Inappropriate Behavior: Stories Read online

  I thought of the box of stuff on the floor near my desk, turned right to look for it, and there was Smith, grinning wildly. I turned my head left, and there was Smith again, still grinning. I looked away, closed my eyes, and set my feet to run the gauntlet of my writhing coworkers, but just as I did, I felt Smith lean in near my ear. “Are you ready for Schmelling?”

  I opened my eyes, and I saw him.

  It was Schmelling, and this time he was walking—if you can call it that—under the weight of an enormous ledger that he carried on his back. The book was as large as a queen-size mattress, made of brown skin the color of cedar, its brass rings as wide as Hula-Hoops, the pages thick and coarse as canvas inside. I don’t know how he was able to carry the thing by himself. I knew he was strong—you try the crabwalk sometime, it’s tough—but I would have thought ten men would have strained under the weight of the astonishing book, and it hurt me to see him bearing it alone. Forget for a moment that I should have been thinking, What the hell is the deal with this huge ledger? And why is he lugging it through this madhouse to begin with? For all I can tell you is that at that particular moment, my only thought was to help him with his burden.

  So I did. I met him halfway across the room, and he, blue eyes popping, face purple with stress, his sandy blond hair matted with sweat, looked up at me from beneath the ledger. All noise in the building, save the sounds of our heavy breaths, stopped immediately when our eyes met.

  I said, “I’d like to help you with that, Mr. Schmelling.”

  He grunted something that was probably not a word, and at first looked at me with demurral. But I wouldn’t move, and slowly he assented, and slowly he began to jog the ledger higher on his back so I could get my shoulders underneath. I finally did and discovered I was correct about the weight of the book. Together we started to move, and the singing woman sang, Aaaiiieeeeeeee! and the clapping and stomping started again, and we carried the ledger together. I was immediately tired from the strain, but I never even thought of putting it down, of not carrying my share of the load. After a while, the tiredness disappeared, and it was as if we had somehow shuffled off the limits of our selves, the limits that fatigue and fear and pain place on us in this life, and so we carried on, I never asking where we would stop, and he never telling.

  Finally—I have no idea what time it was, it was late, it was dark outside the windows—we came to an area of the floor that was cleared of cubicle partitions, and there we set down the book.

  Smith and a couple others scurried out to open the front cover, then they turned several pages at a time, looking for one that was blank. Two of the women rolled caster-bottomed office chairs beneath Schmelling and me, and we collapsed into them. I was too tired at that point to even look at the book, and so instead I simply slumped forward with my head in my hands. I really cannot tell you what I was thinking, other than I remember the incredible fatigue and the incredible sweetness of having that ledger lifted; I felt so light, so empty. It seems to me now that at that moment, all of my thoughts had been cleared away, that my mind was indeed a clean slate, tabula rasa, like a newborn child’s, ready to be filled again with new thoughts, new ideas, new attitudes and visions, as if, from then on, everything would be new. I wasn’t even sure I knew my name.

  I felt a hand on the back of my neck, strong and sure, rubbing the soreness out, comforting, loving, and I knew it was Schmelling, and for a time, that was all I could think: Schmelling, Schmelling, Schmelling! All of my worries and regrets and doubts and fears, about my job, about my father, about Marcie, faded away. And I loved him, and I looked up into his face and I knew that he loved me. I put my arms around him, and we rolled our chairs together into a grasp, an embrace, a bond I knew would last as long as life, or at least until retirement age, or, who knows, maybe for all eternity.

  LUBBDCK IS NOT A PLACE OF THE SPIRIT

  I have thought on numerous occasions that the best thing to do about Clive is to kill him and then bury him out in the desert somewhere. Clive is problematic because he knows the following things that I wish he did not know:

  1.Allison is not really my girlfriend.

  2.I’ve been telling my family that Allison is my girlfriend.

  3.I have a series of pencil drawings of Allison in various poses.

  4.I have written a series of love songs to Jodie Foster.

  Clive knows the last of these four things because one night I shared a small number of these songs with Clive, and he pretended to listen intently and honestly, only later to claim he would turn my songs over to the police. He knows about the third thing because when I’m out at class and he’s sitting in the apartment supposedly writing a treatise about human consumption of natural resources, he instead spends his time going through my possessions. He knows about the second thing because one time I was on the phone talking to the man who claims to be my father—whose corpse is lately on my mind—and Clive heard me tell him that Allison is my girlfriend. He knows about the first thing because one time I was on the phone, pretending to talk to Allison, and Clive sneaked up on me and snatched the phone away and heard the dial tone. And then he sent me to the liquor store, because he is a bully of the intellectual and spiritual type, and he inspireth not.

  Clive says my brother called three times and where the hell have I been? He needs skim milk and a carton of Marlboros.

  I have been to the following places:

  1.English class, had the following experience after English class:

  Teacher: It’s John, right?

  Me: It’s John.

  Teacher: Where have you been?

  2.The Golden Galleon, where I ate one-half of one-half of a Raiderburger with cheese. Left when I began imagining the hot globules of deep-fried fat pocking the pink skin of an infant.

  3.The filling station.

  4.The grounds outside Knapp Hall, where Allison lives.

  Call your brother, says Clive.

  This is the fourth day in a row that I have been unable to have a bowel movement.

  Clive says—Your brother called again today. Clive rarely leaves the apartment and never watches television, but today when I come home Clive is watching President Carter on television, talking about the economic crisis. Usually, when I want to watch television, Clive groans. Clive subscribes to at least fourteen different magazines, nine of which I pay for. I own a Gibson guitar.

  Song for Jodie #143 (a ballad)

  I wouldn’t have you on the streets, my little one———

  I wouldn’t have you out there on the streets

  The nights I’d have you in between the sheets, my little one———

  And rub the temples on your lovely head

  Today in English class the teacher taught a poem called “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” by Christopher Marlowe. He also said that Christopher Marlowe was a spy who was killed in a tavern brawl. He also returned a test I did not take. I think Allison did well—she seemed pleased, and smiled a half smile, the bottom corner of one top tooth showing. Fetching is a word I’d like to use to describe it.

  Today I’m at home when my brother calls. Clive says—You get it, dammit. My brother says—How’s school going have you talked to Mom and Dad lately how’s Allison?

  Look, I’ve got some work for you, my brother says.

  I’ve got something I need you to do and you need something to do, he says.

  A job would be good for you right now, I think, in a lot of ways, he says.

  I’m running this guy’s campaign for the House of Representatives, and I want you to come work for us, he says.

  I just want to work long hours, I tell him.

  No problem, he says.

  Clive distinctly remembers giving me a check for his half of the rent. Today I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom. I had the need to move my bowels, I felt the pressure, but when I sat down, nothing occurred. I strained. I stopped straining and rubbed my lower back, in the kidney regions, for quite some time, which is a technique. I tried st
raining while standing up to produce something, a beginning, some breach, some peeking of a head. After twenty minutes I managed to produce one small rock of feces, brown and cracked and cakey.

  More than two hundred thousand Americans, mostly men, die on toilets every year.

  I want a job where I have to work long hours. I can’t sleep nights. Allison was out tonight, with that little slut roommate of hers. They were out until nearly two in the morning.

  Song for Jodie #156 (a ballad)

  Come live with me and be my love

  Come live with me and be my love

  Babe———————————

  Come live with me and be my love

  Without you I can’t seem to move

  There’s more in me than you can ever see from where you are

  So come and live with me and be my love

  My brother sends me out armed with literature. Fliers and bumper stickers in a milk crate at my feet. The candidate’s face on a sign. He grins. He has Lubbock on his mind. From Lubbock, For Lubbock. I stand at the corner of Broadway and Tenth, near Sneed Hall, holding my sign, armed with my literature that I keep in a milk crate at my feet. If anyone comes up and asks questions about the candidate, I’m supposed to be polite and give them some literature. I’ll work anytime, anywhere. The city’s motto is: Lubbock!

  Spoonbenders and other psychic phenomena. Christopher Marlowe was a spy. Clive asks why haven’t I paid the phone bill. Clive says he distinctly remembers telling me to pick up some paprika and Marlboros. Clive is writing a treatise on human consumption of natural resources. Clive knows about Allison.

  Today I saw her leaving her biochemistry class. I was standing on the corner of Broadway and Tenth with my sign for the candidate and my milk crate full of literature and bumper stickers. The following experience occurred:

  A lady comes up to me at the corner. A lady who is probably fifty years old, and dry. She asks me why she should vote for the candidate. She’s wearing pants. Black polyester pants tight on her dry hips and flared out around her legs. And a white shiny shirt with ruffles. What does he stand for? she says. In the case of this experience occurring, I have been instructed by my brother, director of campaign operations, to say the following eight things:

  1)The candidate believes in America first.

  2)The candidate believes in lower taxes.

  3)The candidate believes in God.

  4)The candidate won’t raise your taxes, like the other guy.

  5)The candidate understands Lubbock.

  6)The candidate puts Lubbock first.

  7)The candidate thinks it’s high time we took this country back.

  8)The candidate asks for your vote for the House of Representatives.

  Then I’m supposed to give her some of the literature I have in my milk crate.

  But when the Dry Lady asks me, I can’t think of any of these things. It’s all in the flier, I say. I hold out a flier, but not a bumper sticker. Bumper stickers are more expensive and should only be given to those who specifically request them, number one, and number two, my brother says, I’m supposed to get some kind of feel for the people who specifically request bumper stickers, to try to gauge how firmly they support the candidate and how likely they are to actually go out on Election Day and vote. He says there are lots of people who just want to take a bumper sticker and then not do anything about it, not even put it on their car. Why, I don’t know, he says, but it’s true. People just like to get things of value, however small, as they’re walking around town. Especially college students. Which is why we don’t want to give out bumper stickers to just anyone and everyone.

  Here’s what I think, the Dry Lady says. I think you don’t know what he stands for. I think he doesn’t stand for anything. I think if he stood for something you’d be able to tell me straight out. I think you just lost my vote.

  Just take the flier, ma’am, I say.

  I don’t want anything to do with your flier, and I don’t want you people knocking on my door anymore, either, she says. I’ve had it with you. She either said that or How sad for you, I couldn’t tell which. She walked away, her dry legs bone-clattering up Tenth, and got into a gold Valiant parked there on the street. I was sweating terribly.

  So now I’m back on the corner with my sign, and Allison is walking with her slut tramp whore roommate toward Bledsoe. Her light blond hair shines even in the thin September twilight. Her friend is a toad of blood.

  Song for Jodie #161 (a ballad)

  When you feel the terror of existence

  I will comfort you like a child

  When you feel awed by my insistence

  Then I’ll know your blood is running wild

  When you mewl just like my little kitten

  I’ll know I have you

  When you cry———————————

  When I leave———————————

  Then I’ll know I have you

  Clive is drunk. He sends me out for more Evan Williams bourbon. He distinctly remembers writing me a check for his half of the rent. He remembers where he was sitting when he wrote the check. Among Clive’s magazines:

  •The New Yorker

  •The Nation

  •Screw

  •Southern Living

  •Guns & Ammo

  •Harper’s

  •Foreign Affairs

  Clive tells me that in twenty years the world will run out of carbon dioxide. I got the wrong size bottle of Evan Williams bourbon and now I have to go get more. My feet hurt from standing on the corner all day with my sign. And because I either erred or perhaps willfully disobeyed his instructions and didn’t get the right size bottle, I have to pay for the whole thing.

  Or else he’ll call my parents and tell them the truth about Allison.

  Today in English class the teacher talked about John Donne. A poem called “The Flea.” It’s about how this girl should stop holding out on him, since he’s been bitten by a flea, and she’s been bitten by the exact same flea, and inside that flea their blood is all mixed up, so why should she be so prissy about letting him have sex with her? Allison didn’t seem impressed by the argument. Allison does not exist in a world of blood and fleas. The teacher returned another paper at the end of class. Again, I didn’t hand one in so I don’t get one back. I knew this one was due, but I was working, standing on the corner with my milk crate, holding the sign for the candidate. Last week, when I should have been working on my paper, I was holding my sign. Anytime, anywhere.

  All my life needed was a sense of somewhere to go. The teacher has stopped asking why I haven’t been coming to class.

  Clive.

  Clive distinctly remembers giving me a check for his half of the rent. Clive has no friends, no one ever visits Clive, no one ever calls Clive, Clive never goes anywhere or sees anyone. Clive refuses to let me look at any of his magazines, even though I pay the subscriptions on more than half of them. Although sometimes when I’m in the bathroom, struggling with a movement, he slides a dirty picture from Screw or Leg Man or Oui under the door. Have fun, Clive says.

  There was a rally for the candidate and my brother told me to come, first to hold my sign and act like I was just some person who came to the rally. Then he said, No, I have a better idea—you should come and pass out literature. Then the day of the rally he calls back and says, Listen, I’ve got a better idea.

  He says, At the rally, the candidate is going to take questions from the audience. Except they’re not really questions from the audience. Actually, my brother says, the candidate is only going to call on people from the campaign who are pretending to be people who just showed up to the rally. Do you get it? he says. Do you think you can handle it?

  I tell him, All my life needed was a sense of somewhere to go.

  Yeah, he says.

  That night at the rally at the VFW hall, there are about thirty people there, and at least half of them work for the campaign. I recognize them from the headquarters, w
here I go every morning to get more fliers and bumper stickers for my milk crate.

  The candidate is short. Shorter than he appears on the sign, which is just a picture of his head. But he looks taller on the sign.

  The candidate says—I love Lubbock. I’m practically from Lubbock. I think Lubbock is God’s country. Are you tired, he says, of the government getting your tax dollars? Are you tired of the liberals in Washington, DC, telling you how to live your life, and giving your money to deadbeats and dropouts? Some people clap, mostly the people from the campaign.

  The candidate says—Do you want a congressman who believes in God? Isn’t it time we started listening to what God is saying to our hearts, instead of what those liberals are saying to our heads?

  Now I’ll take some questions, the candidate says. I raise my hand, but just as I do, I notice the Dry Lady in the crowd. The candidate points his finger at me and says, Yes sir, you there. Good to see the young people out tonight. You might could use a haircut, but still, good to see you. He chuckles. Go ahead, sir, you may ask your question.

  The Dry Lady is looking at me. The candidate is looking at me. My brother, who has been following the candidate around the stage with the microphone cord in his hands, is looking at me. I suddenly can’t remember the question I was told to ask. I suddenly panic.