The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome Read online

  For my agent Sorche

  for her tireless efforts and faith in me

  THE LEMON JELL-O SYNDROME

  Man Martin

  Unbridled Books

  In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are

  unknown, and in between, there are doors.

  William Blake

  A, a

  From the Semitic aleph (a), “ox.” The Greeks renamed it alpha, twisting the neck to point the horns downward. In the lowercase, the ox head can still be seen in profile, a single horn curving like a cricket’s antenna: a.

  alpha and omega: The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (A and Ω). Metaphorically, God, i.e., the “first and last,” from Revelation 1:8, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord.”

  alphabet: The characters of a written language arranged in an established order. From alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet.

  atone: To reconcile or make restitution. A compound of at and one, that is, to be “at one with,” or in harmony.

  The night before being struck by the Lemon Jell-O Syndrome, his private nickname for his terrible, incapacitating illness, Bone King taught Wednesday-night Composition 1101 at Fulsome College with an unease with which it has rarely been taught. When reminding his students that the object of a preposition could never be a subject, he spoke as if it came as a personal tragedy. Suspecting your wife of infidelity, and only suspecting—if my wife is cheating—is a subordinate clause that wrings the heart like a mop until there is a declarative sentence to complete it.

  The clock by the door told him motion by motion when Mary would be coming home from Grace Church and changing to go out to Jelly Jam: now letting herself in the kitchen door—now making the orbit from kitchen to bedroom to bathroom, changing from work clothes, getting ready to leave—putting perfume behind her ears?

  Born in the Tennessee back hills, Bone was an unlikely candidate to become a scholar. He could quote Seneca in Latin, but he was haunted by the dread that he’d never really overcome his pronunciation of “pin” for “pen” nor lose that weighty one-word imperative, “gih-yawn-owwa-hyeah!,” he’d once used against hound dogs in the kitchen or chickens on the front porch. Through monkish solitude and dedicated study, he’d climbed the greasy trunk of academe and published his master’s thesis, Misplaced Modifiers, which had won first place for Books on Grammar and Usage in the Southeast. His further ascent seemed a foregone conclusion, but the struggle had cost him. Wherever he went, a silent inner voice went also, a running commentary on usage and etymology. Mary had once loved his dreaminess but now complained he didn’t pay enough attention. The truth was he paid too much, only never to the right things. Sometimes he wondered if this weren’t a sign of mild lunacy, but then he’d spot in “luna-cy” the ghostly lexical thumbprint of the moon, and with that he’d be off in another world.

  By the time he got home, the sun had set, and it was dark. She was at the club.

  “Chicken and rice on the counter,” Mary’s note said. He turned on the TV and listened from the kitchen as his dinner rotated, humming in the lighted window of the microwave. He sat in the recliner, plate in his lap, bathed in the vapor from his chicken and rice and the blue-white glow of Wednesday-night reruns: a medical comedy with a hardworking, no-nonsense doctor, a wisecracking nurse, and a quirky patient with a strange diagnosis. After his solitary meal, Bone went to bed.

  Mary.

  Had another man touched that smooth white skin? Her naked back, where it tapered to her waist. A masculine hand, black hairs bristling around a heavy old-fashioned wristwatch, resting itself along the curve, two fingers lightly curled along the cleft ...

  Bone noted, observed, and tagged the minutes passing on the glowing alarm clock as he lay alternating between sweats and shivers. At last the front door opened. Boards creaked down the hall and into the bathroom. Flush. The shower ran. A toothbrush scrubbed. A drawer opened and closed. Mary—soap smell and scrubbed skin—eased into the covers beside him. Bone pretended to have just awoken.

  “So, how was tonight?” No response. “How was Jelly Jam?”

  “It was great.” She readjusted herself on her pillow.

  “So who else was there?”

  “Hmm?” Like a drowser surfacing reluctantly from a dream.

  “Who else was there? At Jelly Bean?” He hoped the whimsical substitution of “bean” for “jam” would evoke a smile. “So who was there?”

  “Oh, you know—Laurel, Cindy Davis, Ruth—the usual.”

  “That’s nice.” He lay rigidly in bed. “Did you run into anyone else?”

  “What?” She turned toward him. “Why are you asking all this? You’re cross-examining me.”

  Something hot settled in the back of Bone’s throat. “No, I’m not,” he said, forcing a smile to the darkness. “I’m just talking is all.” Bringing up the next question was like pushing a stalled car over the crest of a hill. “Was Cash there?”

  “Oh, Christ, Bone.”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why had he asked that? Bone’s throat was dry and scorching hot. He was trembling. He ought to roll toward her, tuck his head into her neck and lay his thigh over hers, his hand on her ribs, smell her hair, whisper, Work has become a run-on sentence for me, with neither period nor semicolon. I am past tense, restless and incomplete in this world, a dependent clause, and you are the comma at which I rest. Conjugate with me and teach me the sweet syntax of your body.

  “Was he there? If he wasn’t there, just tell me.”

  “No, he wasn’t there.” She sighed; in the crooked trapezoid of yellow moonlight falling over their bodies, he could feel as well as hear her lungs expand and expel.

  When my love swears that she is made of truth,

  I do believe her, though I know she lies.

  How wise Shakespeare was; he knew it all.

  Bone pretended to sleep and pretended not to know she was pretending also.

  The next morning was Friday, and in theory Bone had all day to work on his manuscript, Words. We who take grammar so lightly may well give a thought to men like Bone working in dark library basements safeguarding the subjunctive mood while the rest of us are out living our lives.

  After vacillating whether to mention his nemesis, E. Knolton, in the introduction, Bone settled on a haughty and dismissive “some”: “Some might say the concept of correct grammar is outmoded.” In the Grammar Wars, waged with the tenacity only professional academics can muster, Bone defended Standard American English against the E. Knolton faction, anarchists claiming no such thing as “correct usage” existed, only “different dialects,” each with its own “worthy grammar.”

  How Knolton would have jeered to know the pains it’d cost Bone to pluck “might could” out of his speech, the sweat spilled mastering “it is I.” And—highest price of all—the rejection by his own kind, pursued along the quarry tracks by jeering boys and pelted with gravel for talking like a Yankee.

  Finally, Bone rose from his desk and went to the window. One of Cash’s Mexicans cut grass in slow zigzags; another applied clippers to a boxwood. Mary and Cash talked in the side yard. The fragrance of the gardenias was at its height, and Bone imagined the heady smell sweetening the air around them.

  A yellow butterfly lifted from the red salvia and darted between them. Mary had brought Cash a glass of iced tea—how corny! Does anyone really bring tea to the yardman? Cash’s sleeves were rolled up, the better to show off his biceps, Bone supposed. Cash made some yardman witticism, and Mary laughed and touched his forearm near the heavy, old-fashioned watch he always wore. Cash looked toward Bone’s window and stepped rightward out of sight behind the sash. Mary follow
ed. Bone gazed at the vacancy, then went into the bathroom.

  Last March, Charlotte, their aging landlady, informed them of their new arrival in the subdivision. “Cash Hudson?” Mary repeated when she heard the name. It transpired she’d dated Cash in high school. Chilly fear rose in Bone’s chest.

  The fear took concrete shape on a day Bone had spent yanking a lawn-mower cord until sweat dotted the Briggs & Stratton. Each time Bone was on the verge of pounding the damn machine flat with a sledgehammer, the motor condescended to puff an oily “phut,” provoking a fresh frenzy of useless yanking.

  All the while, Cash talked with Mary, who stood beaming in a sleeveless cotton top, the silk concavity in the small of her back peeking out above her jeans. Two years into their marriage, her discontent punctuated their lives with increasing frequency: Bone’s work on Words took all his time and attention; there wasn’t enough money; they never did anything; there was damn medieval poetry on the shower wall; she was bored and feeling trapped.

  Cash Hudson, you could tell—and if you couldn’t, Cash himself would tell you—wasn’t destined for the humble subdivision of Ashford Park forever. Instead of renting, he owned his two-bedroom ranch, and when he’d saved enough, he’d buy another and rent that one. His sole topics of conversation, as far as Bone, crouched wheezing and dripping by the lawn mower, could tell, were the money he made last year, what he was making this year, and what he’d make next year. This information Mary found riveting.

  Cash’s business, ironically enough, was landscape maintenance: a big green truck with a steel-mesh gate that lowered like a navy landing craft, deploying mowers and blowers over Ashford Park and beyond. For the time being, he made do with day workers, but business was growing so fast, soon he’d need to take on someone full time.

  If you’re such a damn expert, Bone thought, pausing between his labors, why don’t you damn well offer to help? I’d sure like to see how you do it.

  Then, to Bone’s horror, Cash did offer.

  “Let me see what I can do with that thing,” Cash said, dropping his voice into the baritone of someone wise and helpful taking charge, and with a pull, he brought the mower shuddering and puttering to life. “Let’s adjust the choke,” Cash said, and pushed a lever until the mower sounded a little less tubercular.

  Even the best of lawn mowers, Cash explained, would not put up indefinitely with owners who never bought a new spark plug or a yearly oil change, and without these attentions would eventually freeze up altogether—to which Mary replied, “Oh, we didn’t know that.”

  We didn’t know that. Thank you, Mary, for making me look like a fool in front of our neighbor.

  “You know what,” Cash said—I know what, Bone thought, do you know what?—“why don’t I take care of your yard for you?” And before Bone could protest that they didn’t have money for lawn service, Cash said, “I’ll make it half-price.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t let you,” Mary said, meaning, she could let, and definitely would let him, but she wanted to be forced.

  “I insist,” Cash said smilingly, meaning, he would force her.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” Mary asked. “He’s going to do our yard half-price.”

  On the other side of the shower curtain from where Bone stood at the toilet, unable to pee, the tile still bore the faint traces of Chaucer’s “Prologue,” which he had written in Sharpie while studying The Canterbury Tales. Behind that was a window, from which vantage someone, if he chose, could watch unobserved as Mary and Cash resumed their conversation, although doing so would require stepping into the tub to spy on them like an emasculated cuckold.

  The tub, Bone realized, offered ample space to stand, which shouldn’t have surprised him since he showered there every day, but illogically he’d expected to feel the enameled side curving up against his toes. Soap’s mild smell clung to the window. Cash and Mary stood near the privet bushes by the back fence. Nothing untoward was afoot, at least for now. Cash plucked a handful of wild violets from amongst the liriope, a yardman’s habit.

  What a ridiculous situation. Or was “preposterous” the better word? Ridiculous: worthy of ridicule. But Preposterous: a nonsensical combination of pre (before) and post (after). Yes, “preposterous” was nearer the mark: there was something definitely before-after, topsy-turvy, bass-ackward about all of this. Bone pictured how the scene would look from the perspective of a hypothetical witness: a man, fully dressed, mind you, in a bathtub looking longingly, like the foolish fathead he was, out the window at his wife. From above, their heads would form a proverbial lover’s triangle, acute, in this case, Bone at the vertex, thirty feet from the base of Cash and Mary, standing in the speckled shade of the privet. From Bone’s perspective, Mary and Cash stood framed in the proscenium under the lace curtain, a sunlit stage broken into nine tiles by windowpanes. Had Cash and Mary glanced at the bathroom window, they’d have noticed first Bone’s red hair, then his blue eyes staring curiously, and then it would have been their turn to be curious. Unless they really were lovers, in which case they’d merely be indignant.

  Screw it, Bone thought, I’m getting out of here.

  Which is when he discovered he couldn’t.

  Bone told his legs to move, but they didn’t.

  Move! But that’s not how you do it, is it? You don’t tell your leg to move; you just move it. How do you move it? It’ll come naturally if you don’t think about it. Don’t think about it? What else can you think about?

  Windowpanes need cleaning—mildew on the sash—spider walking on the sill—eight legs and not a problem with one of them—la-tee-da-tee-da-dum-dumtee-dum-dum-dum—damn it, move! This can’t be happening. Spider almost to the other side, goddamn spider!

  Bone was sure he could move now.

  Ha-ha-ha, it would be just a silly false alarm, and wouldn’t he feel like a chump? It was a temporary thing, like when your jaw locks, and you have to pop it into place. Unnerving at the time, but perfectly harmless. Just wait a little, and then move your leg without thinking.

  In just a moment now he’d do it. He was absolutely positive when he attempted to move his legs, that’s just what would happen.

  ...

  Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.

  ...

  He thought of lifting his legs with his arms, but when he tried reaching down, he found he couldn’t.

  Damngoddamngoddamngoddamngoddamn. Jesusjesusjesus, oh, Jesusjesusjesus.

  Cash and Mary had disappeared. The bathroom window now held only the backyard, broken into nine panes: the crooked little dogwood traversing the lower left pane, continuing in the upper corner of the middle pane, its crown of leaves extending over the three panes above the sash, a triangle of yellowing May sky. An anxious squirrel scooted partway down an oak and studied the ground below in a head-down position. Bone still could not move.

  Someone rattled the bathroom doorknob and found it locked.

  Now Bone spoke. “Help!” The words resounding on the white tiles alarmed him, and he hollered, “Help! For God’s sake! Help! I’m stuck!”

  The door rattled again. “Bone?”

  Mary.

  Hot tears rose in his throat, and outside the window, the scene shimmered like a reflection in rippling water. He realized with ironic detachment that at least his tear ducts still operated. “I don’t know. I’ve forgotten how to move.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t move. I’m stuck. I need help.”

  “I’ll get Cash.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t bring him into it.”

  But Mary was gone already, and in a few minutes it sounded as if a small, heavily booted army were mustering in the hallway.

  “Bone, are you still in there?” Mary. A foolish question, but Bone replied in the affirmative. The lock clicked—someone picked it, evidently. Bone heard rather than saw Mary, Cash, and the Mexicans tumble in—his view of his own rescue confined to the little window, its frame, the yellow-painted wall, and the white tile below. No one commente
d on his being in the bathtub fully dressed, but they couldn’t understand why he didn’t simply step out. They seemed to believe that he’d merely been awaiting an audience before doing just that, and kept inviting him to turn around and extricate himself. Only after reiterated explanations did they accept that his inability to do so was precisely the problem.

  Finally, Bone, who’d had more time to consider this calamity than anyone, said, “Just work my legs. Like a marionette.” Cash’s hands grasped Bone’s calf, bending the knee’s hinge. It took several experimental manipulations—accompanied by much onlooker advice—to get the hang of walking with someone else’s legs. As Cash lifted and planted Bone’s feet in turn, marching him in place like a life-sized toy soldier, several sets of hands assisted in turning Bone by the shoulders. Worried faces of Mary and several curious Mexicans, and the top of Cash’s head—he was still kneeling to work Bone’s legs—rotated into view. A cautious clomp of one foot across the porcelain wall, and then, carefully, precariously—ready, steady!—he swayed back dangerously like an unmoored scarecrow before they could seize his shirt to stop him from toppling—they brought his second foot alongside the first.

  Once he stood on the bath mat, the spell was broken, and, lo, he could walk.

  B, b

  From the Semitic beth (b), “house,” e.g., Bethlehem, “house of bread.” The Greeks upended the letter, renaming it beta and, in the upper case, adding a balcony on the second floor.

  Babel: The legendary site of a tower threatening to reach “unto heaven itself” until God “confounded the tongues” of man, creating the world’s profusion of languages. Tempting as it is to believe, babble does not descend from this but from baby and the Germanic suffix -le, which connotes small, repetitive actions, as in wobble, twinkle, and gobble. Babel is derived from Babylon, an ancient city whose cuneiform script was cousin of the Semitic alphabet, whence all Western European alphabets are derived.