Perhaps my actions were a bit extreme. Unlike Duroflex and Happy Meadows, where Tod suffered no real harm, my duplicity with Adam’s Eau was intended to cause specific damage. Such concerns—manifest in my inability to sleep and the limpness of my member—seemed a sufficient warning sign and clear reminder that I was, above all else, a good and decent man who did not come naturally to such prevarication. By the third night then, I decided to sell Tod’s stock in Adam’s Eau, keeping him from ruin a week before the company went under.
As a further show of good faith, I included him in the purchase of Affymetrix Inc. stock, whose photolithography patent for making computer chips on silicon was currently being challenged by Incyte Pharmaceuticals. (Incyte used a similar process for gene chip technology and the placing of DNA microarrays onto glass.) I predicted the court would find in favor of Affymetrix, and shortly after purchasing a block of shares for Tod, six clients, and myself, a judgement was entered. The value of Affymetrix stock soared while Incyte plummeted. I celebrated my triumph with an uncertain sense of relief, boasted to Gee of my perspicacity and how beneficial my efforts had turned out for Tod.
I slept well for several nights, regarded all earlier schemes against Tod as minor missteps I was now completely done with, and having tested the bounds of my personal weakness was sure that I’d come through the challenge unscathed. Eager then to receive my reward, I presented myself again to Gee. Unfortunately now my timing was off, for she had papers to grade, final exams to prepare, a new article to research, a gymnastics class she promised to enroll Rea in, several community meetings to attend, and a benefit to organize at the Appetency Café. She came to me in bed at night exhausted, smiling, yet with fixed resistance, apology, and defense, as if I was some further obligation she had neither interest nor the energy to deal with. Disappointed, I watched in silence as twice the phone rang just as I thought I was making progress, and twice on the other end was Tod.
CHAPTER 6
Another article in the Bugle: Rudy Castillo, age twenty-nine, spurred by the sting of Venus’s retreat, burst into his estranged wife’s apartment, and in front of their four-year-old daughter, shot Sugerih Fernandez, age twenty-four, to death before turning the gun on himself. “Jesus!” I thought. But weren’t things now getting extreme.
That May, Tod and Gee organized a rally for Myra Falster, a freelance journalist jailed on a charge of civil contempt. It seemed Ms. Falster refused to reveal her sources in an article she wrote on six state legislators subsequently indicted for selling their votes to lobbyists and the judge locked her away. “We need to expose the dangerous precedent the courts are setting by denying journalists the right to rely on secret informants,” Tod said one night as he dropped by the house to meet with Gee. “The first thing a restrictive government does is bind the hands of its newspapers.”
“It’s true,” Gee touched Tod’s elbow.
“The media may as well limit itself to printing recipes and box scores if a journalist can’t guard her sources.”
“Exactly.”
“Imagine all the important stories which would never see the light of day.”
“All the violations of government and big business which would go unreported.”
“Myra’s a pawn.”
“In a fixed game of chess.”
“She’s a victim of a system that empowers ill-qualified judges to run roughshod over the fundamental needs of an effective free press.”
“It’s completely criminal.”
“It’s fascist.”
“It is!”
And on and on they went.
With time at a premium, Gee spent the next three days rushing directly from teaching at the university to the Kerrytown Review where plans for the demonstration were coordinated. Rea was brought along each afternoon and remained downtown with her mother until six o’clock, when Gee hurried home and fed her a quick meal, kissed her twice, and ran back out the door. Barely a word was exchanged between us, my every complaint met with a reminder that “It’s a unique situation, Walter. There’s no choice involved. You need to understand.”
“I do understand,” I answered. “Completely.”
The night before the rally, I waited up for Gee, sitting in the living room and turning the pages of a book by Nabokov. Hours passed and still I remained in my chair, anxious to see my wife as soon as she stepped through the door, otherwise unable to crawl up to bed and slip between the sheets. In her absence these last few days—added to the long list of prior evenings she was gone—again imagined her with Tod, kissing and pawing and fucking their way through the night. My fantasies had mutated into something more dissolute than ever, and while I conjured these images intentionally, they soon got the best of me and refused to leave my head.
What a botched bit of bumble it all was. How I hated my own vulnerability! In the weeks since Affymetrix, as I elected to take the high road with Tod, I waited expectantly for all forms of intercourse, both sexual and otherwise, to improve between myself and Gee. This was the way the world was supposed to operate in the grand scheme of things, with a person’s generosity rewarded in kind. How else was human decency to be encouraged if not through equal gains? And yet, rather than Gee drawing near to me, she remained distant and distracted, her features fixed in a defensive sort of mask whenever I looked her way.
What was I to do then? Where was the potency of my commitment? Of my pure American soul? Why couldn’t I rush downtown and pummel Tod with my fists instead of sitting in silence and pondering my jealousy, rolling it around on my tongue like some sour slice of fruit I could neither swallow nor spit away? Another hour went by and nothing but time escaped. I switched off the lamp and sat in the dark. Gee came home at a quarter to one. I heard the turning of the latch and, staring out from my chair, could see her in the hall, setting her leather satchel down, hesitating there in order to get her bearings. (Was it possible after all these years the house felt unfamiliar to her now?) I waited a moment then called her name.
“Walter?” she came forward and found the light. Her face looked puzzled, annoyed and surprised. “Is something wrong? Is Rea alright?”
“She’s fine.”
“What are you doing up?”
“Nothing. Reading. Waiting.”
“It’s late.”
“I know.”
Again, as if my presence disturbed her, “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too. I’m going up,” she turned and started back toward the stairs.
I did not so much think of what I would say but offered no resistance as the words came out, all of my avoidance in the many months before having run its course, leaving me to put the question to her then behind the disquietude of a half-whisper, “Are you in love with him?” My asking seemed to fall out of the air, startling Gee as she turned and moved at once toward the stairs. I imagined as she disappeared on the opposite side of the wall that she was weighing her escape, wondering what would happen if she continued on up to our room. Would I follow after her or let the subject drop? I, too, wondered what I would do. (Having posed my question, was it possible now to pretend I hadn’t asked?) I was about to call out and say she didn’t have to answer and that I wouldn’t ask again, when she returned to the living room and stood directly in front of my chair.
Her sudden nearness confused me. Had she remained at a distance, I’d have assumed her intention was to talk around my claim, dismissing and denying everything until we both wearied of debate and agreed to say no more. In drawing close to me however, her objective was different. The glow from the hall light lit the front half of the room. Gee remained standing near enough that I could touch her hand if I dared. I stared at the red tint of her hair, her green eyes, and hyaline white of her cheeks, waiting for her to speak. But she didn’t.
Silently then, she knelt down in front of me, embracing me, settling against me as one might lean wi
th exhaustion upon the trunk of a tree. When she kissed me—in a way she hadn’t for a very long time—I hoped to feel real affection but knew at once her offering was something else. Still, I didn’t resist, eager to enjoy the moment regardless of why it was bestowed. Only after we went upstairs and consummated the awkwardness of our sex, performed with the sort of harsh determination of two people intent on proving a point, did I succumb to melancholy and the bleakest sort of portent. Gee got up and went into the bathroom. I heard the water for the shower run, listened as she brushed her teeth, as she sat and peed away my undead sperm.
The rally for Myra Falster drew a crowd of several hundred people to the campus of the University. Television reporters recorded the event, speeches were given, and pamphlets handed out. A series of articles appeared in local papers, across the wire services, the Internet, and a special edition of the Kerrytown Review. (Gee’s piece, “Allowing the Press to Press: The Risk of Extinguishing a Reporter’s Right to Protect Her Sources,” was particularly well received.) Although the matter was relegated to yesterday’s news within a day or two, Tod regarded the turnout as a decisive victory and celebrated with a spirited editorial championing the inalienable virtues of civil disobedience and the inherent wisdom derived from the will of the people.
Judge Felmore Carson, presiding jurist in the case against the six state legislators and singularly responsible for ordering Myra Falster to jail, was not persuaded by any sort of public protest however. A strict constitutional. constructionist, Judge Carson interpreted his powers as absolute, and pointed to the language of the statute, which held that a court, upon believing a witness would at some point come forward with the information requested under oath, could jail that individual indefinitely through a charge of civil contempt. “Give the girl time,” Carson said. “Women can’t take the heat. It won’t be long before she cracks.”
Disappointed public outcry failed to spring Myra from jail, Tod and Gee met the following evening at the Appetency Café to discuss their next move. I kicked about the empty house, stormed angrily from room to room, insisted Gee tell me the moment she and Rea got home, “What’s going on?”
“Walter, nothing,” my wife shook her head. Her expression showed surprise, as if she assumed her gesture toward me the other night entitled her to a period of grace when I wouldn’t complain about her work. I was offended by her attitude. To be the recipient of a pity fuck from my own wife was a humiliation I’d no idea how to bear, and my demoralization continued the following afternoon when, just after three o’clock, on the eleventh day of Myra Falster’s incarceration, Gee phoned me at work. “I need you to pick up Rea,” she said. “See if Sheri can watch her for an hour. I’m at the twelfth precinct.”
“What?”
“Don’t get all excited now.”
“Why are you...? Gee?”
“They’ve set bail.”
“You were arrested?”
“And Tod. He needs you to bail him out, too.”
I had no luck arranging a sitter for Rea, and together we drove downtown. (I told my daughter that Mommy was interviewing some policemen for work and we needed to pick her up.) The station house occupied half a city block along Ninth Avenue, between Westchester and Jefferson. We parked at the curb and hurried inside. The desk sergeant was a beefy man with an off-grey flattop and vermicular veins fanned out across his thick ball of a nose. I was told, out of earshot from Rea, that Tod and Gee had gone to Judge Carter’s house that morning and chained themselves to his front gate. Local media was alerted, while a small crowd, all orchestrated beforehand, stood around and chanted, “Free Myra F! Protect the freedoms of the press!” until neighbors called the police. The crowd disbanded and the chains were cut. “We get this kind of crap from kids, Mr. Sharre,” the sergeant shuffled through a stack of papers.
“Brimm,” I said.
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
I was instructed where to go and post bail, was asked to fill out several forms, told to wait in the lobby, then left with Rea until Gee and Tod were released. We sat for twenty minutes before the door to our far right opened and Gee appeared. Despite my agitation, I was relieved to see her. Dressed in jeans, hiking boots, a pale T-shirt, and blue cotton jacket, she looked as vibrant as one of her students. (Gee!) I made up my mind to temper my indignation until she had a chance to apologize. Obviously, she must realize now how irresponsible Tod Marcum was, that he was nothing more than a vain and selfish man who put her reputation, her job, and her family at risk, seducing her—yes!—with all his ridiculous talk of civil disobedience and righteous protest. I found reason for hope along these lines when spotting me, Gee signaled from a distance of some thirty feet, smiled and waved warmly.
The pleasure I took from her face soothed me, my anticipation heightened by the joy in her eyes. She seemed appreciative of my presence, convinced that I was her rock, her supreme steady ground. I smiled back, happy for the first time in months, certain everything was right again and that my wife still loved me. But just as I stepped forward, eager to greet her and hold her in my arms, Tod came through the opposite door and Gee shifted her gaze. Her expression changed at once from gratitude into a show of true elation, her face filled with ecstasy and unconditional glee, exhilarated and euphoric, shimmering with a rapture that caused all of my initial cheer to collapse and shatter like glass at my feet.
Rea ran toward her mother while Tod—after saying something to my wife—followed after me as I hurried outside. “I want to thank you for coming down,” he said, “and to apologize for Gee’s arrest. I’m sorry,” he said then, but there was a look of ultimate pleasure and satisfaction about him, a contentment derived from Gee’s having joined him on the fence. I stopped at the curb, and furious, asked, “What exactly are you sorry for, Tod?”
“How’s that?”
“You said you were sorry for your part in Gee’s arrest, and what sort of bullshit is that when being arrested is exactly what you planned?”
“Walter, truly,” Tod answered as if he might somehow still explain, but I moved on across the street.
Gee rode in the rear with Rea. (Before sliding into the car, she came around to the driver’s side and squeezed my arm, without warmth and more to test my mood.) The ride home started out in silence, but after a short while neither Tod nor Gee could resist and began recounting the events outside Judge Carson’s house. How pleased and praising they were of the other’s effort. I found their banter unbearable, and refusing to let them carry on this way, interrupted with, “Has it occurred to you yet that all your nonsense has caused more harm than good?”
“Actually, no,” Gee was emboldened with Tod nearby.
“In the real world, you piss off a judge, your friend rots in jail.”
“And what would you have us do?”
“Hold another rally. Write more articles. Don’t chain yourself to a fence,” I shook my head, reminding Gee of her position in the community, of her role as a mother and teacher. “You can’t go around as if you haven’t any other responsibilities, for Christ’s sake. All your actions have repercussions. There is consequence. What do you think the regents at the university are going to say? What of my clients and senior partners at Porter and Evans? How are you going to explain things to your daughter?”
“It’s because of my position in the community,” Gee countered, “because I am a mother and teacher that I conduct myself as I do. The last time I checked anyway, a person still had a right to demonstrate.”
“A legal demonstration. What you did broke the law.”
“Someone has to stand up to judges like Carter.”
“Radical rhetoric,” I snapped.
Rea began asking questions then, wanting to know what exactly we were arguing about. Gee explained the situation in earnest, but I interrupted again to say, “There are laws, Rea, put in place to protect us and sometimes people don’t agree with the law, but that doesn’t mean we can break them as we choose.”
“This country wa
s founded on rebellion,” Tod saw fit to interject. I squeezed the wheel until the tips of my fingers turned a deep purplish-red, and coming off the expressway, no longer able to contain myself, shot the car over to the curb, shifted into park and shouted, “Don’t you ever interrupt me when I’m talking to my daughter, do you understand?”
“Walter, I’m sorry.”
“Walter!” Gee called out, but I paid no attention. “You and Gee,” I barked. “You and Gee!”
“Walter, that’s enough!” my wife tried once more to cut me off, but her challenge only caused me to roar, “You, too! You, too!” The late afternoon sun shined through the side window, surrounding Gee in a pale white light. Her eyes—Christ, her eyes!—captivated me without the slightest effort, so green and lovely that despite my rage I felt the whole of my body warm, taken in and melted down. No one spoke again the rest of the way home. I pulled into the drive, got quickly out of the car, and went at a full trot to unlock the front door. I was supposed to drop Tod at his house first, but this was of no importance to me, and standing on the front porch, I shouted at everyone, “Come on, come on! Out, out, out!”
One by one, they made their way up the walk, first Rea, followed by Gee and Tod. I stormed passed them as I hurried back to the car, my anger rooted in such a thorny patch of hurt and fear that I felt my chest go tight. Despite everything, I hoped Gee would stop me then and say that I was right and how sorry she was for not seeing things my way before, but I’d only to look back at the house where Tod stood beside my wife watching me from the porch to know my wish would not be forthcoming.
Gee’s eyes cut against mine, condemning me for what she regarded as my reckless outburst, insisting that I was the one guilty of poor judgement. I set the picture in my head and called up to them in a voice suddenly feeble. “There you go then. As you like,” and sliding in behind the wheel, backed out into the street and drove off.
Walter Falls Page 7
