Gilbert Sorrentino - A Strange Commonplace

CARSON TOLD HER THAT HE’D ONCE READ AN ACCOUNT IN some magazine of a dream in which a woman, the wife of the man who was dreaming, turned into Meryl Streep. In the dream. She looked at him and ate the last piece of dill pickle on her plate. And? she said. What’s your point? I don’t really remember the article too well, he said. Lunch was almost over, which was too bad, although he knew that he had no chance with her, well, maybe he did, maybe, but he didn’t have the courage to risk his marriage, it was ridiculous, unthinkable. But when she looked the way she looked today, in a dark business suit and white blouse, well, when she looked the way she looked today. Oh, wait, he said, right, I think the point was that the guy hated Meryl Streep but in the dream he wanted to — he wanted to make love to her. But he really didn’t like her at all, the actual her. You must have been asleep in your psych lectures, she said. Get yourself a selected Freud, one with the dream stuff in it, The Interpretation of Dreams. What do you think of Meryl Streep? she said. She stood up and smoothed her skirt over her hips and thighs. Oh sweet Jesus. She’s O.K.? he said, why? I think she’s a pretentious ham, she said, all those irritating accents are supposed to show us that she’s a great actress? She puts on some broad accent, her nose gets red, and she cries a few times, that’s the routine in every movie. Sure, he said, that’s right. He was looking at the lace edging on the collar of her blouse. Don’t you think so? she said, that that’s about the extent of her talent? I’m on the side of the guy who had the dream — but when he’s awake! He stood up and she asked him to leave the tip, she’d get the check. You bought last time, she said. O.K. he said, I’ll pick it up next time, then. She paid at the register and he stood back a few feet, admiring her, her nose and ears, her hair, her little gold-ball earrings, her jacket and skirt, her shoes and stockings, her legs. They walked out onto the street and started back to the office. You were looking at me back there, weren’t you? she said. Her voice was even, neutral, placid. Yes, he said, blushing. You were looking at my legs. Yes, he said, do you want to have a drink after work some time? I’m married, she said, you know that, and so are you. Do you want to have a drink some time? he said. He looked at the slender gold chain around her neck. Is the married, ah, thing, problem, she said, O.K. with you, is it all right with you? How about tomorrow? he said, sure it is. I’ll let you know in the morning, she said. A drink, right? Yes, just a drink. They stopped at the curb for traffic and he looked at her profile. His wife was just as attractive, maybe moreso. So, she said, buy that Freud, and see what he has to say. Meryl Streep! she said. They stepped off the curb and his forearm brushed her hip. It felt like fire.

AL WAS ALMOST ALWAYS LATE WITH THE CHILD-SUPPORT check lately, and when it did come, it was often for less than the court had ordered him to pay. But what was she supposed to do about it? She had no money for a lawyer, and the very thought of getting mixed up with family court or whatever it was and all the riffraff there made her want to cry. She was alone with her son and broke and in a new neighborhood that she hardly knew. And dependent on Al, the least dependable man in the world even when they were still married! On occasion, she tried to call him at his home number, but every time she did, Estelle would answer and pretend that she had no idea of who was on the line. Dottie? she’d say. Dottie who? She wanted to reach through the phone and scratch the bitch’s eyes out, Dottie who! And she was a whore as well. Mrs. Mertis had told her, not without sour pleasure, that she’d seen the woman Al ran off with in Coney Island, in Scoville’s, sitting drunk at the bar with two greaseballs who had their hands all over her, Estelle, wasn’t that her name? A disgrace, and I had my daughter with me. Dottie thought about writing Al a letter, telling him about his slut of a wife, but ended up turning on the radio and sitting in the dark, smoking. After a month or so, she began talking to a neighbor, a man who lived a couple of doors away, in a frame house that badly needed painting. He seemed friendly enough, a nice man, really, who worked for Con Ed, and who, he confided to her, not in so many words, was unhappy in his marriage. He looked helpless and sad and resigned as he told her this. Just between you and me, he said. Dottie had met his wife a couple of times; she was much older than her husband, drab and worn out. The man never told Dottie why he was unhappy, save to say that he’d married two women, his wife and her mother, it was a curse. Once a week his wife would go out to Elmhurst to visit her mother, who was— maybe, the man said — half-crippled with arthritis. Her daughter would shop, do the laundry, clean the apartment, cook for the week sometimes, and stay overnight. When she returned, she’d be tired, tense, mad as hell, and she’d take it out on him! Nag, nag, nag him about his drinking, which wasn’t drinking, a couple of beers, maybe a ball or two of whiskey, I work hard for a living, for Christ’s sake. One evening, after she’d put the boy to bed, she was surprised to get a call from him. He was alone, maybe she’d like to come over for a drink — iced tea or ginger ale, if she liked, maybe play some gin. It would be nice to talk to an adult for an hour or two. But she knew very well that he liked her by the way he looked at her when they met. But she was only two doors away, the boy would be fine, she’d be there and back in no time. So she left, walking quickly to the side porch door of his house. And so their affair began, Dottie visiting for an hour or two, never more, on those nights that the man’s wife — Mrs. Sweetness and Light, he called her — was in Queens. After their first sexual encounter, on the linoleum floor of the closed-in porch, which occurred abruptly as she was leaving after her initial visit, he asked her, matter of factly, if she’d bring a bath towel the next time. They could, well, love each other, he said, on the rug in the living room, it would be more comfortable, especially for her. She was shocked and embarrassed, but the next time she brought the towel. He told her that he couldn’t soil the sheets and he couldn’t use one of his — his wife’s — towels, she’d look in the hamper immediately and start in with a million questions. So Dottie brought the towel each time, and watched him spread it on the living room carpet next to the sofa. He’d kiss her, grope her, help her down to the floor, take off her panties, and mount her. She would feel dirty and disgusted, but she went over every week. She felt that it was a duty that she had somehow assumed. Eventually, she’d take her underwear off before she went to the house, and there she’d stand, after dark, it was always after dark, waiting for him to open the porch door, her towel under her arm, naked beneath her skirt. Just another slut, like Estelle, just another whore, she thought. On many, perhaps most occasions, the man was too drunk to do anything but writhe on top of her, pushing his groin against hers, cursing his wife. She’d get up off the floor and go home, once laughing to herself in the street at the thought that she didn’t, at least, have to get dressed. One night, when she got back home, the boy was sitting in the kitchen in the dark, weeping convulsively in terror. It took her an hour to make him believe that she was really his mother and not the lady who had stolen Daddy. She told the man the story, told him that she just couldn’t do it any more, she liked him, but, well, if he had children he’d know. It’s O.K. with me, he said, drunk, you’re just like the old lady, anyway, a goddamn iceberg, no wonder your old man walked out on you. After that, when they met on the street, they barely nodded, although his wife would sometimes give her a small, frightened smile. Soon after the affair ended, the checks stopped altogether, and when she called, the operator said that the number was no longer in service, and that there was no new listing for that name. She called Al’s office and asked for his department head — the man she’d always talked to whenever she’d tried, unsuccessfully, to get Al at work: he had always stepped away from his desk. He told her that Al had been, well, he’d been, ah, let go. For some small indiscretions. Concerning the petty cash account, he said, in a whisper. It was handled quietly, stayed in the company. She hung up and looked at the wall, then lit a cigarette. Petty cash, she said. Petty cash. Petty cash, you stupid stupid stupid.