He hadn't, but he'd get it to me one of these days. Ezra was heading for the Library, so I walked him down. "Question, Ezra--the Internet. I've never taken to it, of course, but I got this friend who lives in it, and she takes to poking around in there, and what does she dig up, but my got-damned middle name. Now tell me, Ezra, who does a guy sue for that?"
Ezra let go a laugh, then took me to school. "The Internet's not some bulletin board someones in charge of. The Internet's the new frontier. Hell, suing the Internet's like suing the wild west. What is your middle name?"
"That ain't right," I said. "This is America. What's the point of pledging allegiance in the morning if there's no one to sue in the afternoon?"
"Good one, Anton; a groundskeeper getting litigious. That's like a professor getting his head under the hood of a car. What is your middle name?"
"God, you're nosy. Just some mouthful my Norwegian grandma gave me."
Instinctively, Ezra and I pulled up under the widow maker. No, that's the kind of cloth Ezra and I were cut from. Where other men stopped to look under hoods, he and I stopped to look up at the got-damned widow maker overhead.
Looking up, I told my grandma Vik story; how she'd left her German husband cause he beat her. "Ya, dropped her infant daughter off at her lactating sister's, went west with her best friend Elsa. That Elsa; a better story yet. See, this Elsa had a need to go west cause she thought she was a young man. But then Elsa got killed out west--only grandma knows how. Which was why grandma had a mental breakdown, we suspect. Ya, so grandma moved in with my parents when I was getting born, and that's how I got my middle name."
"What is your middle name?"
"My first name; a better story yet. My parents were going to name me Tony. But then grandma Vik steps in, talks them into Anton. Maybe I told you; grandma V named me after Chekhov, the Russian short story writer."
"Chekhov, yes. What is your middle name?"
"Grandma V, some piece of work, she. Word had it she was a total goner upstairs. But now I'm not so sure. No, you should have heard her when I turned twelve: 'Mind you, young man, Chekhov's not for children. You stay away from my bookshelf, you hear?' Well, long story short, I took to Chekhov like my buddies took to porn."
"The cherry orchard," Ezra said as if that was a load.
I looked at Ezra as if he was having a mental breakdown out west.
"The Cherry Orchard," Ezra said, "the Chekhov play I wrote a paper on in college. Maybe I told you; I had designs on becoming a literary critic. But my lit prof put an end to that. Sure, I hated him for commandeering my pie-in-the-sky. But, you know, that old prof knew me better than I knew myself. Knew a career in color commentary wasn't right for me. Knew I was more cut out for making black and white of the world. Anyway, that C- on The Cherry Orchard; that's what got me into Photography."
We stepped together into the Library. Waiting for Ezra to search out his books for class, I was drawn to the far corner where, in the stained glass, I took to reading the color commentary.
Ezra didn't say anything.
"No, Ezra, that's what I should have said to that Dierdre: Screwing a girl is how you screw 'em up for years; not talking to them."
Ezra laid a professor eye on me. "That's a bit simplistic, wouldn't you say?"
I didn't say.
"You're right, Anton. Screwing a girl can be a bad thing for a girl--if she learns you screwed her solely to score. Like your buddy, Beau, down in Clay. But take me: Back when I was in the screwing business, the girls I screwed, I screwed solely to better their mental health. Which, of course, is the best thing for a girl."
My turn to laugh.
"It's true, Anton. See, if a girl wants me to screw her, and I don't, what does that spell?"
"Wisdom."
"For the guy, maybe. But, see, for the girl that spells rejection. Rejection, Anton. I'm sure that's what your friend, Dierdre, is trying to tell you. If a girl wants to have sex with you, and you just talk to her, well, that's clear rejection. And that clear rejection screws up a girl way more than winding up a notch on some Beau's gunstock."
"But what about now, Ezra; now that you've gone the way of celibacy. You still talk to the girls you no longer screw, right?"
Ezra laid both professor eyes on me. "There's talk, and then there's talk."
"Just like a professor; walking around his talk."
"Let me clear it up for you. When it comes to talk, I'm not prone to idiocy like yourself." The professor paused. Yes, the pause every student needs to build a better complex about himself. "See, Anton, I know better than to come down all father-figure on a girl, point out every pothole she'd best steer clear of. In the classroom I teach. Outside of the classroom I innocently flirt. No one grows, no one falls, no one gets screwed up for years."
"Ya, well, I can't help it if I have a calling. Where I'm prone to idiocy is calling on those too young to know wisdom when I stick it in their ear. No, if I were wise, I'd stick my wisdom in ears with a few more miles on 'em. In fact, that's what I'm going to do from now on; stick it to thirty-somethings only."
Ezra strained to keep from laughing, then he strained to keep from lecturing me, then he brightened. "Say," he said, "I know of a woman in her thirties you might want to meet."
"Really, what's she like?"
"She was married forever to a good friend of mine--well, ten years. Anyway, she divorced him, and now she's ready to start dating again."
"Does she have kids?"
"No."
"A dog?"
"No." Ezra worked his professor brains. "I think she's got a horse."
Mmm, I'd never done a horse. Then again, a horse can't be hanging out in a girl's apartment, commandeering all the love on the warm end of the sofa.
"I can do a horse. How's her looks holding up?"
"She's hot. And on top of that, she's a frigging pediatrician."
"Wow. That's like a doctor, right?"
"Right. A baby doctor."
Cry me a creed! A doctor. Boy, wouldn't my ex-wife get boiled over those prospects; me, dating a doctor.
"What the hell, Ezra, I suppose she's worth checking out. Why don't you tell her to stop on by sometime, and we'll talk."
****
No comments:
Post a Comment