While waiting in the maze of the department store's lingerie section, next to Eva's brown leather bag on a small ottoman, Howie Dubois thought again of a sperm bank in South Carolina that had an outage last hurricane season; the news said that every frozen sperm sample there suffered 'irreversible damage.'
"Irreversible"! He furrowed his brows and put down the magazine he had been reading.
Since cancer had taken both of his testicles, all that remained of Howie was in a little frozen vial. There were no hurricanes where he lived, but there were always other hazards--and mistakes.
Minnie, for one, had been a mistake. That year Eva conceived her while dizzy with fever from the relentless February rain, and look at that sickly fourteen-year-old now! Her thin legs could barely carry her own weight, let alone the big cello case she dragged onto her school bus each morning. More than he loved his daughter, Howie felt sorry for her.
He watched the shoppers swing their hips toward the fitting rooms. They all moved like they knew exactly where they were going, what they wanted. Eva knew what she wanted. She knew where to buy it. She wore her own pumps to the lingerie store to make sure the colors matched. Sometimes, her confidence astounded him.
If only he had what he wanted; if only he had a son. A son who could look after his frail sister when he was gone. A son strong enough to carry on the name Dubois. Like most men, Howard felt a certain rare eminence in his blood that had yet to reveal itself.
A daughter, on the other hand, was just another man's wife. Howie scrutinized the fragrant silken pieces around him with some mild contempt.
He had talked with Eva a while ago--having another child--and he'd said he wasn't sure. With her deep dark eyes, Eva was as striking as they first met. He felt guilty that he could not father her another child the way a man was supposed to. And with the odds at fifty-fifty, he hadn't liked the gamble.
But that damn word--irreversible! That could be him, in one of those damaged vials. What was lost could not be undone. Howie looked at the eyeless mannequins with their hands rested on their hips and suddenly felt a resolve that he nearly mistook for a hard-on.
Better to take the chance while he still could, he encouraged himself. In fact, he was going to tell her right now. They had spent enough time in this pink hell. He would find her, and they would get in their car and drive straight to the doctor's office.
Howie zipped up his jacket and grabbed his wife's bag.
It was good to be on his feet again.
Like a gladiator he strode past a queue of women with their soft, velvety finds, while something between a movie score and a marching band played in his head. He was almost at the fitting room entrance, when a smiling clerk stopped him.
"Mister, you can't go in there. Customers only."
The clerk pointed at the sign above him saying 'CUSTOMERS ONLY', still smiling with his neat white teeth. He wore a turtleneck sweater and kept a mustache that was trying too hard, and looked vaguely familiar to Howie.
"I am a customer!" He protested. "My wife is in there."
"Then I'm afraid you will have to wait until she is finished, mister."
The smiling mustache's suave and spotless manner irritated him. "You don't understand--" he began to raise his voice. "I can't wait! I've got to tell her right now!"
"I'm sorry, mister?" The clerk tilted his head, his mustache raised on two ends.
Howie squinted at the mustache and remembered. He and Eva were talking; she was lifting her foot and showing her pumps to him. They even laughed together. Howie clenched his fists and stared at the clerk without blinking.
"You best leave now, mister, you're scaring our customers." The mustache tried to keep his cool.
"Yeah?" Howie shot a glance at the women behind him. "Then how about this, jerk!"
He threw a quick punch--and it landed squarely on the clerk's face.
Someone in the queue shrieked.
"That's for flirting with my wife!"
Howie was astonished by his sudden surge of rage--he hadn't felt like this in years. The mustache slid down into a corner, looking oddly amused by the sight of his own blood:
"He broke my nose... he broke my nose..."
Another clerk rushed over, hand flying to her mouth.
"Call security!" she yelled.
"Don't ever insult a man of valor!" Howie raised his fist into the air as if brandishing a bloodied sword and charged into the fitting room corridor. "Where are you, Evie? Let's go have that baby!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
It was warm in here. He unzipped his jacket. In the dimmed light, the corridor extended in unbroken folds of red velvet curtains into the depths. How large is this place? On rose-patterned Berber rugs, small gilt-legged tables flanked the hallway. Little statues--Davids on the left and Venuses on the right--watched over piles of discarded lingerie: worn garter belts, rejected thongs, waiting to be reshelved.
Smooth, smoky jazz played somewhere overhead. He heard soft utters, little sighs and gasps made when pulling up tight fabrics.
Women's clothes, women's voices, women's smells. Howie's heart thudded in his chest. No wonder Eva didn't want to leave--this was practically her shrine.
"Evie?" he called again, his voice slightly lame.
The curtains brushed the checkerboard floor, and a few women's heads bobbed out, peeking from behind.
"What's happening?" he heard one of them ask.
Good-looking women, curious women; they clutched the red drapes around their bodies, their eyes following the intruder's every move. They were talking, their words reaching each other in swift, dipping flights:
"What's he doing?"
"Je ne sais pas."
"He's probably lost."
"Someone should tell him to leave..."
Howie tipped his imaginary cowboy hat at each woman as he searched for a familiar face. He was pleased to see so many unknown women at once. He smiled at their loose hair, caught mid-rearrangement, faint outline of waists, and their bare shoulders, pink and dewy from the heat, unburdened by bra straps.
Suddenly, one woman exclaimed: "They're coming for you!"
Howie turned around and saw three figures were advancing down the corridor. At the front was the clerk with the funny mustache, now accompanied by a white bandage over his nose. Behind him were two burly shop guards, with arms like ham hocks and black batons ready to tenderize some unlucky bastard.
"There he is!" the mustache pointed at Howie. "The rogue! Seize him at once!"
The music changed. The jazz gave way to a pulsing disco, and lights began flashing in all colors and made the corridor a dance floor. "Yeah!" Howie shifted and slid between the guards, hurling Eva's bag like a morning star. One guard lunged at him but he swayed aside and delivered a hard kick squarely to the man's backside.
"Hyaaah!" Howie cried as he sent the man kissing the floor. The women burst into laughter.
Another guard roared and swung his baton at him, but he caught the baton mid-air with his bare hand and in a split second flung the guard over his shoulder and made him spinning as if he was practicing cartwheeling. Not missing a beat, Howie then leaped onto a table and delivered a kick that had the first guard back to chew the carpet.
"WAAATAHH!" Howie shouted, one foot raised and arms bent like wings. The women were cheering and whistling! A bra flew across the corridor like a bouquet.
Behind Howie, a figure crept up to him, but he already knew. Without turning, he reached for a nearby statue of David and swung it backward in a mighty arc.
