by Herbert Gold
What a sweet thing to say. I was proud to merit her confidence. I didn’t take all the pleasure in this scrap of praise that she may have hoped to give me.
Without spending the time to look carefully into my heart, I was pretty sure I didn’t take any pleasure at all in this praise, sincere though it was.
“Make his point of view, essential decency, clear in a … in a predicament, I think you could call it, that involves all of us. He wants to level … the ground rules … sort of man-to-man, I suppose—oh, you’ll see, Dan! You’re always so … you’re one of the truly…”
“He wants what? To explain something to me? Ask me for your hand or something?”
Now she was on a roll. She was getting over the rough place. We could go back to comfortable banter about the newly important matter in her life and maybe, in some way she could not calculate, it was important in my life too. But my life wasn’t really her business, was it?
“Not on bended knee, dear,” she said. “I don’t see Xavier falling to his knees like that, though of course you can never tell … No, not even as a joke. He’d be embarrassed. No. No.”
I wanted to thank her for seeing the fantasy through to a happier conclusion. I also wanted to hurt the woman I loved, which was an odd desire I had begun to live with. I didn’t like it, didn’t approve, didn’t resist. The desire was for her, to love and to cherish this woman of strength and self-possession; the fear was that I might hate her if she didn’t stop denying that we had made our history together. She used to love me; I wanted her to remember that she used to love me. She didn’t. She claimed the right to her own story. “I don’t have a very good memory, dear.” And: “Try to remember that.”
There was some kind of buzzing going on, filling the space between the walls and between us. I knew what it was, that humming of thought, Priscilla’s complicated intelligence—sometimes I called it calculation—and usually it meant something important was getting ready to happen. It was a kicking-in of new gears. It was Priscilla making sure she was still in control by taking charge of matters.
“Fact is,” she said.
Uh-oh. Danger danger.
“Fact is, truth be told, it’s a strange world.”
Agreed. Duly noted.
“In my heart of hearts, dear, which isn’t necessarily the deepest part of a woman’s nature—”
I was worried that she was going to take Jeff elsewhere. I was worried that she was going to confess some awful intention that would cause great pain. I was not speaking, only receiving.
“—I know this might seem funny to you.”
No. Not funny, whatever it was. I made the effort and croaked out hoarsely: “Tell me.”
“Fact is, I’d rather be with you than with him, but you know everyone has to follow a road she doesn’t necessarily choose.”
“You’re following your unbliss?”
“Okay. Okay. Sarcasm helps nothing, dear. But there’s a job here and I’ve got to do it.”
It was not very California of her, I thought.
“It’s not very California of you,” I said.
She grinned. “I think I must be from Boston. In my past life maybe, huh?”
Priscilla had found a winsome impotent lover with a habit of saying “I hear you” and/or “Thank you for sharing”—epitaphs for an age. Even I could see that Xavier was pretty, with those deep sad eyes and that romantic mane of white hair, long and clean and tossed by his fingers every time he caught his reflection in a mirror; but “Thank you for sharing”? His only physical defect or flaw was a sudden braking in the forward locomotion of his feet when he caught sight of a mirror. It stopped him, his eyes went tender, he stared, he fingered his hair. He gave the mirror an ardent farewell glance. He sighed and proceeded, for otherwise he would stay there forever and the world would halt in its revolution around the sun. Weep, dear glass, for this needy free spirit.
“Are you paying attention?”
“I’m here.”
She was frowning and worried. “Just talk,” she said. I must have fallen silent, as a person might do when thinking.
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“No, no. With Xavier. Xavier wants to talk with you. Just be civil and talk.”
“Is that conversation necessary?”
Her smile was radiant and cleared away all worry. “Do it for me,” she said, “for our whole family, Dan.”
Chapter 14
For Priscilla, Xavier was a change, something old and yet something new. And now it was time for “Dan and Xavier Enjoy a Rational Grown-up Discussion.”
Xavier’s boyish good looks could appeal to anyone, male or female, but in this case they appealed to Priscilla and not to Dan. However, this tennis entity of tangled, healthy, maturely white hair, generous smile with shining teeth, darting boyish shy unease, long legs—the whole Town and Country Academy Alumni Association gathered into one good sport—had planned ahead and was ready to make his case to Kasdan. He asked Kasdan’s okay. He intended to play square. All he wanted was to be an honest person.
I wasn’t ready to offer a blessing to the man who wanted my wife, even if he looked me forthrightly in the eyes and said he really cared, needed, hoped; even if he confessed that this conversation made him nervous; even if he cast down his long lashes, blushed and moved his footwear uneasily. Xavier was giving it a best effort. Like many a handsome lad before him, he felt sure his personal appeal could win the day. How could I fail to be convinced? He was so vulnerable.
“This is really embarrassing,” said Xavier.
“We can agree on that.”
“Um.”
“We can agree on that, too.”
With a warm grin, a toss of healthy mop, a winsome gleam in the eye, Xavier said, “You and I were sort of friends, sort of knew each other, so you could sort of think of this in terms of betrayal, or not betrayal, or maybe—”
Betrayal. Sort of. Yes. A piercing minty odor, alcohol and oil and tart, came off Xavier as his metabolism labored away, his sportsman’s cologne excited by the heat of conflict, shedding itself with green and yellow implications into the air. Probably he wasn’t really drenched in perfume. I was just oversensitive to my wife’s lover’s manly aroma.
Since I seemed unwilling to speak, cat got my tongue, Xavier had to do all the work around here, put the ball in play. “So I thought I should explain. It’s not like you think. I didn’t want to cause you difficulties. It’s hard for me, too, Dan. I mean, it’s not as if I had a choice about, about, about…” His voice deepened. “About Priscilla.”
Politeness at least obliged me to say something, and so I strangled out a few echoes: “About Priscilla you didn’t have a choice.”
A shower of smiles tumbled off Xavier in my direction; a vinaigrette wafting in the stirred-up, riled-up air. It was a multimedia avalanche of gratitude and anxiety. He was so appreciative because I favored him with a comment. “Since you and I were friends,” he said, prompting me to go on.
I was unwilling to grant him that. With the aid of all the therapy he had enjoyed, Xavier understood my wince and frown at the word “friends.” He had insight, he paid attention, he practiced the art and craft of sharing. Therefore, he amended the word “friends.” “Buddies,” he said, “acquaintances for a long time,” and peered hopefully up into my face. Would that be satisfactory? But trying to peer upward toward a being who was lower than he was gave this tall man an odd posture. Humble piety did not become him.
“I mean, anyway, these days, women tend to make their own decisions, too … Dan?”
“Listening.”
“I mean a strong-minded person like…”
He probably meant Priscilla. I was pretty sure of that. “Listening,” I repeated.
“Their own minds up,” he said.
“Half a sentence,” I said.
“Dan, I hear you. I’m upset, too. But it’s so much better…” The sentence trailed off. The minty cologne level rose. He found it diffic
ult to share with me what was so much better.
“Listening,” I said. This was becoming my mantra. It was what I shared with him.
“Their own. Own. Level,” he said, moving now from half sentences to single words. “Um.” To a timid biding of time in the form of a sad, brave humming. A kind of grace note of vulnerability. An expression of Xavier’s total good feeling.
And so he rallied. He had manifested himself today in order to explain and lay himself open and ask my comprehension and sympathy. He spoke forthrightly, lover to husband; well, hopeful lover to estranged husband; whatever. Words were not important; deeds were what mattered, plus honesty and compassion and whatever. In short, he had come to ask permission to court my wife, openly, vulnerably, respectfully. He took a deep breath. He was ready to lay his cards on the table face up. He was ready to serve from the deep court, if that was the proper expression—and it wasn’t. He opened his mouth and then he closed it and then it came open again of its own volition. “I can’t get it up,” he said suddenly. “Dan, she’s gonna help me. She says she can do it and I believe her. She had me checked out at this clinic they run at Stanford … ran through urology, diabetes, plaque in the arteries, all those options … Guess you don’t need the detailed reports, but … Nothing physical wrong with me! I check out okay!”
He paused while I failed to congratulate him.
“So with care, with attention, with patience…” He shot me a Tom Sawyer grin. Shy freckles exploded on his cheeks. He twisted his hands together. He wished his kind-of colleague Dan Kasdan would say something more, even something disagreeable he might overcome by love and understanding. It was my turn to share.
His kind-of colleague said nothing.
“So it’s all psychological, Dan! That’s the only problem! And all this time I was worrying, I was distraught, I felt actual despair, Dan!”
Now he decided, in this difficult moment for a man explaining that he would like to make love to his friend’s wife but is having difficulties beyond loyalty and other such interpersonal concerns—he guessed it might be appropriate to make a little joke. He might try to lighten up. “You know what Priscilla said last night?” He lowered his voice to a respectful baritone hush. “She said a girl should train for oral sex by learning how to roll a bowling ball up a flight of stairs, using only her tongue.”
His lips were wet and parted. His mouth was open. He hoped Kasdan would join him in a moment of male sharing.
“I mean, that’s strenuous, Dan. It takes a real woman like Priscilla, not a girl—a woman. Point is, here I’ll just say it point-blank, I need her a lot and since you were kind of separated already, nothing to do with me … And I really like, he’s a terrific kid, Jeff, your son—”
I knew who Jeff was. My son. Our son, Priscilla’s, Dan’s. I didn’t require this instruction.
“—because he’s the offspring of a real woman who means the most to me in the whole known world, who really cares about me—isn’t that something?”
“Something.”
Xavier beamed. He was relieved that I was speaking again. He sought to encourage self-expression. “I fully recognize your rights of fatherhood, because you’re the dad,” he stated. “I mean, there’s room for lots of relationship for everybody. I don’t suppose I’ll have a kid, though who knows? But I love him too, Dan, in my own way. I hope you appreciate that.”
“’Preciate. Sure do.”
Xavier sighed. This difficult encounter was drawing to a close. He had carried it through in a way that a man destined to chronic impotence never could have done. “Not angry, Dan?” he asked.
It seemed that I didn’t hear him. Xavier’s face darkened a little and I noticed his fists clenching, fingers whitening. He had expected that I would fight back and since I was being—what?—passive-aggressive, it was time for him to rally other emotions, play the full organ of my humanity, get a rise out of me. “What you do, your métier, it’s a fulfilling occupation—”
“Métier,” I said.
“—for a man with cleverness, probably a clever man, had some sort of education, and Priscilla used to think it was glamorous, you know, a self-employed dick—private eye—but now she’s a grown-up woman. Exploring people’s secrets and dark sides might not be such a temptation anymore.”
“You think trust fund is a more grown-up temptation.”
“Say background, Dan.” The smell I smelled was the vinaigrette smell of nice sportsmanship and appeal to better nature shutting down. “Say a certain tradition. Anyway, I’ve diversified my investments. You’d be surprised. With the real estate market the way it is here, I had to and I did. Whatever my family happened to be good enough to leave in my care, I’ve done more than increase it at market rates, I can assure you of this.” (Didn’t require proof.) “I have been enterprising. Venture capital you don’t even suspect. Try to give me credit for being worthy of Priscilla, certain qualities I have, even as I give you full credit for making an outstanding choice in wife when she was young and easily impressionable.”
This was a surprise to me. There was a man there for Priscilla despite his manners, his smug longing. The guy had an edge. Xavier played WASP wimp as well as George Bush did, but inside there was a killer. Kind of had to respect that. Before I came around, Priscilla saw a glimmer of firmness beyond difficult erections, something I was too prejudiced to see.
“I wish I could get through to you, Dan. We share a love, even if not in a temporal sense, so in some way we must be similar as temperaments. Despite appearances, don’t you think, Dan?”
It seemed that Kasdan wasn’t thinking. I was looking at a space just in front of me. Temporal sense? That couldn’t have occurred. I saw a mote floating across my eye, I saw Xavier in a little cloud beyond. Fully confident that he was passing the test of masculine forthrightness with colors snapping in the wind, that he would want to tell Priscilla in detail what he had gone through, how he had led Dan step by step into the path of rationality and sharing, how they had consequently resolved the matter in a dignified and open fashion, Xavier showed me another boyish ducking smile, asking nothing more than understanding, fellowship, and decency in one of those complicated human relationships that so enrich our time on earth.
“So, not angry, Dan?”
And then I hit him. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that earlier.
After due deliberation, the former wimp Xavier, misinterpreted by me and inspired by love, would have hit back. Shaking his head and bleeding a little, thick blood oozing from a nostril, he would have risen. I saw him more clearly now. He was making the proper psychic adjustments after a jarring shock to the cerebellum. Deeper masculine needs were working their way to the fore as nose muck surged and the unseen mechanism of clotting strived to check in. It would take a moment or two. He was thrashing his legs and working to complete his thought about whether violence just now was really something to which he wanted to acquiesce. I hesitated above him as he lay awkwardly, still somewhat dimmed out. A sourness in the vinaigrette cologne. Then I didn’t wait around.
Chapter 15
Many times I had wakened to the sound of the telephone not ringing, my wife not calling, but next morning it was Priscilla reaching me in Poorman’s Cottage on Potrero Hill. The ringing filled Chateau Mope, where I was warming my sore hand over the mug of coffee while I looked out at agricultural and wildlife discoveries that could almost make me forget the aching small bones in my paw, the discolored knuckles and scraped skin, the geography of a fist probably foolishly used in one-sided, old-fashioned, outmoded discussion with poor Xavier. And Xavier had only wanted to use vocabulary with me. I hadn’t noticed the braces on his teeth; in addition to everything else, I was a victim of orthodontia. Rational male-bonding asshole had gouged my knuckles.
Yesterday’s cereal bowl was still in the refrigerator. With modern refrigeration there seemed to be no need to wash the bowl more than once a week, although a bachelor-in-training had to get used to facing ragged crusts of Kellogg
’s products and stuck milk at dawn, not one of the best sights for the lonely morning. Today I only wanted coffee. My right hand ached and so did my head.
The sun came up early and hot on Potrero Hill. Gorse was growing amid the tires of the junkyard slope outside my window. When I came home that night I had paced outside, kicking up the smell of licorice from the broken fennel plants. Had I thrashed about in the dark, I would have ended by catching my foot in the dry gulch network of my garden vista, so I had gone to bed, stretching, scratching, and farting with blocked rage because Xavier would not, could not, of course dared not fight back—against his principles. His large and giving spirit understood that violence is never an answer to violence unless you happen to carry an atom bomb in your backpack and even then your opponent might be into hydrogen or neutron. So let’s give peace a chance.
Poor pretty loser jerkoff; sweet gentle egomaniac lover to my wife with the startled expression in his lyrical wide supplicant blue eyes.
In the fresh daylight now, I could see a blackberry bush, the berries still red as blood but inexorably ripening toward purple and tasty. A pigeon cooed. The pigeon shit (also gull) dropped on the hill and inexorably made things grow better. No doubt about it; they were part of the deal, along with the gulls sweeping across the bay. Gorse, Scotch broom, was a stiff plant once used to make brooms but not anymore. Bright yellow flowers couldn’t fool me; it was gorse. Now we have plastic and don’t need Scotch broom with its yellow flowers deeply committed to life among the fennel plants, blackberry bushes, tires, and spittle bugs flashing in sunlight when I stepped among them.
I kind of liked my lair. I was getting used to it. I was getting to know it. Poverty suited my soul just now. I was not tending to business, I was enlisting in the child-support ramble. I was poor. But I was already beginning to settle in like any other animal in a place it had not chosen. I even hoped the raccoons would come back; all was forgiven.
Sweet wife, sweet former wife; you did, after all, leave me living. Still alive after all, sweet lady.
