Nude Men (13 page)

“I don’t think so.”

“I
know
you don’t. That sole quality makes up a hundred times for all your other weaknesses combined.”

“Thank you.” That’s got to be the nicest thing my mom has said to me in years.

I glance back. To my great embarrassment, the two men are staring at me silently. I smile faintly, to seem at ease, and turn away.

D
isney World: Bright pastel colors everywhere. Everything so happy. The people so fat, and so much flesh uncovered, and thick lips eating hot dogs, and shorts bunched up in the crotches because the big thighs pull them up at every step, and the other fat families taking turns being pushed in the wheelchairs that you can rent.

S
ara tells us she has a new philosophy of life. She explains it like a scientist: “The solutions to problems are in the words themselves. For example, the solution, when you’re depressed, is that you’ve got to take a
deep rest.
Get it?”

“H
ow tall are you?” my mother asks Sara.

“Five feet seven and a quarter.”

I’m sure she’s telling the truth, because I’m five ten, and she’s just about three inches shorter.

“That’s very tall for a girl with such a low number,” says my mom.

“What number?” asks Sara.

“Your age. Eleven is a low number, wouldn’t you say?”

“No. I’d say it’s a young age.”

“No. It’s a low number. That’s more objective. Just because you’ve only lived a few years doesn’t mean you’re young. Especially in
your
case,” she says, sweeping her eyes very notice-ably over Sara’s body. “It just means your number is low.”

Sara nods, as though she understands, accepts, and likes this.

W
e go to pavilions called Horizons, Universe of Energy, and World of Motion, in which there are little train rides, meant to be educational. We are all sitting there, in the vehicles, watching with great boredom the fake-looking Audio-Animatronics (these are life-size dolls that move a bit, accompanied by spoken words). Not one of us three wants to be here, not even Sara. I am certain, I instinctively know with every shred of my being, that she insists on going on these rides to find opportunities of getting closer to me, of manipulating me and charming me in every imaginable way. My mother goes on these rides because she doesn’t want to miss a moment of being with me. I go on these rides because we are a sandwich, and I am the baloney.

Some of the lines are long, thirty minutes or more. My mother is complaining, so I tell her she can go walk around with Sara while I stand in line. Sara says no, she wants to wait in line with me, but she encourages my mother to walk around. My mother leaves us (to my great surprise, because for the first time on this trip, she is going to miss a few minutes of my presence). Sara is in a fine mood. She is nice to me.

“H
ow much do you weigh?” my mother asks Sara. “About one hundred and fifteen pounds.”

* * *

Sara acts languorous, like a cat, draping herself over the seats of the rides. Every chance she gets, she hugs me with fright. She plasters her body against mine.

M
y
mother says, “Look at that cute little prick over there. Nice and fresh. Right out of the oven.”

But what’s the point? No one hears her. I guess she’s just venting her anger. I guess it’s just the principle of it.

T
o Sara, it’s like a game. She tries to be seductive when my mother is not looking. It makes me very uncomfortable, to say the least. She gives me furtive kisses, not on the mouth but, still, nearby. I want to say, “Mommy, did you see what she did to me? Make her stop.” The few times that my mother does see something, she says, “Aw, it’s so cute.”

S
ara says, “When you’re solitary, and it’s a problem, the antidote is in the word.
Soul it airy.
Which means you’ve got to make your soul more airy and light. People will like you more if you’re less serious, and you won’t be solitary anymore.”

I
am very physically attracted to Sara. She is extremely sensuous, in addition to being beautiful. Very supple. What she wears looks absurdly, grotesquely sexy on her. Just shorts, not particularly tight, not particularly short. Flat shoes. She also wears miniskirts, but they are not tight; they are full and loose and totally appropriate for her age. She wears no makeup and looks all the more stunning for it. She is very physical with me, always touching me. I wonder if she’s the type of person who is always touching everybody or just always touching me. In any case, she’s not always touching my mother.

She sometimes gets mad that I don’t respond to her caresses and kisses and cuddles. She tries to make me jealous by pointing to older men she finds attractive. Also very old men.

M
y mother makes kissing sounds to passing men.

“That’s not in those books!” I tell her.

“No, but it’s all coming back to me now.”

W
e buy Mickey Mouse masks. Mickey Mouse for me, Minnie Mouse for Sara. My mom refuses to get grandma Minnie Mouse, even though they have one. She gets no mask.

I
try to flirt with women, so that Sara will see I’m interested in women my own age. I also try to get her to be interested in little boys.

Sara points to an old man in a wheelchair and says, “Isn’t he good-looking? He’s so charming.”

I look at her, shocked, and realize it’s not only to make me jealous that she does this; it’s to show me that she likes older men and that if I don’t give in, another man probably will.

A few minutes later I point to a five-year-old boy and say, “Isn’t he good-looking? He’s so charming. You should go talk to him.”

She bangs her shoulder against mine and says, “Oh, yeah, right.”

“H
ello,” says my mother, in a small, suggestive voice, to men who walk by.

S
ara has the face of a child. I cannot be in love with that beautiful child’s face. It’s just too young.

“Pretty,” says my mother to men.

M
y mother does not have a very high opinion of me. She finds me socially inept and retarded. “What is even worse than being incompetent with your career and your love life,” she tells me, “is being inept at everyday life.” She feels sorry for me and is probably very embarrassed by me, but she doesn’t want to hurt me. She feels it’s good for me to be with her, that it can only help me. When she’s harsh, it’s not because she dislikes me. In fact, she often says, “I love you and just want what’s good for you. You need to be shaken up a bit.” I don’t take it too personally.

M
y mother complains to Sara about me. Sara complains to my mother about me, saying things like: “Don’t you think he should let himself go a little more? Don’t you think he’s too stiff and constipated?”

“I agree,” says my mom. “That’s what I’ve been telling him for years.”

“He’s always so worried about doing what’s proper.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

W
e go back to the hotel at around five, because Sara has a headache and wants to rest.

Right after dinner, my mother goes to her room to sleep. Sara comes to my room and begins to talk about things; I’m not sure what things, because I’m so tense. She seems very relaxed.

She keeps talking about me, analyzing me, telling me what she likes about me. She shows off her flesh. I’m not sure if she’s doing it on purpose or if it’s just me, old pervert that I am, noticing it. If she
is
doing it on purpose, she has a talent for it, because it looks very natural. She reeks of childishness. Smooth cartoonish skin. Even the slightly uncoordinated movements of children. She looks like putty, like if I press her arm, it’ll change shape and stay that way.

As we talk, she insists on sitting next to me, with my arm wrapped around her. She cuddles in the hollow of my armpit. “You’re my teddy bear,” she says, which is music to my ears. That’s the kind of attitude I like. The innocent, friendly one. At one point she walks over to the door and spins around. She starts singing “Tonight” from
West Side Story.
She walks slowly toward me, perfectly serious, with an intense expression on her face, singing: “Tonight, tonight, there’s only you tonight. Tonight there will be no morning star. Tonight, tonight...”

She finally reaches me and begs me to sing with her. I object quite energetically, telling her I can’t sing at all. She insists even more energetically, and we start singing the duo, her cheek glued to mine, my voice sounding like I don’t know what. In fact, I’m not really singing, I’m talking.

She finally goes to her room to sleep.

* * *

T
he next day Sara wants to do Horizons again. So we do it again, even though Mom doesn’t really want to.

We then go to MGM Studio, taking the shuttle bus at around 4:00 p.m. We take a ride called “Backstage Studio Tour.” We only do the first half, which is on trams and lasts twenty-five minutes. There’s a scary part when our tram goes over a bridge, which starts shaking, and fire appears everywhere, and a huge amount of water comes crashing toward us. The fire is hot, and the people on the left side of the tram get wet. We are on the right side. The second half of the tour, which we don’t do, lasts forty-five minutes and is on foot.

S
ara’s face is young, but she has the body of a tall, sensuous woman.

M
y mother says loudly, so people can hear her, “Intelligence in men has never much interested me.”

S
ara tries to act very sexy, to move sexily, to make me desire her.

What does she want from me? How far is she trying to go? Not that I would accommodate her.

A
t one point, during a rare moment when Sara is not with us, my mother tells me, “I don’t understand why this little girl likes you so much. But I’m very pleased about it. It’s charming, her affection. I’m sure it builds your confidence. I must say I’m „ bit jealous of her. I hate her a bit.”

W
e go on the rides. We go on the little trains, and we see the little shows.

W
hen my mother is beyond hearing range, Sara says to me out of the blue, “I’ve got to warn you that I’ve got big boobs for my age. Or for any age. I’m afraid you’ll faint if you see them.”

“Then I hope I will never see them.”

W
e go on the little trains, we see the shows, we stand in the endless lines (half an hour, an hour), we go in the stores but buy very little, we eat at the little restaurants, some of which are good, surprisingly.

S
ara often has headaches. I don’t know if it’s because she thinks they’re an attractive feminine quality or if they’re real.

“L
ook at that sexy prick over there. Not bad-looking. But not right for me. He’s old enough to be my husband.”

I
f the word is ‘infatuated,’ meaning that you’re infatuated with someone and it’s a problem because the person doesn’t like you back, well, the word tells you that your problem is
in fat you ate,
meaning that you’ve got to eat less fat, so you’ll
be
less fat, aI1d the person you want will want you back. The last piece,
id,
just means that the solution is sort of psychological.”

S
ara is like those freaks in circuses, like women with beards. She’s a child with the body of a woman, or a woman with the face of a child.

She is a goddess. She’s unreal. She’s so beautiful. Her womanly curves are wrapped in child’s skin. It must hurt the young child’s skin to be stretched over all those curves. It must itch. It looks as though it might burst. I have never seen a woman’s body with skin so tight. It looks very strange. It looks strangely much like a Barbie doll. I am overwhelmed by her and in awe of her. I am even sometimes intimidated by her.

I
am not in love with her. I cannot be, because of her unmarked face, her low number, and her body, which doesn’t have enough defects for my taste. She also hasn’t enough past for my taste. Past is an attractive quality, you know, which people often don’t realize because they are seldom confronted with too little of it.