There's Something I Want You to Do

by Charles Baxter

  He didn’t know her after all, he decided. He lay awake staring at the ceiling while Sarah slept beside him. They had everything except intimacy. Maybe you could get along without that. She seemed to think so. All the same, he believed she loved him somehow. Earlier that day, she had called him up at work and in a breathless voice told him that she had made the greatest discovery—no one had thought of it before, but now she had. “Think of a dog,” she said. “Okay, now suppose you have a really smart dog. Let’s say you have a border collie. Dogs don’t get much smarter than that, do they? I don’t think so. A border collie can do anything a dog can do. They can herd sheep, they can recognize words, they can save children from storm drains during flood season. But suppose you try to explain the planet Mars to a border collie. The dog is smart, all right, but nothing in the dog brain can accommodate the idea of Mars, can it? No. The dog can never ever understand that there’s a planet beyond ours called Mars. Mars will never register in its cranium. A dog can’t think a single thought about Mars.” She waited for this aperçu to sink in. “It’s not the dog’s fault. Okay, so now suppose that we have limitations on our brains, like the limitation on a dog brain. And you know what we can’t get, ever?”

  “I don’t know,” Benny said at his drawing desk, blueprints spread out in front of him.

  “Exactly,” Sarah said with triumph. “You don’t know. And you never will. But here’s what I believe: I believe that because of the way we’re all wired up, we’ll never know God, and that’s just for starters. Something is out there, but we’ll never have any concept of what it is. All we have are these dumb fairy tales about crucified guys with beards and dead people coming alive again and the book sealed with seven seals. Also, by the way, we’ll never know the actual structure of the universe. And there’s something else we’ll never know. Or, at least, you’ll never know it. And I’ll never know it.”

  “What’s that?” Benny asked.

  “You’ll never know me.” Sarah laughed. “And I’ll never know you.”

  Benny waited, his heart thumping in his chest, in a state of mind that he would describe as “desolate” the next time he saw Elijah, even though Elijah would try to shake him out of it by calling it a girl-word that only girls would use.

  “Is that so bad?” she asked. “I don’t think that’s so bad!” She paused, and when Benny said nothing, she said, “I’ve hurt your feelings, haven’t I?” Her voice sounded heartbreakingly cheerful. “We’re all planets,” she said, “and we’re all covered with clouds, Benny, which, in my opinion, in my dog brain, is what liberates us.”

  To Benny, she didn’t sound saved, but just then the sun emerged from behind a tree outside his office window, and he remembered to say, “Sarah, I love you, and I have to go.”

  —

  On architectural paper he drew a Prairie-style house for her, then discarded it. (Too dark.) Then he tried out a post-Bauhaus horizontal-and-vertical glass house in the Philip Johnson style, but the windows made it too exposed to the gaze of the outdoors. She wouldn’t like that. He tried a monumental bunker that would call for poured concrete. How cold it seemed! Finally he drew a little A-frame cabin in the woods beside a lake, though he wondered whether such a home might be too isolated for her.

  No one had ever asked him to design a house in which a human being might be happy. It was an architectural koan, he decided, meant to tie him into a comical knot.

  —

  On the way to the Longfellow Comedy Club, one month later, with Benny driving the car, Sarah showed no trace of jumpiness or excitement. She sat quietly settled on the passenger side. Benny didn’t know what the protocols were about talking to your girlfriend on the way to her comedy set, so he didn’t say much, worrying that if he did speak up, he would give away the miasmic dread that had gradually settled itself over him. “You look great,” he told her glumly, and she nodded. She had girled herself up and had applied a shellac of glamour: she’d worn her best punk T-shirt and jeans, her scuffed saddle shoes, and her red hair had been sprayed into a stylish disorder. Over the hair she wore a battered attitude hat tinted green like some ghastly Irish shrub. “Are you nervous?”

  “Nervous? No.” She was texting someone on her phone and didn’t look up.

  “I’d be nervous.”

  “Yes, you would be.” She nodded, agreeing with herself. Autumn had arrived, and the streets swirled with fallen leaves, some of which stuck to the windshield. Before long, he thought, the snow will be in the air.

  “The snow will be in the air soon,” Sarah said, giving voice to his thoughts in that eerie way she sometimes had.

  “Remind me of when your set begins,” he said, although he already knew.

  “Ten. By the way, Benny, if I mention you, don’t take it personally, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s just a comedy act.”

  “Right.”

  “Remember that.”

  —

  The Longfellow was located between two city lakes, Hiawatha and Nokomis, and out in front a line of elegantly scruffy patrons stood waiting to get in. The poet’s face, with its silver hair and silver beard painted on a signboard above the entrance, was outlined with neon tubing, a joke-optic. Underneath the neon, the club’s name had been lettered in Braggadocio font.

  After they parked, Benny said, “Good luck,” and he leaned over to peck Sarah’s cheek.

  “Thanks. Sit in the front row,” she said. “Laugh for me.” Before getting out of the car, she touched him tenderly on his face. “You’re a good man,” she said in a whisper. “Sometimes that’s enough.” Then she disappeared through the club’s back entrance.

  After waiting in line and paying the admission price—Sarah hadn’t given him a comp—Benny located himself as close as he could to the stage, where he was surrounded by men and women in camouflage gear, sunglasses, leather vests, caps with the visors reversed, faded jeans, and ripped T-shirts advertising defunct Internet start-ups. These kids had bypassed glitz and gone straight to hyperirony: to his left, a woman with purple streaks in her hair sported a tattoo on her arm: I’M FOR SALE. A genial and loudmouthed clown-army, they quieted when the emcee came out and introduced the leadoff, a skinny kid in a Mets baseball hat who stood absolutely still on the stage and said that he suffered from autism. His name, he said, was Joe Autism. For ten minutes he provided an autism-based commentary in an absentminded monotone. “What if elevators wanted to go sideways?” he asked. He waited, and the silence became comically tense.

  Benny zoned out. He may have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes, the emcee had introduced Sarah, and she was out onstage.

  “Hello, Longfellow,” she crowed, and the audience woofed and hooted. “I’m Sarah. Sarah Lemming. I throw myself off things. I’m suicidal. Anybody here suicidal? Ladies?” Many women in the audience clapped and cheered. “Yeah, I thought so. No shame there. None at all. A few in every crowd. But it’s so fuckin’ hard, ’cause rescue-squad types are always trying to stop you.” She held on to the microphone and paced menacingly back and forth on the narrow stage. “I hate that. Guys are always trying to save you. All you guys practicing your superhero moves? What the fuck is that?” She appeared befuddled. “Relapse and have a beer. And then there’s the actual damn superheroes! I am so tired of Spider-Man—a real asshole, can I say that without being sued?—and that other guy, the famous one in the blue tights and the red cape, grabbing me and feeling me up. And flying around! They think it’ll impress you, being airborne, dodging 727s. But it really just musses your hair and gives you vertigo. Leave me alone, superheroes, okay? Let me go. Let me fall splat on the pavement. Rescue someone else, for a change. My therapist disagrees. My therapist said I should vote for life.” She stopped to glare at the audience. “She says life is better than death because you can still go shopping as long as you’re not dead. Wise words! Words of wisdom. She’s quoting Socrates, I think. Or Pluto or somebody. I’m trying to remember that wisdom. I mean, if Bed Bath &
Beyond isn’t the meaning of life, come up right here onstage and tell me: What is? Yeah, my boyfriend saved me the last time. What’s-his-name in the blue tights didn’t show up. The famous superhero had another appointment in Metropolis with Lex Luthor or Eradicator, so this guy did it. A passerby. He saved me. He became my boyfriend. He’s in the audience. Give him a hand.” Everyone applauded. “Yeah, he didn’t ask much in return, either. He just wanted me to fuck him. So I did. What’s the harm in that? A mere favor. He’s scared I’m going to make fun of him and say in front of everybody that he has a little dick. Naw, he has a big friendly dick. That’s why I don’t mind the mold in his bathroom. Am I right, ladies?” More cheers. “Yes, it’s true: he and I have sex. He loves me. He saves lives. A hero, right? I’m not afraid to admit it. We get in bed and that thing happens where you open your legs and he puts that probe in there that guys have. What you don’t plan on are the unexpected consequences.” Just then, her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket, looked at the screen, and said to the audience, “Excuse me.” She put the phone to her ear. “Hello? Oh, great!” She closed the phone, grinned, and put it back. She must have timed the call somehow to ring a few minutes into the set. “Those were the results from the lab. Guess what? I’m pregnant!”

  The audience gasped, laughed, and applauded. Benny felt himself going very still.

  “Yup,” she said, “I’m knocked up. Anybody here ever been knocked up? Guys?” A few hip men applauded. “Ladies?” More applause. “Well, it happens. The injection of man-goop causes it. That’s what they tell me. That reminds me of a story. Two pregnant women, one smart and the other stupid, are sitting on a park bench. The first one, the smart one, turns to the second and says, ‘Well, here we are, both pregnant.’ The second one nods. The smart one leans back. ‘How’d it happen? I certainly ask myself that question. With me,’ she says, ‘and my husband, Sam—well, he can’t keep his hands off me. He wants to make love morning, noon, and night. He’s wearing me out. I’m sore all the time. I hardly have energy to work on my postdoc. Maybe when I’m in my third trimester, he’ll stop.’ The second woman, the stupid one, nods. ‘You think you got it bad?’ she says. ‘My guy, Freddy, he can’t never get it up. Also he don’t like to touch me, neither.’ The first woman looks over. ‘So how’d you get yourself in the family way?’ she asks. Second woman pats her stomach and says, ‘Oh, this one here’s on account of the milkman.’ The first woman says, ‘The milkman?’ The second woman says, ‘Yeah. He comes by to make his delivery every Tuesday. He’s got this nice red convertible sports car, and he’s wearing Old Spice, and he always gives me a pound of butter after he’s fucked me.’ First woman says, ‘He doesn’t sound like an actual milkman. With a convertible? I never heard of that.’ Second woman says, ‘Oh, he’s a milkman all right. And he dresses like they all do—ten-gallon hat, bolo tie, and alligator shoes. And also, ask yourself, “If he ain’t a real milkman, where’d he get the butter?” ’ ”

  She continued her set for another five minutes. When she finished, the applause and cheering were loud. People stood up: she’d been a great success. There was general acclaim. Benny turned around while everyone clapped. He saw Elijah sitting in the back of the club, gazing back at him accusingly, as one would gaze at a collaborator.

  After making his way out of a side exit, Benny walked toward his car. Inside, behind the wheel, he leaned back and closed his eyes. He groaned. In the inner circle of Hell, he thought, Satan is telling jokes. He’s sitting on his throne cracking up. They’re all guffawing down there in the fiery pit.

  —

  Finally she entered the car. “You didn’t come backstage,” she said. “How come? Goddamn! They loved me. You didn’t congratulate me.” She looked over at his ravaged face. “What happened to you?” She reached over to him without touching him. “Have you been crying?”

  “Sarah,” he said. “Are you really pregnant?”

  “Yup! I wanted to surprise you. Isn’t it great? Aren’t you happy? Surprised?”

  “Well, yes. Surprised. That’s one word. But we used condoms!”

  “Oh, forget that. With immaculate conceptions, it’s like sunlight through stained glass.”

  “All right. But, hey, what is wrong with you? Talking about me as part of your act? And what do we do now? Are we having this baby? What happens now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What d’you mean, what do I mean? What sort of person announces to her boyfriend that she’s pregnant as part of a stand-up monologue in a comedy club?”

  She tilted her head, smiled her Kewpie doll–like smile, and pointed her index fingers at her face. “This sort of person. That’s who.”

  “In that case, we’re going somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  He simply shook his head as he started the car and drove north toward the center of the city, past windblown gesticulating trees and nighttime blue-tinted rain. “Aren’t you going to tell me how great I was onstage?” she asked finally, staring out at the blurred houses passing on her side of the car. Inside those houses, ordinary lovers were curled up, sleeping together. Now he was speeding in a nocturnal and correct manner, or so he felt; you can always speed with impunity if no one else is up and around, if no one else is awake, if you are sober and number yourself among the last ones.

  “You were great onstage,” he replied, his voice drained of color.

  She closed her eyes, appearing to doze, having shaken off her excitement and entered the exhaustion that follows, and when she opened them again, he had parked the car near a university structure on the west bank of the river, and he was helping her out of the passenger side, and with his right arm around her and his right hand grasping her elbow, he escorted her down toward the Washington Avenue Bridge over the Mississippi. She seemed to be half-conscious, her gait like that of a sleepwalker. She probably thought she was dreaming this night, this walk.

  “What’s that song lyric? ‘It’s infinitely late at night’?”

  “Oh, no,” Benny said. “It’s much later than that. Here we are.”

  She opened her eyes suddenly, and when she did, she seemed to come totally into consciousness and to realize their location. “Jesus, this? Here? What’s this about?”

  “Yes, here.” This was where they had first met. “Look down.” She followed his instruction. Below them, water flowed in the indifferent darkness, sovereign in its shadowy blankness. “Pretty funny, right? Your phone is down there in the water. Well, here we are, sweetheart. Here’s where I found you. And here’s where I can drop you off again if you want.”

  “No.”

  “No? I got it wrong? How do I get you right, Sarah? Anyway, here’s your big chance. Isn’t this what you asked for? Go ahead, honey. You want to jump? I just want what you want. Go ahead.” His face was a solid mask, though he wept.

  “It’s a long way down,” she whispered.

  “The longest.”

  They both stood looking at the river beneath them. No walkers or strollers or joggers passed behind them, and Benny couldn’t hear sounds of traffic. The entire city had seemingly emptied out, and stillness possessed it, as it would a necropolis. He thought he heard his own watch ticking for two minutes before she said, “No. I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t.”

  “You can’t?” he asked. “Why not?”

  For answer, she turned to him, and with one hand at his waist, she raised her other hand to Benny’s face in a slow-motion caress, the most personal gesture she had ever made in his direction. “Because of you,” she said. It had killed her to say it, he knew, but she had said it, and now tears were in her eyes as well. Then she whispered, “I’m a kidder. I joke about things. That’s the one thing I’m serious about, my joking. That’s how I meet the payroll.” She was touching him here and there. “What do we do about the hopes? The loans? The, uh, ambitions? Tell me something. Are you in love with me?”

  “Yes,” he said miserably and proudly. “I am. I’ve said
so. I’ve told you. Often.”

  “Okay. We’ll have to work this out, I guess. But you can’t stop me from what I am. I’m a joker, all right? Give me me.”

  “That was a very impressive speech,” he said with pride and tenderness.

  “I thought so,” she said, closing her eyes. “It was me at my best.”

  “Could I say something else?” he asked. “Because I’ll say it anyway.”

  “Permission to speak.”

  “The baby won’t be laughable. Infant care ditto. Okay, so: here’s my thinking. One: I still love you. Two: what are we going to do about this baby, assuming you keep it? And three: I’ve forgotten what three is.”

  “Oh, my sister called.”

  “What?”

  “My sister, the second one, the rich wife who lives in Dutchess County?—she called. On the phone. Carrie. She’s named Carrie. That’s her name. That’s how she was baptized. You remember Carrie? Of course you do. She’s one of my two evil sisters, both of whom live in palazzos. She said she’ll take the baby if we want her to.” Sarah paused. “She’d be happy to acquire him, her, it. She’s used to mergers and acquisitions. She and her husband, Lord Randolph, have these amazing pots of money. Their dragon wings are spread out wide over their vast illegal fortune wrested out of the hands of the poor and harmless. Randolph participates in a cartel of international slime. One more baby will hardly make a dent in their studied concentration on cash.”

  “You called her? You told her? And she made an offer? No, she won’t do that.”

  “You’re right, she won’t,” Sarah said. “And do you know why?”