“What?” I asked.
“Who are you?"
“Cordell Carmel, translator."
“No. Cordell would have never done what you did in the park just now. Cordell would have giggled and made a joke and pushed me back on the path. Even if he could have kept it hard enough to start something, he wouldn‘t have finished it, not like you did with those people watching."
“So you think I‘m not me?"
Jo‘s eyes widened to take me in. Then she shook her head and turned her attention to the menu.
I rested my head in my hands because I was dizzy again. All of that sex and cuckolding and uncontrolled passion was taking a toll on me—a toll I would have gladly paid every day of the week.
“Hi,” a man said.
I looked up, and there stood Johnny Fry. He was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt tight across his broad, if pale, chest. He had brown leather sandals on his feet and lightly tinted yellow sunglasses propped up on top of his blond head. Next to the white man stood a coal-black woman with wild hair and nearly Caucasian features.
“John,” Joelle said a little bewildered.
“Hey, Joelle, L. How you guys doin‘? This is Bettye. She‘s from Senegal."
“Hello,” the beauty said putting more emphasis than any American would on that “o."
“What are you doing here?” Jo asked.
“My family has a membership, and Bettye wanted to see the Egyptian art. What are you guys doing?"
“Having a little brunch after sex in the park,” I said.
Bettye‘s eyes widened, but a shadow crossed Johnny‘s face. I knew I was right, I knew he‘d had sex with her in the park too, I just wanted to be sure.
“He‘s kidding,” Jo said, but there was an impish look to her.
Maybe, I thought, Johnny felt he owned Joelle sexually. Maybe he was jealous of his lover‘s boyfriend. All of a sudden I was enjoying myself.
“Why don‘t you guys join us?” I said.
“Oh I don‘t know,” Jo and Johnny said as one.
“Come on.” I stood up and took Bettye by the arm. I guided her to the chair next to me and gestured for Johnny to sit beside Jo.
The move was slick, I must say.
“Well okay,” Johnny said. He pulled out the chair next to Jo and sat.
She looked very uncomfortable. It was no longer a surprise to me that I felt aroused by her discomfort.
“You look beautiful, Joelle,” I said. “I love you."
That burnished her coppery skin.
“Oh. That‘s so sweet,” Bettye said.
“Are you living in New York?” I asked the dark-skinned Senegalese woman.
“Teaching at NYU,” she said, nodding with a certain amount of reserve.
“What do you teach?"
“Physics."
“Oh?"
“Does that surprise you?” she asked with a playful smile. Her white teeth were made even more brilliant by the blackness of her skin.
“I guess I never think of women in physics."
“I was trained in Cuba,” she said. “In Cuba girls excel at math and science, not the boys."
I realized at that moment that I was losing my mind. I had just had semipublic sex in the park. I was sitting across from the man having an affair with my lover. And I was staring into his date‘s eyes with longing because in Cuba the women outstrip the boys in science.
“Honey?” Jo said.
“Yeah?"
“You‘re staring."
“I‘m just amazed that girls excel in physics in Cuba, because it‘s always been reported in America that boys‘ brains are more set up for that kind of work."
“Oh no,” Bettye said with wide-eyed assurance. “It is not true. It is only that men in your country do not want women to be smarter than them."
“It‘s not that they‘re smarter,” Johnny Fry said with a smirk. “It‘s that girls have a different intelligence. Girls are good at, um, I don‘t know, uh, art."
“Oh,” Bettye said with great emphasis. “And is that why so many of the physicists in Cuba are women?"
“Must have to do with communism limiting how boys feel about themselves.” Johnny Fry was quite handsome. When he smiled, you could see how women would want to make allowances for his chauvinism.
“You‘re a fool if you think that,” Bettye said, giving him no slack at all.
“I‘m just kidding, honey,” he said. “You know me, I can‘t even do long division."
When he called Bettye “honey,” Jo stiffened a bit.
“What‘s your last name, Bettye?” I asked then.
“Odayatta,” she said. “And yours?"
“Carmel. Cordell Carmel."
“It is like poetry, your name."
“Thank you."
“So, Bettye,” Jo said. “How long have you been here in New York?"
A year.
“And when did you and John meet?"
Bettye turned to him, the question in her eye.
“About three months ago,” she said. “Yes."
“Waiter,” Johnny said. “Excuse me."
A man of the Far East, maybe Sri Lanka, maybe Tibet, came over to the table.
“Yes, sir?"
“We‘d like to order,” Johnny told him.
“Oh no,” Bettye said, fluttering her hands. “I‘m not ready."
The young brown man bowed slightly and moved away.
“Johnny and I were to go away this weekend,” Bettye was saying to stiff-faced Jo. “To Sag Harbor. But then I realized that I have a dinner with the university president tonight."
“So, John,” I said. “What business are you into now?"
“Um, what?"
“Are you in a new business? Brad told me that you were thinking of some kind of import thing."
“Oh yes,” Bettye said brightly. “John is going to be importing Senegalese carvings. The people of the village I‘m from are the best at making them."
“Wow,” I said. “So you guys are going into business together."
“Yes,” Bettye said.
“You ready to order yet?” Johnny asked no one in particular.
For the rest of the lunch, Joelle and Johnny were almost completely mum. Bettye talked about how nice Johnny was to her. On her birthday he bought her a silver mesh necklace from Tiffany‘s.
“Jo has a necklace just like that,” I said. “I think you got yours from Tiffany‘s too, didn‘t you, honey?"
“Yes."
“Yeah. Amazing that you guys both have the same thing. Isn‘t it, John?” I asked.
“Some coincidence,” he agreed.
I had a great time seeing the lovers squirm.
I told Bettye that last week I would have been jealous of her romance with Johnny, “But now I‘ve fallen in love with Joelle all over again. I can‘t get enough of her."
“We should go,” Jo said then. “I have a headache."
On the walk across the park, we were mostly silent. Joelle was deep in thought, and I knew why. Even though she had a steady, long-term boyfriend, her erotic and romantic identity was tied to Johnny Fry. He wasn‘t supposed to have another girlfriend.
I could imagine how their conversations went.
“Do you still sleep with him?” Johnny would ask.
“It‘s nothing,” she‘d say. “Once a week on a Saturday night or Sunday morning. He sticks it in and then he‘s finished. It‘s nothing like what we have."
Maybe she told him that his was bigger and better and that he was a real man where I was just a hapless sort of guy.
“But maybe he has a girlfriend,” Johnny might ask. “Do you think he‘s safe?"
“He hasn‘t been with anybody else,” she would have told him.
I was sure this was true. Suddenly I was enraged and aroused. The juxtaposition of emotion and sensation threw my gait off. My feet crossed, and I fell down in the middle of the asphalt path.
“L,” Jo yelped.
I had held my hurt h
and close to my chest and so fell on my right shoulder. I wasn‘t hurt. I wasn‘t even thinking about falling. It was Joelle telling Johnny that I was a meek brother who wouldn‘t have even thought of being with another woman while she was drinking down his come in a city park.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“I don‘t know,” I said.
She took my arm and tried to pull me up, but I stayed heavy on the ground.
“Are you all right?” a tall white man asked me.
He wasn‘t young, sixty or so, but he was a weight lifter. The blue wifebeater he wore was pulled tight across his chiseled chest muscles. He gripped my left biceps, and suddenly I was airborne. Then I was standing.
“Thank you,” I said.
“No problem,” the man said. He walked on, pro Lid that his endless hours of repetitions had turned out to have some worthwhile purpose.
“Are you okay, L?” Joelle asked me. There was concern, even a rare show of worry, in her eyes.
She hooked her arm around my waist and supported me the rest of the way home. Her brooding and somber mood turned to anxiety for me.
In the apartment she helped me to the couch and took off my shoes. She made lemonade and kept checking me for fever.
“You should go to the doctor,” she said more than once.
“I told you, I was just there. He said I‘m fine."
“But why did you fall?"
“I haven‘t had that much sex in . . . ever, like you said,” I told her. “ I ‘m just light-headed over you."
But even while I said these words, I was thinking about her belittling my manhood to the white man Johnny Fry.
“You should stay here tonight,” she told me.
“I cant."
“Why not?"
“The guy I stood up in Philly is in town. He has an all-day conference and needs to see me about that job."
“See him tomorrow,” Jo said.
“I tried that. He has meetings all day."
“Can‘t you stay?” She had that pleading tone in her voice that I never turned down.
“I can‘t,” I said.
Surprise and a little suspicion etched its way into Jo‘s face. I‘m sure she was about to try her plea again, but just then the phone rang.
Jo went off into the kitchen, casually closing the door as she went.
The moment the door was shut, I jumped up and pressed my ear to the crack.
“Hello?” Jo said. “Oh, it‘s you. I can‘t talk now. . . No . . . I don‘t care what you do . . . No. Not tonight. . . You have a girlfriend. . . Yes. In the park . . . Uh-huh. Yeah . . . He‘s my man and I‘m with him . . . No . . . I have to go . . .I have to go . . . Call me next week . . . Friday . . . No, Friday . . . Good-bye."
She hung up the phone with a loud bang.
By the time she was coming back through the door, I was on the couch again, looking bored.
“Who was that?"
“Johnny Fry."
“How did he have your number?"
“You remember I gave him my card at Brad Mettleman‘s party. He called me a few times when he still thought that he was going to cut an album."
“What did he want this time?"
“He wants me to help him market those Senegalese wood carvings."
“Oh. Are you going to?"
“No. He‘s a con man. I‘d probably never even get paid."
I stood up then. “I better be going."
“Please stay the night,” she begged. “Please."
“I have to meet this guy."
“Then come over after the meeting."
“It might be a working meeting, Jo. It could go very late."
“Will you call me?"
“Sure. Definitely,” I said. “And if it‘s early enough, I‘ll drop by . . . I mean, if you don‘t mind."
“Of course not,” she said. “You know you can come here any time you want."
I left Joelle‘s house at about 3:00 that afternoon. The day was still beautiful, and so I walked again.
People up and down the street smiled at me, said hello. There was a stiff breeze blowing and I felt relieved that Jo had broken up with Johnny Fry. Because that was surely what happened on the phone. She wouldn‘t talk to him until Friday, all the way at the end of the week.
I stopped at the Gourmet Garage and bought smoked whitefish and a prepared vegetable salad. Down the street from there I bought a bottle of white Burgundy from the Cellar.
There was a list of galleries that exhibited photography in the fax machine when I got home, that and a handwritten note from Linda Chou:
Dear Mr. Cordell Carmel,
I received the roses you sent. They‘re beautiful. You really didn‘t have to, but I‘m glad you did. Please call me if you have any problems with these gallery owners. I‘m really the one who talks to them most of the time and I‘d be glad to give any assistance you might need.
Sincerely,
Linda Chou
There was hunger in her words. Before that early evening I might not have understood Linda Chou‘s hankering. But now I‘d seen it in Jo and Johnny, in Bettye and myself.
I realized that I had gone through my whole life starving and I never even knew it. I was angry at Jo and Johnny, but the real source of pain for me was that I had never known how empty and unfulfilled my life was. The sum total of my forty-five years was little more than the atmosphere within a hollow husk of a shucked snakeskin.
My woman was unsatisfied by me.
My work could have been done by almost anyone with high school French and Spanish.
My passion could be contained in a span of a few minutes a week.
And all this time I was completely unaware of my penury7.
At 8:06 the buzzer sounded.
“Hello?” I said pressing the SPEAK button. Then I pressed LISTEN. Just that little bit of pressure shot lances of pain through my injured hand.
“It‘s Lucy."
“Third floor,” I said.
I held the DOOR button longer than necessary because the pain it caused felt right, even good. It reminded me of Sasha and of Jo having her ass reamed wide, begging for more; it made me shiver with sexual excitement.
I didn‘t expect to have any amorous dealings with Lucy, especially now that Jo had dropped Johnny. But she was young and beautiful, and I had been starving for love even though I hadn‘t known it.
“Hi,” she said, coming in the door.
She wore a diaphanous turquoise blouse with a white tube top underneath and a short-short pleated white skirt. She kissed me at the corner of my mouth and smiled.
“You look great,” I said.
“Thanks. And thank you so much for trying to help me. It means a lot that you believe in the work and also about the children."
“Well let‘s get to it,” I said. “I want to go through all the photographs again, and this time I want the back story on each one.
I want to know these children and this world just as if I‘d been there."
“What happened to your hand?” she asked.
“I fell,” I said.
“Are you okay? Is anything broken?"
“No. It‘s nothing. Let‘s look at the photographs."
Lucy knew every name, remembered every town and village where she‘d photographed. She knew the diseases that the children had suffered and how their parents had died. She knew the foods they ate and how much tainted water they received each day.
“You really immersed yourself in their lives,” I said.
“People are dying,” she replied. “I have to get their stories out there."
“What about magazines?” I asked.
“They buy a photograph or two, but no one wants to put much of this kind of suffering in their periodicals. And the few that do, their readers are already aware. I want to get these pictures into the hands of people who will be shocked and then want to help."
“And I plan to help you do just that."
It was well after
eleven when I‘d finished taking my notes. The stories about the dying nation of Sudan were deeply7 disturbing to me, much more so than the first time I‘d seen Lucy‘s work. But, on the other hand, I was keenly aware that the suffering eased my own sexual discomfort. My worries were nothing compared to what these starving children were going through.
“I have some smoked whitefish and a salad in the refrigerator,” I offered after we‘d gone through her entire portfolio.
“Great,” Lucy said. “I haven‘t eaten since breakfast."
I put the whole meal on a wooden platter and broke out the bottle of wine. We sat side by side on the living room couch, eating and drinking.
Lucy was very good company for someone so young. She asked about translation and the specific kind of work I did.
“Mostly manuals and articles,” I said. “Even if I do a book, it‘s never fiction or even interesting nonfiction. Sometimes I translate correspondence for people like Brad. Pretty straightforward stuff."
“But I bet you find some knotty problems here and there,” she said. “Words that have double meanings and things you don‘t understand."
“I guess so. But nothing I do is nearly as interesting or passionate as you,” I said sincerely. “I mean, listening to you talk about the places you‘ve been actually shames me. What are you, twenty-five?"
“Twenty-three."
“ I ‘m forty-five, older than your father, and I haven‘t even been to Africa on a vacation. I don‘t think I‘ve ever tried to save even one life."
“Maybe now you will,” she said.
She reached over and pressed my hand.
Her elbow touched the ON button for my DVD, and The Myth of Sisypha came to life on the dormant screen. It was the innocuous scene where the black woman had just joined Mel and Sisypha at the cafe.
“Oh, excuse me,” Lucy said. “Let me turn it off"
She picked up the remote but hit the FAST-FORWARD key instead of STOP.
Suddenly a black man appeared, and then they were in a sitting room somewhere, and the man was leaning back on a couch while the black woman was stroking his enormous erection.
“Oh my God,” Lucy said.
I took the remote from her and turned the whole system, including the screen, off.
“Wow,” Lucy said.
“ I ‘m so sorry,” I said. “I was having problems and I was walking home and I went past one of those sex stores and I went in . . . on a whim."
Killing Johnny Fry Page 7
