Temporary Insanity

by Leslie Carroll

  Eric pulled chairs away from the tables so Izzy and I could sit. “They’re very informal here,” he said. “Even on amateur nights. If it’s crowded, they restrict the performer to just a couple of songs, but”—he waved his arm, as if to indicate the sparseness of listeners—“on a night like tonight, if someone’s good, Laura’ll let them go on forever.”

  Dominick ensconced himself beneath the yellowed Lenny Bruce poster and ordered a draft beer. Izzy decided to switch to red wine, so I figured what the hell, and asked for a glass as well.

  The next singer performed passionate renditions of protest songs like “Bread and Roses.” She invited us to sing along if we knew the lyrics. I had a history teacher in eleventh grade who was a card-carrying Communist and when he didn’t feel like holding class, he’d grab his guitar and lead us all out to the front lawn of the school, where he’d teach us “songs of oppression and retribution,” as he termed them. And I’ve always had a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived injustice, so I was well versed, as it were, in the lyrics, having carried them in my head now for decades. I looked around the room and realized, to my instant discomfort, that I was the only one who had taken up the singer’s offer to chime in.

  I feel like an idiot.

  Who cares what other people think, Alice? Are you having fun?

  You bet!

  You know how much you love to sing. What do you care if you’re the only one?

  “You have a pretty good voice, there, muppet,” Eric whispered in my ear.

  I touched his hand, beamed, and nodded a thank-you to him without missing a beat. I was having fun. And the wine made it even easier to cut loose.

  Billie Hedges, the protest singer, finished her set, and we all ordered another round of drinks. Eric offered to buy Billie one as well, so as she packed up her guitar, she downed a beer and chatted with us for a few minutes. Laura readied the stage for the next performer, refocusing the two little spotlights, raising the mike, and running a brief sound check.

  “I’m in kind of a Guthrie mood tonight,” the guitarist said as he took the stage, gently tapping the head of the mike.

  I grabbed Izzy by the sleeve. “That’s him—the guy I met in my building and who Eric and I ran into at the Yankees game—the one I thought was a pediatrician. And when I saw him at the ballpark I was dressed like Darva. The ultimate bad-hair, bad-wardrobe day. Can I crawl under the table now?”

  “If you can fit. But what do you care?”

  She’s got a point.

  But somehow, I did. Care. I always care when I think I’ve made an awful impression.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give it up for one of our Saturday night regulars, Dan Carpenter,” Laura cooed into a mike at the end of the bar.

  “Hey, muppet, now I remember why I recognize this guy. I thought his face was familiar when we saw him and Lucy at Yankee Stadium. I’ve watched him perform here before. You’re in for a treat.”

  “Like I said, I was in a Guthrie sort of mood tonight,” Dan said, affixing a capo to the neck of his guitar, “but I think I’ll start with a little Jim Croce, or maybe a little Harry Chapin, move into some pre-fanatic Cat Stevens, then segue into some Peter Paul and Mary, if you all can still stand me—”

  At which Dominick flicked his Bic lighter, held it aloft, whooped, and yelled, “‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’!”

  “Just for you, then,” Dan ad-libbed, grinning at Dominick. “Can you wait a couple of minutes? They say if you can remember the sixties, you weren’t there, so I’ll revisit some seventies songs for a while.” But after only one bittersweet Croce ballad, and a touching (too touching for me) rendition of Harry Chapin’s “Old College Avenue,” which had me tearfully reminiscing about my Old College Boyfriend, in fact in the same town where Chapin set his song, we were all feeling too morose. To lift our spirits, Dan immediately went into “Puff,” and from the opening lyric got us all singing, full-out, as though we were at a hootenanny.

  The guys wanted one more Chapin standby: “Cat’s in the Cradle,” a real fathers-and-sons story. “This gets me every time,” Eric said, blinking back the moisture from his eyes as the song began.

  “Well, that was a downer!” Dan quipped. “So, it’s time for some Woody.”

  Laura tossed Dan a tambourine, which he immediately lateraled to me.

  I pointed to myself. “Me?”

  Dan gestured for me to join him onstage.

  I don’t do backup without backup, so I grabbed Izzy by the arm and dragged her with me. Dan launched into “This Land Is Your Land,” involving the entire audience in a sing-along. By the second verse, Izzy and I had really gotten into it, shaking the tambourine and losing our self-consciousness, to the point of harmonizing with Dan. Eric and Dominick were cheering, albeit drunkenly, for us.

  When he’d ended the song, Dan announced dramatically, “The B-vox stylings of…”

  “Alice and Izzy,” I said.

  “You two have good voices,” he commented.

  We beamed. “Thanks.”

  “So, while Laura is being so generous with her time, any requests?”

  “‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’” Eric suggested, raising his beer bottle in a toast.

  “Done. No, no, you two stay here,” Dan insisted, when Izzy and I went to leave the stage.

  “I need to visit the loo,” Izzy announced, abandoning me for the lure of the ladies’ room.

  “Rat fink,” I hissed playfully in her ear.

  I must admit I love “Blowin’ in the Wind.” It always wafts back sentimental breezes from my ultra-progressive education.

  “Muppet, you’ve got a really nice voice,” Eric said to me. “You sound good with Dan, too. Can you play a solo for Alice to sing?” he called out to Dan.

  Dan shrugged affably. “Sure. Why not? Are we okay on time, Laura?” She nodded yes and Dan turned back to me. “Got any favorites?”

  “Do you know ‘House of the Rising Sun’?”

  He answered by playing the deep, rolling opening chords of the Dylan classic made famous by The Animals. Laura handed me the mike from the bar.

  I looked at Dan and smiled. I was ready. I began my solo, throaty and bluesy. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Izzy give Eric one of her trademark nudges. They were both beaming like lunatics, which boosted my confidence level. Of course, my alcohol level was already boosted, so perhaps I didn’t need their encouragement as much as I thought I did. I started to really own the song, and as the verses progressed, the down-and-dirtier I got.

  “Rock on!” Eric yelled.

  I was drained when we finished. “Whew!”

  Dan looked at me. “Would the lady like to do an encore?”

  “‘Me and Bobby McGee’!” Izzy shouted.

  “You know I haven’t had enough drugs to sing that,” I joked.

  “Then buy her a drink on me,” Dan said to Laura.

  It was worth it just to see Dominick and Izzy happy together and having fun in each other’s company without carping. I asked for a double shot of tequila and tossed it back before I launched into the song, searing my throat sufficiently to be able to belt out the number, Janis-style. “Okay, now I’m beat,” I rasped when we finished. “And wasted, to boot. I’ll just go and be a spectator now.” I looked at Dan. “Thanks for the opportunity to make a fool of myself in front of my friends. It’s been swell.” I shook Dan’s hand and tottered off the stage.

  “What are you talking about?” Dan responded. “Your boyfriend’s right. You’re talented.”

  “I hope so,” I muttered, “since I’m an actress.”

  Dan retuned his guitar. “Okay, folks, one last song, and then I’ll call it a night. Bobby Darin made this a hit back in—”

  “‘Mack the Knife’!” Dominick interrupted, waving his lighter again.

  Dan politely shook him off. “I was thinking of something mellower. Actually, this is a great old Tim Hardin song. And a lot of people recorded this, including Harry Belafonte, but it was Darin whose caree
r changed course with his cover of this song, hitting number eight on the charts in 1967. And it’s kind of become a closing signature of mine.”

  My friends and I exchanged curious glances, as though we were participants in a trivia game on pop music arcana. I didn’t recognize the opening chords, but as soon as Dan got into the melody, the classic was unmistakable: “If I Were a Carpenter.”

  When he got to the lines about will you marry me and have my baby, I felt very self-conscious all of a sudden.

  “So this is the carpenter you thought was a pediatrician?” Izzy gently taunted.

  “Don’t remind me,” I whispered to her, not sure how to identify the sour taste in my mouth. “I guess this is his trademark song. A little corny, but—”

  “You’re blushing,” Izzy interrupted. “Holy Secret Crush, Batman, you’re the color of this wine.” She jabbed a finger at the glass.

  “Stop it!” I insisted.

  Dan sang on, his rendition simple, direct, and honest.

  I looked over at Eric. He took my hand in his and together we swayed in our seats, enjoying the music. When his set was over, we all gave Dan Carpenter a standing ovation. Eric went over to shake Dan’s hand. “I really like it when you come down here, man,” he said. “Good stuff.”

  “Come back again,” Dan replied graciously. “And bring your girlfriend.” He looked at me, then back at Eric. “Take good care of her, buddy. She’s fucking magical.”

  We paid for our drinks and said goodbye to Dominick and Izzy on the pavement outside the Troubadour East. Bleecker Street was uncharacteristically deserted for a Saturday night. Eric and I stood in front of the club waiting for a passing taxi to take us back to his place in Brooklyn. I’d been spending more and more nights there lately, sometimes arriving at the apartment before he got home from Newter & Spade. It really made me feel like an Official Girlfriend the day he’d given me my own set of keys to his apartment.

  We walked to the corner of LaGuardia Place, where a scruffy young guy with an acoustic guitar, the case open beside him to receive donations, was playing “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” He sang the lyric in a high tenor twang reminiscent of Willie Nelson. Eric started crooning along softly, then he took my hand and led me into a sort of dance, right where we were standing. Being New York City, no one noticed.

  “Have I told you lately that I love you?” Eric sang into my ear. His breath tickled. I pulled back from him just a bit and looked at him. “No, you haven’t,” I said. “In fact, you’ve never told me that at all.”

  We stopped moving. Eric held me, looked into my eyes, and said “I love you, muppet. I do.”

  “I love you, too,” I said quietly. It was right then that I realized that I did.

  We lay in each other’s arms on the rug in front of Eric’s fireplace. “This is definitely nice,” I murmured into his neck. “It’s so…quiet…here. Manhattan’s so noisy. I can never relax, no matter how hard I try. This feels like a home.” He stroked my hair. “You’ve got a garden, a fireplace…” I laughed. “A dishwasher…”

  “You’ve got a dishwasher back at your place,” Eric teased, nuzzling me.

  “Yeah, her name is Alice.”

  “You know…” he began slowly, his fingers tracing a gentle line down my arm, “you’re here so much of the time these days, anyway…I’ve been giving some thought to this lately…would you…are you…?”

  He was having difficulty finding the words he wanted to use. “Nice verbal dexterity for a litigator,” I teased.

  I’d managed to lighten the mood of the moment for him. “Okay. Do you wanna move in wit’ me?” he asked, in a dead-on imitation of a working-class Brooklyn accent. “Hey, what’s the matter, muppet? You’re not usually so silent.” His eyes looked very dark, almost black, in the firelight.

  “It’s a lot to think about. That’s why,” I replied. “It’s…a very big step in our relationship.”

  “I know,” Eric replied. “Are we ready for it?”

  “Are you?”

  “If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have asked you to move in here.”

  “I thought lawyers are already supposed to know the answers to questions they ask their witnesses,” I said, moving to my stomach and propping myself up on my elbows so I could better read his face.

  “Your Honor, I move to strike the answer as non-responsive. The witness is being evasive,” Eric said with mock pomposity. “Look, muppet, I’m in love with you. And…I love you. I’ve never before asked a woman to move in with me. Yes, it’s a big deal. A very big deal. But once I make up my mind about something, I stick to it. There’s no going back.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’m not going to renege on my offer. So take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere. Except to the office at the crack of dawn.” He sat up and took me in his arms. “I do hope you’ll say yes.”

  “I want to,” I said softly. “But in the light of day I do need time to consider it. It’s not just me I have to think of. Or us. I need to make sure that my grandmother is okay with my decision. That she’ll be okay. Regardless of my ultimate decision, I feel very responsible for her welfare.”

  Eric nodded and stroked my hair. “Understood.”

  We made love right there in front of the fireplace. It was different, somehow, from all the other times. Perhaps because our relationship had reached a higher plateau tonight, we did as well. Nevertheless, while a well-satiated Eric slumbered and snored, I stared at the ceiling until the sun rose, counting the cracks, my blessings, and the number of hours until I could sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation with Gram.

  Chapter 7

  Ramona was making us all crazy in the document-coding room. Ever since Newter & Spade’s legal advice to AllGood Telecom had come under federal scrutiny, she had behaved as though it was her personal mission to exonerate her employers. So, while Roger and Lisa remained on the class-action tobacco company suit, Marlena, Natalie, and I were assigned to digest and input the volumes of documents pertaining to AllGood, nearly all of which were redacted with thick black lines through the text. This rendered the papers either partially illegible or totally useless, as Newter & Spade asserted its attorney-client privilege. It was highly unlikely that the congressional committee would discover any smoking guns within the pages of these documents. For me, at least, the hearings had proven considerably beneficial. I was pulling down plenty of overtime, since the discovery process—including document production—was on a rigidly imposed deadline.

  I used some of my new-found wealth to take Gram to dinner at her favorite restaurant, where in a quiet ambience, without the drone of the evening news in our ears, I could tell her about Eric’s proposal and we could openly share our feelings on the subject. She was less accepting of the idea than I had hoped. Not very sanguine about it at all, in fact. Her eyes bore a look of betrayal and I felt horribly guilty about expressing my need to move on and have a proper, adult relationship with a man.

  “I’m in my thirties, Gram.”

  “So?”

  “Most women my age are married with kids, even in this day and age. I love you to pieces, and you’ve always been here for me…and I always want to be there for you…but I…I feel like…living with you—don’t misinterpret this, please—I feel like I’m in some sort of state of suspended adolescence. It’s not right for a grown woman.”

  “There’s no such thing as ‘right’ across the board. For anyone. Everyone is unique and every decision they make a uniquely personal one,” Gram said—sagely, but testily. I could see that my news was hurting her. I felt terrible. “Are you in love with him?” she asked, as though she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Yes,” I said gently. “And he loves me, too. It sounds corny, but I want you to be happy for me. And to understand. You ran away from home, for God’s sake, at fifteen, to make your way in the world. You were barely of the age of consent when you married Grandpa Danny. And I know you got tons of flack from the
family, but it’s what you needed to do. I’m not going very far, you know. It’s only Brooklyn, not Bolivia.”

  Gram sighed. I hated that I was causing her distress. It was like cutting out a piece of my heart. She was my favorite relative in all the world, and the only one who really knew me, really understood me. Certainly not Uncle Erwin or my parents down in Florida…my father the golf fanatic who wears white patent-leather shoes, or my nutsy, overweight mother Aida who gets daily massages and cares more about discovering new diets and spa treatments than anything else. Her latest is the Danish diet: nothing but. The prune variety acts as a digestive aid for the cherry, cheese, blueberry, apricot, poppy seed, and cinnamon streusel.

  I felt that by attempting to seek a different kind of happiness elsewhere, I was jilting Gram in some respect. There was no way to make any of this feel like a win-win situation for either of us. We’d been looking out for each other for several years now. How could I balance my need to live my own life with my immense concern for Gram’s safety and well-being, when she was puttering about her kitchen alone, trailing her kimono sleeves around the carelessly exposed flames of the gas range? It’s what it means to be an adult. Isn’t it? To learn how to strike out alone and take care of yourself? Or is it taking care of others who need you that’s what being a “grown-up” is all about? Or is that being a nurse?

  Oh, God help me, I’m going in circles.

  Hello, Alice.

  Are you God or my conscience? Or are you two the same thing? Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while.

  You’ve been pretty busy. I’ve been here. Waiting for you to slow down so we could have a chat.

  What should I do about Eric and Gram?

  What does your heart say?

  My heart says the question is corny.

  Alice, shut up and stop being cute. Just answer the question.