“Oh, yeah,” I say, although I do not even own a passport. “A dozen times.”
She pushes her pen and newspaper toward me. “Can you show me what my name would look like in Egyptian?”
Irv sets the martini down in front of me. I start to sweat. It would be so easy.
“I’m Sally,” the woman says. “S-A-L-L-Y.”
It’s amazing what you’ll do when you want something bad. You are willing to do anything, say anything, be anything. I used to feel that way about drinking—there were things I did to get cash for booze that I am sure I’ve blocked out permanently. And I certainly felt that way, once, about having a baby. Tell a stranger the details of my sex life? Sure. Jab my wife in the ass with a needle? My pleasure. Jerk off in a jar? No problem. If the doctors had told us to walk backward and sing opera to increase the chance of fertility, we would not have batted an eyelash.
When you want something bad, you’ll tell yourself a thousand lies.
Like: The fifth time’s the charm.
Like: Things between Zoe and me will be better once the baby’s born.
Like: One sip isn’t going to kill me.
I once saw a TV documentary about giant squid, and they filmed one shooting its ink into the water to get away from an enemy. The ink was black and beautiful and curled like smoke, a distraction so that the squid could escape. That’s what alcohol feels like, in my blood. It’s the ink of the squid, and it’s going to blind me so that I can get away from everything that hurts.
The only language I know is English. But on the edge of the newspaper, I draw three wavy lines, and then an approximation of a snake, and a sun. “That’s just the sounds of the name, of course,” I say. “There isn’t really a translation for Sally.”
She rips off the corner of the newspaper, folds it, and tucks it into her bra. “I am totally getting a tattoo of this.”
Most likely the tattoo artist will have no idea that these are not real hieroglyphs. For all I know, I might have written:For a good time, call Nefertiti.
Sally hops down from her stool and moves onto the one beside me. “You gonna drink that martini or wait till it becomes an antique?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say, the first truth I’ve offered her.
“Well, make up your mind,” Sally replies, “so that I can buy you another one.”
I lift the martini and drain it in one long, fiery, mind-blowing gulp. “Irv,” I say, setting down the empty glass. “You heard the lady.”
The first time I had to leave a semen sample at the clinic, the nurse stepped into the waiting room and called my name. As I stood up I thought:Everyone else here knows exactly what I’m about to do.
The literature Zoe and I had been given said that the wife could “assist” in the sample collection, but the only thing that seemed more awkward than jerking off in a clinic was having my wife in there with me, with doctors and nurses and patients just outside the door. The nurse led me down the hallway. “Here you go,” she said, handing me a brown paper bag. “Just read the instructions.”
“It’s not so bad,” Zoe had told me over breakfast. “Think of it as a visit toPee-wee’s Playhouse.”
And really, who was I to complain, when she was getting shots twice a day and having constant pelvic exams and taking so many hormones that something as simple as crossing the street could make her burst into tears? By comparison, this seemed like a piece of cake.
The room was freezing cold and consisted of a couch that had been covered by a sheet, a TV-VCR, a sink, and a coffee table. There were some videos—Pussy in Boots, Breast Side Story, On Golden Blonde—various issues ofPlayboyandHustlerand, weirdly, a copy ofGood Housekeeping.A small window that looked like it belonged in a speakeasy was to the right—this would be where I left the sample when I was done. The nurse backed out of the room, and I pushed the lock in the door handle. Then I opened it, and pushed it again. To make sure.
I opened the paper bag. The sample cup was enormous. It was practically abucket.What were they expecting from me?
What if I spilled?
I started to leaf through one of the magazines. The last time I’d done this, I’d been fifteen and had shoplifted the December issue ofPlayboyfrom a newsstand. I became incredibly aware of how loudly I was breathing. Maybe that wasn’t normal. Maybe that meant I was having a heart attack?
Maybe I just needed to get this over with.
I turned on the television. There was already a video playing. I watched for a moment, and then wondered if the person waiting on the other side of the trapdoor for the sample was listening.
It was taking forever.
In the end, I closed my eyes, and I pictured Zoe.
Zoe, before we’d started talking about a family. Like the time we’d gone camping off the grid in the White Mountains, and I woke up to find her sitting on a boulder playing a flute, wearing absolutely nothing.
