"Probation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mendicino Tom)

Resolutions

It’s a new year.

Time for auspicious beginnings.

Time to kick start my new life.

Ready, steady, go.

“Look, I really don’t want to discourage you, but I’m not sure the timing’s quite right,” Matt says.

“What do you mean? It’s perfect timing. It’s January. When do you want me to make my resolutions? Sometime in the middle of March? Obviously you’re not big on New Year’s resolutions,” I say.

“Quite the contrary,” he laughs. “I took my last puff on a cigarette at eleven fifty-nine, December thirty-first. I broke my record this year. I was a nonsmoker for four and a half days.”

“Maybe you’re weak,” I say, perfectly comfortable sounding smug and condescending.

“You’re right. I probably am. Maybe you can do better. Go ahead. Tell me your resolutions.”

I haven’t come as prepared as I thought. But then how do I reduce stop doing what I’m doing and start doing something different to a laundry list of self-improvements?

“Well,” I say, “first, I’m going to start getting more sleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“I think I’ll look for an apartment,” I announce, a sudden inspiration that catches me off guard.

“Are you ready for that?”

“For God’s sake, I’m a lot closer to forty than thirty. I think I should be ready for that.”

“How long has it been since you’ve lived alone?”

The answer’s easy, but he doesn’t need to know it. Never.

“Well, uh, I guess it’s too many years to count.”

“Look, Andy, I’m just concerned about setting unrealistic goals you can’t achieve simply because the calendar’s flipped to another year.”

“You’re a priest of little faith.”

“No. Just a therapist with a lot of experience. By the way, you are taking your medications, aren’t you?”

“Religiously.”

“Secularly will suffice. So, getting back to your resolutions. What would you like to change?”

“Who says I want to change?”

“Do you want to continue on the same?”

“No.”

“So what do you want to change first?”

Everything? I ask myself.

“Well, I don’t want to be here.”

“Not an option. But, just as a hypothetical, where do you want to be?”

“Home,” I say, not hesitating.

“You just said you wanted to look for an apartment.”

“No. Home. My home.”

“You mean with Alice?”

“Yes.”

“What would you do differently if you could go home to Alice tonight?”

Everything. I would be devoted, attentive, thoughtful, gentle, caring, committed, selfless, kind, affectionate…romantic…passionate…faithful. Am I being overly sentimental, insincere? Is that why I can’t bring myself to actually utter this declaration in actual spoken words? Am I afraid that my trusted counselor will call my bluff?

“Were you happy living in Alice ’s house?”

“Our house,” I correct him.

“Sorry.”

“Sure, I was happy. I wasn’t unhappy. Remember, I didn’t leave. It wasn’t my choice.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Of course not. The Green Goblin put a gun to my head and, finger on the trigger, marched me out of the house. He threatened to splatter my brains across the tile walls of that damn rest stop if I didn’t drop to my knees and take that stranger’s huge cock in my mouth. The King of Unpainted Furniture had set me up, paid the goddamn gremlin for the hit job, and, mission accomplished, booted me out on my ass. I had nothing to do with it.

“Do you think Alice was happy?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She never said she was unhappy.”

“Has she tried to contact you?”

“She can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Curtis won’t let her.”

“How could he stop her?”

God, this priest can be obtuse. Curtis keeps the Green Goblin on retainer, a hired gun, muscle to enforce his will. Alice has been kidnapped, held against her will, chained in the basement, bound and gagged, threatened with starvation and dehydration if she even entertains the thought of attempting to contact me.

“You don’t understand,” I say.

“Do you?”

Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I’m not ready to accept the possibility that Alice, my wife, doesn’t want to see or hear from me, not now, not just yet, maybe not ever.

“Have you considered the possibility she’s trying to move on?” he asks.

Move on, go forward, proceed, progress, advance…

Why not…go back, retreat?

No, no way, that sounds too much like a military maneuver in the face of defeat.

How about…repatriate?

Yes! Repatriate, reclaim, restore, rebuild.

Has he considered the possibility that she’s just called a time-out to consider her negotiating strategy, to finesse the conditions of the truce and draft the terms of the treaty?

I’ll sign it. Unconditional surrender. I’ll be the best goddamn fucking husband in history. As devoted as Winston to his Clementine, Ronnie to his Nancy, Edward to his Wallis.

One more chance. That’s all I’m asking for, Alice. I’ll be perfect, just wait and see.

“I would imagine she needs some distance to move on and she’s trying to help you do the same.”

“Isn’t that your fucking job?” I say, sounding more hostile than I feel, suspecting he’s placating me, sugarcoating the obvious fact that my wife hates me by deceiving me into thinking that her motives are altruistic, Saint Alice of the Little Flowers. Not that I need her help, or his for that matter, to move on. A raging success, a whopping triumph, a touchdown, a home run, no, a grand slam home run-how should I describe my remarkable achievements in the arts and sciences of relationships as I’ve scoured the lower forty-eight of Our Great Nation for Shelton/Murray over the past few months?

DATELINE: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

He takes me by the hand and leads me to a king-sized mattress and box spring. Unfolded laundry is tossed everywhere, underwear on stacks of yellowing newspaper, unpaired socks in open dresser drawers. His desktop is cluttered with broken pencils, twisted paper clips, dry felt tips of every imaginable hue, junk mail circulars, cheap plastic pens chewed nearly beyond recognition, invitations for credit cards with 6% interest and forgotten utility bills. Sneakers, wingtips, loafers, sandals-all creased by sweat and worn at the heel-collect dust at the foot of the bed. The nightstand’s well stocked with a supply of lubricants and poppers and a pile of loose condoms he scooped up by the handful on his way out of the baths. The sheets are stained by his old enthusiasms. He makes love like he’s starved, as if it’s his first time, or his last.

Then he cums and shuts down in a flash.

“Should I leave?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, a mocking smile on his lips, “I’m a real bitch in the morning.”

I break a shoelace, racing against the stopwatch.

“Got everything?” he asks. “Wallet? Gloves?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Meaning get out.

“I have no idea where I am.”

“Just ask the doorman to turn on the cab light. You’ll be back at your hotel in fifteen minutes.”

And then I’m out on the street, shivering in the cold New England night, waiting for a taxi that never comes.

DATELINE: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

The bar is packed, shoulder to shoulder, but the bodies miraculously part, allowing him to rocket by, swept along by the winds whistling off the whitecaps of Lake Michigan. Just as he’s about to disappear into the sea of flannel and black lambswool, he snaps to attention. He’s picked up a scent. He grabs my elbow, peers into my face and says “hey.” “Hey,” I say back. He does a Popeye two step, mimicking my deep voice: “Hey.”

“I can’t believe this,” he laughs. “You’re too young for me.”

We determine that I am sixteen, almost seventeen, years older than him.

“See,” he says. “You’re way too young for me.”

“Are you wooing me, Rocket Boy?” I ask.

“Do you want to be wooed?”

More than he can ever know, for as long as he’s been on this earth.

Four, five, is it six?, beers later, he tells me what he is seeking. Someone he enjoys being around, someone sweet and sincere. Sweet and sincere…Here! I know he’s been waiting for me. Why don’t I wrap him in my arms, squeeze the air out of him, fold him in a neat square, tuck him in my pocket, and carry him away?

Our romance ends as abruptly as it started. He announces he has to work in the morning. It’s late. The alarm will go off soon enough. It’s only nine o’clock, I protest. I need a lot of sleep, he says. I walk him to his bus stop, saying nothing as he climbs the steps and drops his coins. I see his paw clearing a circle on the frosty window. He presses his face against the glass, searching me out. I step back so he can’t see me. The bus rumbles down the street, stealing a piece of me I can never retrieve. The exhaust pipe spits a black chunk of ice at me. It splatters on the street, missing my feet.

DATELINE: SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

He opens his eyes and snuggles against me, getting as close as he possibly can. He’s purring, as coy as an irresistible and yielding French sex kitten. But cooing and mewing can’t eroticize his prissy turned-up nose and thin lips and the pinched squint that makes him look as if he’s sniffing a perpetual fart. It’s embarrassing, this performance, like being forced to watch a middle-aged maiden aunt do a striptease.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he gurgles, his pale eyelashes crusted with sleep.

He goes down on me, sucking like a Hoover, trying to get me hard one last time.

“Mmmmm,” he says, straddling my hips, his pencil stub of a cock at full attention. His little titties jiggle on his soft pink chest, reminding me of the piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh.

“In the mood to get fucked?” I ask.

“Always,” he murmurs.

Good. I want to drop this load quickly and get it over with.

“…but it’s quarter to eight and I need to shower,” he snaps as he jumps off the bed, leaving Little Andy at full salute and pointing at the ceiling.

What I’d give to wring his scrawny neck, wipe that smug little smirk off his face, shove him through the window, see him splatter on the sidewalk twenty-six floors below.

“She’s not coming back, Andy, and you know it.”

“I know that. She hates me.”

“I doubt that. But you’ve made it impossible. You realize it, don’t you.”

“I made a mistake.”

“You think it’s as simple as that? You made a mistake? One mistake? Which of the many was the fatal one?”

The one where I let her fall in love with me.

The one where I believed her love would save me.

Goddamn. Son of a bitch. Motherfuck.

The damn priest’s got me crying.

Not really crying. More like “a little misty,” red-eyed, maybe a little tight in the throat. Not sobbing, not snot-nosed and dripping. I do not need a tissue from the fucking box he’s shoved in my face.

“You know, Andy, it’s not a sin to be lonely.”

“Who says I’m lonely? I knew we’d get to sin eventually,” I say, trying to inject a little levity into this pathetic scene, anything to avoid to the bleak future I see in the crystal ball.

“Well then, it’s not a sign of weakness.”

“I suppose I better get used to being alone.”

“Why?”

I snort, not believing I’m paying someone who is stupid enough to ask this question.

“You can have another relationship,” he says.

“I’ll just wait for Prince Charming to arrive and sweep me off my feet.”

“Doesn’t work that way.”

I can’t believe I’m getting advice for the lovelorn from Father Celibacy.

“Let’s try one more resolution,” he suggests.

“I’m all ears.”

“We agree that these sexual encounters leave you feeling demoralized.”

“No. You tell me that. I don’t agree. Why do you insist on keep moralizing about it? It’s just sex.”

“That’s exactly my point. It’s just sex and you’re looking for love. Or at least a little emotional intimacy. What you used to have with Alice.”

“Sex. Love. What’s the fucking difference?” I say, exasperated, aware that I’m making no sense.

“I’m surprised that you, of all people, would make that comment.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, your marriage, for one thing.”

I start to protest, then surrender, unable to refute his professional observation.

“Not that they have to be mutually exclusive,” he says.

“Yeah, well, good luck finding true love and happiness out there. Tell me how it goes,” I snort.

He shrugs, conceding for once, he’s not speaking from any vast experience of affairs of the heart.

“Well, I’ll have to take your word for it. See you next week.”