Scott Spencer - A Ship Made of Paper

Carol summons her courage.She grips the phone tightly and brings it close to her mouth, so that this man can feel the heat ofher scorn.

”Who the fuck is this?”she says.

“ I think we’ve already been here,”Hampton said.

“ Really?What makes you think so?”

It was too dark to see Hampton’s face, but Daniel could tell from the quality

of the silence that Hampton was glaring at him.Even friends would have begun to get irritated with each other by now.Being lost brought out the sort of fear that dovetails into rage.

“ What makes me think so?”asked Hampton.His voice seemed completely un-

connected to his feelings;even in anger, it was melodious.Or maybe there was a connection, but Daniel didn’t know him well enough to make it.

“ I think we’re making progress,”Daniel said. “ Well, we’re not, we’re going in circles.” “ Hampton.I’ve been following you.All right?” “ We’re going in circles.” “ Well, you’ve been taking us there.” “ Daniel?” “ What?” “ Can I make a suggestion?” “ Sure.What?” “ Go fuck yourself.” There was a rock nearby, embedded deeply into the forest floor, covered with

moss and lichen.Hampton thought to scale it, hoping to see a break in the woods,

but the soles of his shoes were slippery, and as soon as he stood on the rock he slipped and fell hard onto his hands and knees, and just stayed there, with his head down, for several moments.

Daniel went to his side, touched him softly on the shoulder.

Hampton glanced up at Daniel.“Damn,”he said.

” Here,”Daniel said.He put out his hand.Hampton’s fingers were hard and

cold;he grasped Daniel’s hand like a statue come to life.Daniel stepped back and pulled Hampton to his feet.It was strange to be touching this man who had once had, and was now losing, everything.

Weeks pass.Anxiety.Cunning.Lies.Daniel and Iris meet whenever and wherever they can.The danger is, ofcourse, an aphrodisiac—

anAfro-disiac, Daniel thinks, but does not say it.Iris has made it clear that she is not going to be his Black Girlfriend.She has also made it clear that she is not ready to tell the truth to Hampton, which means Daniel must somehow make certain that Kate doesn’t speak to Hampton herself.And so when Kate wants to make love he makes love with her, and when she insists that they begin to repair their relationship by seeing a therapist he must acquiesce to that, as well.

And now it isTuesday, two days beforeThanksgiving, three in the afternoon, and Daniel and Kate are in the waiting room oftheWindsor Family Counseling Center.Daniel picks up an old, well-worn copy of Redbook, just for something to do with his hands and eyes, opens it up to a picture ofa delirious golden retriever bounding up to its human fam-ily in an open field, an ad for canine arthritis medicine.

They are going to talk to a therapist on Kate’s insistence, but they have come to this specific office on Daniel’s recommendation.Daniel asked the shrink who worked down the hall from his law office for a name and was told that the best person for that sort ofthing was Brian Fox.But getting the referral didn’t complete Daniel’s manly reparations, nothing could.“You call him, this mess is your doing, you make the ap-pointment,”she said, and rather than argue the matter, Daniel found it simpler to make the call.Now they are here, and Kate seems appalled by the informality ofthe place, already in some agony over what they have come to discuss, already feeling that her privacy is being invaded, her dignity compromised, her wounded pride put on display.

Daniel stretches his feet out before him, looks at the tips ofhis shoes, places his hands on his knees.He must gather himself, think ofwhat he will say, what he will not say, when Dr.Fox brings them in for their two-fifteen.He closes his eyes.

A couple ofdays ago, after making love to Iris in her bedroom, they were both covered in perspiration, and Iris pulled from her closet a small tan-and-blue rotating fan.She plugged it in, placed it on top ofher dresser, and then grabbed his hand to pull him out ofbed and stood with him in front ofthe cooling, drying breeze.“This is better than a shower,”

she said.“I don’t want you to just wash me offyou.”

He tries to rivet his attention on the magazine.He looks again at the ad for canine arthritis medicine and thinks about Scarecrow, poor Crow, slowing down week by week, day by day, tottering around Iris’s house and yard exuding beneficence.Daniel has never known such a perfect dog in his life, though he realizes that his virtually worshipful attitude toward the dog is consistent with his virtually worshipful attitude toward everything in Iris’s house, the orderliness ofher spice rack, the scent ofher hand soap, the clarity ofthe ice cubes, the amusing nature ofher computer’s screen-saver (kangaroos in sunglasses),the silkTurkish carpet her brother brought back from Istanbul, the black-and-white photographs ofNelson in their austere wooden frames, pictures Iris took and printed herself during the briefperiod she was interested in photography.

A door next to the receptionist’s window opens and Dr.Fox emerges, wearing a dark-blue suit, a white shirt, a blue-and-white tie.With his close-cropped hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and elegant goatee, he looks like a diplomat from a small Marxist nation.“Katherine? Daniel?”he in-quires softly, with a kindly smile.

Kate stares at Fox with palpable amazement and then, despite herself, she begins to laugh.Daniel, who himself was not expecting a black man, understands that Kate is feeling the irony oftheir having made an appointment with anAfrican-American to discuss their domestic diffi-culties, but he nevertheless feels she is behaving badly.

IfDr.Fox senses some racial content in Kate’s laughter, he gives no evidence ofit, and he ushers them into his office, a small, dimly lit room filled with books, green glass lamps, a small collection ofantique type-writers.His window looks out onto an old apple tree that was split in two by the October storm.When they are all seated—Kate and Daniel in khaki director’s chairs, Fox in a tufted burgundy leather seat—the re-lationships counselor begins the session by asking them their names, their ages, what insurance they carry.His voice is steady, at once emo-tionless and insistent, it’s like being pulled over by a highway patrolman.

“We’re here because Daniel has been seeing another woman,”Kate suddenly says, no longer patient enough to allow Fox to collect the stan-dard data.

Daniel is surprised at how raw this sounds.Every scoundrel he knows complains about being quoted out ofcontext, but having his behavior re-duced to the simple act ofinfidelity strikes him now not only as inaccu-rate but unjust.What about all the pointlessly lonely nights that led up to it?What about never having known passion?

“How have you come to this knowledge?”Fox asks, with funereal tact.

”It was quite obvious,”says Kate.

”I told her,”Daniel adds softly.

”Well, then,”Fox says, taking a deep breath.He pinches the skin around hisAdam’s apple, purses his lips.“So let me begin with you, Katherine—and Daniel, you’ll have your chance to speak, too, but I want to begin with Katherine, ifthat’s all right with both ofyou.Katherine, this situation you find yourselfin, how would you like to see it resolved?”

Kate’s face colors, and the sight ofit stabs through Daniel.She is nervous to be here, humiliated, and she who is so deft with words seems tongue-tied.