Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale

by Chuck Kinder

  Anyway, the first thing I clearly remember was a ringing phone. I was back in bed and Kathy was calling from the Flame. She said she had heard I had OD’d. It was all over town, she said. People out in the bars were raising toasts in my memory. Then she suggested we have a late dinner at the Edgewater. I told her I felt like a very old piece of shit and could not possibly move out again. At that point I realized two things. I was stark naked. Two, Bill was snoring on the bed beside me. Don’t panic, for he was fully clothed, just passed out cold. But how I had come to be al natural, I must confess I haven’t the foggiest. Kathy threatened to come over and fetch me, and at that point I somehow moved my exhausted muscles. Somehow I drove myself to the Edgewater where I found Kathy in a booth by the window overlooking the river. She was calmly rolling a joint. I said, oh-no,” but she had fired it up before I could run. She just sat there smoking it like a cigarette. After a time the wine steward came to the table and said cooly, “I hope you enjoy your dinner. The police will be waiting for you outside when you leave.” Deep in my heart I thanked Bill and Kathy for another wonderful evening in my life and I began considering where I could move to and begin a new life after I got out of prison. But, really, at the time it was not very funny. It was just too much for me. So, while Kathy started calmly rolling another joint, I began to weep, I am talking sob-city here, my face felt like it was literally leaking off. Finally, the maître de came over to our table and quietly informed us that if we just got up and left, swearing never to return, they would not call the police. Kathy fired up the joint, inhaled deeply, blew a couple of smoke rings into the maître de’s face, and told him that in her opinion his fucking restaurant was strictly lowrent and just generally sucked. With that she got up and strolled across the room, me cringing in her wake, and flicked ashes in peoples’ drinks as she went. God. Enough.

  In the parking lot Kathy informed me that I was very boring when I sobbed and with that she drove off, leaving rubber like a teenage queen, which was fine with me. I raced home where I found, thank God, that Bill had revived and left. So I locked the door, got my precious little kitty, and pulled the covers over my head. Clearly, to live a good and proper life, it is not enough to get plenty of rest, drink lots of water, and stay out of the bars. One must also stay away from friends’ houses, even in the afternoons, and lock one’s door upon retiring, and never, never, answer the phone. I have pieced together most of what had happened. Apparently Bill called here, looking for Kathy or me or anyone I guess. And apparently, though I cannot really believe this, I informed him that I had taken all the pills in the house and was waiting to die. So I have a terrific sense of humor in prodomo, what can I say? Bill, being an impressionable Buffalo, believed all of this, and he rushed over and pulled me out of bed and carried me out to his car and sped me to the hospital and just generally saved my life After dropping me off at the hospital and informing them I had OD’d on all the pills in the house, Bill, naturally, took off again for the Flame to spread the good word. Bill had been telling the story and accepting drinks of congratulations on his quick thinking and life-saving skills for about an hour before Jim and Maggie showed up and Jim insisted on them coming to see me, thank God.

  But it’s not over. The doorbell rang at about 10:30 this morning. Bill, already drunk and hyped. I mean, why not? Afterall, it is Easter Sunday morning. He just wanted to see if I was all right he said. I invited him in of course. He told me to think nothing of the fact that he had saved my life. He was tickled to do it. I told him that not only were all the pills in my house intact, but that I didn’t believe I told him I had taken them. He told me he had been saving women all his life. Saving women was sort of his hobby he guessed. I fixed us both a stiff Bloody Mary and we got off on the subject of friendship. We both confessed to saying shitty things about each other when convenient and both admitted our hearts weren’t really in it. I must say, Bill was in pretty bad shape. Said he had been with a woman last night, had taken her to a motel and was too drunk to perform, at which point she began beating on him and they left the motel bobbing and weaving. She continued to beat on him until he drove them back to the East Gate and he pretended he was going inside. She followed him in the front, pounding on his back the whole time, and then somehow he made a successful break for the back door, got out to his car and locked the doors just in time to keep her out. Bill informed me that he is actually a terribly moral man, even hung-up on morality, and tended to dislike and feel great hostility toward women in general because they simply cannot live up to his moral standards. So perhaps Bill’s constant womanizing is really a form of self-flagellatio? Masochism runs in all of us – it is insidious – it is subtle – it is brutal. He’s a terribly lonely man. Lonely and frightened. He spoke of you, too. Aid how much he cared for you. I told him that we, you and I, seemed to have lost contact somewhere. He said that I must have known it could never be otherwise. And that I would never find happiness with you. At times Bill conjectures out of his territory, but his feelings are given in good faith. I did have happiness with you – a lot of it – Bill to the contrary.

  Have told you before, in various way, how difficult it is not to hear from you. If silence was not atoned for by the imagination, but it is, and my imagination leaves me with heavy feelings I have difficulty handling. I know you are very busy, what with your writing and teaching load, but I cannot understand why you have not found time to call. You know you can all collect anytime. That’s always been understood. Perhaps you simply question the viability of our relationship. Perhaps your life there has begun to move through smoother waters. If the latter, I am truly happy for you. I only protest this much: If, indeed, I have meant something to you, it seems that you owe me some explanation. I must continue living too, and it’s painful in this darkness, very painful. Your silence hurts me more than any words you can offer. That time shared was precious. For that reason alone it seems that if we are closing doors, it is time to explain what is being done. Your silence does not stop my existence, you see. Though you don’t communicate, I do continue to feel and to wonder and to hurt. I do love you. I’m not sorry about that. I only regret deeply what has driven this wedge between us. Please tell me what is happening. So, as I said, an Easter note. Hope you had a happy Easter, colored eggs with your kids, hid baskets for them, those things. I hope I had a happy Easter. Easter is such a season of renewal, don’t you think? Love

  L.