FEAST OF MEN

by Ayn Dillard

  I fall asleep at around four in the morning. Around eight, Art gets up stating that he’s hungry. I stay in bed sleeping, but as the morning wears on—am awakened by the phone ringing several times. One of the times, I hear Art saying, ‘Sweetieee, I’m in a meeting. I’ll call you later.’ Lying in bed hearing him call this woman ‘sweetieee’ I think, yuck, I hate being called ‘sweetieee’ and I don’t want him to ever call me this again. I wonder how many ‘sweetieees’ Art has?

  I hear Art go into the bathroom and shower then when he comes into the bedroom, I’m fully awake and ready to get up. He sits on the bed and we begin another of our talking marathons. He tells me more about himself, his family and his college antics.

  “I found some real unattractive college girls. They were practically street-walkers. I needed to make some money. So, I thought—what do college guys want? What they want is sex. So, finding these sexually loose and unattractive girls who were lonely and wanted attention—I put them together and made some money. I got a big van and would fill it up with guys and these two girls. We’d go to a drive-in movie and have all the beer, snacks, and sex that the guys wanted for a price. I made a ton.”

  “So, you were a pimp at Oklahoma University?”

  “No, I wasn’t a pimp.” He says with distaste, then flashes a big grin, “I was a ‘looovve-broker’.” stretching out the word love to seems like forever.

  “No Art, you were a college pimp. Did you pay the girls?”

  “Not really, I’d buy them cheap jewelry and occasionally take them a pizza. No one had ever been nice to them before, so they were real appreciative. They’d do anything that I would ask them to do.”

  “Did you have sex with them?”

  Exclaims, “Hell, no!”

  “Why not?”

  “I wouldn’t touch girls like that.”

  I ponder—how disgusting to prey on insecure girls. This is Mr. Manipulative and sounds like the same deal as with his Russian wife. He finds people in need, then he zooms in for profit or control. Except for some reason, I’m still attracted. So, what’s wrong with me? Do I feel sorry for him and think I can help him feel better about himself by loving him—therefore, heal him? Which is exactly what he was doing with that Russian woman—what a psychological mess all this is. I need to look into this mirror and see it clearly, but am I unable to see clearly because I’m too close? Art resembles my dad, even down to the same leg that he has difficulty walking on. Kissing and touching feels nice and Art seems happy, so it’s nice being with him. Also, I see love in his eyes for me.

  While I am in the bath tub with the shower curtain closed—I hear a noise as if someone comes into the bathroom. I hear my curling iron and hairdryer fall to the floor. After I rinse off and get out, I wonder—now how that could have happened? Did Art come into the bathroom and purposefully knock them off and just leave them on the floor? I dress quickly. Coming out of the bathroom, I ask Art if he knocked my things to the floor and he doesn’t answer because the doorbell rings and he goes to answer it. Art had told me that he has an architect coming over. I look out the large windows covering the back of the house to a panoramic view to realize the incredible beauty surrounding me. The house overlooks a large pond full of ducks and is surrounded by a thick forest of trees. Today is clear cold, crisp and beautiful. I can’t wait to get outside to look around and see more.

  Art introduces me to his architect, then asks if I’d like to walk around the farm.

  I respond, “Yes, and I want to sit on the bench by the lake. It’s glorious.”

  Art says, “Here put on my coat. It’s cold out there and my coat is warmer than yours.”

  With his jacket over my shoulders, I walk outside. Art’s jacket feels warm and the air wonderful. It’s windy and terribly cold, but I’m warmed by the sunlight flickering through the trees that glistens off the water. Now, I can see why Art likes it out here because it’s where he gets away from it all and restores his energy.

  I go back indoors, just as the architect is leaving. I hear Art say to him, “I don’t care if the house will cost a million. Just draw up some ideas. A place to begin, I can always change it along the way.” Art shows me the brochure of the house styles that he’s contemplating. Wow, they’re modern stucco houses with tile roofs. Just the kind I like and that continually show up in my dreams.

  I state, “Art, I want to take some photos of us to remember this weekend.”

  While we take photos of one another, I have a distinct knowing that I will never see this farm again, or perhaps, even Art. Sensing this, I want to remember the feelings, the closeness that I am having now. I feel the beginning of love for Art, but something’s just too stupid and off about it.

  Art says, “The reason I bought the place is for the land not the house. I am going to build a magnificent house on a cliff. I’ll show you the lot on our way back to town. I will probably leave this place the way it is for a while.”

  I comment, “This house is okay and cozy, but the view is like being in heaven.”

  “Yeah, that’s just how I feel. This is the only place where I can find complete peace.”

  After enjoying the out-of-doors and taking photos, we go inside to gather up our things in preparation to leave. Art begins cleaning compulsively, straightening up and even wiping up the kitchen floor.

  “Why are you cleaning so much? We didn’t mess anything up.”

  “I like coming home to a clean house.” Gosh, this is what my mother always says and does. Right now, Art resembles an old woman as he compulsively cleans.

  “But this house is clean, Art.” As I think to myself, I like a clean house too, but this is ridiculous.

  I’d packed most all my things, while getting dressed, but I left my curling irons out, plus a few other beauty ‘toys’. I enter the bathroom to freshen-up my hair after being out in the wind, to find both my curling irons on the floor again. These couldn’t have fallen. Art must’ve pushed them to the floor when he came in to take some aspirin. Since he’s obsessive, compulsive, my ‘beauty toys’ must irritate him as being out of his perfect order of things. And I also recognize that his mood has changed, he appears agitated.

  I put everything into my bag, just as Art enters and begins to wipe everything down with a cloth. Looking into the sink, he spies one of my long dark hairs. I watch as he pulls it out then wipes off every last water spot from the mirror. The man’s in a cleaning frenzy and it’s a bit scary. Is this the real reason his Russian wife went out all the time—to get away from this cleaning machine?

  Art exclaims, “I can’t stand water spots on mirrors!”

  “Um, I can’t either.” Observing Art cleaning so compulsively gives me the creeps. I feel a cold chill flood over me. “Are you bringing in a blond next time, so you want to make sure that every trace of my brunette being is gone, or are you getting rid of my finger prints and DNA because what is all this cleaning about?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I just like things real clean.”

  Watching his compulsive orderliness—trying desperately to keep all that he can under his control makes me sad. He was happy a few moments earlier. Now, he’s frantic like a crazy man on a clean or destroy mission. After gathering my things up, I watch as he continues to wipe down everything. Even straightening up a place mat on the table that was never touched and picking up every little speck of dirt off of the kitchen floor. I recall that I became a bit compulsive while I was married to Paul. I found myself needing to do the laundry a certain way and to keep the house just so, or I’d feel stressed and not in control. I always like to have things clean and orderly, but when I was so unhappy with Paul is when I became obsessive about it. Being so distressed, I felt my life was out of my control and this was all I knew to do to maintain any sense of balance or order. Of course, I wasn’t being balanced at all. I was out of balance and being obsessive, compulsive and miserable.

  “Art, when I was married to Paul, I used to obsess about things like doing the laun
dry and keeping the house perfect.”

  “Um, huh?” he mumbles as he continues his frantic cleaning and straightening up.

  “My husband used to ask me, ‘Why do you spend so much time on things like that when you could be with us?’ I realized it would’ve been better to spend more time with my family, but I was so unhappy with my husband that I couldn’t. The reason, I was being compulsive was because I was miserable and felt I had no control over my life. I had a beautiful house, but that’s all. I had a demanding stepdaughter, a verbally abusive, controlling and neglectful husband, illness and legal entanglements because of his ex-wife. My life was not my own. So, I cleaned to stay sane. Art, I’m here now and I’ll be gone in a little while. This house isn’t dirty. Don’t you want to spend the time with me?”

  “I’m not compulsive at all, Natalie. I just like to walk into a clean house. If I get this done now, it’ll be clean the next time I come out.” He doesn’t hear a word, I’m saying and this is exactly like my mother. She puts things up almost before anyone’s finished using them. She needs to have everything in its place with no regard or care for people. It’s painful watching Art and was painful being treated less important than a clean house and ‘things’ to my mother.

  I put my mug into the sink and Art scowls. “Aren’t you going to take that with you?”

  “No thanks, I’ll just leave it here.”

  He sternly orders, “Take it, Natalie. If you leave it in the sink, I’ll just have to wash it and it was a gift to you.” He then begins picking up suitcases to take to the car.

  I am startled by the force of emotion behind his order, I pause at the sink for a minute. This man has a real problem, then I pick up the plastic mug out of the sink, along with a piece of the luggage and walk to the car. After all the luggage is in and we’re driving down the driveway, Art comments. “That’s neat. I like that you don’t cower down when I’m in one of my moods. Other girls cower and practically hover into a corner.”

  “No, I don’t cower, Art. Why would I? You’re acting like an ass and it has nothing to do with me.” As I think, I’ve done enough cowering in my life with my father—so as not to receive more of his wrath. I used to stand up for myself, but lately beaten down and exhausted, now I guess I cower a bit—what a disgusting revelation, even what a disgusting word, ‘cower’.

  “Well, you’re not afraid of me and I like that you aren’t.”

  There’s a pleased look on his face, while I think, what an arrogant jerk. So other women cower when he acts like an obsessive-compulsive control freak. What a major piece of work, he reminds me of my father saying and behaving anyway that he wants—with no regard for others. Pushing his unfelt and undealt with feelings and emotions onto anyone and everyone around him, then when his fit is over—he thinks everyone should be over it too.

  Driving out of his property, I chuckle silently, but am sure to compliment Art’s farm because he’s obviously so overly proud of all his ‘things’. I am certain to take notice of them to bolster his fragile ego. He chats on about his land, the day and how nice it is to be together. Art proudly informs me that he’s going to buy more land surrounding his, in order to build a compound enclosed by a fence topped with barbed wire.

  “Who are you trying to keep out or keep in?”

  “Keep out—the world. You’ve no idea how bad it’s going to get in the future and what really goes on in the world.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “I don’t want to get into it now. Besides you wouldn’t understand anyway. You’re a girl.”

  “Oh really, are you in the CIA, NSA or something else?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because when you thought your wife was missing, you told me you immediately called the FBI. The FBI wouldn’t be the first people, you’d call, or if you did—they wouldn’t respond just because someone’s wife was missing for one night, unless there was some other connection. Why would the FBI jump on a case of a Russian girl who’s been missing for a few hours? Even the local police probably wouldn’t begin a search until twenty-four hours had passed, after all this was an adult not a child.”

  Sarcastically, “Well you’re certainly a smart one—aren’t you?”

  “So, are you connected to, or work for some government agency?” If he really even did call the FBI, it could be a lie—for all I know.

  “I’ll tell you about it someday, but not now.”

  “Why all the mystery and why is there so much that you’ll tell me later, but not now?”

  “It’s not a mystery. Just don’t want to talk about it right now. You may be too smart for me. Don’t want to deal with this now.”

  “Asking isn’t necessarily smart. It’s just common sense.”

  He becomes more distant even gloomy. This is all seeming just too bizarre. Except perhaps, the man just needs some love because he’s obviously been terribly hurt in his past. I’ll give him love and reassurance to see if he can love and trust again. I’ll love him out of this cleaning obsession, but as I’m thinking this—I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable because Art’s the worst mix of my mother, father and my last husband in some sicko combination. I want a man who works, fucks and isn’t obsessed with cleaning. Sure, don’t want a slob, but don’t want a house-wifey man either. A housekeeper can be hired easily. I recall how Paul would get into a house-wifey cleaning phase and iron. I hated it. He resembled an old woman, the way he leaned over the ironing board and it totally turned me off.

  I need to really listen to myself here because I am thinking that I can love a man out of his neuroses. That’s exactly what I’ve tried to do all my life and it doesn’t work. All I got was pain. I deserve a man who has the ability to give to me. What about all my neuroses—who’s going to help me?

  Art is quirky with some rather bizarre behaviors. Almost like a split personality. Well, he’s a Gemini and they can change their mind quickly, plus be moody. I chuckle, but this mystery CIA or whatever and building a compound surrounded with a barbed wire fence—what’s all this really about? Then all the weapons at his house—the man lives in constant fear. He’s on the board at OU, has a doctorate because I saw it in his office with accommodations from the Governor, then he was a pimp in college. What a wild combination, talk about traditional facade then on the edge bizarre.

  At a burger place, after eating—we’re talking and a cute, feisty little girl begins jumping up and down in the booth behind Art. He becomes extremely tense. “Let’s get outta here. This kid’s really bothering me!”

  “Well okay, but it’s only a child having fun.”

  “Not the fault of the kids, but the fault of the parents because parents these days just don’t discipline their kids. I can’t stand being around unruly kids.”

  “Geez, what an ogre you are, Art. That little girl was just being a little girl.”

  We continue onto Art’s office and begin to have our usual good time. He takes me to see the plot of land where he’s planning to build the Mediterranean style house. It overlooks a cliff and I can see how it might be incredible, but it’s so far out and isolated. “How’d you ever find this place?”

  “My real-estate agent knew what I was looking for and located it.”

  We walk up the cliff to look over the lot’s edge. The view is majestic.

  Art comments, “It’s going to be really nice—someday.”

  Art’s in his own little world gazing at the view. It feels as if he’s forgotten that I’m even with him. Walking back down the cliff is tedious in a pair of flats, so I holler. “Hey Art, give me a hand here! I’m a woman remember?” This is the man who’s like a jumping-jack when I leave the table at a restaurant, but doesn’t offer to help me down a cliff. Just as I suspected, he’s all show and only when it suits his purposes.

  He turns back, “Oh, I’m sorry.” He gives me his hand.

  Back in the car, he begins talking about marriage. “I’m all out of nurturing right now, Natalie. I’ve given so much in the past
that it’s all gone for right now. Don’t know if I can ever be married again. I was luckeee to get out of the last one so easily. She didn’t get a dime from me.” Chuckles, obviously pleased at this accomplishment. “Next time, bet, I won’t be so luckeee. Next time, I’ll probably get taken to the cleaners.”

  “You can’t look at it that way, Art. If you fall in love, you fall in love. You can’t worry about what did happen or what will happen. You just have to trust that it’ll work out. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t get married. I’ve been left broke by two men and haven’t given up on love. If I love again, it’ll be with everything I have—with trust that it will all work out. If I’m not able to do this, then it won’t be worth anything.”

  “I just know, I couldn’t be that lucky twice in a row. Next one will probably clean me out.”

  I add, “there’s always prenuptial agreements.” As I think, Art worries about what might be taken from him, instead of what he can give or receive from a woman who really loves him. He’s concerned about the outlay instead of the benefits. He’s talking about marriage and commitment again. If he doesn’t want it—why’s he always talking about it?

  “Art, I don’t think you can judge all women by your Russian wife. Forgive me for saying this, but she perhaps never loved you. She was probably just trying to get out of Russia. You saw something in her. It overtook you and there you have it. It was you creating the love—not the both of you. It might have worked, if she’d felt the same.”

  “Probably.” Softly, then with anger, “Well, I made damn sure she got absolutely nothing! She got nothing but the clothes on her back and a car—the whore!”

  I cringe at his harsh words backed by such intense feelings. “You gave her no money in the divorce?”