Goldenrod

by Peter Gault

  Barb walked so quickly I had to jog to keep up. She paid for my tea and led me to an empty table. I was content to follow her anywhere, but realized that I had become spoiled and lazy from having a girlfriend. A single man had to work hard at meeting women or getting laid. He had to tune in to the woman, turn on the wit and charm. He had to assert his ideas without being a bully or coming on too strong. It was a precarious role, and I felt self-conscious and out of practice. I was used to grabbing Elizabeth and dragging her to the couch like a caveman. The single man had to be more subtle, and in some ways, more sensitive. Barb attracted and intimidated me at the same time.

  “Sperm’s a snarly bastard,” stated Barb, initiating the conversation. She had long brown hair like Elizabeth, but her quick mannerisms were unlike Elizabeth. “Do you major in philosophy?”

  “I haven’t decided on a major yet,” I said. “I’d like to major in Ken Harrison, me, but they don’t offer that course.”

  “Do you think it would be very interesting?” asked Barb encouragingly.

  “Fascinating,” I said.

  “Who would teach it?” asked Barb. Barb loved asking questions. I should have been able to guess her major.

  “My mother,” I said. “She knows me. What course are you in?”

  “Philosophy.”

  We were interrupted by a friend of Barb’s. The friend was a handsome guy with blond hair and sleepy blue eyes, very heavy eyelids. He stood there bobbing his head, his eyelids closing and opening like he was about to nod off to sleep, until Barb invited him to sit down. He reminded me of a beach bum from California who got lost and somehow ended up in Illinois.

  “Ken Harrison,” said Barb. “I’d like you to meet Henry Kissing-Balls.”

  “Right, Right, Right,” said Henry, bobbing his head and shaking my hand. He sat down.

  “Is that your real name?” I asked smiling.

  “That’s right,” said Henry seriously. He was obviously used to the name and didn’t find it amusing.

  “Have you a class now, Henry?” asked Barb.

  “Ya, right,” he said, bobbing his head in total agreement. There was a look of absentmindedness about Henry which made you feel responsible for him. I couldn’t fathom him getting through a day without some kind of practical assistance.

  “What time’s your class?” asked Barb. Barb asked questions compulsively. Henry stopped bobbing and concentrated. He started bobbing slowly. “I think it’s at two … or three … maybe four. I’m sure I have a class at five some time this week.”

  “Do you have a schedule?” I asked.

  Henry thought. “I think it’s at home.”

  “You better get it,” I said paternally.

  Henry was in total agreement and bobbed frantically. “Ya right, right. But it doesn’t really matter because I’m thinking, you know? You don’t have to be in class to think. I do a lot of thinking. Sometimes I do nothing all day. I just sit in a chair, listen to music, smoke a joint, but I get a lot of thinking done.”

  “What do you think about?” I asked.

  “Reality. Death. The universe. The existence of time,” said Henry decisively.

  Those were things that never entered my mind, like marriage. Henry traversed the mundane and trivial, embracing the ethereal. This was a friendship worth cultivating. His bobbing was hypnotic.

  “I’m waiting for that first line,” explained Henry obliquely. “It takes patience. I’m a poet, not that I’ve ever written any poetry before, but I feel it inside me. I’m waiting for that first line, that inspiration. Once it comes, I won’t be able to stop.”

  A stranger walked up to our table and said, “Henry, coming to class?”

  “Right, Right,” said Henry, bobbing his head. Henry managed to get through life without schedules. He stood up. “What I’m into now is cutting down on my sleep. I believe the human mind can do anything, even eliminate the need for sleep. I never sleep more than four hours a night.”

  “Maybe that’s why you don’t know when your classes are,” suggested Barb.

  “No. I’ve always forgotten things,” said Henry, bobbing and looking at us through half closed eyelids. “When I started, I would get tired, but I enjoyed walking around tired. It was kind of mellow, like being stoned. Now I feel normal after four hours sleep.”

  Henry left a profound impression on me. Cutting down on sleep sounded like a sensible idea. If I could put the time I wasted sleeping to productive use, I could be ahead of everyone. Henry was obviously a regular at The Artsie Fartsie; several people nodded to him on his way out. He acknowledged them with a bob.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” asked Barb, taking me by surprise.

  “Well … no … yes,” I faltered. I couldn’t deny Elizabeth. It seemed evil.

  “Men are strange when it comes to sex,” said Barb. “I think women are higher on the evolutionary scale. Sex is connected to a woman’s emotions. Men will screw anything that looks nice and has a hole. They’re apes sexually.”

  “I’m more like a dog sexually,” I said, as if that was something to be proud of. I wasn’t prepared for this sudden turn in the conversation. I decided to be the one asking the questions for a change. “What does it take for you to be sexually attracted to a man?”

  “Time,” said Barb.

  “How much time?”

  “I didn’t make love with my last boyfriend until we were going out for six months,” said Barb with great dignity.

  “Six months!?”

  “Maybe it was more like three or four or five months,” said Barb, trying to remember.

  “That long!?”

  “I can’t really remember,” she admitted. “But I know it was at least three weeks. I’ve a lousy memory, like Henry Kissing-Balls.”

  I wasn’t inclined to admire someone for abstaining from sex or for having a good memory. A bad memory and a high sex drive meant you were human. Computers can be used to remember things. Humans should spend their time doing something useful, like having sex.

  The conversation skipped from sex to religion to death, which were Barb’s three favorite subjects. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, an extremely special relationship was germinating. It was my first asexual friendship with an eligible member of the opposite sex. Barb was an attractive, single woman whom I wasn’t perpetually plotting to seduce. It was difficult at times, especially at first. Temptation knocked frantically at my door more than once. I came to respect her candor, compassion, and generous curiosity. I learned to ask questions. We loved each other, but it became a sisterly kind of love, love without sex.

  Barb latched onto anything that had to do with death. Sterm’s class engaged her passionately. I was shocked to discover that almost every one of her blood relations was dead. A few years ago her father was warming up alone on a squash court when he managed to hit himself on the head with the racket. It was an unlucky blow and ended his life. Her mother was an excellent swimmer and did a lot of diving off Olympic-size diving boards. The pool was closed one day, but she was a strong-minded woman and hopped the fence. She climbed to the lofty height of the diving board, took a run, kicked into the air, arched gracefully, only to realize that every drop of water had been drained from the pool. Barb had other death stories to tell about her brother, cousins, aunts, and uncles. The stories all related to sports. She came from an athletic family.

  It was in a mood of optimism and goodwill that I left The Artsie Fartsie and headed for the athletic center. The coach had posted a list of those players on his door that he wanted to see. I was on the list and figured the coach was just feeling self-important. Coaches love having private and mysterious gatherings where they impart top secret information, like who kills the penalties. I humored coaches. They were like children playing war games.

  I got an unpleasant sensation as I watched the players swarm around the coach’s door. During our workouts, I had noticed they were the unpopular sector of the team, players who were shy and quiet and easily passed
over. I noticed the veteran players were not around. I stood a short distance from the group because, for some reason, I didn’t like to be associated with them.

  “I suppose you’ve figured out why I called you here,” said the coach guiltily, standing in the doorway of his office. “It’s not a fun job having to make cuts, to tell players to hand in their equipment, but someone has to do it. There were some difficult decisions to make. You are good hockey players, but the competition is stiff, and I’m looking for players who fit a certain style. I’d like to thank you for trying out, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to use you. Sorry!”

  It was a gently executed guillotine act, except it was my balls that dropped into the basket, not my head. I was convinced that a mistake had been made, that my name was placed on the list erroneously, that I had been confused with someone else. I didn’t belong in this group. I belonged with the winners. I waited to speak to the coach and clear up the misunderstanding. He would be surprised to see me, scratch my name off the list, and tell me to wear a tie to the exhibition game on Sunday. I would joke that I didn’t own a tie.

  “Am I being cut, Sir?” I asked. “I was the highest scorer in Junior B for three consecutive years.”

  “It was a difficult decision, especially with regards to you, Ken,” said the coach. “We’re strong up the center. Center is our strongest position. The choice was between you and Steve Lawson—you know Steve, he used to be captain of the St. Charles Darlings. We decided Steve was more of a team player. We can’t use you this year. Keep in shape and try next year.”

  “You don’t sit out a year and play hockey again,” I said, stating what both of us were well aware of. “I’m finished as a hockey player.”

  Steve Lawson was my conscience, haunting me. He triggered the memory of Winfield’s epileptic fit. I could tell Lawson had been weight-lifting during the summer because his neck looked like a tree trunk and his legs were thick and sturdy. He wasn’t like Bruno, brash and brainless. Bruno was better suited to the game of Brick Soccer. Lawson was fast, coordinated, and intelligent. He didn’t have nearly as much style as me on the ice, but he was consistent and dependable.

  The hallway was deserted and the door was shut. I checked to make sure my name was truly on the list. “Ken Harrison,” I read aloud. The name was unfamiliar, a stranger’s name. I couldn’t remember how to leave the athletic center, which direction to walk in, where I wanted to go. There was too much open ground, too many decisions to make. I walked around in a circle. Playing hockey was something I had always done, like breathing, I played hockey before I could talk. I came out of my mother’s womb wearing a pair of skates. Hockey was in my soul. It was the quintessence of my being. I walked in one direction, changed my mind, walked in the other direction, changed my mind, and finally left in the original direction.

  I took the long way home. I wanted to talk to myself. I often talked to myself, but this time I was talking in an unusually full voice, like I was communicating to someone on the other side of the street. It felt good to talk that loudly and I didn’t stop myself, keeping watch for passersby who might overhear me.

  “I still love you, Ken,” I said to myself. “You’ve got two powerful legs, Ken, and an exciting mind, and the rest of your life ahead of you. Embrace your freedom, Ken, Sweetheart. Become the sex king of the intellectual crowd, of the English Literature and Drama Society. Those intellectuals are scrawny, sickly looking things; you could be a sexual god with both beauty and brains.”

  Ahead of me on the right, was the old university stone church with a huge steeple and clock, and beyond that was the dorm. There was activity and laughing on top of the clock tower. I couldn’t bring it into focus. “You must be going blind,” I said to myself, as I gradually moved closer.

  A mob of engineering students were holding a rope. Tied to the end of the rope and dangling against the wall was their friend, who clung to a dripping can of paint and was painting the massive clock pink. It was three-quarters finished. This kind of practical joke was characteristic of engineers. I felt sorry for engineers because they didn’t have women in their classes and didn’t know how to interact with the opposite sex. They didn’t know how to go about getting laid and committed puerile acts of mischief through sexual frustration. They moved in gangs, got drunk together, and were rude to artsies, calling them ‘fags.’ A lot of artsies were in fact gay, but at least they weren’t sexually frustrated.

  “Self,” I said to myself. “Not all’s bad. At least you’re not an engineer.” The truth of the matter was that painting a church clock pink was exactly the kind of thing I would do.

  I passed directly under the precariously perched engineer and marveled at the looming heights of the clock tower, stretching to the heavens. The rope slipped from around his waist to under his arms. I was laughing and sort of waving my hand, trying to act like one of the engineering boys. It happened behind me. I felt a sensation inside me, a cracking thump, as if something in my chest had exploded. The sound was astonishing, the sound of a human body dropping a great distance, hitting concrete. The whole world could feel and hear the shattering force of the fall. It was a heavy sound and startlingly loud, like splintering wood, but deeper and louder. I thought of Barb’s mother, pirouetting gracefully in the sky and splattering against the floor of the swimming pool.

  There was silence, a scream, someone yelled, “Call an ambulance!”

  I ran into the church, shouting and swearing. The place was empty, lonely pews, and a solemnly decorated altar, prepared for the sacrificial goat. It felt like I was being chased through the aisle, as if I was the goat. I was looking for something, help, a phone, an ambulance. I was shouting, swearing at the air. My voice echoed. The preacher was in the back wearing his black robe. He had beaten me to a phone and was calling the hospital.

  The panic was spent and I calmly left the church. A crowd circled the broken engineer, and I headed in the direction of the dorm. Help was on the way and there was nothing else to do.

  “Welcome to the University of Stockton,” I said to myself loudly. “Nothing like a liberal education.”

  6. I Don’t Know

  Henry Kissing-Balls put life in perspective. Through the implementation of the philosophical method, Henry induced and deduced a cogent argument that my reaction to four hours of sleep a night was normal, even admirable. Although I didn’t quite follow his line of thinking—logic never seemed logical to me—his self-assured way of expressing himself was convincing enough. It would take time for the lethargy, disorientation, and general anomie to disappear, he explained sensibly, bobbing his head. Staying up late was not difficult for me. It was getting up early in the morning that was painful.

  I awoke with an upset feeling in my stomach. I dreamt I had only one hundred and seventeen dollars in the bank to last me the whole academic year. I was no mathematical wizard, but I managed to induce and deduce that I would run short of money within the month. It was a financial crisis. I was in panic to get to the bank and check my balance. If my dream was accurate I would have to get a job. Perhaps, I could make bran muffins at The Artsie Fartsie coffee shop. I used to be able to make good bran muffins.

  My mind was obsessed by a novella called The Double by Fyodor Dostoevski which kept me awake most of the night. It was like acid on my brain, shattering my structured view of the world. I was still under its spell in the morning. Dostoevski was fascinated with paranoia. His characters were completely self-absorbed and existed in a subjective reality, boundless and incomprehensible, on the fringe of sanity. I was a plodding, inexperienced reader, but once I tasted the power of Dostoevski’s writing, felt his iron grip, the ceaseless probing of his will, I couldn’t put the book down. I enjoyed literature, but my marks were too poor to make English a major.

  I didn’t read to relax. Reading was exhausting business for me, a spur to insomnia. I didn’t read a novel; I experienced it. If the protagonist ran seven miles, my calves swelled and my heart started pounding. If someone got his
leg cut off, I’d walk with a limp for a few days. If there was a deaf character in the story, I’d repeat “pardon” to everyone who talked to me. I could never become one of those ferocious readers tackling War and Peace, Women in Love, and Crime and Punishment in the same week. It would overstimulate my brain and dangerously alter my personality.

  The men’s bathroom in the dorm was across the hall from my room. I stepped out of the shower and discovered Chuck concentrating on the arduous process of shaving himself. Chuck was blind and had to find the bristles with his fingers before using the razor. The University of Stockton was conscientious about accommodating the handicapped, providing specialized facilities whenever possible, such as a highly technical reading machine in the library for people who can’t see. I had a happy relationship with Chuck’s seeing-eye dog. We barked at each other as I passed Chuck’s room in the morning. Chuch wasn’t pleased about me provoking his dog to bark, especially in public places like the library.

  I considered faking blindness and bringing Shultz in as my seeing eye dog, but was afraid I’d become blind for real. Also, it would be placing Shultz in a servile and demeaning role. I couldn’t stand watching Shultz being treated like a dog, strangers telling him to sit and give paw. He had been sheltered from that kind of treatment. Shultz wasn’t aware that there was any difference between a human and a dog.

  “Hi! It’s Ken,” I whispered, drying myself with a towel. I always mentioned my name when I said ‘hi’ to Chuck. It made it easier for him to recognize my voice. I wasn’t shy about exposing my private parts because Chuck couldn’t see them anyway. “Hi, Ken. It’s Chuck,” he whispered back, mentioning his name as if I was blind too. There was no reason for it, but we always whispered in the bathroom. The bathroom was like a house of prayer. It was heretical to speak loudly, especially while someone was taking a shit.