"Is that what you like?"
"I like you."
"Take out your cock," she said.
I unzipped my fly, tugged myself out.
"Do your business while I watch the end of the movie."
I scuttled over to the other end of the sofa, propped the laptop on a pillow. I did what she said, but she never looked over. I wanted her to look over. I tried to keep everything on my hand.
"Done?" she said.
"Yes."
"Okay," said Maura. "I love you, Milo. We are changing, our lives are changing. I don't know if we are finished or not. But we need a little break. Go to your mother's tomorrow."
"But what about Bernie?"
"It's just for a few days. So I can think. So you can think. Figure out what the hell you are doing with your life. With Purdy."
"What does this have to do with Purdy?"
"I need you to figure that out. Now go to the kitchen and wipe your hand."
I slept on the sofa that night. It was noisy out here in the room near the street. There were car alarms and the shouting of names. Somebody named Garza was going to get it. Somebody was going to bust a cap in Garza's ass. Somebody, maybe Garza, knocked over a garbage pail. The sound recalled the metal canoes my bunk once had to portage over rocks on a summer camp trip. We caught trout from a stream, ate nuts and berries and M &Ms. Our counselor talked incessantly about the "truth of the land." He did not mention the home heating potential of trout. I saw the side of Wendy Leed's tit, heard an owl hoot. I thought I heard an owl hoot now.
My phone glowed again.
"Did I wake you?" said Purdy.
"No," I said.
"But you're the sleeper. Why doth the sleeper not sleep? Melinda's conked. She sleeps and she hurls. First trimester is an ass-kicker. Who knew about any of this shit? Morning sickness always sounded so dainty to me. A little tummy ache before breakfast. But then you think of what's growing in her. Our heads are too big, you know. I've been reading up on this."
"I know all about it," I said, bent away from the sofa's crevasse. Maybe I would have to exile myself to Claudia's just for the sake of my spine.
"It's because our brains evolved too rapidly," said Purdy. "One minute we're doofuses in trees, the next we're outfoxing mastodons on the savannah, and we have these huge-ass pumpkin heads. Can you outfox a mastodon? Did foxes exist? Were there mastodons on the savannah?"
"I don't know, Purdy."
"They had those midget horses, I think. But anyway, think about it, big baby skulls ripping through the birth canal. It's criminal. It's rape, really. Reverse rape. Nature should do time for it. Melinda says I'm an idiot. She says the female body is designed for childbirth. Have you ever heard of the pelvic floor?"
"Purdy," I said, "how much candy have you eaten?"
"A lot. I'll have to do another ten miles on the treadmill tomorrow. You work out?"
"Not at all."
"You should."
"Why?"
"You'll live longer, better. Don't you want that?"
"I'm not sure, given my present circumstances."
"You'll definitely look better."
"Better than what?"
"Better than a half-melted block of Muenster cheese."
"That's a nice image."
"I rarely employ them. Anyway… yumm… ginger crystals."
"I'm actually hitting a bit of a rough patch with Maura."
"Rough patch. That's kind of a dead image, no? I'm trying to cut down on stock phrases myself. But I'm sorry to hear about your marital woes. Anyway, listen. Melinda wants to do a natural childbirth, but not at that place you met me, the Best Place. She's decided to do it here at home. No epidural, nothing. Fine by me. If she's a glutton for agony, that's her business. I'll be right there, stroking her brow, telling her what a great job she's doing, rah rah. I'll cut the cord. We're banking the cord blood. For bone marrow transplants, stuff like that."
"Do you need a bone marrow transplant?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, this blood won't help you. Oh, and there's also the placenta. Maybe I'll do some kind of face-mask treatment. I'm not eating that crap. Friend of mine slapped his boy Bronco's afterbirth on a Portuguese sweet roll. Ate it with his wife right there on the birthing bed. Did it come with soup? No thanks, I say. Maybe I'll help with the snip-snip."
"The what?"
"The circumcision. We've decided to go with that. It's not a religious thing, it's just that Melinda thinks foreskins are repulsive. Plus they give women cervical cancer."
"Oh," I said. "Yeah. We didn't do Bernie. We went the other way on the question. Maura thinks… we think it's mutilation."
"No, female circumcision is mutilation, not male. What planet are you on? What they do to the clitoris-man alive! I mean, especially if it's not even part of your culture, that is some brutal shit."
"I've never heard of that," I said.
"Never heard of what?"
"People doing female circumcision when it's not part of their culture."
"That's what I'm saying," said Purdy. "How insane would that be?"
"Will the midwives do a circumcision in your home?"
"No, but Melinda's doctor has already agreed to be here just for that procedure, so we can get everything out of the way in one shot. The midwives and doulas are cool with it. It will be a melding of opposed philosophies as only a rich motherfucker like myself can engineer."
"I see."
"So, anyway, sorry to ramble. I've just been sitting here watching TV and spinning my wheels. I'm not even forwarding through commercials. You should see the kind of stuff they've got on. I now officially know more about the Maxim gun than I ever thought possible."
"I saw that one."
"I bet you did," said Purdy.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, did that sting? Come on, Milo. Don't be so sensitive. And don't take yourself so seriously. We both know what your life has been like."
I stayed silent for a moment, listened for the owl.
"Milo?"
"Purdy, why'd you call me? You must have got word from Lee Moss. Your son is thinking about it. But I think he will sign the papers."
"I know that."
"So, why did you call?"
"Do I need a reason? Don't you work for me?"
"No, I don't. Maybe I do. I don't know."
"Don't worry about that," said Purdy. "I called because I can't sleep. This is when we always used to talk. Like in the house on Staley Street. You'd always be there. You were my friend. Weren't you my friend?"
"Yes," I said.
"I don't have too many-"
"Yes, you do."
"Yeah," said Purdy. "But they're all asleep right now."
Twenty-five
Nobody told me about the noon staff meeting. Nobody told me much of anything these days. I was some kind of bad luck charm. I was somebody's error in judgment all over again. But the energy tides eluded me. I was stranded on a shoal with my turkey wrap. A Post-It note on my computer reminded me to ask for more Post-It notes. But I was afraid to ask. I wasn't even drawing a salary, but I did not want to be a drain.
Nobody told me about the noon staff meeting, or even waved me over to join them now, but I followed them into the conference room anyway, found a chair between Horace and Vargina. There were people from other teams I did not know that well, a tall Asian man who raised money for the business school, a white woman with cat glasses who handled undergraduate gifts. The early arrivers had left chairs between themselves and others, the way travelers on a bus might prop their suitcases on the seats beside them, make a play for solitude. But the room filled up. We'd packed the bus. Now the driver climbed aboard.
Dean Cooley walked in and slapped a folder on the desk. The folder sported the new lime green tabs a recent directive had mandated. War Crimes scanned the room until his eyes appeared to alight on Horace, who wore a tuft of his hoagie's shredded lettuce on his chin.
"In my time," said Cooley, "I have been a combat marine. Trained for combat. Trained to kill. But I never saw combat. I never killed. It was my blessing, and my misfortune, to be an instrument of war at a time of relative peace. So, as I say, I never saw combat and I never killed. In my time I have also been a purchaser and purveyor of bandwidth, not that there was much difference in those heady, early days of bandwidth. We were all for one thing: more bandwidth. Above all, I was an instrument of bandwidth. But I never saw bandwidth. How can you see bandwidth? You can see measurements of bandwidth. But you can't see bandwidth. It does not matter. What am I driving at?"