Tomcat in Love

by Tim O'Brien

  “I’m a wordsmith,” I said. “It takes time.”

  Mrs. Kooshof wrapped the towel around her splendidly proportioned upper torso. With a distinct growl, she reached down, turned on the cold water, and left me to the pneumonia bugs.

  Dumb fib?

  Mrs. Robert Kooshof had missed the point.

  A pattern was established on that Saturday morning. Issues of trust, issues of faith.

  If necessary, we will lie to win love. We will lie to keep love.

  (Cat becomes mattress.)

  Granted, Vanilla had not bitten me—my own fault—but why should a mere accident jeopardize the world’s greatest romance? Why should I (or anyone) be condemned by a fleeting lapse of concentration? Why should I (or you) be judged by a piece of bad luck, a fluke of physics, a momentary miscalculation? Under such circumstances, is it truly a crime to rescue oneself with a modest little lie?

  Apparently so.

  It was not until evening that Mrs. Kooshof spoke to me again. I poured on the charm. I followed her around the house in my underwear. Persuasively, like the teacher I am, I insisted that the fate of that poor, crushed cat was entirely relevant to the collapse of my marriage years later. Without such detail, I asked, how could she expect to understand the human being she’d found weeping in her backyard?

  None of this helped.

  Mrs. Kooshof remained incommunicative, silent as stone, and in the end I was compelled to grovel. I did the tear thing, pleaded for a final chance—a first-rate performance—and near dinnertime Mrs. Kooshof relented. “All right,” she said. “One chance. Divorce. What did you do to her?”

  I hesitated.

  “A long story,” I said.

  (The truth, to put it squarely, is that I have always had trouble with the truth. Confession is not to my taste. I fear ridicule; I fear embarrassment.)

  Mrs. Kooshof may well have suspected my dilemma. The wrinkles along her eyes seemed to soften. “You stepped out on her?” she said quietly. “Had a fling?”

  “Never.”

  “Secret love letters?”

  “Hardly,” I said. Then to my surprise I added: “The betraying little saint wanted me to see a psychiatrist. A counselor! She thought I was—you know—thought I was losing my grip. Thought I was paranoid. Jealous of Herbie, jealous of a hairy goddamn tycoon. Ridiculous! I told you, didn’t I? Right at the start didn’t I tell you point-blank how ridiculous it was? Absurd! You heard me, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Kooshof.

  “Do I look paranoid?”

  “Well—”

  “Totally nuts! Lorna Sue, I mean.” My voice had shuttled up to a high register, quavering. “Believe me, it was a nightmare. She said she’d leave me if I didn’t get help. Her phrase—‘Get help.’ What could I do? I faked it. Made up a few stories. So what?”

  “What sort of stories?”

  “Well, you know—the counselor kind. Told her I was busy getting analyzed. Very helpful, I told her. Except one day Lorna Sue picked up the checkbook, asked why I wasn’t paying the cocksucker. I was trapped. So I started writing these phony checks to make her feel better. Hid them under the mattress.”

  “You invented a shrink?”

  “Right.”

  “And wrote checks to this … this made-up psychiatrist?”

  “Right.”

  Mrs. Kooshof’s face lost some of its wholesome Aryan radiance. She seemed to slide down inside herself, quiet and thoughtful. “Well, God,” she finally said, “I don’t know how you could even sleep at night.”

  “Fitfully,” I admitted. “Poorly, indeed.”

  She turned and faced me. “This whole thing, it’s just so incredibly convoluted. You’re sure there wasn’t something else?”

  “Such as?”

  “You tell me. Girls. Affairs.”

  “Certainly not,” I said firmly. “Out of the question.”

  In truth, however, I felt a twinge of guilt. Along with the checks, I had stashed several other embarrassing items beneath my marital mattress, most prominently a certain leather-bound love ledger. It was a diary of sorts, a carefully quantified record of my life as a man of the world. (Names. Dates. Body types. Hair color. Other such vital statistical data.) Perhaps at that instant I should have mentioned the ledger—who knows?—but under the circumstances I saw no point in overwhelming my consort with excessive data. Instead I shrugged and said, “No affairs.”

  Mrs. Kooshof sighed.

  “Well, sorry, but I don’t understand. You could’ve just—I don’t know—just junked the phony checks. Tossed them out. Burned them.”

  “An oversight,” I said. “Major error. I forgot.”

  “Forgot?”

  “I lead a hectic life.”

  My companion pushed to her feet, carried her half-eaten dinner to the kitchen sink, then turned and gazed directly at me for several seconds, her lips moving as if she were at work on a problem of trigonometry. The dear woman had never looked more ravishing: an improbable blend of Great Plains housewife and sturdy strumpet. (Rayon blouse. Black stretch pants. Alpine breasts. Bewitching blue eyes.) In short, to be completely frank, the laws of hydraulics had come into play, and it was with a playful tingle of joy that I rose up, joined her at the sink, arranged my hands at her hips, and suggested an impromptu excursion to the bedroom.

  Mrs. Kooshof shook her head. “Zip it shut,” she said. “You’re still not telling me the whole truth. I can feel it. What happened next?”

  I made a silky, sensuous sound with the tip of my tongue. “Nothing, really. Pronounced myself cured. Told her Dr. Constantine did a bang-up job.”

  “Dr. Who?”

  “Constantine. Ralph. Fictitious, but a good man.”

  Mrs. Kooshof grunted. “But what if your wife had gone to a phone book? Tried to find the guy?”

  “Unlisted,” I said. “Exclusive shrink.”

  “You told her that?”

  “More or less.”

  Again, I tried to divert her attention, toying boisterously with a button on her blouse, but Mrs. Kooshof pushed me back and said, “You’re right, it’s ridiculous. In fact, I don’t think you even know what truth is. Not a clue.”

  She strode out of the kitchen.

  For the next hour, if not longer, she busied herself in the bathroom, behind a locked door, and eventually, in a condition of intense discomfort, I found myself attempting to converse through the tiny crack between floor and door. There was no longer any point in holding back. Flat on my belly, lips low, I completed the dismal record—how Herbie gave every indication of being in love with his own sister, how he had spied on me, how he had located incriminating evidence under my mattress and ruthlessly displayed it to Lorna Sue. My performance, I judged, was soulful. I pressed my heart to the door. I wept copiously.

  (The word performance, I must insist, should in no way imply dissimulation on my part. The exact reverse: I was engaged in heartfelt truth telling. I was throwing an actor’s light on the human spirit. Survey, for a moment, your own linguistic performances. When your husband deserted you. When you learned about that cheap redhead named Sandra. Did you not feel as if you were on a stage, or before a movie camera, and did you not play your role with gusto? Perhaps ham it up on occasion? Manufacture a wail or two, exaggerate a groan, embellish your own invective? In one way or another, it seems to me, virtually every human utterance represents a performance of sorts, and I, too, have been known to lay on the flourishes. I enjoy the decorative adjective, the animating adverb. I use words, in other words, as a fireman uses water.)

  Hence no apologies.

  I wept and emoted and sprayed language through the crack beneath Mrs. Kooshof’s bathroom door. I fell asleep at the end. (Emotion of any sort exhausts me.)

  When I awoke, Mrs. Robert Kooshof lay at my side. Her breath came in loud gusts. At first I felt certain she was sleeping, but after a moment it occurred to me that this sweet woman was shedding tears of her own. She shuddered and moved up against me
. I held her. She held me. And then for some time we gave way to our grief, a pair of middle-aged love losers, two desperate souls.

  Deep in the night, Mrs. Kooshof said, “Thomas, could you ever love me?”

  Later she said, “I suppose not.”

  And then near morning, she put her head on my shoulder and said, “You’re a scoundrel, right? All the lies. Just a hopeless, unreliable old tomcat—that was the whole point of your stupid story. And I’ll never trust you. A promise—I won’t let myself.”

  But this, too, was a performance.

  At daybreak I woke to find her sound asleep, thumb at her mouth, curled up like a little girl.

  I was on the road to Minneapolis by seven o’clock. The skies were clear, the air was balmy. At the halfway mark I stopped at a restaurant, consumed a hearty breakfast, and placed a collect call to the Kooshof residence in Owago. No answer, so I tried again when I reached my apartment, then twice every hour until dark. Inexplicably, I felt a flutter of disappointment. Almost terror, almost sadness. I went out for an early supper—called her once more between courses—then took a long, leaden stroll across campus before making my way home.

  She stood waiting at the door to my apartment building. Inevitable, I suppose. Yet oddly touching.

  I helped with her suitcases, of which there were four, and kissed her in the elevator. She wore high heels, a black blouse, glass earrings, carmine lipstick. She’d had her hair cut.

  “Tampa,” she said. “I’m still invited?”

  “Yes, of course,” I told her, then hesitated. “You realize that we don’t leave for two more weeks?”

  “I’ll wait,” she said. “Right here.”

  “Certainly.”

  “And I should warn you, Thomas. I get what I want.”

  “Do you, indeed?”

  For a few seconds Mrs. Kooshof watched the elevator’s floor indicator. “Tampa—it’s so boring. Why not Mexico or Guadeloupe? Forget all this revenge business.”

  “Not likely,” I said.

  She shrugged and unbuttoned her black blouse. “You care for me, though. You do, don’t you? I’ll bet you’re almost in love.”

  “Ah,” said I.

  The next morning, as I strolled to class, I spotted Goof a half block ahead of me, his face partially obscured by a stop sign. The old terror hit me like a hammer. I stopped, turned into a doorway, waited a few moments. When I looked back again, he was gone.

  Granted, it had been thirty-some years since we last crossed paths.

  But still.

  Coincidence? Mistaken identity? My own failing eyesight? Not a chance. It was Goof.

  Over dinner that evening, when I mentioned the incident to Mrs. Robert Kooshof, she squinted at me without comprehension. “Goof?” she said.

  “Ghost from the past,” I informed her. “And a very dangerous ghost at that.”

  “Some woman you messed with?”

  “Female, no. Messed with, yes.”

  For my own reasons, which will become apparent in due time, I was not at liberty to elaborate on the matter, and the best I could manage was an oblique, somewhat evasive reference to certain wartime experiences.

  Mrs. Kooshof laughed. (Frothy laughter. Bits of broccoli.)

  “Soldier?” she said. “You?”

  “Precisely so.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  I regarded her with pique. “Not only that,” I said stiffly, “but a hero to boot. Have I shown you my Silver Star?”

  “I don’t even know what—”

  “Combat decoration. With a V-device, I might add. V as in valor. Very rare.”

  Again, the woman burst out in pointless laughter, showering me with the remains of her meal, and in a huff I pushed to my feet, strode into the den, retrieved the medal, marched back to the table, and dropped it on her plate with a sharp clatter.

  “Do not,” I said, “make the mistake of underestimating me. A common blunder. One which Goof himself came to repent. Tulip too.”

  “Tulip?”

  “And Wildfire. And Death Chant. And Bonnie Prince Charming.”

  Mrs. Kooshof eyed my Silver Star, a flush spilling out across her cheeks and forehead. (It was apparent that her estimate of Thomas H. Chippering was in the process of rapid revision. Bedroom thoughts. Adulation. The usual.)

  “But, Thomas,” she said, “you’re not making sense. This wildfire business … tulips and medals … I just don’t follow.”

  I fished the Silver Star from her plate, cleansed it with a cloth napkin, pinned it to my lapel.

  “Be that as it may,” I said cryptically, “you may take my word that certain combat traumas are not easily forgotten. I am in point of fact being pursued like some wounded moose, and there is absolutely no doubt—none at all—that we must watch our collective steps.”

  My companion squinted again, skeptically, her lovely blue eyes locked to the twinkling Silver Star at my chest. “You’re not imagining this, Thomas? I mean, after all these years?”

  “It was a pledge,” I said. “A threat. They swore they’d come after me.”

  “But why, though?”

  I shook my head. “That part remains classified. Let us simply say that I more than earned this decoration. In point of fact, I was too brave.”

  “Thomas, for crying out loud, I can’t see—”

  “Believe me,” I said, “even gallantry can be taken to an extreme. I repeat: too brave, too heroic, and the consequences have been dogging me ever since.” I looked at her solemnly. “Imagine, if you will, Lord Jim in reverse.”

  Mrs. Kooshof sighed and began clearing the table. Plainly, she was baffled by it all, yet at the same time the dear woman could not resist taking several furtive peeks at the Silver Star upon my breast. (Storm clouds, yes, but also the standard silver lining.) After washing the dishes, and after carefully chaining the door of my apartment, I squired my overheated mistress bedward.

  I need not dwell on the end product. She was my jockey, I was her explosive young charger.

  Still, as we lathered down, I could not rid myself of that chased sensation. The ghosts were real. And for some time I lay sleepless, listening for footsteps, watching headlights sweep across the drawn bedroom shades.

  Two mornings later I spotted Death Chant on the steps outside my classroom building.

  Delusions?

  Again, not a chance: I told you I was being chased.

  That term I was teaching a pet course entitled “It’s Your Thick Tongue,” in which I placed special emphasis on pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. In part, the course was designed to augment a student’s word base by one or two percent, a lowly enough goal but one with merit in this age of linguistic neglect. Near the end of each session I would circulate a list often common and reasonably useful words: e.g., debilitate, substance, prevaricate, conjugal, apostasy, turncoat, infidelity, treason, cuckold, tycoon. As homework, my students were required to spend time with their dictionaries, researching such matters as meaning, etymology, cognates, pronunciation, synonymy, and usage. (It is my well-informed view, I should add, that the dictionary stands as our supreme book of books, an embodiment of both civilization and the very idea of civilization. I tend toward zealotry on this subject. In the evenings, over a cup of Sanka, I read aloud from my Webster’s just as certain Baptists recite from their Bibles.) In any event, to begin a class, I typically deliver an elegant little lecture organized around the terms listed during our previous session, employing each in context, finally incorporating all ten in a single efficient paragraph.

  An illustration might be helpful. Consider, for example, the words listed above. At our first class meeting after spring break, freshened and revitalized by Mrs. Robert Kooshof, I concluded my minilecture with these vivid, solidly constructed sentences: “There is substance to the notion that infidelity, as practiced by turncoats and tycoons, represents our most debilitating form of modern apostasy. I do not prevaricate; I bear witness as a cuckold, a victim of conjugal t
reason.”

  One of my students applauded. A young woman, as it turned out. A brunette. Narrow hips. Trim.

  After class, as a matter of good form, I was obligated to flag down my raven admirer. Lively chitchat ensued—invigorating, I thought—and naturally I inquired as to her name, which was Toni with an i, short for Antonia with a pair of firmly bracketing as. To our mutual pleasure, the conversation ran on for a full twenty-two minutes, Toni’s eyes appropriately aglow, each tick of the clock chiming with innuendo and possibility. The girl was smitten. It happens: I could not fault her. Near the end of our dialogue we scheduled an appointment to discuss her honors thesis, exchanged hugs, then parted ways with sprightly steps.

  Am I a rake? A predator?

  Certainly not.

  Lorna Sue was mistaken on both charges.

  I mention my encounter with Toni for two reasons. First, the episode offers incontestable evidence regarding my stature both as a teacher and as a man of the world. Though far from flawless, I am not without virtues. Among them, I sincerely believe, you would soon discover a rigorous intelligence, manly charm, playfulness, and a rather dangerous sensuality.

  I am a war hero. I stand just over six-six. I do my sit-ups. Women notice.

  (“Predator!” Lorna Sue once yelled, but where was the crime? A closed office door? A Do Not Disturb sign? I touched no one. No one touched me. We live in a world increasingly populated by know-it-alls and backbiters and conclusion-jumpers and ignorant moral watchdogs. My ex-wife, I fear, was one.)

  Second, and much more important, I bring up the comely Toni for strictly narrative reasons. Every dark cloud may well have its silver lining, but I have come to learn that every silver lining has its dark consequences. That same evening, during the dinner hour, my slim-hipped coed made the mistake of calling me at home. Worse yet, I committed my own callow error, allowing Mrs. Robert Kooshof the privilege of answering the telephone.

  When she returned to the table, Mrs. Kooshof’s complexion had turned splotchy. Instantly, with not a word of warning, she raised her voice to me in a manner that was completely unjustified. I sat stunned. A moment earlier we had been happily discussing our travel plans, daydreaming aloud about Tampa, and now she was bellowing such words as predator and deviant and cradle robber. It was a sonic replay, you might say, of my most unfortunate experiences with Lorna Sue. I felt my own anger rising. Very forcefully, with the outrage of the innocent, I responded by making it clear that I had just met the silly young candy cane, that I had done nothing improper, that I was not lord and master of the city’s telephone lines.