by Jessie Close
What I cling to are my memories. I remember sitting with James and Roger outside the Taj Mahal on that perfect night. I remember how the moon looked above the gleaming white building. I remember the hot, sticky air. I remember lying next to James in the Delhi hospital when he was suffering. I remember James and Roger and me smoking hashish and laughing. I remember how James smelled after we made love and clung to each other. And some nights, even now, after all these years, I cry because of what was and what might have been.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I was alone again.
I was twenty-four years old, back living with my parents in Big Piney, getting my second divorce. I had no job, no friends, and no college. I felt like a total fuckup.
I had to stay in Wyoming at least three months to get a divorce, so Mom and Dad spoke to their friends Gordon and Margaret Mickelson, who had sold them their mountain retreat and the land for their Big Piney home, and they agreed to let me live in the “honeymoon cabin” on their ranch while I waited for my divorce to become final.
Although my parents had wanted to “get off the world for a while” after leaving Africa, my father had soon grown tired of being isolated at their mountain lodge. While running an errand one day, he stopped at the Big Piney medical clinic to introduce himself. The nurse practitioner in charge mentioned that she could use a hand, since there was no doctor in town. Before either of them realized it, Dad was working full-time as Big Piney’s new physician. Everyone in town soon loved him, referring to him simply as Doc, and he and Mom began spending nearly all their time in their Big Piney house.
Watching my father fulfill his role as the local doctor reminded me again of what a conundrum he was—how could he be such a personable and caring physician yet so uncommunicative and reserved with his wife and children. He never showed much interest in anything his children did unless he thought he could benefit from it. Glenn was beginning to make a name for herself, and when she did become a Hollywood star my father favored her over the rest of us, totally embarrassing Glenn. She was painfully aware that he loved the glow of her spotlight. Tina, Sandy, and I understood our father’s coolness, yet even as adults we kept trying in our own ways to win his favor and the same love that he showered on Glenn. My sister Tina and her two children had also moved to Big Piney when I fled there in 1977 after leaving James. Tina’s ten-year marriage had ended in a divorce, and I’m convinced now that we both moved closer to our parents because we wanted more time with them as well as their approval. It might be difficult for others to understand, but when you are ripped away from your parents as children, as all of us were by MRA, a part of you feels incomplete and in need of repair. Tina especially wanted her children to have the chance to be close to their grandparents. Sparked by our divorces, our Big Piney reunion enabled Tina and me to grow closer to our mother, but our father remained as self-absorbed and aloof as he had always been. Our best efforts to please him went unappreciated. Tina had become an accomplished artist, but he dismissed her talent and hard work as a hobby. The two of us were aliens to him—mere distractions that took him away from whatever his newest adventure was. Sandy felt as unsettled about our father as we did. He once refused to speak to Dad for more than a year. Dad also mentioned to me that he’d gone to see a family therapist for advice after Glennie lambasted him in a critical letter. She had taken two days to write the letter, and before she sent it she called us—her siblings and Mom—to let us know what was in the letter. It was her criticism that got him to the therapist—not my brother’s refusal to speak to him or anything that Tina and I said.
Despite my efforts and those of my siblings, I don’t believe any of us ever got really close to my father. We admired him, and I loved him dearly, but when I was with him, I always felt as if he would rather have been somewhere else. The moments of closeness that we did share were always fueled by alcohol; we would have rousing debates and be very pleased with each other.
Why was my father so distant? That question still haunts me. What is easier to understand is my yearning for his approval and attention and the pain that I felt when I received neither.
Heeding my parents’ advice, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and decided that a job would help me move forward with my life. I got one easily at the US Forest Service office, where my main assignment was filling out employee time sheets and typing letters for the rangers, hardly an intellectual challenge. I also kept records about the daily temperatures registered at our weather station. I’ll never forget seeing the temperature read minus seventy degrees one morning. I’m not sure if that made the record books, but I saw the thermometer with my own eyes. The head ranger picked up a potted plant sitting next to a door, and when he dropped the plant it shattered like glass. We had fun throwing water up into the air and watching it fall as ice. But breathing outside was a chore, and we didn’t go outside without a scarf wound around our mouths and noses.
When the temperature climbed up to minus twenty degrees, we shed our parkas and walked down the snow-covered streets wearing only down vests, as if a heat wave had struck town. In addition to the puffy coat my mother loaned me, I began wearing cowboy boots, the footwear of choice in Big Piney.
One afternoon, a male coworker asked, “Where’s the flood?”
He was poking fun at me because the cuffs of my denim jeans were so short that he could see my ankles. Pants of the proper length fell on the middle of your foot in front and on the floor behind your heel in back. I immediately went out and bought longer pants.
I soon found myself enjoying the residents of this rugged terrain. They looked after each other and were hardworking people who spoke their minds and didn’t put much stock in pretenses. Even though I missed the hubbub of a major city, I found this region of our country reinvigorating, especially after the East Coast snobbery and one-upmanship that I had seen during my brief stint as a Washington journalist.
After about six weeks inside the Mickelsons’ honeymoon cabin, I moved into a ratty trailer that sat on concrete blocks under high-voltage power lines that I could hear buzzing above me. The place was in shambles, but the rent was right for my budget. When darkness fell, I would curl up on my couch with a book and a dark beer and pretend my beat-up trailer was a railroad car en route to some exotic foreign location; I chose Bali more often than not. Each morning when I woke, I would still be under those crackling electrical lines on Big Piney’s windswept plains. During very hot days I felt like I was living in a metal bread box, but small joys can go a long way: I heard bird feet going click-click-click on the metal roof above me, and that gentle sound would always put a smile on my face.
I was invited to a branding. I wore my new roughout leather cowboy boots and brought matching gloves. This wasn’t a spectator sport, but because I’d never helped before, I was given a job that took no skill. Along with a partner I helped pin a calf to the ground for the gruesome job of castration and branding. I got to hold down the calf’s butt, and my jeans were soon soaked with scours (the loose poop from a calf). Blood soon soaked into one of my new boots, and the smoke from the branding iron twirled around my head. An old cowboy came up to me as I was struggling to hold a calf and asked, pointing to my scours-soaked pant leg: “Young lady, what do they call that in New York?”
I said, “Shit!” and he clapped me on the shoulder and told me, “You’re all right!”
I no longer missed city life. I liked these people, and I liked visiting Mom each day. I realized that I didn’t have to leave here; I could make a life for myself in Wyoming, with its endless blue sky and hardworking people.
Tina invited me over one Friday night and introduced me to two of her friends, Betsey Greenwood and Corliss Poindexter, who were cousins and had grown up in Big Piney. They knew how to play bridge, and we didn’t, but after a short lesson and a lot of wine and laughing, we mastered the game—or at least thought we had.
From the moment I met Betsey, we clicked—even though her family came from a completely different backgr
ound from mine. Betsey had been reared on a cattle ranch and had been riding horses and punching cows from the moment she’d been big enough to sit on a saddle. When she was a child, she would join her two sisters and brother every morning in the kitchen, where they would eat a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, and coffee with their parents. They would discuss whatever they needed to talk about that day and then do their chores before the kids went off to school in Big Piney. At dinnertime, the entire crew was back at that table again, finishing their sit-down meal as a family. To me, the Greenwoods represented the cohesive family that I wanted to emulate someday. Her mother was fast in the kitchen, churning out meals that satisfied her family. Her father was tall and possessed a booming voice. He would tease me by saying, “You stay away from my daughter! You’re a bad influence!” But he had a twinkle in his eye and a crooked grin.
Betsey had recently earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Grinnell College in Iowa, and she hadn’t intended on returning to Big Piney. But an accident had forced her to undergo knee surgery, and she’d come home to recuperate with a large cast on her leg. Despite her bum leg, we began “running the ridges,” the term young people in Big Piney used for barhopping along Highway 189, the two-lane road that cuts straight through the high desert, linking Big Piney to the rest of the world. One of our favorite hangouts became the aptly named Cowboy Bar in Pinedale, a popular jumping-off point for tourists heading into the Wind River Range.
Betsey and I made an odd couple. She stands six feet without shoes compared to my five three and three-quarters. We would tell the men who would try to lure us with free drinks to leave us alone. We had such a good time talking that we didn’t want to be bothered, although we would sometimes shoot eight-ball pool. Betsey was an excellent player and often left our macho challengers red-faced because they’d been defeated by women. I would hustle players for her, and we kept the table going, small winnings ending up in Betsey’s pocket or on the bar for more drinks.
Betsey and I pushed the limits. She owned an Audi Fox at a time when German cars were still rarely seen in Wyoming, and she enjoyed driving it hard through the hairpin turns along switchbacks in the mountains. One afternoon we picked up two hitchhikers. Both of us had been drinking. Betsey decided to see how fast she could drive up to Fremont Lake in the Wind River Range. The hikers had very large backpacks that stuck out from the trunk of the Audi. They kept craning their necks to see if their backpacks were still with us, their faces turning paler and paler with each speeding turn.
We thought it was hilarious as we clutched our booze in Styrofoam cups while the Audi sent roadside gravel spinning behind it. Both hitchhikers bolted from her car when we stopped, thankful to be alive.
I was just as dangerous a driver. There’s a section of road outside Big Piney where the highway rolls up then down then up again. If I pressed the gas pedal down hard enough while I was speeding downhill, my car would gain enough speed for the wheels to seem to lift off the asphalt when I reached the crest of the hill. I felt as though I were flying, with only the sky and Wind River Range appearing in my windshield. It was as if I were rocketing toward them, free of earth and all my problems. More than once, I would do a U-turn and go back for another exhilarating ride.
On Friday nights, Betsey and I would head to Pinedale, a wide spot in the road, to begin our adventures at the Stockman’s Bar, where we would down a couple of Bloody Marys before continuing to our Cowboy Bar hangout. I truly enjoyed the taste of liquor. I also liked how it made me feel. I’d drink vodka until I got tired of having a nasty hangover the next morning. Then I’d switch to gin, and when it began getting to me in the mornings, I’d move on to rum. In addition to getting drunk, I was smoking pot and occasionally dropping acid.
I’d been in Big Piney for less than two months when Tina stopped to see me at work.
“Have you seen the new man in town?” she asked, smiling.
“No. Who are you talking about?”
“He works at the Soil Conservation Service office and is easily the most handsome man in town,” she announced. “He’s too young for me, or I’d go after him!”
I laughed, but I was curious. I wanted to see what she was talking about, so I decided to drop by his office on the pretense that I was interested in getting a job there. It was December of 1977 and freezing, so I put on my bulky subzero-temperature-rated parka and got in my car.
Tina was right. Tom Pick was handsome, with an athletic build, very dark hair, and blue eyes. He didn’t have any job openings, but during our brief exchange I learned that he was twenty-eight years old and had moved to Big Piney from Colorado because he loved to hunt, fish, camp, and ski.
By chance, my father actually needed to ask Tom several questions about the soil where their new house was being built, and Dad invited him to dinner, which was the neighborly thing to do in Big Piney when a new resident arrived in town. My parents told me to come, too, and I caught Tom eyeing my figure, no longer buried inside a balloon-shaped parka.
We began dating just before Christmas. It had been only eight weeks since I’d left Texas, yet I was already moving into another relationship.
My parents thought Tom, unlike James, was wonderful. He was quiet, responsible, polite, and thoughtful. He clearly was not the sort of man who would speed around hairpin turns to scare hitchhikers or launch his car over the crest of a hill.
After dinner, I invited Tom to go out drinking with Betsey and me. Instead of driving to Pinedale, we visited a Big Piney bar called the Water Hole #3, and Betsey and I were thrilled when Tom proved to be an excellent pool player. That night, I hustled players to challenge them and we walked away with a pocket full of winnings.
Three months later, Tom and I decided to live together. My contribution to Tom’s apartment on Main Street was a ficus tree and my new dog, whom I’d named Gucci. I’d gone to a local landfill searching for an ironing board because I couldn’t find one in town and had found a Weimaraner lying on one. I took both the board and Weimaraner home and dubbed her Gucci because her fur looked like faux suede. Years later, I would see a photo hanging in a swanky hotel in Santa Monica taken by William Wegman of a Weimaraner lying on top of an ironing board—just as my Gucci had been!
Tom accepted me, Gucci, and my ficus tree. I felt safe with Tom. He certainly was not abusive, as Brad had been, and he didn’t have the emotional baggage from Vietnam that had haunted James, although Tom had served in the army as a dog trainer in Germany. He was a hard worker who made a good salary with benefits.
When a small house came up for sale two houses down from Tina in Big Piney, I snatched it up, and Tom and I moved into it. We discovered that our new house, which was long and narrow, originally had been a chicken house. Tina’s children would come over and play in our huge yard. I remember watching them one day and feeling very much at peace.
Still, deep inside of me there remained a yearning. One night, Betsey and I took off, and after hitting our usual haunts I dropped acid. When I arrived at the house at 5:30 a.m. the next day, Tom had locked the door. I didn’t have my key, so I pounded on the door, but he refused to answer. I had to sleep in the car. I was furious, but when Tom came outside I felt too guilty and physically wiped out to make a scene.
A short time later, I awoke one morning feeling panicked. I had no idea why. The day before it had been comforting living with Tom two houses down from Tina. This morning, it felt suffocating. What in the hell was I doing? What of Greenwich, New York, Washington, DC? I’d been a world traveler, but now I was frequenting cowboy bars and drinking hard.
I decided to drive to Greenwich, rent a flat, work on improving my French—which I’d spoken in Zaire—become a licensed jet pilot, and find a job ferrying wealthy French businessmen from Paris to New York, where I would help them negotiate multimillion-dollar business contracts.
It made perfect sense to me, so much so that I drove over to tell my mother about my new, exciting plans.
She listene
d carefully and then said in a gentle voice, “Jess, I don’t think you can do that, really, can you?”
“Of course I can,” I declared.
I drove back to our house, loaded my ficus tree and Gucci into my car, and started driving east after Tom left for work.
I was so excited about getting started that I only stopped to take potty breaks and for gas, and by the time I reached Greenwich I was confident that I had just made the smartest decision of my life. It didn’t take me long to find a boardinghouse, and after hurriedly unpacking I started my search for a French instructor.
As I was checking the Yellow Pages, the feelings of exuberance and grandiosity inside me dissipated. A voice in my head asked: What are you thinking? You’ve really screwed things up this time!
Moving to the bed in my rented room, I curled up in a fetal position, haunted by feelings of doubt and fear. The next several days became a fog as I slipped between reality and fantasy, between feelings of invincibility and crippling vulnerability. At some point, I visited Sandy, who was staying in a Greenwich apartment, and I also remember talking to Glennie in Manhattan on the phone. She offered to call a friend in the radio business to see if he could help me get a job as an engineer. After our chat, I was certain that moving east had been a brilliant move. But moments later, I was crying and wanted desperately to flee back to Wyoming and Tom. My throat all but closed up. I could hardly speak.
The good days and bad days that I had been having became compressed into good hours and bad hours. I couldn’t keep up with my own thoughts or moods. Anxious one moment, buoyed the next, I felt as if I were going to burst. Mustering my courage, I used the pay phone in the rooming house to call Tom. My heart was racing with each ring, and when he finally answered, I blurted out in my hoarse, hysterical voice, “Tom, will you take me back?”