Naked (24 page)

I was entertaining these thoughts early one morning when Jon arrived saying, “Lord, I must be doing something right today!
Last night I prayed this lazy mutt would show up on time and here he is, the coffee brewed and waiting.” He took no interest
whatsoever in my boxes, dismissing them as a waste both of time and materials. “What are you going to put in there, three
fingers? A couple dozen Q-tips? They’re not even big enough to hold a deck of cards. Who needs a thing like that? A clock,
on the other hand, everyone needs a clock. Someone shows up at your door asking, ‘Am I early?’ Where are you going to look
— at a box? Of course not! A lady says, ‘I was supposed to boil that pudding for half an hour, maybe if I look at a box I’ll
know if it’s done.’ It’s ridiculous. The point is to give people what they
need,
idiot. You want to fiddle around after work, go ahead. You have the skill and I was happy to teach you. The ability, you’ve
got. The brains? I wouldn’t hold your breath. You’ll have to ask the man upstairs for help in that department.” He paused
to refill his mug. “Say, this coffee’s good, isn’t it? Let’s thank our friend, Jesus, for providing the beans. Come on now,
bow your empty head and then let’s get to work. Time is ticking. Ha!”

Our time was ticking toward the upcoming crafts fair in Portland, where Jon planned to make a killing. He’d paid a good amount
to reserve the booth but expected to make that money back within the first ten minutes. “These yahoos around here are all
so broke, they can barely afford to pay attention. Portland, though, that’s different. Portland’s where the money is. If I
don’t clear three thousand bucks by the end of the day, you can set fire to my legs and watch me walk home on my hands. You
hear that, Lord? What do you say, Big Guy, do we have a deal?”

The fair was to be held at an outdoor market on a Saturday two weeks before Christmas. We spent that Friday making price tags
and loading seventy-five clocks and four stash boxes into the station wagon. Jon was in a festive mood and gave me a ride
home, interrupting his lecture on salesmanship to point out a young woman standing beside the pay phone at a filling station.
“Sweet merciful Christ on a cracker, look at the cacungas on that one! Oh, Jesus, I could suck on those titties till the cows
come home. Lemme at ’em, lemme at ’em.” I’d seen him act this way once or twice before, but this time his eyeballs were popping
so far out, they were practically bumping up against the lenses of his glasses. After pulling himself back together, he dropped
me off in front of my trailer and set a time when he’d pick me up the next morning.

Waiting for me on the door that evening was a plastic bag containing six letters along with a note from Hobbs apologizing
for not delivering them sooner. It was his habit to drive to the mailbox each morning, and these letters, having arrived over
the last few weeks, had been sitting on the dash-board of his truck. I approached my mail the way a starving person might
sit down to a banquet. It seemed best to consume such bounty in small portions, but still, I couldn’t help myself from devouring
each letter whole, my eyes running up and down the page as if I were looking at a picture. I would swallow first and then,
upon the second reading, begin to chew each word into a paste. There was a letter from my sister Lisa and another from my
mother, each of them hoping I might be home for Christmas. My mother, in her familiar, slanted cursive, described an automobile
accident she’d witnessed on the beltway. Lisa’s letter, neatly typed, informed me that she wanted a curling iron for her birthday
and a case of either shampoo or champagne for Christmas. I had apparently drawn her name in absentia and would be held solely
responsible for her happiness this coming holiday season. There were two letters from Veronica, the first recounting her happy
Thanksgiving and the second detailing her recent breakup with “the son of a bitch who used to be my boyfriend.” There was
a letter from my friend Ted and another from an old college roommate. I read each one again and again, tracing my fingers
over the word
love
until I could see each of them clearly, sitting at their desks and kitchen tables. To describe the feeling as warm would be
doing it an injustice. It was as though after I had mourned and planted flowers on their graves, my dead had approached me
in a restaurant explaining that it had all been some terrible mistake.

I was sitting by the oven with the toaster and space heater at my feet when a harsh light shone on the wall, and Curly came
to the door. “Long time, no see,” he said, pushing past me and examining the contents of my refrigerator as if he had been
sent for that specific reason. “I thought you’d left town until Dorothy told me she’d seen you hitchhiking on the road to
Hood River. How’s my mother’s coat treating you, Einstein?” He had grown more forceful but no more attractive. “I could have
you arrested — you know that, don’t you? Stealing coats is a crime in the state of Oregon.”

It didn’t worry me that I might spend the night in jail for accidentally taking the jacket of a madwoman whose son considered
a newel post to be an erotic object. I gave him his mother’s coat and apologized for the misunderstanding, thinking that might
be the end of it, but he kept coming at me, cuffing my head and inviting me to wrestle. “We can do it without the toys if
that’s the way you want it,” he said. “I’ve got a bottle in my truck and we can use that. Come on now, Einstein, you owe me.”
Every time I brushed him off, he came back harder, driving his knuckles into my skull and working me toward the bed. “You
ticklish, are you? You like being fluffed up like a pillow, is that what you like, Mr. Tickle Toes?” I’d escape his embrace
for a moment or two, but the man was just too fast for me. For the first time in months, I was actually sweating. He pinned
me down against the floor. “Get off of me!” I shouted. “I can’t do this with you because… because I’m a Christian.” I felt
then as though both my heart and the mucus-producing glands of my nose and throat opened simultaneously. There was, upon my
gloved hands, so much snot that when I united my palms in prayer, they cemented themselves together as if they’d been glued.
I wept and wailed and then I sobbed. “I’m a Christian. I love Jesus, can’t you see that?” The words rang true to me, and I
cried even harder. “A Christian, I’m a Christian. Help me, Jesus, I’m a Christian.”

“Enough already,” Curly said, backing toward the door. “I didn’t want your life story, just a quick fuck.”

I remained on the floor long after he had gone, wondering what my life might be like now that I had finally opened my heart.
Cigarettes already tasted better, but they always do after a good cry. The refrigerator, the toaster, my appliances still
looked exactly the same. I thought things might appear brighter if viewed with a cheerful Christian countenance, so I walked
into the bathroom as if it were a clubhouse filled with faithful friends. “Hello, soap,” I said. “Hi there, toilet!”

“Lookin’ good, bathmat.” I moved through the kitchen and living room — “You old lampshade, you” — and wound up in the bedroom,
where I leafed through my address book, forcing myself to think kind thoughts about everyone whose name I had crossed out.
It was late when I finally went to bed, and I lay there, unable to sleep, wondering if God were watching. It was an uncomfortable
feeling, being watched. What if I were in the bathroom, would He watch me in there, too? I guessed He had access to anywhere
people are suffering, which, thinking back on my Thanksgiving meal, surely included the bathroom. How then was it possible
to
stop
Him from watching? I would make it a point to ask Jon the question first thing tomorrow morning. It was difficult to sleep,
in part because I was so anxious to tell him my news. I was a Christian now, a Christian. Hopefully I could skip the phase
of wearing large crosses and handing out pamphlets titled
The Devil in Mr. Jones
or
Satan’s Slaughterhouse.
Bypassing the hopelessly corny sing-alongs and church-basement potluck suppers, I intended to move straight into a position
of judgment. People would pay me to tell them what they were doing wrong, and in criticizing their every move, I would aid
all mankind. With any luck I could do this without having to read the Bible or eat anything containing marsh-mallows. I was
imagining my audience with the Pope when I finally fell asleep to the sound of awakening birds.

“Jesus, you look like shit,” Jon said as I settled into his car early that morning. I thought I had my speech memorized, but
I’d overslept and hadn’t had time to make a pot of coffee. Groggy and thick-tongued, I started out by recounting my visit
to Curly’s trailer. “So, he took me into his bedroom and it turned out…”

“The guy was a homo, right?” Jon curled his lips in disgust. “That happened to me once back in the army. There’s a lot of
sick people in this world. The guy asked if he could hold me, that’s what he said. ‘Can I hold you?’ I still had legs then
and I used them to kick his ass. But you’re that way, too, aren’t you?”

I nodded my head.

“I knew it the first time I saw you operate a sander. I said, ‘That guy is sick.’ And you are, aren’t you? You’re sick.”

He said it with concern, the way you might address a friend with tubes running from his nose. “You’re sick.” I attempted to
re-create my crying jag, but it sounded false. “Boo-hoo-hoo. Aww-ha-ha-hu-hu-hu-hu.” There was no mucus, and I had to provoke
my eyes with my fingers to produce tears. “A-he-he-hu-hu-hu.”

“Don’t cry to me. Tell it to Jesus,” Jon said. “Reach out to him. Tell him you’re sorry. Crouch down there on the floor and
pray, for God’s sake.”

“Oh, God, hu-hu-hu, I’m so sorry I met that guy. He was so stupid.”

“And tell Him you’re never going to do it again,” Jon shouted.

“And I’ll never do it again,” I said. “No Curly, never again.”

“With any man. Tell Him you’re never going to lay down with any other man. Tell Him you want to get married.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “Please let me get married.”

“To a woman,” Jon said. “Married to a woman.”

“Toman,” I said, hoping that if the transcript were ever brought to heaven’s court, I could not be accused of making promises
I didn’t keep. “Toman.” Somewhere along the line, I had forgotten this might be part of the deal. Couldn’t you be the type
of Christian who judged people
and
slept with guys?

“And tell Him you’re sorry for taking long lunches and being so clumsy.”

“Uh-hu-hu-hu, I’m sorry for all the things I dropped. I’m really, really sorry.”

“All right then,” Jon said. “You can sit back in your seat. That wasn’t so bad, was it? I knew you’d come along, you had the
best teacher there is. I now present you with the official title, C.O.G. How does it feel? Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?
And who do you have to thank?”

“Curly?”

“No, me, ya idiot.”

Jon mentioned a few other concessions I’d need to make and then we reached the city of Portland, where the women walked the
streets in tight jeans and close-fitting jackets. “Roll down your window and ask the blonde if there’s a Miss America pageant
in town.”

I asked and she crushed her cigarette, saying, “Beats the shit out of me.”

“
Someone
needs to beat the shit out of her. Bitch. Hey, look at this one in the rabbit coat. Oh, God, sweet Jesus, look at that ass.
You know there’s a God when you see a keister like that. Wouldn’t you just want to spend the rest of your life raising welts
on that fine, fat ass? Don’t you just want to bury your face all up in there until it’s dark?”

I tried looking at women as a Christian, which was odd, as I thought I always had. I appreciated the fact that they were around
but found it impossible to pass judgment on their breasts or bottoms, which I viewed no differently than their ears and ankles.
They were just features, some smaller or larger, but none more erotically charged than the trees and mailboxes that lined
the road.

“Hold on, Mamma, Daddy’s coming,” Jon said. “Roll down your window and ask if she applied those jeans with a brush or a roller.”

He truly must believe in miracles if he thought I’d actually ask a complete stranger if she accepted deliveries in the rear.

We pulled into the marketplace and I unloaded the station wagon while Jon leaned against his canes, gaping at the shapely
potters and whistling at the macramé artists, their hair braided into thin, complex knots.

“The flower pots are crapola, but I sure like her jugs. HA!”

Flea market or crafts fair, the common assumption is that what interests the seller will surely captivate the public. “Are
you looking at that panda? Well, it’s more than a crocheted bear, it’s also a blender cozy
and
a hand puppet!” I might appreciate the fact that someone has taken the time to craft wind chimes out of two dozen nickels,
but no amount of talk is going to make me reach for my wallet. I’d rather be left in peace to make my own decisions.

This was not an option for the citizens of Portland. “You’ve got to
talk
to these people,” Jon said. “Turn on the charm and make some money! Watch this: Excuse me, madam, do you happen to know what
time it is?”

The woman looked at her wrist and reported that it was 9:15.

“Pardon me, sir, do you know what time it is? Well, I do, it’s time for you to buy a clock. That’s right, a clock! You’ll
know your time is precious because this is no ordinary clock, it’s jade! That’s right, jade! It’s time for you to buy a jade
clock shaped like Oregon, that’s
exactly
what time it is. If you show me a picture of your wife or girlfriend, I’ll give you a twenty-five percent discount. I want
to see the face of the girl that’s going to unwrap this clock on Christmas morning. If she’s pretty, I’ll knock off an extra
ten dollars and let you have one of these babies for a hundred bucks. What am I, nuts? That’s practically giving them away!
I might be crazy, but that’s what I get for being an artist. Come on now, a hundred dollars, how about it?”