Robert Coover - John's Wife

By the time Jennifer reached the mall with Clarissa for their date with Nevada, who was becoming one of their best friends, it seemed like everyone in town knew about her brother’s exhibition of himself and at least half of them claimed to have seen the show in living color; his scrawny butt was famous and she had to deal with a lot of tiresome wisecracks about it, which she did with as much of her customary good humor as she could manage, under the circumstances. Just how it had all happened was not very clear, but there were a lot of rumors, some of them pretty wild, the jerk might actually get some mileage out of this in the long run, though for the moment he’d run for cover. In a way it had been a break for Jennifer because her mom, who was now big as a barn and more spaced out than ever, had earlier talked her into taking Zoe to the mall for the afternoon, but then her dad had agreed that Zoe shouldn’t be exposed to all the inevitable dirty talk out there aimed at their own family, so she’d got out of it. One glance at her baby sister and Nevada might have withdrawn her invitation to Jen to go flying with Bruce the next day and Clarissa would have been able to go all by herself, something that would have really got up Jen’s nose. So thanks to the Creep for that if for little else in her life. (Already Clarissa was calling him the Croup; wouldn’t she!) Not to complain: Nevada had made her day, which otherwise had been turning pretty weird, what with her airhead mother and her brother and all the rest that was happening. Just coming out here to the mall, for example. Clarissa’s mom had brought them, instead of her grandmother doing it, which was unusual by itself nowadays, but it got more unusual. Clarissa had been painting Jen’s nails with a new black vampire polish so she hadn’t been paying much attention, but she had a funny feeling when they pulled into the parking lot that there was no one driving the car. Just a feeling: when she looked up, Clarissa’s mother was still there. But then, when they got out of the car, Jen turned back to look and she wasn’t. The car was empty, so was the parking lot all around. She tried to say something about this to Clarissa, but Clarissa was too pumped to listen: “Come on, Jen, for pete’s sake! Stop ruining things! We’ll be late!” Jennifer saw that this business with Bruce and Nevada was putting a strain on their friendship, and she was sorry about that, but now that it was happening, there was nothing to do but let it, just like her dad always said. Of course they weren’t late. They had to wait almost an hour, an hour filled mostly with explicit accounts of Philip up on the Ford dealer’s roof with his pants off and the dumb jokes that went with it. At least it helped Clarissa relax, so they were in a pretty good mood when Nevada finally arrived and told them that Bruce was definitely flying in from Florida the next day to give them the ride he’d promised. Nevada had seemed especially interested that Jen was coming along, as though the whole thing depended on her, which brought Clarissa’s fangs out again, but only for a moment because then Nevada turned her whole attention to Clarissa for a while, and said she loved the nail polish, whose idea was it, and so on, though once she winked quickly at Jennifer, making her feel suddenly ten years more grown up. About that time they all saw that fat photographer streaking through the mall with some kind of frilly nightshirt on over his street clothes. Nevada laughed and said: “Do you think he’s stealing it?” “That’s just old Gordo,” Clarissa said dismissively. “He’s pretty squirrely.” “This whole town is,” Jen said, then took a chance: “I only hope I get out of it before it drives me nuts, too.” And Nevada smiled.

When Trevor saw Gordon come careening out of the ladies’-wear shop like a foundering old tanker, blowing steam and wearing a pink nightie as regalia, he went immediately to a payphone in the restrooms corridor of the mall and called the police to leave an anonymous complaint together with the name of the shop where they could get confirmation of this bizarre behavior. He did not know why he did this. He did not even know why he was out here. He had been having a late lunch in the Sixth Street Cafe, his usual, a cup of soup (beef noodle today) and a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat, with a slice of lemon meringue pie for dessert, no coffee, and he was still thinking about his wife Marge’s latest insurrectionary venture and what problems it might cause him with John, when John’s mother came in with her little grandson to buy him a chocolate icecream cone, followed almost immediately by Gordon and his camera, and they posed for pictures which Gordon said were for the newspaper, the chef, who was also the owner, coming out from the kitchen to get in them. Gordon had seemed to be in a hurry when he popped in, his mind elsewhere, but the moment he began the photo-taking session, frivolous though the occasion was, he became completely absorbed in his work and Trevor found himself becoming equally absorbed watching him. Gordon shifted his big hips about fluidly, searching out the best light, the right angle, moved a table and chairs, pulled down a sign taped to the counter near the cash register, took lightmeter readings with and without flash, switched lenses and filters, all in a matter of seconds, and before the icecream was even being scooped, he was already snapping away, bobbing, leaning, rearing, crouching, and it slowly dawned on Trevor that Gordon was not photographing the people at all, he probably didn’t even see them: his focus was on the cone, passing from hand to hand and hand to mouth. Where it went, his lens went, and as it did, Gordon asked the little boy where his sister was. Opal said she thought she was out at the mall, “Mikey, how did you get chocolate on your nose?” and before she could scrub it away with a licked paper napkin, Gordon, without apology, was gone. The pie came, a house specialty, the meringue almost four inches high and light as air, but Trevor only poked at it. He was still thinking about the photographer, his amazing intensity, and the thought that came to him then, which he did not understand at all, or even quite believe to be true (there was the pie in front of him, for example), but which remained with him for all the rest of that day, was: I have never known delight . He knew of course where Gordon had gone, he’d made the same calculations Gordon had. Trevor paid his check, received an inquiry about his appetite, and went to pick up his car in the lot behind the bank building. He took his time, driving cautiously as he always did. At the mall, he spied John’s daughter at a table with a couple of friends, but did not find Gordon until he came flying out of the ladies’-apparel store in his pink gown, though Trevor had peeked in there earlier as he made his rounds. Alarmed, almost as though in self-defense, then, he put in that panicky call to the police, regretting it as soon as he had done it, he hadn’t even disguised his voice properly. This was not the first time, he had reported Gordon twice before, but those times only for fun. One day when, from his office window in the bank building, he had seen Gordon sidle swiftly into the card shop and travel agency across the street and, from behind the scenic posters of beaches and hill towns, aim his telephoto lens at the bank door (Trevor knew why of course: John’s wife’s car was parked at the curb below), he called, also anonymously (“a worried bank customer”), to report the “suspicious behavior” of a person “lurking secretively” near the bank entrance, last seen peeking out from inside the travel agents’ across the way. He was still giggling about it that night, it was the first time he’d ever done anything like that, and when Marge asked him what was so funny he fumbled for a moment in confusion and then said that John had taken out another half million of insurance and he was still feeling giddy. Then there was the even funnier time he’d called the police and in a high-pitched voice accused the photographer of sneaking around outside the women’s changing room at the civic center swimming pool, a complete fabrication, since Trevor himself had never even seen the pool in operation, his only visit to it being before the dedication ceremony when the retractable roof was being demonstrated. Though he had thought of that call as only a kind of practical joke, he nevertheless felt more or less justified because of things he’d seen the photographer up to elsewhere, and he told himself it was even possible he’d guessed at a truth. Not likely, though. Gordon was not an ordinary voyeur, any more than Trevor was. It could even be said that he and Gordon were both searching for the same thing, Gordon more directly, fully aware of what he was doing and why, Trevor more speculatively, but more prudently. Though he had begun this little game as a mere lark, Trevor had come to believe that if he took it seriously enough, something, he didn’t know what, would be revealed. It was as though Gordon and his camera were leading him, unwittingly, to buried treasure, and if he reported him mischievously to the police now and then it was only to remind himself that it was just a game, a harmless amusement. It was different today, though. He was frightened, he didn’t know why. Was it because of Gordon’s mad lumbering flight through the crowded mall, the disturbing impropriety of it, or had he suddenly become appalled at his own improper fascination with such madness? He ducked into the men’s room after the call, afraid of being seen near a telephone (had anyone recognized him?), and was shocked when he peered in a mirror and saw the panic in his face, his rumpled clothing. And was that a floccule of meringue on his lapel? Trevor was known for his cool aplomb, his tidy dispassionate composure — something was terribly wrong! “The trouble is,” he said to himself, dabbing at the sweat on his brow (he had sweat on his brow?), “you don’t know who you are.” “Who does?” asked some voice in one of the stalls, and Trevor, now thoroughly flustered, fled again.