As he pens these words, Moey feels uncomfortable, as if he’s wearing a wool sweater in a sauna; in fact, for the past six months or so, every time a Vitality Sermon rolls around, his scalp tingles unpleasantly. But as usual he ignores the sensation. Instead he chooses to mentally review another item of importance for his looming performance at the Footstop tomorrow — his costume.
Moey’s costume is self-assembled, not self-made. It consists of a red sateen scarf worn pirate-style on his head, a large gold earring, and a curling, fake moustache (all purchased, over a series of months, from Liquidation World). Next comes an enormous black cape of a flowing material that glitters with interwoven threads of gold (part of a Halloween Merlin the Warlock ensemble one of his brothers wore at age fifteen).
A woman’s sleeveless bolero, though extra large, fits him a little too snugly, but it is simply too authentic to replace; reflective plastic mirrors, red tassels, and gold braid decorate every inch of it. He purchased it from a Mexican stall during International Celebration Day two years ago. His pantaloons — a glossy lipstick red — come from Habib’s Quality Imports in a section of Vancouver known as Little India. The pantaloons (again, women’s apparel) are meant to be worn under a sari. Acquiring them knocked at least a year off Moey’s life; the slim, giggling East Indian cashier saw right through Moey’s stammered story about it being a present for his wife.
Bare feet and finger cymbals complete Moey’s costume. He is aiming for the Gypsy look.
Moey puts aside his plagiarized speech and cracks the air bubbles from his thick knuckles. He closes his eyes and envisions the layout of the Footstop, trying to picture himself moving with grace and passion among its merchandise. Sweat pops out on his palms.
“I’ll never be able to sleep tonight,” he mutters, and the telephone shrills.
It’ll be Karen, he thinks. She’s changed her mind. She doesn’t want me to dance tomorrow.
He hurls himself from his chair in an adrenaline-fuelled trajectory, staggers across his gloomy basement suite (all twenty feet of it), and rips the receiver from its cradle.
“Hello?” he bellows. “Hello?”
“You don’t have to shout, Moey! These things work by electricity. It’s not a long hollow tube you have to scream down.”
“Mom?”
“What, are you joking? It’s me, Miranda.”
“Oh.” He licks his lips and shudders with relief. Not Karen, after all. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”
“What, between me and your mom?”
“Uh ... well, all women sound the same on the —”
“Yeah, well, your mother doesn’t suck on your balls, does she?”
He winces. “Miranda...”
“Look, can I come over for the night? I went shopping today.” Her tone drops a little, roughens a titch. “Wait till you see what I bought this time.”
“Tonight’s not a good night.”
“Why not? We don’t have any competitions coming up.”
Miranda knows the rule: no sex for two weeks prior to a fight. Key Element No. 21: Intimacy Softens the Combative Spirit.
“I just want to conserve my energy for tomorrow,” he says.
“What’s so special about tomorrow?”
“Vitality Sermon,” he lies, his pulse starting to pound like a mallet against his larynx.
“You figure you need extra energy for that? You do them every month.”
“Yeah, well, I always like to have my wits about me, give a good performance.”
“Performance is right. Got to make it sound good in case Hitler’s listening.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Why? You can be such a limp noodle sometimes. Look, do you want me to come over or not?”
He thinks about it for all of three seconds: if he says no, she’ll sulk for weeks. She’ll misplace his telephone messages at work and overbook his Introductory Lessons. Master Zahbar will notice and take Moey into the office for a Man to Man Talk.
He sighs in defeat. “Of course I want you to come over.”
But, of course, he doesn’t. Miranda fucks the way she fights — intently, ruthlessly, her sole purpose to conquer. In her twenty-six years of life, she’s taken twice as many lovers and won twice as many kickboxing trophies as Moey. The last thing he needs right now is to be conquered.
Oh, to be sure, Miranda won most of her trophies point sparring, not full-contact fighting. At five foot two and 115 pounds, she lacks the necessary mass to knock her opponents’ blocks off. Lightness of feet, accuracy of strikes, and unbridled energy can’t, in full-contact kickboxing, overwhelm thundering poundage. Not in the competition ring, anyway, where brute force is always combined with deadly skill. Miranda bears this knowledge pragmatically, and what she lacks for in the ring she makes up for in the bedroom.
Once, after an unusual round of celebratory tequila shooters (both of them rarely imbibed alcohol), Moey asked her why she hadn’t become a dominatrix.
“Because I don’t go for all that sadomasochistic crap,” she scornfully replied.
Since then he often wonders how she defines sadomasochism, given her fondness for whips, wrist shackles, and anal beads capable of delivering mild electrical shocks. Not that he ever, ever, lets her get anywhere near him with those beads. Or, for that matter, anything else that suggests a back-door entry. Miranda views this as his great flaw, his total abhorrence of even the idea of anything entering his rectum. At least once a month she says irritably, “For Christ’s sake, I’ll use plenty of lube. A couple of thrusts and you’ll be hooked. Come on, you’re wasting a perfect pair of balls.”
Not the slightest pleat, wrinkle, or crimp mars the taut surface of Moey’s testicles, but why this should endow him with the desire for derrière drama is completely beyond him. Miranda can suck on his testicles endlessly, sometimes gently, sometimes a trifle rough, her tongue flicking hummingbird-style to and fro or slinking wet and stealthily over their smooth terrain. She can — and on what she terms her lazy nights, frequently does — climax solely by curling catlike between his legs and sucking contentedly on his privy parts. Those are the nights he likes best.
As Miranda walks into his basement suite a scant fifteen minutes after their phone conversation, her wet Rastafarian braids and delicate Negro features framed by the halogen streetlight a mere five feet from Moey’s door, he can tell by the gleam in her eyes that this isn’t going to be one of her lazy nights.
Alas.
At least the rainstorm will muffle her screams of pleasure from his landlords above.
As cramped as Moey’s writing is, Morris’s script is neat and fastidious. Every evening his letters march from his Bic pen with the precision of soldiers on parade.
Morris keeps these obedient alphabetical symbols in a journal. For the most part, his entries describe his unusual podiatric cases, all lovingly and lavishly described. This evening he briefly touches on a case scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning: Mr. P. Chapman, a thirty-eight-year-old man suffering from Madura foot, a fungus infection characterized by chronicity, tumefaction, and multiple sinus formation.
But occasionally the River appears among his meticulous recordings. Morris mistrusts the River, fears it even. Tonight, while his wife lies sleeping on their Sears