“I am aware that he has an early-morning flight, Mother,” Dorothy was saying. “Yes, I know that’s why we’re staying here.”
I have to pee, Juan Diego was thinking, and I mustn’t forget to take two Lopressor pills the next time I’m in the bathroom. But when he tried to slip away from the dimly lit bed, Dorothy’s strong arm tightened around the back of his neck; his face was pressed against her nearest breast.
“But when is our flight?” he heard Dorothy ask her mother. “We aren’t going to Manila next, are we?” Either the prospect of Dorothy and Miriam being with him in Manila, or the feeling of Dorothy’s breast against his face, had given Juan Diego an erection. And then he heard Dorothy say: “You’re kidding, right? Since when are you ‘expected in’ Manila?”
Uh-oh, Juan Diego thought — but if my heart can handle being with a young woman like Dorothy, surely I can survive being in Manila with Miriam. (Or so he thought.)
“Well, he’s a gentleman, Mother — of course he didn’t call me,” Dorothy said, taking Juan Diego’s hand and holding it against her far breast. “Yes, I called him. Don’t tell me you didn’t think about it,” the caustic young woman said.
With one breast pressed into his face and another held fast in his inadequate hand, Juan Diego was reminded of something Lupe liked to say — often inappropriately. “No es buen momento para un terremoto,” Lupe used to say. “It’s not a good moment for an earthquake.”
“Fuck you, too,” Dorothy said, hanging up the phone. It may not have been a good moment for an earthquake, but it also wouldn’t have been an appropriate time for Juan Diego to go to the bathroom.
“There’s a dream I have,” he started to say, but Dorothy sat up suddenly, pushing him to his back.
“You don’t want to hear what I dream about — believe me,” she told him. She’d curled up, with her face on his belly but turned away from him; once again, Juan Diego was looking at the back of Dorothy’s dark-haired head. When Dorothy began playing with his penis, the novelist wondered what the right words were for this—this postcoital play, he imagined.
“I think you can do it again,” the naked girl was saying. “Okay — maybe not immediately, but pretty soon. Just look at this guy!” she exclaimed. He was as hard as the first time; the young woman didn’t hesitate to mount him.
Uh-oh, Juan Diego thought again. He was thinking only about how much he had to pee — he wasn’t speaking symbolically — when he said, “It’s not a good moment for an earthquake.”
“I’ll show you an earthquake,” Dorothy said.
THE NOVELIST AWOKE WITH the certain feeling that he had died and gone to Hell; he’d long suspected that if Hell existed (which he doubted), there would be bad music playing constantly — in the loudest possible competition with the news in a foreign language. When he woke up, that was the case, but Juan Diego was still in bed — in his brightly lit and blaring room at the Regal Airport Hotel. Every light in his room was on, at the brightest possible setting; the music on his radio and the news on his TV were cranked to the highest possible volume.
Had Dorothy done this as she was leaving? The young woman was gone, but had she bequeathed to Juan Diego her idea of an amusing wake-up call? Or perhaps the girl had left in a huff. Juan Diego couldn’t remember. He felt he’d been more soundly asleep than he’d ever been before, but for no longer than five minutes.
He hit the panel of push-buttons on his night table, hurting the heel of his right hand. The volume on the radio and TV were muted sufficiently for him to hear, and answer, the ringing phone: it was someone yelling at him in an Asian-sounding language (whatever “Asian-sounding” sounds like).
“I’m sorry — I don’t understand you,” Juan Diego replied in English. “Lo siento—” he started to say in Spanish, but the caller didn’t wait.
“You asswheel!” the Asian-sounding person shouted.
“I think you mean asshole—” the writer answered, but the angry caller had hung up. Only then did Juan Diego notice that the foil wrappers for his first and second condom were missing from his night table; Dorothy must have taken them with her, or thrown them in a wastebasket.
Juan Diego saw that the second condom was still on his penis; in fact, it was the only evidence he had that he’d once more “performed.” He had no memory past that moment when Dorothy had mounted him for another try. The earthquake she’d promised to show him was lost in time; if the young woman had again broken the sound barrier in a language that sounded like Nahuatl (but it couldn’t have been), that moment hadn’t been captured in memory or in a dream.
The novelist knew only that he’d been asleep and hadn’t dreamed — not even a nightmare. Juan Diego got out of bed and limped to the bathroom; that he didn’t have to pee forewarned him that he already had. He hoped he hadn’t peed in the bed, or in the condom, or on Dorothy, but he could see — when he got to the bathroom — that the cap on his Lopressor prescription was off. He must have taken one (or two) of the beta-blockers when he’d gotten up to pee.
But how long ago was that? Was it before or after Dorothy left? And had he taken only one Lopressor, as he’d been prescribed, or the two he’d imagined that he should have taken? Actually, of course, he should not have taken two. A double dose of beta-blockers wasn’t recommended as a remedy for missing a dose.
There was already a gray light outside, not to mention the blazing light in his hotel room; Juan Diego knew he had an early-morning flight. He’d not unpacked much, so he didn’t have a lot to do. He was, however, meticulous about how he packed the articles in his toilet kit; this time, he would put the Lopressor prescription (and the Viagra) in his carry-on.
He flushed the second condom down the toilet but was disconcerted that he couldn’t find the first. And when had he peed? At any moment, he imagined, Miriam would be calling him or knocking on his door, telling him it was time to go; hence he pulled back the top sheet and looked under the pillows, hoping to find the first condom. The damn thing was not in any of the wastebaskets — neither were the foil wrappers.
Juan Diego was standing under the shower when he saw the missing condom circling the drain at the bottom of the bathtub. It had unrolled itself and resembled a drowned slug; the only explanation had to be that the first condom he’d used with Dorothy had been stuck to his back, or his ass, or the back of one leg.
How embarrassing! He hoped Dorothy hadn’t seen it. If he’d skipped taking a shower, he might have boarded his flight to Manila with the used condom attached to him.
Unfortunately, he was still in the shower when the telephone rang. To men his age, Juan Diego knew — and surely the odds were worse for crippled men his age — bad accidents happened in bathtubs. Juan Diego turned off the shower and almost daintily stepped out of the tub. He was dripping wet and aware of how slippery the tiles on the bathroom floor could be, but when he grabbed a towel, the towel rod was reluctant to release it; Juan Diego tugged at the towel harder than he should have. The aluminum towel rod pulled free of the bathroom wall, bringing the porcelain mounting with it. The porcelain shattered on the floor, scattering the wet tiles with translucent ceramic chips; the aluminum rod hit Juan Diego in the face, cutting his forehead above one eyebrow. He limped, dripping, into the bedroom, holding the towel to his bleeding head.