My Wife and My Dead Wife

by Michael Kun

  They look distinct, the Archeologies and the Films. They look distinct, except for Renée. Renée doesn’t look like any of them. She looks like my girlfriend.

  “Hamilton,” Renée says, standing in the hallway, dipping her head into the bedroom. “Hamilton, do you want a snack? Claire and I are fixing sandwiches.”

  It’s Claire, not Cheryl.

  “Sure,” I say. I get up from the bed, smooth the bedspread flat then walk to the kitchen.

  Renée is standing at the counter, and her friend is sitting at the table, her thin legs crossed at the knee, revealing even more of her slip than she had before.

  “Roast beef?” Renée says. “We’re having roast beef sandwiches.”

  I’m surprised to see Renée eating.

  And I say, “That’s fine.” I take a seat across from Claire.

  “On white bread?” Renée says.

  I’m confused. Renée knows I like sandwiches on toast. So I say, “No, on toast, like always.”

  Claire laughs, then puts her hand to her mouth. Renée is laughing, too. Her back is turned, but her shoulders are bouncing up and down.

  “Did I miss something funny?” I ask.

  Renée keeps laughing. After a while she says, “Did I tell you he’d say that, or didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” Claire says. “I owe you a quarter.”

  And Renée says, “Hamilton is just so intractable about his toast. Everything has to be on toast. Who on earth ever heard of roast beef on toast?”

  Claire puts her fingers to her lips again.

  Renée isn’t finished, though.

  “And not just toast,” she says, “but warm toast. It has to be warm. He won’t eat it if it’s cold. He’s like a little boy. You know how little boys have to have the edges cut off their sandwiches. Well, Hamilton has to have warm toast. Isn’t that right, Ham? If the toast is cold, I have to throw it out and put the sandwich on fresh toast. It’s like it’s ceased to be toast once it’s gone cold. It’s moved from one state of existence,” she says, holding her right arm out, then swinging it across her body, “to another.”

  Both women are laughing. Claire is no longer trying to be ladylike about it. Renée is laughing harder than I’ve ever seen her, harder than at any movie, harder than at any joke.

  I try not to be angry. I tell myself that this is just Renée’s way of trying to make a new friend. I remember how Renée had been after the gas man saw her naked, how she’d been before she started taking her classes.

  All I say is, “Well, I guess the joke’s on me.”

  When she stops laughing, Renée squeezes my shoulder. “We’re just teasing you, Hamilton. Don’t get upset.”

  And I say, “I’m not.”

  “I think it’s cute,” Claire says. “My boyfriend’s like that, too. Not with toast, but with clothes. Everything has to be arranged in order of color. The red shirts have to be together, then the blue ones, then the white ones. I swear, men are such children.”

  “Remind me to tell you about his chicken shirt,” Renée says.

  And Claire says, “His chicken shirt?”

  Renée sets a plate down in front of Claire, then returns to the counter to pick up her plate and mine.

  “So, Claire,” I say, “are you in Renée’s archeology class?”

  Claire holds a hand up while she chews. “No,” she answers after swallowing. “Film.”

  I KNEW it. It was in the skin, the pale white skin.

  I look at Claire more closely—her flat chin, her small, sharp nose—and have the strange feeling that I can tell what her father looks like. I lift my sandwich to my mouth and take a large bite. Renée and Claire are watching me chew, leaning forward like they’re watching a science experiment. Then, they fall back laughing.

  When they stop laughing, I turn to Claire and say, “Film, huh?”

  And she says, “Yes.” She and Renée look at each other and begin laughing again. “A chicken shirt?” Claire says. And I say, “Yes.”

  I take another bite of my sandwich. Claire and Renée speak with their eyes. They look at me. They look at my sandwich. They look at each other.

  I say, “So, what are you studying in your film class?”

  And Claire says, “This and that. Mostly that.”

  “No, really,” I say. “What are you doing?”

  And Claire says, “It’s really not very interesting. Why don’t we talk about something else.”

  And I say, “No, it sounds very interesting. What are you studying?”

  Claire inhales deeply. “Listen, Hamilton, I don’t want to offend you, but you don’t really seem to be the artistic type.”

  To which Renée says, “You’re right about that.” I notice that she hasn’t touched her sandwich yet.

  “I am so artistic,” I say. “I’m as artistic as the next guy.”

  And Renée says, “If the next guy’s a construction worker.” Renée smiles, and Claire laughs.

  And I say, “I am so artistic.” Then before I know it, I say, “Do you know anything about poetry, Claire?”

  And she says, “A little.”

  And I say, “Well, I happen to love a good poem.”

  Renée raises one of her eyebrows the way you would if you smelled a gas leak.

  I’m hoping Claire will ask me who my favorite poet is, and sure enough she does. “Who are your favorite poets then?” she says.

  And I say, “I don’t know, there are so many.”

  And she says, “Who comes to mind first?”

  And I smile a little and say, “Keats, Yeats, Browning, Frost.”

  Claire tips her head and says, “Hmm.”

  Except when I look at Renée, she’s shaking her head side-to-side.

  It’s only then I remember that I’d once told her our high school cheer:

  Keats, Yeats, Browning, Frost,

  The Cadbury Poets have never lost.

  I give her a look to ask her not to embarrass me, not to tell her friend how I know those names.

  Renée doesn’t say anything. She just keeps shaking her head, and I go back to the bedroom and finish my sandwich there.

  I liked it better when she was singing stupid songs about dogs without ears. I liked that MUCH better.

  CHAPTER 11: BETTER THAN RUTH

  I’ve been through this before.

  Maybe not THIS exactly, but close enough.

  I’ve been through this feeling like I don’t even belong in my own home. It’s a terrible feeling. It’s a terrible feeling that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

  After we married, Shellie and I stayed in Cadbury. We rented a little house, and we painted it on the weekends and tended to the garden. I have memories of the two years we spent there that are still as sweet as the frosting on a cupcake. A Christmas Day spent in bed, playing board games. New Year’s Day doing the same. Shellie in overalls, with streaks of paint on her face. Shellie in a bathing suit on my grandfather’s boat, her face and bare limbs turning brown. Shooting basketballs together on the courts behind the high school. Keats, Yeats, Browning, Frost.

  One day, Shellie came home from work and said she couldn’t live there anymore. She said she couldn’t live in Cadbury knowing that the person who had helped kill her brother, the one who had burned his palm, could be anyone we saw on the street, anyone we saw in church.

  “Everyone I see, I ask myself, ‘Is it him?’ ‘Or him?’” she said. “Everyone, all day long.”

  I understood, so we moved to Atlanta. We didn’t even have jobs. We just packed everything into a car and drove. We stayed with Carl and Judy for a few days, until we found an apartment just off Peachtree Street, over by the A&P grocery store. And Shellie started to hate me soon after we moved in. You could tell. And you couldn’t blame her. She deserved to hate me, even though she could never put her finger on why.

  The particular day I’m thinking of, the sun didn’t seem to give off much heat even though it was June and it was nearly three o’clock a
nd the birds were making noises outside the window, the sort of noises birds usually make when it’s warm and the air is thick and sweet. The birds had built a nest in one of the tall, thick oaks outside our apartment building, but the nest was too high to see. It was hidden by branches and leaves and the thick, black power lines that ran from building to building. All there was was the sound of the birds to remind you that they were there on a summer day, to remind you that it even was the summer and that somewhere people were dressed in bathing suits or drinking cool drinks in tall glasses.

  Beside the window and the trees and beneath the nest, I was holding the Saturday newspaper open at the card table I used for a desk. I wasn’t dressed in a bathing suit, and I wasn’t drinking a cool drink in a tall glass. I was reading an article about something that had happened in Russia, about a woman who had lost her job baking bread and now, to buy bread, she had to wait on a line that was long and curved like a river. I was reading about an unhappy man who leaped in front of a train and lost his foot at the ankle, only to have the doctors reattach it through some new medical procedure that left his foot cool and tingly, like it had merely fallen asleep and had not been lying alone on the tracks like a lost mitten; the man sued the railroad and the surgeons. I was reading, and I didn’t notice when Shellie entered the room.

  “What are you doing?” Shellie said.

  And I said, “What?”

  And she said, “I asked what you’re doing,” only she said it like she’d caught me doing something wrong.

  I patted the newspaper.

  Shellie huffed. “You could answer a question with an answer, you know.”

  And I said, “I’m reading, Sweet Potato?”

  And she said, “I know you’re reading. That’s all you ever do now is come in here and read. Newspapers, magazines, books. Read, read, read, read, read.”

  And, very politely, I said, “That’s what I’m doing.”

  And she said, “But why? That’s what I want to know. I want to know why.”

  And I said, “You should know why.”

  And she said, “I don’t.”

  And I said, “You’re the one who wants me to be more ambitious. You’re the one who thinks I need to get better jobs and make more money like Carl.”

  And she said, “So, what does reading have to do with it?”

  And I said, “I’m building my knowledge,” which was true. Or at least I was trying to build my knowledge. It wasn’t working as well as I’d hoped. I’d read an article in a magazine about some new medical discovery or some political issue or something else of that nature, and I’d make myself memorize it because it might come in handy in a job interview. Two days later, I couldn’t remember the name of the article. Two days after THAT, I couldn’t remember the name of the magazine.

  Carl could remember everything. I don’t know how he did it.

  Shellie clapped her hands and said, “Building your knowledge? Building your knowledge?” Then she let out a noise that, in my memory, sounded like, “Ha!”

  And I said, “That’s what I’m doing. I’m building my knowledge. I read so I can learn about things, and then I can use those things in my life, when I talk to people, when I have conversations with people on the street or at work. That way I can sound like I know something, and people will say, `You know, that Hamilton Ashe’s pretty smart. He has a good future ahead of him.’ That’s how you get ahead. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m building my knowledge.”

  Shellie was smart: she knew it wasn’t working.

  She said, “My husband thinks that they’re going to make him the president of General Motors because he reads a couple of newspapers. I’ve got the only husband in the world who spends all of his time building his knowledge, and for what? Deep down, there’s nothing you really want to do. It’s not like you want to be a scientist or a doctor or a lawyer. Besides, there are movies and plays and beaches. We could be walking out in the sun. But, no, my husband wants to stay inside and build his knowledge.” She kept saying “my husband” as if she were talking to someone else in the room, but it was just us. Why would she do that? Why would she tell me I had to get better jobs, then tell me we should be outside walking in the sun? How could you do both? How?

  I said, “If that’s the way you feel, maybe you should think about getting another husband,” which I meant as a JOKE. Who knew she’d take me seriously.

  And Shellie said, “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

  And I said, “I’ll bet you have.”

  I listened for Shellie to leave the room, but she stood behind me, making noises in her throat.

  Finally, I said, “This is a good one,” and I gave the paper a shake.

  And Shellie said, “What’s a good one?”

  “This one here, the one I just read. See, a boy caught a fish and found a watch in it’s stomach when he slit it open, and the watch was still ticking.”

  “Hum,” Shellie said, and she leaned over to read the article. “That is a good one, isn’t it?”

  And I said, “That would be a good advertisement for that watch company. You know, the one that has the commercials where they drop a boulder on a watch, but the watch still works. Or they’ll shoot it with a bullet and the watch keeps working. You know what I mean? What’s the name of that watch company?”

  And she said, “I don’t know,” even though I KNEW she knew. Everyone knows the name of that watch company. It’s Timex.

  So I said, “Shellie, I know you know the name of it. You know, the watch company. The one with those advertisements. What’s the name of that company? You know it. What’s the name?”

  She said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  I laughed and said, “I know the name of the company. It’s Timex. `It takes a licking and keeps on ticking’ is their slogan. I knew that, but I was just trying to make conversation with you.”

  “I don’t want to make conversation.”

  “If you don’t want to make conversation, would you mind just letting me read?”

  Shellie didn’t answer. She sighed and sat on the edge of the card table, not putting her full weight on it, but keeping her feet on the floor. She tapped at the tabletop with her fingernails. They were long and painted blue to match nothing she was wearing. She picked up a letter opener and ran her finger over the plastic handle. She set it down, then picked up a baseball in a clear plastic case. The baseball was the yellow-brown color of tobacco spit, except for a streak of black ink along one side. It was a scribbled signature that looked like someone wrote it on a moving train or car. The letters jerked left and right, up and down, where they shouldn’t have, and the letters that should have had loops had pointed ends instead. Shellie removed the plastic cover and pulled the ball out, rolling it between her palms, and I jumped up from my chair.

  “Don’t touch that!” I said. “Don’t take that out of the case! That’s Ty Cobb, for godssakes.”

  “I know whose signature it is,” Shellie said, clutching the baseball to her chest in both hands to keep me from snatching it away from her. “I’ve heard about it a thousand times. A hundred thousand times. A hundred, million, billion, zillion, kabillion times. `This is the baseball that Ty Cobb signed for my grandfather,’” she said. “`My grandfather met him in a parking lot outside a restaurant, and Ty Cobb signed the ball. Ty Freaking Cobb,’” only she didn’t say “Freaking.” “`Do you know who Ty Cobb was? He’s in the Hall of Fame, for godssakes. He played for the Tigers, and he was one of the greatest of all time, maybe even the greatest. Everybody’s heard of Babe Ruth, but Cobb was better. He was better than Ruth, better than Willie Mays, better than Lou Gehrig, better than Kubla Khan, better than Tiny Tim, better than the Venus de Milo. Blah blah blah Ty Cobb blah blah blah blah.’”

  “Listen,” I said, “I don’t care if you want to make fun of me. I really don’t. That’s your prerogative. I married you for better or worse, and maybe the worse part means that I’m required by law to listen to you make fun of m
e once in a while. Fine. That’s fine. But please put the ball back in the case so you don’t smudge it. You can play with it all you want then. You can dangle it over a fire if you want, I just don’t want you to smudge it.”

  And Shellie said, “I’m not going to smudge it. You’re treating me like a five-year old. I know how to handle things so they don’t smudge.”

  And I said, “Please, Sweet Potato.”

  And she said, “No.”

  So I said, “Please” again.

  And she said, “Oh, okay,” and put the ball back in its case and set it back on the card table. “There, are you happy now? I’ve put it back. I’ve put it back precisely where it was before without a single smudge on it.” She slid off the table and moved slowly around the room, her hands clasped behind her back, her elbows pointing out in a way that was girlish and pretty. In the next apartment, someone began practicing fingering exercises on the piano—pink-pink-pink-pink-pink, pink-pink-pink-pink-pink. Shellie yawned and rested her head against the wall and put her hands on top of her head.

  “That’s very soothing,” she said, and she closed her eyes. I picked up the newspaper from the floor, but I had trouble concentrating. I read the same lines over and over.

  “Ham,” Shellie said at last. “Ham, I can’t go on like this. I mean it. I can’t go on like this.”

  And I said, “You can’t go on like what?” I patted my knee and held my arms out for her to sit on my lap, but she shook her head no.

  “Like this,” she said, and she held her arms out to her sides. She wiped at her eyes, which were dry. Her nose was pink. “Like this. This is no way for a woman my age to live, Ham.”

  “I work hard,” I said. I was working for a printing company at the time. She was working as a secretary in a dentist’s office. We were barely making enough money to pay for rent and food. “I work very hard,” I said again.