Mark Leyner - I Smell Esther Williams

“Mark … Mark … Mark,” Barbara said, “like, what’s really bothering you?”

That department store signal was in my head — Ping Ping Ping Ping.

“Aaaaaaaw Barbara … I may have killed two or three Tai Chi students with that Datsun of mine.”

“You could use some more tea. Say when.” she said, bending at the waist and pouring more hot water into the cup that shook in my trembling hand. Her breasts fell forward against the printed calico of her blouse. But even this movement seemed alien and incidental as did the movement of the drapes that seemed to inhale and exhale in the breeze through the open living room windows, as did the sound of the plastic knobs at the end of the drapery cords bouncing against the wall, as did the sensation of scalded flesh as tea spilled over the top of my cup onto my hand.

“When.” I said.

“Is Joe Safdie’s head loose?” Barb asked.

“No Barb,” I said, “he just waves his head around that way when he talks — it’s just a habit.”

“Is it attractive?”

“I don’t know, Barb — you’ll have to ask another girl that question.”

“Well tell me how it happened.”

“It’s just a mannerism that someone develops … an idiosyncrasy.”

“Mark … Mark … Mark … Not that. How did the accident, that you may have had, happen?”

“Aaaaaaaaaw Barbara.…”

Then the phone rang. It was Lisa.

“I can’t talk now. I’m in the shower. Bye.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaw Barbara.… It was between Cascade and Baseline. I was on my way to Chautauqua. They move so slowly. They crossed the street so slowly.”

“Did you kill em? Did you kill em?” she asked and her eyes got real big.

“I don’t know. They move so slowly it’s hard to tell if they’re dead or alive.”

“There’d be dents in your car if you hit anyone.” Barbara said, blending some soy sauce into a bowl of mayonaisse with a wicker-handled whisk.

“I don’t know. They’re very thin — like sparrows — almost not there — with awful anorexic pallors. They’d fall like candle-pins.”

From the window I could see my Datsun. And I could see the balled-up mimeographed sheets that teased and capered about its full tires. I kept a megaphone near the window so that in case a youth leaned on the hood or set a milk dud on the windshield and poised his fist above, I could broadcast my vehement anger below and watch him flee. The car was, after all, my responsibility. From the window, I could see the Flat-irons, not quite piebald with snow and rock and not quite hypertrophically lush with green growth — but in between. I used to stand on the balcony and watch the setting sun imbrue the sky with its puce and blue-indigo stains and then fall down, deep in the Rockies where it would rattle around in the night like a black roulette ball. Then I’d go back inside and watch the news. Then maybe make chopped-meat and Rice-a-Roni, then have coffee. Then later take a glossy girl from the stack, from my seraglio of magazines, and rock against the cool sheets in a cool sweat and fall asleep before I could even mess.

“There’d be blood on your car if you hit anyone.” Barbara said.

“What?”

“There’d be blood on your car if you hit anyone.”

“I don’t know. I think I went right to a car wash. And then I went to Baseline Liquors.”

“What happened there?”

“The guy there said ‘How ya doing today?’ and I said ‘I can’t believe how much beer costs’ and he said ‘It’s really something’ and I asked ‘Does it just keep going up all the time or what?’ and he said ‘Every time they bring the fuckin stuff in — it’s gone up …’ ”

“Wait a second,” Barbara said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“And then I said ‘It’s always because something else from somewhere else is costing someone else more,’ and he said ‘The big companies got their heads together on this thing,’ and I said ‘The oil companies sure do’ and he reached over the counter and grabbed my lips and pulled them apart so that all my gums were showing and I had him shred one of those free entertainment guides across my teeth and with two of the shreds, I demonstrated how asymptotic lines and hyperbolae never meet and I said that this also shows why Mendel, the Austrian botanist, and Joe Tex, the American singer, would never meet — and then he began to weep. ‘What is it?’ I asked ‘I’m weeping,’ he said, ‘because I’m sad that Mendel and Joe Tex will never meet.’ ”

“That asymptotic line business was a mean trick,” Barbara said.

“I know. But anyway — then, for some reason, I told him that he wasn’t like an M&M — that he’d melt in my mouth and in my hands.”

“Did he yell at you? Did he chase you out?” Barbara asked.

I looked at her. “Why do you cover your neck. It’s either covered with your hair or you wear turtle-necks. Why don’t you either wear your hair up in buns or gathered, at least, in braids or ponytails and not wear turtle-necks.”

“Those … are your ideas,” she said bitterly.

I decided to consult a hypnotist in order to find out exactly what had happened. I picked one out of the yellow pages. He was located on Canyon Boulevard. He took me back into his apartment which he apparently used as his office. It was a mess.

“Before I got into hypnosis,” he said, “I used to run the Boulder Institute of Balneology. The science of baths. Everyone specializes these days. There aren’t any general balneologists anymore.”

“What was your specialty?” I asked.

“Cyst soaking.”

Then he said “Let’s get down to business.”

I inquired as to his methods.

“My method’s one of the latest. What I’m going to have you do, Mark, is to wash dishes until you fall into a trance,” he said, pointing to a sink full of dirty skillets, and saucepans and utensils, “If that doesn’t work we’ll have you vacuum and dust and do some laundry until the trance is achieved.”

“Well,” I said, “let’s get going,”

Two hours later, I’d cleaned the whole kitchen, made the beds, shampooed the rugs and straightened the book shelves and magazine racks.

“Well,” I asked, “what did I say?”

“Mark,” he said, plucking the check from my hand, “we’ve found that relating to the patient the details of what he’s said under hypnosis is generally contraindicated. Have a nice day.”

“You too.” I said.

When I got back to the apartment, Barbara was at the stove.

“I haven’t read about anyone being killed,” she said.

“How could you have — we never see a newspaper around here.”

“Well, we would’ve heard.”

“I think I heard about it — I think I heard one of the Tai Chi people talking — he said ‘Because of these murders, the whole Tai Chi community is very tense. And we hate being tense. And we hate ourselves for hating something. And we can’t stand the anxiety that brews in the self-hatred. So we’re all really unbalanced.’ And then they asked him what games Tai Chi people like to play with their kids when they get bored in the car on long trips — and he said, spotting the most license plates from a particular state, or naming state capitals, or the animal-mineral-vegetable game. Then he said, ‘Once, a Tai Chi person hit a toll attendant in the forehead with a quarter because he thought it was one of those change receptacles. We think that’s a funny story — and when we think something’s funny — we laugh.’ ”

Then the phone rang. It was Lisa.

“I can’t talk — I’m in the middle of shaving. Bye.”

Barbara started to tickle me. “Don’t,” I giggled. “I’ll keep doing it if you laugh.” I couldn’t stop laughing though — so she wouldn’t stop tickling me. I was in convulsions. At one point, she tickled me so well that my body had a great spasm and my head crashed through the television screen. Everyone was in there.