Tomcat in Love

by Tim O'Brien

  No surprise, in any case, that Schultz should display the usual masculine rancor.

  The man glared at me.

  “Asshole,” he muttered. (A healer, no less. A physician of the soul.) With an audible moan, he then snatched up the piece of paper upon which I had impulsively printed the word Peek-a-boo.

  One other fascinating development:

  On an otherwise peaceful Tuesday afternoon, in the midst of my nap period, I was visited in hospital by Earleen and Velva Zylstra. They had stopped by for no apparent purpose but to celebrate my incapacitation. I was aghast; I could neither speak nor run. (For safety’s sake, I had been strapped to my mattress.) One moment I was happily dreaming of vengeance, the next I was confronted by these two time-pitted monuments to imbecility—Earleen in her wheelchair, Velva in all her distinctive flatulence. For some time they simply peered at me.

  “Well, Jesus H. Christ,” Earleen finally said, “I guess it figures. You was long, long overdue for this.” She flicked her eyebrows. “Seen you on the teleconfusion—too bad you didn’t just blow yourself sky-high, save everybody a lot of trouble.”

  Velva tittered. “Captain Stupid,” she chirped.

  I sighed and faced the wall. On this wide and various earth there could be nothing so depressing, so cruelly debilitating, as the stench of two such subhuman creatures. My recovery was already in much jeopardy.

  This encounter itself, of course, is barely worth recording—they gaped, they taunted, they studied me as if I were a zoo animal—and I mention the incident for only one reason. But a very crucial reason. After five or ten minutes, as the pair made their way toward the door, Velva stopped and turned. “Look, I got to tell you this straight out,” she said. “I heard that crap on TV, all that begging of yours, and I don’t want no trouble when Lorna Sue comes home this summer. Keep your sick self away from her, like miles and miles away. The same goes for Herbie and her husband and our whole family.”

  Swiftly, I snatched up a pencil and a scrap of paper.

  Summer? I wrote.

  “Fourth of July,” said Velva. “So what? Just don’t come nowhere near.”

  Imagine the flutter in my breast. For the first time in weeks, perhaps months, a genuine smile crossed my lips. (Happy holidays, I wrote, but by then they were gone.) Still, that newfound smile stayed with me for the remainder of the day, then for most of the night.

  Fireworks, I kept thinking.

  ——

  In mid-June, with little fanfare, I received my honorable discharge from the Owago Community Hospital, after which I was brusquely transferred to the care of Mrs. Robert Kooshof. The meals instantly improved. As did the mattress. In all other respects, however, I soon found myself looking back with keen nostalgia at my period of hospitalization. Mrs. Kooshof was no nurse. Her bedside manner was gruff, her response time inadequate in the extreme. On numerous occasions, often for up to twenty minutes, I would lie in need of attendance, helpless as a baby, my wrists numb from swinging the tiny copper bell she had placed on the nightstand. The woman had no patience for my decision to remain mute. Cavalierly, and with what I can only surmise was malice aforethought, she went out of her way to ignore my written communications—even ridiculed them—which forced me into primitive (and humiliating) sign language. Not only that; she professed to misunderstand my perfectly legible menu memoranda. She groused at mealtime. She refused to assist with my morning toilet.

  Lastly, worst of all, my paramour stole a page from Dr. Schultz’s therapeutic manual, inexcusably refusing to utter so much as a polite “Good morning” or “Good night” or “What can I do for you?”

  Her silence became absolute. No exceptions.

  Apparently the woman remained miffed over the concluding moments of my audition. (Begging for Lorna Sue’s return, I confess, represented a tactical misjudgment on my part.) Yet the punishment far exceeded the misdemeanor. Hypersensitivity is one thing, holding a grudge another.

  On my own part, I pretended not to notice that she had removed her engagement ring. I kept my complaints to a minimum, observed the proprieties of a standard patient-nurse relationship. But my on-again, off-again fiancée stonewalled it. Refused to sleep with me. Refused to smile. Refused to participate in my required midmorning sponge bath. In short, it was as if she had given up—as if she no longer cared, or cared to care.

  The latter indignity broke my heart.

  At best, this was malfeasance of office.

  At worst—hard to face—it was love treason.

  In essence, then, I lay alone and incommunicado through those hot days of June, all but abandoned, my hours passing in a silky narcotic fog.

  Lithium, Xanax, Thorazine, Restoril—these were my only true and faithful companions.

  It is important to reemphasize, however, that my mental health was in no way at risk. I sometimes wept, true. I sometimes spoke sharply to the television. (Again, in sign language: my own inventive variant.) And, yes, I admit that I crept out to the garage on one or two late-night occasions, cradled my bombs, chuckled, cursed, cried my eyes out, imagined a big yellow house in flames. But bear in mind that I had been drugged to the gills. And remember too, that for almost a year I had held up beautifully under stresses that would have incapacitated a rhinoceros. Who among mortals would not have indulged in an occasional bout of tears? I had earned each salty droplet.

  As indicated earlier, the hapless Dr. Schultz had (mis)diagnosed my condition as delusional, depressive, and suicidal. Yet the hard realities suggest otherwise.

  Let me briefly address the charges one by one:

  1. Delusional. No way on earth. Quackery. To be sure, there were times when I simply could not shut off the ugly pictures in my head. Hour after hour, flat on my back, I watched obscene, graphic, X-rated images of Lorna Sue and her tycoon rippling across Mrs. Kooshof’s bedroom ceiling. I watched the love of my life take her pleasure under the weight of another man. I saw the pupils of her eyes roll back. I saw the sweat at her loins. I read her lips as she whispered, “I love you.” And other pictures too. Lorna Sue’s face on the day she left me forever. The bleak, neutral, deep-winter landscape in her eyes. (“Let’s not have a scene,” she had said. “Tut your pants on,” she had said. “It’s finished,” she had said. “Don’t be an eighteen-year-old,” she had said.) Delusions? I think not. Here was a creative imagination working in syncopation with a rock-solid memory.

  2. Depressive. Reread the lines above. (At Auschwitz, as the condemned marched to their showers, some nervy shrink no doubt pronounced the whole lot clinically glum.)

  3. Suicidal. Here, finally, we encounter a scrap of truth. I will not dispute the fact that recent events had worn me down. Like an exhausted swimmer, I had reached that point at which the struggle for buoyancy no longer seemed profitable. The depths beckoned. In many respects, I must concede, the past several months could be seen as a headlong plunge into oblivion, a leap overboard, the flail-ings of a man about to go under. Suicidal? I had every goddamn right. For instance: On the day Lorna Sue left me, after the door snapped shut behind her, I stood there in my underwear for some immeasurable length of time—outside of time, outside myself—just looking at that curious white door, waiting for it to swing open again, knowing it would not. I did not weep. Not then. I remember the word eighteen shaping itself on my tongue. I remember the sound of a radio in another room. I remember a male announcer pushing a product called Lexus. Oddly, however, I have no recollection at all of making my way across the living room, or of opening up the drapes, or of stepping out onto the narrow balcony that overlooked University Avenue.* I was simply there, in my white socks and white undershorts, wondering if this was what an eighteen-year-old would do, and wondering what a Lexus might be, and wondering if I should perhaps remove my white socks. It struck me, even as I hooked a leg over the balcony railing, that the world of thought is nothing but a world of words. The very word world, for instance, had taken on a radioactive glow at the instant of my thinking it—there it was,
gleaming, the world!—and the word balcony, and the word socks. Socks, I thought, and from that moment onward, for the rest of my life, socks would never again be socks. I straddled the railing. Eighteen, I thought. Socks, I thought. Turtle, I thought. Tampa, I thought. Lexus, I thought. I did not think suicide. I thought pavement, for there was a sidewalk below, and I thought I’m thinking. I did not think Lorna Sue. The railing was a high one, four feet or so, and I temporarily found myself off balance, unable to launch the remainder of my lanky frame into its short journey through space. I could scarcely move at all. One leg was still draped over the railing, the other tenuously rooted to the balcony floor, and for some time I hopped up and down in a struggle not of life and death but only for some final dignity. Those uncomfortable moments no doubt saved me. Ridiculous, one might think, but even in my awkward pose high above University Avenue I could not help feeling distinctly irritated at the word Lexus, which buzzed at my ears like a pesky fly. There are very few nouns in our lexicon, proper or otherwise, that I do not instantly recognize. Lexus: its etymological source was plainly Greek. And of course I was fully aware of its homophonic connections to the word nexus, with all the attendant linkages of meaning and morphology. Still, I was puzzled enough to disengage my left leg from the balcony railing. I pulled up my socks, waved to a gathering of upturned heads below, then hurried inside to seek out my Webster’s Third New International. It was a professional relief, I must say, to find the word Lexus unlisted. (Proper noun, it turns out.)

  In summary, then, the facts overwhelmingly indicate that mine was not a “nervous” but rather an “existential” condition. Again and again, the important personages of my life had betrayed me: Herbie and Lorna Sue and Toni and Megan and Evelyn and Carla and Little Red Rhonda and Peg and Patty and President Pillsbury and even my bizarre ex-comrades in Vietnam.

  Now, to my considerable alarm, it appeared that Mrs. Robert Kooshof had joined the Judas list. (The disappearance of an engagement ring. Her slothful, indifferent ministrations. Her refusal to speak to me or to grace my bed.) Such provocations were troubling enough in their own right, but on June 22 our relationship took an ugly turn for the worse. On that morning I had thrice requested, via well-worded memoranda, that the air-conditioning be turned up, with absolutely no result. Bed bound, awash in my own sweat, I lay ringing my tiny copper bell for what seemed a lifetime. Not a creature stirred. The whole house, it seemed, had been abandoned, and myself along with it.

  In the end I had no recourse but to rise from my sickbed, don my pink satin robe, and on weakened legs make my way out to the kitchen. Mrs. Kooshof sat comfortably in front of an electric fan, sipping from a glass of iced tea. A number of travel brochures lay spread out before her.

  My own voice took me by surprise.

  “This,” I declared, “is a disgrace.”

  Mrs. Kooshof shrugged indifferently; she seemed unimpressed by my recovery.

  For a few seconds I stood absorbing the scene. Her pile of pamphlets encompassed such exotic locales as Guadeloupe, Cozumel, the Canary Islands, Grand Cayman, and Fiji. Intriguing, yes, but the woman plainly should have consulted me.

  “I must caution you,” I said gravely, “that I am not yet well enough for extensive touring. Nerves and so on. Bedsores.”

  This elicited a grunt. “It’s my trip,” said Mrs. Kooshof. “Solo. I’m done being a wet noodle.”

  “Solo?”

  “You heard me. No more doormat.”

  Her voice was a monotone, perfectly flat. Concrete-hard. And over the next moment or two other such transformations caught my eye: her fingernails were freshly polished; her blond hair—noteworthy to begin with—had been frosted to a soft, silvery sheen; she had lost a pound or two at the waist, just enough to cinch up the hourglass. In a nutshell, Mrs. Robert Kooshof gave every appearance of a woman baiting the hook, preparing to troll.

  I waited a moment, stopped by a rush of fear, then shook it off and occupied a stool at the counter. “On the other hand,” I said casually, “I have found my voice. A sea cruise, I was thinking. Or Venice.”

  My fickle, newly renovated companion rolled her shoulders. “Have fun. I’ll expect a postcard.”

  “Which means?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “It means nothing.”

  Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the woman then flung an arm out, swiveling on her stool, a gesture that caused her iced tea to go sailing into my exposed, overheated lap. I was clothed in a robe. The tea was iced. There was no buffer.

  I yelped and stood up smartly, but Mrs. Kooshof seemed not to notice.

  “I’ll help you understand!” she said fiercely. “You’re out of here.”

  “Out?”

  “Yes—out!”

  My satin dressing gown was all but ruined.

  I disrobed on the spot, moved to the sink, attempted to rescue the garment under a stream of cold water. (Mock me, if you wish, but it is a well-known fact that individuals under intense spiritual stress will often focus upon the most incidental details. Eichmann counted paper clips. Nixon redecorated. I rinsed. And if such examples do not suffice, I could well inquire as to the petty behaviors that you pursued in the weeks after your husband deserted you in favor of a cunning redhead named Sandra. Did you not shampoo the rug? Did you not clip coupons and rearrange the furniture? A piece of advice: Cast no stones.)

  My efforts, in any event, were fruitless. (It is another well-established fact that Ceylonese green tea, iced or otherwise, has long been the mortal enemy of satin.) After a moment I tossed the robe aside and stood naked, as Mrs. Kooshof continued to flog me with epithets.

  Her language I cannot repeat. The gist of it, however, had to do with claims that I was still “pining” for Lorna Sue, that I had made “a fool” of her (i.e., Mrs. Kooshof herself) over the public airwaves, that I treated her like “some substitute leading lady,” that I could not stop “hemming and hawing,” that I refused to “commit,”* that I was little more than a “sponging, freeloading, ungrateful, oversexed tomcat.”

  At that juncture I stopped her.

  “This has degenerated,” I said crossly, “into tautology.” I gave the woman my harshest stare. “Sponging? Freeloading? Repetition gets us nowhere.”

  Mrs. Kooshof made a scoffing sound. “Fuck you, Tom, I’m not one of your cow-eyed coeds!” She threw a dish towel at me. “Put that on. Right now. You look ridiculous.”

  Her tone took me aback. I wrapped the towel around my middle, secured it with a convenient clothespin, stood awaiting the next onslaught.

  “Listen very closely,” she said. “I’ve done everything under the sun to please you, to make you want me. Coddled you. Filed for divorce, followed you down to Tampa, put the goddamned house up for sale. What a moron I’ve been! Stupid, stupid me—I even tolerated your whining about Lorna Sue. A bitch, by the way. Not half the woman I am. Not a zillionth.”

  She shook her head as if stumped by the mathematics, as if nothing added up.

  “I mean, seriously, it’s like you can’t even see me. Men think I’m dynamite. Heads pop up. I’m sexy and smart and … You don’t care, do you? You don’t. All this time together, you can’t even call me by my first fucking name. I think you’re afraid of it.” She bit down on her lower lip and studied me for several seconds. “You are, aren’t you? Afraid.”

  I examined the puddle of iced tea at her feet. No sensible reply came to mind.

  “Do it,” she said. “Start a sentence with Donna. Donna, I’m sorry. Donna, I wish I’d done better. Donna, we could’ve had a good life. Try it. Anything.”

  I nodded—I did try—but my vocal cords went lax.* The word Donna would not form itself. Whatever the cause, spiritual or biological, I could only gape.†

  Mrs. Kooshof shut her eyes.

  “Well,” she said.

  Then a minute later she opened her eyes, smiled, and said, “Once you’re on your feet, Thomas, I just want …” She held up a hand. “Don’t say a word to me. Please. Just go.”


  Her smile, of course, was not a smile. And the word go settled between us like a fog.

  “You’re sure?” I said. “You really want it to end like this?”

  “I never wanted any endings. I wanted good things.” She picked up her brochures, smiled brightly again—falsely. “That night you showed up here, I was so … Crummy town, crummy husband. Then I find this wacky guy lying there by the birdbath. Like out of a spaceship or something.”

  “Captain Nineteen.”

  “Captain Nineteen. And right away—almost right away—it felt like somebody gave me a chance. That’s all. A chance.” She closed her eyes, stepped backward, lifted her travel brochures as if to shield herself. “I mean, you’re not what I’d always dreamed about, not even close, but it felt … This incredible perfect Tightness. The funny things you say, the way … Look at yourself—that stupid dish towel. You can be cute, and you’ve got this good heart, and you’re intelligent and screwy and … If you could just stop trying so hard.”

  “I’ll remember that. ‘Try not to try.’ ”

  She started to smile again, but the smile failed. “Some things you should’ve tried. You should’ve tried me.”

  “Right. No nerve.”

  “You should’ve.”

  She turned away. She left me there in the kitchen, alone, with a ruined robe and something sour in my throat.

  “Donna!” I almost yelled.

  * Occasionally, of course, my interior night life proved anything but sluggish. Pursuit dreams. Wildfire hot on my heels, Death Chant howling at my door, a venomous Spider inching up the backside of my soul.

  * Twenty-four new entries, in total, including such familiar names as Toni and Megan and Carla and Fleurette and Masha and Peg and Patty and Sissy and Oriel and Deborah and Karen and Beverly and Jessie and Evelyn and Rebecca. (What a harvest!) Each encounter, of course, had to be sub-filed under myriad statistical headings; new data had to be entered under “Body Type,” “Hair Coloring,” “City of Origin,” et cetera. Moreover, in the case of little Evelyn, I was compelled to generate brand-new categories altogether: “Bed Wetters,” “Thumb Suckers,” and so on.