Apathy and Other Small Victories (13 page)

Hi shitface
.

Hi cocksucker
.

Hi asshead
.

I always ran out of real curses before she did. Then we’d both smile, overly sarcastic, and squint our eyes and bow to each other repeatedly while performing elaborate gibberish hand gestures to say that we were sorry. It was like kabuki theater. Then she’d laugh because she was only kidding, and I’d laugh too because at least I could fucking hear.

Where’s Doug? I want to piss on his head. He eats my shit
, I signed.

He’s waiting for you in the back
, and she made the universal sign with her fist up to her mouth and her tongue poking the inside of her cheek, the one that said my dick would soon be in Doug’s mouth. She grabbed my sleeve as I walked past her.

I have to talk to you later
.

About what?

“SSSHHHH!!!” she said as she held her finger to her lips, making the loudest plea for silence I had ever heard. It was very ironic.

“Good morning Shane!” Doug was chipper and smiling. He must not have taken the bus to work. “Let’s see what we have today!”

I was reclined in the chair and he sat on his stool beside me and looked at the x-rays of my mouth, trying to show me the de cay and the crumbling enamel and the roots that were going bad.

“You see that spot there? That’s an old filling that’s rotted, tsk tsk.”

I didn’t like looking at skeleton me. It made me think of brain tumors and cancers. There’s never good news in those things. My white skull splayed out on that black sheet looked like the flag of a pirate ship I did not want to sail. I closed my eyes and nodded.

“I’ve done just about all the basic work I can do, cleaned up what I could…”

As he talked I could feel something inching up my thigh, and if both of his hands weren’t holding on to the x-ray I would’ve punched him in the face or just been very quiet and sad.

“I think the next step has to be crowns. I won’t lie to you, they’re expensive, and it’s a pretty involved procedure, but they’re more permanent than the patchwork I’ve been doing. And you’re going to need some root canal… .”

It felt like Mobo’s guinea pig was slowly climbing out of my pocket, which was very interesting since I didn’t even know he was in there. I was pretty sure he wasn’t. I’d have blamed the laughing gas but Doug hadn’t given me any yet.

“Like I said, it’s going to be expensive, so we’ll have to work something out. And, ahh, we should probably take a look at the bills you have on the books for the, ahh, other work. I think—”

It wasn’t until after Ivan had rolled stiffly over my hip like he had rigor mortis or like he was being especially erotic, until after he had jumped from my pocket and I heard the shattering of glass and the scattering of tiny mice right afterwards, that I remembered my fancy saltshakers.

“Ahhh!”
Doug sighed, so effeminate he sounded like a Southern belle swooning, and the x-ray floated to the floor. He leapt down from his stool and landed with a crunch. I sat up in the chair and turned around.

“Shit.” There was glass and salt everywhere. My beautiful saltshaker. “Sorry about that Doug. It was, uh, Doug?”

He was standing rigid, his arms and legs bent awkward like he was a discarded action figure, and his eyes were watering. He took a halting step and crunched more salt under his shoe, and the tears streamed down his face.

He cried out like a wounded buffalo and ran hunchbacked out of the room, lifting his legs in a cruel impersonation of a retarded Heisman Trophy winner. I heard the door of his office slam, and then I was alone.

This is what it had come to. I already had salt all over me from the night before when I’d fallen asleep with five shakers in my pockets. Now one of my fancy new ones was busted and there was salt all over the floor, and Doug was crying. What the fuck was going on.

“YOU SMELL LIKE FOOD!” Marlene shouted when she walked in.

Thank you. Where’s the sweeper?
I had managed to kick the glass into a small pile but the salt was still everywhere.

What?

B-r-o-o-m,
I spelled out with my hand.

I’ll get it. What happened?

One of my saltshakers broke and Doug started crying.

What are you talking about?

I don’t know.

Why did you bring a saltshaker to a dentist appointment?

I thought we could have a picnic. I don’t know.

You’re a weirdo.

There was a broom but no dustpan so the best I could do was sweep the salt up against the walls, which was as much as I would’ve done anyway.

I have to tell you something
, Marlene signed, just as I was finishing up.

What.
I was demoralized from sweeping the salt and from all that I had lost.

You can’t tell anyone or I’ll get in trouble.

I don’t care about anything.

Promise you won’t tell!

Fine. I promise.

She looked over her shoulder and put her finger to her lips, even though I wasn’t talking.

I cheated on my husband again.

You always cheat on your husband.

No, but bad. Bad. I slept with
—and she jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

Jesus Christ.

No,
I signed.

I did!

You fucked Doug?

Yes.

I wanted to beat myself into a coma with the broomstick.

No!

I did. It’s bad.

I was bent over gagging, leaning on the broom so I wouldn’t fall down, hoping I would die soon. I could not live in a world where Doug could fuck anyone, never mind deaf Marlene.

Stop it!
She thought I was kidding, that my dry heaving was just part of my usual over-exaggerated sign language pantomime. She couldn’t hear the strained hacking in my throat, the gurgle as I reached for bile, for anything.

Why? Why did you do it?
I signed.

I don’t know! It was after my party when everyone went home. I was drunk!

I was shaking my head and holding my stomach.

It was a mistake. We said we wouldn’t do it again, but then we did. This morning.
And her eyes shifted involuntarily towards the dentist chair. The one I had just been sitting in.

“Aaaagh!” I was coughing up internal organs. I needed to set myself on fire. I’d have to throw out these clothes and run home naked, take a scalding hot shower and scrub my skin until it bled, call my mother and tell her to fuck off, then start a heroin addiction.

I’ll tell you another secret—

No!

He likes anal sex.

No! You fucked him in the ass?

No!
and she laughed.

I held up my hands in surrender. The details were too horrible to imagine. I knew then, and it was true, that I would be haunted by this conversation for the rest of my life.

Why? Why did you do it?

I told you, I was drunk!

I’m drunk all the time! I never fucked Doug!

She laughed but I was serious. Disgusted and serious.

It was good! I liked it.

And there it was. Sex with Doug was good. Doug fucked like a champ. If I tried to reconcile that fact with what I knew of him, my head would explode. The universe is based on a certain set of laws, and Doug having sex with a woman—and being good at it—invalidated them all. Dr. Douglas Weinhardt was not a sex god. He was crying in his office because a broken saltshaker had scared him. I prayed for total amnesia.

But it’s bad. My husband knows. He found the sheets.

The sheets? Oh jesus god.

He doesn’t know it’s Doug but he knows it’s someone. I told him I got sick but he didn’t believe me. I don’t know what he’s going to do. I need your help. I—

She looked up and so did I and there was the lumpy, hangdog figure of Doug in the doorway, his limp curls smashed to his forehead, his eyes red, the skin around them pummeled nearly purple. Clearly, this was a man who knew how to fuck.

Marlene waved away our conversation and scurried out of the room. Doug stayed in the doorway.

I cleared my throat, hoping it would clear my head of Doug and Marlene on the chair, the chair where I’d been reclined, resting my head on the cushion where Doug’s bare ass had been just an hour earlier, the side of my face pressed on the same funked, slippery surface. It did not work.

“I’m, uhm, sorry about the glass. I was just—”

“It’s all right Shane,” he said, his voice shaking. “I feel as if I owe you an explanation.”

“No, I should just go.”

“No, please. I need to say this.” He put his hand to his forehead, his palm facing out, his wrist bent and resting against his sweat-soaked hair.

“I have a condition,” he said, taking measured, deliberate breaths. “Certain sounds, gritting sounds, or sometimes shaking sounds, affect me. Whenever I hear sand or sugar being scattered or stepped on, or maracas—” His whole body convulsed. He hugged himself tightly and bowed his head.

Even in the midst of my own trauma and horror I forced myself to look at him carefully, trying to memorize every curve and line of his face so I’d be able to provide the police with an immediate and detailed sketch when he finally went fucking insane and started blowing people away. It was only a matter of time. Probably minutes.

He composed himself as best he could.

“When I hear these sounds I tense up, my body shuts down, my muscles freeze. I can’t function properly. I just need to be by myself until it passes. I’ve tried everything—ginseng, iced tea—nothing can control it. It just has to work itself through.” He sucked in his bottom lip and looked away. He was being so brave. “So that’s that. I just wanted to explain myself. So you knew.” He took another deep breath and looked at me. “I hope you’ll still allow me to be your dentist.”

I wanted to ask him if he’d been kicked in the head by a horse as a boy or cursed by a gypsy or just what had happened to make it all turn out like this. I wanted to rock him gently and whisper in his ear, tell him that sometimes suicide was noble and nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes, it was the answer. And in spite of the retching it would lead to I wanted to ask him what kinds of noises Marlene made and if it was ever scary. But mostly I just wanted to go home and hide.

And when he nodded and turned and ran hunchbacked into his office again, that’s exactly what I did.

* * *

It was Tuesday so I knocked on the door and when Bryce answered I went into total cardiac arrest.

Whenever we saw each other around the building we had an unspoken agreement to completely ignore one another and run the other way as fast as we could without seeming obvious. That was my unspoken agreement at least. I didn’t want to talk to him about having sex with his wife and I was hoping he didn’t want to talk to me about how I’d stopped paying rent. No good could come of any conversation we could possibly have. Even a nod hello would have been unbearable. Subtext is fine in plays or cartoons but in real life it’s very uncomfortable.

But I couldn’t run this time. It would have been rude. And my legs didn’t seem to be working. I was rooted in fear and awkwardness. Bryce looked terrible. His eyes were raw and his face was pale and sunken. He’d obviously been crying or projectile vomiting. He didn’t seem especially surprised to see me. He just stared for a long time with his mouth moving slightly, his lips parting and unparting, saying nothing. It was like the time my grandfather tried to wish me a happy birthday but he couldn’t get it out because he didn’t have the mechanics for it anymore. I hugged him anyway. But Bryce wasn’t my grandfather. If I’d hugged him it might have been weird.

All I could do was wait until he gave up. I didn’t have to wait long. His head dropped and his shoulders sagged and his whole body shrunk down to half its usual size. I stepped aside and he shuffled past me on his weak little legs and went out the side door to cry behind the Dumpsters.

I stood in the doorway for a while.

When I went into the bedroom she was on the bed with her blue bathrobe tied around her, smoking a cigarette. She was on her back and the cigarette was straight up in the air like a chimney. She let the ash build into a column and then just as it was ready to topple she took the cigarette from her mouth and flicked it in the ashtray on her bedside table. It seemed unnecessarily risky, but it looked pretty cool.

I kept my clothes on and laid down beside her without saying anything. She finished her cigarette and crushed it out. Then, still lying down, she took a glass of water from the table and drank half of it, holding it six inches above her face and pouring the water into her mouth without the glass ever touching her lips. I’d never seen anyone do that besides me. When I drank lying down like that it hurt my stomach and gave me real bad gas. I was impressed with her performance, and afraid.

“What do you do when it’s not Tuesday?” she asked.

There was Panopticon Insurance, my girl’s bike, deaf birthday parties and all my saltshakers. I led a full, interesting, vibrant life.

“Not too much,” I said.

“Outside interests are important,” she said.

Why
is the worst question anyone can ask. With the things you really want to know there’s never an easy answer, and they’re hard enough as it is. It’s stupid to make them more complicated by trying to explain them, trying to reason out what never made sense in the first place and probably wasn’t supposed to. But I couldn’t help it.

“What about Bryce,” I said.

She took her glass of water from the table again and drank until it was empty, gulping it down. Her throat rolled like the ocean. After she put the glass down she said, “Bryce is never happier than when he’s bowling. He’s always been that way.”