Leonard Michaels - The Men's Club

Canterbury, already stiff enough, stiffened more. I wondered if he’d been beaten as a child. He said, “Finish the story. Please.”

“The story? I haven’t begun the story.”

“It couldn’t have been so terrible as you think.”

“It was terrible. I’m upset, really upset talking about her. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to phone her. I have a pair of her earrings. She left them at my house one night. I should have mailed them to her long ago. I think this every day and I don’t mail them. What do you suppose it means?”

“Nothing at all. Tell us why you’re upset,” said Canterbury. He seemed anxious to get out of sight. “Is it because you didn’t marry her?”

“It wouldn’t have lasted. I don’t know why I’m upset. Maybe it ended too suddenly. Before I was ready. Maybe I’m nervous, that’s all. The idea makes me nervous. The way relations between people fail, you’d think they get together to break apart and have something to talk about. Nothing to say about a successful relationship, is there? Who would want to listen? As for marriage, it’s a still life. Like this table of plates and glasses. Doesn’t move. You run into an old friend, you shake hands, you say, ‘What’s happening? ’ He says, ‘I got married last month.’ Your heart sinks. Poor guy. Not only is nothing happening, but he’ll soon be miserable. ‘Wonderful,’ you say. You’re already dying to get free of him. Not that you don’t like him, but it’s terrible to stand there lying — that is, unable to say truly what you’re doing. How you’re having six affairs, planning a trip to Rome, and you bought a new Porsche. He wants you to come to dinner. You’d love to come to dinner and meet his wife, but you can’t think when. You’ll phone him, you say. He pleads with you not to forget. You promise, but you’ll never phone. Never. You’d sooner phone the city morgue. Look, I’ll be completely honest. I can’t stand couples. I hope none of your wives ever invites me to dinner. So why am I upset? Deborah and I wouldn’t have gotten married. Neither of us really wanted it. She had too much to do. I’d just been divorced. When I woke up alone, really alone, the first time in ten years, I was in a narrow bed in the little suite for doctors at the emergency room, and I was happy. You know, I looked at white walls and I was happy. White walls, a TV set, a small cabinet, a narrow bed. It was abundancy. My clothes were in a suitcase in a closet and that’s where I wanted them to be. Later I bought a house. Ten rooms. All mine. So why am I upset? I was still seeing my former wife during the whole thing with Deborah. I talked about Nicki with her. With Nicki I talked about Deborah. If a complication arose with one, I could phone the other and discuss it. Maybe I miss Deborah. If so, what do I miss? Her face? Her legs? Other things, too. She could sing. I’m a sucker for singing women. You should see my record collection. Almost exclusively singing women, from all over the world. Every major race is represented. I remember one night after a movie, driving home, the two of us, she started to sing a blues. ‘Brother, can you spare a dime …’ Naturally, a money blues, but I wasn’t listening to the theme. I drove slowly, hoping she wouldn’t quit singing. I had gooseflesh. I think she didn’t even know she was singing. You can love best what people have no idea about themselves. Maybe nobody ever praised her voice. She told me it was noticed, when she was a kid, that she had musical talent, but her father discouraged her from taking piano lessons. ‘You can play by ear,’ he said, ‘so study mathematics, languages. Why waste money learning what you can already do?’ He never praised her voice. Regarding that, she was innocent. She opened her mouth to sing. Beauty flowed out. She didn’t even know. She didn’t bring her big brain down on it. She let it happen, like a spell. As if there were two of her. One waited in silence until the other subsided. Then she sang. I had a dream about her voice, but in the dream I felt no pleasure. I remember it now. Everything connects for me now. Deborah was on the ground, on her back. I was kneeling beside her head, saying, ‘Deborah, tell me who to get in touch with. Hurry, hurry.’ She was languid, wan-looking. A strange style for her, but in dreams you see the truth of a person. She was dying. I begged her to speak. ‘Tell me who to call.’ She said, ‘Ginger, Mary, Tanya, Hortense, Helen, Nettie, Sally, Rosa, Franny …’ I said, “Wait.’ I took a scrap of paper from my wallet, started scribbling the names. She said, ‘Billie, Millie, Tillie …’ Hundreds of names. I was soon writing on my flesh. I’ll say one thing. She yelled in bed. ‘Look, look at me.’ I didn’t mind, but I was always shocked. She had a passion for publicity. No, I don’t mean that. I mean she had a desire to multiply things. Give her a dollar, she made it thousands of dollars. If she had pleasure, I doubled its value by looking. What didn’t multiply was nothing. I don’t consider myself so different. I had a wife, then a wife and a lover, then a former wife, a former lover, and Deborah. Still it wasn’t the same. Deborah had mirrors all over her apartment. Not sick mirrors, like over the bed, but little ones, big ones, round ones in corners or in the middle of a wall, so you’d always be catching sight of yourself. Also photos of herself on the walls. She wasn’t vain. She lacked some crucial evidence. As for the incident, the one thing, one little thing I meant to tell you about … I’m still ashamed of it. I’ll be brief. Harold has infected me with doubts. The more I say, the more uncertain I feel. Deborah exceeded herself in everything. I do the same, talking about her. She fixed on everything and nothing fixed her, you know what I mean?

“We were having dinner with some doctors in San Francisco. About ten of us, including wives and girl friends. I’d joined a gourmet society for doctors. Ordinarily, I don’t see doctors socially. They talk about their condominiums in Texas and Hawaii. Plenty of real estate is financed by malignant tumors. Ask Berliner. Maybe I joined to impress Deborah, show her doctors know food. The dessert I ordered that night was strawberries under flaming chocolate. Good as this pie almost. I was not just eating it, I was committing it to memory. Deborah noticed. She gave me looks of approval, like to say how much she enjoyed my happiness. But what does she do? Takes her fork, sticks it into my dessert — without asking permission — and hacks away a piece for herself. Many things about this woman I admired. But nobody sticks herself between my plate and my mouth. She hacked away a piece, shoves it straight into her mouth. Deep. Almost to her lungs. I was looking with disbelief.”

A look of disbelief entered Terry’s face. He held it, letting us appreciate it. His brows lifted, his mouth hung.

“She looked back at me, rolling the piece of dessert around, a bulge in one cheek, a bulge in the other, and she is smiling as if we’re sharing this piece of delicious dessert. I felt a surge of hatred. Isn’t that terrible? It’s what I felt. All her qualities, everything about her, converged for me in this moment. This was Deborah Zeller. Her fellowships, her million dollars, her groups, her mirrors, and my food in her mouth. Well, fuck you, I thought.”

“What did you do?” said Paul. He listened visibly, the moment tearing at his features, hurting him. An outstanding appreciator.

Terry said, “Get the picture. Close-together eyes and dark wiry hair like a million bees. Her face projects from the middle of it, leaps at you. This face, these eyes, leaping at me, was eating my dessert.”

“I get it, man. What did you do?”

“I kicked her under the table.”

“No shit.”