Read this novel—Odyssey Redux (The Boys are Back in Town)—or we’re gonna shoot this dog!
Okay, maybe we won’t shoot the poor pooch. Perhaps we’ll just pet him more vigorously or be a little light-handed with his treats.
Anyway, for those who read the coming-of-age tale American Odyssey, Odyssey Redux, which takes place ten years later, is now available. The inspiration came many years ago when reading John Updike’s Rabbit Series. Updike was one of my literary heroes.
Below, I included three excerpts: A silly, stand-alone anecdote; a sexually charged power play; and an absurd three-way encounter.
*****
While Darrin grinned like the cat who swallowed the canary, Addison, across town, reread the letter that had endured as the source of his preoccupation throughout Casey’s party. He set the letter down and called Cillian to remind him of Sharon’s stern warning that they show up on time.
“We’re not gonna blow it this time like we damn near did with the delivery, laddie, by walkin’ in at the bottom of the ninth amidst a two-out rally,” Cillian swore. “I’m confident we’ll be there for the first pitch if not before the ump pulls his mask over his face and hollers ‘Play ball!’”
“Just to be clear,” said Addison, “it’s a day game; the first inning begins at three o’clock sharp. Also, it’s you and me who Joey and Sharon chose to place little JB3 on the pillow, carry him into the room, and hand him over to ‘the sandek,’ which will be Sharon’s father.”
“Sharon’s old man is a good sport,” said Cillian. “I can still hear how he cackled above the rest when we roasted Joey at the wedding. And we had some crack-up material that day, did we not?” After an expressive sigh, Cillian added plaintively, “Too many tales of fuckery, laddie boy. Too many tales of fuckery.”
Addison’s mind flung backward in time and landed squarely in the summer of ’77. Without a note of compunction, he echoed the sentiment, “Too many is better than none.”
And so, Addison and Cillian handed the baby to Mister Millstein on schedule, or at “the top of the first.” Mister M presented the babe to the mohel, who recited the words of welcome, “Baruch HaBa,” which means blessed is the one who has arrived. Next, the mohel delivered a blessing acknowledging that the mitzvah, or commandment of circumcision, was about to be fulfilled. After the procedure, the mohel took a cup of wine and recited a prayer into which he incorporated the name Joseph Brosco III, placed a couple of drops of wine on the babe’s lips, and then Joey and Sharon each sipped from the cup.
Once the room transitioned from a formal setting to a social one, Cillian enlightened those in his proximity, “I recently read that hospitals sell infant foreskin to biotech labs.”
“Did you hear that, son?” Joey said as he cradled the freshly circumcised infant. “Your birth has hastened your uncle to learn all about the virtues of foreskin. It just goes to show that no one is too young to be an influencer.”
A curious Sharon asked Cillian, “Why is that?”
Cillian told Sharon, “Infant foreskin is bursting with fibroblasts, which are cells so rich in collagen that labs can manipulate them into various other cell types. For example, they can engineer skin grafts for burn victims. But here’s the best part: the fibroblasts from a small square of foreskin can multiply to cover an entire football field! That’s a whole lotta potential grafting, bejeezus.”
“So, what you’re saying,” said Sharon, “skin that God designated for the human penis could end up on my nose or some other part of my face should I get cancer that requires my skin sloughed off?”
“Oh, it gets better,” Cillian eagerly intoned. “Because foreskin is so rich in collagen, it’s used in manufacturing makeup and face creams; so, chances are, your nose and a good portion of your face are already covered with a conglomeration of prepuce. In fact, I’d go so far as to say every woman alive owes the enhancement of their beauty to the wonders of male foreskin.”
“There’s no goddamn justice in this world,” Sharon groused while glaring at the males in her proximity—the newbie included.
Next, everyone turned their queer expressions on Addison when he said, “Whenever I think of circumcision, I conjure images of female birds. I imagine a delicate sliver of penile skin dangling from the beak of a sparrow, let’s say. Mama Sparrow is transporting that tender sliver back to the nest to feed her still-blind and hungry hatchling. When the hatchling senses Mama Sparrow is near, it opens its anticipatory beak as wide as it will go, and into its beak, Mama Sparrow drops the foreskin. It’s kinda like an avian version of the tooth fairy but with a cycle of life slant.”
It was with mock admiration that Sharon intoned, “Just when I thought it was no longer possible that you could stun me into silence, you go and prove me wrong.”
Cillian put an assuaging arm around the new mother and said, “In a way, it’s kinda comforting, is it not?”
*****
It occurred to Claire, as she watched Rosemarie’s demeanor brighten, that she held another woman’s fate in her hands; that before they sipped their way to empty glasses, Claire could free Rosemarie from decades of bondage or condemn her to bondage for the rest of her days. Claire never imagined wielding such power; it both thrilled and frightened her. Moreover, Claire had taken what she alleged was a decisive step beyond the point of deciding the initiative was a mistake and that there were exits through which she could finagle her way free; the gambit, should Claire’s conscience endure as an abiding factor, must surge ahead with charity and prudence.
“So, how was ‘our’ little coffee date?” Darrin asked no sooner than Claire slipped past the door, still in the throes of what proved a weightier encounter than first imagined.
It annoyed Claire that Darrin, after pleading with Claire to undertake what she first dubbed a “batshit-crazy initiative,” described the affair as “little.” Moreover, Darrin’s intonation seemed to characterize “little” not in scale but as something trivial, a frivolity one need not obsess over.
“Kiss my cunt, and I might divulge a few nuggets,” said Claire.
Darrin dropped to his knees, mimicking an obedient canine expectant of a treat. Darrin relished the role of a slave to Claire’s hotness and would kneel and crawl at her command. Claire’s body, from the tips of her slender toes to her well-formed pink nipples, was Darrin Caldwell’s idea of the Holy Grail; it reduced him to a shameless beggar.
“I said kiss, not lick,” Claire scolded. “I won’t be able to concentrate on what I’m saying if you keep darting that tongue around.”
Darrin, from his haunches, appearing every bit the forsaken pup, gazed up at Claire.
“All right, fuck it,” Claire mercifully acquiesced. “Go for it!”
Brightening like a boy in summer, given the essentials to chase down a Mr. Softee truck, Darrin hungrily lapped at Claire’s vagina. He found pleasuring Claire incredibly intoxicating when beneath her and could feel her wetness oozing downward to baptize his cheeks. When their middle-of-the-living-room interlude ended, Darrin, his face drenched with Claire’s climax, was right back on point, it being “our little coffee date.”
“What can I say?” Claire intoned with a cavalier wave of her hand while walking away. “Aside from uncloseting a lesbian, it was a typical day in the life and times of Claire Caldwell.”
“You’re a wicked woman,” Darrin cried from his knees as Claire, with her back to Darrin, began ascending the stairs. Claire stopped at the halfway point of the stairs and replied, “And you, my dear, are a shameless and disgraceful hound.”
Darrin paused just long enough to regard the stinging rebuke and then got to his feet and went trailing after Claire. By the time Darrin reached the bedroom, Claire had tamped a pinch of grass into a bowl, flung the windows open, and offered what resonated as a non-sequitur, “Did you know she’s never given Guy a blowjob?”
“Wow,” cried Darrin, “you two really dug deep for what was supposed to be an afternoon coffee date. But it makes perfect sense. What I mean to say is that a lesbian spreading her legs for a man in hopes of carrying a child is understandable; to the best of my knowledge, artificial insemination was not a term on the tip of anyone’s tongue twenty-six years ago when Rosemarie was trying for Maryellen. But I could see where a mouth or face full of jizz would seem a bridge too far.”
“It goes a long way in explaining all the affairs,” said Claire. “After all, men are hopeless visual creatures condemned to fantasize about eager-to-please pigtailed women on their knees.” Following a narrow stream of psychotropic smoke forcefully expelled through a screen, Claire hissed the question—seemingly as an afterthought but not rhetorically, for she desired an answer— “What is it with men, nowadays, and their Little Bo Peep cocksucking fetishes? Are miniskirts and stilettos no longer sufficient? Experienced adult women now need to pretend they’re bobby-socked cheerleaders looking to lose their virginity to get a rise out of men?”
“I’m afraid we veered off-topic,” Darrin uttered paradoxically. It was more to himself when Darrin mused, “I wonder what Guy ever saw in Rosemarie?” He was not expecting an answer. Thus, it surprised Darrin when Claire replied, “I watched her hands tremble. I heard her voice quake. I saw the depth of sincerity swell in her eyes when she revealed things to me that she had yet dared reveal to another soul, and I can state, categorically, that Rosemarie McNamara is not just lovely; she is beautiful.”
Darrin reached for a moment of levity, but there was no available lightness lingering in the ether. Claire exhaled another stream of smoke in the direction of an open window and said, “I never imagined that what I first dismissed as a nutty scheme—cooked up by you or Guy, separately or collaboratively—would prove so enlightening. Still, I’m at ground zero and have plenty of work cut out for me. Wish me luck.”
Darrin’s opportunity for levity had finally surfaced. “We can only hope that Ol’ Ollie North is blessed with an advocate as capable as the one working with our dear Rosemarie.”
Grinning, Claire replied, in that distressed voice that tends to resonate after marijuana marinates in the lungs, “I must admit, you’re rather charming when you’re full of shit.”
*****
That Rosemarie could hold Claire in her thrall thrilled Rosemarie beyond any sensibility known to her. For Claire, an unforeseen consequence was that Rosemarie’s ardency had stirred her beyond any imagined threshold. Each glowing female found the other an unexpected delight. But then something happened. Another presence was afoot. But who? Darrin? No, Darrin sat crouched in an adjoining room, making every effort to maintain utter silence. Before long, the interloper boldly asserted their presence.
“Hi-de-ho ye lassies and laddies, the prodigal son has returned from his western sojourn, and he has come bearin’ good tidings from afar, he has.”
Addison quickly assessed the area, saw no one about, and ascended the stairs, suspecting he might catch Claire and Darrin toking on a midday bowl of grass. When he reached the hallway, he discovered Claire putting herself back together and primping herself inside his old bedroom, and Darrin inside Casey’s bedroom. It was with a note of incredulity that he intoned, “Was that Rosemarie McNamara who whizzed by me on the stairs?” Addison could not recall ever seeing Rosemarie with her hair down and her eyes unspectacled.
“I’m not sure,” Darrin irresolutely uttered as Claire simultaneously stammered, “It … it could have been.”
Addison’s suspicious eyes fell first on Claire and then Darrin. Next, he asked Darrin, like one confounded by an anomaly, “What were you doing in Casey’s room …” —Addison paused, and his eyes shifted downward midsentence— “with your fly down?”
“Oh, you know, just puttering,” Darrin feebly lied. “I guess I forgot to zip up after I peed. That sort of thing tends to happen once you reach a certain age. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Peering over Claire’s shoulder, Addison asked, “Is that your underwear on my bed?”
Claire flushed, then fixed a hesitant gaze on the bed that once accommodated her son. “I don’t recall why I went into your former room,” she told Addison. “But once I did, I noticed quite an accumulation of dust. So instead of dashing to the basement for a dustcloth, I decided, why not use my underwear?” Claire shifted her eyes toward Darrin before explaining, “You know how it is; you get lazy once you reach a certain age.”
Next, Addison observed, “You two have that look—the imbecilic cat that ate the canary look you usually get after smoking a bowl of weed, yet I don’t smell anything.”
“Well, you know,” Claire began as she flustered further. “It isn’t just weed that gets us all … well, you know…”
“Of course it isn’t,” Darrin interjected to rescue Claire. “Sometimes it’s… well, you know…” and he waved his hand about as though there was every expectation he could pluck an answer out of thin air.
Finally, Addison decided it was best to move on from what had quickly evolved into a farcical encounter. “I’m getting married,” he announced.
“Ohh,” Claire intoned.
“To whom?” Darrin wondered, as he linked a sudden marriage announcement to him and Claire, having struggled to make sense of Addison’s out-of-sorts demeanor at Casey’s party.
Addison shrugged as if to imply the answer could not be plainer, then blurted out, “Maryellen.”
Still attenuating the afterglow of an unanticipated climax, Claire sounded artificial when she said, “Addie, that’s lovely.”
Darrin, who had finally stepped beyond the threshold of Casey’s room but had yet to attend to his unzipped fly, extended a hand and said, “Congratulations, Addie.”
Sensing the encounter had traveled beyond the point of a lost cause, Addison said, “I’m gonna let you two get back to whatever illicitness you were up to.” But no sooner had he turned toward the stairs than he uttered the afterthought, though it rang affectingly, “Is Rosemarie McNamara a lesbian?”
“A lesbian?” Darrin intoned as if the proposition were so far-flung a concept that it was unworthy of examination.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Claire followed; her contrived whimsy was painfully apparent.
“No reason,” Addison lied. He had a foot on the stairs and was about to descend when he said, “I take it they have a plumbing issue next door?”
“A plumbing issue?” Darrin parroted. Darrin appeared harried by what he alleged was a non-sequitur.
“Why else would Rosemarie have been upstairs if not to use your bathroom?” Addison pressed.
“Of course, the McNamaras have a plumbing issue,” Claire alertly interjected. “That fast, I had forgotten.”
Addison rolled his eyes like one does when told a fish story, puffed out a sardonic chortle, and then galloped down the stairs. Later, Addison would call Joey to ask whether the new father had noticed that his folks were more neurotic than usual since becoming empty-nesters.
Claire sank to the floor, her shoulders slumped, and her back rested against the door jamb. Gazing up at the ceiling, she cried to Darrin, “Please open the windows and fill my bowl so I can smoke myself into a stupor.”
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