Goldenrod

by Peter Gault

  Chuck had given me the idea that I was going blind. His presence made me conscious of my own eyesight. After talking to him for a few minutes I got this burning sensation in my eyes, my peripheral vision began to narrow, and everything seemed blurry. I was in a rush and didn’t bother to blow-dry my hair. I hurried into my clothes and raced to the bank, practicing my eye exercises on the way. My eye exercises involved keeping the head stationary and straining the eye muscles to the left, right, up and down, and around in circles. I focused on a point in the distance. I was staring at the three-quarters pink clock on top of the church steeple and sprinting full speed to the bank. As I got closer to the clock, my head cocked upwards, vertically, until I was looking straight up at the sky.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t looking where I was going. A plump girl, with her back to me, was drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup and talking to three girlfriends. She was standing on the spot where the engineer had fallen. My eyes were riveted on the clock above me, and I was finally managing to bring it into focus. I could distinguish the individual stones, the pink clock, the unpainted metal. I bulldozed into the plump girl at full speed—an explosion of coffee and papers—and flattened her against the sidewalk. It was like breaking through the offensive line and demolishing the quarterback, sacking him for a loss of ten. It was a perfect tackle, something that would be shown on the instant replay for the instruction of youngsters. I rolled and bounced a few yards, miraculously landing on my feet.

  “What happened?” exlaimed the girl, lying on her back in a state of shock. I expected it to be a fatal blow and was amazed that she was capable of speaking after such a collision.

  “I saw him coming,” said one of her plain-looking friends. “He wasn’t watching where he was going.”

  “Are you blind or what!?” said the other girl.

  “As a matter of fact …” I said, unable to finish my sentence. I was about to tell her that, in fact, I was afraid of going blind, and that I didn’t see her because I was practicing my eye exercises, but the explanation seemed too complicated. Her books and papers covered the sidewalk, and I was picking them up.

  “Leave them alone,” said the plump girl in disgust, as if I had a disease that was transmitted through books. Her back was still on the pavement. She had an awfully lively tongue for someone who should have been dead. She said, “Get out of here, you pig.”

  “Get out of here, you pig,” echoed her friend ruthlessly.

  That type of comment upset me first thing in the morning before breakfast. They didn’t have to call me a pig, anything but a pig. They didn’t have to go that far. “It was an accident,” I said, which was, I suppose, a rather lame statement after nearly killing someone. Nevertheless, I couldn’t understand their anger toward me. I couldn’t understand why they hated me. I didn’t hate them. I wanted them to like me. I almost started crying, but I fought back the tears and the urge disappeared.

  I probably interrupted one of those heated discussions about men, about how all men are the same, about the ruthless tactics men use in the subjugation of women. They were inflamed over the issue of rape, or wife battering, or the impediments to women entering the work force. My timing was unlucky; I confirmed their latest suspicion, their latest revelation on the violent intentions of men. I didn’t know much about that kind of women’s stuff, except what I heard from my sisters. I wanted everyone to be friendly.

  “I’m in sympathy with the feminist cause,” I blurted out absurdly. They looked stunned. It was the same look Mr. Price gave me when I threw his lawn mower into the swimming pool.

  The bank was in the university center, a short run from the scene of my humiliation. The bank was closed, of course, because it was eight o’clock in the morning. I felt embarrassed for forgetting that banks don’t open until nine. Everything was locked up in the university center, except a room with a coffee machine, tables, and chairs. Orientals were scattered around doing homework. Coffee from machines was too strong and tended to give me diarrhea, but I had one anyway and sat with the orientals. The reverent tapping of calculators, like termites nibbling on my conscience, was making me feel guilty for not doing my schoolwork. I wondered what good old Phuc Wildfong was doing these days.

  I decided to pass the time by doing my eye exercises. I stretched my eye balls to the left, right, up and down, around in circles. There was a clock on the wall and I stared at it, trying to bring it into focus. My heartbeat was accelerating with each sip of coffee. I could feel a great deal of acidic activity in my bowels, a loosening process, a breaking down of enzymes. I had had no sleep, no breakfast, and a heavy dose of caffeine. My body trembled slightly; I kept drinking the coffee.

  “I have to drop a load of mud,” I said to myself tenderly. The orientals stopped and looked to see who I was talking to. I smiled at them and blushed. The tapping of the calculators recommenced.

  That coffee machine was insidious. The problem was that I hated using public toilets. It wasn’t that I had anything against orientals—I sincerely liked orientals—but the thought of strangers, filty old men, and perverts sitting on the same toilet seat as me was revolting. I could actually see the germs swarming over the toilet seat, swimming in the water, crawling up the side of the bowl. I would often take the time to cover the seat with toilet paper, but felt that germs had a way of pole-vaulting onto me. Sometimes, I would crouch down without touching the seat, my rump hovering in the air like a flying saucer, but that was extremely painful in the legs and caused too big a splash. Although I got a lot of pleasure from dropping mud, I had to be at home to fully enjoy it. It was especially satisfying when I had to hold it for a long time. Holding it made me contemplative and philosophical.

  “I get my best ideas when I’m holding back a load of mud,” I said to myself, and smiled at the orientals again.

  I suddenly remembered that I had saved my money the whole summer, and it was impossible for me to have only a hundred and seventeen dollars in the bank. Mother specifically told me not to worry about money. There was never much extra money around in a family of nine, but everyone was grown up and working now. They would have no qualms about helping me through school. Furthermore, Father had a job in Florida and would be happy to give me money. I realized that I had it made. The bank was opening in fifteen minutes, but my money problems were solved, and there was no reason for me to stay.

  “What a relief!” I exclaimed, and smiled at the multiplying numbers of orientals occupying the tables. It was an arcade of calculators.

  Speaking of relief, I decided to make my way to that familiar toilet across from my room in the dorm. It was a treacherous journey home, fraught with danger at every turn. In order to avoid seepage, I had to move slowly, take short steps, and tightly pinch my buttocks together, like Charlie Chaplin. The first obstruction to my progress was a set of stairs. Climbing stairs would surely result in a natural disaster; fortunately, there was a bicycle ramp for me to use. Students who were late for class were bounding like deer up three stairs at a time. I tiptoed past the three-quarters pink clock and arrived home with unmarked underwear.

  I didn’t go straight to the bathroom. I hid in my bedroom and stared out of the window, determined to hold onto it even longer. My ass muscles were swollen in knots, ached painfully, yet the pain was indescribably pleasing. I wanted the feeling to last forever. I had never been in a more philosophical mood in my life. I thought that a university was a wonderful place for a young person to find himself, to experiment with ideas and people, and discover where he fits into the world. It was a great place to grow and self-actualize.

  “Oops!” I said to myself, self-actualizing a small turd in my pants.

  I braced myself on the toilet seat. The grand finale was an intense combination of pleasure and pain, like an orgasm. The eruption came in spasms, causing shivers to reverberate through my body. My mood shifted immediately, from philosophical to practical. I had wasted the morning, I was suddenly intent upon getting things accomplished. I showered,
my second shower of the day. I always showered after dropping a load of mud, even if I was at a stranger’s house or a party, especially at a party. I would ask politely to use the bathroom, lock myself in, and make myself comfortable. I was keenly aware of unclean smells.

  My phone rang. Forgetting my towel, I had to dash naked across the hall into my room, leaving behind a trail of water. Chuck’s dog barked sportively, thinking I wanted to play. I instantly recognized the babyish intonation of Elizabeth’s voice. She was as impetuous and whimsical as a child, not hesitating to phone at prime time when the rates for a long distance call were at the highest.

  “Are you coming to Chicago this weekend?” asked Elizabeth.

  “This is costing you a fortune,” I said, standing in a puddle of water, my penis shriveling in the cold.

  “Are you coming to Chicago?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I resented being forced into making a promise. Elizabeth made a big thing about breaking promises.

  “If not this weekend, when are you coming?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why haven’t you come home? What’s keeping you in Stockton?” asked Elizabeth, implying subtly that I was seeing another woman.

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  “Do you miss me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Perhaps it was cruel of me not to give her some kind of reassurance, but I answered truthfully. I honestly didn’t know.

  “If you say ‘I don’t know’ one more time, I’m going to hang up,” threatened Elizabeth.

  “I don’t know.”

  Click!

  Barb was with a girlfriend when I met her for lunch at The Artsie Fartsie. The girlfriend’s name was Penny, a strict-looking woman, with rigid features and an abrasive personality. It was an unfair assumption, but I figured that Penny was suffering from sexual frustration. She would be an ideal public school teacher. I pictured her secretly getting turned on over giving little boys the strap. I felt she wanted to give me the strap too. She didn’t have the kind of physical appeal to attract someone of my sexual stature, but I was generous with my time. I talked to anybody, even the ugly ones. Penny was eating grapes. Fruit was missing from my diet and I was worried that I was deficient in vitamin C, I remembered that fruit was once used to ward off scurvy. I was afraid that I had scurvy, that my teeth were loosening from rotting gums.

  “The story kept me awake most of the night,” I said, chewing a banquet-burger and gulping a glass of milk. I was starving because I had forgotten breakfast. “Dostoevski does something weird to me, upsets my stomach. He scares me. He tinkers with something inside me, my sanity, fucks up my sense of reality, like a nightmare.”

  Barb was a captivated listener. When something sparked her interest, she leaned forward and beamed enthusiasm. Penny was solely interested in stuffing her face with grapes. I wanted a couple of grapes myself because my gums felt kind of spongy, but she didn’t offer me any, and I was afraid to ask. She wasn’t the type of person to give grapes away. She wasn’t the type of person to give anything away. Her stinginess with grapes was symbolic of her willful frigidity.

  “What was it about?” asked Barb who loved asking questions.

  “This guy gets kicked out of a party because he’s drunk and making an ass of himself,” I said. “It’s winter, the kind of winter you get in the Midwest, and he’s walking home, listening to the snow crunch under his feet. Someone passes him in the night. There’s something familiar about this stranger, but the guy who’s a bit drunk can’t remember where he’s seen him before. The familiar stranger somehow passes him a second time. How could the same guy, walking in the opposite direction, pass him twice? It happens again. The same man passes him a third time, with the same incredibly familiar face.

  “Suddenly, he sees the stranger ahead of him walking in the same direction as himself. The stranger turns down the drunk’s street and goes into the drunk’s house. The drunk follows him right into his own bedroom. The stranger finally turns and confronts him. It was himself he was following, his double.”

  “Then what happens?” exclaimed Barb.

  “I’m not telling you because I don’t want to ruin the story,” I said, like the cock teaser I was.

  “The story is sold, Ken,” said Barb. “You should get a job selling literature.”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to do. That’s exactly why I’m going to major in Drama. As an actor, I can sell literature.”

  “It should have been obvious from the beginning. You’re a born actor.”

  “My Drama professor said the most important thing an actor needs, besides talent, is a huge ego.”

  “You’ll have no trouble there,” said Penny. I was surprised she could talk. I though she was only capable of eating grapes: a grape-eating machine.

  It took a few minutes to realize I had been given a subtle, feminine shot in the balls. If you had good looks, vitality, and a lively spirit, everyone was shooting for your balls. People resent a winner. I lived in the age of the anti-hero, the Holden Caulfield, the Woody Allen, the wimpy neurotic who was quick-witted and perceptive, but far from a tragic hero. A tragic hero has to be a powerful man, larger than life, or else his fall couldn’t be tragic. A great man has a longer way to fall. When a great man hits the ground, he makes a resounding crash. There was a prevailing misconception in the air that you had to act like a mouse to be considered sensitive. I believed that strength combined with sensitivity was what made a great man, a man capable of asserting his sensitivity, of affecting the world positively, heroically. It was my experience that most wimps were sleazy, underhanded, cowardly bastards.

  Everyone wanted to crucify a golden boy. Jesus Christ was a golden boy, a big-mouth like me, crunched under the stampeding feet of mediocrity. I was usually prepared for a shot in the balls, but today my defenses were down. I hadn’t had much sleep, I was called a pig before breakfast, I was worried about going blind, and my gums felt like sponges from not eating grapes. I felt that Penny had unfairly classified me. Admittedly, I indeed had a somewhat egotistical side to my character, but I wasn’t excessively indulging in egotism at the particular time she gave me the shot in the balls. I was genuinely excited about a book I had read and about my decision to become an actor. Why did she trample on my enthusiasm? Why did she bring me down to her depressed level?

  “Got classes today, Ken?” asked Barb congenially, standing up and gathering her books. Penny was also on her feet.

  “I’m not going to my classes because I’be got an appointment at the eye doctor’s. I think I’m going blind.”

  “Me, too,” said Barb. “It’s from masturbating.”

  “If that wives’ tale is true, I’m a goner. Salvador Dali’s not blind and he beats off like crazy. It affected him differently. It made him go insane.”

  “You’ll have to kick the habit.”

  “I tried that before,” I said. “I only lasted a few days. Then I locked myself in my bedroom with a library of pornographic novels and went on a bout of self-abuse that lasted three weeks. That was the beginning of my interest in literature.”

  It was a relief to discover that I was not going blind, that I was only experiencing the symptoms of eyestrain. The eye doctor patiently assured me that it was impossible to catch blindness. My eye problems were from reading too much, not from sharing a bathroom with a blind person. I was afraid I had caught a disease from Chuck, transmitted through toilet seats, which caused blindness.

  He gave me a prescription for a pair of glasses that would help me see distances. I threw the prescription away because seeing distances wasn’t important to me. I only wanted to see the person in front of me, the person I was talking to or making love with. I wasn’t interested in anything beyond that range. I liked the idea of people seeing me and me not seeing them. It would have been a crime against nature, an unpardonable waste, to cover my face with anything, glasses or a beard. Like a Michelangelo sculpture, li
ke classical art, my face belonged to humanity as an inspiration, as setting the standard for the ideal. I had a moral responsibility to keep my face unveiled.

  “Your eyes look like two piss-holes in the snow,” I said to Henry Kissing-Balls. It was a regional maxim.

  Henry and I were at the stand-up bar in Ring Stadium. Ring Stadium was the most popular drinking establishment on campus. It was a circular building with a large round dance floor surrounded by tables and chairs and a bar at one end. Henry was wearing a brilliant Hawaiian shirt which flashed phosphorescent colors like neon lights. The shirt was congruous with his blond-haired, beach-bum image, but contrasted sharply with his sleepy face. It was as if the shirt was the only thing keeping him awake.

  “I’ve got eyes like Jim Morrison of the Doors,” said Henry.

  “Morrison’s eyes were like two piss-holes in the snow,” I said.

  Henry disappeared into the crowd, searching for a dance partner. He returned empty-handed a few seconds later, a look of rejection on his sleepy face. I noticed an attractive dark-haired girl sitting across from this doltish looking character with a moustache. I was convinced that she was staring at me, gazing at me seductively. The Italian with the moustache was probably a brother or a cousin or some guy following her around who she wanted to get rid of. I decided to ask her to dance. If she was having a bad date with a jerk, she would appreciate the opportunity to be free of him for a couple of dances. If she was friendly and responsive, I’d discreetly ask for her name and phone number. I could even arrange a late night rendezvous. It would have to be done so the Italian with the moustache was oblivious to the transaction.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Would you like to …”

  “No,” she snapped, interrupting me. She turned away, giving me no further acknowledgment.

  I was baffled by the hostility of her reaction. I had no intention of being persistent; a simple ‘no thank you’ would have been sufficient. She had spent most of the evening staring at me; yet she rebuffed me with absolute vehemence. It was as if she did everything in her power to arouse my attention and utterly scorned me when this attention was attained. Perhaps she was angry at the moustached Italian and using me as an outlet for her frustration. Perhaps she was frustruated with men in general.