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By Root 6199 0

legs? I recalled that he asked me in to assist him when he was laying a purple jelly of his own mixture on horrible sores that punctured the legs of a lady who worked at the National Biscuit factory. I held the jar and the applicators for him and as he filled these holes he made confident quack conversation. I valued this woman for she always brought the doctor a shoe box filled with chocolate-marshmallow puffs and devil’s-food bars. As I remembered this, pulsations of chocolate sweetness came into the roof of my mouth. And then I saw myself sitting ecstatic in Dr. Lutz’s treatment chair while a snowstorm blackened the tiny offices painted clinical white and I read Hero-dias. Moved by the decapitation of John the Baptist I went into Naomi’s room. We were alone during the blizzard. I took off her warm terrycloth blue pajamas and saw her naked. These were the recollections that closed in on my heart. Naomi was no foreign body to me. That was just it. There was nothing alien in Naomi. My feeling for her went into her cells, into the very molecules that, being hers, all had her properties. Because I had conceived of Naomi without otherness, because of this passion, I was trapped by old Doc Lutz in a Jacob-Laban relationship. I had to help him wash his Auburn, a celestial blue car with white-wall tires. I poured from the hose and rubbed with the shammy while the Doctor in white linen golf knickers stood smoking a Cremo cigar.

“Oh Charlie Citrine, you surely have gone places,” said the old gentleman. His voice was still lyrical, high, and quite empty. He never had been able to make you feel that he was saying anything at all substantial. “Though I was a Coolidge and Hoover Republican myself, still when the Kennedys had you to the White House I was so proud.”

“Is that young woman your speed?” said Naomi.

“I can’t honestly say that I know. And what are you doing with yourself, Naomi?”

“My marriage was no good at all and my husband went on the loose. I think you know that. I brought two kids up anyway. You didn’t happen to read some articles by my son in the Southwest Township Herald?”

“No. I wouldn’t have known they were by your son.”

“He wrote about kicking the drug habit, based on personal experience. I wish you would give me an opinion on his writing. My daughter is a doll but the boy is a problem.”

“And you, Naomi, my dear?”

“I don’t do much any more. I have a man friend. Part of the day I’m a crossing guard at the grammar school.”

Old Doc Lutz seemed to hear none of this.

“It’s a pity,” I said.

“About you and me? No it’s not. You and your mental life would have been a strain on me. I’m into sports. My bag is football on TV. It’s a big outing when we get passes to Soldiers’ Field or to the hockey game. Early dinner at the Como Inn, we take the bus to the stadium, and I actually wait for fights on the ice and holler when they knock out their teeth. I’m afraid I’m just a common woman.”

When Naomi said “common” and Doc Lutz said “Republican” they meant that they had joined the great American public and thus found contentment and fulfillment. To have been a foot doctor in the Loop during the Thirties gave the old fellow joy. His daughter delivered a similar message about herself. They were pleased with themselves and with each other and happy in their likeness. Only I, mysteriously a misfit, stood between them with my key. Obviously what ailed me was my unlikeness. I was an old friend, only I was not wholly American.

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

“Couldn’t we have a beer together sometime? I’d love to see you,” said Naomi. “You could advise me about Louie better than anybody. You haven’t got hippie kids yourself have you?” And as I took her number she said, “Oh, look Doc, what a neat little book he writes in. Everything about Charlie is so elegant. What a handsome old guy you’re turning into. But you’re not the type any woman could ever tie down.” As they watched I went back to the booth and raised up Renata. I put on my hat and coat and pretended that we were going outside. I felt the dishonor of everybody.

The conference-rate