Stories

BURYING CAESAR

        I met Ronnie Laing in 1974 at a jazz club in London where he was the featured reader at a poetry reading.  He read a number of poems from KNOTS in which he explored the relationship with his dear, beautiful wife, Jutta.  Ronnie sat erect in his chair during the introductions.  He sipped clear liquid from a large glass containing ice cubes and had the glass refilled several times while the other poets read.  He looked like a movie star up on the stage, rugged and handsome, a powerful presence, with that sensitive, bad-boy quality I find irresistible.  I watched him read and imagined him my lover, talking to me in bed.  His poems were truthful, revealing, provocative, I wanted more of him.  When the reading was over, while friends and poetry lovers applauded wildly, Ronnie, zonked, knocked over a chair, and nearly fell off the stage.  Someone helped him down and he soon made his way to our table splashing his drink on someone’s Harris Tweed jacket along the way.  He kept looking over at Jutta who was circulating around the dark, smoke-filled room, attracting a lot of attention herself.  We were introduced by our mutual friend and stood gawking silently at each other for a moment.  (Could he read my mind?)  It was a ritual we would repeat many times over the following years.  Ronnie’s handshake was clammy and his eyes shot with blood.  After a while he was snatched away by fawning admirers uncorking a bottle of bubbly for him at the next table.  Later, we heard he’d been dragged kicking and screaming out of the club after threatening to blacken the eyes of his dear Jutta.
        About a year later I read in the paper that Ronnie was coming to my home town, which at the time was Geneva, Switzerland, to give a public seminar demonstrating the controversial techniques he used for treating schizophrenia.  Since meeting him I had read THE POLITICS OF EXPERIENCE, and found it brilliant and disturbing, a radical, yet rational strategy for people to deal with the crazy world.  I’d also heard my neighbor’s son had gone to one of Ronnie’s clinics to have a nervous breakdown and that he’d gotten better.
        The presentation took place in a large gymnasium where seats had been set up around a space the size of a basketball court.  The audience,  psychology students, a few daring professionals, a handful of  intellectuals, renegades, and a lot of curious onlookers, sat on folding chairs set up along three walls of the room.  8 PM was the appointed hour, but it came and went with no sign of Ronnie.  At a quarter past a handsome young man appeared carrying some large pillows which he scattered around the open space.  He wore a well cut, powder blue, terry-cloth, one-piece jump suit that revealed his muscular build.  Some people applauded, some giggled, some of us fidgeted in our seats; we were Swiss and didn’t like to be kept waiting.  The clock on the wall stared down through its iron grillwork reminding us that something important was about to happen.
        At 8:32 PM a door at the back flew open and a dozen healthy, clean-cut, good-looking young men and women in the same terry-cloth getup, each a different color, marched into the room single file.  They looked like a team of Olympic gymnasts, or runners.  Possibly a family of acrobats in a circus.  Ronnie was the last to enter, wearing the same outfit in pale gray.  He appeared trim and handsome, with graying hair and wizened eyes, still young and vital but older than the others and clearly the special one.  Even if you’d never seen his picture, you’d know it was him.  Charisma exuding from every pore of his body.  He acknowledged the audience’s reverential applause by looking down to his sneakers then up at the ceiling.  When it was quiet he addressed us in his thick unfamiliar brogue. 
        After a brief introduction he went right into the demonstration of the exercises: breathing, chanting, meditation, yoga, strenuous gymnastic movements.  It was never clear whether Ronnie’s people were his students or his patients, or both.  They watched his face with utter trust and love and went through their paces like well trained poodles in a circus.  They sat cross-legged on the floor waiting their turns to “work”.  Most of the exercises were performed in small groups, the participants hurling themselves at each other, falling blindly into each others arms, performing acts of unqualified trust.  They screamed and cried, had catharses and spontaneous healings which appeared unrehearsed; Ronnie, the ringmaster,  narrated, directed, and participated in all the proceedings. 
        All this was well and good but the thing we really wanted was to see the great R. D. Laing lose control of himself.   We’d come to see him demonstrate the re-birthing process he was using in his therapy which had attracted so much professional, and media attention, and the man did not disappoint us.  Through a series of breathing techniques and postures, and with the help of his troupe, whose bodies formed a tight birth canal through which he had to pass, Ronnie reenacted his entry into this world and its traumatic effect upon him.
        Ronnie let it rip.  It was all agony and ecstasy.  He fought for his life with the demons of his soul while being pinched and squashed by a cabal of fervent disciples.  He was a high priest and a seasoned performer, a saint and a sinner; he gave it all he had, and we took it all in.  We got our money’s worth that night watching him expose himself like a flapping, gutted fish.  Body and soul twisted and raw, he screamed and cursed and cried out to God.  Several times he had to be kept from attacking the audience; it took all the little helpers to hold him down.  It reminded me of that poetry night at the jazz club in London when we sat riveted to our seats wondering what he might do next.
        When he was done, Ronnie asked if anyone from the audience cared to come forward and try it out.  For a mad moment I had an impulse to fling myself  into his arms,  to strip myself of all pride and dignity,  to break out of the neat, so-called safe/sane world I inhabit, and give the world a taste of my own brand of craziness, but, like everyone else in the room, I didn’t have the guts.  And there was that costume. 
        I never got close to Ronnie; we met many times after that in his home, at parties and on other social occasions; I sat on the couch in his study and listened and watched while he played arias on the grand piano to accompany Jutta, who sang opera.  He attacked the keyboard with the same passion he brought to everything he did.  But I never came forward and spoke to him about anything meaningful.  I doubt he took much notice of me.  My fantasy was never fulfilled.  I heard reports the bastard beat his wife, and finally drank himself to death. 
I leave it to others to interpret and explain Ronnie’s work, to declare how important a thinker and innovator he was.  Many say he was a great man who gave the world a wisdom we needed.  Some reproach his departure from traditional methods.  My neighbor’s son recovered, and so, apparently, did many other people.  I won’t forget Ronnie. He was an impressive man, and like so many great ones, as crazy as they come.


CarolPearlman©1996  

KUTTER LOOSE

                Thomas Kutter stuck his head out the door of his apartment and looked into the dark hallway.  A faint light emanated up the stairwell from the floor below.  He blinked a few times to check his vision then stepped quickly into the airless passage.  He used three keys to lock his door.  He carried a small canvas bag, slung over his back, and a camera that hung from his neck and lay on his chest like a black medallion.  Kutter held the thumb of his left hand high in the air like a hitchhiker.  It was bandaged with a thick layer of gauze and surgical tape.  
	Kutter smoothed back the long tufts of silver and black hair, the color of fish scales, that floated around his head, revealing the dome of a mounting brow.  His forehead resembled a plowed field.  His grizzly mustache and short pointed beard were unevenly trimmed, and looked like the graffiti on subway posters, including accented eyebrows.  His eyes were milky blue and he had that startled expression cameramen and photographers get when they look at the world without the aid of a view finder and focus ring.  He was medium height, slim, except for a middle-age bulge, and slightly stooped.  His jeans had worn thin and their flaring legs told of better times ten, maybe fifteen years ago.  The pale blue Adidas were old and worn out.
	He hurried down the stairs, but just as he got to the front door Eli Eisenberg, his landlord, shouted to him. "Hold it Kutter, I want to see you."  Eisenberg's high-pitched voice was like a grappling hook that caught the back of Tom's army-surplus camouflage jacket and brought him to a halt.  The landlord cut a pear shaped silhouette through the morning light streaming into the hallway through the open door of his rear apartment.
	Tom stood in his place and did what an impersonator does on the stage when he turns away from the audience for a moment in order to present a new character.  It was the face of a fox that turned to glare at Eisenberg, with teeth bared and eyes blazing.
	Tom's voice was a growl.  "How dare you speak to me, you who would let me die like a dog?  I'm reporting you to the police. You hear?  In fact, I was just on my way now.  I'm going to tell them how you plotted to kill me.  If you don't mind, excuse me, because I'm in a hurry and have lots of things to do today.  You don't think I have other topics on my mind besides figuring out how to deal with the person who's trying to kill me?  I've got to worry about a million things while my landlord is planning to put my kids, whom he doesn't know, through college on the insurance money they'll collect should I somehow manage to come up with the premium before I die.  As a matter of fact Eisenberg, that's not a bad idea; while you're at it why don't you pay my life insurance premium?  The increase you'll get in the rent alone should make it worth your while."
	Eisenberg advanced a couple of steps into the hallway. "Calm down Kutter.  I just want to tell you the carpenter's coming to fix the railing later this afternoon.  The bulbs in the hall are gonna be replaced ir-regardless of how they disappeared.  And I expect the rent in my hand tomorrow morning.  Get it?"
	Tom waved his bandaged finger in front of Eisenberg's face.  Blood was beginning to seep through the gauze.  "Thanks.  That's great.  Finally.  It's about time.  Well, I'll talk to my banker about releasing funds for the rent when and if, I said IF things take place as you say.  Don't bother me any more, Eisenberg, you hear?  I've got things to do."
	Eisenberg shrugged.  "What's with the finger, Kutter?"
	"I nicked it while shaving."
	"Or stuck it somewhere, maybe?  Heh, heh."
	Tom opened his mouth, but Eisenberg had turned away, calling behind, "Don't forget, Kutter, I got grounds.  Don't push your luck.  Tomorrow morning, or else...."

	Tom turned and ran out the door.  An ambulance screamed past picking up the morning light like an orange rolling down the middle of the street.  He held his camera over his head, pointed it at the speeding vehicle, and shot three times before it disappeared around the corner.  Then he spun around and from various angles shot the front door of Eisenberg's piece of real estate -- God bless America, Eisenberg had come directly from Auschwitz.
	Tom moved in closer and shot a black pipe protruding from the property, and then closer yet to shoot the gray paint peeling off the stone walls.  Then he leaned over and shot a wad of chewing gum on the pavement.  He noticed he'd been standing on a crushed Marlboro box and got down on his elbows and knees to shoot that. While on his knees he shot the shoes of pedestrians and the wheels of baby carriages until there was no more film left on the roll.
	Kutter sat down on the low front stoop of his building, took a fresh roll of film from his backpack, and reloaded the camera. He set the aperture on f16 and the speed at 125, then he set the loose focus ring at two feet to infinity.  When he stood up he pulled a Kleenex from his pocket and wrapped it around the pink bandage on his thumb.  He pushed back his hair, blinked, and looked up and down the street.
	There was a crowd at the corner where the subway station and bus stop meet.  Lines had formed waiting to use the telephones. Tom snaked through the maze of people, shooting from the hip, aiming sometimes up, sometimes down, shooting parts of faces, parts of bodies, parts of the city, parts of a puzzle he had to solve, close-up and from afar.  An inadvertent jostle determined a fresh barrage of shots.  Someone dropped a letter in the mail box and Kutter shot that, then the posters glued on the box, and the graffiti too.  When the postman came up to remove the mail Tom stuck his camera into the opened mail box, shot the letters, and said, "Quack, quack,".  The film had run out again.
	He looked up at the sky and blinked.  Clear blue and not a cloud over the city.  He filled his lungs with fresh air, ducked down the subway stairs, and hopped on an E train for Queens.  He took a seat in a corner of the car, reloaded the camera, reset the dials, and shot passengers from his lap until his stop came up.  Then he got on a bus, transferred to another bus, walked through a park, and five rolls of film later arrived at the City Museum where Sandy Woo, his ex-student, waited in the lobby.
	Sandy had long blue-black hair and soft velvet eyes.  When  she had been his protégée, back before his obsession had taken over his life, she had let him paint her body with chemicals, and had writhed on giant sheets of photographic paper in the dark room while he struck matches and chanted Algonquin proverbs.  The results had won him notoriety and a prestigious grant, both of which had long since run out.
	"Where've you been, Tom?", she asked.  "I was worried about you.  I've been here for an hour and a half.  I read the whole NEW YORKER while waiting for you."  Sandy wore black tights and a zebra shirt.  Her lids were silver.
	Kutter examined his bandaged finger, holding it up and turning it around.  The blood had soaked through the Kleenex.  He covered it with another Kleenex.  "Do you think I have nothing else on my mind but you, young lady?  No obligations and commitments to others?  Do you realize I have to take care of my landlord, my children's education, and the future of mankind, while you sit here like a comfortable cat and wait, and incidentally, I'm going to tell everyone I know about the park out here which would make a perfect campground for homeless people.  And so would this lobby.  By the way, you wouldn't happen to have an extra roll or two of film on you by any chance would you?  Any kind, it doesn't make any difference.  You know Rita's getting kicked out of her apartment?  And Sam Yarbon's in the hospital?  I mean, before you talk about schedules and appointments maybe you should consider the state of the world we live in, or don't you ever think about things like that?"
	"Cut it out," Sandy said, throwing her hands up as though she'd just been jabbed in the back.  "I thought you wanted to be in this exhibit.  If you're not interested I'll call the whole thing off."
	"Don't say another word Sandy.  I can see the planets are interfering with inter-stellar communications and nothing is coming through to you today."  His face was a dark scowl.  "I know the reason for this because I happen to be in contact with certain sources which I won't mention around here...  "  He glanced around the pink marble lobby and blinked.  He lifted the camera to his face and fired off three shots of Sandy bent over tying her shoelaces in front of a fluted, pink column. "Meanwhile.” He went on, “you can sleep well at night knowing that I'm taking care of everything.  I'm working around the clock to make sure everything is as good as I can possibly make it.  Get that?  As I can make it.  That doesn't mean others can't make it, won't make it, or also, or even, are you listening, even something else altogether.  Do you understand what I'm saying, Sandy?  But are they doing it?  Look at what I'm doing and tell me who else is doing it?  These people here don't appreciate what I'm doing.  Nobody does, but they want it, you see.  They don't even know why."  He fired off the last shot in the roll, a close-up of Sandy making a face like the moon.
	"What happened to your finger, Tom?"
	"I cut it off."
	"Are you serious?"
	"Yes."
	"Why?"
	"I'll tell you later.  Do you have any film on you?"
	"No.  I'll try to get some later.  We haven't any time.  Did you bring the contacts?"
	"Of course.  Would I lie?  They're right here in my bag.  I've got no film left, Sandy.  I need film."
	"Later.  We have to go now.  Did you really cut your finger off, Tom?"
	They found Hugh Galangos, director of the City Museum's photography section, in the employee's cafeteria eating a plate of macaroni and cheese with a spoon.  It was a windowless room with museum posters on the walls.  Hugh sat by himself, at the head of a long table in the corner, near a pot of ferns.
	Tom raised his eyebrows as he shook Hugh's hand.  His voice was shrill.  "You're a lucky man to have Sandy working for you, you know, Hugh.  I was lucky too when she used to work for me.  Now she works for you.  Who knows -- maybe tomorrow she'll be working for me again, and you'll be the one who's out of luck, not that I wish you the kind of luck I've had.  Actually I'm a very lucky man.  See this thumb?  I accidentally cut it off this morning.  Most of it.  It's hanging by a hair.  But I don't want to talk about that now because here I am in the City Museum talking to you, the famous Hugh Galangos, photography curator and macaroni-lover, and I'm going to be interviewed by SPY Magazine next week, and the Smithsonian is going to show my early work late next year, or my late work early next year, either way, people have to pay money to look at my pictures, and I don't have one fucking roll of film to my name.  How do you like that, Hugh? Not one fucking roll of film.  You wouldn't have any film around, would you, Hugh?  Huh?"  Saliva was foaming at the corners of Tom's mouth.
	"I'll get some coffee," said Sandy.
	Hugh Galangos, a thin man with pasty complexion and dull yellow hair, wore a dark suit with pin stripes.  He ate with calm all the while Tom spoke, finishing his macaroni and a serving of green Jell-O studded with tangerine segments and topped with whipped cream.  He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin before he spoke.  
	"Sandy told me about you, Tom.  Glad to meet you.  I hope you'll be able to participate in my city exhibition.  Sit down, please.  Take a look at this.  It's just a tentative layout but the pictures will give you an idea of what I'm talking about."  	Hugh slid a folder out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Tom.  Tom stood where he was.  He unfolded the brochure and squinted at it a few times before he spoke.  "Thank you.  This is very nice paper, by the way.  I like the way it feels.  And this picture is very interesting.  Take a look at this."
	Hugh had to crane his neck to see.
	"Look closely where I'm pointing, to that shadow behind this building, which should have been a couple of degrees lighter and slightly more to the right, but never mind that now.  The way this person in the background is stepping into the building is something I love, brilliant in fact, but don't you think if his arm was at this angle, look how I'm pointing, you see, at about a forty-five degree angle instead of a sixty degree angle, there would be a whole other message here?  And what if there was a gun in his hand?  That's just a suggestion, mind you, it's not my picture, but take a look at that, and also the hat could have been at another angle, or no hat at all might have been even better.  And there in the corner I think you should stick in a tiny picture of an elephant to remind people about how important a picture like this is to the consciousness of the leaders of countries who never come to exhibitions like this anyway.  If the president could see this picture we'd have Sandinista poetry readings in the White House.  The only thing certain is that the CIA will be there.  You wouldn't happen to have any film on you, would you?"
	Hugh opened his mouth just as Sandy arrived with a tray.  "Here's the coffee," she said. "I brought you a donut too, Tom."
	Tom blinked at the donut, then he leaned over and kissed Sandy on both cheeks.  Tears welled in his eyes.  He kept his hands on her shoulders while he spoke.  His bandaged thumb now resembled a used tampon.  "I want you to know that's the nicest thing anybody's done for me in such a long time I can't even remember.  This donut means more to me than any exhibition at the City Museum or the Metropolitan Museum or the Museum of Modern Art, or even dinner at the White House.  Fuck Henry Kissinger.  Just take a look through this hole.  Sandy, do what I tell you.  This donut is art of a kind you don't find anymore, if you understand me.  Pay attention.  I'm telling you something important, Sandy.  Remember what I'm telling you.  This donut means more than a thumb."
	"That thing looks nasty to me," said Hugh.  "Have you seen a doctor?"
	"Have I seen a doctor?  I've seen thousands of doctors, and they've all seen me. What of it?  What I need now is film."
	"Did you show Hugh the contacts Tom?"
	"What contacts?"
	"Come on Tom.  Show Hugh the contacts."
	Hugh cocked his head to a side and smiled.  "Please do, Tom. I'm dying to see them.  Sandy says you've captured the city like no one in this world."
	Tom blinked.  "Nineteen thousand three hundred and seventy-eight rolls of film, and all of it stolen."
	Hugh gasped.  "It's been stolen?"
	"No.  I stole it.  I stole all that film.  Do you think twenty thousand rolls of film fall out of the sky?  Don't you understand, I need film?"  He dropped the bloody Kleenex into the empty Jell-O glass and wrapped Hugh's paper napkin around the bandage.
	"You ought to get that seen to right away," said Hugh.
	"I can see I'm getting no where here,"  Said Tom.  He pulled a stack of contact sheets out of his bag and dropped them on the table in front of Hugh.  "Try these.  If someone would buy me an answering machine, or fix my old one, I'd say you could leave a message.  Otherwise, it's impossible to reach me since I don't answer my phone.  Anyway, it's going to be cut off if I don't pay it today.  But don't let that bother you because I've been in worse trouble than this, even though I can't remember when.  My God, how far can this go?  Excuse me.  What time is it?  I gotta go see my ex-wife about a subject now.  She and the kids live in Queens.  I've got to catch her before she passes out from breakfast.  She douses her Wheaties with rye and soaks her prunes in applejack, 100 proof.  She hides her purse when I come over.  I search her closets and drawers and steal the cash in her pockets.  I raid my son's piggy-bank for nickels and dimes.  I sell naked pictures of my daughter to construction workers on the street for the price of a roll of film.  I fuck rich ugly broads in hopes that they'll take me shopping at Willoughby's.  I go down on dogs.  Do you understand me now?  Am I getting through to you?  Do I make my point?  Must I bleed to death?  If you want to do business with me, ladies and gentlemen, find a way to let me know. Please.  Good day."
	Tom turned and rushed out of the cafeteria, gasping and gulping for air.  He ran up the steps and came to a standstill in the middle of the lobby under the glass dome.  Blood oozed through the bandage and dripped along the tape to his wrist where it was absorbed by his sleeve.  A large drop fell on the pink marble floor.  He looked up and blinked.  A well fed looking man in a three piece suit, with freshly barbered white hair and pink, closely shaved cheeks, was buying a ticket at the entry counter. He wore a heavy gold ring with diamond chips, and carried an ebony cane over his arm.  His wallet was in his hands, and he was sliding a fresh fifty dollar bill out from its thick folds.  Tom rushed over to the man and said, "Excuse me sir, but could I interest you in a human thumb?  How much do you think a human thumb is worth?  Seriously, would you pay a hundred dollars for a freshly cut thumb?  Would you pay anything just to see one? How much would you pay...??? "


CarolPearlman©1997

THE ACCIDENT

Mary and John met at a dance at Brooklyn College.  She was a seventeen-year-old freshman and he was a twenty-five-year-old night school student.  By the second date they knew each other’s stories.  Mary’s father, a shopkeeper, had beaten her since she was a child.  Mary’s mother monitored her phone calls, snooped through her drawers, and read her letters.  John’s mother had deserted him when he was a child.  She claimed it was the cruelty of his father, a factory worker, that drove her to run away, but John believed it was his fault.

Mary yearned to run away from home but she was too frightened to do so.  Her mother had convinced her that she was unable to take care of herself.  John was free to do what he wanted but to cut expenses he lived with his father.  Mary dreamed of a prince charming to rescue her.  She knew John was the man because her mother and father hated him from the outset.  John took their rejection as a challenge and set out to win Mary.  

During the courtship Mary tried to make John more attentive and caring by being herself attentive and caring, demonstrating how good she was going to be to him when he became her protector.  John learned what not to do by observing what Mary wanted, and set out to see how much she’d let him get away with.  John began to withhold love right after the wedding.

Certain things were interesting.  For example, Mary wanted John to take care of her, which, given the fantasy that he was her Prince and Savior, translated into dreams of traveling around the world, buying everything she ever wanted – nothing but the best of course – starting with shoes.  She never had shoes the right size she complained, because she had to buy cheap ones.

John was a poor boy with no money in the bank, un-ambitious, and an underachiever.  But he was an intellectual.  He was politically conscious and had proletarian and poetic pretensions.  He introduced her to sex.  Mary settled for a bohemian lifestyle.  

Mary felt herself an artist but didn’t know how to express it.  She took dance classes and studied music but always stopped short.  She was afraid of not being good enough, of being perceived as ridiculous.  John had decided to be a social worker in an agency.  Mary preferred he be his own boss.  She disdained the types of jobs he had when they met: play-school director, social work assistant, and permanent substitute in the New York City school system.  She had a way of exposing his weaknesses that made him look like a miserable, spineless worm.  This confirmed John’s worst suspicions.  He believed Mary would leave him for another man.  He fantasized catching them in the act.  First he’d murder the man.  Then he’d shave her head and throw her into the street naked.  When he told her his nightmares she assured him he was out of his mind, she would never do a thing like that, and neither would he.  He didn’t argue.  She was right about everything.  He was a fumbling, babbling idiot.  Social Work School rejected him.  He stopped seeing his old friends.

John went after Mary’s girlfriends.  He talked to them about psychoanalysis and got them to confide their dreams.  He told them he saw things they wanted to hide.  Mary watched her friends flutter and squirm under his penetrating stare and was jealous because he didn’t do that to her anymore.  She informed her girlfriends that she knew her husband would never cheat on her.  She actually believed he could never cheat on her.  The way she saw it he needed her too much.  She announced that she and John were very happily married.  When company came, stars glowed in her eyes for him.  

No one but John noticed something Mary did at the housewarming party in their Greenwich Village apartment soon after the honeymoon.  She pushed the crystal pedestal candy dish – a gift from her mother – away from his elbow when he sat down on the couch next to it.  Later, while standing and talking to Mary’s mother and eating dessert, cherry pie a la mode, John accidentally dropped his plate with pie and ice cream onto the table shattering the crystal dish and splattering everything around.  A dark cherry, impaled on John’s fork, dripped thick juice down his wrist.  The dove-gray couch got a dark red stain.  The guests shook their heads and went, tsk tsk.  But Mary’s smile, while she cleaned up, proved to all but John that it didn’t really matter.  That night she tried to get John to make love to her but he couldn’t.

Mary wanted to be an intellectual like John, but he ignored her efforts.  Political and psychological discussions were his domain and she was consigned to listen.  John was worried about earning a living.  When he asked her to quit school and take a job she took it as an accurate judgment of her worthlessness and obeyed.  She stopped taking dance classes too and got a job as a dispatcher in a dental laboratory that brought in a steady paycheck.  John was trying to sell mutual funds but it was difficult.  A big sale could bring in a lot of money.  He went uptown and knocked on office doors but never got past the secretaries.  So far he’d only sold to Mary’s parents and two of her aunts and uncles.  He was depressed and couldn’t get up in the morning.  Mary hated that she worked hard at a boring job while he got to stay home in bed.  She insisted he rise early when she did.  He developed ailments.  She said he spent too much time reading newspapers and magazines.  He ignored her complaints, studied the stock market page and read every word in the sports section.  She yelled and screamed and carried on but he closed like a clam.  He started looking older, like his father.  His face was pained.  He appeared to be walking around in a perpetual nightmare.

Around the same time Mary started wanting more sex.  Frustrated and insecure, she tried all her wiles but the harder she tried the more John resisted.  He recognized that she was out to get him, steal his power, cut off his balls.  He had to watch out for this. Fucking her was dangerous to his life, starting with his penis.  He imagined she kept shards of glass in her vagina.  When he gave in, he ejaculated immediately.  He let her know it was because there was something wrong with her; she was frigid, deficient, and not attractive enough.  He didn’t say it outright but the message came across.  John could do that so well and he knew it would keep Mary anxious for a long time.  And Mary let John know in every way she could how much he was letting her down.  She rubbed it deep, a skill she had learned from her mother.  

And then one day John’s old friend Harry showed up.  John and Harry had gone to college together.  Both had joined the Socialist Party where they spent a lot of time chasing women.  Harry, a short, pudgy stutterer, was the most popular guy in the group.  He was always coming up with wild, crazy, but interesting schemes and getting his wild, crazy, but interesting friends involved.  John was an outstanding example of Harry’s wild, crazy, interesting friends.  When Harry found a therapist who cured his stutter he got all his friends to join the therapist’s group.  John took part but nothing could alleviate the pain he felt about his mother.  

It was Harry who had first gotten involved in selling mutual funds and who convinced John there was good money in it.  Mary said selling was much better than social work.  Harry’s latest scheme was selling to the G.I.s stationed in Europe and in less than a year he’d gotten a nice little organization off the ground in Paris.  Swollen with success, Harry flew back to New York with his French girlfriend and stylish European way of dressing, took a room at the Plaza and held court at the Stage Deli.  He offered corned beef sandwiches and jobs to all his old friends, some of whom went all the way back to Boy Scout days.  Mary said moving to Europe was the best idea she’d ever heard and that John should grab it.  To John the idea of working abroad was crazy.  Besides, he was a certified hypochondriac and could never leave New York City where all his doctors lived.  After listening to Harry extol his new lifestyle she changed her mind about John working for somebody.  He’d be independent anyway if what Harry said was true – that John would run his own territory and Harry would supply all the trainees he could handle.  Mary let Harry know she was on his side, against John.  John called Harry a bullshit artist behind his back.  Mary made up her mind they would accept Harry’s offer and nagged John about it every day.

Then one morning John met Harry for breakfast without telling Mary.  It was the day before Harry flew back to France.  The old buddies ate lox and bagels with cream cheese and shared a side order of sliced red onions.  They both sipped cokes.  Harry smiled while John described his ulcer attacks.  I’ve got just what you need, said Harry, who then offered to make John the general manager of his company.  He pointed out that meant the highest paying commission in the fund business, with overrides on all sales in his territory.  It would take years, if ever, for John to achieve that status under ordinary conditions.  And Harry’s magnanimity didn’t stop there.  As though too much wasn’t enough he gave John Germany.  There were millions of G.I.s in Germany, every one a potential sale.  John said he’d think about it.

One evening sometime later John and Mary were eating meatballs and spaghetti in the kitchen of their apartment.  Mary was berating John for splashing sauce on his shirt and whining about how they should be in Europe with Harry.  John wiped his shirt with his sleeve and nonchalantly, as though it was merely a trivial matter, said, “Okay, we’ll try it for a couple of months.”  Mary didn’t understand at first.  It turned out, she discovered after pumping John that Harry had called from Paris and said he would pay their passage and provide start-up cash.  He was throwing in an old car too.  John said she could give notice at her job.

She had won.  She had made him do what she had wanted him to do and now she could do whatever she wanted to do.  This, then, was her life: her triumph.  She would drive around Paris in an open car with the warm breeze blowing through her hair and she would breathe in the city and her heart would be filled with love and she would finally bask in the joy of her marriage.  The warm azure of the Mediterranean beckoned, sidewalk cafés, bouillabaisse, Camembert…  And while she didn’t particularly like the idea of Germany she’d make do, she’d get books from the library; it would be great.  John would earn lots of money and she would buy French shoes in the right size.  She would become an artist after all.  They would have children and live happily ever after in European splendor.

And this could have been the end of the story because Harry did take his company all over the world, and it became the most important financial institution of its time.  He controlled and personally earned zillions of dollars; and John, though very low keyed compared to Harry, also became rich and famous, a powerful man in international finance.  Everything appeared perfect.  During the next ten years Mary and John lived it up.  The rich and the hip, the powerful and important people of the world courted them.  Mary got a lot of attention.  She was direct access to John, an intimate of Harry.  They were wined and dined; nothing was too good.  Harry was able to fully express the most flamboyant aspects of his personality; he bought a private jet and gave the most sumptuous parties in Europe.  John still suffered from mysterious ailments but he traveled with ease now and wore custom-made shirts.  When John was elected to the board of directors they left Munich and moved into a mansion beside the lake in Geneva.  Fantasy fulfilled.

Or so it seemed.  Mary didn’t become an artist.  She had enough to do being John’s wife. She stayed abreast of the business but from the back seat.  John liked to talk things over with her because she saw things from a different perspective; she had a keen intuition about people and that helped him make decisions. But John was the star and Mary was just a company wife.  She was where John wanted her to be, at home with the children, looking after the house, buying all the right things, organizing vacations.  She chose John’s clothes.  Although she felt left out Mary acted as though she supported John all the way.  Germany turned out to the best producing territory in the company.  John won awards and prizes, gave speeches, was looked up to by the men in the field.  But despite the applause Mary saw right through John.  He could never fool her.  She knew that under his Italian mohair suit John was still a miserable, spineless worm.  He was impotent.  

John often had to attend meetings at Harry’s house at night.  Harry liked a lot of company around him.  Beside his legions, including an entourage of decorators and hairdressers, Harry surrounded himself with beautiful women who were seemingly irresistibly attracted to his fame and reputation for generosity.  He enjoyed that the men who worked for him saw this.   On an ordinary night there could be five or six aspiring beauties at his table.  Harry’s greatest kick was getting his guests to watch the hysterical competition for his attention.  People told stories about hair-pulling fistfights and the famous screaming maniac who threatened suicide in the pool house.  Harry would sit quietly and take it all in.  And when he was good and ready he would indicate his choice for the night with a small motion of his finger.  That was that.

Mary rarely participated in Harry’s inner sanctum.  She thought it was disgusting and she hated that John was forced to watch, for that was what she believed.  She couldn’t imagine John doing anything more than that.  She knew how deeply John hated and feared Harry.  Moreover, she reasoned, John was loyal and faithful to her.  He needed her too much to turn to other women.  He really couldn’t do anything without her, she knew.  She was the whole reason why he was where he was.  He knew that.  She had finally turned him into a man.  He was somebody now, thanks to her. 

Then one day, a cold gray day in January, something happened as they were setting out to pick up the birthday cake for their three-year-old son.  After lunch, the nanny took the children to the playroom, and John and Mary went down to the garage.  She rolled open the heavy garage door and was to roll it back down after he backed the car out.  A light snow had fallen during the morning and she had remarked how beautiful it looked, so pristine and white, so soft.  He was worried about the engine starting in such cold weather, and whether the tires would hold on the slippery road.  He flipped the key and the motor turned instantly.  She stood in the entrance of the garage waiting for him to drive out.

But before going on, we must return for a moment to John and Mary in bed the night before.  They were having an argument.  She was unhappy with her life, lonely, cut off, she couldn’t bear it any longer.  She was desperate.  He kept pointing out that she had everything she wanted.  He said the problem with her was that she was impossible to satisfy; that nothing he did was enough, that he’d never be able to please her.  She turned and looked through the glass doors that opened onto the brick patio where on mild days they took breakfast.  Below the flower gardens was the startling immensity of the lake, now calm and dark.  Beyond the twinkling lights of the far shore a brilliant moon lit the white peaks of the French Alps; the air was luminous.  She thought, I never imagined hell could be so beautiful.  She fidgeted with the thin strap of her gown.  It was true she had everything, but not him, not his love, that was what she really wanted.  

He was reading Forbes.  He suggested she find new ways to keep busy.  Take up charity work or something.  The thin strap of her gown slid down her shoulder.  He noticed and looked away, at his magazine.  But it was him she wanted.  He never paid any attention to her anymore, she said.  He threw the magazine on the floor, folded his arms, and waited.  She turned her face to him.  She had decided, she said, after months of thinking about it, that she wanted to go into psychoanalysis and find out why she was so unhappy.   John shook his head vehemently.  He refused.  He said he wouldn’t pay for it.  She was shocked.  How can that be?  He himself went to an analyst three times a week.  Didn’t he recommend it to everyone?  Why not his own wife?  She needed help.  John thought before he answered.  He said, “Because if you do I’m afraid you’ll leave me.”  John seemed to surprise himself with this outburst of honesty.

Mary re-opened the argument as soon as she opened her eyes the next morning, accusing him of selfishness.  John groaned and turned his back to her.  Outside the world trembled with life in the morning light.  The maid knocked, the door flew open and the boys came running into the bedroom, all smiles and hugs and warm, sweet little bodies crawling and jumping all over the bed.  The older boy asked when his birthday cake was coming.  This afternoon, Mary said.  Daddy and I will pick up the cake right after lunch.  The boy threw his arms around his mother and she covered his face with kisses.  The younger boy, who half walked and half crawled, clapped his hands, climbed into their arms and got kisses from both.  John got up to dress.

In the entrance to the garage, Mary fanned the exhaust fumes away from her nose.  Hurry up, she thought, stamping to keep her feet warm.  He always had trouble with reverse.  Her warm breath condensed in the cold crystal air.  After several tries the gear went into the groove.  She noticed the right rear tire and thought how soft it looked, so round and light with air.  She wondered how it would feel if it rolled over her toes.  Her boots were so thick she doubted she would even feel it.  The car lurched back.  Her eyes shot through the side window to the back of his head and then to his profile as he turned toward her.  For some reason he turned the steering wheel to the left and the car was not backing out of the garage in a straight line but it was veering out to the left.  In the next moment he passed her and right front fender of the car pinned her against the wall of the garage.  She screamed “John!”  He turned and stared at her full in the face.  “Get the car off me,” she screamed.  “I’m stuck… I can’t move.”  John got out of the car and came around to see what had happened.  Blood dripped on the cement floor where she stood.  There was panic in his eyes.  “Hurry,” she screamed.  She meant for him to lift the car off of her, to push it away so she could get free.  But John ran back into the car, released the brake, slid the gear into reverse and released the clutch.  Instead of releasing her John turned the wheel to the left again so that the right front fender continued in the same direction and crushed Mary’s leg, grinding it into the wall of the garage, leaving what looked like raw hamburger meat dripping slowly down the dented, silver fender.

He bawled like a baby in the ambulance.  Mary tried to calm him.  She thought, at least he’ll always take care of me now.  During the months Mary was in the hospital a sympathetic neighbor, a chain-smoking operatic soprano, looked in on John regularly and gave him blowjobs in the hall closet.

For the next ten years John continued to live his life the way he wanted.  He carried on the way you would expect of a rich, international playboy, unencumbered by any family considerations.  Mary kept quiet.  She didn’t want to know.  He bought her jewelry.  She entertained business people whenever he was in town.  When he was away she read a lot of books.  She took courses at the university, learned several languages, and wrote poetry and short stories.  John went from conquest to conquest, but always avoiding involvement.  He told them he was as married man with children.  He knew they were only after his money and a good time, you couldn’t trust anyone.  He and Mary referred to the event that gray day in January as “the accident.”  She put on a smile and allowed no one to see her pain.  

Then, after ten years at top of the world, the business went sour, the market slid to an all time low, the insiders fought among themselves, they had squandered a fortune on frivolity, John accused Harry of incompetence and called for his resignation, the company was taken over by Mafia thugs, and Harry, betrayed by his own lawyers was arrested and sent to jail.  John left the country immediately.  Mary stayed behind, went into psychoanalysis and sued for divorce.


CarolPearlman©2002

THE BOSS’S WIFE

	A woman steps out on a balcony and gazes across the lake to distant mountains, white peaks at the edge of the world. Nothing moves.  Sailboats drift, waiting for wind.  A pair of swans float near the shore, their shadows shimmer on the black water.  How could anything so beautiful be such hell?  She thinks, heaven is a sweet green valley covered in buttercups, where each day I skip down a sunny hill, my dog at my side, toward a peaceful village where my loved ones wait with open arms, and I get all the sex I want.
	The cry of a gull pierces the silence.  An argument breaks out among the sparrows in a nearby tree.  A cool current of early morning air tickles her ankles with the hem of her gown.  The shiver climbs her spine breaking out in goose bumps on her arms and shoulders.  The woman returns to her bedroom, another scene in hell: the sterile bed.  The king-sized spread of gold brocade is rolled back to reveal sheets the color of amber but with no signs of life.  She couldn't recall the last time he made love to her.
	She pulls off the slinky black gown she'd worn with the intention to provoke him and excite his desire.  She stands exposed to the light in front of a long mirror and looks carefully at each part of her body, turning, bending, lifting…  She examines her eyes in a small round magnifying mirror and plucks a few hairs from her eyebrows.  She parts her thick black hair in several places and pulls out a white strand, which she drops in a little straw basket.  In the shower she shaves her legs and underarms and rubs scented moisturizer all over her body.
	The black gown lies in a heap on the carpet.  Last night her husband had flinched when she entered the bedroom wearing it.  This reaction had lasted only a fraction of a second but its impact was a tidal wave that knocked her back into the bathroom groping behind the door for a robe.  No darkness could hide her shame.  I repel him, she thought.  It's cold tonight, she'd said, returning to the bedroom, twice winding the sash of a turquoise silk kimono around her waist.
	Her husband lay on his side with his back toward her reading US NEWS & WORLD REPORT in the lamplight.  The woman slipped into the bed and warmed her feet on the backs of his calves.  When he was done reading they switched positions and he examined the skin on her back.  She asked him why he enjoyed squeezing blackheads. I feel like I purify you, he said.  When she switched off her lamp he got out of bed and went down to the kitchen for a snack.
	She didn't go to sleep but waited for him.  She switched on her light, turned to the place where he'd lain, and found herself face to face with General Moshe Dayan on the cover of the magazine.  She flipped the magazine over and there was the Marlboro Man sitting on top a white horse.  She leafed through the magazine looking at the pictures: the surgical scar on the President's belly, soldiers and tanks, frightened children running away from something terrible, mourning women, a blindfolded man at the moment of execution, Timothy Leary in white robes and love beads telling people to take LSD.  She thought about how politics had gradually faded to abstractions when business got good.  Ché was so far away now.  The revolution would go on without them.  She drifted off to sleep with the missing eye of Moshe Dayan in her mind.
	The telephone rings.  Good morning.  The wife of the head of the legal department asks if she knows any tricks to get ball point ink stains off the carpet, and what kind of flowers will she plant in the spring beds this year?  They arrange to meet at a café in the old section of town on Thursday at three.  They will visit art galleries.  Suit weather, she thinks, I'll wear a hat.  She picks up a gold and bamboo pen and writes down the appointment in her diary that always lies open next to the phone.
	He has mistakenly left his behind.  She lifts it with care and flips to the front page.  She turns the pages slowly, examining them one by one, searching for clues of a secret life. She studies each day in January, February, and the first half of March, as though reading a great book.  She pours over the symbols, searches for the images, divines meanings, seeks the dreaded treachery.  She examines his scribbles and doodles, the little arrows that go shooting off in different directions, spirals, ladders, stairs that seemed to go up and down at the same time, labyrinths of arbitrary lines, the odd word noted here and there, names, places, times.  Outside, the gardener clips the hedges into smooth lines.
	José, the butler, serves lunch with white gloves in the dining room.  Her guests are the wives of two of her husband's top managers.  It's her duty to entertain them.  During salad the aroma of baked apricots fills the dining room.  It's her favorite dessert.  José knows this and makes an obvious effort to contain his pleasure when he sets the silver tray with it's steaming tart of glazed golden fruit in front of her.  Then he turns like a triumphant matador and leaves the room.  She tells the women what her husband had told her the night before, that the company grew more than a hundred percent last year.  One of the guests stamps out a cigarette in her half-eaten apricot.
	I want my husband to wear sideburns, the woman tells his barber later that day, while Maria, her hairdresser, combs out her hair.  Could you do that next time he comes?  I'll make an appointment for him.  Maria pins on a long black hairpiece.  Sideburns are so sexy, the woman says, and Maria, with hairpins in her mouth, nods her head.  Then you must tell him not to shave them off, says the barber with a shrug.  I cannot do it for him.
	He comes home at six, changes his shirt, sorry, an urgent meeting.  Have dinner without me, he says.  José brings a tray to the bedroom.  He pours her a glass of white wine from a crystal carafe and leaves the room.  She lays her book on her lap and stares through the window toward the lights of the city.  In her mind she goes over the conversation with the women at lunch, searching for things she might have said, should have said, shouldn't have said.  She reminds herself to tell her husband not to shave his sideburns.  There's something she's trying not to think about. 
	Then rising as though controlled by some outer force she rushes to the dressing room, throws open his closets, and rifles through his clothes, his jackets, coats, pants, everything.  She searches each pocket and pulls out soiled crumpled handkerchiefs, over two hundred dollars in loose bills and coins, movie stubs, a couple of buttons, and half a dozen small pieces of paper covered with his handwriting.  The name `Christina' is scribbled on one of them.  She hears the sound of his car in the driveway, the front door open and shut, his step in the hall.  She crumples the papers and stuffs them into her pocket.
	Summer and autumn pass.  One day when the driveway is covered with snow, it is confirmed, Christina is her husband's mistress.  It's been said the best way to remember anything is to add an action.  For example, stand on your head and say the name of the person you've just met and you'll never forget that person's name.  In this case it happens while making a pot of coffee.  The woman's friend, Audrey, has dropped by to say 
hello, or so she says.  José is polishing silver in the dining room and the cook is resting.  The woman leads Audrey to the kitchen and puts up a kettle of water to boil.  She lines a white porcelain funnel with a paper filter, measures three heaping tablespoons of finely ground coffee into the white paper, and sets it on top of a white porcelain pot.  When the water boils she pours it into the grounds, which transform into a dark, steaming pool of mud. 
	Audrey says, twice I've seen your husband in his car with Christina parked under the old bridge near the woods by the golf-course.  And for the rest of the woman's life, whenever she would see boiling water poured over ground coffee, in that cone of fragrant mud she would hear those words and see him loving another woman under the old bridge near the woods.
	Nothing worse can happen now.  She holds the feelings back. It's only a matter of time and an excuse - a sudden splitting headache - to get rid of Audrey.  By then all the electrodes have been set in place.  She rushes up to her bedroom, closes the door, and tries to brace herself.  Somebody throws the switch and all the feelings are released.  Every nerve ending is now set on fire.  The woman advances to a new level in hell, a new circle that turns blood to fire, where all is fire.  A salamander has stepped into the flames.
	Her mind takes over.  Shouldn't she bow out of the picture? Wouldn't he be happier with Christina and wasn't his happiness the most important thing in the world to her?  Wasn't that what love was all about?  Wasn't this proof he didn't love her?  To believe oneself unloved is the worst hell.  She now knows how it feels to be run over by a train.  The thoughts take over again.  They could be a threesome.  She'd invite Christina to dinner one night and watch him kiss her and she'd touch the girl while he made love to her and be part of it.  Then he'd love her, they'd both make love to her, and she’d love them both.  Someone would love her.
	The image of her husband making love to Christina gives her a sudden intense desire to fornicate with a horse, the Marlboro Man's horse, or a mule, or a bear, or the leg of the dining room table.  She imagines herself a whore, standing on street corners where faceless men humiliate her.  She'll murder Christina, poison her, blow up her car, throw acid in her face.  She'll kill him and carve him to pieces.  She'll murder them, she'll kill herself.  That's it, she'll kill herself, stick her head in the oven, swallow pills, drown, slash her wrists with double edged razor blades in the bathtub.  She considers throwing herself off the balcony but thinks it might not work.
	That night was a night of unparalleled beauty.  The moon and stars cast a clear light over the new fallen snow.  The air was thin as fine crystal.  There was a quarrel.  The woman cried so hard her husband could not console her.  She fled to the garage and jumped behind the wheel of the car.  The motor started.  He tried to stop her but in her effort to back out of the garage, and blinded by her tears, she turned the wheel sharply and caught him, pinned him against the wall.  She slammed her foot down on the accelerator and in the blink of an eye it was too late. The middle of the rear fender crushed his legs, fractured three vertebras and his pelvis.  His penis would have to be removed later.
	He lay on his side with his eyes wide-open oozing blood on the cold cement floor until the ambulance arrived.  A dog howled and the full moon looked down upon the scene like a placid Madonna.  The police made inquiries and after much questioning determined that it was an accident.  It was reported in the newspapers; everyone showed compassion for them both, many sent flowers.  The gardener washed the gore from the walls and floor of the garage and José sent the car out for a new fender.
	The woman wheels him out of the bedroom onto the balcony.  He's strapped to a shiny wheel chair.  Look, she says, it's a beautiful summer morning.  She steps around the chair and stands in front of him so he can see her smile.  She's wearing a soft, transparent gown that clings to her body.  His arms lay limp and lifeless on the camel cashmere blanket on his lap.  His head is held upright by a neck brace covered with a paisley foulard and his dark gray pinstriped pant legs are fastened back where his feet used to be.  I'm thirsty, he grunts.  For a moment his eyes seem to plead.  The woman looks beyond him to José who enters the balcony wheeling a cart covered with white linen.  There's a bottle of champagne cooling on ice and two tall glasses.
	The day is bathed in glorious sunshine.  The woman's gown flutters gently in the breeze.  The spinnakers are billowing brilliant colors across the lake and the birds' chorus sounds like laughter.  She stands at the railing of the balcony and takes in the beauty of the swans, the boats, the lake, the snow-capped mountains.  José expertly fills both glasses and hands her one.  He takes the other and raises it high in the air so that it glints in the sunlight between them.  He touches her glass lightly with his, and with a tender smile he says, "Here's looking at you kid."


CarolPearlman©1997

THE HONEYMOON

        Labor Day. The wedding was over. Sam drove the Buick over the Brooklyn Bridge into the city to their apartment on West 16th. Street. Night had come; the skyscrapers gleamed; sparkling beacons to their new life together. Brooklyn dissolved behind in darkness. Susan knew she would never go back. Moment by moment she was transformed. By the time they reached the Manhattan side of the bridge she had morphed from a little Brooklyn bourgeois princess into a bona-fide bohemian-intellectual-socialist-artist, like Sam. From now on she’d wear long earrings, tight skirts, sexy shoes; there would be books on her bookshelves, not painted teacups and china dolls like in her parents’ house. Susan had married the man of her dreams: older, wiser, sophisticated, everything she wanted to become.
        They circled the block in search of a parking spot where the car would be good until 10 the next morning, but there was none. Sam told Susan to wait in front of the house with their suitcases while he searched for a spot further away. She waited. After some minutes she stashed the suitcases inside the lobby and took a stroll up to 7th. Avenue. She wanted find out how it felt to walk down the street in Manhattan as a married woman. The gold ring felt strange on her finger. Night air was hot and heavy with a faint odor of garbage; the sidewalk gave up heat like an oven.
        Susan noticed a man inside a car parked near the coffee shop at the corner. Something moved in front of him; she thought he was signaling to her; his face was in shadow. The street lamp lit the lower part of his body; she saw his pants were open, his penis was in his hand and he was rubbing it slowly up and down. He tilted his head, looked up and smiled at her. She turned and ran back up the street to the house; her heart pounded, sweat poured down her face and neck. Sam waited in the lobby, his face white with worry.
        “Where were you?” he asked.
        “Nowhere, I just walked up to the corner.” She considered telling him what had happened but decided against it.
        “Why?” He pressed the button for the elevator.
        “No reason. I thought I’d take a little walk. I didn’t think you’d get back so soon.” She felt uneasy; his question felt menacing. She looked up to see where the elevator was. It was on 2.
        “I found a spot on the street right after I dropped you off. Some guy tried to get into it but I scared him away.” His nostrils were flared as in anger. He pressed the elevator button again and again.
        Susan pretended not to notice his feelings. “How’d you do that?” she asked.
        “You should have waited for me in front of the house.” Doors opened; they pushed suitcases inside; pressed the ‘5’ button.
        Susan thought his attitude was silly but she liked that he cared. “What’s the big deal?” she said. “I’m here. Don’t be such a worrier; nothing’s going to happen.” She was glad she hadn’t told him about the man in the car.
        The doors closed, she snuggled up and put her arms around him but he didn’t respond. He stared up at the panel, watched numbers light up one after the other.
        “What’s the matter?” she asked.
        “Nothing. I don’t like when you disappear.”
        “I didn’t disappear. I walked to the corner and came right back.”
        Sam grimaced; wiped sweat from his face with a handkerchief. Cables and gears groaned. He was unreasonable, she thought, but he’s a man, my husband; with eight years on me I suppose he’s entitled to feel protective. He acts this way because he loves me. He’s strong, mature. She stood beside him watching numbers light up as the elevator rose to the fifth floor.
        Sam unlocked the door and they went inside. The room was dark. A faint light from the street glowed through two tall bare windows encased with bookshelves. It was a large room with high ceilings; the furniture was discernible by shape. On the far wall a double box-spring bed purchased on sale at Macy’s; next to the bed a black tubular floor lamp and small wooden telephone table; against the inside wall was the sofa they’d had made out of two flush doors and a slab of foam rubber covered with knobby grey fabric; facing it were two black canvas sling-back chairs purchased at Bon Marché. The Herman Miller walnut two-piece coffee-table, purchased at a huge discount because of a tiny, hairline scratch, hardly noticeable, would be delivered in a few weeks. She was excited about her new home and loved every piece they had put into it.
        Susan threw her arms around Sam, held him tight, stood on tiptoes, looked up into his eyes and waited for the kiss. Sam winced as though in pain, unwound her arms from him. “My stomach hurts. I ate too much, I’m exhausted. I need to lie down.” He switched on the light.
A thud hit her in the chest. She turned away. It didn’t make sense. Married only a few hours and the man who could never wait to be alone with her, couldn’t take his hands off her, grabbed her every chance he got, was pushing her away. How could that be? She scrambled through her mind for a solution and soon realized how silly she was to worry. There was no rush. No one was going to come home and catch them. They were married now, could do whatever they felt like doing whenever they felt like doing it. He felt like lying down? Okay, she’d unpack clothes. She unlatched her suitcase and set about putting things into drawers. She felt proud at how well she was able to adjust and adapt. She felt far more mature than a nineteen year old.
        Sam lay on his back and watched her. After a few minutes he said, “So what did we get?” He pointed to her bulging satin purse filled with the checks they’d been given at the wedding that afternoon.
        Susan stopped what she was doing, drew the strings and emptied the contents onto the bed next to where he lay. She had an urge to pull him on top of her and make passionate love on top of the money but decided not to try. He rolled over to make more room; they tore envelopes open, read checks one by one; laid them out like building bricks all over the bed.
        Sam had recovered quickly from whatever ailed him. He sat up, took out his fountain pen and a notepad and started scribbling numbers. “Not bad,” he said. He arranged checks in order of amounts: $100 checks in one pile, $200’s in another. There were a lot of $50’s. Sam continued to tear open envelopes, noted amounts, placed checks in the proper piles. “Where’s your grandfather’s check? He cornered me after the ceremony, said he’d given us a big present. He was pretty drunk.”
        Susan was ashamed of her boastful grandpa who invariably promised more than he delivered. His gift was much less than what they had expected. Susan wanted Sam to kiss her, not count money. “For a socialist you worry an awful lot about money,” she said with a smile so it wouldn’t sound so critical.
He frowned. “All socialists worry about money. You think Socialists don’t need to eat?”
        The doorbell rang; startling shrill buzzes like a chain-saw. Sam got out of bed, walked down the little hallway, looked through the peephole and opened the door. There stood Wally, Sam’s cousin, the man from whom they had sublet the apartment. He was still dressed in the dark suit he’d worn at the wedding. His bowtie was undone, hanging loose around his neck; he carried a suit-bag over one arm and a briefcase in the other; a smile of innocence on his face.
        Wally was a graphic artist who lived in Westchester with his wife and kids. He kept the apartment as a pied a terre for nights before early business appointments in the city. Wally had sublet the place to them with the proviso that he could sleep in the tiny room in the back, where he kept his things, when he needed it. He said it would only happen rarely; he asked such a low rent they couldn’t refuse. It was a good building in the best location right near Greenwich Village.
        Sam was surprised. “Wally! Are you all right? Didn’t you go home after the wedding?”
        Wally smiled. “We came in two cars; I sent the wife home alone. I thought I’d stay over tonight and get some work done. You don’t mind do you? Jezuz, parking is getting worse and worse around here.”
        “I know,” Sam said. “I had to show a guy my baseball bat tonight to get a spot.”
        Wally marched into the room and looked at the bed. He whistled. “How’d you make out? Have you counted it yet?”
        Susan was stunned. Of all the nights of her life she didn’t expect to receive company on her wedding night.
        Sam scooped up the checks and stuffed them into the drawer of the telephone table. He wasn’t bothered by the intrusion and invited Wally to take a seat. Susan thought, okay, I get it; this is what it means to be bohemian. I’m supposed to act blasé about some weird relative who crashes my wedding night and shrug off the fact that my husband, who was a lot calmer now, didn’t seem to mind.
        She considered her options: she could throw a fit, cry like a baby, storm out of the place, leave the two of them to enjoy her first honeymoon night, or she could take it in her stride, be a good sport, laugh it off and join their conversation, which had now turned to the World Series.
The decision was easy. She was getting better at this sort of thing. “How about them Dodgers!” she said, with a big smile.
        Sam said, “Have we got anything to drink?”
        See, Susan thought to herself in the kitchen, I can be a regular guy. She wanted Sam to appreciate that. She returned with a tray of glasses and bottle of cold apple juice. She was feeling giddy. She raised her glass to Wally, “How about a game of three-handed bridge? Sam and I were just sitting here wondering what to do tonight and you arrived just in time. How’s life, Wally?”
        Wally looked sheepish. Sam laughed and went to get the cards.
The three of them played cards in the kitchen, talked about the World Series; could the Dodgers beat the Yankees and make all our dreams come true? Susan thought they would, but the guys were skeptical. They played until Wally and Sam were too tired to play any more. Sam collapsed on the bed too sleepy to remember to kiss her goodnight. Wally retired to his room in the back; promised to tiptoe out in the morning.
        Susan found her toilet case in the valise; went to brush her teeth and wash her face. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. A smile she didn’t recognize was plastered on her face like a mask. She stopped it. Her expression changed. She saw the sad smile of her mother. She changed that too. Now she looked like the nineteen year old girl who had sat in the bridal chamber only a few hours ago, awaiting her future. She tried out several more expressions until she saw what she thought was her face. She made up a story about the little dolls on her wedding cake: Tonight the bride will lie down beside her sleeping groom. They will not make love. Someone is getting work done in the next room. The bride is sad; she is disappointed about the first night of her marriage. She hopes with all her heart tomorrow will be better.
        The next night, alone in their apartment, they did sixty-nine in bed. He came quickly but kept her pinned down after she had her orgasm. He was trying to make her come for the third time when she pulled his head away. It was no longer pleasurable; his tongue & teeth hurt her. “Uncle!” she cried, “I’m sorry; I can’t.” She shut her eyes and pretended to sleep.
        Two days later they drove up to Lake George and rented a log cabin on the lakeside, hidden in woods. The cozy room contained a comfortable rustic bed and large stone fireplace. The air was tangy with wood smoke and pine. It was an informal place; guests ate family style in the dining room of the main lodge. Five green rowboats bobbed in the water beside a small dock. There was a shed full of fishing gear – poles, lines, hooks, lures, worms – for guests. When Sam saw it he rubbed his hands together, “Goodie!” he said. “I love fishing. It’s my favorite thing.”
        The moment they entered their cabin, Sam, constipated since the wedding, said he felt a big shit coming and went directly to the toilet. Susan unpacked and built a fire in the fireplace while he did his business. Foul odors invaded the room. Pine needles in the fire were no match for the stink of Sam’s bowel movement.
        Susan undressed, brushed her hair, put on the pink lacy nylon nightgown her aunt had given as a shower gift. She drew the curtains, switched off lights, slid under the covers. The fire suffused the room with orange shimmering light. It was good to be married, she thought. No smelly inconvenience would interfere with her marital bliss.
        Sam came back to the room in socks and underwear, announced he’d had a monumental shit and felt much better. “Great fire,” he said and climbed into bed.
They hugged and kissed; he slid his hands along her body over the nylon gown. After a few minutes he sat up. “Would you do me a favor, please?”
        “What?”
        “Would you mind putting your underwear back on?”
        “My underwear?”
        He nodded.
        “Why?”
        “I thought you wanted to please me. If you’d rather not…”
        “I do want to please you. I just don’t understand…” The request threw her for a loop; she couldn’t think straight; didn’t know what to do but play along with him.
        Sam leaned back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. The fire crackled; a flaming log broke, spewed sparks against the screen. Outside in the woods frogs and crickets made noises that sounded like trolley cars. Moonlight penetrated the thin curtains and illuminated the bed with pale light.
        “Okay, wait,” she hopped from the bed, shivered on cold floorboards, kneeled and rummaged through her suitcase. The fire threw shadows on the walls. Sam watched. “Here.
        How’s this?” she held up a set of black nylon underwear.
        “Not those; the ones you had on before, the white ones.”
        “They’re not clean… or pretty.” Susan wasn’t enjoying the game and wished he’d stop. She thought he was playing a joke on her, but he was not.
        “I want to see you in them,” he said. His face was serious.
        “Underpants and bra? Both?”
        He nodded.
        She did what he asked, pulled off the pink gown, put on the soiled white underpants and white cotton Maidenform bra with sweat-stains under the arms. Her shadow danced on the walls as she wriggled to hook up the bra. She shivered.
        Sam watched, rubbed his penis under the blanket and made it hard. Susan stood at the foot of the bed waiting for him to tell her what to do next. Her blood froze. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this.
        He told her to come back into bed. She slid under the blankets. He kissed her neck, her chest; caressed her breasts on top of the bra. She reached back to unhook the bra.
        He stopped her. “Leave it on,” he said, but she had already undone the hooks; her breasts were exposed. Sam stared at Susan in the light of the fire, then shut his eyes tight, squeezed her nipples with the tips of his fingers. His face was dark, twisted. She tried to fathom his expression; it could have been either pain or disgust.
Feelings of fear, shyness and confusion overwhelmed Susan. Whatever sexual excitement she had felt was gone; she was cold, stiff, dry. What followed was quick penetration that lasted a few seconds. Sam ejaculated with a grunt as soon as he entered her body; he pulled out immediately, said, “Oh shit,” and turned his back to her.
        Susan lay still in the moonlight, listened to crickets, an owl, animal footfalls on the dry forest floor. By his breathe and the clicking sounds of picking his nails she knew he wasn’t asleep.
        “What is it?” she asked, her voice nearly a sob.
        He was quiet for some time. “There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve never told anyone but my therapist. I don’t know how to say it.”
        “Just say it.” She expected to hear that he didn’t love her; he was going back to his old girlfriend, Lois, the one he always talked about.
        He waited before he spoke. “You won’t understand but I’ll tell you anyway.”
        Susan turned and watched him speak to the ceiling; his profile sharp against the fire light, voice tight, strange, body far away from hers. She trembled and pulled the covers up to her chin.
        “Ever since the first time I had sex I’ve had a picture in my mind of broken glass or teeth inside a woman’s vagina.”
        Susan laughed. “That’s ridiculous.” She was so relieved she didn’t even need to think about it.
        “I know but it’s how I feel when I put my penis inside you. I think there’s glass in there or that you’ll bite it off. I’m afraid of losing my cock.”
        “What about my mouth? It doesn’t stop you from shoving your cock down my throat.”
        “It’s different. This is not rational; it comes over me when I think about fucking you, putting my cock inside you. I see it clearly in my mind; it’s unbearable; it scares me to death; I lose control.” Sam turned and stared into her eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
        She laughed again; happy she wasn’t going to lose him to Lois. She believed everything would be okay now the silly secret was out. Now he’d drop the nonsense and start making love to her. “You can put that out of your mind,” she said trying to sound worldly wise, like him. “It’s total fantasy.”
        But Sam didn’t put it out of his mind; nothing changed; it was the same every night. Susan floundered in the dark sea of her mysterious husband. They spent the week fishing; Susan rowed the boat, Sam fussed with rods and reels, impaled worms on hooks, and cast his line again and again over dark, turbulent waters.


CarolPearlman©2007

JAB-ON

THE PILOT

(tease)
George and Gertie Bernstein emerge from the gaudy, ultra decorated dilapidated taxi onto the dusty road.  Nothing but cactus trees and dry scrub for miles around.  The car sputters and coughs and steam escapes from under the hood.  The driver yells at the car like it was a burro.  George mops his brow.
	Geo: (Looking around) When we started out I was only worried about getting there before it's too late.  Now I'm only worried about getting there at all.  Do you think this guy really knows how to find Paradiso?
	Gert: We'll get there, George.  We'll get there.  He said he had a cousin who lives there.  Things don't move so fast here in Mexico.  You know what they say about manana...
	Geor: No, Gert, I don't know what they say about manana.  Why don't you tell me what they say about manana?  And while you're at it why don't you tell me what manana means.
	Gert: Manana means tomorrow, dear.  And they say manana never comes.
	George:  Well maybe manana never comes in Mexico but it still comes in Brooklyn.  It came yesterday, while I was still there.
	Gert:  It's just a romantic notion, George.  Please try to lighten up a little.  This is difficult enough.
	George:  How can I lighten up a little when my baby daughter is about to make the biggest mistake of her life.  Maybe has made it already.  Oh God, please let it be manana.
The driver takes a long swig from a skin bottle and offers it to George.  George shakes his head and mutters "Manana".  Gert takes out a bottle of Evian water and gives it to George, who slugs it all down.
	Geo: (to driver) How much further do we have to go?
	Driver:  Just a little bit more senor.  You can see the rocks of Los Lobos from here. (points up the coast - sweeping shots of magnificent pristine shoreline, empty, with rolling surf, frolicking sea lions, and whales spouting in the distance.  A tiny village nestled in the foothills above the sea glistens under the sun and seems to beckon.)
	Geo:  Well let's go pronto.
They pile back into the car but the car won't start.  Driver curses and Geo glares at Gert.
	Gert:  Now try to stay calm Georgie.  You know getting excited isn't good for your blood pressure.
	Geo:  Neither is getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.  And my feet are killing me.  Why did you make me buy new shoes for this trip?
	Gert: I'm sure everything is going to be just fine.
	Geo:  Everything will be just fine when I get my daughter back home to Brooklyn where she belongs.

Next scene George and Gertie and the driver are walking down the dusty road carrying their luggage.  George has difficulty walking.  His shoes creak and the sound fills up the silence like a groaning animal.
	Geo:  I'm in pain, I'm dying of thirst, and I think I'm halucinating.  I think I'm Lawrence of Arabia.
  	Driver:  Just a little bit more senor.
	Gert: There must be worse things in this world than our little Harriet marrying a Mexican, but right now I can't think of one.

Opening scene: Guluarte's general store and cafe.  George has his basket filled with bottled water and canned juices.  He's standing on the check out line, behind a woman, waiting to pay for his drinks.  The check out girl and the woman are gossipping about various things: the price of tortillas, the way Gloria wears too much make-up, a forthcoming marriage, the architect's boy friends, the school teacher's sister who ran away, and so on.  They are laughing and enjoying each other's company.  George tries to be polite but is bursting to pay and get to his drinks.  The women ignore him.  He finally explodes:
	Geo:  Will you ladies please shut up and get on with this.
	Check-out girl:  What's your hurry senor?
	Geo:  I'm thirsty.
	Girl: Then have your drink.  You can pay me later.  I trust you.  Take it easy, senor.  I'm not running away.  Relax.  It's not good for your health to get so upset.  
	Geo:  Don't you people know how to do things properly?
	Girl:  No senor.
	George:  Then I'll teach you.  How much are these drinks?
	Woman:  Excuse me senor, but it's not your turn.  I was here first.
	George:  I get it.  It's the manana treatment, isn't it? (shouts) Gertie!!!  Will you get over here.
The two women continue talking.  George opens one of the bottles and takes a long drink.  The check out girl nods and gives him a big smile.  Gertie arrives and leads George into the cafe area where their driver is explaining to the shop owner that the Bernsteins have come looking for their daughter, Harriet.  The men speak Spanish and use the word Gringa often.  Whenever the name of Mario is mentioned, George snarls.

	Gert:  (to driver) Did you tell him we have to find her in a hurry?
	Driver:  Yes, senora.  He says to relax and have lunch.  After his siesta he will take you to your daughter's house.
	George:  That sounds like manana again to me.  Tell him it's an emergency.  We've got to find her immediately.
	Driver:  Please senor.  Wherever she is, she'll still be there after lunch.  There's no reason to hurry.
	Gert:(to driver) Tell him we'll give him fifty bucks to skip his nap today.
	George: For fifty bucks I'll skip my nap today, Gert.
	Guluarte: Tell me why you're in such a hurry, senor.
	Gert: Listen to that, he speaks perfect English.
	George:  For fifty bucks I'd speak perfect Spanish, Gert.

Chief of Police enters the cafe, shouts to a young girl who is  playing the pinball machine in the corner with some boys, and tells her to go home.  She goes over to him, gives him a kiss on the forhead, pulls his mustache, and returns to her friends. 
	COP: (raising his hat to Geor. and Gertie)  Comandante Oswaldo Martinez at your orders.  What brings you to our beautiful village of Paradiso?
	Geo:  We've come to take our daughter home. 
	COP:  Welcome to the club, senor.  I hope you have better luck than I.
	Geo:  My name is George Bernstien and this is my wife Gert.  We've come all the way from Brooklyn USA, and for reasons I don't care to go into (looks around at the Mexicans in the cafe) we've come to take our daughter home.  We know she's living in Paradiso because that's where her mail comes from, but we don't know where.  Now if you'll kindly take us to her we won't cause anyone any trouble.
	Guluarte:  What about the fifty bucks?
	Geo:  He he.  My wife was just kidding.  She's got this strange sense of humor sometimes.
	COP:  I know what you mean, senor.  I've got a wife too.
	Gert:  George!!!
	Geo:  Gert!!!
	COP:  Tell me, senor, where is Brooklyn?
	Geo:  I can't believe you don't know where Brooklyn is.  	Everybody knows where Brooklyn is.  It's the original home of the Dodgers.
	COP:  Oh, it's in Los Angeles.
	Gert: No, it's in New York.
	COP: Ah si, Neuva York.  I have a cousin who lives there.  Maybe you know him, his name is...
	Geo:  Er... I don't think so.  Brooklyn's a very big place.  Now will you please take us to our daughter?
	COP:  That's very easy, senor.  Paradiso is a very small place.

Scene in Casa Rodriguez, a large sprawling hacienca in the middle of a large garden surrounded by fruit trees and flowers.  George and Gertie sit under the palapa waiting for their daughter to return.

	Gert:  You gotta admit, it's not a bad place, as places go.
	George: (Picks a pomegranite from a tree and starts to peel it.)  It's okay.  But that's got nothing to do with it, Gert.  Have you forgotten already?  She said in her last letter that she was planning to get married to some guy named "Mario" (he snarls), and that's why we're here.  Not to enjoy ourselves, but to stop her.
	Gert:  Oh, George, I hope it's not too late.
Harriet enters the garden and walks up behind Geo. and Gert.
	Har:  Not too late for what?
Everybody rushes into each others arms, hugging and kissing, and laughing and admiring each other, how good they look.
	Harriet:  But what are you doing here?  How in the world did you find me?  What are you too late for?
	Gert:  You tell her.
	Geo:  (Pulling himself up) Okay, I will.  Because I'm your father, Harriet, and I love you.  Baby, we can't let you go through with it.
	Har:  Uh oh.  If this is going to be what I think it's going to be you'd better stop now pop.  I don't want to hear it.
	Gert:  But Harriet, baby, this isn't how we brought you up.  You'll ruin your life.  You can't marry this man.
	Har:  Yes I can mom and I will.  I'm old enough to make my own decisions.  I love Mario and we're going to get married.
	Geo:  Over my dead body.  We're taking you home and that's final.
	Gert:  We can't let you make this mistake.  You don't know what you're doing.
	Har:  Look who's talking.  Did you two know what you were doing when you got married?  How many times did mom go back to grandma's after you got married?  And what about now?  Your fights are famous all over Flatbush.  What do you think drove me out of the house in the first place?
	Gert: Don't say that.  You don't know what you're talking about.  Your father and I love each other.  We've been together for twenty five years.
	George:  Don't remind me.
	Har:  See what I mean.  Besides, you don't even know Mario.  	He's wonderful.  I know you'll love him.  You're trying to stop me because he's a Mexican and not a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn.
	George:  So what's so bad about that?
	Har:  Nothing pop.  It's just not for me.  
	Gert:  I knew it was a mistake for you to go to Mexico.  I should've stopped you before you left.
	Har:  It's not a mistake.  I love it here, and I intend to stay.  I've got important things to do here.  And I've got Mario.  We're going to get married soon.  In fact, now that you're here we can set the date...
	Geo:  NO!!!
	Har: YES, poppa.  You can't boss me around like you boss momma...
Gert starts to cry.  Mario enters the garden.
	Mario:  Hello everybody.  What's going on here.  (kisses Harriet and Gert cries even harder).  I heard your folks arrived this morning, corazon.  (Extends his hand to George) I'm honored to meet you senor Bernstein, senora Bernstein.  Mario Valdez, at your service.
	Har: Mario, you might as well know, my parents came to take me home.  They don't want me to marry you.  They don't like Mexicans.
	Geo:  Now wait a minute.  Nobody said anything about liking Mexicans.  We don't want you jumping into something you'll regret later.
	Gert:  It's for your own good, honey.
	Mario:  What am I supposed to say?
	Geo:  I think the word around here is adios.
	Mario:  Senor Bernstein.  You know what.  I like you.  You've got spunk.  I can use you on my committee to stop El Turismo.  How about coming to the PPL meeting with me tonight?
	Geo:  Wait a minute...
	Har:  It's no use, Mario.  You don't know what you're dealing with.  My daddy rode with Teddy Roosevelt with the rough riders against the Puerto Ricans.
	Gert:  He did not.
	Mario:  Senor Bernstein, I like you more and more.  And I like Mrs. B too.  Such a beautiful woman.
	Gert:  Why thank you Mario.
	Geo:  Gert, stop that right now.
	Gert:  Don't you order me around!  Mario is very charming.
	Geo.  I'll charming you!!
George and Gertie start yelling at each other so loud everyone in the neighborhood wakes up from siesta, dogs start barking and the roosters crow.  Whales pop and sea lions frolic, and the sunflowers close their petals and shudder.  Spiders crawl into their holes.  Lola and Cuco enter the garden.
	Lola:  Senorita Harriet.  We heard you parents arrived today.  Everyone in the village is talking about it.  (nods to G. and G.)  I'm preparing a special dish of chicken Bink Raspy for dinner tonight.  Everyone will love it.  Shall I make up the bedroom in the guest cottage?
	Har:  Thank you Lola.  I think my parents will be staying here for a while.  (to Mario) At least they'll be here for the wedding.  
Mario winks at Gertie, George glares at Mario, Harriet shrugs her shoulders, Lola yells at Cuco to stop being so lazy, hands him a broom to sweep up the guest cottage, and rushes off to find a chicken in her yard.

Scene in living room of Casa Rodriguez.  Sign over fire place reads Su Casa es Mi Casa.
	Geo: (Examining the sign) This is a nice piece of real estate.  I suppose some rich Mexican owns it.
	Har:  Right, but he lives up in La Jolla.  Mario and I want to buy it from him, but he wants to keep it in the family.
	Geo:  What's a piece of property cost down here?
	Gert:  Now don't get started on business.  This is a vacation and you've got to relax, George.  Remember your pressure...
	Geo:  I told you a thousand times, Gert, I'm not here to enjoy myself.  This is not a vacation, this is work.  And speaking of work, Harriet, where's your phone?
	Har:  We don't have one.  Hardly anyone does in Paradiso.  You have to go to the telephone central and ask Gloria to make the call.
	Geo:  What kind of place is this?
	Har:  It's a great place pop.  You'll see, after a while you won't want to call anyone anymore.
	Geo:  I don't think I'll live that long.
	Gert:  Learn to use smoke signals, George.
	Mario:  Nevertheless we're quite civilized here.  And some of us are trying to keep it that way.  I have to go now.  If you like I'll drive you to the central Senor B.
	Geo:  (looks suspiciously at Mario) Is it safe to leave the girls alone in this place?
	Mario: We have no crime in Paradiso, senor B., except of course among the foreigners...  The central is nearby, you can stroll home through the tomato fields afterwards.
(George's face make words unnecessary.  He and Mario leave together.)
	Gert: Honey, we've been so worried about you.  Pop's not going to let you do this.
	Har:  He's not going to stop me, mom.  What do you think of Mario?
	Gert:  Well ...
	Har:  Isn't he wonderful?  I knew you'd love him.
	Gert:  But Harriet, what does he do?
	Har:  He's a teacher.  And he puts out a magazine.  And he writes articles for newspapers.  And he's active in local politics.  There's a big fight going on in Paradiso now.
	Gert:  Oh yeah.  About what?  When to pick the tomatoes?  How long should a siesta take?
	Har:  No, a serious one.  A group of us are trying to keep our village pure and sweet, like it is now, and another group is trying to develop it for tourism.  They want to build a golf course, and condos, and a shopping mall.
	Gert:  How about a kosher restaurant?
	Har:  It's serious mom.  There's a group here, lead by a retired American businessman named Donald Schlump, that wants to bring in bus loads of tourists.  And he's in cahoots with a group of Mexicans, lead by Guluarte, who want to sell them everything their hearts desire, and more.  Even Lola and Cuco have stocked their cellar with little Mexican curious, getting ready for the hordes of shoppers.
	Gert:  That sounds like progress.  It can't be that bad.
	Har:  Oh yes it can.  Just smell the air here.  Taste the water.  Walk along the beach.  Paradiso is unspoiled. Pure.  Simple.  We want to keep it that way.  Now think about Coney Island.  Ugh!
	Gert:  But how do people live here?  You've got to have money to buy tomatoes.
	Har:  They're farmers and fisherman and small tradespeople.  They get along just fine.  Mangoes fall from the trees like manna.  No one's hungry in Paradiso, except the money lovers, like Mr. Donald P. Schlump.
	Gert:  Sounds like you've picked up some new ideas since you moved down here.  I wonder if Mario has anything to do with this.
	Har:  I've learned a lot from Mario.
	Gert:  I don't think your father's going to like this.  And I still think you should come home with us.  I don't care how charming Mario is.  Charm isn't everything you know.
	Har:  I know that mom.  Mario's got a lot more than that.  What about pop?  Was he charming when you met him?
	Gert:  Believe it or not he was.  Too much in fact.  He used to charm all my girlfriends too.  That's why I had to leave him in the beginning.  I was jealous.
	Har:  But did he ever... you know... do anything?
	Gert: I don't think so.  No.  He wouldn't.  But I didn't know that then.  I was too insecure.  My mother always made me go back to him.
	Har:  She was right too.  I wouldn't be here if she didn't.  But the way you two are always fighting drove me nuts.
	Gert:  I know it honey.  I'm sorry for you, but you gotta understand now that your grown, it's our way of loving each other.  We're used to it.  I think if we ever stopped, I'd start to worry.  Me and your pop are going to slug it out till the day we die.  It's what keeps us going.
	Har:  And me and Mario are going to love each other until the day we die too.  But peacefully.  Like Paradiso. 
	Gert:  Are you sure honey?  There's so much going against you.  You're fighting the world, you know.  It's not easy to keep the peace when the whole world's against you.
	Har:  The world has changed mom.  People are more open now.  This is the nineties.  Besides, love conquors all, doesn't it... ??
(George enters, breathing deeply of the good air.)
	Geo:  Well that wasn't as bad as I thought.  That's a cute little senorita down there at the central.  Muy bonita!
	Gert:  Look who's here.  Speedy Gonzales.
	Har:  How'd you enjoy your walk pop?
	Geo.  Well I think I'll get me a pair of huaraches this afternoon.  (to Gert) That's Mexican sandals to you.
	Gert:  Is that so?  Next thing you'll be doing the Mexican hat dance before going to bed.
	Geo:  Not a bad idea Gert.  Can't tire me out more than you do.  (Pulls a Mexican hat out from behind his back.)  What do you think of that?
	Gert:  I think you've gone loco.  Remember, you're not here to enjoy yourself, so stay away from the senoritas.
	Har:  Isn't the air wonderful pop?  Did you smell the eucalyptus?
	Geo: Muy bonita.  Muy muy bonita.
	Gert:  Did you make a phone call or take a Berlitz course in Spanish?
	Geo:  Actually, a little bit of both.  I met a real nice fella down at the central.  He told me a lot of things about Paradiso.  Very interesting.  I hope you don't mind, but I invited him and his wife to join us for dinner tonight.  Lola won't mind cooking up a little more Bink Raspy, will she?
	Gert:  Who did you meet George?
	Geo:  A real interesting fella.  American folks!  Very enlightening.
	Har:  What's his name?
	Geo:  Now let me see if I remember.  Oh yes, he gave me his card.  Here it is.  (reaches into his pocket for card and slips on reading glasses)  Donald P. Schlump, CEO.

Last scene takes place around the dining room table of the Casa Rodriguez.  Seated are George and Gert, Harriet and Mario, and Donald and Irena Schlump.  Candles are lit and the conversation flows along lightly and happily enough.  Lola enters with a flourish and stands next to the table with a large tray with a platter of chicken and a picture, cut from a magazine, of Bing Crosby.
	Lola:  Here it is.  My best recipe.  Chicken Bink Raspy.
	Harriet:  I should explain.  Lola and Cuco have worked for the Rodriguez family for thirty years, and one day, a long time ago, according to her story, Bing Crosby came down to Paradiso, and stayed in this house.  She says she created this dish for him.
	Lola:  Si senorita.  I make this dish for Bink Raspy and he love it so much he give me a great big kiss.
	Geo:  Well, if it's as good as it looks Lola, I might do the same.
	Lola:  He also give me a great big tip.
	Geo:  I'll give you a tip Lola.  Don't bet on horses.
	Lola:  Senor??
	Gert:  Don't listen to him, Lola, the Chicken looks great.  I want to get the recipe.
	Irena:  I'll give you my recipe for tomato relish.  It calls for twenty pounds of fresh tomatoes.
	Donald:  Have you noticed how the farmers grow tomatoes around here?  The land's so fertile they could grow lots of other things but they like to grow tomatoes, so we eat a lot of tomatoes.
	Mario:  They grow other vegetables too, but they know they can sell the tomatoes, so they grow them.  
	Donald:  Well I can see putting those fields to much better use.
	Mario:  Like what, for instance?
	Donald:  Like the most beautiful 18 hole golf course on the Pacific coast, for instance.
Mario, stands up, but Harriet pulls him down.
	Har:  Mario, please, you promised.  There's to be no discussions about anything tonight.  Just a pleasant visit.
	Mario:  It's impossible.  (shaking his fist at Donald)  You know very well this village will be ruined by your plans.  We won't let you get away with it.
Donald stands too and everyone starts talking at once.  Please calm down, I can't, You're only interested in money, and you're a fool, You can't stop progress, I can stop you.  The doorbell rings, and Lola rushes to get it.  The Chief of Police enters.
	COP:  Please don't get up for me.  I only came by to see that everything was all right.  I see I've interfered at the wrong moment.
	George:  No, no, please come in.  We were just having a 	little spirited discussion about tomatoes.
	Har:  Please join us Senor Martinez.
Lola brings a chair for the COP
	Lola:  (winks at the COP) It's Chicken Bink Raspy.
	COP:  In that case I'll stay for a taste.  But I have to rush home because my wife yells at me if I walk in five minutes late.
	Geo:  Welcome to the club, senor.  I see we have a lot in common.
	Gert:  I'd love to meet your wife Sr. Martinez.  I'm sure she's not as bad as you say.
	Geo:  Gert, you're talking like you're going to be here for a while.  Now we didn't come to stay.  Only to take care of some important business and then leave.
	Donald:  But you should stay and enjoy Paradiso as long as you can.
	Mario:  You'd better enjoy it while you can before they ruin it.
	Donald:  Nonsense.  We're going to improve it, aren't we Oswaldo?
	COP: Er, uh, yes, well, I think senor Schlump has many good ideas.  Progress must come.  It is better for the people.
	Mario:  The people will decide what's best for them...
	Donald:  (to Geo and Gert)  I wish you would stay for a while.  I'd like to show you the new house I'm building.  It overlooks the ocean and the village and will have more damn floor space than that Spelling fella up there in Hollywood.
	Gert:  Sounds wonderful.  I'd love to see it.
	Irena:  Then you must come to lunch tomorrow.  I won't here of you two rushing off like that.  We could take you for a drive to see the sights.  And you haven't even been to the beach yet.  You simply cannot leave.
	Gert:  Well...
	Donald:  There's a piece of property not far from mine that's for sale.  I'd like to show it to you George...
	Har:  Of course they'll stay.  Now that they're here, Mommy and Daddy are going to stay here for the wedding.
George glares while everyone else congratulates Harriet and Mario and asks if they've set the date.  Gertie is torn between the devil and the deep blue sea.  The doorbell rings.  Lola leaves to get it.
	Gert:  George, we can't leave until everything is resolved.  And why shouldn't we enjoy ourselves a little.  We've already met such wonderful people, made ourselves new friends.  I say let's stay a while.
Everyone looks at George waiting for his reply.  In walk Eve and Rex, the Hollywood couple.  Lola brings out more chairs and puts plates on the table.
	Rex:  Good evening everyone.  Please don't get up.  We've just come to pick up Mario and Harriet for the PPL meeting.
	Eva:  Oh lucky us, this looks like chicken Bink Raspy.  Is there a drop left to taste?
	Lola:  Plenty Bink Raspy.  Sit down and enjoy.
Harriet introduces her parents.
	Eva:  Welcome to our little village.  I know you're going to love it here, but please make us one promise.  When you leave, promise you won't tell anyone about this place.  We want to keep it a secret so it won't get spoiled by hordes of tourists.
 	Donald:  That's ridiculous.  You can't stop progress  or (to George) rising real estate values.
	Lola:  Mrs. Bernstein.  I'd like to show you my curios tomorrow.  Authentic Mexican curios for you to bring back to Brooklyn.
	Geo:  What's PPR.
	Mario:  It's the Peoples Progressive Party.  We're meeting tonight to plan our strategy to stop the developers from transforming Paradiso into Los Angeles.
	Rex:  We're going to discuss a general strike.
	Donald:  What are you going to stop?
	Mario:  We're going to stop you.  It's time to leave now.  Let's go Harriet.
Mario, Harriet, Rex and Eva get up to leave.  Harriet turns back to the table.
	Har:  Mom, Dad, why don't you come with us? 
	Geo:  You want us to chose sides Harriet?
	Gert:  Let's just go with them and chose later.
	Donald:  It won't be a difficult choice when you see the potential here, George.
	Mario:  It won't be a difficult choice when you see what what a beautiful village we have here.
	COP: It won't be a difficult choice when you get to know us better.
	Rex:  It won't be a difficult choice when you think of the pollution you left at home in New York.
	Harriet:  It won't be a difficult choice when you get the real inside information.
	Lola:  How did you like my chicken Bink Raspy?
	Geo: Lola, your chicken Bink Raspy was superb.  Gert, it's been a long day.  Why don't we let these good people go on their way and you and me retire early tonight?  We can decide on things manana.
	Gert:  Why George, that's the most romantic idea you've had in a long time.
George and Gert leave the others, walking arm in arm.
	Geo:  (while exiting)  There's the most beautiful view of the sunset from our bedroom window.  I'd like to show it to you, my dear.


CarolPearlman©1998