Cartilage and Skin (5 page)

On the other front, undoing Claudia Jones's knot, pulling her string, required the same sort of machination, though on a more stupefied level. I could have been a slobbering idiot who pursued her from pasture to pasture, then down across a foreign field, the both of us lumbering on, until I had her trapped in some ravine. There, in the thick purple hours of twilight, we would meld together, not just our flesh or the noise of our bellows and moans, but also the mild confusion, the indifference, and the languid passion that belongs to all the over-ripe, simple beasts.

The second week of autumn brought with it a spell of dismal weather that had apparently chased Claudia indoors. A gray drizzle seemed to be in a constant state of fading, of tapering into a mist, but after a few days of these vague diminutions, the gloomy weather didn't seem as if it would ever break. I set myself before the window and watched the alley. As puddles formed, the oil and grime rose off the pavement to the surface of the water in twisted hues of purple and yellow and green. A few stray clothespins hung from the line, and the milkcrate was turned over on its side against the wall. I had a book, written by one of my colleagues, opened facedown upon my thigh. She was a short, intense, over-wound woman, whose voice—when I was forced to hear it in an elevator, hallway, or meeting—always metamorphosed in my mind into the violent yappings of a small dog. I was reading her book because of an unwritten rule among the faculty: We all read each other's work, not so much to honor the writer or ever really to mention the text in detail, but simply to consume the person. I tried to play my part in this sober, pedantic game. Now, however, as I watched the alley, I had trouble concentrating; I couldn't sink my teeth into the puppy. I was half-expecting to see the boy trot up to my window in his little cut-off shorts and a flimsy tee-shirt. I was also half-waiting for Claudia Jones, though I knew I'd do better stationed in the hallway outside her door. If there was something self-defeating and repressive in my method, I didn't realize it at the time, for I imagined myself sitting there with the patience of a baited trap. Sometime during the second day, I decided to read only the first and last paragraph of each chapter of the book. Everything I read, however, sat so disconnected in my mind that I finally found myself reading the introduction, hoping this would join together the jumble of ideas. The city outside seemed moribund, as if the air were contaminated and everyone were diseased and quarantined. It wasn't so much the gray weather or my sporadic sleeping, as it was my low, gray shiftless mood that seemed to blend the boundaries of day and night, so I didn't know exactly at what moments I picked up the book or put it down, but eventually I came upon a moment when I opened the book and discovered that there were no more pages left to read. This act of completion roused me a little, making me realize that although all the world appeared to be overcast by a desultory haze, I alone was suspended. Elsewhere, life was being lived: Plans were enacted, lusts consummated, and bodies splayed on both sheets and spikes. Perhaps, right at that very moment, W. McTeal was on all fours, still baffled, and looking past his thigh at a propped camera; meanwhile, on a stark corner cot in a white ward, the boy was trying to gnaw through his restraints (this was how I always imagined him for some reason); quiet and faceless, in a damp, windowless chamber in a cellar, in the gloom of a single light bulb dangling from a wire, the social worker was selecting her leatherwear and whip; and perhaps somewhere in West Virginia, a young, goofy-looking man was furtively leading his favorite goat behind the barn and unwittingly preparing himself to usher in the Apocalypse, by siring Satan. Although it was difficult for me to imagine that terrible cosmic drama, in which the human race was not only the prize but also the playing field, I felt a small prompting in my heart, and whether for the light or for the darkness, I abandoned my post at the window and stood in the middle of the room. I slowly turned my head, my eyes passing over everything, as if all the objects that surrounded me, which in fact defined me, from the bookshelves to the microwave, belonged to no one, least of all to me. The clock read 1:14, sometime in the afternoon or the night. In this drunken, fog-bound mood, I left my apartment and entered the hallway. I had a vague notion of walking up to Claudia's door and rapping hard upon it. After all, despite her idiocy, she must have known that I existed, because who else had been sliding her mail under her door? I stood before her apartment and tried to peer in the peephole, but I merely saw the reflection of my own eye. I leaned back for a second and then, by impulse, rapped two times, hard, with the butt of my palm, just as I had seen my landlord do on the day I'd first moved into my apartment. I looked at my eye again in the little circle, and as I stared at my eye, I sensed that the tiny window was the only thing separating me from Claudia Jones, we were eye to eye, and both of us were looking at the same thing: my eye. I was thrilled by the proximity, by my boldness, and of course, by the sudden realization—not that I was on the threshold of making an absurd gesture—but that never once did I ever see the bloated woman in the hallway; I had no reason to assume that the woman in the alley was in fact my neighbor Claudia Jones. This new idea nearly prompted me to scramble away from the door like a startled rodent. Yet my world suddenly seemed larger than I'd originally imagined; I had more prospects than the alley-woman and Tess. I had the unknown, and maybe she was waiting for me behind some closed door, in an art gallery, or in a used clothing store. Somewhere in the city. Leaning against the door, still trying to stare through my own reflection, I hoped that the real Claudia Jones would be a new discovery. If she were “a gross woman,” and not actually an imbecile, I was curious about what kind of disfigurement plagued her body or marred her soul. Knowing my landlord, I safely guessed that he simply meant that she was a dissolute creature.

Then I heard a noise: A body moved on the other side of the door as the floorboards creaked. I didn't pull away or look up and down the hallway. We waited in silence for a long a time, until I was able to make out the muffled sound of her breathing, and I knew for certain that she was there, inches away from me. I began to wonder why she didn't respond to my knock. Perhaps she'd looked through her peephole and had seen only my eyeball, and she was afraid. I took a step back and knocked again, softly this time. Off to my left, someone entered the building and started up the staircase, but I didn't turn to see who it was. Trapped in the moment, I faced the door and smiled vaguely.

“Just slip them under.” The real Claudia had spoken at last. Her voice was thick, as though she had a wad of phlegm at the back of her throat.

“I'm your neighbor,” I said. “I thought it would be nice—”

“Just slip them under.”

“—it would be nice to say hi.”

“What do you want?”

“I thought it would nice.”

Silence filled the pause.

“Oh now,” she said, and I heard her stepping back. “Fuck it to hell. Keep them all.” Her voiced lowered, as if she were speaking to herself.

“If you want to say hi sometime, I'm right down the hall.” I tried to sound pleasant. I imagined that if she opened the door and gave me the chance, I could have been mildly charming.

She didn't say anything else. The floorboards creaked; she was walking away.

I waited for a few seconds, hoping she would come back, then thinking that I should knock again. I didn't quite realize at the moment that standing before her door, at some odd hour, in a white tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, was a lanky, disheveled man who hadn't showered, shaved, or even brushed his teeth in several days. I was too obsessed with the situation to see myself clearly. I started back toward my apartment. As far she knew, I still had her mail. At first, she'd figured that I'd come to return it, but then she'd suspected that I intended to use W. McTeal to draw her out of her apartment. This fact seemed so obvious that I supposed that she saw through me: I—like all other men and pubescent boys—was an individual with a dimly concealed ulterior motive. And what was wrong with this? Pleased with myself, though somewhat blank and benumbed, I returned to my apartment, burrowed beneath my blankets, and slept the kind of sleep that could have been minutes or days long.

When I woke up, I felt rejuvenated, and though the bleak weather continued, I was certain that it was morning. I didn't immediately consider my encounter with Claudia Jones—not until I stepped barefooted on the chilly white tile in the bathroom and began to urinate; then, all at once, I was struck by the weight of the episode. I was a grotesque absurdity, a lumbering monstrosity who attempted to function smoothly in society—and now my disguise had been torn from me, the brown sack pulled off my horny, bulbous head, by the simple gesture of knocking on a stranger's door in desperation. Yet a part of me knew that life required risk, a person must put himself on the forefront and leave himself vulnerable; this was the essential factor to all relationships. To a faint degree, I felt excited and engaged—but even so, to a larger degree, I was mortified. I didn't understand enough about people to trust that they usually expect another person to be slightly goofy, weak, and flawed. This tender spot, this openness, connects friends, family, and lovers, and enables them to say that they truly know or love someone else. While I urinated, however, I assumed that the real Claudia Jones thought I was a nut, and I surely gave myself too much credit—in all likelihood, I was no more than a passing thought in that woman's mind, or if she did think of me, it wasn't with the violence and vehemence that I imagined.

Nevertheless, a barrier had been crossed, and though I stumbled awkwardly forward, there was no reason to retreat now. I planned to knock on her door again.

The possibility of the unknown motivated me to clean myself up and leave my apartment. In my charcoal overcoat, and with a paperback novel tucked in the side pocket, I picked up my umbrella and headed down the hall. I walked past Claudia's door without giving it any notice. Mail was piled on the landing, but I didn't bother with it; nor did I check my own mailbox, though I was waiting for Morris the sister's reply. I descended the cement stairs, where once the boy had sat and waited for me. The air was cool and wet, but I kept my umbrella closed, since it could do nothing against a fine mist. Although I had no definite location in mind, I wanted to go some place where people gathered, such as Market or Broad Street, and milled about in front of stores. The weather apparently dissuaded most pedestrians, and the few that ventured out moved slowly and silently, bundled up, with their faces turned downward. I tried to look at everyone. I imagined that a hint of something composed and dignified colored my expression. Yet luckily no one returned my gaze, for the person would've seen—not the cultured man, the refined intellectual who brimmed with social graces and little knowing grins—but rather some eager-eyed, hysterical loon. There was nothing charming about me at all. Despite my self-deception, or perhaps because of it, I felt determined. I was uncertain what I was searching for, but I was going out to find it or maybe to let it find me. Fortunately for the world, it was spared of me for a while longer because the mist began to dampen me too, weighing me down. I came to the corner and paused. The crossroad seemed barren in both directions, with nothing inviting me forward. When I looked back down the direction I'd just come from, I saw a few people on either side of the road, walking close to the buildings in an attempt to stay dry. One figure, however, didn't move at all. He simply stood under the stone arch of a doorway, at a distance too far for me to distinguish his features. He was wearing a dark green baseball cap and a corduroy jacket that came down to his knees. He faced the road, as if waiting for a ride to pull up or for something else to happen. I didn't remember passing him, so he must have been walking behind me and only recently stopped for shelter. I noticed this all in a glance, but it didn't hold my interest because in the same sweep of my eyes, I discovered a bus stop beside me. I stepped inside the thing, which offered poor protection from the weather. If a bus came, I was ready to get on it and let that movable contraption take me wherever it would. I would let chance have her way with me. Yet, while I stood there, I felt a pressure inside my chest, and I knew the sensation; it always forewarned me of a terrible wave of sadness. The pressure would get thicker, with a dull, steady squeeze. Despite the chilly air, I could already feel the perspiration beneath my collar and the heaviness in my head. There was nothing the matter with me, I told myself, just a general fatigue of the soul. After all, on the very day I'd gone out to encounter the world, “to force the moment to its crisis,” there was no moment to be found. I felt concealed in the bus stop because the three glass walls were covered completely over with bulletins, most of which posted by college students looking for roommates, trying to sell used books, or announcing a silly event. The walls seemed to bear testimony to life, if for no other reason than the freedom and nonchalance with which these people displayed their phone numbers. A bright pink sheet stated “Female Models Wanted,” specified the desired dimensions, and provided a row of tabs to be torn off; if a model wanted to call the artist, she needed to “ask for fred,” as the bulletin informed. Two tabs were already taken. Was it that easy? Could I simply plaster my number on a wall? I plucked a pink tab from the sheet and slipped it into my pocket beside the paperback book. I didn't know why I took fred's number, but it calmed my nerves a little. Then I noticed something on the wall that actually interested me. That coming Saturday, on the second floor of one of the poorman's galleries, a doctor Barnett—a gentleman to whom I'd actually nodded once or twice in the hallway, a little, graying, wizened thing who always wore a brown felt hat—was giving a free lecture. Of course, it was the kind of lecture that offered wine and crackers to bribe people to come, and those who showed up undoubtedly would be the doctor's own pliable, obsequious, sycophantic graduate students; the old Bohemian dilettantes who wore scarves and frequented all the coffee shops, galleries, and poetry readings; and the true scholar or two, just to make an appearance and nod approvingly at Dr. Barnett. I knew nothing of the man's training or background, but his lecture had an appealing title: “Iago as Id.” Unfortunately, the bulletin probably had been made and posted by one of the doctor's hopeful protégés, who'd neglected to put tabs on the bottom, so I had to remember the date and location, in case I decided to attend. Inspired by the bus stop walls, I stepped back out into the mist and continued walking. Although I hadn't drank alcohol in a long time—simply because there were several periods in my life when it unfailingly exacerbated the very problems I'd wanted it to help me escape—I headed for one of the local pubs. A beer wouldn't hurt me, and I could've used a plate of french fries. Occasionally, cars crawled by, their tires hissing on the wet pavement. The only vehicle that caught my attention, however, erupted loud and violent upon the somber scene. A motorcycle sped down the center of the road; the rider was a helmet-less black man, with hair as seemingly round and solid as a ridiculously oversized helmet. The front tire skimmed and skipped across the surface of the road, in perfect time with his gunning of the throttle. At first, I had an impression that the man had a maniacal appearance, with glaring white eyes and teeth protruding from a face as otherwise broad, black, and expressionless as a balloon. Then, after he disappeared and the sound of his bike faded, I realized something even more disturbing about the man; I had seen him all wrong. He was in fact as calm and sober as some stuffy, contemplative Englishman. This man, perhaps, was the real Dr. Barnett. Rather than question my initial racist impulse, I marveled at his mixture of repose and insane bravado, at once civilized and brutishly free. I became a witness to the grand endeavor of the Enlightened, western white man insouciantly epitomized by a man and a machine. I felt a wave of intimidation and realized that I was more closely aligned to James Baldwin's oppressor than I ever suspected. I felt a bit overwhelmed, something close to mute awe, as I began to consider the possibility of violence and sexuality getting all mixed together when the body isn't allowed a regular discharge, when the history of convention and custom, of edifice and enterprise, is erected, from tea cups to towers, in a revulsion to cartilage and skin, to juice and joussiance, and manifests itself in our desire to powder our white wigs, brush up on our book of manners, and spread our nobility into the heart of darkness, to plunder with Christ on our lips and civilize with swords in our hands, or, as in bald, black Baldwinian terms, to lynch and castrate on Saturday night, go to church on Sunday morning, and by midweek once again feel ashamed by our own pale flaccidity.