John's Wife

by Robert Coover

  Though there was no sign in the sky that the black stormy night had ended, Barnaby, sitting alone by his window watching the wet orange glow that had taken his daughter away get swallowed up in the darkness, knew by his own knowing that dawn had arrived. All night, she’d been at his bedside, listening to his bitter tale of duplicity and betrayal, but then the glow had appeared which, even in his crackbrain confusions, he knew to be a fire, though he’d thought it was his own house burning, the one they’d all lived in when she was a little girl and Audrey was young and beautiful. He’d worried aloud about Audrey’s safety, her life might be in danger, and his daughter had said, yes, she’d better go see, but not to worry, she’d be back soon, get some rest. “Be careful!” he’d rasped as she left, though he couldn’t be sure she’d heard him. “I love you!” Had it really been his daughter? Maybe, maybe not. In retrospect, she’d looked a little like the resident nurse, at least when she departed, if not when she arrived. He’d staggered to his chair by the rain-lashed window to watch the lightning explode and the rain whip past like crashing tides and the fire slowly die and to wait for his daughter’s return, though now he no longer expected her. What a night. He was a crazy old buzzard, like the lady said. Thought he could change what could not be changed, a delusion he shared with builders the world over. He’d found the gun he’d intended for saner purposes and shot up the place, lucky not to have killed someone. Or unlucky. Though he now knew that the woman who had left with Mitch last night was not Audrey, he still felt deceived, certain now that the heart of the woman whose hand he’d won had never been won at all. That silly woman who’d pretended to be her knew more than she knew. Audrey, too, had only pretended to be Audrey, or at least the Audrey who’d lived with him. The knowledge saddened him and added to the sorrow and emptiness that engulfed him in these rare dawn moments of lucidity, but he knew it was more his fault than hers. He the builder who had not built well. That house deserved to burn. The only light on the horizon, now gone, too. He imagined the charred ruins: his hopes. His daughter wandering through them, grieving: his legacy. He wandered there, too—tottered and shambled, rather, all grace vanished—and he tried to speak to her but could not. Though he could almost reach out and touch her, there was a distance between them that could not be bridged, as between past and present, or between part and whole. He shuffled through a door, thinking about his burning lumberyard. The waste, the waste! He looked at his image in a mirror and was not surprised to find it broken up into ill-fitting fragments. He had more than two eyes, which accounted for his lack of focus, a mouth whose parts did not all join up. Of course, it was the mirror that was broken, though it cast back a truer image than when it was whole. He leaned forward, bracing himself on the sink. It was crunched in the middle with cracks radiating outwards like a spiderweb. Had he tried to drive a nail in it? Or had Audrey?

  Across town, Audrey—or Opal, rather: that dangerous game was over—had also, as though in mirror image of that broken man, been sitting sleeplessly by the window, watching the glow of the fire fade in the sudden crashing downpour, the downpour itself slowing fading as though dying with the fire. It was dawn, but a dawn that shed no light. The only light shed had been shed within and that in the blackest depths of the night when that old fool, who was her annoying husband and also an old family friend she hardly knew, started shooting at her while she was sitting on the toilet. As Audrey, she knew then that, as Opal, she had been her disappointed husband’s second choice, not merely when he’d married her, but for all the years thereafter while Audrey was still alive. Had she and Mitch consummated their affair? Even as Audrey, whose memories of her past romances were suspiciously dim, she could not be sure, although, as Opal, she was certain they had had a fling of some kind even if nothing came of it, Audrey being, for all her harsh banter, something of a tease and more insecure than Opal had ever supposed. But it didn’t matter what they’d actually done. Audrey had married Barnaby, perhaps to avenge an imagined wrong, or a real wrong, for Mitch had always shamelessly played the field (he had?), and Mitch had replied in kind, their marriages a private dialogue between them, their partners little more than analogues of spite. So shattering had this revelation been, so complex and disturbing her feelings about it, she’d not even been able at first to rise from the stool when Mitch turned up at Barnaby’s door. For, as Audrey, she now loved Mitch in a way that, as Opal, she never could nor ever would, while, as Opal, she resented his intrusion upon this revelatory drama, still unfolding, and at the same time was grateful to him for his timely rescue from a crazed old man. With whom, however, she now felt a deep bond not unlike that of an understanding lover, or at least the best of friends, and for whom she feared more than for her would-be rescuer when the gun went off. Which startled her and made her jump up off the seat, for, as Opal, she was embarrassed to be caught so compromised, even though she somehow felt it was she who was catching Mitch with Audrey, who wished to be caught in dishabille, so to speak, by an impetuous lover whom she would rebuke even as he burst in and laid eyes upon her, refusing his advances in spite of the gallantry for which Opal was so grateful, while gazing directly in his eyes as she slowly pulled her panties on, letting him know clearly what it was she was refusing him, even as Opal pulled them on with modest haste, too flustered even to remember to flush. All of which made her start to cry, whether as Opal or Audrey, she wasn’t sure, and when she opened the bathroom door and saw them both standing there, her husbands, or her lovers, one of them with a gun in his hand, the other one tottering as though he’d been shot, it was all so mixed up that she was suddenly terror-stricken, and all atremble, ran over to embrace one of them, but she didn’t know which until Mitch opened up his arms (“You all right, hon?”) and then, thank goodness, she had no choice. Mitch had wanted to call the police, but she’d dissuaded him, saying, since no one was hurt, they should let John handle it, and she’d begged him to take her home (to Opal’s home), she couldn’t bear to see another soul tonight, if he wanted to go back to the party he could go without her if he liked, and then, looking as though she’d just rebuffed him (who had he thought she was?), he’d done just that, or gone somewhere, at dawn gone still.

  Maynard’s fright was of a similar order: confusion, exposure, and imminent danger. When he’d awoken he’d not known where he was. He was in a darkened bedroom, not his own, fully dressed, even to his shoes, and curled up around the backside of a sleeping woman, his hands cupping a soft smooth bottom under a silken nightie’s hem, his face in her loosened hair. His wife’s? No. Then—? This sweetness … His whole body had gone rigid as though suffering a seizure when the truth hit him, and he’d nearly swallowed his tongue stifling the cry that rose to his throat. He’d lain there in a kind of ecstasy of terror, not knowing what to do, but not wanting to let go of the greatest joy he’d ever had in life, had literally in his grasp. That bottom! Hers! The piece of silk between his cheek and pillow, dampened by his tears, had then been freshly dampened, but now by tears of incredulous bliss, his hands suddenly aware of their being in the world in a way no part of him had ever been before. He’d longed to press beyond where now he touched, but had been afraid to break a spell that held him as much as her in thrall. She’d stirred slightly, and Maynard had felt a fury at his chest that it would not stop heaving, and at the noisome breath he breathed and at the scratchy beard that roughed his cheeks, the clothes that walled him off from her, the odors of his unwashed body which rose now to thwart all hopes of declaring, even by the gentlest gesture, the desperate love that so consumed him and made him tremble, head to foot, this trembling angering and frightening him as well. He prayed to let this moment last forever, but it couldn’t, he knew, no moment could, something had to happen and something did: a car pulled into the drive below, startling him so, he jerked his hands away, and then, the damage done, no way to put them back. Nor had he time or liberty: he heard the car door slam and knew he was a dead man if John should catch him here. He slipped out of the bed (she sighed and rol
led over, making his stuttering heart race the faster, his stomach turn) and crept from the room, trying desperately not to fart until he reached the hall, and succeeding only so far as the door. “John—?” she murmured sleepily. John was coming in the door downstairs, which one, the back? The side door by the drive? Maynard had forgotten the precious garment soaked by his lovesick tears, but too late now. He heard steps below and ducked into a room where a child with two heads stared at him from under a blanket on the floor. “Nighty-night,” he whispered, terribly confused, and again his gut betrayed him, making the two heads giggle and whisper. This was worrying. He slipped out, listened from the head of the stairs: John was in the kitchen opening the refrigerator door, popping a beercan, shushing the dogs. That’s right, the dogs, he had forgotten about the dogs. What could he do? Crawl out a window and jump from the roof? Hide in a closet with all his gases until John had slept and gone again? Cut his throat? Finally, what in a blind funk he did was take off his shoes and, muffling the stuttering put-put from his treacherous behind as best he could, he’d tiptoed barefoot down the stairs, through the hall, past dining room and living room, and on out the front door into the soggy dawn. It worked! Or nearly. John called out from inside the house just as he reached the front sidewalk and knelt to put his shoes back on: “Call me later on today, Maynard! I’ve got a proposition!”

  “John—?” “Yes.” “Something terrible! Clarissa—!” “I know. I saw the woods smoldering when I flew over and stopped off there. They told me.” “I was with her until now. She was so brave—” “So they tell me. She was pretty well sedated by the time I got there.” He set his tumbler of whiskey beside her earrings on the night table, sat down on the edge of the bed to work his boots off. “She’ll be in traction awhile and have a sexy scar or two, but she’ll be okay.” “What-what’s all that?” “Some flowers for you.” “Oh. That’s very nice, John. It was sweet of you to remember.” “I dropped some off at the hospital, too. A lot of people got hurt at the fire. Did you know Dutch got shot?” “I’d heard.” He stripped off his leather vest and jeans, his shorts, tossed aside the panties lying on his pillow, and stretched out beside his sleepy wife to finish off his whiskey. Remember what? Had he missed their anniversary? “When I find out how she got the keys to the Porsche, somebody’s going to eat them.” “There was some man with her.” “I know. A guy who used to work for me.” “They say she was—” “My guess is they both were.” He’d been found in sweats, but the pants were on backwards. “It was just lucky your secretary was driving past.” “Yes, luck or something.” “She pulled Clarissa out of the creek and gave her the kiss of life. The doctor said she would have died.” Flying back, he’d traced out the series of Nevada’s double crosses, of himself, of Bruce, of everyone, Lenny’s boy included. He’d concluded that Clarissa never was a target, not of Bruce anyway, and so he’d probably punched Jennifer’s brother for the wrong reason, though the kid no doubt deserved it for something all the same. And now, it was just too convenient that Nevada was at the wreck at almost the same time it happened. Had Clarissa been a target after all? Was that why he’d been lured out of town? “Is Bruce all right?” his wife murmured. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” “I’m very sorry, dear.” Sleepily, she curled into his outstretched arm. “It was all just a joke to him,” he said, setting his glass down, and rolling over between her thighs. She lifted her knees, adjusting to his weight, hooking one foot atop his butt. “A joke?” “Life. His problem was, he couldn’t wait for the punchline.” Watching his town seem to sink away and vanish into the shadowy earth as he lifted away on his wild Bruce chase, he’d felt that something was being taken away from him, something valuable he could not afford to lose, though he could not quite name it, and the feeling had stayed with him all through the night, even as he labored to cleanse the cabin of all evidence of that ruthless overweening motherfucker’s violations, indeed of his very existence (had the puffed-up asshole greased himself? good riddance!), an inner purging matching the outer one, and that feeling of some impending but ineffable loss had pursued him until his return at dawn when once again his town had risen up out of the misty soil below him, its resurrection signaled by the dying flames and smoke from Settler’s Woods, sent up like a beacon in the disintegrating night as the violent storm which he’d had to skirt sheathed its weapons and withdrew. She kissed his shoulder as he rolled away, picked up his glass again. Loose Bruce was gone, like a joke when it’s been told, and like a joke, once heard, you really didn’t want to hear it again. But. “I feel like some part of me has died,” he admitted. “Oh, that reminds me,” she said with a sleepy yawn. “Stu’s dead.” “Stu?” “He was killed. And they ruined all his old records.” “But wasn’t he here at the barbecue?” “He never turned up. I tried to call Daphne, but her phone was off the hook.” Why did that old jug-head’s death make him think of Marie-Claire? John didn’t know, but now he knew what had been missing up at the cabin, that feeling of unnameable loss that he couldn’t put his finger on. Bruce had taken away with him Marie-Claire’s slashed canvas.

  The funeral for old Stu, held two days later, was a memorable event whereat it was proved that one could indeed enjoy an old joke twice, and twice again. The church lawn, before and after the brief memorial service, was filled with a great congregation of ordinary townsfolk, young and old, all recalling jokes the old car dealer had told them, as well as amusing anecdotes about his life, which in retrospect seemed funnier than when he was alive, and though most had shared in these events, especially the older generation, and so had heard all the stories before, the sudden violent death (“Talk about your punchlines,” someone said, and another added: “It’s like the one he liked to tell about the guy who took a leak at the power plant…”) of the town’s favorite raconteur had, just as suddenly, made them all new again: there was a lot of laughter out on the church lawn that day, sighs and tears, too, and expressions of alarm that such a thing could happen in this town, but even more laughter, and everyone agreed, they don’t build ‘em like ole Stu any more, that old boy was a vintage model. There were a lot of flowers in the church, as though to provoke the corpse into a resuscitative sneezing fit, but the service itself was a soberer affair, mainly out of respect to the widow, who seemed to have lost her sense of humor and was taking it all pretty hard. She’d obviously been hitting the bottle and looked haggard and distraught, and when John brought her into the church during the singing of “Amazing Grace,” she stumbled and nearly fell and those near her heard her hiss: “Stop that, damn you! Go away and leave me alone!” Who was “you”? Most knew. It was what she’d told the police: it didn’t matter who’d pulled the trigger, it was that old ghoul’s fault. The police had their own more mundane theories. No one had as yet been charged, but the manager of the downtown hardware store, who’d skipped town in dramatic fashion after the killing, was the prime suspect. Rumors of a violent past, a prison record, a falling-out with Stu over a lemon he’d been sold, money troubles. The general view in town was that Floyd might have done it, might not have, but nobody liked him anyway. Under the circumstances, it was something of a surprise when the fugitive’s wife turned up at the funeral and timidly took a seat in the back pew. She sat alone, others shying away as though they might catch something if they got too close, until John’s wife came in, no doubt straight from the hospital, and sat down beside her and took her hand in hers for a moment, which startled her at first, but then she calmed down. As always, a healing presence, John’s wife, and the pew soon filled up, people acknowledging that the poor woman was only trying to do the Christian thing and had herself been effectively widowed by the tragedy. As the preacher, whose own daughter was missing and feared dead, reminded them, the point of many of the deceased’s favorite jokes was that things were not always what they seemed and there was often a consoling surprise at the end, and he asked them to pray, in these times that tried the human spirit, for strength and guidance, recalling for many of the mourners, perhaps on purpo
se for he’d heard it told many times at his own expense, old Stu’s story about the young preacher and the old widow on their wedding night: “You just take care of the strength, Reverend, and leave the rest to me.”

  Ellsworth, reporting in the revived Town Crier on the funeral of the popular owner of the Ford-Mercury dealership, whose life had come to such a cruel and senseless end, took note of the minister’s tribute to the dear departed’s renowned sense of humor, which had provided so much strength and consolation for others in the community in the past, adding, in his own words, that death may carry away the person, but the stories, like rocks dropped in a stream, remain. This relative immortality of the stories vis-à-vis their actors and tellers had been much on Ellsworth’s mind of late as he emerged from what he thought of as his “long dark night of the soul” to engage with the human world once more, this world of rock-hard stories and transient lives to which, as chronicler, he’d been so long devoted, but which, in his absence, had passed without report, a delinquency he deeply regretted and said so in the double issue that marked the Crier’s return, promising to fill in all the missing news items by way of “I Remember” columns from his readers, which he solicited in his apology and also in person wherever he went, at the car dealer’s funeral, for example. He reported on that funeral, and on the annual Pioneers Day parade (for which he found few reliable witnesses, but his files were full of suitable archival material), and on the burning of Settler’s Woods, which he’d observed at a distance from his own second-floor window (a shocking moment as light bloomed suddenly in the impenetrable night: where was he—?!), and the casualties ensuing therefrom, including the town photographer’s wife, who was also his professional assistant, a tragedy of immense proportions, which was all he would say about it, and on the deplorable accident at the humpback bridge (in a separate editorial he appealed, once again, for the removal of that perilous structure), and in short, on all the old news that he could gather in, catching up as best he could on all the deaths and births, the marriages and engagements, burglaries, accidents, operations, golden anniversaries, arrests, birthdays, Little League and bowling team scores, church attendance figures. What he couldn’t report on was where he’d been exactly or how long he’d been there, for, returning as though from another dimension as the fire rose and fell on the horizon and the terrible thunderstorm crackled and boomed around him, he did not know himself. Something had passed, but it hadn’t felt like time, and in a place that was more than a place and yet no place at all. After the storm had exhausted itself, he had, as though compelled, gone out to Settler’s Woods to gaze, aghast, upon a charred and misty dreamscape which seemed to have sprung directly from the dark abyss of his own imagination. He’d remembered something Kate the librarian had once said to him about this seeming interplay of art and life: the formal resonances between them, she’d said, suggest that both are organic human enterprises, so we shouldn’t be surprised when they sometimes seem to live inside each other. But he was surprised, and had felt dreadfully empowered and hopelessly vulnerable at the same time, and not just a little disoriented by his recent adventures. He had half expected to find the Stalker wandering there, blind and reproachful, but had discovered instead his old friend Gordon, standing alone in the mud at the edge of the smoldering woods, soaked through and staring blankly into the black wet heart of the devastation. “Are you all right?” he asked. Gordon, unshaven, hands in his pockets, continued to stare straight ahead. “The stillness …,” he said. There was a deep quiet all about. Of course the birds had fled. There were, here and there, a few deep green patches spared by the fire, but most of the treetops and foliage had been burned out, leaving only the blackened trunks and naked branches like scorched arms reaching up out of the earth in anguished horror. Nothing moved except the gray wisps of smoke snaking upward through the dripping branches. “It’s over,” Ellsworth said, with a finality that surprised even himself, and his friend somberly nodded.