Exhilarated, Simon eased out of the lot and turned onto Washington Street before he remembered to switch on the headlights. When those yellow beams fired, Simon realized that he was in control, master of the machine. He shifted smoothly into second, then third, aiming toward a destination so unlikely, so astonishing, his mental gears flicked into overdrive.
He was on the road zipping past familiar landmarks, navigating through traffic, swerving around cloddish trucks, turning left, turning right, following the trail Miss Ulman had mapped in a series of precise instructions Simon had taped to the beautiful, luminous dashboard. And there she was, exactly on the corner where she said she’d be, dependable as the Big Dipper.
Simon saw that his self-proclaimed mentor carried a picnic basket. He was psyched for pizza with pepperoni, anchovies, maybe a few mushrooms trapped in melted cheese. That expectation was quickly dashed. There was no conceivable way Miss Ulman could manipulate a large, sizzling pie into that straw box. As he applied the brake, a wave of disappointment made his salivary glands go dry. He cursed himself for such a crass demonstration of pure gluttony; the important thing was Tabitha Ulman, not bubbling mozzarella with whatever array of savory toppings. That his teacher had taken the time and trouble to prepare a feast along with the promised bottle of champagne more than made up for a puddle of cheese and tomatoes on a soggy crust.
Simon smiled, reached over to open the passenger door, grinned as Miss Ulman settled into her seat with the basket on her lap. She said, “Well, here we go.”
“Where to?” Simon said. “I await your command.”
“Straight ahead. I’ll tell you where to turn. It’s just too nice an evening to sit indoors.”
Driving along, Miss Ulman sat quietly for what must have been thirty miles. Simon’s blood oath to Chirp limited his outing to two hours. Forty minutes were already history. When the car was returned, aside from checking his watch, Chirp would certainly consult the mileage indicator. Simon wondered how far Miss Ulman planned to travel before she felt safe from local eyeballs.
When she pointed out a dirt road marked Seven Ponds Lane he hoped the pond Miss Ulman had in mind was first, second or third but not seventh. It turned out to be the fifth pond where she directed Simon to stop at the cusp of a crescent-shaped clearing invisible to passing cars.
“This is a wonderful place,” she said. “I wanted to share it with you, birthday boy. Because I know you’ll appreciate its beauty and solitude.”
Simon was listening to the Camaro’s Michelin tires grind against pebbles that paved the parking niche, thinking of how little stones sometimes lodged between the treads like seeds between teeth. “It is nice here,” he said.
“Are you a hungry author starving in your lonely attic?” Miss Ulman said.
“Famished.”
Miss Ulman handed Simon the basket. He followed her through a clump of bushes, around a large rock, past trees heavy with new leaves. When they reached a circle of grass on the bank of that fifth pond she opened the picnic basket, unfolded a thin blanket tucked under its lid, arranged red plastic plates, spoons, knives, cups, and napkins decorated with bluebirds in the blanket’s center. From pods of aluminum foil she produced raw carrots, celery strips, snap peas, sliced zucchini and slivers of green pepper. There was a box of French soda crackers, a tub filled with some kind of creamy dip, two containers of yogurt, a wedge of goat cheese, a few slices of ham and a tin of smoked oysters. A bottle of New York State champagne was cradled in a plastic pouch, kept cold on a bed of chipped ice. Lastly, Miss Ulman came up with a thick candle in a pewter holder and two chocolate cupcakes. “For my young stag,” she said.
Squatting on the blanket, Simon rocked the thick wine cork, pushing at its mushroom-shaped cap with both his thumbs. Finally, the liberated cork flew into the night. Simon heard liquid fizz like a genie inside the heavy bottle. Miss Ulman used a metal key to open the tin of smoked oysters. “I never tried those,” Simon said, pouring Taylor’s champagne into plastic cups. Miss Ulman plucked an oyster from the tin and slid it into his mouth. His tongue tasted a smoky, fishy flavor.
“Some believe oysters have magical powers,” Miss Ulman said. “They’re considered aphrodisiacs. There’s some medical validity since they are rich in phosphorous.”
“They taste like tobacco,” Simon said. He washed the oyster down, then sampled the tub of dip with a truncated celery stalk. “Guacamole,” she said.
“Good,” he said.
“Try the yogurt.”
“I don’t think so, Miss Ulman. I’m not really a yogurt person. I might be allergic.”
“It’s very healthy. And please, call me Tabby. We’re friends now.”
“I guess I have a thing about food that starts with a Y, Tabby.”
“You’re disappointed.”
“No,” Simon said. “I have these food quirks.”
“Well, it’s part of my job as your spirit guide to open your mind and heart to new experiences, to help you shuck off ingrained prejudice. It can be something as small as yogurt or as large as ambition. You have the capacity to cross every horizon, conquer any obstacle. When I read your lovely words I sense that you’re not like the others. You are a special young man. The whole world is your smoked oyster if you have the courage to seize the day.”
“Thanks,” Simon said. “I hope you’re right. Between us, I don’t feel very special. But I do think you’re very special. If it wasn’t for you I don’t know if I would have finished writing anything. I never met a woman like you. This might be the best birthday I ever had.”
“How sweet,” Tabitha Ulman said. “I’m going to confess something. I have strong feelings for you. Beyond the usual. You shine with luscious energy. Don’t laugh at me, Simon Apple, but I envy your future. I think about my own wee life and of the many marvelous adventures ahead of you, Simon, and the myriad of rooms you’ll enter. I think about you as if you were a ripening fruit about to let go of its branch. You’re destined to make many discoveries during your voyage through the world and break the hearts of many fair maidens along the way. I ask myself, Tabby, how far will Mr. Simon Apple travel? How marvelous will be his triumphs? Will he even remember a whisper of the gentle times we spent together? I see Tabitha Ulman here in Glenda, rooted like a statue, taken for granted, a fly spec on eternity’s wall while your path is unlimited. I do sound the fool. This isn’t easy to say. Feel how my heart is racing.”
She took Simon’s hand and placed it on her left breast so that he could feel her thumping heart. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. Simon leaned across the crudités and kissed her softly. Polly Moon’s kiss had been under glass. Technically, this was his first kiss outside the family circle. Simon’s head spun.
“Do you have feelings for me?” Tabitha said. “Do you find me attractive? Or am I a wrinkled old prune who belongs in a museum display? A conquest to boast about in the locker room.”
“I love you, Miss Ulman,” Simon said. “When I touch you, I feel smarter . I thought about touching you but I didn’t know it would make me feel smarter. A lot smarter. Does that make any sense?”
“Are you a virgin, Simon?”
“That’s a hard question to answer. Yes and no It would take some explaining . . .”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“A little, I suppose.”
“It’s getting chilly out here. Why don’t we take our drinks and go to the car. We’ll save your cupcake for later.”
“The car? You want to go to the car?” Simon said.
In the backseat of the Camaro, Simon was undressed, massaged, primed, and engulfed. He heard his groans mingle with Tabitha Ulman’s verdant moans. His shirt unbuttoned, his pants and shorts pulled down to his ankles, he waited while she unwrapped and unrolled a lubricated Trojan, then slipped the rubber cap over his swollen organ. She stripped off her sweater and bra, lifted her skirt, wriggled out of her panty hose and pushed him down onto Chirp’s leopard upholstery. He remembered his holy promise to sp
read a Turkish towel if he managed to get lucky but taking time to open the trunk and find it seemed gauche under the circumstances.
Simon’s qualms about accidental spatter were ignored the moment his sex entered Miss Ulman’s honeyed tunnel. She moved against his thrusting, in and out, in and out, until he exploded in a deluge. “You are the fountain of youth,” she said, panting. “Oh, Simon, my young prince, I thank God we came together after so many eons, through such twists and turns, and how many spins around the universe?”
“I think you turned me from a moth to an eagle,” Simon said.
“I hope you realize all this was no more than a dream. Something beautiful for us to cherish forever. One perfect rose of memory sealed in crystal. A treasure nobody else must even suspect.”
“Oh, please don’t worry on that score. I’m not going tell anybody,” Simon said.
“Not even your closest friend?”
“I promise. Scout’s honor. No, this goes into a locked box. Strictly private. When we come here it’s just you and me.”
“We can’t do this again. It would be wrong.”
“Why?” Simon said. “Is it because you’d probably end up doing time if somebody got wise? Forget it, Tabby. I’m the only witness.”
“Nothing to do with that,” Miss Ulman said. “Too complicated to parse.”
“What’s parse?” Simon said.
“Oh, something like dissect. It’s a grammatical thing.”
“I figured,” Simon said.
“You’ll understand some day. Some things can only happen once.”
“But why only once? Maybe twice? Like an encore?”
“We’ll see. Let’s get dressed now and finish our yogurt.”
“I was wondering if we could stop for a hamburger on the way home?” Simon said.
“I don’t think so,” Miss Ulman said. She pulled up her panty hose, hooked her bra, hiked her skirt, got into her sweater, slipped into her sandals and got out of the car.
“What a glorious night,” she said. “So many stars and the moon is a melon.”
Simon, still glowing, coped with the condom dangling with the weight of a few million dazed sperm. Even the slightest drip on the upholstery would be a disaster. He managed to get the rubber off without incident, tossed it out the window, then buttoned his shirt and grabbed for his pants.
Something was wrong.
Simon couldn’t bend.
He tried moving. He couldn’t move. He was anchored to the Camaro.
“Come make a wonderful wish and blow out your cupcake candle.”
Simon twisted in place, trying to push himself up with his arms. His body elevated but his bottom stayed glued to the car’s rear seat. His blissful mood dissolved to panic. He searched his memory for anything read or overheard about symptoms involving the rump.
“Simon?”
“Miss Ulman? Tabitha? I’m having a problem.”
When the police and firemen responded to an anonymous call from an unknown woman, they found Simon Apple fused to the chassis of a ’68 Camaro sedan. He told an officer he’d “borrowed” the vehicle from a friend and driven to Seven Ponds Lane on impulse.
When a team of paramedics tried to pry him loose they discovered that what held him in place was beyond the realm of any known adhesive.
While they fussed over him, Simon Apple tried hard to concentrate on the lovely memory of Miss Ulman’s tremulous body. His object was to put aside his own embarrassment and any thoughts of Chirp Bennet’s reaction to the news that the right rear door of his car had been ripped off by a rescue team, that the backseat was pried from its foundation by the Jaws of Life, that the gas tank had ruptured spilling a dangerous puddle of fuel and that the muffler detached.
Miss Ulman had explained her predicament while she packed her basket and left in a hurry on foot. Simon encouraged her flight, asking only that she take time to sound some kind of alarm. He’d apologized profusely for the inconvenience she’d suffered. The marvelous woman was a real sport about the unexpected developments, genuinely sympathetic and compassionate, all in keeping with her character. True to her word, she’d summoned help. Simon worried about how Miss Ulman would find her way back to Glenda while a doctor who’d arrived by helicopter examined his nether regions.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” the doctor said. “Except in the case of conjoined twins. This boy appears to be bonded not only with the seat and portions of the trunk and frame but also the drive shaft. There may be some involvement with the transmission as well. Only an extensive scan will tell us. Make no further attempt to free the victim. He can’t be cut loose. We’ll have to tow the entire unit to Glenda Memorial as quickly as possible. I’ll call ahead and warn them. I don’t know if the Emergency Room can handle this mass. Maybe they can move some life support to the downstairs garage.”
41
At dawn, inside a large tent hastily erected on the hospital lawn, Simon Apple ate a substantial breakfast of ham, eggs, toast and tea with Robert J. sitting behind the Camaro’s wheel. “What the hell were you doing out there?”
“Nothing,” Simon said, gulping down hot Earl Grey. “You keep asking the same question.”
“Why did you tell the police you drove yourself?”
“Because I did.”
“Car theft and driving without a license? Those are serious charges, Simon. When I saw Marvin Klipstein he just shook his head. He said the case hinges on extenuating circumstances.”
“There was nothing extenuating about the circumstances,” Simon said.
“They found a candle in the grass. The wax was still hot. And a cupcake. They’re talking about witchcraft.”
“I gave myself a birthday party,” Simon said. “Sweet seventeen.”
“You’re sure you were alone?”
“I answered that.”
“They found a lipstick. And a condom.”
“What do you want me to do, take the Fifth? What’s the difference what they found?”
“I’ll get the story out of you,” Robert J. said.
“When are they going to let me out of here?”
“Dr. Fikel says we’re facing serious surgery.”
“We?”
“They called in Dr. Martin Feibush from Chicago. He’s the only surgeon in history who separated triplets.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Simon said. “I’m dead anyhow. When Chirp Bennet hears what happened to his wheels . . .”
“Was the Negro involved in this?”
“The Negro? Are you referring to my former best friend? No, Chirp wasn’t involved but he’ll get involved, don’t worry about that. You know how he loves this car? Shall I count the ways?”
Under anesthesia, Simon dreamed about Tabitha Ulman. He was walking in a garden when she popped out of a salad bowl filled with weeds. Her head balanced on a fragile stem. Simon bent to sniff her perfumed hair. He heard a buzzing sound. A gigantic bee circled her head. The bee had a human face. It looked like Albert Essman. Simon kept swatting at it with his fist. He was flailing his arms when he woke in a foggy daze. He heard Dr. Fikel congratulate Dr. Feibush on a fabulous piece of work.
“I thought I’d reached my peak with those damn triplets,” Dr. Feibush said. “The Medicaid scale for Siamese detachments is pathetic. Six hundred dollars per detachment. That operation ended up costing me money. It’s a wise man who said no good deed goes unpunished.”
“The story of your skill was on the national news,” Dr. Fikel said. “All three networks.”
“You could say the publicity was worth something. But there was a downside. After that procedure I had the feeling I’d done it all, that nothing more challenging than a brain tumor would come along. When you called about the Apple boy it was like a shot of adrenalin. Still, I’m glad we weren’t dealing with a foreign car. You realize I had to practically reconstruct the Poupart’s ligament and restructure the aponeurosis of the obliquus externus abdominus, the inguinal canal, the piriformis, the pec
tineus and adductor longus, never forgetting the magnus and rectus femurs. The gluteus medius and maximus were no piece of cake, and neither were the sacrum, sacrococcygeus, coccyx, and innominatum, nor the required building some facsimile of a functional ilia, ischia and os pubis. Did I mention the sacral plexus and saphenous vein were wrapped around the sigmoid flexure and caecum, compromising the descending colon and rectum? But what the hell, you never promised me a rose garden.”
“But what caused the fusion?” Dr. Fikel said. “There was no evidence of prior trauma.”
“That’s the $64 question. We may never know. You showed me his record. Cripthalizine, Nonacripthae, Viloxidril, Aquathaline . My hunch is that it was some residue of one or all or none of the above. That was some tangle of muscles, tendons and bone. The X-rays reminded me of an Ingmar Bergman movie.”
“I’ve contacted Regis Pharmaceuticals,” Dr. Fikel said. “They never encountered a similar case.”
“Whatever the genesis, Apple’s not out of danger yet. His spine is still linked to a coil from the shock absorber and there’s pelvic adhesion to a sliver of brake drum. Frankly, the prognosis is dubious. I’d strongly advise against any further invasive surgery. There’s every chance he’ll remain bedridden for the rest of his life.”
“And the periodic erections?”
“More spasms than erections,” Dr. Feibush said. “They might subside in due course. I wouldn’t venture to predict. I’ve done all I can here, Dr. Fikel. He’s your patient now. But your mentioning Regis Pharmaceuticals did stir a memory. Back in the forties, when Regis was a start-up company, one of their salespeople came to me touting a drug called Expeloton . As I recall, it was developed to help the profession in cases where practitioners leave things like scalpels or scissors lodged in body cavities. Which of us hasn’t had that experience? These days, who has the time to take inventory of every gizmo laying around the OR? They claimed Expeloton could nudge the immune system to disintegrate metal and facilitate its disposal in fecal matter. The patient actually hears a clank when fragments make contact with the toilet bowl and theoretically, that’s the end of it.”
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