Tenuous position, Janet's job, but less so because of the simmering desire in Mr. Gryder’s belly.  He was a coward, never able to show her how he felt, but he sat in his principal’s office and thought about her every day.  She had become essential to him when he was at home, alone with his wife, and alone, alone.  He filled out assessment forms about her that emphasized the importance of her work and the skill, nay, the inspiration with which she carried it out.  He intended to keep her at Cannon Shoals Elementary.  His need could be met, minimally, by just seeing her on an almost daily basis.  Toward this end, he made it a point to walk the halls where and when she walked them.

Mr. Gryder knew how to lock his office door without making a single sound.  This was important because he could avoid alerting his secretary -- the school secretary, secretary of the school, not of Mr. Gryder himself, the principal of an elementary school did not get a personal secretary -- that he was doing it.  He had to pull the closed door gently toward him to relieve the tension on the hinges and align the bolt with the receptacle before slowly turning the lock, easing the bolt into the receptacle, and then very slowly releasing the door so that the tension returned to the hinges without a bang.  He could never be one hundred percent sure that Billie, the secretary, had not noticed, but he could be fairly sure, and that sufficed.  He liked having his door locked sometimes, even though there was no real need for privacy.  He found times when he could lock the door and just sit at his desk or stand at the window and do nothing, no work.  He would daydream a bit, often about Janet Mabry, sometimes about other teachers, a pretty sub, someone he saw in the car line, a mom or an aunt picking up a student.  The point was, he deserved some time for contemplation.  He was in a long, indeterminate period of deciding that he would never leave his wife, probably never even cheat on her, although that was what he should be trying for, working on, not just thinking about.  He was bound up in his obligation, bound to the institution of marriage, to his sense of propriety, his mother's sense of propriety.  He knew, knew that he would lose his job if a scandal occurred, an affair with a teacher being the de facto definition of scandal.  Life was not worth having to find another job.  Not when this one was so easy.  He sometimes wanted to smoke some dope -- out of the question, of course -- like in his college days.  He sometimes returned, in his daydreams, to his one homosexual experience, in high school, and felt guilt and fear about the pleasure he remembered, and wondered if he was gay, and that was why he would not betray his wife.  Somehow his nagging fear of gayness was tied in with another loosely held belief that he was lazy, whatever lazy meant.  Was it fear that kept him from fantasizing about sex with a man when he beat off? 

He had the gall to show up at my office door the next day.  I was in the middle of a reminiscence, and was damned if I’d let even Robin bring me out of it.  Holding my anger in check, I let him come in and find a place for himself.  He chose the floor next to the filing cabinet, occupied himself drawing circles in the dust on the floor with his finger.

I’d been remembering my computer, a PC of the old 8086 type, slow by today’s standards, but reliable and uncomplicated.  I got rid of it when I left New York.  It had become a demon for me; even the smell of the manufacturing residues, normally a pleasant “new plastic” aroma, was enough to tip me into nauseous waves of paranoia and fear.  Leaving New York was tantamount to admitting failure, I felt in my heart, regardless of all my rationalizations.  The sight of the monitor staring at me with its one giant eye was an insult.  Its teeth, the keyboard, grinned at me, sinister, accusing me of worthlessness.  Who needed the grief?  Not me, so I gave the thing to Vida, the seventeen year old girl who’d just signed on with the Ford Agency.  She’s on TV commercials now.  Her mother Puerto Rican, father, Irish, they lived in the apartment just below us.  I told myself that by giving her the computer, I was encouraging her to continue her education.  She accepted the computer gratefully, but let me know that she made a thousand dollars for her first day’s work as a model.  That didn’t help my ego, but I couldn’t resent it, because in telling me about her fortune, Vida was struggling against her natural inclination to hide her pride.  She was growing up beautifully.  And physically, she was absolutely perfect by today’s standard -- far too thin to be sexy to an old codger like me.

I sat at my desk ignoring Robin.  I was tapping the letter “b” on my old Smith Corona portable, seeing if I could tap it with just the right pressure to make the key swing up exactly halfway to the platen.  I was finding I had to give it a pretty good little pop to get it up there.

“Working on a new piece?” he said after a while.

It wasn’t the right thing for him to have said.  I hadn’t realized how mad I was at him.  It was as though he was responsible for everything I hated about myself.  What I hated most was my not having made love with Lilace, for which I blamed him directly and fully.  I picked up the Smith Corona and, from my position in the swivel chair, hurled it at him as hard as I could.  I saw the shock on his face just before the typewriter hit the wall, missing him by inches.

He jumped up and made for the door, but I was already on him.  “Not so fast, little pup,” I said, spitting the words at the back of his head as I grabbed the elastic waistband of the corduroy shorts he was wearing.  He tried to wriggle out of the shorts to make his escape, but I grasped the waistband with one hand and his ankle with the other.

He relaxed, face down on the floor, and said, “What are you doing, Hector?”

I jabbed down on the small of his back to hurt him, still not letting go of the waistband.  He barked in pain, then groaned, then began whimpering.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “Please don’t hurt me again.”

I wanted to hurt him more, but he was so small, so helpless.  I almost gave him another jab for good measure before releasing him, but I didn’t.  I rose from my kneeling position and walked across the room, leaned on the windowsill and looked out at the backyard.

I heard him moan some more, huff and puff as he righted himself.  I was waiting for him to leave, but I didn’t hear the door open.  I turned around and he was poking at the typewriter where it lay, upside down, on the floor.

He noticed me watching him, and said “Can I have this?  It’s broken now anyway.”

A sample from my upcoming novel, The Paraclete

See below for “Homunculus” excerpt

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A sample from my novel, Homunculus, now in stores.

“I’m going to have to kill you, Robin,” I said.  “You’ve become a tragedy in my life.”

Backing away from the typewriter (and me), he countered, “She was going to screw and leave.  You would have had one more unfulfilled longing from then on.”

“In other words...” I said, but he interrupted.

“In other words, she was going to hurt you, Hector.”

I knew he was wrong, but I didn’t want to be sucked into an argument.  I still just wanted to beat him up.  But he took my silence as the beginning of acquiescence.

“Hey, man,” he said, “she ain’t even that good looking.”

He had no idea how angry he was making me.  He misjudged my restraint as another step toward reconciliation.  He edged back over toward the typewriter and tentatively poked a finger at the part he’d found so interesting.  Daring now to take his eyes off me for an instant, he smirked and muttered, “Old mama, too.”

Quickly he checked to see my reaction.  I smirked back at him, finding this last comment pitiful and ironic.  Lilace had been beautiful, didn’t look to be out of her thirties even though she was, of course.  She had been my chance of salvation, my one possible doorway back to sanity, and a lovely person, an articulate hippie for me to talk with, to join with, to heal with in the face of the millennium and free love’s final death throes.  It didn’t matter that she would be gone soon, back to Texas.  It had been the moment, the night before, that counted.  It had counted for everything, and he had ruined it.

He did, once, do that fantasy and liked it (scary, yeah!), though he was never attracted to any male person in real life.  But wouldn't a truly straight man betray his wedding vows after years of a sexless marriage and find another woman?  Wouldn't that be the only normal course?  He was not attracted sexually, had never been attracted to his nubile daughter, and that was good and normal.  Wasn't it?  Nor was he attracted to her middle school girlfriends, also recently betitted, even when they cavorted in pajamas at sleepovers, far too inexperienced to be the least bit modest about kicking up their legs laughing, innocently presenting flashes of the smooth crotches of their panties to everyone in the house.  It was a decision, was it not, a moral aversion to incest and pedophilia that kept him in line, not a failing of his normal libido.

The thing about Janet Mabry was that she was gentle.  Hers was a gentle beauty, and she was ripe, sweet, and slightly bruised underneath.  He could easily imagine the two of them falling in love and making it to bed only slowly, over a period of time.  He could also imagine taking her quickly, forcefully, she yielding to his sudden advance with relief after years of hoping for just such an assault.

Mr. Gryder would sometimes knead and caress his genitals while at work, his office door locked.  He worried because it seemed to take longer to get a hard on than it used to -- sometimes it wasn't even worth the trouble.  He never actually masturbated in his office (he was a shower man, neat and clean and convenient and down the drain, bye bye) but he had learned to enjoy the erection and enjoy the feeling of regret as it subsided, unsatisfied, gradually resolved to waiting until the shower at home, the feeling of anticipation and reserved sexual energy, the gun loaded but stowed in the holster, ready for action, ammo unspent.

There were no other teachers at Cannon Shoals Elementary who were anywhere near as pretty as Janet Mabry.  She was his main subject in the shower.  As far as Mr. Gryder was concerned, she could do anything she wanted, policy or no policy, law or no law, morality or no morality, anything at all (as long as no one besides him knew) and her job would be safe.  What was life, anyway?  He did not love these children.  He did not love anything, as far as he could tell.  And yet love was the only thing that gave life any meaning -- of this he was certain.