Poker with Johnny
Till six in the morning—
Stayed out too late
Didn’t want to tell you
When I was half dead
In bed
Upset you for nothing
I’m sorry, I’m sorry
Was going to come clean
Spilled beer on my jeans
The cholla knows nothing
I’m sorry I’m sorry
But Carmen is waiting
For me at the Westin
—Poker with Johnny
Till six in the morning.
Chapter Twelve
Gone Astray
So Blue Thinking About You
Wednesday night after work Alexander sat in front of an obscure bar-restaurant all the way south in Chandler. He sat in his truck, the engine still running, his unbandaged, barely scabbed-over hands on the wheel. He was in his best suit. He had driven miles from his usual haunts to meet Carmen.
It was past eight, past the time he was supposed to meet her and he—who was never late unless Tatiana made him late—was sitting in the truck. All he had to do was turn off the engine and go inside. What was the problem?
Tatiana was still making him late.
It took something out of Alexander to prepare for this, to prevent questions in case any arose, to think of contingencies. “Can Ant go to Francesca’s after school? I’m working late,” he had said to Tatiana that morning. They hadn’t been speaking, except through and about Anthony. Alexander had been counting—depending—on more unbearable silence, but instead this morning, Tatiana had said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Another late meeting? Like you don’t work hard enough. Will you eat?”
Alexander promised her he would eat.
And now it was eating him up inside.
He said to her as they were getting ready, “I don’t know how late I’ll be. It’s way down south.”
And Tatiana said, “Don’t worry. Just go do what you have to do. I’ll be waiting. How are your hands? Are they feeling better? You want me to rebandage them?”
This after four days of barely speaking!
So now Alexander was sitting here, about to go do what he had to do. And he couldn’t leave the truck.
“Do you want me to call?” he asked just before she left for work, when she was already at the door, cap on, nurse bag in her hands.
“If you’re going to be very late, call,” said Tatiana. “Otherwise just come home.” She did not, however, look at him when she said these things, nor raise her eyes to him.
The engine hummed. The whirling dervish inside him was so unstill and so merciless that he found himself shaking the wheel in a hellish attempt to get control of himself.
It was all right. It would be all right. She would never know—about this. Alexander did not tell her his prepared lies about Tyrone because she had not asked, and he was certainly not going to volunteer. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, she never looked at him and said, “Where were you till six in the morning?”
Yet things were happening in his tranquil house that he could hardly ignore. Tatiana had not cooked for him since Friday; had not made fresh bread! She had not washed his clothes. She had not made his side of the bed, or picked up his cigarette butts, or thrown away his newspapers, or brought him coffee. Tatiana had not gone grocery shopping. Both Monday and Tuesday, Alexander had to bring milk home.
“You haven’t bought milk,” he said on Monday.
“I forgot,” she said.
Tuesday she said nothing and he didn’t ask. Both days she worked, and at night the lamps had not gone on, the candles had not been lit. Both evenings Alexander had to light the Christmas tree himself when he got home. And despite their civil words this Wednesday morning— a fact remained as stark and foreign as the Japanese in Normandy: they had not kissed since Saturday, had not touched in bed since Saturday. These were uncharted waters in their marriage. Since they had been together, they had not spent a single day without touching; it was as certain as the moontides; and now they—who slept at night as if they were still on the ground in his tent in Luga—had not touched for four days!
What did Alexander think was going on with her?
He wasn’t thinking about her. He was thinking only about himself and all the lies he could tell her so that she would never find out.
Carmen’s sedan was in the lot. She was already inside waiting. He turned off the engine. He had to go in. They would have a drink, maybe a quick—very quick—bite to eat. Afterward— Alexander had brought cash for the Westin hotel, condoms for himself, he was ready. He’d go with her, spend an hour, maybe two, shower, get dressed, leave.
And here’s where the trouble was: right at the point of showering with hotel soap and leaving Carmen to go home to an “I’ll be waiting” Tatiana. When he came home after having sex with another woman, would he have to look Tatiana in the face, or could he count on her eyes being turned away from him? Or would he have to not look her in the face? She would smell the hotel soap. He’d have to shower without soap. She’d smell the wet hair. She would know by the look in his eyes. She would know by his averted eyes. She’d know by touching him. She would know instantly.
Carmen was waiting for him. Shouldn’t he have decided not to go through with it before the moment he was nattily dressed and freshly showered and had condoms in his pocket?
Condoms.
Alexander’s heart closed in around itself. That’s how deliberate he was, how prepared, how set for betrayal. This wasn’t an out of control moment, like last Friday night. Oh, honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just got drunk and lost control. It doesn’t mean anything, honey, honey, honey.
No. This was premeditated betrayal. This was betrayal in cold blood.
Alexander wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t out of control, and he had bought condoms in advance.
He could barely convince even himself about the out of control moment last Friday night. He did, after all, sit at the bar alone, waiting for Carmen to show up. Would that sound out of control to Tatiana’s ears? On the one hand, Tania, my faithful truck, on the other, sitting in a bar for an hour waiting for the party girl. It all evens out, right?
It was dark in the lot. The lights of the bar were twinkling. Through the decorated-for-Christmas windows, Alexander could see people moving about inside, couples talking.
She is so sanguine and so busy. She works sixty hours a week. She’ll never find out. Even if she finds out, she’ll forgive me. She forgives me for everything. We will go on as before.
Yet his house was not cleaned and his clothes were not washed. There was no food on his table, nor lips on his face.
Alexander was breathing hard, trying to wade through his mire. Having dinner with another woman! He had never done it, not even in the years before Tatiana when he was in the army—especially when he was in the army. When he was a garrison soldier, he bought the girls drinks, and thirty minutes later, their skirts were hitched up at the parapets. Those were his courtships. Alexander was thirty-eight years old and he had never taken anyone out for dinner before he had sex with them, except Tatiana.
The imagining himself in the awkwardness, in the stilted conversation, in the pretend flirtation was paralyzing his hands behind the wheel, was tamping out his desire for someone new, his excitement for a bit of strange. And then the coming home, showered—or perhaps not showered? It was unimaginable. Tamping out with a talon of steel.
And suddenly—He is lying on dirty straw. He has been beaten so many times, his body is one bloodied bruise; he is filthy, he is hideous, he is a sinner and he is utterly unloved. At any moment, at any instant, he will be put on a train in his shackles and taken through Cerberus’s mouth to Hades for the rest of his wretched life. And it is at that precise moment that the light shines from the door of his dark cell #7, and in front of him Tatiana stands, tiny, determined, disbelieving, having returned for him. Having abandoned the infant boy who needs her most to go find the broken beast who needs h
er most. She stands mutely in front of him, and doesn’t see the blood, doesn’t see the filth, sees only the man, and then he knows: he is not cast out. He is loved.
What a blithering idiot.
Alexander started up the engine, put the truck into reverse, peeled out of the parking lot and drove home, leaving Carmen waiting for him inside the restaurant. On the way home, he remembered—just in time— pulled into a gas station, and threw out the condoms he bought into the public trash.
He got home after nine thirty.
After parking the truck next to her Thunderbird, Alexander walked quietly up the deck stairs and watched Tatiana from the unshaded window. She was in her short silk robe, her hair was down. She hadn’t seen him yet, hadn’t heard him pull up; the music must be playing. She was sitting at the kitchen table, her back to the door, her head lowered, her shoulders slumped. She was holding her stomach and she was crying.
On the table there was fresh bread. One candle was lit. The Christmas tree was bright, the table lamps were on, the lights around the windows sparkled.
Anthony was nowhere to be seen.
Unable to watch her anymore, Alexander took a deep breath, and with his heart as heavy as a rock, opened the door. Please, please, let me keep my brave and indifferent face.
Tatiana wiped her eyes first and then turned to him. “Hey,” she said. She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.
“I was done early,” Alexander said, taking off his suit jacket, looking around.
“Oh.”
“Where’s Ant?”
“With Sergio. I’m letting him stay over.”
Alexander frowned, his troubled mind reeling. “You’re letting him stay overnight on a Wednesday?” This was incongruous.
“As a treat for him.”
His heart was hammering in his chest.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I made a little food.”
Alexander dumbly nodded.
“Well, go wash then. I made some... blinchiki. Meatball soup. Soda bread.”
Without washing, he sank into the chair. She made blinchiki? It’s a good thing she wasn’t close to him because she would’ve heard the repentant pounding of his wanton black heart. “Aren’t you going to eat?” Alexander asked.
“I’m not hungry,” she replied. “But I’ll sit with you—if you want.” Tatiana put food on his plate, poured him a beer, water, brought him the day’s newspaper. The music was on, the candle was burning at his table!
Comfort and joy . . . o tidings of comfort and joy . . .
God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay,
Remember, Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas day . . .
The sash of her robe had gotten loose. As she stood to pour him another beer, Alexander glimpsed an ivory lace camisole, through which he could see her body, nude except for the white suspender belt and lace stockings. He felt sick. Looking down, he read the paper, and ate— and did not lift his eyes to her. The only things they said to each other during dinner were, hers, “How do you like the blinchiki?” and his, “They’re excellent, we haven’t had them in years.”
When he was done and Tatiana stepped close to take his plate, Alexander put down the paper and stopped her with his hands on her waist, slowly turning her to him. Opening the robe, he pulled it off her shoulders.
“Hmm,” he said. “Chemise new?”
“For you,” she said. “You like?”
“I like.” But he couldn’t look up. He did manage to pull the camisole down, to bare her heavy milky breasts to his wounded hands. Fondling her, cupping her, he put his lips on her nipples, as she quaked and moaned under his mouth, quivering uncontrollably like a violin, alive, soft, perfect. “Why so sensitive?” Alexander whispered, one torn half of him still clambering up from the abyss. Suddenly he became afraid— almost certain—that Tatiana was reading his thoughts. Putting his hand under the camisole and patting her bottom, Alexander let go of her and quickly stood from the table.
He may have been able to hide his thoughts from her, but what he could not hide in their bed was the ravening lead gravity of guilt pulling all his organs down into the earth. There was simply no love tonight. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he said.
“No?” she said, and turned away.
He offered her something for herself. Tatia, remember our fifth wedding anniversary? he whispered achingly to her. Anthony was napping in the trailer and we were in Naples on a deserted Gulf beach in the late afternoon, on a blanket on white sand. We had been swimming and you were briny and wet. I lay stretched out on my back and you kneeled over my mouth. You couldn’t keep yourself upright; you pitched forward and remained on your sandy elbows and knees. My head was thrown back, my face buried in you, and I held your hips in place with my hands. We were in a straight line, you and I, you above me. Happy birthday, happy anniversary, happy napping Anthony, and on joyful wing/cleaving the sky/sun, moon and stars forgot,/upward I fly. Everything was forgot for that one hour of honeysuckle bliss on a white sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico. Please, Tatiasha. Kneel over me. Keel forward, let me touch you. Give me honey, give me bliss, cleave the sky, and forget everything.
Her back to him was still, as if she had not heard, as if he had not whispered.
After she was asleep, Alexander spooned her to him, into the crook of his arm, against his chest. Her hair tickled his ribs. It took him hours to fall asleep. Was it his imagination, or was there a promise of future agony that he heard in her clipped voice all evening? She kept trying to say something to him—and failing. He certainly wasn’t going to ask, but how did she go from lying in bed in a fetal position Saturday night to making him his favorite meal and crashing her naked body through his hit parade?
“Lay your sleeping head, on my faithless arm,” he inaudibly whispered, trying to remember Auden, suffocating on the poison cocktail of his self-hatred and his conscience.
Baby, Please Come Home
The following morning, Alexander walked into the office to get his messages, to see his appointments for the day, and to make sure Linda had taken care of the hundreds of Christmas bonuses. Efficient to a fault, she said she had done it weeks ago when he first asked. She said to him, “Were you a bad boy and forget about your appointment last night?”
“What appointment?”
“What appointment? With Mrs. Rosario, Alexander! You made it. She was in your book.”
“Oh. I must’ve forgotten,” he said carefully. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, you weren’t home either,” said Linda. “Because she came here last night around nine looking for you.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Rosario.”
Alexander was quiet. “Linda, what’s wrong with you that you were still here at nine?”
“Don’t you know I have no life?” she said. “I live to manage yours. She came by and asked if she could call your house. I didn’t know what to do. I was very worried myself. We thought maybe something had happened. You never forget your appointments.”
“Did she”— Alexander spoke with difficulty— “call my house?”
“Uh-huh. Spoke to Tania.”
“Mrs. Rosario spoke to Tatiana?”
“Uh-huh. She was pretty upset.”
“Who?” Alexander said in a dull voice.
“The client, of course,” said Linda. “You know your wife is constitutionally incapable of getting angry at you.”
Unsteadily Alexander walked outside and sat in his truck. He was doing that a lot these days. Sitting in his truck. Soon it was going to become his home.
Fucking Carmen called his house! Well, that was one scenario he did not imagine—the married woman calling his house, asking for him. That’s the permutation Alexander had not seen, and he thought he had prepared for every quadratic contingency.
He couldn’t think straight. But why didn’t bad things go down? Why didn’t they have it out yesterday? They were alone, they had all night. He would hav
e thought of something to say that sounded like the truth. Why did Tania dress down to a see-through chemise for him? Why the food, the candles? What in the name of heaven was going on at his house? Alexander’s mind was baffled and bewildered.
He had to go check on the status of three of his houses. The electricians were coming to one, the foundation was being poured on another, and the Certificate of Occupancy inspector was coming to the third. But at lunch Alexander went to the hospital. Even though he knew Tatiana never had a break long enough to have a cup of coffee, much less a brief calm talk about another woman calling their house asking for him, how could he not go?
He found her sitting by herself in the cafeteria, drinking milk; she looked grim and white. “Hey,” she said, barely glancing at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Come outside for a minute,” he said.
When they were out in the sun-filled parking lot, Alexander stopped walking and said, his teeth grinding, his eyes to the ground, “Why didn’t you tell me Carmen Rosario called you last night?”
“Did you come to the hospital to ask me this? She didn’t call me,” said Tatiana. “She called our house looking for you.” She laughed lightly. “She asked to speak to you and when I said you weren’t home, she said, well, where is he? in a tone that you can imagine I for one found peculiar. I told her you were working late. She said yes, and she was the one you were supposed to be working late with. I’ll tell you,” Tatiana continued, folding her hands together, “she seemed quite upset. I didn’t know what to say, since I didn’t know where you were, so I apologized for you. I thought you would want me to do that, right, Alexander? Apologize to Carmen Rosario for you?” She paused. “I told her you must’ve forgotten. It must have slipped your mind. Sometimes your mind does that, plays tricks on you, I told her. Where you forget certain things.”
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