Beginners

  But those conversations touching on love or the past were rare. If we talked, we talked about business, survival, the bottom line of things. Money. Where is the money going to come from? The telephone was on the way out, the lights and gas threatened. What about Katy? She needs clothes. Her grades. That boyfriend of hers is a biker. Mike. What’s going to happen to Mike? What’s going to happen to us all? “My God,” she’d say. But God wasn’t having any of it. He’d washed his hands of us.

  I wanted Mike to join the army, navy, or the coast guard. He was impossible. A dangerous character. Even Ross felt the army would be good for him, Cynthia had told me, and she hadn’t liked him telling her that a bit. But I was pleased to hear this and to find out that Ross and I were in agreement on the matter. Ross went up a peg in my estimation. But it angered Cynthia because, miserable as Mike was to have around, despite his violent streak, she thought it was just a phase that would soon pass. She didn’t want him in the army. But Ross told Cynthia that Mike belonged in the army where he’d learn respect and manners. He told her this after there’d been a pushing and shoving match out in his drive in the early morning hours and Mike had thrown him down on the pavement.

  Ross loved Cynthia, but he also had a twenty-two-year-old girl named Beverly who was pregnant with his baby, though Ross assured Cynthia he loved her, not Beverly. They didn’t even sleep together any longer, he told Cynthia, but Beverly was carrying his baby and he loved all his children, even the unborn, and he couldn’t just give her the boot, could he? He wept when he told all this to Cynthia. He was drunk. (Someone was always drunk in those days.) I can imagine the scene.

  Ross had graduated from California Polytechnic Institute and gone right to work at the NASA operation in Mountain View. He worked there for ten years, until it all fell in on him. I never met him, as I said, but we talked on the phone several times, about one thing and another. I called him once when I was drunk and Cynthia and I were debating some sad point or another. One of his children answered the phone and when Ross came on the line I asked him whether, if I pulled out (I had no intention of pulling out, of course; it was just harassment), he intended to support Cynthia and our kids. He said he was carving a roast, that’s what he said, and they were just going to sit down and eat their dinner, he and his children. Could he call me back? I hung up. When he called, after an hour or so, I’d forgotten about the earlier call. Cynthia answered the phone and said “Yes” and then “Yes” again, and I knew it was Ross and that he was asking if I was drunk. I grabbed the phone. “Well, are you going to support them or not?” He said he was sorry for his part in all of this but, no, he guessed he couldn’t support them. “So it’s No, you can’t support them,” I said, and looked at Cynthia as if this should settle everything. He said, “Yes, it’s no.” But Cynthia didn’t bat an eye. I figured later they’d already talked that situation over thoroughly, so it was no surprise. She already knew.

  He was in his mid-thirties when he went under. I used to make fun of him when I had the chance. I called him “the weasel,” after his photograph. “That’s what your mother’s boyfriend looks like,” I’d say to my kids if they were around and we were talking, “like a weasel.” We’d laugh. Or else “Mr. Fixit.” That was my favorite name for him. God bless and keep you, Ross. I don’t hold anything against you now. But in those days when I called him the weasel or Mr. Fixit and threatened his life, he was something of a fallen hero to my kids and to Cynthia too, I suppose, because he’d helped put men on the moon. He’d worked, I was told time and again, on the moon project shots, and he was close friends with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. He’d told Cynthia, and Cynthia had told the kids, who’d told me, that when the astronauts came to town he was going to introduce them. But they never came to town, or if they did they forgot to contact Ross. Soon after the moon probes, fortune’s wheel turned and Ross’s drinking increased. He began missing work. Somewhere then the troubles with his first wife started. Toward the end he began taking the drink to work with him in a thermos. It’s a modern operation out there, I’ve seen it—cafeteria lines, executive dining rooms, and the like, Mr. Coffees in every office. But he brought his own thermos to work, and after a while people began to know and to talk. He was laid off, or else he quit—nobody could ever give me a straight answer when I asked. He kept drinking, of course. You do that. Then he commenced working on ruined appliances and doing TV repair work and fixing cars. He was interested in astrology, auras, I Ching—that business. I don’t doubt that he was bright enough and interesting and quirky, like most of our ex-friends. I told Cynthia I was sure she wouldn’t care for him (I couldn’t yet bring myself to use the word “love” then, about that relationship) if he wasn’t, basically, a good man. “One of us,” was how I put it, trying to be large about it. He wasn’t a bad or an evil man, Ross. “No one’s evil,” I said once to Cynthia when we were discussing my own affair.

  My dad died in his sleep, drunk, eight years ago. It was a Friday night and he was fifty-four years old. He came home from work at the sawmill, took some sausage out of the freezer for his breakfast the next morning, and sat down at the kitchen table, where he opened a quart of Four Roses. He was in good enough spirits in those days, glad to be back on a job after being out of work for three or four years with blood poisoning and then something that caused him to have shock treatments. (I was married and living in another town during that time. I had the kids and a job, enough troubles of my own, so I couldn’t follow his too closely.) That night he moved into the living room with his bottle, a bowl of ice cubes and a glass, and drank and watched TV until my mother came in from work at the coffee shop.

  They had a few words about the whiskey, as they always did. She didn’t drink much herself. When I was grown, I only saw her drink at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s—eggnog or buttered rums, and then never too many. The one time she had had too much to drink, years before (I heard this from my dad, who laughed about it when he told it), they’d gone to a little place outside Eureka and she’d had a great many whiskey sours. Just as they got into the car to leave, she started to get sick and had to open the door. Somehow her false teeth came out, the car moved forward a little, and a tire passed over her dentures. After that she never drank except on holidays and then never to excess.

  My dad kept on drinking that Friday night and tried to ignore my mother, who sat out in the kitchen and smoked and tried to write a letter to her sister in Little Rock. Finally he got up and went to bed. My mother went to bed not long after, when she was sure he was asleep. She said later she noticed nothing out of the ordinary except maybe his snoring seemed heavier and deeper and she couldn’t get him to turn on his side. But she went to sleep. She woke up when my dad’s sphincter muscles and bladder let go. It was just sunrise. Birds were singing. My dad was still on his back, eyes closed and mouth open. My mother looked at him and cried his name.

  I kept driving around. It was dark by now. I drove by my house, every light ablaze, but Cynthia’s car wasn’t in the drive. I went to a bar where I sometimes drank and called home. Katy answered and said her mother wasn’t there, and where was I? She needed five dollars. I shouted something and hung up. Then I called collect to a woman six hundred miles away whom I hadn’t seen in months, a good woman who, the last time I’d seen her, had said she would pray for me.

  She accepted the charges. She asked where I was calling from. She asked how I was. “Are you all right?” she said.

  We talked. I asked about her husband. He’d been a friend of mine and was now living away from her and the children.

  “He’s still in Richland,” she said. “How did all this happen to us?” she asked. “We started out good people.” We talked a while longer, then she said she still loved me and that she would continue to pray for me.

  “Pray for me,” I said. “Yes.” Then we said good-bye and hung up.

  Later I called home again, but this time no one answered. I dialed my mother’s number. She picked up the phone on t
he first ring, her voice cautious, as if expecting trouble.

  “It’s me,” I said. “I’m sorry to be calling.”

  “No, no, honey, I was up,” she said. “Where are you? Is anything the matter? I thought you were coming over today. I looked for you. Are you calling from home?”

  “I’m not at home,” I said. “I don’t know where everyone is at home. I just called there.”

  “Old Ken was over here today,” she went on, “that old bastard. He came over this afternoon. I haven’t seen him in a month and he just shows up, the old thing. I don’t like him. All he wants to do is talk about himself and brag on himself and how he lived on Guam and had three girlfriends at the same time and how he’s traveled to this place and that place. He’s just an old braggart, that’s all he is. I met him at that dance I told you about, but I don’t like him.”

  “Is it all right if I come over?” I said.

  “Honey, why don’t you? I’ll fix us something to eat. I’m hungry myself. I haven’t eaten anything since this afternoon. Old Ken brought some Colonel Sanders over this afternoon. Come over and I’ll fix us some scrambled eggs. Do you want me to come get you? Honey, are you all right?”

  I drove over. She kissed me when I came in the door. I turned my face. I hated for her to smell the vodka. The TV was on.

  “Wash your hands,” she said as she studied me. “It’s ready.”

  Later she made a bed for me on the sofa. I went into the bathroom. She kept a pair of my dad’s pajamas in there. I took them out of the drawer, looked at them, and began undressing. When I came out she was in the kitchen. I fixed the pillow and lay down. She finished with what she was doing, turned off the kitchen light, and sat down at the end of the sofa.

  “Honey, I don’t want to be the one to tell you this,” she said. “It hurts me to tell you, but even the kids know it and they’ve told me. We’ve talked about it. But Cynthia is seeing another man.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I know that,” I said and looked at the TV. “His name is Ross and he’s an alcoholic. He’s like me.”

  “Honey, you’re going to have to do something for yourself,” she said.

  “I know it,” I said. I kept looking at the TV.

  She leaned over and hugged me. She held me a minute. Then she let go and wiped her eyes. “I’ll get you up in the morning,” she said.

  “I don’t have much to do tomorrow. I might sleep in awhile after you go.” I thought: after you get up, after you’ve gone to the bathroom and gotten dressed, then I’ll get into your bed and lie there and doze and listen to your radio out in the kitchen giving the news and weather.

  “Honey, I’m so worried about you.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. I shook my head.

  “You get some rest now,” she said. “You need to sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep. I’m very sleepy.”

  “Watch television as long as you want,” she said.

  I nodded.

  She bent and kissed me. Her lips seemed bruised and swollen. She drew the blanket over me. Then she went into her bedroom. She left the door open, and in a minute I could hear her snoring.

  I lay there staring at the TV. There were images of uniformed men on the screen, a low murmur, then tanks and a man using a flamethrower. I couldn’t hear it, but I didn’t want to get up. I kept staring until I felt my eyes close. But I woke up with a start, the pajamas damp with sweat. A snowy light filled the room. There was a roaring coming at me. The room clamored. I lay there. I didn’t move.

  Gazebo

  THAT morning she pours Teacher’s scotch over my belly and licks it off. In the afternoon she tries to jump out the window. I can’t stand this anymore, and I tell her so. I go, “Holly, this can’t continue. This is crazy. This has got to stop.”

  We are sitting on the sofa in one of the upstairs suites. There were any number of vacancies to choose from, but we needed a suite, a place to move around in and be able to talk. So we’d locked up the motel office that morning and gone upstairs to a suite.

  She goes, “Duane, this is killing.”

  We are drinking Teacher’s with ice and water. We’d slept awhile between morning and afternoon. Then she was out of bed and threatening to climb out the window in her undergarments. I had to get her in a hold. We were only two floors up, but even so.

  “I’ve had it,” she goes. “I can’t take it anymore.” She puts the back of her hand to her cheek and closes her eyes. She turns her head back and forth and makes this humming noise. I could die seeing her like this.

  “Take what?” I go, though of course I know. “Holly?”

  “I don’t have to spell it out for you again,” she goes. “I’ve lost self-control. I’ve lost my pride. I used to be a proud woman.”

  She’s an attractive woman just past thirty. She is tall and has long black hair and green eyes, the only green-eyed woman I’ve ever known. In the old days I used to comment on her green eyes, and she’d tell me she knew she was meant for something special. And didn’t I know it. I feel so awful from one thing and the other.

  Downstairs in the office I can hear the telephone ringing again. It has been ringing off and on all day. Even when I was dozing earlier I could hear it. I’d open my eyes and look at the ceiling and listen to it ring and wonder at what was happening to us.

  “My heart is broken,” she goes. “It’s turned to a piece of stone. I’m no longer responsible. That’s what’s as bad as anything, that I’m not responsible anymore. I don’t even want to get up mornings. Duane, it’s taken a long time to come to this decision, but we have to go our separate ways. It’s over, Duane. We may as well admit it.”

  “Holly,” I go. I reach for her hand, but she draws it away.

  When we’d first moved down here and taken over as motel managers we thought we were out of the woods. Free rent and utilities plus three hundred a month, you couldn’t beat it. Holly took care of the books, she was good with figures, and she did most of the renting of the units. She liked people and people liked her back. I saw to the grounds, mowed the grass and cut weeds, kept the swimming pool clean, did minor repairs. Everything was fine for the first year. I was holding down another job nights, a swing shift, and we were getting ahead, rich in plans. Then one morning, I don’t know, I’d just laid some bathroom tile in one of the units when this little Mexican maid comes in to clean. Holly had hired her. I can’t really say I’d noticed her before, though we spoke when we saw each other. She called me Mister. Anyway, one thing and the other, we talked. She wasn’t dumb, she was cute and had a nice way about her. She liked to smile, would listen with great intent when you said something, and looked you in the eyes when she talked. After that morning I started paying attention when I’d see her. She was a neat, compact little woman with fine white teeth. I used to watch her mouth when she laughed. She started calling me by my first name. One morning I was in another unit replacing a washer for one of the bathroom faucets. She didn’t know I was there. She came in and turned on the TV as maids are in the habit of doing while they clean. I stopped what I was doing and stepped outside the bathroom. She was surprised to see me. She smiled and said my name. We looked at each other. I walked over and closed the door behind her. I put my arms around her. Then we lay down on the bed.

  “Holly, you’re still a proud woman,” I go. “You’re still number one. Come on, Holly.”

  She shakes her head. “Something’s died in me,” she goes. “It took a long time for it to die, but it’s dead. You’ve killed something, just like you’d take an ax to it. Everything is dirt now.” She finishes her drink. Then she begins to cry. I make to hug her, but she gets up and goes into the bathroom.

  I freshen our drinks and look out the window. Two cars with out-of-state plates are parked in front of the office. The drivers, two men, are standing in front of the office, talking. One of them finishes saying something to the other, looks around at the units and pulls his chin. A woman has her face up to the glass, hand shielding h
er eyes, peering inside. She tries the door. The phone begins ringing in the office.

  “Even when we were making love a while ago you were thinking of her,” Holly goes, as she returns from the bathroom. “Duane, this is so hurtful.” She takes the drink I give her.

  “Holly,” I go.

  “No, it’s true, Duane.” She walks up and down the room in her underpants and bra with the drink in her hand. “You’ve gone outside the marriage. It’s our trust you’ve broken. Maybe that sounds old-fashioned to you. I don’t care. Now I just feel like, I don’t know what, like dirt, that’s what I feel like. I’m confused. I don’t have a purpose anymore. You were my purpose.”

  This time she lets me take her hand. I get down on my knees on the carpet and put her fingers against my temples. I love her, Christ, yes, I love her. But at that very minute too I’m thinking of Juanita, her fingers rubbing my neck that time. This is awful. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

  I go, “Holly, honey, I love you.” But I don’t know what else to say or what else I can offer under the circumstances. She runs her fingers back and forth across my forehead as if she is a blind person being asked to describe my face.

  In the lot someone leans on a horn, stops, starts again. Holly takes her hand away, wipes her eyes. She goes, “Fix me a drink. This one’s too weak. Let them blow their horns, I don’t care. I think I’ll move to Nevada.”

  “Don’t talk crazy,” I go.

  “I’m not talking crazy,” she goes. “I just said I think I’ll move to Nevada. Nothing’s crazy about that. Maybe I can find someone there who’ll love me. You can stay here with your Mexican maid. I think I’ll move to Nevada. Either that or I’m going to kill myself.”