My Life As A Man

falling off to sleep between every other digit.

“Hello? Hello, is this the Egans? Is this 201-236-2890? Isn’t this Egans? Hello?” She let out another whine and threw the receiver at the hook. “I want to talk to the Egans! I want the Egans!” she cried, banging the receiver up and down now in its cradle.

I stood in the doorway to the bedroom with my poker.

“What the hell are you crying about?” she said, looking up at me. “You wanted to beat me, and you beat me, so stop crying. Why can’t you be a man for a change and do somedung, instead of being such a crybaby!”

“Do what? Do what?”

“You can dial the Egans! You broke my fingers! I have no feeling in my fingers!”

“1 didn’t touch your fingers!”

“Then why can’t I dial! DIAL FOR ME! STOP CRYING FOR FIVE SECONDS AND DIAL THE RIGHT NUMBER!”

So I did it. She told me to do it, and I did it. 201-236-2890. Ding-a-ling. Ding-a-ling.

“Hello?” a woman said.

“Hello,” said I, “is this Mary Egan?”

“Yes. Who is this, please?”

“Just a moment, Maureen Tarnopol wants to talk to you.” I handed my wife the phone, gagging as her aroma reached me again.

“Mary?” Maureen said. “Oh Mary,” and wretchedly, she was sobbing once again. “Is, is Dan home? I have to talk to Dan, oh Mary, he, he beat me, Peter, that was him, he beat up on me, bad-”

And I, fully armed, stood by and listened. Who was I to phone for her next, the police to come and arrest me, or Valducci to write it up in the Daily News?

I left her to herself in the bedroom, and with a sponge and a pan of water from the kitchen began to clean the blood and feces from the rush matting on the living room floor. I kept the poker by my side-now, ridiculously, for protection.

I was on my knees, the fifteenth or twentieth wad of paper toweling in my hand, when Maureen came out of the bedroom.

“Oh, what a good little boy,” she said.

“Somebody has to clean up your shit.”

“Well, you’re in trouble now, Peter.”

I imagined that she was right-my stomach felt all at once as though I were the one who had just evacuated in his pants- but I pretended otherwise. “Oh, am I?”

‘When Dan Egan gets home, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“You better run, my dear. Fast and far.”

“You better wash yourself-and then go!”

“I want a drink.”

“Oh, Maureen, please. You stink!”

“I NEED A DRINK! YOU TRIED TO MURDER ME!”

“YOU’RE TRACKING SHIT EVERYWHERE!”

“Oh, that’s typical of you!”

“DO AS I SAY! WASH YOURSELF!”

“NO!”

I brought out a bottle of bourbon and poured each of us a big drink. She took the glass and before I could say “No!” sat right down on Susan’s slipcover.

“Oh, you bitch.”

“Fuck it,” she said, hopelessly, and threw down the drink, barroom style.

“You call me the baby, Maureen, and sit there in your diaper-ful, defying me. Why must you defy me like this? Why?”

“Why not,” she said, shrugging. “What else is there to do.” She held the glass out for another shot.

I closed my eyes, I didn’t want to look at her. “Maureen,” I pleaded, “get out of my life, will you? Will you please? I beg you. How much more time are we going to use up in this madness? Not only my time but yours.”

“You had your chance. You chickened out.”

“Why must it end in murder?”

Coldly: “I’m only trying to make a man out of you, Peppy, that’s all.

“Oh, give it up then, will you? It’s a lost cause. You’ve won, Maureen, okay? You’re the winner.”

“Bullshit I am! Oh, don’t you pull that cheap bullshit on me.”

“But what more do you want?”

“What I don’t have. Isn’t that what people want? What’s coming to me.”

“But nothing is coming to you. Nothing is coming to anyone.”

“And that also includes you, golden boy!” And leaking through her underpants, she finally, fifteen minutes after the initial request, marched off to the bathroom-where she slammed and locked the door.

I ran up and hammered on it-“And don’t you try to kill yourself in there! Do you hear me?”

“Oh, don’t worry, mister-you ain’t gettin’ off that easy this time!”

It was nearly midnight when she decided on her own that she was ready to leave: I had to sit and watch her try to clean the blood from the pages of “Dressing Up in Mommy’s Clothes” (by Maureen J. Tarnopol) with a damp sponge; I had to find her a large paper clip and a clean manila envelope for the manuscript; I had to give her two more drinks, and then listen to myself compared, not entirely to my advantage, with Messrs. Mezik and Walker. While I went about removing the odoriferous slipcovers and bedspread to the bathroom clothes hamper, I was berated at length for my class origins and allegiances, as she understood them; my virility she analyzed while I sprinkled the rush matting with Aqua Velva. Only when I threw all the windows open and stood there in the breeze, preferring to breathe fumes from outside rather than inside the apartment, did Maureen finally get up to go. “Am I now supposed to oblige you, Peter, by jumping?” “Just airing the place-but exit however you like.” “I came in through the door and I will now go out through the door.” “Always the lady.” “Oh, you won’t get away with this!” she said, breaking into tears as she departed.

I double-locked and chained the door behind her, and immediately telephoned Spielvogel at his home.

“Yes, Mr. Tarnopol. What can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry to wake you, Dr. Spielvogel. But I thought I’d better talk to you. Tell you what happened. She came.”

“Yes?”

“And I beat her up.”

“Badly?”

“She’s still walking.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

I began to laugh. “Literally beat the shit out of her. I’d bloodied her nose, you see, and spanked her ass, and then I told her I was going to kill her with the fireplace poker, and apparently the idea excited her so, she crapped all over the apartment.”

“I see.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. “It’s a longer story than that, but that’s the gist of it. She just started to shit!”

Spielvogel said, after a moment, “Well, you sound as though you had a good time.”

“I did. The place still stinks, but actually, it was terrific. In retrospect, one of the high points of my life! I thought, ‘This is it, I’m going to do it. She wants a beating, I’ll give it to her!’ The minute she came in, you see, the minute she sat down, she virtually asked for it. Do you know what she told me? ‘I’m not going to divorce you, ever.’”