Sex and Death in the American Novel

by Martinez, Sarah

  tottering bones.”

  First I was thinking about how wonderful it was to have someone read to me, especially something I'd never heard before. My family's particular books generally centered around the American West, and with Tristan it was often horror on car rides or around a campfire. The next minute I was sobbing from my stomach, seeing Tristan waiting in line for him with that stupid fucking pile in his hands. All the expectation my brother had, all the hope, and he never would stand on tottering legs. The cruel irony of the situation was too much to wrap my brain around. Here I lay with the very person my brother wanted—needed so badly just to talk to. I hadn't even been able to focus for the entire poem. I was not worthy.

  Jasper stopped reading and didn't move. I could feel him looking at me, then I turned toward his chest and sobbed. Finally his hands fell to my head, my shoulders, stroking, and letting me go. Finally I said, “I'm sorry. You were doing that so beautifully.” I wiped my eyes, running my forearm all the way to my elbow under my eyes and nose, wiping my arm on my jeans.

  He pushed me back, holding my shoulders with his hands. “What is it?”

  I couldn't tell him, not in the way I'd been thinking anyway—that would push him away from me again, and I was tired of Tristan in the middle. I'd discovered Jasper for myself, on my own, someone my brother wouldn't have even imagined: someone fun, silly, generous, and even in his steely work ethic, more capable of happiness than I ever imagined. Not an idol, not all-knowing, just another person, gifted though he was, just not in ways most of those people like my brother would have ever seen. The last thing I wanted was to bring Tristan's name up again.

  I stared for a moment, drying up, unsure how to answer, until I burst into a fresh batch of tears and nasal drippage. He rose and brought me a wad of tissues.

  “How pathetic to be crying over something so random.”

  He stroked my back and watched me. We both broke into a grin at the same time. He rose and poured a drink, then began to pour me one and I said, “No, I want to keep this. I haven't felt like this in a while, reminds me how I was before, before I thought I knew everything about words, about what was good and bad. About what I liked. That was a nice surprise.” I congratulated myself on what I thought was an exceptionally good cover. Drinking would only make this worse, I knew that from experience.

  I went from not understanding what my brother had been searching for, to the tiniest speck of understanding, and it was terrifying. “How hard a person must work to get words to fit into that order, to make those rhythms, just the poetry, and the thought of making the beautiful words reach a person's mind,” I croaked.

  He pulled my hair from my shoulders and smoothed it down my back.

  “I had not until now really understood what the big fucking deal was. I was busy contriving these outlandish scenarios, but with good stories, and people are out there every day and night trying to create something that will last.”

  My face leaked once more, only silently, and I held the feeling close. I was changing.

  When he sent me off on the plane that next day, I kissed him long and deep, trying to enjoy the moment because I knew a new moment was coming and he wouldn't be in it. I felt his eyes on me all the way through security. When I boarded the plane, I didn't miss him because I knew I had a piece of him already with me at home. It sat at the bottom of one of Tristan's boxes. A copy of Jasper's second novel—Filial. Now I needed to read this to separate Jasper from the person Tristan worshipped.

  I would read him, and this time, pay attention. I resolved to go slow, try and see where the beauty was, see where Jasper put himself into the longer passages, where he reached past his own capabilities, where he tried and failed, or succeeded. I wanted to see if I could feel him there, his thoughts and words, or if the book would read as the other had: dense and inaccessible. I hoped I had changed enough to enjoy this part as I had all other parts of being with this man. I needed this experience—as a reader, as a receptacle, no different than a million others—to be different.

  Chapter 10

  The ferry ride to my mother's house seemed to be the perfect place to let the events of the past week settle. I remembered my week in New York in tones of reds, yellows and copper. Fall in Seattle meant an endless succession of the same drizzly gloom. The gray-green water reflected the swirling darkness overhead; the early morning light hadn't yet decided how it would be, sunny or dark.

  I studied the lights of a processing plant across the water and watched as the looming landmasses approached under a blanket of fog and moss-covered rock, inviting me to disappear into their misty channels. What had I gotten myself in to? I felt like I was flapping free in the breeze of emotion, my life at some sort of crossroads, and I wondered when it would start making sense, if it ever would. I had discovered a weakness I didn't think I had in me, and the feeling threatened to become a larger part of my life.

  Mom opened the door in her robe and slippers, a cup of coffee in her hand. A fire spit and growled in the stone fireplace. The scent of the burning wood touched my nostrils as I followed her into the kitchen, passing the stack of manuscripts I had come to help her evaluate for a class she was teaching for the island's literary association. I fixed a large mug of coffee while she lit a cigarette. I did the same. After a few moments she seemed to perk up. “Did you eat? You want to fix something before we get started?” she asked.

  Before I could chicken out I blurted, “I went to New York to see Jasper.”

  She choked on her coffee. “Now you're stalking him?” She coughed and tried to recover, then ran her fingers over her forehead, closing her eyes and breathing slow practiced breaths.

  “Mother, I'm not stalking him. I'm…we're friends. I stayed with him a week.”

  Her head snapped up and she narrowed her eyes, then jammed the cigarette into the ashtray. She leaned toward me over the long table. “What are you up to?”

  I explained everything, how after I'd told him off he'd followed me to Neighbours, and then the next night again. I explained how we'd corresponded and he'd invited me to come stay with him. The image of her face if I had explained the details of the night at the Westin made me bite back a smile.

  “This sounds…irregular.” She made faces as if she couldn't decide on an expression. Finally she settled on confused. “What do you see in him? I thought his work put you to sleep. Please tell me there is another draw for you,” here she lowered her voice, “except that he was someone your brother admired?”

  “No, Ma.” I smiled then, stifling the pang of guilt I felt remembering that had been the draw at first. “He is nothing like I thought, not what Tristan saw even. He is actually fun!”

  “Really?” She didn't believe me.

  “There were things like this; he danced with me two nights straight, he put up with me being pissed at him, unloading all this crap about Tristan. He didn't have to.”

  “Guilt can be a powerful motivator.”

  “I know…” I chewed my thumbnail, took another drag of my cigarette, too hard. Fire shot down my throat. “Things just happened. He didn't have to come to Neighbours the next night, he came after me, Mom.” Her face was still skeptical. “He has these qualities; he's so, considerate, funny even, if you're paying attention. I think he's trying to come out of this shell, and I can help him do that. You know he doesn't even have a TV?”

  “I'm sure he prefers it that way.” Her eyes became soft and she beckoned me over with an open palm. I rose, carrying the coffee and sat in the seat she had pulled close to herself. She took my hand. “You are a beautiful girl—smart, talented—but, Vivi, as you are always so happy to point out, your life is about having fun. He has ambitions.”

  “And I don't? Why are you looking at me like that? It's not like we're picking out fucking choke chains. He's interesting, and this is fun. Different. I feel good when I'm with him.” I hated the pout I knew was on my face.

  She wore a frown because I'd cursed, but she sat with her elbow on the table
and her face resting in her hand, listening to me. She studied me for a few minutes. I shot her alternating looks of annoyance and the childish pleading I only used on her, looking first down to my lap, then back at her from under my eyebrows.

  “So what was the best part of your trip?”

  I told her about visiting his campus, Maine, how New York looked different with him, but was still not anywhere I could ever imagine living. I recalled everything minus the naughty bits, or the spiritual bits, depending on how I wanted to think of it, and her face softened by degrees as I talked, grateful to be able to share this with her.

  “What's weird is that the best part was the last day. He read to me this poem by Robert Penn Warren.”

  Her eyes got dreamy. “Your father and I did that. And I loved it when you and Tristan read to each other. Made me feel like everything would be all right.”

  “I know, but this was something else. He's reading the things he loves; you can hear him get lost in what he's reading. I could sit like that forever.”

  She smiled then. “What does he think about your work?”

  “I don't know yet. He emailed me and asked if he could read something besides my blog.”

  “Smart man.”

  “I told him right away that he wouldn't like it, but I sent it anyway. I haven't heard anything from him yet.”

  “How long ago was that?” she asked, lighting another cigarette, tossing her head back and blowing the first drag of smoke off to the side.

  “Last night.”

  “Well. Huh.” She tapped the ash of her cigarette in an ashtray carved from one smooth piece of river rock. She turned to her lap and picked something off her robe. “You know your father wasn't well known when I met him, but he was already a force at the University of Montana.” She wagged her finger in the air. “When he read his work in public, he had this booming voice, and these eyes…he was like a god.”

  “Yeah but you like all that wordy sh—stuff. Life is too short to spend it in agony, trying to understand why someone used a certain word, or analyzing why they stopped to admire some random spot on the horizon. One of Jasper's was in all those books I took from Tristan's room. I started it yesterday morning. ”

  “And?”

  “It's called Filial. Already it is better than Forests. He used all these words for color, some of them over and over. Like he was painting with words.”

  With a glint in her eye she said, “I thought all that description was what made his work insufferable.”

  “Reading him is still work, it still takes longer, but now I reread some parts. Just to do it! I don't know what else to say. Still not a rocket ship to a good time, but there is something there.”

  “You're motivated this time.”

  We watched each other. Only with my mother could I cover so much ground without saying anything at all.

  She took the opportunity to work on me one more time, while I was pliable. “I knew when I married your father that he didn't want more children. He already had a great amount of guilt at how little time he spent with Tristan. When his wife died, he was desperate to find someone to make a family with. At some level I knew this and didn't care. I was entranced by him. He felt guilty because I gave up school and the time to focus on my work to help him. I told him if I was going to be raising one child, I wanted to have one of my own.”

  “So you're telling me you now admit you let Dad use you and you guilted him into having a kid he didn't want? Your whole marriage was some sort of deviant trade off…”

  I wanted to throw up. The expression she gave said she knew I was angry but that was irrelevant to her point. “Well, yes.” She frowned. “Jasper strikes me as just as devoted as your father was. What I am telling you, precisely because you don't want to hear this: don't expect too much or you will get hurt.”

  Though I was thrilled that my mother finally acknowledged a huge chunk of reality about my father, the rest of what she said left me disgusted and angry. I wanted to talk about Jasper, I wanted her to be happy, and I wanted to thrash my father again, if only with my words, and I needed to hear my mother do it as well.

  “Don't you hate him for leaving us?”

  “I did. There is only so much hatred you can nurture if you want to stay sane.”

  She paused and watched me. “You're still so angry; I had hoped that would lessen as you got older.”

  “No such luck.”

  She grimaced. “I wanted so much more for you,” she said. “I don't want you to live a bitter life.”

  “I'm not done yet,” I said.

  Jasper sent an email that evening.

  Viv,

  Finished your tale today, must say you have quite the imagination. You are right that this is not my typical reading material, though it has potential and entertainment value. I admire your ability to go wherever your mind takes you.

  So I am heartened to read you have a straight character here.

  It brought me back to that night at the Westin, the way your backside appeared in the light from behind me, the clammy hands, my fear that I wouldn't measure up to your standards. I was prepared to simply watch, that was more than enough. Your image burns in my memory in shades of cranberry, gold, and verdigris. Just knowing you is an adventure. If it weren't for Laura's urgings, her eyes on mine, you between us, I don't think I would have had the courage. How thrilling it is to admit this now!

  I've tried writing that night as I remember it, to try and see what it must feel like for you to create something so wonderfully erotic. I hoped to understand you more fully and also found I had great fun at it. I have mailed this, along with a few other things, hoping that receiving something concrete will make it easier for you to keep me in your thoughts.

  Routine is the same here as it was before you left. I read a great deal more with you gone, and find that I miss you here listening or reading beside me, or padding around anxiously in my bathrobe.

  Please say you miss me too,

  Jasper

  The effect of his sweet words made my insides flip and flip again when I reread the email.

  I waited for two more days until UPS delivered a large box from him. Inside was his bathrobe, and a thick manila envelope, and a pair of my gloves.

  I wrapped myself in the robe, loved the smell of him still stuck on it, and a yellow sticky note fell to the floor: “Because I can't stand to look at this now without seeing you in it. —J”

  I felt the breath catch in my throat, this show of vulnerability and playfulness—I wanted him back. I wanted to fall into everything all over again. Instead I read the scene on top first, all filled with descriptions of Neighbours, Laura, me, and the room. Lots of sensory stuff about how everyone smelled, looked, made him feel. His account of everything made him seem much more self-conscious than I even imagined with all his stiff movements and letting me lead him around. He was allowing me to see a side of himself I wouldn't have thought anyone would show me—the fearful, insecure, definitely uncool male mind at work when the body was most aware. I sensed he was desperate to have someone see this part of him, and that thought scared me.

  He wrote about what his life was like: lonely, then meeting me, and how he feared he was losing something but didn't care. I knew what that felt like—it was like my life was turned around, and I wasn't sure if I cared or not. Missing the familiar of before, fearing not having him near me and missing out on what could be.

  I finished reading and rereading and I sat for a time, wrapped in the robe, in the scent and memories of him on it, remembering how we had been, how much potential I felt with him.

  I finally rose and sent an email.

  Jasper,

  Got the package today. I am wearing the robe; it smells like you so now I miss you. When can you come to Seattle again?

  Vivi

  He arrived the next month. The morning after his arrival, I woke to a loud crashing and scrambled into the living room to find him spread all over the living room floor, my beat-to-shit
copy of Clarissa open beside one of his legs. He picked it up and said, “Why do you have this sitting right in the path of the door? Are you trying to kill me?”

  I went to him, scooped up the book and extended a hand to help him up. “Shit. I used it to prop open the patio door last night when I had my last cigarette. Guess I didn't move it out of the way?”

  “You use one of the great classics of English literature to hold the door open.” He eyed the pages, so puffed up from being wet and dry, they were bursting from the torn cover.

  “I was this close,” I used my fingers to indicate, “to being named after that simp. Given the choice between virtue and death, I'll take death.”

  He shook his head and placed the book next to the door and rubbed a spot on his knee. “So how did you get your name? I've always wondered that.”

  “My mother was writing this book. You know the Lady of the Lake in the Arthurian Legends, my parents were both big on those. One of her names was Viviane. Mom took that and twisted it and came up with Vivianna. Guess she had to use it on someone. I think she gave up on her book, so she could have me.”

  He twisted up his face. “I am not following your logic…”

  “She couldn't wipe my father's ass, birth a baby, stay up at night, nurse and all the rest of it plus take care of Tristan and hammer out a novel.”

  “Did she ever go back to it?”

  I shook my head, leading him out to the patio.

  “That's really sad.”

  “You're telling me.”

  He was always up before me. I woke to find him another morning in my study, cross legged on the floor, flipping through one of my books.

  “Is the only thing that gets you going…sex?” I detected a note of humor in his voice, but it was like he was trying to cover for something else. He held in his hand the mammoth collection of work by the Marquis de Sade that included The 120 Days of Sodom.

  “I expected to have this conversation with you at some point. You are such a prude. Where else would I have learned to push past the limits of what can be written, talked about, or even imagined? Better yet, read his essay on the novel, or what Simone de Beauvoir said about why he was important.”