Looking for Mr. Goodbar

by Judith Rossner

  I love you so much, James. She kissed the receiver. I wish you were my brother. I wish Thomas were alive. Why did you have to die, Thomas? She stared at the receiver in astonishment, as though it were responsible for her suddenly thinking of Thomas.

  “You know that I love you, Theresa. And that I want to marry you.”

  Even now, James? I love you. I despise you for loving me even now.

  “I’m not quite certain . . . I feel that you’re fond of me . . .” He seemed to be waiting for her to interrupt. After a moment he went on. “I can’t tell . . . I’m not sure whether your reluctance to get married is a general reluctance . . . or you simply don’t want to commit yourself to me . . . or it’s that—a couple of times you gave me the impression that it was children that were the problem. That you didn’t want to have children. The thing I want to say about that . . . is that I can live with that, with not having children. I had sort of looked forward to having children but it’s not the deepest desire of my life. I can give it up, if it’s a question of having you or not having you.”

  James! I don’t know what to say! I don’t know what to do!

  “Theresa?”

  “I’m here, James. I’m listening.”

  “All right.” She could hear him draw in his breath. “What I can’t live with . . . I’m not going to apologize for this, it’s the way I am and it barely matters whether it’s archaic or foolish or anything else you might think of . . . I can’t live with knowing you’re with another man . . . men, whatever. I’m not even talking about being married, now, I mean even as we are. It has nothing to do with morality, immorality, anything. That phone conversation was like a knife in my heart.”

  And she had twisted it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “I was a shit.”

  “You were honest. I think I needed that. I was being somewhat unrealistic.”

  Silence.

  “In any event, this is what I’ve decided to do.” He laughed uncertainly. “I seem to be making a rather long speech . . . a summation to the jury, or some such thing, but there doesn’t seem to be any getting around it.”

  “I don’t mind it,” she said. I like hearing the sound of your voice. Later I’ll try to remember the words.

  “In a month, at the end of January, I’m going to take a vacation. My overdue vacation. I’m going to go to Ireland. I would like the trip to be . . . I would like you to marry me before then and come with me. I’m making it that far away to give you time to think. The reservations I’ve made are for two people but I told the agent I might be changing it to one. I will go one way or another. I . . .” But he had run out of things to say.

  Will we go to the New Year’s Party, James? Or will I be alone? New Year’s was a very significant time. On other nights you might be alone out of choice, but if you were alone then, it was because no one in the whole world wanted you.

  “When will I see you?”

  “I don’t want to see you, Theresa, until you make up your mind.”

  “Should I send back your ring in the meantime?” Silly. Petty. She hated that ring, it had started all the trouble.

  “It’s not my ring, Theresa. It’s yours.”

  “James? I just—” She stopped, confused, because she had been about to tell him she’d taken a new apartment when she realized it had been a dream. “I’ll call you, James. Happy New Year.”

  She went back to sleep. She was in the new apartment with James, but it was empty because there’d been some complication and she hadn’t been able to get her furniture out of the old one. In order to get her furniture there was something she had to find. The fact that this apartment was empty should have helped but it didn’t because there was no lights, it was terribly dark—and besides, she didn’t even know what she was looking for.

  She awakened ravenously hungry. It was almost nine o’clock. She walked over to the supermarket, bought herself a huge steak and some salad vegetables and a six-pack of beer. Also two fashion magazines, two movie magazines and the Village Voice. At home she turned on the TV while she made dinner, kept it on while she ate it. Two more days and three nights to get through before school began, before she could talk to Katherine, or Evelyn, or Rose. Before she could start to change her life. She was really feeling quite good, better than she’d felt in days. Hopeful. Almost high.

  The Voice fueled her high, for almost every page offered some possibility for changing your life in large or small ways. You could learn an instrument, meet people, stop smoking, go back to school, join a group, buy a farm, learn to belly dance, move your furniture cheaply (she must make a note), scan 5,000 photos to find your new mate, get an abortion, furnish your entire living room in Brazilian leather for six hundred dollars (she’d have to remember that one, too; if she had a separate bedroom in her new apartment that was where most of the furniture she had now would go), learn Tai Chi or Kung Fu, palmistry or urban conversational Spanish, or get in early on the grooviest pad in Kismet.

  She watched the Late Show and the Late Late Show, then fell asleep, her hand still on the Voice.

  On the morning of December 31st she called Katherine’s apartment on the off chance that one or both of them had come home early from Aspen and she could get some tranquilizers to get her through the day. A sleepy voice answered that they were expected the next day. The two days and two nights stretched before her, a vast tapestry of time which she couldn’t possibly fill.

  Don’t panic.

  But it was difficult. She felt as though she were walking a tightrope and certain moves would send her plunging, but she had no way of knowing exactly what they were. She forced herself to look for apartments, because it seemed the kind of activity in which there wasn’t too much terrible that could happen. She left her checkbook home to make sure she wouldn’t do anything too impulsive. At night she smoked a lot of grass and listened to music and managed to fall asleep at eleven or so, knowing that if Tony hadn’t called by now he probably wasn’t going to call. She pretended to herself that it wasn’t actually New Year’s Eve, but just any night of the year. When James came into her mind she shoved him out. That would be the first thing she had to talk about . . . to a group, to a shrink, whomever . . . this terribly nice man who wanted to marry her. Sexually he was like a dose of anesthetic, he made her go dead all over, but he was so nice! She smiled to herself as she fell asleep.

  She spent New Year’s Day cleaning her apartment from top to bottom, telling herself that it was a good investment of time even if she was going to move. She sorted things and put them in neat piles. She threw out things she’d held on to for years, knowing she’d never use them. She washed the windows and scrubbed the floors. She called Katherine’s apartment but Katherine wasn’t there yet. She called Evelyn to say she was sorry she’d missed the party. Evelyn said she was sorry too, it had been a good party. Theresa said she’d see Evelyn the next day and Evelyn said, “Why did you have to remind me?” That depressed her a little, that Evelyn’s life was so full that she hated the thought of returning to school; while her own was so empty that she needed school to fill it up.

  It was eight o’clock. She was dirty and sweaty from her work in the apartment. She took a bath but then she didn’t feel at all tired, so she got dressed. Katherine and Nick were probably home by now but if she’d gone this far without them she could go the rest of the way, and they would never have to know how miserable she’d been.

  Suddenly it occurred to her that she should begin a diary. It was something she’d never done. This was the beginning of a new year, good things were going to happen, it would be nice to have a record. She went out and bought a hardcover black-and-white notebook at the drugstore, then on impulse went over to the liquor store and bought a jug of California red. She got home, opened the wine, poured herself a glass, sat down at the table. Wrote her name on the front, then January 1st, 1970—And suddenly thought of Martin Engle.

  You get the St. Francis Xavier
Ginzberg Award for Penmanship.

  She took a sip of wine. Pleasant. She hadn’t thought of Martin Engle in a long time, though there were moments with him, things she’d said or done, that could still make her flinch when she thought of them. She brought the pen to the first page of the notebook and again wrote the date, but then she was paralyzed; where should she begin? How could you begin a diary not long before your twenty-seventh birthday without ever saying anything about what had happened before? And what could she say about what happened before? What was there to say about her life? Agitated, she stood with the glass of wine, turned on the radio, quickly drank what was in the wineglass, poured some more. Then, as though she needed to reassure herself that she had indeed had a life, she went to the phone and called Katherine.

  “Ter,” Katherine said, “how are you? It’s not Dad, is it?”

  “What?” she said. “No. No, I saw them for a while on Christmas.” Christmas a hundred years ago.

  “How was he?”

  “Tired.”

  Katherine sighed.

  “I just called to say Happy New Year.”

  “You’re a love,” Katherine said. “We just walked into the house.”

  “I’ll talk to you,” Terry said. And hung up. The phone rang a moment later but she knew it was Katherine, wanting to say she hadn’t meant to be abrupt, Terry should come over if she felt like it, really, they’d love to see her. So she didn’t pick it up. After the fifth ring, it stopped. She smiled. That made her feel good, in a way, that she’d let the phone ring like that. She’d never done it before. Maybe it was a small omen for the new year.

  She finished the wine, which was making her a little sleepy. She took off her clothes, got into bed and lay there for a while, listening to the music. It was only when she found herself playing with the lips of her vagina that she realized that it wasn’t sleepiness she’d felt at all. She was horny. What she needed was to get laid. This threw her into a state of confusion because she didn’t immediately know what to do about it. She hadn’t been in a bar since she’d gone out of anger toward James. Actually, the anger was well deserved, because the more she thought about it the more she knew that in some way he’d spoiled that whole scene for her. Not that he’d said anything about it; he didn’t even know, of course. It was more that going into the bars, fucking around, had once been a simple act for her. She was in need. She wanted a man but didn’t want to get terribly involved. She found a man and got laid. Of course, having the need filled seemed to make it grow instead of taking it away, but that was a separate problem. The real problem was that since she’d known James the act of picking up a man and fucking wasn’t simple any more; a whole dialogue had been set up in her mind in which he argued against it and she argued for it and even when she won it didn’t matter, because enough of his view lingered in her mind to take the edge off any possible pleasure.

  Damn you, James!

  He had made her uncomfortable with her old life, and then he’d left her. Of course, he hadn’t exactly left her, but it amounted to the same thing. If she married him she would have to be faithful to him, there was no doubt about it, and how could she be faithful to a man for whom she had no sexual feeling?

  She got up and got dressed, not in the clothes she’d been wearing before, except for the jeans, but in a bright yellow sweater she’d worn only once or twice. One of her kids in school had said they should call her Mrs. Sunshine when she wore that sweater, and she’d wondered about the Mrs., whether it was significant that he had called her that.

  On the way out of the house she put in her pocketbook a copy of The Godfather. Someone had given it to Evelyn, who hated it, and who’d loaned it to her weeks earlier, telling her not to hurry to return it.

  Goodbar’s was less than half full.

  “Long time no see,” the bartender said.

  “I was going with someone very straight,” she said.

  “Cut him loose?”

  “You’d better believe it,” she said. She liked the way she sounded. Tough.

  “That’s not for you, huh, Irish?”

  “Not for me,” she said, and he insisted that her first glass of wine be on the house.

  She’d automatically taken her favorite stool, the one that was up against the wall at the end near the entrance. Now she hung her coat on the rack and sat down again, taking the book from her bag. She had ten dollars or more in her wallet and she felt very independent. She could sit there for hours if she wanted to and never have to talk to anyone. Unless, of course, she saw someone she really dug. And there was no question that she was in the mood to dig someone.

  Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.

  The dim light made it difficult to read, but for a while she kept on, compelled by the story and by her desire to be reading, not to be anxious. Hungry. After she’d finished the first glass of wine, she let the bartender pour her another.

  Around the curve of the bar some men were talking. One of them she’d seen around a few times earlier in the year, a homosexual who was usually in a group. Once she’d seen him on the street in drag, but in here he was relatively straight and subdued. The guy sitting next to him was blond, very clean-cut and handsome, wearing a denim workshirt and, no doubt, faded jeans. The fag was talking to two other men who didn’t seem particularly interested in the conversation. He held his drink with both hands and stared into it. He must have sensed that someone was watching him because he looked up, their eyes held for a moment, then they both looked away. A thrill went through her. She picked up the book again so she wouldn’t seem too eager.

  In a garishly decorated Los Angeles hotel suite, Johnny Fontane was as jealously drunk as any ordinary husband. Sprawled on a red couch, he drank straight from the bottle of scotch in his hand, then washed the taste away by dunking his mouth in a crystal bucket of ice cubes and water. It was four in the morning and he was spinning drunken fantasies of murdering his trampy wife when she got home. If she ever did come home . . .

  A blond girl asked if Theresa had seen four people come, a very tall girl and three men. Theresa said if they had, she hadn’t noticed. The girl looked vexed and Theresa suggested she try the back, where the tables were. Theresa sensed that the handsome man in the denim shirt was watching them; she wanted the other girl to go fast. Someone called the girl from the back.

  “Ciao,” the girl said.

  Fuck you, ciao. Ciao was the way Katherine and her friends said good-bye and it always struck her as a perfect symbol of their attempts to be what they weren’t.

  The handsome one was looking back into his drink. The bartender, Steve, came around, mopping the bar. She really liked Steve, he was kind of big and bearish, a perfect antidote to James. Maybe, if the handsome one wasn’t interested, she’d take Steve home with her tonight.

  “Who’s the guy with that fag who’s always here?”

  “Don’t know him,” Steve said without turning to look. “Don’t think he’s been in here before. You like him?”

  “Mmmmm.”

  “Let’s see what I can find out.” He moved away from her, mopping up the bar as he went, filling an order from a man on one of the stools between her and the others. She could feel the man looking at her as though he wanted to talk, but there’d be time enough to talk to him if the other one didn’t work out. She looked at her book.

  “This is the one looks familiar, huh, Terry?” Steve called out.

  She looked up. “Hmm?”

  “This mug over here’s the one you think you know?”

  She smiled. “I’m not sure, really. I think maybe we’ve met someplace.”

  “Well, move over, darling,” the fag said, “and let’s find out, by all means.”

  She moved over.

  “I’m George,” the queer said, “and this is Gary.”

  “Hi,” she said, “I’m Terry.”

  Ge
orge nodded. “And you don’t know me, Terry, but you think you know Gary.”

  He was trying to trap her into lying. Maybe he was making a play for the other one.

  “I’ve seen you before,” she said. “Around here . . . around.”

  “Ah ha,” George said.

  “But I had the feeling maybe I knew Gary from someplace else. Like way back, maybe high school or something.”

  George laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  Gary glanced at George in a way that seemed calculated to show Terry that George disgusted him.

  “I didn’t go to school in New York,” Gary said to her with a thick, strange accent—Southern, but strange.

  “Oh, wow,” she said, smiling. “I can hear that now. Where’d you get that accent?”

  “In the South,” he said. He didn’t particularly want to talk about it. “I grew up in the South.”

  They chatted for a while about schools in the South and in the North. She told him that she was a teacher; he didn’t register any surprise, which she liked. She liked him in general. Aside from his good looks and hard, muscular body, he had a manner she found very endearing, shy and serious but with a hint of fierceness when George, whom he obviously disliked, butted into the conversation. After a while George followed the two other men to the back. Steve came by to check their drinks. Gary was nursing his but she pushed her glass toward Steve and immediately paid so Gary wouldn’t be embarrassed if he didn’t have money.

  She was a little nervous and talked a lot because he would seem to go into himself for minutes at a time and she felt she’d lose him entirely if she didn’t keep talking. He reminded her of Angel, one of her favorite kids in school. Angel’s father was white and blond and his mother was dark, pretty and Spanish. Angel had huge dark eyes, skin in between his two parents in color, and kinky blond hair. He was quiet and dreamy, seldom fighting with the other boys. But on the rare occasion when he got pulled into a scrap, he fought like one possessed, and he would tremble with rage if pulled apart from his opponent, needing to be held down by force until his rage had passed. Gary looked like Angel when one of his rages had just passed—shy, a little sheepish, very dear.