Back to Blood

by Tom Wolfe

  All this Nestor took in with a single glance. But Lil, Edith, Phyllis, and John Smith were absorbed in something else entirely. On the other wall were twelve paintings, six in one row and six in a row beneath it. The women were chuckling.

  “You gotta look at this one, Edith,” said Lil. “This one’s got two eyes on the same side of his nose and look at the size a that schnozz! You see that? You see it? I got a grandson-seven-years-old’s better than that. He’s not so little he don’t know where the eyes go!”

  The three women began laughing, and Nestor had to laugh, too. The painting consisted of the thick clumsy outline of a man in profile with a childishly huge nose. Both eyes were on this side of it. The hands looked like fish. There was no attempt at shading or perspective. There was nothing but more thick, clumsy black outlines creating shapes filled in with flat colors… and no attempt to make any of them stand out from the others.

  “And the one next to it,” Lil continued. “See those four women theh? Talk about afflicted! See that? They got the eyes in the right place—but the nose! The poor things, they got noses that start up over one eyebrow, and then they come down as far as a normal girl’s chin, and the nostrils look like a double-barrel shotgun-wants-to-blow-your-kop-off-for-you!”

  More squalls of laughter.

  “And take a look at that one up theh,” said Edith. This one was of nothing but vertical stripes of color… must have been a dozen of them… and not all that even, either. And why were they so watery? “Looks like they got soaked up by the canvas some way.”

  “I don’t think that’s suppose a be a painting,” said Phyllis. “He was just getting the paint off his brushes is what I think.”

  She said it in an absolutely Phyllis-like way. Phyllis never joked around, but Lil and Edith and Nestor had to laugh anyway. They were all having a great time making fun of the deluded Russian who thinks he’s an artist.

  “Hahhh, you see that one?” said Edith. “That poor zhlub, he takes a ruler and he makes that cross theh’s-about-to-fall-over and he looks at it and says, ‘Shmuck!’ ”—hitting herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand—“ ‘I give up!’ and he paints the rest of it plain white-you-gotta-give-him-credit. It’s better’n ’at cockamamie cross!”

  The three women laughed and laughed, and Nestor couldn’t hold back a chuckle himself.

  They took a look at that one with all the tapeworms-jumped-out-of-the-john and that one with the hands-look-like-two-clumps-of-asparagus and the one on the end theh—looks-like-a-pile-a-shucked-oysters-gone-high, and get that one!—the one below it—Tethered at Collioure. Tethered must mean you smear glue all over the thing and then you dump a bag full a different-colored confetti on it and you got yourself a painting!… and by the time they get to that one theh of the patchwork-quilt-only-he-can’t-draw-a-straight-line-and-it’s-all-falling-to-pieces… and that one of a pitcher of beer and a tobacco-pipe-cut-in-half… and that one theh—looks like two aluminum nudes-with-screw-on-nipples… and that one next to it-looks-like-three-aluminum-men-eating-playing-cards… and they’re laughing until the tears come, they’re shaking their heads, pulling faces, putting on sardonic smiles or intentionally retarded gapes with their mouths hanging open, rolling their eyeballs up so far they practically disappear. Edith is so swept away, she’s still hunched over, leaning on her walker, but she manages to stamp her feet up and down in a paroxysm of hilarity gone wild. Not even the dead serious iron-faced Phyllis can resist. She breaks out of her iron capsule with a single burst of laughter—“Honnnkkuhhh!”

  Lil says, “An artist he’s supposed to be, and that’s the best he can do? I’d come and go in the dark, too! My face I wouldn’ wanna show people!”

  Another round of uncontrollable laugher… even Nestor’s professional resolve turns to jelly, and he’s laughing, too. He looks over at John Smith to catch his reaction… and John Smith is oblivious of it all. He might as well be all by himself. He has his little narrow spiral notebook and his trick ballpoint out, and he’s busy looking at the paintings one by one and taking notes.

  Nestor sidles over and says to him, “Hey, John, whattaya doin’?” John Smith acts as if he didn’t hear him and pulls a small camera out of an inside pocket of his jacket and starts taking pictures of the paintings one by one. He walks amidst the women as if he doesn’t know they’re there… Lil leans down to Edith’s level and says in a low voice, “The big-shot.”

  Then he walked back past them, eyes fixed on the rear screen of the camera. Thing had him in a trance. He didn’t even look up when he reached Nestor. With his back to the three women, he lowered his head, eyes fixed on his notebook, and said, “You know what you’re looking at on that wall?”

  “No. Somebody’s day care center?”

  “You’re looking at two Picassos, one Morris Louis, one Malevich, one Kandinsky, a Matisse, a Soutine, a Derain, a Delaunay, a Braque, and two Légers.” For the first time during this recitation, John Smith lifted his head enough to see Nestor face-to-face. “Take a good look, Nestor. You’re looking at twelve of the most perfect, most subtle forgeries you or anybody else is ever going to lay eyes on. Don’t worry. These aren’t by ‘Nicolai.’ These are by a real artist.”

  With that, John Smith winked a confident, reassuring wink at Nestor.

  ::::::The hell with you and your reassuring me. You’re trying to act like a real detective.::::::

  To be on the safe side, Magdalena had come to the office an hour early, 7:00 a.m. She had been sitting here in her white uniform rigid as a corpse… or up to a point. This corpse’s heart was going 100 b.p.m. and heading for tachycardia. The girl was braced for the worst.

  Ordinarily the Worst arrived about 7:40, twenty minutes before the office opened, to brief himself on what the eight o’clock patient has been puling and mewling about… He often told Magdalena he couldn’t imagine himself becoming so weak that he’d go whining to somebody like himself, to put himself up on a stage as the star of a tragedy before an audience of one… one you had to pay five hundred dollars an hour to show uppppAHGGAHHHhahahock hock hock!

  This isn’t an ordinary morning, however. This morning she’s going to do it. She keeps telling herself that. Say no now! What possible good would it do to keep stringing it out? Do it, do it! Say no now!

  On an ordinary morning, the two of them arrived at the office sitting next to each other in the front seat of his white Audi convertible, top down he insists, and the hell with a big girl’s hair… from his apartment with two basins in the bathroom he thinks are swell… where they would have taken a shower… then gotten dressed and eaten breakfast.

  She hadn’t prepared exactly what to say, because there was no predicting which variety of tiresome and obnoxious he was going to be. She remembered Norman’s story of “the pissing monkey.” He had put the moral of that story to good use when it came time to deal with a pissing monkey named Ike Walsh of 60 Minutes. Stripped down to its essentials, the moral was: Immobilize the monkey so he can’t get on top. But was that the only strategy she had on her side, a fable about a monkey? Her heart sped up, and she despaired of any way to keep Norman from nailing her anytime he cared to. Norman was big and strong physically, and he had a temper… not that he ever handled her roughly… and the minutes were ticking by.

  She had to calm down… and so she tried to stop thinking about Norman’s volatile, ego-swollen self. She tried to focus on the immediate surroundings… the examining table, white, clean, with a fitted sheet that fit the mattress so tightly, the surface was taut… the pale beigey-gray chair the patients usually sat in for their Lust-No-Mo injections, although some of the taller ones preferred to sit on the edge of the examining table when she gave them their shots… such as Maurice Fleischmann. ::::::Come on, Magdalena!:::::: She couldn’t very well put Norman out of her mind if she was going to let her thoughts stray to Maurice. Here you had one of the most powerful men in Miami. All sorts of people jumped when he came around… jumped to do anything to make him happ
y… jumped to make sure he had the best seat in the room… deferred to whatever he had to say… grinned all over him… laughed at anything he said that might possibly be construed as an intentional humorous affect…

  … while Norman led him around like a dog. Norman had the Big Man convinced that only Norman Lewis, M.D., P.C., could do anything to lead him out of the darkness of the valley of the shadow of pornography. He even let Norman come along on his social rounds, which were among the mighty rich. Magdalena had suspected it from the beginning but by now knew it was true: Norman made sure that Maurice would never be free of his addiction to pornography… just think of the way he rubbed Maurice’s nose in it at Art Basel… Norman needed Maurice to remain in his wretched condition… Maurice opened all the doors that would be closed to any run-of-the-mill pornography addiction swami. She resolved at that moment to be strong… and tell Maurice in so many words exactly what was going on… once this—

  —the lock of the outer door was opening… Sure enough, it was 7:40. ::::::Now, remember, you texted him in plenty of time to say you would be spending the night at home… and there is no reason he shouldn’t realize that “at home” means at my own apartment, the one I share with Amélia. What’s so wrong about going over and spending some time catching up on what Amélia’s been doing? I haven’t heard you suggest that we get married or anything like that, have I?… No, you mustn’t say that… You mustn’t even hint that you’ve been thinking about letting yourself get entangled any further with his perverted life—no!—and don’t even suggest that he’s a pervert, for God’s sake… Come on! Cut it out! There’s no way to plan anything you’re going to say to Norman… Just remember, you’re not going to let him piss on you::::::—

  Another latch turns, meaning he’s in the office itself now. Magdalena’s heart is going at a runaway pace. She never knew you could hear footfalls in this place. The floor is nothing but a concrete slab covered with synthetic carpet. Nevertheless, she could hear Norman coming nearer. His shoes made a faint scritch sound. Magdalena told herself to be very calm and cool. So she sat there like someone waiting to be executed… scritch… scritch… scritch… he was getting closer. ::::::I can’t just sit here like this, like he’s got my wrists strapped to the arms of the chair and I’m resigned to my fate.:::::: She stood up and went over to the pale beigey-gray cabinet—everything was pale beigey-gray in this office—where the syringes and doses of anti-libido serum were kept and pushed them around on a shelf in order to sound busy… scritch… scritch… SCRITCH… Uhohhhh… no more scritch. He must have been right in the doorway, but she wasn’t going to turn around to see. A few seconds went by… and nothing. It seemed like an eternity…

  “Well… good morning,” said the voice, neither friendly nor unfriendly… Room temperature was all it was.

  She turned about, as if surprised—and immediately regretted that. Why would she be surprised? “Good morning!” she said… ::::::Damn! That was slightly above room temperature.:::::: She didn’t want to sound warm and friendly.

  Norman looked huge to her. He wore a tan gabardine suit she hadn’t seen before, a white shirt, and a brown necktie with an unfortunately picturesque print of goblins—must have been a dozen of them—skiing down a steep brown slope. He smiled without saying anything. It was the sort of smile in which the upper lip is lifted so that you can see the two pointed eyeteeth. She got a good eyeful of the teeth before he said, with a slight smile that she searched for irony:

  “I wasn’t sure whether you’d be here this morning.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” She meant it to sound offhand and immediately realized it sounded combative.

  “Oh, you don’t remember? You stood me up last night. Rather unceremoniously.”

  “Unceremoniously?” said Magdalena. “What does that mean?” It was actually a relief of an odd sort to come right out and admit she didn’t know what these people were talking about.

  “You could have at least told me yesterday before you skipped out.”

  “Skipped out!” said Magdalena. “I sent you a text!”

  “Yeah, about ten o’clock at night. You sent me one miserable little text.” Norman was beginning to get a bit heated. “Why didn’t you call me? Afraid I might answer? And when I called you, you had the phone turned off.”

  “Amélia went to bed early, and I didn’t want to wake her up. So I shut off the phone.”

  “Eminently thoughtful,” said Norman, “eminently thoughtful. Oh, eminently means the same as highly in this case, okay? Does highly help? No? Too big a word? Then make it ‘very.’ Okay? ‘very’ thoughtful. Okay?”

  “No use being… that way about it, Norman.”

  “What time did you go to bed, sweetheart? And where? Or is it no use being that way, either?”

  “I’ve already told you—”

  “You’ve already told me absolutely nothing that makes sense. So why don’t you try being honest and tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

  “Don’t use those words if you want to talk to me, okay? But since you’ve asked, I will mention something I haven’t brought up with you before. Do you know that you have a way of filling up a room until there’s no air left?”

  “Oh hohhh. ‘Filling up a room until there’s no air left’! How literary we are all of a sudden. What’s that metaphor supposed to mean?”

  “What’s a met—”

  “What’s a meta… for, right? I thought we were in the literary mode this morning. What’s a ‘mode’? Okay, let’s make it ‘mood’ instead. You know ‘mood’?”

  His lip was lifted still higher to show his upper teeth. He looked like a snarling animal. It frightened Magdalena, but she was even more afraid of the pissing monkey overcoming her and subjecting her to God knew what, because now he had a whole head full of anger. She glanced about the office. It was not yet eight o’clock in the morning. Was there anybody else in this building who would hear a thing? ::::::Don’t be so frightened! Just do it—::::::

  —and she heard herself saying, “You said to be honest and tell you what’s going on. Okay, what’s going on is… you. You fill up a room… and me, up to here”—she put the edge of her flat palm against her throat—“with sex, and I don’t mean the joy of sex, either. I mean perverted sex. I can’t believe you took poor Maurice to those pornographic art shows at Art Basel and then stood by and let him buy all these pieces of plain, out-and-out pornography by this Jed Whatever-his-name-is and let him spend millions on them. I can’t believe you were dying to go to that orgy, the Columbus Day Regatta, in the first place, but you also wanted me to join in, and if I had, you would have, too. I can’t believe I even let you persuade me to do that ‘role-playing’ you sprang on me as soon as we started living together, the time you had me carry that black suitcase hard as a piece a-uh-uh-uhh—fiberglass and pretend like I was knocking on your hotel door by mistake and let you ravish me, you called it, and tear my clothes off, and let you pull the thong of my panties out and do it to me from behind. I can’t believe I let you do that, and I spend two days trying to persuade myself this is ‘sexual freedom’! Freedom—ohmygod—si ahogarme en un pozo de mierda es la libertad, encontré la libertad.”

  Norman didn’t say a word. He looked at Magdalena as if she had suddenly given him a two-finger killer karate jab in the Adam’s apple, and he was studying her, trying to figure out why. When he finally spoke, it was in a low voice… with his upper teeth bared but without a smile. “So you just neglected to mention all this before—what is all this bullshit?”

  “I told you—”

  “Oh, I know, you’re too proper for talk like that. You know what? You’re about as proper as the last blow job you gave me. Do you know that!?”

  “You’re the one who said ‘Be honest’!”

  “And this is your idea of being honest? This is your idea of—something. I don’t know what, but it’s something clinically sick!”

  “ ‘Clinically sick’… is that a medical term? Is that what you
tell Maurice his problem is? He’s ‘clinically sick’? You want Maurice to stay sick, don’t you? You want him to have pus blisters—right?! Otherwise, nobody’s gonna be getting you through the VIP door into Art Basel or getting you a slip for your cigarette boat on Fisher Island or getting you into Chez Toi or what’s that special upper floor, the Chez Toi Club or whatever it is, with the black card?”

  “God damn it—”

  “It’s not enough for you to be a prominent TV schloctor, is it? Noooo, you want respect, don’t you! You want to—”

  “Why, you bitch!”

  “—be a socialite! Right! You wanna be invited to all the parties! So you’re gonna give poor Maurice your ‘clinically sick’ diagnosis until—”

  Norman made an animal sound and before Magdalena knew what was happening, he had grabbed her by the upper arm, just beneath the shoulder, and jerked her upward by the arm and jerked her body near his by the arm, and half-hissed, half-growled, “Oh, I’ll give you a diagnosis, bitch… you’re a bitch, bitch!”

  “Stop it!” said Magdalena. It was close to a scream. In that instant she was terrified. The animal sound of his voice—he called her a bitch—he was manhandling her—“Bitch!”—jerking her this way—“Bitch!”—and that —“Bitch!”—and this time she shrieked the bloodiest shriek she had ever shrieked in her life! “Stop it!” Norman swung his head about as if looking for something ::::::the bastard! He wants to make sure no one is aware of what he’s doing!:::::: Norman’s grip slackens for that split second… Magdalena breaks loose… more shrieking shrieking shrieking shrieking shrieking shrieking to the roar of you bitch—“Bitch!—you don’t—you bitch!”—he’s right behind her!… she throws herself at the crossbar latch of the door that opens out into the parking courtyard and stumbles into the sunlight, cars circling looking for parking spots, some man in a passenger seat yells, “You okay?” and doesn’t pause long enough to find out but it stops Norman, anyway. Not even that sex-crazed hulk of egoplasm dares to be seen running like a madman out into a public parking lot physically overpowering a shrieking girl half his age. Nevertheless she runs through the ranks of parked cars hunched over so that he won’t see her head pop above the roof of a car and go mad enough to… scampers hunched over… gasping for every next breath… as afraid of dying as she has ever been in her life… her heart hammering away in her chest. ::::::Where do I go? I can’t go to my apartment… he knows where that is!… He’s turned into an animal!::::::