The Wisdom of Perversity

by Rafael Yglesias

  Brian put the mug down. He gripped the desk’s edge, braced as if the odor might blast him, then bent over the cup’s empty well. He paused to glance at Jeff and wink mischievously (as Johnny would, to involve his audience) before taking an elaborate whiff. “Milk?” Brian joked.

  “Cut it out! Is it booze?”

  Brian didn’t think he had ever heard Jeff, or anyone in real life, say “booze.” It was the kind of word Jimmy Olsen might say on Superman, or a gangster on The Untouchables. Jeff was right, though—must be booze. Otherwise, why hide the cup? Brian cleared the air several times with his hands and gradually lowered his nostrils over the mug. Brian inhaled noisily, nodded in solemn deliberation, and delivered another punch line: “Yoo-hoo?”

  “Cut it out,” Jeff said. “Smell it.” Jeff folded over until his head rested on his knees. “This is serious! We have to figure it out!”

  Perhaps this was why they had become best friends: no matter how shallow, unreflective, and thoughtless Jeff could be about the great issues (for example, whether Roger Maris had broken Ruth’s single-season home-run record fair and square), Jeff had an insistent desire to unscrew the back panel of the adult world and inspect its works. They had that in common: an impatient, humorless need to know. Jeff was right to scold him. Brian knew he should take this question seriously. Brian dipped his nose below the mug’s lip, shutting his eyes to concentrate.

  He smelled . . . soap.

  “Brian,” Jeff called.

  To maintain peak concentration, he kept his eyes shut. “It doesn’t smell of any booze. It smells like they washed it.”

  “Brian,” Jeff said urgently.

  “Brian!” came a different voice, an authoritative bass belonging to Richard Klein, NBC vice president. “Put Johnny’s mug down!”

  Brian’s heart exploded. That was the sensation: a terrible thump in his chest, followed by a ghastly feeling that all of his blood was leaking into his Hush Puppies. He shoved himself clear of the desk. Johnny’s mug spun from the force of his release, its base emitting ominous notes.

  Jeff jumped out of the hot seat and with flailing arms leapt off the carpeted island onto the black sea, a terrified passenger abandoning ship. In a flash, Jeff managed to appear to have had nothing to do with the violation of Johnny’s set, while Brian was caught red-handed in the sacred chair, Johnny’s royal blue mug spinning on the desk.

  “Brian, get the fuck out of Johnny’s chair!” Richard Klein bellowed, red-faced.

  Other than his important job title, Brian knew little about Klein. When Klein and Sam had popped into Jeff’s room last Sunday to say hello, he had impressed Brian, in dress and speech, as quite different from Jeff’s slovenly dad or Brian’s garrulous father. Klein wore a gray pin-striped suit enlivened by a maroon tie and he smelled of Old Spice, an aftershave familiar to Brian because his father doused himself with it on very special occasions, like when he took Mom out for her birthday. It usually tickled his nose. At one point Klein had leaned close to Brian to peer at the Monopoly board. One whiff of him had provoked Brian into a series of violent ah-choos. “You’re allergic to adults,” Klein had joked, patting Brian’s helmet of very straight black hair. Richard Klein had also impressed him with the self-confident way he smiled indulgently at the awed questions Brian had asked about his glamorous job. He had also made clever fun of Harriet’s hypochondria. Jeff’s mother spent most of her waking hours in bed with a heating pad that she shifted restlessly, always with a groan and a sigh, the location of her complaint moving from lumbar to forehead to kneecap, a general invalidism that prevented her from cleaning, shopping, or cooking. “Have to get back to your mother’s hospital bed,” he had kidded as he left. He seemed a master of self-control, nothing like the easily upset adults of Brian’s experience. So this new side of Klein, red-faced, spewing obscenities, made it clear to Brian that he was in big, big trouble.

  Brian’s essential shyness, his reflexive reluctance to announce his desires, to demand his due, was trumped by a keen sense of what is just and what is unjust, in particular when someone attempted to apply justice to him. He got to his feet and declared the truth, “It was Jeff’s idea!” Unfortunately for his righteous cause, the energy of his rising out of Johnny’s magic chair caused it to recoil rapidly and whack hard into the base of a tall potted fern.

  The large planter wobbled violently. They all watched as the wobbling worsened, tipping more and more precariously, until it seemed inevitable that a collapse onto the painted Manhattan skyline would result. Brian glanced at Klein and Sam. Both were paralyzed with horror. Brian saw the future with oracular clarity: a toppled fern destroying the set would transform embarrassment into disaster.

  He leapt at the potted plant without regard to his body’s preservation. His chin smacked painfully into the brick-colored pot, but he remained fixed on his goal, flinging his arms around the moist planter. Its circumference was too great for him to encompass and too heavy for him to prevent from tipping over—except by pulling it onto himself. The ceramic planter fell against his neck and shoulder; wet soil spilled down the collar of his one and only white dress shirt, especially ironed by his mother for today’s grand occasion.

  “Help,” he groaned, squeezed by the planter’s weight. He had forestalled the destruction of the set, but the fern was still in jeopardy and so was Brian. The pot continued to slide farther onto him, dirt spilling at a faster rate.

  Sam righted the planter. Brian rolled onto his back and sighed. Only then did he feel the ooze of slimy soil settling into the canal of his spine, sliding toward an embarrassing crack in his bedrock.

  “Get up!” Klein yanked him to his feet. “Jesus Christ, look what you did!”

  Brian reached around with his left hand, halting the descent of the damp soil at the small of his back, aware his clean shirt must be ruined. “I know,” a miserable Brian conceded.

  Klein pointed at the green carpet. “You stained Johnny’s rug.”

  Now Brian saw his saturated shirt had left a brown smudge. Horrified, he dropped to his knees, trying to soak up the moist residue with the palms of his hands, mumbling, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”

  “Cut that out. You’re making it worse.” Klein tugged him off the set onto the bare stage. He let go to fish out a silver money clip from his pocket, peel off a twenty-dollar bill—a wonderfully large sum to Brian—and handed it to Sam. “Go to building services. Ask for Fred. Give him this to clean it up. Pronto. Before Props sees it.” He leaned close to Sam. “Don’t say the boys were in here. Got it? Say you knocked it over. I’ll protect you. Understood?”

  Sam nodded solemnly.

  Klein said, “Move it,” to Jeff and retook Brian’s hand to pull him clear of the scene. Fast. The rainbow curtain and the shadows of backstage went by in a blur of shame. They burst through the metal door into the fluorescent hallway, decorated by warnings that now seemed to have been well thought out. A mortified Brian concurred wholeheartedly with the wisdom of the signs—AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY; NBC EMPLOYEES ONLY—and especially with that vaguest yet most profound distinction of all—TALENT ONLY. Brian agreed he should have been kept out.

  Richard turned a corner into what looked to Brian like a submarine: a narrow, windowless gunmetal hall lined with doors, each fitted with a glass porthole. He hopped on tippy toe to peek into them as they rushed past the rooms. He was able to see only a blur of sleek electronic equipment.

  “Hey, Dick,” a fat man in a T-shirt called from the open door of a room they whooshed by. “Who you got with you? New VPs of programming?” His laughter followed them around a corner.

  Jeff stopped dead in his tracks.

  Klein poked him in the back. “Keep moving.”

  “What’s that?” Jeff barked.

  Brian looked at what his best friend had spotted. Behind a plate-glass wall there was a nearly empty white room: no chairs or desk, only a single machine rising from the floor, like Manhattan bedrock erupting through the building.

&nbs
p; “That’s Grace,” Richard said. He put the flat of his right palm on Jeff’s skull and urged him forward. “Keep moving.”

  Jeff allowed his head to flop forward, but the rest of his body did not move. His head snapped back. “What’s Grace?”

  “Keep moving and I’ll tell you.” Klein pushed Jeff’s skull again.

  Jeff planted his feet. “What’s it do?”

  Brian moved beside Jeff to study this marvel. Tiny yellow, red, and white lights flashed throughout the breadth of the mechanism; switches flipped up and down, recording tape snaked through heads—a miniature world of ceaseless activity.

  “Grace is on all the time. She checks every word spoken live over the air. Now move it.” With a stiffened index finger he poked Jeff hard in the back.

  Jeff stumbled forward two steps, then dug in his heels. “Checks for what?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Klein poked him again, even harder. “Move it.”

  Jeff did a one eighty, asking as he turned, “Checks what?” He braked by splaying his feet, wedging them against the wall as he faced Klein.

  “To catch curse words,” Klein snapped. “All words go through Grace. There’s a five-second delay between what someone says in the studios and its going out over the air. Grace can recognize in five seconds whether someone has said a bad word. If they have, she covers it with a noise. We call it a ‘bleep.’ ”

  “Wow,” Brian whispered, gazing at the marvel with loving admiration.

  “What curse words?” Jeff persisted.

  Richard snapped, “Don’t be a wisenheimer, Jeff. Keep moving.”

  “Which ones? All the bad words?”

  “Okay, you want to hear me say bad words. Fine. Move your ass, and when I get to my office I’ll tell you all the naughty words that Grace knows.”

  Jeff grinned, turned on his heels smartly, and they were on the move again. Brian was sorry to leave Grace and sorrier still, thinking of the moist soil welled in the small of his back, that he couldn’t bleep his own mistakes.

  Klein led them down a flight of metal stairs, feet clattering, onto a featureless landing beneath painted red letters: 8TH FLOOR. There they passed into yet another universe, this a hushed world of gray carpet and tall oak doors, all shut. Richard steered for one that was discreetly labeled MEN in raised black letters. He pushed it open, propelled Brian ahead of him into a bathroom designed for one, and called back to Jeff, “Wait right here. Don’t move. Got that?” Klein followed Brian into the men’s room and shut the door. Jeff heard it lock.

  Standing alone in the hallway it made Jeff very nervous how long Brian and Richard were inside the men’s room. He hopped from one foot to the other to calm himself, a lucky choice since a secretary who passed didn’t ask why he was waiting outside the bathroom. “Someone in there?” she announced her assumption as she walked by. He put his thumb into his mouth to comfort himself.

  And for Brian, his time in the men’s room with Richard Klein lasted far longer than the quarter hour that actually elapsed. No matter how many years passed, those minutes remained ineluctable to Brian’s heart and mind. No matter how often he tried, with this drug or that therapy, with whatever philosophy of understanding, spiritual or vulgar, for Brian their time together lasted forever.

  At first, standing in the cramped space between sink and toilet, comforted by the familiar cloud of Old Spice emanating from the adult male, the world he knew remained. He was a boy, a messy, embarrassed boy, and Klein was a powerful, protective grown-up. The task of cleaning himself was all that mattered, and Klein’s help was welcome.

  Klein gathered the back of Brian’s shirt around the lump of muddy soil to prevent it from spilling. He told Brian to take it off. Eager to rectify all his mistakes, Brian hurried, fumbling with the buttons, then sliding his arms free.

  Klein dumped the soil into the toilet. He turned on the cold water, ran it over the muddy stain, finally lifting the shirt up to the mirror’s lights for examination. He sighed. “You need a new shirt.”

  Brian thought of his mother’s profound distress at anything that had been spoiled, especially something expensive. Klein caressed the boy’s worried cheek. “I’ll buy you a new one.” He turned Brian around to peer at his nude back, smeared by soil. “Let’s get you clean.” Klein tugged at the roll of toilet paper until he had a wad. He moistened it and wiped the base of Brian’s spine. The wet paper felt cold. Brian arched forward, grabbing the slippery edge of the sink. “You’re ticklish, aren’t you?” Klein whispered in his ear.

  Brian nodded. He looked at himself in the mirror and that was all he saw—Brian waiting to be clean. Klein’s husky voice whispered, “Let’s check your underpants.”

  Puzzled, Brian looked for Klein in the glass, but he was out of range. Then he felt the adult’s hot fingers touch bare skin, infiltrating under the elastic band of his Jockeys, and the boy in the mirror was gone.

  No Smoking

  February 2008

  JULIE WATCHED HER husband bend a stick of spearmint Trident to fit into the greedy cavity of his mouth. There it joined a sickly green wad that had been expanding for the past hour with regular additions while Gary alternated furious chewing with sips of his morning coffee. The combination of Zabar’s house blend and spearmint must be disgusting, she thought; probably caffeine was intensifying his longing for a cigarette. Why didn’t he take her advice and switch to chamomile tea? Both knees were pumping with anxious energy, shaking the table and making his inflated stomach undulate like a water bed. Gross. And she was gross to think her husband gross. How dare she feel revulsion for the man she loved?

  The sound track of his gum smacking intensified the anxiety she felt listening to Gary’s interrogation of their fifteen-year-old son Zack. The grown-up sounded like a manic adolescent himself, “Smack, smack—so, Zack—smack, smack—are you going to run for Student—smack, smack—Council?” How was Gary going to remain smoke-free until today’s acupuncture treatment? She saw him take a morning dose of Wellbutrin; he was practically crawling out of his skin anyway. Imagine what he would be like without medication!

  And what was that smell? If Gary hadn’t had a cigarette for three weeks, what was that musty odor hovering over the table? No one at last night’s dinner smoked. No one they knew still smoked. It was the peer pressure of all middle-class white males becoming nonsmokers that had finally provoked the morbidly competitive Gary into quitting. But had he? Was he perverse enough to try to fool her? She hadn’t bugged him about his smoking, loathsome though she found the habit, and in spite of her distress at the thought of Zack’s losing his father, especially while they were so intensely irritated by each other. Maybe that was the explanation: Gary was hiding his failure from his disappointing son?

  She sniffed him discreetly while she cleared his empty plate. The dish was squeaky clean of its tower of pancakes and fan of bacon, as if it had been run through the dishwasher on the Pot Scrubber setting. Had Gary lapped it like a dog?

  She saw with painful clarity how her husband must appear to their teenage son, a masticating hog spewing hostile questions: “Why aren’t you joining the school paper? Why aren’t you on the debate team? Why aren’t you running for class president?” Why are you less than I was at your age?

  Her boy was lovely: thick chestnut hair, soulful hazel eyes, pink lips that had never tasted corruption. And his heart was pure. She had ample proof, from how as a toddler he had shared toys in the cutthroat sandboxes of Riverside Park to the continuing inclusion into his set (the cool high school kids) of nerdy boys like Richard Bernstein, and overweight but smart girls like Hilary Gordon. How dare Gary feel unsatisfied because Zack’s PSAT score fell short of the ninety-ninth percentile? So what if he got B’s, not A’s? Her boy was goodness personified.

  Zack interrupted his father’s barrage. “So what’s next week’s column, Dad?” That was a low blow from her angel. Zack knew next week’s column was always the rub, the Sisyphus deadline. No sooner had Gary met Friday’s demand
for eight hundred words on the legal issue of the week than anxiety over the next topic roiled his sleep. “I’m a lawyer, not a writer,” he complained as each deadline approached, forgetting that before O. J. Simpson’s trial had triggered a craze in the media to cover lurid criminal trials Gary had maintained all good lawyers were skillful writers. “The great American novel is probably a brief on file in the federal courthouse” was the lead of his debut column in Manhattan Mag, and it became the quotidian quote cited on American Justice, the cable TV show that had Gary under contract to appear regularly as a legal expert. But his celebrity was accompanied by a punishment: tense waits in the no-smoking greenroom. Before he quit, Gary confessed to her he’d broken that law, sometimes sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom, locked in a stall, exhaling at the bowl as if the smoke could be flushed away. So if he had slipped again, why wouldn’t he confess it to her? She had never scolded him, especially not for his sloppy personal habits.

  Zack smirked at his father’s panicked stare. “Well, Dad?” he said, tone prodding. “No ideas yet? How about a new angle on JonBenét? People never get tired of that case, right?”

  Gary smacked and popped his gum, twitching legs rumbling the table while his eyes roved, on the lookout for another stack of pancakes. “That’s true,” he answered. “But I’ll probably write about something new. Maybe this.” He tapped a color photograph on the front page of the Times: a balding middle-aged man being led away in handcuffs down the broad steps of an office building. Beside it were three black-and-white 1980s vintage yearbook photos: two were of light-skinned black preteens; the other a gap-toothed white kid with a slicked up tower of blond hair. “Maybe this Huck Finn Days case.”

  “That’s about sex, isn’t it? Weren’t those boys fucked up the ass?”

  “Zack!” Julie reproved him.

  “What, Mom? They claim they were raped, right?”