Chapter 31 – Shimmey and Roger Take a Walk
Roger’s cell phone rang. It sat on the kitchen table next to the bowl that held the homemade whole wheat pasta dough that was resting under a small towel. Roger had gotten up early to make the dough in time for lunch, knowing Gwen loved homemade pasta, and thinking this good deed might result in a little friendly action come mid-afternoon siesta time. Gwen looked at the phone, and then looked at the square of plexiglass set into the kitchen floor that served as the hatch cover over the staircase that led down into what in the 1840s had been the water collection cistern, and now was the wine cellar. Roger was down there playing with his 1000 bottles of Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Chateauneuf du Pape. Gwen stamped on the plexiglass and yelled, “Hey, wineboy, your phone is ringing.”
Roger sat on an old champagne crate trying to decide between an ’89 Chateau l’Evangile, a ’99 Domain Romanee Conti, and a ’01 (that’s 2001, not 1901, sorry) Delas Hermitage to go with the pasta. He yelled upwards, “Take a message, hon.” This wine selection decision required all the concerted brainpower he could summon.
“Hello, Rogie’s number.”
“Gwen, it’s Shim.”
“Hey, lover boy, how’s it going?”
He paused, ambivalent about talking with Gwen, loving her as he did, but feeling he needed to talk to Roger. “It’s going ok. How are you?”
Sensing his ambivalence she said, “I’m ok, too.”
“Is Roger around?”
“Yes, he’s down in the cellar playing with his bottles. You’d think he was casting the deciding vote in a 4 to 4 Supreme Court decision over capital punishment. He should be up in a few hours. He has to cook pasta for lunch, him having lost the bet last night.”
“Wha’d you bet?”
“Can’t tell you. It might embarrass him. It was pathetic, though.”
This was not what Shim wanted to hear, that Roger was fallible, considering he wanted to ask his advice about something important. About Laleh. “Would you ask him to call me after he casts his vote. I got something more important than that to talk with him about.”
“More important than whether we should have capital punishment?”
“Much more. Thanks, Gwen.”
They hung up and Gwen thought, that boy’s in love, and bad.
An hour later Roger emerged through the plexiglass hatch with the Delas in his hand, and went to the cupboard to get a decanter. Gwen yelled from the study, “Call Shim. He needs to talk with you about Laleh. Don’t screw this up.”
The wine went into the decanter, he checked on the dough, picked up his phone, called the dog, and went out into the back yard. “Hey, Shim. What’s up?”
“Hi. Thanks for calling me back.” He paused. “Is Laleh there?”
“No. She got up early and went down to The Hall.”
“What for?”
“Don’t know. She’s got an idea about something she wants to do there.” Roger figured now was not the time to tell Shim about the meeting they’d had the afternoon before, where Laleh had laid on them her idea about a movie starring George Clooney. He could tell Shim was in vulnerability mode, also known as being in love.
Shimmey didn’t say anything for a while, and Roger let him collect his feelings. Then Shim said, “Do you have time to take a walk? I need to talk to someone about her. Us.”
“You got it. The dog is here with me. Where should we meet you?”
“How about down on The Battery?”
“See you there, fifteen minutes.”
Roger and the dog stood on The Battery near the spot where, three years earlier, Roger had gotten into an altercation with three punks intent on running him over with their bikes. They were on what New Yorkers for a while fondly called a wilding, though Roger thought more in terms of a kamikaze strike. In any event, they had picked the wrong guy to wild on, and two had ended up in the hospital for a week. Roger had been glad he hadn’t had to pull his gun on them. He’d felt bad for a day or two, but had gotten over it quickly. Shim parked nearby, was greeted enthusiastically by the dog, and shook hands with Roger. He was forthright: “Thanks for coming. I’m stuck in life, and need someone to hear about it.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s the book. I haven’t written anything in a week. I sit at the computer and think about the ballet production, and that whole thing was so cool and interesting, and I have 30,000 words written that I think are good, but recently, nothing. It’s pissing me off because I want to tell that story, and I need to publish another book, and I love writing, but….” He shrugged.
Roger heard Shim clearly, but was distracted by thoughts of serving Gwen the homemade pasta for lunch, with the Hermitage, and what might follow a little later. He gathered himself and focused on what Shim had said, being more skilled at compartmentalization than Shim. He was no Bill Clinton, but he was pretty good. “Gwen and I look forward to the book, and so do Gale and the others,” meaning the other June associates who had been part of the ballet production. “What’s keeps you from writing?” Roger knew the answer, but also knew that Shim had to figure this out for himself. Roger could hint, maybe lead a little, but the psychology of the issue had to come from inside Shim.
Again Shim was forthright: “Laleh. Thinking of her. Fantasizing. Stupid stuff.”
“Is that bad? She’s great. She likes you. You’re a number. What’s the problem?”
“Yes, she likes me, and we have fun together. It’s just that I can’t get her out of my mind when we’re not together. I have these visions about her, when I should be having visions of the ballet story.”
Roger knew what Shim was talking about. He’d written a bunch of short stories a few years back, had enjoyed it, and occasionally thought about getting back to it. But Gwen kept him busy, and when they weren’t involved in a caper, he had his bottles to play with. He remembered what it was like to get absorbed in writing, sitting with his eyes closed and parsing the ideas that came out of the blue, saying yes to this one and no to that one, then opening his eyes and watching his hands dance on the keyboard, automatically recording the words that came from the ideas that came out of the blue. That was lots of fun. He stopped walking and leaned against the iron railing at the edge of the promenade walkway. He knew what he had to say; he just didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t want to say what he knew he had to say, because he didn’t want to be responsible for Shim’s novel not seeing the light of day when the sun should shine on it. He looked down at the dog for advice as to how to handle the situation. The dog looked up and said, “There ain’t no way around it. You know it and I know it. We both like him, but you got to tell him. Straight out. Lay it on him. No other way. Sorry.” And he went back to staring at a seagull perched on the railing, wondering if a lunge at it would satisfy his need to demonstrate to himself that he still had the hunting instinct of his illustrious, pre-information age ancestors.
Roger sighed. The dog had confirmed his own instincts. There was only one thing to say to Shim, so he got on with it. “Shim, you know we’re second class citizens in this world, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that men are at the mercy of good looking women. Good looking, sexy women. Like Laleh and Gwen.”
“You are?” Shim realized he shouldn’t have put it that way. “I mean, we are? Guys are?”
“We are. We are their puppets and our minds are mush when it comes to dealing with them. We are less capable of resisting their wishes than babies are of being kissed by their aunties. Our spines turn into rubber in the presence of their salubrious charms, and that is our lot.”
Shim was shocked, twice fold, once at this basic assessment, and then again at Roger’s use of the word salubrious. He knew a lot of unusual words, including that one, and he decided to distract himself from the import of Roger’s message by focusing on the vocabulary issue. He could compartmentalize a
little when he wanted to.
“Salubrious means conducive to one’s health. How is our lot, as you describe it, salubrious? How is being at a women’s mercy conducive to a man’s health? Aren’t we supposed to be strong, able, and independent? Pillars of strength in a hostile world?”
“You can be a pillar of strength, Shim, if you want to be. Being around Gwen is very salubrious for me, rubber spine and mushy mind notwithstanding.”
“It is? Being a wimp, stepped on, manipulated, second-class, subsidiary?”
“That’s ok. Being around Gwen or Laleh is worth it. Just is. To me.”
Shim got the feeling Roger was exaggerating; maybe playing a game here with him. But Roger looked serious. Shim was a little disappointed with Roger’s statement. What he had wanted from him was a lesson in how to compartmentalize important functions; something to SIMPLIFY his life and quandary over Laleh and his writing. What he had gotten instead was a new and weird philosophy about dealing with good looking, sexy women, the group that included Gwen and Laleh. Which didn’t simplify his life; it made it more complicated. Or did it? Was it really ok to be a spineless, mush-minded person just so one could reap the benefits of such an alliance?
Now it was Shimmey’s turn to look to the dog for clarification, which he did. The dog had been listening to the conversation with some interest, having decided that a lunge at the perched seagull would be undignified, despite its throwback to his ancestral values and traditions. He had no trouble at all confirming Roger’s position. He said, “Intimacy with female beauty is much better than all that stuff and nonsense about moral strength and civic duty. If you can achieve both states, more power to you. But only a few can. If you have to choose between the two, which is the case for most of us (Shim loved the canine human duality the dog embraced and flaunted), then by all mean chose intimacy with the woman. That has glory and sensual satiation written all over it. You know what it’s like to kiss the back of her neck (actually Shim didn’t yet know that about Laleh, but he had the fondest of hopes). You know what it’s like to see her walk away from the bed, naked, to the bathroom. You know what it’s like to see her feet in her golden silk slippers, sitting on the sofa, Sunday morning, reading the newspaper. Stop worrying about all that serious shit. Give it up. Moral smoral. Go for the beauty and sexiness, and if you have to sell your soul to some limited extent, do so, and say to the devil, ‘take more of me’.” The dog was unequivocal in his pronouncement, and went back to seagull watching. If a lunge wasn’t dignified, he could attempt to intimidate the bird with telepathic vibrations.
After a few moments the three guys continued their walk down The Battery, the gull remaining on the railing, impervious to penetration by the dog’s stiletto-like mind probes. Shim sensed himself feeling better, which surprised him. He always thought that selling his soul would feel bad, and here he was, buying into Roger’s philosophy of dealing with women (good looking, sexy women), without so much as a twinge of guilt. He could fantasize and slobber all over Laleh (figuratively speaking), and not let that paralyze his other life functions, like writing books. Wow. Yes. Her and writing. Why not. He could do that. He stopped and said, to both his friends, “I think I get it. Maybe I have some figuring to do, but I think I get it. I can do both, maybe.”
“Where you going now?” Roger asked. “Want to come back with me, have some homemade pasta and some good wine?”
“Thanks, but no. I have to go home, sit at the computer, see what happens. I’ll see you later.”
Shimmey turned around and walked back to his car, and Roger and the dog crossed through Whitepoint Gardens and headed up Church Street. Roger looked at the dog and said, “You think we steered him right?”
The dog said, “If we can do it, he can do it.”
The Ayatollah's Money Page 31
