The skinny purple-haired undergrad at the register motions to me. I’m up. I pick up my stuff in two shifts. How am I going to carry these back to the dorm? A boyfriend would carry them for me.
“That’ll be eight hundred, forty-seven dollars, and twenty-two cents.”
Good thing I didn’t buy that baby tee.
russ goes to war
Tuesday, September 16, 5:35 p.m.
Dribble. Dribble. Big breath. I shoot, I…
Miss. Oh, man.
“You suck, Russ,” Nick says.
“Shit.” I jog toward the basket.
“You see that net, up there?” he says, pointing. “The ball is supposed to go through it. Through.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Had enough for today?”
I nod. Don’t think I can speak. “I’m too old for this.”
“Gimme a break. You just need some practice, dude.”
I empty a bottle of water down my throat and follow Nick outside the gym. The fall air attacks the sweat on my arms and face.
“Wanna go for a beer?” Nick asks.
“Can’t. Made plans to study with Kimmy.”
Nick raises an eyebrow. “So have you fucked her yet?”
I trip on my shoelaces. “Excuse me?”
He laughs. “You two have been spending a lot of time together. Just wondering what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on. I’m a taken man.”
He chuckles. “If you say so.” When we reach the second floor, he says, “Same time tomorrow?”
“You got it,” I say to Nick’s retreating figure. I climb the rest of the way on my own, thinking about his other question.
Kimmy and I have been spending a lot of time together. But nothing is going on. Nothing. Who’s to say I can only make male friends at school? I’m supposed to be networking. We’ve been hanging out for legitimate purposes. Studying. Reading. Working out. Nothing sketchy.
And she knows about Sharon, thanks to Jamie. I was going to mention it eventually, honest, but it’s not something you can easily work into the conversation without sounding like a hoser. Thanks for the movie invite. Did I mention my girlfriend Sharon really likes movies?
I unlock my room, grab a towel, shampoo and soap, and bolt to the bathroom. As the hot water pummels against my back, I tell myself for the umpteenth time this week that I’m not doing anything wrong. There is nothing wrong with having a close female friend.
I’m full of shit.
She wants me-didn’t she say so at the gym?-so, yes, it’s wrong to spend so much time with her. It’s wrong to lead her on when I don’t want her.
I’m so full of shit.
Last night I dreamed we were having sex in Professor Martin’s class. We were actually under the desk, our combat uniforms strewn all over the floor.
I am an asshole. I am the hugest asshole. (But it was a good dream.)
In the dream, under her khaki soldier’s clothes she was wearing what she’d been wearing when we studied together last Tuesday night: a black tank top with red bra straps peeking through. Instead of studying, I spent the entire evening imagining what the rest of the bra looked like. I was thinking the lacy, see-through kind. Maybe with a pair of matching red panties.
When I stopped by her room last Tuesday night to borrow her books, she suggested that we work together in one of the study rooms in the library. I thought, why not. Might be more fun. And there we were. Two people, a man and a woman, in an enclosed room. With the door closed. And no windows. And a big, brown table. I wondered if anyone had ever had sex on that table. I pictured us having sex on that table.
We were supposed to read two cases, one for Organizational Behavior, one for Stats. I skimmed the pages, but it was hard to concentrate when she smelled like vanilla and lemon, like something in my mom’s kitchen.
I shower slowly, enjoying the memory. Eventually I turn off the water, wrap my towel around me and return to my room. Then I pick up the phone. I told Kimmy I’d call her when I was done with basketball.
“Hi, this is Kimmy, can’t come to the phone. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
Her voice sounds sexy, smooth then rubbed with sandpaper. I leave a message and pull on the jeans that were crumpled on the floor, the ones that already have my belt in the loops and my change and credit cards in the pocket. My plans with Kimmy are for around five, and it’s five on the nose.
If it hadn’t been for Sharon meeting me, liking me, convincing me to go see a doctor about my skin and kicking my ass into the gym, a girl like Kimmy would never look twice at me.
Where’s my gel?
The phone rings. Must be her. At least she didn’t forget.
“I was waiting for you,” I say, finding the bottle under my desk and rubbing some in my hair.
“You were?” says a familiar voice. Sharon’s.
“Oh, hi,” I say, startled. Sharon. Sharon. My girlfriend. Remember her? The girl who was always there for you? I am such an ass wipe. “I had a feeling you were going to call.”
“Yeah? You must be psychic. What’s up?”
“Not much. Just got back from playing ball.”
“And tonight?”
I wipe the gel residue on my jeans. “Studying, maybe.”
“Good idea,” she says. I doubt that. Then she adds, “I miss you.”
Maybe she can sense my wandering eye. “I miss you, too,” I mumble.
Knock, knock. Oh, man. “Shar, someone’s at the door, I gotta go. Can I call you later?”
“Who is it?” she asks.
At the moment, I’m hoping Nick.
But no. Voice from behind the door. “Russ? You there?” Kimmy.
“One second,” I say to the door. Then I say to the phone, “I have to go.”
“Where are you going?”
“To study.”
Kimmy knocks again. “Russ? You inside?”
Oh, man. I have a pain in my arm, and I think I could be having a heart attack. Breathe. So I’ve been flirting. Big deal. No harm in flirting.
“Who are you studying with?” Sharon asks, relentlessly.
“Just some guys,” I answer. Now I’m lying. I’m not just flirting. I’m lying and flirting.
“Okay, call me tonight.”
“Will do.” I try to keep my voice upbeat and blameless sounding.
“Be good. Love you.”
“You, too.” I leave out the love in case Kimmy can hear. Not sure what else “you, too” could mean. Good luck? You, too. Have a good dinner? You, too. Have fun screwing around? You, too.
Now I really feel like an ass. After all she’s done for me, how can I flirt with someone else? I can’t treat her like this. No more private study sessions with Kimmy.
I open the door and find Kimmy in combat clothes, slinging a rifle over her shoulder. I blink and the vision disappears.
She’s wearing that black tank top with the red bra straps peeking through.
Oh, boy.
“What do you say we go for a beer instead?” I ask.
She smiles. “Sounds even better.”
“I think Nick wants to join us.”
A cloud passes her face. “Lead the way.”
My alarm doesn’t go off when it’s supposed to. My eyes pop open at ten to nine. Oh, man. How did I do that? I check to see if there was a power failure. Nope. Apparently I set my clock for eight p.m. instead of a.m. Good job.
I jump out of bed. No time to shower. Need clothes. I can keep on the same boxers, since I just put them on after I showered last night. Sharon hates when I don’t change my boxers in the morning, but what’s the point if I showered the night before? She goes through three pairs of panties a day. One in the morning, a thong at night, and then a clean pair to sleep in. Who has time for that kind of laundry?
Eight fifty-four. I can’t believe I’m going to be late for class. I’m never late for anything.
I zip up the same jeans I was wearing last night, and throw on
the closest available T-shirt. Did I wear that yesterday, too? I think I wore that yesterday. It smells like I wore it yesterday.
Ready. Must brush teeth. No time to floss. There’s never time to floss. I rummage through the papers on my desk, looking for my toothpaste and toothbrush, then sprint to the bathroom, brush, pee, shove my stuff back in my room and sprint to class. Professor Matthews is about to slam the door, when I rush in.
Kimmy waves from the back row, and I weave through the desks and sit beside her. “You were almost late,” she says.
“Had some trouble getting out of bed.”
“No kidding,” she says. She looks at me with speculation. “How come? We didn’t get back that late last night.”
I don’t answer. We left the bar at around twelve-thirty. But then I hung out in Nick’s room smoking joints and watching the security monitor till two. Then I called Sharon. We were on the phone till three, and then I tossed in bed till four-thirty.
I slump into my seat. Should have picked up coffee.
Kimmy starts to doodle on the piece of blank paper on my desk. “Are you going to the club fair at lunch?”
Club fair, club fair. “Will there be rides?”
“A Ferris wheel in the center of the cafeteria,” she deadpans.
The door creaks open. Jamie waltzes in, coffee in hand. He scans the room for a seat, and climbs up the stairs toward the back. Matthews is watching him, steam shooting from his nostrils.
Kimmy taps me on the arm with her pen. “So, are you coming to the club fair?”
What the hell is a club fair? “Definitely.”
By that afternoon, I’ve signed up for the American Marketing Association, LWBS Intramural Basketball, the Entrepreneurial Club, the Microbrew Society, the Ice Hockey Association and the Consulting Association. I think I might be overdoing it. But they all sound interesting, eh?
We’re in the main hall of the Katz building, and there’s no Ferris wheel. But there are desks set up against each wall, with groups of second-year students manning them, hollering at passing first-years to join them. There are at least eighty clubs, and it’s like I’m in an electronics store and all the televisions, radios and CD players are tuned into different stations at full blast. How can there be so much to meet about? And why did I just sign up for all of them?
Somewhere in the sea of people, I’ve lost Kimmy. I spot Nick at the front of the line of the beer blast booth. He waves me over. “Dude, did you sign up here yet?”
No, this appears to be the one club I haven’t signed up for yet. How is it different from the Microbrew Association? Beer is beer, right? “Should I?”
The second-year shoves a clipboard and a pen under my face. I write my name.
“That’ll be fifty bucks.” The second-year takes back the clipboard. “You’re signing up for a year of beer blast. Otherwise it’s five bucks a night.”
“Fifty American bucks for beer?”
The second-year puffs himself up and dives into his speech. “Every Thursday night there’s beer blast in the cafeteria. Companies sponsor them, and the profits go to various clubs. You can spend five bucks at the door, or fifty bucks for the entire year. That’s about four for free. Trust me, it’s worth it.”
If a guy I’ve never met before tells me to trust him, why wouldn’t I?
“Do it, dude,” Nick says. “First one’s tomorrow.”
“All right,” I say. “Can I bring the cash then?”
“No,” the second-year says. “But there’s a bank machine down the hall.”
I barely have fifty bucks in my account. “I’ll cover you,” Nick says, sensing my hesitation.
“Thanks, man.” Now that’s a friend. A friend will do everything in his power to help you. If I’m going to win this war I’m waging inside myself, I’m going to need all the help I can get.
jamie is a washout
Thursday, September 18, 6:15 p.m.
Most men would have taken the hint. I am not most men.
“I can’t tonight,” Kimmy says, “I’m going to a beer blast.” She’s standing in her doorway, brushing out her hair. I wonder what it must feel like to brush one’s hair. I don’t even touch mine, for fear of inadvertently encouraging strands to fall out.
“But you have to eat. You shouldn’t go beer blasting on an empty stomach.”
She grins but shakes her head. “I can’t. I want to get some reading done first. Maybe another time?”
Aha! An opening. “Tomorrow night?”
I know I’m sounding desperate, but the over-the-top-style adoration technique usually works for me. I had to send my last girlfriend, Shoshanna, roses with corresponding poems for two weeks straight before she agreed to go out with me. Let’s face it, I’m not going to pick up women with my hot bod and balding head. I need to showcase glitz, romance and the potential for a lot of laughs.
Unfortunately, Kimmy is not taking the bait. Which poses a problem. Because there aren’t so many women at LWBS to begin with, never mind hot Jewish women, I might have to start hanging out in the undergraduate dorms, which would look suspicious. I might be taken for a perv.
I need something to entertain me at this institution. To distract me from the fact that I don’t know why I’m here. What a farce. What a lie.
For now my distraction is Kimmy. I wonder if it’s the hair. Does she not like the balding? Maybe I should try to grow a comb-over. Oy.
“Maybe. We’ll see,” she says. “I need to work on that Stats assignment for Monday.”
“Stats? I’ll give you a stat. A hundred percent you should have dinner with me tonight.”
“Funny. But no. Not tonight, anyway.”
A maybe is better than a no. I guess I’ll go to beer blast tonight. Might as well watch the morons make fools of themselves.
I decide to call my bubbe before getting ready. I feel a twinge of guilt for not calling since I’ve been at school.
She drops the phone twice before picking up. “Hello?”
“Hi, Bubbe!”
“Hello?”
“Bubbe, it’s me, Jamie.”
“Jamie? Oh, Jamie! I’m so happy you called.” The sentence sounds more like, I’m so heppy you cult. She has a thick Yiddish accent. We speak for only a few minutes. We never have that much to talk about, but she sounds like she’s in good spirits, as usual. It always amazes me how someone who has been through so much-she’s a Holocaust survivor who lost her entire family, including her first husband, in the war, and then her second husband, my mother’s father, to cancer, and then a grandchild, the sister I never met, to crib death-can still keep smiling. Which she does. She may not have too many of her own teeth behind that smile, but she’s still smiling. Unlike my mother, who’s never happy with anything.
“When I gonna see you?” she asks.
I tell her that I can’t come home for Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, which is in a week and a half, but I’ll be back for Thanksgiving.
“Good, good. You focus on school.”
“Love you, Bubbe.”
“I love you. So much.”
I change into my terry-cloth navy bathrobe, grab my bucket of products and stroll to the showers, not caring that I don’t look macho.
I step into the second shower, because the first one’s in use. I wonder by whom. Maybe it’s Kimmy. All wet, and hot, and soapy. And then just like we’re in a movie, there’s a knock on the shower divider. Wow. Maybe it is Kimmy and she can read my mind. Just like in a movie, we were meant to be.
“Yes, darlin’?” I say.
“Darlin’? How did you know I was a woman?” It isn’t Kimmy, but whoever it is, she sounds sexy.
Me: It was a feminine knock.
Sexy Stranger: Do you have any conditioner? I’m out.
Me: Who wants to know? (I need a name!)
SS: It’s…Darlin’.
Me: Playing mysterious, are you?
SS: Always.
Me: My personal conditioner, occasionally referred to as
cream rinse, is for extrafine hair. Is that acceptable?
SS: Preferable, actually.
Me: (A clue?) So you have thin hair?
SS: No, I mean I prefer my men with thin hair. (She doesn’t actually say the part after “no.”)
Me: (While contemplating standing on my bucket and peering over the wall.) Shall I come over to hand you the bottle?
SS: Why don’t you throw it?
Me: What if it spills?
SS: Close it properly and it won’t.
Me: (Laughing.) All right. Ready? One, two, three. (I don’t throw it.)
SS: I’m waiting.
Me: That was a test. Now I’m really going to throw it. Are you ready? I need to know if you’re ready.
SS: Always.
Me: Are you sure? This is serious stuff.
SS: I’m pruning here.
Me: Don’t get cranky. Here we go. One, two, three. (Toss bottle over dividing wall.)
(Clunk. Laughter.)
SS: Oops.
Me: You dropped it, didn’t you?
SS: It didn’t spill. Much. There’s some left. I think.
Me: (While rinsing the shampoo from my head.) I’m going to need it back now.
SS: Why didn’t you take some before you passed it?
Me: Why? It wasn’t time for the cream rinse yet.
SS: Don’t you need a second shampoo?
Me: Real men don’t do two shampoos. (Real mean are men like me without much hair and are afraid to wear it out.)
SS: All right. Ready? One, two, three.
(Nothing comes.)
Me: You didn’t throw it.
SS: Just testing. Now for real. One, two, three. (Bottle flies in arc over wall, I catch it.)
SS: Impressive.
Me: You should see me juggle.
SSE: (Turns off her water.) One day.
Me: You’re leaving me already?
SS: It gets cold standing here with no water.
Me: (While imagining cold naked body and telltale nipples.) Desert me, see if I care. (Bathroom door closes. Sigh. I open bottle of conditioner. Empty.)
(End of Scene)
Monkey Business Page 7