My young cat came from a vacant lot in a city and may not have known his mother long or at all, but at four months old he was rescued by animal-lovers, who devote much of their lives to abandoned animals, whom human beings sometimes have kept for a time and then left on streets or in parks, because they no longer want them, the way their parents may not have wanted them, but couldn’t as easily throw them out onto the cold street, and then they say, after they’ve abandoned the pet, I couldn’t keep the dog anymore, it squealed at night, pissed on the floor, or the cat clawed my furniture, and in the dark of night, they leave helpless, domesticated creatures under a car or near a park and flee to the safety of their complacent homes. It’s not surprising that my cat fears the touch of human beings, since he may have been abandoned by one, or because, early in his life, at two weeks or three, he wasn’t petted by one, in addition to his mother’s absence, and he spent his first four months alone, scavenging for food and warmth. When I went to the animal shelter, located in a pet store, to select the cat who might be right for me, I had in mind a gentle, smart cat, about four months old, who was alert and relaxed with people. Immediately I saw my cat, the one who would become mine that very day, and I put him on my lap, where he sat calmly, and, I decided, he likes people and he’s gentle, then to test his intelligence and alertness, I carried him to a nearby fishtank, where he avidly stared at the brightly colored fish swimming back and forth in the large tank, and, I thought, he’s alert, then signed the adoption papers, promising never to have him declawed and that I’d return him to this shelter rather than ever abandon him. One of the cat people or rescuers escorted us to my home, so that she could see for herself I wasn’t running a laboratory that experimented on cats or didn’t have many badly treated cats trapped in foul-smelling cages. Once home, my smart, gentle cat saw a litter box, which was empty of litter, and immediately pissed in it, confirming his intelligence. Three days later he could barely lift his head, and the vet diagnosed distemper, saying, he might not make it, he has a fifty-fifty chance, but he survived.
The Polish woman is hearty, her lungs thrum inside her body, her ample breasts quiver as she waxes my legs, and she has told me that she loves being outdoors, in densely shaded forests or hiking on mountains, but I don’t know if it’s because she fears caves and places where she might not get enough air, as I do, or if the simple pleasure of walking up a mountain or through a forest, where small animals might be hiding or larger ones, so there is always some danger and consequently excitement, though I don’t imagine she’s a thrillseeker, or the challenge of scaling the side of a mountain, calls to her and makes her feel vital. People want to know they are alive. Hair is dead cells or skin, like nails, there at birth, usually, though some infants arrive in the world with very little of it, and there is barely any hair on my legs now, so it takes the Polish woman no time to rip off what’s grown in, like the persistent and small cluster at my outer ankles, and when I am hairless, I sometimes remember that people mourn even the loss of what was once annoying or uncontrollable to them about or on their bodies. Women mourn the loss of painful menstruations, which made their bodies ache, imprisoned them in their bedrooms, lying on their sides holding their knees to their bellies in the fetal position for days until the pain had passed, and men mourn a loss of potency, when potency led them to insert their penises into almost any orifice, vagina or rectum, available, and sometimes produced unwanted pregnancies or hemorrhoids, yeast infections in women and STDs, and other infections and diseases in men. Being waxed is almost painless now, except when I have a bikini wax in the summer, when I might wear a bathing suit, but usually don’t, and then, even though there isn’t much hair growing from the mons Veneris onto the inner thigh, it hurts, and the Polish woman’s hands are closer to my genitals than any friend, except a lover, who may or may not be a friend, ever is, but this intimacy in the small cramped space is never remarked upon.
AT DINNER ONE NIGHT, THE youngest resident, Lois, an enthusiast, who’d had several drinks, though some of us never do, she always did, her face never flushing, explained the Brazilian wax method, in which the hair at the crack of the buttocks is removed, and she’d heard about a woman in Brazil who, while she underwent this procedure, as the hair was ripped from the split between her buttocks, lay on her stomach and moaned loudly, became wet, her skin hot, then returned for the treatment frequently, experiencing arousal and climaxing each time, until the beautician refused to service her. The youngest resident who talked about the Brazilian wax method, whose reason for being here is a secret, an American born of Latin American parents, was bright with a ready laugh, and often related stories I listened to with pleasure, especially her sexual adventures, of which she had an explosive store, since, except for the tall balding man, who, I learned, was an electronic composer, who scores for computer, and, for money, worked as a programmer, and the woman with psoriasis, no one seemed to be having sex with anyone else but themselves. Nobody but the youngest female resident, Lois, I called her Spike, whose hair was long and brilliantly red, mentioned masturbation. It was, like a fart, something much adored by the person doing it in private, who was embarrassed to admit liking it, since, as a sex manual and dictionary from 1958 defines it, masturbation is “sex-abuse, the manipulation of the sexual organs until sexual satisfaction is experienced. At one time considered the cause of innumerable diseases, such as: consumption, idiocy, insanity, cancer, locomotor ataxia. Now regarded merely as a bad practice, because it is apt to become habitual, in which case it can become very injurious, whereas occasional indulgence is not. Many of the evil effects are due not to the indulgence in masturbation itself, but to the fear that it will have evil results. Also called Autoeroticism and Ipsation. In European literature this practice is wrongly referred to as Onanism,” whose correct meaning, according to the manual, “is coitus interruptus and nothing else.” About this difference the manual is adamant. 1958 is not long ago, it is recent history. Contesa, gentle-faced, but attentive as a cat hunting prey, its tail quivering, said once, after a swallow of red wine, “For some it’s masturbate and wait, masturbate and wait.” Most at the table laughed or smiled, especially J and JJ, former actors, women who have lived together for years, and like to rehearse past scenes, I’m told, naked, and also their informal male sidekick, a square-jawed Midwesterner, whose quiet, downbeat style doesn’t dampen the rumor that he did something very awful once, unspeakable even, which necessitates his guilt-ridden silence. He is a lyricist, whatever else he is or was, and rarely bothers me, though his sycophancy can be cloying, but I once heard him say, “I don’t feel secure right now, I’m just going to keep my eyes open, mind my Ps and Qs,” so his dependency made sense and again he never bothers me. But the demanding man flinched with annoyance, his skin darkened and reddened, and all who paid attention recognized him as what a quaint Englishman once called a secret masturbator.
Residents can borrow books such as the sleep and sex manuals from the library, which has four rooms on as many floors, each furnished with dark wood furniture, several benches that are functional and unattractive as well as institutional, uncomfortable chairs, because the decor is meant to encourage seriousness, studiousness, or contemplation, though in one room there is a piano and two lutes; in the others, reference books like the sex manual, outdated, in the future to be replaced by newer ones whose information and definitions, which are just explanations and interpretations, will also turn outdated, and these ponderously line the shelves of the four rooms. I’m drawn to manuals and reference books, which sate my ravenous curiosity and often lead me away from what I should be doing, the way some others are, so with these residents I may trade citations at dinner, and I prefer to read these books like stories whose repetitive tellings shape the world. To be distracted from worry and hurt, or entertained, when I’m alone and the peace and blight of night eliminates what I like as well as what I don’t like seeing during the day, I read in bed, keeping the pages of books free of stains, especially the old, borrowed
ones, but some marks come anyway with time, like foxing, small brown stains, and wormholes, which are caused by worms, actual bookworms, that subsist on paper. Some damage appears almost miraculously, though I don’t believe in miracles. I have known people who do, spiritual people, people who believe in God, along with their own and other peoples’ goodness, and who depress me, like the Polish woman who gives me facials. She is religious and goes to church on Sundays with her girlfriends, or mother, possessing guilty secrets, sinful thoughts, about the glowering man who waited impatiently for her when I was there, hearing his restless movements just outside the dingy room in which I was being tended carefully, though I don’t know what was on her mind as she steamed my pores. She will never tell me what is on her mind, and I don’t want to know, since I don’t want to listen to her when I am being attended to and cared for like a baby, just as I wouldn’t tell her what I was thinking, observing an unwritten code that allows us to be at ease with each other in a regular but intimate situation in her cramped place of work.
Each time I visit it, I wonder if her life will have changed significantly, and if she will ever be happy, because she never seems happy, though she has a lovely smile. She usually appears to be sullen, or even sad, or just reticent or expressionless, though she might simply be stupid and dull, the way I think one of the two young women is, dull, mostly, though days ago, I watched her lusterless eyes quicken, sparkle, when the tall balding man spoke to her, yet I didn’t guess at their involvement then, just her desire, which had arced from her like a rainbow. He had arrived some weeks ago, the tall balding man, virile, though his posture was poor, and his comments were usually cryptic, I discovered and liked, and he stooped over still more to talk with her. My father stressed posture, and this man sagged, his head hung, he was slackjaw, and yet the young woman responded gaily, ignorant of how the world bore down on him, though demonstrably it burdened his lanky frame, since he couldn’t keep himself upright. It is hard for me to look at people with terrible posture, since my father, who held to a high standard for Homo erectus, impressed its importance on me and held his frame up, defying his depressions, and I can’t much contemplate or converse long with a person whose shoulders slouch severely, whose skeleton is skewed, or whose head juts far forward, since misshapen and rounded shoulders look full of pain, which is unspoken, and could indicate rough, early treatment, insufficient care, or inadequate childhood exercise. Bad posture can also indicate an inner disturbance so fundamental it forms the basis of the skeleton, the curved and twisted bones declaring a person’s initial and formative inability to meet the world, instead withdrawing from it, bending under the burden, and some retreat into their carapace, one they might want later to shed. The skin registers the inner world on the exterior, as the world external to it marks it as well. There is also the deleterious effect of badly designed chairs on a young, growing body.
I want to take apart an Eames chair, especially this morning, I believe I dreamed of it, I have taken apart other chairs, though none as beloved or significant, for about these chairs there is no disagreement, and I have split apart boxes, mattresses, TVs, and a corroded car that sat in a field, but I don’t have an Eames chair here, just its memory as well as photographs of it and its designers, the Eameses, husband and wife. It’s satisfying not to make things, to undo them, the way experiences can’t be, since undoing is an activity like doing, or I think it is, and thinking is an activity like riding a horse without a horse, and it’s especially pleasing to engage with and analyze the undone object, since after destroying something inert I can see its construction, even its larger design in my life. When I took apart a square box, I thought of the satisfaction I had learning geometry, the simplicity that resided in planes and angles, as well as of the geometric character of a family of four, how from each corner a mother, father, daughter, son must relate, each in and with a corner, and that any balance was necessarily of two and two, which was why my parents must have wanted another child, for balance, but they delayed too long, so when I arrived I unbalanced my brother’s corner, he had lived in a triangle, which has its own balance, and then he fell from his pinnacle or place, never to forgive me or them. Taking apart a TV, I thought about impulses and connections, its delicately colored wires like nerve endings, and when the guts of the TV were scattered on my floor, life itself seemed disconnected. Invention is a human necessity, and lasting value has nothing to do with it, since everything is temporary. For a while now, I have found it hard to make things, when once I wanted to fabricate what I hadn’t seen before—before trying that, though, I had to overcome a phobia to three-dimensional objects—and once I did, I could easily build them, but then I also overcame my need to build what wasn’t there and wanted only to unbuild what was. Now I rarely want to do even this, except in thinking, where I test spatial relations and imagine space bounded and unbounded, and happily move non-things about in unreal places.
When I was first here, no chair gave me what I wanted, and I tried many, though ostensibly I just wanted a chair that could support my frame, so that I could forget about it, as I ruminated, awash in thoughts I wished I weren’t having, or in some that I wanted to have, roaming into places where a chair and its design had no function, since I also wanted a chair to do more than it was designed for. The chair designer Harry Bertoia said, “The urge for good design is the same as the urge to go on living. The assumption is that somewhere, hidden, is a better way of doing things,” and that’s sensible, or in my life it is, because I’m looking for a chair that fits me and in which I can feel at home, since homeyness is easier to locate in things than in people, or even in animals, but I like cats, dogs, and chairs almost equally, though I have more control over chairs, which are inanimate, but any cat or dog is in some way pleasing, while most chairs aren’t.
When he was first here, the tall balding man gave his attention to the Count as well as to the disconsolate or sad-eyed young woman, divining in her some pleasing quality or grace no one else did, except the other disconsolate woman. Early on I observed an acute scene between them, the man of no consequence to me or the woman, when he held her skinny, psoriatic hand to his face, brushed her palm against his sunken cheek, and then uttered some words I couldn’t hear, but their thin-lipped exchange held some fascination. Thin lips are scant protection, a mere lining to the crater in the face, that worthy hole, but my lips are full, suggesting a lushness I don’t believe I deliver, just as big breasts incriminate the female body with lusty abundance and comfort. My mother told me to be happy if my breasts were small—and I’m rather flat on the chest, full in the face, tall for a woman, lean everywhere, something like an aging boy—because when I was old, like these women, my breasts wouldn’t drop to my waist. I was four when I gazed rapt at a cluster of old women, their pendulous breasts touching their waists, while my mother and I sat on a bench in a Turkish bath near the ocean I loved in a beach club I also loved for a time.
It would be a miracle if, in two or three months, the Polish woman changed demonstrably, because people don’t often change, and, if they do, it’s in small ways, unless they’ve undergone a trauma, watched an accident when they were old enough to remember but not comprehend; no one will ever entirely comprehend specific events or irrational acts that forever remain outside human comprehension, though human beings committed them, or witnessed their father murder their mother or their sister or brother die, unable to help, in a fall, or saw a house burn infernally to the ground, hearing terrible screams inside. My father told me that men never change, that women should never expect to change men, though they do, and that my mother was angry because she could never change him, or that is what I surmised, because he didn’t say that was why my mother was angry; he said, Never expect to change a man, don’t be the omnipotent female, your mother always tried to change me, but she couldn’t. I wouldn’t think that was entirely true, anyway, that was why she was angry, I don’t know all the reasons why my mother was angry: her older sister was prettier; she was a mid
dle child, forgotten; her father was in the Austrian army and he kept his treasures in a small box and she never saw them; she didn’t ever have a birthday party as a child; and her husband, my father, was a vain, lively, sometimes cold man, whom everyone liked better than her. But she is not angry now. My mother is old, her brain is damaged from a condition whose cause is unknown for which she has had seven operations, or procedures, and though she is remarkably strong, resilient, capable of falling and not breaking a bone, her mind and body slowly deteriorate. She takes a variety of medicines, to which she has never been opposed, though like many people her age and younger, she is distrustful of pills, but unlike many, she favors doctors, especially if they are men with whom she can flirt. She should’ve been a medical doctor, it might have brought her the contentment that my father couldn’t; she diagnoses herself and others freely and well, noticing symptoms early and astutely, calling them by their medical names, never flummoxed by the onset of a physical problem and ever practical about it, interested clinically, and calm, when about most other things she is not.
American Genius Page 9