30 Pieces of a Novel (81 page)

the Proper Authorities After I'm Dead: Please see—or do your best, please—that this gets to my wife, Sally Bookbinder, or my surviving children, Francine and Josephine. Or to my ex-wife, Sally, since I'm sure she divorced me years ago (her maiden name was Sutherland, though she may have remarried and taken the last name of her second husband)
, and he gave her address—
I'm sure she's no longer there, but maybe the note can be forwarded
—and Social Security number, which he'd memorized years before he left when she said she knew his, and the names and addresses of several of their old friends. The note:
Oh, my darling Sally, as ugly and hypocritical as that salutation must sound to you, how horrible I feel about all I've put you through and everything you must have gone through after I left and are probably still going through, though I hope not. But what's the point of saying all this, other than to get rid of some of the crap that's been inside me for so many years, all brought by my guilt at leaving you and Fanny and Josie. My everlasting love to you and them—“eternal” rather than “everlasting,” or whatever word best describes in the least phony-sounding way “the longest, the most unending, the never dying,” even if I know it's worth zero now, though maybe someday it'll mean something, no matter how little, to them. Yours, Gould
. He has to get away from here, he thinks. “I was just thinking, I sometimes can't take it here anymore and feel like I've got to get away,” he says. “Go, don't let me stop you—you have one feverish itchy foot out the door as it is,” Sally says. “I can't go. How can I? If I do I'll be full of guilt and shame and everything else—tormented, heartsick, you name it—from then on. When I do go, though—meaning
if
I go—it'll only be after the kids are out of college and I've paid up all the bills for it, so you and they won't have to go broke or badger me for dough, and they're out of the house and safely on their own.” “So, in the intervening years—we're talking about nine or ten of them—you're to stay here and make our lives miserable with your whining and bitching and once-a-month hysterics that you hate it here and have to go?” “I won't whine or do anything like that. I know what it does to you all. Really, I've been thinking about a solution to my going till the time comes when I feel I can go. I'll be a good father, soft-spoken, patient. Same thing as a husband—I won't even disturb you. We can sleep in separate rooms if you want, go our separate clichés. If you wish to come see me some nights, or for me to pay you a visit, as you used to say, in your room, do so anytime you wish so long as I'm not physically sick. But even there I'd be as gentle as my sickness permits in telling you I'm in no fit condition for it, and I'll never try initiating anything like that with you, since I'm sure ninety-five percent of the times you'd be revolted or at the very minimum put off by the idea.” “Excuse me, but what are we talking of here? Not sex.” “I'm sorry, I don't know why I brought it up—certainly not because I was circuitously trying to get you interested in it now—so forget I said it. Maybe, only to demonstrate how thoroughly and independently our separate lives could be led while still satisfying some of the primary exigencies, I'll call them. I guess what it comes down to is I want to try living here as though I'm living alone but while still living with the three of you in a pleasant domestic setting, if that makes any sense.” “It doesn't,” and he says, “Let me see.” He thinks. “You're right, it makes little sense, as I don't see how I can pull it off without your cooperation, particularly with that one exigency every now and then. For you see, if I had to go outside for it, not that I'd know where to look or would be successful if I did, I'd feel grossly guilty if I succeeded. Worse, or maybe better, so guilty beforehand over what I'd know I'd feel after, that I probably couldn't go through with it, or at least complete it, even if you had said to go ahead and get as much as I want, for all you care. Come on, what am I talking about? I can't leave you alone here with the kids. I'll stay and try even harder not to whine about my life in this house or go into any sudden tantrums. But I can't just run off, though you might like that prospect—and anything you said about that now wouldn't convince me either way or persuade me to do otherwise—since I know how much it'd hurt the kids: not that I left them but also you. So you're stuck with me for the time being, although part of me has gone, it seems, if that makes any sense. Does it? Sure it could if I worked my brain hard enough to make it.” “Maybe the way you've mediated it is for the best for all of us, or simply better for me and the girls now than your just up and going, so okay, stay.” He stays. She continues to sleep in their bedroom; he sleeps in the basement; they all eat dinner and go to movies and concerts together. The kids are confused by this at first. He tells them it can happen in any marriage after a while but that doesn't mean the new arrangement's permanent. “It could get worse; it could get better. Be optimistic like me and think it's going to return to family-normal pretty soon but without any of my previous griping and ferocity. The important thing to know is your parents still love each other deeply.” Sally overhears him saying this and says, “Stop feeding them so much baloney. We're living this way for convenience' sake only. It's cheaper for your father than keeping up two homes, and of course he wants to be around you kids. And much easier for me with him here, in case I take a spill or am about to. We also feel it's better for you to have both your folks around, as long as they remain in relative harmony, which was the main condition I made to agree to it. Your father starts fulminating again or under his breath calling me every name under the sun, the deal's been abrogated for the last time.” “What ‘last time'?” he says. “This is the first time we made the damn deal since we got married. So how can you—” but he's losing control, so he quickly says, “Actually, maybe you're right: not a big thing.” Sally never suggests to him they have sex. About once a month he says to her, late at night or when the kids are off somewhere, “Excuse me, but I've been wanting to do you-know-what for a couple of weeks now but held back asking you. I thought you'd object to it. But it now seems imperative, where it's even disturbing my workday and sleep, so do you think you'd mind if we made love or just had sex or you just let me have sex with you for a few minutes? I'm so far gone, I'm sure that's all it'll take. But the whole shebang, I'm saying, meaning penetration, though I don't have to come in you if you don't want me to and where I'll even catch the crap in my hand and not mess up you or your sheet.” “I mind very much. I don't feel like doing anything like that with you.” “Too bad. You know me and how much more harmonious and compatible it'd make me for the next few weeks. Of course, do what you wish, as we first agreed to when we fabricated this freaking, faking, frustrating arrangement.” Every six months or so she says, “Why not, it's been a long time and you've been a good boy, and I feel a little like doing it too,” and after it's over she says something like “I don't know why I went along with it. You were too rough, my breasts will be sore for a week, and I didn't even begin to get enjoyment out of it before you were done in a wink. And now you'll expect a repeat performance soon, thinking I'll be willing, but which I won't consent to—it simply doesn't work for me, nor is it good for our living arrangement. And you'll say not true, and that next time, because it won't be six months from the last time, you'll go much slower, and probably end up getting angry because I won't do it,” and he says, “Believe me, I promise I won't. If this was the absolute last time, it's not what I want but so be it,” and she says, “You're only saying that now because you've been gratified,” and he says, “As I might have said the last time; ‘Hey, how can a guy win?'” They live like this the next nine years. He has changed, he thinks. He doesn't blow up around them, or when he does he keeps it mostly under control. A couple of times he throws a dish or glass to the kitchen floor and when Sally says from her study, “What's that all about? Back to your old habits?” he says, “Not at all. I dropped something and it broke.” “That was quite a smash for a drop. All right, I wasn't there.” They have sex about twice a year, and a couple of those times she lets him spend the night with her in bed and once she let him do it again in the morning from behind, but said after, “I don't know why I let you do that. I must have been only a quarter awake and you were done before I was fully up. Next time, if there's one, get my verbal consent.” Then their younger daughter graduates college and gets a job in New York. The older has a job a few miles from them but has had her own apartment for three years. He says to his wife, “So, I guess we ought to talk about my going. I was only supposed to be around till the kids were out of the house. But you're not any better, and I for one would hate looking for a new place and am not sure how I'll be able to carry the extra expense, so if you want, I can stay.” “Now you should do what's best for you,” she says. “The arrangement we made does seem to have worked out, and I'm grateful you stuck to it under the rather stiff conditions I imposed. But you may want to be on your way for your own reasons. As anyone can see, I need someone around here in case I fall and for lots of things I can't do, much more than I did ten years ago, but please don't let anything I say stop you,” and he stays. He has to get out of here, he thinks. He can't live in this place a day longer. But he can't just go. So stay, and he stays. He thinks, I don't know what the hell I could have been thinking. I can't live here anymore and I never should have thought I could. And then thinks, But how can I just leave her? So I'll stay and make the most of it, or the best out of it, or whatever I'll make from it, and he stays. He has to get away from here, he thinks, if just for a day, and writes a note.
My Sweethearts: I'm taking a hotel room for the night. Don't be worried: all I need is one night alone. That means I'll be totally by myself. I might go to a movie and then I'll go right back to my hotel room. Although I also might only go to a restaurant, so no movie, and read a book while I eat—I'm bringing several with me—and then back to the hotel to read till I fall asleep. Or I might do both, or all three: restaurant, movie, back to my hotel room to read and fall asleep. Maybe even a snack or drink or both in the hotel lounge before I go to my room. But I won't be phoning you tonight. I'll see you all tomorrow: Mommy, soon after hotel checkout time, when I get home around noon, and you kids when you return from school. What am I talking about? I'll see Fanny when I pick her up at school to take her home. Same time, my dearie: 2:20, at the front entrance. I suppose my staying away for the night must seem like an odd thing to do. But I feel I need one complete day off with no contact or duties to do at home or in my work. Just to be free, so to speak. Or not “so to speak”: to be completely free for approximately one day. But then thinking about it as I write, it doesn't seem that odd. In fact, maybe this is the solution to my feeling occasionally trapped at home. Is it really so bad to admit that's how I feel from time to time? And if “trapped” is the wrong word, then just “overburdened and exhausted” sometimes? Because I'm sure you all occasionally feel the same way or something like it: school and the constant presence of your family, and other things. Anyway, see you all tomorrow. I already miss you—that's not a line to make anyone feel better—but I'm also looking forward to my 20 or so hours alone. Your loving husband and daddy
. He drives downtown and gets a hotel room, works out in the gym there, takes a swim, then a sauna and long shower. “Samson,” he says, pounding his chest. “I feel great.” Doesn't want to be extravagant with himself—the room's costly enough and dinner in the hotel will set him back a ways—but then thinks, Hell, this is the first time he's done anything like this in his life, and for all he knows it's well deserved, after all he's done for his family and at work, and he gets a miniature bottle of vodka out of the room's small fridge, empties it into a glass with ice, and drinks it while lying on top of the bed and reading today's newspaper. “This is wonderful,” he says. “I'm so goddamn relaxed. Enough so to even talk out loud to myself and not worry about it, by gosh, and to say things like ‘by gosh' too,” and gets out another vodka. He naps, has several nice dreams, goes to the restaurant downstairs, reads a book while eating and drinking wine, then goes to a play rather than a movie. The play's dull and he leaves after the first act, goes to a different movie than the one he'd planned on seeing, and leaves it in half an hour because it's so stupid and violent and sexually titillating: for kids, though not his. He stops at a bar on his way back to the hotel, starts talking to a woman on the next stool, she seems attracted to him, is quite pretty—beautiful, even, he thinks, and about thirty years younger than he—but meeting a woman or anything like that isn't what he came in here for. He only wanted to feel what it was like again to have a drink at a bar alone and just sit on a bar stool and maybe order a hamburger and fries, even if he usually doesn't eat red meat and stays away from fatty foods, and watch the TV news or some silly show while he eats, things he hasn't done since about a month after he met his wife, except for the fries, most of them the last few years snitched off his kids' plates at fast-food joints. Looks at his watch, says, “Excuse me, it's getting late for me and I have to be up early. It's been nice talking,” and she says, “One more round, how about it? We can go someplace else for it if this bar doesn't suit you,” and he says, “No, it's a perfectly nice place, and I'd really love to. But, you know, I'm married, so what would my wife and kids think if I told them? And if I didn't tell them, how would I feel after?” and she says, “After what? What is it you think I'm proposing here? All I had in mind was another drink. Or even coffee or tea, if that's your cup, because the conversation was interesting and we were getting along till you came on with all that stuff, or perhaps it's too late for you for one of those too.” “Of course; I'm sorry. I worded it wrong. I didn't mean anything by it. Just running off stupidly at the mouth for no good reason except, maybe—well, stupidity, which I apologize for, but I still have to go,” and pays the tab for their drinks. “Oh, thanks,” she says, faking a smile, “but maybe a couple of bills for the bartender, since he works hard at what he does and doesn't get the proper appreciation,” and he says, “Sorry again. It's been awhile since I sat at a bar and I forgot the protocol, though that's no excuse,” and puts down several singles and leaves, goes back to his room and reads, and eventually drops off to sleep. He leaves in the morning, soon after he wakes up and does a few exercises and has coffee, drives home, and his wife says when he walks through the door, “Welcome back, traveler. That must have been fun, and we got along fine,” and he says, “I'm glad. And it was fun, all of it innocent, if you want to know, and all I needed. Kids get off okay?” and she says, “I had to call Meg to drive Fanny to school, but that was all right,” and he says, “Oh, darn, I forgot about that. If I had remembered I probably never would have gone,” and she says, “It was no problem. I arranged it last night and she got off in plenty of time. I've missed you,” and he says, “Me too with you, and I mean it,” and kisses her and steps back so she can see him and jiggles his eyebrows, and she says, “Sure, why not, but give me a few minutes, and don't forget to take the phone off,” and goes back to their bathroom. “I can't take it anymore; I should really get as far as I can away from here,” and she says, “And the kids?” and he says, “You're right; what could I have been thinking? Forget I said it, and it won't come up again, or I'll try not to let it.” “I can't stand it here anymore; I've got to get the hell away and stay there,” and she says, “Go if you have to, but it's for sure not what I want you to do. Even if you said you were repulsed by me, I need you too much here,” and he says, “I know, and there's certainly no repulsion, and I don't really mean what I said; I was just spouting. But it is true that some part of me would love to set right off. To live in a shack and only have a one-speed bike, no car, a few of my books, my typewriter, and a library nearby—it could always order books for me from that state's interlibrary loan system, I suppose. I'm saying, to be alone on my own again to do what I want when I want to, even to sleep as long as I want if I worked all night and am tired, and so forth. Or even if I didn't work, if I just that day want to sleep and dream. But you make your decisions and you live with them. I mean, I make my decisions, or at least take certain directions that end up in a way being decisions, and you live with them. I mean, I make them and I live with them. And I should have said ‘em' there, right? It goes better with the shack and no car and the one-speed bike and the woods—I forgot the woods before—or just something near the shore because there are always too many damn bugs and often very little wind to keep them off you in the woods. The shack, no matter where it was, would have to have electricity, I'd think, so I'd have heat and light. I wouldn't want to rough it too much, since what I'd be interested most in is the solitude and time to do what I want, and not spend most of the days chopping wood and other activities like that just to survive. But we have a nice house, this house we have, and not a bad life. In fact, a pretty good life, everything considered. Our children are the best and I love you and think your feelings to me are mostly okay, though I have my moments when anyone would run away from me, and I know you'd love to get away too if you could, for a weekend or a month or however long you'd want to be by yourself for a change,” and she says, “True, but what can we do?” and he says, “Right; nothing. So I'm just dreaming here, and maybe not even of something I really want; it could be it only seems like I do when I get harried and overloaded with house, school, family, and my personal work.” He thinks, He's had it for good here and has to get out, that's all, and then laughs: what a stupid thought. Then for a weekend or week alone someplace, and he asks himself, Why? Like you said: you've had it up to here—your neck, the chin—so just to get away and on your own for a short period of time, and he says, “And that'll help?” and he tells himself, How will you know unless you try? And if it does, then it's an easy solution you can resort to whenever the same feelings about leaving or wanting to run away come up and family conditions permit it, and he says, “I don't know, it all sounds so vague. Where would I go?” and he tells himself, Your favorite place: Paris. To walk around and visit its oodles of cathedrals, preserved writers' homes, and museums. The Marmottan, with all the Monets. The new Van Gogh museum there, or is that only in Amsterdam? Then the new Picasso museum in the Marais—that I know I read about. And the biggie. What's it called again? How could I forget it? Help me with this. The largest and possibly the most famous art museum in the world…. The Louvre! and he tells himself, Go to that one for several days. And more walking, but not to buy anything but a couple of souvenirs for your wife and kids, and don't forget the great bistros, bars, and cafés. Then return home refreshed, revivified, renewed, re-re, happy to be back, even, and your family glad what the trip did for you, and he says, “I don't like traveling alone. I become uncomfortably self-conscious, even when I'm walking in a strange city by myself. Maybe only in museums and train stations and metros, when there's a ton of people there or the subway car's crowded, do I feel comfortable alone. Besides, I want to talk to someone about the things I see and experience and eat. No, all I think I need is a few hours alone in my bedroom,” and he tells himself, Go to your wife, and say you were thinking just now of taking a week's vacation to someplace like Paris, and see what she says. I bet she'll say, What a great idea and you owe it to yourself for all the work you've done the last few years at home and school and it could be just the thing you need to re-re yourself for all the work you'll have to resume the moment you return, and he says, “Listen, I think I know what's best for me and my family, despite what she might tell me. And how do I know, if she did say that, that she wouldn't be thinking, at the time, ‘I really need him here to help me but it seems he desperately wants to go'?” and he tells himself, She won't think that. Or if she does, it'll only be a little compared to what she knows is ultimately best for you and the family, and he says, “But suppose she really does need me there all the time to help or just somewhere close by?” and he tells himself, There are always the kids to pitch in, pick her up and stuff; they're big and strong enough for that now. And if you don't mind the expense you can have someone come in to look after her when you're gone and the kids are at school, and he says, “Believe me, all I need is a few hours of quiet solitude in my room,” and goes to his wife and says, “I'll be in the bedroom and I'm unplugging the phone there. If anyone calls me, say I'm resting or napping or busy with some very important work I have to get done, and that I left orders not to be awakened or disturbed to speak to anyone. Or put it any way you want—politer than that, of course—or just say I'm out. Or if you don't want to lie—a sudden flu could be another good excuse—say that I'm—” and she says, “I get the point. You want time to yourself and don't want to be interrupted. So go, nobody will bother you, and I'll intercept all your calls and shush the girls if they're making noise or talking loudly near your door, and also tell Josephine not to practice her piano and Fanny her violin till you come out,” and he says, “Thanks, I appreciate that. Though I do love their piano and violin playing, especially the duets, even when they hit bad notes, and Fanny can always practice in the basement. But I have to know I can be alone in relative quiet with my thoughts or my dreams or whatever I'm alone with in there for the next few hours, even the book I've been reading, while I lie on the bed, just to give my mind a break before I start trying to clear a whole bunch of things up,” and she says, “Like what?” and he says, “Things, things, I'll tell you about it later. Though don't worry. It has nothing to do with anything you did or even anything about you, not that you're worrying,” and she says, “Now you've got me worried as to what it is and I feel almost certain that part or most of it has to do with me. But go, isolate yourself or whatever it is you want to do in there while you have the time and it's quiet and the kids aren't home yet.” He wants to get away from here, has to, he thinks, and then thinks, What in God's name is he talking about? Just work out whatever it is without disturbing anybody. “Listen,” he says to his wife, “we've got to talk, it's very important,” and she says, “Fine, let's talk. You know me; I never feel we do enough of it about serious matters or the things that deeply affect us and might even be troubling us as a couple, mostly because you don't like opening up. So give, what is it?” and he says, “Ah, nothing, it's really not that important. If I think it is again, I'll tell you,” and she says, “You change your mind because I was so eager to discuss it?” and he says, “No, it's what I said. Suddenly I didn't think—” and she says, “You're terrible; you're really quite terrible and a great big B.S. artist of the highest order, though you certainly fooled me,” and he says, “When?” and she said, “Oh, stop.” He's got to get away from here, he thinks, for all the old reasons. It's become too much, everything: the work, her illness, his ratty attitude about it sometimes and occasional rages, thrusting her empty wheelchair across the room and, when she falls out of it or the bed to the floor, lifting her up before she's ready and practically throwing her into the wheelchair or onto the bed; he's making everyone unhappy here, kids, her, himself, he doesn't know how he can live with himself sometimes over the things he does, taking his older daughter to school after he's railed at his wife the previous night for her clumsiness—“Do I have to follow you around with a damn dustpan and broom?”—and knowing she heard from her room and wanting to apologize, say, Daddy's sorry for losing his head last night to Mommy and forcing you to hear it, but driving silently, maybe asking if she remembered to take her lunch; it's cold—so is she wearing a long-sleeved shirt under her coat or a short?—not knowing what would be better for her, talking about it now or keeping quiet and hoping she'll forget, though also wondering what's going through the minds of both kids about him, if they fear he'll blow up completely and never come back to normal and then everything will be gone; he's even begun talking out loud to himself on walks to the market or when he's alone in the car about how he can't put up with it anymore and has to get away, which he does have to, that's a fact, he doesn't know for how long—probably just a week, a few days—before he really loses it, when the door opens and it's his younger daughter home from school and he immediately sees by her expression that something's wrong and he smiles and says, “Hiya, sweetheart, how'd it go today?” trying to be peppy and upbeat, and she walks into the next room without looking at him, throws her backpack down—he can tell by the