by Avery Corman
Charlie had moved into a studio apartment with his hygienist, but they broke up after only two weeks of exclusivity. Charlie called Ted then, and said the guys should stick together and see each other. When Ted asked about getting together that very night, Charlie was ecstatic. They met on Second Avenue and 72nd Street in the heart of the singles’ bars. The plan was to drink their way along the line. Ted was wearing a corduroy jacket, sweater and slacks. Charlie, a portly man of forty-five, appeared in a blazer, and with plaid pants so loud they were like Op Art.
The first place they chose was called Pals, a suitable-looking bar from the outside. When they walked in, it was all men, dressed in leather. A cowboy at the door with a bulging crotch and leather eyes, said, “Hi, tigers,” and they scampered out of the corral. Rio Rita’s was next, with a blaring jukebox and a scene at the bar that looked like a Fire Island deck. College kids, Ted decided, and over a couple of drinks, he listened to Charlie absolve him of the blame for the break-up with Thelma. Hansel’s had so many strapping lads and lassies Ted wondered if they had stumbled into a European youth festival. Ted learned there that Thelma was going out with a colleague of Charlie’s, another dentist. By the time they reached Zapata’s, the crowd was getting older, but with Ted and Charlie still the oldest in sight. There, Charlie absolved Ted of the blame for his break-up with his dental hygienist. Ted, blurry from vodka, was not certain if he had been involved. At Glitter, the crowd was so sophisticated and the place so crowded, these two non-regulars were not permitted to stand at the bar, so they began to weave down the street and landed on bar stools in Home Again.
“We have said a total of sixteen dumb things to women at the various bars thus far,” Ted remarked, more aware of the inanity of saying anything better than dumb at a bar than Charlie, who was stuck like a broken record on “Hi, little girl. What’s your name?” Charlie approached a pretty girl looking up-to-the-second chic in a boy scout uniform and he tried out his line. The boy scout walked away to start a fire elsewhere.
Ted and Charlie leaned against a wall on Second Avenue and had the heart-to-heart they were building to all night, except they were too smashed to have it. “Did I ever tell you how sorry I was about Joanna?” Charlie said. Ted said, “I try not to think of her.” Charlie said, “I think of Thelma all the time,” and Charlie started to cry. Ted helped him along the street and suggested, with the clarity of a drunk, that they have a nightcap in The Emerald Isle, rye and soda, 850 special. Charlie tried to fall asleep, Ted dragged him out of the bar, walked him home, and then, attempting to draw himself up so that his new teenage baby-sitter would think he was a perfect gentleman, Ted entered the house and thanked her for a lovely evening.
HE HAD INFORMED SOME of the people around him about the divorce. He thought he should inform Joanna. When his lawyer began legal proceedings, Ted obtained an address from Joanna’s parents, a post office box number in La Jolla, California. He was going to send her a copy of the papers. Diplomatic relations had not improved between Ted and Joanna’s parents. They came into New York again and did not have much to say to him. “Ask him what time we should bring the boy home,” her father said. Ted wanted to know if they had heard from Joanna and her mother told him, “If Joanna wishes to inform you as to her activities, she is of age to do so.” Ted noticed that some hostility seemed to be directed at Joanna, and he concluded they might not know themselves of Joanna’s activities. Thelma, his expert on psychology, having been in analysis for seven years, said Joanna could be rebelling against her parents also, and that they might not know very much about what Joanna was doing. Joanna, originally, left it for Ted to tell them, running out on her parents, too, she surmised.
“You should worry about your own psyche, though,” Thelma said.
“Right. The hell with her.”
“That’s not what I mean. I really think you should go into therapy. This whole thing has happened to you. Don’t you want to know why?”
“Ask Joanna.”
“You’re part of it, Ted. Why don’t you see my doctor?”
“I don’t think so. It’s too late for that.”
He sat with the legal papers in front of him, composing notes in his mind to Joanna. “You’re free to get married in Nevada or New York, baby.” No, too childish. “I thought while sending you this I would tell you how we’ve been doing, specifically, how Billy has been doing.” No, she hadn’t asked. He decided to put it in an envelope, send it without a note and let it speak for itself. They had communicated in their times together by eyes, by touch, by words, and now they communicated by divorce decree.
TED’S PARENTS ARRIVED IN New York on a long-promised visit, two rotund figures with suntans.
“The boy is so thin,” his mother said.
“He’s fine. That’s the way he’s built.”
“I know a thin child. I wasn’t in the restaurant business for nothing.”
After deciding “this Polish one” was not feeding him properly—they had met Etta when they arrived and greeted her with a warmth reserved for delivery boys—Dora Kramer decided to embark on her own grandparents’ festival, filling the refrigerator with roasts and chickens which she cooked and which Billy would not eat.
“I don’t understand his eating habits.”
“Try pizza,” Ted said.
“Billy, don’t you like your grandma’s pot roast?” attempting guilt on him.
“No, Grandma. It’s hard to chew.”
Ted wanted to embrace him right there. Generations had tolerated Dora Kramer’s overcooking, and only William Kramer, his boy, had stood up to her. Billy said good night, after not playing with a complicated jigsaw puzzle his grandparents had brought which would have tested a ten-year-old.
“Don’t you like the nice puzzle Grandma picked out for you?”
“No, Grandma. The pieces are too tiny.”
Afterward, the grownups were able to talk freely, Dora getting to her more serious concerns. “She’s not much of a cleaner, this Etta.”
“She does okay. We’re making out all right here.”
She declined to answer. Whether they came down from Boston or up from Florida, her parents or his, they were unified in their thinking in not finding him competent. He would not accept their appraisal.
“Billy is a fabulous child, Mother.”
“He has a faraway look in his eyes.”
“I think he’s been pretty happy, considering.”
“What do you think, Harold?” she asked.
“Yeah, he’s too thin,” he said.
WHEN THEY WERE READY to leave, Dora took a final look at the apartment.
“You should fix this place up.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Ted said.
“It’s her place. I’m surprised you didn’t get rid of some of this stuff.”
The apartment had been furnished in a modern, eclectic style—beiges and browns, a Swedish couch, Indian print curtains in the living room, a butcher block dining room table in the dining alcove—tasteful, but not specifically Ted’s taste, which was undefined. These were largely Joanna’s decorating decisions. After she left, he just never thought to change it.
“And this thing.” It was a large, black ceramic ashtray, a gift from Joanna’s parents. “What are you still doing with it?”
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
When they were gone, Ted had a headache. Was his mother dead center on the apartment? Was he so passive that he just accepted his state, did not change what he should have? Should he have redecorated the apartment, her apartment? Wouldn’t that have upset Billy? Wasn’t he using Billy, if he thought that it would have upset him? He took the ashtray which nobody liked, not even Joanna, and threw it down the incinerator. Was there something basically wrong with him that he had not done it earlier? He was not sure.
After Larry, seemingly uncomplicated Larry, confided that he had gone into analysis, Ted began to acknowledge darker forces out there, or in there.
“I’m a
fraid of a Casanova complex, old buddy. I make it with a lot of ladies because I’m afraid that I’m a fag.”
“Larry, are you kidding?”
“I’m not saying I’m a fag. I’m not saying that I’ve got a Casanova complex. I’m saying that I’m afraid I’ve got one and that’s what we’re working on.”
“It’s pretty complicated.”
“I know. Heavy shit. But I love it.”
Three weeks more passed, with the biggest event on Ted’s fall social calendar a Saturday matinee of Aladdin with Billy. Even Charlie had become a mover, passing him phone numbers, while he was still home at night, bringing work home from the office. Two more uncalled numbers went into a file. What about all the people who seemed to have been helped by therapy? He decided to call Thelma for the number of her doctor.
Her therapist said he would be available for a consultation at a fee of $40. Justifying it on the grounds that if he spent $55 on one of Billy’s recent head colds, he could spend $40 for his mental health, he made an appointment. Dr. Martin Graham was in his forties. He wore a bright Italian silk sports shirt open at the neck.
“Where have you gone, Sigmund Freud?” Ted said.
“Meaning?”
“I expected a bearded man in a heavy suit.”
“Relax, Mr. Kramer.”
They sat opposite one another across the doctor’s desk. Ted attempted to be composed—There’s nothing wrong with me, Doctor—as he told him about his marriage, Joanna’s leaving, and the events of the past few months. The doctor listened carefully, asked him a few questions—how he felt about some of the situations, and did not take any notes, Ted wondering if he had failed to say anything noteworthy.
“Okay. Mr. Kramer, a consultation is really just an exploration. One of the things that’s wrong with it, and what I object to, is you get into a kind of instant analysis.”
“Like you’ve got a such-and-so complex,” Ted said nervously.
“Something like that. So let me just give you some impressions. They may be off the wall, they may be on target. I don’t know.”
Ted thought it should be a science by now and not an I-don’t-know.
“Your feelings about all this seem to be pushed way down. Like where is your anger? You talked about not going out. Okay. Are you angry at women now? Your mother? Your father? Whatever you had at home there doesn’t sound like The Waltons.”
Ted smiled, but he did not feel like smiling.
“It’s possible—and again, this is just an impression—that you’ve got a history from your family experiences of pushing down your feelings, and that could have seeped into your marriage, and it could be holding you back now.”
“You’re saying I should be in therapy.”
“We get all kinds, Mr. Kramer. Some people can’t function. Some people have a specific, overriding problem and you give them first-aid. Some people could just use help, generally, to understand where they’re coming from.”
“Me?”
“I’m not selling you. It’s for you to decide. I think you could be helped by therapy. I don’t think you’re without problems, Mr. Kramer.”
He told Ted he charged $40 an hour, and assuming one of his patients went through with his plans to terminate, he could take Ted on. Two or three times a week would be best, the doctor thought, one would be the absolute minimum. He did not see it as first-aid, and Ted knew that people often stayed in therapy for years. It was a great deal of money to Ted and the doctor agreed, but he did not know of anyone he could recommend who charged less. There was group therapy—he did not feel it was helpful enough without regular therapy included. There were clinics, if they would take him, with less experienced therapists, but they were also moving up with their rates. Ted had to make the decision about how much it was worth to have a clearer view of himself and to feel better about himself, as the doctor phrased it.
“I am getting by, though. I mean, for the most part, I do have things pretty well together,” going back to his there’s-nothing-wrong-with-me-doctor stance. The doctor was the doctor.
“Are you looking for me to give you a little star, Mr. Kramer? Just to be getting by is not necessarily everything.”
The time was up and they shook hands.
“Doctor, so long as I’m here, could I ask you a couple of quick questions?”
“If I can answer them.”
“In your opinion”—he felt foolish asking, but he went on with it—“do you think I should have redecorated my apartment?”
The doctor did not laugh at him. He took the question seriously.
“Are you unhappy with the way it looks?”
“No.”
“Then why would you want to change it?”
“Right.”
He had a last question.
“Do you think I should go out more?” and this time Ted laughed, trying to immediately downgrade his asking.
“Do you want to go out more?” he said, again taking it seriously.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then go.”
Ted pondered the idea of analysis for himself. He liked the man’s style and his lack of jargon. Maybe this person could help him. But he had no idea of how he could possibly afford $40 a week to go into therapy, or even at bargain rates, $30 on a week-in, week-out basis. Not with the cost of a housekeeper and real medical bills. What was rattling around inside him would have to go unsorted, he decided. He would settle for getting by. He would leave the apartment as is. And he would go out more. He would definitely go out more. Doctor’s orders.
TEN
TED KRAMER FOUND THE social landscape altered since he had first passed this way. For some of the women, marriage was “obsolete,” as Tania, a dancer in her twenties told him. She was also “into women,” she informed him in bed. “But don’t let it throw you. You’re a nice guy. I dig it with you, too.”
Many of the women were divorced now, the first marriages had had sufficient time to break down under wear. A few of the women, in a non-competitiveness he could not recall, would give him names of their friends to phone when it was apparent that A Great Love was not on the premises. If the woman also had a child at home, a simple evening could take on the urgency of Beat the Clock. The meter was running on both sides. He was paying for a sitter, she was paying for a sitter. At $2 an hour each, it would cost them $4 an hour, total, just to sit there. Something big had to happen fast. They either had to like each other fast or decide that they were going to bed with each other fast. And bed did not just mean bed. It meant more time on the clock, more money for sitters, possible taxicabs, possible taxicabs for sitters. If they were at a midpoint geographically in the city and went back to his house, he would have to release his sitter, and therefore be unavailable to take the woman home, so she would have to take a cab. If he offered to pay for the woman’s cab, it brought up the question of her taking money from him. She had to figure out if she wanted to pay extra for her sitter, as well as pay for her own cab. At this point, the players might be having trouble following the game out of sheer exhaustion, since they were both parents and were likely up earlier in the morning than most civilians.
The logistics could begin to take precedence over the experience. This happened to Ted one evening when he was saying to himself, it’s 10:30, $6 in sitting. Do we stay or do we make love? If we make love, I think we should go in the next five minutes or it’s another hour in sitting, and he was short of cash that week. So he had turned his attention from her to watch the clock, none of this having anything at all to do with making love. On some nights, he was not aware of the meter running—the person, the warmth between them became dominant—but not very often.
Billy had little stake in his father’s social life.
“Are you going out again, Daddy?”
“I have friends like you have friends. You see your friends in the day and I see my friends at night.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you. But I’ll see you
in the morning.”
“Don’t go out, Daddy, please.”
“I have to.”
In school, Billy had begun grabbing toys from other children, as though to hold on to as much around him as he could. Ted spoke to the pediatrician and to the nursery school teachers, and they thought it was a reaction to Joanna’s absence, and could pass or not. The times Ted spent with Billy were tranquil for the most part, except when Ted’s fatigue became entwined with Billy’s need to be clingy and Ted, feeling choked, had to physically pull him off his arm or his leg, hating to do it, but unable to bear his pulling at him like that.
TED MET A WOMAN lawyer at a party. Phyllis was from Cleveland, in her late twenties, an intense woman. She wore bulky tweed clothing, a few degrees out of fashion. She was extremely literal, the conversations between them were high-level and serious. They were having dinner at a restaurant, and he was not watching the clock this night. They decided to go back for, euphemistically, “coffee” at his place.
In the night, getting ready to leave, she went out in the hall toward the bathroom. Billy, very quietly, had also been up and was coming out of the bathroom. They stopped and stared at each other in the darkness, like two startled deer, she, naked, Billy in his giraffe pajamas, holding his people.
“Who are you?” he said.
“Phyllis. I’m a friend of your father’s,” she said, wanting to be specific.
He stared intently at her and she attempted to cover herself, assuming it was inappropriate to do otherwise in front of a child. They were fixed in place. He kept staring at her in the dark. There was obviously something of great importance on his mind.