Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale

by Chuck Kinder

  Enjoyed several days of sobriety. Then, Thursday, I began to distrust such piety, even discovered a certain stagnation after days of flat predictability. So I set out for town after work and managed to get wondrously smashed in a night of misadventures. Started with Bill and Kathy and various other riff-raff writer sorts at the Stockman’s. Talk between Bill and me got pretty intense. Lot of tender areas exposed. He told me you had called him the other night, somewhere around 5:30 a.m. Unable to sleep, he said, and rather drunk, and faced with the need to teach a class at 9:00 that same morning. I worried about you, and was sad that you hadn’t called me collect at that time. I was lonely too, I guess. And Bll, with his penchant for telling what he perceives to be truths, advised me that what had transpired between you and me would have transpired between you and anyone available last summer. You had a need and I just happened to be the one who fulfilled it. He said you were merely experimenting with your life and I was a part of that. We drank more and more and such talk continued. We agreed that we are enemies, Bill and I, and that we can therefore behave as such to one another without having then to apologize for such behavior. Bill claimed his behavior stemmed from the fact that he truly loved me. I countered that he loved all women and also hated them concurrently. We conceded this was true, but that he loved some more than he hated others, or something like that. We were making great progress. Kathy just sat there seeming to take all this in, that little half smile playing across her lips.

  Actually, she seems of late to be leveling out, or so I thought. After being good for a few nights herself, she had a couple of seriously drunk nights at the Flame, and that seems to have restored her sense of guilt, and it seems that she needs to feel at fault in order to relax in the midst of the failings around her. Don’t ask me to explain that bit of business. Just a momentary insight that is obviously flawed. She does seem of late to be a little more patient with Bill, although she obviously much prefers not to have his company when they are both out on the town. Can certainly see her point. When they are both in the same bar, Bill’s behavior becomes increasingly raucous and often absolutely vulgar. It seems to subside the minute she leaves for other quarters. Could this be yet another game they have both figured out? Kathy claims that there has been violence between them in the past, something Bill categorically denies. At any rate, at one point Kathy got up rather unsteadily to go to the restroom, and on the way she stopped to speak to a man at the bar, someone I know a sweet, older man who is a friend of my parents, someone I’ve known since the third grade. When Kathy returned to our table Bill accused her of planning a liaison with the sweet, older man, that they were trying to get Bill drunk so he could pass out and they could fuck each other’s brains out. Then, after a bit more absolutely schitzo behavior Bill suddenly decided he loved his wife with all of his heart, and he became more affectionate than I have ever seen him with her. Amazing. Soon though, Kathy, being very drunk and stoned after smoking a joint in the restroom, announced she was going to sleep in the car. Bill and I went up and sat at the bar and continued our banter. Basically I kept drilling into him the fact that I was sick and tired of him being angry with me all the time and dragging my imagined bad behavior into their problems. He just kept declaring that he seemed to always hurt the ones he loves the most. But he also kept declaring I was “fucking up” with you. That I was fucking your life up. But as I grew sadder. I mean as I began to cry, he announced that perhaps I was a good woman after all. I really can’t stand that stuff. Unless he can see me cry, he thinks I am unfeeling I guess. Finally, I had to leave. I was devastated. Went home and lay down but I couldn’t sleep. I began to cry and I couldn’t stop. I went downstairs and lay on the couch and I must have cried for hours. It seemed like hours anyway. I lit a candle and put it on the coffee table and even prayed a bit that life would have meaning that good things would happen, that love was possible, that people touched. Don’t know what this all means. Really, I went a little crazy I guess. I could find no justification for continuing a life that lacked significance.

  Then, to top off such a wonderful night, and I have debated telling you this but I am going to, Bill showed up at my door. It must have been 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, God knows. He was amazingly drunk. He had pulled his car right up into my front yard, across the sidewalk, and stopped only inches from my porch steps. The headlights were on, the driver’s door was wide open, the radio was blaring. He was coatless, and his shirttail was hanging out, and, dear God, he was in his stocking feet. He lurched in the door and grabbed me. He pulled me into the living room and made me sit by him on the couch. The he announced he was going to forgive me for fucking you. And he kept calling me Kathy. And he kept telling me how sorry he was about our dead baby. But that he loved me and that we would have other babies. And all this time he was grabbing me and pulling at me. I know how this must pain you. It pained me. But it really wasn’t me he was hitting on. It was crazy. I just kept fighting him off and then he suddenly got up and lumbered out of the room. When he got to the front door he called out Nightie-Night. Really. Nightie-Night. As cheerily as you please. And then he roared off. Perhaps I should not have told you this. Perhaps I won’t. I’ll decide tomorrow.

  Just read back over this letter. I can see I have managed a real downer. I regret. Know you are having enough anxieties of your own without having to share mine. Think most of this is just coming down off the hectic, meaningless pace I have maintained since you left.

  It is now Sunday. Kathy and I just completed a four-hour bike ride through the streets of Missoula. Stopped at a couple of bars, but found drink not much to our liking, thank God. A beautiful day, a bit chilly still, but the sun warm, The activity felt good. Maybe that’s half my problem – not enough activity. Thus, into an already tight schedule of mindless activities I shall include a good bike ride each day. Permit violation only on occasion of violent hangover and other good things. Exercise program is already up to half hour a day. See a whole different life than I have known in a number of years. But, oh, the boredom of it all. Must have caught some sort of cold today, for I have been coughing up blood for a couple of hours. Not serious enough to warrant any drastic measures like quitting smoking, however, But I am practicing in front of the mirror, just in case, so that I can look the part of a tubercular lost soul.

  I do hope all will go better for you in the days to come. It simply must. You couldn’t have more difficulties than you have already had this year. Really don’t know how you manage to stay together through everything. But, as you have told me, you are a survivor. As am I, We will come out of this together. Love you so much. Love you.

  L.

  Dearest L –

  Just a few words, and I’ll plan to put this into the mail this afternoon. Hope my last letter wasn’t too much of a bummer – had just gotten up, still bleary-eyed and generally cranky. Got myself together later that afternoon and did attend to business, as I’ve been doing all this morning as well. Good feeling, yes, to get it under control again. “Birds got to fly, fish got to swim,” as Cole Porter – or was it Rogers & Hammerstein? – said. Think I am fish and fowl, which creates difficulties now and then. Simply put, this is just a hard period for me, about the hardest ever, but I’m going to come through, and so will we all. I know what I want, exactly what I want, and that is a life with you. The constant postponement, the waiting, is killing. I’m sorry about it all. I’m going to grit my teeth and survive it, though, and then we’ll simply have to make up for it when we’re together. Can’t tell you how much I long to see you, be with you. You’re in my thoughts constantly. I wish the days could just fly until you can come down to Berkeley. And, yes, for God’s sake, plan on staying at least two weeks – ifin you can arrange it. I’ll be very busy of course, what with student manuscripts and such, but we’ll still get out for a few dinners, a film or two, I promise. But you must try and come as soon as possible, and you must stay as long as you can. Alice Ann asked me yesterday what my plans were for next summer. Said she
was going to Europe. Then suddenly she asked me to go with her. For us to just drop everything, rent the house, farm the kids out, and go off to Europe together like we had always planned. To give ourselves one last chance. That we owed it to one another, for all we had once been to one another, for all the years we have shared and all the things we had been through together. Maybe we could rekindle our romance in Europe, she said. I told her flat-out that I wasn’t going to Europe. Europe was no place I wanted to go anymore. Europe was a vast graveyard, I told her. A boneyard! Europe was full of the reminders of death and dashed hopes, I told her. I went on and on like that, in this vein. Why I don’t know. I was crazy I guess. She knows that I am very much in love with you, and, I feel, quite sure that I intend to make a life with you. What makes it so hard here sometimes for both of us – though generally we are acting decently toward one another and being good and even gentle to each other – is just that final sad realization. Someday when the smoke settles I think you and she will be good friends. In the larger sense it doesn’t matter, of course, but it would be nice to think it could work out that way. In any case, I think that Alice Ann and I are going to come through this with mutual respect and even affection. And best that we do, of course. Anyway, I love you, love you. Please take care of yourself. Don’t fall asleep with contact lenses in your little eyeballs and know and believe in our love. God, I guess I’m sounding terribly sentimental, huh? It’s true though, that sentiment, as is this one: I love you, L, and will love and care for you always. Oh, and by the way, damn it, but I wish the Buffalo would quit trying to hit on you. Hope you got the message through to him that last time. Does he do it only when he’s drunk? Which, come to think about it, is most of the time. You’ll have to tell me more about that scene. Goes without saying that I’ll never say a thing to him or anyone. Love him like a brother, but, ahem, settle down, Bill! And when you see him tell him I still haven’t received that little loan he promised me. Maybe it has slipped his mind. I sure need it though. Anyway, I love you, you know, and that is a constant that is no check-in-the-mail promise. Wow. And I am right now envying that little kitty of yours, who gets to nibble on your neck and warm herself in there between your sweet legs. I mean, I know she can’t do both at the same time. I can though, and will!

  love love love

  R.

  Dearest little fish …

  How are you, love? Missing you so much these last few days. Can’t tell you, can’t wait to get my hands on you, can’t stop loving you, missing you, thinking about you. (Ever had the likes of such nutty love letters from the likes of such a nutty individual as me?) Listen, your big, fat, newsy letters are great. I tell you. That one on Wednesday! Read that one over several times. Don’t know how or where to begin answering some of the things you brought up. No, of course I don’t want you to stop going to parties, etc. I can’t possibly make any demands there, and I wouldn’t if I could. Rest easy there, please. Whenever we get together, and goddamn it, it seems like just an infinity ahead of us, between now and then, that will be a different situation; we’ll hit those parties together. Meanwhile, follow your heart and your head – and I’m sure enough of your love at this point to know that what you do will be all right. Once we’re together, and we will be one of these days, no question – and you are mine, so to speak, you know what I mean, all mine – then I’ll become possessive, though nothing ludicrous or scary, of course. Think men and women – lovers, husbands, wives – have to feel a certain degree possessive, jealous even, as to me it’s a clear sign of caring, loving. Not to an extreme degree of course, like Buffalo Bill’s feelings about Kathy, those sick suspicions. There’s a big difference. Maybe I’m sounding too old fashioned? The fact is, I love you, deeply, and trust you in every regard and am not worrying about anything, anything, you hear? I’d trust you with my life and am doing just that. Whatever, whatever you do is right for you at the moment, and that’s good, too, and in a way right for us in the future, so I’ll assume your judgment on any situation is correct, right, for you, for us, okay? What am I saying? Afraid, even myself, to read this over. Fear it won’t make any sense at all. Really just want to say I’m loving you and missing you so much, little fish. –Me, I feel like I’m damaged goods, and have been for a long while, and probably will be for a while to come yet. (you’re not!) Need to be around you, be with you, need your healing. Remember when I told you I didn’t think I could ever love anyone again. That’s part of it. And there is so much more, my love. Where was I? Telling you how much I love you, how much you mean to me – Dismissed class early today, not much happening and I’m not feeling too well. Woke up at 3:30 this morning after going to bed at midnight, or there abouts. Sleeping at home as we’d been to a function at Stanford. Stayed up, made a quart of orange juice and drank it all, then a pot of coffee, drank all that too. Tired right now, feel spaced, for some reason. Alice Ann and I have spent more time together this week – trying to sort out finances, smoothing out our lives. Nothing has been swept under the carpet, we’re just not talking about anything at the moment, trying to act decently to each other, and respect the other’s feelings about things. Haven’t mentioned your name in ten days, and won’t, period. And, yes, I do want to change my life. Want another life, to begin with, with you. And, yeah, I’ve felt my life has been disordered to a large extent. There’s a good solid middle-class burger in me who wants and needs some sort of order and schedule in his life. Truly, I thrive on a writing schedule. As I see it that’s the only way any substantial work will ever get done, and I’ve proven that to myself the time or two in my life when things have been more or less right and quiet. There’s a cross between Zorba and maniac in me, but there is also this burger who needs and wants to pay his bills on time and have a quiet clean, well-lighted place to work, slippers on the hearth etc. Presently I have a hearth but no slippers and no fireplace screen or even logs to burn, but I want it all with you someday.

  Guess I’ve gone on and on, eh? Going to call you this afternoon. Miss you terribly, miss you so much I feel like weeping right now myself.

  love love

  R.

  Dearest Lindsey –

  Hello, sweetheart, little fish, how are you this morning? Am feeling such a love for you right now and these last few days, am almost dizzy with it. I’m high, really I’m high on you – you and us – just zapped with it. Each day that passes brings us that much closer to being together – each day that passes I’m feeling that much more in love, that much more secure, that much more certain, if any of that is possible, if any of these things could be measured – they can’t, of course. Only to tell you that we are going to make it, baby, a fruitful, productive, good life together, and we have what it takes to do it. Hey, I could go on and on in this vein, on and on. Okay, I will. Was in Berkeley last night for a benefit reading for Fiction magazine. Hit me so hard, walking the streets, peering into little shops, glancing up at the lighted windows of apartments, that we, you and I, are going to be doing all this together, and soon, soon. Not soon enough, God, I wish it were tomorrow, not weeks from now. Can you imagine. Such fun we’re going to have, Jesus. I want you with me, in Berkeley, everywhere. Choice? Missing you something awful. This separation has been so hard to bear – we mustn’t ever be so long gone from each other again, no matter what or how!

  Hey, it was a good reading last night, by the way. Lasted until one o’clock in the morning, then everyone went to a big party. God, I wish you could have been there. We’ll get to a few of those when you are here. I read first, thank God, before the master of ceremonies, the audience, and the other readers got drunk. Hilarious evening in some respects. Jim Houston was the fifth reader – after an intermission – and after he had read about 2 pages of a story and paused to take a drink of water, the MC got up, drunkenly, accidentally, and slurred “thank you” and began trying to introduce the last reader. Then, after falling around all over the place, said MC stepped out the door at the very end of the affair and fell down, and a big bag
full of money and all Fiction West important papers, receipts, statements, letters, mss, went blowing and sailing down and across a rainy Berkeley street. Had to gather him up and then everybody spent an hour searching rain-filled gutters and under parked cars. More funny stuff happened then and later – haven’t laughed so much since we were together, that crazy night we met at Bill’s party, when he stole the police car while the cops were inside trying to shut things down. And, by the way, ahem, must in all modesty admit my story was a knockout and kind of brought the house down. (Just thought I’d throw that in so you could see what an honest fellow I am). Anyway, it was a good reading, and all in all fun. Going to play poker tonight with these people from Stanford (if I can hit Mom up for a few bucks). Max Carver will be there, and Chuck Kinder, Jim Stark, Richard Price, Scott Turow, guys you’ve heard me talk about. And who you will meet someday and drive crazy with envy for me and my good luck. Much as anything, although I do enjoy playing, understand, I want to fill in the days and nights until we can be together.

  And, I agree, we should try and curtain our telephone conversations. You must be going broke. A modest call, between now and, say, next Sunday. Right? Don’t want you saddled with any more horrendous and impossible to pay telephone bills.

  I’m going to rush to get this in the mail. Love you. Love you so much. And want and need you.