In the bad winter of 1994, Minerva awoke at three in the morning during the fourth blizzard and pulled her suitcase out from under my bed. Your bed is what she called it even though we’d been sharing it for six months—longer than Minerva had been with anyone else exclusively. She slept around. Not in a sexual way, but in a let-me-hold-you-while-you-cry sort of way. She was the village witch that tended to the village idiots. Her business card said Minerva Lamplighter: Professional Spooner. Soothsayer. Doomslayer. She’d been in the bed of most every local man between the ages of twenty-five and seventy-five, curled up behind them, saying: “Now, now. There, there. Mommy’s here. Tell your troubles to Mama.” She didn’t like her job. She wanted to be a carpenter. But the Universe had other plans for her.
“Jesus didn’t want to be a carpenter, and I didn’t want to be Jesus. But here we are. We do what we’re called to do.”
I admired her for that. Envied her, actually. I was a fifty-two-year-old math teacher at the community college. I drank enough SKYY vodka every night to kill a better man. I ate cold pizza for breakfast, right out of my hands, looking out of my glass front door at the crows. I had gingivitis, gastritis, empty eyes the color of pencil lead. I had a dead wife named Maeve who I’d never even loved, and I was obligated to spend one afternoon a week with her son from a previous marriage doing the sorts of things I assumed stepdads did. Making tough steaks on a grill I had trouble operating. Throwing a football heartlessly back and forth. The kid’s name was Justice and he had dreadlocks. My name was Dave and I had a receding hairline. I’m pretty sure I was the worst thing to ever happen to him. I know I’m the worst thing to ever happen to me.
But anyway, Minerva pulled out the suitcase while the snow was blowing insane outside, like sifted flour through a fan. She found her bikini in a drawer and put it in the suitcase, which was really not a suitcase, but rather a little fireproof safe that most people use to store deeds and wills.
“A bikini?” I said. “That’s it? That’s all?”
Minerva twisted the combination on the safe, opened it up and put the bikini inside. The bikini was a flimsy thing, a wad of yellow strings. A plate of spaghetti I’d like to see spilled on her. “Where I’m going, even this’ll be too much,” she said.
“Where on earth are you going?” I said. “A nudist colony? Ecuador?”
Minerva shut the safe and tucked it under her arm. “I’m going nowhere on earth,” she said. “I’m going to Venus. The planet.” She kissed me on the forehead like the mother she was. “It’s hot as balls there if you didn’t know. And now I’ve told you, so now you do.”
With Minerva gone, I resorted to my worst and earlier ways. To my original sins. To what I did between Maeve’s funeral and me finding Minerva’s business card under my windshield wiper. I went down to Don’s, the bar, and took the stool at the west end. Don, the eponymous owner, didn’t flinch when I sat down, though it had been 179 days since I was last there. He didn’t even take my order. He just filled up a shot glass with hot SKYY and filled up a beer glass with warm Guinness and slid them both in front of me like Thanksgiving dinner.
“Dave,” he said.
“Don,” I said.
When I’d had four of each, I stumbled over to Frenzy’s, the pizza place, where the manager, Nate, was fielding calls from college kids and townies. He still had his broom-colored ponytail low and loose at the base of his skull, his stained apron, his furrowed brow, the cordless phone tucked under his chin. His hands, veined and coarse from manual labor, from the demands of dough, were the hands of an old man. His hands looked eighty, even though Nate was only twenty-four. I sat at his counter like I’d sat at Don’s, and Nate served me without taking my order as Don had. He slid two slices of Hawaiian under my nose, followed by a plastic container of ranch.
“Dave,” he said.
“Nate,” I said.
Nate, like Minerva, had also answered a vocational call with a fury I could not conjure, could not fathom. While I chewed and swallowed, I watched him work. In life, it seemed, there were dough and doers, there were the needy and the kneady. I fell into the first of both categories. I was soft and helpless. The more I watched Nate work, the more I loved him. The more I watched Nate work, the more I hated myself. I saw me spooning Nate and Minerva spooning me. I saw myself weak and crying between them. The purposeless between the purposeful. Old meat between holy bread.
“My whole life is about circles,” Nate had once said. “Pizzas, pepperonis, onion slices, tomato slices, pepper slices, eggplant slices. Pineapple rings. See this slicer?” He’d pointed to the big stainless-steel machine behind him. “The circle of life. The circler of my life. When it goes, I go.”
I remembered this as Nate got a call for six Italian grinders. I watched him slice circles of salami, circles of pale watery ham, circles of provolone, circles of ruffled iceberg. My heart kept breaking and breaking. I could feel it in Nate’s hands, my sliced heart, with every back-and-forth of the machine. It was all I could do not to sob. What good was a man like me? I asked Nate to wrap the rest of my pizza. I stood and thanked him. He was on the phone. He was hard at work. I tipped him a twenty. He didn’t even notice. That night, I slept fitfully. I dreamed I looked through a telescope and saw a bikini dangling from a crescent moon. I dreamed Nate made Minerva a wooden pizza that she cut with a saw. I dreamed I was sick, over a toilet, and all that came up were circles: red, yellow, green, purple.
In the morning, I ate the remaining circles off an old leftover grinder in the fridge while I stood and watched the winter crows out my glass front door. They arrived in the white yard like men in black business suits, commuters between trains. They strutted about in the snow like they weren’t expecting anything. Like they could give or take all or nothing. Minerva had once told me that birds liked shiny things. Winter crows especially. That they collected coins and tinsel and foil wrappers and decorated their nests with them. That there was nothing they loved more. I went and found my pants on the bedroom floor. I took some nickels from the pocket. I went outside in my slippers and robe and the crows leapt away—disgusted, not scared—and I scattered the coins on top of the hard snow. Back inside, I waited at the door for the crows to return, but the crows had moved on to whiter pastures. I ate the last three circles from the old grinder. In the bright morning sun, the nickels looked happy. I pretended I had done one good thing with my time.
Minerva was gone for a week. When she returned, she was tan, the color of maple syrup, and she carried a tote bag that said What Happens on Venus, Stays on Venus.
“I brought you something,” she said. She dug around in the tote bag and pulled out a snow globe. Inside of it were a bunch of tiny women, the color of maple syrup and dressed in yellow bikinis, holding hands in a circle around a volcano. Instead of snow, orange glitter rained down on them. “Venus,” Minerva shook her head in awe. “What a ride, what a ride.”
“What else is in the bag?” I asked.
Minerva held the bag close to her body. “It’s all volcanic, all women. Gals and gas. Sulfur. Well, there’s one guy there, Maxwell Montes. I know. Only one guy? You’re thinking: he must be the king of Venus! But, no. You’re wrong. He’s our toy.”
“A sex slave?” I said. “What’s in the bag?”
“Your word choice is off,” Minerva said. “The cure.” She touched the bag. “That’s what’s in the bag.”
“The cure for what?” I asked.
“For what ails you.”
Minerva was only home for five days. In that time, she held me ten times and I cried eight of them. She praised me for my progress. She shook out the bed linens. She burned sage. She made her mushroom teas. She lined up her seven rainbow glasses on the windowsill and let the sunlight make chakra water. She made me gargle the water. The indigo nearly killed me. Minerva made me hold quartz crystals and talk about Maeve and math, two things I felt nothing for. At meals, she stirred my soup counterclockwise and her soup clockwise. She put her hands above my head and clapped. I just watched her, admired her, hated her. Her glossy coal mane, her decisive face, the ease she oozed.
“It’s the midlife,” she said. “It’s got you bad.”
“How do I get rid of it?” I asked. I was desperate.
“Try or die,” Minerva said. “Try or die,” she repeated.
I hated her because she was right. I hated her because she knew she was right. I hated her because I hated myself. I hated myself because I hated her. How did she even get to Venus? Amtrak? LSD? Teleportation? I wanted to know, but I couldn’t muster the energy to ask. It’s not like I was allowed there anyway.
When the snow returned, the safe came back out from under the bed, my bed, and the bikini went inside of it and Minerva went off a second time. I looked everywhere for the tote bag while she was gone. I hadn’t seen her leave with it, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe she’d put it in the safe. Maybe I’d imagined it. I missed her terribly. I didn’t know what to do with myself when she was gone. I didn’t know what to do with myself when she was here, either, but when she was here, she was at least trying to fix me.
Every afternoon of Minerva’s absence, I went down to Don’s, and every night, I closed out the day at Frenzy’s. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I taught Finite Math at the community college. The kids watched me teach with the enthusiasm of the dead. I taught them nothing they’d ever use. They knew it and I knew it. It was like singing a lullaby to rocks. On Tuesdays, Justice came by for his overcooked steak and baked potato. It had grown too cold for football, so after dinner, I’d make him listen to Exile on Main Street. One night, before he left, I rummaged through a dresser drawer and pulled out an old Penthouse and handed it to him. He held up his hands and took two steps backward, refusing to touch it, but I went on and opened up the magazine and let the centerfold unfold. I figured a stepdad had to do what a stepdad had to do, but Justice closed his eyes and shook his head and left. On that particular night, I went down to Don’s and had five vodkas and five beers, and on that particular night, instead of eating anything at Frenzy’s, I sat in the parking lot, in an empty, unlocked car that I was pretty sure was Nate’s, and I waited for him to finish his work. I went in and out of consciousness, in and out of sleep. At some point, Nate got into the car and I scared him. Not on purpose, just my presence.
“Man,” Nate said. “You scared me.”
“Show me where you live,” I said. “Show me how you live.”
“What?” Nate asked. “Show you how to live?”
“That too,” I said. “Where you live and how you live and how to live.”
Nate said okay. I could tell: he was a worker in every way. Not just at Frenzy’s. He was assignment-oriented. A tasker. He did what was asked of him. He didn’t strike me as particularly smart, just industrious. I could tell he would have liked Finite Math. He would have made me feel like I was contributing something to society. I saw his face in my classroom. I saw his face in the glow of the moon. He started the car.
“You could have frozen to death out here,” he said.
“Have you ever been to Venus?” I asked.
“What’s Venus?” he said. “A restaurant?”
“It’s a planet,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Then no.”
Nate’s car wasn’t much. It was some old two-door that rattled and whistled in the cold night.
“There’s a hole in my floorboard,” he said. “Down by your feet.”
I looked down, but I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t speak.
“Sorry,” Nate said.
His house was a little red rental. It had a purple porch light. Nate helped me out of the car. He showed me his kitchenette, his leather couch, his glass bong, his girlfriend. Her name was Nicole, and she had on a tank top. She had large breasts with wings tattooed on them. There was some makeup smudged under her eyes. Her face was scared.
“He doesn’t look good,” she said to Nate. “You need to call an ambulance.”
Nate shook his head. “We can do it,” he said to her. “You and me.”
They put a comforter on the leather couch. They put me on the comforter on my side. They put a blanket on me and then Nate climbed behind me and spooned me. Nicole laid on top of both of us.
“This’ll thaw him,” Nate said.
I felt myself thaw. I felt Nicole’s breasts and Nate’s breath. “What good is a man like me?” I whispered. “What good am I in the world?”
“He needs something to eat,” Nicole said to Nate.
“Where am I on the circle?” I said. “The circle of life. Where on it am I?”
“I’ll heat up some slices,” Nate said to Nicole.
I didn’t want him to leave me.
“I’ll do it,” Nicole said.
I didn’t want her to leave either.
“Tell me I’m either at the very beginning of the circle,” I said, “or the very end.” Nate and Nicole both sat up. They tucked the blanket around me. “I either need more time or no more time.”
Then I was quiet. They were quiet. They left me. I heard them in the kitchen. I heard a timer ding, and I smelled pizza getting warm. I was getting warm. I fell asleep. I opened my eyes at one point and saw Nicole take off her tank top. Her nipples were as brown as maple syrup. She walked out of the room. At another point, I heard the sounds of sex, but I couldn’t open my eyes no matter how hard I tried. In the morning, I heard another timer ding. I saw Nate walk by the couch. He was naked. His uncircumcised penis flopped as he walked, like a wet sock between his legs. He made life look easy. He moved about with more than confidence, he moved about with relevance. When I woke up a final time, Nate and Nicole were gone. I folded the comforter and the blanket and sat for a while with my face in my hands. When I quit doing that, I found a note and a set of keys on the dining table. Nate had left his car for me to drive to my house, but I was too embarrassed to see him again for a while. I’d have to get drunk all over again to face him when he picked his car up. So, I went outside and walked around the little red rental to think. In the snow under Nate’s bedroom window were four used condoms. Red, yellow, green, purple. Circles unfolding. I wondered if they were all from one night. When was the last time it snowed? I was equally amazed and depressed.
I decided to hitchhike without using my thumb. I walked along the main road until a man in a truck slowed down and gave me a ride. He didn’t talk and I didn’t talk, and it was starting to feel like one kind thing after another. When I got home, I shook the snow globe until all the women detached from the bottom and floated to the top. I was trying to get Minerva back home.
Minerva eventually came home on her own time. This time, she was as tan as French roast and smelled of sulfur. Like old eggs with fresh insides.
“I’m hot enough to melt lead,” she said. Out of her tote bag, she brought out a souvenir spoon, an iron-on Aphrodite patch, and a T-shirt that said My Girlfriend Went to Venus and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.
“What about the cure?” I said. “For what ails me?”
Minerva held her tote close to her body. “There’s only so much to go around,” she said. “There are men much worse off than you, David.”
I was incredulous. “You can’t be serious,” I said. “Don’t you know me? Can’t you see how bad off I am?”
Minerva was unmoved. “What I see,” she said, “is how unbecoming all of this is.”
I didn’t know what to say. I looked at the souvenirs on the kitchen counter. I tried to find the words, but only a single word came to mind: frenzy.
Minerva sighed a loud sigh. Her breath filled the kitchen with a tangerine haze. “I’m retiring,” she said. “I’m done doing what I was asked to do. I’m moving to Venus for good. I’m going to be a carpenter there. Build some decks, some boardwalks by the volcanic fields. Like in Yellowstone. You should go to Yellowstone. Walk on the boardwalks. Get close to the earth’s crust. Try or die, Dave. I just came back to get my things.”
I hung my head. “It’s that Maxwell guy, isn’t it?” I asked.
Minerva went over to her little safe on the counter and turned the combination dial. “Of course, you think it’s a man. Because you’re a man. A man can’t possibly imagine what a woman would do without one.” Minerva opened the safe and took out her bikini and tossed it to the floor. Then she brought out a little vial and unscrewed its top and picked up the souvenir spoon and filled it with a circle of green liquid. “Open wide,” she said to me. “Down the hatch.”
I did as directed. It tasted like eggs. Bad ones. I winced, resisted the urge to gag.
“When you get the call,” Minerva said. “Pick up.” She put the bikini and the vial back into the safe. She started going around the kitchen, collecting her things. It was ending. It was over. I never see anything coming until it’s already been gone a while. “When you’re called, you’re called. You can pretend you don’t hear it, but that’s what makes you miserable. The denial. The feigned deafness.”
Minerva packed her rainbow glasses and her dried mushrooms. She went through my drawers and gathered her scarves and finger cymbals and soap flakes. I couldn’t bear to watch her leave, so I left first. I went down to Don’s and sat on my stool, and he served me without me having to tell him how to serve me. I sat there with my warm drinks and waited. I waited for the cure to cure me. I waited to feel better. But instead, the snow picked up outside and it went past the window like Minerva’s soap flakes. A television played a silent hockey game. It was all so sad. I was almost too sad to drink. And then there was Don, in front of me, with the bar telephone, holding out the old dough-colored receiver like a hand extended to a drowning man.
“It’s for you,” he said, and I put my ear to the phone, but he didn’t even have to ask. I knew it was Nate and I knew he needed me to return the favor, all the favors. I knew he was calling for me and only me, and I just said, “Wait. Wait right there. I’m on my way.”
I got up from the stool and ran down to Frenzy’s, and the run and the snow felt good, exhilarating. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d run. When I got to Frenzy’s, there was Nate, standing on the deck of the pizza place, holding the big stainless-steel slicer like he was holding a wounded woman. For a flash, I saw Nicole, draped in his arms like she needed a ride to the hospital, but then I blinked and it was the slicer. Nate’s other love. His maker of circles.
“It’s in pieces,” he said in a voice I’d never heard him use. Was he about to cry? “You have to hold it together while I drive. Hold it together, man. Hold it together.”
I reached out for the slicer, and he transferred it to me, and I nearly fell from its weight. Nate went to his car and opened the passenger door and slid the passenger seat all the way back, and I staggered over with the slicer and got in and Nate shut the door. Then we were off, speeding down I-90 in the black night with the snowflakes whizzing by like stars, and I was in space—we were in outer space.
Nate said nothing, but I could tell he was grateful. He drove faster and faster. Past Ilion and Utica, past Rome and Verona. I was ancient. I was relevant. We went speeding down the highway with the silver slicer, with the wind blowing up through the floorboard, and joy washed over me like lava. When the slicer was fixed, I’d let the joy melt me down. I’d let the circular blade of the slicer slice me up, into molten circles, into shiny coins. Nate would drive, and I’d spill out into the night, or the morning, whenever it was, from the floor of the car and out onto the white snow. The birds would have me. They wouldn’t be able to resist. They’d pick me up, all my pieces, and take me back to their nests. I would be lain on forever. Cherished.