All I Ever Dreamed

by Michael Blumlein

  III. Brain Work

  His name was Wade. He’d been married twenty years. There was a family history of mental illness, notably depression (a grandmother) and manic-depression (a great aunt). Another grandmother suffered from feelings of inferiority. Wade’s father had a number of compulsions, none in­capacitating, while his mother, heroic in so many ways, lived with the anxieties and minor hysterias typical of a woman of thwarted ambition with too much time on her hands.

  Wade himself, like his great aunt, was a victim of mood swings. A year previously, after a brief bout of mania followed by a much longer one of despair, he started taking medication.

  It was a good year for medication. Sales were booming, and three of the top ten drugs on the market were specifically designed to treat disturbances of mood. This represented an enormous advance from the days of his great aunt, who had to make do with electric shock (it served her well), insulin shock (not so well), and prolonged hospitalizations.

  Wade tried Prozac, but it left him feeling muzzy-headed, about as animated as a stone. He tried Zoloft, with the same effect. Paxil likewise left him feeling like a zombie, and in addition, it robbed him of his sex drive.

  He was too young to go without sex. At forty-six, he felt he was still too young to be a zombie. So he stopped the medication.

  Eli Lilly called him. Pfizer called him. SmithKline Beecham called him, too. They sympathized with his problem. Sacrifice was difficult. No man should have to give up his manhood. But likewise, no man, particularly no American man, should have to be depressed.

  Ironically, after stopping the pills, he got better. He was no longer victimized by sudden bouts of mania, nor was he paralyzed by depression. He was able to work, to care for his daughter and be a decent husband to his wife. He was sane again, and functional, in all ways except one. He remained impotent.

  This happens, said his doctor. Give it time. This happens, said Lilly, Pfizer, and Beecham. Read the small print. We regret the inconvenience. We’re working on a cure.

  Months went by, and he didn’t recover. His penis didn’t get hard, not even in the morning when his bladder was full. His penis, poor thing, rarely stirred.

  IV. Virtue and Necessity

  Judith had no intention of having an affair. She believed in the sanctity of marriage, most especially her own. That said, her husband had of late been going through one of those times of his. One of those intense and trying times of self-intoxication, when he couldn’t see beyond himself, couldn’t think or talk about anything but his desires, his beliefs, his needs.

  Judith did her best to show compassion, but in truth, she was tired of his histrionics. Ten years of marriage, eight since the boys were born, had taken their toll. She wanted a man, not another child to care for.

  Men were useful, or they could be, and loveable, that too—vaguely, she remembered this. They had that male way about them, that male sense of entitlement and self, that male look and feel. In theory, there was much to recommend a man. They were sexy. They smelled good. They got things done.

  She wanted one of those.

  V. In Heat

  The pool was by the ocean. Cypress trees and sand dunes ringed the parking lot. Across the street in one direction was a golf course. In another was the city zoo.

  Often, when walking to their cars, they’d hear a high-pitched keening sound. A peacock’s cry, perhaps an animal in heat. Or a golfer in extremis.

  She was a businesswoman. She organized trade conventions.

  He was a cartoonist. He made his living with ink and pen.

  He had a fey and predatory nature.

  She had a sixth sense.

  Their conversations were never casual.

  She was in a book group, all women. Why all women? he asked, to get her talking about her womanhood. To be of and among women.

  It’s safer, she said. The whole sexual thing. And women have a way of talking. They have an understanding.

  They see beneath the surface.

  They share the same complaints.

  What complaints, he asked.

  She smiled. So many.

  For three months they met. They never touched, not once. Sat an inch apart, backs to the wall, sweaty and sticky in the steamy equatorial heat of the pool. The children were their safety net. The children and their marriages, their loyalties, their loves, their pacts.

  VI. Setting the Record Straight

  I’d like to clear my chest. Bear with me on this. I’ve known several Judiths in my life. One was a belly dancer. Another was a lawyer. The one who stands out the most was a red-headed woman, big boned and brassy, out of Nebraska. Married a man name of Chan, Sam Chan, an acupuncturist. The two of them emigrated to Argentina, where they set up practice. As far as I know, none of these Judiths ever worked on conventions, or for that matter, had twins. But it’s possible. I just can’t say for sure.

  As for Lydell, the only Lydell I remember with certainty was a football player, and I may be wrong about that. It might have been basketball, and come to think of it, the name was Lyell, not Lydell.

  On the other hand, this guy Wade, this is a guy I know. And I have to say, my opinion of him is not high. I met him at the pool—Judith introduced us—and we ended up seeing each other a few times on the side. So what I know about him is firsthand information. It’s gospel. Same goes for his wife, a helluva nice lady name of Flora, whom I also had the chance to meet. What she sees in a guy like this is beyond me. The man’s a charmer, no question, especially with the ladies. But the fact is, he only delivers what he himself decides to. What and when. That’s the type of guy he is. A manipulator. A control freak. He draws cartoons, for god’s sake.

  His whole purpose in coming on to Judith was to save his marriage. That’s how he justified it. It was the impotence thing—he just couldn’t stand not being able to get a hard-on. It was a humiliation to him, he told me. A humiliation and a disgrace.

  He and Flora had tried everything. The pills, the pumps, the injections, the talk. He’d been to a prostitute. And hypnotism, he’d tried that. Now he was trying a married woman.

  He didn’t plan to take it all the way, even if she wanted to. He had his limits, or so he said. It was the idea of it, the titillation. The journey, not the destination. The hunt.

  It was a noble purpose, I suppose. To save a marriage. (Although to hear Flora tell it, she was getting by all right. She was, by nature, independent, and had her work to occupy her. She also kept a plastic dildo in her bedside table to use in time of need.)

  A noble purpose, but ignobly executed. The man was using Judith. That’s what I can’t stomach.

  Then again, she was using him.

  VII. A Somewhat Tortured Logic

  The boys had a pet rat named Snowflake. She was a gentle, friendly rat, with a white coat and a long pink tail. At the age of a year Snowflake developed a tumor in her side. It was small at first, the size of a grape, but it grew rapidly. By six months it was the size and consistency of a ripe plum. They took her to a vet, who diagnosed a lipoma, in other words, a big ball of fat. This was good news in the sense that it wasn’t cancer. Less good was the two-hundred dollar fee to have it removed.

  Lydell felt the surgery unwarranted. Snowflake was a rat, and rats could be had for pennies. Beyond the issue of cost was the deeper question of value, the life lesson about man and the natural world. In Lydell’s view, intervention was far too often man’s way with nature. And it didn’t have to be. There was much to be said for watchfulness, for letting the world weave its intricate and beautiful web without disrupting its threads prematurely, if ever.

  There was also the issue of anthropocentrism. Judging the rat unhappy in its current condition was so quintessentially human a gesture, so human an assumption, that it could easily be a mistake. Perhaps, the creature was content with its burden. Perhaps, it didn’t care.

  The question of consciousness came up: did the rat notice that it was different from other rats? Was it even aware of the mass?


  After some discussion, it was agreed that the rat did, in fact, notice. There was really no ignoring a lump that size. But whether it cared, whether its level of consciousness included a sense of dissatisfaction with the ways things were and a desire to change them—this was uncertain. Snowflake had such a genial temperament to begin with. Even when the mass, after being dragged along the floor of the cage for months on end, became infected, her demeanor didn’t noticeably change. Perhaps she slowed down a bit, but then she had never been much interested in speed. And being a rat of good breeding and character, qualities the boys learned about in detail, she wasn’t the type to complain.

  The tumor grew. At a subsequent visit the vet was frankly amazed. “This animal should have been dead months ago,” he exclaimed, a comment notable, if not for its thoughtlessness, then certainly for its ambiguity. The boys were left to ponder just what exactly he meant.

  Max, a child of fledgling polemical tendencies, assumed he meant that without the operation Snowflake would be better off dead. He didn’t want her to die, and he argued with his father to intervene. He invoked the rights of animals, the concept of tzedakah (charitable deeds, from a charitable heart), the universality of souls. A canny, verbally precocious boy, he presented his case eloquently (albeit unsuccessfully). In this he made his father proud.

  Ernest was, by nature, more reserved. He was slow to express his opinions and whenever possible avoided conflict. This had earned him a reputation, right or wrong, for being shy.

  On the surface he accepted his father’s dictum. The rat would live its life, then die. But underneath the surface he knew otherwise. Underneath, his mind was rife with fantasies of a different sort. If Snowflake should have been dead but wasn’t, then clearly she had powers hitherto unimagined. He’d read about such beings—entities, they were called—in comic books; he’d seen them on TV. Alien entities. Invincible, ineffable, immortal ones.

  Snowflake was no ordinary rat. Each day she lived and beat the odds was proof of this. She was something different. Something special. Something more.

  Ernest therefore didn’t worry. Whatever happened, Snow­flake would be okay. Consequently, there was no need to argue with his father. On the contrary, he agreed with him. Leave the rat alone.

  Judith, meanwhile, fumed.

  She agreed that a rat was a rat, but this particular rat, their rat, was a pet. Pets were family, and family needed to be looked after. She thought what Lydell was doing, what he was teaching, was stingy, gratuitous, and cruel.

  And insufferable. And sadistic. And Nazi-Darwinistic (she got to him with that). And, quite frankly, obscene.

  He got her back one night. Got her bad. He was talking about the money they were saving by letting nature take its course. Then he dropped the bomb.

  He wanted to use it to get Ernest circumcised.

  Ernest at this point was eight.

  Judith said, No way.

  Lydell pleaded his point. He admitted to having made a mistake.

  Live with it, she said.

  He couldn’t.—I look at him and think, how can this be a Jew?

  —He’s a Jew if he wants to be. If you let him.

  —I’m ashamed of myself. I set him apart. I thought I knew best, but I didn’t.

  —You want to atone? Leave him alone. Practice what you preach.

  —Let’s ask him, said Lydell.

  Her eyes flashed.—Don’t you dare.

  VIII. Idealism! Temptation! Restraint!

  She had long fingers, hazelnut eyes, and a passion for people.

  He had a soft mouth and a way with words.

  She missed the freedom and excitement of her younger days.

  He dressed for the occasions. Wore his brightest colors. Worked for her attention.

  She saw in him a respite. A way station on the arduous and lifelong path of marriage. She was going through a period of reflection, a taking account of her life. She was recalling what had been put aside, what dream of self, what vision. Retracing her past to its fork points: the choice to marry, to have a career, to be a mother. And prior to that, the choice to end the wildness and anarchy of a protracted adolescence, the choice to grow up and follow the rules. To be a solid citizen. To practice self-respect and love.

  Which she intended to continue.

  Being an honorable woman. With honorable desires.

  She never littered. She never spat. She wouldn’t cheat.

  A woman of conviction, she had her limits, too.

  He favored irregularly shaped panels as opposed to the traditional squares. He also liked to experiment with sequencing and placement. Linear cartooning was too constrained for his taste. Too contrived. If he was going to the trouble of drawing all those pictures, he wanted people to look at them, not skim past them as if they were the written word.

  He had Ideas. He spoke of a modern aesthetic. Commitment to craft and to Art with a capital A. He was passionate, which made it easier to tolerate his pomposity.

  She was drawn to him.

  He thrilled at the game they were playing.

  He also had qualms.

  He meant no harm.

  She was flattered by his attention. Interested in his ideas. At one time she herself had painted.

  Aha, he chortled. A kindred spirit!

  Hardly that, was her reply. A hobbyist, at best. But nothing at all since the boys were born. She missed the creativity of it, the tactile pleasure of brush in hand, the fun. Not that she couldn’t live without. Obviously, she could. And furthermore, she didn’t believe in regrets.

  He agreed. Regrets were useless.

  Yes, she said. Completely useless.

  Utterly, he added with panache.

  At that they ceased to speak, meditating silently on the uselessness of regret.

  They were so determined to be friends. It was their stated purpose. A male and female friendship. Their creed.

  Mirabile dictu! Such lofty ideals! Such audacity. Intimacy without jeopardy. Freedom of expression. Pleasure without pain.

  IX. Further Revelations

  How do I know these things? Word gets around. These are my friends.

  If you believe Wade, what he was doing was for a good cause. If you ask me, Flora let him get away with too much. But she saw it differently. She, after all, had to live with his mood swings, and he’d been free of them for nearly a year. She wasn’t about to upset that particular apple cart. Her philosophy was fairly straightforward: if a man wanted to hang himself, so be it. The tighter the leash, the greater the chance it would break.

  Judith, quite simply, was filling a need. When you’re with someone like Lydell for as long as she was, someone with his capacity for self-absorption, you can’t help but have periods of loneliness and longing. Periods when you feel yourself shriveling for lack of companionship. Periods of self-doubt when you wonder if anyone hears or sees you at all.

  Judith fought these feelings. She had work, which helped. She had her children. And now she had a new companion, someone who wanted her around, someone who looked at her and listened.

  It was a flirtation of ideas, she told herself. A flirtation of interests. A flirtation of spirit and, therefore, of necessity.

  Flirtation, she felt, did not preclude fidelity. On the contrary. Fidelity depended on respect, and it was self-respect that made her flirt. God, she knew, helped those who helped themselves. It was up to her to make her presence known.

  X. The Scholar Finds a Way

  Sabbath Day. Lydell wears a yarmulke pinned to his head and a many-fringed tallit around his hefty shoulders. In his anguish and his fervor he has turned to the Bible. The Book of First Samuel, Chapter 18, wherein David slays two hundred Philistine men and brings their foreskins to King Saul (who had only requested a hundred) as dowry for his daughter Michal’s hand in marriage. What King Saul wants with so many foreskins, what he does with them, is not mentioned. Lydell can only speculate. Reading the Holy Scriptures has him in a barbaric, morbidly Old Testament mood.<
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  King Saul might have made a tapestry of them, sewn together with the finest threads.

  Or a flag, a battle standard to be borne against the heathen armies.

  A patchwork quilt.

  A bridal veil.

  A blanket for his wives.

  While fresh, he could have used them as grafts for poorly healing wounds.

  Once dried, as snack food for the troops, like pemmican.

  Or party favors.

  Or rewards for jobs well done.

  Yahweh, God in Heaven, God of Lydell’s father and his father’s father, is an angry God. He is a spiteful God, a savage God, a vengeful God. But He is a smart and clever God, too.

  Lydell has one more thought. One that King Solomon, son of David and grandson of Saul, might have approved of. Solomon with whom he feels kinship, Solomon the wise and understanding, Solomon the just. Solomon who in his later years forsook his religion for that of his wives. Solomon who, smitten with love, turned from Judaism to the pagan faith.

  A foreskin can be re-attached. Not one cut off in a fly-infested battlefield and carried for days by camel in a rank and grimy sack, but a fresh one, a hygienically-removed one, a pretty pink virginal one. There are doctors, cosmetologists, who will do anything for a price. If Lydell can’t get his son into the fold, he can join him outside the fold. It would be an act of atonement. A day to remember. A yom kippur.

  XI. Visions of Grandeur

  He wanted to touch her. He wanted to run his hand down the crease in her buttocks. Smell her, lick her, slather his body with her tart and liquidy self.

  He thrilled at the thought of it, the temptation.

  He wondered if this was the mania. If it was, he could wash his hands of responsibility. You couldn’t blame a person for being ill.

  Besides, he was serving Flora.

  Patient, loving, flint-eyed Flora. Faithful Flora, who gave him all the slack he needed to hang himself.

  XII. Onan the Barbarian