Page 69 - WTP Vol. VIII #4

would date each other and their siblings were also off limits. She left hardly noticing Judd, yet a spark had been ignited and in the fog of some particular romantic desolation, (Oberon was then only one quarter women) he must have sensed some unspo- ken possibility.
One night after another fruitless sorority social, high on an especially potent brand of pot, Judd wrote Sonia an impassioned letter. He had long forgotten its specific words but the complete lack of an answer, or even any mention of the matter by Marcy or anyone, confirmed it had been a mortifying mistake. At the time he could only endure it with the fantasy that
he had misaddressed the soul bearing message, that it had somehow been lost in transmission. For the rest of them, the whole business must have seemed an ephemeral fiasco. Though there may have been a certain distance, a subtle chill in his relations with them after that, he had not been cut off, not stranded on some banished island of misfits.
Judd was really incensed now, such an insinuation be- ing clearly beyond the pale, even if they had known each other since kindergarten. It took every ounce of civility he had ever stored not to blindly react. The last thing he wanted was to disturb the magic of all that nostalgia suffusing the afternoon, to spoil Noel’s homecoming, yet for a second he remained perched on the brink of spontaneous combustion. Fortunately, before he uttered a scathing rejoinder, Carmen saved the day, grabbed the phone like she was disarming
a grenade and said, “You need glasses Kent. They’re the spitting image.” Whereupon Kent retreated, as if he had simply lost interest, and gaped at the string of adjacent yards which formed the horizon.
~
The Oberon crew sank back into their separate rou- tines, and in that way you forget about people you only see once in a blue moon, Kent never crossed Judd’s mind again that until he materialized amid
the haze of a crowded bar about a year later. Judd almost didn’t recognize Kent without the Panama Hat, though he modelled a stylish fedora instead and there was something memorable about the severe planes
of his face, even from across the bar. Lines of acerbity or a confidence that the world was mostly a hoax seemed to form the foundation of his cheekbones.
His sartorial statement also included a gold chain stretched above his collar, perhaps a gaudy token from one of his holidays. Judd once again found the costume a bit much and suddenly pictured him in a huge sombrero, the garb of an Argentine gaucho, with a stone necklace and a ceremonial mask of the Incas.
He appeared with a couple other men in suits, as Judd and Elise waited to be seated at a tony restaurant called “Safari,” which was famous for its wild game— buffalo, venison, duck, even caribou and antelope. They had caught an early movie and looked forward to discussing it over a leisurely dinner. This wasn’t the sort of dining they typically went in for but Elise had won two complimentary meals there in a Knights of Columbus raffle. Animal heads and leaping fish festooned the paneled walls. Judd remembered that Kent worked in public relations for a big company that sold yogurt and other so called natural products which were touted as an elixir for life’s ravages, so it seemed ironic to encounter him in a virtual slaugh- terhouse.
Before Judd could think of an evasive maneuver, Kent pointed at them like his hand was a gun. Judd was
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'I’m sorry. Are you gay?' Kent said without missing a
“
beat, as if this were a matter of fact inquiry."
Over the course of the next hour, as the wine flowed, Kent’s charisma continued to pall by degrees as he ventured into more questionable territory. He com- plained about a beloved black celebrity who had become a conscientious objector. Then there was an obscene toast and another outrage Judd didn’t catch except for the winces it elicited. Monica did well to hide her mortification, whispering “he’s kidding”
at every opportunity. She added in that appealingly hoarse tone that reminded him of a famous actress, “Kent has an edgy sense of humor.” Judd suddenly felt for her, imagined that she had fallen under a spell.
Why Kent had chosen Judd as his foil, he would never know but it wasn’t long before his antagonist was at it again. Monica asked to see a picture of Judd’s sons and as it was passed around, her partner scrutinized it like a pinned butterfly, then jerked up and ex- claimed. “They don’t look a bit like you. Are you sure there wasn’t a mailman involved?”
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