Tomcat in Love

by Tim O'Brien

  “Not though he were the risen Christ,” said I.

  “No sweat. Understand completely. But the fact is, man, they think of you often.”

  “Do they?”

  “Oh, yeah. Like almost every hour, every day.” There was a short, icy pause, then he laughed again. “That air strike you called in on us—I mean, holy cow, we pooped in our panties. Yes, sir, each and every one of us. Naughty, naughty boy.”

  I stared stupidly at the telephone. “You’re still upset?”

  “Who said ‘upset?’ ”

  “It sounded—”

  “Just keep your eyes peeled, Tommy. And watch your back. Judgment Day.”

  I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, glanced over at my dead-to-the-world fiancée.

  “You’ve been tailing me?” I whispered. “All these years—watching?”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” purred Spider. “Who the fuck knows? Even this call, Tommy—maybe it’s your imagination.” His voice was silky and humane, almost comforting. “On the other hand, a promise is a promise. We told you there’d be a price to pay.”

  He laughed again.

  “Nighty-night,” he said, and hung up.*

  Near dawn, as Mrs. Robert Kooshof slept on, I spent a laborious half hour with my screwdriver, removing the telephone’s base plate, disconnecting the ringer, all the while trying to imagine a remedy to the myriad problems at hand. Even for a man of my spiritual dexterity, I had far too many balls in the air, too many bases to cover, too many demands issuing from too many directions.

  My instinct was to flee. An early-morning flight to Puerto Rico, perhaps, and then onward to Guadeloupe or Martinique. The notion sorely tempted me—a fresh start, a clean slate—yet when my repairs were complete, I retired to the bedroom and lay at the side of Mrs. Robert Kooshof.

  Sleep did not come.

  For several hours I watched the lighted dial on my alarm clock, hoping for a brainstorm, but my thoughts seemed deformed by desperation. At one point, as dawn approached, I found myself studying the calm, contented face of my fiancée. Truly lovely, I thought. So generous and goodhearted and loyal. Inexplicably, lying there in the dark, I felt a sharp, unfamiliar stab of sentiment. I curled up against her; I nearly broke into tears.

  Certain truths were manifest.

  I did not want to harm this woman. I did not want to lose her.

  By all rights, Mrs. Robert Kooshof was the ideal partner for me, yet I also had to face squarely one other looming truth. This was not love. Not yet. Not what I imagined love to be. Right or wrong, my entire life had been devoted to Lorna Sue—the one and only, the girl of my dreams—and there was no relief from the unspeakable pain of betrayal, the grief and horror, those aching ligaments of love that reached all the way back into childhood.

  My vision blurred.

  I heard myself moan.

  I gazed down at Mrs. Robert Kooshof, but what I beheld at that instant was Lorna Sue standing against a small plywood cross. And opening her arms to me in an autumn cornfield. And playing blackjack till dawn. And sprinkling onion powder on a heap of noodles. Granted, she could be self-righteous and self-centered. She could be greedy. She could be slothful, imperious, vain, cruel, thoughtless, pious, glacial, sullen, short-tempered, narcissistic, sarcastic, callous, unfaithful, and unloving.

  Yet she was Lorna Sue.

  Irrational, maybe, but the human heart beats at its own brute pace, obsessive and mindless, mere muscle.

  *At the risk of saying “I told you so,” I think it is well within my rights to point out that I most emphatically told you so. Not once, but often: I am being chased. The precise details will unfold at an appropriate moment in this record, but for the present I can truthfully say that I have been a marked man for decades now. In a sense, I suppose, all of us live in the shadow of an approaching Judgment Day, in the knowledge that we are being pursued through history by our mismanaged lives. Yet in my own case the metaphor becomes reality. Spider was correct: A promise is a promise. They had vowed to come after me one day, and more than anything, it was the vow itself—the pledge, the threat—that had been chasing me down the decades.

  The next morning Mrs. Kooshof departed for Owago just after breakfast. Earlier, upon awakening, we’d had an unfortunate little tiff over the matter of parole. It was my contention that she ought to have informed me of Doc’s pending prospects, while Mrs. Kooshof took the position that love conquers all. (Tell it to Romeo. Tell it to Lorna Sue. Tell it to your ex-husband, that unfaithful traitor who now dwells in Fiji.) In any event, after some acrimonious give-and-take, we had more or less agreed to disagree, sealing it with a quickie, after which Mrs. Kooshof drove off under the apprehension that the world and we were well.

  Her departure gave me operating room.

  For my reunion with Lorna Sue, I dressed in a natty red bow tie and my favorite seersucker suit, applied a splash of cologne, armed myself with an umbrella, and motored swiftly across town to the university. I was apprehensive, of course, about a possible encounter with Lorna Sue’s jilted tycoon, not to mention the more dangerous Herbie, and therefore took the precaution of ascending a back staircase to our sixth-floor departmental offices.

  My heart, I will admit, was beating fast. A day of trial lay ahead.

  Quickly, I picked up my mail and messages, pausing only to greet a well-machined new secretary by the name of Sissy Svingen. (Twenty-three years of age. Twenty-two-inch waist. Flared nostrils, sandy brown hair, bowling-pin hips, hearing aid, bulging black sweater, a lamentable dusting of dandruff at the shoulders.) I cleaned the girl up, gave her a welcoming hug, and then listened attentively as she informed me that the university’s president had requested that I stop by his office later that afternoon.

  The news instantly cheered me.

  “Well,” I sighed. “At last.”

  “Sorry, sir?”

  Tragically, the girl had difficulty manufacturing her s’s—a damp, sputtering hiss that filled my airspace with hard-driven moisture. (The déluge continued.)

  I edged backward.

  “A long, dismal story,” I told her. “But well worth your while.”

  Briefly, then, I informed her that I had been a seven-time nominee for the Hubert H. Humphrey Prize for teaching excellence; that in each instance I had been torpedoed by collegial skulduggery; that over the years I had lodged more than a dozen formal complaints. Given this background, plus an urgent presidential summons, it was safe to assume that I had finally trounced the pathetic competition.

  “It’s that time of year again,” I confided, “and I suspect the prize is mine. More than suspect—I am due. Overdue.”

  To her credit, my frothy new secretary positively glowed at this happy news. Here, as usual, were the signs of hero worship.

  “Well, that’s swell!” Sissy said, with a spray of sibilance that called out my handkerchief. “You should celebrate. Kick up your heels! Spread your wings!”

  I nodded and stepped out of harm’s way.

  “And perhaps we shall,” I said, without hesitation. “A drop of the bubbly after hours? A plate of oysters?”

  “We? I and you?”

  “Certainly,” I said. “I and you.”

  It occurred to me, if only for an instant, that these events had a troubling historical chime and that I was biting off, as it were, far more than I could reasonably chew. Yet in times of distress there can be no harm in distraction. Misery loves firm company.

  “What we’ll do,” I instructed, “is meet at the Ramada. Six-thirty on the dot.”

  “Ramada?” said Sissy.

  “A short, healthful stroll.”

  “I know where it is,” she said. “But I think—you know—I think it’s probably a hotel, isn’t it?”

  “The dining room,” I said sternly.

  The poor girl blushed. Furtively, with understandable nervousness, she tucked a lock of hair around her hearing aid. “Well, gosh, that’s super-super sweet. Except—well, you know—we’re both university e
mployees. I mean, is it allowed?”

  “Oysters?” I said.

  “No, silly! Consorting! This is my first job out of sec school, and I sure don’t want trouble.” She studied me with a flustered yet unequivocal gaze of admiration. “You aren’t married, are you?”

  I blinked.

  By coincidence, this was precisely the question I had asked of myself at the very instant I caught sight of this lusciously handicapped chippie. And the answer was a resounding negative. (Mrs. Kooshof, of course, would have objected. But on the other hand, to risk an automotive analogy, what possible harm could come from kicking Sissy’s well-balanced tires? Or to stretch the analogy to its fulsome extreme: If young Toni had the sleek lines of a Jaguar, my new secretary could be likened to a safe, sturdy, meticulously engineered Volvo. Nothing fancy, but the wipers worked.)

  I informed her, in any case, that I was currently on the open market—a free soul—and then raised my eyebrows. “Do I impress you as the encumbered type?”

  “Yeah. Kinda. What about a girlfriend?”

  I hesitated only an instant.

  “Indeed so,” I said. “I am blessed with a phalanx of such chums, hundreds upon hundreds.”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “Well, dear, then I am not sure—”

  “I mean a steady,” she sputtered. “Somebody serious.”

  Reflexively, I gripped my umbrella. With each misty syllable I had the sensation of revisiting my morning toilet.

  “Serious is as serious gets,” I said craftily, and perhaps meaninglessly. “Think it over. No reason for a snap decision, of course, but bear in mind Shakespeare’s advice. ‘What’s to come is still unsure/In delay there lies no plenty.’ ”

  Sissy stared at me blankly. “Jeez, I’m not much on Shakespeare. Like I said, I went to sec school.”

  “And a most talented graduate,” I assured her. “Each of us would benefit, I am quite certain, from a rigorous erotic curriculum.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I said sec school.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Secretarial! Are you making fun of me?”

  My confusion was genuine. The time had come to repair to the snug, dry confines of my office. “Bear in mind the Shakespeare,” I said hurriedly. “ ‘Youth’s a stuff will not endure.’ ”

  All in all, then, it was an amusing initiation to the workday, and as I marched down the corridor I made a mental note to enter the moist young lady’s essential data in my ledger. (This would require, in Sissy’s case, the manufacture of brand-new columns and categories, but of course such innovation was in large part the joy of it all: refining the various phyla and biotypes.) In my office, door locked, I immediately set to work on the project, and for more than three hours I was oblivious to the pressures upon me. (For safety’s sake, I had stored my new ledger in a well-secured file cabinet, away from prying eyes and burgling brothers.) It was good to be back on the job. For the first time in weeks I felt a professional contentment, safe in my scholarship, and at one point I found myself humming a happy little marching melody from those distant glory days of Vietnam—I met a girl in Tijuana … (It struck me, just in passing, that I might someday author a monograph on the eerie similarities between wartime combat and peacetime romance. Blood lust. Mortal fear. Shell shock. Despair. Hopelessness. Entrapment. Betrayal.) She knew how but she didn’t wanna.

  At noon there came a knocking at my door. I. speedily buried the ledger beneath a pile of ungraded term papers, brushed my hair, buttoned my coat, then pushed to my feet with a bittersweet mixture of anticipation and dread. Lorna Sue’s face seemed to balloon before me. (Eternal hope! Eternal joy!)

  It was a major letdown, therefore, to unlock the door and find young Sissy waiting.

  I had already screeched the word reptile.

  Twice, in fact.

  Naturally enough, poor Sissy was shaken. I sat her down, plied her with port, explained the circumstances. Even so, the girl peered at me with stiff terror, and it was a testament to my salesmanship that she eventually softened. I emoted shamelessly. I told tales of treason. I spoke of tycoons and incipient incest.

  Near the end, groundwork complete, I relocked the door, knelt at her side, and gingerly allowed my head to incline in the direction of her shoulder.

  Even then, it was touch and go.

  “Well, my gosh,” she said. “You scared me silly.”

  “And for that, my dear, I apologize.”

  “Silly!” she spat.

  Deftly, I drew out my handkerchief.

  “That awful scream,” said Sissy. “You should have seen yourself! Like a serial killer or something. Like that guy—that famous murderer—what’s his name?”

  “I have no idea—”

  “Son of Sam!”

  This shocked me.

  Unconsciously or otherwise, the girl had struck a nerve. I said nothing, and did nothing, but a cold shiver passed through my bones. Sissy must have felt it too, because she moved a hand to my knee.

  “Listen, I didn’t actually mean it like that,” she said. “I can see why you’re in such sad shape. Her own brother. I mean, that’s so … so sick!”

  “And a tycoon too,” said I.

  The thaw was complete. She leaned closer, her lips now approaching my right ear. It was an oceangoing experience in many ways, but I braved the salty spray of commiseration. “Seriously, I’m really, really sorry,” she said. “Nobody ever told me about this in sec school. I don’t even know … Gosh, I’m not sure what to do.”

  I waited only a moment.

  “The Ramada,” I said. “Six-thirty sharp.”

  An essential digression: Son of Sam.

  The word serial, I must now submit, is deceptive in the extreme. It smacks of the abstract, the mathematical and mindlessly repetitive, something cold and bloodless, and we would be wise to bear in mind that on a higher spiritual plane the issue of sequence is wholly irrelevant. What counts is quality. In the case of a serial lover, for instance, is it not possible that he (or she) might find each instance entirely and absolutely unique? Each case a universe in itself? Each nimble “target” distinctive and memorable and beyond compare? If number sixteen takes the form of a glorious redhead, should that in any way detract from the lusty, acrobatic humanity of number twenty-seven?

  Let us not be ridiculous.

  Same-same for Son of Sam.

  I rest, for the moment, my case.

  At two o’clock Lorna Sue phoned from the Mall of America. She was running late. She was in search of a lace tablecloth.

  Given the experience of a long marriage, this explanation made a kind of historical sense, yet even so I had trouble disguising the disappointment in my voice.

  “Tablecloth,” I murmured. “No wonder you’re delayed.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The challenge was unmistakable; I did not wish to upset her.

  “Tablecloth,” I repeated casually. “First things first.”

  “Well, right,” she said. “Isn’t that the truth?”

  Her tone was bouncy and matter-of-fact. Typically selfish, typically inconsiderate, Lorna Sue seemed to care not a whit that matters of the highest import remained on hold while she roamed the Mall of America in search of lace. (Imagine this woman as an air control officer.)

  Still, thus was her nature, and I responded with phenomenal restraint. If reconciliation was the goal, I explained to her gently, it would be in everyone’s best interest to fuck the fucking tablecloth.

  Lorna Sue chuckled.

  “Tom, don’t get snooty,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

  “What about the tycoon?”

  “Who?”

  “Your hairy new husband,” I said. “The latest love of your life.”

  “Oh, right. He’s around.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Around,” she said briskly. “I’d watch out.”

  “And Herbie?”

  “Sure, Herbie too. I guess they
’re both sort of upset.” It was hard to be certain, but she seemed to release a muffled giggle. “Look, Tom, this is a pay phone. It’s costing me money.”

  “Could you estimate when …?”

  “Soon enough,” she said irritably. “Maybe an hour. Probably two. Stop thinking about just yourself.”

  For each of us, no matter how mentally fit, there comes a point at which the internal wiring begins to smolder. My own such time had now arrived.

  I could taste the ions.

  The subsequent wait for Lorna Sue was excruciating in itself, enough to cause several hasty excursions to the men’s room, but on top of this I had to contend with the possibility of physical violence from at least two different quarters. The wrath of a brother, I realized, could only be exceeded by that of a routed tycoon. Each footstep in the hallway made me freeze. I misspelled the word impediment in my ledger.

  It was with some anxiety, therefore, that I eventually departed for my popular three o’clock seminar. (Boldly entitled “Methodologies of Misogyny.”)

  The old Vietnam instincts had awakened.

  I again made use of the back staircase. Outside, alert to ambush, I took a firm grip on my umbrella, scanned the terrain, then grimly set off on the long march across campus. The afternoon was sunny and warm, deceptively peaceful, yet I proceeded with utmost stealth. (An urban university, one must understand, is not unlike the darkest Asian jungle, dense with peril, and I was in no way fooled by the surface serenity of things.) I watched my back, ignored traffic lights, jaywalked when necessary, sought safety in the bustling afternoon crowds. Only once, as I passed the Chi Omega sorority house, did I pause to take delight in the ripening bounties of springtime. We were late in the school year, final exams barely a week away, and the sorority’s lawn had been tastefully decorated with a bevy of swimsuited young coeds, each bronzed and bewitching, each in possession of a Walkman and tanning lotion and a well-thumbed edition of the latest Cliffs Notes. I exchanged greetings with two or three of them; I waved at several others. In virtually any other circumstance I would have responded to their playful salutes and catcalls—my reputation for student-faculty solidarity had clearly preceded me—but with a bittersweet sigh I soon turned and hurried along toward destiny. It occurred to me, however, that even in the most hazardous of moments, with the barbarians at the gate, one can find solace in the timeless repetitions of nature. (Robert Bruce and his spiderweb. Ted Bundy and his watercolors. Brigham Young and his brood.) Despite all odds, the human spirit endures beyond endurance, denying despair, salvaging hope in a rainbow or a birdsong or a simple sunset.