Your Body is Changing (19 page)

When Henry woke, the putt…putt…putt was still going on. Henry’s heart beat fast and hard—everything was quiet and it was all the way dark and he didn’t know where he was.

It came to him. It was the wheelchair motor, idling outside his window again. Then there was a jiggle on the doorknob, Henry was almost certain, but how could a man with no arms or legs jiggle on a doorknob?

There were clicks and bumps he couldn’t locate.

There were voices.

Henry sat up. He couldn’t swallow. He wanted his mother. He wanted Bumpy.

“Bumpy?” he said.

He turned on the bedside lamp and turned it right back off, afraid that the man with no arms or legs would notice the light.

He noticed that the noise was gone. It hadn’t faded, as far as he had heard. It was just there one second and gone the next, so suddenly that it made him wonder if he had ever heard it, if he had been waking up with part of the dream still playing in his head.

He turned on the lamp again, and looked for Bumpy.

Bumpy was in the bathtub. There was a trickle coming from the faucet and Bumpy was drinking it. It was a funny sight.

“Bumpy, you’re full of surprises,” said Henry. “Now come on, you’re sleeping with me and that’s all there is to it.”

Bumpy was cooperative.

Henry was lying in bed with his arm around Bumpy, who was sleeping in a cute manner with his paws folded almost prayerfully over his face, when a telephone rang in another room. It rang and rang and rang and rang. Just when it had stopped, and Henry’s heart had begun to slow, the phone rang right next to Henry’s head. He grabbed it before it rang again.

“Hello?”

“Are you the person responsible for the goats?”

“I think you want to talk to Brother Lampey.”

“He’s not answering his phone.”

“Really?”

“Are you the person responsible for the goats?”

“I know the goats…”

“Well, one of your goats is destroying our poolside furniture and making a racket. Would you like me to take care of it?”

“Yes, please,” said Henry.

“Because I make jack shit doing this job,” said the voice. “They don’t pay me to catch wild animals. I’ll be glad to shoot the fucker, though. Would you like me to take care of it?”

“No,” said Henry.

The person hung up.

Henry put on his white robe and his yellow flip-flops. He rushed outside without his proper disguise—no glasses, no wig, no fake teeth—but when he turned the handle to go back in and get them, the door had locked itself! That’s what hotel doors do! And Henry had not been given a key. He ran down the walkway, past the darkened rooms, rooms that seemed as secretive and troubling at night as they had felt comforting and wistful in the daylight, shut curtains behind which strangulation and molestation might be going on, adultery and fornication, any awful thing that happened in the dark behind locked doors.

When Henry got to the pool the poor goat was thrashing around pitifully on its side, caught in a reclining nylon lawn chair. It kicked at him as he tried to help it. Henry noticed a few things: that the goat had been tethered using a dog leash, and that the leash had snapped or been chewed; that the goat smelled sweetish, like pumpkin, which was unusual for a goat, so he had probably been shampooed and groomed, perhaps as a favor from the clean young desk clerk from earlier in the day; that the goat was the one Brother Lampey called “Little Bit,” the smallest goat, with a red coat and a pure white face; that the goat was choking to death because its leash had gotten tangled around one of the bendy parts of the chair, the part that you snapped into position to adjust the angle of recline. Henry managed to remove the collar and jump back as far and as quickly as he could, the fluorescent green leash dangling free in his hand. Little Bit ran at him and tried to butt him, just like a goat in a cartoon.

“Little Bit, you’re so tough!” Henry said, laughing, full of joy at saving the animal’s life. He jumped out of the way and Little Bit took off through the gate.

Henry lost him.

He ran calling “Little Bit! Little Bit!” in the direction the goat had gone.

Henry was six city blocks away from the Holiday Inn and his chest hurt where the doctor said the estrogen had bunched up.

Henry stood wheezing air where a grove of parked cars shimmered in streetlight.

Henry couldn’t believe there were this many people out this late at night. He heard a noise and saw Little Bit walking between the cars.

Henry walked quietly behind the goat, over to a red brick building and a pink neon arrow that pointed down some stairs. The arrow said, FREDDIE’S CELLAR.

Henry followed the goat down. He said, “What are you showing me, Lord?”

As he went down, step by step, he had a funny feeling, terrible and exciting, that he had locked himself out of more than his room. He felt the presence of the Lord bearing down on him, preparing him for another leg of his journey, a mystery. But who would take care of Bumpy? That was a problem. And anyway, maybe it was the devil giving him funny feelings, trying to get him off track. But something felt good, felt light and right, and it occurred to Henry that the good feeling came from being in a place where Brother Lampey couldn’t find him. Henry had to admit some things to himself: Brother Lampey had awful breath and body odor. His robe smelled like pee. He was not courteous to other people’s feelings. He was followed everywhere by flies, ants, beetles, and bees, attracted perhaps by the old, caked Crisco in his hair. The soles of Brother Lampey’s feet were pure black, black as a smoker’s lungs in a Public Service Announcement. The only cleanish part of him was his beard, and only because Henry combed it out every night, which took two and a half hours on average. Sometimes when Henry combed the beard various types of bugs would hop out of it onto Henry. And whenever Henry combed the beard Brother Lampey said, “Ah, aaaaaahhhh, aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.”

At the bottom of the stairwell there stood a beige metal door and a woman who looked like a man with her big arms folded crossly. The low, muffled boom of secular music shook the door.

“Hey,” said Henry. Little Bit had nowhere to go and Henry hooked the collar around his neck.

“Hey,” said the woman who looked like a man. “Dig the goat. You’re one of the entertainers.”

“Yes,” said Henry.

She let him in.

The lights, smoke, and loud music hurt Henry’s head. Freddie’s Cellar was packed almost entirely with women, many of whom had short, greased-back hair.

On his way to the restroom he passed a stage quivering with red light. Someone was setting up microphones. Henry went into the restroom, let Little Bit nose around in the wet and crumpled brown paper towels on the floor, and washed his face and hands.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Seeing himself without his disguise in public was a revelation. It was different than looking in a mirror after a shower. He looked super fine as a completely bald person with no eyebrows, like some kind of celebrity who would go on VH1 and say, “I don’t have a ‘look,’ okay? I don’t care what I look like. I just have to be true to myself.” He stuck out his deformed tongue. It didn’t look any weirder than a lot of other stuff he had seen. It looked like something that would start a trend. Hadn’t Duffy told him that before?

Henry could see also that the blue circles under his eyes were much smaller than when the trip had begun and had faded to more of a pale, pleasant violet. His complexion had cleared up to a great extent. Despite his travails with Brother Lampey his cheeks had not caved in but rather his face had filled out.

“Aren’t you one of the entertainers?” he asked his reflection.

“Yes,” he answered himself. “I am one of the professional entertainers.”

He thought his voice sounded deeper. But he still didn’t have any facial hair, which he chalked up to his hormone problem. Henry reached into the terrycloth and gingerly rubbed the lump on his chest, the bad spot with all the estrogen. He hadn’t been able to go for a checkup for a long time. The bump seemed bigger than the last time he had measured it. It was kind of sore. He wasn’t taking good care of his tongue, either. Sometimes there were shooting pains in it.

When Henry came out of the bathroom, the young goat in tow, people were crowded around the stage. They swayed back and forth as a woman sang. She was wearing an army jacket but she looked like somebody’s mother. She played her guitar and sang a song about a flower that was sad because it couldn’t smell itself.

Henry looked around. It was the first time he had been in a bar. He was filled with a strange happiness that he assumed was the sin of pride.

“Okay, Lord,” he prayed. “Here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to hang out here for awhile. I know this is probably a den of iniquity but maybe You have brought me here for a purpose. Hey, remember when You used to hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors? And everybody was like, ‘Cut it out, Jesus.’ And You were like, ‘Get out of my face. I’m Jesus and I’ll hang out with whoever I feel like.’ Okay, I’ll just hang out here, then, until I find out if I have a purpose or not. Thanks.”

On his way to the bar a pretty girl with a red ponytail and red lipstick and a plaid skirt grabbed him by the arm and said something.

“What?” he said, because the music was loud.

She got close to his ear and breathed hot breath in it.

“I like your shoes,” she said.

Henry looked down at the plastic sandals. They were the kind of thing a drug-addicted rock star might wear when he stumbled into a stranger’s home unannounced.

“Thank you,” he said.

She smiled at him, big. “You have a goat,” she mouthed.

“I’m going to get some water or something,” said Henry. “I don’t have any money. Do you want to come with me?”

“No,” said the girl.

“Okay.”

The girl said something and Henry said something. They couldn’t hear each other.

As Henry walked to the bar, some people petted Little Bit and some pretended it was not unusual to see a goat; they even pretended they didn’t see a goat, like they were too cool to see a goat. It made Henry feel cool to have a goat that everyone had to pretend to be too cool to see. He went to the bar and sat down. All the other stools were empty.

Henry had a sinful attraction to the bartender. It seemed wrong because she was wearing a man’s powder-blue tuxedo and had a short haircut such as was enforced on the boys at Henry’s school and she looked like a slim, polite boy ready to have his picture taken at the prom, but at the same time she was definitely a girl with a girl’s big eyes and deer-like throat.

Little Bit climbed onto the stool next to Henry and stood there with all four feet crowded together, perfectly balanced and seemingly content.

“Who’s your friend?” said the bartender.

“A goat.”

“That is correct. Your friend is a goat.”

“I don’t have any money,” said Henry. “Can I get some water?”

“You two are with the show, I take it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You’re entitled to three free drinks.”

“Can I have a Coke?”

“Sure.”

She used a silver scoop to put some ice in a tall glass, then she squirted Coke into the glass with a long thin hose and used a pair of small tongs to take a slice of lemon from a white plastic box like a coffin. She flipped the lemon into the Coke in what seemed to be an expert manner.

Henry could understand the deadly attraction of bars where alcohol was served. Everything was done in such exciting ways by weird and graceful girls!

He watched the fizz dance in his glass.

A couple of people came up to the bar and ordered drinks. When they had been served and walked away, Henry said, “Excuse me, ma’am.”

“What can I do for you, hon?”

“Is this an alcoholic beverage? I don’t drink alcohol.”

“It’s just a Coke.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never seen anybody put a lemon in a Coca-Cola before. It just seemed like something you’d do for making an alcoholic beverage.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a Coke. It tastes good that way.”

Someone else needed her service.

Henry picked up his glass. A Coke with a slice of lemon! He sipped it. It did taste good that way! Henry was beginning to have bizarre experiences in the world of the flesh.

“That was awesome,” he said when the bartender came back. “Can I get another one? Is there anything to eat? I don’t have any money.”

“We don’t have a kitchen here,” said the bartender. “I can give you some Cheetos.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Henry drank two more Cokes with lemon and ate a large bowl of stale Cheetos. He put some of the Cheetos on the bar next to Little Bit and Little Bit ate them. He listened to the motherly woman sing more songs about the feelings of flowers.

When she was done the lights changed from red to a light blue like the color of the bartender’s tuxedo.

A man with a dark moustache carried onstage a little table with legs that snapped out from underneath. The man’s moustache was the kind generally seen in history books—bushy, upswept, and attached to his sideburns. He wore a leather hat and a leather vest with his muscles poking out and big goggle sunglasses that wrapped almost all the way around his head. He left the stage and came back with a cardboard box labeled PROPS, which he placed on the table. Then he stood by the table with his big arms folded. Some jolly music started playing—lots of sleigh bells and trombones and people whistling—and three girls ran out. They did stretches and jogged in place and threw shadow punches like athletes preparing for a game. One girl looked like a bottle of honey wrapped in a gray sweatshirt with some loose, shiny black pants and bright orange hightops. The second girl wore granny glasses and had on an old-fashioned flowerprint dress with a flowered hat to match—and a big muddy pair of men’s brogans. The third girl, the shortest, was a slim pale gold girl with a cottontop of white-blonde hair. Henry thought she was as cute as a Q-tip with her light blue T-shirt the color of a Q-tip stem tucked into her jeans, tucked in so that it clung tight to her chest over two snowballs as Henry thought of them, cool little snowballs you could pack tight in your palm. Her eyes were so blue that Henry could see them all the way back at the bar. She stepped up to one of the microphones.