by Douglas Gray
“Is this the typing?” I ask, indicating the stack of papers by the machine.
“That’s it. But before we drop the subject, let me just say two things. First, I was wrong about that girl. Second, you’re an idiot who persists in being even more wrong about her than I was.”
She returns to today’s copy of the Commercial Appeal, lifting the pages so the paper acts as a shield between us. “And that’s all I have to say on the matter.”
~ ~ ~
Wednesday, May 3
I tell the undergraduate who’s lackadaisically guarding the entrance to Fulton Chapel that I’m on the set design team, and he lets me pass through the door.
Rehearsals are supposed to be closed to the general public, but there are enough students charged with various tasks milling about the auditorium that I easily blend in with the rest by simply pretending to look busy.
Eventually, I run into Clamor, who really is on the set design team. “I didn’t actually think you’d show up,” she says, clapping an arm around my shoulders.
“You invited me, didn’t you? Here I am.”
She directs me to a row of seats toward the back and promises to join me in a few minutes. The rehearsal begins and is three scenes into the first act before Clamor arrives. The play seems to be about Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull and the Wild West Show. I’m not sure whether it’s supposed to be historical, or comical. Or both. Or neither. What I’ve seen so far doesn’t make much sense.
One thing I am sure of is a face on stage that I’d never thought to see again, at least in the flesh, playing one of the lead parts.
“What’s Paul Walker doing back here?” I whisper. “He and I graduated together.”
“Working on an MFA,” she whispers back.
“Why? He went to New York, got to star in some off Broadway thing and then made it big, landed a role on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.”
“I know. Girls used to watch that in the dorm. We called it Love Is a Long and Slender Thing. You and Paul were friends?”
“Not really. More like rivals. He was the guy that Melissa left me for.”
“Lord, not Melissa again,” Clamor grouses. “If you’re about to tell me your heartbreak tale, please don’t. I can’t imagine the power that girl has over you. The one time I met her, she seemed pretty ordinary.”
“You evidently didn’t sleep with her,” I say.
“No, it was only our first date. That wouldn’t have stopped you, but I have higher standards.”
~ ~ ~
Thursday, May 4
“How would I know what babies like?” Nina Fairchild replies. “Do I strike you as the mothering type?”
Garrett phoned ahead before we left Oxford for our impromptu shopping trip to Memphis, and Miss Fairchild agreed to sneak away from her desk at the Commercial Appeal for a rendezvous with the two of us in Overton Square.
It’s a little past 1:00, almost 85 degrees outside, and I’m already on my second beer in the air conditioned Looking Glass. Garrett has explained the nature of our quest, to find something for Suzie’s baby shower on behalf of the male residents (or in my case, former resident) of the house on Tyler Avenue.
Miss Fairchild isn’t truly crucial to this quest, but I sense that Garrett’s planned this trip partly as an excuse to see her.
“What do babies like, indeed? That’s exactly the problem,” Garrett says. “We put our heads together over the question, but none of us can actually remember that far back, to being a baby. We’re pretty sure what we liked then would have to be different from what we like now. So we’re ruling out sex and pot and alcohol.”
“That just leaves sleeping,” I say.
“Right. Babies love to sleep. Who doesn’t? But the kid’s already got a crib and blankets and shit. So what does that leave?”
“You say you have $60 to spend?” Miss Fairchild asks. “Why not do something practical, like buy the kid a big savings bond? You know, an investment in its future.”
“Actually, we thought about that,” Garrett confirms, “but Nick told us that Suzie would get pissed. He said that savings bonds fund an imperialist war machine, and that giving money to the Pentagon in the kid’s name would wreak havoc on its karma.”
“There’s a shop around the corner selling really cool tie-dyed bibs,” I say. “But they’re only like $2.00 apiece. I don’t think any kid can spit up enough to need 30 of them.”
“Maybe we could get a bunch of posters to help decorate the nursery,” Garrett says.
“What kind of posters?” Miss Fairchild wants to know.
“Oh, I don’t know. Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Grateful Dead. Rolling Stones.”
“Things that babies like,” Miss Fairchild observes.
“So the kid doesn’t know anything about music. We can buy it a stereo.”
She sighs. “Yes, I’m sure the mother would love to have a stereo system in the nursery so she can blast the kid with Sticky Fingers during nap time.”
“I think Beggars Banquet would make a better nap time selection,” I say.
“Let It Bleed,” Garrett counters.
“Their Satanic Majesties,” I say.
“You boys should both get vasectomies right away. Do you know why? Because you’d make terrible fathers. Listen, the shower isn’t about what the baby likes. It’s about what the mother needs. You have a nice store down there on the Square. What’s it called – Nielsens? Hasn’t Suzie registered there?”
“Registered the kid?” Garrett asks. “I wouldn’t think so. She and Nick don’t even want it to have a birth certificate. They’re planning to keep it completely off the grid and safe from Nixon.”
“A gift registry,” Miss Fairchild explains. “For the birth. Friends and family go to the store and look at the registry to find out what she needs. You know, like at weddings.”
“People do that for weddings?” I ask.
“Your friend doesn’t get out much, does he?” she says to Garrett. “What I’m saying is that you’ve got to think in practical terms about the mother, not about the baby. At this point, you don’t even know if it’s a girl or a boy.”
“It’s a boy,” I say.
“How can you be so sure?” she asks.
“I met him.”
“You met him? When?”
“During a psilocybin trip, last fall.”
Miss Fairchild gives me a look.
“I don’t intend to have children,” I say. This is meant to be reassuring.
“See that you don’t.”
~ ~ ~
Friday, May 5
“You just missed James,” Dottie informs me when I drop by to see what’s new on the shelves of the Nickelodeon. T Rex, Arlo Guthrie, Mountain, Fleetwood Mac, CCR.
“Then it’s my lucky day,” I say. “I’ve already heard enough tales of his martyrdom in the Chapel Hill calaboose. My friend Tatyana kept pretty close tabs, and she says the worst thing that happened during his sentence is that one afternoon they ran out of strawberry ice cream for the prisoners’ snack.”
“His version sound more like the Count of Monte Cristo,” Dottie says.
“He believes he’s that and more – the Count of Monte Cristo, Angela Davis, Richard Kimble, the Man in the Iron Mask, Jean Valjean, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Sacco, Vanzetti, Nelson Mandela, Alfred Dreyfus, Joan of Arc, Sam Sheppard and Saint Paul, all rolled into one.”
“He’s been through an ordeal,” Dottie says. “You have to allow him that much.”
“I don’t have to allow him anything. Not a single damn thing, not after the way that bastard shamed Clamor.”
“Claire Marie was with him today,” Dottie tells me, and I throw my hands up in disgust.
“Why? Why would she forgive some man who treated her that way? Really, I’d like to know. Would you care to explain women to me?”
“Maybe if you had one of your own, no further explanations would be necessary,” Dottie says. “For the life of me, I’ll never understand how you let C
indy slip through your fingers.”
“Cindy is Andrew’s girl.”
“Right. Everybody’s got a girl except you. Garrett even has two, one in town and one up in Memphis.
“Maybe I should ask Garrett what his secret with the ladies is.”
“Hell, everybody knows what Garrett’s secret is. He’s got that bus to prove it.”
“What?” I say.
“You mean you haven’t heard that story?” she asks.
“What story? What are you talking about?”
“About Garrett and the bus.”
“No. Tell me.”
Dottie sets another pile of albums on the counter. “Don’t try to change the topic of conversation. This is about you wasting your youth living like a medieval celibate, pining away over some candy bar queen you had an undergraduate crush on, while some of the most beautiful girls in the world walk right past you on the streets of Oxford. Don’t try telling me you aren’t messed up.”
“Melissa is. . .” I begin to say, but Dottie cuts me short.
“Gone. Forget about her. Have you learned nothing from Stephen Stills? If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”
“That’s good advice,” I admit.
“You’re damn right it is.”
~ ~ ~
Saturday, May 6
“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten your promise,” the Man in the Quaker State cap says to me.
We’re sitting at the bar in Skeeter’s. It’s still early evening, the band hasn’t set up yet, Freddie Hart’s on the jukebox (“My Hang-Up Is You”), and the place is quiet for a Saturday, though it’s bound to get livelier later.
“I haven’t been able to make it up here,” I explain. “I usually come with my roommate, but he’s sworn off booze until he finishes writing his dissertation.”
The Man in the Quaker State cap takes a sip of his Pepsi Cola. “Yeah, he’s talked to me about that thing. History. Never one of my favorite subjects in school. Didn’t see the point in it. Too much speculation, and it lacks the intellectual discipline of the hard sciences.”
This is my cue to deliver the bad news about my interview with Dr. Glass. The man finishes his Pepsi and nibbles down a pretzel before shooting me a nod and a sideways smile by way of acknowledgement. “I know you did the best you could,” he says. “And I appreciate your making the attempt. If you ever need a favor, just let me know.”
“Actually, I could use some advice. About women.”
“A subject upon which I have some passing knowledge,” he grants. “What do you want to know?”
“I’m 23 years old,” I tell him. “Is that too old to be dating a girl who’s only 19?”
The Man in the Quaker State Cap replies with a laugh and a look of astonishment, and I just now realize the stupidity of my question.
“Do you think she likes you?” he asks.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then go for it, man. It’d be creepy if you were forcing your attentions on her. But it’s not creepy if she wants you to.”
~ ~ ~
Sunday, May 7
I don’t understand why I’ve been summoned to Suzie’s baby shower, about which the hosts have changed their minds at the last minute and made it a ladies-only affair.
No guys allowed, not even Nick, who’s so wrapped up in this pregnancy that he’s scarcely even a guy anymore. We expect him to begin lactating any day now.
But as I enter the house, I get a sense that the shower is long over – gifts of baby clothes, basinets, pacifiers and whatnot are scattered amid piles of torn wrapping paper – and a new event has begun.
Joan is sitting in a center chair, looking pissed off, surrounded by a circle of females – Suzie is there, of course, with Cindy, Vicky the Tupperware lady, and a half dozen others I know by sight but not by name.
“What is this?” I ask as Suzie motions me to take the one unoccupied chair in the circle.
“It’s called an intervention,” Suzie answers.
“It’s called meddling in my private business,” Joan snaps.
“Your friends care about you,” Vicky soothes. “We just want you to think about your own well-being.”
“You made one terrible mistake already, marrying James, and it nearly wrecked your life.”
“I’m not marrying Blake,” Joan says.
“You will,” Suzie says. “You’re the marrying kind, and you have terrible judgment where men are concerned. Daniel, tell her that Blake’s no good.”
“No good?” I ask. “I wouldn’t say that. I mean, he’s a dipsomaniac and a hypochondriac and a physical coward. He cheats at cards. And at Scrabble and Dominos. He drinks milk straight from the carton. He’s kind of a bigot – he can’t stand Hindus or anyone who was born in a state that begins with the letter ‘I,’ like Iowa. He secretly likes the Carpenters. He’s got all of their albums hidden under his mattress, and I’m pretty sure he plays them on the stereo when nobody else is around. He’s terrified of rabbits. He’s addicted to malted milk balls. I once watched him eat 200 of them in a single evening. He won’t leave the moonshine alone, and one day he’ll probably do himself some brain damage from drinking it. He thinks the movie version of The Magus was better than the book. He’s about to get a doctorate in French history, but he can’t read a word of French, and he can’t add, subtract, multiply or divide simple numbers. He’s an awful driver – you never want to get in the car when he’s at the wheel. He says he buys Playboy just for the articles, but he only looks at the pictures. He’ll probably die young, most likely by his own hand, and take a number of innocent bystanders with him when he goes. But all in all, I wouldn’t say he’s a bad guy.”
“This is your fault,” Joan says to me.
I’m taken aback. “My fault?”
“Why on earth did you take all our friends to the trailer? It gave them the wrong impression, got them all stirred up.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” I admit.
“How can you live like that?” Cindy asks.
“Two minutes in that sty, and I felt like we needed to get penicillin shots,” Suzie agrees.
“You can’t really judge a guy by his trailer,” I say. “Look, Blake is just one chapter shy of finishing his dissertation. Next fall, he’ll be on the faculty at Tulane, tenure track. Give him a break.”
“So you’re saying that he’s good enough for Joan,” Cindy says.
“Hell no,” I say.
“What?” Cindy asks.
“What?” Joan echoes.
“Of course he’s not good enough for Joan. No man’s good enough for Joan. No man’s good enough for you either,” I say to Cindy. “Or you,” I add, turning to Suzie, “though Nick does his best. There’s not a single man in this world that’s good enough for any of you ladies here in this room today. You know why? Because men are shit. Women are superior beings, and men are shit. I don’t, for the life of me, understand what any woman sees in any man. If I were a woman, I’d have nothing to do with us. But there you have it. You all keep falling in love with us. Idiots! As long as Joan’s going to fall in love with a piece of shit, she could do a lot worse for a piece of shit than Blake. Anyway, it’s her mistake to make. If she wants to throw her life away on him, everybody should just get off her back about it.”
~ ~ ~
Monday, May 8
Campus cops are swarming the Library again, in search of the Flasher, as I leave for my appointment with Dr. Valencia.
“They’ll catch him eventually,” Valencia says as I take a seat in his comfy chair, “but I hope not anytime soon. I’m working on a paper. This man may be one of the most persistent cases of apodysophilia in psychiatric history. Most exhibitionists are identified or captured after half a dozen acts. This son of a bitch has exposed himself almost 40 times over the course of nine months.”
“Do you need a fun fact to liven up your paper?” I ask. “My man Herodotus has the earliest account of public indecent exposure in w
estern history. It’s in Book II of the Histories. Whole boatloads of Egyptian pilgrims floating down the Nile on their way to the festival of Bubastis would shout insults at the people of all the villages they passed, and expose themselves in ridicule. Actually, it’s also one of the earliest accounts of a bunch of tourists acting like real dickheads.”
“I thought you were done with Herodotus,” Valencia says. “Didn’t you say that Dean Moriarty cancelled your involvement in the program?”
“No, he just cancelled my assistantship. No more work at the Museum after the end of spring semester. No more funding. I’ll have to find a real job to support myself. But I’m still enrolled in the program. He’ll have to pry Herodotus from my cold, dead hands.”
“I’m sure the dean would welcome that opportunity. Maybe this is the time to reconsider your father’s offer. It would make you financially independent. You’d be free to continue your studies while making all the enemies in high places you could ever wish for.”
“It’s a tempting prospect,” I admit. “But then my old man would be done with me forever, and he’s the most fun person to piss off that I know.”
Valencia gives me his smug psychiatrist look. “Do you understand what you just said?” he asks.
“I think so. It was in English, which I speak almost fluently. Do you understand what I said?”
The look intensifies. “I understand it perfectly. You love your father, and you’re terrified of losing him. Your only means of holding onto him is to make him despise you and need to destroy you.”
I pause for a few moments, trying to let this soak in, while Valencia scribbles notes on his little pad.
“Jeeze, doc,” I finally manage to say. “Not even my family is that messed up. Honestly, my father and I just hate each other. Good honest mutual detestation. It’s a pure, decent struggle to the death. You make it sound sick.”
~ ~ ~
Tuesday, May 9
I don’t want to go to the lecture, but Dr. Goodleigh insists. “It’ll be fun,” she says.
So we lock the Museum, descend the central stairway of Bondurant Hall, and cross the walk to Bishop Hall, where the auditorium is already three-quarters full with grad students, English majors, assorted faculty and the literary subculture of the town, gathered for Edward Alcott’s third and final public presentation as writer in residence.
Honored as I always am to be seen in public escorting the campus’ own Athena in residence, I still suffer an unexpected tug of jealousy upon spotting Becky in the second row, sitting with Clamor and the new boys of the Tyler Avenue commune, so wrapped up in a conversation with them that she doesn’t even notice our arrival.