And so we met in Doctor Kennedy’s office. It was a Monday morning. I explained the insanity surrounding a small militia of early twentieth-century carnies who drove Volkswagen Buses, the ghost town that was Belmont Shore, and the name the murderous gang gave themselves, the Lost Boys. I included every detail that I could, including the part where they tried to clip my nuts, leaving out only the murder of the homeless man. I’d never spoken of him before except to Don in Bakersfield and now Michael and Susan. I didn’t want to believe that this man had the ability to follow me everywhere, and if not, that I was that far-gone. If I spoke of him, I was certain of it, they’d probably prescribe me some pills. And since Michael could back me up, it couldn’t have been a dream.
I was half expecting Barbara to accuse me of being mentally unsound. She didn’t. My wife on the other hand, the way she stared at me as I gave my account of the missing twenty-four hours, she clearly found no grounds for credibility despite the fact that I could give a detailed description of the destruction wreaked on her apartment (from her end, logic dictated that the destruction must have happened in the blink of an eye), and I couldn’t blame her.
After Elise explained her side of the story, how she’d called my cell at least half a dozen times, how she contacted Susan and then my mother but nobody could discover mine or Michael’s whereabouts, she wept the rest of the night through. My decision was clear. I had deserted her. And then her landlords son, the young college boy who lived in the main house, knocked on her door the following afternoon. She invited him in.
All I wanted to know was why she did it, why she cheated on me again, and so soon. She opened her mouth to answer my question, but what she said was so unexpected that it pulled the carpet right out from under me, again.
2
Two nights before the Fourth of July (it was a Wednesday), Elise had rented a hotel room for the night. She was alone, no man to accompany her, and aroused. The most frustrating facet about these sexual moods, Elise explained to Doctor Barbara and I from her office couch, were the number of productive hours she’d wasted building herself up to the perfect orgasm when she could be doing other things, like earning perfect grades in her doctorate program, finally getting around to writing a play or reading the Bible cover to cover. But these days sex was all that she could think about, and it was consuming her. How seemingly out of control it had all become, friendless hours prompting the toxic mixing of pheromone-induced adrenaline and sexual fantasy with the hope that somehow, in the end of it all, each articulated vision could, if fleshed to its purpose, medicate her burdensome weight of sensual feelings that overcame her when she was alone.
Shutting porn off (with its endless ensemble of bad actors), Elise pitched the remote on the bed where her lingerie was neatly laid out. And now that she was on the subject of sexual fantasies (and its weighted burden on her life), she liked how her breasts felt under my button-up shirt, which she’d stolen from my closet. She liked slipping her bra off, how her breasts would joggle loose and free at her slightest movement. Or the way the button-up shirt hung like a nightgown just below her butt. Red-laced panties dropped to her ankles. If she wanted she could stretch her arms up and yawn just enough to expose it all. She considered reaching for something in public, like a late night snack on a high shelf, with the upside-down heart of her two bubble cheeks peeking out from the fabric.
She practiced her thought in the bathroom mirror, imagining a stranger catching sight of them. And then it occurred to her, the vending machine at the end of her hall. Suppose she built up the courage to walk the gauntlet of hotel room doors, tag it, and return hence without getting caught.
She peered through the peephole with a full view of the hall. There was nobody out there. Her insides quivered at the very thought that somebody might find her walking for the vending machine dressed only in a man’s button-up shirt. How she hoped not to be seen, but the chance of an encounter with another unsuspecting pedestrian surged from head-to-toe. She’d settle for a woman, but she hoped for a man.
She couldn’t believe it. She actually opened the door a crack, peeled half of her body out, making sure to hide shy legs just in case anyone was watching, saw no one standing at the helm, and sprinted down the hall at the quivering pace of a humming bird.
It was so far away. The door to her room clicked shut behind her. What if she was locked out? No, she had a card key in her hand. She considered turning back. No! She’d gone this far. She could make it, only five more hotel room doors to go and the soda bottles would finally be in reach.
Her actual tapping of the vending machine and the sprint back for her room was somewhat of a blur. She thought she could hear the elevator followed by two scrolling doors, what could be women’s voices, and after swiping the key three separate times before the door finally opened, she awarded herself with the thrilling knowledge that she’d completed her task and yet remained unseen. Quivering, she sighed with relief.
But now that she was safe in her room, leaning against the door and gasping for breath, the adrenaline had proven to be as much as she’d hoped for yet somehow unnoticed…. and empty. The thought occurred to her that by fluke incident someone might have seen her through a peephole as she passed. She palpitated with erotic fear. She unbuttoned the shirt, letting it drop to her ankles. The air conditioning was bitter on her flesh. Goose bumps scuttled up and down her arms.
She pressed an eye to the peephole and returned a watchful, even hopeful glance down the hall, but nobody was there. She liked the hazardous thought that someone might open a door, perhaps a married man going for a soda or a cookie in the vending machine or to retrieve something from his car. Just think of the dilemma when he returned to his wife or his girlfriend in the room. Would he tell her what excited him? What if he was single? Would he fantasize about her body in bed? But more importantly, would they pass each other in the hotel lobby come morning with all of her clothes on?
The very thought thrilled her as she wrapped her fingers around the door knob, trembling from her naked neck all the way down to her naked toes, peered through the peephole one last time, and opened the door.
“I don’t know how to say it, but sex,” Elise told us from the couch, “is all that I can think about.”
I gulped.
“Yeah, I totally didn’t see this one coming,” Doctor Barbara said, coolly and with an air of professionalism, from her therapist’s chair. “And it’s a game changer.”
3
At The Guide Dog it was evident that something troubling, perhaps even painful, was on my mind. Susan slid her hand down the bar, squeezed four of my fingers, and asked if everything was all right.
“Yeah, spill the beans,” Michael said from behind the bar.
“Only a few nights ago I was attacked by an army of clowns, the Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter, thus fulfilling that passage in Revelation,” I said.
Michael shuddered. “I hate clowns, the way they remain unseen in the thin masking of make-up… and right in front of you. Osama Bin Laden could dress up as a clown, take a passport photo, fly to America, and hide in plain sight.”
“Really Michael.” Susan frowned at him. “A clown with a passport photo? I’m sure that would go over swell in customs.” She turned back to me. “Sweetie, there’s something more. If you need to talk to someone with a woman’s point of view, I’m here for you.”
“Perfect, because nobody knows the woman’s point of view better than me.” Michael grinned. “Or the man’s point of view. That’s two birds with one stone.”
Susan dropped her head into her fingers, shook her head and sighed.
“I’ve been thinking a lot over the last day or two about….” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I swished down Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
“It’s OK, sweetie. You can say it to me and the baboon bartender here.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about divorce.”
Wow, Susan silently pronounced with her mouth. She kept her hand on my fingers, though
I suspected she wanted to slide them away.
“That’s heavy, buddy.” Michael left to deliver a couple of mixed drinks to actual paying customers.
“I can’t even begin to imagine the pain you must be going through,” Susan said.
“Frankly, and I say this with all reverence, the church has its neck in the sand on the issue,” Michael said the moment he returned. “And I say this because I know the kind of guilt you must feel. They typically address the issue by stating that God hates divorce. But they neglect to tell you that God hates sin period. Churchgoers want to feel secure, that everything’s fine and dandy because they break bread and sing songs about loving each other. So anything that statistically goes against this is clearly out.”
“Yes, I fully agree with the baboon on this one,” Susan said.
“Thanks baby, light of my life,” Michael grinned. “If there’s anything I’m about, it’s being sensitive to the woman’s point of view.” Susan shook her head again and sighed. He left to deliver another mixed drink at the other end of the bar. I suspected they were paying customers too.
“What they often fail to realize, and I too say this with all reverence as an Evangelical churchgoer,” Susan said when he was gone, “is that divorce is often the result of so much immoral behavior and selfish gluttony that it becomes intolerable to carry on within healthy boundaries. I’ve found that they often want to erase the resulting symptoms, the fever, but certainly not the disease. They don’t care so much about the physical, psychological, and sexual abuse that leads up to it, so long as the headache is quieted.”
“On the other hand,” Michael returned. “Divorce, the way a lover is severed from our flesh, is a metaphorical example of God damning someone to Hell. It’s not something to be taken lightly.” He pressed the palms of both hands on the bar. “Joshua, I know Elise has a lot of baggage right now. Adultery is perhaps the greatest abuse one can thrust on their spouse, and I won’t think lowly of you if you walk away from this. But consider Christ and the church. If Jesus were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery, and desertion, he’d no doubt be justified in his decision. And yet he doesn’t just put up with our miserable inexhaustible self-centeredness, he throws his own reputation on the burner to seek us out, every last one of us, and embrace us in the mire.”
“I agree with the theological bartender here,” Susan sniffed, as if to hide the threat of an impending tear.
“That’s because it’s my duty,” Michael held his chin high, “as one of America’s bartenders, to not only know my theology, but the woman’s point of view.”
Susan’s face held further conversation with her fingers.
4
Michael and I were sprawled out on the floor watching the 1938 classic The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn on my flat screen television, backs slumped against the leather couch, and Aristotle was seated between us. We actually had the volume turned all the way off in favor of listening to the eerie music of Bernard Hermann in its place, and the conversation was good. Except it took an unexpected turn.
“Susan’s been unfaithful.” Michael said.
“How?” I said. “When?” His sudden choice of words hit me like a pillowcase of marbles. After my night in New York, I really hadn’t considered the possibility.
“I’m pretty sure we both know how it works, but when doesn’t matter. The point is it happened. It’s in the past now, and we’ve both moved on in our relationship…together.”
“Was it someone from New York?”
Michael said it was.
“Do you trust her?”
“What’s left of a relationship if you can’t have trust?”
I didn’t respond. Errol Flynn defiantly entered Nottingham with a slain deer draped over his shoulder. Bernard Hermann’s Vertigo suite, with its enigmatic swirling rhythms, sought to match the images on screen. I liked watching Flynn as he seated himself before the dining table of Prince John and the sheriff, leaning defiantly back in his chair. The world made sense. You had good. You had evil. You had men who were one or the other but never both.
“No,” he finally said.
“No?”
“To be truthful, I don’t trust her. I trust you though. That’s why I was more than thrilled to learn that you were staying in a room with her, whatever Susan’s reasons. I know you’d never let her come between us. And besides, I love Susan. And Susan loves me.”
Chaos silently erupted on the television screen. Errol Flynn was masterfully zinging a continual battery of arrows from his bow despite being trapped within the bowels of Nottingham Castle, piercing the armor of soldiers as Bernard Hermann merged into his Theremin infused Prelude from The Day the Earth Stood Still. It was hauntingly breathtaking.
“If I had to repeatedly go back in time knowing that she’d betray my trust again,” Michael continued, “I’d still choose Susan every time. How about you?”
“Elise and I?”
“I’m not talking about you and Betty Crocker.”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust her again, Michael.”
“I wouldn’t think any differently of you if you couldn’t.”
“I want her back, but not if she’s unwilling to give up her other man…or men.”
“Every lover needs their boundaries.”
“And I’ve sought her out.”
“I know you have.”
“And a time is coming,” I had difficult pulling it from my lips, “when I won’t be waiting around for her return.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
5
I’d had too much to drink. As soon as Penny Parker opened up the front door of her one room apartment she too was made aware of it. My eyes were dilated, my forehead perspired, and my speech was slurred.
“Joshua, I wasn’t expecting you.” Penny spoke in a mature and civilized manner, not at all the sexually starved aptitude that I was used to. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe alcohol had a reverse effect on Penny’s weirditude. I was disappointed to find a bulky Go Beach CSULB sweatshirt rather than her usual skintight cartoon t-shirts and the music of Lincoln Park, What I’ve Done, was playing in the background.
“You know that one time when you wanted to know if Leah touched me and how you’d…”
Penny interrupted me. “Do you have some photo cards for me, Joshua?”
“I was kind of hoping you’d be wearing that Elmo shirt.”
She leaned in. “Have you been drinking?” Her apartment wasn’t as lowly lit and she closely guarded her door without inviting me in, not at all typical Penny behavior. It was apparent by her posture that someone else had come over. I caught sight of a dark skinned gentleman of Indian or Pakistani descent, probably another CSULB student, standing in the back of her living room.
I patted down my pants. “I must have forgotten them at home.” Not that I’d ever intended to bring them. “You have company?”
“Yes, excuse my manners. This is Omar.” She opened the door wide enough that he could see me full on and wave from the back of the room. “We’ve been dating for a few days now.” She leaned in to whisper. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Penny, I’m very happy for you.” I stammered. I really was, even if my reaction to the news dictated otherwise.
“This is that photographer I was telling you about.” She turned to Omar. “He’s a real artist.” She faced me again. “Omar’s an aspiring photographer. I’ve shown him your work and he’s in awe of it.”
“Oh, I’ve been so looking forward to meeting with you. I have so many questions about photography and how it is that you do what you do.” Omar dashed forward, hand extended. It caught me by surprise. I reeled back, so much so that it actually startled him… and I almost fell off of Penny Parker’s porch.
Penny patted him on the chest. “Not now, Omar. He’s had a hectic traveling schedule. The jetlag is killer. He came all the way over here and forgot his cards, and he’s clearly not feeling well.”
>
“I see.” Omar frowned. He looked hurt by my rejection. I couldn’t blame him.
“Joshua, it’s a shame that your forgot your digital cards.” Penny’s tone wasn’t one of disappointment so much as understanding and compassion. It was clear she knew what I intended by my arrival, that it had nothing to do with photography and everything to do with living out her sexual obsessions. “I bet this unfortunate timing never happened to us in another life.”
“No.” I finally said. “I suspect it never did.”
6
Tossing in bed it occurred to me that there was so very little left for the taking here in Southern California. Sure, I’d always have Michael and Susan, but Susan was off half the time in New York City anyhow, and sometimes Michael followed. If I were to hitch the wagon and settle east to New England, we could carry on our relationship there. The open road, it was clear that’s where I belonged. It was lonely in a hotel, but not nearly so lonely as the empty lover’s bed. Alex sought to have sex on the road with anonymous strangers. What were the chances that he was lying at home in bed with his wife at that very moment? It wasn’t fair.
I thought about what the leader of the Lost Boys had told me in New Orleans and again in Elise’s apartment. The chivalrous rarely get pussy. When was the last time that I had sex…with a woman? Weeks? Months? I couldn’t recall at the moment. Elise had been the foundation by which my entire world spun. No matter where I went, she was the magnetic north on my compass. I still loved her more than words could say. That’s what made all of this, the thought of crumbling up the poem that was my life and heaving it into the trash, divorcing Elise, and finally moving on for another woman, so entirely painful. But I didn’t want to go through life facing constant betrayal, and worse, I didn’t want to spend it alone.
There were so many women to recall. Linda’s younger sister Erica was one of them. When I photographed Daniel and Linda’s wedding in Chicago a couple of months earlier, Erica was single. Young, petite, brunette hair, eyes I could swim in and breasts I’d patriotically drown in for my country. I’d been in the presence of many gorgeous women, but very few had captivated me like Erica did.
Wrong Flight Home (Wrong Flight Home, #1) Page 27