He is startled by the overlapping fictions and very nearly blurts out where he’s going, once he leaves this house. “What’s the job?” he asks instead.
“Boring. I’ll show you after we eat. Pays the bills. Which reminds me, I haven’t asked about your onboarding session at Artemis. How’d that go?”
“They’re throwing out the creative.”
She pauses, a tactful pause, and stirs her soup. “That might not be such a bad thing.”
It cuts both ways with Lily. If she values his input, his esteem for hers is even higher. Roebuck waits a little longer while she fishes out a sprig of thyme, balanced on a wooden spoon, considering her words. Lily has a way with tone. He sent her jpegs of the presentation, asking for her thoughts.
“The execution’s very sharp. Your new guy definitely has an eye. I just wonder where the concept is taking you.”
“Meaning?”
“I think you are shading a little too far into the exploitive.”
He knows there’s more she means to say. Lily places the spoon on a dish beside the pot, then puts her arm around his waist, and leans against him. “Don’t you think,” she asks, “that there’s enough acrimony out there already without you creating more?”
“It’s only branding.”
He has chosen his reply as deliberately as she has phrased her question. They have ploughed this ground before, the two of them. Branding—as she has more than once reminded him—is what cowpokes do to cattle to establish ownership of meat. “In this context,” Roebuck counters, “all it means is getting people attached to something through emotion. That’s all it is, Lily. And anger is as valid an emotion as any.”
“Valid,” she says. “Tried and true. Hitler got people attached to his ideas by getting them to hate the Jews. You’re motivating women to buy your product by setting them against their boyfriends, even husbands …”
This makes him smile. “Since when are you a defender of husbands?”
When it is clear there will be no reply, he tries another tack. “There’s a rule in debating, you know, that says if you bring Nazis into it, you lose automatically.”
“So I lose automatically?”
He wants to take the ladle and stir the soup himself, but Roebuck holds his ground. “I’ll waive it for today because you make a useful point. Sure, Goebbels tapped into a pre-existing well of anti-Semitism and malignantly pumped it for all it was worth. Am I doing the same with women and men? All right. Yes. Women have always been pissed off with men; that’s the historical truth I’m exploiting. But consider it from our perspective. Or mine, at least.”
“Give me a sec to brace myself this time.”
“Men of my generation have made enormous efforts to make the world a better place for women. We’ve gone so far as to become like women ourselves, the better to level the field. So what happens? Exactly what was supposed to happen. Women have caught up. Or if they haven’t yet, they soon will. But somehow they’re more pissed off than ever. The difference now is that they also have the economic power to express their anger. And boy, do they ever. But it’s kind of a drag for the guys of my era who really thought that what they were doing was a good thing. So you can’t really blame us for making the best of a bad situation by using it to sell you stuff. There’s got to be a silver lining somewhere.”
“Fuck, do you spin.”
“Self-depreciating, is all. You women have been self-depreciating from the get-go. We’re just catching up. Know what I adore about you?” he asks, watching as she rolls up the sleeves of her shirt, one and then the other.
“Uh-oh.”
“That you don’t argue first-person. Nine out of ten women would have shot back that they weren’t angry with men, meaning to say that they’d just blown my argument out of the water.”
“That’s because I’m not angry with men in general. Only with you, in particular. Which, by the way, invalidates your previous statements.”
“See what I mean? Is that soup ready?”
“In a rush?”
“Anyhow, they’re throwing out the creative. So we’re back to rewriting the brief.”
She hands him the bottle of Riesling he’d brought along with the flowers and hunts for a corkscrew. It occurs to him to wonder if he’s meant to be abstaining. Or not eating, either, come to think of it, before the procedure. He can’t recall seeing anything about this on the clinic’s website. Roebuck checks the clock on Lily’s stove.
“Cheers,” he says, handing her a glass. She is busy with the bowls and ladle so he sets it out of harm’s way on the counter. Sunlight pours through the window while tendrils of steam weave around Lily’s naked arms, beading on the inside of her wrist. She is humming again.
“God,” he says, “you can be beautiful.”
“And you could sell Christmas trees on Boxing Day.”
The bowls are placed, steaming, on the table. Lily lifts her chin, deliberately, meets his eyes, and holds them. “After we eat,” she says, “I have something else in mind for that nimble tongue of yours.”
Roebuck clasps his hands above his heart and bows. “Salute,” he says, savouring the diction of this narrative, too.
10
Intelligence begins with doubt and ends with certainty.
The Collected Sayings of Julius Roebuck
He awakes with blood in his jockstrap. Roebuck listens for the sound of Anne in the shower and, wincing, pulls on a pair of pants and a shirt—then remembers to check the sheets. No blood. He did indeed take sleeping pills last night. No mistruth on that account. But the Ambien on top of all the Ibuprofen has left his stomach lurching up toward his throat. The throb in Roebuck’s head is almost as unnerving as the pounding in his scrotum.
He cups his balls and presses his face against the doorjamb. There are several issues—unanticipated issues—he needs to contend with. Starting with the fact that he’s been shaved. He should have asked how long pubic hair takes to regrow. But things, by that stage, were already heading south. More immediately, there’s the question of what to do about the peas.
The nurse had made it clear upfront that she was not an ally. “You were supposed to do this yourself,” she’d said, rasping his groin like a motorist scraping ice from a windshield.
“That hurts!” Roebuck said. A little shaving cream might have been a good idea. “I was?”
“Didn’t you read the instructions? It also says you should show up for your appointment fifteen minutes early. Most people shower beforehand too.”
It was clear by her expression she was finding evidence of Lily’s recent presence. Here again a healthy lathering of mentholated foam might have done a world of good. But yes, he should have showered. No argument there. Their legs had barely given over twitching before Roebuck was racing through the kitchen, peering under the table, hunting for his shirt. “Your pants are by the fireplace,” she called down to him, nestled in the pillows of her big white bed upstairs. “Christ!” said Roebuck. “Have you seen my socks?” She was asleep, he’s fairly certain, before he’d locked the door behind him.
“Put this on,” the nurse commanded, pocketing her razor, and handing him a shiny metal disk like the lid from a soup can. Roebuck’s testicles had started aching in the taxi, miles before they reached their destination.
“What’s this?”
“Anesthetic. Apply it to your scrotum. Did you bring your jockstrap?”
He vaguely recollected some instructions about jockstraps. “Sorry, no.”
“In that case, you’re lucky we stock them for patients like you.”
“Yes.”
“Not here!” Roebuck had tentatively pressed the tin-can lid against the area she’d exfoliated. “In the men’s room! Now put your pants on.” When he’d zipped and buckled up, she handed him a paper bag. “Once you’re finished, go to the waiting room. I’ll come and get yo
u when the doctor’s ready.”
The paper bag was folded shut. Roebuck open it. “The men’s room!” barked the nurse, jabbing a finger at the door behind him.
The stall was like an ordinary public washroom: tile floor, metallic walls in glossy finish, except that these were done in baby blue. For a second he was tempted to take out a pen and write “NO FUSS???” on the spotless paint above the latch—he had formed a very pleasant image of the nurse in rubber gloves and disinfectant, cursing as she scrubbed—but Roebuck didn’t want to jinx himself. He peered into the paper bag: a pill bottle with half-a-dozen painkillers; an empty shrink-wrap the size and shape of his medicated disk (the nurse must have unpackaged it then stuffed the plastic wrapper back inside); instructions on how to apply it: “position at the base of the penis above the scrotum, secure in place”; a plastic sample bottle with an orange lid exactly like the one Yasmin had given him earlier that day; and a quantity of cheerful pamphlets. Roebuck curled his fingers to hold the anesthetic disk in position. He couldn’t tell if anything was feeling any different. After a while he returned to the bag, fishing for reading material. The instant he relaxed his grip, the disk slipped out, and dropped into the toilet. Roebuck stood. There it lay, shining at the bottom of the bowl. He unspooled lengths of toilet paper until it settled on the surface in an opaque mass.
On the way out, he swallowed half the pills.
There were three other men in the waiting room, all accompanied by wives who held their hands and patted their knees and murmured soothingly in soft and gentling tones. “Six percent of married women,” he remembered, “rely on vasectomy as their choice of contraceptive.” Why did that fact stay with him and not the part about the shaving? The nurse emerged and smiled at the one of the couples. “Your husband is next, Mrs. Felstead.”
She turned to Roebuck, holding out one hand. “The bag!” she said, snapping her fingers. “The bag! The bag!”
Roebuck gave her his paper bag. She opened it and tucked what he assumed to be his new athletic support in among the other items, then closed it, folded it, and let it drop into his lap. “For the recovery phase,” she said with evident regret. All the other husbands were sitting quietly, hands folded in their laps, staring at the carpet. Their wives had followed the exchange closely. Roebuck met the eye of one and winked. She was a robust blonde who, in other circumstances, he might have entertained himself with chatting up. She caught her breath and looked away.
Half an hour later, he was brought to the procedure room.
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting; maybe something in the order of an operating theatre. This place felt more like an office with a hospital bed. “Make yourself comfortable,” said the nurse. There was a single chair in the corner. Roebuck sat there. He noticed, now that he could see it, that the bed was equipped with stirrups at one end.
“Mr. Roebuck?”
“That’s me.”
“Oh?” The doctor stopped mid-stride at the door. “You’re not on the table.”
“I was supposed to be on the table?”
“But you have had your consultation?”
“Consultation?”
“Helen! Has this man had his consultation?”
The nurse reappeared. There was discussion. Roebuck could not make out the words—they’d moved back out into the hall—but it was her voice he heard the most of, rising. In a few moments the nurse reappeared, alone.
“Hello, Helen!” said Roebuck. “Great to see you again.”
“Take off your pants and lower your undershorts. Then get on the table.”
“So it is a table!” Roebuck was doing his best to keep the mood upbeat. “I was wondering if it was called a table or a bed.”
The nurse, expressionless, consulted her clipboard while he removed his shoes and his pants. Roebuck climbed up.
“Undershorts.” She had moved to the foot of the contraption. “Feet in the stirrups.”
Roebuck removed his underwear. He was immediately conscious that his penis was shrunken to a tiny fraction of its former self. His testicles, too, seemed to have burrowed somewhere deep inside his body. Nurse Helen wet her lips and clicked her pen.
“Do you have a heart condition?”
“No.”
“Do you have high blood pressure?”
“No.”
“Hypertension?”
“No.”
“Diabetes?”
“No.”
When she got to the bottom of the page, she flipped the sheet.
“Syphilis?”
“No.”
“Gonorrhea?”
“No.”
“Chlamydia?”
“No.”
She leaned over to see for herself. “Genital warts?”
“No.”
“Scabies?”
“No.”
“Do you understand the nature of this procedure?”
“Yes.”
Reaching between the stirrups, absent-mindedly knocking the retracted essence of Julius Roebuck with the corner of her clipboard, Nurse Helen passed him a consent form. “Read this carefully and sign at the bottom. The doctor will be with you in due course.”
Roebuck was left alone again, underwear around his ankles.
He read through the disclaimer and signed the form. Then, because there was nothing else to do, he read it again. After twenty minutes he started to feel himself becoming uncomfortably cool. By the thirty-minute mark he was weighing the pros and cons of pulling up his undershorts when the nurse reappeared, smiling.
“Because you arrived late and because you are here unprepared, the doctor is now with another patient. He will fit you in as soon as possible.”
He had barely got his shorts pulled up when the doctor strolled in. “Oh,” he said. “Your shorts are still on.”
Roebuck removed his shorts and placed his feet back in the stirrups.
“Did you use the medicated patch?”
It took him a moment to remember the tin-can lid on the bottom of the toilet bowl.
“Yes,” said Roebuck for simplicity’s sake.
“Then this should hardly hurt at all.” The doctor was humming. “Is it cold in here,” he asked, plunging a needle into Roebuck’s scrotum, “or is it just me?”
Roebuck did his best to remain on the table, but what he really wanted at that moment was to shoot to the ceiling and cling by his claws, shuddering, like the cat in the Warner Brothers cartoons. He willed himself to stillness, sucking in his lower lip between his teeth and biting.
“There,” said the doctor, withdrawing the syringe. “Now the incision. There’s only one, you know, with the no-scalpel method …”
Roebuck had the impression he was meant to reply, here, with something gratefully affirmative. Words failed.
“Now then,” said the doctor. “We’ll start with the one on the right.”
He had read somewhere that physicians are trained to begin from the right. Roebuck tried to focus on why this might be. The doctor reached into a tray and picked out an elongated pair of pliers with a vicious point.
“Haemostat!” Roebuck croaked, attempting to keep up his part of the conversation.
“Yes! So you have been doing your reading? Yes. This is what we use to puncture the scrotum.”
Roebuck closed his eyes and willed his heart to stay inside his chest. Maybe it was the anesthetic kicking in, but this part was not as bad as he’d imagined.
“So,” said the doctor, chloroforming him with small talk, “what do you do for a living?”
Roebuck had decided it was better to avoid eye contact.
“Advertising,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “I’m in advertising.” He tried to clear his throat.
“Advertising! How about that! Is it true you guys deliberately annoy people to get them
to remember your product?”
“No.”
The doctor paused, perhaps waiting for him to expand the point. But Roebuck had nothing further to say on this matter. “What makes a person decide on a career in advertising?” asked the doctor, plugging on.
“What makes a person take up scrotum-stabbing?”
That’s what Roebuck almost said, but didn’t because a) this man had a pair of pliers in one hand and his balls in the other and b) the answer to both questions was the same.
“Money,” he said.
“Of course.” The doctor sighed. “Good money, I imagine?”
“Yes.”
“You may feel a slight tug.”
Tug was not the appropriate word. Far less slight. Again Roebuck bit down and again tasted his own blood. “I’m clamping the right vas,” said the doctor. The room went white with pain. “Good. Now we’ll cauterize.” There was a smell of burning, a distressing quantity of smoke, and a sudden, vivid memory of Zach incinerating ants on the driveway with a magnifying glass. “Now the clip.” Roebuck felt more than heard the tiny metal widget snapping into place. “There. I use clips and cauterizing, you know. Just to be sure.” The doctor paused and wiped his brow with satisfaction. “That wasn’t so bad? Now, to the left …”
But the left was not so obliging. Perhaps, apprehending what had happened to its brother, it had tried a final, reckless flight into the citadel of Roebuck’s abdomen. Or maybe it was just constriction. Whatever the cause, the doctor was having trouble locating his other vas deferens, probing, frowning, and pursing his lips. Even the needle didn’t seem to go where it was aimed. Roebuck’s testicles, perceiving the renewed attack, sent a desperate stream of maydays to their allies in his brain. Flee! Fight! Fight! Flee! He forced himself to breathe. “We can get through this,” he said.
“What?”
The doctor was looking up at him, his brow beading with perspiration.
“Nothing.”
Roebuck closed his eyes and told his heart to beat more slowly. He watched despite his best intentions as the doctor altered his position, readjusting the light, changed the angle of his chair, muttering to himself. “I’m going to have to widen the opening,” he said after a while, reaching for a scalpel. Roebuck focused on the pattern of the ceiling tiles. “There’s more tissue here than …” He was probing, now, with another, larger, sharper instrument. Roebuck gripped his left hand with his right and squeezed until he heard the knuckles pop.
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