Other people

by Sol Stein

  "You don't play your parking lot on Saturdays and Sundays?"

  "It could get tricky. I rest on weekends, except for emergencies like stopped-up toilets and the like."

  I went to the fridge and got two beers. "Have a Bud."

  "Sure."

  "Sit down."

  "Don't mind." He plops down on the sofa.

  "You ever tried my wife?" I look him in the eye.

  "With those little kids around? Sides, she wouldn't give me the time of day, would she?"

  I just smile at him. Then I say, "How come you never get any of those women pregnant?"

  "Christ, man, where you been? All you needs to do what I do is a vasectomy. It's easier'n pulling a tooth."

  "Didn't bother you none?"

  "I had to pay for it. I mean I couldn't talk the VA into paying for a vasectomy!" and he laughs that strung-out laugh.

  "I'm disappointed," I said.

  "About what?"

  "That you didn't have a go at Widmer. She's terrific."

  "You don't say."

  I couldn't tell if he was believing me. If he had a go at Widmer, if she was that available, she couldn't complain about me. I like the way she fought back, just enough, not too much. The next time it'd be easier and quicker.

  Jason was just finishing the Bud when the key turns in the door and Mary comes in. Jason starts to get up. I say, "You know Jason, Mary," and she says, "Sure," and I say, "What do you mean sure?" and she says, "He's the super, ain't he?"

  Mary vanishes into the kitchen and Jason says, "I got to go."

  "Hey, Mary," I yell, "kids gonna be at Grandma's rest of the afternoon?"

  She comes in, drying her hands, and says, "Till six. Wasn't that what you…"

  "Yeah," I says quickly. "Hey, want to see what Jason did?"

  I take her by the arm into the John and say, "Jason put that wall switch in without the fuse being off."

  "Really?" she says, not knowing what is going on.

  "Hey Jason," I yell into the living room, "Mary said she was gonna take a shower soon's she got home. Want another Bud? Help yourself in the fridge." That's when I'm just behind Mary and butt her from behind. She has got a very sensitive ass, let me tell you. If I come up behind her and just squiggle a little…

  Comment by Mary Koslak

  When I walked in the door and saw Jason I could a died. I immediately thought Harry's found out and there's been a scene. Harry would kill him if he knew, wouldn't he, but Jason'd said nobody ever really knows unless they actually see you doing it. They're just sitting around beering, but my heart, I tell you, was like bongo drums.

  Jason is the most sensitive love-maker. There isn't a part of your body he doesn't touch and kiss first. Not like Harry.

  ~~~

  I put my hands around on Mary's tits while I got her from behind and she says, "He'll see," in a kind of whisper. And Jason comes out of the kitchen with two Buds, one in the claw, and he sees all right, which is what I intended.

  "Okay," I say in an extra loud voice, "you can take your shower now."

  I mean what can Mary do? I try to imagine what's going on in her mind, but she does like I want and starts takin' her things and hanging them behind the bathroom door while I stand on the sill with my back to her so she can't close the door completely. Or lock it. Jason brings me the beer, looking funny.

  "I gotta go now," he says.

  "You don't want to walk around with a full bottle of beer. Afterwards."

  I say the "afterwards" in a special voice, hoping he catches something from it.

  I can hear the water running so I turn and look because I know that Mary always stands outside the tub mixing the hot and cold in the tub part before she switches the water to the shower and gets in. She's bending over, looking terrific, and I say, "Ha, ha, I think I'd better take a shower, too," and I take a swig of the Bud and put the bottle down next to the wall so it don't get knocked over by accident. I kick off my moccasins and pull my socks off because Mary laughs at me if she sets me with socks on after I'm undressed. It's a habit with me to start at the bottom, so I slip my pants and boxers off and throw them on the couch where Jason is sitting down. Men don't pay as much attention to the angle of my cock the way women do, that's my belief, and I wasn't bothered by Jason's staring just a second before he turned away.

  I unbutton my shirt because it's funny standing there like that, you're more naked with a shirt on, aren't you? I pull the undershirt off and say to Jason, turning my back to him for politeness, "I guess it's shower time for me, too. Why don't you join us?"

  I turned because I wanted to catch the expression in his face just then, but I missed it because he had the Bud bottle up and gulping as if to pretend he didn't see nothin'. Well, I'm into the bathroom, she's got the shower curtain pulled, and I pull it back a bit and say, "Soap, ma-dame?" and she points a finger hard in the direction of the open door, and then down at my stand-up situation. I just shrug my shoulders as if everything is just normal, right, casual, but I poke my head around the door just to see, and there's Jason with his shirt off, taking the straps from around his shoulder, removing the arm, and laying it on the coffee table. I don't know, that was a real turn-on to see.

  I pull the curtain back — I don't give a damn if the bathroom floor gets wet — and I climb in. I take the soap and lather up in my hands and then smear the lather all over Mary's tits, and she's saying kind of desperately, "Shut the bathroom door," and I pretend I don't understand, so she points fiercely like, and I just put my arms around her, but she's tight as hell, blushing, but I know nothin' is going to stop this now unless Jason chickens, which he doesn't, because there he is, standing in the bathroom door, naked as a bird, with three heads of hair, on his head, on his chin, and a bush just above where his shlong hangs down. I can see what he means about the shiny end of his stump when the apparatus is off. "Plenty of room in here," I yell. I'm having one helluva good time just anticipating.

  I motion to Jason and he steps into the tub. It's pretty hard not touchin', three people standing up in one ordinary-sized tub, and I say to Mary, "Don't mind his arm, he says women find it sexy." I swear Mary looks like she's gonna have a heart attack or something, so I kiss her wet lips and say, "Look at his poor shlong, why don't you touch it for encouragement," and she grabs her right hand with her left as if to lock it back, and I say, "All you got to do is like this," and I put my soapy hand on Jason's you-know-what. For a second, he twitches back like he was stung, saying, "Hey what are you doin'," and so I say, "Just partyin', right?" and I take Mary's wrist firm and put her hand on Jason. She tries not to move her hand, which is pretty hard considerin' how we're all tryin' to keep from slipping, and I notice his thing is activating fast, and I'm excited, I tell you, saying, "Whoo, this is a party all right," and "Who's gonna do what next?" and Jason, he moves around me and caresses Mary's arm, I mean long strokes from her shoulder to her wrist, all with the one hand, and then her other arm, and then like some Oriental he sits down in the tub cross-legged and does the same feel thing down her one thigh and leg and then the other. I never seen a technique like that, I mean I usually go for the box right off, but I notice that Mary is not tight the way she was, she is liking all that smoothin'. "Can I do that?" I says, not waiting, and I do the same thing on her arms and legs and I'll be damned if Mary is looking like, well, terrific, and she takes each of our dongs, one in each hand, and starts stroking. I feel my nuts come up and tighten like I'm ready, but Jason stops her, and I want to know what he's stopping her for, and he says, "She's not ready," and then he gets in position and starts kissing and lickin' and sucking her like he knew what he was doing, which he must have, because I see Mary start to shake and suddenly she's ooh, aah, ooh, and pushing his head away as she hangs on to the towel bar, coming like it was the end of the world.

  It was somethin' to see, I tell you. When she's finished, her head flops forward exhausted, and we both ease her down into the tub, where we're all tangled up good, laughing cause th
e shower is still coming down on us. I turn it off, careful to turn both handles at the same time so no one gets scalded or ice water on them, and then she finishes him off and then me, one of the best times I ever had in my life.

  Eleven

  Francine

  Question: Describe what it feels like moving back to your parents' house even temporarily.

  Answer: Perfectly not at home.

  Sure, the physical surroundings are supposed to be comfortable because they're familiar. My room's as it was when I left, a monument to my not growing up, preserved by my mother the caretaker. Of course I love them both, but when you leave, you've left. For instance, I watch my father loosening his necktie after he comes home from the office — something he would never do in front of anyone but the immediate family — and I think put your tie back up in place, I'm an interloper, don't act familiar with me. What was he keeping that picture of me in the buff for, inspiration? And showing it to me when I could still feel Koslak pumping me, what the hell was that supposed to be, considerate? I don't feel at home here with you any more. My place is in my apartment. Under Koslak. The key in my handbag's no damn use till that lawyer gets Koslak arrested. How will I feel with the wife and kids still living above me? Jesus, I am being forced to move like the Jews in Germany, my poli-sci voice tells me. Studying political science is like studying an incurable disease, why did I do it, it tells me nothing about my predicament.

  Question: In the daily bullshit at the U.N., who thinks of Matthausen, Bataan, Singapore, or Guernica?

  Answer: Nobody.

  "What did you say?" my father asks.

  "Just talking out loud."

  His puzzlement shows. "How did you get on with Mr. Thomassy today?"

  Thank heaven, a question I can field.

  "He's tall," I said.

  Ah, that look. My daughter is off on her irrelevances, the nonconsecutive thinking of an ex-student who bypassed Latin and logic. He loves me anyway.

  "Does Thomassy think he can do anything for you?"

  He can be prejudiced in my favor.

  "I don't know. I see him again tomorrow."

  He lights up. "Good," he says, having elicited a rational answer from his twenty-seven-year-old unmarried, slightly tarnished daughter.

  Mama comes to the rescue. "Are you with us for dinner tonight?"

  It depends whom you're eating. "Yes, I'll be around for dinner.

  My mother, always on the side of sanity, says, "Why don't you give that nice young man Bill a ring. Perhaps he'd like to drive up and join us or take you to a movie afterwards."

  "I don't think so."

  "You're still upset."

  "Mother, I'm not getting over a tummy ache or the flu. I was raped."

  "I know," my mother muttered, both of them staring at me.

  "You'd know if you'd been raped once. You're both more concerned that I'm raising my voice than what happened to me."

  "That's not true," Mother said.

  My father leaned forward as if he wanted to take my hands. "I'll give Thomassy a ring in the morning," he said, "and see if he can't speed things up."

  "You keep out of it, Dad. I mean you set it up. That's enough."

  There was a lot of silence during dinner.

  I retired to my room and lay down on the bedspread and talked to my teddy bear as I had all the years I had lived at home. What a great audience he was, every question I asked reduced him to perfect speechlessness.

  If I'd been married at the time of the rape, would I have felt different about it? Consoling my husband because his exclusive vessel had been used? Would a husband have quelled my rage by taking a club to Koslak? A good husband would have had my rape covered by insurance under some property damage clause.

  I put my hands around the throat of my beloved teddy bear. He didn't change expression. He was just ready to hear more, like Dr. Koch, the listening machine. I need to see him, my rocker is rocking.

  As I drove to my appointment with Thomassy the next day, the foliage streamed past, spring is coming, spring is coming. Thomassy is waiting for me, the ultimate temptation, a client with a brain. If the case is difficult, so much the better: a long involvement, leading to mutual triumph. Oh Miss Widmer, we've won our case, I'll miss you, come back soon on any pretext. Don't get raped again, do something else, commit a minor crime against property, I Thomassy will defend you to the Supreme Court if need be.

  I expected to find Thomassy leaning against the door jamb of his inner office, as if that were his receiving station to welcome me.

  What do you mean he isn't in?

  There were two people waiting, a woman and a scruffy teen-age boy. I told his secretary I had an appointment for the same time as yesterday.

  "He didn't tell me. He didn't put it in his book."

  "I'll wait."

  "He's still in court."

  "I'll wait."

  "Those people have an appointment." The secretary beckoned me closer. She put her mouth next to my ear. Secret coming up. "It's a manslaughter case. First visit after bail was set. Likely to take time."

  "That kid?"

  The secretary shrugged her shoulders, then looked past me at the outside door.

  Enter Thomassy, harassed. Quick glance at mother and boy, then at me, "Good God, I forgot about you."

  At fourteen, a high school sophomore stood me up. The agony of waiting was still remembered.

  "Come in a minute," Thomassy said, and motioned me into his office, then said to the mother, "I'll be with you in two minutes, Mrs. Tankoos."

  "Oh thank you, Mr. Thomassy." Mrs. Tankoos's head bobbed gratefully.

  Doctors and lawyers, medicine men.

  When he closed the door, he said, "I'm sorry."

  "I'm sorry I wasn't more memorable."

  "It's not that, it's. " Truthfully, he looked at a loss for the reason. Lawyer's block. If he forgets the client, it means he doesn't want the case.

  "I'll call your father."

  "To say what?"

  "I'll get someone else to take your case. I'm really jammed."

  "You didn't seem jammed yesterday evening."

  "I was distracted."

  "By me?"

  He went to the phone. "I'll get him at his office."

  "I can call him. You take care of your manslaughter case."

  I shouldn't have given away his secretary's indiscretion. But what did I have to lose? So I said, "If I kill Koslak, that'll make it manslaughter. Maybe you'll take my case, too, Mr. Thomassy?"

  I put out my hand. There was a reluctance in his grasp.

  "I feel like a fool," Thomassy said.

  "Your witness," I said, and left.

  Dear God, please grant me a thicker skin for Christmas. Except give it to me now, and you wont owe me anything for Christmas.

  I decided to drive back to my own apartment. This is the age of self-defense. I double-locked the door and phoned my father.

  "He's in conference, Francine dear," said Bette Davis (whose name I could never remember, with cause).

  "Fuck his conference and put him on."

  That'll give her something to sprinkle on her bran flakes.

  "What is it, Francine?"

  "Just give me the name of another lawyer I can see."

  "I thought you saw Thomassy."

  "He's busy."

  "I don't understand."

  "Who's second best?"

  Long pause.

  "I'd stick with Thomassy, however busy he may be."

  "Thanks. Go back to your conference. And please apologize to Bette Davis for me. I know she's doing the right thing protecting you from me.

  Billowing clouds drifting in from the west brought darkness early. The minute I saw Thomassy headed for the Mercedes surrounded by empty spaces in the deserted parking lot, I ducked down in the back seat. I heard him unlock the trunk, heard the clunk of his briefcase being thrown in, and I could feel him slam the lid closed. I held my breath as he slid into the driver's seat in fro
nt of me.

  Lowering my voice and stretching out each syllable, I said, "Don't turn the key. It'll blow up."

  His head didn't move.

  "Now raise both hands," I said, losing control of my falsetto.

  Thomassy's head whirled around. "What the fuck!" Then he saw me crouched foolishly behind his seat.

  "It's you," he said.

  "It's me. Sorry if I scared you."

  "What a damn fool thing to do! Get up out of there! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  I hadn't expected him to be this angry. It was only a practical joke.

  "Don't ever do that to a man who's had his car wired!"

  "What does that mean?"

  "Don't do it to anybody. You could kill someone with a weak heart."

  I could see the tremor in his hands. "I'm sorry," I said.

  "Even after the police disconnected the bomb and removed it — it was from this car the first year I had it — it took all the resolution I could muster to turn the ignition that first time. It seemed an age before the engine caught and nothing happened. All that went through my head when I heard you back there."

  "I'm sorry. I mean it. Who tried to blow you up?"

  "You look ridiculous back there. At least sit up on the seat."

  I did as instructed.

  "I was defending a trucker who'd been into the loan sharks. He had good connections. When they sent an enforcer around, he'd been warned. The trucker had two of his teen-age sons, big fellows, with him, and they beat the daylights out of the enforcer. The loan shark couldn't go to the cops and charge them with assault, so they framed the man for a truck hijacking job he didn't do. When he hired me, I decided the easiest way to prove he didn't do it, was to prove who did. My mistake. Fortunately, my client's connections tipped him that my car was being wired right while we were in the courtroom." Thomassy looked at me. "Jesus, don't ever do that to anybody."

  "Did you drop the case…?"

  "Of course not! I won it!"

  "… like you dropped mine?"

  "How did you know this was my car?"

  "Deduction. Your office light was on. This was the only one left in the parking lot. It looks like it ought to be your car. It's neat."