Starting Over

by Dan Wakefield

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Marva asked.

  “It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes?”

  “So we have to go around the table and everybody tell what they’re thankful for.”

  “Oh, no,” Marilyn whispered, pressing a hand to her left temple.

  “We’ve never done that before, dear,” Max said.

  “But we’re sposed to,” little George said.

  “Who said so?” Max asked.

  “Miss Mallory told us at school.”

  “Yeah! We learned it in our room too,” shouted Daphne.

  “Well, we don’t observe that custom at our house,” Max explained firmly.

  “Then it’s not Thanksgiving!” Little Daphne began to sob.

  “All right, all right,” Marva said. “I’m thankful for having such a fine young son and daughter.”

  She looked to her right, where Phyllis Merton gulped from her wineglass, forced a smile, and said, “Well, let me see—I’m thankful that, in spite of everything, in spite of all that’s happened this past year, I’m thankful that even though—even though Roger left me for that—that scrawny little nitwit—”

  But before she could finish, her face melted, like a wax figure in a furnace room, and she burst into tortured tears.

  Little Daphne, evidently pleased that ritual was being observed, pointed a fork toward Marilyn and said, “Now you!”

  Potter quickly said, “Marilyn and I are thankful we didn’t have to eat at the Hayes-Bickford Cafeteria today.”

  Max, in one of his rare shows of force, told the kids in a tone not open to dispute that “We are going to eat now, and we’ll have no more questions or you go straight to bed.”

  Lucille Merton stared straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to her mother’s tears diluting the gravy, and said, “This is a crime. Eating all this food. There’s Vietnam, and the ghettos, and we all sit here stuffing ourselves.”

  No one replied, or acknowledged the statement. Somehow the meal was got through.

  Later, while Potter and Marilyn were sprawled across her bed in their underwear, drinking double Alka-Seltzers, Marilyn said, “Well, anyway, it’s over. We survived it.”

  “Yeah,” Potter said. “One down. Two to go.”

  2

  December, with its long, slate-colored days and sudden snowfalls, brought a more secret and somber tone to the city. Muffled and bundled, heads bent forward, citizens seemed like spies, moving back and forth on appointed missions, possible and private. Codes, in colored Christmas lights, blinked from windows of stores and homes. Shadows fell, cathedral-length.

  Potter took to hanging around school longer, postponing the trip back to Cambridge and his still unfinished apartment with its liquor boxes full of books, its accumulating piles of magazines and papers, laundry and dishes. Like his life, his apartment seemed to be in a perpetual state of disarray.

  Even though he and Marilyn were friends, and saw one another quite often, Potter felt essentially alone again, having no lover. He found it harder to activate himself out of apathy the way that Marilyn did with her therapy and evening classes, her tutoring of ghetto children, her initiative in getting tickets to plays and concerts and going with one of the girls from the office, “making an evening of it,” as she said.

  Potter decided he should have more friends. He enjoyed drinking with Gafferty, but that always had to end early so Gafferty could get back home to his wife and baseball team of a family. He didn’t want to go alone to the Bertelsens’ at this stage, knowing Marva would try to pry out new information about him and Marilyn that he didn’t feel like discussing now.

  Dean Hardy had asked Potter to look up a fellow Communications instructor named Ed Shell, whom he felt he would have much in common with, Shell being a “promising young film writer” and Potter a former man of the theatre. Though the Dean assured Potter he and Shell were sure to “hit it off,” Potter was not so confident of that when someone first pointed out Gilpen’s promising young film writer. Shell was wearing bell-bottom trousers, cowboy boots, a button-down shirt with a rep tie, and a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, giving him the incongruous look of a man who dressed the top part of himself for the Fifties, and the bottom half for the Seventies. Besides that, Shell had a dour, frowning kind of seriousness about him that Potter found unattractive. He reasoned, though, that he was committing the sin of snobbery, of judging by appearances, and he ought to give the guy a chance. Besides, he had nothing better to do.

  Potter agreed to go have a drink at Shell’s place, even though he lived in Somerville, which was unfamiliar territory. Somerville began at the edge of Cambridge—the poor, un-Harvardy edge. It had a large contingent of Portuguese and Italians, interspersed with students, hippies, teachers, dropouts, the underground Bohemian set who had come to the area because of low rents and proximity to Cambridge.

  “Welcome to the pad,” Shell said when he opened the door.

  It reminded Potter of the temporary living quarters of his own starving-artist days in New York. It was one small room, with a kitchenette and bath. The room had peeling flowered wallpaper, and a large poster of Orson Welles. There was a mattress on the floor with grubby striped sheets flung over it, and scattered debris—a partially empty cup of yogurt, an overflowing ashtray, one dirty sock, a tattered copy of an old Esquire, an empty pack of True Menthols, and a can of Colt 45, tipped over and leaking the last of its contents.

  “Get you a beer, man?”

  “Sure,” said Potter.

  He picked his way over scattered and piled pages of what must be movie scripts, and sat down cross-legged on one of the pillows that evidently served as chairs.

  Dedication, Potter thought; Dreams.

  It made him feel very old.

  “It looks like you’re very productive,” he said when Shell brought him a Colt 45.

  Shell sat down on a pillow across the small room, and said, “Seventeen scripts. So far. Working on the eighteenth.”

  “Jesus. That’s a lot.”

  “When one hits, a lot of ’em will hit. Ones that’ve been turned down’ll get done.”

  “I guess that’s the way it works.”

  “It’s a matter of time. You have to wait it out, and keep working.”

  “I know.”

  Till you can’t wait any longer, till it’s gone and drained out of you, Potter thought.

  Shell assured Potter that he wasn’t just daydreaming, having acquired an M.A. in Film at Boston University, and written-directed-produced a four-minute film on a waitress at a hamburger drive-in that won honorable mention in a national contest for film students sponsored by a nationwide motel chain. The award had brought him fifty dollars, a free night with meal of his choice at any of the chain’s motels throughout the land, and a confidence that he had what it takes to make it big in film.

  “My last script,” Shell said, “this director who’s very hot now was dying to do, but he couldn’t get a producer. One before that, this very highly regarded producer was hot about, but he’s committed to a three-picture deal with a particular studio, and they just had a big turnover in management, and so the whole project got fouled up.”

  “Damn, that’s too bad.”

  “It’s just a matter of getting it all together. It’s bound to happen soon now.”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “That’s why I have to live like this—temporary. Ready to go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “The Coast.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve got a suitcase packed. In the closet.”

  “Well, that’s—uh—very shrewd of you. Looking ahead that way.”

  When Potter left, Ed Shell gave him one of his scripts to read. Potter was both fearful and fascinated, wondering what it would be like, terrified it would be a hopeless exercise, but dying to know if it just might—by the most incredible chance—be a goddamn miraculous feat of genius.

  It was neither.

  Potter l
ay on his bed at home, smoking a cigarette, holding the script on his lap, pondering the thing. The script was called “Karen.” It was about a bright young girl who went into social work and was disillusioned by the bureaucracy but still kept her faith in helping people and fell in love with a poor young guy on her welfare route who worked for his old man at a fish market in the Boston harbor. It wasn’t anything that would knock you out, and had its share of cliché ideas and situations, but it wasn’t all bad either; it wasn’t as bad as a lot of stuff Potter had seen on the screen or on television. As far as he could tell, it could perfectly well be done, would help fill up time and space for a number of people, would bring money and satisfaction to Ed Shell, who would have with its production confirmed his image of himself. And it could just as well go begging, lost, undone, for all the justifications of it that could also be made, and Ed Shell could end up—how many years later—waiting for the call to the Coast, keeping his suitcase packed. But you don’t keep your suitcase packed forever. Potter knew all about that. If it didn’t happen, the day would finally come when Ed Shell would unpack that suitcase. Potter would just as soon not be around to see it or know about it.

  It occurred to Potter, though, that even if Shell had to someday unpack his dream, in the meantime it gave a shape and purpose to his life, helped him get through the day. The value of a dream was that, like booze or religion or dope, it filled you up for a while.

  Potter’s next evening was empty. Marilyn had a date with a guy from her Existentialism course who had asked her for coffee after the last class, and had sprung for an invitation to dinner. She had high hopes for this one, a lawyer who was taking the course to “broaden his horizons.” Potter thought that sounded a little hokey, but he didn’t want to disillusion Marilyn in advance. Besides, he wished her well and hoped something nice might come of the date. A lawyer who wanted to broaden his horizons might just turn out to be her Mister Right.

  When Potter complained about his own lack of companionship for the evening, Marilyn suggested he try going to a bar called The Pub, where she said it was possible for nice men to meet nice women; it wasn’t a hooker place or anything. She had been there herself a couple of times with girls from the office, and sometimes they’d made a connection with a couple of guys, perfectly decent sorts, just wanting to meet people.

  With no other prospect for the night but television, Potter went.

  There were a lot of little tables, but he headed straight to the bar. After his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the place, he swung around on his barstool, casually, and gave the place a quick survey. Most of the girls were in couples; some had one or two men already joining them or trying to join them. But one girl, at a table way back against the wall, sat alone. Potter peered at her through the gloom, and she stared right back. He looked away, looked back, and she still was staring straight at him. No mistaking it. He finished off his drink, and went over to her table.

  “May I sit down?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Thanks. I have one.”

  The girl’s coat was folded on a chair, and a pile of books, along with a notebook, sat on top of it. She didn’t look like a student, though; a little too old, a little too carefully dressed. She wore tiny pearl earrings, a fashionable pants suit, and hornrimmed glasses.

  “Are you a student?” Potter asked. He figured if she wasn’t, the mistaken assumption would be flattering.

  “I take some courses. Twice a week, I come in to town.”

  “You live out of town?”

  “In Framingham.”

  “Oh—that’s sort of a suburb, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Isn’t that kind of—inconvenient? Unless you’re married?”

  “My husband’s dead,” she said quickly.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m taking a course in poetry writing.”

  “Oh? That must be—uh, interesting.”

  “I just started. But I like it. I like to be able to express myself.”

  After two drinks she agreed to have a drink at Potter’s apartment. She wouldn’t go in his car, though, but insisted on following him, in her own. It was a station wagon. Potter feared she might just lose herself in traffic, on purpose, but she stuck on his tail, and pulled up behind him across from his apartment.

  He put on classical guitar, and got them drinks. She took off the coat to her pants suit, and Potter saw that she had enormous breasts. He found it hard to believe his good fortune. Going to a bar and picking up a woman who seemed to be reasonably intelligent and pleasant, and also was blessed with unusual physical endowments. He was beginning to feel a warm glow of good feeling, when the woman said suddenly, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  Potter braced himself.

  “I’m a terrible liar,” she confessed.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. For instance, I’ve lied to you already.”

  “You have?”

  Potter mulled over the possibilities. She had said she was twenty-eight; maybe she was really thirty-one. Maybe it was something as silly as that.

  “You remember I told you my husband was dead?”

  “Yes,” Potter said, “you did mention that.”

  My God, he thought, did I bring home a murderer? The Suburban Strangler?

  “Well, that was a lie,” she said. She paused, fixing her gaze intently on Potter, and said, “My husband’s not dead—I just wish he was dead.”

  “Oh,” Potter said. “Well, that’s quite a difference.”

  “Yes,”

  Potter lit a cigarette. “Well, I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “I mean, I’m not sorry that your husband’s not dead—I don’t even know him. I’m sorry you wish he was dead. Since he’s not.”

  Potter was aware his response was complicated, but he doubted there was any graceful way for commenting on this particular situation. “Maybe you could get a divorce?” he suggested.

  “He’d never do that. He’d kill me first. He swore he would.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s very violent.”

  “I see.”

  Potter became more sober as the information began to sink in. It occurred to him that if this lady’s husband would kill her for trying to get a divorce he might easily kill her for sleeping with another man. Or in fact, while he was at it, might just as well kill the other man.

  “Under the circumstances,” Potter said, “maybe the wisest course—I mean, for now—uh, would be for you to just, uh, go back to your husband.”

  She shrugged. “Mind if I finish my drink?”

  “No, not at all. Take your time.”

  The woman who wished her husband was dead left around ten, and Potter poured himself a drink—he had waited to make a new one until she was gone, fearing if he got too sloshed the allure of the lady’s beautiful body might overcome the rational fear of her killer husband.

  Marilyn called around ten-thirty.

  “What happened?” Potter asked.

  “It was awful,” she said. “You’ll never believe it.”

  “I’ll believe it,” Potter assured her.

  He went to her place to hear all about it, sorry her latest hope had been blitzed, but glad he had somewhere to go and someone to talk to.

  Marilyn was huddled up on the couch with a drink.

  “Is that a martini you’re having?” Potter asked.

  “Just gin.”

  “Oh. What happened?”

  “He wanted to dress up.”

  “Dress up? You mean in a tux or something.”

  “No. In my clothes.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I thought he was a regular guy.”

  “Well, it takes all kinds.”

  “Yeah. And I find ’em.”

  “Well, buddy, maybe a class in Existentialism isn’t the best place to look. Maybe you should switch to American Government. Or Business Administration. Somethin
g solid.”

  “Fuck.”

  Potter told her about the woman who wished her husband was dead.

  “We’re just not meeting the right people,” Marilyn said.

  “Yeah. But maybe it’ll change. Maybe we’ll meet a whole new group of terrific people.”

  They both started laughing. It wasn’t a light or happy sound. It was the laughter of comrades who are fighting together in a long and wearing campaign that has come to seem hopeless, like a misguided medieval crusade that has gone too far to turn back.

  Despite the way things had been going, Marilyn had high hopes for the party she and Potter went to that Saturday night out in one of the Boston suburbs. Potter couldn’t keep the goddamn suburbs straight, either by name or geography. There was Lincoln and Sudbury, Lexington and Concord, Newton and Weston and Marlboro. Potter had no idea of the relative position of any of them to Boston or to one another. He was accustomed to the basic grid of Manhattan, and was utterly confused by the complex sworls of roads and streets, expressways and turnpikes, routes and highways and bypasses that twisted and curled out of Boston in all directions.

  Marilyn drove.

  “Why is it you think this one’s going to be so good?” Potter asked as Marilyn gunned his car along the twisting country roads.

  “Well, I only know the hostess, I don’t know any of her friends. Or her husband’s. She just got married a few months ago, so they must still know a lot of single people. Since I don’t know any of the people, the odds are better, that’s all. You know. It might be a whole new group of terrific people.”

  “It’s possible, I guess.”

  The people at the party were “new” but not different. Potter and Marilyn agreed about that when they got back to her place.

  “Driving all that way for nothing,” Potter said.

  He had loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and was sprawled on the couch with a drink and a cigarette. Marilyn had kicked off her shoes, and was rolling down her pantyhose. “What about that redhead you had in a corner?” she asked.

  “Oh. Her.”

  “What was wrong with her?”