Man Descending

Throwing all caution to the winds I lunge and catch hold of her wrist.

“Help!” she fairly bellows. So much for theory and past experience. This is not the Victoria I knew. She struggles and tugs ferociously on the end of my arm. I find myself forced to shuffle along with an apologetic, schoolboyish grin pasted on my mug, striving to achieve the right effect – the quintessence of harmlessness.

“Help me! Help somebody!”

“Shut up, for Christ’s sake. Jesus.” I nod encouragingly to a passing motorist whose face darkens suspiciously behind the windshield. “What the hell are you doing? Do you want to be arrested for public mischief?” I mutter to my wife.

Then she does it. “Rape!”

I am seriously considering letting the silly bitch go when I sense his presence. It is as if he dropped out of the sky, although he must have watched the entire farce from the wings, only awaiting his cue. I manage a half-turn to face him, and then Mr. Kung Fu from the park hits the arm to which Victoria is attached with one of those tricky Oriental chops. Just the kind of snappy blow that makes the arm go dead and lodges a locus of electric pain in the neck.

Victoria is released. She sprints away without a backward glance, leaving me to face the belligerent music. This is not like the woman I recall. Surely she has an obligation to explain?

Meanwhile my attacker has squared off and assumed an appropriately menacing stance from which to launch a devastating offensive. His hands revolve slowly in front of his body.

How do you handle a character like this? A man who has spent interminable hours in some seedy, smelly gymnasium devoting his time to preparing for just such a moment as this, when, without fear of judicial reprisal, and in good conscience, he can cripple another human being for life.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” I say lamely.

He doesn’t answer me.

“You better not hit me again,” I tactfully warn him, “unless you want to get slapped with a lawsuit that’ll bleed you white.” This sort of approach sometimes works with the cretinous types.

He takes a step towards me. I find myself thinking very hard. The inevitable question arises. What would Sam Waters do in such a situation? I have a good idea what Sam would do, but I know equally well that I am incapable of imitation.

My one arm is still relatively useless, although the numbness is being replaced with pins and needles of breathtaking pain. I extend my good arm to fend off my assailant, only to discover that I am pointing my forgotten drumstick, dagger-like, at his black heart.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you, jerk-off artist?” he demands. “How come you were bothering the lady?”

Perhaps it is an indication of the incorrigibility of human nature. Even in such disastrous circumstances ol’ Adam rears his cynical, ugly head. The unregenerate, childish Ed cannot help himself. “That was no lady, mister,” I blurt out. “That was my wife!” Old dogs cannot be taught new tricks, and old jokes, I find, are still the best.

I brace my porcine pan for a two-knuckle punch when… lo and behold, a police cruiser creeps to the curb to investigate this contretemps. At the sight of the long arm of the law manifestly before him, my friend grows suddenly pacific. It appears that they are on a first-name basis. Evidently he will do no snitching; this gorilla wants nothing whatsoever to do with the boys in blue. When I am asked whether he is bothering me, I give him a long, hard look, long and hard enough to make him squirm, before I sarcastically pronounce him “one of nature’s noblemen.”

So our business concludes, though not quite satisfactorily. I cannot help thinking that Sam Waters would have handled it in a more efficient, more masculine manner.

It is only when I am safely at home knocking together my supper (peanut butter, banana and corn syrup sandwiches) on a kitchen counter frustratingly littered with dirty dishes that Benny’s treachery really begins to eat away at me. How dare he counsel my wife not to talk to me!

Benny and I go some way back. As university students we shared quarters in a derelict old house on 14th Street. Now, however, we are barely on speaking terms. This is because the disloyal bastard agreed to represent my disloyal wife in divorce proceedings.

That is not to suggest that Benjamin and I saw eye to eye on everything even back then. But I can say I liked him a hell of a lot better in 1968 than I do today. Tempus fugit.

During the late sixties and early seventies Benny was a priapic, hairy activist who kept the bedsprings squealing and squeaking upstairs and the kitchen table circled by people full of dope arguing how to remodel the world so that there would be a chicken in every pot and a stereo in every living-room.

In those days Benny was a great nay-sayer and boycotter. When he bought groceries Benny packed two lists. One enumerated necessities. The other listed brands or articles that were verboten: Kraft products; grapes and lettuce picked by non-unionized workers; Angolan coffee, lifeblood of Portuguese imperialism; South African wine – all were comestibles which never passed his lips.

Benny walked around with a millennial light in his eyes. He intended to dedicate his life to eternal servitude in a legal-aid clinic. For my uncommitted ways he had nothing but contempt. My flesh was weak. I remember his discovering my contraband peanut butter, a proscribed brand, and righteously dashing it to the floor in a Calvinistic fury. God, I loved him for it. He was a kind of moral standard.

But that evangelistic Benny is no more. He’s dead. Affluence did him in. The hirsute, wild-eyed Benny is transmogrified. He is razor-cut and linen-suited. His ass cupped lovingly in the contoured leather seats of his BMW, he tools around town on the prowl for extra-marital snarf. You see, Benny knocked up money and then, in a rare interlude of common sense, married it.

The longer I think about Benny, the more I am bugged. He ought to be treated to a piece of my mind. It’s only a quarter to six; I may still catch him at the office if I phone now. In any case, I need to get Victoria’s new address from him. I’ve been after him for two weeks to reveal all, but he hasn’t budged. He’s not telling.

I phone. His secretary informs me it is impossible to speak with Mr. Kramer. He is with a client.

“Please tell him it’s his father-in-law,” I say, “and inform him it’s important.” I know this will beat him out of the bushes. Benny’s Daddy Warbucks bought him his partnership in this firm of shysters. The old man, I am convinced, still has his proprietary talons sunk deep in old Benny’s carcass. Benny will talk to Papa.

There is a fussy delay, lots of hum on the line and background thumps.

“Daddy? Benny here. What’s up?”

Daddy? Daddy?

“It’s Captain Ed calling Corporal Benny. Captain Ed calling Corporal Benny. Come in, Corporal Benny.”

There is a moment of hesitation at the other end of the line. Then Benny speaks to me in a tone usually reserved for converse with dolls and children.

“Now that you’ve finished with the collegiate humour, Ed, what can I do for you? I happen to be very busy right now. I think my secretary may have just mentioned that to you.” You’d think I’d just piddled on the carpet or something.

I ignore him. Squirm, you bastard. “I want to talk about this divorce, Benny. I don’t like what’s been happening. It is turning into a dirty, nasty business.”

“Only because you insist on regarding it as personal,” Benjamin replies smugly. That piece of idiocy is the just measure of the legal mind.

“You know,” I say, attempting to adopt a fey and whimsical tone, “if there were any real justice in God’s universe, he would have provided a cosmic hammer, preferably silver like Maxwell’s, to bang people on the head when they make idiotic statements. ‘I’m not getting any younger.’ Bong! ‘There is no such word as can’t.’ Bong! ‘Don’t take this personally.’ Bong! You’d be a foot shorter right this minute, Benny. The point is, it is my divorce! Victoria is my wife! Jesus Christ, of course I take it personally, you ass-hole.”

“Same old Ed,” he says uncertainly, jollying the madman.

“No,” I say, “it’s not the same old Ed. Ed doesn’t sleep too well any more. He’s getting fat and cranky and he’s verging on vicious, Benny. This is a new Ed and he’s not going to be fucked over any more. Personal, shit.”