Not One of Them Fit the Lock

He sits in a towel and looks — on purpose, one at a time, “the way you probe a tooth with your tongue”: Miller’s back, thighs, water down a spine, a bare ass in the aisle. “Nothing.” “There, he thought. And that there was like breathing out.” So it isn’t about men — “here they were, fifteen of them, all around him — and not one.” So it is about one person, and for that there are explanations: habit, guilt, that house, control. “He went through the explanations one by one, like keys on a ring, and not one of them fit the lock. He didn’t check twice.”

This is a very recognizable episode for many who have gone through accepting themselves: the test “do others do anything for me?”, the relief of a negative result — and at once the body, answering a single thought of one particular person. “It isn’t about men, it’s about him” is the most common way station on that road, and it is not a lie: attraction really can be to a person rather than to a category (see “Cold Water”). The lie is in “he didn’t check twice” and in the readiness to hit Becker over an accidental touch: when the explanations don’t fit and the fear remains, he looks for someone to blame outside himself. “One quiet voice was enough to silence fifteen people, and no voice at all was enough to silence what had been churning under his ribs” — the best formula of this chapter.