Hum: Stories

by Richmond, Michelle

  Just as easily as he had found the bar, he found a hotel, an old four-story building that had probably been elegant at one time. The brass fixtures in the lobby had lost their sheen, and the red carpet on the grand staircase was worn and faded. While he checked in I browsed the hotel’s gift shop, which contained the usual postcards bearing picturesque photos of the river, the hills, the city skyline. I was feigning interest in the postcards when he came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. It was the first tender gesture he had made since we met, and I felt all my feelings flooding back—desire, affection, pity, even a strange sense of camaraderie. Looking back, I realize that I was not thinking of my husband at that moment; in hindsight, this mental omission seems strange. After all, I had never been unfaithful before, and if my husband discovered my infidelity, the marriage would surely be over. At the time, however, I was thinking only of the ambassador, replaying once again in my imagination the preposterous scenarios I had charted out for us.

  If the lobby was elegantly shabby, the room itself, on the third floor overlooking the alley, was unabashedly depressing. Judging from the fine layer of dust coating the wooden desk and yellow lampshade, it might have been months since anyone had stayed there. In a classier hotel the seventies-era furnishings might have been stylishly retro, but here they were simply out-of-date.

  There was nothing astonishing about the encounter. We undressed and got into bed, we kissed and touched and made the appropriate encouraging sounds. But for all my fantasies, all my nights of fevered dreaming, the event itself lacked passion. He finished too soon and apologized, I assured him I did not mind, we watched a few minutes of news on the television, and then he fell asleep. I sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes, listening. Because the room was located at the back of the hotel, off the main street, there were not even the ordinary city sounds to intrude upon our privacy. The hum was gone, completely gone, and what I heard in its place was silence, but it was not a comforting silence. Instead, there was something distressing about the absence of sound. Watching him sleep, a pale, bloated figure beneath the sheets, I realized I wasn’t going to tell him about the second bedroom.

  As I was getting dressed to leave, the ambassador woke up. “I’ll see myself out,” I said, but he insisted on accompanying me. Perhaps it was a custom of his country to walk the mistress to the door, or maybe it was simply a tardy attempt at good manners. At any rate, I could not dissuade him.

  On the way out, he insisted that we stop in the gift shop, where he browsed for a few minutes before settling on a paperback book entitled Haunted City. A hand-lettered index card on the display shelf noted that the hotel itself received mention on page 74. The ambassador asked the ancient woman behind the desk to gift-wrap the book, which she did sloppily, although it was clear she was giving it her best effort. He paid with wrinkled bills and handed the package to me. I wasn’t sure how he intended it to be received. Was it a parting gift? Was it some sort of consolation prize?

  Just outside the door of the hotel he asked, “Which way are you going?”

  I pointed toward the harbor. “You?” I asked.

  To my relief, he nodded in the opposite direction.

  After that, I ended my nightly trips to the garden. When I did venture out, it was always in some sort of disguise—with a scarf wrapped around my face, or in a bulky hat. Occasionally, I saw him in the window, but never again would I perceive him as I had on that first night, when he looked the picture of a noble man, principled and brave.

  Every now and then, his country made some small blip in the news, most notably when the prime minister was ousted by a military coup. In the home that was not really a home, the machines kept humming. I did nothing to stop them. For weeks after our encounter, I lived in fear that I was being watched, that someone knew what I had done. But my indiscretions—the key, the breach of the second bedroom, the afternoon with the ambassador in the hotel—apparently went unnoticed. My husband and I lived there for another year before receiving the news that our services were no longer needed. By then we had saved enough money to buy a place of our own. My final act in the house was to open the drawer in the kitchen and make sure the key was in its proper place. I added a spot of glue to the contact paper in order to secure it firmly to the wood.

  Not long ago I saw the ambassador on TV, reporting for a cable news network where he had taken a job as an international correspondent. He was in the capital of Urada. The buildings behind him were pockmarked with bullet holes. “I am standing on the site of the latest bloody battle between the new military government and the soldiers of the old guard,” he said. His report showed no bias, no emotion, no despair, and I could not help but wonder how I could have been so singularly wrong in my initial judgment of him. I turned off the sound and watched the former ambassador. I was mesmerized even then by his blue eyes, the elegant scar across his nose. The report went on for another five minutes or so, during which time I tried and failed to recall the ambassador—not as he was, but as I had dreamt him to be.

  MEDICINE

  Once on the N-Judah train. Twice on BART. Three times in a stranger’s car traveling toward Los Altos, where rows of burnt houses are waiting. Fifteen times in the living room of her small flat in the Richmond, with friends and casual acquaintances who had agreed to help. And each time she repeats a mantra she learned from her piano teacher twenty years ago, Practice is the key to success.

  Really, it is not unlike any other task requiring manual dexterity. She is studying to get her license. The study is self-directed but the licenses are one hundred percent official and distributed by the health department. Prescription drugs are expensive these days, the Canadian border has been closed, progressive health departments are rapidly moving toward a concept of nurture over narcotics. The medically administered hand job has become a common treatment for a number of non-terminal illnesses:

  • Heart arrhythmia

  • Asthma

  • Tendonitis

  • Premature male-pattern baldness

  • Back pain

  • Near-sightedness

  • Far-sightedness

  • Depression

  • Partial paralysis

  • Hypertension

  Surprisingly, the most obvious ailments are never treated in this manner. Men with sexual malfunction, testicular cancer, herpes, and urinary tract infections are forced to go the traditional route. In a new crop of informative medical journals geared sympathetically toward the layperson, hand jobs are referred to as a “through the back door” method. Heal the cock, and the heart/mind/knee/spine will follow.

  Pulling earnestly on the fleshy stub of one arthritic Mr. Delfoy, the wheels of the N-Judah going round-round-round like a song she remembers from Kindergarten, she notices that Mr. Delfoy’s fingers are gripping his briefcase with strength and agility. Is he really even arthritic? she wonders, as the N-Judah comes to a halt in front of a rowdy schoolyard. Mr. Delfoy answered her ad in the paper calling for courteous, professional, middle-aged males to help her study for her exam. She met him at the agreed-upon time at the bus stop at 20th and Lincoln. They exchanged polite introductions, then boarded the bus together. Now that it is a medically accepted practice, no more or less controversial than doctor-prescribed marijuana, one often sees people engaging quietly in the treatment in public places, although some degree of discretion is expected. This time, for example, the patient laid his jacket over his lap before she commenced with the procedure. Mr. Delfoy lets go of the case, she lets go of him and wipes her hand on a napkin. The entire transaction, from initial meeting to completion, has taken less than ten minutes.

  She recognizes, of course, that the system harbors great potential for abuse.

  ***

  Not long ago, she worked as a copywriter for a small PR firm. Her career change was precipitated by a tragic event.

  In Los Altos last month, wildfires swept in during a dry spell. Multi-million dollar homes in the hills, burning. Her own
sister trapped up there, just seventeen and probably painting her nails or doing homework when she saw the flames approaching. Unlike the other twelve, her sister didn’t die of smoke inhalation. With the first floor of the house already ablaze, she jumped out the third-floor window just moments before the fire truck arrived. “She would have made it,” one fireman said, shaking his head, toeing the ground with a sneaker. He said this at a picnic in the park, a charity event for the victims. “We were so close.” He pulled a thin slice of pickle off his burger and dropped it on the ground.

  Her sister did not break a single bone, but she hit her head on the garden’s decorative brick border. The hardy geraniums survived.

  Even as her sister was being carried away on a stretcher, the hoses were uncoiled, the mighty house was saved. Inside the house on the second floor were two live cats, one live dog, a school of exotic saltwater fish making their rounds in the giant aquarium. Outside, there was one dead sister. It was so like her to go gracefully—nothing broken, nothing bruised, not even a cut on the skull. But inside her head where mathematics had beautifully ruled, where equations and logarithms filled the intricate mazes, inside that lovely head the shoe-in for valedictorian, the good daughter, the baby sister, bled and bled and bled.

  ***

  The licensing exam is in three parts: written, oral, and manual. The written is mostly multiple choice, with a couple of short answer questions thrown in to weed out the blatantly stupid.

  Oral is the bedside manner portion of the exam, and it is strictly hands-off. The student sits face-to-face with a test subject, who reads from a script. A panel of examiners watches from behind a two-way glass. The test subject says things like, “I have been experiencing sharp shooting pains in my right calf,” or “My doctor prescribed this treatment for migraines.” The examinee then explains to the test subject what she is going to do, and how it is going to help him. Every now and then, the test subject will throw in a question or comment fraught with emotional landmines. This is where about twenty percent of potential licensees fail the examination. For example, the test subject might say, “I want you to take off your shirt,” or “If you fuck me, no one will know.” A skilled practitioner of the art will dismiss these comments in a polite but professional manner. A weaker examinee will become angry or flustered or, worse, flirtatious.

  ***

  During the wake, a man she had never seen before walked up to the casket. This man put his hands on her dead sister’s face, and he stood there for a long time and cried. After a while the family members became uncomfortable. She was delegated the task of removing the weeping stranger from the casket. She went up and stood beside him. His hands on her sister’s face were very small. He was wearing a wedding ring.

  “Excuse me,” she said. He looked up. His eyes were red, his short black beard streaked with tears. “We haven’t met,” she said, feeling ridiculous. “She was my sister.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Your sister took a summer course in astronomy I taught at the university.” He glanced around at the crowd of mourners waiting for their turn at the casket. “She didn’t mention me, did she?”

  For a moment she deliberated. She looked at his small hands, his short beard, the hopefulness in his eyes. “As a matter of fact, she did. She said you were a very good teacher.”

  “Thank you,” the man said, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

  ***

  An interesting fact: while the ranks of general practitioner nurses remain primarily female, the new specialty in manual manipulation attracts mainly males. She learned this on CNN, in a heated debate between a well-known Democratic senator who supports medicinal hand jobs and the president of the American Family Coalition. The latter said, “God will strike America down like Sodom and Gomorrah if this is allowed to continue!” It was later revealed that the president of the AFC and his entire senior staff had been receiving treatments at a less-than-reputable clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, for going on two years.

  Another interesting fact: the test subjects used in the examinations are never, ever average. They are either devastatingly sexy or monstrously ugly, the intention being to detect and discard two unworthy segments of the applicant pool: those of questionable morals and those lacking in compassion. She hopes she will get an ugly test subject. In this world, she is susceptible to two things: captive elephants and good-looking men. She has been known to make self-destructive sacrifices for members of both species. Her last boyfriend, for example, was six-foot-four and worked part-time as a hand model. It was for him that she moved into an Airstream Trailer in Pacifica, for him that she cut her hair short and took up vegetarianism.

  ***

  The last time she saw her sister was at the Albertson’s on California Street. They ran into each other at the checkout. Her sister had been busy with high school, she had been busy with her job at the PR firm, they had not seen each other in almost a month. They had always liked each other but had never been very close, because there were fifteen years between them.

  “What are you doing in the city?” she asked.

  “Just errands,” her sister said, blatantly evading the question. Errands? In the city? So many miles from Los Altos? Her sister’s shopping cart was stocked with small, expensive items, as if she were planning a gourmet meal. She placed a couple of rib-eye steaks on the conveyer belt, a small bag of fresh basil, some shitake mushrooms. “Mom wants you to come over for dinner soon.”

  “I know, I’ve been busy.”

  “Next Saturday?” her sister asked.

  “Next Saturday, I promise.”

  “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  The thing she remembers most vividly from that encounter is that her sister was wearing a pair of red brocade house slippers. Her sister, who was 5′2″ and had been wearing platforms since she was thirteen, was shopping in public in house slippers. And she looked radiant, as if she’d just returned from an exotic vacation or received some very good news.

  Three days later, her sister was dead. Only after the funeral did it occur to her that the person her sister wanted her to meet might have been the astronomy professor, and that the Albertson’s on California Street was just a few blocks from the campus where he taught.

  Ever since her sister died, she has felt a profound sense of disconnection—from her family, her work, the entire world. A few days after the funeral, she gave her two-weeks notice at the PR firm. “Why?” her boss said. He was wearing a post-it with a cartoon drawing of a Neanderthal man on his forehead, trying to make her laugh. Everyone in the office was trying to make her laugh.

  “I need to find work that is more fulfilling,” she said. She had rehearsed this line a number of times. Her boss came forward and hugged her.

  “Tell me if there’s anything I can do,” he said. She could feel his steamy breath on her neck. The post-it bristled against her hair. For years the boss had tried unsuccessfully to hide his crush on her. Later, he would be one of the friends whom she called upon to help her prepare for the exam. She practiced on him three times: once behind the fly-fishing ponds in Golden Gate Park, once in his car, once in his light-filled loft in Potrero Hill. That was the time they ended up going to bed together. Afterward, he stroked her back and said, “Now that we’re together, I can’t let you pursue this career path.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable about you getting so intimate with other men.”

  “We’re not together,” she said. She got up and dressed, found her purse, her cell phone, her keys.

  Naked, he followed her around the apartment. “Don’t leave,” he said. He tried the post-it trick again. She hasn’t seen him since.

  ***

  She is not the kind of person to make career decisions without thoroughly thinking them through. She did not quit her job at the PR firm without first considering the consequences. These factors drove her decision:

  • Manual Manipulation is a booming and lucrative industry.
r />   • The hours are flexible.

  • She is not and never has been squeamish about bodily fluids.

  • The male sexual organ is an organ like any other, in most instances not something to be feared or reviled. Erections and the male orgasm are mere reflexes, somewhat on par with knee-jerks and sneezing.

  • She cannot remember the last time she did something even remotely selfless for another human being. She cannot remember the last time she touched another person in a way that felt truly intimate.

  ***

  The portion of the exam about which she is most nervous is the manual. This is where fifty-seven percent of applicants flunk out. After a failure, one cannot sit for the exam again until thirteen months have passed. It is unclear where this time frame originated, but she suspects it is meant to weed out dilettantes. Thirteen months is plenty of time to find a new career path or to begin dating someone who doesn’t approve, someone who puts his or her foot down.

  She plans to pass the first time. At this point in her life there is no other career path, no potential love waiting in the wings. The boss is not on her radar. All of her exes have swiftly and cruelly moved on. She realizes from past breakups that she is an easy person with whom to sever ties. She is thirty-two. Her last boyfriend married a software executive and is living in a two-million-dollar bungalow in Palo Alto. Recently on the phone the ex said to her, “I am flush with love and cash,” and there was no hint of self-deprecation in his voice. The software executive is expecting.