"A black guy. Walked up to her and slapped her in the face. Knocked her sunglasses off."
"A little bowlegged dont you think?"
"Were in March now. This is March, right?"
A: A dead bear in a blue dress, face down on the kitchen floor. I trip over it, in the dark, when I get up at 2 A.M. to see if theres anything to eat in the refrigerator. Its an architectural problem, marriage. If we could live in separate houses, and visit each other when we felt particularly gay -- It would be expensive, yes. But as it was she had to endure me in all my worst manifestations, early in the morning and late at night and in the nutsy obsessed noontimes. When I wake up from my nap you dont get the laughing cavalier, you get a rank pigfooted belching blunderer. I knew this one guy who built a wall down the middle of his apart?ment. An impenetrable wall. He had a very big apart?ment. It worked out very well. Concrete block, basically, with fiberglass insulation on top of that and sheetrock on top of that.
"Well thats my business isnt it? I dont necessarily have to go around explaining my techniques."
"That was a biggie."
"This frozen pizza?"
"Probably no one will go to the Cloisters until they find its mate."
SIMON remembered Sarah screaming when he tried to turn off the television set. The thing had captured her and anyone who laid a hand on it was subject to a full-scale tantrum with kettle drums and cannon. She was, for some reason, inordinately fond of Daffy Duck, although the Road Runner was also a fa?vorite. She was queenly in expressing herself. At two, she produced a sentence that Simon still marveled at. When events were not marching to her satisfaction she would say, gravely, "You are making me angry." After this sentence joined the households sentence-hoard Simon ceased to worry about language acquisition. In the early mornings she would rush into the bedroom and climb into bed with Simon and his wife, settling in between them with soft little groans of satisfaction. When she grew up, she said, she wanted to be a balle?rina. Her mother made her a tutu out of some pink gauzy material and she pranced about the house in this, white Danskins, and a cardboard tiara on which gold stars had been pasted, exhibiting all the grace of a tall gesturing cactus. When she was fourteen she was picked up for shoplifting, frightened as thoroughly as possible, and released. The item in question was a tube of lip gloss called Penumbra.
"The hands look a little toilworn to my eye."
"Big feet."
"Bide our time."
"Well you cant just assume that."
"They found another one."
LIGHTNING. Four oclock in the afternoon. The women are in the kitche九九藏书网n, enjoying the display in the big windows.
"No they dont."
Q: I never scream. Im a doctor.
"What happened to the black guy?"
"This guy slapped Veronica."
"Well this is not the only place in the world we can live."
"I dont think that makes him a nut."
"What makes you think youre dumb?"
"Well if he wants to make things more warm Id say that was something in his favor."
WHAT if they all lived happily ever after together? An unlikely prospect. What was there in his brain that forbade such felicity? Too much, his brain said, but the brain was a fair-to-middling brain at best, the glucose that kept it marching, metabolized crème br?lée, was present but there was not enough vinegar in this brain, it lacked vinegar. Simon drank vinegar in the mornings from bottles sold to him as white wine and thought of Paris, where every fifteen-franc bottle was good, better than anything else hed ever tasted. In Switzerland, in the summer, in Zurich and Basel, hed found chilled red wine not bad either, a learning experi?ence, also that he did not want to live in a country so ferociously tidy. The prostitutes in Zurich were handsome well-dressed zebras, favoring stark black and white, street furniture ornamental as the staid perfect cops or the show windows of the Bahnhofstrasse, much gold winking behind heavy glass. He did not want a watch or cufflinks or a gold-plated coffee service, he was at a disadvantage. What was there to do with these women? Hed send them all to MIT, make architects of them! Women were coming into the profession in in?creasing numbers. The group could chat happily about mullions, in the evening by the fireside, tiring of mullions, turn to cladding, wearying of cladding, attack with relish the problems of blast-cleaned pressure-washed gun-applied polymer-cement-coated steel. Quel happiness!
The thing is, they discuss him.
"How much?"
A: I keep wondering if, say, there is intelligent life on other planets, the scientists argue that something like two percent of the other planets have the conditions, the physical conditions, to support life in the way it happened here, did Christ visit each and every planet, go through the same routine, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and so on. . . And these guys on these other planets, these life-forms, maybe they look like boll weevils or something, on a much larger scale of course, were they told that they shouldnt go to bed with other attractive six-foot boll weevils arrayed in sil?ver and gold and with little squirts of Opium behind the ears? Doesnt make sense. But of course our human understanding is imperfect.
"Yet he has a certain spirit."
"What happened then?"
"No. But the rat food didnt hurt it, its stronger than a rat much stronger and the rat food didnt affect it, it was in good condition when found, they said."
"Maybe its just a fa?ade. Maybe he just knows what to do to make us think he cares about us 九_九_藏_书_网as individuals and is doing it."
"Thats the first time youve said that."
"Whats the matter with enriched flour?"
Q: It has nothing to do with good fortune. It has to do with years of the most strenuous intellectual effort. Were they strident in bed?
"Way uptown. Fort Tryon Park."
A: I dont think that.
"Generally accepted standards."
"Yes but you have to make a distinction between making things seem a certain way and having them really be a certain way."
Anne says, "What are we going to do about this bozo?"
A majestic crash. They jump.
"Youre actually going to feed us this pizza?"
"Did it hit him?"
"Weve been here what, a month?"
"But what of us? What are we going to do?"
"She makes movies too."
"This town is creepy."
"How do we find out?"
"No it hit an old lady. Right in the mush. She didnt throw it so well?"
"I think its kind of cute. Like Santa Claus with what does it say a bowl full of jelly."
"She doesnt know. She went out for pizza and stopped at the Korean market. She had a big cauli?flower in her hands, she was kind of feeling it to see if it was --"
"Well I have some things I know how to do too."
"So. Are you satisfied?"
"Also, my boobs are too small."
"I think he thinks hes doing the right thing."
"Moving right along, we get cooked pork and mozzarella cheese substitute. The mozzarella cheese substi?tute contains water, casein, hydrogenated soybean oil -- you notice the soybean is doing a lot of work here -- salt, sodium aluminum phosphate, lactic acid, natural flavor whatever that is, modified cornstarch, so?dium citrate, sorbic acid, sodium phosphate, artificial color, guar gum, magnesium, oxide, ferric orthophosphate, zinc oxide, B-12, folic acid, B-6 hydrochloride, niacinamide, vitamin A palmitate, xanthan gum, thia?mine mononitrate -- I ask you."
"Well, thats true."
"Of course. Very much so."
"Oh I dont think thats true. He asked me when my birthday was."
Memories of mitt.
"Just about."
"Well what about its mate?"
"It was eating rat food. The stuff they put out to kill the rats. In the basement. I read it in the paper."
"What was it doing?"
"Well what does that prove?"
"I cant tell with you. Youve got a hard shell."
"But maybe, on the other hand, he really cares. About us as individuals."
"Twenty-five dollars."
"Weve got to get something going."
"People get over it."
"Like what?"
"So its mate is probably lurking around the Cloisters waiting to bite someone."
Q: Would you like to be able to fly?
"Well even if hes only interested in making things seem a certain way that means hes not indifferent. To the degree that he makes the effort."
"Youre very supportive, Simon."
"Yeah, itｗwｗ•９9ｌib.nｅts a problem. Shes always been that way. She kind of expects the worst, you know? Shes got an affinity for the worst. She seeks it out."
"Veronica can cut it for you. Veronica knows how to cut hair."
"Its just an effort to raise the level. That kind of shows I think an effort to raise the level of life thats not too terrible. Typically American."
"Its so big and vast."
"He said so. He said, Im a Vietnam vet and Im crazy. Then he slapped her. Then he asked her for money."
"In the 50s."
"All great stuff. I remember riboflavin from my childhood. They put it in Wheaties or something."
"Catch my drift?"
A: Your good fortune.
"How would we know?"
A: Its crossed my mind.
Anne says, "You never had to stand around in your frillies with all those guys looking at you."
"There would be little touches, little individual touches --"
"Soybeans are good. Invented by Martin Luther King."
"Were just getting started. Were just going into our windup here. We get water, hydrogenated soybean oil, yeast, salt, and something called dough conditioner. The dough conditioners got sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium sulfate and sodium sulfite."
"What about the rabid skunks?"
"Whatd she do?"
Q: The women were a little strident dont you think?
A bare leg against a purplish sheet.
Q: You havent answered me. This general guilt --
"I slipped."
"He was a Vietnam vet."
"Is this food or a chemistry set?"
"Two years."
"Do you know what its got in it? Enriched flour."
"I love you guys."
"Whatd you tell him?"
"Maybe you dont like the deal."
"Movable outhouses."
"I dont think hes a nut."
He remembered Carol jumping on him for using the mitt to hold the end of the veal bone while he tried to cut meat from it. "Thats not what the mitt is for!" He had told her to shut up, it was his mitt, hed use it for any damned thing he cared to including cleaning the grease trap if he cared to. Mitt nights. After dinner she told him not to eat onions from the pot. The baby standing on the kitchen table and singing
"If I wasnt dumb I wouldnt be a professional model."
"Where?"
"I dont think hes a nut either."
"Thatll take us about to the corner."
"He hasnt hurt anything. Yet," says Dore.
Q: Sometimes a little strident?
"Well when I fuck a guy, when hes inside me, I have this little individual thing I do, I dont know how to describe it, its a kind of hooking motion, it, by it I mean the vagina, grabs the penis around the throat, what you might call the throat, at a certain point, a kind of choking, and then it lets go and then it does it again."
"Hes been very circumspect."
"Its her mind-set, I guess. She got knocked around a lot as a kid. She talks about it sometimes."
"Of course."
"Of a milihｔtp://wwｗ•9９ｌib•ｎettary nature? No, I just put in my time."
"He could lose maybe fifteen pounds."
"But hes still got pretty much hair for a guy his age, thats a plus."
"The enriched flour has in it flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, and riboflavin."
"I dont think Simon is the kind to respond well to a test. It might make him mad."
"He uses too much butter when he cooks. Hes mak?ing pasta, he throws half a stick of butter in just before he serves it."
"How do you know?"
"Look, Im fine. I dont think Veronica is too happy."
"He cant tell us apart."
"Well I think were putting this thing too much on a technical basis, thats interesting but its not the main thing. The main thing is whether he really cares about us on an individual basis."
"He looks around to see if anyones watching before he throws it in. Then he whips it around in there real quick. Hoping it will melt before anybody sees it."
"He likes those Windham Hill records."
"Tons of intelligence there," he says. "A glance convinces. Probably dreams three-dimensional chess. Q.E.D."
"Maybe we could give him some sort of a test."
"Its not bowlegs its just that the knees are too close together."
"I dont think hes indifferent. He fucks well enough. Not the best Ive ever seen."
Q: Where does all this guilt come from? The extra-adulterous guilt?
A: Different styles in bed as elsewhere. I guess you could call Veronica strident. Stridency is a response to dissatisfaction.
"Do you really think that?"
Someone would get pregnant, everyone would get pregnant. At seventy hed be dealing with Pampers and new teeth. The new children would be named Susan?nah, Clarice, and Buck. Hed stroll out on the lawn, in the twilight, and throw the football at Buck. The foot?ball would rocket about two feet, then head for the greensward. The pitiful little child would say "Kaint anybody here play this game?"
"And hes got good posture. Were you ever in the service, Simon?"
"The paramedics took him away."
"Sure. Shes used to it. Being bashed around. This is a great town you have here."
"Well he noticed."
"What?"
"I knew this guy he was a contractor he contracted Port-O-Sans."
"Is he okay?"
"Why would I do that?"
"I have a check my grandmother sent for my birth?day."
Her breasts are in fact quite perfect. "Look, dear friend," he says, "one would have to journey many days, cross mighty rivers and slog up and down tower?ing mountains, cut through thick mato grossos with machetes in each hand, to find a more beautiful woman than your sweet self."
"The Korean guy behind the counter had a fit. Fell down and foamed at the mouth."
"He split."
"Youre not going to boot us out."
"Butter makes everything taste better."
Dore is angry. Shes holding the9９ｌｉｂ.net box that the frozen pizza came in.
"Good Lord this man is old."
"Because he likes us to have the feeling that he cares about us as individuals? Because it makes things more warm?"
"Doesnt do me any good if Im dumb, does it?"
They say, over and over:
"Doesnt follow. Look at --" He gropes for the name of a model who is also amazingly intelligent but his knowledge of the field is inadequate. "Lauren Hutton," he says.
Im pretty
"Like what?"
"Catch my drift?"
"Why?"
"Catch my drift?"
"Why would he do that? If he cares about us as indi?viduals?"
"Maybe it was seeking its mate. That got lost in the vast basements of the Cloisters."
"Have you ever hung out with an architect before?"
"Well what about it?"
"A five-buck tip, Simon, thats all it takes. Thirty for the haircut and five for the tip."
Q: Where is satisfaction?
A: No I dont think that.
"Fifty-three. Old enough to be our father."
"I dont know why you have to romanticize a rabid skunk."
"With us. Being here."
A: Yes, thats the interesting thing. I hazard that it is not guilt so much as it is inadequacy. I feel that every?thing is being nibbled away, because I cant get it right --
And I dont care
"I told him. July third."
"In what regard?"
"Well hes a big boy."
"Something."
"Doesnt taste too bad."
"Hes indifferent."
A: Everybodys a little strident sometimes.
Q: Sometimes you have to scream to be heard. Isnt that what you think?
"Like what?"
A: Theres a certain amount of guilt attached. I feel guilty. But I feel guilty even without adultery. I exist in a morass of guilt. Theres maybe a little additional wal?lop of guilt but I already feel so guilty that I hardly no?tice it.
"Not too bad."
"The sixteenth."
"I could make a nuclear weapon with less stuff than this pizza has in it."
"Of course not, she threw the cauliflower at him."
"Hes thoughtful. He can tell one from another. Hes interested in us as individuals."
"What are they?"
"Well maybe it didnt have a mate. There was noth?ing in the paper about finding its mate."
Im pretty
"Why?"
"Thats true."
"Whats to do?" Veronica asks.
"So its frozen."
"Maybe it didnt have a mate. Maybe it was a bache?lor or something."
"Do I seem itchy?"
"And he slapped her?"
"Whats the matter with it?"
"You do anything?"
"I think too circumspect."
"I was just thinking."
"Is Veronica okay?"
"I like that expression."
"Is that far away?"
"You need to use some kind of lotion, Simon, Lubriderm or --"
"By what standard?"
"When was that?"
A: In sleep?
"I think you need a haircut, Simon, get away from that shaggy look, thats not the look of today."