Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

  “Marcelo has a question.”

  “Oh no. Not about Buddhism. If you ask me what the Buddha means by ‘emptiness,’ I’ll go inside my office and start pulling out my hair.”

  “That is supposed to be a joke. I can tell. Emptiness is easy to understand. I have a question from Genesis, Rabbi Heschel’s favorite holy book.”

  “I think I’m being set up. Okay, let’s have it.” She takes a deep breath. I can tell that she enjoys my questions, especially the hard ones.

  I take the yellow notebook from my shirt pocket and read: “Why did Adam and Eve feel shame that they were naked after they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

  “Oh, that. I thought you said it was a difficult question.”

  “The rabbi knows the answer?” I thought it was a hard question. At least I wasn’t able to answer it myself, even after reading and rereading the passage and even after thinking about it for many hours.

  “I’m just kidding,” she says. “They don’t get much harder than that. Tell me what the Bible says first.”

  “Adam and Eve were naked before they ate the fruit of the tree of good and evil but they were not ashamed. Then after they ate the fruit, they realized that they were naked. They did not even know they were naked before. Adam was afraid to be seen by God. It is implied that he was ashamed. What was it about nakedness that made it evil? Why were they ashamed?”

  “Mmm. Do you think nakedness is evil?” It is always annoying, the way she answers my questions with questions of her own.

  “God does not see nakedness as evil because when He made man, He made him naked, and after He made man, He said that what He made was very good. Woman came from man’s rib, so she’s very good too.”

  “Excellent,” she says. “Although I always have problems with that rib thing.” Then she is quiet for a few moments before she says, “Before we delve into the interpretation, can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you ask me this now? Did something happen at the law firm to prompt this question?”

  “No. Maybe. Yes. I have been thinking about the nature of attraction and about physical beauty. Wendell, someone Marcelo works with, has been talking about attraction that for him is sexual. But…”

  “Tell me.”

  “There is something about the way he feels toward women that seems wrong, but I don’t know why.”

  “I see.”

  “It is hard for Marcelo to look at women the way Wendell does. When I tried to see a woman the way he does, there was something that made me think of Adam and Eve when they saw each other naked and felt ashamed. Why? If sex is good, why is there shame?”

  I see her run her fingers through her hair. Then she grabs one of the patches of white and begins to twist it with her fingers. Finally, she speaks: “Remember a little later in Genesis when Cain killed Abel?”

  “Yes. But why was Cain jealous? I cannot imagine what ‘jealous’ feels like.”

  “Hold on, hold on. Let’s try to scratch one itch at a time, otherwise we’ll end up without any skin! Do you remember what Cain used to kill Abel?”

  “It does not say.”

  “Okay, let’s say he used a rock.”

  “We don’t know for a fact that he did.”

  “We don’t know for a fact that Cain existed at all, so humor me on this one. He used a rock.”

  “He used a rock. Maybe.”

  “Good. Okay, now when Cain looked at that rock lying there on the ground, he didn’t just see a rock, he imagined the rock as a weapon that he could use to kill Abel. You follow me so far?”

  “Yes.” I try to imagine a rock as a weapon.

  “Cain also had the knowledge of good and evil, which means that he could imagine how good things could be put to bad use. You see where I’m going? With Adam and Eve’s nakedness, I mean?”

  “No. Marcelo does not see where the rabbi is going at all.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure I know where I’m going. But let’s see. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, they became aware that their nakedness, which was good, could also be used in an evil way. Before, as you said, everything that God created was good, and man was more than good, he was very good. So it follows that the body, naked or not, is good also. But now man and woman were aware that the good body, theirs or somebody else’s, could also be used for evil, if they were so inclined. After the fruit, Adam and Eve recognized that they had in themselves an inclination for evil alongside their inclination for good.”

  I close my eyes. There is a picture of Adam and Eve that I remember from the Bible that Abba kept in her room. They were naked except for fig leaves and they were looking away from each other.

  “I cannot imagine how a naked body can be used for an evil purpose. Evil is a destructive act, like the murder of Abel by Cain. But I cannot see what Adam saw when he looked at Eve’s naked body and imagined doing something that was evil. What was it that Adam imagined doing?”

  Rabbi Heschel asks me slowly, “Have they talked to you about sex at Paterson?”

  “Sexual intercourse is how humans procreate. The erect penis of the man goes into the vagina of the woman. I am not a child.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be condescending. Of course you are not a child. You’re a young man.”

  “It is just that part of me would like to feel what Wendell feels and part of me thinks there is something not right with that, but I don’t know what. It is frustrating not to understand. How can sexual intercourse be wrong?”

  “People call sexual intercourse, ‘making love.’ Have you heard that term?”

  “Yes. Some terms for sexual intercourse are acceptable and some are not. ‘Making love’ is acceptable. ‘Fuck’ is not.”

  “Excellent. Sexual intercourse is pleasurable and it is good. God gave it to us so that two persons could come together and make love, that is create love in the world, through the children that come from the act as well as from the closeness that people feel in the act itself.”

  I wonder silently what that closeness is like. Is it something that I will ever experience?

  She continues, “What the author of Genesis wants to tell us, I think, is that man, when united with God, is not divided. In this unity, there is no good and evil. All of our inclinations, even the sexual ones, are good when we are in Eden—that is, when we walk with God and all our actions, words, and thoughts seek to follow His will. But man can choose to be separate from God, and in this separateness he creates evil by imagining ways to use what is good in ways that hurt him or others, and then acting upon what he imagines.”

  “Marcelo can’t imagine how sex can be used for evil.”

  “Oh, my. That’s because you are special. You walk with God in Eden. May the Holy One, blessed be He, be always with you.”

  “Give Marcelo an example.”

  Rabbi Heschel folds her hands and closes her eyes as if she were praying.

  “Father, not my will but Your will,” she whispers, looking up to heaven. Then she turns to face me and says, “The ways we use sex to hurt each other are innumerable and unspeakable. Anytime we treat a person as a thing for our own pleasure. When we look at another person as an object and not as a person like us. When sex consists solely of taking and not giving. When a person uses physical or psychological force to have sex against another person’s will. When a person deceives another in order to have sex with them. When a person uses sex to physically or emotionally hurt another. Any time an adult has sex with a child. Those are some of the ways sex becomes evil. I can’t describe it any more. It’s not for me to give you images of evil. It saddens me to know that you will find out soon enough the different ways that we have devised to hurt each other.”

  She stops and rubs her eyes the way a person with a headache rubs her eyes. I want to tell her not to worry about me, but I remain silent, unable to find any words to comfort her.

  CHAPTER 13

/>   Wendell and I are having lunch on the top floor of what he calls “the club.” The tall wrinkled-face man who met us at the door went into a back room and came out with a blue jacket and a red-and-blue striped tie. He handed them to me and I didn’t know why until Wendell told me I had to put them on. Wendell helped me with the tie. Wendell is already wearing a jacket and tie, so the man did not have to get him anything.

  We sit by a window overlooking Boston Harbor. Another older-looking waiter comes by and Wendell orders a drink called a “martini.” I order a Coke.

  “I recommend the salmon,” Wendell says to me when he sees that I have trouble deciding what to get.

  “I’ll have a salmon,” I say to the waiter, who has been waiting for me.

  As soon as the waiter leaves, Wendell says, “I need your help with something.”

  “Marcelo’s help? My help.”

  “Yes. Why do you look so surprised?”

  “I didn’t know there was anything I could do to help you.”

  “There is something you can help me quite a bit with.”

  The waiter comes and gives Wendell a martini and me a Coke. The martini is an extremely small drink. I look for a straw but there is none. Wendell eats the olive and drinks half of the martini in one gulp.

  “I need you to help me get Jasmine.” Wendell puts his glass down and looks at me with a look I don’t recognize.

  “What does ‘get’ mean?”

  “What do you think ‘get’ means? Take a guess.”

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Do you want to get Jasmine to love you?”

  “Mmmm. That wouldn’t be necessary.” He finishes his drink.

  “Do you love Jasmine?” I ask.

  “‘Love’ is a peculiar word, isn’t it?” Wendell is lifting his glass at the waiter. The waiter nods. “The word stands for so many things. I love a dry martini, for example.” He waves the empty glass. “I love my father’s yacht. If by ‘love’ you mean wanting something so bad it hurts and feeling like you’ll die if you don’t have it, then, yes, I love Jasmine.”

  “Do you want to marry Jasmine?”

  Wendell shakes his head. It could be that he’s saying he doesn’t want to marry Jasmine, or the gesture could mean something else. Sometimes people shake their heads like that when I say something that they can’t believe I just said.

  “People like me don’t marry people like Jasmine.” He is smiling when he says that, but it is not a friendly smile.

  “But she is an Elemental Woman. You told me so.”

  “I’m going to have to explain the way it is to you, my friend.” Wendell waits for the waiter to place the plates on the table. I stare at the pink flesh of the salmon. “Let me ask you this.” He puts a forkful of salmon in his mouth. After he swallows it, he asks me, “Has she ever said anything about me?”

  This is a question that Wendell continually asks and it never ceases to be difficult. Jasmine has said things about Wendell. She has told me that she doesn’t trust him, for example, and that he makes her feel “creepy,” whatever that means. She has communicated to me in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t like him. But I believe those things were said to me in confidence and I’m not sure that I should repeat them to Wendell. On the other hand, I want to be Wendell’s friend. How do you stay loyal to two people when one of them doesn’t like the other? Don’t you have to choose one or another at some point? After a while, I say, “She doesn’t trust you.”

  “What did she say exactly?” Wendell seems very interested in the answer to that question.

  “It is a feeling she has about you.” Now I’m not sure whether Jasmine said that Wendell was creepy or that he made her feel creepy.

  “You see? That’s where you come in. She trusts you because you’re harmless. What I’m thinking, and this is how you can help me, is that one day after work, you, Jasmine, and I go out on my father’s yacht for an evening cruise around Boston Harbor. She won’t come with me alone, I know. But if you ask her to come with us, she’ll come.”

  It feels good to be needed by Wendell, and I want to help him as I believe friends should. But I also feel uncomfortable. There is something that is not right about Wendell’s request, and I wonder whether this is what “creepy” feels like.

  “What’s the matter? What are you thinking? We can make it a double date if you like. We’ll invite Martha. She likes coming on the yacht quite a bit. I know that for a certain fact.” He winks at me.

  I need to retrace what Wendell has said to me so far so that I can find the source of the discomfort. There are words in the conversation we have just had that don’t fit logically with other words. Finally, I remember what was disturbing to me. “Why is it that people like you don’t marry people like Jasmine?”

  “You haven’t taken a bite of your salmon. What’s the matter?”

  I lift up my fork, move the rice around, and then put the fork down again. How is it that people can chew and taste and think and talk all at the same time? My head feels full, as if Wendell’s words are food that my brain is unable to digest. “I always thought one could marry whomever one loves. And you say you love Jasmine, although I never heard love defined the way you defined it.”

  “Marcelo, Marcelo. Do you always have to think so much about things? I’ll break it down for you step-by-step. Yes, you can marry whomever you ‘love’ as you say. But the person also has to be, how can I put it, worthy enough to be a part of your life. Can you imagine Jasmine at dinner conversing with my father and mother about world events? Jasmine barely finished high school for one, and for another Jasmine has been…around.”

  “Around.”

  “Let’s just say that she is so unbelievably and incredibly hot that whatever she is or has done is not important for purposes of my summer objectives. Besides, there’s something about someone saying no to me that burns me up. No one says no to me. Especially someone who has—” He stops suddenly, reconsidering what he wanted to say. Wendell’s look at that moment scares me. I have seen it before in the eyes of some of the kids at Paterson when frustration turns to rage. “In any event, what and who she is does not matter for anything beyond this summer. Now, what I want to know is whether you are willing to help me. All you have to do is say that I asked you to go for a cruise, and ask her, as a personal favor to you, if she would come as well. Then all you have to do on the yacht is entertain yourself for a while up on deck while I take Jasmine below.”

  It doesn’t make sense to me. Why does Wendell want to be alone with Jasmine? Jasmine does not trust him. She will not agree to anything he asks of her. “Why?” I ask.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you need to take her below to talk to her? Will it make a difference to the way she feels about you?”

  “Once we’re below deck, it won’t matter what she feels about me. I’ll take care of her feelings. There are ways to create feelings or change them or make them disappear for a while.”

  “You want to fuck her.” I hate using the word, but it is the word that most accurately describes what I think Wendell wants to do. The other alternatives like “making love” or even “sexual intercourse” do not seem precise enough.

  Wendell laughs so hard people sitting at the next table turn to look at us. “Why, Mr. Marchelo, you are making progress in the ways of the world indeed. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt her. She just won’t be able to say no.” Then the laughter stops and he fixes his eyes on me. “Well? What do you say? Can I count on your help, my friend?”

  The way Wendell is looking at me makes me feel that he will be extremely angry if I say no. If I am to continue being his friend, I need to say yes—that’s what he is making me feel. I am afraid. I cannot distinguish whether I am afraid for Jasmine or for myself. Is this what lack of trust feels like, I wonder—this sense of hurt to come?

  “No.” I look into Wendell’s face when I say this and see his pupils widen with surprise.

  “Pardon?”

  “No. I wi
ll not ask Jasmine to go.” I am hoping that he will not ask me why. I don’t remember any other time in my life when I have said something based solely on a feeling, without having figured out why I am saying it.

  “I see.” Wendell’s face is red. It is either anger or embarrassment. He wipes his mouth with the napkin and then bunches it up and puts it on his plate. His face is looking everywhere around the room except in my direction. When the waiter comes, he tells him, “Put it on my father’s bill and add twenty percent.”

  “Yes sir, thank you.”

  He stands up and then sits down again. I can feel him staring at me for a long time. I don’t know where to place my eyes while he is looking at me. I look out the window. I want to say that I am sorry for refusing to do what he has asked me to do, but I’m not sure that it is appropriate to say that. I am sorry that he is disappointed in me and I am afraid to lose him as a friend. But I am not sorry to keep Jasmine away from him. At that moment, she seems more important to me than Wendell’s friendship.

  The waiter brings him another martini. Maybe Wendell asked for it while I was looking out the window. His head is swaying slightly as he speaks.

  “Do you want to hear an interesting story?”

  The way Wendell asks this, I think that maybe Wendell and I can still be friends. He seems his old self again.

  “Okay, here it goes. I’m going to go fast, so see if you can follow me. Once upon a time there were these two supersmart lawyers. Both of them went to Harvard, both graduated at the top of their class, both ended up working after law school with the most prestigious law firm in Boston. One of them went into litigation, the other became a patent attorney. One was from an old Boston family. You could trace the family’s lineage all the way to the folks that arrived on the Mayflower. You’ve heard of the Mayflower, right?”

  “Yes, I learned about it at…”

  “Yes, I know, Paterson. Wonderful school, that Paterson. They teach everything there. Where was I?”

  “One was from an old Boston family,” I remind him.