Homunculus Page 3

  “I’m only asking,” Tony says.

  Malcolm gasps, “What do you think, Mr. Cockhound?”

  “I think you should take good care of these pictures.” Malcolm laughs it off. Tony considers him a useful object of derision and shakes his head in disbelief, thumbing the deck. “Hmm …,” he commiserates every few shots. Malcolm basks. “Don’t you wonder where they are now?” Malcolm does wonder but for now he nods at Pancho and stirs the air with a forefinger; the deck is good for a round anytime if a man has a sense of fair play and reciprocity. Do you think it was easy getting shots like these? Tony doesn’t mind, chuckling at a close-up of Malcolm tonguing not just any sphincter but one at the hind end of a pert young blond with impish eyes on Malcolm, who hams for the camera, which he holds at arm’s length. “Did everyone say ‘cheese’?”

  Malcolm is pop-eyed and grinning in the sphincter shot, a lifetime younger and thinner with only little blemishes where big blotches now emerge. “I really needed one of those shutter timers,” he explains, sitting back with a new beer. “Take a look, Pancho.”

  “No. I see my mother. I kill you,” Pancho says. Malcolm har hars. Pancho has seen the deck since before it got dog-eared.

  “I never got into assholes, myself,” Tony says.

  “Your loss,” Malcolm says, sanguine again.

  Tony knows he lost something. He can’t put his finger on it but he doubts assholes. He sits back with his new beer in the afterglow of a break in the wait. It’s stimulation like this that can stir a rethinking of your own glory. Tony’s therapist called him insincere. Tony felt sincere in appraising his therapist: fop, egghead, idiot. Therapist diagnosed moral weakness. For a buck and a half an hour, Tony thinks, therapist should tread gently, not touch nerves. Some people are acutely sensitive to Seconals. Tony took six. Therapist said, “Sincere people take twenty. Or thirty. Some follow up with wrists or they achieve success with …”—they achieve success!

  “I’d like to see you take six,” Tony said, doubting therapist could handle four, apprising the therapy experiment a failure. He told therapist of closing his eyes at high speed and counting to twelve Mississippi already, approaching fourteen.

  Therapist laughed. “A man who wants to die keeps his eyes open and doesn’t count past one. You’re depressed. That’s all. It happens.”

  Tony tallies fees and travel time at minimum wage and gets depressed; eleven hundred dollars. What a set up.

  “You have a gift,” therapist said. “A joy. You like a good time. You talk about fun and feeling good or not feeling good. Now you don’t feel so good. Time is up. See you next week.”

  Or next life, Tony thinks. “I like that,” he told therapist. “The part about the gift. The joy.” He allowed a marginal smile. “But you don’t get it. I don’t feel pain. I didn’t even mind when they pumped my stomach.” Therapist reflected on stoicism. “They stick a hose down your throat to suck up the stuff and spew it into a jar, in case you didn’t know.”

  Therapist condescended, “You paint a grisly picture. But you didn’t care because you took six Seconals.”

  “You got it wrong, Mr. Therapist. I wasn’t depressed. I plain didn’t care, pure and simple. Why can’t you understand that?”

  “We’re out of time. Let’s end on a different note. Why are you so dead set against accepting your depression?”

  Tony laughed and laughs again months later—“Does your mother know you’re queer?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Same deal. It’s a loser question, isn’t it?”

  Therapist nods with grave insight and sinks beneath the surface of his patient’s memory. Tony Drury drinks a toast to the mistakes you make in life in order to learn. On the other hand, joy and a gift for fun is a good prescription, so maybe the pump and therapist were worthwhile after all. “Like to see you take six,” he mutters.

  “What?” asks Bill Maxwell. “What did you say? Did you say something?”

  “No. It was nothing,” Tony says, waving it away. He came south on a mood swing, not from depression. He was having no fun, and now he is. Just look. Other voices rise, contentious and observant, drowning each other, trying to prevail. An odd calm emanates from Bill Maxwell, a fair-haired, wholesome-looking, middle-aged, well-groomed fellow who can catch a woman’s eye in daylight if she didn’t see him last night. Bill is from Texas, so he wears cowboy boots, blue jeans and shirts cut from tablecloths. He has no hat, but nobody asks why. He came south to paint, with gentility in his manner and on his canvas. He paints every day to noon or so. Then he sleeps, rising at dusk for a drink, the first of many. Bill Maxwell changes nightly for the longest running show off Broadway. His face gets painted red and his eyes go yellow under his harrowed brow. Then comes the shellacking. Bill gets down, sometimes to his knees, fragmenting over Texas, the constraints of campus life, bad feelings, the coed paradox and art. He paints dusty skulls under blistering skies beside ghostly saguaro with open arms, paints early in moderate pain and heavy daze, paints free of the load on his chest.

  Bill Maxwell says, “Gee, it’s a beautiful day,” which is a simple thing to say but seems profound coming from a man of few words and many credentials. Formerly the Edward Meunch Associate Chair for 20th Century Depth, Professor William Manchester Maxwell climbed the sheer rocky face of university politics to the summit of academic excellence, academic appreciation, academic power. Then he abdicated. Some assess his academic success as a function of his disarming air, of nonthreat combined with the basic skills of art appreciation in an advanced academic matrix. Others say humbug; you don’t rise like that on basic skills. Bill Maxwell understands depth from experience in the deeps. Some say he suffers undoing in bottles and coed underwear. Some say all who live long enough suffer undoing.

  So maybe a beautiful day is real, possibly deep with the mere sound of a nonassertive man harking to the sunny blue sky. A few people look at the clock. Sho’nuff, noon thirty. Bill’s handsome smile looks slept in, still a good two hours from finding its normal curve. Heads rise in deference to the beautiful day, because a man like Bill Maxwell can say so and be heard for a change.

  Because Charles would fill the room with himself if he wasn’t gone, and on the off-chance that Bill would have spoken, Charles would have pressed him on beauty, on the futility of painting, the primitive nature of Texans, those stupid fucking hats, hopeless alcoholism and all that shameless macho bullshit like walking bowlegged and fucking barnyard animals for chrissake.

  With Charles gone, tolerance settles like a mist. You can look up and side to side and feel gentleness and yes, it is a beautiful day. Tony likes Bill Maxwell and his art. It’s easy to look at, a pleasure to contemplate, honest and straightforward, like Bill Maxwell.

  Tony likes Tomàs too, who chirps, “Esta un dia màs linda que todos, si ustedes sabes mi verdad, menos Carlos.” Tony worries that Charles’ absence may also lead to insufferable nonrestraint. Tomàs fits neatly among those who came for art like Bill Maxwell has done but who spend their days on theory and intention. What these artists understand best is each other. Half manuscripts gather dust; frayed canvases fade; klieg lights flicker in a figmentary might-have-been or a more strident yet-could-be.

  By encouraging each other in the common pursuit these artists comprise a colony. Virtue sustains them. It derives from purity of form in obeisance to a muse. It pays a few of them but not most of them. For most, money converts to pesos and dwindles in ounce increments at La Mexa or the Legion or any one of many wonderful bistros. Shrinking funds and artistic hunger allows a greater flourish than that enjoyed by alcoholics wasting time. Some hurry to achieve livelihood before the money runs out, to taste greatness before their livers give out. Some get by, like Bill Maxwell, whose paintings sell regular enough, and every Christmas he has a show. Most share only the dream and the difficult, lofty view: money, how gross; where do I sign? Down the hatch is concise and definite, no waiting and what a relief. Up north they complained. In Mexico they do
n’t need to. They can have a burrito, take a nap and see what might shake out later.

  Tomàs is first to remark the difference of Charles not there. He refers to Charles’ absence obscurely, demurring to a local school of art. No one says boo for a few days more, and a few days later a new woman is again conjectured. She will be a divorcée who will ride the wild rooster on the learning curve of love, who will soar to freedom and know what she’s been missing. Because Charles can cure a need, fill the gap, supply the dose.

  He works best if the woman is in reasonable physical condition with a warm heart and a beginner’s mind. He can teach her everything. Charles of the flaming spirit is his persona for modern women who have become encyclopedic on childbearing, private schools, shopping, social gatherings, bourbon, telephone talk, the occasional fling; those women who need more. Oh, the divorcées come down. Many have money. Some spent years with aerobic video. They seek cheap living, independence, adventure and fabulous dining.

  Charles’ niche among the divorcées is comical and routine. But a comedy leading to sacrificial hearts becomes humorless, then cruel. A few of Charles’ inductees stay on, some resentful and damning, sustaining each other in the class-action indictment that isn’t funny until Charles pleads for the defense. With umbrage he explains: “I do not pursue women. I am simply there.”

  “You don’t mean simply there,” Rhonda says. “You mean egregiously available.” She lights a breather with flourish unlike the other fifty-nine she lights in a day and a night—the others get lit quick, incidental to dialogue.

  “What is that? Egregious. I like that. Is it good? Am I that? Am I grejesus?”

  This fag gets torched for drama with a deep pull and a big radius, like the fag is life and she wants a gulp of it, like this is the point transcendent. She fleshes it out, plumps it up and blows sequentially smaller smoke rings down to a pucker where she kisses thin air and lovelorn fate before blowing it away. “I’ll keep it primitive, Charles. Extremely available. Aggressively available. Like a franchise hamburger available. Easy as pie available. A real game cock. Impeccable manners and generous with a tip. And so cute when he’s drunk, really, even when he, you know, can’t make it.” She takes another hit.

  Charles waits in catatonic repose as if waiting for comprehension. He nods short. He understands; Rhonda needs a load off her chest. He says, “I think I’m consistent. It might not be the consistency you’d hoped for. But then, that would be a rerun of your marriage, wouldn’t it?” Rhonda’s eyes lower as truth etches her face. But Charles can’t win this one, because a man of his tastes must sacrifice the short score to maintain odds on the greater victory. He goes to manhood, nature and conciliation: “Look, I’m sensitive. I’m a nice person. I take care of others when I can.”

  “It’s true,” she says. “You’re a stud stallion with a gentle disposition.”

  “I think stud stallion is grandiose,” Charles says.

  “I’m sorry,” Rhonda says. “I get carried away.”

  “I try to be a gentleman. I do my best. I fail from time to time. I think gentleman, good company, clean shirt, hung like a rhinoceros. That’s me.”

  Laughter ends that portion of the show. Rhonda would light another smoke, but the one she has is only half gone so she hurries it along with a big pull. “I love you, Charles. You are a dear man. And you’re hung better than a rhinoceros. You’re hung better than one of those blood pudding thingies. You taste better, too. Hmm.” She quickly grins and shrinks to indifference. “Then you disappear. Now I know: you get tired. You need a rest before the bus. You like to freshen up for the new group, right?”

  Charles hangs his head. “You’re right. Blood pudding. A rest before the bus.” He hopes concession will end the round. He likes the play, but not the aftermath. Rhonda requires winners and losers and matched wits. The fray isn’t good for her or him or those in earshot who could get the wrong impression. Because Charles is good to Rhonda, good for her and good with her in the short run.

  Rhonda too rose in a day and night to the dizzying heights of enchantment where love rings true, to find herself like so many before and after, up in thin air all alone. Another smoke ring fades away.

  Privately among the men Charles’ defense is more sincere: “I made her come. That was all. Her husband never did. Say what you will; I think she deserved it.”

  Rhonda struggles onward, fooled by the mirage but pressing for the oasis. Some say she stays because of Charles, but that opinion comes mostly from the women who know what a rotten bastard Charles can be, with his charm, his manners, his clean shirt, local flair and big, thumping dick. Yet they know as well that somehow a man can be molded to open his eyes to the value of a woman like Rhonda, and to count his blessings and cherish her and treat her like the evolved being she is instead of a slut.

  Charles says he’s unfairly judged, that he only plays the role he retired to. “It’s hardly even supporting,” he says. “I play a randy domestic in a lowbrow comedy. Would a tragic romance be fair to any woman? I think not. Not in view of such lighter fare. I awaken the passion. Am I condemned for that?”

  Yes, he is, because nobody believes him or his claims of honesty or innocence. Leggy, classy and maybe a shameless flirt, Rhonda captures a charm of her own. She came south a few years ago with her son, who was seven or ten, whose father paid for private school soon after arrival. She came to paint, after her divorce and her last diploma, after twenty years in art history, art theory, drawing, painting, law school, motherhood, moot court and PTA. For twenty years she improved herself while her husband worked to get ahead and gave his weekends to football, golf and strange leg. It would have been all right if she’d had some fun instead of changing diapers and stacking degrees into middle age. It’s not fair. A woman can have sex easy enough, but women don’t want it easy, not like the husbands do. He wasn’t so different from Charles but couldn’t hold a stick on entertainment value.

  Maybe life would have been different off campus. But she enlisted early for the long haul, hoping a man would emerge from the heap of meaning. Degrees were rationalized with potential for more pay and a tighter niche, but reason transmutes to nonsense when you eat the whole curriculada and wonder what next. She gave up on rationale. The world might support another lawyer, but they seem so bored. So she broke free for art at forty-five, when nothing made sense but beauty and truth. In Mexico she smokes and hums an artful lyric in need of a score.

  Her classic features would be beautiful if not chiseled to hawkish intensity, making her look more predatory than receptive, making her easy to see but hard to be seen by. For a night and a day she softened from bird of prey to songbird at sunrise. Fresh off the bus, she knew she’d made the right decision, the tough decision, the kind of decision a modern woman must make for independence in a modern world. Charles taught her to take nothing for granted. He confirmed that she was not over the hill; the cock still crowed on her fence. They met by chance on her arrival. She needed a drink after her long journey to new life. He smiled and told the bartender to put it on his tab, please. Did he work this bar often, she asked. No, he said, he used to, but now he did better up the street. She thought he was joking. The place was empty. She ordered another and one for him and paid up front to show her independence or fortitude or something conceptual. He saw her offer and raised her two more, and in no time he called her bluff with an inside straight—after a lovely dinner, of course.

  “Any one of you could woo her if you weren’t so drunk and lazy and would put yourselves out a little bit and show a woman a decent time.” Charles scolds Tony lightly, Cisco foolishly and Tomàs laughably. He eggs them on, building a case for romance with Rhonda and delivering it with flair, if delivery occurs before midnight, before his face puffs and his eyes dull like stagnant ponds.

  Then he slumps, slurs his lines, strains the monologue and fails at dialogue, until romance is a faulty drain field. No one can stop the seepage, when his rosy cheeks filigree with capillaries, and he leads
with his nose, and his windswept hair slumps with his posture. Then you can ask what any woman sees, especially one like Rhonda, who may be yesterday’s tamale but is still plenty hot, who could have her pick in a heartbeat. Whatever she sees in Charles, it fills her up; nobody believes his plea for help either, because she appears unreceptive to all but him. Tony says it isn’t right to have such cake and eat it too. Cisco says he doesn’t know about cake, but he’d give a pretty peso to gnaw on that bone. Tomàs says Charles and Rhonda have a very complex relationship.

  Not a handsome man but with a twinkle in one eye and tragedy in the other, Charles animates the lull, displaces the tedium, dilutes the repetition. He can be jester or king, brimful and full time at either. Maybe that’s what she sees.

  Charles sets a standard in his stride from the urban stage to this, the perfect stage, the beautiful wilderness, the fertile innocence. He walks on and regales the night with Bligh and Carton, McPhisto and LeGare—with all the men he can’t be but whose conviction he can ape from eight to eleven. In time he revises the scripts to better address the place. Improvisation ends the same every time, in tears: “Because it all ends in tears, every time. That’s what the man says. Didn’t he? Doesn’t it?” The man is Jack Kerouac; Charles uses his lines too, because they would have been asshole buddies if given the chance. “Oh, God, I love it, I do,” is his encore. He never says what he loves. His audience would agree to the antecedent on a secret ballot if they had paper and pens and could keep a secret. They cannot; nevermind. They’d be wrong anyway, just as they’re wrong on him, all wrong—it isn’t receptive women he loves. No, it’s something more, something less he loves. He can’t say what, cannot correct the common presumption, even when he digs deep for a different sensibility and comes up rumbling, “Quite early one morning in the winter in Wales, by the sea that was lying down still and green as grass after a night of tar-black howling and rolling, I went out of the house, where I had come to stay for a cold, unseasonable holiday …”