* * *
Ralph and Clyde pull up to a low-slung brick hospital building and hop out of the car.
“So this is it, eh?” Ralph looks at the patients and hospital staff flowing in and out of the building.
“This is where it all ended,” Clyde says, “…and where it all began.”
“Was it murder or suicide?”
“Suicide.”
“August 5, 1962, just after midnight…” Ralph says. “Right?”
Clyde nods. “All things are recycled.”
They step into the hospital and stroll past the receptionist toward the cafeteria.
“So, when you were pronounced dead,” Ralph says as they stroll hand-in-hand toward the cafeteria, “your soul transmigrated—that’s the term, isn’t it?—into the body of… what was his name?”
Clyde pulls up short and frowns at Ralph.
“Well, he had to have a name, didn’t he?”
“Oh, Jimmy…” Clyde reclines against one of the pasty blue walls, his eyes moist with emotion. “All of a sudden I feel sad.”
Ralph squeezes his arm.
“What are you doing?” Clyde shakes his head.
“I won’t hurt you, Marilyn, I promise.”
“Yes, you will. You told me to be careful; you have victims.” Clyde looks into Ralph’s eyes. “Those people on your wall. Those two boys. Even your own mother.”
Ralph pulls Clyde close, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight. Clyde rests his head on Ralph’s chest. The freshly laundered scent of his clothes reminds him of Kevin.
“I’ve never—” Clyde closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“It’s OK, Marilyn. Don’t worry about it.”
“His name was Clyde,” Clyde whispers.
“Clyde…”
“Please, don’t.”
“I just—”
“No, please… Let’s be quiet for a while, Jimmy.”
They hold each other as hospital staff and visitors move past them in waves. But Clyde doesn’t notice them. He feels as if time has come to a standstill. He feels Ralph’s breath on his head, steady and warm. At first. Then it becomes shallower. Clyde feels Ralph’s body trembling and holds him tighter, feeling suddenly protective, but not wanting to look directly at him. After a few minutes, they disengage from each other. Clyde straightens his hair, and Ralph wipes his eyes on his sleeve.
“Sorry,” Ralph says. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s all right, Jimmy.” Clyde touches up his makeup.
“It hasn’t been an easy day.”
“No, but I think we accomplished what we set out to do.” Clyde kisses Ralph on the cheek. “We should feel empowered, right?”
Ralph brings his fingers to his face. He feels the moist spot where Clyde’s lips were a moment before. “What do you say to our wrapping up the day with a nice dinner?”
Clyde smiles. “That sounds nice, Jimmy.” He shoulders his purse and takes Ralph’s hand. Taking one last look at the hospital corridor as they reach the entrance, they step out into the waning sunlight.
* * *
A belly dancer undulates and twirls to the climax of Alf Leyla wa Leyla and the diners erupt into cheers. She bows with a dramatic flourish and withdraws from the stage as the orchestra and singers finish off the piece before taking a break. Recorded music takes over and plays softly over the clink of glasses and cutlery on ceramic and the murmur of conversation.
Clyde and Ralph finish off their second bottle of red wine, with Clyde having had the greater part.
“So, what do you think?” Ralph asks, shaking the bottle to dislodge the last few drops into Clyde’s glass. “Do you feel empowered now?”
Clyde laughs and drains the glass. “Not really, no. I feel drunk.”
Ralph waves a white-robed waiter with a red fez over to the table and speaks to him in a foreign language. The waiter clicks his slippered heels and slides away.
Clyde sets down the glass and stares at Ralph. “You speak Moroccan too?”
“It’s Arabic, not Moroccan,” Ralph says. “And, yes, I speak it fluently, along with Hebrew, French, and Spanish.”
“Oooh, you’re Arabian? Like Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik?”
The waiter returns with a new bottle and pours Clyde and Ralph another glass.
“I’m Israeli,” Ralph says as the waiter moves away from the table. “My grandparents were from Syria. They spoke Arabic between themselves; I picked it up from them when I was growing up and also on the streets in Jerusalem.”
“You’re Israeli, really? But your English is perfect.”
“I’ve been here a long time.”
“I know,” Clyde says. “I saw you before.”
Ralph sets down the glass. “What do you mean?”
“I saw you in Doctor Menner’s office when I was eleven. You were there with your father. The tall man in your picture album. You were dressed all in black, and you were wearing a round black hat. The kind they wear in England.”
Ralph blinks at Clyde and shakes his head slightly.
“I remember you raised your eyebrows at me like Groucho Marx.”
Ralph narrow his eyes and stares into the middle distance conjuring up a memory. “You were sitting on a sofa in the waiting room?”
“Yes, it was just for a second. You took a picture of me. And then you and your father walked out.”
Ralph slaps the cushion next to him. “Yes, I remember now.”
“What a strange coincidence, don’t you think?” Clyde says. “It’s, like, destiny.”
Ralph slams back half a glass of wine in one gulp, then lights a cigarette and takes a long drag on it.
“What’s wrong, Jimmy?”
“You were seeing that asshole?”
“Who, Doctor Menner?”
“Yeah.”
“It was for my juvenile probation, for getting into a fight. The court sent me to see him. It’s a long story. Why?”
“Did he ever put you under hypnosis?”
“Not back then. What’s this about, Jimmy?”
Ralph pitches forward. “What do you mean, not back then?”
Clyde shakes his head.
“Tell me,” Ralph says.
Clyde’s eyes fill with tears, and he dabs at them with his napkin.
“OK, fine.” Ralph leans back against the cushions. “We’ll talk about him later.”
“Thank you, Jimmy.”
Ralph snaps his finger at the passing waiter and barks something at him in Arabic, then he turns back to Clyde. “Let’s talk about you, shall we?”
“I’ll tell you anything.” Clyde takes a sip of wine, then puts the glass back on the table and pushes it away.
“Tell me about the person who was born at the same time Marilyn died. Tell me about Clyde. That cute kid who was sitting in the waiting room all those years ago.”
Clyde stares open-mouthed at Ralph for a moment and shakes his head emphatically.
“Don’t you trust me yet?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Listen, I know that you’re the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. I have no doubt about that. So get over it already. You have absolutely nothing to prove to me on that front.”
“Well, then—”
“But today, in this life, you’re not just Marilyn. Today you’re Clyde layered on top of Marilyn. And in your next life you’ll be Suzie, or whomever, layered on top of Clyde, layered on top of Marilyn. Like a tel.”
“Like a fuck what? What are you babbling on about?”
“Think about it. It’s only logical.” Ralph rests his hand on Clyde’s thigh. “You’ve had experiences Marilyn Monroe never had.”
“Name one.”
“Well…” Ralph moves his hand up Clyde’s leg. “Your dick, for instance. Marilyn never had a dick.”
Clyde stands and accidentally knocks over the bottle, sending wine spilling everywhere. “How dare you? How dare you speak to me like that?
”
The waiter rushes forward to clean up the spill. Clyde rescues his purse and backs away from Ralph. The other patrons murmur among themselves at the scene Clyde is making.
“What gives you the right?” Clyde screams.
“Listen to me.” Ralph reaches for Clyde, who slaps away his hand. “Will you calm down for a second and listen to me?” He nods toward the crowd and points at the cushion.
Clyde looks around at the other patrons and sees them gaping at him, then drops back onto his cushion and whisper-screams at Ralph, “What do you want from me, huh? Now that you’ve got me good and drunk, you want to strip me naked right here in front of the whole world. What do you want me to tell you? That I’m a second generation Japanese-American faggot from Pasadena, whose father is an alcoholic child abuser and whose mother runs a dress shop in the barrio? Is that what you want to hear? Are you satisfied now?”
Clyde’s lips quiver, his eyes bloodshot and full of tears.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Real glamorous, isn’t it?” Clyde wipes his face with a cloth napkin, leaving tracks of mascara on his face and smearing his lipstick.
“I’m sorry.”
“You know… I just realised something.” Clyde stares unfocussed across the restaurant. “I’ve never been happy. Not for one moment in my entire life. Can you imagine that?” He lowers his head to the table and quietly weeps.
Ralph places his hand on Clyde’s back.
“God,” Clyde says through his tears, “I’m so messed up.”
“We’re all messed up, in one way or another. Every one of us. Damaged goods.”
Clyde sits up and draws a deep breath. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier if I had it cut off.”
“Had what cut off?”
“My dick. Maybe then it would be easier for people to believe me when I tell them who I really am.”
* * *
Ralph and Clyde finish making love on Ralph’s waterbed. They separate, and Clyde rests his head on Ralph’s chest. The hypnotic sounds of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon play in the background.
“Fuck, that was good,” Ralph says. He reaches into a drawer of his nightstand and pulls out a joint. “Where’d you learn to move like that?”
“This girl’s been around the block a few times.” Clyde traces an infinity sign in the hairs on Ralph’s chest.
Ralph smirks, then takes a long hit on the joint and holds it in. He offers it to Clyde, who pulls a face and lays back on his pillow. Ralph shrugs and lets out the smoke, blowing a half-dozen little rings. “We’re both empowered now,” he says.
“I only feel empowered on the inside.” Clyde pokes at one of the rings with his finger.
Ralph laughs. “Well, I should hope so.”
Clyde fake-smacks Ralph’s stomach. “I don’t mean that. I’m talking about my soul versus my body.”
Ralph blows another of series rings. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I’m still unfinished on the outside in a cosmetic sort of way, if you get what I mean.” He pulls the sheet up between his legs and hides his penis. “There’s more work to do.”
“Right.” Ralph extinguishes the joint and places it in an ashtray on the nightstand. “You’re going to discover the true you through self-mutilation.”
“It’s not self-mutilation, Jimmy.” Clyde sits up. “I wouldn’t be taking a knife to myself. That’s the surgeon’s job.”
“Well, if my opinion matters at all”—Ralph peels back the sheet and uncovers Clyde’s penis—“I think you’re beautiful the way you are.”
Clyde pushes his penis between his legs. “Wouldn’t you prefer it if I was all woman?”
“Not at all. Actually, I was considering how we might make use of it next time.” He winks at Clyde, who slaps him again, this time a bit harder. “But if that’s what you want, I won’t stop you.”
He draws Clyde to his chest, and they kiss deeply.
* * *
Ralph sits at his desk writing in his notebook. Clyde watches from under the covers as he flips it shut, places it into the strongbox, and locks it away in the bottom drawer.
“Jimmy…?”
Ralph looks over his shoulder at Clyde, his eyes dull and expressionless. “You’re still awake?”
“I’ve been watching you write for the past hour.”
“I thought you’d gone to sleep.”
Clyde wraps the sheet around himself and shuffles up to Ralph. “What are you writing?” His fingers dance on Ralph’s bare shoulder.
“I’m working on the script. For our movie. Like you asked for.”
“Why do you keep it locked in that box?”
Ralph pulls Clyde onto his lap. “Because my whole degree depends on it. I don’t want it to get lost or damaged before it’s finished.”
“Can I read it?”
“Once I’ve finished the first draft. Any feedback at this stage will kill the inspiration.”
“But if I don’t like where you’re going with it, isn’t it better if you know that now?”
“If you don’t like it, I can always change it or chuck it. They’re only words. Let me worry about that. If any ideas come to your mind, let me know. Or you can write them down if I’m not around. I might be able to work them into the story. Deal?”
Clyde looks doubtfully at Ralph, then gazes over his shoulder at the stairs leading to the ground floor and lets out a loud sigh.
“Now…” Ralph caresses Clyde’s shoulder.
Clyde pulls back and cocks his head at Ralph. “Now what?”
“Is it OK if we talk about why you were seeing Doctor Menner? Sorry to ask; but it’s sort of important to me.”
Clyde passes his hands over his knees a few times and closes his eyes. “It hurts to talk about it, Jimmy.” He brings his hand to his chest. “Right here. You have no idea. It should be ancient history, but it isn’t.”
Ralph hugs Clyde and kisses his neck. “You’re safe with me, Marilyn.”
Clyde nods.
“You trust me, right?”
“It’s too soon for trust, Jimmy. But I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ask. No pressures.”
Clyde stares over Ralph’s shoulder into a dark corner of the loft, conjuring up the past. “Clyde had a brother,” he whispers. “His name was Hiro. He died before Clyde was born. He developed a psychotic disorder when he was young and died in a hospital in Norwalk. From an accident, they said.”
“I’m sorry,” Ralph says.
Clyde holds up his hand at the interruption. “When Clyde was born, his parents made him sleep in Hiro’s bedroom. They wouldn’t let him change anything in there.”
Ralph reaches into his pencil drawer and fishes a fresh joint out of a plastic sandwich bag. Clyde watches as Ralph lights it up and takes a drag on it.
“I told you it was a long story.”
Ralph releases the smoke. “Don’t worry about me; I’m all ears.” He offers the joint to Clyde, who crinkles his nose at it and shifts into another chair before continuing.
“There’s a lot that happened to Clyde when he was young that he couldn’t remember. He learned to block things in his mind, I guess. Bad stuff mainly. But one day the blockers came off and everything that happened before flooded his mind. That’s the day he finally realised that his father had hurt him when he was little. I can’t even repeat what he did. But it was bad. What’s worse was that Clyde’s father covered up by saying that I… by saying that something was wrong with Clyde… that he was carrying the insane spirit of his brother Hiro inside him.”
Ralph shakes his head. “Sounds like a real mensch.”
“Anyway,” Clyde says, “fast forwarding to the part about Doctor Menner. Clyde got into trouble for cracking a classmate on the head with a rock.”
Ralph coughs and splutters, then crushes out his joint in an ashtray. “Say what?”
“I know, I know, it sounds crazy,” Clyde says. “But
the point is the Juvenile Court judge sent Clyde to Doctor Menner for an assessment, which happened to take place on the same day you were there.”
Ralph narrows his eyes for a moment as if seeing through Clyde. “There were other people in the waiting room with you…” he says, his voice barely audible.
“Those were Clyde’s parents. They were meant to be part of the assessment. But Clyde went into the room alone first and took the opportunity to finally tell someone—Doctor Menner—what his father had done to him all those years before. That led to Clyde’s father being arrested and put in prison.”
“Thank God for that,” Ralph says. “If anyone deserves to have his dick cut off it’s that guy, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Clyde nods. “He’s out now. He’s the reason I’m homeless. Prison made him meaner.”
Ralph looks up at Clyde. “Hold that thought, OK? Back to Doctor Menner for a second. You said he didn’t put you under hypnosis back then.”
“Clyde only saw him that one time for the assessment, then the court sent him to a child psychologist closer to home for regular therapy.”
Ralph touches Clyde’s knee with his index finger, letting it linger there for a moment. “Can we try something, please? Just to make things a bit easier for me to follow this.”
Clyde nods.
“Do you think you might substitute the pronoun ‘I’ for the name ‘Clyde’? For this story only. Then we can go back to the other.”
Clyde closes his eyes and sits still for a few seconds, causing Ralph to think he may have dozed off. But then he nods his head.
“So when did Menner put you under hypnosis.”
“Recently, right before you and I met.”
“You mean you’re seeing him now?”
Clyde stands and stretches his legs, then drops face down on Ralph’s waterbed and bobs around on the waves. “I got in trouble again, and the court sent me to Doctor Menner for therapy as part of my probation. One-on-one sessions and some group shit. He uses hypnosis during the one-on-ones.”
“Does he still use a prism to induce hypnosis?”
Clyde sits up. “Sometimes it’s a prism; sometimes he makes me focus on the tip of a felt pen.”
“The bastard.”
“Don’t call him that. Doctor Menner’s a nice man.”
The Death of Baseball Page 33
