by Brian Wood
“Take this one. And try this.” I handed Ellis bright, beautiful shirts. “This too while you’re in there.” Ellis made a face like I was pulling out his toenails. So dramatic, my son. I rolled my watch on my wrist. “We’ve got plenty of time. The dinner’s not going to start without you. You have to change out of that anyway.” Ellis left for the dressing room. I walked to another rack. My fingers dragged across the length of the fabric. If my son was to be a writer, he would be a well dressed one. And if he was going to be gay, by god he was going to be the sharpest gay man he could be. He would impress that old Coetzee. I would be sure of it. One look at my boy and Coetzee would think, Now there’s a talent to look out for.
I decided that today, my son would embrace his own kind of manhood.
“Ellis, wait.” I walked to the dressing room. I caught him talking to the shop girl, probably about the cut of his clothes. I gave him the dress shirt. “This pattern is gorgeous,” I said. I could tell the shop girl liked it.
He looked at the price tag and his eyes went huge. “Mom, I can’t.” He quickly handed back the shirt like he was passing off a crying infant.
“It’s a special night.” I nudged his ribs as he turned toward the dressing room.
I glanced at the shop girl’s name tag. “Marion,” I said, like I knew her name, “don’t let him leave until he’s tried on that shirt. Promise me.”
She brought her hand next to her face. She crossed her fingers and gave me a smile. It was a shallow thought, but she seemed like a girl a straight Ellis might like.
Marion took the clothes. She counted the hangers and pulled a card with the corresponding number. “Hot date tonight?”
“Not even. I’m having dinner with a writer.”
“You a writer?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. “I like to write.”
“Who are you meeting?”
My throat cleared. I tried to sound casual. “J. M. Coetzee.”
“Never heard of him.” Marion took a shirt out of the pile. She let her lips pucker. “Executive decision. You don’t want to wear this.”
I tilted my head toward a rack of rejects. It was a move I had seen in movies, when a guy wanted another round from a bartender. Marion’s flat smile told me it was a move that didn’t suit me either.
“Tell me about Coetzee.” She took another shirt from the pile and hung it on the rack. “Wow. That’s just, wrong.”
“Well, he won the Nobel in 2003. He teaches now, in Australia.”
“He’s flying out here to have dinner with you?” She caught herself. “I mean, no offense.”
“It’s bizarre, I know. I’ve never met the man. But I took third place in a writing contest and won dinner with him.”
“So you’re on your way. Mr. Bigshot writer.” Marion set the clothes on the counter.
“I don’t know about that. It’s a bronze medal, wasn’t even that good.”
“Dinner with Coetzee.” Her ripe brown eyes got big, like she was ready to die a good death. “Ellis, that’s amazing.”
I looked at the floor. I felt desire aching in me. She forced me to feel it, deep in my body.
“Next time someone asks, say you’re a writer.” She hooked the shirts on her hand and began to walk me to a room. She stopped in the hall, her face was twisted in thought. “If you get a night with a Nobel laureate, what’d first prize get, a golden typewriter?”
“Something like that. Coffee with Franzen.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
Mom came into the dressing room with another shirt. “Ellis,” she said. “Isn’t this a delicious pattern?”
I had never heard my mom use delicious like that before. And I wasn’t sure why she was using it now. Marion eyed the garment. She looked like she might gag.
It was love at first line. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something sublime about the first line of Disgrace. I didn’t know why, but there was something perfect in his words. “For a man of his age, 52, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well.” It seemed serious enough. The poor guy was aging and alone. He had lost something. But there was a soft chord of humor ringing in there. Tender, but dark. One line in, and I knew Coetzee was the one for me.
A month ago the mail had come and Ellis started yelling in the kitchen. “Cozy, cozy,” he screamed. I hurtled through the living room, expecting to find him cut and bleeding. But he was doubled over by the island, a letter in his fist.
“Are you hurt? Can you make it to the car?”
He raised up and grabbed the counter like it would save him. “They picked me. I can’t believe I won.”
I pointed to the letter. “You won what?”
“I got third.”
“Honey, that’s great. Why didn’t you tell me you were playing sports?”
Ellis flattened the letter on the butcher block. “An essay thing. 1,000-word competition. Second runner-up gets to have their favorite writer come to their house for dinner. They picked me.”
“You won a free dinner?”
“Coetzee. He’s coming here, for dinner.”
“Who?”
Ellis pulled a book from the shelf. He showed me Cozy’s picture on the dust jacket. The man looked like an extinct bird. His skin was pallid and cracked. His mouth sliced to the side and one shoulder sloped, locking him in a frail, crooked pose. I turned it over and read the cover. “Diary of a Bad Year.” Try, Diary of a Bad Decade. “That’s great, Ellis.”
This can’t be him, I thought. This is the man my son adores?
I looked hideous. My reflection spoke to it. The shirt was so bright it felt humid. Tangerine and purple, creamsicle and violet, swirled into a nightmare sunset. Expensive buttons—exorbitant might be the right word—dotted down the shirt. The collar was thick as a slice of pie. And the inside of the cuffs contrasted with the outside pattern of the shirt.
“Ellis. Ellis, come out. Let’s see it.” My mother was waiting out there. But I couldn’t let Marion see me like this.
I began to feel that terrible feeling. Sick and embarrassed, like waiting to be picked up from school. Seeing that station wagon tug down the lane. Praying to anything that would listen, Please don’t let them see me.
Mom was going to ruin it with Marion. And she would ruin it with Coetzee too. Deep down I knew it.
At the market, I had told her Coetzee was a teetotaler. She still thought it was a kind gesture to offer wine with dinner. I told her Coetzee fulminated against all forms of animal cruelty. He wouldn’t dream of eating animals.
Mom told me, “And that’s why we’re having fish.”
“No,” I said. “Christ, he’s vegetarian. He won’t even wear things made from animals.”
And now she kept bringing things to Marion, having me try them on. Exotic leather belts made from alligator and ostrich. Calfskin driving moccasins. I knew she meant well, but this wasn’t the first time she had done this.
With a renewed exuberance I showed the book to my English teacher. “This is writing if I ever saw it,” I told her.
“What do you like about it?” She sat in the desk next to me. “Why does it work for you?”
I stared at the line, thinking of something smart to say, trying to recall the grammar and vocabulary she’d been pounding into our heads that year. But the words failed me. “It makes me want to read more.”
She smiled down at the desk. “What more could you ask?”
Looking at a rack of belts, I wondered which one would best suit my new son. Something braided? Perhaps one that resembled a polished alligator? The buckles flared the light like summer on a windshield. It reminded me of something I had heard in the car the other day. This doctor lady said everything in our children pointed back to genetics and environment. Called it nature and nurture—which I liked. Because I blamed this sudden queerness on his father. It’s his fault for never being there. Instead of showing him how to burn a steak on the grill, Ellis had to learn that room-temper
ature egg whites made stiffer meringue. He learned that cream of tartar helped the peaks hold. When Ellis should have been in the garage poking under the hood, he was in the dining room, trimming the candle wicks.
What was I to do?
I saw an ostrich skin belt with fat dark stitching. The silver toned buckle looked liquid. This one stood out. Now this was the belt for my Ellis. I took it to the shop girl.
In the sixth grade my class took a field trip to a conservation center. We had been studying all month about recycling and the dangers of swelling landfills. The whole class was waiting by the curb with Miss Leighton. It was cold that morning and the bus was late. The boys shivered and tried to pretend like it wasn’t that cold, while the girls were smart enough to huddle in packs and stamp their feet. As we waited, my mom pulled to the curb. She’d bought a coffee for Miss Leighton and hot chocolate for the class. She began to pour from a disposable carafe. Mom was filling cup after styrofoam cup, lining them up on the car hood.
The class began to stir. Most of the kids were excited at this vision. But the smarter ones protested. “Litterbug,” one kid said. He pointed to the sleeve of cups. “Those aren’t biodegradable. Your mom’s a litterbug.” Other kids joined in the commotion. Some were so conflicted they declined it all together. “Miss Leighton, that’s bad,” one girl said. “We learned those cups are bad. We can’t have them.”
My mom laughed. “You know, you’re right. I should have thought of that.” She put her palm on her forehead and made a face that had my classmates laughing too.
I was mortified. I could feel my chin tremble. The wind kicked up and bit at my eyes. They began to sting and water. By the time the bus arrived, the class rushed to the door. They had already forgotten the whole thing. But I hadn’t. The embarrassment gnawed to the middle of my bones. I waited at the end of the line. I pressed my back against the bus and let the engine’s idle vibrate through my chest. It shook the tears from my eyes and they jagged down to my chin. I wanted it to stop. But the more I thought about it, the more I cried.
Miss Leighton had me sit next to her in the front seat of the bus. As we rode I stared at myself in the window, wishing I had a different mom. I kept wiping at my cheeks, smearing the tears across my face. Miss Leighton pinched my arm. I looked at her. She was staring straight ahead. I went back to the window and she pinched me again. I could tell she was hiding a smirk. “Don’t let them get you,” she said. “You have a great mom. I didn’t see anybody else do something that thoughtful.” Her head swayed as the bus roared through a turn. “You’re a lucky kid to have a mom like that.”
But now, in the changing room, I couldn’t keep stalling. I knew I looked ridiculous. But I shouldn’t hold it against her.
The opening of Disgrace does everything. First, it is clear and concrete. Coetzee’s writing is easy to read, using plain but descriptive language. His gambit is also loaded with character information. We learn the age of the protagonist, 52. We are told about his past. He is a divorcé. Coetzee also hints that intercourse has been a problem of sorts for the protagonist. There is mystery and intrigue. What difficulty did this character have with sex? We learn that our main character has a means to cope and correct the conflicts in his life. In short, he has something vital at stake. There is something for him to lose. All in one line!
I described this to my English teacher (in not so many words) the following day. She seemed impressed enough. But she showed me how I had missed something crucial.
“What’s the point of view?” she asked of me. “What about the tense?”
“Third person limited,” I said. “That’s why I feel so close to the protagonist. Like I’m inside the head of David Lurie.”
“Look again,” she said. She ran her finger along the first line of the book. “He’s writing in present perfect. You realize how rad that is?”
I asked the sales associate what kind of person wears these jeans.
“I’m not sure I understand,” he said.
“This pair, here.” I held them out. “Who wears these?”
“Men,” he said. “They’re men’s jeans.”
“I know that. But what kind of a man?” I let my voice lower. “Are these gay jeans?”
The associate looked at me, cross. “I’m not sure denim has that kind of orientation.”
“Well, then what type of person would wear this style?”
The associate tilted his head. He curled a finger under his lips. “They are really tight. I mean tight, tight.” His voice croaked at the end of his sentence. “It’d have to be someone ballsy. Lots of confidence.”
Confident, ballsy. It takes balls to put yourself out there like my son does. “That gal in the changing room, Maryann, can you take these to her? Ask her to give them to my son. She’ll know who he is.”
The jeans were so tight they pinched at my balls. I pulled at the crotch and lifted a leg but there was no give. I tried to stretch them out. I yanked at the thighs. I even crouched down into a squat.
Marion wrapped on the door. “Okay in there?”
“I’m not sure.”
Marion gave a soft laugh that put me at ease. “If you’re wondering, they’re supposed to feel tight. It’s the style.”
“I feel ridiculous.”
“Come on, man up,” she said. “Come out and show me. I’ll wait by the mirrors.”
I couldn’t help but walk with incredible posture. The jeans forced a tall, confident gait. I stood before the threeway mirror. Marion slid behind me. Her eyes traveled up my body.
“The pants look amazing. But this,” she circled her hand at my torso, “is out of control.”
I looked at our reflection. In the sides of the three-way mirror the two of us stood together. Over and over, as a couple, we went on forever. I wanted to stay there with her. She wiped at a thread on my shoulder. I watched her ten million hands touch me. My heart went fast and I felt like there wasn’t enough blood in my body.
“You pair those jeans with the first shirt you had on. Now we’re talking.”
“What about this one?”
“Just toss it,” she said.
“But my mom loves it.”
“Tell her it’s a compromise. You wear the jeans she likes and the shirt that we like.”
Hearing her say we opened a galaxy of possibilities in my brain. She rolled the cuffs of the flamboyant shirt. It made me look like an ice dancer. “Or there’s this,” she said. “You could get this one too.”
“But I hate it. Look at it.”
“It gives you an excuse to return it.” She looked at my face in the mirror, waited for our eyes to meet. “I wouldn’t mind hearing how dinner went.”
To use my teacher’s term, Coetzee is indeed rad. The second book my librarian recommended, Diary of a Bad Year, was just as powerful. This time he utilized the first person for both main characters. And again, an old man falls for a young woman. Hopeless in love. Something that struck me more than I expected. Diary begins with another simple and arresting line. “My first glimpse of her was in the laundry room.”
A child hid from his mother. He made a fort inside a circular rack of shirts. The child parted the fabric and poked his nose into the light. I watched him scout for his mother. The smell of sugared milk panted from his mouth.
“Brayden,” his mother called as she focused on shopping. “Come out, Brayden.” Her voice was indifferent. This was a game they’d played before.
Brayden opened the shirts wide and stretched his neck. He was too clumsy to properly hide. When he saw me, I winked. His head darted behind the garments.
His mother went to another rack of clothes, screeching the hangers against the rod. “I’m leaving, Brayden. You better come out.”
Brayden poked his head out again. His eyes showed fear.
I looked at the child. “You can hide if you want, but you’ll be all alone.” My voice softened to a whisper. “I bet your mommy will love you if you come out of there.” He held to the sleeve of
a shirt and looked for his mother before darting out and clutching her leg.
“Mom,” Ellis said from behind. He had a shopping bag in his hand. The shop girl was with him too.
“Where are the clothes? I wanted to see the new you.”
“You will,” he said.
“You got the belt, and the shoes?”
He looked to the shop girl and he nodded.
“We got him that shirt you liked too,” she said.
“You’re not worried Cozy will get mad?”
“Coetzee?” Ellis shrugged and gave a frown. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t say I know a thing about him.”
How could I not read on? The character’s yearning to see more of this “her” was my yearning. And perhaps that is what makes Coetzee my favorite writer, whose work I’ll plunder until I can go on my own. Like his characters, I find myself hidden in plain view, observing the world and aching to find my place in it. Whether it’s family or school, I’ve always felt a little strange. Hopeless with love, but loving nonetheless. Somehow Coetzee’s work makes me feel okay with that. As the Nobel book described him, he is a writer who “portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider.”
Encountering Coetzee had made my wish come true.
III
LOVERS
MY ROBERTA
One morning I looked at my wife and caught her staring at our bedroom ceiling. There was something terrible in the way she watched our ceiling fan wobble. Like she was considering all that was wrong with the room and the weight of it wouldn’t let her blink.
How long she had been doing that, I didn’t know. And I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to “have a conversation” about it. Instead, I closed my eyes and pretended I was still asleep. I tried to imagine everything was fine. But in the darkness behind my eyelids I could hear her mumbling. It sounded like she was praying. “If this is it,” I heard her say, “if this is all there is, Lord Jesus, kill me now.”
