Excuse Me for Living

by Ric Klass

  “And why is that, Professor?”

  “Barry. Please call me Barry. Because it means the fairest one.” Panic. I’ve gone too far. What an aging buzzard. She’ll politely ask me to leave, he thinks and unconsciously lowers his head in humiliation.

  “You’re so sweet, Barry.”

  Emboldened now. “Do you know how to use your father’s telescope? I helped him select it.” He pounces on the device. “It’s a Meade 16-inch RCX400. Global positioning system. When the leaves fall this autumn, at night you can see exhibits in the Met across the park or the rings of Jupiter. With the filter on, dazzling sunspots during the day.” He squints through the eyepiece now, getting more and more animated, “It has a precision front corrector lens. . . .”

  “You know everything.”

  Ignoring her and still stargazing, “It’s the MIT nerd in me. Don’t pay any attention. But you see, with a lens like this there’s virtually no distortion in the optics. . . . ”

  Putting a hand on his face, “Is there anything you don’t know, Barry?”

  Her electrifying touch gains his undivided attention. Now standing to his full towering measure, the two seem as if Zeus and Athena have reunited. “When I look at you, Zoë, I realize I don’t really know anything at all.”

  He effortlessly lifts her off the ground to kiss her. Unlike other times when men have wooed her, Charlotte’s as transported as her lover. The invitation for a homemade dinner becomes homemade breakfast instead.

  “Some Fucking Friend

  you are,” Dan heatedly accuses Bruce in the mansion’s library. After getting removed by two male nurses from Ally’s room, he has spent the day in his cabaña on the internet, filling out forms and sending out emails. He bided his time until late this evening when he knew his Bexley Academy classmate would be back in the East Hampton hotbed of iniquity.

  “I copulate to the best of my ability, old chum.” flips out Brucie – forever unflappable.

  “You’ve played some rotten tricks on me.”

  “Rotten is what I do best. What seems to be the problem?”

  “Let’s start with attempted murder when you tried to ply me with martinis in the haunted house upstairs last Saturday.”

  “They were for the twins – not you, Dandy Man,” he lies. “Scrumptious femmes weren’t they? How rude of Laura to snatch a potable for herself and waste the other dousing your penis.” Now also chafed. “Why would I murder you when you’re doing such a bonny good job doing it yourself?” Two can play a nasty verbal sport.

  “You framed me, Bruce,” dropping the familiar “ie” – the room grows hotter. “Charlie and Laura arriving in the room just as I’m set up as an object of ridicule for your druggie hangers-on. Laura wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  “Not even you, my friend, can tell me who I can invite to my home. Anyway, Charlie invited her – not me. And what complaint do you have? That you didn’t screw both of them that night? I’m sure you nailed Laura,” now not-so- uninsultable, with malice, “who by the way lies upstairs now next to The Chipster, with several lines in her nostrils. I wonder if he’s drilled her yet?”

  Brucie thought Danny was searching through the drawers of his father’s desk for a cigarette. He’s sorry now for the miscalculation. “Dan, don’t do anything stupid,” a newly-flappable Bruce calls with alarm to the enraged lover bounding upstairs.

  “How’s Tricks, Old Egg?”

  the ever sociable Chipster inquires as Dan explodes in the door.

  Upon entering the center “Chinese” bedroom, Dan looks out the window. Makes a quick calculation. Unlikely to kill him.

  Chipster’s terrified thoughts follow. The Dandy Man’s one hell of a lot stronger than one might think, as Dan bodily lifts him out of bed and easily defenestrates him. Unfortunately for the wavy-potato chip heir, on more than one drunken occasion Dan has dived from the lotus-flower-designed-wallpapered bedchamber directly into the deep end of the heart-shaped pool below.

  “What a marvelous host,” the muddled crowd that can still see straight murmur to each other as they watch a naked Chipster sail out the second-story window, followed immediately by his clothes. “Brucie stops at nothing to amuse us.”

  Chip swims into the interior sunroom extension of the pool, with his trousers and underpants on his head, where his inebriation permits him to enjoy the applause and adulation of a job well done from the twos and threesomes groping on the cushions there.

  “I guess that makes me Lois Lane, huh, Clark Kent?” Laura asks in a sultry voice Danny hasn’t heard before. She’s euphoric and more aroused than ever. The muscles from Dan’s daily exercise have both of them pumped up.

  “Get dressed.” Dan takes note of her dilated pupils, blows jagged lines of white powder off the Qing dynasty dresser, seizes the silver vial on it, and dumps the contents into the handcrafted oriental hot tub in the middle of the room.

  “Do I get to see the ice castle like in Superman III?”

  “It was Superman II.” Always the movie critic.

  A bit tongue-tied from sniffing snow, “Why don’t you come here next to me and take The Chipster’s place?” She lies flat on her back and fondles her breasts seductively.

  Daniel has never before considered a woman’s prior love affairs his concern. He wears jealousy lightly. But not now. Danny’s relieved to see she at least still has her panties on.

  “When did you give up reading The New Yorker for Hustler? Put your dress on,” he scolds and rolls her off the bed.

  “Screw you, Dan. You’re not my father. Where have you been all this time if you’re so damn hot for me?”

  Pulling his cell phone from his back pocket, “Let’s ask Dr. Bernstein these questions right now, why don’t we? See what he has to say about his daughter sniffing blow.”

  More sober, “Don’t do that, Dan.” Getting off the floor and throwing her dress on. “He’s very sick. It would kill him. I’m going now. OK?”

  Dan grabs her arm. “We’re going.” He reaches around her waist, kisses her neck, just as shirtless and barefoot Chipster bumbles in.

  Eyes gaping open in fear and with arms up to defend a possible blow, “Don’t hit me, Dandy. Not called for. Just getting my keys.” Fumbling around the bed and covers, “Sorry to interrupt, fellows. Just carry on. As you were. You’d think keys had legs and walked away.” Now crawling under the bed. “I try to always remember to put them in the same place so I won’t misplace them. It can be so inconvenient, if you know what I mean. Of course, flying out the window without previously planning it can be disconcerting, don’t you know. Ah! Here are these buggers. Now for my shoes.” When The Chipster gets up, he realizes he’s been talking to himself. Charles R. Siegel – the third– stands alone in the Chinese bedroom.

  Maybe I’ll Call Her

  when it gets light out. It’s Friday morning, 5 AM sharp. Harry Rosenthal hasn’t slept all night thinking about his next call. Six thirty won’t be too early. She’s always up and around by then.

  Harry lives in a one-bedroom Great Neck walkup only a short stroll from the temple. He oscillates in the oak rocking chair his wife Frances gave him for his sixtieth birthday nearly eight years ago. He’s been marking time there since 3 AM when he finally gave up trying to get to sleep. Nothing on TV except reruns. He’s watched Father Knows Best until he can’t bear to see it again. Instead, all this time he’s been staring at a picture – his son, Marc. That’s his boy’s best photo. You can see his intelligence and vitality, Harry reflects. What a great kid. The framed image of a smiling twenty-eight-year-old, long-maned blond man wearing a rented tuxedo sits on top of the television. There it’s most easily seen from any vantage point in the combination living room slash dining room. Best man at his friend Bill’s wedding. Marc looks so handsome in black. Nothing’s happening this weekend until the Sunday night meeting. Frances could probably use some company, too.

  The community service Harry’s thrown himself into headlong kills most of the hours. Committee
meetings to organize written campaigns protesting the new traffic light. And petitions for an additional stop sign on a neighborhood side street make him forget mostly that she wanted him to move out of their home a year ago. “Give Frances time,” the guys at the temple meeting tell him. It takes time. Maybe I shouldn’t have retired at sixty-five, but who knew what would happen only a week after I finally gave up my CPA practice? A damn good one, too. The younger guys couldn’t wait to call my clients and take over.

  Harry checks the time on the genuine Swiss cuckoo clock on the marble mantle. It’s five after five. Only five minutes has passed since he last looked. Yes. Just another one hour and fifty-five minutes until I’ll give her a buzz. Now that I think of it, it’s still less since a few seconds just ticked off. He laughs at his little arithmetic drollery. The friendly, tired, and retired CPA now counts seconds instead of dollars. It helps him to fall asleep. And he finally does, in the rocking chair with the black-and-blood-red tessellated pillow his wife crocheted for him.

  “Is This Our Relationship?”

  demands Dan. “Market research for the great American novel?” Going to LFOD again was out of the question for them. He has to get back there before he’s missed in the morning, so her quarters in the city got ruled out, too. He sits dejectedly on the basic motel chair of East Hampton House, a few minutes from Brucie’s manse.

  His parents’ impending divorce flits in and out his mind. It’s their life, but maybe his problems had something to do with the breakdown of their marriage. The whole family started going to hell when he turned on to junk. On the phone dad said maybe they’d try mediation. At least they won’t become antagonists, with attorneys battling for money and the death of the opposing party. Maybe they’ll have a happy life again – together or apart. Elaine’s the open secret behind this – Dan’s guess had been confirmed by his best possible LFOD source. The paramour has a key role here. A vivacious and sexy woman – and single. For sure she’s not helping mom and dad’s resolution.

  It’s not lights out yet, but he pulls the curtain apart just enough to see the moonlit lawn beyond the studio suite’s small balcony. Dan’s been watching Laura for over an hour now in the motel’s standard-size unit.

  Though the coke’s high has receded into a low, Laura scribbles the night’s events in her journal. “The armed and dangerous poverty-stricken boy couldn’t wait to relieve his lust. He forced her into a nearby motel where he ravished the stunning, braless, and nearly unconscious author,” she writes.

  He cranes his neck to read her prose over her shoulder. “I’m unemployed to be sure, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself destitute, Laura. And who’s been trying to ravish who?”

  “Ravish whom,” corrects the Ph.D.-in-English candidate. Yanking the pad away from him. “Go find your own job if you can. This is none of your business. If you don’t want to get laid, why don’t you go back to the little girl? She’s more your speed.”

  “You know I’m crazy for you, don’t you, Laura?”

  “You’re crazy – period!”

  “But not only in the bad way.” She lets him kiss her neck.

  “Were you really going to use that weapon in your pocket?”

  “We’ve both used it before. I thought you liked it.”

  “Not that one, wise guy. The real one.”

  “I don’t know what I was going to do. In movie scripts they say the writer should never show a gun unless someone’s going to pull the trigger.”

  “Don’t scare me, Dan. It’s not funny.”

  “Let’s take a swim, love,” manages to change her mood.

  Laura holds his face, “You’re such a bad boy,” and kisses him.

  They walk, hands clasped together, outside to the pool beyond the dogwood trees, take off their clothes, and swim laps until they’re both exhausted.

  “Is this where I get violated?” she laughs, squeezing herself alongside him. The waterdrops on her wet blonde hair prism the rising rays of dawn into an arcing rainbow silhouette.

  “Take me back to my dungeon before I do just that. We’re in the deep end, Laura. Over our heads here.”

  “Here are some towels, Mr. and Mrs. Topler,” the cheeky but tired-out receptionist/owner from last night surprises them with her sudden appearance. The matronly lady in a daffodil-patterned dress standing over their heads chirps, “The complimentary bed-and-breakfast coffee and muffins won’t be ready for a few minutes.” As the proprietor tramps back into the motel she recites a Hail Mary – to thank the lord for the wild parties at the Langfords nearby – and the motel’s high occupancy rate.

  “The Yellow Stickers

  indicate where you need to sign. May I call you Charlotte?” Davian Corbeille ever so tentatively inquires in the polished Goldman Sachs conference room. She had refused a Friday lunch invitation and would meet only in the late afternoon when even hard-driving Wall Streeters normally head early for their country homes in Connecticut and the Hamptons. He spreads the closing documents for the Aramark/G.F. Davison Vending Machine Corporation merger on the table.

  “Ms. Davison suits me fine.”

  The queasiness begins anew for him. “You’re very kind to take the time to come see us. We wouldn’t bother you so soon after your loss except the transaction could fall through unless we move forward. It’s a pooling of assets – complicated finances. These are the final papers, but possibly you’d like your securities attorney to review them one more time to ensure nothing’s changed. Your father worked so hard to complete this merger, so I’m sure you’ll want to proceed.” The department head starts to break the company admonition contra perspiring. When she focuses her gaze on him, he feels hot and cold flashes.

  “Not necessarily. My father’s dead. He’d want me to do as always – exactly as I please.”

  Fuck me. There goes my bonus and that canary GranTurismo Maserati, Malcolm Bennett internally whines.

  Sitting next to the exotic target, Mason forges on. “What can we do to help make this a win-win wind-up for a beautiful woman?” He inches closer to her with just a hint of a warm smile. His charisma has closed more than one deal in this firm.

  Good work, Rextal, keep pushing, thinks Davian.

  Her eyes flash. “If you come any closer to me, I’ll break your neck in half.”

  Mason urgently excuses himself to go to the men’s room. He zips into the lavatory but zips down a few seconds too late – and doesn’t return.

  Bhadra gets to the point. “Are you seeking a higher price, Ms. Davison? We’ll have to go back to our client. Our analyst Chung Fat can run the numbers again.” The two women can get to the heart of the matter without interference from the heightened testosterone in the room.

  “Let me get back to you, Bhadra. I have other matters on my mind just now. I need to review the papers and see what I want to do. And please, you can call me Charlotte.”

  “Whoa! Is she ever something out of the sci-fi channel,” Malcolm gushes after Charlie leaves the room. But all eyes turn to the glowing Bhadra who’s become the possible key to getting the job done.

  “Maybe she’s a dyke,” Davian unthinkingly speaks his mind – another GS prohibition for department heads. Trying to save himself from the politically incorrect gaffe, “Did you all know Queen Christina of Sweden was a lesbian?” Despite the icicles darting from his subordinates’ eyes, he adds, “She was only five years old when she was crowned queen in 1632.”

  Same year as you, thinks Bhadra.

  “Professional Courtesy

  notwithstanding, Dr. Bernstein, I’m happy to answer any of your questions and help any way I can,” Dr. Henry Singleton tells Jacob. Henry takes a quick glance at his watch. He promised his wife that this one time he’d be home on time to beat the weekend traffic to their cottage in the Berkshires. “How is Mary, anyhow? Haven’t seen in her in ages.”

  Jacob finally booked an appointment with the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital psychiatrist recommended by his own therapist at Stony Brook. “Please c
all me Jack. Mary’s fine. Lucky to have her as my surgery therapist. It was very nice of her to contact you for me. I’d like to get to know my surgical operating team. I would very much appreciate an introduction so that they can fully understand my case. The surgeon and anesthesiologist in particular, but also the nurses.”

  “She told me it scared you not to know them.”

  “The staff at my own hospital have been like a family to me. More so since my wife died. I’m frankly terrified to be cut open and perhaps die in the hands of strangers.

  The operation’s scheduled for next week.” Jacob’s agitation flares as his pain returns.

  The lower aches from the tumors have grown much worse despite medication.

  “Jack, you don’t seem well. Has the pain increased? Jack? Jack?”

  No Date for the Weekend

  or maybe the last thirty weekends for that matter. Morty Mavis mopes around the kitchen he keeps clean himself in his contemporary home and plays this sad violin music in his mind. It’s a two-hour drive from here on a Friday afternoon, but what the hell else should I do with myself? No community meetings have been scheduled – nobody to push around.

  During a coffee break at the last temple meeting, Dan told Morty that a very hot single woman who likes older men, a redheaded tennis and swimming instructor at LFOD with a great figure, might like to meet him.

  “I can ask her first,” Dan said.

  “Who needs an intro?” Morty replied. “Me, for crissakes? For forty years I made intros for others as a consultant. A babe who wants to glom a real man? – I’m the guy.”

  So now Morty heads for LFOD without calling to see if she’s there. Maybe he hopes she isn’t, to save himself possible embarrassment.

  What am I doing here? Morty asks himself after the long drive.

  He’s panic-stricken and filled with remorse for wasting his time or, worse, risking rejection and ensuing mortification. Do I need the runaround from some dame I know zilch about? He parks in the lot. On the way to the reception area Morty gets assistance just before he enters.