The Housewife Blues (9 page)

No, he decided. Desperation was making him crazy. Besides,
it was never a good policy to shit where you ate, which brought his thoughts
back to Teddy once again.

This thing with Teddy was devastating. He could remember
the pink little bundle of flesh he had seen through the maternity-ward window
and how proud he was to show everyone who passed that this was his kid. He also
remembered how much he had fantasized about what his boy would become and how
he, Barry Stern, would dedicate himself to building a great financial base so
that his kid wouldn't want for anything.

Watching little Teddy in that maternity-ward window, he was
absolutely convinced that this child would amount to something really
important, something impressive and wonderful, a person famous throughout the
world. He could remember very clearly thinking such thoughts, thoughts that
crystallized into a father's dream. He was certain that all fathers felt like
that. Yet nowhere in this equation had the idea of homosexuality even entered
his mind. His son, a queer?

Not that he didn't love Teddy with all his heart and soul,
but the idea that he would live a life as a kind of exile and, in some circles,
even an object of ridicule and defamation was depressing. His son, having sex
with other men, with no possibilities of children, a loving wife, a normal
life, was, well, face it, pissing on his dream. It wasn't fair.

Perhaps he was just overreacting to the idea, based on only
circumstantial evidence. All optimism had faded. He was on the mat, broke, over
his head in debt, on the verge of eviction, his wife ailing and working beyond
her strength, his son a possible homosexual. Clearly, even now, he was better
off dead than alive, although he was not comfortable with the idea of being a
cop-out.

All this horror pulsed through his mind as he waited for
Glover to see him, hoping and praying that Glover would provide him with an
opportunity of financial recovery. So far he hadn't been successful in hooking
up with another real estate outfit that might be willing to pay an advance.
They were all in deep shit. But Glover had stuck it out all those years making
a market in Levitt's houses in Hicksville, and in the good years Barry had
thrown a lot of business his way.

Once he got a little financial breathing space, he could
direct his attention to Teddy and Sally with a clear mind. It could be that he
was just reading things into Teddy's odd conduct. It was a brief flash of optimism,
but intruding on it was the memory of what he had done about Teddy's keys.

Stealing Teddy's keys was a shabby act of which he was
greatly ashamed. But he couldn't think of any other way to keep him away from
the two queers, acting on the idea that the way people became homosexuals was
by being turned on by other homosexuals. He could not bring himself to believe
that people were born that way. How, then, did it come about? Older men
seducing younger ones, making them like it so much that they could renounce
women altogether. He wondered if it was too late.

"Barry Stern," Glover called from his office.
"Come on in. Sorry to keep you waiting. Have a cigar."

It was an old-fashioned way to welcome someone into his
office, and in an effort to keep the mood, Barry took one of the cigars from
the humidor and allowed Glover to light it for him. Glover relit his own stub
of cigar, then the two settled back on their chairs and studied each other.

Glover was a short man who wore his pants high, nearly up
to his chest. When he was sitting, his feet barely reached the floor. His eyes
were set back deep in his face, giving him a hawklike appearance despite his
thick, moist lips.

"It stinks," Glover said. "They fucked us
real estate guys good."

"Better believe," Barry said. "Not that we
haven't been through this before. But this one is for the books. Nobody's
buying. Nobody's selling. The S and L's are fucked. The banks are on the balls
of their asses."

He looked around the room. Outside, he could see the rows
and rows of Mr. Levitt's ingenious idea for the American family, now
individualized, as if the owners were determined to mock Mr. Levitt's method of
mass-producing the American dream of home ownership.

"Maybe it was a blind fluke," Glover said.
"But this place turns over. Not as much as I'd like these days, but I
think I can get through it."

"Paid to specialize, Tom," Barry said. "Here
you got a following."

"Forty years in the making, Barry," Glover said.

"I'm a helluva salesman, Tom," Barry said, hoping
he did not sound as if he were gilding the lily.

"That you are, Barry," Glover said.

"I sent people your way."

There it was, Barry thought, the reminder. Pulling on the
guilt chain.

"And you never screwed me."

Barry was encouraged by Glover's response. "That's very
important to me, Tom," he said, seeing the opening. "My reputation is
everything." He took a deep puff of the cigar, too deep. He was growing
nauseated. He was not a cigar smoker. Sweat began to creep down his back. It
put a damper on his salesmanship.

"I know what you mean."

"I'd like you to put me on," Barry said, watching
Glover's face. The man's eyes had drifted away, and he was inhaling and blowing
smoke out of the side of his mouth.

"Long trip in from Manhattan every day," Glover
said.

"Oh, I'd move. Get an apartment somewhere out here. I
need this, Tom." It felt as if desperation were flowing out of every pore
of him along with the perspiration.

"Worth considering, Barry," Glover said.

"You don't know how grateful I'd be," Barry said,
suddenly finding the courage to put the cigar down on the glass ashtray. The
nausea was still there, but the sudden optimism had a calming effect on his
guts.

"It's slim pickings, though," Glover said in a
cautionary way, as if he had noticed the effect his consent had had on Barry.

"Tom, I promise you I'll sell the shit out of this
place."

"I know you will, Barry. That's why I'm taking you
on."

"A couple a thousand a month will tide me over until
the commissions roll in. Maybe sixty, ninety days at the most." Barry felt
oddly relieved. There it was. Out in the open, and his throat hadn't tightened.

Glover shifted his weight on his chair and puffed deeply,
this time blowing the smoke directly in front of him, enveloping Barry until it
dissipated.

"Wish I could, Barry," Glover said.
"Unfortunately the phrase
cash flow
doesn't exist in this business
anymore. But, hell, there won't be any grass growing under your feet, Barry.
I'd say ninety days max you could be pulling down two, three thou a
month."

Barry felt his stomach churn. "I'm tapped out,
Tom," he mumbled, his eyes watching his restless hands as they massaged
his thighs. "If two thou is too much, say one thou and more if the sales
roll in."

"Nothing rolls in anymore, Barry. There's only two
salesmen able to make a living on this turf now. This bullshit about the
recession being over is just that. I got a feeling that the real estate boom is
gone with the wind for you and me, Barry. I'm sorry. But no advances."

"Sure, Tom, I understand." Barry stood up. His
head was spinning, and the feeling of nausea had surged back. He managed to put
out his hand. Glover took it, pumped.

"I wish I could, Barry. You know that," Glover
said.

"Sure, Tom," Barry said, forcing himself to be
pleasant in the time-honored way of salesmen who hadn't sold their wares on the
first pitch. It was the rule of the game never to burn your bridges. He managed
to make his smile last until he got to the anteroom.

He held on to his nausea until he reached the station
platform, then he threw up in one of the litter cans. In the midst of his
retching he had the sensation that the process was ridding his being of the
last vestige of hope.

TEDDY'S afternoon visitations with Jenny became somewhat of
a routine. On most weekdays he would arrive at Jenny's apartment with Peter in
his arms. She would provide Teddy with a snack and Peter with a saucer of milk.
Then Teddy would proceed to do his homework and Peter would curl up in a ball
at his feet and she would proceed with her household chores.

Just before six o'clock, as if it were a silent agreement
between them, Teddy would leave with Peter and go downstairs to Bob and Jerry's
apartment. Jenny knew that having Teddy in each afternoon would be contrary to
Larry's wishes. It was, after all, an involvement with a neighbor.

But to Jenny it was more than that. She viewed it in far
more complex terms. Teddy was a troubled boy, an adolescent living in a shadow
world, unsure of himself and vulnerable. What was wrong with people helping
each other, sharing, confiding? She wished she had someone to confide in,
someone wise and objective. Of course, she had her mother, but it was becoming
increasingly obvious that her mother's experience was aeons away from life in Manhattan.

Bedford, Indiana, might as well have been in another solar system. There was no way
that she could present Teddy's dilemma to her mother for advice and counsel,
and both her mother and Larry would have objected to the relationship, each in
her or his own way.

From Jenny's own vantage, she was simply being kind, a good
neighbor. In some ways it brought out her maternal instinct. She wished she
could offer Teddy solid advice, but she was not exactly an expert on the
problems of teenage boys.

Her teen life, compared with Teddy's, had also had its
moments of uncertainty and angst, but she had not experienced any massive
gender identity crisis. In Bedford teenagers lived within understood boundaries
on the issue of sex, and accepted silent conspiracy between parents and
children.

Parents of girls, naturally, prized the idea of virginity,
while the girls themselves prized a monogamous relationship with a member of
the opposite sex, with virginity considered an old-fashioned concept. Most of
her friends had had their first sexual intercourse experience before they were
sixteen. Even getting pregnant did not carry with it the stigma of an earlier
generation, although it was considered inhibiting to one's ambitions and
future, and those girls who allowed it to happen to them were looked upon more
with pity than with scorn.

There was, therefore, nothing in her own experience that
she could draw on to deal with Teddy's dilemma. Larry, she was certain, would
have been shocked to know that Teddy and his problems had become a part of
Jenny's daily experience. Such involvements, she assured herself, were simply
part of being in the life of a community. The apartment building encompassed
this community, a kind of mini-Bedford. Something in Larry's city upbringing,
she decided, had made him overly frightened and distrustful about other people,
almost to the point of paranoia.

She understood, of course, that city life was not without
its crime and violence, and that security precautions had to be observed. She
read the papers and watched the news on television. Her apartment door had a
dead bolt and a chain lock, and people had to be identified before she buzzed
anyone inside the building. But, surely, such reports and precautions didn't
mean that everybody was suspect and had to be automatically feared and
distrusted.

The danger of physical violence was no excuse to keep
yourself hidden from your neighbors. She hoped that someday she would persuade
Larry to be more open about people, especially those in their immediate
community. Human beings weren't meant to be isolated and fearful of their
neighbors. That attitude made for unhappiness. Sooner or later, she was
certain, she would get him to understand. Now, while they were still adjusting
to each other, was not the time. She knew that this meant withholding any
mention of her relationship with Teddy. Nor would she put it in the category of
keeping secrets from Larry. Well, not deliberately. But not mentioning was very
different from telling lies. That would have been contrary to her concept of
marriage.

Besides, where was the harm in it, especially since she was
certain that Teddy wouldn't tell his parents about his afternoon visits and
risk their finding out that he hadn't any school chums. That also meant that
there was less chance of Larry finding out.

Of course, it soon became apparent that the relationship
with Teddy was not without its responsibilities. But wasn't that, too, the
price of friendship? It was natural for people to need other people. Teddy
apparently had no one who could understand, and what was wrong about his using
her as a sounding board?

The pressure on Teddy from his father was causing him a
great deal of unhappiness, and the distance between them was widening each day.
Events in his household were making things worse. His father's business had
fallen apart, his mother's health was failing. Arguments between father and son
were increasing.

She noted, too, that Teddy seemed to come to her apartment
less to do homework than to talk, and the subject matter was taking on a more
and more intimate tone.

Despite the fact that he was half a foot taller than she
and his seriousness made him seem older than his sixteen years, she had never
broached the bounds of propriety by allowing him to call her anything but
"Mrs. Burns."

"Funny," he told her one day. "You look so
much younger than you are. Sometimes it feels strange calling you Mrs.
Burns."

"The fact is, young man, that I'm nearly a decade
older than you."

"You're twenty-five, then. God, that's old." He
lowered his eyes. "I didn't mean like old old."

"Just remember that. Older is wiser."

"But you don't seem that much older. Maybe it's
because we're ... like friends."

"Yes," Jenny told him. "I guess we qualify
on that score."

"I think your husband is a very lucky man, Mrs.
Burns."

As time went on, Teddy grew more and more curious about
Larry.

"Does he make you happy?"

"Of course he does."

"How?"

"By being a good husband, a good provider. In fact,
he's good in every way." She felt a blush heat her cheeks.

"And you like being married?"

"Yes, I do. Of course I do."

She was deliberately sparse in any answers that required
more intimacy on her part.

One day he asked her: "Do you have fantasies, Mrs.
Burns?" When she didn't reply immediately, he expanded on the question.
"You know. About men."

"I wouldn't be normal if I didn't," she answered,
deliberately noncommittal.

"Bob and Jerry were talking to me about that,"
Teddy said. "They asked what kinds of fantasies I had."

"And what did you tell them?"

Teddy shrugged. "I wasn't sure what to tell
them."

"Why don't you tell them that it's none of their
business. That your fantasies are your private property and that they don't
have a right to ask."

"They keep asking."

"Of course they do."

Teddy seemed confused by her comment. But she had begun to
imagine that Bob and Jerry were trying to get this boy to cross the line into
their world. Still, she tried to maintain a level of neutrality. It was, after
all, Teddy's life, and even Teddy had been told or had decided that you either
were or you weren't that way from birth, which might or might not be true. Yet
it bothered her to think that Bob and Jerry might be contributing to Teddy's
confusion about his sexual identity. Worse, they might be manipulating him for
their own nefarious purposes.

The idea began to gnaw at her, not only because of her
fears for Teddy, but also because she hated thinking ill of people and, above
all, treasured the concept of fairness in her judgment of other human beings.
But this did not stop her from worrying about Teddy's naiveté and vulnerability
being taken advantage of, of his being seduced into a life-style for which he
might not be ready.

She turned such a possibility over and over again in her
mind. She hadn't bargained for that kind of emotional involvement. It was
burdensome and distracted her. Again she began to think that perhaps Larry was
right in warning her not to get entangled in other people's lives.

"What is it?" Larry asked her one evening at
dinner. "You seem worried about something."

"You're imagining things," she replied.

Call it a little white lie. The fact was that she was
preoccupied about Teddy and his concerns, although she tried to block it from
her mind when she was with Larry. It was so difficult to compartmentalize one's
life, she decided. Yet she did recognize it for what it was, a disruptive force
that should never have been allowed to enter her home. Unfortunately it was too
late for such remorse. Naturally she blamed it on herself, not the idea of
being a good neighbor, but the inability to control such an involvement. She
began to think of disengagement.

She would, of course, have liked to discuss Teddy and his
problems with Larry, but that was out of the question. He was not well disposed
to Bob and Jerry and seemed blatantly homophobic, which ruled out any objective
discussion of the subject. Besides, he would certainly admonish her,
emphasizing rightly that Teddy's sexuality was none of her business. Nor had
she meant it to be.

She determined to tell Teddy at the first opportunity that
she had no wish to discuss the subject of his sexuality anymore and that if it
came up again, she would bar him from spending his afternoons in her apartment.
Hard-hearted, perhaps, but certainly practical.

One afternoon, after three weeks of coming to her
apartment, Teddy arrived earlier than usual and without Peter. Jenny had just
taken a bath and was wearing a terry-cloth robe when she came to the door.

"Something wrong?" Jenny asked.

He seemed nervous and harassed, and his eyes had a wild
unhappy cast. "I ... I didn't go to school today," he said. "I
just ... sort of walked around."

"And Peter?"

"He's still downstairs. I didn't want him
around."

"Would you like a snack?" Jenny asked.

"Nothing," Teddy said. He came into the living
room and threw himself on the couch. Tears welled in his eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, sitting beside him on
the edge of the couch.

"I had this dream, Mrs. Burns."

"Now really, Teddy," she rebuked him.
"Everybody dreams. You can't take them seriously."

"This dream was scary," he said, brushing away
the tears that had spilled over his cheeks.

"We all have scary dreams."

"I dreamt ... I dreamt..." He couldn't go on.

It was obvious that the dream had made a profound
impression on him. A warning flag went off in her mind. Perhaps this is
something I should not hear, she told herself, standing up, crossing the room.
She looked out of the window as if she were seeking the means of escape.

"I dreamt I was doing things..."

"Teddy, really, it was only a dream and probably not
worth repeating."

She cautioned herself that if she let herself listen, she
would be drawn in further. Except that it was too late.

"I was doing things with a man," Teddy said.
"And I had a wet dream."

"God, Teddy," Jenny snapped. "Why are you
telling me this? It's so ... so personal. You must learn not to be so ... so
revealing. Frankly, I'm embarrassed."

"I'm sorry," Teddy said, turning his face toward
the wall, his shoulders racked with sobs. He was forlorn and pitiful, and she
felt awful for him.

"It was only a dream," she said lamely, sitting
down beside him again. Turning toward her, he embraced her and continued to
cry. "There, there," she kept repeating, patting his back.

"Does this mean..." he began, then dissolved once
more into tears.

"I really don't know what it means, Teddy."

I mustn't be part of it, she told herself. This boy needs
counseling from experts. This is none of my business. But he continued to cling
to her, and she continued to pat his back.

"I'm so confused," Teddy whispered. "I don't
know what to do."

"Just ... just live your life," Jenny said,
equally as confused as Teddy. She continued to hold him. The sobs abated, and
he partially disengaged. But as he did, she realized that the belt of her robe
had become undone and the robe's flaps had opened, revealing her nakedness from
neck to thigh. Teddy, too, became aware of it and began to pull away, averting
his eyes.

"No," Jenny said. "You can look."

She wondered why she was doing this, yet she felt oddly
content, as if she were doing someone a good deed. What harm could there be in
this? Let him see for himself if he was capable of being aroused by a woman. It
felt purely clinical on her part, sort of experimental.

The boy turned his head and studied her. His expression was
one of dead seriousness.

"Would you like to touch my breasts?"

The boy nodded. Although she could feel her nipples harden
under his tentative touching, she continued to feel no sexual arousal. In fact,
she was inspecting the boy as he did so, as if he were an object to be studied.

"Have you ever seen a woman naked?" she asked.

"Only in pictures," he said, his lips trembling.

"Do you like what you see?" she asked gently.

"Oh, yes. Very much so."

She took his hand and guided it downward.

"Now you've touched the place," she whispered,
allowing his hand to wander over her. Watching his face, she saw it redden,
then she reached out to discover his erection. His first reaction was to move
away from her touch, then he relented and allowed her to stroke him. She opened
his zipper and stroked the bare flesh of his hard penis.

"Have I given you something else to dream about?"
she asked.