T. Boyle - The Inner Circle

“That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I just felt you. I just had your prick in my hand.”

“What about women?” I said, because you can never let the subject distract you, not if you’re going to be a professional. “When was the first time you saw a naked female?”

“I’ll suck you for a buck,” he said, and he was leaning over the chair now, staring into my eyes.

“I’ve told you, I’m not here for that. Now answer the question. Please. ”

He leaned forward and tried to kiss me again, but I pushed him firmly away, or as firmly as I could while remaining seated. He slowly straightened up and stood there over me, swaying his hips and grinding his teeth. “You aren’t fooling anybody,” he said.

The point of all this, I suppose, is that I got the interview, one more set of data to feed into the Hollerith machine, and that I always got the interview, just as my colleagues did. Unfailingly. We persisted against all odds, and isn’t that something to be proud of? At any rate, we were up early the following day, the cold shower, the stale hotel breakfast, and conducted interviews till about noon, after which we packed up and wandered round the city streets in anticipation of boarding the Spirit of St. Louis at 6:05 p.m., arriving in Indianapolis at 8:45 the following morning. It was December twentieth, the air was thin with the cold, and there were Santas and bell-ringers on every corner, pigeons bobbing underfoot, the smell of charcoal and chestnuts blowing across the afternoon like the charred odor of history, Christmas in Manhattan, and every storefront shimmering with elaborate seasonal displays, toys, foodstuffs, liquor, lingerie, hats, furs, jewels. Prok had already bought something for Mac, and Corcoran had found a crystal brooch with matching clip earrings for Violet — she loved jeweled pins, wore them over her left breast in the way men wore handkerchiefs or boutonnieres — but I had yet to find anything for Iris.

I went off on my own then, trailing a flurry of admonitions from Prok ( Don’t be late, don’t get lost, look both ways and watch out for sharps and con men and keep a firm grip on your wallet ), who strode up Broadway with Corcoran to look into the peep shows and the more circumspect establishments that specialized in erotica, thinking to add to the library’s collection. I didn’t know the city very well at all — we rarely saw anything of it but Times Square, the four walls of the hotel room and the railway stations — and I don’t mind admitting that the whole time I was afraid of getting lost and missing my train. Was I a bit of a rube? I suppose I was, a Hoosier at large in the big polymorphous city, looking for the one article among ten million that would make his wife happy on Christmas Day.

I don’t remember much of the trip back, except that Prok sat up late interviewing strangers on the train while I fell into my berth as if I’d been gang-tackled and slept without waking until Prok fetched me for breakfast. What I do remember, though, is what I got Iris for Christmas that year. I found it in an out-of-the-way shop that advertised ANTIQUES & ARTIFACTS behind a dirty pane of glass illuminated by a single fitfully winking strand of red and green bulbs. There were two other customers in the place, both of whom managed to look as if they’d always been there, poised and silent, heads down, hands behind their backs, bending ruefully to inspect the merchandise. Though it was the middle of the afternoon and the sun still palely shining beyond the windows, inside it was crepuscular and nearly as cold as it was out on the street. But everybody has been to this place, or a place just like it: the proprietor a stick figure in a yarmulke, worn carpets of the oriental variety, tortuous paths through walls of heavy carved furniture piled high with the hoarded bric-a-brac of old Europe, a smell of silver polish and death. What I fixed on, finally, with the help of the proprietor, who assured me it was worth twice what I paid, was an ashtray fashioned from a conch shell with a six-inch bronze figurine of a naked Aphrodite, her hair marcelled and her breasts taut, rising from its mouth. I had him gift-wrap it and hurried off to find the train.

We were to go out again just after the New Year — more lectures, more histories, the pace ever more frenetic — but Christmas was a real occasion, replete with a surprise overnight snowfall and a festive dinner at the house on First Street for all the team and the children too. Mac was her usual gracious self, Iris, Violet and Hilda prepared the entremets at home and brought them in covered dishes, and Prok concocted a hot rum punch and carved a twenty-pound turkey with all the flair of a master chef. The team had chipped in to buy him a gift — a pair of gold cuff links which he proclaimed too lavish — and then Prok handed out gifts to each of us in return.

I should say here that while Prok was regarded in some circles as a bit of a penny-pincher (and he was excessively frugal, even miserly at times, because every cent he ever made had to be pumped back into the project), he was never so generous and expansive as he was at Christmas. All his staff — the clerical help, the janitor, even the undergraduate girls he used to employ in cataloguing his gall wasp collection — received holiday bonuses, and I was no exception. In fact, as the first member of the team, as his confidant and aide-de-camp, I was often the recipient of his largesse, but that Christmas was even more extraordinary than I could have hoped for.

After dinner and a mini-musicale, after we’d gone back to the table to feast on mince and pumpkin pies and allow the general conversation to stretch for whole minutes at a time beyond the subject of sex research, Prok motioned for me to follow him into the kitchen. My first thought was that he needed help with the tray of liqueurs or with some further treat for the children, but that wasn’t it at all. As soon as the door had shut behind us, he spun round on his heels, took me in his arms and pulled me to him for an embrace. It was awkward, but I held to him, the stiff fabric of his bow tie stabbing at my collar, his cheek a rough bristle against my own. I could feel the electricity of him through his clothes as he patted me across the shoulders with both hands and murmured, “I’m proud of you, John, very proud.” Then he released me and turned on his smile. “Fatherhood, eh?” he said. “No problems, I take it? Everything normal?”

I nodded. Gave him back his smile. Inside, I was glowing.

“Well, you’re going to need a bit more space now, don’t you think? Something permanent, as befits your position?” The smile opened into a grin. “A house, John. I’m talking about a house.”

“But I can’t, we can’t afford—”

He folded his arms across his chest, watching me, grinning wide. “I’m increasing your salary as of today by ten dollars a week, and I’m prepared to make you a personal loan — out of my own pocket and at a fraction of the interest rate you’d expect to pay at any of the banks downtown — in the amount of two thousand dollars. How does that sound?”

For a moment, I was unable to muster a response. I was stunned. Moved. Deeply moved. To think that he was looking out for me still, me, John Milk, nobody really, a former student, the least of his employees, and willing to sacrifice his own finances into the bargain — it was just too much. My father was dead, my mother remote. But Prok, Prok was there for me, anticipating my needs — our needs, Iris’s and mine — as if I were his own flesh and blood. I was so overwhelmed I thought I might break down right there in front of him. “That’s, well, that’s grand,” I said, all my emotion caught in the back of my throat, “but you don’t have to … what about the grants, the NRC? How will we, the project, I mean—?”