Leonard Michaels - The Men's Club

One doesn’t always see, for an instant, what one sees. This was such blind seeing, as she came, her hands clasped about the thing, coming down with her hands onto Kramer’s head at the hairline. Black iron pot struck gonk. Resonance followed. No appreciable damage to Kramer’s hair style, but red worms came creeping forth, feeling slowly toward his eyebrows.

I looked at Cavanaugh, as if to see what I’d seen, and found him between surprise and negation—“Oh” and “Don’t.” Berliner’s face, left of Cavanaugh’s, showed nothing. Slowed by marijuana, he waited for significance in the act.

Kramer stood dummied, glazed, hands on hips, forehead flashy with blood. He rocked slightly, absorbing the blow, letting force slip down spinal ridges to ass and legs and heels while his hair released blood; red genius, oozing from his mind. He acknowledged no pain, didn’t seem to know he was bleeding. Didn’t lift a hand to his head. Merely blinked to restore focus. They stood face to face, powerfully coupled, while the rest of us shifted weight, gaping and incapable. Then Kramer spoke:

“I feel you’re feeling anger.”

Terry muttered, “Half a dozen stitches. Probably not serious, but if there is vomiting later …”

“Grounds for divorce,” said Canterbury, “assuming the injured spouse survives.” He sounded eerily pleased and was smiling. A wide, rash smile. Apparently hysterical; high on the action. Maybe frightened, but pleased by his fear. His smile was gothic.

Nancy said, “I want to express myself, like now.”

“I feel you’re feeling anger,” said Kramer again. “What do you feel about that?”

He was, obviously, trying to evoke her deepest motives. She screamed and brought the pot up from her abdomen, following the same arc as before. Kramer went backwards on his heels to dodge it, stumbling toward the living room, losing balance, sitting down hard on the edge of the orange rug. She went after him. Paul leaped out of her way. Cavanaugh grabbed for her and Berliner turned his head not to look. Cavanaugh’s hand, catching her shoulder, crushed her blouse against the bone. She stopped, swiveled her head toward the hand. Looked at it, not him, as if she scrutinized a noxious insect. It let go. She proceeded to Kramer, bent toward his face, and said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” said Kramer, gazing at her knees, not showing anything or doing anything or conceding anything, but abiding. She straightened, walked past him, going to the stairs, and, with mechanical trudge, up the stairs. A door slammed. Opened. Her voice said, “Tonight. You clean up tonight.” Then came a smashing noise against the ceiling directly above our heads. I remembered she’d carried the pot upstairs. She was smashing it against the floor, the noise changing as it smashed a rug, bare boards, a wall, and then came breaking glass. Then it stopped. We heard sobbing.

Kramer, still sitting on the rug, gazing at nothing, said, “I don’t know what’s going on. Never nags, never complains, never has moods, never even gets sick, and now she has a tizzy. What the hell is going on? Man, I thought we had an understanding.” He shook his head abruptly, as you’d shake a bottle to feel if there’s liquid sloshing inside. Blood sprinkled the rug.

Berliner, glancing at the spots on the rug, said, “Anyone can see that.”

Paul said quietly, “Let’s clean up.”

“No,” cried Kramer, rising with determination. “You guys shouldn’t do that. You’re my guests.”

Nobody mentioned his face. It was difficult not to stare, not to think how odd that he couldn’t see it himself.

“We want to help,” said Canterbury. “Terry, take that end of the table. Is there a broom?”

“Kitchen,” said Kramer glumly, standing now, suddenly a pointless man, all determination gone. Cavanaugh stepped toward the kitchen. Canterbury and Terry righted the table. Berliner and I squatted at the edge of the mess, plucking out the unbroken things — salad bowl, knives, forks — putting them on the table. Paul joined us. Kramer hovered, watched the work, doing nothing. We’d taken his initiative away, all moving quickly and efficiently, but he was preoccupied, listening for Nancy. There came a sound of water flushing upstairs, again, again, again. Kramer said, “She does that when she’s mad, but only sometimes.”

“Do you know about the noiseless flush?” said Canterbury instantly, eager to be pertinent, to advise. “Toilet bowls that make no sound. At most a whisper. I’ll give you the name of my plumber.”

Berliner said, “I don’t like the idea.”

Canterbury turned to him. “Why not?”

“Doesn’t seem right. If there’s no flush, I might forget to flush. Leave turds floating in the bowl.”

Flushing persisted upstairs; violent annihilations.

I said, “Let’s discuss it.”

Canterbury and Berliner smiled at each other. Kramer, half-smiling, tried to join them in spirit. Cavanaugh swept steadily, shoving glass, sticky food, and wine into a glittering heap. Paul crouched beside it with a dustpan. The flushing stopped. I was grateful for the silence. Kramer looked up at the ceiling, as if at clouds that prophesied the weather. Berliner started to say something. Kramer said, “Wait.” Berliner shut up. The silence ended with a long thunderous crash. The house shuddered. Dust drifted down from the ceiling. “The Victorian dresser,” whispered Kramer. “Big mother. I don’t know how she did it. Must be really pissed, really pissed.” He looked at us. “What do you think?”

His face, gripped by this question, was so grotesquely sensational nobody could speak to it. Red lines tangled from hair to jaw, some dry, some wet, and black eyes came beating through as if looking for a way out of Kramer’s head. He said, “Enough. Enough. I’ll do the rest. You guys get out. I’m really glad you came by tonight. The evening means a lot to me. I want to do it again. I’ll work out a schedule with Nancy. That’s our problem, like. I see it now. We need a better schedule. You all take off now. I swear that dresser weighs half a ton. Marble and oak. She pushed it over, you dig? It’s like time for you to go home. She’d never say anything so uncool, but I know her. I see what she’s, like, trying to say. If you hang around, it could fuck up my marriage.”

Not to see his face as his marriage wasn’t easy. I suppressed the metaphor. This was no time for aesthetic reactions. Cavanaugh leaned the broom against the wall.

Kramer put out his hand to me. I stepped forward, shook it affectionately. With dense, frowning doubt, Terry did the same. Canterbury did it, saying, “I’ll phone with the name of my plumber.” Kramer nodded, “Yeah, yeah.” Paul, then Berliner, hugged him. Cavanaugh, arm around Kramer’s shoulders, said, “Call me if you need anything. Call any time, man.”

Terry said, “You see about the cut there.” He gestured vaguely toward Kramer’s hairline. Still bleeding.

Kramer urged us with his eyes: goodbye. “Wonderful club,” he said, focusing on each of us in turn as we moved toward the door. He remained where he stood in the dining room, peering through bloody reticulations, urging, yearning. Then he waved goodbye.

The door shut. We were outside.

We collected under a street lamp, making a circle, a sort of room, with our bodies. Pines stood along the street. I smelled wisteria and roses. No sounds followed us from Kramer’s house. Paul drew his bag of grass from his jacket. Wine-clotted. He separated dry pieces slowly. We watched as he rolled a thick, ragged cigarette, bulging in the middle, twisted and pinched at the ends to compensate for the bulge. Canterbury said, “Nancy’s good-looking, isn’t she?”

Paul said, “Uhm,” and lit the cigarette, dragging hard, then passed it to Berliner. Canterbury tried again: “We can’t leave him in there like that, can we?”