So Much for That

“Not these days—”

“I’m rich,” Shep cut him off, and Jackson knew this preacher’s son well enough to know that he wasn’t bragging. He felt guilty. Shep may have been a lapsed Presbyterian, but with this deep-down stuff there was only so lapsed you ever got. “You haven’t traveled enough.”

“Well, excuuuse me. I plumb forgot to put in my ten years with the Peace Corps in Malawi.”

“I shouldn’t be talking about money at all. Maybe I’m just getting this out of my system, because in comparison to Glynis … I have no business complaining. You should always remind me of that.”

“I hardly ever heard you complain about anything. I’d recommend you get more practice. It’s not good for a man to take every lump of shit life throws at him lying down.”

“We both take it lying down, Jacks. You just lie down with a mouth.”

“Speaking of which, I came up with a new title for my book,” said Jackson, hoping to lighten the tone. “Ready? FLEECED: How Shrewd Spongers from Vagrants to Vice-Presidents Are Living Off Us Poor Spunkless Sheep.”

A half-smile. “Not bad.”

“I liked the fleeced and sheep thing. You know, keeps up the metaphor.”

“But the ‘spongers’ doesn’t quite fit in. Do you sponge sheep?”

“I’ll work on it.”

“That ‘spunkless.’ Ever notice how almost all your titles have something to do with dicks?”

Jackson shot an uneasy glance at his friend. “As in, having mine cut off? Like, every day? Obviously the experience is central to my thesis.”

“The castration thing is … well used. My favorite of yours is cleaner.”

“Which is?”

“Democracy Is a Joke.”

“Yup. Nice and punchy,” said Jackson with satisfaction. “Good thesis, too. It’s theoretically possible for fifty-one percent of the population to soak the other forty-nine percent for everything they’re worth. This guy in Venezuela, who’s it’s, Howard Chavez or something. That’s how he does it. Really, he just sends the underclass checks. You give the Mooches other people’s money, and then they vote for you.”

“Think you’ll ever write it?”

“Maybe.” Jackson was noncommittal. “But the key is the title. Get that right, and it doesn’t matter what’s inside. You could sell a pile of blank paper called How the Irish Saved Civilization. All those micks are so flattered they’ll pay twenty-five bucks to put it on their coffee tables even if they never read past the copyright page.”

“Maybe that’s the trouble with your titles. PENISES AND PRICKS,” Shep remembered. “How We Gutless Weenies Are Being Bilked Dry While the Other Half of the Country Is on the Tit. You couldn’t call that complimentary.”

“The idea is you make your book buyer feel like a little less of a sap because he knows he’s a sap, unlike everybody else, who’re such incredible saps that they don’t even know it.”

“I bet they’d prefer to save civilization.”

“Not my book buyers. They’d rather light it on fire.”

On the way back, Shep put his collar up and huddled into his scarf.

“Anyway. Glynis is scheduled for surgery in just under two weeks.”

Jackson grunted. “Been there. Flicka’s operation for scoliosis was terrifying. Personally, I didn’t want a knife within a mile of my kid’s spinal cord.” He would have to watch himself, always claiming seniority in the medical nightmare department.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to apologize,” said Shep.

“What the hell for?”

“All you’ve been through with Flicka. I don’t think I’ve been sympathetic enough. I didn’t have a feel for what it must have been like for you guys until I sank up to the neck in the same shit myself. I should have been a lot more understanding.”

“Balls, my buddy. You been plenty sympathetic. And how you supposed to be ‘understanding’ til you understand it?” Still, the exchange was gratifying. Shep hadn’t had any idea, and the truth was he still didn’t.

“Anyway, I’ve heard about people ‘going in for surgery’ my whole life. I never thought about it. Now it seems medieval. Like taking your wife to a slaughterhouse.”

“It really wipes you out. You think the hard part’s going under the knife, but the real hard part’s after. Takes forever. Flicka said she’d lie around and have to think for, like, an hour about whether it’s really worth the trouble to ask her mother to hand her a magazine from the dresser. Not to go get it herself; just to ask for it. It’s like you been taken out back of some bar and had the crap beat out of you.”

“Thanks,” said Shep sourly. “That really helps.”

“Look, whadda you want, I should tell you fairy stories? Glynis is a ‘tough cookie’ who’s gonna ‘pull through in no time’ and be ‘right as rain’?”

“Sorry. No, I’d rather know. We might as well be prepared.”

“Don’t bother. You won’t be.”

Jackson shot a contemptuous glance at the heavy jogger (whom they walked past) clutching his Evian with that distinctive sense of righteousness conveyed by bottled water. It was a wonder how the Western frontier was ever crossed, their forefathers trudging between watering holes hundreds of miles apart, when after five minutes without a chug modern Americans like tubby there were parched.

“I wondered if you and Carol might come to dinner,” said Shep. “Next Saturday, if you can find a sitter. Just the four of us. It’s a last … It’ll be our Before Picture. I know it sounds inconceivable, but I’d like us to try and have a good time.”

“We’ll do better than try. Wouldn’t miss it,” said Jackson, calculating that the timing was not ideal. “Though if you want it to be all happy as Larry – should we be sure and avoid the asbestos thing? Get the feeling it’s a sore subject.”

“If we avoid sore subjects, we won’t talk about anything.”

“She still holding that against you?”

Shep snorted. “What do you think?”

“That it keeps her warm at night.”

“Toasty. Far as I can tell, cancer doesn’t change people.”

“You wouldn’t want her to change.”

“I walk around feeling awful. I’d feel awful anyway, so it’s hard to tell how much of the awfulness is this whole thing being all my fault. I was sloppy. Inconsiderate. I’m starting to understand how gays feel, when they give their partners AIDS.”

“Plenty of those sausage-stuffers know damn well they’ve got HIV and keep porking away without a casing. But you didn’t know. It’s not even certain that the fibers were from you, that doctor said. You’re fellating …” Jackson said unsteadily. “I mean, whipping yourself. Because you feel guilty about Pemba.”

“Glynis is determined to sue, to make ‘them’ pay. But we can’t go for any company if I can’t remember what I could have worked with that was contaminated. How am I supposed to remember the brand of the cement I poured in 1982?”

“Yeah, I’ve done like you asked and put my mind to the same thing, but I can’t remember, either. That whole list of products you gave me – a brand of roofing tile, well, it’s just not the kind of thing that sticks in your head twenty-five years later.”

“But if she doesn’t get her hands on a corporation, she’s going to keep wrapping them around my neck. I’d bear up if having someone to blame really seemed to help. But I’ve apologized until I’m blue in the face, and every time, after I’ve finished, she still has cancer.”