My American Unhappiness

by Dean Bakopoulos

  "Zeke. You're twisted. And you're lonely. And I have great affection for you, I pity you, losing your wife so young and now you work so hard, all of these years, on this insane project—but you're losing it. Let me say this clearly: There's no money left. And let me say this clearly: I am not attracted to you and am not in love with you."

  "Lara, let's at least talk to H. M."

  "Zeke, H. M. is on the way to Mexico."

  "Mexico?"

  "Yes, he's been frantically trying to reach you. He's worried about things that apparently are about to be found out. He has a house in Mexico, his safe place in the event of this sort of emergency. He told me he'd find you before he left, but I guess he didn't."

  "Stunning!" I say. "Jesus, how could he do that to us?"

  "Zeke, calm down. You'll find some kind of job. So will I. We will be fine."

  She goes off to the bedroom and comes back, holding something.

  "Fine. Look," I say, "I am confident, very confident, that I can raise enough money to continue operations on a small scale, I'm sure. I mean, we may have to cut our grant program, but that seems a little nineteen-nineties anyway. Grants? Yuck! How passé! This is the era of the big donors, the fat cats, the private endowments, the windfalls, and I think..."

  "All of that's over, Zeke. Do you read the news?"

  "Lara, you have to marry me."

  "Stop," Lara says. "I told you, I quit."

  "What's that in your hand?" I ask.

  "An electronic Taser," she says.

  "Are you going to Taser me?" I ask.

  "I hope not," she says.

  "Where did you get a Taser?"

  "My uncle is a police sergeant in Louisville. He doesn't think women should live alone without firearms. This was a compromise."

  I drop to my knees.

  "Lara, my mother is dying and if I am not married before she dies, then I lose the twins. They go to their aunt!"

  Lara sighs and looks at me with maybe some real tenderness. She knows I have been good to her and she has been good to me, an intelligent, reliable, quick-witted assistant. She knows that she has survived difficult economic times because of my generosity. She's also known, all along, that her legs had something to do with it, and that maybe there is something more than professional tension in our relationship.

  "Zeke, I'm so sorry."

  "It's in her will. If I'm not married, Lara, by the time she dies, the girls live with their aunt and I am nothing more than an uncle who visits once or twice a year."

  "Oh, no," she says.

  "You have to marry me," I say. "I will take care of you. I will provide for you and your kids and my kids. Like the Brady Bunch!"

  "Zeke, that's not how marriage works. I don't love you."

  "I'm lovable though. I am!"

  "You're odd, Zeke. I don't know if you are lovable in that sense of the word."

  "Lara! I'm coming right out and begging you. Please marry me!"

  "You don't even have a job anymore," she says.

  "If I can secure my position at the GMHI, if I can prove my income is respectable, you'd consider it?"

  "No, Zeke. I didn't mean that."

  "What did you mean?"

  "Zeke, I can't marry you," she says. "I don't love you!"

  "Right," I say.

  "I barely even like you," she says.

  I nod.

  "Don't cry," she says. "You cry too easily."

  "My mother's dying. I lost my job. My kids are leaving me."

  "Point taken," she says. "Weep away."

  "You're being cruel," I say.

  "Look, I'm going to take a quick shower and get dressed," Lara says. "Then I can go down to the office and show you a few things you might want to know, before they shut you down completely."

  "I'm sorry if you felt threatened by me, Lara. I'm sorry you felt the need to get your Taser."

  "I'm not afraid to use it, Zeke," she says.

  "Is that a joke?"

  "I don't know, Zeke."

  "This is so surreal."

  "It's okay, Zeke. It's okay to be in love with me; you can't help it. All of those years working side by side."

  "We should be together, Lara."

  "I mean it was inevitable that we'd have an awkward sexual encounter someday," she says. "I should have been more direct with you years ago. I am not at all interested."

  "But what about at that conference in Omaha? We nearly kissed!"

  "I know. This is the best job I could imagine having, moneywise. It allowed me to spend time with my kids when they were little, it gave us health benefits, it was easy."

  "So what are you saying?"

  "I might have led you to believe that I liked you more than I reallyd o."

  "You mean you prefer that we just remain friends."

  "I made a vow to myself on my last birthday, Zeke, and it was this: I vowed to be more honest and direct. I read this great book called Matters of Authenticity; it had this subtitle like How to Stop Pleasing the People Who Don't Matter."

  "I don't matter?"

  "What I mean, Zeke, is that it's better if we just remain colleagues. And since I've resigned, that means our relationship is largely over."

  I decide to switch tactics; as bruised as my ego is, I don't want to admit defeat. There's too much at stake.

  "I know. I think you're right," I say. I feel rather faint and take a seat on the couch. "I'm a little nauseous."

  "Okay," she says. "Zeke, please don't cry again."

  She goes into the bathroom, shuts the door.

  "I'm not going to cry!"

  "Oh, you just looked like you might," she says, from behind the door. "I sometimes hear you weeping in your office and—well, I hate it."

  "That's ridiculous! I have never wept in my office."

  "You do. It's very unsettling when I hear it."

  "Nonsense!" I bellow.

  Sitting on the sofa, I pick up a J. Crew catalog and browse for a moment. One of my favorite models, a smiling, thick-haired brunette with a rather ample bosom (by J. Crew standards), is wearing the Seaside seersucker wide halter-top bikini. I stand up, swelling in my pants, my mouth dry and tasting of copper. My hand shakes. And then I push the bathroom door open a small crack (bathrooms in old homes rarely lock!) and see Lara's figure, naked behind the frosted glass.

  "Zeke?" Lara says. "Are you in here?"

  What an enticing image, the flesh of a woman, her curves evident and her details blurred, behind a steaming shower door. I unzip my pants and watch her for a moment, and then I undress, standing there in my boxer shorts, my pleasure growing evident. Lara turns to face me for a moment, and I see the darkness of hair between her legs, the curve of her breasts through the frosted glass. My heart is in my throat. I hear her scream, and I scramble for my clothes.

  Lara slides open the shower door, just a small crack, as I try to zip my fly and pull on my T-shirt at the same time. She reaches outside of the shower and grabs a brown towel, then wraps herself in it.

  And now I hear her shrieking a little bit. "Oh, God, Zeke, you are so pathetic."

  I hear real disdain in her voice. I hear that she means those last two words. My heart crashes to my kidneys; my stomach gives way to water and cramps.

  "I'm so sorry," I say, dressing hurriedly in the next room. "I completely misjudged your statement."

  "What statement?" she shrieks.

  "When you said you were going to take a shower, I thought that was an invitation."

  "How could you possibly think that?"

  "Lara, please. I am a desperate man."

  "That's obvious," she says, coming out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, pointing the Taser at me.

  "I need love, Lara. I don't have much time left!"

  We stand there now, she still dripping wet, I half-dressed, fully aroused, crazy-ashamed, and suddenly weary.

  She shoots the Taser at a potted plant to show me it works. It sizzles and hisses, the air suddenly dense with the smell of
burning leaves.

  Exit Zeke.

  21. Zeke is digging deep.

  THAT AFTERNOON, I stop off at the Hospice Center again and my mother manages to sit up in bed for a moment, but she is barely lucid. She asks me where the goats have gone and then she wonders aloud how my pregnancy is going, has a coughing fit, yells out Cougar's name, and then drifts off to sleep. I go out to the parking lot and make a few phone calls, letting my fading mother sleep. I call Peter Romano, a small-time mobster who also happens to be H. M. Logan's attorney down in Janesville.

  Romano confirms that H. M. is out of the country, but that is all he will tell me.

  "It turns out, Zeke, that H. M. and Representative Quince Leatherberry, Republican, Fifth District, Wisconsin, spent a weekend under assumed names at a resort called Sunbelts in the Caribbean with each other and about six male prostitutes from the Dominican Republic."

  "I see," I say. I start to laugh. I can't help myself.

  Romano doesn't laugh.

  "And they're looking at the records of earmarks, special favors, that Leatherberry might have done for H. M. using federal money. And I am afraid the GMHI might be a prominent favor on that list."

  "I see," I say. "Has this been leaked to the media yet?"

  "Well, H. M. called me and told me about everything last night. He said he was leaving the country. But I didn't expect this," Romano says. "He was trying to get you a million dollars before he left, for your commie-faggot think tank or whatever he's been pouring money into, but his assets have been frozen. He's apparently also linked to some big Wall Street Ponzi scheme, I don't know. I know I'll never get paid now. That's what I know. He owes me forty thousand bucks. And counting."

  "Okay, well, I appreciate the heads-up, Romano."

  "H. M.'s main concern was that this not be damaging to his family," Romano says. "And I know H. M. was a weird little fucker, but I like his wife. I fucked her a few times. You'd be surprised, Zeke, how some of them older broads look naked. They treat a man well. And I like his kids. So, anyway, don't talk to the press about his, you know, predilection for male ass. Let's try and keep everything as quiet as we can, especially the ass play."

  "You're kidding me," I say. "I think that's a moot point."

  "Is it?" Romano says. "I hope so."

  "Never mind. Anyway, Mr. Romano, what about the estate? Do you know how much money Mr. Logan might have left to the Great Midwestern Humanities Initiative? I know this sounds crass, but we're in a dire way and this story is not going to help our fundraising situation any. Perhaps, if he does do something drastic, which I hope he doesn't do, perhaps we will be in the will?"

  "Zeke, I like you. You're as sick and selfish as I am."

  "Well," I say, "is there any money left? I'm desperate."

  "Zeke, H. M. is pretty much broke. The investments he does have are sketchy. Like I said, I think all the money he planned to will to the GMHI was in a pretty shady Ponzi scheme. He put his money in with some Germans in New York and he couldn't get it out when he wanted to. This isn't going to be a quick process."

  "I see," I say. "Well, forgive me for asking about it so quickly and crassly."

  "Happens all the time," he says. "Trouble on the horizon, crows and vultures darken the sky."

  "Rather poetic," I say. "Did you think that up?"

  "Did," he says.

  "Romano," I say, "you didn't really have sex with his wife, did you?"

  "Somebody had to," Romano says.

  "I suppose," I say.

  "All right, that's all I know, Zeke. Best thing you can do is avoid answering phone calls from any number you don't recognize if you don't want a reporter or some Senate page harassing you. Am I programmed into your phone?"

  "Yeah. It's sad to see that two lonely homosexuals couldn't have themselves a little horny getaway without it becoming national news. Not that I condone married men doing things like this. I respect the institution of marriage immensely—in fact, I'm getting married this year—but, you know what I mean?"

  "Well, Leatherberry is—was—pretty much a lock for attorney general if the Republicans win in November. He's a hard-nosed maverick. That's hot right now. Anti-immigration, anti-Arab, you know? His people are scrambling to keep this quiet."

  "I see."

  "They won't though. That meddling public radio know-it-all Don Gonyea has been calling me all day, looking for dirt."

  "Give him my number," I say. "I love Don Gonyea."

  I hang up the phone and go back inside the Hospice Center. For two hours I sit beside my sleeping mother, but she doesn't wake up, so I kiss her forehead and go into the hall. One of the nursing assistants is coming into my mother's room as I am heading out.

  "Your mother talks about you all the time," she says. "You must have been very close."

  "I suppose," I say. "We've gotten closer. Lately."

  "It's always my son Cougar this, and my son Cougar that," the nurse says. "She is so proud of you."

  "Thank you," I say. "That means a lot."

  Later that evening, back home in my study, I sip on a glass of Scotch, and then another. I leave messages for H. M., expressing my support. I leave apologetic messages for Elizabeth Vandeweghe. And for Lara Callahan. I leave a message for Minn at the Starbucks, but the barista who answers the phone is not sure when Minn will be back. And then, when I go into the kitchen for fresh ice, more Scotch, I look up at the Simply You prospect list taped to the fridge. After fixing a new drink, I take my phone into the living room, settle into my favorite reading chair, and call Sofia Coppola.

  "Hello?" she says.

  I nearly fall over onto the floor.

  "Ms. Coppola?" I say.

  "Who is this?" she says.

  I almost say, "You don't know me" but realize, just in time, that there is no better way to invite a hang-up from a celebrity.

  "It's Zeke Pappas," I say. "Remember? I'm the director of the Center for the Study of American Unhappiness."

  "Okay," she says. "How did you get this number?"

  Again, I know that keeping her on the phone is of paramount importance.

  "Giovanni gave it to me," I say, flailing to make a credible guess.

  "Rabissi?"

  "Yes. Exactly."

  "Okay," she says.

  "He thought, well, he decided it would be okay because he really liked my project. He thought you'd be interested in it. It's a film version of an oral history I've been working on for a long time."

  "You're serious?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, this isn't a good time. I'm about to meet some friends for dinner."

  "Oh, who's that?"

  "Pardon?" she says.

  "Who might that be?" I ask, and then realize I have made a colossal error.

  "Why don't you call my manager?" she says. "You can discuss that with her."

  "And who is that?"

  I take down a name and phone number, write it on a Post-it note, and then quickly type it into my laptop's phone book as well.

  "Okay, well, thank you," I say. "I'll be in touch."

  "And tell me your name again?" she says.

  "Zeke Pappas. The Center for the Study of American Unhappiness. Madison, Wisconsin."

  "Sounds interesting, Zeke," she says. "American Unhappiness. A good title."

  "You think so?"

  "Sure. Call my manager," she says.

  "I will," I say. "I most definitely will!"

  "After dinner, I need to board a plane with my husband," she says. "I gotta go."

  "Pardon?" I say.

  "I'm leaving, after dinner, on a plane with my husband. His band is doing a European tour and I've decided to go along."

  "Jesus," I say. "How can that be?"

  And then Sofia Coppola hangs up.

  I have had dinner some evenings in the past, alone in the house, tucked away cozily in my small breakfast nook with a nourishing dish of chicken and peanut sauce or rice and beans, with Sofia Coppola's beaming face dining across from me,
smiling in the modest blue glow of my iBook. Our conversation is jaunty and allusively flirtatious. Our courtship is torrid and brief. We can hardly get through our meal, her foot moving up and down my calf.

  After dinner, I take my laptop up to the bedroom and do a Google image search for Sofia Coppola. What will she be wearing tonight when she comes to bed? But when I Google her name tonight, a terrible thing emerges. I knew she'd been divorced from her celebrity director husband, Spike Jonze, but through Google I find out she is married again. Already! Again! It seems much too soon! And then I see that she and her husband, a French rock star, have a child!

  How did I miss this? Where have I been?

  My desire vanishes. And Sofia Coppola, regrettably, falls off my prospect list.

  That night, I dream of Valerie. In my dream, she is asleep in a vast library, nude. I cannot wake her. Her red hair fans out on a wooden table where she rests her head. Her hair dances above her head, the only part of her moving, a halo made of fire.

  I scream in her ear. The patrons of the library shush me. Finally, she looks up at me, and she turns white, her already fair skin going entirely translucent. Then she begins to scream. All the books begin to fall from the towering shelves. The patrons shush and scowl. I say nothing.

  When I wake up, it's four o'clock in the afternoon and my headache is gone.

  In the early weeks (and what ended up being the final weeks, as well) of my marriage to Valerie, I would often sit on an old wooden chair we had next to the futon on which we slept, and I would watch my wife sleeping. I was young and unable to predict the relentless nature of loss and failure that would dominate my early adult life. When I gazed down at Valerie, sleeping, I had a sense of victory, a strange and warm feeling that my adult life would go easily and brilliantly, and that loneliness, despair, and, in fact, unhappiness were demons I had quelled—prevented—by marrying young. I would watch Valerie, sometimes for hours, until she stirred, and then I would pad across our drab, love-struck efficiency and make coffee, returning, just as Valerie woke, with two steaming mugs in hand.

  I get out of bed and go downstairs. After making coffee, and drinking a cup in a state of absolute stillness, I move into my study, open my computer, and log in to Facebook. Once there I click on Accept. And I am now friends with Valerie Somerville, and I am now free to view her profile. She's in a relationship, she lives in Ely, Minnesota, she has posted only one profile picture, and she has one hundred thirty-six friends.