Mark Leyner - I Smell Esther Williams

I knew it. I’ve been feeling like a fat pig, she says, looking down at the scale.

I’m going to open the shower curtain now and show you the horse I got.

He opens the shower curtain and the horse sticks his head out.

His name is Cote d’Azur.

Here have a carrot.

I’m sorry you brought up words that end with — facient. I can’t think straight …

He bangs the soda machine.

Damn!

You shouldn’t have gotten such a large bucket of fries — we’ll never finish them.

I can’t afford these repairs y’know.

She nods.

They both look under the hood.

There goes my between jobs vacation.

You’ll have to work between jobs this time.

He fumbles for his keys.

Are you decent? he asks.

I was jerking off in the shower and I came before I was even hard.

There’s a long stem running through the penis …

Let me help you with those, he says, taking the wok in his arms.

They get on the escalator. He’s one step beneath her.

… well, she says, it’s a long stem and if it gets a bubble in it you can just come like that, I guess.

They reach the top and look out across the panorama.

This is horse country. Liz Taylor rides here.

These shoes give me a blister.

She throws one across the hall.

He steps off the bus, into a puddle.

Where’ve you been?

I missed my stop, he says.

Well, you get something to drink, I’ll serve the spaghetti.

I want mead, he laughs.

She leans over and he cups both her breasts in his hands.

That doesn’t look like you.

It was taken four years ago. Here, let me see.

She gets up to pay the check.

Doesn’t your father know anyone with pull?

Her voice trails away.

He snuffs out his cigarette and dries himself with her bathrobe.

What about substitute teaching?

He addresses another envelope.

Messrs. Bad and Worse.

He makes a fist and looks through it.

He squeezes his fist shut and she takes off her sunglasses and dives into the pool.

He gets on Cote d’Azur and rides away.

Everyone goes home.

He rides back.

Where’d everyone go? he says.

Now, I’m the instructor. And a fucking good one! No lackey or flunky or major-domo, miss transparent thing. Look at those azalea — where a rumpled tabloid perches now — and tell me which members of parliament are homosexual. Look at the gardenia. And you said you loved me. What a grand and condescending gesture that was! Ain’t that the beauty of it all, the metal globe filled with a rabbit’s breath. In other words, You are the Institute. And I’m the instructor. No lackey or flunky. My mother left me. In a bowling ball bag. In the bullrushes. Of the Passaic. This is an eeeklogue. Your sister is internationally famous. She’s got a shoulder spasm. She’s got a leech under her tongue. And a steaming place between her legs. And she went for me. And I swooned. Literally. I lost all breath. Oh you sweet thing. You hot thing, I managed to gasp. She asked me if I liked to watch people leak. You mean urinate — take a leak? No, leak. Leak. Like a pail or a dam. Anywhere. Wherever you go. Eeeklogue comes from eclogue, a dialogue between shepherds. And eeek is from the comics. And eeeklogues are made of the nervous, desultory chatter that characterizes the lull of impending catastrophe. They fill balloons like talk in comics. They rise out of a stadium that many people make. The wind flattens Connie’s skirt against her legs as she hops out and capers carelessly about the disinfectant silo.

How appalled you were when you got your sacks and paid your bill. How appalled you were when, amidst the flurry of gear-shift, clutch, and gas pedal, I buried my face in the silky pell-mell of your strawberry blondness. To return the gland to England. To prod her insides with this fragrant banderilla. The reviewing stands are trimmed with pennants and bunting … the maximum leader is photographed in shirtsleeves and gabardine slacks. This pillow is a map that smothers women. Spring is here. Why doesn’t my heart go dancing?

Interestingly enough, I starred in “South Pacific” for two years before negotiating oil rights with the Shah of Durani and then performing delicate eleventh-hour dermatological surgery upon Birgit Nilsson at the Gloucester County College Hospital in Sewell, New Jersey, and now I’m writing about Sally.

To 50 % of you, that proportion which does not know me — that proportion of you to whom I am a total stranger, “Sally” shall refer to Rachel Horowitz my girl friend in actual life. To the other 49 %, those of you who know me on a personal basis, through correspondence, those of you who are even familiar with me solely on the basis of telephone calls (“Hello, Baseline Toyota?” “No, you have the wrong number.” “How’s Wednesday look for a thousand mile check?” “Wednesday looks crowded. How’s Friday for you?” “Super.” “Bring a change of clothes.”) “Sally” simply represents an obsessive gesture in the metalanguage of “naming,” in other words, a kind of distant love — a real doll — a ghost with a winning smile, who I’d like to have visit me over the Columbus Day weekend — that’s the weekend of the 8th.

Sonny Liston remodeled my nose in the fifth round in a Las Vegas ring.

I wrote a monograph on bubbles and then became the proprietor of a ginseng establishment and my best friend is some clam from Cheyenne.

Yesterday, the 13th of September, a conference was summoned to London to settle a new map of the Balkans. It became evident by lunchtime that Austria’s prime object was to deny Serbia direct access to the Adriatic. And, of course, behind closed doors, Austrian ministers’ jingoism waxed turgid in the grand huff and puff manner. The resolution of Austria to keep Serbia out of Albania was matched by the determination of Russia that the Serbs should be given this access to the sea. It was so silly! By 2:00 P.M. Europe was brought to the brink of war and by 2:30 P.M. war was averted. Like ad hoc big brothers, the Germans exercised a moderating influence over the Austrians, the English over the Russians. Hardly was the ink dry upon the settlement than acrimonious quarrels broke out among the very political “siblings” themselves. The ramshackle state of European stability reminds me of the state of Sally’s furniture. The edge of her bedroom dresser is marred. The wicker is broken, and the vinyl worn on her dining-room chairs. The cushions are worn on her couch and plastic tubing in the welting is coming out of the corners. The legs on the dining room table are loose and need regluing.

Sally —

I don’t know how to title these times — perhaps “The Contamination of Happiness” or “Bewildered, and Bereft of Fun-times” or maybe “Here Comes Hell Again!”—I miss you so much I want to have fits. There’s no news — only a revolving span of drudgery and discontent — barely marked by the passing of the days which speed by with the swiftness of a buried ton. The people I meet might as well be on the moon. I keep thinking, and each time as another realization, what a wonderful superb person you are. I just want to be with you. Maybe this weekend I’ll put the pen to a cheerier letter.

All my love,

Mark

The Boston Celtics put me on waivers when I manifested the stigmata of Christ — I couldn’t shoot without discomfort. I’m an Irish raconteur and I entered the Story Fest in order to win enough cash to buy Sally some new furniture. As soon as the judge said “Go!” I had to render flies in three different ways: