Surkow’s Fantasy by Mark SaFranko

Surkow’s Fantasy by Mark SaFranko

     Tuesday. Pete Surkow checked himself in the bathroom mirror like he did every day. He tilted his head a little this way, then a little that way. Not bad. Not bad at all for fifty. His hair was intact, and the predominant note was still black. And his face, while not without its lines, hadn’t yet broken apart into a landscape of craggy crevices and lumpy hills and ugly jowls. No, not bad at all.

     Surkow was a man who’d made something of himself. It had been a long, sometimes brutal process, but at the age of fifty he could look back and assure himself that he’d gotten somewhere in life: four published novels (only mid-listers, but they were published and you could still find at least one of them on the Barnes And Noble shelves), thirty or so short stories to his credit, and three separate awards (minor, admittedly) for his writing. And he could say something else –- that he’d done it all virtually by himself. With the exception of his last book, for which his agent –- the only agent he’d ever been able to land, the market for literary fiction being what it is —- had procured his first substantial payday, he’d sold every piece on his own.

     Yes, Pete Surkow had to feel pretty damned good about himself whenever he stopped and thought about it, and he tried to do that every day. After all the deadening jobs he’d had to hold down over the years to support his writing habit –- textbook editor, tech writer, community college adjunct instructor, even used car salesman and movie theater usher when things were really bad –- he’d been able to beat the system in his own small way. Not that he was world famous. No, The Times had only reviewed one of the novels, and not very favorably at that. Nevertheless, Surkow had left his little mark.

     He had it good in other ways, too. His wife, Maryanne, had been in his corner all the way. They’d met when he was thirty-four and at the ass-end of his wild single days, and they’d been together, more or less happily, ever since.

They’d waited a few years, then produced two children, a boy and a girl, who were young adolescents now, and pretty decent kids all things taken into account.

     No, these days the only problems Surkow had were his fantasies…one particular fantasy. It was puerile and tame as far as daydreams went, but it wouldn’t leave him in peace. There he’d be, pounding out a manuscript, when all of a sudden his concentration would lapse and Kim Stormer would appear. Kim, with her long, horse chestnut-colored hair, her turquoise-blue eyes, and her luscious flanks.

     She and Surkow were engaged to be married twenty-nine years ago, after meeting at the podunk college they attended in southern Ohio during the heat of the tumultuous sixties. When it started, she was a junior, and he was a senior worried about his future, which might very well include getting drafted and shipped off to the Nam. His lottery number was within shooting distance, and several of his buddies had been plucked for active duty the minute their student deferments lapsed. Of course Surkow had seen Kim Stormer around campus, had lusted after her when she was dating another guy, coincidentally, a would-be artist, too. When that fellow decamped for the Virgin Islands to try his hand at living like Gauguin, it was Surkow’s turn to step in.

     One blissful year later the great romance was history. Since he hadn’t known what else to do at the time, Surkow went home to Jersey City after graduation to look for a job and wait for the draft board to makes its move. He and Kim  saw one another when Surkow could afford the trip to Ohio, or when she had a break from classes and came east. But the distance was lethal, as it nearly always is. The time between visits lengthened until one day they just didn’t see each other again. Surkow couldn’t remember now whose idea it was to call it quits. He and Kim hadn’t come apart over anything in particular; they were just kids, and being kids was what had done them in.

     Of course none of this was out of the ordinary. In the intervening years, the years after Kim Stormer and before he met his wife, Surkow had scores of women, most of whom he’d now forgotten. But what he couldn’t forget, what he could never seem to shake, was the sweet reverie of a certain sexual act that Kim would perform on him in his dorm room on weekends when his local-yokel roommate was off visiting his folks in a suburb of Cincinnati. And what Surkow hadn’t bargained for when he’d let Kim go was that no one female since could match her incredible prowess and enthusiasm when it came to executing that same trick.

He could still picture it: her auburn hair undulating back and forth, her velvet tongue flicking out at him, his hands caressing her face. The explosion at the end. Damn, she was good. The best.

     He was at his desk, chin in hand, remembering all over again. Lately for some reason it was worse. What was clear in hindsight was that it had been every bit as good with Kim Stormer as it ever was with any woman who’d come after her, including his wife. Better, in some ways, because it had happened when they were young and beautiful and full of life and plans. It was Kim to whom Surkow revealed his dream of being a writer. She herself was going to be a “poetess,” as she put it rather preciously. She encouraged his pathetic initial efforts, when he nursed delusions of being the reincarnation of Dostoevsky, or becoming the next Kurt Vonnegut. They were going to do it together — give the workaday world the slip, live the creative life, travel to Europe and South America — they were going to conquer the world.

     Naturally, none of it happened. Kim was gone. Vanished, like a dandelion’s flimsy puffball into the wind. He hadn’t even suffered.

     Occasionally nowadays when Surkow was fiddling around on the Internet, he would type in the words “Kimberly Stormer,” but invariably came up empty. No doubt she’d gotten married and changed her name, like most women, and no matter what he did to try and ferret out her whereabouts, he got nowhere. He knew he’d have to fork over a fee to dig deeper, but he likewise understood that in the process of excavation he was going to have to cross a certain line that, if it didn’t constitute out-and-out cheating on his wife, would come awfully damned close.

     And so he did nothing for weeks, months, until he turned fifty-one that April. Even if he refused to see it in his face, it had come as a shock that he was growing older. Life was on its way out. Opportunities were slipping by. If he was ever going to look up Kim Stormer, it would have to be now, before it was too late. All he’d have to do was call up the “Expert Assisted People Locator,” type in his charge card number, and plug in the vital information.

     And then one day he got up and just did it. Like lightning, the computer coughed up the subject’s current address and telephone number. Now she was Kim Blasingame, and she resided, of all places, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which blew Surkow’s mind –- they were practically neighbors, even though he and his wife had moved out of the city to the North Jersey suburbs after the birth of their second child.

     Surkow’s heart was like a thrashing fish inside his ribcage. He printed out the information, folded the sheet into quarters, and tucked it into his wallet. Knowing where his old flame was gave him at least some measure of satisfaction. But what did it amount to?

     He didn’t take immediate action. What exactly did he want from Kim Stormer? He didn’t know. Surkow wasn’t a stupid man. He realized that his desire to see this phantom from the past represented, on some level, a quest for his own lost youth. At fifty-one, his best days as a stud were gone, and he’d probably spent the very best of them with her.

     Finally he rationalized that the mere act of dialing Kim Blasingame’s number in itself would hurt nobody. Early that Friday afternoon, after pacing the house like a caged animal and chewing it over for the thousandth time, he decided to take action.

     The kids were at school and Maryanne was at her job in the PR department of a hospital up in Bergen County. Surkow sat at his desk, flipped open his overstuffed, slightly misshapen wallet, and spread out the search agency e-mail. Then he picked up the phone and with trembling fingers punched in Kim Blasingame’s number.

     A woman’s voice, smooth and young. It was her. For what seemed like a small eternity he couldn’t even find his tongue.

     “I’m trying to get hold of Kim –- Kim  Stormer….”

     Oof. He was a complete nincompoop, an idiot!

     “Kim…who?”

     “Sorry — I must have the wrong number,” he croaked. He was just about to hang up when the woman said “I used to be Kim Stormer, but I’m not anymore.” There was curiosity in that voice now. “Who is this, please?”

     Surkow’s palms were running with sweat.“It’s Pete, Kim. Pete Surkow.”

     It was only when she said “Pete — what a surprise!” did he let his breath out. “How on earth did you find me?”

     Surkow tried to explain, leaving out why he wanted to find her in the first place; the truth was he couldn’t have done it accurately or adequately. Neither mentioned a word about their families: it was as if each knew that there had to be significant others lurking in the background, but that they were going to be intentionally omitted, and that wilful, reciprocal oversight on Kim’s part spoke volumes.

     Fifteen minutes later, heart still bouncing crazily, he made a suggestion. “Be interesting to get together again sometime.”

     When Kim answered “It would — wouldn’t it,” Surkow knew it was still there.

&&&

     They agreed to meet near the carousel in Central Park the following Thursday afternoon. For the next three days Surkow was unable to do a lick of work on his new book -– not a sentence, not a word, nothing. He alternated between guilt and a state of high sexual agitation –- he was going to get Kim Stormer to perform her magic on him again, which meant he was going to be unfaithful to his wife. Both thoughts had him jumping out of his skin.

     For Maryanne, Surkow cooked up the excuse that he was heading into town to rummage in a few bookstores, something he did occasionally to break up his routine, and, if he felt up to it, maybe pay his agent a visit. He needed to get out of the house –- the novel wasn’t happening, not at all. He was perplexed, completely flummoxed. He couldn’t recall a block so severe. If he got away, lost himself in the crowds for a while, maybe something else would take over and break through.

     His wife was, as always, sympathetic: “You don’t have to ask me for permission, Pete. You should get out of the house more often — isn’t that what I always tell you?” It was Monday evening, after dinner. She padded off in her baggy jeans and shapeless sweatshirt, a familiar and safe presence who more often than not bored him.

     Thursday was a fabulous day, well into spring, sunny, mild, with only the puff of a cottony cloud in a corner of the azure sky. Surkow couldn’t keep himself from arriving at the rendezvous early. He ducked in at the West Seventy-second Street entrance, but instead of proceeding directly to the carousel, he first spied on the area from the shade of a thick, gnarly elm some distance off.

     Kim wasn’t down there yet; at least he saw no one who resembled his ex. By now he was so restless that his thighs were twitching.

     Then it dawned on him. He was being stood up –- of course. She’d thought better of the idea at the last moment and decided not to show. Like him, almost.

     His heart sank. He was just about to pack it in when he noticed someone on a bench near the ticket booth, her back to him. Was it her? At this range he couldn’t tell much more.

     Surkow tugged on the sleeves of his jacket and made for the bench. As he closed in, he began to realize that he’d made a mistake –- it wasn’t who he thought it was after all. This person had stringy iron-gray hair and was much smaller than Kim Stormer. The shoulders were more rounded, as if a slight dowager’s hump was setting in. She was also overweight — dumpy. The clothes she wore — mismatched pants and sweater — did nothing for her.

     No, definitely not Kim. And his Kim would never drag around an overstuffed shopping bag — it smacked too much of the homeless.

     The woman’s face was buried in The Village Voice. She didn’t even glance at Surkow when he sat down on the other end of the bench.

     The writer focused his eyes on the children swirling around on the brightly painted unicorns, camels, horses, leopards and lions. For some reason the innocent sight made him feel like weeping.

     “Pete?”  

     He straightened at the sound of his name as if he’d been jabbed with a needle. The woman had closed her newspaper.

     “Kim?”

     She was staring at him. The pellucid tint of her blue eyes brought everything back.

     “Jesus –- I don’t think I would have recognized you on the street in a million years,” he blurted stupidly.

     She laughed a little, not an easy laugh. Her once-perfect teeth were no longer perfect. They seemed larger than they used to be, and slightly discolored. Her wispy, aluminum-colored locks bore no resemblance to the thick mane of long ago. The formerly breathtaking face –- people used to say Kim was a ringer for the movie actress Jennifer O’Neill, who was hot stuff at the time -– was creased and puffy. The flesh of the once-swan-like neck quivered when she moved. The gamine physique had given way to matronly heft.

     “Well, you’ve changed a bit, too, you know.”

     It was Surkow’s turn for a queasy laugh. “How’s that?”

     “For one thing, you used to have considerably more hair.”

     They chuckled simultaneously as Surkow’s hand instinctively traveled northward, but he didn’t think the jape was funny. And if his hair was “one thing,” what the hell were the others?

     Surkow studied his companion. What had somehow eluded him, dimwit that he was, was the simple fact that Kim Stormer was the same age as he was. Of course he grasped intellectually that she had to have grown older, but the realization hadn’t translated into the half-wreck sitting beside him. Somehow he always thought of Kim as that beautiful, unchanging nineteen-year-old girl, her comely head bobbing up and down in his lap.

     He was a fool. Suddenly he felt extremely self-conscious, with the embarrassment of a man who suddenly notices that he is naked in a crowd. He dreaded Kim making some insipid remark about his waistline or double chin.

     But she said nothing more about his appearance. They talked about everything and nothing. The past came up, which was like entering a titillating, forbidden zone. Kim was able to recall particular details that he’d completely forgotten -– like a certain forest-green Woolrich jacket he’d insisted on wearing day in and day out back at podunk –- but when he alluded to his accomplishments as a writer, she seemed hard-pressed to remember that either of them had ever had an interest in literature. Worse, she wasn’t even aware of the books he’d written, let alone read them –- at least so she said.

     She produced a pack of cigarettes and lighted one with a match from an old-fashioned matchbook, like she used to. For some reason it irked Surkow that she still smoked. It came out that she’d been divorced once, from a semipro golfer out in Ohio, and had a son from her present, second marriage. Her husband (she didn’t refer to him by name), who did something or other for an investment firm, was certainly nice, but the marriage wasn’t really all that exciting, truth to tell. She was vague on details, which also bothered Surkow, though he knew he had no right to be. He wondered if she was even telling the whole truth. Along the way no doubt she’d had scores of men, maybe hundreds, and every goddamned one of them had enjoyed the same sexual stunt that he had.

     “So how about you?”

     He desperately wanted to leave Maryanne and his kids out of it. He’d rehearsed a range of things he was going to say if he were asked that question: I love my wife and all, but you know how it is after fifteen, twenty years. It gets stale. Besides, after you, going to bed with a woman was never the same.

     Etc. Now that they were together in the flesh, everything was different, which was the way life always went. The thrill was gone, and Surkow asked himself what had made him want to do this in the first place.

     “Well, you know how it is. Most of the time I’m working on a book. My wife works too, and she takes care of the kids, pretty much, though I guess I do my share. It seems to work out somehow.”

     Kim smiled, wanly. All at once Surkow felt not only guilty but ashamed into the bargain, even though he liked to believe that remorse and shame were qualities he wasn’t particularly vulnerable to. When he was through talking about himself, he noticed that Kim was watching him with sly mischief.

     “This time of day the apartment is empty.”

     He flinched. Those words were what he’d been yearning to hear, praying for.

     “That’s the way I like it, myself,” he mumbled clumsily. “Nobody at home. It’s quiet. You can think….” Thinking by himself was how he’d gotten into this situation, he thought ruefully.

     “We could go back to my place for old times’ sake, Pete.”

     There it was, easy as a dream. But at this point Surkow wasn’t dreaming along those lines at all. He was calculating how to go about gracefully cutting the tryst short.

     Kim blinked her large, watery eyes. “Well?”

     Just then a wave of gleeful cheers burst out from under the metal canopy as the unwieldy beast of a merry-go-round churned its riders into a frenzy of merriment. For Surkow, however, the noise was a diabolical jeer, the raucous tone of the barrel organ like the accompaniment to a two-bit freak show.

     “Actually, I have to get back home. But it was nice seeing you after all these years. I always wondered, you know, what happened to you….”

     Kim seemed to take the rebuff as gently as it had been dealt. It occurred to Surkow that perhaps she was having second thoughts of her own.

     “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea anyway. Let sleeping dogs lie, right?”

     He got up to leave. Kim got up, too. Surkow felt so incredibly awkward he didn’t know what to do. Shake hands? Give her a kiss? No — he didn’t want to do anything.

     He said a flat, unemotional “Bye” and began walking away. Behind him there were more feral screams from the kiddie ride. Surkow half-expected to hear Kim hurl a curse at him as he trudged up the asphalt toward the exit. As he was about to round a grove of trees, he stole a look over his shoulder at the bench where they’d been sitting just a few seconds ago.

     It was empty. She was gone. They would never see each other again in this lifetime. Surkow knew that if there was another lifetime beyond it, they wouldn’t be seeing each other there, either.

     Outside the park there were human beings everywhere, the typical omnipresent hordes of New York, and angrily honking vehicles, a whining ambulance, a screaming fire engine. Despite the hubbub, a terrible emptiness and desolation engulfed him, and the throngs and racket made it worse.

     The problem, he decided, was that he’d been living in a ludicrous, vacuous fantasy. For years. Maybe for all of his life. Everything around him was unreal, like in a dream. It hadn’t to do only with Kim Stormer, but with everything in the dream –- his wife, his kids, the alleged “success” he’d achieved, the comfort he’d been nestled in. He himself was nothing more than nothing.

     His gloom deepened. He could go back home, but to what? At the last second, rather than continue walking in the brilliant spring weather, he ducked into the subway at Columbus Circle. He wasn’t thinking of anything — he wasn’t thinking anymore, period.

     There were trains everywhere. He could hear their roar all around him, above and below. Passing beneath a sign that read “Downtown,” he was bumped and elbowed as he descended the grimy stairs with the miserable, stinking ruck.

     He stood on the platform trying to decide what to do. A red train rolled up and spewed out its occupants, who scattered like cockroaches. A few moments later he made out a pinpoint of light, like a harsh, distant star, in the blackness of the tunnel.

     As the monster approached, he took two steps forward, to the edge of the filthy tiles. He dashed toward the train’s oncoming, impassive, silver face and catapulted himself into space like an Olympic diver. It didn’t hurt at all, really.

     When it was over, he turned and went back up the stairs to the street.

* * * * THE END * * * *

Copyright Mark SaFranko 2023

Mark SaFranko’s Official Website: https://marksafranko.com/