It’s not meant to be funny. It’s the truth.
What about Meg? She needs you.
Meg doesn’t need me, Adeleine, and you know that. Meg hasn’t needed me in years. And now with you gone, she needs me even less than ever.
You’re not doing enough to reach out to her.
What am I supposed to do? She doesn’t return my phone calls. I send her letters and never receive a response in return. For all I know she never returned to Tulane. She may be working in California for all I know.
Art, you worry too much. I’m dead. There’s no need to think of me anymore. Move on with your life. Be happy. You only have one life to live. You don’t know how long you have left. You may live to old age like I always thought you would, or you may die tomorrow.
I would like that. I can’t take you not being here.
But look what you have in your hands.
What do I have?
You have two champagne glasses and a bottle of champagne.
Do you want to sit down and have champagne with me?
No. I don’t want to have champagne with anyone anymore. Not after what happened.
Oh, Adeleine. About what happened…
No use worrying about it now, Art. What’s done is done.
What was done? Did you suffer?
I suffered. Yes. That I can say. I suffered. More than words can say. But it’s over now.
Don’t tell me you suffered. Please don’t tell me you suffered. I can’t take it that you suffered.
But it’s over now, Art, and it’s time for you to move on.
It’s not time for me to move on. Quit saying that. I want to be with you.
No, go find that woman. Drink your champagne while it’s still cold, while there’s still dew on the bottle.
Our bed is still warm. I swear I feel you at night when I fall to sleep.
I’m gone, Art. There’s no reason to hold on. Go find your lady friend. Where did you meet her, by the way?
You know where I met her.
No I don’t.
Of course you do.
No, seriously.
No, seriously!
Art, please. Your champagne…she’s waiting.
I’ll go under one condition.
Say the word, darling.
Under the condition you’re never far from me.
I’ll never be far from you, Art. Now go and enjoy your life. Seriously. Listen to me. Don’t be foolish.
•
I crossed traffic and was nearly run down. I couldn’t keep my directions straight. I looked right when I should have looked left. I was confused all of a sudden. Out of sorts. I tried to get back to Rita as soon as possible, before the bottle of champagne cooled.
And the intimacy didn’t feel intimate. In fact, I felt exposed laying with her…exposed. I didn’t know how to escape…
And then I was trembling. Trembling while she tried to calm me. I found I suffered bouts of terror. Post-traumatic stress syndrome. And this talking of hurt and brokenness was more than I could take.
I awoke in the middle of the night, still in my clothes while she slept the sleep of the dead next to me.
In the morning she was gone, and there was a note: Call me, R.
PART II: JUST SHOOT ME
The interview should have been innocuous. I don’t recall anything about the situation that seemed abnormal. A man and a woman were getting divorced. I was hired by the wife’s lawyer to interview the husband. His name was Adolph Meyer. At the time, it meant nothing to me.
•
That was then. This is now. Since Adeleine died, the adventure of my life has worn thin.
Maybe it’s the detective business and all the disappointments that have made me surly. I don’t know. Maybe it’s everything combined.
I feel at heart as if I’m a nice person but I also know that I don’t come off that way, not since Adeleine died. A lot of people find me difficult to get along with. Just look at Rita. We’ve spent five years together, on and off, and we’ve been at an impasse the last year or so. She feels I’m too crabby. I’m always down in the dumps. She doesn’t like the attitude.
I tell her—I say: There are facts and attitudes, Rita. If you don’t like my attitude, change the fact.
Don’t worry, buster, I might, she keeps threatening.
I keep making pledges to be nice to her. I try to be friendly when I see her. I always make a point of keeping a smile on my face when I talk to her, but she’s not convinced.
You’re not happy, she tells me.
Yes I am.
No you’re not.
Yes I am, I tell her. Just look at the smile on my face.
You may have a smile on your face, but there’s a tone in your voice and I don’t like it. It’s irascible.
What do you mean? Irascible?
You know what I mean.
No I don’t.
Yes you do.
No.
Yes.
And we go back and forth like this until not only is the tone in my voice irascible but whatever smile I had plastered to my face is gone and I’m shouting at her with genuine rage and anger.
Maybe this thing with Rita isn’t meant to be. I’ve never fought with a woman so much my entire life. Adeleine and I never fought.
I once told Rita this in the heat of an argument.
What is it with you? I asked her.
With me?
Yeah. You’re always causing arguments. It seems like all we do is fight.
You’re the one who does all the fighting, Art. I want nothing to do with fighting.
Then stop starting them.
It’s you, Art, who starts them.
It is not.
Yes it is.
Listen, I tell her. Before I met you I never had an argument my whole life. Adeleine and I were married for eighteen years and we never had a single fight that I can think of.
That’s because you’re idealizing her, Art. Don’t you see this?
I am not idealizing her. I wish she were here right now to support me on this issue. We never had a fight.
Yeah right, Rita says. If you’re so holy, how come you don’t talk to your daughter anymore? If you’re so high and mighty, why has your daughter estranged you?
It was the accident that estranged me and my daughter.
Then it’s the accident that has made you irascible.
It is not.
It is too.
And so we’d go back and forth until finally I’d storm out of her apartment and live on my own for a few days. Do laundry, collect mail, pay bills. Stuff like that.
Fact is, maybe Rita’s right. Maybe I don’t present as nice a mug to the world as I think I do. I seem to recall making a point of being nice, especially while I worked in the telecom industry. But a lot of good that did me. Then the HR personnel took me out. After that, I was less inclined to be nice. Then Adeleine died and it’s only gotten worse. I get surly with the gas station clerk for no reason. I honk my horn at poor drivers and pedestrians that get in the way. The other day I blew my horn at a lady pushing her baby stroller. She was pushing the stroller through the intersection while talking on her phone. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry getting through the intersection.
I told her to go fuck herself and her baby too, and I flipped her the bird as I sped by.
Now I see it wasn’t such a nice thing to say. I regret having said it. I don’t wish any misfortune upon that woman or her baby. Having lived through some misfortune myself, I wouldn’t wish hurt upon anyone in the world.
•
Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself.
No I’m not.
Yes you are.
Blurt. Blurt.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
•
I never told Adeleine this, but I never used a gun in my job. I suppose that made me just as righteous as that stripper and her bouncer, but Adeleine made such a fuss over this aspect of the job that I decided it would be better to
try and do business without one. I soon learned that best practice was not to carry a gun or any type of official ID. It was better to blend in and be as normal as possible. What’s more, the sorts of cases I did were all small potato cases. Nothing very interesting. I most often worked in conjunction with a couple of divorce lawyers—they’d send me off to ask questions of people. My job, more often than not, was to establish an informal back-channel line of conversation to find out what was negotiable and what was not negotiable.
In some cases, the legal warfare between divorcing spouses would escalate so rapidly that I was called to try and defuse the tension. I’d often meet one or the other or both of the competing spouses and I’d try and help them see things in a more reasonable light. Again, my goal was to try and defuse tension, particularly in an escalating conflict. I always tried to meet the husband or the wife in a neutral and calming public place. I’d meet these people, and I’d try and use the only tool I really had, the gift of gab. I had a long-standing conviction that a reasonable solution could always be arrived at through talk, and as a result that expensive litigation could be avoided.
Sometimes I was successful at this sort of thing. Folks naturally found me to be approachable and reasonable. I had empathy for everyone I dealt with. I assume that everyone, except in very rare cases, is at heart a good actor. Let’s face it, no one really wants to have to confront divorce head-on, especially when children are involved. So in my conversations I would point to ways around the stress, the turmoil, and in many cases the heartbreaking tragedy of volatile divorce proceedings. Let’s everyone try and be reasonable here. If we’re reasonable now, we all can get on with our lives. In divorce there will inevitably be harm and foul, but of course the shrapnel that comes from divorce can maim everyone, including the kids. A little effort working behind the scenes can reduce that shrapnel, so let’s talk it out. Let’s talk about a pathway that makes sense for everyone, including you…
I was naturally pretty good at this type of work. My method was to wing it. I was always winging it. I felt I was always talking off the cuff and hoping for the best. Occasionally I tried to imagine that I was on the receiving end of a divorce proceeding, and how painful that would be for me. It was this thinking that guided me in conversations with estranged spouses. I tried to be gentle as a lamb with them, and respectful. To me, they had just found themselves on the wrong side of luck. For one reason or another, love, which had maybe once sprung true and beautiful, had turned south on them. I understood the hurt, the anger. And maybe this is why I kept getting called to participate in these sorts of cases. But these cases never paid much, and there weren’t enough of them to build a sustainable business on. At the end of the day, a lot of people preferred all-out warfare in divorce proceedings, shrapnel and children be damned.
•
Adolph Meyer and I got together for the interview in a neutral place—a café of his choice on the north side—and I asked him a few questions about what was prompting the divorce. He claimed he didn’t want the divorce. It was his wife who insisted on getting divorced. He was happy in love with her.
I asked him several standard questions: Did you have any affairs? Did you sign a prenup agreement? Are you going to seek custody of the children?
After a while of asking questions, he told me point blank: What you don’t seem to understand…
Hold on, I told him. I turned on my recorder and got out a pen and paper.
What you don’t seem to understand, detective…
Yes. Go ahead.
Is that it’s guys like you who are ruining this country.
Oh yes? How so?
Guys like you. Leeches. You feed off of the misery of others. You make your living off guys like me.
I’m a detective, I pointed out. I’m a neutral party.
You’re not neutral. You feed off of others’ misfortune. Do you know, if this marriage of mine falls apart, I’m done for. I can’t bear the thought of losing my wife.
If your marriage falls apart it is the fault of you and your wife.
You’re dead wrong there, detective. It’s the fault of leeches like you and that dirty lawyer of hers. What’s her lawyer doing getting involved in a case like this? Money. It’s all greed. My wife and I, we have a perfectly normal relationship. But the lawyer doesn’t care. You and the lawyer are only interested in one outcome.
Sir, I pointed out. I’m only doing my job. I have nothing against you or your wife. I don’t know who either of you are. I don’t even know the case.
The case is, he interrupted. The case is my wife is seeking to divorce me for no reason whatsoever.
Surely there’s a reason.
There is no reason, detective. She’s unhappy, is all. Is being unhappy grounds for a divorce? ‘Til death do us part…that was the agreement she signed on for. We have five kids. You don’t divorce your husband because you’re unhappy.
Then there must be some other cause. Do you care to speculate?
I’ll speculate. She’s going through menopause. That’s all it is. She’s having a down time. She’s depressed. She’s unhappy. Her hair is turning gray and she’s got a wrinkle. She’s turning into an old lady and she doesn’t like it. She’s blaming her troubles on me. That’s all. It’s not me who’s caused her to be unhappy. It’s a biological condition called old age. But I have five kids and I can’t emotionally afford to be separated from them. I had six and lost one to leukemia two years ago. He was only eight years old. My youngest. After he died, my wife started to have her menopause. With that came her depression, for which she blames me. Do you have any idea, detective, what it is like to live with someone who is chronically depressed?
No.
Always being blamed for one thing or another is what it’s like. From morning ‘til night, the screaming that takes place in my house. The screaming that comes from her mouth. The screaming and screaming about how it’s my fault everything has gone to hell. What do you mean? I ask my wife. What’s going to hell? You know what’s gone to hell, she tells me. Everything has gone to hell. This family has gone to hell. Our relationship has gone to hell. There is no more happiness in our family. I need oxygen, she keeps telling me. I need a breath of fresh air. I can’t take it anymore. I need for you to move on. That’s what she keeps telling me, how she feels trapped. She tells me I need to move on because she’s unhappy. But the way I see it, being unhappy isn’t grounds for a divorce. We sign on for life. That’s what marriage is. It’s a life-long commitment. ‘Til death do us part. A divorce…let me be frank with you, detective. A divorce would kill me. It would utterly destroy me. I know you see me here ranting and raving and you think I’m a madman. I can tell by the way you’re looking at me. I can tell you think I’m a lunatic. You’re trying to hide your judgment of me, but I see your smirk. I can see the smirk on your face. Please. Remove the smirk.
No sir. With all due respect, I am far from smirking.
I am not a madman, I tell you. I’m a reasonable man who’s angry. I’m angry that my wife’s menopause is threatening me. I'm pissed off that you and a dirty lawyer are trying to do me in. This is what makes me angry. Not angry. Berserk with anger. I’m berserk. This whole thing is making me berserk. I can’t believe it’s happening to me. I’m a normal man whose wife has gotten out of control and now she, you, and a lawyer are threatening to destroy me.
With all due respect, sir, this isn’t about destroying you.
I have five living kids that depend on me, detective. I don’t need people like you and that high-priced scumbag lawyer of hers to try and take it away from me.
I’m recording all this, I hope you know…
You’re smirking is what you’re doing. You’re smirking at me, and if you don’t remove the smirk from your face you will pay a high price, I promise you, detective.
I’m not smirking.
You sit there and you think you’re safe. You laugh at me. You think I’m some kind of monkey. The truth is I have dedicated myself for twen
ty-eight years to this family of mine, and I don’t intend for anyone to take it away from me. I’m a bricklayer. Do you know what that is? A bricklayer is a slave. Someone who gets his balls busted every hour of the day and who comes home dead tired from work. A bricklayer is someone who actually works for a living. Do you even know what work is, detective? I will tell you what work is. It’s not sitting in coffee shops like this trying to ruin people’s lives. I stand on a scaffold all day with a trowel in hand laying bricks. Or in my case, heavy blocks. All day long laying sixty-pound blocks. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year. I lay them in hundred-degree weather while you sit in your air-conditioned office. My skin scorched by the sun. I lay them in the winter, too. My fingers so cold I can hardly pick the blocks up. The antifreeze they put in the mortar to keep it from freezing destroys my skin. I work my ass off building buildings while guys like you sit around interviewing people in coffee shops. I don’t have time like you to sit around in coffee shops sipping coffee, detective. I can’t afford to miss a day of work. Unlike you, if I miss a day of work my family goes hungry. Do you think I would have been able to carry on with this labor all these years if I knew that it was only going to result in my wife taking it all away from me? Taking it away because she became unhappy because she noticed a wrinkle in her skin? Do you think that a man like me is going to let an unhappy woman and a money-hungry lawyer and a fucked-up detective who’s never worked a day in his life take away from me the only thing in this world that I have? My family?
Sir, if you want, we can end this interview right now.
I will tell you this, detective. This ain’t no game. You want to spy on me and break up my marriage? You want to try and ruin my life? Well I can play that game too. Believe me.
Sir, it’s your wife who started all of this. Without her initiating this, neither the lawyer nor myself would be here.
You fuel the fire is what you do, detective. You fan the flames. If you think you can win this, you are sorely mistaken. I am stronger than you, and I know how to play this game too, if I want to.
Sir, with all due respect, as I mentioned, I am recording this conversation. You do realize that…
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