Tomcat in Love

by Tim O'Brien

  He removed a length of piano wire from his pocket, uncoiled it, formed it into a noose.

  “Lucky Tom,” he murmured. “It’s like this gift we gave you. Judgment Day. Most of us forget it’s on the calendar.”

  I nodded and watched him test the piano wire.

  In a sense, I realized, he was right. For better or worse, the whole terrifying business had given definition to the past couple decades of my life. That pursued feeling—it was something to believe in, a replacement for Easter.

  Spider reached out and looped the wire around my neck.

  “You’re in a special position, Tommy. Among the elect, so to speak.”

  “Elect,” I said. “That would be I.”

  “That sure as fuck would be. And the rest of us poor yo-yos, we’re the Walking Numb, totally blind to our own pitiful mortality.” He looked me in the eye, tightened up the noose. “In the civilian world, man, it’s just so doggone easy to forget that we don’t live forever. I guess that’s why we get off on war so much, because it’s like this … well, you know, this nifty reminder.”

  “Good point,” I said. “Myneck.”

  “Your neck, your neck,” he cooed. He was the old Spider again. “You really want me to call it off? Lose this Closer-God-to-Thee-ness?”

  “Up to you. Completely.”

  Spider stared. “It is, isn’t it?”

  After a few seconds he sighed, removed the wire, coiled it up, and returned it to his pocket. Again, very powerfully, I was struck by that sleepwalking sensation.

  “Tell you what, let’s drop this whole subject,” he said, his voice pleasant again. “Go on just like before, keep it a mystery. Maybe I’ll be back someday, maybe I won’t.” He reached for the pitcher, refilled his glass. “Anyhow, Tommy, the way I look at it, you’ll be awful fortunate not to blow yourself sky-high tonight. Easy does it, my man. Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Hey, sure I do,” he said, then laughed lightly. “Tulip and the rest of the boys, they’d be super-duper pissed if you ended up in pieces.”

  “They would?”

  “Absolutely. Spoil the fun of killing you.”

  We parted ways a half hour later.

  Afternoon shadows were falling as we trudged through the hot, silent, small-town Fourth of July. At the corner of Main and Diagonal, he stopped in front of the bus station.

  “This is where I get off, pal.” He clapped my shoulder. “Seriously, watch yourself tonight. Wouldn’t want to lose my reason for living.”

  I shrugged and began to walk away, then turned back.

  “One last question,” I said. “I was brave, right? At least that once?”

  Spider nodded. “Once is all it takes,” he said gently. “War hero, man.”

  (Late Afternoon, Evening)

  My world had gone G-force hazy, warped and somewhat suspect, yet I plodded onward up Main Street, past the Ben Franklin store, past the Rock Cornish Café and the Farmers Union State Bank. The time was 4:40 P.M., the temperature ninety-two sizzling degrees. Quiet as the cornfields, peaceful as Pluto. Closed-down shops, no traffic, barbecue smells, flags hanging limp on their front-yard poles. Somewhere a lawn mower buzzed. There can be nothing on our planet, I decided, quite so tranquil as small-town America decked out in its Fourth of July sleepwear.

  Back at the house, after bracing myself with two fingers of iced bourbon, I moved out to the living room and found Mrs. Kooshof napping away the afternoon on her leather sofa. Pity, I thought. Lovely human being. Warm heart, decent instincts. Much to offer a man.

  I will admit it: my frontal lobe had cracked.

  It struck me that I was about to lose her forever, exactly as I had lost everything else in my life. And I was powerless to prevent it.

  Disjointedly, I wandered out to the backyard, sank down into Mrs. Kooshof’s old hemp hammock, and spent the next hour or so in a languorous summer daze. Not asleep, exactly, but not awake either. Silky air, silky thoughts. At one point, I am almost sure, I heard Mrs. Kooshof calling to me from an upstairs window; later, less definitely, I heard a noise coming from the garage to my immediate left. What its source may have been I cannot say: a rustling, raspy sound. Perhaps laughter. Perhaps of human origin, perhaps not.

  Just before 6:00 P.M. Mrs. Robert Kooshof joined me in the backyard. She looked tired, a little upset. “I want the truth,” she said, and her lower lip trembled. “What’s going on?”

  “In what sense?” I inquired.

  “Don’t do this. Tell me.”

  “I have no idea what—”

  “Velva and Ned—I just talked to them. Peeking in windows, snooping, breaking and entering … God knows what. People saw you.”

  “Be that as it may.”

  “Binoculars? Up in a tree?”

  I dismissed this with a snort. “Surveillance, yes. Snooper, no.”

  “Thomas, this is all getting too weird. I’m scared.”

  “Of what, may I ask?”

  “That’s not … I don’t even know yet.” She blinked into the early-evening glare. Briefly, then, but forcefully, it occurred to me that the past several months had visibly worn her down. A dark, purply puffiness had come into the sockets of her eyes. “Something’s wrong, Thomas. I can just feel it. Something bad is coming. Can’t we—?”

  “We?” I said.

  She looked away for a second. “We could leave. Right away. Tonight.”

  “I presumed the ‘we’ was dead.”

  “But if you could just try to … People change. People start over, they turn a new leaf.”

  “Meaning?”

  There was a hesitation before she shook her head. “Meaning nothing, obviously. Except I’m an idiot. So much for last chances.”

  She turned and disappeared into the house.

  Then for a long while I lay incubating in the July heat, gathering strength, hatching plans, listening to a persistent hum that seemed to bubble up from the center of our violent universe.

  We dined separately that evening, Mrs. Kooshof behind a locked bedroom door, I at the kitchen counter.

  It was clear what she wanted from me: absolute surrender, the forfeiture of heroism, a return to the pathetic norm. In theory, perhaps, this was little to ask, but as much as I cared for her—which was a great, great deal—I could no more give up the thirst for vengeance than stroll down to a convenience store and purchase a new personality.

  At dusk I changed back into my old combat uniform.

  A pair of jungle boots too, and a bush hat, and my polished Silver Star with its V-device for valor.

  Firecrackers. A book of matches.

  Velocity again.

  It was full dark when I slipped out to the garage. After the strain of recent months, I now felt an electric sizzle in my bones, partly anticipation, partly dread. I was capable of anything. For a few seconds I stood there in the dark garage, envisioning a big yellow house afire, an exploding Mercedes, a family of turncoats running for their lives. The image made me snicker.

  I dipped into a sack of briquettes, charcoaled up, then went over to the cardboard box where I had stashed my remaining bombs.

  Which were gone.

  All six of them—not a trace.

  Immediately, I recognized Herbie’s thieving hand at work.

  Something seemed to ignite inside me. At great speed, in one indignant motion, I hustled down the sidewalk, rapped on the Zylstra front door, formed a pair of fists, stiffened myself for the fray.

  Herbie himself greeted me.

  “No small talk,” I said savagely. “I want my bombs back.”

  My old chum’s eyebrows bunched up. He stood casually in the doorway, lean and handsome, neatly barbered, like one of those slick male models in a J. Crew catalogue. (White slacks, white golf shirt, gold necklace, shiny brown loafers.) It astonished me, as always, to think that this was the Herbie of my childhood. He was a stranger to me; I simply did not know him.

  “Surprise,” he murmure
d, and smiled. He surveyed my uniform, my charcoaled face. “Looking natty.”

  “The bombs,” I repeated. “Let’s have them.”

  “Bombs? Come on in.”

  He frowned slightly and escorted me into the musty, cabbage-scented inner sanctum of the Zylstra household. An uncomfortable moment passed by, or perhaps several moments, during which Herbie caught me staring at a photograph of the tycoon and Lorna Sue.

  “They’re out back,” he said. “Family picnic. You’re welcome to join in.”

  I shook my head. “The bombs,” I told him, “and I’ll be on my way.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Bombs. Now.”

  Herbie stood with his hands in his pockets, perfectly at ease, appraising me with the smug, commanding superiority that had driven me crazy since we were kids—as if he had some God-given sovereignty over me. “Well, look, I heard you’ve fallen on hard times,” he said cheerfully. There was a short pause. “Unemployed, right? Hospitals?”

  “Not so bad,” I sniffed. “A sea change.”

  Involuntarily, I found myself scanning the living room for signs of Lorna Sue. My legs felt wobbly. “If you don’t mind,” I said, “let’s stick to the subject, which happens to be burglary. You stole my bombs.”

  “Bombs?”

  “Precisely. Mason jars.”

  Herbie laughed and grasped my arm. “Just like the old days, Tommy? Still in your time warp?”

  “Where I am,” I said archly, “is none of your concern.” I glanced down. “My arm.”

  “I was—”

  “Release it.”

  For a few seconds he looked at me with an expression that in any other human being might have been considered wistful. It lasted only an instant, and then he moved away, took a seat on the couch, crossed his legs, and gazed up at me. There was something peculiar in his eyes. “No offense, Tom, but don’t you think it’s time to end all this? I know you blame me for everything, but I’ve never felt anything except … just compassion for you. That’s the truth.”

  I glared at him. “Compassion. Broke up my marriage. Took her away from me.”

  “You know better than that. She was always away. From day one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He seemed to drift off for a time. His voice, when he finally spoke, had a resigned, listless quality. “Listen, you can’t go on like this forever. At some point, someday, you have to cut out all the crap. Prowling around, interfering with other people’s lives. It’s not healthy.” He motioned at my sooty face, my jungle boots and fatigues. “I mean, look at yourself.”

  “I look fine,” I said. “Perfectly respectable.”

  “Climbing trees?”

  “Exercise. An outing.”

  He made a dismissive motion with his head. “Walking into the house, man—into her bedroom. That’s illegal. I was wide awake, Tommy. I was right there.”

  “Oh, were you?”

  “I was.”

  “So why didn’t …?”

  “Compassion.” He leaned forward, folded his hands. For a moment I recognized the old Herbie: the ghost of friendship. “And maybe something else too,” he said. “I admire how you’ve stuck in there, Tommy. Kept trying, kept battling. Loyal in your own quirky way.” He chuckled to himself. “A little like me.”

  “Like you?”

  Herbie nodded. “We both love her. Different ways, different reasons.”

  He rubbed his eyes, blinked, stood up, and moved to a window overlooking the backyard.

  Beyond him, on the lawn, I could make out the glow of a barbecue grill, smudgy silhouettes moving in the dark: Earleen in her wheelchair, Ned and Velva, the tycoon, Lorna Sue, two or three others.

  I watched Lorna Sue light a sparkler and wave it overhead.

  Herbie, too, was watching.

  “Some advice,” he said, very quietly. “Get away from all this. Permanently. Her. Me. Stop caring.”

  “I don’t—”

  “That’s how you get revenge. Stop caring.” His voice was quiet, below a whisper, but there was also a ripple of anger in it. “Face the truth about her, Tom. This one time, right now, try to get your head out of those love clouds. Lorna Sue, she lives only for herself. Classic narcissist. Can’t help it, I guess. That fucking cross—that nail—it did something to her: it made her into—I don’t know what—some fake little goddess. She doesn’t want a real life. She wants worship.” He shook his head violently. “I’m not saying you should stop loving her—that’s impossible—but you can walk away.”

  “Like you did?”

  “No, Tommy. Not like me.”

  Even in the frail silence that followed, it seemed he was trying to tell me something, or to warn me.

  I moved closer to the window, looked out at the nighttime lawn party. The clan was busy lighting Roman candles, shooting the sky full of color, but in a curious way it was like watching someone else’s dream. Lorna Sue’s dream. And I was no longer part of it.

  Herbie stepped up beside me. Together, almost touching, we watched the fireworks.

  “So what’s your point?” I said.

  Herbie made a short, ragged sound—maybe laughter, maybe not. “Think about it, for Christ sake. I’ve never gotten married—never got close. Never had a life of my own, not one day, not a single hour.” There was that ragged sound again. “Take a look, man. Out there. That’s why.”

  “Lorna Sue?”

  “She’s not some innocent lamb. This whole family … sometimes I think I’m the only—” He cut himself off, shook his head bitterly. Outside, the Roman candles were opening up like great orchids, greens and yellows. Herbie’s skin seemed to absorb some of the color. He looked ill, his face carved up and careworn.

  “The only what?” I said. “The only sane one?”

  “Maybe. They are who they are. Not bad people, really, except it was like growing up in an old monastery. Dark Ages. Pearly gates and harps.”

  “I thought you were part of all that.”

  “I was. Maybe I am. Who the fuck knows?” He took my arm again. “Drink?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Big one.”

  He smiled again and nodded. “Like old times, right? You were the only solid thing I had. Halfway normal.”

  “Halfway, yes.”

  “That airplane of ours—remember that?”

  “I do,” I said.

  Peculiar, is it not, how moods come and go? How they collide? How in the midst of rage we will sometimes break out in capricious laughter, or collapse in tears, or both at once? And how a moment later the rage comes rushing back all the stronger?

  So it was for me.

  After Herbie moved off toward the kitchen, five or six minutes ticked by, most of which has evaporated from memory. My only firm recollection is of standing at that filthy window, watching both the fireworks and my own eerie reflection. I realized with bone-deep certainty that my old life was now finished and unsalvageable. Who knows how the mood struck? That house, maybe. Fireworks. Lorna Sue. At one point the word ridiculous came to mind—the charcoal on my face, my ill-fitting uniform. In the window a gaunt, piteous, broken-down Thomas H. Chippering was superimposed upon Lorna Sue and her tycoon. Curiously, this made me yearn for a hot, sudsy bath. Wash away the charcoal. Take Mrs. Kooshof out to dinner—a steak, perhaps, or a pair of succulent Rock Cornish hens.

  That mood swirl: I wanted to hug Lorna Sue. I wanted to wish her well.

  I also wanted to blow her to smithereens.*

  I was studying myself in the window when Herbie returned with two large, frosty glasses of essential refreshment. “You okay?” he said. “You don’t look—”

  “I’m fine. To plywood airplanes.”

  “Sure. And engines.”

  “Turtles,” I said.

  Herbie grinned. “Turtles. Almost forgot. What the hell did turtles have to do with anything?”

  “Life mystery. Turtles and tycoons.”

  There was a clumsy silence.

&
nbsp; “Yeah, well. The man has a name.”

  “Not for me,” I said. “A nonentity.”

  “Right, but maybe she needs somebody like that. A cipher, you know? Don’t take this the wrong way, Tom, but some things you’re totally blind to. You just don’t know. Never did.”

  “She was my wife.”

  “True. But still. That fucking cross.” Outside, the sky went fuzzy with reds and golds. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, you know. It was like an experiment or something, like research. I was just so goddamned curious. Wanted to see if she’d go to heaven. If I’d go to hell. If the skies would open up. Curious.”

  The booze, I could tell, was having an effect on him. He lifted his glass.

  “Here’s to curiosity,” he said, far too brightly. “The sacred mysteries. And now everybody’s messed up. Me too.”

  “You were a boy,” I said.

  “And now I’m not.” He finished his drink, reached out, and took my glass. “One more won’t hurt, will it? The Fourth. Big celebration.”

  He turned and left the room.

  I heard a toilet flush, water running. When he returned, his eyes had taken on a red puffiness. He strained for a smile, which seemed to snap in half, and handed me my glass.

  His own drink was already mostly gone.

  “This whole mess, Tom. My own fault, I know that, but all the guilt—tons, I mean—it’s not easy lugging that around your whole life. Can’t ever put it down. Catholic, right? Doing my penance, looking after her, making sure she doesn’t—” He stopped abruptly, moistened his lips. “Like I said, it had an effect on her. Made her different.”

  “Different?”

  Herbie rolled his shoulders. “Unique. Complicated.”

  Outside, another skyrocket exploded—brilliant red.

  “She wanted me to do it,” he said quietly. “The cross, I mean. She kept pestering. I’m not absolving myself—I don’t mean it like that—but it wasn’t like I forced her. She was part of it.” He stopped and gave me that plaintive look again. “We were both curious. Both kids. I end up in reform school.”