Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

him. “I’m yours, babe. You know that.”
    “Do you know that song about tangerines?” Michael asked. “From the sixties? ‘Would you like some of my tangerine? I know I’d never treat you mean.’ ”
    Ben said it didn’t ring a bell.
    “Claudine Longet,” Michael explained.
    “Sorry.”
    “She had a ski bum boyfriend named Spider that she shot.”
    Ben nodded. “Great.”
    “Not that that’s pertinent,” said Michael.
    “That’s good to know.”
    Michael gave him a sleepy smile. “I babble a lot, don’t I? Don’t you get tired of it?”
    Ben smiled. “Only when I’m trying to cook dinner.”
    “I love you so much, Benjamin. And I’m trying to be better. I wanna celebrate whatever brings you pleasure. I wanna stop being the scared little boy and start being the wise old man who’s found the love of his life and can finally … relax.”
    “You’re there already, babe.”
    A long, contented silence.
    “So,” Michael said playfully. “Was it fun … Johnny-O?”
    “Who?”
    “Sorry. Vertigo reference. Even older than Claudine Longet. I just meant … you know … this afternoon. Was it fun?”
    Ben knew this was always a ticklish question. “It was okay. His body and dick were nice, but … he was a little too self-absorbed to be great sex.”
    Michael frowned. “That’s too bad. I hate it when that happens.”
    Ben grinned at the noble effort.
    “See how well I did?” said Michael.
    “You did,” said Ben, squeezing his hand. “How ’bout a beer next door?”
    T HEY HAD SEVERAL BEERS NEXT door, enjoying each other in the genial crush of the crowd. After twenty minutes or so, Ben went off to pee and returned to find Michael missing. This threw him for a moment, until he realized that Michael was outside on the sidewalk, amid the usual knot of smokers, talking on his cell phone.
    Ben joined him just as Michael was putting the phone away.
    “What’s up?” asked Ben.
    “Just Jake. He wants to borrow our DVD of Gods and Monsters . We were talking about it at work.”
    “We have to go home, then?”
    Michael shook his head. “Mary Ann is there. It’s a good chance for them to have a little one-on-one.”
    Ben couldn’t quite picture that working.
    Michael discerned his reaction and added: “I figured she could be helpful right now. He’s finally having his hysterectomy next month.”
    “He can afford that now?”
    “Anna’s paying for it. I told him to do it when we’re in Hawaii.”
    “So … how exactly can Mary Ann help?”
    “You know … moral support. He’s nervous about the operation.”
    “He still wants it, though?”
    “Oh yeah,” said Michael. “More than anything.”

Chapter 34
A Man on the Verge
    T hey were sitting on Mary Ann’s bed now, but at opposite ends. The gun was still in the old man’s hand, though resting in his lap, no longer pointing at her. That white plastic shopping bag lay between them on the bedspread, like a gift awaiting the proper presentation. To make the scene even more grotesquely implausible, Roman was sprawled on the floor, his tail wagging languidly, looking back and forth between the two of them, as if enthralled by their exchange.
    “If it’s money you want,” Mary Ann said. “I can help with that.”
    She was banking everything on his aura of melancholy defeat. He was drunk, certainly, but he didn’t seem out of control. He doesn’t want to hurt me , she thought. He’s just a pathetic old man at the end of his rope.
    “I don’t want your money,” he said.
    “What do you need from me, then?”
    His lip flickered, revealing teeth like crooked tombstones. “Recognition would be nice.”
    “I’m sorry … what?”
    “I’m the guy who sent you the T-shirt.”
    She was looking at his long black coat now, suddenly remembering its silhouette from somewhere else.
    It was the man in Pinyon City. The one who had howled at her in the snow.
    “Oh …” she said, her palm pressing against the top button of her pajamas. “I wondered who’d given me that. That was such a sweet gesture.” She was simpering like a Southern belle, but it seemed the only way to proceed in the face of such madness. She would have to stay calm, stay ahead of him. She considered, briefly, kicking him in the chest to get the gun away from him, since he was old and seemingly feeble, but his finger was still on the trigger, and she didn’t trust her recovering body to pull off the kick.
    “You must be Fogbound One,” she