My American Unhappiness (12 page)

Still, one might say that it is good for me to no longer live alone, and one might say that my mother and the twins have saved me from a rather pathetic and increasingly odd life. Who knows?

***

So this is how it comes to pass that now, on this fine evening, the world newly replete with promise and life, the green of leaves and the color of blooms, that I am dining on Mack and Joseph's screened-in back porch, the acceptor of their standing dinner invitation meant to save me from making my catalog fetish a daily ritual. When Mack brings a plate of mozzarella, tomato slices, and basil (drizzled with olive oil and capers) to the table to enjoy with our cocktails, I almost shiver with contentment, as if I am taking in Mack and Joseph's long, happy domestic bliss by osmosis. If I were to handpick my parents, this is the kind of couple they would have been.

Just then, the cat—Nancy—walks into the room. Joseph leaps up to feed her some tuna fish. Mack takes a sip of his drink and fiddles with a pack of cigarettes on the table, then asks me to help him with his lighter.

"I've been having these pains in my hand," Mack says. "It doesn't even work some mornings."

"Really?" I ask. "Is it numb?"

"Not really," he says. "It just doesn't work all that well."

"Have you seen a doctor yet?"

"No. No, I hate doctors. You know that," Mack says.

"You should go see Dr. Fish!" I say. "My chiropractor."

"You go to a chiropractor?" Mack says.

"Once a month for spinal alignment," I say, "whether I need it or not. I also go to acupuncture every six weeks and I see a Rolfer fairly regularly."

"Really?" Mack says.

"You should totally go see Dr. Fish," I say. "He's a miracle worker."

"I don't like chiropractors," Joseph says, coming back into the room with more wine.

"Why not?"

"I don't like that we—and by that I mean we Americans—seem to need entire staffs to help us combat our stress and illnesses," Joseph says. "Chiropractors, acupuncturists, herbalists, psychiatrists, massage therapists, homeopaths, personal trainers, yoga teachers, blah, blah, blah. What's wrong with working less and drinking more wine? There. I can save every American a shit-ton of money with such a prescription!"

"Don't listen to him," Mack says. "He's a nasty, bitter man. I'll go see Dr. Fish. Let's talk about something else, goddamn it."

"I'm getting married," I say.

"What?" Mack says.

"To whom?" Joseph says.

"Exactly," I say.

"You what?" Joseph says.

"I've made a decision. This is the year," I say, "for Zeke Pappas to move on. I have identified three women, all of whom I find deeply attractive, intelligent, and pleasant."

"You're kidding!" Joseph says.

"Not at all," I say. "The grieving widower is no more!"

"What brought this on?" Joseph says.

"My mother, to an extent. But she merely crystallized what I have been thinking for a long time. I'm lonely. I need to do something about it. My mother even suggested making a list of prospects. I've already been thinking about the women I'd place on the list."

"Jesus," Mack says. "Who are these women?"

"Are you sure they are women?" Joseph says, laughing.

"They are all women," I say, beaming. I forgot how good it feels to tell your family some good news: I got an A! I won the race! I'm in love!

I raise my glass. Joseph gets up for more wine, but Mack doesn't move. He just says, from behind his hand, "Oh, Zeke."

Even after I explain the logical approach I've taken to marriage, the methodical steps I have taken to prepare my prospects for my proposal, and the precision with which I have planned my eventual proposal, it is clear to me that my friends disapprove of my idea. I am sure, as I leave that night, strolling out into Mack and Joseph's tree-rich front yard, down the brick path that leads to my little car, that my two dear friends are a bit puzzled by my timeline approach to marriage. And I know it shouldn't matter whether or not two middle-aged homosexuals that I've known only for a decade or so approve of my personal decisions when it comes to marriage; after all, this is a cultural institution that they have been, unjustly, barred from joining.

Still, Mack and Joseph feel more like family to me than my own family feels, especially before my mother and my nieces moved in with me, and I want their blessing. I have spent many holidays with Mack and Joseph in the past, part of the motley crew of lonely Americans they bring together in their spacious dining room on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and just about every major summer holiday weekend. Five years ago, on Easter, for example, I was part of a dinner for twelve that included two penniless lesbian couples from Illinois, one orphaned college student, a recently divorced bookseller from Milwaukee, two single women in their late fifties, an alcoholic fly fisherman with a bad back, and me. It was the most delightful holiday I have ever experienced, maybe because expectations were so low. In my own unhappiness studies, I am always interested in the great weight that Americans put on holidays, as if they are failures if their holiday gatherings aren't perfect feasts rich with love and song. Perhaps it is because so many people work too hard, the only time they take for simple pleasures—drink, food, music, rest, conversation, reading, et cetera—is at the holiday season, and thus the pressure is simply too intense. I'm doubtful that the French or the Italians have such grim affairs. Perhaps we Americans, given the vastness of our country and the geographic distance that separates so many of us from our kin, feel a weighty obligation to be with the people, namely family, that we wouldn't normally choose to be with, especially not for four or five days of living under one roof.

I am standing at the edge of the yard now, near my car, staring up at the sky, and I realize that Mack and Joseph are still on their front porch staring at me, waiting for me to leave. They are good hosts, and they always escort their guests to the door, keeping a sort of vigil from the front porch until their guests drive off and away.

I turn around and call to Mack, "Get an appointment with Dr. Fish, first thing Monday, okay? He'll fix that hand for you!"

Mack waves the bad hand at me, as if he's agreeing to subject it to whatever rigors are necessary.

The sky has clouded over with the thick, overstuffed purple clouds of an evening thunderstorm and the wind has moved in with some significance. I turn and wave to my hosts one more time and then get into my car. I beam a smile. The thunder is loud enough to be unsettling; the lightning is certainly near.

My mood often darkens at the first rumble of thunder. I suppose that throughout human history, certain weather events, particularly storms, have made people sad—think of how many of our primitive ancestors perished in violent weather; in some way, my grief links me to a long, primal tradition. Valerie's death, in a storm, for instance, such a pure and elemental way to die, links me to this great and open past. (See GMHI Book Discussion Series #12:
The Weather as Divinity in World Literature.
)

When we were boys, Cougar was very afraid of thunderstorms. I had always loved them. It was the one thing Cougar seemed to fear as a child; in general, he was brave to the point of insanity. Heights, spiders, wild animals, or bullies—none of these things frightened him in the least, while most everything frightened me. But the first roll of thunder that moved in on a spring or summer evening was enough to send him scurrying under the bed, and I would stand brazenly near the window, awestruck, thrilled not only by the magnificence of the storm, but by the stunning and rare feeling of actually being braver than my brother. I believe that something magical dictates the weather; I do not know the scientific reasons behind thunderstorms—though I am sure they are easy enough to grasp, at least in basic principle—but I prefer they remain somewhat mysterious to me. This is sort of the approach many Republicans take to global warming or poverty: they know there's more to learn, but it would too greatly disturb their worldview to find everything out. I understand, with great compassion, the impulse that makes people turn off their brains to any sort of information that may rattle their spiritual and intellectual core. The more we know, the more we risk opening ourselves up to this American unhappiness that I speak of; conversely, the more we try to understand, change, or manipulate the political views of our fellow citizens, the more unhappy and weary we become.

Lightning illuminates the darkening horizon as I drive, and, for brief, green moments, I can see the hills of the rolling countryside that surrounds Madison. I think of Cougar in his final days, afraid of thunder, somewhere in Iraq, maybe in the middle of a sandstorm, maybe with shrapnel slicing open his skin. Do sandstorms come with thunder and lightning? I don't even know.

Thinking of storms, Republicans, and my brother, I find myself, tonight, parked outside of my boyhood home on the north side of Madison. I roll down the window, staring at my old front yard, and take a deep breath.

There's enough of a wind that you can smell the aroma of curing lunchmeat from the Oscar Mayer plant's lone smokestack. On windy days, the neighborhood smells like my father used to smell when he came home from work, as if my father's exploded heart flew off into the atmosphere and remains heavy above us like a nitraterich smog.

My father worked at the plant until his heart exploded inside of him after working a double shift making hot dogs. Cougar had been trying to get a union job at the meatpacking plant but had not had any luck. Times were tight. Quickly, the idea of pursuing vengeful justice became more interesting and important than the processing of cured meats. I don't blame him. I might have done the same thing in his position, had not literature and the humanities given me a sense of calling and purpose. He always seemed to equate the terrorist attacks on 9/11 with our father's untimely death. As if my father had been so wounded by them and the violence done to his beloved nation and had dropped out of the game, grief-stricken. It was as if Cougar went to war to avenge my father's death from a massive heart attack. I wonder, in truth, how many of the men and women in the current war are seeking vengeance for something completely distant from American foreign policy and homeland security—a ruined football career, a failed marriage, or a bankrupt farm. I do not say this out of a lack of respect for their courage or bravery, mind you, but because I think the depth of our nation's collective unhappiness is part of what propels us so easily and dutifully into war after war.

When my father died, the funeral was so sparsely attended that I was almost embarrassed for my father when Cougar told me about the head count. My mother said that the tragedy of the same week had overshadowed my father's death. People were so emotionally overwhelmed they couldn't bear to think of attending a funeral. But I think that my father simply had very few friends. He was an only child, a Greek immigrant who renounced Greece the moment he arrived in this country and embraced all things American. He never stayed in touch with his cousins in Greece, and he worked all day long. Maybe a dozen or so of the men from the plant showed up at the funeral, plus a couple of managers and a few of my mother's co-workers and three of our neighbors.

I didn't want to go. I hate funerals, as I've said. I also hate the Catholic Church, if you must know, and that was where the funeral Mass had taken place. (My father had converted to Catholicism when he married my mother; after his death my mother left the Catholic Church and opted for nondenominational, Jesus-baseds self-help.) Because I was a little vague internally, frankly, about my own reasons for detesting funerals so much, I lied and said that I couldn't, in good conscience, attend any sort of service at the Catholic Church. That was my excuse.

Cougar said I was a coward. Cougar said I was a selfish asshole. Cougar said I thought about everything so goddamn much simply because I was too much of a pussy to do anything else but think and think all day long.

My mother wept as Cougar berated, but I still didn't go. I refused. It was a rather Joycean moment, like Stephen Dedalus refusing to pray with his sick mother, and I regret that so many key moments in my life remind me of something a purely fictional character once said or did.

The next day, I went and sat by the grave by myself, tracing my finger absent-mindedly in the fresh patch of still-black earth covered in hay. I stayed there a long time. I don't know how long, but it was dark when Cougar and my mother came and found me there, kneeling in the dirt. They helped me to the car. Cougar actually had to carry me. My legs seemed to have stopped working.

My father, a strange man, had an almost maniacal aversion to the past. He seldom talked about his boyhood in Greece, had never gone back to visit, and vigorously protected us from anything having to do with Hellenic culture—language, religion, or place. I am not sure what happened to him back in the homeland; I do know that Cougar and I were raised to be American boys through and through, with absurdly non-Greek Old Testament names (Jeremiah and Ezekiel!), and other than an occasional leg of lamb, or the liberal use of oregano in my mother's cooking, or our ability to tan, we were anything but Greek.

The evening after my father's funeral, I went inside the house and wandered around and found my way to the basement, to my father's workshop, where he kept his intricately labeled jars of bolts and screws, his pristine and well-organized pegboards. Everything sat untouched. I was not, and still am not, good with tools. I do very little with my hands, though this is where I used to like to go to think as a teenager. Standing there after my father's death, I realized that I was amid the only legacy my father left behind: a perfect workshop, well lighted, clean, organized. I moved from tool to tool, my fingers caressing the cold metal, the smooth wood. This was it. Here was the paternal legacy, the exquisite tool collection that I could not use. I couldn't saw my way out of a cardboard box. All of this was for Cougar, if he wanted it—and he never came home.