“Gloria, you know I like you. I just want to tell you, that I know. I know. You have to be hiding something from me. I know you have come into a source of money you aren’t telling me about. I know. I know you’ve gone for expensive meals. I know this. So I’m calling you, to ask you, because I like you. Do you have another source of money?”
He said nothing more, was wondering, what the fuck am I doing? He was correct, he knew it, but he had nothing to prove it other than the accumulation of witnessed and intuited knowledge. He didn’t even care, really; he didn’t give a shit if she was bilking the system: so was practically their entire clientele.
“Do what you gotta do, Alex. Do what you got to do.”
Silence.
“Well, what I —”
“No, Alex, you do what you gotta do. That’s all I’m going to say. You’d have done the same, if you were me.”
“Wait, what? Done what? Do you have another source of money? This clinic you told me about, is that where you’ve been getting your money from?”
“I didn’t know nothing wrong, I got no idea, I did what I did, so you do what you gotta do. I ain’t saying no names, I’m saying nothing, I didn’t do nothing I didn’t think I couldn’t do. If they offered it to you, you’d have done the same.”
“Done what?”
“Look, Alex, you looking into my money situation, I don’t know what you know, but all I sayin’, is I did what I did and I stand by it. Do what you do.”
He made an inchoate noise — an aborted sentence, he thought — as his brain dealt with that gushing cryptic tumble. “What did … what? … Gloria, I am asking you about the clinic, specifically. You said they gave you a hundred dollars to run tests, or for you to fill out some survey? Was it more than a hundred dollars? If I’m wrong, and I’m off-base, just tell me. I know there’s some amount of money you are keeping from me.”
“You do what you need to do.”
“Gloria, ok, fine. I’m sorry, but from what we have learned and heard we’re auditing your account, is all, just so you know. So please be forthcoming. I’ll be in contact.”
He was rolling around the conversation in his head, surprisingly seething. Naturally, he retired for the day to Kevin’s office, though, so far, Alex had kept this new business to himself.
>< >< ><
“So, let’s see …” Those three words served as Alex’s totemic invocation of their ritual, where they’d test each other to see what they’d each hypothetically be willing to do to keep their salary without working for it. The sacrifices they’d make or depravities they’d undertake varied with the current stressors they were facing. Testing Kevin’s moral limits did wonders for Alex’s free-floating anxieties; asking Kevin what he’d be willing to do after he’d, say, been chewed out by a succession of ungrateful clients or scheduled against his will for double intake duty was a fantastic way of gaining perspective.
So far, they’d agreed to undertake the following two sacrifices: first, they’d both be willing to have their left hands removed for a lifetime of salary and benefits. (The agreed-upon reason: you could always get an artificial hand, and they were both right handed. Alex had needed more convincing, initially, as he masturbated with his left hand. Kevin had made a good point that masturbating with a prosthetic hand might foster the illusion of an “other.”) Second, they’d both agreed that they’d be willing to be stabbed once in the stomach for a year’s salary and benefits, assuming no organs were injured and there were no subsequent infections or long- lasting complications.
At Alex’s key three words — “so, let’s see”— Kevin ceased typing and reclined in his chair, languidly. He sensed what was coming.
“How about this. You manufacture a fake medical report that convinces a pregnant woman she needs to get an abortion to save her life —”
Kevin cackled. “Dude, seriously?”
“Yeah man. Ok, same deal as before, except you authorize or create a fake medical report or diagnostic or some shit that absolutely convinces an otherwise healthy mother to get an abortion, because it somehow convinces her she needs to do it for her health. Like, it’s some airtight conspiracy.”
“Hmm, very interesting. Could she have another kid after if she wanted to?”
“Honestly, does it matter to you?”
“No.” Kevin laughed. Alex knew him well. “Well, yeah, it would, you know. Yeah, for full salary, I’d do that, for sure.”
“Eh, I don’t believe you. I don’t think you’d be able to do that. How about this, if you were a woman —”
“Dear God, here we go.”
“— if you were a woman, would you intentionally get pregnant just to have an abortion, for a full year’s salary. And you’d have to be watched by some weirdo sex cult who got off on it.”
“Do you play this game with Caroline?”
“Of course not, Kevin. Isn’t it nice to know that she could never replace you?”
“Word, it is. So, is this hypothetical really just Gloria you’re talking about, L-O-L.” He actually said each letter aloud.
“Hah, maybe.”
“Well, how would I know that the sex cult was safe and wouldn’t kill me, or would actually pay me? I’d need tons of references. I’m pro-choice, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having an abortion. Intentionally getting pregnant to have an abortion, well, man, I don’t know, I can’t say its ‘bad’ but it’s certainly not good. But for a full year’s salary, shit, maybe.
“I’ll get back to you on that one. I have calls to make and I can’t spend all day playing this bullshit game.”
“You like this game.”
“Word, I do. But you know what I mean.”
Alex prepared a little on-the-fly cock-and-bull story to keep Kevin’s interest. “I heard about this story — I don’t know if it’s true — about this woman who like, was paid to have abortions.”
“What? Like, a medical study?”
“No, like, some kinky weird group that just wanted to perform abortions, so they’d pay women to get pregnant and then perform abortions on them.”
“Sounds risky. Dude, if that shit existed, fucking all of our clients would be doing that shit.”
“Word.”
“No, really, a ton of them have kids for like, EBT and whatnot. If they could get paid without having a kid, you know they’d totally do it. If that program did exist, we would be encouraged to promote it. L-O-L. Dude, could you imagine if we got a cut, as like, a referral fee?
“But really, I gotta make phone calls. I’ll talk to you later.”
Contemplating commissions for abortion referrals: Kevin for you, ladies and gentlemen.
Alex got up from Kevin’s guest chair, said his good-byes, checked the hallway to make sure there were no visible supervisors, and headed back to his office.
>< >< ><
She cooked, he cleaned; he pushed the cart, she filled it. He liked walking around the grocery store, ever since he was a little kid. He liked the colors, the clatter, the whole sensory experience. Every product loaded in the cart would be a new experience, like shopping at a bazaar. A new tomato sauce, cool. Caroline was the designated item fetcher, since she did most of the cooking and he didn’t really care about what they got, as long as he got his requisite lazy person staples: cereal, some Greek yogurts, some fruits, some microwavable Thai or Indian meals, some of those sugar-ridden coffee drinks. Caroline was the good one, getting exotic olives or fancy, adjective-laden sauces and condiments. Being in Bayside, their local grocery store had a pretty high quality East and South Asian specialty food section to raid.
It was a nice day, and Caroline looked nice in her outfit: tight black jeans and a white, logo-less hoodie. She looked like a low-fat black and white cookie (a line he used every time she wore the outfit), and it was endearing to see her stretch up to get some of the out-of-rea
ch paper towels. Then he woke up from his stupor and volunteered to get the items for her (why were the boxy and cumbersome paper towels always stacked on the highest shelf?). Alex handed them to her, and she took them, double-barreled, and put them in the cart. She looked cute carrying a super-sized item, much the same way a little puppy looks cute lugging around an oversized bone.
Sunny and springy as she looked, he could see why he’d approached her back in college in the first place. Sometimes he realized he’d been in a relationship with Caroline for so long that he almost forgot what his tastes were like, until she went about inadvertently reminding him. She was cute, bespectacled, slender, chipper and had spunk, the winning formula. And being with her made him feel good.
She strode on ahead down the aisle to ascertain new culinary discoveries, while he turned the narrow aisle into an opportunity to stand around and veg out. As befitting any co-dependent relationship, he divided his attention between watching the cart and texting Kevin.
What’s up, he texted.
A couple minutes later: NM.
Ahh, the glories of the modern era. Truly, a conversation that could not wait until the work week.
A conversation that would probably be replicated several times over the course of the weekend.
He felt another buzz and checked his phone. Crack the case on Gloria, Sherlock?
He ignored this provocation.
But, as if the mere mention of Sherlock had an incantatory effect, Alex just happened to look up at just the right moment … somewhere beneath his consciousness he espied a person and an image. Now, so quickly out of his vision that there was no way his mind was able to compute it and make visual sense of it. But still, a visual, rightly or wrongly, stuck out and took center stage in his mind.
Not convinced but curious, he pushed the grocery cart around the corner in pursuit of confirmation of what he thought he just saw. In flagrant dereliction of his honored stewardship of the groceries, he abandoned the cart — just for a second, he was already mounting his defense before the tribunal (of Caroline) — and hustled down the corner.
Into the valley of canned goods he ventured, in pursuit of what he thought he just saw.
The image he was after — the man he was after — was down at the end of the aisle, his back turned toward Alex. He had a red shopping basket in his right hand, a liter of Coke the only visible item. The man’s face and body were practically buried in the canned beans on display before him. He stood still, motionless, as if paralyzed by the sheer plethora of options presented that could, potentially, fulfill all of his bean needs. But this man made no attempt to canvass the options; instead, he stared straight ahead, into the display. It reminded Alex of the end to The Blair Witch Project.
An ace in the hole to buy him time — two crouched elderly people at the other end of the aisle, bending over to examine the bottom shelf goods.
Thinking fast, Alex swung around the next aisle. Organics aisle, the province of the hip and able-bodied. He sped down it, thinking fleetingly that the man was staring so intently through the beans, toward this aisle, that maybe he could see through it and at Alex. But, as if the speed at which he hustled was too volatile for this thought to take hold, it disappeared as soon as he swung around the corner, now at the other side of the canned bean aisle.
God bless them, the elderly were still blocking the path. And the man in question — this middle-aged, thinning-haired white man — was still face deep in canned goods, his line of sight arched between the beans and the floor. So face deep, too face deep; he was hiding, like a freshman standing at a urinal next to a bully senior, just blank-faced, staring ahead. As if he couldn’t be seen.
But Alex saw, and confirmed what he’d first espied: the man’s bulbous, disfigured right ear.
>< >< ><
“Hey!” Caroline spotted Alex a couple minutes later in the original aisle. “I saw the cart but didn’t see you! I feared you’d been grocery-napped!”
He shook his head and moved briskly, signaling ‘come here’ with two fingers. She got close to him and followed his pace.
“So, in that other aisle,” he started, as she leaned in closely, Puffins cereal close to her chest, “in that other aisle, I saw this guy who worked at the abortion clinic I visited. He’s very recognizable, has some ear defect.”
“Oh, weird.” She didn’t know how to respond, and he couldn’t blame her. Nonplussed was the appropriate response. He felt pangs of doubt and guilt, that he shouldn’t have told her anything.
He wasn’t going to involve her any further.
“It’s nothing, I guess. Just weird coincidence.”
“I guess. You’re so crafty though, to track him down!”
He smiled. “You’re so complimentary, you should come with a free drink.”
“Oh you,” and she flicked her hand in the knowing ‘oh pshaw’ way. He’d repeated that same play-on-words a fair amount throughout the course of their relationship.
He wouldn’t mention any more of this Gloria business to her.
And why not?
(He’d been watching me, I know it…)
The anxiety he felt was answer enough.
>< >< ><
He found time during the week to stop by the Washington Heights Clinic. He felt it would put the matter to rest, somehow.
“Excuse me, you are Mr. Rampole’s assistant, correct? I think I recognize you from a when I spoke with Mr. Rampole.”
The middle-aged, thinning-haired, owl-faced man looked at him, hard. He was the only employee in this room. He spoke to Alex behind a service desk.
“Yes, that sounds possible. I don’t think we met, though. I’m Garet Overton, I handle billing and other matters and generally assist Mr. Rampole. Do you need Mr. Rampole?” His voice was surprisingly sensual, a warm caramel baritone, even if his manner and words were punctilious and precise.
“No, well, maybe. I was just wondering, do you live in Bayside?”
His face maintained the same composed rictus. “Bayside, as in Bayside, Queens? No, I do not. Why do you ask?”
“Well, maybe not Bayside, but like, anywhere in the surrounding area, Auburndale or something?’
“No, not at all. Again, why do you ask?”
“Just wondering, I could swear I saw you in my grocery store in Bayside, Queens.”
“Oh? No, sorry. It was not me. I’ve never stepped foot in that part of Queens. Wrong side of the wrong river. I live in New Jersey. I wonder, why you thought it was me?”
The man spoke as if he didn’t have a brown root vegetable-styled mound growing perceptibly under his right ear. Perhaps that’s the dignified, proper way of dealing with that, and Alex’s eye-flicking gawking was just a product of him being, frankly, a juvenile asshole.
“Guess I was mistaken. It’s a good area, underrated. Anyway, is Mr. Rampole in?”
“No, he’s not in today. Can I leave a message?”
Alex wondered if Garet’s owl-like visage dissipated on the weekends, when he smiled or worked-out, read books or listened to music or got drunk or high or orgasmed. Garet didn’t look like a man who did any of those things, but then again, just as his voice has been a surprise, people had dimensions and unanticipated depths.
“No, that’s ok. Well, maybe let him know I stopped by, but I’ll try and contact him later, when I have all the paperwork I need. Thanks for your time.”
Garet nodded. “Have a good day. Sorry I couldn’t be of more service.”
So Alex left. What the point of this was, he didn’t know, except he didn’t for a second believe a word of what Garet said. Maybe he did live in New Jersey, that part was probably true, but Alex knew for a fucking fact that Garet, despite what he said, had been in that fucking Bayside grocery store.
>< >< ><
The next day, he got lunch with Kevin at Baja Fresh. Alex didn’t
like Baja Fresh, but it was serviceable. For Kevin, it was a big step up. Kevin had the diet of a feral dog; well, maybe not, because a feral dog would at least eat vegetables if it came across them in a dumpster. Kevin’s diet was so bad that, at the ripe age of 31, his doctor, worried about the effects of such swill on Kevin’s esophageal lining, recommended he temper his fondness for processed meats by incorporating a bit of fiber here and there. So Baja Fresh was a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step.
In other words, Kevin got his chicken burrito with a whole wheat wrap.
“So,” Kevin started between bites, “how’s the life of Alex, master sleuth.”
“Uneventful. Except, one thing I didn’t mention was that Gloria sort of admitted over the phone that something shady was going on. She was just like, ‘do what you got to do.’”
“Really? When did this happen?”
“Like a week or so ago. Yeah. Also, and this sounds nuts, I know, but I know for a fucking fact that I saw this guy who works at the abortion clinic at this grocery store in Queens. Like, I’m positive. He has a very discernable feature, like, this fucked-up ear. And I went back to the clinic and asked him if he lives there or shopped there ever, and he completely denied it.”
“Really? That really happened, and you really did that? Hmm … that’s interesting.”
Kevin creased his forehead, like he was flexing his brain. This look of consternation was rare.
“Fuckin’ philosophical Kevin over there.”
“That is weird, though. That … actually, I’ve switched sides. You’ve convinced me. There’s definitely something shady going on here.”
Alex, a little deflated by all the impasses he’d experienced, just shrugged. “Meh.”
“You should try and get those HIPAA forms.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
They continued eating, about a minute of ambient mastication and push-and-pull of cold wind from the opening-and-closing front door.
With a Voice that is Often Still Confused But is Becoming Ever Louder and Clearer Page 10