Chris Bachelder - The Throwback Special

“What?”

“About whom are you sexually curious, Nate?”

Nate looked across the crowded room. He waved, though Charles could not see anyone waving back. Then Nate turned his face toward Charles’s hip. “The women in children’s books,” he said quietly.

“I didn’t hear you, Nate,” Charles said, though he had.

“The women in the children’s books I was reading to our kids.”

“I see.”

“The illustrated women. You’ve seen them, right?”

“Some.”

“I mean, they’re women . There they are with breasts, hips, legs. The illustrators made them, not sexy, I guess, but definitely feminine. And I suppose technically speaking, these are not all human women I’m talking about. Some are squirrels or mice or rabbits, but they are female and they walk upright and they’re gentle, and in the drawings we see their housecoats and blouses and the definite suggestion of the female form. I wouldn’t say this about just any creature in the woods on a nature show. I’m not interested in animals.”

“What are you interested in?”

“These characters in the books have had children, so you know they’re sexually active. That’s not some sick thing I’m imposing on the book. And in some of these old books the mothers are so. . Like in Blueberries for Sal ? Do you know that one, Charles?”

Charles said that he did know Blueberries for Sal .

“So lock me up,” Nate said. “That mother is definitely someone I’m curious about.”

“The woman,” Charles said, “or the bear?”

“The way McCloskey crosshatched her long skirt? That’s all I’m saying, Charles.”

“And her sweater,” Charles said.

“I guess one thing I’m saying is that in trying to make these drawings not at all risqué or suggestive, the illustrators made them very risqué and suggestive. Does that make sense?”

“Go on.”

“I read the books to our kids, and occasionally I am curious about the women. Or the female animals. I didn’t say attracted to them. I didn’t say turned on. I said curious. The drawings are not indecent, and I would say my thoughts are not all that indecent, either. We have this old book that belonged to my wife when she was a kid. It’s my favorite. It’s about an elephant.”

“In terms of my expertise—”

“There’s this scene in the book when the elephant is performing at a circus, and there is a crowd of delighted people in the bleachers behind the ring. And if you look really closely, Charles, you can see these women sitting in the bleachers. They’re wearing tight knee-length skirts, and they have nice figures, and they look happy. Almost ecstatic, Charles. The picture isn’t vulgar, but. . it stimulates the imagination. I’ve read the book a thousand times. I notice the women behind the elephant, right? Big deal. I think about their sexual histories. I wonder what they like to do in bed, either alone or with others.”

“And this is a drawing?”

“Colored ink. The old four-plate process, I think. But fairly realistic. It’s clear how happy the women are.”

“Okay.”

“And yes, these women are depicted at an elephant show, but we know that’s not all there is to them. We know they have a private life that is off the page, away from the circus. So that makes me a pervert? Their sexuality seems to me to be, I don’t know, part of them. Right? It’s not something I. . It seems. .”

“Intrinsic?” Charles said.

“No,” Nate said.

“Yes,” Charles said.

“It’s not like it’s something I would ever act on,” Nate said.

Charles pressed the back of his head against the wall. He had no idea what that would entail. “Why did you tell your wife?”

“I just pointed out the women at the elephant show,” Nate said. “I don’t know why I did that. She didn’t seem to understand.”

“I’ve seen this before,” Charles said, and Nate looked up at him with an expression that shifted from surprise to relief to disappointment. The room was hot and agitated. “You are processing this experience as sexual, but it is not.”

“Yes, it is,” Nate said.

“It’s not sexual,” Charles said, trying to earn the boots. “What you find provocative is the women’s happiness, and their privacy. You’re longing to know them, and they are concealed. Your curiosity is not fundamentally erotic. There’s nothing wrong with you, except the normal stuff.”

“But I look at their breasts,” Nate said.

“Your mind,” Charles said, “strives to put these images and feelings in a familiar context.”

Nate suddenly seemed despondent. He would rather, it occurred to Charles, have been diagnosed as an untreatable pervert than as someone who was just lonesome. Apparently, he had forgotten that he had sought out Charles for reassurance or explanation. Nate had finished talking, and it also appeared that he had finished listening. He seemed miserable.

Charles rested his hand on top of Nate’s head. He watched as Gary, Vince, and Fat Michael tried to carry the lottery drum across the room. Fat Michael just happened to be wearing short sleeves (in November), and the cephalic vein in his bicep bulged tyrannically. Go to sleep, all you pussies, Fat Michael’s cephalic vein said to the men who had gathered in Room 324. Sweet dreams.

“Where?” Gary shouted to Trent. “Bathtub or hallway?”

Then the keg came through the door. It advanced into the entryway, but stopped when it saw the lottery drum directly in its path. The lottery drum halted but did not give way. The keg and the lottery drum squared off in the narrow strait of the entryway, beneath the looming form of the ironing board. Myron looked startled, but he always did. The quiet standoff lasted perhaps a minute. This was not to be decided by feints or clever maneuvers. The men cheered as the keg lurched forward.

THE RULES AND RESTRICTIONS of the lottery, formulated by Steven at its inception, were simple, clean, and egalitarian: Each man writes his initials on a ball, and places the ball into the approved container. When all balls are mixed in the container, the commissioner draws each of the twenty-two balls, one ball at a time. The man whose ball has been selected then has three minutes to choose any available player from either team. The following restrictions apply: (1) you may not select a player who has already been selected; (2) you may not select the same player twice in any five-year period; (3) you may select a player from the same team for no more than three consecutive years; (4) you must serve on the Redskins offensive line (which includes tight end Donnie Warren, but does not include tight end Clint Didier) at least once every five years; (5) you must serve in the Giants defensive backfield at least once every seven years; (6) you may not select a player whose physical dimensions are so radically different from yours as to inhibit your performance or to introduce basic issues of credibility (this restriction is enforced by the commissioner); (7) you may not choose Lawrence Taylor more than once in any eight-year period; (8) you must make your selection in a timely way, or it will be made for you by the commissioner; (9) you may not select a “toucher” (Donnalley, Riggins) in consecutive years, or the year after being Theismann; (10) you may not, of course, select Theismann. The man whose initials are on the final ball remaining in the container will be Theismann. None of the rules for selection (above) apply to the player who is selected as Theismann.

The lottery drum had been damaged in its encounter with the keg, and it lay on its side in the hallway outside 324. An IT associate and two graphic designers from Prestige Vista Solutions examined the drum warily, as beachgoers inspect a washed-up animal. The IT associate, Josh, asked the other two if they remembered when Lawrence Taylor snapped Theismann’s leg in the Super Bowl. The graphic designers nodded, though they were too young to remember. Their grisly cultural touchstones were much more recent, and high-def. “I had mono,” Josh said. The two young men nodded. “Well, wait, so I guess it couldn’t have been the Super Bowl. Plus the Giants and Redskins can’t play in the Super Bowl. Never mind. Maybe I was thinking of Tim Krumrie. Remember when Tim Krumrie’s leg snapped, and kind of flapped around in the air in the Super Bowl?” The two young men nodded.