The Men's Club

by Leonard Michaels

Except for me and Canterbury, everyone laughed. Berliner, eyes still bearing diffuse visionary lustre, said, ‘I spent a little time on the road, but I’m not Cavanaugh. I never did courtship. I never showed up at a party with a beautiful woman. If I had one I wouldn’t take her to a party.’

  Cavanaugh grinned, started to laugh, stopped. Berliner’s eyes had become sorrowful, more wretched than mystical. Whatever he looked at, he didn’t want to see.

  ‘I can dig it,’ said Paul. Berliner continued as if there had been no gap in his talk.

  ‘But like I met this woman in Baton Rouge, in a motel parking lot, leaning against a green Cadillac the colour of poison. Drunk. She was so drunk. I parked my car and was walking by, trying not to notice. She says, “Bud, you do it good. I been watching you. Help me park my car.”’

  He mimicked the woman’s accent, new tones in his voice; gentle, very gentle. I was surprised, touched, slightly ashamed of myself. Berliner had acting talent. It wasn’t that the woman lived, but that I could feel how she lived for him. I’d misjudged Berliner. The crazy spasmodic had feelings.

  ‘She scratched up the side of her Cadillac trying to get it between two other cars. She was too drunk to do it right. So she quit, left the Cadillac sticking out in the aisle, at an angle. She was leaning against the door, tangled up in herself. She had a cigarette in her mouth and there were butts dumped all around her feet. She’d emptied the ashtray, like to mess up the world so it would be no different from herself. I smelled ugly perfume. She gives me the keys and I climb into her Cadillac. Inside, it was like her outside, stinking perfume. A lot of burns in the seat leather. I see powder jars, hairpins, a hairbrush. Maybe a hundred balls of tissue paper on the seat and all over the floor. I started the car, backed out, then pulled it in straight. When I got out and handed her the keys, I say, just to say something, “I also have trouble parking. It’s one of the miseries of my life.” She says, “We got nothing in common, bud. Don’t put the moves on me.” I hear don’t, I think do, but this is the thing. I’m standing close, staring at her. I see that even if she wasn’t a mess, she isn’t perfect. Okay. But like she has long eyes with points, like leaves. Silver pupils looking up at me through her hair. Red stuff from a knifed couch, like. She isn’t perfect, you know what I mean, but she’s got these eyes. Better than perfect. I mean, I was thinking this repulsive broad is really beautiful. Even drunk, she is cutting me up with her eyes. I feel myself starting to shake. I’m scared. Like a stupid kid. I don’t know what to do. I been around, but I don’t know what to do. So I put out my arm. She tells me to fuck off and I want to die. I’m humiliated. Why? Is she going to tell anyone Solly Berliner tried to pick her up? Who cares? I didn’t know anybody in that town. I could walk away and never see her again. But I stand there, dying, my arm sticking out. She falls on it. She didn’t take it, she falls on it. To me it was the same. I’m now dragging her around the parking lot, holding her up, and she’s flopping along beside me. Then she vomits. All over my fucking shoes. It was disgusting, but I didn’t complain. I walked her into the motel bar and ordered some coffee. I went to the men’s room, cleaned my shoes. When I came out I ordered a drink for myself and sat with her. A jazz band was playing. Bass, sax, drums, piano. Real good. It was nice. Like we were having a date. She drank her coffee and talked. I made listening noises, that’s all. I was hoping she would sober up, but not too quick. I asked if she wanted more coffee so she wouldn’t think I’m an animal. You know what I mean? She says no, then says she feels awful about what she did to my shoes. I laughed it off, then called for the check. Cool. In control. I stood up and held out my arm. She gets up and comes with me. We go out of the bar, then down the hall towards my room and she doesn’t say anything. At the door, when I’m putting in the key, she says, “Don’t try anything with me, bud.” Maybe a minute and a half later, we’re on the bed. She didn’t have all her clothes off. I couldn’t believe it. She was holding me and kissing me like I was her teddy bear. I was still wearing my shirt and socks. Next morning her eyes are waiting for me. Sober. In her sleep something piled up behind them. Like bad smoke. I figured she was studying her big mistake. Me. Maybe hating herself, wanting me to get out so she could shower, wash it away. I don’t look too good first thing in the morning. I couldn’t blame her for having like regrets. But that wasn’t my problem. She came to my room. She says, looking at me, “You’re a nice chap.” I went to the toilet. I had no feeling. Not any. The sun was shining. I had a plane to catch. My business in town, buying into this property for a corporation, was finished. A waste of time. These Southern bastards never planned to let me in. They made me fly down to shit on me. She lay there watching me dress. I didn’t bother to shave. I don’t think I said one word. I was at the door, bags in my hands, when I feel her. She’s pressing against my back, her hands on my shoulders. She says, “How am I to write you a letter? I don’t even know your zip code.” I put down my bags and turned. I was going to say something, but she kissed me and put her tongue in my mouth. It was like she liked me. I started to kiss her, too, the same way. I think she really liked me. You know what I mean? I started thinking I would cancel my reservation, make another one. I could still phone Sheila, tell her not to meet me at the airport. I could tell her I’d be a couple of days late. I think she liked me a lot. But I had to go. I had my ticket. I got to the airport just in time to turn in the rented car and catch the plane. Sheila was waiting to drive me back to town. I said I had to talk to her. She says, “Talk.” I said, “When we get home.” She was curious, but like impatient. All the way home I was planning what to say. When we got home she says, “Okay, talk. You made the deal?” I told her to sit down. Listen. She sits. I started to say something, I don’t even know what, but then I couldn’t. I lay down on the floor with my bags. She is looking at me, wondering was I going to play a stupid joke. I said, “Come down here.” She dropped down on her knees. Not like she wanted to. She says, “Okay, what? You buy into the property? What?” I said, “Kiss me. Put your tongue in my mouth.” She says, “I thought you had to talk.” I said, “Put your tongue in my mouth.” She looks at me a long time, then says, “I will not.” I wanted to punch her right in the head, but I only lay there feeling sorry for myself. For her, too, you know. I understood the whole problem of our marriage. Sheila doesn’t like me.’

  Cavanaugh said, ‘Solly, did you tell that story for me?’

  Berliner shrugged. ‘It just came out.’

  Paul reached a fresh marijuana towards him. Berliner glanced at the cigarette as if he didn’t know what it was.

  ‘That’s for telling your story, man.’

  Berliner took the cigarette and lit it, pulling gas uphill in stages.

  ‘You didn’t know your wife didn’t like you?’ said Terry.

  ‘A marriage. A marriage. You know, man. Any little thing makes you angry. I go to the grocery and forget to buy coffee. Sheila says there must be something fundamentally wrong with my brain. She looks like she wishes I was dead. Because of the coffee. I laugh. But I didn’t know the worst until I met the woman in Baton Rouge.’

  ‘She put her tongue in your mouth. That’s how you knew?’

  ‘It was words. How come I didn’t have the words until then? Once I took a class in night school. Great Ideas of the West. I bought a special notebook to write down what the professor said. But I didn’t write anything. He was always saying, like, “How do I know this table exists?” A fucking table. That’s no problem. It’s so boring it has to exist. The problem isn’t tables, you dig? I got stupid sitting in that class, paying money to hear a shmuck talk about tables.’

  Berliner was himself again.

  ‘The problem isn’t tables,’ I said. ‘The problem is knowing.’

  ‘The problem is everything,’ said Berliner. ‘Like some guy stops me in the street. He says, “Which way is the courthouse?” I look at my right hand. Then I say, because I know the other hand is left, “Go left at the corner.” I need to see my right hand, you dig?’ />
  ‘If the courthouse was a right turn, you’d look at your left hand?’

  ‘No, man. I’d look at my cock.’

  Terry said, ‘I’ve got something to say.’ He had to speak through Berliner’s laughter.

  Five

  I SAID, ‘BERLINER, that was a sad story.’

  ‘It was,’ said Paul, looking at Berliner with admiration. ‘I know what you’re talking about. It happened to me, too.’ He was trying to make up for his failure to understand Berliner earlier, trying to repair the break in their communion. Not so much a drug brother as a kid brother; he adored Berliner.

  Terry frowned. He wanted to talk, but Berliner was laughing, Paul was brimming over, and I also wanted to talk. Then Paul was talking, pushing himself before us, lunging and tumbling into what happened to him, offering it to Berliner.

  ‘I know what you mean, Solly. A woman likes you. By contrast, you know Sheila doesn’t. That also happened to me. It was the same thing, but the other way around. I mean I liked a certain woman. What happened is my wife’s father died and she had to go to the funeral in Idaho. She’d be gone for two weeks. Two weeks is long. After a couple of days, I got lonely. I couldn’t sleep, eat, nothing. I wanted her to come home. I phoned her and said I didn’t like being alone. She said she wasn’t in Idaho having fun. Her family was fighting over the estate. She was the only one who could be fair, the only one they trusted. She had to stay longer and that’s that. Same day my boss tells me about this party. It’s a fundraiser for a politician. Somebody from our firm has to be at the party, like to show the politician we are behind him. I say okay, I’ll go. At the party I’m standing around trying to enjoy myself, but I don’t know anybody. I felt more and more lonely. I miss my wife. Then this woman who works for the politician comes up to me and starts talking. She doesn’t say it, but I could tell she picked me out because I looked the way she felt. She tells me she is looking for a house. I’m listening to her and I’m beginning to feel relieved. Somebody is talking to me. I don’t want her to go away. Maybe I acted more interested than I was, but soon she’s telling me that she lived with a man for years, with him and her two kids, but now they are breaking up and she needs her own house. First time I ever saw the woman and she tells me this. But it’s a party. You tell a stranger what you wouldn’t always tell a friend. After a while, I begin to get really interested. Hopeful, maybe. My wife was gone almost a week by then. I didn’t even know when she was coming back. She kept saying there was another legal complication, another delay. So here I am at a party. The woman is telling me she looks for a house every day and can’t find one. Always too expensive, or the neighbourhood is wrong, or something is the matter with the house. This has been going on for a year now. She’s still living with the man. He works nights, a short-order cook, but lately he’s been out of work and they’re sleeping in the same bed, and they hardly talk. Never touch. Her name is Molly. She’s about thirty, thirty-five. Attractive. Maybe a little scrawny, a little tight and nervous. I could see she has problems. She’s wearing a yellow dress and she has a yellow ribbon in her hair. Too bright. And her eyes are too big. She’s talking like the thing with the house and man was happening to somebody but not her exactly. I got more interested and I was a little sorry for her. She has a nice figure, but she’s wearing too much yellow, and her eyes look exploded, like she’s going crazy searching for what flew away. Then I said I didn’t believe she wanted to move out. She would have found a house if she wanted to move out. “Why wouldn’t I want to move out?” she says, very surprised, like she never thought of that. I told her it was obvious. She loves the man. She laughed. She says, “If anything, he loves me.” She woke up one night, she says, and found him beating her. In her sleep, he jumped on her, crying like a kid and beating her. Then she asks me to talk about myself, but what was I going to say after that? My wife is out of town? I’m lonely? In no time we’re talking about her again. I wasn’t hopeful anymore. I never played around anyway. I was lonely, but playing around is not my style. A woman talks to me at a party. What is that supposed to mean? She loves me? I mean, I liked her. Maybe I wanted to go to bed with her, but she was too complicated. She can’t find a house because a guy is beating her up in her sleep. Next thing, she’d be telling me about her spinal tap, her year in the rubber room. Then the party is starting to end. She offers me a ride. I say my car is parked two blocks away. She says she owes me for listening to her. Like it’s funny. Like she’s being funny to make up for the bad shit she told me. She says I was a nice guy, I did her a favour listening, and now I have to let her give me a ride to my car. I laugh and tell her all right and we walk out together. We walk and we walk, and every couple of blocks she has to stop, look around, try to think. She can’t remember where she parked her car. “I’m so embarrassed,” she says. An hour later, when we walked about a mile, I’m beginning to understand why that guy beats her up. I’m beginning to think she doesn’t even have a car, when she spots it. “Gloria!” she says. “You were hiding from me, weren’t you. Bad car. Bad Gloria.” It’s an old Buick. Front seat like a couch. We get in. I don’t show her I’m a little disgusted. I’m still being a nice guy, but now I really need a ride. I’m waiting. I notice she isn’t moving. I look at her. She is staring at me like she was waiting for me to look at her. She says, “Thanks.” I say, “For what?” She says, “You’re a good person.” I say, “For listening to you? It was nothing. I enjoyed it.” She says, “No, it was not nothing. It was really kind of you.” I say, “You’re welcome, but it was nothing.” She says, “No. Don’t say that. It was wonderful of you. I want to say thanks. I’m grateful to you, Bill.” I say, “Paul.” Her face twists. She looks frightened. “Forgive me,” she says, “I’m so sorry I called you Bill.” I say, “Paul sounds like Bill. Almost the same name. Anybody could make that mistake and who cares? Call me Bill, call me Shithead, if you want.” She starts to cry. “I hurt you,” she says, “didn’t I? How could I have done that.” Man, I made a little joke. But she doesn’t see it as a joke. I put my hand on her leg. Like to show her everything is okay. I just gave her a friendly touch. Soon as she feels my hand, she comes sliding across the seat to me. What I wanted, right? I mean it is, but it isn’t. Not like this. Too weird, but we’re into heavy petting, like high-school kids. Then we’re trying to do the whole works in the front seat. My head is banging against the steering wheel and it’s getting very hot in the car, but once you get started there is no going back. I was excited by the idea, maybe, not the thing. The thing didn’t work, anyway. It was over in three minutes. I felt terrible. She looks happy. She was shining. You’d have thought we had a real good time. She says, “Let’s get something to eat. Let’s have dinner or something.” She is shining, full of energy, ready to start the evening. I was sitting there with my pants around my ankles. My dick looks crushed. Like somebody stepped on it. She sees I don’t feel happy and she says, “Next time it will be better.” I told her I had to go home now, but I would phone her. She says, “You promise to phone me? Will you phone tomorrow?” I said I would, I promise. She drove me to my car. The next day, like I promised, I phoned her. Not to make a date, but I promised so I phoned. Right away she says, “Why don’t you come over to my place.” Instead of saying no, I say, “What about your friend, the guy you live with?” She says, “I do what I want. The man doesn’t decide who I see or don’t see.” I said, “All right. I’ll come over.” She tells me she lives in Oakland, gives me directions. Her voice is shining. I could almost see her, the way she looked in the car. I remembered what she said about the next time. I’m excited, but on my way over to her house I had second thoughts. This was stupid. I didn’t want to do this. She is attractive and everything, but I’m driving along, getting close to her place, and I ask myself, “Do you want to do this?” The answer is no. The thing in her car was not good. There was also the man. She called him “the man”. What was I doing getting mixed up with them? I didn’t like the idea of the man one bit. I turned around, s
tarted driving back, thinking I would go to a movie. Go to sleep. Phone my wife and tell her she has to come home no matter what. Two minutes later I turn around again, thinking this is more stupid. I said I would go to her place and I ought to go. Nothing to worry about. It’s simple. A little companionship. I’d have a good time. Everybody does it. I didn’t do it, but why not? Was something wrong with me? I could do it. So what if I didn’t want to do it? That was no fucking reason not to do it. I drove to her house mad at myself, but like feeling definite. I go stomping up the steps to her door. I ring the bell, I’m thinking she will open the door wearing a nightgown, shining at me. We will embrace and do it. Both of us will feel joy. I don’t know what her living room looks like, but I’m imagining we will do it there, on the floor. My heart is beating so strong that my shirt is jumping. I can hardly breathe. The door opens and I almost shit in my pants. It’s the man. The porch light is hitting him. I see everything. He’s got a broomstick head with nose holes, but no nose and no chin. His neck comes to his lower lip. He is wearing thick glasses, so thick it’s like they make him blind. He says, “You must be Paul.” I hear kids laughing and music from a TV set. His voice is warm and friendly. He’s wearing an apron and carrying a wooden ladle, as if he’s in the middle of cooking dinner. A cigarette is in the other hand. He takes a drag, looking at me through his goggles, and his lower lip comes about to the middle of the cigarette. His knuckles get sticky with spit. He says, “Molly went to buy some whiskey, I think. I heard her tell the kids that Paul is coming over. You’re welcome to come inside and wait.” I said, “Oh, thank you. Please tell her I’ll be right back.” Like I rang the doorbell to say I would be right back. When I get to my car I am so relieved that I think I will sit here, in my car, with the windows rolled up and the doors locked, for the rest of my life, I will never move again. I could understand why she couldn’t find a house. I couldn’t explain it. I could understand. Don’t ask me to explain. I mean the man is wearing an apron. He has no nose. I don’t even want to think about it. I saw her coming up the street hugging a grocery bag, hurrying, almost running. I slunk down. She went by without seeing me. I don’t remember starting my car, but I got home in about five minutes. I must have done fifty on College Avenue. I didn’t notice nothing.’