by John O'Neill
After Ellis had emptied his bowl and taken a half-dozen slices of margarine-smeared toast to the basement, Leonard listened to the messages. There were two. The first was from Cynthia:
“Hi Leonard. How are you? I’m sorry. Please drop off the separation agreement when you have a chance. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything. I know that, well, I don’t want to get into it again. Please call.”
The next was from Alison’s father:
“Listen asshole. You don’t know Alison. You don’t. I’m not asking you again, stay away from her.”
Leonard chuckled to himself, erased the messages, wondered what had motivated this new call. After all, he hadn’t seen or spoken to Alison in three weeks. Perhaps Alison had said something to her father that inflamed things, had suggested that whatever was between her and her former teacher hadn’t subsided. Certainly the message that Leonard had left was not one that would have provoked such a response.
Then Leonard began to wonder: what had he said? He remembered that he fantasized about leaving an incendiary message, but had reconsidered. Or had he? Maybe some of the content of his fantasy call had found its way into the message he’d left, or perhaps the forced calmness of his voice sounded insincere or ironic. He couldn’t remember. Began to feel a little queasy, walked from kitchen to living room, collapsed in the chair, put his eyes on the melon breasts of the Amazon woman. Realized he had an erection. Had to decide what to do with it. Decided there needed to be more possibilities for an erection, that sex or masturbation were too limited, obvious; and waiting for it to subside seemed wrong, too. He needed a strategy, a way he might live with his erection, to acknowledge its existence without spending it, using it up, but also without letting it direct his life. Was there a way of sustaining it and disregarding it at the same time?
He knew he wasn’t the first to consider the limitations of the male genitalia. But his cock seemed particularly limited, a member with a low IQ.
He’d almost forgotten about sex. His penis had followed the rest of his body and mind into numbness, a coma induced by video images. But now, just as it had after he’d stolen the woman’s bicycle, before he’d masturbated while imagining her on public transit, squeezed helplessly between men, sweat running through the long hollow of her throat then under her bra, his erection was asserting itself. And as he sat there staring at the bulge in his crotch, the phone rang again. Third call this morning, bad things happen in threes, though his wife’s call had been conciliatory. This time he answered.
He was rewarded and punished. It was Alison.
“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked. “Can we maybe get together tonight? I’ve been incredibly busy. I know we need to talk.”
Leonard’s desire wasn’t enough to prevent him from feigning indifference. He returned to the living room, collapsed into his seat again, imagined that Ellis’ entertainment system was before him, monolithic, calming. He spoke in a cool, disinterested way.
“I don’t know, Alison. Haven’t heard from you in a month. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve had a strange couple of weeks. I’m not sure we should. You said you didn’t think it was working out.”
“I know, but. I don’t know, actually. Maybe you’re right.” Leonard winced here, squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s up to you.”
He didn’t mention her father’s phone call, afraid that, if he introduced that information, Alison might reconsider her invitation. Or that they’d launch into a lengthy phone discussion rendering a face-to-face meeting unnecessary. Again, Leonard imagined the TV screen, the ease of sinking lower, that contentment, that indifference.
“Okay. I guess we should. What time tonight, I’ll come down there?”
“About eight?”
“Is nine okay?” Leonard said, in control now. “I’ve got some things to do.”
“See you then.”
Leonard was sure Alison was unaware of her father’s latest phone call; her voice hadn’t betrayed that sort of urgency. Anyway, he didn’t care. He was going to see her. He would allow himself, at least temporarily, to hope. He wouldn’t masturbate. This resolution made him excited. It was going to be a long day.
5
INVENTORY
Stiv-or-Steve answered the door. He didn’t make eye contact, pushed past Leonard through the doorway, saying cryptically: “Just on my way out, grey matter’s so overrated, good to see you, just go on up.”
Alison was on the phone in the living room, sitting half-turned toward the wall.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said. “Have to go now. I’ll see you later.”
She clicked the phone off, let her eyes meet his, moved to the destroyed armchair, sat, immediately shot up again as if she’d forgotten, then remembered, that Leonard was present. She came over and embraced him. He didn’t raise his arms.
“You all right?” he said. “Who was that?”
“Nobody. Take a guess. He phoned three times today. That was the third one.”
“What did he say?”
“The usual. Doesn’t want me to see you, etcetera. Wants to compensate for all the shitty years now.”
“But I’m not seeing you,” Leonard said. “Why don’t you tell him we’re not? Alison, I don’t get it. There’s no problem if you’re not interested. I have no idea what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking. It’s complicated, but. I just needed some time. Can we not talk about it, now? It’s too much, his phone call, your being here. I don’t want to talk. Come on.”
She took Leonard’s hand and led him into her bedroom. Pushed him onto her unmade bed, laughed at his expression of confusion, as if he was acting. Pulled her beige t-shirt, a faded Barbie doll in beach wear on it, over her head.
Unbuttoning her jeans, she said: “Why you still dressed?”
“Alison, this is ridiculous.”
He began to undress himself, unbuttoning his pants while lying on his back.
The phone rang. Their eyes met. Alison looked away, grabbed her bathrobe from the back of the door, disappeared.
Leonard said again: “This is ridiculous.”
He sat in his underwear on the futon’s edge. Examined Alison’s CD collection. The strips of plastic carried names he didn’t recognize: Botox Four, Flesh of Night, Tiny Little Tents, Gravedogs, Winterbox. He stood up and lit the beeswax candle whose wax was already hardened in a flow down the side of the dresser. Switched off the lamp. The candle sputtered, hub of a flame. Leonard waited in the darkness, stretched out on the bed, on his stomach, face in the pillow.
When she returned, a sliver of light opening, closing on the wall, he didn’t move. But his erection was pressing against a lump in Alison’s futon. Alison, naked again, straddled his lower back. She moved next to him, put her hands around the front of his shoulders, helped him into a kneeling position.
“We shouldn’t be doing this ... my father would kill,” she said, then fixed Leonard with her eyes, put a hand into his underwear, pushed her fingers out from the slit in front, splayed her hand into a flower of flesh . “Men really only have one muscle,” she said, in mock documentary tone. Then, matter-of-factly: “Behind.”
His hands on her waist. Outline of her body against the sheets. Closed his eyes, tried to prolong things. To think about Ellis, to not think about Alison’s father, to think about Alison’s father, to remember his words, to not remember, to remember this, the details of her room, where her hair stopped on her neck, the way one of her hands was flat against the wall. The sounds she made, the scratchy moan. How she always seemed on the edge of laughing. Touched one of the moles on her lower back, a dip in Cassiopeia, ran his hand over the rest of it, cosmic Braille, then fell back, retreated.
“What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a minute,” he said.
He slid away from her, the wetness trailing along her thigh. Stood up, switched on the light. Alison collapsed, pulled a pillow over her head.
“What are you doing? I was almost do
ne.”
“Alison, your back. It’s different.”
She sat up and looked over her shoulder.
“How? What do you mean?”
“The pattern. Your moles. You had Cassiopeia there. The W-shape. Now it’s a V. Some of them are gone.”
Alison flopped onto her stomach.
“What do you think, I had surgery? Come on, let’s finish.”
She thrust her bum in the air.
“Honestly, Alison, did you have something done? This is so weird. I distinctly remember ...”
“I keep a close inventory of my body. My back hasn’t changed, I don’t think.”
“Jesus. I must be losing it. I wonder what it is now.”
“What what is?”
“Your back. What constellation.”
“They’re just moles. Get a grip, but. Can we continue, please?” Then the urgency, frustration in her voice changed, found a new focus. “Maybe you can make them come back, if you work hard enough.”
Leonard sat on the edge of the bed. He tried not to think of Alison’s back, its transformation. The stars had scattered, or burned out. He wanted to look outside, to examine the night sky to be sure it wasn’t disappearing, The Nine Billion Names of God, that it hadn’t taken a cue from her flesh.
But when he moved toward the window, Alison stood up, gripped him by the wrists, said: “Don’t, don’t.”
She yanked him back to the bed, cupping his genitals in her hands. Then, she released him, jumped to her feet, said: “Leonard, breathe, breathe.”
She’d recognized a change. A problem. Leonard felt he’d been stabbed. Was being stabbed. The candlelight, flicker in the, room faded, intensified. Another pain shot, through his neck. He saw that Alison was, speaking, couldn’t make it, out. She turned away, vanished.
“Everyone is vanishing,” he thought. “Well, fuck you.”
He stood up, pressed his hands against the dresser. He opened the top drawer, closed it again; opened the top drawer; and closed it.
Alison came back. Leonard was staring at his feet, watching them recede, sharpen. Trying, not to pass out. She lifted his arms, pulled his t-shirt on, helped him step into his underwear, pants. He didn’t ask her why.
“Deep breaths, deep breaths.”
Why was she, saying things, twice?
“We’re going to Mt. Sinai. I called a cab. You’re white as a sheet.”
No, white as a ghost, a ghost. He mouthed the words, but no sound came. Ghostly pronunciation. Alison put his shoes on, guided him into the hall, and down the stairs. She sat him on the porch, kept her arm around him, used her shirt to wipe his brow.
“You’re sweating bullets.”
“When did I get dressed?”
His head was throbbing, but the sharp pain in his chest and neck had settled into general heaviness, things are what they are. He was breathing, now, easier, but still felt supremely unwell, had to concentrate to speak.
“What the ... hell’s going, on?” he said.
“How do you feel? Don’t talk if you can’t.”
“Fuck. This is too weird.”
“Has this happened before?”
Alison let go of his arm, stood up and walked toward the road.
“No. I don’t know. What was Stiv doing here?”
“Steve? Why? He’s Bev’s friend. Better concentrate on yourself right now.”
6
TWICE BURIED
The cab was a hearse: the driver wore a black turtleneck and black turban. When Alison followed Leonard in and said Mount Sinai the driver didn’t lapse into aloofness, but turned right around and looked at them. Leonard had the sense that the man was reading his aura, or saw a hooded skull and scythe looming above his passengers; that the cabbie was about to object to giving a ride to a third rider who was unlikely to pay. But then he turned and the cab shot forward, barely slowing for the speed bumps.
“My cousin Moe died last month,” the driver began. “Buried to death in his own backyard. Digging a trench. The mud fell. The emergency men could do nothing. It was on the news. It was meant to be, I guess. We had to dig him out, bury him again. Buried twice in one week. Not many men can claim as much.”
He had a slight English accent.
“I’m sorry, I heard about it,” Alison said, watching Leonard and holding his hands.
“Shit happens,” the cabbie said. “Don’t know when a big dump of it will fall on you. One has to live with shovels. I have one in the trunk, always.”
Leonard was feeling better. He saw himself climbing out of a vast mud hole, the earth slurping and popping as he yanked his feet free, only his eyes and teeth clean of the mud, the large gathered crowd exploding into applause.
“How old was he, your cousin?” Alison asked as she paid the fare.
“Forty, is all, “ the cabbie said. “He was a fuck-up, too bad anyway. Wife and four children. I’m working extra for them.”
“Here’s a bit extra, then,” Alison said, slipping him another bill.
He thanked her. She hesitated, half-inside the cab, wishing him well. Leonard pulled on her hand. She guided him through the glass doors into emergency.
The receptionist, an elderly woman with white hair, a noble, equine face and royal bearing, leaned toward them over the high counter, gave Leonard a form to complete. He and Alison sat side by side on the end of a row of hard plastic chairs. He saw that she was studying the plainness of the room, and seemed to be playing at blankness, imitating the decor with her expression. He filled the form out and returned it to the receptionist, who scooped it from him with a smooth sweep of her left hand, while her right scribbled furiously on a notepad. Just as they’d settled into their seats again, a young nurse, she could have been one of Leonard’s students, appeared with a clipboard and sat beside them, asked a series of questions, some of them the same as Leonard had answered on the form. Her voice was so soft, like a series of sighs, that Leonard had to strain to hear.
“Do you have a heart condition? Are you on any medication? Have you had these symptoms before? Describe the pain. How long have you felt this way? What were you doing when you experienced symptoms?”
Leonard didn’t hesitate with his answers, aware that the nearest person in the waiting room had nodded off, a black man in a thick, waffled jacket whose hands had fallen open, palms upward, on the magazine in his lap. Leonard didn’t smile, answering the last question as clinically as possible, “having sexual relations.” The nurse wrote sex on her clipboard without glancing up and led them into a larger room, had Leonard sit on a gurney, said that the doctor would see him shortly and that he should remove his shirt. He did, then slumped on the edge, embarrassed, placing his arms in front of his belly’s folds of flesh.
Alison stood before him, let her head fall back so that she was looking straight up at the square of light above. She sat on a chair next to the bed and took his hand again, though she’d positioned herself so that she had to reach a little across the bed. Her chair looked huge and her arm, extended on the bed’s white sheet, thin as an intravenous tube. She began to examine things.
Her eyes would fix on a corner, to where a trolley held sheets and some plastic bottles and metal trays, then at the bed across from them, most of which was concealed by a curtain. She had the look of prey, not an uncommon look in a hospital.
When Leonard asked her if she was all right, what the matter was, she said: “Just worried about you.” Her tone was non-committal.
The doctor appeared, a stocky Asian man, and said: “Hi, are we all right?” Then, to Alison: “Excuse us two fellas for a bit.”
He led Leonard to the other end of the rectangular room, behind a screen and into a chair next to a utility cart. He listened to Leonard’s chest, lightly thumped on his back, wrapped a red pressure bag around his arm. A wing of feathery black hair fell over the doctor’s eyes and he kept blowing it away, curving his lips into a small spout while he pumped up the pressure bag. He asked the same questions the nurse had
. He unpeeled the bag, stepped back, rolled his shoulders, shook his head. He was performing a little play, letting the patient’s anxiety build before speaking.
“Nothing really to worry about,” he said. “This is fairly common. Probably your heart rate increased too fast. Sex can be a rigorous activity; and of course we don’t think to warm up, do we? Post-coital headache, it’s sometimes called. That’s what it seems to be. You might want to arrange a more thorough examination, a stress test. You going through anything stressful right now?”
Leonard smiled and nodded, and the doctor smiled back.
“That probably contributed.”
He disappeared through a foggy glassed door. Alison was still sitting, hadn’t shifted from her position. She still had her arm extended on the bare sheet, still had her hand shaped as if she held Leonard’s hand. Leonard paused, disturbed by the frozen tableau, by the recurring impression – how the bed, the metal bars along its side, and the plastic chair in which Alison sat, all appeared enormous, and that she was a doll, dwarfed by the bright blandness. He was reminded in a flash of the suburbs where he lived, where he’d lived for most of his life, as if the hospital ward with its industrial pallor, its air of convalescence, was a suburb in miniature, a place where life paused, or stopped altogether. And Alison was a bird caught in its cage.
Leonard walked up and put his hand on her neck. She didn’t turn around. He wanted to protect her, tell her everything was going to be fine, that what had happened was routine. Leonard imagined that she had suffered the episode that had brought them there. He needed to console her. Whatever sadness gripped her was more troubling than what afflicted him.
When he told Alison what the doctor had said and that he wanted to walk back to her place, that he needed air, she told him they needed to catch a cab as she had plans for later that night.
“But I was thinking I might, that I should stay over, under the circumstances,” he said.
