The Origin of Waves

by Austin Clarke

  “Sydney.”

  “You’re from Australia?”

  “Nova Scotia. Sydney, Nova Scotia.”

  “Knew you had some Wessindian in you!”

  “Grandmother.”

  “Would you take one with us?”

  “Don’t-mind-if-ah-do!”

  “Pour yourself a goddamn drink, fella. Goddamn! Ain’t this something? We be taking-over North Amurca, if y’all not careful in this country.” And he glances at the three women nearby, chatting and giggling, as Buddy the barman agrees to follow the instructions for making the martinis; and as Buddy leaves, John glances at the three women again. “Look at those three fine foxes, will ya? Check-em-out, brother, ’cause there sure ain’t no harm in looking! I’m a legs-man, myself. What you is?”

  “Breasts. Bubbies.”

  “Goddamn! First indication you give me that you like women! Gimme the legs any time. Legs and avoirdupois.”

  “I like the fingers, too. Fingers do some funny things to me, especially fingers with long fingernails that don’t have nail polish …”

  “Come closer. Hold over, ’cause I don’t want those three chicks to hear. Check it out. The one. In the. Black stockings. Pantyhose. With the red shoes. It’s a good thing. They can’t. Read our minds. Isn’t she something? Isn’t she just something? I am a legs-man, any time.”

  “There was a time when a woman’s fingers would do some funny things to me. Now, I concentrate on the breasts. Saying this for a woman to know, we could be charged with some kind of sexual assault. In this country, a man could be accused …”

  “Goddamn! But I’ll be goddamned if any motherfucker gonna tell me I can’t admire a woman’s legs!”

  “But still. The things we’re saying in private and in secret, if they were known by any of those three women …”

  “I love to see a woman with well-form teeth. Strange, how men have these little likes and dislikes that they can’t express in the open. You know how obsess I am with legs and feet and teeth, and weight … And Jesus Christ, all that avoirdupois! Now, I am not a jeans-person, attracted to tight-fitting latex pants that cycliss wear. For a woman to turn up at my place, dressed in tight shiny spandex pants, my mind turns off, and my desire disappears. Dissipates. If you see where I am coming from.”

  “I wonder if women talk about men the way we are observing these three chicks, two old men, sitting down in this bar, undressing these three women. Come close. Listen. Once. A woman. She was. About thirty-nine. Or forty …”

  “Look-look-look! Don’t look too obvious. But the one on your left. In the white, shiny hose, the colour of silver. See her? My God! The parlez-vous woman, my Hyacinthe, was just like her! If she wasn’t in France, I woulda swear it is my first-wife sitting at that table! Goddamn!”

  “… about forty. She would cook dinner, and we would sit down at the table with white linen tablecloth, or a cloth like damask, with white watermarks in the pattern. What do you call that kind of tablecloth? Lace? Anyhow, she always had candles, white candles like those big, fat white ones we used to light in the chancel of the Cathedral Church, you remember? And she always served white wine. She knew a lot about wines. Dinner usually was steak fried, with all the blood running out of it, with onions and broccoli and always with mashed potatoes. She liked mashed potatoes. While I am eating, I am feeling peckish, and not only for her food. After we eat the steak with the blood running out of it, she would serve dessert topped with brandy. I am drinking my brandy, and I am still feeling peckish. I have never told this to anybody before. Anyhow. After we eat, she would go into the bathroom, and come back out in a kind o’ shortie-pyjamas made out of white silk, and then we would have some more white wine, and then she would say to me, just plain so, with no foreplay or play or touching, “Do you want to do it?” And sudden-so, the urge would leave me. Rubbing me, kissing me, massaging me, sticking me with her fingernails, nothing, not a damn thing would make me have the urge as I first had the urge of peckishness. This went on happening for more than six months. ‘Don’t worry,’ she would tell me, ‘it happens.’ It happens perhaps; but it never happened to me before, and the more …”

  “Didn’t you see a doctor?”

  “A doctor? I wasn’t sick!”

  “Didn’t you see your family doctor?”

  “I don’t have a family. All the years in Toronto, I never had a doctor. Even if I had-had a doctor, I couldn’t as a man go to a doctor and tell him that I can’t have an erection! Are you out of your fucking mind? What would he think of me, a big black man like me?”

  “Another trick she coulda used woulda been to wrap the steak round your tom-pigeon.”

  “On my tom-pigeon? The steak with the blood running out?”

  “On your penis. Steak, but preferably cold, is the best cure for sterility, by putting it on your tom-pigeon.”

  “I just couldn’t go to a doctor. Not to a white doctor. Imagine what that doctor would say about a man like me!”

  “A black doctor, then. They have any black doctors in Canada?”

  “A black doctor? That’s worse, man! A black doctor? Can you imagine a man like me, in Toronto’s small black community, going to a black doctor, and telling that black doctor that I can’t get it up? A black doctor? I would be the laughing-stock of the whole black community! This doctor may talk. Everybody in his club and his church would hear about my ailment and affliction. No patient-doctor privilege would save my arse, man!” John is laughing. “It really bothered me, not knowing what to do, to cure this thing. For more than six months, she went on holding me like if I was a baby, saying, ‘Don’t worry, it happens’; and all the time making me kiss her breasts with her brassieres on, through the lace, and she rubbing the various parts of my body with oils from the Body Shop. My tom-pigeon still won’t stannup, for nothing. I started reading books. The Joy of Sex, The Joy of an Orgasm, The New Joy of Sex, Sex and the Male Organ, and Orgasms Galore! She lent me Sex as You Want It and still I couldn’t do nothing. But the worst part was that I feel-sure she told her girl friends about me. A black man who can’t handle the situation. I know she did. Her girl friends started looking at me, and giggling. You know the way a woman can look at a man and start giggling? Has this ever happened to you? And I am only asking you because you and me grew up together. I could never ever ask a Canadian about this. This ever happened to you?”

  “Goddamn!”

  “Breasts have, however, remained my weakness. I only have to see a woman’s brassieres, not even the bare breasts, especially when she is under the shower. And when you talk about a woman in the sea or in a swimming pool, and the water soaks her bathing-suit, and the nipples start to show-through the bra, or a woman athlete running a race, Jesus Christ! The moment I see the nipples …”

  “Goddamn! You need help, brother, if you see what I’m saying. You seriously need help. Not that I am criticizing you. I am merely saying you’s a man in need of help, sexuality-wise!”

  “I suffered through those long six months with that woman, never mentioning it to anybody, and wouldn’t, in case people start laughing at me. People usually laugh at these things when you can’t perform. I know men who tell me that they could go with a woman for five hours. Five hours. Five hours? Jesus Christ, man, not even a horse could do that! That is almost a whole working-day! But even though I feel that a normal man can’t do-it for five hours, still I can’t say anything against that man. While I was seeing that woman’s breasts while eating the steak, everything was fine. But the moment she goes into the bathroom, and comes back-out wearing a shortie-nightgown, my tom-pigeon falls. Flat.”

  “I don’t mean to emasculate you further, or come on strong in the way of criticizing you,” John says. His voice and his manner have changed. It is like waves rushing in and onto the beach in a wild surge, and then falling back into the sea, slowly and in a clear, sober run to the sea. He is looking straight at me, with clear, focused eyes. “I am acquainted with the myth that men like me and you have to live
under. We’s suppose to be kingpins in bed. And if you see what I’m saying, then you will understann that it is even written-about in books, about men like me and you. But you should have-seen a goddamn doctor. Having said that, I know that men like me and you don’t go to doctors to seek that kind o’ help and assistance. It don’t look good. We is he-men, regardless o’ age. And we have to behave like he-men. The things we’re saying is things that nobody should ever hear-about; things that we have to hide from certain people; things that would, if they are known, make us look small, like small men. Is the same thing about going in a men’s washroom with a lotta white boys peeing, and hiding their instruments and tom-pigeons, and looking at you outta the sides of their eyes while they are peeing, and measuring you with their glances, to see if the myth and the fear of the myth is justified, and …”

  “That’s why when I go in a men’s room, I always use a cubicle, with a door that closes, and locks, as if I am using the toilet, and not going just to pee.”

  “Goddamn!”

  “Just in case a white boy sees my tom-pigeon, and it doesn’t measure-up in the eyes of his myths. It is a hard thing. Is a hard thing that men like me and you have to bear all this myth and fear, as you say. But getting back to the woman who used to invite me to candlelight dinners of rare steak. It made me very ashamed to know I couldn’t perform under those romantic circumstances. And this woman was the most sexy-looking woman I ever known! Do you think that women talk about these things, measuring men, comparing men, sex-wise, and size-wise, as you would say? Women couldn’t talk about these things! Jesus Christ, have a heart!”

  “Women, far’s my knowledge goes, not only talk about these things, comparison-wise, but they give other women your measurements. And your performance-quotients. And your complete statistics. And your frequencies, as if they are putting those other women on guard against you. Believe me, brother. There is nothing that a woman don’t talk about about a man, to other women. Don’t look now! Look when it is safe. Look-look-look. The one with the black stockings. You see those legs? Let me tell you something about legs, and about love and making love to a woman who have lovely legs. First you take a deep breath to control yourself. And when you get on top of a woman with nice legs, try to think of anything, but what you happen to be doing. Anything in the whirl, but take your full mind offa making love. You got to learn how to control yourself, brother. You gotta control yourself. Control is the word. You see them legs? If you do not control yourself, your body and your mind and your thoughts, you will make the mistake of coming before the woman is ready to come, if you see where I’m coming from. You mentioned the Chinese woman. But you mentioned her once, and you never mentioned her again. Did you ever … you know what I mean … with the Chinese?” I refuse to answer him. I hope he has forgotten the story I told him hours ago. He ignores me, and says, “Chinese women are masters of the art of control. Control. The more you are able to take your mind off the present predicament, the more control you have, and the more longer you are going to last, through thought-association. But not association with the project at hand. Because women prefers the passion and emotion of the whole thing, whilst a man have a tendency to jump-on, bang-bang!, have a cigarette, put on his clothes, done-with-that, and leave. On the other hand, a woman need tenderness and something-else that cause that lingering experience to last, if you see what I’m saying. Men have been horned for this negligence.”

  “I can’t talk about these things, certainly not to any tom-dick-and-harry; and if you weren’t here, I probably wouldn’t be able to say it; and it would have stuck in my conscience and consciousness for years without being talked about. And even talking about it now, I feel that somebody, a woman, any of these three women nearby, is hearing what I am saying. That would bring back the embarrassment I was embarrassed with, when it first happened.”

  “Legs! Gimme legs any day!”

  “Breasts is my speed.”

  “But didn’t you just said you can’t bear to see breasts, even in a swimming pool?”

  “I like teeth, too.”

  “Are you a dentist? To like teeth? Or a’ orthodonnist? For me, is pure legs. Legs, legs, and more legs. And the weight. That avoirdupois.”

  “Now that I think about it, I think it was the colour,” I say. John becomes alert. “The colour, in a cultural sense, an ethnic sense. I am talking about the aesthetics of colour.”

  “What the fuck you talking about, brother?” John says. “Colour have nothing to do with it. You don’t have anything ’gainst white women, do you?”

  “I mean the colour of the shortie-nightie she wears after she goes into the bathroom, and comes back out and asks me, ‘Do you want to do it?’ I mean that. In my mind I want to hold her soft and touch her soft and say things to her that are soft, that I read in books. And even say some of the things I read in the sex-books she gave me to read. But I always feel funny, scared; as if somebody is listening to me, like the same man who wrote the sex-book. Embarrassed. Less than a man. It isn’t nothing against her colour as a person, is only against the colour she choose to wear, and then her sympathy which is a thing that a man like me can’t handle. ‘Don’t worry, darling, it happens.’ When she calls me ‘darling,’ that is when I change. I start feeling real cruel, and want to hit her, or ’buse her, or tell her hard things to make her stop calling me ‘darling,’ and using other endearing terms. With my tom-pigeon not rising, I feel she is really laughing at me.”

  “Is this the same woman who accused you of dozing-off whilst making love? The Chineewoman? Or is this a different woman? If you see what I’m saying, I am saying that the three women you are talking to me about might be one and the same woman. You see what I mean? But I am not here to analyze you, nor put you under therapy. I am here to visit a hospital, Sick Kids; and you and me are here to get drunk, blind-drunk on this reunion.” This is my chance to ask him more about his sudden appearance in Toronto. This is my chance to clear up his long stories of the life he has spent in Europe. This is my chance. But, after all, it was he who could swim. And I am the little boy who stood and watched him walk on his hands, like a crab.

  So, all I say is “That is what I mean. Meeting you in this reunion is important. Because in forty-something years, as I told you already, I couldn’t find one person, certainly not a Canadian, man nor woman, regardless, that I could talk these things with, and not feel embarrassed. So, I agree that this is a reunion, a happy meeting. But it means more to me than that. It means being able to see the vacuum in my life, the lack o’ meaning in my life, the half-life I been living all the time while thinking that I was a successful person. I wonder if we are the only men in this bar with these problems? Are we the only men with these problems, just-because we are black men, of a certain age?”

  “Well, I really don’t know. You may think that in my practice, un-licence as it is, that I would be in a position to answer all your questions. Most of the clients and people that I see are white people. White people have different problems to black people. As least, they come to me with different problems. Black men don’t come to a black therapist to discuss something which we all take for granted. So, it is the women who tell me about their husbands and men, tell me different things. And the woman who tell you about falling-off in a light sleep whilst you should-been performing like a man, she was only telling you the truth. Just the truth. It hurts. It hurts like hell, like shite. But you have to live with it, as you lived with it all these years, before you see me this afternoon. No consolation, but the truth, if you see what I am saying.”

  “If I could ask you one final question. A personal question, a very personal question. Could I ask you if you went-through anything like what I was telling you?”

  “Goddamn! You’re getting into my private business now! You want a’ answer from a professional? Or from a man?”

  “Your experiences.”

  “Well, lemme tell you something, kid. And lemme tell it to you in the form of a few questions. But befo
re I do, lemme order another martini, and this gonna-be my last. What about you? I gotta get back to Sick Kids. I think this is my last, as I have some things to do when I get back to that hospital, and before I go back to the hotel.”

  Now, once more, is my chance. But I do not take it, and ask him why. Why is he here? Time, in this bar, which has brought us close, after all these years, has also washed us in two different directions. I no longer see him as my best friend. Time has washed away that closeness. I feel he is my therapist. But I know that I still have to ask why he is here.

  Buddy catches sight of our waving hands, nods his head, smiles, takes the cigarette from his lips, and comes over. John is lighting a cigar. As Buddy passes beside the table with the three women, one of them says something to him. It is the one wearing the silver pantyhose. He takes our order, and just before he moves away, John offers a round of drinks to the table with the three beautiful women. They are quieter now, talking in low voices; and sometimes their faces take on a serious manner, as if they are discussing children or jobs; and they do not laugh as often as we do, or as often as they were doing earlier when the evening was hilarious and the light from the fake Tiffany lamps spread its soft fingers through their hair and on the rich, deeply coloured material in their dresses and their woollen sweaters which hold the colours of late autumn in a richness close to Christmas.