by Michael Kun
I use the toilet, then turn on the faucet. I root through the mess, looking for a bar of soap. I pick up a green compact case and popped it open: Bobbie Jean’s birth control pills. I knock over a bottle of perfume, then set it straight, wiping the spilled perfume into the sink with my palm. Finally, I find a bar of soap beneath the plastic bag of cotton balls. I wash my hands, wiping them on a soiled towel hanging over the shower stall, then walk to the bedroom.
Bobbie Jean has already drawn the drapes, and she’s kicking off her shoes when I enter. Again, I hug her from behind.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I say, wedging my chin in the crook of her neck and locking my fingers together at her waist, “but I had some of those mints you left out in the bathroom.”
And she says, “What?”
And I say, “Those mints in the bathroom.”
Bobbie Jean lets her head fall back. “What mints?”
And I say, “Those mints in that little green case.”
Bobbie Jean breaks free and whirls to face me. “Ham, those aren’t mints. Please tell me you didn’t eat any of those.”
And I say, “I had six or seven. You know, they must’ve been stale or something, because they didn’t have any flavor to them at all.”
And she says, “Please tell me you’re joking. Those are birth control pills! Do you know what they’d do to a man!” Her eyes are huge, and when she sees that I am joking, she clenches her teeth. “You’re going to drive me crazy,” she says, then kisses me quickly on the lips.
I say, “By the way, your bathroom.”
“What about it?”
“Who cleans it?”
“Oh, clean shmean.”
I move to the nightstand. There are magazines there and drinking glasses, but the magazines are dog-eared and old, and the glasses are empty. I turn the radio on. A big band tune jumps out, and I give Bobbie Jean a smile, then turn the dial, moving from station to station until I hear a song I recognize. I snap my fingers and swing my hips.
“You can’t leave that station on,” Bobbie Jean says.
And I say, “Why?”
And she says, “Because whenever I hear singing, I always want to sing along.”
And I say, “Sing all you want.”
Bobbie Jean is wearing a baggy sweater. Her breasts are lost in it. I feel for her waist in the folds of the sweater, then kiss her gingerly. I pull the sweater over her head, turning it inside out, then finger the lace of her bra. There’s a rip on one of the cups. She begins to sing along to the song on the radio, her voice thin and sour.
I slide the straps of her bra off her freckled shoulders, then unsnap it and let it drop to the floor.
Bobbie Jean sings. She undoes my tie, tugs it through the tunnel of my collar, then lets it fall on top of her sweater.
I run my hands over Bobbie Jean’s breasts, spreading my fingers over them.
She sings in my ear. She unbuttons my shirt, then forces my hands off her breasts. I pull my shirt off myself, then my belt and pants. I dip my head to run my mouth over her breasts. They smell of soap.
Bobbie Jean sings.
My hand finds her thigh, working its way up.
Bobbie Jean stops singing for a moment, forgetting the words, then begins again, a faint mustache of perspiration forming on her lip.
I push her onto the bed. The sheets are as cool as lemonade. I unzip her jeans, and she raises her rear end off the bed as I tug her pants down her legs. She lifts her feet, letting them dangle near my chest, and I yank her pants off. Her underpants don’t match her bra. They’re old and gray. I pull her underpants off and push her legs apart with my knees.
Bobbie Jean sings louder.
She guides me inside her, then puts her hands on my back, and I swing into her. Bobbie Jean stops singing, and the song on the radio changes and is lost in the sounds we’re making.
Just, “Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, God.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, mon president, mon amour.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, Sweet Potato.”
“Call me Blanche.”
“Oh, Blanche.”
I’d called Bobbie Jean Sweet Potato.
“Oh, mon president.”
“Oh, Blanche.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
This goes on and on and on. When we’re done, I’m exhausted. There’s sweat everywhere. My hair, my eyes, my chest, my face.
Bobbie Jean kisses me on the cheek.
Then she goes to tinkle.
We’re not always President Eisenhower and his secretary.
Sometime we’re the King and Queen of England.
Sometimes I’m an Indian chief and Bobbie Jean’s an Indian princess.
Sometimes I’m Babe Ruth and she’s Marilyn Monroe.
Sometimes she’s Madonna and I’m her makeup artist.
Sometimes I’m a college professor and she’s a student who failed her final exam.
Sometimes SHE’s a college professor and I’m a student who failed HIS final exam.
Sometimes I’m Robert DeNiro and she’s the president of the Robert DeNiro Fan Club.
Sometimes she’s a lonely housewife and I’m the boy who cuts the lawn.
There are others.
But we are never ourselves. NEVER. We’re never Ham and Bobbie Jean. It’s gotten to the point where I miss hearing my name. I’ve almost forgotten what it sounds like. I wouldn’t even mind hearing it mispronounced.
CHAPTER 21: KISSING SAM
I have dinner at Carl’s. I don’t bring Bobbie Jean with me. What if she said she had to tinkle? What if she called me President Eisenhower by mistake? What then?
It’s a very nice dinner. Chicken and rice, with chocolate mousse for dessert. While we eat, I talk with the boys about baseball and movies and other things I imagine boys their age like to talk about.
“Tell your Uncle Ham about the election,” Carl says to Jon, the oldest boy. You can tell Carl’s proud of their boys.
Jon gets excited and says, “I got elected vice president of our class.”
I say, “That’s terrific. Congratulations.”
And he says, “The best part is that if Doug Brandy dies, I become president.”
I laugh.
Carl and Judy laugh, too, even though you can tell they’ve already heard their son say this before.
“Tell them about when you ran for president,” Carl says to me. “Go ahead, Ham, tell them.”
I tell the boys about how I ran for class president, and how I lost to Shellie, and how Shellie’s campaign was “Ham is a Pig!” They don’t understand. I have to explain that ham is made from pigs. Even then they don’t find it funny.
When we’re finished, the boys bring their schoolbooks down to the table to do their homework. I help Judy clear the table. On one of the trips, Judy pulls me aside in the kitchen.
“Can I talk to you for a moment?” she says.
And I say, “Yes.”
And she says, “It’s about the money.”
“The money?”
“It’s about the money Carl’s been lending you.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Ham, because you’re family, but we’ve got kids we need to take care of. You know, we need to put aside money for college.”
And I say, “Of course.”
And she says, “You know Carl would never say no to you if you asked for money. So I’m asking you, as a favor, if maybe you could use a little more discretion.”
And I say, “Okay.”
Judy winces, and she says, “I’m sorry, Ham, I guess that didn’t come out right.”
“No, it’s okay. I just had a rough time with my finances. I promise I’ll pay it all back.”
“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not asking you to pay it back. I’m just asking if you could be a littl
e more careful in the future.”
“Of course.”
She takes my hand and says, “Forget I said anything, Ham. It didn’t come out right, so please forget I said anything. Let’s go back,” which we do.
We walk together into the dining room. Carl and the boys are talking and laughing, sitting at a beautiful cherry table with expensive dishes and silverware and glasses. Judy stands behind him and throws her arms around his neck like a scarf. She kisses the top of his head.
At moments like that, it’s easy to be reminded how much better things have turned out for him than for you. It’s easy to be reminded of what he has and what you don’t: everything.
“Well, you blew your chance,” Debbie says when I arrive at work. Palmeyer is on vacation with his wife. They’re in Acapulco for a week, so it’s only me and Debbie in the shop.
I say, “What chance did I blow?”
Debbie says, “With Angela.”
I must give her a puzzled look because she adds, “My daughter.”
I say, “Oh.”
And she says, “Yes, she met a nice boy named Vincent. Vincent Conigliaro. He works for an insurance company.”
“Oh.”
And she says, “Are you dating anyone now?”
“No one serious.”
I don’t want to tell her about Bobbie Jean. I’m afraid if I start, I’ll tell her about Bobbie Jean’s underwear and about “tinkle” and “potty.” I’m afraid I’ll tell her about Eisenhower and Madonna and the Ice Capades and the Green Bay Packers.
We go back to work. The radio’s playing. Since Palmeyer’s gone, I have it set on the classic rock station.
Debbie says, “Ham, do you remember the Beatles?”
And I say, “Yes.”
And she says, “I like that song they did.” She says “that song” as if the Beatles only had ONE song. But it’s sweet the way she says it. It makes me think she was a very good mother.
I say, “Which song?”
And she says, “You know, that one. That one they did about love.”
I almost say, “Debbie, EVERY Beatles song was about love,” which it true, more or less, but I don’t. Instead, I say, “Yes, I remember.”
And Debbie says, “Well, it’s true what they said.”
And I say, “What was that?”
And she says, “Love is a very splendid thing.”
And I nod.
The line is, “Love is a many splendored thing.”
And it wasn’t the Beatles. I don’t know WHO it was, but I know it wasn’t the Beatles.
And she says, “It’s true. Love is a very splendid thing. I remember when I was engaged to this boy I was dating named Pete. This was many, many years ago, of course. We’d been dating for a year or so, and he had a good job, and in those days that was the person you married. I was working as a secretary in those days, and there was this man at work named Sam. He was a normal-looking man, but he had the most wonderful personality. He could always make me laugh. One day, we went for a drink after work, a whole group of us, nothing indecent, and it got dark so he offered to walk me to the bus stop. Before you knew it, we were kissing, I’m ashamed to say. It wasn’t planned, it just happened before either one of us could say anything. There I am, practically engaged, kissing another man, kissing Sam. I put a stop to it, even though I wanted to keep kissing him, and Sam went home. After that, Sam and I would see each other at work, and we’d just look at each other sadly. This went on for weeks, we’d just look at each other, and I realized I was falling in love with him. He was so different from Pete. I thought about him day and night. Finally, we spoke again, and he was a perfect gentleman. He said, `I just want to apologize, but I would like to see you. I understand that you’re dating someone else, and I don’t want anyone’s feelings to be hurt, but if someone’s feelings have to be hurt, I’d rather they be his.’”
And I say, “So you married Sam?”
And she says, “No. I broke things off with Pete, and then I started dating Sam, only things didn’t work out. I ended up marrying my husband a few years later. He was more like Sam than Pete. It’s funny, but I got a call from Sam many years later. He said he wanted to know how everything had turned out, and I told him everything was fantastic. A terrific husband, a terrific daughter, a terrific son. And he said, `Then you owe me,’ which is true. If he hadn’t come along, I would’ve married Pete, and I would’ve been miserable.”
I think about it for a second before I say, “Debbie, what does this have to do with me?”
She puts her hand on top of mine and says, “Hamilton, dear, I never said it had anything to do with you. I was just telling you a story.”
x
Bobbie Jean keeps leaving her underwear at my apartment. One day it’s her bra. The next day it’s her underpants. Some days it’s both. I can’t believe she just forgot them. I can’t believe that she’ll be driving home and all of a sudden she’ll think, “Hey, I’m not wearing my bra.” Or underpants. Or both, as the case may be.
At first, I keep her underwear for her, then slip it into her purse when she’s in another room. But I don’t do that with the old ones or the ones with the holes in them like they were attacked by moths. Those I try to fix with a needle and thread. If I can’t fix them, I throw them out.
Sometimes, Bobbie Jean will start looking through my drawers and she’ll say, “Do you have my underpants?”
And I’ll say, “Which ones?”
And she’ll say, “The pink ones.”
The pink ones were the worst. They looked like they had bulletholes in the back. They look like Mafia hitmen shot her in the rear end with a machine gun, that’s how bad they were. Who keeps underwear like that? Who?
And I’ll say, “Didn’t you take the pink ones home?”
And she’ll say, “No, I’m pretty sure I left them here.”
And I’ll say, “Well, I don’t know where they are,” which technically is true. I DON’T know where they are. They could be in the town dump. They could be in a garbage truck. They could be in an incinerator somewhere, melting.
“They were my favorites,” she’ll say.
It’s all I can do not to laugh.
Her favorite underwear has holes in the back big enough to stick your finger through. And she’s a SEAMSTRESS. It would take her all of two minutes to fix the holes if she wanted to, but she doesn’t do it. Instead, she’s running all over town with underpants with holes in them.
Except when she’s running around with no underpants at all because she left them in my apartment.
She calls me at work one day to ask about them.
“Ham,” she says, “have you seen my black-and-white underpants?”
And I say, “No,” even though I just saw them the other day as I was stuffing them in the trash can.
And she says, “I know I had them at your place.”
And I say, “I don’t remember them.”
And she says, “Yes, you do,” which is true. She was wearing them when she was the President of the Robert DeNiro Fan Club.
And I say, “Oh, well. Maybe you’ll have to buy a new pair.”
And she says, “I guess so. It’s such a shame,” like someone died.
And I say, “Yes, a shame.”
“You know, I had a daydream about you today,” she says. “I dreamed you and I were on a plane together and —”
And I say, “Bobbie Jean, please don’t do this.”
“Ham, it’s okay. It’s a perfectly normal dream. I dreamed we were on this plane together, and it was dark, and everyone was sleeping. You and I started kissing each other…running our tongues inside each other’s mouth…and you started squeezing my breasts…and pinching my nipples through my blouse…and I unzipped your pants and pulled out your sandwich and started running my hand up and down, up and down…and then a stewardess came over and told us we couldn’t do that out in the open…so we went to the lavatory, and it was a huge lavatory…and you closed the toilet seat
and sat down on it…and I laid down across your lap, face down…and you lifted up my skirt and ran your hand over my sassafrass, going round and round in circles…round and round…round and round…and then you pulled down my underpants and ran your hands over my sassafrass again…round and round…round and round…and then you spread my legs and ran your hand over my eggplant…up and down…up and down…and I kept saying, `That feels good, that feels good’…and then you ran your hand over my sassafrass again…round and round…round and round…round and round…and then you put your hand on my eggplant again and move it up and down…up and down…up and down…and then you moved your hand to my sassafrass again, and you spanked me lightly…and then you spanked me again…and I said, `Spank me, Ham, spank me’…and you spanked me again…I can practically feel it now…and then you helped me to my feet and helped me up on the counter and lifted my skirt…and I spread my legs and say, `Lick me, Ham, lick my eggplant’…and you started licking me…moving your tongue up and down…up and down…up and down…and then you stuck your tongue inside me and moved it in and out…in and out…in and out…and I kept saying, `Lick me, Ham, lick my eggplant’…and then you helped me off the counter and turned me around so my sassafrass was toward you, and you lifted up my skirt and ran your hand between my legs…and then you slid up inside me and moved in and out slowly…in and out…in and out…in and out…faster and faster…faster and faster…and I kept saying, ‘Cook me, Ham, cook me’…and you kept moving in and out…faster and faster…harder and harder…faster and faster…and I kept saying, `Cook me, cook me hard’…. Can you feel that, Ham? Wouldn’t that be great, Ham?”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s get together.”