The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up

by Jacob M. Appel

“They’re essential for the proper balance of yin and yang,” answered Cassandra. “And they improve the sex drive.”

  He was suffocating on rotten sugar beets and the girl was proffering theories on the spiritual properties of tomatoes. Which weren’t even true. Tomatoes screwed with your yin and yang. They were totally incompatible with a macrobiotic diet. Drano offered more promise as an aphrodisiac.

  “What’s that over there?” asked Backwards Cap.

  “Compost. Decaying produce. Would you like to try some?”

  “Jesus, that stinks,” answered the agent. “You eat that?”

  “I don’t,” said Cassandra. “But you’re welcome to.”

  Backwards Cap muttered a word that sounded like “bitch” and slammed shut the window, preventing Arnold from hearing the remainder of the conversation. The two agents stayed in the apartment for another hour. Arnold could feel the watery sludge soaking into his shoes and creeping around his groin. His haemorrhoids itched; the waterline tickled his nostrils. He didn’t dare move. If the hippie movement were looking for a modern variant of medieval torture, compost dunking was surely it.

  Arnold felt as though his entire body had started to decompose when he heard the window squeak open again.

  “You still out here?” called Cassandra.

  The botanist climbed out of the trough and opened his eyes. Sludge trickled off all of his bodies extremities, even dripping from his hair. Cassandra nearly collapsed in hysterics. “I had no clue…” she gasped between fits of laughter. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like a giant pickle. What took you so long?”

  “They had a whole series of questions to ask,” answered the girl, composing herself. “Not just about you. Also about Spitford. And the Bare-Ass Bandit. They seem to think you and Bare-Ass are in cahoots.” Cassandra handed him a towel through the window. “And then I had to give each of those fine officers a blowjob to keep them from arresting you on the spot.”

  Arnold examined her face closely. He honestly didn’t know if she were sincere.

  “I hope you’re joking,” he said tentatively.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” snapped the girl. “If that was all it took to get you out of trouble, you’d be grateful for it.”

  “That’s not true,” objected Arnold.

  “Yes, it is. You just can’t decide whether you’re revolted or jealous.” The girl disappeared from the window and he heard the bath water running. “Anyway, I’m the one who should be offended,” she called out, “that you’d even think I was serious.”

  The incident with the compost trough changed Arnold’s relationship with the girl. Before that, he’d made a point of reassuring himself that his feelings toward her might have been base, but at least his intentions were honourable. Yet once she’d made reference to his jealousy, he realized that he was indeed jealous—or that he would have been, had she pursued another romantic interest. This prospect remained highly unlikely, of course, because, except for work, Cassandra hardly left the apartment. But now the botanist took a greater interest in her wants and moods. He stole glances at her as she lay in bed, reading Habermas by the bedside lamp, and he longed to exchange places with the dozing German shepherd at her feet. He replayed their conversations in his mind, delving for hidden meanings in apparently casual remarks. Her playful insults, which had previously amused him, now stung like darts. And once, when he warned her not to eat off her knife blade and she jokingly called him ‘Papa’, his face flamed up with fury and disappointment. Arnold’s feelings grew so all-consuming that he passed several consecutive afternoons pacing the apartment, for hours on end, contemplating the idyllic life they might live together if he headed the Tashkent Botanical Gardens. But he didn’t share his fantasies with the girl. In the first place, he was twice her age. And married. And out of practice. But deep down he knew none of these factors was holding him back. The only impediment was that he was scared of rejection.

  Arnold stayed in this state of limbo for six days. He didn’t bother to rotate his tomato plants, letting them grow haphazardly toward a stationary light source. He prepared increasingly flamboyant dinners of poppy soufflé and orchid crepes, designed to impress the girl, but he picked indifferently at his own helping. And then, one Friday, he forget himself entirely: Someone knocked at the door and he answered it without thinking. As soon as he found himself staring into the bulging eyes of the obese fundamentalist, he realized what he’d done. It was all over. But the fat woman didn’t seem to recognize him. Or if she did, she didn’t let on. She stood at the threshold, her torso larger than the doorframe, resting a plastic tub of clothing on one monstrous hip.

  “You are the father of the angel who lives here?” asked Mrs. Poxly.

  It took Arnold a moment to realize she meant Cassandra. “I’m staying with her for a few days,” he answered noncommittally.

  “You will be kind enough to give her these,” said the woman. She handed Arnold the basket of laundry. It contained Cassandra’s bedding—the bedding the old hag had stolen from the fire escape. “The devil has been at work on our balconies,” the woman explained matter-of-factly. “I took her sheets to the church to be washed and blessed. She will find them better now.”

  “Thank you,” answered Arnold.

  “Don’t thank me, thank the Lord.”

  The woman looked up at the ceiling as though God might be found among the spider webs and chipped plaster. “Your face is very familiar to me,” she said.

  “Thank you again for the laundry,” replied Arnold.

  “I have it now!”

  Arnold glanced around the room for a weapon. He didn’t have it in him to injure the Bible-thumper harpy, but he could tie her up, if necessary, in order to escape.

  “You look like the man who wrote my diet book,” she continued. “Only he’s much younger.”

  Mrs. Poxly lowered her voice to a confidential undertone. “It’s a good diet. All flower petals and stems and leaves and whatnot,” she explained. “But I add some pizza and ice cream once in a while to flavour things up. You don’t think a grown woman can survive on flowers, do you?”

  “I imagine not.”

  “So you are the Flower Chef?”

  “No,” answered Arnold. “But I’m often mistaken for him”

  “Too bad for you,” said Mrs. Poxly. “I bet he makes a pretty penny off those books of his.”

  “I’m sure he does,” agreed Arnold.

  He shut the door, his pulse racing. His body was a tightly-wound ball and not even a cold shower managed to soothe him.

  I’m going to tell her, he decided. Tonight. Before it kills me.

  While Arnold had been grappling with his feelings, day after day shot by rapidly, like the growth of a kudzu vine, but now that he’d made his decision, he found the hours crept forward at the pace of pea tendrils. He killed the remainder of the morning listening to the radio, where the Bare-Ass Bandit had once against leapfrogged Arnold in the headlines. The saber-wielding desperado, whom Arnold had begun to think of as “the competition,” had made a sudden appearance in the nation’s capital that morning, stealing the collection of First Ladies’ gowns from the Smithsonian Institute. He’d even taken Mary Todd Lincoln’s whalebone corset. The Justice Department had issued an all points bulletin for a six foot three inch bald man dressed as Dolly Madison. The same Deputy Attorney General who offered the press morning updates on the Tongue Terrorist now issued a statement describing the Bandit as the Department’s “number one priority.” He quickly backtracked under pressure—acknowledging that “Osama bin Laden and Arnold Brinkman also remain the subject of intense international manhunts.” The official refused to confirm or deny speculation that the three men might be working together. While Arnold listened to the news, he transplanted his tomatoes to a larger tray. He couldn’t help wondering what other high-profile fugitives did during their expansive hours of leisure time. Because they must have done something. Macramé. Scrimshaw. Building battleships in bott
les. That would have been a fertile subject for a book—the hobbies of outlaws. He suspected even bin Laden, when they found him eventually, would be surrounded by soap-carved figurines or hand-woven plant holders. But that afternoon even gardening proved no match for Arnold’s romantic anxiety. He paced back and forth on the narrow fire escape for several hours, chain-smoking Cassandra’s cigarettes, waiting for the moment when she would determine his fate.

  The girl arrived home later than usual, carrying two large bags of groceries. Her shirt was stained dark with perspiration, and she wore an endearing moustache of sweat above her upper lip. Her tank-top left exposed a sliver of midriff, baring a cute but conspicuous belly. Many men would have dismissed her as chubby. Arnold didn’t care how much she weighed, one way or the other, but if she were unattractive to other men, he imagined this might increase his own chances of success. He wouldn’t have minded if she were considerably uglier, at least to a degree. There was probably a point of diminishing returns.

  “You’re still here?” she said coyly.

  “No, I’m not,” answered Arnold. “You’re imagining me.”

  “Good. Then I want to imagine you putting away these groceries. And changing the light bulbs in the kitchen. Use the sixty watts in the bag, not the one hundreds.”

  Arnold set about his chores. He climbed onto the stepladder and removed the burnt-out bulbs one at a time. For the girl, this afternoon was no different than any other—that she hadn’t been thinking about him all day.

  “How was work?” he asked.

  “It’s getting exciting. I’m suddenly the unofficial expert on politicians with double lives. Isn’t that awesome? We’ve gotten half a dozen anonymous tips this week.” The girl retrieved a beer from the refrigerator. “On the other hand, your friend Reverend Spitford is suing the pants off us for invasion of privacy.”

  “Invasion of privacy. After what he did to me….”

  “I thought you’d get a kick out of that.”

  But the mention of Spitford gave Arnold a different sort of kick than Cassandra had intended. It reminded him—at some primal level—that he’d once had another life outside of the girl’s apartment. It reminded him of Judith. He sensed his wife viscerally, the way a certain scent or season can bring back the memory of a loved-one long dead. When the moment passed—he forced the moment to pass—he found Cassandra lounging on the futon with the German shepherd cuddled at her feet. The girl was embroiled in the crossword puzzle. Her bare toes were tinged black, but the nails had been carefully polished—alternating crimson and fuchsia. The evening sun danced off her tousled hair. Arnold settled down beside her on the mattress. It was now or never, he realized. This was another of those definitive moments, like the interlude at the baseball game, which would render the future unalterable.

  “I have a confession to make,” he ventured.

  The girl looked up. “You want me to get my tape-recorder?”

  “Not that kind of confession,” said Arnold.

  “Too bad,” answered the girl. She looked around the room suspiciously and asked: “So what did you break?”

  “It’s not that kind of confession either,” said Arnold. He sensed the conversation slowly seeping from his control. “It’s more of a secret. You know how you said you can live with someone your entire life and not know the first thing about them? Well, there’s something about me that I haven’t been able to tell you.”

  “Let me guess,” said the girl. “You’re actually a woman—”

  “No, I—”

  “Or maybe you’re black. Got it. You’re actually a black woman.”

  “What I’m trying to say—”

  The girl grinned and clapped her hands together. “Okay, I’ve got it. You really are a terrorist. A black female terrorist.”

  “Godammit,” shouted Arnold. “I’m in love with you.”

  The frustration in his voice made the words sound ridiculous. He sat sheepishly on the edge of the futon, waiting for her to respond.

  “Okay,” answered the girl.

  “Okay?” he asked. “Is that okay, I’m in love with you too. Or okay, you’re allowed to make a fool of yourself.”

  “That’s okay, I figured you might be,” said the girl

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. I am an investigative journalist, remember.”

  Arnold waited for the girl to say more. She didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was really stupid of me. It’s just I’ve been stuck in this apartment for day after day and—”

  He was still blubbering when she kissed him on the lips. Hard. He kissed back tentatively, but he didn’t dare breathe. The dog started barking. The girl pulled back.

  “It’s okay, honey,” soothed Cassandra. “I’m just having fun.” She ran her fingers over the scruff of the animal’s neck. “She doesn’t understand,” the girl apologized. “I guess a few hours in the bathroom won’t kill her.” She led Son of a President away and returned a moment later. “Now where were we?”

  “You were telling me about your investigative journalism.”

  “Was I?” asked the girl.

  She climbed onto his lap and kissed him again, this time letting her tongue explore his mouth. She broke away again.

  “I have a confession to make too,” she said.

  “Shall I get my tape-recorder?”

  “I’m being serious,” she continued. “But I’m afraid you’re going to be upset…You’ve got to promise that you won’t hate me.”

  “I think it would be very difficult for me to hate you,” said Arnold.

  “I don’t know how to say this. It’s about your garden….I’m the one who destroyed it.”

  Arnold’s breath caught in his chest.

  “I’m so so so sorry.” The girl had started to sob. “I was angry at you for backing out on our interview….and not returning my calls….and I don’t know what came over me. It so just happened. And then it was too late to undo.”

  Arnold felt the anger surging in his chest—the same rage he’d felt toward Spitford, but ten times stronger. Ten billion times stronger. How easily he could have reached forward and wrapped his fingers around her treacherous neck. What had his roses and hydrangeas ever done to her? Here she was smiling at him over dinner each evening—and a villain all along. Her confession couldn’t have repulsed him more if she’d admitted to massacring a village of young children.

  He stood up and retrieved his shoes from the entryway. He needed to breathe fresh air before he did to her apartment what she’d done to his garden.

  “I’m leaving,” he said icily. “For good.”

  “Where are you going?”

  That question just raised his ire, because he had no idea where he was going—he had no place else to go—but he refused to take the bait. If Anne Frank had learned her Dutch protectors had been necrophilic cannibals, she’d have considered leaving her attic.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Someplace better than here.”

  The girl looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “Give me a second chance. I’ll totally make it up to you. We’ll run off someplace and start a new garden.”

  “What happened to ‘life giving you what it gives you’?”

  “Life gave me you,” said the girl.

  “I never want to lay eyes on you again.”

  He truly didn’t. Whatever his feelings, some atrocities were unforgivable.

  “I can’t believe you’re just going to run off like this. What happened to being madly in love with me?”

  Arnold tied his shoes, one at a time. “I never said madly.”

  “Fine, get the hell out of here,” she snapped. “You think you know everything.”

  “Not everything. Just enough.”

  “Well, just so everything’s clear, you can’t possibly remember me interviewing you at N.Y.U. because I didn’t. I didn’t even go to N.Y.U. I just happened to be at the campus store one day when you were signing books.”

  �
��It’s all water under the bridge,” said Arnold. “You got your interview. That’s what you wanted. If the Trotskyites take over, I’m sure you’ll be minister of propaganda or something like that.”

  He looked around the room to see if he’d left behind any belongings. The tomato sprouts were all that were truly his—and he couldn’t possibly take those with him. He considered asking the girl to look after them, but that was like asking a child molester to babysit. Better to let the shoots fend for themselves. He walked over to the window sill and tucked his Nixon mask into his pocket. He also scooped up the girl’s cigarettes and her lighter—that seemed like the least he was entitled to as compensation. When he turned around, the girl was blocking his exit.

  “You’re not being fair,” she said.

  “Okay,” agreed Arnold. “I’m not being fair.”

  He attempted to step around her. She impeded his retreat.

  “You’re forcing my hand,” she said. “If you leave, you’ll regret it.”

  Arnold stepped toward her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” said the girl. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  She was going to turn him in.

  “I’m not stupid,” said the girl. “I either get you or $500,000.”

  That’s when Arnold snapped. All the tension of the past two weeks roared up inside him and he grabbed the girl by the neck. His hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing, while her fingers tried to pry them free. She kicked at him too, but the blows glanced off the sides of his leg. Her head twisted and bobbed. At some point her hair fell backwards, revealing an expression too surprised to be terrified. He was killing her, second by second. And then the dog barked. Just once. But enough to break his trance. He released his grip and she was breathing again, choking, sputtering blood.

  She inched backwards, the fear rising in her face. He didn’t know what to say.

  “You’ve got to look after my tomatoes,” he said.

  Then he fled through the door and out into the twilight.

  CHAPTER 10