Goldenrod

by Peter Gault

  I hurriedly said good-bye to Dad and Sara and hurriedly said hello to Mother. Dad must have phoned Mother because she didn’t mention Shultz. I was anxious. I didn’t want to stand around talking. I wanted Mother to drive faster on the highway, and I didn’t bother to put my suitcase in the house. I put it in the garage and got my bike. It was a sudden mild spell and the roads were wet, not icy. I stopped off at a mall to buy Elizabeth flowers and an album. The bike seemed to pedal itself the rest of the way. I rode with one hand.

  There were no cars in the driveway, and no cars meant no parents—an encouraging sign. I expected Elizabeth to intuitively sense my arrival, throw open the door as I was about to knock, and press her voluptuous body against mine. The door had been left open a crack, and I stepped quietly into the house. Elizabeth’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. I heard two familiar voices, laughter. I followed the voices and stood in the doorway, flowers in one hand and an album in the other. Phil was sitting up in bed, a hairy leg protruding from the sheets. Elizabeth was at the base of the bed, partially naked, modelling an apron. The apron exposed her backside and perhaps that was the joke. There was a picture of Charlie Brown on the apron trying to kick a field goal. Lucy had pulled the ball away and Charlie Brown landed flat on his back. Phil noticed me first. The laughter ceased.

  “What’s so funny,” I whispered. Phil bowed his head. Elizabeth stood her ground and looked me boldly in the eye.

  “If my parents could only see your face now!” said Elizabeth.

  The cruelty of her response frightened me. I didn’t like her parents and gave them no reason to like me; but, strangely, it hurt to know that the feeling was mutual. I hated the feeling of being excluded from the Baldwin family or from the warmth of a joke. I walked backwards down the hall. Elizabeth pursued me, stalked me. I stumbled over a fold in the plastic footpath. She was zeroing in for the kill.

  “How was your holiday?” asked Elizabeth sarcastically.

  “I don’t like airports,” I said.

  “You don’t have much of a tan.”

  “It rained,” I said.

  “You’re going bald,” said Elizabeth. This was the crudest blow of all, a direct hit in the genital area. I had noticed my hair thinning, but up to that point I hadn’t admitted it to myself.

  “My father is bald,” I said. “I guess it’s hereditary.”

  Phil’s car was parked on the street. How could I have missed it? I dropped the flowers and album at the end of the driveway. There was something wrong with my bike. The wheel was rubbing against something. I had to stand on the pedal and pull with my arms to achieve forward momentum. The wet roads, mixed with dirt, contributed to the stickiness. I jumped off, kicked the wheel, and jumped on again, but it didn’t stop the rubbing. I made it to the main street. The traffic was backed up for some reason, probably an accident. It was downhill, but seemed like the steepest incline I had ever climbed. I was barely moving, like the traffic. I hopped off, ran with the bike, hopped on. Nothing unclogged. I slowed to a snail’s pace. I pushed and pushed and pushed and kept on pushing.

  9. Gay By Default

  I stood naked in front of a mirror in the dorm bathroom frantically massaging my head. Baldness! The primordial male fear, a major crisis point in the life of a golden boy. Massaging loosens the scalp and provides a nourishing supply of blood to the hair follicles. I jerked the skin below the hairline. Intellectual masturbation. My hair was thinning. There was hair on my pillow in the morning, hair collected in the drain after a shower, hair was in my food. I was confronted by the degeneration of my own body, death, mortality.

  “I hate you, February,” I said to my reflection. “February, you’re a miserable bastard.”

  I slapped my penis to make it hang better and look bigger and returned to massaging my scalp. I practiced my eye exercises, left-right, up-down, around in circles. I farted and waited for the aroma to rise to nostril level. Beer! Now it was rotting my insides. Fortunately, there were no exterior signs of second degree alcoholism, no purple veins on my nose, no bloating, no fat. I had lost weight. My body was thinning like my hair.

  I made my towel into a cushion, placed it on the bench, and used it to stand on my head. Blood rushed to the rescue of the hair follicles. I could see my genitals in the mirror, topsy-turvy, and I giggled with affection. They looked like a caricature of the pudgy head of a Jewish baker, with wispy hair and a big nose. Blind Chuck came in and urinated, but I was quiet and he didn’t notice me.

  I lolled in the shower. Showering, one of the most heightened experiences in daily life, appeals to my sensual nature. I was covered in suds from head to foot when I heard my phone ringing across the hall. God had contrived a plot to interrupt my showers as punishment for my sins. God is a vindictive bastard! I streaked to my room, feeling like Mr. Bubble, caught in the act of fondling babies in a bathtub, exposed as a pervert and a child molester. The mother and father were right behind me armed with garden shears. Chuck’s dog barked, but I didn’t bark back because I wasn’t feeling playful towards dogs. Dogs were dumb, unclean animals. I didn’t like the way they pissed and shit everywhere.

  “It’s Elizabeth,” said a voice on the phone. She sounded soft and nervous.

  “Elizabeth who?” I responded caustically. “The Queen?”

  “Elizabeth Baldwin.”

  “Fuck off and die,” I said.

  “Please!” pleaded Elizabeth. “Listen to me. If you hang up I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “I have a few suggestions …” I said, but I didn’t make them. The fact was that I didn’t know what Elizabeth would do either, and sometimes she scared me. I didn’t really want her to fuck off and die. She was a mystery to me, not a woman. She was something that defined me, with her beauty and her poise, but she wasn’t a separate being. I couldn’t detach her from my ego. I couldn’t even guess what was going on inside her.

  “I want you to know, Ken, that I didn’t make love to Phil. We just slept together. I was lonely and missing you and needed to be close to someone. You seemed to have dropped me cold, for no reason and without a word of explanation. You forgot about me just like you forgot about hockey, like I wasn’t a person.”

  “I’ve got a good memory, but it’s short,” I said meaninglessly.

  “Do you believe me?” asked Elizabeth.

  “It’s a technicality. If you didn’t fuck around in fact, you certainly fucked around in spirit. I’m sure there was lots of fondling under the covers.”

  There were voices inside my head screaming at me: ‘hypocrite.’ They were the voices of my sisters, a chorus of seven betrayed females. I was unfaithful to Elizabeth from the moment I set foot in Stockton, in fact and in spirit. I was sure Elizabeth’s experience with Phil was more human and less sordid than my experience with the Vomiter. I recognized the proverbial double standard and struggled to pacify my jealous anger.

  “Suddenly you’re at my door, all humble and flowers in your hand,” continued Elizabeth. “I have to wait upon your mood, which is about as consistent as the weather. I felt angry, destructive. Let’s stop hurting each other. Let’s help each other, love each other. It could be so nice! I think of you putting your arms around me and hugging me, and it makes me cry. I love you, Ken Harrison. I love you more now than I ever have. You have to see me again, at least once, and soon, Saturday at the latest. You have to! Please!”

  “Well,” I said, my defenses beginning to crumble like the first tumbling rock of an avalanche. It was the sound of my name, pronounced in full, that burned down my throat and warmed my stomach. The sound of my name was intoxicating. “Maybe once,” I said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. And we’re not going anywhere near a bed. No screwing. We’ll sit on the plastic in the living room, drink and talk and I’ll go home early.”

  Ring Stadium was like any other bar on Friday night: crowded, loud, feverish, irascible, passionate. It was an intensified world, a world of back alley fights, sadness and rejection, boisterous op
timism. I loved the crazed, primitive atmosphere. I loved the contagious excitement. I loved the raw emotion which was visible on every face. Bars aren’t evil or superficial. They are profoundly sincere, a place where self-deceivers confront their own loneliness and brave men find freedom. Ring Stadium was sacred, a spiritual heaven, a prison, heaven and hell rolled into one.

  Henry Kissing-Balls, my partner at the stand-up bar, looked characteristically handsome, dopey, and sleepy-eyed. He had a cosmic consciousness, a mental affinity for metaphysical and abstract thought. It was his leaning towards abstraction that made the practical struggle of daily life so complicated and insurmountable. If only Henry didn’t have to contend with the society that whirled around him! If only he could break his Promethean chains and soar into the universe.

  Henry was respected by his fellow earthlings. He bobbed aimlessly, and everyone who passed him returned the bob. This nervous gesture made him seem friendly and approachable. The bob was interpreted as both a gallant salutation and an esoteric signal between two higher minds. It was flattering to be greeted by Henry’s bob. It was as if this stranger understood you. Consequently, there was no one who didn’t know Henry or who didn’t feel a deep, telepathic bond with him. Henry was unconscious of his appeal and popularity. He was unconscious of his own bobbing. He rarely knew the names of his spiritual brothers and sisters.

  “I finally got over my existential crisis,” said Henry, raising his voice above the music. “Now I’m in the middle of an identity crisis.”

  “If it’s not one thing it’s another,” I sympathized. “You’re supposed to have the identity crisis first. You should try getting more sleep at night.”

  He briefly considered this option and replied, “I wish it was that easy. Sleep won’t increase my self-knowledge. I have to wait for that first line of poetry. That’s when the answers will come.”

  Stockton was alive at the beginning of a semester. It was a fresh start, complete with a brand new slate of classes and highlighted by enthusiastic reunions with friends. I had an animated meeting with Barb at The Artsie Fartsie. It was the first day back and we had a lot to talk about. Before I could tell her what happened with Elizabeth, that I considered myself single, available, free to date and screw with a clear conscience, that I was ripe for the picking, Barb began to talk about some guy she met from another university. Apparently, her new boyfriend was a wonderful person, intelligent, articulate, artistic. I was happy for her. Fate conspired to make us friends, not lovers. Arguing with fate is like pissing into the wind.

  Steve Lawson pissed with the wind at his back. He had an uninhibited confidence, the type of guy who farts at a crowded urinal. He stepped out of the men’s room at Ring Stadium and looked in my direction. Lawson had earned a widespread popularity for his expertise as a hockey player, his good looks, and his lively sense of humor. It was Henry he recognized, not me. Lawson smiled. Henry bobbed.

  “Pressed shirt, with seam along the shoulder,” said Lawson, without an introduction. He stopped in front of Henry and pointed to the seam with his finger. Lawson had the temperament of an actor, and his eyes sparkled with common sense and wit. “Pressed pants with seam down the front. New shoes, cost $95.00. Seiko watch, also very expensive.” He put the watch to his ear and listened for the tick. “Rings are gold, fourteen-karat gold, my favorite number. I can’t lose tonight.” Lawson didn’t bother with a formal au revoir. He imitated the clownish strut of a macho disco playboy—the type that drives a Trans-am and leaves his shirt open to the navel—and sat at a table with two girls.

  Lawson was right. He couldn’t lose. The magic blood of a golden boy pumped through his veins. Henry laughed for an inordinately long period of time. I didn’t find it that funny.

  I had survived a day of desperate horniness in the library. There was something about being in a library that gave me an instant erection; it made my whole body burn with lust. I regularly reached under the desk and squeezed my hard-on, rubbed it up and down, and went back to writing my essay. It was a nagging itch that wouldn’t leave me alone. I stood up and circled my desk, restless and frustrated. I was plagued by mental images of female anatomy appearing all over the pages in front of me. Women passed my desk on the way to the bathroom, and I couldn’t help glaring at their body parts. I drooled on the desk once, which was shameful and embarrassing. I considered masturbating in the bathroom, but decided against it because of my aversion to unpleasant smells. A girl had fallen asleep in one of the lounge chairs in the smoking area, unaware that her legs were spread as wide as the prairies. I looked at her crotch every thirty seconds.

  Ironically, bars tended to cool my eagerness for sex. The flame of desire is reduced to a burning coal. It was with a clear head that I noticed an attractive girl who, I was convinced, was staring at me. It was an encouraging look, a look of sexual curiosity. I racked my brains for something to say, an original approach, an intelligent or humorous introduction. I would have to gain her trust, establish a comfortable, harmonious rapport, let her know that I wasn’t a pervert, a rapist, or an obnoxiously persistent sex hound. Everything hinged on the first line. I was looking for that first line of poetry.

  I could have borrowed a cigarette, but that was as unimaginative as “haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” or “do you come here often?” Some cheapskates get nasty about handing over a cigarette, especially if they haven’t got many left. I could ask to buy a cigarette from her, and she would probably insist that I take one for free, but I remembered that I didn’t smoke. I would look awkward trying to act like an experienced smoker. I was beginning to realize that meeting a woman in a bar was not easy. It never occurred to me to simply walk over and say, “hello.”

  I created mock conversations in my head and attempted to predict the outcome. “Do you know what the population of the world is?” I imagined myself saying with playful seriousness, like a child asking why the sky is blue.

  She would laugh at my unconventional question, cast an amused smile at her girlfriend, and look back at me with parental concern. She would have a sense of humor herself, play along with the game, and answer in good faith, “About thirty-five billion, dear.”

  “That’s a lonely number,” I would say.

  I contemplated various scenarios like asking her opinion of the seal hunt atrocities. If she was majoring in social work or had liberal political leanings or some other manifestation of middle-class guilt, I would give her an irresistible offer. I would offer her a martyrdom, “Fuck me or I’ll kill myself.” That was not my style, too crude and unsophisticated! If she was incapable of guilt, void of compassion, or had conservative political leanings, I would take a more domineering approach. I would take her for a ride in my mammoth yacht and when we were in the middle of the lake I would give her that infamous, right-wing ultimatum, “Hump or jump.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have a yacht handy or a large body of water. In the arena of sexual politics, I was a liberal by default.

  Henry Kissing-Balls was gay by default. He was talking to Chris, the homosexual I used to cock-tease in philosophy class last semester. Chris monopolized Henry’s attention and profoundly empathized with his identity crisis. Chris was throwing resentful vibes in my direction, afraid that I intended to steal his man. I needed empathy too, but I hadn’t given up on women yet.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I decided to make my move. It was an order from that heterosexual commander in my brain. I zigged and zagged through the crowd until I was standing directly behind the object of my aspiration, this unconquered territory. There was no turning back. I was frightened by my own nervousness. It was absurd to feel such anxiety just because I wanted to talk to a member of the opposite sex.

  “Excuse me, member of the opposite sex,” I croaked. She turned and looked at me with an expression of impatience. “Do you know what the population of the world is?”

  She stared at me blankly, and looked away without answering. I contemplated the back of her head, unsure of my next move. Questions
raced through my mind. Had she misheard me? Had she heard me at all? Should I repeat the line? Jokes aren’t funny when you have to repeat them to someone who didn’t get it the first time. They lose the illusion of spontaneity. No! I didn’t need to repeat it. There was no doubt she had heard me.

  I skulked back to Henry and Chris with a limp dick, my tail between my legs. Why the provocative eyes and the zombie face when I confronted her? It was possible to get rid of me without being rude. She could have explained that she didn’t come to Ring Stadium, and hang around the standup bar with the single people and stare down men across from her because she wanted to talk to anyone. She could have explained that she came to a bar to stare into thin air, like a vegetable, like a cow grazing in a pasture, not to talk. She could have explained that she was too dead between the ears or too bored with herself to be capable of responding to what I had to say. I would have understood. I would have been happy to leave her alone.

  It was a difficult role a man had to play in a bar, difficult not to fall into the stereotype of the insensitive cock chasing a quick pickup. The man was in the position of dreaming up an opening line, and the woman was the judge. The Queen says, “We are not amused,” and off goes the head. Women may get trodden on and abused within a relationship, but they have the power at a singles bar. I wanted a more balanced power structure. I wanted to be the one asked to dance, to be the judge of the opening lines. I wanted to be the critic instead of always having to perform.

  I stood on my toes because I felt short. I should have worn my shoes with the heels. I tried to forgive the girl who had jilted me. She was as lost and as lonely and as horny as the rest of us, but she had been conditioned to deny it, as if there was something disgusting about being lost and lonely and horny, as if it was something to conceal, something like closet homosexuality. Chuck passed me with a beautiful woman on his arm, someone I had never seen before. I marveled quietly without interrupting his progress out the door, and, no doubt, to a bed large enough for two. Why did a blind man need such an attractive girl? He couldn’t see her! He should have had a girl who felt nice, not one who looked beautiful.