The Awful Possibilities

I was growing moldy of wallet from hoeing down and the sweat therefrom. My wife, who does not hoe much anymore, down or up, though her business is fancy-dancing and her body hard in all the right places and soft in the others, liked to remind me that it stank repulsive and caused me to scrub my hands upon handling it.

Now I am faithful to her in all things, and I still enjoy the pleasure of her flesh and hers only as much as I would have on the day I met her if she’d have allowed me to lay hands on her during our five episodes’ courtship, but a man has his pride, and so I did my best to ignore her cold-shouldering all the way to rejection-outright until the fourth straight evening of unfulfilled marital duties when I felt myself about to explode, and I burst out with a “What must a man do to regain your affections?”

“I do not know,” said my wife, “for no man but you has managed to gain my affections, and therefore no man but you could ever have lost my affections, ergo, there is no man but you who could hope thus far to regain my affections.

“As for you,” she said, “your hopes of regaining my affections hinge upon three simple tasks: first, you must secure a new wallet for yourself and my affections by proxy. Then you must destroy the old, moldy wallet now in the seat of your dungarees after transferring its contents to the new. Finally you must lather your hands as you’ve never lathered them before and run them a minute under the hottest water your skin can stand. That accomplished, you will find me upon this very bed, warm of shoulder and spread of legs, so long as I sense that you will never think on these last days again, except as a reminder to be vigilant against molding the new, and as a warning.”

My wife is a reasonable if stingy woman, and I would have been more than willing to fulfill each of these obligations daily, but for the part about the sense of what I would and would not think on, not because I was resistant, but because the senses of people about things or thoughts can be unpredictable if not fickle, not least so my wife’s, so I knew that some kind of preemptive gesture was required of me.

Without further consideration, that is, without enough, I told her: “My darling, it’s so like you to ask so little of me that it shames me when I fall short.”

I leapt from our bed and proceeded to dress myself in the clothes of that day, beginning with the dungarees in whose back pocket the old wallet moldered, saying: “I am even now dressing myself with the intention of marching to the tannery, where I will purchase, not just a new wallet of immaculate hide, but a pretty little handbag for you, cut from the same animal as the wallet, as a token of my dedication to our oneness.”

By the time I had finished my modest oration, my shirt was buttoned and tucked, my boots were on, and my hat was in hand. My wife was already sitting up, a look like concern upon her face.

I glanced at the clock on the night table. It was midnight, but my brain was aflame, and the lamp behind my wife showed me the shape of her beneath the lacy gown she favored, redoubling my intention of redoubling my efforts on our respective behalves.

I placed the hat atop my head and tipped it to her, not daring to attempt to rustle a kiss from a woman of such will as I left our bedroom and then our cozy home.

The tannery’s neighborhood is not quite as cozy as ours, but I am no stranger to it having grown up there, the son of a preacher man and woman both, and the respect of the residents of the old neighborhood for the memory of my dear departed parents, not to mention my own knack with bootstraps, has earned me the reputation of a local boy made good. The old folks look upon me with homespun admiration. Witness, for instance, the repulsive vagrant who approached me as I strolled the night-dark streets, the same man we used to torment as boys, offering him at times a sandwich or some stale pastry laced with gravel from our lots, others, something a bit more sharp.

He approached me beneath the rare functional street lamp and I recognized him immediately. He was older and might have had even fewer teeth if that was possible, evidence that boys keep being boys, but it was the same ugliness as ever.

He said: “It’s kind of late for a guy like you to be wandering these streets,” and I thanked him kindly for his concern as my heart’s cockles warmed at the thought of the intense loyalty of my downtrodden brothers and sisters, especially as I had not always been so generous toward this particular brother. I offered him a Marlboro Red from my just-opened package, but he refused, most likely out of humility, though possibly he associated free cigarettes with some small explosion in the past.

Again with that almost childlike eagerness to help. I hesitated to tell him that he wasn’t saying anything that I didn’t already know, but, as he was bound to see me continue on in the tannery’s direction, it being only a few blocks off, I feared he would panic if I didn’t set his mind at ease.

“Things change,” he said, imbuing those two words with all of his pride in my accomplishment, as though he’d had some small role in them, and I grew watery of eye, but decided it would be gauche of me to inform him in so many words that his role had been larger than he could know. Instead, I tossed the remains of my cigarette into the street and offered again. He accepted this time, and I walked on toward the tannery waiting for a bang that never came.

The tannery was closed as expected, but I could see inside by the light of the neon signs in its windows, signs that advertised a variety of tobacco and alcohol products, another reminder that things had changed, but the sign above it still said the tannery. I supposed it made sense that a craftsman in the old neighborhood could no longer sustain himself on fine hides alone, what with the wide variety of mass-produced and artificial textiles available for much lower prices.

It saddened me that someone as skilled as the tanner, someone who had, as a youth, demonstrated the potential to craft chaps for the thighs of the crowned heads of Europe (and no less an authority than Mr. Bedell, our YMCA camp crafts instructor, had suggested it), had sunken to hawking perishables to pay the rent. But a gift is a gift, and gifts don’t go away. I reasoned that my friend would be made as glad by the commission as I would by the results, even at this hour.

If things hadn’t changed too much, then he still lived above his shop in a cramped, vermin-infested efficiency that was not without its bohemian charms, and I dared to hope that the small workshop where he did his finest work was still there, in the corner by the stove, for I meant my new wallet and my wife’s pretty handbag to be his very finest work.

I went to the small door at the side of the tannery and pressed the buzzer’s button with a sense of anticipation I hadn’t felt in ages, then waited impatiently for the door to open and my old, dear friend to greet me with surprise, then brotherly warmth, a warmth that I hadn’t experienced of late, a byproduct, I suppose, of this hectic modern life and of my vast responsibilities.

As it turned out, I would have to be more patient than expected as my friend the tanner did not answer the door at all, and neither did anyone else. While I waited, I thought back on my last trip to the tannery, the time I had purchased the wallet moldering in my back pocket. That had been years ago, shortly before I took my bride, and if memory serves, I had arrived at a similar hour and waited another, periodically pressing the buzzer, only to find that my friend’s bell was broken.

It seemed unlikely that a man of my friend’s dexterity would not, in the course of these many years, have attempted to fix the bell, or at the very least to engage a repairman, but the urgency was great, greater now that I needed a pretty handbag to match the wallet I would request, and I could not afford to waste an hour standing in the street until my friend came down to take the air and smoke a cigarette as he had before.

I didn’t bother knocking on his door as I knew that the street door merely let into a stairway, and at the top of the stairway was another door which led into the tanner’s studio and which would block even the loudest of knocks, so I raised my leg and brought my boot down upon the door’s knob with great vigor, and the knob came off and fell to the sidewalk with a clang and I raised my leg again and kicked at the hole in the door where the knob had been, and the door splintered and gave.

I ran up the stairs, hoping that I hadn’t spoiled my chances of surprising my friend with the racket produced by the door’s destruction, and in hopes of maintaining any element of remaining surprise, I crashed through the door at the top of the staircase announcing myself as follows:

“I am come in fulfillment of ancient prophecy, for though I have no need of riding chaps and my head is unadorned, is not the celebrity the new American royalty, and am I not, in all modesty, a celebrity?”

I would not have stopped there, but would have gone on to flatter my friend with my opinions of his abilities if he had been there to hear them, but he was not and I did not, as I am no great admirer of the sound of my own voice and try to use it only when it can be of some use to my fellow man.

My fellow man, as I said, was not there, but there was plenty of evidence that he had not been gone long—the coffee in the pot was still lukewarm—and that he meant to return shortly—the lamp above his kitchen table had been left on.

There were also signs throughout the place that the place was still, in fact, his. The butts in the ashtray were of the brand I recall him favoring, and, mounted on his wall, in a deep frame behind glass—a frame not particularly well-wrought but of great sentimental value because I had made it in the same crafts class at the same YMCA camp in which my friend had fashioned his first wallet—the wallet was even now on display in the very frame I had given him as a gesture of respect for his gifts, and because, even at that tender age, I knew that I wasn’t meant to work with my hands, and Mr. Bedell’s reaction to the frame had confirmed as much. Most encouraging, though, was the work table, crammed, as I’d remembered, into the space between the couch and the wall.

Whatever was on the table was covered by an oilcloth. I was tempted to peek beneath it to see what dazzling new heights my friend had attained, but the years have taught me nothing if not respect for the sanctity of the artist’s sanctuary, be the artist a lowly worker in leather, like my friend, or an artist of personality and entertainment, like myself, so I resigned myself to waiting in a chair at the kitchen table, heartened by the idea that I had retained the element of surprise, and passing the time by imagining his reaction to finding me awaiting him at his kitchen table to offer him the commission of a lifetime.

Naturally, even the most patient of men can only occupy himself with such thoughts for so long before the excitement that they provide peters out and finally becomes a kind of repulsion, but I am a resourceful man, and so I pulled my wirebound notebook and a pen from my pocket with the intention of taking notes on the evening’s events to that point, convinced that they could be worked into something revelatory and motivational if recited at one of my many speaking engagements.

However, when I placed the notebook upon the table, I found that it had become, not moldy like the wallet, but warped of page and still damp from the last night’s hoedown, and when, undeterred, I put pen to paper, I found that the pen would not make its mark. It was then that I hit upon the idea of ordering a hide-bound notebook to match the new wallet and the pretty handbag, and I made a note of it on the back of my hand with the pen, so that I should not forget about it in my excitement over the reunion and my eagerness to please my wife.

By then I had been distracted from thoughts of the reunion long enough that they were again capable of producing in me a sense of anticipation, although less intense than previously, the type that need to be rationed out lest they become repulsive, so I alternated imaginings of the reunion with imaginings of my wife’s silhouette backlit by her bed lamp, and of all the glorious favors she would grant me upon my successful return, which thoughts can never become repulsive, even if the acts themselves might seem somewhat distasteful when put into words.

I won’t put into words what I was imagining when I first noticed that I was hearing my old friend staggering up the stairs because I put it quickly out of my mind, lit a fresh cigarette, crossed my legs, and gave myself a sharp slap to the face to clear my head.

I had left the apartment door open in order to hear him staggering up the stairs, being well aware of the difference between surprise and shock, and knowing that when he found it that way, he would be prepared to find someone awaiting him, and would therefore not have a heart attack when I began my speech, but that he would never in a thousand lifetimes expect that it was I who awaited him.

I realized I hadn’t taken enough care to consider the effect that returning home to find both of his doors splintered and open, in the old neighborhood no less, would have upon my friend’s delicate and artistic constitution, and he was obviously deeply intoxicated to boot, so I labored to set his mind at ease post-haste.

“I am come in fulfillment of ancient prophecy,” I said, “for though I have no need of riding chaps and my head is uncrowned, is not the celebrity the new American royalty, and am I not, in all modesty, a celebrity?”

As I finished my introduction he seemed to notice me, as me, for the first time, and I saw in his inebriate and bloodshot eyes, a look of recognition. He breathed a sigh of relief and let his improvised weapon fall to the carpet, relieving me, not of the fear of injury but of having to injure.

It was only when he said that, that I realized how true the vagrant’s words had been. I’d been thinking of my separation from the tanner in terms of years, whereas the vagrant, in his ignorant intuition, had hit upon the greater changes that the years had wrought. My friend, who, in a sense, I’d left behind even before I’d actually left him behind, had stayed behind to make his way in a much slower universe.

I tried to explain: “Years ago, I did consider the IT professional to be the new cowboy, and cyberspace the final frontier, but, though I still enjoy hoeing down and consider myself something of a proverbial outlaw, for some time now I have supported myself and my family through speaking engagements and television appearances.”

The tanner struggled back toward the doorway, indicating it with the hand that had held the bottleneck. “Well, it was an honor getting reacquainted with your highness, but I’m exhausted and drunk and need my rest,” he said.

I didn’t move from my seat, not wanting to give the impression that I agreed completely with the vagrant. Yes, things had changed, and yes I had moved on to better things and places, but I didn’t want the tanner to think for a moment that I had merely stopped in to lord it over him.

“Please,” I said, “don’t stand on formality. Pretend that we last saw each other only yesterday, because I assure you, the warmth of my feeling for you has only grown as it would have if we’d remained in contact all this time.”

As certain I was that he was as happy by my attentions as he suggested, his tone contained a certain amount of what I took to be resentment, particularly toward the end of his response, the part about opening his shop, and I realized that he was making a certain assumption, common enough among people of his station, but mistaken nonetheless, about the relative difficulty of our lives and livelihoods. This assumption, that I am successful because I work less, is both absurd and hurtful, and my anger, when faced with it, has been known to get the best of me, but, in this case, my tender feelings toward my friend won out without much struggle and I brushed it off, though I still didn’t move.

“But friend,” I said, “my visit is not just about pleasure but business too, a matter of business lucrative enough that you could choose not to open the shop tomorrow or the next day or the next week, and still have more money than you would if I left right now.”

Perhaps it was crude of me to speak so blatantly about matters financial with someone of his meager means, but it seemed to get his attention and his response was no less crude. He let the hand indicating the door drop to his side and said, skeptically: “Oh yeah?”

I decided that this was the right time to get down to business, so I stood up and made my way over to his work table. He watched me with a combination of friendly curiosity—I was always a bit unpredictable—and an artisan’s awareness, but when I placed my hands upon the oilcloth to remove it with a ceremonial flourish, he ran to the table and placed himself between myself and it.

“I respect the sanctity of your studio,” I said, “and will follow your wishes in the way that I treat it, but the workshop will have to be unveiled if our business is to be transacted.”

I stepped backward from the table, wondering just what he meant by that, worried that his circumstances had caused him to abandon his dream, angry at the way the neighborhood, the world, crushes that hope out of people, of us. And I don’t just mean him. Do you think I dreamed, when watching him work his magic on that wallet back in YMCA camp, of finding fame and my wife through Which Rich Cowboy Wants to Marry a Frigid Virgin™?

He laughed again and nodded affirmative, a nod so careless, so flippant as to stir in me anger, despite our past closeness and my hopes for our reunion. I clenched my fists and bit my tongue to avoid another outburst. I turned my back to him and began counting to ten, allowing my eyes to wander the room in an attempt to distract myself from my disappointment, but instead my disappointment was exacerbated when I glanced again at the poorly crafted frame with the beautifully crafted wallet inside. My eyes welled with tears, and it was well beyond ten seconds before I was again ready to turn and face my friend.

I knew he wasn’t meaning to raise my suspicions, but he was raising my suspicions. What I couldn’t decide was why he was trying to hide whatever was beneath the oilcloth from me. Was he lying about having given up? Was he, in fact, working on his masterpiece beneath that cloth? And if so, who had commissioned it? Someone more important than me? Didn’t he know who I had become? Or did it have nothing to do with tanning? Was it something so shameful that he couldn’t allow me to see it?

I said: “I demand to know what you’ve got beneath that oilcloth,” and he said: “None of your business,” but he must have seen from my expression how serious I was, because he reached behind him slowly and slid a hand beneath the oilcloth.

He laughed nervously, put the joint in his mouth, and lit it. I shoved him sideways and pulled the oilcloth from the table, like a magician, before he even had the chance to exhale. There were scales and bricks and piles of weed and joints and papers and bags scattered across the table. I averted my gaze.

“Do you know the kind of trouble it would make for me if anyone were to find me here, in this apartment with,” I waved an arm in the direction of the table without looking back on it, “with this?”

I knew he was just speaking in anger. If I was a role model anywhere it was there, where they needed me. I knew it was best to ignore it. But then I worried that his outburst could be a symptom of a greater problem, something more than envy.

“I can get you help,” I said, pulling the joint from his mouth and stomping it out on the floor. I put a hand on his shoulder. “We could say I was only here for an intervention. And then, when you’re clean, I could take you with me, to my appearances, as an example.”

I was too busy pointing at the frame on the wall to see his wind-up. His fist hit my jaw and I fell backward into the wall behind me. As I slid down the wall to the floor, the frame teetered above me and then fell, its glass shattering to shards beside me, the wallet coming loose from the mounting, landing on the carpet like a spent rag.

I picked it up from the floor and looked it over. It wasn’t as perfect as it had been in my memory—there were some uneven stitches and some warped seams—but my memory had been built on potential, a potential I thought I could still see in the thing itself, its smooth surface, its intricate folds. I held it out toward him with both hands.

He shook his head at his sore knuckles. “The store was called the tannery before I ever owned it,” he said. “The previous owner’s name. I was never a tanner.”

“No,” he said, taking a step toward me, “I was never a tanner.” He snatched the wallet from my hands and said: “This is the only wallet I ever made.”

We had agreed, on my last visit, never to mention the fact to anyone. I was happy with the wallet and he had been handsomely compensated, and I would never have admitted that I had had a hand in making it if he hadn’t insisted on bringing it up, if only in front of me.

It’s rare and unfortunate that I have to address my fellow man in this manner, and it always brings me pain to do so, but my manner in such situations is commanding and serious enough that the person I address knows not to raise his voice again. Or usually he does. My friend seemed to have forgotten.

I stood up slowly and ominously, and each step that I took announced the gravity of my intentions. I left an arm’s length, the length of one of my arms, which are longer than his, between us, and said: “Go ahead and mention it.”

He started to add something else, no doubt some petty, childish expression of underclass envy that he would have regretted had I not knocked him unconscious with two blows before he’d had the chance.

As he lay there at my feet, I found it hard to accentuate the positive. All I could see was the sniveling brat whose messes I’d always had to clean up, whose debts I’d always had to pay, whose fights I’d always had to fight, and I said aloud to him: “You will never be a tanner without me,” in hopes that it would haunt his sleep, that he would awaken after I’d finished and take it for truth. And to drive the truth home, I pulled down his dungarees, far enough to expose his bare ass and thighs.

I saw straight off the mark from my previous visit, a long and uneven rectangle of pinkish scar tissue across his left buttock. I felt around behind me for a sliver of glass large enough and sharp enough to suit my purposes. I pressed the point to his flesh and punctured the skin. He awoke with a shriek.

He went limp in my hands and I continued, dragging the shard slowly downward, across, up and back. When I pulled back the hide, using the glass to cut the skin from the gristle, he began to squirm again.

He made his way to the bed, slowly and shakily, with whimpers and yelps. I went to his icebox and, finding no cube trays, pulled several packages from it. I went over to the bed and placed the frozen peas and beans and such upon his raw flesh.

He didn’t reply, unless you count a pathetic groan as a reply, so I opened the drawer and found them right where I’d left them, as though they hadn’t been touched since my last visit, and given the tanner’s abandonment of tanning, it was likely they hadn’t.

I spent the next several hours trying to stitch his hide into a wallet and handbag with a number of false starts and backtrackings and plain old mistakes. They did not shape up to look as I’d imagined them, but that’s so often the case with any type of art, and besides, the act itself, the monotonous process of stitching the seams had a calming effect upon me, and soon I was remembering the good things again—my wife, who would overlook the imperfections and see through to the potential and also the vast effort I had made on her behalf, and then my friend who, despite the difficulties we’d had that evening, due, I was sure to his substance abuse, would, I was sure, remain my closest friend, and who, I hoped, might be inspired, after this latest lesson in his craft, to take it up again.

The dawn sun was beginning to peek through the windows as I knotted the thread on my wife’s not quite pretty but lovingly crafted handbag. It illuminated the note I had made upon the back of my hand, reminding me that I’d intended to procure a matching notebook.

My friend whimpered again from the bed. I pulled out my old wallet, pulled all of the cash from it, and dropped it on his table. He whimpered again. I looked at the back of my hand. I brought it to my mouth and licked it, rubbing the note into a light blue shadow across my skin. I counted to ten and then tried to decide if a notebook was really necessary.