Benediction Read online

  As Karen might say, context is everything.

  Half a millennium from now archaeologists will excavate hospitals from our era, and the people, assuming there are any left, will have the chance to snicker at the barbaric medical practices of the twenty-first century.

  Sometimes it’s a good thing not to be able to see what doctors are doing to you. My view was San Francisco to the west of Kim’s office, where it sloped gently down to the Great Highway and Ocean Beach beyond that. It was cloudy, but I could still make out the vast expanse of ocean that you might well forget was there if it weren’t for the foghorns.

  The machine was a large mass of plastic, dials, CRT screens and wires. It also had a long protuberance with a flexible arm made of chrome-colored steel. The head of this protuberance looked like a smaller version of a medically inspired dildo.

  Dr. Kim was a soft-spoken Asian man with hair so black, it reminded me of my mother’s ebony piano. “This won’t take long,” he said. “We extract Jim Arnold a number of prostatic core samples, twelve, then examine each one for malignancy.”

  Seemed Dr. Kim was avoiding the word cancer.

  I found out later, through my research, that there were many men who said that the biopsy itself was the worst part about having prostate cancer. I believed these men were overwhelmingly straight and that this perception of pain was necessarily colored by the anal invasion the biopsy required—which to the average American straight male was a fate worse than death.

  There was a long needle involved in the process. I trusted Dr. Kim, perhaps because of his gentle manner and because he didn’t make a show of pulling on his rubber gloves. Each time he took a tissue sample from deep inside me, I felt an odd sensation, like someone was snapping a big, fat rubber band on my ass. There was an accompanying ping similar to what one hears as the firing pin on a pinball machine is discharged.

  Raindrops landed on the big picture window. As the storm picked up, it grew harder and harder to see the ocean—first the whitecaps disappeared, then the gray itself. I tried a few sexual fantasies to pass the time; I’d certainly been in this position under happier circumstances—with Jake, with many others in the past.

  I imagined there was someone in one of the houses below with a telescope. He was an eighteen-year-old Chinese American gymnast, home from school that day, and bored, as eighteen-year-olds often are. So he turned his space telescope to Dr. Kim’s window. He saw me getting fucked with a prostate cancer biopsy machine and became aroused. He pulled his uncut cock from the open zipper on his calf-length chinos and rubbed it a little…

  “All done,” Dr. Kim said, bringing me back to the cold room.

  “I hardly had a chance to totally get into it.”

  Dr. Kim didn’t laugh. He smiled, though, which made me think that perhaps he really did think it was funny but professional ethics prevented him from being vocal about it. I couldn’t bear to think this probably meant nothing more to him than writing a press release about software meant to me.

  He asked me to get dressed and left the room. I’d anticipated this requirement earlier in the day and was happy that I’d dug out a clean pair of briefs—navy blue, just in case—to wear.

  I waited, not sure what for. Biopsy results could not be spontaneous. I checked my phone. No one had called. Outside, the wind toyed with the Benediction shiny wet trees in Golden Gate Park, a few blocks to the right. I shivered, hating that cold water—

  Dr. Kim came back in. His gloves were off and he held a small brown paper bag.

  “It’ll take a few days, and we’ll call you with the results.” He handed me the bag. “Since you’re on your way out, could you drop these off at the lab in the basement?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said. “Should I tell them something?”

  Dr. Kim smiled. “They’ll know what this is.” He held out his hand. I quickly transferred the Bag to my left hand and shook his. “Good luck, Mr. Schmidt.”

  Once out of sight of medical personnel, I took a look inside the Bag, which appeared to any casual onlooker like it was my lunch. There was a small cylinder, which held a bunch of little vials filled with liquid, inside which floated bloody bits of tissue. I assumed these were from my prostate. They seemed like hangnails in a clear marinade. Was this what cancer looked like?

  I realized the high costs of health care demanded never-ending cut-backs, until all we’d get for our outrageous monthly premiums would be Band-Aids. However, making a possible cancer patient deliver his own biopsy material was ridiculous.

  The girl in the lab thanked me, took the samples and, along with my uncertain future, disappeared into the back—where I was sure they’d switch labels and make me the one guy who actually had cancer.

  3

  After the film ended, Glenda, Karen and I sat for a long time in silence. To her credit, Glenda had managed to finesse most of the scenes where I, rookie director, had neglected to get enough footage.

  In one scene, the faint outline of a mountain range could be seen in the far background. For a film supposedly set in the Midwest, this was an issue. I hoped no one would notice. Maybe they’d forget that earlier we took great pains to tell them our heroes were getting off a plane in a flat, brown, desolate landscape—what I’d intended to be a metaphor for their broken relationship.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “Guys—say something, anything. Please.”

  Glenda pressed a button on her console and the constant buzz in her studio ceased. Voices of the crazy people from the Tenderloin below invaded the space.

  Karen looked at me. “When will the score be finished—and when again are the Sundance deadlines?”

  Glenda consulted a list tacked up on the cracked wall next to her. “Got about a week and some change,” she said.

  I frowned. “DJ won’t return my calls, so I have no fucking idea where the music is.”

  DJ was a film composer I’d met at a support-group meeting for struggling artists. We hit it off and I liked the work on his reel, so we struck up a deal. The only problem was, he was impossible to pin down.

  “We’ll submit with the temporary soundtrack,” Karen said. “It works just fine.”

  “I don’t encourage directors to do that,” Glenda said. “You get too used to the songs you can’t afford, and it’s really hard to take them out.”

  I didn’t think the film worked very well without music. Nervous about it, I just wanted Hell for the Holidays done.

  I couldn’t control DJ and certainly couldn’t control what was going on inside of me. As I sat listening to Glenda and Karen, I wondered whether someone at Presidio already knew if I had cancer or not. Did they silently cheer if the samples were negative? Did they shake their heads in dread if they came back full of bad cells?

  I took the phone out of my pocket to check. No one had called. Well, no one of significance. There was, however, a message from Paul Sutcliffe.

  * * *

  Paul Sutcliffe was head of consumer marketing for Safe Harbor. He was the type of guy who made a person recoil when they got within five feet of him because of the negative energy field that surrounded his body.

  Paul had come to Safe Harbor from larger tech companies in the Silicon Valley, firms that were household names and had well-established marketing programs and defined chains of command. This was what he was used to and what he expected. We clashed at any and every opportunity.

  Physically, Paul was a disaster. He’d recently put a lot of weight onto his six-foot frame, and the buttons of his dress shirts had started to strain severely over his belly. The fat was unhealthy enough, but he also smoked constantly—inside his office, which was against the law, and which everyone at Safe Harbor ignored—and drank whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  Our relationship had started out friendly enough. He had an irreverent sense of humor and our frame of reference was similar, and he made jokes I could actually laugh at. There was an intelligence at work that could be dangerous if put to darker use. He was straight, a
nd a family man. In my book, this still indicated a certain amount of enviable stability. You never expected someone like that to plot against you. The goofy grin Paul kept plastered to his face could also be read as creepy.

  I was keenly aware—some might say paranoid—whenever I felt my turf was about to be invaded by enemy forces. That vibe from Paul had surfaced first in staff meetings, where he blindsided me on several issues relating to an enormous upcoming Las Vegas trade show.

  I went out into Glenda’s dark hallway to listen to his message. “Your people are not fucking doing what I need,” he said. “It’s Paul. I don’t mean to be so pissed, but Kelly is either lying or she’s too stupid to be believed.”

  Kelly was the junior member of my staff who helped out with travel plans. Or didn’t help at all, if Paul was to be believed.

  I leaned my head up against the peeling, greasy wall. For a moment, it was quiet and I closed my eyes. Paul finished his rant, a short one for him, and hung up. I erased his message and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

  There was some truth to what he’d said about Kelly. It was just one more thing for Monday, the day I expected to hear back from Dr. Kim. I tried not to think about that because it only made me sick. I zeroed my focus in on those two nice midwestern guys from Hell for the Holidays who were about to break up that fine Thanksgiving Day, alternated with thoughts of Jake’s tan, perfectly hairy thighs lazily brushing against my face…

  “Ben, get back in here. We need to make a decision,” Karen shouted.

  Back in Glenda’s apartment, Karen smiled. Stranger still, Glenda smiled. I don’t know whether I’d ever seen that expression on Glenda’s face before, as it was almost always fixed in the hardwired scowl inherited from her Scots ancestors.

  “What you say we get this version out there and see how it flies?” Karen said.

  On the frozen editing screen, Ron Frankhauser and Greg Graham—who played the on-screen lover, Warren, to Ron’s Steve—looked at us with wide-open eyes, pleading. It was a sign. Maybe that was the significance of that bulge in my bedroom wall. The movie was overdue and needed to be born.

  “OK.” I sat down and closed my eyes. There may have been something missing or not quite right with the film, but I had no idea what that would have been, and it had slipped from my grasp anyway. I had an overwhelming feeling that I had to finish this now, here, today, or it might not ever happen.

  * * *

  Jake had this part-time job fixing up windows for Sloane & Bradford, the unbelievably expensive men’s clothing store on Sutter Street near Union Square. Even with his employee discount, he couldn’t much afford anything in the place, not even the sexy underwear I’d prefer him to wear. Still, on occasion, he helped dress models for fashion demonstrations, and of course I was jealous. Jake never said what went on behind the changing curtains, but he wasn’t shy and we had no agreement about sexual exclusivity.

  As I checked the mousetraps in my apartment Sunday morning, I imagined him on his knees, blowing exotic Latin men with big brown…eyes and dark, smooth skin. The traps were empty. It had been several weeks since the infestation began, and Tommy had collected seven mice—or baby rats, as he stubbornly insisted—from my kitchen. None of them had run up the stairs or up the walls or whatever it is that rodents do to get from a basement to a third floor—in other words, Jake’s beautiful flat was still rodent free.

  This hardly seemed fair.

  I tried to clean the place. What I didn’t want to do was think about Dr. Kim and the biopsy, but it intruded into every task. Then it dawned on me. How ridiculous was it that a highly compensated marketing director such as myself should entertain the idea of cleaning his own apartment? What would it cost, fifty, seventy-five dollars every two weeks? I’d been so conscious of frugality as we made Hell for the Holidays, and it always seemed like every last dollar would be better spent on the project.

  Now it seemed very important and self-righteous that I have a cleaning person. OK, a fucking maid. Everyone else did; why not me? Not only was I busy; I might be sick. Certainly I could and should allow myself this one tiny luxury.

  I put the mop and bucket down, abandoning them in the middle of the kitchen floor, went into the bedroom and sat down at my desk. I was permanently hooked up to the Internet, the broadband cord like a blue-coded IV plugged into the laptop, which was merely an extension of my eyes, brain and hands—and occasionally, my cock.

  My innocent intention was to do an Internet search for a cleaning lady—exceedingly more important and satisfying than mopping up anything myself. I subscribed to several instant-messaging protocols—there was Yahoo, there was AOL, there was MSN—all trying to throttle each other and all free for the taking, so naturally I had all three, maximizing my chances of contact from Out There. In a few areas of my life, that virtual reality had become more reliable than the physical world beyond my door.

  There was already an IM from Eric when I sat down.

  What you doing? was all it said.

  The subtext here was: “I’m not doing anything and I thought it would be fun to come over and have sex with you and hang out, and then I’ll ask you if I can fuck you and you will hesitate and then say yes like you always do.”

  The cursor blinked at me, demanding a response. Automatically I typed in hopefully—getting together with you.

  Eric: What time?

  Me: Can you come over in an hour?

  Eric: See you then.

  I guess it was not the day to find a maid. No one could say this exchange was romantic, but it was efficient and it worked.

  * * *

  Eric Alvarez was considerably younger than I, probably still in his twenties, though I never asked. He was a mutt of some kind, I guessed a European-Latin mixture—which turned out to be Argentina—and the European part had given him male-pattern baldness. He cropped what was left of his hair very close to his head, so it appeared to be a dark shadow. I loved running my hands over it, feeling the stubble on his skull when we kissed.

  I’d met Eric on a Web site that promised instantaneous incredibly satisfying sexual hookups with horny men who want you. In a year of trolling, I’d met only him.

  Eric was tall and lean and hairy all over; nature was cruel in denying some of that hair for his head. He had a substantially sized cock, which he never said anything about, but for which I figured he must’ve gotten a lot of admiration and attention. Certainly he did from me. When sexually aroused, he’d grin from ear to ear but wouldn’t look at you directly—he looked off to the side a bit. It was like he was a little boy with a big secret to share but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

  I didn’t know much else about him, and he didn’t offer. I found this often was the case with younger men; either they didn’t want to chat or didn’t know how. He told me he was an artist with a day job in some kind of graphics thing—like that wasn’t a familiar story. The one time we did hook up at his place, at the top of the hill between the Castro and Noe Valley on a hot windy day that reminded me of Los Angeles, I saw some of his paintings (a series of crowns, like a king or queen would wear—I didn’t ask). So I knew he wasn’t lying about the artist part.

  * * *

  The cleaning animus of the previous hours evaporated as I sunk down into Eric’s lap. I liked to grind down into him, face him like I imagined some slutty carnival dancerette would, then watch for that smile and turn his head toward me so we could kiss. I never divulged that this hurt my back, as it would ruin the mise-en-scene. Within a few moments I’d feel his cock hardening through his jeans just under my ass.

  We’d get up, I’d take his hand and lead him into the bedroom. Secretly, I wanted him to pick me up and carry me in there, but it hadn’t happened and I didn’t want to ask in case he wasn’t strong enough to lift me.

  He’d come lying on top of me, his sweaty chest hair mingling with my own. He’d breathe softly into my neck and never say a word. After a few moments, he’d roll off to the left, and we’d stare up at the ce
iling. Every time, he’d stroke my hand lightly between my thumb and forefinger, then after a few moments, interlace his fingers with mine and gently squeeze.

  I’d look up through the cracked plaster and imagine Jake two stories above us with his ear planted on the floor.

  “Thanks for coming over,” I said. “Sure beats housework.”

  “Glad you were home, Ben.”

  “I gave you my number, right? You can always call. Doesn’t have to be online.” I turned to him. His eyes were closed.

  “Yeah, I have the number,” he said.

  The day got darker, colder, and it turned to rain. I offered to drive Eric back up the hill, but he had errands to do and left me with that little smile, off to the side, a hug and a final pat on the ass, like ending punctuation.

  He was out the door, but the mop and bucket were still there.

  4

  The weather hadn’t improved at all by Monday morning. I prided myself on my good ecocitizen bicycle habits, but what it really meant was that when it rained, I got soaked.

  I’d stashed extra clothing in my cubicle for such days. Soon enough, I was warm and dry, and the caffeine from Java SoMa across the street coursed through my veins.

  Good thing—Tony Mallard was in crisis.

  Seems Paul Sutcliffe had fucked me over already and it wasn’t even ten a.m. yet. Apparently he’d decided he didn’t like the arrangements made by Kelly for the upcoming Vegas event. In place of those, he’d mysteriously ordered one of his own minions—Kristin—to make duplicate plans at the hotel of his choice, which seemed to be in the same price range with nearly identical amenities.

  Motivations aside, what he had done that set Tony on an apoplectic course was to charge the new reservations to our internal budget, which put us in very bad standing for the quarter. Mallard called me into his office and told me to shut the door.

  What looked like an apricot scone lay half-eaten on Tony’s glass-topped desk, no napkin underneath it. My eyes moved to the stray crumbs and their greasy wake partially covering the top of the report I had given him the week before on our Texas market strategy. He hadn’t even read it and was already fouling it with his disgusting eating habits.