It Won't Always Be This Great

by Peter Mehlman

  “I want you to post five new works by Mr. Brushstroke and start the bidding higher than you’re used to. At least $1,500 per piece. I’ll be on an FBI computer and get in on the bidding. We’ll keep bumping the price up to see who stays in the game. Then we’ll let them win and follow the shipment of the art. Get the picture?”

  By that point, I could have easily imagined the jowly, bald Horton ripping off his clothes, igniting rockets in his Cole Hahn shoes, and flying through our chimney to intercept a Soviet cruise missile.

  Instead, Horton said, “We’ll be monitoring your computer closely, so, if you’re in the habit of exchanging sexually explicit messages, you may want to refrain from doing so for the time being.”

  No problem, sir.

  “I want to thank you in advance for your cooperation.” He handed Alyse his card. “It has all my numbers on it. Day or night, don’t hesitate.”

  Like one of those kids begging for Trident in the old commercials, I said, “Can I have one too?”

  I got a card too, and then the first federal agent ever to grace our abode ambled out the door to fight crime.

  After briefly contemplating our new life of counter-terrorism, Alyse looked at me and said, “I feel like I’ve been serving a lot of coffee lately.”

  I opened the closet to get my coat, then turned to Alyse, “I meant to ask, did you ever ask Esme why she left out ‘buffalo-nosed’ from the ‘bagel-biters’ description?”

  “No. I figured she just didn’t want to hurt my feelings.”

  “What?”

  “You know, my nose.”

  “Alyse. A) You have a slight bump on your nose and B) Your slight bump is among my top 65 favorite physical traits of yours.”

  “I have 65 physical traits?”

  “At last count. And your nose is beautiful. It should be part of the Whitney’s permanent collection.”

  Driving to work, at the red light where I turn left onto Stratification Boulevard, a thirty-ish guy wearing a yarmulke stopped beside me in his Acura. Every time one of the Orthodox looks at me, I assume disapproval, which may or may not be paranoia. It probably is. But this time, I met eyes with the guy and found myself contriving my face to look innocent. Just act natural.

  See, Commie, it’s tricky to be simultaneously a criminal and not a suspect. The criminal in you says you’re a suspect, while everyone else looks at you as just another guy in the world. When the light turned green and the non-confrontational confrontation ended, I started thinking about the likelihood of having driven beside a serial killer at some point in my life. Chances are, I’ve exchanged glances with a guy in the next car who had strangled nineteen total strangers in the previous three years. I may have even treated some homicidal maniac’s feet. Imagine getting a guy back on his feet so he can kill some more. If you watch that show on Channel Two, Criminal Minds, you realize sociopaths are all over the place. I probably sat at a Mets game and high-fived Son of Sam after Tom Seaver struck out the side.

  Actually, that was before the high-five was invented.

  Sometimes I watch that Investigation Discovery channel. All true murders, all day. Ninety-five percent of the murders take place in small towns where the residents say, “A father drugging his wife and kids, then burning them alive in the guest room is the kind of thing that just doesn’t happen in a place like this.” The truth is, that’s exactly where that kind of thing happens. You know where those kind of things don’t happen? New York City. That’s where.

  III.

  I strode into the office and realized I wasn’t limping. The ankle felt weak, but I had it wrapped and wore black cross trainers that can pass for office shoes in a pinch, if no one looks too closely. Covering up or disguising my steady but unpredictable influx of ailments has become another preoccupation. Soon my whole wardrobe will be designed by doctors.

  Sylvia informed me that she had moved around two of my morning appointments and then handed me a phone message from Audra Uziel. I figured she wanted to apologize for her father again. No doubt she’d heard that I didn’t sign the petition and, more importantly, that her father gave Esme his lecture on vigilance. But Commie? I didn’t feel like talking to Audra. Maybe my thing for her had run its course, like some middle-aged virus. It’s not that I wasn’t going to call her back. I just wasn’t in a rush. The rush, in all its forms, was gone. Then I had a tiny thought: Maybe Alyse wasn’t as cool about my flirtation with Audra as she let on, and that was what had sparked her emotional shakiness that weekend. But you know what? I didn’t want to start analyzing it. I just wanted to ease back into the friendly confines of my life. Let’s face it. I hardly ever come to a firm conclusion on anything anyway.

  My first patient was Sam Kipnis, an unusual Orthodox in that he has no problem making jokes about God, Jews, or anything. The first time he came to my office, he asked me what it’s like to have lights on in my house on Friday nights. I was cautious at the time, even wondering if it was some kind of trick question or a test to see whether I was a suitable choice of podiatrist. I said, “Excuse me?” Sam laughed and said, “I’m just kidding around. I wanted you to feel comfortable with me, seeing as you’re not observant and I’m a fanatic.” Still not sure it wasn’t a trap, I just said, “Thanks. That’s very considerate.” But Sam said, “What’s on TV on Friday nights? Am I missing anything? I won’t even set my TiVo for a show airing on Shabbos. It feels like cheating, although maybe it’s a perfectly legal loophole. I should talk to the Rabbi.”

  Eventually, I accepted Sam’s sense of humor as unsquelchable by piety. I liked seeing him. He’d first come in with garden-variety corns, but now fleeting pain buzzed the metatarso-phalangeal joint of his big toe. Every time he played tennis, the pain would radiate from that spot the first time he ran, and then it would recede into a dull but tolerable ache. I put on my rubber glove and moved the toe this way and that, gauging his reaction. I concluded he was in the early throes of arthritis. “Ha!” Sam said, way too loud. “That’s exactly what I thought it was. When I was a kid in summer camp, I stubbed my big toe into my cubby and, I swear, it’s never felt perfect since. Could that have led to the arthritis?”

  “It’s possible,” I said, “combined with the pounding you take playing tennis. It’s a cumulative thing.”

  Sam asked if I still play basketball and, when I unconvincingly said yes, he said, “I hear you have a lot of game.”

  “Really? Who told you that?”

  “Kenny Victor. He works at my wife’s brother’s law firm.”

  “Oh, Kenny’s great. Good player.”

  A white lie. I score at will on Kenny Victor and throw his jumper back in his face all the time even though he has three inches on me. But it was nice of him to speak highly of my game.

  I told Sam to get an OTC arthritis pain med and to keep me up to date on the pain. If it got worse, I’d recommend someone to implant a prosthetic joint (a procedure I used to do myself) to alleviate the pain and increase the range of motion—and off Sam went.

  Okay, Commie. I’ll come clean: I only told you about Sam Kipnis so you’d hear someone testify that I can still play ball. It was a cheap trick, although my cross-over dribble is better now.

  Alright. I’ll spare you.

  My second patient, Beverly Kay, an orange-haired shrew in her mid-sixties, didn’t show up for her appointment. Good. I could escape her fat pedicured toes and charge her anyway. Paying for missed appointments is a strict policy for patients I can’t stand. I was telling Sylvia to bill her when Arnie popped by.

  “Hey,” he said, “I just got in from bringing Fumi home from the hospital.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Who knows? The shrink who prescribed the pills came, spent some time with her, and offered two suggestions you won’t believe.”

  “Oh God. What?”

  “He told me Fumi has to stay on the pills if only
to avoid a very uncomfortable withdrawal. But since he doesn’t trust her to take the right dosage, he assigned that to me. I have to keep the pills ‘on my person’ and dole them out to Fumi as prescribed. Next thing you know, I’ll be running a fucking methadone clinic out of my garage.”

  I tried to squelch a laugh but couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Arnie. I couldn’t help it.”

  “It’s okay. I was trying to be funny.”

  “So, what was the second recommendation?”

  “Well, after talking to her, he decided that her overdose was not a suicide attempt. Apparently, she just wanted the pills to work faster.”

  “When he first prescribed the pills, didn’t he explain to her that this isn’t like an upset stomach? That it takes weeks to take effect in your system?”

  “I asked myself the same thing, but it didn’t seem the time to raise the idea of malpractice.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “So, anyhow, he says she’s not suicidal, but, just to be sure, he encouraged her to pursue a lawsuit against the doctor and the hospital for ruining her Junya Watanabe dress.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, he thinks a lawsuit would give her something to occupy her mind and look forward to. Can you fucking believe that?”

  “So it’s like litigation therapy?”

  “Exactly! Well put.”

  “You know, Arnie, it’s kind of comforting to know that you and I aren’t the only health professionals flying by the seat of our pants. This guy’s a psychopharmacologist—med school, residency, the whole shebang—and he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing either.”

  “Throwing shit against the wall and hoping for the best. That’s all any of us are doing. So, what’s up with you?”

  I recounted the story about Alyse’s website and the neo-Nazis. First, Arnie said, “Well, if you’re not part of the final solution, you’re part of the problem.” I did my “that’s so sick” laugh, then told Arnie about the stuff on the hate group site.

  Arnie mulled everything over, then said, “Neo-Nazi websites have shrimp cocktail recipes?”

  Leave it to Arnie to fixate on the most tossed-off aspect of everything I said.

  “Yeah, Alyse saw it on their website.”

  “I love shrimp cocktail. I had it as an appetizer Saturday night. In fact, I make it at home. And the sauce. From scratch.”

  “I once made hard-boiled eggs from scratch.” Arnie laughed, and I added, “Actually, my mother used to make shrimp cocktail sauce because my father would always bring home shrimp but no sauce.”

  Arnie nodded and—this is the relevant part of all this—he said, “The key to cocktail sauce is the horseradish. It’s gotta be the white stuff. The hotter the better. I bet if those red-neck white supremacists could get past the whole Jew aspect, they’d love that Mossad shit. It’s the hottest I’ve ever tasted.”

  My mind started whirring.

  “I should have stopped at the shrimp cocktail on Saturday. That mushroom and asparagus gnocchi had me so gassy I swear I had a contrail coming out of my ass.”

  Arnie waited for me to laugh, but thoughts kept filling my head.

  “Write down the website for me,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  Arnie shrugged. “I’d like to see their recipe.”

  At that moment, Sylvia knocked on my open door and told Arnie he had a patient waiting.

  “Oh shit . . .”

  I went over to my computer and clicked onto AllWhiteMeat.com, and there it was—a detailed recipe for shrimp cocktail submitted by Margot G. of Hurley, Oregon. I scanned the list of ingredients and, well, you won’t believe this. At the end of the list was: “My secret ingredient: one quarter tsp of Kick ’em All Out Extra Hot Horseradish.”

  I was like: When did horseradish become the marketing vehicle of choice for the lunatic fringe?

  Without even thinking, I Googled “Kick ’em All Out.”

  “Kick ’em All Out Extra Hot Horseradish Brand is the finest hand-prepared, coarse-ground horseradish in the world! Its roots come from the horseradish capital of the world, Collinsville, Illinois, and are transported in seventy-five-pound burlap bags, dirt and all! Each root is washed, cut, and peeled by the members of our family—an American family that proudly dates back to the 17th Century. All retail outlets carrying the Kick ’em All Out Extra Hot Horseradish Brand are subject to rigorous background checks to ensure that no proceeds from this product wind up in the coffers of any group active in, or affiliated with, philosophies or attitudes contrary to the interests of ethnically pure, TRUE Americans.”

  Sound familiar, Commie?

  Almost the exact same wording as on the Mossad Horseradish website. Same typeface too. Same sun-drenched photo of roots sticking out of seventy-five-pound burlap bags.

  Instead of texting Graydon, this time I called him. I started by saying I didn’t know how this would affect the stuff he was reporting on, but it would definitely be a fascinating sidebar to the main story. When I told him that the horseradish producers were double-dealing Jews and white supremacists, Graydon was blown away.

  “How the fuck did you find this out?”

  “I’ll tell you, but this is all off-the-record.”

  “Jesus, listen to you. Okay, off-the-record. What?”

  I told him about the bidding on You-ey’s art.

  “Holy shit.”

  And about the FBI agent coming to our house.

  “Holy shit!”

  “So, you see Graydon, you can write what you want about the horseradish, but it’s crucial you sit on the rest.”

  “Don’t worry. Just because I’m not Jewish doesn’t mean I’m a fan of neo-Nazis.”

  “Imagine my relief.”

  Graydon laughed and said, “Oh, I looked into the window. You’d only have to throw the bottle about sixty miles an hour to shatter the glass. In fact, a bird flying that fast might shatter it.”

  “Sixty miles an hour is faster than you think. Most people couldn’t throw a baseball that fast.”

  “Well,” Graydon said, “I don’t know where that’s gonna go.”

  I said to Graydon, “You know what you should do? Tell You-ey’s lawyer that you doubt You-ey is physically capable of shattering the window. Then, maybe at the arraignment, he can set something up where he throws, like, a tennis ball to You-ey. If You-ey has a pathetic throw, then you got something, right?”

  Commie, I don’t know where ideas like that were coming from. It was like my thoughts were imported from somewhere else.

  Graydon hesitated, so I backpedaled immediately. “I guess getting in bed with a public defender to exonerate his client wouldn’t exactly be ethical journalism.”

  “Not really. Although the idea is tempting.”

  “Maybe I could do it. I’m a podiatrist. What do I give a shit about ethics?”

  Graydon burst out laughing and said, “You really should have been a reporter. You have the head for it. Of course, if you had, you would have been denied a life of prosperity. But still, you’re good at this. Really good. You got anything else?”

  “Yeah. The walrus was Paul.”

  I guess admiration for my reporting skills was in the air because I called Alyse and told her the whole Neo-Nazi/Zionist horseradish story and she said, “Nice investigative journalism. Maybe we really should have moved to Louisville.”

  IV.

  Oh.

  You know what, Commie?

  I meant to follow up on the last time Alyse mentioned Louisville, but I don’t think I ever did.

  I’ll zip through this fast:

  Remember I told you about that spring break when I decided to be a journalist and find work on a small town paper, then taking Alyse out to dinner and totally selling myself out? Well, I neglected to tell you that I’d actually gone as far as li
sting a bunch of possible newspapers and sending out some resumés. Then, at about the same time I was about to be “accepted” into podiatry school, I got a letter from the managing editor of the Louisville Courier Journal offering me a job on the metro desk. I remember reading the letter and getting a sick feeling. I’d put the whole idea of journalism out of my head in a totally voluntary case of denial. Then I get a job offer and it was like those people who see something that triggers a repressed memory of being fondled by an uncle when they were eight. That’s a bit much, but you get my point. And, by the way, the Courier Journal was a highly regarded paper, which only made matters worse.

  I threw the letter in the back of some drawer, an out-of-sight, out-of-mind move that worked pretty well. Maybe too well because, after graduation, when Alyse and I were packing up our stuff, she found the letter. I kind of spastically told her I’d sent out a resumé just as an experiment to see if professionals would think I was a good writer. Lame, I know.

  Alyse, God bless her, said, “Hon, do you want to be a reporter? I mean, would you want to move to Louisville and pursue a newspaper career? Because, if you do, it’s fine. We can talk about it.”

  Once again, I must point out that life refuses to stick to your script. Crossroads don’t show up in the distance; they fall from the sky and land on your forehead. I don’t have to tell you the rest of the story, do I? You know me: I danced around my feelings without identifying what they were and reassured Alyse that I had no desire to live in Kentucky. As Woodward and Bernstein used to say, “another non-denial denial.”

  So, now, Alyse brought up Louisville for the second time in forty-eight hours. I guess, after all these years, she was as aware of that crossroads moment as I was. I took it as an opportunity to say, “I don’t know. Journalism is fun when it’s a hobby and your livelihood’s not at stake, but I can also see how it can wear you out. If I’d gone into journalism after college, I’d have probably burned out by 40 or 45. So, I’m quite happy to be just dipping my feet in it now, knowing I can jump back into our real life at will.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Alyse said. “You know, we never really talked about it all these years.”