Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (5 page)

I don’t want to think about
it.

Love can consume you, can it
not? Just like cancer. And doesn’t love have its own seven warning
signs?

What warning
signs?

All right, Ralph. What about
jerking off? Have you been jerking off more than usual? Even a
little more? Say, six or seven times a day? Now that’s a sure
warning sign of love.

I’m the first one to admit I
jerk off like a monkey, Ralph said. —But I’ve been choking my
chicken six or seven times a day since I was about eight. That has
nothing to do with love.

Ralph, you’re the kind of
poor sap whose brains are in his dick.

I’d talk if I were
you.

Jim picked up the nearly
empty pint bottle of vodka and killed it. A huge yellow cat jumped
on the table and began sniffing around. Ralph scooped it up and
tossed it back over his shoulder, and it hit the floor
running.

Ralph, let me ask you
something. When you drink a lot, do you, you know, ever have
trouble getting the old horse out of the barn?

You mean get a hard-on?
Ralph said. Ralph laughed and covered his mouth with his hand.
—Who me? No. Never. Not me. Jesus Christ. What are you talking
about, anyway?

Never? Not once?

Jesus Christ, Ralph said.
—Nope. Never. Nada.

Jim took the empty
sperm-sample jar out of his shirt pocket and placed it beside the
empty pint botde on the table. Ralph lit a cigarette and squinted
through the rising smoke at the litde plastic jar. He reached out
and picked the jar up and turned it around in his hands. He read
the label. —What in the world is this? This has your name on
it?

I want to ask you for a
favor, Jim said to Ralph.

Listen, old Jim, I hardly
have two nickels to rub together, Ralph said, and put the jar down
on the table.

It’s not money, Jim told
Ralph.

In that case it’s yours,
Ralph said, and laughed and picked up the sperm jar again to look
at. —Name it. Within reason, of course. Hey, take my criminal kids.
Take my wretched dog. Take my wife. If she ever comes home again.
Take her, she’s mine. Or whatever that old joke is. Why does this
have your name on it, old Jim?

I’ve always thought of you
like a brother, Jim told Ralph.

—Like we’re really somehow
related, you know? Like we’re blood brothers or something who
somehow got separated at birth.

Do you want me to drive you
to your doc’s appointment? Is that it? Give you some moral support.
I know how docs freak you out.

Actually, that might not be
a bad idea.

Hey, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.
It’s as good as done. But, hey, I’ll have to wait in the car. You
know me. I get edgy. Docs, they give me the willies,
too.

Do you love your kids, old
Ralph? If you could do it all over again, would you have
kids?

Those criminal kids steal me
blind, Ralph said. —I’ve got those kids dead to rights. I’ve caught
them red-handed time and again.

But would you want kids, if
you could go back and do it all over again?

Alice Ann was knocked up
when we got married, Ralph said. —But you know that.

That doesn’t answer my
question, Jim said. —This is important to me, old dog. Would
you?

Well, I’ll tell you, then.
You don’t know what helpless frustration is until you have kids.
Frustration and unrelieved responsibility and permanent
distraction that can make a grown man want to jump off a building.
Does that answer your question?

Ralph, let me ask you this:
When you jerk off like a monkey, who do you think about?

You are stoned, aren’t
you?

Come on, Ralph, tell me. I
told you about my lump, which is probably the most personal thing
I’ve ever shared with anybody in my life. My wife doesn’t even know
about my lump yet.

Oh, I don’t know, Ralph
said. —I think about the usual sort of women, I guess. I’m just a
regular guy. Marilyn Monroe. You know. I like Candy Bergen.
Ann-Margret. Hanoi Jane. Sometimes Jackie O. Susan
Sontag.

What about your lovely
ladyfriend?

Sure, I think about her. I
think about Lindsay. I think about her a lot.

Do you have a picture of
your lovely lady in Montana, Ralph?

Sure.

Could I see it?

Well, I guess so. Sure, why
not? Ralph said. He went to the door and looked up and down the
hallway, then looked out the kitchen window into the driveway. He
slipped his wallet out of his back pocket and then fumbled around
opening flaps and folds. —I’ve got me a secret compartment, Ralph
said, and chuckled. He glanced out the kitchen window once again,
then slid out a snapshot and handed it to Jim.

Jim couldn’t believe his
eyes. Ralph’s girlfriend was beautiful. The old Running Dog! This
Lindsay person was an absolutely lovely woman, with smoky gray eyes
set sort of far apart and long, dark, thick hair, and a wide mouth,
full lips, full moist-looking lips. Jim permitted himself to
picture her going down on old, rotten Running Dog Ralph like a
submarine.

So, what do you think, old
Jim? Ralph said, stepping around behind Jim, looking over his
shoulder. —She’s something, huh?

Not bad, Jim said, and then
he said, Ralph, I don’t really have a lump. I just told you that.
Don’t ask me why.

Jesus, why would you tell me
something like that?

I said don’t ask me why,
Ralph. I’m not myself today.

You really had me going. You
really did.

I’m sorry. There’s no excuse
for it. I was being an asshole. I do have to go to the doc’s,
though. That much is true. Routine stuff. And I don’t really need a
ride. But thanks for offering.

You had me going, old Jim. I
was rattled.

I owe you, buddy. Here,
buddy, Jim said, and took a couple of joints from his shirt pocket
and handed them to Ralph.

Well, thanks, old Jim. Hey,
you hungry at all? Ralph said. He stepped over to the refrigerator
and opened it and peered in. —I could go for a sandwich myself. I
got a big load of deli stuff just last night. Ham. Cheese. You name
it.

No. Thanks, though. I’ve got
to make that doc appointment somehow.

Damn it to hell! Ralph
exclaimed as he rummaged through the refrigerator.
—Gone!

Everything is gone! Gone!
Not a bite left. Not a sad morsel. There’s no end to it. Ever. I
don’t believe those kids. Those criminal kids. There’s never
anything left over for me. Never, Ralph said as he opened and
closed drawers.

I need to hit your head, old
Ralph. Before I take off. I feel a serious number two coming on,
Jim said, and slipped the snapshot of Ralph’s girlfriend into his
shirt pocket.

Help yourself, Ralph said.
—You better take some newspaper with you. We’re out of toilet paper
as usual.

Okeydokey, Jim said, picked
up the little plastic sperm-sample jar, and rushed from the
room.

Secret Sons

So there Jim sat, wearing
dark glasses and a raincoat and that beat- up old fedora he
affected back in those days pulled low over his eyes on a lovely,
clear California day, in a campus clinic at 2:46. Under the flap of
his long coat Jim held a tightly wrapped paper sack which contained
a small plastic jar that in turn held a single, tiny tear of sperm
he had masturbated himself bloody to obtain in Ralph’s disaster of
a bathroom, while gazing into the gray eyes of Ralph’s lovely
girlfriend and kicking at cats. Jim stared helplessly at the large
round clock on the wall above the desk of what was surely the
world’s most beautiful nurse. How lovely her blond hair looked
piled high like that under her cute white dove of a cap. Such a
long, graceful neck. Such soft-looking, delicate breasts pressed
into the cupped white starchness of that uniform. The speed of the
second hand on the clock above her desk was insane. Jim rubbed his
bloodshot eyes beneath his shades and remembered vividly watching
another pretty blond nurse, who looked like the twin of that
beautiful nurse behind the desk, walk slowly toward him carrying a
syringe with a needle the approximate size of a harpoon, intent
upon pumping his blood full of the raging hormones of a normal
boy.

What Jim remembered then
with a sudden and intense vividness was the darkening blue winter
light of that Midwestern afternoon sky when he was nine and in
Rochester, Minnesota, walking with his parents from their hotel
three blocks away to the Mayo Clinic to be made as good as new. Jim
was also going to get to meet some real interesting kids who had
come from the four corners of the earth to be made as good as new,
his folks had assured him. Dirty snow was piled beside the walks
higher than his head. When he talked, his teeth hurt in the frigid
wind blowing down the high, narrow alleys of dirty snow, but there
were so many questions he needed to ask that day.

Will I get a shot today? Jim
had asked his mom, and walked into the frozen cracked cloud of his
own words. I don’t think you’ll be getting any shots today, Jim’s
mom said. Jim said, If I do get a shot, will it be in my arm or in
my behind? Will I have to pull my pants down in front of a nurse?
How would I know a thing like that ahead of time? his mom said;
then she said, Now, don’t go to worrying yourself sick, honey.
Everyone here is going to be real nice to you. Nobody here wants to
hurt you, not if they can help it. That’s right, soldier boy, Jim’s
dad had piped up. That’s how come the nice doctor is getting paid a
goddamn arm and a leg, to know what the hell he’s doing.

The three of them had sat
for what seemed like hours in a huge, hot, stuffed, windowless
waiting room, where other grimfaced parents sat silently with
their own deformed children, everyone thinking about the same
thing, thinking that any amount of pain, suffering, and humiliation
was worth gimped kids being made good as new. Jim had stared
helplessly at a girl with no face until his turn was called, and
his dad had admonished him to be a brave soldier boy when that
pretty blond nurse jabbed that enormous needle into his cold,
shivery, bare, little boy butt, and even his supportive folks had
laughed nervously out loud when his fart had exploded from the cave
of his pain and embarrassment like the croak of some fabled,
monstrous frog.

So years later Jim had sat
in the campus clinic’s waiting room and watched the insanely
speeding second hand of the large round clock on the wall above the
desk of the world’s most beautiful blond nurse. The pudgy pervert
with the long brown hair who had sat down beside Jim on the couch
and the thin, effeminate black man wearing a single silver earring
shaped like a tiny fish, who had sat down in the chair opposite,
both obviously only half through some sort of sex change in one
direction or the other, kept giving Jim looks, this big bozo
wearing a fedora, shades, and raincoat on this hot, perfectly sunny
California day and going in God only knows what direction. I’m here
to stick up the sperm bank, you deformed fuckers, is what Jim
screamed at them in his mind. The speed of the clock’s second hand
was simply insane. Will it hurt? Will I have to pull my pants down
in front of people? The brown paper bag hidden under Jim’s coat
seemed to pulse in his sweaty palms.

What Jim could imagine then
was the tiny sour-cream- colored tear of sperm pressing against the
clear plastic sides of the jar as though it were trying to push its
way through to freedom. That tiny tear wanted to escape; it wanted
to make a clean getaway, which was a sentiment Jim could
understand. What Jim could imagine vividly was a faint smudge of
flesh, of scales, of wet fur, and of infinitely tiny feathers
against the clear plastic. What Jim could imagine were absolutely
lusterless eyes bulging from a tiny fish face, and wildly
fluttering flipper feet, and tiny stunted hands, webbed and with
little pearly pinpoint fingernails, gripping the plastic sides,
opening and shutting, the swimming shape of their grasp and release
a pure movement in membrane, pulling finally through the plastic as
though it were the most transparent of tissue and landing on the
floor at Jim’s feet like a goldfish flipping out of its bowl:
Jim’s own boy, his own little tadpole of a secret son.

And then Jim had entertained
a horrific thought. What exacdy would he say to the world’s most
beautiful blond nurse when his time was up in exactly six minutes
and nine seconds and he had to hand her the mysterious brown paper
bag warm now to the touch? Here, this is for you. Here, you were
expecting this, I believe. Here, you dropped this in the parking
lot. Here, you forgot your lunch.Judy had returned to town the
following evening, and she had been unusually quiet during dinner,
and lucky for Jim, she had not even asked question one about how
things had gone at the clinic the day before. Lucky for Jim,
because he had no good story for his shameful getaway. How could he
ever explain anything, or even describe the startled look on the
face of the world’s most beautiful blond nurse when only seconds
before his scheduled appointment Jim had simply jumped up and torn
out of that place like a bat out of hell, his raincoat flapping
behind him like crazy wings?