He promised Kathryn to take her out Sunday morning. He drove to a posh coffeehouse. Sitting together at a small table, she looked at him, and said,
"Tired eyes today."
"Too much TV."
They looked out the window, listening to Arabic music. Two women, one reading a newspaper, the other on a mobile, sat in an Acura parked a few yards away on the street. The women chatted after the phone conversation ended. Protective, those women, unlike last night, that unregulated, free-market male testosterone, like aggressive globalization.
"I saw Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck on the Internet last night," Kathryn said.
"Were they legal?" Aldy asked, gazing unobtrusively at the women outside.
"I paid for them. I'm sure they're legit." Aldy saw Kathryn glance at the women, though she hadn't registered alarm as he had inwardly.
An obese man entered, sitting two tables away. Aldwin had never seen such a large flag pin before, not in that progressive town. Men like that never drank espresso and listened to the oud in coffeehouses. The waiter placed a large can of Pepsi and two Danishes on the man's table. Grossly overweight persons were a rarity in that town. One could go weeks and never see a chub. Plumper sites were in vogue. I should click one when I got back, thought Aldy.
"I haven't made the transition," he said. "I missed Syriana at the theater. I'd like to watch that online."
"Clooney's good, not afraid of them," Kathryn said. Her hand smoothed the bare portion over her breasts, rubbing too long. Maybe Kathryn knew, working with those two women, enticing him, making him drop his guard, inviting him over for sex, then running half-naked out the door, yelling, rape, rape, that perv tried to rape my ass. He often clicked, "Facials," stroking harder when a mature who bore the slightest resemblance to Kathryn had a messy load splatter across her cheeks and hair and mouth and eyes.
He thought of Charlie Meadows, aka Mad Man Mundt, in Barton Fink. "I'LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND," Mundt screamed, stomping down the Hotel Earle's Hallway of Hell, blasting his shotgun. Why bother with this Kathryn seated next to him when he could transform her on command into any type of online gal imaginable? He erased her coffeehouse-facade, blinking on a sperm-face.
"Everyone's suspect, nobody's innocent these days," he said.
"What brought that on?"
"Something I read on Wired yesterday," he said.
"Data-mining's going big time," she said. "They know all the movies I watch."
"We'll have to be paranoid from now on," Aldwin said. "Like East Germans living with the STASI. Inside paranoid, outside calm." Lard-man finished off a Ben and Jerry's. Aldy heard the slurping.
"It's Armageddon every day," she said. Aldy looked up. Fatty disappeared. Relief changed to gut-fear when Aldwin saw two Sheriff's vehicles, one a car, the other a SUV, parked outside. Their red lights whirled sporadically. The car with two women had gone. Kathryn looked at the deputies, and said,
"Training day for the Apocalypse." Aldy laughed at the one-liner.
Leaving the coffeehouse, a car pulled into a vacant space next to the Toyota. "Child Protection Services," written in bold letters on the door, seared him. White-hot branding irons lacerating flesh.
He'd downloaded mature women in business suits, but sometimes incest sites appeared instead. Each time he tried closing them, incest sites reappeared. The "return of the repressed" had made a comeback. Paul Reubens tried, but hadn't so far succeeded. Like prophylactics, cast aside favoring unprotected sex, taboos proved too strong a lure for Aldwin's 21st Century self. Aldy enlarged a few tiny thumbnails. He stood at the portal of the Postmodern Age, as de Sade had the Industrial Revolution. But de Sade paid for crimes against the state, languished in dungeons, incarcerated for libertinism. How many today would rot behind concertina wires or receive the neurosurgeon's laser gun?
Perhaps the porno guys profiled him. He'd be susceptible, enjoying families acting out their dysfunctions. Or maybe the FBI entrapped him, and commandeered his computer. Aldwin once met Dave Foreman, Earth First! founder, at an environmentalist gathering. That meeting inspired Aldwin's interest in alternative energy. The FBI set Foreman up in a sting, Foreman later admitting misdeeds. Damn, Aldy wouldn't confess anything.
He'd seen Five Easy Pieces many times, moved to tears when the masseur put Jack Nicholson's character in a serious headlock, tossing him up and down, yelling, "Give up" over and over. Jack's guy never conceded, and neither would Aldwin.
A couple of times he's messed the rug after seeing enlarged thumbnails of troubled families during rutting season. What best described families in turmoil than the Latin, incestum, "unchastity"? "Families In Trouble" should be another sex genre, listed after "facials."
It sounded like a PBS documentary. Bill Maher could satirize PBS: "Incest is very popular if you believe all the porn crap on the Internet," he might say on nighttime TV. "PBS could run an expose, 'Families In Trouble.' Damn liberals always have to spoil it for the rest of us."
Aldwin asked himself: Was the taboo porn role-playing or, in fact, consanguine? That sounded like a trial lawyer in court. That line of though disturbed Aldwin greatly.
And it always distressed him to ejaculate before daytime. Darkness, time of incessant pulling, his hand, a flexible iron fist, sheathed just as Melissa's vagina, always had to give way to light, when everyone left for work. Normality. He couldn't stand himself whenever he had a premature ejaculation with Melissa. Apologies turned to anger, then self-abasement. Now, premature meant doing it before sunrise.
Silently, driving Kathryn home after two espressos, they listened to Gregorian chants on the car CD. He felt nothing but contempt for those denying him Constitutional rights to jack it whenever overwhelmed by lust, by life itself. How dare they deprive him of God-inspired masturbation rites, any time he chose.
Alice phoned him at work after getting back with her parents.
"Unc Aldy, I missed you," she said. "What's with Dad's poor attitude toward you?"
She never called him "Unc" before. The piety-and-punishment enforcers got to her, convincing her to make Aldwin paranoid, driving him over the edge. Alice must've seen him as evil, like demons transformed into swine by Jesus, forcing them over a steep bank into the sea. But they either had the evidence or not. He'd avow nothing. He wasn't Raskolnikov, confessing and accepting punishment.
"Attitude? About me?" The real problem: Paul's creepiness at the theater.
"I sort of told Dad we saw each other sometimes," she said. Sort of? Saw? Sometimes?
"How much did you tell him?" How fucking much?
"Celebrating my eighteenth," she said. "But I didn't say we were in a motel."
"Where'd we meet, then?"
"At the pizza place. I want some more pizza, Unc," Alice said. "Can you give me a slice?" He'd seen "Pizza Delivery," a pizza guy's thick fattie poking through the box of a pepperoni when the surprised woman opened the top.
"Can you get to my place without causing suspicion?" Alice hadn't been to his residence before. They'd done it in parks and beaches, the Toyota, motels, public bathrooms, office, the basement meeting room in the Episcopal Church.
"It's in the phone book, right?"
"Yes. You can walk it."
"I'll tell them I want to see my best girl, Jen. She'll cover for me."
"OK. Gotta go. Kathryn's coming down the hall."
"I'll be running, wearing pricey jogging gear I bought over the weekend."
"I'll be in the garage, doing the treadmill," he said. "The door will be open." Kathryn walked to his cubbyhole, standing near the desk.
"We'll loud-talk about fitness," she said. "You can at least fake it, can't you?"
"You don't think I'm fit?"
"You're in good shape, except for the gut. I've called you Flab Man to your face, you know," Alice blared. Kathryn must've heard.
"We'll go from the garage into the house," Aldwin said.
"OK. See you. Bye."
The worse thing would've been if Melissa had found him boffing Alice. Porno + adultery=loathing. Melissa then would heap more Chernobyls into Aldy's life.
Aldwin had committed a lower immorality rather than a higher one, such as corporations privatizing water, making the poor pay for rainfall. Calling it immorality, the dominators' nomenclature, was like accepting Wal-Mart's labeling its workers "associates." He'd never affirm the enemies' lingo. That meant collusion, complicity. He wanted to go back to the church, doing it again as they had when she was younger.
"You look like Sam Lowry," Kathryn said. "In another world."
"Who's he?" Maybe a schlemiel sent to federal prison for the crime of masturbation.
"The guy in Brazil. 'He's got away from us, Jack,'" she said. "Tortured too much."
"Me or Sam? Tortured, I mean."
"I'll let you escape. It's past lunchtime," she said.
She must've told the staff about his fugue. Aldy wasn't bothered the rest of the afternoon. To her, he probably looked horny, sitting in front of the blank monitor, talking to Alice. He never viewed sex sites during working hours. Aldy restrained himself until he booted up at home. Just knowing he'd rendezvous later with Alice chilled him out at the office.
Early in his marriage, Melissa taught him pacing, maintaining an erection without going messy on her until her desire slackened. But Aldwin had never been confident enough to initiate sex, even with Melissa, wife of twenty years. Before Melissa, he'd walked the same road as Maestro, Henry James, denying his sexuality. Aldwin always confused the title, "The Beast in the Jungle" with "The Figure in the Carpet," though he'd read neither. If he were bookish, the Big Question would concern the cum: Was it the figure in his rug or was he, himself, the beast? Was the beast the sperm-overload imago in the rug? If inclined ( he wasn't ), he'd blog about that faux literary bewilderment.
He left early, making certain not to miss Alice jogging down the block. He parked the car, electronically opened the garage door, and made sure the treadmill still worked. He hadn't used it since Melissa and children drove away. He changed into spandex, tight and comfy, waiting for Alice. An hour passed, no Alice, so he called her. Caller ID blocked his number. He tried again and again, coming up zero every time. Maybe she mistook his number for a cruddy guy's number. Maybe she met him over the weekend, later rejecting him, eliminating him from her life.
In the old days, a no-show date would've vexed him, totally dehumanizing his male ego. Aldwin would've retreated to his bedroom, going fetal, curled on his bed, feeling small, worthless, dead. That wouldn't happen now. He marched to the computer, clicking "College," watching mpegs of legal-age girls, at least Title 18 USC 2257 and 75 CFR verified that. But he saw one "coed" with braces and pigtails, doing ass-to-mouth, first the poop chute, then doing oral with a splashy facial. She could have fake orthodontics done, reassuring men she actually was young, but legally eighteen or over.
Tonight, he drank mug and after mug of Morning Thunder. Without Alice, he'd pecker-jerk her into existence. It always hardened more when her approximations flashed on, females giving it their all. The usual coup de main ( coup de grace? ) swiftly followed. For once, it hadn't mattered creaming before dawn.
He shifted to "Gagging," seeing pretties throttled on big ones, guys making them choke, sperm and vomit spewing out their mouths. He rarely threw up, and had an aversion watching someone puke at a party. Witnessing strangers retching on the sidewalk sickened him. His stiffer than stiff demonstrated otherwise, inspiring him into "decadent narcissism," Pope Benedict's phrase as he re-enacted Good Friday's Way of the Cross. Aldwin had no objection to "decadent narcissism," whacking off, proud of beastliness and sweat, moving beyond Articulated Vatican-Speak.
He stopped just in time, watching the bone wobbling up and down, grateful only a few drops oozed out. Freeze-frame showed foot-long, regurgitated gruel dangling from a distraught hottie's mouth.
"Alice, I've caught you with another guy. I knew you'd let me down," he said into monitor-lit darkness. "Now we know each other better, don't we." The vid-stud became Aldy. No one refuted that. Very few knew what his shaft looked like, its circumference and length. He'd become what he beheld. Not a body double, more like the dark half, a la Stephen King.
Outside, what sounded like indie rock blasted. He twitched his head around, hearing it behind his back, decibels going turbo. He walked through a kind of Phil Spector Wall of Sound, not locating it until he crossed the dark room. He pushed back the curtain. From a four-wheel drive Ford truck, not old-time rock 'n' roll as Aldy speculated, but death metal blew out from the truck's sound system.
A procession of vehicles convoyed past his home, every minute one cranked with all the accumulated bad engine noises he'd ever heard. A composite of discord, it wouldn't stop. Soon, the intervals between vehicles increased, the frequency lessened, the Ford revved, its music fainter, the street emptied. Aldy stood in the living room, in a kind of vast clearing, not getting agoraphobic, but close. Then he refreshed, breathing for the first noticeable time.
Going back to the freeze-framed image, a quieter car pulled up, stopped, idled, softer than the others: A real civilian car. He peered out, blinking back nighttime, until he focused on a Town and County Chrysler parked across the street. He recognized Paul's upright pose behind the wheel.
Transferring his gaze to the background, another person sat to Paul's right. Long curly hair, large shoulders, long neck: Paul's wife, Gwen, that was certain. Her head bobbed back and forth. She wanted a better view of the freak at a sleazy carnival. She shared a glimpse of what her husband stared at: Aldwin. Gwen leaned forward, bumping heads with Paul. The monitor's penetrating resplendence shone through the cracked curtain.
Behind Paul, in the backseat, a form appeared: Thin face, punctuated by herky-jerky movements, hands and arms communicating that she'd seen her lover the first time at his residence. Aldwin hadn't seen the three Dewhold's together before.
Just then, the telephone rang at 5:40 a.m. At first, Aldwin put on his underpants and robe, then remembered the caller couldn't see him. Maybe Alice checked to see what was going on with him.
"Hello," he said.
"Oh, my, I'm very sorry, I must have the wrong number," a woman's voice said.
He hung up before she continued with the deliberate self-conscious charade. The way she mocked him with crude irony, every keystroke observed by her and others. Virus scans termed them "critical objects" and "threats." Her phone call was real. External enemies prevailed. Homeland Security had no regard for privacy.
He went to desktop, clicked Restart, then Log Out, then Switch Users. A window appeared: "Other people are logged on to this computer. Shutting down Windows might cause them to lose data. Do you want to continue shutting down?" He clicked Yes. The screen went to black, then sequenced back to desktop. Aldwin persisted. He viewed "Booktime Coeds," who'd do whatever it took to get an A+.
The biggest erection of his life revealed itself. So it seemed to him watching sex in a mock classroom He heard another engine. It purred. Then the vehicle stopped. Walking with the hard shank in his hand, he looked at the outside dawn. Melissa sat in her van, both children in the back. "I thought she'd never come back," Aldwin said out loud. Six pairs of eyes stared at the window. Aldy never budged, too tired or too angry for reaction.
Cars, old and new, trucks, vans, motorcycles, skateboarders, pedestrians with ears to mobiles: He saw them all pass the window. An empty yellow school bus drove by a few. times. It seemed the community had mobilized, waiting for his capitulation. Everybody knew. Shunning, shaming, scapegoating: The Medieval Age returned, 21st century-style.
Lauryn Hill song: "It's the mystery of Inequity
Say it's the history of Inequity
Say it's the misery of Inequity
When it all…
All falls down
I'm telling you all…
It all falls down."
He heard weak knocks at the door. Then, the knocks became louder, stronger, more emphatic.
Aldwin, back against the door, ready for arrest, years wasting in federal prison.
"It's Kathryn, Aldy."
He hadn't seen her eyes, the seventh pair. He let her in. She looked fresh, unspoiled. Her clothes clean, her face unblemished, pores tight and smooth.
"I forgot all about you," Aldwin said.
"I have my car outside. Let's get out of here."
"How did you know about all this?"
"Those women outside the coffeehouse," she said. "Shit can happen to anyone. I'm online a lot. I know."
"Where can I go?"
"Anywhere. I have money. We can buy what we need somewhere else."
He packed a few belongings: Clothes, beard trimmer, Birkenstocks. He reached for the laptop in the bedroom.
"Forget about that. Let's drive away right now."
"I have credit cards, bank debit card..."
Walking to her car, four blocks away, no one stopped them. Not the guys who spoke on mobiles, seated in high trucks, not men and women in vehicles with U.S. Government licenses.
Arriving in Seattle, Kathryn parked her car near a Fifth Avenue hotel. As they walked toward the hotel, a green "KYRB Diagnostics" van, the same one he saw that day leaving the office, drove slowly past. He recognized the driver as the same guy who spoke into a mobile that day. He spoke on one in Seattle. Aldy wasn't sure she noticed. In their room, she held Aldwin close, telling him they could start all over in Seattle.
He knew he was a nothing man without a computer, its pornography. Only in that harsh glare could he be saved, just as believers witnessed their salvation when Virgin Mary's apparition appeared to them.
Comments (closed)
Jim Chaffee
2008-05-04 00:18:19
Nicely captures the paranoia the US now inspires in younger people, it seems. Guilt regarding deviation and immorality becomes fear of legal authority. People do go to prison, too, so it isn't only paranoid delusion.
Some of us remember the 50s when censorship lost to literary merit, an easily overturned precedent. Particularly with local community standards in force, where Hawthorne's social opprobrium from The Scarlet Letter meets state law enforcement.
Interesting to an old guy like me that the paranoia is so absurd, yet the line one might cross into that hellish oxymoron the criminal-justice system so thin.
Jonathan
2008-05-10 17:44:15
Yes, the paranoia the US inspires in younger people -- not, necessarily, the paranoia that the US Government inspires in younger people. One of the things I like about the story is Aldwin's (and the narrator's) seeming inability to distinguish between social ostracization and government intervention. I remember, as a Gen-X teen, how many Baby Boomers informed me that if I did not change my behavior, they'd have to have me arrested for my own good. Naturally, whether or not I was breaking a law was a non-issue. That's hardly a new thing. Or at least, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper say it's not, and would try to convince me that your age is not a relevant factor in your lack of paranoia. Alas, the impossibility of measurement of psychological forces. Your age is not a /statistically/ relevant factor in your lack of paranoia; I know many terrified Baby Boomers.
I got a number of stories with this sort of theme, in a matter of months, all written by males, and all with a deep sense of shame at their (narrator's, whether first- or third-person) heterosexuality. See http://www.unlikelystories.org/dugas0906.shtml and http://www.unlikelystories.org/r0906.shtml . All seem to imply that heterosexual males deserve universal condemnation, something I doubt the authors actually believe, but it's a trip to see that kind of shame explode. Rob Rosen, who's gay, sent me some celebrations of male heterosexuality around the same time. All that should have nothing to do with legal paranoia, but alas, lawmakers often fail to distinguish between social ostracization and government intervention as well, especially when jacking off is concerned. They aren't half as confused on this issue as American television networks, though. Anybody ever figure out if Lou Pai's crime was betraying the economic trust of stockholders or liking strippers? I'm still confused. And why, exactly, is the TSA allowed to torture women with nipple rings?
Luke Buckham, who's younger than me, says it all with his subtitle at http://www.unlikelystories.org/buckham1004.shtml . It's a necessary corollary to Rushdie's solution to terrorism. Also, Rock Out with Your Cock Out.