“Hoochie-coochie-coo…”
“Is that Charo?”
“Yes. Thought that might be a turnoff. Turns me off. Hoochie-coochie-coo…”
“I need quiet, please.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re breathing.”
“I have to breathe,” she said with a smile.
It was like there’d been no foreplay so the foreplay was happening during the play. Time compressed itself. Past, present, future. Everything was happening at once.
She looked in his eyes, saw how badly he wanted to do well, get a good grade, get to write the sequel. It was sweet. She stopped moving. She bit his ear softly and said, “Don’t worry, Ted, you feel so good. Just make love to me. That’s all. That’s all you have to do. For me, okay? Please?”
Her words shored up Ted’s confidence. He would be strong for her. She sensed it, she felt it. He said, “Okay, but no more Spanish. Deal?”
“Trato, Papi.”
“Stop!”
She laughed and arched her hips up toward him.
“Dass it, baby. Should I call you ‘Lord’?”
“Only if I deserve it.”
“Dass it, Lord…”
They were in sync now in mind and body. As they moved together, he rose up to look at her beauty beneath him. He gazed at her up and down. They were naked now. He tried to squint so he didn’t see his own fat, hairy belly, just her. It almost worked. He saw the Dead tattoo on her ankle, and the Christ one on the other, which he could now clearly see was not “Christ,” but rather “Christina,” as it snaked around the turn of her shin. She saw him looking at the ankle and twisted away slightly, almost as if she were covering up a scar; she whispered in his ear again, “Don’t stop, I’m gonna come.”
He didn’t stop. He would never stop.
55.
It must be a month or two later judging by what he sees out his window. Some leaves are on the ground. The trees in Brooklyn, what’s left of them to struggle through asphalt-“a tree grows in Brooklyn,” that’s right, a tree, one tree grows in Brooklyn. The few trees that remain shine their colors of red and gold almost hyperbolically. With so few of them in the city, the trees overcompensate, display colors unnaturally bright, like an outgunned army, giving more than all in the face of an inevitable annihilation. A dream fall. What an ad man might make the fall look like to sell a dream in a thing. The Autumn of Eddie Bernays. Marty came from the window to the TV. Where the fuck is Ted? Typical, he can’t stand to see the Sox finally take it all. In a sweep no less. Four straight over the St. Louis Cardinals. The curse will finally be lifted tonight, the losers shall win, the last shall be first. It feels biblical tonight, feels like the fulfillment of a prophecy. Marty half expects to see frogs raining down from the sky and Yul Brynner somewhere. But he is a believer. He didn’t die. He stayed alive for the Sox and the Sox kept him alive. He turns the sound down on the TV. He just wants to watch and hear the voices in his head. These announcers are too much anyway. They try to make too much of baseball. Baseball and America. They, too, are selling a fake dream of fathers and sons, of cars, of democracy, meritocracy, and a past perfect. But they’re so ham-fisted and obvious. Not like we used to be, classy and slick. Who buys that shit? Marty wonders. The people, Marty knows, the Volk buy it. And who sells it? I do. Marty knows it. I do. But a man must eat. And he must provide for his family. There is no shame in bringing your talents to market. Even if it means sexualizing asparagus and the sexy Soxology of Sox. Fuck you, Karl Marx. And besides, it’s true, baseball cures cancer. There it is. The final pitch. It’s over. The players storm the field and jump into one another’s arms like children. Well, that’s sincere, Marty thinks, that joy is real. He can’t believe Ted isn’t here, but then again, he can. The big events in life are not like plays, never staged quite perfectly, or rather, they are like Greek plays where all the great things, the sex and the violence, happen offstage. Why couldn’t I see all the great things? Why did I miss so much by looking the other way? Marty feels tears in his eyes. He feels like he won. Feels like he won at the game of life. That’s corny, he thinks, I can do better. But baseball is all about the corn. What’s wrong with a little corn? People love the corn. Wasn’t he supposed to die now? Didn’t seem likely, he felt better than ever tonight. He felt better than he had in years, like a young man. He feels so energized he has to go out in the night air. If he can’t gloat near Ted, he’ll find someone down at Benny’s kiosk to lord it over. As he walks to Benny’s, where the fuck is everybody? Yankee fans in hiding from him. They are already all in mourning. Pussies. Not enough that they win, but the Sox must lose. Unfair. Maladjusted. There’s nobody down at the kiosk. Even those gray panthers are ducking Marty. Why won’t anyone let me gloat, goddammit? Haven’t I earned the right? He leaves a quarter on the counter of the kiosk and grabs a New York Post. There on the front page, the front page! Apparently, this is the most important news in the world. In huge bold letters: “τό κατάραμα άνακυκλεύτε!” He doesn’t recognize these letters. Very odd. He flips to the back to read the box score and the commentary. He just watched the game, why does he want to read about it now? It’s a guy thing. He doesn’t know. It’s uncanny, though, and strange, because he doesn’t recognize any of the players’ names. Neither for the Sox nor the Cardinals. Is he having a stroke? He’s heard that this happens. You lose words, words reform themselves into unrecognizable things. It’s all Greek to him. Literally. He knows what Greek looks like though he doesn’t speak it, and this New York Post is written in Greek. He takes a deep breath. Who is Πεδροία? Who is Όρτιζ? Who is Δάμον? He rubs his eyes. He can’t make out any of these names. He turns the paper over again to the front page and looks at the date. It says October 28, 2004.
Marty awoke suddenly from this strange dream. It was a convincing one, and he didn’t know where he was in the dark, or even what year it was. He was breathing heavily. His lungs hurt. He sat up in bed and tried to banish this vertigo. He stood up unsteadily. He was home. He was okay. The sky outside was a black blue. It was still dark, but Marty knew it was just moments away from dawn’s beginning, the dawn of dawn. Here comes another fucking day. He put on some clothes and headed down to the kitchen. He peered into Ted’s bedroom. What the fuck? Ted and a woman lay asleep almost on top of each other on Ted’s single bed. Way to go, Splinter. The woman had beautiful thick, wavy dark hair. Was it? He drifted gently around to where he could see who it was. It was! It was Mariana. Good for you, Teddy, he thought, and good for you, Mariana. Good. Just good. The infinite soul using the finite body to touch the infinite in the other. I and thou. That is the apex and the pain of life. The body is all of the soul that the senses can perceive. That’s what Blake said. Makes us all one. Things begin. Things end. Oh, well.
He walked without a cane down to Benny’s kiosk, as he had in his dream. He was too early. None of the men were there. It was no longer night, but you couldn’t really call it day. Today’s newspapers had already been dumped by the kiosk, bound like hostages who would be made to talk. Marty was able to loosen a New York Post, his favorite sports section. September 10, 1978. Jesus, the summer went fast. Life goes so fast. The season must be nearly over. I haven’t been paying enough attention, he thought. What with Ted and Mariana. And Maria. Did that really happen? That happened. It had been a night for pendejo. He laughed. Ted was a fucking funny kid. A good kid. Always had been.