Guy Novel

by Michael Ryan

  “You’re kidding me,” I said.

  “Nope, it’s true. She had a religious experience in Maui at the Grand Wailea spa. At those prices you should have a religious experience.”

  “Tell me. Who’s the guy?”

  “Who said it was a guy? It is a guy. But I’m committed to secrecy. You will not hear his name pass my lips. You wouldn’t believe it anyway. I think the reason Francine and I have crazy friends is so we can believe we are sane. Because by comparison we are sane. Look at you. I rest my case.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Who is it?”

  “Not telling. It’s part of the computer deal. You’ll be hearing soon enough anyway. You’re going to get a visit from Doris, for the sake of ‘closure,’ as she calls it.”

  “Fine,” I said. “As long as she leaves her gun at the door.”

  “She’s a nice woman, Robert. Much better than you deserve.”

  “Maybe that was the problem. I only love women who aren’t who they pretend to be.”

  “Fairly large sociological subgroup,” Don said.

  I stayed a little longer to hear about Francine’s return from Maui and immediate departure for another three-week Midwest lecture tour that made the armpit circuit of Rust Belt comedy clubs sound like a cruise to the Bahamas. Don said she was so happy and relaxed after Maui that she wanted him to fly there with her as soon as they could. He thought it might save their marriage if they went every other day or so. But he had learned something that might save their marriage anyway, so he thanked me for standing up Doris at the church after all.

  “And what did you learn?” I asked.

  “To keep my mouth shut,” he said. “Just let her talk and not say a word, but nod sympathetically every once in a while to show I’m not asleep. If I do that, she talks all the crap out of her head so it doesn’t back up and choke her. Plus if she thinks I’m listening to her, it makes her horny.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll try it on Sparky first. But I hope it doesn’t make him horny.”

  I thanked Don for listening to me. Then I picked up Sparky at Madge’s and drove home.

  23.

  I had never tried to find anyone, much less a “rogue agent” (as Sheed put it) who was now “under the radar” (as Angela put it) and was using all her expertise not to be tracked by the most sophisticated intelligence networks in the world. But I, Robert Wilder, erstwhile stand-up comic, distinguished imitator of screechy violins, will find her. With his faithful dog, Sparky, on her trail, I’d climb every mountain and swim every sea etcetera and will not rest until etcetera.

  Instead I climbed under the covers. I was exhausted and jet-lagged, so I thought I was just run down and of course clinically depressed. But then I started coughing up a colorful effluvia that seemed to issue from previously untapped regions of my body and I noticed in addition that I could probably fry an egg on my forehead. My mind began cataloguing the untreatable exotic viruses I may have acquired from Turkmenbashi’s meat pies or Bill Clinton’s secret elevator and their various biospheres. Or I could have been merely(?) somatizing my emotional state, which, in any case, I felt as a whopping physical illness.

  So home I stayed, lovesick, in bed. Sparky padded over to the bed once in a while to sniff my face to check if I was still breathing. The time came and went for his walk on the beach, and, saintly doggy that he is, he didn’t whine or scratch at the door but waited with his chin resting on his paws in my direct line of vision so I’d see him when I woke up and opened my eyes. I probably would have starved to death eventually if Renate had not appeared at my bedside because—what else?—Krista told her I was very ill and needed help. Krista herself followed the next day, with cool washcloths and warm broth, and, despite my weak protests, kept me alive. She also fed Sparky and took him for his walks and for hours sat in my Swedish recliner listening to her heavy metal CDs on her Discman. When Renate made a meal for Krista she’d bring over an extra portion for me, and as I got stronger we’d all sit on my bed and eat. Renate had called Don the night she found me sick and if he was there when the meal appeared he would join us, although he had to pull up the desk chair because he was so big he would have taken up the whole bed by himself. I was wasted and feverish and winced every time I breathed and almost fainted every time I laughed, but it became one of the better weeks I ever had (pre-Angela). I felt undeserving of these people’s kindness, which oddly made receiving it better. I would never deserve it, but that didn’t stop them from giving it to me.

  At the end of the week, one week after returning from Paris, my little recuperation-idyll ended abruptly. I got three calls back to back that Friday morning: from Bucket, from Tori (calling for Sheed), and from Doris. It was as if they were all waiting poised to snap me back to reality. As it turned out, their calling on the same morning was not a coincidence. Each of them had been contacted by Don, who had convinced them to leave me alone for at least a week while I recovered. Bucket wanted his HBO contract, Sheed wanted his nondisclosure agreement, and Doris wanted her “closure.” Her call lasted less than five seconds.

  “Robert,” she said.

  “Doris,” I said. “How are you?”

  “I’m in your driveway and very anxious about seeing you. Can we get this over with please?”

  I said sure, and braced myself for the earthquake.

  “I’ve been sitting in your driveway calling you for the last fifteen minutes,” Doris said as she snatched my desk chair and set it facing me propped up on the bed. She had walked right past Krista listening to her Discman in the recliner as if she were invisible. I could see Krista through the doorway to the living room with her hand over her mouth trying to suppress her giggles.

  I said, “Just a minute, Doris,” and made my way over to Krista.

  “Witchbitch,” she mouthed silently, her eyeballs nearly popping out of their sockets.

  I pulled one of her headphones away from her head. Even at that scratchy low volume the heavy metal music sounded like a houseful of babies being slaughtered with cast iron frying pans.

  “I’m going to need a few moments of privacy,” I said.

  Krista smiled broadly. Doris’s discomfort gave her almost infinite pleasure.

  “You’re feeling much better now, Robert,” Krista said.

  “Thanks to you,” I said.

  “I’ll be back after she goes away,” she said.

  I expected a comment about it from Doris, but, obviously from indifference, she didn’t say a word. She was dressed in an elegant tailored beige suit and was still tanned from Maui. She took the utmost care with her appearance, no detail missed, no expense spared, everything purposeful but unobtrusive, an expression of self-respect. She watched me as I rearranged myself onto the bed. I was wearing pajamas with little bears holding blue balloons which I suddenly realized Doris had given me. They had cost about $5,000. (Five hundred, anyway.)

  “You look cute in those pajamas,” she said.

  “You always had great taste in my clothes.”

  “You’re so good looking I could smack you. It just isn’t fair. How can you look great after you’ve been sick, for God’s sake?”

  “Because I didn’t have leprosy or elephantiasis,” I said. “I’m glad. It would have been a waste.”

  “How are you, Doris?”

  “I’m not in love with you anymore. I’m thankful for that.” She shifted on the chair and crossed her legs. She made a fine impression, no question about it.

  “Don says you’re in love with someone else,” I said. “He wouldn’t tell me who.”

  “I know he wouldn’t. I hear the same about you.”

  “I’ll have to talk to Don about what he tells Francine.”

  “Francine didn’t tell me. Don did. So I’d go easier on you. The person I fell in love with didn’t respond by abandoning me like yours did to you. And you did to me.”

  “So are you going to tell me who it is?”

  “Odom Bucket,” she answered, without any further ad
o.

  “Ha. Ha. That’s a joke, right?” I asked.

  “I knew that would be your response but I don’t care.”

  “Doris! He’s a monster.”

  “You don’t know him at all. Anyway so are you.”

  “I guess you have a point,” I said sheepishly.

  “I don’t picture you delivering any sermons on the mount. Your idea of moral high ground is a privy ditch.”

  “Okay. Okay,” I said.

  “No more pretty boys for me. I’m sick of fluff. Odom and I have a great deal in common. Anyway I didn’t come here to get your advice on my love life. Nor did I come to accuse you of anything, though God knows I could spend a lifetime doing that. I came here for healing and closure.”

  “Healing and closure,” I repeated.

  “You’re fucking right,” she said.

  “Okay. What would you like me to do?”

  “Nothing. It’s not for you. It’s for me. I don’t want to be bitter, Robert. It’s not good for me. I don’t look back. It’s the secret of my success. I don’t want to be stuck in some stupid useless pain about you.”

  “How can I help you with that?”

  “Just talk to me a minute.”

  “What would you like me to say?”

  “Tell me how you’ve been. I need to experience you as a normal human being.”

  “That’s going to be a good trick. The past three weeks have been anything but normal.”

  “How’s the HBO special going?”

  “Um, it’s been a busy week with my bodily fluids. I haven’t done a whole lot of run-throughs.”

  “Odom’s agreed to take you on again.”

  “Really?” I asked. “That’s generous of you.”

  “I’ve got to be generous. What I want to do is jam my fingers down your throat and rip your heart out and dance with glee while you die horribly. So I’m taking a contrary action.”

  “Whew. Good thing for me.”

  “Why did you have to stand me up at the church, for God’s sake?” she said, starting to cry, then just as quickly stopping before the first tear leaked out.

  “Now, Doris,” I said. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “God, I’m not going to do this,” she said to herself. “You said, ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m going to accept your apology.”

  “I am sorry,” I said. “It was rotten. I wasn’t thinking of you at all.”

  “Look, you did me a favor. If that was in you to the degree that you even wanted to do that to me, much less actually to do it, our marriage would have been miserable. Who knows how long we would have beaten the dead horse? With my determination and your self-loathing, maybe the rest of our lives.”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “I knew it anyway, see? I had been forcing it too. I knew it wasn’t going to work. That’s why I’m finished with pretty boys. Even now I look at you in those pajamas and I melt. How ridiculous is that? I knew the truth about us, I just couldn’t admit it.”

  “At least you know it now.”

  “Yeah, I had the crash course. So who’s the bimbo? Spun your buns around, didn’t she? She’s probably the one who gave you the virus. Good woman.”

  “I can’t blame you for being angry. I think I finally know how I made you feel.”

  “I’m just kidding. I’m really sorry you were so sick. I’m glad it wasn’t worse.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter to me why you did not show up for our wedding. What difference does it make if you were porking some slut or finding the cure for cancer? You realized you didn’t want to marry me, which made me eventually realize I didn’t want to marry you.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “It is good. We had ten years together. We had some great moments. Our sex was amazing. For me, I mean. You were probably faking your orgasms.”

  “Men do that a lot,” I said.

  “See, the point is, it doesn’t matter what it was for you. I had a good experience with you, Robert. I loved you, in fact—I mean the person I had convinced myself you were. And that was selfish of me, because I wanted that person so much. I was in love with my own fantasy.”

  Where had I heard that before? Was this the Psychoflavor of the Month? I think my mouth dropped open.

  “You look surprised,” Doris said.

  “No,” I said. “I think you’re probably right.”

  “I know I’m right. You may have done your own shit, you may have been irresponsible and inconsiderate. Despicable even. That’s for you to come to terms with. I just need to let it all go.”

  We talked another ten minutes or so, like friends of mutual friends who happened to have been us. As she got up to leave, she suddenly said, “I don’t know you at all, Robert.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know me either.”

  “Yes, well, it may be time to grow up and find out.”

  “Something’s happened to me,” I said. It was another one of those sentences that came out of my mouth before it was in my brain. I had had no intention of talking about this with Doris. She had gotten up and started for the door with her “grow up” comment, but she stopped and turned around.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “Something has changed. I can’t tell what it is. People seem, what, more real? Precious.”

  “That’s a word I never thought I’d hear you use.”

  “Yeah, weird. It’s all probably biochemical.”

  “Well, keep getting sick then. Maybe you can arrange it, say, every day. You might end up being lovely.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Thanks, Doris.”

  “It was for myself,” she said. Then she was gone.

  The windows of my bedroom open out into the canyon toward the ocean, and the gauze curtains on them billowed in the breeze. How ludicrous it was to worry about anything, since nothing ever turned out how I imagined anyway. This fact could be either terrifying or amusing. Why should it not be amusing? After sweating concrete blocks about what Doris was going to do to me, what does she do? The loving thing. Plus she takes up with my agent and makes him rehire me. She may think she didn’t know me at all, but I obviously knew her even less. I guess she thinks I’m worse than she thought. She’s better than I thought.

  Krista appeared at my bed.

  “Time to take your medicine,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t marry Witchbitch.”

  “She’s not so bad, Krista,” I said.

  “Too bossy.”

  “Maybe,” I answered. “Would you tell me something?”

  “What?”

  “If I had gotten married to Doris, were you going to take those pills I found in my bed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “That was too long ago. I don’t remember. You didn’t get married. You got sick. I’m taking care of you. Until Angela comes back and you marry her.”

  “How do you know her name?”

  “I heard it in my head. Don’t feel bad anymore. She’ll be back soon.”

  This really was uncanny. Maybe we should start that paranormal act.

  “How about you, Krista?” I asked. “Do you still feel bad?”

  “Not bad. Sad.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Let me know if I can do anything.”

  “I’m going back home now. You’re okay now, Robert,” she said, and picked up her Discman and CDs and walked out the door.

  I sat there for a moment, another moment of light and silence with the gauzy curtains and the billowing breeze. It seemed I had a decision to make right then: either live or die. Doris was going on with her life, and so, remarkably, was Krista—at least I hoped for that for Krista. If they could do it, so could I. I might fall apart eighty times a day, every time something reminded me of Angela. I had no delusions about ever “getting over” her. B
ut I got out of bed, cleared the papers off my desk, tossed my unsigned marriage license to Doris into the wastebasket, and turned on the computer.

  What appeared on the screen was something I had never seen before on my computer:

  Welcome to HoTMaiL

  The World’s

  FREE

  Web-based E-mail

  I apparently had an e-mail account:

  user name: funnyman

  password: dickthink.

  Don had set it up for me during one of his visits to my apartment during my fabulous all-expenses-paid vacation to Paris. The first e-mail was from him:

  Now we never have to talk again. I can just write you insulting messages.

  Love,

  Don

  There was one more message in the in-box. Its subject line was Silk Robe and it was from Angela:

  The broken heart tattoo I got when you got engaged. No one has ever worn the men’s white silk robe but you. I’ve packed it and taken it all over the world in case by some miracle we’d ever be together. That miracle happened. It was better than my wildest dreams. You are better than my wildest dreams. Nobody should love another human being the way I love you. It’s not right. It’s not fair to you. I am responsible for Jalalzada’s death. But nothing makes me feel worse than hurting you. I am so sorry. Please forgive me if you can.

  The sender’s e-mail address was RESTRICTED. That was it. There wasn’t a return e-mail address. I clicked the Reply icon but nothing came up. Since I had never used e-mail before, I couldn’t tell if I was doing something wrong. To call Don I had to use the phone, but the phone line was being used by the computer to dial into the Internet. If I got off the Internet, would I lose Angela’s message? Would it make it impossible for her to write to me again? I wanted to scream and throw the computer through the window. Instead I copied Angela’s message onto a piece of paper and disconnected the Internet and called Don. He said he’d try to find out what the deal was and get back to me. I immediately dialed up the Internet again and logged into HoTMaiL. The two messages, Don’s and Angela’s, were still in the in-box. I clicked Reply for Don’s and wrote:

  I’m going crazy.