My Life as a Man (21 page)

At the end of two days of hiding behind his bulk, I told Moe I was
“
myself
”
again; I was going back to the Midwest. We had rented a cabin for the summer in the upper peninsula of Michigan, and I was anxious to get out of the apartment in Madison and up to the woods. I said I had to get back to my novel.
“
And to your beloved,
”
he reminded me.

Moe made no secret ever of how much he disliked her; Maureen maintained that it was because, unlike his own wife, she, one, was a Gentile, and, two, had a mind of her own. I tried to give him the same stone face that I had given my sister when she had criticized my marriage and my mate. I hadn
’
t yet told Moe, or anyone, what I had learned from Maureen two months earlier about the circumstances under which we had married—or about my affair with an undergraduate that Maureen had discovered. I just said,
“
She
’
s my wife.
”
“
So you spoke to her today.
”
“
She
’
s my
wife,
what do you expect me to do!
”
“
She telephoned and so you picked it up and talked to her.
”
“
We talked, right.
”
“
Ah, you jerk-off! And do me a favor, will you, Peppy? Stop telling me she
’
s your
‘
wife.
’
The word does not impress me to the extent it does you two. She
’
s ruining you, Peppy! You
’
re a wreck! You had a nervous breakdown here only
two
mornings ago! I don
’
t want my kid brother cracking up—do
you understand that?
”
“
But I
’
m fine now.
”
“
Is that what your
‘
wife
’
told you you were on the phone?
”
“
Moe, lay off. I
’
m not a frail flower.
”
“
But you are a frail flower, putz. You are a frail flower if I ever saw one! Look, Peppy—you were a very gifted boy. That should be obvious. You stepped out into the world like a big, complicated, hypersensitive million-dollar radar system, and along came Maureen, flying her four-ninety-eight model airplane right smack into the middle of it, and the whole thing went on the fritz. And it
’
s still on the fritz from all I can see!
”
“
I
’
m twenty-nine now, Moey.
”
“
But
you
’
re still worse than my fifteen-year-old kids!
They
’
re
at least going to get killed in behalf of a noble ideal! But you I don
’
t understand—trying to be a hero with a bitch who means
nothing. Why,
Peppy? Why are you destroying your young life for
her?
The world is full of kind and thoughtful and pretty young girls who would be
delighted
to keep a boy with your bella figura company. Peppy, you used to take them out by the dozens!
”

I thought (not for the first time that week) of the kind and thoughtful and pretty young girl, my twenty-year-old student Karen Oakes, whose mistake it had been to involve herself with a Bluebeard like me. Maureen had just that afternoon—during the course of our
fifth
phone conversation of the hour; if I hung up, she just called back, and I felt duty bound to answer—Maureen had threatened once again to create a scandal at school for Karen
—“
that sweet young thing, with her bicycle and her braids, blowing her creative writing teacher!
”
—if I did not get on a plane and come home
“
instantly.
”
But it wasn
’
t to prevent
the
worst from happening that I was returning; no, whatever reckless act of revenge I thought I might forestall by doing as I was told and coming home, I was not so deluded as to believe that life with Maureen would ever get better. I was returning to find out what it would be like when it got even worse. How would it all end? Could I imagine the grand finale? Oh, I could, indeed. In the woods of Michigan she would raise her voice about Karen, and I would split her crazy head open with an ax—if, that is, she did not stab me in my sleep or poison my food, first. But one way or another, I
would
b
e vindicated.
Yes, that was how I envisioned it. I had by then no more sense of reasonable alternatives than a character in a melodrama or a dream. As if I ever had, with her.

I never made it to Wisconsin. Over my protests, Moe went down in the elevator with me, got in the taxi with me, and rode with me all the way out to LaGuardia Airport; he stood directly behind me in the Northwest ticket line, and when his turn came, bought a seat on the same plane I was to take back to Madison.
“
You going to sleep in bed with us too?
”
I asked, in anger.
“
I
don
’
t know if I
’
ll sleep,
”
he said,
“
but I
’
ll get in there if I have to.
”
Whereupon I collapsed for the second time. In the taxi back to Manhattan I told him, through my tearful blubbering, about the deception that Maureen had employed to get me to marry her.
“
Good Christ,
”
he moaned,
“
you were really up against a pro, kiddo.
”
“
Was I? Was I?
”
I had my face pressed into his chest, and he was holding me in his two arms.
“
And you were still going back to her,
”
he said, now with a groan.
“
I was going to kill her, Moey!
”
“
You?
You
were?
”
“
Yes! With an ax! With my bare hands!
”
“
Oh, I
’
ll bet. Oh, you poor, pussy
-
whipped bastard, I
’
ll just bet you would have.
”
“
I would have,
”
I croaked through my tears.
“
Look, you
’
re just the same as when you were a kid. You can give it, but you can
’
t take it. Only now, on top of that, you can
’
t give it either.
”
“
Oh, why is that?
What happened?
”
“
The world didn
’
t turn out to be the sixth-grade classroom at P.S. 3, that
’
s what happened. With gribben on a fat slice of rye bread waiting for you when you got home from a day of wowing the teachers. You weren
’
t exac
tly
trained to take punishment, Peppy.
”
Still weeping, but bitterly now, I asked him,
“
Is anybody?
”
“
Well, from the look of things, your
‘
wife
’
got very good instruction in it—and I think she was planning to pass the torch on to you. She sounds to me just from our phone conversation like one of the great professors in the subject.
”
“
Yes?
”
You see, driving back from the airport that day I felt like somebody being filled in on what had transpired on earth during the sabbatical year he had just spent on Mars; I could have just stepped off a space ship, or out of steerage—I felt so green and strange and lost and dumb.

By late afternoon I was in Dr. Spielvogel
’
s office; out in the waiting room Moe sat like a bouncer with his arms folded and his feet planted solidly on the floor, watching to be sure I did not slip off by myself to the airport. By nightfall Maureen was on her way East. Within two days I had notified the chairman of my department that I would be unable to return to my job in the fall. By the end of the wee
k Maureen—having failed in sev
eral attempts to get past the door to Moe
’
s apartment—had returned to Madison, cleared our stuff out of our apartment, and come East a second time; she moved into a hotel for transients on lower Broadway, and there she intended to remain, she said, until I had let go of my brother
’
s apron strings and returned to our life together. Failing that, she said, she would do what I was
“
forcing
”
her to do through the courts. She told me on the phone (when it rang, I picked it up, Moe
’
s instructions to the contrary notwithstanding) that my brother was a
“
woman hater
”
and my new analyst a
“
fraud.
”
“
He
’
s not even licensed, Peter,
”
she said of Spielvogel.
“
I looked him up. He
’
s a European quack—practicing here without any credentials at all. He
’
s not attached to a single psychoanalytic institute—no
wonder
he tells you to leave your wife!
”
“
You
’
re lying again, Maureen—you just made that up! You
’
ll say anything!
”
“
But
you
’
re
the
liar! You
’
re the betrayer! You
’
re the one who deceived me with that
little
student of yours! Carried on with her for months behind my back! While I cooked your dinner and washed your socks!
”
“
And what did you do to get me to marry you in the first place! Just
what!
”
“
Oh, I
knew
I should never have told you that—I knew you would use that against me some day, to excuse yourself and your rotten philandering! Oh, how can you allow two such people to turn you against your own wife—when you were the guilty one, you were the one who was screwing those students left and right!
”
“
I was
not
screwing students left and right
—“
“
Peter, I caught you red-handed with that girl with the braids!
”
“
That is not left and right, Maureen!
And you are the one who turned me against you, with your crazy fucking paranoia!
”
“
When? When did I do that, I
’
d like to know?
”
“
From the
b
eginning!
Before we were even married!
”
“
Then why on earth did you marry me, if I was so hateful to you even then? Just to punish me like this?
”
“
I married you because you
tricked
me into marrying you! Why else!
”
“
But that didn
’
t mean you
had
to—you still could decide on your own! And you did, you liar! Don
’
t you even remember what
happened?
You
asked
me to be your wife. You
proposed.
”

“
Because among other
thing
s
you threatened to kill yourself if 1 didn
’
t!
”
“
And you mean to say you
b
elieved
me?
”
“
What?
”
“
You actually believed that I would kill myself over
you?
Oh, you terrible narcissist! You selfish egomaniacal maniac! You actually do think that you are the be-all and end-all of human existence!
”
“
No, no, it
’
s
you
who think I am! Why else won
’
t you leave me
alone
!
”
“
Oh, Jesus,
”
she moaned,
“
oh Jesus—haven
’
t you ever heard of
love?
”