Nate looks at me, worried, suddenly fragile.
"I"m fine," I say. "I just have to be a little careful."
"You"re pretty much just managing your own weight," he says. "Would that be okay? There"s a harness and a lock, so you can"t really fall."
"I never was much of an athlete," I say.
"Trust me, these guys aren"t either-they"re blowhards."
It"s turning into a standoff-my dread of sports, of having to show off or, worse, failing to show off, in front of all these children and their parents, is making me cranky. "Dad would never do it either," Nate says, annoyed.
"Why not?" I ask; I"m surprised.
"No real reason. Every year I signed up for it, it always happened that he didn"t have to do it-a call he had to take, a pulled this, sprained that."
"I"ll do it," I say, finding inspiration in the fact that George never would.
The climbing teacher fits each of us with a harness. We"re given a lesson on how the ropes work. He makes it sound simple, effortless-I"m sweating. The other men look no more or less capable; a last-minute addition is a chunky guy wearing dark sungla.s.ses and dressed like he"s left the house in his black long underwear-or someone else"s long underwear, because it"s way too tight. He"s wearing nothing beneath it-his c.o.c.k and b.a.l.l.s are pancaked, all too explicitly. I can"t help but stare, and then wonder, is this kind of full-on peac.o.c.k display standard around here?
By the time I get four feet off the ground, I"m praying that Nate, who"s holding my line, is stronger than he looks, and that when I plummet, he doesn"t go flying through the air like some seesaw gone wrong. I"m both defying gravity and entirely aware of gravity"s pull.
"Use your feet," Nate says, coaching from below.
I feel around for the lumps of faux rock to use for leverage; they"re like doorstops. Pushing off, I rise a few feet and then grab at the holds just above my head.
"Push," he says, "push yourself up, don"t pull. It"s easier."
For sixty-five thousand dollars a year in tuition, according to the school"s Web site, I"m glad he"s learning something about physics.
I push up and belch; acrid coffee and cake fill my mouth. I swallow, get my footing, and push again. There are other men above and below me; the air is filled with a gamy scent of men under pressure. I go higher, determined, really f.u.c.king determined.
While I"m on the wall, the Headmaster comes around, working the crowd on the ground, shaking hands. I"m two stories up and hoping that Nate doesn"t get distracted by his "boss" in a skirt. I shift my weight and look down below; suddenly my t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es are trapped under the harness, which has slipped. It"s excruciating, and now I"m almost dancing, trying to address the situation.
"What are you doing?" Nate screams.
I hug the wall, use both hands, and adjust accordingly.
I notice some men have special climbing shoes on-I"ve got George"s f.u.c.king slip-ons. One falls off, bouncing against the wall, tumbling to the floor.
"I can throw it back up to you," Nate says.
"Never mind," I say, pushing higher, my sock foot slipping.
"Is this Dad"s shoe?" Nate shouts up to me.
"Yes," I call down.
"Weird."
I turn and focus on the wall. f.u.c.k, yes, I tell myself as I fight my way to the top.
And guess what"s there? A G.o.dd.a.m.ned GOLDEN EGG. I"m not joking: there"s a golden egg, a porcelain f.u.c.king piggy bank at the top. The problem is-how do you bring it down? How do you carry something fragile when you need both hands and feet? I stuff it down my pants. Hung like a horse, f.u.c.king the golden egg, I rappel down. Nate is at the bottom with tears in his eyes, and I"ve got no option other than to unzip my pants, extract the egg, and give it to him-a kind of offering. He"s hugging me and crying. I taste victory and sweat and think this is amazing. For one shining moment I am HIGH!
Twenty minutes later, my head is throbbing. I"m walking like a broken cowboy and I have a distinct absence of sensation in three fingers. When I sit on the toilet I can barely get up. I ask Nate if he"s got any Tylenol, and he says I should go see the school nurse.
"Forget it," I grouch, and we head back into the main building for afternoon sherry and cheese cubes.
I drink too much-honestly, drinking any sherry const.i.tutes drinking too much. The headache is getting worse.
"Have a c.o.ke," Nate suggests, and he"s right.
I have two c.o.kes and a half-pound of cheese, and show off my medal to anyone who will listen to the story of my stroke and miraculous recovery.
"What now?" I ask as the c.o.c.ktail hour winds down.
"We go to dinner at the Ravaged Fowl," Nate says, as though it"s obvious. "You made the reservation?"
I look blank.
"We always go there, but you have to have a reservation." The way he says it, there is no way out, it"s definitive.
"Not a problem," I say. "All taken care of."
From the stall of the men"s bathroom I call the Ravaged Fowl; there"s a embarra.s.sing echo.
"Sold out," the woman says. "Fully booked. No tables until Monday."
I don"t tell Nate-some things are best addressed in person-but as we"re heading there, my already fragile const.i.tution is taking on a kind of antic.i.p.atory stress, wondering what is going to happen.
We arrive, I play dumb, I give the hostess our name. "Let me check," the girl says. I get nervous. "We have a reservation. Every year we come here. How many years now?" I turn to Nate.
"Four," the boy says, looking at his shoes.
"For the last four years we"ve been coming here, this same day every year. I always make the reservation." I become indignant. The girl doesn"t care. She is busy answering the phone; I talk right over her: "I thought we could rely on you." She holds her finger up, as if putting me on hold-my voice is getting louder. My mood turns.
"Your face looks like Dad"s," Nate says.
"Always, or just right now?"
"Right now," he says.
"I"m in a lousy mood."
"Do you want to leave me here? You can go deal with your headache, I"ll join another table."
"That"s not an option," I say. "Can"t I be in a bad mood for a minute? It"s a lot for me." I can"t begin to explain how or why, but the opulence, the success, the beauty of this bright and shining day is getting me down. It has all been so wonderful that it"s made me sick-I can"t tell Nate and his buddies that the threat, the creeping encroachment of their youthful, excellent promising future, is for me a giant f.u.c.king depressant.
"Yeah, sure, whatever," he says, and I feel him retreat, vacate, leaving an empty sh.e.l.l.
The hostess hangs up the phone and walks away. I am tempted to chase after her-you can"t walk away from me, you can"t leave me standing there, having made a fool of myself in front of the kid.
My anger is intense. Without speaking, I am tearing her apart, surprised at the ugly clarity of my thoughts. She is singularly unattractive-grotesque. All too proud of what some would call a good figure, she"s wearing an emerald-green dress that"s too tight with a scoop neck and her b.o.o.bies spilling out. She looks less like a hostess than a hooker, or a homely drag queen. Her lips are thick and wide, smeared with cheap frosted pink goo. Her pores are large and black, each like an individual cesspool, each blackhead a black hole. There"s a thing or two I have half a mind to say: Don"t tell me you can"t manage a reservation that I made months ago; what"s the point of my making a reservation if you can"t keep track of it? And then I remember that I never made a reservation, and I imagine turning over her little bowl of creme mints, tipping her toothpicks, telling her to shove her creamed spinach up her c.u.n.t, and then whisking the kid off to some lousy diner twenty-five miles from here.
I imagine doing it, then hear Nate say, "You"re disgusting, just like my dad." It stings, hurts deeply. I don"t want him to think George and I are demented doppelgangers, I don"t want him to have a clue about what goes on in my head.
"Are you all right?" Nate asks.
"I think so. Why-am I doing something?" I can"t help but wonder if perhaps I"ve been talking out loud.
"You seem distracted."
"I didn"t get my nap. Ever since the stroke I need a nap every day. As the doctor explained it to me, my brain has been insulted and needs time to recover."
The hostess comes back with a short, mustached man who shakes my hand. "Sorry for the delay; we weren"t sure you were coming. I have your table, of course; right this way."
It couldn"t have been easier.
I dig around in my pocket and find twenty bucks to slip the man as he settles us into a prized banquette.
"Did you really make a reservation?" Nate asks.
"Your mother must have made it long ago," I say. "She was very organized."
Before the waitress comes to take the drink order, Nate leans forward.
"FYI," he says, "it"s a tradition that you order me a beer."
"You"re underage."
"It"s the tradition," he says. "You order it, I drink it."
I look around; none of the other tables have kids drinking beer.
"You"re working me," I say.
He says nothing.
"Why don"t you be honest with me? It"s better all around."
"Fine, I want a beer," he says.
"Fine, have a beer; you"re not driving, you put in a good day"s work, what do I care. Is there one you prefer?"
"A Guinness if they"ve got it..."
"Really?"
"It"s like a meal in a gla.s.s. I got used to it last summer, when I was at Oxford."
I order one Guinness and a root beer, and when the beer comes I take a sip and then put it down in front of the kid. "Do you want a straw with that?"
He drinks, closes his eyes, happy. Clearly this is not a first.
"I saw you checking out the hostess," he says when he comes up for air. "Maybe you should ask her out? You are single now, aren"t you?"
If only he knew what I really thought of the hostess. "I had no idea you were such an athlete," I say, changing the subject. "No one in our family has ever been an athlete."
"It doesn"t all come from your family. Mom"s grandmother was a great swimmer, she was the first woman to swim around the island of Manhattan."
"Really?"
"Yep. And her husband, my great-grandfather, was a fire-eater-apparently he had enormous lung capacity."
"I never knew."
"You can"t a.s.sume everything is all about you," Nate says.
"What can I bring you boys?" the waitress asks. I notice the Headmaster, still in his skirt, walking in, his pleats flouncing on his hairy, very white knees.
"How are the crab cakes?" Nate asks.
"Perfect," the waitress says. "One hundred percent lump meat."
"I"m not sure crab is in season," I say.
"I get them every year," Nate says. "I"ll start with the iceberg and blue cheese, and then have the crab cakes."
Why am I picturing vomit everywhere? Beer, blue cheese, crab cakes?
"I"ll have the iceberg and blue cheese as well and the steak special," I say.
"Baked or fried?" the waitress asks.
"Grilled," I say.
"Your potato-baked or fried?"
"Baked, please."
I sip the kid"s root beer. The Headmaster is coming in our direction. "What"s that you"re drinking, son?" he asks Nate.
"Just having a sip of my uncle"s beer-he thought it tasted funny. Does this taste bad to you?" He holds the beer gla.s.s up to the Headmaster.
"All beer tastes like p.i.s.s water to me. I only drink bourbon, but not while I"m on duty."
The man with the mustache hurries over. "Everything all right?"
"Bring this man a fresh beer, and the young fella looks like he could use a refill too-what was that son, a c.o.ke?" the Headmaster bellows.