Goldenrod

by Peter Gault

  “Brag about it,” I said emphatically. “Be proud. Act like getting fired was the greatest accomplishment of your life. If nothing else, it’ll confuse people.”

  Phil looked like he was wondering if I was going crazy. I knew he didn’t care about the job itself. It was parting with the public image of success and youth that bothered him. When someone’s parents or a girl at a party, asked him, “What do you do?” he wanted to say, “I’m the image of success and youth!” I wanted the courage not to have to say that. I wanted the courage to say, “I’m scum. I’m a piece of shit. Spit on me.” I wanted to say that with supreme confidence, and if I could say that with supreme confidence, I’d have won the battle against public images. If I could say that with genuine confidence, the women would fight for my love because it would be the most valuable love in the world, and men would emulate me. Religious fanatics would recognize me as Christ, come for the second time.

  Phil broke the silence by turning on the car stereo. With music playing it was like there was more than two of us, which was comforting. It released me from the obligation to talk. I could fade into myself, stare out the window, and let my fantasies roam freely. I imagined myself running beside the car, keeping up easily and tirelessly, dodging people, and charging over the roofs of parked cars. Then I was cross-country skiing, even though it was the fall and there was no snow on the ground. The parked cars were ski jumps, enabling me to do flips and somersaults in midair. I skied only on grass and had to jump over driveways and patches of cement. I soon became frustrated with skiing and switched to riding a horse bareback which was my favorite.

  I played road hockey beside the car. I took slap shots from out the car window, watched the puck sail into the sky like a golf ball at a driving range, and waited until the car caught up to the puck again before taking another shot. As we neared the Baldwin residence, I caught glimpses of Elizabeth and myself standing in doorways kissing, falling on top of each other in front vestibules. Elizabeth and I embraced with the force of a sledgehammer, and it hurt, hurt good. I shoved my face in her hair and held on determinedly. My chin twitched a few times, but I managed to hold back the tears.

  When I walked through the Baldwin’s front door, I was hit by an odor so pungent that it nearly knocked me off my feet. It was the smell of Ajax. Inhaling Ajax fumes was better for destroying brain cells than sniffing glue. Everyone was feeling dizzy and stoned even before the liquor was served. Pools of Ajax were eating holes through the plastic runners and linoleum in the kitchen. I had a rum and Coke which tasted like a full ounce of Ajax had been added. There were sandwiches and squares of lasagna which I couldn’t eat because they were soggy with Ajax. Mrs. Baldwin disappeared into the washroom with a bottle of Ajax and when she came out her eyes were glossy and bloodshot, piss-holes in the snow. I was saddened and sickened to realize that Mrs. Baldwin had become an Ajax junky.

  Her personality quirks were bizarrely exaggerated. Even during tranquil and happy days in the past, she tended to overreact to minor problems. Today, however, she went berserk over the most trivial malfunctions, was crazed and panicked because she forgot the silverware, and shouted at anyone who got in her way. In an effort to calm her, I made the mistake of offering to get the knives and forks from the kitchen drawer.

  “No! Not those,” she screamed, as if I had threatened to use some kind of cruel instrument of torture on her. It had to be the special silverware for special occasions. She finally located the special silverware and put it proudly on the table, but it didn’t look right to me. Every piece was blotched and stained from having been soaked in Ajax.

  Mrs. Baldwin patrolled her guests in the living room. No sooner would someone take his last bite of the meal than Mrs. Baldwin would scurry up to him, yank the plate out of his hand, and disappear into the kitchen. One woman hadn’t finished her meal, and they wrestled over the plate a few seconds before she gave it up. The dishes were thrown into a sink full of hot water and Ajax. A piece of something fell off my plate. She scowled and growled at me and got out the vacuum cleaner. In the middle of dinner, surrounded by guests, she started vacuuming the floor. She put the vacuum cleaner away, fiercely snatched up a few empty plates, and rushed to the kitchen, returning with a cloth that reeked of Ajax, and began washing the plastic runner. Like everyone else standing around talking, I pretended not to notice her. I could only pretend, however, until she had washed my shoes with the cloth and was working her way up my legs.

  I ran to another part of the room. Mrs. Baldwin stood up and got herself a glass of wine, spiked heavily with Ajax. Standing behind me were the three blonde girls. One girl explained that she wanted to be a fashion designer, but was studying computer programming at a community college. The other girl wanted to own a little store in a small town, sell interesting things like plants, puppy dogs, and wool sweaters she would knit herself, but she got accepted at a school for urban planning, and figured she shouldn’t pass up the opportunity. The third girl was getting married to a man she didn’t really love, just liked. In fact, he was a very nice guy, and a friend of her brother. Her mother was organizing the whole thing. Wasn’t that nice of her? They were full of excitement and giggles about the wedding.

  “How’s school, Ken?” said Mr. Simmons, the friendly neighbor with the billboard smile. I hadn’t seen him since Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin’s twenty-fifth happy anniversary party.

  “Best years of my life, Mr. Simmons.”

  Mr. Simmons was operating a makeshift bar in the dining room, mixing and spilling drinks with his big clumsy hands. He looked bigger than usual, like Phil, and clumsier. The room was too small for him. It looked like he couldn’t move without bumping into furniture and knocking over the glass ornaments in the china cabinet. He reminded me of a cartoon character. I could never think of him as a real person.

  “The holiday is almost over for you,” said Mr. Simmons, predictably. “Time to find work, a good job, a wife, get into a firm that’ll look after you.”

  “No, Mr. Simmons, my whole life is going to be a holiday. The world is a huge playground and I intend to have lots of fun. But I’m not staying in America when I want to be in Portugal, or be a Computer Programmer or an Urban Planner or a Chartered Accountant, when I want to be a goddam actor and nothing else, if you don’t goddam mind. I’m not even getting married to someone unless I’m goddam crazy about her, and even then I’d rather not. I’d rather just live with her because I’ve always felt that the institution of marriage is stupid and useless.”

  At this point in my monologue, I turned toward the window and was struck by a sight that made me gasp with fright. Mr. Baldwin was on the roof of the house, still wearing the suit from the funeral, and a baseball cap with a Sears Automotive insignia on the front, digging the leaves out of the gutter with a hand spade. The task commanded his total concentration. I was afraid he would fall, afraid of the sound of the drop, of him hitting the ground. I knew the horror of that sound. I turned to Mr. Simmons, who had been joined by Elizabeth’s cousin, alias Porky. Porky was ravenously stuffing his face with Ajax-flavored lasagna and listening to Mr. Simmons’ lecture on the state of the economy. I rushed to the bathroom.

  Locking the door, I pulled down my pants and opened my shirt. I stared at myself in fascination, studying my face, chest, hands, genitals. Everything was in working order; perfection, as a matter of fact. I had never looked better, sexier, more captivating.

  “I know where you are, Elizabeth,” I said loudly to my reflection. “I’ve found you. You’re with me, inside me, seeing what I see. I need you here, your presence, your guidance.”

  I wrapped my fist around my penis and pumped. My penis was hard as iron, purply red, gorged with blood. I steadied myself with one hand on the counter and bent my knees. I squeezed and pounded until sperm flew in every direction, landing in puddles on the counter, splattering against the mirror. I was still as hard as ever. I wanted to do it a second time, but I heard shuffling noises outside the washroom door. I pulled my underw
ear over my erection and cleaned up with Kleenex, flushing the evidence down the toilet. I threw open the door to discover one of the blonde girls waiting to get in, the one getting married to the nice guy, her brother’s friend.

  “I heard you talking to youself, making noises,” she said. “What were you saying?”

  “I was reciting a love poem,” I said.

  12. The Sex King

  “Would you like to make love?”

  “No thanks,” I sighed, sinking comfortably into a billowing easy chair. “I’m a bit tired tonight.”

  Heather smiled at me slyly and swaggered up the stairs, wiggling her hips flirtatiously. I followed.

  “I’ll have to get a condom out of my knapsack,” I yelled after her. I carried a supply of condoms on my person at all times, equipped for bizarre and unexpected liaisons with a wide variety of women.

  “Get six!” rang Heather’s voice lustily from the bedroom.

  Heather pulled the sheet up to her chin, watching me as I undressed, and placed a towel over the lampshade to give the bedroom a more romantic combination of light and darkness. I enjoyed roaming around naked in front of a woman. My penis pointed straight out like a diving board. Her eyes were on me fixedly, sensually, which made me tingle inside with a graceful, erotic kind of energy. Heather giggled as I fluttered and pirouetted across the room like a ballerina, pointing my toes and leaping into the air. I was on stage which was where I belonged.

  A long, cold, frostbitten winter had passed since the funeral. Although there were no permanent changes in my physiology, there were transitory changes in the way I presented myself. I now wore a thick, dark beard, which was thicker and darker than the hair on my head. My idol was D. H. Lawrence, The Priest of Love, and I emulated his hairy face and passionate glare. Now, summer was here. It was too hot for a beard; but I hadn’t found a clean-shaven hero. My chest was wrapped in a bandage protecting three cracked ribs. I told Heather that I was attacked by a bear, but she countered with stubborn disbelieving logic. She asked when, where, how, and I was too slow with answers. I told her I had sex with a bear. She relented, respecting my privacy, worried that perhaps I was telling the truth.

  “The most important thing in life is crawling into bed with someone you love and screwing your brains out,” I said philosophically.

  I stood by the window, permitting Heather a view of my profile, and stared at the moon. The moon was isolated and lonely, looking down upon a billion Ken Harrisons, watching a billion men make love to a billion women. I wondered how many men like me were making love to women like Heather. Too many. My life, family, friends, enemies, everyone I had ever talked to or touched, were as insignificant as a turd. Why did I feel so good, so free? Probably because I was about to get laid.

  “The most important thing in life is the expression of love,” I said.

  “You don’t love me,” she said.

  “I can love you for being a human being like me, for being lonely like me, for being horny like me.”

  “You like to love all different kinds of women. You’ve got a sweet tooth.”

  “I’ve got a horny tooth.”

  I lay gingerly beside her under the sheet, feeling my penis grow and harden. Because of my sore ribs, I remained on my back and waited for Heather to come to me. The anticipation of sex is a delectable preoccupation, worth prolonging to unbearable limits. My erection soared into the night like a pearly white spotlight, an enduring phosphorescent glow emanating from the center of my body, casting the town of Stockton in a spiritual illumination. I enjoyed being hard, the cool sheets on my bare bum, squirming like a baby. Heather approached me with suspenseful hesitancy. I waited for her touch, the sensation of her prickly fingers on my penis. She hovered above me, poised, slowly bobbing up and down, teasing us both, and finally easing down on me. My eyeballs spun in their sockets like the wheels of a slot machine.

  “I’ll be careful not to hurt your ribs,” she promised.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said in a hushed panic.

  Black hair poured down one side of her head reaching the pillow. She had a dark beauty which was uniquely her own and a glossy look in her eye when she made love. I needed physical contact with another person, to touch another human being, contact with something that had blood pumping through its veins. That was what sex meant to me. I told her that with my eyes. I didn’t move a muscle. Heather did the moving. I concentrated on sustaining the state of elevated sensitivity, walking precariously along the edge without falling over. I stopped her and pulled out, had half an orgasm, and went back in again, more sure of my capacity to make it last. As the tension in her body mounted, I increased the harshness of my movement; we exploded together, grinding out the final sensations.

  We kissed and hugged quietly, careful not to put too much pressure on my rib cage, until Heather was suddenly asleep in my arms. I had to urinate and managed to slip away without waking her up, but her roommate was using the bathroom. I was sleepy and returned to bed without emptying my bladder. Heather had complained bitterly about her roommate occupying the bathroom for unnaturally long periods of time, marathon showers, workouts with her long thick-handled electric toothbrush. There are only so many things you can do with one of those electric toothbrushes. I had marvelously sordid fantasies about her in the washroom with that toothbrush plugged in and humming.

  Heather and I were at a tenuous stage in the dating cycle. After having slept together three times, it was almost time for a decision to be made, for the relationship to become more serious, or be abruptly extinguished. Or, an arrangement could be made to be friends, and only sleep together occasionally, which was what usually happened to such relationships until one or the other of us found someone else. We had to define things, the way we felt, predict the future, make forecasts. The pressure was there for both of us whether the question was raised or not. We had to know for ourselves. I loved her and wanted her forever. She was beautiful.

  My mind, unclouded by sleep, dallied over events of the summer.

  “I’ve got no money, but I’m incredibly virile,” I said with a hint of a smile, leaning on the bar at Ring Stadium. I had an expression of self-assured humor on my bearded face which women found especially irresistible.

  Smiling across from me was a redheaded girl with milky white skin and pretty features. I wasn’t strictly and narrowly a brunette man, although I had a history of primarily brunette girlfriends. I was liberated, open minded, and interested in women of every shade and hair color. There was a softness about the redhead, a frailty that made my heart bloat up like a helium balloon and float into the clouds. I had a kingdom of love to give her. I wanted to give her the world, not to mention my heart, my soul, and my money. I wanted nothing in return, not love, not support, not sex. I was possessed by a vast, abstract kind of love burning inside me like indigestion. I needed to bleed my heart like a radiator. I needed to loosen the valve and release a little pressure.

  “Did you know that most nymphomaniacs have red hair?” I said happily, trying to make her laugh again. She had an uncontrollable, high-pitched laugh which was spontaneous, awkward, and very attractive.

  “Brag some more,” she chided warmly. “I like hearing you brag. Tell me how great you are.”

  “I haven’t exactly experienced greatness yet, but I fully intend to one day. I was never a great hockey player, not big-league calibre, although I don’t hesitate to say I was good. I love music, rhythm and blues, rock, jazz, folk, but I’m no musician. I’m probably the most tone-deaf person who ever existed. I like art, and have good ideas, but I’ve got retarded fingers and could never paint or draw the images that flash through my mind. I’m certainly not a great student. I’m not even good, just average. I could be a great actor one day, but I recognize the risk in that. It’s possible that I’ll never be better than good which will be something I’ll have to live with. I do have something that’s growing inside me, something that’s definitely great, that’s creative, powerful, and sane. I
t’s a capacity to generate love. Love oozes out of every pore in my body. Does that sound hysterical?”

  I continued with churlish conceit. “The woman who gets me will be one lucky girl to have all that passion to herself. She wouldn’t know what to do with all of it. She would probably take advantage of it, squander it, not appreciate its greatness until she lost it. My love explodes through the boundary of womankind and embraces all humanity. I’ll look across the bar and see some guy with a moustache and a hairy chest and enough gold chains around his neck to sink a battleship, and I’ll be overcome by an incredible feeling of love for him. I’m not gay. It’s got nothing to do with sex. I just see how hard he tries. I see something pure and human and vulnerable in him, even though I’d probably think he was a jerk if I knew him personally. I feel that my love is contagious. I feel I can fill up Ring Stadium, Stockton, the universe, with my love. I have enough love for everyone, and it’s my duty to spread the wealth around.”

  “It’s true,” said Henry Kissing-Balls, verifying my speech with an absolutely solemn expression which produced a comic effect. I hadn’t realized that Henry was standing behind me. “He loves everyone,” emphasized Henry.

  A lot of women wanted to be Henry’s friend because it was fashionable and chic for a woman to have a homosexual male friend, someone to escort her to bars, to run to if she’s being bothered by a guy she doesn’t like. Henry was confronting these women friends one by one and trying to seduce them. Henry and Chris had a lovers’ spat, something to do with spending time with me, and Henry decided to take the heterosexual route. If he had to endure the petty quarrels of a monogamous relationship, he might as well do it with a woman. At least you don’t feel inclined to sneak around when you’re involved with a member of the opposite sex.