Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

  “C’n I have a Coke?” Scott asked his mother.

  “You’ve already had one today.”

  “C’n I have a half a one?”

  “One’s the limit. You know that, dear. Let’s not argue.”

  “Aw, Christ.”

  “Behave now, Scott. There’s company.”

  Scott turned his back toward Potter, and asked in a semiwhine, “Who’s gonna sit for us?”

  “DeeDee.”

  “She’s stupid.”

  “Scott, you’d better snap out of this mood and act like a grown-up boy or you’re not going to watch any television.”

  Renée said this quickly, in a level, heartfelt monotone, and came from the kitchenette with a glass of Dubonnet and a determined smile. She sat down in a large armchair that was beside the sofa, and brushed back a wisp of hair. Most of it was black, but there were these wispy little ringlets of grey right around her ears that wouldn’t stay put.

  Potter said “Thanks,” and took a quick sip of the Dubonnet.

  “Say hello to Mr. Potter, Teresa,” Renée asked hopefully.

  Teresa was still rooted to the spot where she first emerged from the hallway, staring unblinkingly at Potter and working the hell out of her thumb.

  “Hi, Teresa,” Potter said in what he hoped was a jovial, winning manner, “how are you tonight?”

  Teresa bit down harder on her thumb, and slowly, relentlessly, tears started streaming down her cheeks. She suddenly bolted and ran for her mother, burying her curly little head in Mrs. Gillespie’s long skirt.

  “Teresa, hon, there’s nothing to cry about!” Renée said.

  “She’s a-scared of that man,” Scott volunteered.

  “I’m really harmless,” Potter said feebly. His neck itched.

  “Mr. Potter’s a nice man,” Renée said.

  “How do you know?” Scott asked. “You never even met him till just now.”

  Potter felt a deep, pure urge to smack the kid, just once, as hard as he could. Instead he took a belt of the Dubonnet, narrowed his eyes, and said, “You’re right, Scott. For all you know, I might be The Boston Strangler, recently escaped from prison.”

  Renée’s face gave way to a sudden twitch, but she quickly resettled it into a smile and said, “Scott, dear, why don’t you see what’s on television?”

  Teresa was bawling harder now, despite her mother’s reassuring strokes and pats.

  “Is he really The Boston Strangler?” Scott asked.

  “Don’t be silly. Now go and see what’s on.”

  “I was just kidding,” Potter said.

  There was a knock at the door, and Renée jumped up, leaving Teresa to bawl by herself, and let in the baby sitter. Potter thanked God she was fat. There was no worse torture than having to drive home one of those exotic, longhaired twitchy-assed baby sitters after a lackluster night on the town with a harried divorced lady. Potter prayed for ungainly baby sitters.

  When they finally got to Chez Dreyfus, and were seated, Potter ordered a double Scotch on the rocks.

  “I don’t usually do this,” Renée said, “but I think I’ll have a martini. A Very Dry Martini.”

  “You deserve it,” said Potter.

  “I’m sorry it was so—hectic. They’re really nice kids, but—”

  “I understand. It must be hard.”

  “Their father lives in Washington, now, and he only gets up about once a month.”

  “It must be tough on the boy. Especially.”

  “On me, too. When Daddy comes now it’s a big occasion, like a holiday. He’s Santa Claus, and I’m the wicked witch who makes them do all the things they don’t want to do.”

  “Yeah. It’s really tough, I guess. I guess I’m lucky, in a way. I’m divorced, but we didn’t have any children.”

  “Yes,” Renée said, “that’s probably fortunate. If the marriage didn’t work.”

  Potter agreed. They drank to his good fortune.

  By the end of the meal, Potter had a sharp headache over his left eye. He had asked for a booth when he called for reservations, but they got there late and had to either stand and wait for another twenty minutes or be seated at a table in the midst of the room. It was too bright, and the talk and clatter all around them made conversation more difficult. You had to really concentrate.

  Renée ordered coffee and flan for dessert, and Potter had a brandy.

  “This is a real treat,” she said.

  “I’m glad.”

  Potter liked her. She was gentle, kind, intelligent, sometimes funny; but over it all was a fringe of sorrow that clung to whatever she said and did; outlined her, defined her. It was not self-pity. Potter thought it was justified, and yet it unnerved him. Sadness is not an aphrodisiac. He wished that he wanted to fuck her, and hoped that perhaps he still could work himself into such a desire.

  When he asked her to come by his place for a drink she studied her watch, longer than it took to figure out what time it was, and said, “Well, just for one.”

  “Sure,” he said. “A nightcap.”

  He put on a cheerful-sweet Joni Mitchell album, popped a couple of Excedrin, and fixed them each a drink; his strong, hers weak. An act of chivalry.

  “Is that Judy Collins?” she asked.

  “Joni Mitchell.”

  “I get them confused. All those pretty young girls singing their love songs.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

  He knew that she meant she hated their guts. He put on a classical guitar record, and Renée smiled, and leaned her head back on the couch. Potter put down his drink and kissed her, gently, tentatively. At first she hardly moved and then she leaned into him with full force, her mouth wide and hard on his with a sudden, fierce hunger. He pressed her against him and then she suddenly pulled away and averted her eyes. “I’d better go.”

  “Can’t you stay—a while?”

  She sat for a moment, drawing her lips in. Then, without looking at him she clutched his hand in hers, pressing it tightly. “If you don’t mind running DeeDee home, and you still feel like it, you could come have a drink at my house.”

  It would happen, then.

  He took a half a fifth of Scotch with him, and had a stiff one when he got back from driving the mute, gumchewing baby sitter home. Renée had changed into a blue nightgown, a quilted housecoat, and big, floppy comfortable slippers whose fur was soiled grey. The radio was tuned to a symphony.

  Potter took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and sat down beside Renée on the couch. Her hand squeezed his and she leaned against him. He closed his eyes and took a burning swig of his drink, then turned to match his mouth with hers. She came alive all over, digging her nails in his back, squirming and sobbing and gasping. Potter struggled out of his clothes, still keeping his mouth on hers, yanking and jerking his way out of shirt, belt, slacks, and Renée wrenched free of her robe. Potter, now only in socks and shorts, fell upon her.

  She whispered “Wait,” and swiftly pulled her nightgown over her head; it floated to the floor, making a blue puddle. Potter pressed down on her, feeling himself grow, and she started tugging down his shorts, when she suddenly froze.

  “What—”

  “Shh.”

  There was a creak in the hallway.

  Potter didn’t move or turn to look.

  “What are you doing?” the boy’s voice asked in a sleepy grouch.

  Potter closed his eyes as tight as he could.

  “You get right back to bed this minute immediately,” Renée said in a quaking sort of hiss, “you get right back to bed and go to sleep.”

  After a silent infinity, she let out a sigh, and Potter raised his head. Renée was sitting up, but huddled over, her hands pressed against her temples. She looked cold and bony and frail, like a refugee or a prisoner who had just been stripped of his only clothing.

  “Jesus,” Potter said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Potter sat up on the couch. His head was th
robbing, and his prick had shrunk to what felt like the size of a cigarette. Renée picked up her nightgown and draped it around her shoulders, shivering. Potter looked down at the heap of his clothes, inside out and messily tangled. It looked to him like a snapshot of his life.

  When he left he kissed her lightly on the forehead and said he would call her.

  She thanked him for the lovely dinner.

  The day after his date with Renée, Potter had to teach. He had an Alka-Seltzer, three aspirin, and a glass of orange juice for breakfast, but still he felt nauseous and aching. The minutes ticked off like separate eternities. He repeated himself, coughed a lot, and could hear the restless motions of legs crossing, pages riffling, throats clearing, and yawns. Between classes he went to his office, closed the door, and sat with his head on his desk. For lunch, he had one of the secretaries in the English office bring him back a grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate malt. By the time he got through his PR seminar in the afternoon he was beginning to revive, but he still felt shaky. He figured fresh air would do him good.

  He strolled down Beacon Street toward Arlington, and took one of the paths that curled into the Public Gardens. The air was cool and brisk, and so were the people. No one was idling, as they did in the Indian summer time, but all seemed to walk with purpose, toward some appointed destination. The sky was cold, lavender and pink. Austere. Potter stopped by his favorite statue, the one commemorating the discovery and first medical use of ether. The statue was of a woman holding a child. On one side of the base was inscribed a line from Revelation: “Neither shall there be any more pain—”

  Potter wondered if he reported to the emergency ward of the world famous Mass General Hospital, whether they would give him a dose of ether. If he were ever a president or dictator, he would see that such a service was available to the public, an emergency facility that would dispense some sort of pill or gas or potion for people who felt the kind of pain that came from having nothing to do and nowhere to go and feeling nothing inside.

  In the absence of such a service, he walked. He walked to the glorious statue of George Washington on horseback, and then up the wide center mall of Commonwealth Avenue, with its grey and weather-greened statues of assorted great men of the past. He stopped briefly at each one, as he often did, reading the inscriptions again, making a kind of silent visitation to their memory. There was Alexander Hamilton, and John Glover, a revolutionary soldier from Marblehead. There was Patrick Collins, a turn-of-the-century mayor of Boston, whose qualities engraved in stone proclaimed not only that he was honest and talented, but also that he was “serviceable.” Potter liked that. The notion of being a “serviceable” man. But most of all he liked the staunch figure of William Lloyd Garrison, at ease in a chair that seemed like a throne, whose base bore the words of the great man himself declaring that “I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.” Actually Potter didn’t know a damn thing about Garrison except that he had been a leading abolitionist, but nevertheless the confident, uncompromising words, the grand aristocratic sweep of the sentiment, speaking from an age that seemed more courageous and clearly defined in its purpose and conflict than his own amorphous time, gave Potter a quick, adrenaline thrill. The whole Avenue, with its solid statues, its great trees, its fine old houses lining either side, had a stateliness that Potter enjoyed.

  He was finding in general that he liked Boston better than Cambridge. He liked the “old” feeling of the brick sidewalks and yellow-tongued gaslamps on Beacon Hill, liked the open, majestic feeling of the Commons and the Public Gardens, which were laid out on a more intimate, human scale than Central Park, and were less threatening; walking those paths, you expected to be panhandled, yes, but not mugged or raped or murdered.

  Boston was grace and tradition to Potter. Cambridge was Harvard. Cambridge was students. Walking through Harvard Square, if you were not a student or someone who might be a student, you felt like an alien, felt as if you stuck out from the crowd, like a German tourist in the South of Spain. Every time Potter went through the Square, the Yeats line flashed automatically through his mind: “That is no country for old men.” Old, in Harvard Square, seeming anything over thirty. At most. The atmosphere was youthfully oppressive.

  When he got to Mass Avenue, Potter walked up to the Hotel Elliot at the corner of Boylston and had a couple of drinks in its pitch-dark cocktail lounge. Then he decided to blow a few bucks on taking a cab home, which would spare him a trek through Harvard Square.

  Back at his apartment he prepared himself a large tumbler of Scotch and soda and ice, and turned on the seven o’clock news.

  The war in Vietnam was still “winding down,” like a busted alarm clock.

  Martha Mitchell had made another of her famous late-night phone calls, bawling out someone who had criticized the Nixon administration.

  Tension was high on the Israel-Arab borders.

  Suburban mothers in Michigan were picketing against school-busing.

  The Orioles had taken a lead on the Reds in the World Series.

  The Celtics had a three-game win-streak going.

  Derek Sanderson vowed that the Bruins would go all the way.

  Tomorrow would be cloudy and cool, with scattered showers.

  Potter found himself suddenly laughing.

  They called that news?

  He went to the kitchen to make a new drink, but first made a pledge to himself that he would eat.

  The most simple substance available seemed to be a can of Hormel chili. Potter took it off the shelf, set a pan on a front burner of the electric stove, and got out the can opener. A do-it-yourself home dinner kit. He would do it a little later. First, he made the new drink.

  It was situation comedy time on TV, and he pushed the button in, rejecting. Canned chili was bad enough without having to add canned laughter. He put a Judy Collins on the stereo.

  When you’re down in Juarez in the rain and it’s Easter-time too—

  Potter closed his eyes.

  He woke, hungry and dizzy, the TV blank, the stereo scratching.

  It seemed he had slept for days, but it was only a little past ten. He went to the kitchen, ground the can of chili open with a vengeance, scooped it out into the pan, where it made a soggy plunk, and turned the burner to Hi. Reaching for the Cutty Sark he stopped, took a deep breath, and instead pulled from the refrigerator a bottle of Gallo Rhinegarten white wine, filling one of the fluted glasses he had been given in the division of old wedding present spoils.

  Wine with dinner. You had to make the effort. Stay civilized. He scratched his head, then took a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce from the cupboard and dashed a generous amount on the chili. Real gourmet action.

  The chili hunk was beginning to sizzle, and he took a spoon and mashed it around in the pan. It looked like dog-food.

  After dinner he poured himself a brandy, and lit up a mentholated Tiparillo.

  He burped, and thought of Jessica’s beef bourguignon. It was her specialty. It took all day, and was usually served with tears, but it was damn good.

  Jessica.

  After another Scotch he dialed information in New York, and got her number. J. L. Potter. What the hell, no reason they shouldn’t talk. Be friends.

  Lovers, even? Still? Again?

  After one ring he hung up. It would only open an emotional spider’s nest. When he talked to her again, even saw her again he wanted it to be out of some motivation more noble than loneliness, more gracious than despair.

  2

  Potter didn’t much want to call Renée Gillespie but he didn’t know anyone else to call. And besides, he thought she was nice; in fact he was convinced of that. He even thought maybe she was more attractive than he had felt she was on his first impression, distorted as that was by his fantasy of someone as exotic as he had conjured up from her French-Jewish name. Of that, he was not convinced, but he wanted to believe it. One thing was sure: Saturday night was
approaching, a grim specter.

  Saturday Night!

  It was hallowed and feared and anticipated, lyricized in story and immortalized in song.

  The loneliest night of the week.

  The night when my sweetie and I used to dance cheek to cheek.

  After Potter was graduated from Vanderbilt and went into the Navy he dated a Tri Delt from U. of Maryland, during the Holidays, and, on New Year’s Eve, after a gallon or so of champagne at a swell party in Arlington, Virginia, he had asked her to marry him. They became engaged. It was in The Papers. When he returned to his base in Mississippi, she wrote him a long, curlicued letter with circles dotting the i’s, saying how glad she was to be engaged, and how she looked forward to the state of married bliss: “Just think,” she observed, in a practical aside, “I’ll have a Permanent Saturday Night Date for the rest of my life!”

  Potter for some time had mulled over the notion of marriage bringing about a Permanent Saturday Night Date for the rest of his life, and his enthusiasm began to flag; the Engagement simmered down, then died, via letters and the lack of them.

  But he understood what she meant, and how she felt about the Guarantee of having her Saturday night date card filled up for eternity. Beginning at puberty, all good American girls and boys were trained and drilled and instilled with the understanding that not having anything to do on Saturday night was a stigma so great that it marked the week as a failure, meant that you were Undesired or Undesirable or Undesiring, marked you as a malcontent or malcontented, a malignant and/or malingering member of society.

  So you either went out, accompanied, or you hid. Pretended to be Busy, pulling the curtains of your room about you, the covers over your head, the lamps dimmed, the music stopped.

  Ho ho ho. High school stuff.

  College stuff.

  Life stuff.

  Potter felt sure that Senior Citizens were still plagued by it. It was worked inside your head so deep, you could never really get it out, never just sit around quietly somewhere in America on Saturday night, reading a good book, without feeling guilty or cheated.