “the peach cobbler is a bit different. It’s baked in an oven.”

“Of course, what am I thinking? Peaches and you bake it. Very different. Very hot. So hot you have to let it cool on your fork or you’ll burn your delicate mouth tissues. This is with ice and a straw and you suck it up greedily.”

“Shall we summon another?” said Jackie. Again she made one of her expert signals to the bartender. Then she paused, listening. Across the room, the pianist had begun playing.

“What song is it?” asked Cardell. “It’s very familiar.”

“It’s Hoagy Carmichael, of course,” she said. “ ‘I get along without you very well.’ ”

“God, these names. ‘Martin Chuzzlewit,’ ‘Hoagy Carmichael.’ You know, when I’m sitting in some lecture hall, listening to some talk by some really deadly historian—no offense to your profession—my head just gorges itself on obscene images. I can’t help it.”

“Like what obscene images?” Jackie said. “Be specific.”

“Oh, you know—” Cardell did some quick self-censorship. “Specifically two people tied together at the knees. Loosely tied together.”

“Not tied. Oh, please.”

“What?”

“That’s such a tired trope—people tying each other up and peeing in mayonnaise jars and whatnot,” said Jackie. “You don’t want that, do you?”

“Well, no, of course not, but.” Cardell could feel a joywave gathering, a tingling in his lips at the exhilaration of saying what was now in his head. “Imagine two chairs, facing each other. I’m in one, you’re in the other.”

“Please, Cardell, let’s not make it quite so personal.”

“Okay, Charles Dickens is in one chair—”

“Not Dickens.”

“Okay, that hunky bar pianist is in one and you’re in the other, but you’re not really you, because your mind is gonzo on apple cobblers. I mean sherry. Shorry. And you’re both in your fashionable underwear, and your knees are tied together with long colorful scarves.”

“Indian-print scarves?”

“Absolutely. Not tightly, but not loosely, either. You’re toying with your slobbering kitty, and he’s doing his bulldog—and your mouths are murmuring filthy nothings that neither of you can quite hear. Then he takes hold of your waist and tries to pull you toward him, and you hold his shoulders and try to pull him toward you. But no can do.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“Because of the scarves. His knees and your knees are made to share the same fate. You see? Their bony places and their soft places. The knees are your point of mutual contact. You’re kneecapping. The harder you try to pull toward him, and the harder he tries to pull toward you, the more it forces your legs apart. It’s sad, really. Then he sees your hand going fast and you start to go, ‘Ooh, mm, ah, mm, oh,’ and your brow goes all furrowy, and your eyes go all glittery, the way they are now, you throw your head back, exposing your swanlike neck, and just when you’re at that moment when you’re starting to feel yourself come, suddenly you really desperately need him inside you, and just at that moment the scarves come loose and Charles Dickens is there—I mean the bar pianist—and you feel his dick find you, and it starts to push and to muscle its way in, slowly at first, and then
wom,
oh shit, he’s slamming it up there, old twinkle fingers is in you, and his hips are humping, it’s out of his control.” Cardell did pelvisy things on the bar stool. “Ngong, bong, ung, fung!”

Jackie closed her eyes and smiled. “Well,” she said, “you’ve made little missy pussy just a little bit horny, baby, because you talk dirty, and I sure do love a bar pianist.”

“Good,” said Cardell. Jackie held her head still, averted, listening to the songs; then she relaxed and got a sad look. “They play their hearts out in hotel bars where nobody can hear the twelve clever things they’re doing with the harmony.” She pointed. “See the big brandy snifter for tips there on the top of the piano? Not much in it.”

“So maybe we should casually drop a ten-spot in the snifter as we walk on by.”

“When?”

“When we leave together in about ten minutes to kiss and look into each other’s eyes while we fondle each other and tie colorful scarves around our knees. Oops, did I say that?”

“Hold on.” Jackie squinted and grabbed his arm again. “I think it’s coming.” Again she pushed back on the bar stool and turned red. A vein stood out in her neck. “Get behind me again, and slide your hand in my pantyhose and hold it right at my pussyhole.”

Cardell obliged, cupping her bush, which was slick and swollen.

“Good,” she said, “this time it’s really happ—” Her throat squeezed to silence and she made a strained pushing sound, turning even redder. “Now! Uhhhhh!” Something heavy and smooth and warm fell into Cardell’s cupped hand. “There you go,” she said, straightening and sighing with relief.

Cardell pulled his hand from under her skirt. He was holding an egg. It was silver in color.

She handed him a bar napkin. “Wipe it down. Don’t let people see. Put it out of sight.”

“Is it a silver egg?” he asked, pocketing it in his jacket.

“Yes.”

“Is it solid?”

“No, there’s a tiny silver man and a tiny silver woman inside. You can watch them make love if you like that sort of thing.”

“I do,” Cardell said.

“Me, too,” said Jackie, and she giggled and shook herself. “Phew, egg laying takes it out of me.” She ate half of a pretzel. “Cardell, I’m sorry to be a tease, because you’ve been nice, but I’m buzzed now, and I’m going to have to say good-bye.”

“Forever?”

“No, of course not forever. I’m just going to make an excursion to the House of Holes, where I can be a total tramp for a day or two. They let you do what you want there, you know.”