Who, Me?

by Who, Me- A Memoir (retail) (epub)

  And I got up from where we were sitting in her living room and went into the bedroom where her work-desk was, opened the middle drawer and pulled the passport out, opened it.

  I was born in 1932, she had told me she was born in 1932, too, but there in the passport her birthday was 1928. Four years older than me?

  “What’s this about, it makes you four years older than me?!?!?”

  “You know how ‘official things’ are, they’re always making mistakes.”

  “Bullshit! Come on!”

  “OK, so maybe you misunderstood what I said. Maybe my English wasn’t that accurate—”

  “Why not just fess up?”

  “Fess up?”

  “Forget it!”

  I went and got my grey tweed coat and grey tweed cap and was out the door without another word.

  I hated liars. One thing I was was confessional, on the truth-track, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  So I’d told her I was twenty-four and she’d matched my twenty-four with her own twenty-four . . .

  The next day I went over to St. John’s Chapel and talked to Father O’Rourke, this sleek, gaunt ascetic priest friend of mine, a guy who later became Bishop of Peoria (Illinois).

  Told him the whole story.

  “Well,” he said, sitting at his desk in his office, interlacing his fingers, “You want me to tell you what I really think?”

  “Give it to me straight.”

  “I think that if anyone carefully and consciously lies about such a thing, they are capable of lying about anything. I personally would never be able to trust her about anything.”

  “OK, that sounds on track.”

  “That’s the way I see it.”

  “Thanks a lot, father . . .”

  I left his office, walked down the hall on the way out and saw another priest-friend of mine sitting in his office reading and meditating. Father Rubias. A Lithuanian.

  “Father Rubias.”

  “Hugh, come on in. I’m reading Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation. Do you know it?”

  “One of my favorites.”

  “Mine, too. Very sincere. What can I do for you?”

  I told him the whole story.

  He got up, thought, thought, thought, paced, paced, paced. Then sat down and gave me his opinion.

  “Frankly, women are that way, they lie about their age. It’s universal. One of those feminine things . . . I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  We shook hands.

  “Many thanks.”

  And, of course, I took his advice. And, of course, he was both right and wrong. Mimi was an inveterate, I don’t want to say liar—it was much more complicated than that. Whatever mistakes she’d made, whatever might prejudice her getting what she wanted, she clouded over, distorted, omitted. It was all image-making. She wanted what she wanted and anything that might tarnish her image had to be totally eliminated. She was the all-shining sun-goddess, and all clouds in her way had to be bashed, smashed, evaporated.

  So we got married in June and all my cousins, aunts and uncles came from Chicago, my cousins, Marge and Betty, were flower girls, my best pal from college, Frank Gazzolo, was the best man, Joe Weber was in the wedding party. Mimi’s brother, Dr. Mario, gave her away; a little runt of a guy with a cutaway that was much too big for him, but simpatico, always talking about how many mini-courses he’d taken since he finished his M.D., a course here, a course there, “Probablemente yo se mas sobre pathologia que cualquier otro medico en el mundo. . .” (I probably know more about pathology that any other doctor in the world . . .)

  We had a huge banquet over at the union that took every last penny we had and then some. My parents helped out a little, but . . .

  Mimi’s mother didn’t come from Lima. She was too old and sickish. But her brother, Manuel, came, with his bride Zoila. And lots of friends we’d made at the University of Illinois were there, half the Spanish department, the whole St. Vincent de Paul Society.

  Father Rubias performed the ceremony, smiling the whole time. My Aunt Gertrude had found a beautiful wedding dress at a secondhand shop in Chicago and so Mimi was all peacockish, primped, gorgeous, all her fullest beauty with a rhinestone tiara no less. It was all formal dresses and tails, like the Vanderbilts or Rockefellers instead of two edge-of-poverty nerds who hardly had a penny to their names.

  A glorious start.

  Frank Gazzolo had arranged to let us use his cottage on Lake Delevan as our honeymoon retreat, so we went back to Chicago with my parents, then rented a car and drove to Delevan.

  I’d been there once before, one summer with Frank, when he had to take his sailboat in to get fixed and halfway there I’d jumped off the sailboat (being towed by a speedboat) and swam to shore, almost not making it . . .

  Something that Frank didn’t forget when he handed me the keys.

  “No swimming across the lake, now, pal . . .”

  Ha, ha, ha.

  It was a great house. Right on the shores of Lake Delevan. All brick. Kind of a Gothicized cape-cod with vast dormer windows, pointed Gothic doorways and windows.

  “Beautiful!” said Mimi as we drove into the driveway, “maybe someday we can have something like that if you get your novels published, if I get mine published, teaching, too . . .”

  “Whatever,” I said, thinking to myself, as always, Blessed are the Poor, For They Shall See God . . .

  Opening the front door and then blocking her as she started to walk in.

  “No, no, no, no, no. I have to carry you across the threshold or else there will be a curse forever on our marriage.”

  “Tonterias!” (Foolishness!)

  “Black cats, green toads,” I answered, swept her up in my arms made strong from long summers of digging ditches, and carried her inside. She was a featherweight. It was like carrying a big pillow.

  Beautiful inside. Stone fireplace, all oak furniture, a leather sofa in front of the fireplace.

  “Que belleza!”

  “Not bad. Let’s take a look at the bedroom—master bedroom, first floor, that’s the one he said would be ‘ideal’ for us . . .”

  “Ideal for us?”

  All cutesy-pooh and inocente.

  Found it off behind the fireplace down a long wood-paneled hall, huge bed, four-poster, the posts heavy twirled wood, like braided hair, a canopy on top, huge carved wood headboard, again twists and swirls. A huge bathroom connecting to the bedroom, a sunken bath, all tiled floor, white and black hexagonal tiles, Mimi all oohing and aahing all over the place.

  “Tu crees que podemos hacer algo?” (You think we can do something?)

  Pulling a big plastic bag out of my suitcase, taking out some black silk stockings, a black garter belt, a bra with the nipples out, a long black chiffon robe, black highest heeled shoes with ankle straps, a little makeup kit that concentrated on eyebrow pencils, eye shadows, eyelash lengthener.

  “Maybe we can sleep,” she purred, almost a snore.

  “Sleep?”

  “Juntos, por su puesto. Pero ‘dormir’ es una palabra que viene del cielo.” (Together, of course. But ‘sleep’ is a word from heaven.)

  “Hokay . . . but I’ll have to find another bedroom. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep in the same bed with you and my Sir Little Gnome between my legs is going to sleep too.”

  “What you need is Buddhism. I Ching.”

  “What I need is a cooperative bride on my wedding night.”

  “OK, OK.”

  It was ten o’clock. My usual conk-out time was 2-3 PM. One thing I never did, never seemed to need, was sleep.

  “So, how about a little costume change?”

  “Tu eres tan exigente!” (You are so demanding!)

  “No big suprise.”

  “That’s true, I should have known better.”

  And she peevishly went into the bathroom, I could hear the door click, and in fifteen minutes came out looking like a high-heeled jaguar, eyes hypnotically outlined, lots of red
lipstick and tomato-red cheeks.

  “Molto bene!” (Very good!) I applauded her in Italian.

  “Pero estas hablando Italiano.” (But you’re speaking Italian.)

  “What do you have against the Italians?”

  “Nada. No tengo nada contra los Italianos.” (Nothing, I don’t have anything against the Italians.)

  I pulled back the blankets and she got into the bed.

  Nice body. Nice canteloupish-size tits, hour-glass waist, nice gazelle legs, and the face said puta, puta, puta (whore, whore, whore).

  Just what I needed; all my life I had been longing for.

  Turned off all the overhead lights, just one stained glass little light on a table in the corner. Which made her even more jungleish-looking.

  I stripped down, put on a robe, got into bed next to her and reached down between her legs. Nice and juicy, watermelonish; she was a regular grocery department, wasn’t she?

  Only then I smelled it.

  Like rotten fish.

  She didn’t wash—didn’t wash “down there.” All the rest of her OK, but “down there,” was it off limits?

  So, maybe that’s the way “nature” was. What did I know about it? This was my first jump into the sea of venerealness . . . as in Venus . . .

  She played around with me a little, I got hard, then I tried to mount her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve seen pictures—”

  “No, no, no, from behind. Like dogs. You’ve seen dogs—”

  “As a matter of fact I’ve never seen dogs—if you’ll pardon the expression—fucking . . .”

  Tried to get it in her, but couldn’t manage. The door wouldn’t open up. Maybe I needed . . .

  Got up, went into the cupboard in the bathroom, found some Vaseline.

  “Aha, ahora podemos vencer los aztecas.” (Now we can conquer the Aztecs.)

  “Conquistar los aztecas? I’m Peruvian, the Aztecs were in Mexico,” she squealed, very unhappy about this whole campaign.

  “Figurative, not literal.”

  Smearing some vaseline on King Dong, trying again. But still no luck.

  “I’m telling you, we’re dogs, do it doggy-like—”

  “OK, bitch!” I snarled and she got on her knees and I tried to enter her from behind—but that seemed so “carnal,” so canine—and besides it didn’t go in; it simply didn’t happen.

  I tried over and over again.

  You know me, I don’t give up easily.

  But half an hour later and it still hadn’t happened.

  “Let’s just give up.”

  “Give up? But we’ve got to make babies. The Holy Spirit is spreading his mantle across this bed and whispering, ‘Time to remake the race, life must go on,’ that’s what it’s all about—”

  “If that’s what it’s all about, why are priests celibate? Prostestant ministers get married. Wouldn’t priests be excellente fathers with all their . . . sabiduria (knowledge).”

  OK, that was it.

  I got off her, went into the bathroom, took care of myself in a matter of minutes, showered, got redressed.

  She was still in the bed, sleeping now.

  “I’ll see you downstairs. I’ll make a little supper, see what I can find . . .”

  Down into the kitchen, the freezer. Some Brautwurst, frozen bread. OK. We could survive on that. Some frozen orange juice, and, a bottle of Vermouth. OK.

  Got out a frying pan, found some olive oil, did my thing. Even found a can of black beans in the cupboard. I’d pay back Frank in some way. Great guy. A little idiotic in a way, totally absorbed in art and classical music and nothing else. But what was the difference, there was enough money around for him to do nothing else all his life but be artsy. Funny how the Scotchness of his mother hadn’t touched him; pure Italian . . . could have dropped out of Naples into Chicago.

  When I got everything ready, nice Brautwurst sandwiches, beans, orange juice and Vermouth, I called upstairs.

  “Foody woodies!!!”

  “Que cosa?” (What?)

  “Tiempo de comer.” (Time to eat.)

  “Si, estoy con hambre.” (Yes, I’m hungry.)

  And she was down in a few minutes wrapped in this big fuzzy robe that looked like it had been through the Conquista/Conquest of the New World, oversized slippers that looked like she had hiked over the Andes in.

  “Quen bueno!” (Great!)

  We stuffed our faces. Then back to bed. Her on her side, me on mine.

  Of course I’d sinned, hadn’t I? I’d masturbated before going to sleep. The Holy Spirit was very chagrined that my seeds hadn’t gone looking for an egg to fertilize. All very anti-Natural Law, nicht wahr?

  So the next morning I got out the phone book and looked up in the yellow pages under churches, found a local Catholic Church, St. Catherine of Sienna, called up, a very serious Fathers of the Church voice answering. Didn’t they have a secretary?

  “Good morning. St. Catherine’s.”

  “Hello, I, uh . . . need to go to confession . . .”

  “OK. How about this afternoon? Two o’clock? This is Father Mulvany. I’ll put the confessional light on; you won’t be able to miss me.”

  “OK. Sounds good. See you then . . .”

  So after lunch I told Mimi I was going into town to go to confession, she might as well stay out by the lake, the town couldn’t be too much.

  “I want to see the town! It might be nice . . . touristy, you know, all those little tiendas, stores you have in small towns.”

  “We don’t have any more money, after the wedding and all, you know that.”

  “Mirar no cuesta nada.” (Looking doesn’t cost anything.)

  So she came in with me. I found the church, Lucia went off shop-browsing and I went into the church. There was the light.

  Into the confessional.

  “Bless me, father, for I have sinned. I’m on my honeymoon and I tried to have sex with my wife but it never happened and so I masturbated . . .”

  “OK. Perhaps you need some sexual counseling. These things are difficult. But, say a rosary for penance and . . . better luck next time. “Te absolvo en nomine Patri, Filio et Espiritu Santo, Amen.” (I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.)

  Absolved.

  Out into the light again, cleansed.

  I’d say my rosary later, not now. I had a rosary in my suitcase back at the house.

  That night I didn’t want to try again, said my rosary, slept on the sofa in the living room, then tried again the next day, and the next—no results—masturbated again, couldn’t really stop myself, possessed by the Devil of the Flesh. The whole honeymoon became a crown of thorns, a carrying of my cross to my crucifixion. I didn’t go to confession again until we got back to the University of Illinois . . .

  A few nice moments by the lake. Took out a rowboat for a while, listened to some of Frank’s records, lots of Viennese-ish stuff, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss; he loved the big booming stuff.

  And then, once back in Urbana Champaign, we found an apartment in the top floor of a house not far from campus. Hot as hell, a huge fan in the wall at the top of the stairs about the size of an airplane propeller. Must have been six feet across. And no screen to shield it. If you happened to fall into it you would have been shredded into bits. A screen over it and all that, but I’d always walk down the stairs like it was the last walk in my life.

  Back to the library.

  Starting to work in earnest on my dissertation now. Had my own carrel in the library stacks. Cosmology in E.A. Poe’s “Eureka”. Which meant that I had to read all of Poe plus every book I could get my hands on on cosmology. No problem there, given my pre-med and medicine, St. Thomas, Aristotle and all the rest. The more arcane the topic, the more I felt at home.

  One day I was in my carrel working, when along came a friend of mine from St. John’s Catholic Chapel. An older guy, Tom O’Brien. Kind of blubbery, old jeans, work shirt, belly stic
king out over his belt. Working on a degree in veterinary medicine.

  “Hey, Foxy, how ya doin’?”

  Getting up, shaking hands with him.

  “OK and not so OK. You know I got married, right?”

  “I didn’t get invited to the wedding, but—”

  “You know how it is, I married this Peruvian and my parents were a little disenchanted. If she’d been an Inca princess . . .”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Sexual.”

  “You can’t get it up?”

  “I can get it up alright, I just can’t get it in. You know, I never did it before. The mechanics. Theoretically I’m fine, but when it comes to performance—”

  “Ah, come on,”

  “I’m still a virgin, two weeks after the wedding.” He started to laugh. “It’s not funny.”

  “OK,” sobering up, lying down on the concrete floor of the stacks, stomach up, “let me just give you a little demonstration . . .” spreading his legs open. “Two ways to do it: her on top mounting you or you on top mounting her. A little pre-insertion foreplay, as they call it. Get the doors open. Play around with the clitoris nipples, see them as doorbells . . . ring ‘em enough and the big door opens and you’re in . . .”

  There he was squirming around on the floor when suddenly this young student-worker, a perfect blonde, round-faced, hair cascading like a waterfall down her back, pushing a cart full of books to re-shelve, came around the corner of the stacks.

  “Oh, excuse me!”

  “Excuse me!”

  Tom leaping up to his feet.

  But blondie was gone. Lots of places to reshelve besides here.

  “Embarrassing, no? She probably thought we were—”

  “We were what?”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you’re such a—”

  “That’s the way I’ve always been.”

  Sometimes wishing I’d never had any sex ever, could have gone through my entire life sexless, anxietyless, all peace, calm, shantih, shantih, shantih, the Peace that Passeth Understanding.

  That night I came back from the library all enthusiastic, made us some hamburgers with big slices of tomato in them, a little soy sauce for flavor, some nice rutabaga, parsnip, broccoli and cashew nut salad with oil and vinegar on it.