“I shouldn’t really be talking about food at a time like this, should I?”
Spoon didn’t say a word. He just looked at me. His eyes were sad but there was a smile on his lips.
“You haven’t said it today, Spoon.”
“Haven’t said what?”
“Your favorite four-letter word.”
“Huh? Oh, that.”
“It’s not like you.”
“Hmm?”
“Say it for me.”
“Fuck!”
“Now do it to me.”
He held my face in the palms of his hands. I caressed his fingers and his wrists. When he spread his fingers wide, one hand was big enough to cover my whole face. There were only three thick lines on his palms, and that made them look deceptively simple, but they were actually very sensitive and they knew every inch of my body.
“Can’t we? Can’t we make love anymore?”
He finally stood up, dropping something down between the bed and the wall as he did so. Then he turned back, and after looking at me for a few brief moments, he closed one eye and winked at me. It reminded me of that night we first met. After we had made love so hurriedly, the passion had remained and solidified inside me like some kind of cap-sule. Then his wink had been the catalyst for it to dissolve and take control of my heart.
Now, everything was over the moment his eye closed. I tried to hold back all the emotions welling up inside. “What are you trying to do to me?” I whispered. “You’re still making eyes at me like you want to make love.”
Spoon pointed at himself with his finger, then very slowly pointed at me, and nodded his head twice. I tried to tell him, Me, too, Spoon! Me, tool But the words just wouldn’t come out.
With one detective holding each arm, Spoon left the room and left me. I was alone with no idea of what had really happened. I poured myself a glass of gin and glanced at myself in the mirror. My face was covered in lipstick.
Later that night one of the detectives returned to ask if Spoon had left anything behind in the apartment—he had dropped his ID card down by the side of the bed before they had dragged him off. At first I told the detective I didn’t know what he was talking about, because the photograph on that ID card was the only one I had of Spoon, and I didn’t want to lose it. But then he threatened to search the apartment, so I thought I’d better give it up. I put the ID card together with a newspaper and Spoon’s copy of Jet magazine, and told the detective that was all I had of Spoon’s. He was pleased to have found what he was looking for and left.
I hadn’t told the detective, but along with his ID card, he had also left his namesake lucky charm: his spoon. But I couldn’t imagine the American government arresting me for stealing a spoon.
The next day on F E N radio news, they said that Spoon had been arrested for trying to sell confidential military documents. There was probably a big article about it in Stars and Stripes, too. Actually, I was surprised to hear that Spoon had been dealing with something so important—maybe he was more clever than I had given him credit for.
But all that meant nothing to me anymore.
For the first few days I just sat on the floor in my apartment like idiot, staring at myself in the mirror, my face still covered in lipstick from the night Spoon had left.
Then, I finally started to come around, and I noticed that the meat in the fridge had gone bad and was beginning to smell. I opened the lid of the wastebasket to throw it away, but I got sick to my stomach and I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Even after I’d been sick, the pukey feeling wouldn’t go away, and it made me so mad that I picked up Spoon’s bottle of Brut and threw it at the wall. It was made of cheap plastic, so it didn’t smash. Only the top broke, and the sweet fragrance of the aftershave filled the room. As soon as it reached me, I began to cry, wailing like an animal.
At last I understood. I had lost Spoon. I cried and moaned as if I were at death’s door.
“Spoon! Where are you ?”
I began to search madly around the room, turning the whole apartment upside down, desperate to find something he might have left behind: sperm stains on the sheets, any sign of that bout of Philippine crabs we just couldn’t get rid of when we first met. Anything would do.
Anything at all. I even turned his Panama hat inside out in an effort to find even one solitary, springy hair. I found his toothbrush, and his bottle of aspirin, and when I opened the jar of Vaseline I found the traces he’d left with his fingers—he scooped it out with his big, rough fingers and used it to make me feel horny. I found the wrapping from one of his packs of cigarettes, too—he used to bite them open from the bottom—the stocking cut in half with a knot tied in the end to keep his “springs” in order, a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie, and an empty bottle of Bacardi—he didn’t need a glass, he just drank it straight from the bottle. By the time I had gathered all his junk together, I was completely exhausted.
I lay down on the floor, grinding my teeth. It was over. But what was it that had ended? Was I supposed to be able to convince myself that just because I could no longer see him there in front of me, he had never existed in the first place?
I started tap-tap-tapping with the spoon. A constant stream of tears fell from my eyes, and I was afraid that my memories of him might flow out with them and be washed away and lost forever. I loved those memories. They were everything to me. I even loved the word “memories”!
Up until now that damn word had never meant anything to me at all. In fact I had always been proud of my fantastic ability to forget. This was the very first time I had ever had anything I wanted to call my own. I wondered if maybe there was still some sperm floating around inside me. I prayed that there was, and that it would seep into every last cell, spreading its sweet smell throughout my whole body.
After a while I gave up fighting and decided just to take life as it came. Little by little my memories began to settle, sinking to the bottom of my mind, and on the surface I appeared relaxed, as if nothing had ever happened. Like smooth, calm water without a ripple to be seen. No one around me knew. And then, every once in a while, I would secretly reach in and gently scoop up some of the cream that had settled to the bottom of my mind with my fingers, and lick them. It gave me an enormous feeling of satisfaction to finally savor those memories again.
“Mmm… delicious!”
Let’s say, for example, that there was a huge pile of hands, and that they all looked the same. I would still be able to pick out those horny, black hands of Spoon’s with no problem at all.
And let’s say there were loads and loads of men’s asses all lined up.
All the same, all with a crack running down the middle. I would still be able to spot the one that could grip my hand and not let go. And in the same ceremonial way you might choose a Filipino hooker, I would shower his butt with champagne to call him over to me.
Spoon was part of my own body now.
Now I drag my poor, weary body off to bed and turn down the blankets. I can’t escape the illusion any longer—the illusion of those sharp eyes hiding there, waiting for me.
THE PIANO PLAYER’S FINGERS
There is always a moment when I know: when my boyfriend I | is putting sugar in his coffee, shaking one of those sugar dispensers with the metal spouts to get the sugar out, and then suddenly the whole top comes off and all of the sugar spills into his cup, and he sits there with a stupid grin on his face; or when I see that bottle of musk oil with the faded label—they both might have been endearing at one time, but now they don’t seem to matter to me anymore. That’s when I realize I’ve fallen in love with someone else.