by Adam Pelzman
My friends have given me a gift in honor of my accomplishment. It is a plaque—silver on cherry wood—and on it the following words are inscribed: I’M A RICH DOUCHE BAG. I love this gift. I hold it up to the light. Read it, read it out loud, my friends exhort. I relent. I’m a rich douche bag, I proclaim. And my friends howl and hold their glasses up to toast both my success and their joy in my success, their pride in me. They are also toasting the honesty, the integrity of our friendship that grants them the freedom to mock me. Most people I meet these days subordinate themselves to my wealth, obsequious to the point that I feel disconnected. But not so with my inner circle, my core. To be mocked is to be accepted, to be equal. So right now, I am at peace.
Sometimes, though, I get depressed. And when I get depressed, which happens intermittently, I find myself attaching to a negative narrative. Or maybe it’s the other way around; maybe I get depressed because my narrative turns sour. Either way, my negative narrative goes something like this: my father was an adrenaline junkie who was so reckless, so ego-driven that he got himself killed, depriving me of a father and my mother of a husband; my mother was a heroin junkie and prostitute who abandoned me; I watched my mother give Krepuchkin a blow job; I murdered a man; I lost my best friends for almost twenty years; my wife got paralyzed, and I believe that, despite what Sophie maintains, I played a role in that; I’ve been an angry man, violent and intolerant; I have at times suffered from feelings of inadequacy; I broke my marital vows and took up with a stripper; and I am so obsessed with financial success that there never seems to be enough money to fill the void.
But when I fall into this narrative, there is always my inner circle to set me straight. Personal narrative, one of them will invariably say, is a choice. You can go with that story, the one with the junkies, the blow jobs and the shitty orphanage, or you can tell a different story—just as truthful, but a lot more uplifting.
The positive narrative goes something like this: my father was a brave and powerful man who supported me and my mother and inspired an entire village; my mother suffered when the love of her life died, and, in her desperation to care for me, she made many terrible mistakes; my mother’s addiction was not a result of weakness or moral failure, but of disease; my mother rebuilt her life and saved me, heroically, from the orphanage, sacrificing her own dignity for her child; I was blessed with the opportunity and the will to kill the man who degraded my mother, and God exonerated me accordingly; she cared for me every day thereafter and, when she could go no further, put me in the hands of a good man; that man, Frankmann, instilled in me toughness and guile and positioned me to survive, to prosper; when I arrived in America, I was cared for by a loving couple who, despite their age and accumulated fatigue, provided me with a safe home and a fine education; I fell in love with Sophie, a spectacular woman who has tried in the most creative and unusual way to liberate me from the burden of my culpability; I have Roger, tough and loyal; I have earned many fortunes; I amassed enough money and corrupt connections in Russia and the States to get Petrov, Volokh and their families over here, carrying the good parts of my past into my present; my past is thus selectively over, as I have the freedom to choose what stays and what goes; I have choices; I love; I am loved.
As I sit in this restaurant, my story is overwhelmingly positive. Is it possible for a life to be more beautiful? I cannot imagine it ever being otherwise. But I know that there will be a time when the story shifts, when I shall again be seduced by negativity and view my life through a corrupted filter. That is when my rage will resurface, when the impulse to kill justly may, given the opportunity, return. What will trigger such a shift, there is no way to know. It could be something huge, an existential threat to me or someone I love. Or it could be something so trivial that I cannot explain its impact: a reminiscent scent, the peculiar angle of the wind, a branch of deadened ivy. And when that happens, as it absolutely must, I shall fight for the strength to change my tune. Perspective, for me, is a constant battle.
Sophie enters the restaurant. She glides toward us in her wheelchair, and we all rise to greet her. Tonight, she is transcendent. She appears comfortable with her place in the world. Nice plaque, she says. You are a douche bag.
I would say that for the first time in years, Sophie is truly happy. And for the first time since the accident, we are both happy at exactly the same time.
EPILOGUE #2
Eight weeks have passed since my fall, and we are still working out the logistics of this unconventional arrangement. Perla has moved into the guest room, which we no longer call the guest room. It is now Perla’s room. Most nights, Julian and I sleep together—he on his right side, his left arm draped across my waist and his right tucked under my pillow. Some nights, especially when I am feeling weak and retire early, Julian moves to Perla’s bed. Following most of those nights, he returns to our bed before daybreak. But there are nights when he sleeps with Perla all the way through to morning, entering our bedroom only after I have arisen. For now, I am comfortable with that short distance—merely the width of one plaster wall.
I don’t want to hear them fuck. I don’t even want to know when they are fucking. They understand this intuitively and are thus careful and discreet. Pretty much all I want to know is that Julian is getting his needs met; that between me and Perla, he’s getting all of his needs met. And I want to know that Perla is safe and loved. And me, too.
So far, everyone seems to be getting as much as they give, although the permutations are confusing, and the imperfect timing of when we give and when we get requires us to access deep reservoirs of faith. It could be Julian helping me out of the chair one day and it could be Perla doing it the next. It could be Julian inside me or Julian inside Perla, but never on the same day and always separate. Our sex lives shall always remain compartmentalized and distinct, for anything else—any conflation or overlap—would violate some sacred covenant and destroy a delicate balance.
One unanticipated consequence of Perla’s proximity is that Julian and I have been making love with greater frequency and lightness. It seems that Perla’s presence has stripped the heaviness from our act, for now the consequences of my sexual failures are not so grave. Sex with Julian is no longer just an impossible reproductive act; it is once again recreational. Perla has had a disinhibiting effect on my sexuality. My thinking now goes that if I shit the bed during sex, I won’t feel as awful as I used to, because now Julian can simply walk down the hall and sleep with a very special woman who has no interest in damaging the bond that exists between me and Julian. And because the pressure is lifted, I’m no longer soiling the sheets.
Mind over matter, so to speak.
And, of course, there’s Perla. Dear Perla. What she gets out of this, I am only just beginning to understand. But I am afraid that whatever Perla does get will not be enough. I fear, as does Julian, that she will wake up one morning, take a good look around and decide that she wants more than we can give—and that will be the end of it.
EPILOGUE #3
The first time I change Sophie’s diaper is about three months after she gets out of the hospital. Julian’s at the market and it’s just Sophie and me in the apartment. We talk about all sorts of things, me and Sophie. Our pasts, our families, our dreams. I find out that she comes from a working-class family in the suburbs and that all this wealth was something that she never thought could happen and she still doesn’t know how it works sometimes. She just figured she’d take a ride with Julian and who knew where it might end up. But even though she didn’t grow up rich, Sophie admits she got used to it real fast and that it’s easy for a girl to get sophisticated tastes when she’s got tons of cash and access to the right shops and designers. I think it’s also easy to get real unsophisticated tastes, so it says something about Sophie and her character that she made such a beautiful home. And that she’s so respectful to Norma and didn’t even say a word when I made a mistake and put a hot mug on the wood table without
a coaster.
But it’s not all serious stuff. There’s silly girl talk, too, like shopping and hairstyles and even sex. I really like to hear the stories about Julian when he was young, and Sophie never lets me down. I hear things that I never knew but that make total sense given what I know about the man, like how he beat up Sophie’s uncle. After two weeks of talk and only after Julian says it’s okay, Sophie tells me about his life in Russia, about his father, his mom, the orphanage, Krepuchkin, about the special place that Petrov and Volokh and Roger have in his life, how he would do anything to keep them close to him.
I cry real hard when Sophie tells me all this and she puts her hand on mine and tries to give me some comfort. He killed Krepuchkin? I ask, ’cause I’m a little confused about this part of the story. With his own hands? And Sophie nods yes, and I get a little thrill in my chest and in my thighs, sort of aroused. And I think to myself damn right, this is my kind of man.
So, it’s just me and her alone in the apartment. Norma’s back in Trinidad visiting her family and Julian runs out to get some food for the empty fridge. We’ve got a fill-in nurse coming by later in the day, so we’re all covered. But no more than ten minutes after Julian leaves for the market, there’s a real loud sound that comes out of Sophie and she looks at me all ashamed and I know immediately that she just soiled herself. And it’s not like this is a little bowel movement and we can wait for Julian to get back. This one’s so big that it’s coming over the edge of the diaper and seeping through her silk pants.
I’m a girl who’s all business when I need to be, so I say Sophie, you and me are about to have a moment. And she says you sure? A moment? Yup. And I roll her over to the bedroom and get that shower-mattress all set up and I do my thing. Water and soap and the old diaper in that sealed bin and a new diaper on her and even some talcum powder like you put on a baby. Funny thing is that the smell doesn’t even bother me. I mean, it’s there and I guess you could say it’s real bad, the smell. But when you’re out of your own head and helping someone else, not thinking about your own shit and just being of service to another human being who’s got it worse than you, then the unpleasant things don’t seem to bother you. I get her all cleaned up and get her some fresh clothes and my girl is looking hot and ready to go!
We sit in the living room and Sophie says you mind opening one of the windows, get some fresh air in here. I’m thinking the same thing, but didn’t want to insult her, so I’m happy to do it. I open the window a crack and the air swoops in like it’s just been waiting there all day for the invitation. The air’s cold and it’s not something I’m used to living down in Miami. It feels good, refreshing on my skin, and I wonder what it would be like to spend an entire winter in this city, especially now that my mom moved in full-time with Felipe.
Just then, while I’m in a little fantasy, Julian opens the door. Me and Sophie, we’ve got guilty smiles on our faces, and Julian knows something’s up. What’s going on, he wants to know. You wearing a different outfit, Sophie? Same outfit, she says, and nothing going on but for a couple girls having a bit of fun.
Julian’s got a half-dozen bags and he carries them into the kitchen. He puts them on the table and starts to unpack all the things he bought. There’s the stuff that Sophie likes, stuff that I don’t have a good taste for yet but I’m open to trying. Goat cheese and crunchy French bread, Greek yogurt, a bottle of fancy mustard, poached salmon, almonds, organic blueberries and the kind of eggs you get from a farm. You know the drill, it’s an epidemic up here. Then he opens up another bag and says Perla, I stopped by the Spanish place. And sure enough he pulls out a bunch of ripe plantains, some mangoes, a couple cans of beans, a bag of rice, some fresh shrimp, mojo sauce, which I love, and pastelitos filled with fresh guava.
There’s also a bundle of pine wood held together with a thick string, and Julian holds it up. He says it’s freezing out, winter’s here, so I figured it’s time to put the fireplace to use. He lays all the stuff out on the counter in front of us, waves his hand like he’s real proud of himself and says this is going to take some time, you know—to figure this all out.
Something about all this makes me think of Old Pepe and his birds, Chico and Chica. I remember Pepe’s words like he’s right here with me, the funny bowler hat and the blue poncho. Remember, Perlita, when you get older, you look for a man like that, someone who protects you, who feeds you first, who won’t take a bite of anything, won’t take a single piece of food or clothing or firewood until you’ve had enough first. And I’m looking at Julian and all this Latin food, which is sweet and thoughtful but also maybe a little insulting, but I can explain that part to him later. Julian’s a little rough around the edges and he’s got some learning to do.
I look at Sophie and then back at Julian, just taking them both in. I have to look down to see her and up to see him. They seem a little concerned, nervous, like they know a decision’s about to be made and they don’t get to make it. I look at my feet, drop my head real low, ’cause I’m nervous too and it’s hard to keep the eye contact. And I close my eyes and make an image in my mind, an image of all the things I want out of my life, which is what I do sometimes when I want to travel to a different place, when I don’t like where I’m at. I used to think mostly about the past, but lately I’m thinking more about the future ’cause the past just won’t work for me anymore. The past hurts. That’s what I’m beginning to learn. The past hurts, so I get out of there. Blink, there I go. Blink, I’m back. Blink, gone. Blink, blink. That’s how I do it, just a little trick of the mind.
So I open my eyes and look up, and there’s Julian a few feet away, bags of food all around. Sophie’s holding the wheels on her chair real tight, like she’s at the top of some icy hill and afraid to slide off the edge. And I go back to that day with Pepe, when I blew the feather into the air and made a wish, a secret wish that Pepe said was just for me. For me and my God. And I wonder if I deserve something better than this, something normal.
I rub my eyes, then blink, blink. That takes me to a different place. It could be the future, this place. Or maybe even the present. And I wonder if I’ve got it all wrong, if maybe everything I ever wanted is right here in front of me, but just dressed up different so it’s hard to see, with lots of kindness and laughs—and a man who kills for the woman he loves, for the women he loves.
I glance over to that bundle of pine on the counter. I don’t think Pepe meant it so literal, the firewood, but there it is plain as day. Then I look at their faces—scared but full of hope—and I’m guessing that Julian and Sophie made a wish one day, too.
And maybe I’m it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am enormously grateful to so many people, including Susan Cheever; Lisa Berg Selden; Rebecca Ascher-Walsh; Andrea Stern and Kenneth DiPaola; Peter Appel and Polly Appel; Susanne Gabriele; Roger Kumble; Lori Singer; Joe McKinsey; Allan Weinstein; Simon Furie; Bob Weinstein; Vanita Vithal; Laura Bachrach; Katherine Mogg; Henry Spitz; Simon Doonan; Sandra Schmitz; Greg Redford; Sloane Spanierman; Edward Davis; Mark Loigman and Andrea Glenn Loigman; Mark Rabiner and Avi Pemper; and the entire Burrell family.
Every member of my family—the Pelzmans, the Karnetts, the Newmans—deserves a huge hug for their love and support over the years. They’re a great bunch and have been my strongest advocates from the very start.
I am indebted to John Gardner, a man I never met but whose teachings guided me through the creation of this book. If you are a young writer (or an old writer or even a middle-aged writer) and struggling with self-doubt (or maybe you are the rare one who is cocksure), then there is no greater tonic than his books on writing—especially On Becoming a Novelist and The Art of Fiction.
I am forever grateful to Amy Einhorn and her colleagues at Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam and Penguin; simply put, it is impossible for me to have found a better home for this book.
I also owe many thanks to Liz Stein for her patient support during what was
, for me, a new and mystifying process.
I’m at a loss to describe my affection and appreciation for Victoria Skurnick of the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. For many years before this book came to be, Victoria somehow maintained unwavering belief in me and my work. Whenever I lost faith, she got me back on the beam. Thanks, Victoria!
And finally, a few words for and about my son, Simon. For countless hours, he watched as I sat at my desk and wrote—and wrote and wrote. His optimism, good humor, and encouragement have accompanied me from the first word to the very last.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Pelzman has been a software entrepreneur, an attorney and a private investigator. He studied Russian literature at the University of Pennsylvania and received a law degree from UCLA. Born in Seattle and raised in northern New Jersey, he has spent most of his life in New York City, where he now lives with his son.
