Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  The headset looked like a toy on Snug’s enormous shaved head. The three of us watched while Drey wailed, “Can’t a girl even get no privacy goin’ to the can?” and, “You ain’t gonna post that up on the Internet are you?”

  The video clip looped over and over again, making Drey look like a woman who had overdosed on a diuretic. Finally I closed it and asked Snug, “So Harold, what do you think?”

  Snug pondered the question. “Felliniesque,” he said at last.

  “Felliniesque?”

  “Is that something nasty?” Drey asked.

  “It holds a somber satiric mirror up to life’s absurdities,” Snug explained. “Kind of like what they said in Cahiers du Cinema about Fellini’s body of work. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Bunuel, too: that starkness meant to shock us out of our bourgeois sensibilities. Plus I like watching women pee. You got any more?”

  What the hell. I showed them May I Giss the Bride?, taking extraordinary care to avoid tipping Snug off to the existence of Webcam Show and Tell and its burgeoning gallery of nasty tributes to the woman he still considered to be his wife. It was late Saturday afternoon. The sun was going down. I concluded the impromptu avant garde film festival with the video of my Diane going down on her girlfriend. When it was over, everyone was quiet for a while. Finally Drey broke the uncomfortable silence.

  “That wife of yours sure likes to eat pussy.” She pursed her lips, blew a lazy kiss in my direction and added, “Must run in the family.”

  “Who knew?” I said.

  “It don’t bother you none, her lickin’ away on some other woman’s twat?” she asked.

  “It’d sure bother me,” Snug said. “In Romans One even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural.”

  “Romans One? That some new sex club I don’t know about?” Drey asked.

  “I guess it means we have an open marriage,” I shrugged. “You know what they say: when in Rome.”

  “Belleville ain’t Rome.”

  “Neither’s Cahokia,” Drey chimed in.

  “That’s the trouble with being married to a beautiful woman,” Snug went on. “It can be exquisite psychological torture once you suspect her of being unfaithful. Like with Heart and me, from time to time it got so bad there were certain passages from Boccaccio’s Decameron I couldn’t bear to read without breaking down and frankly weeping.”

  “Is that a fact?” I said. “You know something, Snug? You’re a deceptively complex, many-faceted individual.”

  “Bet your ass,” he grunted.

  “So Heart gave you cause to suspect her of infidelity?” I said, falling back on the initial interview cheat sheet I carried around in my head for new divorce clients.

  “Constantly,” Snug said. “Like every time I’d ride with the brothers there’d be some indefinable thing about her when I came back home. Something subtly different about her attitude. You know the way a woman acts after she’s been had? Her facial expressions, the lazy way she moves? Not defiant exactly, but smirking, like maybe some man had come over and fucked the hell out of her while I was gone, the two of them clapping a set of cuckold’s horns on my head like one a them Viking helmets they wear.”

  “I know the ones you mean.”

  “No shit you do. I never had to worry about Heart wanting to be with women, though, like the problem you’re seein’ with your old lady. Damn, that’s heavy duty!”

  “Maybe I should file a heartbalm suit against Arlene Kuhn.”

  “That her name?” Drey asked.

  “Why?” Snug responded.

  “Just curious, is all. What’s a, what’d you call it, a heartbalm suit, Ricky?”

  “A lawsuit claiming damages against a person for allegedly seducing your wife. In the old days they called it Alienation of Affections.”

  “Isn’t that kind of archaic?” Snug asked. “I didn’t know they still had those.”

  “The cause of action still exists, but because of abuses the General Assembly enacted the Anti-Heartbalm statute barring punitive damages.”

  “Ain’t it awful the kind a crazy shit people’ll run out and sue each other for?” Drey caviled. “Why’d they wanna go and have some stupid lawsuit like that in the first place?”

  “I suppose the initial policy considerations were to discourage the aggrieved party from taking more physically aggressive measures.”

  “Say what?”

  “In other words, to keep the husband from beating the crap out of the wife’s boyfriend. Or challenging him to a duel.”

  “You could always beat the crap out of your wife’s girlfriend, Ricky” Drey said.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Snug had thought of something. Something that put me in danger, I feared. “Have you been peeping at my wife going to the toilet?” he demanded.

  “Absolutely not, I swear. Matter of fact, the guy only installed this setup a few hours ago, after she’d already left for the day. That’s never gonna happen, Snug—I mean, Harold.”

  From Snug’s expression, I didn’t know whether he was about to tear my head off or start to cry. He lurched from my chair and bolted for the bathroom. I heard the sound of splintering wood, the yanking of cables. A moment later he returned with the webcam dangling from his grasp like a gouged-out eyeball.

  “Show’s over,” he said.

  Drey and I stared at the ruination of Howard Kuhn’s ill-fated handiwork. I shut the computer down and turned off the power strip. Drey said, “I don’t know about you all, but this gal could sure use a drink right about now. You got you a jug a anything with a kick to it around here, Ricky?”

  “I imagine I could scare something up,” I said. In fact a grateful client, unaware of my twelve-step involvement, had presented me with a fifth of Bushmill’s last Christmas. The seal had never been broken. Until now, that is.

  “Hope you don’t mind drinking it out of coffee mugs,” I said, returning from the kitchen after pouring generous slugs for the three of us. “Irish coffee without the coffee.”

  “Coffee ain’t good for ya anyhoo,” Drey said. “Gives me the jitters.”

  “Couple shots of this will calm your nerves right down.”

  Snug drank his in two gulps, then motioned for more. I poured him four fingers and brought the bottle this time. We sat and drank for what seemed like an hour, but turned out to be three, I discovered when I looked at my Blackberry. Five missed calls: two from home, three from Tyranno. I hadn’t noticed the vibration, so I turned it back to ring mode. The phone hadn’t rung at the office. Snug must have ripped out the phone at the receptionist desk on his way in while I was rapt with attention watching Drey on my monitor. And Tyranno wasn’t going to go away.

  “Tyranno, Tyranno, Tyranno, suck my bananno,” I lilted.

  “Thass the thing about the good stuff, it don’t give you no hangover,” Drey was saying to herself and whoever would listen. By this time she had shed her Cracker Barrel uniform and had her breasts out from when she’d pulled her stretch bra up to flash us and then forgot and left it there in what she’d called “undecent exposure.”

  “You know one sure way to tell you’re an alcoholic?”

  “Whazzat?”

  “One sure way you can tell you’re an alcoholic,” I went on, “is the no hangovers. That and extraordinary capacity.”

  “Everybody gets hangovers,” Snug said, “whether they own up to it or not. The thing with your alcoholics is, they start right in drinking at the first sign of a hangover, so naturally they never remember it afterwards. It’s a form of denial.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Phil,” Drey said.

  “I come from a family constellation wracked with the consequences of substance abuse,” Snug said. “I’m not just talking out my ass here.”

  “I never said you was, Harold. I never said you was. All’s I know is I wind up with a hell of a hangover ever’ time I go drinkin’ that cheap shit.”

  The Blackberry rang where I had foolishly left it lying on my desk. Before I could stop
her, Drey reached for it and picked it up. “Grab n’ Go,” she said, laughing hilariously. Then, “What? Well who the hell’s this?” I lunged, took it from her and ended the call. “God I hate rude people,” she said.

  “Who was that?” I asked apprehensively as I checked the caller ID. Sure enough, it was from home.

  “I dunno. Some woman.”

  “Oh no! Oh shit!”

  “Didn’t nobody teach your clients telephone manners? You don’t never call somebody up and first thing outta your mouth’s ‘who’s this.’ I get that alla time at work and it drives me plum loco.”

  “Oh shit,” I moaned again. “Oh shit!”

  The Blackberry rang again. Harder this time, I thought, and more insistently. “Don’t touch it,” I yelled, even though it rested securely in my hand. We all sat in silence while I put the call on speaker; my recorded greeting had never sounded more bored and off-putting. Then the beep, and Diane’s angry voice.

  “Ricky, pick up this phone! Ricky! I know you’re listening; answer this phone right now or I don’t know what!” Then an exasperated huff and the slam of the receiver at her end like a plank hitting concrete. I threw back a shot and shook my head.

  “You’re the only guy I know with worse woman troubles than mine,” Snug said.

  “What’s she bitchin’ about?” Drey added. “You got her dead to rights on videotape.”

  “DVD actually, but I don’t want her to find out I’ve got her dead to rights, I want to preserve my marriage. That’s what I’ve always wanted. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “You know, Ricky, I had you figured wrong; you ain’t half bad,” Snug said. “You’re a man after my own heart.”

  “Thanks, Harold.”

  “‘Thanks Harold,’” Drey parroted, irritation creeping into her voice. “Ain’t ya never heard the expression ‘two’s company three’s a crowd?’ In case ya hadn’t noticed, me and my fuck buddy Ricky was fixin’ to do the humpty-hump until you showed up, Harold. Present company expected. Know what I mean?”

  “You mean ‘present company excepted,’” I corrected her.

  “You’re sayin’ you wanna make this a threesome, Ricky?” Drey asked.

  “Not expected. Excepted.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I’m willin’ if you are. I know for a fact both you fellas’re hung like goddamn Clydesdale horses. Whip it out for us, Harold: I know you ain’t shy.”

  Harold looked timid despite Drey’s claim. He stood and said, “You first, Ricky.”

  I looked at Snug and he looked at me in a weird Mexican standoff. The only sound was the clock tower chiming nine bells.

  “Hell, I’ll go first,” Drey conceded. “Can’t wait all night while you two ponies trade meaningful glances.” She wriggled the rest of the way out of her bra and mussed her hair. “Would have to be wearin’ the littlest damn thong I own,” she said, peeling it down and kicking it across the room.

  “You’re beautiful, Drey,” I sighed. After a few drinks, she was.

  “Have another drink and lose your laundry, Ricky,” Drey invited. “Show us what you got danglin’.”

  My erect cock strained for release against my Fruit of the Looms as I surveyed her nudity. I had impetuously ignored the warnings to avoid alcohol to excess when under the little blue pill’s influence. Hung like a goddamn Clydesdale, was I? Impetuously I stripped naked, answering her and Snug’s challenges, my back to the room. With an ecdysiast’s flourish, I spun around to face both of them, erect as a pagan god. Snug’s eyes widened. Drey was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Drey?”

  “She went to make a call,” Snug said, pointing to the door.

  I found her in the outer office stark naked and oblivious to the full-length clear glass front door, the plate-glass window and the fluorescent lights blazing, talking into my Blackberry. She must not have known how to take it off speaker. I heard her arguing, “He’s been steady tellin’ me and tellin’ me how he ain’t got a red cent to he’s name.”

  “An’ you sittin’ there listenin’, and believin’ what he sayin’? What am I gonna do with you, girl? Don’t you know a lawyer with no money is like a skunk with no stink?”

  “They got them de-stinkered skunks now. People make pets out of ‘em.”

  I killed the lights before crossing the room. Startled, she said, “Hey!”

  “Make a muthafuckin’ de-stinkered pet outta you you don’t put the man on the phone.”

  “Here he is,” Drey said, cowed. To me she mouthed, “It’s Tyranno,” handing me the Blackberry. I took it off speaker after she left me with it. Drey returned to my inner sanctum and closed the door. I sat down at Heart’s desk and answered.

  “Mistah Lawyer Ricky Galeer,” he gloated.

  “Hear you have something that belongs to me, Tyranno.”

  “Belongs to you? How you figure?”

  “Or technically to my daughter.”

  “How you think that big leg daughter of yours’d like seein’ her daddy cock stuck allaway up some woman’s asshole ain’t her momma? And cummin’? Like a nigga’s dog. But don’ fret yet: hundred thou buys you another laugh-filled season of your happy white sitcom family life.”

  “I’m broke, Tyranno.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m so broke my kids ought to pay me an allowance.”

  “Best quit your playin’ before the price goes up to one fifty.” Pronouncing the last like fitty.

  “Might as well ask for a million, Tyranno. I don’t have it.”

  “You take me for a fool, Lawyer Ricky Galeer? How much you charge an hour?”

  “An attorney’s hourly rate is scarcely a reliable indicator of his net income, let alone his net worth. There are countervailing considerations like overhead, debt service, insurance—”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred eighty an hour.”

  “Sheeit!”

  “But half the time I can’t collect it.”

  “So it works out to ninety an hour, then? And you claimin’ you broke?”

  “Don’t forget I have a wife and four kids home.”

  “I ain’t forgettin’. It’s why I’m countin’ on your prompt payment.”

  “You need to give this up for a bad job, Tyranno. Drop it and move on. I’m a dry hole.”

  “You ever hear of the hundred thousand dollar fear pyramid?”

  “Can’t say as I have, no.”

  “They’s this hundred thousand dollar pyramid of seven fears all human beings share, did you know that, you bein’ a lawyer and all?”

  “What’s my being a lawyer have to do with it?”

  Ignoring me, he went on. “Death’s at the base, of course, the big D. Death and damnation. Then comes pain, paralysis, blindness, hunger, loneliness. Want to take a wild guess what’s at the very top of the fear pyramid?”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “Begins with a D.”

  “I don’t know. Dandruff?”

  “You a funny muthafucka. Here’s the answer: disgrace. Otherwise known as humiliation, degradation, and embarrassment. Humanity’s highest fear.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “You ever spend time out at the local zoological park, Mistah Lawyer Ricky Galeer? Watchin’ the animals while they be watchin’ you?”

  “Now and then. Why?”

  “As a zoology aficionado you may find this particularly interesting: they say some of your higher mammals—a bear, for instance, or a elephant—can literally die of embarrassment. You ever hear that?”

  “I’m no bear, Tyranno.”

  “You hung like a elephant, I’ll give you that. Not a African elephant, though—a white elephant, know what I’m sayin’? What everybody in your world be sayin’ once I post a certain video online: that Lawyer Ricky, man, he be hung like a white elephant. You be world-famous overnight, David Letterman and them other white boys all steady crackin’ jokes about you.”

  I tried a risky gambit. “How do you know I’m
not recording this conversation?”

  Long pause. Then Tyranno responded, barely above a whisper, “I know you not that much a fool.”

  “Didn’t Drey tell you? The cops played the message you left on my answering machine. They’re already on to you, Tyranno.”

  “You better make it your business to get them offa me, then.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “‘Cause if I go down, Mistah Lawyer,” Tyranno said, “next thing everybody see soon’s they boot up they computers gonna be you butt-fuckin’ a dirtyleg. You footin’ to be every fool’s ass-humpin’ screen saver.” The line went dead.

  A thought occurred to my buzzed brain. There had been no call waiting interruptions in all the time I had talked to Tyranno. Diane had never called again. That could mean only one thing.

  She must be on her way over.

  I returned to find Drey and Snug stark naked, circling one another like Greco-Roman grapplers checking each other out. Drey’s assessment of Snug’s equine anatomical attributes had been correct, even conservative.

  “This ol’ boy’s got one monster horse cock on him, I tell you what,” Drey cooed.

  “He does indeed,” I agreed. Snug rolled his eyes, acknowledging the compliment. And just as Heart had said, he really did have the words What God Hath Wrought Let No Man Put Asunder tattooed in inch-high German gothic purple letters across his fish-belly white abdomen. Must have been a while since Snug went sunbathing out at Giant City Pines.

  “Have another drink, Ricky,” Drey said. “You’re fallin’ behind.”

  “Diane may be on her way over here mad as hell. You hung up on her, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “The more the merrier,” Drey retorted. “I ain’t above a little lesbo exhibition match to get the juices flowin’ so to speak. They tell me I’m versatile, even though I really prefer dick to pussy, to be quite frank.”

  “You’re drunk,” Snug told her.