I wondered if Canterbury, mildly epileptic perhaps, had had a seizure. A long moment passed. Everyone staring at him. I was reminded of a student, a boy who sat in a corner in back of the room, saying nothing for weeks, and then, last day of class, cried out, got everyone’s attention, and was unintelligible. Like Canterbury, he was there, but he wasn’t here. One needs a sense of the person, sometimes, to understand even his simplest utterance. We don’t hear words; we hear ourselves, personally, speaking words. All night he’d said virtually nothing. He wanted to be a zero, but I had to see him, at least peripherally, every time I looked up. He was there, across the table, practising invisibility. Now he’d burst with exasperation; abrupt protrusion of inner life. Under the pressure of our staring, he tipped back in his chair, making a picture of sublime ease, and said, ‘Ignore me.’
But he was strained, not easy. Meanings controlled by no intention drifted from his features. The smile lay in his lips like a feeling he didn’t want to have. Something precious, however. Very paradoxical. I wondered if he was gay, literally thinking the word. It brought delirious evanescence to mind, high thin spirits. Not much like Canterbury, but maybe he was gay in the sense of grim. I had gay friends at the university who were dismal. No reason to think any of this, or anything so personal to Canterbury. That’s why I thought it. He wasn’t of this company. He’d eaten like the rest of us and sat there listening, but produced no credentials.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Cavanaugh to be solicitous, but his size and the direct thrust of the question made him intimidating.
Insane, epileptic, gay, smiling, pale, Canterbury said, ‘I don’t know.’
He crossed and uncrossed his legs. A display of restless irrelevance, as if to say, Don’t look at me, I’m not here, but look at me, I’m here thrashing in my chair, tipped way back, utterly relaxed. He looked precarious. I was uneasy. When it happened, I squealed like a girl.
Canterbury’s hands were catching, slapping, losing the edge of the table as he fell back slowly, inevitably, then fast, arms flailing. There was a crash of wood and bones. I no longer saw him.
Had Berliner fallen, there would have been a festival of jeering and laughter. For Canterbury there was exquisite silence. He righted his chair. He sat in it again. Correctly erect, ready to resume, the smile in his face once more as though the event had already disappeared from human history. Kramer, with a judicious tone, said, ‘In my opinion, Harold is telling us to shut up.’
He meant no joke. The remark came from his professional self, one who knew the reasons of things. Canterbury looked at Kramer fully and coldly, daring him to interpret the fall. Kramer didn’t, but he looked back knowingly. He seemed to resonate implications. Canterbury took them like a stain. His ears reddened. Hairs, pressed by blood, radiated along the rims. A fine white contrasting haze. Even across the table from him, I could see it. He was furious.
‘I dislike being analysed. I resent it, Kramer. I’m not your patient or whatever you call them – clients?’ Further objections collected, jammed in his neck. ‘I said to ignore me. Ignore me.’
Kramer, hastening to comply, spoke softly. ‘Sure, man. Not everyone who hears our stories would like them. I wasn’t making a judgement. I understand. You don’t have to like the stories.’
‘Thanks. I’ve been sitting here afraid I had to like them.’
There had been other ironical remarks. This had icy force. Mean. Bitchy. Kramer blinked, rubbed his wandering eye, and settled back, watching Canterbury. He too now wanted to be ignored, but Canterbury said, ‘Before you produce the entire philosophy of your psycho-science, let me say the stories are obscene. Oh, really, what difference does that make? The population of America is large. Who cares what anyone says about anyone else? No personal information is so peculiar that it doesn’t apply to millions. You’d be out of business if things were otherwise. Isn’t that true? An individual, a real individual with dignity, with self-respect, couldn’t go to a therapist, could he? You see nothing but a stream of whining, snivelling creeps, don’t you?’
‘I never thought of my clients that way. Some are very individual. You should hear the shit they tell me. If that isn’t individual, I don’t know what is. Mainly, I do marriage and family counselling. Husbands and wives together. Sometimes with kids. I also see people alone. I don’t know what you mean by individuals.’
‘Terry knows. He’s a doctor. He knows he can talk all night about Mango and he isn’t describing her any more than a million other women. She did what he wanted for prescriptions. She raised rabbits. So what? She’ll be on TV tomorrow. She’s nobody. She doesn’t exist.’
‘Doesn’t exist?’ Terry poked his ribs under his right arm with his fork. ‘She has a supernumerary nipple. Here. How’s that for peculiar?’
Canterbury’s smile brightened with contempt. ‘Really? How about her teeth? Normal number?’
‘Yes. Also a five-year-old son who lives with her ex-husband, a cripple. He was injured doing construction work. The compensation payments bought the house in Martinez. Felicia is nobody? I helped fill out her income-tax forms. At her kitchen table. Blue and white oilcloth, faded, cracked like old skin. Sticky. She exists. She sewed a button onto my jacket sleeve. For months I carried that button in my pocket. If she doesn’t exist, how do you account for that button? I wouldn’t have sewn it on myself. If I asked Nicki to do it, she’d have sewn it between my eyes.’
At ‘eyes’ Canterbury rolled his eyes, as if assaulted by moral idiocy.
‘Oh, it’s finally a matter of taste. This sort of talk makes me feel soiled. Lonely. I know I’ve been sitting here listening. I suppose I have a debt to the club. I should tell a story, too, or at least slander someone. But stories don’t happen to me. I have an ordinary life. I don’t know gorgeous Latinos who raise rabbits. Great loss for me, I’m sure. I should have gone home. I don’t belong in this club.’
Cavanaugh loomed at his end of the table, mountainous, immobilised. Paul rolled no marijuana. Berliner muttered something, denied it, sighed. Terry was bogged in his densities. He’d done his best and failed. Kramer, sunk within his darkness, said, ‘People go to therapists because they have to. They’re in pain.’ He’d been dropped minutes ago, bleeding heavily.
‘Yes, get rid of their pain,’ said Canterbury. ‘Throw it out. See what you’re saying? No respect for their own pain. Get rid of their pain and everything else goes with it. My wife had six years of psychoanalysis. I know what I’m talking about. She took every stick of furniture. I came home one night to a hollow house. She left a note saying, “Dear, you can keep the furniture. I’ve taken some of the duplicates.” There was nothing. Not even a dish towel. I paid for six years of psychoanalysis for her.’
His wife?
I said, ‘Canterbury, you want to go home, but you don’t go home. You want to be ignored, but you fall out of your chair.’
‘I have feelings. You guys sound like a bunch of homos.’
Berliner grabbed me around the neck, yanked me towards him, kissed my cheek.
‘Thanks, shmuck,’ I said, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand. Now I understood Canterbury. He wasn’t gay. He was a critic, a perfect person. Kramer, clinging still to his therapeutic manner, fraught with reasonableness, said, ‘Nobody has an ordinary life, Harold. Not even you. It’s not common for somebody’s wife to disappear with all the furniture.’
‘I certainly do have an ordinary life. I drive to San Francisco in the morning. I drive back in the evening. I never pick up hitchhikers. I’ve never gotten a traffic ticket. As for the furniture, that was surprising; but I realised what it meant. She was leaving me. I think she made her point too strongly, but then she could also have burned down the house. It was still there, after all. She didn’t take the doors and windows. They are detachable and they aren’t without value. Do you know what it costs to have a door hung? But I don’t really want to pursue this incident. I was saying something about psychoanalysis, that’s your all. If you th
ink, after six years of psychoanalysis, my wife decided to leave me and ream out the house, it means I’m wrong about myself, well, that’s your business. Think what you like. As far as I’m concerned, nothing happens to me. It never does. This men’s club proves what I’m talking about. I come to the meeting and it turns out not to be a real men’s club. Why aren’t we doing anything physical?’
‘Physical?’ said Kramer.
‘Of course. Aren’t we supposed to do something? Something physical? All this talk, talk, talk. It’s sick.’
Berliner, smiling, said, ‘You never, you nothing. Too much, Harold. You must have a secret life. Confess, man. What do you do?’
‘I’m a lawyer.’
‘Far out.’
‘Well, there’s nothing secret about it. I sue people and defend them against suits. I should say corporate individuals. People can’t afford the services of my firm. I read documents and write legal instruments. Occasionally, I’m required to travel. Then I’m in some hotel room or talking to a judge, clarifying arguments. The work is hectic. Full of anxieties. One of the senior partners collapsed recently during a conference.’
‘That’s a story,’ said Berliner.
‘Good. I told it, paid my debt to the club. Quentin had a heart attack and died. Quentin Cohen. You may know that he invited me here.’
‘Quentin?’ said Berliner, standing up as if he’d been called from another room.
‘Haven’t you noticed he isn’t here? I suppose others didn’t show up. Perhaps they’re all dead.’
Berliner, mouth open, lips hardly moving, spoke as if his words came from yesterday or tomorrow. ‘Quentin is dead?’
‘Yes. He fell down at a conference.’
‘He fell down?’ Berliner put a hand through his hair and, as if imitating words, said, ‘He fell down.’ He needed another fact, something to help assimilate the news. Sufficiency settled in Canterbury’s features. His eyes, lit by inner principle, looked bluer. That he had no more to say made him terrific. Berliner waited in vain. Canterbury was stone. Then, as if wheedling with fate, Berliner said, ‘But Quentin wasn’t a sick guy. We had lunch a couple of weeks ago. He ate lasagne. We used to play poker, go to the track. He had plans. A trip to Acapulco.’ He sat again and said, ‘You see it?’
‘A dozen people saw it. Lawyers. A stenographer. Quentin was speaking when he fell and hit the table. We caught him before he slid to the floor. We pulled him onto the table, on his back.’
‘Then?’
‘Berliner, you’re harassing me. Coins and keys spilled out of his pockets. Drool was at the corner of his mouth. What do you want to hear?’
‘He was my friend.’
‘Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t know him intimately. He had a speech impediment.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I mention it. His chief physical feature. I was always conscious of it. Perhaps if I’d known him better I wouldn’t have been. When he invited me here, it was an overture. He wanted to be closer. His secretary, cleaning out his desk, found a note he’d written to himself, saying to remind me of this meeting. She gave it to me a week ago. After his death. I hadn’t gone to his funeral. In a sense, I’m here to pay my respects. Easier than a funeral. It was very terrible, the coffee cups all knocked over. What can I tell you? Somebody untied his shoelaces to help circulation. Quentin’s socks were mismatched. One was brown as the salad bowl. See, along the outside. That brown. The other was white. Oddly indecorous, even rather shocking. The socks made him look clownish; vulnerable. He was probably distressed that morning. He had to speak in public. The prospect might have troubled him. His speech impediment. Squishy, sucking sound, like walking in wet grass. I never had a good idea of it. He spoke so quickly always. As though to disguise it or keep your attention on his next word, and he’d tip his head back when he spoke, as if pulling himself above his mouth, away from it, and his eyes watched you so closely. He watched what you were listening to – his sense or his speech impediment. I used to receive strange phone calls at home. At any hour. A man’s voice. He’d whisper. It frightened me. Then, one day, I wasn’t even thinking about it and I realised the man was Quentin. I was positive. His voice came through the whisper. Something came through, the faintest something. Why would Quentin do that? I never mentioned it to him, but after I knew, I felt he knew that I knew.’
‘You never mentioned it?’
‘Not to him. I discussed it with the other partners, of course. That didn’t do Quentin much good.’
‘What did he say on the phone?’
‘It doesn’t make any difference – the disturbing thing was the whisper.’
‘You knew what he was saying?’
‘He said the same thing always. Harold, how’s your cock?’
‘Quentin said that?’
‘I’m positive.’
‘But with his speech impediment,’ I said, ‘didn’t you have some idea it was him right away?’
‘No. He whispered. Besides, people don’t sound exactly like themselves on the telephone. We don’t look like ourselves in photographs, either. We’re merely recognisable, for better or worse. On the phone voices are thinned. Purified. The wires do it. For some it’s a wonderful improvement. People complain so about modern technology. Depersonalising and all that. As though there were something wonderful about the real person. My wife, for example. After six years of analysis, she finds out who she really is – a greedy little furniture thief. Well, Quentin came into himself on the telephone. His real self. His freedom.’
Kramer stood up. ‘Who wants coffee? I think I’ll put on coffee. The women bought Brazil, Kona and Uganda. I can mix it up. How do you guys like it?’
‘Sit down,’ said Berliner.
Kramer, at the kitchen door, stopped, about to push it open. ‘Let’s have some coffee. Doesn’t anyone want some coffee?’
Berliner slammed the table with his fists, shouting, ‘What is this coffee shit? Harold is talking. We came here to talk, not to drink some coffee. You want some fucking coffee, Kramer? Make some for yourself. Shove some up your ass.’
Kramer walked back and leaned across the table towards Berliner, as if about to slide through the plates and grab his neck. The tattooed forearms had a lethal, serpentine gleam. He spoke, again with excess control, this time menacing, and he didn’t blink. His eyes were locked open.
‘Maybe you didn’t hear what Harold said. I’ll tell you what he said. He said our club is a fucking funeral. He said he came here to pay his respects to the dead. Mr Lasagne with the speech problem and funny socks. Meanwhile, since Harold is here, he is doing us a big favour, which is to improve our morals. You know what I mean? He explained to me what I do for a living is a bunch of shit. Did you hear that? I thought you were my friend, Solly. Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe I ought to kick your ass.’
‘Try it,’ said Berliner, lunging up, hair like thrashing salt, green eyes blown wide. ‘Come on. Come on.’
‘Wait a minute,’ cried Paul. Cavanaugh was moving around the table towards Kramer. I thought to grab Berliner, but he was fixed where he stood, legs trembling in his trousers, fists ready. Beside Kramer, Cavanaugh stood hugely, raising his arms as if to shed rays of peace. ‘Think of your friends,’ he said. ‘I love you guys. How will I feel if you start hitting? Think of your friends.’
Kramer’s eyes were on Berliner, hard, responsible to nothing like thought.
Canterbury rose. ‘It’s my fault. I did it. I was sitting here and I fell and said things. I caused the trouble. If you hit someone, hit me.’
His smile came bearing wretchedness and hope to his white face.
Kramer said, ‘Fuck it,’ dropped into his chair, sighed.
Cavanaugh lowered his arms, then walked away slowly to his chair.
Kramer slumped, his head twenty pounds of black pout. I heard Berliner’s breathing tear his throat. Paul looked at his hands, automatically beginning to roll a marijuana, a fat one to clog all synapses. Canterbury remained stan
ding, glancing around the table, trying to find something to say. He seemed very isolated standing there, as if abandoned by all of us, far away, lonely as a pole. Kramer didn’t even want to hit him. Then, inspired by sheer desperation, Canterbury said, ‘Terry, you were talking. What happened to what’s her name? You were about to tell us, weren’t you?’
‘Me?’ said Terry.
‘Deborah Zeller,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said Paul. ‘What about Deborah Zeller? She used to taste your food.’
Listless, quick, scattered – somehow Terry began talking. He had no heart for it, but it was apparent he wanted to redeem the club. He watched our faces, measuring the interest in Deborah Zeller. Berliner’s breathing was so loud I wondered if he could hear Terry. Kramer slumped, chin in hand; he studied the grain in the tabletop. He didn’t give a damn about Deborah Zeller. His pleasure in the evening had been ruined. He was bitterly pissed off. But I gave a damn. I showed Terry an attentive face. Deborah Zeller was no mere name to me. I knew her. Not to say hello to in the street, of course, but if I were at a party and a woman said, ‘Hi, I’m Deborah Zeller,’ I’d have responded extravagantly, probably embarrassing both of us, the way one behaves with somebody famous, who exists immensely for others. Here comes Deborah Zeller, so famous I could virtually taste her as Terry talked. I tried to show him all this, how I flew ahead of his words, acquiring his sense of the woman only against my own, which in fact was nothing but romance and anticipation. It gave way slowly, surrendering to Terry’s voice, his intention. He talked not for me. Not even for the club now. He talked the way he talked, a rhythm of authority in his sentences. The big round head – bald except for sandy fluff beside the ears – looked shaped from within by invincible power. A considerable bone with hazel eyes, bludgeon nose, full flexible mouth, talking of Deborah Zeller. Confidently. Berliner’s breathing became less loud and then I ceased to hear it. Even Berliner, in his fury, was listening. I felt reassured.
The Men's Club Page 8
