Dream Girl(17)
“Not much.”
As an adult, Gerry has had basically two male friends: Thiru and his college roommate Luke, who didn’t survive his thirties. The other men he knows are acquaintances, peers, rivals. Gerry likes to think himself above the fray, a true novitiate, dedicated only to the higher cause of literature, but who is he kidding? He keeps score like all the writers of his generation. Like every writer of every generation. Who got there first, who has had the most staying power, who’s going up, who’s going down, who has a Pulitzer, who has a National Book Award, who’s on the long list for the Nobel. Over the past few years, many of these men have taken to grumbling privately about political correctness, or what they prefer to call the “overcorrection” of the literary world. “If I weren’t a white man,” Gerry has heard more than one white man say. In their view, every prize given to a non–white man is an act of tokenism. Gerry’s not one of those judgy begrudgers.
Or is he? In the firm, racially indistinct grasp of Claude, he feels he should apologize. First and foremost for wondering about Claude’s ethnic origins, which he knows is wrong, but he can’t help pondering if there’s a story there. Isn’t that a good thing, having this kind of curiosity about someone who’s obviously not like you? Claude is built like the Indian in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. You wouldn’t call him an Indian now, of course, but that was what he called himself; okay, it was what Ken Kesey had him call himself. Did that text now need to be changed? Did Nurse Ratched deserve a sympathetic portrayal similar to the one Jean Rhys provided for Rochester’s first wife? Actually, that’s not a bad idea; Gerry has no reverence for Kesey, nor for the Beats. Someone should retell the events of Cuckoo’s Nest from the POV of the nurse, surrounded by insane, subversive men, probably fearful every moment of the day. When he saw the film adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a teenager, there was a rumor that many of the institution’s patients were played by men who were, in fact, patients in a mental hospital, and it became a guessing game of sorts. Then it turned out that, no, they were all actors.
“What’s new with you, Claude?” he asks. Even if he weren’t in this fragile state, Claude would make him feel very old, very weak, and very pale.
“They say a storm’s coming.”
“Ah, Baltimore in the grip of a winter storm. It’s a kind of lunacy. Did you grow up here, Claude?”
“No.”
“Where, then?”
“Eastern Shore. Down near Salisbury. Try again.”
Gerry does not want to say It hurts, but—it hurts. It hurts and feels ridiculous, doing exercises with these small dumbbells, which happen to be pink. It’s important, however, that his upper body not lose muscle tone while he’s lying here, that his good leg be worked. He has avoided bedsores so far, but he lives in dread of them, having Googled the images.
“Do you live far from here? Are you worried about getting home if the storm actually comes?”
Claude doesn’t answer and Gerry feels ridiculous. Nothing worries Claude.
“Are you married, Claude?”
“Not anymore.”
“Dating, living with someone?”
“I’m okay.”
Gerry is about to introduce the topic of Phylloh, then stops himself just in time. What could be more racist than suggesting that his racially mysterious physical therapist ask out the racially mysterious front-desk receptionist? It’s exhausting, meaning well in a world that assumes you’re a pig because of the body you’re born into, but then—it’s so much worse for people born into other bodies, he has to concede that. If only the culture weren’t moving so fast. Jokes that were fine five years ago are offensive now. Words are being outlawed and weaponized. Is it so wrong to think that overweight people could take better care of themselves? What’s objectionable about words like blind and deaf? Disabled, sure, he gets why that’s offensive, but some terms are simply factual descriptions.
Claude never asks him questions beyond “Can you do this?” or “Did you exercise on your own this week?” But it makes sense to be impersonal when one’s job is so very personal. If he had to choose, Gerry would vote for Claude’s stoic silence over Aileen’s inane chatter, which seems designed to push his buttons. She chats, chats, chats about famous people as if they were known to her, repeatedly asks him about television shows he does not follow. And, oh God, her interest in the weather is exhausting. Or, more correctly, she never exhausts the topic of the weather and that exhausts him. He should get ready for an especially tedious day today.
Sure enough, Aileen arrives at seven, complaining of the roads, her commute, the slippery sidewalks of Locust Point. (She has to park on the street, as does Victoria, but only Aileen complains repeatedly about the lack of a space in the building’s garage for her.) She serves him his dinner, a can of low-sodium chicken soup, a salad, tea. Aileen’s salads are a thing of wonder, by which Gerry means they are so awful he can only wonder at the effort it requires. He has encouraged Victoria to buy those salad “kits,” yet somehow iceberg lettuce keeps showing up on his plate at night, soggy and sad, loaded down with bottled dressings. Even Gerry can make a simple vinaigrette. He has tried to dissuade Aileen from serving him these salads, but she makes a big deal of “sharing” her food with him, as if she is conveying a favor. Her nightly meal is usually this salad alongside a Dinty Moore stew or a microwaved entree. Food may not be important to Gerry, but he does prefer it to be edible.