The First Bad Man

CHAPTER FIVE

It wasn’t obvious how or why to fight, now that we had formally agreed to. A few times she seemed to be about to start something and then she’d change her mind. And obviously I couldn’t initiate — that would be perverse. The whole thing, if it was a thing, made less and less sense as the days went by, and became more and more embarrassing. I began going to the office as much as possible, yelling, “Informal visit!” as I entered so I wouldn’t violate my work-at-home status. Carl gave me some Thai hot sauce to give to Clee. “Have you eaten spicy food with her yet? You have? Isn’t she something else?” I nodded mutely and left the bottle in the trunk of my car.

The next morning Clee was in the kitchen when I needed to be in the kitchen and thus we were both in the kitchen at the same time. The air was taut. She dropped a lid and stiffly picked it up again. I coughed and said, “Excuse me.” This was ridiculous; it was time to annul the agreement and move on.

“Listen,” I said, “neither of us—”

“Go like this,” she interrupted, holding her hand over the right side of her face. I mirrored her, squinting in case there was a slap or a punch coming.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “One half of your face is way older and uglier than the other half. The pores are all big and it’s like your eyelid is starting to fall into your eye. I’m not saying the other side looks good, but if both sides were like your left side people would think you were seventy.”

I put my hand down. No one had ever talked to me like this before, so cruelly. And yet so attentively. My eyelid was starting to fall into my eye. My left side had always been uglier. Some real thought had gone into this little speech — it wasn’t just careless hostility. I looked up at her overly plucked eyebrows and wondered if I could throw some words together about the crass ignorance of her own face and then I saw her hands; they were rubbing the fuzzy legs of her pants with great agitation and her mouth was hanging open. This humiliating little ode had gotten her revved up, she was yearning to strike, and as she registered the fear in my face her body seemed to load itself, to wind up. My forearm deflected her hand with a loud smack.

I ENTERED OPEN PALM WITH big bouncing moon steps, saying, “Hello hello hello!” Our first tussle under the new agreement had been long and dirty and had taken us into all the rooms of the house. I can-canned and popped, not just to defend myself but out of real anger, first at her and then at people like her, dumb people. I popped her for being young without humility, when I had had so much humility at her age — too much. I bit and almost broke the skin on her forearm. When she shoved me against my own desk I head-butted her and everyone else who wasn’t capable of understanding how nuanced I was. She assaulted me as only a person born to a lifetime of martial arts training can. Succinctly. There was not even a second when I thought I was gaining on her. After about thirty-five minutes we took a moment to recover; I drank a glass of water. When we started up again my skin was tender, bruises were already forming, and every muscle was shaking. It was nice, deeper and more focused. I felt my face contorting with a wrath I didn’t recognize; it seemed out of scale for my species. This was the opposite of getting mugged. I’d been mugged every single day of my life and this was the first day I wasn’t mugged. At the end she quickly squeezed my hand twice: good game.

I swished through meetings with a secret, raw, achy feeling that made me lighthearted and hilarious; everyone thought so. Organizing the annual fundraiser for Kick It was usually so stressful that I just clawed through, hurting feelings right and left. But everything was different now — when Jim stupidly suggested a live musical act instead of a DJ, I said, “That’s interesting!” and let it sit. Then later I circled back and asked a few gentle questions that inspired him to change his mind. Then I said, “Are you sure? It sounded like such a fun idea,” and I pretended to play invisible maracas, which was actually taking my new way a tad too far. But this, something in the ballpark of this, was who I really was. When I laughed it was the low chuckle of a wise person, no hysteria, no panic.

But how long would it last? By lunch my limbs had stopped pulsing; she was too skilled to ever really hurt me. At the end of the day I sat in the bathroom stall and swallowed experimentally — my globus wasn’t back yet, but the levity, was it still there? I tightened my shoulders and bowed my head, coaxing anxieties to the surface. The chaotic mess of the house… really not that big a deal! Phillip? He wanted my blessing — mine! Kubelko Bondy? My eyes fell on the gray linoleum floor and I wondered how many other women had sat on this toilet and stared at this floor. Each of them the center of their own world, all of them yearning for someone to put their love into so they could see their love, see that they had it. Oh, Kubelko, my boy, it’s been so long since I held you. I lowered my elbows to my knees and dropped my heavy head into my palms.

So it was nice to be apart, to quiver in the afterglow, but after the afterglow it was time to fight again. Now that the globus had softened, I had a new awareness of my whole body. It was rigid and jumpy and not that fun to be in; I’d never noticed because I’d never had anything to compare it to. That week we did it every morning before she went to work. On Saturday we did it and then I went right out; once I felt loose and tingly, I didn’t really want to be around her anymore — we had nothing to say to each other. I bought a persimmon-colored blouse that I could picture Phillip loving and wore it right out of the store. I got my hair trimmed. I flitted around the city either turning heads or else walking by heads just as they were turning. I ate a pastry made out of white flour and refined sugar and watched the couple next to me feed each other bites of omelet. It was hard to believe they played adult games but most likely they did, probably with their coworkers or relatives. What were other people’s like? Perhaps some mothers and fathers pretended to be their children’s children and made messes. Or a widow might sometimes become her own deceased husband and demand retribution from everyone. It was all very personal; nobody’s game made any sense to anyone else. I watched seemingly dull men and women zooming past in cars. I doubted they all had written contracts like Ruth-Anne, but some did. Some probably had multiple contracts. Some contracts had been voided or transferred. People were having a good time out here, me included. I waved down the waiter and ordered an expensive juice drink even though there was free water with free refills. Did I still feel loose? Yes. Was it fading? Only a little. I had hours to go.

It was dark when I pulled into the driveway. She was standing on the porch; I didn’t even have a chance to put my purse down. She slammed the door behind me and pressed down on my shoulders with a leveling force. I buckled, collapsed to my hands and knees, keys clattering to the floor.

But most nights we didn’t do anything. I cooked, took a bath, read in bed; she talked on the phone, watched TV, heated her frozen meals. We ignored each other with a feeling of fullness and ferment. Phillip texted (KIRSTEN WANTS YOUR PERMISSION TO DO ORAL.???! NO PRESSURE. STANDING BY UNTIL YOUR GO-AHEAD) and I felt no animosity. Oh, Kirsten. Maybe she was our cat for the past one hundred thousand lifetimes, always on the bed, pawing around in the covers, watching us. Congratulations, kitty, you’re the girlfriend this time — but I’m still in charge. I felt limber and generous. Phillip was working through something — that’s how I might put it to a close friend, in confidence. I’d permitted him to have an affair with a younger woman.

You’re so brave, you have such faith.

This is nothing. We’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain, I’d reply, quoting the song.

Of course, it was more of a preaffair, since we weren’t together yet, at least not in the traditional sense, not in this lifetime. And the fire and rain, that was still to come. Also: no close friends to speak in confidence to. But I held my head up when I saw the postman and I waved at my neighbor — I initiated the wave. I even struck up a conversation with Rick, who was walking around in special shoes that punctured the grass.

“I’d like to pay you,” I announced, “for all your hard work.” It was lavish, but why not.

“No, no. Your garden is my payment. I need a place for my green thumb.” He held up his thumb and looked at it fondly, then his expression clouded, as if he’d remembered something awful. He took a deep breath. “I brought your trash cans out last week.”

“Thank you,” I laughed. “That’s a big help.” It was a big help, I wasn’t even lying. “If you don’t mind, you could do that every week.”

“I would,” he said quietly, “but I don’t usually work on Tuesdays.” He looked at me with nervous eyes. “Wednesday is trash day. I usually come on Thursdays. If you are in danger, please tell me. I will protect you.”

Something bad was happening, or had already happened. I picked a blade of grass.

“Why were you here on a Tuesday?”

“I asked you if it was okay, if instead of the third Thursday of this month I came on a Tuesday. Do you remember?” He was looking down now, with a red face.

“Yes.”

“I had to use the bathroom. I did knock on the back door before I came in but no one heard me. Never mind, it’s your private business.”

Tuesday. What did we do on Tuesday? Maybe nothing. Maybe he didn’t see anything.

“Snails,” Rick said.

Tuesday was the morning she cornered me on the floor. I resisted in a defensive huddle position, my wide butt high in the air.

“I need snails.” He was trying to switch topics. “For the garden. The African kind — they aerate.”

If we hadn’t heard him, it could have only been because Clee was yelling verbal harassments.

“I’m in no danger, Rick. It’s the opposite of what you’re thinking,” I said.

“Yes, I see that now. She’s your… it’s your private business.”

“No, it’s not private, no, no—”

He began to trip away, stabbing the grass with his special shoes.

“It’s a game!” I pleaded, following. “I do it for my health! I see a counselor.” He was scanning the yard, pretending not to hear me.

“Four or five will be plenty,” he called back.

“I’ll get seven. Or a dozen. A baker’s dozen — how’s that?” He was shuffling along the side of the house to the sidewalk. “One hundred snails!” I called out. But he was gone.

SUDDENLY I WAS CLUMSY. WHEN Clee covered my mouth and grabbed my neck in the hallway, I couldn’t fight back because I didn’t want to touch her. Before every raw impulse there was a pause — I saw us through the homeless gardener’s eyes and felt obscene. Being outside society, he didn’t know about adult games; he was like me before I met Ruth-Anne, thinking everything that happened in life was real. The next morning I left the house early, but avoiding her caused other problems. A migraine-level headache blossomed; my throat pulsed threateningly. By noon I was frantically trying to concoct a more clinical way to fight, something organized and respectable, less feverish. Boxing gloves? No, but that gave me another idea.

I staggered down the block to the warehouse; Kristof helped me dig through our old stock.

“Do you want VHS?”

“When did we stop doing scenarios? Was that 2000?”

“Scenarios?”

“Like a woman sitting on a park bench and all that. Before self-defense as fitness.”

“Those are all pre-2002. Are you putting something together for the twentieth anniversary?”

“Yes?”

“Here’s a bunch from ’96, ’97—is that good?”

COMBAT WITH NO BAT (1996) started with an attack simulation called “A Day at the Park.” A woman in espadrilles sits down on a park bench, rubs suntan lotion on her arms, takes a pair of sunglasses out of her purse, and unfolds a newspaper.

I pushed aside Clee’s purple sleeping bag and perched on the couch, my purse beside me. I pulled out my suntan lotion. Clee watched from the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

I slowly finished rubbing in the lotion and pulled out my sunglasses.

“You attack right after I take the newspaper out,” I whispered. I opened the newspaper and yawned the way the woman had yawned on the tape, a little theatrically. Her name was Dana something, she used to teach on weekends. She didn’t have the abs or the charisma of her successor, Shamira Tye; I doubt we even paid her. Clee hesitated, then sat down beside me. She put her arm around my shoulder sooner than the attacker on the DVD had, but like him she breast-grabbed, so like Dana I elbow-jabbed, yelling, “No!”

She tried to pull me to the floor, which wasn’t in this simulation but it was in the next one, so I skipped ahead.

“No! No! No!” I screamed, pretending to knee her in the groin. I jumped to my feet and ran away. Because there wasn’t far to run I ran in place for a few seconds, facing the wall. And then jogged a little longer to avoid turning around. The whole performance was quite ridiculous. I pulled off the sunglasses and peeked back at her. She handed me the newspaper.

“Again.”

We did that one two more times and then I tried to walk us through “Lesson 2: Domestic Traps,” which takes place in a kitchen. I felt silly throwing fake punches but Clee didn’t seem to care that we weren’t really fighting; she sneered and harassed me with a new thuggy swagger. On the DVD Dana’s attacker wore a backward baseball cap and said things like Hey, baby doll, or C’mere, sweetcakes. In “Lesson 3: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Front Door,” he purred, Yum, yum, yum from the shadows. Of course Clee didn’t say any of these things but I could sort of guide her toward his basic blocking with Dana’s flinches and looks of horror, and on a cellular level Clee knew exactly what to do — she’d seen hundreds of demonstrations like this before the age of five.

After an hour we were exhausted but unbruised. She squeeze-squeezed my hand and gave me a long, strange look before we went our separate ways. I shut the bedroom door and rolled my head. The migraine was gone; my throat was soft. I didn’t feel euphoric, but I knew this could work. If only Rick had seen “Domestic Traps” instead of whatever it was we were doing before. This wasn’t anything, just a re-creation of a simulation of the kind of thing that might happen to a woman if she didn’t keep her wits about her.

While Clee was at work I learned the rest of Combat with No Bat. “Lesson 4: Fighting from Inside Cars” utilized a couch and set of car keys. “Gang Defense” was too complicated — I skipped it. “Woman Asking Directions” was a quickie; my only line was “Do you know where the nearest drugstore is?” For the wrap-up Dana asked me to call my own answering machine, perform ten maximum-loud nos, and listen back to it: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

“Yikes!” she said. “Who’s that terrifying woman screaming on your message machine?! That’s you.” I rehearsed not only the kicks and grabs but all the dialogue and staging. Dana really threw herself into the skits; shock, fear, anger — she demonstrated not just what to do but how to feel. My favorite moments were right before the assault — lounging on the park bench, walking casually to the front door. My hair felt long and heavy on my back; I swung my hips a little, knowing I was being watched, hunted even. It was interesting to be this kind of person, so unself-conscious and exposed, so feminine. Dana could have had a career making videos like this for all occasions — waking up, answering the phone, leaving the house; a woman could follow along and learn what to do when she’s not being attacked, how to feel the rest of the time.

The last three lessons were slightly disturbing; it was obvious why Open Palm never made a dime from this series. Dana asks the viewer to gather up some household items — a soccer ball, a pillowcase, bungee cord — and fabricate a makeshift head. “When you’re kicking a real head, it won’t bounce as much, but there will be some give and you want to be ready for that. Skulls are softer than you think.” By “Lesson 10: Mercy and Advanced Mercy,” I wondered if any of us had ever watched this video all the way through; Dana seemed to be doing her own thing. With her high heel pressed against the soccer ball she listed the reasons why a person might be allowed to live. “They have little children. They have pets that are unlikely to be adopted — for example, a smelly old dog with no teeth. Are you killing a dog by killing her owner? Maybe ask if they have pets and then ask to see a picture or for a description of the pet’s health level. Lastly: religious reasons. These are personal and fall outside of the scope of this video, but in some people’s religions killing isn’t allowed, even in self-defense. If you’re not sure, you might want to check with a local parish, synagogue, or mosque.”

The next morning I took a deep breath and approached Clee on the couch. I had a question for her.

“Do you, um, know where the nearest drugstore is?”

She blinked, a confused half second. Then her left nostril curled and her eyes hardened.

“Yes, I do,” she said, slowly rising to stand. Which wasn’t the right line, but close enough.

I REHEARSED NEW SCENARIOS EVERY afternoon while she was at work and introduced them each morning before she left. For a few days it was exciting to reveal each one as if I’d just dreamed it up with my own very creative mind. But soon it was frustrating when Clee did and said things that were completely inconsistent with Dana’s attacker. It would have been a lot easier if she just watched the DVD and learned her part. On her day off I put Combat with No Bat on the coffee table while she was sleeping. I did it without thinking too hard, got in my car and headed to work. At a red light I drew in all my breath and froze. What had I done? The moment she put the disc in she would know I had practiced moves in front of the TV and memorized lines, as if I really cared about this. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment — now she would see me, see who I really was. A woman whose femininity was just copied from another woman.

“Feel my forehead,” I said to Jim. “Is it a million degrees?”

“It’s not hot but it’s clammy. And you look pale.”

I could see her sitting on the couch and pressing play on the remote. Every gesture, every scream, every glare and growl I’d made for the last week was Dana’s. Who are you? she would rightly ask. Are you Dana? Do you even know who you are? No, I would sob, No, I don’t. Jim brought me the thermometer.

“It’s the kind you stick in your ear. Or do you want to just go home?”

“No, no. Can’t go home.” I lay on the floor. At noon Phillip texted a single question mark and a tiny cartoon emoticon of a clock. He’d been waiting for almost two months now. Just two months ago my life had been ordered and peaceful. I rolled onto my stomach and prayed for him to deliver me from this situation I’d gotten myself into. What would be the emoticon for Carry me to your penthouse and tend to me as a husband? Jim laid a wet paper towel on my forehead.

At seven P.M. Nakako asked me to turn on the alarm when I left. “You do know the code, right?” I pulled myself up off the floor, stumbled out with her, and drove home shivering. I parked in the driveway and forced myself out of the car, braced for ridicule.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the front door.

“Yum, yum, yum,” said a voice from the shadows. She swaggered out and put her hand on the small of my back. She was wearing a backward baseball cap.

“Step away!” I barked, and she hung back for exactly one, two, three seconds before lunging. The next five minutes proved that my neighbors didn’t care if I lived or died.

When I finally made it to the front door I shut it behind me and smiled, touching my cheeks. Of course there weren’t any actual tears, but I was that moved. She must have practiced all day, rehearsing in front of the TV. Any two foes can fight in anger, but this was something rare. I was reminded of the Christmas Day soccer game between enemies in World War I or II. She still repulsed me, I’d still shoot her in battle the next day, but until dawn we’d play this game.

The next evening we did the entire DVD, in order. “Gang Defense” was the most confusing because there were two bad men and another man in all denim who didn’t want trouble. “Hey,” he said to the others. “This isn’t cool. Let’s scram.” Clee switched roles between the three men with no warning; I was constantly stopping to reorient myself.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “I’m over here.”

“Which one are you?”

She hesitated. Until now there had been no overt acknowledgment of the video or that we were anyone but our own angry selves.

“I’m the first man,” she said.

“The one in denim?”

“The first bad man.”

It was the way she was standing when she said it — her feet planted wide, her big hands waiting in the air. Just like a bad man, the kind that comes to a sleepy town and makes all kinds of trouble before galloping off again. She wasn’t the first bad man ever but the first I’d ever met who had long blond hair and pink velour pants. She snapped her gum impatiently.

We sailed through the rest of the scene and then repeated it two more times. It was like square dancing or tennis, I told Ruth-Anne the following week. “Once you get the moves down, it’s second nature — a real vacation for the brain.”

“So you would describe your pleasure as…?”

“A little theatrical but mostly athletic. And I’m the most surprised of anyone because I’ve never been good at sports.”

“And for Clee? Do you think her enjoyment is also athletic?”

“No.” I lowered my eyes. It wasn’t really my business to say.

“You think it’s something else?”

“For her it might not be a game, it might be real. She’s a ‘misogynist’ or something. That’s her thing.” I described the wolfish intensity that came over her when she simulated. “Of course this is your department, not mine. Do you think it might be psychological?”

“Well, that’s a broad term.”

“But accurate, right?”

“Sure, okay,” she said begrudgingly. She thought I was trying to get two diagnoses for the price of one.

“Say no more,” I demurred, holding up the palms of my hands. To change the subject I pointed to the heavy-looking Chinese food cartons lined up on her desk. “Is that all from you?”

“I drink a lot of water,” she said, and patted her water bottle. “At the end of the day I gather them up and empty them all in the bathroom at once.”

“The bathroom here or the bathroom at home?”

“The bathroom here!” she laughed. “Can you imagine? Me driving home a zillion containers of urine and feces? What a mess!”

She mimed driving a car and we laughed about that. It really was a very funny image. Laughing like friends always emphasized that we weren’t. This wasn’t real like the laughing she did at home.

She kept driving, and I ponied up another chuckle. Why didn’t she stop?

“So what if it’s real for her?” she said, suddenly dropping her hands. “Real comes and goes and isn’t very interesting.”