In the soft light of a late summer afternoon, Mildred quietly climbed the stairs, walked through the narrow hall and into her bedroom, where she thought she caught McTavish screwing her dog.

Mildred’s border collie was napping unmolested. McTavish happened to be masturbating beside the animal, grinding his pelvis into Mildred’s bed. Mildred gasped and howled, which McTavish, despite his preoccupation, noted with horror.   
He snapped to attention, rising to his knees and hoisting his underpants. He fumbled with his club-like appendage, trying to bury it in clothing. At this, he had only partial success. Hopping off the bed, he completed the job—at the cost of some pain—by raising and snapping shut his blue jeans.

McTavish’s humiliation flared and shook volcanically. How his soft body contained such wreckage, he couldn’t imagine. The collie stirred and snorted while McTavish tucked in his shirt, trying to retain some dignity.

McTavish thought an explanation would be helpful. But first he needed to clear up some confusion. “Who are you?” he asked.

In response, Mildred’s white-knuckled fists pressed more firmly against her hips.  Veins popped in her forearms. Her build was blocky. She had a pinched face and short brown hair. Mildred glared darkly through McTavish as if to obliterate him.  

 
McTavish said, “Sandy said I could stop by. See her new racquet.”

“Get the hell out.” Mildred’s eyes spat a fiery fury and contempt that scared McTavish to death. He edged toward the door, feeling unsolid, like ooze.  

“You got it,” McTavish wheezed. 

He walked through the gloomy hall, grinding his teeth, then hurried down the stairs as if expecting someone to boot him on the ass.  

                                                                                                    ---

​

Saturday morning, McTavish played tennis. He was in the “average” category of the local USTA league. Before his mixed-doubles match, he warmed up alongside his partner.

“You dumb asshole,” Sandy said.  

“I said maybe you could come over some time,” she continued. “See the new racquet. I didn’t mean you could waltz in any time like a damned pervert.”

Sandy wore a short black skirt and white top pulled tautly over her body. Her racquet met a yellow, fuzzy ball cleanly just as the ball bounced to her forehand side. As the ball ricocheted forcefully back over the net, Sandy was leaning forward, her racquet pointed upward in a flowing follow-through. A nice-looking stroke on a bright, sunny morning. One could hear, along with the healthy “pops” of balls on racquets, a mix of bird calls from the lush treetops behind the asphalt courts.

“And I sure as hell didn’t mean,” Sandy continued, “you could whack off on Millie’s bed.”   

McTavish cringed. A ball hopped toward his backhand side. He loved to hold his racquet back with both hands, then sweep gracefully over the ball, flicking it with topspin like Borg. He revered this stroke like some people worship ballet. That McTavish seldom hit the shot properly didn’t deter him; he had his dreams like everyone else. Today, his timing was particularly poor. He lunged at the ball, striking it too early. The ball clanged against his racquet’s frame and bounced onto the next court. 

“Whoops,” said McTavish.

Sandy didn’t bother with two hands. McTavish watched her wallop a one-handed backhand at such a sharp angle that the woman across the net didn’t bother to chase it.  McTavish noted the early sheen of perspiration blooming on Sandy’s legs.
 

“Is that the racquet we were discussing?” he asked hopefully.

Sandy ignored him. She continued to whack balls, her thick hair flying. Momentarily inspired, McTavish smacked a few decent shots of his own. He skipped around on the balls of his feet to get loose, knowing that movement is a tennis player’s key asset. He didn’t have to look far for an example: Sandy’s sturdy wheels kept her game solid and consistent.

McTavish’s breathing quickened with his efforts. No matter how often he played this game, he remained impressed by how difficult it was. On the court, your side—the side you need to cover—seems twice as big as it looks on TV. While your opponent’s side looks twice as small. But McTavish noted that Sandy wasn’t breathing hard, not even after she had sprinted to the net to knock off a volley.

“Two things,” McTavish said. “The front door was open. And I thought it was your room.”

Walking back to the baseline, Sandy slowed.  The sun highlighted the juicy, peachy hue of her skin. “One favor,” she said. “Why don’t you leave me alone.”

McTavish adjusted the headband he wore over his longish hair, hoping to look dashing. He looked around at so many seemingly happy, half-naked weekend athletes.  With barely a cloud in the glittery blue sky, it was a day to die for. It was going to be a very long match.

                                                                                                      ---

​

McTavish and McGillicuddhy walked in shirt sleeves and loosened ties. Their dozen-story office building looming at their backs, they were in a small recreational park that included a jogging path, softball field and the cooling cover of treetops. They were on their lunch hour, in no hurry to return to work. McGillicuddhy sipped beer from a can inside a brown bag. McTavish chewed on an unlit cigar he’d bought at a drugstore.

They hitched their pant-legs and sat on a bench next to the jogging path. Thin streams of sunlight had broken through the treetops, scattering bright dapples. But the earth around them remained almost damp. The effect was comforting, like being in a protective cave.

 
Two trim young women, in shorts and tanktops, trotted past. McTavish watched them, moving his eyes. McGillicuddhy’s head swiveled as if the women’s rear ends magnetically pulled his nose. His head remained pivoted until the women disappeared through a tangle of bushes deep in the outfield, where the shade ended and the sunlight exploded suddenly.

With a melancholy sigh, McGillicuddhy re-shifted his gaze ahead. He was a balding, pale fellow. “I think I may be going nuts,” he said. He sipped beer and his brows were fixed thoughtfully.  

“Oh?” McTavish said.  He rolled the cigar between his right thumb and forefinger. He studied the thinly-wrapped paper, the crumbling tobacco. Absurdly, the prop steadied his confidence, made him feel his age.    

 
“You wouldn’t believe the dream I had, couple a nights ago,” McGilicuddhy said.   “I’m talking to, uh, having intense discussions with this girl. She’s ‘bout 16 or 17. I knew her once in real life. In high school. Haven’t seen her since, so it’s been ‘bout ten years.  Haven’t thought about her since, either. She was damn good-looking, but so were a few dozen others. For some reason she’s in this dream. And we’re talking.

“Don’t remember the topic of conversation,” McGillicuddhy said. Despite the shade, he flicked sweat from his forehead. “But it was heavy. Invigorating. I said to her at one time, during the dream, something like, ‘Look, I’m married.  I’ll be your friend.  But if it’s a sexual thing you want, I ain’t it.’”

McTavish laughed, thinking: the guy’s goddamned noble in his dreams. He bit his cigar hard. Its sharp taste filled his head, blew through his nostrils. “Good for you,” McTavish said. Across the way, two young boys climbed monkey bars in the sun.

“The dream dissolves,” McGillicuddhy said. “I wake up with a hard-on, it’s like up to my chin. Thing has a heartbeat of its own. My wife’s asleep next to me. I don’t dare move, wake ‘er. I lay all night suffering instead. Next night—last night—you believe it?  Same fucking dream. But this time I’m brave. I sneak to the bathroom and beat off.”

McGillicuddhy lifted his beer to his sad mouth. He seemed about to say something else, then took a sip instead.

McTavish and McGillicuddhy’s friendship had a solid foundation of after-work sessions at Ray’s Bar, a drinking joint near their office. Their drunken conversations wove many variations on a theme. McTavish, as a single man, wondered if he’d ever get laid again. McGillicuddhy, as a married man, wondered if he’d ever get laid again.    

Both men stood. They strolled along the jogging path as it wound through the thick-leafed trees, toward the sunlight and ball field ahead.

“Speaking of which,” McTavish said. He admitted what had happened at Sandy’s house, when Mildred caught him. McGillicuddhy seemed delighted.

“Hell and damnation!” he cried. “If that don’t beat all! That’s got to be the lowest damn thing that can happen to a fellow! Ha!”

McTavish smiled sourly. The odd thing was that it didn’t matter much. Something happens, he thought, it damn near kills you. But telling about it doesn’t change anything. McGillicuddhy was right—this was as low as it gets. So what else was there worth hiding? The notion was liberating and loosened some tension. He felt pleasantly lightheaded and patted McGillicuddhy’s shoulder as if cementing their friendship.

Exercise stations were posted along the jogging path at regular intervals. The men passed a chin-up bar, an inclined sit-up board, a pair of gymnastics rings hanging from a branch. Despite McTavish’s mild interest in physical fitness, such instruments in this serene setting made him think of torture devices.

“Hey,” he said to the stubby McGillicuddhy. “You ever exercise here?”

“What?” McGillicuddhy said, as if someone had asked if he’d ever climbed Everest. 

 

McTavish tossed his cigar into a trash can. McGillicuddhy’s empty beer can followed. A muscular man, shirtless, passed them from behind, panting as his footsteps crunched into the dirt and gravel path.

“Get a job,” McTavish muttered when the man was a safe distance ahead.

“What the hell were you thinking?” McGillicuddhy said.

McTavish said, “I’d decided to be forceful and up-front in this relationship.” He kicked a small stone ahead of him as he walked.  “A relationship which, I admit, didn’t exist. Yet. But hell. You’ve seen ‘er, right?”

“Yeah,” McGillicuddhy said. “She works on the floor above us.”    

McTavish nodded excitedly. “So ya know what I mean.” He whiffed at the stone and kept walking.  “We met at the tennis league. We’re doubles partners. Naturally, we gotta talk. Discuss strategy. We talk about other stuff too. And, ya know, we got things in common. We like the same TV commercials. We were both born on this planet. Both of us hate when those goddamn cards fall out magazines. Whatever. Stuff like that.  So we’re getting along fine. She’s telling me about this new racquet someone gave her. Said I should see it, come over to her house sometime.”

They stepped onto the ball field, into the sunlight. Both men shielded their eyes by saluting. The temperature seemed to jump ten degrees. From deep in center field, they faced a wire mesh backstop. The air had a deep, grassy smell. McTavish and McGillicuddhy strolled toward right field, where the monkey bars stood in foul territory.

“I decided she actually meant I should come over to her house sometime,” McTavish said. “So I did. The front door’s slightly open. I knock and ring the bell, no answer. I go in the living room. Then I climb the stairs. Shouldn’t a done it, I know. But it’s a weird feeling, being in someone else’s house, nobody’s there. Ya feel powerful. I can see how some people wanna be crooks. Anyway, I see a bedroom. I assume it’s Sandy’s, so I go in. Hell, I didn’t know she had a housemate. I sit on the bed, wait a while. Goddamn dog comes in. What do I care? I keep waiting. Get a little sleepy. Lay back. Start drifting off. Think of some shit I shouldn’t be thinking of. The rest is history.”

McGillicuddhy snorted as they reached the monkey bars. McTavish gripped a bar level with his eyes. He stepped up on a rung a couple of feet off the ground.

McGillicuddhy said, “I guess your touching romance is over. Leave Sandy for some other strivers.”

McTavish kept climbing. He stepped carefully since his dress shoes had no traction. At the top, he was a little higher than a basketball rim. He felt the slight shakiness of someone about to cross a balance beam. He sat on a bar. Each hand squeezed parts of the bar for steadiness. From his vantage point, McTavish became conscious again of the surrounding roads, holding moderate traffic on this work-day afternoon. Beyond the backstop, sunlight glinted off of passing, chugging vehicles. He looked back at their office building, a narrow white slab overlooking a garden of trees.  

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” McTavish said. “Never say die.”

He remembered a gymnastics maneuver he’d occasionally executed as a kid. It was called “skin the cat.” You wrap the backs of your knees around the bar, then hang upside down. You reach up and grab the bar, then roll your body backwards between your arms while still hanging. Feeling a surge of excitement, McTavish decided to give the maneuver a try.   

He slithered carefully backwards until the backs of his knees rested on the bar.  “Gotta do something,” he mumbled to McGillicuddhy. He let his rear end drop and was startled at his clumsiness.

Doing this as a boy he had felt intoxicatingly weightless. Now he felt like a hippopotamus. His head was unwieldy and disoriented. His hands squeezed the bar with desperation. He realized it would be wise to abort, but that goddamned McGillicuddhy was watching. He had to proceed. Regretfully, he released his grip from the bar.  

His upper back, neck and head plunged a couple of feet; then stopped suddenly.  From various pockets slid coins, a wallet, keys, a chewed pen top and a cigarette lighter.  Comets burst on the backs of his eyelids. He swayed nauseatingly while his yellow polka-dotted tie flopped against his face.

McTavish regarded the upside-down image of McGillicuddy. McGillicuddhy looked like a visitor from space whose chin was the top of its head. Its eyes were its freakish mouth and its hair was a goatee. McGillicuddhy’s smile looked like a frowning gash on his forehead.

“Hey,” McGillicuddhy said. “You’re red as shit.”

Blood poured into McTavish’s head like a cloudburst. No way he was gonna complete a “skin the cat.” This had to stop before he had a stroke. He straightened his arms toward the ground to break his fall and released his legs. He dropped quickly toward the ground.  

McTavish’s palms hit the grass first followed by his elbows. His body seemed to stiffen and freeze for a moment, as if he were standing on his head. Then he toppled sideways. His right knee struck a metal rung as he sprawled onto his stomach and gasped.

McGillicuddhy’s face and arms were pressed against the bars. He peered down at McTavish impassively. “I think,” he said, “you’re too optimistic about Sandy.”

McTavish rolled to his back. He crossed his arms over his eyes for protection against the bright, hazy sky.  

                                                                                                  ---

​

The next Friday evening, at Ray’s Bar, McTavish imbibed a waterfall of liquor.  He had begun in a civilized fashion, sitting at a table with people he knew from work. He drank Heinekens from light-green bottles and conversed comfortably. After some time, the people at his table were replaced by another group from work. This second group was comprised of folks McTavish had seen around but didn’t really know. How this transformation of faces had happened, McTavish hadn’t a clue. He glanced suspiciously at an empty Heineken bottle. He switched to drinking Dewar's and water. He sat woodenly with a polite, frozen smile, saying nothing since he didn’t know what the hell anybody was talking about. He drank quickly and fog filled his head.  

McTavish was pausing, sucking on ice cubes, when his world shook again.  Seemingly in the blink of an eye, his table became filled with strangers. He had never seen any of them before. Dressed in bright, annoying clothing, they talked with spirited self-importance. Depressed, McTavish began drinking shots of Absolute vodka. His table mates were unimpressed, but McTavish became flat-out, nose-to-the-floor drunk. He felt like a nameless, floating being with dull consciousness. He stood abruptly. His chair teetered backwards on its hind legs and hovered. The chair righted itself.  McTavish staggered off. A couple of people at the table glanced up, wondered who he was, then returned to their socializing.

McTavish plowed into the bar counter. His right forearm hit the top of the counter hard, and he gripped its edge tightly with his other hand. He hugged the counter like he’d hug a woman. People hovered closely around him, though he was barely aware of them.  He did, however, demand and receive a cigarette and lighter from a stranger standing beside him. The lighter was child-proof and McTavish spent a couple of minutes figuring it out. He cursed, his words swallowed by the bar’s party music. He finally lit the cigarette and returned the lighter, instinctively thanking the fellow.

McTavish puffed the cigarette. He was too woozy to taste it. The smoke brought him to earth a little bit, though, helped him focus on his breathing. The spinning room slowed and he could perceive and comprehend conversations.

“I’m inna wedding,” some woman behind him yelled. “With my dress you could see it.  Right on my shoulder.”

McTavish slid onto a just-vacated barstool. He sat hunched over, with his head low like a turtle’s. He flicked cigarette ash into an empty glass.  

“Usually you can’t see it,” the woman said. “But with that dress, you could. Her mom looks at me, like, ‘what’re you doin’ with that tattoo?’ I’m like, ‘hey, you wan’ me to take it off just for this?”

Fascinating, McTavish thought. He slumped lower, ground out the cigarette. Behind the counter, light danced inside the liquor bottles flanking the cash register. The many-colored fluids generated a rainbow effect. McTavish watched a flickering TV. A newsclip flashed a tennis match. He recalled he had a match tomorrow. He stared uncomprehendingly at his wristwatch.

“Great GODDAMN tune!” someone shouted.

“Yo! Yo! Fucker!” someone screamed.

McTavish felt unhealthy and overwhelmed. “Ya gotta GO for it!” someone next to him exclaimed.  

There was a shot glass filled with amber liquid in front of him. He presumed he’d ordered it. He tossed it down. That goddamned Sandy, he thought. Never did show him that racquet.  

The scene behind the bar counter appeared to move back slightly, then tilt a degree to the left.  

                                                                                                   ---

​

A few minutes later, McTavish was following a jagged path as he staggered along the block where Sandy lived. Moderately sized single-family homes made up the neighborhood. McTavish stumbled under streetlights dropping weak, hazy light. Their illumination was aided slightly by a half-moon. A couple of dozen dim stars were scattered across the sky. The night was comfortably warm. McTavish reeled up the brick front walk to Sandy’s house. All the windows were dark.  

McTavish fuzzily recalled how he’d walked through this front door a week or so ago. Assuming he could do it again, he grabbed and twisted the doorknob without breaking stride. The door didn’t move. The top of his head bopped against the wood. His momentum forced his arm into an unnatural shape. He backed off like a stung boxer.

McTavish re-approached the door and rapped sharply. He rang the bell several times. An emotional fault line, running from his head to his testicles, cracked open. It was part shame, part love, part alcohol depression. “Hey!” he called. He thought he heard his voice echoed from a great distance. Then a cave of silence surrounded him.  His eyes watered. “Where’s that racquet!”  he yelled raspily.

McTavish did a tap dance of anguish. “Longfellow serenade,” he sang. He settled to one knee, arms outstretched.  

The door opened. “What ‘re you, fucking nuts?” A figure grabbed McTavish by the scruff of his collar, compelling him to move away from the house. 

As he sat leaning against a tree McTavish had his face slapped. A voice called his name, trying to focus his attention.

“He’s out of it,” the voice said to Sandy. “We can’t leave him like this.”

Sandy in halter and shorts stared down at McTavish. McTavish recognized her, and felt a glow of affection. His grin was goofy, shaped like an “s” lying on its side. 

“I’d drive him home ‘xept I don’t know where he lives,” McGillicuddhy said.

Sandy responded with a shrug. “Neither do I.”  

A cloud floated like a ship in front of the moon. Inside the house, Mildred’s border collie barked. An image of Sandy persisted in McTavish's mind as he settled into a peaceful sleep.

​

                                                                                                THE END

                                                                                                

​