Free Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumiere Page A

Mario started practicing, the coach
recruited him for the regional competition, enrolling him
in the 200-metre sprint. Mario won the race, by almost half
a second. His was the only gold medal his school garnered
that semester.
    As a result, Mario got to know Lindsay Barron much
better. And other girls, too. Many other girls.
    His first night back in Bari, Mario left his hotel room at
1:30 a.m. without having slept. He dressed lightly — a bit
too lightly for the temperature, but he did not want to be
encumbered by too many clothes.
    Quickly, he made his way to the shoreline. He climbed
on the blocks and looked around. Bari was deserted at this
hour. Good.
    He stripped.
    Below him, the sea beckoned.
    He hesitated for hours, fear holding him back. He had lost part of himself the last time he’d ventured into these
waters. What made him believe he could regain whatever
he had lost by immersing himself again? What if he lost
more of himself?
    Or, worse, what if nothing changed?
    Before the first hints of dawn brightened the sky, he put
his clothes back on. By then, Mario was shivering. Whether
from fear or from cold, he could not tell.
    Nearly thirty years old, Mario lived alone. He no longer
spoke to his family. He hadn’t even seen his mother and
father since his eighteenth birthday; he methodically
ignored their repeated attempts at contact. Call display was
such a useful tool.
    Once, for three months, he had lived with a girl: Valérie,
a French immigrant whose accent he’d found charming.
Her long legs, also, had not escaped his notice.
    They were both twenty years old at the time. But, like all
the high-school and college girls before her, she soon grew
irritated with Mario.
    He would not hold hands with her when they walked.
He insisted on separate bedrooms. He never asked any
questions about her life, her dreams, her days. Unless they
were having sex, he rarely touched her at all.
    Never before had he lived in such close quarters with
anyone, and he resented the incessant intrusion on his
solitude that resulted from life within a couple.
    It wasn’t that Mario disliked Valérie, but, save for
her physical beauty, which he enjoyed admiring, and for
her usefulness in satisfying his sexual needs, there was
nothing about her that held his attention. In that, she was
not unique. Mario showed no curiosity about anyone at
all — ever.
    His second night in Bari, Mario spent in bed, but not asleep.
He cursed himself for his cowardice. Why had he come all
this way, if not to jump in the sea? To return to the spot
where everything had changed for the worse?
    His exhausted body finally succumbed soon after
sunrise. Mario had spent forty-eight hours without sleep.
    He woke at midnight, refreshed and reinvigorated, after
seventeen hours of slumber.
    After the inevitable breakup with Valérie, Mario’s success
with girls faltered. When he graduated college, he stopped
seeing girls altogether. Not because he was no longer
interested in having sex with them — he still found them
beautiful — but he had never been the one to make the
advances. They had come to him: attracted by his fit body,
his athletic prowess, his height, his thick dark hair, his full
lips. With Mario removed from the bustle of school life,
such opportunities disappeared.
    Routine settled over his life: he jogged in the morning;
went to work as a clerk at City Hall during the day, stopped
by the grocery store on the way home, cooked his dinner,
read in the evening, and masturbated to internet porn
before dropping off to sleep. Weekends and holidays
were much the same, with household chores or outings to
museums and art galleries to fill the daytime hours.
    Occasionally, when Mario heard people converse, he
would marvel at how they seemed so involved in what
their companions were saying. He wondered what it was
that made them so interested in each other, and he felt
momentary pangs of jealousy.
    He decided to try. Maybe interest in others came with
practice.
    On