After Annie (9781468300116)

by Tucker, Michael

  He looks in his jacket pocket for his cell phone and, of course, it’s not there. He goes out to the parking lot and finds his car and there’s the phone, lying on the passenger seat. He gets in the car because it’s chilly outside. He fills his pipe and takes a toke and punches in Roxanne’s number.

  “You busy?” he asks her.

  “No, come on over. Can you drive?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  A half hour later, Roxanne is down between his legs, giving him head and he’s deep in thought. He’s not happy about the way the evening is progressing. A blow job, for him, is not a good way to start things and he mentioned that to her. But she was hell-bent. Come here, darling, he said to her. Come up here; we’ll take our time. But she went right for his cock. A blow job is not his favorite thing in general. I mean, under certain circumstances, when the mood is right, it can be wonderful. But to start out this way—cold—with no real pleasure coming from her yet, it’s not his first choice. Not to mention he’s had way too much to drink for the art of making love. He gets a kind of boozer’s impotence, which means he has a raging hard-on but he won’t be able to come for hours. So she’s working her ass off down there, going for the Academy Award and all he can think about is how he’s never going to come and she’s going to think it’s her fault and that she didn’t do it right. God, he hates this.

  “Sweetheart, come here, let me touch your pussy a little,” he urges.

  “No darlin’, you have to let me do this. This is what I do best, so you have to let me shine.”

  What’s he going to do? Say no? But it’s not his favorite thing. Maybe it’s the passive position; he’s not easy with that. Just to lie there and be acted upon doesn’t finally work for him. On the other hand, he likes to get straddled. He doesn’t mind that—when the girl’s in the driver’s seat, going for it in her own way, at her own tempo. He likes that. But that’s not really being passive. You’re working hard down there—just facing uphill instead of down. But this position, lying back with your legs open, maybe resting on an elbow or reclining on pillows, watching her do you, it’s like being diapered. That could be my problem, he thinks. Yeah, I think we’re onto something.

  Roxanne is starting to get the idea that he’s not in paradise and starts to work harder. This is exactly what he’s been dreading. She’s going to make it her fault. She’s going to fail and he’s going to be the reason for her failure. He’s going to be her judge, which he really, really, really doesn’t want to be. I’m the guilty one, he’s thinking; it’s my fault, but he knows there’s no way she’s going to see it that way.

  If only she didn’t think she had to perform. What is this shit? Why can’t we just fuck like monkeys? No posing, no pretense, just be exactly where you are, rubbing each other up, getting high on each other, laughing even. Oh God! Just letting go and being naked together and in love. Oh God.

  It takes years to trust. Annie knew him like you know that old magazine you have in the basket by the toilet. You’ve already read it cover to cover but it’s still the best one in the room. The two of them were free to play because they knew each other so well. Some days she’d have an itch, some days not—but she was great at starting from scratch. Or sometimes she’d be pissed at him for getting drunk the night before in front of well-dressed people—she hated when he did that. Or he had gotten stoned to go the PTA meeting, or some such shit. So she’d be pissed and there had to be a thawing-out period before she would let her pussy come out to play. And Herbie knew exactly how drunk he had been the night before and exactly how pissed she was, so he just let her talk it out, and he’d nod away with a hopeful look on his face until she let his thigh go up between her legs. And then she’d start to put a little pressure against it—only as much as she wanted to—no more. And he would start to make that sound in his throat that he likes to make when he starts to feel like Simba, the lion king. And then, and then.

  You can’t just start out with a person and have trust like that. Annie knew just what to say to make him come, for instance. She used one word when she wanted to make him come in seven strokes, and another when she wanted to make him come in eight. She could make him come in one, but that also included a gesture. She never figured out the right phrase for fifty-seven strokes. But when she was ready to be done, she whispered this or that, and then they were done. And there was no problem with that, no second-guessing. Done is done. I feel good. See you in the morning. That takes years.

  Roxanne is now pulling out all her best stuff, so he tries to picture Olive and Sam doing it and that gets some feeling going. Olive is so spectacular, he thinks. He inserts himself, so to speak, in Sam’s place and imagines the lovely smell coming up from her body as she heats up. Like bread in the oven. Yeah, he thinks, that’s working. And Roxanne gets the message and adds her encouragement from down below. Come on, everybody, let’s pull it together and get old Herbie over the fence! Come on, we can do it!

  Afterward, he lies about how wonderful it was and she goes on about what a stud he is and how well endowed he is—which every man likes to hear whether it’s bullshit or not.

  “You’re a sexy little devil, aren’t you?” she says and he grunts like the caveman he is. “But you don’t have a dime’s worth of interest in me.”

  His eyes pop open. He’s not going to have his golden moment of repose and that saddens him. It’s the whole reason he does it, he thinks. “What are you talking about?”

  “Okay, I know you like me a lot and I like you, but your mind is on another woman.”

  He starts to protest but she puts her hand over his mouth. “And don’t tell me you’re thinking about your dead wife. You’ve got another woman on your mind—a live one. Herbie, I am the world’s foremost authority on being in bed with a man who’s thinking about another woman. I know what I’m talking about.”

  Herbie decides not to protest anymore. He just lies there.

  “Come on, tell me all about her.”

  And his phone rings. It’s in the pocket of his pants and he didn’t turn it off. It’s got to be Olive. No one else would call him at this hour.

  “That’s her, isn’t it? Well, go on, answer it! Tell her what a great blow job you just got.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  NO, HERBIE DOESN’T ANSWER THE PHONE. HE AND Roxanne lie there frozen, like two mice when the kitchen lights go on, listening to the ringing of his pants on the chair. When it stops they wait for it to ring again, which it does. Then the phone is quiet.

  “And now she’s leaving the message,” says Roxanne. “And it’s not going to be a nice one. You can just tell, can’t you?”

  Herbie has hit bottom.

  “Havin’ a bad night, hon?”

  He has no words.

  “Your girlfriend just caught you having sex that you didn’t even like. That’s what we call a bad night.”

  “I did like it,” he mumbles.

  “Oh come on. You want to be the one in charge; you want your hand on the throttle or you can’t come. I’ll tell you what, sweetheart, you ought to figure out how to let out your feminine side. Learn how to receive a little.”

  He just looks at her.

  “Didn’t your wife ever go down on you?”

  He shouldn’t get into this, he thinks, but… “Yeah, but she liked to do it when she was already coming herself, you know? She did it to jack up her pleasure. That’s a whole different experience.”

  Roxanne’s face looks like she’s been clubbed with a lead pipe. Then Herbie watches her consider this information, reject it and then file it in a place where she’ll never have to look at it again.

  “I can’t have a serious talk with you lying there with your dick out. I’m sorry. Go get dressed and meet me in the kitchen.”

  He puts on his underwear and socks.

  “And I want to hear that message.”

  “No…”

  She puts her finger in his face. “You listen to me: you used my body as your receptacle while you wer
e thinking about your other girlfriend. So according to the Marquis of Queensbury Rules, you owe me big. I’m going to hear that message before you leave this house. That’s the only fun I’m going to get out of this whole miserable night.”

  Dressed and downstairs, he fills the kettle and puts it on for tea. Roxanne comes down in a robe, looks at the kettle and goes to the bar and makes a drink. She fills a tumbler with ice and laces it with bourbon.

  “All right, tell me all about her.”

  And Herbie does—all about the night in the bar when they met and how he took her to meet Annie in the hospital; and about how Annie and Olive spent the night talking while he walked the streets wishing he was a fly on the wall. He tells her about seeing Olive at the memorial service, when she seemed to be illuminated from the inside.

  “How old?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “Oh, baby,” she clucks. “Well, she’ll outlive you—at least you won’t have to worry about that. Play me the tape.”

  Herbie finds the message and puts the phone on speaker.

  “Hi,” says Olive’s voice. Then there’s a long silence. “I know what you’re doing, Herbie. It’s weird, but I can feel it. You’re with Roxanne and you’re… in bed with her. I can actually feel it in my body. Thanks a lot.”

  They listen to her think a moment.

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t get why you feel you have to push yourself away from me. I’m not a scary person.”

  She’s crying. “This hurts. I didn’t know you could hurt me so much. I didn’t see that coming.

  “I don’t have the time to deal with this right now. I have to open a show and you have officially become a distraction. So don’t call me anymore, okay?” She lets this sink in. “I’ll talk to you soon,” and she disconnects. Herbie and Roxanne share a smile.

  “Play it again,” says Roxanne, and he does.

  “She sounds like a nice person. I was all ready to scratch her eyes out but she’s nice; you can tell. And pretty grounded for a thirty-four-year-old.”

  “She is.”

  “Real good-looking, I’ll bet.”

  He nods.

  “You knew she was going to call, didn’t you?

  He did. Of course he did. They’ve been speaking every night. Of course he knew she was going to call.

  “So what’s that all about?”

  Olive would have stuck to her guns about not calling Herbie were it not for the crisis surrounding Bob’s breakdown. His fall into psychosis happens over the period of a week and it’s frightening for Sam and the actors to watch. At first they think that his eccentric behavior is intentional, an actor’s ploy to get deeper into the role. But by the third day he slips further into the murk of Vanya’s psyche and he loses control. Sam has a meeting with the producers and shares his concern and they decide to inquire into finding a backup for Bob if, indeed, things get worse. They call an actor who has recently played Vanya in a production in Minneapolis. He says that he’s free and they send him the new translation so that he can get familiar with it.

  Bob is in a state of self-imposed isolation; he murmurs to himself when he stands offstage waiting to enter for a scene or sings Russian lullabies softly in the men’s dressing room, where he has built a tent in the corner out of bedsheets he brought from his apartment. After the first dress rehearsal he starts wearing parts of his costume home and word is getting around that he’s not been washing. He is inaudible at this afternoon’s run-through and he disappears before the notes session and no one can find him for hours. Finally Olive goes to the bench in the park where they used to eat lunch and finds him there, crying softly in the rain. She leads him back to theater like an invalid and helps to change him into dry clothes. Then she calls Herbie.

  “I’m glad you called,” he says.

  “We have a big problem here and I thought maybe you could help,” she replies with no warmth in her voice.

  “Sure.”

  “It’s Bob. He’s losing it and Sam thinks he may have to replace him with an actor from Minneapolis, and…”

  “Sam’s wrong,” snaps Herbie. “Tell your brilliant young director he would be making a stupid mistake if he tries to get another actor.”

  “Why do you have that tone in your voice? Don’t you dare snap at me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be angry.”

  “Leave him alone. Leave Bob alone and he’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t understand. He’s disintegrating. He’s not going to make it.”

  “Shall I describe it to you?” says Herbie. “He’s built a tent in the dressing room so no one can see him, right?”

  Olive is silent.

  “He stares off into space and doesn’t listen to anybody. He’s wearing his character’s underwear and it’s starting to smell. How am I doing so far?”

  “Pretty accurate.”

  “Just leave him alone; he’ll be fine—better than fine. My guess is he’s going to be brilliant. Has he started that shrieky laughter yet? That’s the worst. You have to leave the room when he does that.”

  “He’s refusing to take any notes from Sam. He calls them speed bumps.”

  “That’s not crazy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you like getting notes now?”

  “Sam’s trying to make the play better. It’s mostly just little tweaks, but they can be important, no?”

  “No. It’s all bullshit. Right now you’re in a wrestling match. The actors are ready to take the play and the director can’t bear to give it up yet. So these notes, these tweaks, are just a way for Sam to justify his rapidly diminishing existence as the director of the play. Tell him to leave Bob alone.”

  “So Bob does this every time he’s in a show?”

  “Some version of it. Maybe playing Vanya has made it more intense.”

  “And people hire him?”

  “Not much anymore, which is a shame. He’s brilliant.”

  “And totally crazy.”

  “If you think this is crazy you should see how he behaves in life. He’s a fucking lunatic.”

  “He’s your best friend.”

  He grunts and there’s a silence.

  “There’s another aspect to this that I should warn you about,” he says. “There’s a darker side to these breakdowns.”

  “Darker than this?”

  “Annie did a play with him years ago and he did his breakdown number like this just before the play opened. Everyone hovered and worried and stumbled through rehearsals trying to hear him; and then the play opened and Bob was brilliant and the rest of the actors had lost a step. And they were all pretty pissed off, as I recall, when the reviews came out.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah. Warn the other people.”

  There’s a pause.

  “Why did you do it, Herbie?”

  He sighs.

  “No, why?”

  “It’s not going to sound like much of an explanation.”

  “Try me.”

  “Candy and Maurice came down here to South Carolina; she and I had lunch and she told me that you were bonking Sam—her word. And it… made me a little crazy.”

  “Candy?”

  “After they left, I got drunk and sat there at the bar, picturing the two of you in the act. You were naked and very hot and I got… you know, aroused—right there at the bar. So I picked up the phone and called Roxanne. It was a deeply stupid and self-destructive thing to do, but that was my frame of mind at the moment, and…”

  “You sprung a woodie thinking about me naked?”

  “I did.”

  Another pause.

  “I think that’s your first real declaration of love.”

  He smiles. “It’s not exactly Be My Valentine.”

  “I’m not bonking anybody.”

  “Not even Sam?”

  “Not even you.”

  He thinks about that.

  “Candy is weird,” she says.

  “
Oh yeah.”

  “I mean, Jesus! She likes to giggle on the phone about boys—you know, like teenagers do, so I told her about how cute Sam is with his cute little ass in those tight jeans—that kind of crap. And out of that she tells you I’m having sex with him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you believed it.”

  “I think I wanted to. I wanted to wallow in it, get drunk and listen to sad songs. I can be an asshole like that sometimes. And then to make myself feel worse, I went and humiliated myself with Roxanne.”

  “Were you too drunk?”

  “It was sad in a lot of ways.”

  “Did it depress you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  He smiles.

  “I got a job,” he tells her.

  “A play?”

  “A movie. It’s not official yet but I’ll get the offer today.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Jeffrey would never have agreed to demand an offer if he didn’t know I would get it. He would never put me in that position. Jeffrey, you’ll see, is very protective of his people and their egos.”

  “That’s nice. Is he going to come up?”

  “For the opening.”

  “If we have an opening.”

  “Bob Frankel has been wanting to play this part for thirtyfive years. He’s not going to miss it. Just warn everybody to watch out for themselves.”