You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can't Make It Scuba Dive)

by Robert Bruce Cormack

  “That okay, Iris.”

  “Well, let me know if you do. Your Mary must be beside herself. Tell her to call me if she wants to talk.” She gives me the name of her psychiatrist and some advice about trimming hydrangeas. She thinks we have hydrangeas. “Good luck, Sam,” she says and hangs up.

  I sit there in the dark, listening to The Rec Room of Sound through the window. Otis is throwing out a song to some woman who just got back from having a nose job. “Here’s The Dramatics singing, ‘What You See is What You Get’, and let’s hope that schnoz of yours turns out to be a good one, Whitney.”

  Three thousand twenty views. I guess moral turpitude sells, but you’d think at least one person would shoot him in the ass. I go back inside as Otis announces he needs another pee break. He leaves us with Rufus Thomas singing “Walking the Dog.”

  I’m wondering about this psychiatrist business. The whole thing is a bit of a doddle as far as I’m concerned. Where does talking get the average person? Nothing really changes. At least Krupsky admits it’s a crapshoot. And it’s probably true that psychiatrists take more pills than their patients. People go to psychiatrists because nobody else will listen to them. They’ve worn out everybody else’s eardrums.

  I’m also thinking about this fishing trip coming up with Nick and Dewey. Judy and Muller should be back in Seattle by then. I asked Judy the other day when they’re leaving. “Why are you trying to get rid of us?” she said. I told her about the fishing trip in August. “Can’t you take Muller with you?” she said. Muller came up the basement stairs holding his oxygen mask. The strap was broken. He was looking for scotch tape or a stapler.

  I tried calling Nick this morning and got his answering machine. Dewey said he’s probably down in Florida, deep sea fishing or buying local artifacts for his craft shows. Dewey’s been filling in at his brother’s picture framing shop. “I’m waiting for a lull,” he told me on the phone. “The place is crazy right now, Sam. All you do is take orders and send the pictures to a framing factory. Everyone uses the same company. Nobody undercuts anybody.” He wants to check out the towns up north, maybe corner the market in Wausau. “Come in with me,” he said. “We’ll be the framing kings.”

  I told him I’d think about it. Now I’m sitting in the kitchen, watching The Rec Room of Sound. Bisquick is hopping about, pecking at the computer screen. I think of my family and friends, the strange scenario playing out all around me. Everyone is moving on, getting things done. Look at the obstacles they’ve overcome. Nick, Dewey and Margot lost their jobs just like me. They’ve picked themselves up. Christ, Otis has over three thousand viewers now. Sponsorship is in the wind. Ruby and Max have their own painting company. All I’m doing, as far as I can see, is babysitting my daughter’s husband, and attempting the occasional water rescue.

  The next morning, I’m sitting around the sunroom. There’s dead air over at Otis’s place. Half the time he just lets records play through, catching catnaps in his chair. I watch him suddenly jump up, push Bisquick off his turntable, and cue up another song.

  “We’re back”—he coughs—“This one goes back to when Ruby was still in short dresses.”

  Ruby is carrying paint cans from the laundry room. “What song are you talking about?”

  “I’m getting to it, Ruby.”

  “All I heard was me in short dresses.”

  “Like I was saying, folks,” he said. “Here’s a song done by Linda Lyndell called ‘What a Man’ recorded around 1968.”

  “Damn right I was in short dresses.” She goes upstairs.

  “Any of you wondering what Ruby’s doing with all the paint,” Otis says, “she and Max have a bunch of new contracts. According to our business manager—” he turns the computer to show Margot sitting at a desk in the corner—“Ruby and Max are booked all summer. Right, Margot? It’s really hopping, huh?”

  Margot looks over her bifocals. “Nothing’s hopping til the money’s on my desk.”

  Max comes downstairs in painter pants and a red bandana. He and Ruby obviously have a uniform worked out.

  “How’s it going, Max?” Otis says.

  “I’m working my ass off, old man. Try it some time.”

  “There you go, folks,” Otis says. “Capitalism in motion.”

  I watch the computer screen with everyone rushing about. Things are really moving over there. It gives me an idea. I go downstairs and pull the oxygen mask off Muller. His eyes pop open. “Get dressed,” I say. “We’re going to work.”

  “Where?”

  “Painting with Max and Ruby. The sun will do us good.” He practically flies off his cot.

  “I don’t know how good a painter I am,” he says.

  “Just get your socks on.” I go start the car and sit there smiling. What better way to get Ruby out of Muller’s system? The man moves at the speed of a possum. How long before Ruby kicks him in the pants?

  Muller comes out wearing one of his tie-dyed shirts. I thought those things went out in the sixties. He takes a bent cigarette out of his back pocket and lights it. “What do you think Ruby’ll have us doing?” he asks, and I tell him I don’t know. Probably scraping eavestroughs. “I’m not great with heights, Sam,” he says. “I get dizzy.”

  Driving across Division to Clybourn, Muller fiddles with his hair, patting down wandering curls. I’m surprised he hasn’t licked his hand and tried to tack them down. “This isn’t a church social,” I say to him.

  “I could have used a shower, Sam.” He keeps looking at himself in side mirror.

  We arrive just as Max and Ruby are getting the last of their stuff out of the basement. Otis is reading the paper with Margot’s bifocals.

  “You’ve got yourself two painters,” I tell Ruby.

  “Painters?” Otis says. “We need Muller up in the kitchen.”

  “Not today, Otis,” I say. “What about it, Ruby?”

  Ruby looks Muller up and down. “Have you ever worked with a brush, Muller?” Ruby says.

  “A few rooms around our house.”

  “I guess you’ll get the hang of it. You’re not going to fall off the ladder, are you? You look at bit tipsy.”

  “I just woke up,” he says. “Sam dragged me out of bed.”

  “He’ll be okay,” I say.

  “He’d better be okay,” Margot says. “We don’t have medical.” We all look over at Otis’s computer screen.

  “Do you think anyone heard that?” Max says.

  “Like a church testimonial,” Otis replies.

  “Boogaloo,” Bisquick squawks.

  “Let’s get moving,” Ruby says. She starts taking a bunch of rollers upstairs while Max grabs some paint sheets. “Muller, you go with Sam.”

  “Can’t I ride with you, Ruby?”

  “There’s no room in the truck.” She brings out two bandanas. “Here’s your headgear,” she says us. “Buy yourself some painter pants on the way home. We have a strict dress code.”

  We get in our respective vehicles and drive off. “Can’t I ride with you, Ruby?” I imitate Muller. “You’re embarrassing yourself, you know that?”

  “I just like being with her, Sam.”

  “You’re not going to be with her. You’re going to be up a ladder.” Muller starts fiddling with his hair again. “Here,” I say, grabbing his bandana out of his pocket. “Tie this on your head. You’ll be getting a lot of sun.”

  “I wish I brought my baseball cap.”

  “You can wear your baseball cap tomorrow. Today you’re going to work your ass off. Eight hours of scraping and you won’t give a shit about Ruby. You won’t give a shit about anything.”

  “If you say so, Sam.”

  “Ever see painters when they finish for the day? They look like crap. You’re going to look like crap, too. So’s Ruby.”

  “I can’t imagine that, Sam.”

  “Imagine it, Muller.”

  He ties on the handkerchief with the flap down over his face.

  Chapter 26

  R
uby put some zinc oxide on Muller’s nose earlier. He kept giving her those stupid goo-goo eyes most of the afternoon. I kicked him going out to the car later and he went “Urumph.” His eyes go a dull brown, a sickening color brought on by ardor and, no doubt, a certain element of guilt that I place there whenever the opportunity arises. “You’re beating a dead horse,” I said to him.

  Now we’re sitting around Otis’s kitchen, eating brownies. Bisquick is a crumb hound. He flies from one plate to another, snatching up crumbs faster than you can blink.

  Otis Cries for You is building a steady audience. Tears flow, the burden of grief is lifted, and Otis takes all the credit. He’s out to lunch and seriously bordering on a class action lawsuit from seriously offended individuals. He tells one woman her daughter is simply expressing herself by taking on four guys in a Grand Caravan. Margot finally pushes him out of his seat. “Scratch that last comment,” she says. “Listen, Mavis, your daughter’s a messed up little boob. She obviously lacks self-esteem.” Margot leans into the computer, squinting. “And you, Estelle, you’re giving your mother the heebie-jeebies. Men want smart girls. They don’t want floozies who can hook their toes on door handles.”

  Otis comes up off the floor. Margot pushes him over again. “Look, Estelle,” Margot continues. “You can’t spend your life taking on the whole Little League and expect sympathy. Get off your keister and make something of yourself. It wouldn’t hurt you to do the same, Mavis. Both of you need to wise up.”

  Ruby comes downstairs and starts folding laundry. “Look at Ruby,” Margot says. “Otis cheated on her. She caught them in bed right here in this very house. What did she do? She picked herself up, dusted herself off. Now she’s got a good painting business. She didn’t get it feeling sorry for herself. She got it using good old-fashioned initiative. Here’s the deal, Estelle, and you too, Mavis, stop relying on men. They’re just mainframes for dicks.”

  “Steady on, Margot,” Otis says.

  Ruby laughs. “Did you tell them it was Max’s girlfriend?” she says.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Otis says.

  “I didn’t know that,” Margot says.

  “I think it’s time for a song,” Otis says. “Here’s The Purify Brothers, doing, ‘I’m Your Puppet’.”

  The blogs and phone calls fly in after that. Everyone’s crazy about Margot. They want her to do her own show. “Bullshit baffles brains,” she says, but they keep asking for her advice, and wouldn’t you know, the next thing we hear, Margot’s starting her own internet show called Reality Check. It’s positioned right after Otis Cries for You. The highlight is Margot pushing Otis out of his chair which, surprisingly, never gets old. Comments come in from as far south as Oklahoma. The audience hates Otis and loves Margot, creating a perfect counterpoint. The format never changes. Otis can say what he wants, telling people to protest or fall out of trees. Then Margot gets on, calls everyone “bubbleheads,” and tells them they’ll never get anywhere following the advice of a craphound like Otis. Believe it or not, they’ve got the demographic in their pockets.

  People call in, happy to hear Otis rant away about the lack of moral fabric in society today, and happier still when Margot tells him he’s a Fruit Loop. Just the other day, Otis informed a woman she was being too chummy with her dog. Margot sent him flying. “You should be horsewhipped, Otis,” she told him. “Don’t you worry, Mary Beth. His mind is a sewer. Loving a pet is a wonderful thing, and it takes a sick individual like Otis to turn it into something sordid. Which is like men in general, I might add. They’re all dickswingers.”

  That just sends the feminist groups into hysterics. “You are a shining light in a maelstrom of chauvinism,” one feminist wrote, to which Otis dropped his pants, Margot shoved him over again, and Bisquick went for his balls. The screams brought more comments from women, some claiming Otis led their daughters astray. “Well, if your daughter’s are dumb enough to listen to him,” Margot says, “they deserve what they get.” Sometimes a guy will offer up some defense, like, “Girls dress like whores,” but Margot tells him if every girl wearing a short skirt wanted to be raped, we wouldn’t get any work done. “Try taking the mirrors off your shoes,” she said to him.

  Feminists keep sending her buttons, saying “No means no,” which Margot claims is about the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. “You wouldn’t have to say no if you tried having an intelligent conversation. Half the time, these guys stick their hands up your blouse just to break the monotony.” Even Otis nods to that. Then Bisquick starts nipping at his nuts, he’s holding his privates in one hand, and swatting Bisquick with the other. The feminists think that’s a hoot.

  Chapter 27

  Muller spends most of the drive home taking paint chips out of his hair, leaving them everywhere. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking. On the one hand, he isn’t argumentative, on the other, you’re never sure if he’s even listening. Most of the time, he just sits there, or stands there, making the odd complaint about his vertigo or his back or the way the sun shines in his eyes. In his slow, inoffensive way, he takes life as it comes; part survivor, part complainer, carrying on despite all the troubles that seem to pop and grind in his head.

  When we get home, Mary and Judy are on the yoga mats while Meek and Beek clean their beaks on the cage bars. A recording of waves plays on the stereo. Incense smoke rises from a cockleshell. “That’s some burn, Muller,” Judy says. “What’s on your nose?”

  “Ruby gave me some zinc oxide.”

  “We’re working for Ruby’s Painting,” I say to Mary.

  “What’s Ruby got you doing?”

  “Scraping paint, mostly.”

  “We saw Margot on air earlier. I didn’t know she had it in her.”

  “She’s a pistol,” I say.

  “How did Otis end up sleeping with Max’s girlfriend?” Judy asks.

  “Long story.”

  “He shouldn’t treat Ruby that way,” Muller says, taking off his bandana. There’s a tan line across the middle of his forehead.

  “Muller, look at you,” Judy says, rubbing his forehead like she can blend the red and the white together. “Who shouldn’t treat Ruby that way?” she says.

  “Otis,” he says. “Ruby could do better.”

  I give Muller a warning glance. “What’s for dinner?” I ask.

  “Pot roast,” Mary says. “It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes. So, Margot’s got her own show, huh? I’ve never heard her talk so much. It’s quite funny, actually.”

  “She’s getting tons of feedback.”

  “Just for telling mothers to suck it up?”

  “They like the message.”

  Judy takes Muller’s arm. “Come on, Muller,” she says. “Let’s get you in the shower and I’ll scrub your back. Where did you guys get those painter pants?”

  “We bought them on the way home,” he says. “Ruby says we have to wear them. I’m feeling a bit funny, Judy.”

  “What kind of funny?”

  “I think I need to lie down.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “Just give me fifteen minutes or so.” He starts downstairs and I follow him. “What the hell’s wrong now?” I say.

  His eyes suddenly go a little wonky. “I don’t know, Sam. I feel funny.”

  “What kind of funny?” I help him down on his cot. “Do you want the oxygen?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  I put the mask over his face and turn on the juice. Muller starts to relax. He’s breathing like Darth Vader again. I leave the mask on him and go upstairs. Mary and Judy are putting dinner out while Meek and Beek chirp, or whatever it is lovebirds do. “I think he’s got a touch of sunstroke,” I say to them.

  “I’ve never seen his face so red,” Mary says.

  “Me either,” Judy says. “I’d better see how he’s doing.”

  She starts down the basement stairs, but Muller is already on his way up. “Feeling better?” she says to him, and he looks at her like a tran
quilized dog. “Come up here and have something to eat,” Judy says. “Maybe you’re hypoglycemic. Did you eat lunch today? Muller’s a bit diabetic,” she tells us. “He gets tired easily, don’t you Big Bear? You’ll be okay once you eat something.”

  She sits him down and stuffs a napkin in the neck of his t-shirt. Then she spoons out mashed potatoes and green beans. He just sits there, looking all dopey. It was hot as hell on the ladders today. Muller doesn’t mind first floor work around the windows. It’s anything over ten feet that gives him vertigo. He’ll stop halfway, saying maybe he needs to use the washroom. “Ruby’s going to think you’re a slacker,” I told him at one point, and he went up the rungs like a trapeze artist. It’s like dealing with Pavlov’s dog.

  Chapter 28

  What did John Lennon say? Success happens to you while you’re busy doing something else? Somewhere along the way, I guess I was doing something else and this happened. I haven’t felt dizzy since I started working outside. The agoraphobia still kicks in occasionally, but other than that, I’m doing okay. I feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.

  The psychiatrist called yesterday, saying Iris talked to him. “You still getting panic attacks, Sam?” he asked. I told him I was better. “Better in what way?” I told him I was walking, talking, taking out the garbage. We agreed it might be better to wait. I wasn’t having any attacks lately, although he warned it might be temporary. “Some people only have a few attacks and it’s over. Others go on for years. Call me if they come back with any regularity. We’ll go from there.”

  I got off the phone feeling partly relieved, partly offended. These psychiatrists only seem to want the meatier cases. Give them a straightforward occasional panic attack and they practically yawn on the phone. He made me curious about one thing, though. I’d like to know why some people only get a few attacks while others have them all the time. After supper, I do a little research on the Internet. Most information sites are sponsored by the drug companies. They obviously want to get you hooked on their latest product. None of them tell you to pick up a paintbrush. It’s all about endorphins, and you’re seriously fucked if you don’t take their medication. To use Bisquick’s words, they’re all cocksuckers. I checked The Rec Room of Sound. Otis was passed out with his face on the keyboard. A record was skipping—funky chicken, funky chicken. Bisquick was asleep on Otis’s head. Every so often, Otis swatted at him like a fly.