Kramer vs. Kramer

by Avery Corman

  “And?”

  “There’s not much doing.”

  “Of course there’s not. Times are tough. Didn’t I just take a pay cut?”

  “But they said they’d keep me in mind.”

  “Joanna!”

  “I wanted to ask. I didn’t break your balls by asking.”

  “Look, you want to talk about this, then let’s talk. What were you earning when you left? A hundred seventy-five a week? So assuming you get that again, what do you take home? One-thirty, maybe. And how much is a housekeeper?”

  “A hundred.”

  “If we’re lucky. So that’s thirty you’re ahead. And in lunches, say twelve a week, and carfare, five, and snacks, three—so that’s twenty. Now we’re in the black a big total of maybe ten dollars a week from your working. And that has to pay for all your extra clothes so you can work, which means just one sweater or one skirt a month and we’re totally in the red.”

  “It’s not the money.”

  “It is. We can’t afford for you to work.”

  “I need something.”

  “And Billy needs a stable home. Shit, Joanna, a few years more, that’s all. You want him to get all screwed up?”

  In other respects, Ted was as flexible as any of the other husbands in their sphere, even more so. He took Billy to the park, he prepared some of the meals, short-order cooking from his bachelor days. He had moved to a point of domestic participation beyond that of his father in the old neighborhood and the men of that generation. But in the one fundamental area of Joanna’s working, he was, in Billy’s terms, somewhere to the right of Fred Flintstone.

  She brought up the subject at random times—his position never changed.

  “Look, why don’t we settle it and make another baby?”

  “I’m going to sleep. You can start without me.”

  She passed her time in logistics, shopping, cooking, buying clothes, bringing Billy here, taking him there. She played tennis. And the time passed—slowly, but it passed. She was thirty-two years old. She had a little boy who was going to be four. She was happiest with him when he went to sleep peacefully and she would not have to fight with him any more on such issues as how she fucked up with the peanut butter.

  She found magazine articles to validate her situation. She was not a freak. Other mothers, a few of them anyway, felt as she did. This being a mother, staying at home was not easy. It was boring, she had a right to be angry, she was not alone in this. Living in New York City, they were the provincial ones, she and Thelma and Amy sitting around playgrounds waiting for their children to grow up before five o’clock and the lamb chops.

  Ted knew she was restive. He believed he was helping by assisting around the house. He talked to other men, to Marv, the Newsweek salesman who told him his own marriage was shaky, he did not know of anyone’s that wasn’t. They were moving to the suburbs to start over. Jim O’Connor, his advertising manager, married for twenty-five years, revealed The Answer at the water cooler, “Women are women,” he said, a guru with midday scotch on his breath. Ted did not have many arguments with Joanna—it was more of a frost that lingered. She was cross at times, too tired for sex, then so was he. Nobody seemed to be doing better. He met dentist Charlie for lunch, the first time they had ever talked alone and not about children. “Joanna and I—it’s so-so …” Charlie nodded knowingly. Dentists—solid citizens. He told Ted his Answer. He had been sleeping with his dental hygienist for two years, making it right in the dentist chair—temporary fillings.

  Against all this, Ted was convinced they had as good a marriage as anybody. Perhaps it was his fault she had been remote. He had been preoccupied with work, been distant himself. She was still so beautiful. They should have another baby, which would bring them closer, as they were that one moment when Billy was born. And they should not wait. Ted and Joanna and Billy and another little beautiful person. They would be a real family, touring the city on their bikes, looking like an ad. The first years were difficult, but it gets easier and they had been through it once, which would help. And if they could get this over with soon, in a few years they would be out of infancy and they would have this beautiful family, his beautiful wife, his beautiful children. And so, to be complete in some way, to create a perfect universe with himself at the center, husband, father, his domain—for all the old, buried feelings of not being attractive, for all the times his parents were disapproving, for all the years he struggled to place himself—he would have something special, his beautiful little empire, which he, in his self-delusion, was going to build out of sand from a sandbox.

  “I WANT A CHARLIE Brown tablecloth.”

  “Yes, Billy.”

  “I want hats like Kim had. Everybody wears a clown hat. I wear a king hat.”

  “Okay.”

  “Write it so you don’t forget, Mommy.”

  “I’m writing it. Charlie Brown tablecloth, hats.”

  “I wear a king hat.”

  “I’ve got it. See the k? That’s for king hat.”

  “Will I have a cake?”

  “Of course you’ll have a cake. It’s on the list.”

  “Where is the k?”

  “This is cake. Cake has a c.”

  “Can I have a cake with Mickey Mouse?”

  “I don’t know if Baskin-Robbins makes a cake with Mickey Mouse.”

  “Please, Mommy. I love Mickey Mouse. He’s my favorite.”

  “I’ll see if Baskin-Robbins makes a cake with Mickey Mouse. If they don’t, we’ll try Carvel. And if they don’t maybe you’ll settle for Donald Duck.”

  “Donald Duck is okay. Mickey Mouse is my favorite.”

  “So I heard.”

  “I’m going to be four years old, Mommy. I’m a big boy, right?”

  Ten four-year-olds were coming with their traveling road show. They were in the same class at nursery school, their birthdays all fell at approximately the same time, Billy went to their birthday parties, they came to his. Joanna and Billy planned the menu together. His party was going to be “fantastic,” he said, which meant pizza, soda and ice-cream cake. They located Mickey Mouse in a nearby Carvel, she got the little baskets for the little candies—once, at her agency she had organized an elegant dinner party for one hundred executives and their wives at The Rainbow Room. She shopped for party favors. She bought Billy his big-boy present from his mommy and daddy, a giant Tinker Toy set; she found matching Charlie Brown paper plates and tablecloth, and on a Sunday in April, with Ted nearby to wipe up the stains, the munchkins came and wrecked the house, little Mimi Aronson, who was allergic to chocolate and did not say so, broke out from M&M’s on the spot, and alongside her Joanna Kramer had hives again.

  “Ted, this is no time to play with a dump truck. We’re cleaning up.”

  “I was just looking. Don’t be so tense, for crying out loud.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock at night. I want to get to sleep.”

  “I’ll finish.”

  “No, you won’t. I don’t like the way you clean.”

  “It’s good I’m not a cleaning woman.”

  “You don’t have to be. I am.”

  “Joanna, think about the good part. It was a wonderful party.”

  “It should have been. I worked my ass off.”

  “Look—”

  “You think all this got done by magic? The perfect little baskets and the goddamn Charlie Brown motif? I spent three days on this fucking party.”

  “Billy was really happy.”

  “I know. He got his Mickey Mouse cake.”

  “Joanna—”

  “I do terrific parties for kids. That’s what I do, terrific parties for kids.”

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  “Sure. All this can wait until the morning. I’ll be here to do it.”

  They fell asleep wordlessly. She got up in the night and went into Billy’s room, where he was sleeping with his “people,” as he called them, a teddy bear, a dog and a Raggedy Andy. On the floor were the spoils
of the day, the giant Tinker Toys, the dominoes, the Tonka Truck and the bowling game that come with the victory of being four years old. She wanted to wake him and say, Billy, Billy, don’t be four, be one, and we’ll start all over and I’ll play with you and we’ll laugh and I won’t yell so much and we won’t fight so much, and I’ll hug you and I’ll kiss you and I’ll love you very much, and the terrible two’s won’t be terrible, and I’ll be a sweet mommy, and three will be wonderful, and four, by the time we get to four, you will be my little man and you’ll hold my hand on the street and we’ll chatter away about everything, and I won’t be perfect, I can’t be perfect, but I won’t be mean, Billy, not so mean, and I’ll care more and I’ll love you more and we’ll have so much fun—I’ll really try, if we could just start over, Billy. But she went into the kitchen so she would not wake him with her crying.

  SHE BEGAN TO KEEP score on herself. Every time she was cross with him or annoyed, which was inevitable, given the sheer mechanics of guiding a four-year-old through his day, this was proof that she was bad, and bad for him, and at its next level, he was bad for her. She began to keep score on Ted. Every time he did something inelegant like leaving a shirt on a chair, this was proof he was Bronx. If he talked about work, he was talking too much, the sexist. No matter how he might think he was helping, everything was still up to her, and the house—with the house there was no score to keep, The Peanut Butter Lady did it all, and every chore, every day’s shopping, every roll of toilet paper replaced became a personal insult to her. And the dinner parties, still another, their turn, it was on her to do it, plan the menu, buy the food, cook the meal—Ted served drinks, big deal, and Billy waking in the night, asking for juice, Ted sleeping through it, all on her, the pressure, the awful pressure to get past each day, the hives not going away this time, as she lay awake nights, scratching them until they bled.

  Into this, Ted came bearing his vision. Ironic, how unenthusiastic he was the first time, he said. He knew how difficult it was to be a mother. He would help even more now. It had not been wonderful for them, but they could be closer with a baby.

  “Remember that incredible moment when Billy was born and I was holding on to you, rooting for you?”

  “You were?”

  “Of course! I was holding on to you and you were pushing.”

  “Really? I don’t distinctly remember your being there.”

  He was not thrown.

  “Joanna, we’re good at babies.”

  “Yes, you’re a good father, Ted.”

  She believed this. He was good with Billy. But what was he saying? Another baby? How could he be thinking it? Everything was pressing in on her. And the itching.

  SHE THOUGHT AT FIRST she would leave him a note. She could take time to organize her thoughts. She even questioned whether she should write it out by hand in a personalized way or type it. Typing it would be clearer, but not as personal. Then she considered a short note mailed without a forwarding address after she was gone. She owed him more, she finally decided, the courtesy of a confrontation, a brief question-and-answer period.

  Billy had gone to sleep with his people. She and Ted were about to clear the dishes, hamburgers, the thirtieth hamburgers of the year.

  “Ted, I’m leaving you.”

  “What?”

  “I’m suffocating here.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I said—I’m leaving you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I guess you don’t. I’ll start again. Ted, I’m leaving you. Do you get it now?”

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Hah, hah.”

  “Joanna?”

  “The marriage is over.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Why don’t you start believing it?”

  “We were just talking about having another baby.”

  “You were.”

  “Joanna, we’ve had problems. But everybody has problems.”

  “I don’t care about everybody.”

  “We don’t even fight that much.”

  “We don’t have anything in common. Nothing. Except for bills, dinner parties and a little screwing.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “What is this? Christ, what have I done wrong?”

  “A woman has to be her own person.”

  “Agreed. So?”

  “So I’m suffocating. I have to leave.”

  “This is crazy. I don’t accept this.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I won’t let you.”

  “Really? In about five minutes, I will be gone whether you accept it or not.”

  “You don’t do it this way, Joanna. Not like this.”

  “Why not?”

  “You do something else first. We should talk to somebody, see somebody.”

  “I know about therapists. Most of them are middle-class people with a personal stake in marriage.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I said it. I’ve got to get out. I’m getting out.”

  “Joanna—”

  “Feminists will applaud me.”

  “What feminists? I don’t see any feminists.”

  “I’m going, Ted.”

  “To where, for crying out loud?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “It doesn’t even matter.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Is it getting through to you?”

  “Joanna, I hear this happening to other people. I don’t believe it’s happening to us. Not like this. You just don’t make an announcement like this.”

  “What difference does it make how I tell you? I was going to leave a note. Maybe I should have.”

  “What are we, in grade school? You’re breaking up with your old Valentine chum? We’re married people!”

  “I don’t love you, Ted. I hate my life. I hate being here. I’m under so much pressure I think my head is going to explode.”

  “Joanna—”

  “I don’t want to be here another day, not another minute.”

  “I’ll get the name of somebody. A marriage counselor, somebody. There’s a more rational way of dealing with this.”

  “You’re not hearing me, Ted. You never hear me. I’m going. I’ve gone already.”

  “Listen, I think sometimes I’ve been too involved with work. And my mind’s been on that. I’m sorry for it.”

  “Ted, that’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything. This has nothing to do with where you are—it’s me. I can’t live like this. I’m finished with it. I need a new place for myself.”

  “So what are we supposed to do? I mean, how do you do this? Am I supposed to move out? Is there another guy? Does he move in?”

  “You don’t understand anything, do you?”

  “I mean, you have all this worked out. What do we do, goddammit?”

  “I take my bags, which are packed, and two thousand dollars from our joint savings account, and I leave.”

  “You leave? What about Billy? Do we wake him? Are his bags packed?”

  For the first time in this, she faltered.

  “No … I … don’t want Billy. I’m not taking Billy. He’ll be better off without me.”

  “Christ, Joanna! Joanna!”

  She could not say another word. She walked into the bedroom, picked up her suitcase and her racquet bag, walked to the front door, opened it and left. Ted stood there, watching. He was bewildered. He seriously thought she would be back in an hour.

  FIVE

  HE FELL ASLEEP NEAR five in the morning realizing there would be no key in the door or phone call with an apology—I’ll be right there, I love you. At seven-fifteen he heard voices in the house. Joanna? No. Batman and Robin. Billy’s Batman and Robin alarm clock went off with the recorded voices of the dynamic duo: “Jumping Jehosophat, Batman, we’re needed again.” “Right, Robin. We have to wake our
friends.” For what? To begin where? She had left this with him and now he had to tell Billy. Tell him what?

  “Where’s Mommy?” He could not avoid it even thirty seconds into the day.

  “Well, last night Mommy and Daddy had an argument …” Was this even true, he wondered. Had they argued? “And Mommy decided she wants to go away for a little while to be really angry. You know, how sometimes you get angry and you slam your door and you don’t want anybody to come in?”

  “I was angry when Mommy wouldn’t let me have a cookie.”

  “Right.”

  “And I slammed the door and I didn’t let her come in.”

  “Right, just like that. Mommy is angry at Daddy and she wants some time to be private.”

  “Oh.”

  “So I’m going to take you to school today.”

  “Oh. When will Mommy be back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Will she pick me up at school?”

  They were now but a minute into the day and it was already complicated.

  “I will or Thelma will.”

  He helped Billy get dressed, made breakfast and walked him to nursery school, where the Pussycats were having a circus day and Billy would be fully protected from his parents’ world and happy, as any designated lion tamer would be. Ted was uncertain whether to sit by the phone, go to work, call the police, kick tires, get an afternoon sitter for Billy. My wife has left me. It was unreal.

  He always had difficulty with white lies. He never called in sick at work to sneak a three-day weekend. He believed if you lied, you were bad, and you should be good, and even now, knowing he could never show up for work that day, he did not want to lie. But you don’t call your office in the same tone of voice as if you were announcing the flu and say, “I won’t be in today. My wife just walked out on me.” He called his secretary and said, “Tell Jim I’m not feeling well,” which was true. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “I don’t know for sure,” also true to some extent. He just could not lie to his secretary and claim he was sick, and yet he could, in part, lie to himself as he had in convincing himself that his marriage had been healthy enough.

  He called his neighbor, Thelma, and asked her to pick up Billy at school and keep him with her daughter, Kim. She said this was fine—what was happening? He would explain later. Billy was to stay there for dinner. He now had until seven that night to wait for Joanna to come home so they could forgive each other.