Kiss Me, Kate and Other Stories

The Owner’s Closet

A pril being the cruelest month, my wife and I decided to escape from the Rhode Island cold and rent a beachfront condo in Florida for a week to get away from that northern cruelty. I logged onto Vacation Rentals by Owner and found a beautiful spot in Ormond Beach on the Atlantic Ocean side, a little north of Daytona Beach. The online listing described the condo as one of forty-five units in a nine-storey building on the beach side of Route A1A. All the units ran side by side from the front of the building to the back, five to a floor, giving each unit a balcony with a direct view of the ocean. The weekly rental was only five hundred dollars. I called the owner and booked the third week in April. He told me that the third week was a very good choice—Biker Week in Daytona Beach was the second week of April, and school vacation that year was the fourth week of that month, making the month’s third week a lull week, a calm between the storms. He also told me that his condo was on the fifth floor and not only overlooked the ocean, but also overlooked the pool. I began to salivate. I mailed the check that day and immediately logged onto Southwest.com to book our flight and rental car. We booked a direct flight from Warwick, where Providence’s airport is located, to Orlando, where we would pick up our Hyundai Sonata for the drive to the coast.

We left Rhode Island at six in the morning on a cold, dreary, wet Friday in mid-April and arrived in sunny, mid-eighties weather in Orlando two and a half hours later. By the time we parked the Hyundai in the underground garage of the condo, the temperature had risen to the high-eighties, and it was even sunnier on the coast than it had been in Orlando. Welcome to paradise, I said to Mary, my wife. She just smiled that smile of contentment that I love so much. This is going to be a very good week, I thought.

The condo was everything I had envisioned: two bedrooms, in case someone surprised us with a visit; a small but efficient kitchen; a dining area; and a large living room with a high-definition TV. And the balcony! It was a little larger than I expected with four comfortable chairs and a small plastic table and two small plastic footrests. Looking down I saw a crystal clear pool with no one in it; looking straight ahead I saw the beach and the ocean. A flock of pelicans flew by. The next land was North Africa! The apartment even had a washer and dryer. I would not have packed as many clothes had I known that. I then noticed a small closet near the front door across from the dining area. On the closet door was a little plastic sign:

Owner’s Closet

Please Do Not Open

Thank you

Each line was in smaller typeset. That struck me as strange. Did the small Thank you mean something in relation to the polite, but larger Please Do Not Open? And why was Owner’s Closet so big, relatively speaking? I wish the sign would have asked us, or even commanded us, not to take or use anything in the closet, but the simple Please do not open the closet—was that a fair request? I guess the owner could make up the rules, but it did seem a bit cruel to tell us there were items in the closet that we could not only not touch or use, but could not even know about.

I pointed the sign out to Mary, but she just shrugged and said, Whatever.

Oh, if I could only be so nonchalant about things. I bet she won’t give this another thought the whole time we’re here, I thought, whereas I could see it ruining my week. No, I won’t let that happen, I thought. Let’s go down to the pool before the sun goes behind the building, I said to Mary. Then we can get some lunch. She was agreeable to both suggestions, so we changed and headed down to the pool. Since the sun rises in the east, over the ocean, the pool is in the sun until mid-afternoon when the sun begins to set in the west behind the building. The pool area was still unoccupied when we arrived there. With my pale Irish skin, I avoid the sun even after loading up on sun screen. I found a corner of the poolside area in perpetual shade and set up shop there.

Mary laughed and called it my shade cave. Even in the cave, I kept my T-shirt and hat on, for additional protection, and opened up Night Train To Lisbon, a novel I picked up for fifty cents at a library book sale the week before our flight south. But I couldn’t concentrate. That damned closet, I thought. Maybe I should go up right now and open it. Get it over with. But I knew I would never be able to do that. Catholic School education and a strict home environment have put up barriers that prevent my taking such action. Some French philosopher had said, The only right you have is the right to do your duty. I have always tried to live with that rule. And when I failed, the waves of guilt have been crippling. Is it my duty to open that closet? No. Therefore is it my right to open that closet? Of course not! Stop thinking about this and get back to your novel!

Honey, do you want to go in the pool? Mary called out from the sun.

What? I answered being roused from my thoughts.

What are you thinking about?

The closet, I admitted.

What closet? she asked.

The owner’s closet, I replied.

Oh my God! Let’s go up right now and open it. This is ridiculous!

You know me. I can’t do that, I sadly replied.

Then stop thinking about it. Let’s go in the pool.

OK, I’ll stop thinking about it, I lied, taking off my shirt and hat and heading out into the poisonous sunshine. Damn that man, I thought. Why didn’t he just lock it? No. He had to put up a sign, and a polite one at that. What could be so valuable that we couldn’t even see it, and yet not too valuable to be locked up? I’ve got to stop thinking about this. The water felt good, a little chillier than I expected, but great after I got totally wet.

Still thinking about that closet, aren’t you? asked Mary. You have got to stop thinking about it or open it; otherwise, your vacation will be ruined.

I can’t do either, I cried. I just can’t do either.

Sometimes I am so glad that I am not you, she said as she dived under the water.

When we went back up to change, I deliberately looked to my right, toward the dining area, after entering the condo. Out of sight, out of mind, I thought. Good old Mary, however, suggested opening the closet to settle the matter. I just gave her the look, the look she knows so well, the look that says Let it alone. She laughed and headed into the master bedroom to change for lunch. I did sneak a peek at the closet before following her. The damn sign was still there. What did you expect? A Please Open Me sign? Forget about it! I wish I could, I said out loud to myself.

Did you say something, Honey? asked Mary from the bedroom.

Just muttering to myself, I replied.

About the closet? she teased.

No, I lied.

There was a typed sheet on the kitchen bar listing some restaurants in the Ormond Beach area with hand-written recommendations and comments (by the owner?) about each. One sounded good: High Tides—the only restaurant on the beach side of A1A, about ten miles north in Flagler Beach. Hamburgers, shrimp, scallops, flounder, and the best grouper sandwiches on the Atlantic seaboard was the comment. We decided to give it a try. I again avoided looking at the closet on the way out. I almost didn’t think about it.

We chose a table on the outside deck overlooking the ocean. I was looking forward to the best grouper sandwich on the Atlantic seaboard. Mary had decided on the fried shrimp. The menu did not offer grouper sandwiches, but I ordered one anyway from the surly waiter.

We don’t have grouper.

That’s disappointing, I said to Mary. I ordered the fried flounder; she ordered the fried shrimp. I wonder what else on that recommendations sheet was incorrect, I said. There are a lot of teases in that damn condo, I added referring, of course, to the closet.

You don’t mean that owner’s closet, do you? she asked.

Of course I do, I answered. False recommendations on the local food list and unnecessarily annoying closet rules! This guy is not the guy I thought he was when we spoke on the phone. He should tell people about secret closets before he rents the place. And the recommendations sheet should have a disclaimer: food items recommended may change at any time without prior notice; past performance is no guarantee of future availability; be prepared for disappointments.

Mary was looking around at the other diners. Keep your voice down. You’re starting to babble.

Justifiable babble, my dear, justifiable babble.

Ah, here comes the food, said Mary relieved. Let’s enjoy our lunch and the view. The flounder, fries and cole slaw were delicious, but I would still have preferred the non-available, highly recommended grouper.

We spent the afternoon at the beach, or I should say Mary spent the afternoon at the beach. I joined her for an occasional swim in the ocean and then retreated to the shade now omnipresent around the pool. And, try as I might, I could not not think about the closet. Luckily, I fell asleep and escaped my dilemma in that way.

We went to a Chinese restaurant next to the local Publix Market for dinner. It was a take-out place, but they did have a few tables to eat there using plastic utensils and paper plates. The food was so good it took my mind off the closet. But Mary resurrected the subject when the waiter gave us fortune cookies along with our bill. What does yours say? she asked me. You will die before you know what’s in that closet?

Very funny. Actually it says ‘There are some things that should remain unknown to mortal man’.

Does it really? she asked.

No, I replied. It says ‘Eat your vegetables to maintain your health’.

They’re never fortunes anymore, she said sadly.

For the rest of the week, I decided not to look at the closet. When we ate sandwiches at the dining room table, I sat with my back to the closet. Mary looked at it and smiled. I could get to hate that smile. One time right in the middle of lunch, she jumped up and headed toward the closet saying, I’m going to open it!

I screamed out, Don’t! There’s a reason for the sign, and grabbed her around the waist. His ways are not our ways!

She laughed and confessed that she was only trying to get my goat.

Don’t joke about things this serious, I admonished.

Oh my God, she replied. It’s only a closet. It probably contains the owner’s beach clothes or cleaning supplies or something as trivial.

We don’t know that. Opening the closet would be violating a trust, violating the contract we have with the owner. How can we do that? I couldn’t sleep at night if we did that.

If we don’t open that closet, you’ll really not be able to sleep. Or at least you’ll have to find another bed to sleep in. You are driving me crazy.

OK, I promise no more closet talk. Even if I think about it, I won’t let you know that I’m thinking about it. I’ll lie and say I’m thinking about God or something profound. I will not let it spoil our vacation.

You better not!

And I was good to my word from that point on. I really think Mary thought I was able to put the closet behind me. Of course I wasn’t, but I didn’t show it. I did avoid looking at it, and she, to her credit, did not bring the subject up again. I think I did spend most of the week thinking of other things. It was always difficult when I entered or exited the condo, but that was only a few times each day. Night Train to Lisbon turned out to be very good, a book within a book set in Portugal, a country we had visited in 2005. I actually forgot the closet as I joined the protagonist, Raimund Gregorius, in his search for the author of the book within the book, Amadeu Prado.

The hardest time for me was quiet time on the balcony. Sitting on the fifth floor balcony looking out at the ocean was a lot like sitting on a deck of a cruise ship. I did see something that might have been a small whale one day and I loved following the formation flights of the pelicans as they zoomed just above the ocean, occasionally diving for a fresh fish dinner. It was peaceful but, unfortunately, conducive to thought.

One pleasant afternoon this thought came into my mind: What if you took a peek, didn’t touch anything and never told anyone, not even Mary? Would that be so bad? Who would ever know? Maybe there’s an alarm. No, that would be too expensive. Why not just have a lock on the door if there was something of value in the closet? No, there’s no alarm and there’s nothing of value in the closet. So why not just take a peek?

I suddenly sat straight up and said, Get thee behind me, Satan! Fortunately Mary was not on the balcony and didn’t hear that lunacy. Well maybe not lunacy, but she would call it lunacy. I thought back to a question in Ethics class in college with the Jesuits: If you were stopped at a red light and you could see in all directions and no traffic was coming, would you sit there if the light was red for an excessively long time? Yeah, I would. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. What was different about the closet conundrum? Nothing. The bottom line, I concluded, was either to: (a) give in to temptation, look in the closet, and start on that slippery slope to perdition or (b) choose the Lord’s side and avoid the closet like the plague. I decided to paraphrase the Biblical Joshua and cried out (internally so Mary would not hear): I don’t know about you and yours, but I and my family will keep that door closed! I know most people would just laugh at the problem, or, more likely, not even see that there was a problem, but, thank God, I am not like most people. I have my standards, absolute standards!

Friday morning came sooner than desired. We had packed the night before, and Mary was down in the garage arranging some things in the Hyundai. I hate to admit it, but Satan pushed me toward the closet, and, after checking that Mary was not in the hall, I opened the door. There was nothing in the closet. Nada! Niente! Empty! I almost cried. All that agony for nothing. What does it gain a man to obtain illicit closet knowledge if he thereby loses his soul?

On the plane, I turned to Mary and said, I have a confession to make. I looked in the closet this morning when you were in the garage. It was empty.

She took me in her arms and said, I could have told you that last Friday. I looked as soon as we arrived.

Doctor Visits

(Dedicated to my good friend, Mary D’Ambrosio, who will understand why)

M y name is Billy Richards and I don’t know why but, whenever I go to see a doctor or whenever I am scheduled for a medical procedure, I have little misadventures. After I relate these little experiences to my disbelieving wife, Irene, I always say, It could happen to anyone. She always replies, But why you, always you? Let me tell you about a few of these incidents so you can see that they could, in fact, happen to anyone.

The Desk Sitting Episode

My primary care physician, Doctor Carey, with whom I was very comfortable and with whom I rarely had misadventures, retired last June, and his office manager suggested that I contact a Doctor Kazmarick to take over my care. I called and arranged for my initial appointment at lunch time on a work day. My boss frowns upon making a doctor’s appointment during working hours, but since Doctor Kazmarick does not work week-ends or evenings, I compromised with a noon visit to his office. I knew I would have to leave work a little early and that I would probably return a little late, but I tried to keep the old task master off my back by putting the bulk of the downtime on my clock. I figured I could gulp down a sandwich in the car on the way to Dr. Kazmarick’s office.

I left the office at 11:45 on the appointed day with a dry ham and cheese on rye; I did not want to make my first appearance with a new primary care physician with bits of egg salad or tuna salad on my tie or shirtfront. I arrived just in time, actually at 11:59, and filled out nine sheets of paper that the receptionist gave me. I returned those to her, completed to the best of my ability, along with my insurance card. She told me to take a seat. Not knowing her very well, actually not knowing her at all, I did not ask where she wanted me to take the seat, but simply sat down with the book I brought with me. Two of the other three patients in the waiting area were staring at the opposite wall; the third was reading a 7-month old Sports Illustrated that Doctor Kazmarick made available for those who had been out of the country for the past year and didn’t know who won last year’s Super Bowl.

The other three were called in before I was, and I was still sitting with my book at 12:30. Scrooge is not going to be happy, I thought. Finally a nurse came out from the back and called out William. I looked around, but none of the later arrivals stirred, so I assumed that I was the William she wanted to follow her. Being generally agreeable, I did. She led me into Doctor Kazmarick’s office/examining room and told me to take off all my clothes except my socks and underpants and then to sit on the examining table. Modesty prevented me from beginning to disrobe until she had left the room, but after she did, I followed her directions to the letter, or so I thought.

I’m in my own little world at times, and this, I guess, was one of those times. I stripped down to my underpants and then sat on Doctor Kazmarick’s desk, not the examining table. He came in a few minutes later and found a 215-pound, practically naked man sitting on his desk.

I immediately realized my faux pas and gave him a little shit-eating grin.

He just stood there speechless for what seemed like an eternity, and then said, No one has ever done that before.

I sheepishly moved to the examining table and the examination went smoothly from that point on. When I got back to the office, I told a few female friends what had happened, and I thought they were going to pee themselves. One of them still smiles when she looks at me and says, That desk incident is the funniest thing I ever heard.

When I got home that night and told Irene, she didn’t know what to disbelieve more: that I had sat on his desk in my underwear or that I had told the women in the office.

It could happen to anyone, I said.

But why you? Why always you? she replied.

The Ear, Nose, and Throat Invasion

When I was a young man back in the turbulent sixties and seventies, I spent four years in the army, one of which was in Vietnam. I had been studying for the priesthood (hard to believe, isn’t it?) in a religious order, the Society of the Divine Savior (the good SDS, as we used to say), and decided during the summer just prior to my 26th birthday that the priesthood was not my vocation in life. I went back to New York, where my parents had a house on Staten Island, and moved in with them until I could get settled into lay society. I took an aptitude test with AT&T and was hired as a systems analyst trainee, training in an AT&T facility on Varick Street in downtown Manhattan, and almost a whole day’s journey from Staten Island. Actually the round trip was three hours, including an hour, 30 minutes each way, on the Staten Island ferry.

I would probably still be working in Manhattan and spending half my life commuting had Uncle Sam not invited me to join my compatriots in beautiful Southeast Asia. Instead of accepting the draft call, I proactively enlisted and signed up for Officer Candidate School. I was commissioned almost a year later as a second lieutenant in Military Intelligence, which is NOT an oxymoron despite what some smart asses might assert. Why am I telling you all this? Well my first Army assignment after my commissioning all those many years ago directly impacted a visit to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist last year. The army decided to send me to language school. I spent my first 12 months as an officer studying Chinese Mandarin at the Defense Language Institute East Coast in Arlington, Virginia. At the end of that year, I could converse fairly fluently in Chinese. I am still a lot of fun in a Chinese restaurant. And back then I even had a working relationship with the basic Chinese characters, which, believe me, is gone now.

I think the Army thought the Chinese might join us in Vietnam as they had joined the previous generation of Americans in Korea, and they wanted to have a stable full of intelligence officers ready to interrogate captured Chinese soldiers and translate captured Chinese documents. Thank God that never happened. The only Chinese I used during my tour in Vietnam was on my week of R&R (Rest and Recuperation) that I spent on Taiwan. God knows why but one of the phrases I still remember is Er Bi Ho Ke, which is Mandarin for Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.

Back to the present, or at least the recent past. I had been having work done on my teeth and was unable to use the mouth guard that my dentist insists I use to keep me from grinding my teeth to powder. Irene says she can actually hear me grinding away at night. The first time we slept together, she thought there were termites in the wall. I knew I would have to get a new mouth guard when the current dental work was completed, but I had to go without in the meantime. Irene wore ear plugs.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I started having pains in my right ear. I called Doctor Kazmarick, who being a true gentleman, never mentions the desk sitting episode. Maybe he just wants to forget it. Anyway, he examined my ear and discovered little white bumps inside the ear canal. He admitted they were new to him and suggested I call an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. He recommended a Doctor Wilhelm who, he said, had a splendid reputation. I called Doctor Wilhelm’s office and made another lunch hour appointment.

On the day of the appointment, I made another plain ham and cheese to gobble down in the car, and headed over to his office at noon. As with any visit to a new doctor, the first fifteen minutes were taken up filling out forms. I fill; they file. Again after 30 minutes, the usual wait in a doctor’s office, I was ushered back into one of the examination rooms.

I should have known better than to make small talk just by looking at Dr. Wilhelm when he made his appearance. He had a stern look about him. But I am not one to be intimidated. So I smiled and said, "When I was in the Army, I studied Chinese Mandarin. One of the few phrases I remember is Er Bi Ho Ke, which means Ear, Nose and Throat specialist."

He said nothing, and remained stern.

Perhaps they, the Army, thought the Chinese planned to send a squadron of Ear, Nose and Throat specialists into Vietnam.

Still no reaction. I decided to hush up. He might get the wrong idea and think I’m crazy.

Without comment on my military linguistic past, he took a look into my right ear.

There is nothing to be concerned about here, William. These little white spots are a result of aging, do not have any adverse effect, and, most importantly, do not and cannot cause any pain.

That was a relief, all but the comment about aging. What do you think is causing the pain, Doctor?

We’re called Ear, Nose and Throat specialists because the ears, nose, mouth and throat are so interconnected, that they are the purview of one specialty. I think the problem is caused by grinding your teeth. You should use a mouth guard.

Purview? No one had ever used that word in conversation with me before. I didn’t bother telling him about my current dental work. I just thanked him, in Chinese, and left. (Actually I thanked him in English. He had no sense of humor, especially not a bi-lingual one.)

When I got home and told Irene, It could happen to anyone, she varied her reply.

Yeah, to anyone who studied Chinese in preparation for a tour of duty in Vietnam, and who just happens to be an asshole.

That stung.

The Colonoscopy Prep

Irene called this adventure "the stupidest thing