J. Lennon - The Funnies

I thought I could sneak up on her, reach over the menu and pluck the glasses off. I pictured her astonished, laughing face as she looked up and saw that it was me. Instead, she turned her head and my hand brushed her ear, and she jumped back as if I had zapped her with an electric prod.

“You!”

“Hi.”

She sighed, shaking her head at the carpet.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was trying to surprise you. By taking off your glasses.”

“Glasses?” She brought her hand to her face and removed them. “Ah. Yes.” She let me have a thin smile, and said, “Dare I ask what brings you here?”

“Scrumptious Chinese takeout.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.”

We ordered food and it was brought to us. “No napkins, no fork, no chopsticks,” she told the clerk. We carried out our bags, and since she hadn’t told me to go elsewhere, I walked alongside her. We didn’t talk. She squinted, having forgotten to put the sunglasses back on. I followed her into her building, a scabby brownstone with a cat on the stoop, and up the steps. She held the door for me.

Her place was what I’d expected. Largely tidy, the furniture covered with pieces of damp clean laundry. Some movie posters and an old formica dinner table, where we sat and opened our bags.

“You got my letter?” I said.

She held up a hand. “Tim. Lunch first.”

We took chopsticks from the china mug at the center of the table. I watched her eat. She watched her plate, occasionally fixing me with a wary, slightly hostile glance. But I could tell she pitied me a little — her face, exerting itself in the act of eating, betrayed a crude, practical sort of mercy — and I let myself hope.

I finished first. When she was done, she reached out, took my hand, and pulled me to the couch, where she placed us at opposite ends (I was reminded of my talk with Rose). She said, “I do not want to be the girl you’re hanging around with while you’re sorting out your various issues.”

This took a moment to sink in. “Which is to say forget it?” It sounded true as I said it, and my heart listed.

“Which is to say forget it, if that’s all I am to you, or will be.”

“I don’t think that’s all you are to me.”

“You don’t think.”

I chose my words carefully. “I can’t tell you that I’m absolutely certain of anything. I am pretty sure I don’t want you just because I’m desperate for somebody to talk to.”

I was surprised to hear myself say this. She sighed.

“That came out wrong,” I said.

“No, it didn’t. It was the truth.”

“I guess.”

“Move closer,” she said. “Just a little.” I gave her several feet of space, and she took my hand in both of hers. They were cold. “I was watching Rear Window ,” she said. “Get it rolling, would you?”

With my free hand I picked up the remote from the coffee table and turned on the set. It took a moment to find PLAY in the parking lot of buttons, and then I hit it.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

We watched it straight through without speaking. Jimmy Stewart had just started spying on the glum songwriter. The taste of Hunan beef still simmered on my tongue. At some point Susan’s hands began to move over mine, and our fingers entwined and pulled apart, tested each other while we watched.

When it was over, I picked up the remote and turned off the TV. I could hear her breathing. She slid into my arms and I lay back, and then she lay back, half-on, half-off me on the thin cushions. We kissed, and kissed again.

“If you break my heart, Mix,” she told me, the ends of our noses flattened against each other, “I swear I’ll beat the living shit out of you.”

“It’s a deal,” I said.

More kissing. My hand found her back, the place where her T-shirt had pulled from her shorts and exposed a bare inch of skin. She let out a breath.

“Bedtime,” she said.

Delighted, I said, “Right.”

Afterward we seemed far from finished. We stayed very close, saying nothing, finally sleeping, then waking, then trying it all again, and despite the typical trappings of pleasure, I didn’t feel like what we’d done had resolved anything. We had crossed over into something new, and though the border patrols hadn’t gotten us there were still miles of rough terrain left to navigate. Lying in Susan’s arms, I extended the metaphor, adding rattlesnakes and scorpions, undercover immigration agents and idle rednecks with sawed-off shotguns, until Susan absently began stroking my hair and I let my brain shut mercifully down.

It was too late to take the bus home, so I stayed. We went out to eat, and came back to Susan’s apartment exhausted and happy, two things I had not been simultaneously for a long time. It was strange trying to fall asleep on a new bed, with a new and unfamiliar presence, and we stretched and rolled and yanked on the sheets until I felt raw. At some point we simply gave in and stopped moving, almost too tired to speak.

Almost. “Tim,” she said. “There’s a reason I haven’t been calling you. Besides this, I mean.”

I made an encouraging sound. In my half-dream, her words took on shapes and bobbed in the haze of sleep.

“It’s Ray Burn. Your meeting with Ray Burn.”

“Whaboutit?”

“He tried to back out. He said he didn’t want to see you, but I talked him back into it. You’re meeting next Wednesday.”

I pulled myself out of the haze and sat up. Moonlight spilled across the bed. The clock radio quietly buzzed beside me. “Why didn’t he want to see me?”

“He said there was no reason to bother you until you were completely ready.” She was lying on her back, watching the ceiling, which was cracked and bubbled from years of leaks. “But I think…I think he was thinking it would be easier to pull the rug out from under you if he never actually met you. He didn’t say that; that’s just my impression.”

I could feel it all falling apart. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything. I mean…the thing is, Burn is a very bland guy, not too smart, and he doesn’t need to be doing this cartoon thing. He’s got old money. He just does this for a hoot. So he is very impressionable when it comes to cartoons. If somebody shows him something or tells him about someone, and the person doing the showing or telling is…confident, you know, has a little spark, then he’ll start believing everything that person says.” She sat up too, and put her hand on my knee. “He’s, you know, tabula rasa.”

“I saw Ken Dorn at the conference. He told me he’d met with Burn.”

“Yeah, well, Ron Burn, the old boss, liked Dorn. He thought Dorn was a wit. So Ray sees Dorn if Dorn wants to be seen.”

“And Dorn has a ‘little spark’?” I said, incredulous.

“Well, no. But Dorn has gotten to him, and Dorn also is trying to make you look bad. Besides, Dorn is the bargain cartoonist, so…”

“So I’m history.”

“No. You’re meeting with Burn, remember?” She turned to me and took both my hands with hers. “Tim, if you want this, you can go into the meeting and wow him. I know you can.”

I shook my head, wondering if it was all even worth it. “Did you hear about what happened at the conference?”

“Your panel discussion? Yeah.”

“Dorn set me up, you know.” I told her about the overalled hayseed and the transaction out by the dumpster. “If he really wants it, he’s going to get it.”

“Not if you don’t want him to. Remember, you’re the one who’s supposed to get it. As far as I know, the lawyers haven’t been able to get around that.”

I pulled my hands away and lay back. “I didn’t want any of this to begin with.”