Magnificent Vibration (27 page)

I now have to pay for two lawyers. One is handling the divorce that Charlotte is still adamant about and refuses to discuss any further, plus I have a different, criminal lawyer for the arrest and consequent court appearances relating to my mortifying performance at
Live at Mrs. Chang’s Improv and Dry Cleaners,
co-starring Freddy the Spouse Shagger. I am going downhill fast, folks.

Compared to the arrest, the divorce proceedings are a cakewalk. A fairly heartbreaking and bleak cakewalk, but there is nothing that compares with being ensnared in the criminal justice system. I wish I’d read
my horoscope for those two days; I could have skipped a lot of this and just stayed in bed. Maybe.

The divorce is cut (my throat) and dried (my carcass), and then I spend what little money I end up with on the two lawyers. I now have fines to pay as well as AA meetings to attend, and my criminal attorney tells me that I’m lucky to have avoided prison time. I tell him my idea of lucky is winning a gazillion dollars on a five-cent slot machine in Las Vegas while a twenty-year-old hooker hangs off each of my arms and Siegfried and Roy and their white tigers guard my winnings in their penthouse at the top of Caesar’s fucking Palace. My legal counsel doesn’t even begin to crack a smile. And I’m pretty sure he says that thing about the prison time I just missed out on to scare me into forking over the exorbitant fee he’s charging me without complaining.

I decide (actually I’m ordered by the court) not to contact any of Charlotte’s hedonistic, sybaritic Twitter lovers, and thankfully the mass mailing I did of everyone’s skin-flutes is not brought up in either the divorce case or the drunk-in-public arrest. I think each recipient was shocked into submission and didn’t want it publicly known that he had posted in-the-cold-light-of-day fairly unflattering photos of his imperfect and moderately endowed self to a married woman whose crazy husband might be tossing lawsuits at any Tom, Dick, or Dick who might have exposed his genitals in this very public forum.

I go into a serious funk once I am alone and the lawyers and the judges and the D.A. and the police and the AA folks are all done with me. I move my meager possessions into the Divorcés’ Domicile for Deadbeats. The only photo I take with me from our home is of Murray, smiling with his whole face. I put it by my new bed along with Josie’s ashes. Depression lands like a dark angel on the footboard and takes up residence. I begin to think about dying. Really soon. Then I steal a book.

I
can’t even understand what she’s saying, so convulsive is her sobbing on the other end of the line.

“Alice? What the hell?” I’ve always been good with words of comfort in time of need.

“Can . . . (sob) . . . you . . . (sob) . . . come . . . (sob) . . . over?” she finally manages. I can get no more from her but these few choked words.

“I’ll be right there,” I say and am already mentally in the powerful but neutral-colored Kia and on my way. Woody steps on the gas. “Down, boy!”

I drive as fast as the Hamster allows, watching out for cops because a speeding ticket would definitely be counterproductive right now. I’m stressing as I drive, so out-of-the-blue and desperate-sounding was her call. I begin to fear that Merikh is somehow involved. Could he have found out where Alice lives? He apparently had no problem locating me. I berate myself for not keeping a more watchful eye on her, for even letting her go off by herself. None of us knows what pretty-boy Merikh’s intentions are, but they seem to be counter to anything regarding our safety and well-being. I think about calling 911 as I speed on. Maybe the police should meet me at Alice’s apartment, just in case. I open my cell and begin dialing her number instead, looking back and forth from the traffic to the fricking teeny-tiny goddamn numbers on this ridiculously small phone, cognizant of my promise never to use it again while driving after the near-death experience at the Intersection of Idiots. But this could be an emergency. Her line rings and rings and then goes to voice-mail. I don’t even have the mild comfort of hearing her recorded voice on the outgoing
message. In fact, it sounds like that same smarmy chick that I think called me an “asshole” when I tried redialing Arthur back, the very first night. I’m sweating with anxiety thinking of all the possible scenarios that could be unfolding at Alice’s apartment, and when I arrive, I sprint like Usain Bolt for her door. I knock loudly and call her name.

The front door finally swings open and she collapses into my arms. She is a mess, but alive, and she doesn’t seem to be physically injured. And I’m thinking, “Thank God. Oh, thank God she’s not hurt.”

“My girl is dead,” she weeps into my neck as I hold her.

I wait, while she clings to me, for her to continue but she does not, cannot, so hard is she crying.

“Who? What girl?” I’m trying to play catch-up.

“Genevieve killed herself last night,” is the unexpected reply.

And I have to ask, “Who’s Genevieve?” but she can’t answer. The name alone brings wracking sobs from her core, so deep that I can feel them as they roll in waves up through her body, and I think, “
I’m
the one she called in her darkest hour?”

I wait patiently for her brokenhearted wailing to ease enough so she is able to speak. I make her tea, rub her back, and tell her I am here for her, whatever she needs—and honestly, I mean it. I would kill for her. Something in this woman brings out the protector, the sword and shield; the guardian that I knew was inside me all this time, although neither Charlotte’s deceit nor Ned the Head’s casual attitude toward destroying my marriage had this effect. It seems as though every step we have taken, Alice and I, has brought us closer and closer, and she has just allowed me in one step farther.

Finally, as we sit cross-legged on the floor together, she reveals the source of her pain. She begins, through her tears, a box of almost empty tissues in her lap: “Genevieve was a novice like me. She was
from a wealthy family in Brussels who’d collectively agreed that she would join a convent as soon as she came of age. By the time we met, she was already twenty-one and had been a postulant for three years. I was in my fourth year, and we were both several years away from taking our final vows.”

Alice takes a breath and looks at me with puffy eyes. Is she gauging me? “I’m here,” I listen to myself say, and it has so much meaning as I utter it that I know she feels the truth in my words. She smiles at me weakly through her pain and continues.

“We both were young, insecure, each with our own doubts and fears, unsure of our vocation. The older sisters around us mothered us, chastised us, helped us and hindered us. Then we found each other. And in our uncertainty and loneliness, we fell in love . . . and became lovers.”

I inhale audibly. She looks at me as if I am judging, but I am most definitely not. “You think that’s wrong?” she questions. There is a deep hurt in her eyes. I am holding my breath. I can’t speak. All I can do is shake my head “no.”

“We both knew it was against our commitment to our celibacy and everything the Catholic sisterhood stood for, but it was so . . . natural . . . felt so normal. We both needed to be loved and although we came from totally different backgrounds, we’d both missed out on any kind of warmth and affection. Never experienced it . . .”

I find my voice and interrupt, eager to explain myself. It’s my turn to reveal my past.

“No. No, I don’t think it’s wrong at all. I would never judge you like that,” I fumble, trying to guide Woody to his happy place.

“But that sound you made. It sounded like a judgment,” she challenges.

I take a very deep breath and then proceed to lay out my obsession with the female of the species and the whole, odd tie to organized religion. I tell her in the most basic of terms, as though Woody himself had the floor. I even mention my young self being turned on by a vibrant and youthful Julie Andrews in the musical
The Sound of Religious Hotness.
She actually smiles wanly at this. I feel like I have given her a moment away from her pain. And, for the life of me, I have never been more articulate.

“Forgive me for being insensitive when you’re in this much pain, but it just . . . hit me where I live. It was the forbidden, sexual-fantasy aspect of your confession that kind of caught me off-guard. I’m sorry; it was totally inappropriate, but also completely involuntary. There was no criticism or condemnation in what you heard. I’m telling you the truth, at the expense of you now seeing me as some creepy weirdo with a giant hole in his marble bag, but I would never want you to think I thought any less of you about . . . anything. I lo—” I stop myself from saying the “L” word, just in time. That’s something I could never take back, and it would change the whole dynamic of whatever is happening with us all in this strange moment in time. Sitting on the floor of her apartment, she leans in and hugs me. I hug her back.

With her head on my shoulder she whispers: “Genevieve jumped from her fourth-floor window last night and died while I was sleeping.” Again a shudder runs through her and she weeps breathlessly.

“She’d talked about doing something like this. She was so unhappy, I know, but she believed if God wanted her to live, and she jumped, He would catch her.” She breaks down again and begins to cry anew.

I could have told her that God would not catch her.

I hug her, trying to make it feel as platonic as I possibly can.

“I really don’t want to be alone tonight. Will you stay with me?” She asks the question so tenderly and with such intense vulnerability in her voice that I understand there are no sexual undertones (damnit) in her request. I would never try to take advantage of this situation anyway, as much as I would love to, and although Woody is ready to kick my ass for being such a mensch, he can just suck it up. Plus now, after her sad confession, I’m not sure which team she’s batting for. It adds another level of intrigue to this fascinating girl/woman and, yes, an added layer of sexuality, as if she needs it! Christ on a crutch! I am waist-deep in the waters of the unknown.

I have a brief mental picture of Murray crossing his legs by the front door of my bachelor pad, but I think he can handle it for one night. I did have the good fortune to take him out “walkies” before Alice’s emotional phone call came in, and he promptly got in a brief scuffle with a Chow, before he eventually did “get busy,” as Charlotte insisted we euphemistically call his peeing-and-pooping ritual, so I think he’s good for the night. If not, there’s always Formula 409. Hey, it’s not
my
house.

Ever the gentleman, I choose the outer sheet to lie on top of, giving Alice some personal space and myself a set of bright and shiny blue balls by three a.m., but it is the right thing to do and I think she feels safer and more comfortable to hug me when she has the need if there is a “modesty barrier” between us. And she does cuddle in, often, through the night as she cries and sniffles. I on the other hand wake up at one point to find with some mortification that I am humping my pillow in my sleep. I hope that Alice is dozing and didn’t pick up on the rhythm I was unconsciously laying down. It is a familiar beat! I’m sure in my dream she was supposed to be the pillow, but I am so embarrassed that I toss it to the floor and try sleeping without it.

When the morning finally arrives, neither of us is particularly well rested. From all her crying, Alice’s eyes look like she’s gone a few rounds with Junior dos Santos. (Sorry, that’s a guy thing. He’s a champion UFC fighter.) I limp to the bathroom, trying my best to hide my painful testicles. (Again, a guy thing. Google “blue balls.”)

“Are you hurt?” asks Alice, seeing me hobbling slightly.

“No, I’m good. I think I pulled something,” I answer euphemistically.

The long night of mourning seems to have settled her pain a little, and I’m glad for that and for whatever small comfort I’ve offered. I look at her over the tea she has just brewed. With her puffy eyes, red nose, and tangled hair, she is still beyond beautiful and SO hot to me. I realize I am in love with this woman. Completely and fully in love, and will go to the ends of the earth with her if that is where she needs me to go.

“Thank you, Bobby,” she says softly, as if reading my mind.

Why I’m not sure, but it comes out of my mouth before I can weigh the reasons: “Call me Tio.”

“Tio?”

“It’s my real name. Well, part of my real name. My name is actually Horatio.”

This is the first time I’ve told another human being my ball-sucking birth name since I was ten years old.

She stifles a laugh, which under the circumstances, I am glad to hear.

“Horatio? Really?” she asks.

“Really,” I answer.

“Okay. Tio it is,” she replies with a soft smile.

One step closer.

“If you’re good, I should get home and let Murray out.”

“You got Murray back?”

“Yeah, it just kind of happened. I have to find someone to watch him while we’re away. I’m hoping maybe Doug will do it.”

She kisses my cheek at the door, and I use the willpower of Saint Jerome not to turn my head and kiss her full on her lips. I smile like a goofus and run like a rabbit.

Poor Murray has indeed embarrassed himself and I step in it, so close to the inside of the front door is his little pile of poop, as I enter. He looks chagrined.

“Sorry, Murray. It’s okay, no big deal. When you gotta go you gotta go, buddy,” and other phrases I hope will ease his ignominy.

“Come on, Mur, let’s ‘get busy,’ ” I shout, hoping to distract him from his self-imposed mortification. He jumps all over me as I get his leash, so happy is he that I’m okay with wearing his crap on my shoes.

“We’ll clean that up later, dude. Don’t worry,” and we sneak out into the Great Wide Open so he can sniff the many fine deposits left by earlier dogs.

Murray is a happy boy. Maybe he got blamed for his mistakes in his “other home.” It’s all good.

“You’re here now, Mur-mur,” I say as I rub his squishy head and slap his haunches playfully, and he leaps up on me with a slobbery smile. We are buds, he and I. He sniffs the grass in front of the Lodging House for Losers and is obviously looking for the perfect spot to pee on. The grass must be just right, the scent ideal, no one looking, and zero distractions, or urine will not flow. He does like to take his time. I think dogs enjoy the whole preamble to peeing as much as the act itself. He is getting ready to squat, I can tell by the moves. Yes,
Murray, my “boy” dog squats like a girl. Must be something to do with the loss of the valuable “twins” that make his sad, shriveled scrotum look like an old lady’s wrinkled empty leather coin purse. Suddenly his head shoots up. Something has caught the attention of the two billion olfactory receptors in his prodigious sniffer: a nose that is approximately one hundred thousand times more sensitive than mine. Across the street, a squirrel is frozen in place, hoping he doesn’t get ID’d by the big red mutt with the amazing nasal aptitude. I smile at the funny animal tableau, Murray staring, front leg raised as though he’s some kind of professional hunting dog (which he most certainly is not) and the squirrel, eyes unblinking, pretending to be a small gray rock. I take a step away to move him along when Murray suddenly launches for the rodent and yanks the leash out of my hands. He’s halfway across the street before I can even yell for him to stop.