By estory
My brother, Thomas, began his journey back home from the same place that I came from; an old house on Lincoln Avenue, in Old Forge, New York. Our father was a plumber who worked for himself, largely among the neighbors, and through word of mouth. Our mother was a secretary for the elementary school. Family was everything to them, and that meant driving an old Ford station wagon for years and years to save money so that we kids could go to college someday. It meant my father working twelve hour days, six days a week, sometimes. But it also meant big family Thanksgiving dinners, with uncle Bill and aunt Rose and all our cousins, playing touch football in the back yard. It meant Fourth of July barbecues that ended with my dad shooting off roman candles and jumping jacks that almost set fire to our tree house once. It meant walking to church every Sunday, down Main Street passed Krause's Delicatessen, Carter's Hardware store, and the post office, with its statue of the minute man out front.
Thomas was older than me, and for some reason, he expropriated the role of captain in our relationship. My dad showed him how to do all kinds of things; build and fly kites, set up train sets, and play football. It fell on Thomas to impart the knowledge of such things to me, and he thoroughly enjoyed declaring himself the president of the Lincoln Avenue Railroad in our basement, the quarterback of the Old Forge Falcons, and, when we played soldiers, General Washington leading the army against the British. He wore the three cornered hat and everything. "This is no time for lunch," he would say to me, hands on his hips, whenever I wanted to quit for a peanut and butter and jelly sandwich. And so we would have to press on, around the corner of the house, through the boxwood hedge, and across the backyard, until he could plant his flag at the top of the sandbox.
"America is the land of opportunity," my father would tell Thomas at the dinner table, "It's the land of freedom. Here, you can become anything you want. A doctor. A lawyer. A college professor. Our mayor is appointed; we vote for him. That's what makes this country special." Thomas never forgot that. Right from the time he went to middle school, he planned on being somebody, getting somewhere. When I talked about how much I wanted to live behind the pond where we went fishing someday, he told me: "I'm not going to settle for staying in Old Forge. I'm going to live in New York someday. In a penthouse apartment." He was one of those kids who had a lemonade stand set up on the street corner in the summer, saving the money he made in a glass jar on the bookcase next to his bed. Only Thomas didn't spend that money on bubble gum or Archie's comics like I did. Instead, he counted out on the living room floor with my dad. "If you're going to be a millionaire," my father told him, "You have to start saving. That's how I ended up with this house. A little bank account at 8% interest. You can do it too." And he did.
When he got a job delivering newspapers, Thomas started putting all his tip money in the account, and then he invested it in a mutual fund and bought a Wall Street Journal subscription. Every morning he would sit there at the breakfast table, in his suit jacket, scowling at that paper, reading the articles and checking to see if his shares went up or down. His day would be ruined if they went down. "That damned Clinton is an idiot," he would declare, his mouth half full of buttered toast. "He's going to regulate health care, and that will be the end of competitiveness. The end of free markets. Without that, we lose innovation, efficiency. It will never work." But after Clinton picked a fed chief who cut interest rates, and the market soared, Thomas quieted down.
His interest in markets had been piqued, though, and when he went to college, he majored in finance. He studied the great crash of 1929 and the Depression. He bought a computer and followed the market moves like a hawk, charting the Elliot waves and predicting the Kondrieteff effects. The more money he made, the more obsessed by it he became. He eschewed football at our annual Thanksgiving dinner, for monopoly. When he insisted on completing his purchase of the Boardwalk before coming to the table, my mother finally got mad. "Thomas," she told him, "You don't go to church anymore, you don't play football with your cousins. But I'm insisting you say grace with us. Put that wad of bills down and get over here, before I cancel that Wall Street Journal subscription of yours."
He probably didn't know it at the time, but the best thing that happened to him in college was meeting his wife, Jen. Jen's a sweet woman. She has to be to put up with all of Thomas' single mindedness. Somehow, she could get Thomas to forget Squawk Box and do things like go to that Halloween costume party dressed as Alexander Hamilton, or go snowboarding with her at Wyndham Peak over winter break. Once, during one of our monopoly tournaments, she actually cleaned Thomas out, and my mother applauded and gave her a brownie as a reward. That was a laugh. I'll never forget the look on his face. But Thomas loved her though. I could tell, because in those days, Thomas showed his love by buying things for the people he loved. He bought her Coach handbags and Gucci watches, Donna Karan dresses and Tiffany broaches. She accepted these things gracefully, and wore them for Thomas faithfully. At his graduation, he would ask her, "Do you have that dragonfly pin I got for you?" and she would show it to him with a smile. At the time, Thomas didn't realize it, but when he got his diploma, she didn't stand up and point out the broach to everyone sitting around us; she stood up and cheered him.
They got married the year after he graduated. He went to work for a brokerage firm, and they moved to an apartment in the city. It wasn't on the upper west side, but it was in Gramercy Park. I was surprised, but I missed him. I hadn't realized how much I enjoyed watching him plan out a touchdown pass in those huddles in the backyard, or figure how he could put up four houses on Ventnor Place in monopoly. The house seemed empty without him, and my father would read the financial pages and report to us how Thomas's funds were doing, even though we didn't have a dime invested in it, out of sheer desire to hear it reported out loud. My mother would shrug. She was more interested in hearing about grandchildren.
Eventually, the grandchildren came. After Jen got pregnant, Thomas took on extra work at the office, doing initial public offerings and putting together corporate takeover deals. They stopped driving up to see us, but Thomas explained that he wanted his kids to have everything we hadn't when we were growing up, and that it was going to take money to do it. So it sounded logical enough. He caught the early subway down to Wall Street before Jen got up, grabbing a cup of coffee and a donut at the corner shop, and coming home long after she had finished dinner and settled down to watch Cheers. Like always, he bought her things to make up for it. A Channel jacket. A Cartier necklace. Bouquets of roses in all kinds of colors, dill pickles and Haagen Dazs ice cream whenever she wanted it.
It was the same when Bobby was born, and grew up. He bought Steif teddy bears, Schwinn bicycles, NFL football helmets and electric race car sets. When Rose was born, she got dresses and shoes, doll houses, a hobby horse, and a Kareoke machine. He missed the little league games, the dance recitals, the birthday parties and the sleepovers. Sometimes he would scratch his head and say: "Where did the time go? I remember those kids when they were in diapers. Seems like yesterday." Jen scolded him a couple of times. "Do you have to do this offering?" she would ask him. "The kids want you to come with us to the beach." "I can't help it," he would answer. "If we want to send those kids to Columbia or Julliard, I can't pass this stuff up. Think of the commissions."
And so it went. In many ways, Thomas' American dream was coming true. Through all the hard work, he was getting somewhere, he was becoming somebody. He got promoted to assistant to the vice president of capital management, whatever that meant, and they moved to a penthouse in Riverside Park. He invited us all to see it, and when we came over, he gave us the grand tour, pointing out the crystal chandelier, the French porcelain flatware, the grandfather clock and the gas grill on his patio. The view of the New York skyline, the palisades, the George Washington bridge. "Nice," my father told him. "Now, where are those grandkids of mine? Bobby, Rose? Whacha got there?" Thomas shook his head as he poured me a scotch and soda. "Nobody appreciates this stuff. Nobody appreciates what I'm doing," he told me.
"What are you doing?" I asked him. "We never see you guys anymore. You never drive up. What about Thanksgiving dinner? What about football? What about monopoly?"
He sighed, as he sat in his wrought iron patio chair. "I don't have time for those things anymore, Bill."
It wasn't long after that when Thomas got called to a big meeting at the brokerage. That hallowed hall that had taken the place of church in his life. And it was there that they gave him the news. The presidents of the company, in their thousand dollar suits, had to think of the stockholders first. The market was down. Expenses were up. Surely, they understood the arithmetic of that. The firm had to cut costs. And that meant cutting positions. And one of those positions was Thomas.
He took a long time to come home that night. Jen waited up for him, and when he gave her the news, she didn't file for divorce like he expected. Instead, she told him something would turn up. He would figure something out. She believed in him. She reminded him of something his father had said: "No matter where you go in life, your family will always be there." For a few days, he moped. He read help wanted ads, he composed and sent out resumes, filled out applications. He even went back to church; he called my mother to tell her he stood in the back row of a little chapel on west 98th street and listened to the pastor talk about love; love for your wife and kids, love for your brothers and parents.
He showed up one day, in his BMW, driving all the way up to Old Forge. He looked around the old house, and remembered all those battles behind the boxwood hedge, the lemonade stand, the touch football game he had won with that hail mary pass. "I can't believe I'm saying this," he told me, "But I miss the place. I wish the kids had been able to live here. They would have loved it. It's real country, you know?"
He walked down Main Street with me, and saw the For Sale sign on Carter's Hardware store. "Bill," he said, standing there with his hands in his pockets, "What would you say if I said I wanted to go into business with you?"
I smiled. "I thought you'd never ask," I told him.
So he sold the apartment in Riverside, bought the hardware store with me, and moved back up to Old Forge. No more BMW's, no more chandeliers, no more fancy jewelry or clothes. But it also meant no more boardroom meetings, no more fourteen hour days, no more missing his kids little league games and dance recitals.
On the Fourth of July, there he was in the backyard, flipping burgers with that chef's hat on, pitching wiffle balls in the big game, lighting off fire crackers in the tree house. Not a word about corporate takeovers or stock market winners and losers. And he looked happier than ever.
| Author Notes | This is the first story in a series of short stories about suburban life, its ups and downs, its struggles and pleasures and pains. These are characters from next door, trying to figure out where they came from, who they are, and where they are going, through a landscape as frought with minefields and pitfalls as any battlefield. This is one of the simplest stories, a narrative of a journey of discovery of what really is meaningful, special about life and relationships, and how it can go out of focus, nowadays. estory |
By estory
The Hutchinsons lived in the ritzy village of Millbrook, over on Dogwood Lane. Robert Hutchinson was a stockbroker specializing in initial public offerings. He worked very long hours, departing on the six thirty train before anyone else in the house had gotten up for breakfast, and rarely arriving back on anything before the seven thirty p.m. local from Penn Station. Sometimes he worked Saturdays, if there was a really big offering coming up. His wife, Elizabeth, was the only child of a corporate lawyer and a tennis instructor, neither of whom spent much time at home with their daughter. Most of Elizabeth's fondest childhood memories revolved around playing tennis with her mother, and helping their cook, Suzanne, in their well appointed kitchen. There she learned how to make crepe suzettes, chocolate souffles, duck orange and crème vichysoisse; things that seemed to embody human emotions, to her. After she married Robert, she never complained about staying home with her kids, playing tennis with them, or baking white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for them to munch on while they did their homework. They had two sons; Alexander, and Edward.
While Robert Hutchinson was off on his mission to make life as comfortable for them as could be imagined, Elizabeth spent much of the day wandering around their sprawling house and its gardens by herself. She dragged her sons along. By the time they were five they were playing tennis, planting foxgloves, and watching Woody Allen movies like Love and Death and Annie Hall on the big screen TV their mother installed in the enormous living room. They watched with a kind of predetermined interest as their mother decorated and redecorated their colonial style mansion. She must have redecorated it two or three times, probably out of sheer boredom; first in royal blue, then in coffee cream, and finally, in crimson damask. Her parents rarely visited, and Robert's parents were quite stiff and formal; not very good company. She soon tired of her few friends, who spent most of their time going on shopping sprees on Fifth Avenue or attending garden club seminars. Her sons were the apples of her eyes, so to speak, her life's work, and she threw herself into their little lives with all her pent up enthusiasm.
It was Elizabeth who went to the PTA meetings, the art shows her sons participated in, the tennis matches in which they competed. If one of their creations did not receive a blue ribbon or a gold medal, she would have a word with one of the teachers in the hall. If a judge ruled the ball out on one of their baseline serves, she would protest loudly; so loudly that she was once escorted out of the stadium. You would have to say that they came to rely on her, in their progression through life. Their snappy sports suits, their stylish taste in music and movies and theatre certainly opened doors for them; pr at least granted them a kind of status.
It was Elizabeth who picked out their Christmas gifts: motor bikes, television sets, stereos with enormous speakers, guitars and even a fancy cooking center with which Edward had once almost set the house on fire while trying to bake a chocolate layer cake. If you looked through the windows at her, waltzing around the kitchen in her tie dyed t shirts and bell bottom jeans, you would have thought she was trying to relive her own life through them. She hummed along to the rock songs they played on their record players and she organized the family tennis tournaments that they always played in starting on Memorial Day. It didn't seem to matter that there were only three of them; Elizabeth actually preferred it this way.
Robert Hutchinson never had many definite house rules, but he did expect good grades, and he lectured his sons on career choices. He was determined that whatever they did, and he didn't seem to care exactly what, it would make them financially successful. He suggested banking, of course, and law. So he was not thrilled when Edward announced that he wanted to be a chef; like a sous chef, or something, as he put it. Alexander had learned to play the electric guitar Elizabeth had bought him one year [Elizabeth arranged and paid for the lessons he needed], and he wanted to be in some sort of rock band. He had a friend who played drums, and they knew this other kid who dressed in outlandish outfits who wanted to be a lead singer. It all looked exciting, adventurous. Something their mother would take satisfaction in.
Robert Hutchinson didn't exactly approve of these career choices, but after they graduated high school, he sent them to college anyway. There was simply nothing else to do. Neither of them had ever worked say, in a restaurant or a recording studio. Edward went to a cooking academy in the city, and Alexander majored in music at a small, local college. Elizabeth steered them into staying at home, rather than dorming out. They did alright, although it must be said that she helped them out quite a bit. She baked most of the Bavarian cream pie in Edward's final exam one year, and she made a few phone calls and offered some money to get Alexander's band a gig in a local bar, and an opportunity to record an album. The video they shot to go along with the album was a disaster, but Elizabeth continued to insist that they practice in the garage, over Robert's strenuous objections.
It turned out that they would not have to put up with his objections for long. Robert Hutchinson died of a heart attack at the office. His funeral was largely attended by members of his firm. Elizabeth and her two sons seemed distraught enough. They all wore black and wiped away a few tears with their handkerchiefs. They were not great on emotional gestures, but Elizabeth did lay a bouquet of roses on his coffin before it was lowered into the ground. The boys stood at the edge of the grave staring into it with their hands in their pockets, as if they weren't quite sure what was happening, and what was to become of them.
He did leave them quite a bit of money. There was a life insurance policy, of course, and trust funds, and a privately managed investment account. Elizabeth put in a rose garden which she called 'Robert's Garden', and a pool. She bought the boys sports cars, and let them fly to Cancun for a week that spring, to take their minds off of the tragedy. As for herself, she did recuse herself from the garden club, and stopped playing tennis with her few friends. She seemed to spend more and more time fussing around her sons. She prepared these elaborate, candlelit dinners for them, with courses of soups and salads, seasoned roasts, wine and fruit tarts and chocolate covered strawberries and things like that. They would sit around the table in their crimson damask dining room, the three of them, Edward and Alexander in their snazzy suits, and Elizabeth in a little black dress with her hair done up and everything. Sometimes Edward would bake a crestfallen soufflé, and they would dip their spoons in it as though it were raining outside or the stock market had crashed.
Elizabeth seemed quite content with this arrangement. She walked around the house humming along to the tunes Alexander's band thrashed out in the garage while they practiced, or showing Edward a few tricks in the kitchen. She would serve turkey club sandwiches for lunch, and then suggest they go for an impromptu swim in the pool or play tennis. After that, she would make dinner for them again, and then they could go for a movie together or take a ride into the city to catch a Broadway show. The boys took it as a matter of course. They had lived all of their lives this way, and seen plenty of acclaimed art exhibits and concerts and musicals in the bargain; all without having to pay for anything.
As they got older, though, there could be no denying the fact that they needed girlfriends, or that at least they were beginning to think of finding girlfriends for themselves. There were several girls who hung around Alexander's band. One of them was Stephanie, and Alexander brought her home a few times. She wasn't bad looking, and actually quite charming. She was impressed with their house, and tried to pay polite compliments to Elizabeth, but anyone could see that Elizabeth didn't like having her around. She shrugged stiffly at Stephanie's attempts to curry favor, and turned her back when she walked into rooms. Once, she 'accidentally' spilled soup on her during Alexander's birthday dinner. Other times, she would sit on the sofa, watching Stephanie sitting with her son on the other side of the room, staring at her from under her brows while she stiffly sipped her drink.
Alexander enjoyed Stephanie's company though, and he argued with his mother about it. He would tell her that she should give Stephanie a chance, but Elizabeth would just frown.
"You can do better than that, Alex," she would say. "That girl isn't in our league."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex would say.
"It means she doesn't meet our standards."
"Nobody's going to be perfect enough for you, mom."
Then she would sit down on the couch, cross her legs, and pick up a martini glass with two fingers and look out of the picture window at Robert's Garden. "I wouldn't say that," she would say.
At times like that Edward would take his jacket and go for a walk around the grounds. He often came back smelling of pot smoke. Once, Elizabeth flushed his stuff down one of the toilet bowls, but then, when Edward asked her for a hundred bucks 'to buy ingredients', she would give him the money. He managed to get a job in a diner by the railroad station, but it didn't look like he would ever amount to much more than that. He started seeing this waitress at the diner, and he started showing up at Alexander's concerts with her. She had green hair, and a tattoo of an angel wrapped in barbed wire on her shoulder. He wouldn't dare invite her over for dinner with his mother. The waitresses name was Krystal.
"Why don't you just move out, and we could get an apartment together?" Krystal kept asking him. Edward was non committal. He came up with all kinds of excuses. He wasn't making enough money, he would say. Or he was thinking of going back to school. Sometimes she would break up with him, but after a week or two they could be seen in the movies together, or watching Alexander's band play in some bar.
Elizabeth suspected something and started showing up unexpectedly at the diner. She made some sight, in her hair do, in her thousand dollar dresses, sitting at the greasy tables. She always seemed to make sure she got the waitress with the green hair, and kept her busy ordering steaks and having them sent back. Once, she asked to see the chef, and when Edward came out to her table, she demanded that he see her outside.
"That girl in the green hair is an absolute mess," Elizabeth told him. "I hope you never bring home a girl like that."
"Of course not," Edward told her.
And so it went. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. Years turned into a decade and a half. And still Alexander's band was playing in the Cave, and Edward was cooking raw steaks at the diner by the station. Stephanie stopped coming to the house on Dogwood Lane, but still could be seen at Alexander's shows. The waitress with the green hair could be seen there too. And Elizabeth seemed to be secretly enjoying it all; the scenes at the diner with Edward, the rock band practicing in the two car garage, the afternoons spent floating in the pool after the tennis tournaments. And the Hutchinsons continued to have dinner together, the three of them, in their fancy new clothes, with the candelabra on the table in the red damask dining room. Elizabeth would make a comment about Stephanie's hair, and Alexander would tell her to mind her own business, and they would start arguing and Edward would take his jacket, go for a walk, and come back smelling of pot smoke.
By that time, most of the guys that they had gone to college with had become stockbrokers or investment bankers, engineers and graphic designers or architects, gotten married, bought houses, and some cases, even had kids of their own. Whenever Alexander mentioned that he was thinking of getting his own place with Stephanie, and Edward would stand next to him with his hands in his pockets, Elizabeth would get up, pour herself a drink, and threaten to cut their trust fund access or close their credit card accounts. Then she would suggest that they take their fois gras al frescoe, by the pool. She would start talking about the cars she wanted to buy for them, the upgrades she wanted to make to the sound equipment in the garage, the pastry academy she could send Edward to. She would ask the boys if they wanted to go to Paris or Australia or Machu Pichu. And they would end up like they always did, drinking martinis and listening to rock music, floating in the pool with their sunglasses on.
Alexander was getting sick of it though, by the time he was in his early thirties. He had resolved to move out and get an apartment with Stephanie, no matter what his mother said. When he told Elizabeth, she dropped a bottle of vermouth. She told him she would convert the garage into an arboretum, but Alex had taken a job as a bartender, and there was nothing she could do. This was Edward's chance as well, and he took it, although with somewhat halting steps. He was moving in with Alex and Stephanie, 'to do the cooking', as he called it. It would mean that he could see more of that waitress, Alex promised him.
Elizabeth told them neither of them would get a dollar from her, but it was no use. They still moved all of their guitars, amps, pots and pans, all packed into Gucci suitcases and apple boxes. Stephanie ferried it all to the new apartment with her van. Elizabeth sat on the porch with her drink and watched them going about it without moving a muscle to help them.
"Sorry mom," Edward said apologetically, carrying out the last of his things. "This is something I've got to do."
She frowned. "We'll see," she said, cryptically, "What becomes of all this."
She left strange messages on their answering machine, sometimes not saying at all. She drove her Mercedes Benz over to their apartment and parked it across the street, sitting in it wearing sunglasses like some spy, until she saw one of them open the front door. Then she would stride over to one of her sons and invite herself over for a martini or a cup of coffee, commenting on how messy the apartment was or how bad the bathroom smelled. If she saw Stephanie or Krystal, she would frown, finish her drink, and take off, without saying another word.
Alex went over to their house on Dogwood Lane one time to talk to her about it. He found Edward sitting in the dining room, in his suit, having an orange duck dinner with their mother. He was supposed to be cooking at the diner.
"What are you doing here?" Alex asked him.
"He's having dinner," Elizabeth said firmly, "Because I invited him. Sit down. I made enough for all of us."
Alex instinctively sat down. "Mom," he said, "You've got to stop hanging around our place, and coming over unannounced. You've got to call first. Stephanie and I need our privacy."
Elizabeth carved a slice of duck for him and spooned him a portion of bean casserole as if she hadn't heard a word. And Alex didn't say anything more either. He poured himself a glass of Chardonnay and ate his dinner the way he always did. After he had finished his plate, he walked out onto the patio and sat down next to the pool with his drink. Edward came out and sat next to him.
"What's wrong with us?" Alex asked him. "What are we doing here?"
"I don't know," Edward said. But neither of them moved; in fact, they refilled their glasses a few more times, and listened somewhat sympathetically as their mother complained about how empty the house was now that they had gone. She didn't have anyone to talk to. She had no one to play tennis with. There was no music.
A couple of weeks later Alex and Stephanie were sitting in their apartment watching television when the phone rang. It was Elizabeth. She was experiencing chest pains, she told Alex. She was afraid. She wanted to go to the hospital. Alex told Stephanie that his mother was having a heart attack, he grabbed his jacket, and headed out the door. Stephanie did not follow him. But she did call Edward, who left the diner with all of his dishes on the stove, and the waitress with the green hair.
They both arrived at the house at the same time. Elizabeth was lying on the couch with her hand on her chest, staring at the ceiling. The boys stood over her, with their hands in their pockets, looking unsure of what to do.
"How are you feeling, mom?" Alex asked her.
"Terrible," she said, frowning.
"Are you going to die, mom?" Edward asked. He sounded more afraid than she did.
"Just take me to the hospital," she said, sitting up.
The boys waited in the lobby while the doctors performed their tests. Alex called Stephanie, and told her he would be there for a while, and she came down with some McDonalds for them to eat. She sat down on one of the couches and tried to hold Alex's hand, but he kept getting up and pacing around the lobby. Edward just stared at the TV without saying a word.
Finally, the doctors came down and told them their mother would be fine. She was resting. It was not too serious. They could go up to see her. Stephanie said she would wait for them in the lobby. The two of them went up to the room where Elizabeth was lying on a bed surrounded by a curtain. They sat down. She stared at them for a moment, looking down her long nose.
"The doctors say it isn't too serious," Alex said.
Elizabeth sniffed. "What do the doctors know? Do they have my heart? I want you boys to come home. I feel weak. I feel like something could happen to me at any moment. I might be swimming in the pool and have a seizure or something, and then what? Do you want me to drown in my own pool?"
Alex grimaced. "Mom, I like my apartment. I like my life with Stephanie. We love each other. She'll leave me if I move back home."
"It's too far away," Elizabeth complained. "What if I have a stroke? By the time you get to me, I'll be dead. Is that what you want?"
"But the doctors say you'll be OK, and it's only across town," Alex argued.
"Alex, this is your mother speaking."
"But what about Stephanie?"
"Alex," she insisted, "I need you. Don't you remember everything I did for you? The guitars I bought, the concerts I took you to, the trips to Europe and Japan? You're not going to turn your back on me, Alex."
"I'm moving back," Edward blurted out. "I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you. At least I can do the cooking for you."
Alex looked at him, aghast. "You know I can't afford the rent without you," he told his brother.
"Well, that's not my problem."
There was nothing else Alex could do. He went downstairs and told Stephanie he had to move back home. She stood up and grabbed her purse.
"Alex, I'm going home," she said, "And if you move back in with your mother, it's over between us. That's it. I can't take any of this crap anymore."
"Will you wait a minute?" Alex pleaded with her.
"No, I will not." And with that, she walked out.
Alex and Edward moved back home to take care of their mother. Alex never saw Stephanie again. Edward quit his job at the diner, and the waitress with the green hair began dating the chef who replaced him. So they ended up the way Elizabeth wanted it, sitting around in the dinner table of their red damask dining room in their suits and cocktail dresses, planning their next trip to Vienna, listening to rock music on the stereo, eating stuffed pork chops and sipping martinis in the candlelight.
| Author Notes | This is a story about the disturbed family life of children held in an orbit around their disturbed mother. It is told in a narrative, in order to give the story perspective, so that you can see these characters moving around as parts in this machine, from a distance. I also gave it a comical tone in order to create subtlety; to make this seem harmless, in much the same way as the mother tries to make her spoiling of her kids seem harmless. And in the end, we can't even blame her; she herself is the product of a certain family life, and so we see this sickness passed on from generation to generation, a broken toy that the family can not quite get rid of. estory |
By estory
After our father died, we just had to soldier on, as best as we could. There was mom, me, and Carla; each of us, like empty bottles on a shelf; three different ones, a coke, a Budweiser, and a Pepsi. God only knows they don't seem like they belong together. But there they are, anyway. A haphazard collection of some crazy person.
Now it was a couple of days before Christmas Eve again. I had carried all the boxes of ornaments up from the basement and stacked them on the coffee table in the living room, the way I always did. My mother was in the kitchen, baking her cookies. The tree was in its stand, the lights were piled around it in coils, and I was sitting on the sofa, waiting for Carla.
My sister, Carla, was coming home from college. We had always decorated the tree together, and after she went away to school, I waited for her to come home so that we could still do it together. We didn't talk to each other, but we'd string the lights and hang the glass balls, and somehow it didn't seem like Christmas without that. I don't know. It was one thing we had, maybe. And then mom would come in with the cookies, and we'd look at the tree together, listen to Peanuts Christmas music and play parchesi. Of all the days in the year, since my father died, it was the day I looked forward to the most, somehow.
The death of my father had been strange. He was an alcoholic, someone who was verbally abusive when he drank, and when he was not drunk, he spent a lot of time watching TV without talking to anyone. There were times he and my mother had violent arguments. Then mom would go live with her sister for a few days, and Carla would lock herself into her room. I'd sit in my room and watch hockey. Dad would pound on Carla's door, and I would go outside and fool around with my hockey stick and a puck in the street until he yelled for me to get in the house. Then he would call my mom, say he was sorry, and she would come back home. Carla would come out of her room, and we would play parchesi. And the whole thing would start all over again. Until he got diabetes, and died of a heart attack.
Carla did not attend the funeral, which raised some eyebrows, but to me, it seemed perfectly what one would expect. My mother stood at the grave with her hands folded, silent, with her head bowed. I don't know if she forgave him or not, for all the grief he gave her. She never spoke to me about it. To me, it felt more of a graduation, of sorts. I neither hated, nor loved, my dad. It meant that I had to help mom around the house and get a job to chip in for the bills.
After dad died, we saw Carla around the house a little more, but she never said much. She drew a lot of pictures. Dark pictures of dark houses with dark people standing around them, men with no faces, standing there with their legs apart, threatening, menacing. Dead trees. Night skies with a single moon and a couple of stars. Mom would look at them and say: 'that's nice, Carla,' and hang them on the refrigerator door for a week or two. I couldn't make heads or tails of that stuff, and when we were eating cereal together for breakfast, I'd shake my head and ask her what it was all supposed to mean; but she would just stare at me, in her black outfits and gothic make-up, and walk out.
When she graduated from high school, Carla told mom she wanted to go away to college. Mom wanted her to stay, and I said we couldn't afford it, but Carla was insistent, and since she got an art scholarship somehow, there was nothing we could do. It bothered me. I told her I had planned on Carla helping me out with mom, and money was tight. She told me it was something she had to do. She had to get away. I told Carla I wouldn't help her pack. I told her she would be back in two months. She went into her room and closed the door. But when she loaded up her car I did watch from the window. Carla was one of the few things I had left. What was Christmas going to be like, without her? Who would admire our little tree, with me? Who would play parchesi with us?
As screwed up as we were, Christmas was still Christmas, and Carla did come home for that. I would get the tree, put it in its stand, the way dad had always done, and bring up the ornaments from the basement. Carla would drive the four hundred and twenty five miles from her school upstate. My mother would make cookies, and when she finally arrived, we'd decorate the tree, listening to Peanuts Christmas music. Carla had always liked the Peanuts Christmas special, for some reason. Then we would exchange our gifts, and eat cookies on the couch. We'd play parchesi. We'd forget all about the Christmas my dad got so drunk he threw the Christmas ornaments into the wall. The Christmas mom and dad had a fight, and she left, and Carla locked herself in her room. The next day, mom would make a turkey dinner, we'd eat more cookies, and then Carla would drive the four hundred and twenty five miles back to school.
After a couple of years, I'd have to say that as sad as they were, they were the best Christmases I could remember.
Mom would call Carla and ask how she was doing at school, and Carla would say she was doing OK. She was learning how to paint. To me, it was taking her away from me, from us. I didn't understand painting. I was working in retail and had taken up drinking to forget about it. My mother didn't like it when I drank; it reminded her of my father, but we stayed out of each other's hair, for the most part. She spent her nights watching game shows, and I drank upstairs in my room, or out on the porch. It was the one place where I could forget about how lonely I was. But it was also the one place that scared me the most, the one place where I seemed the most like my dad.
That brings us to Christmas. I could hear my mother moving around in the kitchen, arranging things on the stove. "I think Carla said she was bringing someone home with her this time," she called out to me in the living room. I put down the parchesi box. What was going to happen to Christmas now? Would Carla decorate the tree with me, or with them? Would this stranger know how to play parchesi?
"A guy?" I asked. Carla had never had a boyfriend.
"No, it's one of her friends from art class," my mother said.
"One of those art students?" I asked derisively. I imagined someone with short, neon red hair like Carla, all dressed in black with a ring in her eyebrow.
"I guess so. She really didn't say much."
Carla never did really say.
I went back into the living room and looked out of the window. There was no sign of her car, yet. The neighbor's kids were playing hockey in the street, in between the parked cars. They were making a lively racket. I looked at the three wrapped gifts sitting in the corner, next to the bare tree. One for mom, one for Carla, one for me. This stranger would be watching us handing out our pathetic gifts. Carla would show her gift to her. She would talk about it with her. And where would that leave me?
"I guess that means she's going to be staying over," I said to mom, walking in to the kitchen.
"Well, yes. I told Carla she can stay in her room. Will you set the table for four? They should be here soon." My mother seemed happy with this whole thing. Happy for Carla.
"I don't feel like sharing Christmas with a stranger," I said, folding my arms. "It's a time for us. I like things the way they are. I wish you had said something to me about it."
My mother shot me a look and scowled. "Why should I ask you? It's my house. Please don't get like this, will you? She's coming and you're going to have to get used to it. Whatever you do, she's our guest. Don't make a scene."
"We're going to have to let her help with the tree and everything," I complained.
"What's the big deal? You always have to direct everybody. Why can't you just let things happen, for once?"
"We don't even know if she likes this kind of stuff. What's she like? What did Carla tell you?"
My mother straightened up from her cookie sheets and faced me down over the table. "Listen, your sister has finally made a friend. She's never had many friends. Can't you be glad that she has finally made a friend? Make them feel at home, will you?" My mother was getting mad, and since it was her house, and I was dependent on her, there wasn't much I could do.
"Whatever," I told her. I went into the living room, and opened the side board. I laid out the four plates, and all the knives and forks and glasses like my mother asked me to. But it looked like this was going to be a very different Christmas from the ones I had finally found so uplifting. Maybe those Christmases were gone already, after just a couple of years. Maybe what was left of our family was breaking up. I went downstairs into the basement and grabbed one of the beers I kept in the fridge down there. I came back up and put on my coat.
"Where are you going now?" My mother asked me.
"Out on the porch," I said. She knew what I was up to.
"Do you have to go out there now? They're going to be here soon, and then we're going to eat."
"I'm just going out on the porch, that's all," I said, letting myself quickly out of the front door. I knew mom hated it when I drank. My dad could be a son of a bitch when he drank. I didn't want to be a son of a bitch, but I felt the day going dark, and I wanted to hold onto the light.
Outside, it was noisy and cold, and in the sunshine, watching the kids playing their hockey game, I felt better. I sat on the porch steps watching the game and drinking my beer. I found myself wishing it were one of my kids scoring those goals, or making those saves. I finished the beer and threw away the can. I didn't want to go back inside, so I just sat on the steps. Out there, I was just a fan in the seats. A guy drinking a beer.
Then, I saw Carla's car drive up. Carla drove a little, black, Nissan Sentra. Black was Carla's favorite color. Sure enough, the two girls I saw in the front seat were all dressed in black. I watched Carla awkwardly parking her car. When the two girls, my sister and her friend, got out, I stood up. I expected Carla to be dour, but I must say I was disappointed in the friend. She had very short, spiked blue hair, which definitely hurt her looks in my opinion, and she was wearing a spiked dog collar.
I opened the door and yelled in: "They're here, mom."
Carla stole me a quick look, then, the two girls looked at each other and laughed. I was quite incredulous, and watched them take their bags out of the trunk of the Sentra with my arms folded. This was not the Carla that I remembered. This friend had changed her already. My mother came to the door to see her prodigal daughter.
"Go give them a hand, will you?" she hissed at me.
"This is the twentieth century," I murmured back, "Women can carry their own bags now."
My mother stared at me and scowled.
"Stop talking nonsense like that and go help them," she said. I could see that she was getting mad again and started down the steps for Carla's car. Carla looked up at me and frowned.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"Mom wants me to carry your bags," I said.
Carla brushed passed me. "We can carry our own bags," she said. Her friend looked like she didn't know what to do. Then she followed Carla up the steps to the front door. I walked behind them with my hands in my pockets. My mother opened the door for them.
"This is Randy, mom," Carla said.
"Randy?" my mother said. She sounded confused, but she tried to smile.
"My friends call me Randy," Carla's friend said.
"Come on," Carla said to her, "I'll take you up to my room." She shot me a look over her shoulder. Then the two of them literally ran up the stairs, giggling.
My mother stopped me at the door. "You could have carried their bags," she said.
I shrugged. "They didn't want me to."
"Say something nice," she hissed at me.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because she's Carla's friend, that's why, and we need to welcome her to our house," my mother said.
"What if she's not nice?" I said.
"Stop it," my mother said. She gave me a determined look. Then, she went back into the kitchen to finish the dinner, leaving me to close the door, to seal me up in this Christmas that was going bad. I started for the basement again. I felt like a wanted another beer.
"Where are you going now?" my mother said. "We're going to eat."
"I'll be up in a minute," I said, trotting down the steps to get away from her stare. When I got down there, I cracked open a beer and chugged it as fast as I could. I was relieved to feel light headed. I looked out of the basement window. I could just see the kids still out there, between the cars, slapping the puck around. I wished I could be out there with them, or just stay in the basement, drinking beer, forgetting about all this. I was about to get another one when my mother opened the basement door and yelled down: "Go upstairs and get your sister." So I had to go up and get them.
The door to Carla's room was half open. I walked down the hall towards it. As I got closer, I saw them together in the room, Carla and Randy, with their arms around each other. They were kissing.
I froze. I didn't know what to do. Carla must have sensed something, because she turned and saw me, and came out of the room. She closed the door behind her. We stared at each other. Then she walked towards me. I backed away.
"What are you doing up here?" she asked me, under her breath.
"Mom sent me up to tell you dinner's ready," I blurted out.
"You saw us," Carla said. Her eyes did move away from mine.
"Who is that girl, Carla?" I asked her.
Carla looked back at the closed door of her room. Then she looked back at me. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "She's my girlfriend."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I stared at my sister, the one sister I had, the girl who had gone through all those terrible Christmases with me, and decorated all those Christmas trees with me, as if she were someone I had never seen before. And yet there was something in Carla's face that I could recognize.
"You're gay?" I asked her.
Carla folded her arms. "I was going to tell you, right after I told mom. Don't say anything to her until after I talk to her."
All at once I felt angry and afraid, and sorry for my sister. And myself. "I don't believe this," I said, "I don't believe you brought this girl home with you. To stay in our house. What did you think we would say?"
Carla just stood there, not pushing me away, not running away either.
"Mom has a right to know," I said. "You should have told her about this. If you don't tell her, I will."
"I'm going to tell her."
"When?"
"When I'm ready. Soon."
"Soon? Carla, you should have said something before you brought this girl here."
"You can't tell me what to do. Or what to be."
"But we can say who comes into this house," I argued.
Carla looked away for a moment. "Just go downstairs. We'll be down in a minute. And you better not say anything until I talk to mom." With that, she turned and slipped back into her room. So there was nothing else for me to do but go downstairs.
Mom was putting the food on the table. "Are they coming?" she asked.
I sat down and folded my hands. "When they're finished," I said, cryptically.
"Finished with what? Unpacking?"
"Ask Carla," I said. I could hear them coming down the stairs, so I didn't feel the need to say anything else. Carla sat in the chair opposite me, and Randy sat opposite mom. Randy looked at Carla. Carla looked at me. I looked at mom. And mom sat down.
"Let's say grace," mom said.
We folded our hands in silence and let mom pray over our food the way she always liked to.
"I hope you like turkey," mom said to Randy.
"I like turkey," Randy said.
"Mom makes the best turkey," Carla said, keeping an eye on me.
We filled our plates in an awkward silence. I kept looking at Carla. Mom kept handing the food over to Randy.
"So are you an artist?" she asked Randy.
"Well, I'm an art student," Randy said, with a sheepish smile.
"She's an awesome painter," Carla put in, giving her friend a reverent smile. I fiddled with my food.
"What kinds of things do you girls paint?" mom asked.
"We're doing nudes now," Carla said, somewhat triumphantly, as if she could finally say the word.
I looked at Carla in the eye. "I'm not surprised," I said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Carla said.
"Can we see some of your paintings?" I asked, slyly.
"We didn't bring any of them down."
"Why not?" I asked.
"You've never wanted to see any of my painting before."
"You've never wanted to show me any of them."
My mother was getting upset again. She hated it when we argued. "Leave your sister alone!" she hissed at me.
"It's true," I insisted.
Mom leaned over towards me. "You never have anything nice to say," she complained to me, "Can't you say something nice, for once?"
I don't know why, but I felt like the odd man out. Maybe I was also afraid. And that made me mad. "You're a weirdo," I blurted out at my sister.
Carla looked at her plate. Randy looked at Carla.
"Be quiet!" My mother yelled. "If you're going to be like that, then don't sit here. I thought you wanted to decorate the tree with your sister, like you always do."
"I did want to decorate it. With her." I said, still staring at her.
"I can decorate it with Randy this year," Carla interjected, shooting me a look.
"Then go ahead," I said, getting up.
"Where are you going?" mom said, looking worried.
"I'm going out," I said. I went into the hall and got my coat. Then I went downstairs to get another one of my beers, ignoring my mother's pleas to stop.
"He's drinking," Carla said, when I came back up. Randy bowed her head. My mother frowned.
"I shouldn't have let you put all those beers down there," mom said.
"It's a good thing. Because that's all I have left," I shouted, giving them a parting shot as I strode out the door.
I opened the beer out on the porch, where none of them could see me. The kids were done with their hockey game, and the sunny, cold air had gone quiet. The sun was setting, and long shadows were reaching across the street. Somehow, in those shadows, I thought of my father.
Once he had gotten drunk on Christmas Eve, and knocked over the Christmas tree, with all the ornaments on it and everything. Half of them broke. The whole thing was ruined. Mom yelled at him. He got so mad he threw one of her presents into the wall. I went out for a walk, I remember. In the cold, clear air, I felt wonderfully light, away from all that anger and pain. It was a feeling I was always trying to recapture, and the easiest way was to have a beer. I took a drink and tried to remember what happened next. I went back home, and mom and dad were talking in the kitchen. Carla had locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out until morning. I remember knocking on her door that night, asking her to come out so I could wish her a merry Christmas and give her my present. But she wouldn't come out.
After my father died, it seemed like it was getting better. Carla and I would decorate the tree together. Our mother would bake cookies. We would play parchesi. Those Christmases were the happiest Christmases of my life. Until now.
I walked around to the side of the house and looked in one of the windows. Carla was trying to untangle one of the spools of Christmas lights. Randy was sitting on the sofa, watching her. My mother was cleaning off the table. I shook my head. What was happening to the world I had left? Where would I fit into all this? I was beginning to wish I hadn't said anything. Were things any better, standing out there in the cold? It was like something my dad would have done.
I sat down on the steps and drank my beer. I always liked decorating the tree with Carla. I would string the lights, she would hang the balls, I put on the star, and she did the tinsel. It was a shared moment, it was the one thing we had. Now she had this girlfriend, someone else in her life, and I didn't know what was happening. I heard the door opening, and someone coming out on the porch. It was Carla. She sat down next to me. We looked at each other.
"Carla, did you tell mom?" I said.
"No," she said, looking at her feet. "Not yet."
"When are you going to tell her?"
"I'll tell her tonight."
"She has a right to know about this, about you," I said.
Carla sat there for a moment, looking at me. "You've been drinking," she said.
I turned and looked at her. "You're gay," I said.
She looked away. "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to drink," she said.
"And I don't think you should have brought this girl into our house," I said.
She looked down at her feet again.
"Why did you bring her here?" I asked her.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she said.
"What are you trying to prove?"
"I'm not trying to prove anything," she said, "She's my friend."
"She doesn't belong here," I blurted out.
"That's like saying I don't belong here," Carla said.
"You could have come back by yourself, you know."
"I'm tired of being by myself," she said, "I have a right to life too. I asked mom and she said it would be OK."
"Mom doesn't know you are gay," I said.
Carla took a deep breath. "You remind me of dad," she said, "You know that?"
I winced. "Because I had a couple of beers? Come on, you know that's not true." I got up and finished my beer and tossed it in the garbage. Carla watched me.
"Dad scared me, you know?" she said.
"Well, you used to lock yourself in your room whenever he had a few," I said.
"You know why?"
"Why?"
She took a deep breath. "Because he used to abuse me, that's why."
I froze. "What?" I said. I stared at her, half believing her, half not wanting to. Carla was holding her knees under her chin, curled into a tight little ball.
"He came up into my room a couple of times. When he got drunk, and mom left."
I could see my father standing there, legs apart, pounding on Carla's door. I could hear him yelling. "He came into your room a couple of times?" I repeated, stunned.
"And he touched me."
I felt like running away. I felt like drinking another beer. I would be free from all of this. But looking at Carla, curled up next to me, crying, somehow, I couldn't leave. "Did you ever tell mom?" I asked her.
"No," she said.
I stood up and walked back and forth across the porch, my hands in my pockets, my mind racing. "So that's why you wanted to go upstate?" I asked her.
"I wanted to get out of this house. I needed to get away." she turned and looked at me. This was my sister. The sister in the locked room. The girl who had drawn all those dark pictures. The young woman who drove four hundred and twenty five miles to decorate a Christmas tree with me, play parchesi, and eat Christmas cookies.
"That's why you started hanging out with this chick?" I asked her.
Carla wiped her face. "I met her in art class."
"And you fell in love with her?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"She was somebody I could talk to. I was drawing those dark pictures, and she asked me about it, and I told her. Her father used to abuse her too. She gave me a hug, and we started hanging out. She understands. It was such a relief to find someone who understands."
"What about mom?" I asked her. "Don't you think she cares about you?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "She doesn't understand. I can't talk about things like this with her."
I sat down next to her and looked at her. She looked back at me.
"You've got to tell her, Carla. And I don't know what's going to happen then."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, what makes you think she'll be happy to find out you're gay? Don't you think she's been looking forward to seeing you get married? Don't you think she wants grandchildren?"
She wiped her face again.
"You're turning your back on her, on us," I said.
She looked at me. "What's wrong with you getting married and having kids?"
"Me?"
"Yea, you. What's wrong with you getting married and having kids?"
I hadn't thought about that. I didn't know what to say.
"You still don't have a girlfriend?" she asked me.
"No."
"Well, what are you doing with your time? Sitting around getting drunk? What do you want to do, end up like dad?"
I could see my father again, standing over me, legs apart, yelling, throwing the ornaments against the wall. Or drunk, sitting on the couch, watching TV.
I didn't have to listen to this. I could leave. I could go anywhere. I could have another beer. But when I turned to look at Carla, my sister, the one who had driven four hundred and twenty five miles to be with us for Christmas, somehow, I couldn't walk away.
Carla stood up. She wiped her face. "I'm cold," she said. "I'm going back inside. Are you coming in? Do you want to help with the tree?"
She opened the door and stood in the doorway.
"With you and Randy?" I asked her.
"Just give her a chance. She's nice."
Randy. The gay girl who had befriended my sister. "I don't know," I said. "I'll think about it."
"I'll see you inside," she said.
I walked around the side of the house again and looked in the window. Randy was sitting on the couch, looking at a box of our Christmas ornaments. Mom was sitting on the loveseat with a cup of tea, talking to her. I turned away.
I had to think. It felt like the ground was shifting under my feet, and I didn't know where to stand. What was happening to us? And if this was the end of all I had left, what would happen to me? Who was I without them? It seemed to me then that Carla needed me. She needed us. She had driven all the way back here with this chick, after all. And maybe I needed her.
As I walked around the porch, it felt like I was stepping out of a shadow, and into the twilight. The air was cold, and clean, and crisp. I felt light. As I looked off at all the streets I could walk away into, I knew that I wouldn't leave.
The door opened again. It was mom. She looked as if she had been crying, but had stopped. We looked at each other out there in the cold, fragile air.
"Did she tell you?" I asked her.
"Yes," mom said. She turned her hands over each other. She was almost shaking.
"So what are we going to do?" I asked her.
"What do you mean, what am I going to do?"
"Are you going to let that girl, Randy, stay?"
My mother looked me in the eyes. Her eyes seemed to be pleading. "Of course I'm going to let her stay."
"So what's going to happen?" I asked her. "What's going to happen to us?"
I heard my mother's heavy, uncertain sigh. "I don't know, but Carla wants you to come in and decorate the tree with her. And I want you to come in too."
I looked at her. For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like having a beer.
"Alright," I said, and I walked back into the house with her.
| Author Notes | This is a story of a family desperately trying to stay together, in the face of powerful forces ripping it apart. Here, homosexuality, alcoholism, child abuse and dysfunction combine like centrifugal forces, while these people struggle to hold onto each other, the only family they have. I used a lot of dialogue here, to put the reader in the middle of it, the vortex of the tornado, and try and feel what these characters are feeling. It's a tragedy, but its also got hope in it. In the end, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the love that they have for each other seems to be enough for us to see a chance that, damaged though they are, these people might be able to make it, somehow. This is the kind of story I love writing; with seething emotion, dark shadows, and chinks of light and color that brighten it, pointing the way through the maelstrom. estory |
By estory
I always wanted to get married. Growing up with my parents, who always seemed to enjoy putting up Christmas trees with us kids, throwing birthday parties, going to graduations, and taking us to national parks on all those summer vacations, it seemed like a natural progression to eventually become like them. Year by year I navigated the stepping stones of life in that progression, until I reached the point where I became interested in girls. Beautiful girls, of course. Ours was the first generation to grow up with TV, and all you ever saw on TV were beautiful girls; so of course I spent my time looking for beautiful girls.
I met Karen in college, in photography class. I was studying landscape photography, and she was a fashion major who needed to figure out how to take pictures of models wearing her clothes. She didn't know much about cameras, and she caught my trained eye; one of those dark haired beauties with long legs and a great figure. I offered to take the pictures for her. She was relieved, and told me to come up to her dorm room that Saturday.
She wore some eye opening outfits that day, I can tell you. She sat in a captain's chair with her legs crossed, in a lemon colored mini skirt; then she reclined on her love seat like a cat, in a pair of pink tights with an indigo blouse that had only a couple of buttons closed down near her navel. I almost knocked over her fish tank with my tripod, she had me so beside myself. She hypnotized me with smoldering eyes and suggestive smiles. After we finished with the pictures, I asked her if she was hungry, and she said yes. She seemed to be hinting at something. So I asked her to dinner, and we sat in the student center cafeteria and talked about our plans after college. I told Karen I wanted to be a professional photographer, and she told me she wanted to design clothes. It seemed like enough in common, so after dinner I asked her to go with me to an art museum in the city to see a photography exhibit, and she agreed.
We walked around the art museum admiring the beautiful pictures, and I took pictures of Karen posing seductively next to the Rodin statues until the security guard asked us to leave. Then we sat in a sidewalk café and talked about how wonderful it would be to live and work in such a city, to curry fame and fortune. Wouldn't it be something, to have one of those places out in the Hamptons, near the ocean, and spend the weekends out there, and then take the train to seventh Avenue, and make all that money to be able to afford it? And then we could fly over to Paris for the weekend, or maybe to Milan for a couple of weeks in the summer. Wouldn't that be living?
I thought she was everything I was looking for. She was funny, smart, gorgeous, and ambitious. She was bold. She was fun at parties. She loved to dance, and she would stand there in the middle of the room, gyrating with a drink in her hand, with everyone watching her. Seeing so many people admiring the woman I was with made me feel head and shoulders above them, a prince among serfs. I was enjoying it, I was being seduced by it; I was going to down a certain path along those stepping stones of life. I got an internship in a photography studio; Karen got one in one of those fashion houses downtown. We began making our plans, collaborating on our vision of life.
I must have told Karen I wanted to have kids someday. I wanted to have two kids, like my mother and father. The sex part didn't bother Karen; she had an appetite for making love, especially outdoors. But she did say that she didn't want to have kids right away, and I was fine with that at the time. She wanted to get her career going first. She wanted to be a name brand designer. Her dream was to create her own line, from the leisure wear and the swim suits to the evening gowns. When we talked about getting married, she was excited about designing her own dress, with a long, white lace train and a thin, exotic veil, off the shoulder, with a very low neckline. Nobody would be able to take their eyes off of her.
After college, I began freelancing, shooting pictures of covered bridges and waterfalls for calendars and travel magazines. Karen went to work for Donna Karan, and she loved it. She loved the whole thing, dressing in the long, black coat with the boots and the briefcase, and attending the pressure cooker meetings where careers were made and broken. We both enjoyed the money. I bought a Jeep, and Karen bought a BMW; her dream car. We rented a cottage out on the island one weekend, and it was there, on a bluff overlooking the ocean, under the moon and the stars, that I proposed. I had spent three or four thousand on the ring, and Karen was thrilled. She laid on her back, held her hand up in the moonlight, and stared at her ring for the rest of the night. The next morning we talked about buying a house out there, with a cathedral ceiling, glass sliding doors opening out onto the terrace overlooking the sea, and a water bed in the master bedroom. It seemed like my dream was coming true, my fantasies were being realized.
The wedding was magnificent. Karen was stunning. Her parents rented a Rolls Royce silver ghost to take us from the church to the reception. The church was one of those white clapboard gothics next to a pond, with beautiful stained glass windows. Karen covered the altar with dark, red roses, a color exactly matching the color of the dresses of her attendants. When we danced our first dance together, everyone said we made an amazing couple. We went on a cruise, made love in a stateroom furnished with mirrors, and danced the nights away on the deck under the stars. It was something I thought I would remember fondly for the rest of my life.
We bought a house out on the island, like we always wanted, and settled into life together. Karen had to take the train to the city, and she left early and came back late. I laid around the house by myself, or wandered around the grounds, taking pictures of the sky and the sea and the sunsets for my calendars. On the weekends we would barbecue and have our friends or parents out to see us. We'd throw pool parties and after the guests left, we made love in our pool. Sometimes Karen would talk about her ideas for sportswear or prom dresses, and I would mention trips to California or Utah that I wanted to make with my kids.
I didn't mind waiting for a few years. I mean, I wanted to get somewhere too. I was working on a series of autumn landscapes for a calendar, and another on historic houses that I wanted to turn into a book. Karen was working on her projects, and she was beginning to get noticed. She was more ambitious than I was and put a lot of time and effort on her projects. Sometimes she would model one of her outfits in our living room, and ask me to take pictures of her so she could see what the things looked like in live action. I would put the pictures on the computer for her, and she would sit up there for hours, critiquing the color combinations and the patterns and the hemlines. It was hard to get her to have dinner with me, the way we used to, the way my parents had always done, when she was so wrapped up in it.
"Can't you just order a pizza?" she would say; "I need to look at these right now. They need these finished by tomorrow."
I overlooked things like that, because she had always been a great lover. She loved having sex outdoors, for some reason, and that proved exciting. We had a sun room put onto the back of the house and we had a six foot high yew hedge planted around the edge of the backyard to keep it as discreet as we would.
"Don't you sometimes wish that someone would walk in on us?" she asked me once, when we were laying out in the grass by the pool. She talked me into buying about a half dozen statues of nude men and women to stand around the lawn so she could feel that there were people watching her. I still remember my mother asking me once, after a dinner out on our patio, "What in the world are you doing with all those nude statues all over the place? Are you going to let your kids walk around back here with those things around?"
Even Karen's parents seemed to be getting anxious for some grandchildren. We would be sitting around in their living room, sipping our Christmas champagne after opening our presents, and her mom would ask her if she was thinking about designing maternity clothes. And her father would ask me if there was anything wrong? "Everything's fine," I would say. But every time we went over there, you could tell when they opened the door and saw us there, just the two of us, what they were thinking.
After a while I began to wonder how much Karen really wanted to have the kids she had once sort of agreed to have. Every year when we decorated our Christmas tree I would mention how I was planning to build a toy train set around the living room furniture when our kids were finally with us for Christmas, and Karen would walk into the kitchen and pour herself another glass of Moet as if she hadn't heard a word. I had enjoyed being a kid myself, around the holidays, and I wanted to replicate that happiness in my own family. Karen had been an only child, and didn't speak much about her childhood. She had always been big on achieving things; entering contests and bringing home trophies to catch her parent's eyes.
I began to notice how involved she was with herself, once I lived with her. She would call from the office and say she was working late on a project with an imminent deadline. I would have to fend for myself for dinner. I could rustle up some macaroni and cheese or spaghetti all right, but I didn't like eating dinner alone in the house, sitting at the kitchen table watching the evening news. Then I would have to sit in the living room with a bowl of popcorn, watching sitcom reruns or a hockey game waiting for Karen to come home. When she finally got home, I was invariably already in bed.
She would walk in the bedroom and sigh her tired sigh, and take off her business suit. I would turn around and watch her from the bed. "You don't have to wait for me you know," she would say, taking off her earrings. "Jeez," I would say, "It's almost eleven thirty. you must be practically passing out."
"I have deadlines to meet."
"Don't you think you're pushing yourself too hard, sometimes?"
"You know I love what I do. Don't start."
"But what about us? I like spending some time with you too, you know."
"I know," she would say, sliding into bed in her lingerie. "Next month, maybe we could fly to Palm Springs for a weekend."
"Next month?"
"After I get this project done."
It was always 'after I get this project done', 'I have deadlines to meet' 'We have a show to do next month' or 'They want me to redo the necklines on the sportswear.' At such times, I would throw myself into my photography, and drive around, taking pictures of tree lined ponds or covered bridges. It was therapeutic, but it was no substitute for a wife. When my brother had his kids, I would watch him horsing around with his sons, throwing them footballs and showing them how to fly kites, and I began to feel that my life, and all my dreams, was slipping away from me. I felt it was time to move on, shift gears. It was time to tell Karen that I wanted her to make a few sacrifices at her job and put some priority on starting a family. I would offer to be there for her. I would go into the delivery room with her; change diapers, whatever it took.
I decided to phone Karen at work.
"I'm in a meeting," she said.
"I want to talk to you about this family thing," I said.
"What family thing?"
"You know, our plans to have kids."
"You can't be serious."
"Can we have dinner together, tonight? Come on. I'll take you out. Anywhere you want to go."
"I can't tonight," she said. "I'll be here late. They want me to do the evening wear on this line they have coming out."
"You mean you're getting into another big project?"
"It's the evening wear," she said. "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. This could be make or break for me."
"You know this means another six months of devoting all your time to your clothes."
"Listen, I have to go. I can't just turn this down. I've worked the last couple of years for this opportunity. I can't pass it up."
"What about me?" I told her, my voice rising a little. "What about us? Can you tell me where I fit into all of this?"
"I don't have time for this," she said, "You're being ridiculous."
Then, she hung up.
I got in the car and drove out to the church where we got married. It was still a beautiful, white steepled church in a field of wildflowers, next to its pond. I parked the car and got out. It was a cloudy day, and the sunny day on which we had gotten married seemed worlds away. Karen, standing there in her white dress, holding her flowers on the steps, seemed like another person. Why had I married her? Because she was beautiful? Because she was exciting? Why hadn't I seen how self absorbed she would become, how driven by her career she would be? And why had she married me? Because she needed someone to admire her, to take pictures of her, to make love to her out in the backyard with the nude statues watching? I tried to think of what it was that I really wanted. Was I being selfish too, in wanting to have kids, at this juncture of our lives?
I didn't know what to do, what I wanted anymore, and I threw some rocks into the pond out of sheer frustration, but there were no answers to be found at the empty church, so I drove back home. The house was empty too, and the emptiness weighed on me, it seemed to squeeze me like a vise, and I made some spaghetti and meatballs just to take my mind off of the fact that I was alone. After dinner, I watched the news, and then a movie. The movie was about a man who left his wife for adventure on the other side of the world. I couldn't help feeling like packing up my suitcase with him, and taking my chances at freedom and new possibilities. But I did not leave. I went to bed, pulled up the covers, and waited for Karen to come home.
Past midnight, I heard the door downstairs, and Karen coming up on tiptoe. When she stepped into the room and turned on the light, I sat up.
"You shouldn't have waited for me," she said. She was posing, as she always did, with her hand on her hip, looking at me over her shoulder, with that suggestive smile. But this time it annoyed me, instead of arousing me.
"Why did you hang up on me?" I asked her.
"Because you're talking nonsense," she answered, taking her clothes off.
"It's not nonsense."
"Yes it is," she told me, slipping into her lingerie and sliding into her half of the bed. "When did I ever say anything about having kids?" She turned out the light.
"I told you I wanted to have kids when we got married. You agreed to it."
She turned to me in the dark and said: "When we're ready. I never said I was ready to have kids."
"Well, when are you going to be ready? It doesn't seem to be anytime soon. I don't want to wait anymore. I don't want to wait another ten years to have kids."
"So what am I supposed to do, just give up my career for something you want? Just walk away from everything I have ever worked for, all these years?"
It was in that moment, there in the darkness next to her, that I felt the bridge collapse between us. There was simply no room for me in her life. And maybe there was no room for her in mine. I didn't know what to do, but I was beginning to feel more and more like packing that suitcase and striking out for my dreams, before it was too late.
When I woke up, she had already left for work. It was easy to pack the case, and write her a note explaining that I needed some time to think, on my own. I was going back to my parents' for the time being. I signed it 'yours', not 'love'. Then I took a cab to the station and caught the next train west. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing or not, but at least I was doing something, going somewhere, and the view of the landscape speeding by raised my spirits.
That night, at my parents', she called me.
"Look," she said, in a tense voice, "I don't have the time, and I can't spare the effort, for an argument."
"I didn't say anything about an argument," I said.
She continued, as if she hadn't heard me. "Are you crazy?" she said, her voice rising. "What are you up to? How am I supposed to pay al the bills here, without you? What am I supposed to do, here?"
"You don't understand me, you've never cared about me. You've never thought of anything that matters to me."
"Where does that compare with the things I am involved in? I'm trying to make a name for myself."
"Karen," I said, "Can you please tell me where I fit into all of this?"
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: "How was I supposed to know how fast my career would take off? How the opportunities would come up? Can't you understand that?"
I sighed. "This isn't getting us anywhere."
"So what do you want? A divorce? Is that what you want?"
I didn't know what to say.
"Oh, the hell with you," she exclaimed, and hung up the phone.
And I turned and looked out of the window I had looked through as a boy, at the houses across the street and the kids playing in the backyards, just as I had done all those years before, back where I had started from.
| Author Notes | This is a story about relationships, and it is told from a single perspective, to highlight the singlemindedness of people in relationships today. Relationships take compromise, teamwork, and today, we are all hell bent on making our own way, enjoying ourselves, making ourselves happy. the other person becomes a means to an end, and in such environments, relationships cannot survive. The dialogue here is very pointed, and counterpointed. There is a duel going on between these two characters, as they manipulate each other for their own ends, and end up worlds away from each other. estory |
By estory
Nobody would have thought Pete crazy. Every morning, he could be seen leaving his mother's house with a cup of coffee in his hand, getting into a bright, red Nissan Sentra parked in the driveway, for his job as an English teacher. Every evening he came back, parked his car in the driveway, and waved to the neighbors, before going back into the house. He never barbecued, he never had parties, he never played ball with the other guys in the local softball league, he didn't even do any gardening. He was a quiet guy, who kept to himself. He never did anything that could be called crazy.
Of course, most of the neighbors would remember the arguments Pete's mother and father had, when he was a baby. They could hear the doors slamming, the shouting, the broken bottles. Pete's father left abruptly, and never returned. He went somewhere in California, and Pete's mother never spoke about him, except to say he was a liar and drank too much. Pete never gave an indication of what he thought about it. While the other kids played ball in their yard, Pete would sit on his porch, as if he did not know what to do with himself. He watched the other kids in the neighborhood from his chair, maybe a little enviously, maybe a bit resentfully. When Mr. Carlson took his boys on a fishing trip once, he watched them pack their station wagon, and drive away. Then, he went back inside.
His mother was not a baseball fan, or a fisherman. She worked as a secretary and watched game shows when she came home. Pete would watch with her. After she became ill, he would have to help clean the house, and do the shopping. He would make frozen dinners for her, and bring them out to the living room, where she ate them on the sofa, watching TV.
By the time he was in high school, Pete was a bona fide loner. While the other kids found friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, and chatted merrily with each other at lunch, Pete sat by himself and played chess games with a computer. He had no time to join the football team or the Drama Club. He had to go home after school to look after his mother. After he had done the shopping, cleaned the house and made dinner, he would sit in his room and watch movies; teen beach movies, like Beach Blanket Bingo, or Molly Ringwald movies like Pretty in Pink. Sometimes he would go to the mall and walk around with his hands in his pockets, watching the girls from a respectable distance, looking like he did not quite know what to do about them. Buying himself an ice cream sundae and eating it in the food court, under the light of the atrium, while the shoppers waltzed around him in an endless promenade.
Sometimes he went to the movies, and sat by himself in the last row. Sometimes he just went home.
After he graduated high school, Pete went to a local college and majored in education. For some reason, he went to his old alma mater often. He would walk around the sports field with his hands in his pockets, watching the girl's field hockey team practice, or sit in the cafeteria watching them talk to their boyfriends. If one of the teachers asked what he was doing there, he would shrug and say he was thinking about becoming a teacher too. Then, after a little small talk, he would leave, just as mysteriously as he came.
He got good grades, graduated with a degree, and made his way into an apprenticeship program, and after that, became a substitute teacher at a middle school. It wasn't long after that he took a regular position as an English teacher at a high school not far away. He explained that he had to be close to his mother, whose illness had progressed.
The teachers would have lunch together up in the teacher's lounge, where they invited Pete, naturally enough, to join them. It was he who always politely refused, turning down the ping pong games and the scrabble tournaments in favor of eating his lunch in the cafeteria, with the noisy kids, pretending to read a book, or grading papers. He would smile politely at the girls from his classes, and hold doors for them when they left the cafeteria, much to their amusement.
Pete never got married. In fact, if you asked any of his colleagues or neighbors, or relatives, no-one could actually remember seeing him with a woman. It wasn't that he was bad looking. One of the other English teachers, a pretty blond named Sally, even had an eye for him once. She sat next to him one day before school up in the lounge and tried to strike up a conversation with him, but he got flustered and spilled his coffee over the sofa. Another time, when he refused a friendly invitation to play a game of scrabble, she went so far as to go down and sit with him in the cafeteria. When she asked him why he was sitting by himself, he blushed and proceeded to say he had to grade papers. He ignored her, she got up and left, and that was the end of that.
None of that was enough for anyone to go and call him crazy. He showed up at his job, he never called in sick, he was punctual at meetings and knowledgeable in his subjects. The kids liked him; he was funny, he joked around, he created a light atmosphere in the classroom. Especially the girls. But the years went by, with their classes of kids, boys and girls whom he met in September as freshmen and counselled until they were seniors, when they moved on and out of his classroom and got on with their lives. He would try and joke around with them in the halls, talk to them in the cafeteria, tutor them in the library; but they were mostly eager to hang out with their own friends or get back home, and in the end, they gave him the cold shoulder.
Krystal was different.
She was a beauty, with wide, dark eyes, long, silky black hair, and fine, delicate features. Unlike many of the other girls, she would stare at him during class, leaning her pouting face on an upraised hand. She was always asking him questions, and when he answered them, with a polite smile, she would smile back and kept staring at him. She didn't seem to have many friends. She would find him in the cafeteria or the library and tell him she was having a problem or didn't understand the lesson, and then sit next to him and stare at him while he tried to explain. After school, he would find her wandering around the lobby. She never seemed to want to go home. Sometimes she would walk out to his car with him, and ask him what he was making for dinner that night or what he was doing with himself on the weekends. Once, she asked him if he was married.
Pete was excited by her interest in him. She seemed to be waiting for something, lingering around him, daring him to make a move. He had never really known or been shown how to make a move, and this had paralyzed him around women his own age; but Krystal was like a blank page, an inexperienced debutant, and he felt more at ease around her. Once she asked him if he could drive her to the public library, so she could do her homework, and he began helping her with her homework there. Sometimes they would forget the homework and just talk. Krystal liked music and she asked him what kind of music he liked. She said she wanted to come over his house and listen to some of his CD's with him.
"Don't you have to go home?" Pete asked her, curious.
She looked out of the window at the dogwoods blooming in the garden outside the library, and ran her fingers through the long, black strands of her hair. "I want to run away," she told him.
"Why?" he asked her, acting surprised.
"Because I hate my mom."
"Why do you hate your mom?"
"Because she doesn't love me. Nobody does. And my brother's a bitch."
"I'm sure he isn't that bad," Pete told her, sounding incredulous. He leaned over and looked sympathetically at her.
She threw back her head and laughed. While she did that, she arched her shoulders back, and stuck out her chest. When she saw that he had noticed, she turned and looked at him, smiling wryly. "Could you do me a favor?" she asked him.
"What is it?" he asked, anxiously.
She laughed again. "Could you buy me some beer? I'm dying for some beer. You could get me some, couldn't you?"
Pete paused, as if he were standing on a cliff, one step away from going over, into the rush of the air, and a step back from safety. "You know you're too young for that," he said, mischeviously. She looked at him and they both laughed.
"I've had beer before," she told him, triumphantly. "My brother lets me have some, when he feels like it. But right now he's bumming around with his stupid friends."
"What's wrong with his friends?"
"When they get drunk, they all hit on me," Krystal said, running her fingers through her hair again.
Pete looked at her intently. "What does your mom say about that?"
"She's not around. She left."
"She left?"
"She went to my grandma's in Orlando. She goes there a lot. She won't be back until she feels like coming back."
"You mean, she just up and left you, just like that, all by yourselves?" Pete sounded at once incredulous, and at once excited.
"Yea. And now my brother is acting like a jerk."
"What about your father?"
Krystal laughed. "I haven't seen him in years. He's in Los Angeles, I think."
Pete looked at the abandoned girl sitting next to him. "I know how you feel," he said gently. "My father left for California too. He and my mother didn't get along."
Krystal looked at him, squinting to look in his eyes. "That's pretty wild," she said.
Pete began to look forward to their times in the library, after school. Krystal had her hair highlighted with red streaks. She wore little shorts to their meetings, and crossed her legs under the table. She told him that she wanted to run away, go to Hollywood or Las Vegas, and become an actress or a singer. She wanted to be somebody. She told him she had always dreamed of standing on a stage, and listening to everyone applaud her. He asked her to sing for him once, and he sat and listened to her with his head in his hand, smiling. And the girl who had no-one to go home to loved singing for him, watching the way he couldn't take his eyes off of her.
They began talking about their fantasy trip to Los Angeles. They looked at hotel brochures, and restaurant reviews, and talked about the concerts they could see together on the road. Krystal would become famous and they would drive around in her bright, red sports car. They would live in one of those townhouses in Hollywood. They could throw pool parties, toga parties. She would be on TV and everyone would wish they had been her friend.
Pete had never done anything crazy before. He knew that he would never be able to take her to Los Angeles and live with her. But there was no denying the fact that part of him wanted to. When she sat next to him, in those little shorts, and those halter tops, his heart hammered with anticipation. He had never known how to make a move on a woman; he had never known what to do. This girl seemed to have dropped out of the sky and into his lap. He might never get another chance like this. She was perfect.
He decided that he would take her on a trip out to a lighthouse one day over summer vacation. They would find a lonely beach. He would tell her he would take pictures of her and they could send them into a fashion magazine He imagined her in a bikini, kissing him. He imagined himself running his hand over her leg...
When he told her his plan, she was excited. They went to the mall, and she picked out a new bikini, a pair of flip flops, a beach blanket, a pull over, and new mirrored sunglasses. He cheerfully bought it all for her, putting them on his credit card. He drove her to a liquor store and let her pick out a bottle of wine. He bought film for his camera.
The day of their adventurer, Pete had his car washed, and packed their picnic lunch carefully in the trunk. He was bringing a Styrofoam cooler for that bottle of wine, and some beers. He had a rolled up beach towel, and a package of condoms, just in case. He drove down to meet her at the park behind the library.
There she was, as she said she would be, in her shorts and hat, swinging in the swing. He got out and walked over to her. She smiled when she saw him. She was wearing those sunglasses.
"You look great," he said.
"My mother went to Orlando again," she told him.
"No kidding," he said, sitting next to her.
"She won't be back until next week, the bitch. And my brother's drunk, with his asshole friends. I can't wait to get out of here."
"With me?" Pete asked her.
Krystal laughed. "I'm ready to be a star!" she said, leaning back, and letting her hair down, stretching her legs to reach for the sky.
"You're crazy," he told her.
"Maybe we're both crazy," she said.
| Author Notes | The inspiration for this rather difficult story came from a news story about a teacher who ran away with one of his students, and travelled across the country before they were finally apprehended. It made me wonder how people arrive at this point; Where does this guy come from, and for that matter, where does the girl come from? I kind of thought of this as a tragedy of two people doomed to this train wreck of an intersection, the man looking for that perfect girl to seduce, out of his dysfunction, and the girl, equally dysfunctional, ready to be seduced. It is a Lolita story that seems to happen more often than one might suppose, in this world today of lonely, abandoned people, coming from broken homes, and it is unsettling. estory |
By estory
It was late March, and the wind was rattling last year's leaves down the street, where the frozen puddles reflected bits of the sunlight into the empty branches of the trees. The cold air rang with the incessant traffic, punctuated by the calls of robins overhead. It was a hopeful air, after the long winter, and on this sunny Saturday, people were out window shopping along the stores that lined the boulevard, looking for new clothes to wear in the spring, new television sets, and new books to read. New people to meet. The restaurants were busy with people talking about the things they had just bought over lunch, and you could see young couples conversing excitedly on their first dates. The waitresses were busy running plates out to them.
In that respect, it was just like any other Saturday afternoon to Lauren. She had been working in this particular restaurant for three years, ever since she graduated college, and the endless plates of burgers with French fries, grilled cheese sandwiches, Philadelphia cheese steaks and meat loafs with mashed potatoes made no difference to her. She majored in music with a minor in education and studied at a local college, moonlighting in an alternative band that played in some of the local bars. But the band fell apart when the drummer moved to Boston to be a part of a more widely known band he had found on the internet, and the lead singer got a job in a liquor store that his uncle owned. She had thought about going to graduate school and becoming a teacher, but she couldn't afford the tuition and got the job waiting on tables to save money. Then she had an argument with her parents about her plans for her future and moved into an apartment in a neighboring town, and she settled into the dull routine of working to pay bills. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months, and months turned into years. That's the way life goes.
During this time she had a brief fling with one of the waiters, a guy named Jon who sometimes played guitar and sang in a garage band called Seismic. She was lonely and her future seemed indeterminate and she was trying to find a pathway that suited her among all the myriad pathways across the world that seemed to radiate out all around her. They had a shared interest in music, and this had seemed hopeful to her, but once when she told him that she had written a song for him, he was quickly distracted by someone else in the bar recognizing him from a show that he once played there. He took her out to dinner a few times, but she found that he had a hard time taking his eyes off of buxom young women who were in the same room with him, and he had a habit of taking cell phone calls on dates; half the time they were driving around she found herself listening to the radio while he talked to someone else about getting a new amp or booking a gig in a bar somewhere. The night she helped him decorate his Christmas tree, he tried to make out with her and she told him she wasn't in the mood. When he persisted, she told him she didn't want to see him anymore, and left. He seemed surprised and put out but she didn't care and when she walked out of his apartment into the cold, dark night, she literally took a breath of fresh air.
In many ways, it seemed that she was in the winter of her life.
She was friendly with a couple of the other waitresses who worked in the restaurant, and they went out once in a while for drinks, but it was hard when she was alone in her apartment. There were times when she would turn off the TV and just sit in the dark room, looking out of the windows at the streetlights outside, that never seemed to move, wondering what her life was coming to and where she had gone wrong. She liked music, she had an outgoing personality, she could laugh, she wasn't bad looking; so why was she alone? Should she have stayed with Jon? At least, he was some kind of boyfriend. She missed that good night kiss at the end of the night, and that feeling of being in someone's arms, and without that, she felt depraved. Sometimes it seemed to her that her life was stretching in front of her like a paved parking lot, covered in snow. The mornings brought little relief. She would wake up, make a cup of coffee, and go back to work.
So that's where she was on that Saturday morning in March when this rather sad looking guy walked into the restaurant and asked for a booth. Lauren noticed his broad shoulders, and his finely chiseled features as he strode in with his navy p coat, along with his worried looking expression. He walked with his hands in his pockets. He unbuttoned his coat and she noticed his neatly pressed, pastel colored collard shirt and a pair of grey slacks.
"Just one?" she asked, smiling as she always did, in spite of everything around her.
"It's just me today," the guy said. He looked like he wanted to talk to someone. A woman. Lauren was only too happy to do the talking.
"We have some great specials today," she said, going into her spiel with a little extra enthusiasm. The man seemed pleasantly surprised by her upbeat attitude, and looked up at her intently. "We have this orange pork chop that comes with garlic mashed potatoes and baked onions. It's only $14.95, and it is famous around here." She noticed that he was looking up at her as one looked up at a skylight in a foyer.
"It sounds good, but I really don't like pork," the guy said. He seemed sympathetic of the effort she was making.
"How about this T-bone steak with French fries and fire roasted peppers? That's one of my favorites. It comes with an incredible sauce. The chef makes it himself from a secret recipe."
The man rested his chin on the palm of his hand, looking up at her as if she had saved his life. "Sure," he said, "Why not." Lauren scribbled his order on her pad, glancing down at him as she wrote.
"How would you like that cooked?" she asked him.
"Medium well," he answered, leaning toward her. "Listen, I've had a rough day, I have to admit. It's nice to find someone in the world as cheerful as you are."
Lauren gave him a long look, still smiling. "Well," she said, "I'm pretty tired, but I don't let things get me down."
"It looks pretty busy today," he said, looking around at the boisterous tables.
"I've been here since 7 o'clock," she said, laughing, "It really is more of an adventure than a job."
The man chuckled, still looking at her. "I can imagine," he said. He seemed to want the conversation to go on.
"Can I get you a drink with that?" she asked him.
"Sure," he said. "How about a beer?"
"Bottle or tap?"
"Bottled is fine."
"We have Bud, Bud light, Michelob, Coors, Sam Adams, or Heineken."
"Bud is fine."
"I'll be right back," she said, "Don't you go anywhere." She looked over her shoulder at him on her way from the table, and she saw that he was still looking at her, with his head in his hand, smiling.
One of her friends brushed up against her while she was waiting for the beer. "That guy is looking at you," she said to Lauren.
"I know," Lauren said. "Isn't he kind of cute?"
"So you're into him?" her friend raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe," Lauren said, with a shrug of her shoulders. She put the beer on the tray and headed back to the guy in the booth.
When he saw her coming, he sat up and smiled, again.
"I'm back," she said. She set the empty glass on the table and poured the beer into it, as if she were performing some kind of magic trick.
The guy watched her and smiled approvingly when she was done. "Thanks," he said. He looked up at her as if he were waiting for her to say something, so she stood on her hip next to his chair. "So tell me why you are having such a rough day on the first day of spring," Lauren said.
He leaned back. "Well," he said, "I don't know if you know anything about investment banking, but I gave one of my clients some advice he isn't too happy with. We may lose the account, and my boss isn't thrilled about that."
Lauren didn't give a fig about investment banking, but she did care about the guy, and what might happen to him. "What did you tell him?" she asked him.
"I told him to invest in a company that makes portable memory devices for home computers, and now the technology is obsolete, and the company is going belly up."
Lauren stared at him for a moment, with her eyebrows raised. Then she burst out laughing. The guy seemed taken aback for a moment, but then he started laughing with her.
"What's so funny about that?" he said. "The shareholders are out millions."
"Millions?" Lauren said. Then she laughed again. He laughed with her, in the middle of the crowded restaurant, with everyone turning to look at them. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'd better check on that steak." Then she turned to go.
She went back into the kitchen. Her friend pulled up next to her. "So?" she asked Lauren, "What's going on?"
"I think he's some kind of stockbroker or something," Lauren said, "But he lost millions of dollars or something."
"Millions?" her friend said. Then they both burst out laughing.
"I've got to get his steak," Lauren told her.
"Just your luck," her friend called after her, "The one stockbroker you finally meet, and he's losing money."
Lauren didn't really care. There was something about this guy, the way he was handling misfortune, the way he seemed to be looking to her to cheer him up. There was more to him than met the eye, that was for sure. She wanted to find out more about him. She felt that she had the power to lift his spirits, and that had lifted her own spirits in the bargain. She brought the steak and fries out to him carrying them on her tray as if she were bringing him a whole change of fortune.
He watched her coming to the booth. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. He looked up at her as she placed the plate in front of him in triumph.
"Well, what do you think of that?" she said, "Don't you think that will make you forget the millions of dollars?"
"I'm sure it's going to be fantastic," he said, picking up his knife and fork.
Lauren lingered over him. "After all, money isn't everything," she said.
He looked up at her, standing there in her skirt and apron, brushing back a strand of hair behind her ear. "No, it's not." he said. "Listen. How would you like to forget about this place for a while?"
"Oh I'd love to do that, but how am I going to do that?"
"Let me take you out to the movies," the guy said.
"The movies?" Lauren said, smiling, "How do you know if I like the movies?"
"You don't like the movies?"
Lauren shook her head.
"So what do you like to do?"
"Drink scotch," she told him, laughing, watching his surprised expression. "And music. I like music. I play guitar."
The man looked impressed. "I love the guitar," he said, quickly. "Let me have your number, and I will call you. I'll think of something, I promise. What do you say?"
"OK," Lauren said. She scribbled her number down on a piece of paper from her pad, and gave it to him.
His name was Frank, and he called her two days later. He wanted to know if she would go with him to listen to this musician who was going to play acoustic guitar at a bar in the village. She laughed in her good natured way and told him she would go. He told her he liked the sound of her laugh. She asked him if he had gotten into trouble over losing the millions of dollars. He chuckled and reminded her that she had told him money wasn't everything. Then he told her he would survive. He was looking forward to seeing her again.
The next few days seemed like sunny, spring days to Lauren. Each day got brighter than the last. She had her hair done. She bought a new blouse. She found herself looking out of the window at the brightening sky, the lengthening days, excited by the prospect of her date, daydreaming about what he would look like. She felt like writing a song for him and she wondered what he would think of it.
The day of her date, she showered and shampooed her hair, and very carefully blow dried it out. She put on her new blouse. She painted her nails and put on her best perfume. Then, she waited, looking out of the window with an excited, pounding heart.
His car pulled up and she watched him get out and walk up to the townhouse. He was driving a late model Buick, that looked comfortable. When she opened the door, he looked very dapper indeed and her spirits rose. He told her she looked beautiful, and he sounded like he meant it. She gave him a quick tour of her apartment and he looked around approvingly at her collection of tables and chairs, pictures and knick knacks. He asked her how long she had been living on her own.
"A couple of years," she told him. "I had a fight with my parents, and I moved out." He looked pensive when she said this. "How about you?" she asked him.
"I've been on my own for a while," Frank said. "I moved out when my parents moved to Florida after I graduated from college. A couple of years after they moved, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She died last year. I didn't get to spend as much time with her as I would have liked." When he said this, he looked out of Lauren's window, as though looking for someone out there, somewhere.
Lauren could see the sad look on his face again when he said this, and she instinctively reached out and touched his arm. "I'm so sorry," she said.
He turned to look at her, and when he saw how sympathetic she was, he smiled faintly. "It's been tough," he said, "But I'm feeling better today." Then, he took her hand and squeezed it, and they went out.
On their way to the bar, he asked her what the fight with her parents had been about. Lauren told him that her father had thought that she had wasted her time in college, that all of her years of fooling around with music had been a waste of time, and she had gotten mad and moved out. He glanced at her and told her he didn't think music was ever a waste of time. But then he said something she would never forget. He said: "If I were you, I would make up with him, because you never know how much time you have left with him." Right then and there she knew how much family meant to him, and she sensed that he might not give up on her that easily.
Frank turned out to be polite, a careful listener, and he was attentive to her during the date. He did not answer any cell phone calls, he did not make any, and he did not look around the bar at the other women in it. While she listened to the music, he watched her. He asked her if she liked the guitarist, and she told him she did. He asked her how long she had playing the guitar, and whether she had written any songs. Then he did something no-one else had ever done. He asked her if she would write a song for him and play it some time. She turned to him and smiled, and told him she would.
Afterwards, they walked outside in the streets under the stars, talking about the musicians they liked, how they had ended up in the jobs they were in, their families, their friends, and the places they wanted to see someday. Frank had a sister in Florida, she was married, and expecting a baby. He was going to be an uncle, and he told her how excited he was, how he was planning on buying a teddy bear for him, and taking him to ball games someday. Ahead of her, the streetlights seemed to be leading off somewhere, when he said this. He told her he liked photography, and he said he wanted to take a picture of her while she was playing the guitar, looking out of her apartment window. She leaned into him when he said this, and laughed. They walked a block without saying anything. Then she asked him about his mom.
He was quiet for a minute, and then he told her he was mostly disappointed that she hadn't lived to see him happily married. She had never gotten to see her grandchildren. Lauren looked at him when he said this. He smiled, and she leaned into him again. He took her hand and held it. It made her feel warmer. Even though it was their first date, she knew she would remember this night forever.
After he took her home, he asked if he could call her and she said yes. Then, he asked if he could kiss her good night, and she smiled and held her face up to him. His kiss was soft, and just a bit excited. From the upstairs window of her apartment, she watched him get into his car. He turned once, and waved to her.
That very night, at the very beginning of spring, she could feel the sky growing lighter, feel the air getting warmer, and see the daffodils coming up from under the snow, bringing their beauty back into the world.
| Author Notes | This is a very different story from the ones I usually write; an upbeat story, a happy story, a story about a good moment in life. I felt it was a story I should write, because these moments happen, every now and again. No matter where we are in our lives, where we come from, or what we are doing, the paths we take lead to these intersections, where we meet others who need us as much as we need them. It is a story in which you have to pay attention to little details; the subtle inclinations of body language, reading between the lines of what these two are saying, to decipher what it is that they are saying to each other. And it is one of those stories that we can enjoy, taking us from the winter and its darkness, into the spring, and its light and hope. estory |
By estory
I was living in Phoenix, on the other side of the country from the rest of my family, when I got a call from my sister. My father, our father, had a stroke. He couldn't walk anymore; he could barely talk. After he got out of the hospital, he was going to have to live in a nursing home. My sister was upset and didn't know what to do. She wanted to know if I could come back east. She wanted to know if I would visit him.
This was something like an earthquake, and I didn't know what to say for a moment. It sounded like the last chance to reconcile with him, and if I ever wanted to, I had better do it now. Despite the fact that we had held each other at arm's length for years, I found myself thinking of times when we had been closer, and things we had shared with each other. In many ways, he was where I had come from, and now that this had happened, it seemed like there might not be any going back there. I told her I would come, at least for a few weeks.
I found myself trying to figure out how all this separation started, and decipher how we had arrived at these places with so much distance between them. I thought back to my childhood and my relationship to my father then. I remembered those Sunday mornings when we would go to church, come home, and he would play Tchaikovsky and Beethoven and Rossini symphonies for me, and we would sit on the sofa together listening to them. I remember how he had taught me how to play chess, and the chess games we used to have, the intensity of the competition, how I tried to beat him, and the feeling of exhilaration when I did. Those memories brought back a feeling of standing on solid ground I had not felt in some time. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Our relationship today seemed so broken in comparison. So how had it all happened?
I think the defining moment came when I was 16, and my mother started telling us about these strange experiences she was having. My sister and I listened, aghast, as she told us she had seen her dead mother in a dream. She was in heaven, mom said, and grandmother was telling her she was alright. My parents had always been very religious, but now she began telling us that God was speaking to her. She said she had felt something one night, while she was praying in bed, like warm water running through her, filling her up from her feet to her head. Then she felt like she was floating out of the bed. She told us that she loved God now, and to me, it sounded like she did not love us anymore. We both looked at each other, as if wondering what was going to happen to us. It was like she was leaving us. She talked my father into leaving the church where we had gone to Sunday school and sang in the church choir, and they joined a born again, Pentecostal congregation. They joined a bible study group and wanted us to join with them, but I refused to go. Then my father stopped playing chess with me, and listening to music. He told me it wasn't as important as God.
I think I wanted my old father back. I was the first in my family to go to college and I took a lot of psychology classes, and I once told him his obsession with religion came from a guilty conscience. He told me what I was studying in college was a waste of time and money. He would read bible passages to me, and I would tell him about Freud and Voltaire. We would argue, and I would leave the room. He would ask me if I wanted to watch the evangelist Pat Robertson on TV, and I would say I had a book to read, and I would ask him if he wanted to go to an Isaac Stern concert and he would say he had a bible study that night. It was like we were painting each other into different corners of the same house until we couldn't stand in the same room together. When I graduated from the local two year college, I got accepted to Arizona State and jumped at the chance for fresh air, and never looked back.
I moved to Phoenix and after getting my masters degree, I got a job teaching English lit and moved into a townhouse in a Phoenix suburb. When I did come home for the holidays, he would invariably start quoting bible verses and asking me what I thought of them, until I couldn't stand it anymore. It was like I was turning myself into something he didn't understand, and I felt increasingly like a stranger around him. I couldn't wait to get back to Phoenix, to my new life. But even in the middle of teaching, in the middle of writing my articles, I had this strange feeling that I had broken with some foundation at the core of me.
After my mother died, I invited him to come out west and see my townhouse and my garden, read some of the things I had written about music and literature, but he would have none of it. When I saw him at Christmas or Easter, at my sister's, he seemed like a monk to me, carrying around his bible, intractable, insisting that I was on the path to damnation. He kept saying how disappointed he was that I wasn't going to church. When I mentioned that I had gotten a few short stories published in a magazine, he told me: "It means nothing, Frank, it means nothing." I got that sinking feeling again, that feeling of standing under a cloud, and all I could think of was getting back to Phoenix.
I didn't know what to say, so I stopped saying anything. I lived my life out in the desert, like a tourist on vacation. I soaked up the sunshine, I watched my garden grow, I wrote. But more and more, I felt like I was waiting for something to happen, like a lightning strike, or an earthquake. Then the lightning strike, the earthquake, happened. I got that call from my sister, and I realized that my father, the person who had given me life, who had raised me, who had been my foundation and compass, might be lost to me. I had to wonder, as I packed my things, if I had lost my last chance to play chess with him. Would we ever listen to music together again? Was he really gone forever?
Oddly enough, it wasn't really that hard to uproot myself from Phoenix and head back east. I had no pets to board out, I wasn't in love with anyone, and I wasn't in the middle of writing a novel or reading one. I had no close friends with plans for hiking trips or backyard barbecues. Leaving Phoenix was as easy as throwing out the perishable food in my refrigerator, packing a suitcase, and locking the front door. I was starting to find myself bored with Phoenix, like someone who had been on vacation too long. I had been free to lecture my students on modernism, go to rock concerts, and drink a few bottle of scotch in the backyard under an avocado tree, but suddenly, none of this had really seemed to amount to anything. None of it seemed defining. I hadn't gotten married. I hadn't been offered a publishing contract. I had dated a couple of the other teachers where I worked, but in the end, after a few outings, we seemed to end up under that avocado tree, drunk, with nothing to say.
At the airport, waiting for my flight, I found myself looking forward to seeing my sister, and thinking about my father. I was remembering all those Sunday mornings listening to the 1812 Overture, all those chess games, the times we had gone sailing together. Life seemed simpler then, straight forward and grounded. I was thinking about asking him if he could play a game of chess, as a way of breaking the ice. I would help him move the pieces. I couldn't help feeling that it might be too late, and I wished I could have something of a relationship with him again, even if it meant reading Psalms together or watching Pat Robertson. I felt sorry that I had never once listened to him, and that I had left the room whenever he had tried to talk to me. In my mind, I saw him lying in that hospital bed and suddenly all the times he had just wished I went to church seemed like a reasonable request from a father.
When I got on the plane, I found myself sitting next to a young man reading High Times, and wearing a Jesus Is My Homeboy t-shirt. It seemed disrespectful to me all of sudden, and it bothered me. The kid sat with his elbows on my armrest, restlessly thumbing through his magazine.
"Do you believe in Jesus?" I found myself asking him. Looking immoveably bored, he replied that he didn't believe in anything.
"What if it turns out to be true?" I asked him.
"What if what turns out to be true?" he replied, looking annoyed.
"Jesus," I said, "What if Jesus turns out to be real? Have you ever thought of that?"
"You're crazy," the young man said, putting on his ipod and giving me a suspicious, sidelong look. I fumed. I'm not crazy, I thought to myself, am I?
My sister met me at the airport in New York. She was crying, and she instinctively ran into my arms. I hugged her back. Alone in that airport, we seemed to have nothing left but each other, and in our isolation and grief, we held onto each other like we hadn't done in years. It felt like a relief to see her.
"How is dad?" I asked her finally, with some trepidation.
"The same," she answered. "They don't think he's going to change much."
"Well, there is always hope," I said, trying to life both of our spirits. She looked at me and smiled faintly. "He's always had a lot of faith. Maybe God will work a miracle for him."
"I hope so," she said, wiping her face. "I would hate to lose him, like we lost mom."
"Has he said anything about me?" I asked her, hopefully.
"He asked me where you were; I think he forgot you moved to Phoenix."
"At least he's thinking of me; that's a start. How about you?"
"It's hard," she said, "Seeing him like that. He was always so strong. It's scary."
"I know," I said. Even though I did not know.
We drove back to my sister's house, and I put my things in my nephew's room, where I would be staying. Steve had a picture of my father on his bureau, standing with his arm around him, smiling, at his confirmation. He looked so proud of his grandson. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking at it for a while. There was a bible on the bureau, and a chess set. Those tokens brought back powerful memories.
When I went into the kitchen, my sister was sitting at the table, crying. I sat down next to her.
"You're not going to fight with him, are you?" She asked me.
"No, I'm not going to fight with him," I said, "I'm thinking of just asking him if he wants to play a game of chess. Do you think he can play?"
"I don't know. He just lays there, staring at you. He looks empty."
"It's the stroke," I said. "That's what that is. Maybe if he could do something, anything, it would give him a little life. When can we go see him?"
"We can go tonight, if you want. Till eight o'clock."
"OK then," I said.
So after dinner we went to go see him. My brother in law stayed home, with the kids, and I just went with Sue. I brought along that chess set, just in case. As we went through the hospital, up to the room, I tried to think of what I was going to say, but I couldn't think of anything. All the years we had spent arguing seemed to tower over me. We had kept ourselves from each other, backed each other into a corner, and now, if we didn't pull ourselves back from the brink, everything that we had once had would be lost.
When I saw him lying in that bed, my heart fell. His right side was paralyzed, so he could only move his left arm and leg. His face looked half frozen. He looked up at me with his one eye, desperate, as if saying; 'what happened to me?' I thought to myself, is this all we had left?
I said hello and sat in a chair beside the bed, next to Sue. He turned his head a little, and kept looking at me. I will never forget the look on his face. It was like being cut off from him by a thick pane of glass, and on the others side, he looked so helpless and lost. He was trying to say something. I moved closer to him, and he raised his hand and touched my arm. I took his hand.
"Dad," I stammered, "I'm so sorry."
He shook his head. He kept trying to say something, but all that came out was this gurgling sound. He squeezed my arm.
"What is it, dad? What is it?" I asked him. He was pointing. "You want a glass of water?" He nodded. So I poured him a glass of water out of the pitcher they had for him, and held the cup up to his lips. I tipped the glass back slightly as he leaned forward, and let a little of the water at a time slide into his half open mouth. It was a struggle, and some of it spilled over his patient's gown. My sister got a cloth and wiped him up. Then I set the glass back down on the table.
He looked up at us, his one eye moving from my sister, to me. He looked so helpless. It was startling. He was so frail now, so impossibly removed from the world, from life, that felt like he had in a way, already left us, that there was no going back. But there was something in his eye, a grateful look, like he was glad and relieved to see us, like he was glad he had us to help him, to be with him. It warmed me.
"Do you remember this?" I said, laying the chess set on the table. He looked at the checkerboard squares on the board, and then he looked up at me, and nodded. He tried to say something else, pointing to the box with the pieces. "Play," he seemed to be mumbling. "You want to play?" I asked him, "I'll let you be white." He nodded. So I set up the pieces and played him a game. He could still move the pieces slowly, with his left hand. I let him take my knight, and then my queen. After a bit, I gave up.
"Looks like you got me, dad," I told him, "Just like the old days."
He looked up at me, as he laid back in his bed, and it seemed to me that he was trying to smile.
"We have to go now," my sister said, "It's time for you to go to sleep. But we will come back tomorrow."
"I'll see you tomorrow, dad," I said. He looked up at us with this pleading look, like he didn't want us to go.
Out in the hall, Sue said to me, "I hate leaving him, like that."
"I know," I said.
The next day, I went back, with the chess set, and played him another game. I poured him a glass of water, and helped him drink it, and opened the blinds of the window so he could look out of it at the flowers in the courtyard below. He looked out of the window with a longing look, one that was hard to see, like he knew he could never really be a part of the world again. I read him some poems, and then I read him some Psalms. I put on Pat Robertson and watched it with him. He couldn't say anything, but at least I was sitting next to him, as he watched it.
The first week went by, and each day I went to see him, I felt better, for some strange reason. It was nice that he seemed so glad to see me, that we could still play chess, at least. We would sit there across the board from each other, and look at each other, as if we had finally realized how much we had in common, after all those years of distance.
One day I sat next to him and leaned over him. "Dad, you know, I never thanked you for all the things you did for me. You know, you were the one who gave me my love of music, who gave me my love of books. You taught me to play chess. You know that?"
He reached out with his left hand and grabbed my hand, and looked up at me and tried to say something I could not make out, but it sounded like 'thank you.' And then, for the first time in thirty years, I gave him a hug. "I just wanted to say thanks, you know?" I told him, with tears in my eyes. "While I still have the chance."
He squeezed my me with his left hand. It was all he had left.
So we had our little chess games, over the next couple of weeks. As soon as I came into the room, he would sit up a little, and try to smile. I would set up the pieces, and we play slowly. I would pour him glasses of water and help him drink them, and we would look out of the window at the world we had once shared. When I told him I had to go back to Phoenix, that school was starting and I had to go back to work, he shook his head.
"You don't want me to go?" I asked him.
He nodded.
I went back to Phoenix, quit my job, sold my townhouse, and moved back east. I got an apartment, and took a job substitute teaching in a local school. When he moved to the nursing home, I went to see him, played chess with him, pushed him around the garden in his wheel chair. It was funny. It was like I had come home again, after running away, for all those years.
| Author Notes | This is a story in which an estranged son is suddenly shaken by his father's stroke, and realizes, almost too late, the importance of the relationship to the meaning of his life. It is a story of the complicated, convoluted ties and forces pulling us apart from each other, and holding us together. In the end, the only connection they have left, is this simple chess game, played in silence, these moments sitting together watching tv, looking at each other, as the son tries to help the father and the father relies on him. In a way, it is a warning to make the most of life, to not be so cavalier and self centered in our relationships, because time here on Earth is finite, and things come to an end. And then what do we have left? What do we take along with us? estory |
By estory
Beautiful women had always been a particular interest to Jimmy. Even as a boy, his earliest memories were of watching Maureen McCormick on the Brady Bunch, or Susan Dey on the Partridge Family, sitting in a bean bag chair in his parents' living room, imagining what it would be like to kiss them. His mother was busy tidying up the kitchen, and his father was fumbling with the newspaper and his older sister was talking on the phone to one of her friends. That left Jimmy to sit unnoticed in front of the television, lost in his fantasies.
When he got older, he found himself in those middle school and high school classrooms, or in a pew in the back of the church, scouring the assembled students and faithful families for willowy blonds or leggy brunettes. He couldn't imagine himself with someone like the chubby redhead, Susan Parker, who kept asking him if he would sit with her at lunch and play cards, no matter how enamored of him she appeared to be. There was something about the distant beauty of Annaliese Anderson and her discerning pout; even though she was dating the high school quarterback. Or that knowing smile of Donna Boniface, while she casually combed out her long, black hair. The curves of those hips in those tight jeans; the swell of those chests in those low cut blouses were what kept him from focusing on his books in the library.
His mother fixed him up once with a girl from the church choir; Jennifer Rosenthal. "She's such a nice girl," his mother insisted, "Why don't you give her a chance?" Of course he couldn't ignore his own mother. So he took her to a pizzeria, and a movie. She was nice. Too nice, for Jimmy. "Whatever you want," she politely told Jimmy, when he asked her if she wanted popcorn, or milk duds. When she sat down, she crossed her legs carefully, and folded her hands in her lap. She talked of singing Christmas carols, and writing poetry. She loved the poetry of Robert Burns. "Who's Robert Burns?" Jimmy had to admit.
Yes, Jennifer was very nice; probably someone who would make a good English teacher someday, or a good housewife. She would ferry the kids around in her station wagon, between ball games and dance recitals, she would make hearty lasagna for dinner without a complaint, she would wrap all those Christmas presents perfectly, the way his mother did. But that wasn't really what Jimmy thought he was looking for.
When Jennifer announced that she had been accepted at the University of Arizona's school of education, and that she was moving to Phoenix, she asked Jimmy if he would come with her. But he saw his chance and instead, told her he was going to a local school, to study liberal arts. He had found out from a friend that Annaliese Anderson had been accepted to the county college.
It was not Annaliese that he found in his first English lit class, but another shapely blond, Christine Ericson. She was a confident, talkative preppy who told him she was a math major and taking this course only to get her English credits out of the way. That was fine with Jimmy. He was interested in the long legs she was showing off in her mini skirt. He asked her if she wanted to get a cup of coffee after the lecture, and she agreed. He made fun of the professor's mannerisms at the blackboard and Christine was amused. Jimmy told her she had a cute laugh. They made out back at Christine's dorm room, and somehow got tangled up in the window curtains, and her roommate found them rolled up in them on the carpet.
After that, she proved to be independent. When he asked her for a second date, she told him she was going to a play in the city with someone else. When he offered to buy her lunch one afternoon, a tall, muscular tight end from the football team came by their table and she wound up following him out to see a guitarist in the student center. So that was the end of that.
Jimmy did not give up on his dream, however. After college, he managed to get a job in an insurance company, as a claims adjuster. It was there that he met Michelle. Michelle was what everyone commonly referred to as a 'hottie'. She had a veritable wardrobe of short skirts, tight jeans, sleeveless blouses and stockings, in all kinds of eye catching colors. After work, she could be seen in the lounge of their office, with a drink in her hand, carousing with various attendants and suitors.
Jimmy met her at an office Christmas party. He wanted to make an impression on her, and he had the balls to show up dressed as Santa Claus. He walked around the bar in this fake beard, with a sack thrown over his shoulder, handing out those tiny little liquor bottles you find in airports. Michelle came as an elf. She wore a pointed, green hat, a tight fitting tunic with one shoulder strap naughtily pulled down, and a bright, green miniskirt with green stockings and high heels. Jimmy handed her a miniature bottle, industriously gift wrapped, which she gleefully unwrapped and immediately chugged. They started talking, had a couple of drinks together, and the general concensus was that they ended up in the supply closet.
Over time, they discovered that they had a few things in common. For one thing, they both liked to drink. They had both been to Cancun on spring break, at one time or another, although they had stayed at different hotels. They were both leasing nice cars. Jimmy had a Lexus, and Michelle was driving a BMW her father had leased for her. They wanted to live in the fast lane.
Jimmy began taking Michelle out for lunch at work. They would walk out of the office building and down the block to Charley's Pub, where they would eat out on the sidewalk tables as the other beautiful people waltzed by. Michelle liked to talk, and Jimmy enjoyed her cheerful chatter; funny little things she had observed the bosses doing, and gossip about other girls in the office, and glimpses of the dreams she had. She had once wanted to be a model, but she was too short. Now she wanted to sing. Her brother's friend had this band, and they were thinking of making a recording. It all sounded interesting to Jimmy, even exciting. There was talk of exotic places like Las Vegas and Los Angeles, New York and Austin.
Jimmy just enjoyed dating good looking women. It was sort of like playing a title game against the best team in the world. He had to be at his best to win the trophy, and like a star quarterback, he honed his game. He worked out on his abs. He had his car detailed for every date. He bought pastel colored silk shirts. He wined and dined Michelle at five star restaurants and nightclubs, even if it meant racking up debt on his credit card. He told himself it would be worth it.
At first, it seemed like it was. Michelle proved to be great kisser, better than Christine. She had a particular talent for licking his lips that he found really gratifying. One night, without saying a word, she pulled off her blouse and stuck her breasts in his face. Then, he was pleasantly surprised when she dropped to her knees, unbuckled his pants, and gave him a blow job in front of the aquarium in his living room, with the fish swimming around, oblivious.
He felt then that he was falling in love with her. He started to think of what it would be like to live with her. They could split an apartment. Then, they could have amazing sex whenever they wanted, no questions asked. He asked her what she thought of this idea, and was surprised to find how non committal she appeared to be. She told him it was a great idea, but whenever he wanted to go and look at apartments she always seemed to have something else to do. They were having a surprise birthday party for one of her friends. She had a project to finish for work. She had to visit her mother.
Her mother, she told him, lived in New Jersey, and when she went to visit her, she was gone for the weekend. Jimmy offered to come along a couple of times. He said he wanted to meet her mother, but Michelle told him her mother was really sick and she didn't like having visitors. Jimmy acted very concerned and asked what was wrong. Michelle told him she had breast cancer. Then, around Mother's Day, he bought a bouquet of flowers for Michelle to give to her mother. He thought it would impress her, but instead, she told him he shouldn't have done that. Her mother didn't like flowers.
Once he invited her to meet his parents, but she did not seem herself. Certainly not the person he had taken to those office parties. After an hour, she told him she had a headache, and asked him to drive her home. When he asked her what was wrong, she looked out of the window and said she was worried about her mom.
Soon she was skirting his proposals to go to bars, and then, his querries for sex. That began to make him think. After all, the sex had been terrific. He decided to insist on moving in together, and when he did, Michelle seemed put out. She asked questions. How soon did he want to move in? Where would they live? She didn't want to move that far away. And then what would they do after that? She listened to him with her head in his hand as if it were not something she wanted to hear, and that perplexed him. He asked her to think about it. He asked her what was wrong. She told him she had a lot on her mind, but she would tell him more after the weekend.
When she got back from her trip to her mother's, on Monday, she told Jimmy her mother was very bad. She needed new medicine, it cost a lot of money, and it wasn't covered by the insurance. She was going to stay in New Jersey for a few days, but she couldn't stay in her mother's apartment. There was a seedy neighbor there, she said, and she was going to have to stay in a hotel. She was short on cash, and she wanted to know if Jimmy could spare her a couple of hundred dollars, enough to tithe her over and get some medicine until she got back. Jimmy offered to go with her, but Michelle told him it wasn't a good idea. She didn't need visitors. She needed to rest. She did not look good, Michelle told him, and that bothered her. Jimmy had to see the point in that. But he did tell her he would help her out, of course. He agreed to lend her the money so that she could be with her mom and buy some of that medicine. She seemed grateful. She hugged him and kissed him. She told him she appreciated it. He told her he would call.
Jimmy went home feeling a little confused. Michelle had seemed impressed with his generosity, and she had told him she appreciated it, but why didn't she want him to come along? If she wanted to get serious with him, wouldn't he have to meet her mother at some point? They had been dating for almost a year, but handing her all that money had given Jimmy misgivings. As soon as she had it, she seemed in a hurry to leave. She had to go, she told him. She didn't even seem to hear him call after that he would call.
When he did call, she told him she couldn't talk for long. Her mother was bad. She was spending a lot of time at the hospital. She would explain when she got back, she told him. If her mother got better, she would be back. She told him to stop calling her.
She had sounded a little annoyed, and this seemed odd to Jimmy. She did not return to work the following week, and everyone was asking him what had happened to her. He told them she was with her sick mother. After a few days, he began to get worried. He finally called, but there was no answer. What had happened to her? Had she gotten into trouble with the seedy neighbor? Or was she just at the hospital?
He was beginning to think of calling the police, when he opened his email account and saw an email from her. He opened it. It was a short letter. In it, she said that she did not have a sick mother in New Jersey. She had lied. She was in a relationship with two men in Delaware that she had met on the internet. That was where she had been going when she told him she had been visiting her mother. They were into the same things, new things, things he wouldn't understand. After he had offered to visit her mother, she realized she couldn't see him any more. She had to get on with her life. She had gone to live with the guys in the threesome, where she could be her real self.
She was not leaving him any other information, so he could not follow her. And with that, she was gone.
| Author Notes | This is a modern fable, if you will, a tale of what can happen to you if you live life in the fast lane, if you go looking for love for the wrong reasons, and with the wrong people. The twist at the end is really the crux of the story, the come upance for this guy who passes on the nice girls for the beauty and the excitement, only to get burned himself by someone a little faster than himself. estory |
By estory
Roy, my older brother, clamored into the hall. He was heavy set, and his boots stomped on the carpet, thumping in the house and shaking the foundation. The whole house seemed to tremble in suspense, including me. What would he have to say next?
"Geez," he hissed, his face scowling, "You didn't even sand the banisters before you painted them. Don't you know anything? All the paint's going to come off in a month. And then you're going to have to do it all over again."
I sighed, cringing. "You didn't say anything about sanding it."
"Do I have to? Everybody knows stuff like that. Except you."
He took his boots off. "Get me a beer," he demanded.
I got up slowly, opened the frige, and took out two beers, one for him, and one for me.
He cracked open the beer and shook his head. "I'm going to have to do it all over. Well, it'll cost you. It'll cost you a case."
"Whatever," I mumbled.
After our parents moved to Florida, I ended up living in the house with Roy. He had always been the one who could repair the hot water heater, fix the boiler, or paint the rooms in the old house. He was an ace with mechanics, and never let me forget it. In exchange for his help with all this, I had to do the cooking, the cleaning up, the shopping, the lawn. It's the way it had always been.
I looked out of the window. Outside, above the rooftops, the sky seemed to rise into a blue sea, leaving me behind, going on forever. There were times when I longed to just get in my car and drive off into it, into the freedom, the space, the possibilities.
"What did you make for dinner?" Roy barked. "It smells terrible."
"Stew."
"Again? Isn't there anything else you can make besides stew, spaghetti and meatloaf? Geez, I might end up going out."
I sat down at the table and gulped down my beer. It was going to be another long night.
It had been a long string of long nights for a long time.
Our parents moved out fifteen years ago. Roy had gotten drunk one night, and had an argument with my father about it, and then drove off in a huff and crashed his car into someone's fence. He got arrested, and my father had to bail him out, and after that, he talked to my mother and they bought a place in St. Petersburg and moved away.
"I think it's time you boys were on your own," he told us.
"We're tired of all of this," my mother put in.
I tried to talk them out of it, but it was nothing doing.
"It's time you boys grew up, and took care of yourselves," my father replied, "Get yourselves out of your own messes. Clean up after yourselves."
Hell, Roy was thirty, and I was twenty eight, so what was there to argue about.
"We paid for your college," my father went on, "And we sent Roy to trade school. And what did you do with it? You're working in a supermarket. It's time you found out what life is like. it's time you boys paid the bills around here."
Roy had a leg up on me there. I had gone to college, studied poetry, and when I couldn't find a job after graduating, went to work for the local supermarket chain as a produce clerk. At least Roy was in plumbing and heating. He was making good money. And he could fix things. He could paint things. When I stopped up the kitchen sink, he cleared it. When the starter on my car went, he changed it for me. I had to admit, I leaned on him a lot. I needed him.
But there were the times I'd sit at the table, when he was out working overtime for the plumber, trying to write something, and I'd look out of the window and wish I were somewhere else. Next to a waterfall. On a mountain top. On the other side of the world; Shangri la, maybe.
In another life.
Roy started drinking when he was 16, down by the railroad tracks, next to the trestle, with the other kids. Listening to Led Zeppelin. The Who. Throwing rocks at the passing trains, painting curse words on the trestle. Laughing it up and having a good time. Trying to make the girls sitting with them laugh.
I was 17 when I joined them. I think it was the only thing I felt I could impress them with at the time. The more they drank, the more I tried to keep up with them; once I barely remember Roy carrying me home thrown over his shoulder, and placing me underneath the dogwood tree in our front yard. Yea, those were the days, alright.
After the others had moved on, gotten jobs in the furniture factory, or the garage, or the strip mall, and gotten married and had kids, Roy and I were left on our own. So we drank together, by ourselves. We'd get drunk in the backyard while we barbecued, we drive down to the beach and get drunk watching the sunset, we'd sit at that old trestle drinking while the trains passed us. I don't know what we were waiting for. It was like we were in one of those cloverleafs, going around and around in a circle, up on the highway of life.
I couldn't remember how we had gotten on that cloverleaf, but I knew I was getting tired of it. I wanted to get off. But I didn't know how.
After mom and dad left, we settled into some kind of routine. Roy would fix my car, I would make dinner. He would bleed the radiators, I would rake the leaves and do the laundry. He would paint the porch, I would do the shopping. We'd chip in our paychecks, cover the bills, the taxes, and the food. At the end of the week, we'd go down to the trestle and drink a half a case. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. For fifteen years.
At such times as I totaled up this mileage of going in circles, I'd go upstairs and watch hockey or baseball or a movie, nursing my beers, and thinking of leaving. I was tired of the routine. I was tired of being Roy's punching bag. I wanted to live. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted to have my own place. But how could I afford it on my own? What would happen if a pipe broke, or my car wouldn't start? How would I make it without Roy?
On my way back to the frige to get another beer, I passed a mirror in the hall, and just happened to get a glimpse of myself. My eyes were half closed, I was swaying, I had a beer gut almost as big as Roy's. I had to ask myself, 'what was I doing with my life? How did I end up like this? Why was I staying here?'
At that moment, I heard Roy downstairs. "Hey, we're out of beer. You've got to run down to the beverage and get more."
I told him I was tired and going to bed.
"Then you can forget about me doing that oil change for you," he said, "And repainting the porch."
I staggered back into my room and collapsed on the bed. Somehow I didn't care anymore. I was tired of Roy, of living like him. I was sick of the cloverleaf.
The next morning, I found Roy passed out on the couch downstairs. When he woke up, I knew he would want me to pick up all those beer cans, go to the store to turn them in, and get more beer. It would be the same thing all over again. I knew if I bought those beers, I would be drunk by nightfall, and another day would be wasted sitting around listening to my brother's orders, picking up the pieces, listening to that train going by.
I saw my chance. It was now, or never. I grabbed my coat, packed a suitcase with some clothes from my dresser, grabbed my bankbooks and my razor, and my notebooks, and took them out to my car. As I put them in the trunk, I felt a strange sensation, as though I had broken out of jail, or turned off the highway, onto a road that led away into the west, to someplace I had never been before. I got in the car and started it up. As I drove away, the road opened up before me, and I turned on the radio and looked out of the windshield at the clouds rising into the sky.
After I had gone a few blocks, I saw a girl walking to work along the road. It was Sharon, one of the cashiers in the store where I worked. I pulled over to the side and rolled down the window.
"Need a lift?" I asked her.
She smiled. "Sure," she said. "But I have to admit, I'd rather not go into work today."
"OK," I said, "So where do you want to go?"
"Seriously?" she said, leaning in through the window. I nodded. "Anyplace but here," she said.
"Then we're going the same way," I said. "Come on. Now's our chance to make our getaway. Before anyone else finds out."
She opened the door and got in. "What the hell," she said.
And that's how I escaped from the cloverleaf.
| Author Notes | This story is a little surreal, a tale of breaking out of the routines of bad relationships, bad habits. Its a tale of the dependencies that tie us into those cloverleafs, those circular routes, and a tale of the realization that we can get out of them, with a simple choice. And once the choice is made, the sky opens up, the possibilities broaden, and new relationships and new places beckon. Life begins to live again. I hope people focus on the upbeat ending rather than the drudgery of the meat of the story. estory |
|
You've read it - now go back to FanStory.com to comment on each chapter and show your thanks to the author! |
| © Copyright 2015 estory All rights reserved. estory has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
© 2015 FanStory.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Statement