‘She never sleeps. Kramer, where’s your phone?’
‘Don’t do it,’ said Kramer, sitting up to plead. ‘Don’t phone her now.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll depress me. Phone her tomorrow. You’re with us, man.’
Berliner sat up, too. ‘I also had a dream, Terry. Let me tell you about it. Don’t make any phone calls. Like Kramer says, you’re with us.’
Terry considered, then uttered an all-relinquishing sigh. ‘All right, I’ll phone her tomorrow.’
It was playacting, this tiny crisis in male sympathy. They seemed to enjoy it, pleading with Terry. Deborah wasn’t waiting for his call. He’d said she was never bored. To tease him, I said, ‘Terry, why don’t you do what you feel like doing? Go to the phone. Tell Deborah how you feel, how you miss her keen face that leaps at you. Her voice, her legs. Tell her everything.’
‘How will I sound?’
‘Like a shmuck,’ said Berliner.
‘Who cares?’ I said. ‘Do it.’
‘Do I want to do it?’
‘Certainly. You said so yourself. Go to the phone. Tell her you love her.’
‘I’ll have another glass of wine first.’
‘You’ll never do it, will you?’
‘I think you want to do it more than I do.’
That felt correct.
‘It’s late,’ I muttered, rubbing my chin, feeling bristles. I’d shaved the previous morning. The face is a clock. Other faces also showed the time – slack, negligent flesh, heat in the eyes – but nobody looked ready to quit. ‘What I mean to say is that, when you talk about Deborah, you sound as if you hate her. You see her in such detail.’
‘So why should I phone? To tell her I hate her?’
‘No. Of course not. You couldn’t put it that way.’
‘How should I put it?’
‘Tell her you love her.’
‘Stay up late enough and you’ll say almost anything – even the truth. Maybe Deborah has stopped waiting for my phone call. It’s been ten years since I last saw her.’
‘Ten years?’
‘I told you we met shortly after my divorce.’
‘You still think about her.’
‘To you, my story sounded bad. Well, it’s probably unwise to look too closely at anyone. Who can survive scrutiny? But the woman was unique. A goddess.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘No. Fatigue makes me sentimental. It’s a muscular phenomenon. But I’ve often considered phoning her. I want to apologise. Put things right.’
‘So phone her.’
‘You think I should?’
‘I think you can’t end an affair with a kick under the table.’
‘That’s a good point.’
Nine
CAVANAUGH KICKED OPEN the swinging door to the kitchen, saying, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and returned a moment later, kicking the door open from the kitchen side, saying, ‘What assholes.’ A new bottle of wine and two water glasses were in his hands. He gave one glass to Terry. He didn’t think it was time to go home. I was still standing, wondering if I wanted to phone Deborah Zeller. It seemed almost possible, but what could I say to her? Kramer and Berliner, sitting on the floor beside one another, leaned against a wall. Berliner looked up at Terry and said, ‘I had a dream about the paper lady. Where I buy my paper every morning.’
‘Is that so?’ said Terry.
‘Yeah. The paper lady is fat and stupid. Wears flowery dresses like she floats and doesn’t stink. She sits on a high stool holding a cigar box full of change. You can’t see the stool, only her lap and legs, she’s so fat. Her ankles hang over the tops of her shoes.’
‘You’ve made a close study of her.’
Berliner considered this and said, ‘I never thought so before. You know, it’s weird. There’s a woman in my office who is very pretty, but I couldn’t tell you the colour of her eyes. The paper lady’s eyes are greenish, full of water. They look sticky. She whistles when she breathes. She has long hairs on her chin. She can’t say more than three, four words at a time. Nothing moves except her eyes and fingers making change. She doesn’t see good, so she feels the coins. Her heat is in the nickels and dimes. It’s like touching her when you take them. I dreamed about her.’
‘A nightmare,’ said Terry.
‘Once – before the dream – I came for my morning paper and stood reading the front page. I was going to buy the paper, but I was just standing there reading the front page. She says, “Hey you. This is no library.” There were some other people around and they looked at me like I was trying to cheat the paper lady. I got so pissed, I said, “I buy a paper from you every morning. You lost a good customer.” I walked away.’
Smiling at himself, Berliner continued. ‘But I was back the next morning. Like, it was more trouble to buy the paper somewhere else, and I wasn’t going to let her do this to me. So I went back and stood a minute reading the front page. Not reading. Looking at it, waiting for her to say something. She didn’t. So I bought the paper. I don’t know who was the winner, but in the dream she was sitting on her stool and I was on my knees, reaching up her dress. On my knees, man, reaching up to the heat. She was letting me. Like not noticing. The most exciting dream I ever had.’
As Berliner talked, his eyes seemed to bloat and throb, becoming wet, about to cry. Kramer put his arm around Berliner’s shoulders and said, ‘Yeah, it’s weird. Weird.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s weird,’ said Berliner. ‘What’s weird is fucking Terry kills Deborah. Fucking Cavanaugh is turned on by his wife screaming in a blanket. And you, man, you’re the weirdest. You lick your table.’
‘So what, Solly? What’s it to you? I get off licking my table.’
‘Makes me jealous.’
Berliner was joking, but also annoyed, maybe miserable. Something in him was difficult to show. Difficult also not to show. Paul, between Terry and Canterbury, the table tipped over in front of them, said, ‘Hey, since we’re talking about tables, I’ll tell you about my mother-in-law.’ His face seemed to hurry, pushing words. ‘When she eats, you have to wonder if it’s a human thing. I stare at her. I lose my appetite. Last night during dinner she was like abolishing a bowl of soup. The noise was revolting. I was staring. She noticed. She stops. “Paul,” she says. “Let me live.”’
‘Why did you think of that?’ asked Terry.
‘Your story about Deborah. I think she liked you.’
‘She stuck her fork in my dessert.’
‘It was a message. She didn’t want to say anything in front of the other doctors. It was a hint.’
‘Have you been watching me eat?’
‘No, man. Hey, Terry, you know about bodies. Tell me something. Could my mother-in-law have extra nerves in her mouth?’
‘I’m not a nerve specialist. What did you say to your mother-in-law?’
‘I said I was sorry. She lives with us. She’s happy when she slobs down a meal. I don’t want to inhibit her or anything.’
‘You know what gets me,’ said Berliner. ‘Not important, but I want to say it. Quentin’s wife didn’t phone. Didn’t write a note. Nothing. She doesn’t like me, but what the hell. It’s not hard to pick up the phone. Quentin was my friend. He would have phoned me if she dropped dead. Men play by the rules, you dig. He was my friend. I lost him and she didn’t even tell me.’
‘I’m sorry, man,’ said Kramer, squeezing Berliner’s shoulder, then withdrawing his arm from around him. ‘I understand what you feel.’
I said, ‘I have a colleague named Shulman who says that. He interrupts my sentences to name what I feel. Always nodding yes, yes, like he sees a feeling coming. Wants to welcome it, give it a name.’
Kramer giggled and said, ‘I hear you, man.’
‘I don’t think Shulman really resembles you. It’s only that he says “I understand what you feel.” One day he comes up to me outside my office and says, “Could I have a moment with you? Could I ask you a question?” I said, �
��Of course.” He says, “I heard something you said about me.” I was surprised. Shulman is colourless. There’s not much to say about him. To mention his name is to kill conversation. Once I dropped in on him to return a book I’d borrowed. He lives alone near the freeway, two-bedroom house with a dead lawn out front and a sick plum tree in the middle of it. He’d just put dinner on the table. The smell was thick and moist, as if I’d walked into his bathroom while he was taking a shower. Liver and boiled potatoes were steaming on the table. It made me feel sick. Beside the plate was a glass of milk. That also sickened me. What’s to say about Shulman? He is a thin man who looks like he has heavy organs; his intestines were shipped to him from Mars, where the gravitational pull is stronger. I said, “What did you hear I said about you?” He says, “It isn’t important. I was hurt.” I said, “Shulman, tell me what you heard.” He says, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” He walked away. I told my wife about the incident. She said, “Take him to lunch. Talk it over with him.” I said, “You think I want to have lunch with that jerk?” She says, “See? You called him a jerk. I don’t blame him for feeling hurt.” After that, Shulman began passing me in the hall without saying hello. You know how it feels when a colourless jerk begins ignoring you? I began peeking out of my office before I left it, to make sure he wasn’t in the hall. I never before even thought about Shulman and now I was worried that I might meet him in the men’s room, have to stand beside him at the urinals. I slipped in and out of my office like a thief. Then one day I saw him on campus, same path I was walking, his back to me. I thought of giving him a chance to get far ahead, out of sight. He was hunched, tired-looking. Shorter than I remembered. He was walking slowly, going home to eat liver. As he passed a grove of eucalyptus trees, I saw how tall and healthy the trees looked, as if they didn’t give a damn about Shulman. I had to do something. Put an end to this. I called out his name. With enthusiasm. He stops, turns. I was only fifty feet away, but he squints, reaches for his glasses, and his foot catches in the pavement where there is no crack or depression, and he stumbles, loses his glasses. They smashed. I came up to him stammering, “I’m, I’m …” He looks at me and says, “I understand what you feel.”’
Kramer, giggling again, said, ‘That’s a real funny story, man.’ Then he got up from the floor, saying, ‘I have an idea. You’ll love this. I’m a genius for thinking of it.’
He was heading for the living room, then crossing the orange rug towards a low table, heavily lacquered wood, shaped like a pumpkin. He bent at the table, slid open a drawer. ‘Here it is.’
He turned with a long flat box in his hands, holding it towards us, opening it as he came back. He was smiling hard, as if to demonstrate the only possible reaction to this box. It contained knives, about a dozen slender knives, lying side by side. A narrow elastic belt held them against black plush. Blue handles. Silver blades. They also seemed to smile.
‘I won them in Okinawa playing poker with some Marines. Handmade throwing knives. Perfect balance. Feel them. Let’s move a little.’
‘It’s night-time,’ I said.
‘So?’
‘Dark outside.’
‘Fuck that. We’ll throw in here. At the kitchen door. Stand up, Harold.’
Canterbury leaped from his chair. Ready. Not to throw knives, maybe, but ready to oblige. Berliner was on his feet, too, rolling up his sleeves. He wanted to throw knives. Then Paul and Terry rose. Cavanaugh, last to move, groaned, pressed himself upward. Paul took this moment to retrieve his bag of grass. It had been flung when the table tipped, landing against the wall where Berliner was sitting. Paul looked at it while Berliner spoke and then while I spoke, but he didn’t move to get it. I watched him now as he picked up the clear plastic bag, blackened with wine, dripping. He shook it, then cleaned it with a napkin. There was wine inside, too, coagulating lumps of grass. He put the bag with his jacket on the chair he’d been sitting in. Important to him, this good grass, but he hadn’t gone after it until the talk was suspended. He didn’t now complain about its condition. He’d told us how he apologised to his mother-in-law. It was late and I was a little drunk, feeling a sloppiness of the heart. For whatever it’s worth, it struck me that Paul was the nicest man in the room. Kramer, handing out knives, said, ‘You first, Cavanaugh.’
Cavanaugh stood for a moment, knife in hand, looking across the knocked-over table and the mess of fish bones, pastry, and broken glass. The kitchen door, his target, had a long rectangular spruce panel in the centre and a redwood border. The spruce was stained dark brown.
‘Are you serious, Kramer?’
‘Throw it, man.’
The knife hit the door, boomed, bounced right, leaving a gouge near the middle. Like an eye. Torn. Weeping splinters.
‘Now Paul goes,’ said Kramer.
Paul raised the knife to his ear, held it for long seconds, staring at a very particular spot, then threw. The knife stuck in the wall to the left of the door. He gasped, hurrying to the knife, and plucked it out of the wall, trailing plaster dust, leaving a slash in the red paper. He rubbed the edges of the slash together, trying to smooth it away. ‘Sorry, Kramer. Maybe I don’t have good aim.’
‘Canterbury,’ said Kramer. ‘You go now.’
‘I’ve never done this before.’
‘Just throw it.’
Canterbury raised the knife slowly, pale fingers at the tip of the blade, and threw it, not aiming. The knife made a silvery-blue wheel in the air, hit the centre of the door, and stuck, shuddering. The spruce panel was hollow, but there was no boom. His throw had been perfect.
Canterbury put his hands in his trouser pockets and, apologetically, said, ‘I’ve never done this before.’
‘You’re a natural,’ said Kramer. ‘You’re good.’
Terry’s knife flew like a lead pipe, bashing the door, leaving a channel as long as the blade near the border.
My knife stuck, shivered, fell to the floor.
Berliner threw hardest of anyone. His knife stuck at an angle. ‘I could kill,’ he said. ‘Give me another knife.’
Canterbury’s second throw was also perfect. We cheered. He smiled in a way that could pass for happiness, showing most of his teeth. Kramer didn’t throw any knives. He picked them up after we’d all thrown, and returned them to us, urging us to throw again. After a while, he didn’t have to urge. A rhythm set in, though we were throwing out of turn, two at a time, then two or three at a time. The air was full of steel. The door was gouged and shredded. There was a lot of grunting, wheezing, and more cheers for Canterbury. He seemed, without really trying, incapable of a bad throw. His face became pink and vibrant as he said, ‘I missed my calling in life.’
Knives were chasing each other across the dining room, booming, bashing against the door, rarely sticking. They bounced away, clattering along the floor or flying into the side of the dish cabinet. One of Terry’s heavy throws bounced up and chipped the ceiling. Berliner whooshed a knife into the wall. The door seemed torn by monstrous fangs. Little remained to make a solid target. In places the spruce was completely smashed away and I could see through into the kitchen. Canterbury, high on his success, began to babble.
‘Usually, about this time,’ he said, ‘I’m in my back yard, in robe and slippers, beating my dog with a magazine. He howls when he hears sirens. Every dog in the neighbourhood howls when he does. I’d get rid of him, but he’s a gift. An oil man sent him to me from Alaska. Part malamute, part wolf. Enormously impressive animal, but there are sirens almost every night. He howls with ghastly authenticity. I expect to be sued one day.’
‘It’s not ghastly,’ said Cavanaugh, lowering his knife. There was nothing but splinters and holes to throw at. Terry and Berliner were sitting again. ‘I used to play summer ball with a team called the Red Wolves. Semi-pro league. When we won a game, the team howled in the locker room, all the players and the coach. It was fine.’ He tipped his head back, neck muscles swelling as he pulled in air through funnelled lips, hunched his shou
lders, and howled: ‘Ow-oo-ooo, ow-woo-oo-ooo.’
‘Neat,’ said Canterbury. A white smile cut the gloomy face neatly. He tipped his head back, stretching the slender pipe of his neck, and howled as if yearning after Cavanaugh’s howl, catching its final note, winding it higher, higher, and higher towards sublimity. Berliner, with lunatic enthusiasm, came wailing after Canterbury. The three of them were howling together. Terry joined with a bellowing howl and then Paul started yipping hysterically. Now all five were doing it, harmoniously overlapping, layering the air with howls.
The ceiling was chipped, the wall beside the door torn, bleeding dusty gas. The dish cabinet carried zigzag gashes down one side. The kitchen door was splinters and the hardwood floor was streaked with wiry lines where blades had skated.
When I howled I felt the vibrations in my head, way up around the sinuses, but I couldn’t hear myself too well. I could hear Kramer, though. Everyone could hear Kramer. Wonderful notes evolved from his darkness. Magnificent tears came down from his eyes.
The howling was liquid, long, and thick in the red room, heart of Kramer’s house. His cherished table lay on its side like a dead beast, stiff-legged and eviscerated, streaming crockery, silver, wine, meat, bones and broken glass. We sounded lost, but I thought we’d found ourselves. I mean nothing psychological. No psycho-logic of the soul, only the mind, and this was mindless. The table’s treasure lay spilled and glittering at our feet and we howled, getting better at it as the minutes passed, entering deeply into our sound, and I felt more and more separated from myself, closer to the others, until it seemed we were one in the rising howls, rising again and again, taking us up even as we sank towards primal dissolution, assenting to it with this music of common animality, like a churchly chorus, singing of life and death.
Ten
KRAMER QUIT HOWLING and said, ‘I’ll clean up tomorrow,’ which made me turn towards the living room, following his eyes and voice. A woman stood on the orange rug, near the open footlocker, among Kramer’s snapshots, his hundreds of other women. We all stopped howling. She glanced from face to face, then to the debris, tracing knife lines through lakes of wine, searching for a theme in too many clues, and then said, ‘Tonight,’ as if he had said that.
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