Nude Men Page 21

  “I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s because I love watching people’s surprise. Anyway, honesty is the best policy. Is that a famous quote, or did I just invent it? Even if it comes late. Better late than never. Better safe than sorry.”

  “So you invented all those lies about her lying down on the sidewalk and closing her eyes?”

  “Well, I did tell you she would die suddenly, didn’t I? And she was lying in the street, though I suppose her eyes weren’t closed if she was hit by a car. Anyway, I wasn’t so far off.” Anger is rising very quickly, to a dangerous, boiling level within me. “I would have prevented the accident!” I cry.

  “No,” says the doctor. “Only delayed it, which is why I didn’t tell you about it. The knowledge would have made your lives hell.”

  “You murdered her by not telling us!” we scream, with all the rage of our lives.

  “You would have kept Sara locked in a little white disinfected room with no furniture, only a floor made of mattress and walls made of mattress. And even then the fatal accident would have occurred eventually.”

  Brimming with disdain, I spit: “As far as I can remember, there are only four types of deaths in life: disease, accident, murder, and suicide. So far, the only one Sara did not die of is the last, but I’m sure that with your help we can squeeze it in somewhere. After all, you’ve already been so kind as to provide us with murder.”

  Lady Henrietta and I are able to contain ourselves no longer. We attack the doctor, throwing ourselves at him. We beat him and make him bleed. I knock on his head like a woodpecker. Henrietta punches his chest. “Death and dying,” I feel, for some reason, I should say. And then I wake up.

  What an asshole of a doctor. I am still full of anger, even though I am relieved that it was just a dream. Sara did, truly, die of an accident, not a “cancer of her place” or “space” or “air.” Her accident was not preventable, not foreseeable, not to be expected, and some stupid little doctor in his stupid little office did not know it would happen.

  I continue taking the parrot’s excrement to that street and dropping it there.

  I visit my friend Tommy. I tell him about the accident, I cry, and he tries to be supportive.

  He says, “Manhattan is such an unhealthy and repulsive city, not a place for people to live, especially children. There are barely any trees, no animals except pet dogs and pigeons that shit you on the head. Though actually that’s not quite true. A few days ago, I was at my girlfriend’s apartment, doing my male courtship dance, which she always demands of me before we have sex. The music was blasting, and I was stark naked, when lo and behold, I see a blue bird outside the window. So maybe there is hope left for this mean, repulsive city.”

  “Was it a parrot?”

  “A parrot?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t close enough for me to tell.”

  “I could have you arrested for indecent exposure.”

  He looks at me a moment, to see if I’m laughing, to see if I’m joking.

  Finally, he says, “Hey, lighten up.”

  “No. It was you that woman was looking at when she ran over Sara. Why the fuck did you have to stand in the window naked? Don’t you know that’s illegal, and for good reason?”

  “What are you talking about? How would you know what she was looking at?”

  “Because she told me. What address were you at?” I ask, to make sure he was the naked man the woman had seen.

  He tells me, and I nod.

  He sits down, perfectly white and silent. After a while, he softly says, “Pardon the banality at a time like this, but... it’s a small world.”

  “A small circus.”

  People start to clap at her life.

  chapter ten

  Sara’s funeral is attended by dozens of male models.

  Lady Henrietta has stopped painting.

  “I want to leave,” she tells me. “Take me somewhere, Jeremy.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Anywhere. Just away.”

  “The only place I can think of is my mother’s house. Unless you want to spend money on a real trip.”

  “I don’t care at all. I can’t think. Your mother went to Disney World with Sara. I would like to meet her. I want to be with people who have been with Sara when I was not there.”

  “How long do you want to stay?”

  “Don’t ask me petty questions at a time like this. I couldn’t care less. I have no idea. Maybe one hour, maybe one month, maybe forever, okay? You decide.”

  Laura understands perfectly and approves of my going to the country with Lady Henrietta to comfort her.

  Henrietta and I go to my mother’s house. We both sleep in my old room, which has twin beds. The only other bedroom in the house, my mother’s, has one big bed, so we have no choice. Henrietta stays in our room most of the time, on her bed, her legs under the blanket, like someone sick. In darkness. She cries incessantly. She gets cold sores under her nose and on her upper lip, from blowing her nose all the time. She lies under a mountain of Kleenex. She vomits once, from crying so much. Her hair is stuck to her face, so I brush it for her and tie it in a ponytail. I wipe her face with cold water. I feed her. She eats absent-mindedly. After crying a lot, she gets very cold, and I find her sitting in bed, wearing her winter coat.

  Henrietta keeps Sara’s braids on her night table, in the long box. Even the little note is still there, on which Sara wrote to me: “Here is a lock, a token of my affection.” Henrietta often pets the braids.

  My mother is angelic, as I suspected she’d be. She is discreet, sensitive, always there behind the door if she is needed. She wears black. She always whispers. Her face gets bloated, like Henrietta’s, maybe out of sympathy. Perhaps she cries secretly in her room. When she’s not behind the door, she sits on the couch in the living room and does nothing. Sometimes she walks around and looks out the window.

  It’s summer outside. The weather is gorgeous. Not too hot. Very sunny and bright and colorful. The birds chirp. So do the insects. It feels very inappropriate,- this chirping. Henrietta keeps the blinds down, but there’s a high window in our room, which has no blind. Through it she can see the sky, blue like someone’s eyes, and the trees rustling in the breeze.

  Henrietta’s mourning is a normal mourning. It’s very intense, probably as intense as mourning gets, short of suicide, but it is normal—for Henrietta, that is, which means there are still a few pitiful eccentricities here and there, but nothing I couldn’t have thought of myself. Actually, that’s wrong. I could not have predicted that she would take a liking to spilling water around the house and that she would feel the need to unplug the electrical appliances in whatever room she’s in. I cannot figure out the secret meaning of those things.

  I take a walk in the woods, the parrot on my shoulder. I give in to some fantasy of life after death. I will utter Sara’s name aloud to see if I’ll get some sort of response from her. No one is listening, so why not try. It can’t hurt.

  “Sara,” I say, in a normal voice.

  The parrot cocks his head and looks me in the eyes. “Sara?” he says.

  I walk some more in silence, and then I say again, “Sara.”

  I get no response from Sara, unless she is communicating to me through the parrot, who repeats, “Sara?”

  “Sara,” I say.

  “Sara,” he repeats, not looking at me anymore but staring ahead in a melancholic way, like a little person. He understands that we’re looking for her.

  “Sara,” I say.

  “Sara,” he says, his voice becoming deep and mournful.

  I look at the trees. I wait for the slightest response to our calling, but there is no variation in the activities of nature. The breeze does not become stronger after we utter Sara’s name, not a single branch cracks, no squirrel darts by at that moment, the sky does not become overcast, nor does the sun get brighter.

  I start thinking about the afternoon of Sara’s death,
its bizarre sequence of events. Destiny. I have always craved to control destiny, either through down-to-earth effort or through supernatural means. But she is frighteningly whimsical, Destiny, inexorably so. She will not be controlled by little white elephants. She’ll fight them to the death. She does not like to feel pressured, does not like commitment. Only accepts freedom. She’s impatient, bored, restless, fidgety, like a little kid who can’t sit still at table, with one cheek of her backside off her chair, her legs trembling, waiting, positioned to race away the moment her parents tell her she’s dismissed. Except that Destiny does not wait to be dismissed. She races away anytime, all the time. She’s capricious, flirtatious, unfaithful, selfish, a clumsy artist, not a true friend but a charming one nevertheless. She’s always mischievous, incessantly saying “Oops,” then melting into giggles. Always innocent in her evd deeds, never to blame, crowned by a complete and utter lack of sensitivity.

  “Sara,” I say.

  “Sara.” The parrot is crying, except that there are no tears.

  A plane passes overhead.

  * * *

  Henrietta is losing weight every day. Her face is ravaged. Her eyes are sunken, very red and irritated from the constant crying, and surrounded by dark circles. There are red blotches on her face, and her upper lip is all puffed up, thicker than I’ve ever seen it. It looks like a boxer’s beat-up lip. All this isn’t doing much good for my spirits, and I feel she is pulling me down with her.

  I try to think of things to make her feel better. I decide to buy her marzipan. I find some in a little bakery in town. I also stop at the supermarket to buy her bottled water, because it’s all she drinks. I walk through the aisles. Everything reminds me of Sara, and I realize how deeply her personality has been incorporated into every aspect of my life. My clothes remind me of her, because she used to draw men’s clothes. I used to look at pretty women on the street or in the supermarket for the sake of looking at pretty women. Now when I see a pretty woman (especially one with big breasts) I cannot help but think: There goes one of Sara’s Barbie dolls. Or is she a Jane doll?

  The eggs in the dairy section remind me of Sara’s Humpty Dumpties. My facial features float on their surfaces.

  My thoughts are suddenly interrupted by the sight of a woman who looks extremely familiar. I slow my gait, trying to remember who she is. I get the feeling she is someone I don’t like, though I can’t remember why. And then I remember. She is one of my mother’s agents. She is the lemon woman, the one who asked me to hand her down the tall kitchen garbage bags.

  I stop next to her and say, “Could you please pass me the Ajax on that low shelf. My back hurts.”

  She stares at me, surprised. She recognizes me. Not saying a word, she bends down and gets me the Ajax.

  “I spend my life going back and forth between the supermarket and my home,” I tell her. “There are such strange people in the supermarket. People with problems and faults. But I would never pester someone in the supermarket by making subtle references to their fault, even if I got paid to do it. Would you?”

  “You’re doing it now.”

  “You started it.”

  “It was a favor.”

  “She called you her employee, her agent. Are you offended?”

  “No. She paid me for this favor.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t do it as a favor either.”

  At home, I go to Henrietta’s room to give her the marzipan. I stop a few feet away from the door, stunned. I am hearing Sara’s voice coming from inside the room. Sara talking to Henrietta. “Repeat what you just told me,” I hear Henrietta say. “Why?” says Sara.

  “Say it in my tape recorder.”

  “I’m tired of getting all my bad news recorded in your machine.”

  “Please.”

  “I got an F in art.”

  There’s a click. I enter the room. Henrietta is sitting on her bed, with her tape recorder on her lap and the box of her daughter’s braids next to her. Her hand is in the box, petting the braids and the white ribbons attached to them. Tears are streaming down her face. About fifty crumpled Kleenexes are scattered around her. I sit on the other bed, the box of marzipan on my lap. A brief glance is her only acknowledgment of my presence. She lets the tape recorder run.

  “What did you say you wanted to be when you grow up?” asks Henrietta, from the tape recorder.

  “A housewife,” says Sara.

  Again there’s a click, signaling the end of one conversation and the beginning of another.

  “Can you repeat that,” says Henrietta. “Our connection was bad. I didn’t hear you quite well.”

  “Bullshit,” says Sara. “You just want to record me. Okay. Dear darling mother, I broke my leg at camp. It hurts terribly much. This is the tenth of August at three forty-three in the afternoon.”

  Click.

  “How many cavities did you have?”

  “Three.”

  Click.

  “Is it recording yet?” asks Sara.

  “Yes,” says Henrietta.

  “Melissa said her mother said my mother is perverted, because your house is full of naked men showing off their bodies and trying to be pretty like women.”

  Click.

  “What did you say you wanted to be when you grow up?”

  “A hairdresser.”

  Click.

  “So tell me what’s wrong,” says Henrietta. The sound is muffled.

  “You’re not gonna record me, are you?”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, I’m just sad.”

  “There must be a reason.”

  “I wish I had a father who wore clothes.”

  “What in the world do you mean?”

  “I want someone who’s dressed most of the time. All the men who come here are nice, but they’re not like normal fathers. All my friends have fathers who are always dressed. My friends have never seen their fathers without their underwear, except one girl, and that was by accident, because none of the bathrooms in her house have locks.”

  Click.

  “No, don’t record me.”

  “Yes, I gotta have this on tape. This is terrible. Repeat what you just said.”

  “What do you mean, terrible? You always said I should be free in that way.”

  “I know. I don’t mean terrible. I mean incredible. Surprising. Disconcerting. Unsettling. Nerve-racking. Repeat what you said.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m attracted to Jeremy.”

  My ears buzz in surprise, but I am careful not to move a muscle, not to show my interest in this new topic of conversation. “You are?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you mean, attracted?”

  “I want to do it with him.”

  “Do what?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “Sex.”

  “And do you know what that means?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? You didn’t learn it from me. You must have learned it from TV or your friends, right?”

  “Yes. And books.”

  “Are you sure you have the right definition?”

  “I guarantee you, yes.”

  “And you’re interested in Jeremy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you planning to do anything about it?”

  “Yes. I would like to go to Disney World with him.”

  “Really.”

  “Will you let me go?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You should. Our doorman, on afternoons when you’re out hunting for O.I.M.s, would willingly see me in the back room, but he’s aggressive and too rough. Otherwise there’s my gym teacher in school, a pedophde. He adores me, and we have plenty of free time after class, but I think he might be dangerously insane.”

  “Don’t underestimate my intelligence.”

  “You know I’m kidding. But it is supposed to make you
think.” Click.

  “What did you say you wanted to be when you grow up?”

  “A fact checker.”

  Click.

  “I think I regret it,” says Sara. Her voice is muffled. I realize this means the tape recorder is hidden.

  “Why?”

  “Because he probably won’t want to be friends with me now.”

  “You knew that might happen.”

  “I know, but I didn’t think it would bother me. Now I wish I could keep him as a friend.”

  “Maybe you’ll be able to.”

  “It’s not sure at all.”

  “I know. You’re not in love with him, are you?” asks Henrietta.

  “Not that much. Though I wish we could stay lovers. But I’m sure he’d never want to.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “He’s too influenced by what people think.”

  Click.

  “That took long. Is there any hope?” says Henrietta.

  “No.” It’s my voice.

  “You see, I knew it.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  She cries. “Well, come home. It’s getting late.”

  Silence.

  “Okay?” she says. “Can you please bring Sara home now?”

  “No,” says my voice.

  “Why not?”

  “You should turn on your tape recorder.”

  “It’s already on.”

  “You should come to the hospital. There was an accident. It’s Sara.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “No.” Pause. “She was hit by a car, and died instantly.” Her scream is long and deep.

  The real Henrietta’s eyes are closed, but she is not asleep. Her hand is stdl inside the box, petting the braids. I bury my face in my hands.

  An hour later, I am able to persuade her to go out for a walk. We are sdent, and we walk slowly. I am also able to persuade her to eat half of a small marzipan mushroom. We don’t go far, but an hour elapses before we are back at the house.

  We go to our room and find the parrot covered in long golden threads.