Doctor Syntax

by Michael Petracca

  I lay down and closed my eyes, but each time I drifted toward sleep, a vivid image of the elephant with the broken trunk jarred me back to wakefulness. I stared up into the dark. I was here to get clues, and the elephant was the crucial link between the theft of my inheritance and Sterne. If Ernst could identify the brass knicknack as his, and if I swore that I found it at Sterne’s, that might be all the evidence necessary to persuade some judge to issue a search warrant. Then Freitag and his buddies in blue would have the right to trash Sterne’s house. I’d retrieve my books, and along with them the scrap of paper that would enable me to finish my dissertation, and Sterne would do some serious time.

  I got up again and went to the door. I turned the knob slowly until the latch clicked. Easing the door open a crack, I peeked through. The hall was lit by a cut-glass fixture overhead. The two other bedroom doors at either end of the hall, Sterne’s and Sweeney’s I supposed, were shut. No sound. I opened the door slowly. It creaked on its hinges, just as in old comedy horror flicks when they want to heighten the hilarity by building suspense. Any more hilarity and my tender, hungover stomach would go into dry heaves on the spot, alerting Sterne and ending all my days. I opened the door fast, so that the pitch of its creaking rose beyond human audibility, into the doggie-whistle range. In my bare feet I tiptoed downstairs.

  There was enough street light entering through the windows that I didn’t need to turn on any light in the den. My vomitus, along with the shards of the snifter I’d broken, was gone: evidence of Sterne’s passion for total order and of his authority over Sweeney, who must have been assigned the cleanup chore. The room was just as I remembered it before the brandy bullied me into semi-consciousness. The elephant was still on the coffee table. I saw no other incriminating evidence in the room, no bloodstained knives, no cache of plastic explosives, no vials of poison or blinding acid.

  Disappointed, I reached for the elephant, and as I did, I heard a thumping sound from the ceiling above me. Out of sheer reflex I dove behind the fake Chippendale, a great headfirst slide into second base which embedded a stray fragment of Austrian crystal in the heel of my right hand. I lay perfectly still. Someone was walking above me, but I couldn’t tell what room the sound was coming from. It could be Rick, or … not. I stayed motionless behind the chair. The walking stopped. I heard water running through the house’s old plumbing, more walking, and then the house was quiet again. I grabbed the elephant and flew upstairs. Back in the bedroom I jammed the elephant into my army surplus rucksack, among my underwear. I jumped into bed, my heart beating erratically or my spastic esophagus constricting wildly, I couldn’t tell which, and it didn’t matter.

  With my eyes closed I lay quietly, breathing in circles. I have a rule about my insomnia. If I can’t have sleep, at least I can give my body a good rest, and so I lie quietly and practice the Tibetan yogic breathing I learned from a pamphlet I borrowed permanently from the Freege store before it exploded. Provocatively titled something like Lung of Fire, Bowel of Applesauce, the pamphlet was a brief but stirring paean to the benefits of fruitarianism and correct respiration. The “medical expert” who authored it (I think he was a chiropractor, actually) stated that if one gave up all “mucoid-producing comestibles”—red meat, dairy products, fish, poultry, eggs, anything sporting legs or produced by something sporting legs—he would bask in the radiant glow of perfect health. The book made this extravagant promise: If you eat nothing but fruit, “your sweat will smell like orange blossoms, and your bowel movement will have the sweet aroma and velvety-smooth consistency of apple butter.” It sounded like grandiose quackery to me, but why not, I thought. If fruitarianism doesn’t help me sleep, at least it’ll cut down on Ma’s applesauce bill at the market, since I’ll be manufacturing my own. Following the advice in the “Lung of Fire” section, I learned to take a breath in through the nostrils, to follow it down the back of the spine, into the crotch, up through the belly and the esophagus and out the mouth. I learned to imagine each of my breaths as luminous entities, colored brightly like different Christmas tree bulbs. I also learned that yogic circular breathing does indeed make you fall asleep, chiefly because it’s so boring. Whatever works, says Liz.

  My breath was a stunning cobalt blue butterfly on my coccyx when I heard Rick Masters stir. He made a grunting sound, only it was more a high-pitched croup, like that of a congested child. He rustled his covers, and I heard his bare feet make contact with the wooden floor. I happened to be lying with my head turned to the right, so that Rick was within my field of vision. Light from the street filtered through the gauzy sleeveless undershirt he was wearing, and in silhouette I saw the outline of his torso: narrow hips, a narrower waist, a curvature of breast that appeared not the least bit masculine, with a nipple that stood out like the almond morsel on one of Nanna Nails’ cookies she used to send parcel post from New York every year during the holidays. I caught just the briefest glimpse of this confusing profile, and then Rick disappeared into the bathroom. I heard Rick put down the toilet seat, and then the sound of human micturition—not the pointed, pure-toned and melodic plainsong of a manly stream, but a gushing polyphony rich with supertones. I knew that music. I had heard it enough times when I was married, while waiting impatiently for Brenny to come to bed. Like my ex-wife, Rick Masters was a woman.47

  Rick, or Regina, or whatever the hell her name might be, came back to bed without flushing the toilet. Not knowing that I rarely sleep anyway, she probably didn’t want to risk making noise and waking me. When she returned from the bathroom, my head was turned discreetly away from her, and I made apneic sounds of imitation of her own, “Annhhh, oorrrp.” only deeper. She rustled the covers, and after a few minutes began snoring in unison with me. I resumed my Tibetan breathing and meditated on the implications of Rick’s sex change.

  Facts. Rick was a woman pretending to be a man and sharing a room with me. I was an asthenic uptown scugnizz’ pretending to be a sleaze (and, somewhat worrisomely, having no trouble playing the role) in order to get the goods on Sterne. Sterne was a marginally imaginative grifter with suburban tastes and a Continental front, the slick facade of which he kept intact with the help of Sweeney. Sweeney was exactly what he seemed: thick-necked and obedient as a trained sea lion but not half as bright. I understood the motives of all parties but Rick. Why was she pretending to be a man? Was she a lesbian transvestite going to droll lengths to fit into the world of men generally, and the world of the Combist League more specifically? Doubtful: Not even the most steroid-bent butch would set the soft, poppin-fresh homunculus Sterne up as the embodiment of rough manly virtues. Was Rick a beautiful, sinewy model who had somehow latched onto me as the object of lusty obsession,48 had thrown her dignity to the wind in order to tail me here, and was hotly awaiting the right moment to leap into my bed and take me, shy and unsuspecting, in the full flower of my youthful virility? I hoped the latter was the case, but it seemed unlikely that my luck would suddenly change after all these years. What seemed most likely was that she was working for Sterne in some capacity, perhaps as a shill whom he used to spy on prospective inductees into the Combist fold. Her assignment was to keep the new guy, me, always in her sight, play stupid, and report my every movement to her pudgy boss.

  It infuriated me that I was being scrutinized, tested, examined, observed like a laboratory chimp. What had happened to simple trust and decency in the world? What end could possibly justify one person’s dressing down and spying on another? What filthy species of vermin would stoop so low? My kind, that’s what. I could play this game, too, only better. I would watch my step, act the perfect Fumaroli, make no wrong moves while Rick was around, frustrate the disreputable slut totally while getting the goods that would nail her and her boss.

  Yet, despite my indignation at her invasion of my privacy, I couldn’t repress a certain rampant eroticism at being in the same room with a lithely curvy woman who didn’t know I knew she was such. Teenage fantasy made real, I suppose, hard evidence of a
psychosexual development arrested at age thirteen or so. I tried practicing Lung of Fire to distract myself, but my Tibetan exhalations colored the area of my hips mauve and raised a hummock in Sterne’s stamp-catalog patchwork-print quilt, like a gabbro column extruding, forcing itself into soft, yielding shale. I forgot all about my circular breath, gave in to the auto-tectonic geology of the moment and jetted into sleep at last, with a smile on.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The room was bright with midmorning light, and my eyes felt as though they were posted shut with mucilage. Two blurred human shapes stood by my bed and loomed above me. My eyes came unglued and focused after a moment, first on Sterne, whose shortness prevented him from looming in the true sense of the word, and then on Sweeney, who had no trouble looming, with loom to spare. Sweeney had a pair of my grimy choners in his hands. Handling my soiled laundry would make anybody scowl, and Sweeney was scowling and looming at the same time, probably a severe test for a man of Sweeney’s questionable evolution; I knew several anthropologists who could make a career out of studying a guy like him.

  The rest of my underwear was dispersed randomly over the bed. Sterne had the elephant in his hands, while the falsely bearded Rick sat expressionless on the edge of her bed, fully dressed now, both feet on the floor, knees apart macho-style.

  Sterne said, “Good morning, Mr. Nails. I trust you are feeling improved over your condition of the evening previous. Perhaps your early morning constitutional invigorated you.”

  I tried to get up, but Sweeney pushed me back down effortlessly, as though rebuffing an affectionate kitty. Sterne reprimanded me. “When people walk into quicksand, they are advised not to struggle, as beating the viscous admixture of sand and water with their arms and legs only draws them down more quickly. Mr. Nails, you are in quicksand, and I suggest you lie quietly.”

  I struggled up once more, only to get one of Sweeney’s rumproast hands in my solar plexus. I lay back, breathing in shallow pants, cornered and scared. “You know my name.” I remarked.

  “I admire your powers of observation. An appreciation of the subtleties is essential in an aspiring critic of British letters, especially the critic of an artist so insightful and elegant as George Eliot, don’t you agree?”

  “You figured out my name and you know what I do.” I blurted.

  “Indeed, we know many things about you, Mr. Harmon Nails. We have been observing you for some time.” I shot a withering glance at Rick Masters, girl spy. She stared straight ahead, blankly. Sterne said, “Let me introduce my associate. He was introduced to you as Bobby Swedenborg, but that is only a stage name, like your own clever and amusing nom de plume, Urmanndorff. His real name is Robert Sweeney. You have met him before, on more than one occasion in fact.”

  “I know. I recognized him. The robbery at Ernst’s, the freeway. I missed him when he visited my house and forgot to turn off the gas. I can’t wait to hear what my mother has to say when she gets her utilities bill next month.”

  “Do you not find him entertaining, Mr. Sweeney?” Sweeney nodded and remained stony-faced. “You see, in the parlance of your former persona, you crack him up. Mr. Sweeney agrees that you are a richly comical young man, and that your disguise was most whimsical. Nevertheless, when you arrived at our little gathering last night, he knew you at once.”

  I fired a stinging accusation, “He knew me from the time his partner hit me in the balls. They almost raped Lissa.”

  “You are wrong, Mr. Nails. Actually, my associate here was only a detached observer of your unfortunate accident, as I was, and he actually stopped Mr. Dill, a former associate of ours, from proceeding any further with my stepdaughter. In spite of my warning, Mr. Dill became a trifle too … enthusiastic with Lissa. Reluctantly I was forced to have him excused.”

  “Excused as in how Ford excused Nixon, or excused as in excused to the bottom of the Zaca Reservoir?”

  “Exactly.” he responded ambiguously. So much for avenging my wounded manhood. Sterne had taken care of the job for me, probably much better than I ever could, given my unfortunate lack of experience at torture and murder. Dill’s cruel Dick Cavett voice forever silenced, and I couldn’t dredge up even one iota of satisfaction in it. “A crude fellow, our former Mr. Dill. We will not have dealings with him anymore. You see, Mr. Sweeney does excellent work, thorough and enduring as the pyramids. He has a great deal of professional pride, and, truth to tell, he’s more than slightly irritated with you. He attempted repeatedly to deter you from your reckless meddling in our affairs, and yet we find you here. Mr. Sweeney is not accustomed to failure.”

  “I’m not accustomed to having my personal belongings stolen and my life threatened.” I complained in the tone of a kid who’s snitching to the teacher about a schoolyard bully.

  “A minor inconvenience, Mr. Nails, compared to the trouble you have brought upon yourself at the present moment.” He waved the elephant in my face. “Clearly, you have too much concrete information concerning certain of our activities. That is most unfortunate, as is the fact that you will never have the opportunity see your lovely mother when she returns from her sojourn in the Arizona desert.”

  “Leave my lovely mother out of this. I’m not scared by your threats.” I said, my stomach muscles constricting fiercely, the cramps forcing bile up into my mouth, my bladder control leaving me. “How do you know where Ma went, anyway?”

  “My stepdaughter informed me of your mother’s pending departure.”

  “Bullshit. Lissa would never volunteer any information to you.”

  “Crudely expressed, but nontheless true. Miss Sterne would never volunteer information knowingly to her stepfather, the evil Laurence Sterne, but she would to her own beloved father, Ernst Gablonzer. Or to the man whom she believes to be her father.” Obviously enjoying himself, Sterne pulled from his coat pocket what looked like a gutted prairie dog which, in what might be interpreted as a momentary rapture of rodent love, he pressed to his face. It adhered and shaped itself to his chin, a lumpish goatee. Removing his glasses, he lifted the cheap wig flamboyantly from his scalp, and his alternative identity began to emerge like a projected image coming into focus on a screen. Sterne opened his coat and removed a thick flak jacket or bulletproof vest which had, it became apparent, accounted for a goodish percentage of his formerly ample girth; while he was still not what you’d call scant or sylph-like, he was by no means the grain-fed porkloaf he had pretended to be, either.

  Sterne gave me a bloodsome smirk. “You fill rrrecocknise me now, fill you not?” he said, putting on the familiar silly Austro-Oxbridge accent, and at once the picture became sharp. Standing before me was Ernst Gablonzer, a man I had recently come to admire as one of the few truly good people I had met in my life, and to love almost as much as my own father—the same man, with some cosmetic revisions, who not five minutes earlier had threatened to kill me, and who clearly had no intention of changing his mind now.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Before Sterne, the closest I had ever come to death was Point Zero. It was early morning in the summer of my seventeenth year, and two hurricanes, one in Baja and one just south of Hawaii, were pumping huge southwest swells, twelve to fifteen feet measured conservatively, from the back of the wave. I had driven up with my high school friend Randy Rhea—his parents had sprung for a new Mustang as his graduation present—to this secret spot we had discovered at the mouth of La Tolteca canyon, just north of the L. A. county line. We named our secret spot Point Zero because it sounded scary. You had to climb down a steep, crumbling sandstone cliff and steal across some private beachfront to get there, but there were never crowds. When there was surf, it was worth the climb. When there weren’t waves, we played heads-up, nickel-ante poker on the barnacle-encrusted rocks and waited for the tide to change or a swell to come in.

  On this morning, it was more than worth the climb. It was Absolute Zero, big and hollow. The sky was mottled with high storm clouds, the air tropical, still and languid, the ocean
a foamy brown from the seaweed and sand that a powerful shorebreak had churned up and the rip current dragged out. Carried swiftly by the rip, I made it out between huge sets, turned and caught my first wave, a smaller peak, merely bungalow-sized. As my board’s speed caught up with the wave’s, I looked down its steep face into the gnarly, kelp-entangled trough, and I pulled out; the tide was too low, the barrel was hollowing out too fast. I wheeled my board around to paddle out, but I couldn’t. I was caught inside a procession of larger and larger waves which pounded me relentlessly as I tried to make it out beyond the surf line, to get my breath. With each successive pounding I got carried farther down the coast and away from the point and my friend. It was too big to ride now, the huge lines closing out all the way from the point to the beach, and Rhea, sitting safely past the reef, was waiting for a break in the sets so that he could paddle in.

  I was alone. I rolled under and scratched over wave after wave, each bigger than the next. I barely made it over the top of one huge wave, this one the size of a two-story townhouse, already cresting and feathering as I reached and punched though its summit. The wind showered me with salt spray, which blinded me for a moment. I squinted and shook my head to get the water and hair out of my eyes, and I looked out to the horizon. It wasn’t there. Instead, I was facing a towering, silent monster, a molten Great Wall about to collapse its full mass on me.