by Wizner, Jake
“I doubt they have a world record for whacking off,” I said.
“They might.” He held up the calculator.
“How many times do you think you can do it in a day?”
I could see where this conversation was going and I refused to get sucked in. “Neil, I want to figure out how to masturbate less, not more.”
He looked like I had just popped his favorite balloon.
“C’mon, Neil, you’re the only person who can help me.”
He studied me for a moment and then nodded. “Okay,” he said, “let me think.”
I watched Neil close his eyes and stand absolutely still for what seemed like a full minute. I was about to ask if he was okay when a smile curled over his face and he opened his eyes.
“A support group,” he said.
“What?”
“You know, like Alcoholics Anonymous.”
I laughed. “I doubt they have a group like that for people who masturbate too much.”
“Well,” he said, “I think it’s worth looking into.”
“What do you want me to do, walk into a group of total strangers and say, ‘Hello, my name is Shakespeare Shapiro and it’s been three hours since the last time I whacked off’? No way.”
Still, that afternoon Neil and I sat in my room with the Yellow Pages. We looke dunder M for masturbation, under P for personal satisfaction and perversion, under S for self-love, but we couldn’t find anything. I was ready to give up when Neil saw an ad under S for sexual counseling and therapy.
“Bingo,” he said. “Just what you need.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think this is for people like me.”
“Just call the number,” he said, handing me his cell phone. “What harm could it do?”
Because I was someone whose entire life had consisted of one catastrophe after another, I had learned to exercise the most extreme caution. If my mother asked me to go to the store, for example, I would prepare myself to be mugged, to get hit by a bus, or to knock over a shelf of condoms with several of my teachers looking on in horror. Clearly, then, I was not going to do something as rash and reckless as calling a number for sexual counseling and therapy.
“If you call, I’ll go with you,” Neil said.
I shook my head. “No way.”
“I’ll even make the call for you.” Neil reached out for his phone.
I held it away from him. “I’m not going.”
“I’ll pay for half of it.”
Was he serious? “Why are you so excited about this?” I asked suspiciously.
Neil’s voice dripped with feeling, like a bad actor delivering his final soliloquy. “I need this, Shakespeare,” he said. “The most exciting part of my day is comparing bowel movements with you. Please, can’t we go see the sex doctor? Please?”
Dr. Melody Harmony’s office was in a large building where many doctors rented office space. If you looked at the lobby directory, everybody was listed alphabetically with what kind of doctor they were next to their name. Dr. Melody Harmony, sexual counseling, was on the second floor, office number 217.
“Here it is,” Neil said excitedly.
I felt gas pains in my stomach. I needed to spend about thirty minutes on the toilet. I let out a few small farts.
The waiting room was almost entirely red, with pornographic magazines spread out across the table.
Neil went to the receptionist and came back with a form for me to fill out. Most of it was basic stuff: name, address, Social Security number. Then came a list of questions regarding my sexual history. Was I married? Was I sexually active? How often did I have sex? Did I ever have problems achieving or maintaining an erection? Was I taking any performance-enhancing medication?
“This is crazy,” I said to Neil. “I’m getting out of here.”
Neil grabbed my arm. “You can’t leave now. We’d still have to pay for the appointment. And think of the stories we’ll have to tell.” He helped me finish filling out the form and brought it back to the receptionist.
A few minutes later, a door opened, and a large woman with a low-cut orange blouse, shiny red fingernails, a lipsticky smile, and gargantuan breasts came out.
“Which one of you is Shakespeare?” she asked, looking at us.
I got up slowly.
She smiled. “Right this way.”
“Can he come, too?” I asked.
“Well,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”
Neil jumped up, and Dr. Harmony ushered us into her office and closed the door.
We sat down, and she sat directly in front of us. I tried unsuccessfully to look everywhere except at her cleavage. Neil had his mouth slightly open and seemed to be in some kind of a trance.
Dr. Harmony let out a little laugh. “Come on, boys, we’re never going to get anywhere if all you do is sit there staring at my breasts.”
We both blushed and looked at the floor.
“Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” she said.
“It’s perfectly natural for boys your age to be fascinated by breasts, especially ones as big as mine. Now just relax and tell me why you’re here.”
What could I say? I looked over at Neil for support, but he was still staring hard at the ground, trying desperately not to fall under the power of those enormous breasts again.
“Let me help,” Dr. Harmony said kindly. She looked over the form we had filled out in the waiting room. “It says here that you’ve been feeling some things that don’t seem normal.”
I nodded.
“And have you been feeling those feelings, too?” she asked Neil.
He looked up, startled. “No, of course not. Those are his answers, not mine. I just came with him. I’m fine.”
Dr. Harmony laughed. “Come now, there’s no reason to be ashamed. We’re all friends here.” She paused. “What’s your name?”
“Neil.”
“Don’t you ever get those feelings, Neil?”
“Sometimes, but not as much as him,” Neil sputtered.
Dr. Harmony looked at us both for a longtime. “Have you talked to each other about these feelings?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Kind of, I guess.”
Neil looked at me. “But you still haven’t told me how often you do it.”
“Why are you so damn interested? Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
“Not as weird as whacking off ten times a day.”
I felt my cheeks beginning to burn. “I don’t whack off ten times a day.”
“What, nine, then? You said you do it all the time.”
“At least I don’t keep written records of every time I take a crap.”
Neil’s mouth hung open for a second, and he looked at me in horror. “Well, at least I don’t go to porno movies with my grandmother.”
“Slow down, boys,” Dr. Harmony said. She was writing furiously. “I want to make sure I get all this.”
Her voice snapped us out of it, and we looked at each other, shamefaced, then dropped our eyes to the floor, mortified by our performance.
“I should probably go,” Neil said, standing up.
“Me too,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” Dr. Harmony said.
“We’re just starting to make some progress.”
All I wanted to do was escape from that office. Every ounce of my being was concentrated on getting to the door. I would have left a little finger behind if it meant getting out more quickly. Neil was two steps ahead of me.
“Sit down,” Dr. Harmony commanded.
We sat. I couldn’t sink much lower. I stared at her cleavage and imagined curling myself up in a fetal position between those colossal breasts.
“Now,” she said. “Let’s look at what’s happening here. You two are best friends, right?”
We looked at each other and shrugged.
“And now you’re starting to realize that maybe the feelings you have for each other go beyond normal friendship.”
Our heads snap
ped up as if jerked by a chain. “WHAT?!”
“It’s totally normal for close friends to become confused about their feelings for each other from time to time.”
“We’re not…,” I sputtered.
“You think we’re…,” Neil gasped.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Go ahead and tell each other how you feel.”
And as I sat there, absorbing the full meaning of what Dr. Harmony was saying, I felt myself beginning to relax. If it was normal to fall in love with your best friend, then maybe my problems weren’t so serious after all.
I turned and looked at him, and he smiled at me and winked. Then he nodded solemnly, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. Quietly, very quietly, without opening his eyes, he said, “I do feel confused sometimes.”
Dr. Harmony nodded. “Good, Neil. Very good. What about you, Shakespeare? What do you want to say to Neil?”
I had to muster every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing. I shrugged and looked at the floor.
Dr. Harmony sat and waited.
“Sometimes it hurts,” I said.
Dr. Harmony nodded. “Yes. When we hold in our feelings, it just makes us hurt more inside.”
“I said we could use Vaseline,” Neil said.
I put my hand on his arm. “You know I don’t like how it feels.”
Dr. Harmony nearly choked on her pen. “I—I didn’t realize…,” she stuttered.
We both started to laugh, and her face slowly registered comprehension.
“Very funny, boys.”
We laughed harder.
She let us laugh ourselves out, and then she looked at her watch. “Well,” she said,
“I guess that’s about all the time we have.”
We got up to leave, feeling incredibly smug and self-satisfied. It was a sunny day out side, and as we wandered home, talking and laughing, I thought to myself that life was good, and it was good to be me.
APRIL
My life is a disaster. I hate being me.
Today I see Jane Blumeberg holding hands with Eugene Gruber. Eugene Gruber, for God’s sake! Jane is my safety. If nothing else works out, Jane is always supposed to be there. I cannot believe that Eugene Gruber has a girlfriend and I don’t.
And it gets worse. My mother has invited the Blumebergs to our house for Passover. So now I have to sit through an entire seder with Gandhi and Meredith on one side of me and Jane and the specter of Eugene Gruber on the other.
Plus I started therapy.
“An early birthday present,” my mom jokes as I head off sullenly to my first appointment.
“I bet Hitler’s mother never made him go to therapy,” I say.
My mother is not amused. “Well, maybe she should have.”
At my session I tell my therapist everything that is wrong with my life, following up my litany of complaints with a detailed account of my pot-smoking experience.
“It sounds to me,” he says after listening to me carry on for close to an hour, “that you like to portray yourself as the victim of crazy parents, unsympathetic peers, and unlucky circumstances, because you are afraid to admit that your unhappiness might be your own doing. Smoking marijuana is just an easy way to avoid dealing with your problems. If you want things to change for you, you have to decide you’re ready to start taking responsibility for your own well-being.”
I can’t believe my parents are paying this guy 150 dollars an hour.
Charlotte and I are back on speaking terms, but she has not shown me any more of her memoir, nor have I asked to see it. She rarely comes to lunch these days, choosing instead to head straight to the library after math to catch up on work. I ask her sometimes how things are going, and she says fine, but in unguarded moments I see her leaning heavily against her locker, or with her head down, asleep, in the library. She is still often late or absent, and I know she is struggling to keep not just herself but her family afloat.
What is most difficult for me to understand is why she is so unwilling to ask for help. I’m sure if she spoke to Mr. Basset, he would be able to connect her with people who help families at risk. She could get counseling for Henry or find a support group for her father. But I know she will get angry and defensive if I try to suggest anything, so I don’t bother. If she insists on playing the martyr, then that’s her business, not mine.
On a whim, I ask her if she wants to come to our house one night for Passover. My parents go all out for the two seders, inviting more than twenty people each night, and I figure that one extra person won’t make much of a difference.
“I’m not Jewish,” she says.
“It doesn’t matter. We always have lots of non-Jews at our seders.”
“Seders?” she says. “I don’t even know what that is.”
I explain that the holiday lasts eight days, but it is the first two nights—the seders, they are called—that are really the big deal. I explain that during the seders, Jewish families sit around the table and retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, using a guidebook called a Haggadah. “There are all kinds of weird rituals,” I say, “but you get to drink a lot of wine and eat a lot of really good food.”
Charlotte asks more questions, and it seems as if she is seriously considering my invitation.
“You should come,” I say, feeling a little ashamed as I realize my eagerness stems mostly from a desire to have a buffer against any awkwardness with Jane.
“It’s so nice of you to ask me,” she says at last, “but I think it’s just too complicated with how late it goes and how far away I live.”
“I’m sure someone could give you a ride,” I say. “Or we could call you a taxi.”
“Maybe next year,” she says.
Next year? Next year we’re going to be away at college. Next year I won’t have to think about Jane Blumeberg and Eugene Gruber.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” I say.
College letters have begun coming in, and the first letter I get is from one of my safety schools, telling me I have been wait-listed.
“Don’t worry,” my mother says, trying hard not to look worried.
“You didn’t really want to go there anyway,” my father says.
“That’s not the point,” I say. “It was a safety school.”
“What probably happened,” my mother says, “is the school saw how overqualified you were and wait-listed you because they know you are just using them as a safety.”
If my mother was the guidance counselor at my high school, I think I would shoot myself.
“It’s their loss,” my dad says, and goes off to fix himself a drink.
Over the next week Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Wesleyan, Amherst, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania all reject me, but other schools that I was not so sure about—Hamilton, Brandeis, Tufts, Middlebury—offer me spots. I get into all my other safeties, and when all is said and done, eleven schools have accepted me, and four more have placed me on the waiting list, including Brown. The biggest surprise is getting into Vassar, which is one of the best schools I applied to.
“What kind of name is Vassar?” Neil asks me. He and Katie have taken me out for a birthday dinner at Ernie’s Pizzeria, because Passover starts so late this year. “It sounds like a combination of vagina and ass.”
Katie, who before dinner downed four shots of vodka at her house, laughs out loud. “That’s funny,” she says.
“I can’t wait to go to college,” Neil says. “At Bard you can invent your own major.”
“I doubt you can major in bowel movements,” I say.
“Ha,” says Katie. “That’s funny.”
For her part, Katie only applied to schools on the West Coast and is going to the University of San Diego. “As far away as I can get” was her main criterion for choosing.
I take another slice of pizza. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be relegated to matzo.
The next night, at the first seder, I start drinking as soon as we sit down. It is customary
to finish four glasses of wine, spread out at intervals throughout the night, but I have decided that tonight I will drink considerably more. Our seders tend to be raucous affairs, so no one will pay attention. Many of the people at the table will be drunk by the time the evening is over.
Over the years we’ve added some twists to the traditional seder, one of which is Haggadah Jeopardy! At any point during the seder, guests can jump in to pose a Jeopardy! answer to the assembled group, and everybody tries to come up with the correct question.
We are barely five minutes in when Gandhi begins to hum the Jeopardy! theme song. Everybody who has been to our seders before laughs and joins in, and when the song is over, he announces the category.
“The category,” he says, “is divine miracles. This modern-day miracle is today’s equivalent of God’s parting of the Red Sea.”
“What is the leopard-skin thong?” Harvey Lessing calls out. Harvey is a forty-five-year-old bachelor who has been coming to our seders for years and who can always be counted on to be completely inappropriate, even by our standards.
“What is a seder that lasts under four hours?” I say, looking pointedly at my father, who has a tendency to ramble on about the meaning of the holiday.
“What is a dutiful and obedient son?” my father counters.
“All good questions,” my brother says, “but what I was looking for was, what is the slicing of the brisket?”
Everybody laughs, and the evening proceeds, with people taking turns reading from the Haggadah, singing Passover songs, making stupid jokes, and drinking a lot of alcohol. I realize how much fun it would be to share all this with Charlotte and wish suddenly that I had pressed harder for her to come. I look across to Jane. She is drinking juice, even though we are all allowed to drink wine. Our eyes meet, and she smiles. Now that she is unavailable, she is far more desirable than she ever has been in the past. Her face is so soft, her eyes so big and innocent. She has silky hair that falls all the way down her back, and small breasts that poke out from behind her white blouse. I pour myself another glass of wine.
“I heard you’re going to Vassar next year,” she says. “That’s one of the schools I want to apply to.”
