Inappropriate Behavior: Stories (7 page)

I felt a hand on the back of my neck, strong and sure, rubbing the soreness out, comforting, loving, and I knew it was Schmelling, and for a time, that was all I could think: Schmelling, Schmelling, Schmelling! All of my worries and regrets and doubts and fears, about my job, about my father, about Marcie, faded away. And I loved him, and I looked up into his face and I knew that he loved me. I put my arms around him, and we rolled our chairs together into a grasp, an embrace, a bond I knew would last as long as life, or at least until retirement age, or, who knows, maybe for all eternity.

L
UBBDCK
I
S
N
OT A
P
LACE OF THE
S
PIRIT

I have thought on numerous occasions that the best thing to do about Clive is to kill him and then bury him out in the desert somewhere. Clive is problematic because he knows the following things that I wish he did not know:

           
1.
   
Allison is not really my girlfriend.

           
2.
   
I've been telling my family that Allison is my girlfriend.

           
3.
   
I have a series of pencil drawings of Allison in various poses.

           
4.
   
I have written a series of love songs to Jodie Foster.

Clive knows the last of these four things because one night I shared a small number of these songs with Clive, and he pretended to listen intently and honestly, only later to claim he would turn my songs over to the police. He knows about the third thing because when I'm out at class and he's sitting in the apartment supposedly writing a treatise about human consumption of natural resources, he instead spends his time going through my possessions. He knows about the second thing because one time I was on the phone talking to the man who claims to be my father—whose corpse is lately on my mind—and Clive heard me tell him that Allison is my girlfriend. He knows about the first thing because one time I was on the phone, pretending to talk to Allison, and Clive sneaked up on me and snatched the phone away and heard the dial tone. And then he sent me to the liquor
store, because he is a bully of the intellectual and spiritual type, and he inspireth not.

Clive says my brother called three times and where the hell have I been? He needs skim milk and a carton of Marlboros.

I have been to the following places:

           
1.
   
English class, had the following experience after English class:

Teacher: It's John, right?

Me: It's John.

Teacher: Where have you been?

           
2.
   
The Golden Galleon, where I ate one-half of one-half of a Raiderburger with cheese. Left when I began imagining the hot globules of deep-fried fat pocking the pink skin of an infant.

           
3.
   
The filling station.

           
4.
   
The grounds outside Knapp Hall, where Allison lives.

Call your brother, says Clive.

This is the fourth day in a row that I have been unable to have a bowel movement.

Clive says—Your brother called again today. Clive rarely leaves the apartment and never watches television, but today when I come home Clive is watching President Carter on television, talking about the economic crisis. Usually, when I want to watch television, Clive groans. Clive subscribes to at least fourteen different magazines, nine of which I pay for. I own a Gibson guitar.

Song for Jodie #143 (a ballad)

I wouldn't have you on the streets, my little one———

I wouldn't have you out there on the streets

The nights I'd have you in between the sheets, my little one———

And rub the temples on your lovely head

Today in English class the teacher taught a poem called “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” by Christopher Marlowe. He also said that Christopher Marlowe was a spy who was killed in a tavern brawl. He also returned a test I did not take. I think Allison did well—she seemed pleased, and smiled a half smile, the bottom corner of one top tooth showing.
Fetching
is a word I'd like to use to describe it.

Today I'm at home when my brother calls. Clive says—You get it, dammit. My brother says—How's school going have you talked to Mom and Dad lately how's Allison?

Look, I've got some work for you, my brother says.

I've got something I need you to do and you need something to do, he says.

A job would be good for you right now, I think, in a lot of ways, he says.

I'm running this guy's campaign for the House of Representatives, and I want you to come work for us, he says.

I just want to work long hours, I tell him.

No problem, he says.

Clive distinctly remembers giving me a check for his half of the rent. Today I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom. I had the need to move my bowels, I felt the pressure, but when I sat down, nothing occurred. I strained. I stopped straining and rubbed my lower back, in the kidney regions, for quite some time, which is a technique. I tried straining while standing up to produce something, a beginning, some breach, some peeking of a head. After twenty minutes I managed to produce one small rock of feces, brown and cracked and cakey.

More than two hundred thousand Americans, mostly men, die on toilets every year.

I want a job where I have to work long hours. I can't sleep nights. Allison was out tonight, with that little slut roommate of hers. They were out until nearly two in the morning.