Wake Up, Sir!

by Jonathan Ames

  “That's the oldest, stupidest rumor there is,” said Israel Greenberg, whose glasses were still as cockeyed as the day before. “That's right up there with drinking blood on Passover!”

  He seemed to think that I was slurring Jews, but he didn't know I was a Jew myself, and regardless my remark had not been offensive, at least I didn't think so. But my gentile attire may have thrown Israel off—I was wearing my seersucker jacket and hummingbird tie. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, in which I didn't know what to say.

  Tinkle, the good fellow, tried to rescue me and jumped in with “A fire would have killed all the bats. Some people would be happy if that happened.”

  No one knew what to make of this declaration, and Tinkle looked at me with sad eyes. Had he spoken in code? Did he want a fire to kill him? Hadn't he told me he wanted to impersonate a bat and that his book was a prolonged suicide note? But then I had a pleasant thought: I'll drag him to a brothel tonight, that'll fix things! This thought was then followed by the idea that I would have to be drunk to do this, and my brain didn't register a protest. My fascistic alcoholic thinking was already gearing up and I wasn't even finished with my hangover!

  Then I said to Israel Greenberg, trying to smooth things over, “I didn't mean to say anything rude about the Hasidim. I admire them greatly and recently almost joined their clan.”

  “Really?” said June Greenberg, and Israel Greenberg looked at me skeptically through the one lens of his glasses that was actually in front of an eyeball.

  I was caught in an exaggeration. I hadn't meant to magnify my connection to the Hasidim, but I was trying to compensate for having appeared anti-Semitic.

  “Well, I sort of almost joined,” I said, backsliding. “I went to Sharon Springs, a vibrant Hasidic enclave, and was going to take a cure there and study them and walk among them, more like a journalist than anything else, but then I was called to come here.”

  The Greenbergs seemed somewhat mollified, and Murrin found all this beside the point and brought the conversation back to a more relevant group discussion: “So Dr. Hibben is going to have to do something about Chris and Luc. It's going to be very uncomfortable. He may have to kick them out, or at the very least give them a warning. That's why I don't want Sigrid going to him about her slippers. He'll really think we're all coming unglued.”

  Beaubien took this as a cue, without knowing it, to come into the dining room and head right for our table.

  “Here she comes,” whispered Kenneth to Murrin, as a warning to not speak further about her.

  As she approached, I saw that in her hand were two pieces of paper—the tracings of her slippers!

  She came right over to me, waved the two sole-shaped cutouts, and made a startling accusation, “You did this, didn't you!”

  She delivered her line with great drama. It was a real “J'accuse!” My tablemates, Israel and June G., Kenneth, Don, Sophie, Tinkle, and Charles, and everyone else in the dining room looked at me.

  First an accusation of anti-Semitism and now thievery!

  Beaubien was a woman scorned. Just because I hadn't come back to finish that kiss I was Suspect No. 1 for this slipper crime. I didn't know what to say.

  “You stole my slippers!” she charged, or rather recharged, since I had not responded to her first detonation.

  “No,” I managed to get out. “I swear I would never touch your slippers.”

  She seemed to take this the wrong way. “Don't insult me,” she said.

  “Sigrid, sit down,” urged Murrin. “Alan wouldn't take your slippers.”

  “Why wouldn't he?” demanded Beaubien.

  “He just got here,” said Murrin, and this didn't seem to clear my good name with anyone, Beaubien or my tablemates, who had just witnessed me being caught in a white lie about my association with the Hasidim. If I was capable of lies, then I was perhaps capable of slipper theft. Clearly, no jury would have found Murrin's reason to be a compelling argument. If anything, my novice status, my unknown character, and my battered face all worked against me.

  “I swear I didn't take your slippers,” I said with sincere desperation, though there was a glimmer of doubt in my mind. Tinkle said he had walked me to my room during my blackout, but maybe he hadn't walked me all the way or maybe I had turned around … but I didn't know where Beaubien was staying and I didn't have access to scissors. But still …

  “Sigrid, please, sit down,” said Murrin. “Someone is just playing a silly prank on you. And Alan here is a sweet young fellow. He wouldn't do anything to your slippers.” But Beaubien, despite Murrin's entreaty, remained standing; she was livid.

  “I'd be flattered if someone took my slippers,” said June Greenberg, trying to console her.

  “It's not flattering. And I went to Dr. Hibben and showed him these,” Beaubien said, indicating the paper cutouts. “He said he'll make sure my slippers are returned. I don't need this kind of thing when I'm trying to paint!”

  “Of course not,” said Sophie, kindly showing allegiance to a fellow painter, while at the same time trying to calm Beaubien down.

  “Everything will be all right,” said Murrin.

  “I know he did it,” said Beaubien, pointing at me, and my blood sugar behaved diabetically—a terrible feebleness and fear washed over me and I thought I might faint. And then Beaubien walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER 22

  The high rate of diabetes in our country goes up by oneAn alibi is providedThe high rate of diabetes goes down by oneMy neck turns to rubber and then firms upToo much testosterone can cause hair lossMangrove competes in the Tour de FranceA tie is touchedSerotonin and testosterone can equal euphoria, if mixed properly

  “She goes crazy every summer,” said Murrin. “Don't let it upset you.”

  “Usually over a man,” said June Greenberg. “And you're this year's objet.”

  “She's a little hysterical,” said Sophie. “The bats really get to her and she's always talking about there being a ghost in the Mansion.”

  My blood sugar was really going nuts: I was in deep diabetic peril. Any moment now I might need an amputation. Beaubien's accusation had slaughtered me. I felt as frail as a butterfly. I'm not cut out for confrontations. I can barely handle mild opposition.

  “But who took the slippers?” asked Kenneth.

  “Reginald Mangrove?” offered Sophie. “That's who Sigrid was crazy for a few years ago.”

  “No. Reginald is too self-absorbed to pull such a stunt,” said Murrin. “It would never occur to him.”

  “Did you do it?” Donald, the half-thumbless sculptor, asked me.

  “No, I didn't do it, I swear,” I said. “I don't even know what room she's staying in.”

  “He was drinking with me last night,” said Tinkle, “and I had to walk him back to his room. He didn't know how to find it. If he had taken her slippers, I would have seen it.”

  Thank God for Tinkle. He wasn't the most reliable witness—his comment about the bats dying in a firestorm had weakened his credibility—but he spoke with authority and clarity when it came to my whereabouts. He secretly knew his alibi for me wasn't fool-proof—my blackout and my near kiss with Beaubien had to be causing him to question my innocence—but he had, nevertheless, come to my defense. He was a good person! His statement seemed to remove any doubts my tablemates may have had about me, which was a great relief. Other possible suspects were then discussed, and my diabetes went into remission.

  I was still shaky, but I managed to gum some scrambled eggs and choke on some coffee. This had been a horrible start to my day. It was worse than any morning encounter with Uncle Irwin. In fact, I would have liked to sic Uncle Irwin on Beaubien. He would be an equal match for her, and oddly enough as I sat there numbly trying to chew eggs, I felt something akin to fondness for that bearded Pio impersonator. I imagined him brandishing a pistol and shouting at Beaubien, “My nephew-by-marriage would never steal your slippers.”

  I finished my breakfast and then excused my
self from the table. I was pretty worn-out. In my mind Uncle Irwin was my defender, someone who could be angry on my behalf, a surrogate anger-figure, but my real response to the Beaubien situation was to skip anger and go right to depression. I wanted to crawl back into bed and start the day over. Tomorrow.

  “See you later,” said Tinkle as I stood up.

  “Yes, see you later,” I said, and with my eyes I thanked him for coming to my aid.

  I started to limp off, but Murrin took hold of my sleeve. “Don't worry about Sigrid,” he said. “Whoever took the slippers will probably put them back by her door today and this whole thing will blow over. You just go do your writing and forget about this slipper business.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I left the dining room and staggered in the direction of the mudroom to get my lunch pail. I was going to hide in my chambers all day. I didn't want to see any of these insane people for some time. I'd sleep all day and then skip dinner and treat Jeeves to a nice meal in town.

  In the mudroom, my blood sugar was given another jolt.

  Ava was there.

  She was searching among the forty or so lunch pails for her own. To get mine would bring me into close proximity to her. I didn't feel capable of that. I was already completely weakened by Beaubien's attack. If I got too close to Ava, I thought my head might start to dangle from my neck, like someone with no muscle control. So either I had to retreat and go up the back staircase to my room, which would look foolish, or I could walk right past her and exit the Mansion and pretend to be going for a morning stroll. I chose this latter maneuver and headed for the door. Lunch pail in hand, Ava turned from the table and faced me and said, “We haven't met. You must be new.”

  “Yes,” I said, and sure enough my head felt supported by a thin rubber pencil eraser. I wonder if other people lose their ability to support their head when their nervous system is overwrought and their sugar goes haywire.

  Her nose, at close range, was spectacular; it was too much for me. In the nose department, she made Shylock look like a Barbie Doll. And her full breasts, barely contained in a bright yellow halter top, were a close second to her nose for piercing my heart.

  She was also wearing flimsy running shorts—in other cultures they might have been used as a bandage for a small wound. She had been out jogging—the sexy hairs in her armpit, which I caught glimpses of, were damp. I was damp. I had all the strength of a puddle.

  She also had green eyes. You really can't beat green eyes. Blue eyes, brown eyes, speckled, gray—all those shades you can more or less deal with. Give somebody green eyes and they can rule the world.

  “I'm Ava Innocenzo,” she said. I was taller than her by at least three inches, but it seemed as if she were towering over me. Tall women have that effect on me. Maybe women's heights, like their shoe sizes, are on a different scale. Ava was five feet nine, but in men's height she was six feet four.

  “I'm Alan Blair,” I said.

  She offered me her hand; we shook. She had a powerful grip, which I met with equal force. This pleased me. Muscle control wasn't completely lacking, after all. And contact with her seemed to infuse me with life. My neck stopped behaving like an eraser.

  “We have one Alan already,” she said. “Alan Tinkle.”

  “Yes, I've met Alan Tinkle.”

  I was capable of a firm handshake and my neck was functioning, but my tongue, in the form of interesting discourse, was lagging way behind. It's those precise moments in life when I'd like to be charming that I am at my most dull. I could have said something inventive about there being multiple Alans, or taken advantage of Tinkle's last name and told her I was Alan Tinkle-Toes and that I was from England and that many people there have hyphenated surnames.

  “What do you do?” she asked.

  “Writer.” It was all I could manage. But to hell with charming dialogue. I was feeling very strong. This woman was doing something to my blood chemistry. I wanted to lunge at her, hold that nose in my fist, like some kind of handle, and nurse at her breasts. My desires were a mixture of the violent and the infantile. In other words I was feeling quite manly.

  “I can't write. I can't spell for shit,” she said.

  “I'm sorry.” I visualized spinning her around and taking hold of her hips and mounting her from behind. My earlier diabetic imbalance had been replaced by an overrelease of testosterone, which they say causes balding. Some people's hair turns gray in an instant; well, my hair was going to completely eject from my head due to the flood of male hormone in my system. Either that or I was going to misfire like Tinkle.

  “But I don't care about spelling,” she said. “I send in grant applications with every word misspelled, but nobody says anything. They don't expect artists to spell.”

  I was on the verge of catastrophic hair loss and a public emission, but I redirected these internal forces in the form of a verbal storm, especially in comparison with my previous output in our conversation. I apparently had regained my tongue, and then some:

  “Well, many writers are also terrible spellers. Fitzgerald, supposedly, was an atrocious speller…. Might be interesting to have a spelling bee for famous writers, expose their weakness…. PEN should do it as a way to raise money or something for writers in prisons, though most writers like prisons for the material and might not want to be released; Jean Genet did his best work behind bars. Of course he liked prison life for other reasons as well…. I wouldn't mind a prison stay, though the shivs make it unappealing…. Wait a second, I wonder why it's called a spelling bee. Do you know?”

  “I don't know. That is weird. Why spelling bee? Why not just spelling contest?”

  As she spoke, I held my eyes away from her breasts, but her breasts were so full that I didn't need to see them to see them, if you know what I mean. I was picking them up on sonar. And of course her incredible nose was right in front of me—convention allowed me to look at that—and I wanted to smother it in kisses, while grabbing a fistful of her thick hair.

  “Spelling contest is more direct,” I said. “Though spelling bee sounds more fun, but it makes no sense…. You don't say ‘hot dog-eating bee,’ for example…. I might do well in a spelling bee, though I have a preference for British spellings, but not the conviction to use them.”

  “Were you in a fight?” she asked, obviously losing interest in the spelling topic. She was studying my nose and eyes. A nose to match her nose, at least in its unusual character.

  “Yes, I was in a fight,” I said proudly. I could see a glimmer of respect and interest in her eyes. I sensed that my savage face, with its caveman attributes, appealed to her, and I rapidly diagnosed that she would be drawn to brutal fellows. It would take a caveman, after all, to subdue her, since she was so physically imposing. And I felt myself rising to the challenge. I was nearly as tall as her now. I was growing! I had gone from an internal height of five-four or so to nearly five-nine. If only I could reach my natural length of six feet, then maybe I could have her.

  I know this doesn't quite make sense with her being six-four in men's height, but that's a theory whose kinks I haven't completely worked out. I think what happens is that I shrink and women grow. Even short women appear tall to me. If a woman is five-three, in my eyes she comes in at about five-eight…. Well, it's all a jumble. Essentially, a massive distortion somehow takes place, that's all we need to know.

  “Who did you fight?” she asked.

  “It was a bar fight with a stranger. He got me pretty good, but I also got him.”

  I threw a punch to show off for her in a masculine way. Unfortunately, eye-patched Reginald Mangrove came into the room at that very moment and saw me throw the punch. He looked at me with some curiosity, catching me, as it were, boasting in the very same manner I had boasted at dinner. How embarrassing.

  But then there was the hint of a smile on his face, and I knew that he had generously assessed what was going on. He realized I was being a peacocky male for the purposes of trying to conquer a female, a
nd as a man of the world with only one eye, he didn't judge me for this.

  “Morning, Alan,” he said, and he was wearing the outfit of a competitor in the Tour de France. He sported a tiny white cap, a yellow T-shirt, and black stretch pants, which came to the knee and looked obscene. Very few people can wear those kind of pants and not look depraved. Mangrove, I'm afraid, fell onto the depraved side of the ledger, though he seemed to be unaware of this. Most middle-aged sport hobbyists seem to be deluded in this way when it comes to their costuming.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  He said hello to Ava, she said hello to him, and then Mangrove clicked across the floor. His shoes were the kind that plug into the pedals of fancy racing bicycles.

  “Have a good ride,” Ava said.

  “Thank you,” he said, and left the Mansion.

  “He does thirty miles every day before he starts writing…. Well, I better get my day started,” Ava said.

  “Okay,” I said, and smiled weakly and stared at the articulation of her nostrils. Her nostrils led to her full lips. She had the nose of Durante and the mouth of Bardot. I felt defeated and hopeless—she didn't want to talk to me anymore, and since I couldn't attack her, I felt like killing myself.

  When women really stun you, you want to die. It's an inversion of the lustful violence one feels. The desire has become pain, which is its natural course, according to the Buddhists. Desire = Pain. I learned this on the back of a ginger tea box. Most of what I know of Buddhism—and my yoga moves—comes from tea boxes.

  So I had to remove the desire to remove the pain. In the case of Ava, I had two options for achieving this: the Tinkle method of self-release or the conqueror-caveman method. At the moment, the Tinkle option looked the most viable, which is why I felt hopeless. Around the six thousandth time in life, the prospect of self-release as a pain reliever begins to feel a bit grim.

  “You don't look like the kind of guy that gets in a bar fight, but I like your tie,” Ava said, not ending our conversation, after all. She fingered my Brooks Brothers neckwear. “I love these little birds.”