A Matter for Men

TWENTY-NINE

DINNER WAS a thick steak (medium rare), real mashed potatoes, green peas (with melted butter on them), fresh salad (bleu cheese dressing) and a chocolate soda. All of my favorite foods. Even an army commissary couldn't do too much damage to a T-bone steak. Although they tried.

I wondered about Ted. I wondered where he was and what he was up to now. Or who.

I'd never been able to keep up with him. And I knew why. Paul Jastrow said it to me once-I didn't remember the argument, but I did remember the insult: "Hey, McCarthy-there are human beings and there are ducks. You're a duck. Stop pretending to be a human being. You're not fooling anyone." Some of the people around him laughed, so after that, whenever Paul wanted to get a laugh, he'd turn to me and start quacking, then he'd turn to his friends and explain, "You have to talk to them in their own language if you want them to understand anything." I never understood why he'd picked me out for the honor of that particular humiliation-not until much later when I saw some comedian on TV do the exact same routine to an unsuspecting member of the audience. It wasn't personal; he was just using the fellow-he was someone to hit with the rubber chicken. That's when the nickle dropped. Paul had been imitating this comic. Maybe he hadn't even meant it personally-it was just a cheap way to get a laugh. But nobody had let me in on the joke. So I didn't get to laugh too. And even though I understood it now, in retrospect, it still didn't lessen the hurt. I could still feel it, could still hear the laughter.

I think it hurt the most because I was afraid it might be true. I was looking at my half-finished steak. I was wishing I had someone to share the meal with. It's no fun eating alone.

I pushed myself away from the table. I wasn't hungry anymore. I hated to waste food, but

-and then I had to stop myself, or I would have laughed out loud. There weren't any children starving in Africa anymore-or India, or Pakistan, or anywhere else! Nobody was starving anymore. If there was one good thing the plagues had accomplished, they had ended world hunger. It didn't matter if I wasted this steak or not. There was steak enough for everybody now. There was steak to waste! It was an eerie realization.

But I still felt guilty about not finishing. Old habits die hard. If you train yourself to think a certain way, will you keep on thinking that way, even after it's no longer a valid way to think? Hm.

Did I think like a duck? Was that it? Did I keep on doing ducklike things because I didn't know how to do anything else? Was it that obvious to the people around me?

Maybe I should stop being me for a while and start being someone else-someone who didn't have so much trouble being me.

I wasn't hungry anymore. I got up, took my tray to the bus window and left the commissary.

I wondered if I walked funny. I mean, I was short and a little pudgy around the bottom. Did I look like a duck? Maybe I could learn to walk differently-if I stood a little taller and carried my weight in my chest instead of in my gut-"Oof! I'm sorry." I had been so busy walking, I hadn't been looking, and had plowed straight into a young woman. Quack. Old synapses never die, they just fire away. "I'm really sorry-oh!"

It was Marcie. The thin girl with the large dark eyes. From the bus. Colonel Buffoon.

"Hi-" I flustered for words. "Uh, what are you doing here?"

"Feeding my dog-they give me the scraps." She showed me the package she was carrying.

I held the door for her. She stepped through, but didn't say thanks. I followed after.

She stopped on the sidewalk. "Are you following me?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Well, then, go away."

"You're very rude, you know." She stared at me blankly.

"You don't even give people a chance."

She blinked. "I'm sorry. Am I supposed to know you?"

"Uh-we were on the bus together, remember? Last night?" She shook her head. "I don't remember anything from last night. Were you one of the boys I screwed?"

"Huh? No ... I mean . . . what?"

"He doesn't use me at all. I know that's what people think, but he's never touched me. But he likes to watch me do it with the young men he picks out. And then he likes to-well, you know."

"Why do you stay with him?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have anywhere else to go." And then she added, "I really am sorry. I don't remember you at all. I was stoned last night. He had some Atlanta Blue. I don't think I did it with anyone, but I'm not always sure. Were you there?"

"I told you. We were on the bus together. Remember? The bus into town?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't remember things at all. If you say so." She turned away from me then, bent to the ground and unwrapped her package to reveal a large pile of meat scraps and bones. "He's going to love this. Rangle!" she called. "C'mon, boy. Here, Rangle, come and get it or I'll give it to the dog!" She turned back to me. "I don't like to do dust, but-well, it helps sometimes. You know. Sometimes I get ... lonely. You know?"

"Yeah. I know."

"That's funny, isn't it? There are still lots of people, if you know where to go, but it's all crowds of strangers. I don't know anybody anymore."

"I know what you mean. And everybody always seems so agitated. It's like-you know, the social Brownian movement has been speeded up-"

Her expression was blank. She didn't know.

I said, "It's because there are less people now-we all have to move faster to make up for the difference."

She was staring at me. Had I just said something stupid? Or had she not gotten it? She said, "I used to be smart. Like you. Only it stopped being useful to be smart. So I stopped being smart." She looked sad. "The dust helps a lot. You can get real stupid real fast with dust." She caught herself then, as if she'd said something she shouldn't have. She lifted her voice again. "Hey, Rangle! Come on! Where are you, boy?" There was an edge of impatience in her tone. She turned back to me. "You'll like him. He's really a very friendly dog-I just don't know where he is now."

"Oh, well ... maybe he got caught up in traffic, or something."

She didn't react to the joke. She turned her wide-eyed stare on me again. "Do you think so?"

"Are you still dusted?" I asked.

"Oh, no. I haven't sniffed since yesterday. I don't like it. Why do you ask?" Before I could answer, she clutched my arm. "Am I being weird? I'm sorry. Sometimes I get weird. It happens. But nobody ever tells me if I'm weird or not. That scares me sometimes-that I might be so weird that no one will tell if I am or not. One time, everybody else got dusted and I had to stay squeaky-because it was my period and I didn't want to risk hemorrhaging-and I was really bored. They didn't understand why I wasn't giggly like them-"

"Yes," I said. "You're being weird."

She looked into my face. Her eyes were very large and very dark. She looked almost like a little girl right then. She said, "Thank you. Thank you for telling me that." She blinked and I saw the tears welling up in her eyes. "I don't know anything anymore, except what other people tell me. So thank you for telling me the truth.

"Do you hate me?" I shook my head. "Do you feel sorry for me?"

"No, I don't." I thought about my father for an instant. "No, I don't feel sorry for anyone anymore. It only kills them."

She kept on looking at me, but she didn't say anything for a long moment. We stood there in the Colorado dusk, while overhead the stars began to come out. To the west, the mountains were outlined in a faint glow of orange. The breeze was warm and smelled of honey and pine.

The silence stretched until it was uncomfortable. I began to wonder if I should apologize for being honest with her. Finally she said, "I wish I knew where that damn dog went to. It's not like him to miss his dinner! Rangle!" She looked annoyed, then as if embarrassed to have been angry, she said, "I don't know why I'm getting so upset-he's not my real dog. I mean, he's just a stray. I sort of adopted him-" And then she admitted, "-but he's the only person I know who ... well, he doesn't care if I'm weird. Rangle doesn't care. You know?"

"Yeah, I do. We all need someone these days." I smiled at her. "Because we're all we've got."

She didn't answer immediately. She was staring at the paper with the meat scraps on it. Overhead, the street lights came on, filling the twilight with a warm glow. When Marcie finally spoke, her voice was very soft. "You know, I used to know what was important in life and what wasn't. Being beautiful was important. I had my nose fixed-my whole face-because I wanted to be beautiful. Like, you could have that bump on your nose fixed-"

"It was a motorcycle accident," I said.

"-only you'd still be you inside, wouldn't you? Well, that's what happened to me. I had my face remodeled-only afterwards, I was still me. I think that's what's happened to the world. We're all still who we were last year-only our outsides have changed and we don't know it yet. We don't know who we're supposed to be anymore. I'm nervous and I'm scared-all the time," she said. "I mean, what if I do find out who I am, and then someone comes up and tells me no, that's not who I am after all? Do you know what I mean?"

I said, "Ducks. We want to feel like swans, and they keep telling us we're ducks-and not even very good ducks at that."

"Yeah," she said. "That's good. You do understand. Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone else in the world who feels what I do-and sometimes I find someone who does; but it's always a surprise to find out that I'm not completely alone."

She shivered and I put my arm around her. "I know."

Petulantly, she said, "I just wish I knew where Rangle was. He'll probably show up tomorrow, grinning and wagging. He's a real practical joker, but I don't like worrying. You've seen him around, haven't you? Sort of halfway between brown and white, almost pink-real shaggy, with big floppy paws like bunny-feet slippers. Big brown eyes and a black gumdrop nose."

Yes, I had seen him.

From a glass booth above a circular room. Last night. With Jillanna.

He had been-dessert.

I could feel my stomach tightening. Oh, shit. How should I handle this one?

Marcie looked at me. "Did you say something?"

"Uh-Marcie, I-uh, don't know how to tell you this, but-" just tell the truth, the voice in my head said. "-uh, Rangle is dead. He was-uh, hit by a car. It happened late last night. I saw it happen. He was killed instantly. I didn't realize that was Rangle until you described him."

She was shaking her head. "Oh, no-he couldn't be! Are you sure, Jim?" She searched my face for some sign that I was mistaken.

I swallowed hard. My throat hurt. I remembered something I'd heard in the booth, about how this dog had been scrounging around the commissary for a while. "Marcie," I said. "I'm sure. He was about so high, right?"

She nodded slowly. She gulped for a moment, as if she couldn't get air. And then she put her hands to her face and held them there. It was as if she were shattering into a thousand screaming pieces all at once, and only the sheer pressure of her hands was keeping all those pieces from flying off into space.

And then, abruptly, she straightened up and her face was like a mask. When she spoke, her voice was flat and dead. "I'll be all right." She shrugged. "He was only a dog." She was a zombie again.

I stared at her as she bent and picked up the package of meat scraps that Rangle would never eat. She folded the paper up neatly and walked over to a nearby garbage can and dumped it in. "Now I can stop caring."

"Marcie, it's all right to care. We all have to have someone to care about."

"I don't," she said. She pulled her coat around her, as if to shield herself against the cold-but it was a warm night and it wasn't the cold she was shutting out. She brushed past me and started walking away.

"Marcie!" She kept on walking and I felt powerless to stop her. It made me angry-the feeling of helplessness; it was the same feeling as when my father walked away from me for the last time. "No, goddammit! I'm tired of people walking out on me!" Something flickered like a frame in a movie and then I was moving across the space between us and grabbing her arm. I pulled her around to face me. "Knock it off!" I snapped at her. "This is really stupid. I've seen other people do it. You start retreating from life because it hurts. You do it one step at a time, but pretty soon it becomes such a habit that you do it automatically-you run from everything. Of course it hurts! How much it hurts shows how much you care! And that proves just how much alive you are!"

"Let go of me! I don't need a sermon!"

"You're right! You don't! You need a year in a rubber room!"

She broke free of my grip, her eyes wild. "Don't say that!" she shrieked. Her hands were like claws.

"Why? Because it might be true? You said you were terrified of being weird, that you might be one of those ladies with the fried eggs on their foreheads, but nobody would tell you. Well, I'm telling you. If you run away from me now, that's the first step toward the fried egg."

She looked as if I'd slapped her, blinking at me in the glow of the street lights. Her expression seemed to dissolve as the meaning of the words sank in. I could almost see them penetrating, layer after layer. "I've been there," she said. "I don't want to go back."

"So don't. You don't have to. It's all this running from stuff that keeps you crazy. You think you're the only one who's crazy? The rest of us are just as wacko! All you have to do is look. The only difference is we don't let it stop us." I added, "Too much."

"But it hurts!"

"So what? Let it hurt! At least that way you get it over with! What you're doing now sure isn't producing results, is it?"

She nodded and gulped, and then her eyes welled up and she clutched my shirt and she grabbed me and started bawling. I pulled her close and held onto her, as if I could shield her from the pain-only it wasn't pain from the outside anymore, it was pain that bubbled up from the inside and burst out through her eyes and nose and mouth. "It isn't fair! It isn't fair! Why does there have to be so much dying?!! I want my dog!! Oh, Rangle, Rangle! I want my Rangle back!" She sobbed and screamed into my jacket. She gulped for air and sobbed again. The tears were streaming down her cheeks now. "It isn't fair! Everything I've ever loved-I don't want to love anything anymore! I'm tired of losing! It hurts too much to care! I want an end to it! I want my dog!"

I thought about the men who'd captured Rangle and thought about what I'd like to do to them. Marcie was right-it wasn't fair. They killed the dog, but I had to deal with the guilt and the grief! Why did I have to clean up their mess?! All of their messes?!! I could feel my fists tightening against Marcie's back. Her shoulders heaved. She began coughing and I unclenched my fists and started thumping her gently. "It's all right, baby," I said. "It's all right. Let it out, that's the way, it's good to cry. It shows how much you cared. Just scream it out, that's the girl-" I just kept babbling, trying to comfort her and slowly ease her back. It was amazing how much she cared about that dog. She just kept on crying-or was she crying for more than just the dog right now? I held her and let her weep. Two soldiers walked past us without stopping. They took us for granted. Such scenes were common nowadays.

Marcie sniffed and looked up at me. "Jim?"

"Huh?"

"I'm all right now. You can let go."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No. Don't. Thank you."

"Come on. I'll walk you back to your room."

"Okay."

We walked in silence. She had a small apartment in the second building past the commissary, one of the co-ops we'd seen on the way in. It was austere, but homey.

Once inside, she put her arms around me again and held me close. "Thank you," she said. I put my arms around her and we stood that way for a while.

"Jim," she said softly, "will you make love to me?"

I could smell the perfume in her hair; it made me dizzy. I didn't speak; I just nodded, then brought my face around to hers. Her eyes were wide-she looked like a frightened little girl, afraid I'd say yes.

I said, "Yes," and her eyes closed gently. She laid her head against my chest and I could feel her body beginning to relax. She was all right. At last she knew she was all right. Because I was all right, and I said so.

I stroked her hair with my hand. She was ... so tiny, so pale, so thin. So fragile. So warm.

There were a thousand things to say.

I didn't say any of them.

After a while, we moved to the bed. "Turn off the light?" I said.

"I'd rather leave it on."

"Oh. Well ... okay."