AFTER the women had gone Simon began dreaming with new intensity. He dreamed that he was a slave on a leper island, required to clean the latrines and pile up dirty-white shell for the roads, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrowful, then rake the shell smooth and jump up and down on it until it was packed solid. The lepers did not allow him to wear shoes, only white ath?letic socks, and he had a difficult time finding a pair that matched. The head leper, a man who seemed to be named Al, embraced him repeatedly and tried repeat?edly to spit in his mouth. He dreamed that his wife, Carol, had driven a large bus, a Metro bus filled with people, into the front of his building. It was not her fault, she told him, a Japanese man who had not had exact change when he got on the bus, in fact had asked her to change a fifty-dollar bill and had, moreover, in?sisted that she stuff nine fives into little envelopes printed with colorful out-of-register scenes from the Bible for his First Presbyterian contri butions over the next nine Sundays, was the true culprit. Simon woke early, five oclock and six oclock, cracked new bottles of white wine and smoked tasteless Marlboro Light 100s and wondered what to do next.
He put all the extra beds in one room, the room Anne had had toward the front of the house. Stacked on top of one another they looked like a means test for a princess. He bought a new plant, a gold-flecked acuba, and a pot for it at Conrans, a glazed off-white ceramic number. He cleaned the refrigerator, throwing out seven half-full containers of Dannon Strawberry and Dannon Blueberry as well as four daikon in various stages of reduction. They did love salads. He added the remains of an osso buco, capers and red wine, to his dark roiling sauce base. He found a red wrinkled bra hanging like a cut throat over the shower rail and not knowing what else to do with it, threw that out too. He shifted four thousand dollars from stocks into his Keogh account to help upholster his enfeebled retire?ment years. He called his wife in Philadelphia but got no answer -- still, hed called. He trimmed his toenails, the monstrous left and the even more frightening right big toes knocked back into civilit y. He inspected his prick and said, "My youre looking fresh and pretty this morning."
THis so good of you," Dore says, "this is Anne and this is Veronica. This is so good of you. Boy is this place empty."
"I put two of the beds in the back room and one in the front," Simon says, "I thought Id get some plants maybe tomorrow are you guys hungry let me go see what Ive got in the kitchen."
"Booze I hope," Dore says dropping her bags in a corner. "Boy is this place empty. I dont mean that as a criticism."
"The owners left the couch and those two chairs and thats about it. Who would like what? I have beer. . ."
"Beer for me," Veronica says, "where do you sleep, Simon?"
"In the middle room. I have vodka, Scotch, white wine. . ."
"Vodka for me," Dore says, "and vodka for my horse here, no thats a joke, Anne will have vodka too. Plants are a good idea. Big plants. Rocks with that, just rocks. Anne will have just rocks too. Really this is so good of you. I guess we figured it a little close in terms of funds --"
"Bloody assholes is what we were," Veronica says. "Believing what they told us."
"So you made a miscalculation," Simon says.
"But this is dumber than necessary dont you think? Dumber than absolutely necessary? Where can I put this?"
She shows him a round thing three feet in diameter, in a canvas case.
"My trampoline. I bounce on it. Thats how I keep in shape."
"Anywhere," he says, handing around the drinks, "lean it against the wall. Ive got some ribs I can broil you guys eat ribs?"
"God that tastes good," she says, "I was at my wits end, we were at our wits ends, that jerk at the agency I could kill him --"
"We were dumb," Anne says.
"No point in flagellating ourselves," says Dore. "I drink to Simon. What did you think, Simon? Honestly. When you first walked into the bar."
"I was stunned. Conservatively speaking."
In white lingerie, hand on hip, the three of them, chatting with the patrons, theyd just finished the show the bartender told him, fashion show every Friday, next week, nightgowns.
"The hell of it is, we gave all this money to Africa. Before we came," Dore says. "Thats why were so low. We each sent three thousand bucks to Africa. To allevi?ate hunger. We saw this thing on television."
"Probably you can sell the beds after we go," Anne says.
"Its got high ceilings," Veronica says, looking at his Dover White-painted ceilings. "You could hang your?self in here."