by CW Ullman
“After he was in the Army, he wrote me but I didn’t write him back. Then a girl told me that he could come home on an Emergency Leave if there were problems with his marriage, so I wrote him love letters, just so he wouldn’t come home.
“I kept up the charade for months until I was notified by the Army that he had been killed in action.” She stopped and bowed her head.
“He would be alive today if I hadn’t convinced him to go in the draft. The worst part-,” she brought her head up, took a breath and bit down on her cheek. “The worst part, Charlie, was when the Army told me he had been killed, I was relieved.”
She stared down at her hands and did not move. Charlie felt sorry for her. He was fishing for why she never tried to contact him and instead made her relive the worst moments of her life. He was disgusted with himself for being so cavalier with someone else’s feelings just to satisfy his own curiosity.
“You don’t have to talk about it, Sister. It’s OK, please, let’s not do this. I’m sorry I put you through this.”
She was quiet as she looked at him; he wondered what she was thinking. He wondered if she thought less of him for putting her through this grueling account. He was unnerved by her look of melancholy. He was about to apologize again, when she straightened up, smiled, and then spoke with an exaggerated cheeriness.
“We’ll talk more some other time. I want to find out about your spiritual growth and life in the ashram. I imagine it was really meaningful for you,” she said. “Next time I can share with you the grace I found in the Lord’s House.”
“That will be great, Sister Celeste. I look forward to it,” Charlie said. They stood, hugged and she left.
Charlie sat back down in the booth and was contemplative. At times, when she spoke she appeared to be frail and wounded, but the cheeriness at the very end - what was that? It was unsettling. He had a feeling she did not want to be pitied. Did she think anyone who felt pity for her was misguided because it was unwarranted? Had she developed the false cheeriness to deal with the devastation she caused, a coping behavior for past transgressions? Sister Marie Celeste was a study in contradictions.
Charlie would find out years later that Sister Marie Celeste had only told him part of the story.
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CHAPTER V
Cindy and Charlie were married at the La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes on March 21, 1979. Curtis served as best man and Molly was the ring bearer. The night of the wedding was chilly, so everyone came in from the grounds to warm up. As they gathered, Chris read what he said was an old Irish poem, although Colleen suspected he had written it. It was titled ‘The First Fight.’
“We start on this earth all by ourselves
We’re born to this planet like sweet little elves.
The loving magic we thought was part of the trip
Turns out to be small or doesn’t exist.
But when we find the love of our lives
The magic comes back and it’s a wonderful ride.
If sometimes you’re terse and start a fight
This short Irish verse will set all things right.
From the day I first saw you I knew in my heart
You’re the love of my life and we’re never to part.
When I say things that hurt ‘cause I’m hurting inside
Just remember I’ll love you to the day that I die.’
So let’s be together in love’s sweet embrace
Let’s give up the arguin’ and make a grand day.
‘Cause when we’re tired and all has turned gray
We can find our youth when we sing this refrain.
From the day I first saw you I knew in my heart
You’re the love of my life and we’re never to part.
When I say things that hurt ‘cause I’m hurtin’ inside
Just remember I’ll love you to the day that I die.’
Charlie was touched, Cindy sobbed with her bridesmaids, all of whom were intoxicated, and Chris was proud of the emotional reaction to his poem. Colleen was reminded of the Irish weddings and wakes of her family: there is much drinking, somebody sings ‘Danny Boy’ and everyone starts crying. It made her smile.
Rusty, Ronnie, Carlos, and Gaston were the groomsmen. Darla was pregnant with Rusty’s baby even though they were not married, because Darla thought marriage was bad luck. Curtis had married Claudia, a black girl who was raised behind the gates in Rolling Hills, an exclusive township south of Manhattan Beach. Gaston opened the most successful restaurant in Manhattan Beach, Paris Cafe. He also taught French at Manhattan Beach High School and was a part time philosophy professor at El Camino Junior College. He was married with two children. Carlos, who worked as a deputy sheriff with Los Angeles County, had married Gloria from East L.A. Ronnie, already divorced with one daughter, ran his former father-in-law’s carpet business with his Korean-American brother-in-law, Frank.
The guys met at Dockweiler Beach once a month. Calling themselves Knights of the Fire Ring, they discussed politics, philosophy, marriage, sports, or any topic that someone brought up. For fun, they took personal shots at each other. The wisecracks were aimed at a person’s political leanings, family situation, or business. The cleverer the ripostes the better.
This night Ronnie said, “What would they say…150 years ago, that would be the year 1833, if they were here now?”
Carlos said, “You walk your dogs on a leash?”
Gaston added, “You pick up your dog’s shit?” That got a round of high fives.
Ronnie was in a sour mood. He said, “Divorce is acceptable? You know my ex is dating again,” Ronnie said. “She’s dating another woman. A woman! She says in fifteen to twenty years gays will marry. I’ll bet ten dollars if gay marriage ever happens then anything goes.”
“What’s ‘anything’?” Charlie asks.
“Sibling marry. If you use their logic that one should be able to marry whomever one loves, why not siblings?” Ronnie answered his own question. “Their argument will be they were raised together, they share the same values, like the same movies, cheese, wine, yada, yada. Then another group of polygamists living in a commune will say, ‘It’s legal for us to live together, but if we want to marry, it’s illegal.’ Then some hillbilly will talk about his old dog, Blue.”
Curtis said, “Charlie’s relatives in Oklahoma have been married to their dogs for generations.” Everyone laughed, including Charlie, who flipped off Curtis.
“Based on results, the institution of marriage has a fifty percent failure rate,” Gaston said. “Think about anything else that would fail fifty percent of the time. If fifty percent of planes fell out of the sky, nobody would fly.”
“Where are you going with this?” Charlie asked.
“A hundred and fifty years ago, women needed men to provide food, father children, and protect the family. Men needed women for childbearing and they needed kids to help them survive, especially in old age. They weren’t contemplating whether or not they had a happy marriage, they were happy just to be alive. What do you think was the biggest happening of the twentieth century that affected marriage?” Gaston asked.
“Can you narrow it down, Professor?” Charlie said.
Gaston said, “Biggest invention?”
Ronnie said fake tits.
“It was the Pill; birth control,” Gaston said. “For the first time in the history of mankind, women were no longer held hostage by pregnancy, which meant they controlled their future. The Pill let women have careers, family, or join the circus.”
Charlie asked, “Isn’t that a good thing?” They all knew when Gaston spoke they were going to learn something, even if he was long-winded.
Gaston answered, “I think it’s a good thing. In the long run it marks the transfer of power from men to women, and it will alter roles and identities. I don’t think we understood up ‘til now how much our roles were defined by biology. The Pill also elevated sexual satisfaction to an integral value in relationships and the fulfillment of someone�
�s needs, albeit their pleasure needs. Women are going to find out what guys have known for centuries: work sucks and no matter how good-looking your partner is, you get tired of fucking them.”
That brought a laugh to the fire ring.
“Also, it alters the roles of children,” Gaston said. “A hundred and fifty years ago, children became assets. Now, children are joyful burdens throughout life. They aren’t really needed to help family hunt, gather or grow food. There’s a disconnect between parents and children, probably like the disconnect we had with our parents. Parents used to be the teachers of their children.”
Ronnie added, “When was the last time any of us actually taught our kids something or our fathers taught us something?”
Charlie said, “My old man taught me how to drive.”
“Our kids don’t see us work and we hardly interact with them. When you work alongside your dad and see him sweat, that’s a bonding experience. Before you fucking cholos,” Ronnie was chiding Carlos, “took over yard work, my dad was a gardener and I worked with him. I gained a lot of respect for my old man doing that.”
Carlos could not let “cholos” pass without commenting, “We cholos beat out you Jap fucks because we deliver a better product at a reduced cost. We’re Wal-Mart, ‘Always low prices.’”
“It’s the end of five hundred thousand years of tribe,” Curtis said. “It’s been happening in the American black population for a long time. The majority of black births are to single mothers. Slave families were broken up and welfare does the same thing. You know my brother, Paul, the LAPD cop, thinks the reason for gang membership is kids want to be part of a family. Gaston, this is the one point where you’re off the mark. Children born in a welfare culture are a financial asset.”
“Point taken,” Gaston said.
“What are we going to do, Swami,” Ronnie directed at Charlie.
“Honestly, it depresses the hell out of me. My old man said all the studies show that kids living with both parents do better in all aspects of life,” Charlie said as he looked over at Ronnie to see how he was.
“I already brought it up to my lesbian ex,” Ronnie said.
“The problem is kids don’t get a vote in divorce,” Carlos said.
“However, Knights of The Fire Ring, there is hope on the horizon and that hope is women,” Gaston said.
“Fucking kill me now,” Ronnie said.
“With the ascent of women to power, they’ll be the CEOs in large corporations, and the majority in Congress and they’ll bring back marriage and make it work.” Gaston said.
“Really?” Said Curtis. “Why would they go back to marriage?”
“Two simple reasons: first, they’ll find out it’s too hard to raise kids alone, but the bigger reason is biological identity wins out,” Gaston said. “Children from single parent homes, broken homes, and adoptive children all have two things in common: identity and self-acceptance issues,” Gaston said.
“Women will see the folly of believing romance and muse love are the most important values in finding long-term partners. Once women with power identify the markers to satisfying, long-term relationships, the single parent trend will reverse,” Gaston said. “Using love as the principle value in selecting a lifelong mate is like using love of movement as the principle guide when buying a car.”
“Professor, how do we know you’re not just full of shit about the Rise of Woman?” Ronnie asks.
“All you have to do is check the trend in college graduation. I saw a remarkable stat: men in 1970 were 57% of college graduates, but in 1980, men were 47% of grads. That’s a ten percent drop for men in just ten years.”
“Or a ten percent increase in women…” Charlie said.
“Touché,” Gaston said. “If you’re interested in saving the traditional family, it’s going to be women. You’ll like this Ronnie: women will work and men will raise the kids.”
Carlos said, “I gotta go, but before I do, just remember there are three kinds of people in the world: those that can count and those who can’t.”
They gathered up their beach chairs and poured their beers into the fire. Curtis came over to Carlos.
He said, “Is Ronnie OK? I’m kind of worried about him.”
“I’m going to have him stay with me this weekend. The divorce has fucked him up. How’s Rusty?” Carlos said.
Charlie horizontally twisted his hand back and forth to suggest Rusty was the same.
While Rusty functioned near normal, his mind was a mystery to everyone. Once he left the VA, he did not want to go back for therapy. He tried individual therapy, but the hour would pass with the therapist just sitting across from Rusty saying nothing. He went to some group therapy, but again said nothing. Darla would go with him and encourage him to talk, but he still said nothing. The extent of his medication was smoking pot daily.
When he slept alongside Darla, he would mutter, twitch, and moan. Frequently he would wake up and Darla would watch him as he sat on the side of the bed with his head in his hands. He would shiver as though cold, then gradually calm down. He paced slowly in the bedroom and often would go out to the work area and start shaping a board. Finally, morning would come and Darla would go into the room and rub his back.
In April of 1980, after their daughter, Tobie, was born, Rusty got out of bed but did not wake Darla. He picked up the sleeping Tobie and walked into the surf shop. He sat down with her and began weeping. It brought Darla out of her sleep and she walked into the surf shop and sat next to Rusty. She leaned her head into his and he spoke through his tears.
“I don’t want anything to ever happen to her. You have to promise me.”
“I promise, Rusty, nothing will ever happen to Tobie. I will take very good care of her,” Darla said. She wondered if Rusty was ever going to be okay. He only spoke in short sentences and there was no discussion about anything. If he wanted to eat, he would say he was hungry. If he was going to sleep, he announced he was going to bed. He was predictable in every way but one. Every now and then he would leave the work area and go into the front of the store to sit and watch people. Darla would stand at the register and watch him. Periodically he would stand when he would see a young girl in her teens with dark hair. He would keep looking at the girl until he could see her face. If she appeared Asian, he would approach her and start apologizing unless Darla or one of the other store employees could intercept him.
Darla did not know what he contemplated the rest of the time. Charlie knew what supplies to order for him so Rusty’s only task was to make surfboards. Darla watched him shape the board, lay on the resin, and paint the eyes. When he finished the eyes, Rusty would sit in a corner with Vietnamese magazines in his lap, cutting out pictures of girls and adding them to the growing gallery of faces now spread over two walls,
“Okay, tell me if this sounds nuts?” Darla asked Charlie while they were standing together affixing prices to clothing items. “When I am with Rusty and we’re having sex, I’ve noticed something.”
“Doesn’t sound nuts so far,” Charlie said.
“I think Rusty thinks of me as a surfboard, and when we’re together he’s shaping me to a climax. He looks forward to the finish so he can spoon with me,” Darla said.
Charlie smiled and asked, “When he’s done, does he pour resin on you and stand you in the corner?”
“Yeah, then he paints a girl’s eyes on my ass,” she said sarcastically. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Sounds plausible,” Charlie said. “My dad thinks he had a mild stroke onboard the Enterprise and part of him is just gone. He still remembers some fundamental stuff, but there are parts of him that are confused, fried, parked away in some part of his brain that nobody’s getting to. I’ve noticed that he cycles through the need to find an Asian girl to apologize to. How is he with Tobie?”
“He stares at her and then she will touch his face and he becomes completely enchanted. I want to have another child with him, but he’s like my oldest kid. I kind o
f have my hands full just with him,” Darla said.
“Since you’re bringing up children, Cindy is pregnant,” Charlie said.
“Wow, who’s the dad?” Darla joked.
“Funny. I’m pretty jazzed about being a father and Cindy’s ecstatic. She’s due in April,” Charlie said with a look of apprehension.
“Why the face?”
“You know? Me and events in April are…”
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Charlie was surprised when Cindy said she wanted to have the baby at home. He had heard about home births with midwives, but was not as comfortable with the idea as she and his father seemed to be. His dad reminded him that women had been having babies at home for millennia and in the Netherlands over 85% of the births were at home with a lower infant mortality rate than in the U.S. He also told Charlie that if anything should go wrong, they were not far from the local hospital. He suggested that Charlie not to tell his mother that Chris was notified first about Cindy’s pregnancy.
Cindy found a midwife who had just received her nursing degree from UCLA and had assisted in a few home births. Even though she appeared young, she was conscientious and serious. She told them what supplies they would need and what to expect. They saw several videos about home births and spoke with other couples who had gone through it. Having never attended a birth, Charlie deferred to Cindy on just about everything. She kidded him that it was not as big a deal for the mother as it was the father.
The midwife arrived shortly after Cindy’s water broke. Charlie notified his parents that Cindy was starting labor and asked if they could come pick up Molly.
Cindy was in labor for twenty hours. Charlie thought it was long considering that she had already had a baby. The midwife said the reason was the baby was breach, instead of the usual head first position, and she was trying to turn the child inside of Cindy.
When they got into the twenty-fifth hour, Charlie suggested they go to the hospital. The midwife deferred to Cindy, who while exhausted, turned down the idea. They were in the bathroom at the time. The baby stayed in the opening for another hour and then was born. When the baby came out something else was discharged that Charlie could not see. The midwife seemed to press her hand to her other arm repetitively. Charlie did not understand why she was doing that, but she had her back to him and he could not see what was actually going on.