Q: You got the beds.
A: I went to this bed store and bought three beds. The guy said for an extra fifty he could deliver them by eight oclock. He had his own truck, he said. Got them there right on the button. We stripped off the card?board and plastic and set them up. Two in the back room and one in the little room in the front.
Q: Where were you?
A: I had the bedroom in the middle. I already had a bed.
Q: Youd sublet this place.
A: For a year. The owners had left me the bare es?sentials, dishes, towels, that sort of thing. A few pieces of furniture.
Q: Did the women like it?
A: They kept saying, This is so good of you. The other thing they said was, Probably you can sell the beds after we go. Theyd sent all their money to Africa. To fight hunger.
Q: Did they just hang around all day, or what?
A: They came and went. They enjoyed the city. They went to Bloomingdales and the Met. They went to the Cloisters. They went to Astis and banged on their water glasses while the Anvil Chorus was being sung. They went to Sweet Basil and heard Wynton Marsalis. I went with them that night, he played very well, had his brother Branford on tenor. They went to the Museum of Modern Art and bought postcards in the gift shop. They went to Lincoln Center and saw various things, the film festival and all that. They got excited by the Strand and came back with books. They went to the Palladium and saw Lily Tomlin or some?body. They didnt always go together. Sometimes Veronica and Dore went, sometimes Anne went by herself, and so on. Sometimes they went together to Balduccis and came home with various exotic foods. They cooked together, sometimes. I remember a partic?ularly good Cream of Four Onion soup. They spent a lot of time just walking around looking at things. I think they were happy. Althoug h in limbo.
Q: Limbo.
A: They were in an in-between state, it was hard on them. Id come in and Anne would be sitting on the couch, weeping. The couch wasnt much. Some kind of dull gray fabric. Ask her why shes weeping and shed say she didnt know. Veronica hit me once. Hauled off and slugged me in the chest. It was just frustration. Still, I wondered what in her gave her permission to slug me. Then she made a pie, a blueberry pie --
Q: Did they ever go to Fizz?
A: I believe they went there quite often.
Q: What went on there?
A: It was a meat rack, a heterosexual meat rack. From what theyve told me.
Q: So they picked up guys there. . .
A: They did, I suppose. They may have been just playing, just exercising. . .
Q: How did that make you feel?
A: I didnt like it.
Q: Sometimes I think I should have been a shrink.
A: Why arent you?
Q: Its not medicine.
A: I imagine them thinking, talking to each other. . .
Q: What did they say to each other?
A: I dont know, of course. I imagine they were care?ful, thoughtful. Direct.
Q: My wife was the worlds champion at leaving things lying around. I spent much of my marriage pick?ing up after her. Shed strew things about, as a sower scatters seed over a field. She could not so much as strike a match without leaving the matchbook and a burnt match on some convenient surface. If shed go into the John with a magazine you could be sure that shed leave the magazine in the John, open to the page shed been reading. She was a marvel. Youd call this to her attention and she wouldnt understand what you were talking about. Little balls of Kleenex everywhere, yellow Kleenex, occasional grapefruit hulls -- Were you worried that it would end?
A: Good Lord no. Maybe worried that it wouldnt. Those women were powerful presences. Took up a lot of space, made a lot of clatter. There were days when I couldnt hear myself think.
Q: All in all, then, it was on the stressful side.
A: We talked a lot. I think of it as a series of conver?sations. A series of ordinary conversations. Simple as pie. They were very good people. I miss them.
Q: Do you hear from them?
A: Postcards.
Q: These women spread out before you like lotus blossoms. . .
A: Not exactly like lotus blossoms.
Q: Open, blooming. . .
A: More like anthills. Splendid, stinging anthills.
Q: You fall face down onto an anthill.
A: Something like that.
Q: The ants are plunging toothpicks into your scro?tum, as it were. As they withdraw the toothpicks, little particles of flesh like shreds of ground beef adhere to the toothpicks.
A: Very much like that. How did you know?
Q: Im not inexperienced.
A: By what standard?
Q: Generally accepted standards.