Naked Men

by Alicia Giménez-Bartlett

  Papá always used to say to me, “The important thing is to be working toward something. We’re lucky because we have the company—it gives us a good reason to keep living.” Poor Papá! It’s preposterous to die at seventy these days. There are people who make it to a hundred without breaking a sweat. Why did he have to die? Now the company’s gradually going under—orders are drying up, bills haven’t been paid . . . If he were here, he’d tell me what to do. The thing I’ve been working toward is crumbling away, and on top of it my husband’s left me, same as thousands of other women. I think I’m starting to hate David. I don’t think I can forgive him. He’s left me in the trenches without ammunition, without the will to keep shooting. He’s gone off with his little simultaneous interpreter, and I’m left here in this uncomfortable position—and if there’s anything I detest with all my might, it’s discomfort. I never wait in line for anything. I take taxis instead of driving so I don’t have to look for parking. I haven’t switched maids in years because I wouldn’t be able to stand having to explain to the new one how I like things done. Plus, discomfort is a waste of time, and I’ve already wasted too many years with David.

  * * *

  Who would have thought it would be so hard on me to be officially out of work, to be listed on the unemployment rolls? But it is: I haven’t had a job for four months now, and I haven’t managed to set up a daily routine to help me get through. I was on high alert for a while after being fired, but that’s long gone. Then I figured I was transitioning toward something else and needed to hurry up and find a new school to work at. I visited education centers, sent out résumés, put up a professional profile on LinkedIn, followed up on every opportunity. But even as I was absorbed in that flurry of activity, I realized there was nothing for me. The change was going to be a slow one. I started thinking long-term. I bought the exam workbook for high school teachers, but I didn’t feel like studying. Why bother? For the first time in my life, I seriously questioned whether I’m meant to be a teacher. I studied literature because I like reading, analyzing books, discovering writers I’ve never heard of, revisiting classics from countries around the globe. Teaching seems like the only practical application for my degree. I’ve considered looking in other fields: the publishing world, literary journals, writing schools. But you need contacts in those places, and I don’t have any. I was one of those romantic sorts who choose their majors based on taste and spiritual affinity, not on what’s going to earn them a living. I must be one of the world’s last remaining fools.

  And now I’m screwed. It doesn’t seem all that strange for someone who’s unemployed to feel a little useless; the problem is it’s demolishing the image I had of myself. I saw myself as a modern guy, progressive, committed to social justice, eco-minded, able to live with women as fully my equals. The clichés of Spanish masculinity didn’t apply to me. But now I’m finding I’m much more limited than I thought. In the mornings, when Sandra goes to work, I stay home and read. Then I clean the house, do the laundry, hang the clothes out to dry in the courtyard. It bothers me that the neighbors can see me doing the household chores. From their kitchens I can hear the televisions, the endless chatter of the radio. Up on the fifth floor there’s a guy who lost his job a long time ago, the kind who won’t be reentering the workforce. He’s a hipster who writes a music blog as his sole hobby. When I run into him in the elevator, he tells me about bands that are playing in the city, the latest songs he’s downloaded from the web. I used to find it funny, but now I avoid him. I don’t want to think I’m anything like him. I’m embarrassed to be stuck at home—I feel like an elderly housewife. I thought I was beyond certain prejudices, but apparently not.

  Sometimes, to avoid suffocating in the apartment, I go to the park to read. It’s pleasant sitting on a bench in the fresh air. When I pause for a moment and look around, I see little kids, too young for school still, and old people of both sexes basking in the sun. There are also South American nannies, a few loafers like me, and three homeless men who always sit together in the same spot. Two of them are young men, and the third is a little older. They pass around the ever-present box of wine, though they never get drunk. They’re all bundled up in tattered clothes even though it’s hot. They’re filthy. They engage in an animated conversation that I can’t hear, slap each other amicably on the back. One of them stands up suddenly in what looks like anger, paces around for a little bit, and then goes back to his place, calm again. Sometimes the older man is racked by a flamboyant coughing fit that sounds like he’s dying; then he laughs. I don’t understand the way they think—they’re strange men. After observing them for a bit, I realize I’ve gotten distracted and am no longer reading. Then I get up and leave; that environment depresses me.

  I still see my friends, of course, but they’re all busy with their own stuff. Some of them have lost their jobs too. Some have found new ones, and some haven’t. Some have even gotten used to never doing a lick of work and claim to be in seventh heaven. Two emigrated to Chile. Raúl, one of my friends from college, scrapes by doing odd jobs here and there. He’s remade himself as a plumber, not a bad gig. The other day we got together and had pizza, and he admitted that he’s satisfied with his life. “The important thing is not to just sit around, man. Believe me, I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said. You can tell he knows what he’s talking about.

  Living with Sandra has gotten harder. We’ve been living together for five years, and this is the worst we’ve ever gotten along. She claims it’s all because I generate bad energy, and I suppose she’s right. She says I’m always tense, grumpy, flying off the handle over trivial things. She says she’s never seen me like this before, I’m not myself. She’s lucky to know that much—I don’t even know who I was or who I am anymore. And there’s no need to be too harsh on myself—she isn’t acting naturally either. She never talks to me about her work the way she always used to. I guess she doesn’t want to rub it in that she’s working and I’m not. She treats me the way you do a terminally ill person, someone you can’t talk to about your plans for the future. But it’s not all eggshells. She may tread lightly when it comes to work, but she doesn’t hesitate to throw a fit when I’ve forgotten to run an errand or done a sloppy job ironing or left the kitchen floor dirty. And then I get pissed, I lash out at her, and we start fighting. She throws my atavistic sexism in my face, casting herself as the victim, and ends up saying, “Just leave it, I’ll do it. I’ll do it all when I get home from work.” They’re ridiculous arguments, but they sting. Atavistic sexism! It’s no good trying to point out that household chores are monotonous and repetitive regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman. After our arguments, it doesn’t take us long to make up and then make love. But I’m worried because they’re becoming the norm.

  Iván, Juana’s crazy grandson, has called me a couple of times. He wanted us to go out for a beer and a chat. I wonder what he’s after. I doubt it’s that he still feels indebted to me from his grandmother’s funeral. In any event, I’ve put him off as best I can. I have no desire to expand my social circle.

  * * *

  We’ve had to let go of forty workers, mostly manufacturing and marketing personnel. I feel really bad for them, but a company’s purpose isn’t to hand out charity. I held out as long as I could, but the numbers just weren’t budging. I’m anxious about the future, all the drastic measures we may end up having to implement. Everything’s taken a dizzying turn. Just a couple of years ago, nobody would have imagined the country’s economy would collapse so completely. My only consolation is that my father didn’t live to see it. The only reason I ever regretted not having children was that there wouldn’t be an heir to pass the company down to. So naïve!

  David wanted to have children from the beginning. I didn’t. I thought we were good the way we were: in busy solitude. Parenthood would only make our lives more complicated. Finally, after we’d been married a while, I gave in. Everybody else was doing it . . . But then I di
dn’t get pregnant. We went to the doctor, and it turned out I was the problem. They stuffed me full of pills, without success. After that the treatments became more complicated, and I refused to follow them. I didn’t want them trying things out on my body. I put my foot down, adamant. I’d do exactly the same thing today. I’ll leave my body to science, but I have no desire to be experimented on while I’m still alive, like a guinea pig or a rat.

  David didn’t push, but a month after I’d decided to give up on the treatments, he came to me, looking very serious, and said, “Would you be interested in adopting, Irene? I don’t mind, if that’s what you want.” I was astonished. How, when, and why had things turned so completely upside down? I hadn’t been the one driving the conception train in the first place, and now my husband was talking to me as if I might be feeling enormously frustrated, as if I’d had to give up my fondest dream. “Adoption? No way!” I answered. I wasn’t about to go through the experience of adopting a baby who’d turn out to have a heart murmur or some appalling hereditary disease, or to be the child of an alcoholic or a prostitute, with more problems than a fourth-hand car. And I had no intention of traveling to China to pluck one out of an orphanage. I’ve seen those adoptions with friends of ours. Forty-something couples who get baby fever because her biological clock tells her time’s almost up. (Jesus, even the expression biological clock is ridiculous!) And so they dive into a long, torturous process: trips to the foreign country, long waiting periods, paperwork, money—lots of money. You even have to pass evaluations to confirm you’ll make a competent parent! They look into every aspect of your lives, rummage through the most intimate details, scrutinize your bank accounts . . . Awful! Even though you’re willing to take care of someone else’s children from a country on the other side of the globe.

  “Are you sure?” David tried to ask again. I don’t think I even answered. I imagine by now he’s got a baby or two with the simultaneous interpreter. Children that she wanted, since she’s young, and that he’s accepted, since he’s in love. No matter how in love he is, though, it must be a shock to his system. Everyone knows the deal: bottles, diapers, slings if you want to go out . . . and you can say goodbye to golf and your tranquil midafternoon glass of whiskey. The house overrun with baby toys and the smell of sour milk. I can’t imagine he’s happy—he’s as selfish and lazy as I am. I’ve always thought that when you do something for somebody, it’s because you’re expecting something in return. What is my dear ex-husband getting in return for spending his days dealing with drool, soggy diapers, teething, and wailing in the middle of the night? But maybe I’m wrong—maybe he’s been seized by a fit of posterity and wants to see the fruits of his new love made real. Maybe he’s starting to share the masculine desire to have progeny, leave a wake as he passes, have his last name live on after him. Maybe he wants to form a real family, sit at the head of the table, and say grace before eating. He’s such a stupid man, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  My friends with adopted children—charming couples—are also members of the group that offered me “anything I need” after my divorce. And they’ve made kind and well-intentioned predictions: “You’ll see, after a while things will go back to normal. You’ll start feeling good, maybe even stronger, more sure of yourself.” I haven’t seen them since—they haven’t called once. Lamenting that my friends have “failed me” would suggest that at some point I had faith in them, which isn’t the case. Friends have always mattered to me in a relative sort of way. They’re good for taking care of social needs: going out to dinner, whiling away a couple of hours in conversation . . . and that’s about it. That’s why they tend to be pretty similar, not in personality or ideology but in very concrete things: work colleagues with children around the same age, living in the same neighborhood. They fill an empty space in your life. Myself, I’ve never witnessed one of those epic male friendships nor the total intimacy they say women can achieve. Lifelong loyalty? Not even dogs provide that.

  Genoveva Bernat has called a couple of times. I hadn’t told her about my divorce, but of course she found out anyway. The first time, she kept me on the phone for two hours until I finally hung up, pretending I was at the office and had to get back to work. Her endless chatter can be summed up quite briefly: “Let’s go out for drinks sometime and celebrate your freedom. Life goes on, girlfriend. Don’t shut yourself up in your house like a hermit.” Well, at least she didn’t get all tragic on me. Her second call was to invite me to a party she was throwing on the terrace of her penthouse. I told her I wouldn’t be able to make it. She insisted. I’m sure she would have kept insisting we do something together. She’s pretty lonely, and she’s delighted there’s another woman who’s not tied down and is available to go out. Again, the needs that friendship fulfills. Everybody’s kind of given Genoveva the cold shoulder. She’s older than me, about fifty. In her day, she caused quite a scandal when she left her husband and ran off with her personal trainer, a beefy guy, young and handsome but rather scruffy. They lived together for a while, but the passion dried up relatively quickly. She told me once that the guy would always say things like “for all intensive purposes” and “upmost,” and said “utilize” instead of “use.” It got on her nerves, obviously. His family lived in this tiny apartment in a working-class neighborhood. A harebrained idea, running away with a guy like that! Genoveva’s lucky she inherited money from her family and that her ex sends her alimony every month because he doesn’t want to deal with negotiations and lawyers or look bad to our friends. She wasn’t the least bit upset when the affair with the gym nut ended. I always thought she’d wanted to break free from her husband, and her loser lover presented an opportunity. That way, she didn’t have to give so many explanations or spell out her reasons: “I ran off with a hunk”—everybody gets that, right? Once she was free, she got a full facelift and bought a nice penthouse in a well-to-do area. She’s a little slutty, but I doubt that’s why our friends have dropped her. I imagine the real reason is she’s become kind of vulgar: she wears clothes that are too young for her, and her makeup looks like it belongs on the sarcophagus of a pharoah’s mummy. She plays the part of the hot chick living it up, the uninhibited floozy. She says everything is “awesome” and “rough,” “amazing,” and “fantastic,” but it doesn’t seem pathetic because she’s still got a nice figure, lives in high style, and is completely free of hang-ups. She doesn’t care what other people think of her.

  Personally I’d never given her much thought, but I realize now how brave she’s been, shrugging off everybody’s opinions, and I like that. I almost admire her. She has undeniable and nearly unbearable flaws: she talks too much, sometimes way too much. She’s always coming up with harebrained business schemes that never materialize. I remember listening to her go on and on about a dance school she was thinking of opening, to be run by some old has-been. She’d even planned out the décor. You just have to let her blabber on. She does have a certain charm.

  Genoveva Bernat—she’s a real character. The next time she calls, I’ll tell her yes, I would like to go out with her. Better yet, I’ll call her myself and suggest it. At least with her I won’t feel like she’s judging me, pitying me, trying to finagle information about my breakup so she can gossip about it when I’m not around. It might even be fun.

  * * *

  Apparently the guy wasn’t really into the idea of going out for drinks. Maybe he thought I wanted something from him. He must be giving me side-eye since I didn’t visit my grandma as often as he did his. Today he finally said yes, but this is the third time I’ve called him—though I’d have kept calling if I had to. He doesn’t know me; he doesn’t realize nobody gives me no for an answer. So maybe he’ll get to know me better. Of course, it’s a big city and this isn’t his scene, or he’d have realized I’m the goddamn king, the top dog, the fucking emperor. I’m going to wear nice clothes when we go out. Last week I bought seven Armani T-shirts at an outlet mall, one for each day of the week. They look g
reat on me: nipped in at the waist and tight across the shoulders, highlighting my muscles. They’re made of microfiber, really awesome. Today I’m wearing a khaki shirt, Diesel jeans, and black Nikes. The other day some girls coming out of the middle school stopped to watch me walk by. I spotted them rolling their eyes and elbowing each other. When they realized I’d seen them, they burst into peals of laughter. All in uniforms with their hair pulled back with a headband, but girls enjoy fresh meat. They’re like wild animals in Africa. If they catch you, they’ll take a bite. Their breasts were already visible beneath their shirts.

  I’d arranged to meet him at the Cocoa at seven so it would be clear I’m loaded. I’m pretty sure he thinks I want something from him. Maybe he thinks I’m a junkie and drug dealer like my mother and I’m looking to sell him some product. Maybe I made a mistake at the cemetery and he is trying to play a part: intellectual, teacher, bookworm. But he’s an out-of-work wimp, a loser the nuns put out on the street. So he’d better not start acting all superior or it won’t be a long conversation: I’ll have one beer to hold up my end of the bargain and then take off. But hang on, Iván, you’re getting ahead of yourself! Slow down. Maybe the reason he didn’t want to come out all this time is he was just depressed.