Naked (29 page)

When I told him I didn’t have it, he closed his eyes and let out an impatient sigh, the sort you deliver the moment you decide
someone needs to learn a lesson.

I pulled out my wallet, “Look, see for yourself. I spent my last five dollars on lunch.” It’s always nice when, by some freak
of nature, you can rely upon the truth to get you out of an uncomfortable situation. There was a checkbook in my knapsack,
but in terms of cash, my wallet held nothing but an outdated school ID, my library card, and the telephone numbers of people
I could no longer recall.

“Well, I need twenty dollars,” he said. “That’s just the way it is. I need it.”

“Maybe you can wait until Uta gets back, and she’ll let you work for a few hours.”

He looked at me as though I’d suggested he pan for gold in the gutter.

“OK, maybe you could borrow the money from your girl-friend,” I offered.

“Right,” he said. “My girlfriend. You’re real quick, aren’t you. I guess I’d forgotten just how smart you really are.” His
voice had a hard, bitter edge to it. “You’re just as sharp as a fucking ice pick, aren’t you.” He paced the room. “Sharp as
a jackknife, aren’t you, Boy Scout.”

I looked in the mirror and watched as he picked Uta’s purse off the window ledge. “That’s Uta’s,” I said. “Maybe you should
talk with her before opening it because, well, it’s hers and you know how she is about her things.”

This was about as forceful as I get. Were America’s safety in my hands, we would all be wearing burlap sacks, polishing the
boots of any invader capable of pronouncing the word
boo.

Dupont found her wallet and removed three twenties, a five, and two singles. He arranged the bills into a flaccid fan and
waved them before his face, as if the tiny breeze were all he had intended them for. Then he folded the money, placed it in
his pocket, and walked out the door.

I left shortly afterward, mounting my bi-cycle and riding toward the bank for three twenties, a five, and two singles. Uta
was the type of person who knew exactly how much she had riding in her wallet. She kept lists of withdrawals and carefully
tabulated all her receipts. “Can you believe I spent seventeen dollars at the Osco? And for what? One tiny bag I walked out
with.” She would certainly notice that her money was missing. I couldn’t tell her that Dupont had taken it, as she would have
yelled, “You let him into this apartment? And then what, he rifles through my pocketbook and you didn’t think to stop him?
You just let him take my money and waltz out the door?”

I would have felt the same way had I been her. If I’d told her that Dupont had stolen the money, she probably would have called
the police and I’d have had to go through the entire conversation again. “And you
let
him take the money?” the officer would ask. Had the case gone to court,
I
would have been the one to run into Dupont late some night after he’d served his thirty days or whatever the going rate is
for petty larceny.

Neither could I have lied, telling Uta that I’d left for some small errand and neglected to lock the door behind me. “You
did
what
? Why not just roll out a red carpet and hang up a sign inviting every crook in Chicago to come on in and rob me blind? That
sixty-five dollars is coming out of
your
pay-check, mister.” And again, that would have been my reaction, too, were I an aggressive or forthright person. Instead,
I am not, and because of that, I felt a real hatred, not for Dupont or Uta, but for myself for being so weak and cowardly
with the both of them. They had presented themselves, each in their own way, and it was always my option to draw some sort
of a line, to voice my opinion or defend myself; to be brave or be frank or just
be
something. It had nothing to do with changing people — forget that, on a good day you’re lucky if you can talk someone into
changing his socks. Neither could I tell myself that this was strictly job-related behavior. My spine retains this buttery
consistency with or without a pay-check. Unlike other people I have known, my silence will never be interpreted as wisdom.
It is my chattering teeth that give me away every time.

Uta and Briggs were back at it by the time I returned. “Say, David, we’ve got a little wager going here. Who won the pennant
back in fifty-seven?”

I told Briggs I had no earthly idea.

“I still say it was the Oreos,” Uta shouted.

“The Oreos, listen to this one!” Briggs rolled her eyes and squatted to pry open the new can of polyurethane.

I waited until it was time to leave. The women were in the other room changing out of their work clothes, and I crept over
to replace Uta’s money, feeling more anxious than I would have if I were stealing it. Opening her pocketbook, I thought of
how unfair it was that, of all the involved parties, I was the one who would have to pay. Dupont knew that I wouldn’t have
stopped him or told on him. Uta had a half dozen rental properties and a thick portfolio of stocks under her belt. They were
having a ball, never questioning their actions or the things that they said. What made them so sure of themselves and why
couldn’t I feel the same way? I told myself that as opposed to them, I had a conscience, but the moment I thought it, I knew
it was a lie. Had it been a sense of goodness that motivated me, I would have thought nothing of it. Instead, this was a soft
and flabby cowardice that had assumed the shape of virtue.

She was in her stocking feet, and wallet open, radio blaring, I didn’t hear Uta coming up behind me. “What is it you’re doing
in my purse?” she asked. “What, I don’t pay you enough, is that it?” She cupped her hands to her mouth, “Hey, Briggs, get
in here. I just caught our friend going through my wallet.”

The air rushed out of the room, through the open windows and the cracks beneath the door, leaving, in its wake, a vacuum.
“So tell me about it, friend. Just what exactly is it you’re looking for?”

The mind plays tricks on the memory. Time is skewed to benefit convenience. Events are compressed for greater efficiency or
expanded to accommodate a false sense of triumph. This being the case, it’s hard to say exactly, but it seems to me that I
spent close to fifteen thousand years standing stock-still in that exact same spot, searching for an answer to her question.

The moment I realized I would be a homosexual for the rest of my life, I forced my brother and sisters to sign a contract
swearing they’d never get married. There was a clause allowing them to live with anyone of their choice, just so long as they
never made it official.

“What about children?” my sister Gretchen asked, slipping a tab of acid under her tongue. “Can I
not
marry and still have a baby?”

I imagined the child, his fifteen hands batting at the mobile hanging over the crib. “Sure, you can still have kids. Now just
pick up your eyebrow pencil and sign on the dotted line.”

My fear was that, once married, my sisters would turn their backs on the family, choosing to spend their vacations and holidays
with their husbands. One by one they would abandon us until it was just me and my parents, eating our turkey and stuffing
off TV trays. It wasn’t difficult getting the signatures. The girls in my family didn’t play house, they played reformatory.
They might one day have a relationship — if it happened, it happened; but they saw no reason to get bent out of shape about
it. My father thought otherwise. He saw marriage as their best possible vocation, something they should train for and visualize
as a goal. One of my sisters would be stooped before the open refrigerator, dressed in a bathing suit, and my father would
weigh her with his eyes. “It looks like you’ve gained a few pounds,” he’d say. “Keep that up and you’ll never find a husband.”
Find.
He said it as though men were exotic mushrooms growing in the forest and it took a keen eye to spot one.

“Don’t listen to him,” I’d say. “I think the weight looks good on you. Here, have another bowl of potato chips.”

Marriage meant a great deal to our neighbors, and we saw that as another good reason to avoid it. “Well, we finally got Kim
married off.” This was always said with such a sense of relief, you’d think the Kim in question was not a twenty-year-old
girl but the last remaining puppy of an unwanted litter. Our mother couldn’t make it to the grocery store and back without
having to examine wallet-size photos of someone’s dribbling, popeyed grandbaby.

“Now
that’s
different,” she’d say. “A living baby. All my grandchildren have been ground up for fertilizer or whatever it is they do with
the aborted fetuses. It puts them under my feet but keeps them out of my hair, which is just the way I like it. Here’s your
picture back. You tell that daughter of yours to keep up the good work.”

Unlike our father, it pleased her that none of her children had reproduced. She used the fact as part of a routine she delivered
on a regular basis. “Six children and none of them are married. I’ve taken the money we saved on the weddings and am using
it to build my daughters a whorehouse.”

After living with her boyfriend, Bob, for close to ten years, my sister Lisa nullified our contract when she agreed to marry
him. Adding insult to injury, they decided the wedding would take place not at a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas but on
a mountaintop in western North Carolina.

“That’s nice,” my mother said. “Now all I need is a pair of navy blue hiking boots to match my new dress and I’ll be all set.”

The first time I met my future brother-in-law, he was visiting my parents’ home and had his head deep in the oven. I walked
into the kitchen and, mistaking him for one of my sisters, grabbed his plump, denim-clad bottom and proceeded to knead it
with both hands. He panicked, smacking his head against the oven’s crusty ceiling. “Oh, golly,” I said, “I’m sorry. I thought
you were Lisa.”

It was the truth, but for whatever reason, it failed to comfort him. At the time Bob was working as a gravedigger, a career
choice that suggested a refreshing lack of ambition. These were not fresh graves, but old ones, slotted for relocation in
order to make room for a new highway or shopping center. “How are you going to support my daughter on that?” my father asked.

“Oh, Lou,” my mother said, “nobody’s asking him to support anyone; they’re just sleeping together. Let him be.”

We liked Bob because he was both different and unapologetic. “You take a day-old pork chop, stab it with a fork, and soak
it in some vinegar and you’ve got yourself some good eatin’,” he’d say, fingering the feathery tip of his waist-length braid.
Because of his upbringing and countless allergies, Bob’s apartment was a testament to order and cleanliness. We figured that
someone who carefully sham-pooed the lining of his work boots might briefly date our sister but would never go so far as to
marry her. Lisa couldn’t be trained to scoot the food scraps off her soiled sheets, much less shake out the blanket and actually
make the bed. I underestimated both his will and his patience. They had lived together for close to three years when I dropped
by unannounced and found my sister standing at the sink with a sponge in one hand and a plate in the other. She still hadn’t
realized the all-important role of detergent, but she was learning. Bob eventually cut his hair and returned to college, abandoning
his shovel for a career in corporate real estate. He was a likable guy; it was the marrying part that got to me. “My sister’s
wedding” was right up there with “my recent colostomy” in terms of three-word phrases I hoped never to use.

Three weeks before the wedding, my mother called to say she had cancer. She’d gone to a doctor complaining about a ringing
in her ear, and the resulting tests revealed a substantial tumor in her lung. “They tell me it’s the size of a lemon,” she
said. “Not a tiny fist or an egg, but a lemon. I think they describe it in terms of fruit so as not to scare you, but come
on, who wants a lemon in their lung? They’re hoping to catch it before it becomes a peach or a grapefruit, but who knows?
I sure as hell don’t. Twenty-odd tests and they still haven’t figured out what’s wrong with my ear. I’m just hoping that whatever
it is, it isn’t much larger than a grape. This cancer, though, I realize it’s my own fault. I’m just sorry your father’s still
around to remind me of that fact every fifteen god-damned seconds.”

My sister Amy was with me when my mother called. We passed the phone back and forth across my tiny New York kitchen and then
spent the rest of the evening lying in bed, trying to convince each other that our mother would get better but never quite
believing it. I’d heard of people who had survived cancer, but most of them claimed to get through it with the aid of whole
grains and spiritual publications that encouraged them to sit quietly in a lotus position. They envisioned their tumors and
tried to reason with them. Our mother was not the type to greet the dawn or cook with oats and barley. She didn’t reason,
she threatened; and if that didn’t work, she chose to ignore the problem. We couldn’t picture her joining a support group
or trotting through the mall in a warm-up suit. Sixty-two years old and none of us had ever seen her in a pair of slacks.
I’m not certain why, but it seemed to me that a person needed a pair of pants in order to defeat cancer. Just as important,
they needed a plan. They needed to accept the idea of a new and different future, free of crowded ashtrays and five-gallon
jugs of wine and scotch. They needed to believe that such a life might be worth living. I didn’t know that I’d be able to
embrace such an unrewarding future, but I hoped that she could. My brother, sisters, and I undertook a campaign to bolster
her spirits and suggest new and exciting hobbies she might explore once she was cured and back on her feet.

“It’ll be great,” I said. “You could, I don’t know, maybe you could learn to pilot small planes or volunteer to hold crack
babies. There are a lot of things an older person can do with her time rather than smoke and drink.”