by James Tate
For the first time in years, Jerry slept poorly that night. The pure mountain air and his own hard work usually knocked him out within a matter of minutes of putting his head to the pillow. This night, however, long after he should have been sawing logs, he thought he heard voices. He rolled over to snuggle up to Nona, but she wasn’t there. It was very late. Her absence frightened him. He called her name several times and fumbled in the darkness for the lamp-switch. A loon called in the distance, and he wondered if he was dreaming. There hadn’t been loons on Lake Umbagog for several years, since the first year. But, then, distinctly, eerily, it called again.
He heard Nona talking softly from the kitchen: “Yes, I think so, I think that might be possible. He’s taken the bait, isn’t that a scream? I’ll work on him. I can’t give you a date. It’s too early. Perhaps we’ll be home before the holidays. I’ll see what I can do. I love you, too.” Nona jumped when she saw Jerry standing in the doorway. “What are you doing up?” she asked. “Who was that? Who were you talking to at this hour?” He was almost angry.
“It’s only eleven o’clock. That was my mother. She just wanted to know how we were doing. Now go back to bed, nothing’s wrong. I’ll be in bed in a few minutes.” Instinctively, though half-asleep, Jerry went to the window facing Mr. Lunceford’s cabin. All the lights were on. And over by cabin #8 someone was crouched with a tiny flashlight, digging in an over-turned trash barrel.
The next morning, his last in the north country, Mr. Lunceford looked out his front window and saw Jerry Kuncio working on a motor down on the dock. He had never been much of a fisherman, but had been touched by Jerry’s offer to take him out personally. So, he finished dressing and made his way down to the dock.
“Beautiful morning!” he shouted.
Jerry looked at his watch automatically. It was still morning, though he had been up since five. The best fishing was long over. “I slept like a baby,” Mr. Lunceford continued as Jerry finished tightening up a new fuel hose.
“I wish I could say the same,” Jerry replied. “I had the damnedest dreams, couldn’t sleep most of the night.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Mr. Lunceford replied, himself a frequent insomniac. Somehow he hadn’t thought the working folk of the north country would suffer from what he thought was the urban dweller’s disease.
“Does your offer still stand, I mean about the fishing?”
Jerry looked up from the motor and gave Lunceford a long gaze. Maybe Nona’s mother had sent him, she was capable of doing something like that. They’d never been happy about her marriage to him. He’d thought that they would finally get off his back when he made a go of the lodge and cabins, but he was wrong, as usual. Now they were afraid she was really entrenched with this hillbilly.
“Mr. Lunceford, I’m afraid it’s a bit late today. If you still want to go out this evening after supper, I’d be happy to take you.”
“No, no, I’ll be checking out before noon. I’m not really a fisherman, as I told you. I just thought as long as I was this far north . . .”
Jerry wiped his hands with a rag and tossed it into his tool kit, “Mind if I ask what did bring you up here?” It was not the kind of question a seasoned lodge owner did ask, and Jerry regretted it immediately. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
“Business,” Mr. Lunceford replied. “Business, business, and more business.”
“Not much business up here, except the timber business.”
“I’m afraid there is more business in these mountains than timber.” He paused and looked out at the lake. Three canvasback ducks paddled around the dock panhandling for yesterday’s bread.
“There’s more business in these mountains than you want to know.”
Jerry remembered his wife’s late night call to her mother in Pennsylvania: He’s taken the bait, isn’t that a scream. And Laszlo Batki in cabin 8 with his little flashlight, sifting other people’s coffee grounds.
All his life he had hunted these hills and fished these lakes. He knew them as well as anyone. He had been a guide when he was still in high school.
“I don’t exactly know what you’re getting at, Mr. Lunceford. And, if it’s a government secret, then I don’t think I want to know anyway. But let me put it to you this way: Are you suggesting that I change the name Lake Umbagog Lodge & Cabins to Ground Zero Motel?” He smiled at this instance of his own wit.
And Lunceford appreciated his little joke out there in the wilderness. He felt like he was talking to a peer and colleague.
“I like Lake Umbagog Lodge & Cabins better,” and then he added with charm, “for the meantime. Please thank Mrs. Kuncio for me. You’ve both been extremely kind. Next time I’ll remember to bring my fishing gear.”
AT THE RITZ
Her bottom half had fallen off. She didn’t seem to notice and no one wanted to tell her. She was speaking of “men who had lost their lives to tigers.” When she had lived in the Sunderbans she had dated many of them.
“In the long run,” she sighed, “there is nothing more beautiful than a swimming tiger. So I guess you can say it was worth it.” Long pause. “Poor boys. Poor dear, dear boys.”
“Tigers are a serious problem in the Sunderbans,” I said, sympathetically.
“435 deaths in 21 years,” she said, “and that is only the official record and does not include unreported deaths.”
I ordered another round of Mimosas.
“It’s risky work with bees as well,” I added, though I could feel the danger of heaping another horror on the pyre. “I mean, principally, nomad bees.” Then, determined to strike an uplifting note, I added, “I as much as the next person relish their honey.”
The upper torso of Valerie seemed to appreciate my effort.
“Recently they have begun to wear masks in the mangroves of the Sunderbans. Tigers apparently are mostly angered by the faces of men.”
I sat there pondering this fascinating new thought and sipping my new drink.
“One man took off his mask to enjoy his lunch and was immediately attacked. So there you go.”
“Yes,” I replied, rather meekly. I desperately needed to get her off this jag of dismemberment, this meditation on violent loss.
I should add here that Valerie is more attractive than a smoke tree, she has the beauty of the revenant, a sepulchral poise, and, at least to me, a deracinating effect that I, by the last vestiges of the most radiant gist, to borrow a phrase, of my most inner soul, to pass on a cliché, could not resist. And, of course, her eyes did resemble those of the sexier, large feline mammals so rare these days in Boston. And her hair was like a storm one had waited for all of one’s life. Please, disappear me.
“People shouldn’t be something they’re not,” she said, and stared into the mirror behind the bar. “I still don’t know who I am. I was brought up to be a lady.”
She was two halves of a lady, and a great lady at that. “You are a great lady,” I reassured her, “It’s just that you have paid dearly. It is an irony to me that Life seems so much more grueling since the discovery of penicillin.”
“When I lived in Nubia, I had a pet cricket named Owen. He was such a comfort to me, and I miss him to this day. He was still living when I was forced to flee. He always slept on a petal of a cowslip. We had a fresh one flown in weekly. I only hope he died peacefully. I simply couldn’t bear it if some ghastly sergeant stomped on him out of boredom or irritation from an imagined insult from some starving servant.”
I didn’t want to look into the mirror directly—I don’t approve of narcissism, the sexual desire for one’s own body; loathsome people, narcissists, in general—but from a more pathetic realm, I had a frail bit of curiosity to peek and see how we were holding up. I hadn’t seen Valerie in ages. We were old chums, once lovers. From great distances I gleaned what I could from the tittle-tattle. I won’t repeat it here, the marriages, divorces, fortunes won, fortunes lost, snakebite, air crash, ice cream factory in the jungles of hell. She’s simply the dea
rest person I know, and I would readily behead anyone who spoke ill of her for one minute. But, now, I’m afraid I have stolen my sidelong glance into the mirror, and we both look terribly old and even strangely disheveled. But then, a moment later, I glanced again, and Valerie’s bottom half had gotten up, on its own, it seemed, and attached itself seamlessly, and she looked like a young debutante of, say, eighteen years, much as when she first ravished me in the Gulf of Suez lo those many decades ago when I was recuperating from my bout with malaria.
“To the lady’s room for me,” she said, and walked off as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had ever happened.
“435 deaths in 21 years,” she had said, “and that is only the official record and does not include unreported deaths.”
I ordered another round of Mimosas and tried to imagine a few of the unreported deaths. No, I tried to imagine, to call into being, a swimming tiger, right there in the bar at the Ritz. And Owen on his cowslip petal.
When Valerie returned she kissed me on the cheek.
I could see that her bottom half was not really hers but someone else’s. Or if not someone else’s, then it was just a thing, something pieced together from odd bits of bamboo and straw and rubber plants, I don’t know. Perhaps we had had too much to drink. I suppose these new thoughts ruled out the possibility of renting a room and making love with good, old Val.
“So how is it for you, Charlie? The library has been good to you? And Julie?”
“Julie’s gone back to law school for the third time. I don’t think she’s suited for it, but nonetheless, that’s what she’s doing. And the board of directors hired a new head librarian who thinks I’m some kind of marginal eccentric who’s mainly obsessed with the esoteric, and therefore put limits on my freedom.”
“The Soul in a jar.”
“Yes, that is it.”
“What are we to do?”
It was almost dusk outside. Either I called home and lied about working late, or I gave myself over to Valerie for a few more hours, which, by now, clearly was the deepest lie bifurcated by the deepest truth I could hope to achieve in this life. For the next few minutes I was stalled in that ultimate, luxurious resting zone where everything was true and nothing was true. It’s a terribly seductive island, very remote, and populated exclusively by transient beings, dancing, feasting, copulating, but only briefly, and then disappearing, to reappear, most likely, behind some counter of a cheap jewelry shop in a suburban mall, where one is permitted to live on forever.
THE INVISIBLE TWINS
Before he met Mary, Dan Jacobson’s greatest achievements in life were in the areas of alcohol consumption and the seduction of young coeds. He was a genial, if slothful, man in his late thirties, who had never married or owned a car or a credit card. He just hadn’t gotten around to these conventions of our culture. And some of this is what made him attractive to these coeds at the Junior College, I suppose. Dan had a lot of male friends, too, drinking buddies. Even in these health-conscious times, a hard-drinking crew. We didn’t really trust non-drinkers; it was just a prejudice instilled into us by our love of recklessness, bravado, laughter and low tragedy. It’s hard to say.
But then Dan met Mary and everything changed, at least with him. “What can I fix you?” I asked as usual.
“Perrier,” he said.
“What do you mean, Perrier? I don’t stock Perrier, pal. This isn’t a sushi bar.”
“Mary’s convinced me to give up the booze. She’s incredible, man. I’m in love, and I tell you I feel a lot better, too. I’ve been working-out, lifting weights and doing aerobics, I feel great.”
It’s a phase, I thought to myself. Dan always was impressionable. When he was going with that model, Jennifer, he had started wearing these thirty-dollar silk ties and his buddies had a few laughs behind his back. Now this.
“She’s very successful, you know. She’s pulling down eighty big ones a year.”
“What the hell does she do?”
“She’s a Herbalife saleswoman. She travels all over the country and gives those lectures on Herbalife and sells the product to prospective new salespeople. Eighty thousand a year, can you believe it?
“Frankly, pal, I haven’t a clue what Herbalife is. But I’m sure it’s not good for you. Probably kills all the important bacteria in our systems and replaces them with radioactive moss. I don’t like the sound of it at all, and she isn’t selling any of that stuff to me.”
Dan did chuckle, for old time’s sake, but I could tell my derision tweaked his new-found loyalty a bit. It was meant to.
“Well, John, say what you like, this is it for me. I’m in love for real this time and we’re getting married.”
I nearly fell over. “But you just met her. Why the hurry, slow down, pal.”
“We want to have a baby, do it right, you know what I mean?”
“Marriage? A baby? You’re going too fast for me. How long have you known her?”
“Two weeks, but I feel like I’ve known her my whole life. Everything else has been a warm-up for this one. We’ve already set the date, a month from now. We picked out a house yesterday. You wait till you see this sucker. It’s a Victorian mansion, a quarter-million.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, Dan Jacobson, master of the manse, a teetotaler, father.
I didn’t see Dan again, nor did I meet his famous Mary, until the wedding. It was an opulent affair in a fancy Episcopalian church. The bride and groom arrived in a white, stretch limousine. The vows had been written by the happy couple, a practice, I admit, I hold in low esteem. I don’t remember them now, but you know: “I promise to never raise my voice and to do the dishes every other night.” Everybody there was dressed to the teeth, and I didn’t recognize ninety percent of them anyway. Perhaps they had rented the congregation, a nice-looking bunch of stiffs if you ask me.
The reception was the really expensive part. The catering alone must have cost ten thousand. I began to notice these things, I began to add them up in my head. I had nothing better to do because I barely knew anyone and, as it turned out, there was a good reason. They were all into this Herbalife, the miracle substance about which I still knew nothing. I expressly changed the subject whenever it was mentioned, and of course it was mentioned constantly. This whole crowd, maybe two hundred people, had all gotten rich off of it. And I watched Dan mingling with them. It was hard to take.
After an hour or so of standing around by myself at the edge of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Dan finally spotted me and brought Mary over for the introduction. He had said she was beautiful, and I suppose she was, but not to me. She had that dressed-for-success kind of smile that made me wonder if her teeth were sharp as razors. Her steel-blue eyes assessed my situation and dismissed me as not in her league, no Herbalife possibilities as either buyer or seller.
“We’re going to have the baby next May,” she said. “Dan can take paternity-leave, he’s already checked that out. I can travel up to the eighth month, and I’ll stay home for six weeks after the birth. Got to get back out there on the road, there’s such a demand.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’m really happy for both of you.” Both Dan and Mary were drinking non-alcoholic champagne. I sipped a Coke to help celebrate this amazing union, but soon took French leave.
Most of the old gang—Sal, Rick, Willy and Patrice—said they were happy for Dan, that he looked good, that he was really in love, that he had even gotten a hell of a good deal—but there had to be some suspicion, too. I mean the way it happened, overnight. Suddenly Dan’s in this mansion, suddenly Dan who we had seen put away enough vodka over the years to float a battleship, as they say. And also the baby. Yeah, Dan had a sentimental side, this was well known, but that Mary didn’t look too maternal to me. Her career came first, this was clear. She knew it could fall through any time, one year, two years, who can say how long these fads will last? And no retirement plan. Just grab what you can now while the dummy product is hot. She had already made a
bundle, there was no denying that. And now Dan was living very well, thanks to her. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes.
I was having a few beers over at Sal’s apartment about a month later when he hit me with some of the talk that was going around. “I’ve got at least three sources that say she’s into S&M. She was an alkie, too, you know, for years before she found the road to success. Strange woman. Do you think Dan can handle it?”
“I don’t know nothing these days. Something doesn’t strike me as right, but maybe we’re all just jealous. Maybe they’re as madly in love as they say. She’s pushing forty-two, you know. She hasn’t got that much time, and her eggs are awfully well traveled, that’s all I’ll say. I wish them luck.”
Sal was having a pretty rough time of it himself these days, out of work, recently separated from Josie. “It just all seems too good to be true,” he said, stubbing out another Lucky.
“Yeah,” I concurred, “Dan did tell me they were humping like bunnies to try and conceive right away to coincide with his paternity-leave, or whatever it’s called. Can you imagine that, the man taking off ’cause the woman had a kid?”
“I guess you and I are living in the dark ages still, hey John?”
It’s not as though I was completely caught up in Dan and Mary’s every move. Weeks, even months, passed without my giving more than a passing thought to their situation. But I was curious about this business of Mary’s biological time clock, as they say. Who is “they”? I don’t know, it’s just a phrase I don’t remember hearing much until recently. Now I hear it all the time. Everybody’s clock is running out, an exhausted species. And also Mary had said to me at the wedding reception—it comes back to me now—she said to me that she wanted to have a baby to prove to her friends—presumably the hordes of Herbalife gentry—“that she could do it all.” And this had stuck in my craw.