A Self Made Monster (19 page)

Summer was the finish line, and countless other women were racing toward it. Beyond the finish line was the beach, where the winners of the race—posing in their nearly-nude swim wear—enjoyed the beach studs’ stares and erections. Some women had already dropped out of the race. They consoled themselves with chips, dip, pop, and pizzas.

Holly’s only class on Tuesdays was astronomy. Astronomy bored her more than most courses. Professor Nova droned about red stars, red dwarfs, the parallax view, and other stupid stuff. She usually skipped on Tuesdays and spent the day lounging. She did a quick ten pushups every hour or so, watched her soaps
Tyrannies
and
Love and Spite
, and sipped low-cal gin and tonics.

But today Holly had to work.

She had torn off the first page of Edward’s Dylan Thomas essay. At least the introduction was good: it stated the theme of sexual metaphors and narrowed the discussion to three poems. She had not read the poems, and she did not want to. But she pushed aside these complaints and opened her copy of
The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
.

The first poem mentioned in the introduction was “If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love”. Holly liked the title. It evoked a fantasy of a small hot tub with a young Paul Newman. But the poem was incomprehensible. She sighed and willed herself to read it a second time. Then a third.

Let’s try the second poem, she thought. Sounds easier. “Fern Hill”.

An hour later, exasperated, she turned to the third poem, “Alterwise By Owl Light”.

On the library’s third floor, one level above Holly Dish, Edward Head approached Claire Sweet. Edward had not seen her since the day he left the note in her car. He wondered if she were avoiding him.

She saw him and smiled instantly.

He returned the smile and asked if he could sit down.

He could.

“Around here it’s, well, the library’s been less pleasant lately,” Edward said.

“Why’s that?”

How many reasons do you want? he thought. Because your hair is long and wavy. Because you’re five feet nine and wear blue jeans and cotton blouses. Because you don’t wear makeup and your skin is perfect.

Edward shrugged. “You’re good company.”

“So are you.” Claire pushed away her books and gracefully covered her yawn. “But I’ve been holed up at home with the flu. I’m fine now, though.” She smiled.

When Claire smiled, he wanted only to pat her hand. He wanted to be as serene and peaceful as she. Christ, even her nostrils were lovely. He was wondering what to say when she offered to buy him a cup of coffee.

On the way to the student union, Claire wondered what to say. She did not want to hurt Edward’s feelings. But she could not let him think romance was possible. She promised herself to gently approach the subject after the first cup of coffee.

After the second cup, she lost her nerve. She hated confrontations, even those that were not confrontational. She decided to play it by ear and broach the subject only if necessary.

Edward had relaxed a bit. He was talking about his plans to study film. “I think I can write well enough. At least well enough to write a script. If I can get a 3.75 grade point average this year, I can get in a good film school.”

“Have you made any short movies yet?” Claire imagined Edward in a director’s chair, surrounded by technicians and equipment. The image fit him.

“I actually started one on a field trip to Chicago, but I don’t think it’ll work out.” He imagined pointing his camcorder at Claire: She sat on a sunny sloping hillside, wearing jeans and a sleaveless cotton blouse. Her knees were drawn to her chest, and a cooling afternoon breeze rippled her hair.

“Wish I had your ambition,” Claire said. “I’d have a lot more—”

She paused: in the periphery of her vision, she noticed someone waving, or pointing.

Edward saw it too: Holly Dish was standing ten feet away, thrusting her middle finger at him. He rested his forehead in the crook of thumb and forefinger and pretended not to see her.

Holly approached the table, anger rolling off her. “What kind of agreement are you making with her, Edward? Hand jobs for short papers, legs in stirrups for a long paper?”

Edward jumped up. “Thanks for the coffee, Claire! I’m really tired, and I—”

“Of course!” Claire blurted.

 
“I’m sorry,” Holly said to Claire. “Excuse me for the—”

“Of course!”

“—the intrusion, but I’ve got to talk with him.”

Holly followed Edward out of the room. She was asking about pen-wah balls and foot-long pearl jams. Fleetingly, Claire wondered what Edward had done to make the woman so mad. She looked like those aerobic women on the cover of women’s fitness magazines like
Me, Myself, and I
or
Saucy!
or
Super New You
. She could probably kick Edward’s ass.

Edward refused to talk to Holly, or to even face her. She had planned to tear into him, perhaps shame him enough to write the paper for her without any sex in return. But he hurried away, leaving her seething in the middle of the union courtyard. With Edward gone, Holly found herself thinking of Claire: specifically, she was critiquing Claire’s appearance. The critique was not triggered by Claire’s possible involvement with Edward. Please, Holly thought, take the grease spot! The critique was simply reflexive, like a drunk downing a free drink. Holly had worked hard for her figure, and she was always aware of other attractive women.

At first, Holly was unsettled. Claire made her feel fifteen pounds heavier. That familiar and loathsome dread of weight grew in Holly, and she had to jog around the campus a few times to calm down.

The jog cleared her head. Now she could critique Claire more objectively. Yes, she was attractive. Nice long legs—but on the bony side—and graceful white arms. Good hair, but kind of messy. The eyes were good: they demanded attention without any makeup. But the bust. Not the best. No banana tits, but they looked small—lucky to be a C cup. And her rear end was probably flat.

But her age was the clincher. She was twenty-five or twenty-six if a day! Must be a loser, still in college at that age. No need to worry. In five or six more years, Holly would be at her peak, and Claire would be finished: she’d be in her
thirties
.

Edward sat fidgeting in his darkened apartment. Maybe Holly is nuts, he mused. She had stood defiantly, jabbed the air with her middle finger, and did not care who saw her. His face was still sweaty and flush.

Finally Edward turned on the floor lamp. He paced for a few minutes, then scrubbed his face with a new acne soap that smelled like cough syrup and made his face burn. The soap had tiny abrasives that “invigorated old skin” and “made way for vibrant, healthy skin.” Edward imagined that his nose’s oil-clogged pores were being purged and tightened. He risked a look in the mirror. His skin was certainly clean, but it looked as if he had scrubbed with sandpaper.

Edward watched a few porno tapes and fell asleep counting the pimples on his face. Later, he dreamed he sat in the union with Claire Sweet. He was naked. He did not want to stand up because Claire would see his pocked, pimpled buttocks. Holly appeared. She pointed a camcorder at Edward.

“Stand up, tart,” Holly ordered Edward. “Make love to the camera.”

Edward clumsily shook his ass.

“C’mon. Get hot,” Holly insisted. She zoomed in on Edward’s face. The viewfinder was filled with the lopsided
mountain
of
Edward
‘s nose. The lens studied the face’s canyons, crevices, and clumps.

Holly turned the camera toward Claire. Claire smiled agreeably when Holly told her to strip.

Holly put the camcorder on the table. She leaned over Claire and kissed her mouth. Soon the two women were on the floor, Holly the Jock atop long-limbed Claire. Edward picked up the camcorder and filmed the action. He became the director.

“More hip thrusting, girls. Claire, reach up and squeeze Holly’s nipples. Holly, reach behind you and spool her ass with your finger.”

The women ignored Edward, so he paused for a handjob.

Edward awoke with a start. He cursed himself—his raw skin, his embarrassing virginity, his tedious booksmarts. He realized that his plans for spooling Holly and Claire were moronic. Trying to seduce Holly with a camera…what a loser! And hoping a pat on the hand would lure Claire into the sack.

Pathetic.

Dressed in black jeans and black shirt, Jimmy Stubbs drove around the block several times. The neighborhood was quiet. Cars slumbered in driveways while people slumbered in houses. Jimmy took a final drive around the block, reviewed his plan, then parked thirty yards from Edward’s apartment. He walked silently, his supplies in a lunch sack.

Jimmy followed an alley to the rear of Edward’s apartment, then crouched beside a tree. A porch light brightened Edward’s back door. To the right stood a garage, which would shield Jimmy from the neighbor’s view. To the left was a row of shrubs, which offered further protection. The only hazard was the top apartment’s kitchen window, just to the right of Edward’s entrance. But the window was dark. Jimmy reasoned that if he worked quietly, the top tenants would have no reason to look out the window.

He crouched before the entrance and slowly opened the screened door. It squeaked only once. He positioned himself between the screened door and wood door. Silence was crucial, so attaching the hasp took forty-five minutes. Slow turn by slow turn, his screwdriver drove the screws into the door’s old wood, then into the door frame.

He slipped the padlock through the hasp. The padlock yielded a confidence-inspiring click.

The next target, Edward’s car, was parked outside the garage. The car was a riskier target because Jimmy would be in the open. Still, working quickly would reduce the risk. He crouched at the rear of the car and pushed several packets of firecrackers deep into the tail pipe until they dropped into the muffler.

“Have a nice day, loser,” Jimmy whispered toward Edward’s apartment.

Edward woke at 7:30 and took a quick shower. After a candy bar and a Coke, he gathered his books and headed for campus. Or rather, he tried to head for campus. The door would not open. He yanked hard on the doorknob several times and managed only to hurt his hand.

Realizing he would have to bust out, Edward slammed his shoulder against the door. Twice. Three times. The door stubbornly remained shut. Edward ate a second candy bar in two mouth-stretching bites and tried to reason out the problem. Perhaps one of the women upstairs had gotten drunk and parked the car against the door. He stood on a chair and looked out the basement window that faced the driveway, but the window was dirty and he could see only his car.

Edward cranked open the window that faced the back yard. Although wide open, it was too small for even a child to squeeze through. Edward considered his two options: beat the door down or call…who? The police? The idea of calling the police embarrassed him, so he tried slamming into the door again. Three more futile and painful slams persuaded him to call the police.

He tapped the phone plunger several times—no dial tone. He hung up, picked up the receiver. Still no dial tone. The absurdity of his plight was sinking in. He laughed bitterly before slamming the phone against the wall.

Dr. John Fear, the English department chair, was used to Alex’s odd ailments: sensitivity to sunlight, outbreaks of eczema, changes in hair color, lung-ripping coughs, lurching limps and sideways stumbles. But even John asked if Alex was all right when Alex wore wrap-around black shades to work Tuesday.

“I’m fine,” Alex assured. Be casual, he thought. Just another odd symptom. He took two steps back: John had an unnerving habit of standing three inches away and talking directly at one’s face. “My eyes are medicated and, I mean, the medication is—”

“Bothering your eyes, yes.” John studied his fun-house reflection in the shades.

“I feel good.” Speaking was difficult. The haloperidol had dried all the saliva in Alex’s mouth. The medication aggravated Alex’s light intolerance, too. Even with the shades, Alex squinted at table lamps as if they were klieg lights.

John leaned to the left, then to the right, trying to see Alex’s eyes. “Alex, we have to talk. How about my office?”

Alex nodded in agreement and followed.

“I’ve always liked you Alex,” the chairman lied.

John had written three “serious” novels. “My novels,” John sometimes sniffed, “are about ideas.” Publishers returned the manuscripts with form-letter rejections. Only one publisher responded personally to John’s third manuscript,
This Sad Evening’s Swan Song
. The editor wrote she could not read beyond the first paragraph, which “at least made the manuscript stand out.”

Now that Alex had no literary reputation, John was relaxed enough to tolerate Alex. John occasionally watched Alex walk, or limp, or cough down the hallways, or get lost on his way to class. If that’s what the literary life is about, John periodically mused, I want no part of it.

“And so you want me to see a doctor,” Alex sighed. “You think I’m cracking, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say that.” John poured two cups of coffee. “But your little, uh, performance yesterday didn’t go over well with the administration.”