The Future for Curious People

by Gregory Sherl

  “So, a light black?”

  “It’s a blue.” A sigh that sounds like frost. “If you were listening. After Midnight Blue.”

  I nod. “So the lighter blue is Before Midnight Blue?”

  “No,” Madge says, “it’s just blue.” She grabs my hand. “So, we’re going to do this?” Madge’s eyes look like Christmas morning.

  “Yes.”

  Madge sets the egg timer. “The timer’s on. Pick your corner.”

  WHEN THE EGG TIMER goes off, I’m grateful—an hour is a long time to try to be abstract. I set down my paintbrush and look up from my canvas.

  “Don’t show me! Don’t show me!” Madge cries.

  She’s already out of her corner, walking back toward the center of the living room. If the room were larger, she’d be skipping. She loves this. And I love that she loves this. And I wish that I loved this.

  I follow her lead, getting out of my corner and walking back to the center of the living room. I sit back down across from her. Our canvases are facing away from each other.

  “Okay,” Madge says. “Who first?”

  I can tell Madge wants to go first. She’s lightly drumming her fingers against the back of her canvas. “Why don’t you?” I say. I’d do anything to score some points right now.

  Madge’s painting is intricate. There are so many lines and small dots of color that I wonder if I should be picking out Waldo. Is this one of those paintings that only make sense when you stand very far away or if you relax your eyes so you can see the lady or the witch?

  I back up a little. That’s when I see the penis. My penis, I’m guessing. And my penis doesn’t look very happy—or robust. I want to tell Madge how buff I look in prison—that Godfrey Burkes would have been drawn with a robust penis, believe you me. But I can’t tell her this because I’d have to explain why I saw myself in prison.

  “Well?” Madge says.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the painting.

  “This is where you say something,” she says. “The workbook says that first impressions are the most important. Godfrey, what’s the first thing you see, feel?”

  I clear my throat. “You didn’t make my penis very life-sized.” I pause. “Or maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong mirrors.”

  “What are you talking about?” Madge is doing her best to keep a neutral facial expression, but her lips are trying not to do something—I’m just not sure what the not is.

  “Underneath the After Midnight Blue,” I say, pointing to the center of the painting, at a long strip so blue it’s black. Madge follows my finger as it goes underneath the dark strip, hovering right over a flesh-toned cock.

  Madge’s brow furrows, her lips purse. I keep my finger there. She knows I’m right, but I won’t win this. I’m surprised I’m even willing to try.

  “You have to see it,” I say. “You painted it.”

  “Oh, Godfrey,” Madge says. She’s still looking at her painting. She finally lifts her head up. “I really hoped for more from you today.”

  “What?” I’m trying not to laugh, but my self-control is shaky. “It’s a cock. I mean, not an impressive cock, but it’s a cock!”

  “Language,” Madge says in a tight whisper.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, lowering my voice, too, even though nobody else is in the apartment, even though that music is still playing on a continuous fucking loop, and even though both of us curse freely in front of each other.

  Madge sets her painting down. “It’s hopeless,” she says.

  “What is?”

  “Us.”

  “But I haven’t shown you mine yet,” I say, trying to backtrack. Something can be saved. Something can always be saved.

  “You were barely doing anything over there. I saw you.” Madge sighs. “I bet it’s two stick figures holding hands, maybe a quarter of a sun in the upper-right-hand corner of the canvas.”

  My face goes red. How the fuck did she know that? Still, I say, “That’s not even close to being true.”

  The room is stale. Madge is about to lose her shit. “This is fucking typical,” she says.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  “You’re so . . .”

  “Say it.” Now I’m getting worried. I don’t ever remember seeing Madge like this.

  “You’re so like you!” She’s breathing through her mouth because she can’t fit enough air through her nose right now. “You’re always so . . .” And then she just stops. Her arms don’t move. She looks like a marionette, hanging from invisible strings. “You just have no idea how to be in a relationship!”

  “That seems really unfair.”

  “Do I have to rehash old Godfrey relationships to make it clear? Wasn’t your last relationship a short-lived romance with a woman who lived in a ‘very confusing’ part of town? And on your third date, you got lost while on your way to pick her up, and because you were too embarrassed to admit it, you never showed up.”

  “In my defense—”

  “She never called, and neither did you. Was that going to be your defense?”

  It kind of was. This is not a story I told Madge, by the way. It’s a story I told Bart, in confidence. But I don’t mention this because Madge’s face has gone all stony, and she’s stopped talking.

  “Madge,” I say. That fucking music. That same line—“You are only aware of love when your lips are drenched in sun”—over and over again for four minutes. “Madge, say something.”

  “What if I’m only drawn to you genetically,” Madge says.

  Is she breaking up with me? “Only genetically?” I say. “What else is there?”

  “Everything.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “You know what you are?” Madge says, her voice low and rough with anger. “You’re an overrepresented demographic. The neurotic, needy white male demographic.”

  “And yet I still don’t think anyone’s quite represented me—you know, accurately and precisely—in art or literature or film.”

  “That’s because of the blur of so many representations of your demographic.”

  “The blur might be the best I can hope for,” I say. And suddenly I can feel it—like a downy coat on my skin—the fuzzy outline of my soul.

  “You,” she says, still not moving. “You’re always so like you.”

  “And this is bad?” I want to say, And this is why you’re not wearing the ring? I want to tell her that doesn’t make any sense. I am obviously always like me, but her face is so red and we’ve dated for so long that I’ve learned when it’s best to just shut up. “I’m getting a drink,” I say to Madge’s vicinity. I can’t look directly at her or I might break something and then break something else. This might then go on forever.

  I leave Madge in the living room and walk into the kitchen. I take a Heineken out of the fridge before three heavy consecutive knocks on the door.

  I open the beer bottle with a bottle opener attached to my keys as I head over to open the door, but Madge stops me.

  “I ironed you a white oxford button-down. It’s hanging in the closet.” She’s dressing me in parts. And I can tell she has more to say, but then there are more knocks on the door. “Hurry.”

  WHEN I RETURN FROM the bedroom, wearing the starchy white oxford, I find Bart and Amy settled onto our couch. I head for the kitchen and find Madge struggling with a bottle of champagne. I lean over and whisper into Madge’s ear, “Boat shoes. In the winter. In Baltimore.” I take a sip of my beer. I can’t believe my best friend is wearing boat shoes! “He’d probably wear them to visit me in prison. Does he know how stupid he looks?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I finish my beer. I set the beer down on the kitchen counter and run my hands down the front of my white oxford. “It’s very crisp,” I say, hoping to change the subject. “You did a great job with the iron, thank you.” Complimentary is one of the positive traits in Dr. A. Plotnik’s book
on romantic success. I’m still trying, if for no other reason than I don’t want to fail in front of the futuristically successful Bart and Amy.

  “The boat shoes are simply preparation,” Madge says, louder than necessary. “Some people like to plan ahead.” Does she mean that the shoes are part of a larger plan for Bart to buy a boat? She picks up the cheese tray we can’t afford and crackers we probably can’t afford either. “You know, when there’s something worth planning ahead for.” And with that, she walks out of the kitchen.

  I open the fridge and take out another beer. Bart and Amy brought the champagne, but the champagne can suck it. I open my beer in the kitchen. I’m buying as much time alone as I can. It’s going to be a long night. Who the fuck would name their band the Babymakers? Who the fuck would name their kid Adrian? Why am I still thinking about him? Luckily, Madge turned the music off when Bart and Amy got here. The flyer for the Babymakers is rolled up next to my empty Heineken bottle. I pick it back up and stare at it.

  I take another sip of beer and count to one hundred. I’ve heard this helps—the counting, not the drinking, though I’ve heard that helps, too, just for different reasons. I’d check my pulse, but I can never find that shit. I’d be a terrible doctor. This one’s dead, too, I’d tell the nurse. I just don’t feel anything happening. Must be an epidemic or the zombie apocalypse. Would the nurse call the CDC or would I?

  I’d stay in the kitchen the entire night if I could, but I know with every minute, Madge is getting angrier: I’m being a bad host.

  I chug my beer, get another, and walk into the living room.

  Bart and Amy are still sitting on the couch; Madge is across from them in a chair.

  Bart stands up when I walk into the room. He puts a hand on my shoulder like we just finished a business transaction. “It’s good to see you, friend,” he says.

  Bart looks even more ridiculous up close. He’s wearing a navy blue blazer, something rumpled around his neck. And the boat shoes. In the winter. In Baltimore.

  “Is that an ascot?” I ask.

  Bart lightly massages his neck. “Amy picked it out.” He looks over at Amy and smiles. Amy smiles back. “She says it makes me look older.”

  “Soon, you’re going to want to look younger,” I say.

  Amy ignores my comment. “It’s silk, like a cloud.”

  I nod, take another swig. Bart sits back down on the couch.

  Madge looks at me, appalled. “You didn’t offer our guests a beer?”

  “It’s all right,” Bart says. “We brought champagne.”

  Amy nods.

  Four champagne flutes are lined up next to the bottle of champagne in an iced bucket on the coffee table. I wonder when we got champagne flutes. Did Madge buy them for tonight?

  “We should get this thing open,” Bart says. He leans forward and pulls the champagne bottle out of the bucket of ice.

  “Be careful with the cork,” Amy says. “We all need our eyes.”

  Everyone but me laughs.

  My mind wanders to Evelyn Shriner. I wonder if she’s the champagne type, if her rain boots are the champagne type, if she would look that lovely visiting me in jail.

  Madge is staring at me. Amy is staring at me, too. Why? Because I’m just quiet? It always seems to be the quiet things that make people stare. I didn’t hear the bottle pop, or Bart fill up all four flutes with champagne, but they’re raising glasses.

  “A toast to the bright days ahead!” Bart says, like he’s practicing driving his new off-white Mercedes, pretending to take a call at a red light just as the war vet is hobbling toward his window, shaking a change jar made out of a used Wendy’s cup, a sign hanging around his neck that says HUNGRY—just HUNGRY, because he was too hungry to write more than that. Is there some doomed future where I’m that guy with the sign?

  “Yes!” Amy says, holding her champagne flute up. “Bright days!”

  I wonder how many times they practiced this before they came over.

  “Lovely,” Madge says. She looks at me. “Are you going to put down that beer, Godfrey?”

  “No,” I tell her. “So, what else are we going to toast to?”

  “I don’t know,” Madge says. “Why don’t you give a toast, Godfrey?”

  I smile at everyone. “Would love to.”

  The four of us form a circle. I grab one of the glasses. We raise our champagne flutes.

  “To Bart and Amy,” I say, “our best friends and future Republicans.”

  They glance around nervously, but we all clink our glasses. Everyone is about to take a sip when I stop them.

  “Wait!” I say. “I have more.”

  “Godfrey, please,” Madge says.

  I ignore her. “To possibilities,” I say. “To the lack of understanding through understanding too much.”

  “Let’s drink,” Bart says, his glass of champagne still hanging in the air.

  “Yes,” Amy says. “We wouldn’t want the champagne to get warm.” She laughs nervously.

  Madge doesn’t say anything. She’s still staring at me.

  But I don’t drink. Not yet. I’m not done. This is that fuck-it moment and I’ve already lost. Why not go out big?

  “What about in fifty-one years?” I tell them. “What if there’s a hurricane, and it sinks your fucking yacht?” I point at Bart. “What if you can’t get your cock to go up anymore at year twenty, but you didn’t know that because all you got was one glimpse, just an ounce of a forever? An ounce can seem so big when you’re looking at a screen in an ex–Chinese restaurant, but in reality, it’s still just a fucking ounce.” I take a breath. Bart is staring at me, sharing the same look as Madge. Amy is drinking her champagne very quickly. “What if Amy catches you with a nineteen-year-old hostess at the country club you’re members at? What if she forgives you and stays with you because of the money, because of the grandchildren and only slightly fucked-up children who didn’t know what to do with all that money, so it was just line after line after line of coke off their framed Harvard diplomas with their American Express Black cards?” I turn to Amy. I only need a second to catch my breath. I haven’t felt this good all day. “What if your ass won’t stop growing? What if the envisioning missed Bart’s heart attack by one day?” I turn to Madge. “What if your ass won’t stop growing? Or my ass or Bart’s ass? I look really good in a prison jumpsuit. Did you know that? Do you see me bragging on and on about that? No you don’t!” I point at Bart. “What if at year fifty-one, the skies open up and Jesus is like, ‘It’s time. You’re so boring I’m tired of yawning,’ and you’re like, ‘Holy shit, I only stayed with her because my insurance has a good copay, so on a whim I saw this weird doctor.’ What if that’s your last thought? What if the money and the yacht that may or may not sink are the only things that keep your marriage wet?”

  Everyone is staring at me. Madge’s face is red. Bart and Amy’s mouths are open so wide, birds could nest in them. I down the champagne in one gulp. I set my beer down on the table.

  I look at Madge. Her face is screwed up and she’s about to say something—but she’s got so much to say she doesn’t know where to start.

  Amy and Bart are staring at the floor, or maybe Bart is staring at his boat shoes. I bet the floor is wondering why it’s getting so much attention. I imagine the floor doesn’t want the attention—it just wants to be a fucking floor.

  “You shouldn’t have told Madge about that girlfriend I broke up with because I got lost, Bart! You shouldn’t have done that!” I grab my coat. “I need to get some more beer,” I say as I open the door and walk out of the apartment, run down the stairs and out the door.

  I’m in trouble. I’m in deep. Things are really bad and yet I feel good. I feel really good. It’s cold and I don’t have a hat or mittens. I’m just loose in the world.

  I head over to Fontana’s. I check my watch—I have about twenty minutes till they close, which is probably just enough time for Amy to console Madge in the bedroom while Bart finishes the cheese i
n his goddamn boat shoes. I’ll grab a six-pack and some gum; it’s impossible to have too much gum. Maybe for once I’ll be a winner. I’ll rush back to Madge waving my receipt and say, “Look at what your fiancé got you, 20 percent off your next purchase of Gouda fucking cheese.”

  Does Fontana’s even carry Gouda cheese? It wouldn’t matter, I’d say it anyway. I’ll be a winner, so I can say whatever the fuck I want.

  And then I realize I left my wallet in the apartment. I can see it on the edge of the kitchen counter—next to my cell phone and keys, also left behind—but I go through all my pockets anyway. I’ve got a ten-dollar bill and three singles that have been balled up like an empty gum wrapper.

  How could I forget my goddamn wallet and phone—again? There is something seriously wrong with me and the loss of personal items is an iceberg tip. I imagine myself drunk and lost and finally packed under twenty feet of snow; one by one my fingers turning blue, unable to call anyone. And when they finally find me, no one will know who I am.

  Fuck it. I breathe in the cold. Everyone I talk to is in the apartment anyway, and they all suck right now.

  I look back at the apartment and then up and down the street. I am trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Then I realize: maybe Madge has never been good at being a person. Maybe she’s someone else’s version of a great person. Maybe it’s not so much that the person she believed I could become was deep inside of me and only needed to be drawn out. Maybe she never wanted a better me, but a different me—for me to be someone I’m not.

  The sidewalks are sludgy. Tonight is a good night for rain boots. I look down the street and zip up my jacket. I could go back, beg forgiveness, but I don’t. Keep going, I tell myself.

  IT’S LATE ENOUGH THAT I know I’ll be the only patron in Fontana’s before I even walk through the front doors. And I am. And I’m drunk. And I’m going to get drunker. There is champagne and beer in me. If the two fought, which one would win? I would say champagne because it costs more, but the rich don’t work harder. That’s bullshit.

  It’s twelve minutes to nine. Fontana’s closes at nine. My life at twelve minutes to nine: thirteen crumpled dollars in my pocket, an angry not-really-fiancée at home, pissed-off friends, and I’m freezing as fuck. I make a beeline for the beer.