Tomcat in Love (28 page)

At noon there came a knocking at my door. I. speedily buried the ledger beneath a pile of ungraded term papers, brushed my hair, buttoned my coat, then pushed to my feet with a bittersweet mixture of anticipation and dread. Lorna Sue’s face seemed to balloon before me. (Eternal hope! Eternal joy!)

It was a major letdown, therefore, to unlock the door and find young Sissy waiting.

I had already screeched the word
reptile
.

Twice, in fact.

Naturally enough, poor Sissy was shaken. I sat her down, plied her with port, explained the circumstances. Even so, the girl peered at me with stiff terror, and it was a testament to my salesmanship that she eventually softened. I emoted shamelessly. I told tales of treason. I spoke of tycoons and incipient incest.

Near the end, groundwork complete, I relocked the door, knelt at her side, and gingerly allowed my head to incline in the direction of her shoulder.

Even then, it was touch and go.

“Well, my gosh,” she said. “You scared me silly.”

“And for that, my dear, I apologize.”

“
Silly
!” she spat.

Deftly, I drew out my handkerchief.

“That awful scream,” said Sissy. “You should have
seen
yourself! Like a serial killer or something. Like that guy—that famous murderer—what’s his name?”

“I have no idea—”

“Son of Sam!”

This shocked me.

Unconsciously or otherwise, the girl had struck a nerve. I said nothing, and did nothing, but a cold shiver passed through my bones. Sissy must have felt it too, because she moved a hand to my knee.

“Listen, I didn’t actually mean it like that,” she said. “I can see why you’re in such sad shape. Her own brother. I mean, that’s so … so
sick
!”

“And a tycoon too,” said I.

The thaw was complete. She leaned closer, her lips now approaching my right ear. It was an oceangoing experience in many ways, but I braved the salty spray of commiseration. “Seriously, I’m really, really sorry,” she said. “Nobody ever told me about this in sec school. I don’t even know … Gosh, I’m not sure what to
do.
”

I waited only a moment.

“The Ramada,” I said. “Six-thirty sharp.”

An essential digression: Son of Sam.

The word
serial
, I must now submit, is deceptive in the extreme. It smacks of the abstract, the mathematical and mindlessly repetitive, something cold and bloodless, and we would be wise to bear in mind that on a higher spiritual plane the issue of sequence is wholly irrelevant. What counts is quality. In the case of a serial lover, for instance, is it not possible that he (or she) might find each instance entirely and absolutely unique? Each case a universe in itself? Each nimble “target” distinctive and memorable and beyond compare? If number sixteen takes the form of a glorious redhead, should that in any way detract from the lusty, acrobatic humanity of number twenty-seven?

Let us not be ridiculous.

Same-same for Son of Sam.

I rest, for the moment, my case.

At two o’clock Lorna Sue phoned from the Mall of America. She was running late. She was in search of a lace tablecloth.

Given the experience of a long marriage, this explanation made a kind of historical sense, yet even so I had trouble disguising the disappointment in my voice.

“Tablecloth,” I murmured. “No wonder you’re delayed.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

The challenge was unmistakable; I did not wish to upset her.

“Tablecloth,” I repeated casually. “First things first.”

“Well, right,” she said. “Isn’t that the truth?”

Her tone was bouncy and matter-of-fact. Typically selfish, typically inconsiderate, Lorna Sue seemed to care not a whit that matters of the highest import remained on hold while she roamed the Mall of America in search of lace. (Imagine this woman as an air control officer.)

Still, thus was her nature, and I responded with phenomenal restraint. If reconciliation was the goal, I explained to her gently, it would be in everyone’s best interest to fuck the fucking tablecloth.

Lorna Sue chuckled.

“Tom, don’t get snooty,” she said. “I’ll
be
there.”

“What about the tycoon?”

“Who?”

“Your hairy new husband,” I said. “The latest love of your life.”

“Oh, right. He’s around.”

“Which means what?”

“Around,” she said briskly. “I’d watch out.”

“And Herbie?”

“Sure, Herbie too. I guess they’re both sort of upset.” It was hard to be certain, but she seemed to release a muffled giggle. “Look, Tom, this is a pay phone. It’s costing me money.”

“Could you estimate when …?”

“Soon enough,” she said irritably. “Maybe an hour. Probably two. Stop thinking about just yourself.”

For each of us, no matter how mentally fit, there comes a point at which the internal wiring begins to smolder. My own such time had now arrived.

I could taste the ions.

The subsequent wait for Lorna Sue was excruciating in itself, enough to cause several hasty excursions to the men’s room, but on top of this I had to contend with the possibility of physical violence from at least two different quarters. The wrath of a brother, I realized, could only be exceeded by that of a routed tycoon. Each footstep in the hallway made me freeze. I misspelled the word
impediment
in my ledger.

It was with some anxiety, therefore, that I eventually departed for my popular three o’clock seminar. (Boldly entitled “Methodologies of Misogyny.”)

The old Vietnam instincts had awakened.

I again made use of the back staircase. Outside, alert to ambush, I took a firm grip on my umbrella, scanned the terrain, then grimly set off on the long march across campus. The afternoon was sunny and warm, deceptively peaceful, yet I proceeded with utmost stealth. (An urban university, one must understand, is not unlike the darkest Asian jungle, dense with peril, and I was in no way fooled by the surface serenity of things.) I watched my back, ignored traffic lights, jaywalked when necessary, sought safety in the bustling afternoon crowds. Only once, as I passed the Chi Omega sorority house, did I pause to take delight in the ripening bounties of springtime. We were late in the school year, final exams barely a week away, and the sorority’s lawn had been tastefully decorated with a bevy of swimsuited young coeds, each bronzed and bewitching, each in possession of a Walkman and tanning lotion and a well-thumbed edition of the latest Cliffs Notes. I exchanged greetings with two or three of them; I waved at several others. In virtually any other circumstance I would have responded to their playful salutes and catcalls—my reputation for student-faculty solidarity had clearly preceded me—but with a bittersweet sigh I soon turned and hurried along toward destiny. It occurred to me, however, that even in the most hazardous of moments, with the barbarians at the
gate, one can find solace in the timeless repetitions of nature. (Robert Bruce and his spiderweb. Ted Bundy and his watercolors. Brigham Young and his brood.) Despite all odds, the human spirit endures beyond endurance, denying despair, salvaging hope in a rainbow or a birdsong or a simple sunset.

I was contemplating these and related matters as I entered my classroom, amazed at my own capacity for survival, and as a consequence I did not at first take notice of Herbie and the tycoon seated side by side in the third row.

This oversight, I fear, was predictable. While on the job, I like to project a brisk, businesslike, even punctilious image; I eschew small talk; I rarely establish (and never sustain) unnecessary eye contact with my male students, who on the whole seem to be convalescing from the trials of a communal lobotomy—listless, insolent, prelingual. On this particular afternoon, as always, I thus lost myself in the critical minutiae of professorship, logging in absentees, adjusting the fickle lamp on my lectern, shuffling through my notes and papers. (Though “Methodologies of Misogyny” was billed as a seminar, I had little choice but to run the show in a straightforward lecture format. What can be served, after all, in trading opinions with troglodytes? Professors profess. Gum-chewers chew.) Without looking up, therefore, I sharply rapped the lectern and opened with a few broad remarks about the biological function of language in our rituals of courtship: how the sounds we utter carry meanings far beyond anything to be found in a dictionary. (The love cry of a coyote, the rut blare of a moose, the impassioned croak of a bullfrog.)

At this point I glanced up. A remedial cliché seemed in order.

“It is not always
what
we say,” I declared, “but
how
we say it.” I paused to let this sink in, gazing in the direction of a perplexed young lady in row one. It was gratifying, I must say, to see the girl slowly nod and scribble down a note or two. We exchanged bashful smiles—again, the
how
matters—then I took a moment to consult my seating chart and placed a tidy asterisk beside her name.

“As an example,” I said, “let us consider the word
Beverly.
”

I turned to the blackboard, preparing to jot down this tantalizingly improper proper noun, only to notice that I had been preempted by a heavy masculine scrawl. The entire blackboard, in fact, was littered with a host of creatively vulgar phrases, each misanthropic in the extreme.

I took an instinctive step backward. I may well have blushed.

There were giggles, I recall, but for the moment I could only gape at this vicious graffiti, some of which was merely abusive, most of which foretold my doom in graphic detail. I was threatened with implausible forms of injury and disfigurement; I was offered instruction in the transfer of body parts to preposterous locations.

The words
hockey stick
, in particular, rang baleful bells.

I turned swiftly, spotted Herbie and the tycoon, steadied myself against the lectern.

Already they had risen from their seats. They gave the impression, I thought instantly, of a pair of midcareer Treasury agents. Herbie carried a leather briefcase; the tycoon carried what appeared to be a plastic yardstick.

They proceeded briskly up the center aisle, flanked me left and right, gripped me by the arms. I was told to remain silent under penalty of fracture. (“Shut the fuck up,” said the tycoon, “or you’ll be shaking hands with your lips.”)

At that instant, I am almost sure, Herbie grinned at me.

His eyes twinkled.

On the surface, at least, it was hard to believe that this was the Herbie of my youth, or even an adult version of my old backyard playmate, yet there was no mistaking that impish, dangerous, Ritalin grin.

He was twinkling.

I
have reached the moral divide of my narrative: the jumped-off cliff, the burning bridge, the stark and sinister sine qua non. Here, if you will, we approach that fatal intersection at which my life took its turn toward chaos and desperation and what others (dimwits) might call madness.

Such amateur diagnostics, of course, are patently foolish, yet I must concede that in the coming pages I may well be cast in a somewhat less than favorable light. The self-righteous will surely jeer and condemn. The squeamish may shudder. Bear in mind, however, that in times of emergency there are scant few of us, sane or otherwise, who cannot be pressed to an extremity of deed. And remember, too, that I have issued fair warning with respect to my capabilities. (I am a decorated war hero. Why do none but my prey take this seriously?)