Acting Up

by John Inman

  “Well, yeah. Don’t you own a mirror?”

  His eyes softened as he stared at me. The sadness I thought I detected there a moment before was gone now. He still looked—pensive—though.

  “Malcolm, it means a lot to me that you’ve taken me into your home like this. It means a lot that Beth did it too, but the kindness means even more when it comes from you. You’re not family. We’ve never met. It’s a nice thing you’re doing. I want you to know how much I appreciate it.”

  I reached across the table and snatched up a box of raisins, tossing a handful into my Wheaties.

  “You’ve told me this already,” I said. “I’m happy to do it. Sometimes we all have to reboot and make a fresh start. I’m sorry about your girlfriend, by the way. Looking the way you do, I don’t imagine you’ll have much trouble finding another one while you’re here.”

  I had barely finished speaking when I saw the flush rise up his neck and head straight for his ears again. It appeared to be a path his blood flow took on a regular basis: a frequently traversed tributary.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled while his eyes slid back to the tree outside the kitchen window. He gazed at the morning sky for a moment, then brought his attention back into the room.

  A friendly silence settled over us, only intermittently interrupted by the tinkle of spoons on dishes and the rustling of the newspaper spread out between us. Rosemary was standing at Cory’s side, her big boxy head resting on Cory’s lap. Lucky dog.

  “You saved me a lot of money by fixing my car,” I said. “Anytime you want to borrow it, just ask. I have the weekend off, by the way. I’m tied up today, but tomorrow I’ll drive you around if you want. Show you the city. I know a pet store where you can get the fucking snake… I mean, get Leonard… a terrarium. We can even stop off at the San Diego Zoo if you want. I might be able to get you a job application if you think you might want to work there like I do.”

  His green eyes lit up. “That would be great. The zoo is close, right? Beth said it was only a few blocks away. Finding a job that close would help me a lot. I could save up for a car and my own apartment without having to spend a lot of money simply surviving while I do it.” His eyes softened as he stroked Rosemary’s back. Then he quietly added, “I’d love for you to show me the city.”

  “Good, then!” I exclaimed. “It’s a date!”

  He snickered and shot me a cockeyed leer.

  I quickly corrected myself. “When I say date, I mean it in a brotherly, studly, macho-riddled way, of course.”

  He rapped his knuckles on the table as if sending out his appreciation for the clarification through Morse code. “Like buddies,” he said.

  “Yeah. That’s what I meant. Like buddies.”

  He went back to his cereal, and I went back to mine.

  I noticed he was no longer wearing his lumberjack shirt. Now he simply wore a T-shirt and jeans and brand-new white tennis shoes on his feet. The T-shirt was stretched tight across his broad chest, and the sleeves were wrapped so firmly around his bulging biceps, I wondered if they were cutting off the circulation to his arms.

  Staring at those biceps rolling around like croquet balls made me almost forget I was eating cereal. My Wheaties turned to mush while I sat there eyeballing those two pale balls of muscle. At one point, Cory caught me staring. He snorted and nudged my bare foot with his tennis shoe under the table as if to say in a good-natured way, “Okay, enough with the perv stuff. I’m straight, you know. Let’s try to keep that in mind.”

  Caught in the act, I blinked myself back to the moment and cast an apologetic smile in his direction. Poking fun at myself for being such a lech, I gave my head one of those blubber-lipped, over-the-top shakes that Bugs Bunny gives right after Daffy Duck bangs him in the noggin with a skillet.

  Cory laughed, and suddenly all was right with the world again. No hard feelings. It was at that moment that I suspected building a friendship with Cory Williams would be as easy as it had been building a friendship with his sister, except Cory was nowhere near as flighty as Beth, which was nice.

  He was also far more delightful to look at. I just had to remember to keep my gawking under wraps.

  Boy oh boy, I thought, chomping and slurping up another spoonful of soggy Wheaties. That’ll take some practice.

  THAT AFTERNOON I excused myself from Cory and Beth, who were hunkered down on the living room floor around the coffee table snarfing popcorn, slurping Cokes, and reminiscing about their childhoods. I would love to have listened in, but I had plans of my own. Plans I would like to break but didn’t quite dare. The plans involved a visit with my mother and begging a small loan from her to be paid back with my next paycheck from the zoo. Three dollars and a roll of quarters for laundry wasn’t going to get me through to the end of the month no matter how frugal I tried to be. I needed cash, and I needed it now. Pride be damned.

  It had been an interesting morning, bonding with Cory over the breakfast table and all. I came away from the experience more convinced than ever that Beth’s brother was a really nice guy. The time I spent in his company invariably seemed to leave me with a pleasant glow.

  I figured that glow would burn off quickly enough after spending a few minutes with my mother. I love her dearly, don’t get me wrong. But, well, there’s only one way to say it. My mother isn’t completely normal. The fact that she answered her door wearing a Gloria Swanson turban and a marabou-feathered dressing gown with a bigass crystal ball in her hand pretty much proved my point.

  “Is that your ex’s left testicle?” I asked.

  She eyed the crystal ball askance, looking a bit wistful. “If only,” she said. “Actually Gerald’s, shall we say, shortcomings, were part of the reason he left me. I may have inadvertently snickered at the wrong moment when we were diddling on the sofa.”

  I slapped my hands over my ears. “Diddling on the sofa? La, la, la, la! Too much information. La, la, la, la. Shut up. Shut up!”

  She tittered and slapped me on the chest. “However did you get to be such a prude? I thought gay men were simply ravenous when it comes to their sexual practices.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But not when it comes to their mothers’ sexual practices!”

  “Then perhaps, darling, you should broaden your horizons.”

  I groaned. “You’ve broadened them enough for the whole family.” I was still standing on the porch. “Are you going to ask me in, or what?”

  She gave me a sweet glower. “You’re the fruit of my looms. Of course I’ll ask you in.”

  “Womb,” I corrected her. “I’m the fruit of your womb.”

  She flapped a dismissive hand. “Whatever. Your check’s on the table.”

  That stopped me cold. “My—my check?”

  “You need money, love. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  I shuffled my feet and hung my head. I wasn’t faking it either. I was really hanging my head. It’s not exactly a proud moment in a young man’s life, finding himself twenty-six years old and needing a loan from his mother. I don’t have many scruples, but I do have a few.

  “Yes,” I said. “I need it something awful. How’d you know?”

  “I read it in the cards. The tarot never lies.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes, but it was a losing battle. Sometimes my mother gets caught up in the strangest enterprises. At the moment, and for the past few months, she had been studying divination. Tarot cards. Palm reading. Crystal ball gazing. Tea leaves. God knows what else. Truthfully, I’m surprised she had the time, considering the fact that her sex life was pretty much a full-time job. Even more unnerving than the fact that she believes in all this supernatural hogwash is that she has proven herself to be right with her predictions more times than I care to count.

  My mother. Madame Bazonka, Queen of the Gypsies.

  She took my hand and dragged me toward the kitchen where, I noticed, she had a deck of tarot cards laid out and ready to go.

  “You knew I was coming?” I asked.
/>   “I always know when you’re coming,” she promptly answered.

  I was tempted to ask if she knew about me coming all over myself last Thursday while watching one of Beth’s porno tapes while Beth was at work, but decided against it. I was afraid she’d say yes.

  She all but shoved me into a chair and, straightening her turban, plopped herself down opposite me, gathering her marabou feathers primly around her.

  While she closed her eyes and intoned some weirdass chant with her fingertips placed to either side of her skull like skewers, I noticed the check she had mentioned lying there at the other end of the table. While her eyes were closed, I quietly scooped it up, read the amount, and breathed a sigh of relief. This would easily get me through the month.

  “Thank you, Ma,” I said all hushed, trying not to impose on her meditation—or whatever the heck she was doing.

  “Keep your voice down,” she said. “And don’t call me Ma. It makes me sound like I’m sixty years old.”

  “You are sixty years old.”

  “That was uncalled for.”

  I grinned. “Sorry. So what should I call you?”

  “Call me Viv.”

  “As in Viv the Necromancer?”

  “No, smarty-pants. Just Viv. Or Mummy. I’ve always been partial to Mummy.”

  I rolled my eyes. (I told you I did a lot of eye rolling when I was around my mother.) “Fine,” I said. “I’ll call you Viv. Mummy reminds me too much of Boris Karloff. Oddly apropos, but—”

  “Cruel, darling. Very cruel.”

  “Sorry. So tell me, Viv. Just what the fuck are you doing?”

  She was still meditating, or at least her eyes were closed, and she still had her fingers stuck to her temples.

  “Don’t curse in front of the spirits. It’s the surest way to come down with some sort of plague or other.”

  Like Luigi Von and his dick warts, I thought with a mean little snicker. Again my mother hushed me.

  She opened her eyes, lowered her hands to the table, and lifted the first tarot card off the pile. She laid it faceup in front of me.

  “The Tower,” she said. “Oh dear.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean, ‘oh dear’? What is there to ‘oh dear’ about?”

  She tsked a sad little tsk. “The Tower’s a precursor to turmoil. Perhaps another card will wipe it out. I certainly hope so, my dear. For your sake.”

  “I’m not happy here,” I growled.

  “Do be quiet.”

  With that, she drew a second card. Her face lit up.

  “Oh, well now that’s a little better. The Fool. Indicates optimism in the face of adversity. Shows you have strong character. Either that or just plain stupid, one can never really be sure.”

  I twisted my mouth to the side and glared at her. “Harrumph.”

  Her hand hovered over the deck once more. Before lifting the third card, she cast me a soulful look. “I love you, darling,” she said. “Try not to panic just yet.”

  “Oh, okay,” I droned. “I’ll do that, then.”

  She flipped the third and final card. Her eyes popped open wide, and she clasped her hands in front of her nose.

  “A third Major Arcana card in a row! How fortuitous! It’s the Lovers card too!” she cried. “And about time, I must say.”

  “About time for what?” I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes and glared at me. “Don’t be dense. You and I both know it’s past time for you to finally fall in love. The cards are saying it might just happen. There’s a fair to middling chance at any rate. Give me your hand. Let’s get a second opinion.”

  I wondered how much it would cost to have my mother committed, and if I would be able to visit her on weekends if they slapped her in a padded room, and what the hell I would do with all her boyfriends if they did, and would she still be able to write me checks if she had to wear a straitjacket all day.

  She splayed my hand flat in front of her and bent low to study the creases. As she went along, she tapped my palm with a fingertip here and there. I held my breath. My mother had been a little lavish with the White Diamonds that morning.

  “Long lifeline. That’s good.” She dragged a fingernail through a second crease. It tickled. “This one seems to indicate you are a bit selfish, my love.” She smiled warmly. “But then we knew that already, didn’t we?”

  I growled again.

  Suddenly the creases in the room weren’t only on my palm. They were on her forehead too.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

  I leaned in to see what she was looking at. “What? What’s the matter? What do you see?” Then I mentally slapped myself in the head. Good lord, her insanity was rubbing off on me. I wasn’t really starting to believe this rubbish, was I?

  “It can’t be,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It simply doesn’t make sense!”

  God help me, I could feel my blood pressure shooting up. No wonder I don’t visit my mother more often. “What doesn’t make sense? It isn’t dick warts, is it?” You never know when God’s going to spread around a little retribution for sins I might have committed in the heat of the moment. (In case you’re floundering for an example, take my dastardly phone call to Luigi Von, for instance.)

  Mom ignored the dick warts comment and tapped a fingernail to what I considered to be a rather innocuous crease that ran in a downward arc around the base of my thumb. She tilted her head to the side, studying it further. She dropped my hand to the table with a clunk, snatched a booklet from the pocket of her dressing gown, and desperately shuffled through the pages.

  Eventually she stopped shuffling and studied the page before her, after which she gazed up at me, then stared at the book, then back up to me again.

  She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, removing a goodly streak of blood-red lipstick in the process and depositing it on her front teeth. Then she settled back in her chair and studied my face.

  “I’m sorry, Malcolm,” she said. “This doesn’t make any sense. Maybe I’m misinterpreting the signs.”

  “Why?” I gazed at the offending crease one last time. “It’s just a wrinkle. What the hell did you think you saw?”

  She took a deep breath and said resignedly, “Well, darling, the reading’s a little fuzzy. It’s like this. Either you’re going to finally get some backbone, or else you’re about to grow a tail. I can’t completely decide which it is.”

  I blinked. “So you’re saying it could go either way.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does this have to do with me finally falling in love?”

  “Oh! Nothing. This is a side issue altogether. As far as your falling in love, that’s set in stone. No wiggling out of that one. I’m happy for you.” She lifted my hand and gave it a kiss, ominous creases and all.

  I blinked again. “So what was all that about me growing a tail? Who’s going to love me if I grow a tail?”

  She straightened her turban and fluffed her marabou feathers. “That was just a glitch in the reading, dear. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Although I would try to remedy the selfish thing. Especially if you’re about to fall in love. Love has to flow freely in both directions, you know. If you’re a selfish little prick, the man you fall in love with may not want to love you back, and then you’ll be even more miserable than you would be if you didn’t fall in love at all. And God help us, darling, you’re miserable enough already, don’t you think?”

  “Indubitably. And thanks for cheering me up.”

  “You’re welcome.” She gazed at the crystal ball, which she had placed in a soup bowl on the kitchen counter. “Oh, look. It’s cocktail hour!”

  I was still studying that damn crease in my palm.

  “I shouldn’t drink. I’m driving,” I said absently.

  “Oh good, then,” she chirped. “We won’t have more than six or seven.”

  Chapter Five

  I WOKE up Sunday morning
with a splitting headache and a tongue that tasted like I had sprinkled it with cat litter and dragged it through a dumpster. I vaguely recalled killing a bottle of gin with my mother, and I also vaguely recalled her absconding with my car keys and dropping them down her cleavage to keep me from driving home. She had called me a cab instead. For a bad influence, she was annoyingly responsible. Of course, now I’d have to waste money on another cab to retrieve my car or else spend two hours walking to her house with a hangover. Neither option appealed to me.

  Plus I was supposed to drive Cory around town today, showing him the sights and purchasing a terrarium for the damn snake. How was I supposed to do that without a car?

  I squeezed my head between my hands, trying to ease the thumping going on between my ears. It sounded like maybe a blacksmith had set up shop inside my noggin in the middle of the night and was in the process of shoeing ten or twelve horses. The first thing I noticed, besides the pain of that horrendous thudding ache, was that my customary morning hard-on was at critical mass. I unglued one eyelid and checked out the room. I was all alone. No hunky roommate. No hunky roommate’s dog. No snake, except for the one humming and throbbing inside my boxer shorts like a cast-iron tuning fork.

  I slipped my dick through the fly in my boxers and out it sprang, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I took a gentle grip on that sucker and pictured Cory in my mind. I imagined myself slipping under his covers while he slept. How warm he would feel under there. How he would happily groan as my hands stroked his long body. How he’d politely open his legs a little wider to accommodate my nosing around. How he’d gently bury his fingers in my hair while I took his big Missouri dick into my mouth and went to town on it with all my many talents.

  As fantasies go, apparently this one was top of the line. Two minutes later, my toes were curled all the way back to my heels, my back was arched off the bed like a drawbridge, and I was splattering myself with come all the way up to my chin.

  Jeez. I shuddered myself back to normal, peeled off my come-splattered shorts, and ran for the shower before Cory returned. It was bad enough he caught me ogling him now and then. I was fairly certain he wouldn’t want to see me dashing through the room soaked in jism. It might send the wrong message.