CHAPTER 7
How hot the afternoon became, how blistering the weather.
Somehow in driving off I expected to feel a sense of release—from what I wasn’t sure—but in shooting down the hill from my house and out of our subdivision, accelerating toward the avenues and over the highway, I remember feeling hopelessly sad and altogether less free than ever before in my life.
I went back downtown and had a drink at Talster’s Bar. Men I knew arrived after work and spoke in loud, unrestrained voices, smoked their cigarettes and downed their drinks indifferent to my troubles. I sat and stared at my hands, toyed with my wedding ring and the packets of sugar that I stacked and then scattered like so many bricks in an unsteady wall. The aftereffect from the day’s disaster was dreadful, and as I continued to steam over what just happened, Jack Gorne spotted me and slid into the chair opposite mine. “You look like shit,” he set his whiskey down on the table. I didn’t want to talk, wished only to be left in peace, and immediately regretted coming to Talster’s and not some unfamiliar dive on the east side of Renton. “So,” Jack tapped my drink with his middle finger. “What is it?”
“What’s what?”
“The reason you look like shit.”
“It’s nothing,”
“Work?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“Jack.”
“Women?”
“I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I came out for a drink, that’s all. There’s nothing more to it.”
“You’re right. Good for you,” he pushed my glass in front of me. “Drink up then. When you finish that, I’ll buy you another.” He sat back in his chair and waited for my resistance to give way. I tried to ignore him, but after two more sips of whiskey I did as we both knew I would and told him everything. Jack’s eyes went wide as I mentioned Tod Marcum and the Kerrytown Review, his interest piqued as I worked my way through all Gee’s private meetings and nocturnal rendezvous with Tod, their phone calls and rallies and dinners. I described the incident with Myra Falster, how they chained themselves to Judge Carson’s fence and the look my wife gave Tod in the police station lobby as I bailed them out of jail. I ran through our argument in the car and how I left them together on the front porch before driving downtown.
“So your wife’s seeing Marcum,” Jack took a long swig from his drink, shook his head, mumbled something under his breath, and spreading his hands out flat, offered to tell me how he’d handle the situation, “if I was you.”
I refused to encourage him, and repeated then, “I’m just here having a drink.”
“Sure you are, Brimm.”
“Tod and Gee work together. They do community projects together, that’s all.”
“Of course.”
“He owns the Review, she writes for the Review.”
“Then you needn’t worry.”
“I just wanted a drink.”
“A wise idea. No reason to think about your wife and Marcum chained together.”
“Jesus, Jack.”
“What did I say?”
“It was a protest.”
“Sure, and what chance is there, do you suppose, that they rehearsed the cuffs and chains beforehand?”
“Damn it, Jack,”
“Brimm, Brimm, Brimm!” he tossed his head back. “Come on now, you wouldn’t be sitting here if you weren’t already thinking the same thing. Listen to me. Don’t believe because I’m not married I can’t be right. I know exactly how these things go. Relationships are like business, either you’re in the black or you’re in the red.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point should be obvious, but since you’re asking, let me spell it out for you,” he moved my drink closer to me. “Suppose there was a deal you wanted to make, but you were having a hard time, do you honestly think you’d be here now, crying in your booze? Hell no. You’d be working your ass off figuring out a way to put the pieces together. And why? Because you’re trained to focus on the bottom line. Black or red, high or dry, in or out, that’s what you do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a project for me or Ed Porter or keeping Marcum from your wife, it’s all the same. It all comes down to knowing what you want and how far you’re willing to go to get it.”
“I know what I want,” I said on reflex, leaving Jack to reply, “Sure you do, Brimm. Of course. Which puts you exactly halfway there,” He set his glass beside mine, leaned forward in his chair and asked, “So now what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Brimm,” again Jack shook his head, then offered to tell me a story. “This happened last month. I was with a girl from the service I use. We just finished and I took a shower while she dressed and waited to be paid. I put on a robe and came out to the main room. You remember my apartment, don’t you, Brimm?”
“Yes,” Jack owned the entire top two floors of Fordum Towers, a total of 5,000 square feet, overlooking both Pendelton Field and the Mitlankee River. Renovated to his satisfaction, all the interior walls—excluding the bedroom and bath—were knocked out, the ceiling between the twentieth and twenty-first floors cut away and skylights put into the roof. The main room was vast, with barely any furniture, a bronze spiral staircase running up and down the east comer of the room, the reason for its existence unclear.
“So,” Jack continued, “I came into the front room and there was the girl on the couch, her shoes off and her feet tucked beneath her, comfortable as can be. I called down for the doorman to get her a cab, then sat in my chair. The girl yawned and asked if I had the time. I have to tell you, Brimm, seeing her this way, all relaxed and familiar as if we were the best of friends, pissed me off. I pay good money for these girls and expect them to maintain a professional appearance and don’t want them yawning or kicking off their shoes unless I say it’s OK. I made a note to complain to the service and insist in the future I be sent only girls who knew how to behave, and just as I was about to let the girl go and think nothing more of it, she fucked up again by asking, ‘What’s with the room? Why so little furniture in such a large space?’
“I decided to teach her a lesson,” Jack tapped the table, “and let her know such chitchat was not what I wanted, and so I answered her with a question of my own. ‘Tell me, under what circumstance do you suppose you’d give up being a whore?’ My question caught her by surprise, and when I repeated myself, and said that I was curious, given the extreme of her profession, and was there a limit she imposed on her practice as a whore, she insisted I not call her that again, but I just laughed and said, ‘You can’t be serious. There’s no reason for us to argue semantics. Call yourself whatever you like, it’s all the same to me.’ She started to get up, but I told her to sit back down. I didn’t apologize for offending her, and wanted to know, ‘Given the demands of your career, is there any place you draw the line? Can you imagine some particular thing you wouldn’t do? An incident which might cause you to quit your job? What if you fell in love? Or were raped? What if you found Jesus, or were sent to a hotel room one night and your father opened the door?’
“The buzzer sounded and I went to answer it. I told the doorman to let the cab’s meter run and I’d pay the fare. As I sat down again, I allowed the sides of my robe to slip off my legs and asked the girl what she would do if I offered her ten dollars to suck my cock right now? She was outraged, of course, and I said that I agreed. ‘Ten dollars insults you doesn’t it? Even a whore has her pride. But what if I offered you a thousand? One thousand dollars to blow me right now?’ I went to my bookshelf and removed a small metal box, unlocked the top, opened it, withdrew ten one-hundred-dollar bills and brought them back with me to the chair.
“Now then, I said, and parted my robe even further, exposing myself so there was no misunderstanding of what I wanted. Let’s see who you are. I told her not to look so glum, that she should feel lucky, that I was giving her a chance few people ever had, an opportunity to gain a clear perspective of herself. T
he girl studied the cash in my hand, wanting to refuse I’m sure, but what point would there be in turning me down? If she said no and still went out tomorrow and slept with another man for money, what would she be but a thousand dollars poorer? The bills I held were crisp and green. I had to wait only a minute before a great sense of relief came over her face. She told me to get a rubber, but I said no. ‘For a thousand dollars, you taste flesh.’
“She got down on her knees. ‘Tell me then,’ I said.
‘I’m a whore.’
“There now. There, there. You do what you have to. It’s never about pride, is it? It’s about survival. It’s about knowing who we are, about what we need and finding a way to get it.” Jack stopped and drank from his glass. Someone at the bar finished a story of their own and a group of men sent up a loud cheer. I pushed my back flat against the wood of the chair, and said in response to Jack’s tale, “It’s all fine, but you can’t compare my situation to that of your whore.”
“Really, Brimm? Why not?”
“Because my problems are different.”
“Are they?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m not trying to put her down, but people like your girlfriend have it easy when it comes to determining the value of their wants and needs. They can treat the world as black and white as you say, because the stakes for them are never too high. That girl sucks your cock and who cares? The repercussions are negligible while the decisions I make are more significant.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Jack leaned into the table, the center of his red tie creased. “The fact the girl decided to take the money and suck my cock reconfirmed her understanding of the universe and what could be more significant than that? Listen to me,” he jabbed a finger into the space between us and turned suddenly serious, “everything in life is based on discovering simple truths. Nature itself is designed this way. After all the external crap is wiped clean, moral mumbo jumbo and pseudo-sensibilities, self-interest is the driving influence in all our decisions.”
“I don’t think so, Jack. You can’t just wipe out morality then claim because you deign it doesn’t exist that everyone is driven by self-interest.”
“Sure you can. What about you and Marcum? Tell me your concerns aren’t selfish.”
“Of course they aren’t.”
“Because?”
“I happen to love my wife.”
“Ah yes, love. Nothing selfish there,” Jack laughed and pushed his hand through the scattered packets of sugar. I noticed a scratch which ran around his wrist and settled into the center of his palm, and clicking his tongue in a tisk-tisk-tisk sort of sound, as if admonishing a stupid child, he said, “Only an idiot follows a strict moral code limiting what they can and can’t do to get what they want. Listen to me, Brimm. Life is about the bottom line. That’s all there is and ever will be. Forget morality. Forget right and wrong and a proper code of ethics. Those terms are fodder for poets and fools. We’re talking about your very existence here. You need to stay focused. The decisions of my little whore are exactly the same as yours. You both have to figure out what it is you want and what price you’re willing to pay to get it. The only question there is for you, my friend, is what you intend to do about Marcum. Are you going to let this bullshit with your wife continue? How many inches are you willing to take, Brimm, before you stop Marcum from fucking you up the ass?”
I left the bar shortly after seven, refusing Jack’s offer to take me out on the town and, as he said, release a little tension, and driving east on First Avenue, tried to rid my head of all his chatter. (“Listen, Brimm. Listen. Listen. What are you going to do now? How are you going to get what you want if you can’t decide?” over and over and over again.) I pressed my hand hard against the horn, cursed twice, and hit the gas. The car lunged forward and I shot through a red light.
I drove past Milhaunder Mall and the Museum of Modern Art, out beyond the older side of town with its antiquated buildings and factories, toward City Airport and the distant landing strips where smaller planes came and went. Just before Interstate 7, I changed lanes, turned left, and wound up in an altogether unfamiliar neighborhood. The houses near the airport were small A-frames with sloped, black-shingled roofs, bricked fronts, and aluminum sides. I crept along slowly, turning at the second corner, and then the next, past a series of houses where the flickering glow of television sets shined through half-draped windows. After a time I took my foot off the gas, closed my eyes, and allowed the car to glide against the curb. The impact was minor, and still I shouted as if involved in a horrible wreck. (“Gee!”) My voice echoed inside the car, fell away, and haunted the silence which returned.
The image of Gee on the porch came back to me, and unable to cope, I tried to distract myself by switching on the radio. A newscast reported on William V. Aramony, former president of United Way, convicted last year of defrauding the company out of several million dollars who, from his jail cell, filed suit and won a judgement holding United Way liable for $4 million in deferred compensation. “Mr. Aramony’s contract did not include a clause forfeiting the money if he was convicted of a felony,” his attorney was quoted as saying. “The law is the law. We expect United Way to stand by the terms of its agreement.”
What a world, what a world! (The Wicked Witch again in my head.) Music followed the news, a song by Boz Scaggs, “What Do You Want. The Girl To Do?”, which I had to turn off, and shifting into gear, I drove out the far side of the neighborhood, down Hutzel Boulevard, which ran parallel to First Avenue some three miles south of the airport, past a series of Mini-Marts, a small Mexican restaurant, a check-cashing outlet, several gas stations, and a hardware store with a hand-printed sign: Keys Made While U Wait. I pulled into the parking lot of a Revco Drugstore where I bought a small bottle of aspirin, the day’s edition of the Renton Bugle, and a fifth of Seagram’s Crown 7.
Outside, a group of teenage boys in identical neon-glow orange coats tested the doors of cars parked at the far end of the lot. I sat in the front seat of my car and swallowed three aspirin with whiskey, then looking for further diversion, opened my newspaper where I found on the third page an article captioned “Man Drowns Inside Woodberry Aquarium.” As reported, a watchman discovered the body of one Michael Nersonne, a journeyman welder, floating near the surface of the large fish exhibit, having plunged to his death sometime during the night and with two large muskellunge swimming beneath. According to the piece, dozens of other fish rushed the surface in an attempt to get at the body but the muskellunge remained resolute and forced the intruders away. “The body would have been devoured for sure,” the watchman said, “if not for them big musk.”
I read further, curious to know what the muskellunge were doing, disbelieving the watchman’s account and surprised when an ichthyologist at the university was quoted as saying, “Fish are no different from other intelligent creatures. They share varying and often sophisticated degrees of conscience. They have distinct and otherwise inherent social inclinations, feelings of sympathy, loss and woe. It’s no surprise to me what the muskellunge did. It’s quite apparent they were trying to save the man.”
I set the paper down, stared out across the parking lot, and taking in the whole of the ichthyologist’s claim, pictured myself as the man in the tank falling into deep waters. How would Gee react if she was there and saw me slip from view? Would she shout out in panic, attempt to save me in the same way the muskellunge tried to protect the welder, or would visions of Tod fill her with an altogether different sort of anticipation? The question was one I didn’t care to answer and drinking again from my bottle, I checked the time—8:10—turned the key in the ignition and headed north.
Traffic going into the city was heavier than coming out. My mood was high strung and feeling slightly drunk, I watched the road for surprises. A man in a dark Ford pickup stared through my window at a red light and I hid the bottle of whiskey from view; knocking down another shot only after he was go
ne. For some reason, I thought then of my parents. Despite the many years, I still felt their presence acutely, and often wondered at what point in the course of their crimes their love for me became so insignificant that they lost all sense of grace and grew indifferent to the perceptions I now carry as a permanent reminder.
The first time I visited my father in jail, just after his arrest, he was brought to me dressed in a stiff orange jumpsuit, his thin black hair brushed in clumps by way of his fingers instead of a comb, exposing the reddish-white of his scalp. His glasses were missing, his naked eyes cast downward. (He appeared smaller than I otherwise remembered.) We were inside a small room with a square metal table and two grey chairs. A policeman was posted outside the door, the tiny window set high up in the left wall allowing a single ray of light to pass through. I stared at my father, afraid for him and anxious to hear his explanation regarding the ridiculousness of his arrest and how each charge was a terrible mistake. I placed my faith in him as always, yet seeing him enter the room, his shoes missing their laces, his cheeks unshaved, walking in a tired shuffle as if shackled, I was struck at once by the reality of the situation and understood how completely things had changed.
As he approached the table and sat down, I stood back in what minor distance the room allowed, not quite sure what to say before I managed to ask, “Are you all right? Are they treating you OK?”
Something in my question caught him by surprise. He seemed prepared for a different conversation, a more direct interrogation, and startled by my concern, looked once around the room, back down at his hands, and then up again at the thin ray of light spilling in from outside. I inquired about bail, but he pretended not to hear, and only later did I learn that all his assets were frozen and no one came forward to help. When I asked again if he was OK, his expression changed, the show of weakness first evident when he entered the room replaced by something more baffled and severe. He shook his head, smirked, stared down at his fingers, then up at the silver light, muttering, “Shit.” (I could not recall him ever once cursing before.) Only as the guard came in and said it was time to go, did my father speak to me. “You shouldn’t blame your mother,” he rose as he said this, the guard holding onto his arm.
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