Fletch Won

another waiter. Reluctantly he approached.

Cindy leaned forward and said to Fletch with great vehemence: “I don’t care what business you’re in. No one should get special perks or advancement because of sex!”

Fletch cleared his throat. He looked up at the waiter.

The waiter said, “So interested to see you’re alive and well today.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“And what will your ‘usual’ be today? I can’t wait to hear. In fact, I’m sure our chef, who didn’t sleep a wink last night, reliving your order of yesterday, cringes in his kitchen this noon upon the possibility of your return.”

“You ate here yesterday?” Cindy asked.

“A memorable experience, Ms.,” said the waiter. “In fact, we’ve asked the dining-out critic of the News-Tribune to pass us by until this particular customer either moves out of state or passes on to his eternal damnation of hiccups.”

Fletch said to Cindy, “I just ordered a—”

The waiter held up his hand. “Please, sir. It does not bear repeating. Having heard your order yesterday, I barely got through the rest of the day and the night myself. If we can’t believe each day can be better than the last, where would we all be?”

Fletch said to Cindy, “Do you think he’s insulting me?”

“Oh, no,” said Cindy. “I think he’s trying to instruct you in the finer points of fast food.”

“Fast food takes refinement?”

“You bet.” She said to the waiter, “Anyway, I’m ordering for him today.”

“Oh, thank God! Sir, someone has finally taken you in hand!”

“He’ll have five scrambled eggs.”

The waiter looked at her, astounded. “That’s it?”

“And a chocolate egg-cream,” Fletch muttered.

“Yes,” Cindy said. “You see, from now on, a certain kind of demand is going to be made upon his body, in his new job.”

“He doesn’t want to hear,” Fletch muttered.

“And you, Ms.?”

“I’ll have a banana split, three kinds of ice cream, fudge sauce, marshmallow, and chopped nuts.”

“What will that do for you?” Fletch asked.

“Make my tummy happy.”

Fletch said to the waiter, “I’ll have you know this young woman this morning has already fed me a dose of ground elk’s horn.”

The waiter said, “I could have guessed that.”

“It was not,” Cindy said. “That’s a fake. I think it’s really pulverized cow’s horn.”

“Oh, sigh,” said the waiter. “What happened to those nice people who used to say, ‘Just a Coke and a hamburger rare’?”

“Young people can’t get any respect from waiters,” Fletch muttered, “no matter what they do for a living. No matter what they talk about.”

“What’s my job description?” Fletch asked between sucks of his chocolate egg-cream through a straw. “Call boy?”

“You’re a whore, sir, like the rest of us, and don’t you forget it.” Cindy picked up her spoon. “If you think anything else, you lose control, of yourself, of your client. It’s a profession, you know. You must not lose control. Losing control can be dangerous.”

The waiter had brought their lunches announcing, “Five aborted chickens and a bowl of frozen udder drippings.”

Fletch asked of Cindy, “How did we end up here?”

“We were brought up the same, I expect. All Americans are, to some extent.” With her spoon she was spreading the whipped cream and the marshmallow evenly over her ice cream. “We were brought up primarily as sexual objects, weren’t we? I mean, what were all the vitamins, pediatrics, orthodontistry really for? Why did parents and schools make us play sports? To learn a philosophy, to learn how to win, how to lose? Nonsense. Parents and coaches protested, complained, argued with referees and each other more than we did. For health reasons? Nonsense. How many of your friends survived school sports without permanent knee, back, or neck injuries?” Cindy put a heaping spoonful of ice cream, fudge sauce, marshmallow, and whipped cream in her mouth. “Must be outdoors, doing things, but not without sun blockage, to preserve the skin. Lotions morning and night. The sole purpose was to create beautifully shaped legs, arms, shoulders, flat tummies, in gleaming, fresh skin.”

“I’m a sex object?” Fletch asked.

“That’s all you are, brother. Growing up, what was the intellectual discipline you were given? The theology? philosophy? culture? Me, a thirteen-year-old girl, comes running home from school, bursts into the house, and says, ‘Mama, Mama, I got an A in mathematics!’ And Mama says, ‘Yes, dear, but I’ve been noticing your hair is losing its sheen. Which shampoo are you using?’ ”

Quietly, Fletch was eating his plate of eggs.

“Who were held up to us as heros?” Cindy asked. “Teachers? Mathematicians? Poets? No. Only those with beautiful bodies, athletes and film stars. They are the ones interviewed on television continuously. And are they ever allowed to talk about how they really become so fast on their feet, or how they get themselves into the character of a role they’re playing? No. All they’re ever asked about is their sex lives, how many times they’ve been married, and to whom, and what each affair was like. Prestige, Fletch, is in how many people you can attract to your bed.”

“Therefore, you become a whore.”

“Isn’t that what it’s all about?”

“Very clear-sighted of you.”

“I think so.”

“You enjoying your banana split?” It was half gone.

“Very much.”

“I can see that.”

“Very much.”

“But, Cindy, I, uh, have some qualms, about, uh, actually doing it, uh, you know, for money.”

“I hardly ever actually do it. At the spa, the machines beat the clients. They get all stressed and strained, and I see that they get excited, and I jerk ’em off before they know what happened. Then they get apologetic that they couldn’t contain themselves and I ‘missed a really good time,’ in quotes. When I’m out at night as an escort, mostly I sit in the restaurants and the clubs watching some old boy drink himself blue in the face. I just listen to him, sort of. Usually, that’s all he really wants. It’s very boring. When he’s totally drunk, I hustle him back to his hotel room, strip him, and put him in his bed. Next morning, he thinks he’s had a wonderful time, done wonderful things with a wonderful girl. He hasn’t. You’ll learn. I’ve probably made love to fewer men, or, fewer times with a man, than that secretary over there.”

She nodded to a young woman at a nearby table with an older man. On their table, besides their lunches, were notepads, pens, a folder of papers, and a calculator.

Cindy said in her throat, “’Cept I get paid more.”

Fletch said, “Maybe I mean emotionally. How am I supposed to handle, you know, being paid for being intimate, emotionally? I worry a little about that.”

“That’s so much bullshit handed out by the psychiatrists. And let me ask you: Who’s more intimate with a client, a whore or a psychiatrist?”

“Uh…”

“I know their text by heart. The guilt trip. Whores have an enormous need for love, but we don’t know what love is. Our only way of valuing ourselves is by setting a price on our affections, our attentions. Isn’t that true of psychiatrists, too? Man, they’re just projecting. I don’t care. They have to make a living, too. I just wish they wouldn’t lay their own sickness off on us.”

“But you, Cindy, after two and a half years of this, how can you ever really, truly relate to a man again, have a genuine experience?”