Chapter 3
Sterling’s third and final change of gears for the day of sport lands him back in Vegas Gym. He’s finishing up another three-minute round of shadow boxing in front of the mirror, working on correcting a technical flaw his coach had pointed out. (In several combinations he has acquired the nasty habit of leaving his head open for an upper cut from the left.) Sterling shadows with an invisible, but not unknown, opponent. His eyes, his entire body language suggests he is mentally into a real bout. It’s what an accomplished actor might do in front of a green screen which will then be chroma keyed into digital animation. His opponent is named Sam White who he has not seen recently except on YouTube; he knows that particular video better than the back of his hand. Over the years he’s watched this boxer advance his career; he actually met him twice in the ring when they were advancing in the Silvers, in 2003 and 2004. That first year they were evenly matched, statistically. Both were 5 foot, 105 pounds, identical reaches. Sterling took their debut bout, three strong rounds by unanimous decision; Sam White didn’t have much on offer, didn’t seem to know what he was doing in the ring. Blame inexperience; blame bad coaching; blame lack of talent, at least that’s what Sterling figured at the time. Today, this boxer has advanced from that humiliating loss to Sterling to be the talk of the town, or at least the talk of Washington, DC, where the press touts him as a future golden gloves contender or even as “the next Sugar Ray Leonard,” a boxer who was also light-middleweight before he moved up. It was during his second encounter with Sam White that Sterling learned about arrogance and cockiness. When they revived him from the first-round knock-out (the only such disgrace so far in his brief career), the thing that came to mind was not that he was out-boxed. That was too evident to even think about. What came into Sterling’s head was that he had got just what he deserved: cockiness, although not one of the seven cardinal sins, is surely as great a vice. In his quasi-hallucination now in front of the mirror, Sterling never KOs Sam White, but he does outbox him in technique. And at the amateur level that’s what the sport’s all about.
Sterling towels off some sweat and takes a swig of water. He looks around his gym, which has survived another day of renters. A few more scuff marks on the walls and someone’s left a window open (it’s too early in the year for AC unless you want to break the bank). As alleged partner, he closes the window. Sterling doesn’t believe that he’s partners in the gym in the implied 50 : 50 sense of the word. It’s more like 99 : 01. Even that’s being too generous, according to Sterling. It’s more like 100-x : x when x→0. Technically he’s not now alone in the gym; his putative co-owner is there, along with his coach and his father: the three-in-one Pandely, who’s at work on the heavy bag.
Sterling bides his time at the double end bag, a lumpy basketball-sized sparring partner that seems to be speared through the center by a vertical cord/spring that attaches it to a platform, above and below. It’s the apparatus that comes closest to punching back; and its purpose is to improve one’s rhythm and timing, helping develop better hand-target coordination. For beginners – and the boy is no beginner – the DEB comes back at you after you hit it and it quickly teaches you how to dodge punches and shift sides. When you shift to the left side, your right hand should rise, because that’s the side exposed to your opponent, and vice-versa. After Sterling’s rhythm is built, he intermixes hooks and upper cuts, followed by jabs. When he sees his father leave the heavy bag for the ring, Sterling pops in the mouth guard and puts on his gloves. He follows the elder Eumorfopoulos through the ropes.
Sterling is not exactly a fractal off the old block; they resemble each other no more than a beetle does a spider. They share olive coloring (sun-tanned the year round) and weight. And both have dark hair and eyes; that’s about it for similarities. The son’s a good half head taller, has four inches’ additional reach, is built stringy rather than compact and lacks the solidity and gravitas of his father, who smacks of the size, height and reach of a champion. For a middle-aged man (middle-aged being their compromise between “old” which is how Sterling sees him and “young” which is how he sees himself) Pandely Eumorfopoulos is in good shape, only five pounds over his fighting weight (160 lbs) some years back. In the showcase is the Golden Gloves light-middleweight belt which US Army Sergeant Pandely A. Eumorfopoulos won in 1984. Next to it is a pint-sized Silver Gloves belt to acknowledge Sterling P. Eumorfopoulos’ victory in the 10/11 year old division at 105 pounds. The smaller belt was actually purchased by mail-order, but next to it is a certificate, which is legitimate.
They start with various routines, mostly exercises for defense and counter punching. Pandely, with mitts, comes across with a simulated right hook, Sterling slips it, putting himself in a good position to lay into his father with a left hook. They repeat a dozen straight left hands and right hook follow-ups. After about ten minutes of this, Pandely exchanges the mitts for gloves and they begin a series of 3-minute rounds. Several times the father stops action to point out something the son has just done wrong. It’s the closest the two get to a real conversation. After about 30 minutes neither will admit to their exhaustion; they agree to quit.
As they towel off and his father starts to get out of the ring, Sterling approaches and basically blocks him from moving forward. Pandely starts to step around but his son puts his hand on his shoulder.
“We’re in Vegas, right?”
The father stares straight in the intense eyes of his son. “Yes,” he replies.
The significance of this exchange is that it marks yet another ritual between father and son, this one intended to avoid the strap. One might think the gym’s name refers to Las Vegas, a renown venue for big prize fights as well as for all sorts of conventions, conferences and trade shows. It does, sort of. The Nevada city is especially known as the place where electronic gadgets make their debut and thus close to Sterling’s heart. Through history the city has acquired a reputation for quickies: divorces, marriages, affairs. Though not actually set in motion as a mafia laundry, Las Vegas became one in the years after WWII, eventually morphing into a place for legitimate adult entertainment; more recently it has segued into being a family tourist destination.
Sterling’s generation probably doesn’t realize that once upon a time gamblers, whether high stakes or bush league, were attracted to Vegas to gamble. Additional perks to visiting the Silver state included low-priced buffets, free drinks, cheap hotels and prostitutes who came in different shapes, sizes and prices. Now, you can do all that in the comfort of your own home or hometown; indeed one of Sterling friends gets his spending money from on-line poker; another’s losses are always causing him to max out his mother’s Master Card. In almost no way, therefore, does Vegas Gym resemble its eponymous city that goes by so many monikers: Sin City, Entertainment Capital of the World, City of Lights, Glitter Gulch, and The Strip. The city sitting high in Nevada’s Mojave is geographically, esthetically and morally at a remove from the here and now. The gym, for its users, is the here and now; for the tight family who lives above it, it provides a moral and physical foundation of their lives.
In promoting its city as an adult playground, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority adopted as official trademark “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” In other words, you can be naughty here and get away with it. It’s also the name of a file-share movie that Sterling has recently downloaded that stars the Twitterer extraordinaire Ashton Kutcher (aplusk) a Twitterholic who since the end of the previous year has posted about eight times a day, more updates than even CNN. Sterling likes Ashton, not just because he sleeps and tweets with a foxy older lady, but because the actor is adept at playing the loveable doofus, like the rookie cop in “The 70s Show,” who’s so blatantly incompetent that he actually gets fired. Sterling is convinced such could never happen in the real world. He suspects that police departments scour the earth for doofi (preferred spelling to the more conventional doofuses, accord
ing to Sterling and some on Answers at Yahoo). Despite the fact the Twitter mode of communicating largely serves older women, Sterling (SterlingU) tweets, but of course only with a select group he’s hung out with since his pre-teen years (The Friday Night boys) and the girls who have tagged along over time.
Pandely sits down with his son at the ropes. It is clear (this is not the first time the son has pulled the Vegas card) that Sterling will do most all the talking.
“You know, dad, sometimes I sort of do things without fully thinking about the consequences. Well, it’s happened again and I just want to tell you so I won’t get into trouble.”
Silence from Pandely.
“You know, dad, Billy has always looked to me for guidance in matters of a…uh, a sexual, nature. I don’t know why. Maybe he can’t talk with his parents like I can talk with you and mother. Anyway, he just turns to me when he’s confused and, you know, he gets confused a lot. You know it’s not easy being gay in a straight world.”
Pandely’s silent look suggests: Get on with it, son.
“So some time back, Billy asked me if I’d take him to a certain place that we knew about. Actually, it’s a place I found on the internet forums for him that’s about his, you know, his orientation. I don’t check those sites myself but Billy can’t look at them on his laptop because his parents put on this really hard-to-crack filter. Anyway, so he comes and looks at them on my computer.”
“That’s Vegas, using your computer for porn?” his father asks.
“No, that’s just part of it. I won’t let Billy use my computer anymore for sex; I agree to that. But that’s not what I don’t want to get punished for. I mean, that’s not the only thing I don’t want to get punished for. Anyway, so we found a store to go to. First, I want to say that the store is not in your jurisdiction. I’d never put you in a compromising position. That, I swear to you, dad. So we go to Chapel Hill. To where all the horny frat gays hang out and of course the bears who want to meet twinks. The hairy old men are called “bears” and the young kids like Billy are called “twinks.” Dad, I’m telling you, there’s a whole subculture out there that you don’t want to know about. Anyway, we go to the bookstore.”
He pauses. Pandely waits for more. Sterling doesn’t think he has more.
“That’s what I don’t want to be punished for, dad. I’ve lived up to my half of the bargain. I have told you the truth. Vegas rules.”
In fact, what Sterling had said is all well and true, as far as it goes. He and Billy had indeed gone to an XXX adult book store. It was that event some weeks back that now motivates Sterling’s confession. He offers repentance, in pursuit of immunity from the strap. Those are Vegas rules. Confess before the parents can find out and you’re off scot-free.
What he has failed to mention is everything that happened once they entered the store. Sterling had waited downstairs, first looking over some porn that was not even as good as what he could stream for free; second, studying the various sexual aids for sale, all of which also could be bought for less on-line. Actually, in Sterling’s opinion thinking as an economist – he had aced micro and macro at Duke and an exam for eventual AP credit saved up for whatever college wins the bidding war for him – this bookstore could and should really be replaced by internet commerce. It was a relic of a bygone era. That was downstairs. Billy, however, immediately ventured upstairs. First, he had bought a ten-dollar token and been directed to a turnstile before a closed curtain, which he vanished behind. He had then gone upstairs, which as he later explained to Sterling, was quite different from downstairs. Things that happen upstairs don’t happen on the internet. Yes, they happen perhaps in videos shown on the internet or they happen to your avatar in an internet game, but it’s not on the internet where a man goes to enjoy anonymous sex with another man.
It had taken some moments before Billy’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. He had groped his way along the handrail and arrived upstairs to a space the size of the ground floor. The major source of light came from two televisions, mounted in opposite corners near the ceiling. One showed a twink alone in bed slowly arousing himself; the other presented a well-worn video of a bear and twink barebacking (the twink was bottom). The sex between these males was rough, coarse, and violent. Not the type of movie Billy enjoyed. It resembled none of the touch-feely stuff of Billy’s favorite film, Brokeback Mountain, which had been refused Best Picture because, despite the fact Hollywood, especially West Hollywood, is American’s gay wonder-world, enough voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were apparently sufficiently homophobic to deny it the top award. That went to ungay-themed Crash, not a film in Brokeback’s league, according to Billy. Brokeback had come away with three Oscars but it should have fetched all eight, Billy had fumed. These thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. He could make out a man, a rather tall and straight man, a rather oldish, distinguished man, dressed in a three-piece suit of the sort his father’s colleagues wear, who was motioning Billy to follow him into a booth. A tiny bulb lit a sign on the door that read: “Occupancy: 1; No sex in video closets.” Billy’s curiosity had peaked so he approached the room. He halted at the door; the businessman/banker/lawyer type was enthusiastically hanging out of his zipper, waiting for Billy. Billy just stared until the sight of the other man’s excitement caused just the opposite effect on him. He almost rolled down the stairs in his haste to beat a retreat, hyperventilating as he tumbled into Sterling’s arms. Billy, the chicken-shit, had performed to expectations; Sterling unfortunately could expect a blow-by-blow whine on the drive back to Durham. All this he did not think was necessary to share with his father.
Pandely looked over at the strap.
“Hey, that’s unfair. Vegas rules,” Sterling complains.
“How did you get in? They check ID.”
“OK, OK. I have a fake ID,” he says.
He finds his wallet and extracts a fake North Carolina driver’s license from a hidden compartment. It’s an exact duplicate of his real license except that the birth date reads May 29th 1990. He hands it to his father, who’s waiting for more of an explanation before the strap fades away.
“We buy these mail-order, pay with PayPal, from a PO box in Hong Kong. They must print them in China. Two-week turn-around. You have to send your original and they return it along with one with the fake date. Pretty impressive quality and with ten you get a good discount. Normally, they run a hundred bucks each. You remember when I said I lost my license for a few weeks and you said “wait, it’ll turn up,” and it did two weeks later. Now I’ve told you everything, are you satisfied?”
Pandely looks at the strap as well as the fake ID. He compares the photo to his son. With a couple day’s beard and a UNC sweatshirt, Sterling could easily pass for 18, even 21. A reasonable employee in a pornstore wouldn’t question the ID.
“I won’t get one that says I’m 21, I swear. And I’ve had been thinking about it, too.”
There is still no decision from Pandely. Sterling is a bit perturbed. He doesn’t want Sara to see strap marks, that’s for sure. Not tonight.
“Fuck, dad, it’s my birthday. No fuckin’ strap. Shit, sorry, my language.”
Pandely returns the strap to its nail. He’ll stick to the bargain. He knows the relevant section by heart: NCGS §14-100, Possession or Manufacture of Certain Fraudulent Forms of Identification. A Class 1 misdemeanor. Just a boyhood prank, minor crime worthy of a minor punishment. Let Catherine come up with an additional chore for the kid. He’s going through a difficult time, Pandely concludes. But getting the whole truth out of this boy takes a lot of patience, even for Pandely. Sterling embraces his father, as boxers embrace after a match.
“Thanks, dad.”
Punishment avoided and no longer exhibiting even an impalpable sense of regret on his part, Sterling is in an expansive mood, even expansive by his standards. He dines with his parents
and Sara, before a spread that Sara has prepared. Okra and tomatoes, cornbread, fried chicken, potato salad, blackberry cobbler (he can smell it cooling off), a veritable feast with leftovers for the whole week. Everyone is digging in. Sterling’s plate is full, but then it’s not actually a regular dinner plate, but rather a dessert plate with about half the surface area of a grown-up’s plate. The contents, which if spread out on a real plate, would look meager: a 1.5 inch square of cornbread, half a chicken breast, five chunks of potato salad, 6 pieces of okra in a sauce made by a Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato. Sterling rearranges the meal with gusto, savoring it with as many small mouthfuls as possible. The food may grow penicillin before it’s completely devoured.
“It’s really good. It’s really, really good. And a great birthday present.”
“Not too much garlic in the potatoes? Greeks are supposed to like garlic.”
“You’ll have to go to Greece to find Greeks,” he replies.
Sara, who had worked three hours on dinner, offers a less than bursting smile. If he really liked it, he’d stopping picking and just friggin’ eat, she thinks. Sterling continues with his story:
“So what really impressed the little dudes was when I was showing them how to use the speed bag. It’s all about rhythm, timing, concentration and focus. Now, true, the speed bag is the most impressive apparatus in the gym and if you’re really good at it, you can do it with your eyes closed. Right dad?”
“How can you focus if you have your eyes closed?” Sara asks.
Sara and Catherine exchange smiles. Women can be just worthless, Sterling notes. He addresses Sara as if she were one of the little dudes. If you don’t know Sterling it’s difficult to tell whether he’s aware of the exaggerated condescension in his voice, which may or may not be intentional. In any case it’s evident that Sara is not a boxing aficionado, nor would it seem she has much interest in becoming one.
“Yes, that’s the point of my story. If I may continue, madam, or rather Messieur-Dames. For those of you unfamiliar with the tools of the trade, the speed bag is the teardrop-shaped leather bag that hangs down from a platform, at face level. You hit it with the knuckles or the side of the fist, like you’re using an ice pick. There’s a rhythm: one-two-three, one-two-three. Not too close to the bag, not too far away. One-two-three…one-two-three.”
He stands up to demonstrate for Sara’s benefit, moving his hands in a circular motion, punching on an invisible bag at head level.
“As I’m doing this, of course, I am talking to them and not paying much attention,” which is what he’s doing now as he addresses Sara while still punching an invisible bag over to his right.
“And I’m telling them how important concentration and focus are and that they should always pay attention when they box or when they do anything in life. Focus is the key. They’re all keeping rhythm: one-two-three, one-two-three. And I’ve added ‘focus’ so it’s now: one-two-three, fo-oh-cus, one-two-three fo-oh-cus.”
He turns to his parents:
“Can you give me some parental support for once? One-two-three, fo-oh-cus, one-two-three fo-oh-cus…”
They indulge him and now all four join in chanting: “One-two-three, fo-oh-cus, one-two-three fo-oh-cus…” He continues:
“When somehow I get a bit close to the bag and the next think I know I’m spread-eagled down on the floor.”
He demonstrates, falling to the supine position in the shape of an X, feigning unconsciousness. He continues from the floor:
“So the little dudes all rush around, smothering me in a circle, concerned I’ve self-inflicted grievous bodily harm. ‘Coach U, Coach U, get up, please get up;’ they are tugging at various appendages trying to revive me. ‘¿Está muerto?’ one of them asks. Another who’s from a tough part of town and has been through this before apparently, knows the drill and takes my phone to dial 911. They are all very concerned. And then one of them, a little black girl named Latisha, who will have the world by the short hairs one day, says to the rest of them: ‘Well, serves him right. He ain’t got a clue how to focus.’”
Sterling rises and says proudly: “Now that’s what I call a lesson well taught.”
Meanwhile his parents bring out their gifts. Both in boxes, his mother’s in a Costco shopping bag.
Sterling peeks in and does not share its contents with the others.
“Thanks.”
“I can exchange them if you want.”
“I really wanted the others. You can exchange?”
“No problem. Don’t open it.”
He now sounds more sincere. He kisses his mother dutifully on the cheek, repeating “thanks.”
His father gives him a UPS parcel, which hasn’t yet been opened. Sterling cuts the box open. It contains a quite small pistol, sort of a lady’s pistol, one that fits entirely in Sterling’s palm.
“Wow. It’s the .380 Stainless. I’ve only seen pictures.”
“It’s a gun,” Sara says without showing that she is sufficiently impressed.
“Not just a gun. It’s a Sterling. From Sterling Engineering Company, Ltd, Lockport, New York, which went out of business in 1988. On a gun forum someone called it a ‘jam-o-matic piece of junk’ but apparently the guy didn’t assemble it right. If you don’t know how to strip and reassemble, or you reverse the firing spring pin and the action spring, or you put too much pressure on the trigger, or you use aluminum cases, well, sometimes it can stovepipe. A Sterling requires some intelligence to handle.”
Both Sara and Catherine are thinking: just like you, Sterling. He continues to no one in particular:
“There are sub-machine Sterlings made by a British Sterling and there’s even a Philippines Sterling that produces a 14mm bolt action. All the Sterlings demand care. One feeds fine but has ejection problems with the ejector location and ejection port size due to the increased length of the cartridge. There’s a web video and you can see the empties bouncing off the front of the ejection port and the last round falling back into the receiver creating a stoppage. Sara, you probably don’t know this but Durham County is the only Carolina county that requires handgun registration. I know I can’t get a license for it so dad will have to register it. I don’t want you to be doing anything illegal,” he say to his father, who nods.
“It’s mine until you’re 21. That’s the law,” he tells his son.
“And thanks, dad,” Sterling says as an afterthought.
What with all the boxing talk and now the gun, the testosterone level has become too elevated for the women. Sara turns to Catherine:
“Is he always like this? I mean, does he never eat?”
They look at Sterling who finishes the small plate in a few quick bites. He looks around at the beckoning seconds. He lifts his plate slightly to go for refills, and then puts it back on the table.
“Well, that was good.”
Sara is disappointed. Catherine explains:
“He does like to eat, Sara. He has very adult tastes, always had, in that respect he was born an adult. He loves your cooking. But now he’s trying to maintain weight.”
Sterling corrects her:
“Not, maintain, mother. I’m between welterweight and middleweight. There’s no way I can fight middleweight, right dad?”
Pandely nods.
“How much do you have to lose?” she asks.
“Eight pounds, more after tonight.”
Turning to his father, Sara asks:
“That sounds like a lot. Can he do it, Pan?”
Pandely ponders a response which is avoided by Sterling’s answering for him:
“No, he doesn’t think so. But he knows if I can’t, there’s no way I can continue to box, at least in the Golden advancements. Silvers stop at sixteen and the JOs are real competitive. I am way out classed at middleweight.”
“You’re lucky you don't have a girl, or she’d be polite and eat all my fine cooking and then toss it out in the toi
let,” she says to Catherine.
Sara then realizes she’s said some terribly wrong. She doesn’t want to apologize; that will just bring attention to her faux pas.
Catherine steps in:
“Sometimes he may do stupid things, but that would be really stupid, wouldn’t it, Sterling?”
“Hey, it was once. You know I’ll always remember it, but you still don’t want me forget it.”
Sara’s a bit uncomfortable with various skeletons rattling to get out of the closet. “A little sliver of cobbler?,” she asks.
“I’ve not saved room for it,” Sterling adds, in a somewhat foul temper.
Sterling’s additional punishment, meted out for the fake ID episode, is to clean up some age-old construction waste in the adjacent vacant lot, hauling various sized pieces of concrete and tossing them into a dumpster on the street. He can string this task over several weeks, an excuse for whenever he wants some alone-time away from his parents. He decides to start the job tonight, immediately after dinner under the early evening sky. This degree of repentance (his own putative guilt) and self-sacrifice (leaving Sara alone) are not exactly intended to make his mother feel guilty – a Herculean task even if he were innocent – but this by itself would be an acceptable consequence, of course, if it could happen: that is unlikely since Catherine is not the most emotionally attached of mothers. Sterling is the one who is supposed to have the inhuman memory, but it is his mother who never lets him forget any of his misbehaviors. Once, as a punishment following the vomiting episode (his one and only time) he had been forced to read up on bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa and then regurgitate everything to his mother until he had convinced her that he had an understanding of the diseases rather than just his usual rote awareness. He would have preferred the fuckin’ strap. What riled Sterling then, and still infuriates him today (as if it happened yesterday), is that the vomiting was a freak occurrence, not an indication of an illness. Just as Sara had conjecturably wisecracked, he had in fact eaten (over-eaten in that he was maintaining weight for the Silvers) to show his grandparents how much he enjoyed the food. And he had really enjoyed the food: one of his favorites, little shoes, Melitzanes Papoutsakia from the old country and a demi-glass of an Assyrtiko dry white. At age thirteen he should have known better and certainly his mother’s folks indulged their only grandson. But then his mother caught him with his finger down his throat, the act for which he got punished. And he hadn’t even puked. It was like someone thinking about robbing a bank, but not robbing the bank and then getting jail time for their non-action. No crime, no punishment. And even if he had puked, he could have Vegased his way out of reprimand with a pre-emptive confession to his push-over father. He had never fuckin’ even puked! He doesn’t mind being punished when he’s guilty; he’ll plea as such if the facts warrant it. But that time he was innocent, he recalls, as if the event was several minutes ago. He picks up a slab of concrete and hurls it to the dumpster, which does not come close to being dented, despite Sterling’s wrath.
“Wow, you take this job seriously.”
“I take everything seriously,” he says way too seriously, as Sara approaches. Sterling realizes he needs to lift his spirits. He smiles at her current offering: a sliver of cobbler in a napkin and a glass of ice tea. Sterling indicates the workgloves, which he doesn’t want to remove, and opens up his mouth to be fed: baby bird by momma bird.
Sara, herself, is in a confessional mood and they sit down on the curb.
“I’m sorry about what I said. Do forgive me?”
“What did you say?”
“You know, about if you were a girl you’d...the anorexia thing. I didn’t think until just after I said it…”
“That’s OK. I’m sure no one was offended. You saw how little time it took before my mother blindsided me.”
“You’re too tough on her.”
“Are they already in bed? Nine o’clock on a Saturday night. Must be tough to get old and be bored with life. What if I shower and then we grab a Netflix? They come out great on the iMac.”
“Sounds good to me.”
It’s past midnight. The lights are off, the bedroom lit by the iMac monitor which shows a bunch of birds on icebergs. Sara and Sterling pay it no heed. She is supine and Sterling is on top, spread-eagled for the third time in two hours. This is a most enjoyable experience for both of them, an inevitability that they had somehow put off since that first encounter which they care not to recall.
Earlier, after Sterling had showered (very cold water), making sure to extra clean the hairy parts and crevices and janglers, and then dolled himself up, which is to say little more than brushing his teeth and a squirt of underarm, he had put on clean sweats, the habitual substitute for pajamas bottoms, and a novelty Tee-shirt, one with a silkscreen of a younger version of himself with a shit-eating grin. The shirt had been a gift a few years back, one he no longer wore because it was too tight, making him look more muscular that he would normally. He sprayed his hair with an aerosol and Tintinned it into shape. He then joined Sara on the bed to watch a film of her choice.
He had expected a chick flick but instead she has chosen March of the Penguins and muted the sound. They both understood they were not sharing the bed for a cinematic experience.
Now he’s asleep at the edge of the bed, ensconced with the sole pillow, away from Sara, who is not asleep, still enjoying the moment while she looks at her boyfriend sleep. It’s not that Sterling doesn’t care to cuddle, Sara would like to think. For after their third connection, Sterling had yawned once, twice and then collapsed for the count. And now, an hour later, he had in his sleep repositioned himself with most of the top sheet at the edge of the bed, which is to say, as far as he could get from his alleged girlfriend. It’s a habit that can be broken, she thinks. She’d prefer some quality awake time, but she’ll have all summer for that. And the two hours they had just had, very awake, needs to be relished.
On the floor at her side of the bed, which had been his side before lovemaking, she sees the Costco shopping bag and its hastily opened contents: a case of Trojan lubricated 40 pack, Catherine’s birthday present to her son. To the outsider a mother’s gift of 480 prophylactics on the son’s seventeenth birthday may sound a tad bit weird, but the outsider, unlike Sara, would have no way of knowing the circumstantial facts of the case.
First, rubbers are Catherine’s life. She goes around administering sex education to regional schools. That is, in schools to pupils whose parents have signed a consent form, a compromise that keeps right and left from commencing battle using their own kids as fodder in the culture wars. Each year, with sexually transmitted diseases on the rise, the number of consenting parents has risen. Also, the seriousness and educational quality of Catherine’s presentation have earned her a good reputation; it is not without respect that she is referred to as Mrs. Condom.
Second, the members of the Eumorfopoulos household have never been shy about sex. Before Sterling had moved into his current bedroom, at the opposite end of the hall from his parents, he had lived in a smaller room sharing a common wall with them. It was a thin wall, the type which the noise of heavy lovemaking pierces, and the little boy had excellent hearing and an even better imagination. As an eight year old, and after constant importunateness, he had eventually exacted from them a general accounting of love and sex. The vanquished parents had ended the discussion with the gentle admonition: “It’s a lot of fun. You’ll figure it out when you’re older. So stop asking so many damn questions until you have some experience.” Sterling, who had always believed that his parents played the “you’re too young” card just to silence him, now – tonight – had realized their wisdom: it is a hell of a lot of fun.
Third, Sterling has, in fact, asked for the condoms as a birthday present. He had claimed that they were not for his personal use – although his parents figured some surely were, but rather for his friends who had asked him to get them th
rough his mother. It is widely believed, by Sterling and his friends, that Mrs. Condom has free access to various brands through her workplace. Either the manufacturers give the regional health authority free “samples” like the tobacco companies used to give cigarettes to high school students (or even worse candy cigarettes to primary pupils), or she could just take a few cases home. Like taking home paperclips from the office. Who would know, who would care? Digging deeper, however, one finds an ever stronger basis for the boys’ expecting free condoms from Sterling’s mother. Before the internet took over as primary sex educator, Catherine was the go-to person for not only Sterling but also his boyhood friends when they had questions about sex (“Will we really go blind?” was inevitably the initial query). In fact, at one of his gatherings of the Friday Night Boys, Sterling’s little friends had demanded that his mother run through her human sexuality show-and-tell on the spot, despite the fact the instruction was intended for children a few years older. Sterling’s pertinacious friends were not to be denied. Catherine acceded to their pleading despite having her feet up and working through her second glass of pinot gris. It was a presentation she could give in her sleep, most of the work done by the PowerPoints: photos of what syphilis does to the brain and what warts can do to the genitals. They used an entire bag of carrots for visual aids. She was a great hit. And she had obviously been effective, for the Friday Night Boys, who had now matured into randy teenagers, never forgot her prime directive: always condomize. Unfortunately – unfortunately for Catherine, that is – they also had not forgotten her response to one of Vaney triplets – who knows which one since the Trips are identical and are usually referred to as a unit, Jake-Connor-Zack, or JCZ for short – who complained that his born-again parents would never permit condoms in the house; they had even promised their parents they would never buy them before discussing it with mom and dad beforehand. In fact, Catherine and Pandely were good friends with the triplet’s parents, and had she not had two glasses of pinot gris, she might have reflected before she said: “JCZ, I’m not telling you to go against your parents. But if you need a condom, you can always get one from a boy who will have an everlasting supply,” she had said, looking directly to her son. “And that goes for the rest of you,” she added, not knowing that this fatal mistake would be costing her in the years to come. Specifically, for the just opened 40-packs she had paid $95.88 + tax; on exchange she would have to fork over an additional $24 because the One brand Sterling demanded were not on discount. It was her own fault for ignoring Sterling when he had insisted that his friends only wanted the One brand, which came in novelty wraps, different levels of sensitivity, with some that even glowed in the dark. What had sex come to, she wondered, when your penis has to glow in the dark.
Sara was just contemplating the fourth reason that the condom birthday gift was not astonishing when Sterling stirred. She couldn’t believe it: he was still aroused, as he slept. But he wasn’t asleep. He looked at her but didn’t say anything. She was playing possum but was able to watch Sterling as he rose to put on the sweats and Tee-shirt, without acknowledging her further. He then went out. Strange, the bathroom is en suite, but he was heading down the hall. She waited and let her thoughts drift back to the strange relationship between mother and son. It wouldn’t seem all that strange to the outsider and Pandely seemed oblivious to any tension. Sara, however, was more observant. She was not caught in the middle of their arguments because mother and son never much argued out loud. In any case the tension, so well repressed, never outlived more than a few phrases. In any case, it seems, tonight’s strain had nothing to do with the condom gift. It was the other exchange, the allusion to anorexia. There are a lot of skeletons in the Eumorfopoulos closet and Sara senses the summer will find not a few bones strewn around the home. What Sara regretted about her inadvertent comment was not the anorexia reference but when she had said “You’re lucky he’s not a girl.” Her own father had warned her, when he had given his permission for her to move in with the family over the summer: “Sara, never mention Susan. If they want to bring her up, they will.” She had come way too close to mentioning Sterling’s sister. She needed to be more on guard.
Sterling returns. He snuggles up to her, pulling off his Tee-shirt, stained with blackberry and tomatoes, which looks like it had just been in a food war. Together they jerk down his sweats. He sits facing her with his legs spread. He moves in to kiss him; his breath reeking of garlic. But before she can suggest a brushing and flossing, she finds her own tongue delightfully exploring various bits chicken. Before things get too heated, she breaks away and quickly wrapped him in protection – actually almost a minute to get everything in place. He remains seated and with a modicum of effort they work out a comfortable position for her also.
Sunday breakfast usually requires all sorts of micro waving, with Catherine processing frozen waffles, frozen links, instant coffee, frozen orange juice et cetera; fortunately Sara who has taken command of the kitchen as part of her quid pro quo, is preparing real eggs and bacon. She has already cleaned up the mess that resulted from Sterling’s early morning raid.
The assembled family is repositioned at the table. Sara and Sterling no longer sit across from each other, but are cattycornered and holding hands. When Catherine arrives, she takes the available seat. After a bit of small talk, Catherine tells her son:
“I’ll go to Costco and make the exchange.”
“It won’t be necessary,” he replies.
“No, it was my mistake. You told me what you wanted and I just ignored you.”
She gets up and heads towards Sterling’s part of the roost.
“I’ll get them now, or I’ll forget.”
“I said no. Stop.”
Pandely raises an eye.
“Some respect, son. Don’t take out your foul mood on us.”
“I’m not in a bad mood. I just don’t want her to be snooping in my room. And I told her she doesn’t need to make an exchange. The boys can do with what she got.”
Catherine returns, a bit chastened.
“Unless you’ve opened them, they can be exchanged. Really, it’s no trouble.”
“See, that’s just want I mean,” he says to his father. “She just interfering. She knows the box has already been opened. We’re three short now. Satisfied?”
Sara is a bit uncomfortable. It’s not that a blow-up is unexpected; a blow-up’s always around the corner with mother and son. What is more discomforting is that Sterling has had a memory loss. He does not remember, apparently, anything he did after getting up. Not going to the kitchen, not the additional lovemaking. Anyway, that’s her suspicion. Meanwhile, Sterling has become instantly contrite.
“I know. I am in a bad mood. I have to go out with Billy and his family is more dysfunctional than ours.”
He smiles broadly. “That’s a joke, mother. I know you’re just trying to be helpful. The two of you don’t object to me and Sara?”
Catherine takes Sara’s hand. “I’m delighted.”
“No problem,” Pandely adds.
“You know it’s not just sex,” Sterling adds. Everyone seems to understand that. On more reflection, he addresses his mother again:
“If you want to, you can get me another box. That would be very kind, mother. The boys were really quite insistent on the brand. You can dock my pay in the gym,” he adds for his father’s benefit.
On that more cheerful note, breakfast breaks up. Sara goes to pack a daypack and has a few minutes alone with Sterling. He is changing the sheets and picking up the soiled clothes. This is the first time she has noted the extent to which he is a neatness freak (not that she objects), but his always lining up flash drives, Post-it pads, and whatever has found itself squirreled away in drawers borders on the obsessive, she figures. He is in a sharing mood, a rarity:
“I don’t know why I get that way with my mother. We’re like oil and water. Always have bee
n, always will be.”
“Maybe you should count to ten before you say something to her. Sounds silly but it might work,” she suggests.
“Give her the ten count? OK. What a mess! What happened to my shirt?”
He is holding up the backberry stained Tee-shirt.
“You don’t remember last night?” she asks.
“You never forget your first time. I remember every second. What about the Tee-shirt?” he asks.
“You went for a midnight snack. You don’t remember?”
“You’re kidding. I’m keeping weight.”
“You didn’t feel a little boated this morning? I mean, you ate half the cobbler and three pieces of chicken, a hunk of potato salad. From the damage you did, it looks like you just pawed your way through the icebox. No knife or fork in sight.”
Sterling is very surprised. He’s been confronted with a very reliable witness who would otherwise be his alibi. He realizes it has to have been him. That’s explains why he was indeed in a bad mood. It’s instantly clear to him that he must indeed have been sleepwalking. He’s already at the iMac, Googling “somnambulism”.
“Did I do anything else stupid?” he asks.
“I’ll tell you next time,” she replies with a grin.