Slide

by Gerald A. Browne

  Then aesthetic surgery.

  That was what they called it now instead of plastic, which had become almost everything else.

  She had it done in New York City. By the best.

  Her chin, which had always been a weak feature, was corrected by the addition of a small piece of properly shaped bonelike substance. Her brow line, too prominent, was precisely deridged. Her nose was fractured, reshaped, planed down, given a perfect bridge, tilt and tip. The loose flesh and circles beneath her eyes were removed and so was the puffiness of her lids.

  The work was done in phases. Gloria called them projects. As soon as one project was healed she went in for the next. Not allowing time for time to discourage or affect her in any way — fighting time. Often it seemed she was winning.

  Silicone sponges were implanted in her breasts. She resisted the idea of having exceptionally large, firm breasts. Actually, that would have been easier for the surgeon. She chose to have more believable, average-size ones. It required repositioning her nipples and aureoles and entirely sacrificing their sensation. The silicone was not detectable, pliant to the touch, and her breasts had a nice natural jounce to them.

  Stretch marks and cellulite on her buttocks and upper thighs. That went. They pared her down. It was fortunate that she had abundant rather than too little flesh to work with, the surgeon told her. It seemed they could accomplish almost anything, if she would permit and pay.

  Final project: her face was given a lift. By no means was it an ordinary superficial lift. Gloria willing, the surgeon did a more thorough, lasting job by working on the underlying facial and neck muscles.

  Excellent results. The surgeon was very pleased.

  Gloria was glad to hear that now it would be impossible for her to ever have a frown line.

  After a year and three months there was nothing more the aesthetic surgeons could do.

  Still, no time to waste.

  Looking younger wasn’t enough.

  She flew to Geneva, and went on to the famous Niehans clinic for cellular therapy.

  There she was first given the Abderholden Test, a urine enzyme test that in some secret way revealed any dysfunctioning of her body’s internal organs. It turned out Gloria had a pituitary imbalance, probably a result of menopause, she was told. She also had a normal degree of cell and tissue deterioration for her age. A slight hyperfunctioning of some organs, a hypofunctioning of others. She was assured that the Niehans approach could revitalize her. It would cost ten thousand dollars. In advance.

  Gloria paid.

  The following day a pregnant ewe was selected from a special flock. It was slaughtered to obtain its unborn lamb. It was all done in the Niehans laboratory under the most antiseptic conditions and as swiftly as possible to maintain freshness. The various internal organs of the fetus, including its sexual ones, were separately cut into tiny morsels and placed in sterile dishes containing 20 cc. of normal saline solution. Each portion of tissue was minced, then forced through an extremely fine sieve and drawn up into individual 5-cc. syringes.

  They were rushed to Gloria’s bedside. With what seemed to her a flourish, the doctor removed the white towel that covered the tray. Gloria gasped when she saw the twelve syringes tipped with huge 14-gauge hypodermic needles. She glanced at the nurse, who wasn’t at all pretty, and she wondered if behind that professional expression was the thought that this American woman was a gullible fool. She glanced at the rubber gloves the doctor was wearing, transparent blue, increasing the unreality.

  For a moment Gloria felt helplessly a captive, like a passenger on a jumbo jet that was roaring down a runway for takeoff. She refocused her mind on the possible rewards, rolled over on her stomach, buried her face in the pillow, bit the pillow, clenched and counted. Six in one cheek, six in the other.

  For a few days she had a reaction. Vertigo, nausea, diarrhea and a sense of depersonalization. Symptoms of mild shock from the foreign matter invading her system. It was frightening. She’d heard such injections had caused death in a few cases. No, she protested, not after all she’d been through.

  The bad effects disappeared.

  She waited for the good ones.

  It was several weeks before she noticed the first major change. Her nervousness disappeared, a calm set in. She had the sensation that she was being refilled, made capable again in every sense. Her eyes as well as her urges seemed to verify it. Her eyes seemed more dimensional, deeper, brighter brown, definitely quicker. The change in her skin was amazing. It regained a youthful clarity — the skin of her face and all over.

  Her menstrual cycle returned.

  Gloria thought of those months as her renaissance. Could she live to be a hundred? Not just live but be active and enjoyably responsive? Her mirror and the way she felt replied by suggesting a hundred and fifty. Perhaps (she only allowed the point of the idea to barely prick her) she had found forever.

  Every year she had cellular therapy, some years twice. Through arrangement with the Niehans people, a doctor in Beverly Hills gave her the injections using lyophilized fetal cells, freeze-dried like coffee. It was illegal. Against the FDA and the AMA. The substances had to be brought into the country en contrebande via Mexico. For Gloria it was more convenient, though more expensive, than going to Switzerland.…

  Now, walking in the rain down Bluebird Canyon, her hair was soaked, matted to her head; the bottom of her jeans were heavy with wetness and her sandals squished with every step. Her mind was still on the phone call. She told herself it was an emotional waste to let a call from Pam get her down. She should be accustomed to it by now.

  Exile.

  She would never forget her last visit to Richmond over two years ago, when Pam had finally come straight out with it, said she was embarrassed because Gloria looked too young and, well, everything. Pam’s inflection on the word everything made it quite specific. Son-in-law Cliff expressed what he called his gut reaction, said it was freaky, Gloria ought to act her age. And grandson Daniel — he had adored Gloria until then, always looked forward to her visits, had always run to her for arms around, snuggled and returned hug for hug. But they had set Daniel against her, intentionally or not, made him hold back, afraid, as though she were unclean or contagious.

  She made fists in her coat pockets.

  Not fair, she thought.

  Why should she be penalized for not being a frump — made to feel guilty for prolonging, improving her sexual pleasure? There was no harm in fibbing about her age. She wasn’t really tired of pretending.

  For support she drew a mental picture of Stuart. How she would arouse him that night. And nourish herself.

  She crossed over the highway and the parking area to the entrance of the Seaside Supermarket.

  The market’s electronic door swung sharply open as she approached it.

  That unconsciously pleased her.

  It was impartial, unjudging, dependable, somehow much better than a personal welcome.

  6

  Emory Swanson’s undershorts were cutting him.

  New kind of undershorts his wife Eleanor had bought for him at one of those swishy shops on La Cienega. She’d bought six pairs, made in France.

  That morning, out of curiosity and against his masculine judgment, Emory had put on a pair. Powder blue, slick and skimpy as panties, they bunched and held his privates in a different, pleasant way — although being in a hurry was Emory’s reason to himself for leaving them on.

  Within a couple hours they started getting to his crotch creases. Especially when he sat, which, as usual, was most of the day.

  Now he was tempted to pull over and get relief. It would require taking his trousers off first, and for a while he’d have to be bare-assed. That would be something, getting pinched for indecent exposure on the Coast Highway, Emory thought. He kept driving, one hand, using the other to undo his belt and trousers. He lifted himself to reach in and find a leg-hole hem of the undershorts. He pulled, tugged hard, but the material wouldn’t give. What the h
ell were they made of, glass? Furious, he yanked sharply, hoping to rip them, but he only hurt himself more where he was already rubbed raw. To hell with it — he zipped, buttoned and buckled up — he’d be in El Niguel in half an hour.

  El Niguel was where the Swansons had one of their places. A twelve-room Spanish-style house, with swimming pool, built-in water-swirling massager, cabana, sauna, lighted tennis court. It was set amidst the eucalyptus on the edge of the sixth hole of the El Niguel Country Club. The Swansons called it their play house. Where they lived officially was in Beverly Hills, up Coldwater. Also, they had another sort of place at Lake Arrowhead.

  At one time Emory had lived in one rented room around where Franklin Avenue intersects with Sunset. In those days Monogram Studios was near there. Most of the “Dead End Kids” movies were shot at Monogram — and so many cheap monster pictures that the studio got to be called Monster-gram, the same as Republic Studios became known around as Repulsive.

  Back then, Emory had owned only two suits. Bought at the annual sale at the London Shop. A dark gray and a navy gabardine. Always either one or the other was being pressed or cleaned at the neighborhood same-day-service cleaner’s. That way Emory always appeared too neat to be poor. Another part of it was the shoes he bought, always top-grade Florsheims that he kept in shape by conscientiously treeing and polishing them.

  To this day Emory still took pride in the way he could read a man by his shoes. Shoes revealed how much walking a man had to do. Scuffs and scars told where, and the condition of the heels said why. Style and quality were also considerations. Were the man’s shoes cheap but stylish or more conventional, of better leather? Either told a lot, the way Emory saw it. He didn’t believe he had ever misjudged a man by his shoes, and he was amused that, by the same means, so many people had been wrong about him during those early, crucial times.

  Then.

  How many policies ago had that been? Millions since those eighteen-hour door-to-door days.

  Now, thank our land, there was a twenty-four-story earthquake-proof building on Wilshire Boulevard with his name chisled on it. Home office of his People’s Fidelity Insurance Company. Branches in San Francisco, Seattle and soon San Diego. Agents in almost every West Coast city.

  Emory had become secure from people being afraid. Not only afraid of dying but of almost every aspect of living. The most benign and pleasurable things held hazards. Only someone dumb and asking for it would swim, walk his dog or even sleep entirely at his own risk. Mind’s ease came with coverage. Snug it was under the vast, invisible money blanket. No need to shiver at the thought of cold poverty, that, of course, could result from nearly anything imaginable happening.

  It had come to the point where people were now afraid of being afraid. And what they were most afraid of was one another: those thieving, beating, crashing, irresponsible, grubbing other people.

  Emory kept that in mind like a personal secret. He believed knowing it gave him a man-over-man edge. He could always act braver.

  Besides, when it came down to it, really the bottom-line fear of all was the fear of being moneyless, and Emory and his would never have to worry about that. All those policies. His actuarians fixed the odds and the fine print made it a sure thing.

  Worth a million for each of his years.

  He was forty-nine. Slightly shorter than average. His weight fluctuated from fifteen to twenty-five over. He was going to jowls, despite the ten minutes of facial isometric exercises he did each night and morning — making faces at himself in the mirror under flattering fluorescence. He had two kids, girls, at Stanford, getting good enough grades and in with their own kind. And a wife who matched him Scotch for Scotch any time of day.

  The way Emory counted, he also had many friends. A large circle of them. Quality people. When meeting someone new, after assessing the person’s footwear, Emory would put it to them — same test question every time:

  “Do you consider yourself an honest person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely honest?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Okay, then, let’s say you’re making a call from a pay phone. You don’t get your number. Your dime drops into the coin return and along with it comes a bunch of quarters. Do you put those quarters back into the box or what?”

  Emory figured anyone who said he’d give back the quarters was a liar and not to be trusted. Definitely not anyone he wanted to know. The most ridiculous reply Emory ever got was from a young man who said he’d walk away, leave the quarters and the problem for the next guy. A real do-nothing bullshitter, was Emory’s opinion.

  As for himself, Emory would pocket the quarters, damn right. Despite all he had, he still got a charge from such unexpected windfalls, and whenever he needed to think good thoughts he recalled little extras he’d gotten away with over the years. Once at a hotel cigar counter in San Francisco he’d been given change for a twenty instead of a five. He’d felt positively blessed. Usually, however, Emory didn’t leave such things to fate. He created his own godsends.

  Newspapers, for example. Whenever it was convenient or even a little out of his way Emory bought his newspaper from a vending machine on the street. When he put in his coin and the machine unlocked there was nothing to prevent him from taking two papers. He’d been doing it for years. An edge. Insurance.

  Now, there he was, driving south on the Coast Highway in his 1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV with the waving United States flag decal on the rear window. Humming and da-dee-da-ing along with a Mantovani on the triple-stack cartridge-playing stereo. To pass time he decided to call ahead.

  He took the phone from its cradle, the operator came on and within seconds Emory was talking with wife Eleanor. She sounded a few degrees too cheery, slurry, and Emory knew she was already several stiff Scotches up on him.

  “Coconut chips,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Toasted coconut chips — you know the kind, the special kind. You know.”

  “Look in the cabana pantry.”

  “I looked, looked every goddamn place.”

  “Okay, I’ll stop somewhere and get some.”

  “I’ve got a craving. You know me when I get a craving.”

  He sure did.

  “I can be meaner than shit.”

  “I said I’d stop and get some.”

  “Toasted coconut chips like I like.”

  “Say please.”

  “Fuck you.” She hung up.

  A few miles further on Emory noticed the Seaside Supermarket. He went past, thinking it was raining too hard and to hell with her and her chips. But then he had a second thought that made him let up on the accelerator pedal. He found a spot to turn around and went back to the market. The excuse he gave himself was a temporary escape from his underwear.

  7

  The trip was another try for Peter and Amy Javakian.

  Another try at making a go of it.

  During the year and a half they’d been married they’d been separated twice seriously, twice briefly. The main reason, at least the admitted one, for this new try was Amy’s sixth-month condition.

  When she first learned she was pregnant, she definitely wanted an abortion. But there had been so much discussion with Peter, with his family, with her mother, that she became ambivalent. She let months pass and then it was too late.

  Her body had trapped her.

  She resented that, showed she did by resisting the pressure put upon her by everyone, including herself, urging her to reconcile with Peter. For the baby’s sake, some said, their exact words.

  For two months she lived alone in one room in Fresno, worked there for an unmarried older woman, a lawyer who was very sympathetic.

  In her fifth month Amy telephoned Peter and pretended the real reason for her call was not to share with him how active the baby inside her had become. Hearing his voice, she realized how much her resolve had weakened. In a roundabout, pride-saving way she let him know she might be receptive to another
try.

  And this was it.

  Starting, restarting, with a trip.

  So far it hadn’t been promising. Several times Peter had almost been exasperated enough to turn the car around and head back home to Hollister. Just as often Amy’d had the urge to jump out and escape to anywhere.

  “I didn’t need any help,” she said.

  “You sawed the boards and everything?”

  “Everything.” A small smug smile, chin up.

  “You liked doing it?”

  She nodded, definitely.

  “Even the sanding?”

  “Sure,” she fibbed. She had hated the sanding, had thought she’d never be done with it. It had made her arms and shoulders tired, sore.

  “But you wouldn’t ever want to do it for a living — be a carpenter, I mean. Not really.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, it’s good to know I could if I wanted.”

  “There’s a union.”

  “So?”

  “They wouldn’t let you in.”

  “They’d have to.”

  “Never.”

  “Women are working in steel mills.”

  “Where?”

  “Someplace in Michigan.”

  “Paperwork.”

  “Uh uh. At the furnaces, rolling out extrusions. I saw it in a film.”

  Peter was surprised and a little annoyed that she used and seemed to know the word extrusion. He considered silence, letting her have the final say. He almost did. “Pepper wouldn’t stay in it,” he said, getting back on the original subject that was the doghouse Amy had built. Pepper was the pup they had chosen together at the city pound in San Francisco shortly before they were married. A mongrel that had consistently loved them both.

  Regarding the doghouse, Amy could have said honestly that building it had given her a new sense of appreciation for any man who did such work.

  Peter could have praised her for how well she had done.

  He told her, “It wasn’t square.”

  “It was.”