The Nail and the Oracle Read Online Free Page A

had the look of ninth inning strike three. None of us mentioned it again.
    It seemed funny at the time. Not so funny when I write about it.

    Here’s a funny one. I don’t have this authenticated, that is to say, I (thankfully) have no photos, but I sort of always knew that Ted had an inclination toward, well, not wearing clothes.
Your
doctor would call it nudity. Now, as I say, I don’t know if Ted was a card-carrying
nudist
at any time in his life, but around here he started walking around
sans raiment
. I could not have that. Not just because we had studio people and other writers and girl friends and the one or two people who made up my “staff”
also in situ
, but mostly becausebare, Ted was not any more divine an apparition than are each of you reading this. He had blue shanks, scrawny old guy legs, muscular but ropey; he wasn’t inordinately hairy, but what there was … well … it was
disturbing;
a little pot belly that pooched out,
also
mildly distressing; I will not speak of his naughty bits. But there they were, wagglin’ in the breeze. I am, I know, a middle-class disappointment to Ted’s ghost, that I am thus so hidebound, but I simply could not have it. Particularly, especially, notably after The Incidents:
    Primus: he decided to make
Paella
for me and a select group of dinner party favorites. So we got him this big
olla
, and amassed for him the noxious ingestibles (did I mention, I not only
hate
this olio, would rather have someone hot-glue my tongue to a passing rhino than to partake of
Paella
), and off into the kitchen went the naked Sturgeon. A day he took. A whole day. No one went near the kitchen. I sent
out
for my coffee. And here’s what is the Incident aspect of it: as he mish’d that mosh, he used his hands, alternately digging into the heating morass and then occasionally
scratching his ass
. I am not, I swear on the graves of my Mom and Dad, not making this up. I have no idea if others in the house saw it, but I did, and I got to tell you, had I not loathed
Paella
out of the starting-gate, that tableau from The Great Black Plague would have put me off it at least till the return of the Devonian.
    (Another footnote within an anecdote inside a reminiscence: Ted was impeccable. Clean. This was a clean old man I’m talkin’ here. Not obsessive about it, not some pathological nut washing his hands every seven minutes, but
clean
. So don’t get the idea that the horror! the horror! of The
Paella
Incident stemmed from Sturgeon uncleanliness, it was just straightforward here-is-a-dude-slopping-his-claws-in-our-dinner-and-then-maybe-skinning-a-squirrel-who’s-to-know.)
    Secundus: he liked being helpful; little chores; nice short house-guest strokes that won one’s loyalty and affection. Did I mention, Ted used charm the way Joan of Arc used Divine Inspiration. He could sell sandboxes to Arabs. Charm d’boids outta the trees. Devilish weaponry. So: little aids and assists. Such as answering the doorbell every now and then. Which was all good, all fine, except most of the time he forgot he was
bareass nekkid!
Capped as Incident onthe afternoon, as god—even though I’m an atheist—is my witness, he answered the door and the Avon cosmetics lady in her Ann Taylor suit and stylish pumps gave a strangled scream, dropped her attaché sample case, her ordering pad, her gloves (I think), and flailed away down the street like a howler monkey.
    Tertius: after the cops left, I laid down the law. No more Incidents. Put the fuck some
clothes
on, Ted! I don’t care if it’s SCUBA gear, mukluks and a fur parka, a suit of body armor, but you
will
henceforth go forth
avec
apparel!
    So he started wearing a tiny fire-engine red Speedo.
    I cannot begin to convey how disturbing
that
was, mostly because the li’l pot belly overhung that
sexe-cache
the way the demon Chernabog overhung the valley in Disney’s
Fantasia
.
    Avon has never sent a rep to my house since that day, decades ago. Also, Pizza Hut