I don’t, of course, presume to except myself from that company. I’ve been a regular here throughout this muggy summer. Most afternoons I can be found planted on one of the bright-blue benches whose inconveniently spaced slats pinch my fat ass. Unemployed for longer than I care to remember, I come here to spend the day in as pleasant a manner as possible. That means eyeing the nymphets who scoot by, jiggling provocatively in the pursuit of frisbees.
And eating. At the moment I am gnawing a chicken leg embalmed in the Colonel’s twenty-seven secret herbs and spices, and swigging a Coke. When that’s finished I’ll top off with two Oh Henrys which have dissolved in their wrappers from the heat.
I’m not the only degenerate dotting the landscape either, although the park almost always empties by four-thirty. Fifty yards away a teen-age couple – he no more than fifteen, she barely having crossed into puberty – lie in a spot of shade rubbing their fevered groins together, lost in the sensations of an open-mouthed, tongue-entangled, gullet-probing kiss. Even at this considerable distance I can hear the rasp of stiff denim on stiff denim and their zippers metallically zinging in unison. In a way I wish them good luck in their striving. It is hard to accept that such effort and persistence could go unrewarded.
The guy by the drinking-fountain is, however, another story and not an object for benevolent glances. On him I’ve kept a wary eye. For the past hour, shirtless and barefooted, he has practised some arcane martial art. He has slashed, punched, stabbed and kicked the air, crushing imaginary windpipes, rupturing imaginary spleens, squashing imaginary testicles, and deviating imaginary septums. An extra-Y-chromosome type if I ever saw one, and tattooed for good measure. A powder keg capable of exploding at anything an overweight, sparsely bearded man with weak eyesight like me might say or do, however amiable and unprovoking.
If that character had the courtesy to get lost I might be able to completely relax and enjoy my afternoon. Behind me I sense the silken movement of the river as I smell its effluvium, a piquant mix of algae and industrial waste. Its counterpart in movement is the traffic on Spadina Crescent which winds in front of me. Fragmented by shrubs and elms it is a pattern of hot light, flickering chrome and flashing glass. Paradoxically peaceful, I find. My preferences run to urban jungles.
I check the time. It is a quarter to five and the runners from the YWCA are late. I never miss them if I can help it.
Now please don’t get me wrong. My interest in these ladies is not lascivious. How could it be? The women are deadly serious about this business of running and make no concessions to spectators. They make their appearance attired in baggy grey pants stained with unsightly blotches of sweat, or in unflattering cotton shorts and shoes pounded shapeless and grimy from many hard miles on the asphalt. Unlike the sweet young things that wiggle voluptuously down the via dolorosa to health and beauty in satiny track suits that cling erotically to their nubile frames, these women clip along with a choppy, economical stride that efficiently devours distance. They are training for the city’s annual twelve-and-a-half-mile run along the river bank.
I recognize the strength of the dedication and the determination that propels them mile after boring mile. Good God, I admire it. With a chicken leg in one hand and a Coke in the other, I salute them even in their absence. Hail to thee Marys full of grace.
And right on cue they appear. Suddenly, through the screen of trees I spot the leader of the pack, the she-wolf herself. As always, it is the tough little breastless redhead with stringy thighs who labours first up the grade from under the Broadway Bridge. Another runner appears and then another. As they top the rise their faces go momentarily slack with relief, thankful that this terrible straining against gravity has at last subsided. Seeing their faces dissolve with the release of tension makes me associate all this sweaty effort with sex. But that is not really accurate or correct. Perhaps it is merely bewildered and lost they look, like dazed survivors of some catastrophic wreck. It is, however, only a matter of seconds before my heroines recover their composure and stride, and press formidably on.
The solitary front runners and high achievers fly past and the field is claimed by knots of women who shuffle along huddled together in groups of five or six for mutual encouragement and support. They straggle by, gaping mouths a mute plea for oxygen, wisps of hair plastered to flushed cheeks, arms shining with a patina of honest sweat. Brave girls!
And last of all come the stragglers, the beginners, the fatties, the pigeon-toed camp followers of that other regiment of women. These are the ones I really wait for, to see safely on their way. I do worry about these women. I sometimes imagine them reeling, lurching from sunstroke, and finally crashing to the pavement without anyone to spring to their aid. The old girls with blue rinses, knobby knees and a visible circuitry of veins in relief on their calves; the stenographers with secretary’s spread; the overweight teen-age girls blooming with acne who run to fashion their bodies into objects worthy of the witless adoration of future Prince Charmings – these are the sheep which comprise my fold and I am their shepherd. If not as good-looking or athletic as one of those young blond studs who man ski patrols, I am, I believe, as dedicated.
My eyes study these tail-enders, alert for signs of danger or imminent collapse, and in doing so come to rest on one woman. About her there is something troublingly familiar, although this shouldn’t be, because I am convinced she is a novice runner, a new addition to the daily procession. In any case, I don’t recognize the running garb – white tennis shorts and a cheerful yellow T-shirt.
This woman gives every indication of being in rough shape. Having just finished the climb from under the bridge, she is trying to walk the tightness out of her calves. As she limps along, one hand on her hip, one working on her rib cage trying to squeeze out a stitch, her head hangs down so that a fall of hair obscures her face. But there is something about her – the strong body, the generous, ungirlish proportions – that strikes a resonance of familiarity in me.
She throws her head back and begins to run again, her arms pumping awkwardly at her sides, her legs moving jerkily. It is Victoria. My wife. Or rather, more correctly, my estranged wife. The woman whom I haven’t set eyes on in four months. The woman who hangs up when I call. The woman who wants a divorce right now and no more funny business.
And does she look awful! Her face has curdled to an alarming hue, the grape-purple of strangulation victims – except where she has gone ashy white about the eyes and mouth. In this thirty-degree-plus heat, my wife’s brains must be frying in her obstinate head. My duty is clear. I slip off the bench, drumstick in hand, and hustle out to intercept her before she does herself irreparable damage.
Victoria obviously doesn’t recognize her hubby. The man whom she once kept so spruce and neat is clad in wrinkles and food stains. I’ve laid on a few more pounds of lard and grown a scruffy fringe of hair on my hoggish jowls since last we acrimoniously parted. When Victoria finally realizes that this stranger is bearing down on her with obvious intent, she veers away sharply to avoid attack or an obscene proposition. Consequently, I’m forced to break into a ridiculous trot to pursue her.
“Victoria,” I call cheerfully, identifying myself as a friendly, “it’s me. It’s Ed, dear.”
Victoria is so exhausted her face is incapable of registering surprise, or even dismay at my condition. Apparently even the usages of common civility are beyond her wasted powers. This from a woman with whom I shared bed and board for six years: “Ed? Get the hell away from me. What the hell are you doing following me, spying on me? Get lost.”
“Victoria,” I cajole her, refusing to answer her preposterous accusations. “Darling. If you could only see yourself. Stop this nonsense. You’re risking heat stroke.”
How the hell does she do it in these temperatures? Twenty yards and already my pores are leaking buckets of water and quantities of vital salts and minerals.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Go away,” she gasps, plodding puritanically along. Rule the flesh.
>
“I’m not being ridiculous. Every year there’s a rash of high-school football players dropping dead all over Dixie from heat stroke. It’s a fact.”
“Benny,” she says, her breath catching raggedly, “told me not to talk to you. So I’m not.”
“The body has to be trained for this,” I explain. “You have to build your tolerance for this stuff.” Tangentially I add, “And tell that shyster Benny to jam a statute book up his ass the next time you see him.”
“Only a mile further,” she grunts to herself, studiously ignoring me. She lowers her head bullishly and ploughs forward.
“All right,” I say sternly, all bristly authority. “If you won’t stop this, I’ll have to stop you for your own good.”
A desperate, harrowed look crosses her face. “I’m finishing,” she announces through clenched teeth. “Unlike some people I know, I don’t quit on things.”
“I suppose that remark is supposed to reduce me to jelly?” I comment acidly. An unfortunate choice of words. I note that I do tend to quiver when in full, precipitous flight as I am now.
“Take that remark however you wish. I’m not in charge of your limited conscience any longer. Thank God.”
Lulled by her righteousness, Victoria seems to slow slightly. I speed up and make a grab for her arm. But she is an elusive girl; she weaves trickily, steps on the gas and spunkily spurts a few steps out of my reach.
“Touch me,” she warns hoarsely, “and I’ll scream. I’ll yell rape, you son of a bitch.”
So that’s it. Marital brinkmanship. As so often with us, this has become a test of wills. But she doesn’t frighten me off. Victoria was never one (unlike me) who wished to call attention to herself. She could never, in all our long married life, tolerate public scenes. Still, she is a worthy opponent, a tough cookie. Centuries of flinty Scottish feistiness are distilled in her being. She is industrious, self-reliant and persevering. A proper helpmate on the stony road of life.
This escapade is taking its toll. I puff as I pursue her. She squeaks a barely audible, definitely feeble “Rape!” that is not meant to be heard by anyone. It is merely to serve me as a warning.
Throwing all caution to the winds I lunge and catch hold of her wrist.
“Help!” she fairly bellows. So much for theory and past experience. This is not the Victoria I knew. She struggles and tugs ferociously on the end of my arm. I find myself forced to shuffle along with an apologetic, schoolboyish grin pasted on my mug, striving to achieve the right effect – the quintessence of harmlessness.
“Help me! Help somebody!”
“Shut up, for Christ’s sake. Jesus.” I nod encouragingly to a passing motorist whose face darkens suspiciously behind the windshield. “What the hell are you doing? Do you want to be arrested for public mischief?” I mutter to my wife.
Then she does it. “Rape!”
I am seriously considering letting the silly bitch go when I sense his presence. It is as if he dropped out of the sky, although he must have watched the entire farce from the wings, only awaiting his cue. I manage a half-turn to face him, and then Mr. Kung Fu from the park hits the arm to which Victoria is attached with one of those tricky Oriental chops. Just the kind of snappy blow that makes the arm go dead and lodges a locus of electric pain in the neck.
Victoria is released. She sprints away without a backward glance, leaving me to face the belligerent music. This is not like the woman I recall. Surely she has an obligation to explain?
Meanwhile my attacker has squared off and assumed an appropriately menacing stance from which to launch a devastating offensive. His hands revolve slowly in front of his body.
How do you handle a character like this? A man who has spent interminable hours in some seedy, smelly gymnasium devoting his time to preparing for just such a moment as this, when, without fear of judicial reprisal, and in good conscience, he can cripple another human being for life.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I say lamely.
He doesn’t answer me.
“You better not hit me again,” I tactfully warn him, “unless you want to get slapped with a lawsuit that’ll bleed you white.” This sort of approach sometimes works with the cretinous types.
He takes a step towards me. I find myself thinking very hard. The inevitable question arises. What would Sam Waters do in such a situation? I have a good idea what Sam would do, but I know equally well that I am incapable of imitation.
My one arm is still relatively useless, although the numbness is being replaced with pins and needles of breathtaking pain. I extend my good arm to fend off my assailant, only to discover that I am pointing my forgotten drumstick, dagger-like, at his black heart.
“What the fuck’s the matter with you, jerk-off artist?” he demands. “How come you were bothering the lady?”
Perhaps it is an indication of the incorrigibility of human nature. Even in such disastrous circumstances ol’ Adam rears his cynical, ugly head. The unregenerate, childish Ed cannot help himself. “That was no lady, mister,” I blurt out. “That was my wife!” Old dogs cannot be taught new tricks, and old jokes, I find, are still the best.
I brace my porcine pan for a two-knuckle punch when… lo and behold, a police cruiser creeps to the curb to investigate this contretemps. At the sight of the long arm of the law manifestly before him, my friend grows suddenly pacific. It appears that they are on a first-name basis. Evidently he will do no snitching; this gorilla wants nothing whatsoever to do with the boys in blue. When I am asked whether he is bothering me, I give him a long, hard look, long and hard enough to make him squirm, before I sarcastically pronounce him “one of nature’s noblemen.”
So our business concludes, though not quite satisfactorily. I cannot help thinking that Sam Waters would have handled it in a more efficient, more masculine manner.
It is only when I am safely at home knocking together my supper (peanut butter, banana and corn syrup sandwiches) on a kitchen counter frustratingly littered with dirty dishes that Benny’s treachery really begins to eat away at me. How dare he counsel my wife not to talk to me!
Benny and I go some way back. As university students we shared quarters in a derelict old house on 14th Street. Now, however, we are barely on speaking terms. This is because the disloyal bastard agreed to represent my disloyal wife in divorce proceedings.
That is not to suggest that Benjamin and I saw eye to eye on everything even back then. But I can say I liked him a hell of a lot better in 1968 than I do today. Tempus fugit.
During the late sixties and early seventies Benny was a priapic, hairy activist who kept the bedsprings squealing and squeaking upstairs and the kitchen table circled by people full of dope arguing how to remodel the world so that there would be a chicken in every pot and a stereo in every living-room.
In those days Benny was a great nay-sayer and boycotter. When he bought groceries Benny packed two lists. One enumerated necessities. The other listed brands or articles that were verboten: Kraft products; grapes and lettuce picked by non-unionized workers; Angolan coffee, lifeblood of Portuguese imperialism; South African wine – all were comestibles which never passed his lips.
Benny walked around with a millennial light in his eyes. He intended to dedicate his life to eternal servitude in a legal-aid clinic. For my uncommitted ways he had nothing but contempt. My flesh was weak. I remember his discovering my contraband peanut butter, a proscribed brand, and righteously dashing it to the floor in a Calvinistic fury. God, I loved him for it. He was a kind of moral standard.
But that evangelistic Benny is no more. He’s dead. Affluence did him in. The hirsute, wild-eyed Benny is transmogrified. He is razor-cut and linen-suited. His ass cupped lovingly in the contoured leather seats of his BMW, he tools around town on the prowl for extra-marital snarf. You see, Benny knocked up money and then, in a rare interlude of common sense, married it.
The longer I think about Benny, the more I am bugged. He ought to be treated to a piece of my mind. It�
�s only a quarter to six; I may still catch him at the office if I phone now. In any case, I need to get Victoria’s new address from him. I’ve been after him for two weeks to reveal all, but he hasn’t budged. He’s not telling.
I phone. His secretary informs me it is impossible to speak with Mr. Kramer. He is with a client.
“Please tell him it’s his father-in-law,” I say, “and inform him it’s important.” I know this will beat him out of the bushes. Benny’s Daddy Warbucks bought him his partnership in this firm of shysters. The old man, I am convinced, still has his proprietary talons sunk deep in old Benny’s carcass. Benny will talk to Papa.
There is a fussy delay, lots of hum on the line and background thumps.
“Daddy? Benny here. What’s up?”
Daddy? Daddy?
“It’s Captain Ed calling Corporal Benny. Captain Ed calling Corporal Benny. Come in, Corporal Benny.”
There is a moment of hesitation at the other end of the line. Then Benny speaks to me in a tone usually reserved for converse with dolls and children.
“Now that you’ve finished with the collegiate humour, Ed, what can I do for you? I happen to be very busy right now. I think my secretary may have just mentioned that to you.” You’d think I’d just piddled on the carpet or something.
I ignore him. Squirm, you bastard. “I want to talk about this divorce, Benny. I don’t like what’s been happening. It is turning into a dirty, nasty business.”
“Only because you insist on regarding it as personal,” Benjamin replies smugly. That piece of idiocy is the just measure of the legal mind.
“You know,” I say, attempting to adopt a fey and whimsical tone, “if there were any real justice in God’s universe, he would have provided a cosmic hammer, preferably silver like Maxwell’s, to bang people on the head when they make idiotic statements. ‘I’m not getting any younger.’ Bong! ‘There is no such word as can’t.’ Bong! ‘Don’t take this personally.’ Bong! You’d be a foot shorter right this minute, Benny. The point is, it is my divorce! Victoria is my wife! Jesus Christ, of course I take it personally, you ass-hole.”
Man Descending Page 23
