Can't Buy Me Love

by Chris Kenry

  I showed Paul’s pass at the entrance that day and took the elevator to the fourth floor. I took a place in one of the burgundy niches in the Spanish Colonial section and began idly flipping through the pages of a book on Frida Kahlo. A few moments later I detected something bright out of the corner of my eye and caught a faint smell of marijuana. My head bobbed up but I was too late to see anything. I sat up to see more, but my view into the larger hall was narrow, and was further blocked by some large glass display cases.

  The glass cases were full of silver trinkets from South America and were arranged in a large square, leaving a small room in the center. In that room, I knew, there was a chair and a small desk, and I gathered that whoever had passed by was now sitting at the desk probably reading the small book that rested there. It was a blank book with a pen tethered to it by a string, in which museum visitors were invited to add their thoughts and recollections about silver—a gimmicky thing, probably designed to silence claims that the museum is elitist by adding something interactive. It is not a very interesting book, but can be funny to look at, as it is full of misspelled vignettes about Aunt Mable and how she always served the holiday turkey on a big silver platter that she had painstakingly polished, or some dumb little Girl Scout song comparing friendship to precious metals. As I said, it is a silly book—a judgment I feel highly qualified to make, having spent the better part of an afternoon reading it in its entirety.

  I heard low chuckling and strained to see through one of the glass cases. My view was obstructed by the silver pieces, but I made out the legs of the chuckling person, who was seated at the desk. At first the legs appeared to be those of a Catholic schoolgirl, since all I could make out were dark stockings and a short plaid dress. Then the body shifted a bit and I noticed that the legs were not stockinged at all, but hairy, and sheathed to midcalf in a pair of heavy black combat boots. One of the legs appeared to be tattooed with a representation of dinosaur vertebrae, which circled all the way up the thigh to the hem of what was, on second glance, a kilt.

  I was staring intently at this when suddenly I heard the book slam and saw the body rise. I was startled and my book slipped to the floor with a bang. I recovered it quickly, opened it, and stared at it intently, not wanting to be caught. I was too late. The kilted one came out from behind the cases and stood staring at me, saying nothing. In the awkward moment that followed, in which he obstinately stared at me and I obstinately stared at my book, I grew suddenly conscious of the whir of the building’s ventilation system and the loud ticking of my watch. I felt my face redden as I stared blankly at the wild pictures in the book, hoping he would move on. Finally he did, turning and walking with heavy footsteps toward the elevator. I waited until I heard the ping announcing the elevator’s arrival before looking up. He was still staring right at me, and I noticed that his short hair was an inky shade of black, much darker than his goatee, and that on his hands he wore white cotton gloves. Our eyes met for an instant; then he stepped onto the elevator and was gone.

  A few minutes passed, during which time I stayed seated until I was sure he wouldn’t be returning. Then I got up, calmly returned my book to the shelf, and walked as casually as I could into the silver room. I sat down in the chair, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and opened the book.

  On the last page were some small, haikulike poems, written in lush cursive by a Mrs. John Trumbull, all using the letters from the word silver.

  Spring

  Is

  Lovely.

  Violets

  Everywhere

  Round.

  Went the first.

  Some

  Icebergs

  Leave

  Vessels

  Evidently

  Ruptured.

  Went the next, and the rest got progressively sappier as one’s eyes moved down the page. Until the end, that is, where another one had been scrawled in crude, block capitals, evidently by the kilted visitor.

  Shitting

  In

  Lunch boxes

  Violates

  Every

  Rule.

  I laughed out loud and then quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard me. I tried to think of my own haiku, and I studied the silver goblets and crowns and ornate platters surrounding me, hoping to draw some inspiration from them, but alas, the muse wasn’t with me. Or rather, she was being held hostage by my creditors, because the only words that came to mind were financial and terribly prosaic:

  Surcharge

  Insurance

  Loans

  Visa

  Employment

  Repossession.

  7

  STUFFED ANIMALS

  In retrospect, I should not have gone shopping. (How many times have we all said that?) It gave me the worst case of buyer’s remorse, and, had I not gone, the whole mess later that night could have been avoided. Hindsight again. If only I had ignored my mother’s invitation and gone on with my day as usual—working out, driving around aimlessly, hiding in museums, movie theaters, or malls, I never would have been exposed.

  Or would I? I suppose exposure was inevitable. No lie, no matter how elaborate, could hide the truth forever. The calls from collection agencies were becoming more frequent and more insistent, and they had no sympathy for my lack of employment. No, the truth was bound to come out, and yet, given time, I could certainly have orchestrated its debut a little better. Could have dressed it up and put a more favorable spin on it. But I was still young and naive and careless then. Hardly the spin doctor I am today.

  If I’d known then what I know now, I would certainly have handled things differently. When my mother stepped into my room, tiptoed over to the bed, and whispered in my ear, “They’re having a huge sale at Nieman’s today!” I’d have been much more firm and resolute in my resistance. I would have lied and said, “Ah, Mom, I’d like to, but I have to work,” or I would even have told the truth and said, “Ah, Mom, I don’t have any money and my Nieman’s card is maxed out.” But as I was ignorant of the consequences my actions would have, I opened one eye and said, without a moment’s hesitation, “South entrance, say, two o’clock?”

  “By the men’s shoes?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” And she rose and tiptoed from the room as stealthily as she’d entered.

  As much as I yearned to get to Nieman’s early, before everything had been picked over, I decided that since my mother was still ignorant of my unemployment, it would be prudent to put her off until afternoon, when I could pretend to be coming off the lunch shift.

  I looked at the clock. Eight-thirty. Time to start the day’s performance. I got up, yawned, stretched, and looked longingly back at the rumpled bed. Must be disciplined, I thought, and tried to shake the sleep from my head. I threw on some clothes and a ball cap, ironed my work shirt in the kitchen—in full view of my father—and then stuffed it in my bag and went to the gym. There, I ran for half an hour on the treadmill, did a grueling leg workout, and then loitered in the empty locker room, shaving in the steam room, trimming my nails, styling my pubic hair, anything to pass the time until two o’clock. Finally I got dressed and went and ate a huge breakfast at a café nearby, lingering over my coffee and the new edition of Colorado Homes and Lifestyles. When I’d exhausted that I still had three hours to kill, so I drove east across town to the Natural History Museum.

  I love the Natural History Museum and greatly prefer it to the neighboring zoo because, well, because it is a place to view nature at its most obedient. There is no smell, and the animals are never hiding away in corners of their cages or sleeping in their little dens, but are always perfectly visible in their quaintly “natural” settings, usually displayed in a scene of high drama from their abbreviated lives. Gazelles leap away from some unseen predator, and monstrous grizzly bears stand on hind legs, teeth bared and claws ready to strike. Mountain goats teeter precariously on a tiny cliff, and a rhino, kicking up dust with its front hoof, seems
poised to charge.

  When I entered the museum that day, I instinctively avoided all of the dinosaur bones and gemstones and the IMAX movies, all so popular with the screaming kiddies, and took the long escalator to the darker upper floors, where the peaceful dioramas of the Canadian Rockies and the African plains, the South American rain forests and chilly Antarctic, never failed to transport me, momentarily at least, far, far away.

  I went to the third floor that day, to the African section, because it was somewhat pathetic and small, and, consequently, one of the most infrequently visited. It was also one of the dustiest, which could be excused, I suppose, if one were to imagine Mt. Kilimanjaro, painted in the pastel shades of morning on the back wall, having recently erupted.

  I walked around briefly, enjoying the feeling of soreness in my legs from my workout, and then, as was my custom, I went and sat on the bench next to the entrance. From that spot, if I remained very still, almost as still as the animals, my presence went undetected by other visitors and left me free to watch the peculiar activities engaged in by the other museum patrons.

  This was more entertaining than it sounds, because when people think they are alone they become very uninhibited and interesting to observe; they scratch indiscriminately at their crotches or carry on little conversations with themselves. Children invariably go under the velvet ropes designed to keep them out of certain sections and, since the dioramas were not then covered by glass (a fact that has recently changed), some people, quite a few people actually throw coins into them, as if they were some sort of idolatrous wishing well.

  On this particular day, I seated myself opposite an exhibit of lions, which is a favorite of mine, largely because it is such a mess. Oh, the arrangement is noble and lovely (a mother lion lies surrounded by playful cubs, while the father lion stands on an anthill looking off across the plains), and the animals are beautifully stuffed, with no visible signs of mange or bullet holes. But then there are the eyes—large, soft, almost dewy eyes that one would never associate with any lions outside the studios of Walt Disney. My theory is that the taxidermist must have run out of lion eyes when he was stuffing them, or maybe he just didn’t know what a lion’s eyes looked like, because the ones he used were surely meant for a kinder, gentler animal such as a deer or a cow. This ocular mishap, combined with the lions’ majestic poses, makes an amusing contrast and causes nearly all passersby to look twice, and sometimes to comment out loud, which is what I was hoping for that afternoon.

  I had been sitting silently for about half an hour opposite this friendly pride, listening to the people’s reactions as they stood before it, absently picking their noses, or removing stale gum from their mouths and depositing it on the wall. In that time I had counted three “Will you look at thats,” and two comments about the dust, and then the hall was empty again, and remained so for what seemed a very long time. I was getting bored, and had just gotten up to move to another section when I heard footsteps approaching. I hunched down again. A moment later, a figure dressed all in black entered the room. At first, because of the darkness and because of his white hair, I thought it must be an elderly man, but this was soon disproved by the quickness and agility he displayed as he strode quickly and purposefully up to the lions. Unlike the previous patrons, he said nothing, but stood very still, and seemed to be studying them closely and writing some notes down in a notebook he was holding. He wrote furiously for about five minutes, looking from his page into the diorama and back again, and sometimes he seemed to be sketching. When he had finished he shut the notebook and tucked it under his arm. He glanced around slowly in all directions, and then, seeing no one, he placed both hands on the railing and hopped into the diorama. He stepped carefully, so as not to upset any of the savanna grasses, and made his way up the small incline to the group of lions. When he reached them, he examined the adults briefly, but seemed especially interested in the cubs, poking and prodding them and examining their stitched-up stomachs and stiff paws. He smacked the back of the female lion, raising a cloud of dust, and gave a slight sniffle, of contempt or allergies I wasn’t sure, and then scribbled some more notes in the notebook. When he’d finished, he closed it again, put the pen behind his ear, and walked down to the railing. He peered over the edge cautiously, looking to the left and to the right, and then placed the notebook under his arm once again and vaulted out. He landed squarely on both feet, the sound of his heavy boots on the floor echoing loudly through the hall.

  He looked around nervously. Seeing no one, he made his way quickly over to the hyenas, a pack of which was staring hungrily at a herd of water buffalo painted on the far wall. I couldn’t actually see into this exhibit from my vantage point, but because I was a frequent visitor, I knew what he was looking at. His procedure at this diorama was the same: some quick notes and sketches in the notebook, a quick look around to see that the coast was clear, and then a hop over the bar.

  Gone to the dogs, I thought, as I watched him disappear. I heard some rustling and a thump now and then, and at one point he poked his head out to see if anyone was coming, but then he disappeared and didn’t vault back over. I was curious, and my curiosity won out over my patience, so I left my bench and walked over to the hyena display. I approached stealthily and stopped just outside the circle of light coming from the diorama. In the shadows I knew I was quite invisible to him, but I nearly betrayed myself with a gasp when I realized that he was the same guy I had seen last month in the silver room. His hair and his gloves were a different color, but the dark goatee and the thick brows were unmistakable. He looked up when he heard me, but after a moment, hearing nothing more, he resumed stuffing one of the hyena pups into a small duffel bag and then zipped it shut. He set the bag on a small termite mound and started rearranging the diorama to conceal his theft when suddenly the bag started rolling. His eyes grew wide as he watched it tumble out of the diorama. He dove to grab it but missed, and fell facedown with a thud. I leaned forward, into the circle of light, and slowly picked up the bag. His jaw dropped as his eyes followed the line of my arm up to my face, and for a moment we regarded each other wordlessly. Before either of us could say anything, a stern voice rang out.

  “Sir,” it said, and I quickly turned to look. I saw a figure approaching through the darkness but couldn’t make it out from my position in the light. I moved outside the circle and saw that it was the obese museum security guard, slowly wobbling toward me from the entrance, her long braid swinging from side to side. She almost never came up to this floor, but probably wanted a break from all the baby-sitting she surely did downstairs. I thought of running, but then regained my composure and casually flung the duffel bag over my shoulder and gave her an open, questioning look. Out of the comer of my eye I could see and hear the hyena-napper scurrying around trying to conceal himself, and I feared he might panic and make a run for it. The guard was almost to the point where she could see into the diorama, and I could only surmise what would happen if she caught him in it and me holding a bag. I cleared my throat noisily and took several steps toward her.

  “It’s the bag,” she said tersely, pointing to the duffel bag. A shiver went through me, and I started sweating.

  “The bag?” I asked, looking at the strap on my shoulder.

  “You can’t carry that around,” she said. “You’ll have to put it in one of the lockers downstairs.”

  “Oh, yes.” I sighed, relieved. “Yes, of course, and, uh ... where ... are the lockers ... ?” I asked, trying to sound ignorant.

  “Downstairs,” she said impatiently. “By the gift shop.”

  We stood facing each other, she waiting for me to move on, and I waiting for some idea to roost in my brain. I realized that if I was going to be any help at all to my endangered friend I needed to get her out of there, but I could think of nothing and didn’t want to get in trouble myself, so I thanked her and walked briskly toward the escalators, leaving him to fend for himself.

  I wondered about him as I went out to my car and
drove the short distance to the mall, but after five minutes in Nieman’s, dazzled by the smell of new leather shoes, he and the bag in my trunk were all but forgotten.

  Later that evening things got ugly. I’d gone straight from the museum to Neiman’s and shopped with my mother as planned. Our spirits were high as we pulled up in the driveway and began unloading all the purchases, with the exception of the hyena pup. As I lumbered toward the house with my bags of new clothes I saw the drapes move in the upstairs office and knew my father was watching. He’d picked up some clients at the airport that afternoon and was not supposed to be back until late that evening, but evidently there had been a change of plans. I knew it was bad to have him see me with all of the booty, as he had undoubtedly been fielding calls all afternoon from my creditors. I looked at my mother and could tell by her sick expression that she had seen the drapes flutter, too. We both knew we were in trouble, so without a word we hurried inside and hid the bags in the utility room closet.

  At the dinner table that evening my father sat silently while my mother and I chattered on and on about the teahouse and how pretty it was, and the greens she’d used in the salad and how delicious they were, and the weather and how nice it was, and anything else we could think of to keep the conversation light and fluffy and away from the subject of shopping. Then, as I did every night at dinner, I threw in some fictional tales about the restaurant. Mundane things really, like how many tables I’d had, or how one of the customers had been rude—stories that usually merited nothing more than a polite nod or an “Oh, really?” from my father. This time, however, he paused in his eating and set down his knife and fork. He shifted in his chair, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and leaned toward me.