Benediction

by Arnold, Jim

  “What do you mean? You talking about work, Paul, all that?”

  A mist blew through the square, and he seemed to dissolve right into it. “Oh, no, you’re not going anywhere until you fucking answer me!” A young man with a little girl in tow stopped and stared. He shook his head.

  “Come on, honey,” he said to her. “We don’t want to be late for school.”

  * * *

  Bev Slater wasn’t at Mount Whore that day, but Davis was. I could flatter myself into thinking my treatment appointment was the reason he showed up, though I knew I’d eventually be proven wrong.

  Mark—back when he was alive—would sometimes laugh at me for believing in what he called “magic.” I hadn’t changed that much.

  When Primus was done with me, Monica unstrapped me from the cradle and slab. I followed her to the same little windowless area where Davis and I began our affair.

  He was already there.

  “Mr. Schmidt, good morning. We’re glad you’re back,” he said, looking over a chart I assumed was mine. “How was the Piedmont?”

  “See you tomorrow, Ben,” Monica said, closing the door behind her.

  “Mr. Schmidt?” I laughed.

  Jim Arnold He closed the metal-covered folder and sat behind the small desk in the room.

  “This is the hospital.”

  Davis had become the anonymous head of radiology once more. There wasn’t a trace of the funny guy I’d dated, the one who’d been so attentive and open and curious about everything. This was the pleasant-looking fellow in a spotless white coat with privileged detachment.

  “Understood.” I sat down, folded my arms. “The Piemonte was just fine. We won the fucking award—in case you’re interested.”

  His eyes lit up for a second. Really, they did.

  “Yeah? Wonderful,” Davis said, looking at his watch. “You’re coming along fine here. There’s six more sessions—Bev’s not made any notes of concern. Side effects?”

  “I’ve been fine.” It was like being in a Lifetime movie where a loved one’s come down with intractable amnesia.

  “Let her know if that changes.” He stood up. “I’ve got another patient waiting.” Davis extended his hand to me.

  I didn’t move. “You want to shake my hand?”

  He stood there a second, then realized this part of the script wasn’t going to go his way. He moved closer to the door.

  “I’m sure the trustees here will be interested in your unsafe-sex practices,” I said. “Mount Horeb relies on public funding, right?”

  He walked out. The door hit the wall with a bang, leaving a dent in the plaster.

  23

  A fairly routine follow-up appointment with Dr. Kim was scheduled the following week. Officially, he still managed my case, even if Presidio itself wasn’t in on the radiation portion of our entertainment program. I supposed he and that fucker Davis occasionally talked and compared notes or sent unintelligible e-mails to each other.

  Or maybe they didn’t and that was merely my fantasy about the inner workings of the medical profession. At any rate, I was happy to see him.

  “Lift up your shirt; let me check the scar,” he said. Anticipating this, I sat there in black, low-rise Calvins, but left my shirt on as it was, as usual, freezing in the exam room.

  “It’s healing like it should.”

  “It looks bigger to me,” I said. “Maybe when the hair grows back—”

  “Once the radiation’s over, don’t worry, it’ll all come back,” he said, sitting back down on the rolling stool, its wheels grating over the floor. “Any incontinence?”

  “No Defendors in the last week.”

  “You’re ahead of our plan. Anything else?”

  “Actually…I’d like to get an STD test—I might have come in contact with something—there’s that new syphilis scare we keep hearing about.”

  Dr. Kim’s eyes widened. “I’m glad you’re getting out there. Can’t be easy after all you’ve been through—but you’ve got to be safe, remember that.”

  He ripped the white lab slip from his pad and handed it to me.

  * * *

  It was only a tiny lie. From the gallons of previous blood work I’d had done at Presidio, I knew an HIV test could easily be added with my signature on a consent form.

  Plan was, I’d get it, it would come back negative, and that would be the end of that as well as the end of Davis Sternberg in my life.

  I’d thought about a lot on that plane ride back from New York, still wincing from the priapism debacle. Jake was the one, that seemed clear, and now he wasn’t available. Eric flashed across my mind, but I honestly never thought that was much more than an occasional hookup, despite his softening the last time we met.

  I’d also mulled over both Dallas’s and Glenda’s requests for sperm. What I hadn’t considered when I began my “contributions” was that a woman I knew might want it, and thus there’d be a child lurking in my future who’d probably look a lot like me. The more I thought about it, the less bizarre an idea it became.

  With Glenda, the kid would get dual citizenship, editorial talent, her sarcastic wit and the nurturing lesbian village. With Dallas, the child would have a waitress-hopping mom who sold dope, sometimes worked as a call girl and added to the confusion by frequently dyeing her hair a different color. Clearly, the logical choice would be Glenda.

  I picked Dallas.

  * * *

  Trying to avoid Safe Harbor for as long as possible, I stopped in at the Slog to give her the good news. She’d managed to convince me—over whiskey, usually—that despite outward appearances she’d be an excellent mom. I figured her iconoclastic nature would have unusual maternal benefits, opening up atypical paths for the kid, a SoMa version of Auntie Mame.

  “Hello?” I said to the darkness. The colored lights, the liquor bottles and the back mirror began to come into focus.

  Truth was, I looked a lot better in this kind of light. My cheeks had sunk a little and I’d lost color throughout the entire cancer process. I was able to tighten my belt to a notch not seen since starving myself two years prior in the weeks before the White Party.

  “Well, Ben! Rickie’s at the corner getting his tuna salad. He left me in charge.”

  Edmund walked behind the bar, his leather jacket open, showing off his bare chest with its full expanse of snow-white hair. He wore the usual jock strap below and nothing else except a pair of red flip-flops.

  “I could use some whiskey, Edmund.”

  He turned to get my bottle of Wild Turkey. His fleshy ass sagged over the back straps of the jock, so from my perspective he looked naked.

  “You must be feeling better if you’re back,” I said.

  He put the bottle and a glass in front of me. “Liver’s had it, Ben. I promised the doc, no more booze.”

  “Yeah?” I poured about two fingers of whiskey into my glass.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if I end up back at the VA.” His wide grin showed missing teeth on the upper left.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. “Dallas around?”

  His answer in the negative was drowned out by conversation on the sidewalk that only got louder as it approached the open door.

  It was the unmistakable bellow of Paul Sutcliffe. The slats parted and he walked in.

  With Jason.

  “She had her shift last night at Tanga and came over on a break,” Edmund said. “You know what that means. She’s sleeping it off.”

  I had the advantage for only a moment, as Paul and Jason would be blinded coming in. There wasn’t time to hide, though that was my first thought—the back room, the restroom, behind the pinball machine—all could’ve been pressed into service if I’d had quicker reflexes.

  “The reorg presentation will be shown to the board in two weeks, so I’m really going to be counting on…oh. Schmidtster, now, this is a surprise,” Paul said, apparently fully able to see in pitch darkness—like Satan.

  Jason looked nauseous. I ha
d the whiskey in my hand. It wasn’t quite noon.

  “Ben, what are you doing?” Jason said. “Hi,” I said.

  “An early, liquid lunch, I see,” said Paul. “Guess I might do the same if I was the reigning gay porn king of Safe Harbor. Or is it queen?”

  * * *

  That afternoon I sat at my desk, subdued, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tony told me not to leave without talking to him after I’d arrived back from the bar.

  Kelly was on a skiing vacation somewhere in Utah. Amy’d been in a whirlwind new romance, some guy she met on the show floor at CES in Vegas who conveniently lived on the block next to hers in Berkeley.

  I had a new computer to get used to, the old one having been confiscated. I had the odd feeling that every keystroke was being logged.

  Finally, the red light on my phone lit up, followed by its cheerful trill.

  Tony had gained a few pounds over the holidays. A middle button on his pale blue button-down was simply missing, his undershirt, which barely contained him, pushing through. I knew his shoes were off without looking.

  I sat in front of his desk like so many times before but felt particularly like the naughty boy today. Knowing what was about to happen heightened my perception that this was a movie being shot at high angle, the perp camera badly hidden up in a corner.

  “For the millionth time, I don’t know how that film got on the computer,” I said.

  Tony looked like he was going to puke. He wasn’t an evil man—I’m sure he’d been coached by those murky higher-ups no one seemed to be able to keep straight from one month to the next.

  “There’s no evidence it got there any other way, Ben. The IT investigation found no reason to suspect hacking—so—we’re suspending you.”

  “Jesus, Tony—”

  “I’d appreciate it if your watched your language,” he said.

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying something about his sudden conversion.

  “What does that mean, suspend? It sounds like high school,” I said.

  Tony sighed and rearranged papers on his desk.

  “You work on projects already started, but from home, and we continue to pay you,” he said. “Your benefits are intact as well.”

  So there was a definite possibility that somewhere down the road my health insurance would be jeopardized. Now it was me who felt nauseous.

  “Once the investigation is finally done, you’ll either be reinstated here or terminated.”

  “So cold.”

  He raised his eyebrows but didn’t otherwise move. I got up from the chair, felt lightheaded and grabbed the edge of his desk to keep from falling.

  “You know I’ll call my lawyer.”

  * * *

  I had no idea at all what I would do—the lawyer part was just bluster, though I supposed it would be easy enough to find one.

  Best to start looking for that new job, though later in the week I’d promised to go to L.A. for a Hell for the Holidays screening. If I had to be suspended, at least that would be easier.

  The next day I pretended to get ready for treatment and work as usual. Karen saw me make my lunch, ready the backpack, complain about the fog. It was like this old TV movie, A Sensitive, Passionate Man, where David Janssen plays an alcoholic who’s lost his job, then fools wife Angie Dickinson for months about going to work when in reality he spends his day in a parking lot drinking vodka.

  “Isn’t it, like, your last week for treatment?” Karen said, as I made a Swiss and tomato sandwich.

  “Yep, I graduate in a few days.”

  She poured milk into a kid’s sugar cereal. The flakes hissed as they took on the liquid.

  “We’ll celebrate down in L.A.”

  * * *

  While on the slab at Mount Whore I decided that ruse about going to work was pretty lame, after all. Being suspended like this would be a benefit. Better care could be taken of the flat; I could easily monitor what Jake was up to; I might even be able to fix the rodent problem once and for all.

  My project for the day would be to finally give Dallas the good news.

  Tracking her down was never simple, though it could be predictable. She lived with roommates in an old crooked railroad flat on Langton Street, around the corner from a café that doubled as a Laundromat.

  He flat was basically within crawling distance of the Slog, so she often sat there nursing a morning coffee watching clothes spin around endlessly in their dryers. She’d have her sunglasses on, of course, and would light up a cigarette and smoke it until an invariably irate employee would tell her to either put it out or leave.

  Dallas didn’t disappoint. As usual, she was dressed in black and had dyed her hair an even darker shade—if that was possible—which she’d paired with pale pink lipstick.

  “You look like you have a hangover,” I said from behind her, facing the wall of dryers.

  She took a sip from a big mug. “Ben Schmidt, you’re the perceptive one,” she said, offering me the cup.

  “No thanks, my stomach, just had treatment—that’s just coffee, right?”

  She smiled, showing her near-perfect teeth. “You think I put drugs in it?”

  “No, that would be stupid of me—”

  “I’d just take them straight; who the fuck needs coffee?”

  I noticed she was barefoot. Her feet were filthy. “Aren’t you cold?” I said, taking in the disgusting floor around her.

  “Yes. I looked all over the apartment. I couldn’t find my shoes. I may have left them at Rocky’s place.”

  Dallas wouldn’t even need to light up; she’d get kicked out for the “no shoes, no service” rule.

  “Rocky?”

  “Guy from last night, got his number somewhere,” she said, while she rummaged around in her bag for stray slips of paper that might contain it.

  * * *

  The tradition of the grumpy old men was to bring in donuts for the radiation staff on one’s last day.

  It seemed so final. But feeling generous, I was game and bought a box of the most exotic and expensive breakfast pastries I could find. Monica bit her lip when I gave it to her. “That’s so sweet, Mr. Schmidt. You didn’t have to.”

  “There might even be a cannoli or two in there,” I said.

  She laughed, telling me Davis had formally transferred my entire case to Bev Slater. He was nowhere to be found—not that I was surprised.

  Monica put her arms around me. “God bless you,” she said. Whatever reply was going to come out got stuck in my throat.

  I’d gotten the HIV test results the day before—still negative, thank God, and there were no other STDs—not that this in any way absolved Davis of his stupid behavior. Although I had no desire to see him again, I’d be less likely to hold a grudge.

  “You’ll see me in six weeks; we’ll do a PSA test then,” Dr. Bev said.

  “So that’s it? I’m done with cancer?”

  She rubbed my hand instead of shaking it. “I suspect you are. Follow up with Kim at Presidio. After the PSA, he’ll manage your case again.”

  * * *

  “That’s all there is to it?” Karen said.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. It does seem a little anticlimactic, though.”

  On the way to L.A., we’d stopped at Kettleman City for gas and the required burger at In-N-Out. A couple of Pomona College buses were parked in back. My sunglasses provided suitable cover to make cruising the boys less obvious.

  “Everything goes back to normal, I suppose,” I said between bites, a slice of onion getting stuck in my teeth.

  Karen frowned. She’d had only a small taste of her own sandwich but was already scooping up stray grains of salt with the dregs of her fries.

  “It seems like there never was a time before this. I mean, a year ago, I had a husband. There was no movie. You had cancer but didn’t know it.”

  “It’s only been a day or so, Karen. I’m not used to not having cancer yet.”

  She looked out past the buses
to what looked like an onion field that stretched on to infinity. She hadn’t talked about Dennis much in a long time.

  “Your settlement, any closer to…?”

  “Fuck it,” she said. “I’m going to have a cigarette.”

  Karen pulled a Winston from her bag and left our table. She opened the restaurant door so fast, a little black boy coming in nearly went flying.

  * * *

  The Hell for the Holidays screening took place at the cavernous Directors Guild Headquarters on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The bright day had turned hot, and it was not well attended, at least by what I thought would be typical L.A. standards.

  Karen was thrilled to introduce the movie—I figured I’d done it enough, and I wanted to smooth over the tension I felt the rest of the trip after our lunch stop.

  She’d told me once or twice that she really never felt like a filmmaker, though without her unwavering management we’d never have finished anything at all. She regarded the elegant DGA with the reverence one might have for a church.

  The audience itself was polite if passionless: some applause, not sustained, always a letdown. They exuded the distinct impression that there was somewhere else they needed to be, as if this was a slightly irritating stop along the afternoon’s trajectory. They fidgeted; they frowned at Karen and one another; they avoided eye contact.

  * * *

  I’d lived in L.A. in a previous life but hadn’t been back recently. The city itself was constantly changing—a new building here, an old oak gone there—the alterations noticed out the corner of an eye as an afterthought while driving, always driving. A moment gone forever with no chance for reflection.

  Karen and I spent the rest of the rapidly diminishing afternoon walking along Santa Monica Boulevard. She window-shopped; I pretended I wasn’t cruising—why I don’t know; Karen would hardly care. The street was more heterosexual than I’d remembered, with a good complement of youngish male-female couples, babies in strollers and a “correct” dog tethered to the handle.

  It was fucking depressing. It was not so much that the “gayborhood” had morphed into something new but that it seemed pleasant and almost normal.