Summer in the Land of Skin

by Jody Gehrman

  After he’s gone, I collapse into one of the ugly porch chairs. I stare at the upstairs window of Gottlieb’s; I was there, I think, and now I’m here. I remember the milkmaid wallpaper and the orange shag carpet. What a different world I live in now. I think of my beige apartment in San Francisco, my beige towels, the wool army blanket on my bed. I sit there, picking at the exposed foam on the arm of the chair, watching the moon. It’s almost full, surrounded by a soft halo.

  I realize now what made me think of Rodney McNair. Grady has that same look, with the same maddening quarterback confidence. He’s the kind of boy I wanted in high school—someone I could go to the prom with and keep a photo of in my wallet. My mother would fawn over Grady; he’s funny and slick, the human equivalent of her silver Fiat. If I dated him I’m sure she’d view it as a miraculous evolutionary leap—Derek is a one-celled organism compared to him. But when I try to think of Grady in a sexual way, my mind drifts stubbornly back to Arlan: his eyes catching mine in the Ranch Room; our conversation on the way home; the song he played when we couldn’t sleep, so plaintive and lonely.

  Lucy and I are lying side by side on the bed and she is smoking out the window. Arlan and Grady are out on the porch, playing guitar. Through the window, we can hear Arlan toning himself down for Grady’s benefit, since Grady can do little more than strum a few chords. They finally find an old Elvis Presley tune they can both play, and now their voices are finding each other, Arlan’s warm and confident, Grady’s tentative and searching for the notes as he goes, pausing occasionally to laugh at himself: “Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true.”

  “Grady likes you,” Lucinda whispers.

  “Oh, come on.”

  “We’ve been hanging out with Grady Berlin for years, okay? If he doesn’t like you, he won’t even sniff in your direction, especially if you’re a woman.” Before I can ask what this means, she goes on. “You’re too good for him. If you want him, don’t forget that. He has to think you have a secret brain tucked inside yourself somewhere—something he can never get to. When he touches you—”

  “Whoa,” I say. “I just met this—”

  “Okay, forget about touching. When he fucks you, he has to believe there’s a secret cunt hiding just behind the real one.” I imagine multiple vaginas crowded together like a clump of sea anemones.

  “That’s the weirdest advice I’ve ever gotten.”

  “You’ve got to play your cards right.”

  “Lucinda. I’m not looking for any kind of—”

  “Everyone needs a good fuck,” she says. “Don’t pretend you’re any different. I’m just looking out for your best interest. Grady’s obviously the only candidate. Sparky’s got a dick the size of a peanut, Bill looks like a retarded rat, and Danny…” Her eyes narrow and she lowers her voice slightly. “Danny’s the scum of the earth. I seriously suggest you consider him only as an act of complete desperation.”

  “You really hate him, don’t you.”

  She exhales impatiently and squints at me. “Did I ever tell you how Arlan and I got together?” I shake my head. “I was with Danny. He’s the one who introduced us. I can’t believe I ever fucked that guy. Really. Turns my stomach.” Her eyes dart to mine and then back out the window. “When he asked Arlan to be in this band, I did everything I could to stop him. But Arlan wanted to play. You can’t stop him when he really wants something.” She pauses and twists the silver ring on her pinky. “Pretty fucked-up situation, huh?”

  “You seem to handle it all right.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sick of handling it. I wish he’d just go ahead and die.” She runs her fingers through her hair, and the hard set of her jaw makes me think of her sister.

  Later, the four of us go downtown and spend an hour or so wandering through a big used book store. I run into Arlan in the music section. He’s looking at a Grateful Dead songbook. I tell him that my father built a couple of guitars for Jerry. Then I’m afraid he’ll think I’m bragging, so I pull a book off the shelves—the first thing I see, a Simon and Garfunkel songbook, and say, “I really like these guys.” I chatter on. “Did you know Art Garfunkel was an actor? He was in that movie—what was it called again? Based on a novel…”

  “Catch 22?”

  “Exactly!”

  “That’s one of my favorite flicks.” We’re speaking softly, hushed by the towering shelves of books. He smiles curiously and says, “Why are we whispering?”

  There are certain moments you immobilize with memory, like an insect trapped midstruggle in a droplet of sap. With time, the image will harden and age into amber, movement turned forever motionless, entombed in hues of light. This is one of those moments; later, I will turn the picture over in my mind—the amusement in his eyes, the long dark strands of his hair, the column of sunlight streaming through the skylight above him, illuminating a cosmos of dust particles circulating slowly just above his head.

  That night, back at the Land of Skin, we get stoned and try to figure out a recipe for lemon cookies, because Lucy has a craving. She, Grady and I are crowded into the small open kitchen, while Arlan sits on the couch with his guitar, accompanying our efforts.

  “Let’s see, we need lemons—Jesus, I’ve only got two— Grady, go outside and find us some more.”

  “Two’s enough,” Grady tells her authoritatively.

  “Leemooons,” Arlan sings. “Got to have lemons,’ cause the sour in my heart just ain’t enough.” He strums a couple more chords and then downs the shot of tequila balancing precariously on the arm of the couch.

  Lucinda lights a cigarette and starts rummaging through the cupboards. “We need sugar!” she yells to no one in particular.

  “Babe,” Arlan says. “Don’t smoke in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll smoke where I want to smoke! Who are you, my mother?”

  “I ain’t your mother,” Arlan sings, “I ain’t your brother. I’m just your man, sweet thing, your good-time lover.”

  I’m about to slice one of the lemons with a big butcher knife when Grady cries, “Wait!” Everyone watches in stoned silence as he reaches over and carefully removes it from the cutting board. “You don’t slice lemons. You undress them. Slowly.” God. Grady’s too much. He talks like he’s auditioning for a porn flick twenty-four hours a day.

  “What kind of fruity talk is that?” Arlan demands; he gets up to pour himself another shot.

  We’re all reasonably smashed when the first batch finally comes out of the oven. The near-empty bottle of tequila and the two joints may explain the runny, gelatinous mess jiggling on the cookie sheet. It is difficult, in such a state, to recall the importance of tiny, teaspoon-sized elements, like baking soda and baking powder. These are not the ingredients your tongue recalls, and so they’re lost.

  Grady bends over and sniffs at the steamy yellow ooze. Lucy does the same, then sticks her tongue out, catlike, and laps up a tiny bit.

  “Ouch!” She recoils and covers her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fuck!”

  Arlan puts his guitar down and joins the three of us. We all hover there, gazing at the liquefied mess with crispy edges. We’re transfixed. Lucy snaps out of it first. She orders Arlan to put ice on her tongue.

  “I want ice on my tongue, too,” I say.

  “Arlan, give Anna some.”

  “No can do,” Arlan says, not looking at me. “Only for the injured.”

  Lucy shows me the ice cube Arlan has just deposited tenderly into her mouth and says, “Come get it, baby!” She opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue, winks at me, says something incomprehensible, and gestures with her hands.

  “You can’t just go giving that shit away,” Arlan scolds. “That there’s medicine, child.”

  “That’s right,” Lucy tells me. Her eyes light up; she digs her lighter from the front pocket of her jeans and she takes a step toward me. “Come here, Anna,” she says. “Earn your ice!” I laugh and take two steps in her direction, and suddenly we’re standing so close to each other t
hat I can smell the vanilla lotion she uses. She flips open the Zippo and rubs it alive with her thumb. She holds it up between our faces; I can see the flame glowing orange on the reflective surface of her eyes. “Come on,” she whispers. “What are you afraid of? Open up.”

  “Did you guys ever read that William Carlos Williams story? About the doctor and the little girl—he has to force her mouth open?” Grady’s voice sounds distant. “What was that called?”

  “‘The Use of Force,’” Lucy says, without moving her eyes from mine.

  “Yeah!” Grady says. “Exactly. Huh. What a story.”

  I open my mouth and stick out my tongue. I can taste the heat of the flame, sharp and metallic, against the very tip.

  “Hold it now, girls,” Arlan says, employing a paternal tone. “Somebody’s going to put a tongue out, if you’re not careful.”

  I move my tongue even closer, my eyes locked on Lucy’s. We’re mesmerized by the flame. We’re moths, I’m thinking. We’ll do anything for light and heat.

  Just as I am about to sizzle my tastebuds, the flame disappears.

  “Good enough,” Lucy says, snapping the Zippo closed. Then she stands on her toes and, never touching her lips to mine, deftly spits the ice cube into my mouth.

  CHAPTER 7

  Mama—Mama, Please

  I’ve been in Bellingham three weeks, and I have three hundred and eighty-five dollars left, with no prospects of making more. Tuesday afternoon I tell myself I’m just going for a walk, just getting out to breathe the scent of blackberries and trees, so I can clear my lungs of all that smoke. Underneath this pretense I know I’m headed straight for Bender’s.

  He doesn’t look surprised to see me. He’s sitting on his ice chest, carving a piece of driftwood with a pocketknife, and when I lace my fingers through the mesh of the gate, he just gets up without a word and lets me in, as if we’ve been meeting like this all our lives.

  “What’s shaking, Medina?”

  “Nothing much,” I say, following him back to his boat and accepting the chair he unfolds for me. The day is hot and a little humid; the air is filled with the scent of seaweed.

  “You go see that prof, like I told you to?” he asks. I scoff. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I did,” I say. “But he wasn’t too helpful.”

  “Why not?”

  “All he did was name-drop and he practically pissed his pants when I corrected him on something—”

  “He knows his shit—”

  “He was talking about my father,” I say, indignant.

  “Did you tell him who you are?” I gaze at my lap. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “I didn’t want to stoop to his level,” I say.

  “My, my,” Bender says. “A bit righteous, aren’t we?”

  “Well, he was so insipid—I’m not a stool sample of my father’s he can examine—” At this Bender throws back his head and roars with laughter. “I’m not,” I repeat, sulking.

  “No,” he says, trying to be serious. “You’re no stool sample, Medina. But you sure as hell remind me of Chet. That’s just the sort of attitude he’d cop, I guarantee it.” He goes back to his driftwood, carving slowly. There’s a small pile of shavings at his feet.

  “What are you making?”

  “It’s a portrait,” he says.

  “Oh yeah? Of who?”

  He holds it up in the air, and I see that half a pelican is emerging from the pale, knotted fist of wood. It’s so minutely crafted, I can even see individual feathers at the tip of its one finished wing. “Caliban!”

  He nods and pulls it back, tucking his chin and letting his face return to the scowl of concentration. We sit there in silence for a few moments, with the sun beating down on us and the waves lapping at the sides of the boat listlessly.

  “Am I really like my father?” I ask after a while.

  He pauses in his carving but does not look up. He scowls at his pocketknife, poised above the beak, and says, “DNA doesn’t lie.” I watch as he uses tiny, meticulous movements to get the tip of the beak sharper. The knife slips, and abruptly a half-inch of scarlet blooms on his thumb. “Goddammit!” he snarls. He examines it briefly before sticking it in his mouth; the lines between his eyebrows deepen into sharp, hard grooves.

  “You should be careful,” I say.

  “I’m careful,” he growls. He takes the thumb from his mouth, shakes it twice and goes back to carving, ignoring the blood.

  “You’re getting blood on Cal,” I say. He looks at me, and the force of his glare is enough to make me tuck my hands under my thighs nervously. “Well, you are.”

  “Thanks for the commentary, Medina.”

  We sit in silence for another few minutes. As I watch him carve, I try to find something familiar about him, some memory of his face from my childhood, but nothing comes to me.

  “Do you remember me, from when I was little?”

  “Sure.” I wait for more, but he’s silent.

  “You hung out with my parents a lot?”

  “All the time.”

  “Do you think my mom and dad were good together?”

  He holds Caliban up close to his face and squints at him from different angles. “Good? Hell, I don’t know, Medina. How should I know?”

  “You were friends.”

  “People tend to drive each other crazy. Your mom and dad were no exception.”

  “Did you ever get married?” I ask, aware that I’m pushing my luck.

  “Sure,” he says. “Lady named Sheila.”

  “Where’s she now?”

  “Arizona.”

  “Alone?”

  He looks at me and grins like someone posing reluctantly for a photo. “No. She left me years ago. Ran off with a real estate agent.”

  “You got any kids?”

  He stops carving all of a sudden and flicks the knife closed. I can see where the blood has turned Caliban’s head the color of rust. “What do you say we quit the inquisition, huh?” He gets up from the ice chest, rummages around inside it and fishes out a can of beer. He offers me one and I accept, though I despise Budweiser. The sun is hot and I’m thirsty and besides, I could use something to take the edge off this conversation.

  “Listen,” I say, after I’ve choked down half my beer and Bender’s tipping back his second. “I don’t want to keep bothering you. I just…I can’t get it out of my head—about making guitars, I mean. Just tell me, seriously, what would it take to get you back in business?”

  He studies me; his eyes are as glossy and blue as the bay. “I’ve got my tools in storage,” he says. “But I’d need a shop. Materials. None of that comes cheap.”

  “Like, how much?”

  “I don’t know, Medina. Lots. Why, you loaded?”

  I bite my lip. “No,” I say.

  “Well then, let’s stop with the pipe dreams, okay?”

  I don’t answer. My chest feels heavy as I contemplate my three hundred and eighty-five dollars. The silence stretches on. The air has grown dense with the weird, dirty smell from the mill. I feel paralyzed, doomed. Bender must sense my mood. He does what he knows how to do: offers me another beer.

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “Listen, Medina,” he says, putting his beer down. “I’d like to give you a few things. I’d just as soon get them off my hands.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hold on,” he says, and disappears down the stairs. When he comes back, he’s holding a rectangular brown bundle. He hands it to me. Looking at it more closely, I see that it’s a stack of envelopes wrapped in a square of leather and tied with a length of twine. “Chet sent me these,” he says. His hands drift to his hair. “I thought you might want them.”

  “What are they?” I ask, tracing the twine with one finger.

  “Letters.”

  The word hangs on the air, and I feel my throat tighten. I touch the leather. It’s old and scarred in places but still soft. The twine forms an intricate shape—some sort o
f sailor’s knot, I guess. “Maybe he wouldn’t want me to read them.”

  “Maybe not,” Bender agrees.

  I wait for him to say something else, but he just stands there, looking out at the water. “Then maybe I shouldn’t,” I say, my voice so quiet I can barely hear it myself.

  “Up to you.”

  “If he wrote them to you—” I hold the bundle out toward him “—maybe you should keep—”

  “Please,” he says, closing his eyes. “Will you take them?”

  I leave with the letters tucked under my arm, the worn leather touching the soft skin there. I read somewhere that’s the softest skin on the body, that stretch between the armpit and the elbow. I walk slowly back to Smoke Palace as the heat of the day eases to a soft, humid sigh. The first breezes of evening press against my face, and the swallows, revived by the lengthening shadows, dart about in a frenzy, calling to each other in shrill, irritable chirps. I stop once and hold the letters up to my face, inhaling the rich scent of leather.

  I used to have an incredible sense of smell before my father died. I remember as a child walking around our neighborhood convinced that I could smell the insides of houses—not just what they were cooking, but their carpets, the drapes, the people, even. The world became real to me through my nose. I was also an enthusiastic but intensely opinionated eater. My father used to joke that I was the only culinary snob in the world who hadn’t yet graduated from junior high.

  After he died, my sense of smell, and with it my sense of taste, went into hibernation. Throughout high school and most of college, well-meaning teachers and nervous relatives were perpetually hinting that I might be anorexic. It’s true, I didn’t eat much, but it wasn’t out of vanity or compulsiveness so much as a sincere lack of interest. Everything tasted like dishwater—repugnant in its sameness. My mother, who once loved to spend hours cooking lavish, sensual meals, must have lost her culinary urges, too. I don’t remember her preparing even one of her famous dinners after his funeral. We lived on what could be microwaved or warmed in a toaster.