Sex and Death in the American Novel

by Martinez, Sarah

  At first I couldn't concentrate enough to read. Just looking at the manuscript boxes that held my brother's life's work made my chest tighten. I hauled it all into the office and focused on the TV. I bought piles of movies on DVD and a DVD player in Missoula. While I sat alone in what had been the place of my happiest memories, I drowned myself in hours and hours’ worth of TV series: Criminal Minds, Dexter, Law and Order, and as many horror movies as I could lay my hands on. I fantasized about Jason in his mask appearing at my bedside to free me from my misery. Melodramatic? It was funny, except that it wasn't. Never was the value of escape into entertainment more acute to me. When I had buried myself in movies after Tristan's suicide I still felt like I was indulging in a childish distraction. This time it was absolutely necessary.

  After two days of filling my head with flickering images, I wandered outside in the warmer afternoon, soaking up the sun, and even tried jogging down the gravel road for a few moments. It was enough to feel I had done something. After that I found I could read. I started with my favorites: horror novels of the seventies and eighties. Never have I felt such gratitude as when I sunk back into The Books of Blood, thrilled to discover I'd forgotten most of the details of these stories so I could relive the trip all over again. When I'd gone through everything I had in the cabin, I decided it was time to take up the task of my brother's trilogy.

  I pushed on, plowed through, but continually had to stop. The digressions were maddening. No wonder he couldn't finish. He couldn't focus. Reading his work was like falling down one rabbit hole after another. Only he never seemed to go back to address any of the points he'd brought up, he only raised more questions. He ranted quite a bit about our society's inability to appreciate the visual arts, music and literature. It was obvious he had longed to go back to music. Some of the most vivid and beautiful passages revolved around a minor character and his physical relationship with a homemade string instrument.

  It was good in one way that I hadn't read this before. I don't know that I would have been able to keep my disappointment hidden from him had I seen this when he was alive. When I was younger, I believed he knew everything and had a reason for everything he did. Now that I had my own experience, had read enough and had the confidence of my years, I knew this for what it was. A big, giant mind-fuck. The best I could imagine was that he couldn't bear to part with any of his ideas so he worked them all in, and couldn't abandon a project he'd sunk so many hours and years of his life in either. Not until the very end.

  At times his powers of description and detail were incredible. He could describe the mica chips in the rocks along a river bank, wax geological, and historical, but all this to no logical effect that I could see. The book read as if he was trying to use every bit of information he'd ever learned in one place. I began skimming two hundred pages in after he described the same pair of cowboy boots three times, pages apart. If this was some sort of device he had learned from his mentors, I couldn't see it serving the narrative in any way— except to arouse irritation, knowing my brother. This indeed may have been his intended effect. The feeling of guilt I felt at not understanding his work, not liking it even, was replaced in the end by disappointment and annoyance.

  He was my brother; I loved him. That was all I needed to know. For some reason this made me feel more secure in the compliments he gave me. The encouragement now looked less like brotherly pats on the back. I was a better writer than he was. I was grateful that he was strong enough to at least push me forward. I slid the boxes back into a file drawer in the office and had a good cry. It was more like throwing up it was so physical. Heaving, blubbering, my stomach hurt so badly at the end, but when I was through I knew I really, finally was done. He was gone. I understood him now more than ever and that was enough.

  After another day in front of the television, swimming naked in the lake, freezing my tail off, loving the vibration with which my skin met the air when I emerged from the water, I decided to tackle my father's novels.

  For the next week I read everything my father published. Taking Ivy Down, the big one, the big deal. Still loads of landscape descriptions and blow jobs, but I read it this time as I would read any other book: closely, as Tristan and my mother encouraged me to, questioning every and, but, comma and semicolon. Some sentences were long and flowing, some short and punchy. Fragments. Creative uses of the word fuck and cunt. God love him, he was a smut writer in his own way. After several hours of reading, I took a walk outside. I splashed around in the lake, let the sun hit my face, chased frogs and one long, dark, yellow-striped garter snake that slithered on the rocky beach absorbing the sun's rays.

  I did not write. Not one word. To read, to take in and not have to put anything out felt good. I was filling up again, passive and eager like when I was young and dumb. Before I knew how bad things could be, before I understood how permanent real actions could be.

  Staccato, his last. Still in the brown wrapping in which he'd mailed it to me. This was the one Tristan kept bugging me to read, the one I was too pissed off to even look at. On the title page, he wrote:

  My Dearest Vivianna,

  You are loved.

  S

  I ran my fingers over the words. Faded sepia ink, I could see his thick fingers working with the mottled green fountain pen he used for his letters.

  The next page was part of the book. The dedication page:

  For Vivianna

  I scrambled to pick up the other books, flipping through.

  For Francine

  For Rebecca

  For Mother

  None were dedicated to Tristan, though he was the favorite. Wasn't he?

  I hurled the book across the room, regretting that and rushing to pick it up from where it had slammed against the wall. Unable to breathe I took giant gasps of air, holding the book in my lap, sobbing, facing for once all that my anger and stubborn resentment had cost me. These books and a few unopened letters were all I had left.

  Several hours later, after the tears had dried and the ache in my gut had subsided, I had my fill of my father's words. A spirited, defiant dancer. She makes it all the way to the Bolshoi only to self-destruct right before her biggest performance. Young, brilliant, doomed by her anger, unable to live a solid normal life, in the end she died alone. Was that my fate? Did my father understand me that well?

  I spent hours sitting in front of the Olivetti, thinking about my work and my father's work. His need to finger his nose at the established rules of conduct and behavior, his ridicule of the East Coast snobbery were so much like how I tried to showcase lifestyles the mainstream found disturbing. We both insisted on personal freedom.

  After a while, it wasn't my father I thought about. It was Jasper. I imagined how small the machine would look beneath his hands…I hit the keys one by one. Tap. Tap. Click. Click. The sound was happy and spry in the late afternoon air. Out the window I only saw part of the view from the back, the orange and black bark of the pines, their dry needles on the ground, and a dusty strip of road.

  I eyed the box I'd brought in from the car when I'd first arrived. All that was left inside were the letters. I dragged the box over the floor with my foot. My knee strained with the effort. I plucked the first one off the top and slit the top with a pair of worn black-handled scissors from a drawer inside the desk.

  In the fading light of the evening, I sat in my father's office feeling like I'd tackled the worst parts of his memory or at least made a decent stab at it. I sat with the letters; I'd opened all of them, set them in date order in a manila folder and read through each one. Most of the ones in between were not the pleading I had expected, but rather almost lectures of a sort on everything from the mistakes he'd made in his youth to the thoughts he'd had on news events like the invasion of Iraq and Dick Cheney accidentally shooting his friend on a hunting trip. My father thought this was a hoot, and wrote up a comic bit on what that must have looked, sounded and felt like to both parties.

  The rest were, as I had been str
angely delighted to discover, fairly impersonal, but rich with clues to thought processes. He really had taken me seriously, or at least by this point he tried to, sharing his thoughts with me on something more than our family life. He hardly spent any time at all trying to explain himself. Before this would have angered me, now it seemed perfectly logical and I was grateful that he'd stayed true to his character. My father was an intensely private man; personal relationships were never easy for him, including those with family. At least in these letters he was interacting at the level he was capable of. I loved him for making the effort.

  I slid the pile inside a manila folder and this time I did not cry. The feeling was more final, a better version of the funeral that we'd had for him. More closure than I ever got scattering his ashes. I had continued to feed the strongest feelings I had about him to keep him alive. Forgiving him and letting him go would have been to let a certain part of my relationship with him die. The longing for him was too draining, too terrifying, and the resultant emotion turned to anger, the only one I was able to deal with. The one I could name. Just because a feeling didn't have a name didn't mean it couldn't exist. Just because I couldn't describe an event didn't mean it couldn't hurt me.

  I spent a day visiting the places we'd scattered him. The yard behind the cabin, Swan River where Jasper caught his first fish, the old homestead—where his father had grown up, and lost during the depression. It was now owned by a rich out-of-stater who had erected a tall stone fence around the property. I was glad then that we had decided to scatter him in different locations. He was everywhere, his dust carried on the wind from all the places that mattered.

  The hard knot of regret would likely never vanish entirely, but I understood that I must develop a new relationship with his memory. I imagined he could watch and listen for me to be different, to be more open, pay more attention, to forgive.

  After a long day of wandering, I came back and broke into my father's stash under the stairs. With heavy limbs, I loaded up the canoe with a pack of cigarettes and a half-drunk bottle of Cabernet. In my other hand was Tristan's last letter to me. I drank directly from the bottle, sucking on a stale filterless Camel I found digging through a side table.

  I rowed out to the middle of the lake, until the only sound was the noise of the oars going in and out of the water. When I stopped rowing, there was no sound until a moment passed and the croaking of distant frogs broke up the eerie silence of isolation. The stars in the sky stretched forever. Far away flickered the light I'd left on in the living room. On the opposite side of the lake I could barely see faint lights at the Lodge. I was alone for all intents and purposes. If I fell in, no one would be able to help me. That was good enough for me.

  I smoked in the darkness, watching the stars, and dipped my fingers into the chilly water. Would I have the nerve to do this? I took a long swallow of the wine. My stomach lurched. I corked the bottle, laying it atop a thick beach towel I'd brought along for warmth. That lay next to a thick coil of rope. I sat for several more minutes, letting the peaceful drowsiness flow through me, grateful my stomach had stopped moving.

  I reached inside my coat and pulled out Tristan's letter, and my father's last. It was right to do this with the two of them together. In my other hand the cigarette glowed red against the inky black. I lifted both to the moonlight and studied Tristan's scrawl again. I flicked the lighter with two strokes over the rough metal wheel. When it caught, I held the flame to the paper and watched the edges curl up. The tiny flame sputtered and grew in the dark and took both letters in less than a minute. I held the burning mass over the water for as long as I could and dropped the remaining bit and heard a hiss as it hit the water. I stared at the dark spot where it swirled away into the depths of silence.

  I floated for some time, letting the lapping of the water against the outside of the canoe pull a peaceful blanket over me. Was it that simple? As soon as I'd decided it was okay to let go of my anger, I was able to let go of Tristan as well. I remembered the good things my father had done, the lessons he had tried to teach me. So what if he said women didn't write anything serious? He dedicated all of his books to the women in his life. Was it maybe okay for him to be a short-sighted old man and me an impetuous and willful daughter? No lightning bolt of understanding had so far come down to make anything more clear, all I had was a glimmer of understanding and empty time to fill.

  Beyond the revelation that I didn't know much, but that I had been wrong, I felt the same. Just me, only lighter.

  But there wasn't just me. Jasper was here too. His memory, his longing. His desires. What had he said, “When can we come back?” I wanted him there more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. The need was actually a weight on my shoulders, a throbbing sensation that got stronger every time I thought about calling. Imagining his voice made my stomach cramp. He had never left, I'd pushed him away. Hurled my hurt, not his to bear, and forced him from my life. On the phone he had been angry, but he hadn't given up. Now was the time to ask for forgiveness.

  I eyed the opposite side of the lake, imagined I was as close to the middle as I could get. Galaxies twinkled behind the indigo canvas above my head. Moonlight reflected on the water, reminding me that it was late here; in New York it would be the middle of the night.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Jasper's number.

  After a few moments of faint ringing, Jasper's voice came on. “Vivi? Are you alright?”

  “Yes.”

  The need in his voice gave me a charge until the next sounds. I couldn't tell if he was talking to me or someone else in the room and my stomach dropped when he said, “Just a second.”

  Movement and there it was, a faint female voice, a door closing and his voice came clearer.

  Anger burned heavy in my chest, radiating to my arms, making my hands feel cold. “I was not expecting that. I'm not sure what I was thinking.”

  “Vivi. You told me we were done. I—”

  “Shit Jasper,” I said, hating the need in my voice. “Don't worry about it. Actually this affirms my faith in you somehow,” I said, trying to sound brave, but wanting to cry.

  “Vivi, please. Tell me what's wrong.”

  I gulped in the cold night air, moving my eyes around the serenity that was my family's lake. My lake. “I miss you.”

  “You sound drunk…you really miss me?”

  “Yes.” Silence on his end and I wiped my nose with the underside of my wrist. “I read his letters, his books, again. I read Staccato, you know…he dedicated it to me. To me!” My words echoed off the silence of the lake like some maniacal spirit screaming back at me.

  “Vivi—”

  “I can't believe how wrong I was. And you knew!” Again the crazy voice like mine, but it didn't seem possible that I could sound this scary.

  “Are you calling to tell me I was right…because if you—”

  “No. I'm calling to thank you. If you hadn't been honest with me…if you hadn't told me the truth, I would never have gotten to know him this way. I was so wrong and I was such a bitch. And none of it was your fault. And I wanted to tell you that. Nothing was your fault.”

  “Can I come home?”

  Home.

  I laughed. “Yes…please.”

  A pause. “Give me until tomorrow night, okay?”

  “I'm not at my apartment.”

  He was quiet for a minute and said, “You're at the cabin?”

  I made a noise in my throat as assent, wondering how this was going to look at his place. Just before he hung up, we let the silence hang too long. Normally it would have annoyed me, but this time I felt like I could have listened to him breathe forever. I finally pushed the button to hang up, and looked out over the water again. Again, all was silent. I was sad and grateful at the same time that phone calls were possible out here. My father said this was his place to get away from all the stupid people, and their stupid technology, commercialism and noise. Not anymore. I thought about all the stupid Facebook posts I cou
ld have put up just then.

  Status update: Wondering what my boyfriend just stuck his dick in. I imagined a young girl, big brown eyes and rosy cheeks, polite, someone's assistant perhaps. Who knew what he was capable of after so much time with me. Maybe he got a taste for the rush of conquest. I had corrupted him.

  Comment: Enjoying the outdoor air. Like.

  Status update: Fucking annoyed with myself for being such a bitch. Also true. It was possible, after all, for him to move on. Poor Jasper had to extricate himself from something he thought he could engage in, not expecting me to call mid thrust. God.

  It took me an hour to make it back to the cabin. At intervals of maybe ten minutes I rowed as hard as I could, each time wearing out more and more. My limbs grew heavier and my mind began to harden with awful thoughts, of falling over, my body washing up on the shore of some neighbor's cabin, just like my brother, another tragedy in the Post family. My father's illustrious memory overshadowed by the deaths of both of his children.

  Each time I looked toward the light I felt I was closer, though the distance seemed the same. After a time, I quit thinking about what I saw or believed I saw ahead of me. I forged on and closed my eyes. Soon came the caress of the first slimy tentacles of plants beneath the canoe; minutes later I heard the scratch of tiny pebbles against the bottom. I staggered into the icy water, and being unable to pull the canoe up on shore, I fell in. I struggled in the freezing water as the boat began to slide back into the lake. I flung myself at the canoe, barely grasping the rope that had been tied to the end, crashing my wrist against the metal edge. The pebbles and sharp edges of rocks tore the bottoms of my feet, banged against my ankles and my knees.

  “Please,” I said, as if the canoe would listen and decide to come back of its own accord. Icy water splashed into my eyes, mixing with tears of frustration, and my inability to get a grip on the canoe or even the rope was one more piece of evidence that I couldn't do anything right.