Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

“Marjorie, this is Phillip. Tell Henry I’m sick.”

“O.K.”

She hung up.

I sat on the bed, chuckling. How silly of her to have done that. Now she had the rest of her life to wonder about what form my revenge would take. I chuckled, “Kill, kill, kill.” The phone rang. I grabbed it. Henry’s voice said, “Phillip? Phillip?”

“Phillip. Phillip.”

“Don’t tell me you’re sick.”

“Of course not.”

I cracked the receiver against the wall, let it crash to the floor.

He piped: “Pheeleep, Pheeleep … Sometheen hapeen tee Pheeleep, Marjoreep.”

I pushed over a chest of drawers.

“Pheeeep, Pheeeep.”

I sang, “La, la,” and vomited on the receiver.

“Pheeweep, wa dee mawee? … dee oo ha fie wee Ceceeweep?”

I felt better, hung up, undressed. I lay down, shut my eyes, began screwing Ceceeweep, but everyone was jumping, shouting, except the marine and me. There had been a crash. He nodded in my direction. I nodded back, very pleased to have been recognized by a person like him, with his moral haircut. The man dropped his crossword puzzle, yelled, “Breakdown. There’s been a serious breakdown.” He started to masturbate, but the train wouldn’t move and suddenly, pop, he ripped his prick off. I screamed and a girl said, “Phillip, what’s wrong?”

“Who?”

“A succubus.”

I tried to smile. “You come back later, baby. I’m a tad indisposed.”

She stood beside the bed, didn’t move. I heard her breathing.

“Don’t stand in the vomit, sweets.”

“Shit!”

“You stood in it, eh?”

“Never mind. I see you’re wearing a shoe, Phillip. Do you always sleep with a shoe?”

“Get up to leak, hop right to the bowl. Saves fuss.”

“Phillip, don’t you want to look at me?”

“I’m sick.”

“A man is the sum of his actions.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I believe you, Phillip, though some would say I’m mad.”

“You good succubus, baby.”

“Open your eyes. I’ll take my clothes off, too.”

“It’s cold.”

A coat and trousers dropped on me. A hat, shirts, ties, laundry bag, suitcase, something heavy. I smelled it.

“Good idea.”

“Do you have another rug?”

“That’s the only rug.”

“May I get under it with you?”

“Gimme a cigarette.”

I tried to sit, but there was too much weight on my chest. She put a cigarette against my lips. I dragged.

“Light it.”

“Sorry.”

“Light it.”

“The answer is nopey nopey.”

“Get under.”

I smoked. She put a leg across mine, a hand on my belly. She said, “I want to ask you something.”

“Ask.”

“When a man is as sick as you, inhibitions vanish, right? He’ll say anything, right?”

Her lips were in my ear.

“Ask, ask.”

“What do you think … I can’t. See that. Ha, ha. I’ll never get another chance like this.”

“Oh, Cecily, ask, ask.”

I crushed the cigarette against the wall.

“I want to ask what you think of me. What do you think of me, Phillip?”

She seized my prick.

“I like your style,” I screamed.

“What else?”

“There’s nothing else.”

She flung my prick down.

“I didn’t have to come here, Phillip. I didn’t have to chase out screaming for a taxi. You talk to me, you. I asked a question. What do you think of me, Phillip?”

“There’s general agreement.”

“That so?”

“Pretty general fucking agreement.”

“What, what do people say?”

“They say you’re an asshole.”

“Is that what you feel? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’m too sick to make qualifications.”

“Goodbye, Phillip. This is the last time.”

I grabbed her wrist. Things hit the floor. The rug scratched everywhere. She twisted, kicked, thrashed.

“Bastard. Take a shower. You wanted to infect me.”

“No one else.”

“You don’t love me. Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

“No one else.”

“You swear?”

She kissed me. I pushed down on her head.

“I’m tired, Phillip.”

I pushed, pushed.

“Say you love me, Phillip.”

I pushed, pushed.

“Merm,” she said.

“No teeth,” I yelled. “Watch the teeth.”

“Mumumu.”

“All right,” I said.

I felt all right. All right.

FINN, LATELY FEIN, RAN INTO SLOTSKYand mentioned the change.

“By the way?”

“I agree. It goes without saying. Changing one’s name isn’t by the way. Neither are the harsh realities. The business world. You know what I mean, Slotsky? I was a little cavalier in my announcement. Nevertheless …”

“Call me Slot.”

A smile wormed in Finn’s lips. “That’s very amusing, Snotsky.”

To show Finn his smile, a smile wormed in Slotsky’s lips. Reinforced by his speedy, ugly face, it was particularly revolting. But Finn, thumb hooked to alligator belt, stood six two, two hundred fifteen pounds. Imperturbable. Besides, against the big sharkskin curve of his can, he had a letter admitting him to graduate school in business administration. He also had a date that evening with Millicent Coyle at the Kappa house; darkish girl, but in manner and sisterhood fished out of the right gene pool. Black Slotsky, now, was chancy matter in the street; dog flop. Brilliant student, but pale, skinny, cross-eyed, irascible, contentious, a walking criticism of life, and a left-wing communist. In every way he seemed to beg for death. One felt his begging; also his contempt for one’s reluctance to kill him on the spot. He sneered, “I thought your old name was fine.”

Finn repeated, “That’s very amusing, Snotsky.”

“I’m still doing business under the same name.”

Finn answered gently, sailing toward the Kappa house and business administration. “Granted, Slotsky. Your name is Slotsky. Mine is Finn. All right?” And he made concessions in a shrug. Two shrugs.

“Didn’t it used to be Flynn?”

Finn waved bye-bye.

“Flynn, Finley … didn’t you used to be Flanagan the rabbi?”

Finn was three, four, five steps into the evening, the life. Just up ahead there, Finn beckoned. To him, Finn.

“So long, Ferguson.”

He tossed harbingers of love on his bed — trousers, shirt, tie, socks — but couldn’t decide on a jacket to wear that evening. He wandered naked in his indecision, lit a cigar, then considered less the jacket than his indecision. Immediately, he discovered Slotsky in it, shimmering like fumes. Two years ago they had been roommates. People used to say, “You room with Slotsky?” Because Slotsky was famous. He wrote a column in the school paper, noticing films, plays, any little change in the campus ambience — Muzak in the administration building, yellow plastic chairs in the library, new pom-poms adopted by the basketball cheering squad. He was famous for screaming revulsion and his column’s title, “Foaming at the Mouth,” was a description of himself in the throes of a criticism. Otherwise he restricted his humor to sneering irony, never directed at himself, never humorous. Finn explained him to the world by saying, “He wants love. Anyhow, he has brain cancer.” It would have been easy to be more cruel, but Slotsky helped him with chemistry and French — Finn’s reason for rooming with him in the first place. Finn never said anything more about Slotsky. Anything more might have suggested there was more than an apartment between them. There was. It started one night before end terms. Finn heard himself pleading: “I read the books, Slotsky. I took notes in class. But I can’t write it. I tried all week, but I’ve got nothing to say about the New Deal. Do I think it was good? Bad? I think I hate poly sci, that’s all. It isn’t fair not to be able to drop a course in the last week. Sometimes you can’t tell until the last week that you want to drop it. What am I going to do? I need the B.A. I don’t want to fail. My average won’t support a failure in poly sci. I’ll be thrown out of here. That’ll be the end of everything for Bruce J. Fein. Everything.”