Sam Lipsyte - The Fun Parts

“Listen,” says Mr. Gottwald, plucks his earpiece out of his ear, “I just want to say—”

“Don’t thank me,” I tell him. “Your wife is the brave one here.”

“No, listen,” he says, a little sterner, and I can now see how he commands so many minions with such a dinky device. “I think maybe I misjudged. It would be good if you left now. We can handle the rest on our own. How much do we owe you?”

“You owe me the dignity of doing my job,” I say. “This may take weeks, and I’m not going anywhere. I admit I have failed to establish the nurturing environment this family needs to thrive during the oh-so-delicate newborn phase. But I’m going to turn shit around.”

I take out my cell phone. The oligarchs cut service a few weeks ago, but I start dialing anyway.

“What’s your basic take on anchovies?” I say.

“Excuse me?”

“What about filberts?” says Ezekiel.

“You can’t put filberts on a pizza,” I say.

“Filberts are nuts,” says Mr. Gottwald. “You can’t have nuts, period, young man. Okay, I need to make a phone call.”

“Crazy, all this, right?” I say to Ezekiel after his father goes.

“I hate pizza.”

“You hate pizza? Wow, they really must have done a number on you.”

“Which number?”

“Listen, Z-Man,” I tell him. “You need to be strong for your baby brother. No more whining. Look alive. When you were a child, you acted as a child. You played with toy cheese. But now is the time to put the toy cheese in the box marked totally fucking childish. Capisce ?”

Ezekial regards his Camembert, lays it on the kitchen floor, which is made of hard, bright material similar to the cheese.

“Good boy,” I say. “Now go get some pizza money from your dad.”

I still need to order the pie. There’s a phone here on the wall next to the Sub-Zero refrigerator. I’m not paranoid, but I do prefer a landline when ordering pizza. Choice of topping is too much of a tell. When I’m done, I check my messages at home.

There’s one from Tina. She’s flown to Montana. Something is wrong with our mother. Tina leaves some numbers, which I dutifully erase. There’s one from somebody in what sounds like a very large room full of people calling other people. “Hello? Hello?” he says, hangs up. These people call often. They seem confused about me. They say I’m a valued customer but also threaten to add more late fees.

“Make up your minds,” I tell them. “Stand up for yourselves.”

The newest message is from Monica Bolonik at the Doula Foundation. She says it’s urgent. She’s not my boss, but she’s got power over my continuing certification. It’s no secret I’ve been jousting a bit with the regional leadership. Seems there have been complaints. Seems without Fanny Hitchens in your corner, being a pioneer in the doula community isn’t so appreciated. Monica is what, in a more primitive stage of my emotional development, I would have called a ballbuster. But I’m not like that now. I’m not perfect, but I’m not the guy who once wrote “Vice Principal Avery Has Cunt Bunions — Tell a Friend” on the senior lockers, either.

I call Monica back.

“Mitchell,” says Monica.

“I’m on the job,” I say.

“I know. A certain Mr. Gottwald informed me.”

“It’s going really well here.”

“That’s not how he put it, Mitchell.”

“It’s Mitch,” I say. “My mother calls me Mitchell.”

“You don’t like your mother, do you, Mitchell.”

“Was there anything else?”

“We’re reviewing your certification. You are tainting the good name of our organization.”

“I’m a damn good doulo,” I say.

“It’s hard enough to gain acceptance in society without your insanity. And there’s no such thing as a doulo.”

“Yet strangely,” I say, “you are talking to one right now.”

Ezekiel wanders back into the kitchen, nibbles on a neon-green brioche.

“Tell her how well things are going,” I say to him.

Ezekiel leans into the mouthpiece.

“They did a number on me,” he says.

* * *

I’ve had a lot of jobs. Substitute gym teacher, line cook at a rib joint, mail boy at my late father’s accounting firm. I was even in the movie business for a while, spent a few years as the guy with the walkie-talkie who lurks around the trailers, tells you to cross to the other side of the street.

But I’m long past reinvention. I’m practically middle-aged, deep into cell degeneration or, worse, relocation. I remember my uncle Don had these weird patches of hair right under his shoulder blades. They made me want to puke. Guess who’s got them now? Guess who pops his lats in the mirror and wants to puke?

Point is, it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than Monica Bolonik to de-doulo me. We’re talking acres of paperwork.

* * *

I’m teaching Mr. Gottwald how to change his baby’s diapers.

“Wipe front to back,” I say.

“Thanks for that,” he says. “This is my second kid. And I happen to be potty trained myself. I can’t believe you talked me into letting you stay.”

He did let me talk him into letting me stay. Maybe it was the promise of another shoulder rub. Maybe it’s the fact that Mrs. Gottwald is still running a fever and Ezekiel’s nanny, due back today, called in sick. The guy is feeling overwhelmed.

“You’re feeling overwhelmed,” I say.

Mr. Gottwald lifts the baby and crosses the loft to some high windows that look out on a cobblestone lane, starts humming a lullaby, or not really a lullaby, but an ancient and soaring power ballad I recognize from high school days. Soon the baby’s wails turn to burpy moans. He’s nearing sleep. Good going, G.

We’re about the same age, I realize, maybe not that different after all, probably got drunk at the same kinds of Saturday night deck parties, pumped our fists at the same dumb arena shows, parked behind the Burger King and watched some version of unattainable beauty hand sacks of french fries into cars. So he went to college, business school, and I stayed parked behind the Burger King. So he got rich, got married, sired a child he sings to about steel horses, and I bounced around, took a chance at city life, fell into some jams. We’re still the same ordinary Joes, at least now, here, both of us just trying to cope.

“That song!” I shout. “I know that song!”

The baby jerks awake, bawls.

“Sonofabitch!” says Mr. Gottwald. His lower lip twitches up little droplets of drool.

I’ve seen worse. I’m seeing worse right now, namely Baby Gottwald.

Picture a red onion with a mouth that isn’t even a mouth, but more some kind of incredibly loud air horn used by Satan to signal his peons to mop up all the infernal poop and gunk that spills forth from his fiery pan-gendered holes as he gives birth to every evil in the world. It’s a lot to picture, I know, and some of it isn’t a picture at all, but you get the idea.

“We’re all going to die here,” says Mr. Gottwald.

“You’ve got to relax,” I say. “It’s a process.”

“You’ve got to be the worst fucking doula in the world.”

“O,” I say.

* * *

I’m washing dishes, folding up the pizza box, when Mr. Gottwald comes in and hands me his phone. It’s Monica Bolonik. I’m decertified. I guess it doesn’t require that much paperwork. If I remain on the Gottwald premises, Monica warns me, she will call the police. On the other hand, she adds, she may call the police.

“You have no jurisdiction,” I say, but Monica’s gone.

“So, that’s goodbye,” says Mr. Gottwald.

“Goodbye? Because of a lousy piece of paper? Did a piece of paper educate you on newborn care? Did a piece of paper keep all the balls of nurturing in the air?”