“Shall I make you some warm toast?”
“No thanks.”
“Sydney, what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“I know you were cruising her Wednesday, but you don’t think of yourself as being involved with her, do you?”
“Who said anything about involvement?”
“Because she goes with this Harvard Med. School student.”
“Raoul.”
“Yes. She told you about Raoul?”
“I heard about Raoul,” Sydney said.
“She’s been going with him for a couple of years.”
“And he goes to Harvard?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know where he went.”
“She’s too old for you, Sydney.”
“Two years older. In December, one year older.”
“I don’t mean chronological age.”
“You mean I’m not mature.”
“Sydney, when she was your age she was finishing up her first year at Bryn Mawr. That’s all.”
“Kaput. Huh?”
“What’s happening with you and Estelle Kelly?”
“Kaput because when she was my age she was finishing up her first year at Bryn Mawr!”
“Bryn Mawr is something else, Sydney. Bryn Mawr girls aren’t your little Stuart Hall girls.”
“Who wants a little Stuart Hall girl?”
“Men stay overnight in the dorms, that sort of thing.”
“I’m impressed.”
“I’m not trying to impress you.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are. With the fact I’m intelligent but not sophisticated,” he said. “That’s your standard appraisal of me.”
“Sydney, I don’t believe this.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Isn’t what?”
“Isn’t your standard appraisal of me that I’m intelligent but not sophisticated?”
“Sydney.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Sydney, she’s not your dish.”
“It is your standard appraisal of me.”
“Whatever happened between you and Estelle Kelly?”
“She’s sick.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Not sick sick. A ding-dong. Super-neurotic,” he said. “Bent.”
“Where did you get that word?”
“Bent?”
“That’s Alison Gray’s word.”
“She’s one of many who use it, yes.”
“Good luck, Sydney.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re going to need it.”
“That’s super-sensitive of you. That’s grossly typical of a parent. Alison and I were talking about this very thing.”
“Grossly typical. Dear God, Sydney.”
“What’s the matter now?”
“Super-sensitive and grossly typical.”
“What’s the matter with that?”
“Don’t be so derivative.”
“I’m being me myself.”
“You and Alison were talking about what thing?”
“Parents.”
“Oh?”
“Their fluctuation.”
“Since Harold Skate has not been known to fluctuate one iota since the day he was born, you must be referring to your old Ma.”
“Nothing in particular.”
“What in general?”
“Just the idea one’s formed by another’s faults.”
“What?”
“Formed by another’s faults.”
“Sydney, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t. Suddenly he had lost track.
“If you’ve got some legitimate gripe, let’s hear it,” said ME.
“I don’t.”
“Then let’s both simmer down.”
“Did she call you?” he said.
“What?”
“Did she ask you for dinner?”
“I told her to get in touch with me if she was interested in the commercial.”
“And the very next day she did.”
“Yes.”
“Greed.”
“She says her parents are very careful with a dollar.”
“Greed.”
“Come off it, Sydney. You’d do it in a second if you had the chance.”
“The very next day she’s on the horn.”
“You really take it all in like a sponge, don’t you?”
“What?”
“On the horn. That’s her expression, too.”
“A lot of people say ‘on the horn.’”
“You just started saying it, though.”
“I give up.”
“Oh, well, Sydney, I’m impressionable, too; anyone with an accent who walks into my office passes the accent on to me like a virus.”
“Yeah.” He sighed … then he said, “Estelle Kelly has a father fixation.”
“Well, she doesn’t have a mother, does she?”
“There are things wrong with her I don’t even care to go into.”
“Does that mean it’s over?”
“Fini,” he said.
“Too bad, Sydney. I like Estelle.”
“Did she say anything about me?”
“I haven’t talked to her recently.”
“I mean Alison. Last night…”
“She said you were ‘super-confident’ around snakes.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Not that I remember.”
“She must have said something else.”
“She said I looked ‘super-young’ to have a son your age,” M.E. chuckled.
“She’s really greedy for that money,” he said angrily.
Then Stephen took Angela into her arms, and she kissed her full on the lips, as a lover.
“Dear Miss Dune,” he wrote, soon after he arrived at work that morning, “Here at Zappy Zoo Land we have decided there is not enough profit and too much upkeep involved in stocking reptiles, so we have altered our policy to exclude them. I am sorry to inform you of this, but I am sure you will find other dealers who…”
He had learned her address by phoning Celebrity Service and using his mother’s name. His mother was always tracking down talent for agency commercials.
Lorna Dune lived in Queens. He hoped the letter would dissuade her from visiting ZZL again.
Then he dutifully ordered the King which Leogrande had directed him to order yesterday, and carefully destroyed the telephone number Lorna Dune had left for notification when the snake arrived.
Now his day had begun. He had outwitted Lorna Dune. He felt elated, ready to handle anything.
His high ended three minutes later when a call to Alison elicited the information that Raoul was due in from Boston for the weekend.
If Shockproof wanted to, he could drop by for an hour after work on Monday.
Six
SPACED OUT / COMING DOWN
Beneath the gold Florentine faucets, Dr. Teregram was resting her head on the rolling pin which Shockproof had used as a float for her in the bathtub.
“I never knew that about snakes,” said Alison.
“Sure. Most of them like to swim,” he said.
“Finish this,” she said, passing him the roach-holder containing the tiny butt of pot.
He took it, inhaled, and sniffed it up into his head.
Then another drag before he loosened the spent butt from the holder and dropped it down the toilet.
“I feel good,” Alison said.
“So do I.”
“Do you feel super-happy, Sydney?”
“Ummm hmmm,” he said. She was in white short shorts with a white sleeveless shell, her black hair loose and long. She was barefoot, sitting on the edge of the tub.
It was Monday night, the eve of Harold Skate’s arrival. Shockproof had come from work, after a depressed weekend of waiting for this n
ight, fending off a series of calls from Estelle Kelly, who would ring him up, ask him where he was getting it, and then tell him to fuck off. M. E. Shepley Skate had gone to Bucks County for the weekend, staying at the Black Bass Inn near New Hope, where she was investigating a bit player at the Bucks County Theater as a possible principal in a new detergent commercial. Mike, the NYU romance encyclopedia, had the garden to himself over the weekend; Albert had gone to a Schütz-Palestrina music festival in New Hampshire.
Shockproof had spent a lot of time in the darkness of his room, sitting on the window seat, overhearing Mike’s progress with a cherub-faced blond named Deborah.
—I didn’t used to like the name Deborah.
—How come?
—I don’t know, but I like it now.
—How come?
—When the person becomes dear, the name becomes dear.
Much later he had heard them out in the garden again.
—I’d hoped for a simultaneous orgasm, Deb.
—That never happens first time out, Mike.
Shockproof had stayed indoors the whole weekend, wandering around, opening himself cans of Gebhardt’s chili, eating it standing up, cold and from the can, wearing no clothes, reading books like Memoirs of a Beatnik from the Traveller’s Companion series (Serge had somehow managed to free his rigid member from his own shorts …) and studying the glossary of terms in The Drug Scene by Donald B. Louria, M.D. (bale: a pound of marijuana; blow a stick: to smoke a marijuana cigarette).
Shockproof said, “Dr. Teregram is tired now. I’d better dry her off and put her back.”
Alison squealed. “I want to dry her off.”
“Okay.” Shockproof pulled the King out of the tub and handed her to Alison.
Alison squealed again. “Drying off Dr. Teregram. Oh wow!”—and Shockproof realized she was receiving a thrill, imagining herself drying off her shrink.
Every time she was on the subject of her shrink, she blew her cool. She became foolish and unstrung, and Shockproof had to look the other way. She had told him she took the train twice a week to Philadelphia, where she saw Dr. Teregram at her home. Even her voice became adolescent when she mentioned her shrink, and her sentences were punctuated with squeals and giggles. He wanted to ask her if she had mentioned him to Dr. Teregram, but not so badly he could bear to hear she had not. The matter was left in doubt.
“Remember,” he said, “always dry her off after a swim. She can catch cold very easily. And always put a float in the water with her, so she can rest when she’s tired.”
“I’ll take good care of you, Dr. Teregram,” Alison purred at the King.
“We should start adding vitamins to her diet, too.”
“Sydney? Hey. I have an idea that would be super-sensational.”
“What?”
“It’s getting dark. Let’s light candles and take Dr. Teregram in the living room, and I’ll do a magic snake dance with her.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Why do women always get it into their heads to dance around with snakes?”
“Not just women do it.”
“I only know women who do it.”
“Whole civilizations have done it. Haitians, Balinese, the Hopi, the Comanche Indians, everyone.”
“She’s tired now.”
“What are you so uptight about?”
“Because she’s tired, Alison.”
While they walked back into the living room, Shockproof told her about Lorna Dune.
This got Alison laughing. She sat down on the thick carpet and held her stomach while she laughed, and then he laughed too, and realized they were finally stoned. He sat down beside her.
Dr. Teregram crawled in and out of their legs.
Alison and Shockproof laughed harder and threw their arms around one another, and he felt a sudden jolt when he smelled Y in her hair.
He stopped laughing and let go of her. She put her arms behind her and leaned on her palms, tossing her hair back and thrusting her breasts forward.
He had an erection. He pulled his knees up and hid it with his elbows.
He said, “That was from a good bale.”
“What?”
“The pot.”
“A good bale?” She laughed. “Where’d you get that?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I just meant that was quite a stick we blew.”
“You old ‘head,’” she laughed. “Where’d you get that talk? You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sydney. Super-Sydney.” She touched the back of his bare elbow with her long nails.
“I didn’t used to like the name Alison.” He led off with Mike’s ploy.
“But now you do. Surprise, surprise.”
“When the person becomes—” No. He sensed she was the wrong one to pull it on.
“When the person becomes what?”
“The hell,” he said. “I have an erection.”
“Fantastic! Let me see it.”
He put his knees down and took his elbow away. “There,” he said.
“I don’t want to see it through your pants, Sydney.”
“What are you going to do?”
“When? About what?”
“If I … I mean, I’m not going to just…”
“Oh no.”
“What’s the matter?” he said, knowing how freaky he was being. Where was: You were there when I was not. I was there when you were not. Don’t love me, sweetheart, or I might stop loving you?
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. How gross,” she said.
“I don’t see what’s gross about it.”
“It’s absurd. It’s high school.”
“Why don’t we just go into the bedroom?” he said.
“The bedroom? That’s really Establishment!”
“I know it is,” he said.
“Incredible!”
“I know it. Do you think I like it?”
Then she began to laugh. “Oh no! What are we doing?”
“Don’t love me, sweetheart,” he said gaily, “or I might stop loving you.”
“Hey. What’d you say?” She smiled. “What’d you say?”
And Serge had somehow managed to free his rigid member from his own shorts.
“Oh wow, Sydney. Wow. Beautiful.”
Without removing his trousers, he crawled closer to her and sat facing her, with his legs around her, pushing his hands up under her sweater. No bra. Mind-blowing.
“Take my clothes off,” she said, stroking his penis.
“It is true I told you I would love you, And I never did. But remember I’m forgetful, Little Fool,” he said. He lifted her sweater over her head. He unbuttoned the side of her shorts. She lay back and let him pull them off her.
“Sydney?”
“Yes?”
“Where’s Dr. Teregram?”
“Right. I’ll put her in the cage first.”
“No. Put her on me. Put her on me while you undress.”
“Come here. Dr. Teregram.”
“Watch her on me while you undress. Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Sydney.”
“Jesus.”
“Look.”
“I am.”
“Look, Sydney.”
“I’m looking.”
“Hurry up, Sydney.”
“I am.”
“This is freaking me out, Sydney.”
“There,” Shockproof said. “There.”
“Bye, bye for now, Dr. Teregram,” she said, locking Shockproof in with her arms and legs.
Shockproof was mortified when he heard himself say, “Hello.”
And her answer. “Hi.”
Mike’s clichés, he thought in the ascent, and crashing later couldn’t care less.
It was after ten when they got around to eating everything they could find in the cupboards and refrigerator. Red caviar, salami, sour cream, Premium saltine crackers, Halvah, Creme Dania, Kraft Muenster, Light ’n L
ively, and orange sherbet.
With effort Shockproof was keeping his mouth shut about what she had done with Raoul over the weekend, maintaining a natural Promenade cool.
“If I didn’t have to get up so early tomorrow, I’d make you stay all night,” she said.
“Why do you have to get up so early?”
“Shrinksville in Philadelphia. I have to get an 8:23 train.”
“Do you tell her everything?”
“If it’s pertinent.”
“What does that mean?”
“If it’s got something to do with what we’re working on.”
“What are you working on?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“My mother.”
“How do you work on your mother?”
“Like she’s really gross. She says everything that comes to her head, and she calls me the Sphinx, because I don’t say everything that comes to my head.”
“I write everything that comes to my head.”
“Everything?”
“I write a lot of letters. Not everything.”
“Nobody says everything that comes to his head, but my mother.”
“What does she say?”
“She says I’m the disease in the family.”
“She says that?”
“She says my father’s impotent because of me.”
“What have you got to do with it?”
“She’s always fighting with me, and then he sides with me because her temper’s so bad, and he can’t make love to her after.”
“But aren’t you away a lot?”
“Bryn Mawr has telephones and mail delivery.”
“Are you the only child?”
“I have a younger brother. He has it easier, because they’re taking a parents’ effectiveness course now, and they’re not so uptight around him.”
“Why did your mother make you go to an analyst in the first place?”
“She read my diary. That really infuriated me; it was so gross.”
“What was in it anyway?”
“Specifically what set her off was when she read about a foursy.”
“A what?”
“A foursy. A double date. And then we all did it together,” she said. “You see, my father’s an oceanographer, and we usually spend summers in L.A. Everything’s different in L.A. That’s where I met Raoul.”
“Was Raoul in the foursy?”
“He was my date for it. She made it into this big dirty orgy,” Alison said. “We were all just swimming together in the nude. Everyone in L.A. swims in the nude. There’re all these pools. You just do. You swim and smoke joints, and this one time it turned into a foursy. It was a lot cleaner than what goes on out in the bushes at their parties.”
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