Seven Stud by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 11
I got home around noon. I started to make my usual beeline to the plastic enclosed picture show, but instead I detoured to the adjoining room. Perhaps, I had satisfied myself that some things palatable were in there somewhere and all I had to do was push the correct buttons, not only to satisfy my sense of taste, but also to be amused and to be interactively outwitted in a delectable manner. Maybe someday, someone will invent a way to always be interactive with the stories in the box. It might be the answer to someone’s feeling of being alone and would not require the participation of another human being. When you got tired of them you could just cut them off with the push of an appropriate button. I sat on a simple Queen Anne chair and took a long look around the room. I almost never spent any time in it and was somewhat surprised to see that everything there was a good, hundred year old, imitation of something that was made between 1680 and 1830. They had passed the test of time and stood there motionless, usually devoid of visitors, for their reward. My favorite piece was a circa 1770 Queen Anne highboy.
Its sheer size ruled the room. But, more importantly to me, its late Queen Anne birth gave it both the gently curving simplicity of the era and also some of the elaboration of the Chippendale period, soon to come in its full glory. Its fret-worked Chinese
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Chippendale hardware may have been a bit over the top and incorrect, but it seemed a good balance, historically accurate or not.
All of the items got general note and respect, but the next thing I focused on was one of the paintings on the wall.
Actually, it was a copy of a painting of a young woman, dressed in fifteenth century garb playing a now defunct stringed musical instrument. The wistful far-away look in her eyes suggested some type of sadness, perhaps minor. Surrounding her were a few indecipherable room objects in darkness. She however was well lit. I concluded that the painter wanted the patron to focus on her. It was either that or he was a bad painter knowledgeable in covering up his deficiencies. I walked to one of the windows and stared at the large trees. I decided to discard the possibility of a bad painter as that led nowhere. So, I put my face about a foot from the copied painting and tried to determine what it was about this woman he wanted me to see. Her clothes were very typical of the time and weren’t colorful. Her long reddish brown hair was braided and tied up from the middle to back of her head, obviously not designed to be traditionally attractive. The skin of her exposed hands and face was milky white that may have never been kissed by the sun, at least not recently. Since the only other clearly visible items in the picture were the unpretentious instrument and an unknown open
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book, I guessed that the artist wanted me to take away something from the way he depicted her face. The more I looked the more confused I got. What initially seemed a wistful, somewhat sad countenance became contentment. To complicate things whenever I made a decision of one thing it immediately turned to the other.
After I experienced mild dizziness from the gyroscope, I decided to picture the immediately following frame.
It was a cartoon. The woman’s mother burst into the room, immediately putting on all the lights revealing a twentieth century non-descript, discount store, contemporary place with white painted walls. The balloon above her head read; “Jenny, the next time you do this it’s back to the psychiatrist. You have to at least pretend that you know it’s 1985, whether we like it or not.”
Having concluded my fun for the day, I went into the kitchen seeing that it was already 2:00. It was high time to concentrate on my practical situation. Butch was pushing things to go after one more big score, whereas my calculations indicated that I needed at least two and maybe three and I didn’t want to try alone. I wasn’t yet an old enough cowboy to leave my partner, for his good and go riding off to nowhere.
Though the specifics were better described by colors than words, he seemed to add something I lacked and vice-versa. One more score for him just may be enough for Alice and him to get
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something good going and I wouldn’t want to ruin that. My logical but imprecise calculations could be wrong and we may have just been lucky up until now. Perish the thought.
If I let that stay in my head, there is no question that we will lose our next duel. The best hitters get hits 3 of 10
plate appearances. Yet, if they go up to bat thinking that the odds are that they will fail, they will. So, again, perish that thought. But, now the goddamn thing is freshly there. Why, in hell, do I think I need so many big scores? Simple math is the answer and math is considered indisputable. I suddenly remembered that somewhere I saw something which said; “To understand that one plus one equals two, one must first understand plus.”
This is all getting extremely confusing, probably has no point, probably is unanswerable, at least as long as we are confined to words and numbers and most importantly is self-defeating. So, I decided that it was momentarily necessary to adopt the personae of Doc Holliday, sans TB.
Another possible answer to why I need so many big scores could be that I was simply born in the wrong place. The extravagant tastes that my Toyota and I share are apparently not afforded by my inherited circumstances.
I decided to play a game. Since Acheron always succeeded at saying something surprising and initially unanswerable at the outsets of meetings, I wanted to see if I could beat her at her
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own game. It might help propel my Doc Holliday posturing further.
I dialed her number and she answered saying; “Yanush’s Downtown Bakery.”
“Acheron, I’m glad you have a new job. I’ve been thinking about some things and I’ve succeeded in confusing myself and I’d like your thoughts. Why did I have to be born in the wrong place?”
She immediately responded; “Weren’t we all? You’re only 40
and you figured that one out already?”
“Do you mean that you were born in the wrong place too?”
“Of course.”
This was doing little for my confidence level, as I was clearly getting outdone and was moved into another arena or two, with the same results. I tried reverting to the basics, probably trying to start the game over and said; “Whatever the incidence of this disease and my acquisition of it, I asked you
‘Why me?’”
“Why do you have a nose?”
“I asked the first question. I guess you still have no answer.”
“When someone conclusively tells me why we were born I’ll attempt to answer why you were born with deficiencies.”
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“I’ll give you one more chance to answer a simple question without diversions.”
“I do appreciate the kind opportunity. Since you’re egocentric enough to focus on yourself, ignoring your place in the whole scheme of things shared with most everyone else, I’ll answer at your level of understanding. It’s because you fucked up.”
While that was somewhat insulting, I deserved it. But I didn’t know what to say next, already cloudy on my original intention in making this call. Since she had already called me an idiot, I considered it fair play to be one and said; “I know all that stuff. Just wanted to see if you did.”
“I never really expected to have a conversation like this with you and I’m not enjoying it.” She hung up.
Doc Holliday took another bullet. I’m going in reverse today, by trying to engage my mental prowess. Maybe I pushed a wrong button somewhere. At any rate, since the mental was failing me, I decided to try something physical.
I drove to town and picked up wine and some goodies and brought them to Acheron’s house. She was in the open doorway dressed in tight jeans and a baggy white T-shirt containing the head of Bob Marley. As soon as I opened the car door, she said;
“You have got to be the slowest driver this side of the Rockies.
I expected you twenty minutes ago.”
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She had done it again, but I realized that I always enjoyed it; excepting the time I tried to make it in to a game and beat her at it. I said; “I’m glad you want to see me.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to. I said I expected to.”
“Thanks.” I left the food and wine in the car, shut the door, ran over to her, picked her up, kissed her, said she had a beautiful mouth and shut her condo door behind me.
Some time had elapsed when we exited, taking the now warm wine and somewhat brittle food out. When she saw the result of the baking she said; “Are you still hungry?”
I said; “Perpetually.”
We walked down the block to the secluded river area and I told her of my next adventure with Butch scheduled for the day after tomorrow and that I just wanted to rest and prepare for it all day tomorrow. She listened and asked questions about the particulars, seeming to have a real interest in the possibilities, dangers and mechanics of the endeavor.
When we got back to her door, darkness had already begun.
She said; “I want to retire early tonight. Tomorrow’s an early work day. I hope you know what you’re doing. I’d really like to see you again.”
I looked into her now sad eyes, feeling very happy myself.
I opened my mouth to say something that currently escaped me and stood there a few seconds. She smiled and gently shut the door.
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When I got home I got into my usual routine and enabled the CRT. Realizing that soon money would be at risk dealing with people who never watched public television, I switched the channel. The game show I hit first try would fit the bill. I soon saw that I couldn’t answer any of the questions and was impressed with the speed in which a few contestants could. I should correct myself and try to think accurately about what I saw. What I couldn’t do was provide the correct question to the answer given. The backward process must have equated to some perversion I never previously encountered. It occurred to me that there were a number of questions that have the same answer.
For example, if the answer given was forty-two, I might have said, “What is the next whole number after forty-one?” or “What was Jackie Robinson’s number?” or “What year did my father land in Italy?” etc., etc. Did the rules of the game allow different correct questions/answers? Did you get extra credit if you supplied the answerer/questioner with a few? It seemed not, though no one elaborated on the finer points of the rules, perhaps not wanting to appear overly doctrinaire. I settled into listening to interchanges, like “J. D. Salinger.” Buzzer.
“Who wrote The Catcher in the Rye?” “That’s correct!”
I couldn’t help but get even more disturbed when I heard that one. One could have correctly questioned; “Who wrote
‘ Franny and Zooey’?” or “Who wrote ‘ Nine Stories’?” The latter
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correct question could have a number of different correct answers and did they mean exactly nine stories or at least nine stories. I finally realized that through the circling possibilities, I had finally seen infinity, but was unable to comprehend it.
Since this one was over my head, I thought it best to try another. On this one the contestants picked one of nine currently, otherwise out of work celebrities, who would then, in turn, try to answer some questions. It struck me as delegation of one’s responsibility to act for themselves. It didn’t help matters when the celebrities continually harangued about something irrelevant to everyone else, ostensibly in an attempt to drum up work in the field in which they were once semi-prominent. Though not completely satisfied, I felt that this show was currently more useful to me as it seemed more American than the first one’s circling infinity.
After watching for fifteen minutes I got itchy and chanced other stations, finally finding one playing the original version of “King Kong.” I trotted to the kitchen and quickly found a hero and poured some ice tea. I ate and drank leisurely, eventually falling asleep to something I considered truly American.
I woke up on the couch before sunrise the next morning to a lengthy infomercial bragging about the product’s technological
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superiority to its competitors. Not only that, it was now and for a limited time available at half the price of its closest relative and came with a five year warranty. Wow. I memorized the flashing phone number on the bottom of the screen. I scooted to the phone in the kitchen and I think I entered the correct number. I was greeted by an efficient female voice;
“Good morning. This is Andrea. May I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like one of them.”
“One of what?”
I thought for a few seconds. She said; “Sir?”
“One of those things you’re selling on television. Can we expedite this a bit? I wouldn’t want the limited time half price offer to expire.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“What product do you want?”
I was getting annoyed. “The... one... you... are...
right.... now.... advertising.... on.... television.”
“I don’t have a television here and we sell hundreds of products.”
“Can you hold on for five seconds, while I take another look at the television?” I ran back to the defining box, only to find that a news program was now on. Worse, could that be an indication that the limited time offer had elapsed? I walked
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ponderously back to the phone and said; “Sorry, the show is over.”
“Well, what did you want?”
“The thing you’re selling for half price.”
“You must know what it is.”
“I thought that was your job. At half price I’d buy most anything.”
She didn’t know what to say, so after some dead space, the best response she thought of was to repeat; “What is it you want?”
I had already been over this terrain and in an attempt to avoid going through it again, I tried to think of the question in a different way and responded sadly; “I don't know.”
We either got cut off or she hung up, hoping that if I called back someone else would get stuck. I went to a window in an adjoining room and watched the first hint of sunlight peep out over the hills somewhere behind Butch’s house. The laser like beam must have switched one of my channels, because suddenly all was clear. The infomercial and the phone call put my mindset right back in the heart of the land of the free and I knew exactly what I wanted; to play cards and win a fortune.
I made coffee and breakfast, trying to decide if I should give Butch a call. This was to be our “preparation” day and any last minute details could be worked out during tomorrow’s two
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hour drive. I guess I just wanted to hear him assure me that all systems were still go, get that over with early in the day and then we both would spend the rest of the day preparing, as planned for tomorrow.
He answered with a bored; “Hi, Ed.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“Who else would call at this hour?”
“Are you getting prepared for tomorrow?”
“Yeah. At least I was.”
“Everything’s all right?”
“Yeah,” he said in two syllables.
“Well, good,” I said hesitatingly. “I just got into this weird conversation and for a while it threw me.”
“You running a wake up service?”
“I called to buy some product.”
“What product?”
I didn’t want this conversation the first time and certainly didn’t want to risk repeating it, so I cut to the chase; “I didn’t know what it was I wanted.”
“You really should cut out the mental masturbation, especially today. You want to play cards and win a fortune, simple as that.”
For the second time in the early day the phone line indicated possible problems or I was hung up on. I spent the
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rest of the day eating, drinking, counting my $110,000 and playing out imaginary six hand seven card stud games, not knowing Butch was doing precisely the same thing.
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