Holy Water

by James P. Othmer

  When he’s done he feels spent, but in some ways better for having told them, for having told anyone, and they certainly seemed to be eating it up, to be moved by his story, the tale of a man with whom they are sort of familiar, in actual conflict. Indeed, here is a chance for all of them to know Henry better—to know any human being better—and it seems, Henry thinks, to have registered with them on some deeper, more visceral and purely emotional level, to have transformed the banal dynamic, to have brought all of them a little closer to having more meaningful, truer relationships. To signal to them that his tale is now done, that he’s ready for a little Q&A session if they’re interested, Henry pushes aside the martini and takes a long drink of the Hefeweisen.

  Gerard (of course it would be Gerard, Henry thinks—Gerard the wise, Gerard the caring) steps forward. He has a dripping piece of ostrich meat on a barbecue fork in one hand, a Trappist ale in the other. Gerard the shaman. “Tell me,” Gerard says with the warmth of an uncle, the gravitas of a trusted adviser. “Tell me more about this porn-whore secretary of yours.”

  “Yeah,” says Marcus. “Exactly how big are that chick’s fun-bags?”

  ~ * ~

  There is a condition that occurs among a small number of men known as post-vasectomy pain syndrome (PVPS). Symptoms include a dull ache in the testicles beginning immediately or months or even years after the procedure. It may resolve on its own or require another surgery. In some cases the patient experiences psychological depression seemingly unrelated to the vasectomy.

  —Snipped.com

  ~ * ~

  The meat is paraded across the patio like May Day missiles past a Kremlin reviewing stand. Kielbasa, Italian sausage, veal chops, ostrich strips, T-bone steak, Gerard’s tender brisket, and Henry’s Kobe beef hot dogs. Henry takes some of everything and a second helping of the ostrich—not because he likes the way it tastes, but because it’s giving him a rarely experienced sort of primal pleasure, eating ostrich. “I never liked ostriches anyway,” he announces, spearing another piece off the main platter.

  “Better get used to eating weirdness, the places you’re going,” says Osborne the Second, and his brother laughs for a moment before catching himself.

  “That’s the thing, and I told you guys this,” Henry says, gesturing with his martini glass, which is impossible to do sober, let alone buzzed, without spillage. “I am not going to goddamn China, India, anywhere that requires the administering of shots or the crossing of an ocean, dateline, or border.”

  “So you’re not ruling out Mexico, then,” says conservative Osborne, winking at his soft-on-immigration brother.

  “No way. I’d rather take a job in the mailroom of another soulless mega-conglomerate. I like my life right here, in quiet, vanilla American suburbia with easy access to New York City restaurants and the occasional Disneyfied theatrical production, just fine.”

  “So what does Rachel make of all this?” asks Marcus, but the way they all lean forward to hear the answer, it’s clearly a group question. “What does she think of the ultimatum, of them wanting you to drop everything and relocate to the other side of the world?”

  Henry rubs his face and drags his fingers through his hair. “Well, that’s the thing. When I got home this afternoon she was on the phone, a conference call, and I had to get the meat, the beef— five le boeuf!—no, le veal! So, you know, it had to wait.”

  “You’re gonna tell her when you get home, then?” Gerard asks on behalf of the group. Gerard the snoop. Gerard the girly man. Gerard the cuckold.

  Henry raises his glass, finishes the final half of his third martini. Or is it his fourth? Something buzzes in his head and he feels a little sick. The dull ache in his groin has spread up into his abdomen, his chest, his brain. “Tonight? I think not,” he says, before unleashing a magnificent belch. “For a light-drinking semi-vegetarian, I’m not doing bad tonight, eh, fellas?”

  Victor Chan leans back and shakes his head. Marcus LeBlanc folds his arms. One Osborne gives him a thumbs-up, the other a thumbs-down. Gerard Fundle stands and whistles the universal melody of “Oh boy, are you in some deep shit.”

  ~ * ~

  Come on Down

  As directed by his urologist, he stopped taking aspirin two weeks prior to the procedure date because it thins the blood, increases the risk of bleeding. For three nights before the date he thoroughly scrubbed his scrotum with an antibacterial wash to reduce the probability of infection. Although not essential, it was recommended that he shave from the base of the penis down to the front of the scrotum. Just to be sure, Henry shaved everything from his navel to his inner thighs. In those final weeks he made a point of keeping Rachel apprised of everything, to demonstrate that he was on board with the idea, that he had embraced it.

  In those final weeks he also started to masturbate more often. Much more often. With urgency. With abandon. Indiscriminately. At first maybe once a day in the shower, or in bed during a middle-of-the-night anxiety attack fused with an erotic dream. Sometimes he’d do it to downloaded porn on his home computer or retro-style with a discreetly archived Playboy or Victoria’s Secret catalog. But with each passing day he stepped up the intensity and frequency of his self-pleasuring, while conversely broadening the standards of what he found arousing enough to make him reach for the Nivea.

  In the final days this included not just the conjuring of fantasies traditional and kinky or the watching of porn downloaded or purchased, but also the absorption of whatever sexual nutrients he could extract from sources as diverse as late-night basic cable erotica to a Scarlett Johannson appearance on Conan to a scantily clad cartoon heroine in a graphic novel to, disturbingly, on more than one occasion, the late-morning giggles and cleavage of the prize girls on Game Show Network reruns of The Price Is Right.

  Come on down.

  The way Henry had begun to see it, he and his penis had been given six weeks to live, and short of committing adultery, having sex with his wife, or fantasizing about Meredith, aka EEEEva EEEEnormous (which for some reason he had always declared off-limits), they were going to make the most of every remaining sperm-laden salvo.

  ~ * ~

  Henry thinks he hears children, but he’s still sober enough to remember that Gerard’s children are not home. Now he hears a splash, followed by more youthful laughter. Must be the neighbor’s kids in their crystal-clear, perfectly balanced pool, he thinks, and not a malevolent hallucination. A few months ago he might have let himself slip into sentimentality about children, or his and Rachel’s lack of them, but as he listens he feels nothing of the kind. Rather than coveting children, or resenting them, or, if Rachel had been around, trying to pretend they’re not there, he feels only happiness for them, and instead of wishing they’d be quiet, he finds himself wishing that he was one of them again, splashing about in midweek, midsummer, preadolescent twilight with nothing on the agenda for tomorrow except a lot more of the same. Of course, he realizes, the primary reason that he feels this way is that he’s drunk, his formerly pure system churning with the chemicals of four or more 100-proof vodka martinis, five different kinds of imported beer, and the flesh of six different animals.

  The tiki torches are lighted. Gerard is in the kitchen Saran-wrapping the undevoured meat. Victor, Marcus, and Henry are talking music, but though he recognizes the names—Springsteen, Clapton, even Kiss, for Christ’s sake—the others’ taste seems to Henry as if it comes from not just another generation but another galaxy. As they continue to talk his mind wanders again, this time to the Upper West Side. To images of people his age doing the exact opposite of what he’s doing now. People who would rather be on the menu at Meat Night than attend it. It’s gotten to the point where even the sorriest New Yorkers with whom he works seem to have more exciting lives than his. They tell him about the Hal Hartley movie they saw the night before at the Angelika, the installation at Emergency Arts in Chelsea, or the next killer band he’s never heard of in Williamsburg. Up here the cineplexes are filled with talking animals a
nd incendiary spectacle. White-haired women in museums that close at five champion the arts. And the music scene is a guy with a guitar named Joey doing covers for the after-dinner crowd at the Lakeside Bar & Grill.

  In the city, even people with kids seem to lead much more interesting lives. Henry lowers his face and rubs his eyes, as if his fingertips are erasers. But before the scene around him can be wiped away he hears one Osborne tell the other that he’s “an effin’ A-hole.” Then Henry hears the antiwar, pacifist Osborne’s martini splash against the prowar Osborne’s face. By the time Henry opens his eyes they’re lunging out of their chairs, bull-rushing each other. Henry is knocked back against the table. A beer bottle (Magic Hat #9, Vermont) smashes on the bluestone. The others quickly descend on them and begin prying the pacifist’s hands from his brother’s neck.

  Everyone except Henry. Still seated, all that he can manage is to say, “Hey. Guys. Not cool. Not effing”—when did I start saying effing?—”cool.” Which he does not say with a great deal of emphasis, because part of him wouldn’t mind seeing the brothers fight to the death with steak knives and shish kebab spears. Once separated, they quickly give up the fight, and within seconds they start feeling foolish. They apologize to Gerard and the group, and then to each other. After they clean up the broken glass together, the fighting Osborne brothers apologize all over again and then say their goodbyes and leave together, because they have to. Tonight is John’s turn to be Eric’s designated driver.

  After the Osbornes leave, the remaining four make a game of trying to remember what topic sent the brothers over the edge. Marcus thinks it was executive bonuses for government bailouts, combined with the more disturbing aspects of Henry’s just-told bombshell. Victor thinks it was gay marriage. But Gerard and Marcus eventually determine that the topic that drove the brothers to violence, the last of their many subjects, was, appropriately, the obscure House Bill 5991, a resolution to prohibit the injection of carbon monoxide in meat products.

  “Whatever that is,” says Marcus.

  “I think,” Henry offers, “that House Bill 5991 has to do with protecting the individual’s, or group of individuals’, inalienable right to completely fuck up an otherwise tedious social gathering.” The other three almost begin to laugh and then realize they shouldn’t.

  Gerard lowers his head and wipes his hand on his apron. For a few moments the men on the patio are silent, and it looks like the night might be coming to a close. A ridiculous near fistfight between brothers and an increasingly obnoxious young maverick who can’t handle his liquor seem like good enough reasons, but Gerard decides to let Henry’s comment pass. Gerard the patient. Gerard the lonely. Screw the housewives, Gerard’s the one who’s desperate for companionship, likely to remain alone at his house until his family comes home at the end of the summer. If they decide to come back at all. One of Victor’s compilation CDs—”Chick stuff this hot tech person I work with burned for me”—has taken over as the sound track of their lives.

  “So, Henry,” Gerard prompts. “What’s with you tonight? What’s on your mind ?”

  Never taking his gaze off Gerard, Henry rises and walks to the cooler. Henry opens them all a fresh beer, whether they are ready or not. When Victor starts to wave him off, he tells him to sit back down, the night is still young, and then he proceeds to tell each of them what he really thinks, what’s really on his mind.

  ~ * ~

  I Am the Ghost

  “I think if you apologize everyone will be cool with it.”

  Marcus LeBlanc and Henry are parked in Henry’s recently sealed driveway. Marcus is at the wheel of Henry’s Audi A4. Behind them, Victor Chan has just gotten out of Marcus’s Audi A4 and without a word to the others has begun walking the three blocks to his house with his fortieth-birthday traveling martini kit tucked under his arm. Henry laughs.

  “I called Victor an embarrassment to his race. The anti—Bruce Lee. Whatever I say to him he should absolutely not be cool with.”

  Turning to his surroundings, he stares at the dimming solar lights that line the driveway edges, the curved path to his front door. Two helix-shaped topiaries at the end of the path twist into the darkness like flawed DNA. Runaway chromosomes. He doesn’t know what he hates most, the topiaries, the solar lights, or the new-tar smell of his flawless driveway.

  “This is the problem. An apology should not fix this. Words were said: Cuckold. Douchebag. Beard. Stepford Husbands. Even if I were truly sorry that I said them, which I can’t in good faith say I am—and the fact that I’ve been drinking is no excuse—they were thought and they were said. The words. Anyone with a backbone would not and should not accept my apology. Which is why I won’t do it. It would be embarrassing for all of us. Henry Tuhoe is not an apologist. At least, not anymore. Do you realize how many times I’ve said I’m sorry to Rachel in the last twelve months? In the last twelve hours? Sickening. I don’t even know what I’m saying I’m sorry for anymore. I’m thinking, basically, if this will shut her up for five minutes, then I am truly, genuinely, forever sorry. For a long time I was one sorry bastard. But no more.”

  Marcus takes the keys out of the ignition. “You know, Henry, I had the procedure too. After our second. It’s not easy, mentally or physically. And mine was relatively side-effect-free.”

  Henry either doesn’t hear Marcus or doesn’t want to. Inside, the house is dark, but through the living room window he can see two red dots, from the sound system or the TiVo, or from Satan, he thinks, staring out at him, more of a presence in his house than he himself will ever be.

  “They know,” Marcus says. “They all know. The Osbornes have even debated it. In case you’re wondering, Rachel told Viv, who told everyone.”

  One night just before the procedure date, Rachel had over a bunch of friends whom he’d never met. For kicks, they had booked a psychic. To stay out of their way, Henry made plans to work late and have dinner with Warren. Warren ended up canceling, something big had come up in the Eye Care Division that would soon lay him off, leaving Henry with nothing to do. He browsed the aisles of Posman Books in Grand Central. He stopped at the Blazer, a road-house near the train stop, and had a cheeseburger at the bar. That killed another hour. It was too dark to take a walk. Too late to drop in unannounced on a neighbor, friend, or relative, not that there were any candidates. So he slowly cruised the streets of his hometown by default, like a stranger, an alien, a pedophile on the prowl.

  He headed up Route 9 as far as the quaint river town of Cold Spring, but all the quaint river town shops were closed. He parked at the gazebo and looked across at the Hudson Highlands, the lights of West Point. For ten minutes. Then he went home. The driveway was still full and cars were lined up at the curb, so he pulled in behind the last car on the road and dimmed the lights. For a while he stared at the house as if it were a trig problem. A metaphysical equation. The only light that he could see was the flickering of a candle in the great room.

  Finally he got out and walked across the lawn, eschewing the path. Rather than going inside, he continued on to the edge of the great room window and, leaning over the boxwoods, peeked in on the gathering. There were more than a dozen of them sitting around the candlelit table, women holding hands with their eyes closed, some talking, some smiling, every face fixed with an expression that said, even though they couldn’t see him, that he was not welcome here.

  Rachel had given him an ultimatum: Do it or we’re through. He didn’t want them to be through, but he didn’t want to be neutered and married to the unfamiliar woman chanting in his living room either. When he suggested that if she was uncomfortable going to an office, he could arrange to have a psychologist come to the house, she said that if he did, she would have both of them arrested.

  The next day he asked her about the gathering.

  “We had a ladies’ night.”

  “What was that smell? What was burning?”

  Rachel laughed. “Alicia, who did the readings . . . sometimes she burns some things—sag
e, myrrh—beforehand to sort of cleanse the house.”

  “I never heard of psychics burning things for readings.”

  “She’s a witch, actually. And it wasn’t just readings. It was a séance.”

  “Sounds like fun. Was it a hoot?”

  “No, it was not a hoot, Henry. It was fascinating.”

  “Really? Did you . . . I mean, did she . . .”

  Rachel put her hands up. “Sorry. We promised not to discuss it outside the group.”

  ~ * ~

  “After a while,” he finally says, as much to himself as to Marcus, “it’s accompanied by a certain loss of dignity, the apologizing. A diminishing self-respect.”