Fall and Rise (17 page)

artist of some sort, to come for a night or two. Want to move in with whoever this woman will be when we return. To vacate my place the previous June and go to France with her for a month and then Maine for the rest of the summer or just Maine or someplace secluded and cool for two months since we probably couldn't afford, I know I couldn't by this summer, a trip abroad. Want my name on her mailbox if it's her place I do move in to. Not taped onto it but stamped if her name's also stamped into the nameplate. And maybe not for her to be pregnant this summer in Maine or wherever it'll be but reasonably soon. I can also see where some to a lot of this could happen or something comparable to. No, ridiculous, all of it, I don't know what it is, sure it is, maybe it's not, because I think she gave me a look and said some expression that suggested some of this could start happening and not unreasonably soon. Something like: not tonight, give it time, I'm talking about us, don't rush, you seemed a bit interested in me, I seemed a bit interested in you, so? no harm there, just don't ruin. I don't think I'm fooling myself. Ask yourself if you are. Are I? Am I? I don't think so. So no. Because I really do think I saw and heard things from her that suggested he's a bit odd, that guy, or maybe spontaneous is the word or extemporaneous to be truly fair, but I think I could get to like him if it got that far, so I hope he calls but if he doesn't then he didn't and it wouldn't be I don't think because of anything I did or didn't do. But I won't call him if he doesn't me, since that's not what I do. Least not with a man I just met and am not bowled over by. But if—This how I think she speaks? Not quite but go on. But if he calls I'll see him I guess unless he acts drunk or moronic, vulgar or worse, for that sort of behavior's another story, one I quickly put down with a vow never to pick up again, no matter how short. But if he does call and we get together and I'm right about him, it might turn out to be a good thing. For I like a man who's straightforward and just a bit aggressive but who still stays at the beginning and maybe for all time somewhat ungainly and shy. I think that was him. I liked it that he pursued me, continued to eye me, getting up close and just as he was about to say something, backing off, then catching me at the door. He could have let me leave, got my phone number from Diana or got Diana to phone me to say she has this friend who'd like to meet me, or just forgotten it. Party fantasies usually end when the party fantasized goes out the door. Wish I had a little more of that go-after-what-you-want stuff. But men are men—that's what they do, are good for, trained to from puppyhood—the hare is loose: release the hounds—no matter how shy and ungainly or up to a point. Eyed me a bit too desirously sometimes but I liked it in a way for it said “I'm interested and if you are you can say so by looking at me from time to time in a certain though certainly less interested way,” or I at least didn't mind his occasional desirous look or not that much. He didn't at least goo-goo his eyes and lick his teeth for all to see and say absolutely the wrong things and too loudly, embarrassing me. Ah, but that balcony scene—he couldn't have spared me? But he wasn't that physically attractive to me, which isn't to say I didn't like his face. It was all right, nothing great, nothing to lob my eyes back to him and think “Hmm, quite the striker that guy,” but that's okay. Better the looks most times, worse the insecurities and ego, or that's been my experience, not that I wouldn't see a man just because he was extremely handsome as long as he had many of the other qualities I like. And he seemed to have an adequate physique—adequately slim and straight, for his age, no pot or blobbiness or weightlifter's stuffed muscles and sun-stiffened skin or with no ass which, unkind, limiting and even shallow as that might make me, I'm afraid I do mind, but I guess I could live with the big biceps and that kind of skin and behind. He was also at least two inches taller than I when I don't wear shoes. I like that difference and to be taller than the man when I want to too. His hair was okay, not entirely gray, not a mop or blown-dry, which makes even the most gifted Latinist look like the most nitwitted TV sportscaster, and sufficiently trim and seemingly clean. But the way he spoke. It at least wasn't a dull and dumb voice and one where I had to tug out my ear to hear. Smart but not arched is the best way I'd put it now. None of that “Now that's good for a laugh, haw haw haw.” I think I'm remembering this right, but the history of my considerations and positions, though much less in literary things, tells me I can be quite wrong. But there had to be something I liked about him to propose when he said he'd like to speak to me again that he call me and I think it might have been a couple of things but particularly his voice. I didn't do it just to later shake him off. Diana did seem chummy with him and she's said she never becomes friends with any man who isn't interesting, talented, lively and bright. She sends the others packing, she's said, to forestall boredom, and not just lovers, unless they can do something immediate for her career and books, and even if he looked the helpful type, it seemed he was having a tough enough time keeping afloat on his own. But if he was up there at that colony of theirs he must be doing something fairly interesting in whatever field his is. Did he say? Don't think so or didn't hear, but then our talk was so short. What did he speak about? Nothing to give much of a clue what he does when he isn't shooting down drinks and food and scrutinizing the calves and backsides of girls. We talked about the wedding reception I was off to. The kind of work I don't do. How long I've been at the party. That I don't like going to weddings or their receptions and he does. Mostly because he likes the accompanying food and booze? That we both thought it'd be nice to speak to the other again, but me a bit less than he and he since he first saw me, which could have been when I came in. At least I noticed him then, but not looking at me. What was he doing? I forget. But we first looked at the other when? Near the food table and bar again, when I was talking with a friend and he was with some people but seemed infinitely more interested in me. Each of us had a wineglass in hand. He stared at me I don't know how long, seconds, then looked away. Why didn't I look away first? Well, someone has to look away first, but why didn't I? Wanted I believe to give him the incentive or excuse to walk over and speak to me or meet me at the food table or some place if he was too bashful or reserved to say “How do you do?” or “Do I know you?” or “Rooty-Kazoo says kerchoo to you too” while I was with someone else. Caught him staring at me the next time I looked. He smiled, I smiled, or maybe we smiled at the same time, but now I remember I smiled first. Why? Well, why not? No, wanted to let him know the first time wasn't a mistake. Then it was my turn to look away but hoped I'd made my point and one I wouldn't make again, which was to speak to me before I leave even if I'm with someone to the end. I also couldn't just continue to smile and what expression do you make after you stop? So I had to look away, but while I was smiling. Why didn't he first? I suppose because I smiled first and he didn't want to be impolite. Besides, I was still talking to someone, while he was alone, so it was easier for him to hold his smile on me than it was for me on him. We also talked about marriage: that he'd never been and that I'd gone to my friend's wedding under false pretenses. Did I get in my pitch for the institution? Maybe my face said it, for it's how I feel. So he's been single for all of his around forty years. If he's over forty or even right on it, and he didn't seem to be doing anything not to look it, that would put him in the oh point five percentile of his sex. He's either lived a number of times with women, would be my guess, or for a while was strictly gay, but everything I quickly took in about him makes me doubt that. But just by the way he so eagerly and almost desperately followed me to the door makes me believe he's the type who gets involved with a woman too fast when it's clear to nearly everyone including the woman that he shouldn't, and suffers a great deal when it doesn't go the way he wants, which usually turns out to be the case. Therapy? Why'd I bring up that? Why even go into why, for I don't want to once more go so far off the track. But I'm sure he scorns it but seriously feels he needs it and has been told so by most of his old girlfriends the last ten years, which could be the main reason he scorns it so much. Why do I think I know? Oh, some theory I have about men his age who do relatively little to enhance their appearance and in fact do what they can, short of drawing even more attention to themselves, to detract from it, as he seemed to, that makes me think they've not only never been in therapy, which if anything would increase their self-esteem, but also repudiate therapy, because they fear the changes it would bring or are just too lazy to begin or can only think of the long-term financial cost of it, which is justifiable within means, and of course several other things. Now that's a psychological headful but what I've come to believe after knowing a number of men pretty deeply over the years, though my own therapist disagrees with my theory. What does she say? She says her male patients come in all sizes, colors, faces, ages and shapes and some wear five-hundred-dollar suits and go to beauticians twice a week for their hair and nails, and others cut their own hair with nailclippers they never think to use on their nails and bathe every third week and have never bought a sports jacket in their lives. Mothers, she's said. Some men dress like slobs because their mothers always dressed them like princes and others dress like princes because their mothers dressed them like slobs. Or some dress like slobs because their mothers always dressed them like slobs and they haven't much changed their ways and others dress like princes because when they were young their mothers dressed them like princes or they want their mothers to be drawn to them in some other than normal mother-son way or because, unprincelike and self-reliant as these men might be in every other way, their mothers still buy them their princely clothes. And women? I said. What makes them dress like princesses and slobs? and she said For all the same reasons, though substitute fathers for mothers for them, and in some in stances you can also substitute fathers for mothers for the way men dress and also mothers for fathers for the women. Anyway, I like a man better dressed than Mr. Krin and a tie would have been right for Diana's party what with he should have known would be a preponderance of properly dressed people there, and what the heck, being suitably dressed for the occasion does more for you than not I'd guess. But I'm sure he has good reasons for dressing the way he did and I suspect the overriding one is his lack of means. Still, there was something I found sensual about him too. In the eyes, and I haven't yet gone on about his smile, in that he didn't footsy around and try to reach me by phone through Diana, in that he committed himself somewhat by pursuing me into the hall and saying right out his wish to speak to me again, but I don't know or am not quite sure if sensuality and perseverance necessarily correlate. My experience, not vast but I think comprehensive with men, tells me they do, but that can't always be the case. Of course it isn't always or even very often and in fact they don't, that's all, so what am I talking about?—but that shout out the window of his, now that needs some thinking into. Really, if there was any one thing anyone I'd just met could do to make me immediately recoil from him, that shout was it. What was on his mind? I don't know. Give it a try. Impulsion, self-destruction, sudden liking, perhaps desire. Perhaps deep desire. Or he needed attention, from me on the street and perhaps the people at the party, but I don't think that was it. Then what? I give up. It probably wasn't that embarrassing to me only because I was in too much of a rush to get to the reception to think about it, but he couldn't have known that. Rush he knew but not that I couldn't think that much about his shout. Anyway, looking at it in a different light, that shout could also mean that here is a man who will suddenly, and this I usually wouldn't mind with someone I really liked, grab you on the street when you're walking with him and hug you till you almost can't breathe. Or kiss you squarely on the lips because he also suddenly feels like it—on the street or in a movie theater or even at a party filled with familiar people and that he's also a person who screams when he squirts. Who twice a year or so despite his age will lift you off the bed with him in you and walk you around the room making these crazy carnal sounds, all of which I might like, that's not the problem, but bounce you up and down in that standing-up position till you have to shout Put me down, you idiot, you'll get a heart attack or trip and we'll both be seriously hurt. Who doesn't turn away from you after—I felt that. Who in fact turns in to you after. Who wipes the sweat off your face and chest after. Who keeps a handkerchief by his bedside for each of you to wipe his own pubic area with after, though the woman first. Well, I don't see how I can say that. Who falls asleep with his arms around you after. Who when he does turn over loves it when you turn over too and press your body into his back and backside and squeeze his penis briefly and cover your toes with his and stroke and hold his thigh. Who you can talk to before and after and he'll listen and his comments about most things about you will be reasonable too. Who jokes. Who always carries a pad and pen with him which I bet he also keeps by his bedside for sudden knocked-out-of-sleep thoughts about his work but not about his life. Someone who can quote a thousand poems.
Who probably has a few interesting interests and friends. Who brings his interests and problems to his best woman friend and lets her share the interests and help solve his problems too. Forget the last, but someone I can have some fun with. Even be kind of dippy with—la la. The window incident showed that. Nuts as it was, to me it did. Let's face it, he's probably a bit lonely too. How do I know? Well, he just seemed to be. By what he said and did there and after, but I can't be expected to remember everything or so early go beyond much more than how I felt. But he came with no one, didn't seem to know anyone there but Diana, didn't seem to have the greatest success meeting anyone there but me, and even there he nearly flubbed it when he had a much better chance of meeting me than I think he knew, and I bet he also had no one to go home to in anyone's home so I bet he also wants to ultimately have a long-lasting something with someone and in the long run share an apartment and get married and have a child some day with that long-lasting someone or even sooner than that and when he does, well, this is pushing it of course, but when he does, well, by that time if things have gone as well as they can sometimes when both people are ready and available for it and what have you—when the timing's right, that old standby—I think I'd want one too. All that too. Yes, I'd really like that: living with someone, a second marriage and first child. I don't want to wait much longer. I'm at an age where I've got to begin thinking I can't afford to. That the baby can't afford to wait much longer too. No, things happen like this. This is how they really happen. You go to a party you don't especially want to and certainly don't have the time to, but you go and maybe you do actually want to but you most definitely don't have the time to, or you do have the time, maybe an hour, not much but enough to have a good time at the party or get a feel of it and what you'll miss by leaving early or what you're glad you'll miss, but you meet someone you at first don't want to, though that isn't what happened to me, and even if he does act a bit odd at first—when you first speak to him, not when you first see him—well, that can show shyness and reserve, but you're often a bit shy, reserved and nervous yourself, though you weren't when you met him, so, well so what, you meet someone briefly, you're somewhat attracted to him in a strange way you can't quite explain and you give him your phone number or let him know how to get it, all of which is normal, and you see him again for a drink or coffee and if it still feels good and goes well between you you see him again and again and then what do you know but you're in bed with him, which shouldn't come as a surprise with a man you've seen three times since you first met him and whom you've been continually and maybe even increasingly attracted to, and all that's very nice, you like to sleep with a man you like to sleep with but not one you think might just want to sleep with you once or twice, so all that's quite normal too. In fact all that is great, just great, what you want and said for a long time you've wanted. Or you even, or rather he even kisses you as he leaves the apartment the second time you see him since the party, and your apartment of course, he couldn't be leaving you in his. But he could if he was going out for something he or you or you both thought one or the other of you or you both needed—a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, a bar of soap or roll of toilet paper—but this happens as he's leaving your apartment for the night, so your apartment that second time you see him since the party, which probably was for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant—your neighborhood, his, no real difference—he picked you up at your apartment or you met him at his or some outside place like one of those neighborhood restaurants, but he escorted you home—and then he's gone, you've kissed and he's gone and you know something's happened between you but you don't know what or you do, you know what's happened but you can't quite explain what or you can and you look forward to the next time you see him which just a few minutes ago you arranged, and then almost before you know anything else the next time and which you sort of expected or knew would happen he's in bed with you and it's quick, the two of you getting into your bed or his is quick, for you invited him to your apartment for dinner or he invited you for dinner to his, so maybe you didn't finish dinner or you did and getting into bed wasn't that quick, and you drank wine with it, maybe too much wine, but you didn't have the dessert you or he bought or made or got from either of your mothers or you did, you ate everything, appetizer if you had one and main course and side dish or dishes and salad and dessert and even these little cheese or quiche things with your pre-dinner drinks, and you drank nearly everything also, hard liquor drinks before and wine with dinner and brandy after or just a bottle of wine or two before, during and after dinner if neither of you that night wanted hard drinks, and then you're kissing for the first time since the last time at your door, and holding hands and squeezing and rubbing fingers and he runs his free hand up your back or whatever he does and you run your free hand along his side or whatever you do and he says “Is it all right if we go to bed?” or you say “Why don't we just go to bed?” or “take off our clothes and go to bed?” or just “go to bed?” for it's much more exciting the first time taking off the other's clothes in bed and you do, or neither of you says anything, you just take his hand if you don't already hold it or he does that with you or you or he points a free hand or a head and you both go to your or his bed and you're in bed that third time you meet since the party and next time you see each other or even the next morning if one or the other of you stayed overnight and no reason why you or he shouldn't, since I don't like, and not many times have I been in bed with someone for any other reason, when I'm in bed with someone I really like and have to leave it early the next morning and especially after the first night or he feels he has to leave mine, but anyway—without even a brief breakfast or just toast and coffee I mean—but anyway, next time you're with him, either the next time you meet or the very next morning after you wake up together or when you're having that first breakfast, you know there are going to be some problems with the relationship, there always are, so that's no real problem, but that it's going to be a long-lasting one—how long? well, maybe, no, it's impossible to say—and a good one too. No, these things happen, they have happened, with me with my ex-husband and later with several men including my ex-husband who I thought might be my second, and I wonder if it hasn't started to happen with this man too. I suppose I should just wait and find out and if it does, of course just wait and find out, but if it does prove to have happened or just happens, simple as that, well, all to the good. So far it seems okay. I'll call Diana tomorrow or the next day if she doesn't call me, but what will I say? First of all, since she has had a number of involvements with men I never knew of till they were over with, “Just how friendly are you with this man?” No, I'll save that for later if it doesn't come out in our conversation one way or the other or she doesn't volunteer. If it comes out she's seeing him now or had been and is still a little to a lot serious about him or it isn't quite over with but is getting there and my seeing him would hurt her or compromise our friendship or complicate their breakup further or the situation between them in any way, I won't see him till that's completely over with or resolved in her mind and maybe not even after that, depending on how he acted to her if he was the one who broke it up or just in their relationship. But if none of that comes out I'll say I met a man at her party, “You know who, one at the door just before I left, and he said he'd call, hasn't yet, not that I'm worried he won't, he doesn't he doesn't and it's quite possible he had a change of mind, though it didn't seem he would, but if he does, call I mean, what can you tell me about him, I'm of course talking about Daniel Krin, and if he calls you about me I won't feel put off in the least if you keep our call just between us, though don't hesitate to tell me of his if you wish, because for the brief time I said ‘Hello, got to go,' he seemed okay.” If she says don't go near him, he's a flirt, worse, wants to slip it up every third skirt, even worse, mean and periodically very strange and even deranged, and that's not just hearsay, dear, what will I do? If I ask why she thinks he's strange and possibly deranged and mean, since being a flirt and so on about skirts could be interpreted several ways and if it's just that he likes women and sex with them more than most men, that might make him even more recommendable to me, and she gives good reasons for everything else she said, well, Diana's proven to be no liar and fool, so I'd take her word. But if it's just that he's an unreliable or moody person, for example, or occasionally acts half his age but not in an endearing way, or he's temperamental, weak, cheap, petty, insincere and so on. No backbone—haven't heard that one for a while, nor “cold as ice.” Solemn, introverted, old-maidish—flip-flops from this project to that. Finishes most of what he starts but has to know beforehand what almost everyone else seems to know afterwards that although all his works or the ones I've read or scanned, since I have only known him for a few months, are worthwhile to a degree and done competently, none are that dislodging or completing or advancing to make them important or exciting in even a tiny way. What am I saying? you could say. That he never shoots for anything monumental in the themes and authors he selects so he can at least wind up with something relatively original and big. Has brains and good intentions to spare, I'm not saying no, but also considerable self-defeatism. But, to finish up with him, since you did ask, didn't you? he sometimes lives like an indigent too, which, if you're a person like me who likes to split a check down the middle rather than feel called upon to pick it up, can put a hitch in your friendship. Not that he isn't always clean and well fed and neatly dressed, though I suspect most of his clothes, even if I've nothing to base this on except their ampleness and style, come from his late father's closets and drawers and much of his nourishment and even some of his income come from his mother, little as he's said she has to live on herself. But maybe in this day and age, and excuse me for the cliché but this is only a phone conversation, of haywire mass-consumerism, if that is the right phrase, and imagine not being able to quote a simple cliché correctly or even quasily, and don't tell me because I know I just did something not unconscionably but nonsensically wrong there neogeologically or what have you—and I honestly forgot that noun ending in ism with a hyphenless neo as its prefix for neo-words—he's to be, and I hope you're still able to follow me, congratulated and perhaps even emulated for living such a thrifty, stripped-down unupwardly mobile existence, if that last one, turned around a tad, is what they say. He does though have this awfully polished way of ticking people off who could do useful things for him if he'd only pay them the modicum of respect they think they deserve because of their professional status, pull and accomplished work, which leads me to believe he's a mite jealous of other people's success and their adeptness at living rather well off their teaching, reviewing, readings and books. But he says he's plugging along on the project of his life now, but to me it sounds like another losing calling, so maybe things will improve appreciably for him the next few years. I hope so, because despite everything I might have said about him, I like the guy, so of course wish for him the best. As for your seeing him, and I care much less than you what gets back to him if you two do ever get close enough to confide and confess, he seems the type who has one affair after the next because, and I've a good idea what the reasons are but don't think either of us has the time, he can't sustain one for very long, and I'm referring to his affairs. Or else, or perhaps in addition to, he's able to charm the pants off women at first if they don't happen to be wearing skirts, and everyone should be permitted one poor joke per long phone call, though for all I know I might have succeeded there when while I was making it I thought it was bad, but can't hold them because after a while they see straight through his delusions and the inadequacies I mentioned and know he doesn't want a stable or permanent relationship. Having one would mean he'd have to change the kind of life he's been used to for going on thirty adult years, which would put a damper or hamstring or even a diaper, and I'm sure that joke was bad, on all his excuses for the brevity of his affairs and his lack of professional success and other unhappy things. Now if you only want to go out with him once or twice because you've nothing better to do, I can't see the harm. He can be very pleasant, appealing and entertaining, but don't drag the evenings out too long. If Diana says some of that and at the end suggests I don't see him but says nothing about him being mentally ill or socially or emotionally repulsive in any unmistakable way or a devastating combination of those defects, I'll see him for a coffee or a drink. So far he seems reasonably interesting and okay. Not my ideal man in looks but not that hard to take. Besides, it'd only be for an hour or so one afternoon or night, and I also liked his smile. Maybe that more than anything, open and something else, and also his height, build and once he got over the jitters, his straightforwardness. But it's way too