Retirement Projects

  Chapter 11

  I think it's odd that by typing your upstairs neighbor's phone number into the little Google window you can find photos of her reading Madame Bovary in transparent underwear, or sunbathing naked except for a straw hat in prickly long grass while a bored horse looks on from its stall. Maybe it's even more startling that anyone else can do the same thing at an Internet cafe in Dakar or in the icy silence of the US Antarctic Research Station. Everything's right at your fingertips, with little sidebar ads for hot mortgage rates and I suppose encrypted instructions for suicide bombers. Sometimes I think there's recently been a proliferation of crazy behavior, maybe a signal that our culture has tipped over into decadence; but it's more likely that the Internet and other technological wonders, such as digital photography, have simply made it easier to disseminate our personal crazinesses to a fascinated world. Luckily I'm technologically ignorant, so my own weirdness has not yet been posted on the web, unless someone else has done it. Naturally I've Googled my own name, but all I've found out there are other Ducelises – customer service reps, editorial assistants, tofu freaks, conspiracy theorists, tofu/conspiracy theorists, and windsurfers. I remain anonymous in cyberspace, and will have to persist in alerting the world to my various quirks the old-fashioned way, face to face, one victim at a time.

  April's business alias on the Web was Sunflower. The pictures were surprising enough, but the most interesting thing I learned from the website was that April's services, whose nature was implicit rather than described in detail, were not cheap. I thus learned that there was a level of disillusionment considerably lower than the one produced by lovemaking that didn't live up to one’s fantasies. In the gray light of a San Francisco summer morning I wasn't really very surprised or even disappointed to have my imaginings about April's romantic interest in me dashed; it was the size of the bill that was stupefying. I had apparently allowed my senior gonads to talk me into a fling with a $2,000/night knitter. We're talking about someone whose previous largest expenditure on a sensual aid was $1.62 to rent “Caligula”. The sum was so far outside my experience that I was prepared reflexively to resist. But since it was no easier to imagine kind-hearted April as a bill collector than as a call girl, the corpulent figure of Arthur immediately began to loom large in my imagination.

  I spent a good part of the day fretting over my checkbook, while from the basement apartment came the scream of Mr. Clabber's Skilsaw, followed by heavy thuds, as though severed limbs were falling to the floor. By late afternoon I could hear April tromping around upstairs, so I went up to see her.

  “You know, I really had no idea about this,” I told her. She was wearing the silk kimono with nothing under it, and in keeping with our new intimacy wasn't being too careful about its openings and closings. “Aside from the fact that I'm a little surprised – a lot surprised, actually – I don't have 2,000 bucks." She had led me back to the kitchen, where she was dishing out canned food for Mitochondrion, but when she heard that, she came over with a dreamy smile and touched my arm.

  “Well, let's not worry about that right now,” she said. “I'm sure the money will work itself out somehow. The main thing is, how are you feeling? Was it OK? Did you enjoy yourself?”

  “I guess so. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it. How the hell did you get into this?”

  “Are you shocked?” she said, returning to the catfood can. Mitochondrion was parading back and forth on stiff legs, wheeling impatiently at the limit of each excursion. She spooned food onto his dish and expertly scraped the inside of the can. “Sometimes I'm a little surprised myself. It doesn't seem quite real. But the money's good, the hours aren't very long, and the way we've got it set up, I only meet nice people, very well behaved.”

  “We?” I said.

  “Well, Arthur. You know. He's my manager. I'm supposed to be available worldwide. It can be a pretty complicated booking problem, especially with all these security restrictions. Although so far I've only been to Sacramento. It takes time to build up a clientele, and we only started a couple of months ago.”

  I suppose being a client was better than being a John, but I wasn't too happy with the designation. I wondered how many clients there had been, but it didn't seem quite polite to ask. April put the food down on the floor and watched the cat attack it. He was a huge beast, built like a cement block with a tail, and he made loud smacking noises as he ate. “I do have a little trouble thinking of myself as a call girl.” She giggled. “I guess I'll get used to it.” She turned and smiled at me again. I was struggling with cognitive dissonance. Mingling in my head with last night's scene on the candlelit platform bed was still this image of her sitting and knitting on our living room floor.

  She'd had a good job, or at least a decent one, I suggested. How had she gotten into this sideline? She laughed, thinking about her high swivel chair behind the bank counter I suppose, and probably feeling a little cognitive dissonance herself.

  “It really wasn't enough money,” she said, leading me back into the living room with swinging hips. She sat down on the couch and patted the cushion beside her. She explained about her once-rich parents in Winnetka, Illinois, ruined by some stock market belch or other. It was her fancy upbringing, she thought, sighing. She still had a taste for nice things, and the bank job just wasn't enough. She'd started by moonlighting a little bit here and there, in the fine old American workaholic tradition. It was amazing what you could pick up even in the bank, just by dressing a certain way. And she'd discovered that some men were prepared to pay absurd amounts of money for sex. She'd built up a little network. The bank job had begun to seem less and less relevant; in fact, it was getting in the way, so she dropped it.

  Before that happened, though, there had been Arthur, her supervisor, rocking along behind the row of customer service representatives like a plump merchant ship. He had chatted her up, somehow divined her situation, and offered his services as business manager. For reasons of efficiency he had moved into her apartment. He knew how to exploit the opportunities presented by the new technology, and it was he who had set up the website, taken the photos, and posted them. April was in awe of Arthur, his Web savvy and his business acumen. He had some other things going besides the bank and his partnership with her, she let me know. He handled all the scheduling, leaving her free to apply herself to the work.

  “It's more tiring than you'd think,” she said. “It's tough playing a role so much of the time. It takes a lot out of you. That's why it was actually very restful to have you up here last night. I didn't have to be ‘Sunflower’.” I didn't bother to remind her that “April” would never have bothered to lure a man old enough to be her grandfather into her bed. But I was still having trouble dealing with her matter-of-factness. She seemed to be treating the whole thing as just another career move, without examining the practical aspects, the long-term outlook.

  “What about health coverage and long-term care insurance, and all that?” I asked. Didn't she know that nearly 75% of all small businesses fail within a year?

  “Arthur takes care of all that,” she replied, waving a hand. “We've got some kind of insurance.” She leaned back. “I kind of like it,” she went on. “I'm meeting a lot of men, and they've all been very nice. So far. I like their vulnerability in that situation. Even though they all want you to think they're such studs. You'd be surprised how many problems there are. But I shouldn't be giving you all this . . . business talk,” she said, sitting up straight again and looking deep into my eyes. “Are you really all right with it? I hope you don't think it means I was just faking, or I didn't have a good time last night. You're pretty amazing for a guy your age, you know.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Ohhhh, you're kind of hurt, aren't you? You see what I mean?” She put her arms around me and pulled my head down against her.

  “It's really 2,000 bucks?” I said into her clavicle. “I only
stayed a couple of hours. And I fixed the toilet.”

  “Well you didn't have to leave so early,” she protested. “I don't do hourly. But don't you think it was worth it?” It was her turn to be a little hurt. She was probably still insecure about her professional credentials.

  “Oh come on, April. It would have been worth anything, you know, bald old fart and all that. But I really don't have that kind of money. I'm on a fixed income.” I nuzzled her a little bit, to express my gratitude and regret.

  “Don't worry, baby. You and Arthur can work that out. You could do installments or something. And maybe there could be a discount, since we were here instead of in the real apartment with the nice furniture and everything. Although you have to admit this is very convenient.” April really was a nice woman, with genuine charitable impulses. She pulled my head tighter against her chest, consolingly. That's how I eventually ended up owing another 2,000 bucks. She said it was just between us, but Arthur didn't agree.