Miranda July - The First Bad Man

“Hello?”

“Cheryl, it’s Carl calling from the cell phone store. I’m testing out a phone. Free call! How do I sound?”

“You sound very clear.”

“No noise? No echo?”

“No.”

“Let’s try the speakerphone function. Say something.”

“Speakerphone. Speakerphone.” A snail was on my hand; I knocked it back into the box.

“Yep, that works. It’s a nice little phone.”

“Should I hang up?”

“I don’t want you to feel like I just called to test the phone.”

“It’s okay.”

“Hang on, lemme ask this guy if we can talk a little longer.”

I listened to him ask if there was a time limit on the free call. An aggressive-sounding man said, “Talk all day if you want to.” Clee was on her knees and my hand was back down my pants before I even knew what happened. It smarted; whatever was on my fingers from the snails was stinging my privates. Just an aggressive voice wasn’t enough, though — she couldn’t suck a voice. Carl was standing by to watch but I couldn’t pull the picture together. Clee shuffled around the store on her knees, mouth open like a fish’s.

“We can talk all day!” Carl said.

Clee was making a beeline for her father. No, no , I thought. Not him. But my fingers were already accelerating, zeroing in.

“How’s tricks? How’s Clee doing?”

Clee latched on to him just as he said her name. Needless to say, he was shocked.

“She’s doing great.” It was hard not to sound breathless. “She loves her job.”

Shocked but not displeased. There was something that felt very right about this, wrong of course, but right. He put his hand on the back of her familiar head and pushed down a few times, helping her find the right rhythm.

“I’m coming down on Friday — how about I take you two out for a fancy dinner?”

Everyone else in the cell phone store was transfixed; someone whispered something about the law but the man with the aggressive voice pointed out that the law’s hands were tied because no nudity was involved. He was right — the bottom of Carl’s dress shirt parted around his member and was stuck to Clee’s lips, so each time she pulled her head away this curtain came with her. Forward and back, forward and back. Carl suddenly made a warrior noise to indicate he was about to shoot. He had wanted to last longer but his paternal pride had engulfed him.

“That would be great,” I said fervently.

“I’ll pick out a nice place,” he said. And then he creamed, not into his daughter’s mouth, which really would be against the law, but up inside his own shirt. Clee’s hand was under there, discreetly milking out the last drops. A flood of nausea and sadness washed over me. I missed Phillip’s familiar member. Where was I now and where was he? The snails were everywhere. Not only underfoot and glued to the kitchen walls, but all over the rest of the house. They weren’t the slow kind. One was procreating asexually on a lampshade. I watched two disappear under the couch. Was this the bottom or would my problem get worse? It was a problem. I had a problem.

SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAD HAPPENEDto me once before. When I was nine a well-meaning uncle sent me a birthday card. It wasn’t really an appropriate card for a young girl; a group of rough-looking birds in rakish hats were playing cards with cigars in their beaks. It said something I can’t remember, but on the inside was a phrase like a virus or a self-replicating parasite waiting for a host. When I opened the card it flew out, gripping my brain with merciless talons: “Birds of a feather flock together.” It couldn’t be said just once, only repeated and repeated and repeated. Birdsofafeatherflocktogether, birdsofafeatherflocktogether. Ten million times a day: at school, at home, in the bath, there was no way to hide from it. It receded only as long as I was distracted; at any given moment a bird or flock of birds or a cigar or playing card or anything could bring it on. Birdsofafeatherflocktogetherbirdsofafeatherflocktogether. I wondered how I would live a full and normal life, how would I get married, have kids, hold a job with this handicap. I was under this spell, on and off, for a full year. Then, quite unknowingly, the same uncle sent a card for my tenth birthday. This one had a Norman Rockwell painting of a girl covering her eyes on the front. It read: “Another year older? I can’t bear to see!” And then on the inside: “Because what’s happening to you, is happening to me.” It worked like a gunshot. Each time a flock of grimy birds began to descend, I incanted What’shappeningtoyouishappeningtome and they immediately dispersed. The uncle is dead, but the card is still on my dresser. It hasn’t failed me once.

“Until now,” I finished gravely, leaning forward on the leather couch. “It doesn’t work on this new spell.”

Ruth-Anne nodded compassionately. We were moving past my inappropriate behavior in last week’s session.

“So we need an antidote,” she said. “A corrective, like the card, for this particular spell. But not What’shappeningtoyouishappeningtome , it’s too short.”

“That’s what I thought, that it might be too short.”

“You need something that will take a little time.”

We tried to think of a longish antidote.

“What songs do you know? ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’? Do you know that?”

“I really can’t sing. I can’t hold a tune,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a problem, you just have to know the words. ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’?”

I bleated out “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

“What do you think?”

“Well…” I didn’t want to disparage her idea. “I’m not sure I want to sing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ all day.”

“Of course you don’t. That’ll drive you crazier than the blow jobs. What’s a song you love? Is there a song you love?”

There was a song. A girl in college played it all the time; I was always hoping to hear it on the radio.

“I’m not sure I can sing it.”

“But you know the words?”

“Yes.”

“Just say them. Chant it.”

I felt hot and cold. I was shaking. I put my hand on my forehead and began.

“Will you stay in our Lovers’ Story?”

It sounded terrible.

“It’s by David Bowie.”

Ruth-Anne nodded encouragingly.

“If you stay you won’t be sorry

“’Cause weeeee believe in youuuu”

I kept gasping; the air wasn’t going in and out of my throat in the regular way.

“Soon you’ll grow so take a chance

“With a couple of Kooks

“Hung up on romaaaancing”

“That’s all I know.”

“How do you feel?”

“Well, I know the tune wasn’t right, but I think maybe I captured some of the energy of the song.”

“I mean about Clee.”

“Oh.”

“You got a little break.”

“I guess I did.”

The next morning I rose early, awaiting my first chance to test the song. I took a shower, gingerly. The spell kept its distance. I dressed and waved to Rick — he was looking at the snails with distress.

“Good morning!” I stepped outside with a hearty mug of tea.

“This situation is out of control.”

“Yes, I know. I ordered too many.”

“I will deal with four of them. That is the number of snails I am prepared to supervise. I don’t have the training to care for a herd.”

“Perhaps you can call them? Round them up?”

“Call them? How?”

“A snail whistle?”

The words were hardly out of my mouth when Clee began sucking on the tiny snail whistle between Rick’s legs. He was shocked and so forth, etc.