Chapter 48

It’s Tuesday and hot as hell up on the ladder. My legs are chafed from the scrapers in my pockets and rubbing against the metal rungs. Muller looks all depressed again. Krupsky told him his sperm count wouldn’t impress an eighty year old. He’s got Muller wearing underwear with an ice pack in the crotch. Muller brought two spare pairs. Ruby put them in the cooler next to the Gatorade, saying, “Let me know when you need a change.” Muller stands there pulling at his crotch, grateful for Ruby’s concern, probably fantasizing a little bit.

“I won’t be much good today, Sam,” Muller says.

“It’s just a goddamn ice pack.”

“It hurts.”

“Go inside then, you big baby.” I still have gutters on the west side to do. That’s the hottest spot right now. All the shade is on the east side. There’s some shade under the eaves, but I’m still sweating like crazy, feeling the weight of some oncoming doom, sensing, like so many others, that I’m a fraud on the dance floor and possibly a failure as a father.

There’s a dance contest at the end of the month. Silvio wants us all to participate. It scares me to death, knowing I could be laughed out of the room by my peers and possibly the janitor. “You’re doing this, Sam,” Mary warned me this morning. She bought me a silk shirt yesterday. All the couples have new outfits. Mary and Judy are both wearing bright red dresses. The red flares out the corner of my eye, and I understand what gets bulls all worked up. Muller’s calm as can be. He’s been in dance contests before. I can’t imagine Seattle being a hot spot for salsa and flamenco, but Muller says he’s been up against a few ringers.

I finish the west side soffits before the sun fries me to a crisp. I tell Ruby I’m knocking off for the afternoon and hand her my scraper. “No problem, Sam,” she says. “You’ve made good progress. Are you dancing tonight?” I tell her we’re rehearsing for the dance contest. “Well, go on,” she says. “Take the big lug with you.”

Muller can’t wait to get in the car and start pulling at his crotch. He’s a miserable sight. Muller says his balls are too cold most nights to make anything happen. “I’m trying, Sam,” he says. I’ve hardly had time to think about his baby-making. Mary keeps calling me her caballero, a chilling prospect for me and all the caballeros out there. She and Judy have been dressing up more now, wearing these skirts with long slits up the sides. I’m sure they’re copying Carmen. The woman’s an erotic heartthrob, doing her cavallas with flecks of silver around her eyes. We practice our steps while Silvio walks around with the tips of his fingers pressed against his lips. We’re learning Modern Tango. It’s been modernized so young people will get on the bandwagon. Silvio says all young Argentines know how to tango. “In my country,” he says, “people would rather dance than eat. And we love to eat.”

“Is that all they do in Buenos Aires?” I say to Mary. “Dance, eat and screw their brains out?”

She keeps watching Muller and Judy dancing across to the room. “Look at them,” she says. “Why can’t you do that with me, Sam?”

“People die that way, Mary.”

“They do not.”

“How do you know?”

“Why don’t you let Muller help you?” she says. “He said he would. You have to learn to be more graceful.”

“I’m trying, for chrissake.”

“Try harder,” she says, thrusting her hip into my side.

“How’s that supposed to make me try harder?”

“You need to be more mucho machismo.”

“I’m as mucho machismo as Muller.”

“I think he’s very mucho machismo.”

She didn’t see him trying on Ruby’s earring the other day.