DOCTOR SPEC’S VERSION

I am a doctor (yes, medical), and I have never married, though I have had my opportunities. I say that, but I suppose those are best classified as Untested Hypotheses, since I’ve never given anybody the old one-knee. Many people such as my receptionist Earla and my parents and one specific horse-faced buddy bring up my singlehood at age forty as bizarre, similar to grafting horns to my skull for this world to admire.

There was Med School Mandy and we had something where I sang her the song of her name (Ma-an-dy) and she giggled like I was the first. I am pretty sure brown-haired Mandy would have married me. Truth be told, she had a pretty dim wit (I mean, the song and all), but then again, who knows how she might have developed? I have grown myself to the point where I cannot stand the person I once was (one example, the singing) so that I sometimes wonder how we know if a person will change into something remotely desirable or will forever be a ninny.

On occasion I find myself in the presence of young female patients while they are naked. It does have an effect. Old ones, for that matter, and that does something to a person too, but not what you would think. Someone like my horse-faced friend Barlow cannot stop asking me about the nakedness. “C’mon, Spec,” he’ll whinny. “You can’t tell me you don’t think about it. All those women, waiting to melt at the feet of their doctor man.” Owing to my occupation, I have learned something about the nature of fantasy. I tell Barlow just because he is married and gets the shakes thinking about my own reality, do not think I bear a similar quiver. With all that naked, well, let’s just say the shine is off that penny.

But I am really telling the story of me and one particular girl, and I will try not to be too defensive. It is not like she was seventeen (though I have heard her say she has been asked to present identification at the ticket window); no, twenty-three-ish, top-to-bottom smack in adulthood. I tell Barlow it is not even a point to be debated, so that in any kind of legal conversation twenty-three consorting with “already-forty” would not be a problem. But you go ahead and try to drive that one around town. See how far you get without encountering some downright cross-eyed vitriol.

Let me tell you that I am not a fan on any level of doctor-patient shenanigans, and I do not appreciate those chain-chested doctors—in fact, fiction and on screen—who cultivate presumptions (such that feed Barlow’s fantasies) about the eligible men of my field. I mean, sexual harassment is a real thing, and its specter trots beside me into every exam room. Do not think I am unaware of the state of affairs;sometimes I find it difficult to even see a patient for the haze of latent accusation hanging in the air.

Often when I approach a patient now I will not ask her to remove her articles but will demonstrate certain exams and techniques in the air that she needs to perform for her health, or maybe on the palm of my own hand, along with a lot of nodding that encourages understanding. What I am saying here is this may not be medically sound but here we are.

So I have gotten myself into a dangerous position here and now that you know some of the policies that I have always felt strongly about (hands off!), well now you have to know about Tawny. Firstly, I consider her name to be nearly unutterable to me. It is not a name I can say in a way that makes me feel good about myself. I can begin all right, but when my lips begin to round out and my tongue must dive down into the “N” I do not know how to say it as a noun but as a lusty adjective. All I am saying is her name, but I have found myself incapable of saying it without a little hum on my tongue that seems to suggest I might be thinking about (even though I am not) something like, say, her—and I use the following word advisedly—titties.

I have flashes of me being interviewed darkly, on that show after football. Me in shadow and my voice at my request altered and still, I say “Tawny” and even with the benefit of the garble, all the familied world has to go have a shower.

If you knew me you would wonder, how might he get to stand next to her fire? Or maybe, how could the guy, being of such a mature age and occupation that is, not hold himself back? Some things I cannot answer. I also feel the need to educate the questioner because I have found there are significant hidden aspects to said questions. Implications that draw her as an O my fantasy girl, or, some kind of power slut. I hope to do some damage to that spectrum, and more.

You keep wondering what the deal is with this Tawny, and I do still—I mean, it’s confusing—but I will tell you what I know. She has worked for me in the office for only a few short months. Earla hired her; I left it to her, so you cannot say Tawny’s appearance factored.

With regard to her appearance, she has done some modeling, so some of you smarties will dismiss her as a person. You will try to keep her from taking residence in your mind as someone to admire or learn from or even appreciate. You will say she chooses her lot as an object. But if ever you see her, and I could lift open your headbone, bam, there she will be, despite your efforts, an electric blue in your memory. At a party, you will discuss my being with Tawny and you will offer yourself as a creature superior to both of us. Here, then, let me mount a bit of a defense—not to prevent you from going to your party, no, but when you speak, add this knowledge to the tone of your voice.

Lots of people say they themselves, or that guy or that girl, could be a model, but sorry, no. A small, small percentage of people can actually be models, and for them it is very hard in fact not to be a model. Ineluctable, even. Tawny has the kind of dappled skin that makes you believe she emerged from a river, that if you put your tongue to her you would taste soil. She looks in pictures as if she does not know anything about your fantasies or how she affects them, and as far as I can vouch this is actuality. I am incapable of knowing what she wants from this life, but I feel sure that she does not curry your desire.

One of her photos is a front foldout in one of my waiting room magazines. Creased, speckled with germprints. Fuzzy lens, eyes away from the camera, windblown hair. No smile.

“What’s wrong with a smile?”

“It’s not fashionable.”

“Do you know what men think when they look at your photos?”

“How long before the nurse finally calls for them?”

“What do you think when you look at your photos?”

“I don’t look.”

(How hard is this for people like us to believe?)

One day she accompanies me on the walk to the parking lot. She is perched, of course, on roller blades.

“Those are nice.” I nod to the wheels.

Shrug.

“They seem to work well. I’m thinking of getting a pair.”

Smirk.

“No, I am serious about that. Next time you see me, I will not be walking with a jerky gait.”

“You’ll be rolling.”

“I will be rolling.”

We are at the end of the cars. I have to confess.

“I cannot remember where my car is. With you here, nothing is coming to my head.”

“I’ll help you.” Her face, to me, is blank.

“The car is pale green.”

“I know what color it is.”

She floats away from me above the hoods. She cuts a figure. I locate my imagination. I thank her outwardly and inwardly I thank her again: she finds where I belong.

I say without embarrassment my fantasies run along more chaste courses. For example, I will see a woman who has a certain kind of cut to her hair, thick black make-up lines, and maybe she is a little pale and thin but with a positively defined edge—I mean fire-tipped hands. I could be with her, but just in the way where we take the town by cinematic storm, never sleeping, rob a bank or two, and maybe kiss. Always, I would be Clyde, you know, to her Bonnie, and, come on, I could never touch those hands.

The real difficulty with Tawny is that she, apparently, was a patient of mine once at a much younger age. I cannot remember it; you see, some doctors see themselves as healers, but I tell you I am not. I am a mechanic. I fix what shows itself as needing fixing. But there it is in the records, her last visit about a month before Earla saved my office with her motherly efficiency.

Earla is just six years older than me, but with four daughters in or almost in college, she has told me she looks upon me as a son. If I make a mistake, or if I am cross with her for a scheduling snafu, she nods her head like any good mother would and her subsequent quietness both comforts me and forces me to mull the frightful and irrevocable depth of my flaws.

When Tawny and I are chatting, I will look Earla’s way and try to ferret from her a look of disdain. I wait for the disapproval from the woman of like-aged daughters. I wait for her to fix me as the predator I am. Look, my eyes say, don’t you see what I’m doing here? I am talking. And Lord knows what I am thinking along with the talking! Not to mention the subterranean planning that might be going on. But all Earla does is shuffle a paper or two and glance over with eyes warm as apple pies. Maybe she will smile. Once she walked over in a purposeful way and I thought, here it comes, and she patted my shoulder and I flinched and she said, “You kids should go get some lunch.” If that is the best she can come up with, frankly I fear for her daughters.

***

I’d had thoughts about Tawny, but the event that really seemed to ratchet things up was a dream I had in which we did in fact make love, right there in an exam room. I do not have to tell you the utter insignificance of the dreamstate mind that eroticizes anything from willy to nilly. So I do not know why I told Barlow of my dream. Because I knew he would tongue-lolling enjoy it? Because I felt a need to represent like a man? The sneery kind in locker rooms? Take your pick, but I told.

“Oh man, you gotta get with that,” Barlow says. And, having admired her on previous occasions, “She’s one you can take out in the daylight.”

This, coming from Barlow whose wife is sane and giving and acceptable (putting her far ahead of Barlow in the user’s manuals) but who, as he has told me and I can confirm, has certain quirks:“There’s about five seconds in the life of a banana where she’ll actually eat it. Can’t be green, can’t be ripe. If she sees the wrong kind of spot on one, she stands in the kitchen and just sort of rocks until I come get rid of it.”

Friends like Barlow are not hard to come by; it’s the other kind that is hard to find.

I saw Tawny shortly after the dream, when its effects were still at work on me. I may need to explain this dream. First, this was not a misfigured blobby mind creation. She felt real. A person. No nakedness, no heavy breathing, no porn snarl. Only her face. Now, I do not believe in magic, but I believe in the magical and I awakened in it. Not quite the feeling of conquest, but close. A belonging.

I wanted to see if I could remain calm in front of her and not morph, as I had before, into an incoherent, pock-faced kid at a gymnasium dance. That dream felt real, down to the dendrites, and I still had the shivers of it on my skin when I entered that room. I will admit I had a jackass kind of smug on, too. Those first moments felt fine. Judge for yourself:

Me: Glad you could make it this morning.

She: What? I wasn’t late.

Me: (Raised eyebrows, elevated heart. A too-quick attempt to cross arms, clipboard cuffing chin.) No, no, I mean to say good morning! Guten morgen!

She: _____.

Exeunt.

That evening, I took her to dinner. She makes things easier. She is a terrible dancer, but she dances. She does not talk about our future, and she knows not to joke about the age difference overmuch. She often outpaces me with her wisdom. Really, I have only seventeen on her, and what are seventeen years? I was an idiot at seventeen, so do those years even count?

When I see Tawny I see her round face, her long hair, her short hair, I see her at seventeen and how she is now, I see her at times in the past when I did not know her, and I see what she could be in days to come. I see all versions of her at once. I do not know whether to call this love, but it is hard to deny what I see.

I feel that in order to be a good person I should not end up with her. I am not a good person. I am not sure what sort of person I will be tomorrow. But what of the dream? What of fate? Passion? Rationalizations, all. I am an unethical person, and with that I am unhappy.

I am not just saying this. I am distressed by the way our society runs in terms of the ethics involved. Who thinks of them anymore? Act first, make up the rules later. No big deal, who cares? You’ll get no objection, no scorekeeper knocking on your door. And if a person is caught, then the fault lies in systems, conspiracies and alliances. I hope where I am different is that I come out and say I do not measure up. Not even to my own standards. And I have not changed those standards, and I do not think you should either. I am below standards, but I am still a believer in the standards.

THINGS I HAVE NOT TOLD YOU: I am ugly when I am naked. I have some freakish moles, and unsightly hairs. Some of my skin expands, some of it shrivels. I do not ask her what she thinks of my nakedness; of that, I cannot imagine. But I do ask bigger questions.

I will die before you.

I am old. I will grow older.

Will you be my brain when mine turns to oatmeal?

Will you be Nancy to my Ronnie? When the cameras roll, will you put your lips to my casket?

Silence.

Of course I know it’s not fair to ask such questions. Maybe I have things mixed up. Maybe I will have to be Nancy. Maybe I will be the one to weep, taste the casket’s varnish.

She is not all beauty. She does have those highlights in her hair which never make me think of the beach, only the stink and brutality of beauty shops. Her lips glisten when she talks of her future lives that most certainly will never happen, and I’m fairly sure she still does not understand how the world treats the ugly people.

I see the ugly people. They come to me shaking. They want answers. They show me their private hairs growing in a strange and somewhat delicate camber. What can this mean? Read the spots on my back, doctor. Make my fingers bend. I am shrinking, shrinking! Find cancer in me. I answer them, but I have questions, too. Will my ugliness change her? When? How long does she have? Can she save me? Will her fingers bend into mine? When she sees they do not fit, how long will she stay?

There are other things I have not told you, things that will make you think I am pathetic. Yes, even more.

I fired Tawny. I am not sure if she will follow through with bringing suit against me. Earla tells me I’ve done nothing wrong, but I know she is very unhappy with me.

“It had to be done,” I say. “For her, if nobody else.”

Earla shakes her head. “I don’t accept that,” she says. “I’ll hire a replacement, but I think you know where I stand.”

And I do. Earla sees a version of me that pleases her, the one she believes is a healer, not a mechanic, and when the real me and that other me do not square themselves, she interprets it as if I am a child writing a backwards R. Leave the kid alone; that mistake will work itself out. Me, I’m not so sure. I’ve always had pretty bad penmanship.

Many of my evenings now I spend watching television with Barlow. I understand how his wife is only too happy to let him out of the house. His lips smack as he eats. I mention that they used to put peanut butter on the lips of TV horse Mr. Ed.

“To make it look like he was talking.”

Barlow shows me his gums. They are a clean, happy pink.

So I have lied to you about some key things. Others may use the euphemism “misled,” but I am not interested in an apologist’s ethics. I have implied that I crossed a line in my relationship with Tawny. That might be true, depending on who is drawing that line. There are people out there who have drawn lines that I did not cross with Tawny, but others have lines that I’m fairly sure I leaped right over. Barlow asks if I slept with her, but I do not answer. “You should know me well enough to know the answer to that question,” I say, affecting a high sense of moral authority. “You’re a faker,” Barlow says, narrowing his eyes, and I say, “I am a mechanic.”

Something was there, I have to believe. She happened. Not exactly in the way I said, though. Tawny is more of a local model, actually, and her acute affection for curly fries will see that her career will advance no further. She is closer to twenty than twenty three. She is rather smarter than I have let on, and I understand she is pre-med in what passes for college these days. Why have I told this version, then? In this way? Because you are not interested in restraint. No matter what you feel about everything else, deep down, tell me what you say to the man who does not act upon his desires? I do not know myself what to say to it. Something in me is ugly, of that I am sure, but I do not know whether to name it my restraint or my desire.

I adjust my coat, snap the sheet onto my clipboard, and prepare myself to walk into the exam room.

“Tawny.” It comes out rather well this time.

She sits on the exam table, her ankles crossed. “I just wanted to tell you I understand.”

My heart skips. I dare not hope that she does. “You do?”

She nods.

I notice the belly ring, de rigueur for her generation, really, but to my eyes it is an entry into a new world. Pull it, and the world is mine. I make no judgments. I move closer.

“You’re uncomfortable,” she says. “I make you uncomfortable.”

I lower my head, because even though she has not quite touched on it, I cannot refute her.

She touches my hand. I want to flinch because her fingers feel hot, but then I realize they are a bony, blackwater cold. She whispers in my ear.

“You want precise,” she says. Her breath spills across my neck. “And I,” she says, then takes my earlobe in her mouth, slowly dragging her teeth away, “I am not precise.”

My finger grazes the ring in her belly. I give it a little flip and feel gristle and resistance. If I pull it, I think, she would split open. But no: into blossom. I argue with myself. I let my fingers go lax and maybe even close my eyes, to see, by chance, if one might find the center of the ring.

After she leaves, I remove the clipboard from my armpit, begin scribbling. But there’s really no place on the form for something like this.

Later I will tell Barlow that I have known splendor. He will smack his gums in response, turn to me, pat me on the head. He will think I said something else. He will think I said nothing. His head will leap to where it wants to leap. I will put my hands on my naked belly and jiggle it a little, and hum a tune. Everything inside me is dancing. The person I am, I am ineluctable.

by Chris Haven