by John Welter
My search for Abbas, who I hadn’t seen since the evening he marinated Spam with lemon juice, led me to the Valley of Sleep Funeral Home and Burial Park, near the Goddard Space Flight Center. I wasn’t going to ask him why he was there, since it was none of my business how he ruined his life, but he explained that he’d found temporary work in afterlife marketing for his Uncle Jamal, who owned the Valley of Sleep.
“It’s just temporary,” Abbas said.
“The afterlife?” I said.
“No. I mean my working here is only temporary. With my resume, I’ll soon be working at one of the finest restaurants I don’t know about yet. They’ll call me soon. I hope so. I hate being around dead people all day. Death is too morbid for me. Uncle Jamal says death is a living. I wish he’d be quiet. Did you come here to visit me?”
“I have a way for you to get even with the president.”
“How?” he said doubtfully. “I already got even with the president. That’s why I was fired.”
“True. But you didn’t get even very well.”
“No. I failed. But for a while it worked. They at least ate the food, and probably enjoyed it for a few minutes before they realized they shouldn’t enjoy it.”
“I got in trouble, too, Abbas. I wasn’t fired or anything, but they demoted me. Well, not really demoted. Gardenaul said that, because I knew you were fixing disguised Spam for the president, I should’ve reported you, and so they hold me responsible.”
Abbas suddenly looked sad, or spooked, like he felt guilty for me. “What did they do to you?”
“They assigned me to protect an eminent drunk.”
“What?”
“Have you ever heard of Indizal?”
A distressed and bewildered expression came over Abbas’s face. “Isn’t that a country somewhere?”
“That’s precisely where it is. It’s one of those little island nations built on a volcano that doesn’t work anymore. I have to protect the ambassador from Indizal. He’s a nice guy, I guess, but all I can tell about him now is that he gets drunk and plays Marxist waltzes on the piano.”
“And is this bad?” Abbas asked.
“It is if you don’t like Marxist waltzes.”
“I mean, you’re being punished by being there?”
“It’s not a good assignment. The ambassador’s regarded as a trivial diplomat whose presence in Washington means virtually nothing. It’s not good to be assigned to virtually nothing.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. And it’s my fault, isn’t it?”
“Don’t start that shit. What you do is your fault. What I do is mine. We’ll both get over it, especially if we get even with the president, and I know how.”
“Tell me,” Abbas said, staring intently at me with his fierce brown eyes, as if his animosity toward the president was still healthy.
“The good thing about my plot is that you do all the work and I do nothing. That’s because you’ve already been fired and can’t be fired again. I can. So you’re the one who has to do it.”
“Do what? Tell me.”
“First I want you to sign this agreement,” I said, pulling from my coat pocket an agreement I’d written that morning. I showed it to Abbas as I read it aloud: “I, Abbas Amal, rationally and soberly swear that if I agree to the terms of the confidential plan being proposed, I will never publicly or privately reveal that Doyle Coldiron had anything to do with it, on my honor as an occasionally pious Muslim.”
Abbas gave the agreement a troubled look and said, “I’m not a Muslim. I’m an Episcopalian.”
“You are? But you’re Arabic. How the hell can you be an Episcopalian?”
“You just join. Why do you stupid Americans think everyone from the Middle East has to be a Muslim?”
“What do you mean ‘stupid American’? You’re an American, too.”
“Well, I’m not a Muslim. I grew up with Islam, of course, but when my family moved from Jordan to Nebraska and found out Americans didn’t like Muslims, we became Episcopalians.”
“That’s the hardest church to spell.”
“I know. But my father didn’t want to be a Baptist, which is easier to spell, because Baptists can’t drink. My father wanted a church where you could drink.”
“But if your parents grew up in Islam, where no one drinks, why’d he decide he wanted to drink?”
“My father was a professor, not a cleric. He liked whiskey.”
“In Islam?”
“Whiskey is good anywhere. And so my father embraced a religion that tolerated whiskey.”
“Well, I apologize for calling you a Muslim. I’ll scratch that out and write down that you’re an occasionally pious Episcopalian.”
“But what’s your plot?”
“Okay. Here’s my plot. Go to the Washington Post with documents proving you were the White House chef and that you were just fired by Gardenaul. Tell them the simple truth, without any exaggerations, and tell them this is what it means: It means the president felt degraded because he had to eat the same kind of food as the people who elected him.”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s just snobbery,” Abbas said in a confused tone.
“Don’t say that, Abbas. Let’s not try to undermine my plot to humiliate the president.”
“Well, what’s wrong with snobbery? That’s why we even have chefs like me.”
“Abbas. You’re undermining my goddamn plan. Stop it. The president fired you because he’s a snob. Are you defending that?”
“Of course not.”
“Well then, let’s get the son of a bitch.”
“But people don’t care if the president’s a snob. They expect him to be one, don’t they?” Abbas said with growing confusion.
“Maybe so, but there’s a paradox about politics. Maybe the public does expect the president to get into office and act like an aristocrat at state dinners, and even if everyone secretly imagines how they’d like to be in power and act like an aristocrat, they also despise the idea that the president thinks he’s better than they are. So if you can go to the paper and prove he fired you for treating him like a common American, he’ll be embarrassed for weeks.”
Abbas’s eyes widened with delight. He smiled and said, “This might work.”
“Of course it will. It’ll be in all the papers. It’ll be on the morning news and the evening news. You’ll probably be invited to the ‘Phil Donahue Show.’”
“This is a good plot. Will you come on the ‘Phil Donahue Show’ with me?”
“No. No one’s supposed to know I had anything to do with this, Abbas. If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you. I have guns, remember?”
“That’s right. That’s how you protect the president. Why do you protect the president if you don’t like him?”
“I don’t. I protect a drunken pianist.”
16
With a naïveté I found endearing and lovely, only because it was mine, I imagined Natelle would promptly get a divorce and be in love with me, because I couldn’t imagine anything more wondrous than that; as if, in an instant never before seen in human history, the likelihoods of daily life would vanish and be replaced by this miracle—what I wanted.
It wasn’t going to be.
“There are two problems,” Natelle said, staring wearily at me across the table at the Nevermore Bar & Grill, where we were having dinner. “Gabriel might contest the divorce, and the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize divorce. Some priests do, but the Church in general doesn’t. So for all I know, I might spend months trying to get a divorce, and when I finally do, the church will say I’m still married.”
“Screw the church,” I said.
“That’s not very good advice.”
“I withdraw it. But what do you mean Gabriel might contest the divorce? Did he say that?”
“No. He didn’t say anything. When I told him Tuesday night that I’d contacted a lawyer to file for divorce, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me. He was just sullen and withdrawn. I t
old him my life had been ruined long enough and I was going to stop it. I was terribly rational and calm and sick to my stomach. I didn’t know I could feel so bad, that I could feel worse, but I can. Do you know how, when you’re in love, you think the emotion can’t get better, but it does? I think pain’s the same way. Right when you think it’s unbearable, it gets worse. I don’t think you can just get rid of someone you were in love with. It’s like having a ghost in you. It’s a ghost you don’t want anymore, but it’s still there.
“And I want it to go. I don’t love him anymore. There’s nothing between us but contempt and sadness and anger, and I want it to just stop, go away, get the hell out of me. But it’s all there in me, unresolved and frantic, like some hidden struggle going on in me that I don’t even know about. And it scares me. I’m not even sure what emotions I have anymore. I’m only sure that I wish they’d stop, and I know they won’t.”
She put her hands against her cheeks with the tips of her little fingers holding her eyes shut. “Do you think I need to see a psychiatrist?”
This scared me, that she’d asked me—a man who probably needed psychiatric help—if she needed help.
“Maybe we should go together,” I said.
“Would you hold my hand?”
“I’d hold both of your hands. I’d hold your wrists and your elbows.”
She smiled a little bit and said, “Would you hold my ears?”
“And your feet.”
She put her hand on mine on the table, and I wanted to tell her I loved her, so I did.
“I love you,” I said, looking hard into her eyes, as if the words alone weren’t sufficient and had to be made true by my eyes, and all of the truth began to escape out of me like the wind.
“You love me?” she said in a sad and wondering voice, as if this wasn’t what she needed, but she wanted to examine it.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Does that mean you want to go to bed with me?”
Knowing that it was the wrong answer, I said, “No.” Then I said, “Well, technically, yes.”
“Technically?” she said. “You want to go to bed with me technically? I think you must be trying to say something else.”
“I think this is a bad time for me to try to make sense.”
“Well, let’s not …”
“I didn’t mean to scare you by saying I love you.”
“I’m not sure that you did scare me. Like I said, I’m not sure which emotions I’m having anymore. But when you say you love me, does that mean love love, or sex love?”
“Why do the two have to be different?”
“I think you’re not answering my question.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not either.”
“Are you hiding something, Doyle?”
“I’m always hiding something.”
“Then you do want to go to bed with me?” she said.
“Well, it wouldn’t have to be a bed,” I said.
“Doyle!” she said in astonishment, her cheeks looking a little flushed. “Are you telling me you’re waiting in line to be my lover?”
“You mean there’s a line? Everything gets harder.”
“But you can’t … this is … what’re you saying to me?”
“Not very much so far. All I mean is, I just want you to know I love you, and of course I’m sexually attracted to you. I always have been. I just never told you before because you were married. And I’m sorry I blurted it out. Well, no, I’m not. I love you, and I won’t take it back. But it doesn’t mean I’m waiting in line to be your lover. What line?”
“I didn’t mean a real line. I just meant … so this isn’t purely Platonic, your feelings for me?” she said, and sipped some wine.
“Let’s keep Plato out of this.”
“Doyle. This is a bad time to try to fall in love with me.”
“All my life has been a bad time to try anything. If I wait for that one good day, I might be dead. Still, I’ll leave you alone.”
“Stop it,” she said, and touched my hand. “Don’t leave me alone. Don’t leave me.”
“I’d never leave you, even though I’ve never had you.”
“But I can’t go to bed with you.”
“Bed, bed, bed. It’s just a piece of furniture, but the paramount piece of furniture in human history. Did I use that word right?”
“Bed?” she asked.
“Never mind. I’m not trying to take advantage of you.”
“I won’t let you,” she said, smiling at me in a troubled way.
“And you can’t stop me from doing what I won’t attempt. All I mean is I love you. You can take that for every possible meaning, because that’s probably how I mean it. And you can’t hurt me. I already am. Well, actually, you could hurt me. It’s remarkably easy. But I think all I mean, if I can just think of …”
She put her hand over my mouth, just lightly, as if to hush me, as if to let me taste her fingers. She said, “I left Gabriel today. I moved into an apartment by myself. It’s the start of a new life I don’t know anything about. And I’m scared. I’d like you to come over and keep me company for a while, on my first night in the abyss.”
It looked like she might cry. I wished I could stop it. I kissed her fingers and said, “The abyss? Is that like a studio apartment?”
And she laughed, even though I was sure that when she said abyss, she meant herself.
IN THE living room, which only had a couch and some curtains and a little portable TV resting on an end table or something, Natelle put her coffee cup of wine on the floor in front of the couch, then put one of the pillows on my lap and lay down with her head in my lap and one of her hands on my stomach. She did this without saying anything, not asking if it would be all right, not wondering why it seemed best now to be together this way, which we’d never done before, and which to me was euphoric or blessed, as I tingled with sexual love and regular love and love I didn’t know about, and the simple, astonishing wonder of being touched by her.
Even with her eyes closed, Natelle looked exhausted, and I decided that what we were doing wasn’t the least bit erotic, but we were sharing the sanctuary of each other. I started thinking, I love you, I love you, I love you, like she’d hear me thinking. People always wanted magic. Reality didn’t seem quite sufficient. Reality didn’t work well enough. But then, magic didn’t work at all. Still, I wanted some, thinking, I love you. Please know this.
Maybe she was in love with me, too, but there was no way for her to say it, because, all the time we’d known each other, she’d been married, and happily married at first, and then badly, horribly married. And everything Natelle and I had done together was restricted by taboo. So even if we were released from it now, the force of always never having each other was still there, like gravity or something. Of course, maybe she wasn’t in love with me and never would be. Then I was a stupid goddamn idiot. I had experience at that. I knew how to be one.
I put my hand lightly on her cheek, and she didn’t speak. She breathed regularly, as if she felt safe with my hand on her cheek. I started to pray, Our Father, who art in Heaven, but that wasn’t the right prayer. ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ wasn’t at all what I had in mind. It was ‘Give me this day Natelle.’ I didn’t know a standard prayer for when a woman was lying in your lap, and since it would’ve been a prayer that involved sexual climax, there wasn’t one in the Bible for that. As hard as I was trying to be spiritual, I realized I was trying to pray for something exquisite I wasn’t supposed to have: a married woman.
I thought, Jesus, she hired a lawyer. It didn’t seem as if Jesus would be amused, and I quit thinking about Him, as if I could pray to somebody else—a more reasonable savior. It didn’t seem fair that you’d have to pray for the one thing you needed, to love someone who loved you, that it didn’t have to be granted to you and you could live your entire life in unresolved sadness. As if God thought that was just fine. I didn’t think it was just fine. Of course, it didn’t matter w
hat I thought. Most of the time, reality did what it wanted, and joy and sadness were the occasional accidents randomly given to us. Still, I had hope—whatever that was.
I looked down at Natelle’s face and was enraptured with every part of it, looking at her closed eyes and her lashes and her nose and her lips and her cheeks, as if she was the most sacred gift I maybe wasn’t supposed to have. I looked away and looked back at her, and I was enraptured again. I felt a swarm of affection that I needed to give to her, though there was no proof yet that she even wanted it. She was asleep, and didn’t look like she was ready to be swarmed, so I didn’t.
In front of the couch, the TV movie was over and the evening news was starting, with a woman saying, “Our top story of the night: White House officials refused to comment on a report today that former White House chef Abbas Amal was fired last week after having served disguised Spam to the president and a group of foreign diplomats during a state dinner at the White House. In a story being printed in the Washington Post tomorrow, Abbas Amal—seen here in a file photo serving barbecue to Pope John Paul the Second—claims that he secretly served the popular American luncheon meat to the president as an act of minor vengeance after the president ate a hot dog at a Baltimore Orioles game and reportedly told journalists at the game that he didn’t eat that well at the White House. Chief of Staff Clark Gardenaul declined comment. Amal, reached at his home in Washington today, admitted his part in the Spam incident, but claimed it was justified.”