Holy Water (6 page)

Giffler puts up his hands.
“
Here
’
s what I
’
m gonna do. Take the rest of the day off. Go home and talk it over with Raquel.
”

“
Rachel.
”

“
Take tomorrow too if you
’
d like. I
’
ll give you two days to come to a decision. And you know why?
”

“
Because you love me like a son.
”

“
Bingo!
”
A blade of light slices the darkness, then vanishes as Giffler closes the door.

~ * ~

Henry stares at his reflection, his face ghosted over the scene on the other side. On the far right a body wobbles, crumples to the ground. As two other participants grab the woman under her arms and try to lift her off the Oven floor, the moderator flails with both hands up at the projection booth. At first Henry thinks it
’
s to call for an ambulance or to tell someone to lower the heat. But when he sees the moderator draw her fingers across her neck, he realizes that she
’
s telling them to kill the camera.

~ * ~

NPB

Henry
’
s phone is vibrating in his pants. Rachel, making her presence felt.

She knows that he had the focus group and that, according to Henry, the cell phone is off-limits in focus groups, so he doesn
’
t pick up, even though he
’
s no longer in the focus group, even though he
’
s no longer at work. He doesn
’
t know how the phone got back into his pants. He remembers stashing it in his briefcase but has no recollection of taking it back out, returning it to his pocket. Does it have a homing device? Some kind of boomerang function?

Walking down Park toward Thirty-third, he checks his watch and figures he
’
s got an hour, maybe two, before he absolutely has to get back to her, and by his calculations, if he gets it right, he can call when she
’
ll be unavailable in a videoconference with clients.

Not long ago he
’
d have been the one calling Rachel. Seeking her counsel, telling her everything. Not long ago, if he
’
d gotten a chance to scoot home early, regardless of the reason—promotion, transfer, early dismissal—he
’
d have pounced on it. He
’
d have picked up a bottle of cab and some Jarlsberg and Amy
’
s Bread and told Rachel to finish up early to meet him. But now going home early is the last thing that he wants to do, because Rachel, a respected independent Internet security consultant, very much in demand, works out of the house, and rare is the day, no matter what the hour, that
she
’
s not home when Henry walks through the door. Before they moved out of the city he used to say he
’
d go crazy if he had to spend so much
time in the suburbs, no matter how interesting the work. But now she assures him that she
’
s living a dream, telecommuting, videoconferencing with Kuala Lumpur in her slippers and cloud
pj
’
s
, doing every preposterous thing the tech commercials promised, all the dreams they assigned us to live. And now, of course, the irony or coincidence is that she
’
s the one who
’
s going crazy and living a lie, not a dream.

One option would be to go to a bar and drink himself silly, but he isn
’
t much of a drinker, and when he
’
s stressed alcohol hits him in the worst way. So, with his phone again vibrating in his pocket, he
’
s heading toward the gym, and he is listening to
“
Novocaine for the Soul
”
by the Eels.

The clientele in the gym at eleven a.m. is quite different from what you
’
d see at, say, six a.m., or six p.m. These aren
’
t the sweat-soaked type As grinding out Thing One on the day
’
s to-do list before heading to work. These aren
’
t the lean and jovial early risers, with notebooks and heart monitors and bottles filled with secret concoctions. At eleven a.m. the gym is almost empty.

The young woman at the front desk doesn
’
t look up when he swipes his membership card, or when he waves or says good morning. Eighties monster rock is the sound track for those who dare exercise without iPods. Journey, Henry thinks, but he can
’
t be sure. En route to the locker room he checks out the free-weight area. Two unemployed bodybuilders are doing dead lifts in the far corner. Near the dumbbell rack a Jack
LaLanne
—like seventy-five-year-old man in a purple-and-white-striped
unitard
is doing preacher curls, ogling his blood-engorged biceps at the peak of each four-count rep, mocking age, gravity, and the spirit of all things weak and flabby. In the empty yoga studio a
Botoxed
,
liposucked
, and tummy-tucked fifty-year-old woman is practicing spin kicks targeted at, Henry thinks, the testicles of imaginary men. The ghosts of husbands past, present, and yet to come.

He stands naked before the mirror in the empty locker room, appraising his enigmatic body. Arms and shoulders still defined, still strong at thirty-two, despite some seven years at a desk job, ten since he last played third base, in college. Legs lean and muscled, but less so since he stopped mountain biking. But his abs, or more
specifically the belly that covers them, are something in which he can take less pride. Not fat, but loose, settling in a roll on his hips, rounding out beneath his navel.

On other days, when he looked at his belly he thought of defibrillators and fat-clogged arteries in waiting, of corpulent bodies sprouting tubes in ICUs. He felt a certain age creeping in and another slipping away.

But today his wistfulness is focused on his testicles. Almost six weeks since they were shaved in preparation for surgery, three since the last of the
prescribed icings. They
’
re once again covered with fine brown hair, once again looking very much like Henry Tuhoe
’
s testicles of old
. Yet despite this superficial r
eturn to testicular form, Henry feels a rumbling churn in his lower abdomen just thinking about them, a knifing pain in the top of his skull just looking at them. And when he lets his left hand drop to touch them, to gently tumble them like Queeg
’
s steel balls, he feels as if he
’
s holding not a surgically altered reproductive organ but two tiny bombs planted by terrorists of the self, waiting to blow his life apart.

Not Journey. Foreigner:
“
I Want to Know What Love Is.
”

When he looks back up, balls still in hand, Henry sees the reflection of the old muscle man in the purple-and-white
unitard
staring at him with a disgusted look on his face.

~ * ~

“
Five, six, seven, eight.
”

Henry is on his back on the bench press, listening to the voice of
Norman, his personal trainer. But he
’
s not lifting anything. Hasn
’
t
since the count of two. The bar sits racked above his head; his
breaths are silent and regular, not the breaths of someone working
hard.

“
Nice job, Henry. Really excellent,
”
says Norman, who agreed
to see Henry on short notice because he had nothing better to do.

“
Really?
”

“
Yeah. You
’
re making real progress.
”

“
What if I told you I didn
’
t do a rep after two?
”

“
I
’
d be shocked and offended, Henry. I
’
d consider it a breach of
an understood trust. One more set, then we
’
ll do some, what? Some
incline.
”
Henry pumps out a set of twelve reps. When he sits up, he sees that Norman is staring across the gym at an unoccupied hack squat machine, and that he is crying.

At first he tries to ignore it, to pretend he hasn
’
t noticed that his personal trainer, the man he pays $30 an hour to get him energized, motivated, and physically transformed, is crying. Again. He
’
s also trying to ignore the fact that Norman is wearing street clothes: black polyester slacks, an untucked black button-down shirt covered with yellow daisies, and flip-flops that have a bottle opener built into the sole. But Norman
’
s sobbing now, and Henry
’
s afraid if he doesn
’
t at least acknowledge this, things may escalate
to a genuine scene, a spectacle, and the last thing he wants is to attract the attention of the disgusted old
musclehead
and the kickboxing man-hater.

“
Norm?
”

“
Yeah. Give me a second. You did great. That an NPB?
”

“
Norm?
”

“
A new personal best?
”

“
Christ, Norman. I don
’
t know. Why are you crying?
”

“
Just some tough times, Henry, man. I just feel sometimes kind of down, you know?
”

“
Is it because you
’
re, you know, taking downers again?
”

Norman scratches the dry, thinning hair of his scalp, which looks like it needs a good scratching.
“
Painkillers. Not downers. Percocet. Mostly they help a lot, but sometimes even though the physical pain subsides the mental anguish lingers, and sometimes, I guess, comes up and devastates my ass, mentally.
”

“
Uh-huh.
”

“
Hey, did you see my latest film?
”
Norman is talking about the latest of many short films he has shot and posted on YouTube and several of other aggregate, viral video sites.

Henry has seen it—a four-minute, genre-defying video featuring an inferno of spider monkeys, icebergs calving in reverse, the poetry of Billy Collins, and a mock German techno track that he couldn
’
t get out of his head for days—but he tells Norman no, he has not had the chance.

“
Well, check it out when you get home and vote, vote, vote! If I want to get a development deal, I need to show I have a following. I
told you I talked to that ex-client of mine with the friend who knows that documentary guy, the child prostitute guy?
”

“
Yeah. You
’
ve been taking these, um, painkillers for what? Six months at least, right?
”

“
This time around? Sure. About that. Okay. Let
’
s keep it moving while we talk, Henry. Let
’
s keep the energy positive.
”

While they set up the incline bar, Henry stops and turns to Norman. He
’
s holding a forty-five-pound plate.
“
I don
’
t know what to tell you, Norman. I mean, you know you can
’
t do this. You know you have to quit. And Percocet, you can
’
t just do cold turkey. You need some kind of help.
”

“
How are you set for protein powder these days?
”