Clothes. That’s all that was on top, anyway. I was almost disappointed. A blue denim work shirt, a pair of Levis (size 28 medium), three pairs of white briefs (everything was clean and neatly folded) and some pairs of white crew socks rolled into balls. A little shaving kit caught my eye, but the contents were completely innocent: a cheap plastic razor, shaving cream, a bar of soap in a plastic soap case, a small hand towel, and a can of aerosol deodorant. No aftershave.
I took everything out and unfolded it, in case there was something hidden in the folds. I even checked the pockets. It was ordinary clothes and personal care stuff – all the way to the bottom.
No clues there. Except that the sterileness, the impersonalness, of the contents was a sort of clue. I mean, there were no photos of wife and kids, no papers, nothing funny or off-beat or individual. Nothing pertaining to a job, or even a hobby. No paperback books, which would at least enable me to know what sort of books he liked to read. You can tell quite a bit about a person by what they read. But there was nothing. Any type of official identification like a driver’s license must be in his wallet, which was probably in his pant’s pocket. And I was very curious, but not anywhere near curious enough to go in and try to ease it out of his pant’s pocket. He seemed so zonked out that I probably could have gotten away with it, but it felt very unethical. Going through the duffel bag was bad enough.
I zipped the bag shut and went into the sitting room and put it next to the couch. Mack looked asleep. I debated about taking off his hiking boots, but trying to undo all that lacing might have awakened him, or jostled him enough that he’d throw up. I left them on. I did my routine evening chores. I locked the back door, and turned on the kitchen night light and turned off the big light. One more check on Mack. His face was relaxed in sleep, and looked more peaceful than I would have thought he could look. Something was causing this man a good deal of mental agony. You’d think a guy who attracted women like he did would have it made, but he was the most unhappy person I had ever seen. Maybe the only relief he got from his own personal demons was in his sleep. Who knows?
It was only nine thirty, but I didn’t feel like watching TV. Besides, it was in the sitting room. I gathered up some crossword puzzle books – the easier ones, not the acrostics. I wanted to relax, and the acrostics were so absorbing that if I started one, I couldn’t sleep until I’d finished it. I turned off the last downstair’s light, checked the doors, and went upstairs to bed, three cats at heel. They always sleep on my bed.
That night I had weird dreams. The first one I can’t remember too well; all I recall is that I made a wish, I wished for something, and it came true. But I don’t even remember what I wished for.
The next dream was a real doozy. It was a fantasy, where I was with a beautiful woman with long blond hair, and instead of being shy, and bungling my request for a date, I was comfortable with her, even articulate. In the dream I had known her for a long time, and was her best friend, though at the same time, in the contradictory fashion of dreams, I was asking her out for the first time. She accepted in a smiling, gracious way, and then the scene changed and we were in bed, and I woke with a raging hard-on that I immediately gratified with my hand. Man-O-Man! After I came I tried to get back into the dream, using the post-orgasmic relaxation to encourage sleep, but it didn’t work.
The main reason it didn’t work was I suddenly remembered Mack downstairs. And I knew I wouldn’t rest until I’d gone down and found out how he’d spent the night. Would he even still be there? If he was, would he be awake? Would he be sick? Would I finally get a chance to eat a meal with him, and talk to him? Find out who he was?
The prospect of sitting at the kitchen table with Mack, both of us chowing down pancakes and eggs and conversing companionably was so inviting that returning to my dream paled in comparison.
I hopped out of bed, took a one minute shower, and quickly dressed, thankful that it was Friday and that’s usually a work day but I had no outside appointments, and since I often work from home I could use the day as I pleased. I could spend the whole day with Mack. I trotted down the stairs and strode eagerly into the sitting room.
He was still asleep. Still on his left side. And now I understood the cat hiatus on my bed when I woke up – they were all down here with Mack.
Jacob was curled in the vee of Mack’s bent knee, and Darling was in the other vee of foot, ankle and the front of his calf. He was bracketed with cats. And Peter was in a shape I call ‘the toaster’ (lying with feet tucked underneath) on the floor next to the puke bowl – which was empty. Mack hadn’t woken yet – darn. Darn darn darn.
As I stood by the couch, wondering whether to go into the kitchen and start cooking loudly or not, there came a rare sound – the knocker on the front door.
Now, the only person it could be was a salesman or some other such pest. It’s not very often that someone comes to my house – Girl Scouts selling cookies, scam artists trying to sell vinyl siding; even the paperboy knows to come to the kitchen door. I glanced down at Mack, who remained oblivious.
Annoyed at having an unwanted caller, I hurried to the door, and looked through the oval glass panels to see who it was. I got the surprise of my life – it was Maggie.
Good God – Maggie! Here at my house! Bewildered, irritated, and scared (though Maggie is the least scary woman I know, excepting old ladies), I unlocked the door and heaved at the knob. The front door is heavy as hell, thick and old and it sticks besides. And hadn’t been opened in months. I know I should get it fixed but somehow I never do. I wrenched violently at the knob and pulled with all my strength, and the recalcitrant hinges resisted as best they could until I yanked so hard that they gave in. I managed to get about a foot of space, and by squeezing my body into that and pushing with both hands while bracing my back against the jamb, I finally got the darn thing open. Sweaty, nervous, and embarrassed, with a flaming face, I greeted the woman at the door.
“Hi.”
“Doug! Hi. I hope I didn’t come by too early – did I get you up?”
I shook my head. I wished I were a thousand miles away. Why didn’t that wish come true?
“You sure had some trouble opening that door. Is it always that hard to open?”
“Uh – yeah. No. Well, I don’t uh – open it much. You know.” Idiot. I sounded like an absolute idiot. And for sweet, kind, Maggie. I wanted to cry.
“Oh. I see.” She smiled a little, but it seemed forced. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d stop by. Did you . . . did that guy you were with go home with you last night? I thought maybe – “
Oh ho. Now I get it. I think I may have scowled or something because Maggie rushed on.
“I brought some soup for him. Chicken noodle. And some tomato juice, in case he has a hangover. I just wondered . . . if he was all right. If you needed any help,” she finished, a bit lamely, I thought.
Well well well.
“Is he here?” she asked, after I did not reply. She actually craned her neck, trying to see past me into the house.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, not able to think fast enough to decide whether to lie, and if so what to say.
“He spent the night?”
“Yeah. But he’s still sleeping. On the couch.”
“Could I . . . could I come in? And bring the – ” she gestured with the tupperware container she held in both hands. It had a small can of Campbell’s tomato juice balanced on top. “Can I bring this in?”
Again I couldn’t think fast enough to lie. I nodded shortly and stepped back around and inside, giving her room to pass. She came in, and hesitated. This had to be one of the most awkward situations I’d ever been in. And I guess now is as good a time as any to fill you in on my “relationship” with this woman.
I first laid eyes on Maggie when I started going to Dave’s, which is a little over a year ago. It was the summer before last. And as soon as I saw her, I liked her. I began going to Dave’s more and more often – for awhile there two or three times a week – just to see her. I was always disappointed if she wasn’t there, or if one of the the other waitresses waited on me. Maggie was friendly from the very beginning. And from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to get to know her better – to ask her out. I knew I wanted to. But I couldn’t.
You don’t understand, I bet. Unless you’re one of us, one of the afflicted. The disabled. Maybe you think it’s amusing, my condition. Let me assure you – it’s not. It’s heartbreaking. It’s agony. It’s left me to pick up only the crumbs of life, while others feast at the banquets.
I’ve wondered sometimes if I’m terminally shy by nature, or nurture. I’ve read a lot lately about genetics and how much it affects and controls. But neither my mother nor my father was this way. Or if they were, they never told me and it didn’t show.
I was born when my mother was forty-five – a “change of life” baby. An “accident”. Accident, as in car crash. As in cutting yourself while chopping onions. As in falling down the stairs. In other words, I was a disaster.
Maybe it’s the fact that I was unwanted that started me out this way. My mother told me once how angry she was when she found out she was pregnant. Did I feel that rejection “in utero”? When I got older, and learned about abortion, I often wondered – I still wonder – why she didn’t abort me. Too expensive? Inconvenient? Against her morals? Of course I could never ask her. We never had conversations like that. And I can’t ask her now. So little Douglas John emerged into a world that never welcomed his arrival. It was a hard labor, a difficult birth. I was the reason. I emerged, a new baby, with two strikes against me, two demerits – big ones – instead of beginning with a clean slate, a spotless record. And I remained in debt for the rest of my life.
Well, anyway. I digress. I wanted to tell you about Maggie and me. So I met her. Liked her. Wanted to date her. Kept coming back to Dave’s, kept summoning my courage, kept chickening out. I’d even rehearse at home, using one of the Boys as Maggie, until I perfected my speech enough to give it in front of the mirror. A cruel task, but Maggie was worth it. I wrote down my lines, and memorized them, but wisely carried a small, sweaty “cheat sheet” crumbled in my fist when I went into the bar.
In the meantime Maggie became friendlier and friendlier, even gently kidding with me sometimes, and offering pieces of personal information about herself, such as the unmarried part (which I’d assumed since she wore no ring) and how she had three daughters who stayed with her mother while she was at work. She never said if she’d been married, and I had no information – only the feeling – that she had never been. I also had it in my mind that the girls had three different fathers, although why I thought this I have no idea. So, to make a long story short, I lived in growing torment till I finally worked up a desperate, frantic kind of courage, and I did it. I blurted it out to her when she was bringing me a piece of pie. Would she care to go to the movies with me some time?
Well, you can guess the rest yourself. There was no need for me to wait so breathlessly. The rejection came mercifully quickly – kindly, firmly, padded with a smile, but leaving no doubt – no. No, she didn’t think so. And it was done in such a way (the choice of words I can’t remember – I didn’t really hear them), in such a manner that I knew her answer would be the same if asked again later, or asked for another, different event. She thought I was a nice enough person (her rejection conveyed this somehow) – but she didn’t want to change our relationship from nice customer/friendly waitress to anything else. She let me down gently, as I had told myself a million times that she would – but I fell hard. I hurt. I felt black and blue for a week. But eventually it was okay. I’d known in my heart all along that she was going to say no. They always say no.
But this history lent a certain awkwardness to her standing now in my vestibule. For me, of course – since the arrival of any woman would be cause for confusion and fear – but I think for her, too. At any rate, the Maggie looking at me now was not the friendly, at-ease, smiling Maggie of Dave’s, but a different one. The word “predatory” springs to mind. Or maybe she could smell Mack’s pheromones from all the way over here.
Because she was already leading the way, walking into my parlor like a bloodhound on the trail. The sitting room was next. I trailed helplessly after her.
“Oh, I see him,” she said in a hushed voice, more to herself than me. The cats did not leave their positions to greet the newcomer, which was very anomalous behavior.
She stepped carefully forward, going around the sofa to face Mack from the front. And as she leaned forward to look at this face, the can of tomato juice balanced on the tupperware fell off, hitting the edge of the sofa and sending cats exploding in three different directions. Mack lurched up, took one look at Maggie, and promptly threw up all over the sofa, the good carpet, and himself.