'No, Merrill.'
'A mere demonstration?'
'I think not here, Merrill.'
'Perhaps you're right,' he said, letting his weapon hang innocently. 'The secret to the boob loop lies, in part, in the boob. The lack of a bra is a must. Also, a proper angle. I usually go over the shoulder; that way, they never see it coming. Under the arm, from the side, is good too, but that takes rare positioning.'
'Merrill, have you ever done this before?'
'No. I just brought it up, Boggle, because I thought it would make a great introduction. Reel them in, then introduce yourself.'
'They might think you forward.'
'Aggressiveness is essential these days.'
The waitress eyed Merrill's dangling loop with suspicion, but she offered a small target, at best. Also, Herr Halling, at the bar, could fairly have been termed 'moralistic'. Merrill forgot about his boob loop, swooned in his slivowitz, revived with beer and considered the possible need of checking his blood sugar by doing his usual urine test. But his test tubes and little vials of sugar-sensitive solutions were three floors up in the Tauernhof, and the men's room would be crowded this time of night; he would be forced to pee in the sink, a habit he knew I despised. Therefore, he went off, in his own peculiar fashion, sitting right where he was. He simply was away somewhere. As long as he wasn't hurting himself, I always left his trances alone. He was smiling. Once he said, 'What?' 'Nothing,' I told him, and he nodded. Agreed: there had been nothing.
Then you walked in, Biggie. I recognized Sue 'Biggie' Kunft right away. I elbowed Merrill; he didn't feel a thing. I pinched a tight roll of flesh on his belly and gave him a hard, painful twist under the table.
'Nurse ...' Merrill said, 'it's starting again.' Then he looked over my shoulder at the sharp little faces and tiny antlers of the chamois trophies along the wall. 'Hi! Sit down,' he told them. 'Shit, it's good to see you.'
Sue 'Biggie' Kunft had not yet decided to stay. She kept her parka on, though she unzipped it. She wasn't alone; two other girls were with her, obviously teammates. They all wore those parkas with the Olympic insignia and little USA stickers on the sleeve. Stunning Biggie Kunft, with two unattractive teammates, had shunned the hip and sporty crowds in Zell am See; had they come for local color - for local men, with whom they might remain anonymous?
One of the girls with Biggie Kunft announced that the Gasthaus Tauernhof was 'quaint'.
Her friend said, 'There's no one under forty here.'
'Well, there's that one,' said Sue 'Biggie' Kunft, meaning me. She couldn't see Merrill, who'd laid himself down on the far end of the long bench at our table.
'Nurse?' he asked me. I stuffed a ski hat under his head, trying to make him more comfortable, 'I don't mind the sleeping pill, nurse,' he said in a groggy voice, 'but I refuse to have another enema.'
The girls were making up their minds while Herr Halling and a few others took turns recognizing this great-boobed blonde. Should they take a table alone or sit at the far end of mine?
'He looks a little drunk,' one girl told Biggie.
'What a funny body he has!' said the other.
'I think it's an interesting body,' Biggie said, and she slipped her parka off her shoulders and tossed her thick, shoulder-bobbed hair; she bore down on my table with a self-sure swagger, a way of walking which was almost male. A big strong girl, she knew that the grace she had was an athletic sort; she didn't try to fake a kind of femininity she knew she didn't have. Knee-high, big fur boots and dark-brown jersey stretch pants, very snug; she wore a deep-orange velour V-neck and the white of her throat and cleavage was a shock under her tanned face. Those two outstanding orange breasts were floating down on me, like some drunken double vision of a sunset. I lifted Merrill's head by his ear and bounced him lightly on the ski hat, then harder, on the bench.
'Aggressiveness is essential, nurse,' he said. His eyes were open; he was winking at all the chamois on the wall.
'Ist dieser Tisch noch frei?' asked Sue 'Biggie' Kunft, who on television had said she spoke German only with her father.
'Bitte, Sie sollen hier setzen,' I mumbled for them to sit down. That good big one right across from me; the other two hanging back, awkward jocks trying to look lithe and bouncy and girlish. They sat on her side of the table too, across from where Merrill Overturf lay unnoticed; no need, I felt, to make them uncomfortable by calling him to their attention. No need, either, to stand up politely and let Sue Kunft see that she had an inch on me; sitting down, we were equally tall. I've a fine torso; only my legs fall short.
'Was mochten Sie zum trinken?' I asked her, and ordered cider for the two nowhere girls and a beer for Biggie. Watching Herr Halling navigate the dark Keller, announcing over the girls' shoulders, 'Zwei Apfelsaft, ein Bier ...' His mind took a long drink down the cleavage of the winner of the women's giant slalom.
I continued a distant German prattle with the champion across from me, while the tragic girls at the cold end of the table did fussy things with their hands and mewed together. 'Biggie' spoke a sort of home-made German, learned and heard from only one parent, who had given her a perfect accent and no regard for grammar. She could tell I wasn't from around Kaprun or Zell because I didn't use the dialect, but she never guessed I was American, and I saw no reason to speak English; it would have allowed the girls at the end of the table to join in.
However, I wanted Merrill to join in. I reached out to slap his face, but his head was gone.
'You're not from around here?' Biggie asked me.
'Nein.'
Merrill's head was not on the bench any more. I groped around for the rest of him under the table with my foot, behind the bench with my hand, smiling and nodding all the while.
'You like skiing here?' she asked.
'Nein, I didn't come to ski. I don't ski at all ...'
'Why are you in the mountains if you don't ski?'
'I used to be a pole-vaulter,' I told her, watching her repeat the German softly to herself, then nodding; she understands. Now I watch her thinking of the relationship between being in the mountains and having been a pole-vaulter. Did he imply he came to the mountains because he used to pole-vault? She thinks this was implied. How will she handle this? I'm wondering. Also: Where the hell is Merrill?
'A pole-vaulter?' she said, in her cautious German. 'Sie springen mit einem Pol?'
'I used to, yes,' I told her. 'But not now, of course.'
Of course? you could see her thinking. But all she said was, 'Wait. You used to be a pole-vaulter, but not any more, right?'
'Of course,' I said, to which she shook her head and went right on.
'... and you're here in the mountains because you used to be a pole-vaulter?'
She was admirable; I did love her perseverance. In such casual circumstances, most people would have given up trying to understand.
'Why?' she said insistently. 'I mean, what does having been a pole-vaulter have to do with coming here to the mountains?'
'I don't know,' I said innocently, as if she had proposed such a notion all by herself. She looked utterly confused. 'What possible relationship could there be between mountains and pole-vaulting?' I asked her then. She was lost; she must have thought it was a problem with her German.
'You like heights?' she tried.
'Oh yes, the higher the better.' And I smiled.
She must have sensed the nonsense in this talk, because she smiled too and said, 'You bring your poles with you?'
'My pole-vaulting poles?'
'Of course.'
'Of course I bring them with me.'
'To the mountains ...'
'Of course.'
'You just sort of lug them around, huh?' She was having fun now.
'Just one at a time.'
'Oh, of course.'
'It beats waiting in lift lines,' I said.
'You just vault right up?'
'It's harder coming down.'
'What do you do?' she asked. 'I mean, really.'
'I'm still making up my mind,' I said. 'Really.' I was being serious.
'So am I,' she said. She was serious too, so I dropped the German and went straight into English.
'But there's no one thing I can do,' I told her, 'as well as you can ski.'
Her two friends looked up surprised. 'He's American,' said one.
'He's a pole-vaulter,' Biggie told them, smiling.
'I used to be,' I said.
'He's been putting us on,' one of the uglies said, with a hurtful look at Biggie.
'He's got a nice sense of humor, though,' Biggie told the girl, and then - to me, in German so they wouldn't know - 'I miss a sense of humor, skiing. There isn't anything humorous about it.'
'You haven't seen me ski,' I told her.
'Why are you here?' she said.
'I'm taking care of a friend,' I said, and gave a guilty look around for Merrill. 'He's drunk and he's got diabetes, and right now he's lost. I really ought to try and find him.'
'Why haven't you, then?'
I kept on, privately, in German, 'Because you came in, and I didn't want to be away for that event.'
She smiled, but looked away; her friends seemed angry with her speaking in German, but she continued. 'It's a funny place to pick up girls in,' she said. 'You couldn't have been trying very hard or you wouldn't be in a place like this.'
'That's true,' I said. There's no chance of picking up girls in here.'
'No, there isn't,' she said, with a look to say she meant it. But she smiled. 'Go find your friend,' she said. 'I won't go away yet.'
And I was just about to do that, wondering where to look first. Under the darker Keller tables, where poor Merrill might be lurking insane or lying in a diabetic coma? Upstairs in the Tauernhof, conducting a drunken urine test, botching his test tubes over the sink?
Then I noticed how quiet the table behind the girls was - how some men sat intent on some intrigue. The silhouette of a large dog crept up behind the girls, approaching our table. Herr Halling, poised at the bar with his finger to his lips, about to spitshine a shot glass, was pretending not to notice anything. Then, into the dull light, at a level with our table, a dark shadow of a ski pole extended slowly, the wrist-thong end dipping like a wand toward the space between the elbow (on the table) and the breast of the winner of the women's giant slalom.
'This friend,' I said shakily to Biggie Kunft, 'is not himself.'
'Find him, then,' she said, truly worried.
'I hope you have a nice sense of humor too,' I told her.
'Oh, I do,' she said, smiling very warmly. And she leaned a little closer to me across the table, and touched the back of my hand a little awkwardly. Conscious of what big hands she had, she usually kept them folded. 'Please go make sure that your friend's all right,' she said. Then, into the exaggerated gap between her breast and her elbow, the wrist-thong of a ski pole came dancing; leaning forward, as she was, her breast pushed tight against the velour, she was a target only a fool could miss.
'I hope you'll forgive me,' I said, and touched her hand.
'Of course I will,' she laughed, as the snare seized her and the wrist-thong tugged her breast into her armpit, oddly askew, and Merrill Overturf, behind her, weaved up to his knees, his ski pole bending like a fishing rod with a heavy catch, his eyes all glazed and terrible.
'Boob loop!' he screamed.
Then the girl athlete from Vermont demonstrated her catlike co-ordination and wonder-mother strength. Biggie slipped her breast free of the wrist-thong and seized the end of the pole, swinging her legs out from under the table and across the bench top, where her heavy thighs jarred Merrill Overturf off balance and dropped him on his rump. She was up on her feet, then, and obviously experienced at handling a ski pole, which she thrust repeatedly at Merrill who writhed on the floor, trying to free his twisted fingers from the pole's basket, trying to fend off the gouging pole point with the bleeding heel of his hand.
'Oh blood, Boggle! I've been stabbed!' - while Biggie finally pinned him, one of her tall fur boots resting heavily on Merrill's chest, the point of the pole puckering Merrill's belly.
'It's a game, it's a game!' Merrill shrieked at her. 'Did I hurt you? Did I? Not on your life, I didn't. No, I did not hurt you ... no, no, no!' But Sue 'Biggie' Kunft poised over him, with just enough weight on the pole to keep Merrill pinned and threatened with disemboweling, while she flashed me an angry, betrayed look. 'Talk to her, Boggle,' Merrill pleaded. 'We saw you on TV,' he told her. 'We loved you.'
'We hated the interviewer,' I told her.
'You were simply beautiful.' Merrill said. 'They tried to make your winning sound just lucky, but you were clearly above that bullshit.' She stared at him, amazed.
'It's his blood sugar,' I told her. 'He's all mixed up.'
'He wrote a poem about you,' Merrill lied, and Biggie looked at me, touched. 'It's a nice poem,' Merrill said. 'He's a real poet.'
'... who used to be a pole-vaulter,' Biggie said suspiciously.
'He used to be a wrestler too,' Merrill said suddenly, crazily, 'and if you hurt me with that ski pole, he'll break your goddamn neck!'
'He doesn't know what he's saying,' I told Biggie, who was watching Merrill holding up his bloody hand.
'I may die,' said Merrill. 'There's no telling what that pole's been stuck in.'
'Pole him a good one and let's get out of here,' one of Biggie's skimates told her.
'And keep the pole,' the other one said, glowering at me.
'There are vital organs just under the belly lining,' Merrill said. 'Oh, God ...'
'I'm not aiming for your belly,' Biggie told him.
'When you were being mocked we loved you,' Merrill told her. 'In that ugly, self-serious, competitive world, you had dignity and humor.'
'What happened to your humor?' I asked her. She looked at me, stung. She was tender about that; it seemed to matter a lot.
'"Vy" do they call you "Biggie"?' Merrill asked her boldly. '"Vy" do you "tink" so?' he asked me.
'It must be her heart,' I told him. Then I reached out and took the pole from her. She was smiling, and she blushed a hue resembling that deep orange of her V-neck velour. I suspect you are velour all over!
Then Merrill Overturf stood up too fast. What remained of his consciousness had been used to a prone position. When he bounded to his feet like that, I think he left his brain lying down. We saw only the whites of his eyes, though he smiled at everyone. His hands dialed telephones in the air.
'Gob, Doggle,' he said.
I noticed he was standing on his ankles just before he fell, like wet snow.
14
Fighting the Good Fight
IN MY MARRIED phase, at 918 Iowa Avenue, optimism was reserved for Risky Mouse. For five nights running, he made his own daring thefts from the baited trap. I warned him again about it. I brought him a fatty portion of Biggie's steamed brisket, which I displayed in an alluring fashion, not in the trap itself, but several feet away. Making it clear that I'd take care of him. He needn't risk his furry, finger-sized neck in Biggie's over-large trap designed for weasels, woodchucks, wombats and mammoth rats.
I never knew exactly what it was that Biggie had against the rodent. She only saw him once - surprised him on the cellar landing when she went to fetch her skis one night. Perhaps she thought he was getting too bold, that he had intentions of invading the upstairs. Or that he meant to gnaw her skis, which she moved to the bedroom closet. Occasionally, they fell on me in my morning-grope period. Their evil-sharp edges could gash you up good. It was one of the sources of friction between Biggie and me.
So one night Risky Mouse was given brisket, about which I had my doubts. Do mice eat meat?
Then I took a bath with Colm. He was so slippery in the tub that I had to keep my thumbs in his armpits or else he'd giggle under. Baths with Colm relaxed me, except that Biggie always came in and watched.
And with genuine concern, she'd always ask, 'Will Colm have as much hair as you do?'
Implying, How soon will the horrible growth start ruining him for life?
With some irritation I'd always say, 'Would you prefer me hairless, Big?'
She'd back down, saying, 'It's not that, exactly. It's more that I wouldn't want Colm to be as hairy as you.'
'Relatively, Big, I'm not so hairy as most men.'
'Well, men,' she'd say, as if the only thing about me that bothered her was that I was one.
I knew what was on her mind, though: skiers. Blond and somewhat male (or if not blond, at least tanned); no tobacco stains on their teeth; hairless, linen-white muscles under their down underwear; smooth all over, from too much time in sleeping bags. The only repulsive part of skiers is their feet. I think skiers only sweat through their hot, cramped, layered feet. All those thick crusty socks! That's their only health gap.
I was the first and only nonskier Biggie had ever laid. It must have been the novelty that impressed her. But now she wonders. Remembering all that snowbound cleanliness.
Is it my fault that I never had the silky chafe of down underwear to rub off all my hair? My pores are too big for skiing; the wind gets inside me. Is it my fault if I'm given to excess oil? Can I help it if baths don't quite work for me? I can step glowing from a tub, powder my groin, anoint my pits, slaver my fresh-shaved face with some scented astringent, and ten minutes later I start to sweat. I sort of gloss over. Sometimes, when I'm talking to a person, I see them start to stare; they're uneasy about something. I've figured out what it is. They suddenly see my pores opening, or maybe their attention is fixed on just one pore, opening in slow motion and sort of peeking at them. I've experienced the sensation myself, in mirrors, and I can sympathize with the observer; it's unnerving.
But you'd expect your wife not to ogle when your metabolism shows, especially in troubled times. Instead, she dispenses suggestions to improve my funny hair. 'Get rid of your mustache, Bogus. It's really pubic.'