by Jack Baran
Mary Ann takes Little Petey’s hand and leads him toward the kitchen door of the farmhouse. Pete follows Cleo up the back stairs to the attic. Desirée waits for him in the shadows.
Pete’s eyes open at first light. Cleo, naked, sleeps on her side beside him, snoring lightly. She doesn’t wear a sleep mask like Barbara or press a pillow between her legs like Heidi or a hot water bottle to her tummy like Samantha.
He slips out of bed and goes into the bathroom where he swallows a blue pill then brushes his teeth. He resists washing his face, wants to remain in a nocturnal frame of mind when he meets his girl in dreamland.
A squirrel scampering along the windowsill stops to watch Pete run his hand back and forth along Cleo’s flank, trace her spine, fingers spreading across the warm globes of her ass to reach for Precious. Cleo moans; she’d wake up but it feels too good. Pete is out of body, hovering above watching his side entry.
“Carlos,” she calls out. “Carlos!”
“It’s me, Pete,” he whispers.
Her body twitches and jerks. “All of them licking blood off my body, penetrating me.”
He is deep inside her not pounding or grinding, hardly moving. “We’re just skin and bone, complex plumbing and a brain we hardly understand, all temporary. We’re together right here, right now.”
“I took care of you but you left me anyway.”
“This time I’ll get it right, I promise.”
She opens her eyes, rolls over to face him. “Does Petey really love me?”
“I love you Cleo.”
“I love you Pete.”
From the high, wide-angle lens of a surveillance camera, a goat fucks a Mayan priestess.
CHAPTER 20
A soft rain falls on the red and gold hills bordering Interstate 87 North to Albany. Annabeth bubbles with excitement on the ride to the airport. She and Pete sing along with “Mixed Connections,” never so close.
“Just remember Bethy…”
“We captured lightning in a bottle.”
He gives her a big hug and puts her on the flight to LA wondering if she knows he’s referring to fireflies. Pete is in the headache stage of his dawn sexcapade. That particular fuck while not spontaneous was absolutely glorious, Barbara would have been impressed. When he gets back from the wedding, he’ll ask the Doc if bestial hallucinations are another side affect of the little blue pill.
Waiting in the lounge, Pete reflects about Cleo, marveling at the exquisite connection that is possible between separate beings. Maybe he does believe in past lives, traveling through time, destinies entwined, a whole group together forever.
“Now boarding Flight 706 to Miami.”
The terminal tilts. What Pete has been willfully ignoring suddenly hits him: he’s on his way to Florida, where his mother died of a botched bypass operation, an operation that might not have gone wrong had he been more attentive.
When Pete graduated NYU and found an apartment in the Village, Franny surprised him by coming out as a lesbian and moving in with Tamara, a Russian woman who lived in Forest Hills. It was the sixties and while Pete’s marriage to Samantha didn’t stand up to the temptations of the times, his mother had a stable relationship that lasted twenty years until her partner was killed on a humanitarian trip to the Gaza Strip.
Pete really liked Tamara, not as a second mother, but for the commitment and sacrifice she was willing to make for the causes she believed in. Pete had strong opinions about everything but did nothing; Tamara acted.
A few years after she died, Frances Stefansson retired from her job at the New York Public Library and moved to Century Village, a condo complex in South Florida where out of the blue she rediscovered her family: two sisters and a brother, different mothers, same father. They had been estranged for her entire adult life, suddenly, reconciliation.
The Spilkowitzes were from Bethlehem, PA. Uncle Max had owned the biggest department store in town, got rich and went bankrupt with the great steel mill, as did Aunt Rose’s dry cleaning and Aunt Ruth’s husband’s meat market. They were already living in Century Village when Frieda (that’s what they called her) moved there - amazing coincidence.
The Hollywood guy and his perky shiksa wife, Heidi the TV star, were guests of honor at a Passover seder. His mother wasn’t impressed with wife number two, predicted the marriage wouldn’t last to the next round of Jewish holidays. Right again, mom.
Franny met Barbara on her last visit to LA. The two women took long walks on the beach. When she returned to Florida, she told Pete that this girl was something special, “don’t blow it.”
A week later his mother called about a heart procedure, making it sound like an outpatient visit, no big deal. It was a particularly crazy period for Pete who was writing on two different series while doing a dialogue polish on a feature in pre-production. The next day Broward County Hospital called to inform him that Frances Stefansson died of post-op complications after a quintuple bypass. Did he want an autopsy? Pete couldn’t understand what they were talking about - bypass, autopsy? He went numb.
The Spilkowitzes chose a synagogue for the funeral and already had a family plot for burial. It didn’t matter to them that his mother, a devout atheist, wanted to be cremated.
Pete avoided them forever after, but when unknown cousins or their children sought him out in LA, he guiltily let them stay in the pool house, arranging for free passes for the Universal Studio tour and invitations to screenings. He even got one of the kids a job as a production assistant on a TV Movie. As Pete’s career waned, the lost tribe of Spilkowitz vanished from his consciousness.
Miami International Airport bustles, big art fair this weekend. Pete, wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt, stops to buy a straw porkpie hat with a colorful band. He clips on his dark lenses, unbuttons his shirt, adjusts the new hat, feeling instantly Latin.
Staying off the Interstate, he drives north to the wedding venue in Boca Raton. The Gold Coast on the Atlantic side of South Florida is a never-never land for seniors flocking to paradise for a last hurrah. He passes gated communities protected by medical pavilions and banks, supported by restaurants with early bird specials and beauty parlors with full spa facilities. Approaching Deerfield Beach, Pete can’t resist visiting the retirement complex where his mother owned a condo.
Century Village, so named for the target age of its residents, was built on 640 acres of swamp. The developers cleared the land, managed the water and built a planned community of identical, three-story, peach colored stucco apartment buildings. Every unit is equipped with a lifeline to the nearest hospital and a screened in terrace overlooking a landscape of golf courses traversed by canals. The jewel of the complex is a centrally located clubhouse offering varied free programs of scheduled activities and professional concerts in a 1000 seat state-of-the-art theatre.
The problem is that the developers underestimated how fast the vegetation would return. The landscape is so overgrown that Pete can’t find the clubhouse, can’t find his mother’s building - they all look alike. Driving along he slows to watch a foursome of golfers in brightly colored Bermuda shorts fleeing an alligator emerging from a water hazard.
He slots the Sidewinders demo, blasts “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat,” an excellent counterpoint to the slow moving traffic. In fact, many of the cars appear driverless due to the diminutive stature of the octogenarian owners, some of them legally blind. Pete cranks up the volume: since hearing loss accompanies old age, nothing is too loud for Century Village. Pillbox Hat’s blistering attack inspires Pete’s hidden cab driver to take command of the car, picking up speed, weaving in an out of slow motion traffic. His recklessness catches the attention of village security, retired highway patrol. Lights flashing in hot pursuit, they nail Pete at the exit gate and pull him out of the car, taking pleasure in putting on a show, patting down the reckless driver and making him walk the line to test his sobriety. All this happens in the blazing sun causing a traffic jam of angry elderly rubberneckers. Barbara would have been
amused: she hated the way Pete drove, never cared if they were late.
Back on the road to Boca, big box stores announce sales and discounts for every name brand, hard times in the land of plenty. Pete’s brush with the law has made him incredibly thirsty. Since his divorce he stubbornly refuses to carry bottled water, now he’s dehydrated. There’s a cornucopia of franchise food to choose from, burgers from McDonalds to Sonic and chicken from KFC to Popeye’s; he passes on Applebee’s, is tempted by Dunkin’ Donuts, isn’t interested in Sizzler, Olive Garden or Panera, and he doesn’t want steak or sushi.
Finally he pulls up to the drive-in window of a Hardees’s and orders twenty four ounces of thick chocolate malt. The sweet cold shake is instantly gratifying just like it’s supposed to be. Driving along slurping his drink, Pete contemplates the fantastic discounts offered for previously owned SUV’s and pickups. Whatever happened to used cars? He speed dials Cleo, no answer. “Here I am baby, on my way to Boca Raton…. I miss you.” He hangs up feeling stupid. Does she miss him? This morning they exchanged I love you’s. Pete switches to radio, finds a Latin station blasting high octane Merengue. Doesn’t help his headache but the music goes with the new hat.
A marquee at the Palms Resort announces the nuptials of Priscilla and Jeff. The four story wedding venue is classic generic motel architecture. Once inside you could be anywhere, meaning nowhere instead of somewhere like here.
Bobby, flashing a warm dimpled grin, surprises Pete checking in. His best friend looks as if he just stepped off a yacht. Pete hasn’t seen him in three years. Is his hair darker? Does he have fewer wrinkles? Originally they were the same age; now, groomed and stylish as ever, Bobby, fifty-seven, retains his boyish good looks while Pete, 63, slurping a Hardee’s malt, gray hair sticking out from under his new porkpie hat, wearing a long sleeve shirt and jeans, would never be mistaken for a boy.
Bobby gives him a big hug. “You okay man?”
“Headache, my back, I’ll be fine.”
“You look disoriented. Maybe Soong Lee can help.” A stern, compact Chinese woman of indeterminate age, conservatively dressed, no makeup, stands next to Bobby, scrutinizing Pete. “Meet my special friend, Dr. Soong Lee.”
When they shake hands, the woman checks his pulse, removes his dark glasses and looks into his eyes with a thoughtful expression. “Liver weak, too much heat, I give you treatment, you feel better.” She takes his malt. “No good, you drink special herb tea I make for you.”
“Soong Lee knows, let her work on you.” Bobby’s previous age limit with women was south of forty, a rationale based on his TVQ. Why be restricted to one’s peer group when his appeal skewed younger? Dr. Lee is a remarkable change of pace.
They stop at Pete’s room to drop off his suitcase before treatment. “Better watch out,” Bobby deadpans, “you could be arrested for impersonating a hippie.”
“Jesus was a hippie.”
“You don’t want to impersonate Him.”
Pete stares at the king size bed, the complimentary fruit basket, and twin terrycloth robes hanging in the bathroom, imagines Cleo in one. “Did you know I was half Jewish on my mother’s side?”
“I believe I did. But I also remember us going to Vegas on the High Holy Days.”
“Dropped a bundle.”
“God punished you.”
Pete follows Bobby down the hallway.
“Word on the street is Pete Stevens is writing a sequel to the Kama Sutra.”
“Didn’t you write that book, o Holy One?”
Bobby smiles, effortlessly affects an Indian guru accent. “My gosh, yes. Still in print.”
“A cash cow.”
“We venerate the cow.”
Pete and Bobby started to riff this way as a basketball strategy to distract opposing players. Their shtick never failed to break an opponent’s concentration. When the round-ball years ended they continued the routine for their own amusement. Bobby’s character, an ancient guru, is the actual author of the Kama Sutra. Pete was the straight man interviewer. They were like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, but not as funny.
“How long did you work on your masterpiece, master?”
“There were many years of research, my son. Every position had to be tested over and over.”
“A certification process.”
“Exhausting work, and of course the illustrations took time getting right. It was at least twenty years before we went to press.”
“I’d love to see the outtakes.”
“I’m not complaining, but my book is often misperceived as a training manual. So many seek enlightenment through coitus.”
“Master, can enlightenment be attained artificially?”
“You must do the work, my son, there are no shortcuts to Nirvana. Remember, coitus is only the doorway.”
Pete lies face down on a special table set up in the center of Bobby’s much larger suite. This won’t be a Thai massage with a happy ending; this is serious bodywork. Soong Lee skillfully applies pressure with her thumbs or palms, grunts as she works. The release of blocked energy gets to Pete immediately; he screams out in pain.
Soong Lee chuckles. “Good, tension release. More knots here.” He groans. “And here.” More moans from Pete. “And here.” Pete cries out again. “Okay to yell, feel better.”
Bobby takes the opportunity to knock the Yankees. “Angels gonna whip Yankee ass, even things up. We betting on tonight’s game?”
“Much as I’d like to take your money I stopped gambling on sporting events.”
“No talk!” Soong Lee admonishes.
Pete groans.
“Now for headache, sit up, close eyes.” Soong Lee spreads her fingers across his forehead, presses gently. She’s hot and sweaty, smells of ginseng. Pete starts to have erotic thoughts.
“He’s probably undressing you in his mind,” intuits Bobby.
Soong Lee laughs. “You only think sex, Robert. Okay to open eyes.”
“My headache is gone!” Pete stands.
Bobby starts to laugh because it’s obvious Pete has a boner. “What did I tell you?” He points.
Pete covers up in embarrassment.
“You two good friends.”
“I love this guy.” Bobby hugs Pete. “He’s way more than a friend.”
CHAPTER 21
Sitting on his balcony overlooking the pool, Pete lights a joint and offers it to Bobby who passes. “When did you stop smoking weed?”
“On hiatus, cleaning up my act, making amends.”
“I would have guessed Soong Lee wasn’t your type, she seems too straight.”
“Soong has real life experience. I’ve learned a lot from her.”
Pete looks down at the pool, appreciates two nubile young women in bikinis, probably bridesmaids. “What about sex?”
“We didn’t sleep together until three months after we met, not like you and your porn queen.”
“Where did you hear about her?”
“Barbara.”
“She doesn’t speak to you.”
“Like I said, making amends.”
“Bobby I’m going to tell you something and I want you to believe me because this is how I actually feel. I’m in love like I never have been before.”
“Samantha, Heidi and Barbara weren’t the real deal? That’s bullshit amigo. I was there for each one of them.”
“You fucked my three wives and don’t feel guilty?”
“They brought me closer to you.”
“Shtupping them were acts of friendship?”
“Admittedly, the ethics were questionable but Soong Lee raised my consciousness.”
“Bobby, my relationship with Cleo includes Desirée who is fascinating in her own right.”
“Not so long ago you told me you gave up sex completely.”
“I was celibate for three years, these two are the first women I’ve been with.”
“Don’t tell Soong Lee.” Bobby takes a hit off the joint. “Your situation with two women will neve
r work out, never.”
“When did you adopt that philosophy?”
“Since now, I proposed to Soong Lee.”
“Her age isn’t an impediment?”
“We’re the same age.”
“Fifty-seven?”
Bobby grins. “I’m as young as I feel. So are you.”
Pete smiles. “Soong Lee is a solid person.”
“Did you and Barbara pretend to have a great marriage because you were everyone’s favorite couple?”
That hurts. “Our marriage was not an act, but I was weak, I succumbed to your bullshit. That orgy was the beginning of the end.”
“Breaking up with Barbara was my fault? That’s how you see it? Be honest. You were a dog like me. I didn’t entice you. You wanted to be included, the orgy was your fantasy. You begged me.”
True, when Bobby organized an orgy to celebrate his 50th birthday, Pete had to go. His alibi was a Texas Hold’Em tournament at an Indian casino north of San Francisco, when in actuality he was zonked on hybrid weed, washing down a tab of X with a bottle of Napa red, then diving into some waxed snatch while a random babe rubbed cocaine on his cock. In a torrent of naked bodies, too stoned to relate to his partners, he was too numb to come. Technically he had been unfaithful, but emotionally he felt more committed to Barbara then ever or so he rationalized. By the time he returned home from the alleged poker tournament where he supposedly placed third and won $10 K, she had identified Pete in a mosh pit of naked flesh in photos posted on the Internet. They were in love for seventeen years, raising their daughter, making a family. Barbara never had any inclination to stray. After that episode, it was a new ball game. She wanted revenge. First thing she did was to seduce Bobby. She gloated when she told Pete that his friend lived up to his reputation as a ladies man, wasn’t a thumper like him. Pete didn’t respond. He accepted whatever punishment Barbara wanted to dispense as long as they got back to the way it was, but it never was that way again. He took revenge on Bobby’s Nasty character, getting him thrown off the LAPD for committing despicable acts. The audience loved his scandalous behavior as a private investigator and Bobby won a second Emmy.