Catherine’s Wig

And for a time Britt became more attentive toward her. He’d help her carry in the groceries on Saturday afternoons, tearing himself away from his plasma-screen TV or Rush Limbaugh on satellite radio. He listened to her more closely on Friday nights when they sipped their precoital bourbon in the den. In bed, for their once-a-week sex, he no longer just went down on her, but turned her over and kissed the small of her back, running his erection teasingly along the crack of her ass. He even waited a little longer after climax before switching on the TV in their bedroom.

When she told Horacio that her husband had improved, Horacio accused her of having used him to reanimate her moribund marriage. “You wanted him to find those letters,” he shouted. She swore to him that she hadn’t, but in fact she was conscious as never before of how unfit Horacio seemed compared to Britt, and how unsuccessful and poor he was. Why, he didn’t even own a car, and she often had to give him rides in her BMW. But gradually Britt settled back into his usual indifference, and Catherine went back to desiring Horacio.

Catherine and Horacio only spoke their sexual fantasies to each other now and never wrote them down.

“Just imagine,” he said in a low, thrilling voice as they walked around the pond, “that I find you wearing nothing but your wig. Your panties and bra are lying on the floor. What will you do?”

Swallowing thickly and blushing, she responded: “I’ll go on all fours on the bed, stick my ass out, and look back at you with a dirty smile. My pussy’s hairless now because of the chemo, and extra smooth…”

Even as she was speaking, she was asking God for forgiveness and would not let Horacio hold or kiss her, which drove him insane with anger. “Hypocrite,” he called her. “Puta de mierda!”

Horacio’s sexual language excited her so much that sometimes she would have to finish herself off in a stall in the women’s bathroom before returning to her desk. When Britt was inside her, she would close her eyes and see Horacio—it was the only way she could come anymore. She imagined Horacio pinning her down, greasing her anal cherry, fucking the goody-two-shoes Catholic schoolgirl into complete submission.

Catherine wondered, though, what life with Horacio really would be like. His paintings were merely wheels of color—one wheel he titled Catherine. It made no sense to her, though he tried to explain something called “Orphism” and went on and on about some Russian artist or other. Also, he was a snob. Horacio would put her down for watching American Idol with her daughter—he called it “American Idolatry.” His temper was the worst part of it. One day as they were walking back from lunch, she had tried to impress him by saying, “To deny the literal truth of the raising of Lazarus is like denying the Holocaust.” She had not been prepared for his explosion of rage.

“How can you say something so ignorant, so stupid, so inhuman! I hear the cries of six million Jews!” His every word was a physical blow, his face purple beneath the beard, bloated, frightening. Why was he so upset? Could it be, Catherine thought, that he wasn’t a Catholic, as he claimed, but a Jew? Were there Jews in Cuba? They did not speak to each other for over a week.

Horacio never apologized for his outbursts. He justified them, saying that he was trying to educate her, to rescue her from her ignorance and complaisance. He got angry, he said, because he really cared. “You have no one in your life who will challenge your mental laziness. Certainly not your husband.”

“Oh, he punishes me, just like you.”

By now Catherine and Britt had reached the middle of the boardwalk, jostled by crowds, engulfed in fumes of curly fries, funnel cakes, and stale beer. Shrill bells deafened them, sirens, bullhorns, mega-speakers throbbing with relentless electronic music and trashy oldies from the 1980s. Britt made them stop in front of a shooting range. The moving target was the turbaned head of Osama bin Laden.

Maniacal children crashed into each other in bumper cars; crypto-suicides leaped from bungee towers; slot machines rang and set off dizzying rows of flashing lightbulbs; an obese white man in a Speedo shimmied effeminately in a cage to “Disco Inferno.”

“I’m gonna nail this bastard,” Britt shouted, cradling a rifle.

Britt peered through the viewfinder, taking careful aim at the taunting bearded face.

“This is for 9/11!”

He pulled the trigger and a hole appeared between bin Laden’s eyes, setting off “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Britt was competitive and liked to win. When Catherine had first met him, no one could beat him at pool.

The barker exclaimed through his bullhorn, “You, sir, are an American hero! Choose your prize!”

Britt smirked as if he had single-handedly won the war in Afghanistan. “You pick,” he said to Catherine, pointing up at the stuffed animals that hung, heads down, from a wire above the stall.

Catherine loved animals, felt a special compassion for them, even toy animals. She prayed that when she died, she would go to the heaven of animals. Animals never berated you for not going to the gym or for misspeaking about the Holocaust. Catherine thought that her daughter might want one of the teddy bears, but they looked strangled, their button eyes bulging, their white fur sooty and sticky. A wave of nausea swept through her.

“Please, Britt, I don’t want one. Let’s go.”

Maniacal children crashed into each other in bumper cars; crypto-suicides leaped from bungee towers; slot machines rang and set off dizzying rows of flashing lightbulbs; an obese white man in a Speedo shimmied effeminately in a cage to “Disco Inferno.”

Catherine saw a pizza stand illuminated in green neon. The fragrance that came from it made her nausea give way to a deep, elemental hunger. She knew better than to indulge in a greasy slice, but she couldn’t resist. She remembered an especially cold winter afternoon in her childhood. She must have been seven. She was walking home through the snow with her mother after Mass. They passed an Italian restaurant that gave off a warm, succulent aroma of pizza.

“That smells so good, Mummy!” she’d said. Catherine had not yet lost a quasi-English accent.

“Children shouldn’t hint,” her mother responded harshly. “It’s very poor manners. I do not approve of spending good money on unhealthy food. You can have a nice helping of Bovril at home. There are only two infallible powers in the world, Catherine: the Pope and Bovril!”

“Britt, I’m getting a slice of pizza over there.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Britt shouted above the din of rides and music.

She broke away from him, running, dodging a couple of drunk Shriners in crooked fezzes, one of whom made a grab for her and almost pulled off her wig. Catherine shoved her two dollars at the cashier, greedily snatching the paper plate with the oozing cheese pizza. The pointed end of the slice drooped meltingly over the edge of the plate like a severed tongue.

“Cath!” she heard her husband yell.