Walks With Men

by Ann Beattie

  “I know, I know, I know, I know,” Neil whispered, cupping the back of my neck and rocking us sideways, forehead-to-forehead. The people looked away. The yellow lab who’d been taking everything in went to the end of its leash, squatted, and peed.

  Three months later, after their quickie divorce, we got married at City Hall. I wore a silk, navy blue sheath and a little white stole. He wore a charcoal gray suit with a white shirt and—tucked into the pocket—not a small triangle of scarf, but a piece of handmade paper from Italy, on which he’d written, in gnat-sized handwriting, I love you, exactly one hundred times. On the sole of my foot, he had written (while I giggled madly), She loves me.

  Before we got married, Neil and I broke up after his wife’s appearance, got back together, broke up again, got back together, decided to marry, and had a pre-nup drawn up: for every year he didn’t cheat on me, or I on him, and I had no reason to divorce him on that account, I would receive $40,000 on December 30, in addition to his paying all our living expenses. If I divorced him for incompatibility, which he agreed not to contest (my lawyer’s clause), whether or not I had cheated on him, I would get no alimony, but all my possessions, including cars, jewelry, and other gifts, and a onetime settlement of $50,000. If he cheated on me, I would get the same cars, jewelry, and other gifts and, as a lump sum, fifty percent of his net worth, on which he would pay the taxes (my lawyer). This pre-nup would be “revisited” after five years, though no sums could be negotiated downward and would have to take inflation into consideration (my lawyer). I agreed not to bear children. He had a vasectomy. When we got married we bought ourselves armloads of flowers at our favorite Korean grocer and went home to drink Prosecco. My friend Christa made us a wedding cake without tiers (embarrassing) and fresh raspberries rolling around the big round plate like marbles. My stepfather, Carl West, flew in for the party we had that night, but my mother—big surprise—was too hungover to come. Neil’s uncle and niece—the one much-consulted on the telephone about his column—were there from Port Washington, having brought uninvited guests named the Perrys. Jan did not come, though she’d promised that she would try. Instead, a FedEx letter from her was delivered the next day, telling me I was an idiot with no tendency toward self-preservation. That weekend a reception was held at Neil’s uncle’s house in Pennsylvania, which had a private landing strip and underground firing range, and a lot of enormous men walking around with walkie-talkies, who seemed very amused by the notion that they were in the movie business. They drank whiskey instead of champagne and slammed their fists into each other’s biceps, calling each other “Producer.”

  Jan made clear that she thought I was living with the devil. We agreed not to talk about Neil, but he kept coming up in her conversations during the next few weeks, and finally I stopped calling her. It was really too much that she thought the yellow lab who had died at the vet’s the night Neil and I reunited had been an omen of bad things to come.

  Neil was good to me. One condition for staying with him had been that he had to promise that the tutorial was over. If he started in with wise advice, I walked out of the room. He gave up writing at the vet’s in SoHo and rented a different place in the East Thirties in someone’s illegal B&B. He hired a male graduate student at CCNY as his research assistant. His next book was a huge success. His editor gave a party on the roof of his apartment, with a classical guitar player and all the Veuve Clicquot you could drink (glass flutes, not plastic.) Viva was there, and Eddie Fisher. Woody Allen came, but turned around in the lobby and left (according to the doorman). The Village Voice writer, David Fegin, came, though he no longer lived in our building, and the model he’d been with had married an Arab. Fegin arrived with Harold Brodkey, who insisted almost immediately that they leave, because of the noise.

  I had some good luck at the same time Neil published his next book. My agent called, saying I’d been asked to work as a script doctor on a documentary filming in New York about runaways. It was called Chaff, and it turned out the director liked my writing so much, he had me take it from the top and rewrite the entire voice-over. I went to Times Square, I managed to get access to a few people in drug rehab programs (though it wasn’t officially allowed—David Fegin was a help), I talked to psychiatrists, hung out in Washington Square Park. I had a Deep Throat on Avenue A who set me straight about some of the stories I’d been told. The movie won an Academy Award the following year for Best Documentary, and my name was the first thing out of the director’s mouth when he ran onstage. If you’ve heard of me, that’s probably why—not many people remember the earlier interview I responded to sincerely, as if I were the first person to uncover the tediousness of academe, back when I thought any of my opinions mattered.

  “Forgiveness,” Neil said, drawing out the three syllables. “What does that mean, forgiveness? That life’s a storybook, and somebody has been drawn as a queen, sitting on her throne with a scepter, ready to sprinkle forgiveness on her humble servant—that short little bent-over man, the other person in the picture—for tripping on the carpet?”

  “Maybe the humble servant trips because he’s nervous that she might know he’s an adulterer.”

  We were “taking it easy.” Going to the Gramercy Park for “a drink.” Thinking about whether we wanted to be together again.

  The cabdriver’s eyes flashed in the rearview mirror.

  “We’ll make it a pop-up book,” Neil said, lowering the voice the way he did when he was talking to himself, sotto voce. He wanted to give the impression that his imagination was so powerful, he got lost, himself, when he began to speculate. “The queen jumps up. She waves the scepter, but no stars sprinkle out. All the stars have dried up, like ink in a pen. Oh, no! What happens to her now? She’s got no more magic.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t need magic. Maybe she can just tell him to leave.”

  “We’ve been over this before,” he said, squeezing my hand. “You don’t want me to leave. You’re worried about what people think—you’re worried about what people you don’t even know think. Icarus falls, and they don’t look up.”

  The cabdriver did not slow down for a deep pothole. My teeth vibrated. Neil let go of my hand, trying to stabilize himself by pushing against the Plexiglas divider. Again, I had seen the cabdriver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and also his mouth, with its flicker of disdain.

  In Washington Square, a man with a heavy accent stood ranting on top of a plastic crate turned upside down, vegetables trailing out of it like a gigantic umbilical cord. “Sixty-six hostages taken. Six six six is the mark of the Devil. They are the Carter Devil’s countrymen, taken right from the American Embassy, not protected, not rescued because Carter Devil wants them prisoners! People unite! Now all know Carter is the Devil!”

  “Where are the Maysles brothers when we need them?” Neil said, tugging on my sleeve. “Come on, next the Protestor Devil passes the hat. Or his horns. Maybe next he grows horns and upends them, and we drop our money inside.”

  “I couldn’t understand what he was saying.”

  “You thought if you stood there longer it would be clarified? I love you.”

  Sailors know to train their eyes on the horizon to avoid seasickness. When you’re landlocked in New York City, look at the farthest curb, which, in its own way, is the horizon line.

  Carl West, my stepfather, called to say that in the summer, he and my mother would be taking a cruise to Alaska. He hadn’t seen Five Easy Pieces, didn’t get it when I imitated the deep-voiced woman hitchhiker, who told Jack Nicholson: “I’ve seen pictures that indicate to me that it’s very clean.” Then, unexpectedly, he invited me on the cruise. “We don’t see much of you,” he said. “Maybe a trip would be a way to spend some time together. Just the three of us,” he quickly added.

  “You’re not inviting Neil?”

  “Your mother thought that the three—”

  “My mother doesn’t approve of Neil because of his age. And because he’s divorced. It’s irrelevant that she’s divor
ced. What if I didn’t approve of you because you leave stubble when you shave?”

  “I do?”

  Alaska!

  Two years after I left him, Ben Greenblatt stood in the hallway of the Chelsea apartment, carrying brochures advertising a meditation center about to open in Yorkville.

  “More yoga in New York? Isn’t this a bit like letting people in Moscow know that an ice rink will be opening soon in Siberia?” Etch wanted to know.

  Ben’s hairline had severely receded; now he had a ponytail and wore glasses. He had on a worn T-shirt with a photograph of the Dalai Lama screened on the front. The shirt hung loosely, making the Dalai Lama’s face look jowly. The sleeve of the shirt showed a yin-yang emblem. He was wearing thick white socks with dirty toes and threadbare heels, Birkenstock sandals, and black cotton pants with a drawstring waist. He was talking earnestly to Etch, in the entranceway.

  “I don’t know, man, I get in trouble for taking in flyers from Chinese restaurants and that’s something the tenants want to order, you know?” Etch said as I entered the corridor.

  Ben looked past Etch. I was sure I was going to be shot in the brownstone in which I lived. He raised his hand, holding brochures, and said only: “I knew you lived here. I am not going to insist upon speaking of spiritual enlightenment, or anything that would cause distress. Namaste. I offer a greeting of friendship, between two individuals who have shared happiness, and who have had the gift of being long acquainted.”

  “Holy shit, he knows you?” (Etch, too, was thinking: Valerie Solanas.)

  The hall table, where brochures and the mail were left, was empty except for a marble obelisk. Ben carefully placed the brochures on the table. “A surprise, I’m sure,” he said. “I was visiting a friend. A seminarian. Across the street. I’d seen you through the gate, another time I was visiting. I wish no one any harm,” he said, picking up on Etch’s fear.

  “He was my boyfriend,” I finally managed to say.

  “Wow, your choice in men,” Etch muttered, and quickly retreated to his apartment.

  “Oh, Ben,” I said.

  “I was unsure of the right thing to do. I spoke to Rama, and he said that of course I must greet you and wish you well. It is when we carry bad feelings that we, ourselves, are diminished. Do I recall that this line of inquiry was not interesting to you? I wonder, though, whether, for old time’s sake, we could spend a few moments together to acknowledge and honor our past?”

  “Come upstairs, Ben. I’ll make you some tea,” I said. “I’m sorry not to have offered. This is rather …”

  “Goodness,” he said, smiling.

  It took me a few seconds to realize that he was not commenting, but correcting me about his name. “Goodness?” I repeated.

  “Let me get you something at the Empire Diner,” he said. “People like me don’t take a vow of poverty, you know. I’d be happy to treat you to a cup of tea, or—”

  Etch opened his door, then quickly closed it again.

  “My friend’s a little jumpy,” I said. I thought about mouthing “Vietnam,” but did not. We went out the front door, down the steps, through the gate, onto the sidewalk.

  “Do you still have the farm?” I said.

  “I sold the land to an organic farmer from South Dakota and his wife and two daughters,” he said. “My friends Amah and Rowinda. Their daughters’ names are still evolving.”

  “But what about—”

  “What has come to pass has come to pass. The goats have gone on to other farms, and it was the destiny of Amah to marry, and to live off the land.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to have a conversation with you if you keep talking this way,” I said.

  “I have transcended anger.”

  “I know, but you must remember the way you used to talk. Can we just talk that way, instead, so we can communicate?”

  “Can you see that my hands hold no answers?” he said, turning out his palms.

  We went into the Empire Diner and sat at a booth. The famous actress was talking to a man in a black cloak. For a minute I thought he might be a priest, then saw his motorcycle boots and decided not.

  “What can I get you?” the waiter said.

  “Iced tea, please,” I said.

  “Two,” Goodness said.

  “Thanks for not telling him you wanted some golden lemon blessed by the sun’s rays,” I said.

  He frowned, but turned up his lips at the same time. “Encompass the reality of others,” he said quietly.

  “You’re not going to tell me what you’ve been doing, why you’re in New York, what happened to the farm?”

  He squinted through his glasses. “I can’t believe you care,” he said.

  “Also, your voice is a whole octave higher.”

  “Not eating meat.”

  “You’re putting me on.”

  He shook his head. “No. No, giving up meat raises not only the spirit, but the voice.”

  “You’re regressing,” I said. “You were doing better when you accused me of not caring.”

  “Here you are, two teas and”—the waiter dipped to pick up the sugar dish from the counter and placed it prettily between us—“anything else? Before you leave my huge tip, I mean.” He laughed at his own joke. He’d waited on me before, though we hadn’t yet struck up an acquaintance. I thought being there with Goodness might set that agenda back a bit.

  “I thank you for bringing the slice of lemon, blessed by the sun’s rays,” Goodness said.

  The waiter looked back at the table. “Is that an allusion to something?” he said.

  “Neil,” I called into the bathroom. “Remember my old boyfriend, Ben, from Vermont?”

  “I never met him.”

  “No. But he’s in the city now. He came by with pamphlets about a meditation center he and some woman are opening.”

  “Did he declare his undying love? Wait! He was the one who wrote you that letter and said you were a ball-buster, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And?”

  “Well, just that it was strange to see him. He said he’d seen me once before, when he was on this block. I kept thinking he’d drop the peace and love routine, and he did sort of falter, but then it went back to being impossible. We were at the Empire. All the waiters hint for big tips now, and pretend they’re being ironic.”

  “I noticed that.”

  Neil came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, a smear of shaving foam near his ear. “The new showerhead doesn’t have any middle range,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m prying it off and installing another one. Is this the windup for the pitch? Goatboy wants you back?”

  “He doesn’t want me back,” I said, zipping my dress without having to ask for help. “Some guru’s living inside him like a tapeworm, excreting peace and love. They do that, you know. Tapeworms shit.”

  “No more sushi,” he said, opening the closet door.

  “You have something invested in thinking I’m more desirable than I am.”

  “Etch carries in the groceries and painted the kitchen because you batted your eyes at him.”

  “He used to be a housepainter. He doesn’t want to be retired. He’s just cracked up.”

  “He doesn’t like me.”

  “Well, no, he’s not crazy about you. But you prefer the attention of women, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” he said, straightening his tie. “What do you want me to do about Sharon Stillerman, calling me at work to ask how we like the BMW we’re leasing? She couldn’t ask you how we liked it?”

  “Maybe she thought you could tell me she called and make me feel insecure.”

  “Sharon’s flirtatious.”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t want anything.”

  “Oh, really? So if I call back and ask if she wants to take a test drive, that’s fine with you?”

  “If you’d rather we stay home and have sex, just say so.”

  “What?”

  “This
is a game you play to pump up your ego. If you and Sharon, with her big front teeth and her crepe-y eyelids, are going to have an affair, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Put your coat on. This is before you have a drink?”

  “Right: honest woman as bitch,” I said, putting on my coat.

  I whispered to Neil in bed sometimes, not wanting to get up, whispering because he whispered: “In the afterlife, there are only pencils, no pens. And every pencil has an eraser.”

  That one really made him smile, I saw, as I lifted my lips from his ear. He knew I was mocking him for his epigrams, but still: it was Sunday morning, we’d slept late, and he was amused.

  “Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.”

  “You’ve got a perverse talent for this,” he said.

  “Picasso used to pick up babies and hold them in front of the camera like a human shield. He would have seemed crazy, except that he was Picasso, so of course someone was looking through a lens.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “If you’re famous, the world follows you. All you have to do is take care not to pull arms out of sockets.”

  “It was his son.”

  “He also played with the children of Gerald and Sara Murphy.”

  He turned over. “Think of all the things I’ve taught you,” he said.

  He taught me to think about the world as if I were contemplating it from the perspective of a figure in a Hopper painting. Maybe the collie. He gave me an ice pick, one time, and put an ice cube on the breadboard and set in front of me a photograph of Bernini’s Daphne and Apollo. He told me what synesthesia meant, and gave me a wonderful Italian perfume made with lemon verbena that he taught me was sad. Before I met him, I’d never heard of osso bucco, and I would never have made the analogy between eating bone marrow and having a religious experience. Also, he was right about having flashlights. (I loved the bouquet of flashlights sitting in a vase, aimed at the ceiling when we made love. The shadows we cast over our heads.)