“So, how are you
doing?” Charlie asked Steve and I the other day.
We were all sitting
on the Mansion porch together, and it was one of those gorgeous days
that you think of immediately when you imagine Fall—clear, cool
light, trees coloring up (though nowhere near peak, yet), and the
pastures all full of goldenrod and asters. Crickets and what I think
are grasshoppers buzzed in the grass and some jays argued in the
Formal Gardens, probably one of the barn cats had gotten out and gone
marauding again. Sometimes, distantly, one of the roosters crowed. I
could hear occasional traffic out on the main road, but that, too,
was distant and I could ignore it. Streaky clouds against blue sky
foretold rain within two days. Charlie meant how were Steve and I
doing on our assignment together. He was not making idle
conversation.
Charlie had asked
us, invited us, or perhaps just allowed us to come report to him over
lunch, though he wasn’t eating. His personal deer hunting season
has begun, and he was cleaning and sharpening a quiver-full of arrows
as we spoke.
Steve sopped up some
sauce with a piece of bread, rather pointedly not answering. Charlie
glanced at him, frowned, and then returned his apparent attention to
his work.
“Well, then,” he
said, “in that case, Steve, how is your wife?”
Steve’s attention
to his bread became savage.
“Hospitalized,
again,” he admitted. “I don’t know, it’s something to do with
her meds. They say she’ll be out quickly, this time.”
Charlie did not
overtly react, except to nod a little, but his face and his shoulders
grew subtly sad.
“And how are you?”
he asked.
“I don’t know,”
said Steve. “You know, though, nobody asks me that?”
“I just did,”
said Charlie.
“I know, I know.
But most people ask—no, tell—me about her. And none of it
matches. Her doctors tell me schizophrenia is an incurable,
progressive brain disease treatable only through life-long drug
therapy. Acorn told me that some large percentage of people who have
one psychotic episode never have another, that the drugs they use are
toxic, that who gets diagnosed with schizophrenia depends on who does
the diagnosing, and that talk therapy works and is undervalued. And
he should know. I mean, his aunt is schizophrenic and he’s done a
ton of reading on it. But then Freydis told me that hearing voices is
a normal thing in shamanic cultures and that if visionary talent
receive social support there is no pathology. And she should know,
too.”
Steve’s eyes
widened. He breathed out harshly. He seemed overwhelmed.
“So is my wife
permanently disabled, is she curable but currently being poisoned by
unnecessary drug therapy, or is she a spiritually gifted woman who
needs community support? I can tell you one thing—all of this? It’s
not helping.”
Charlie dried and
oiled a hunting point until recently clotted with blood and hair.
“Next question,”
he said. “How are you—both of you—doing?”
I had to suppress a
laugh, without much success. His next question was his first
question, back again. Charlie glanced at me and the corner of his
mouth twitched. Steve stabbed at his food.
“It’s relaxing,
I guess,” he said. As you may recall, I was assigned to teach Steve
how to...I’m not sure how to put it. Part of what Charlie gave me,
I’m supposed to pass on to Steve—so he can cope better with the
stresses of his political activism and, I guess, now, his wife’s
illness. He dragged his feet at first, he was so focused on
everything else that he wouldn’t pay attention. But over the last
few months he’s seemed to like our field trips more, anyway. He
shrugged.
“Just relaxing?”
asked Charlie.
“Yes, just
relaxing. I mean, I enjoy tracking and listening to birds and shit.
But then when I go inside, when I go to work, everything’s still
the same. And I just….If it were just my wife were sick, maybe I
could deal with that, but it’s not. And if it were just the cases
we lose, the battles we don’t win, the battles we don’t even get
to fight…I’ve always believed the arc of history bends towards
justice and all that, but tell that to the families of the black men
murdered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina when those cases still
haven’t even been investigated? Tell that to trans women of color
being murdered just for being who—no, what—they are and
even most liberals plain don’t notice. Every day I found out it’s
worse than I thought it was the day before. And I’m a white cishet
guy listening to birds. And when I’m done listening to birds,
nothing has changed. I just don’t have any faith anymore that what
I’m doing is going to make any difference. Because my faith is
tired. Faith takes energy, and I don’t have any. Even when I’m
out here and it’s beautiful and everything, sometimes I think if I
really got into it, just opened myself like you’re trying to get
me to do….It feels like I might start crying and never stop.”
Charlie looked at
me. My turn.
“So, why don’t
you cry?” I asked, because it seemed like the next obvious thing to
say, although it’s not like I’m eager to get all weepy myself. I
can’t remember the last time I cried. I do remember the last time I
wanted to.
Steve blushed a
little and gave me an odd look.
“It’s not like
that,” he said. “I mean, I’m the white guy, I’m the healthy
guy, what right do I have to cry? I don’t have time to be all
sensitive, I’m supposed to be there for everybody else. I shouldn’t
have to break down and have a cry-fest every time I don’t like
what’s happening in the world.”
“What the hell
does ‘should’ have to do with it?” I asked, and this time I
wasn’t saying what sounded right, I was saying what popped into my
head, not just those words but, hard on their heels, a whole idea.
Charlie favored me with a slight, brief smile. I continued.“If you,
if the...dammit, Charlie, I know what I’m saying but not how to say
it. Something about paying attention, like paying attention to the
evidence while tracking, not getting distracted?”
“I think what
Daniel is trying to say…is have you ever been to that aisle in the
pharmacy where they keep the prophylactics and what-not?”
“What?”
“What?” That
certainly wasn’t what I’d thought I was trying to say.
“Daniel, I’m
surprised at you. You, at least, should be familiar.”
“I’ve bought
condoms, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Next to the
condoms, they have various creams and contraptions. The creams are
for men in too much of a hurry. Desensitizes the penis to slow them
down. Now, why would any man want to desensitize his penis, can you
tell me that?”
Steve and I looked
at each other. Neither of us knew where Charlie was going with this,
but he would demand an honest, straight-forward answer.
“To make it last
longer,” I hazarded, “Stretch out the experience.”
“For his partner,
I imagine,” tried Steve. “I mean, he’s not the only one whose
pleasure matters.” I should have thought of that, I really should.
Charlie finally put
down his arrow and gave us his full attention.
“Yes,” he said,
“and no. Those products sell because men have preconceived ideas
about what sex should be like and they’re willing to numb their own
wieners to make it happen.”
Wieners? Who says
wieners?
Charlie continued,
his voice growing heavy with rhetorical derision. “Being there for
their partners, enjoying the moment, what moment? They’re not
having the experience their bodies are giving them. They’re not
there for their partners, they’re not there at all, they’re off
in some damn fantasy land where all men can keep going as long as
they want every single time. They call it stamina, like it’s an
athletic competition, not an intimate encounter with another human
being.”
“Um, Charlie,”
said Steve, “why are we sitting here talking about sexual aides
when you’re celibate and I’m worried about schizophrenia and
racism?”
Again that brief
smile.
“Steve, I may not
have a human partner anymore, but I have more sex in a day than you
have in a typical month at home with your wife.” A wave of his hand
took in the whole lovely, glorious Fall afternoon, a world, and his
relationship with the world, that he has described before as erotic.
“And do you know how I get to have all this sex? Because I’m
sensitive enough to actually show up.” He leaned forward and poked
Steve in the chest with an almost accusatory finger. “You want to
love the ‘Beloved Community’? Fine. You gotta show up.”
Steve had no
response for that. He looked shocked, then thoughtful. Then, even
more thoughtful.
“You’re right,
Charlie,” I said, later. “That is what I was trying to say, but
not how I was trying to say it.”
“Never miss an
opportunity for a memorable metaphor,” he advised me, laughing
openly, now. “Sex sells.”
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