City Boy
Page 13
This morning had gone badly in all the ways he had expected it to go badly, with Chloe crying and threatening and wanting him to feel sorry for her. Whenever she was desperate, trapped in some misbehavior, she fought back in this way, tried to deflect the blame onto him. Jack had a foreboding that this too had something to do with alcohol, that much of her history and manner and very self might be intertwined with it and there was more dishonesty to her than he wanted to admit. He was deeply angry with her. The anger was deserved. Then in spite of himself he remembered Ivory, his body remembered her with a flood of sensations. He would have to forgive Chloe. He would have to forgive himself.
Chloe was going to have to stop drinking entirely. She had agreed as much. He would stop also, to show that this was something they were in together. At the moment that didn’t seem like a sacrifice, but a relief and a penance. Perhaps things would never be restored to what they had been. You couldn’t unsay what you’d said, unhear what you’d heard. You couldn’t make broken glass whole again. But you could move forward. Love each other in spite of knowing the worst, or maybe because of it. That was what a marriage was, or should be.
During Jack’s lunch period he tried to call her but there was no answer. Maybe she’d gone in to work after all, or she might have turned the phone off so she could sleep. He thought about trying her again before he started for home, but decided against it, and began his long trip back north in the slow late-afternoon traffic. When he reached his stop, he walked another two blocks to their favorite deli, where he bought chicken salad and onion rolls and ginger ale. At a sidewalk stand he picked up a plastic sleeve of yellow daisies. Peace offerings.
The front door had already been repaired with new glass. He took that as a good and hopeful sign. But Chloe wasn’t in the apartment. She hadn’t left him a note. Jack hardly expected that. He knew she intended to make him worry about her, and this was meant to be his punishment. It was somehow necessary to Chloe, to her sense of grievance, that he be punished. He tried calling her at work and got her voice mail. He listened to her brisk, sweet voice, that other Chloe who was neither angry nor estranged from him, and then he lay down in their bed and slept.
Jack opened his eyes to darkness. The key worked in the front-door lock and he heard the sounds of something lifting, scraping. Ivory? He almost spoke it aloud, but that shocked him fully awake. He rose up on one elbow and turned on the light.
Chloe walked the length of the hallway without looking in on him. He heard her in the kitchen. Light switch, refrigerator, running water. She would know he was here, would have seen his keys and briefcase as she came in. So they were still at war and nothing was over yet.
She was drinking a glass of water at the sink. Jack came up behind her and put his arms around her.
Chloe said, “I haven’t been drinking. In case you’re trying to smell it on me.”
Jack stepped away from her. “Good. Fine. Way to go. Nice to see you too.”
“Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it.”
“I wasn’t. I’m not going to do that to you.” He hoped that this was the truth. It was too easy to imagine things going the other way, the endless ugly round of accusations and denials.
This seemed to take some of the fight out of her. She put the glass down and rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I feel like absolute shit.”
“Did you go into work?”
“Not until late. Then I stayed so I could catch up. I told them I had a dentist’s appointment this morning. Beats saying sloppy drunk and hungover.”
Jack supposed it was good for her to be making jokes about it, even bitter ones. They would have to find some way to talk about everything. The clock above the sink said almost nine. He realized he hadn’t eaten since lunch. “You hungry?”
“A little. Yeah. Food. I remember food.”
From the refrigerator Jack brought out the chicken salad and ginger ale, a jar of pickles and a wedge of yellow cheese. He sliced the onion rolls in half and set out plates and silverware on the kitchen table.
“Did you get all this? And the flowers? That was so sweet.”
They sat down together and ate their supper, and it was almost as if their troubles had never happened, as if all it took to forget them was feeding a simple hunger. Chloe asked how school had been and he told her. And wasn’t it hot, though it was supposed to be cooler tomorrow, and once more Jack had forgotten about Mrs. Lacagnina, which was understandable but made him feel that he’d compromised himself with good intentions, and then Chloe said, “I need to specifically apologize—”
“No you don’t.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Yes I do.”
Chloe said, “Look at me. Please. The only reason I said all that about your writing—”
“You were drunk. I understand that.”
“No, I mean sure I was drunk, but did you ever think maybe it’s because I’m jealous?”
He hadn’t thought that. He did look at her then.
“It was something I used to do, remember? Maybe you didn’t really know me back then, maybe I wasn’t even that good at it, but hey, I wanted to be good. And I gave up on it and you didn’t and I’m just saying that sometimes it’s hard for me to deal with.”
“I didn’t know it was that important to you.”
“Well now you do. I mean okay, it’s stupid to think I would have gotten very far with it—”
“It’s not stupid at all. You’re a terrifically verbal person. You can do anything you put your mind to.”
Chloe regarded the half-finished sandwich on her plate as if it had tricked her into eating it. “You don’t have to keep shining everything up like that.”
“I’m not. I’m being factual. Writing just wasn’t something you chose to pursue. You had other interests.”
“So you wouldn’t mind if I started up again. Writing.”
She watched him swallow the surprise of this down. He said, “You don’t need my permission.”
“I know that. I just don’t want it to seem like I’m going into competition with you.”
It did seem like something of the sort, but of course he was not allowed to say this. “What is it you want to write?”
Chloe considered this, or seemed to, but Jack had a feeling that this was actually something rehearsed and calculated, a test of him in ways he did not yet understand. Since that morning she had regained her complexion and fixed her hair in some new way, a headful of black Gypsy curls, and she wore a white blouse he didn’t remember seeing before, with embroidery set into the sleeves, and although he was used to a certain chameleonlike aspect of her beauty, how she could change her looks in this way, there was something uncanny about it. She said, “I haven’t yet decided if it’s going to be fiction or nonfiction.”
Jack said, neutrally, “That’s kind of an important thing to get straight from the beginning. Whether you’re making things up or not.”
She leaned over the table, suddenly animated. “No, see, it’s definitely going to be autobiographical. Like a journal. A record of everything that’s going on with me now, in terms of drinking and you and me and my goals and whatever else. I thought it would help me to make some changes.” She waited while Jack nodded to signify that this was a good idea. “But I don’t want to impose arbitrary factual limits on it. Because when you try to define ‘fact’ or ‘truth,’ the very words begin to negate themselves. There are different narratives implicit in every action and every relationship. Different ways in which language accommodates subjectivity, the intersection between self and other. There’s one version of events that we all agree to validate. There are alternative narratives, what we believe happens, what we wish or fear would happen. That’s what I’m interested in. That zone of ambiguity and disjointure.”
She finished, a little out of breath, and it was Jack’s turn to say something. “Wow. You have this all planned out.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Oh don’t worry. It’s not going to be one of those tell-alls. I bet there’s some things you would never ever write about.”
Christ yes. He shrugged, eloquently, he hoped.
“Well I’m the same way. Relax. And I’m gonna surprise you. I’m going to write a hell of a book. I’ve even got a title. ‘Anesthesia.’ Everything’s going to center around the metaphor of pain, and pain killing, and of course that’s one of the things that alcohol does. But the metaphor will be ironic. Because the reader is always a participant/voyeur in the narrative, and by implication, another inflicter of pain. I want the whole concept of authorship to become subversive.”
“I never thought of it quite like that. The voyeur part.” Jack was treading cautiously here. He didn’t want to say that it sounded like more of the old, top-heavy grad school thinking. He was afraid that at some point Chloe would present him with a wrongheaded and hopeless piece of writing that he would have to read and respond to. But Chloe seemed so genuinely excited, so hopeful and energized, he didn’t have the heart or the nerve to discourage her. “It’s really good that you want to take something negative and deal with it creatively. I think it will be”—he hesitated slightly over the word, it felt false in his mouth—“empowering.”
Chloe nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I’m hoping. It’s mostly this personal thing, so I don’t know if anybody else would ever be interested in it, I mean want to publish it …”
She stopped, shrugged. “I know. Dumb idea. Publishing.”
“Not dumb. You never know how far you can go with something when you’re first starting out.” In fact he thought it was nearly delusional of her to think about publishing. Chloe hadn’t yet done any of the hard work of pushing words around on a page, didn’t know how easy it was for writing to never get written. But in order to keep her from dissolving into another fit of self-doubt, he had to sound more upbeat than he really was. “I think you could end up with something really good.”
“No you don’t, but it’s sweet of you to say it.”
Then she laughed. “You really don’t have a poker face, you know?”
“If you say so.” He laughed along with her. Ha ha.
“It’s okay, silly. You’re just trying to be nice, I appreciate that. But I can tell every thought you think. That expression you have when you’re trying to be really smooth? I love it. I bet that’s what you looked like when you were five years old and told your mother you weren’t the one who broke the lamp.”
“I’m that bad, huh.”
“Oh I don’t blame you for being skeptical. I’m just starting out as a writer, what do I know?”
“I’m sorry if I was acting like the resident expert.”
“Well that’s what you are. But I’m going to give you a run for your money.” Chloe smiled and reached across the table and touched her fist lightly to Jack’s chin. “I can’t believe how good I feel about this. About quitting drinking and getting started on the writing and being somebody who actually uses the right side of their brain for once. Not just Little Miss Business Plan. This morning I was in despair, I couldn’t see my way out of this hole we’d dug, okay, I dug. I want to accept responsibility here. Then it’s like it all came together, and I’m feeling so good and positive about you and me and please tell me you feel good too, because I really need to know that.”
Her most beautiful smile. It teased the fullness of her mouth into a pure and perfect curve. Jack pressed the tip of one finger to her lips and said, “I do.”
And because he meant it his face had no lie in it and Chloe tugged at his sleeve to get him to stand up from the table and they embraced there, swaying a little. Chloe’s hands pressed against his waistband and for one panicked moment he remembered that other kitchen and what the girl had done to him and now he was afraid that his body, not his treacherous face, would give him away if she …
But Chloe drew back from him and pulled him toward the bedroom. Jack reached across the bed and turned off the lamp. He didn’t trust himself to be seen in any way. In darkness he thought he might manage to convince them both, Chloe and himself, that love was something you could heal.
Afterward, Chloe’s soft weight rested on top of him. His body, drained, exhausted, kept sinking into sleep, but his mind was still alert and shrill. No matter how hard he’d tried to push his way out of himself and into her, he had only succeeded for that one moment, now receding, the best you could do and never enough. Maybe there was nothing in life that was not conflicted and imperfect and wounded, love most of all, and he was no more of a fool or a liar, no more lonely, than anyone else who walked the earth.
He was still awake when the music in the kid’s apartment ratcheted up from a growl into the forbidden zone. The air ducts vibrated, a faint, metallic humming, and the music itself was lost in the thudding bass. Jack was almost glad to have this excuse to get out of bed. The kid, at least, was someone you could depend on for consistency and unambiguous jerkdom. If he wasn’t there to be despised and scorned, life would be that much less predictable.
Chloe was sound asleep and didn’t stir when he eased her aside. How often had he done this very thing, roused himself out of bed to make the trip upstairs. It felt like a recurring dream, or maybe he should look at it as normal, whatever that had come to mean.
Once he was on the stairs he could make out the song, one of the jazzy, upbeat cuts, about the pleasures of smoking ganja. It was punctuated by the kid’s voice expressing something enthusiastic. His words were smeared into the music so that it might have been either the kid or the singer saying he was gone down de road, mon, and feelin mighty fine.
Jack raised his fist to the door and pounded. After a long enough pause to irritate him, he heard locks unsnapping, and Brezak saying, “Yeah, I know, I know,” and the singer agreeing, and then the door opened. Brezak stepped aside as it swung inward. Dank, incense-tinged smoke escaped in an almost visible plume. Brezak was already working the remote that punched the volume down to the top end of the permissible range.
“It’s cool,” said Brezak, returning to the entryway and bobbing his chin at Jack. He had the kind of beard that made him look like he should be wearing underpants over his face. “Right before you showed up, I was thinking, Uh-oh, I better cut that down, my man Jack’s gonna kick my ass. Am I psychic or what?”
From the passageway that led back to the kitchen and the bedroom, Ivory came toward them, her stumping gait tangling another of her long skirts as she walked. She entered the living room, waved briefly to Jack, and sat down on the couch to leaf through a magazine.
Jack said, “Yeah, psychic.”
“And I bet you knew that I knew that you were coming. It’s like we already had the whole conversation.”
“Sure. Let’s just not have it again tonight.”
“Oh he’s quick, my man Jack. Isn’t he sharp?” He appealed to the girl, who hiked up her skirt and crossed her legs beneath her before she replied:
“Sharp as a major tack.”
She was immersed in her magazine. One bare foot swung back and forth in a half arc, just visible at the hem of her skirt.
Brezak said, “He’s a little uptight around the edges. But he can work on that. Right, honeybunch?”
“Right,” said Ivory from the couch. Her hair fell over the magazine pages and she shook it aside.
Jack didn’t like the way Brezak was looking at him, his eyebrows wiggling in some Groucho Marx—style leer, if Groucho was way stoned. Jack’s skin went cold, wondering what Ivory had said to him. He had no trust in her discretion. He had no reason to trust her about anything. The idea of Brezak having such knowledge about him was unbearable.
“And don’t worry about the music. We were just about to turn in.”
“Sure,” said Jack stupidly. He realized that Brezak was waiting for him to leave. “Good night, then.”
The door closed. Jack started down th
e stairs, swearing weakly to himself. Somehow he’d gotten himself involved in the ongoing comic book saga of the kid’s life. Somehow, hell: he knew exactly what he’d done, how he had bulled and blundered and refused to keep his distance from everything perverse and wrongheaded. Dirty little secret. He liked a taste of walking on the wild side. At least until he got caught at it. Why was the girl back here with Brezak, where was Raggedy Ann? How had she managed it, had she broken in again? Had she gotten around to telling him about that particular trick?
If part of what he felt was jealousy, and he had to admit he did, and if that shamed him, then it was only what he deserved.
By the time he reached his own apartment, he’d decided that bluffing it out was his only option. He didn’t know for a fact that Ivory had said anything. He couldn’t let nerves and paranoia get the best of him. Even if she had been telling tales to Brezak, he could deal with it. Stare the kid down or avoid him altogether. Nothing irrevocable had happened. Nothing of the sort would ever happen again, he would make sure of that. Things might all be working out, in some messy way. The girl and the kid. Him and Chloe. Status quo restored. Just a little less uptight around the edges.
He reentered his own bed, and the zone of warmth around Chloe, and the faint, unmistakable smell of sex that rose from her. The music upstairs was only a pulse now. He let it beat behind his closed eyes until his thoughts unraveled into sleep.
Whoever it was that forecast cooler weather had lied. It was the next morning, and good neighbor Jack stood at Mrs. Lacagnina’s door, knocking away. The air in the upstairs hallways was so dizzy hot and thick, it took an effort to draw it into his lungs. Jack tried to hear if Mrs. Lacagnina’s air conditioner was laboring away behind her door. Nothing. That wasn’t a good sign. The units were old and undersized, and when the temperatures climbed this high, they only stirred the tepid air. Jack and Chloe had already replaced theirs. Maybe Mrs. Lacagnina’s daughter could get her a new air conditioner, or at least get her to use the one she had.