Surreal Hounds

by

Diana Saenz

Her predecessor was the Spartan type. To Lucia, this meant she was probably a good secretary--she was devoid of imagination. Unimaginative secretaries had little need for a lot of office supplies. They were linear and minimalists. Oftentimes they had the biggest piles of filing because they remembered every memo and letter that passed under them and knew under which mess to look. They saw only block-busters and read The Examiner every morning, ate half a rock-hard bagel, and had the digestive tracts of garbage disposals. It was part of that Emotional IQ that everyone was talking about these days. Theirs pointed to "excellent secretary."

Lucia had been a temporary office worker for the past three years. She was getting tired of it but the thought of committing to a straight job frightened her. Besides who would hire her with three years of temping on her resume? Maybe she would meet a rich man, an interesting rich man who would love her madly and they could get married and live in Brazil. Maybe she would win the lottery. She had played the lottery twice in her life, each time searching for her number like the rest of them, thinking she would be a winner.

Maybe she would become a famous poet, and like Anne Sexton, she would be in demand, commanding $4,000 a reading. She wasn’t crazy enough to be another Sexton, besides Sexton had milked that to death. There were poets as crazy as Sexton, but in a relevant 90’s way--with better medications--and they were milking that for what it was worth. She had to find her own angle. The ones that were having success were the sexually adventurous and those who wrote about their recovery. Tenured professors got published and made (she imagined) their students buy their books. Lucia was unfortunate in that she had very little to recover from. Of course there had been John with all his addictions. That had taken one careful reading of Women Who Love Too Much and a year of therapy with a Hippie psychologist and suddenly at 40, she was happy. Happier than she had ever been. At first she worried she would no longer have anything to write about, but individual happiness had nothing to do with the state of the world. Could happiness be her angle? Get rich on happy poetry? Hallmark did it.

Lucia pulled out her new chapbook from her knapsack and leafed through it. She loved the feel of it. She had been selling copies at every reading she went to. She had netted about $47, so far. Well anyway, she was a good temp, and always in demand--like being a good open mike poet: plenty of featured readings, but very little money.

She practiced the names of the two professors she would be supporting for the next few weeks. Andre Kamenkovich and Wes Scott. Wesserly? Western? Westminster? More like Wus--why was she so hostile today? She hated that word. There was Wes Montgomery. Perhaps it wasn’t the name but what you did with it. Charles Parker. Nothing exciting about that name. "You can’t judge a book by it’s cover." She mumbled aloud.

"What book is that?"

Lucia looked up and saw a man--probably one of her professors--peering at her. He seemed disheveled and in a perpetual hurry. He had a cow lick or he had slept wrong on his hair. He had blue eyes--curious, merry blue eyes. But his expression wasn’t merry. It was tired. In the morning? Not tired. Maybe he was just a man in his forties. That’s when there is still enough youth left to make the first signs of age look like fatigue. He was tall and raw-boned but seemed at ease in his body--except for the tension in his shoulders. She wanted to say, "Did you play basketball in high school?"

Instead, "Oh, I always talk to myself," came out. This one must be Wes Scott. His body went with his name. It wasn’t the body of an Andre Kamenkovich. She lay her book of poetry face down. His eyes flickered on the book for about a nanosecond before introducing himself. As he spoke she watched him set down a stack of papers perpendicular to the edge of her desk. Right now he’s wondering if I’m smart enough to do what he asks of me with a minimum of explanation.

In half an hour Professor of Economic Business Strategy, Wes Scott would be standing before 85 avaricious MBAs, passing out the case study they were to discuss for twenty-five percent of their grade. They would be asking him questions--Meekan was likely to be the first one. Meekan reminded Wes of a mismatched hybrid canine breed. He had a way of talking that irritated Wes, spoke rapidly, like a DeeJay and was very articulate with each and every word enunciated meticulously. Meekan would never say "Whatsamatter." His questions needed to be shorter. He was a bore but his girlfriend deserved him, anyway the one he saw him with in pub a few weeks ago. Another business student with a chiseled hair cut. She made him nervous--he had a sudden image of her with teeth in her panties, clacking teeth. This upset him. He wasn’t a chauvinist--he wasn’t. Even in jeans and a knit shirt she seemed to be wearing a wrinkleless suit. They were the leaders of the future. He shuddered. How did he ever end up here? Oh yes, the mathematics--one thing led to another. His father was right. He should have been a baseball player but what would he be at 45? A drunk? A has-been? A coach? Own a dry-clean store or several? Spinning pizzas? Rich? Probably rich with his middle class upbringing and frugal father.

Would he have been any happier? Happiness wasn’t in his make up. That’s what his wife had told him--ex-wife. Don’t listen to her, he told himself. Anyone who hated sex that much. It shocked him to think this--he never once thought of her as hating it--not in the 17 years of their marriage as he chased her around the bed and apologetically, or angrily, or passionately, or determinedly, or hungrily, dropped his seed into her. But now, years later, suddenly, he admitted it. She had hated sex from the start. It was okay to ignore sex if you were an academic. So many papers, and classes, and books, to swallow one’s time, so much brain work, sex could be forgotten--by most. And being that they were both academics--except he was different and thought often about sex; dreamt it--dizzying, erotic, wonderful dreams, mini-Odysseys with various students or colleagues or perfect strangers. But he had remained scrupulously loyal and never once cheated on his wife.

Why had the temp laid the book face down? She had colored slightly. She wasn’t the kind that blushed regularly--he felt this clearly. She was secretive. Like him. He understood secretiveness immediately. His wife had never been. She had always felt that what she wanted and what she did and what she got were synchronized. He had envied her, the straight lines of her life--except for him--except that he was, if he was observed from a distance--if one read through his resume and no further.

He went to class and handed out 85 copies of the case studies. All 85 students were there to pick them up. Lydon looked sick as a dog. Meekan asked his question first as usual and Wes surprised himself because he was able to answer Meekan without a trace of rancor, contempt or impatience in his voice. Wes congratulated himself. Yoko asked a question next. She was usually second, but he didn’t mind hers. They were sincere. She was not quite comfortable in English. She wanted to be absolutely certain she got it right. Meekan was just a show-off. A Yoko had married John Lennon--one of his heroes. He liked the younger Yoko also. She had a chiseled hair cut, but it looked natural on her shiny black Asian hair. Tomorrow’s leader in Japan? He felt a pang in his chest and a great sense of injustice and no particular reason for it. If he had examined this feeling, he would have probably said: We just hand over the world, as is, to our innocent young people? But he avoided analysis because it inevitably fed an apathy towards his work that he strove valiantly to ignore. Meekan was anything but innocent--conniving maybe, but not innocent. Nobody had to hand him the world--he would just take it and not relinquish it until he was good and dead and the world was in worse condition.

When Wes came back from class he stopped to pick up his mail. The temp was not at her desk. His eyes swept the desk for the book she had turned face down. She had stuck it in one of the slots. Without a thought he reached over to pull it out when the temp suddenly appeared.

"Are you looking for something?" she asked him. Her face was open and sincere. She suspected nothing.

"Just a pen. I need to make a note," he lied. She gave him the pen she had in her hand and he jotted the word, "book," and then hurried back to his office.

Lucia sat down then realized he had taken her pen. She went into his office. The door was open he was sitting, staring at his "note."

"My pen."

The professor stood up as if rebuffed. He fumbled in his pocket, then saw the pen on his desk. "You have to watch me." he said.

Great sense of humor, thought Lucia as she walked back to her desk. She noticed her pen had a tooth-mark on it where he had already bitten it. She found some Windex in one of the drawers and washed off the pen. Then absentmindedly, stuck it in her mouth, tasting the Windex. Good thing I washed it off, she thought. What if he has AIDS? But that was unlikely; how would he have gotten it? Unless he was anemic. He certainly wasn’t getting laid--but how could she be sure of this? He did have that merry glint in his blue eyes. Merry doesn’t necessarily mean sexually active and satiated. It could mean madness. Some people had eyes that conveyed feelings that they entirely lacked. There was Carmela, the little girl next door she had grown up with. Her eyes always sparkled, though she never did. She was intelligent but dull. She was probably a professor somewhere in some University by now. Lucia sighed and opened up Kamenkovich’s schedule, looking for a window sometime between tomorrow and the end of the month. There were very few.

"Give me, give me, give me a window to hang blinds, blinds, blinds," she chanted softly.

She wondered if they really liked their lives, every moment of their days filled with meetings and classes and gathering and events and exams and consultations. When did they have time to really think? Weren’t they paid to think? She wasn’t sure. This was what they had spent so much time and effort and money to do, to stay in school. Who was she to talk, a successful poet? There was money now in the slams, but she hated the concept, even the word. It was the compromise of poetry, being rated on a 1-10 basis, as if poetry could be measured in such a way. It was just that poets didn’t get much for their efforts but a little Ego building, and slamming built up a few Egos at a cost to the rest. But SLAMs were not the downfall of poetry as some poets claimed¾ nothing could cause that. Poetry would live on, if only in a few scraggly poets huddled together in a heaterless room, while a noisy town meeting went on in an adjacent room. For Lucia poetry was a cost free method of self-expression. In the open mike circuit even talent wasn’t required to join the club, just intestinal fortitude. It was the purest form of self-expression and it was Everyman’s art.

Lucia e-mailed the other professor’s secretary--Administrative Assistant--and confirmed the appointment. Then she had nothing to do. Her hand automatically went to her chapbook and opened it.

"Poetry?"

She looked up and found Wes Scott looking over her shoulder.

"Oh, well I didn’t have anything to do."

"Whose poetry?"

"Well it’s mine." She sounded apologetic, embarrassed. This made her furious. Why did she apologize for what was her passion and life’s work? "Yes, I’m a poet. It’s mine."

"Oh?" He seemed genuinely impressed. These types were very politic.

"Occasionally, I also write poetry." It surprised him at how modest he sounded.

"Really?" Talk about him, she thought. She didn’t want him to ask who was the publisher so she would have to say, she had published it herself.

"It’s pretty thick."

Back to her, "I’ve always been prolific. I wrote an very long piece in between this, but that needs its own book." God, she sounded nonchalant, falsely modest and the sly braggart. She was actually blathering uncontrollably. Change the subject! screamed inside her head. She hated these snooty bastards with their degrees and schedules and tenure and expense reports to Paris and Lithuania and Argentina--these bloodless, stinking, pampered, hardened arteries.

"I could bring in my book tomorrow if you’d like. Maybe you could lend me a copy of yours. Do you have another copy?"

What did he think? That she only had one copy, that she printed them ten at a time--which she did. What did he want from her? To gloat, most likely. There was a poem in this she thought, then dismissed it. Open mike poets were always bad-mouthing academic poets. It was a cliché subject. But not if she really dug, found a unique angle. She dismissed it again. She wasn’t going to waste her time. After all she liked reading John Ashberry and Wallace Stevens. She liked Sylvia Plath better than Allen Ginsberg and thought Ann Sexton sometimes got a little sloppy. Her tastes might be considered "academic," but it wasn’t about that. What about: mediocre academic poets. Genius is studied, but mediocrity rules. Very abstract. It would be work to make the idea palatable, make it come alive. Lucia believed one could make a poem, a good poem from anything.

"Sure." She said. "Bring yours. I’d like to see it. I’ll bring you a clean copy of mine. This one has notes in it." He wouldn’t be the only one gloating¾ she would gloat over his pristine over-educated, metered stanzas with the same amount of same-sized lines. She would gloat over his polished style and bloodless reminiscences of garden paths and inevitable death. Fuck him. Maybe he might learn something about life if he read her work¾ how real people live. The bastard.

When she came in the next day. There was a small stack of hand written notes on her desk for her to type. On top of the stack was a thin volume of poetry, hard-cover. She opened it up and noted it was published in New York. All the poems were six stanza with four lines each. Of course. The lines were the same size. Anything else would have surprised her. She read the stanza of one of the poems. It was something about sinking down into the earth. Of course. But it was a good line. The book was dedicated to his wife. That didn’t mean he was getting laid. If anything, he put it in there in an attempt to tempt her into bed. It hadn’t worked, Lucia concluded and snickered.

She placed her book lovingly in his in-box thinking about the Spartans who left their newborn child one night on a mountain exposed to the elements.

She didn’t see either of the professors all morning. When she came back from lunch, Scott’s in-box was empty and his phone light was on, on her phone. Her stomach tightened and her heart sank. Fuck him. Fuck them all.

She had an e-mail message requesting Scott’s bio. She searched through the files and found the latest version and opened it. Another over-achiever. He had published 41 papers, written two books, co-written another, and was presently researching how the liberalization of competitive multinationals affect industrial structure and strategy of third world countries--whatever that meant. But interestingly, he had come to the MBA program by a circuitous route. Bachelors in Literature, Masters in Mathematics, Ph.D. in Economics. As if he couldn’t make up his mind. Suddenly she felt sorry for the poor bastard, then quickly shoved the feeling out of her head--first read his poetry, then decide if he deserves your pity.

She sent off two e-mails, confirming meetings and made a few slides for Kamenkovich’s class. One of the slides was from the Dilbert comic strip. Now here was somebody who had found his angle and escaped the rat race by exposing it. The telephone clock flicked to 5:00. She shut down the computer and when home, Scott’s book in her knapsack.

As usual, Mimi was meowing at the door while Wes fumbled with the key to his home. She accompanied him to his office where he dumped his books and briefcase. She followed him to the bathroom, watched good-naturedly as he relieved himself, then hurried into the kitchen ahead of him anticipating something tastier than kibble. She sat patiently on a chair and blinked occasionally as he heated up left-overs. He sectioned out an ort from his dinner for Mimi. Man and beast took the same amount of time to eat their respective meals. Afterward, he read project summaries as Mimi gave herself a luxurious cat bath. Homework completed, Wes turned on the television and listened to the news, then went for a 45 minute walk. A muted sadness hovered over him as he trekked the familiar neighborhood. Wes remembered the temp’s book of poetry and perked up. Something different to look forward to. He hoped he would not be disappointed. What if he was? He would have to hide it the next day. His heart sank for a moment, then he turned around and hurried home.

Mimi was already curled up in bed. She knows me as well as my wife ever did, he thought, then regretted it. In spite of everything he still loved his wife. She had replaced all the coeds, associates and strangers in his erotic fantasies. She was always willing in his imagination and usually made the first move. Or maybe he had gotten lazy even in his fantasies and since she was the closest unavailable woman, it was to her that his mind defaulted and the fantasies focused. Wes put the whole thing out of his mind and opened the temp’s book.

"The dream moves sluggishly away

like a cur banished from a laden table"

How apropos, he thought and read on.

Lucia read the slim volume in its entirety. Some of the verse had quickened her heartbeat.

"There grew a rift between the body, mind and spirit

each claimed it was more important than the other

the body found the others tangential and footless. . ."

His stanzas wound a sultriness around her. When the meaning eluded her, the mood and tension of the words did not. There was something she needed from his work. It was more than tangential, there was an underlying stream that ran from her work to his. It wasn’t often that she recognized this in another poet’s work and it always excited her. But this time, not a whole lot. What kind of dialogue would she ever get from this guy? What was he doing in the Business School? Why wasn’t he in Humanities? Now she felt sorry for him, but not much. After all he was the one with a hard cover volume of poetry.

The next day she came in. The book was in her knapsack to be returned to the professor. She had vowed to buy it without his knowledge.

Scott was dawdling at his in box. Her book was in his hand. His cowlick was gone.

"Good morning," she said. He turned around.

"Hi. I liked your poetry. I’d like to purchase this copy if you don’t mind.

He wasn’t one to waste words.

"Sure--Why don’t we just trade? I liked your poetry also."

"Sounds very fair."

"Um, you got something for me there?"

"Oh yes, can you call Steve Margolis and tell him . . ."

She was relieved when he finally left. The next three days she remained as neutral as possible. She re-read some of his book until she felt compelled to write something of her own. When she was done she noted that he had influenced her writing. This had happened before but this time it didn’t please her. Was it because she knew him? No. It was because of what he was. She was prejudiced, she admitted, but she refused to let it bother her. On Friday afternoon Scott asked her to type something at 4:30. She wasn’t through until the other two secretaries--Administrative Assistants--had gone home, but she didn’t mind. There was a poetry reading at a nearby bookstore at 6:00. She would have just enough time to get there.

Wes sat in his swivel leather chair, frozen in thought. His left hand was raised midway between his knee and shoulder.

. . .Dull dog-eared surreal hounds

with behemoth smellers and fly feet . . .

These lines in particular kept running through his head and it made him smile each time. The lines described Meekan with his protuberant nose, yapping questions in his tiny Nikes. The difference between her poetry and his was that hers was unguarded, or perhaps his was so guarded. He never wrote about actual incidents. In fact he had always avoided them, never wanting to reveal any wayward sentiments in the event that one of his colleagues might read it. He had told himself he was rising above the muck of life to a higher order. But her poetry seemed to bring life itself to a higher order. It crackled, simultaneously polished and raw, and it stung him to think in avoiding his own life the poetry he wrote might be remote. Except that nobody’s life was without contradictions¾ even the temp’s. Did she consider his poetry remote? What did she think of hers? He stood up, ostensibly to pick up the typing from her.

As he approached, she was just shutting down her system. He smiled. There was an air of expectancy about him. She looked at him suspiciously.

"I wondered if you’d like to talk for awhile--I mean about your poetry. I wanted to ask you a few things."

"Oh? Well, I’m on my way to a poetry reading. There’s one at six at Howard’s Books tonight.

"A poetry reading?

"Well yes, with an open mike and a feature.

"What’s an open mike?"

She was glad it was this one they were going to. It had a sober atmosphere and the poets, though some good, some bad, some indifferent, were all listeners and came to be heard and hear others read their work. The host was a soft-spoken man with buck teeth and long thick eyelashes that softened Lucia’s heart.

Wes and Lucia sat in the last row. His absent minded manner of dressing made him look no different than anyone else. She checked him regularly for signs of disdain but found none. She began to relax. Cecily Brown was the first reader. She was a retired professor of French and always had something interesting to say. The professor seemed genuinely rapt. He had a nice profile. As Cecily sat down, Lucia noticed her natural grace and that she had the bone structure of a 30’s starlet. Lucia was in her element and as sometimes happened, a sense of euphoria pervaded her. A Jason Lowell was called. He was a beautiful young man with blond curly hair tied in the back. He seemed very shy. As he opened his mouth, Lucia remembered him.

"The slime from your vagina drips into my mucus brain. . ."

"Let’s go," she said. Once they were outside, she said, "I’ve heard him read before. He’s like Pandora’s Box, beautiful on the outside and full of demons inside. He’ll go on oozing bodily fluids for another twenty minutes, unless the host asks him to leave before he’s done. He needs help. It’s Friday, I need a drink."

This delighted Wes. Then, without warning he became aware of walking through one of those coruscating days where one rises in a nondescript morning, and progresses through the day into an unexpected evening. He steered her toward a quiet place he knew with wooden booths that insured privacy. A sense of excitement soothed and jangled his nerves at the same time. She wasn’t bad looking, not bad at all. He skin was nice and she had a soft mouth, full lips. Some had hard mouths, but hers was soft--sensual. "Dull dog-eared surreal hounds with behemoth smellers and fly feet." She had a keen sense for the absurd. She couldn’t be the kind who hated sex. Wes was familiar with this game, which he never took seriously: speculating on a woman. He would study a woman and imagine her in bed, what kind of lover would she be, how would she please him and what would please her. It was the safest forms imaginable.

She seemed more comfortable now. In the office she was wary, but why shouldn’t she be. He was wary and he had been there twelve years. They talked about poetry for hours. He was fascinated, it was so different than the usual topics he discussed. She seemed knowledgeable, but the best part were her unorthodox ideas, and she had a dedication to her calling that Wes envied. She didn’t seem to notice that the bartender kept bringing them gin and tonics. By 10:00 he decided to buy the condoms from the vending machine in the men’s room and stick them in his wallet. It had been five months since Mary in Denver. He knew he shouldn’t sleep with the office personnel but where else could he meet women. He wasn’t interested in any one of his colleagues. He steered clear of coeds. Besides, for some reason he didn’t care to examine why: he wanted this particular woman in his bed--tonight.

As the evening wore on, the tension in his shoulders went away. He was eccentric, but it wasn’t unattractive. He seemed to hang on every word she uttered. This pleased her. When he did opine, she found his observations fresh, partially because it was all new to him, but that wasn’t all of it. She wondered if he was doing perhaps a case study. But to what purpose? He was an economics professor. Poetry contributed very little to the economy. He wasn’t a bad guy and she liked the hungry way he looked at her a few times before his guard went up again. No wait, ". . .dedicated to my wife. . ." Were they still together? But remember, he wasn’t getting any sex. This she had concluded on the first day before she had ever considered sleeping with him. But why had she even thought about his sex life if she wasn’t already thinking of sleeping with him. The mind works in mysterious ways. The book had been published a year ago. Was she in Argentina? Did it matter? Of course it mattered. General Principle: no attached men.

"I’m divorced."

"What brought that up?" she laughed.

"You must have seen the dedication in my book." He liked her laugh.

"When did you get divorced?"

"It’s a year since it became final. But you know how long it takes to get something published, by the time it came out we were in court. It was the only thing not true in that book¾ I mean that I have a wife." Except that he still loved his wife . . . at the same time. . .Wes leaned over and kissed Lucia as she watched him. She didn’t respond but she didn’t pull back.

"I like your poetry." she said non-committedly.

The next morning when she awoke, he was sleeping on his back. An orange cat jumped on the bed, which startled her, which woke him up. He smiled, stroking the cat.

"This is Mimi."

"Hi Mimi. Where were you last night?" Mimi sat proprietously on Wes and never took her sleepy eyes off Lucia.

"Probably avoiding you. I haven’t felt this rested in a long time."

"Really? I feel . . ."

"Rested?"

"Not exactly, but, pretty good."

"Relaxed?"

"Sort of." Actually she was impressed by how one’s carefully constructed mindset could be melted down in a single evening. He wondered if he should kiss her. But before he could decide, she sat up in bed and winced.

"Big hangover?"

"Oh boy."

"There are no cures except time."

"Speaking of which?"

"It’s 9:45."

"I’ve got to go. I’ve got a reading tonight--I’m featured."

"Is it another open mike set up with a feature like the one last night?

"Hopefully a lot better. But not if I don’t spend the day preparing."

"The whole day?"

"Work out. A leisurely bath, a long nap, What to read. Warm up my voice. Find something sexy to wear. Stuff like that."

She jumped out of bed and gathered her clothes, stark naked in the day-lit room. She went to the bathroom and closed the door. He heard the lock turn. He got up and threw some shorts and a Tee-shirt on and went into the kitchen to look for something to feed her. He didn’t drink coffee and the only tea he had was in a dusty box. It was an herbal tea for women on PMS. Where had this come from? He had nothing to eat except imitation crab salad, a wrinkled bell pepper and potato chips. He gave up on the idea of being a good host.

She came out of the bathroom fully dressed, looking a little pale, probably from the hangover.

"Can I use your phone to call a cab?"

"I’ll give you a ride home."

"No reason. I don’t live far from here."

Maybe she didn’t want him to know where she lived. He stood meekly by the refrigerator contemplating her contemplating him. From the kitchen window she noticed a cab pulling up across the street and someone getting out.

"Look a taxi!" She ran to the door and waved at the driver, ran to snatch up her knapsack.

"Bye!" she said and was gone. She couldn’t get out fast enough, he thought, even if he was just as relieved to see her go. She hadn’t even said, see you Monday. "Dull dog-eared surreal hounds with behemoth smellers and fly feet." Wes smiled. He would see her Monday and that comforted him for reasons that he was not about to examine.