Leonard Michaels - The Men's Club

“She yelped. She tried to wiggle back, but her chair was caught in the rug.”

“Wow.”

“I kicked her again. She stabbed her fork under the table at my foot. I was wearing thin Italian shoes. She could have pushed the fork right through. I got up, left the table, went home. It was the last time I saw her.”

Terry licked the tip of his index finger, pressed it down on scraps of pie at the rim of his plate, nibbled the scraps from the tip of his finger, mumbling, “I’m ashamed. Also guilty.” Perspiring along the upper lip, mumbling, nibbling, he nailed down his conscience.

Kramer lifted from his slump, chuckling. “What a bitch. What a bitch.”

“You know her?” asked Terry.

“No. Why should I know her?”

Terry shrugged and picked up his fork. “Maybe she was one of your clients.”

“Yeah,” cried Berliner. “Maybe you gave her some coffee.”

“Maybe I’ll kick your ass,” yelled Kramer, coming out of his chair, arms forward, pouring across the table through dishes and glasses to seize Berliner’s shirt front, both of them going over, dragging the table after them. Plates and bottles and bowls spilled to the floor, smashing. My plate hit my lap. I jumped up, the plate falling, smashing with the others.

Kramer and Berliner grappled on the floor, grunting, twisting, rolling over each other. It looked bad. They were laughing. It still looked bad. They had wanted to kill each other. Now they were hugging on the floor. Better than killing, I’m sure, but there had been that rush across the table and their bodies toppling with the food and glass. For an instant, I had been filled with fright and violence, feelings difficult to dismiss, but they had no object, so I stood like a dolt, nothing to do but gape. Then I noticed Terry holding his fork in the air, talking to himself. “I understand what upsets me,” he said. His pie plate had been snatched away with the table. I supposed that’s what upset him. Man is what he eats, I thought irrelevantly, and, somehow, the food and wine on the floor seemed to make sense, to explain the murderous affection of Kramer and Berliner, the astounded look on Terry’s face. “What?” I said, as if I were more interested in Terry’s mind than in the spectacle of Kramer and Berliner sprawled in the mess of plates, bottles, glasses, knives, forks, salmon head, chicken bones, wine. All in all, disgusting, yet happy in lights and colors, especially with the two of them laughing and hugging. Cavanaugh grinned down at them with contempt. He’d witnessed better fights, apparently. Paul tried to smile, but for him the violence was unpleasant and his smile looked sickly. Canterbury watched my eyes because I was the only one standing. He looked for what to think about this event, but I couldn’t tell him anything and I looked down at my feet, where I saw my plate in three pieces, half-moon and two jagged triangles. I wondered if they could be glued together again. Like Kramer and Berliner. No longer rolling, they lay flopped against one another, both wheezing and sweaty. I wondered if it was time for me to go home. Then Terry said, “I’ll phone her,” and I realized what had upset him. Talking about Deborah, he’d begun to miss her. I said, “Tell her you want to return her earrings.”

“Good idea. I’ll need some kind of opener.” He seemed truly grateful.

“What will you say if you get the answering machine?”

“I won’t get it. She’s waiting for my call. I can feel it, how she’s waiting. I’m glad I talked about her. I wouldn’t have understood myself otherwise. I should call her this minute.”

“It’s 3 a.m.,” said Paul. “Give her another half hour. She might like to sleep.”

“She never sleeps. Kramer, where’s your phone?”

“Don’t do it,” said Kramer, sitting up to plead. “Don’t phone her now.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll depress me. Phone her tomorrow. You’re with us, man.”

Berliner sat up, too. “I also had a dream, Terry. Let me tell you about it. Don’t make any phone calls. Like Kramer says, you’re with us.”

Terry considered, then uttered an all-relinquishing sigh. “All right, I’ll phone her tomorrow.”

It was playacting, this tiny crisis in male sympathy. They seemed to enjoy it, pleading with Terry. Deborah wasn’t waiting for his call. He’d said she was never bored. To tease him, I said, “Terry, why don’t you do what you feel like doing? Go to the phone. Tell Deborah how you feel, how you miss her keen face that leaps at you. Her voice, her legs. Tell her everything.”

“How will I sound?”

“Like a shmuck,” said Berliner.

“Who cares?” I said. “Do it.”

“Do I want to do it?”

“Certainly. You said so yourself. Go to the phone. Tell her you love her.”

“I’ll have another glass of wine first.”

“You’ll never do it, will you?”

“I think you want to do it more than I do.”

That felt correct.

“It’s late,” I muttered, rubbing my chin, feeling bristles. I’d shaved the previous morning. The face is a clock. Other faces also showed the time — slack, negligent flesh, heat in the eyes — but nobody looked ready to quit. “What I mean to say is that, when you talk about Deborah, you sound as if you hate her. You see her in such detail.”

“So why should I phone? To tell her I hate her?”

“No. Of course not. You couldn’t put it that way.”

“How should I put it?”

“Tell her you love her.”

“Stay up late enough and you’ll say almost anything — even the truth. Maybe Deborah has stopped waiting for my phone call. It’s been ten years since I last saw her.”

“Ten years?”

“I told you we met shortly after my divorce.”

“You still think about her.”

“To you, my story sounded bad. Well, it’s probably unwise to look too closely at anyone. Who can survive scrutiny? But the woman was unique. A goddess.”

“Do you mean that?”

“No. Fatigue makes me sentimental. It’s a muscular phenomenon. But I’ve often considered phoning her. I want to apologize. Put things right.”

“So phone her.”

“You think I should?”

“I think you can’t end an affair with a kick under the table.”

“That’s a good point.”

Cavanaugh kicked open the swinging door to the kitchen, saying, “Jesus Christ,” and returned a moment later, kicking the door open from the kitchen side, saying, “What assholes.” A new bottle of wine and two water glasses were in his hands. He gave one glass to Terry. He didn’t think it was time to go home. I was still standing, wondering if I wanted to phone Deborah Zeller. It seemed almost. possible, but what could I say to her? Kramer and Berliner, sitting on the floor beside one another, leaned against a wall. Berliner looked up at Terry and said, “I had a dream about the paper lady. Where I buy my paper every morning.”

“Is that so?” said Terry.

“Yeah. The paper lady is fat and stupid. Wears flowery dresses like she floats and doesn’t stink. She sits on a high stool holding a cigar box full of change. You can’t see the stool, only her lap and legs, she’s so fat. Her ankles hang over the tops of her shoes.”

“You’ve made a close study of her.”

Berliner considered this and said, “I never thought so before. You know, it’s weird. There’s a woman in my office who is very pretty, but I couldn’t tell you the color of her eyes. The paper lady’s eyes are greenish, full of water. They look sticky. She whistles when she breathes. She has long hairs on her chin. She can’t say more than three, four words at a time. Nothing moves except her eyes and fingers making change. She doesn’t see good, so she feels the coins. Her heat is in the nickels and dimes. It’s like touching her when you take them. I dreamed about her.”