Dog Tags by Stephen Becker Page A

coming close behind her, taking a breast in either hand, pressing himself to her luxurious buttocks until his heat rose; feeling his strength she twisted, slammed herself against him, sought his mouth. Kissing her was a love affair in itself, no end to the smooch, lick, nibble, chew; he said it was like kissing a basket of eels and she said eels were essential to a good smorgasbord. They drowned in each other’s liquids, unguents, nectars. But they parted always with a gentle domestic buss like their first kiss, as if each separation might be the last, as if they shared (they did, they did) a tender ache of foreknowledge.
    Spring came, and bruised them. Days fled. The end was upon them and neither knew how it would come. For her a master’s degree and Arizona. For him an M.D. and more, much more. In late May he left her for two days to be present at an accouchement of surpassing importance; he paced the waiting room with the others and chewed cigars, read magazines, worked puzzles, ran through the quartets. When it was all over he called her. They sat in a small oasis on upper Broadway, a minuscule park peopled by old men with wens and walking-sticks. The old men sat in the sun all day. They wore neckties and their faces were gray; the sun itself ignored them. Buses roared.
    They found a bench to themselves. The sun was bright and a faint smell of sap and leaves softened the air. Small dogs frisked, straining leashes. An aged woman sat across the path from them reading a tabloid.
    â€œWhat was it?” She sat stiffly on the green bench, her hair almost white in the sunlight.
    â€œA boy.”
    â€œEverything all right?”
    â€œEverything’s all right.” Benny touched her hair.
    â€œNo,” she said.
    â€œYes,” he said. “No.”
    â€œYes,” she said, and turned to face him. They stared hot-eyed while the universe dissolved.
    They kissed then, a chaste kiss, long, tender, annihilating; the sky fell; and she rose and walked away. She crossed a street. She turned a corner. She was gone.
    It had been a magnificent year, but Benny was married to a lovely girl named Carol, and they called the boy Joseph.

4
    Her name was Carol Untermeyer and she was the daughter of Amos Untermeyer, M.D., F.A.C.P., eminent internist and professor, and of his wife Sylvia; he ruddy and frail, strutting, nervously taking his own pulse in public, wearing eyeglasses and an elegant thin mustache, Sylvia more Egyptian, plump, benign, ordinary save for an occasional ironic lightning in the splendid Fayum eyes.
    Benny and Carol had met at a hospital, where Amos taught one morning each week. Benny emerged from a comprehensive lecture on malfunctions of the spleen and almost ran down a little girl in the corridor. “I beg your pardon,” he said, and halted, focused, attended, and added, “my sweet.” She was indeed sweet, black-haired, with dark blue eyes and full arresting features. He also saw that she was twenty or so, obvious of breast and narrow of waist.
    And steady of eye. “Your sweet?”
    Benny nodded solemnly. “Will you have dinner with me?” He reconnoitered a possible ring, found none, and spied upon her full lips.
    â€œDaddy,” she said, “can I have dinner with this one?”
    Benny flinched like a thief, and turned.
    â€œWhat? Dinner?” Amos Untermeyer blinked behind horn-rims, and glared grumpily. “Dinner? Why not? Which one are you?”
    â€œBenjamin Beer. Third year.”
    â€œAh yes. Anaplastic nuclei. A silly mistake, my boy. You can’t tell an adenoma from an adenosarcoma and you want to take my daughter to dinner.”
    â€œDamn,” Benny said. “You know about that.”
    â€œConklin told me. Said you weren’t bad.”
    â€œThank you.” God bless Conklin.
    â€œFriend of that Chinese boy.”
    Benny nodded.
    â€œHe’ll go far. Well. Sorry to hear you have time to take young ladies to