I pondered her antagonism for Ken, and after a moment said, “For me, this Kentucky guy helped elevate my spirits.”
“Why so?”
“Because,” I said with a sarcastic little laugh, “he’s so much worse off than I am.”
My car shivered, pummeled by the increasingly ferocious wind, and I had to hold onto the steering wheel with both hands. With the wind came the rain, dancing on the asphalt and concrete, exploding on my windshield, obscuring my view. The sound of the wipers, steady, repetitive, tipped my balance and I felt that all-too-familiar need to blink or bite or scratch some imaginary itch.
Those kinds of external natural stimuli did not seem to trigger Abby; her protagonists were almost always human, behaving badly, frustrating her, yanking her out of present time, back to old, morbid moments.
The parallel was not lost on me. Abby and I were both pummeled, and now we had another acquaintance with whom we could share horror stories.
Silently I repeated a mantra—another compulsion—“Hold onto life with both hands, brothers and sisters; there is a tempest out there, and we need to ride it out.”
Later, in my bed, I read for a while, stopped, looked at my hands under the focused light of my nightstand lamp, and said with mock intensity, “Out damned spot!” proud of my Shakespearian education.
I turned off the light and lay there in the inky silence, then as usual a had-to kicked in. This time it was crack my knuckles. I counted twenty-one cracks on my two hands.
ELEVEN
Kentucky Prism had told it straight. He was starry-eyed about writing—so many people are—but had little creative bent. Plenty smart; he could learn the technical skills, but the well was dry when it came to inventiveness. He said he was just beginning, and, alas, the beginning was where he stayed. The few pieces he shared were cryptic and sordid.
At our subsequent meetings in the soaring ambience of the Writers’ Guild building, Abby and I got to know him fairly well. His facial tic became part of the gestalt of the man, and for me, at least, faded to background, though there was no way to know how many people were put off by it.
Abby rescinded her condemning attitude toward him, familiarity scuttling the Freudian notion of historical wounds transferring to present-time reminders. She began, in fact, to take a rather keen interest in his personal story, querying him relentlessly, and with kindness, about his growing-up and young-adult years.
I began to feel, when she focused so acutely on him, pangs of jealousy. Though we had a sturdy connection, I in no way felt that Abby was mine, that she belonged to me in a man-woman way. Given her quixotic bent, no one, I realized, could feel secure in a partnership with her.
Off the lecture hall was a lounge with half a dozen soft chairs, green with yellow striped patterns running vertically and horizontally, which, if examined up close, could be seen to be composed of tiny vees, like a twilled fabric.
We arrived an hour early one evening and repaired to this room, our three chairs pushed into a small triangle to allow a cozy communicative configuration.
“We ought to compare mothers,” Ken said, both his rather large ears adorned with reddish studs. “Each of us has issues with our mothers.”
“Mine,” Abby said, “is an ant, a squeamish and unexpressive spouse, subordinate to her husband, unaware of herself as a woman.”
“Mine,” I added, “is a controller, rejected by her husband, unable to forgive, intent on rearing me, her only child, as her ‘darling,’ overprotected and spoiled rotten. She can’t stand that Abby is my girlfriend.”
Ken nodded and said, “And mine is a sweetheart, loving, gentle, and ultimately oblivious. Her pathetic submissiveness made me a slave, an acquiescing child resentful and powerless.”
“Wow,” I said, “what a field day for Freud! All these second-rate mothers either held down or abandoned by fed-up fathers.”
“It is tempting to think of women, of me, for example, as generically self-effacing, less-than the all-powerful male. That’s nonsense. The culture pushes conformity on us, and our behavior becomes a role, sanctioned by expectations. Unfortunately, if one of us rebels and acts differently than the norm requires, we are labeled ‘bitches,’ ‘ballsy,’ ‘aggressive,’ ‘unfeminine,’ and in more cruel cases, ‘butch-fags.’ So far, my two male friends, it is a man’s world.”
I tended to agree with Abby, but Ken said, in a conclusive way, “I think it’s a setup. Women really run the show. They let men think they’re in charge, but when it all irons out, the women get their way.”
I could see the fire kindling in Abby’s eyes. Good! Maybe she’ll find fault with him for real reasons rather than because of her own restimulated pain.
“You think if I were having my way I’d let a man like my father abuse me? A man like my cousin assault me? What absolute bullshit!”
For the first time I saw wrath in Ken’s mobile face. It scared me. He looked, for a fleeting instant, ruthless, as if he were about to pounce. No tics for several seconds, and when he spoke, it was controlled and frigid: “See, women resent being called on their crap.”
“Hey, it isn’t my crap, it’s the system’s. You guys are in the power chair but won’t face it.”
“Not how I see it. Men are manipulated by women, by rationed sex, by manufactured tears, by phony umbrage over piddling issues.”
Her full fury now apparent, Abby stuck up her middle finger and said ferociously, “Fuck you, Kentucky fried chicken! You don’t know shit. All you male animals want is a pussy to plunge into. It’s the only thing on your brains—that and control. Got to be straddling a woman and in control.”
I am frightened by conflict, a pacifist at heart, and I guess it comes from seeing my mother act so belligerently toward my father; I promised myself never to get into such spiraling clashes. At that moment, I could see my girlfriend and new friend squaring off, toe to toe, maybe coming to blows—an all-out, physical confrontation.
Ken’s lip and chin began to quiver, not a tic but a genuine emotional surge that brought him to the edge of … something.
He seemed to have a hard time saying it, but finally blurted out in a vituperative, hoarse whisper: “Fuck you back! It’s not on my brain. You must be sick to think that about men.”
“You’re the one who’s sick, peabrain! You’d have to be living in a cave not to see how men have contaminated the planet: wars, genocide, pollution, abuse, violence of all kinds, narrow religious prejudices, insensitivity, fear of feelings, fear of intimacy. Where in hell can you find women to match those failings?”
Ken seemed up to the challenge: “Hung up on how they look, disinterested in world affairs, perpetual victims, mewling like wounded kittens, manipulative, furtive in sexual matters but duplicitous in fact, since they like it and want it as much as men, rotten handling money, shop-a-holics, and yes, trying too hard to be ballsy and competitive. Go ahead, deny those little gems.”
During that entire rant, not one tic, but as soon as he finished, two or three in a row.
“Your stereotypes, buster! And besides, most of those things are individual and don’t corrupt the culture the way men’s foibles do.”
I saw my chance, and managed to interject: “The generic versus the specific. You two are talking on different levels.”
They ignored me, Ken saying, “Women corrupt men, that’s what they do.”
And Abby said, “Men are corrupt to start with. Women can’t save them no matter how hard we try.”
They were only six inches apart, face to face, almost intimate in their postures, but so alien in attitude. Before either could say anything more, the overhead spots blinked, the usual warning that the lecture was about to begin.
“To be continued,” Abby said.
“You bet,” Ken responded with his voice and two rapid tics.
“I hope not,” I said under my breath.
The lecture that evening was by a mystery writer who said, ironically, “Mysteries by nature are filled with confron
tation. The key to literary success with such a genre is to paint the adversaries with ugly listening skills, so that there is enough misunderstanding to cause mayhem in their relationships.”
TWELVE
I knew Abby well enough to expect the eruption I witnessed. Besides being volatile, she also carried around ghastly scars from her earlier interactions with men. It was a wonder, as I saw it, that she could let go enough to connect with me, especially in a sexual way, though the events themselves were always produced and directed by her.
As for Ken, his behavior seemed more than a passing insult, a conflict to be regretted but put behind him. I saw some element of anguish in his manner that seemed too painful to dismiss, his eyes with a fury that was deep-seated, unforgiving. I didn’t know all that much about psychology, but for me, his actions earned the label of what I once saw written as a ‘malignant narcissism.’ What I did not know was how that diagnosis, if it was even remotely correct, played out in behavior.
Considering how influential Abby’s and my dreams were in our lives, there was no doubt that this Ken fellow suffered from nocturnal invasions as well. A week before, he had casually dropped that he often had dreams of snakes and spiders, and that he was terrified of those creatures. He had volunteered that he had no idea why they were so scary for him since he couldn’t recall any confrontations with them. His personality was so off-balance, so clearly obsessive, that it had to follow that his subconscious was cradling heavy emotional debris, but as with many of us, their origins remained mysterious.
I got a job working as a waiter in an upscale restaurant called Jeb’s in Santa Monica. What else can people in the creative fields do, in a culture that rewards athletes in the millions and writers hardly at all? Well, if you are well known, like Hilary Clinton, you can get an eight million advance for your book. Same with formula writers like John Grisham or Danielle Steel. Not that their stories aren’t entertaining, or that I wouldn’t give my left you-know-what to have one of mine achieve the status of one of theirs. But, generally speaking, we who struggle with our careers need to honor our practical necessities and do the nine-to-five thing—or for most of us, five in the evening to midnight, and some weekends.
My mother was dismayed. It offended her Patrician self-image to see her nonpareil son serving other people.
When I was about ten, she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Dumb, naïve me said, “A lavatory guard.” When she asked me why in hell I wanted to do that, I said because at school in the lavatory, so many boys don’t flush the urinals after they pee and when I go in there it stinks. I know she screamed, and maybe she smacked me, but I don’t remember for sure; I tended to block out Mother’s aggression toward me.
At the restaurant, I got into the swing of things and began to relish the work. Jeb, himself a master chef, would tolerate no slips in the fastidious routine he had established. All servers had to memorize the menu and know every aspect of the daily specials. Each evening I would learn by heart, for example, that we had poached salmon with dill, on a mound of angel-hair pasta, garnished with broccoli florets smothered in a mustard sauce. For appetizers we might have pickled herring in sour cream broth, or giant prawns, peeled and brushed with a marinara dip, or bacon-wrapped liver pods cooked in olive oil.
Jeb liked to think of his bistro as catering to the tastes of the finest gourmands in the city—actually believed his establishment to be among the top five restaurants in all of Santa Monica. Might have been. Though I rarely tasted the food, it certainly looked amazing.
Surprised the hell out of me one Saturday night when Mother and Barry showed up for dinner. Thankfully they didn’t draw my table, but I could feel her eyes on me, harsh, doting, and piercing as I tried to do my tasks.
Jeb’s restaurant had the neatest ambience: a ceiling lowered by flowing satin tapestry that softened the noise level, walls adorned by postmodern, geometric art, tasteful if not expensive, and tablecloths of smooth, pale-blue linen, the color, I first believed, leached from indiscriminately throwing them in with jeans during a wash. My mistake. It was part of the design. Background music was almost too soft to hear, a melodious comrade to the appetizing fare and in no way an intruder to intimate conversation.
I could tell, from sneaked glances, that my mother and her new spouse were soaking up both the food and the ambience. In fact, after half an hour, she caught my attention with a wave of her arm, and gestured me over to join her.
“Superb dining,” she said. “I can see why you enjoy your time here.”
“It’s an income,” I answered.
“Might as well have pleasant surroundings.”
Something about my mother created a monstrous dichotomy for me. Growing up I needed her, knew she was the one to take care of me. Resentment, palpable as stone, was a companion feeling, and I found myself both attracted and repelled. I barely remembered, but knew that as a little child she cleaned my teeth instead of a dental hygienist doing it. Then a few years later when I was eight or nine—just when my mother and father were breaking up—she filled a cavity in one of my molars. Almost vicious about it. Seemed to get some pleasure out of my fear and pain.
“Too bad you couldn’t wait on us,” Barry said, “so we could check out your efficiency. Ha-ha, just kidding.”
Damn, but I disliked that man! In some ways he was perfect for Mother, unaware, deceived about who had the power—a lot like Abby’s and Ken’s debate—and full of his own cleverness, which, as I saw it, was transparent and inane.
“Have you seen that little waif lately, the girl with the troubled family?”
“I don’t consider her a waif, Mother, and she is a woman, not a girl.”
“A figure of speech, that’s all.”
It was more, and she knew it; it was her way of demeaning Abby, painting her as undesirable.
“We’re friends; of course I see her.”
“Well, I hope she finds her way in life. It’s nice of you to befriend her.”
No sense in going into the depth of my involvement with Abby. I wasn’t in the mood for one of her orchestrated battles, sarcasm, cynicism, disrespect for my point of view, and now with an insipid sidekick to back her up.
“I have to go. Four tables are mine. Service is premium here.”
“Absolutely. Our server has been flawless.” She stopped, smiled her catlike smile, and added, “I’ll call you. We’ll get together.”
“Goodbye, son,” Barry said, and laughed.
Long ago, I stopped letting Mother’s style ruin my days. Nights were a different story. I had less conscious control over my bedtime feelings, those unsolicited, acerbic invasions that offended my sleep.
There was Mother, no question about the face, in a white, trailing gown, skeletal in body, almost vaporous in form, hovering like a cloud over my room. “Leave me alone!” I shouted, and she grinned and descended on me, smothering me with her translucent, insubstantial essence.
THIRTEEN
Abby’s thought that perhaps I ought to see a therapist began to resonate in me. Something had to change. It wasn’t normal to feel off-balance the way I did, to be plagued by repetitive menacing dreams.
Wanting to avoid any connecting links, I decided not to consider using her psychologist; better if I began clean, without encumbering inferences. Anyway, she was seeing a man shrink and, for some reason not completely clear to me, I wanted a woman.
A former professor at my college knew of a woman on the west side who had her doctorate from USC, and had been practicing psychotherapy for over ten years. I called her, got a voice mail, and three hours later she returned my call.
“This is Sophie Agutter, returning your call.”
“Oh, hi. I was wondering about making an appointment. What … how much do you charge?”
“Do you have insurance?”
“I don’t know. I mean my mother carries health insurance for me, and I don’t know if it covers mental health. Uh, I live by myself, not with my mother, but it’s her ins
urance.”
“You’ve mentioned your mother a couple of times. Does the therapy request have to do with her?”
Now, how in hell did she come up with that? Tone of voice maybe, the way I said the word ‘mother’?
“Well, in some ways. But mostly it has to do with dreams.”
“You have troubling dreams?”
“I really do.”
“My fees are normally a hundred dollars an hour. If you have insurance you want me to bill, I’d like fifty percent up front, because insurance doesn’t usually pay more than half. If you don’t have insurance, I could see you for a twenty percent discount.”
A business, I realized. It’s a business like any other.
“What are your hours?”
“Flexible. What are yours?”
“How about if I come in on Thursday?”
“What time?”
“Four in the afternoon okay?” I wanted to be able to get to my restaurant job by five-thirty. It would only be a mile or so from her office.
“Okay. I’m available. See you in two days, on Thursday, at four.”
Her suite—she had a waiting room and two inner spaces, one, I discovered later, a playroom for children—was in a three-story, red brick building on Santa Monica Boulevard, on the second floor. There was a modern, but rather lethargic, elevator that lifted me to her level; in my shaky state, I made something significant out of that.
I arrived ten minutes early and watched a defeated-looking man almost stumble out of the inner office as he was leaving; he smiled wanly, shook his head, and disappeared.
In a moment a tall woman, perhaps my height, with brown hair flecked with grey strands—clearly, she had no interest in camouflaging—emerged from the therapy room, smiled broadly, reached for my hand, and
Sophie Agutter entered my life.
“Come in, Mr. Candle. I gather you and I are alumni from the same university.”
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