Avenue of Mysteries

He hit the panel of push-buttons on his night table, hurting the heel of his right hand. The volume on the radio and TV were muted sufficiently for him to hear, and answer, the ringing phone: it was someone yelling at him in an Asian-sounding language (whatever "Asian-sounding" sounds like).

"I'm sorry--I don't understand you," Juan Diego replied in English. "Lo siento--" he started to say in Spanish, but the caller didn't wait.

"You asswheel!" the Asian-sounding person shouted.

"I think you mean asshole--" the writer answered, but the angry caller had hung up. Only then did Juan Diego notice that the foil wrappers for his first and second condom were missing from his night table; Dorothy must have taken them with her, or thrown them in a wastebasket.

Juan Diego saw that the second condom was still on his penis; in fact, it was the only evidence he had that he'd once more "performed." He had no memory past that moment when Dorothy had mounted him for another try. The earthquake she'd promised to show him was lost in time; if the young woman had again broken the sound barrier in a language that sounded like Nahuatl (but it couldn't have been), that moment hadn't been captured in memory or in a dream.

The novelist knew only that he'd been asleep and hadn't dreamed--not even a nightmare. Juan Diego got out of bed and limped to the bathroom; that he didn't have to pee forewarned him that he already had. He hoped he hadn't peed in the bed, or in the condom, or on Dorothy, but he could see--when he got to the bathroom--that the cap on his Lopressor prescription was off. He must have taken one (or two) of the beta-blockers when he'd gotten up to pee.

But how long ago was that? Was it before or after Dorothy left? And had he taken only one Lopressor, as he'd been prescribed, or the two he'd imagined that he should have taken? Actually, of course, he should not have taken two. A double dose of beta-blockers wasn't recommended as a remedy for missing a dose.

There was already a gray light outside, not to mention the blazing light in his hotel room; Juan Diego knew he had an early-morning flight. He'd not unpacked much, so he didn't have a lot to do. He was, however, meticulous about how he packed the articles in his toilet kit; this time, he would put the Lopressor prescription (and the Viagra) in his carry-on.

He flushed the second condom down the toilet but was disconcerted that he couldn't find the first. And when had he peed? At any moment, he imagined, Miriam would be calling him or knocking on his door, telling him it was time to go; hence he pulled back the top sheet and looked under the pillows, hoping to find the first condom. The damn thing was not in any of the wastebaskets--neither were the foil wrappers.

Juan Diego was standing under the shower when he saw the missing condom circling the drain at the bottom of the bathtub. It had unrolled itself and resembled a drowned slug; the only explanation had to be that the first condom he'd used with Dorothy had been stuck to his back, or his ass, or the back of one leg.

How embarrassing! He hoped Dorothy hadn't seen it. If he'd skipped taking a shower, he might have boarded his flight to Manila with the used condom attached to him.

Unfortunately, he was still in the shower when the telephone rang. To men his age, Juan Diego knew--and surely the odds were worse for crippled men his age--bad accidents happened in bathtubs. Juan Diego turned off the shower and almost daintily stepped out of the tub. He was dripping wet and aware of how slippery the tiles on the bathroom floor could be, but when he grabbed a towel, the towel rod was reluctant to release it; Juan Diego tugged at the towel harder than he should have. The aluminum towel rod pulled free of the bathroom wall, bringing the porcelain mounting with it. The porcelain shattered on the floor, scattering the wet tiles with translucent ceramic chips; the aluminum rod hit Juan Diego in the face, cutting his forehead above one eyebrow. He limped, dripping, into the bedroom, holding the towel to his bleeding head.

"Hello!" he cried into the phone.

"Well, you're awake--that's a start," Miriam told him. "Don't let Dorothy go back to sleep."

"Dorothy isn't here," Juan Diego said.

"She's not answering her phone--she must be in the shower or something," her mother said. "Are you ready to leave?"

"How about ten minutes?" Juan Diego asked.

"Make it eight, but shoot for five--I'll come get you," Miriam told him. "We'll get Dorothy last--girls her age are the last to be ready," her mother explained.

"I'll be ready," Juan Diego told her.

"Are you all right?" Miriam asked him.

"Yes, of course," he replied.

"You sound different," she told him, then hung up.

Different? Juan Diego wondered. He saw he'd bled on the exposed bedsheets; the water had dripped from his hair and diluted the blood from the cut on his forehead. The water had turned the blood a pinker color, and there was more blood than there should have been; it was a small cut, but it kept bleeding.

Yes, facial cuts bleed a lot--and he'd just stepped out of a hot shower. Juan Diego tried to wipe the blood off the bed with his towel, but the towel was bloodier than the bedsheets; he managed to make more of a mess. The side of the bed nearest the night table looked like the site of a ritualistic-sex slaying.

Juan Diego went back in the bathroom, where there was more blood and water--and the scattered ceramic chips from the shattered porcelain mounting. He put cold water on his face--on his forehead, especially, to try to stop the stupid cut from bleeding. Naturally, he had a virtual lifetime supply of Viagra, and his despised beta-blockers--and don't forget the fussy pill-cutting device--but no Band-Aids. He stuck a wad of toilet paper on the profusely bleeding but tiny cut, temporarily stanching the flow of blood.

When Miriam knocked on his door, and he let her in, he was ready to go--except for putting the custom-made shoe on his crippled foot. That was always a little tricky; it could also be time-consuming.

"Here," Miriam said, pushing him to the bed, "let me help you." He sat at the foot of the bed while she put the special shoe on him; to his surprise, she seemed to know how to do it. In fact, she did it so expertly, and in such an offhand manner, that she was able to take a long look at the bloodstained bed while she secured the shoe on Juan Diego's bad foot.

"Not a case of lost v

irginity, or a murder," Miriam said, with a nod to all the blood and water on the horrifying bedsheets. "I guess it doesn't matter what the maids will think."

"I cut myself," Juan Diego said. No doubt Miriam had noticed the blood-soaked toilet paper stuck to Juan Diego's forehead, above his eyebrow.