Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

“Just tell me when.”

“Next Wednesday. Six-thirty. Perhaps you can’t make it at such a wild hour?”

“It’s perfect. One of the best times. It gives me pleasure just to think about it.”

“You ought to hang up the phone and masturbate.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll just open the window.”

Nee, nee, we laughed. I grinned and shook my head. I remembered how witty he could be.

“And another thing, Phillip. It’s not crucial, but I want to say it.”

“Please.”

“I know about you and Marjorie, Phillip.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Makes no difference. We’re civilized people, not Victorians. What’s finished is finished, no more, void. What remains is friendship. Our friendship. Even stronger than before. I hope you feel the same way. That’s how Marjorie feels.”

“That’s how I feel, too, Henry.”

“Then there isn’t anything more to be said about that. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“Are you absolutely sure? I don’t like to leave things unsaid, Phillip. They always come out one way or another.”

“I know, I know. Henry, I get boils on my neck when I leave things unsaid.”

“Good, then you understand me. Next Wednesday, Phillip. Six-thirty.”

“Right.”

Nee, nee we laughed and said goodbye.

Dinner with them was out. Furthermore I wouldn’t eat a thing. Not that night and not until that night. The idea just came to me. I didn’t struggle to establish thesis and antithesis. It came BOOMBA. Real ideas strike like eagles. A man who loves premises and conclusions loves a whore. I wouldn’t eat that night and not until that night. That’s how well he knew me. Not at all.

I ran about my room until I got sleepy and then spent the night whirling in bed shrieking curses. At dawn I was sitting up with two fists of hair, cool as a Buddha. Dinner with them was out. The idea gave me shivers. Fat ran off. Bones lifted under the skin. I went and leaned against the refrigerator door. Hours passed, the day, the night. I leaned with the insouciance of a hoodlum or a whore. I gazed down at my feet. Gaunt, sharp as chicken feet. The objective principles on which I stood. The first line of a poem came to me: “Bitter, proud metatarsals.” I smelled chicken salad and cream cheese, but didn’t move until I ripped open the refrigerator door, grabbed handfuls of salad and cheese, and flung them out the window. “Ya, ya,” I shouted, “food is out.” My hand seized a frozen steak and flung it into my mouth. I swallowed. Instantly, I became depressed. The steak was in. Like a virgin deflowering I sank to the floor. The steak worked grimly inside. I wanted to make it stop. My stomach churned like the back of a garbage truck. Arteries sucked. I had the steak in my neck, thighs, fingers, toes. But all right, I thought. I’ll journey to the end of the night like Saint Augustine and the Marquis de Sade. The more things are different the more they are the same. Immoral is moral.

I went to the nearest restaurant, a fish house. It made no difference. I ate a cow, I’d eat a fish. I ordered lobster Leningrad and a plate of mixed crawlers, flung everything inside, and chewed in a deliberate way. In my mind I said, “Yum.” The waiter refilled my bread basket. I grunted, “Thanks.” People like me, he said, made his job meaningful. I told him I understood food. He nodded.

“May I watch?”

“Please,” I said.

He stood beside my chair and put his hand discreetly on my shoulder. His mouth moved with mine. When I finished he smiled and asked if I enjoyed the meal. I rubbed my stomach and winked. He nodded in an appreciative way. I leaped from my chair. We embraced. “My name is Phillip,” I said. He said he could tell. I squeezed money into his hand. He protested. I refused to listen, squeezed more, snapped up the menu and shoved it down into my crotch.

Days passed. The dinner party was only hours away. As it drew closer I couldn’t repress what Henry had said. He knew I was going to come. He knew me so well. “But you were very wrong,” I said. However wrong I could indulge the idea that he was right. I indulged it: “You were right.” The idea gave me pleasure. The pleasure of an infant. Something turned, poked, smelled, very known. I bobbled out into the street and walked among strangers to intensify the pleasure. None of them knew me. I went to a liquor store and bought wine, red and white, to express my contempt for Henry’s dinner. A bottle of Armenian raki was on sale. I bought it, too, then left and bought flowers. Around midnight I stood outside Henry’s door. It was open, welcoming the night. There were seventy or eighty people in the house. I knocked. Henry came running. “Someone’s at the door,” he yelled. “Phillip. What a surprise.”

I leaped backward into the darkness. He leaped after me and caught my arm. “Come in, come in.” He took my wine and flowers and flung them into a closet. “We had a little dinner party.”

“I already had dinner. Thanks for inviting me in, Henry. I can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

“I’d rather not talk about it. It’s nothing personal.”

“But, Phillip, I want to talk to you.”

“Let me continue for a moment. Then I’m going back to my rathole. I appreciate your invitation more than I can tell you. You believe me?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t say of course. I really mean it.”

“I do, too, of course.”

“Don’t say of course, Henry. You mean a great deal to me. You’re my dearest friend, the only one I have. It kills me not to come to your dinner party. But I can’t. Let’s not talk about it, all right? I don’t ask a lot of favors of you.”

“Will you have a drink?”

“Bourbon.”

“Ice? Water?”

“No. In fact, look, don’t even pour it into the glass.”

I snapped up the bottle and swallowed. People were everywhere, standing, sitting, talking, smoking, drinking. It was a brilliant crowd. The women had nice legs. The men looked as if it didn’t matter. I felt a bit out of place because I didn’t know any of them. Henry touched my elbow. He spoke very quietly, very slowly, and as if we were the only ones there.

“Phillip, I do want to talk to you.”

I was thrilled by the intensity of his voice.

“There’s nothing to talk about at a party,” I said.

He shrugged. “You’re right, Phillip.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

He shrugged again. It was very like him to do that when he had a lot on his mind. “About? You’re hungry for topics? I want more than to talk about. I want dialogue, Phillip, not topics. I don’t want to talk about a thing. Things crap up talk.”

“I agree. Now I’m going, Henry.”

“Go.”

“But I’ll listen for a minute if you like.”

“Can you listen for a minute? Don’t say yes if you can’t.”

“I’ll listen for a minute.”

“Phillip, I’m going out of my mind.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t tell you in a million years.”

“It’s been good talking to you, Henry.”

“Wait, Phillip. I want to tell you a story. Not a story, a parable.”

“Oh.”

“It represents my connection with the elemental life. Nothing else. Not art, not politics, not history, not anything but the elemental life. The truth is, Phillip, I don’t give a damn about anything else. I’m talking about love.”

“I know. I can tell.”

“Of course. Phillip, listen. The first time Marjorie and I went out we went to a movie. I don’t remember what was playing. At any rate, I put my arm around her and my hand fell on her breast. She didn’t say anything. She trembled. At first, Phillip, I didn’t notice where my hand had fallen. Then I felt her trembling and I noticed. I trembled. I was a hand. She was a breast. I don’t have to tell you what a trembling breast feels like.”