by Betsy Berne
Since I usually charged blindly past the finer things in life, visiting her was sometimes a challenge. But we could always drive over to Sam’s ranch house, which sat on a plot of land cluttered with gray sheds, red chicken houses, and ragged greenery that resembled a miniature golf course in Appalachia. His house was always a work-in-progress, and recently he’d covered the windows with tar paper, so now you couldn’t see the discarded nasty girls arranged on the couches inside. Sam was blindly loyal to his discarded girls.
I knew about blind loyalty and often wondered if it was a blessing or another curse. I’d followed Joseph Pendleton’s orders regarding Rachel and my neighbor posthaste, that same evening. My neighbor and I had gone down to the hip art restaurant, where the staff always greeted him like he was the messiah. He’d recently developed a crush on one of the balding members of the staff and he confessed that he had always been drawn to members of the service industry.
“You just like to be waited on,” I’d said.
“No, no,” he’d insisted. “There’s something else.” As a former member of the industry, I wasn’t at all convinced that there was something else but I hadn’t pushed it. My orders were weighing on me. The name Joseph Pendleton had barely left my mouth before my neighbor’s face turned long-suffering.
“I can’t discuss it with you anymore.” My words had come fast. “And I’m supposed to tell you it’s over. I mean it probably will be momentarily anyhow.”
“With me? You can’t discuss it with me anymore?” His eyes had been livid for an instant. “I don’t even know the guy. I’ve talked to him, what, maybe twice in my life.”
“I think he’s right. I mean, I understand how he feels. And it’s not going to last much longer, I guarantee,” I’d pleaded. “You hated hearing about it anyway.”
“Fine,” he’d said. “I have to go home and work. Let’s get the check.”
I’d followed the same formula with Rachel.
“Fine,” she’d echoed briskly. “As long as that’s what you want.” I’d muttered an assent and there’d been a pause. “Do you remember what happened to Patty Hearst? What did they call it? You know, when hostages initially identify with their kidnappers and then they empathize with them. God, what did they call it? Do you remember?”
“No, I don’t recall,” I’d replied stonily.
I’d spent the next day, the Fourth, with Victor. Victor was not much of a celebrator either—he only really noticed holidays when he came across long movie lines on weekday afternoons—so we’d worked all morning shoveling out his apartment. I’d been wrong to be skeptical about the need for shovels. His two rooms were filled with magazines and books and photographs, though they weren’t immediately recognizable as such. Molded in stiff, awkward shapes, some were so crusty they could hardly fit onto my shovel. We had to sneak the garbage bags out to the curb because the evil landlord was on Victor’s trail for some reason—it was just one of those things. Victor’s credit card had recently been revoked—it was another one of those things—so we used mine to rent the moving van. There was another group of volunteers stationed elsewhere in the city to unpack the van. I didn’t ask for any of the particulars, and he didn’t offer them.
After he was done unpacking, we met up again for the concert. We arrived late because we knew what to expect: There was no telling when the funk would really start, and once it did, there was no telling when it would end. But we knew how to pace ourselves, and at least it wasn’t crowded. Certainly not too crowded to see Joseph Pendleton, and her, from just about any spot in the house. There was practically a receiving line paying homage to him; he’d say a few words to each, and every so often reach over and touch her lightly on the small of her back. I tried not to look. When I glanced up furtively, he was looking at me. It was not quite his standard reproachful look; it was also blatantly lascivious. I started to smile involuntarily and ducked, clutching Victor’s arm to steady myself, but I remained queasy. So I fled after giving Victor a sketchy explanation. He just shrugged.
I was still queasy when I got home, so I called Aaron. She responded to the sound of my voice instantly: “Just get your ass out here.” The brush with the mouse in the water glass the next morning only hastened my departure.
•
Aaron met me at the train, and we went straight to the beach after a stop at her house to change and get supplies. On the way there she updated me on her current saga. She had met Jerry at the bank. He looked like Kojak and sounded like Billy Graham. At first she couldn’t be bothered, but he’d been a dogged suitor—and he had plenty of cash. What he actually did to procure the cash was a mystery, since his daily life seemed to revolve around psychotherapy appointments, massage appointments, dentist appointments, and acupuncture appointments—a full schedule by anyone’s standards. Gradually Aaron came around because, after all, she did appreciate the finer things in life and that meant cash. At dinner the night before, there had been a row between Jerry and Frankie, a dashing South American homosexual who supported Aaron’s business and her luxurious habits. Once we settled on the beach she poured the wine into picnic-sized red plastic cups.
“I don’t really remember much—I was pretty loaded—but I do remember Jerry screaming about my support issues with Frankie. If I hear the word issue one more time, I’m going to be the one doing the screaming.”
I lay inert, half listening, heavy-headed and drowsy, more from the relief of finally being out of the city than from the gargantuan cup of wine I could hardly lift my arm to drink. The beach was at the end of a long lane lined with stone walls and foreboding hedges hiding ostentatious mansions, and it was always deserted. I could never figure out why; it certainly was as dazzling as any other.
“Frankie will come around,” I told Aaron. “And Jerry, you know he’ll just sulk for a few days. He doesn’t have anything else to do. He’ll come back for more.”
She shrugged and refilled her cup for the third time. I cringed and closed my eyes. I was still somewhat drowsy when we got in the car but not too drowsy to miss the savage look on Aaron’s face. When she slammed down on the gas, I reflexively slammed on an imaginary brake. I was no longer drowsy when the car went into reverse instead of forward and we landed deep in the hedge, only inches away from a stone wall. I wasn’t surprised, though, because Aaron, drunk or sober, attracted crises. Apparently some sort of technical malfunction had caused the car to shoot backward. Now it wouldn’t go in either direction. As we began our silent trek, I ventured, “This isn’t so bad. It’s not that far.” Aaron didn’t answer. There was really nothing to discuss. When Jerry pulled up in his truck, even I was glad to see him.
Aaron and I didn’t speak as we entered the house. She headed for the bath, and I headed for the canopy bed. Bad luck is easier to endure alone. I endured dinner at a restaurant, where another brawl ensued. This one concerned Aaron’s drinking, a frequent source of discord between the two of them. When I suggested my presence as a third-party witness wasn’t really required, they glared at me. I endured the ride back in Aaron’s jeep on country roads where you could go ninety angry miles per hour and no one cared, and I pumped my imaginary brake until I had cramps in my leg.
I went back to the city early the next morning. The train ride and the beach and the canopy bed had revived me sufficiently. There was no need to explain my sudden departure because Aaron had grown up with silent communication, too.
•
“Hello, dear. How are you? Good, good. You got my fax?”
“Oh yeah, thanks. I’m working on the piece right now.”
The grief piece was in front of me—that is, the ravaged version of it, which I was still struggling to decipher.
“And the message, darling. You got my message?”
“Yes, yes, I got your message.” It had gone something like this: “Darling, I just loved the piece. And loved your voice, loved your voice. But you know what? We need a really fun piece, and this piece is just not fun. Period. And while grief may not
have been fun five years ago, oh, I don’t know, maybe ten years ago, grief is hot now. And it’s everywhere, and we’ve got to make it fun.”
At least it was a response. There’d been no word from Ditzgirl lately, and I feared we were at the stage where art dealers, even motherly art dealers, stop returning the artist’s calls because the news is not good. Concealing desperation was key at this stage with both her and my editor.
“Maybe you can give me suggestions about how to make it fun.”
“Suggestions? I’ve got nothing but suggestions. Number one, we don’t really want to know about grieving; that’s just a big bore. We want to know about the grieving process. Investigate funeral homes! Who’s going where? Are there waiting lists? Who gets in and who doesn’t? What’s the deal? How long do you have to plan in advance? Weeks? Months? Days?”
“Um, I’m not sure this is a situation where you can always plan in advance . . .”
“Darling, darling, you writers are so damn literal. You get my gist, you get my gist. Who’s getting cremated and who’s going for the casket, the procession, the burial, the whole nine yards? Ashes ashes ashes—who’s spreading them and where? Urns—what’s hot? Are we talking gold? Are we talking brass? For Christ’s sake, are we talking clay? And how much? Price range, price range! What’s cost-effective? Where are the bargains? I want to know the ten hottest funerals and the ten hottest caskets in the last six months. Who gets in? Who sits where? I want to know the peak funeral season. And do you know what? I want you to tell me just how long our readers should expect to grieve! Who’s grieving for how long? I want to feel the grieving process—without the grief. You get the gist? And Jesus, shoes, don’t forget about the shoes. This man designed shoes, he was shoes. Shoes, let’s see, shoes . . . stilettos . . . he was stilettos . . . stilettos as a metaphor for death! Are you with me, darling?”
“I guess so. I’ll try my best. I don’t know if it’ll be exactly fun, but I’ll try.”
I’d never presumed to write a serious treatise on death or grieving, nor was I capable of such a thing, but I had expected to maintain a modicum of dignity. Expectations can never sink low enough.
I’d encountered death when I was young, before it was fashionable, before there was such a thing as the grieving process. Yes, I was familiar with nervous breakdowns and mental hospitals, which were much more fashionable back then, but death I was familiar with only tangentially. Much later the deaths came fast, sometimes a couple at a time. Each on its own wasn’t significant enough to form the kind of death bubble that causes paralysis—until Jack died. I never knew I was in the death bubble because it’s hard to recognize until it’s gone. These days it felt like I might be in the paralysis kind of bubble, but you can’t very well mourn the death of something that never was. Or can you? Can you mourn the death of dreams?
•
Summer’s torpor was lingering for days at a time. Almost everybody left in town was either not up to par or in hiding. Even the downstairs establishment was gloomy, empty except for the two scruffy regulars splayed on their stools under the hippie’s morose gaze. Seasonal shifts cause corresponding mood shifts in the city. It was always comforting to discover you were never alone in your current mood shift; it was usually quite the contrary—everyone was up or everyone was down.
Perry was depressed because she’d risen from her “maternal bed” too early. She was convinced that that was why she and Rachel weren’t getting along. She was right, in a sense. The maternal bed was part of the problem—more specifically, the fact that she was still blathering on about it—ad nauseum. Even Rachel, ordinarily blind to the concept that Perry might be overdue for a lesson in tact, was exasperated. Rachel wasn’t up to par, either. Jean had gone abruptly and sullenly back to Paris for a break, and she was attending to the problem with systematic dating, which kept her in a cranky state of superficial intrigue and upheaval.
Perry and I were having our own difficulties. The idea that Rachel had been privy to more intimate details of my saga than she had made her bristle. In turn, I was tormented with guilt by the fact that I’d let his identity slip out—not to mention that the maternal-bed soliloquy was grating on me, too. More often than not, I was unable to contain my ire. Only certain people had the talent to trigger my ire—Perry happened to be one of the most talented—and she knew it as well as I did. I was careful when I explained to her that there was nothing to be privy to anymore.
“Oh, well, we should all be thankful for that,” she replied smugly.
“What do you mean?” I took the bait wearily.
“Oh, just something I heard,” she countered breezily.
“Elaborate, please.”
“Oh, never mind. I probably shouldn’t tell you.”
“It’s a little too late for that, isn’t it?”
“Okay. First of all, are you aware that this fellow may be disturbed, severely disturbed? Pathologically disturbed. Has he ever been hospitalized? When I told my cherished Richard—never fear, no names, no names—he said it was a clear case of bipolar disorder with classic misogynist elements rooted in an inflated sense of self based on self-loathing—and he should know, it is his field—and he also said in the case of the black male . . . now, would you say he’s more black or white, I mean, I know he looks—?”
“Perry, don’t start this.”
“All right, then. Answer me this. Is his wife white or black?”
“Jesus, Perry, what does that have to do with anything?”
She sighed an anguished sigh. Perry’s northerners-are-the-real-racists attitude allowed her the liberty, under the guise of sophisticated irony, to indulge in cute racist slurs, but they were neither cute nor sophisticated enough. No, they sounded just a little too real.
“All right. Are you prepared? He was seen at an art opening.”
“So?”
“Well, I wasn’t a direct witness. Of course, I was unable to attend. Rita had the night off, so I was chained to the crib of my beloved. It’s of the utmost importance to treat help as you would a member of your family, I firmly believe, but Richard says that up here class and race are sensitive issues deeply imbedded in structures from the—”
“Perry.”
“All right, all right. He displayed very disturbing behavior.” She whispered, “I believe he could very well be classified as a sexual deviant.”
“How would you know what a sexual deviant is? Do you even remember sex?”
“Yes, I do. Well, vaguely. But allow me to say this. He did not display the behavior of a gentleman who is taken, who has responsibilities back at the hearth. He did not behave honorably. If you understand what I mean.”
“Oh, yes, I think I’ve got an inkling.”
“He was observed lavishing attention on a fashionable young lady.”
Perry’s definition of “lavishing attention” was bound to be enlightening, but I could do without. Perry was bent on revenge. Her information wasn’t for my benefit. That kind of information never is. In this case, it was a vehicle to proselytize turgid morality—and to help lay to rest whatever doubts, insecurities, or regrets Perry was nursing over her own situation. The fashionable young lady didn’t disturb me—there were those who liked to be validated by the opposite sex on a frequent basis, those who enjoyed playing the game, a game that I didn’t enjoy playing, but it didn’t bother me if he liked to play. That was the least of my problems.
•
When he called a half hour later, my brain had miraculously shut down for the night and my hello came out soft and slurry.
“Is that you?” he said. I was startled to hear his voice. “You sound spaced-out.”
“I was just watching my cop show.”
“You mean with the Irish guy? He’s your favorite character, right?”
“No, he’s not! Well, maybe he is.”
He wanted to get together, and he cooed until I surrendered. It didn’t take long.
“So where would you like to meet?” he asked.
/>
“You might as well just come over.”
“You want me to come by to get you?”
“I don’t really want to go out.”
“Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
The show of gallantry didn’t fool me. Best to prepare myself for a state of siege. I was lying inert on the bed, naked and sweaty, with the sheet half draped over me, and I stayed there for a few moments, contemplating. I couldn’t very well get all dolled up, now, could I? What would I be doing all dolled up at home at midnight? On the other hand, we weren’t at the all-scuzzy-ina-nightgown stage yet. It was stifling, and the new air conditioner wasn’t up to par either. By the time he showed up, I’d sweated through dress number one and transferred into dress number two.
He was shifty, uneasy, at the door: “Are you sure you don’t want to go out?” I had to physically pull him inside, and I noticed that he was soaked.
“I didn’t realize it was raining. Was it hard to get a cab?”
“Oh, ah, no, it just took me longer than I thought. I had some obligations, uptown, a dinner. It’s not important. What have you been up to this evening?”
“Oh, this and that. Maybe the rain will cool things off.”
“Maybe.” He was way ahead of me, taking long strides toward the couch. In midstep, he asked offhand, “So what about that concert?”
“What about it?”
He stopped and turned: “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean ‘What about it?’ ”
“Well, the band, of course. What’d you think?”
“I thought they were great, especially—”
“I thought they were terrible.”
“You did?”
“Too many jams—pure self-indulgence, endless and indiscriminate. Just some over-the-hill musicians doing bad covers. It was incoherent at best. Sophomoric.”