Goldenrod

by Peter Gault

  “I don’t think we should do this,” she said. “I hardly know you.”

  “What? We’ve already done it three times,” I exclaimed, although it seemed like a hundred. I was baffled and she was incoherent.

  “Have we?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, backtracking, hoping she’d forget the whole thing. “We hardly know each other.”

  “What have we done?”

  “Nothing, oral sex … we made love three times, once from behind.”

  “Sounds great,” she panted. “Do it again.”

  “We hardly know each other,” I said, but it was too late. She had spent the pure white image of holy maidenhood and intended to get her money’s worth. There was no stopping her now, no refunds on chastity.

  I lost count of the number of times we made love, but we were still locked in intercourse when the morning sun began to creep over the red horizon, like the chafed knob of an overly worn penis. I didn’t ejaculate; I drooled. My genitals shriveled into little red knots, and my penis felt brittle, like it would fall off if someone knocked it. The crotch area was a large rash and painfully sore to touch.

  “Again!” she ordered.

  “I can’t,” I cried. The magnum of wine was empty. I lifted it over my head and threatened to club her if she came near me.

  I felt my insides heave and the taste of sour plums in my mouth. I ran, locked myself in the bathroom, and embraced the toilet bowl. I had never been as intimate with an unfamiliar toilet bowl. Half-digested plums slid out of my mouth and splashed in the water. Although I was drunk and incapable of movement, my mind worked clearly and I was aware of what was happening in the bedroom. I heard a man and woman enter, then angry words. Julia fumbled for her clothes and stumbled out the door. They tried to get into the bathroom, but it was locked.

  “Who’s in there?” a man asked.

  “Fuck off, I’m dying,” I said.

  I was a wet rag, draped helplessly over the toilet. The slightest shift in position would evoke a violent burst of vomit. I remained motionless. I was struck by the realization that I was not wearing any clothing, but too sick to care.

  “You have to do something,” said the girl on the other side of the door. She was doing most of the talking. “I’m not sleeping with a weirdo pervert in the bathroom. Are you afraid of him? I’m sure he’s too drunk to hurt you.”

  “Open the door!” shouted the man.

  I didn’t budge. The girl was becoming frantic, pushing and bullying her boyfriend.

  “Get him out,” she said. “I want him out now.”

  “We need something in the bathroom,” he said, somewhat reasonably. “My girlfriend needs something for her contact lenses. If you unlock the door, we’ll get it and leave you alone.”

  “Promise?” I asked suspiciously. “You’ll leave me alone afterwards?”

  “Promise!” he said reassuringly.

  I dragged my naked body across the floor and unlocked the door. I had been fooled. If I was sober he would have been frightened of a person with my muscular build, but since I was in a completely harmless state, he became super-courageous. He was a bony character and obviously enjoyed this opportunity to manhandle someone stronger than himself. He could live out a personal fantasy and impress his girlfriend.

  “You asshole,” he said, roughly grabbing me under the arms and bouncing me along the floor. I was being pulled backwards, my legs stretched out in front of me and my arms dangling limply at my sides. He was the king of the jungle, and I was his slain victim, displayed like a trophy for his swooning mistress, a tribute to his fearless protective instincts. He was boldly rattling off a string of profanities, stopping occasionally to slap me on the back of the head.

  I didn’t seem to have power over my body, but my mind was alert. I thought about what a shock he would get if I sprung back to life, jumped spryly to my feet, and confronted him. The fantasy became a reality. Discovering a latent resource of energy, I bounded to a fighting stance and watched his face drop. I took advantage of that interval of astonishment and landed three rather weak blows on his jaw before collapsing on the bed, utterly debilitated. He could have capitalized on my infirmity and killed me, but the hysterical screaming of his girlfriend brought half a dozen people into the room. They converged on him. He didn’t get a chance to throw one punch.

  The atmosphere was hostile. I didn’t understand what everyone was angry about, except they had to wake up a little earlier than usual. At least they were dressed even if it was only underwear or a blanket. I was naked and ashamed of my nakedness, of my ugly bent penis; an inflamed wart. I did my best to hide it, floundering off the bed and onto the floor, searching for my pants. I didn’t look up and couldn’t put voices and sounds in order. It was chaos.

  “He threw a pair of shoes out the window.”

  “His puke looks like plums.”

  “The sheets are covered in sperm.”

  “He’s been playing the stereo.”

  “He’s puked everywhere.”

  Once my shoes and pants were on, my confidence returned. I decided to grab my t-shirt and exit as quickly as possible. They didn’t conduct a unified attack against me since they were snarling and shrieking amongst themselves. I was only a catalyst. The real enemy was less tangible. I hesitated at the doorway, fascinated by the confusion.

  “There’s a lot of hate in this room,” I sighed, feeling a comment on human imperfection was in order.

  There was frost on the ground. It was not the kind of morning to be wandering around without a jacket. My first stop was the dry cleaners in the university center. Mother had the foresight to insist that I take my winter coat to Stockton and warned me emphatically to have it cleaned before putting it on. I was supersititious about anything my mother said. I knew something terrible would happen if I wore my coat before it was cleaned.

  “My coat!” I demanded.

  “Do you have your ticket!” asked the young man. He was probably a student.

  “No,” I shouted, banging my fist on the counter, my muscles bulging threateningly. “I lost the useless fuckin’ thing. My coat is long and black and has pockets. I brought it in a long time ago.”

  The skinny counter boy disappeared into the back. I again began fantasizing about finishing exams and visiting Dad in Florida—beaches, sun, women. I got it into my head that I could take Shultz. The airlines had a special arrangement for accommodating pets. I was lonely for Shultz.

  “Hurry up, for fuck sakes,” I shouted. The store was beginning to fill up with customers. “Is that it?” he murmured, turning red.

  “That’s it. Give it here,” I said in a bullying manner. He hung it on a hook by the cash register. “How much?”

  “$7.50, Sir.”

  “$7.50,” I roared. “Holy Fuck! Do you think I’m made of money? For $7.50 you should throw in a blow job or a steam job on one of those machines.” The thought gave me a sharp pain in my groin. I slammed the money on the table and walked out, forgetting my coat on the hook by the cash register.

  “Why don’t you employ a few more tellers,” I said, “instead of having a fuckin’ lineup three miles long?”

  “I’m only a teller,” the woman explained patiently. “I’m not in a position to do any hiring, but if you want to complain to the manager, I’d be happy to get him.”

  “Give me my money. I haven’t got time to chat with your manager, but you can give him a message. Tell him I think he’s a fuckin’ asshole.”

  I snatched up my bankbook and strode out the door, forgetting my money on the counter. She probably called me, tried to draw my attention to the unattended pile of money, but I was consumed by self-righteous anger and heard nothing.

  “Hamburger, french fries with gravy, and a Coke,” I said, ordering my breakfast. “I don’t know how you guys get that much grease on a hamburger. Do you add extra grease?” I yelled to the chef in the back, “Easy on the fuckin’ grease.” I pushed my way to
the cash register, “How much is that?”

  “$3.25, Sir.”

  “$3.25!” I shouted. “I’m a student for fuck sakes! How the hell can students be expected to pay that kind of money.” I slammed the money on the counter. I was late and hurried to class, forgetting to eat my greasy breakfast.

  Class was in session and Mr. Sterm gave me an unfriendly glare. I returned a glare that was twice as unfriendly, challenging him with my eyes. I borrowed a pen and paper from Barb, which lengthened the interruption. I was an inordinately cheerful person, but when I was hungry and tired and humiliated, I tended to be short-tempered. Mother used to feed me when I was irritable. She stuffed my face with my favorite food, hot dogs and spaghetti. As my stomach expanded, my mood changed. I became full of smiles, laughter, and benevolence. I wanted to spread the wealth, expound upon my generous love of humanity, divide the spoils of the bourgeoisie amongst the multitudes. The more I ate, the more I aligned myself with virtues of Jesus Christ.

  “The unfortunate aspect of a semester system is that learning is too rushed. There’s not enough time for extensive philosophical thought. You can only scratch the surface. Of course, this is a first-year course and perhaps I shouldn’t have such high expectations. We’ve studied a broad range of philosophies, unified by a common theme, death. In advanced philosophy courses, there is more of a concentrated focus, more specialization. For example, you may spend a whole semester on a phenomenological perspective of death. Today is the final day of classes and I don’t want to lecture. I don’t want to do any talking. I want to listen, let you people do the talking.”

  “It’s about time,” I interrupted, provoking a fight, an intellectual boxing match. “I doubt you’re capable of keeping your mouth shut.”

  “I’m the professor here,” said Dr. Sterm, with controlled paternal anger. “I get paid to open my mouth, to share my knowledge with students. Students are interested in learning what the great masters of the past thought, and my job is to impart that wisdom. You, Mr. Harrison, are too self-absorbed to be interested in what the greatest minds in the world have to say. You are interested in yourself and not everyone finds himself that fascinating.”

  “Then they should stop listening to you, because everyone is that fascinating,” I countered, “even illiterate morons like myself, even first-year students. Everyone is fascinating because they contain a personal philosophy, a philosophy that’s inside them, that’s an innate part of their character. You don’t need a thousand years of education to have a philosophy. A truck driver may live by a sophisticated, even heroic philosophy, a philosophy that’s morally superior to yours or mine or Descartes, and not know it.”

  “I bow to your superior knowledge,” said Dr. Sterm snobbishly. He had underestimated me. He had to be careful. “Enlighten the class, Mr. Harrison. What’s your personal philosophy?”

  “Turd,” I said in a conversational tone. “You’re a turd; I’m a turd. This room is full of a whole bunch of turds. I’m not talking about the shit that comes out of your brain, Mr. Sperm, I’m talkin’ about your being, your soul. Your purpose in life is to decompose in a field and make the grass greener, like cow dung. Everyone spends their lives refuting that fact, blindly denying it, struggling to rise above the status of a turd. You spend your life getting things, accumulating things, trying to make yourself feel important. You get God, a woman, a car, a PhD in philosophy. It’s self-deception. You can become a fat turd or a well-dressed turd, but a turd you will remain. The irony, Dr. Sperm, is that you accuse me of being vain. If you look at my personal philosophy, I’m the least vain person in the world.”

  “You’re an existentialist,” said Dr. Sterm with unbending academic precision.

  My stomach growled. The dormant side of my brain, the side responsible for organizing and remembering details in my physical surroundings, stirred restlessly in its sleep. That side of my brain was suddenly struck with panic and leaped uncharacteristically out of bed, prompting a flood of recall. My mind’s eye flashed a picture of a fat greasy hamburger, a snapshot of a forlorn bank teller, and a black winter coat hung on a hook by a cash register. I was hungry enough to eat the whole university and found myself on my feet.

  “You fuckin’ asshole pile of shit fuckin’ turd,” I screamed. Everything poured out of me in one violent explosion, sparks and fire, tears and rage, frustration and self-pity. I was crying and swearing; not only was Sterm shocked and the class shocked, and I suppose Barb, but I was shocked at myself. I felt outside my body, elevated on a stool behind me, watching the whole ordeal from a comfortable distance with shock and dismay.

  Despite my fitful hysteria, I maintained an eloquent, even poetic, stream of dialogue. In a storm of obscenities, I explained the story of the engineer falling off the clock tower while painting it pink as an allegory of life. I gave an emphatic demonstration of the sound of his body hitting the pavement. Then I took an imaginative departure from the truth. I constructed an outrageous lie, wailing and gesticulating about how my mother had recently committed suicide by jumping from the twelfth floor of an apartment building. They found fragments of her skull fifty yards from her body. I saw it all and ran to embrace the shattered remains of my mother’s body. Thus ended the description. There was a deathly hush. Sterm’s mouth was open, but nothing came out. I took that as my cue to pick up my piece of paper and march out of class.

  “Ken,” said a voice, chasing me down the hall. I waited for Barb to catch up. “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “What?” I said. My eyes were dry. I had that refreshed feeling you get after a good cry.

  “About your mother jumping off that apartment building.”

  “I made it up,” I said. “My mother’s not the type to commit suicide. She loves sex too much. She thinks of herself as the best piece of ass in America.”

  “How could you make a story like that up?”

  “It came to me out of the blue, spontaneously,” I said. “My Drama professor tells us to practice acting in our day-to-day lives, at a bar or the library or the registrar’s office. Go beserk in the university center for no reason; act angry or upset. Pretend you’re a homosexual, a football player, or a retarded person. He says it’s not only fun, it’s a good way of getting what you want out of certain situations. My professor gets on the bus for free by pretending he’s blind. He makes himself look like an old man to get into the movies cheaper. He has unconventional teaching methods, and he’s totally unscrupulous, but there’s something sensible about everything he says. I’m his pet student, his protégé. I wanted an excuse to get out of class early because I was hungry.”

  “Sterm was stunned,” said Barb. “He’ll never attempt a class discussion again.”

  There was no need to verbalize the destination. We headed directly to The Artsie Fartsie. The exciting thing about acting is that a good actor never really acts, not on the inside. He doesn’t fake it, or behave like someone else, but finds the character he’s portraying within himself; the homosexual or football player or retarded person. I have all kinds of people inside me and, as an actor, I can discover them. Through acting I can be more me, more aware of me. The story about my mother’s death was fictitious, but the emotion I expressed was real. I was acting, but I wasn’t acting.

  I had my first taste of power as an artist. Art is power, real power, internal power, power of the heart and soul. The artist is a spiritual muscle-man. As an academic, Sterm spent his life studying and idealizing artists. Although the academic deifies the artist, when he meets someone with an artistic temperament, someone with the instincts of an artist, but not the successful reputation, someone like myself, he has an instant negative reaction. The academic is status-conscious. He humbles himself to the artist and expects his students to humble themselves to him. An artistic person is often vain, arrogant, and obnoxiously outspoken, and the academic is affronted by the audacity of such a student. The academic seeks out his own kind, warms up to the burgeoning young schola
rs, and treats the potential artist with cool distrust.

  “Fantastic!” said Barb, shaking her head in amazement. “Especially the part about kissing the shattered remains of your mother’s skull.”

  I drooled over my lunch, growled, and snapped at anyone that came near my hamburger. It felt good to have food inside me. I burped quietly and blew in the opposite direction, so Barb couldn’t smell it. While my head was turned, I recognized a familiar face. At a nearby table was my fighting partner from the night before, and he noticed me at the same time. We looked away in unison. I bent my head and whispered a condensed version of the story to Barb, about getting laid in the bedroom of “that guy over there” and being sick and getting dragged by him out of the bathroom. When I told her it was embarrassing because my penis was sore and shrivelled from too much sex, she was on her feet.

  “You big prick,” she yelled at the guy two tables away. The guy didn’t know what to do, but his girlfriend responded immediately. Barb and his girlfriend were shouting at each other. I had to hold Barb back and calm her. The stranger was doing the same thing with his girlfriend. I had had enough for the day and took the earliest opportunity to leave for my secure little room in the dorm.

  It was cold outside without a coat. I was passionate for sleep, for the warmth of my bed. I had satisfied my lust for food and needed to satisfy my lust for sleep. The craving was urgent so everything had to wait, the dry cleaners, the bank line, exams.

  “Hi, Ken!” said a voice.

  “Hi, Henry,” I said.

  “Where’s your coat?” asked Henry. Henry Kissing-Balls, who didn’t know if his class was at two or three or four or five, was giving me advice on how to look after myself. I ignored the question.

  “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me last night,” I said, shivering. “I met this girl at a party. We went upstairs …”