The Business of Naming Things (7 page)

“That's quite true,” he said, and closed his eyes.

Ellen was gone now. The nurse I had seen but for a second was gone as well. The room was silent, the furniture respectfully at ease. He might be falling asleep.

“What do you like—
specifically
—about my work? Tell me.” His eyes opened.

“I think ‘The River' section of
Runaway Soul
is a brilliant set piece. No one else could have written it.”

“It's about jerking off,” he said challengingly, “in a river. Who else
would
have written it?”

I said, “Mr. Brodkey, it is about more than . . . jerking off.” My hesitation—was it prudery?—brought a look of interest to his face. I think he may have wanted to talk about jerking off, but was intrigued by having the conversation turn, if now it was, to talking about not talking about jerking off.

“It's about sunlight,” I ventured, “and shadow and the pull of a river and birdsong and clouds and being a young child, an adopted boy, entering puberty, entering this river—was it the Missouri?—and being afraid that someone, his adoptive father, right?—was about to die, or had died, I can't—”

He cut me off. “Yes, yes, yes. I love that piece. I found such release in it. Do you know,” he asked, rolling his chair back a little, “Kafka's story ‘The Judgment'?”

Indeed I did! “I do, yes.” This was a lucky break. “I know the last line, in fact.”

“Really. Well, what is it? I forget.”

“‘At that moment the traffic was literally frantic.'”

“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes again. “Something like that.”

There was a long pause before he resumed. I realized he has waiting out the crunching sounds of some trash compacting from the street. “Kafka said that he wrote that story in one sitting, through the night. A father humiliates a son, and the son runs to the train trestle, hangs beneath the bridge, and lets himself go, down into the gorge. The end. He said it was like an orgasm when he wrote that last sentence—
literally frantic
.”

This had to be the end of the interview. I wanted to run out
of there. It was too perfect. But I couldn't. There was nowhere to run to; there were tears in my eyes. I felt vivid.

Without composure, I said, “Is that the perfect story, then? One that follows an emotion into some kind of . . . release? Death? Or”—I hazarded it—“ejaculation?”

Harold suddenly seemed tired. His eyes were at half-mast. “Yes, I suppose so. It's the best we can do. But not enough.”

Ellen brought some scones out, and offered lemonade. “Fruit only for you, Harold.” She placed a bowl of melon cubes in his lap.

I crumbled through a scone while Harold sucked at the melon bits. We recovered, for it seemed we had to.

“What else did you want to ask?” he said, and I felt the shadow of the nurse behind me.

“I wanted to know, sir,” I replied, adopting for no good reason a jocular tone, “if you felt that not having a complete uninterrupted story to your life, because of the adoption and being raised by, what, a second cousin to your father and her husband in a weird place like University City, Missouri, you were unable to write—or was it
uninterested
in writing—a conventional narrative, something beyond the template of, say, sexual
coming
. Some of your stories follow the same path.”

He was silent for a time. I stopped chewing my scone.

“Uninterested,” he said. “Ergo unable.”

As I descended in the elevator, I realized I had forgotten to have him sign my book. In fact, I had left it there. When the doorman showed me the street, the sunlight was blinding. I stared into the sun's wide glare for the second I could stand it, then dropped my lids. An explosion of reds, sheets of Rubylith and sea life, in a flood.

I T
HOUGHT
Y
OU
W
ERE
D
ALE

I
T WAS
D
ELIA IN PRODUCE
who told Carla about the guy who'd moved in down by the lake. Took over the condo when old Mrs. Beauharnois died, might've been a cousin or a nephew or something, Delia said. He's a widow, she said.

Er
, said Carla. It's widow
er
.

That's when Carla got to thinking—out of the blue—that she just might, someday, in her own way—in her own time—might make a move on this guy Dale Sweeney, though she'd never laid eyes on him.

Carla was on the rebound from Jeff. She still felt young, only thirty, not too worn if you didn't look too close. Worked off the baby fat. She'd check herself out mornings in the ceiling mirror Jeff had installed—a little harder around the edges, she thought, from work and worry, of course. She liked the look—kind of a fuzzy Madonna look after she'd found Pilates. And Carla'd started reading her books a little again. Ayn Rand. Terry McMillan. Danielle Steel.

So what if Jeff had split. Good riddance to bad rubbish. He left the truck; at least there's that, Carla reasoned. Let him drive the little goddamn broken-down old Datsun to his shit job at Wendy's and his girlfriend's dump on Rugar Street. That's rich: Had to go find himself, and he finds himself all right—over in Wiggletown. And sinking.

On the other hand . . .
Carla on the upswing!
Nice promotion at Price Chopper, new responsibilities, the pinstripe shirt and blue skirt rather than the sweatshirt and hairnet deal in bakery. Plus a raise—up to $10.50 now. And she just loved that clipboard she had to carry around; she even kept it with her in the truck, the thing sliding around on the dashboard importantly. And her kids weren't fucked-up like most kids in this situation; not yet. They had Grandma and school and they loved their room now that Jeff had finally put down the purple carpet.

D
ELIA, TALL AND BROAD
as a cigar store Indian, saw everyone come in the store from her spot in produce. Everybody had to walk through there—aisles of fruit on the left, veggies on the right—before they got to anything else they might really want. There were really good scientific reasons for this, Mr. Crevecoeur said so, and said someday she, Carla, could read up on it in the company literature that he kept in a binder in his office. There was a word for this, but Carla couldn't remember what it was, but whatever it was, basically it explained why you buried the things people were most likely to be coming in wanting—milk, beer, meat—at the back of the store, so they'd have to walk through the things they might not really want or'd rather forget they were supposed to get—like peas and carrots. Whatever. Carla was somewhat interested.

Delia had come up to the desk early last Saturday and said to Carla, Looky-who, and nodded over her shoulder. Which one? said Carla. With the cute butt, said Delia, and that little giddyup there, that limp. Delia pronounced with a flourish,
I give you . . . Dale Sweeney
.

Carla saw him. He did have a cute ass, in worn jeans. His
limp—yes, he did have one—was more of a swivel, to the discerning eye. He had a big wallet in his rear-end right pocket, and a chain swung from that down and then up toward his front somewhere. She could see an old faded bandana spilling a little from his rear-end left pocket. He wore a jean jacket.

They watched Dale Sweeney lean over to pick up a rutabaga from the basket. He brought it to his nose and sniffed. He then held the rutabaga nearly at arm's length in his right hand, admiring the root vegetable. He had large hands. With his thumb, he worked away the wax on the purple rim, and then took another sniff. Why, he's a gourmet, Carla thought. Then he bent down quickly—Carla saw only the smallest of love handles on his hips, white as pork—and put the rutabaga back. Pick-EEE! She and Delia exchanged looks.

Dale Sweeney continued on down the aisle, past all the lettuces—the iceberg, the Boston, the romaine, the Bibb, the frizzy shit, the mixed mesclun bin—before Mr. Crevecoeur said, Carla, c'mere, dear. Also: Delia, problem? No, sir. Just needed a price check on the rutabagas. She shuffled off. Carla could see little leaves of whaddyacall-it—watercress—pressed into the white underside of Delia's fat forearms like little shamrocks.

Carla, said Mr. Crevecoeur. Yuh, said Carla, resigned to not seeing her man till perhaps he swung out of produce, moved along smoked meats, and then headed right up aisle two—coffee, teas, specialty—and there she'd see the face of the man she already loved, with the nice ass and the adorable hobble.

Carla?

Uh, yessir.

Do you watch TV? Mr. Crevecoeur seemed to be squinting at her, or perhaps it was a slow-moving wink in process.

Carla surprised herself with a quick and very effective reply: Of course not. I can't. I mean, migraines, sir.

Right, of course, of course, he said, his mind stalling. How old are you?

Carla gave him a look that said, You're out of line. Old enough, she said.

Of course, said Mr. Crevecoeur. Who's that out there you and Delia Heffer are so fascinated with? He removed his glasses to work at a smear on the lens with his thumb and forefinger, but he just made it worse. His left eye was dripping.

Weirdo, she thought, turning to go back to the customer service desk, her clipboard across her belly. It made her feel . . . professional, like a doctor with his charts. Her charts.

Do you know his name? asked Mr. Crevecoeur from behind her.

Carla turned around. No, she said. What are you talking about? Who?

Mr. Crevecoeur put his glasses back on and gave his head a little shake, as if he were clearing water from goggles after a swim.

Pay no attention to me, Darla, he said. And then he started his strange laugh, more like a sniveling sound.

It's
Carla
, Mr. Crevecoeur.

That's what I said, he replied, with a cracked grin that looked painful. As he walked away, she thought she heard him mutter that he thought
she
was Dale! She thought he said,
I thought you were Dale!
Dale Sweeney? How could that be? She let it drop.

She took a cigarette break on that one, standing out back, where the old cracked-up tarmac looked like a map of strange countries, like Africa.

C
ARLA FIGURED SHE WAS SMARTER
than your average Price Chopper employee. She was a Regents Scholar and took calculus once. She was a woman who knew her way around, who knew how to get what she wanted from a man, so she didn't need to talk to the likes of Big Delia or anybody else at work or at the gym, where she sculpted her butt. She could handle it. She had a plan.

Her plan was this: Dale Sweeney's new place was just up the lake from the Yacht Club, which had a decent brunch on the weekends. JayPee and Callie were old enough now to eat cereal on their own and watch their shows in the morning, so that would give Carla a good start on what she called intelligence gathering. She'd cruise down to the Yacht Club for a modest breakfast—brunch—on the deck in back (no fries). She would eat alone. People would understand, what with Jeff just having left. Just about everybody knew it, didn't they? From there, from that big round table in the corner of the back room, looking north up the lake shore, she is sure she could see Dale Sweeney's condo. She could probably see the sliding doors to his living room. Could probably see his TV and through the archway into his kitchen!

B
ILLY AT THE BAR GAVE
C
ARLA A HARD TIME
. She showed up at ten-thirty and there was no one in the place. Where's the brunch crowd? she asked him.

Been out all night, Car? I heard about Jeff.

She knew it: Everybody
did
know!

Carla made it clear to Billy that her comings and goings weren't any of his biz, but now she was busy killing time,
like, did she really want to sit here and have brunch in an empty dining room with Billy at the stick and she wasn't even hungry? No. And how would she get away with sitting there looking at Dale's condo without it being pretty clear she was sitting there looking up the lake at Dale's condo? So she asked when the Bills game was on and was told that the pregame began in about forty-five minutes. She asked if the newspaper was around and if the kitchen was open yet and whether or not they were still suffering from the exchange rate. Main thing to avoid was Billy giving her the first degree. He was a sweet-enough guy, but he used to be a psych major, so everything was mom and dad, and whatever you said you didn't want was really you saying what you did want, according to Dr. Billy.