Rafael Yglesias - Hot Properties

There was a clattering sound. “Fred?”

“Karl? Is this you? Or a robot?”

“I was taking a shower, and I—”

“Sure, sure,” Fred said. “When did you get the machine?”

“Yesterday. Now that I’m doing more magazine articles, I’ll be in and out—”

Fred laughed good-naturedly. “And in case the President calls, you don’t want to miss it.”

“Fred,” Karl said, his naturally deep voice resonating even more with suppressed anger, “I need the machine.”

“Hey, I was teasing. I know. I hate the machines, that’s all. I always think it’s a person at first. But the worst thing is, you have to have a reason every time you call somebody. Otherwise, you’re left listening to the beep and going: Duh … Most of the time, I call people just to chat.”

“Or drive them crazy,” Karl said, with enough humorous coloration to soften his voice’s dark palette.

“That’s right,” Fred said, laughing, but he felt stung, reminded once more that he wanted Karl’s frendship more than Karl wanted his. Every time Fred began to behave unselfconsciously with Karl, he was brought up short and made to feel that he had to start again, watching that his tone be deferential, careful, stepping around Karl’s ego as though it were shattered glass on a clear floor: the sharp pieces might be anywhere and they could cut deep.

“So what’s new?” Karl asked, friendly again, now that he had Fred bleeding.

Fred knew that Karl had heard him saying on the machine there was something interesting in his contract. He wanted to force Karl to ask what it was. “Oh, nothing. I’m stuck on the book. Is the game on this week?” There was a pause, a hesitating pause from Karl. Since Fred’s three-hundred-dollar loss, Karl had been obliged to invite Fred back several times. Besides, in Fred’s mind, he had a book contract now, so he belonged as much as anyone. But Fred was surprised that after three more visits, even though he had done better — not winning back what he had lost, but breaking even once, winning fifty dollars another time, losing a small amount — that Karl didn’t volunteer an invitation for the next week. And when Fred asked to come, Karl stammered that an old member of the game was in town and they didn’t have room for him.

Every week for a month and a half, it had been the same: Fred waiting for Karl to say something, finally asking himself, and then being given some excuse. Karl’s stammer would get worse and his ability to invent was taxed into bankruptcy. By the fourth week of noninvitation. Karl was saying that two caned chairs had been broken by a visiting overweight uncle and Karl couldn’t accommodate a seventh player. Fred, of course, offered to bring his own chair. Then Karl added to his poor invention by saying that he felt tired and wanted the game to end early and so preferred holding the number of participants down. Fred, naturally, said he would leave at eleven. Karl finally had to say no without rationalizing. But Fred was not to be got rid of by even that clear an answer. He said, “Okay, but I want to come next week. I’m still not even, you know.” And so Fred was back in and stayed for seven more weeks.

But then Sam Wasserman complained to Karl about Fred. Sam said that Fred was ruining the game with his cheapskate style of play. It was true that Fred, since the three-hundred-dollar loss, had become a conservative gamesman, folding nine out of ten hands on the opening cards. Karl, bullied by Sam’s remarks and fearful of losing Sam, made another attempt at discouraging Fred from coming. He tried a direct lie, telling Fred that he had decided to give up playing and had canceled the game. Fred asked why. Karl said the arranging, the setting up of the table, the cleaning up afterward, all of it was too much hassle. Fred offered to take over. Since, in fact, Karl had not canceled the game, he could hardly say yes and permit Fred to call the others, who were under the impression that nothing had changed. That would work only if he included the other five players in his deception. Karl was embarrassed by his own actions, humiliated both by the fact that he was telling lies and that he didn’t have the guts to simply tell Fred he wasn’t wanted. He was forced to call Fred back and say the game was on.

Karl had spent several nights unable to fall asleep, wondering why he bothered being friends with Fred. He told himself not to let Fred seduce him into long telephone calls, not to be frightened to tell Fred he was ruining the poker game, in brief, not to care about sparing Fred’s feelings. But every morning, no matter how many vows he had made, Fred would call and Karl would answer, tight and tense in the early part of the conversation, until he heard himself saying something insulting or demeaning to Fred, something he would instantly regret and feel he’d have to make up for by chatting longer.

Finally he bought the phone machine to defend himself. He’d call Fred back in the afternoon, after finishing his own work, and surely then he’d be able to avoid hurting Fred and therefore … But then, the very first time Fred called, he had picked up anyway! Meanwhile, Sam Wasserman was bitching more and more about Fred, his hostility surfacing at the game with increasing frequency, and just three days ago Sam had phoned and said that he was feeling fluish and might not come. “But you don’t need me anyway,” Sam had added pointedly, “you’ve got fuzzy Freddy.” The point was clear. After all, nobody cancels events three days off on the chance that he might be coming down with the flu. So Karl had conceived of the plan that he would buy the phone machine, call Fred and tell him an old friend who used to play in the game (this was an excuse he had used successfully in the past) was in town and he didn’t have room for Fred, and then turn the machine on all the rest of the week, so as not to have to listen to Fred’s plaintive questions and … But then he had picked up! The very first time!

And now here was the moment, here was the time to laboriously tell Fred that this old friend was coming to town, stammering throughout because he knew it sounded utterly fake, totally dishonest.

“Hello, Karl!” Fred said, laughing nervously. “Are you there?”

“Sorry. Listen, I don’t think there’ll—”

“What? You’re not having the game?”

“No, but my old friend is—”

“Oh? Which old friend is this?” Fred said with open disbelief.

Karl opened his mouth to continue the lie, but there was no engine to power the words. They were stuck in his throat, a sailboat resting on still waters, with no wind to blow them to their destination. “Nobody,” Karl said angrily.

“What?” Fred said, startled. Instantly his voice was small, scared by the possibilities of confrontation.

Karl noticed. It made him angrier. Why does Fred needle and probe and insist, if he’s unwilling to hear the truth? If he’s so vulnerable, Karl thought, why does he act so tough?

“The others don’t like you,” Karl said, wanting to wound Fred, but discovering, right in the middle of the thrust, that he didn’t relish the actual moment of stabbing Fred. “They say if I keep inviting you, they won’t come. I don’t want to lose the whole game because of you.”

There was silence from Fred. A total oblivion that almost convinced Karl Fred had been cut off and his excursion into truth had been wasted. Then he heard Fred clear his throat.

“Look. I’ve tried to—” Karl began to stammer, but Fred interrupted.

“I understand. No problem. I gotta go.”

Fred hung up.

He stared at the phone. He had known, really, known all along. But still he had tried to tell himself it was coming from within him, his own poor sense of himself, his perpetual nervousness that he wouldn’t be liked. The black receiver resting in its cradle, still and silent, possessing no identity but its own, reflected a small distorted image of his face peering anxiously into the black impenetrable world. “Let me in,” it seemed to say, “or I’ll die.”