Well, in those eight days before I was scheduled to meet with someone who had made a distinct impression on me- Geraldine I of course mean- I was subject to a whole lot of what some might call tribulation. For some reason, cosmically, things tend to converge and collide all in small episodes, not in eventual or convenient timetables. Sort of like we are all floundering and then once we are able to bite something, we remind the universe that we are alive and so we grow alive to that universe and the universe sends things to bite us in the ass- swarms of things- until they exhaust us to a state of dormancy, floundering yet again.
The Monday evening before the Monday I awaited, was purely out of obligation. The old lady had been bequeathed a collection of butterflies from some unknown relative. I say an unknown relative because she said she couldn’t remember who the relative was, only that the person was Greek, she thought. Then she emphatically stated that she was no part Greek and that it must therefore be a relative of someone married outside her genealogical trek or someone simply living in Greece. Either way, Greek or no, I was to help her organize her inherited butterfly collection.
So we sat together, eating pungent delicacies and looking through some lepidopterology book. After about three stale hours we’d named them all and I’d have been damned if the display had actually gained anything from it. She was happy, though. Clasping her hands and blinking at me like a cartoon mouse, she thanked me warmly as I stood, ready to leave.
Of course who should walk in at just that moment but Amanda. And she was looking like a bus had hit her. Moreover, as if the bus had kept driving straight up an orifice- which orifice is up for discussion. For the first time since I’d been visiting the old lady, Amanda addressed me directly. Never even a hello before, but now she tugged at my sleeve and beckoned to have a talk with me. Naturally I started sweating, nervous as a tick as I assumed she had other meanings for the word talk. What if the old lady should snap out of her denial and realize the wooly teddy bear is really just an onslaught of cocks, yours truly being the present trespasser. One glance at Clarice and that qualm was obliterated. She was still marveling the butterfly collection with such myopic interest that I may as well have disappeared off the face of the earth. So I did the next best thing, and disappeared into Amanda’s room.
Amanda’s room was one place I’ll remember always. The paradigm of a haven for nasty human behavior. Sloth, gluttony, and maybe a couple other deadly sins lurked in all the dirty clumps of clothes, strewn knickknacks of forgotten and lost sentiments, and the unkempt fish tank. I remember that fish tank well. Distinctly I remember it having no fish in it at all. It was just a murky pit of filth that had long expired any coherent or kosher ecosystem. Whatever might be stirring in that mirth seemed to be the perfect pet for Amanda. As soon as you sat on the bed, your clothes, and whole being for that matter, were entrenched in whatever hung around that room so prevalently. It was a feel, or maybe just the humidity of human sweat still lingering. Whatever it was, I can best describe it as the pungent residue of addled debauchery, hanging in the air thickly, manifesting in dewdrops on the brow and wetting your shirt and upper lip.
Instinctively we sat on the bed. There was no other place to settle, and it seemed the only refuge from the clutter. Her head was down the whole time as we sat in silence, I awaiting an explanation. Or better yet, hoping their would be none and we could sink into depravity without word or reason.
I know, I know. Geraldine, right. Well, at this point in my life, understand, that my experiences with women had culminated in fits of jealousy or were unresolved. Thus, it had become instilled in my character to one-up even the most divine of romantic endeavors, like some clandestine secret weapon. Besides, who was Geraldine? I had met her once and she had invited me to a social gathering. One can read many things into that invitation. Sobriety on the whole Geraldine issue came quickly, juxtaposed to the inebriation of hormones induced from proximity to sex personified. Sitting in her den, I began hauling all these revelations- or maybe justifications- to the surface. I questioned myself this way and that, but no matter how I spelled myself or my resolve, I was certain if she made a pass at me the moment would end with thumping and gurgling.
But there she sat. Amanda, head down, stasis like some depressing still life. The longer we sat the more I clammed up, drenching in perspiration from myself and the ghosts of other hedonistic encounters.
Finally she looked up, her face was bruised, not as if she’d been hit, but as if life had been walking down the street, saw her, and kicked her to the gutter in disgust. At that moment I finally had her under a microscope. She was hot as a demon in spandex, but her surface was bruised, cracked. She was aging quickly from all the sex and degradation, and she was seeking more of it before she ran out of the quality which entitled her to it. Like Ouroburos, but it wasn’t the tail she was eating.
“I need help,” she said finally.
I nodded, goading her to continue.
“I’m in a real bad spot. I’m in debt with some real ugly people. They say they’ll start collecting, if you know what I mean.”
My face must have dropped because she started talking quickly.
“I don’t need much. Just five hundred will tide them over.”
Yech! The more she talked the more I realized two things. One, this creature should have been born without the gift of speech. And two, I was definitely not about to get any kind of sex, just a bothersome dose of begging. And why not? I was already spelled out to her as a sucker, helping her old biddy mother every chance I got. That was the effect of all my efforts, I guess, pigeon-holing myself into suckerdom.
Eventually, after she begged and nearly teared up I said I would help. Mostly it was the threat of seeing her convey anything human. To express something as real as a tear would have shattered her completely for me, would have unraveled her as the ball of mess that she was. And let’s face it, I was objectifying her. Taking pity on something so specifically meant for debauchery is sick. I guess you could say that was my sort of wooly teddy bear, imagining she didn’t have feelings.
I said I’d have her money on Wednesday, as that was payday. I could have spared it right then, but to run next door and scrounge up my cash would have been more pathetic than I wanted to appear. I expected her to hug me or something, but nothing of the sort took place. I just slowly left, her head still dangling. As I closed the door I only had that image of her hanging her head and I wondered if she would stay like that until her next sex act, like some robot in sleep mode, waiting until it could fulfill its function again. The thought was somewhat depressing, especially when I passed Clarice on the way out. It held no reality for either of us that I had been in her daughter’s room. She watched me peripherally, indifferently as though I were something on the television.
At work the next day there were a couple of surprises. Mr. Thomas Biddler’s replacement had been fired and replaced pronto. As well, there was a personality test that every employee had to take. Very weird questions on the test, too. Questions like, “If you ate ice cream and your hand got so cold that you had to cut it off would you A) be happy that you had the ice cream, B) be forlorn and denounce ice cream, or C) go get seconds because what the hell?” Weird shit like that. I didn’t give the whole test thing much thought beyond how weird the questions were. I didn’t even wonder why Biddler’s replacement had been fired. The two mysteries sort of answered themselves. So I continued my day as usual.
At the end of the day, when I got into my building and climbed the stairs to my floor- the third floor- Amanda was just entering her mother’s apartment. I smiled and waved, rather sheepishly. She made no reply, looked past me and entered quickly, slamming the door behind her.
In my place I perused my mail to the sound of a gurgle thump session next door. No wonder she had ignored me. I would have cramped her style. This one had quite the vocabulary. Sounded English, but not so genuinely English. Like he was either from Wales or was imitating an accent to appeal to stupid women. Either way, that vocabulary! He called her names so dirty or eccentric I actually started writing them down, intent on looking them up in the dictionary. Most were adjectives, and most, I found out, were misused, which led me to believe he was also faking the accent. You don’t need to play smart with