Arthur Nersesian - The Fuck-Up

But still, she seemed hideous at the time. Could love bridge the intellectual and cultural abyss between them? Could love amputate the fifteen or so years that tossed her ahead of him? Could love repair so much? If so, then for the first time in my life, sitting there, I realized how love was truly great. It had always been easy for me to fall head over heels for some bouncing blonde from Texarkana, Texas, to sip her like a dry martini and smash the crystal in the fireplace of fate. But it was only Budweiser that my dear pal Helmsley was guzzling, as he nestled his head into the folds of her belly and looked into her cavernous nostrils.

For different reasons, we had all downed what would have measured out to at least a half-keg of beer. Angela, who had drunk twice as much as Helmsley, was no drunker. Suddenly Angela jumped to her feet and, yanking Helmsley up, decided it was time to go. Before departing, though, she cut a profound fart. I was too drunk to mind, though; I knew I wouldn’t make it even as far as the door. I sat there and ordered another beer.

Alcohol corrodes one’s dexterity and sense of proportion, but it also heightens one’s emotions. Smelling that fart, I thought of Helmsley in love. Had I spent my whole life confusing love with a series of erections? Love to Helmsley must have been an utter necessity, whereas for me it was always just a luxurious distraction. I wished that I had the need to lust after some goiter-necked, tooth-decayed, leg-blistered old bag. If I could love like that it would be a pyramid of emotions, an Arc de Triomphe of affection.

When the time arrived for the bar to close, I had to be helped out. No sooner did I plop myself down on a neighboring stoop than my stomach reared up. Staring down at the pool of vomit that had fountained out of me, I made out the expensive Italian meal I had eaten earlier that evening. The regurgitated pasta and cheese were little islands in a vast sea of beer. I recall feeling through that drunken stupor a deep loss; it had been a magnificent meal.

If I could love it enough, I would be able to eat it up all over again. It probably would taste just as good, once I got over the disgusting appearance. I knelt in the slop and gazed into it with as much devotion as I could muster. Dogs eat their regurgitation, I prompted myself. Slowly stretching my fingers out, I stroked along the meaty lumps and cheesy threads, and then brought my fingertips to my lips. I tried, but for some reason I just couldn’t get beyond the bilious stench.

“Hey,” someone yelled, following it with a prodding kick to my ribs. A large guy with mountainous shoulders loomed above me.

“What da fuck you doin?”

A gang of teenagers behind him were looking down at me grimly. They knew when a good beating would be therapeutic As I scrambled to unsteady feet, I realized there was no chance of running away.

“Well, I was just eating, you know, a meatball hero, and I look at my hand here, and my high school graduation ring is gone, so I … uh, upchuck here, and I was just looking for it, you know, it had a diamond stone.”

“Diamond?” the most brilliant of them queried. “What public school has a diamond for a graduation stone?”

“Who said public?” I countered. “It was parochial.”

“Which one?” asked the guy with the twin tower shoulders.

“Maternal Lamentations. Over in Sheepshead Bay.”

“We just beat them in basketball,” one of the morons said, to my relief.

“Fuck it,” I said, looking wistfully at the vomit. I slowly walked away. After I had staggered away half a block, I looked back and saw the bastards kicking through my poor puddle of barf. As I turned away, I heard one of them yell to another, “Gypsies steal gems that way.”

Late afternoon the next day, I awoke with a punishing hangover. I arose slowly and remembered the previous night with disbelief. I peeked into the slightly opened door of Helmsley’s bedroom to see if he was sleeping alone. The room was empty and nothing had been altered since yesterday. He had been out all night. I went back to my couch and retreated back into sleep. When I awoke again, it was dark out and I was starving. I recalled the barf episode of the night before, and quickly brushed my teeth. It was only six PM. I took a shower and a couple of Tylenol and called Miguel to ask him when I could come in to start training. He instructed me to come in as soon as the energy was right. I dressed and got the F, then changed for the L to Third Avenue where I walked south to the theater. Upon my arrival, Miguel asked me, “Are you sure you’re in the right energy so soon?”

“I stopped in a nearby Radio Shack and checked on the meter. I’m ready.”

“All right,” he said, and we began with a tour of the theater.

“This is your theater,” he explained as we walked to the stage. “You must look at it as if it’s a part of your own body.” Sex was lurking all around us. It was crouched low in the darkened seats and projected high on the stage.

“This way” He led me to a staircase behind the stage and to a downstairs room. The place looked and sounded like a medieval dungeon, with dark stone walls, puddles of water, virtually no lighting, and the moans. There was constant moaning all around. A hand out of the darkness groped my thigh.

“Fuck off!” I yelled.

“Shhhh,” Miguel whispered back. “Occasionally someone might reach out; all you do is simply take their hand and push it away. Not rudely or quickly, everyone here is as human as you are.”

We went back up a staircase to the front of the theater. “Now look here.” He pointed to a burnt-out bulb. “Ow, see that? Ow ow, you should smart when you see that. A bulb is burnt-out and now the theater is in pain. Say ow.”

“Ow. Why?”

“You should be in pain until you replace the bulb. You’re both the nerve system and the lymph node system of the theater.”

“You mean the white blood cells,” I corrected his little metaphor.

“Why not the lymph node?”

“Well, isn’t the lymph node just sweat and pimple pus?”

“So?”

“Well, the white blood cells destroy foreign objects that enter the body Didn’t you see the movie Fantastic Voyage?”

“I thought the spleen does that.”

“No, the spleen stores blood, and I think the liver cleans it.”

“All right, enough. You’re the spleen, the liver, the white blood cells, the lymph nodes. You’re all of that and anything else you can think of.”

He gave other pointers as we walked back through the dark theater. Looking up at the beam of projected light, I saw something strange. As I walked down the aisle, I noticed the ray from the projection booth was parallel to the seats. Out of an architectural interest, I squatted to inspect the incline of the floor.

“You wouldn’t have a level, would you?”

“Very good,” he replied, and yanking me up to my feet, he quickly put his finger over my lips and murmured, “I’ll explain later.”

“Explain what?” I asked as soon as he closed the office door behind us.

“Did you notice the angle of the screen?”

“No, what’s wrong with it?”

“It’s slanted backward at the top. And all the seats are anchored at such an angle that everyone sitting has to apply a soft but constant thrust to sit back in the seat.

“Doesn’t anyone complain?”

“No”—he grinned—“they just leave. No one can bear it for more than a couple of hours.”

“You can probably get a team of carpenters to fix it,” I replied. “Who fucked up?”

“Fix it? That’s like fixing the Mona Lisa! It’s brilliant.”

“Brilliant?”

“Look, porn theaters aren’t like other theaters. People come to a porn theater and they stay forever. This way they either leave or they suffer.” It was an interesting theory, but who could guess how many patrons never returned because they didn’t care for the back strain?