Jake Fades

by David Guy

  8

  IN THE MORNING when I sat my head was considerably clearer. I’d drunk several glasses of water before I went to bed, two more as I arose, and have to admit that, in the interest of convenience, I peed in the sink, a shameful habit my father taught me. When I finally left the room to take a shower—it was still early, a little after seven—I found my teacher sitting zazen in the hallway.

  “Jake,” I said. “What the hell.”

  This wasn’t the first time he’d sat on a cement floor. That was the way he’d started in Japan.

  “I went out to pee,” he said, “then blanked out on my room number.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Just couldn’t remember. Got all turned around. Tried what I thought was the room and somebody was in there. Two guys, actually. One little bed.”

  And I thought this was a Christian organization.

  “They weren’t too happy,” Jake said. “Thought it was a raid.”

  “Fuck’em.”

  “That would have made them happy.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “I don’t know. Last night.”

  I wanted to say, “Why didn’t you get me?” But of course he didn’t know my room either.

  “Don’t you ever pee?” he asked.

  I took him back and showed him my father’s little trick, your cock over the edge of the sink, the hot water running. Jake would have to stand on a box.

  “That’s disgusting, Hank.”

  “Maybe. But half the guys in this place probably drink piss. And I wash the sink.”

  Jake shook his head.

  “I want you to do this tomorrow night,” I said. “No more zazen in the hall.”

  We went to the bathroom to shower and clean up. There was another guy in there—a skinny runt with a mustache, sloped shoulders—who kept turning to flash a hard-on at me. Jake didn’t seem to notice, standing on the other side, but when we got to the room he spoke.

  “I think that guy liked you.”

  “Seemed to. Anyway, Jake, this is the room. Stay till I come get you.”

  “If I need to pee I know what to do.”

  We got to the Golden D a little after eight. The same people seemed to be there. Same cigarette smoke. The scared skinny woman in the overcoat still didn’t have anything in front of her. The man with the omelet was talking away.

  I tried over easy that morning rather than scrambled, but the grease still won. I did switch to a muffin, and it was delicious, best thing there besides the coffee. Lily came to chat as we were finishing.

  “You getting like Jake, Hank. You have muffin too.”

  “They’re great.”

  “You getting like Jake. I can see.” She pointed to her eyes.

  I could only wish.

  “You got girlfriend too, Hank? You getting girlfriend?”

  “I think one is plenty between us.”

  “Maybe Jake find you one. His girlfriend got a friend.”

  There was an idea. Madeleine could fix me up.

  “You need girlfriend, you be Buddhist. Need yin and yang.”

  “That’s probably right.”

  “Chinese know. No girlfriend, you burn in hell.”

  Lily was getting close to home here.

  Jake was standing from the stool. “There’s always your buddy at the Y,” he said.

  “Plain donut good today, Jake. Very fresh.”

  He gave the thumbs up sign.

  “You want plain too, Hank?”

  “Can’t do it Lily. I’m stuffed.”

  “You not Jake yet. He still the better man.”

  It was cooler that day on Mass. Ave., the sky cloudy. Not as many people out.

  “You don’t need to walk me,” Jake said. “I can find it.”

  “I need to walk that breakfast off.”

  I wasn’t about to let him go to Madeleine’s alone after the night before. It really bothered me to find him sitting in the hallway in a T-shirt and undershorts. There is immense dignity in the zazen posture, especially when Jake does it, that rotund bald-headed body, sitting with his chin tucked in. He could sit by the hour, looked like a Chinese Buddha. There was a story about Sawaki sitting in an empty monastery as a young monk; the cleaning woman came in and kept bowing, not to him, but to that image. It was the simple posture of zazen that inspired her respect.

  But Jake had also been just an old man sitting in the hallway in his underwear. It was cold out there.

  “My butt’s sore,” he said after a while. We were walking slower than usual. “Sitting on that concrete.”

  “I wish I’d known you were there.”

  “In Japan, at sesshins, they had this weird custom. You were already getting zero sleep, three hours or so. Then when the day’s sitting was over, you went out and sat in the garden, on a stone or something. It was like you were super-dedicated, couldn’t get enough, except that everyone did it. You had to do it. It was required.”

  Jake had told me before. He’d told me most of his stories.

  “Aching all over, dying to go to bed, and you had to go out and sit on a stone.”

  “Sounds crazy.”

  “Uchiyama did away with that. When the day was over, it was over.”

  You had just sat fifty-minute periods, of course. Fourteen of them.

  We approached Madeleine’s door.

  “What are you going to do?” Jake asked.

  “Go to a bookstore. Go watch chess. It’s Cambridge. There’s always something.”

  “You can play the chess master.”

  Jake and I played a lot in the winter, and he liked pitting his skill against the guy at Harvard Square. He never won.

  “I can also throw my money down a sewer,” I said.

  “Madeleine’s taking me to lunch. Some god-awful fancy place. I’ll need a nap.”

  “I’ll see you around five. You’ll find your room all right?” We’d put a piece of tape on the door with the word Jake on it.

  “If I can remember my name.” He trudged up the steps. “Don’t worry, Hank. People take care of me in this town.”

  Madeleine took care of him, that was for sure.

  I just wondered what the guys at the Y would say when a Volvo with a driver dropped off one of their residents.

  I walked back on Prospect, down the left, alongside those funky apartments, crowded streets with tiny houses, and when I first saw the young lady I drew a blank.

  “Hank. How are you?”

  “Great.” I had no idea who she was.

  “It’s Jess. From the bar.” She wore blue jeans and a sweatshirt, loose-fitting clothes for once, didn’t have her gaudy make-up and jewelry. She looked completely different.

  “Jess, holy shit, I’m sorry. You look different.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.” She covered her face. “Don’t even have makeup on. I feel naked.”

  “You look great.” She was a nice-looking woman without all that crap on, taller than I, quite pretty.

  “What are you up to? Where’s Padre?”

  “He’s visiting a friend, a student of his, strong supporter. She’s sponsoring this retreat. They’re meeting and talking.”

  They wouldn’t say two words about the retreat.

  “And you?” she asked.

  “I’m taking a walk.”

  “Want some company? I was just out for some breakfast. Didn’t have any in the house.”

  “We can go somewhere.”

  “I’ll walk. I’m not all that hungry. This is early for me.”

  It happened so quickly, so naturally, that I didn’t notice how strange it was, an attractive woman less than half my age—ten years younger than my son—joining me for a walk. She hadn’t put on makeup but wore perfume, one of those light fragrances younger women wear. She must have been four inches taller than I, even in flat shoes.

  “The Padre’s so cute,” she said. “Like one of the seven dwarfs or something.” I’d have to tell him. I’d tell him she said
Dopey. “And so sweet, the way he talks to me. Does he talk to everybody?”

  “No.” That was an interesting subject, who Jake talked to. Like the way he focused on Josh rather than me that first time. “He picks people out. Seems to know who he wants.”

  “Why would he pick me?”

  “Don’t know.” I’d wondered myself.

  I’d taken us across Prospect and over to Harvard Street, my favorite. It was almost cold that morning, but I loved seeing the trees, smelling the autumn leaves.

  “He’s a monk, right?”

  “Ordained priest, not a monk. It’s a fine distinction. But he’s not monklike.”

  “He is bald.”

  “He likes to be. Likes shaving his head. Hardly anything to shave anyway.”

  “Isn’t it hard on you guys, living up there?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Maine. It’s so remote. Just the two of you.”

  “Zen priests don’t have to be celibate.” I thought that’s what she meant.

  “They don’t? So you’re married?”

  “We’re not. We could be.”

  “That’s what I mean. Living up there, no women around. Who lives in Maine, except some old dykes?”

  That had been the whole point for me when I went. The remoteness.

  “It’s got to be lonely,” she said.

  “Anyplace can be lonely.”

  “The thing of it is, Hank.” She took my arm. “What I mean to say. It’s expensive living in Cambridge, holding one job. I try to get another, but there’s nothing around. I’m always behind. Short on the rent. If I don’t come up with a hundred bucks in the next day or so, my landlady’ll be pissed. Throw my ass out.”

  “Damn.”

  “My place is back there near Prospect. We both have the morning free. We could have a good time.”

  It must seem stupid, but until that last sentence I had no idea what she was talking about. Of course some twenty-year-old woman would want to walk with me, ask about how lonely I was. Once I’d figured it out, it was all I could do not to stop in my tracks. I didn’t want to seem indignant. I wasn’t, actually.

  The first thing I pictured was her giving a blow job to that big guy two stools down in the bar.

  “I thought you were going out for breakfast,” I said.

  “I was. Honest to God. But then I saw you, and thought about the rent. It was the first thing I wondered about you guys, what you do for sex. I didn’t think it was the two of you.”

  “No.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. But a woman gets a vibe, if a man’s interested. The padre’s sexy.”

  “I don’t think there’s a whole lot going on, to be honest.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s not sexy. And you give off a major vibe.”

  I was hoping that wasn’t true anymore.

  “Would you offer an alcoholic a drink?” I asked.

  “What do you mean? I give alcoholics drinks every day.”

  “But would you offer him one? If he didn’t ask.”

  “You mean like tempt him? Maybe not. That’d be cruel.”

  “I know you didn’t mean this, Jess. But you kind of just did. Offer an alcoholic a drink.”

  That stopped her. We kept walking, but she didn’t speak for a moment.

  “No, Hank,” she said. “It’s not the same. You don’t get drunk. You don’t get addicted. You don’t wind up in the street. It doesn’t even always cost money.”

  “It costs something.”

  “You older guys are uptight about sex. I don’t know what happened to you. It’s natural to fuck. Everybody does it. It’s a good thing.”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s what I mean about the vibe. I can tell you have that vibe. You need it.”

  Lily agreed.

  “A woman can always tell. You need sex. I need to pay the rent. It’s a good deal all around.”

  By that time we had stopped, were facing each other, standing at a cross street. She seemed utterly unembarrassed. At that moment, she seemed the older person.

  “Is it really true about the rent?” I asked.

  “Talk to my landlady. But not with me there, till I have my hundred bucks.”

  “Because this is a lot of money for me.”

  “You’re getting a bargain, in this town.”

  “We’ve got to go to a bank machine.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I want you to have breakfast. I’m buying.”

  “You’re a romantic.” She touched my face. “I could tell when we met.”

  I hadn’t often been accused of that.

  “You get the money,” she said. “Help me with my rent. Then you can wine and dine me. We’ll call it brunch. See what happens. But if you ask me.” She winked. “I think you’re going to get lucky.”

  Her favorite place to eat was at Inman Square. She didn’t go there often because it was pricey, but it was a bright cheery place, a cut way above the Golden Donut, with large breakfast plates and a full bakery. Jess ordered a Western omelet and potatoes, a Bloody Mary—“I’m going to splurge”—and when I just wanted coffee seemed offended. “I can’t eat alone.”

  “I had breakfast.” A large greasy breakfast.

  “He’ll have coffeecake,” she said to the waitress. “They have great coffeecake.”

  It also came in large hunks. The food on this trip would kill me.

  For someone who said she wasn’t hungry, Jess did all right. She ate slowly, and rather delicately, but ate everything. I was pleased that she sipped the Bloody Mary rather than knocking it back in two gulps and ordering another, which I was afraid she might. It seemed a big deal for her, going out for a meal.

  “So tell me about art school,” I said after the food arrived.

  “Oh, art school. I don’t know. That was something I said to Padre because he seemed to want me to. Have something other than pumping beer.”

  “So you made it up?”

  “I’ve thought about it. I have this girlfriend who makes jewelry, a lot of the stuff I wear. She’s talented when she’s not stoned out of her mind, but makes zero money. Craft fairs, and one little store she sells to. It’s not going anywhere. She never went to school.”

  “How far did you go?”

  “Couple years of college. My mother made me. I had no idea what I wanted. Kind of resisted the whole thing. It’s complicated. I’m still sorting it out. I was in this kind of prolonged fight with her. Then she got sick, and it all fell away. By that time I’d dropped out. That was good in a way, so I could take care of her. She died in June. Now everything’s up in the air. I’ve been all kind of, fucked up. Which you would expect, I guess. I don’t know. Jesus. How did we get started on this?”

  She said these things between little bites of the omelet, small pieces of potato, spreading cream cheese on the bagel that came with every order.

  “You sit there and nod,” she said. “It all comes out. With a guy my age we’d be talking football by now. Sex.”

  “What about your father?”

  “Mother was a lesbian. Lifelong. I grew up in a world of women. But I like guys. That was one of the things with her.”

  “She wanted you not to?”

  “She didn’t expect me to be a card-carrying dyke just because I came out of her. But she didn’t like me getting wild. Drinking. Doing drugs. Being a normal kid. She had this whole egalitarian, save the whales, sit around and sing “Kumbaya” sort of mentality. Equal opportunity pussy eating. I don’t know what she did with Stacey. But I don’t think they strapped it on. Didn’t want a thing to do with cocks, or anybody getting on top. But I love cocks. Which is where you come in.” She leaned across the table. “Does it turn you on?”

  “You turn me on. You’re beautiful.”

  “Oh, Hank.” She actually blushed, which she hadn’t done during her diatribe. “I like you older guys. What about you? Got any kids?”

  “One. He lives in Bo
ston. Josh Wilder. He’s a movie reviewer.”

  “No way. That guy for the Globe? I never miss his column. I even read the blog. He’s your kid?”

  I’d have to tell him he had a fan. Didn’t know how I’d explain the circumstances.

  “Does he have a girlfriend?” she asked.

  “A number of them.”

  “Could I meet him?”

  “I don’t know, Jess. It’s awkward.”

  “The father-son thing? I’d never mention it, swear to God. Jesus. Josh Wilder is your kid. I love his writing.”

  “You don’t think he’s slipping?”

  “God no. Do you?”

  “No. Writers get to thinking that.”

  “I bet I’m too young for him.”

  “Actually, you’re not.” You should be, but you’re not. “I’ll tell him he’s got a fan at the Green Street Grill. He can drop by.”

  That was all Josh needed, to get hooked up with somebody like Jess.

  “How about Padre? Does he have kids?”

  “Not that he’s mentioned.”

  “He’s a sexy guy, though. I can tell. It’s right there.”

  She wasn’t the first woman to say something like that about Jake. I never understood. The sweetest man on earth, of course. Best listener, most understanding. All things women liked. But sexy? Exuding sexual energy? I couldn’t see it.

  By that time Jess had polished off everything. She’d had two cups of coffee, along with half of my coffeecake. She was a young big woman, but it was still surprising.

  “Now I want another Bloody Mary,” she said.

  “You think that’s wise?”

  “This whole thing isn’t wise. I usually just have toast and coffee. But it’s a treat. The guys I know don’t take me out. At least they don’t pay.”

  “You should take yourself out. Don’t wait for them.”

  The waitress, a tiny woman about my age, didn’t approve of the second drink, but she hadn’t been happy about the whole situation. I left a large tip. You could have eaten at the Golden Donut for a week on what I paid for that breakfast. We walked out to the square to find a teller machine, and I gave Jess the money.

  “That’s for your landlady,” I said.

  “You’re sweet.” She kissed my cheek.

  “What time do you go to work?”