The man has an erection. The one you wake up in the middle of the night with. This is the erection that’s useless. The erection that also has to urinate and good luck in there with that. The woman is locked in the bathroom. She might be painting it some too-brilliant color. There are stirrers, brushes, and rollers splayed about and the smell of paint coming from the bathroom. It smells like a mistake. The dog is eating what’s left of the roast in the yard. He jumped onto the table and snatched it away. He is good at this. The back door is left wide open. The children are out back watching the dog eat what’s left of the roast though they are thought to be downstairs.
The man is toying with his erection. The woman comes from the bathroom wearing a leather corset and sailor’s cap.
Is that for me?
Aye, captain.
They proceed in orderly fashion.
The man has an erection. The woman is locked in the bathroom. The light is on in the hallway. The television is on in the living room. The oven is on and the back door is left open. This time last year the man and woman had a consultation over the electric bill, over the locksmith and over the paint. Everything was always on or open or locked or foul and the man blamed the woman for this. He threatened to bleed her nose in front of the children and dog.
The man flaunts his erection. The woman comes from the bathroom in a terrycloth robe and regards the man.
What are you doing?
I’m not sure.
The man does not have an erection. He is impotent. He has been impotent for years. They tried pornography, protein, lingerie, herbs, surrogates, specialists, strings. They sought second and third opinions. The woman is locked in the bathroom. There is no dog or yard or back door left open. No roast. The kitchen table is not set.
The man looks at the bathroom door but says nothing. He has a string wrapped round his penis. The woman emerges from the bathroom wearing nothing.
What are you doing here?
Waiting for you.
How long have you been waiting?
It’s the strangest thing.
What is?
Did you put this on me?
The man has an erection. The woman is locked in the bathroom. The kitchen table is covered with electric bills and receipts but is not set for dinner or anything at all. There is nothing in the oven. The dog is dogging his way through the darkened hallway and the rest of his natural born life. The children are sinking down in the backyard pool. Everything else is almost ready.
The man ignores his erection. The woman comes from the bathroom without a towel or robe. The man and woman look at each other like butchers look at locksmiths.
They tangle.
NINE OFF THE BREAK
WE’D BEEN TO THIS POOL HALL BEFORE. Our habit was for me to play a few racks while she sat on a stool and feigned interest. She would say things like, good shot or you are a handsome man. I could never get her to shoot with me. I told her I would make it worth her while, twenty a spin, spotting her the break and the five. She said the game was too violent, that it was beneath her.
I’d known this woman for a year or so and she was right about all of it.
I decided to lay down my cue and walk to the bar. It was the first decision I’d made in weeks that didn’t concern stripes and solids, english and position. I thought it was a good start, something to build on.
I ordered two whiskey sours and brought them back to the table. I said take your medicine and handed her one.
This woman was operated on last week. She called it a minor procedure, but didn’t say what they fixed or what was cut out of her. I looked for scars, tremors, signs of infection. I think her left pupil was dilated. Her tongue appeared swollen, her lips ashen.
She wouldn’t let me examine her, even after I begged.
I said let me have a look around, make sure they did a good job.
I’m not a doctor, have never been to medical school, but I’ve watched a lot of television. I told her all of this.
Then I told her I would start at mid-thorax, explore the alimentary canal and check for irregularities. I told her I knew my way around the innards, the same as a tough layout in nine-ball. I said you’ve seen me operate before.
She said bowling pins and billiard balls. She said they were breaking all over.
I told her I wasn’t that man anymore, that I need things spelled out. I asked her where she got the bowling pins. I said plain English.
This is how we talk to each other sometimes. It’s senseless.
The trouble is this woman is smarter than me by at least half. I realized I needed a new strategy, something else to go on. This is how I came to the second decision.
I had to start thinking way over my own head.
I told her if she survived till next week I’d do something nice. Maybe buy her a ring or an expensive dinner. Then I said please.
She said fine, but just this once.
Her next move was to get up from the stool and limp over to the table. She cleared a few balls away from the near side and laid herself down on the felt. Close to her head was the six, which was inches from the nine, which was lined up perfectly with the far corner. Under those lights she’d never been more beautiful.
She looked up at me, all broken and spread out. She said billiard balls, bowling pins.
I said I know, it’s terrible.
SOUTH DAKOTA
THE SKY LOOKS BEST OVER SOUTH DAKOTA, SHE SAYS.
I say, fuck South Dakota will you please.
She says, you go fuck South Dakota. Then she says, you fucking child.
We go on like this for a few minutes until she removes her clothes. Naked she looks like a real woman with the skin and bumps. Otherwise, I don’t know what’s happened to her.
She wants me to say she is pretty, beautiful, call her a filthy whore. She wants me to touch her places.
She doesn’t have children but wants me to call her mother. She wants me to spend the night so she can nurse me in the morning. She always wants, this woman.
Me, I can’t say there’s anything I want for outside of sleeping the night straight through. I’ve been told I should visit a doctor, that I should consider medication. The people who told me this, I’ve seen them naked, too. The same skin and bumps and awful wants as this woman here.
The one thing I know is this—Mother did not give birth to me.
The other thing I know is it is no real calamity.
My real calamity is I can drink myself drunk or dead and still not sleep through the night.
After we’re finally done we both say we’re hungry but there’s nothing to eat. We listen to our naked stomachs grumble instead of talking or finding food somewhere.
If I had to guess I’d say I met this woman in a downtown bar in some bad luck city. There was probably a jukebox playing country music and maybe we danced to it. Otherwise we stayed at the bar and nursed one nasty straight up after another with beer chasers until deciding this was the best we could do. Either way this was probably three or four years ago now. I think her name is Alice or Gretchen. She won’t confirm or deny anything but I went through her purse once and found driver’s licenses for both names. One had her as a blonde in Georgia, the other a brunette in New Mexico.
Me she calls her baby boy. She’s never said why.
She says things like, Come on over to Mother now baby boy.
I tried to shake her once in the Pacific Northwest, but it didn’t work. She says she wants to fuck me in all fifty states; that she won’t give up until we hit them all.
I don’t know how many are left.
Tomorrow I’ll leave her in this hotel room and break north. I’ll hide out and try to get some sleep in Sioux Falls until she catches up.