Stuart Dybek - Ecstatic Cahoots - Fifty Short Stories

“Look at the talent in this one hotel room, the plays, films, music, books you people have produced. Isn’t authentic Art — capital A —supposed to show us how to live happily ever after? I once went to a famous therapist, I won’t drop his name or sticker-shock you with how much he thought his time was worth, and I told him: I’ve got everything a man could want — power, fame, fortune — I could go through ten reincarnations and not spend what I’ve made in this one lifetime. I’ve got a mansion in Santa Monica, a chateau in Provence, my own Pacific island, the best food and liquor, women JFK would have singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ for him every day of the year. I can feel the envy when I enter a room, yet I’m not happy. First thing the shrink advises me to do is read this novel he thought would help me. I say, Doc, I know the author, I brought him to Hollywood and like most Artists, capital A , he was one of the most miserable fucks on the planet. I’m supposed to learn something about happiness from him? So the shrink immediately retreats to plan B, his Socratic fucking question: How do you define happiness? Like I’m going to pay in time and money to play semantic games, just so he doesn’t have to admit he doesn’t have a clue. And here I am, tonight, surrounded by artists, intellectuals, the New York literati — can any of you come up with a better answer?”

In the quiet, it was possible for the first time in the evening to hear the classical guitar music that had been playing in the background.

“Liam,” the Mogul said, “you put this whole show together. Do you have an answer? Renee, you’re a glamorous, award-winning actress, how about you? TK, you’ve traveled the world. Tina, you’re witty enough to do stand-up comedy on TV. Gil, we haven’t had a chance to talk about passion yet, but you’re a hell of a writer. Anybody?”

The guests had formed a semicircle around the couch where the Mogul sat alone with his ice bucket. They looked down into their wine flutes, avoiding eye contact, sipping meditatively as if mulling over his question, drinking as if that disguised the embarrassing lack of response.

“I might,” Gil said.

“And here I thought you of all people would shy away from the subject,” the Mogul said. “Because, you know, happiness like passion can be a little clichéd . Let’s hear it. An answer could be worth the proverbial king’s ransom.”

“I can’t tell you why you’re unhappy,” Gil said, “because you aren’t.”

“Oh, I guarantee you that I am. I could produce some very famous people willing to serve as witnesses.”

“It’s not a matter of what others say, is it?”

“Well, if it’s simply my word against yours, who do you think the jury will believe? Frankly, I’m going to be very disappointed if you’re leading up to some semantic what-is-happiness bullshit, because I’m talking naked, Gil. Gut level.”

“Gut level, absolutely,” Gil said. “What if I can prove you are happy?”

Behind the carton-stacked coffee table, the Mogul leaned forward on the couch as if not wanting to miss a word.

“I went to college on a track scholarship,” Gil said.

“And you look like you’ve stayed in shape,” the Mogul said.

“Thanks,” Gil said. “My event was high hurdles. I put a lot of practice into making my move out of the starting blocks explosive. When you see hurdlers racing, knocking down hurdles, it can look like a free-for-all, but it’s actually a very controlled event. Every hurdler has the same number of strides between hurdles — usually three. That’s about the distance between you and me. If you weren’t expecting it, and why should you be, I could cross the room, hurdle the table, and before you could react jam these chopsticks in your eyes. And after you finished howling, and your long hospital stay was over and you were learning to feel your way with a white cane, you’d think back to tonight with the snow and the champagne and the smell of takeout that cooks sweating over spattering woks had ladled into cartons for a kid who probably can’t speak English to bring us on his bike in the driving rain, and I bet you’d realize that you were happy. You just can’t see it at this moment.”

Except for Nestor’s snoring, the room had gone dead silent. No one moved or spoke. The music had stopped.

“So, when do you say, ‘Hey, just kidding’?” the Mogul finally asked.

The question released the tension in the room enough for Liam to rise — a little unsteadily — and say it was a great night but it was late and there was a rehearsal tomorrow, and grab his coat from the rack set up by the door. A mass exit of guests followed him out into the hall, grabbing their coats without pausing to put them on, and packed into the elevators.

The Mogul stayed on the couch.

Gil rode down in the elevator with Tina.

“I didn’t know you ran track,” she said.

“Artistic license, capital A ,” Gil said. “Third place in the state finals in high school was as far as I got.”

“Where’d the chopsticks come from?”

“You know, until he said ‘gut level’ I was actually going to tell a story about a Chinese poet friend of mine who studied kung fu for thirty years at a dojo called the Sanctuary of Universal Peace. When he told me the dojo’s name, I asked if he’d ever used kung fu to defend himself, and he said that wasn’t why he studied. ‘So, what are you after?’ I asked, and he thought awhile, like he’d never considered it, then said: ‘To be able to say thank you every minute.’”

“And ‘thank you every minute’ turned into chopsticks. Inspiration will do that,” Tina said.

They stood beneath the hotel’s gold-lit marquee while, over the wet hiss of traffic along Madison Avenue, the doorman whistled for cabs. When the wind gusted, snowflakes caught in Tina’s hair and melted glittering in the marquee lights. She did look lovely. From the little she’d mentioned about her personal life — a runaway daughter now living at a drug rehab center, an ongoing divorce from a man she described as “a decent guy who still adores me”—Gil knew she was going through a difficult time. He wondered how she was managing to work as well as she was. He had told her at Papaya King, months ago, that her piece, “Dick Jokes,” and Nestor’s musical score were the only really solid things about EverAfter.

“When I get home, just before I pass out, I’m going to think about tonight and laugh myself to sleep,” Tina said. “Hopefully it will keep off the spins.”

“Don’t forget to picture Sven doing the crotch-grab while singing ‘Slow Boat to China,’” Gil said.

“That’s too ha-ha sad,” Tina said. “But then, maybe he’ll have the final revenge after he incorporates some crotch work to rave reviews the next time he plays Lear .”

A cab pulled up. “I won’t bother to ask if you want to share a ride,” she said.

“I’m going to walk in the park.”

She kissed him good night lightly on the cheek and he closed the door of the cab after her and stood watching her pull away. The cab started and stopped. Tina rolled down the window. “Gil, one more thing. If I were you, I wouldn’t be planning to give up my teaching job just yet.”

She gave a wave and he waved back.

The cab started and stopped again. Tina rolled down the window. “One more one more thing,” she called. “If you want to say it every minute, you have to start with one minute. Thank you.”

Through a rift in the mist, a moon the shade of water-stained silk. A night to begin, to begin again. Someone whistling a tune impossible to find on a piano, an elusive melody that resides, perhaps, in the spaces between the keys where there once seemed to be only silence. He wants to tell her a story without telling a story. One in which the silence between words is necessary in order to make audible the faint whistle of her breath as he enters her.