"They say that vitamin E is good for that."
Q: Unlikely, I would think.
"Oh, come on."
"Its me. Dore."
"See what Im saying?"
Q: And so thats what you did, in the evenings or on weekends. . .
"Its because hes so old."
"Thats not so. Anyhow, I dont want to screw the babysitter."
"I dont think you can give somebody too much of any particular vitamin. The body takes what it needs and rejects the rest I read about it."
"Maybe we should offer him potentially arousing scenes that are not photographs."
"Whats your wifes name, Simon?"
"You want to jump the babysitter."
"What if we give him too much vitamin E and it poisons him?"
Inbed, he was almost asleep. She came in and threw four quarts of icewater at him.
"I dont know Id have to look in some books."
"Youre changing the subject."
"We dont want to stress him beyond his capacity or have him go mad or something."
"Well were mature women we should be able to cope with this."
Q: I also have a video of the Tet offensive with Walter Cronkite. . .
"Pretty name."
"Do you have any money?"
A: Not a note.
A: Nonsense. The prudent man guards his eardrums. The prudent man avoids anomalous circumstances.
"You mean cash? In the house?"
"I know you."
"Well Ill tell you Ive never had that many orgasms with anybody else to give the devil his due."
A: Just ordinary things.
"As well he should hes in hog heaven, objectively speaking."
"No, took it."
"I share it what are you getting so het up about?"
"A ripe fifteen."
Simon gets out of bed and opens a book, On Adams House in Paradise. He takes out a stack of bills and counts out two hundred in twenties.
"Whats my wifes name?"
A: What if she stabs me in the ear with the scissors?
"Where are we?"
A: In the dream, my father was playing the piano, a Beethoven something, in a large concert hall which was filled with people. I was in the audience and I was reading a book. I suddenly realized that this was the wrong thing to do when my father was per?forming, so I sat up and paid attention. He was playing very well, I thought. Suddenly the conductor stopped the performance and began to sing a passage for my fa?ther, a passage that my father had evidently botched. My father listened attentively, smiling at the conduc?tor.
"I saw this guy in a movie once I couldnt believe it."
"Whats up?"
"I use Lubriderm on him sometimes, that helps."
"Beats me I wouldnt take it if he did."
"Thats what I mean."
A: I had this strange experience. Today is Saturday, right? I called up this haircutter I go to, her name is Ruth, and asked her for an appointment. I needed a haircut. So she said she had openings at ten, ten-thirty, eleven, eleven-thirty, twelve, twelve-thirty -- on a Satur?day. Do you think the world knows something I dont know?
"Of what?"
In the middle of the night he senses someone stand?ing over his bed.
"He does appreciate what hes given."
"Perhaps at long intervals after he had been carefully fed with vitamin E and nourishing broths."
"Maybe we should offer stimulating photographs."
Dore is brusque upon awakening, Anne cheerful as a zinnia. Veronica frequently comes to the breakfast table (hardly a table, a slab of butcher block on top of some cabinets with four stools around it) pale with de?spair, then is overtaken with great gusts of enthusiasm, for Lohengrin or oyster mushrooms or Pierre Trudeau. Theyre so lovely that his head whips around when one of them enters the room, exactly in the way one notices a strange woman in a crowd and cant avoid, cant phys?ically avoid, loud and outrageous staring. My senses are being systematically dérégled, he thinks, forgive me, Rimbaud. Dore is relatively tall, Anne not so tall (but they are all tall), Veronica again the middle term. Breasts waver and dip and sway from side to side under t-shirts with messages so much of the moment that Simon doesnt understand a tenth of them: ALLY SHEEDY LIVES! Who is Ally Sheedy? In what sense does she live, and why is the fact worthy of comment? They know, he doesnt. Simon has actually met Pierre Tru?deau (at a three-day city-planning conference in Ot?tawa) and found him a charming and thoughtful man. This earns him about a crayons worth of credit with his guests.
"Ive noticed youve been buying a lot of Lubri?derm."
"What is she, fifteen?"
He switches on the bedside lamp.
ONCE when he had come home with Carol early from a concert a police car was parked outside the house, so they hurried. Inside on the couch with the babysitter there was a half-naked policeman. He had retained his uniform trousers. His gunbelt was on the coffee table and the babysitters blouse on the coffee table, a bottle of Dewars there as well, "This is Rob," the babysitter said, and they said, "Hi, Rob." What breasts, Simon thought. He went into the kitchen and mixed himself a Gelusil and Carol went searching for a faraway closet to hang her black-beaded jacket in.
Shes wearing a white lace peignoir with long filigree sleeves.
"I didnt think it was necessary. She was blushing all over. Never seen a stomach blush like that."
"See what Im saying?"
"Where does this word jump come from?"
"HES not potent more than forty-two per?cent of the time."
They say, repeatedly:
She gives him a quick kiss and starts to leave, then pauses.
"Carol."
"Not a perfect deal hes an animate wreck."
"The phrase is a bit total. As in, I totaled the Buick. "
SIMON is amazed by what he doesnt care about. Hes bought nothing but a couple of new shirts and a few books. Hes thought of no new projects. He reads Progressive Architecture and critiques what he sees there in a mood of amiable colleagueship. Hed done a building in 1981 that had pleased him, a Cath?olic church in a not-good area near Temple University, where the liquor stores gave you your bottle by request over a formidable counter, no browsing in the stacks. The parish was so poor that hed cut his fee to almost nothing; the other partners were not happy about it but had accommodated him. The church was a bare-bones steel building with insets of glass block as its only de?sign flourish, these however stacked eighteen feet high in twelve bays on either side of the sanctuary -- the glass block was the light-giving element, and resisted thiev?ery, too. It had been popular in the 30s, considered a design cliche in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, and pre?sented itself again in the 80s, fresh as new dung. Some?thing to be said for being fifty-three, you could enjoy the turning of the wheel. He feels every additional day a great boon. He doesnt understand people who have futures, palpable futures. He takes an interest in the obituary pages of the newspapers, the summations, tidy packages, So-and-so gets three inches whereas Tra-la-la got seven. He has a pain where his liver is presumed to be and is vomiting rather too much. Hes paid $35,107 in Federal taxes for last year and has before him a re?quest from the IRS for an additional $41.09. These people are wonderful, he thinks, they want the last forty-one bucks and nine cents. Youd think with the thirty-five thou theyd say lets have a beer and forget about it.
"Has he made a will?"
"I didnt hire the babysitter."
"You dont have to tell me."
Q: No special interests?
"Maybe we could feed him nourishing broths."
Q: Let me play this track here for you, its by Echo and the Bunnymen --
"You mean like real life."
"I just think weve gotten ourselves into a funda?mentally false position here, I dont blame the poor bastard its just more than the male mechanism is equipped to do."
"Consisting of what?"
"Let me look."
"Right now. Two hundred, if you have it."
"Fully fifteen."
"They have these special guys they use for those movies theyre not what you usually run into. Theyre specialists."
Rob removed himself into the felon-thick night, Carol gave the babysitter twelve dollars, and Simon looked in on the sleeping Sarah. She had kicked the covers off and he replaced them. "Do you think he was on duty?" Carol asked, re-doing the covers.
Q: Does your father play? In actuality?
"Were in some sort of waiting room. Waiting."
Q: You mean regular adultery.
"Potentially arousing scenes."
"She was highly recommended."
"You worry about the way I say things but you dont worry about what I mean."
A: No.
A: Invariably.
"Thats your opinion."
Q: Its possible.
"You would if you could."
Q: What did you do, after work, in the evenings or on weekends, in Philadelphia?
Q: Did the conductor resemble anyone you know?
Q: And what else?
A: Yes. Sleeping with people although legally bound to someone else.
"Well if you want simple frottage."
"Yes," Simon said. "Did you say anything to her?"
"Youre too wrapped up in your own stuff even to try. To know someone."
Q: You regard yourself as prudent.
"Well I dont know how their minds work."
"I think he works quite hard at it, spends hours and hours."
Q: These were women.
"It needs changing."
Q: Your guilt. I recognize it. Clearly, guilt.
"Did he leave the bottle?"
"Hes raveling his clothes. Plucking at threads."
"Oh misery me."
"He could be more tan his red color is from drinking Ill bet a nickel."
"Whos that?"
"You mean the photographs would be more arousing than we are?"
"Hes doing the best he can."
"I dont think Ive ever said that to anybody. I know you. "
"See what Im saying?"
"Youre dumb. Youre just dumb, Simon."
"He shows no signs of going mad."
A: I regard myself as asleep. I go along, things hap?pen to me, there are disturbances, one copes, thinking of the golden pillow, I dont mean literally golden but golden in my esteem --
"I need a couple of hundred."
"Its my bad brother," Dore says. "Hes downstairs. He always arrives without warning. One of his endear?ing traits. Thanks. Ill pay you back."
"I think Ill call the chief. Fill him in on this matter."
"Had this guy today tell me he was the fourth gen?eration of his family to lose money in the cattle busi?ness. A client. What he was really saying was that he was cattle aristocracy and he made enough from his oil leases so that he could run two thousand head of cattle as a hobby. Thats known as self-deprecating humor."
"He says hes fifty-three."
"Thats what I hear too."
"I just think that means he doesnt have very good clothes. His clothes have a lot of loose ends and its nat?ural, I think, when you see a loose end to pluck at it."
"I saw." She led the way to the kitchen. "I guess thats Sarah eleven years from now."
He attempts generalizations. Dore is crusty, Veron?ica is volatile, Anne is a worrier. The generalizations are banal but comforting, like others hes been faithful to over many years, architecture is frozen music and art is a source of life.
"Maybe in a state of nature. Philadelphia is not a state of nature."
A: I was very interested in bow-hunting. These new bows they have now, what they call a compound bow -- Also, Im a member of the Galapagos Society, we work for the environment, its really a very effective --
"How old is he actually?"
"I havent heard that expression since I was a child. Het up."
"I dont think so I read about this guy who was ninety-three and still was fathering children when he was ninety-three."
A: Stabs me in the ear with the scissors in an excess of rage?
A: Ill pass.
"Sure you would."
A: Well, adultery. I would say thats how I spent most of my free time. In adultery.
"Right now?"
"Thats an evil thought, has he anything to will?"
