Love Warps the Mind a Little

by John Dufresne

  We live in the mountains, in a log house, maybe in Colorado. I wake up when I hear the deer munching the fallen apples in our yard. I kiss her ear, nuzzle her neck. She moans. I slide out from under the covers, taking her warmth and her smell with me. I walk downstairs to the sunny kitchen, brew coffee, sit at the table with Jeffrey, our cat, on my lap, wait for her. Her name’s Anna. She’s pressed a Post-It note to the fridge. I can read it from here. It says, “Rejigger the cold frame hinge.” I don’t know what this means.

  I opened my eyes, looked across the aisle. She had the cap of a blue pen in her mouth and was writing a note in her book. I felt cheated. Why wasn’t I born in Cleveland or Laramie or wherever it is she’s from? Why hadn’t we met in junior high science lab? What was I missing without her in my life? I heard an announcement that Delta Flight 757 for New Orleans, with continuing service to Houston, was boarding at Gate A-28. I wondered who worships Anna.

  How do I say this? It wasn’t that I wanted to know her now, although that would be nice, if lamentably brief. I wanted to have already known her. I wanted her fears and her desires to have shaped my life. I wanted to have held her body against mine for a thousand and one nights, wanted to have traced my finger along the lines of her face. I didn’t feel at all foolish thinking like this.

  And then Anna stuffed her book and her pen into her backpack. Just when I was getting to know her. I was devastated. When she stood and worked the pack onto her shoulders, I saw the outline of her ribs through her Danskin top, her small breasts, her nipples. I wanted to cry, to ask her to stay. I smiled instead. She smiled. And then she walked out of my life.

  I’m like this at airports. By the time I board my flight, I’ve usually decided that I’d like to live with every unattached woman in the world. Maybe this makes me crazy. But not dangerous. Maybe I should stay out of airports. I know this is not love, of course. What it is is a queer feeling of nostalgia for an impossible future, for what can never be: Anna and I snuggled under quilts in Telluride. That’s fantasy. Love is different.

  Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure as love, except maybe writing a story. And nothing fails as often, except writing stories. And like a story, love must be troubled to be interesting. We crave love, can’t live without its intimacy, though it pains us. Judi told me that every person in therapy has a love disorder: never felt love, can’t find love, trapped by love, unraveled by love, thinks love is lust or love is loss, fears love, loves too much, uses love for profit, jealous in love, lost in love, love affairs, unrequited love, love sick, doesn’t love Mom, won’t love Dad, can’t love the kids, can’t love the self, hopeless love, self-absorbed love, love as a crutch, love as a truncheon, love in ruins, crazy love, love that eats the heart, careless love, drowning in love, love that dares not speak its name, blind love, consuming love, obsessive love, conditional love, dangerous love, first love, last love, fickle love, love and marriage, love lost, secret love, love on the run, love that hates, dutiful love, borrowed love, thief of love, love in embers, love in vain, love in shackles, love maligned, love that warps the mind a little.

  And the man who would love all women couldn’t seem to love the women in his life. At least not adequately. If Proust was right, if the only paradise is the lost one, then perhaps the only love is lost love. If love means compassion and concern for another, if it means easy intimacy, comfort, security, and grace, then I was once in love with Martha. But if it means desire over time, if love abides, then I was not.

  When we were courting early on, I could not be distracted from Martha. I often felt as if my head and my heart were carried away. My whole body felt lifted from the ground, and so I would ask her to hold me. I spoke her name when I was alone. I looked for her in everything, and found her. Ours was a courtly love, an attempt to prolong the passion, the aching uncertainty, to maintain the romance. This was love you read about in fairy tales. Young love. Timeless love. Immutable and true. And so it was a lie. Romance turns out to be a shallow sea. Romantic love like ours is meat to the teeth of time.

  The way I had felt about Martha was sort of the way I felt about Pauline. Sometimes when I was cleaning up Judi’s vomit in the bathroom or changing her bed linens, I imagined Pauline watching me, being impressed and moved by my selfless compassion, charmed by my devotion. Even then I knew this was depraved, but I couldn’t stop my thoughts. Sometimes I thought that when Judi would die, I would be free, whatever that means, and I would have an attractively tragic past, which Pauline, having grown tired of Marvin, would be helpless to resist. Sometimes I thought I was a prick for thinking like that. Was it love I wanted with Pauline or a way out? I didn’t even know her, really. She was a mystery—so much so that I had to make her up like a character in a story. And, of course, it’s impossible not to love and admire your characters. I may love Theresa, say, more than Dale does.

  With Judi I felt differently. If ours was love, it was accidental. It wasn’t romance, and it wasn’t ecstasy. We didn’t need to be foolish or pretentious. I wasn’t used to such sobriety in a sexual relationship, not so early on, at any rate. Because of Judi’s cancer, we were stuck in the present. I liked her, I realized, more than I liked us. And I still had the past to wrestle with. Martha and I had constructed a life together. We had it all, a home, enduring and cherished memories, a mutual future. We had it made, and I gave it up. I failed Martha, failed myself. That’s how I felt sometimes. But other days, I thought I barely got out alive.

  54.

  Side Effects

  I WAS IN THE BATHROOM, LOOKING AT MY FACE IN THE MIRROR, WHEN I HEARD Judi come home from work. I heard her yell hello and open the fridge. I heard Spot barking out in the yard, heard the refrigerator door snap shut. I was studying these new (at least as far as I knew) lacy red blood vessels on my nose. Christ, any more surprises? Yes, I had a single, weedy eyelash over my left eye that was twice as long as the others and was gray and crooked. I snipped it off with fingernail clippers. And my eyebrows could use a trim. The helixes and lobes of my ears had gone all fuzzy with down. Jesus, I’d be shaving my ears soon. I stepped back, smiled, and admired my monochromatic mouth, my handsome crown. I felt better. I’d have to send Dr. Vigeant a thank-you note.

  Judi knocked. I told her to come in. She was eating an orange Popsicle. She asked me to smell her breath. I leaned over and stole a kiss. She told me to cut it out, she was serious. Smell! I said, Your breath is fine. It is not, she said. She clicked her tongue, smacked her lips. Her mouth tasted queer, she said, like rust and like oil paint. And the Tic Tacs weren’t helping. Gum’s not helping. She handed me the Popsicle. I finished it in two bites. She opened the cabinet under the sink. I sat on the toilet. She swished some organic cinnamon mouthwash around her mouth, spit it out. She brushed her teeth gingerly, spit out blood.

  Our bathroom had become a pharmacy Just in case Judi started feeling healthy, the medicines were here to remind her she was famously ill. Judi had two kinds of nausea medicine—Ativan and Zofran. Three, if you count the Pepto-Bismol. She had Benadryl elixir to treat her mouth sores. If that didn’t work, she used Orabase salve. She took acyclovir for her cold sores, Nizoral for mouth fungus, and Mycostatin pastilles for some other oral problem. When she couldn’t eat, she took prednisone or Marinol marijuana capsules, which I had not yet sampled. (I was waiting till I had several hours to waste.) And that’s not even counting the chemo drugs and the hormone-replacement drugs and whatever else they were giving her at the hospital. It’s a wonder she could stand up. And it’s not counting what we kept in the fridge—the Ensure and the Nutren, the Easter basket full of vitamins and mineral supplements. We froze nystatin in plastic medicine caps that Judi would let melt in her mouth.

  Judi washed her face, dripped Visine into her eyes, put on Chap Stick. She looked in the mirror. She said, “I look like a raccoon.”

  We took Spot for his walk. Judi put her Red Sox cap
on backward. I tied her sneakers for her. The Nybergs were washing windows. We waved. Spot peed on their hedge. Judi told me that people with multiple personalities sometimes have physical symptoms for one personality and not for the others. Like Cain could be a total diabetic, let’s say, takes his insulin and everything. But Abel is perfectly normal. Abel doesn’t need insulin because his pancreas manufactures it.

  Spot barked, tried to go after a passing motorcycle. I gave him a tug. I said, “So you’re wondering does the process extend to carcinoma.”

  “Sure. But it’s more than that. It’s like there are aspects of the mind that are outside of matter. That’s what I mean. Same body, different person. Helen has anemia. Leda’s blood is normal. Same body, different personality.”

  “So what do you want to do, fracture yourself into a few personalities, find a cancer-free one?”

  “I would if I could. But here’s the thing, Laf. Something in the mind, the brain, whatever, something that’s unaffected by the body is controlling the body, is telling the body to be sick or healthy.”

  “But the brain is physical.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. Probably because I don’t understand it. It’s obvious that the spiritual, the nonphysical, must exist in the physical somehow. Anyway, I think we can learn how to program the brain to wipe out our illnesses. Spontaneous remission. Miracle. Whatever you want to call it.” Judi stopped. “Something like that.” She told me she was tired.

  We walked into Hoffman Park and sat on the bench by Abbie’s memorial. I let Spot off his leash. First he stood there like he hardly believed it. He looked at me. I stamped my foot, and he took off and ran like a fury, like he was going somewhere. But all he did was make big circles. Whenever he bounded by our bench, Judi applauded. Spot seemed to run even faster.

  I asked Judi if she was going to her support group meeting tonight. She said she didn’t feel up to it. I asked her if that was any way for a therapist to talk. How could she expect people to come to the groups she led if she wasn’t going to her own cancer-patient group? Because they’re all Barneys in the cancer group, she said. “I love you, you love me. Blah blah blah.” It’s not honest. We should all be screaming.

  I changed the subject. I told her that Ronnie was talking about leaving. She said that’s what he does best.

  “Don’t you want to talk it out with him?”

  “Not unless he can give me back the years he stole from me.”

  “Give him a chance to help you. He wants to.”

  “He doesn’t even know what planet he’s on.”

  “He’s in pain.”

  “Well, I didn’t fuck up his life, Laf. I didn’t condemn him to a life of screwed-up relationships.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “Nothing personal.”

  “Think about what you’re saying.”

  “One disastrous relationship after another, starting with Daddy.”

  I suppose I should have been upset about this. The fact that I wasn’t may have been proof of Judi’s assertion. I wanted to think harder about this, but I kept drifting away. Spot was playing soccer with some kids. He’s a natural. Judi laid her head on my shoulder, closed her eyes. After a while I said, If we’re so disastrous together, then why are we together?

  Judi opened one eye, looked at me without moving her head. Closed it. She said, Well, I’d better love someone before I die. You’ll have to do. She said love. Judi loved me? I didn’t ask if she was serious. I said, Do you think love is a choice? She said, For me it has to be.

  “Is that going to scare you off?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t act stupid.”

  “Love, you mean? No.”

  Judi opened her eyes and sat up. She stared at me. Squinted. Tried to read my face. She said, “You’re one angry man.”

  I said, “Don’t start this again.” She was always trying to find out what I’d done as a kid that made me so afraid of my own anger. She said the fact that I didn’t seem to care about conventional success and security was tied up with anger. That it was my childish, irresponsible way to strike back. At whom? Myself? Dad? Mom? Martha? All of the above? Why wouldn’t she tell me?

  She said, “What’s for supper?”

  “Bananas Foster.”

  “For supper?”

  “Ronnie’s idea. A whole meal of desserts.”

  “And you went along with him?”

  “Stoni’s coming, too. Bananas Foster, blueberry cheesecake from Lederman’s, baklava from Aris’s, and an apple pie made with Macouns.”

  “Laf, I can’t eat that stuff.”

  “And I made you some onion soup.”

  “Bananas Foster. Really?”

  We cut through Hope Cemetery, and we were halfway through before I realized where we were. I had Spot on his leash now and had to keep tugging at him to keep him from lifting his leg against the headstones. I was sure some custodian would come driving up any second now in his golf cart and start screaming at us. I picked up the pace.

  Judi said the worst result of all the chemo and medicines was that she hadn’t been able to regress to her past lives since a week after it all started. She felt empty, she said. At loose ends. More than just her insides were gone, she said. I put my arm around her shoulders. We leaned into each other and walked. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a name on a tombstone: Hallelujah Amen Korner. That’s going into a story.

  We stopped so Spot could sniff the wrought iron entry gate, pee on the scrolling. Judi tugged my arm. I asked her if she was feeling okay She nodded. I said, “What is it?” She cocked her head, raised her eyebrows, and I knew. Spot sat. He looked at me, let his tongue flop over the side of his slack jaw. I said, “Martha?”

  “What about her, Laf?”

  A landscaping truck pulled by us into the cemetery, the driver slapping the steering wheel in time to music. I scratched Spot’s ear. He closed his eyes. “That’s over.”

  “Were you keeping it a secret?”

  “I guess I was. I was afraid to think about it. I haven’t loved her for a long time. I didn’t realize that until she threw me out. But I miss her. Every time I try to tell myself it’s over, get on with your life, the past comes rushing back, and I get nostalgic and I have regrets and doubts. It’s crazy.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I’ve got every logical reason to. For who she is. For our history. All that. What I don’t have is an unreasonable desire to love her.” I felt like I was betraying Martha, but this was the first time I had tried to articulate my thoughts, and I needed to continue so I could hear what I said, know what I felt. “I did love her,” I said. That’s all I needed to hear. I began to cry and couldn’t stop, couldn’t catch my breath.

  Judi said, “Let it go, Laf. Your grief isn’t going to hurt anyone.” She took my face in her hands and kissed my eyes.

  55.

  Just Desserts

  WHILE I CARAMELIZED THE BUTTER AND BROWN SUGAR IN A SAUCEPAN, RONnie stood by the stove with a book of matches in his hand. Matches from the Standish Café, a shot-and-beer joint on Main Street, glamourless, dark, stale, quiet, a place where folks come to drink, not to socialize. Not much of a bar really, but it is ninety-five years old and does have one distinction. It is on the street level of the Standish Hotel, directly below the very room, 213, where Sigmund Freud stayed when he made his only visit to the United States in 1913. Carl Jung stayed down the hall in 210, already a little perturbed by the master’s stubbornness and his sickening cigars, we’re told. Jung sat on his cane-backed chair in his black suit, reading Goethe and running the back of his hand along the tufts in the chenille bedspread. The fact that Freud disliked America and Americans, then, has something to do with the Standish and with the fine citizens of Worcester, Heart of the Commonwealth. But I digress.

  Ronnie wanted to be the one to set the dessert on fire. I assured him he could, but first cut the bananas in quarters. He did. We had the radio on to All Things Consi
dered. Alex Chadwick talking to a playwright who’d written a play about Newt Gingrich and his first wife. Contract with Jackie opens in a hospital room and begins with Newt entering, presenting his ailing wife with divorce papers. It’s a farce. The Trinity Square Rep is putting it on. The wonderful thing about it is that the playwright, Peter Someone, got an NEA grant for the project.

  We put the bananas in the sauce, added the cinnamon and banana liqueur. Ronnie poured himself a glass of the liqueur. He liked the color. The smell reminded him of those orange candy peanuts you used to get for Halloween. He took a sip, drank the rest in a gulp, poured himself another. He said it was tasty but made his teeth hurt. Then he started in about radio cybernetic cybergation biofeedback control and nonfact talkage. I stopped him. I said, Set the table. I heard the phone ring, heard Judi answer. I looked at the clock. I said Stoni would be here any minute.

  Ronnie said, “Sometimes I don’t know if I’m crazy or if I’m just making it up, putting on an act, you know.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Well, that’s how it started. I just made believe I was bazots. Didn’t have to deal with the dead boy that way, or anything else.” He looked at me. “But I lost control of the pretending.” He shook his head. “I suppose since I don’t know if I’m crazy or not, then I’m crazy.” He shrugged, scratched his crotch.

  I asked Ronnie to get the ice cream out of the freezer and the scoop out of the junk drawer. He asked what I thought. “Am I nuts or what?”

  I said, “Well, I consider you eccentric, Ronnie. And, like you said, you’re schizophrenic. But crazy, that’s a little strong.”

  Judi came into the kitchen, said hi, opened a cabinet, and took down wineglasses, set them on the table. She said Trixie would be joining us later. She’s in the neighborhood, getting a manicure over at Get Nailed. She opened a bottle of sherry. I finished stirring, added rum. Ronnie looked out the window. He said, “Spot’s eating a bicycle tire.”