When Roland opened his briefcase, Alan gasped and clenched the fabric covering his heart. It was no longer acting. “These are the actual notes I sent Lynn,” he said, picking up a note and scratching off the Wite-Out. “What else did she send you?”
“Flowers, candy, a bonsai tree, lingerie.”
“She copies my stalking mindlessly, without even thinking or making sense. She’s a machine, a factory of stalking. Why would she send you lingerie? For you to wear?”
“No, her note said she could wear the lingerie for me.”
“Hmph. What did it look like?”
“Yellow with a pink lace border.”
“I bought it at Victoria’s Secret. It was expensive.”
“I can give it back to you if you want.”
“That would seem fair. It’s not the money I’m concerned about. The item was special to me. And it’s weird that you would own it.”
“I agree. In a roundabout way, Alan, all of this makes you my stalker.”
Alan turned red. “I asked you not to call it that.”
“Very well then—my admirer.”
“How ironic, then, that I don’t admire you.”
The two men stared at each other. Alan finally added, “No offense.”
“Fine, none taken. Listen, if you’ve been following this woman a lot, why didn’t you notice she was following me?”
Alan had to be careful and persuasive. “I stay a certain distance behind her and she probably stays a certain distance behind you, so the distance between you and me is pretty significant.”
Roland nodded.
“Plus, I lack powers of observation,” Alan said, “especially in those crowded streets and when I’m focused on Lynn. Also, I have poor skills in recognizing people, particularly from the back. I do remember noticing she had an air of self-centered single-mindedness—which I found very appealing—but I didn’t attribute that to the fact that she was following someone.”
Alan noticed Roland was staring at him with an air of suspicion, which was exactly what Alan had feared. Think! Think! he told himself. And then he got an idea. Turn the tables.
“This is all strange,” Alan said. “Is it really just a coincidence, or are you in on this with Lynn? Are you a friend of hers who’s helping her get back at me for stalking her?”
“No, I’m not a friend of hers! And I could say the same to you!”
“Well, I’m not a friend of hers, believe me. I wish I were.” Good. Now, use distraction. “But there are two questions that are driving me crazy. The first one is, Why is she copying my stalking method?”
“Well, that seems pretty obvious,” Roland said. “This woman wants me, but she’s too lazy to come up with her own stalking methodology. Too cheap to buy me her own lingerie, and probably her own flowers, too, and her own candy.”
Alan was surprised by this theory, but it made some sense.
“We can’t let her get away with this,” Roland said. “What she’s doing calls for retaliation.”
Alan was even more surprised by this comment, but his fixation on another issue prevented him from getting sidetracked. “And the second question that’s driving me crazy is, Why does Lynn prefer you to me?”
Roland stared at the Humpty-Dumpty man addressing him. He shrugged modestly.
They played their game of racquetball. The Frenchman won. Before leaving the gym, he took a shirt button out of his pocket and dropped it on the floor. He always had a fresh supply of buttons, pennies, paper clips, and movie stubs in his pockets to avoid the discomfort of finding himself with nothing to lose.
One of Lynn’s artists was showing her a just-finished abstract painting composed of brilliant colors and geometric shapes. Lynn was gazing at it without liking it, making polite but unenthusiastic sounds.
The artist suddenly said, “The title of this painting is, You Should Stalk More.”
Shocked, Lynn asked, “Why did you call it that?”
“Patricia suggested it. Said you’d like it.”
Ray the homeless man found himself overcome by the urge to whisper therapeutic comments to Roland, Lynn, and Alan as they passed, but he tried to resist exercising his influence and deploying his power of suggestion. Sometimes he failed.
The first time this urge overpowered him, he whispered to Alan, “Get a life. Manhattan is a city rich in possibilities. Inject some variety into your stalking. Pick someone else for a day.”
Lynn was tired of Patricia’s pranks. One time, Lynn took a bite of a sandwich she had bought earlier, but the layer between the ham and the cheese was not appetizing. She slid it out. It was a piece of paper on which Patricia had scrawled, “Why aren’t you stalking?”
“How can I make you stop doing these things to me?”
Patricia handed her a typewritten document.
Lynn read.
STALKING ASSIGNMENTS
In order to avoid any further annoyances, at least one or a combination of the following has to be done daily:
• Follow Mr. Dupont for an hour.
• Loiter outside his building for an hour and a half.
• Say something to him. Make eye contact. Let your presence be felt.
• Write him notes, call him, spy on him, go up to people he’s hanging out with, talk to his doorman some more.
Three
By the next time the two men met, Alan had come up with a theory as to why Lynn preferred Roland to himself, and he was excited to share it.
“It has to do with color,” Alan said, pausing dramatically, clearly waiting for Roland to say “Oh?” So Roland humored him and said, “Oh?”
Alan nodded with delight. “It’s the colors you wear.”
“What colors?”
“Any colors. You wear those things called colors. I don’t. I mostly wear black. I was watching a nature show last night on birds. And bingo. Our little Lynn, she’s like a little bird, haven’t you noticed? So it’s normal that she would respond favorably to men adorned in bright colors.”
It was strange to Roland that Alan was so blind to Roland’s more obvious attributes, but Roland didn’t see how he could inform him of them without being offensive or sounding monstrously conceited.
Lynn came back to her gallery after having spent hours stalking. Exhausted and achy, she lay down on the floor.
Patricia stood over her without pity.
“Stalking makes me feel humiliated,” groaned Lynn.
“Good,” Patricia said. “As you said yourself, you’ve been on top of the world for too long. A little humiliation once in a while is healthy, it’s part of the human experience. It’s like gravity. If you don’t have it, you’re like those astronauts who’ve been in space for ages. Your muscles get weak. You start having problems, unless you’re on a special exercise program. Your exercise program is stalking.”
Charlie Santi entered the gallery. Lynn promptly picked herself off the floor.
He wanted to show her some of his new paintings. Lynn had been representing Charlie for five years and had always been his staunchest supporter until the sudden disappearance of her desire. She took him to the dreaded light box, remembering when she used to call Charlie up almost every day, begging to know what he was up to.
Charlie began laying out transparencies of paintings. They were in his usual style. Charlie’s canvases were always fairly large, covered in textured white paint. In a corner, or at least off center, was always a tiny shape, which looked vaguely like a person, but that was never certain. In Lynn’s all-time favorite painting of Charlie’s, the little shape looked as though it might be lying on its side, sleeping, possibly with its hands under its cheek. It was a very peaceful painting, which, along with all the other paintings in the world, she no longer liked.
Lynn stood rigidly over the light box, making polite but reserved sounds.
Her stalker, whom she hadn’t yet noticed, was standing outside the gallery window, staring at Lynn through the glass fondly. He was wearing red pants, a green s
hirt, a blue tie, a yellow jacket, orange shoes, and a purple hat with a white feather sticking out of the top. He looked like an elf. Or a parrot.
When Charlie was done showing Lynn the transparencies, he said, “So, what do you think?”
She glanced at him almost pleadingly. “Oh, Charlie. I think you should trust your instinct. I’m not the right person to ask right now.”
“I want an answer. An honest answer. Yes or no. Do you like them?”
“Charlie, I’m not …”
“Yes or no, Lynn! Yes or no, goddammit!”
The cuckoo clock Patricia had recently bought for Lynn did its hourly thing. Its doors flew open, the yellow bird came out, but instead of saying “Cuckoo!” it said, in Patricia’s voice, “Stalk! Stalk! It’s four o’clock! Do you know where Mr. Dupont is?”
Unwilling to be distracted, Charlie said, “Just answer me, Lynn, do you like them?”
“No,” she said gently. “But it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Shh! I brought two canvases with me.” He quickly unwrapped them. “This work is phenomenal,” he said. “I’m no longer asking you, I’m telling you. Because I don’t have the slightest doubt.”
“That’s great,” she said.
“Really? You like them?”
“Well … I meant it’s great that you feel so strongly about them.”
“But do you like them?”
Lynn scrutinized the paintings, searching for the faintest speck that might thrill her. In one painting, Charlie had, for the first time ever, painted not one, but two tiny shapes. One appeared to be strangling or hugging the other. In the second painting, the single tiny shape was in a fetal position, or possibly just thinking in a position like The Thinker, by Rodin.
The little shapes became blurry through Lynn’s tears.
“Can I ask you a question?” Charlie finally said.
Lynn nodded.
“Do you think I suck, or do you think you suck?”
“I think it’s probably me,” she said.
“What do you mean it’s probably you? I won an American Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim, an NEA, and an NYFA. I’m at the forefront of academic interest. Doesn’t that speak for my work?”
Patricia laughed softly. Lynn frowned with alarm at the lack of tact.
“Did you take a look at your stalker today, Lynn?” Patricia said, pointing to the window.
Lynn looked at her stalker. “Why is he dressed that way?”
“Who knows,” Patricia said. “Maybe he watched that nature show last night on birds and decided to dress colorfully to attract your attention.”
Charlie packed up his art and left without saying anything.
Roland dropped quarters into the hand of the homeless man, who looked into his eyes, and whispered, “You’re being followed.”
When Lynn gave him change ten seconds later, the homeless man said to her, “You’re on a downward spiral of self-destruction. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
And after Lynn, he said to Alan, “Take a class, a vacation, a multi-vitamin. Take your mind off romance, take control of your life and your future.” Alan stared back at Ray, who was screaming, “Go and see a movie, take a self-improvement class. You’re better than them!”
At a small café near the gym, before their scheduled game of racquetball, Alan told Roland that his color theory hadn’t worked. Roland was pleased, and said, “That’s terrible.”
Alan was silent, looking down at the table morosely.
To be nice, Roland tried to change the topic. “So, what did you do last night? Did you go out?”
“I walked down the stairs of my building, making sure the stairwell doors were closed on every floor.”
“Why?”
“In case there’s a fire. It’s really important for the stairwell doors to be closed. It prevents the fire from spreading too quickly. I check the doors every day.”
“Doesn’t it take time away from your stalking?”
“It only takes about four minutes.”
“Did you do anything else last night?”
“No. I tried to understand why my color theory didn’t work.” Alan looked disillusioned. “I really thought it was the key. I mean, it made so much sense. Look at us. Color was the only difference between us. Now that we’re both colorful, we could be twins. Well, no, I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean. We’re both fine-looking guys, relatively charismatic, intelligent, pretty well educated, somewhat athletic.”
Roland could no longer be polite.
“Where did you go to college, Alan?” he asked.
“Putnam.”
“I went to Harvard.”
“Same difference,” Alan said, nodding. “Both good colleges. Don’t tell me you’re going to quibble over which is better?”
“Who always beats whom in our games of racquetball?”
“I think we’re pretty well matched. So far, you may have beaten me more often. I don’t really keep track of these things.”
“Which one of us is a lawyer, and which one an accountant, not even a CPA?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Who is six-three, 190 pounds, muscular, with a full head of hair? And who is five-seven, 190 pounds, not muscular, and bald?”
In a small voice, Alan said, “Well, who has blond hair and blue eyes?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, who has blond hair and blue eyes?”
Roland stared at Alan for a few long seconds, then said, “You are a short, fat, balding man with blue eyes and a few patches of yellow fuzz. You’re like Danny DeVito with blond hair and blue eyes.”
“But you don’t have them at all.”
“That’s right.”
“Wait, let me get this straight,” Alan said, smiling. “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t think we’re equal in the realm of desirability? Are you trying to imply that you’re … um … superior to me, in some way?” Alan stared at Roland’s locket, feeling sorry for whatever family member or sweetheart was in there. He pitied that relative for being associated with such a pompous ass.
Roland saw him look at his locket, guessed his thoughts precisely, and rolled his eyes. In his locket was not a family member or sweetheart, but cyanide, for the purpose of self-deliverance if the need ever arose. Wearing a cyanide-filled locket was a tradition in his family. The item had been passed down four generations. When Roland had turned fourteen, his father had taken him on a walk, “man to man.” (“D’homme à homme,” is what he actually said, since they were French.)
“I want to give you this,” his father had said, pulling out of his pocket a chain from which swung a locket just like the one hanging around his own neck, the inside of which had always remained a mystery to Roland and his sister.
The young Roland took the locket.
“C’est du cyanure,” his father said. (“It’s cyanide.”)
Roland’s innocent eyes opened wide. “To kill someone?”
“No!” the father said, shocked that his son’s mind would jump to such vile conclusions. “To kill yourself.”
Roland winced and looked up at his father to make sure he wasn’t joking. “But I don’t want to kill myself.”
“One day you might.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes in life, it happens,” his father said, in his usual impatient tone that meant, “You are a moron, my son.”
Roland tried not to cry, but couldn’t hold back the tears. He threw the locket on the ground and kicked dirt over it.
His father hurriedly picked it up and wiped off the dust. “Non mais, ça va pas la tête?” (“Are you crazy?”)
Roland’s cheeks were like peaches in the rain.
“Why can’t you ever act like a man?” his father said, pacing around him. “It’s an honor, that I’m giving you this. I’m not giving one to your sister. Doesn’t that make you happy?”
“That’s because you don’t want her to die!”
His f
ather grabbed his arm and shook him. “I don’t want you to die. Unless you want to.”
Roland still pouted.
They resumed walking, and his father began a speech, which Roland never forgot. His father said, “Life is a prison. Most of the time, it’s a nice prison, and you want to be in it, but the prison is even nicer if the door is unlocked. Knowing that the door can be stepped through at any time makes your time in prison more relaxed, that’s all. By giving you this locket, I am telling you, ‘You are old enough, my son, to decide if you ever want to walk through that door.’ I’m giving you freedom. Having quick and easy access to death makes us more elevated, more evolved than other men. Less like women. We’re carrying around a bit of perspective at all times.”
The young Roland reluctantly began wearing the locket. He would practice finding the idea of spontaneous self-destruction attractive.
After a few months, he always wore it and enjoyed what it meant, and now, as a grown man, he couldn’t imagine what it must be like, psychologically, for the rest of the population, who didn’t have this quick and easy access to death. Of course, they had certain means at their disposal—jumping out a window or hurling themselves in front of a subway train, for example—but those methods were inefficient and melodramatic.
“Well,” Alan repeated, “are you trying to imply that you’re superior to me in some way?”
“No, not in some way. In every way,” Roland said. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t take it any longer. I didn’t want to hear any more of your crap. I’m sure you understand.” He got up and added, “We better call this game off. Maybe I’ll see you next time.” He walked away, dropping a small button.
Alan remained sitting for a long time. He had never been so insulted in his life. His skin prickled. There was not such a big difference between them. It bugged him that there was even a single soul on earth (Roland’s soul) who thought there was.
Alan hated that soul.
He ordered a beer. The waitress asked him for ID. He could not believe it. “I’m thirty-four,” he said to the waitress, who didn’t seem to care. While searching for his driver’s license in his bag, he thought, Well, I may be short, fat, and balding, but at least I look under twenty-one. He didn’t find his license and wasn’t given the beer.
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