by Kirk Landers
Annette laughed. “He’s sixty. I’m sixty. He wouldn’t force himself on me. He’d ask me to join him in prayer for an erection that lasts long enough to get the deed done.”
Christy was long past blushing at her mother’s earthy declarations about sex. “Nice try, but you’re nervous about something. I can see it.”
“Oh, it’s just, I’d like this to be fun, but I have a feeling it’s going to be sad and depressing in the end. Gabe’s had so many things go wrong in his life, and there are so many signs of anger. I just have a feeling I won’t like him.”
“Why?”
“Your skin isn’t the only thing that gets wrinkled and weathered with age,” Annette said. “Your soul does too. Things that were cute when you were young get sharp edges later in life. Like your dad’s womanizing. Like me having an affair with a married man.
“Even though we argued all the time, Gabe had a kind of purity about him. Deep down inside, he was an idealist. I’d think of him from time to time, even after I married your father. Especially after I married your father. I never regretted doing what I did because I got you and Anne out of it. But Gabe became kind of a symbol of how good a man can be.”
“But you argued all the time?” Christy’s face was a study in confusion.
“Yes. It’s hard to explain. We were both full of self-importance and energy and all the arrogance of youth. There was plenty to dislike. But deep down inside, I always knew he was someone who put other things above his own satisfaction. He cared about the people around him, his society, his culture. If he’s become a broken, bitter old man who bitches about everything, that would make the world just a little lonelier.”
Annette loaded her food pack while Christy loaded the gear pack that would carry her tent, sleeping bag, and clothing. After a few minutes of silence, Christy stopped and looked at her mother. “How did it get started with you and him? Must have been before Dad . . .”
Annette paused, not sure she wanted to answer her daughter’s question.
“Your dad and I were an on-again, off-again item in college,” she started, picking her words carefully. “Gabe and I were in the same literature class. I didn’t like him at first. He’d always take a contrary point of view in class discussions. And he didn’t dress right. He wasn’t a prep and he wasn’t a hippie and he didn’t care.”
“You were like that?” Christy was in disbelief.
“Everybody’s like that in college. So were you. Anyway, I noticed he kept getting As on papers even though he didn’t do any research. I told him what I thought about that, and we had our first argument. But it got us talking to each other, and, somewhere in there, I just fell for him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Christy smiled when she said it, like she understood anyway.
“He was his own man, and I thought that was intoxicating.”
They worked in silence for a while, Annette’s thoughts flashing back to that time, so long ago.
September 1967.
She was Rob’s girl. Rob the Throb. Handsome, smart, smooth. Headed for law school. President of the student council. Cocky, but in a charming way that made him easy to like.
They were an item. There had been a few missteps. He had a few dalliances with other coeds. But they worked through it. They planned to marry when they graduated. She would join him at whatever law school he ended up choosing. Harvard, he hoped, but Yale would do. A career in politics maybe.
It was the politics that drew him, then her, into the movement. He had idealistic objections to the war anyway, but if he wanted to stay out front of the student body even at a conservative Midwestern school, he had to be actively antiwar. So they evolved. From slacks and skirts to patched-up blue jeans. From close-cropped razor cut and puffy bouffant to long, shaggy locks accented with beads, head bands, and accoutrements du jour.
She became aware that it was as much a uniform as skirts and blouses had been, that they were as conformist in their nonconformity as they had been in their conformity days. That’s when she started to notice Pender. Mostly because he pissed her off. It was his unspoken arrogance. He was a Greek, first of all, and didn’t seem to care that it was uncool. And he never spoke to anyone except the prof. He came to their Modern American Authors class dressed like a postbeatnik prep or something. Loafers, no socks. Jeans, no holes, but old. Button-down shirt, but worn under a cut-off sweatshirt that started the week with a fraternity symbol showing and ended the week inside out.
Annette didn’t like his clothes and didn’t like his attitude, and she especially didn’t like his activity in class. He volunteered answers to the professor’s questions. He liked to participate in discussions. It was the only time he talked, and he could get very animated. It was irritating, for some reason. And the prof liked him. It was obvious. Some of his points were wildly divergent from the professor’s teachings, but they were clever and energetically defended and the prof liked that.
Why she disliked him but didn’t mind the several intellectuals who, with Pender, dominated discussions, she couldn’t say. But she couldn’t stand him. So much so that one day she finally vented to him. They had gotten graded papers back and she saw his grade, an A–, and the title of his paper, “Who’s Got a Match in ‘Lie Down in Darkness’?” Clearly his paper bore no resemblance to the painstakingly researched, heavily footnoted work that had earned her another A.
She tapped him on the shoulder. “May I see your paper?” she asked.
After a slight pause—he seemed surprised that she talked to him—he handed it to her.
“Would you like to see mine?” she asked. He accepted it but flipped through it quickly. She scanned his almost as fast. Not a single footnote. Instead of quoting heralded literary critics, he constructed his own criticism, which was much different from the mainstream interpretation of the book’s main characters. The arrogant shit!
After class she gave his paper back to him. “Where do you get this stuff?” she asked angrily. “I can’t believe you get such good grades for so little research!”
Real anger flashed in his eyes. “What’s so brilliant about parroting stuff someone else wrote?” he answered.
“That was the assignment.” She couldn’t hide her anger. “To analyze the plot and characters based on our reading of the book and at least three critics. It really irks me that I spent hours in the library reading the critics and you blow it off and get almost the same grade.”
“And I don’t see how you deserve a better grade for not having an original thought,” he responded. “I don’t give a damn what some so-called critic thinks. Literature is about what the reader thinks.”
His answer bugged her all weekend. She hadn’t thought of education as a forum for creative thinking, except in courses explicitly designed for creativity, like art or creative writing. She was amazed that he could get by doing that. She tried to chalk it up to favoritism by the prof—a man giving another man a break in a male-dominated world. But, of course, she got a better grade for following the traditional path and doing it well.
After that he would say hello to her when they saw each other before class. A noncommittal, soft-smile hello. She returned the greeting with equal equanimity. He still aggravated her. Maybe even more because she noticed he was sort of attractive. She couldn’t quite say why. He had moody brown eyes that flashed with passion. Solid chin. Athletic build. He was no Rob, but she kept thinking about him, wondering why she thought about him when she didn’t like him.
Later, after a really obnoxious class session in which he had taken on the prof and two of the scholars in the class in a debate over symbolism in Old Man and the Sea, he ended up walking beside her on their way out of the building. His adrenaline was still pumping and it bugged her. He said something to her and she answered. He began chatting away about something—she was too nettled to pay attention. At the bottom of the stairs outside the building, they paused and faced each other.
“Why are you in a fraternity?” she blurte
d out. She couldn’t believe she had said it when she heard her voice make the sounds. It wasn’t like her at all, but she was irritated beyond reason with him.
He blinked at first and hesitated. “Oh, you mean, why aren’t I like you freethinkers? Because when I got here, every asshole I met told me only assholes go Greek.” He started to walk away, offended, then stopped. “How ‘independent’ do you think you are? You all wear prefaded bell-bottom jeans and the beads and the hair and everything. It’s a goddamn uniform, and if I have to wear a uniform to fuck a girl like you, I’ll go without.”
“You don’t have to be gross about it,” she huffed. And left.
Now she really couldn’t get him out of her mind. She thought about him when she researched papers in the library. She thought about him when she dressed and when she looked at how Rob and other men were dressed. She thought about him when she and Rob made love. She replayed the confrontation endlessly, initially to confirm that his response was as uncalled for as it was obscene, later to see how she might have come across as arrogant. By Friday she had condemned herself for being an arrogant bitch and sought him out after class to apologize.
“You were right to be angry with me. I was rude. I’m sorry.” She braced for a sarcastic response, but he just stared at her. The silence grew. She felt herself squirming, not sure what it meant, finally deciding he was just staring her down. A statement all by itself. You’re not worthy of words.
“Okay,” she said summarily. “See you around.” She started to go. He touched her shoulder.
“I just didn’t know what to say.”
That stopped her cold. He was sincere, and he seemed to be struggling to say more. She realized he was tongue-tied. Mr. Ego. How about that? She waited.
“I dream about you,” he said. He blushed crimson and turned and left before she could move a muscle. As she watched him leave, her mind filled with the vision of his face when he said he dreamed about her. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. The most romantic thing she could imagine.
She sought him out after that. They started taking coffee together after Modern American Authors, then lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In November they were in a one-act student play together. By Thanksgiving it was all she could do to keep her hands off him.
Christy made each of them a cup of Quetico Outpost tea, their own concoction of powdered tea and apple cider and cinnamon, served scalding hot. They took their tea on the patio behind the house, gazing past the cabins to the lake. The sun was behind the horizon, their world becoming dim and quiet. Annette inhaled deeply. Twilight was one of the perfect moments on the Canadian Shield. You could still see the lakes and the trees, and you could already see stars, and all the world was wrapped in quiet. The silence was a lullaby and the view was eternity. How could anyone walk away from that?
“If you don’t like him, just come home,” Christy said. “You have me and Rebecca and a lot of friends here. Your world doesn’t revolve around him.”
Annette kissed her daughter on the cheek and smiled. “You’re right,” she said.
11
“Well, shit.”
After crashing blindly through dense forest for an eternity, Pender stumbled into the open and teetered on the edge of a small bog. Probably a lake twenty years ago, now a murky swamp choked with plant life and oozing black water as viscous as oil.
He sighed. The best part of this little side trip had been the getting here. A mile with no trail, crashing through the bush, navigating by dead reckoning with a compass. Not an outing for the faint hearted. Following compass headings in dense brush and forest, with the land constantly falling away or rising, was as much art as science.
He hoisted the heavy food pack on his shoulders and started the long trek back. It would have been easier if he’d left the food pack with the canoe and his other gear, but he didn’t want to risk losing his food to a marauding bear.
As he dodged and grunted through the thick foliage and steep bluffs, he let his mind roam. Annette’s image floated forth from his memories, back when it started between them.
Sitting on the steps of the library, still arguing about the papers they were working on for Modern American Authors. It was cold. The kind of cold that brought color to the face of a pretty girl, let you see the vapors of your breath mingle with hers. Cold enough that it felt good to sit with their bodies touching because it was warm.
“Why do you argue all the time?” She was smiling, but she was serious, too.
“It brings out the best in you.”
“By making me angry?”
“No.” Pender blew on his hands to warm them in the chill. “By bringing out the real you. Making you stick up for yourself.”
“Instead of what?”
“Sticking with the script. Saying what you’re supposed to say. There’s a lot more to you than those ‘make love not war’ stiffs.”
“Those are my friends. We share an ideal.”
“No, you have the ideals. They recite the lines like parrots and wait for their hit on the roach. You have honesty and depth.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
It had never occurred to him that such a beautiful woman cared what he thought. It put her in a different context. Suddenly it was personal, and it overpowered him. His heart raced. His mouth went dry.
“What are you thinking?” There was doubt in her voice, like she wasn’t sure what he’d say. Her, the most beautiful girl on campus.
The only thing he could think of was how lovely she was and how soft her lips must be and that if she were his girlfriend, he’d be with her every minute, not like that jackass she was seeing now.
“What?” she said again. “Are you making fun of me?”
He shook his head no. Words wouldn’t come to him.
She read him. Against all odds, she read him and just like that leaned over and kissed him, soft and long. He could feel her skin, her breath, her body pivoting to his. They sprawled on the steps of the library, locked in embrace. He inhaled her scent—fresh air, faint lilacs, something else, velvety and distant.
They embraced passionately until other students started teasing them. They stood, smiled at each other a little sheepishly, and began walking. Annette abruptly stopped and turned in front of Pender.
“Was that real or are you just trying to get in my pants?”
“It was real.”
“I bet. You probably bed a different girl every week.”
“Not even every year.”
“Right.”
“I’ll wake up tomorrow still remembering what you smell like and what your body feels like, and I’ll go crazy thinking that you’re waking up with Senator Peabody or whatever your boyfriend’s name is. So, yeah, it’s real.”
She put her fingers on his lips. “Rob and I broke up a couple weeks ago.”
“You dumped Boy Wonder?”
“He dumped me.” She smiled, maybe covering the hurt. “Lots of girls are interested in him. I think he needs to take a taste test.”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“He’s got his faults, but his work is important. And people look up to him.”
“Yeah, people looked up to Hitler and Stalin, too. You’re too good for him.”
“Too good for the most popular guy on campus?”
“Yeah. Way too good. Too beautiful. Too smart. Too . . .” He searched for a word. “Too deep.”
“You know all this about me after one kiss?”
“No, after a month of wondering why the hell it hurt so much that you didn’t like me.”
So began their affair.
Pender’s recollections were shattered as the baseball-sized stones under his right foot gave way. He fell hard, before he knew he was falling, and hit on his back and tailbone and slid down the steep slope. The pack saved his head from banging against the rocks, but his back and tailbone were shot with pain.
He lay still for a moment, assessing t
he damage. His back throbbed, but he could move his fingers and toes and head. He unfastened the pack and wriggled out of the shoulder harness. More agony gripped his lower back. He had to hold his breath to withstand the shock. He calmed his body so he could breathe. When he was ready, he took a deep breath, held it, and forced himself into a sitting position. He could feel something like a red-hot poker being shoved down his spine. It made him gasp. When the worst passed, he pivoted onto his knees, holding his breath, clinching his teeth to work through the pain.
He tried to stand, cried out, and bent forward, hands on thighs, to arrest the fire shooting through his back and down his right leg. Standing brought tears to his eyes, but he willed himself to remain upright. When the initial shock receded, he tried to stretch his lower back. First he did toe-touches, then tried to swivel his hips slowly to each side, then lay down awkwardly on his back and pulled his knees to his chest. Each change of position brought agony and curses, but he pushed on.
Ten minutes later, Pender rolled onto his knees and used a sapling to lift himself to a standing position. The pain was almost tolerable once he was erect, but each change of position brought body-freezing tentacles of anguish. Holding the sapling, he tested his ability to take steps. When he thought he could walk, he eyed the food pack. He thought if he could get it on his back without passing out, he could make it the rest of the way.
He positioned the pack on a gentle slope and sat in front of it, yelping and seeing stars as he swiveled into place. He looped his arms into the harness, and when he felt he could handle the pain, he struggled to his feet. Lightning bolts shot through his back with an intensity that made him hold his breath. It passed, but he knew his first step downhill would be excruciating. He focused on the next step, then the next, swinging his hands from tree to tree as he slowly shuffled down the slope. He scaled down one slope and up the next one. By the time he got back to his gear, the piercing fire in his lower spine that made him curse and tear up had given way to a throbbing ache.