I make more and more progress each day I work at the law firm—progress as defined by Arturo, as in being able to successfully complete the assignments given to me. I can walk the streets if I stick to a memorized route and follow a computer-printed map and if I don’t focus on the words and sounds of the city. Words are everywhere. Words, it seems, cover everything. There are words on buildings and on windows, on cars and on people’s clothes. There are people sitting on the sidewalk holding signs like SOBER AND HOMELESS. If I stop to take in every word I see, I will never get to the courthouse where I go almost every day to file documents.
It is the same with sounds. It seems that most of my brain needs to be turned off in order to function effectively. Hundreds of people have no problem assimilating different sounds. They walk and talk on cell phones. They dodge cars while having conversations. At first I was surprised at the number of people who walked the streets talking to themselves. Jasmine had to point out to me the tiny microphones dangling in front of their faces.
Every day during my lunch hour, I walk to a small park in front of the law firm building. I sit there eating my tuna sandwich, a granola bar, and an apple. I observe. Lately I’ve been looking at women, trying not to stare at them, seeing if I can determine whether they are attractive. I suppose that this is the result of the conversations that Wendell and I have been having. Actually, they are not conversations. Wendell lectures and I listen. Almost every day Wendell shares with me his vast learning on the ways of womanhood.
I am walking to the mailroom after lunch when Wendell grabs me.
“Just for a few minutes, Marcelo, please. I’m going crazy here reading this crap.”
“Jasmine is waiting for me to go to the Registry of Deeds,” I say.
“Think of it as your daily good deed,” he pleads.
I sit down.
“Do you know what I spend my time doing?”
“Reading crap.”
“Right. I have to go through thirty-five boxes of crap, looking for memos and letters and reports, some of them in Spanish.”
“Do you speak Spanish?”
“Sort of. I’ve taken three years of it in school.”
“I used to pray in Spanish with my grandmother when she lived with us.”
“No kidding. Speaking of praying, I’m praying that Jasmine will go out with me. I can’t understand why she won’t. Does she ever talk about me?”
I think about his question but decide not to answer it. Instead, I ask him a question of my own. This is something I have learned from Rabbi Heschel. When you don’t want or know how to answer a question, ask a question. I ask, “Is Jasmine beautiful, in your opinion?”
Wendell’s face brightens. “You have come to the right person with that question, my friend.”
I wonder whether anyone considered normal has ever called me “friend” before. Even Joseph never called me “friend,” although we were. It makes me happy to be called “friend” by Wendell.
“Yes, you can say with absolute certainty that Jasmine is beautiful.”
“Therefore,” I say, “if a woman looks like Jasmine then she too is beautiful.”
“It doesn’t always work that way, Mr. Spock.” Wendell has taken to calling me that whenever I say something that is logical in nature. “Jasmine has luscious black hair, but a blonde or a redhead or even a totally bald woman can be just as beautiful. Sometimes thin is nice, and sometimes a man craves a little more substance. But yes, as an initial point of departure, if a woman looks like Jasmine, you can safely assume that she’s beautiful. But don’t limit yourself. Be broad-minded, so to speak, in your appreciation of beauty.” Wendell laughs to himself.
“Who else is beautiful?” I ask.
“Here at the law firm just about every secretary is hot in some form or another. It’s the only redeeming quality about this place. Except maybe for old Margie. But even then you can tell that she was beautiful, oh, eighty or so years ago.”
Women are Wendell’s special interest, I say to myself.
“You have three kinds of feminine beauty,” Wendell says. He sounds like Mr. Rafferty, my social studies teacher at Paterson. “Earthy, Elegant, and Elemental.”
“Can you give me examples, please?” I immediately regret asking this question. I am already ten minutes behind schedule and Jasmine is waiting for me to go to the Registry of Deeds.
“Certainly. Let’s take three beautiful women here at the firm. Each of them represents one of the three categories of beauty I just mentioned. First you have Earthy Martha. Earthy women are well endowed in a motherly, mammary kind of way. They are sexy in an abundant, easy, natural manner and give freely of themselves. Sex is part of their nurturing nature. The attraction of man for the Earthy Woman originates from his childlike desire to be possessed, thereby eliciting in the woman the desire to protect.
“As for the second category, Juliet there across the hall is a representative of the Elegant Woman. Elegants are usually on the thin side. Their demeanor is cold and unapproachable. They are extremely conscious of their effect on the male species and wield that knowledge to their advantage. They call forth man’s competitive drive. The attraction here is based on man’s need to conquer and tame, but also to hoard and deprive others of the prize. Elegants are trophies, showy possessions. Just being seen with them generates envy in others. Hence my father hired Juliet.”
Wendell is suddenly quiet.
“Jasmine must be an example of Elemental beauty,” I say.
Wendell snaps out of his reverie and slaps me on the knee. “You got it. You’re learning fast, my boy.” Wendell sits back in his chair. His tone is different than when describing the previous categories of beauty. He sounds solemn and serious. “Elemental beauty is less dependent on physical attributes than the other kinds of beauty. Theoretically, I suppose, it is possible for a woman to be an Elemental Woman and not be physically attractive. Have you heard of the Periodic Table of Elements?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“It is a chart of all the elements of matter arranged according to the number of atoms in each element.”
“Right on. Why did I know you would know the answer to that question?”
“I learned that at Paterson.”
“Good school, that Paterson. Okay, let me continue, because I’m on a roll here. All that exists in the universe is made up of a combination of the elements on the Table of Elements.”
I disagree with Wendell. The elements in the Periodic Table of Elements deal with the most obvious parts of reality, the kind we can see and touch. But there are energy forces within the atom that also make up reality, and beyond that there are forces we are not yet attuned to. I decide not to interrupt because if Wendell asked me to explain, it could lead to speaking about religious matters.
“What has all this to do with beauty, I can tell you are asking yourself.”
Actually, I am asking myself if conversations with friends always feel like this—two minds bound together by their focus on the same subject.
Wendell continues. “The attractive force behind Elemental beauty is that it holds out the promise of totality, of full, complete, and never-ending satisfaction. The woman who has this kind of beauty is like the periodic table—she has all the elements that make up womanhood, but in an understated kind of way, like matter itself.”
“Jasmine is like that?” This time I manage to phrase this as a question.
“She’s solid. Not only is her body solid, as in firm, as in she lifts weights every day, she’s also unshakable, fearless, permanent, basic, organic. If you were stranded in the desert with her, she’d find the water.”
“Jasmine lifts weights,” I say mostly to myself. The thought makes me happy.
“But what’s so special about this rare type of woman is that despite her strength, she remains in many ways eminently lust-able. Oh, my God. It’s a hard-on that comes from the depths of the soul. That’s why Jasmine is Elemental.”
“I see.” Maybe it is the strange way Wendell mentions God, but I suddenly feel uncomfortable. I stand up. Wendell stands up also but continues talking. The lesson is not over.
“The only problem with Elemental women is that they can just as soon be loved or not be loved. It’s not like they’re cold and calculating, like the Elegants. They just have their own road to travel. You can climb aboard and sail with them, but they’ll keep heading for their destination with you or without you. Speaking of the devil.”
Jasmine stands in the doorway. She looks at me. “If I don’t make it to the Registry of Deeds before they close, Riese will have a cow.”
“My fault,” says Wendell. “We were discussing the meaning and end-all of life.”
“He’s not going to do your work,” Jasmine tells him.
“Easy, tiger. He’s all yours.”
“Good-bye, my friend,” I say to Wendell.
But Wendell does not hear me. “Have you thought about what I asked you?” he is saying to Jasmine.
“What part of no don’t you understand?” Jasmine is already walking away as she says this.
On the way to the Registry of Deeds, Jasmine says to me, “Watch out for Wendell. He’s not someone you can trust.”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask. “What has he done to make you say that?”
“It’s a feeling I have,” she says. “He’s all appearance, just like his father, and inside just as mean. I don’t trust him.”
I think back to a couple of weeks ago, when Arturo asked me if I trusted him and I said yes. I do. I trust Arturo. I trust him to keep his promise and allow me to decide where I want to go to school next year. But my trust in him is more knowledge than feeling. It is based on the experience that he has always done what he said he was going to do. I never thought of trust as a feeling, but now I hear Jasmine use the word as if it were a feeling. “What does lack of trust feel like?” I ask.
“It’s a creepy feeling inside.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah, creepy. Wendell gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Heebie-jeebies. Can you be more specific?”
“Have you ever been greedy for something?”
“About what?”
“CDs. I never seem to have enough of them. I see a CD and I want to buy it even though I don’t need it, even when I have one at home with the same music.”
“Right. Well, when I’m around Wendell, I feel like that CD would if it could feel.”