by Ros Baxter
Next to this woman, even my own drunken radar seemed insightful.
‘Oh, you were?’ she honked. ‘Come here, beautiful, gimme another birthday kiss.’
Suddenly, another voice, even more pissed off than the first, yelled, ‘Hey Angela!’ — it sounded like Oi-ngela — ‘What the fuck’re ya doin’?’
And I was suddenly looking at Tony Danza’s character from Who’s the Boss?
‘Oh man, we’re in bad sitcom hell,’ Heidi sighed in my ear.
‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘When’s that horrible kid from The Wonder Years popping up?’
Clark used the distraction caused by the arrival of Tony Danza to shoot us a pleading look. Heidi, in her role as best friend and self-elected procurer of my transition man, seized the moment. She grabbed both my hand and Clark’s, and ran. Once she was a safe distance from Fran and Tony, she wrenched open the door marked exit and pushed us through.
And, suddenly, there we were, out in a cold alley behind the bar.
It had all happened so fast that we were both reeling.
I suddenly felt kind of awkward. And sober.
‘Um, so… You’re involved in some kind of…love triangle?’ I ventured.
Clark started laughing, and it was really the nicest sound. Clear and genuine and with a definite note of relief.
‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘It’s just too awful. Angela’s another Public Defender. We work together. I tried every way I knew to get out of tonight, but she threatened to call my mother if I didn’t come.’
I gave a confused stare. ‘Call your…Mommy?’
‘Long story,’ he said. ‘And hey, I don’t think you’re in any position to make fun of people with scary relatives.’
I nodded quickly, several times, and hiccupped. Suddenly, we were both laughing. And it was only a small step from there to the bar next door. We both agreed we needed another drink to get over the drama of the last few minutes.
And then another.
And then one for the road.
Three hours later
We were having the kind of serious conversation only truly possible between two very drunk people.
‘So,’ he slurred. ‘We’ve covered families. Yours and mine.’
I nodded. ‘Yours sound way worse,’ I hiccupped. ‘And I never thought I would hear myself say that. For example, personally, I don’t think that you are any kind of a limp-dick for choosing public law. Or that you always make bad choices with women. Actually, I have no idea about that last one. Maybe you do.’ I hiccupped again. ‘But, regardless... Now, hang on, where was I? Oh yeah, regardless, your family sounds horrible.’
It felt good to be the one offering family-related sympathy. For once.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ he said weakly. ‘So…we’ve also covered jobs. Yours and mine.’
‘Mm,’ I agreed. ‘Not sure finishing my thesis counts as a job. But yeah.’
‘And so I guess it’s that time of the night,’ he pressed on, ‘when we either talk about the court or Wayne.’
I nodded in mute, earnest, drunken agreement. Seemed all very logical.
He smelled nice. Like beer and aftershave.
‘What’s it gonna be?’ he prompted.
‘Court,’ I decided.
I had that low buzz in the back of my neck that told me I was going to be in a world of pain tomorrow, but I didn’t want to ruin the easy pleasure of tonight.
And Wayne was a sure-fire way to do that.
So I told him all about the Supreme Court stunt. The plan. The brownies.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Impressive.’
I snorted and sent a spray of spittle across the bench between us. ‘Hardly. Look at you. Look what you do every day. It’s...amazing.’
‘Really?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me you only want me for my morality.’
Something in the air changed and I suddenly felt a little more sober. I leaned very close, so my hair brushed his cheek. ‘Who says I want you at all?’
He started to splutter something, and I put him out of his misery. ‘Okay, a bit.’
‘It’s okay,’ he assured me. ‘I get it. I’m just the transition man.’
Bill Clinton and regret — My apartment; eight hours later
When I woke up, I tasted tequila and kebab, and knew something serious had gone down. Like fractured pieces of a puzzle — a puzzle I had done, drunk, the night before — my brain started whirring and slotting shards of memory into place.
Oh. My. God. He’s here.
Suddenly, it all came back to me. Well, some of it. I can’t really remember the crucial bits, but I knew at some chemical level that he was definitely there, in my bed. I turned over and, sure enough, there he was, all twisted up in the sheets and holding my favorite teddy bear, Bill Clinton.
My stomach lurched and the room spun lazy circles.
I did not do this.
Surely. Surely I did not do this. This was not me. I didn’t do this. Not with anyone but Wayne, anyway.
At the thought of him, the place where my heart used to be contracted. What had I done?
I sneaked another look at Clark. He was looking good for someone who had drank as much as we had last night. I decided he must be a hallucination.
But I knew a sure way to check.
I edged closer, as quietly and gently as I could, lowering my nose right into the hair of his armpit and inhaled. Nothing. Well, not nothing exactly. A hint of aftershave — something that smelled like the ocean. And a warm, spicy smell. That was it.
Okay, definitely a hallucination. No-one smells that good in the morning.
‘Morning, Lola. You feeling okay?’
Would my hallucination sound so normal?
Probably. I remembered that crazy guy on campus telling me he had conversations with God about cleaning his toilet. Obviously delusions can be quite pedestrian. But how to test? What was something a delusion would not do?
I guessed I needed to ask him some things that my mind could not know, because a delusion by its very nature had to spring from my mind.
‘Morning…Clark. So, wow, I was kind of wasted last night, huh?’
‘Yep,’ he agreed.
‘Ah, what time did we get back here?’
‘Hmm… About two in the morning, I think.’
He absentmindedly started stroking my shoulder. It felt warm and comforting. My eyes flicked to my pin board, and the photo of Wayne and me at the zoo. Wayne was going cross-eyed and licking the side of my face. I was grinning like a festival clown.
I shrugged Clark’s hand off as casually as I could. ‘So, er, what happened?’
‘You mean, when we got back here?’ He sat up, displacing a sheet and showing off the pecs I had suspected would be impressive. Yep. I was never wrong about these things.
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, you insisted on cooking us some food.’
‘Really?’ I could hear the suspicion in my voice. ‘Cooking what?’
‘Ah…’ He scratched his head. ‘Well, I’m not sure. It was brown.’
‘Well, what did it taste like?’
‘Um…’ He held up his hands. ‘It tasted like…sardines.’
‘Sardines? That’s all? What’s wrong with that? You don’t like sardines?’
‘Yeah, sure. But I think these were…in some kind of…gravy. With cheese.’
Okay, this all sounded fairly authentic.
‘So what else happened?’
‘Twenty questions for the amnesic mind?’ His lazy smile drooped a little.
Good, didn’t want him getting too comfortable.
I snatched Bill off him as well so he’d realize that I wasn’t really his friend. Or lover. Or whatever.
He sat up and scratched his head. ‘Okay… Well, let’s see. We ate.’
‘Oh my God. You didn’t, did you?’ My heart rate notched up. ‘That poisons information magnet’s not on the fridge for nothing, you know.’
‘Well, actually, no,’ he cor
rected. ‘I didn’t really eat it. But you didn’t notice.’
‘Phew, that’s alright then,’ I said. ‘What next?’
‘Well…you called me Wayne. Twice. Actually, no, three times. Yep, three times. And I know I should have had enough dignity to leave at that point.’
‘But you didn’t?’ I deduced.
‘No, I was kind of wasted. But we didn’t do anything, you know, carnal.’
‘Carnal?’ Was he serious? Carnal? We weren’t in court.
‘How come?’
‘Because…umm…I couldn’t…’
‘Oh my God, you couldn’t get it up?’
‘Gee, thanks,’ he laughed. ‘No, not that. You...disappeared.’
‘What do you mean?’ My brain felt slow and mushy.
‘I found you in the bathroom. On the floor. Crying.’
‘Oh. Then how did I…?’ I gestured at the bed.
‘I carried you.’ He suddenly looked down at the bed, letting his hair flop forward over his face. I could have sworn his ears turned a little pink. ‘You know, you’re pretty light. You mustn’t eat enough.’
And, suddenly, I thought: What a nice man you are. Like Mother Teresa.
So it seemed only right to agree when he said:
‘Hey, why don’t we start over? How about breakfast? I know this place just down the street, does great eggs benedict.’
Part Four: The Second Time
Spiderman and other superheroes — Back seat, NYPD squad car, New York University; December, 2001
It’s not that I didn’t expect to never get arrested again. I just really didn’t expect it to be this day. I didn’t plan it. I’d simply been caught up in something bigger than my capacity to stay away.
So, here we go again.
No red thong this time. Something worse. Spiderman briefs.
Men’s Spiderman briefs.
I know, I know, I thought they only made those things in kids’ sizes too. But you’d be amazed what you can get when you look hard enough. And Clark has a real thing for comic book heroes. On his underwear I knew I was onto something with that whole Superman thing. My antenna is never wrong.
You know what’s really weird? That I even fit in Clark’s underwear. I’m sure Wayne’s boxers could have satisfactorily housed me, my sister and my Mom. Not that he was fat — just really big, all over. But even though Clark’s tall, he’s got this petite little butt.
A mild irritation at him whizzed through me as I sat there in the back of the cop car.
Spiderman, for God’s sake.
I wondered if you could tell just from looking that these were men’s briefs.
The cops chose that moment to come back, and shoved another arrestee into the back with me. They were having a pretty serious scuffle to get him in there, too. I watched their angry, red faces through the window as they bent his head down to push him through the door. I couldn’t be sure, but I was pretty certain this whole two-in-the-backseat was a breach of some kind of protocol. What if the guy was dangerous? They had obviously decided they need to handcuff him, for instance.
What if he hurts me?
It was one thing to be a felon, entirely another to share the backseat with one. But then he looked up as he settled back in his seat and I breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Ah, Tony, it’s you. You okay?’
‘Yeah, Lola. Few bruises tomorrow, that’s all. Can you believe this shit?’
Indeed, I could not. You know, I really thought I’d found my groove teaching at the university. Math isn’t like art or literature. You don’t have to guess, or interpret. You have to uncover, discover. I love unravelling the mystery of it; showing the students something true. You can teach math, or astrology, or even macramé, but if you do it right, you show other people how to question, and questioning is at the very heart of all revolution.
Without it, how can you change anything? How can you even know something’s wrong in the first place?
‘No, I can’t believe it, Tony. I can’t. It was all pretty peaceful.’
‘I know,’ he nodded, running his hands through his short grey hair. ‘Some chanting and a few makeshift placards.’
‘I think one of the students may have mooned the Dean,’ I offered, to ensure a full and frank appraisal. ‘More to relieve the monotony than anything else.’
‘Yeah,’ Tony nodded. ‘I saw that. But no-one was breaking down any doors.’
My mind wound back over the events. Suddenly, we were being ordered to disperse, and we didn’t. And then it had all gone to hell.
So, there I was. In the back of a cop car. Again.
And if I’d thought the Leprechaun was no fun, the guys hauling me into the car this time were enough to make you dial in for some prozac. They both looked to be in their thirties, with almost identical blonde buzz cuts and chiselled jaws. Something about the superior jut of their chins, and the rough treatment I’d seen them dish out at the sit-in, made my skin feel itchy. Like how my grandma used to say she could feel in her bones when it was going to rain, I could sense my own personal storm about to hit.
‘Wow,’ I started. ‘I never knew they made Ken dolls in matching sets. You guys been dating long?’ Tony looked at me like I was demented.
I knew Clark would be annoyed if he was here. I have this internal voice that always warns me not to do certain things, or reminds me of possible consequences. I think in other, more evolved souls, these voices are called consciences, but mine tend to get treated a little like traffic signals in Italy: a good idea, but generally ignored.
Anyway, lately my internal voice had started to sound a lot like Clark.
Like, I could hear him right at that moment saying ‘you don’t have to kick down every door, you know, Lola. Sometimes, if you turn the handle, they just open’ and I could picture his face. A long sigh, that eye roll he deploys when I go off on one of my rants.
Tony started to press himself closer to his door.
I tried to smile at him encouragingly, but he was too busy trying to catch the cops’ eyes in the rear view mirror and give them a ‘don’t know her from a bar of soap’ shrug and a little smile.
They ignored him.
***
I tried explaining it to Clark, but I kept getting my words tangled up.
‘So, you just got caught up in it,’ he offered.
‘Well, yeah. Kind of.’
‘Kind of?’
‘Yeah, well, technically I guess I kind of started it.’
‘How, Lola?’ It wasn’t that I was in trouble with Clark. He always called me Lola.
‘Look, Clark, I promise this isn’t what you think it is. It’s not about, you know...’ I flapped a hand at him and he nodded quickly. He knew. ‘And I’ve really tried. Honestly. I’ve tried to keep my campaigns away from the university. But today was different.’
He exhaled noisily. ‘Different how?’
I reached out for his hand, but he busied himself with his pen and some papers. I snatched it back. ‘Three reasons.’ I tapped my pointer finger on the little table, and let the safety of the numbers wash over me. ‘One: the woman they locked out of her office, Susie Ng, she’s a friend of mine. Well, friend’s a little strong, but we had stuff in common.’
He raised an eyebrow, and I knew what he was thinking. ‘No, honestly, Clark. Like, properly in common, not random stuff.’
‘Like what?’ he sniffed.
‘Well, like we both have vaginas, for a start,’ I huffed. ‘The only two in the whole school who do.’ He shuddered at my directness, so I went on quickly. ‘And we’ve both had trouble with the Shrimp —’
‘You’re going to have to call him Dean Shrimpton,’ Clark interrupted. ‘Especially if this goes any further.’
‘Okay,’ I agreed, biting my lip to stop words spilling out that I knew would only make Clark more distant. ‘Anyway, there’s more. Two: they were making an example out of her, Clark. It makes my blood boil. Susie was appealing her suspension through the right c
hannels. They had no right to lock her out.’
‘Everything’s changed,’ Clark nodded. ‘Of course they want to make an example out of her. They need to. It’s just... It’s just how things are right now. You can’t blame people.’
‘I can blame people,’ I snapped, slapping the table. ‘She didn’t burn the flag that day. She was just there.’
‘She got arrested,’ Clark pointed out. ‘And people are upset, Lola. And scared.’
‘Anyway,’ I sniffed, trying to push down the sick acid that was rising in my throat. ‘Even with all that, even with Susie, I still didn’t mean to get seriously involved. Especially today.’ I reached for his hand again, and this time I didn’t let him pull it away. ‘But something in me just snapped when I saw her there, sitting outside her office, refusing to leave. I sat down beside her and held her hand, and before I knew it there were ten of us. Twenty. And then more and more as word spread.’
He dropped my hand and pointed at me. ‘But you didn’t need to get involved, Lola. There were others. You didn’t need to.’
I could feel hot tears start to prick the back of my eyes. I so wanted him to get it. He was one of the good guys, wasn’t he? He had to get it. ‘I love my job, Clark. It’s true, I do. But some things are more important.’
Clark just sat there, nodding and listening, doing that careful, head-on-the-side deliberation thing I’d come to know so well over the previous three years. But every now and then this little nerve in his jaw jumped.
‘I am on your side, you know, Lola,’ he started, but he didn’t meet my eyes. ‘But you just don’t get it. This could be serious. And the cracks you made in the car didn’t help. I have to ask you something and you have to answer me seriously. Did you know about the bomb threat?’
‘What?’ My head snapped up. ‘There wasn’t any bomb threat.’
‘There was, Lola. Some guy calling himself Bryan said he was going to detonate a device unless Susie Ng was reinstated and the US laid off his Muslim brothers.’
I started laughing. Clark’s jaw nerve jumped furiously, so I reached for his arm. ‘That had nothing to do with us. Bomber Bryan always rings the cops. He’s an identity.’
‘Apparently not.’
‘Clark, listen to me. Last time he called he asked for the removal of all checkpoints from Gaza, a copy of Hustler and two bottles of Jack Daniels. They know who he is because he’s too thick to make up a pretend name, and he always rings from the same booth. And…’